The crypto playbook no one is talking about with Santiago Santos

Transcript

DM good morning welcome to the milroad show The Daily crypto show where we bring crypto updates with the same energy as someone refusing to leave a casino at 4: a.m. I'm your host Jay Hamilton it's Friday March the 14th and all week we've been asking one question are we in a bull market or are we in a bare market now as you can see throughout the week from the previous episodes there's really no consensus right now but one thing is very clear everyone believes that we are long-term bullish one year from now we will be higher than we are today so when we step back and look at the bigger picture what is really looming large over crypto is where is the adoption coming from if we're going to get to where we want to go we need to bring more users into

crypto and really so far this cycle we have not brought many new users sure Trump mcoin brought a lot of new users but they didn't really stick around and let's be real meme coins aren't the greatest onboarding ramp for crypto because a lot of people get wrecked and then they rage quit and they never come back because the trauma is real so how the heck are we going to get one billion people on chain well that's what today's episode is all about solving crypto's biggest problem adoption in order to take us through this we have Santi Santos joining us prominent investor entrepreneur in Tech and crypto he's been in crypto since the early days 2013 working for multiple large investment funds most recently he launched inverson which is aiming to be like the onchain

version of Warren Buffett's birk Hathaway we'll talk all about that now before we jump in guys if you're really struggling with where the market is at right now you want to check out our pro pro report coming out this Saturday it comes out tomorrow if you're not a pro member Go Pro sign up and you're gonna want to read it because it really lays out exactly where we think the market is headed in the short term the long term and how you should allocate your capital and what tokens we are buying or selling right now all in that report so check that out today's episode is brought to you by definitive Advanced Training trading on every chain it's also brought You by coin shift powering top crypto treasuries with their yield bearing stable coin CS usdl without further Ado Santi welcome to milk Road show thank you thanks for

having me appreciate it yeah man really good to have you second you're back again you were here a year ago uh I think with Kyle hosting that time so it's good good to good to jam out with you okay first question same question we're asking everybody this week are we in a bull market or a bar market look I'm not a market wizard I don't pretend to time markets I don't and I've never met someone that can systematically time markets um you know that being said uh there's a lot of things to be excited about when you think about all the major roadblocks it that have hindered The Innovation the adoption of crypto all of them have gone away largely since November there's one problem that we'll talk about of of adoption the regulatory Clarity you know we have now what is it sa 122 like we're

banks in custody at crypto assets we have the first crypto Summit that happened last Friday um we have a president there is very much Pro crypto um and has tasked David Sachs who was an early investor in crypto through a couple of funds is a technologist at heart spearheading the effort and you have all the major SEC cases against most crypto companies dropped most importantly we likely will have stable coin reg regulation later this year which I believe is the primary onboarding mechanism in a crypto and so am I bullish absolutely am bullish now the question is we're not going to have anyone else to blame this cycle or any other cycle of why we haven't onboarded a billion users so there's there's the

fund starts now there's a lot we need to do but there's an open Runway and someone will capitalize on that and honestly I saw that last year and I've been thinking about obsessing about this problem of why haven't we onboarded more users why haven't we gotten more you know 100x the demand for stable coins and there's some really good proof points like you have highr blockchains I couldn't tell you that four years ago we have um deepen protocols that are you know offering an essential service like mobile it doesn't feel and look like crypto youp helium Uplink there there's a number andrina like there's all these different protocols that have really like never LED with this is a crypto

product it's just we're just going to offer you a product that pound-for-pound is really good so to round it out I do think that macro weighs on crypto right if I'm going to flip bearish reasons why I'm I'm cautious okay well you have traditional markets go down and crypto's always been very correlated with traditional markets it is a risk asset so I'm long V I think markets will continue to be very choppy you know you got to remember you have a new president people are in wait and see mode they're discounting a lot of what he says rightfully so you know that's that's even going into the election that's just the nature of financial markets but I think the first 100 days have always been if you look at every major like transition period you went from a very different Administration to a new one

the Market's just look going to wait and see you know you have 100 days I think the first 100 days really set the tone for whatever happens in the next four years so you have all the different trades Wars and tariffs and geopolitical tension and it's just a different like there's tectonic shifts like moving so I think the Marcus is cautious and we've had phenomenal two and a half years of like Nvidia and the Magnificent 7 ripping so you know I think valuations are not cheap by any stretch of the imagination we're 6% away from the NASDAQ being embarassed territory that weighs on crypto for sure I mean I'm not here to tell you that crypto is an uncorrelated asset class never has never likely will uh you know and it's always the meme at the end of the cycle where people say it was just really all just

one trade and I tweeted about this which is it's all just Global M2 like Global money supply and you know crypto Bitcoin prices track that very closely right and so not a perfect answer uh but I will hopefully that offers some commentaries to I'm thinking about it I'm cautious in the near term for a number of reasons don't use leverage simple as that never because if if V will continue to persist which I think it will like if you're if you're using leverage taking time bumb let's talk about um the adoption problem that we have in crypto what why do we have an adoption problem we have stable coins they're amazing why aren't they being adopted faster excellent question when you go to

Vegas do you take your life savings I no I don't and I hope no one does so we shouldn't expect anyone to do that right and and so exchanges are this is not a ding on exchanges they serve a purpose the problem is the type of user that chose up and registers for an exchange is very much in the mindset of speculating on a particular asset they've heard someone in their Network did well in crypto or the Trump presidential coin they quickly register create an account and speculate I don't have no problem with speculation the problem is why hasn't stable coin demand increased dramatically in the US I get it people don't feel the need because

you know it's like you always go talk to people about Defi and and they're like listen man my Robin Hood Veno account works perfectly fine I don't know what you're cooking or smoking but just like relax for a minute and I get it but you go to other places like Mexico or Brazil or Argentina Argentina is a kind of an outlier that it has a lot of demand for stable coins more so than other places but Mexico in example you know has one of the lowest penetration rates of crypto like 15% of the population is touch crypto which is you know a lot but I grew up in Mexico the question is like why isn't that 80% like people can't hold dollars in a bank account today they could if they bought usdc and they could have access to yield in dollars people want to save in

dollars and the simple reason is that the only mechanism to do so today is going through an exchange and the local shopkeeper you're it's it's a very difficult value proposition right and it's the activation of that user is not going to happen until we until we go about in a different way and and exchanges will be important they will continue to be a prime you know serve a purpose but that's not how we get 100 million users 200 million five a billion users on chain it's just not going to happen if you're only trading on centralized exchanges then you're not going to make it the best Traders know the alpha is on chain definitive founded by coinbase alums let you trade any token on salana Bas or any chain all in one platform what makes definitive

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companies and and and looking at my portfolio I asked the same question the companies that failed I'm like why did you fail and they're like ultimately there weren't any users here and and then I you know as you know I run a podcast called Empire and I've been sitting on a chair trying to convince people and evangelize crypto I don't want to sell you anything I just want to evangelize the technology because everyone that comes into crypto one point opens the door and sees the future and I believe that every business will use crypto in some way shape or form and crypto like the best technology should be invisible but it's felt but invisible and so it's a bit of like couple of things clicking the timing I think is correct so how do we do it very simple I buy a business where I think I

can very much streamline that business by taking acquiring the business so I don't have to convince management or the CEO that crypto is the best thing ever I'll just take over his job I'll pay him a a pretty penny I'll take over like this is private Equity right you buy business and then I'll run this transformation and the transformation is really twofold one is I've really obsessed since I left Pari four years ago it's like how can we take a traditional business and make it more efficient with crypto rails and there's a couple of not every business right now over time you could do it in many different types of Industries but right now there's a couple that I feel really excited about the one is telecom and the Playbook is you know you you know you do something

like helium has done in the US in a similar way you do it in a place Mexico and you acquire a business that has a very large user base and once you become the their mobile provider you live with that customer 24/7 there is no better platform business to activate a user to come on chain why because ad minimum you take the business a mobile service provider you streamline that business on the back end by cutting cost with deepen and I don't want to go into that just yet because we're limited on time but and then after that that user is constantly you know topping up data because they're prepaid right you as a subscriber of your data plan you never check it right because you put your credit card you're

done that's not the case in places like Mexico where people are constantly buying in small increments data plans that's more connectivity to upsell them to say hey convert your local currency onr into what is called you know digital dollars and that's how you get you know the first 25 million users and the first acquisition we make and then we go and do what again and again and again and we become the largest mobile and fintech provider in Latin America and then maybe the world so like the core thesis that I have is again we are at a point where this technology is very robust meaning High through blockchains we have enough proof points to run this transformation in businesses all we need

is to acquire a business and run this transformation and Playbook and that's how you do it because you never lead with crypto that user never understands that I'm using deep in on the back endend to make that service maybe even cheaper but more importantly they're using a service that is so essential that that user doesn't care Bitcoins at 100,000 or 30,000 they're still going to consume this service and once they do that I become their bank because when money is digital truly digital you your mobile provider will also be your bank like there's no real reason why you shouldn't be do be able to do that is that is that the the everything app that's everything 100% so I draw a lot of

inspiration from a couple companies the one that I really have drawn a lot of inspiration from is tensent tensent started as a social messaging application WeChat and then they've layered everything why because it's an attention game once you capture the attention of users you should be doing more to to upsell to capture more attention and and I think there's no better more compelling value proposition than your mobile provider becoming your bank that's it so got a few questions here and a couple things to unpack let's talk first about deepin for a second if wh why is helium not bigger this is what I can't I and I'm I'm

asking like myself this question you know what I mean like well helium the network or helium the mobile provider because there's two things right there's the helium the network of hotspots I'm thinking the mobile provider not the network exactly why because it's a customer acquisition game everyone in crypto is trying to build distribution it's hard expensive and timec consuming I never want to build distribution I want to acquire it at the best price possible what does helium have to do like every other mobile carrier it has to say UJ Hey listen I have this thing my mobile plan is better than AT&T come here I'll offer you an incentive so you're paying a pretty penny to acquire that user that user might not stick around and so you have to be well

capitalized so what are good examples of people that have done this well Ryan Reynolds has a good brand name he's an actor he said oh I have a good brand I can sell this and he started selling what is you know what is it mint mobile he created his own literally mobile service provider that doesn't own any other infrastructure why because he can acquire customers very cheaply people love Ryan Reynolds you know the celebrity Playbook never fails yep coconut water but for mobile literally or Vitamin Water no seriously it's a customer acquisition game and so again I I've done private Equity before I think I'm not Ryan Reynolds but I can acquire a business of scale at a really interesting price because a lot of times people say why don't you go buy like Robin Hood or some fch app I'm like

fantastic businesses have a lot of users really expensive I don't want to so price drives a lot of the of the analysis here because you can find remarkable businesses with large distributions yeah go buy JP Morgan good luck cough up a trillion dollars you know but an M this particular business is so interesting because because it is a challenging business Mobile on a standalone basis is quite challenging they have less than 10% EB margins they have high churn the monetization of the user is not there so I use that to my advantage because I can acquire a large platform business at the really compelling price and then I'll run the transformation I'll cut cost 50% I'll upsell that user by becoming their

Bank yeah the the the the basics of the Playbook make a ton of sense it almost makes why are minimize I don't want to minimize the the it is a Herculean task and a lot of people ask hey why hasn't no one done like why isn't no one doing this I'll tell you it's already happening the dirty secret of Telecom is most of most cellular providers have a private network of hotspots in highly dense areas so if you're New York or Vancouver Montreal or Toronto La they'll have hotspots that they own and when you're there you're you're you know you're consuming data you're roaming the internet or whatever they'll

offload what they offload is they'll basically they're going to have to find that Spectrum from somewhere if you're consuming a gigabyte while you're you're watching a YouTube video you some they need a service you that they already have it they have they have a network of hotspots that they privately own and they don't tell you this but that's how they save a lot of money so when you're in a city like New York they'll push you to use their network of hotspots the pro the the the only distinction between helium and what these guys do is that helium is open network and they have a private network but the Playbook of like running this at scale and like driving down cost for a business that is hard to operate is very well very well understood by Telecom Executives and companies

interesting now of course I think I think when in my conversations with a lot of these deepen projects even people like coinbase you know it's like why is it that people are not using your coinbase based Pro Commerce product or why is it that you know uh people are not buying helium it's it's a pound-for-pound it's a you know good mobile plan it's hard to convince people to use your product not not just in crypto land just you know running look sales and marketing as you know the besttech doesn't always win we are at a point in this industry where the marginal difference between chain a and high through put chain B is very marginal the difference will be who can run the best BD mus to take us to the promised land which is

onboarding billion users and I think I and I think I can do a better job at doing that than any W in the space call me crazy I mean certainly I'm not I won't call you crazy not yet we'll see might call you crazy in the few in the future though uh but I mean it adds up a lot the the play makes a lot of sense to me I think um where I see the I see the Deep side I see that if you it makes a lot of sense if you buy an existing as you said like let's just let's not have to go get customers let's just buy customers and then let's use crypto rails to reduce cost stable coins make a lot of sense I mean let's be real I think I don't even

think you you shouldn't even have to convince businesses to use stable coins like if you are sending money across borders and you're not using stable coins you're you're crazy what are you doing right like it's so obvious now but still they're not all doing it okay why do you why do you say no the other point of this is why it's like the Richard fan like why why why you so if you look at like JP Morgan's like earnings reports you know how much money sat in a checking account over the last like five years where we've had high interest rates four four and a half years no tell me how much like hundreds of billions of dollars sat in a checking account earning 0% interest JP Morgan clipped all of that

and did not share it with them and you're saying you're sitting there you're like why wouldn't someone that has a deposited JP Morgan just click sweep to a money market account to earn 4 and a half% literally and the simple reason is people don't like to think about finances we it's not taught in school they don't have the sophistication it's a nervous topic and they never care to look at it and that you know at a at a very from first princip I never want to assume that I'm going to change a consumer Behavior never you lose your shirt if you think that so assuming that a consumer is going to ditch his Visa card or American Express card to pay with

stable coins is totally unrealistic it's tempting to believe that because you know you can offer them some incentive and yeah it's I'm not we're not there yet as an industry but that's a simple reason right you know you're right people should be using stable coins for money transfers but they don't they still use Western Union cuz it's a household brand name and maybe they don't even know that they're being charged 4 and a half% so is what is what happens here then that Western Union and Robin Hood and all these platforms that do have the user base and are they they're just going to start to use crypto rails which are open source and we just built this great open source rail for them that they get to use and and they they win long term like is that

where this is all going again my thesis is that every business will use crypto rails in one way shape or form to cut down costs now the question is how much of that cost savings are they going to share back to the consumer that's a that's a more interesting question if you look at the remittance rates that these operators charge PayPal Zoom I think zoom's on by uh you have transfer wise Western Union and a couple other players so I've like if you study like the percentage that they take their take rate so for every $100 that you send Mexico us or whatever that percentage has come down and has come down uh as of late more so than historically and a lot of the commentary from these analysts is like

they talk about crypto they talk about hey there's another solution slowly and but you know then all of a sudden consumers will start realizing this and they'll face that pressure and so what will happen you know these businesses like my when someone the other day asked me like why do you want to do inversions like could grew up in Mexico and I want to I want to make sure the Western Union does not exist I love that why because because because you know I mean like it's it's unacceptable that when you send $100 or when you go to the airport and they just shaft you with fees unsuspecting people hard work hard-earned money it shouldn't cost that there's a better way to do that and cost zero and and the reality is you know I

don't want to wait another 12 years for this to happen we can do it today and so you just wake up one day and said [ __ ] this I want to do it and I'm not to he sit in a chair try to convince someone I'm going to buy their business tell them to politely [ __ ] off and then run this Playbook myself and you know what why I'm doing it because I think hundreds and like quite literally a billion people will be able to realize a lot of this benefit now how do I make money I lower costs crypto is a technology that lowers costs fundamentally deep so many Technologies Bitcoin allows you to you know lower the defi in a nutshell lowers cost technology like technology The Arc of technology is always lowering costs yeah

and so but again the consumer is not sophisticated the nice thing about crypto and stable coins it's like programmable money and it's a term that I think is so powerful because money works for you and like you program money with some logic where the consumer just sets her preferences and money works for you you don't need a wealth advisor people have like Robo advisors I guess but that's that's the beauty of stable coins you know a stable coin is go back to the example of JP Morgan what does a stable coin do a stable coin by default earns you some yield and by the way new stable coins with yield bearing stable coins have been approved now as actually as a I think it was figure that got approved last week nonetheless usdc will pay you 4%

automatically then you single handedly imagine if all of those deposits in JP Morgan were not were in stable coins in usdc how many of those probably hundred or millions of users that are depositing money in JP Mor all of them would have earned 4 to 5% of The Last 5 Years you know how much economic impact that has huge like crazy yeah like so am I bullish crypto you damn right I am like it's an inevitable Force it's an inevitable train you just need to open that that small kind of opening for water to flow and once water starts flowing it's game

over and that's the that's the exciting thing here one of the one of the go ahead sorry well the last point is like you I mean like if I do this well what does success look like I'll take a business that is quite inefficient and everything has a 10% EA margin and I'll take it to 20 or more and every be like what did you did was it Ai No I was like it wasn't AI I mean I love AI I think it's cool I think it will drive some efficiency but I just did one thing and it's called crypto and it's called the settlement layer of the internet and we've been telling you for last six years but I'm now showing it to you very visibly there is unequivocally the email moment for this industry is when we tell people this is why it matters and we're

far far more than a casino but people are making a lot of money on the casino and that's fine you know if you're an exchange you're you know we're profiting off of that if you're a chain great there's a lot of fees and me and all this crap you know we can do so much better oh yeah 100% talk to me a bit about okay so we need we need the the pipeline to open up as you said we are in a different place now than we were four years ago probably you probably wouldn't have thought about inversion four years ago because we weren't in a place where we had the the tech the block space to go and do this so we're in that place now we can go do

this a lot of people talk about the impact that Trump is going to have that legislation is going to have what what is the impact of so at the crypto Summit he said that the he wants stable coin legislation like in a few months I feel like he said a ridiculous it was August right is it August okay it's very quick so what is going to be the impact of stable coin legislation that's the one thing I haven't yet wrapped my head around is what the impact is I think you're GNA have Clarity for a lot of businesses to either use use and probably issue their own stable coins yield bearing stable coins yeah it's explosive and then the second order

effects of the rest of the world and and I think that's that paves the way for stable coins just to be like as the cison brothers of stripe that acquired Bridge said it's like a room temperature semiconductor it's like it's like it it allows businesses to like stop paying the payment processing fees and charge backs it's huge every business charges if you're a small business or a business of any size you're accepting credit card you get out of every $100 you pay2 to four dollar on fees to this network that's you know makes sure that you know your credit's there and you get paid and you get paid in not to mention you get paid in weeks you know the working capital impact of that you can't buy inventory you can't hire more people

you can't grow your business that is a huge huge huge drag on the economy so I I think like uh concretely stable coin legislation really just paves the way for institutions businesses to start using them and then those institutions and and businesses have large user bases so they'll offer it to their users and just you know money's digital should be digital and stable coins are that but we haven't had the proper regulatory Clarity to open up that kind of window so there's a lot of businesses on the fence I mean I can tell you everyone's looking at tether and their profitability they're like the one of the most widely profitable companies and they're looking at that and they're saying God I I want to understand how they're doing it and and I think there's a lot of interest from businesses to issue their own stable coin interesting

and you think it's holding the the I just don't see and this is probably the seat that I'm in I don't see who who's being held back that's what I don't see because circle is Doing It in America and and you have JP Morgan apparently is doing it behind the scenes right and using stable coins for some of their transfers so it feel visa and MasterCard say that they're they're using it and starting to do it so is it a scale thing that like all a it's a acceler it's accelerating the adoption you know you still probably can go into a traditional business and you talk about St like they what no like and so there's there's there's a lot that I think gets clarified um you know the career risk of

using stable coins goes down quite dramatically the uncertainty around them goes down for it's just a scale thing yeah like you have some institutions that are using it for sure behind the scenes or whatever but but um but it's still quite small they're like Pilots Visa Visa is probably the organization that's done the most work with stable coins CU you know they either kind of adapt and reinvent their business or they go out of business because stable coins and credit to them you know they're probably one of the more kind of breaking that Innova dilemma like they've been at the Forefront of thinking about and MasterCard in some capacity too and they're motivated right they can they can earn money different other ways right but that that payment processing fee that is high that

chargebacks it's not that they necessarily like this is what I call systemic friction like the financial system runs on Antiquated databases and systems that don't really talk to each other very well and and we can't we can't really out innovate our way within the current constraints of that system so someone like stripe who's constantly like doing apis and like trying to facilitate like lubricate these like old r y gears finally came to the realization and said our next leg of growth is stable coins and then they went and bought bridge for a billion dollars which is stable coins apis allowing every business like you know any business that has an international

Workforce or contractors like we use a stable coin to like get money faster to them and and you have companies like SpaceX and and a number of others like using them but you have to have like the orchestration layer like really really easy and seamless for businesses and I'll be I I'll tell you I think like this probably happens much faster than what most people realize like stripe is powering a lot of businesses under the hood and the the bridge acquisition is probably one of the most impactful things that will happen in crypto no one even talks about it nobody talk the thing y people are focus on the markets and like bitcoin's went from 100K to 80 or whatever it is now I don't even check prices anymore and people are freaking out you know like Bitcoin goes back to 85 and 90 it's like we're going

to 250 goes down to 70 it's like we're going back to 20 you know it's like it's like a weird weird psychology like loss aversion kind of thing but you know this is the if you're paying attention it pays to it pays to pay attention there's a lot of noise there's a lot of you know fear uncertainty whatever thought in the market and it's always like this or there's a lot of noise but if you're paying attention under the hood I I sort of think that like this cycle is unique in that institutions are more excited than Crypton natives because Crypton natives are jaded they're cynical I'm like there's a difference between cynical and skeptical and that is that a skeptical person ask question a cynical person loses all kind of hope and and I I mean I I just think institutions are chomping at the bit they just want some

clarity there's so many people in these organizations that have been pounding the table to get into crypto but upper Management's still like I don't really know Bob you know like that's a scam that looks like a scam feels like a scam you know just just no you know that there's all these hacks and look it's difficult we don't there's a lot of things that we need to fix in crypto it was not perfect uh security is probably one of the most important things that we still need to figure out but you know there's a lot of smart people focused on that well it's it's certainly there's never been a time where there's such a Divergence between institutions and Retail as there is right now in crypto

and the funny thing is you would think it would go the opposite direction right like logically if I was you know a year ago if I was sitting here saying we'd be where we are today from the institutional perspective and the Govern government perspective and all this regulation I would be like oh yeah retail will be so happy everyone will be pumped but it's no no everybody that's it's tied to macro as you said macro is not a good place so like you know markets are down because we're macro by the way you can't control macro but like a year ago six months ago I said hey man listen what if I told you that all the regulatory hostility is going to go away and that all of a sudden we might be in a position to design tokens for what they are and and and innovate in that

department and we're also going to have you know more clarity on ETFs and potentially other assets being listed and just stable coin legislation you would be Max long bidding you know there this this difference now of course don't use leverage don't do anything that put you out of the game if you're already allocated write it out it's important to like a lot of times we spend 80 90% of the time thinking about thesis is this coin corrected is this asset corrected not enough on structure not enough on how you position that and like if you construct your portfolio in a way where you're like listen I'm going to ride this out you're never going to you sort of assume you invert and you say you're

never going to get timing correct but as you said in the next 5 years is crypto going to be higher but barring any cataclysmic nuclear war kind of thing I think so we're going to be higher five years and 10 years this will be greater than1 trillion asset it's a simple best generational trade you can make the challenge is that it has become so speculative and so easy to launch tokens that we now have millions of tokens I mean people don't really last cycle what did we have like 10,000 tokens now we have like eight million tokens know it's it's such a good point because you always have to think about what can derail that thesis thinking in

probabilities you say okay and what version does crypto actually does not grow from here and and I think look Bitcoin is an interesting social experiment it took gold centuries to aify as a store value but I think bitcoin's pulled it off really remarkably more so than you know I don't find Bitcoin as interesting as other stuff I think it's actually one of the least interesting things about crypto really interesting yeah I don't hold any Bitcoin because you're not here for the specul for the speculation no I mean listen if you want to hedge macro do it another way like Bitcoin is sort of like this like mechanism as an escape hatch from like modern monetary policy but assuming that Bitcoin really works is assuming that the world is in like a very very dire like kind of like [ __ ] really hit the fan and Bitcoin went to a

million and that's like in order to believe that I just think the world is in a in a pretty bad I mean like gold hit 3,000 today highest highest ever new alltime high right Bitcoin and Bitcoin yeah but it's not yet what it if it is fully accepted as a store of value and hedge against inflation as my point it it it took gold centuries centuries no let thing why is gold useful it's a terrible semiconductor oh it's terrible store value terrible store of value okay a economics would dictate 90 plus percent of all Gold's been like mined that we know of all of a sudden probably Skyrocket a new mine in Zombia gets discovered all of a sudden or asteroid

mining might be a thing but it's not really like a useful asset it's sort of like this hard asset that people ascribe some value to but it's doesn't have a lot of utility I'm more excited about things that have I'm of the mind that utility drives value and if you focus on delivering a lot of utility and you differentiate on that Spectrum you will create a lot of value is Bitcoin going to be is it mutually exclusive Bitcoin absolutely not Bitcoin can like continue easily go up another you know to 250 a million it's a perfect meme in many ways so I'm not here to tell you argue otherwise I just think it's like hard to Value it how do you value Commodities purely based on supply and demand can you convince enough people and Michael saor

do enough of a good job to convince people that Bitcoin is this perfect hard asset it's fine I just I just think that there's just so much more to this technology Bitcoin is the first instantiation of what you could do with these decentralized and distributed networks that allow us to like trustless decentralized distributed networks that allow us to settle value on the internet and it's an expansion pack of the internet doesn't replace doesn't blow up the World As We Know It but it does meaningfully transform it in the same way that the internet did leveraging the infrastructure of the internet so that transformation should happen faster but we've been on the journey for the last 12 years to really transform and build it's a hard problem like we haven't solved everything like but there's a lot of really smart people that have built a lot of the tech so you're right four

years ago I couldn't have told you this but now I'm very much of the mind that Tech is not the main differentiation and the tech is very much ready to get another 100 200 million users on chain for sure for sure we got too much block space now like like the stable coin like like like like the Trump launch coin over the weekend absorb like 10 to 20% of all volume that you see in the NASDAQ that's crazy that's I mean you're you're like you're it's kind of surreal but you're you're seeing a line of path to like tokenizing stocks but like the stable coin use case um like the Trump there's a president launch of meme coin and like the amount of interest that what you need to focus

on in any network whether it's power grid to the internet to stream whatever it is you got to solve for Peak demand like low times right when everyone comes back home at 6 p.m. turns on the light or or it's really cold and people turn on the heater it's like those surges in in spike in demand that breaks the network so you have to like the most of the time it's like kind of like very predictable demand but when you have these spikes it just breaks but you have to have the capacity to absorb that and crypto just prove that unequivocally whether you putting meme coins aside you just had a really interesting case study that that that that is possible so I I think that like you know when Every

Chain says they have the highest TPS I actually don't care like I think it's sufficient enough like stable coins are not going to have that peak in demand like as you saw in a presidential meme coin there will be moments in time where that might happen but we can create far more demand for Block space to fill that block Space by just increasing the demand for stable coins that there's some velocity to them but a lot of it is just saving it's not as it's not as like that there's no Peaks as you saw it with the meme coin of of trump so that's what gives me a lot of conviction that we actually can absorb and and on board far more economic activity on chain and and that that happened on salana no I've gotta I've got to ask your your what's your thesis on

salana look I mean I I I flip really bullish salana historically I was very much invested in ethereum and a lot of my portfolio was you know investing in l2s and whatnot but but I think it um I built conviction in Solana when I just saw the amount of activity there and I said okay this is where most of retail is coming it's just a more streamlined easy to use chain for for users and there's a couple of like really interesting techn like ethereum to salano was 0 to one paralyzation local fee markets it's a lot of things that just really it's just a highr of blockchain and I think if you were to call vitalic and say Hey

would how would you build ethereum from scratch today who would build it very much like you know monad or you know salana or opto soie have say and so what I so I find that really compelling the amount of clusters of teams like deep in and why because ultimately if you bring users then all projects want to go where users are whether you're a deep in Project a deck a per protocol and so of course like developer activity is more like that flywheel gets going where where I am now is I continue to be really encouraged by the activity I see in salana I think it has a very like the the whole Phantom Jupiter like radium apparatus is like it works right where I

am and where I come at it now is it's unsustainable to just like the amount of fees that have been driven purely on Meme coin activity um are quite high and you want to diversify that stream over time and so you can't really depend on you know exchanges or the wallet providers and it's really more of a how do you actually do this right you know speculation is always going to be a thing I have no problem with that but I do think you hit a limiting you you hit a ceiling right there's only like most people lose money trading these things it's like a very low EV to to a point it's negative EV like there there's analysis of like pump

investors and like Lottery investors so there there's a limited audience that actually wants to do this and and to your point it is a traumatic experience you log in you buy Trump at 75 it's at 16 3 days later you're like I never want to come back here again but I do think that uh that's why the that's the impetus for inversion right it's like we have to we have to just acquire users bring them on chain and and it's a user that you break crypto's always suffered from a self-referential aspect which is it's all tied to the price of Bitcoin and then everything else and it's all very self-referential so how do you break that you have to bring a different type of user that uses this technology without thinking that it's crypto it's just to use it because it's just faster

better cheaper it's an improvement it fits into their life other than I want to punch the same way that I'm going to gamble on the weekend on the you know on the on the on the on the Green Bay Packers kind of thing you know yeah um The Tick is there is just a it's just a go to market funnel onboarding mechanism that needs to be solved and and as simple as that may sound it is not simple to pull it off like you just need to and so why hasn't anyone done this I don't know I'm intentionally building the open I hope more people do it we all win if we onboard another 100 200 million users on chain there's ways that I think are important then how do you curate an experience and and this goes back to like you could have all these

philosophical theoretical arguments of like do you run it like Android or iPhone how curated I'm like well I think pretty opinionated and Cur C because most users like are just going to chase yield and and we need to kind of curate and for me the way I'm building inversion and the chain is very intentional around delivering the most amount of value to Consumers and protecting and creating a curated safe experience where all the products that I offer through the mobile phone and the service that their consuming is very curated and these are Protocols are vetted there's Insurance the there's just things that just need to happen in crypto to really kind of compete against traditional Solutions

because decentralization on its own won't cut it it a it philosophically it won't and just n enough people care n enough people care no one cares no one cares we and so no no no just I mean that's the reality of things you know when Unis swap launch and then you remember that time where pancake swap launch on BC binance marchain they got like overnight more activity than Unis swap everyone was on it it's like then you had all the Ivory Tower academics saying hey it's not a very it's a centralized chain at that point like why even bother right it's just and then you come to the unfortunately like very practical conclusion that like most people here are just here to try to make money and they don't necessarily care

until they learn the hard way that security is important but again I never want to change consumer Behavior I just assume that that's going to be the case we just have to make it unequivocally pound-for-pound pound extremely easy to use these products that are invis like on the back end powered by crypto and never leading with a crypto philosophical take and argument you know part of why I'm doing inversion is cuz I got tired of all the Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners and like what do you do crypto like oh I don't believe in that that's garbage I'm like if I do this well I'll solve a problem that I have which is hey by the way you know that mobile you you know that you know that open your phone I'll tell them what apps do you have all right these apps you have today five or six out of the 10

all of them are using crypto you don't know it I don't care that you know it but I do I feel it you feel it and that's cool and that company is more profitable and which is allowing them to compete better which is your mobile plan might be 20% cheaper you might have the US are happy yeah you go back to down to Mexico and people are having dollars in their savings account they're not inflated out by a currency that doesn't you know it's very volatile like that that's that's what that's my focus and if and if I you know if I help one user great if I help all of you know 20 M billion people or whatever not 20 you know what I mean like yeah that be great yeah well Santi from myself and everybody listening at milk Road I really hope you achieve your goal I am

full supporter my man it is a ambitious it is so interesting how it is such a a simple Playbook to explain very quickly like I get it right away but then actually doing this is going to what do you think what are your timelines like what do you think is real 12 to 18 months I want to do buy business or partner with a business to do this transformation prove to the world that crypto can materially streamline operations of a business very visibly oh man that and then have 20 50 million users in my chain and I will become by then and there the largest chain and once I do that it's game on it's like I'm not competing against any

other I'm competing against becom the largest economy you I mean like you become bigger than Bitcoin if if you pull this off you bring every imagine a world where every business runs on chain in some way shape or form every user uses a stable coin and you're capturing you're basically the sentiment layer of the internet I think that that's bigger than Bitcoin longterm yeah for sure 100% 100% right now it's hard to see but I don't have to do this I want to do this because I think that success here is everyone wins not just my chain not just everyone wins cuz you best believe if you built a killer product it will be routed to that interoperability is going

to be a thing yes yes yeah and the user should never this this chain loyalty is is is a is a we're going to look back and not say we're just so painfully early the user cares about value and if they want to do something I'll route it to whatever chain that particular application exists now they want to deploy my chain even better cuz he evam compatible but otherwise there's going to there are so many cool games nft collections all this stuff that you could do and that will only continue to expand but we it's time to on board and it's time to bring not not a couple of 2030 active users on chain that are recursively leveraging and are Fanatics it's time to bring on uh you know 100 200 300 million yeah that are

that are as that are are not here for speculation they're here for the product that they use they don't even know they're using it and they're not going anywhere they're just going to continue to use it right you know it's like my Northstar is make crypto invisible you know most people can't draw how B can't draw a bicycle don't know how the internet works don't know how plane works but they use it and you know what that's that's what we should just do yeah and what I like about what you're doing is your speed that's the key thing here because what you doing your your playbook like everybody's of 10 years from now I don't know what the timeline is everybody's going to know your playbook a lot of business are going to be running your playbook but you're early and you're pushing really fast and really hard so you have a head

start over a lot of people that sort of surprising because I I literally sit here and say why aren't more people doing this I I feel a strong sense of urgency um and just bare markets really clarify and your thought and and and and expose what is the problem that we have as an industry it's a very I think it's a solvable problem but I think we need to apply a lot of energy and focus to it and don't say the word bare Market I don't don't UT that word look there are there are reasons why people become complacent you can can stare at a chart and say why is this number not going up or you can do something about it so we're hiring a bunch of people I'm I'm looking to hire best class team that's the biggest risk here I want to

build a world-class organization of the most stacked private Equity investors Consultants that really understand the industries we going to go and transform um people that have experience uh you know operating a chain there's a whole component of that right so if you listen to this podcast and you feel compelled you feel motivated you want to jump out of your chair and say [ __ ] yeah I want to do that I want to build it for every company like there's no there's some companies that I've invested in you say there's a natural limitation to that company it can only grow so much it's uh servicing a particular country sector there is no end in sight of running this Playbook if this works the number of companies that we can buy the type of companies and the type of Transformations only grows as crypto breaks away into the

mainstream and you best believe you're going to be there trying to do that and so there's no end in sight I want this company out I want this company to outlive me and I can this is a forever company for people a plus Talent man this is the exact episode that we needed this week this exact we had such a bare week like it was The Vibes were so low all week and to finish the week with an episode like this that is so forward looking and so big picture and so exciting and reinvigorating as to why we're here and what we're going to do in the long term man thank if you ever need if you ever need look my I I wasn't I I started as an investor in this industry and then I like to be close to Founders every time I've been sort of demoralized

see you see a lot of [ __ ] in crypto when it's an open source system it's like a new building gets built you normally they cover it and so you just see the end product that's the traditional World crypto it's like you see the plumbing the Scaffolding in real time you're like oh [ __ ] this building looks like crap and then and then and then one day you might wake up be like oh wow like it's finished and so there are times where I've been demoralized and I think it is let's just face it prices go down it makes you question everything you see hacks you see you know crime on chain and and it sucks get punched in the face but every time that happens I go and try to talk to Founders and honestly they're just on phas they're like they just are

maybe like me a little bit delusional and maniacal and obsessed about a particular problem and they don't know how hard it's going to be but they're just at it and I think there's just something really comforting about that that you you apply yourself to solving a problem that I do think very much exists and also very much think is very solvable and I don't want to wait another 12 goddamn years to see crypto really fit into the life of everyone I think we have four years and I want to do that let's go let's go okay everybody listening in I'm gonna put santi's Twitter in the show notes we're gonna put inversions Twitter in the show notes if you're not following him or inversion go follow them because you're going to want to see this ride and uh it's yeah just a pleasure to have you on the show

today my man really appreciate no I appreciate such a treat thank you for uh for hosting me and I know you got to go to back to your wife cuz otherwise she's going to yeah you you got to go you got to go time she's going to give you a hard time and she's gonna kill me so I don't want to do that so let you know it's okay I got I got my Harry Potter pen right here my my Hufflepuff pen so there you go okay let's wrap there my man thanks for time everybody I appreciate the invite if you're still here and listening first of all I love you thanks for giving us your time and Thanks for believing in Us in this also I got to tell you guys about one of our partners over at nordvpn I'm talking about online privacy

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check out the link in the show notes get your six months at 72% off wow what a deal incredible and son up for Nord vpm today and stay safe out there folks thanks again for listening in as always if you liked today's episode please hit subscribe and make sure you follow us so you don't miss out on the next one there's also a link in the description to our free five minute daily newsletter where we simplify crypto for you while making you laugh and if you're willing to step up your crypto investing game we're going to also leave a link for milk Road Pro you get access to our portfolio where you can see exactly what we are buying this is your number one resource to help you invest successfully in crypto one final note this show is

for educational purposes only and nothing we say is financial advice investing in crypto or any asset is risky and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose thanks so much for listening in my friends have a wicked awesome day