1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,720 If you're talking about $1 million Omega candles? 2 00:00:02,960 --> 00:00:05,360 It's all happening. It's just a matter of time. 3 00:00:05,680 --> 00:00:09,280 It's impossible that Michael Saylor gets 10% of the supply at 4 00:00:09,280 --> 00:00:11,360 these levels. He's going to get 10%. 5 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:13,960 Like, that's just ridiculous. Bitcoins become like a stable 6 00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:16,280 coin. The volatility has really 7 00:00:16,640 --> 00:00:19,880 decreased tremendously. What's the deal with that? 8 00:00:20,080 --> 00:00:25,600 I think the alternative to fixing it is a debt jubilee, a 9 00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:29,960 reset, a great Fiat reset. We're so. 10 00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:31,480 Early, I know. You always tell me. 11 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:33,040 You told me that earlier this year. 12 00:00:33,160 --> 00:00:36,960 Funding mechanisms I think for Bitcoin Core are kind of a bit 13 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:38,960 off. Developers get grants to work on 14 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:40,280 whatever they feel like working on. 15 00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:41,520 Oh, wait. Wait, are we going down this 16 00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:43,960 rabbit hole? Where are the grants coming 17 00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:49,720 from? Samsung Yeah, welcome to another 18 00:00:49,720 --> 00:00:53,000 episode of Simply Bitcoin IRL. We're here in the beautiful 19 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,680 Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland, during the Plan B Forum, and I'm 20 00:00:56,680 --> 00:00:58,920 here with a dear friend, Sam Swinow. 21 00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:00,000 How you? Doing you, Nico. 22 00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:01,800 Good to see you. Great to be here. 23 00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:04,000 So, Samson, I want to tell you, I want to talk to you about Jan 24 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:06,200 3 because you know, that's your thing. 25 00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:11,360 But I recently found out that I'm having another daughter and 26 00:01:11,360 --> 00:01:14,200 her due date is Jan three. Wow. 27 00:01:14,640 --> 00:01:17,640 Yeah. Congrats, it's a coincidence. 28 00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:19,920 Happenstance maybe, You know, Destiny. 29 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:21,920 Destiny. That's a good way of putting it. 30 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,200 So yeah, man, that's what I wanted to start it off. 31 00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:26,040 With. Nice. 32 00:01:26,080 --> 00:01:28,120 Just RIP off the bandit news, right? 33 00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:33,680 But anyways, so you guys have developed a fantastic wallet, 34 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:35,960 which I'm a big fan of. I've been using it downloaded 35 00:01:35,960 --> 00:01:38,600 immediately when you guys released it, the Aqua Wallet. 36 00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:40,920 And can you describe it to everybody? 37 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:42,280 What's it you? Why is it unique? 38 00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:44,080 There's so many Bitcoin wallets out there. 39 00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:47,040 What differentiates the Aqua wallet with the rest of the 40 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:49,280 Bitcoin wallets? I think there's a few different 41 00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:53,360 differentiating factors. 1 is that we're our base is a liquid 42 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:55,000 wallet. So liquid as you know it's a 43 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:58,160 Bitcoin side chain launched by Blockstream originally. 44 00:01:58,280 --> 00:02:03,720 Doctor Adam backsing his idea largely and we use liquid as the 45 00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:06,160 foundation. So I think there are many cool 46 00:02:06,160 --> 00:02:09,639 things in Aqua, but the main practical thing is you can use 47 00:02:09,639 --> 00:02:13,440 lightning very easily with Aqua because the base is swapping 48 00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:15,440 from liquid Bitcoin to lightning. 49 00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:19,160 So we kind of use Lightning is an interoperability layer, but 50 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:21,360 the basis of it is liquid Bitcoin. 51 00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:24,760 And I think this solves some of the problems from non custodial 52 00:02:24,760 --> 00:02:27,520 Lightning wallets where you have to do channel management and 53 00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:30,400 what not or you outsource it to LSP. 54 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:33,640 But this gives you the best combination of privacy and ease 55 00:02:33,640 --> 00:02:36,120 of use because you have a strong foundation. 56 00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:40,680 You're not subject to fee spikes on the base Bitcoin network as 57 00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:43,640 if you're running if you were running your own Lightning node. 58 00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:47,640 So that's a big improvement in usability of Lightning, I think, 59 00:02:47,800 --> 00:02:50,960 or either you go to full custodial model of some sorts. 60 00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:54,080 The other differentiating factor I think is we are the only 61 00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:57,240 Bitcoin wallet that is really focused on stable coins as well. 62 00:02:57,320 --> 00:03:00,800 And I like to say that as a whole, Bitcoin wallets have lost 63 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:04,160 market share to all coin wallets because they've embraced stable 64 00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:07,840 coins. You look at any Ethereum Tron 65 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:11,680 wallet or whatever, they always have Tether in there and we have 66 00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:14,200 it front and center. You have Tether, you can swap 67 00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:16,240 from liquid Tether into other chains. 68 00:03:16,640 --> 00:03:19,800 And I think this, it's just an underserved market that people 69 00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:22,640 don't really seem to care about. But I believe if you want mass 70 00:03:22,640 --> 00:03:25,840 adoption, you cannot ignore stable coins. 71 00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:28,640 By and large, people are building wallets just for 72 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:31,160 Bitcoiners that are already orange filled and they already 73 00:03:31,160 --> 00:03:35,280 have Bitcoin, and they're not addressing people that want a 74 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:40,040 stable currency like a dollar value token but don't yet 75 00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:41,840 understand Bitcoin. So I think we're kind of 76 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:46,360 bridging that gap and so far, I think we're proving out that the 77 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,680 model, the mission is right because our biggest user, two of 78 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:52,520 our biggest user bases are in Argentina and Brazil. 79 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:54,600 Yeah. And I, I, I want to focus on 80 00:03:54,600 --> 00:03:57,000 that, right? Because again, I think you guys 81 00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:01,720 built a wallet based on what the market is signaling because I 82 00:04:01,720 --> 00:04:04,520 think bitcoiners had this initial interpretation of 83 00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:07,800 Bitcoin where they believed. And in a way, they're, they're 84 00:04:07,800 --> 00:04:10,720 correct because I, I, I ultimately believe that that 85 00:04:11,360 --> 00:04:13,920 stable coins are a bridge to Bitcoin, right? 86 00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:18,200 But in the developing worlds, you know, people are not so 87 00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:19,920 concerned about, you know, saving. 88 00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:22,560 They're really concerned about just getting by, living 89 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:24,880 day-to-day. They don't have the financial 90 00:04:24,880 --> 00:04:26,160 privilege that we have in the West. 91 00:04:26,480 --> 00:04:30,840 And that is a big reason as to why stable coins are so popular, 92 00:04:30,840 --> 00:04:33,120 right? And not having, you know, a 93 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:37,120 stablecoin implementation in a Bitcoin wallet actually pushes 94 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:40,920 people away from Bitcoin and into all coins instead. 95 00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:44,280 This is, you know, you should. The way that I see it, and 96 00:04:44,280 --> 00:04:47,680 perhaps, you know, I'll get heat about this from Bitcoiners, is, 97 00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:51,600 you know, stable coins or you're spending money and Bitcoin is 98 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:54,640 your saving money that you're never supposed to spend, Right. 99 00:04:54,840 --> 00:04:57,040 And I think that's what you guys tapped into. 100 00:04:57,040 --> 00:05:00,200 And I think that's why you guys are experiencing the success 101 00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:01,360 that you're experiencing. Yeah. 102 00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:04,520 It's also a utility, like you can just do a lot of things in 103 00:05:04,520 --> 00:05:07,920 Aqua, just downloading it and putting Bitcoin in. 104 00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:12,240 You can swap from Bitcoin to liquid Bitcoin, then swap to 105 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:18,280 liquid Tether and then on both rails, there are two Bitcoin and 106 00:05:18,280 --> 00:05:20,480 stable coins. You can swap out to other things 107 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:25,040 like Lightning and maybe we'll do to RGB on there too as well. 108 00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:28,040 But we're just focused on giving utility. 109 00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:31,880 And we also recently opened up the beta for the Dolphin card, 110 00:05:32,120 --> 00:05:36,560 which is a prepaid Visa card that you can load with all those 111 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:38,480 assets. And because Liquid has 112 00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:41,960 confidential transactions, I think it's the most private 113 00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:43,480 solution. So you can register with an 114 00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:47,520 e-mail, load it with Liquid USCT or Liquid Bitcoin and you have 115 00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:53,840 the best privacy on the market. Yeah, and and you come from a 116 00:05:53,840 --> 00:05:57,960 gaming background, right Samsung, it has any of those 117 00:05:57,960 --> 00:06:00,200 experiences what you picked up back then? 118 00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:06,480 I think we just saw a wild Bevan dolphin, those pretty crazy, but 119 00:06:07,720 --> 00:06:11,880 you come from like a wild, you come from a gaming background. 120 00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:15,320 Has any of that influenced the UI of Aqua? 121 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:18,560 I think so. So I've done a lot of mass 122 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:21,360 market games. So there is a Smurfs game I 123 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:23,760 built at Ubisoft, which was that's so cool. 124 00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:25,800 It was like one of the biggest Facebook games. 125 00:06:25,840 --> 00:06:32,040 You remember Social gaming kind of took off in 2910, so we built 126 00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:35,160 this, The Smurfs game and we launched it alongside The Smurfs 127 00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:37,200 movie and we got to 10 million users. 128 00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:40,760 So my background is making games, but not just games, but 129 00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:45,760 consumer level games that people can use and play average people, 130 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:48,200 your your mom, your dad, your grandpa, grandma. 131 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:51,680 And I think I try to bring some of those accessibility lessons 132 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:55,240 to the Bitcoin space because our goal is not to make a really 133 00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:58,520 great wallet that I don't Adam Back will use because he can, 134 00:06:58,640 --> 00:07:01,760 you know, run his own note, set up his own lightning note and do 135 00:07:01,760 --> 00:07:04,560 everything by command line. Our goal is to get the next 136 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:08,560 billion people into Bitcoin. And again, like stable coins 137 00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:12,360 have opened up the market. Tether has 500 million users now 138 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:16,880 and we should be leveraging that to bring them all to Bitcoin. 139 00:07:16,880 --> 00:07:19,640 So we want to make something that anyone can use, like you 140 00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:22,400 can just send Bitcoin. It works, very simple, 141 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,480 minimalist UI, not too cluttered and focusing on the core things, 142 00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:29,200 Bitcoin and stable coins. Yeah, I think that's something 143 00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:31,880 that, you know, Bitcoiners forgot, right? 144 00:07:31,880 --> 00:07:34,400 Because I'm, you know, I come from the air, I'm an I'm an 145 00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:36,000 electrum junkie, right? I love it. 146 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:39,440 But like that UI is I love them, I love those guys. 147 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:41,680 And for me it makes perfect sense and I understand it 148 00:07:41,680 --> 00:07:44,280 inherently, but it's not something that I think people, 149 00:07:44,280 --> 00:07:46,400 someone could just pick up and use, right? 150 00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:49,760 So I think the key for mass adoption, which is one of your 151 00:07:49,760 --> 00:07:52,520 missions, right? And your team's missions is 152 00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:57,360 making the the user experience easy enough that you can just 153 00:07:57,360 --> 00:08:00,240 pick up and say, oh, this, I'm just, you know, you just 154 00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:02,560 pressing a couple buttons and I get to use money. 155 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:05,080 Yeah, and also structuring it in a certain way. 156 00:08:05,080 --> 00:08:07,560 So we have a Bitcoin price at the top. 157 00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:10,120 We show Bitcoin labeled as your savings account. 158 00:08:10,120 --> 00:08:12,200 Like we talked about, you know, we want people to understand 159 00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:14,640 that Bitcoin as your savings account and then your spending 160 00:08:14,640 --> 00:08:17,280 accounts are, you know, layer 2 and Tether. 161 00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:21,160 So we think people understand that stable coins are for 162 00:08:21,160 --> 00:08:24,960 spending, but having Bitcoin at the top is a really big 163 00:08:24,960 --> 00:08:27,400 differentiator from a lot of the altcoin wallets. 164 00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:30,760 And they're they're going to put like every single altcoin and 165 00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:32,400 people are largely using it for Tether. 166 00:08:32,400 --> 00:08:36,320 So maybe they're going to start to get into altcoins that way. 167 00:08:36,320 --> 00:08:40,200 But for us, it's pushing people to swap up the stack to liquid 168 00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:43,679 Bitcoin and then to Bitcoin. Another thing that Van BDC 169 00:08:43,679 --> 00:08:46,320 Sessions did is he's using it to aggregate too. 170 00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:49,280 So there's so much cool things you can do with this very 171 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:52,920 minimal product. So he just gets payments in 172 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:56,560 liquid Bitcoin, and when he gets in a big enough UTXO, he'll swap 173 00:08:56,560 --> 00:08:59,840 it all to Bitcoin. So he uses Aqua kind of as an 174 00:08:59,840 --> 00:09:01,720 aggregator. No, it makes perfect sense. 175 00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:06,240 And I think again that you're hiding a lot of the complexities 176 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:11,680 behind a UI. So the user, they're just 177 00:09:11,680 --> 00:09:14,640 looking at it like a regular Smegular Bitcoin wallet. 178 00:09:15,120 --> 00:09:17,480 But in reality, you know, it has a lot of function. 179 00:09:17,480 --> 00:09:20,280 They're very complex functionality that's working 180 00:09:20,280 --> 00:09:23,000 behind the scenes. But I think that's the key to to 181 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:25,200 technology, right? Making it seem like magic, 182 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:26,640 making it seem flawless. Yeah. 183 00:09:26,640 --> 00:09:30,360 One goal is that we have sort of a non custodial Venmo like we 184 00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:34,720 want to deliver that Venmo like clean UI and experience, but 185 00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:38,040 it's all self custodial. It's all your own funds and the 186 00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:41,120 swaps are large. The atomic swaps, I think some 187 00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:45,200 of the the USTT swaps are not trustless or trust minimize, but 188 00:09:45,240 --> 00:09:47,200 you know a lot of the liquid swaps are. 189 00:09:47,320 --> 00:09:50,000 Yeah. And where do you think we are in 190 00:09:50,040 --> 00:09:53,680 the adoption curve, in the mass adoption curve? 191 00:09:53,880 --> 00:09:56,280 We're so. Early, I know you always tell me 192 00:09:56,280 --> 00:10:01,400 you told me that earlier this year, but it's it's, you know, 193 00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:03,000 it's hard. I guess it's hard. 194 00:10:03,080 --> 00:10:05,760 It's not hard to believe. Like the logical part of my 195 00:10:05,840 --> 00:10:07,960 brain is saying, yeah, we're super early. 196 00:10:07,960 --> 00:10:10,720 And then the emotional side, my brain is saying, no, we're not 197 00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:11,720 early. Well, I see. 198 00:10:12,320 --> 00:10:14,200 Different people understand things differently. 199 00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:18,920 So I think Sailor also knows we're early, but I believe he 200 00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:23,480 understands it's ending soon. That's why he is buying, you 201 00:10:23,480 --> 00:10:26,160 know, like I'll buy the tops. Yeah, when he has the capital, 202 00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:28,280 he'll deploy it. Yeah, it's not about OK, I'll 203 00:10:28,280 --> 00:10:30,840 wait a bit because he sees that urgency. 204 00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:34,000 But another good indicator is why are we early? 205 00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:38,240 Because we have Dats or digital asset treasury companies that 206 00:10:38,240 --> 00:10:42,560 are buying Ethereum. Like why would any rational 207 00:10:42,880 --> 00:10:46,720 person or investment committee authorized something like that 208 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:50,400 where you're buying something that has 70% pre? 209 00:10:50,400 --> 00:10:54,160 Mine is largely controlled by the guys that launched the ICO 210 00:10:54,560 --> 00:10:57,640 and one of the dats is owned by one of the guys that launched 211 00:10:57,640 --> 00:11:00,360 the token. It's just it's a sign that we 212 00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:03,160 are really early. Yo, I want to tell you about the 213 00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:06,160 best place to build your automatic self custody Bitcoin 214 00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:10,320 stack bitcoinwell.com. What makes Bitcoin well 215 00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:11,600 different? What makes it unique? 216 00:11:11,640 --> 00:11:14,600 It's an automatic self custody Bitcoin on ramp. 217 00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:16,480 What does that mean? 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Let's talk about where you know 228 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:53,640 Bitcoin is and it's its current history, right? 229 00:11:53,680 --> 00:11:57,480 The ETF approval happened last year, January of 2024. 230 00:11:57,480 --> 00:11:59,760 You know you had the embracement of Bitcoin by the.