#255: Matt Luongo on Bridging the Gap between Bitcoin and the Real-World

Matt Luongo is the CEO of Thesis, a cryptocurrency venture production studio that includes Fold App, Keep, and tBTC. In this conversation, Anthony and Matt discuss bringing the worlds of Bitcoin and Ethereum together, how Matt is a monetary maximalist, what tBTC is and why it should be valuable to the DeFi community, and how crypto companies are prepared for working through the COVID-19 crisis. =============================== 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. ~If you enjoyed this episode and want to stay updated on everything Bitcoin, tech, and finance. Check out my newsletter by visiting pomp.substack.com and join 35,000+ other investors currently subscribed to my daily investor letter.

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

• 0:00Anthony 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.

• 0:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Matt Luongo is the CEO of Thesis, a cryptocurrency venture production studio that includes Fold App, Keep, and TBTC. In this conversation, we discuss bringing the worlds of Bitcoin and Ethereum together, how Matt is a monetary maximalist, what TBTC is, and why it should be valuable to the DeFi community, and how crypto companies are prepared for working through the COVID-19 crisis. I really enjoyed this conversation, and Matt didn't disappoint. Before we get into the episode, though, I want to quickly talk about the sponsors that made it possible. The first is BlockFi. BlockFi has three products today. The first one, you can deposit crypto

• 0:51Anthony Pompliano?

  and receive a US dollar alone. The second one, you can deposit crypto and receive up to 8.6% interest in an interest-bearing account. And the third is a cryptocurrency exchange where you can buy and sell crypto. They'll be coming out with a Bitcoin Rewards credit card later this year, that is a normal credit card where you can earn your reward points as Bitcoin, rather than loyalty points or mileage. I'm an investor, a user, and a big proponent of BlockFi. The wealth management services they're building, I think, are incredibly important for the crypto and Bitcoin ecosystem. You can go to blockfi.com/pomp, again, blockfi.com/pomp, and you can learn more there, sign up for an account, and even receive some free money. So, blockfi.com/pomp.

• 1:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, remember, the podcast is also a newsletter. You can go to pomp.substack.com and receive an email from me every single morning with my analysis of markets, and join 40,000 other investors who receive the same email. So, pomp.substack.com. And lastly, we've been cranking out tons of video content, so head on over to our YouTube channel. Just search Anthony Pompliano, and you'll find the YouTube channel and hit subscribe. We've doubled the number of subscribers in the month of March, and we're going to continue to cracking out that content throughout the year. So, let's get into the episode with Matt now.

• 2:13Speaker 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.

• 2:39Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Matt here. We've got a lot to get through. I appreciate you doing this from quarantine.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, great to see.

• 2:54Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. All right, let's jump right in. Why don't you go through your background and how you eventually got into Bitcoin, Ether, and crypto, and then we'll jump into some of the stuff you're working on.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, you got it. So I joined the space in 2013. I built this little app.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  You know what? I'm gonna take you through it. I was working on a startup and I was trying to make rent. And I was like looking around, what can I sell in my house? And one of the things I had was this stack of Starbucks cards. And I kinda, I realized like, well, not only could I sell these, like, I don't really drink Starbucks, but I bet I could buy all my friends' unused cards. And of course, not only did I do that, then I built an app around it and I partnered with a local coffee shop to buy all these unused Starbucks cards and start making rent. And so I turned that into an early Bitcoin project way back when called CardForCoin.com. And we would just buy our Starbucks cards for 60 cents on the dollar. And this is the funny thing, I wasn't really in crypto,

• 3:57Speaker 02

  but I was trying to build this site and PayPal was like, oh, gift cards? No, we're not gonna, we're not gonna play with that. And so that's what got me into Bitcoin. I actually had to solve my own problem. And so, you know, I got down the rabbit hole. CardForCoin.com became another, another product, actually, I think you've had on Fold with Will Reeves. So eventually that grew and spun out into its own thing.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  But since then, you know, I'm a technologist, but I believe in money crypto. So after after working on Fold, I started trying to solve problems like what if I could decentralize these gift card marketplaces? What if I could, you know, getting kind of fancy? And I went through all the stuff on Bitcoin, like Omni back in the day and kind of all the second layer toys. Looked at stuff like Open Bazaar. And eventually I actually started playing early 2017 with Ethereum. So I think like at heart, I'm still a Bitcoiner. I got into the space for the censorship resistant money and and open finance. Eventually, like I've always been a libertarian, but eventually I became kind of a money crypto person as well.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  But I still like to build cool things and a lot of that means playing with other chains.

• 5:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Very cool. And so you describe yourself as kind of a monetary maximalist, which I think is a really interesting way to describe a point of view. Maybe explain what exactly does that mean?

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So I think today when people say Bitcoin maximalist, they can mean all sorts of things, depending on who's saying it, right? Like it's a badge of honor for some and it's kind of like a troll for others. It's kind of mixed. But there's this like partisanship around it that maybe sometimes goes beyond just the asset. Like sometimes it's about the tech and it's about being surrounded by all these crappy scams, right? I think I think it's a little overboard. So for me, Bitcoin, the asset, that's our shot at taking on central banks and taking on the status quo. Bitcoin, the technology is legacy and it's great. It's great legacy. It's kept running, you know, all all these years.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  And that's what you need out of a strong, hard money layer is stability. But the the the newest scalability and privacy improvements aren't happening on Bitcoin anymore. So that's kind of why I say I'm a monetary maximalist. I'm OK with playing with Ethereum and Zcash and places where I think the tech is interesting. But ultimately, my goal is still going to be coming back to Bitcoin, the asset.

• 6:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so there's a very hotly debated and to the point of controversial viewpoint. And I basically break it down into two components, right? You have sound money in Bitcoin, but all of the infrastructure surrounding that historically has been centralized. And then you've got on the other side in the kind of Ether DeFi world, you have decentralized infrastructure, but then you have this asset that's kind of masquerading as money, but probably doesn't have the same sound money principles that Bitcoin has, right? And so it feels like there's a mismatch between centralized and decentralized infrastructure, sound money and not sound money. You are taking the approach of how to marry Bitcoin and DeFi together.

• 7:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Describe your kind of viewpoint and how you plan to do that. And then we could talk about the reverse of, you know, why not bring DeFi to Bitcoin?

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. So I mean, I think you've nailed it, right? The, I think it's for so long in Bitcoin, we've only had centralized alternatives. And a lot of the stuff, Open Bazaar is an example, that tried to go to the next level and take decentralization to the next level. It was, it was so difficult to use. And we look at things like Bisk, for example, just very little, very little real world usage today. But then, you know, I'll, I'll say even a little bit more about Ethereum. They, there's a huge cultural divide. So it's not just that Ether isn't the same sound money as Bitcoin. It's that a lot of people working Ethereum don't care.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  There's sort of like a left, right, like optimist versus conservative thing going on. And, you know, as someone who was in Bitcoin as an engineer, I wanted to do all the things people were doing with Ethereum, but just with Bitcoin. There was no reason for me to add another asset. So when I'm talking to folks who came to the space Ethereum first, I tell them like, all this ETH is money stuff, like, cut that. That's not useful. Find your own narrative for Ether. Bitcoin is money. Maybe Ether will be like gas or fuel or something else, but the tech is interesting. So what we've done is a project called TBTC. And the idea is that we're building this bridge that I hope is going to be a bridge

• 8:53Speaker 02

  between the communities as well as the technology and the assets. So we'll bring Bitcoin on to Ethereum. It's one-to-one backed. It's always redeemable. So you never have some token on Ethereum that you can't immediately get back to Bitcoin on L14. And then we maintain sound money and inflation ship resistance. We maintain censorship resistance. So there's no Bitcoin bank in the middle that's kind of like printing tokens on the Ethereum side.

• 9:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so maybe walk us through exactly how TBTC works, right? Because I think a lot of people know, oh, TBTC is the idea of how do we bring Bitcoin to DeFi? But like, how does that actually work?

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's taking the idea of sidechains that we've been playing with since 2013, 2014, and kind of iterating a little bit, right? So in Bitcoin, I think the closest we've had with any commercial success to a sidechain was something like Liquid. And the basic idea is you take Bitcoin and you trust a 15-member multisig. So you put your Bitcoin in that multisig, and then the members of that multisig run another chain based on the Bitcoin that you've put in. So that's called a federated PEC. And it's like a step. It's better than just putting your Bitcoin in exchange, right? But at the end of the day, you're trusting the majority of the signers to like be good guys.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  And really, if they just walk with your Bitcoin, there's no recourse, except for legal, right? Which is like, when I hear that from a Bitcoiner, oh, just sue them. I'm like, oh, guys, why are we building in this space if that's the answer, right? So our model is a little bit different. We take this federation and we make that the first step. But instead of having a federation for the whole economy, every single deposit gets a new micro-federation. So every time you say, you know, I want to move one Bitcoin onto Ethereum, we put together a new randomly chosen federation of signers. And then the other piece is that we use SPV proofs, which have been around since Satoshi. So it's the basic idea is that you can prove when you move Bitcoin,

• 10:57Speaker 02

  you can prove that on the Ethereum chain. And so because you do that, you can actually say, look, I moved Bitcoin into the system and you can successfully print TBTC. The last part is redeemability. So this is the part where if you're using a system like Liquid, you have to hope, like, please, guys, send me back my Bitcoin. But in our system, if the federation doesn't send you back your Bitcoin, you slash them so they can put down Ether, they can put down USDT or other collateral types. And if they don't do what you ask as depositor, we just take away their money. So it kind of removes the reputation component. Yeah.

• 11:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so do you see this first being valuable for developers or for users? And what I mean by that is there's a lot of technical challenges with integrating Bitcoin into DeFi. You guys are building a lot of those bridges. You're trying to kind of break down those barriers or obstacles. Is this a let's solve the developers' problem and then consumers follow? Or is it the opposite? Consumers want this and developers will build around it?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I'm trying to tackle both, right? So like build it and they will come is nonsense. Like if you just build things for developers and developers don't show up, users won't use it, like what is their use? So our go-to-market is, you know, we focused heavily on integrations early. Most of the major DeFi platforms will support us out the gate. So you can get leverage, you can start lending out your Bitcoin, borrowing against it, earning. It will be a safe way to make yield as an alternative to things like BlockFi. On the one hand, right, and that'll be immediately available. But on the other hand, we're also empowering devs who care about things like privacy products to build on Bitcoin on Ethereum. So that's really like my heart of hearts, what I really want to see is fungibility solved.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  If Ethereum's like reason to exist is as a fungibility layer for Bitcoin and a place to experiment for Bitcoin, then we've won.

• 13:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And what are the initial use cases that you see people kind of going after? Are there specific products or these use cases or more of a you're going to give it to the, you know, give it to the world and let them figure out what to do with it?

• 13:19Speaker 02

  No, I mean, you know what I'm most excited about? This is just totally my life. So like I have a couple of kids. We moved back, we were in California for maybe four years and we moved back and decided to buy a house in Georgia. And my wife said, you know, it's time, it's time to sell your Bitcoin. And I just laughed like I am not selling crypto to buy a house. Like I would rather take, take a mortgage and keep it. And so, but I did look into it, right? And this was kind of before, we have loan desks now, but this was before we had loan desks. So I heard, oh, there's a lender down the street who loves Bitcoin and that I was introduced to. So I went to talk to him and they said, yeah, we do love Bitcoin. It's so great that you came in, sell your Bitcoin, come back in 30 days and we'll pretend we never talked about this.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I'm not trying to avoid taxes here, guys. I just, I mean, well, I am, but like, I'm not trying to like launder money. You don't need to like, you know, it's not hidden that I have Bitcoin. I just, I want to be able to take a loan against my Bitcoin as collateral. So one of the things that I think about crypto is it's sort of millennial money, right? So now the answer is, well, there are all these lenders that will, will accept Bitcoin as collateral. Okay, if you were a high enough net worth individual, that's true. But like, I shouldn't have to ask anyone. And so what I would like to see TBTC for is taking stablecoin loans out immediately against my Bitcoin and accessing the equity while still holding my BTC and not disposing of it. So that's my goal.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  It should be good to go four to six weeks after TBTC's launch. And then in the meantime, there are tons of places to earn yield. For example, Compound is integrated with TBTC on testnet right now. Check it out.

• 15:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so one of the things that I think you believe, but correct me if I'm wrong, is that moving Bitcoin into the DeFi world is a massive inflection point of growth for DeFi, right? This idea that like TBTC can help to inflate the size and kind of engagement in DeFi. One, is that true? And then two, if it is, maybe describe a little bit about how you think that through.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I look at, you know, the market cap numbers are changing every day, but 100, what, $140 billion, give or take in Bitcoin right now, and, you know, 12 or 14 in Ethereum. And so for me, that's like Bitcoin is super collateral and DeFi runs on collateral. It's not about uncollateralized loans. It's about taking different positions against different assets. And if you're building a decentralized lending platform and you haven't brought in the best collateral possible, clearly you're missing out. But I also think that it's going to be big for Bitcoin. And I think that's a little understated. So obviously like DeFi needs more collateral and that's big for DeFi.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  But I think Bitcoin wants utility. I think we have the technology for it. And this can prevent miners from needing to sell because they'll be able to take loans out against their Bitcoin after it's minted. Actually, they can even keep, they can even keep their new Bitcoin. So they don't need to lose that premium that you get on freshly minted coins. And it'll kind of let us like actually like not just stick it under our mattress, but make Bitcoin more a part of our lives on top of the store value it has now.

• 16:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so you have taken the approach of how do we bring Bitcoin and that sound money to the DeFi world? The other option would have been how do we bring the decentralized infrastructure to Bitcoin? Maybe talk a little bit about the trade offs between those two decisions and you chose to go the path you chose.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so honestly, going the other way is just, it's tough. So, so the, either way, I have to get into some serious low-level Bitcoin development. Like, we're the guys who are, are in there and, and messing around with script and odd transaction types and kind of all, all the stuff that you hear, people who have been playing with Bitcoin for a long time will talk about. But going the other way is difficult for two reasons. So, one is that this DeFi ecosystem already exists. So if you look at something like, like a root stock or a project that's tried to go the other direction, they've got all the additional work of needing to build the ecosystem. And I think that's a huge lift. And related to that is just standardization. So suddenly you need to come up with, like, how are these things going to interoperate?

• 17:52Speaker 02

  How are we not going to splinter liquidity all over the place? How can we keep this all together? So I think there, I think there are two directions. One is the tech is very hard going the other direction. A lot of the tools that Ethereum developers are used to are maybe three steps in abstraction above what we can do in Bitcoin today. And then on the other side, just like, that's where the users are. And ultimately, I think that, I think that there are going to be more users from both systems combined than I think there are going to be from either individually. So that's kind of my take is like, yes, we'll be bringing some Bitcoiners into this new tech, but we'll also be bringing more people into Bitcoin that weren't there before.

• 18:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it, that, that makes sense. And do you think that in the future, even though it's hard to bring the decentralized infrastructure to Bitcoin, we'll kind of have both decisions end up being brought to reality? Meaning we'll bring Bitcoin to DeFi, but we'll also bring DeFi to Bitcoin? And it's just two different types of, of projects, two different types of teams? And over a long time horizon, we get there? Or do you think it's really, really hard?

• 18:57Speaker 02

  So, so with like my full, if, what if I'm trying to like troll an Ethereum? I'd say like Bitcoin was the first DeFi. We don't need to bring DeFi to Bitcoin. You know, you guys are the ones that want the collateral and Bitcoin's doing just fine by itself. So, now, but, but I think the question is like, do the two technical approaches kind of net out? And I think that at the end of the day... Bitcoin's reason to exist is to move slowly and safely. And Ethereum doesn't have that culture for better or worse. And the upside of that is we can build things very quickly. And the downside is the stability is not there to nearly the same degree as Bitcoin.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  So I do think that I think that Bitcoin will win for the monetary premium. But I actually think that the move a little bit faster than Bitcoin dev cycle will probably win more users in the interim. I could be wrong. We've, we've obviously seen, I'm a huge Lightning fan. We've obviously seen uptake in Lightning. People are starting to use Liquid lightly. But I think you have to ask yourself, do I want to, do I want to trust 15 people or 2000 when I'm using a system like this? And, and what's my risk?

• 20:14Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Vitalik recently tweeted, basically saying that we needed something like this. Maybe talk a little bit about what he said and then kind of, you know, your reaction to seeing that.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, he said, he said a couple of things. There's a lot to unpack. So, you know, he said that he wanted to see a Bitcoin Ethereum bridge. But he also said that he wanted to see a Bitcoin Ethereum DEX. And the funny thing about that is I want to build what the market wants. And I think what the market wants is stronger collateral. And I think the market wants Bitcoin. I don't think what the market wants is going from BTC to ETH faster or more smoothly. And so that might just be my bias against ETH as an asset. But I just see like, you know, Maker needs more collateral. It doesn't need faster BTC ETH swaps.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  I like to think we're solving half of his problem.

• 21:16Anthony Pompliano?

  That that makes sense. Um, are there other projects that you see working on similar things that you're like, you know what, that's cool? And and something where either you guys work with them in the future or could be other solutions?

• 21:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. I mean, I think if you want to take the other side of the bet, which is that Bitcoin on Ethereum is cool, but you don't need decentralization at all. Then WBTC, where Bitcoin kind of or Bico acts as the Bitcoin bank, you know, it's interesting. Um, I haven't seen the extreme interest that I would hope. I think I've also seen some stuff around like hash rate derivatives and more decentralized miner products, which I'm really excited about. Because, you know, eventually you can imagine a world where there is a crackdown even further than there has been on mining. Uh, and I'd like to see like, how can you, how can you still run a large mining farm and get the whole thing financed?

• 22:13Speaker 02

  If your government is against you, right? Um, and so I think we're going to see some really interesting products there cropping up as well.

• 22:24Anthony Pompliano?

  And speaking of kind of just working in general, uh, you're in Georgia, uh, the coronavirus is running rampant around the world. It is really interesting to me how crypto has been built in a decentralized kind of remote way for years now. And it seems like most teams are having no disruptions for the most part. Are you guys seeing any disruptions or is it kind of business as usual for you?

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Um, look, times are different. This is a big thing and it impacts everyone, whether or not you're a remote team. So like I have a family. They're, you know, my kids' grandparents, I'm not comfortable with them watching my kids. I don't want my grandparents, uh, my parents to get sick. Um, I think, you know, so we are a remote first team and we're not a team like Coinbase, where it's just a whole bunch of people in one spot in San Francisco. We're globally distributed. It doesn't impact us nearly as much as other teams. But I think like the human aspect is still there. So, um, a lot of us in crypto, we have so many friends globally that we knew, like I knew people in Wuhan. When the outbreak first happened, I was deciding whether or not to go to Satoshi Roundtable,

• 23:36Speaker 02

  because some friends got stuck in Wuhan and we had to be like, is it even safe? And that was, what, February 6th? So I think, um, I guess to answer your question, the company's in a good spot, but we're all having to deal with, uh, you know, worry for our families and, and whatnot. And I also think that, um, at least for me, I had a brief heart attack with that early Bitcoin drop. I think, uh, I, I think this is an opportunity for us to really show the world what we're made of. And it doesn't just have to be the ticker, right? It also needs to be like, let's actually deliver, deliver products that help people, uh, through this time. I think that, um, when we kind of wake up from this disaster and, uh, and from the hangover,

• 24:18Speaker 02

  from all the free money and all of the attempts at fixing the economy. We need to, crypto needs to be there and be ready to onboard the next, you know, billion users. And so, um, so that's kind of my take is like, this is unfortunate. This is impacting everyone, but it's also the best time for us to build and get something out.

• 24:41Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. That makes a ton of sense. Let's talk about that drop. Uh, I was sitting there like everyone else watching and it just kept falling and falling and falling. It's one of those situations where you're like, I, I think I'm gonna go to zero with this thing, but like, damn, this is happening really fast and this scares the shit out of me. Uh, what were you thinking about that's going on and what's going through your head?

• 25:06Speaker 02

  I mean, I was gobbling up cheap coins, if I'm being honest. I um, I have this thing in my life where on the one hand, I want to have dry powder so I can buy the dip. But on the other hand, I hate having any non crypto at any time. So like, it's a tough, it's a tough trade. Yeah, I mean, I think when we, when we went below four, that's when I briefly was like, oh, like, maybe I made a mistake. But you know, I, you know, I remember when, gosh, like, things were really bleak through 2014 and 2015. And uh, and we got through that just fine. It just, it always takes longer. It never, it never happens when you want it to. And the market doesn't care about your holdings or your position right now.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  But eventually, eventually, I think it's clear that this is, this is a good bet. And so, uh, so I guess I'm like a permable a little bit. I try to not give people, like, people are like, should I buy? And my answer is always yes. You should never ask me for trading advice. But um, but yeah, so that was, that was my take. And the other thing is like, honestly, I try to take a little pleasure when people get washed out.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Because with that deleveraging and with that BitMax cascade, some people who were in the space for the wrong reasons got wrecked. And uh, okay, like, I'm sorry, guys, you lost money, but also more for the rest of us.

• 26:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I think one of the really interesting things was Nick Carter and the CoinMetrix team, uh, they did this analysis. And they basically showed that most of the coins that were being sold, uh, were, had been moved in the last six months. But pretty much nobody who was a long-term holder was selling. And so when you start to look at that, it's, uh, the strong hands aren't going to get shaken out. I don't care what happens to the price.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right. Yeah. I mean, the only way I sell is if I think I'm going to get more Bitcoin out of it, you know? So um, yeah, that, that's kind of my take.

• 27:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Very cool. What do you think is the most important company in crypto outside of what you guys are working on?

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Good question. Well, obviously you've excluded us. I get that. So I'm a huge fan and a co-founder. So I'm going to say I think fold is quite important. But I think it's really important to let people get into crypto in a way that's not scary, a way to earn into crypto rather than having to bet their life savings on it. And so anything where people are shopping and they're immediately seeing discounts, airline miles don't matter anymore. And Bitcoin does. So I love seeing like SATS-backed programs. So after fold, I think Lolly is really interesting.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  I think BlockFi, anything that lets us start earning and stacking rather than spending. And I also think like, one of the things that I love about the space is this kind of counter consumerism. Like if we all believe that long-term number will go up, we should not spend money right now and we should delay gratification. And I actually think that's a great antidote for sort of the state of American consumerism, you know? So anyway, so I'm a huge fan of savings apps. And that's on the kind of like onboarding side.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  I think I'll stick with that. There's a lot of cool infrastructure being built, but like, at the end of the day, I think what convinces people to join the space is the most important.

• 28:34Anthony Pompliano?

  What's your most controversial thought in the space? What do you believe that everyone else will disagree with you on?

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Well, I've got a couple. So as you can imagine, like, my old Bitcoin friends hate me and my new Ethereum friends hate me. And so I've sort of read the fence of no one wants to have me at a party because I'm going to piss everyone off. But getting more specific, so like on the Bitcoin side.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  I don't think this matters, but I ultimately have a problem with the cap. I think that we need to be really honest that now it might be five havings from now, in which case I don't care, you know, but um, but that eventually we need to consider a better way to pay for security. It doesn't have to be the cap moving, and I think the strength of the meme is more important than what will actually happen when we eventually have to deal with it. But that got me a pretty big slapping around in the Bitcoin community last year. I think um, I think on the Ethereum side, just the fact that I say Ethereum, the technology, but not ether, the asset, is infuriating to a lot of people. But they have this funny thing.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  So like the Bitcoin community, right, is, is like, they have this like social immune system where if they don't like what you're doing and you don't really prove yourself like you're a scammer, there's just sort of like a, like a hierarchy of things you go down and it's, and it works, it works very well to, to remove bad actors from the community early. But on the Ethereum side, they're incredibly tolerant. And so there's this paradox of tolerance where if you have like a heterodox opinion in Ethereum, they still invite you to all their things and try to take you very seriously and be nice. And so I think when I say, you know, I believe in the tech, but not the asset, it really, it really bugs them.

• 30:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Those are two highly controversial opinions, so you didn't disappoint with that answer.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Different audiences.

• 30:35Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the most important?

• 30:39Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the most important book you've ever read?

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Oh, God, you're asking a good one. Um, okay, so, so I wanted to be a writer for a long time.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  And it was either a writer or a computer scientist. So I went on this deep dive through like.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Through the Beat poets and existentialism and I got into some Russian stuff, big fan of Russian literature. But I still think there's a book by Jack Kerouac that I think a lot of people would really frown on even that I would mention him. But, uh, but it was called The Subterraneans. And I think he got like super high. I think it was like on mescaline and just like wrote this thing out and like it's beautiful. And so I think, I know the right answer would be this like cool non money in the state or whatever, but like actually it's just a beautiful book. He, he, uh, I don't want to know I'm a great writer, but it definitely gets to you. So, uh, so yeah, Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac, probably top of mind.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  And then if we're getting to like other stuff, you know, I mean, I don't know. Just like, let's name all the cool sovereign individual things. That's probably good for my personal brand or whatever.

• 31:56Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I love it. Um, so before I finish up and let you ask me one question. Uh, I normally ask people about aliens, but you've got a dinosaur sitting over your shoulder back there. You gotta tell me the, uh, the story of the dinosaur and then, uh, believer in dinosaurs? Or are you one of these people who believes they are not real?

• 32:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, all right. Got you back.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Sorry, totally me.

• 32:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, okay. All right. No, we're all good. Um, let me ask the dinosaur question again and we'll go from there. Got five minutes probably left.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 32:59Anthony Pompliano?

  So you've got a dinosaur back over your shoulder. Normally I ask people about aliens. You gotta tell me the story of the dinosaur and then believer or non believer that dinosaurs are real.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  So my son definitely believes in dinosaurs. He was a pterodactyl picture day a few days ago at school, or not a few weeks ago at this point with this quarantine. But yeah, you know what? I believe in dinosaurs. I do not think that God just left fossils for us to find. I do believe in dinosaurs, and I will say I also believe in aliens. I think the world is too interesting for aliens to not exist. I hope that the various paradoxes about how far away they are and the speed of light will be resolved somehow, and my descendants will be able to meet them.

• 33:47Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I'm a believer in dinosaurs as well. I'm with you. I don't think that it's possible that they could be fake, but I got a couple of friends who said, "Well, I've never seen one, so I don't believe in them," which always gives me a good laugh. But I don't think that's really good science. What one question do you have for me to wrap this up?

• 34:11Speaker 02

  What do I need to do to convince you to move 10% of your Bitcoin onto Ethereum?

• 34:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, I think I've said this on a podcast before. I have no control over anything. I was super worried a long time ago, and so basically it took a lot of kind of security steps to not have any control. So first, I would have to have some conversations. But second is, on top of that, I think it's a market decides thing. Like, you probably know this more than most, but the whole idea of like, compounding trust almost, right? It's like, as the market determines a winner, I think that then you get the flywheel spinning. And so what I always say is, developers are actually probably going to be the first to use something like this, but as users. And

• 35:05Anthony Pompliano?

  what I mean by that is, they understand the technical components. They can actually underwrite the safety, the security, the risks, etc., much better than someone who's non-technical. And so as you see some of them move over and start using it, I think then that's when that flywheel really starts. And then you start to see people say, "Hey, you know what? I'm into to do this, try it, and kind of continue using it."

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Totally. Well, for the rest of you, if you want to be an early adopter, it's tbtc.network. Come check it out. We'll be announcing mainnet in a couple of weeks. And the other thing is that if in the meantime, if you don't want to move all your Bitcoin to Ethereum, but you want to make some money, help us build that bridge. Get involved. It's permissionless after all.

• 35:51Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure.

• 35:53Anthony Pompliano?

  TBTC.network is the website. Where else can people find you guys online?

• 35:59Speaker 02

  So, I mean, we have all sorts of, we've got maybe 30 brands, but just hit me up on Twitter. It's mhluwongo. TBTC.network will tell you a bit about that project. We've got another one, keep.network. We're all over the place. So if you just Google Bitcoin on Ethereum, I imagine we'll be top three. Check us out.

• 36:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, so got to get you to top one, right? Can't have other people beating you in the ICO game.

• 36:29Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. All right, Matt, listen, I really appreciate you jumping on and doing this. I think people are really going to enjoy it.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  I hope so. Talk to you soon.

• 36:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Hey, everyone. Pop 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.