Muneeb Ali, Co-Founder of Blockstack: Publicly Filing or a Reg A+ Token Sale

Muneeb Ali is a Co-Founder of Blockstack, a new internet for decentralized apps. For the last year, Muneeb and his team have been working to conduct a regulated token offering under the Reg A+ Exemption. This morning, they publicly filed their application, and in this conversation Muneeb and Anthony Pompliano discuss why they are doing this, what the progress has been to date, and what you should expect moving forward. Blockstack is a new internet for decentralized apps where users own their data directly. For developers, it is the easiest way to build decentralized apps that can scale. For more information visit: https://blockstack.org/pomp ----- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

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

• 0:01Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off the Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off. Muneeb Ali is a co-founder of Blockstack, a new internet for decentralized apps. For the last year, Muneeb and his team have been working to conduct a regulated token offering under the Reg A+ exemption. This morning, they publicly filed their application, and in this conversation, we discuss why they are doing this, what the progress has been to date, and what you should expect moving forward. I really enjoyed this conversation and think their approach has been fascinating. I hope you enjoy it as well.

• 0:43Anthony Pompliano?

  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. Alright guys, bang, bang. I'm here with Muneeb. Big news this morning. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and explain to everyone what you guys have been working on and then what you guys filed this morning.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Hey man, awesome to have you in our office for a change. I think the last time we talked, it was the other way around. But yes, I think our team has been catching up on some sleep. This was a long time coming. Imagine that we've been working on this for over a year. And we spent around nine months privately talking to the SEC, privately getting different rounds of comments, and we are finally at a stage where we just publicly filed a 50 million regulated token offering with the SEC.

• 2:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so- Obviously, huge news in that you're filing publicly for this regulated token offering. Let's go back to how Blockstack has been financed to date and kind of give people context. And then we can talk about why this is the right path for you guys. And then what you had to do to be able to get to this point to file publicly.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely, right. So I think for us, our project took a slightly different approach from some of the other crypto platforms. What we did was we raised venture capital to explicitly do R and D work. Right, so Blockstack is founded by Princeton computer scientists, including myself. I did a PhD there. And we went to people like Union Square Ventures, we went to Y Combinator, Nabar Ravekanth and these other people. And very explicitly laid out the ambitious plan for the next like five, 10 years. That this is what we're trying to build. We are trying to build the thing that replaces cloud computing, decentralized computing. And here's what it's going to take.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  It's going to require a lot of R and D work. And we want to do that work first, get comfortable with the technology, get comfortable with the solid foundations that we are building. And then slowly start building out this decentralized, open source ecosystem. Right, so the first four years of the project were roughly, we were in R and D phase. Mostly our Union Square Ventures, so Albert Wenger from Union Square, he sits on the board with me. Union Square Ventures was the lead investor during the seed round and the series A. And then we entered 2017. And there, you remember the crypto.

• 3:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Wild, absolutely wild.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  So the wild west of crypto is happening in 2017. And we are getting ready to basically.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Launch our our stacks blockchain, right? We have started building that out. So very quickly, Blockstack is a full stack decentralized computing platform. We take the approach that the blockchain layer, so the stacks blockchain, should be very minimal and there should be very little logic at the blockchain there. Most of the complexity is outside of the blockchain there, right? So we have a very sophisticated storage system called Gaia that gives you the kind of reliability or performance of cloud storage in a fully decentralized way. And then there there's like an OS protocol. I I wouldn't go into the details, but imagine that we give developers replacement for everything that they're used to in cloud computing, so that they can quickly start building applications in in decentralized computing. And so, looking at the markets in two thousand seventeen,

• 4:39Speaker 01

  we felt that the projects are kind of like taking advantage of all the hype and speculation and they actually don't have like like real technology or or they're just riding the wave. So we almost went the other way around. What we did was, and we were also very concerned about regulations and compliance, like in addition to enduring excellence, we really believe in compliance almost as a competitive advantage. So we we came up with this structure with with our securities lawyers, where we were setting up Delaware funds and investors in our token offering were becoming limited partners in the fund.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  And we did that because there was a self-imposed milestone on our project, where only twenty percent of the money comes out for R and D, so that we can launch our blockchain. And there was a timer and it was very aggressive, right? So it was January of this year, it has passed.

• 5:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  So we had to work on the core technology, take our blockchain network live. And if we do, the funds would then purchase the tokens in the genesis block. Otherwise, the funds liquidate and up to eighty percent of the capital goes back to the investors. So on paper, we raised fifty million dollars, that looks great. But the team was working like crazy on the core technology because we had roughly like a one-year window to figure all of that out and launch our our our main network, which we did in Q four. And there was an independent advisory board that met, decided that we delivered on this technology and and we can unlock more capital. But this is kind of like just the half of the story.

• 6:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Because this half of the story deals with the VC funds, people who are accredited investors who can participate in these offerings more easily in a, even in a regulated environment like, like the US.

• 6:34Anthony Pompliano?

  So the first fifty million you guys raised came from what we'll call professional investors, right, that are accredited and, and they do this for a living. And those funds had certain milestones that basically unlocked the access to the money. But you had the fifty million dollars, right?

• 6:50Speaker 01

  We, we, we had them in, in a way, if we met the milestones.

• 6:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. So you, if you do your job, you're going to get this money. Now, there was another tranche of money outside of the first fifty. Explain that.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yes. So when we were looking at the structure, we tried very hard at that time to figure out, how can our core community, the developers who are building on the platform, the enthusiasts who hang out in our Slack channel all the time, how can they also participate in purchasing the Stax tokens? We brainstormed a lot, but couldn't figure that out back in, in fall of two thousand seventeen. What we did do was we basically gave everyone vouchers, right? So it's, it's like a, think of that as like a waiting ticket to a restaurant. That hey, if you come back with it, we will give you the same price. It's non-binding, right? Like we have to play, play nice with, with our community to honor it. And if you come back with this, we will give you the same price that all of these sophisticated funds were getting.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  And since then, we've been working on that legal framework.

• 7:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:52Anthony Pompliano?

  And so when you sold fifty million dollars worth of these vouchers, right? If I'm a non-accredited investor, I want to invest. I can't go into the first tranche of fifty with the professional investors. I then have this second opportunity, right? So it's called Fundraise Two, basically. In Fundraise Two, I say to you, I want to give you twenty-five thousand dollars. You told me, don't give me the money yet, but I will give you a voucher that says that you are allocated twenty five thousand dollars in the round and you locked in the price at which I was going to invest. Right? So basically, um, I now have a IOU, right, to some degree? Where when I, in the future, give you my twenty five thousand dollars, you'll give me um, those tokens at the price that we predetermined.

• 8:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Right?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yes, and just, just some clarifications here, uh, for, so it's non-binding, like we, we, we have to honor the vouchers, which we, which we plan to through, through this uh, filing with the SEC. And we were also, just like I talked about, you know, there were self-imposed uh, investor protection mechanisms, like this eighty percent money that can go back to the investors. We also were imposing protections for these potential retail investors. So we told them that you will not be able to put in more than three thousand dollars each. So it's nine thousand people and it roughly translates to a twenty four million potential offering.

• 9:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Uh, so what would happen, uh, if the uh, the SEC fully qualifies this fifty million offering? Is that the voucher holders would get to go first up to twenty four million? And then there will be some allocation for uh, just the retail investors, uh, not just in the US, but anywhere, anywhere in the world.

• 9:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. Okay. And so, uh, you, you had a plan, right, to some degree, or at least you had an idea of what you wanted to do here? And uh, I would say that you were forward-looking enough, uh, as a team to not conduct the traditional ICO and give non-accredited investors tokens, uh, you use this voucher model. Walk us through the last, like, nine, ten months, right? Because you've obviously been talking to regulators, you've been going through private comments. Like, explain the process you've gone through and what that's been like.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So first of all, it's been quite a ride. I've been, uh, I'm a, I'm a computer scientist by training, but I had to learn a lot about securities regulations and it, it, it ended up being fun anyway. So first of all, uh, you're familiar with the SEC guidelines that came out last week.

• 10:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Right? I think my team deserves the credit for this, but they effectively predicted that this is what the SEC is most likely going to end up doing a year ago.

• 10:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. So you, your team and the securities lawyers, you guys had to look out in the future and try to, you know, really guess where the puck was going.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 10:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And based on what the guidance was that was last week from the SEC, you guys guessed fairly accurately.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Yes, I can, I can actually walk you through the paths that were in front of us, right? So, so, uh, rewind the clock, go back to, let's say, January of two thousand and eighteen, right? We're sitting there, this is what we need to do. What are the paths available? The paths effectively are try to comply with the securities regulations with the SEC. At that time, almost anyone you would talk to would say, not going to happen. The SEC is not going to let any project through. And plus, it, it makes no sense if a crypto project, if a blockchain tries to comply with securities regulations. You're going to end up into all sorts of like weird corner cases and will not get through. Plan B, uh, or path B, try to change the law.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Right? Try to put pressure on the Congress, try to lobby and try to change the, the regulation so that you have a new path in a way, right? Option three, somehow try to get a no action letter from the SEC. But the SEC says this does not comply with the, with the regulations as they stand, but we have determined that we are not going to take an action against your project. And path four, which a lot of crypto projects would talk about, is that just leave the US or block the US. Right?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  We looked at these options and we were like, first of all, blocking the US markets, like certain large projects like EOS or Polkadot has done. We feel that that's not the right way forward. US is still a leader in technology. Silicon Valley is here. It is still a very large public market and you should be able to crack the public markets open in the US. It's a, it's, it's an important thing to have a truly decentralized global network. Secondly, I think this is where it gets a little bit more tricky for projects who have already raised some funding from US investors. Because if you're in that boat and we were, we already have US investors.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  If you're now trying to block US and literally physically move out of the US. What happens to those investors? Are you going to return their money? Are they going to sue you? Would it be fair to them that they took so much risk and helped you build the initial protocol and the network and the R and D stages? And then you're saying, ah, sorry, you are now kind of like locked out of, of this investment that you made. Right? So those are, those are some of the issues with, with, with that approach. A new action letter, we, in our conversations with securities lawyers, was pretty much like, this is off the table. Never going to happen for such a large thing where, where, where you get a new action letter from the SEC. And, and well, here, here, here's another path as well.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Another path is just do it and then take the SEC to court.

• 13:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Right? Which some projects are effectively doing that. It's a, it's, for me personally, that's a pretty scary option. Right? Like I, I don't want to be in a situation where I'm publicly taking one of the biggest regulators, not just the US, but the world, to court. And the future of what we are really trying to do, building this decentralized internet, a decentralized computing platform, relies in that, on that court case. Right? So that's, that's too much risk in, in, in my view. So the option that we effectively going for basically said, and here, here was the insight. The key insight was that the technology can adapt faster to regulations

• 14:27Speaker 01

  than regulations can adapt to the technology.

• 14:29Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So this is really important because I, I haven't heard anyone say this yet. And, and I think that it is not only clever, but, but on the surface appears to be correct. Right? Which is.

• 14:42Anthony Pompliano?

  As you understand the rules, you can build your technology to fit those rules faster than regulators can change the rules to fit your technology.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Precisely.

• 14:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Right?

• 14:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Why is nobody else doing that?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  I think they can. I think they were just discouraged by how daunting it felt. Like, I've been in SEC meetings, right? Like, there's a room full. It's one of the most serious things you can do. And, and, and, and, and those guys are like, they deserve credit, right? Like, in the sense that, yes, that they have been very careful and cautious, but for a reason.

• 15:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Right? They, if you, if you look at the comments that the Chairman Clinton had made, he looks at the public IPO markets and basically says that these regulations are the foundation for protecting these markets and look at how good these markets do. So their number one job is to let people innovate, but at the same time protect the general public.

• 15:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Uh, and I, I think like they've been, they've been, uh, very careful and very, very thoughtful in their approach so far. But it just seemed like a very daunting task. I, I think, this is my theory, maybe, maybe it's wrong, is that people just didn't dig deep enough. They didn't go deep enough into their regulations. Okay, what would happen? Let's say we are trying to comply. What would happen? There are, there are things like, that sound crazy in the beginning. That is a blockchain or ATS? No, it's not. Or are you, if you're running a minor node, like, how, what kind of restrictions or licenses would apply to you, right? At the surface, you would completely be like, this is, this is, this is insane. I'm not doing it. Uh, but if you start making progress,

• 16:28Speaker 01

  and our approach was that we were, we opened up a dialogue with the SEC. And we we started looking into what are the things that they care more about? Or what are the different divisions even inside the S E C? Who seem to care a lot about certain issues? And we would compose uh the memos with our securities lawyers. Uh we got help from the Coin Center. Uh and in trying to basically educate them. So we, I think we assume that they have good intentions by default.

• 16:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  And there is just different language on both sides. So we were actively trying to learn their language while actively trying to simplify our language for them. Right? So that was the bridging the gap part. And I think it it it and we we we kept getting sometimes like through comments from uh from someone in D C. Uh who would mention that the S E C actually wants to do this. They just they just want, you know, completely off the record, they've heard something somewhere. That they are just looking for a high quality project to come to them. Because whatever project that they approve would end up setting a precedence for the rest of the industry. The people will think that here here's not only a framework for doing a regulated token offering.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  But more importantly, uh if you if you look at the the recent kind of like S E C comments. Uh there there was a lot of uh attention on when the S E C kind of said that Ethereum is not a security.

• 17:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Right? Or at least the way Ethereum is today, it's not a security.

• 17:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  What they did not say is how Ethereum was launched. They made no comment about that.

• 18:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  They made no comment about what what happened? What's the process of like launching in a compliant way? To going through enough decentralization that you reach a stage that you're no longer a security. Whereas we are tackling those problems head head on, right? That this is a way to do a compliant launch. And here is a path to decentralization where we believe that when these things happen. This would no longer be considered a security.

• 18:32Anthony Pompliano?

  And so as you're moving towards the public filing.

• 18:37Anthony Pompliano?

  It took nine months of private comments, meetings, et cetera?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, nine, nine months, uh, two official rounds of comments.

• 18:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Uh, so this would be our third filing.

• 18:47Anthony Pompliano?

  So for those that don't know, explain what a filing is and kind of when you say comments, what does that mean? Like, like walk us through the actual mechanism in which you receive feedback and then you edit, et cetera.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Yep. So, uh, I, I hate this analogy, uh, but think of what we are doing. It's a, this is a, the, it's called the Regulation A plus. Uh, it has a 50 million cap on the actual uh, capital that can be raised. And some people call it code and code mini IPO. I hate that analogy, but for a broader audience, I think that's one framework they can, uh, keep in mind. And what the public filing means is like, imagine when, you know, some company is ready to do an IPO, they have to go through this full process of, uh, getting audited, uh, getting ready to do quarterly financial reporting, right? Like basically internally

• 19:40Speaker 01

  prepping up that once you open up your books, once you disclose like so much information about what you're doing, you're, you're internally ready to do that, right? And, and, and people are going to ask a lot of questions. And in a way, like that's, that's what we did. Like it's effectively like, imagine running a crypto project slash company that is internally operating as if we're going to go public, right? And, and we made some key hires, like we were able to hire, uh, the BlackRock CFO, Canada, who came in and he was, he was also the controller for BlackRock Americas, uh, managing on $4 trillion in assets. And he was a really, really good resource for building up our internal muscle

• 20:22Speaker 01

  for getting ready for financial reporting, for getting through these auditing, where again, you can imagine the conversations with auditors where we're trying to. Tell them about our crypto holdings or how you know we are going to verify that we we still own certain amounts and so on. So it was it was definitely definitely not easy. You're you're in a kind of like innovating and and hitting challenges in all of the different areas. There is one point that I kind of want to stress. Uh, and that is like, if you take a step back, I know we we we jumped into the news because it's a it's a big one. Our stance is that the stack's token is a utility token. Right? It's clearly a utility because people can use it to register digital assets or smart contracts like today.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Right? If you want to register a a username, you can go, the token gets burned. And you register a digital asset and the network is live. We launched blockchain in Q four. Uh, and then we went and we got legal opinions from different jurisdictions around the world, like the like the more important ones around half a dozen. Including UK, France, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong, and so on. In all of these jurisdictions, imagine all of them. It is very clear that this is not a security. It's a utility token and that's how it will be treated in these jurisdictions.

• 21:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  In the US, due to an abundance of caution, we are treating the token as if it's a security. And we are going ahead and complying with all securities regulations anyway. Right? And our stance is, and and this is a this is a five hundred page or so document that that is now fully disclosed. Now, our stance even in the public filing is that we are complying with all the securities regulations, but we also believe that these regulations may no longer apply to us in the coming years.

• 22:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Spe- especially as the ecosystem decentralizes more. Right? So so I'm I'm the CEO of Blockstack PBC. That's the company that builds the core protocols and the developer tools and focuses on any of these these regulatory filings. But at some point, there will be enough independent parties in this ecosystem. Like, there are already like more than seventy independent teams building applications on the platform. So these are independent parties that are now participating in the network. And we are actively working towards, for example, instead of us hiring all the core developers ourselves, we can partner with universities or research centers and help them hire core developers. And there's precedence there. Bitcoin does that. There are some core developers who are affiliated with universities.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  As those things happen and Blockstack PBC has less and less control on the network, we might reach a stage where we might no longer need to do these financial reporting. And the token, even by the SEC, is not considered a security. And we actually want to reach that stage.

• 23:19Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. What would you say was kind of your takeaways through all of the hard work that you guys did? Maybe one positive and then one part that was frustrating, right?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  I think the positive thing for me and then what I would keep reminding myself was that, like, take a step back, look at, you know, how technology was developed over the last one or two decades. All the users of these platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, they've never had a financial stake in the success of those networks. And in some cases, they are the ones who create all the content. Like, imagine Twitter, imagine Medium, right? And there's this constant struggle and a battle between a large company and its user base, right?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Because the relation is not a healthy one, right? The user's data is getting monetized in negative ways. And you have this like very tense relationship with the company. And you help the company and there was no financial upside for you, right? In the crypto model, and that's why people get really attracted to these models, the early user base, the early users of the network who need these tokens to participate actually have a clear path to financial upside as well, right? That's interesting. But looking at the bad actors in our space, looking at like how people would go on and

• 24:59Speaker 01

  selling effectively Viperware, like I was extremely concerned about protecting these retail investors as well.

• 25:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Right. So the positive thing about this framework is that there is less information asymmetry between the insiders of the project, meaning Blocks Act, PBC, or other affiliates, and the public markets.

• 25:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Like this disclosure literally has everything, all the information, all the financials, all the material things that any investor should take a look at. But looking at the stage of the project, it's still early days.

• 25:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Right. It is still like as if the users who are using the network or who are thinking of participating, you are still within the first one million users of Facebook or something like that, right? So you have the option of the financial upside. If you really believe in the technology, if you really want to use it, you're enthusiastic about it, but you also have protections that were only available to public markets.

• 26:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  At a very, very late stage. The first time someone can buy Facebook stock is when they IPO'd.

• 26:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  So that's the positive thing. Like, I think it's a very unique combination and it drives me. The negative thing was obviously, you know, that the process could be slow at times and you have to like sit there and explain things that you might consider basic. And also kind of like this sense of doubt, right? Like, like imagine that if a lot of people in the industry are telling you that this is never going to happen, even though no matter how confident you are in your own analysis, at some point you start having those moments of doubt. Like, what if this was the call that we made where we just got stuck in, in, in, you know, some file cabinet in the S C C and basically were never able to come out?

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Had backup plans in mind, but the amount of capital invested, the amount of work we have done, it would have been, uh, it would have been very unfortunate if we were not able to figure out a path forward.

• 27:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. What, um, what happens next? Right? So, so, you know, I think everyone, uh, is pretty excited and impressed with how you got here, right? In terms of, uh, the thoughtfulness, the hard work, the, the ability to handle the doubt, right? And kind of, you know, maneuver through this. Um, you've made the public filing. What plays out next? Or what are you looking forward to?

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. So with the public filing, uh, there are many things in the, in the, about the project that we couldn't really talk about because we were going in the quiet period. So you start noticing like a lot more announcements coming from us. And we are technically in a phase where obviously, um, this, the stacks token cannot be, uh, purchased at this point. It does not trade on any exchanges either, uh, and we are waiting for final qualification from the S E C.

• 27:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Hmm. And that's like an approval.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  That, that's like the approval that you can now, uh, start selling.

• 28:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Right? And there, there are usually timelines. It's something like, uh, there has to be at least 21 days between the public flip and your first, uh, payment that you accept. Or you, you affect, what ends up happening is that you end up working with the S E C to figure out the right date where you want to go live.

• 28:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep. Basically, the S E C is going to say thumbs up on this, uh, let's put together a plan that you can go execute, but you, you will be approved to go execute.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  And, and well, we are confident that we will be just looking at the comments and those comments are also public. So anyone can look at what the S E C is concerned about and make their own judgment that are we really about to get through? Or are there still significant comments that, that still need to be resolved, right? Like technically, it's possible that the S E C comes back with some, some other comment. That would, like, what about X? And then we have to respond to that, but that's, it's a process. It's a very well-established process with a, with a lot of history. Uh, but at least now, the, the one, uh, upside for our team is that we can finally talk more openly, even though, again, as you can imagine, there are so many restrictions on what I can and cannot say. But, uh, let's just say that it was worse, uh, a day ago.

• 29:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Look, I am fascinated by the progress you guys have made. I think that it's very obvious you guys have worked hard at this and it all kind of culminated this morning by being able to file this publicly. And it's fingers crossed that you're going to be able to get that approval and be kind of on your way. But I appreciate you coming on and talking about it because I think people have a lot of questions. You know, they're excited. But the more that they can understand, hopefully, you know, you are one of many that eventually gets to do this and kind of sets this new precedent to allow the industry to kind of continue pushing forward.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And thanks for coming here on such a short notice. I know I couldn't like, I couldn't even tell you what this is. And you were very gracious.

• 29:56Anthony Pompliano?

  For those at home, Muneeb basically sent me a very cryptic message and said, you have to come. Essentially, what he said. And on his word, and his word alone, I came. And I'm glad that I did. So it was awesome that you're able to do this. And where can people find out more about Blockstack or some of the work?

• 30:17Speaker 01

  So for Blockstack, the technology, the website is blockstack.org. And specifically for anything related to this upcoming offering, we created a separate web property called stacks token.com. And any offering material would get posted there. And on Twitter, it's at Blockstack. And for me, it's my first name, at Muneeb, M U N E E B. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks so much for coming. And I'm a big fan of your podcast. I'm glad we got to do another one.

• 30:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Nobody knows, but you are the first second time appearance.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, interesting.

• 30:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  I'm honored, man.

• 31:00Anthony Pompliano?

  So no, man, look, congratulations. And we'll have to again, once you get the final approval.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thank you.

• 31:06Anthony Pompliano?

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