Building Decentralized Finance

Sean Adams. He's the founder of Methos Capital. He's one of the outspoken proponents of Ethereum on Twitter. He likes to really put ethereum content right out to the bitcoiners and really kind of stir the pop. I get into why he likes to do that, what he really thinks about bitcoin versus ethereum, if he really think there's only gonna be one. We talk about the differences of ethereum, what he sees being the future, and then we get into some defise stuff. What's happening there um with a

different protocol is some really good conversation. Um learned a lot and let's just go ahead and just jump right into it. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Market Disruptors podcast. Today I am with Ryan Shawn Adams. He's the founder of Mythos Capital, and he is one of the outspoken proponents of ethereum on Twitter and out in the industry, and he has a lot of good things to say, so I want to I'm excited to talk to him today. Welcome Ryan, Yeah, hey Mark, great

to be here. Thanks alright, great, So, UM, let's go ahead and just set the stage. And so for those that don't know who you are, why don't you just tell us a little bit about kind of what you were doing before and and kind of what you're doing right now in the space. Yeah. So, UM, you know, tech entrepreneur by background and trading within the medical um

software field for a while. UM sold the company back in party acquisition there and UM when we started getting into krypton, and that was really when I, you know, did the first leg down the rabbit hole, if you

if you will, and discovered bitcoin. UM. A little bit later, I sort of realized that, you know, there are more applications that were possible use blockchain systems, public blockchain systems, you know, general programmable value transfer and kind of fell in love with ethereum and decided to start with US in seventeen, so with US as a as a capital pool UM, and we also provide staking services to crypto networks. And I guess I'm just a general commentator and writer

around this space a little bit. UM. Recently, my passion has been around the topic of of ethereum uh and specifically how eth is a monetary asset that um, you know, deserves a monetary premium and UM topics around that, you know, short form like eat his money and UM. You know I love you know, mixing it up on Twitter and controlling bitcoiners. Yes, you do. You do seem to like to uh stir the pot a little bit, which is good.

Kind of makes it interesting for sure. UM. So, yeah, you recently wrote a piece titled Ethereum is Money and why it matters and uh really going straight at the bitcoin maximalist on that because obviously you know, the bitcoin is money, um and and so I don't know if that's what you meant with with with the piece titling at that, but you really went into why ethereum is money and UM kind of broke down the triple assets, you know, different ways it's looked at UM s O

V versus medium exchanges, et cetera. So why don't we just jump into that a little bit. I guess first of all, why did you choose that title? Was that just to kind of go after bitcoin? You know, it's not so much going after bitcoin, right, So first of all, I'm actually people want people that do this. I'm actually like a bitcoin bull. Um. Yeah, you know I am. I'm really excited about Bitcoin originally got me into the

crypto space. UM. I do think that bitcoin falls short in some areas and if your name kind of picks off in some areas where Bitcoin left off. But the reason I say like eth is money as uh, you know the title is that it's it's it's provocative, um, and it really it really shouldn't be. I mean, um, people in in and before that who said things like bitcoin is money. I mean that was provocative at the time. The reality about money, whether it's fiat money or crypto

based money, is that, uh, money is is a meme. UM. In some ways, it's it's kind of like a religion. Um. There's an underlying belief system that it has value and can store value into the future, and that begets more belief in it and the network affects, spreads and essentially like you can mean money into existence. So when I say things like if money, it's just sort of to you know, poke at that idea a little bit. Um, anything can be a money if people believe it's the

money and use it as a money. And it certainly fits that criteria right now. Um, And I really I think of it as kind of a triple point asset. We can get into that. One of the likes in the you know, the three point stool um is being used as a money, being used as a story value asset, as collateral backing in the open finance world, as collateral backing for currencies like die for instance, which are also used as a as a medium of exchange and unit

of accounts. So um eth is certainly money. We can get into that a little bit more from that perspective. First is the story value, but then through currencies like die when it serves as a as a synthetic backing as a medium of exchange, unit of account um in the future. I think that with that, I mean it's like, um,

it certainly is being used as that today. Um. Right, it is certainly being used as a store of value today where we can see what's locked up, and we can certainly see that it is being used as a money today. Um. And I think, like you said, like anything can be a money, but does that necessarily mean it's a good money or the best money or best store of value? Right? So, um, is that something where you see it like maybe like evolving into that or

you think it already is good. I think I think it partially is, and it's partially evolving into it in the same way that bitcoin partially is a good story value today and is evolving into a better story value in the future, I mean store of value. It's really like it's um, it's kind of like a coordination game, right, Like you want to store your wealth in the asset that all of the other human beings store their wealth in, and ideally you want to be a little bit ahead

of that. Uh. That way you can kind of you know, get the the appreciation of the asset and get the upside of the story value asset. So the coordination game is trying to predict which which asset will become a story value. And bitcoin has kind of mean this idea of um, you know, scarcity and a sound money and hard money being the primary value proposition of a story value UM and like, I agree with those things too. UM, It's just that EVE also has those properties as well.

It is a sound money, it is a hard money. It does have a scarcity enforced by social contract um. It just doesn't have a meme around twenty one million will only be produced. But if you actually look into the monetary policy of Eve, you sort of like start to uh see an asset um that has low issuance, you know, approaching one percent over time, that has a sustainable security um ust year in terms of its stability

to pay for network security via new coin issuance. Uh, and it has the same scarcity that's enforced by social contractors bigcoins. So even from just a scarcity meme perspective, UM, like, the fundamentals are there, it's just the like, the idea and the meme and the propagation of that meme is not fully there in the way that that it is

with bitcoin. But I think when people start to understand these assets more we're just at the very early stages of the general public barely understanding these assets, it will become more and more obvious that the monetary policy behind ethereum issuance is uh, just as good, maybe in some ways better or at least makes different tradeoffs than the

bitcoin monetary policy. Yeah, the tradeoffs that you speak of, I'm guessing more are are back to like the inflation and then enforcing the security, which, um some of that will will be said to be seen right in the future. But I think the problem, I guess is you're saying, like, the inflation rate is low today, but we just don't

know what it will be in the future. I guess that's the main argument that bitcoin bowls would say, right that you're building on something that's unknown because we know it's going to change in the future, but we don't know what it's going to change too. Yeah, and this is this is kind of you know what I would would what I would respond to you, I guess a couple of things. So, so first, when you look at bitcoin,

it's somewhat in a similar boat. So what bitcoin has done very clever cleverly is they've fixed issuance, and so they have Bitcoin has a security, um like, it has a happening and issuance happening. Every four years or so. Issuance is decreased along kind of a curve approaching zero UM, so that you know, the network specifies only twenty one million bitcoin will ever be produced. You can also think of that secure party having as or that that issuance

having is also a security having. So like UM, the the amount of bitcoin that goes to pay for network securities cut in half every four years. So there's some real question as to whether that sort of an issuance policy is UH is sustainable at some state and we're talking in the next you know, ten years or so, UM like bitcoin will have to sustain itself just by

transaction fees. So like the question in my mind is um, you know, is it actually possible to have fixed issuance twenty one million or or Bitcoin have to make a really hard choice in the future to actually increase its issuance and fork the network. Will that be sort of a very divisive topic sometime in the next you know, ten years, in the next twenty years, whereas ethereum UM you know, responds with a more flexible issuance policy into the future. UM and the monetary policy of Etherium is

pretty simple. It's minimum necessary issuance to secure the network. So like like security essentially is guaranteed by that issue at schedule, and Etherium won't won't have to deal with the thorny issue off like, well, we have two hard work to maintain security. So in some ways, I guess in summary, I think that the meme around twenty one million that that bitcoin has may not actually like in

fact come to pass. That there may be a reason in a requirement to actually increase issuance in order to properly secure the bitcoin network, and it might cause FOC at some point in the future to frame that out just a little bit more for everyone, if they're not totally caught up, is that UM currently bitcoin is secured by mining, and they are earning their their payment or their rewards through mining new bitcoin, but as well as doing transactions, and eventually UM the mining rewards run out,

and the only way to secure the network would be through transaction fees. UM a risk would be that let's say that everybody just hotels their bitcoin and doesn't transact it, then there's no transaction fees, and then the transaction fees aren't enough and the miners give up, and then there's no security for the network. That's the potential risk that that is going to play out, and We'll have to

see what happens. UM. Most people think that there will be enough transaction activity to continue to pay the miners UM, but it may not, And so that's that's the potential risk, right UM. I also see like a middle ground their team mark where it's it's you know, UM, there will be some security, and there will be like a lot of security paid by transaction fees. But but it could come to pass that Bitcoin is no longer the most secure network, right UM, as you know, compared to other

networks in the future. So UM, like I probably think it's unlikely that bitcoin security like drops to zero uh and it becomes useless, But but it could vary. UM feasibly come to pass that that Bitcoin is no longer the most secure network, and that opens a slot for another network that has a different issuance policy, maybe even a different consensus system um to uh to jump to first place, right, And so we don't know what the future holds, and so that could end up being bad

for Bitcoin. It possibly and and with a more flexible monetary policy like Ethereum has, it could end up being right where it needs to be. Bitcoin could change is monetary policy. So there's a lot to be said about the future that we don't know. It just seems that the if we look through history, like the best store of value always wins. I think you're kind of saying

that before. We've seen this playout with governments in the past, where some thought silver was going to be the best store value but they end losing the most of their wealth because gold became the best store value. And um, where you start to store your value right now, seems like having the best monetary policy today would win. But I guess we'll have to see how that plays out. Yeah, And I guess the point is, you know what actually is the best monetary policy, right UM, maybe we don't

know yet. UM Gold for instance, has been a fantastic story value throughout history, and it has an issuance and annual inflation of like one point five to two percent ish. UM. You know ethereum UH is projected to have a one percent ish inflation rate as well. UH. And then of course, you know, the issuance is always going to be enough to secure the network. Maybe that's the winning the winning ticket.

I think the point is we're all it's so early, like we're in the first standing of this and so you know, at some level, betting on crypto is betting on which of these assets become the best store of value. And so it's really hard to kind of project into the future. We just s don't know. So I always encourage like a probabilistic bet on these things, uh, and discourage maximalism of one form or another, including bitcoin maximalism. Yeah. So today we have, you know, the dollars the reserve

currency of the world, the financial system. Really, the world financial system is built in the US, majority of it, and it's built on the dollar. Um. But the dollar is also is a medium of exchange, right, but it's also a very poor store of value, which is why we see ascid inflation in stocks and real estate and

all these other things. UM, I mean, is it possible do you think it's possible that maybe um the theory M and bitcoin maybe have purposes of their own where one could be a better store value and one could be a better financial system or something. Yeah, totally. And if I were to predict these things, I would probably at this point i'd probably say that that's a that's a very likely outcome. UM. I don't think that that, Um,

you know, bitcoin kills ethereum or ethereum kills bitcoin. I think what what will happen is both of these networks will coexist. UM. They will be competitive, as all assets are or store value in monetary premium use cases. Of course, you know, gold competes with stock, competes with real estate for where individuals and large institutions decided to store their wealth. Um,

but they will have different trade offs. UM. I could very well see a world where there's a you know, a proof of work you know, winner from from the story value of category. And you know, maybe that's that looks like bitcoin uh and and possibly a proof of stake category winner uh. And maybe that looks like ethereum uh. And that these assets are held on the balance sheets of funds and major institutions and even central banks at

some stage. So it's really about the growth of the asset class, like the non sovereign store value asset class here uh. And that that's what I'm sort of rejecting when I say things like this money is that like, um, there seems to be at least this year um this bad that bitcoin will be the only winner in that category. And I just don't think that's true. In the money category. Yeah, in the money category and in the non sovereign store value category. M hm okay, so um again, so we

know it. It is already being used as a store value. I mean, at least I guess you could argue that. I mean, I don't think that's probably the primary use case of most people. I mean, we're starting to see all the financial system start to pick up bitcoin. We don't really see him picking up ethereum. However, we do see what half a billion dollars locked up in DeFi use cases, right, So I guess that's somewhat of a store value. Is that kind of how you see it? Yeah?

I see it as Right now, bitcoin is leading the way, um with what I would call crypto banks and kind of So if you think of like you know, a financial system. At the at the base layer, you have some sort of a money, right, a base monetary um system that kind of everything settles into, and then a layer above you have a banking system. And you know, the money in the banking system are very tied together, so like you know, central banks and commercial banks and

institutional banks very very closely tied together. It's all part of the same system. So Bitcoin as a base money. Their banking layer are these crypto banks. So crypto banks being you know, the bit mixes and the binances and the coin basis of the world. And in the crypto banks right now, bitcoin um is the primary asset, so you know, it has the most liquidity, the most trading pairs UM even in uh like crypto bank, it's like like block fi, there's more lending going on on bitcoin

um than versus other assets. So it's kind of you know winning right now in that crypto uh you know, centralized banking layer. Um Ethereum, on the other hand, is really pioneering an open banking layer with these decentralized finance protocols.

So ethere in essentially represents a kind of a another vision of the world where the story value asset is is E. And on top of that asset there are these crypto protocols like um compound and like maker and like um d y d X and like set UH and within these these banking protocols is really the primary

reserve asset. The interesting thing I think about it is that it can also make use of all of the kind of the crypto bank layer that that bitcoin makes use of as well, So it is behind Bitcoin is you know, the second highest liquidity trading pair uh, and on on the encrypto banks like Block five for instance, it's you know, the second asset to get listed. So I think um EF has kind of two avenues uh to create liquidity and to kind of become a money in.

One is the crypto banking side, where it's kind of second to bitcoin, uh, and the other is in this open finance defied layer where it's kind of first place and kind of king right now. Yeah, some of that stuff you talk about with bitcoin UM, I mean you talked about kind of coin based and whatnot. I mean those are more like on ramps and off ramps, And I mean the theoryum is still subject to the same requirements of on ramps and off rams. Wouldn't you say? Yeah?

I would? And I so I think of these exchanges as certainly they're on ramps and on off ramps for yacht UM, but they're also more than that. They're also becoming essentially a banking layer. So as more and more wealth, let's say, is uploaded into crypto and like zooming out, I think that's the that's the long term trend here is that we're going to move more and more of the world's wealth into crypto. Right now, we're at you know, um, hundreds of billions of dollars. Just a few years ago

we were at tens of billions of dollars. I think in a few more years will be at trillions of dollars. Uh, and the wealth is going to essentially be be uploaded into crypto. But these these crypto banks that the coin bases and the bit mixes of the world will serve us a um like a Fiat on ramp certainly, but they'll also provide lending services, will provide borrowing services. UH, they'll provide um, you know, the ability to too long

and short assets. Basically everything that you'll be able to do with with a traditional bank, you'll be able to do with these crypto banks. Um And, like Bitcoin is really essentially using uh, these centralized crypto banks as it's as its primary banking layer. Ethereum is using those banks as well. But it also because it has a program uh programmability aspect, it's it's also creating new kinds of banks. These are protocol based banks that are decentralized that are

inherently like programmable and composable and interoperable. Uh, so that you can change these things together and you know, create really interesting financial products and economies. Um. And I think that is that is a massive area of innovation. Uh. And that is like um um, more interesting in some ways than just the bitcoin plus crypto banks vision of

the world. Yeah, I'm I definitely think that's interesting. I want to jump into a little bit I would say though, before we jump into the full full scale, is that I think that part of the reason why the financial system is taken off so much because without having a hard sound money that stores value, we've been forced We've

been forced to become investors. It's kind of built this whole financial system that's forcing us to be investors as opposed to just being able to store money and be specialized. Like if I could be a brain surgeon, the best brain surgeon in the world, parked my money and it just and it stores the value. Um, then that I don't have to become this investor. But because I can't store my value and money, it forces to be become

an investor. So maybe if we had and these these are all big maybes, but maybe if we did have a good store value, we wouldn't have this giant financial world that we have today. Um. Do you think there's any truth to that? I think there's some truth to that, right. I mean if you look at where people store their valt their their value, I mean they don't store it long term in U S dollars right, um, both full story and treasuries, the story and um it stocks and bonds,

real estate. UM. And that is because you all and and just in some respects in assets like gold. UM. But I don't know, I do think they put it. They put it in their four own care, their mutual fund or whatever, and then they go into these all these different types of financial products and and things that they have in the market. I don't know that that's

going to change all that much. Right. So, like the the idea, like the somewhat of the fantasy of hyper bitcoinization, says all of that story value rather than storing it in those other assets. Now, because we have this new thing called bitcoin, you could just store in bitcoin. Um. But but that's also not diversified, right, Like what what

if something happens to the bitcoin network? Um? Like what like I mean, what if for example, um, like uh, government's global governments make Bitcoin illegal and they choose to adopt you know, another crypto asset UM like bitcoin has a ton of systemic risk as other asset classes do. So I just don't think we'll go into kind of a mono store value world. UM. I think like wealth

will continue to be diversified across multiple uh stories of value. Now, I do think that assets non sovereign stores of value like like eat and like bitcoin can certainly chipped into assets like gold, but I'm kind of skeptical that they'll ever kind of consume all of that UM story values case. Yeah, I think, Well, I I mean I would agree with you, and it would be irresponsible for anybody to park all

their wealth into one asset. And if we go back all the way to you know, biblical times, I mean people were still storing their wealth and livestock and land and whatnot. So UM, I think, but I think there's a difference of like real wealth, you know assets versus just crazy risky financial assets. But um getting into the DeFi space, which I am super interested in. UM, it's all been growing on ethereum UM and I'm guessing that's because of the program uh the ability to be you know,

have programmable money. Is that why it's all growing on ethereum. Yeah, that, I mean that is the the use case you can you can basically, I mean like a smart contract, um. You know, in some ways it's a it's a just a programmable espero um like agreement, right um so. But but Bitcoin doesn't have those capabilities on the base layer. Very basic smart contracts as sometimes are possible things like multi SIGs on Bitcoin, you can call it that a

smart contract. But with ethereum um you can. You can put a lot more logic into you um, into these smart contracts and essentially like you have the ability to program value and you know, create if then statements um for for various protocols. Right now, the Hello World app, like the the Starter program has definitely been clatteralized loans. That's really taken off um. There's something like five million in um clatterized loans on the Etherian platform right now,

and that's super cool. But I think that's that's really just to start. Eventually, what's going to happen is all of the financial verbs, all of the things you want to do with value and with assets and with money, things like staving, things like infesting things like you know, spending,

things like borrowing or longing and shorting. All of those verbs will essentially be protocols on top of the Etherium platform, and you'll be able to do those um in a uh, in a more decent centralized, criticcol driven way rather than going to a centralized banking service that handles it all for you. So that's really the potential, right. So that's those are the financial pieces. Um. So you talk about

like longing and shorting. Well, first you said that, like the primary use case right now is is the lending market barring and barring and lending. Um, But isn't the barring and lending really being done by the investors who are longing and shorting and and hedging. Yeah, I think that's that's happening to a large degree now, and that's

natural for like these markets to emerge. Um. I mean, people criticize people outside of crypto, the often criticize crypto in general, and they just say, you know, it's it's all speculative, right, Um, people kind of uh, you know, it is, that's the that's the evolution, that's how we start, right exactly. So I completely agree it is in large part speculative, but it's becoming less so over time, you know asked it's like bitcoin are becoming less volatile time.

So it's natural that these crypto banks would start with that kind of the use case. You know, even even a lot of there's been a lot of criticism on like I c o s for instance, and kind of all of the scams have popped up in all of the the poor investments UM that like essentially were available. But when you look at the primitive of permission less fundraising UM around something like a decentralized autonomous organization, that is an incredible primitive Like that's an amazing accomplishment UM.

And yeah, and you know in the initial round it didn't have adequate investor protection and it's skirted regulation and there were all sorts of problems with it. But the primitive itself and the ability to issue a token and fundraise on the theory and platform, UM, if it was tweaked you know, properly and had those same protections, UM,

it could be incredibly powerful for global finance. So those are the types of opportunities that I think are available on ethereum and like available when you have a money platform that also has uh like this programmable banking layer. Yeah, so if we look at if we look at the I guess that there's like three main purposes of a of a bank, right, one would be storage, to settlement, three loans. Right, so I guess all three of those could really be taken care of. I mean with crypto

and bitcoin or theorium. I suppose, right, storage obviously goes out, we have the ability to transact on our own that settlement and now with the with the lending market kind of gotten rid of that. So now it's really going about going after the larger financial system overall. Yeah. Absolutely, And you know in the fourth the fourth might be investing as well, kind of banks helping you invest and help raise funds in the form of investment banks, and

I think that that is also accomplished by etherium. You know, there's a really really interesting protocol called the set protocol for instance, which is essentially a protocol that kind of

does algorithmic or or robot investing for you. So you could just put they have a moving average um set where it's it's it's almost like a smart contract ETF and you can put eth in it and when it rises above a p certain percentage from a twenty day moving average perspective, UM, it will buy more eth uh and if it drops below, it will sell that e in exchange for a stable coin UM. And over time that has historically shown to outperformed just straight holding EATH.

That's all done programmatically through kind of like a smart money robot. I mean that kind of innovation has the potential to replace mutual funds and index funds wholesale. UM. So like like all of these like, all of these things will be possible. I think on top of UM, you know this this programmable banking platform, and on top of THEORYUM over time, and what it's going to do is software is just going to eat finance and it's

going to eat money as it's eating other industries. Uh. And I think you know, if we if we look five or ten years out, UM, you know, all of all of that will become obvious in retrospect. Yeah. What about what I mean, I don't know if you care to get into this, but about the regulation. So we've seen technology eat everything, as you say, right, so you talk about software, but really technology, right, I mean we can see the digital cameras took out Kodak or whatever. Right,

And it's been happening since the Industrial Revolution. But I don't know, I don't know if we've ever come up against something that's so big, that has so many like incumbents that are gonna that are really going to resist. So I mean, obviously taking on money, it's just a government's function, taking on Wall Street. Um. I mean do you think it's it's something that could severely limit um, this new technology's growth or do you think, um, it's

a war that they just can't win. Eventually they're just gonna lose that war. I think it's the latter. I think what what will happen is that at various points in the life cycle. And when we think about life cycle, I mean we're talking about like decades long life cycle crypto it's gonna like the Internet, it's going to take to kind of impact society and and eat these industries. And at various junctions, Um, you know, central banks will

put up blockers for various reasons. Um you know commercial banks, Uh, well, we'll put up blockers to protect their interests. As you know, media companies have done to you know, protect against social networks in the past, and as other incumbents to have

kind of done in the past. But the reason that won't be successful long term is because I kind of believe in the game theory of test and that is, if if one of the incumbents, whether it's a nation state or a commercial bank, kind of breaks rank and actually starts to adopt this technology, uh, they will receive a like a large competitive advantage and essentially be rewarded

for doing that. Um. So unless they can kind of all collude together and and stop this and kind of crush it, uh, it only takes one or two of them to kind of break rank uh and receive a competitive advantage for all of the rest to just need to follow from a from the game theoretic perspective. That's why I think over the long run, um, you know, they can't stop it, right yeah, And I mean at

least at least with bitcoin. I mean I I look at it as like the the US financial system has already spent a lot of money, potentially billions of dollars to adopt it for everyone from Goldman Sacks to e Trade, the t du Merritrade, et cetera. And we know they're like the largest lobbyists in government, So I can't imagine they're going to let that just go to zero now. So it's already happening. And you know, I think Wall Street is going to discover kind of tokenization of assets

for instance. Uh, and there's gonna be a gold rush for that at some point. UM. So like you know, once once Wall Street, once Wall Street, and once even central banks kind of start using this this stuff. UM like then the horses the horses out and you can't you can't stop at that point. So, UM, where do you see defy going in the near term, let's say the next twelve months, and then maybe where do you see it like in the long term, like five years

or ten years out. You know it's super interesting, is um. I find it easier to predict ten years out in twelve months for some reason. Okay, you know, like I I would agree with you on that. So like, you know, ten years out, I think we'll have trillions of dollars token on. It's on top of UM likely ethereum, but

um like it could be other smart contract platform as well. UM. I think we'll have all of the primitives that we've talked about, you know, UM, I think uh, user experience and will be significantly improved so that average retail users can quite easily manage their keys and open smart contract wallets.

I think all of that is coming, but in the in the next twelve months, it's really difficult to predict what will be UM the you know, the new applications UM For instance, I was actually surprised by the rise of unite swap. So unite Swap for for your listeners,

is a decentralized exchange on ethereum it um. It launched in I want to say November or December of last year, and it's just basically a smart contract pool that will as you to exchange various um r C twenty and each based assets UM and you know, it's it's not an order book type model, so it's not like a coin base, it's not even like a m a zero

x decentralized exchange. Essentially, all of the liquidity is put in one place, and UH liquidity providers you know, earn um based on the amount of volume that goes through the platform, So it kind of pools this liquidity and an algorithm essentially determines the price of each trade. So I was shocked at the growth of unite slap um. I mean it it quickly grew into the millions and then the tens of millions in terms of how many assets were put in this pool. Uh. And it kind

of came out of nowhere. It was like basically developed by a single person. It was his first application that he'd ever created, like not ethereum applications like application in general. Uh. And the protocol mechanism just really clipped. So I would say that that that, I mean it fit a really big market need. I mean then the market needs essentialized exchange really bad. And I think it's been searching. So yeah, he had a he had a he had a good

spot for sure. Yeah. So so I think it's um, it's tough to predict what's going to hit like critical markets fit um. I was just curious, like if you think about like we taught, we both talked about like the evolution of the space, which I mean in the beginning, it's it's speculators. I believe we're still kind of in that collectible speculator stage, you know. I don't think we're

at the store value stage yet. So you look around it like, okay, well, what are the what are speculators doing obviously that's why the lending and borrowing markets have taken off. Um, So I would think it's maybe something spinning off of that, right, like more type of investment products or or banking products. One thing that could pop. I mean people have talked about n f t s

for a while. Those are like collectibles that's kind of in the background, something to Popper in that, But one that seems more in your term to me is um uh basically money markets just accounts. So particularly the ability to put a stable coin like DIE or like USDC inside of a protocol like compound and receive you know, single digit potentially double digit interest yield. Um. That's super interesting, um.

You know, and that's less of a speculative use case like what kind of like you know, moving moving up that ladder of like few and few respectulive use cases, and it's more of kind of a saving in a money market use case. But it's it's something retail consumers can understand. And um, I think that could be a pretty massive Yeah, Okay, good stuff. Well, we've talked a lot about about a lot of things. I think we

can probably start wrapping it up here. Um I think uh, I did have some other questions, but well we'll dive into those at another time, um, because we've kind of gone over the time here. But but really good stuff. I uh, I love your perspective on it. I'm curious you said you started out as a bitcoin bowl. Um do you still own both? Yeah? Absolutely, and I'm still

I'm still a bitcoin bowl. I mean, like, so, if I were to kind of summarize it, right, UM, I see platforms like Libra, uh, and what Libra is doing is it's it's essentially creating a closed money uh in a closed banking system. Um. And that's not very interesting to me at all. We already have PayPal. And then I see projects like Bitcoin and that's creating an open money, which is super interesting, but but it's creating an open

money uh and still a closed banking system. So it's you know, scaling through the bit maxes and finances of the world Ethereum. To me is like this third possibility where it's creating an open money and also an open banking system. And I think in the long run that combination is going to be far more impactful uh than like the combination of just open money. But both are needed. So I really like Bitcoin. I think it is. UM. It is an open money protocol for sure. UM. I

think it will be very successful. UM. But my heart is really in Ethereum because it's it's both an open money and it's an open banking platform. And like the why for this for me is is so that individuals can essentially be their own banks. We're giving we're giving money back to the individuals, we're separating that from the state, and we're essentially separating banks from from state control to UH. And to me, that's the full soft, self sovereign individual

picture we need if we don't have. My worry is that Bitcoin essentially, maybe it becomes a sound money UM, but essentially it will be UM captured in the end by by commercial banks and eventually by central banks UH, and we won't get everything that we signed up for in the scriptive revolution. Yeah, good call. All right, Well that's a great point. UM. I love the self sovereign piece of it. And so let's end it with that, because that was a good that was a good statement.

So Sean, Ryan, Sean, thanks so much for joining today. It was it was great having you. Awesome. Thanks Mark, appreciate it. Hey, if you like this episode of the Market Disruptors Podcast. Please help us take this to the top of the podcast charts. Just please do me a favor and rate, review and subscribe. Taking fifteen seconds to just leave a quick review goes a long way in

helping us reach more people and disrupt more markets. I really appreciate you listening and I'll see you next time on the Market Distructors Podcast.