WEBVTT
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Hey, hey, hey, welcome to this week's episode of Blockheads Blockcast.
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I'm your host, Takatoshi Shibayama.
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I'm also the head of APAC for Ledger.
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I aim to uncover the creative, intelligent, and radical minds who are shaping the crypto industry today.
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I'm as crypto curious as anybody that's tuning into this show.
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We're doing this together, guys.
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Let's go.
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Welcome back to another episode of Blockcast.
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Today I love it when I have people inside the office.
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Um today I have Mark Liu, the head of APAC for Jito Foundation.
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Welcome to the show.
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Thanks for having me.
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Really pleased to be here.
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Yeah, lovely for you to be here as well.
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And you know, I've known you from your previous times at working at Ripple, but uh you have a history.
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Probably, you know, maybe we can go down a little bit more into your background prior to coming into crypto.
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But you know, you spent time in R3, went to Ripple, and now you're at Gito.
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I mean, obviously we were joking before before this, but you went from super institutional to super retail now.
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Um, but uh love to kind of dive into like your background um and how you got into crypto, why you got into crypto, and then we could just take it from there.
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No, yeah, um, sounds good.
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Um so maybe before we go into you know my uh my my my career in crypto, maybe just let me just spend a few minutes to talk about my life before crypto.
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So um I've always been um intrigued and you know, in terms of how money moves, and especially for us that's actually you know um lived in Asia, um, you know, money moving across borders is really a big thing, right?
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Because of FX charges, um, etc.
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So I mainly started my career in the payment space originally with the likes of Pfizer, um, really working on omni-channel payment strategy when you know credit cards and online payments were just coming mainstream.
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Um, really working with merchants and you know, big logos in terms of advising them of their omni-channel payment strategy.
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How do you work with online payments while making sure that you're in your offline point of sales sort of like uh can play a strategic role?
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And then fast forward for a few years, I had an opportunity to join PayPal to really work with a um mobile payments uh business unit that PayPal had required uh had acquired back then called BrainTree.
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So if you remember, you know, the very first time you took your Uber rides like more than a decade ago, how seamless that experience was.
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So it was BrainTree, the payments processing um full stack platform behind the scenes processing your payments.
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So I was part of the team that actually scaled a Braintree business in APEC, uh, working with like a lot of e-commerce players, um helping them with their cross-border payment, settling payments, um, taking transactions, etc.
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That was, I say back in 2014, 2016 period, that was really the time when I first got into crypto because Braintree was the first, um, I think, among all the peers in the payment space to started accepting Bitcoin as a payments um you know currency.
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So I went down a rabbit hole and then really looking at wow, this is amazing.
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Because if you think about how do you further improve on or optimize the whole payment experience, a lot of time the evolution for payments landscape happens on the consumer UI UX layer, right?
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Because you don't really see the plumbings behind the scene, because those plumbings are very messy.
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You're talking about different rails and all these fintechs, what they've been trying to do part the past decade is really merely building a slicker UI UX, but behind the scene, you're still dealing with all the existing railings and plumbings that's been around for a very long time.
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So when Bitcoin and blockchain technology came around, I say more than a decade ago, that was really like transformative, right?
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It was really at a point where you can really transform payments businesses.
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So um deep down, I'm a big believer of really utilizing blockchain to transform payments business, right?
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We are talking about big bank migration kind of transformation from the ground up.
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Um then back then, you know, there wasn't anything about stable coin, or people were still trying to figure out what's the best uh killer use case.
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So um, and then I joined R3.
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Um, R3 was very um famous for its founding of the banking consortium originally with 42 banks uh out of the US to really study blockchain technology, and there was a you know, R3 has its own proprietary blockchain platform called CODA.
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Um we were mainly experimenting with institutions in terms of how to best leverage this blockchain technology, what kind of use cases can we can we look at creating?
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So there was trade financing, digital assets, and most notably CBDC, central bank digital currencies.
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We had the opportunity to be in front of a lot of regulators, really understanding their learning curve and see how we can help them.
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Um so I was at R3 working with uh different regulators, different central banks and institutions in terms of looking at digital assets and CBDC.
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Um I was at R3 for about six years, and then I had an opportunity to join Ripple.
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Um, so that was really interesting because we were actually at a crossroad where thinking about okay, CBDC, is this going mainstream or is stablecoin gonna be you know the thing to go as the next phase of crypto evolution?
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I still remember um when I joined Ripple, um we had the opportunity to really assess CBDC or stablecoin.
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So in the end, we decided that you know, because of how the landscape is actually evolving and more fiat currency is actually coming online, we had the opportunity to pivot uh from focusing on CBDC into launching our own stablecoin RLUSD.
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Um, huge market cap right now.
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But back then, if you look back like 20 months ago, it was just USDC and USDT, right?
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But right now, you see so many other uh payments companies launching their stablecoin, so many stablecoin companies launching their own blockchain.
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So you sort of have the trifecta.
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You gotta have a payments network, have your own stable coins and uh and the blockchain technology underpinning it, right?
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I call that a trifecta of killer use case for blockchain technology.
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But when you look at it, it is still talking about bringing traditional fiat currency on-chain, right?
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And Daka, you've been in this space for a while, you know how hard it is to bring traditional money on-chain, right?
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You need to think about wallet addresses, blockchain addresses, etc., etc., etc.
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So, what actually drew me to Solana and Jito Foundation uh subsequently, I wanted to look at how we can evolve, you know, um, the whole industry beyond just like bringing traditional assets on chain, right?
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Has anyone ever asked about how do we actually make crypto more accessible for the wider audience, for the track fire guys, for the NCD guys, without having to go through all the technicalities of crypto, right?
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Um so Gito actually has a really strong narrative, right?
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Um Gito obviously is the Solana revenue engine, right?
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We call it the revenue engine because we help to govern um and allocate most of the transactions on Solana.
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Um 93% of validators on Solana uses uh Gito's uh product.
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We have a few products, happy to go through them.
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Um and Gito really helps to actually secure the decentralization part of the Solana network.
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So if you think about the comparison between the Web 2 technology and the Web3 technology, I think us as active Web3 participants, we have an opportunity to really build a self-sustainable Web3 economy, right?
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That is totally different from your traditional SaaS model where you charge like an annual fee and then you expect your customers to pay you year in, year out, and then cross your fingers that they they like it, right?
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Web3 is a very different ballgame altogether, right?
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Web3 is about community, about developers adopting the blockchain.
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At the end of the day, you know, some of the um economic values get passed back to the participants.
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And I think that's really wonderful.
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And in the long run, you know, it can be a self-sustainable new economic model.
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Yeah.
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Well, the whole promise of crypto was generally peer-to-peer.
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So even if you are securing a network, it's still kind of a peer-to-peer where everybody participates and they get they get the economic rewards from it.
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So I totally understand the dynamics of like the crypto how it's very different from the traditional finance businesses.
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But since I got you here, and I'd love to ask you uh from your previous kind of work on working on payments, crypto was designed, as I mentioned, it was like a peer-to-peer.
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So we take out the middlemen.
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In the payment space, how many middlemen are there?
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Because, you know, as you mentioned, it's a very, you know, opaque industry that you don't really see what's going on in the background.
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So if I tap with my card um at a POS machine, I get a receipt that says World Pay.
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I didn't even use World Pay, but like World Pay comes out, right?
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So there's a lot of companies that are participating in the network so that your payments can actually get done from your bank account, through a credit card, through uh whatever you know, middlemen who are who are in between to that merchant, right?
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So could you explain a little bit how that plumbing works and how how how many participants are there in that space?
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Yeah, no, that great question, right?
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So if you look at the current state of the economy that we are we are actually in, obviously um there are so many different types of cross-border payments, right?
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You're talking about remittances, you're talking about e-commerce payments channel, you're talking about aggregator, you're talking about card networks, visa, mastercard, so on and so forth.
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And there are so many fintechs out there um trying to create solutions um utilizing some of these existing rails, right?
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And you're absolutely right.
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There are so many middlemen right there.
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Um is there an opportunity where we can streamline everything overnight?
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The question, I'm sorry, the answer is no, unfortunately, because the payments business has been around for a very long time, right?
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No matter what, you will still need this so-called middleman to function in order for our economy to still keep you know uh running, right?
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The the lights being turned on, etc.
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But over time, is there an opportunity for us to reach that state where some of this middleman can actually go away?
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The answer is yes, right?
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Stablecoin is definitely a very good utility to actually do that, right?
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Look at Tether.
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I think they go grow to where they are today, having less than 100 employees because they really attack the problem right from you know the root cause, right?
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Giving people the the tool um to transact, you know, in the real world, right?
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How do they actually disseminate um stable coins into the real economy?
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Um but you know, coming back to our economy right now, most of these so-called middlemen are obviously getting into the stablecoin game as well, right?
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I say at least for the next two to three years, you still see this um development happening because uh whether you like it or not, stablecoin is probably one or two use cases in crypto that has still got legs to run.
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Um and it makes sense from an economic point of view, because it's about bringing traditional fiat on chain.
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But over time, right, the competition will actually um filter itself out, like whoever can actually stay.
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Because at the end of the day, you if you want your stable coin to thrive, you need to have adoption, right?
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And how do you drive adoption?
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You need to have network effect and economy of scale, right?
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So probably the larger, the larger incumbents already with their own payment networks, it's actually much easier for them to integrate stablecoin within their payments network.
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And in that process, maybe they can streamline the process and then get rid of some of these middle components that's you know slowing down the payments.
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So that's the way I see how the in the industry is actually evolving into.
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Yeah.
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Even in the crypto space, obviously you have to on-ramp.
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And then even if you go to a merchant, it doesn't mean that they're gonna accept your US dollar stables.
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So there has to be some middlemen in between, right?
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So, you know, in in the current setup today, I mean, do do we have we eliminated a lot of the middlemen that is in the traditional space that you know we don't and and and um has it become a lot more efficient, do you think, in your view?
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I think we are definitely becoming more efficient.
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You mentioned a very important point, which is on-ramp, right?
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So when it comes to on-ramp, there's also an opportunity to talk about off-ramp, right?
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So, for example, you know, if someone who is actually working in, I don't know, Spain, trying to um, you know, send money home into the Philippines, obviously there's on-ram and off-ram, you know, um, you know, you can't just spend euro in the Philippines, right?
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You will still need local uh payments company that helps with that FX conversion, and then ultimately people can off-ram into you know pesos and spend locally.
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So that is still gonna be a necessity, right?
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But we see it happening maybe over time, it will get more streamlined.
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Say, for example, you know, hypothetically, let's just say USDT becomes so um, you know, broadly adopted, everyone started transacting in USDT in terms of or instead of their local currency, then maybe there's an opportunity that you know something will emerge over time as like a widely adopted standard.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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I think we're derailed a little bit, so let's go back into the main topic.
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Um so yes, so now you you're working you're working for a JITO Foundation, uh, and um what I understand from you know kind of what what JITO is is that it's a liquid restaking um um service.
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However, I'm sure there's a lot more to that.
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When I open up your webpage, obviously there's words like MEV, you know, there's liquid staking.
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I mean, obviously the you know our audiences are well um well educated around crypto, but generally if we go to like a lay person and this and and talk about you know staking in general, I mean you have your kind of big staking providers of the world, like you have Figmint and you know, Killen and all these people who are also securing the Solana network.
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Um how does Jito uh play into that?
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Are they one of the participants or are they are you guys like a layer on top of that?
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Yeah, that's a good question.
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So happy to take it from the top, right?
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So um what really attracted me to the Jito um um, you know, to Jito project is because Jito solves um the one thing that institutions hate most about public chains, right?
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Um which is execution uncertainty.
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Um so banks, institutions, they need certainty um and compliance, right?
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So Jito essentially transforms Solana from a wow ecosystem into an institutional great um global deterministic execution layer.
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Um so we mitigate spam, fail transactions, and uh predatory MEV, right?
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Solana is the you can think about Solana as the global execution layer for real economic value.
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And Jito is the revenue engine that makes building on Solana profitable.
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Right?
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So let me actually go deeper into like some of the um products that we have that is actually helping to do that.
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So um I think layman term, you can think about Jito as the revenue engine of Solana, right?
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So let's just say Solana is the highway, right?
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Yes, you can drive super super fast, um, etc.
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But when it when when it gets too many cars on the highway, if you that if there's no traffic control, who gets to go first, right?
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That's the biggest question, yes.
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So this is where Gito comes in.
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So we help to actually power more than 93% of Solana validators, and we run the largest liquid sticking protocol with a 2 billion TVR.
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So um coming back from the point of MEV, maximum uh extractable value, right?
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So on most public chains, um value actually leaks because transactions get pulled into public main pool, people can see transaction details, etc.
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People always get front run and then the sandwich attack, you know.
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Um that actually adds on to a lot of uh challenges in terms of really adopting uh public chain.
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Gito actually like we plug the leak, you know.
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We we are an integrated stack of three things.
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First and foremost, we have the Jito Solana client, which is a software that 93% of validators actually run to optimize performance, right?
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If you want your transactions to actually land faster uh on Solana, you can actually provide uh Jito chips so that it can land faster on Solana, um transactions get sequenced better.
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And then two months ago, we launched something called the Block Assembly Marketplace, or in short, BAM.
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So BAM is an engine that actually captures MEV um transparently.
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So um you know, without BAM, trading boards actually spam the network with millions of failed transactions trying to land a trade.
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So this actually clocks up the chain, right, and degrades the user um experience.
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So what BAM does is, right, without too going into too much technicalities, so BAM uses what we call a trusted execution environment, TEE, to create a secure auction.
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So as traders, you bid to have your bundles included and your transactions go through.
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Um so transactions remain private until they are executed.
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So front running cannot take place, right?
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And then the benefit actually leads to that is BAM creates an app auction.
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So this reduces spam, increases reliability, and via the application control execution ace, um it allows apps builder to control their own transaction by um, you know, ordering to prevent exploitation.
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Um and last but not least, the third product that we we are really proud of is uh JiroSol.
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Um pretty much is a token that packages the value within the Solana network and distributes it to the stickers, right?
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Um you can think of Jirosol as like your deposit, right?
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You go to the bank, you put in $100, and then the banks will tell you, okay, over the next six months we'll pay you X percent in terms of your deposit.
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Now the biggest challenge is you can't take out the $100 because you will lose your interest, sorry, right?
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Jirosol, in a way, is very similar to a bank deposit.
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You help to secure the Solana network by sticking Solana, but in return, you will get a token called JiroSol.
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Now, this JiroSol, then you can deploy into DeFi applications as a collateral to borrow, to land out, and to do so many different things, right?
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Um, not only DeFi players are actually looking at JiroSoul as a collateral, we are also working with institutions who is actually actively looking at can they actually include J2SOL as part of their collaterals, whether it's market makers, whether it's prime uh brokers, etc.
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Uh, and we're also working with ETF issuers to include JOSOL as part of their ETF filing to meet uh redemption uh requests as well.
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Yeah.
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So let's put in the pin on that la last part, but let's talk about the first two parts because um obviously if I had to compare Solana with Ethereum, obviously it's a much faster chain.
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I mean that's that's kind of kind of the the the catchphrase for Solana, right?
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It's a better Ethereum, the faster Ethereum.
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With Ethereum, in in order to kind of validate transactions, it takes like 12 seconds or so, if I'm c if I'm not mistaken.
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Um so obviously it happens in a pretty fast speed to sort out okay which which transactions go into the block and you know, and then they're broadcasted, right?
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In in terms of so, I I could probably imagine like it's much faster than that, right?
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So you're saying that from bat with BAM, you're running auctions in a Split second kind of interim to actually do these auctions and put them in, put all the transactions in line.
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Am I correct?
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Yes, that's the right way of actually understanding it.
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And we help with the governance of how blocks are actually being sequenced.
00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:32.000
So ever since BAM's been launched, you know, we are having a lot of conversations with existing Solana validators in terms of upgrading their current infrastructure to BAM, which is a more streamlined approach.
00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:35.680
And also from Gito, there's also something called a StakeNet, right?
00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:51.039
So every time a stake actually comes true, via StackNet, the smart contract actually automatically and autonomously assign a stake to top validators to actually maintain and govern the allocation in a fair and transparent way.
00:20:51.039 --> 00:21:14.079
So that way also we help to actually make sure that, hey, you know, not only developers are actually profiting or enjoying the speed and all the nice features of Solana, but people that's actually doing a hard work, the validators, the people that's actually helping to secure the infrastructure, they are you know they they get the the right reward so that you know it's a sustainable business model that can run on a long-term basis.
00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:34.960
And MEVs are generally known to kind of like make the um the I guess the staking, you know, or I'll say the blockchain transactions a lot more efficient because they'll try to find like, okay, um, you know, what which which who who can pay the highest fees to get certain transactions done?
00:21:34.960 --> 00:21:39.519
And obviously that would cause uh front running, back running, sandwiches, et cetera.
00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:45.359
Um and that's kind of how it uh has always been run um prior to uh Solana, I think.
00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:54.400
And and then now with this, does it kind of lower the value of having MAV or does it enhance it?
00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:56.000
Because I'm trying to understand here.
00:21:56.000 --> 00:22:02.319
So if you're trafficking everything, obviously it makes it a lot more fair, is my kind of understanding.
00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:11.200
But it also takes out the kind of efficiencies of you know certain, you know, uh people kind of front running, et cetera.
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:11.519
Right.
00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:13.680
So how do how do I kind of understand this?
00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:15.920
No, that's a really good question, right?
00:22:15.920 --> 00:22:21.440
Um, I think the way we look at it is no matter how you put it, there's always going to be two scenarios.
00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:24.880
There will always be people trying to take advantage of certain features, right?
00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:26.480
There's always two sides of the story.
00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:34.559
But when it comes to BAM, what we are trying to uh provide the community is a fair and square and transparent environment.
00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:37.599
Transactions details remain private until they are executed.
00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:52.480
I mean, if you are a genuine developer who is actually trying to build uh and send through transactions, you love this because you know that you know uh your benefits is actually secure, and then your transactions can actually go through, and then you can, you know, deliver, right?
00:22:52.480 --> 00:23:02.000
And obviously, you know, if you are trying to speculate and profit from those old systems in terms of how MEV is actually run, that would be unfortunate news for you.
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:13.039
So we believe you know in making a transparent system, putting it in place, and then over time serving the right type of profile in terms of developers and growing the ecosystem with Solana.
00:23:13.039 --> 00:23:13.440
Yeah.
00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:18.720
Currently, what is the uh staking rewards that one can get on JTO?
00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:23.839
You know, JitoSoul typically gives out um six to eight percent of APY.
00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:26.960
Um obviously, you know, it depends on how the market performs.
00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:29.839
Uh, but typically you get that kind of uh range, right?
00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:37.039
And obviously, JitoSoul, you know, is uh relatively new as a liquid staking um um utility token.
00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:41.680
And um, but the good thing is, you know, we have made so much inroads in the institutional space.
00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:50.880
Just a couple of months ago, the SEC has actually released a statement uh concerning liquid staking tokens as that you know it doesn't fall within the securities law.
00:23:50.880 --> 00:23:59.680
Um that has actually opened a lot of doors for us to have conversations with ETF issuers um in terms of including JitoSoul as part of their filing.
00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:05.359
So maybe let me just double-click a little bit in terms of the work that we're doing with some of the issuers um in the space.
00:24:05.359 --> 00:24:13.759
So um, you know, I still remember when the first Bitcoin ETF was launched, I think January 2024.
00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:25.920
That was a really good timing and window because if you think about it, is that ETF is such a good uh vehicle for a lot of these ThreatFi investors to get exposure to crypto, right?
00:24:25.920 --> 00:24:32.720
Without having to acquire a hot wallet or cold wallet or having to worry about blockchain addresses and all that, right?
00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:36.319
So these guys are familiar with the threat fire world, right?
00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:44.640
So um the best thing is how do we actually make it seamless and make it straightforward for them to actually tap into crypto assets, right?
00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:59.680
ETF is definitely a vehicle because by launching ETF, that means to threat fine investors, they can easily invest into crypto assets via the threatfine brokerage accounts that they already have and they've been using for years, right?
00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:01.759
This is where they are most comfortable with.
00:25:01.759 --> 00:25:12.319
So um we've seen Bitcoin ETF last year, we've seen a lot of uh Ethereum ETF last year, and this year the story is always about um Solana ETF, right?
00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:28.720
So we work with a lot of different issuers, mainly from the states, in terms of helping them to actually um file for Solana ETF, and part of their filing actually includes JitoSol, certain percentage to be JitoSol, so that they can actually meet redemption requests.
00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:41.839
Because think about it, if you are an issuer, whether you are BlackRock, you know, um 21 shares or Venek, you have customers always asking you, hey, all right, you know, I'm I'm done with this ETF, I want my money back, right?
00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:42.880
Redemption requests.
00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:52.799
Now the problem with that is what we are seeing is say Ethereum, um, I think the unstaking period is really long, but 44 days, 45 days.
00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:57.359
Um Solana is actually slightly better, two epochs, it's still about three or four days.
00:25:57.359 --> 00:26:01.039
But from an institutional client's perspective, it's still not good enough.
00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:05.519
They felt that redemption means instant, you know, T plus zero.
00:26:05.519 --> 00:26:13.680
If my client comes and you know, give me the ETF, I need to actually um give my clients back their money, right?
00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:16.319
Uh within the same day, settle back into the bank account.
00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:23.119
So one way to look at it is that they park certain of their allocation in JitoSol, right?
00:26:23.119 --> 00:26:27.440
Because technically JitoSoul um you know is staked Solana, right?
00:26:27.440 --> 00:26:36.960
So anytime they have a redemption request, they can sell the Jitoso, they burn the JitoSol, they can actually get Solana right away without having to go through and wait the unstaking period.
00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:40.720
So that's a really good utility uh for Solana ETF.
00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:42.079
So that's actually a very strong angle.
00:26:42.079 --> 00:26:46.079
A lot of these uh issuers are actually looking at including JitoSol.
00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:59.599
Um VanEck has also filed 100% JitoSol ETF, and uh we're working with them, you know, um, and then all the other issuers in terms of helping to see how we can actually um bring this to market um as soon as possible, right?
00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:04.319
Um and of course, you know, JitoSol, there's also another very strong angle.
00:27:04.319 --> 00:27:06.559
Uh we call it the Yield machine.
00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:14.079
Um obviously, you know, uh if you look at the last decade, people buy digital assets purely on speculation.
00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:22.880
No matter how much of stories that you want to, you know, uh cover it or just you know build the narrative around, it's all speculation.
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:23.359
Yeah.
00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:28.720
I mean, Bitcoin, uh proof of um soil values, yeah, you will always appreciate.
00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:37.519
But at the end of the day, if you are an institutional client, if you want to deploy your treasury into digital assets, you need a stronger narrative than just speculation.
00:27:37.519 --> 00:27:39.920
This is where JitoSoul comes in, right?
00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:53.200
So if you can think about, you can think of JitoSol as a token that actually gives you the inflationary uh appreciation of Solana token plus all the MEV fees, right?
00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:57.440
So suddenly your narrative becomes an infrastructure investment, right?
00:27:57.440 --> 00:28:07.359
You're deploying your treasury into JitoSol because the more transactions that happen on Solana, the more fees will actually get collected and passed back to JotoSol holders.
00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:15.359
So it's a very strong narrative that institutional clients are very comfortable with, and then we're seeing a lot of uh positive uh attraction from that front.
00:28:15.599 --> 00:28:15.759
Yeah.
00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:18.319
So when you talk about, we talk to institutions.
00:28:18.319 --> 00:28:24.720
Obviously, uh by this time, I think every institution generally knows what the value prop is for Bitcoin.
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:28.640
And I think for Ethereum as well, I think they're slowly catching up onto it.
00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:43.039
And I think a lot of that kind of uh narrative is around we're super decentralized, and you know, this is the first blockchain that has smart contracts as the biggest DeFi community ecosystem that blockchain companies have ever built.
00:28:43.039 --> 00:28:45.359
So, what is the current narrative?
00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:47.759
Not the retail side, but for the institutions.
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:50.160
What is the narrative of Solana?
00:28:50.480 --> 00:29:05.440
Yeah, this is something very close to my heart as well, because having come from two uh major institutional focused L1s, I realized that decentralization is becoming less and less important for a lot of institutional clients.
00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:11.519
Because at the end of the day, if you think about it, people just want things to happen faster and bring asset on chain, right?
00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:14.799
There's a whole stablecoin rush, there's a whole RWA rush.
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:27.920
So when I when I scan the landscape, I see Solana be still flying the flag for decentralization and JITO really building the infrastructure for decentralization, right?
00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:36.160
And I think that's like super important because we don't want crypto to turn into another SaaS model, right?
00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:51.119
You don't want to be in a future where I don't know, your service provider is actually selling you something on a SaaS model, and they're using some sort of blockchain behind the scene to optimize that operation, right?
00:29:51.119 --> 00:29:54.400
It's not exactly like a Web3 economic model.
00:29:54.400 --> 00:30:10.960
So when I look at Solana, I think Solana has the advantage of the winning second mover kind of tagline because maybe a decade ago, people still talk about TPS, people talk about performance and all that stuff.
00:30:10.960 --> 00:30:13.200
Right now, people don't talk about TPS anymore.
00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:17.839
People just see whether things can happen and things will stake, right?
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:25.759
And if you look at the Solana ecosystem, all of the Defi projects that are building on Solana, they grow very organically.
00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:31.519
They have their own very dedicated user base and most of these projects collaborate with each other.
00:30:31.519 --> 00:30:41.200
It's a very healthy kind of environment and Solana's vision has always been hey, you know, uh we are a monolithic uh blockchain layer, you know.
00:30:41.200 --> 00:30:47.839
It means all the liquidity from institutional side and retail side happened on Solana itself.
00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:48.400
Period.
00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:48.720
Right?
00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:56.880
You're not you're not talking about silo liquidity, you're not talking about layer one, layer two, it's a very different vision altogether.
00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:01.279
It's very close to what we are as an economy, right?
00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:11.519
Can you imagine if you are in a world where your currency, you know, whatever that you're actually using is silo, and then you don't interact with other countries in the world, right?
00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:23.200
In a way, so Solana it has that positioning in terms of a monolithic liquidity layer, and then JITO providing the infrastructure layer to govern some of these transactions, right?
00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:28.000
And coming back to the decentralization part, um, we have our product called StakeNet.
00:31:28.240 --> 00:31:41.519
So StakeNet actually ensures every stake that comes through the protocol gets uh distributed autonomously through all the top validators depending on their performance via smart contracts.
00:31:41.519 --> 00:31:47.119
No human is involved, no Jito um team members are involved in that process.
00:31:47.119 --> 00:31:55.279
Even if one day Jito shuts or goes away, StakeNet will still operate on its own autonomously.
00:31:55.279 --> 00:31:59.440
And um yeah, I think that's the best way to really build decentralization.
00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:12.799
Um yeah, the way I look at it is that decentralization can only happen when you put the right tools in place and you have the right projects helping to push that vision forward in a in a in in a collaborative manner.
00:32:12.799 --> 00:32:22.319
And and the way I see it, Solana has a really thriving ecosystem and I think this is a good time to also talk about Breakpoint, which is happening next week in Abu Dhabi.
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:23.680
I think it's gonna be late.
00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:27.599
Um you know, everyone from within the Solana ecosystem is gonna be there.
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:29.440
And yeah, it's gonna be exciting.
00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:29.839
Yeah.
00:32:29.839 --> 00:32:35.920
I was gonna I point you to it to that direction later, but let me derail a little bit.
00:32:35.920 --> 00:32:56.000
Because you work for R3, Ripple, I mean, you know, I've seen Solana, you know, really from its beginning and then you know have its kind of really questionable moment during the FTX collapse and then really kind of matured into this um blockchain ecosystem where you don't need that much like support from the outside.
00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:59.359
It's like it just organically, as you mentioned, it started growing, right?
00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:15.440
And you know, on the on the opposite end of the spectrum, and I don't mean to like bash any foundations or even Ripple at this point, but like I'm just saying, like the the XRP ecosystem hasn't really really grown that much of a DeFi ecosystem, right?
00:33:15.440 --> 00:33:21.519
But it's a monstrosity on of its own, and they could buy companies and do whatever they want.
00:33:21.519 --> 00:33:23.839
So, like, so what what do you think?
00:33:23.839 --> 00:33:25.440
And this is a personal question, right?
00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:27.119
A bit more philosophical as well.
00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:33.359
What do you think it takes for a blockchain to actually get to where like Solana is?
00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:35.680
What is the kind of organical growth?
00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:44.160
How do how does the blockchain foundation actually get that kind of organical growth as opposed to like really trying to pay for its growth?
00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:45.039
You know what I mean?
00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:47.599
No, I think that's a really good question, right?
00:33:47.599 --> 00:33:51.839
So there are a thousand roads that can lead to Rome, right?
00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:53.920
Depending on how you want to actually get there.
00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:56.640
And you are right, right?
00:33:56.640 --> 00:34:09.280
So there are definitely a lot of traditional uh financial players, especially from the web tool world, um, they're thinking about using certain elements of blockchain to optimize their businesses, right?
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:17.920
Makes sense because you know they they are they have they are incumbents, you know, they have a lot of customers to serve, right?
00:34:17.920 --> 00:34:21.599
It doesn't make sense to do like a whole big bang migration, etc.
00:34:21.599 --> 00:34:32.320
but if you are a developer today that's just starting out in Web3 and you're looking for a place to land, um, Solana makes a lot of sense, right?
00:34:32.320 --> 00:34:44.239
Because you know, great team building great stuff and and and and the ecosystem helps themselves, and most importantly, there's a lot of organic growth.
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:49.840
There's no right or wrong in terms of you know how to be successful in Web3, right?
00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:55.679
I think it all depends on the different business model, one that's actually in, right?
00:34:55.679 --> 00:35:10.960
And I pointed out earlier during during um you know our session, obviously the flavor of the money right now is definitely payments network utilizing stable coins and uh blockchain technology because there's low hanging fruit, right?
00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:13.920
That trend will definitely continue.
00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:24.159
h maybe down the road, you know, there will be some industry shakeout, and then you will see one or two um companies you know emerging as winners.
00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:26.400
It's definitely a place to be.
00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:29.840
Um but for Solana it's a very different positioning altogether.
00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:33.039
You know, Solana called itself the internet capital markets.
00:35:33.039 --> 00:35:44.079
Um, you know, essentially you look at Solana as like the NASDAQ of battery, like everything trades on Solana, even tokens from another foundation launched on Solana last week.
00:35:44.079 --> 00:35:48.960
So that is definitely something unique that's never never happened before.
00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:59.039
And um, yeah, we see a lot of opportunity on Solana, especially with Jito, and then we're hoping to um grow together with Solana and helping to serve the community.
00:35:59.039 --> 00:36:05.360
So, yeah, coming back to your question, I don't there's no right or wrong way in terms of how you can be successful in Web3.
00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:09.920
It it very much depends on the business model that one uh chooses to be in.
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:16.960
And for Jito, you know, we are we are bullish Solana from day one, and then we are here uh for the long term working with the community.
00:36:17.599 --> 00:36:17.920
Right.
00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:18.480
Okay.
00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:20.559
Well, thank you very much for your time.
00:36:20.559 --> 00:36:23.920
I hope the uh Solana breakpoint is a big success.
00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:32.960
Unfortunately, I can't go but I've been to some others, obviously while I was in Singapore or other parts of Asia.
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:36.639
It was quite exciting to be at those conferences.
00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:38.880
Um but again, thank you very much for your time.
00:36:40.559 --> 00:36:41.119
Thanks for listening.
00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:45.760
If you like what you hear, give Blockcast a like and subscribe on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:49.599
And for all your juicy web30 news, keep updated on blockhead.co.
00:36:49.599 --> 00:36:51.519
Catch y'all in the next episode.
00:00:01.120 --> 00:00:04.959
Hey, hey, hey, welcome to this week's episode of Blockheads Blockcast.
00:00:04.959 --> 00:00:07.599
I'm your host, Takatoshi Shibayama.
00:00:07.599 --> 00:00:09.839
I'm also the head of APAC for Ledger.
00:00:09.839 --> 00:00:15.439
I aim to uncover the creative, intelligent, and radical minds who are shaping the crypto industry today.
00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:19.120
I'm as crypto curious as anybody that's tuning into this show.
00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:20.800
We're doing this together, guys.
00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:21.839
Let's go.
00:00:21.839 --> 00:00:31.039
Welcome back to another episode of Blockcast.
00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:34.159
Today I love it when I have people inside the office.
00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:38.640
Um today I have Mark Liu, the head of APAC for Jito Foundation.
00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:39.439
Welcome to the show.
00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:41.200
Thanks for having me.
00:00:41.439 --> 00:00:42.320
Really pleased to be here.
00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:45.039
Yeah, lovely for you to be here as well.
00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:50.880
And you know, I've known you from your previous times at working at Ripple, but uh you have a history.
00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:56.479
Probably, you know, maybe we can go down a little bit more into your background prior to coming into crypto.
00:00:56.479 --> 00:01:01.039
But you know, you spent time in R3, went to Ripple, and now you're at Gito.
00:01:01.039 --> 00:01:06.799
I mean, obviously we were joking before before this, but you went from super institutional to super retail now.
00:01:06.799 --> 00:01:15.359
Um, but uh love to kind of dive into like your background um and how you got into crypto, why you got into crypto, and then we could just take it from there.
00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:17.439
No, yeah, um, sounds good.
00:01:17.439 --> 00:01:26.879
Um so maybe before we go into you know my uh my my my career in crypto, maybe just let me just spend a few minutes to talk about my life before crypto.
00:01:26.879 --> 00:01:41.359
So um I've always been um intrigued and you know, in terms of how money moves, and especially for us that's actually you know um lived in Asia, um, you know, money moving across borders is really a big thing, right?
00:01:41.359 --> 00:01:43.760
Because of FX charges, um, etc.
00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:56.879
So I mainly started my career in the payment space originally with the likes of Pfizer, um, really working on omni-channel payment strategy when you know credit cards and online payments were just coming mainstream.
00:01:56.879 --> 00:02:03.680
Um, really working with merchants and you know, big logos in terms of advising them of their omni-channel payment strategy.
00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:11.360
How do you work with online payments while making sure that you're in your offline point of sales sort of like uh can play a strategic role?
00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:23.280
And then fast forward for a few years, I had an opportunity to join PayPal to really work with a um mobile payments uh business unit that PayPal had required uh had acquired back then called BrainTree.
00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:30.319
So if you remember, you know, the very first time you took your Uber rides like more than a decade ago, how seamless that experience was.
00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:36.960
So it was BrainTree, the payments processing um full stack platform behind the scenes processing your payments.
00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:50.080
So I was part of the team that actually scaled a Braintree business in APEC, uh, working with like a lot of e-commerce players, um helping them with their cross-border payment, settling payments, um, taking transactions, etc.
00:02:50.080 --> 00:03:05.439
That was, I say back in 2014, 2016 period, that was really the time when I first got into crypto because Braintree was the first, um, I think, among all the peers in the payment space to started accepting Bitcoin as a payments um you know currency.
00:03:05.439 --> 00:03:10.000
So I went down a rabbit hole and then really looking at wow, this is amazing.
00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:23.680
Because if you think about how do you further improve on or optimize the whole payment experience, a lot of time the evolution for payments landscape happens on the consumer UI UX layer, right?
00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:29.039
Because you don't really see the plumbings behind the scene, because those plumbings are very messy.
00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:45.199
You're talking about different rails and all these fintechs, what they've been trying to do part the past decade is really merely building a slicker UI UX, but behind the scene, you're still dealing with all the existing railings and plumbings that's been around for a very long time.
00:03:45.199 --> 00:03:52.319
So when Bitcoin and blockchain technology came around, I say more than a decade ago, that was really like transformative, right?
00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:57.039
It was really at a point where you can really transform payments businesses.
00:03:57.039 --> 00:04:04.080
So um deep down, I'm a big believer of really utilizing blockchain to transform payments business, right?
00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:08.080
We are talking about big bank migration kind of transformation from the ground up.
00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:16.079
Um then back then, you know, there wasn't anything about stable coin, or people were still trying to figure out what's the best uh killer use case.
00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:18.319
So um, and then I joined R3.
00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:33.519
Um, R3 was very um famous for its founding of the banking consortium originally with 42 banks uh out of the US to really study blockchain technology, and there was a you know, R3 has its own proprietary blockchain platform called CODA.
00:04:33.519 --> 00:04:42.879
Um we were mainly experimenting with institutions in terms of how to best leverage this blockchain technology, what kind of use cases can we can we look at creating?
00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:49.120
So there was trade financing, digital assets, and most notably CBDC, central bank digital currencies.
00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:56.399
We had the opportunity to be in front of a lot of regulators, really understanding their learning curve and see how we can help them.
00:04:56.399 --> 00:05:05.279
Um so I was at R3 working with uh different regulators, different central banks and institutions in terms of looking at digital assets and CBDC.
00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:10.560
Um I was at R3 for about six years, and then I had an opportunity to join Ripple.
00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:23.920
Um, so that was really interesting because we were actually at a crossroad where thinking about okay, CBDC, is this going mainstream or is stablecoin gonna be you know the thing to go as the next phase of crypto evolution?
00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:33.279
I still remember um when I joined Ripple, um we had the opportunity to really assess CBDC or stablecoin.
00:05:33.279 --> 00:05:49.040
So in the end, we decided that you know, because of how the landscape is actually evolving and more fiat currency is actually coming online, we had the opportunity to pivot uh from focusing on CBDC into launching our own stablecoin RLUSD.
00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:51.120
Um, huge market cap right now.
00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:56.079
But back then, if you look back like 20 months ago, it was just USDC and USDT, right?
00:05:56.079 --> 00:06:03.600
But right now, you see so many other uh payments companies launching their stablecoin, so many stablecoin companies launching their own blockchain.
00:06:03.600 --> 00:06:06.959
So you sort of have the trifecta.
00:06:06.959 --> 00:06:13.519
You gotta have a payments network, have your own stable coins and uh and the blockchain technology underpinning it, right?
00:06:13.519 --> 00:06:18.240
I call that a trifecta of killer use case for blockchain technology.
00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:26.879
But when you look at it, it is still talking about bringing traditional fiat currency on-chain, right?
00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:32.720
And Daka, you've been in this space for a while, you know how hard it is to bring traditional money on-chain, right?
00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:37.759
You need to think about wallet addresses, blockchain addresses, etc., etc., etc.
00:06:37.759 --> 00:06:55.040
So, what actually drew me to Solana and Jito Foundation uh subsequently, I wanted to look at how we can evolve, you know, um, the whole industry beyond just like bringing traditional assets on chain, right?
00:06:55.040 --> 00:07:06.639
Has anyone ever asked about how do we actually make crypto more accessible for the wider audience, for the track fire guys, for the NCD guys, without having to go through all the technicalities of crypto, right?
00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:10.560
Um so Gito actually has a really strong narrative, right?
00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:14.639
Um Gito obviously is the Solana revenue engine, right?
00:07:14.639 --> 00:07:21.839
We call it the revenue engine because we help to govern um and allocate most of the transactions on Solana.
00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:26.639
Um 93% of validators on Solana uses uh Gito's uh product.
00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:29.199
We have a few products, happy to go through them.
00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:35.920
Um and Gito really helps to actually secure the decentralization part of the Solana network.
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:49.439
So if you think about the comparison between the Web 2 technology and the Web3 technology, I think us as active Web3 participants, we have an opportunity to really build a self-sustainable Web3 economy, right?
00:07:49.439 --> 00:07:59.199
That is totally different from your traditional SaaS model where you charge like an annual fee and then you expect your customers to pay you year in, year out, and then cross your fingers that they they like it, right?
00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:02.800
Web3 is a very different ballgame altogether, right?
00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:07.199
Web3 is about community, about developers adopting the blockchain.
00:08:07.199 --> 00:08:12.240
At the end of the day, you know, some of the um economic values get passed back to the participants.
00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:13.839
And I think that's really wonderful.
00:08:13.839 --> 00:08:17.759
And in the long run, you know, it can be a self-sustainable new economic model.
00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:18.160
Yeah.
00:08:18.879 --> 00:08:21.759
Well, the whole promise of crypto was generally peer-to-peer.
00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:29.279
So even if you are securing a network, it's still kind of a peer-to-peer where everybody participates and they get they get the economic rewards from it.
00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:35.679
So I totally understand the dynamics of like the crypto how it's very different from the traditional finance businesses.
00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:44.480
But since I got you here, and I'd love to ask you uh from your previous kind of work on working on payments, crypto was designed, as I mentioned, it was like a peer-to-peer.
00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:45.679
So we take out the middlemen.
00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:48.159
In the payment space, how many middlemen are there?
00:08:48.159 --> 00:08:55.759
Because, you know, as you mentioned, it's a very, you know, opaque industry that you don't really see what's going on in the background.
00:08:55.759 --> 00:09:01.600
So if I tap with my card um at a POS machine, I get a receipt that says World Pay.
00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:04.399
I didn't even use World Pay, but like World Pay comes out, right?
00:09:04.399 --> 00:09:18.879
So there's a lot of companies that are participating in the network so that your payments can actually get done from your bank account, through a credit card, through uh whatever you know, middlemen who are who are in between to that merchant, right?
00:09:18.879 --> 00:09:24.879
So could you explain a little bit how that plumbing works and how how how many participants are there in that space?
00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:27.039
Yeah, no, that great question, right?
00:09:27.039 --> 00:09:37.039
So if you look at the current state of the economy that we are we are actually in, obviously um there are so many different types of cross-border payments, right?
00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:45.840
You're talking about remittances, you're talking about e-commerce payments channel, you're talking about aggregator, you're talking about card networks, visa, mastercard, so on and so forth.
00:09:45.840 --> 00:09:54.159
And there are so many fintechs out there um trying to create solutions um utilizing some of these existing rails, right?
00:09:54.159 --> 00:09:55.679
And you're absolutely right.
00:09:55.679 --> 00:09:58.159
There are so many middlemen right there.
00:09:58.159 --> 00:10:03.279
Um is there an opportunity where we can streamline everything overnight?
00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:10.480
The question, I'm sorry, the answer is no, unfortunately, because the payments business has been around for a very long time, right?
00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:19.279
No matter what, you will still need this so-called middleman to function in order for our economy to still keep you know uh running, right?
00:10:19.279 --> 00:10:21.440
The the lights being turned on, etc.
00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:28.480
But over time, is there an opportunity for us to reach that state where some of this middleman can actually go away?
00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:29.919
The answer is yes, right?
00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:34.159
Stablecoin is definitely a very good utility to actually do that, right?
00:10:34.159 --> 00:10:35.759
Look at Tether.
00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:47.360
I think they go grow to where they are today, having less than 100 employees because they really attack the problem right from you know the root cause, right?
00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:52.000
Giving people the the tool um to transact, you know, in the real world, right?
00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:56.320
How do they actually disseminate um stable coins into the real economy?
00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:06.559
Um but you know, coming back to our economy right now, most of these so-called middlemen are obviously getting into the stablecoin game as well, right?
00:11:06.559 --> 00:11:22.399
I say at least for the next two to three years, you still see this um development happening because uh whether you like it or not, stablecoin is probably one or two use cases in crypto that has still got legs to run.
00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:28.480
Um and it makes sense from an economic point of view, because it's about bringing traditional fiat on chain.
00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:34.879
But over time, right, the competition will actually um filter itself out, like whoever can actually stay.
00:11:34.879 --> 00:11:41.919
Because at the end of the day, you if you want your stable coin to thrive, you need to have adoption, right?
00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:43.759
And how do you drive adoption?
00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:46.559
You need to have network effect and economy of scale, right?
00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:55.840
So probably the larger, the larger incumbents already with their own payment networks, it's actually much easier for them to integrate stablecoin within their payments network.
00:11:55.840 --> 00:12:04.240
And in that process, maybe they can streamline the process and then get rid of some of these middle components that's you know slowing down the payments.
00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:08.000
So that's the way I see how the in the industry is actually evolving into.
00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:08.559
Yeah.
00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:11.440
Even in the crypto space, obviously you have to on-ramp.
00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:15.759
And then even if you go to a merchant, it doesn't mean that they're gonna accept your US dollar stables.
00:12:15.759 --> 00:12:18.720
So there has to be some middlemen in between, right?
00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:34.399
So, you know, in in the current setup today, I mean, do do we have we eliminated a lot of the middlemen that is in the traditional space that you know we don't and and and um has it become a lot more efficient, do you think, in your view?
00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:38.720
I think we are definitely becoming more efficient.
00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:41.600
You mentioned a very important point, which is on-ramp, right?
00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:45.600
So when it comes to on-ramp, there's also an opportunity to talk about off-ramp, right?
00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:59.440
So, for example, you know, if someone who is actually working in, I don't know, Spain, trying to um, you know, send money home into the Philippines, obviously there's on-ram and off-ram, you know, um, you know, you can't just spend euro in the Philippines, right?
00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:08.159
You will still need local uh payments company that helps with that FX conversion, and then ultimately people can off-ram into you know pesos and spend locally.
00:13:08.159 --> 00:13:11.759
So that is still gonna be a necessity, right?
00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:16.799
But we see it happening maybe over time, it will get more streamlined.
00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:34.240
Say, for example, you know, hypothetically, let's just say USDT becomes so um, you know, broadly adopted, everyone started transacting in USDT in terms of or instead of their local currency, then maybe there's an opportunity that you know something will emerge over time as like a widely adopted standard.
00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:35.120
Right.
00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:35.440
Yeah.
00:13:35.440 --> 00:13:35.759
Okay.
00:13:35.759 --> 00:13:39.840
I think we're derailed a little bit, so let's go back into the main topic.
00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:52.399
Um so yes, so now you you're working you're working for a JITO Foundation, uh, and um what I understand from you know kind of what what JITO is is that it's a liquid restaking um um service.
00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:54.240
However, I'm sure there's a lot more to that.
00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:59.360
When I open up your webpage, obviously there's words like MEV, you know, there's liquid staking.
00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:20.320
I mean, obviously the you know our audiences are well um well educated around crypto, but generally if we go to like a lay person and this and and talk about you know staking in general, I mean you have your kind of big staking providers of the world, like you have Figmint and you know, Killen and all these people who are also securing the Solana network.
00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:22.639
Um how does Jito uh play into that?
00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:28.159
Are they one of the participants or are they are you guys like a layer on top of that?
00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:29.440
Yeah, that's a good question.
00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:31.840
So happy to take it from the top, right?
00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:44.480
So um what really attracted me to the Jito um um, you know, to Jito project is because Jito solves um the one thing that institutions hate most about public chains, right?
00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:46.960
Um which is execution uncertainty.
00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:52.720
Um so banks, institutions, they need certainty um and compliance, right?
00:14:52.720 --> 00:15:01.360
So Jito essentially transforms Solana from a wow ecosystem into an institutional great um global deterministic execution layer.
00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:07.200
Um so we mitigate spam, fail transactions, and uh predatory MEV, right?
00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:13.039
Solana is the you can think about Solana as the global execution layer for real economic value.
00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:17.759
And Jito is the revenue engine that makes building on Solana profitable.
00:15:17.759 --> 00:15:18.240
Right?
00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:25.360
So let me actually go deeper into like some of the um products that we have that is actually helping to do that.
00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:31.600
So um I think layman term, you can think about Jito as the revenue engine of Solana, right?
00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:35.600
So let's just say Solana is the highway, right?
00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:39.519
Yes, you can drive super super fast, um, etc.
00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:47.919
But when it when when it gets too many cars on the highway, if you that if there's no traffic control, who gets to go first, right?
00:15:47.919 --> 00:15:49.600
That's the biggest question, yes.
00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:51.759
So this is where Gito comes in.
00:15:51.759 --> 00:15:59.840
So we help to actually power more than 93% of Solana validators, and we run the largest liquid sticking protocol with a 2 billion TVR.
00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:06.240
So um coming back from the point of MEV, maximum uh extractable value, right?
00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:16.240
So on most public chains, um value actually leaks because transactions get pulled into public main pool, people can see transaction details, etc.
00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:20.720
People always get front run and then the sandwich attack, you know.
00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:25.679
Um that actually adds on to a lot of uh challenges in terms of really adopting uh public chain.
00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:28.799
Gito actually like we plug the leak, you know.
00:16:28.799 --> 00:16:31.360
We we are an integrated stack of three things.
00:16:31.360 --> 00:16:40.240
First and foremost, we have the Jito Solana client, which is a software that 93% of validators actually run to optimize performance, right?
00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:51.600
If you want your transactions to actually land faster uh on Solana, you can actually provide uh Jito chips so that it can land faster on Solana, um transactions get sequenced better.
00:16:51.600 --> 00:16:57.440
And then two months ago, we launched something called the Block Assembly Marketplace, or in short, BAM.
00:16:57.440 --> 00:17:02.879
So BAM is an engine that actually captures MEV um transparently.
00:17:02.879 --> 00:17:12.559
So um you know, without BAM, trading boards actually spam the network with millions of failed transactions trying to land a trade.
00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:17.440
So this actually clocks up the chain, right, and degrades the user um experience.
00:17:17.440 --> 00:17:27.279
So what BAM does is, right, without too going into too much technicalities, so BAM uses what we call a trusted execution environment, TEE, to create a secure auction.
00:17:27.279 --> 00:17:33.519
So as traders, you bid to have your bundles included and your transactions go through.
00:17:33.519 --> 00:17:36.960
Um so transactions remain private until they are executed.
00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:39.599
So front running cannot take place, right?
00:17:39.599 --> 00:17:43.440
And then the benefit actually leads to that is BAM creates an app auction.
00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:56.559
So this reduces spam, increases reliability, and via the application control execution ace, um it allows apps builder to control their own transaction by um, you know, ordering to prevent exploitation.
00:17:56.559 --> 00:18:02.799
Um and last but not least, the third product that we we are really proud of is uh JiroSol.
00:18:02.799 --> 00:18:11.119
Um pretty much is a token that packages the value within the Solana network and distributes it to the stickers, right?
00:18:11.119 --> 00:18:16.960
Um you can think of Jirosol as like your deposit, right?
00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:25.039
You go to the bank, you put in $100, and then the banks will tell you, okay, over the next six months we'll pay you X percent in terms of your deposit.
00:18:25.039 --> 00:18:31.440
Now the biggest challenge is you can't take out the $100 because you will lose your interest, sorry, right?
00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:35.759
Jirosol, in a way, is very similar to a bank deposit.
00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:42.079
You help to secure the Solana network by sticking Solana, but in return, you will get a token called JiroSol.
00:18:42.079 --> 00:18:53.359
Now, this JiroSol, then you can deploy into DeFi applications as a collateral to borrow, to land out, and to do so many different things, right?
00:18:53.359 --> 00:19:07.920
Um, not only DeFi players are actually looking at JiroSoul as a collateral, we are also working with institutions who is actually actively looking at can they actually include J2SOL as part of their collaterals, whether it's market makers, whether it's prime uh brokers, etc.
00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:16.240
Uh, and we're also working with ETF issuers to include JOSOL as part of their ETF filing to meet uh redemption uh requests as well.
00:19:16.799 --> 00:19:17.039
Yeah.
00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:27.519
So let's put in the pin on that la last part, but let's talk about the first two parts because um obviously if I had to compare Solana with Ethereum, obviously it's a much faster chain.
00:19:27.519 --> 00:19:32.319
I mean that's that's kind of kind of the the the catchphrase for Solana, right?
00:19:32.319 --> 00:19:34.880
It's a better Ethereum, the faster Ethereum.
00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:42.160
With Ethereum, in in order to kind of validate transactions, it takes like 12 seconds or so, if I'm c if I'm not mistaken.
00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:51.519
Um so obviously it happens in a pretty fast speed to sort out okay which which transactions go into the block and you know, and then they're broadcasted, right?
00:19:51.519 --> 00:19:55.920
In in terms of so, I I could probably imagine like it's much faster than that, right?
00:19:55.920 --> 00:20:06.480
So you're saying that from bat with BAM, you're running auctions in a Split second kind of interim to actually do these auctions and put them in, put all the transactions in line.
00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:07.359
Am I correct?
00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:09.759
Yes, that's the right way of actually understanding it.
00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:16.960
And we help with the governance of how blocks are actually being sequenced.
00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:32.000
So ever since BAM's been launched, you know, we are having a lot of conversations with existing Solana validators in terms of upgrading their current infrastructure to BAM, which is a more streamlined approach.
00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:35.680
And also from Gito, there's also something called a StakeNet, right?
00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:51.039
So every time a stake actually comes true, via StackNet, the smart contract actually automatically and autonomously assign a stake to top validators to actually maintain and govern the allocation in a fair and transparent way.
00:20:51.039 --> 00:21:14.079
So that way also we help to actually make sure that, hey, you know, not only developers are actually profiting or enjoying the speed and all the nice features of Solana, but people that's actually doing a hard work, the validators, the people that's actually helping to secure the infrastructure, they are you know they they get the the right reward so that you know it's a sustainable business model that can run on a long-term basis.
00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:34.960
And MEVs are generally known to kind of like make the um the I guess the staking, you know, or I'll say the blockchain transactions a lot more efficient because they'll try to find like, okay, um, you know, what which which who who can pay the highest fees to get certain transactions done?
00:21:34.960 --> 00:21:39.519
And obviously that would cause uh front running, back running, sandwiches, et cetera.
00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:45.359
Um and that's kind of how it uh has always been run um prior to uh Solana, I think.
00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:54.400
And and then now with this, does it kind of lower the value of having MAV or does it enhance it?
00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:56.000
Because I'm trying to understand here.
00:21:56.000 --> 00:22:02.319
So if you're trafficking everything, obviously it makes it a lot more fair, is my kind of understanding.
00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:11.200
But it also takes out the kind of efficiencies of you know certain, you know, uh people kind of front running, et cetera.
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:11.519
Right.
00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:13.680
So how do how do I kind of understand this?
00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:15.920
No, that's a really good question, right?
00:22:15.920 --> 00:22:21.440
Um, I think the way we look at it is no matter how you put it, there's always going to be two scenarios.
00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:24.880
There will always be people trying to take advantage of certain features, right?
00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:26.480
There's always two sides of the story.
00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:34.559
But when it comes to BAM, what we are trying to uh provide the community is a fair and square and transparent environment.
00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:37.599
Transactions details remain private until they are executed.
00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:52.480
I mean, if you are a genuine developer who is actually trying to build uh and send through transactions, you love this because you know that you know uh your benefits is actually secure, and then your transactions can actually go through, and then you can, you know, deliver, right?
00:22:52.480 --> 00:23:02.000
And obviously, you know, if you are trying to speculate and profit from those old systems in terms of how MEV is actually run, that would be unfortunate news for you.
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:13.039
So we believe you know in making a transparent system, putting it in place, and then over time serving the right type of profile in terms of developers and growing the ecosystem with Solana.
00:23:13.039 --> 00:23:13.440
Yeah.
00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:18.720
Currently, what is the uh staking rewards that one can get on JTO?
00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:23.839
You know, JitoSoul typically gives out um six to eight percent of APY.
00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:26.960
Um obviously, you know, it depends on how the market performs.
00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:29.839
Uh, but typically you get that kind of uh range, right?
00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:37.039
And obviously, JitoSoul, you know, is uh relatively new as a liquid staking um um utility token.
00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:41.680
And um, but the good thing is, you know, we have made so much inroads in the institutional space.
00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:50.880
Just a couple of months ago, the SEC has actually released a statement uh concerning liquid staking tokens as that you know it doesn't fall within the securities law.
00:23:50.880 --> 00:23:59.680
Um that has actually opened a lot of doors for us to have conversations with ETF issuers um in terms of including JitoSoul as part of their filing.
00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:05.359
So maybe let me just double-click a little bit in terms of the work that we're doing with some of the issuers um in the space.
00:24:05.359 --> 00:24:13.759
So um, you know, I still remember when the first Bitcoin ETF was launched, I think January 2024.
00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:25.920
That was a really good timing and window because if you think about it, is that ETF is such a good uh vehicle for a lot of these ThreatFi investors to get exposure to crypto, right?
00:24:25.920 --> 00:24:32.720
Without having to acquire a hot wallet or cold wallet or having to worry about blockchain addresses and all that, right?
00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:36.319
So these guys are familiar with the threat fire world, right?
00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:44.640
So um the best thing is how do we actually make it seamless and make it straightforward for them to actually tap into crypto assets, right?
00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:59.680
ETF is definitely a vehicle because by launching ETF, that means to threat fine investors, they can easily invest into crypto assets via the threatfine brokerage accounts that they already have and they've been using for years, right?
00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:01.759
This is where they are most comfortable with.
00:25:01.759 --> 00:25:12.319
So um we've seen Bitcoin ETF last year, we've seen a lot of uh Ethereum ETF last year, and this year the story is always about um Solana ETF, right?
00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:28.720
So we work with a lot of different issuers, mainly from the states, in terms of helping them to actually um file for Solana ETF, and part of their filing actually includes JitoSol, certain percentage to be JitoSol, so that they can actually meet redemption requests.
00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:41.839
Because think about it, if you are an issuer, whether you are BlackRock, you know, um 21 shares or Venek, you have customers always asking you, hey, all right, you know, I'm I'm done with this ETF, I want my money back, right?
00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:42.880
Redemption requests.
00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:52.799
Now the problem with that is what we are seeing is say Ethereum, um, I think the unstaking period is really long, but 44 days, 45 days.
00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:57.359
Um Solana is actually slightly better, two epochs, it's still about three or four days.
00:25:57.359 --> 00:26:01.039
But from an institutional client's perspective, it's still not good enough.
00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:05.519
They felt that redemption means instant, you know, T plus zero.
00:26:05.519 --> 00:26:13.680
If my client comes and you know, give me the ETF, I need to actually um give my clients back their money, right?
00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:16.319
Uh within the same day, settle back into the bank account.
00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:23.119
So one way to look at it is that they park certain of their allocation in JitoSol, right?
00:26:23.119 --> 00:26:27.440
Because technically JitoSoul um you know is staked Solana, right?
00:26:27.440 --> 00:26:36.960
So anytime they have a redemption request, they can sell the Jitoso, they burn the JitoSol, they can actually get Solana right away without having to go through and wait the unstaking period.
00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:40.720
So that's a really good utility uh for Solana ETF.
00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:42.079
So that's actually a very strong angle.
00:26:42.079 --> 00:26:46.079
A lot of these uh issuers are actually looking at including JitoSol.
00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:59.599
Um VanEck has also filed 100% JitoSol ETF, and uh we're working with them, you know, um, and then all the other issuers in terms of helping to see how we can actually um bring this to market um as soon as possible, right?
00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:04.319
Um and of course, you know, JitoSol, there's also another very strong angle.
00:27:04.319 --> 00:27:06.559
Uh we call it the Yield machine.
00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:14.079
Um obviously, you know, uh if you look at the last decade, people buy digital assets purely on speculation.
00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:22.880
No matter how much of stories that you want to, you know, uh cover it or just you know build the narrative around, it's all speculation.
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:23.359
Yeah.
00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:28.720
I mean, Bitcoin, uh proof of um soil values, yeah, you will always appreciate.
00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:37.519
But at the end of the day, if you are an institutional client, if you want to deploy your treasury into digital assets, you need a stronger narrative than just speculation.
00:27:37.519 --> 00:27:39.920
This is where JitoSoul comes in, right?
00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:53.200
So if you can think about, you can think of JitoSol as a token that actually gives you the inflationary uh appreciation of Solana token plus all the MEV fees, right?
00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:57.440
So suddenly your narrative becomes an infrastructure investment, right?
00:27:57.440 --> 00:28:07.359
You're deploying your treasury into JitoSol because the more transactions that happen on Solana, the more fees will actually get collected and passed back to JotoSol holders.
00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:15.359
So it's a very strong narrative that institutional clients are very comfortable with, and then we're seeing a lot of uh positive uh attraction from that front.
00:28:15.599 --> 00:28:15.759
Yeah.
00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:18.319
So when you talk about, we talk to institutions.
00:28:18.319 --> 00:28:24.720
Obviously, uh by this time, I think every institution generally knows what the value prop is for Bitcoin.
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:28.640
And I think for Ethereum as well, I think they're slowly catching up onto it.
00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:43.039
And I think a lot of that kind of uh narrative is around we're super decentralized, and you know, this is the first blockchain that has smart contracts as the biggest DeFi community ecosystem that blockchain companies have ever built.
00:28:43.039 --> 00:28:45.359
So, what is the current narrative?
00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:47.759
Not the retail side, but for the institutions.
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:50.160
What is the narrative of Solana?
00:28:50.480 --> 00:29:05.440
Yeah, this is something very close to my heart as well, because having come from two uh major institutional focused L1s, I realized that decentralization is becoming less and less important for a lot of institutional clients.
00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:11.519
Because at the end of the day, if you think about it, people just want things to happen faster and bring asset on chain, right?
00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:14.799
There's a whole stablecoin rush, there's a whole RWA rush.
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:27.920
So when I when I scan the landscape, I see Solana be still flying the flag for decentralization and JITO really building the infrastructure for decentralization, right?
00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:36.160
And I think that's like super important because we don't want crypto to turn into another SaaS model, right?
00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:51.119
You don't want to be in a future where I don't know, your service provider is actually selling you something on a SaaS model, and they're using some sort of blockchain behind the scene to optimize that operation, right?
00:29:51.119 --> 00:29:54.400
It's not exactly like a Web3 economic model.
00:29:54.400 --> 00:30:10.960
So when I look at Solana, I think Solana has the advantage of the winning second mover kind of tagline because maybe a decade ago, people still talk about TPS, people talk about performance and all that stuff.
00:30:10.960 --> 00:30:13.200
Right now, people don't talk about TPS anymore.
00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:17.839
People just see whether things can happen and things will stake, right?
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:25.759
And if you look at the Solana ecosystem, all of the Defi projects that are building on Solana, they grow very organically.
00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:31.519
They have their own very dedicated user base and most of these projects collaborate with each other.
00:30:31.519 --> 00:30:41.200
It's a very healthy kind of environment and Solana's vision has always been hey, you know, uh we are a monolithic uh blockchain layer, you know.
00:30:41.200 --> 00:30:47.839
It means all the liquidity from institutional side and retail side happened on Solana itself.
00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:48.400
Period.
00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:48.720
Right?
00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:56.880
You're not you're not talking about silo liquidity, you're not talking about layer one, layer two, it's a very different vision altogether.
00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:01.279
It's very close to what we are as an economy, right?
00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:11.519
Can you imagine if you are in a world where your currency, you know, whatever that you're actually using is silo, and then you don't interact with other countries in the world, right?
00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:23.200
In a way, so Solana it has that positioning in terms of a monolithic liquidity layer, and then JITO providing the infrastructure layer to govern some of these transactions, right?
00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:28.000
And coming back to the decentralization part, um, we have our product called StakeNet.
00:31:28.240 --> 00:31:41.519
So StakeNet actually ensures every stake that comes through the protocol gets uh distributed autonomously through all the top validators depending on their performance via smart contracts.
00:31:41.519 --> 00:31:47.119
No human is involved, no Jito um team members are involved in that process.
00:31:47.119 --> 00:31:55.279
Even if one day Jito shuts or goes away, StakeNet will still operate on its own autonomously.
00:31:55.279 --> 00:31:59.440
And um yeah, I think that's the best way to really build decentralization.
00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:12.799
Um yeah, the way I look at it is that decentralization can only happen when you put the right tools in place and you have the right projects helping to push that vision forward in a in a in in a collaborative manner.
00:32:12.799 --> 00:32:22.319
And and the way I see it, Solana has a really thriving ecosystem and I think this is a good time to also talk about Breakpoint, which is happening next week in Abu Dhabi.
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:23.680
I think it's gonna be late.
00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:27.599
Um you know, everyone from within the Solana ecosystem is gonna be there.
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:29.440
And yeah, it's gonna be exciting.
00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:29.839
Yeah.
00:32:29.839 --> 00:32:35.920
I was gonna I point you to it to that direction later, but let me derail a little bit.
00:32:35.920 --> 00:32:56.000
Because you work for R3, Ripple, I mean, you know, I've seen Solana, you know, really from its beginning and then you know have its kind of really questionable moment during the FTX collapse and then really kind of matured into this um blockchain ecosystem where you don't need that much like support from the outside.
00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:59.359
It's like it just organically, as you mentioned, it started growing, right?
00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:15.440
And you know, on the on the opposite end of the spectrum, and I don't mean to like bash any foundations or even Ripple at this point, but like I'm just saying, like the the XRP ecosystem hasn't really really grown that much of a DeFi ecosystem, right?
00:33:15.440 --> 00:33:21.519
But it's a monstrosity on of its own, and they could buy companies and do whatever they want.
00:33:21.519 --> 00:33:23.839
So, like, so what what do you think?
00:33:23.839 --> 00:33:25.440
And this is a personal question, right?
00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:27.119
A bit more philosophical as well.
00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:33.359
What do you think it takes for a blockchain to actually get to where like Solana is?
00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:35.680
What is the kind of organical growth?
00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:44.160
How do how does the blockchain foundation actually get that kind of organical growth as opposed to like really trying to pay for its growth?
00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:45.039
You know what I mean?
00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:47.599
No, I think that's a really good question, right?
00:33:47.599 --> 00:33:51.839
So there are a thousand roads that can lead to Rome, right?
00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:53.920
Depending on how you want to actually get there.
00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:56.640
And you are right, right?
00:33:56.640 --> 00:34:09.280
So there are definitely a lot of traditional uh financial players, especially from the web tool world, um, they're thinking about using certain elements of blockchain to optimize their businesses, right?
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:17.920
Makes sense because you know they they are they have they are incumbents, you know, they have a lot of customers to serve, right?
00:34:17.920 --> 00:34:21.599
It doesn't make sense to do like a whole big bang migration, etc.
00:34:21.599 --> 00:34:32.320
but if you are a developer today that's just starting out in Web3 and you're looking for a place to land, um, Solana makes a lot of sense, right?
00:34:32.320 --> 00:34:44.239
Because you know, great team building great stuff and and and and the ecosystem helps themselves, and most importantly, there's a lot of organic growth.
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:49.840
There's no right or wrong in terms of you know how to be successful in Web3, right?
00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:55.679
I think it all depends on the different business model, one that's actually in, right?
00:34:55.679 --> 00:35:10.960
And I pointed out earlier during during um you know our session, obviously the flavor of the money right now is definitely payments network utilizing stable coins and uh blockchain technology because there's low hanging fruit, right?
00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:13.920
That trend will definitely continue.
00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:24.159
h maybe down the road, you know, there will be some industry shakeout, and then you will see one or two um companies you know emerging as winners.
00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:26.400
It's definitely a place to be.
00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:29.840
Um but for Solana it's a very different positioning altogether.
00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:33.039
You know, Solana called itself the internet capital markets.
00:35:33.039 --> 00:35:44.079
Um, you know, essentially you look at Solana as like the NASDAQ of battery, like everything trades on Solana, even tokens from another foundation launched on Solana last week.
00:35:44.079 --> 00:35:48.960
So that is definitely something unique that's never never happened before.
00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:59.039
And um, yeah, we see a lot of opportunity on Solana, especially with Jito, and then we're hoping to um grow together with Solana and helping to serve the community.
00:35:59.039 --> 00:36:05.360
So, yeah, coming back to your question, I don't there's no right or wrong way in terms of how you can be successful in Web3.
00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:09.920
It it very much depends on the business model that one uh chooses to be in.
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:16.960
And for Jito, you know, we are we are bullish Solana from day one, and then we are here uh for the long term working with the community.
00:36:17.599 --> 00:36:17.920
Right.
00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:18.480
Okay.
00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:20.559
Well, thank you very much for your time.
00:36:20.559 --> 00:36:23.920
I hope the uh Solana breakpoint is a big success.
00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:32.960
Unfortunately, I can't go but I've been to some others, obviously while I was in Singapore or other parts of Asia.
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:36.639
It was quite exciting to be at those conferences.
00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:38.880
Um but again, thank you very much for your time.
00:36:40.559 --> 00:36:41.119
Thanks for listening.
00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:45.760
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00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:49.599
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00:36:49.599 --> 00:36:51.519
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