Archi Watkins - Merlin Starter: Driving Growth & Fuelling Innovation In The Bitcoin Ecosystem

Full transcript: Archi Watkins on London Real

2:37 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Archi Watkins, the business leader, blockchain advocate and public speaker. You are the co-founder of Merlin Starter, a groundbreaking IDEO launchpad and layer 2 accelerator that is dedicated to supporting the growth of decentralized projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Merlin Starter is committed to issuing Bitcoin native assets across platforms, fostering innovation and bringing new value to the Bitcoin network and its users.

3:12 Your ultimate goal is to shine a light on the current state of the financial system and the limited options available. You believe that free markets will allow people to transfer their wealth without prejudice and have said that Bitcoin, DeFi and self-sovereignty offer the only true gateway to financial freedom and choice. Archi, welcome to London Real. Thanks for having me, Brian. It’s a pleasure to be here.

3:34 Great having you here. I want to say and start by saying that Merlin Starter is one of our portfolio companies here at London Real Ventures, the world’s first media-powered investment firm, where our mission is to transform the world by investing in cutting-edge web3 and AI companies while giving our partners marketing exposure across the London Real media platforms and academies. We heighten awareness, create customers and build communities by leveraging our global audience and extensive network. Archi, we’re super excited to be part of this journey with you.

4:00 So let’s jump in. Tell me, what is Merlin Starter? Well, thank you. Thanks for having me here, first of all, and obviously the support. Merlin Starter, as you said, is a Bitcoin layer 2 launchpad based on Merlin Chain.

4:16 Yeah, so I think you did an amazing introduction. We’re dedicated to providing that framework and infrastructure for companies to basically launch their tokens, their product offering within the Bitcoin ecosystem. And that’s on Merlin Chain at present. Okay, gotcha. And it’s built and it’s live and it’s to just get to allow companies access to that specific Bitcoin layer 2 and to start launching products around this concept of building things on Bitcoin.

4:44 Yeah, correct. So it’s live on Merlin Chain at present. So we’ve had two successful IDOs to date. Companies come to us, they obviously want to either go through our Accelerator Incubation Program or they’re a fully fledged business as it is. They come to us to launch their tokens, get that exposure, get that level of crowdfunding investment from a global audience.

5:06 And yeah, it’s been quite successful today. The first IDO was a 20 million raise and there was 500 million committed from 50,000 participants. And then the second IDO was a 2 million raise with 35,000 participants. So as you can see from the audience, the participation, the amount of money, which is floating globally, we’re only just starting to tick it off basically. But comparing that to the EVM side of the fence, we actually set a few new records in the industry, which shows you the appetite and obviously the demand and participation from the Bitcoin ecosystem.

5:40 Yeah. So let’s talk about that. I mean, you know, you’ve got a really smart team. You’ve personally been in this, you know, blockchain ecosystem or been aware of it since 2016. You could have developed on any layer one, right? You could have stuck with the EVM and Ethereum.

5:56 You could have gone to Solana or Avax or Cardano or I mean, these days there’s a new layer one dropping every week, right? And a lot of them are relevant. Why did you choose to be a part of the Bitcoin ecosystem, which is still untested. You had to make that decision before the Bitcoin ETF happened. Why?

6:14 For us, it was very simple. So we’ve personally been invested in Bitcoin since 2016. Obviously, it’s the oldest and most secure network on the planet. And essentially, it has obviously the largest market cap. So I think as today, 1.4 trillion.

6:29 Now, for us, it’s, you know, we’re focused on unleashing that market cap. So creating that capital efficiency within the market. To date, you know, it’s arguably been a store of value and untapped, an untapped goldmine, per se. And it’s about providing that facility to and utility for Bitcoin. So with layer twos coming out on the market, you know, as a business, we were part of our due diligence and we were obviously looking long term.

6:59 We wanted to assess, obviously, the current scalability within the Bitcoin ecosystem and how different layer twos were scaling and providing that infrastructure. So for us, obviously, we saw a lot of success on the EVM side of the fence, you know, ZK roll ups, et cetera. And Merlin chain has done a fantastic job of incorporating not only the original, you know, layer one consensus security and algorithm, which is what it should be built on, but then incorporating ZK roll ups, et cetera.

7:29 And, you know, decentralized Oracle networks. There’s a lot of future tech and integrations that have happened on Merlin chain. So that made it extremely attractive because not just for the here and now in the present to provide that, you know, significant product offering for companies, which if they come through our launch pad and launch on Merlin chain, for example, then they get all those benefits as well. But for the long term, that’s what’s key.

7:54 The integrations, the future asset integrations, the network holistic perspective on how assets can migrate from EVM over to Merlin chain, for example, that interoperability provides developers retail consumer levels integrations, which others are going to struggle to achieve. That’s our opinion in the long run. You know, it’s been interesting to look at all these layer twos for Bitcoin and they’ve really exploded, I’d say in the last nine months or so.

8:23 And it’s a huge narrative that’s out there. And everyone’s arguing about which one’s going to be the best. And obviously, there’s networks like Lightning in the past that have tried to kind of provide fast solutions to the Bitcoin network. I actually interviewed Dr. Muniba Lee on the show a couple of years ago, and he was building stacks and still is.

8:42 And I remember at the time it was it was wild, Archi, because I interviewed him and he said, Brian, we’re the only person building on Bitcoin. And I remember I went through the top 100 market caps on coin market cap and none of them were building on Bitcoin. And I remember walking out of the studio and I said to one of my colleagues, I said, you know what, if I ran a fund, I would put a bet on this because it seems like a non-correlated asset that could have some upside.

9:07 And then, of course, we saw stacks really explode as everyone started to embrace that ecosystem. But you had to make a decision to go with Merlin. Merlin, I think, is one of the few that’s embracing not only Bitcoin but also EVM and wants to provide this kind of simultaneous layer two solution to both. That’s pretty innovative in that sense. How did you decide because it wasn’t the earliest one that was building and there were stacks and lightning and things?

9:34 I mean, it’s a tough decision to make. Literally, you went all in with the name because you’re now Merlin’s starter. And so that’s the decision you had to make. How did you make that decision? Because right now everybody’s evaluating layer twos and no one knows which one’s going to win.

9:46 Yeah, I think the biggest one, the biggest key integrations for us to consider was the ZK roll ups, you know, and with the EVM compatibility. So Merlin Chain has done a fantastic job of obviously providing that integration off the bat. And where ZK roll ups are concerned, you know, we’ve had the proven technology. We’ve had the success stories on the EVM side, like with all the optimistic roll ups, not optimistic roll ups, sorry, ZK roll ups within the EVM industry.

10:16 Now, for us, obviously, looking long term with the way that we perceive Bitcoin to scale as an ecosystem, ZK roll ups is going to play a pivotal role within that industry. And you’re dead right, we have to pay homage to the Lightning Network. I think it was definitely, it was too good, I had to off-road this, it was too good, but too early for its time. So it provided that solution, but obviously the mass adoption and the user base wasn’t there ready for it.

10:50 And then obviously Stacks done an amazing job, as you said, but a different take on obviously its consensus and validation algorithm. Now, when we looked at mass adoption, and we looked at obviously what developers are going to need, what they’re already familiar with, ZK roll ups played quite a large part in that. And then we obviously looked at scalability and ZK roll ups, you know, that ticked that box as well. So for Merlin Chain to already make that decision for us and have those integrations ready, it made complete sense to, you know, put a flag in the sand and join that ecosystem.

11:27 ZK stands for zero knowledge, and the idea is that you can really speed up and optimize a lot of these decisions that are being made on the blockchain that were slower without it. And again, the industry really embraced it over the last year, I think Polygon went all in on ZK. So zero knowledge proof transactions. So the ability to have finalized transactions, and we’re talking thousands, tens of thousands of transactions, all finalized and then relayed back to the core consensus algorithm, essentially.

12:01 So it’s taking a lot of transactions off the core blockchain solution, obviously Bitcoin, and then just making it a lot faster, speeding it up, making it more cost efficient. And that’s what we need for obviously future adoption and scalability. Yeah, and Ethereum needs that badly as well. You know, I was at the Satoshi Roundtable in Dubai, it was my first time there, it was the 10th annual event. And it’s this kind of invite only, unconference, so many OGs there, people that don’t go to conferences are there, it was five days at the Palm in Dubai.

12:33 We couldn’t tell, couldn’t disclose the location, weren’t allowed to put any social media posts. But we went deep on the topic du jour, and it was BRC20, it was building on the Bitcoin ecosystem. Monib was there, a lot of people were there, and I sat in on listen to a lot of these conversations. And honestly, the biggest topic there was probably building on Bitcoin. And it was interesting to see where we were.

12:56 I mean, I’d heard a lot of talk of BRC20, but I walked away from that conference realizing that no one really had figured it out, and it was still a little clunky. Now we saw runes come from there. Obviously, a lot of OGs were there on Bitcoin, and the big concern I think Bitcoiners have is security when you go to layer two. It’s the one thing where people say, yes, we agree. It’s the most decentralized network in the world.

13:18 It’s proven itself 13 years has never been down. It’s the biggest supercomputer on the planet by a factor of I think 1500 compared to CERN supercomputer. But that’s great. But if your layer two doesn’t have security, then it doesn’t matter. And so a lot of people are still trying to build on Bitcoin, which has so many challenges.

13:39 Like, do you think about some of those issues? Are those going to be ongoing concerns to bake in that security? Has Merlin Chain figured that out? Or is that something that will always be a process of keeping it secure? No, I think that’s why Merlin Chain really stands out to be honest with you.

13:55 It’s utilizing that underlining Bitcoin core layer consensus algorithm whilst providing that scalability solution through ZK rollups. And then obviously having the EVM compatibility or shall say virtual machine compatibility, which obviously the smart contracts, etc. That really starts to open up the floodgates for different applications like DEXs, AMMs, PERPs, you name it. Anything with a smart contract in it can obviously run on that application. So we’re seeing that starting to be incorporated across the variety of different Bitcoin layer twos.

14:29 But that’s where I say the Bitcoin ecosystem for me has always been number one. So the developer mentality within the Bitcoin ecosystem is just unprecedented, as far as I can say. Everyone might be scaling and developing different solutions, but then those learnings are obviously easily shared because we are all on the same mindset and the same mission, which is to scale the adoption of the Bitcoin ecosystem. And that’s what’s fundamental here. It’s about reaching that end goal, essentially.

15:02 And so when we look at the market caps or the TVL, which is currently on the Bitcoin side versus the EVM side, I firmly believe that the TVL total value locked, some of it will migrate over from the EVM side. But then as we unlock that Bitcoin market cap itself and really unleash that capital efficiency, that’s when we’re going to start seeing the Bitcoin ecosystem explode. And the beauty of the Bitcoin layer twos, obviously being directly connected to the core consensus algorithm, is that it’s utilizing the Bitcoin obviously for transaction fees, et cetera, at the root of all the transactions.

15:44 So everything that’s getting built is benefiting the Bitcoin ecosystem. And for people that are watching and listening to us, I think part of the reason that people love the Bitcoin chain is because, ultimately, it’s probably the most censorship-resistant, probably, database in the world. You know, if it’s written on that Bitcoin chain, you could argue it’s very hard to unwrite it. And for someone who’s been censored before, you could argue, ah, you can put on the Ethereum chain, but it’s like, well, yeah, but if AWS goes down, we don’t know what’s going to happen.

16:19 But with Bitcoin, if you could literally inscribe things on there, it’s very hard to undo that. It really is as close to immutable as you probably can find. And that in itself has such high value that make people want to be associated with this chain for the future. And that’s real world assets, everything being tokenized. Ultimately, if it’s on the Bitcoin chain, you can probably sleep well at night that it’s going to be there forever.

16:42 Couldn’t agree more. And to be honest with you, I think in the future, it wouldn’t surprise me if we see centralized banks making transactions utilizing Bitcoin because it is the most safe and secure network to move hundreds of billions of dollars in Bitcoin within 20 minutes. You know, that’s that’s a lot of that’s a significant improvement. And I do honestly foresee that world coming. It’s just a matter of time.

17:05 They’re going to want to trust something. Yeah. And that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day. A hundred percent. Yeah.

17:10 It’s interesting. There’s this thing on the Internet called the way back machine where you can go back and see what was on the Internet at different points in time. There’s also some interesting points where people have said that’s been changed, that actually somebody’s gone in. I won’t point the finger, but actually messed with the way back machine to where it actually doesn’t reflect what was on the Internet in the past. And it’s a great example that things that we think are set in stone aren’t.

17:35 And until you can really have it on something that can’t be tampered with by governments or media companies or technology companies, which are more powerful than governments, then you don’t really know. And again, he’s told me before we started history is written by the victors. But if you can rewrite history in the future, then you don’t really know what your past is. A hundred percent. So again, Bitcoin brings something that people think of Bitcoin maybe as a store of value or maybe as a supercomputer, maybe as a superhighway, as Cathie Wood says.

18:05 But it’s interesting to think of it as maybe the only source of truth out there. And you can describe anything on there from a book to potentially a movie to anything. Why shouldn’t our history be inscribed as it’s happening now in real time? Provide that immutability for future generations. Yeah, that’s not a bad vision to have really, is it?

18:29 I was talking to someone recently and I said, I said someone from North Korea could inscribe something on a block of Bitcoin and we could all see it and it couldn’t be censored. And they were like, wow, I never thought of it that way. It’s almost a form of pure human communication that can’t be tampered with in a world where we have to really start wondering where our information comes from. And we have to be more vigilant on that as well with AI coming out, et cetera.

18:58 Unfortunately, root source databases, or should I say applications, are only as good as the root source databases that they’re connected to, right? So if we look at the big players like Google, Meta, et cetera, where AI applications are concerned. Yeah, I mean, that’s going down a whole different rabbit hole, but it’s all still interlinked with the immutability of Bitcoin, et cetera. Yeah, and it’s important because people might say, oh, I don’t care about crypto.

19:21 I’m not invested. My money’s in my bank. But it’s like, OK, what about your digital identity? What if in the future your identity could be altered or changed? And the only way you know is if it’s inscribed on the Bitcoin chain.

19:32 And yeah, so it actually is going to affect everybody. And then with AI, what if there’s a digital version of you out there and we can’t prove that it’s you? So this will become important to everybody very soon. It’s happening a hell of a lot quicker than people can think. Yeah.

19:50 And it’s normally, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t really realize it’s happened until it’s staring them in the face. But then that’s where I think in the digital age with the developers that are in this industry, you know, advocates of Web3 and decentralization, self-sovereignty, et cetera, the more I go into this rabbit hole, the more we’re actually all banding together, not against the governments, I don’t mean like that, but to actually utilize the technology in an altruistic way as opposed to a censorship surveillance method. You know, there’s two varying different degrees of execution here, right?

20:24 So it’s up to us as individuals to decide what side of fence we’re on, I guess. What do you think of ordinals and, you know, runes and some of these innovations that have now been built on the Bitcoin network? I was at the very first ordinal summit in Singapore last year, and it was kind of strange. Everyone told me it was like a throwback to the early Bitcoin days. Guys were walking around in costumes and there were no, you know, massive 50 meter long Coinbase booths.

20:53 It was like this old school vibe of let’s build it to build it. And they were excited. Domo was there and some of the other innovators of ordinals. And it was just a really cool buzz as far as, you know, a little geeky, but a little bit. We’re all on the same team doing something cool. What do you make of that?

21:11 If people don’t know, ordinals are kind of like NFTs on the Bitcoin chain. Then there were the BRC 20 token protocol that could put tokens on that chain that’s morphed into runes. And I don’t know where it’s going. The maxis like Kaiser, you know, they hate it, apparently, although I think some are coming around. But they’re here to stay, it seems. What do you think of that?

21:31 Does that affect anything that you do going forward? Just your thoughts? Yeah, so first of all, I’m a fan of the innovation. So ultimately, the more use cases that we can put into the Bitcoin ecosystem, the higher the obviously utility demands that there is going to be to the root core, which is the Bitcoin asset. Then obviously, you’ve got the validator system that continues to expand, etc., which adds to the security.

21:54 So it’s all this perpetual, self-fulfilling mechanism in layman’s terms. So where ordinals’ runes are concerned, that level of innovation is important because it’s going to keep stretching the scalability of the blockchain itself. Certainly not going to break it. And I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. But that level of innovation obviously then attracts a whole different, say, retail clientele who are interested in digital artwork.

22:26 If they weren’t attracted into Bitcoin before, but then they’re a fan of digital artwork, all of a sudden they’re attracted to ordinals. So that brings more consumer base, more utility, etc., more monetization. And now, obviously, with runes, different variants of scalability solution, that opens up a whole new pillar for innovations, which is amazing. So like I said, everything then links back to the root core consensus algorithm, Bitcoin itself. And that’s what we need to do. We need to keep pushing the boundaries, create those different utilities to attract those varying market demographics.

23:06 So for us as a launchpad, it’s very important for us to keep up to date with the integrations, which we are doing. We’re fully up to date, which then obviously, from varying networks, Merlyn Chain, obviously Bitcoin Layer 2s, we can provide that launchpad facility for all of those different types of assets, which is necessary. Would you do a launch for runes or is that really a different market because they’re built on the actual Bitcoin Layer 1 itself?

23:34 No, we can do a launch for runes. So we’ve got runes integrations already performed, ordinals, BRC20s, even Ethereum assets. But we are concentrating at the moment on Bitcoin Layer 2s. First of all, first and foremost, how do we scale Merlyn Chain and attract users based on adoption there? But then how can we develop and grow our business, which is Merlyn Starter, to incorporate other Bitcoin Layer 2s and provide that successful launchpad facility?

24:02 And then we continue to expand outwards. And so, yeah, I was going to ask you, plans going forward, you are going to build Merlyn Starter on other Layer 2s. Correct, yeah. And you’re kind of looking at the ones and seeing kind of where to play, I guess, first Bitcoin Layer 2s and then maybe other Layer 2s? Yeah, correct. So obviously, we have that integration fully solved.

24:24 So Bitcoin Layer 2s at the moment, looking at the prominent ones, and there’s some really high quality Bitcoin Layer 2s as well. I will say, and this is maybe personal preference, but Merlyn Chain is number one. It’s where we started. So I don’t mind putting that on paper. But obviously, to be successful, to attract more user base across the Merlyn Chain, it’s just widening that funnel, right?

24:48 And different Bitcoin Layer 2s offer different solutions as well. And a different way of securing the underlining Bitcoin ecosystem. You know, so take Cordao, for instance. You run a validator on their system, you have to get mining support and delegate the hash rate to your validator to then obviously support their network. I think that’s a pretty cool mechanism because it’s further decentralization of the underlining core ecosystem.

25:18 And then obviously, you’ve got thriving communities and different applications within these various Bitcoin Layer 2s as well. So if we move quickly as a launch pad and we execute, which we are doing, we can provide that broader support across the Bitcoin ecosystem. What’s missing right now in the Layer 2s on Bitcoin? Are we missing like a proper DEX and swapping facilities and other things? I mean, that’s all necessary to bring users, right?

25:43 Yeah, correct. So the bridging facilities are coming. There’s one of our partners, Particle Networks, doing a phenomenal job there. They’re live, right? Yeah, they’re live.

25:53 I think I used them to play around in there. We incorporated them very early on, integrated the wallet facility within our launch pad. So they’re concentrating on not just account abstraction, which allows you to move your profile across various dApps very seamlessly. They’re also then moving towards account abstraction. So the ability, for instance, to be on a, let’s say, a swap, a DEX in the Bitcoin ecosystem, but have your assets in the Ethereum ecosystem.

26:23 So you can then pay for the transaction fees within Bitcoin from your assets already in Ethereum. So it saves you all of that bridging, saves you the underlining hassles. I think about what that does to develop, well, for developers, for user base, for ease of onboarding, for migration of assets, et cetera. It just, well, accelerates and provide that easy one-stop solution. So when we are looking at, obviously, our partners that we’re integrating, it’s incredibly important that we align with people who are building those specific solutions, which align with our overall vision as well.

26:57 So that’s basically our mission for the next zero to six months. So important to do this. I mean, one thing that’s nice is that we put the Merlin chain on our MetaMask wallets, which was great for us and our people in our academy and stuff, so they can get that right away. Obviously, MetaMask has done some interesting things recently. They have a portfolio tool.

27:19 They have a bridging tool, which they didn’t exist six months ago or 12 months ago. It wasn’t there. Again, anything like that brings a new user into the space and allows them to do a little bit more. But we still have a little bit of a ways to go, right? And so you want to just make sure that these things are all integrated to where this is easy and seamless, right?

27:38 Well, at the moment in the Bitcoin ecosystem, like we don’t have the fiat onboarding ramps in which the Ethereum ecosystem does. Now, via centralized exchanges or even couple DEXs might have that, right? Yeah, correct, correct. So that’s why it’s very important within the Bitcoin ecosystem to build that foundational infrastructure, you know, like the bridging, the wallet integrations, etc. Because why Merlin chain is so important, obviously the EVM compatibility, there’s no reason why we can’t link straight through to those onboarding and off-boarding ramps.

28:12 So just, you know, consider your tech stack layer as different slices and where those onboarding ramps obviously fit in. We’re just connecting the dots. So that’s why as an ecosystem, it’s quite important to know where we want to be in the next six to 12 months, what our launch pad is going to look like, and how it’s molding and obviously building with the broader ecosystem. But then also what additional products we need to scale this whole ecosystem.

28:40 Yeah, are you planning on building some of these products? Are you planning on helping those launch, you know, or what are your plans kind of going forward? Yeah, I think that’s where we are uniquely positioned. So we not only are we a launch pad, but we’re obviously an accelerator incubation facility as well. So for any size of business as well.

29:00 So it could be a fledgling, you know, just getting started and they need full marketing development, etc. Support to someone who’s already fully established and just wants to obviously utilize the launch pad area. But for us, like I said in the beginning, the mission is to unleash that capital efficiency within the Bitcoin ecosystem. And to truly do that, after assessing, you know, the EVM chains and the success of layer twos, consider all those layer twos as isolated islands, though.

29:32 And everything needs to be bridged. Everything, you know, if you want to transition your assets, you have to be bridging them from one island to the other. And for user adoption and ease, that’s obviously a bit painful, right? But to maximize, you know, defy decentralized finance, which is what we’re focusing on in the beginning, you need really a scalable layer three solution that overrides or shall I say, over sits is an overarching solution to all the Bitcoin layer twos and then potentially, you know, scaling out to the to the Ethereum networks as well.

30:07 So looking at us holistically, we’re not only in the future want to have a multi chain network agnostic launch pad, but we will soon be launching a layer three scalability solution, which will sit across all Bitcoin layer twos, Ethereum in the future, and provide that decentralized yield aggregation layer. Because if you can provide a home for people to really utilize their assets in the most efficient way, and that includes Bitcoin, etc., and provide that one stop shop for yield aggregation, take the complexities and the hassles out of it, then all of a sudden you have a layer three solution, which is truly scalable. You know, it’s going to bring the TVL, the asset base is going to bring the user adoption.

30:53 And then we can scale that out to be a true Bitcoin layer three solution, which then opens up the floodgates for future and more high TPS type applications. When will we get DeFi on Bitcoin? DeFi on Bitcoin? Yeah, or Bitcoin DeFi. When will we really get that, you know, on a surge?

31:13 Yeah, people are actually using it. We’re actually people are now getting yield from their Bitcoin and they’re playing in all these DeFi products. Like we saw the DeFi summer, you know, of Ethereum back in 20. Yeah, that’s what’s happening because it hasn’t happened yet, has it? The infrastructure is not there, right?

31:27 Some might argue against that, Brian, I hate to say. Well, there are DeFi applications across various Bitcoin layer twos, but they are isolated islands again at the moment and you have to bridge your assets across. So providing that one stop shop layer three solution could be a significant step towards that DeFi summer. But I hate to say this, it’s also market awareness. You know, there’s a lot of distraction within the market.

31:57 You know, meme coins are doing really well. And I’m not saying meme coins don’t belong in Web 3 whatsoever because obviously they do. You know, Solana has been a great network advocate for meme coins and that scalability solution. But there’s a certain level of sophistication to meme coins, which, you know, we’re going to start seeing branch out across the Bitcoin ecosystem, I believe, in the future. But it’s about bringing those users, attracting that right adoption to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

32:28 And that’s from a developer’s perspective for the applications, to develop the right applications to attract the user base. Right. So you get the users there, then you can get the developers there and then they can develop some of what the users want. But right now, maybe they’re running after the meme coin volume. Yeah, I think some people, unfortunately, and we’ve seen it through multiple bull markets, they follow the shiny object, right?

32:51 And if there’s a massive light on obviously meme coins right now, then that’s where everyone’s got their attention. Solana, and then it was base, etc. But I think that’s why what’s happening in the Bitcoin ecosystem is so under the radar still, because there is a certain level of adoption there. It just hasn’t seen that boom at the moment, as you described it. But it’s definitely one of the hot, I’d say it’s one of the top five hot segments of the market is building on the Bitcoin ecosystem.

33:22 Like I said, at social roundtable, it was definitely top three. And it’s something that’s been quite a big narrative this year. Obviously, ETF didn’t hurt and then the massive ecosystem. And then all the volume going into the ETFs, we’ve had the Ethereum ETF approved. Maybe I’ll get your thoughts on that. But also, we’ve seen the volume.

33:39 We just had a record couple of days in Ethereum. I’m sorry, in Bitcoin ETF. Bitcoin. So that’s incredible. I actually think there’s a Bitcoin meme coin dog to the moon or something that’s doing well.

33:52 I mean, I’m starting to get to know my meme coins. But I think that’s doing well, which is maybe as a sign that Bitcoin can also take some of that meme coin hype. Honestly, I think it’s the next trend within the Bitcoin. Not major trend, obviously, but I think that’s an additional pillar that’s going to sprout and attract that user base. Why not? Because we’ve seen what’s worked.

34:13 We’ve seen what’s worked in the Ethereum side or Solana, etc., or Binance Smart Chain, whatever it is. We can take and cherry pick what’s winning on that side of the fence and bring it over to the Bitcoin ecosystem. And that’s what I love about the developer mentality within Bitcoin. We can move very, very quickly as an ecosystem, work together to achieve it. And the ordinal success showed how much you can unlock value.

34:37 And I mean, that should get everyone’s attention. If that happened, you could see that meme coins could be even bigger. And that’s a lot of money for miners, for developers, for speculators, huge Chinese market there as well. I mean, just all sorts of things happening there. What are you thoughts on meme coins? If you take a zoom out 30,000 view, what’s your take on them?

34:56 Honestly, there’s a phenomenon. Are they here to stay? Are they in that positive? What do you think? I think they’re definitely here to stay. I think they’re highly speculative, though, obviously.

35:06 And they come with a significant amount of risk. I’m unfortunately a true believer in underlining utility. So I actually don’t own very, very meme coins, many meme coins whatsoever. I look at the fundamentals and for me to invest my money. And this isn’t financial advice, obviously. But I look at the fundamentals and yeah, I have to sleep easy at night.

35:30 If meme coins, unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of good and bad stories. But essentially, the investors which are going into meme coins know exactly what they’re doing as well. They know what they’re stepping into. And they have that degen mentality, which they enjoy it. Maybe it’s better than going to the casino, et cetera, or better than a horse.

35:52 And that’s what they enjoy. But for me, that’s not my cup of tea. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Again, it can’t be dismissed. If you look at Doge and Chiba, they held their coin market cap positions all through the bear market and didn’t budge.

36:08 And you got places like Franklin Templeton that are now covering them as an asset class. And those two alone, you have to give credit where credit’s due. I mean, they’re not going anywhere. They didn’t go anywhere. And now you see the rise of the Pepe’s and the Brett’s and some of the others.

36:22 I mean, Pepe’s now number 20 market cap. And so you could say it’s a flash in the pan, but it’s probably not. Well, Chiba, I mean, personally, that was one of the few I stepped into. But they had a very good DeFi solution as well. They had a lot of obviously extremely good marketing and branding.

36:42 But yeah, they had some underlying utilities and products which were extremely successful as well. Yeah, I think they’re rolling out more as well. I met one of the Chiba founders on a yacht in Dubai, as you do. And I tried to picture with him and he wasn’t docked, so he said no. And they were relaunching the Chiba ecosystem, all these new layers and all these new platforms, much like EVM.

37:06 So, yeah, do you think Doge is still going to be the cryptocurrency choice for X? I think Elon’s definitely a fan. I mean, Elon’s a fan, but he seems like also like a lot of humor. So who knows? He definitely his narrative has kind of helped and hurt that coin, I think.

37:21 But no, I’m not necessarily thinking it’s going to be the new layer one of X, but it’s still going to be relevant, I think. And again, new coins are interesting phenomena. I mean, I had an argument with somebody the other day and I said, you know, Bitcoin was a meme coin for many years. Let’s be honest, it was just a bunch of crypto geeks geeking out about a coin that had no value, really. And yet they all loved it. They loved talking about it, buying it, kind of trading it amongst each other.

37:50 And it had no fundamentals, no value. So if you want to hate on a meme coin, you got to think that maybe you also were part of that for a while. And so, look, I’ve had Yatsu here of Animoca Brands and he used to say crypto is a store of value and NFTs are a store of culture, is what he used to say. Now, you could argue now that the memes are now a store of culture somehow. People want to group together.

38:15 They want to be part of a club. You know, people that buy iPhones want to talk about iPhones. People that vote Republican want to talk about that. I mean, people like coming together in groups. And so it’s a phenomenon that’s here to stay. Yes, it’s highly speculative, but it also brings in more eyeballs into the secret system.

38:33 It’s a net positive. And now some people say at least they’re being honest. This thing has no utility, whereas other things are purporting to be these other things. I don’t know. This whole concept of intrinsic value, I don’t know.

38:46 I don’t even know if I even try to think of anything like that anymore because all the gold people say Bitcoin has no extrinsic value. It’s like, well, OK, it does the US dollar. I think that’s all arguments pretty mute to be honest with you. It is. But it’d be nice to see if the Bitcoin system grabs it. And then, yeah, the other thing I was thinking, we’re so spoiled in the Ethereum or EVM world with this infrastructure, right?

39:11 Whether it’s your MetaMask wallet or your bridges or your multiple DEXs or even or like you said, your fiat on-ramps, like we’re really spoiled. You can do so much with your AVEs and your Uniswaps and all the competitors that that just doesn’t exist really as deeply on Bitcoin and the layer twos. And that’s what we need probably just to get more people involved. And that’s what you’re going to try to build, right? Yeah, 100 percent. So obviously we have the launch pad facility, you know, level level three, layer three, yield aggregation layer, which is coming.

39:43 But most importantly, it’s connecting those dots because there’s no reason why we can’t connect those dots all the way through and use utilize the benefits of the EVM on and off ramps, for example, for example, or the decentralized swapping facilities which are already there. So it’s, you know, as a launch pad, for example, you know, why can’t a prominent video game come to us as a launch pad, launch their game, sorry, launch their token, but then go and basically run on Arbitrum, for example, you know, so basically get access to that Bitcoin ecosystem capital, all the participation within it and then launch a token on Arbitrum. There’s those kind of decentralized avenues are coming.

40:28 That’s an exciting future, right? Because right now we live in a world where each layer one is like its own world with its own rules and its own culture, and they don’t even like talking to each other. And they really associate it like, oh, you’re there and I’m here. But yeah, what a beautiful future where you could tap anything you wanted like capital markets. You could tap any market, any currency or technology like we don’t we don’t understand all the details of our tech. We just want the tech that works the best.

40:56 100 percent. So at the retail level, 100 percent. Yeah, we just need to break those barriers because that’s what the technology is all about. So, you know, I’m sure if you go back to the very first developers of Bitcoin and who and even who’s actually present there right now, you know, and ask them some deep rooted questions and their thoughts of decentralization and interoperability, etc. That’s the future that everyone’s building towards.

41:23 So I think we might end up with a scenario because obviously when we have this mass adoption, we’re going to have still gaming networks, investment networks, DeFi networks, art networks, etc. But why can’t that all be interconnected? There’s absolutely no reason. It’s interesting. Like you think like 25 or 50 years from now, you know, maybe no one will even talk about the layer ones and layer twos.

41:48 It’ll just be something that works. You know, you think about, you know, all the different railroads in America that merged. You look at the tube in London, you go around and you look at these lines. Those used to be all independent private companies that ran their own line and had nothing to do with the other lines. You had to buy a separate ticket and then they were all nationalized at the war and now it’s one network.

42:08 You never think about it. Look at the car companies like General Motors. General Motors was an aggregate of eight, ten different car companies from Dodge to Chrysler and all these things. Right. So there’s a history of this happening and then all coming together.

42:22 I think we’ve we’ve had the test bed. You know, we’ve got the history in the Web two world, if people want to call it the Web two corporations. But then when we look at those overarching standards and frameworks, regulatory frameworks, etc., the ability to build decentralized applications that then are successful in the Web two world. As far as regulations and framework are concerned, you know, decentralized applications that can’t be tapped with. They can’t be changed, you know, within political party zones, you know, basically every three or four years.

42:58 For example, we’ve got the ability to create applications which withstand those times. So in doing that, that’s that’s incredibly powerful because then, you know, if it comes to ZK proofs, for instance, you know, the ability to prove your identity on the blockchain. Imagine what that does to voting systems around the world. So there’s, you know, there’s there’s methods in which we can bring decentralization to the retail level and basically assist our government corporations or, you know, our friends within power to do the right thing.

43:34 So I just ran the mayor of London and three of my ideas were, one, put voting on the blockchain, two, put the budget on the blockchain. And then three, I wanted to create the London token and I wanted to do a one off tax on the banks, pump it with a billion pounds of liquidity and then put the token in the wallets of every man, woman and child in London so they could receive a financial education by staking these tokens and learning about these tokens. So but I don’t know if the current political system is ready to adopt those ideas, but it’s clearly the future.

44:09 It’s clearly what the people would want, I believe. Well, that altruistic view on that self sovereignty and why, you know, I’ve spent the last, you know, five, 10 years almost. Why aren’t we, you know, empowering people’s retirements, their funds in a completely different way, you know, making sure that the funds don’t move with the markets, etc. It’s, you know, the ability to have it linked through to decentralized finance, you know, sustainable wealth mechanisms, etc.

44:38 You know, providing people those saving solutions. Not everyone’s got amazing money management, right? But we have the ability to provide those applications. So it’s that altruistic view. I think it needs to is going to start shining through.

44:54 Well, they say the banking sector takes out, what, six to eight percent of global GDP every year. So maybe a little resistance there. Then you also see those same banks embracing, you know, the Bitcoin ETF, which is interesting. I worked in banks for many years and I always tell my students and I say one thing. I said bankers care about one thing.

45:14 They care about their bonus. And if as a banker, you don’t sell your customer a product, they will go down the street to the next bank and try to get the product. It’s, you know, like a drug dealer. So you better get the product and offer it to them. And so people think the banks are thinking long term.

45:29 They don’t want to introduce these instruments that will ultimately result in their demise. But honestly, bankers don’t really think that way. They think about short term gains. And I think Larry Fink, after mulling it over for many years, and he recently had Anthony Scaramucci in here from Skybridge Capital. And he had a conversation with Larry Adavos a couple of years ago in a lobby of a hotel.

45:49 And Larry said, you like that Bitcoin, right? And Scaramucci said, yeah, I do. And he said, I don’t like it. I hate it. And Scaramucci said, look, he said, spend another 50 hours on this.

45:58 I think you’ll change your mind. And he clearly did. And I think they also saw something that they could market the hell out of. And a lot of our viewers say, Brian, I don’t like BlackRock and they’re bad and they’re evil and they embrace the, you know, the EIS and the IG. And this is not good for corporations.

46:17 But I always say, look, if they’re promoting an instrument of freedom, which Bitcoin ultimately is, it’s a net positive. And Michael Saylor recently gave a speech in Madera and he said, it’s no longer us versus them. OK, that was that was 22 or 21 or 20. He said, there’s two types of people in the world. There are those that understand Bitcoin and those that don’t yet understand Bitcoin.

46:37 And our job is to convert the latter to the former. I do believe that. Do you believe that? Yeah, I understand. I understand. Believe that, you know, as we all play a role in this big ecosystem. Right.

46:49 So the likes of Vanguard, BlackRock, et cetera, you know, controlling those 99 percent finance globally, et cetera. How else are other people going to get and step into Bitcoin and have the education? It’s that trickle down effect. Now, the difference is, is that when you’re at the coal face and you’re building it, you can really see the opportunity. So all of a sudden it’s we want to get that opportunity out to the retail as fast as possible.

47:16 So, you know, you’ve had previous some of your previous invitees game in, for instance, you know, working on decentralized processing, decentralized finance, decentralized processing, decentralized storage potentially could be next huge, massive markets. But it’s about leveling that playing field in the finance world, providing people the opportunity which they didn’t have before. I think if you open that door and they can see the benefits, they’ll step through it.

47:45 So it’s all about that education piece, because otherwise, 99 percent of people are going to wake up one day and go to their banks for their next round of financial instruments. Let’s call it that way. You know, how are they how are they going to be onboarded? And then all of a sudden there’s a cryptocurrency wealth package which is there to be invested into. So I think that’s how it’s going to be rolled out at the retail retail level.

48:12 But I think we’re hellbent on giving people that opportunity before that happens. Yeah. You know, my dad, he’s probably in his 80 early 80s and he’s one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met. He’s got like a electrical engineering masters from Caltech and super plugged in. But he can’t get his head around Bitcoin or crypto. And one of my guests, Dan Tapiero, who’s been here, runs a couple billion dollar fund.

48:37 He’s talked to people all over the world. And he said, Brian, there’s one factor that determines whether you can adopt crypto. And he said, it’s not the school you went to. It’s not the country you’re from. It’s your age.

48:49 He says if you’re over 50 or 45, it’s you struggle. And if you’re under it, it’s easy. My son Damon is six years old and he understands digital assets better than most people because he’s playing Roblox. And he’s got Robux and he’s trading these things and he’s all over it. And so but my dad grew up in a world where even though technically he can understand it, it’s hard for him to go to that next level.

49:13 But thanks to BlackRock, they’re probably going to shove in some Bitcoin ETFs into one of his portfolios and they will be the ones to orange pill him. Not me. Maybe not you. Not anyone else. So I do see that as a net positive. And I think you’re kind of alluding to that.

49:27 Yeah, 100 percent. I think, you know, in the future, everyone’s going to be connected with digital assets regardless. It’s going to be a part of all of our wealth packages, etc. Real world asset tokenization. I’m looking forward to seeing that move into the Bitcoin ecosystem because there’s probably no purer form of use of Bitcoin than to have real world asset tokenization within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

49:52 Yeah, that’s a strong selling point of the Bitcoin ecosystem. If you have a real world asset and you want to make sure it’s on the most bulletproof immutable chain in the world because it’s your corporation. It’s your house. It’s your identity. Wouldn’t you want it there? Wouldn’t you pay a little extra to get it there? Yes, you would.

50:11 Same comes with anything I’ve ever produced. If I want to make sure it’s 100 percent censorship resistance, you’re damn right. I’ll find a way to get it there. So that’s an incredible selling point. And I guess you’re kind of betting on that.

50:24 Archi, tell me, what do you think about the next 18 months? Like we’re in this really interesting cycle right now. We’re within percentage points of Bitcoin all time highs. We’ve got mean coins over here. We’ve got kind of an altcoin market that’s kind of lagging over here.

50:43 We’ve got a Bitcoin ETF. We just got an Ethereum ETF that’s not live yet, but it’s been approved. What do you think is happening over the next year or two? How big will this bull market be? Is that important or are you thinking longer term? Just what are your thoughts?

51:00 I think so from a business perspective as a launch perspective, I think the ETFs are only a positive thing. They’re only a positive aspect to the whole industry, obviously, because of the on-ramping liquidity access. If we split those up into the ecosystem, if you split them up, the Bitcoin ETF, what were your thoughts? Were you surprised it happened? And then what did you think of what happened afterwards? Did you think we would see this much inflow? I’m just kind of curious.

51:29 Separate the two of them because they’re very different. But yeah, how did you respond to that? I think I’m not surprised that it got approved because it was only a matter of time. So when Bitcoin is concerned, it went through a lot of previous approval processes, which led it to this point. So I think as far as a regulatory perspective goes, it could arguably be described that they ran out of time. They couldn’t delay it anymore.

51:57 And there’s no reason for them not to, because at the end of the day, Michael Saylor, for instance, the Black Rocks, they had already started positioning, which is obviously key. And that’s what also tickled me over the years, because if you saw what was in the mainstream narrative as far as Bitcoin was concerned, being, let’s say, a scam or not here to stay, et cetera, but then to know that Michael Saylor and how they were positioning. It was polar opposites. So the Bitcoin ETF was a huge achievement for the industry as a whole. A huge achievement.

52:35 They arguably say that inflows, maybe not as much as what people were expecting, but obviously it was a huge positive anyway. We had inflows. And I think that will continue to obviously increase because remembering that the ETF was only approved in one geographic location. Now it’s been approved in Hong Kong, for example. And then where’s next? So we’re going to start seeing we’re only just at the beginning of the fiat liquidity start pouring into the ETF systems.

53:06 Then obviously with Ethereum, we haven’t even begun yet. And then that will follow the same trend. So how big can this Bitcoin, this bull run go? That’s a great question. I’ve always been a notorious holder.

53:21 So I tend to not trade the market, for example. There’s no reason to. I sleep better at night. What a great statement, Archi. There’s no reason to. God, that says it all right there, doesn’t it?

53:34 Yeah. So I was very fortunate to get into Bitcoin in and around, I think, even when the Australian and American dollar are at parity. So $360. So it was a very fortuitous time for myself back then. But yeah, it just shows if you can withstand the volatility of the market.

53:56 I think in the future, it’s inevitable that it’s going to level out just and start acting like a traditional market. We’re not going to see the 20 to 30, 40 percent declines. But I think we’ve got a lot more market cycles to go until then. Do you think this will be a long bull run? Do you think this could go really high and really big?

54:18 You know, some people are already saying it’s going to be over in Archi of next year and this is going to be really a fast one. And then other people are saying this cycle is different, like they always say. What are your thoughts on it? So from a TA perspective, I think it was middle of next year that I forecasted out to. But that was based on normal typical market cycles.

54:39 Again, no financial advice. But it’s, yeah, if you’ve got the stomach to just hold on tight and enjoy the rides, not over invest, you know, et cetera, then what matters? Does the timeline actually matter? You know, I’m looking at Bitcoin for the next 20, 30 years, you know, generational type investment. I don’t foresee myself selling Bitcoin. I don’t think in the future there’s going to be any need to.

55:07 So it’s, yeah, so to answer your question, maybe middle of next year before we start to see that bear market again. But then, you know, where we as a business would like to take our ecosystem and what we’re building, we want to really start to level out those volatility moments. So providing a scalable layer three solution with, you know, appropriate validator systems and everything in place, the yield aggregation and how that whole ecosystem molds together, where the asset pricing is concerned.

55:44 It should, yeah, we should start to be able to level that out slightly, not be as volatile as in previous years. I think that’s the fundamental difference because being linked to, you know, the proof of work systems, which even in a bull or bear market, they are required, you know, the amount of transactions, et cetera. But then it’s how you utilize that capital within the ecosystem. I think some people probably aren’t familiar with this layer three term.

56:13 And I was wondering if we could maybe define it a little more. If Bitcoin is a layer one, if Ethereum is maybe a layer one. If, for example, Merlin Chain is this layer two that allows you to kind of process many more transactions faster above it, but ultimately write them down to the layer one. Whereas maybe Polygon or ZK could be a layer two above Ethereum. When you say layer three, how can people think about that?

56:39 Like, what is that? Or is there also a reference to like a fiat currency? Yeah, so layer threes, you know, we already see them in the Ethereum side of the fence. You know, Arbitrum, orbital networks are a great example of layer threes. So essentially, they’re just an extremely high TPS network, very, very low fees, which then obviously relay back down through the various chains to the core underlining network.

57:06 So, you know, when we think about layer twos within Bitcoin, how are they going to scale at the moment? So, you know, we’ve got DeFi applications which are coming through, which require lower TPS, etc. You know, people aren’t performing those thousands of transactions per second. But then if we look at gaming solutions, you know, which they are coming, they’re going to need a higher TPS type network. Because you’ve got to love the gamers, you know, first mover adopters in all technology aspects.

57:39 So, yeah, you don’t you don’t want to break their networks if they’re coming. So you got to provide that scalable solution within the Bitcoin ecosystem. So you’re already thinking ahead as far as we’re going to need these to make everything work. Yeah, when you look at this, I mean, you said there could have been more inflows in the Bitcoin ETF, but I think I think it’s the fastest growing ETF of all time. Yeah, but so but I see what you mean.

58:03 Is that ultimately going to trickle down to what you do? Or will there be a lag? But if there’s just massive inflows going on there, is it only a matter of time before those institutions or institutional holders will start requiring everything that you’re going to build on a layer two? Yes, a layer twos, I believe so. You know, it’s why wouldn’t they want to take advantage of, you know, higher transactions per second or, you know, the lower amount of fees, especially when we start talking about regulatory approved applications, etc.

58:35 So they’re going to want to obviously utilize that and utilize that scalability. So, yeah, without a doubt, from a price perspective, the more the higher the Bitcoin goes, obviously, those individual sats, you know, yeah, you can utilize the full Bitcoin, right? So there’s a I think there’s just a lot of depth to the ecosystem which people haven’t seen at the moment, you know, they they view Bitcoin at $70,000. But what can it actually do when it’s a million dollars, when it’s $10 million, you know, the actual applications that can actually be derived, the use the use cases that can be derived at those price points as well.

59:14 And I know that sounds crazy, right? So Bitcoin at $70,000 versus a million versus $5 million, whatever it is. But I’m sure the maxis out there are already just saying it’s only a matter of time. And I believe it is because as that adoption increases, you know, ETFs are piling in, applications within the ecosystem are piling in, user base adoption is piling in. The underlying core of utility and value is obviously being driven only in one direction.

59:42 So that’s where we’re going to start to see it. And how does the ecosystem change in behavior from a $70,000 Bitcoin to a $10 million Bitcoin? What actually changes when that price goes up so much? Well, we’re going to see, obviously, visibility, marketing potential, etc. The increase in price, empowering the developers and the teams with the I don’t want to say the right philosophies, but the right mindset, the building mindset.

1:00:12 Think about what that does to defy solutions within the ecosystem. Just because the total volume will be so much higher. Total volume is huge. So it’ll be a $50 trillion asset class or $100 trillion asset class. And then it becomes like the equity markets or the debt markets or the real estate markets.

1:00:27 Yes. OK, right. So just as an overall that increases TVL, that increases everything. And now there’s just so much more going on. Correct.

1:00:35 That will ramp it up. OK, yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, but then obviously that’s at the core. So but to really start to push those boundaries, that’s where your layer twos come in, you know, because you need that scalable solutions.

1:00:48 And then obviously, layer threes to provide those bridging facilities between Ethereum, between other, you know, Solanas, Babylons, Polkadots of the world through into the Bitcoin ecosystem. That’s how essentially it will all be connected in the future. I perceive it anyway. So Michael Saylor did a kind of a now famous interview a couple of months ago where he was talking to this female reporter and she said, Michael, the only reason people buy an asset is because they want to sell it later.

1:01:18 And of course, Michael has his typical look on his face when he’s talking to kind of a mainstream person who doesn’t really understand Bitcoin the way he does. And he he kind of rejected that assertion. And you just said the same thing as in you’re never going to sell your Bitcoin. And sort of you could talk on that as far as I think a lot of people don’t understand that concept that you might hold an asset class forever as opposed to hold it for some capital gain in the future.

1:01:44 Can you explain that? Yeah, I mean, the the easiest example is why sell it when you could leverage against it. You know, we leverage against our house all the time, you know, borrow against it. There’s applications now available to do that across multiple cryptocurrencies, et cetera. So if you’re a believer in obviously Bitcoin, which I am, the asset valuation increasing, I see no reason to sell it.

1:02:09 And that’s just it in its purest sense. So then obviously in the future, why can’t I pass that down to my kids? You know, I think Michael Saylor did the same thing or sorry, has said the same thing. It’s a generational investment. So and that’s yeah, that’s where I stand as well.

1:02:24 I totally agree. Again, think about it if, you know, maybe you were one of the early tycoons in America and your great, great grandfather owned a block, you know, of Central Park. And that was an asset. And it’s like any past it down like that seems like something you’re going to want to just have for a long time. That’s a unique, you know, asset.

1:02:46 Say you have like some huge plot of land in Montana or somewhere. It’s like people can get their head around that that’s an asset you probably want to keep in the family forever. Why would you ever try to sell it for a price? It’s this core asset. Yeah.

1:02:58 If you need some short term liquidity, you can borrow against it and you can do that against land and you can do that against Bitcoin. You just got to wrap it up in a smart contract these days to make sure that your future generation doesn’t sell it. Right. Make sure they can’t. Right.

1:03:10 Yeah, that’s a good to put it into trust. I guess that’s a version of a trust. Right. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I can totally see how you’re buying Bitcoin specially.

1:03:18 There’s only going to be 21 million. A million of them are in, you know, Satoshi’s wallet and another two or three million are lost forever. So you could argue that you’re going to want to hold on to these things forever and that you’re never going to want to get rid of them. And so I could easily I think people need to get their head around kind of that concept. I’ve heard a lot of sovereigns now are now thinking long term about having assets.

1:03:40 Now we’ve heard rumors that the Chinese have a gold buying plan for like 100 years, you know, and that they realize that in the long run, having an asset like that could be really strategic. And I think quite a few sovereigns are waking up to the fact that they want to have some core position here, where it really could put them in a massive economic defensive strategic disadvantage in the future if they don’t have some bits. And I hear a lot of them are just resulting to mining in that fact, because this is something you can do.

1:04:08 Whereas I mean, you come from the mining industry and I want to ask you about this next. You know, Western Australia, where you live in Perth, you can actually go dig gold out of the ground. But if you live in other places in the world, you can’t. Whereas anybody can mine, it might not always be the most cost effective thing to do right now, but you can to build that strategic arsenal. And I’m hearing a lot of sovereigns are doing that now, looking to the future.

1:04:32 Can you comment on that? And then I’d love to get your thoughts coming from the mining industry of how you look at Bitcoin mining compared to precious metal mining. Because I think that’s really interesting. Yeah, it’s a great question. So we’ve seen the likes of Salvador, big adopters of Bitcoin, doing what they can from within their means to keep purchasing Bitcoin.

1:04:54 And I think it’s an extremely smart play. Small country, still putting big chunks aside to do what they can, regularly buying Bitcoin. On top of that, some very interesting domestic policies as well to go in parallel to that. Yeah, 100%. And that’s them thinking long term.

1:05:12 So not just a presidential term, et cetera. And I think there’s a lot that we can take from that ideology or those four processes. You mentioned the Chinese 100 year plan. When we’re building things within the Bitcoin ecosystem, for example, we’re not just doing it for a year, two years, five years. It’s actually setting it up for the long term.

1:05:36 And I think that’s where these blockchain solutions really will come to fruition. Because what we’re building today and then obviously utilizing tomorrow’s technology to really amplify the execution of various applications, whatever it may be, we don’t understand and we don’t know the true potential of that yet. So I think that’s an exciting prospect as a builder, as a developer. Because I do honestly foresee and imagine sitting there one day and my kids or my grandkids are talking about these applications and they don’t need to know that we played a hand in it.

1:06:14 It’s just the fact that it’s out there and it’s being utilized, which is key. And how that ends up shaping the world. Government policy, fiscal policies, you name it, that’s going to be a beautiful thing. I think over the next 10, 20, 30 years. So from a mindset perspective, I know that a lot of Bitcoin OGs are part of that same vein, which I think is crucial.

1:06:40 From a business and a project perspective, we obviously have that same mentality. So from the long term adoption of Bitcoin, especially from the way that I foresee it, we’re only playing a small part in this overall ecosystem, but being connected with the various teams that we are, the partnerships that are being formed together in a united development fashion, we will drive that adoption and basically drive that curve. So that’s what truly excites me over the next couple of years.

1:07:15 You saw it in the internet. Look at the internet and the way it evolved and these protocols that built the internet that are still here today. And look at the way we honor those initial people like Tim Berners-Lee and all these people. That’s all going to happen to Bitcoin. And 50 years from now we’ll look back and honor those same people.

1:07:34 There will be a statue built of Michael Saylor right next to the one of Satoshi. But these are people that without them we might not even be here, wouldn’t have accelerated as much. So you’re right, you’re actually part of history in that sense and it will continue. It’s pretty exciting that way. We’re all playing a role, even London Real. You’re playing a role within this whole ecosystem as well.

1:07:58 I still remember when Max Keiser came on my show in 2013 and he was screaming about Bitcoin. And I was like, who the hell is this guy? But he was very early, very early talking about Bitcoin. And he was very early kind of anti-bank, anti-fiat systems and notorious for giving away 10,000 Bitcoin to Alex Jones, to Russell Brand who came on his show and they lost it. Now he never gave me 10,000 Bitcoin.

1:08:26 But yeah, and we had Andreas Antonopoulos on the show in 2015, 2017, 2019. Had these epic two hour conversations with like our six cameras. And really he was talking about the Internet of money and, you know, this is before stablecoins. This is before DeFi, that term. And they were really epic conversations.

1:08:46 And again, a really early and important part. And Michael Saylor told me off camera when he went deep into Bitcoin in 2020, he would go watch those interviews and is part of his education process and figure out what’s going on. And, you know, just to linger on Michael Saylor, you know, he graduated MIT about three years before me. And he always say it was a place where they encouraged you to think on your own. I think he said his very first day in an aeronautical course, he was course 16, which is aerospace engineering.

1:09:16 They brought like a piece from the space shuttle and they said, this just broke. What do you think we should do to fix it? And he was 18 years old and he looked around and he’s like, are they actually looking for us to answer for answers to this problem? And the professor was like, yes, we want some ideas. And he said that encouraged us to start thinking for ourselves.

1:09:35 And so Michael has taken his understanding of Bitcoin to like levels that are almost like really philosophical. He calls it digital energy. He compares it to DNA sequences. You know, he really is taking things to the next level. And I’m still trying to get my head around the way he describes this asset.

1:09:54 But I’m understanding it more and more. And my students ask me all the time, Archi, they say, Brian, what news source should I go to to learn more about blockchain? Or where should I get my information? I say, you know what you should do? You should listen to Michael Saylor on repeat for 100 hours.

1:10:11 Listen to the OG’s talk and try to really process it. I think it takes months and years because we’ve been programmed in this fiat world and programmed with all these economic assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. And in order to really understand the parallel universe of Bitcoin, it takes time. And I wanted to ask you, coming from a mining perspective, I bet you understand the concept of mining better than a lot of people do because you were immersed in that industry.

1:10:39 And the same way that maybe Michael immersed himself in tech and now looked at Bitcoin. I’m curious your version of Bitcoin coming from your background. I bet it’s something different than most people. And maybe you see it in a way, especially when you got Peter Schiff saying that gold is different than Bitcoin and gold is better than Bitcoin. I had Peter Schiff on this show back in 2014, actually, before he was talking about Bitcoin.

1:11:02 And so I’m curious, how do you think you see it differently coming from your background? Yes, it’s a great question. It’s interesting because back in 2016 when I discovered Bitcoin and whole Web3 narrative back then. It wasn’t even called Web3 back then. No, it wasn’t.

1:11:21 So essentially, I come from a professional background in supply chain optimization. So iron ore extraction through the rail and then into obviously the port and then out into a global market place. So that was quite eye-opening when back then in 2016 I was concentrating on underlining data stacks and technology integrations to drive operational performance. So I had a very good understanding of underlining technologies and networks. And when I discovered Bitcoin, it was because I accidentally saw a Bitfinex chart on one of the operator’s screens who tried to minimize it.

1:12:02 And that’s how I stepped into that world because I basically just simply asked, like, what was that? I’ve never seen such a volatile chart in my life. And so that’s how I discovered Bitcoin. Interesting. And I always reminisce that story with that operator.

1:12:20 Did you fire him or promote him? No, no, he definitely should have got a promotion for sure, thinking outside the box. But yeah, so to take that whole mining concept, the transference of skills, et cetera, into Web3. So mining itself, the iron ore operations, when you look at the sheer amount of tonnage, which is getting exported out of Western Australia, and the impact that it’s having globally, you know, within the manufacturing field and then domestically, like through, you know, car supply, et cetera.

1:12:52 It’s huge. But no one truly understands the underlying network and what goes in to actually build something like that. And it’s the same for Bitcoin. So Bitcoin, obviously, the sheer amount of nodes, the operations, the network itself, the people who invested in actually running that network, it’s massive. Like, have you ever sat back and actually realized, thought about the amount of people that are running Bitcoin mining farms or individual GPU setups or, you know, contributed to the code or the tech stack in a certain way, right?

1:13:28 Not a lot of people have thought about that. And that’s what’s truly beautiful about the Bitcoin ecosystem and the developers and the network and the growth aspect of it. Now, if you think about from a corporation perspective, you know, I remember back in 2017, I put a thesis together on how the company I was working for could utilize their sub data, which was basically not being utilized within the business at the time. This, you know, was global information data temperatures in various locations, et cetera, and how that could actually be utilized within a distributed global marketplace and and resold repurposed.

1:14:10 And I remember putting this paper forward. I didn’t get a reply for weeks. And then I finally tapped someone on the shoulder and just simply asked, you know, what’s the feedback? And they simply said they don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Like, it’s that newer concept that it’s just not at that corporation level yet.

1:14:31 Now, the reason why I point that out is because Bitcoin ecosystem, what’s happening in the layer two is decentralized finance, real world asset tokenization, et cetera. All of this is being accelerated in parallel and coming around to an intersection point where these big conglomerates are going to end up utilizing it. But they’re going to end up utilizing it when the applications are obviously perfected. So, you know, why can’t I know or gold or silver, et cetera, be a real world tokenized asset on a distributed marketplace and then being sold, et cetera, between various global equity firms or countries, whatever you want to call it.

1:15:10 So that’s where I see the two industries really colliding. And that’s just one example. That’s before we even get to the retail coal face consumer front. So it’s, yeah, I find it very, very fascinating in how personally that professional career has set me up for Web3, you know, the blockchain ecosystem and obviously transitioning into this as a profession. But it wouldn’t change it.

1:15:39 It wouldn’t change it for the world. That’s wild the way you see it because nobody ever thinks about all the people. I mean, how many people is it? How many people is it? Hundreds of thousands of people probably that contribute to the Bitcoin ecosystem and its decentralization or ever have.

1:15:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a vast, huge amount of money. Right. And you see that because that you used to literally look at this network of mining this asset that changed that is a part of the world. Right.

1:16:06 It changes the that affects the whole world that’s owned by everybody in the world and used by everybody in the world, much like Bitcoin. Right. And it was coming out of the ground there and going everywhere. And if it didn’t, it would stop commerce in a lot of places and could change entire GPs of countries and employment rates if it didn’t function the way it was supposed to function. A hundred percent.

1:16:28 And you could argue maybe similar Bitcoin. Like if there was a problem or it didn’t do this and it wasn’t distributed and everybody wasn’t working there, then that wouldn’t work either. I think in the future it will be. I think that underlying network is going to play such a pivotal role in global finance, especially with the adoption rates and where it’s going, the ETF systems and the markets. And then, as we alluded to before, the countries like El Salvador purchasing powers, et cetera, of smaller countries and how that’s going to change because there’s going to be this constant back and forth of world financial powers, if you want to argue that, and how that’s going to obviously materialize over time.

1:17:10 So who’s to say that a smaller country buying Bitcoin now doesn’t end up being in the top three? Because that’s a possibility. And then, obviously, you have that mind shift. You have that economic shift. It could be one of the most important assets to own in the future.

1:17:27 Obviously, China is making that play with gold. And China is very good at taking long term. They have a history, and they have a system that makes them think way farther out than anyone else does. Talk to me about global powers, because in Perth, you’re kind of between a couple of them. And you’re actually much closer and probably have much more exposure and understanding of China than most people do.

1:17:50 And then, obviously, the West and the US, big consumers of a lot of things that you guys export out of Perth. What are your thoughts on these two countries? Obviously, when it comes to blockchain, we’ve heard horror stories of the digital yuan and that being used as a censorship instrument. Some of that’s probably true. Maybe not all of it is.

1:18:12 Then we see what’s happening in the US or what’s not. And the fact that they’ve really dropped the ball on the only technological innovation in the last couple hundred years that they haven’t dominated. It’s really shocking and embarrassing. And then we see, obviously, the politics and then the SEC and maybe a tide change right now or maybe not. What do you see in these two global powers?

1:18:36 What do you see the future of those? Are they going to change? Are you worried about blockchain being used as a surveillance instrument, et cetera? Yeah, it’s interesting because especially in Australia, I find myself sitting on the fence looking over at both sides. So Australia is a beautiful country for starters.

1:18:59 From a tech innovation perspective, we haven’t seen the restrictions in Australia from a regulatory perspective. Being able to work very closely with Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, et cetera, where our team is based is really a huge benefit. Seeing the difference in adoption rates as far as regulation goes between obviously those countries that I just mentioned, including China, especially Japan as well, compared to Europe and America over the last five to eight years, it has been significant.

1:19:31 When Binance was getting banned or say banned or restricted in America, no one advertised the fact that it’d just been regulatory and legally approved in Japan. Virtually in the same week. So there’s counter sides to the balance. Let’s just say that. So definitely need to ask the question sometimes and look holistically as to how that pendulum is swinging, where the adoption in the east is actually happening.

1:20:03 Yes, they were second to the ETF approvals, but from a regulatory onboarding perspective, they’re second to none. They’re pushing forward. And that’s really from Dubai through to Japan all the way through. So from a Web3 onboarding narrative, the leagues ahead as to where America is. And then obviously Europe’s in the middle.

1:20:28 So there is a part of me that obviously looks at America from a completely neutral standpoint. And I do see obviously the suppression, the technical suppression that has happened over the last 10 years where blockchain is concerned. And there’s a side of me that actually is disappointed because they could have been at the forefront. But then you have to ask, why is that? We now have the emergence of the BRICS nations, etc.

1:20:59 Digital currencies are going to be playing a role within central banking systems through into retail, etc. I think it’s up to us as developers and builders to make sure that we’re providing that altruistic application, providing that narrative and ensuring that retail users have access to applications which benefit them for the long haul. And the thing is, is that there’s a certain amount of adoption which is going to happen. And it always happens with markets at scale where even if there is a nefarious institution or actor out there that’s trying to use this as far as security or surveillance is concerned, there’s a certain mass adoption figure which is going to happen where it’s going to get to a point where the builders are going to ensure that that altruistic perspective takes over.

1:21:57 And I’m a firm believer in that. So it’s about utilizing that technology for the good, providing those applications, the onboarding, ramps, etc. And providing that digital future that everyone should have access to and the benefits from it. And I guess that’s really the core mission which is relevant today. So sitting there in Australia on the beach, obviously looking at the various marketing or advertising which is coming out from America, Europe, Asia regions.

1:22:30 And it is sometimes it’s polar opposites. You really do get to see the different narratives that are playing out. But then that’s where whenever I’m consulting or coaching teams within the industry, they really have to home in on their target audience and their target market and truly understand where they’re going to be launching first and why. Because it’s completely different advertising techniques, etc. and onboarding mechanisms and scalable solutions which are available in different locations.

1:22:59 Why do you think the US did not embrace crypto? Do you think it’s because it’s a monetary system and money is probably the most efficient means of control and the dollar is the dominant currency? Or do you think it’s actually not that well thought out? And that perhaps it’s just the fact that the way it started and the Silk Road and obviously it became an instrument of power. I mean right now Elizabeth Warren and a group of people, they just weaponize it.

1:23:32 And again, I’ve been in politics. You just take an issue. You don’t even care one way about an issue. But if you can use it for your own means, you just weaponize it. We see this happening all the time.

1:23:41 Do you think it’s more the latter where people are basically fighting over real estate and using whatever they can to fight the other party? Or do you think there’s something bigger involved where they see ultimately losing control? I think there’s a control aspect. I think the underlying or overarching surveillance, should I say, especially where CBDCs are concerned. There’s a reason why Florida just openly come out and said no, it’s not coming into this state.

1:24:08 But then I also think it’s due to the time frame, the mindset of the political party that’s actually in power. The amount of time that they spend in term. Chinese are very, very good. A hundred year plan. Now it’s a hundred year plan that they advertise, but really are they planning for a two, two, fifty year plan?

1:24:29 So where as can we argue, sorry, we certainly can’t argue the same in Western civilization. Was it four year terms? And then there’s a change of the guard. I mean, we’ve seen in recent years, there could be a change of the guard within 12 months. The same party is in control, but different leader changes far too, far too swiftly, far too quickly.

1:24:49 There’s a certain level of discipline I think that needs to be restored within political systems, which then obviously favor obviously the people as well. So maybe that’s just too altruistic for you. But I think we lost our way in Western societies a little bit in the fact that, you know, how are fiscal and political policies affecting the guys on the ground? You know, what is the cost of living? How much homelessness is it?

1:25:18 You know, what are we actually physically doing to make a benefit? And I think, you know, there’s two polar opposites there at the moment. Do you think the tide is turning in America? Do you see it changing? I think at the moment, just from an external obviously perspective, that there’s a struggle there.

1:25:36 You know, there’s I think, you know, correct me if I’m wrong, but homelessness is up, you know, gun crime is up, etc. The cost of living is up as well. So I think this next term, this next decision point, I think is Biden, Trump and JFK Jr. You know, it’s a very, very decisive moment in American history. And yeah, I just hope that the people over there get to vote and make that decision.

1:26:05 Yeah. And then crypto policy, I mean, obviously we’ve had a Bitcoin and an Ethereum ETF approved. I mean, that’s a huge leap forward after three or four years of massive stagnation. And you could argue if you had a Trump victory, that you’ll definitely get a new SEC chair. And perhaps a new direction, although some people say there’s the devil you don’t know as well.

1:26:29 And even though Bobby Kennedy and Trump pay positive lip service to Bitcoin, you never know what’s going to happen. But that could turn things around, that could really get the U.S. to embrace. You know, I had Chris Giancarlo in here who ran the CFTC for a long time and who actually was there to adopt both the Bitcoin and Ethereum futures contracts, which we now played a massive role in the ETF being approved. And he’s part of the Digital Dollar Initiative, and that’s to try to set a framework for what a digital currency would look like and to try to create it now because he says a president will come and they’ll want it done whenever they decide in 90 days.

1:27:09 And they won’t have a framework. And he’s like, we’ve got to build it now. But he said this is the most important fight of maybe humanity because America traditionally stood for freedom. And if you can embody that in the digital currency, then you have that maybe forever. But if you can’t, it’s like you don’t get it back.

1:27:28 Elon Musk is famous for saying two things about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech only applies when it’s someone you don’t like saying something you don’t want to hear, which is true. He also says once you lose it, you don’t get it back. And I think that’s also true about censorship in your currency. And I just recently reread 1984. Orwell actually wrote it right down the street from where I live.

1:27:48 And it’s dark. I mean, the technology is so ubiquitous in the future that it’s hard to ever see how any rebel group is going to get around it. And I see that with a CBDC. If it’s really monitoring every single thing in real time, and it’s a I powered with the facial recognition with everything else. It’s like you really better make sure this gets done right because you can’t undo it.

1:28:13 And I’m wondering if if you first of all think it’s that important to get that right. And if you think the U.S. might be able to make that correct decision because apparently that decision has not been made in the digital you want. As in it’s definitely a method of surveillance. Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s interesting because that method of surveillance, so being able to lock or stop someone’s account, it’s already built and baked into some of these underlying standards.

1:28:44 Right. So it is there. It’s whether it gets turned on or not and utilized. So whether it gets turned on and utilized as a technology should be governed at the regulatory level at the policy level. So I think it’s it’s definitely going to be interesting over the next not just the next 12 months, but over the next five to 10 years, how this plays out to answer the question.

1:29:11 It’s America still can turn it around. But again, I’m just the guy that’s on the fence or shall I say, sat on the beach looking at things from a very holistic external perspective. I just I think to circle it right back, you know, make make Bitcoin fun again is Merlin chains slogan, you know, make America great again. You know, there’s definitely some some poetry there. And I do honestly think, you know, you got some of the brightest minds, the cleverest people that actually reside and live the biggest businesses are in America, as you know.

1:29:49 And I think once once they get that green light, they’ll turn that wheel very, very quickly, because why wouldn’t they? Yes, you know, there’s the sovereign power that is within America. And I think this is really the truth might open an honest answer to this. The sovereign power that is within America has the ability to turn their history, you know, very, very quickly. But then it’s almost comes down to that hive mind hive mind mentality.

1:30:18 You know, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a small group of people at the top of the top of the tree saying, no, we can’t do this. If they have that much political public pressure to say this is the right way forward, you know, yeah, it’s eventually just going to get vibrated into existence like it’s going to happen. And that’s why I think is the beauty of what what we’re actually doing. So really putting a shining a light on all the benefits and the possible negative nefarious actions that can come from it as well.

1:30:47 Yeah, we need people to be able to stand up and say, hey, this is great technology, but don’t go applying it in this way, because then you’re starting to break down people’s freedoms. You know, freedom of where they spend freedom, how they act, freedom of how they travel. And that’s, yeah, that’s that’s not the right approach. I had Dan held on the show, OG Bitcoiner, and he we were talking about freedom of speech. And he said, you know what, Brian, he said, freedom of speech is a luxury if you don’t have financial freedom.

1:31:15 He said, if you literally can’t, you know, get internet access on your phone, you can’t buy food, you can’t put a roof over your head, you know, freedom of speech, I mean, that comes second. And so it was a great reminder that, you know, that if someone can control the money, they control you in a massive way. And so this is something that’s really important to kind of fight for. And I agree. I mean, you know, I am born in America and the country has so much potential.

1:31:43 And it can really with the capital system and the legal system and the capital markets and the population and the geography. I mean, the innovations that that country has created are incredible. And the future is incredible. They but they also suffer from a lot of problems right now. And so and with with blockchain and crypto, they’re just so far behind.

1:32:04 So if they can turn that around, they can innovate bigger and better than anyone else can when they’re going in the right direction. I think the beauty of what we’re all connected. We’re so what we’re building in the industry that’s really starting to thrive, right? It’s still only only really crawling as far as I’m concerned. Hasn’t even got up and started walking yet that whole decentralized global mindset.

1:32:29 There are no boundaries. There are no barriers. There’s no races. There’s no, you know, fractured civilizations. We’re all interconnected.

1:32:37 And having that mindset is key because everyone should benefit from this technology. And it should be global, that holistic perspective. You know, I said it to a friend two weeks ago. I said, is it if you take a selection of babies between the age of zero and five, for example, from around the world or different races and cultures and you put them in a playpen together with toys. They’re going to get on like a house on fire, you know, best of friends.

1:33:04 It’s only through education and how they grow up and learn within the world that they then start to have alternate views and perspectives of potentially the same kids that are in that pen. So that’s the kind of, you know, we need to break that. You need to break that mold. Yeah. And if you give them all Bitcoin wallets, they’re all going to innovate just as fast as 100%.

1:33:24 And yeah, and that is exciting. And it’s true. Being in this web through ecosystem, a lot of times I don’t really think about where people are located. You know, I asked secondary, you know, like I just found out that you’re located all the time in birth. And then the fact that you have teams and all these other places is normal in web three.

1:33:45 And it’s actually it works really well. Well, it’s more efficient, right? There’s work getting done and completed all around the clock. It’s not a nine to five type scenario. You know, you can set milestones, deliverables, etc.

1:33:58 Wake up the next day and it’s done. So we can innovate and execute a lot quicker. Yeah. What’s next for you, Archi? What’s the biggest thing on your mind for this year?

1:34:08 You got the TGE out of the way. You’ve got more projects coming. Just what are the big things on your mind? Yeah. So for us, it’s providing that obviously launch pad facility.

1:34:19 So attracting good ideas through the launch pad. We’re very much squared away with our technical integrations as far as asset support goes. So we should hopefully see some runes launch pads, you know, type tokenization coming through without saying too much. But then, yeah, providing that support across various Bitcoin layer twos is paramount because obviously the more networks we support, the more communities, more projects that we can onboard and bring through.

1:34:51 So we’re very much, you know, we take a very neutral approach. We’re not the stewards, we’re not the gatekeepers of Bitcoin ecosystem by any stretch of imagination. We’re here to obviously provide that positive onboarding facility for projects. And then obviously once we’ve got a certain scale within the Bitcoin ecosystem, we can start branching out to the EVM chains as well. Because at the moment we’re seeing EVM assets flowing, bridging across the Bitcoin ecosystem.

1:35:20 But, you know, once we start really unlocking that Bitcoin market cap, providing that capital efficiency, how does that affect? It should affect quite positively the rest of the industry. So, yeah, zero to six months is our technical integrations. Obviously, we have a new product which should be coming out in the next three to four weeks, the first version of that, which is very exciting. And that’s going to be obviously going towards that scaling or helping and assisting towards that scalability solution of the Bitcoin ecosystem as far as DeFi and yield aggregation goes.

1:35:57 So we’re very much targeting obviously the TVL, the user base onboarding into that layer three solution, and then obviously looking to scale from there. So we just want to play our role within the ecosystem. So stay tuned, it’s going to get more exciting. Well, I want to thank you because you’ve gotten us involved in Merlin Chain. And so now us and our whole team is using it, we’re understanding it better.

1:36:20 And honestly, it’s causing us to invest more in the ecosystem. So we’ve got quite a few plays now across. I think our first investment was in Life Beyond, which is the first metaverse that’s going to be built on the Bitcoin ecosystem using the Opal network. And then it’s also funded by Animoca. And now we’ve come in with you, which connects us with Merlin Chain.

1:36:42 We actually just finished an investment in Bitlayer, which is another layer two, which looks like an exciting take. And Charlie over there is an OG, he’ll be here in a couple of weeks. We invested in a couple of companies that are actually building something on the Bitcoin chain itself as far as DeFi protocols. And so, yeah, we’re all in on this. And we’re really excited about all these different areas and how they’re just going to push innovation.

1:37:07 In addition to all of our other kind of EVM compatible stuff as well. And again, we’re even looking into a meme coin project on Solana. So there you go. But it’s nice for us to be involved in not every sector, but we like DeFi, we like gaming, we like this Bitcoin sector as well. We like a few AI plays as well.

1:37:28 And again, they’re all kind of also coming together as you’re describing it as well. And in the future, we might not even look at those as being separate. So it’s really been great. And I want to thank you for kind of educating us on, you know, Merlin chain and what’s going on there. And now we’re all using it and seeing it.

1:37:45 And I know you got some really exciting launches coming up as well that’ll help the utility of that as well. So, yeah. Thanks for having me on. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I appreciate it.

1:37:54 If people want to potentially list their projects with you or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s best for website, Twitter as well, because you just alluded to some announcements coming up, which I’m sure people want to keep track of. So what’s the best way to engage with you and even maybe even launch your projects with you? Yeah, definitely. So obviously Merlinstarter.com is available. You can find all the connections through there.

1:38:16 And yeah, keep up to date with all our announcements coming flowing through Twitter for sure. Quite a following on Twitter. Quite a community. It’s a growing community. That’s for sure.

1:38:25 You can see that ballooning shortly. Yeah. Well, congrats for finally making your way into Web 3. Sounds like this is the place for you, you know? I feel at home.

1:38:38 Yeah. I think if you can bounce out of beds and it doesn’t feel like work, you’re doing the right thing. And if the work you’re doing also aligns with all your core values as a human, it’s like, like you said, you love it and it turns it up for Turbo. And it’s like, it’s your occupation and your purpose like all rolled up in one. And I feel a lot of people feel that way in this ecosystem.

1:39:00 I feel a lot of love in this ecosystem. I like being around the people that are all really excited. They want to be there. They’re not phoning it in. It’s not just a job.

1:39:08 It’s like a way of life. I don’t know. I find it really is quite a human industry to be in. And I love being in it. I love the people.

1:39:17 I love the exciting founders like you guys. And yeah, I don’t know how I’m ever going to leave. So I’ll be here forever. I don’t think we will, to be honest. I think this is it.

1:39:26 And we’ll keep our Bitcoin forever. Yeah, I don’t see it. Just stack it. Stack sets. Archi, thanks so much.

1:39:31 I appreciate you. Looking forward to this adventure with Merlin Stroder and everything you’re doing and wishing you all the best. Cheers. Cool, man. Thanks.