Phil Chen, General Partner at Proof of Capital: How HTC Is Driving Massive Crypto Adoption

Phil Chen is a General Partner at Proof of Capital, and the Decentralized Chief Officer at the HTC Exodus. In this conversation, Phil and Anthony Pompliano discuss hardware wallets, what they built with the HTC Exodus, why certain features were included, how big companies can drive innovation, and what Phil is excited about moving forward in the cryptocurrency industry. BLOCKFI-----BlockFi allows you to keep your crypto, put it up as collateral, and receive a USD loan funded directly to your bank account. They do loans ranging from $2,000 to $10,000,000, and they're perfect for helping you reach your financial goals of all sizes. Visit BlockFi.com/Pomp to learn more about putting your crypto to work without having to sell it. CRYPTO. COM-----Crypto.com is a pioneering payment and cryptocurrency platform that seeks to accelerate the world's transition to cryptocurrency. With the vision of "cryptocurrency in every wallet", the Crypto.com App offers a full range of financial products with competitive pricing, well designed UX and high security. It is the best place to buy, sell and pay with crypto. COINMINE-----The Coinmine One is like an Xbox that turns your electricity into Bitcoin. You just plug it in, connect to wifi, and tap on the crypto you want. It’s so easy anyone can do it. Everything is controlled from the Coinmine mobile app and the Coinmine keeps getting better with over the air updates that add new coins, features and services to your Coinmine. Visit coinmine.com/pomp to get a Coinmine and earn crypto for powering a new world.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off the Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off. Phil Chen is the General Partner at Proof of Capital and the Decentralized Chief Officer at the HTC Exodus. In this conversation, we discuss hardware wallets, what they built with the HTC Exodus, why certain features were included, how big companies can drive innovation, and what Phil is excited about moving forward in the cryptocurrency industry. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do as well. Skrt skrt! Wanna know who has the best URL? Crypto.com. That's right, Crypto.com.

• 0:45Anthony Pompliano?

  They're a crypto platform with one goal: motherf***ing mass adoption. That's why we're all here. We're trying to get crypto in every wallet. Crypto.com is helping people do that through buying, earning, lending, and card payment. Everything you could want at Crypto.com. Go help your boy out, tell him Pomp sent you. Download the app or visit Crypto.com. Pomp's got you, always. Ever wanted to get into mining and didn't know how? Don't worry, your boy Pomp's got you. Everybody got some electricity and wifi. All you gotta do is go to CoinMine.com, you buy a coin mine. It's like an Xbox or a Playstation that helps you turn your electricity into Bitcoin. That's right. You purchase it, it shows up at your doorstep, you pull it out of the box, you plug it in,

• 1:30Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:15Anthony Pompliano?

  paid monthly in cryptocurrency. 6% is an absurdly high rate. It's the best rate in the industry. I highly suggest you go check out blockfi.com/pomp. Again, that's blockfi.com/pomp to sign up and start earning crypto today.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 2:56Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Phil here with us. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this and talk about what you guys are working on, Phil.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for this opportunity.

• 3:07Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Let's, uh, let's jump right in. Talk about your background a little bit before you started working on crypto and then hardware wallets.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, my career started early 2000s. You know, I started an ebook company called the Alex E-Reader. Um, that company got sold and became, you know, the first Barnes and Noble ebook reader called the NOOK. Um, and then I quickly joined HTC 2007. And at HTC I was a product manager. I built the first Android phone. Uh, we shipped to 2008. Um, yeah, and I was at HTC basically from 2007 or 14. Uh, the last thing I left before I had HTC at 2014 was I started the Vive, uh, the VR headset. Uh, but then I left the day we, we launched a dev kit to start, uh, you know, a VR AR fund called Presence Capital.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  A year into that, it was a seed fund. A year into that, I joined a much bigger fund in Hong Kong, which is Lee Kai-sing's venture fund. You know, I did all of the kind of the deep tech, a lot of the AI investments. And Horizons has a history of, you know, investing in many disruptive companies, including, you know, companies like CRE that Apple acquired, or DeepMind that Google acquired.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  And that's where I really started learning a lot about, you know, crypto and blockchain, public blockchains. Horizons, we had invested in companies like Blockstream, you know, one of the earlier Bitcoin kind of blockchain companies. And it had also invested in DCG. You know, DCG, of course, is one of the most prolific investors in Bitcoin startups. And that's how I kind of got, you know, started to learn, you know, about Bitcoin and public blockchains. And that's how I really started to get really, really interested in understanding that, you know, it was the most, I think, the most disruptive technologies I've been in touch with.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  And what I find fascinating is, in those years of investing, I was there from basically 2015 to 18. I started investing 14, or full-time 14, 2018. And I looked at every, you know, vertical, like from biotech to fintech to AI to autonomous driving to robotics. And every single vertical was dominated by the same players, you know, namely Google, Amazon, Facebook. In China, it's Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent. But there was only one vertical or one technology that wasn't owned by these, you know, these, you know, the big four, or some people call it GAF.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  And that was crypto, you know, nobody owned Bitcoin, you know, Ethereum came up and, you know, it was crowdsourced. And so it was the most fascinating disruptive technology that, you know, I wanted to spend, you know, my time with. Yeah. And then that's how I got really, really interested into crypto.

• 6:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And talk a little bit about, you know, HTC, what your role there is and kind of, then we'll get into what you're working on.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, you know, originally, you know, at Horizons, you know, we were investing in disruptive tech, you know, including a lot of the public blockchain and crypto companies. And, you know, because of my years there from 2007 to 14, I still had a, you know, a deep relationship with a lot of the executives and board members. And I simply pitched them the idea, right? You know, I, you know, I actually learned most of my Bitcoin stuff from Andreas Antonopoulos, you know, I literally watched hundreds of hours of Andreas on YouTube and listened to his podcasts, you know? And it all came down to, you know,

• 7:13Speaker 02

  if you don't own your private keys, you don't own your Bitcoin, right? And of course, you know, Trezor and Ledger and many other hardware wallets were very popular in empowering the user to own their private keys. And then I simply went back to HTC, I mean, not thinking that I would go back and build this, but kind of seeding the idea to, you know, some board members and the CEO of HTC saying, hey, you should build a phone and empower the users to own their private keys on the phone, because the phone is the most prevalent device, right? I mean, today, you know, you talk about, you know, 2 billion unbanked,

• 7:58Speaker 02

  you know, people, or even 3 billion underbanked, or even more, right? And over half of those people have mobile phones, right? And if you can build a mobile phone with a hardware wallet that empowers people to own their private keys. It allows them, it banks them, basically. You know, we can talk about that later. But the idea was seeded to them, you know, and then they decide, oh, okay, it's very interesting. And so, you know, they put up a kind of a skunk works team to start building prototypes. You know, and then come like, you know, late two thousand or mid two thousand eighteen. It became really serious, right?

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Um, but then there was, there was nobody that understood how to make a phone. You had to understand the whole crypto space or even understand what it means to have a hardware wallet on a phone that empowers you to own their private keys. And so that's kind of how I decided, okay, I think I need to go back and, and build things again. And so, and this was meaningful enough for me to, to do that because I feel like, you know, H C C is a company well positioned to do this, you know, um, because it didn't have the cloud legacies. Um, business, you know, like every other business, like people ask me, you know, what if Google comes in and do this?

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Or Facebook or, you know, Apple, uh, come and do this, then, you know, uh, you know, what do you do? You know, and, and I thought through that. And the conclusion I came up to is, I don't think Google or Facebook or Apple would do this because it's completely counter-cultural to their business model. Because the past, not just past twenty years, but past fifty years, the way you make money is to own the customer and own all of their data. And that's how Google and Facebook make money. And what we're doing is the exact opposite, right? We're giving people ownership of their private keys, right? And based on that, right now, they're owning their Bitcoin.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  But based on that, we want to empower them to own their data, their digital identities and any sensitive or, you know, important information.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  And so, you know, HTC is a company that did really well from two thousand and seven to twelve. You know, um, it it didn't do well in the cloud business. It didn't do well in owning people's data and mining and monetizing off of that. And to me, it was the best, you know, it was, it is, and it still had a good reputation in being able to build good hardware. And so to me, it was like the, the, the, the perfect company to, to, to build this. Kind of contrarian, countercultural product, you know? And so, yeah, that's what motivated me, motivated me to, you know, leave a very, very comfortable venture capital job. You know, to go back to the trenches and then build this.

• 10:59Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And so before we get into what you guys specifically are building, let's just talk about kind of hardware wallets in general. What's your assessment of the lay of the land, um, you know, with what other people have built? Good, bad, and in between?

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I, you know, I think Trezor and Ledger have built a great product, you know? Um, and I think for people who hold a lot of Bitcoin, you know, that's, you know, that's, that's one of the main ways to do it, right? Except, you know, the, the way you use it is, is very difficult, right? Like, you know, you, uh, you, you, uh, for you to start transacting, you would have to, you know, get your Trezor. You would have to plug, you would have to have a laptop, right? You plug it, it's a USB, you plug it into, uh, your laptop. Um, and then you open a browser and then you have to open a MetaMask, you know, or some wallet. Uh, and then you transact, right?

• 11:55Speaker 02

  That's, you know, four or five, or at least two hardware pieces. And, you know, three or four software kind of combinations, right? And what we've done is, um, we've done that all on the phone, basically, right? We've built that, uh, you know, that whole browser, MetaMask, laptop to USB stick, that whole chain into, you know, what you would be used to using in a, in a, in an app in a smartphone, right? So just making it much more user friendly and easier, right? And Yeah, I think, uh, uh, you know, what Ledger and Trezor have done is, is great, you know.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Uh, but I think, uh, to get it to more mass adoption, it needs to be, people are so used to using their mobile phones. Um, having it on a mobile phone, uh, is, you know, is much more accessible. And I, I also just think it's completely different use cases, right? Um, it's like, you know, you could call it maybe your savings account versus your checking's account, right? Maybe you would have your savings on, you know, a, a, you know, a, a ledger or Trezor where you keep at home where people don't, don't see it. Um, but at some point when, you know, Bitcoin, when we start building out Bitcoin, not just as a store of value,

• 13:19Speaker 02

  but, you know, when we build out the Lightning stuff, when it becomes a payment system, you know, you need to carry something to, to make payments, right? Um, retailers need a point-of-sale system to receive payments, right? And so we're just laying down that foundation for people to be able to have uh, access to that infrastructure on mobile, right? And I think that's, that's gonna be one of my key topics that I talk about in the Lightning Conference is, what is Bitcoin on mobile, right? These two most powerful forces, mobile that shaped everything that we know about usability and access,

• 14:01Speaker 02

  but then Bitcoin, this other revolution, and I'm just basically combining these two revolutions. I actually find it fascinating that, you know, when I launched the first Android phone, you know, I thought I was, you know, I loved, you know, I joined it because I believed in open source, right? Android was that open source, uh, software, and we launched our first Android phone. And of course, you know, the reason why I got into this space was because I believed in that, that promise of the internet, right? Open sharing of knowledge, open access to information.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Right, but what happened was, you know, this whole Android, Google, uh, open source movement became a way to hijack people's data, right? And what I find fascinating was that I launched, or we launched at HTC the first Android phone in October of 2008. And 2009 January was the first Bitcoin, was the Genesis Block, right? And to me, that was the, that was the real revolution, or the real kind of um, um successor of, uh, you know, open source kind of movement. And so like 10 years later, 2018, I launched Exodus and I, I just found that fascinating that launching their first Android phone

• 15:24Speaker 02

  and the first Bitcoin was, was so close together, except we weren't paying attention, you know? And now I'm paying attention and, and, and, and the potential of, of Bitcoin on mobile is, is, is just so fascinating.

• 15:40Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. So let's talk a little bit about exactly what you guys have built because um, you are now on, is this the, the kind of updated version? The second version or second version? Okay. And so my understanding is that you guys have built a phone. It makes phone calls, texts, got internet access, kind of everything that a, a normal phone does um, that HTC would uh, you know, build and release, but also you have added the hardware wallet and a full Bitcoin node to it as well, correct?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. So yeah, I'll, I'll do maybe, I'll, I'll maybe highlight four or five things, right? Yes, first is a smartphone, right? And second, it's a, it's a hardware wallet. It's basically this uh, this secluded area on the chip that's, that Android doesn't touch, right? It's basically a physical space where we keep your private keys, right? So it's first that is a smartphone plus a hardware wallet. And then we have, you know, other really interesting features like secure UI. You know, what that is, is, you know, once, when you want to sign transactions, right? And your private keys are so important to protect, right?

• 16:54Speaker 02

  You can imagine that people will want to hack and get and steal your private keys, right? And so we want to make sure that private keys is never revealed, right? And so we have something called secure UI, which is basically the touchscreen. Basically itself has a hard line into the secure area. And so you can't, you, you, you can't steal people's passwords. Or, you know, do, you know, kind of phishing ways of stealing people's data by, you know, faking a home screen and people punching their password kind of thing, you know?

• 17:33Speaker 02

  And so once it, once it, you use our, our hardware wallet, basically there's a UI that goes only to the secure zone. That's not, that Android can't access, you know? So the secure UI just adds another layer of security. That's what makes it more secure than a software wallet, right? A software wallet is still on Android. And, you know, Android is susceptible, susceptible to many hacks, right? What we've done is put it in this trust zone, the ARM trust zone that's separate from Android and just significantly reduce the, the attack surface area, right?

• 18:17Speaker 02

  And so it keeps your private keys safe, right? And then it keeps your transactions safe with a secure UI. And then often, the next question, I guess, and this is another significant piece of technology that we built is, what happens when you lose your phone, right? You know, and so we built something called a social key recovery.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  And what that is, is when you set up your hardware wallet, we'll split your keys into uh five different parts. Um, and you share those five parts to five of your friends or family. All they have to do is download an app. Uh, they keep one in the five. And so when you lose your phone, you can recover your keys by uh combining uh three out of the five uh uh keys from, you know, from your friends and family. And so just to show that, you know, you know, HTC, when we ship you the phone, we don't have access to your private keys. So when you lose your phone, you can't call HTC. Right?

• 19:22Speaker 02

  In fact, uh, there's a, there's a funny story in which there is a, a Bitcoin magazine kind of journalist that was asking me this trick question. Like what happens when you lose your phone? You know, because they had to ask that same question to a Chinese manufacturer. And the Chinese manufacturer said, oh, it's easy. We'll recover your keys from our cloud. Right? And

• 19:46Speaker 02

  yeah, they, so immediately they knew that, you know, this is, you know, this big, this blockchain phone conversation is not real because you're not serious about giving people tools uh to, to, to own their private keys, right? And so and so the social key recovery is, is um, is something we built and we open sourced it. And others, so other wallets or anybody else can use this key recovery mechanism. And so, so we're just also um, in the spirit of open source and, and, and, and, you know, sharing the code that we've built. You know? And so yeah, and then this latest one, the Exodus one S, so

• 20:31Speaker 02

  uh that we're launching, uh, you know, uh, end of this week. At the Lightning conferences, well, first, it's a much more accessible price. The first Exodus one was around $700. This new one will be around 200 US dollars, or with tax, it'll be about 220 euros. And much more accessible, and you know, it's still a smartphone. It's a functioning smartphone with a functioning hardware wallet, right? With social key recovery and secure UI, all of that. And now we're adding the other new functionality for you to run a full Bitcoin node, right?

• 21:14Speaker 02

  And so you can verify transactions yourself, you can relay transactions, right? Of course, we suggest that you have your phone plugged in with Wi-Fi access. You know, there are some bandwidth and battery requirements. But you can run a full Bitcoin node, you know, when your phone is plugged in at night, right? And so you can help secure the network. You know, you can help contribute to the community. And I think that's, that's, we want to build tools to empower people, but build software tools for people to join this community and be a part of this whole Bitcoin network.

• 21:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Skrt, skrt! Want to know who has the best URL? Crypto.com. That's right, crypto.com. They're a crypto platform with one goal: motherf***ing mass adoption. That's why we're all here. We're trying to get crypto in every wallet. Crypto.com is helping people do that through buying, earning, lending, and card payment. Everything you could want at crypto.com. Go help your boy out, tell him POM sent you. Download the app or visit crypto.com. POM's got you, always. Ever wanted to get into mining and didn't know how? Don't worry, your boy POM's got you. Everybody got some electricity and Wi-Fi. All you gotta do is go to coinmine.com, you buy a coin mine.

• 22:37Anthony Pompliano?

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• 23:50Anthony Pompliano?

  As part of this, like, what do you see the response from the market being, right? Because, you know, look, it's pretty cool to, one, have a full hardware wallet on my phone, be able to store Bitcoin and cryptocurrency securely, have the social recovery aspect to it, so if I lose my phone, I don't feel like, you know, I'm gonna lose all of my wealth. Then you add in the Bitcoin node, which allows me to participate and help secure the network, and really, you know, kind of fulfill part of what the Bitcoin ethos and goal is. And then you add into that a very low price point that is competitive for any phone, let alone one that has this functionality.

• 24:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you see others kind of scrambling to respond? Or do you think this is something where you guys are gonna have a significant advantage moving forward for quite a long time?

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, I do see others getting in, um, although because it's such a contrarian uh, point of view. Like, why would you give people access to the private keys? And let them own their um crypto? I mean, it's, it's already kind of countercultural even in crypto, right? Because ninety-five percent of the people still have their keys in centralized exchanges. Right? So even in the crypto world, it's, it's, it's, it's counter, it's contra, it's, it's, it's not mainstream behavior. Right? Because still, most of the speculators still have their keys in centralized exchanges

• 25:24Speaker 02

  in the cloud rather than in some, you know, a leisure or treasure or a hardware wallet or even a cold storage, you know, let alone, you know, the phone. Right? And so, you know, if you move to the mainstream, then it's even more contrary, like people don't even get it. Right? Um, and so, uh, uh, you know, I, I, I don't know if you would, I would say that we're the only ones, you know, who have a big advantage, but it's such a contrarian way of thinking that I think, you know, um, I don't see it as an advantage. I see it more like, hey, you know, very few people like right now, many, it's still

• 26:05Speaker 02

  the early adopters and the developers that are buying this phone and developing this phone and kind of seeing the potential of it rather than, you know, kind of the mass market, you know, who want to use this, you know, who actually want to trade even for speculation purposes. And so it's, it's something like I, I meet so many people in the Bitcoin space and like I never got this kind of response, you know, even building the Android phone. You know, big people in the Bitcoin space, like I go to South America, I go to, you know, Silicon Valley and I, I, I just get sincere thank yous. They just say, thank you for doing what you do. Because they know nobody's gonna do that.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  You know? Let alone an institution, a respectable institution have the right mind to do this. Right? Because it's, it's borderless, it's open, it's, you know, it's neutral, it's, you know, it's public, you know? It's all of those things that's so, again, countercultural. Sorry to use that word so many times, but that's what it is. And like, that's what really motivates me is like people in the community is far and few, but they come to me and say, thank you for what you do. You know, because they know so few people will stand for that. And as long as, as long I can build this and, you know, I'm going to keep standing on that principle of the power used or used on their private keys.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  And it's, it's, it's, and it's not easy, right? It's not easy to stand for that because people don't get it, you know? And, you know, very, very few people even today, even in the crypto space are behaviorally are, are, are, are, are doing that too. And so, yeah, I don't know if I see that as an advantage, but it's definitely, I, I don't see anybody in the near term really doing that either. You know, or even the way we contribute to the open source community, right? I mean, we don't just take everything. We like the whole social key recovery. We contribute it back to the community, right? That's also, you know, contrarian behavior.

• 28:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And, and so what do you think is kind of the challenges ahead for you guys specifically? Are there other things that you want to build into the phone moving forward? And if so, what would those be? And kind of what, what could potentially be an obstacle as you move to do that?

• 28:37Speaker 02

  I think, you know, uh, you know, I think most people see Bitcoin as a store of value. Right?

• 28:46Speaker 02

  They, they see that as a killer app and, you know, I, I see definitely that's one of the main killer apps.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  But Bitcoin also in crypto needs to move into the medium of exchange too, into payments. Right? I think that's where mobile is really going to shine because if payments don't take off, right, and if it's just a store of value. Then it's probably smart that you don't keep all your crypto on a mobile phone, right? Because it's something you carry with you all the time, right? Again, it's more like this distinction between a savings and a checking account, right? You want to keep your savings account, even if you are your own bank, or you hold custody, or you own your private keys, you want that savings to be at home and, you know,

• 29:36Speaker 02

  not on the go with you all the time, right? But as a payment system, you want it with you all the time because you want to use it to pay for coffee, for transportation, for anything on a daily basis, right? And so that's been the challenge, right? And that's why I'm really focused on, you know, building out, helping and contributing to the Lightning Network, because that will help make it a true, you know, medium of exchange too, right? People, you know, a mechanism where people can use as a payment realm, right?

• 30:17Speaker 02

  And that would be the most killer application for Bitcoin on mobile. And even for retail and merchants to use as a point-of-sale system, right? You can just use a mobile phone to be your point-of-sale system, right? And so I would say, yeah, it's that. It's, you know, how do we get, you know, Bitcoin to be a medium of exchange or day-to-day payment mechanism, you know? That's what I really want to, you know, help build and contribute next.

• 30:51Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. No, and I guess the big thing here for you really is, this is less about can you guys build the different functionality? It's probably more prioritization than anything, right? Because there's so many different things that you could do. We're still so early that if you can prioritize things correctly, that's really, you know, at least to me, would feel like where a lot of the opportunity lies as well.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Yes, and there are so many things. I mean, on a super high level, like the things we're challenging are money, right? That's what Bitcoin is challenging. And then number two is data, right? If you look at the top 10 companies today, like, you know, Amazon, Google, Facebook, JP Morgan, like.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  I would say seven out of the the ten are either money companies, banks, or data companies like Google and Facebook, right? And right now, we're really focused on the money part, right? You know, I mean, once you empower somebody to own their private keys, basically what you've done is you've given them the tools to be their own bank, you know, or universal access to basic finance, right? Once you have your private keys, you set up a hardware wallet, you know, you can send and receive uh uh uh money, right? You can um buy and trade and sell, right?

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Um, and then now, you know, with stable coins coming in, you could even lend and borrow now. And voila, you know, these are the the three main things a bank does, right? Uh, but what does a bank do? A bank stores your money. Uh, it allows you to make payments, number two. And number three, it lends and lets you borrow. Those are the three main things a bank does, right? And now with a phone, with a private key, with a hardware wallet, you can do all those three, right? And so that's what you want to do. We want to make, we want to build out, you know, those three main behaviors. And so what we've done with, I think, with an Exodus one S, at this price point, is to give someone

• 33:10Speaker 02

  uh universal access to basic finance and basic banking tools, right? And what's even cooler is we have an SDK. So we're not just empowering you to be a bank, but we're a bank with an SDK to empower you and the developer developer to make up even better bank, right? How do you build a better local exchange or better exchange rate from fiat to crypto or crypto to fiat on ramps, you know? Or how do you build a better remittance app, you know? Um, there's so many things in in the money space uh that you can build.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  But what we're doing is empowering you to be your own bank. But we took it one step further because you can use our hardware to sign transactions. We're a bank with an SDK. And I think that completely changes the game, right?

• 34:04Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it, man. I love it. Where can people find the phone?

• 34:08Speaker 02

  H T C Exodus dot com. Yeah. W W W dot H T C Exodus dot com. You know, we have an e-commerce site. We'll start opening, right now you can already buy the Exodus one. You know, we take, we even take Bitcoin and ETH as payment.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  And the Exodus one S will be start selling this Saturday.

• 34:36Anthony Pompliano?

  That's awesome. And as you do this, I always answer or finish up with rapid fire set of questions. What do you think is the most important company in crypto other than H T C?

• 34:49Speaker 02

  I think Binance might be one of them.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  I think, you know, Lightning Labs might be one of them.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  These are kind of people who are really pushing the agenda and trying new things. You know, a lot of times ignoring regulation. Or have a strategy for arbitraging regulation risk.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  But yeah, I think, you know, these companies are doing or experimenting with the right things.

• 35:20Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the one regulation you would change or improve if you could?

• 35:24Speaker 02

  K Y C A M L?

• 35:28Speaker 02

  Privacy?

• 35:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, why regulate that?

• 35:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, look, it's a legitimate question, right? As to why to do it?

• 35:40Speaker 02

  It is. And once you do it, then you become surveillance. And what's, you know, what are we giving up when we do that? And what's happened is, the result is, right now, two billion unbanked people. Because they're not worthy to be banked. Right? It's too expensive to bank them. It takes too many lawyers. It takes too many accountants. It takes too many bureaucrats. And it takes too many police officers to enforce. And so. You you leave two billion people unbanked and three billion underbanked. That is the reality and that's not going to change. The current banking system is simply not scalable, right?

• 36:24Speaker 02

  When Nick Zabel wrote that incredible post on social scalability, I think that's what he's referring to. Right? Where you're giving access. You know, sure Bitcoin and proof of work, you know, computation takes a lot of power. Right? And a lot of energy, but what have you replaced? You replaced lawyers, accountants, bureaucrats, bank tellers and the police force. That's a lot of stuff you're you're you're replacing for for for the proof of work that you're you're you're getting. You know, and the security and the distributed ledger and the empowering of anybody to be there, become their own bank.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's just, it's, to me, it's it's it's a it's a great trade off.

• 37:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I mean, look, it's a it's a no brainer at this point, right? I think I I joke all the time and say we've left the if part of this equation and just gotten into the when. So it it'll happen, it's just take some time. What what's the most important book you've ever read?

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Um, I think one of the more recent ones these past few years has been, you know, Anti Fragile, which is the scene Talib's book. Have you read that book?

• 37:40Anthony Pompliano?

  I have.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's just the the whole concept and he, you know, he talks about Bitcoin is very anti fragile. It was just a completely new way of thinking about markets and products and, you know, having skin in the game. And that that book, Skin in the Game, motivated motivated me to come back and build this too, because, you know, I was in a very comfortable venture capital job investing in Bitcoin. But until you go and build it yourself, you don't have skin in the game. Right? So I decided to put some skin in the game and come back to build this thing that uh, nobody's going to build in in the short term.

• 38:20Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. I love it, man. Aliens, real, not real, believer, non believer?

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Uh, I think there's something out there, probably.

• 38:29Anthony Pompliano?

  That's it?

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I'm a physicist by by training too. And so, you know, I I follow the Drake equation and, you know, the probability seems pretty that that, you know, it's it's, you know, there, there, there should be some intelligence. There's definitely intelligence outside of outside of us. I don't know if they're aliens, but some intelligence.

• 38:52Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I love it. Okay. And then what one question do you have for me to finish up?

• 38:58Speaker 02

  What do you think is the most, you know, important kind of breakthrough for Bitcoin or the most important company in this space? What do you think needs to happen?

• 39:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, what needs that?

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Sorry, three questions. What needs to happen? Technology and which company?

• 39:17Anthony Pompliano?

  The most important thing I actually don't think is technology. I think it's just time, right? It it it, uh, it takes time for people to be comfortable with new ideas. It takes time for people to be familiar with new ideas. It takes time for the technology to get built. It takes time for people to adopt it, right? All these things are just a function of time. And so, you know, patience is probably undervalued in this market. But but but taking time obviously is important here. Then when it comes to the companies, you know what? The one answer I have to this that that we always forget about is like, there's people who are building Bitcoin,

• 40:00Anthony Pompliano?

  right? Like, not building applications for Bitcoin, etc., but the actual developers who are working on Bitcoin itself.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 40:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And I, you know, look, there are there companies helping with that? Yes, of course. But I I just put all of the developers who are contributing code, etc., in a bucket and say like, they are usually forgotten. And they are much, much more important than most people would like to admit or understand. And so to me, they are the ones that are kind of the unsung heroes here. And, you know, while they're not a true corporation, I think they're probably the most important.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Can't disagree with that. Difficult, yeah, you you made an airtight argument to hard to disagree with.

• 40:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's the way I look at it is they did something I couldn't do, so they're all right in my book.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, agree.

• 40:53Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, man, listen, super pumped that he took the time to do this. Um, you know, obviously what you guys are building is uh, it's pretty commendable. Um, so anyone who uh, who wants to go out and check out the uh, the HTC Exodus can do that. Um, it's got a full digital wallet, got a full Bitcoin node in there. Um, and uh, and hopefully you guys will keep shipping awesome products and we'll have you back on again to uh, to talk about.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Great. Thanks, Pomp. I appreciate you giving me this uh, this this opportunity.

• 41:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Hey, everyone. Pomp here. If you liked this episode of Off the Chain and want to help us take crypto to the top of the Apple, Spotify and other podcast charts, please do us a favor and rate, review and subscribe. To review, simply go to the Off the Chain homepage, scroll down until you see the five blank stars. Taking 15 seconds to fill those stars in and leave a quick review goes a long way in helping us take the entire crypto ecosystem to the top of the charts. I appreciate you listening and see you next time on Off the Chain.