The Future of the XDC Network! Enterprise RWA Tokenization with Billy Sebell - podcast episode cover

The Future of the XDC Network! Enterprise RWA Tokenization with Billy Sebell

Nov 08, 202443 min
--:--
--:--
Download Metacast podcast app
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episode description

Billy Sebell, Executive Director at XDC Foundation, joined me to discuss the latest and great with the XDC Network. Topics:
- XDC Network overview
- XDC 2.0 upgrades 
- Subnets and more 
- RWA Tokenization on XDC 
- R3 and SBI partnerships 
- Exchange listings 
- Crypto market growth, adoption, and regulations 
Show Sponsor -
🌟Uphold - Signup with Uphold. https://uphold.sjv.io/gbED4X Terms Apply. Cryptoassets are highly volatile. Your capital is at risk. 

💡Get the (Re)Thinking Crypto Book on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D2525DYX Sponsors:
👉 Easily buy Crypto on Gemini exchange - https://www.gemini.com/partners/thinking-crypto 
⭐️ Learn about BitGo, one of the top crypto custodians - https://www.bitgo.com/ 
✅ VeChain is a versatile enterprise-grade L1 smart contract platform https://www.vechain.org/ 
🖥️ Sign up with Santiment to get quality crypto metrics - https://santiment.net/?fpr=thinkingcrypto Get 25% discount with code THINKINGCRYPTO
📰 Sign up for the Free Thinking Crypto Weekly Newsletter https://thinkingcrypto.substack.com/
✉️ Crypto MailBag - https://forms.gle/vdwYC1eSpkCrc2fQ8 
🚀 Get the Ledger Nano X to Safely store your Crypto - https://www.ledgerwallet.com/r/acd6 
✅ Become a Channel Member - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjpkwsuHgYx9fBE0ojsJ_-w/join 🔥 Buy Merch & support the Podcast https://my-store-574b5b.creator-spring.com/ 
🧙‍♂️Merlin - http://tinyurl.com/MerlinTCYouTube “I am a Merlin partner and get compensated for purchases made through links in this content"this content"

Follow on social media: 
➡️ X(Twitter) - https://twitter.com/ThinkingCrypto1 
➡️ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thinkingcrypto/
➡️ LinkedIn - http://linkedin.com/company/thinking-crypto 
➡️ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thinkingcrypto/ 
➡️ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thinkingcryptopod
➡️ Threads - https://www.threads.net/@thinkingcrypto 
➡️ Website - https://www.ThinkingCrypto.com/ 

🔊 Listen to content on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinking-crypto-news-interviews/id1458945676 
🔊 Listen to content on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/221AV5A65v7uYEsuMviVKl 

💼Business Inquiries💼
hellothinkingcrypto@gmail.com

=================================================
#XDC #Tokenization #Blockchain #Crypto #CryptoNews #Cryptocurrency #Bitcoin #BTC #BitcoinNews #ETF #News #Ripple #XRP #XRPNews #RippleXRP #Ethereum #EthereumNews #ETH #Solana #money #investing #trading #Altcoin #Altcoins #NFTs #Metaverse #Podcast #ThinkingCrypto
================================================= 
The Thinking Crypto Podcast is your home for the best Crypto News and Interviews - crypto, cryptocurrency, crypto news, bitcoin, bitcoin news, xrp, xrp news, ripple, ripple news, ripple xrp, ethereum, ethereum news, cardano, ada, solana, altcoins, defi, news, interviews, podcast, metaverse, nft, altcoin daily, cryptosrus, coin bureau, altcoin news, bitcoin today, markets, investing ================================================= 
Disclaimer - The Thinking Crypto podcast and Tony Edward are not financial or investment experts. You should do your own research on each cryptocurrency and make your own conclusions and decisions for investment. Invest at your own risk, only invest what you are willing to lose. This channel and its videos are just for educational purposes and NOT investment or financial advice. Note that links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue to provide you with free content each week!

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thinking-crypto-news-interviews--3464539/support.

Transcript

Speaker 1

So we've enabled the opportunity to.

Speaker 2

Build a side chain in a private environment or permission environment that allows enterprises and institutions to really set up the parameters that they want to set up. So if they want to have or it's required that they have their consensus mechanism within a particular jurisdiction, they can set it up that way.

Speaker 3

This episode is brought to you by Uphold, which is one of the top crypto platforms in the industry. I've been a user of Uphold since twenty eighteen. They make it easy to buy, sell, and trade crypto. They have three hundred plus cryptocurrencies on their platform, which includes Bitcoin in all the top all coins and folks. They do

not commingle, they do not lend out your funds. They are one hundred percent reserved and you can review their transparency report, and they have a lot of great features that make it easy to execute your trades. They also have a great new product call USD Interest Accounts, which allows you to park your dry powder or your crypto

profits and earn up to four point nine percent APY. Now, the four point nine percent APY is only on balances over one thousand dollars below one thousand, it's two percent. But what's great about this product, guys, is there's no lock ups, there's no monthly fees, there's no subscriptions, and best of all, it is FDIC insured, just like a bank. So if you'd like to learn more about Uphold, visit the link in the description. Welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast.

I'm your host, Tony Edward, and my guest today is Billy Siebel, who's the executive director at the XDC Foundation. Billy, great to have you on.

Speaker 1

Yeah, great to be here, Tony, thanks for having me, Billy.

Speaker 3

Lots of questions around XDC. I've often had people ask me why are you going to speak to someone from XDC, and you know, are you looking at this project and so forth. So it's a good time for us to chat and I can finally learn more as well. But before we get to all things XDC, tell us about yourself, where you're from and what's your professional background.

Speaker 1

Sure.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so I'm originally from Boston and I had spent a large part of my career in manufacturing. I've launched some different businesses and consumer products, some clothing businesses, import export and consulting as well. You know, within the manufacturing space, and that was all prior to my time in crypto and getting into crypto. That's about twenty five plus years of time that I've spent kind of in total doing that other stuff.

Speaker 3

And what was your first encounter with bitcoin or crypto or blockchain and what was your AHA moment?

Speaker 2

Yeah, So I guess really I've probably like a lot of people, I had looked at bitcoin probably pretty early twenty thirteen, in twenty fourteen and was like, oh, interesting, but you know, didn't really pay too much attention to it. And I guess after the run up in twenty seventeen just kind of a confluence of factors kind of like got me to start looking at you know, bitcoin in general. And so I got involved in early twenty eighteen. And so that's when I really got going.

Speaker 3

And how did you end up working at XDC?

Speaker 2

So it's you know, I kind of always call it it's like I had like a three year interview. I had gotten involved in early twenty eighteen in the community, and then sometime around November of twenty eighteen, I ended up meeting the founders back in They came to Boston actually in two eighteen, and they were doing a crypto event for blockchain Finance, so I decided to help out and try to join in on, you know, some of the stuff they were doing, and that's how.

Speaker 1

We got involved.

Speaker 2

And I was really from that point forward focused on working within the community just as a community member and

really trying to build the community out. And I think that was something that, as I said as part of the three year interview, I think by the time twenty rolled around, there were some things that happened with the network, and the founders had asked for my help, and so in December that year, I got involved in trying to resolve actually a hack issue that happened with an ERC twenty version of our token, and then officially went to work in February of twenty twenty one was z infant

and we ended up launching the actual foundation and I think officially in June of that year. June and twenty twenty one.

Speaker 3

Wow, and give an overview of XDC as a network and targeted use cases and so forth.

Speaker 1

What is XDC.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so xCC we're an EVM compatible smart contracts Layer one platform, so we're protocol So I mean essentially, you know, we're as we said, we're like faster, cheaper than ethereum. And you know, the focus that we've really had has

been around enterprises. So trade finance has really been kind of like the long tail narrative of really who we've been and that's really kind of led us to the point now where you know, we're actually launching our WA's on the chain and really starting to expand out that ecosystem.

Speaker 3

So it sounds to confirm you're mainly focused on enterprises and the use cases are tokenization, uh maybe payments as well.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so payments is something that is kind of i'd say roadmapped right now.

Speaker 1

It's one of those things.

Speaker 2

That we're really looking to expand out with some of the work we're doing around our WA's, But largely the r WA stuff has been really focused on trade finance and you know, really kind of being true to really who we've been to you know, really since the beginning, which is helping to fund small businesses sms across the globe.

Speaker 3

And has that side of the or has demand grown since the likes of black Rock and Franklin Templeton and all these big Wall Street institutions who are now starting to tokenize.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I'd say it's it's an interesting, you know, view of the from the inside because a lot of those things, obviously we've been seeing develop over time, and I think, you know, a Biddle has really kind of broken things open in a way that you haven't really seen with you know, any other funds that are out there, and largely because they have the ability to really look at UH taking a full tokenization of UH of a product

from the beginning. You know, for us, we've actually tokenized a US Treasury token and you know that's actually a black Rock etf fund and it's nothing to do specifically, you know, we're not doing anything specifically with black Rock, but you know, those funds, like anything else, are available for others to be able to tokenize, you know, in

the space. And so I think a lot of what you're being what you're seeing right now are the different ways in which people are trying to bring liquidity to the market and also finding ways for people to be liquid within that market. And I think that's the biggest

challenge that you're dealing with with tokenization. It's not the ability to tokenize anything really, it's more a matter of, you know, how do you bring the liquidity to it, and you know, where is the interests, you know, on the investment side to get involved with you know, these traditional assets on chain.

Speaker 3

Now to your point, we're seeing tokenization of funds and maybe that's phase one. What else, and this is a genuine question, what else? The do you foresee the tokenization of what might be in phase two? Do you think it's like real estate or what do you think it might be?

Speaker 1

It's a it's a good question.

Speaker 2

I mean I think that right now we're probably moving into a private credit phase. So it's like it's interesting. I mean I've seen you know, you had interviewed Carlos

from Securitizing. You know, we we have been working with securitized that's what we launched our US the US Treasury token on or trade Tech, the company that did it, and a lot of like what we were seeing at that time was you know, these Treasury tokens starting to come on chain, and I think we were probably like the fifth or sixth or seventh chain to actually have

a US Treasury token launched on it. And then you know, you're starting to see really kind of private credit coming on chain now in a way that you know, people are looking at how can the how can you offer more yield in a product in That's something that people are looking at. And obviously with rates changing, you know, those are things that will fluctuate down if rates continue to be cut with the Treasury.

Speaker 1

So I think that there's.

Speaker 2

More options that people are looking at it, and I think that there are also the types of things that can be offered are more simply put together. So I think real estate has different challenges to it that you don't see, you know from a private credit or even now maybe perhaps like a stock or a bond being offered. It's a pretty simple tokenization to do it. And those that are in the digital space, if they want to own a digital representation of saying Vidio, they can buy it.

So you know, those are the kind of the here and the now type of things that are slowly developing.

Speaker 3

And to your point, that definitely makes sense. Something that's already in the digital landscape, so to speak, it's going to be easy to put on the blockchain versus a real role a building right in middle of Manhattan or whatever it is. There's so many other implications.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, I think like the idea of fractionalization of real estate is one of those things that it's it makes a lot of sense to people. I think the thing is is that you know, you have to bring together, you know, the supply side with the demand side, and I think that there's a lot of challenges to that.

Speaker 1

And also.

Speaker 2

You know where I think you're getting. Maybe first you would see real estate being sold and tokenized, as you know, any type of house is purchased or sold anywhere in the world, and then you probably see the opportunity for people to come in and try to, you know, fractionalize things. But I think that look, that's it's kind of like anything that can be tokenized. At some point somebody is going to try and tokenize, whether it works or doesn't. And I think we're going to see.

Speaker 1

A lot of iterations of this happening over time. And and I.

Speaker 2

Have some that I think would be really exciting to see. I don't know how they play out, but I think that there's some pretty cool stuff that you can tokenize and and it you know, if you take the lessons of crypto in terms of community, it makes a lot of sense as to why they could work.

Speaker 3

And do you think this may be a tough question to answer. You know, as governments are still in the process of learning about this technology and embracing it, do you think eventually companies folks like you will go to the US government and say, hey, let's tokenize some bonds and things like that.

Speaker 1

Uh yeah, I think that.

Speaker 2

You know, you really, what you have is, you know, you have layer ones that are building the infrastructure in order to be able to do these types of things, and so the ecosystem is built to make it easy for businesses to come on and say, hey, this is something we want to tokenize. You know, right now you have like people like securitized or businesses like Securitize that probably straddle the most when it comes to what's happening on a regulatory perspective and you know, what can happen

on a tokenization perspective. And so you know, there's not a lot of secondary markets on any of this stuff, but the institutions that they're working with and other institutions that are you know, large enterprises or banks, maybe hedge funds, anybody that's playing kind of within that financial space who's set.

Speaker 1

Up all the.

Speaker 2

You know, they've done all of the legal work in order to really kind of launch something. They're the ones who are really in the position to go to the government and say, hey, here's something that we can do. And I think that what you would find, and I think what people are finding is that, you know, the DLT piece is really playing out, which is that there are pretty significant savings for enterprises or institutions when it comes to doing stuff on DLT as opposed.

Speaker 1

To the existing systems. And so considering the.

Speaker 2

US government probably is not the most efficient of these areas either, I think they would probably benefit greatly out of you know, the tokenization of some of these assets.

Speaker 3

Oh for sure. Now, there was some a recent milestone that was achieved by XEC, and that is with trade flow capital converting traditional bills of lading if I'm saying that right into tokenized documents. Tell us about that.

Speaker 1

Yeah, So, I mean, essentially, you have.

Speaker 2

Some jurisdictions that are incorporating, you know, the ability to digitize documents in trade and therefore you're able to digitize those documents, create a digitalized system and then do the complete trade and finance the electronic bill of lading. So we had started with this, you know, with IMDA and Singapore and you know, and this is something it's limited really ultimately in scope because it's such a fragmented industry. You know, you can't just go and say, well, here's

an industry solution to something that you're doing. But I think everything is about where you start and how you progress. And so with what we've been able to do there and effectuating actual trade, we've really started to work down a path where the corridors that really want to take this on and have the proper jurisdiction that they're able to really you know, build.

Speaker 1

This kind of trade by trade.

Speaker 2

And I think that that's a slow process. That's the reality of that particular, you know, type of trade. I think that you know, when we look at the ability to take a group of invoices for businesses and we're able to finance those, you know, we're kind of like leaving the shipping and all of that stuff out and those corridors are going to just be naturally dealt with as it normally would be in terms of you know, the vendors themselves and how they're moving product across the globe.

In this case, you're kind of like encompassing a lot more stuff in terms of like the jurisdictions and how things flow.

Speaker 1

So I think that there's.

Speaker 2

Probably a longer road to bringing that about, but I think it's pretty exciting when you can see that these things are actually really happening on blockchain now, and you know you're proving out those use cases.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Absolutely. A question I had about tokenized assets, and with assets being tokenized on the blockchain, it opens the door for the market to truly be global because right now, in certain jurisdictions or countries, people can't access like the New York Stock Exchange or Tessa Stock or whatever it may be. But if you put it on the blockchain,

almost anyone can access it. How do you feel the regulations will be around there, Will they open it up everywhere or we will still have these lines so to speak, that you know, access it in certain parts of the world.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

I think that, uh, you're always going to have uh some lagging in different areas. I mean, I've talked about this quite a bit in terms.

Speaker 1

Of the US.

Speaker 2

I think then I've kind of harped on it where recently I think like Mark Cuban had said something about how you know, the way in which this has been handled punitively in the US has probably shaved you know,

one point of GDP off of the US economy. And and I really, I really do believe that from the standpoint of uh, you know, where a burgeoning industry that's looking to bring technology to the forefront that can help other industries just across the globe and in the US, and something as simple as trying to tokenize an asset or even what somebody may normally do to to launch something within and within their own industry to increase or improve or disrupt what's going on. So they're trying to

increase efficiencies and throughputs and decrease costs. This is really a challenge that businesses have to look at and say, you know, do I want to go down the path of it's already a competitive market. Now I have to deal with uncertainty around what's going on from a jurisdictional you know, like legal perspective, and so now I have

two major things I have to deal with. And so you see a lot of talent, you know, leaving the US as a result of that and going elsewhere, and even just in the industry talking to people who are in Europe, they just have a much easier time doing things.

Speaker 1

Than we do.

Speaker 2

So I think there is going to be a leveling out because at some point the people who just kind of are showing hate for crypto are confusing that with you know, what they think they need to do to really kind of you know, they do it in the terms of protecting people, but in other I don't know whether. I don't really think that that's the case in terms of how it's played out. So I think that people are going to be coming in one way or another, as we know, with what's coming up in a couple

of weeks. And I think that there's a loosening here in the US, and hopefully you see signs of what they're doing in other jurisdictions, you know, Mica or things like that in Europe where they're clarifying things. Whether you like it or not, it's these things are starting to make things easier in terms of clarity, and so you're going to have to move closer together. How that goes, how soon all that stuff, it's it's really really tough to tell, but a lot can happen in two years.

Speaker 1

So I'm hopeful, yeah, really hopeful.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I agree, And it seems like we're on the path. You know, at least we're on the path walking towards the destination of all these things converging together. And Congress here at least is starting to make some moves and you're seeing bipartisan efforts and maybe to your point, you know, the EU making that move with the MICA regulations. It's going to put pressure finally on the folks here like Okay, we got to wake up, we gotta get get to get going here.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that's that's probably the key, right, you know, all of those things coming together.

Speaker 3

M now XDC two point zero recent launch, tell us about this and what are the upgrades and the impact you think you will have.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so we recently upgraded from our original protocol to two point zero. We were a delegated proof of steak. This particular launch really geared more towards upgrading the protocol for in a couple of different areas. But it's now really a Byzantine fault tolerant consensus mechanism with a security layer that's been added in. Originally that's how it started,

but we really have as it's kind of developed. I think one of the major features that we've really brought forward is a private subnet that's now able to be set up on the network, and so essentially it's a side chain. I think if you kind of look at what Avalanche has done with their subnets, it's probably most similar to what they've done there.

Speaker 1

So we've enabled the opportunity to.

Speaker 2

Build a side chain in a private environment or permission environment that allows and enterprises and institutions to really set up the parameters that they want to set up.

Speaker 1

So if they want to.

Speaker 2

Have or it's required that they have their consensus mechanism within a particular uristiction, they can set it up that way. And so we have a sub subject manager that allows for easy set up. And I think, you know, to me, one of the game changes around this is that what you're now from an institutional perspective, you know, people were looking at, well, I don't want to be on a

public blockchain. Although that's changed a little bit in terms of, you know, having some of the benefits of public blockchain, there's still a lot of institutions that are saying, or businesses are saying, we're going to build our own network. We're not going to do anything with any of these

public networks. And now you know, this is really kind of, I guess, another way of bringing blockchain closer to a lot of these businesses where they can set up what they intended to set up, but it's already really built, and so you know, the manager's there the ability to if they want to create a token, whatever application they want to build on it, whatever information they want to relay to the public network, they can do so they can have you know, the great the best benefits of

cryptography from a public perspective with the benefits of you know, a private, permissioned environment. And that's one of the directions or like that part of the feedback in which we've gotten over the years from institutions, and so it's something that's been in.

Speaker 1

The works for quite a long time.

Speaker 2

And the other part of the security piece is you know that we have a judiciary really now that's been set up. So the judiciary itself, it's all within a dashboard that is, you know, from a code perspective, is overseeing what's going on with these nodes, and so if there's any nefarious activity by a particular node, it's immediately.

Speaker 1

Slashed and pulled out of the population.

Speaker 2

So it's not able to really do anything in terms of you know, pulling other nodes you know, towards it and creating some type of you know, security concern on the network. So obviously trade finance and the things we're doing, you know, we're we're working to try to create the most secure and reliable network you can have.

Speaker 3

That's really great. And you know, going back to the topic of privacy with those subnets and things like that, that's such a big solution because to your point, many of these companies are like, yeah, I don't want to be in a public blockchain. I don't want my information to be out there. But it's great that folks like yourself and so forth have found that solution to create the privacy subnet, if you want to call it that, and it allows them to operate on a public blockchain

but still maintain privacy. And I think that's so important.

Speaker 2

Yeah, And I think, you know, it's funny because I always look at this, you know, saying I was from manufacturing, and I always looked at a lot of manufacturers. We're really behind the times in terms of technology with system Usually, you know, when it comes to upgrading any system in a business, it's a lot of work.

Speaker 1

It takes a lot of work.

Speaker 2

And so you know, when I got involved with blockchain and started looking at it with institutions, you know, you would think, oh, these banks and institutions, they've got the technology behind them, But the truth is they don't.

Speaker 1

They have old technology. They use a lot of spreadsheets. Still.

Speaker 2

You know, the idea that you can have a private sub net and build something on there now creates opportunities that they didn't have before. So so it's really I think a great opportunity at this point, both for the network and for institutions that are looking to really upgrade what they're doing.

Speaker 3

How are you attracting developers and helping them? Are there accelerator programs and things like that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so we've gone through you know, some different I guess waves of development progress in terms of how we're looking at bringing people to the network. And you know, we've done a lot of things around hakathons over time. Uh in the last couple of years. UH more recently, we've really looked at uh accelerator programs that we could uh start to actually uh hone and direct a little bit more of of the teams and the types of processes that are in place to start developing those teams and UH.

Speaker 1

And so now we've got a number of about.

Speaker 2

A half a dozen different UH programs that are going on currently across UH in different regions of the globe UH for accelerator programs, and they're all a little bit different and and they're you know, led by different.

Speaker 1

People as well in different regions.

Speaker 2

But I think that the UH way we're approaching it right now is UH it's really the greatest opportunity when you think about how you can go through a process and kind of hand pick and develop these particular you know, projects or teams to build on your network. And it's not just a matter of what it is that they're doing, but how are they operating and you know, do they have the business processes in place as well as the development chops. It's not just a developer says oh I

put together this particular application. You know, you have to be able to have a plan as to how you're going to execute and build your community. And so I think there's a lot of great opportunity what we're doing around that, and that's been that's really kind of the roadmap as we're moving forward into twenty twenty five got it.

Speaker 3

Yeah, that's really great. There's some questions that came from the community. For example, folks wanted to know if there are any upcoming exchange list things and things along those lines.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I know this is always a hotbed question for people within the community. I think that everybody always wants to know, like me, like being from originally the community, this was the thing what years ago when we were.

Speaker 1

Like, well, when's this or when's that?

Speaker 2

But but look, I think you know, the thing I could say about it, which is really not too much, is that, you know, the idea behind what you know exchanges.

Speaker 1

Have to offer these types of integrations is.

Speaker 2

You know, access for you know users to come onto the network. And you know, our focus has always really been about what are the things that we can do to create and develop more access for retail users to really operate on the network, you know, use the utilities in which you know, we're putting on there.

Speaker 1

And so.

Speaker 2

With this kind of understanding this, I mean, we've worked, you know, as a network very hard to bring about all of the different types of integrations that are going to bring about you know, greater use and so you know, we're continuing to do this as we move forward, and you know that's not going to change, uh, you know, until we really accomplish having the entire ecosystem built out the way we want to.

Speaker 3

M There's also another question around R three. Any updates around R three and XDC, and I know there's been talks of R three potentially looking to be sold and how that would impact XDC.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean we've always had a very good relationship with our three and uh, you know, I can't really speak to what those rumors are. You know, what I would say is that, you know, we developed a bridge to Quorta. I mean, Quorda itself is really really in many ways independent of our three. You know, they are three built it so that anybody could come on and integrate with it. And so you know, we built the bridge with the idea that institutions and others were interested in,

you know, really trying to do transactions on Quarta. And also it allowed us a bit of a private public network opportunity there, kind of similar to what we're doing right now with subnets. And so one of the things that ultimately kind of I think, you know, we've always looked at is we try to build on as many developing,

you know, opportunities, development opportunities as we can. And now this is a space that's like constantly changing, so you know, you have Layer ones that are deciding to become a Layer two and moving to another chain. You know, there's going to be all sorts of things that happen as we move forward, and so we're really just trying to create the most opportunity that's out there. So if somebody comes to us and says, here's what we'd like to do, and we want to build on Quorda, you know, then

that's something that you know we're able to do. And we don't know how anything is going to turn out, but we're going to continue to do what we're doing. And I think you know, you've seen that with SBI VC in Japan, who's more recently done some stuff with Quorda. There isn't any intention to change the direction of what we're doing, and you know, I think until something changes, that's really where we stand with it.

Speaker 3

Oh for sure, And you mentioned SBI, Are you guys doing anything with them in particular?

Speaker 2

Yeah, Well, we've been from the time in which SBI first started looking into the network. You know, we've had

touch points. You know, with them, a lot of what now is kind of like SBI v C, which is an XDC combined into a you know, into its own entity, is really looking at you know how you know, in the Japanese market, they're able to really you know, bring XDC as a network to the forefront, and so they're continuing to work on different initiatives, not anything I can specifically discuss, and you know, internally, you know, there's not a lot of I mean, they're their own entity, you know,

on the SBI side, so you know, whatever their plans are and how they're going about what they're doing is really kind of something they would need to speak to. But I think we expect to see more development over there, and you know, it's definitely an exciting part of what we've been trying to do to to grow the ecosystem for sure.

Speaker 3

But Billy, you know, a lot lots of things are happening in the crypto industry. Wall streets here, you have ETFs that have been launched, big institutions we were just talking about tokenizing. You got possible crypto legislation right around the corner. There was some movements this year with a bill out of the house. You know, are you anticipating further adoption and growth as we head into twenty twenty five with all these things in mind.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean I think that.

Speaker 2

I think if you've been in crypto for any time, I mean, really the people are kind of looking at twenty twenty five as being a year of shift right from where we've been. I think, from obviously the building perspective, a lot has gone on. I think sentiment wise, you know, that's probably where most of that shift is going to be happening. You know, with Blackrock coming in and the bitcoinytfs and all of these you know kind of I

guess trend setters with it and the financial markets. I think you're really beginning to see that people are taking uh, you know, crypto more seriously around you know, what the benefits really are, and you know, I think that you know probably less about like regulation regulation or regulatory stuff. I think more like right now, I think most of the conversations I have going on because the election is regardless of what side you're on, is such a toss

up and nobody really knows what's going to happen. I think there's this huge weight and see like everything is going to be about, well, once we have some kind of clarity the you know, the industry or the market.

Speaker 1

Or this will happen or that will happen.

Speaker 2

And so I think people are really first and foremost waiting for that. I do think that whoever win is going to be doing something very different than what has happened. And you know, when you consider there's fifty million crypto owners.

Speaker 1

You know, in the US, it's a huge voting block of people.

Speaker 2

And I think with the economy being what it is and people looking at what's happening with are they better off.

Speaker 1

Today than they were a year ago.

Speaker 2

Financially and what's happened with inflation, I think people are always looking at, you know, what's happening with the in the industry to how it can personally benefit them. So, you know, I think that there is a lot of factors. Maybe it's like less macro and it's more just kind of all of these different things that are occurring in geopolitically, you.

Speaker 1

Know, the types of things that are happening within the market.

Speaker 2

So I'm very bullish on that overall because I feel like having been here and been building through some of the more difficult times in this industry, it feels like there's a lot that's really coming together and that people are you know, they're they're kind of ready for what's next.

Speaker 3

Yeah, for sure. I see just a lot of things converging, and like, for example, like the stable coin market has been heating up significantly, and now there's talks of you know, a proper stable coin in the US can help maintain the US dollar reserve status and all these things. So it's just the alignment of tradi fi politics and much more. And there's just a sense in the air of like optimism and building and we've kind of crossed the chasm

to like mainstream adoption and things like that. So it's pretty exciting.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I definitely.

Speaker 2

I mean, yeah, one hundred and seventy plus billion and stable coins within the market, and when you consider money supply, it's tiny compared.

Speaker 1

To what is, but it's huge compared to what.

Speaker 2

Has been So I think that I've always looked at the one thing about whether you know, it's blockchain crypto or a combination of the two, the technology, and or whether it's bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, or whether it's you know, traditional instruments coming on chain the Ultimately, the bottom line is there's a solution somewhere to the debt issues, and there are solutions to what's happening across the globe from a financial perspective in these technologies.

Speaker 1

I don't know what those are.

Speaker 2

I think that you know, there's smarter people in that area than me, and you know, ultimately, hopefully we.

Speaker 1

Figure that stuff out.

Speaker 2

But I think even today, I just read that in Florida they're looking to have bitcoin b part of their reserve, and you know that's that would be obviously the first state in.

Speaker 1

The Union to do something like that.

Speaker 2

We've only seen that out of certain countries, and you know, I guess you can argue whether it's worked for them or not, but I think so far, I think today you'd probably argue that was a good decision on the part of anybody that decided to use it as part of their reserve, especially if they're an economy that is, you know, they're not as stable.

Speaker 3

Right, So yeah, it's exciting times. I'm curious. On that note, you know, a twenty twenty five we are going to get these major announcements like states and even more countries adding big one as a reserve asset, and then we know in the presidential campaign with Donald Trump and Cynthia Lummis proposed those things, and in addition, more companies adding bigcoin to their balance sheet as a hedge as a reserve.

So I'm kind of anxiously anticipating that where it's like I want to I'm curious, who's going to be the next domino to fall.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, it's always like you know, as it relates to banks and like what we've been dealing with for so many years, it's always like you talk to banks and they're always like, maybe they're interested in something, or somebody is interested at the bank, but the traditionalists who have been there are not or we're not at all

interested whatsoever in anything to do with crypto. And then you start to see that slow change, but they're saying, usually by action, that well, we'll let the non bank originators and others get involved in this first, and we'll see if it works for them, and.

Speaker 1

If it does, then we'll get involved.

Speaker 2

I don't think it's anything different than what's going on in private business. So once you start to see major fortune five hundred companies adding bitcoin to their balance sheet, and I'm talking.

Speaker 1

Other than micro strategy. Who has made it their strategy to do that? You know, I think that you're going to see a Domino's fall pretty quickly.

Speaker 3

For sure, Billy. I got some wrap up questions here for you. The first is if you could create your own metaverse, what would the theme be?

Speaker 1

Yeah, while the Coyote and Roadrunner.

Speaker 3

That would be a fun one. Rapid fire questions.

Speaker 1

Favorite food, favorite food ice cream?

Speaker 3

Favorite musician or band, Grateful Dead, favorite movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, great one? Favorite book?

Speaker 1

Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell.

Speaker 3

We're not working at XDC. What are you doing for fun?

Speaker 1

Uh? Yeah, I like to play guitar, me too, if.

Speaker 3

You don't mind me asking out what genre do you play?

Speaker 1

Well?

Speaker 2

Mostly rock and roll, so but yeah, Grateful Dead, a lot of and uh I know Bruce Springsteen or uh but yeah, I'm definitely Uh, I'm a little long in the tooth, so I tend to be in terms of uh, classic rock is really kind of you know where I where I kind of play.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I'm the same. I love classic rock, although I play a variety of genres. I'll play funk, jazz, whatever it is, blues. I've learned a lot of my guitar skills through playing a c D C LEDs up playing and you know, learning learning those rifts and so forth.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's a lot of fun, I mean, and for me, I mean, I'm I'm really into playing acoustic, like playing and singing, so trying to put together a set of some different tunes and you know, really trying to see whether you know, it's something that you could actually get out and just play out for fun. So so there there is I I do. I have expanded a bit into maybe a little bit more modern stuff, but it's

uh yeah, even just playing. Getting in the headspace of playing on away from all of the day to day is just is very freeing.

Speaker 3

Yeah, that's exactly how I feel. That's my escape. I go pick up my guitar and then I forget about everything else.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I love it.

Speaker 3

So excellent, Billy pleasure chatting with you. Really excited for the future. Updates are on XDC. Thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 1

Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It's been a great time.

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android