Simon Molitor - Unlocking The Future: How Solana ID Is Revolutionising The Data Economy

Full transcript: Simon Molitor on London Real

3:47 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Simon Molitor, the entrepreneur, tech disruptor and blockchain expert. You are the co-founder and CEO of Solana ID, a platform identity solution that allows users to securely link their digital data footprints to specific crypto wallets. You help people take control of their digital identities and help businesses identify users to attract them with tailored rewards.

4:13 Solana ID is a unique opportunity to shape the future of web3 to create a fairer system where users, not corporations, own their personal data. Your goal is to disrupt the web2 attention economy that has been monopolized by big tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Ultimately, you believe that establishing a digital layer of trust is essential for improving human interactions and that blockchain technology can help us innovate

4:39 Simon Molitor: the outdated models of the past.

4:41 Simon, welcome to London Real in Dubai. Brian, you did your homework. That was beautiful. I couldn’t have said it better actually. There was a very good brief introduction and I’m very happy to be here.

4:51 Brian Rose: Look, it’s great to have you here. I want to start by saying that Solana ID 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.

5:14 Simon, we are super excited to be part of this journey with you. So, let’s jump in. What is Solana ID?

5:20 Simon Molitor: There’s a few answers I could give you, but I give you the simple one. For now, we’re the fastest-growing identity layer on the Solana blockchain.

5:29 Solana itself is one of the leading platforms for a blockchain right now that’s in the world. You have Ethereum and then you have Solana. So, it’s basically on the top two spot right now for smart contract platforms. And Solana ID is primed to be the flagship identity protocol for that platform. So, all kinds of identity-related topics will be resolved by us.

5:47 It starts with civil-resistency, which is bot protection, distinguishing humans from bots and AI agents in the internet. It will become more and more important in the future, so Solana ID can help. But it also goes into a very specific sector that we kind of found for us as the most fruitful business model at the beginning, which is targeted marketing based on sovereign identity data. So, basically, we’re helping the user, who’s the data owner, to actually really own the data, control it and monetize on top of it while sharing that data with verifiers, basically advertisers, which are businesses built on the Solana blockchain, applications built on the Solana blockchain that are already right now thriving and they’re active.

6:25 But they need better solutions to identify the right users in the crowd. Because privacy is great. In crypto, you have lots of it. You’re completely private. But how the heck does a business do targeted marketing to a target persona, you know, to the right customer persona if you don’t know who is behind that wallet and you don’t have any data on it.

6:45 And there’s plenty of data on chain. We make sense of that data. And we also help the user to set up a Solana ID profile and linking off-chain data to the same profile to enrich it. And now he becomes basically a very interesting target for a marketing budget of a company to spend money on a track that awareness of that user. So, just trying to distinguish between, you know, the real value-added adding users to the app and the ones that are just like farming or bots that you don’t really want to track, right?

7:14 If you solve that problem for an application on Solana, that’s very big. Once we conquered Solana, I think we’re ready to explore wider integrations in other blockchains and even the whole internet.

7:24 Brian Rose: Okay. This is powerful because, like you said, people usually come into crypto and blockchain because of the privacy. Yeah.

7:30 Because they don’t want people to know who they are. But then they miss out on all the potential opportunities. Web2 has this down, right? They can get cookies in your browsers and they get your logins on these social platforms. They have your data and then they market to you accordingly and they make a ton of money.

7:46 Simon Molitor: It’s the biggest industry in the internet. Targeted marketing is the biggest industry. Why do you think the biggest companies are Facebook and Google? Because those are the data monopolies. And we also call them identity providers in Web2, which is funny, because they provide an identity for you, right?

8:01 But they govern it. They hold it. They have all the data of your digital identity, which is the data you basically leave as a trace, the footprint you leave in the internet, by navigating through all the websites where the cookies are installed, by using your Facebook profile, your Instagram profile, your WhatsApp, like all these applications that have huge traction. But the problem here is the data is always with the monopoly and with the ID provider. And they have a take rate of almost 100%, which means they take all the money that’s being made on that data.

8:30 But you’re kind of owning it, no? At least you should. And we didn’t have the tools yet in Web2 to build a system that can solve that problem with a fairer distribution. But in crypto we can build a system that’s more self-sovereign, that is still very efficient. It’s a big lift, not going to lie.

8:47 It’s not an easy task to build such a company. We tried it before, before Solana ID, and we kind of failed. I would say we failed. We can dig into that topic as well. But with the pivot to Solana ID, what we did very well is attach a big name, Solana, to a project identity and then use that to make more noise.

9:07 And establish ourselves very quickly as the flagship ID protocol in Solana, even before we had any product. And then people believe like, okay, they own to something. Solana ID must be big. We kind of rode that wave, and now we are having the product. Now we have users.

9:21 But we needed that bootstrap. It was a strategic smart decision, I would say.

9:25 Brian Rose: Yeah, and once we talk about the protocol, I want to talk about marketing because in disguise, I think you’re a master marketer. I think the seven immutable laws of marketing, it always says, never be number three or four in your category, be number one. So you’re not one of many identity layers.

9:39 You’re the number one identity layer on Solana, which is one of the greatest brand names in the world. So that makes a big difference. It’s attention. And going back to web two, if anybody’s watching us or listening to us right now, they always say, if you’re not the customer, you’re the product. 100%.

9:55 And meanwhile, we’re giving our data away to all these companies and they’re literally selling it back to us. I remember I sat down with Yatsu of Animoca Brands and he calls it digital colonialism. Something that the Brits perfected, right? We roll into your country like India. We take all your resources like you’re cotton.

10:12 And then we manufacture it and we sell it back to you. Literally. We take it and sell it back to you. And that’s what these web two companies do. And we don’t even know it.

10:21 And so we’re walking around kind of blind, kind of like a third world country that just doesn’t get it. And now web three comes. It’s an amazing opportunity, but it hasn’t really been cracked yet, has it?

10:34 Simon Molitor: It has not been cracked. But in my opinion, personally, when I started to be aware of crypto before 2020, right?

10:41 When it was already something, but still a very small niche, I looked at it and I was like, wow, I think the biggest use case for this technology will be data sovereignty. So ownership of data, true ownership of data, which is why tokens work, why NFTs work, right? Because you actually own the digital asset and no one can tamper with it. But we’re talking about data that can be personal data as well. That can be identity data.

11:03 And I thought this must be, this is huge for the internet. This is an internet revolution. Like then I was working in health tech and I was like, I need to be part of this because I was in my 20s, I’m still in my 20s, but I will have this chance once in a life that I can actually be part of a technology that will change the internet for the next probably hundred years, right? I’d be dead when the next revolution comes, like the evolution of the internet. Like the next one, I’d be probably dead.

11:31 I need to be part of this one. And I made the decision, okay, I think we need to work in this field. And I thought data sovereignty will be the biggest factor that will drive adoption in that space. We haven’t seen it until today because it’s just such a heavy lift to bootstrap a platform that does that. But I think now we’re closer than ever because we have the attention now from the masses on the sector itself.

11:55 We have a lot of volume locked in DeFi platforms. We have a lot of active wallets on chain on Ethereum, on Solana. There’s a lot of activity, and it’s growing a lot. We have the capital that’s flowing in. We have the attention of institutions.

12:07 We have ETFs. We have so much attention on the sector. I think if we want to build innovative products now in that field, then we should do it now.

12:16 Brian Rose: It’s a perfect time. And the data you can get in Web 3 is far superior to the data you can get in Web 2.

12:22 Potentially, if you look at a wallet’s activity, I mean, it can tell you so much. A lot of people don’t even know that when they first get into blockchain. But since it’s a public blockchain, anybody can look at your wallet and see everything you’ve ever done. And so, it’s got a massive source of data. It would be perfect for a user or a company.

12:40 It’s just no one’s really brought it all together. Net.

12:43 Simon Molitor: Yeah, not really. Because at least not on the kind of consumer front when we’re talking about business models like building a target network on top of this data. Someone needs to make sense of this data because the sheer fact that there is a lot of on-chain data also means that there’s a lot of noise.

12:58 So, you need algorithms and you need models that are able to go through the noise, find the signal and put it in a human-readable format. So, we’re indexing all data on Solana, which is quite a heavy lift itself. So, we look back. You give me a wallet account. I look back to the genesis of that wallet and I see everything that this wallet did.

13:17 And then I need to put this in a human-readable form. I need to know, okay, what does this number mean? Ah, he put liquidity in a liquidity pool. What does this number mean? Oh, he bought an NFT.

13:27 How many NFTs did he buy? What’s the diversity of assets this account is holding? What is the trading history on leverage trading platforms? How many times did this person get liquidated? There’s so much data, which is there, but you need to put in a human-readable form and make it easy for verifiers and apps to query this data through a protocol and then make decisions on top of it.

13:50 And if you hear that as a user, you might think, oh, it’s so public. Actually, it’s not private, which is funny, because we started the conversation by saying privacy is one of the biggest USPs of crypto. But it’s kind of a pursuit of privacy, because you are not identified who you are. And Salana is not doing that as well, by the way. What we encrypt, we say we’re not doxxing people.

14:13 That means we’re not putting your personal identifiable information, which is your name, Brian Rose, or your passport number, which I don’t know. But we don’t put these things on chain. We put them nowhere, really, where someone can read them out. But we make sense of the data that we have on chain, that we can see, which is kind of beautiful.

14:30 Brian Rose: That goes in the direction of the whole concept of zero-knowledge proofs, where you know things about someone without knowing that someone.

14:37 And you can make decisions based on that data. Do you zero-knowledge that data? So if I come in, I want to use Salana ID, I want to set up my ID, I start sharing with you some of my Web2 socials. Do you have that compartmentalized? Yes, sir.

14:50 That’s impressive.

14:51 Simon Molitor: We’re actually working with a company that you are aware of as well. ZKPass.

14:54 Brian Rose: Which is ZKPass. Another one of our investments, yeah.

14:57 Great, great, great group.

14:58 Simon Molitor: Very good team. We’ll keep kind of innovating together with them on certain fields. The next thing we’re going to roll out is a mobile flow to basically create your ZK proofs of your credentials from your Twitter account, your LinkedIn account, everything you do in Web2. Make a ZK proof on top of that with your mobile phone very quickly and put in your Salana ID account.

15:16 So we’re going to know if you have a Twitter account and you’re also going to know how many followers you might have or if you’re above a certain threshold. We can even check your bank balance without knowing who you are and still give that verifiably true number to someone on-chain, which is a nice flow because you literally have not, like you don’t need to worry about any kind of privacy implications here because we never tell them who you are. But we tell them what you are to an extent, I would say, which is perfect.

15:41 Everyone gets what they want.

15:42 Brian Rose: Yeah, and for people that don’t understand the importance of ZK, like if you’re kind of in the Web2 world, like we hear all the time, know these data breaches. I go to websites all the time and they’ll be like, oh, you better change your password because we’ve got a data breach. Like this happens to big banks, this happens to huge corporations. So all your data is now in the hands of someone else because they didn’t protect it.

16:02 And so I don’t like hearing that when I go to these websites. I’m like, wow, great. But with what you’re doing with ZKs, you can verify that you tick certain boxes. It’s like applying for a loan at your bank. They don’t know your bank balance, but they know it’s enough to get the loan.

16:19 They don’t know your passport number, but they know you’re a citizen of the UK. And it’s an incredible way forward. I’d say blockchain has really embraced ZK and they’re implementing it more.

16:29 Simon Molitor: I mean, it is a cryptographic technology. Yeah, it’s been given before blockchain where I think people are working on the technology behind ZK proofs because it is a cryptographic signature at the end of the day.

16:40 It only works with Moonmath, what the people call, and there’s actually a big paper on this topic. Very technical, very complex. I don’t comprehend it fully. But it does the job, right? Which is this kind of magic box where you put things in, it computes something, and it puts an output that is now verified without knowing the inputs.

16:57 Brian Rose: Yeah. The system makes sense. So I actually interviewed Professor Silvio Macaulay of MIT, who I think came up with zero knowledge proofs. He also runs Algorand. And I went to MIT, so we had a good chat about it.

17:08 He was trying to explain to me how he came up with that stuff. But it was intense.

17:13 Simon Molitor: A lot of that cryptography that he was building in the 60s and 70s created what we have today. It’s intense. And you should revisit that conversation.

17:21 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s super cool math. And so, okay, if I’m a user, why do I want to use Solana ID? Okay, I’m out there. Yeah. Whatever.

17:29 Maybe I’m new to the chain. Maybe I’m buying some meme coins. Maybe I’m an OG and I’m doing a lot more sophisticated stuff. Yeah. And I like being anonymous.

17:37 Yeah. What’s the upside in setting up my Solana ID with you?

17:40 Simon Molitor: Quick answer, you’re a VIP on Solana. You become a more important account for dApps and they will give you value in exchange for your ID. You can squeeze out more value from your wallet.

17:50 So, if you’re already using certain dApps and we are partnered with them, you have a better user experience with them, with the Solana ID and without. You might get more points in their point system. You might be eligible for some air drops that they do in future because of the ID you hold and the quality of it. You might be able to access early features that other people are not able to access. So, there’s a wide array of possible perks you can get, but those are exclusive for ID holders that either come with certain tiers and certain traits already because you’re not setting it up once and then that’s equal for everyone.

18:23 No, it’s an identity. It’s individual. So, people have different tiers. They have different scores. They have different credentials.

18:28 But if you’re eligible for a certain perk and a certain kind of thing that you can get on chain, then only with Solana ID. So, I think the easiest way to explain it is this kind of VIP status on chain, which is interesting for people that are new to the chain because if you’re new to Solana, at least you can now bring your data from Web2 and you arrive as someone, right, instead of a fresh wallet with no data at all because you have definitely disadvantage if you arrive to Solana as a fresh wallet. No one knows you.

18:55 Solana ID couldn’t give you a good kind of on-chain score because it’s empty, but you can bring your off-chain credentials. It might help you to get, you know, a higher tier in our system and get you some perks on chain already. If you’re already a Solana OG, like a user that’s been on the chain for a long time, you connect a few of your wallets, you’ll get a very good score, and you can get a lot of perks on chain already with the apps that you’re already using.

19:16 Brian Rose: Nice. And I can choose for my ID to be public or not with you, or is it always private with you?

19:23 Simon Molitor: So, basically, no one ever has your Web2 data, right? So, that’s one thing. It’s a self-sovereign system.

19:30 Right now, we’re only leveraging the ZK proof part of things. So, we literally just have a code, like a little identifier, right? But we don’t have any private data. If we don’t have private data, there doesn’t need to be a privacy setting, really. But we’re rolling out other features as well that are based on attestation and verifiable credentials.

19:47 How do you get out of a rat race? How do you create wealth not only for yourself, but also for the generations to come after? I am absolutely amazed with the quality of companies that we’re getting exposure to. We go on to Zoom calls with the innovators and the folks who are building new applications in Metaverse, Blockchain, artificial intelligence, decentralized finance. What’s going on, everybody?

20:09 Thumbs up if you can see me. We are focusing on early-stage investment. And the quality of people that we’re getting exposure to, whether it be Dan Tapiaro with 1RT, Jason Ma from Open, Ayatsu from Anamoka. It’s been a phenomenal experience thus far. It has far exceeded my expectations.

20:28 We are focusing on cutting-edge technologies. IVU now is the best investment I’ve ever made. The upside, IVU, is unlimited. And as a retail investor, I would never get this exposure anywhere else outside of investment cloud. See you in the investment cloud.

20:46 These technologies will give a bit more depth to your data. So it’s not just, are you above or below? It can actually be a more accurate data point from your Web2 journey. But these will also be in a decentralized data network, not with us. And you also have the option to toggle privacy settings on and off.

21:03 So you can see your history of people that tapped into your ID information. You can see our Jupyter wanted to query some data from me, our Camino created some data. So you see all these online applications that used your ID to create data. And you can say, hey, this one, I don’t really want them to see my data. You toggle it off.

21:20 And there’s no way for us to toggle it on again because the data is with you essentially. So our Northstar is always optionality when it comes to data. We want you to have the option to be very transparent with it and then get the biggest rewards, make the most money on your data, get the most perks and so on. You’re highly transparent as well. But you should have the option to decide, okay, I want to opt out and I want to keep my data for myself.

21:43 And I don’t want this person to access it. You don’t have optionality at all in the Web2 world when it comes to your data.

21:51 Brian Rose: Right. And contrast this with another digital ID service. I interviewed Stanley Kulichov of Aave back in 21 and he went on to create this lens ID system that some social platforms are using.

22:03 But I think that’s really different. I think that’s an NFT that you have in your wallet, which is then therefore public. And it’s an interesting take on it. But there was no optionality in there that I understand.

22:15 Simon Molitor: Yeah.

22:15 And also it’s more like a social network really than an identity system. If you really compare it strictly with Lens Protocol. So you build profiles on chain with Lens. But in our case, you really have the optionality and the sovereignty of your data. You can on-ramp off-chain data using ZK proofs.

22:30 It’s a different setup. And then the whole pitch we built on top of the ID system, which is the targeted ad network, is also inherently different from a business model than what Lens is doing or actually many other identity protocols is doing. Because here’s the thing. I think many ID builders failed at coming up with a solution that people care about. Identity is great if you build a use case on top that people care about.

22:54 But identity is useless if it’s sovereign and you own the data and all those great pictures that sound so revolutionary. But if it doesn’t do any job for me, what job does it do? It doesn’t give me value immediately. So I’m not going to do it. I don’t give a shit.

23:08 Okay. And I’m key speaking. I won’t use it, even if it’s visionary. You have a niche of people that are like, oh, interesting. I’m a privacy kind of maxi.

23:17 I want to use it. But you need to solve a problem. Like, if I will, imagine you want to get in the wait list of an application and the wait list is 10,000 seats long, right? And you want to be the next one in the line. And there’s a button that says log in with Solana ID, verify as a human, you know, verify as a core contributor to other ecosystems.

23:35 Just show me that you’re valuable, right, to my ecosystem. If you can prove that to me, I’ll let you join tomorrow. Now I’ll click that button. I even set up my Solana ID and I’ll even pay $10 for it, right, to set it up. And then I get that perk.

23:48 I get that job done. Early access to this application. And you can copy paste this example to completely different examples. I want to get that air drop. I want to get that white spot for this investment now.

23:59 There’s so many things I want in crypto and I can’t get them because I’m too late. I’m not eligible for it or whatever. Besides, you can, you know, skip the lane.

24:08 Brian Rose: You just said something that just cut through. You said, show me that you’re valuable.

24:12 And if you think about it, every human pretty much all day long is trying to show they’re valuable, right? By what they wear, by their accessories, by what they post on social, because the more value you can show, the more opportunities you get. And it’s not a bad thing. When you go on a date, you know, you clean yourself up. You know, you try to say the right things.

24:29 When you want to go to a restaurant, you want the best table. When I’m pitching a company, I want them to know I’m London Real and this is our history and this is what we do and this is who I am. So it’s like we’re always trying to show how valuable we are in certain situations so we can get the most out of every situation. That’s

24:46 Simon Molitor: so intangible. Like these things, there’s no data.

24:48 We’re friends of data. If you can now verify it, you prove that you’re very valuable. It’s not just like your pitch. It’s not what you say. It’s not what you make me feel.

24:57 Those are all intangible things. I want the data. I want to click a button and see, oh, wow, this guy has a big history on chain. He has these credentials in his wallet and so on. It just takes one wallet for me to verify these things and they’re verifiably true because of the tech we’re using and you get the job done.

25:13 Right.

25:13 Brian Rose: Yeah. In a world where there isn’t much communication, like in a Web3 world, I mean, I can’t even associate a wallet with my social media scores. Well, except with you, I can’t. Right now, there’s no way, even if I was trying to provide intangible value, I would be judged by my wallet and when my history was.

25:30 So now there’s an opportunity. And again, you said VIP. This is interesting. How many of us have had an experience where you walk up to the front door and there’s a line somewhere, a restaurant or a club, and the owner of the bouncer comes out and lets you in first. Everybody wants that feeling.

25:45 I got a restaurant I go to in Blue Water and I go there all the time. And when I go there, everybody comes there, shakes my hand, they give me the best table. The other day, I sat at a six-person table and had dinner myself. Yeah. Interesting.

25:57 Yeah. And they know I’m a good customer. Yeah. They know I spend well. And so everyone wins because I feel really good.

26:05 I get really good treatment. And then the business wins because they get a regular high-value customer.

26:09 Simon Molitor: Yeah. And in the real world, that works well. They see your face, they know who you are.

26:13 Right. But in crypto, you look and they say, well, they don’t know who you are and what you are and what you did in the past. Right now, at least, there’s no system really. We’re still early in crypto, even if people say the friend. We’re still early in the tech part of it.

26:25 And

26:25 Brian Rose: we’re still at the frontier of technology here. So there’s ways for us to innovate and there’s ways for us to build infrastructure systems like Solana ID that will be leveraged by a lot of apps throughout the internet and future. So sometimes when people ask me, like, where does this lead to? Where do you go?

26:40 Simon Molitor: Just imagine you invested very early on in Google AdSense, what they do now, because they do something similar.

26:45 If you think about it, they help projects in the internet, B2B customers, to target the right people based on the data they collect. Right. We’re just building that system with a bit more honesty and fairer because we loop the user in. But we’re building a similar system where we help apps on Solana to identify, you know, the creme de la creme of the users and to track them to their application. And you can build a big business on top of it.

27:08 Like, it’s highly scalable.

27:09 Brian Rose: And on the blockchain, there’s a lot of reasons to have that identity. Like you said, whitelisted on projects, getting you access, getting you perks, and getting in the front of the line. You know, you’re like, I should be in the front of the line because I’m a whale, I’m a player, whatever. But try to explain that to a whitelist.

27:22 They don’t care who you are. No. So this is a way. DM the founder and ask for, you know, like an exception, like very manual processes. Right.

27:30 So there’s another ID system out there called Mochaverse. And Mocha is rolling out. We’re actually interested in that too. But tell me what you see there versus what you’re doing as well, because those are the only two identity systems I know. Blantley

27:42 London Real promo: speaking, I’ve sat on a table with the team and we talked about overlaps and how can we integrate with each other.

27:48 And because there’s overlaps, obviously, they’re building an ID system for their ecosystem. We’re building an ID system for the Solana blockchain. We can merge the words together. We can have some overlaps. We can share some data from our user base to your user base and vice versa.

28:00 So I think we can build streets here that we can leverage. And we’re not competing because we’re in a completely different niche. And also the tech stack is different right now. But I think I see those projects as potential collaborative partners for us and then competitors. They’re not inherently right now.

28:16 Brian Rose: Excellent. We talked about the consumer side. Let’s talk about the business side. Because how can a business plug into this? What do they get from this?

28:25 Obviously, with my restaurant or club analogy, you know, what the business really wants are the big spenders because that’s what probably gets most of the profits of a business. So they want to know who the VIP people are as well. So how do they tap into the other side of that?

28:38 Simon Molitor: Let’s break it down in kind of proof of concept stage where we are right now and kind of some tangible use cases that we already rolled out. And then about the kind of next steps and the vision and where this leads to.

28:49 There’s like two stories, two answers to the question. Where we are today, status quo. We build a user base of 20,000 users, approximately. That signed up and they got something we called the Solana ID Priority Pass. So it’s an NFT that you hold.

29:01 There’s already some off-chain data linked to it. And the 20,000 user base is divided into tiers. One, two, three, four. The tier one is very exclusive. 1,000 accounts only.

29:10 And it was very hard to get in there. It was kind of competitive because you could do certain things. Connect social media accounts. Collect some badges on Discord. Behave well.

29:18 Have a good on-chain score. And then you get in that first tier. People were fighting to get in there. Because they knew there will be some rewards. There will be some benefits.

29:26 And that’s what we do now. We get approached by, literally by projects. Can we do an airdrop to your user base? Can we give you money? Can we send our tokens to your users because we want the criminal agreement to hold our token.

29:39 So we did that just like two weeks ago. We did an airdrop of VIMCOIN to the top, I think, 10,000 approximately in the 20K list. So they kind of used our tier system to airdrop the tokens to the right accounts. They tried to identify people that, if they catch the attention of the project, will hold onto the token. Maybe buy some more.

29:57 But more importantly, talk about it. Talk about it on Twitter with their friends and so on. We helped them to identify these people. So that’s, I think, a very tangible example because it’s literally life. Like we did that.

30:07 People claimed their tokens. Everyone was happy, right? Cool. The project got like a spike in media mentions when we did that because people talked about it on Twitter. Right.

30:15 Brian Rose: I just got dropped this. Did anybody else get this? Exactly. We posted

30:18 Simon Molitor: our tweet and so on. So we did some announcements around it as well.

30:21 Now where this leads to, it’s a much more sophisticated campaign strategy where you have almost like a Facebook business manager for a dApp where they log in in an admin portal and they can tell us, look, what kind of user do I want for my chain, for my project, for my protocol? What am I looking for? This user needs to hold a certain amount of stablecoins. This user needs to have done a certain amount of volume with liquidity provisioning services. So we’re basically looking for behavior data of that user and they give us the exact data points.

30:52 And then we can tell them, out of the set of 15 million wallets that we’ve created so far and index on the Solana blockchain, one million wallets are in your criteria set. This is your target audience. We identified this, similar to Facebook business manager. We can even create look-alike audiences. We can say, okay, these people did that, but we also have these people.

31:11 I think they could behave similar to these people. We can come up with these solutions. And now all we need to do is to have these dApps to reach those accounts. So either those people already have set up a Solana ID and we have a way to them. They gave us their email address because they want to get informed when they have perks.

31:26 Maybe they connected some social media accounts. Maybe we have the tailgroom bought out that gives you personal news when you need them. We need to reach these people. But we will help the dApp to identify the target audience based inside of the noise of crypto and we help them to reach out to them and build this kind of custom campaign. And now, for once, we can spend marketing budget in crypto in a targeted way instead of just throwing it around and seeing what works, because that’s basically what the apps have been doing in the past couple of years.

31:54 There’s a lot of Web3 marketing techniques, if you want to say so, that are highly inefficient. We came up with a number when we did some research that the customer acquisition cost is six times higher in crypto to acquire one customer than in Web2. And it’s because of that, because there’s no way to target your audience, really. And you’re just throwing around money and then you see who comes, right? And then the biggest problem, the people that come are sometimes not the people you want.

32:20 So you check with them, you spend money on acquiring them, but then they fuck off again. They’re not staying. Maybe even hurt. Maybe they’re even bad actors. Or dumped your airdrop and caused problems.

32:33 So those are the two phases of your business model. Right now, we’ve concluded the POC and the proof of concept. We’re actually shortly before launching the Sloan ID beta version now, where people can create their Sloan ID, where we can further bootstrap our B2C side of things and bootstrap ID holders. And once that is live, and we’re getting some traction on it, we start building out the B2B platform, like the actual dashboard, because that will help us to scale much quicker than doing these custom pilots with businesses that we’re doing right now.

33:00 Right. We have our group chat, and we’re like, what can we do with you? And we set up some custom campaign with them, and so on. Right. Those don’t scale.

33:07 I mean, difficult, right? You need a big sales team or whatever. It just makes no sense. You need your docs. You need your portal, where you can just send the business to work.

33:15 They don’t even have to reach out to us, right? They can just go there, lock in with their account, create their account, and then set up a campaign, right? And click all the buttons and reach out to the right people through our system, and then we can just let the business thrive.

33:27 Brian Rose: Okay, nice. So that’s the B2B side.

33:29 How do you scale the consumer side? Because you want to go from 20,000 to 100,000 to 2 million.

33:34 Simon Molitor: Yeah, I mean, you give them more perks, right? You just tell them the story. That’s how we got the 20K out of nothing.

33:41 You just told them you’re going to get something in return for starting with us now, right? There’s going to be perks. So our job is just to make the Solana ID attractive as an identity credential on chain. So you need to want it. You need to feel like you’re missing out on something.

33:55 And we made that work very well in this 20K list. We get so many people asking us, can I still get the priority pass? Can I buy some? No, the campaign is closed. The passes are soulbound.

34:05 You cannot transfer them. You cannot sell them, obviously. It’s an ID object. So we just need to increase that kind of form more in scarcity around the Solana ID. And we have some good marketing campaigns with this that are a bit exclusive to make sure that we get the next milestone, which is for now 100,000 user signups, so 100,000 ID holders, which will be the next kind of wave that we’re getting in in a kind of short term.

34:28 Brian Rose: Okay. What’s a solid score?

34:30 Simon Molitor: Well, the solid score is your snapshot of your on-chain activity that you did. So everything you did on-chain, a big algorithm that we have that we’ve built, we ran it through, requiring right now more than 35 criteria. 35 criteria is on-chain, and we’re building it out constantly.

34:45 So at some point, it will be more than 100, probably. And then you get a human readable score from zero to 1,000, and you’re somewhere in between. And we can use that as a very easy, like a very easily queryable number for apps to make a decision on, should we give them an airdrop or not? So it’s kind of the easiest way to interact with our protocol is just creating the solid score. If you want more custom data, you know, if you want credentials, if you want a specific set of data, either you use the B2B platform, that’s going to be there later, but you can create your own set of criteria, right?

35:16 Or right now, you just hit us up, and we help you to customize the flow. But right now, the easiest way to score is life. Like, we have it. It’s going to be part of the Solidity Beta. And we’re very short, actually, right now, every day we’re working on it to wrap it up because it’s going to be used in the next two weeks by people.

35:31 They’re locking with their wallet. They get their score.

35:34 Brian Rose: Now, can I find out my own solid score?

35:35 Simon Molitor: For sure. Just lock into the page.

35:37 And

35:37 Brian Rose: I change my solid score.

35:38 Simon Molitor: You can improve it. I can. How? Just be more active on chain, right?

35:42 You can see a breakdown. Okay. So you click on the Expand button and you see a breakdown of your score. And you see, basically, why do I have 300 of thousands right now? Why am I there?

35:52 And you see the different categories, and you see, oh, I’m not so active in liquidity provisioning, right? Maybe you have, like, oh, I have a different wallet account that I do liquidity provisioning with. You add it to your account, you add the second wallet, you have a new score, and it might be better already. So you can do these things. Later on, you’ll be able to use your off-chain data as well to improve the on-chain score.

36:11 Like bank account balances and stuff?

36:13 Brian Rose: Yeah. Wow. So create all those credentials using the CK proofs.

36:16 Simon Molitor: In the first model, in the beta that we’re launching right now, because at the time we speak right now, we’re literally, you know, before the first actual product launch.

36:24 So quite early in the journey, if you say so. In the first beta that we’re launching, the off-chain part is not going to be reflected in this score. Okay. It’s only your on-chain footprint.

36:33 Brian Rose: I’ve never heard of another ID system incorporating non-blockchain data.

36:37 I’ve never heard anyone say that. Yeah. Like a credit score, or a bank balance, or whatever. But that’s cool.

36:44 Simon Molitor: We’re building businesses on-chain.

36:46 They need data. How do they get the data off-chain? They don’t right now. If you want to give it to them without doxing your wallet, there needs to be a system. And so are these, just building that system.

36:55 We’re not stupid. We’re not the only one, right? If you’re the only one, you might be stupid. So there is others out there. I think the best one that I can tell you would be Gitcoin Passport on EVM, on Ethereum.

37:06 So people can look that up. They’ve been around for a long time. They’re very focused on bot protection, not the kind of business model we are building on top of it. But they came up with a pretty decent system, which is kind of similar. They have some off-chain credentials as well in their system.

37:20 But that’s pretty much it.

37:22 Brian Rose: Okay. And I can also increase my VIP status on Salon ID by uploading more of my Web2 data. So I give you my Twitter account and my YouTube account. All flow into the same.

37:31 And that’ll just give me a little bit more perks.

37:33 Simon Molitor: It might be, right? Because you’ll see what kind of benefits you get on Solana. And the more data you have in your account, the more perks might pop up there. Because we might have an app that says, we only want people with 50,000 followers and more, right, for the specific thing that we do.

37:47 And now you have access to it. So it’s almost like a membership that you have for an exclusive kind of circle, right? And only people in that circle get the perks and the benefits. It’s

37:56 Brian Rose: very cool. Let’s talk about bots real quick because this is something a lot of people talk about, but I don’t think anyone really understands the scale of it.

38:04 You know, Elon famously almost didn’t buy Twitter because of the bot activity. You know, he got in, I think he got it on the inside and he saw that, I don’t know, a third of the traffic was bots or something. I don’t know what it was, but it was high and he tried to back out of the deal. Now, thank God they forced him to do the deal, but he overpaid and he knows he overpaid, but I’m really glad he did for freedom of speech reasons. But he did.

38:28 There’s obviously a lot of bots in blockchain. Look, the ton ecosystem is amazing and Telegram is amazing, but a lot of people believe there’s a huge chunk of bots there. But here’s something nobody likes to talk about. There’s a massive number of bots in the Google ecosystem. I spent millions and millions of pounds on ads.

38:45 When I ran my mayor campaign, I was jamming and I was doing like people in the London physical area, but I am confident that there are so many bots in the Google system and it’s a dirty secret that Google doesn’t talk about. And they basically charge us a 30% premium for all your ads because they’re going to nobody. And so here I am targeting people that live in the greater London area to vote for me, but I know, I know that probably a third of those were bots. And so this isn’t just a problem in Web 3.

39:15 It’s actually a problem in Web 2. No one likes to talk about. And the companies don’t like to talk about it either because it’s part of their business model. They make money on it. Yeah.

39:25 And that’s what I think a lot of people in Web 2 who spend money on advertising don’t even realize this. And it’s frustrating because you kind of assume it wouldn’t happen. So it’s like, wow, I’m targeting to look like audience. I’m targeting people with over 60K in income. They come to my website.

39:38 They don’t do anything. Well, I wonder why because a lot of them are bots. So talk about how important this digital identity is because we’re looking to a future where there’s going to be more bots, there’s going to be more AI and defining a real person is going to have a significantly increasing value.

39:56 Simon Molitor: Yeah, right. Exactly.

39:57 And here’s the thing before I give the answer to the question. What the London Real Investment Club actually does for you, it gives you the keys to open that door to the inside deals. In the last three weeks, I’ve participated in three incredible deals, a layer two Bitcoin protocol, an incredible AI protocol. The deal flow is beyond what I expected. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a model like this that just gives average folks the opportunity to be behind the deals.

40:24 And that’s exactly what we’ve done. Not only that, you get to hang out with Brian Rose every week. And for me, that was huge, because I look at Brian as somebody who’s not only an expert in the space and I think is on the leading edge, but just the leading edge of thought with London Real and the work he’s doing there. To anyone who’s taking a serious look at this, I know it’s a big decision. It was a big decision for me and my family and it is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

40:49 So I wish you all the best and hope you come join us. We’re not trying to kill bots and agents, right? Because I think they will dominate the internet either way. And the thing is, with crypto, the bots start to have money accounts. So they’re able to spend money.

41:08 So we don’t really want to cut them out. We actually just want to… You don’t just like bots, just bot behavior or bad bot behavior. If they’re sibyls, which is the word that we use in crypto, because it is usually used when someone is creating a large set of wallets. Usually bots automate things and then they just spam your system.

41:26 Sibyl. Sibyl. Which is short for sibyl attack. I don’t even know what the…

41:32 Brian Rose: Okay.

41:32 So it’s kind of bad actor bots. Right. Okay.

41:35 Simon Molitor: Well said. Because there are good bots out there.

41:38 Exactly. They do transactions. They have funds now? Especially with AI, like with the agent economy, you get actually bots that are smart. They know what they do and they now have private keys to a crypto account.

41:50 They can spend money and they can make decisions on spending the money. I know. Just think a few years ahead, right? That’s why I say we don’t want to kill that economy. We have nothing against it.

41:59 We just want to have apps to make sense of the data and to identify who’s human, who’s agent, right? That’s already a question that I would like to answer for myself and for my business. And then how can I attract both of them? And what do I need to do to do that? So if we can help you to acquire the agents that will spend money on your platform, go with it, sure.

42:17 And that will be possible as well. But we kind of need this way to identify who’s actually human, who’s behaving like a human as well. And there’s things you can read on-chain that give you data on that. So we can do that. So it’s basically just based on the footprint you leave.

42:33 We can give an estimation on is that possibly human or possibly bot behavior? So that’s not bulletproof, but it gives you an estimation of it. You can already make a decision based on that data and it’s kind of easy to come up with that. What’s harder is to really have a bulletproof system that says, okay, this must be a human. For this, I need human interaction.

42:54 I need the human to do something. So in our system, they need to set up their ID

42:59 London Real promo: and they need to start to on-ramp some off-chain data because then they are verified per human, especially as soon as they, for example, attest that they have a KYC check in Binance. If you do a testation or a ZK proof on top of that data point, you’re most likely human. You have that in your data backpack. So as we’re bootstrapping the ID holder set in SolanaID, we’re also bootstrapping the amount of verifiable humans and then we can use that data to market to them if apps.

43:26 I prefer that.

43:27 Brian Rose: Wow. Okay. I’m still… We got to take a moment and just understand that there’s actually agents out there.

43:34 What is it? AI16Z, which is like the play on Andreessen Horowitz, has its own fund and its own agent and it’s out there.

43:41 Simon Molitor: I don’t know if it’s completely independent, but it’s thrown around $10, $20 million a clip.

43:47 Brian Rose: I’m pretty sure there’s human intervention. I’ve heard a lot of smart people say that.

43:52 Right.

43:52 Simon Molitor: So without being too deep into the actual tech behind AI16Z, the agent, I think it’s the tip of the iceberg. So even if that one is not doing like pure agent behavior, there will be one in the near future. Yes. So I think that’s the smart…

44:08 Brian Rose: But you could identify good robots or high value robots. They’re just people. And you might want the difference between the two. Yes. Even if there’s a bot who’s thrown around more investment than your big whale, there are people in your B2B ecosystem that will say, that’s all great, but I need a human.

44:26 Simon Molitor: Yeah. So if you can create data from us, that’s cool. But we just don’t… We want to use the same system we use for humans also for agents who come in the internet because it just makes sense. As soon as they have more power about spending money, as soon as they came in money spending decisions, you want to market to them, right?

44:41 How bad are bots right now on Solana? I mean, look, there’s tons of mean coins being launched on Solana and now you’ve read all these terms like snipers and all these other things, and I’ve seen what look like really well-intentioned, great community mean coins just get killed from, I think, bot activity. Yeah. It is definitely a topic that needs attention to be solved. It’s not killing anything.

45:04 It’s not an existential problem, I would say, at this stage. But we have big projects that are fighting with it, especially when they want to do new token launches. Then the snipers come that usually are able because of their bot activity to buy the token so early, they detect that the token is being created on chain and they snipe a big amount of the token at a low valuation and have a big bag and then they dump it at the top after the humans went in, right?

45:31 And then you lost against the machine, and no one wanted that really. The project is not benefiting from it. The users are not benefiting. Only the bot makes money and the human, that is the master of him, right? So that’s a problem.

45:43 And we’re coming up with systems through that where we have fair launches that are a bit better orchestrated. I think it needs a couple more months maybe on Solana right now that we have better systems to launch tokens in a fair way without big snipe activity. But then the bigger problem as well is to have the civil attacks when it comes to airdrop campaigns, for example. So airdrops are usually a model that crypto projects use to get attention of people, right?

46:08 I want you to use my application, so please do this and this because then in the future I will watch you with an airdrop. But now if a human sets up a bot farm, a civil attack, right? They just set up a lot of accounts that mimic these actions that normally humans are intended to do, and then the bots are farming the airdrop. And then as soon as I do my airdrop, I drop it to like 5,000 accounts, but 4,000 of them are five bots, right? That are just created a bunch of wallets.

46:37 And then it all flows to one human. That actually doesn’t give a shit about that product. He’s just farming with his bot army, right? So we need to solve that problem for sure. And big projects like Jupiter, projects like Bonk, they are fighting with these things.

46:50 They come up with their own kind of ideas of it, but we don’t have a kind of chain agnostic or for now Solana agnostic layer and protocol that solves it for everyone. So that’s where Solana ID can come in as well and help with the distribution and identifying who’s not civil, who do I want to airdrop to. So before they airdrop or before they launch a mean coin, they might come to you and say, give me the real people, and I’ll only allow those wallets to connect.

47:15 Exactly. That’s big. Yeah. Yeah. So at least it solves a problem that is right now burning.

47:21 Okay. Yeah. And the problem is probably going to get worse. The more smarter the bots get, I believe it’s not getting easier. Yeah.

47:29 Okay. I mean, just on that note, I mean, you’re watching AI be developed in parallel with what you’re building. We’re seeing AI agents as the hot new meadow. I don’t know how long that will last. Who knows?

47:39 But maybe it will. I guess it’s the evolution of AI somehow. Mm-hmm. What do you think is going to happen going forward in that space, I guess? There’s a future for it.

47:48 That’s for sure. It is big. It is, again, internet changing technology. I think we’d see more than 30% of activity on chain from agents, not humans, in the near future. Because like I said, they have money accounts.

48:03 They can spend. They can make decisions, right? So we need to treat them as serious players on the internet going forward, right? I think that’s big for sure. And crypto is kind of their natural home turf, I would say, the crypto sector.

48:16 Because here, they don’t need to talk to a bank or something to get an account. Just set up their crypto order. They fund it. Someone funds it. And they can go and do things and trade.

48:26 So all the DeFi apps that you have right now, where you provide liquidity, where you do leverage trading, and so on, they can be all done by bots and agents as well. I think it will happen in the future. And right now, we have the exploration phase. There’s a new technology. And you add crypto to the mix, it goes crazy.

48:41 Because you have this money element of it. Yeah. So people create this bubble, right? That’s where we are right now. When the agent bubble, it’s going to go higher, right?

48:50 That’s my prediction, at least. I think we’re not done yet with milking the cow. So then there will be much more money flowing into the sector. Like when the economy picks up and global liquidity picks up, I think agents will be a thing in 2025. It might be the new kind of the DeFi summer from back in the 2020, 2021.

49:11 Now might be the agent summer in 2025. So that’s a thesis I put out there. But then, obviously, the bubble burst at some point. And like always, and the good protocol, it’s the good agents, they survive, and they carry the whole narrative forward. So this will happen.

49:25 And it’s a changing technology. And for us, as SolanaID, we see potential as well. Because those agents need ideas. They leave a trace on chain. Humans want to understand them better, right?

49:37 They want to know if it’s really an agent, what kind of behavior does he have? And if we can give them a behavior profile, and so on, you just plug in the contract errors of the agent, and we can give a good, very interesting analysis of the on-chain behavior, the solid score of him, and so on, like some data. You can use that data to market, to make decisions on top of it, and so on. In the future, my solid score might incorporate also my agents. Maybe I plug them in, and I have to live and die by their behavior.

50:08 And if they’ve been behaved well in the past, then my score goes up, and if they don’t… If you’re the master of them? Yeah, maybe they’re known as I’m the master of them, which gives them high scores. Potentially. Possibly.

50:21 We’re looking in the future. No, at the same time, people said that blockchain is the best place for AI or the AI discernment. Because in blockchain, there’s provenance of the data. You can track everything, and you can assign identities there. So, in many ways, it can accelerate the problem, but it also is the solution, more so than in the web2 world, right?

50:42 I would say so. Yeah, I think that’s right. I think, like I said, it’s kind of the home turf for agents, the whole crypto space. We just need to make sure that they don’t dominate. That’s also what I like to say about Solana.

50:56 We just help humans to kind of keep the upper hand about everything, because as soon as we kind of lose the power and the control over the agents and we can’t distinguish any more who’s who and what content is real and what is fake and so on, it kind of gets dangerous very quickly, right? The more sophisticated they get as well. So, we want to remain the masters, right? We want to remain the IT providers to the agents, not vice versa. So, I think we just need to be careful, as always, when we have this kind of acceleration technologies that we don’t accelerate at a pace that will outpace us, I would say.

51:27 It’s already getting wacky. It is. I mean, it’s already getting crazy wacky. I mean, you know, the fact that there’s AI agents, like AI 16Z, that are managing, I think, like last time I checked, $300 or $400 million. You know, the fact that there are AI agents on Twitter that just post posts all the time and that people follow what the AI Twitter account says and when they mention a meme coin like goat, it goes to the moon.

51:53 It’s just like, okay, this is getting really crazy. Information technology has always been crazy. It has always kind of be the start of the exponential age. Just now the slope is just like getting higher and higher. Look, a couple years ago, I went down the rabbit hole on AI because I got a little freaked out and I got two little young boys and I was worried.

52:13 I was like, their teenage years are going to be nothing like mine and I got really worried. I had all these AI experts on. And, you know, you kind of get two fields. One people say, oh, we’re always worried about technology. You know, the automobile was going to replace this.

52:25 No, there were more jobs. Oh, the computer is going to place this. No, there were more jobs. But they always forget that none of those things had agency. So you can always go back and say, okay, yeah, but they didn’t have agency.

52:35 They couldn’t make their own decisions, this tech. And so I think people are really underestimating. I think so, too. And like you said, the slope just went, what looks like to us vertical. It’s difficult to keep up, right?

52:46 Whereas with the amount it develops, right? No, it doesn’t take breaks. That’s the thing. Agents don’t, you know, they don’t go on vacation. They don’t sleep.

52:54 That’s why I think it’s also a big bull case for crypto, honestly, because it will give us much more activity on chain. It will give us much more stuff to do, apps to use, and so on. Because at the end of the day, apps always are looking like, especially DeFi apps, they’re looking for activity. They’re looking for TV. They’re looking for who’s using my platform to do something.

53:13 And agents will be the, you know, the perfect customer for you in that sense as well, right? If you get them to use your protocol. Yeah, it’s going to be a wild future. Let’s talk about the token playbook launch for Solid, because this is really interesting. Yeah.

53:28 It makes you very different as a founder and how you executed it. And obviously, you know, we were investors. I was there on a Twitter space on the day of your launch. I think I was talking about it, and it was amazing to see. I think you did a pre-launch on Swissborg, which are good friends of ours.

53:45 We’re investors in them as well. And then a few days later, you did a post-mortem, which I thought was really interesting. Where you, I think, called out a couple of other, maybe, competitors in the space. And you called out the way they launched versus the way you launched. Yeah.

54:00 Let’s talk real about that. What were you trying to achieve with your launch? And what were you very careful to make a mistake not to do? And just for the record, like, Simon’s very serious about this. And you’re a very tough negotiator as well, because you wanted the launch to go great.

54:18 You wanted to take care of your token holders in your community, right? Yeah. And we wanted to have the value accrual for a large set of holders as early as possible. That’s kind of the ultimate goal. Because most people make money on your launch.

54:31 You need a small few. If you make many people happy with your project early on, you create a set of superfans and ambassadors that will lift your project up much quicker, right? And I just believe that this is the best way to do it. As long as you make many people happy, they’ll help you to push the way forward, right? And that’s always going to be our main objective here.

54:52 I mean, even the Solana ID business case itself is trying to make people happy by giving them more perks on chain, right? But we also want them to own the success of the protocol early on. So instead of letting in the best three, four VCs, and that’s it, in your private rounds, doing everything behind curtains and so on, and then screaming loud about it as soon as your token launch. So then all the attention from the community flocks in. Instead of doing that, we decided to be very transparent and open about everything we do very early on.

55:20 So the very first funding round, like even before we ever talked together, we already did community participation in the pre-seed round. So instead of just calling up my VC friends and telling them, like, I have this deal for you, do you want in? I just caught up a few private communities of friends of mine that they’re running. Just a Discord server with like 500, 600 people that are all eager to invest and be part of the next tech acceleration. And we showed the deal to them.

55:47 Some NFT communities on Solana that are just, you know, they’re holding NFTs with a high value. They’re usually looking for deals for angel investments and so on. Show them what we’re doing. And this way, we kind of got up to 70 investors in the pre-seed round, which is in the same amount of investors in a small pre-seed round. It was not a lot of money that we raised back then as well because the second big thing we’re doing different besides having a kind of very distributed cap table is also have a pretty low valuation.

56:15 I worked in VC before, and when we invested in startups, we looked at their business case, we looked at their revenue streams that might be more existent because it’s early, and we valued them based on what they have or based on the lack of things they have, right, which is usually not a lot. And we gave them a valuation, which is like $500,000 billion and so on. In crypto, it’s like $50 million, right, because you’re building the next whatever, and you have this partnership and this one on your website.

56:45 It’s all noise. It’s all fake, right? The problem when you start so high is you can’t go back. If your first funding round is 50 mil, your second needs to be 250. Otherwise, the first investor is going to be like, what the heck are you doing?

56:58 Why are we devaluing? Why did I invest so early? So you always need to go up. When you reach token launch, you’re going to be at $500 million, $1 billion, $2 billion. That’s like the standard in crypto when you launch your project.

57:09 So in that moment, you’re starting to distribute your cap table. At that moment, you let your community in. So now you have like five, ten investors that invested at pretty high valuations before. Now you need to do the huge valuation at the public sale and all the community gets in. But the guys that invested earlier, they want their money back very soon.

57:29 So they will sell the tokens in the next couple of weeks and months as soon as they can because you don’t have such high valuation and they already made 10X. So all we do right now is just keep things a bit more humble, be a bit more long-term focused, low valuation, big distribution of cap tables, fair vesting schedule is not too long or too short, but everyone is kind of fair and incentivized to alter token and just get the right people on board as well. So maybe you felt it a bit when we talk, every one of our investors felt it at least to an extent that we’re quite picky.

58:00 We’re not really backing down too quickly because we want the right people in the protocol because we believe if we have 100 people that believe that we’re onto something, they’ll stick around, they’ll have the bravery to stick around with us and push us forward and don’t back out quickly. And that worked out well so far, like this whole strategy. So I think essentially what we did different was the low valuation in the early funding rounds, the big distribution of investors and the kind of created model that we have at really looking closely at every deal, talking to the people we led and not signing the crazy KVL contracts too early.

58:35 You want to be a bit more careful with that. We made mistakes on the way, but the mistakes don’t outweigh the good decisions we made. And overall, you launched a pretty low valuation. It was 20 mil? 20 mil.

58:46 You had some great price appreciation, of course, some volatility afterwards, which is normal. But then when you wrote that post, it was like, what, a week later or five days later? Yeah. You compared it with other projects that might have launched at 200 million or 400 million or 500 million that were now maybe below C level. And so all these things are below C level, which means probably every community member is down money.

59:06 So even if they love you, it’s hard to continue loving you after that. And maybe the VCs already got out. If they’re out, then they’re not very useful to you. And this is this broken model in crypto. Special working.

59:17 Short-sighted. And again, like how many billion dollar protocols are there? There’s not that many. I mean, the top 100 or billion dollar protocols? Yeah.

59:26 So like all these companies coming out thinking you’re going to launch at a billion or two billion dollars. It’s like, no, you’re not. And we’re seeing a lot more people adopt this strategy. But not everybody has the wherewithal to actually do it. Yeah.

59:39 Because it’s hard. It is hard. You’re under pressure. Yeah. You’re like, God, maybe I should send that kit.

59:44 Well, maybe I really could use that VC. You know, it is a bit like, we know it from the fitness journey a bit. Because you always have to kind of, what’s the, how do you say it? You need to take the short-term pain right now for the long-term pleasure. That’s Jim.

1:00:00 Because you’re fucking hurt. Like you’re lifting the waist and it’s painful and sucks and you’re sweating and it doesn’t give you anything. Investment club. Today, I considered the best investment that I’ve ever made. We get four projects presented a week by their associated CEOs.

1:00:13 Personally, I’m completely blown away by the quality of these projects. And I know of nowhere else where I would be given the same opportunity. Each week that passes, I feel more appreciative of the fact that I’m a member of this group. The vibe was just tremendous. Everybody’s on the same wavelength.

1:00:28 We just clicked. Everybody listened to each other, enjoyed their company. It was just magical. Magical. Take action.

1:00:36 Don’t take my word for it. Do what you need to do. And I really hope that someday down the road, I see you in the club. A far exceeded expectations without questions. Right now, really.

1:00:54 It just sucks right now. But like in a month from now, you might, you know, feel a bit better. You know, your muscles are growing. You feel stronger. But it’s like a month from now.

1:01:03 Like how, at that moment right now when I feel the pain, I just want that pain to go away. So it’s very human in business, in your personal life, in your health, your journey, to make bad decisions for short-term pleasure, for long-term pain. And in crypto, it’s the same shit, like all over again. Because, oh yeah, I want this VC to be on board with me. Whatever they say, I take it.

1:01:24 Like, just take the deal. Like, fuck, you know, whatever. Like, I want the logo on my website because it will give me 50,000 more followers on X. They don’t give a shit about you when they come. The VC doesn’t give a shit about you because he just wants his terms.

1:01:35 So just, you know, think a bit more in the long-term. It will be painful in the short-term. But as builders, like me and my co-founders, we learned that long ago. We had our bad times already. Right now we’re having fun.

1:01:48 Like, even if it’s hard right now, it’s much better than it was a year from now or two years from now. It’s been much worse. So yeah, I think what, like, looking at the token and how, like, reflecting on it, the journey was really well. We’re still above the seed. And the public variation.

1:02:05 Even though we’re at the lowest point right now that we’ve been ever after the launch. Solana dumb, Bitcoin dumb. We saw the big red cannon two days ago. Everyone is scared. But we’re kind of holding, you know, and we didn’t even launch our product yet.

1:02:17 We don’t even have the utility of the token yet. We didn’t do a larger outreach campaign. So just consolidating. So I think the strategy so far worked out really well. And last comment as well.

1:02:27 He mentioned SwissBorg. We did it with them. We did it with the launchpad that they came up with, and they just did their second sale yesterday, I think. So second sale after us. Obviously we’ve been a bit the guinea pig because we’ve been the first sale on Borgpad.

1:02:40 A few things didn’t went well with us. We had to kind of suck it up. Nothing happened. But obviously now they did everything better with the second one. And it worked out.

1:02:49 It was an even better launch. It was the same kind of model. Low FTV, right? Like, low valuation, community-centric. And then a fair launch on the launchpad with getting people in early on.

1:03:01 It was beautiful. Like, nice chart went up. They have, like, two big advantages, which is they learn from all mistakes, and they’re writing the agent wave. It’s an agent launchpad. Got it. Sorry.

1:03:11 But a good job for Borgpad. Like, they’re doing a great job there. Yeah, and again, it’s back to the community and being transparent. That’s going to win in the long run. Tell me about your previous protocol and then your background in VC.

1:03:23 Because this guy right here isn’t built as a first-time founder in Web 3. And the reason you guys are enjoying yourself now and you’re up post-token launch, and you got all these massive potential is because of your experience. I would say so. I mean, when we started in crypto, we just made the decision that we want to be in the crypto sector. We didn’t know yet what we want to build, honestly, because me and my co-founder were both business people.

1:03:47 We’re very good at, you know, coming up with ideas and executing on them using our kind of network that we have to execute on them and coming up with good marketing strategies around them to push them. And with that kind of skill set, we went into crypto and we said, what can we do here? You know, we’re in this new fertile land with our capabilities and skills. You know, what are we doing here? We quit our jobs.

1:04:08 We’re like, let’s just do something. That’s how it started. And we found an accelerator, like a German VC fund, that saw that. And they saw, okay, you guys actually have some skill set that can be useful in crypto. We’re going to help you, you know, come up with an idea and build on top of it.

1:04:22 That’s where the first kind of seed was planted for what’s now Solana ID back then. It was a very different protocol, a different name, slightly different pitch. But the idea that we’re following, which is tattooed on my arm even, it’s a lotus flower, is the whole concept of karma. We wanted to help people to prove that they did good things in the internet and then use that reputation to get more rewards. Very simple concept.

1:04:48 We just believe in karma. That was the initial thing we planted to do. And since then, we also have the company logo, which is a lotus flower. It kind of obviously evolved into what it is today, but it’s still a lotus, right? So the idea back then was different from what it was today, but the essence was the same.

1:05:05 But in 2023, bear market was there. We didn’t really have a strong direction. We were very chain-agnostic. We didn’t know where’s our home in terms of blockchains. So we didn’t have the right strategic partnerships in place.

1:05:18 And it was very hard for us to come up with a product-market fit that the chains we built on had no users and no apps really. So how do you want to find product-market fit if there’s no market? So that was the biggest challenge for us. So we just used the time to research, to build prototypes, to learn. So it was kind of very, it was grinding, a lot of grinding.

1:05:39 And then we took the learnings from back then, from those days, early 2024, actually here in Dubai, there was the start of SolanaID. We took the learnings from then, and we put them all into SolanaID, rebranded, and put ourselves there on the radar on Solana, a blockchain that has a strong name, a lot of users, and a lot of apps. And now we could find product-market fit. So this is how the journey kind of went from being really completely early to crypto with no idea, to an initial seed that was planted, to like a whole year of grinding and essentially failing, and then pivoting into what’s now SolanaID, and I would say a pretty successful protocol on SolanaID.

1:06:19 And the name and the chain and everything around it has given you tons of propulsion. It gave us wings to fly, I would say. Crazy how something that simple can make a difference in marketing. Branding, essentially. I mean, you’re in an attention economy.

1:06:33 You have to get people’s attention in any way, shape, or form. Yeah, but I think I wouldn’t underestimate the fact that Solana also brought the users and apps to do something with. It’s the biggest problem of most layer one blockchains out there. They don’t have anything to do, because they’re lacking the users and apps, and it’s so hard to bootstrap that. I wouldn’t put myself in the shoes, I wouldn’t want to put myself in the shoes of someone that is working in the marketing department of some layer one chain right now that’s not Solana over here.

1:06:59 Such a hard job to capture mind share and attention in users, and even apps and builders. Solana has a hard time to get strong builders and founders to build applications on their chain, and they’re doing a lot of stuff and spend a lot of money on trying to make them happy. And even they have a hard time. Well said. Talk to me about Solana.

1:07:17 What is Solana? I attended my first breakpoint in Singapore this year, and I was at Token 2049 before, and the people are not in crypto. Token is, I’d say it’s more of a general conference. There’s a lot of institutions there. There were 20,000 people there.

1:07:32 It was huge. All the booths are there, and everybody’s on stage, and all these important people. And then I rolled over to breakpoint, and it felt like a club. It felt like a bunch of people doing cool stuff. And there were games and then meme coins, and somebody pulled me aside and said, Brian, you know, Solana is all about freedom and freedom of speech.

1:07:53 He’s like, yeah, there’s a lot of wacky meme coins out there, but we have the freedom to do it. And he said, if you go to the base chain, because it’s associated with Coinbase, they’re not going to allow certain things because they have a corporate brand to worry about. And Solana, we can do what we want to do, which is the essence of why we’re even in Web 3. And it felt totally different there. I always joke, only at a Solana conference does the president of a DEX get a standing ovation when he comes on that stage.

1:08:20 Which one was that? It was Jupiter, I think. Oh, nice. A standing ovation. I’m like, OK.

1:08:25 I don’t think there’s any DEX in the theorem where the guy gets a standing ovation. So it just goes to show you it’s this club. It’s like everybody loves being there, and they’re all doing things, maybe making money, and then this DEX is like a big part of that. And so they’re rock stars. So, yeah, that’s what I got from Solana.

1:08:43 What do you get from Solana? How do you call it? I think there’s a few things we can double tap on. And also maybe even talk about some things people are not so aware of. And there’s also some shady parts of it and some negative things about Solana, like with every chain.

1:08:55 You have that with every corporation, you can even talk about these. But essentially, on the bright side of things, Solana, first of all, has the right tech. It’s a low-latency, cheap, and fast blockchain that is still evolving and not done yet. But you can execute transactions quickly, as quick as possible, very, very cheap. And you couldn’t build what we’ve been building on Solana and other blockchains, especially not on Ethereum mainnet.

1:09:21 So the tech is great, and it’s simple. It’s easy. It’s one layer. You don’t need to worry about bridging to other layers. Ethereum, for me, is this huge-ass castle with a lot of rooms, and it’s kind of complicated.

1:09:34 You don’t know where you end up. It’s like a labyrinth, right? And then in Solana, you have this neat, easy skyscraper. It’s very straightforward, very thin and fast and nicely designed. So it just makes things very easier to build for apps on the blockchain as well.

1:09:49 And the tech is great. I’ve met a lot of builders and technical people. They have studied computer science and even worked in IT for 30, 40 years. So very senior people. And I talk about them, and I ask them, what was your journey like when you came from Ethereum using Solidity as the smart contract language to build apps on Ethereum?

1:10:10 What was the journey arriving at Solana and now using Rust to build Solana applications? And they said I would never go back. It would be fatal to go back. I would never build on Ethereum before. When I heard these things from them, I was like, wow, this is more serious than I thought.

1:10:24 I still think Ethereum is somehow worthy of being the main name out there in crypto. But I think the fallacy here is they’ve just been early and they are benefiting from the network effects. They’ve been early enough to have all the builders, all the capital and the name and the brand, that they are where they are. But the tech is not superior. It is inferior.

1:10:47 So why would I build there? So it’s dangerous even. Because we don’t want to build a blockchain because it has a great brand and name. We want to build on a blockchain that has the safest, the purest and best tech for apps going forward. Solana has that.

1:11:00 I’m pretty convinced of that. By now, even I have not studied computer science, but the people I trust that have, I believe them. So I think Solana has that and it has the edge. And then besides that, the next point would be the community. And that was the emotions that you felt when you had the IRL events.

1:11:17 People on Solana are just, they’re genuine good people. If you talk about the builders, they are not there for the quick bucket and the money. And there’s lots of them. There’s lots of the builders that are building dope ass applications. They just want to build a great product.

1:11:31 They want users to enjoy their app and they feel good about it when they see people using the application. They feel better about that than seeing a big number on their bank account. That is kind of, that comes with it. So many rich people on Solana that build great apps, but they essentially care more about the app, the product, the community, everything around it than the money. The money comes with it.

1:11:52 And we want the money as well. Don’t get me wrong. But these kind of builders, they brought me, they looped me in. That’s why I say it started in Dubai because I was at one of those IRL events where you live together with other builders. And I was living at that villa.

1:12:06 And you saw the villa and how it looks like and how the feeling is. And I saw all these builders on Solana and how they’re like. And I was like, wow, this is different. These people are so serious about it. They’re very helpful.

1:12:16 I think I want to be part of that as a human. This is so much fun for me to build in and I think it’s fruitful. I think here I can thrive. Solana Foundation created this, like I said, very fertile land for builders to thrive in. And that is a big shout out to them that they made that happen.

1:12:34 Nice. And they also invested in you as well. They gave us a small grant, yes. Okay. Through the super team structure.

1:12:41 So super teams are the regional teams of Solana communities and you can apply for grants to them and they are funded by the foundation. Yeah. And I was at that hacker’s house or founder’s villa. Founder’s villa is what I call that. Hacker’s house is so 2021.

1:12:55 Exactly. It’s outdated there. Yeah. But it was amazing. I went by twice and I just actually loved hanging out there.

1:13:01 I was going from villa to villa to villa, just walking in and just seeing who I could start talking to and then they had the pitch days and they had good food and it was just good vibes. 100%. I remember being taken care of by Solana and I’d never seen that happen at any other blockchain. Yep. But it’s transactional, right?

1:13:19 Yeah. You deliver, right? You’re not going to be invited to these events if you behave bad. I’ve seen people being declined to join those events because they have a bad track record or they didn’t really, you know, they’re not providing value to the ecosystem. Again, karma bitch.

1:13:35 Either you do good and you get good or not and foundation is they just want to try to make the chain grow as a whole by getting the right builders on board and that’s what those founders’ villas are there for. I’ve met great friends there, like not going to lie. Great people that are really close with me now. Every time I see them, very positive emotions and we work together. Our content team, super team, founders villa, right?

1:14:01 Our dev shop in Croatia, super team Balkans. Different kind of event that I went to in Croatia. Like one of our kind of core team members, super team Germany, right? Like they’re all kind of connected to those communities. You find the great people there.

1:14:14 It’s for business that’s great. And now your travel schedule is around Solana events, you’ve told me. So for the next year, you’re traveling around the world going to Solana events. Yeah, we did that last year already, right? So me personally, I don’t have a base.

1:14:26 Like I don’t pay a fixed rent anywhere in the world. So I’m very flexible. If I would pay, you know, like $1,000 per month for my apartment in Germany, I’d think twice to go somewhere. But right now I need to go somewhere. Otherwise, where do I look?

1:14:41 I’m always looking to where we go. So what I’m going to do by now, I just do some business here. You know, I met with you. But then I have Solana Bali are coming up. It’s an event in Bali, one month of co-working and co-living together with other builders.

1:14:55 And we’re sponsoring the event. We’re equipping people with a Solana ID physical card. So when it comes, they get a Solana ID. Now we have a virtual card even by the way. You can scan, you can collect points with it just for fun.

1:15:06 But we’re getting exposure in the ecosystem and I meet great people there on the ground, right? And then once that’s over, we’re going to go to the next one. Maybe there’s a conference in Hong Kong I think coming up that’s more chain agnostic. We’re going to be there for a few days. There might be some stuff in Dubai again in April.

1:15:23 We want to be there for sure. There’s always something in Solana to attend to and I’m trying to be there on the ground all the time, which is also great for us because we’re B2B. We need to know the businesses. And I have direct clients to almost every company in Solana that has a name. Yeah, that’s another reason you’ve been successful.

1:15:40 I guess your personal relationships with all the B2B players in Solana. Yeah, there’s two things there, right? You need to know them personally because then you can get a line to them easily and they need to like you, right? Otherwise they don’t give a shit about working with you. So I always try to overdeliver.

1:15:56 When someone asks me something, I give them. I don’t expect them to give me something in return now. I don’t give a shit if they give me something in return at any moment in time actually because I believe in karma it’s going to come back at some point. But I think that’s the best way to do business. And I do it also because I think we need more people like that.

1:16:14 And I see people doing it very differently, trying to extract value all the time, asking for things all the time, never giving, and I hate it. I strongly, I think it’s not professional and it will lead again to a short-term success for your business and then it will kill you. So it would sort it out naturally but I’m trying to just do the opposite and it has been working out really well for me and it’s so much more fun as well to do it that way, honestly. I think we’ll get back to karma in a second.

1:16:40 But tell me about the dark side of Solana. Well, I think people talk about it that it’s a bit exclusive. People use the name Cabal a lot, the Solana Cabal, an insider circle, if you’re in, you’re in. So if people look from the outside on Solana, that’s sometimes how they talk about it. And to a certain extent, it’s true, right?

1:16:57 If you have the right directions to the inner circles. So Solana launched back then very early on. I mean, not that early, 2021 and went to Mainnet. Before that, there were some private rounds. We have a lot of people that have big names but they are behind the curtain.

1:17:10 You actually don’t know them. But they bought in big back then. They made big money on Solana. They bought it for 90 cents or whatever. Now we’re at $200, right? $190.

1:17:20 So they made a lot of money on it. And these people, they pulled some strings. If you know them, it helps you, right? They can give you $500, millions of dollars to your validator after a dinner, just for fun. And if you run that validator, now you have 20K per month of income stream because they gave you the money.

1:17:34 If you know these people, it helps, right? So sure, but tell me a business. Tell me an ecosystem. Tell me anything in the world where network doesn’t help, right? Where it doesn’t have to be connected to the inner circle.

1:17:44 So Solana has that for sure. But it got better as well through the super team structure. For example, it’s very easy to get into the ecosystem and find some ways to, even if you don’t have connections to foundation, find some ways to thrive. So I think super team is one of the cheat codes they came up with to decentralize the whole system or make it more fair for people all around the world. If anyone is interested to build on Solana, just find your local super team.

1:18:08 Find a line to them. Apply, you know, for a grant. Come with an idea, right? Don’t come there and say, Hi, I want money. Can you help me?

1:18:15 No. Just come there with an idea. Be ambitious and they’ll help you. They take you on board. They give you the NFT as member of Solana super team and they will fund your first project with $5,000 even, right?

1:18:26 So it works. But there is still this kind of insider, kind of circle and cabal. And if you connect it there, it helps. It’s a fast track, right? I would say.

1:18:36 Okay. Which is natural. It’s not bad. That’s a good assessment of the ecosystem. I like that.

1:18:41 Is karma real? And have you always felt that way? That’s my question. A hundred thousand percent. Why is it real?

1:18:47 Because it gets real if you believe in it, as many things in the world, right? And you’re attracting stuff, right? If you behave like a dickhead all day long, you’re going to get the same bag. And it might be a law of nature. I think it’s the law of attraction, right?

1:19:04 That kind of does that to you. And I’ve been a believer in that ever since, since many years. And I think it’s just a beautiful way to live your life. Because if you believe strongly in it, you are giving a lot of value to the world and you’re attracting value to get back to you. And the thing is, if you start doing it, it’s like a muscle.

1:19:27 You train to do it and you feel like, oh, it’s real. It’s becoming real. It actually works out, right? So since my teenage years, I just try to do the right things. Let my schoolmates ride for my homework, no problem.

1:19:38 Take it. I never said, no, it’s mine. I did that. You do your homework. Fuck it.

1:19:44 And everyone was friends with me then. And everyone was like, oh, Simon, it’s helpful and it helps. And I was like, OK. This seems like a good way to live your life. And since then, I tried to keep doing this.

1:19:54 And whatever I did, in my first jobs, I used to work in the fitness industry, obviously. So I was a person trainer at some point of my early 20s. I had my own person training brand. I had my own customers, had my clients. I always tried to behave in a good way, be kind, give more than I did.

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1:20:57 That’s why you got to join the investment club. Hold the trigger. Let’s do this. It always came back to me. And I was like, when I did something, it worked out really well.

1:21:10 I was like, oh, this business is thriving now. I make a lot of money. How can I scale? Let’s do the next thing. I did the next thing.

1:21:16 At one point in my life, I worked on a cruise ship. I worked as a person trained on the cruise ship. And I was like, okay, how can I be good at this job? I tried to figure out the system. I tried to behave well.

1:21:26 I was like one of the top sales people in the whole fleet. I was like, oh, wow, this works. And it’s like a muscle. You train it, and it starts to work out really well. And I think that’s super powerful.

1:21:37 And then now I just believe that’s the way it is. As long as I follow my principle that way, life’s going to be okay. Yeah, I think you’re right. I think karma’s real. It took me a long time to figure that out.

1:21:48 I come from a science background. And in science, there’s no karma. And so they don’t teach, there’s no science degree at MIT, a karma degree at MIT. So I didn’t really get it when I was younger. And then I worked to work in the banking industry.

1:22:04 And the banking industry, there ain’t a lot of karma. Let’s just say that. You’re literally, you make money when your colleague loses money. You make money when your counterpart loses money. It’s a real like winner-take-all.

1:22:14 And I got taught that kind of in New York City in the 90s. And it was real cutthroat. Let’s just say that. And then when I got into broadcasting 14 years ago, I started my YouTube channel and I started putting out different energy in the world. I would have people over and talk about their ideas.

1:22:31 And I love promoting people and their ideas. And we weren’t getting anything for it. The first time you met me in that world, you got a two-hour episode of London Real distributed to my followers and maybe would be watched by millions of people. That was our first interaction. And I’ll tell you, Simon, like a year later, and a year later after that, a year later, when I would look myself in the mirror and say, like, what are you doing?

1:22:54 This is not making money. This is not going anywhere. Everyone thinks you’re crazy. But I would say also, I have more friends than I ever had. I’m happier than I’ve ever had.

1:23:03 And I’m enjoying my life more than I ever had. So it was weird. And then the weirdest thing happened when Joe Rogan invited me on his show two years later, back in 13. We flew to LA and I was on the Joe Rogan experience, which even back then I knew was a big deal. Now everybody knows.

1:23:18 And I was like, why would a guy with a podcast have another podcaster on his show? Because I’m clearly going to take his audience. And I was like, but he is. And so this is a new world and a new paradigm that I have to shift to. And I need to change the way I think.

1:23:35 And I remember that our early tagline was, London Real putting the BBC out of business. The BBC is the British Broadcasting Corporation. And the pun is you can’t put them out of business because they literally tax you to fund them and they’ll put you in jail if you don’t pay. So it was a little bit of a joke because you can’t put them out of business. But I remember the BBC called us up one time and wanted to interview one of my guests.

1:23:58 And they said, can we send someone to your studio beforehand to interview them in your studio before they go on your show? Every bone inside me was like, no. F you guys, blah, blah, blah. And then I thought, no, no, no. I used to call it peace and love in London Real.

1:24:13 I’d be like, no, of course, that would be wonderful. Let’s do that. So I just tried to do the opposite of my reaction and try to give and say yes and do all those things and retrain myself. Because as Joe would say, there’s room for everybody out here and everyone has their own brand and everyone has their own vibe. And so, yeah, I’ve been relearning my whole last 14 years to try to be more pro karma.

1:24:40 There might be a limit to it, though, right? I don’t know what you think, but you’ll overdo it. Where does it stop? Because you’ve got to take care of yourself, obviously, and there’s a lot of predators out there. So you don’t want to fall into the pitfall of getting sucked up by them.

1:24:54 So what is it like as a man, how hard do you need to be in the things you do, the things you execute and the decisions you make, and how soft are you allowed to be in being kind and welcoming to people and saying yes? Yeah, I always say that I can forgive, but I won’t forget. So sometimes I make a mistake and I forgive because you’ve got to move on and otherwise you’re going to be stuck in the past. But then I probably won’t do that again with that situation or that person.

1:25:22 So yeah, there’s a boundary, but soft and good karma, they don’t have to be the same thing, do they? I don’t think so. Yeah, I don’t think so either. And in Web 3, the most successful people I see are the ones that give first. And every now and then someone will come to me with an introduction and they’re like, I need a finder’s fee.

1:25:39 And I was like, bro, I don’t do that. Like, I just don’t do that. And it’s just like, and I don’t ask for that, remember. It’s like, I want to introduce people that I want to. And in Web 3, I think if you do enough of that, it comes back to you.

1:25:52 100%. It’s also business, right? It’s not just in Web 3. Yeah. I guess if you’re a good business person and you connect people and you add value, the value comes back.

1:25:59 So I think karma, if it’s real, in business, it’s realer than ever. But I think just you have, you need to kind of develop the sensor, this inner sensor that tells you who is bullshit, like who’s really, who’s trying to extract too much value and then say no to these people, right? So it’s not, when I say believe in karma, it doesn’t mean like, just close your eyes and say yes to everything, right? And welcome every deal. Then I would be the worst negotiator ever as the CEO of my company, right?

1:26:24 I need to be kind of tough as well. I need to be able to say no to deals. I need to be able to change the terms here and there and believe in our company’s good future. But it’s more like, it’s about fairness, right? If something feels fair to me and feels good and right to do, then I’ll help that person out without any regrets and ask for something in return.

1:26:44 And it always comes back to some extent. Like I never ask for find this fee or, you know, I make an intro there and I don’t ask, okay, how much do I get now for it? They come back to me. They’d be like, hey, Simon, thanks for the intro, you won, you know, 10% cut in lecture or whatever. But they’re much more beautiful than asking.

1:27:00 I agree, it’s like it’s boundaries. Boundaries with the default of karma, and it does come back to law of attraction and it comes to all that. I’m still learning, honestly, but I’m doing a lot more of that attraction and stuff lately. I used to be a real grinder and now I still grime, but I also do a lot of attracting. I call it like my 50-50 strategy.

1:27:18 Push-pull strategy is what I call it. I used to push a lot and now I’m trying to pull those people towards me. I’m getting crazy results. I can’t explain it scientifically, but I’m also an engineer. And an engineer, when something works in the real world, you do it again.

1:27:34 So that’s what I’ve been practicing. And I think what you did very well so far is you made a few good calls on companies. Like, I think as an investor now, because now you’re running London Real ventures as well, and you have people that watch you and look at your decisions you make. The people you invest in, the companies you invest in, they need to be the right setup, the right companies, right? And you have a pretty good portfolio so far that you built yourself.

1:28:00 I think you kind of made some good shots there. Will they all translate into value? We don’t know that. It’s venture capital, right? Some pay it, some do very well.

1:28:07 But at least it looks good on the portfolio if you just bet on the right horses in terms of integrity as well and good builders. And I see a lot of good shots, good long-term plays in the portfolio where I’m like, okay, actually, I would have invested in a company in that one too. Oh, and that one too. And then as a founder, you sit there and you’re like, okay, it seems to make good decisions. I think I’m open for or chat with them.

1:28:28 So I think if you keep that trajectory, you’ll attract more of these plays and more of these businesses, which is great. Nice. That’s really good feedback. I never heard that before. Yeah, it’s interesting because we get live pitches from founders.

1:28:40 You know the format. You come and everyone listens and all my LPs are there and we really go a lot on vibes. Maybe that’s why. And yeah, a lot of vibes, a lot on principles and values and mission. And then also maybe because we add a lot of value too, we can be choosy to choose the best ones.

1:28:58 For sure. But yeah, it’s a good point. I’m going to meditate on that. You’re also known not just as Solana ID, but as Swollana. And so you’re probably the most jacked guy in Web3.

1:29:10 Talk to me about that. Do you miss being a trainer? You also have said you’re going to do a competition when you guys hit 100 million, which could be soon. You’re fine. So talk about that and how it’s part of your daily routine.

1:29:23 Yeah. So first of all, there was one tweet I did maybe half a year ago. Normally Twitter is memes. It’s technical talk. It’s not like Instagram.

1:29:33 You don’t share your meals and your fitness journey there. So I was like, why? Why not? On Instagram, I’m kind of active. I have this fitness persona there.

1:29:40 And it’s fun for me. I share my journey. So I posted a picture in my underwear on Twitter. And I’m like, I have some muscles on my body. Without the clothes, it might be even more obvious.

1:29:51 So I made the picture. And then I wasn’t super active on Twitter. So for me, it was actually even viral, the thing. So it was like 50,000 views. And normally I get like 500.

1:30:00 I was like, what is happening? And I saw the founder of Solana. And I told him, commenting below the pic. And he was like, yo, dude, that’s amazing. Post your workouts, bro.

1:30:09 And I was like, where does this attention come from? People care about it. On Solana, you have a big community of fitness and lifestyle enthusiasts. That’s why these IRL events work so well as well. Where you go, you work out in the mornings.

1:30:22 You meditate a little bit. And then you just work the whole day. It’s kind of this beautiful symbiosis. That’s also why I kind of feel home on Solana, maybe. Because for me, this is a very important part of my life.

1:30:32 I started as a trainer. I competed in bodybuilding a few times. I went on stage like seven times in my early 20s. And then I started to work in business and finance and study in that field. And I didn’t really have the time anymore to compete.

1:30:45 But yet, I woke up every morning. I woke up every morning and I trained. And I kept doing this since more than a decade. And people asked me, OK, so when did you take a break? There was no break.

1:30:56 I was like, wow. I’ve been training more than 12 years, like, nonstop. Like, the longest break I ever did in that time was probably one week when I was on some random island on Vietnam where there was no gym or something. Like, something like that. But there was no other break.

1:31:08 And I’m like, OK. And then people ask me, how are you so committed? Where does the dedication come from? Like, I’m not even trying. It’s not even difficult for me.

1:31:17 It’s difficult for me to stay out of the fucking gym. I don’t know if you can relate to that. But that hurts. Like, if I can train for the week, if I’m sick, it’s the worst. I want to feel my muscles being active.

1:31:31 I like to use my body as long as I can. We’re healthy now. We should fucking make sure that we are longer healthy and as long as we have it, benefit from it, and it’s the best. I like to perform in business, personally, with the way I think and the people I interact with, and also physically. I like to lift heavy shit and get shit done and do things that hurt.

1:31:53 And all that stuff, that makes me live. That makes me enjoy life. So I think, for me, it’s just a very natural fit to be the buffest builder on Solana. I kind of, after that post with Anatoly’s comment, I put that out. If you think you’re more buff, then let me know.

1:32:07 But for now, I’m the buffest builder on Solana. Is that still the case? I think it’s still the case. Is anybody even trying to come at you? Not really.

1:32:15 Sometimes we’ll try to say, oh, I can bench press more. And you’re like, maybe. But I’m going to squat more than you. So I have those competitions going on. We have some telegram chats now with a couple people.

1:32:25 And there are 30 people where we post our workouts to keep everyone committed. So everyone has to post three workouts. Otherwise, they get kicked from the crew, things like this, just for fun. So for me, it’s fun at the site to kind of pursue the fitness journey, help other people to be good at it. And it’s just part of my life, honestly.

1:32:44 And for your nomadic lifestyle, I think it’s really important. Because for you, no matter what city you’re in, you get up in the morning and you lift. So that’s part of your routine. That’s such a great point. I think people underestimate that.

1:32:53 It’s kind of this red thread through your life. Because my life is fucking wild sometimes. I didn’t do the path, the common path. You go to school, you study, you work. Everything was different for me.

1:33:07 After high school, with 18, I left Germany. I never really came back. I’m 28 now. I never came back, really. I never had my own apartment my whole life.

1:33:17 Since I moved out from my parents’ house, I never had my own apartment. I always have Airbnb’s, hotels, or friends’ couches. I thought about that. I was like, wow, it’s been more than 10 years. I never had my own apartment.

1:33:27 And then my best friend told me, I’m wondering how your apartment would look like. What would you put in your shelf? Because I never did these things. And I don’t really give a shit about them. But training in the gym is something that’s just constant.

1:33:39 It gives stability, it gives continuity in my life. Whatever business I do, whatever friends I meet, whatever girlfriend leaves me, whatever happens in my life, whoever dies in my life, I wake up, I go to the gym. It gives you that base, too. And to also mentally get you in the zone you need to be, probably do the work you do every day. It helps you also to kind of tune out a bit.

1:34:02 I try to do at least half of my workout, not to be on my phone. I used to have the full workout, but it doesn’t really work out anymore. Sometimes you get the best ideas when you’re training, right? I do sometimes. At least I think they’re the great ideas.

1:34:13 15, 20 minutes into cardio, I’m just like, something will come up and then the team gets a message or something, just like, okay. But I was like, oh, wow, I didn’t come up with this otherwise. Yeah. Maybe it’s because you’re kind of free, right? You’re not thinking about anything, you actually focus on the thing.

1:34:28 Yeah. You’re in the moment. Yeah, so your brain, yeah, can subvert maybe its ego. And yeah, it’s definitely a form of meditation, it can be. Just changing your state is big.

1:34:37 I mean, it’s beautiful to just do the thing at that moment, right? Because when in the day do we have that, that we’re not distracted by anything. And at least in the gym, I try to, you know, do my set and do my weights. And during the set, it’s really hard to think of anything else. It’s really tough sometimes, depending on how you train.

1:34:53 If you fuck around, sure, it’s easy, but not during my training. They’re short, they’re crisp, they’re hard, and I’m out. Yeah, if you’re doing big weight, then you got to stay focused. Yeah, I learned a training game late in my life. I wasn’t like, I was about 30 years old when I finally took it serious.

1:35:07 And it started with martial arts, and then now it’s a huge part of my life. But one of my early trainers, martial arts trainers, he said something you just said. He always said, he said, training comes first. It comes before your family, it comes before your girlfriend, it comes before your job. And at the time, I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but they say self-love is self-investment.

1:35:26 And if you are willing to do that, it puts you in a beautiful state to then present to the world. And when people think, oh, I can’t train, works more important, or I got to go do that thing with my family, I always think I want the best Brian Rose to show up. I don’t like being around me when I’m not training. I’m sure you know the feeling. When I haven’t trained for a day or two, I’m like, I’m just a little edgy, I’m whatever.

1:35:50 But after a training session, a hard one, I mean, I’m cool in the gang. And I can be fun to be around, and I’m good, and I like me. So I prioritize that. And I think it’s okay for people to do that. It’s important.

1:36:04 There’s so many aspects. This is more like the emotional psychological effect, but then also it kind of feels good to be strong. It is good to be healthy and strong, and use your muscles, and you actually need that strength element. It’s good to have the cardiovascular ability to effectively walk some stairs without falling over. So there’s so many benefits to it.

1:36:23 It’s just like it’s a no-brainer to do it. Unfortunately, I think in tech and stuff, sometimes we discount the value of the human body. It’s important. And yeah, you never know what’s going to happen. I remember I used to train martial arts and trained 10 years with a guy, and someone was like, oh, have you gotten to a fight yet?

1:36:38 And I’m like, nope, but I’m ready if there ever is one. And as I always tell my sons, there’s seven and eight, I’m like, knowing martial arts will keep you out of fights. And they’re like, why, Papa? And I’m like, because people can tell. They can tell because of your demeanor, your calmness, and it’ll actually keep you out of those fights.

1:36:53 And again, you never know. Someone might call me tomorrow and say, let’s go climb on Everest, or someone five years ago challenged me to do an Iron Man race. And I did it 90 days later, after training. And I was like, I couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t have been in some type of face shape. So it’s really important.

1:37:10 And I hope more people embrace it. I didn’t know there was a Solana clique that did that. I didn’t know that. I like Solana even more. Five years from now, what does Solana ID look like?

1:37:22 So that’s 2030. What does it look like? So the thing is the internet is changing. So we’re changing with it. So five years from now, we need to think about how will the internet look like?

1:37:33 And I think crypto will be the essential base that the internet is going to be built on. The same way email was new at some point, crypto wallets were new and still are new to Next10. But there will be a moment when you set up a profile and you have a crypto wallet. You have a self-sown account behind your account immediately. And Solana ID wants to be the ad network of that future.

1:37:55 So I think we can build the next advertisement ad network that is fairer to users, that respects their data sovereignty and loops them into the monetization of things. And it still plugs into the apps and applications of the future very easily and helps them to identify the right people in that mass. So I think that is a huge business case. That’s why I mentioned Google AdSense earlier because I think this is what it might develop into at the end of the road.

1:38:24 And many people forget that when they hear Solana ID they always think either it’s a domain name or it’s like what does identity even mean? It’s very kind of intangible kind of word. But the use cases you can build on top of it like the ad network, I think that is strong. And that’s something people understand as well. And if you build that on a self-sown ID layer, it’s also a very fair system for everyone involved.

1:38:45 And kind of win-win-win for everyone, the protocol, the user and the application who’s trying to query the data. I think the heavy lifting that we need to do in the next couple of years will be to integrate into what we call display partners on blockchains that will play out our kind of advertisement screens for wallets that log in there that will be identified by the Solana ID protocol while they’re logging in to show a very targeted message from them from one of our advertisers. Similar to Google, how AdSense works, just for blockchain.

1:39:18 And we’re missing that element right now in crypto. And as soon as Solana expands, so either in the future there will be only Solana. It might play out as the dominant chain for consumer applications. Obviously we’re going to be part of that. Or we’re going to stay in silos where we have Solana, we have Base, where you have a few other Layer 1 blockchains.

1:39:35 And we’re just going to plug and play with our project and there’s going to be another ID system which is white labeled, does the same thing in the other network. And the apps that I built on top of that will use the same protocol, right? Just in a different silo. That’s the way we can also play out. But I see the internet evolving into this next era where Web3 becomes the internet again.

1:39:55 We stop using those weird names, Web2, Web3, Web1, whatever we just say. I’m on the internet, right? But it’s going to be powered by blockchain technology below it. Everyone has crypto accounts and their ID is going to power those profiles and make sense of the on-chain data. Helps people to get their off-chain data in that system as well.

1:40:13 And then helps the apps to identify the right people on-chain. Excellent. And Google AdSense, I mean, that as a standalone business is probably a trillion dollar plus business. It’s the main revenue generator for Google. And so that’s big.

1:40:27 It’s very big. But they recognize that, now they see what you’re going after. And I like how you use these terminology, like the VIP and the AdSense. It’s so important from a communication standpoint because when people hear ID, like you said, you get lost and then you’re in this rabbit hole of, like you said, people that just like the concept of it, but there’s no value add. So yeah, AdSense is that way forward.

1:40:49 We’re starting off 25. Some people believe this is maybe the biggest bull market ever. We’ve got Trump and the presidency. We’ve got a new SEC chairman. We’ve got Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.

1:41:02 We got rumors of Ripple and Solana ETFs coming up. What do you think is going to happen this next couple of years? So couple of years is a pretty big projection. Six months. That is easier.

1:41:15 So I think this year is going to be still a good year. That’s going to be very choppy in the markets. But overall, we’re not done with the bull market yet. We haven’t seen the tops. We scratched on them.

1:41:24 Solana literally scratched on the last all-time high but didn’t break it. That’s not it. We’re not done here, like for sure, especially looking at what’s coming now with the new SEC chair, with Trump being president of the United States again. I don’t think this guy is going to slow down anything. He’s an accelerator.

1:41:39 He’s been saying it and he’s going to deliver it as well. I think the global liquidity cycle took a little bit of a break in the past couple of months. Also not done. As soon as we see global liquidity going up again, it will trickle down to crypto for sure. So that’s the main driver of the upcoming, let’s say, last tail of the bull market.

1:41:58 That can last for a while. So I think it’s going to be either full 2025. That’s going to be pretty bullish or it’s going to even stretch into 2026. But that’s again so far in the future. With the speed things change right now, it’s difficult to say.

1:42:10 But the next six months, I think, maybe we see one more correction. But usually that happens through the summer in crypto and the patterns are pretty easy to rely on for now. But either before the summer, we see the new all-time high. I think that’s very realistic actually. Now with the upcoming inauguration and so on, or after the summer in the second half where usually things pick up, we see it then.

1:42:32 So I stay optimistic for this year. Okay. Yeah, I think a lot of that’s right. We haven’t seen the highs yet. But yeah, they could come a little earlier than we expect.

1:42:41 But yeah. And then when everyone thinks one thing and also does the other, but this should be an amazing year. It really should. There’s so much development, so much building. We have to cross through previous all-time highs.

1:42:52 No time to tour right now. Like not really. This is still a year to be in the trenches. So as we say in crypto, that means be on your computer, be locked in, you know, talk to the right people and just keep building right now. It’s not no time for vacation really this year.

1:43:03 Yeah. And it’s a time to dial in your routine as well for everything like on point in your life, I would say as well. How can people start with salon ID? How can I get my ID? How can I get my solid score?

1:43:17 If I’m a business, you know, how can I potentially log in your portal, et cetera? So at this time right now, we’re like in the middle of January 2025. At this moment, the best way to at least get exposure to us is by joining the communities that we set up on Twitter, Telegram and Discord, because we’re so short before launching things. People seeing this right now, they should just be out there and look for announcements, because salon ID beta is going to launch later in January.

1:43:44 So that’s very soon. So if this is being watched after this, we might be already live under app.salana.id. Very straightforward. There’s going to be the application. Right now you can already go on salana.id.

1:43:55 Also very easy in the browser. The domain is pretty good. You log, you go and you see everything about us. You’ll find our Twitter. Twitter is where we push the most important announcements.

1:44:05 It’s actually a really nice page as well, because we take our content really serious. It’s fun content to watch, but that’s very informative. So I think the Twitter photo is very important. And then every Saturday, literally every single Saturday, we have community calls. We call them solid talks, similar format that what you experienced in the TGE stream.

1:44:23 We have this every Saturday. For people who are new to our company and new to the protocol and new to the community, just dialing in there for one hour on a Saturday is a great way to kind of meet the founders, get a vibe of the community, you know, and see what we talk about. We usually reflect on the past week, what’s new, what’s upcoming in the next week, what are topics on the founder’s minds right now. In full sense of transparency, we do these talks every single Saturday.

1:44:45 So it’s a great way to kind of interact with us. 3 p.m. UTC, every Saturday, solid talk on Twitter, broadcasted on our profile. So that’s a good way to start. And then we’re active in Discord and Telegram chats pretty much every day, answering questions and being out there.

1:44:59 So until the product is really live, those would be the first instances. And then when the product is live, then just get yourself an ID. Love it, man. I want mine. I want to be in the top tier like everybody else.

1:45:11 Look, I think the way you communicate is so important. I wish more projects would be as transparent as you. When I go to your Twitter feed, I just see tons of video of you constantly communicating and communicating with other media as well. And I think it’s really important. I think so many founders just don’t do it or they don’t put themselves out there.

1:45:28 But that’s what people need, constant communication. That’s actually great leadership, I think. So that’s super cool that you’re doing that. Look, Simon, I’m pumped, man. I’m super excited.

1:45:39 We got to be a part of this. I’m so glad I met you at the Founders Villa and that we made all this happen. I’m really excited, and I just see this massive future for you guys. So thank you on behalf of myself and all of our LPs. We’re just pumped to be on this journey for the next few years, and we’re here to do it with you.

1:45:55 Cool. I appreciate that. I appreciate the support and everything. It also was a really fun conversation here on the channel. So thanks for that as well.

1:46:01 Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Cool, man. How do you get out of a rat race? How do you create wealth not only for yourself but also for the generations to come after?

1:46:10 I am absolutely amazed with the quality of companies that we’re getting exposure to. We go on to Zoom calls with the innovators and the folks who are building new applications in Metaverse, blockchain, artificial intelligence, decentralized finance. What’s going on, everybody? Thumbs up if you can see me. We are focusing on early stage investment.

1:46:32 And the quality of people that we’re getting exposure to, whether it be Dan Tapiaro with 1RT, Jason Ma from Open, Ayatsu from Anamoka. It’s been a phenomenal experience thus far. It has far exceeded my expectations. We are focusing on cutting edge technologies. iView now is the best investment I’ve ever made.

1:46:52 The upside iView is unlimited. And as a retail investor, I would never get this exposure anywhere else outside of investment club. See you in the investment club.