356: LIVE Camila Russo and Catherine Coley on Defi and Ethereum

Camila Russo is a financial journalist with experience across continents and asset classes. She is the author of a new book, The Infinite Machine, and the founder of The Defiant. Catherine Coley is the CEO of Binance US and previously the Head of Institutional Liquidity at Ripple. In this conversation, we discuss Ethereum, DeFi, ETH 2.0, Camila's new book, the cost of gas, NFT's, early stories around the launch of Ethereum, and digital art. =============================== 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. https://www.blockfi.com/pomp =============================== The BTSE exchange allows you to trade confidently. They are the leader in futures, which means they are pioneering Futures 2.0. With BTSE, you can trade next-level futures: freely choose and combine your margin and settlement assets and trade with up to 100x leverage. You can also sign up for a BTSE Elite membership that gives you unbeatable discounts and bonuses across the BTSE Exchange, OTC platform, and more. Go to BTSE.com/pomp to get a 10% discount on your BTSE Elite membership. =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://www.pompletter.com

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 the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Camilla Russo is a financial journalist with experience across continents and asset classes. She's the author of a new book, The Infinite Machine, and the founder of The Defiant. Catherine Coley is the CEO of Finance US and previously served as the head of institutional liquidity at Ripple. In this conversation, we discuss Ethereum, DeFi, ETH 2.0, Camilla's new book, The Cost of Gas, NFTs, early stories around the launch of Ethereum, and digital art. I really enjoyed this livestream with both Camilla and Catherine. I hope you enjoy it as well.

• 0:46Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, BlockFi.com/pomp and check it out. Our second sponsor is Bitsy, spelled B-T-S-E. That's right, they got one of those cool spellings. B-T-S-E, Bitsy. The Bitsy exchange allows you to trade confidently. They're the leader in futures. They've been pioneering futures 2.0. With Bitsy, you can trade next-level futures where you freely choose and combine your margin and settlement assets and trade with up to 100x leverage. That's right, all you derivatives traders out there, 100x leverage. You can sign up for a Bitsy Elite membership that gives you unbeatable discounts and bonuses across their Bitsy exchange. OTC platform and much more. Head on over to bitsy.com/pomp to get a 10% discount on your

• 2:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Bitsy Elite membership. Again, bitsy, B T S E dot com slash pomp, B T S E dot com slash pomp, 10% off the Bitsy Elite membership. Go check out their pioneering futures product. Lastly, don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business technology and finance. I break down complex topics into easy to understand language while sharing my personal opinion on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, pompletter.com. All right, let's get into this episode with Camilla and Catherine. I hope you guys enjoy it.

• 2:52Speaker 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.

• 3:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Right. I think that we are live. How are both of you?

• 3:23Speaker 02

  I'm good.

• 3:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  How are you?

• 3:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Where, uh, Camila, let's start with you. Where, where are you physically in the world right now?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  I'm in Brooklyn at my apartment.

• 3:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. And Catherine?

• 3:40Speaker 03

  I'm in a bunker and I'm doing awesome.

• 3:45Anthony Pompliano?

  In a bunker?

• 3:46Speaker 03

  Hey, I like to keep safe.

• 3:48Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, that's fair. Um, if, if you're watching the live stream, uh, we will take questions here in a little bit. We're going to have a, a bunch of questions and a conversation with Camila about her book about Ethereum and DeFi, a bunch of other things. But, uh, leave your questions in the live chat and we will do our best to get all of them answered. Um, Catherine, maybe you start. What questions do you have about all of this? You are the CEO of Finance US and are very close to all this. So what, uh, what questions you got?

• 4:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, the best part is Ethereum just celebrated its fifth birthday, and Finance just celebrated its third birthday, and Finance US is about to celebrate almost its first birthday. So it really shows that people have been in this space a lot longer than Finance US as a platform, though we're seeing a ton of new users come in, curious about things going. So I really want to learn about the early days of when Ethereum was beginning and what drove the origins of Vitalik and the Ethereum teams to build this out of the ground. So getting people that are new to this space familiar with the old origins of how things got started. Can you agree with that?

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So the Ethereum story is a fascinating story. Like, a lot of people have told me the book reads like a fiction novel, and that's because it's really a roller coaster ride full of really interesting characters. So the early days of Ethereum really started with, I think, just a love of Bitcoin. You know, in 2012, 2013, when Vitalik started thinking about all this stuff, it was mostly or only Bitcoin that was around then.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  So Vitalik went from, you know, he was 18 or so when his dad told him about Bitcoin for the first time. And at first, he was like, what, this is a digital currency not backed by anything? How can it ever have any value? But then he quickly started researching more and went like, oh, okay, I get it now, and became a really like full-on diehard Bitcoiner and founded Bitcoin Magazine with Mihaly Lisi, and then took a break from computer science and went all over the world, visiting the different Bitcoin projects.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  At the time, it was called Bitcoin 2.0, like all these projects trying to bring more functionality to Bitcoin. So he went to Amsterdam, Israel, different places, like following these projects. And so it was in Israel when he was working with Colored Coins and Mastercoin that he said, you know, instead of like trying to build specific...

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Like features on top of Bitcoin. Why don't we build a more generalized platform that can allow developers to build anything? Like whatever they dream of and we just give them these Lego pieces instead of like what looks like a Swiss Army knife. And so the guy said Mastercoin and Colorcoins were like, no, like this is too complicated. We are, we're already kind of focusing our resources elsewhere. We're not, you know, we're not really interested in doing this. So that's when Vitalik said, screw it, I'll do it myself and went off and, you know, wrote the Ethereum white paper. So that's kind of the very early beginnings of it.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I often explain Ethereum because I dumb things down because

• 7:36Speaker 03

  it's hard for me to understand a lot of these concepts. And so I oftentimes call Ethereum like the Play-Doh. Like you can, you can mold it into whatever you want and then that thing can become whatever you need. So I like the Lego blocks as well as something that's useful. And is that, is that really where Vitalik from day one? Do you think he saw the things that the projects were later on to be built? I mean, we, we talk about the concepts that came right out of it, getting kind of the early adoption. And those didn't necessarily seem like his true plans. Yet here we've got other things down the road. We'll, we'll, we'll talk about DeFi, we'll talk about stable coins, we'll talk about this other adoption cases.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  But did he have a list of every single possible thing you could build with this Play-Doh in mind or?

• 8:23Speaker 02

  He actually did. It's, I wrote about it recently. So in, in the white paper, he, he said, well, first of all, this is a platform for developers to build whatever they want. But here are some examples of the things I think would be useful to, to build on, on, on this distributed network. And he listed stuff like, he said, sub currencies. So, you know, like currencies issued on top of Ethereum. Then he said, financial derivatives, identity and reputation, decentralized autonomous organizations,

• 9:03Speaker 02

  insurance, prediction markets, unchained stock markets. He, it was what he called them. So he had like this list of, of applications and.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  And they're all actually live today. So it's pretty amazing, you know, in five years. What Vitalik had dreamed of in his white paper is already alive and working.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  It's true that like, um, you know, a lot of the like applications developers were thinking on in the very early days.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Probably, you know, never had to have blockchain, uh, you know, like weren't weren't this didn't necessarily need blockchain. You know, like in 2013, 20 like, uh, 20 in the 2017 ICO hype, we saw like developer frustrated to like put blockchain on, on, on top of everything. And that of course, um, doesn't work and it's not very useful. But you know, things like, um, financial applications, I think is where, where these distributed networks can really add value.

• 10:24Anthony Pompliano?

  So one of the things that I think most technologists experience, but they don't like to admit is that whatever they build, if it becomes successful, ends up being massively, massively more successful than they ever imagined. Is that kind of the feeling you get from the early Ethereum team, which was, uh, we saw a problem. We built something to address that problem. We thought that it could, could be valuable, uh, but even already how far Ethereum or the DeFi space has gotten has kind of surprised them.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, um, for sure. I think, you know, that there were, in, in the very early days, there, it wasn't a sure thing that Ethereum would, would succeed. You know, even, even after the pre-sale, even after the launch, um, I, I write in the book how in, uh, 2015, when the Bitcoin price had, you know, really slumped. They were, you know, really strapped for cash. They, they didn't have much funding to, to keep going, you know, to, to kind of pay developers to keep working on, on Ethereum. So there were definitely moments when people working on Ethereum, you know, they, they weren't sure whether the project would, would succeed.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  I think that DAO was another important moment in Ethereum's history where, you know, people in the project kind of doubted whether it, it could be able to go on. Both from like, uh, technically because this hacker was draining a, a project that held a, a big piece of, of ETH at the time. And also because, you know, kind of the, the core values of, of Ethereum were being questioned.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  So I think, you know, Ethereum was able to kind of overcome those huge hurdles, you know, almost going bankrupt, or I guess like Ethereum Foundation being so short on cash early on, the DAO hack.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  There was like another period when Ethereum was being constantly attacked, like for a full month called the Shanghai attacks in like 2016. So after like overcoming all of these hurdles, I think was that people realized, okay, like this thing is actually strong enough. Like if it can survive this, I feel more comfortable, you know, developing on, on this platform, putting money on this platform. So it was like after the Shanghai attacks, after the DAO, that the, that we saw like more people building on Ethereum and then like ICOs taking off. Yeah, but it was like in the early days, nobody was like a hundred percent sure that

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Ethereum would survive, so.

• 13:15Anthony Pompliano?

  And then tell us about the process for writing the book. Before we started the live streaming here, we were talking about your experience of like going into the bookstore and seeing the book on, on the shelves for the first time. Maybe just talk a little bit about the book itself and, and kind of the process you went through to, to actually learn all of this and eventually write a book about it.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  So I guess, you know.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  The whole thing started with the idea of writing a book on Ethereum. And this was in 2017, after covering the crypto boom with Bloomberg. I was a market reporter there, so I was like covering it from a market's perspective and had seen like huge price increases, billions flowing into ICOs. And I thought, you know, really the most interesting story in the space that hasn't been told is the Ethereum story. It's the second biggest cryptocurrency. It fueled a lot of this rally and nobody really knows exactly, you know, how how this thing started. So I thought, you know, it's a great opportunity for for me to tell this story. And so, yeah, I mean, I had never written a book before. It had always been my dream.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  And it was just like a jump in into this idea. I was able to, you know, get an agent, send this proposal to a bunch of publishers. And I was lucky that one editor at HarperCollins like really believed in in the idea. And I remember I was, you know, just looking through my emails for for another presentation. To like the moment that my agent told me that, you know, HarperCollins was interested in the book. It was like an all caps email being like, she loves it for for the editor. So so from then on, it was just, you know, trying to talk to absolutely everyone involved.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  So I started with like the like chronologically, the very core early team. And then went on from there, like kind of compiled what the biggest events were. And try to talk to all of the main people involved in each major Ethereum like milestone and event. So spent like the first like six months, just like full on researching, interviewing. I talked with like over 100 people, have many, many hours of interviews and transcripts. It was like a big mess kind of going going through all of that. And then I just, you know, I had my outline and I started, you know, tackling chapter by chapter.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Um, but it was a really a fascinating process, you know, talking with all the people who were there. You know, seeing this project unfold firsthand. And then I tried to really immerse myself in the Ethereum community. So I went with them wherever they went. So if there was a hackathon in Denver, I went there. Um, the hackathon in Waterloo, um, San Francisco, um, I went to DEF CON in Prague, that DEF CON in Osaka. Um, meetups. So I, I really tried to get a, um, a good sense of, of the community of like what, what they were like.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Um, what music they listen to, like what they talk about, uh, how they party, just like, you know, just like the, the color. Um, and get a sense of what they, they were building and, and getting excited about. And I guess like, that's how I, I learned about, about DeFi.

• 16:46Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And then my last question, and then Catherine Fireaway is, uh, the terminology decentralized finance. It's somehow like becomes like controversial thing that everyone like wants to fight over who owns that word. In your opinion, like what is decentralized finance or what is DeFi? And, and is that specific to? One blockchain? Is that kind of a bunch of blockchains? Like, how do you just think about decentralized finance? And then how it actually gets implemented, uh, in the coming years?

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Sure. So decentralized finance is the ecosystem of financial applications that, that's being built with blockchain technology. Um, basically, and without bats. So it's an entirely new financial system. That is stripping away intermediaries and opening access to anyone who wants to use these applications. It's really lowering barriers of entry and, um, creating an open financial system for the first time. Um, I think it's, it's incredibly exciting. It's a, you know, the cypherpunk dream, uh, come to life. And, you know, it's, it's, it's incredible that this thing is actually working, you know, like, um.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  It has real users, real value. Uh, it's not just some like dreams in. White paper. And I think, you know, I don't think DeFi is specific to one blockchain. I it's kind of a fact that most of it is happening right now on Ethereum.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  But I don't think that it has to be necessarily the case going forward. I think, you know, right now Ethereum has kind of like the the is the best position to to be the the blockchain to support DeFi applications. But it'll have to keep winning, you know,

• 18:38Speaker 02

  winning like the its developers and bringing users on it's it's not like I don't I don't think you you can become like too conformist and be like, okay, Ethereum one. It it needs to keep like winning people over in the future.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  That's awesome. You you mentioned something that is really quite near and dear to the Ethereum community, which is all of the ETH global events. And how amazing it is to hear about literally flocks of people congregating to Denver, Waterloo, Amsterdam, South Africa. You name it. Now that now that we're in kind of what feels to be quite a lockdown in terms of travel, how has this impacted the Ethereum community? And how do they how do they keep the community strong and ideas continuing to generate? I mean, I think it's amazing to see DeFi basically blossom, even though we've not been able to have these groups of kind of Ethereum Congress coming together around the world.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I think the the impact has been that, you know, these hackathons and and conferences were like the moment where team members saw each other because so many of these teams are are decentralized. And it was like, you know, this like family gathering kind of atmosphere of like, oh, we're we're together. But in terms of development, like some someone was joking the other day on Twitter that they're getting more done now that they're not flying around to different conferences.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  There's no beanbag room in the work from home.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Right. And yeah, I don't think it's limited development at all. I mean, you see it in the blossoming of DeFi. But there's still hackathons and conferences happening online. Obviously, it's not the same. But for example, if Global had its first DeFi-focused hackathon recently, Hack Money, and there were tons of projects that participated. So, you know, there's still hackathons going on and, you know, people participating in these events.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  So at least, you know, the spirit hasn't completely been lost because of Corona.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. Where do you find the most vibrant communities to be able to talk about Ethereum and chat? Is it Telegram, Discord? You know, where can new folks that are so passionate about Ethereum plug in to learn more?

• 21:21Speaker 02

  I think Twitter is the place where most people are and I find fine conversations there really interesting.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Many use Telegram, but I personally don't like it very much. Like, it's just too much. I can't keep track of everything. And lots of teams have their own Discord where they make announcements and you have kind of the very hardcore community members engaging there. So if you're very interested in like one specific project, I really recommend checking out like specific teams Discord channels too.

• 22:02Anthony Pompliano?

  So Kari, one of the things that, before I forget, everyone, keep hitting the like button. That's how, yeah, I see you guys on the comments. That's how people find this on YouTube. You hit the like button. In terms of writing the Defiant and really spending a lot of time, I think, like in the weeds, trying things, using these products, what has been maybe the biggest surprise? Or the thing that you've learned in actually being a user of a lot of these products? Right? You've done everything from create the Kami tokens to use a whole bunch of various applications here. Like, what's been the biggest surprise or lesson learned?

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Um, oh, that's a tough one. I, let's see. Well, I've been, I've been surprised by different things. I think a positive surprise very early on, when I was just, you know, starting to, to use this stuff, was how easy it was. Because, you know, reporting for, for the book, what I kept hearing was, oh, like, DApps UX is horrible. Like, this is why nobody's using this stuff. Like, nobody can figure out how to use a Dex. But then, like, in 2019, when, when I started looking into DeFi and experimenting with all these apps for the Defiant, I was so surprised to see how easy this, this stuff really was,

• 23:25Speaker 02

  and how advanced the UX was. Like, I think the first DeFi app I probably tried was Uniswap. And just like seeing this, like, very clean interface with like, you know, like the unicorn, and just like, two things to do, like, what token do you want to buy, what token do you want to sell? And that's it. And just be really quick.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  And the idea of like, you really just need your Ethereum address and like your MetaMask plugin to access all of these applications. Like, you, you don't need to give out any piece of data. You don't need to create a separate account. It's really truly permissionless. I think that's what kind of like made the light bulb go off in my head like, oh, this is what permissionless really means. It's but I can just go and use any of this stuff. From wherever I am, like all I need is like an internet connection and an Ethereum address. That was pretty mind blowing to me. And then recently,

• 24:31Speaker 02

  I guess like just the the growth, the recent growth, I I hadn't expected this at all like I, you know, like DeFi had been growing pretty, pretty fast in the past year. But what we've seen these, you know, past, you know, month or so has, I mean, I don't think anyone expected this. Like, I remember,

• 24:57Speaker 02

  you know, the day that COMP was about to launch, that Compound was about to launch the COMP token. I was like preparing to cover it for for the Defiant, but I didn't like expect it to be like such a huge deal. I was like, okay, like Compound Finance is distributing its governance token. Let's write a couple of lines on that. But then I was like, oh, like this thing is blowing up like, people are like depositing hundreds of millions of dollars in Compound like it's suddenly the most valuable DeFi token ahead of like Maker, DAOs Maker. And just like the the amount of activity and growth that

• 25:35Speaker 02

  like liquidity mining has unleashed was has been a huge surprise. Like I definitely didn't didn't expect token incentives to to have such a huge impact.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Why do you think people are flocking to this, you know, new new craze? Well, I won't call it a craze because it's an actual way of finding finance going forward. But why do you, why do you think people are finding this so attractive?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  I think, I think like the fact that Compound was

• 26:10Speaker 02

  the first to, well, it wasn't the first to, to use token incentives because other projects had, had done it before. But it was the first to like really in- increase, like offer significant returns with its token.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  And the fact that it was compound finance, like and really established a project in DeFi that people were already using and, and finding valuable. And that's, you know, so many, so many people, since so many people were already using it and, and finding valuable. They, they already, they already knew that like the, the, the token itself would be valuable, even if it was, you know, just a governance token. And so because there were so many people involved from like day one, the token like really skyrocketed and, and

• 27:10Speaker 02

  like more money flowed in. And so that really set the stage for all of the other tokens. So when Compound was so successful, because the project itself is valuable, it, it really, I think, like, opened the floodgates for the other tokens. And people were like, oh, like, it comp was the first governance tokens and it did well. So I'm going to get into the next one. Like I'm going to get a balance or token. I'm going to get MTA, Wi-Fi, like all of the next ones that came. And yeah, and I think, you know, besides just like FOMOing on like, oh, the next governance token. I think the, the, the concept that they're allowing this concept of like an ownership economy.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  And like people being able to own a piece of the protocol and not just use it. I think, you know, has really inspired people as well. Like I, I, of course, like a, a big part of it is just speculation, but I think another part of it is this, this new concept in, of, of of using, of you've seen finance and actually being able to participate.

• 28:22Anthony Pompliano?

  So one of the questions that came from the the audience and I forget who already so I apologize that I'm not gonna remember your name was Ethereum is a applications platform and obviously has seen a lot of success with people building on top of it. There's a new meme or narrative around ETH being money. How do you think about is ETH money, is it not money, is Ethereum, you know, they say quote unquote only an applications platform, like how do you see those two narratives playing out and are they contradictory to each other or are they actually kind of coexist?

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I mean,

• 29:05Speaker 02

  I don't think, I mean, I definitely not contradictory to each other, Ethereum being a platform for applications and ETH being money. I think the question of ETH is money can be answered by, you know, seeing what people are actually doing with ETH. So, you know, people are paying for Ethereum transactions with ETH. People are using ETH as collateral to back a stablecoin which is also being used to to buy stuff. So I think ETH does fulfill the the main

• 29:48Speaker 02

  requirements for money, except that it's very volatile. So that doesn't make it a very good money. But it it kind of complements that by being collateral for a stablecoin that that isn't volatile and and that can be a better a better means of exchange. So I think ETH is money. It's arguable whether it's the best kind of money. I think it is collateral for something that is a better money. And I think, you know, the fact that it's it's money and it's used to pay for

• 30:28Speaker 02

  transaction in in transactions in the Ethereum platform allows for Ethereum itself to to exist and for it to to be a good layer for for applications being built on top.

• 30:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Catherine, what other questions do you have before we start taking questions from the audience? Leave your question in live chat, we'll get to them all. But Catherine, what question do you have?

• 30:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, we've got one question that says, do you see ERC 20 reigning for much longer? Or do you think we'll see other standards adopted or innovated?

• 31:03Speaker 03

  That's an interesting one. You could break down a little bit of kind of how ERC 20 versus the other variants came out. That'd be interesting.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, so for now, ERC 20 is definitely kind of the reigning standard. I think, you know, there are other standards that are have other use cases, right? Like the NFT, ERC 21 standard that's used for kind of to represent assets instead of currency. So I think right now, those two are the main ones used on Ethereum. And there have been other variants that tried to improve on ERC 20, but they haven't really

• 31:50Speaker 02

  picked off or taken off. And I think there, you know, there's a reason why ERC 20 is the main one. And it's because it's been, you know, tried and tested for a long time. And it's what works with every Ethereum application. So I think it'll be really hard to replace that, like something a lot better would need to come along. And there have been like bad experiences with new standards, like recently

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Balancer, this Ethereum, that Balancer added other types of tokens to its platform. But they had this bug that opened it up to like to an attack. So, you know, it's that's always kind of the danger with new token standards that they haven't been been as tested as ERC 20s. But obviously, I mean, this space is full of innovation and evolves so quickly. I wouldn't be surprised to see a different token like challenging ERC 20s.

• 33:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Catherine, maybe just give us a quick update in terms of Binance US. Are you guys doing anything with DeFi, you know, in any form or fashion? Like, how do you guys think about intersecting or interacting with all of this innovation that's happening?

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, great question. We're definitely the easiest on-ramp from the fiat world into the digital world. And that's one of the trickier spots, as Cami was mentioning, of getting into DeFi. It's kind of going, okay, I know I can get into Unisop pretty quickly, either through Wallet Connect and Trust Wallet. But how did I get my original Ethereum? How do I get into this space from day one? So we still offer kind of the lowest fees in America to get into Ethereum. And we're going to continue, take a look next week. We're going to continue on what we can punch into the DeFi space going forward. Because I think the easier on-ramps we get, the more this becomes an accessible way for people to get involved. And we're still such a big believer in educating people, not intimidating them. And this place is plenty intimidating.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  So courtesy of Cami's book, she'll be able to kind of lower people's barriers to entry, helping them understand the full story of Ethereum. And hopefully, we can offer a full suite of DeFi opportunities for folks coming soon.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  We also, we also have gotten on the bandwagon with Ethereum offering staking, which was one of my first forays into really enjoying the variety of consensus mechanisms for digital assets. Recognizing that proof of stake allowed me to just park it and then continue to, you know, earn the rewards on it. So we offer four staking coins and are going to continue to add those out as we bring them onto our platform. Those are kind of our two forays down the path, but stay tuned.

• 34:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. Teasing an announcement is always good. Cami, one of the, one of the questions, or a lot of the questions are revolving around ETH 2.0. Obviously, we all see kind of that continue to get pushed out further and further. I guess let's just start with one. Do you think that there will be an upgrade to ETH 2.0 to transition from proof of work to proof of stake? And kind of how do you just look at this whole ETH 2.0 from where we are today?

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, the question is, I mean, if... If there will be ETH 2.0, and I think definitely yes, like there is very tangible progress on that being made right now. I think it was yesterday or the day before, the testnet for ETH 2.0 was launched with thousands of validators and five different clients. So it's a really kind of in a robust place to move forward. It's definitely been pushed out and who knows, you know, phase zero was supposed to launch early or like in January and you know, we're in July.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  So but I mean, whether it's coming or not, it's definitely coming.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  I think the most interesting thing to me will be how ETH1 can continue to support all the development that's happening on Ethereum until ETH2 launches. And I'm seeing really encouraging progress on this front with Layer 2 solutions. So the difference with what was happening with ICOs and Ethereum plugging up with CryptoKitties and all that stuff in 2017 is that scaling solutions were still in the research phase back then. Today, ahead of this potential new bull market, Layer 2 solutions are actually live and working,

• 36:57Speaker 02

  like secret rollups and different optimistic rollups and that kind of stuff that's already live. So there is an Ethereum DEX called Loopring already working, supporting thousands of transactions per second. And the idea is that more and more of Ethereum DEXs will go to Layer 2s and improve the horrible gas costs that we're seeing today. And so I'm really optimistic with Layer 2 solutions kind of bridging that gap between ETH1 and ETH2 launching.

• 37:39Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And then a second question is around the recent OCC decision. So basically, the regulatory body or the oversight body for federal banks came out with an approval or a really clarification that banks are able to hold crypto assets, just like they can hold other valuable assets. Do you see that changing anything in this DeFi space? Is that a threat to the DeFi space? And anything or any thoughts there?

• 38:08Speaker 02

  No, I think, I think it's a, it's a, it's great news for crypto in general. Because, you know, if, if banks can, can hold crypto, that means that more people will be able to be comfortable coming into this space and having people participate with crypto through centralized solutions, I think is the first step before getting them into decentralized solutions. I think maybe eventually, all of finance will be decentralized and running on distributed networks. But in the meantime, I think definitely centralized finance and

• 38:48Speaker 02

  DeFi will, will coexist. And so I think it's a great step forward that banks will, will now be able to custody crypto and, and get more people, you know, comfortable with, with getting involved in this space.

• 39:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Catherine, what else you got?

• 39:10Anthony Pompliano?

  You're on mute.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  Pulling up, pulling up my questions here. So another one was, this is an interesting question. When writing your book, how did you stay productive and on top of the next things happening in this space while things were moving so quickly?

• 39:25Speaker 02

  Um, well, I mean, my book definitely helped in, in staying on top of things because I was, I was like talking with like Ethereum community members all the time for, for my book and, and just like researching, reading about everything that was going on in Ethereum. So I think it was thanks to my book that I, I realized, oh my God, like DeFi is really, you know, it's, it's real, you know, this, this thing is the next big thing. And that's why I started the Defiant in, you know, more than a year ago. So yeah, I think I have my book to, to thank for that. It really kind of made me stay on top of things.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Did you try to cut it off and publish it at a certain amount of chapters and then be like, "Ooh, hold on."

• 40:15Speaker 03

  "Write another 10 chapters based on Bitcoin."

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was always the challenge. Like, where to stop writing it? I didn't want it to seem dated. So for me, it was always clear starting out that this was going to be the story of the early days and how Ethereum was created and then the 2017 woman bust. Because that thing, like, that part of history happened. Like, it's not going to change. So people will be able to read it 20 years from now and it will still hold true. So I knew that at least I wanted to cover that. But then, like, in the final chapters, it was a difficult decision to make.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Like, how much will I get into talking about DeFi? So, you know, I did kind of go over it in, you know, obviously not got so much in the weeds, but the final chapters were about, you know, after this, like, really long bear market and everyone thinking Ethereum was dead, developers were building all through it. And like, the most exciting Ethereum applications were born out of this. So, yeah, I did have to kind of like, cut it off at a certain point and be like, "Okay, I'm done. Like, this is where the story ends." Hopefully, there will be a sequel.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  What will you name the sequel?

• 41:50Speaker 02

  "How Money Hackers Built the New Finance," or something like that.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  All right. I was thinking it would be more like another DeFi word that would be in there, kind of like, I don't know, the Hunger Games series names or something like that.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Awesome.

• 42:11Anthony Pompliano?

  So one of the questions I have is you mentioned earlier whether ETH as money was kind of better money, right, or not? How do you kind of see that playing out? Really, the thought process or the framework I've used previously is like, I think most people would agree Bitcoin is decentralized digital currency and it's got sound money principles and then all that kind of stuff. But most of the infrastructure so far around Bitcoin has been centralized. If you then flip over to the Ethereum side, you've got ETH, which I think generally a lot of people say, hey, this might not be the best, you know, type of money. But all of the infrastructure is decentralized.

• 42:51Anthony Pompliano?

  And so do you see kind of a merger of a decentralized digital currency like Bitcoin with decentralized infrastructure for kind of a full stack of decentralization? And then if so, does the infrastructure come to Bitcoin? Does the Bitcoin come to, you know, ETH and wrapped Bitcoin or TBTC or something like that? Like, how do you think through that?

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Sure. So on the question of like, is ETH better money than Bitcoin? I find them like very similar in terms of of being money. Because for me, the thing that makes ETH not as good money than other alternatives is its volatility. And Bitcoin is the same way, like it's as volatile as Ethereum. So in that way, like, I don't see Bitcoin as having an advantage over Ethereum in like being money. In terms of like where the infrastructure is, right now, it's definitely mostly on Ethereum.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  And there's already this really interesting trend of people bringing their Bitcoin over to Ethereum to take advantage of all these different applications. So, you know, this trend has really been taking off this year and I see it continuing. You know, more and more people tokenizing their Bitcoin. To ERC twenty tokens to to use on Ethereum. Of course, like if it were to happen that Ethereum like layer two solutions don't work out. And one of these emerging new layer ones are the ones who like start to capture

• 44:39Speaker 02

  all of like DeFi development, then it could happen that Bitcoin goes goes there. But I see Bitcoin as really like digital gold in cryptocurrency. It it's obviously the the biggest digital asset. It's the first thing that people will buy when when they get into crypto. It's, you know, what many people will just choose as a hedge against the traditional financial system. So I don't I don't think people will stop holding Bitcoin. And and I think it's a it's a great investment to have in if you believe, you know,

• 45:21Speaker 02

  centralized currencies or central bank based currencies are are unstable or will continue devaluing or just don't don't want to be dependent on government issued currencies. I I think Bitcoin is great. But then that doesn't mean that you you can't have like a derivative of Bitcoin that you can use in these decentralized finance financial applications.

• 45:51Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, and then one more question for me is gas cost. You mentioned that earlier as something that is rising and not in the in the best situation at the moment. It seems like whether it's Bitcoin, Ethereum, you know, many of these networks are just not as scalable as they will be one day. And you get high costs as transactions fill up the blockchain. Talk a little bit just about, you know, one, your perspective on the gas cost today. But also then to, you know, kind of, is ETH two oh the scaling solution? Are there others, you know, and kind of where does the relief come from those gas costs in the future?

• 46:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so right now, gas costs are are rising. But it's still, it's still really cheap to just

• 46:45Speaker 02

  do like very basic transactions on Ethereum. So if you just want to send cryptocurrency on Ethereum, it's still going to be a few cents. If you want to do more complicated transactions, like, I don't know, like, you'll mining or I wanted to, I'm issuing NFTs for proof of pre-order of my book. And issuing those NFTs is costing me like three bucks or like between three and five bucks. And it was a one, like $1 when I first started doing it. So it's, it's, it's a lot. And I see that the relief happening, not with, I don't think we need to wait for each two for, for,

• 47:29Speaker 02

  for, for that to get better. Like I said, I think it will be layer two scaling solutions that will alleviate this and that they're working right now. So I think, you know, they, they are all like pretty recently launched, so right now there aren't many Ethereum applications on them. And there's a problem of like chicken and egg. Like you need to have many applications on them for, for, for them to be actually useful. Because it's, it's, it's like a UX problem of like people not on these layer twos can't really interact very well with people off them. So you need to have like a critical mass going to them.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  But I think, you know, as gas costs keep rising, people will find it useful to migrate. So I think this, I mean, this will be like very effective in alleviating this issue, hopefully.

• 48:34Speaker 03

  Awesome. I have a couple of questions that came to mind. One of them, what's one story of you interacting with either a community member, a developer, or a Talik that didn't make it in the book? That you can share with us today? The most vivid one?

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Let's see.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  So, one story that I cut from the book,

• 49:04Speaker 02

  because it was just like too many characters, was Peter McCormack. Believe it or not. So, I had interviewed Peter McCormack for the book because I wanted like a really interesting characters to walk me through their experiences in the 2017 boom. And so, I don't remember if you... I don't know if you remember how Peter made this like incredible thread detailing what his experience was with the ICO boom and how he invested a bunch of money and then lost it all. So, as soon as I saw that thread,

• 49:46Speaker 02

  I reached out and was like, "I want to interview you for my book. Like, this is an amazing story." So, it was like on the very first draft of the book it was going in, but then my editor was like, "You're like 100 pages over. You have like 30 different characters. You need to cut some." So, I already had like other stories about like people, like heroes for my ICO part of the book. So, Peter had to go. But he's, I mean, he's an amazing dude and I still love his story.

• 50:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Kat, do you got any more?

• 50:29Speaker 03

  I was waiting for someone to finish washing a dish. The... It just didn't sound too good, having the water running all of a sudden and you just sitting here.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  The other question I have is, what are some of the diehard developers in Ethereum that you think we should be paying attention to and following their story as they take Ethereum to the next level?

• 50:53Speaker 02

  Um, so Danny Ryan is like... Oh, so sorry about my dog.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, Danny Ryan has been kind of spearheading the development of ETH2. Preston Van Loon is spearheading like one of the main clients for ETH2. Ben Edgington as well. Yeah, these are all people kind of leading Ethereum forward, so I would watch what they're doing.

• 51:30Speaker 03

  Awesome. Are there any other things you hope people read your book and walk away with? Kind of the ultimate catchphrase for your book that can get people that have never heard of Ethereum interested in it?

• 51:46Speaker 02

  Um, I didn't... Yeah, that's a good point. Like, I should think of a good catchphrase, but I don't think I'm coming up with a good one right now. But I think, like, there are two main things that I want people to walk away with from my book. Like, one, I just really wanted to write a fun, interesting story to read. Like, honestly, I want people who have never heard of blockchain or crypto be able to pick up the book and just, you know, go through a fun story about a crazy group of people who made this idealistic project, had a bunch of challenges to overcome, and how they went about kind of overcoming them.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  And then, second... It's this idea of there, there's an alternative to the way the world works right now. So we are very used to ceding control over of our, you know, assets and our data and our information to big corporations and financial institutions. And I think, you know, what I want this book to do is present a different

• 53:01Speaker 02

  a different concept where you're actually able to keep control over your, your stuff, over your, your assets and, and your data and, and your information. And, and just be part of a more open way. Like, um, just, yeah, like be, be more in control and also be able to, to access

• 53:34Speaker 02

  applications more, more freely, just so people can walk away with the idea that there's, there's a different, better way of doing things and it's coming and developers are, are working on it like it's not like a, a dream like it's, it's actually there. And so hopefully, you know, people will at least feel the curiosity to, to take a look and, and see what's going on.

• 53:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, being self-sufficient is freedom. So

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  I could sign with you on that.

• 54:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Guys, before, uh, we've only got about eight or nine more minutes left. So if you're watching right now, please hit the like button. So more people can find this on YouTube and learn about all this content. Camila, you mentioned NFTs a few times, digital art, domain names, all these things that I think people are starting to experiment with. What's kind of your analysis on, is that all still experimentation and, and not yet ready for prime time? Is that going to be where maybe mainstream adoption actually comes from? How do you see that stuff?

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Well, I think it definitely is ready for prime time. I think, you know, maybe not that many people know about this stuff and that's why it's not like hit the mainstream. But I think just the idea of being able to own digital assets, it's really powerful and it's part of the theme that I was talking about earlier. You know, this new ownership economy where you are in control and NFTs are a huge part of it. I mean, right now, in the same way that you have your bank trusting your money, when you're interacting with a lot of the, you know, stuff you use online,

• 55:24Speaker 02

  you have companies, you're trusting companies with your digital assets. And like a great example is games and in-game items. So gaming is like, I'm not like into it, but I know it's a huge industry. There's like many billions of dollars transacted in in-game items right now. And what NFTs can do is allow people to actually own these items. So if like one day the game that you're playing on goes bankrupt or dies or leaves or whatever, or like decides to censor you

• 56:06Speaker 02

  and kick you out of the game, you're still, you can still own those items and they're yours to trade on a decentralized exchange or wherever. So I think that's a really interesting use case. And then like another use case that's also already happening is NFTs for art and for objects like.

• 56:35Speaker 02

  Like, I don't know, like clothing items, and, you know, like, tokenized items, like assets. And I think, you know, this is really interesting because it allows creators to to actually realize the full value of their creation. You know, they they they tokenize their, say, a work of art. They they put the token on on a decentralized exchange. And now they have access to earnings on like the primary market, which they they usually they do, but also of the secondary market. So when when people start trading that token and the value goes up,

• 57:20Speaker 02

  the artist can can actually gain from from that. Well, right now, you know, like, all these, like, like collector items, they start trading on the secondary market, but like, creators never see a piece of that. So that's like another really interesting use case for for NFTs. And then just like fun stuff, like my proof of preorder tokens and just like more experimental things like that.

• 57:47Speaker 03

  Live for NFTs, they're fun.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, Cryptopities, you know, like collectibles. Yeah, there's so many use cases popping up. Definitely like the crazier side of Ethereum.

• 58:04Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, before we we wrap up here, Catherine, if I see one more question about an update on the states for Binance US.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  You know, I had to create a I had to create a webpage just dedicated to all the people asking when Florida, when Connecticut, when Texas, when New York, when North Carolina, when Georgia, when Louisiana, when Alabama. I memorized them, guys, don't you worry. We've got a website, I'll shoot it out, follow on this link. Please sign up and we'll let you know when your state is live for Binance US.

• 58:36Anthony Pompliano?

  But safe to say that Binance US is trying to get into every state, correct?

• 58:39Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. And since day one, we're just going through the state regulations required, state by state. It's like trying to get into college in every single state, you know. They let you in, the last ones, you got to fill out different essays and, you know, get those grades up, so. We're working on our way through those states and my goodness, we're all gonna have a celebration when that happens.

• 59:02Anthony Pompliano?

  I love that. And for those that are interested in Binance US, where can they go to sign up for an account?

• 59:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, sign up. It's Binance.us. That's the easiest way. And we've also got an app in the App Store, both Google Play and iOS Apple Store. And you can follow us on Twitter at Binance US or at Crypto Coley. And we've also got a Telegram community, which is quite lively. I'm in it every Saturday morning and well, every morning. So you can always hear from us and ask us questions. And if you ask when in your state, we'll give you the website for the answer, too.

• 59:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I love that. And then Camila, you've got a whole bunch of stuff going on from the newsletter that you write every day to the book. Where can people go find both of those?

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, so my newsletter, The Defiant, is the defined.substack.com. The book is on Amazon and really any bookseller out there. So yeah, just go on Amazon, type the Infinite Machine and click Buy. And yeah, you can find me on Twitter at Cami Russo as well.

• 1:00:09Anthony Pompliano?

  The Buy button is really important for a book. I'm glad you put that part in there.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  It's a key, it's a key piece.

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  We need a summer reading book, book list, kind of like Oprah's book list and make everyone do a bit of summer reading. There's some good books coming out. So appreciate the work.

• 1:00:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome, guys. Listen, go use Binance US. Go and get Camila's new book, The Infinite Machine. And make sure that before you leave, you're not allowed to leave this livestream unless you click on the Like button, because that's how more people will find out about the book, find out about Binance US and find about Bitcoin and crypto. So smash the Like button and we will see you guys next time.