Ep: 225 - Citrini Doomsday article, Justin Brill from Anchorage, Nicholas Cary from Blockchain, & Katherine Dee aka @Default_Friend

[00:29] Here's this week's show. [00:31] you [00:33] Hey. [00:33] Hi, how's it going? Great. You're in Nashville. No, you're in Austin. I'm not in Nashville. I'm in... [00:42] A weird Airbnb in Austin. We have lived so many lives in a weird Airbnb in Austin. [00:47] Is it weird or is it okay? [00:49] Oh, the shot looks fine. It's just like spiritually I know where you are. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Totally. Austin is – [00:56] A great town. It's very similar to Nashville when you're driving around. It's like, you're living in a house.

[01:02] for the most part, you're not living in an apartment building. And, um, [01:05] like ranch houses and [01:07] It's probably about... [01:10] 65 degrees outside? [01:12] Oh, okay. In the morning. I know. [01:15] I know. Really nice. [01:17] That's not where I'm living right now. [01:21] What's going on there? It's cold. It's snowy. And there's some people who just love that. And I'm so happy for them. And I think that that is so wonderful. And that is not me. I think the snow is so beautiful. It's beautiful for two seconds in New York.

And then it is so disgusting. Like, I live in an intersection of... [01:42] highways and bridges and and dirt and like it's just like not pretty after a while but that's okay um I don't want to be like I'm so sick of hearing myself talk about the weather like every single call I get on I'm just like Natasha like nobody wants to hear about it but anyway it is beautiful when you're sitting in your apartment the snow day was really fun when you're an adult there is no such thing as I you know as we all know there it goes out

[02:09] Unless the power goes out and then you have some freedom to. Oh, then you're free. [02:14] Released. [02:15] Anyway, we have a great show today. We have a few guests that I'm really excited to talk to. Before we get into it, though... [02:24] I'd love to thank our amazing partners on this live stream, Octant. [02:29] Are you going to do Octant first? Let's do Octant. Anchorage and Octant are supporting this live stream. We're so happy to have them. [02:38] Octant, our supporting sponsor, Octant, is well-known in Ethereum circles for its tireless contribution to the Ethereum ecosystem.

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Give them a follow. I just did the com. I know. Whoa. That was crazy to hear. I've actually like, we've been in meetings with a bunch of, [03:32] potential new partners and [03:34] I like... [03:36] have found myself feeling... [03:39] Like, every time we're about to talk about... I call it Twitter because... [03:44] she's my first love and like how could I call her something other than Twitter it's just like you're a loyalist to talk to Lucy. [03:51] Huh? [03:52] You're loyal to Jack Dorsey. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But then I found myself being like, oh, do people think that I'm like inexperienced?

[04:01] around the internet because I'm not calling it X like oh she doesn't even know that it's called X. Let me just show you my screen time. Yeah I'm like you have no idea it's actually in here. [04:12] Exactly. Anyway, so I've tried to be, I've struggled to know what to say around it. And I have found myself saying X a few times and feeling like... [04:23] dirty work yeah um anyway i had a really funny tweet yesterday that did not perform but um there was a trend i didn't see it i i uh that's what i hear from everybody i asked it all right um let me see let me pull up natasha g hoskins full name full legal name full legal name [04:48] Um, oh, white people will be like, my dog slept really good last night.

That's really, that's funny. Thank you. It's really funny. It's really funny. Um, yeah, I, there's a, there was a trend that. [04:58] two trends happening one [05:00] about people and their obsession with dogs, and then another trend about things that white people do. And I thought that that was like a really – [05:08] succinct combination. But I feel like sometimes when you combined trends that are happening, [05:14] Cognitive load. High mental load, yeah. People can't do it. I had one that I really wanted to tweet that I put in our internal Slack, but it never made it out, which was...

[05:23] white people [05:25] Be like, my dog launched a meme coin. [05:28] Oh, that's so funny. Oh, wait, you never shipped that? I never shipped it. It was just honestly for internal, internal laughs. Sometimes, you know, you just, it's just for the love of the game. Internal purposes only. I had a tweet, a draft tweet that I sent to the group chat and I was told you can't tweet that. [05:46] And I was like, okay, fine. [05:48] What was the content? It was... [05:51] Should I just say it? What was it related?

No. If I said no, don't tweet it. No, don't say it here. But I am curious, like just roughly. It was a combination of the – it was when Depop, the announcement around Depop was happening. [06:03] And it was a joke about... [06:07] Oh, I remember. Okay. That was also combining two things that were happening. It was. It was. [06:14] And I was told, yeah, a series of files that were released that we don't, I don't even want to get, we don't comment on. Kate said you should have tweeted it in the studio chat.

I think she was referring to yours. I think maybe she was. [06:31] I just quickly back to not to bring it back to the weather, but I, [06:35] I do hear the streets are saying that Mom Donnie did a good job with the snow removal. [06:40] Mom Donnie crushed it with the snow removal. It's actually insane. Like... [06:46] I was talking to my sister yesterday and she was like, how is it? Like, are you okay? Like, I was like, Oh, I'm totally fine. And I was like, honestly, I, [06:54] Mom, Donnie's crushing.

Like the streets are fairly like clean. I love, I have been having a lot of stress about, um, [07:04] Um, [07:05] AGI, the end of the world, unemployment, mass unemployment, like really like thinking we're going to talk a little bit about today, but like keeping me up at night type thoughts. And I was talking to a friend who was in town this weekend and she was... [07:20] Like... [07:21] It's not a [07:22] was really nice was being really kind to me and she was just like [07:25] You'll be fine. Like you don't need to be stressed.

And I was like, okay, that's really nice. But like, I don't know that that's true. I don't know that that's true. I know. I don't know who, sorry, what industries is this person working? Lord Jane Kenny. She's very smart. She's a very smart, very capable person. She's also a relentless optimist, which I don't know. Totally. Totally. Okay. Okay. Don't trust me. I don't need more fuel on this flame. I do not need more fuel on this flame, but she said, okay, [07:54] Um, [07:55] She was talking about, like... [07:57] the reading that she's been doing around it, some of the podcasts she's been listening to.

And basically it's like, [08:03] Revolution happens. [08:05] when [08:07] Able bodied men do not have work. [08:09] Like throughout history. She was actually talking to me about the podcast that you're also obsessed with. The rest is history. [08:15] Oh, she's a listener? She's a rest-is-history head as well. I got to text her. I know. No, I said, like, you should text Zina. She's obsessed with it. And she listens. She's obsessed also. And she was like, basically, it's been really... [08:28] And it's called her anxiety because she's been like, wow, there have been so many inflection points throughout history where it felt like the world was going to end.

[08:38] um, [08:40] something that has happened that has made... [08:42] revolution happen or uprising or whatever. But basically the through line in all of these moments is when able-bodied men don't get, cannot find work. And then that's when like everything turns on its head and revolution breaks out. And she was like, yeah, that's probably going to happen. [09:01] So mom, Donnie's America, having able-bodied men be able to go outside and work and make money. I was like, okay. [09:09] Here we go. Thank you, sir. We need more snowstorms, I guess.

Yeah. There's a little bit of a slippery slope, though, in that. [09:17] line of thinking, which this is Trini article, we'll talk about this attorney article later in the show, but which it spends some time on, which is about how if people are losing their jobs to compute, basically, and AI is taking all the work and, you know, [09:37] we... [09:38] aren't as employed as we used to be. There's less income tax that's flowing through the system. The government has [09:48] Less ability to pay people. Less resources and less ability to do some of the infrastructure work you're speaking to.

So I like, yes, but... [09:59] Asterisk on that. [10:02] Totally. [10:03] Totally. I have found that you are not the person to talk to when I need to get talked off a ledge. Here's why. But it's a caring. It's a kind of caring for you because I want you to... [10:17] I want for my friends to... [10:20] understand the urgency [10:22] to to [10:24] future proof themselves. And I think like it's, it doesn't come from a place of like me wanting to trigger your anxiety. [10:32] totally I know that to make sure that you're okay yes I I fully know that two things I know to be true it is coming from a good place it is coming from a place of wanting me to thrive in my life and yes [10:44] be prepared for the best and the worst.

[10:47] Additionally, I know you to be quite... [10:51] catastrophizing [10:53] as well as a person. [10:54] So kind of, yeah, kind of, yeah, where you're like, this could be it. [10:59] this really could be it. Could it be? I don't know about myself, but maybe, maybe I need to do some work. Like, maybe catastrophizing is the wrong way of saying it. Like, maybe that's too, yeah, maybe that's the wrong word for it. But, um, [11:13] like you'll spiral into something and be like, oh my gosh, [11:19] And I have many very funny examples of.

Oh, I've spiraled into a few health diagnoses lately that. I have a heart disease psychosis. Maybe I have some LL psychosis. [11:28] You genuinely must stop using ChatGPT as a general practitioner. You have to. Like, as your friend, I've been on the other side of it at least three times in the last 12 months. And I'm there and I'm listening and I'm willing, but I'm like, this is crazy. [11:46] Okay. We should. We should. Let's do it. Great, great, great, great, great. [11:55] Thank you. [11:56] Thank you. [11:58] Hi, Justin.

Hello. Good morning. Hi. How's it going? [12:03] I feel like I'm really close to the camera. I also feel like I have to rearrange itself and we all got into a real spot. [12:10] We're on a little bit of a slope here. There we go. Okay, thanks. Do you have a little lamp or something you could click on? I might. Oh, there we go. How's that? All right, perfect. We're in business. Okay, Justin Brill, Global Head of Revenue at Anchorage. We're such big Anchorage fans. So welcome to the show. [12:33] Thank you.

We have a lot of Boys Club fans here, too. So it's a really exciting collaboration. And it was awesome to see the ad go live and a bunch of people be like, this is awesome. And similarly, like a lot of good marketing, a lot of people be like, what the heck is this? So it's all over the place. And we have such a diverse base of clients. You know, it makes sense. Yeah, totally. [13:03] it's really, [13:04] Um, [13:05] It's really good. And if I do think so myself, I hold on.

[13:19] We have Kate here in the corner, and it's basically a bit on – [13:23] I'd say like QVC, but also sort of like late night TV in the 90s. [13:28] I think it's giving a little bit of that too. So, you know, we just always love to disrupt the form here at boys club and Anchorage. You guys gave us a really long leash to have some fun. So yeah, [13:38] Um, kudos to you guys for that, but do check it out. I got some nineties nostalgia flashbacks in my youth for sure.

So yeah. Nice. [13:46] Justin, we're so excited to have you. There's lots of things we want to talk about. But the first question that I just kind of want to get your pulse check on is you were in Denver last week. You did some stuff with Anchorage. You spoke on some panels. I would love to get like a pulse check from you. [14:05] Vibes on Twitter seemed not amazing, but I would love to hear from the horse's mouth. Like, how was it? [14:12] Yeah, I went in slightly pessimistic because of the reasons you mentioned, as well as the price of BTC, ETH, all coins, right?

And I came away with a completely different perspective and certainly much more optimistic. I've been to probably six East Denver's, I think, now. And it's crazy to see how much they've changed over the years when I think about the companies that were hosting the events that the first one was all BTC. [14:37] DeFi, Yieldgen, mostly companies that you might not heard of was two or three people. You know, it really felt like the pioneers in a way. And now you go there and you're sitting at a dinner and you got Visa on one side and MasterCard on the other.

And it feels like the inflection point that we've been waiting for with all the institutions is here. And, you know, there's still a lot of crypto native folks there. Don't get me wrong. And a lot of startups, it was two startups who were doing really great, who hosted that [15:07] came to it. So it shows you that intersection that's happening. And it certainly feels very different than the events post FTX where everyone was like estimated. There were still a lot of [15:19] super smart people who are [15:21] convinced that crypto will continue to proliferate.

So I came back energized. And, you know, it's important to note, we had a bunch of people all over the place at different events. There was Crypto Week in the Caymans, there was Consensus in Hong Kong, there's iConnections in Miami right now, and the same theme continues to exist. So I don't necessarily even only a Denver thing. [15:39] Yeah, I heard that Hong Kong was electric and that the... [15:45] vibe over there is like very bullish and very much alive and, um, [15:55] Yeah, that made me feel good. Yeah. I mean, if I'm honest, I think Anchorage brand is much stronger in the

S. than internationally. We're trying to change that. We have a Singapore office. We have a MAS license. We've hired quite a few people. We're going to be up to 20 soon and have a big new hire actually starting on Monday. So, yeah, we're certainly putting a lot of our efforts there while continuing to focus quite a bit on the S. with all the exciting developments and support from the regulatory perspective. What's a MAS license? What's that? [16:25] Oh, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, effectively. It's like the same as, you know, [16:30] You go through the government process, you get approved, you get allowed to do all sorts of businesses and...

[16:34] We were lucky to have one of those. They're great, great government to work with. [16:38] Cool. That's awesome. Okay. I want to ask you, [16:43] Before you were at Anchorage, you've been at Anchorage about a year. And before that, you were at Jump. And Jump is sort of like this, to me, like, and I think of many people in this industry, like this very, like, legendary, sort of, like, shrouded in mystery firm. And... [17:00] So I would love to hear from you just from your time there, what you have learned about sort of the markets, like what have you taken away from that experience that has informed the way that you're thinking about your work now and I think the industry more generally.

[17:17] Yeah, yeah, great question. It was, yeah, I had four years at Jump. [17:21] Nothing but wonderful things to say. I agree. Like most of the high-frequency trading community, they keep their cards very close to the best. I maybe knew a little bit more about them in the space prior to that because before making that move, I was on Wall Street for a bunch of years and covered them and all those other type of clients. But in terms of what I learned, I'd say the number one thing, they're – [17:45] Sometimes you have to take some concentrated bets, right?

So as a [17:50] Jump was one of the early people to go very deep into Solana, right? And so, um, [17:56] When I got to Anchorage, there was a bunch of new ecosystems popping up. And of course, we are a bank. We want to support every chain that we... [18:03] that we possibly can. We have over 600 assets live today, but Hyperliquid had a lot of mindshare. For example, when I got here and was like, okay, look, we could either just try to support the basics or we could go all in in every possible way.

[18:19] And we believed in it, so we did, right? We started not just the basic custody support, like full prime brokerage, staking, rehypopulation of assets. We started going to their events. We were sponsoring their hackathons. We started writing venture checks to some of the best protocols that are building on there. And then when we walked through the Hyperliquid event, [18:38] Everybody knew us. You know, that was the same case in Singapore as it was in Denver. And I think when you show that you're not just, you know, a provider and you want to be viewed as a vendor, right?

You want to be viewed as a core, hopefully one-on-one partner. And I think that's the number one thing I learned from the previous experience and what we're trying to do at Anchorage is really get deep on the things that our clients care about as opposed to trying to just go surface level on every single thing. [19:02] - What was your role at Jump? [19:06] I had a few different roles. We launched... Essentially, I was doing... [19:12] We launched an early stage venture incubator that's called PIT. It still exists in Chicago.

So we were doing that and writing a posting hackathons, running, writing a bunch of early stage venture checks. Yeah. Crypto, crypto, everything crypto related. And it was a blast. And, and like, it's crazy to see some of those like that one of these projects, Coinflow labs, they came through the jump, uh, [19:40] incubator. They actually started as a fantasy sports project and then realized that they had all these [19:46] Fantasy Sports on Chain. They... [19:49] couldn't get the on-ramps and off-ramps right. So as a hackathon project, they built some on-ramps and off-ramps, and they got way more traction doing that than with their core product.

They pivoted. And then now they just had a $25 million Series A led by Pantera, right? And they have a lot of traction. They're the folks I mentioned who hosted this dinner with all these partners at it, right? So things like that, honestly, that's the progression that I was hoping to see, right? [20:19] I ran a portion of the internship program back in banking. And you see these folks come through and then be analysts and get promoted. And then they're running a desk. It's like the same. You're watching someone grow up.

And I get a lot of satisfaction out of that. So that's, look, we're still grinding really hard. It's not all sunshine and rainbows when we're in the trenches. But overall, I've seen there's just so many opportunities at both Jump and Anchorage to help. [20:43] protocols, companies, people elevate themselves and achieve their goals. That's- Yeah. [20:49] That's awesome. It's just so fun. Did Wormhole come out of that incubator too? [20:55] That was a project that Jump actually bought Wormhole. Okay. The team behind Wormhole. I'd call it more of an acqui-hire situation.

Okay. And then they incubated the project, but that didn't come through. Okay. Okay. [21:08] The actual early stage incubator, yeah. [21:11] I ask mostly because I'm curious what head of revenue, what does that mean? Yeah, so it's the same. I would use it interchangeably with chief revenue officer. And the easiest way to distill it down is you're basically running all of sales and marketing and certainly a good portion of go-to-market strategy. And since we launched a venture arm, it kind of makes sense to have it under there. So myself and another gentleman, Carl, who runs our protocols and investors business are the co-heads of that.

[21:41] Mostly it's running and structuring sales, marketing, biz dev teams. Okay. And I'm curious, like you guys, Anchorage, as I've been learning about what you guys do and what you offer over the past couple of months, it's really full stack. Like it's end to end in terms of how you guys are able to partner with Anchorage. [22:00] your clients and the folks that you work with. And [22:04] I think that can sometimes make it [22:07] like the type of person that you're trying to reach very like specific. And I'm, I'd love to hear from you like who it is, [22:16] who's the persona of like who you're trying to reach with.

[22:20] with Anchorage. Yeah. [22:22] One thing I'll add to that is because I think a lot of people – [22:25] think of Anchorage just as a crypto bank, which is... [22:29] where so much of like your partnership and, uh, [22:32] legitimacy has come in the industry. But I think there's a lot. I mean, I know that there's a lot more that you guys are up to. So, yeah, to Dina's question, I think, how do you find those personas for the variety of products that you guys can offer? Yeah, it's it's an incredible challenge.

You know, our CEO and co-founder Nathan says that every institution in crypto needs to have an Anchorage account. Right. So you have to you have to find a way to market to the Black Rocks and the largest banks in the world. [23:02] with BlackRock for the ETF side. You have to find a message that resonates with them and these people [23:08] you know, they don't show up at the same places, dress the same, talk the same, consume news in the same way as protocol founders. Right. And increasingly, I do think that gap is narrowing quite a bit.

But that's why we have to put on suits and go to fancy capital introduction events, as well as throw on hoodies and do retro 90s, you know, infomercials. [23:38] specialize our organization so that you can't ask the same type of people to necessarily cover all those clients, right? So we've tried to break it down by client segment and then mirror that structure across every level of the organization from marketing to sales to middle office to operations and client service and try to have that consistent experience. But yeah, I think you're right.

Anchorage is a one-on-one company. It's so much more than just custody. But as I've seen [24:08] brokerage banking experience converging, I really do think of us much more. I mean, if you go to our website, it's very clear, like Anchorage Digital Prime. And keeping your assets with us, first of all, you know they're safe and secure, but that's what opens the doorway to the rest of Anchorage's services, whether that's the execution desk, we have OTC, amazing 24-7 coverage, derivatives, financing, protocols are using it, hedge funds are using it. [24:33] And there's a lot of value add of doing that.

And if you don't have everything within the walled gardens already, it makes it a little bit more difficult to interact with your assets. We're rolling out a whole slew of fiat capabilities. We have an incredible stable coins offering a publicly announced partnership with Tether to bring Tether to the S. And that business is growing. So you're right. It is a lot to sort through. And I think if you throw everything out there, either on this podcast or in a client pitch or whatever, it can be a lot to digest. [25:03] biggest problems, you know, help them to help you solve them.

[25:06] Yeah. Well, you guys also just acquired Hedgie. Hedgie? Hedgie, yeah. Okay. And my understanding of what Hedgie is, and correct me if I'm wrong, is it's basically like [25:18] pulley but for token management [25:20] Is that, like, Polly's, like, the equity... [25:23] Um, [25:24] Did you guys ever use that? Like I had a job where I was like, oh, it wasn't really, it was, um, cap, cap, cap. No, police for equity. It's not for tokens, Dina. It's like for, no, no. There was another one that like we use it Indiegogo.

That was like the cap. [25:38] Oh, no, no, no, no, no, that we use with our startups. That was like, [25:43] Oh, that website. Every time I went there, I felt like... Had a reason to attack. Totally. Anyway, it doesn't matter. [25:52] What's Hedgy? Yeah, shout out Lindsay and the Hedgy team. Amazing how seamlessly they have integrated into Anchorage. They brought incredible, to answer the short version, it's a token vesting platform, right? So they've built com. There's a H-E-D-G-E-Y in there, HedgyPro. A new platform, integrated, purpose-built for Anchorage. [26:22] all your allocations, vesting clips, grants, automate your stakeholder management, execute all the token distributions.

You know, we just found that so many people would use us for all of these pieces and then be like, all right, now send this, like, now can you interact with this other company to do this thing that is certainly important, but we felt, again, if it was all in-house, that it would be a huge, huge value add. So, you know, protocols and founders can focus on building and growing their product community [26:52] not the operational risk that comes with trying to do all this stuff yourself. That was the idea.

[26:56] Okay, given just sort of your vantage point, being able to see lots of different, like, and have a touch point into lots of different areas of different areas. [27:07] crypto and, and more trad five businesses. Mm hmm. [27:10] And I know we spoke about the vibes at Denver specifically, but just like zooming out, what's your feeling on the market and the cycle that we're in right now? [27:20] What feedback are you getting from your partners? He's like, I love the prices right now. They're amazing. The prices are great. I mean, when you go, when you do listen to, you know, at the height of the bull markets, when you listen to some venture pitch and, [27:35] and there's two people with no product and they're telling you they're raising like a 75 million valuation, you, you know, something's off, right?

Like that doesn't feel right either. Um, so, but that said, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Sure. Things are a little tough and certainly a bit difficult on, um, founders and builders, um, [27:54] I think most people are still heads down shipping their product. There are, the reports have come out. Venture funding is slowing down. Anchorage digital is still writing checks. We had a, an investment committee meeting last night and agreed to write one or two more. So there are still, you know, many VCs that I know, like we have many of them as clients we're co-investing with.

They're still, [28:13] capital being deployed. You saw Dragonfly's fund just oversubscribed last week. Right. So look, we've been through all these cycles before. Peak to trough is somewhere typically around 12 months. You know, could it be longer? I'm not a trader. I'm not a quant. So like, I'm just, you know, [28:30] basically regurgitating what the smart people have said here. But like, I don't think anyone, like no one here believes that Bitcoin and ETH are going to zero, right? Like we're still all in on it. And, you know, Nathan had this, we have a company meeting every Friday where he shares quite a bit about what's going on at Anchorage and people post questions and he, Oh, it's kind of like an AMA style thing.

And someone said, what do you think's going on? You know, some competitors rumors going on about cutbacks and layoffs or whatever. [29:00] I swear that someone reached out to me and said, how do you feel about this storm that's coming? And I looked outside. I thought he was talking about the weather. I'm just so focused on what we're doing. I didn't even think it was crypto related. And I think that is sort of like, you don't want to be blind to the realities that are out there, but it's also like, [29:18] you know.

[29:18] Stock markets crash, bond markets blow out. It's not like this is unique to crypto. And think about like, we're freaking out if Bitcoin is in the 60s, right? Like, imagine just a few years ago. It's, you know, it's easy to lose perspective sometimes. [29:34] For sure. Okay, last question here, and then we will let you go. But I know that... [29:41] Obviously, the sort of meta for this cycle is stablecoins, [29:46] Everybody is talking about them and you guys are building products around that. Yeah. What is your thinking around it?

How are you guys sort of approaching this at Anchorage? [29:56] Yeah, yeah. There's a Bloomberg article last year where we shared that we were going to, I think, at least double the size of our stable coins team. I think we may have quadrupled it because, yeah, it's... [30:09] It's been blowing up. And then, yeah, I've been aware. So the guy, the guy sat next to it, John Puzan, who's now the co-head of crypto, Brevin Howard, Peter Johnson, he was screaming about stable coins in like 2021. And everyone's like, what are you talking about?

[30:40] So why are we all in? I mean, there's so many amazing use cases, whether it's cross-border payments, whether it's, you know, large companies or banks that are considering reducing revenue. [30:50] releasing their own stable coin, uh, whether it's, you know, our premier partnership with Tether and we have huge aspirations for USAT, um, [30:59] It just – [31:00] it's [31:01] you know, [31:02] With genius passing, it's really, you know, [31:05] federally compliant stablecoins can be issued, and that's where Anchorage Digital is. [31:09] bank really comes in. We have all this federal oversight.

I really feel like where we're going is the distinction between stablecoin payments and the concept of overall payments will largely disappear. So yeah, the two fronts we're attacking that through are stablecoin issuance, you know, [31:27] like the partnership with Tether and Western Union and others to be announced as well as something we're calling stable coin solutions for banks, which just launched this week. And it's going to allow international banks to really participate in USD rails. We have a couple premier partners lined up and many, many more to come. And we really feel like, you know, the winners of this, of this race will be the ones who build to operate under,

[31:55] real oversight, real distribution, real operational rigor while still allowing that instantaneous money movement to happen. So, yeah, Sergio Mello leads our efforts there. He's built out an incredible team. I like your point on stablecoin payments. It's like drop the stablecoin and it's cleaner. Yeah, right. It's going to happen. All right. Justin, thank you so much for your time. It was fascinating to hear what you guys are up to. [32:25] more soon. Yeah, this was so fun. Would love to come back at a future on a future episode. So thanks.

Keep up the great work and talk soon. [32:33] Talk soon. Bye, everybody. [32:35] um right nice guy really nice guy i enjoyed our chat with him um [32:42] And love the folks at Anchorage Digital. And I... [32:46] want to share about them. We love them. This episode is brought to you by Anchorage Digital founders and protocol builders stressing about your TGE. You need to get in touch with them. They're the first federally regulated crypto bank in the US, which means they can offer crypto startups and other disruptors actually reliable USD banking services without the usual headaches.

They're a one-stop shop and can support you end-to-end on everything from minting and [33:16] as we heard about today. Anchorage Digital has expanded institutional access to on-chain finance. New integrations with Camino, Onselana, and Morpho allow clients to execute borrowing and vault strategies directly from the safety of their federally regulated platform. So protocol founders, TGE with confidence, and launch with the support that's helped some of the biggest and most complex businesses in the world go to market. Visit com to learn more. [33:46] So today and yesterday and today and tomorrow, I've been working in...

[33:54] like an office, like a office of like a, a real with like cubicles financial company. Like we're working with a big financial, very serious financial and very serious traditional trad fi firm. [34:09] And they're based here in Austin. And that's why I'm here. That's why the trip. And anyway, I was just looking at myself and I was looking at my hat and I just realized and remembered. [34:18] that I'm not going to be able to wear this. Probably not. I was going to ask you, you're going to sport the hat on the way there?

I'm sure. I don't know that my denim shirt they they're, they're in heels. Like, [34:27] Yeah. [34:28] It's a Texas. It's like a Texas. It's not only it is. [34:32] It's double. It's double. Although I just want to say it's been years since I've been in an office. Like I haven't, I don't like co-working, whatever. Like we'll go into the island. That's not the same thing as like the, like room with desks and computers and booking meeting rooms and people are in heels and there's a communal fridge where people have their lunch.

And then there's the snacks with the cheese and the, the chickpea chips and the, you know, totally. And that's the experience. And it's just so, it's crazy. I, I, I, [35:03] I part of me likes it. I don't know if I could do it every day, but like, [35:07] I would certainly need a wardrobe rework. Yeah, totally. I went into the Coinbase offices a few weeks ago and not the same because everybody's like in hoodies. And honestly, I was just dressed normally and I felt like everybody was like, wow, you're like swagged out.

And I'm like, what? So it's not like the same, but I was... [35:30] My feeling was kind of like, y'all are like spoiled. Like you're spoiled. And like, you should be like the snacks and the treats and the Wi Fi and the lunch provided like lunch provided. Whoa. Yeah. And like the, the like, yeah, the screens, the setups. I'm just like, Hey, you're being babied. You're being babied to do your job. Like, come on, give it give it. [35:53] You should be giving it 140% with this amount of coddling that's happening in this space.

But I don't know if people are used to, I guess. [36:00] That was like similar to that. This was not specifically about Coinbase. I'm not speaking about them, but it was, I think about like, I don't know, maybe Google's office in New York or something that they were talking about it as adults. [36:11] Take care. [36:12] Ha! [36:13] It really is. It really is. It is adult daycare. Wait, you were going to show me a chart? [36:18] And then we got distracted. Oh, I was going to show you. So for folks who are new to the story, Zach XBT, the...

[36:29] The investigative Twitter account that we all know and love. He posted earlier this week that he's going to be. [36:39] Uh, [36:40] exposing one of the most profitable crypto companies that's in quotes for, um, and employees doing insider trading over a prolonged period of time. And he dropped that tweet on like Sunday or Monday. And the speculation has been going crazy. [36:57] wild since then well i saw a hilarious tweet that was like um all crypto projects being uh like basically like a relieved meme at the word profitable they're like we're good yeah and uh so anyway there's been so much what have we got here everyone's everyone thinks everyone's pointing fingers and someone is gonna have a very bad week um yeah so this is this got

[37:27] And just the thought of whoever is do, whoever is about to be exposed to doing insider trading at one of these companies, then going and doing insider trading. [37:40] I mean, I know I'm going to be exposed anyway. Might as well just make some money on it. They're literally thinking this is the this is the last job I'm going to have. I got to clean up. Totally. Totally. So honestly, like factor that into your trades. My money's on pump. My money's on pump. Yeah, I just don't like I don't know that they're profitable anymore.

So I think that would have been a very generous thing for Zach. Oh, I think there's I think they are certainly. [38:06] I, I, I, [38:07] I was thinking it was Binance, but them coming so low down here. I don't want it to be an exchange. I think that would be devastating. But... [38:14] for the industry but i i was worried at first that that was part of me why part of why i'm [38:21] That feels... [38:23] just absolutely uh like obvious i would expect nothing exactly like expected yeah exactly exactly anyway okay all right i do want to bring up our guest but one more thing is that just want to say gemini um wait wait can you scroll down i want to text some friends that are on this list basically nice okay oh oh oh cool for comment yeah yeah um [38:46] Gemini, this could be a sleeper hit because there was a...

[38:54] news story that went out yesterday that was [38:57] about a bunch of their senior leadership, um, [39:00] resigning. [39:02] Oh, really? [39:03] So, okay. Who's to say we're in the red line meme. We're obviously all this is speculation, but like, I don't know that it's, you have really good odds. If you hit one of these ones down here and it, it goes, are you going to put some money on it? [39:17] I'm going to put some money on it. Yeah. I'm going to put some money on it. [39:20] Um, [39:21] Oh, also World Liberty Financial.

I mean, yeah, I don't I don't know that you would count those as profitable. Like, I don't know. But maybe anyway, let's bring our guest up. [39:31] Oh. [39:34] Nick. [39:36] Hi. [39:37] Oh, we have an audio issue. [39:42] No problem. So while Nick is connecting his... [39:46] uh audio here can you hear me now yes hi hi ladies sorry about that hi uh nicholas carrey blockchain not com anymore just blockchain uh co-founder and vice chairman welcome to the show [40:01] Hey, thank you for having me. [40:03] so you guys are gossiping before i got here all the spicy stuff i won't i won't ask you to weigh in i'm tempted to ask you to me too i'm really tempted i don't know anything [40:15] I'm just an old grandpa in crypto now, just trying to make a few satoshis.

[40:21] I love that. I, I, I did. I am curious if you've been seeing some of the stuff. This is also spicy and you can feel free to pass. But if you've been seeing some of the Jane Street drama that's been unfolding on the timeline. [40:39] Yes, like some of my friends here, I spend too much time on Twitter. And yeah, I saw that pop up. I mean, I think what you're really seeing there is just a re-litigation of, you know, trying to find the matches and the conflagration that burned down the crypto industry that year.

I'm not... [40:56] It's a little bit like the Epstein files, like every few months, there's just like some new salacious accusation or detail. You know, that was a very dramatic period of time in crypto. And no one wants to be. [41:09] you know, responsible for it. But there was a lot of, you know, leverage in the market. And I think there's certainly some questions about how people behaved. And the good news is a lot of the bad actors, I think were, you know, were really wiped out in that era, but it was extremely painful for the survivors.

And yeah, we're still reckoning, obviously, I think with, you know, the he said, she said, and who was responsible, really, but that the specific accusation here, [41:39] claiming someone else did something and they'll fight it out in the court probably if they ever get to that point. But that specific incident was brutal because basically when Terra Luna collapsed, you had this, [41:49] algorithmic stablecoin. This is a quick history lesson from the last bear market. But basically, in a lot of ways, that collapse sort of cascaded into a series of really dramatic and catastrophic problems.

And our industry has been through some booms and some busts. But this one was like a series of these that kind of tipped over one after another. And it would have been bad to go through one of those in a single year. [42:16] But it went from that to three arrows capital to Celsius to BlockFi and then famously all the way out through to FTX, you know, blowing up too. And so I think people are very interested in the causes of all of that. And it's very warranted because we need to study them so we can learn to make sure that never happens again.

[42:36] Yeah, I have a little bit of like, remember where you were when, like, I have so many I'll tell you a funny story about that. [42:47] Just like really visceral moments of each one of those. And it was also during a time where Dina and I had been working on Boys Club for like a year and a half-ish with other full-time jobs and like just burning the candle on both ends, trying to figure out when we were going to like jump in full-time. [43:05] And then like this mic, like you guys are doing, I know I'm sorry, I don't have a stand.

So I'm traveling. So that's why it's, it's not all good. There you go. Anyway, I, I like quit my job and went full time into crypto during like during this period, which I'm just like, that's an insane person move. But anyway, you get addicted to the, I guess, [43:35] Thank you. And a survivor's badge. Okay, wait. So what's your funny story around where were you? I don't know how funny it is, but basically like we had had an amazing year and the market was going, you know, it was very, very wild and healthy and all that.

And I was actually getting married in July of that year. And basically like, [43:58] We had done all this planning and it was like, oh, you know, all these ideas we had about, you know, honeymoons and all these other things. And then it was just like, sorry, love, like some of the plans we have are going to be a little different. Yeah. [44:11] So that was all happening literally like the day of my wedding. Oh, I hate that. I hate that. I hate that. I say, like, your enemies don't choose, you know, they don't pick the dates and times that are good for you for things to go wrong.

So, yeah, it does work. Brutal. I hope you've made it up to your partner. Yeah, yeah. She's all good. Okay. Okay. So I want to – blockchain – [44:33] I don't wanna call it com, but blockchain. - You can find us at com. - Okay, you guys have been around [44:41] For... [44:42] Like, so long. [44:43] So long. And that's so rare in this industry. You've seen so many different cycles. I feel like you've probably seen it all, basically. So 2013, I think, is what the date was when it was founded.

Yeah, it even predates that a little bit. So everyone has a different story about when things start. But for me, it's like when the website was registered. And so you can look into who is on the domain side in October 11th. [45:08] October 15, 2011 was when we started. Wow. Wow. Yeah. [45:15] That was what, only two years after the Bitcoin... [45:19] network had basically been launched. Yeah, so it was very, very early on. But we started off actually building basically a statistical website. It was super nerdy. It was just a way to look at the Bitcoin blockchain.

And the first project we had ever built was something called a Block Explorer, which some people will be familiar with. But it's basically... [45:36] like a search engine for looking at a history of transactions on chain. And that was a really popular kind of initial website. And that's kind of how we all got into it was just building stuff and listening to people and asking them what they wanted to see. [45:49] So, [45:51] What's your journey been like since 2013? I mean, that's a lot. Look, we were very early on.

I think one of the things that we were really passionate about was working on building the early kind of. [46:05] tools that would be necessary in order for regular people to start to interact at the time with Bitcoin. And so we were well known for building essentially the world's first non-custodial wallet. [46:15] And there are a lot of terms now that you might hear the term DeFi wallet, but an on-chain wallet or a non-custodial wallet means like you as the individual are responsible for holding custody of the digital assets you store in that.

Just like the wallet you might put in your purse has cast instruments, has identity instruments, has credit cards and more. Well, what you put in your wallet is yours and then you have to protect that. [46:45] even as recently as 2022, 23, we learn over and over again, if you put individuals in control, [46:51] of vast sums of access to people's information or money, there's some perverse incentives. They want to rent seek on that data. They may want to front run it. They may want to, they may be compelled to exchange information about it or, or worse that, that data can be stolen or the crypto can be hacked.

And so there were a lot of these compromises happening famously Mount Gox, Bitcoin and many others. So people were looking for an alternative way. And we really [47:21] especially Bitcoin, which was to really empower end users to make individuals the agents of their economic sovereignty. So we were, you know, we built the world's first wallet that was available in the iOS and app store. And yeah, it became popular for that reason. And being early in crypto was really important. A little bit like being an early pioneer in the West, you get to take some of the important real estate.

That was quite true in the world of Web3 because you wanted to be early with the best, earliest vintages of adopters. [47:53] - Wow, and so when you came into this industry, [47:56] it's so early, like, [47:58] I can't even imagine, but was your conviction- It was not an obvious move. [48:07] around... [48:10] Like, did you read the white paper and think, okay, I understand where this is. Like, I can see where this would be going there. Being early is going to be huge to all this. Um. [48:20] Did you imagine we would be where we are today, where we have like Stripe founders talking about stable coins?

Like, I'm curious what made you make that move when it was – [48:30] such a [48:31] Yeah, such a surprising thing to be doing at that time. [48:34] Yeah, I think a lot of people were, I mean, you know, people would say things like that's very high risk. You know, it's untested. This thing's probably never going to work. I think crypto is a Ponzi scheme. It's only used by nerds and dorks or worse to buy narcotics on the Internet or whatever. And, you know, all of that was kind of true.

But what I was really interested in is really there's sort of two things that govern how I invest my time is. One, did I feel like I would learn a lot? And two, did I feel like I could be influential in working on whatever we were doing? [49:04] that was very true about working at com. And so the white paper was really intriguing to me because as I graduated in 2007, the great financial crisis was like very present in my mind. And I was appalled by the behavior of leaders in the world.

I couldn't believe how that had been so poorly managed. These individuals that we've been told were responsible adults in the room. [49:28] you know, they had all this regulation to protect consumers and then they just blew it. And it was I really like I took that very, very seriously. And when when Bitcoin came around to me, it was sort of such an interesting alternative. And I didn't know what would happen with it. But I thought, well, if there's a way to build something here that eliminates some of these nefarious incentives, [49:50] And to me, you know, the financial system has a lot of challenges around managing conflicts of interest.

And so, you know, was there a way to build a mechanism to do that? And I think Bitcoin was such a novel idea. You know, you have a decentralized record keeping system. There's no one person in control of it. You have peer to peer electronic cash for the Internet. And it doesn't care what color your skin is or where you were born or what your credit score looks like. So to me, building a financial system. [50:18] That would enable all people, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, to be able to [50:22] access it and then perform economic commerce on a meritocratic basis.

Those were things that were extremely interesting. And I thought if we could build that and scale it, we could build a better, more resilient financial system that worked more fairly for everybody. And that was, you know, I still, I believe that 14 years ago and I believe it today. And I think we have a lot of work to do still, you know, or by no means have we achieved the end state. Now, if you had told me 10 years [50:52] at $65,000 and the President of the United States will be talking about it on the national agenda and there's regulatory regimes and I would have been like [51:00] that's incredible, like amazing progress we can foresee to be made.

And so, you know, um, [51:05] That being said, I do think... [51:08] we, those of us who've been working in the space for a long time, you know, you have to draw on deep wells of patience and think through the long-term here because, you know, the, [51:19] Building this all out requires [51:22] progressing it in such a way that people voluntarily cooperate with it and it's a better, cheaper, faster, more resilient alternative. And we just always have to have a customer centric focus because we want to win because it is just a more obvious alternative that works better for everybody.

I think we're getting there. And, you know, every few years people are reminded why they shouldn't put their money in a Venezuelan bank or, you know, [51:52] going to change because the incentives that are designed in the old financial system are very rent seeking and perverse to the benefits of most of the people that participate in it. So in the long run, I think we got market conditions that are in our favor. We have economics that are in our favor. And then as a technology solution, we've scale in our favor, too.

But we've got a lot of work to do. [52:14] Yeah, I think something that you said that really sticks out to me that I remember Dina saying very early on that has – [52:20] kept that I've kept in the top of my mind is you said basically like people voluntarily need to come to this and I think that one of the things especially early days of Boys Club it's like we we were very much like we don't want to be in the business of convincing people that crypto is better and that they should get in this industry and that they should

[52:39] buy Bitcoin or Ethereum or Solana or whatever. Like we just want to create a space for if there's curiosity, there's an access point for people. And I think that, [52:49] in order for people to voluntarily... [52:51] uh opt into a new financial system it has to be a better financial system it has to do things that are inherently better than the existing one and so i'm curious you know there's a whole meta right now around um bots and agents and agentic payments and where we're going with all of this and how stable coins are going to be their native language and um and then i hear and people are like so excited about in crypto and they're like we finally have this like a perfect use case for [53:21] this technology and then I talk to people in like traditional finance and some of them are like I mean why is it better than like just traditional the rails that we currently have and I guess my question to you would be why do you think they are better than you know traditional payment rails [53:38] Yeah, these are great questions.

I think one of the things that's interesting about our industry, and you guys are doing an amazing job creating that space for people to be curious about it. And one of the things I think is so important when you're being intellectually honest about something is to be vulnerable about what's working and what's not working yet.