Alex Shevchenko: NEAR & ZEC Are Set To Explode (Huge Catalysts Coming)

Transcript

All right, we are here with the man himself, Alfenko, the co-founder of Near Intense. Uh, also brought to our attention a rap song that was generated by someone in the Near community. So, we're going to see if we can tee that up for you guys. Uh, Alex, welcome to the show man. >> Thanks for inviting me as always. Super happy to be here. >> Absolutely. Well, it's a pleasure to have you. you know, we've had you on the show before and um it just seems like every, you know, five billion or so through the near intent protocol, we bring you back. We ask you how the last five billion went and uh and then we'll, you know, we'll get you back in a couple weeks to hear how the next five billion went. Um but I mean, yeah, just to to

speak to the absolute incredible nature of how Near Intense has grown. Um so kudos to all the hard work and and the success. Um yeah, tell us how have uh how has the last few billion volume gone through near near intense? How's that been going? >> Yeah, I would say it's kind of a little bit more relaxed at this moment in time. It's it's a little bit less about uh you know trying to prove anyone that that you're the thing that you're building is is important and interesting. uh it is more about you know like polish and things you know like in the knife making you're first making a knife and then and but then you need to sharpen it you need to sharpen it to the point when it cuts uh cuts the paper and uh so I'm feeling right now that we are sharpening

and sharpening and sharpening and and making like everything working absolutely incredible extremely robust uh yeah that's uh that's kind of all of the things so so there Not a lot of there are some visual changes and there are some some changes to the protocol itself but many of these are not uh very observable by the by the people who are using the protocol though they are very very important. >> Well, one of the things that we've heard quite a lot about as of recently and and you know the primary reason we wanted to bring you up here today is to talk about the sharpest you know edge in the in the in the knife right now. Uh, one of the most recent features that I think people are really excited about is confidential intents because this just adds a new

dimension to near intense. Um, you know, there's there's quite a lot of questions that I have around confidentiality, you know, why it was important to bring now these sorts of things. But maybe you could just start by giving us, you know, the one census version, you know, the the short and sweet uh confidential intents, you know, just became available. what is possible now that they weren't able to do before with near intents. So in one sentence I can only say that confidential intents are bringing normality into crypto and the reason for this is that uh up until this point in time all of your financial operations have been visible uh onchain and the privacy solutions that were available uh they were only

limited to a very small set of tasks uh which are covering just transfers. Um with confidential intense what we're trying to do is to wrap all of the D5 primitives into the uh private mode and make sure that uh everybody are able to enjoy the same level of privacy that they're getting from the uh from traditional financial applications like banks uh and they're able to get it in a decentralized and non-custodial setup with crypto. >> Very cool. Very very cool. And so even though you guys have had confidential mode on near intense for a little while, um this was sort of the generally accessible mode. You know, you mentioned

it was originally for transfers. Now it's it's open, it's to the public, anyone can use it, protocols, developers, users, everyone. Um what are some of your favorite things that you've seen people do that previously wasn't possible? You know, now uh are there integrations that you're excited about looking forward? you know what is confidentially in the stack really mean? >> Yeah. So I think that traditionally like crypto I I've read this uh this tweet from Jesse um uh today and he was thinking about like the future of base and blah blah all the stuff. But one thing that he said there is that like yeah I kind of agree that uh that crypto is is a better money right and uh and we

have been miserably miserably failing in producing a product that is at least on par with cash so that uh everybody if I'm doing a payment everybody are able to take a look into the blockchain and see what I have been using what are my positions what what is happening and uh and uh now you can you cannot even if you're Charles Hoskinson you cannot liquidate easily your position uh because everybody are tracking your wallets same same is happening with with Michael Sailor right so um that's kind of the uh the problem um so uh so the use cases that people started to to bring uh directly on near.com which is

not the perfect tool for example for business style use cases yet uh yet not a perfect tool. Um uh uh many founders have been coming to me and saying and and sharing very positive feedback about okay oh my god I now can start um uh executing payroll confidentially uh to to my employees uh and I don't and I can also you know deposit some money uh that might be in some one type of cryptocurrency and then I can convert it confidentially into fiat or sorry not into fiat into stable coins and I can make the payroll Right. This is uh this is one of the uh one of the things that uh we are seeing

that is happening but also many people are just entering getting their positions uh confidentially just because they don't want to be copy traded uh or you know some some other things and uh and that's uh that's a really really good thing like I feel this refreshing breeze of the privacy uh that is coming uh down my face and uh This is an amazing thing to film. >> Yeah. And it opens up all these new use cases. You mentioned payroll, which is, you know, a primary one because I we have this thesis on on the rollup, which is that a dollar onchain tends to stay onchain. And so if people are earning their money, their paychecks, their salaries through payroll, and payroll is

done onchain, well, first it has to be confidential. And and and the confidentiality unlocks the use case of payroll onchain. And so people earning their their salaries on chain tends to stay on chain, ends up in DeFi protocols, so on and so forth and and powers the onchain economy. So it's a very powerful use case. Uh and it's very cool to see near confidential intents supporting this, powering this. Um you know, this is just one of the use cases. Um you know, you guys helped unlock the Zcash ecosystem. We were talking about this a little bit earlier. Um all of this has driven volume and activity up to, you know, my notes say 22 billion plus. I just checked the dashboard. You guys are at 23 billion plus. So, you know, more and more every single day. In

your perspective, given that you've got, you know, this very wide vantage point on everything that's happening on Near Intense, what have what according to to you and your perspective, what have been the biggest drivers? Why do you think, you know, what have been the biggest drivers to get near intense to 23 billion up until now? And then also if you're looking forward you know you've got an understanding of the road map and also you know some of the variables in the market. What do you think will be the biggest drivers going forward to ultimately propel this to 30 4050 billion dollars of volume? >> Yeah that's a great question. So um I think the the biggest uh the biggest drivers was just the relentless delivery of the of the product and as well as the growth functions uh that we had. Uh in

the beginning uh it was very very hard to to sell to somebody a new protocol that is developed that is untested and is not very very clear uh to the other person why would they choose us in comparison with Thor Chain. Um and uh uh yeah but step by step bit by bit there were uh there were like more we have been building more and more trust uh and then it became easier and easier. Uh definitely probably the biggest impact was Zcash and we've integrated Zcash uh more than one and a half years ago into the protocol. So it it was not integrated just because of the privacy hype and the the spike of the activity

uh connected with the Zcash uh but rather it was just the the internal alignment of the teams the beliefs uh of the in the ecosystem and that's it right it just happened to happen that Zcash became more interesting to everybody around this could have happened with any of the more than 35 chains that are supported by the near intense. Our idea is to just help everybody and create the actual network effect in between the blockchains rather than uh you know being in this constant PVP battle um in between the ecosystems. Now if I would take a look u forward I think that the most important thing for the growth uh

is uh is adoption by the businesses and or organizations and there are different scales of these businesses. So um uh and there are types of these businesses. There are like small offices that are that are taking care of managing crypto on different chains in a in the self-custody multi setups. Uh they are deserving a better solution. A solution where all of this stuff is is available in a single interface in a confidential mode with ability to execute financial transactions directly not leaving uh this confidential mode. for a bigger clients um uh for a bigger organizations that are cryptonative uh things that

they want uh they want to have uh a better tooling to operate and many of them are operating right now on decentralized tooling. However, um projects like Hyperlid are opening up uh their eyes that actually decentralized solutions can be uh pretty competitive with the centralized ones and can deliver uh great features. So we need to cater to these to these kind of more institutional clients if you will. And then the last step would be obviously getting outside of crypto uh crypto adopters uh into the traditional finance and showing to them the values of the blockchain and ability to move money

freely across borders extremely fast. That's the that's the thing. So stepping into the payments territory uh enabling agentic markets and making sure that the agents are able to communicate and transact value. Uh this is the the kind of yet another frontier here these uh three directions or these three pieces of the different types of organizations. Um I think that this is the most important for >> Yeah. Absolutely. I mean this is this is where I think you guys have you know started to drive a lot more market share and started to generate a lot more interest.

I remember going to uh uh an event uh powered by Near in Miami and you know there was Grayscale there Bitwise was there so kind of getting more on the asset issuance institutional side of things. Um, I was just looking at this article uh this morning in the Wall Street Journal said JP Morgan, Black Rockck, and Goldman to tokenize stocks and treasuries. Um, you know, this could initially happen on some sort of, you know DTCC you know, maybe private ledger of sorts. Um, but they plan to to convert a batch of shares and treasuries into digital tokens. Uh, I'd imagine that once they tokenize these, uh, you know, capital wants to be free, right? and Near

Intense does a great job of allowing it to reach, you know, the the peripheral, the depth of the onchain ecosystem. And so I think once these things are tokenized, they're going to be looking for places to go. And I think near intense can help them get there. You make a, you know, a great point around the institutionalization of the space and how, you know, the the near intense protocol is a piece of infrastructure that can underpin this adoption. Uh and then you also mentioned you know the agentic economy which we know is going to be a driver of so many more transactions and people have been calling for this you know for for a long long time. In the chat here we have someone uh travel wings that said that they're on their way to a donor shop to

sell blood for for buying more near. Obviously, as more of this activity happens, you know, there's going to be more revenue, more fees generated. Uh, and we have more people that are asking about, you know, near being supply capped, right? Effectively like a max supply of near. Um is there anything any insight that you have on you know what we can expect from you know like as more fees are generated these fees go to near and then you know we end up you know stopping the inflation maybe making near deflationary you know we'll we'll kind of get back on track to our confidential intents conversation but as we look at the size of this industry you know the amount of volume that's been generated

up until now and the amount of fees that we anticipate will be generated over time. You know, people like to put this these puzzle pieces together around, you know, what the economics look like for near the token when it comes to the max supply side. Is there any anything that any insight that you can give us? >> Yeah. Um, so at the moment near token economy is inflationary and the inflation is 2 and a half% per year. Um, uh, there are quite a lot of discussion that is happening inside of the ecosystem. This was reduced from 5%. But there are continued discussions around whether the inflation is the good economical instrument in order to motivate the the validators um to to

have kind of to provide the security to the decentralized network and um and there are quite a lot of voices that are saying that actually no because uh they are getting near tokens while instead they are spending US dollars to pay for uh for their servers and for maintenance and salaries and like all of that stuff. So, so this this is a disproportionate thing and when everything is good then yeah they are getting outsized returns but when everything is bad um then then everything is bad. So, so like this is this is a strange strange strange dynamics and uh uh yeah, so there are there are talks of that maybe instead of using inflation as an instrument here,

maybe it's better to turn it off and have a different types of instrument in order to pay for the uh for the security uh of the protocol. Uh however, to my best knowledge at the moment, I cannot say that I'm highly involved in this. I'm building the universal liquidity layer while somebody else is taking care of the inflation questions. Um so this is economics uh uh but the discussions are happening and to my best knowledge they are not yet finalized. Uh but definitely there is a motion towards uh changing this. Very cool. And you know as the universal liquidity engine builder you have a uh you play a you know very important role in generating you know revenue for the company that uh you know ultimately is

represented here. So m makes a ton of sense. Appreciate the uh the little tangent into uh something our community was very very curious about. Um, you know, another thing that we're seeing is this three-headed dragon, right? So, we've been talking about Zcash, we've been talking about Hyperlquin, we've been talking about Near. Uh, and privacy is fundamental to the thesis that people are thinking about, uh, in the market right now. We've been talking about AI. You know, Near has a whole AI, you know, department as well, and that's a very important piece to this. We talked about the agentic economy a little bit, but privacy and confidentiality uh is also another another head on this dragon. Uh A16Z called this the most important moat

in crypto this year. I'm curious why and we talked a little bit about this when it as it pertains to like you know payroll and these sorts of things but privacy seems much much bigger than this right which is kind of similar as to why Zcash is you know get garnering a lot of attention you know near is sort of um you know if if Zcash is the bitcoin you know near is sort of like the you know the unlocking of this entire ecosystem uh when it comes to actually using and the utility of confidential assets. So maybe you can just unpack a little bit more about why confidentiality is so important to compound into a durable advantage. You know, what do you have to say here and how do you see privacy

compounding in these use cases? >> Yeah. So I think that the history here is is going like this. um in 2009 and or 2008 uh Satoshi has been working on a on this new version of money that is not centrally uh that is not a monopoly of the government. Um and uh up at that moment in time if he uh would be able to design a system that preserves privacy then there is no point in not doing it because cash uh is private and then the majority of the of the transactions are happening with cash especially some kind of shady transactions right and uh uh

yeah so so this thing is yeah is there there is privacy and Then if you are using banking system you also have banking privacy. So but there were no instruments in order to to deliver the idea of the decentralized money um in a form of a private solution. So it was not the the the public the the public nature of blockchains uh it was not the goal. It has never been the goal. uh uh it was just a necessity. It it is like an outcome of the current state of the technology back then. Now uh we are

getting ZK solutions and also trusted execution environments that are marching forward. Uh they are uh becoming at a at a progressively better shape and at this moment in time with trusted execution environments you're able to deliver many many different things. ZK's are fundamentally have a different perspective on the um on on the threat on the threat levels kind of uh and um uh and they are uh they are much harder to work with uh especially for more complicated primitives um that includes different defy primitives. So uh so yeah the privacy now is coming back to the attention. Uh yeah so so now the

governments uh and regulators in the beginning they have been fearing uh blockchain as as an alternative version of money uh because they are not able to shut it down. So they have been fearing it. A little bit later they started to understand that well actually there are some benefits of it and uh you are able to build better uh uh better uh systems when you're transferring value using uh the blockchain and uh a thing that helped them understand this were the stable coin providers. So you still can regulate something there and uh and but still the technology you can get the benefits of the technology especially

with the current US administration with the genius act uh it became uh much more apparent apparent right and uh but now also there is like another hurdle that okay there is a new type of a technology that is able to deliver the privacy and where you are actually able to make blockchain this new better version of money on par with the financial systems that you have had in place before. So why not to do this? There is an a straightforward path. You can imagine a let's call it Chevchenko act in the future where the US lawmakers are going to uh express and and legalize the

privacy and they would say that this type of privacy is okay and that type of privacy is not okay and there is some guidance of how how this thing should be happening. So in that case if you're going to have genius compliance stable coin under chefchenko act uh you are suddenly are able to get a better version of money that is delivering all of the promises of the traditional financial system. So maybe that's the reason why A6Z is thinking that privacy is important here. But yeah, internally very deep inside myself, I'm just thinking uh the privacy solutions are just bringing back normality to the blockchain.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean this is part of the thesis that was always present on chain. But you know with the institutionalization of a lot of these protocols, we've sort of navigated a little bit deeper into you know some trifi ethical you know design choices. Um it's good to see the pendulum swinging back into you know the original ethos of the industry and you know you mentioned how the genius act is something in the US where regulation is pushing forward. We have sort of the right kind of privacy wrong kind of privacy and you know there are ways to combine that with some of the regulatory uh pieces of legislature that are out there now in the US. Europe is taking a different approach. Micah and these

things are sort of reshuffling. you know, they kicked out Binance, right? There's sort of like European maybe stable coins, maybe central bank digital currencies still kind of to be determined. How are you viewing the regulatory environment in Europe? And how do you program in, you know, compliance where compliance is necessary, but maintain the confidentiality that keeps crypto true to itself and true to its principles? Yeah, I do believe that the current stance of the US is much more uh aligned with crypto values and it feels to me that the current administration embraced the values and the limitations

of the technology right while at while in Europe the regulators are trying to uh to kind of put the the crypto into the frame. framework of the traditional financial system which is uh impossible right so regulations that I uh that are instantiated in some of the countries uh like are so so strange and they are extremely uninforcable. So like like limiting of how much money people are able to custody by themselves like how much how much crypto they are able to custody by themselves like you are not able to this

is uninforcable uh uh and uh so I feel bad about these type of regulations when they are when they're coming uh out and uh that that is very very strange this is like I feel that uh that regulators just fearing that they they are losing control and uh uh the best thing to do here would be just to explain to them that the control plane is different that that you have been expecting and you have digital money right but then you also have cash you're not able to limit how much money a person how much cash person can hold right so the way how you're regulating

it is with some other instruments that is a very very similar thing to crypto right? You you regulate the issuance of cash. You regulate like how you're putting uh getting out cash out of the market, right? So things like that. So I feel that uh like particularly in Europe I feel that um uh that crypto with all of the lobbyist with all of the well all of the people around who are working with governments I feel that in Europe these people and us uh we are failing and uh I feel good about being able to meaningfully progress things in the US and this is great but yeah unfortunately

in Europe there is um we are currently at at failure mode. U this can change and I think that this will change eventually hopefully sooner than later. Uh but at the moment definitely it's a little bit more complicated. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's difficult um given that you know in the US we have administration that changes every four years. In Europe you know they they've taken an approach to you know applying the rules that they've always tried to apply. But you're right, crypto is something fundamentally different. Uh to try to apply that to rules that have always been here is effectively impossible. Uh and for some reason, you know, these these regulators are just too close-minded to create some new regulatory framework that would, you

know, regulate these things more appropriately. Uh which I think, you know, there are some libertarian maximalists that might not want any sort of regulation at all. But you know, you being in the space, we've seen, you know, the scams, we've seen the rugps, we've seen these things, we ultimately do want some sort of, you know, control over, you know, illicit activity. Uh, but, you know, given that this is a a technological leap and bound above anything that the regulators have seen before, it takes some customization. Um, and that customization applies, you know, all the way deep down the stack.

It applies to, you know, the financial components. It applies to the governance components. It applies to the technology itself. And so, you know, I I'd be curious to to understand a little bit deeper about, you know, how you've designed the protocol at a technical level, right? Because there's a bunch of different private approaches to how you could design privacy applications out there, right? There's, you know, encryption, there's ZK proofs, you know, there's some of these different trade-offs. you know what does the the privacy preserving mechanism of confident confidential intents how does it work what does it look like does it include ZK you know does it not how did you think through what options were out there what options are out there maybe who did you borrow technical ideas from

and and ultimately how did you make the decision on what you ultimately came to to implement into the protocol >> yeah um thanks for the question um so uh uh I'm very aligned with the idea that uh uh the privacy and freedom is not impunity and uh the freedom and privacy of a single person ends where the freedom and privacy of the another person starts. um you're free to have a gun uh in the US, but when you're starting to kill people, then you're becoming not free. And uh uh and and and and from my point of view uh the way how the protocols are designed and the protocol builders should design the

protocols that are uh securing people and securing legit users and trying to make sure that the that the proper like the the good users are not going to be fooled and not going to be scammed by others. which means that the protocols need to think about preventing the attacks, preventing uh specifically black liquidity going inside of it. Uh this is just my deep belief, right? This is not aligned with the crypto anarchists. Uh this is not aligned with uh um you know with maybe like some some some more right-wing crypto people, I would say. Uh but I do believe that this is

for good. I don't want uh near intense to be used to fund terrorism. I don't want neurintense to be used for laundering money and neurintense is the worst place in the world uh that uh these people who are willing to execute this these use cases. Uh so neurotence is the worst place in the world for them to try it out. H and in order to do this uh we have lots of compliance student that is attached to it. Nobody was forcing us to do this but we decided to do this in order to protect legit users who are inside. The same principle was behind the designing of the confidential neur intents. So we thought that that the end to end encrypted uh systems with

ZK where you are unable to prove anything and you are unable to execute many things uh these systems are going to be very hard uh to use in the long run because of two reasons. First one is that the person would not be able to prove uh independently to uh to for example auditors or to any centralized parties that they are interacting with uh things like origin of funds and stuff like that. We see that the crypto is moving forward and more beginning to be intertwined with traditional finance. So there are more crypto to fiat interactions and that's why there are more and more questions uh about the origin of funds and stuff like that.

This is natural for the kind of trify ecosystem. So we would like to make sure that such uh such audit proofs are able to be generated by by people by legit users who are using this. So this is one thing and second thing uh independently of how good our compliance student is uh uh there might be cases and hopefully there will not be such cases but uh there might be cases where still bad actors are going to try to use the the privacy tools in order to conceal uh uh the path of their black liquidity. And uh we would like in these cases to be able to issue an independent uh by the

by the compliance council uh which is a multisig uh the viewing keys to the uh to these bad actors account. Now uh we understand that this needs to be properly disclosed. So the plan right now is to um to put down the information about all of the issued viewing keys on chain so that people are able to verify at any given point in time whether whether their account was uh was getting and this viewing key. But this also gives an opportunity for law enforcement agencies uh that are working on investigations uh to be able to access this information. Now obviously this is a still decentralized system and uh the

compliance council is not a a single person who is making a decision here. Uh our job is to help law enforcement to get connected with the compliance council and then they are they're going to all of the councils are going to make their individual decentralized decision uh uh on the particular issues of the key. So I would expect that for example if um if FBI is going to come and say that like this particular account has been laundering money or like has been funding terrorism we would like to know where he where this account was funded then this uh this request will be uh will be validated and everything will be okay. But if the North Korean government is gonna tell is going to come and tell

that all of the users of neur intents are the illegal guys. So you need to open up all of the information here then probably compliance council would not be okay with this setup right and I think that this is kind of like a logical uh thing to have. Um yeah so uh that's the approach we call this a practical uh privacy and uh the idea here are the idea here is coming from this same very similar systems u that have been in use for many many years and this is just a traditional banking sector um uh there is a a banking privacy rule right so that's great this is exactly what is

executed it's just a random person is not able to see how much money you have uh But if there is a law enforcement who is looking into this stuff well yeah there are some suspect suspicions or something then yeah that's that's kind of it happens from time to time and and and that's okay and nobody's freaking out because of this uh that's okay. Usually people who are freaking out are the people who are doing some scams or some illegal activities. So this is by the way not my quote. This is something that Elon Musk said from his team times.

>> I remember I remember he said, you know, he he said the same thing about the politicians that are screaming, "No, there's no fraud, there's no waste, there's no corruption." Usually the people that are saying, you know, there's no corruption are the ones that are corrupt. I remember Elon talking about that as well. And so what you're saying is that there's a council that is able to validate the requests from law enforcement. And even if you say, you know, there is a viable valid request from law enforcement, the council would approve the issuance of a viewing key, but the viewing key >> able to see the the transaction history.

>> Uhhuh. But not the transaction history of everything in near intent just of the one account. >> No, the and even it it is more granular than that. It can be limited in time. it can be limited in in particular assets and stuff like that. >> Got it. Yep. I I mean I look I think this is practical. Um you know there are like you said there's you know uh libertarian maximalist you know cipher punks out there that might be claiming things but the the point is that this is not a mixer right this is not tornado cash. This is like you know practical privacy as you had talked about right

like the the these are some of the the um design choices that are important to make to be practical in the eyes of both you know normal everyday privacy preserving consumers and as well you know integrations with institutions that are looking to use this on largecale enterprisegrade software. Um, and I think you answered my next question actually very well already. Um, I'll I'll kind of ask it anyway if there's anything else to fill in, but you know, balancing the two. How do you balance right everyday privacy preserving consumers with you know integrations with enterprises like do you have and I take it the the idea is that no you

don't need some you know separate instance that has some extra compliance features in order to make sure that right because institutions don't want to mix funds they don't want to mix funds with potential criminals that is something that institutions have made extremely clear but what you're saying is that you don't need separate systems You don't need to fragment liquidity. You don't need to do these things. You can have this council that preserves privacy in a very practical way and is able to validate requests from law enforcement. Everything stays as one, but you're able to make this one protocol compliant.

>> Yeah. So, privacy-wise, definitely that's that's kind of the same thing. The thing that institutions are more um freaking out about is the quantities that they're trading with and uh taking into account the design of the protocol. Uh the people are trading with market makers the same way how traditional markets are working you know centralized exchanges um and uh you know like like propms and stuff like that. So um you uh the important thing for them is there is a KYC or KYB counterparty on the other end and uh and within this this KYC or KYB there is also a check of the of the

origin of the funds. So and then once this is happening then they're absolutely okay. So this is something that needs to be handled on the level of the protocol within the uh within the matching algorithm and at the moment in time when when an institution is coming in and says we would like to work only with these set of partners uh that might be just KYB uh maybe out of this particular list that we are trusted uh we are trust we are trusting uh then the protocol just behaves correctly so that it is not matched against um a non liquidity And now a very very small comment uh on the uh you know to close the loop on the on

the architecture of the confidential intents. Uh I do believe that you said a very important piece there that this is a design choice. Nobody is telling us uh you know how to build what is what what is good and what is not right. uh the important thing that I would like to just to mention is that uh near intense uh and the confidential intense is not better than tornado it is not better than than zcash uh it is it is just different it's just different uh different design principles that are inside and they are um uh they are delivering like there are different products that are delivered here right with Zcash uh you have this sense that

uh independently of anything, nobody is ever able to uh to see your transaction history, right? And then uh this is like protection from state level attacks, right? So all of the countries in the world are trying to attack and trying to uncover your privacy, they are not able to do this. Um, and this is like one if especially if you if you died because if you're if you didn't die, then probably they will find some kind of way um how to do it.

Um, but like if you die, if you're if you're dead, then like impossible, unclear. Uh, this uh this is this is like a uh like a fully up to up to the end uh uh kind of play on the privacy. Um do we need to go there? Do we want to have the same type of risks uh that are associated with this? Um uh will there be any scrutiny from the governments when they are going to understand that like it's like the Zcash is such a powerful instrument? Uh are we going to see a very similar adoption curve of of Zcash's privacy? Uh uh I don't know. Uh but let's see. This is just a different

design choice and I admire people and Zcash a lot on what what they are building. Uh but this is just a different take. It it it brings different set of risks. It brings um interesting challenges like like with the ironwood the recent ironwood update right and uh yeah that's u uh yeah it's I don't think that one is a substitute for the other. M >> I do believe that these technologies are actually working together absolutely the same way how there is a difference in between your money in a bank account, your money in a safe deposit box, your money in a safe that is in your house

and the money that is in the counter in your kitchen. So these are just different things and what people are doing they are just managing the risks and the convenience of all of these tools and they are using these things the way in order to in order to have like a diversified portfolio and they are balancing privacy usability and all of these different things. So there is no silver bullet here but having multiple types of solutions and multiple types of system is actually enriching uh the possibilities for everyone in crypto.

>> Yeah. It's like um you know that people and money is a tool and you want different kinds of tools, right? Like I don't want to take a hammer and try to you know screw in a a nail or screw in a a screw like I would use a screwdriver for a screw. I would use a hammer for a nail, you know, and so I would use cash for the more convenient, less, you know, private elements for, you know, my bank in a vault sort of thing. I would use, you know, a different type of money, a different tool. So, you would, you know, use tool money purpose fit. Uh, so it makes a ton of sense what you're saying.

I just want to I just want to understand maybe the the one minute, you know, take from you on on Zcash. It sounds like you're bullish. Do I I want to understand do do you have some Zcash? like what is the bold bare case in Alex Chevchenko's mind for Zcash as an asset? >> I'm the holder of Zcash. I'm holding Zcash in the confidential intents so that nobody knows um it but it is a little bit more convenient me to have it inside there because with Zcash I need to wait for the synchronization with the network and usually it takes a little bit more time. So I actually have a hedge to set up. I have some amount of Zcash on the hardware wallet but some amount in the in the confidential

neurons intense. Um uh yeah I'm using keystone and uh oh boy the feedback to the keystone guys please do something so that the uh so that the the device is not dying so quick. um you need to fix the battery like really um my uh my case for for Zcash I do believe that um uh it is going to it is going to appreciate more this is not financial advice and this is like nothing connected with near this is like my personal feeling uh internal uh uh I think that it is going to appreciate more in value uh especially with the next bull market that is going to happen I don't think

that it is going to go to $10,000. Uh but there is a there is a high chance that it is going to break multiple thousands of US dollars. Uh like it's it's pretty straightforward. Uh I do believe though uh for Zcash it is extremely important to work with regulators uh and make sure that the technology is adopted the similar way how the stable coins were adopted through the Genius Act. And I know that Zcash TM is putting uh quite a lot of uh effort into this. Um and uh that is one of the core reasons why I'm bullish on Zcash.

>> Yeah, pretty pretty cool. Pretty incredible. Um I don't know, maybe $10,000 uh is FUD, but uh multiple thousands of dollars is very very cool to see. And uh yeah, I share I share your uh your bull thesis. Um, Alex man >> Alex guaranteed. >> Don't do this, you know. >> I'm not I'm not going to I'm not going to ask your uh your bull thesis on near, you know, we mentioned uh we we already know you're bullish. >> Simple. Yeah, this is very simple. Like I'm I'm ext like at this point when I'm already sharing any numbers, this is Yeah, but like the ticker is near. It does always get it always has been uh and uh yeah it's uh 14237 very easy uh

go there or at least in that direction uh for me >> wait 14237 what is what is that? Yeah, you never heard. Yeah, it's the the masterminds, the reptiloids and the massons and all of the flatearthers, they were on a convention together and they figured out that here is going to go to $142.37. So, I'm waiting. >> Here is going to $142.37 >> called by the flatearthers and the reptilian overlords. Yeah.

>> Oh my goodness. We're going >> Masons. >> And the Masons and of course the Masonries. Wow. We're going to our team is going to clip this and the community is going to run wild. >> We can we can do the contest of of the best t-shirt on token 2049 that is connected with this >> near to if Near hits 14237. I'm driving in the Singapore Grand Prix token 2049 2026. Um, oh my goodness, that's incredible.

Uh, okay. Last but certainly not least, Alex, I think our team has the song ready. The song that you brought to our attention from the Zcash community. It's called Big City Rollup. It seems like someone from the near community. >> Yeah, this guy. There is this guy Cooper and then uh around Nearcon where in San Francisco uh one of the teams from the community has built this nearfm website for the for the AI generated songs. There are quite a lot of uh hidden gems there. Uh but we also have this guy Cooper uh very active from the community. Um uh he's from the US as far as I understand. Uh and he's vouching

for New York. He's posting lots of bullish thesis. Today I woke up and saw another message, another like post from him. And then I I commented something like, uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna put your put your name and your avatar on a t-shirt and I will always wear it when I feel down, but nobody will see me in this t-shirt because because you always, you know, kind of like giving me lots of energy, so I'm not feeling down. >> You're not down. >> Yeah. So something like that. But the person but but Cooper is hilarious. Uh there are lots of internal memes about him about how how bullish he is. Um so I'm not going to share this. Uh but he

produced several great songs. Uh the songs the song about bitwise the dragonfly and especially big city rollup. Uh that's this is one of my favorite songs on the near FM. Everybody go check out near.fm. You will find uh some cool things there. >> Guys go check out near.fm. Let's play. I think we have the song ready. Let's go ahead and and see if we can get a clip of this song. >> Yeah. >> Roll up co in the building.

>> Andy Robbie Manhattan. Let's get it. Yeah. I'm out. Gator boys with vision. Bitcoin club at UF. Freshman on a mission. Started defy slate grinding through the winter bare market couldn't break them now it only made them sicker pivoted the roll up the thesis early modul the future while the rest was getting blurry two kids from Florida with a mic in the conviction now they face to face with leaders that ain't science fiction studio was anywhere laptop in the dream late nights early mornings building out the stream episodes on episodes the catalog is deep west they move to market conversations that you keep they don't sleep they don't stop they don't stop they don't fold every cycle every chapter. Watch the story unfold. From the dorm room to

the big room, bet it all on the content. Now the city's calling Andy Robbie, you're the moment your finest dreams are made of. Now they're in New York. These will make the change. Big will inspire you. Roll up. New York. New York. Yeah, catch them at the Javvis stage, no debate. Roller co official planting flags in the Empire State. Manhattan office corner desk skyline out the window. Building out the network like a protocol. Let it grow. They covered every L1, every bridge, every chamber. Peep how they talk near man. They saw it on the plane

in the agent stack. Privacy in the code 67 chains connected zero slip page on the road. Smart enough to see it real enough to speaking near protocol. The future in the roll up didn't sleep on Andy breaking down a thesis. Robbie pulling up the guest. When it comes to Neo Finest, yeah, they simply are the best hustlers in the truest sense. They built it brick by brick twice a week. They dropping gems. The quality is sick. From the bed to the bull, they never missed a beat. Now they running Manhattan. Put that city at their feet. In New York finance dreams are made up. There's nothing they can do.

Now they're in New York. These guys will make the chain. Big guess will inspire you. Let's hear it for the roll up. New York New York. One hand in the air for the podcast. King Street lights big dreams in the future that they bring. No place in the world got a show that compares. Put your lighters in the air. Everybody say yeah. Come on. Yeah. Come on.

Yeah, >> 8 million stories in a city. There two more two founders who refuse to ever settle for the floor. They interview to build the CEOs and protocol leads turn a 30 minute episode of everything you >> man that was a banger. I think I think we're going to bring that into our new our intro and like that's going to be our new theme song. Alex, >> get it. Get it. Get it. >> Shout out to the near community. >> Yeah, there are there are lots of great songs. There are many songs that are that are about Zcash. There are there are some AI agents who are writing the songs and there yeah there is an AI agent that is called AI rock lover or something like that. Um uh there is a a bunch of the songs about Litecoin and

their hack. Um >> Oh yeah, >> you are able to also create their challenges for people to create whatever song and agents or whatever song that you would like to have. And um yeah, I mean this is uh we have been talking with at some point in time with the marketing department and uh uh kind of the conclusion is that this is a new form of creativity that you're able to do with the AI tools here and uh yeah just yeah recommending everyone >> it's incredible Alex man we uh I could stay here I could jam we could we could write some new AI music but we uh we're going to prepare for our next guest. Uh, thank you so much for joining. This has

been AI Supercycle episode 42 and uh, it was a pleasure as always. Alex, thanks so much for coming on. >> Yeah, thanks everyone. Check out confidential danceyear.com and see you in a couple of weeks after the next five billion. >> You got it. You know it, Alex. We'll see you then. Take care, buddy. See you next time.