Pod Insights The Pomp Podcast #672: Bitcoin As A Payment Rail To Disrupt The World w/ Jack Mallers About this episode Jack Mallers is the founder of Strike, an application that allows anyone to send money instantly, with no fees, anywhere in the world. Strike was recently integrated into Twitter, so any user can now send dollars anywhere else in the world through the social media platform. In this conversation, we discuss the Lightning Network, Strike's product, Twitter integration, Strike API, disrupting legacy payment systems, and why Bitcoin is inevitable. ======================= 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 =======================
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:02 Anthony 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. Jack Mahlers is the founder of Strike, an application that allows anyone to send money instantly with no fees anywhere in the world. Strike was recently integrated into Twitter, so any user can now send dollars anywhere else in the world through the social media platform. In this conversation, we discuss the Lightning Network, Strike's product, Twitter integration, Strike's API, disrupting the legacy payment systems, and why Bitcoin is inevitable. I really enjoyed this conversation with Jack, as always, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is BlockFi. BlockFi provides financial
0:46 Anthony Pompliano? products for crypto investors. Those products include a high-yield interest-bearing account, a US-dollar loan product against your crypto collateral, and a no-fee cryptocurrency trading product that allows anyone to come in and buy and sell crypto with no additional fees. BlockFi also recently launched a Bitcoin Rewards credit card. It's a credit card that, when you swipe it, you don't get cash back or airline miles, but rather you get Bitcoin back. I've got mine, and it is awesome. I've been using it a lot, and I really think people are going to love this card. I'm an investor in the business, I'm a big fan of that Bitcoin Rewards credit card, and if you want to start earning today, you can visit blockfi.com/pomp. Again, blockfi.com/pomp. Go check it out, get the card, let me know what you think.
1:29 Anthony Pompliano? Next up is Choice. Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that I'm really excited about. If you're 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 used to be in that situation, too, but then Choice helped me out. Now you can actually buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account. I'm talking about using tax-advantaged dollars, buying Bitcoin, and owning your own private keys. It's an absolute game changer. Never before have been able to, in your retirement account, use tax-advantaged dollars, buy Bitcoin, and hold the private keys. You can go check them out at retirewithchoice.com/pomp. And remember, I've got my self-directed IRA there.
2:10 Anthony Pompliano? And I think that you'll enjoy the experience, the product and what it allows you to do. So head on over to retirewithchoice.com/pomp and let me know what you think about that product. Retirewithchoice.com/pomp. All right, let's get into this episode with Jack. I hope you guys enjoy this one.
2:25 Speaker 02 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.
2:48 Anthony Pompliano? Jack, what's up, man?
2:50 Speaker 03 Yo!
2:53 Speaker 03 What's up, boys? What's up?
2:55 Anthony Pompliano? Not much. How are you?
2:57 Speaker 03 Oh, I'm fucking fantastic. Can I curse on here?
2:59 Anthony Pompliano? You can do whatever you want, man. When you're changing the world, you can do whatever you want. You got shoes on?
3:03 Speaker 03 It's my world. I got Crocs. Is that a stupid question?
3:08 Anthony Pompliano? I mean, absolutely legendary interview yesterday. They want to make fun of the closet. They want to make fun of the clothes. And he just said, well, I got pink Crocs on, so have fun, dude.
3:17 Speaker 03 Justin Bieber Crocs, man. Get with the culture, old man. No, yeah, how you guys doing, man? Thanks for having me.
3:24 Anthony Pompliano? All right, let's get into into all this stuff. You've got a couple of different things going on. First, you announced an API yesterday. Let's first talk about the API, what exactly it is and how it works.
3:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, API application, application program interface. So we think we're building the most inclusive novel monetary infrastructure on the planet, and we first advertise that and allow consumers to interface with it in a mobile app, and that's strike the application. But we detached the actual infrastructure from the app itself and allow anyone in the world to use that infrastructure to gain benefit from what we deem the best monetary network on the planet, which is Bitcoin. And so you saw Twitter integrate it. But from a high level, what this monetary network allows you to do, it's instant, global and relatively free physical value settlement. So that benefits merchants so that they don't have to use processing companies like Visa to achieve.
4:20 Speaker 03 Finality that benefits internet companies so that they can achieve a financial experience globally for all of their users. That's remitting money, that's micropayments, that's creator economies. And so we want to enable the infrastructure that we have and really liberate the world financially and make the world a more connected place. And so now any business, any online site, any merchant, any creator's marketplace, any social media can gain the benefit of the world's first singular global monetary standard that is Bitcoin. Uh, and so it's, it's really my, my best effort, uh, in advancing the world monetarily.
4:58 Speaker 03 Uh, and it'd be stupid to think that everyone in the world would download my mobile application and instead give them the infrastructure to integrate it into what the world already uses today.
5:07 Anthony Pompliano? I know a lot more than most, just given that you and I have been talking about this for a while and you've been very kind of, uh, uh, clear about what you wanted to build. I'm an investor in the company, so highly biased, but, uh, I think I, and you both agree. Uh, the open system is going to beat the closed system. And so what I want to, uh, kind of walk through is a couple of the nuances here to make sure people really understand. The first is if you have, uh, let's say Venmo and I have a different payment application in the legacy world. I can't actually send you money or you can't Venmo me if let's say I'm on Cash App or, or something like that. And so these closed networks end up being siloed from each other. But with the Lightning Network integrations, explain how a strike user can actually communicate, uh, value
5:50 Anthony Pompliano? or send value to somebody who's using a completely different app and doesn't even know what strike is.
5:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's not an intuitive concept, Pom, but here, let's walk through this. It may take me a second, but let's walk through this from a super high level. Um, a Twitter user in the U S can send a tweet and that tweet can be received by a user in Japan, by a user in Africa, by a user in the Middle East, right? Now, what if those, that user in Japan wanted to tip you, Pom, for this amazing show and your amazing tweets? And you had your Venmo account linked? Out of luck, out of luck. And so what the internet did for communication is before if you wanted to send a message to someone in Japan a long time ago, you would write it on a thinly sliced piece of wood
6:38 Speaker 03 and you'd send a fucking pigeon to go fly it across and hope that they delivered, you know, the pigeon spits your note out at whoever you want to read it. You're like, hey, what are you doing for dinner? And a pigeon spit is all over the message that you tried to send. Now you can send a tweet. What the internet did to communication is it gave the world a singular global protocol. So whether you want to ask a friend what they're doing for dinner, whether you want to Google the best restaurant in town, whether you want to buy tickets to the bear game, all of those communication efforts are all just an internet request, an HTTPS TCP IP request. The internet is one singular protocol for
7:20 Speaker 03 communication. So now you can use that protocol to send a message, again, to a user in Japan, to a user in Saudi Arabia, to a user in South Africa. It all works globally. Now, let's revisit money today. Today, money is still in pigeon land. Money is still in riding a horse carriage to deliver newspaper land, where if you're in the US, you've got Cash App and Venmo. You know, Western Union is for remittance, but if you go to Starbucks, do you use Western Union? No, you use your Visa card. But if you're online and you buy some merchandise, you use Stripe. They're independent bifurcated closed networks to accomplish monetary settlement. What Bitcoin and the Lightning Network does is it gives
8:05 Speaker 03 the world a global singular protocol for monetary settlement in the same way that the internet is a global singular protocol for communications. Okay, and so now, all of a sudden, Pom, if your Venmo account is linked to your Twitter account, can someone from Japan tip you a penny? No. But if you're hooked into the singular global interoperable monetary protocol for the world, can they tip you a penny over the Lightning and Bitcoin Network? Yes, and there are so many precursors that people don't appreciate. In order to have that, you'd have to have a money that works everywhere in the world. That lives outside of a governance by a nation state, that lives outside of an issuance from a nation state, from a company.
8:47 Speaker 03 So Bitcoin as the only digital bear instrument on the planet is a precursor to this experience. And then on top of that, you need a protocol that can allow it to achieve instant fiscal bear instrument settlement. And free fiscal bear instrument settlement, and that's the Lightning Network and combined. What the internet did for communication, Bitcoin and the Lightning Network is doing for money. And you violently see that with Twitter. My phone won't stop fucking going off. Hey, thanks from Japan. Hey, thanks from Saudi Arabia. No other monetary network PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Chime can do that, except this one. And so rant over, but that's what this is about.
9:30 Anthony Pompliano? I've had people in the last couple of hours, somebody sent me 25 bucks, somebody sent me a penny, somebody sent me a dollar. Somebody just now while we were on said sending tips while the show with Jack Moyles is going on just to illustrate the point. Right? Literally, people are just sending this over Twitter. Now, what I want to do is I want to make sure that we hammer home the point of separating Bitcoin, the asset, from Bitcoin, the network. Nobody claimed that this was good marketing. But the difference between Bitcoin, the asset, and Bitcoin, the network is really important here. Because actually what they're sending me and what they're sending you is not Bitcoin. They are sending dollars across the Lightning Network using those rails. So describe how that's occurring and why it's so important that the rails can be used
10:11 Anthony Pompliano? regardless of the actual or agnostic to the currency that the sender and receiver wants to use.
10:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, so I've been working on the Lightning Network and Bitcoin for close to a decade. And initially, the Lightning Network, for those that don't know, we set out to achieve two things as a distributed set of open source developers working on it. It was one, can we accomplish and solve the variable time it takes for Bitcoin to achieve finality? So traditionally, the Wall Street Journal would write a headline, Bitcoin transaction. May take days, right? We can't buy coffee with transaction that takes fucking days. The second is your Bitcoin transactions are really expensive. They're too expensive, right? The throughput can't match Visa and it's too expensive to buy coffee. So the Lightning Network was can we solve those two? Can we make finality instant and can we make finality free?
11:02 Speaker 03 And then when, once we accomplished that pump, we realized like, hold on a second. Oh my God, this is a monetary network that is able to achieve settlement at no cost anywhere in the world and instantly. And if you fuck Bitcoin, the asset for a second, fuck the digital gold thing for a second. Tell Michael Saylor to just like shut his piper for one fucking second. And let's talk about the fact that the Visa network can't do that. The PayPal network can't do that. The Western Union network can't do that. Matter of fact, no monetary network in human history can do that. So instead of making people spend their Bitcoin, which they don't want to do. If you just hold your Bitcoin, you just get rich. Why would you spend it? Make people call up an accountant with all the tax consequences.
11:45 Speaker 03 Make people go to Harvard and get a cryptography course to set up a Lightning Network node. Uh-uh. What if I allowed you to link your checking account or your debit card? Just like you do for Cash App or Venmo? And allowed you to use this monetary network under the hood to gain the instant free global benefits that it gives you. So let's walk through a remittance example. If I'm sending money from the US to Japan. I have my Chase checking account linked. Strike is going to debit the money from my Chase checking account. I sent a hundred dollars to Japan. Strike behind the scenes is going to take a hundred dollars out of my Chase account. I don't need to know what Bitcoin is, how it works. I don't need to think it's going up or down. I just have my checking account linked.
12:29 Speaker 03 Strike takes a hundred dollars programmatically converts into Bitcoin on the Lightning Network. Zips that value across oceans, across borders, all the way to Japan. And that physical value, that physical bearer digital instrument Bitcoin is going to get from the United States in this gorgeous fucking women's closet into Japan in one second and at no cost. And then we just convert it into Japanese yen. Cause this is the only digital bearer instrument, global commodity that has the liquidity profile in every single currency 24/7. So we go from dollars. Bitcoin, bang, Japanese yen, give them the Japanese yen. And all of a sudden, nobody knows Bitcoin was involved in that.
13:11 Speaker 03 And Bitcoin, the asset, and whether it's the better version of gold or not, doesn't matter. We're just using it, the network, to make for more efficient global singular monetary standard settlement. And that's the most innovative thing of all time. I mean, are you kidding me?
13:26 Anthony Pompliano? Not only is it the most innovative thing of all time, I think what people don't really understand here is, what you've built with Strike is global infrastructure. But you didn't have to go raise a bunch of money and go build that infrastructure yourself. What we have is, we have a group of volunteers on the internet, now tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, that are setting this infrastructure up and participating in the network in a way that previously was nearly impossible, right? Visa had to go spend a bunch of money to go build out the Visa network, make sure that they had service in certain countries, make sure that there was uptime, and that they could service all of those different customers and merchants. The Lightning Network exists, and all you have to do, whether you're a merchant, whether you're a user, whether you're Strike, etc., is just simply plug into the system, and
14:10 Anthony Pompliano? now you have access to a global network. And it doesn't matter whether it's El Salvador, or Strike, or me as an individual, or a small business, we're all just one single interface or one single node on that network.
14:22 Speaker 03 Yeah, let me put it to you this way, Tom. Have you ever received a Venmo payment from a service that wasn't another Venmo user?
14:30 Anthony Pompliano? Never.
14:31 Speaker 03 Never, right? Okay, how the fuck did I get a payment from Japan onto my Strike wallet? Strike's not in Japan.
14:40 Anthony Pompliano? Yep.
14:41 Speaker 03 We're just on a network that's open. Open networks beat closed networks. Here's another fascinating thing. Naib, president of El Salvador, I'm not a politician, I'm not speaking on his political efforts, I'm speaking about his Bitcoin efforts. He looks like a genius. You want to know why? Because Twitter just made his country better.
15:01 Speaker 03 There are developers in London right now working on the Bitcoin protocol that are making his country better. Do you think El Salvador pop- population is seven million? It's smaller than fucking Manhattan. You think they have the resources to continue to be on the bleeding edge of financial infrastructure? No. You know who's doing it for them? Jack Dorsey, Jack Mallers, Bitcoin Core developers, MIT professors. That's open network, network effects, economies of scale benefit. So now, people in El Salvador can save $400 million by remitting money over Twitter instead of Western Union. You know how much work he did for that? Fucking zero. Fucking zero. He didn't do shit.
15:46 Speaker 03 He just plugged into an open network and kicked his feedback and trolled the entire internet. Now, let's look at Twitter. Do you wanna know Twitter cares about engagement, right? Twitter's not taking a cut of any of this. They want users to use the platform. Today, people are going on to Twitter to remit money instead of tweet. Talk about engagement. They just integrated an open monetary network and they disrupted an entire industry on accident. So people are going to tweet, people are going to DM their friends, and now people are going to remit money to their family. And now people, because El Salvador is on a Bitcoin standard now, people can go check out at Starbucks with their Twitter account.
16:28 Speaker 03 So Twitter became a better issuing payment method at Starbucks in El Salvador, a better remittance option for those in Western Union. And now I can go online and on Twitter and post a sexy picture of my six-pack. And anyone in the world can tip me and I just get spendable dollars. Twitter became a better content creation acquiring platform in one integration. It's the most insane thing ever. That is network effects. You can't compete with shit like that. You know PayPal, all the, you know, you either integrate or you die. I mean, same with the internet. Those that didn't get on the internet, dead. Those that won't get on Bitcoin and Lightning are going to die.
17:10 Anthony Pompliano? Is it inevitable at this point that every single one of them have to integrate? Like, is the economic upside and the incentive so strong now that all I have to do is simply plug into the system? And then I just empower my users to do all of this? So it's almost more of an opportunity cost not to do it than it is to do it?
17:28 Speaker 03 Yeah. And so, I mean, I got them all right where I want. I got, ooh, I got them right where I want them. Because here's their problem. The valuation of PayPal, you know, the market cap of PayPal is a proxy to the network they built. Right? All the merchants on the network, all the users on the network. If I create a new version of Twitter, pomp, would you download and get on board? No, because there's no one on the network. These companies have built up networks. And so if PayPal becomes interoperable with an open standard, the network goes to zero. When I go to a PayPal merchant, I don't have to use PayPal to checkout. I could use whatever the fuck I want. And so they're at a crosshairs. They know they have to innovate. They, they, they're not stupid. I mean, these people are moneymakers. They're not dumb.
18:12 Speaker 03 But what do you do? You just destroy the $300 billion it took you a couple decades to build? It's tough. I don't know. And here's the other thing. In an open network, the best experience, the best brand wins. If that wasn't true, and it was whoever got there first, then I'd be using MySpace, right? Okay, so these guys have to invite free market, open competition. All of a sudden, all of a sudden, if I go check out at a Starbucks, and it's out nowadays, if I go to a Starbucks, how are you paying for that coffee? That, what a stupid fucking question. Either my Visa card or like Apple Pay. What a dumb question. What are you paying with, idiot? If there's an open network standard, how are you paying for that coffee?
18:55 Speaker 03 I'm using my Twitter account to pay for it. I'm using my Facebook account to pay for it. I'm using this pink wallet that my nephew built to pay for. I'm using an encrypted cypherpunk node in my basement to pay for it. And these people have these closed walled gardens that they've used for years. And, and I think they're scared of competition as well. So, I don't know, and I don't care. Um, in open networks, new participants are additive. So when they do come onto the network, it makes everyone that's already on it stronger. So, I mean, either you could join and make me better, or you can resist it and die. But either way, I win, so I don't give a fuck.
19:32 Anthony Pompliano? We talk a lot about PayPal and Venmo as kind of these peer-to-peer things. And I think people still inaccurately believe Bitcoin only to be this peer-to-peer type service, where it's cute that I can send you a dollar across the Bitcoin network. With the creation of this API, it feels like major merchants, small businesses, online stores, etc., now get to actually integrate technology that is superior, for all the reasons that we just discussed. But it puts not the PayPal and Venmo alone in the crosshairs of this technology. Instead, bigger things like Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, etc. Talk about kind of the more traditional payment processors and kind of how you see this
20:14 Anthony Pompliano? technology competing with them, not just with the consumer-facing, you know, kind of peer-to-peer apps like Venmo or PayPal.
20:21 Speaker 03 Yeah, let's talk about Costco. I don't know, random S and P 500, one of the biggest retailers in the world. Costco gets charged, call it a solid 290, 300 basis points to accept a payment from a payment processor like Visa, right? 2.9% for the kids at home. That's a lot of money. All of a sudden, and what are they paying for? They're paying for finality. They're paying for the dollars that someone is pledging to pay them to guarantee to settle. Because God knows the dollars that are sitting in my pocket, if I go check out at Costco, don't magically appear in the cash register. How does all that fanciness work? Visa takes on the credit risk. Visa takes on the counterparty risk.
21:05 Speaker 03 Visa takes on the balance sheet float. Visa takes on a ton of fixed costs and necessary intermediaries to achieve that settlement, and they charge someone like Costco 2.9% for that. This new monetary network, the Lightning Network, compared to the Visa network? Guess how much the Lightning Network charges for finality? Zero. Zero. And so, let's imagine a world where I go check out at Costco, and I tap my phone, scan a QR code, swipe a card, whatever your preference is, I don't care. The dollars are going to leave me, convert to Bitcoin, zip over this new network, the Lightning Network, and then convert back to dollars for Costco and Costco, I could charge Costco five basis points, zero point zero five percent for
21:49 Speaker 03 that. And guess how much of that is profit in my pocket? 100%. You know, Visa tried to charge five basis points, they'd go bankrupt because the fixed costs disallow it. And so we're not only talking about fancy tipping methods on Twitter. I'm talking about disrupting everything. In the same way that a Google search, or me streaming this on YouTube, or me tweeting something, it's all an HTTP request on the internet. A remittance payment, a payment for my Costco, paying my allowance to my kid is all going to be a Bolt 11 Lightning Network invoice, and money is going to consolidate on a singular standard. And those that live in these independent monetary networks are going to die in the same way that newspapers did when the internet came out.
22:34 Anthony Pompliano? I've got my brother John here with me. He's probably your biggest fan. He literally put his hat on before he came on. I'm gonna wear my hat like Mallers does. What questions you got for Jack?
22:43 Speaker 04 What's up, Jack? Congrats on the Twitter integration. You are truly changing the world. Your energy and enthusiasm is absolutely contagious. I love it. I love it. So I was gonna ask you about all the API stuff that you guys just rolled out, but I just want to know, what is your end goal? Is it to replace the payment solutions in the monetary systems today? Like, what is your end goal here?
23:02 Speaker 03 No, I mean, as an entrepreneur, I want to build one of the biggest companies in the world. And I think I'm uniquely positioned to do that. And it has nothing to do with me, and it just is where Bitcoin is in its life cycle, what it's doing, and the time I'm alive right now on the planet. But my end goal is really simple. The mission of the company is to empower economic freedom for everybody and build a more connected financial world. In the same way that the internet connected all of us in a communication sense, I think Bitcoin and the Lightning Network can connect all of us financially. And people don't appreciate, I mean, the dematerialization that the internet did for the communications industry, that's a really fancy word salad shit, right? But look at how it changed the world today. Envisioning a world without the internet seems
23:45 Speaker 03 surreal. It seems disgusting. And we're seeing that same dematerialization for
23:51 Speaker 03 Money right now. And so just pause and think about envision, none of us know what's going to happen. And so not only are we making the world more efficient and it's funded mock Western Union and stuff. But you really have to believe that we're pushing humanity in the right direction and we're empowering people. We're building on financial inclusion. We're building and improving on the quality of lives of people all over the planet. And creating an environment that fosters more innovation. And humans are to- tool builders. I mean, I'd like to leave the place, uh, the world a better place than when I joined it. And so a- all of those things. And, uh, I, I don't know, uh, a more ambitious grander mission to spend my time on, so.
24:29 Speaker 04 I love that. I love that. Yeah. I think just users will float to anything that's convenient, cheap and secure. So, um, what, for this API, actually, what like? What other systems can kind of integrate with it? So you guys have already launched with Twitter. What other systems do you see integrating with it without giving much, uh, too much like entire information that you have going on at Strike?
24:48 Speaker 03 Yeah. So, okay, let's revisit Twitter, for example. So you're talking about social media companies. They want engagement. Uh, they want global engagement, by the way. So now all of a sudden, people are going on Twitter today to remit money. People are going on Twitter today to post their blog and get tip from anyone in the world. It became a much more inclusive place for monetary action. Do you think Facebook is just gonna sit and watch that? Right? And here's the other thing. Do you think Facebook is gonna launch their own cryptocurrency to compete with that? No, because they'd be operating on a separate network. They don't get the network benefits. This is a shot call of you either join the singular network or get fucked.
25:29 Speaker 03 And so I think it's very interesting what Twitter did in the social media internet business. But then we're also talking to massive retailers because they don't like paying 3% if they can pay 0%, right? And so, and building on that. And here's, here's another interesting story. Let me tell you some. Uh, the story of Linux. You know, this is a nerdy one. Um, so for the kids at home, Microsoft used to have the monopoly on OS like these card processors or Western Union does on their individual. So, let's do Visa. That Visa does. On on processing, okay, and Microsoft took advantage of that. Pricing was way too high. Customer support was shitty. Product was never innovative.
26:10 Speaker 03 And what people did with Linux in the beginning, what companies would do is integrate it, air quotes. Flirt with it a little bit. Hey Visa, there's this open source thing. Everyone in the world's building on it. It's free. And yeah, it may seem like a toy now, and it may seem like a nerdy pipe dream now. But I don't know, it's free and it kind of works and the principles are are sound and moral. And so we're going to integrate it and you know that that thing you're charging at X, bring that down to Y. Customer support responds in two weeks. Bring that to two days. You guys release a new feature every two years. Bring it to two months. Because if not, I'm gonna go use this free open source thing. And then all of a sudden, network effects built and enough people started contributing resources to it.
26:56 Speaker 03 And Linux became the dominant OS. And the same thing is happening now. It's like, hold on a second, Visa. You see this little network here? Yeah, it's cute. Yeah, the kid in the hoodie in that women's closet is funny. But it's, you know, interchange doesn't exist on this network. And then this company integrates it, and then a country integrates it, and then Twitter integrates it. And then all of a sudden, it gets a little spooky. And so I think history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. And so I'll leave you with that. Um, before I break any contractual agreements and share any secrets I'm not supposed to.
27:29 Speaker 04 All good. Keep going.
27:30 Anthony Pompliano? Ja- Jack, when you, when you think about um the infrastructure itself, talk to me about the Lightning Network in terms of where are we from a scalability standpoint? How much volume actually can go through this thing? And what are there certain milestones or things that you're looking for to say, hey, this goes from, you know, pretty good now to absolutely great and can handle global transaction volume on the Lightning Network?
27:51 Speaker 03 Um, so firstly, Bitcoin and Lightning, it's software. And people don't appreciate that. So software's never finished. Software's an iterative process and, you know, Western Union and going and walking to a physical branch and waiting in line to pick up a paper money, that's not software. That that can't really improve much. Um, and so it's gonna get better. No matter how successful we are, or if we fail, it's going to continue day in, day out, get better, better, better, better. Um, and so can it handle global throughput? Yeah, I'm looking at my dashboard right now. I'm supporting the entire Twitter network and uh, without even a hench in a Myrtle Beats hoodie. So, uh, I think that this network is,
28:32 Speaker 03 is really underappreciated. I don't, I don't think people really appreciate. I mean, the Lightning Network is a link to link protocol, just like the internet. Um, if you can make an internet request, you can make a Lightning Network payment and that scales tremendously. And there's a ton of trade offs. If you want non custodial, if you want this feature, that feature and Strike optimizes for a different experience. And so, um, is it ready for everyone to have a non custodial version in their browser that, you know, makes them bench 400 pounds? No, no, of course not. We're working on it. Uh, but is it ready today to disrupt the entire world? Yeah, yeah, it is. And watch this, watch this.
29:10 Anthony Pompliano? And, and so when you think about, uh, educating folks here, what's really interesting to me, and, and I've always loved about, uh, Strike and kind of how you guys are doing this. Nobody needs to know what Bitcoin is. Nobody needs to understand how it works. Just like I don't understand how the Visa network works when I use it. I don't understand how PayPal or Stripe works. All I know is I either punch numbers in, I insert a card, I tap, I swipe, whatever. And then they give me the good of the service. Like I literally don't care how the technology works. Just give me the shit. That's exactly how you're building this in a way where folks just say, hey, send my $5. It gets to where it needs to get and I get back with good, the service, you know, I paid somebody, whatever. And the infrastructure almost doesn't matter to the end users in this way, which is very different than send
29:52 Anthony Pompliano? me Bitcoin across this network, uh, learn what a hex address is, understand a wallet, etc.
29:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, listen to this user story. Uh, family in El Salvador. Um, in the town I stayed in El Salvador, average income was $300 a month. So a $100 remit payment, make or break a month. And because of fixed costs of the legacy financial system, sometimes fees on a hundred dollar remit and payment were upwards of 50%. Took days to weeks and you had to bus, this family would have to bus four hours to get to the Western Union branch, wait in line, pick it up. If a gang beat them up or threaten them to take some more of it, well, that add to the fees and then bus home. So it's a day's worth of chores. You wait days to weeks and Western Union and gangs are taking half of the money that's so material to you. Yesterday, pop.
30:42 Speaker 03 That family linked their strike account to their Twitter account. Okay, the hundred dollars was sent to their Twitter account instantly and for free. And they just get dollars. They have no fucking idea what Bitcoin is, nor do they, who cares? Go fire Pupusa, who cares? They just, they're, what is this magic? What am I, living in the future? Money for a hundred dollars is got, that used to take 50% weeks and a day's worth of chores and sitting on a bus. And then because El Salvador has integrated Bitcoin, they turned around and bought coffee at Starbucks with their Twitter. I mean, you've got to be kidding me. Nobody knew Bitcoin was involved in that at all.
31:27 Speaker 03 And that's a material life that's improving the quality of someone's life, keeping them safer, giving them more access to capital and building on efficiencies. That person is saving money, spending more time with their family. So there's a perfect user story. They have no idea what Bitcoin is, probably never will, who cares?
31:44 Anthony Pompliano? So I got two questions to end this. The first, a bunch of people are asking in the chat. Do you care about the Bitcoin price? Do you have thoughts about where the Bitcoin price is going? Do you have thoughts on the end of this year?
31:57 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm a trader by nature. My grandfather was the youngest chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade.
32:05 Speaker 03 I think, I mean,
32:08 Speaker 03 the monetary expansion that's happened at central banks now is disgusting and it's the easiest environment to make money. All you gotta do is not hold cash. Fucking if you put your couch on eBay, it'll, it'll trade higher next week than it does today. So, no, I think we're going well into the six figures. When it happens, I don't care. I think within the next 12 months, we'll see well over a hundred thousand dollar Bitcoin very easily. And, and here's the thing for the audience at home. Bitcoin's the only monetary asset that humanity designed with their bare hands. We built this thing from scratch and we built it to appreciate against this exact environment. It's not a gold rock we found.
32:46 Speaker 03 It's not a coin that came out of, I mean, we literally sat down and engineered this thing to pump against what's going on. And so don't be surprised when it does. And yeah, I expect a hundred thousand to 250,000, maybe 400,000 dollar Bitcoin in the year 2022 easily.
33:05 Anthony Pompliano? I love it. Last question. You have the floor. You're in the women's closet. You got the murderbeats hoodie on. What's your message to the incumbents? What do you want them to know? If I, if I clip this and I send it to them, what's the message to the incumbents?
33:19 Speaker 03 Oh, I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. You let the 27-year-old in the hoodie get a little too far. Um, so come check up and play in my court. Uh, you can't run. You gotta play. And, uh, and I'm gonna kick your ass. So clip that. Let's go.
33:34 Anthony Pompliano? Can we get, uh, John, what was your favorite line from the video yesterday? Oh, you said Western Union pawn to E4, your move?
33:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, there's my chess set right behind me. You see that?
33:47 Anthony Pompliano? We gotta play sometime.
33:48 Speaker 03 I'd, I'd beat the Western Union CEO in chess blindfold.
33:55 Anthony Pompliano? You could, you could beat John also, not even being in the room, probably. Right, John?
34:00 Speaker 04 Yeah, maybe. Probably not.
34:02 Speaker 03 Probably not. John's a smart guy.
34:04 Anthony Pompliano? You, you know, Jack was, what were you, two-time state champion chess player?
34:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'm not bad. I'm not bad. Pawn to E4 carries some more weight.
34:15 Anthony Pompliano? All right, where can we, uh, where can we send people to, uh, to download this thing? So we've got, uh, strike.me? Is that the best place to send people?
34:24 Speaker 03 Strike.me. You can find the mobile app there. You can access our API there. And, uh, as of this morning, uh, we, for the first time, are in the top charts of finance on the United States App Store. Everyone knows what we did in El Salvador. So this thing's a rocket ship, and I appreciate all the support. And, uh, go check it out. Download it. I'll tip you on Twitter.
34:47 Anthony Pompliano? Pawn to E4, my friend. Pawn to E4. All right. Listen, thank you for doing this. Uh, anyone who's got any questions, tweet at Jack. He, uh, he disappears from time to time on Twitter and then just comes back with fire threads, videos, all kinds of stuff. And then everyone just erupts and says, oh shit, that kid's back. What's he doing now? So, uh, keep up the great work.
35:06 Speaker 03 It's true. Yeah. Love you, boys. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
35:09 Anthony Pompliano? Later, so.
35:10 Speaker 03 Cheers.
Previous #671 Whales Are EATING UP Bitcoin Supply w/ Will Clemente Next #673 Making Miami the Bitcoin Capital with Mayor Francis Suarez Page updated October 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
