#640: Building On The Lightning Network with Graham Krizek

Graham Krizek is the Founder and CEO of Voltage, which provides simple bitcoin infrastructure to everyone. In this conversation, we discuss the Lightning Network, how it works, why it is so valuable, current progress, the importance of infrastructure, and how products are leveraging Lightning. ======================= Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that I'm really excited about. If you are listening to this, you are likely part of the 7.1 million bitcoin owners who have retirement accounts with dollars in them, but not bitcoin. I was in that situation too. Now you can actually buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account. I'm talking about owning your private keys and using tax-advantaged dollars to do it too. Absolute game changer. https://www.retirewithchoice.com/pomp ======================= Inflation is rising at its fastest levels since 2008…And the Fed is still printing money like their life depends on it. The stock market is trading at record highs. And bond yields are stuck near zero percent... That’s got me worried. But a great way to play out this nightmare scenario is with fine art. Now you can hedge against inflation the same way billionaires have for decades... By investing in multimillion-dollar paintings from artists like Picasso and Banksy and Basquiat, quwhich I still can’t pronounce. Contemporary art specifically, has outperformed S&P returns by 174% from 1995–2020. That’s huge. Considering the epic bull run we’ve all just experienced. Masterworks dot io is the first platform to democratize art investing so anyone can get involved. I’ve had their CEO Scott Lynn on the show a few times, and they’ve been a long time supporter. In honor of bitcoin hitting $46k, they’re giving me 46 passes to skip their waitlist. Just go to masterworks dot io slash pomp. That’s masterworks.io/pomp. Do yourself a favor and head over there right now. See important disclosures at masterworks dot io slash disclaimer

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. Now let's kick this thing off. Graham Krasik is the founder and CEO of Voltage, which provides simple Bitcoin infrastructure to everyone. In this conversation, we discuss the Lightning Network, how it works, why it is so valuable, current progress, the importance of infrastructure, and how products are leveraging Lightning. I really enjoyed this conversation with Graham, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is BlockFi. BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. I'm an investor and a very happy user. Those products include a high-yield

• 0:43Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:26Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, retirewithchoice.com/pomp. Last but not least, our friends at Masterworks. Inflation is rising at its fastest level since 2008, and the Fed's still printing money like their life depends on it. The stock market is trading at record highs, and bond yields are stuck near 0%. That has me worried. But a great way to play out this nightmare scenario is with fine art action. Now, you can hedge against inflation the same way billionaires have for decades by investing in multimillion-dollar paintings from artists like Picasso and Banksy and Basque, which I still can't pronounce. Contemporary art specifically has outperformed S&P returns by 174% from 1995 to 2020. That's huge.

• 2:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Considering the Epic Ball run we've all just experienced, masterworks.io is the first platform to democratize art investing so anyone can get involved. I've had their CEO, Scott Lynn, on the show a few times, and they've been a longtime supporter. In honor of Bitcoin getting close to $50,000, they're giving me 46 passes to skip their waitlist. Why 46? I don't know, but they gave me 46 passes to skip their waitlist. Just go to masterworks.io/pomp. That's masterworks.io/pomp. Do yourself a favor, head over there right now. Masterworks.io/pomp. All right, let's get into this episode with Graham. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:57Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. Got Graham here with me. Thank you so much for doing this.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Hey, Pomp. Thanks for having me on. Great to be here.

• 4:04Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Let's jump right into the Lightning Network. I think this is something people have heard about. They probably don't know too much about it, so maybe let's just start with what exactly is the Lightning Network?

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. The Lightning Network, generally speaking, is a Layer 2 technology on top of Bitcoin. So what it really aims to solve is making Bitcoin much easier to use and like more of a instant payment system. So through the Lightning Network, you can create what is called payment channels, which is you and another party locking funds into a multi-sig address. And in that address, you can virtually send infinite amounts of transactions between each other in this one on-chain transaction. And so through these payment channels, we create a global network of nodes that are all connected into each other.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  And through this network, we can send to virtually anyone in the world for virtually zero fees or very, very low fees and instantly. So when you think about how Bitcoin works on the base layer, the Layer 1, we have the confirmation times and we have the fees that are necessary for the miners, right? And that's all great for the Layer 1 and the consensus mechanisms that are at play there. But when you think about bringing this to everyone in the world and really trying to send it from, you know, me to you just for a random cup of coffee or something, we really got to really think bigger than that. And how are we going to solve that? And that's what the Lightning Network does, is it enables us to create one on-chain transaction

• 5:38Speaker 02

  that could process virtually infinite payments on top of it that are instant and very cheap.

• 5:45Anthony Pompliano?

  So one key piece of this that I think people don't understand is Layer 1 is optimizing for security, right? Resilience, decentralization. What we're talking about here is this Layer 2, and that's where we're really going after scalability. And that's kind of what you're talking about with Lightning Network?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's exactly right. And the base layer is super optimized to make it, you know, the most hard, sound money that there is, and it's the most secure network in the world. And the way that we bring that to everyone else in the world is by doing this layered scaling, right? And being able to do more on top of it. When you think about these other projects that are trying to do these Layer 2 and 3 things on the base layer and having all of this optimized for TPS and all this kind of crazy stuff, it's a little bit backwards. And the better option here is to do the layer scaling.

• 6:35Anthony Pompliano?

  And then this idea that you and I could both be using the Lightning Network, we could basically create a payment channel. So my node, your node, we connect up, and we could basically send as much value as many times back and forth as we want. And then eventually, what can happen is we can actually write to the Layer 1 with a single transaction, and that could represent all of those different transactions and all of that different economic value that we sent back and forth. But it only takes up one single transaction in the base chain, right?

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's exactly right. And you think about, you know, in the Lightning Network, you can also, there's the concept of like routing, so sending it to someone else. Like, you know, if you have a channel with your friend, I can send to your friend through you. And so when you think about that, you can do just large, large amounts of transactions for one single on-chain transaction. And then you apply that to the energy debate and all of this stuff. Well, it's really, one on-chain transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain could represent millions of, you know, additional transactions on top of it.

• 7:39Anthony Pompliano?

  One of the reasons this becomes so interesting, I think, right now, is this conversation around Bitcoin and energy consumption. I've talked a lot about the legacy financial system has a linear relationship, right? So if I want to serve more transactions or more users, I actually need to consume more energy. Bitcoin, because of this Layer 2 and Lightning Network scalability, isn't necessarily the same thing. Regardless of if the transactions in the block are full or not, it's still going to consume the same amount of energy in terms of those trying to mine those blocks. And so the Lightning Network actually allows us to pack much more transactions and much more economic value into each block, which ultimately makes it scalable. And so as we kind of see this coming to fruition, I think there's a lot of questions people had around, is this real? Can it work?

• 8:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Now it seems like everything is taking off. The number of users, the number of public nodes, the actual capacity in these nodes. Talk about how you evaluate the Lightning Network, and like what metrics you care about, and how you think through, like, okay, this data is showing that this is working and it's gaining adoption.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, you're definitely right that all of these metrics are definitely trending upwards as far as number of nodes on the capacity, all of these things, which is great. But the, for me and you know, for voltage, it's really the thing that we're tracking the most is like the usability, the use cases of it. And how are people applying this technology? And that has like taken off even more so than all these nodes and everything, which is like, I think that's the, the number of nodes and the capacity is the trailing indicator to the use of it. Right? So I think that that's what we keep track of the most is how is this being applied? And how are these people, you know, bringing it into their existing apps or new apps? And you can see that with Strike, with Sphinx Chat, the new Podcasting 2.0, all these things are leveraging the Lightning Network.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  And that is really the thing that we track the most and that is like at an all time high. And it's just, it's really the amount of new companies and new applications that are being written on top of the Lightning Network is just, it's, it's insane. And it's really encouraging to see and it's super exciting.

• 9:44Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about the nodes, I think one of the big misunderstandings is people see the public nodes and they think that's the totality of the network. But there's obviously nodes that have elected not to be publicly discoverable. How can people understand what the difference between the public and the non-public is? And then do we have any sense for what percentage of the network is non-public or non-discoverable?

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I don't think anyone has done a ton of research into that. I know that you're exactly right that there's, there's kind of a both a public and a private Lightning Network. You can have nodes, you can have funds that are not, you know, visible to everyone through just the regular explorers. And so when you think about, you know, think about an exchange or someone that wants to have like, you know, these large payment channels between OTC desks or these other exchanges or something like that, they're probably not going to have that public, right? Like they want to kind of keep that to themselves. And so when you, when you really think about that and like how people could apply the private network to it as well. I mean, you're, this really could be as, as big as, you know, anyone could, could imagine it to be.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  And as far as like, you know, the metrics, there's, I haven't seen anyone trying to do the, the analysis of private versus public. But I could bet that just as the public nodes are kind of skyrocketing right now, the, the privates are doing a similar trend.

• 11:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that would make sense. Is there any idea that we have as to what the largest amount from an economic value standpoint, somebody can do in a transaction? Are we talking one Bitcoin, 100 Bitcoin? Like, how large can these transactions be?

• 11:19Speaker 02

  I mean, they really can be as big as you want. The protocol itself has a limit on it right now, which is just really a safety mechanism. There's no hard reason for like to have the limits on it. It's really just for safety right now. And as the as the network matures, that those will be listed or increased. So really, it's just a matter of how big you when you do those on-chain transactions to open your channels, it's really about how much capacity did you put into that at the start? And then, you know, you can act for like that full amount, you know, at any time.

• 11:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then, so when you start to think through the ultimate vision of Lightning, what does that look like? Like, where are we headed? Or what's the thing that has everyone excited as to if Lightning is successful, here's what the Lightning Network can actually achieve?

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's the way I really see is it's it's really building that new internet, right? And I think that's maybe a little, it's probably used pretty often in the crypto space, and it's maybe a little overused. But like, but seriously, like, when you think about the being able to use money, just like the way that we use TCP IP today, and being able to send satoshis, like, in along with this image, or a message, or whatever it is, it really is a really crazy and novel idea to be able to send money the way that we send the internet packets, right? And when people are applying that to things like the chat applications, being able to listen to podcasts and stream money to the creator, it really it creates a relationship between the

• 12:48Speaker 02

  content creator and the consumer, like this one-to-one, and you could do a completely peer-to-peer, and be able to really do all these new things that are on top of the Lightning Networks that haven't really been able to be done before, or at least if something was similar, you had to trust some intermediary, you had to like, use Venmo or something to like, be a middleman in between these these things. And so it's really unlocking a whole new way

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Of sending, sending the value between people and is doing it in a way that is also could be super finite, right? You can send fractions of a cent to someone, you know, over and over and over again for like, imagine sending someone a Venmo for one cent for, for an hour like who like that's crazy, but being able to do that while you're listening to a podcast or messaging and whatever it is, it's really unlocking a whole new way that we use the internet.

• 13:41Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about Lightning being built and continuing to kind of gain adoption, infrastructure is obviously really important. You run a business called Voltage that is specifically focused on Bitcoin infrastructure made easy. What is Voltage and how does the product work?

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So yeah, we're a Bitcoin infrastructure provider. So we've created a platform that makes it super easy to spin up Bitcoin nodes and Lightning nodes along with some other open source technology that makes those even easier to use. So through our platform, you can come sign up and create a node in about two minutes and be up and running on the Lightning network. Really, I created this, the platform out of the frustration of trying to set up a node myself and really get on to the network and spending hundreds of dollars only to have everything fail and the maintenance. So we really created a platform that is super easy to use and gets you up and running like in two minutes and we handle all of the non sexy stuff on the backend of networking, backups, all of this stuff. So you can come create a node and hook up your wallet

• 14:42Speaker 02

  or just hit the APIs directly and just get started using the Lightning network in virtually no time at all.

• 14:48Anthony Pompliano?

  So if I'm a user, I come to Voltage and I say, I'd like to spin up a Lightning node, what's happening on the backend? What is, what is the work that you're having to do for me to get me set up and off to the races?

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we have a, I mean, we have a pretty complex like backend system that handles a lot of things, but really when you're creating a node, a Lightning node, it has to connect into a Bitcoin full node because it has to validate those transactions onto the main chain. And then we're, you also have to do the bootstrapping of like the network, which is like graph syncing to figure out, okay, where are the other nodes at on the network? And then you also have to set up all of your settings to enable which API Guys, you want what kind of backups you want, all of these really intricate details. So we really handle all of that provisioning of your node, the Bitcoin node, connecting into the other network, finding the other nodes on the network. And so the whole bootstrapping process is what we create or what we manage for you.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  And then taking that step further into, once you start using the product, doing things like version upgrades and trying to do failovers to new nodes, all of those things, you know, we have solutions for.

• 15:55Anthony Pompliano?

  And so obviously, I think this is super fascinating and a really valuable business idea, so much so that I invested in the business. But what metrics can you share with us of kind of progress to date? Or any signs that you have of, okay, Voltage works and people want to use this?

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, we have a pretty extensive list of customers that are fairly popular in the Lightning Network space. You could think about like Adam Curry and his podcast Index and Dave Jones. They are using us to manage their Lightning node. And when the whole podcasting 2.0 movement that's going on right now, they receive like a portion of virtually all podcasts that are getting played. And so that's a huge amount of volume going to their node. And that was something that they really didn't know much about. And they couldn't manage a whole lot of, they didn't have the time to manage all this stuff. So that's where Voltage really came in to take over that for them. And they can start working with all of these companies to enable this podcasting 2.0.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  And then we think about people like Stinks Chat and the Zion that just got released today. These are a pretty new way of doing the Lightning Network in that they provision nodes on behalf of users. And then, you know, when you sign up, you are, you know, assigned a node. And those are in the thousands of nodes, you know, for their customers. So we really, we've really seen some good success, both in like the size of nodes and like the size of volume that is coming through the platform. And then also just strictly in the number of nodes, it's been pretty vast as well. So there's a lot of different use cases, a lot of different markets that are coming into play here. But all of them are really, I think, seeing value out of the platform and are really onboarding in a big way.

• 17:37Anthony Pompliano?

  It feels like a lot of lightning and kind of the use cases are around these microtransactions. So let's say with podcasts, I can strain payments when I'm listening to a podcast, et cetera. As you are helping to set up the infrastructure for these various use cases, is it something where today, maybe we've just got the tip of the iceberg and there's only, you know, 10% of all the possible applications have been thought of and kind of put into practice? Or is it something where, no, we're just going to take the old kind of web 2.0 world and we're going to overlay it into this new world? And so it's not so much about new ideas as much as it is just the execution of going and building out these various applications?

• 18:17Speaker 02

  No, I mean, that's a great question. I think that it's definitely, it's almost like a spectrum. Like we're today, like we're definitely seeing the kind of reworking the web two ideas and reworking the incentive, incentive models and things that go with it. So that's where it kind of is today because that's, it's fairly easy and it's a way for us to really figure out what the network is capable of. But then I think as we go forward, we're definitely going to see like completely new and novel ideas and like this being applied to things that, you know, just straight up don't exist today. And I think that's the same for us as a platform. We're like, what we have today is like a small fraction of what we have like on our roadmap and what we're building. So I think that both us as a company, we have just some really huge ideas

• 19:01Speaker 02

  that we're going to go after and try and build. And then I think that that's the same for the Lightning Network in general and these people they're building on top of it.

• 19:09Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about moving forward, the resilience of the Lightning Network, is there a concern that majority of the nodes or a high percentage of the nodes could be managed by or supported by Voltage versus being completely decentralized? Or there's so many nodes at this point that it would be nearly impossible for Volt to actually have majority of the nodes kind of on their platform?

• 19:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think that's a, that's a, we get that question quite a bit and it's, I think the biggest important distinction here is that the Lightning Network isn't a consensus consensus layer. So it's not like the Bitcoin base layer where 51% control can, you know, do some nasty things. It's like, it's completely different than that in the Lightning Network, like the Lightning Network could be me and you and like, that's it. So there's not really, as far as like one person running a large portion of the nodes, this doesn't matter quite as much. But then at the same time, as the Lightning Network grows, you know, say we have millions of nodes, billions of nodes, whatever it ends up being. It'll be such a vast market that there, that that won't matter as much.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  And then as a final point, the, what Bitcoin and the Lightning Network enables, which is like the greatest part is the optionality. Like if you aren't technically savvy and able to run a node yourself, people like us are like, you know, perfect, right? And if you are able to run your own node and do this at home and manage all this stuff, like do it, like I, I, I want you to do that, right? Like I completely encourage that. And so I think that that's what is so unique to Bitcoin and the Lightning Network is the optionality to choose completely self sovereign, doing it in your basement or using something like us. There's tons of things in the middle, right?

• 20:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Talk to me about pricing and what it costs for someone to run a node via the voltage platform and then how you all make money.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, so right now we just have a straight up hosting fee. So it's very similar to like an AWS or something where you kind of just pay for what you use on the platform. We have really a very entry level pricing, like $10 a month for like our kind of smallest, like entry level node. And then they go up from there until like, we have some really professional offerings that are for like those podcast index that are doing huge amounts of transactions. So we really have a wide range of different products and offerings that you could come on and use. And it's very, very entry level, like we definitely want to help people like just get on the network and start playing around with it. So pricing is very straightforward. It's very much just like a usage based hosting fee and we have a kind of price points for everyone.

• 21:35Anthony Pompliano?

  And then let's talk a little bit about the future of the Lightning Network. Right as we move forward, you are one of the people who spends the most time I know, you know, working with the technology, paying attention to it. Are there certain milestones, metrics, or kind of inflection points in the future that you're really looking for as a sign that not only is this working, but we're starting to hit kind of mass scale or mainstream adoption?

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think that so I think that when you had your conversation with like Kevin Ruck, I think that he kind of touches on it a little bit in that like, I think that the the metrics that people are really watching right now are like the number of nodes, the capacity, which is a little bit of a bad, like it's a good metric, but it's a bad metric because of the whole private aspect of the network. So I think it goes back to again, like the usage of it and like, okay, how many like, how many people are using the Lightning Network? And whether it's like, there is custodial services like Wallet of Satoshi is just a custodial Lightning Wallet. They have one node on the network, but I don't even know how many thousands of users they have that use their platform. So that again, goes back to the how good and bad the node metric is. So I think that what we're really attracting is just like, just the use case and the usability of it.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  And what I like, like to look at the most is these new and novel ideas or applying it to new, new areas that just haven't been done before. And we're working with some like, some of those like OTC desk and some of these more financial, traditional finance people and to figuring out how can we leverage the Lightning Network to, you know, do faster transactions, do, you know, arbitrage between exchanges, all these things that are really, really interesting use cases. And so that's really what I track the most is just like, it's not necessarily the number of nodes. It's not necessarily, you know, the capacity. It's like, okay, how are people using this today? And like, is it adding value for real? And like, how scalable is that value and where can we apply it elsewhere?

• 23:23Anthony Pompliano?

  How do you think about the importance of the infrastructure working versus the importance of people knowing it's there? So an example would be, take something like Strike. I have no clue how many people know that Lightning is part of the underpinnings of Strike versus they just think that they're using this Strike application and it works. How do you think about the difference between those two things? And is, is it important that people know they're using the Lightning Network versus just the applications that they're using work?

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I don't think it's I the way I kind of like to think about it is I don't think it's necessarily important to know. But what I like to see from companies like Strike, I think they do a good job of it is like making it known that that is what is powering, you know, this this app or this system behind it. And I think that what those enable is it for people to kind of go down that rabbit hole, right? Of like, okay, I'm just using this app that I'm buying, sending whatever Bitcoin on. And then being able to take that and really look and say like, oh, this is using the Lightning Network behind it. Well, I want to know more about the Lightning Network. Let me research that. Oh, I can like run my own notes. Like, let me start going down that rabbit hole. So I don't think it's necessarily

• 24:31Speaker 02

  critical for these these applications to make it super known. But I think at least like putting that that kind of message in the user's ear really enables them to like figure out, oh, this is what it's using. Let me dig further and learn more.

• 24:46Anthony Pompliano?

  One question that I get a lot, and I actually don't have a great example is or answer is as a Lightning Network becomes more popular and gains more adoption, let's fast forward 10, 15, 20 years. Is this a world where there's kind of a winner take all second layer for scalability for payments on Bitcoin? So Lightning wins or it doesn't? Or is it actually the fact that there could be multiple layer two type scalable networks? You know, Lightning plus Lightning version three, version four, version five. And that's actually kind of the end state that we're all moving towards.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I mean, I think that's a good question. There are like to, I guess for the listeners, there are some other like layer two solutions like Blockstream has a liquid side chain. There's like state change. So there's like these, there's a few other different ways of solving this kind of scalability problem. I think that I think that Lightning is the best one. And I think that there there will likely exist other layer twos, like, you know, Liquid and all of these other ones. I think their use cases will be fairly like kind of limited into like a very, very niche market or very niche user base. So I'm of the mind that I think Lightning Network will be kind of that layer two that takes over. And then we kind of start building on top of that where there's like a company.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Called Impervious, it just came out here recently where they're kind of like, they're, they're trying to be like a layer three of like building, being a building blocks on top of the Lightning Network to really start building these new applications. So I think we're going to keep scaling into layers, you know, from here. And there, there exists the possibility that there could be multiple different layer twos. But I think that for, for this to really take hold and really reach billions of people, we're going to have to kind of find one that works the best and really like do the best we can to optimize that one.

• 26:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Impervious, tell me a little bit more about what they're doing from your understanding of like, what is a layer three? I think people have heard of layer two, they understand Lightning Network, how does a layer three fit into this?

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the layer three is kind of like those Sphinx chat examples where it's like, it's an application that is built around, you know, kind of native decentralized through the Lightning Network and other peer-to-peer technologies. So that's when we think about layer threes is it's like a, you know, a chat application or something that is using this decentralized peer-to-peer networks to operate. And so that's really kind of going into the web three vein of, you know, decentralized, no middlemen, all of this stuff. And so Impervious is one of the companies that's kind of creating a developer toolkit, building blocks and able for, that helps people create those applications much easier.

• 27:20Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think today about the Lightning Network, are there any critical challenges or obstacles that you're like, hey, we've really got to navigate this part in order to see this become successful? What are the downsides or the best critiques, if you will, of the Lightning Network?

• 27:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think that there like some of the critiques out there are just like the UX of it, like the usability of even once you have a node running, the channel management is a little bit foreign. And then we have a bunch of kind of different specs for how to, how to use it, like how to do payments and all this stuff. So the UX is, could use some improving and it is being actively improved. So I will say that there's a lot of work being done to improve that, but I think that that's one of the valid criticisms right now is that it's a little bit difficult to use. And I will say like, even when I started, when I first heard about the Lightning Network, I started looking. Into it. I thought it was a bad idea. I dismissed it entirely because it didn't have like a bunch of features that I wanted.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  But that was me being completely short sighted because all those features got added in like in several months later. So it's kind of, I think everyone has to really realize and like take with a grain of salt like where we're at now that this isn't the final state. We have a lot more building to do and a lot more things to add. And as we grow and fix all of these little UX bugs and how to do all like, you know, X, Y, and Z. We, it is possible to get to a state of kind of ubiquity where everything is really nice, really works well together. And then it's very easily interoperable with our, the current web stack.

• 28:51Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about the challenges for voltage itself, what are like the biggest obstacles that you've had to either overcome or that you foresee in the future?

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, for obviously for us to like kind of succeed as a business, we need to continue to drive like the adoption of the Lightning Network and we're still like, you know, we've, we've seen really good growth, but like that's, we're still at a small fraction of like what it could be. And so that's what we need to, we're working on doing is really still evangelizing and really trying to educate our users on what the Lightning Network is and how they could use it in their business today. So that's really something that we are focused on and we're really trying to do is not only, you know, make it really easy to create nodes and run nodes on, on the Lightning Network, but also help people understand why, like why you should, why you can, like what, what benefit that does for your business.

• 29:40Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I tend to think that you're on to something and the Lightning Network seems to be on to something as well. What, what is kind of the final pitch before we go into the rapid fire questions to, to, to wrap up here? What's your pitch to people as to why they should use the Lightning Network or why they should use voltage?

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think that everyone should like really start looking seriously into like leveraging the Lightning Network and leveraging Bitcoin more generally because it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's the future, right? I think that really is going to take over like the internet. And the, the sooner you can get kind of plugged in, the better. But also through like the people that we've worked with through our customers, we see that Bitcoin, being, integrating Bitcoin into whatever you're doing is a very, very sticky. Selling point, I guess, like, once people start using Bitcoin and like in these new ways or start interacting with it, they come back. Like, it is very much a retention tool. And it is something that also, as well as like being able to retain your users, it is,

• 30:40Speaker 02

  it helps with that decentralized, like, peer-to-peer play, where they could then, like, you know, take their keys off of, like, you know, your service and start managing their keys on their own and do all these new things. So, really, the two things that I really like to, as it uses a selling point to businesses, is that very sticky product, and then it's also the way that you can really enable your users to take control of, you know, their, their lives, their data, their, their internet access, like, all of these things that I think are important as we go forward in the future.

• 31:13Anthony Pompliano?

  I tend to agree, my friend. Three questions I ask everyone, then you get to ask me one at the end, is what is the most important book that you've ever read?

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Whew, I'm like, I'm surprisingly not a book guy, but I'm trying to think of the best, the best book I ever read. I should have prepared for that, because I know that you asked that. I've heard that in your other podcasts.

• 31:41Anthony Pompliano?

  And it's not, not even the best, but just like one that sticks out as that was really important?

• 31:48Speaker 02

  This is probably gonna be really, like, really nerdy, but there is an intro to programming book I was reading when I was, when I was riding the bus to a day job that was like, it was, I was like, I actually worked at Pizza Hut for a while. And it was really like, learning how to program, like, reading just this, you know, physical book, which like, that is, learning to program with physical books is kind of crazy nowadays. But just reading, how does this stuff work while, like, I'm going to, like, some crappy day job? And that was like, that's not, I don't think that's a good answer to, like, the book question, but it was something that, like, really enabled me to take control of my future and, like, be able to do what I want to do.

• 32:27Anthony Pompliano?

  What, what made you buy the book? That's a fascinating story.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  I mean, like, I just, I wanted to learn programming. I wanted to learn, like, okay, how do I start doing this stuff? Like, I'm super interested in tech, like, how do I, like, take the next step? And it was like, well, I mean, I have all this kind of wasted time on, like, bus rides and stuff, so, like, I need to, I need to do something.

• 32:46Anthony Pompliano?

  That's an awesome story. Uh, second question is about your sleep schedule. Uh, I sleep on a eight sleep, the thermo-regulated bed and turn it super cold. Used to sleep five or six hours. Now I sleep like eight or nine and it's been life-changing for me. What's your sleep schedule and how has that changed over time?

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Um, I had a baby two weeks ago, so my sleep schedule is like, this is the worst time for it to ask me about my sleep schedule. Um, so sleep schedule is very sporadic. Um, I don't get enough as I should. Um, but I absolutely, I bought like a kind of a splurged on a good mattress and like have like an adjustable base and stuff. So like my bed is like, it's, it's my safe spot. Like I just absolutely love it, but so good bed, not good sleep.

• 33:29Anthony Pompliano?

  It's okay. If you got the good bed, once the baby gets a little bit older, then you'll be, uh, you'll be in business, right?

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:34Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Last question, a little bit more fun. You get to ask me one. Aliens, are you a believer or a non-believer?

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, I, I think so. Like I think that, I just think that the universe is so vast that it's like, I, I, I think that we are so small that like, how could there, how could like we be the only ones? Like even like, from like a religious perspective, it's like, there could totally be like, you know, other, other worlds out there. And so, what that, what that looks like, I don't know, but I think that thinking, uh, as big as the universe is, it is certainly possible.

• 34:10Anthony Pompliano?

  I, uh, I tend to agree. You get to ask me one question to finish up. What question you got for me?

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Do you have a Bitcoin pizza moment? Like something that you bought with Bitcoin that was like, uh, like today you're like, oh crap, I shouldn't have bought that.

• 34:25Anthony Pompliano?

  So I have two stories. Neither one are, are that exact thing, but, uh, somewhat similar. So first is most people, uh, now are finding out, but didn't know, I didn't realize this. Uh, I actually started out in the crypto industry, uh, setting up mining equipment, but I was mining ether, not Bitcoin. So there's not very many people that come in through ether and then kind of, you know, transition over and become more Bitcoin focused. Uh, but that's how I did it. Somebody had just pitched me on, uh, hey, set up mining, uh, infrastructure and then. They said you use GPUs and so obviously you have to uh to mine ether. And so uh the mistake I made was I started mining ether. It was like, I don't know, eight, nine, ten dollars, whatever it was.

• 35:07Anthony Pompliano?

  And through the beginning of twenty seventeen, it went from like ten bucks to thirty to fifty to a hundred by like May of twenty seventeen. And so because it was so volatile, I was like, I'm gonna pick up more ether. And so I started trading. Horrible idea. I'm a I'm a ridiculously bad trader. Uh, you know, lesson learned. Uh, and so I would have had much more value if I hadn't done that. But uh, but yeah, you you know, you live and you learn and that's fine. And then the second thing is uh, my biggest regrets are not purchases I made with Bitcoin because of uh, that kind of experience trading ether. I knew that uh, whatever I I end up buying, just don't spend, right? So like I I kind of got that ingrained uh, thankfully. But it's things I bought in fiat.

• 35:48Anthony Pompliano?

  So it's like I would go and I would buy something and then later on, I'm like, I don't even need like, why did I do that? And it was, it didn't have any big purchases. It could be a couple hundred bucks, right? Or or even, you know, twenty, forty bucks, whatever. But it's like, ah, if I'd bought Bitcoin back in twenty nineteen, rather than, you know, go buy that stupid thing. Hey, I'd be much better off. I'd have more sat. So I think it's uh, my regret is always the the fiat spending. Because I've convinced myself never to spend Bitcoin. Um, but uh, you know, e- everyone's got their own kind of story or their own challenge. And uh, they're kicking themselves, but I think that's part of the learning process.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, yeah, for sure. I I agree. I think that we all have those moments that you you you you do it and then you're like, ah, crap, all right, I'm not gonna do that again.

• 36:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Exactly. Where can we send people to find you on the internet or find more about voltage and start using the product?

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So uh, my Twitter handle is G Krizek. That's G K R I Z E K. Uh, voltage is voltage dot cloud. Um, Twitter handle is voltage underscore cloud. So yeah, come to our, come to the platform, check it out. Um, hit me up if you need any help, but uh, yeah, start using Lightning Network.

• 36:55Anthony Pompliano?

  I almost never do this, but I highly suggest people go check out Voltage. Somebody who I personally believe Bitcoin obviously is inevitable to some degree, whatever form that takes. The Lightning Network has a scalability layer too, I think is inevitable as well, whatever form that takes. And Voltage, not only did, I really enjoy kind of speaking a number of times to Graham, but also looking through the platform, it ended up not only liking it, but also wanting to invest. So I suggest folks go check that out. So you can just go to voltage.clad and let us know what you think. DM Graham or DM me, we're happy to talk about it. So thanks so much for coming on and doing this. I think we just got to keep hammering and let people know that, you know, Lightning Network works. It's growing. Let's go.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Yep, yep, for sure.