Latest / The Starting Block / Can JTX dominate Solana trading? Ft. Lucas Bruder

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Can JTX dominate Solana trading? Ft. Lucas Bruder · The Starting Block

0:07
Welcome back to The Starting Block.
0:09
Happy Tuesday, Wednesday?
0:11
I don't even know what day it is.
0:13
If you're joining us for the first
0:14
time, it's a great pleasure to have
0:15
you here. This is The Block's new
0:17
daily show. We're into week four, so
0:18
it's nearly been a month since we
0:20
launched with our special
0:21
interview with CZ.
0:23
I'll tell you one last time, if you
0:24
missed that interview and you wanna
0:25
watch it, you can go and check that
0:27
out on The Block to YouTube channel.
0:29
And of course, if you're there and
0:31
you don't subscribe to us, please do
0:33
subscribe.
0:33
If you're enjoying the show today,
0:35
or if you've been enjoying some of
0:36
the shows that we've had in recent
0:37
weeks, please like and retweet the
0:39
broadcast so we can get more people
0:41
joining us.
0:42
Today's agenda is pretty much
0:44
jam-packed. We've got Anton Bukov,
0:46
who was a co-founder of Oneinch,
0:48
moving on to create a new DeFi
0:51
platform called Second Tier.
0:52
We've gotten him coming on the show
0:54
this afternoon to talk to us about
0:55
that. And then after that, we've
0:57
got Lukas Bruder, who you will
0:59
know as...
1:00
Founder of Gito Labs to talk to
1:02
us about the launch of JTX,
1:05
which is Gito's exchange,
1:07
which is launched on top of
1:09
Solana as well.
1:09
So a jam-packed show today, really
1:11
looking forward to it.
1:12
And of course, we'll be starting off
1:14
with the Block briefing today.
1:15
If you've never watched the show
1:16
before, the Block Briefing is our
1:19
news bulletin, where we recap
1:20
the top stories of the last 24
1:22
hours. Of course, all these
1:24
stories coming from the Block's
1:26
newsroom. If you'd love to read more
1:28
of our news.
1:29
You can check that out on the bloc's
1:31
website, thebloc.co.
1:33
But let's jump into the first story
1:34
of the day.
1:36
Big news out of Washington, newly
1:38
approved ethics language signed by
1:40
President Trump would bar federal
1:42
officials, members of Congress,
1:44
the president, the vice president
1:45
from issuing their own
1:47
cryptocurrencies.
1:48
And here's the twist, enforcement
1:49
would fall to the Justice
1:51
Department, not state attorney
1:53
general.
1:54
That's already shaping up as a flash
1:56
point with Democrats pushing for
1:57
states to keep some control.
1:59
Details surfaced yesterday on
2:01
an industry call with top White
2:03
House crypto advisor, Patrick
2:05
Witt. The provision could become a
2:07
sticking point as lawmakers try
2:09
to move broader crypto legislations
2:11
forward. Of course, all of this
2:13
stemming from Trump himself
2:14
launching the Trump meme coin just
2:16
days before he took office
2:18
in his second sitting as
2:20
the United States president.
2:23
Over to Russia where the state Duma
2:24
has passed a landmark
2:26
crypto bill bringing digital asset
2:28
trading under government oversight
2:30
and for the first time opening the
2:32
door to retail investors.
2:34
Exchanges, custodians and brokers
2:35
will need to join a special registry
2:37
to operate legally with
2:39
about a year's grace period to
2:41
comply.
2:42
Everyday investors can buy the most
2:43
liquid coins through intermediaries
2:45
but only after passing a knowledge
2:47
test And there's a cap,
2:49
300,000 rubles a year,
2:51
roughly $3,900.
2:54
Think Bitcoin, Ether, Solana.
2:56
A major step towards regulated
2:58
crypto in Russia.
3:01
Then the bank for international
3:02
settlements is sounding the alarm on
3:04
dollar-backed stablecoins.
3:06
In a study published yesterday
3:07
spanning more than 130 economies,
3:10
the BIS found stablecoin flows
3:12
appear largely unaffected by
3:14
capital controls because they partly
3:16
circulate outside the regulatory
3:19
perimeter.
3:20
In plain terms, the traditional
3:21
tools governments use to control
3:23
money crossing borders are, quote,
3:25
less effective against stablecoins
3:27
than against conventional bank
3:28
deposits.
3:29
The concern is sharpest in
3:31
emerging markets, where stablecoins
3:33
are opening a new channel to US
3:35
dollar liquidity.
3:37
The BIS is urging policy
3:39
makers to take note here.
3:40
Very interesting to see
3:42
the BIS putting
3:45
stablecoins in the crosshairs.
3:47
Of course, this is the entire point
3:49
of the cryptocurrency movement
3:51
from Bitcoin and everything beyond
3:53
disintermediating.
3:55
Mediating the central system
3:57
that has long governed how we do
3:59
things.
4:00
A big raise to tell you about
4:01
banking startup Augustus
4:03
has landed a $180 million
4:05
series B led by VC giant
4:07
Tiger Global with backing from
4:09
Hummingbird QED and
4:11
the founders of New Bank Ramp Circle
4:13
and Deal.
4:14
The valuation $1 billion.
4:17
Augustus is building what it calls
4:19
the global dollar bank.
4:20
A federally chartered national bank
4:22
giving international fintechs and
4:24
banks direct access to dollar
4:25
accounts and payment rails.
4:28
It supports stable coins alongside
4:29
SWIFT, ACH, and CEPA,
4:31
and its core platform, Marble,
4:34
offers round-the-clock settlement.
4:35
The plan now, use the cash to
4:37
expand.
4:39
Our next story, Telegram's going big
4:41
on crypto.
4:42
CEO and founder Pavel Zhurov
4:43
announced Tuesday that the messaging
4:45
app will roll out a non-custodial
4:47
crypto wallet to its roughly
4:49
one billion users this summer.
4:51
What he's calling the largest
4:52
rollout of a non-custodial
4:54
crypto wallet in human history.
4:56
Girov teased instant zero-fee
4:58
crypto transactions, though he
5:00
was light on specifics.
5:02
It follows last month's rebrand of
5:04
the open network,
5:06
Toncoin to Gram, with
5:08
Telegram itself stepping in as the
5:10
ecosystem's primary steward and
5:12
largest validator.
5:13
Telegram already runs a wallet
5:15
topping 150 million
5:17
users and again, a very
5:19
big reminder that social media
5:21
networks and messaging applications
5:23
with hundreds of millions of users
5:24
could be the next
5:26
big step in unlocking a
5:28
billion crypto users around the
5:30
world.
5:31
Coinbase has published its
5:32
post-mortem on last week's outage.
5:34
The disruption ran about 50 minutes
5:36
on the 14th of July,
5:38
knocking out retail institutional
5:40
trading, deposits withdrawals,
5:42
Coinbase card transactions and
5:43
on-chain swaps.
5:44
The cause here, what Coinbase called
5:46
a low risk routine configuration
5:48
change to a shared production
5:50
Kubernetes cluster,
5:52
part of a migration to a new
5:54
service.
5:54
It turned into an unintended
5:56
misconfiguration of a key network
5:58
component.
5:58
The good news here per Coinbase is
6:01
that user funds were never at risk
6:02
and stuck transactions completed
6:04
once their service came back
6:06
online.
6:07
And finally, our final story of
6:09
the day, Galaxy is thinking ahead,
6:11
very far ahead.
6:13
The crypto financial services firm
6:14
is committing up to $5 million
6:16
to prepare Bitcoin for the
6:18
potential threat of quantum
6:20
computing through a new Bitcoin
6:21
quantum readiness initiative.
6:24
That includes an advisory council
6:25
of quantum and cryptography experts,
6:28
plus a dedicated research program.
6:30
Here's the concern, Bitcoin relies
6:31
on elliptic curve cryptography,
6:34
which a powerful enough quantum
6:35
computer could one day break.
6:37
None of those exist today, but
6:38
Galaxy says the timeline is
6:40
shortening. For context, a
6:42
US executive order set a
6:44
2031 deadline to
6:46
prepare for quantum attacks.
6:49
On that note, we had a chat with
6:51
the Galaxy team a couple of months
6:53
ago at ECC
6:55
in Cannes. You can go and check out
6:56
that conversation.
6:59
Sorry, I beg your pardon, not with
7:00
Galaxy, with Grayscale's team, Zach
7:02
Pandel, their head of research, who
7:04
had some very, very interesting
7:05
insights on the quantum
7:07
threat and Bitcoin in particular.
7:10
Just scroll down the YouTube
7:11
timeline on the Blocks platform,
7:14
and you should be able to find that
7:15
into you.
7:16
That's it for the Block briefing
7:18
this afternoon. We're going to be
7:19
taking a very short break, and then
7:20
I will be back on screen with
7:23
Anton Bukov to talk about second
7:25
tier. Don't go away, we'll be right
7:27
back.
8:19
We're back with the starting block.
8:20
We're moving into Market Pulse today
8:22
and we're gonna do a special version
8:23
of Market Pulses.
8:24
We're joined by Anton Bukov.
8:26
Some of you will know him online
8:28
as a co-founder of Oneinch.
8:30
He is now moving on to a new project
8:32
and we gonna be talking about that
8:33
and more today.
8:35
First things first, Anton, great
8:37
to have you on the show.
8:38
And I didn't know that we were both
8:40
based in the same country.
8:41
So we'll have to catch up for a
8:42
coffee or a beer sometime, but it's
8:44
good to have, how are you doing?
8:45
Yeah, hi Agarad, thank
8:47
you for having me.
8:50
Yeah, I'm good, I am good.
8:52
We definitely have to meet in person
8:54
since we are that close.
8:57
Yeah, well, we'll make a plan.
8:59
First things first, Anton, obviously
9:00
the news came out last week, you
9:02
made the announcement that you'd
9:03
parted ways with Oneinch.
9:05
For those out there that aren't
9:07
very familiar with OneInch and your
9:09
history with the protocol,
9:11
can you tell us a little bit about
9:12
your role as co-founder and what
9:14
you built there?
9:16
Yeah, I'm co-founder
9:18
of Oneinch, started project
9:20
in May of 2019.
9:24
And for the most of the time,
9:26
and the majority of my time there,
9:28
I was dedicating it to
9:30
architectures development, protocol
9:32
engineering.
9:35
So that's quite a technical
9:37
thing, but I think this is
9:39
one of the things which is
9:41
creating values.
9:42
It's like the source of
9:44
the value for the users.
9:46
And this is also source
9:48
for the value for the project
9:50
itself.
9:51
Since project is creating
9:53
value for users, this value
9:55
is also shared with
9:57
the project in economical
9:59
sense.
10:01
So yeah, in one inch originally,
10:04
we started with one project, but
10:06
at the end we ended up with multiple
10:08
different products and multiple
10:09
different architectures.
10:13
The very first architecture in
10:14
Oneinch was DexEgregator,
10:17
it's about a one-inch router
10:19
protocol
10:21
and this invention
10:23
actually created the whole
10:25
new category of
10:27
products. Now we can see probably
10:29
tens of different Dex Egregators,
10:32
but at the time we were developing
10:33
very first version, Dex
10:35
Segregator's category did
10:37
not exist yet.
10:39
After that,
10:41
I think one of the most
10:43
important things was one infusion.
10:46
This is actually the first
10:48
Dutch auction-based price discovery
10:50
for swaps.
10:51
And it was also later
10:53
adopted by UniswapX,
10:56
and they mentioned it in their white
10:58
paper. I think that's a great
11:00
decentralized mechanism to
11:02
do
11:04
a price discovery, actually.
11:05
And
11:07
One of the next big things in
11:09
Oneinch for me, I think it was
11:11
cross-chain protocol.
11:13
There are like many ways to build
11:15
cross- chain protocols and
11:17
I know only two ways to build
11:20
a self-custody cross-chains.
11:22
And I was lucky enough to
11:25
work on both of the possible
11:27
ways.
11:28
One of them was implemented
11:30
in a rainbow bridge.
11:31
It's a project when I
11:33
work at the Nier, I was dedicating
11:36
my time to build this.
11:37
Self-custody cross-chain solution
11:39
which is built by
11:41
mutual
11:44
light clients.
11:45
It's like smart contract in one
11:46
network is a light client of another
11:48
network.
11:49
Near smart contract is
11:51
a like client of Ethereum and
11:53
Ethereum like a
11:55
smart contract, is like client to
11:57
Near.
11:58
And this is one of
12:00
the ways to have a self-
12:02
custody cross-chain and another way
12:04
is what we built in one inch.
12:06
It's based on atomic swaps
12:09
and idea of atomic swabs
12:11
is very old it's probably
12:13
from 2012 or
12:15
2013 so when
12:17
Ethereum was not existing yet so
12:19
it was suitable even for
12:21
blockchain like Bitcoin
12:23
like basic blockchains UTXO
12:26
blockchain but it's also working
12:28
for almost any blockchain with
12:30
smart contracts for sure but
12:33
it was It
12:35
is actually one of the biggest
12:38
projects on
12:40
the atomic swaps nowadays.
12:43
And why I like
12:45
self-custody
12:47
here is because
12:49
I know you've
12:51
heard about a lot of
12:53
bridges hacks in the past years.
12:56
They're like every year we hear like
12:58
five to ten different bridges are
12:59
being hacked. For sure, it's
13:01
possible because of the bugs.
13:03
But one of the main reasons why
13:05
bridges are being hacked, not bugs,
13:08
but their architecture.
13:10
Their architecture is usually
13:11
vulnerable because it usually
13:13
rely on set of validators.
13:16
This could be proof of authority
13:17
or proof of stake or
13:19
any other.
13:22
But yeah,
13:24
I think that self-custody solutions
13:26
are much more reliable.
13:28
So that's why I spent it.
13:31
And last year I was working
13:32
on shared liquidity and
13:35
it was announced in November 2025.
13:38
And it's also a new category.
13:41
It's not established yet, but
13:43
in five, 10 years, we will see
13:45
tens of different protocols acting
13:47
in this category.
13:51
I mean, I wanted to just, I
13:53
don't want to spend too long talking
13:54
about Oneinch obviously in
13:55
particular, but I wanted just
13:57
to get a sense of the legacy
13:59
that you leave behind there, and
14:01
it's perhaps like unsung
14:03
kind of impact on the
14:05
Ethereum community, because as you
14:06
mentioned, there are a few different
14:08
things that Oneinch kind of invented
14:10
that a lot of other protocols and
14:11
platforms emulated
14:14
and integrated.
14:17
Yeah, what are you most proud of
14:18
working there before we chat about
14:19
Secondtier?
14:22
Yeah, I think those
14:24
protocols is what I
14:26
was actually dedicating my time
14:27
to, and I'm actually
14:29
proud of those architectures.
14:31
And I'm also proud of
14:34
the team with whom I was working,
14:36
with whom I was building.
14:38
This was one of the most capable
14:40
teams in DeFi, in my opinion.
14:43
Yeah, definitely.
14:45
And I mean, look, they'll they'll
14:46
keep going strong.
14:47
And, I think we're also lining up
14:49
an interview with Sergey in
14:51
a couple of weeks time as well.
14:53
So it'll be interesting to hear how
14:54
they plan to continue after, you
14:56
know, one of their co founders steps
14:58
away. But that is history.
15:00
Now, let's talk about second tier
15:01
for anyone that's interested in
15:03
actually checking out your
15:04
manifesto.
15:05
You can go to tier.xyz.
15:07
That's T I E R dot x
15:09
y z.
15:10
If you want to read the manifesto
15:12
But we've got Anton here, so you
15:14
can tell us yourselves, what is
15:16
the manifesto for second tier?
15:18
What is the project and what do you
15:20
want to do going
15:22
forward?
15:23
Yeah, actually, what we try to
15:25
say with this manifesto,
15:28
it's actually saying who we
15:29
are, what we are doing,
15:32
why we're doing this, and how
15:34
we're doing, and most importantly,
15:36
probably how we are not doing.
15:38
That's our various part.
15:41
I tried to generalize
15:43
what was my work in
15:45
DeFi about and what I am
15:47
most passionate about.
15:49
And I realized that whenever
15:51
you create something,
15:53
any project, any protocol, any
15:55
feature, you could try
15:57
to play an existing category, and
15:59
then you play with a trade-off.
16:01
You could improve something, but
16:02
something would be worsen,
16:04
and it's a trade off game.
16:07
And I realized that
16:09
most of the limitations are
16:11
actually designed by
16:13
existing architectures.
16:14
And you can...
16:17
Solve some or
16:19
most of the limitations by just
16:21
creating new architectures with
16:23
completely new design.
16:25
Sometimes these architectures,
16:27
they can even establish a
16:29
new category with a separate name,
16:31
like Dex Aggregators became a
16:33
wide category.
16:34
But for example, One Inch Fusion,
16:36
it's not a category name.
16:37
It's like one of the
16:39
price discovery mechanisms.
16:40
And whenever someone
16:42
will try to make like a DeFi...
16:45
Uh one-on-one
16:47
lectures for example for
16:50
technical students
16:52
uh they would have a
16:54
category probably but yeah
16:56
not all of them so
16:58
we saw that there is a world
17:00
in the future our vision
17:02
is that it's possible to
17:04
have a
17:06
financial world without
17:08
any friction and gaps and
17:10
we see that now we are Definitely
17:12
not there.
17:14
And we think that our
17:16
way to approach this
17:19
vision should be actually
17:21
building architectures which
17:23
change the landscape, which
17:25
creates something what is not
17:26
existing yet and which creates new
17:28
categories.
17:30
So.
17:32
Whenever limits
17:34
design choices
17:36
new design choices can
17:39
resolve them and
17:41
yeah in manifesto
17:43
we stated it and
17:45
we explained who
17:47
exactly we are and how we
17:49
approach solutions like
17:51
that and one of the most important
17:53
part of the manifesto is
17:56
actually our values it's
17:58
our red lines, which we
18:00
never crossed.
18:01
And that's how we
18:03
limit ourselves.
18:06
We limit our freedom intentionally,
18:08
and we
18:10
respect those values at any
18:12
cost.
18:13
So it's kind of a little bit
18:15
rational, but
18:17
the thing behind this, that
18:19
it is actually freedom
18:21
to select your
18:23
shape.
18:24
So if you think that your
18:26
freedom is to do anything you
18:28
want.
18:29
It's usually not like that, because
18:31
under stress, you will
18:33
easily trade your values.
18:35
And we don't want that.
18:37
And that's why we
18:39
wrote down all those
18:41
values explicitly.
18:43
So any one, any of teammates can
18:45
point on them and check if
18:47
we're aligned with our values or
18:49
not.
18:50
And more, moreover, that's
18:52
where we're publishing this
18:54
manifesto.
18:55
To make like a social contract.
18:58
So our users, investors,
19:00
OGs, any partners,
19:02
they will be sure
19:04
that we are committed to those
19:06
values.
19:07
And if we will anyhow
19:09
cross those values, anyone will
19:11
be able to see that clearly.
19:14
Nowadays, people with AI can clearly
19:16
check those questions.
19:19
And this public commitment is
19:21
like a social contract that
19:23
we're committed to
19:25
do what we are talking about,
19:27
yeah.
19:29
Beautiful, and I mean, if anyone
19:30
hasn't checked out the manifesto
19:32
yet, those four values are
19:33
sovereignty, architecture,
19:35
openness, and integrity.
19:38
I take it that you're probably going
19:40
to move in a similar direction in
19:42
what you sort of built at
19:44
one inch. And I've heard many
19:46
conversations about, you know,
19:47
intense based architecture.
19:48
And that's been the general
19:50
directionality that the Ethereum
19:52
ecosystem has moved in.
19:53
And I think the wider crypto
19:54
ecosystem, where instead of
19:56
people having to carry out swaps,
19:58
etc.
19:58
They can use AI tools and these
20:00
kind of things and just tell it very
20:02
simply, I want to do
20:04
XYZ. I want just swap my
20:06
Bitcoin for Ether or
20:08
Solana and it can do that.
20:11
If you can give us some insight
20:13
into what you're wanting to build,
20:15
like what people can expect in
20:17
terms of products and architecture
20:19
and what that
20:21
roadmap looks like.
20:21
So you're going to be rolling out,
20:23
you know.
20:25
Usable products and services
20:27
and architecture in the next six
20:28
months to a year?
20:29
What are you actually
20:31
cooking?
20:32
Yeah, as we state in the beginning
20:34
of our manifesto, we
20:36
turn economically possible into
20:38
technically accessible.
20:40
And our vision includes that
20:43
whatever you want, you will be able
20:44
to achieve easily without
20:46
any friction and gaps.
20:48
But this is like a distant future.
20:50
This doesn't mean we're trying to
20:51
build a system like that from
20:53
the very first product.
20:55
No, not yet.
20:59
I'm not sure it's possible.
21:01
So what we see is possible is
21:02
creating new protocols and
21:04
architectures which make
21:06
something possible what was
21:08
previously impossible and what is
21:10
increasing efficiency
21:12
and availability of
21:14
DeFi services.
21:16
And step by step introducing product
21:18
to product, feature by feature,
21:20
we're closing this distance
21:22
between current state
21:24
and the future state, our vision.
21:26
So yeah, we
21:28
are planning to launch multiple
21:30
products.
21:31
We'll start with a few and we will
21:33
have multiple.
21:34
And I hope this year we
21:36
will have one
21:38
to two products.
21:40
And yeah, next we will see what
21:42
makes sense for us.
21:44
But for us, as I said,
21:47
one of the most important factors
21:49
of what we do or what we
21:51
build. Is that we do not
21:52
try to compete within existing DeFi
21:55
categories. We're not building one
21:57
more thing of that,
21:59
one more thing of this.
22:00
We are trying to create something
22:03
new, what would define new category,
22:05
because later this category
22:07
will be filled with a lot of
22:09
competing projects and it will be
22:11
advanced and became much
22:13
more efficient than in the
22:15
beginning, for sure.
22:17
We see our
22:19
capacity and our intention
22:21
in creating such
22:23
new categories.
22:26
Beautiful, so a very grand
22:28
plan, lots of architecture
22:30
based systems that you've got
22:32
cooking up.
22:33
Anton, I'm gonna have to ask you to
22:35
come back on the show in a few weeks
22:36
or a few months time to tell us more
22:38
about this manifesto
22:41
taking shape and the architectures
22:43
that you are gonna be building.
22:44
But thanks so much for taking the
22:45
time to chat to us.
22:47
You're always welcome back on to
22:48
show and we look forward to seeing
22:50
what second tier does
22:52
build up.
22:54
Thank you so much for joining us on
22:55
the show. We're gonna take a very
22:56
short break and then we'll be back
22:57
with the hot seat.
22:58
We've got Lucas Bruda from
23:00
Gito Labs joining us to talk about
23:02
the launch of JTX.
23:04
We'll be right back.
25:16
Welcome back to the starting block.
25:17
We're moving into the hot seat
25:18
interview and it's a great pleasure
25:20
to have Gito Labs founder
25:22
Lucas Bruda back.
25:24
We caught up very well, not briefly.
25:25
We had a great interview at
25:27
Consensus a couple of months ago in
25:29
Miami. So Lucas, first things first,
25:31
how are you doing since we last saw
25:32
each other?
25:33
Really good.
25:34
Yeah, pumped up.
25:37
Yeah, man, big couple of
25:39
days. Obviously, I'm just going to
25:41
pull the Band-Aid off straight up.
25:42
You know, JTX launched.
25:44
I signed up today,
25:46
had a look at the platform.
25:47
It looks really awesome.
25:48
So first of all, congratulations are
25:50
in order.
25:51
What have the last 24 hours been
25:53
like for you?
25:54
Yeah, it's been really fun.
25:56
And I think a lot of the work
25:58
started, obviously, building it.
26:00
And I would say that we really
26:02
started sprinting two weeks ago
26:04
when we started rolling it out to
26:06
people.
26:07
So there's just a ton of feature
26:08
requests and bugs that we discover.
26:11
And we're just trying to ship those
26:12
as fast as possible.
26:14
So yeah, it has been cool to see the
26:16
attention so far.
26:17
And there's a lot work to do.
26:20
Can you talk to me a little bit
26:21
about the UI and stuff?
26:22
I mean, it's like, it is beautifully
26:23
simple.
26:24
It looks like it looks and feels
26:26
fantastic. I mean I'm playing around
26:28
with it on a Mac, but talk
26:30
to us about how you approach that.
26:32
Yeah, we really wanted to
26:34
go with a super simple,
26:36
kind of like a centralized exchange
26:38
UI. So,
26:40
um, If you
26:42
look at this compared to a lot of
26:44
other products on chain,
26:46
there's just kind of this like
26:48
information overload and
26:50
it's like, you
26:52
know, it's the token frozen or not
26:54
is like what, who are the top
26:56
10 holders?
26:57
What is like the buy and sell
26:59
pressure among the
27:01
last like 24 hours and all that.
27:03
And there's like a ton of other
27:05
kind of like token specific info
27:07
in there too.
27:09
And we feel like it kind of clutters
27:11
the interface.
27:12
And it's just really overwhelming.
27:14
Like if I was going to give this,
27:16
if I wanted my brother or like
27:18
friends to come and trade on crypto,
27:19
and you would throw them into some
27:21
of these other apps, I think they
27:22
would get a little overwhelmed where
27:24
we really tried to go with a very
27:26
simple UI for
27:28
JTX.
27:29
And so we spent a lot of
27:30
time painstakingly
27:32
doing that and like trying to learn
27:34
a lot lessons from.
27:36
Other on-chain apps, but also
27:37
centralized exchanges and purpose
27:39
dexes and things like that.
27:42
Can you talk to us a little bit
27:43
about the competition landscape?
27:45
Obviously you've just launched in
27:46
the last 24 hours, like kind of
27:48
officially. So it's very easy
27:50
early to kind of talk about
27:52
who you, how you might end up sort
27:54
of faring in the broader market.
27:56
But you know, when, when totally is
27:58
a retweeting the announcement of the
28:00
launch and, you know leaving a
28:02
little like King crown emojis,
28:04
it makes you think that you guys
28:06
are coming for the crown.
28:08
What do you see the rest of
28:10
the Solana sort of?
28:12
Exchange trading platform landscape
28:14
looking like right now?
28:16
And are you hoping to knock everyone
28:18
off the podium and be at
28:20
the top?
28:21
Yeah, I mean, there's a ton of
28:23
really good teams building on
28:25
Solana, but
28:27
the Solana native audience
28:29
is kind of our first initial
28:31
like cohort of customers they're
28:33
already familiar with using on
28:35
chain and trading and all that.
28:37
But I'd say they are not
28:39
the kind of competition,
28:41
and I think it would be short sided
28:43
for us to kind of like take the pie
28:45
and try to like break it up even
28:47
more. We are going after the
28:49
centralized exchanges.
28:50
And then moving into the
28:52
platforms that allow equities
28:55
trading.
28:56
So like Robinhood, Interactive
28:57
Brokers, things like that.
28:59
And so like we were thinking much
29:01
bigger than the current Solana pie.
29:03
And I think that's going to
29:06
set us up for a lot of success.
29:07
It's gonna be really hard.
29:09
It's much different than what we've
29:10
done before. Kind of this like Lola
29:12
infra.
29:13
But I think the tech is finally
29:15
there and we feel like the
29:16
applications were kind of missing
29:17
something. And so JTX is kind of
29:19
our. Custom take on this and
29:21
what we need to take to the
29:23
masses to get them trading on chain.
29:26
How do you, how do you break into
29:28
that, that broader market, right?
29:29
Like take on the, the binances and
29:31
coinbases and Robin hoods of the,
29:33
of the world right now, um, I know
29:35
again, it's only been 24 hours,
29:37
but if you have this, this grand
29:39
vision, what does the execution look
29:41
like in the next few months?
29:42
Yeah I think a lot of
29:44
it is about assets.
29:47
So Solana has been doing really well
29:48
with this.
29:49
There's, you know, the backpack
29:51
security is getting SpaceX trading
29:53
day one, doing tens
29:55
and hundreds of millions of dollars
29:56
of volume.
29:58
I think Intel just got added
29:59
yesterday to Solana
30:01
from backpack securities.
30:04
And I think, a lot it is
30:06
assets.
30:07
I think it's gonna be
30:09
UX and just showing how
30:12
frictionless it can be.
30:13
To sign up.
30:16
So yeah, it's super simple
30:18
to sign up there's no like key pair
30:19
management that you need to worry
30:21
about. It's all using privy.
30:23
So it's all like log in with email.
30:24
You can set up two factor
30:25
authentication and just
30:27
like making this experience super
30:29
smooth.
30:30
And then we're really targeting this
30:31
prosumer trader to start.
30:34
So, you know, someone trading like
30:35
mid five figures and up
30:37
per week.
30:38
And so I
30:41
think that the fees are gonna matter
30:43
a lot. And one of
30:45
the features that we have is like
30:46
when you make a trade and there's
30:48
a comparable token on the
30:50
centralized exchange, it'll rerun
30:52
that trade on the centralize
30:53
exchange at the same time
30:55
and show you how much money you
30:56
saved.
30:57
And so it's like, I'm just
30:59
constantly testing it out.
31:00
Sole USTC is like pretty
31:02
much always cheaper to trade via JTX
31:05
compared to the tightest centralized
31:07
exchange.
31:08
So I think that's gonna matter a lot
31:09
as well.
31:11
How does that actually work?
31:12
I mean, is that just a testament to,
31:14
like, I guess the underlying
31:16
infrastructure? How are you beating
31:18
the big exchanges on Fiesia?
31:20
Yeah, a lot of it's due to the
31:22
infrastructure.
31:24
So the Solana Networks just made
31:26
incredible progress over the past
31:28
year or two.
31:30
And I would say that
31:32
combined with the invention of
31:34
prop AMMs, which kind of
31:36
started happening maybe around two
31:37
years ago, basically it's
31:39
like a new kind of AMM
31:41
slash order book and it
31:43
puts the market maker's logic on
31:45
chain and the
31:47
cost to update the AMM by
31:49
the market maker is super cheap.
31:51
So you end up with them sending
31:53
lots of transactions to update their
31:54
quotes, super tight spreads.
31:57
And I would say that we have
31:59
a plugin in BAM, our block builder
32:01
that lets the prop AMMs
32:03
send their quotes to,
32:05
and they get put kind of at the top
32:07
of the block.
32:08
So that kind of lets them quote
32:09
tighter and make sure that
32:11
they don't get picked off.
32:13
So yeah, there's a lot of like
32:14
infrastructure routing, a ton
32:16
of like info related
32:18
changes that went into this.
32:21
I mean, obviously you've got
32:23
equities, which I think is a big
32:24
part of the offering, right?
32:26
Is like making this a kind of
32:28
everything exchange.
32:29
Can you talk a little bit about the
32:30
tokenization of these equities?
32:32
How that works?
32:33
What a trader actually is
32:35
buying when they're
32:37
say, placing a spot buy for
32:40
a Tesla X on
32:43
JTX.
32:45
Yeah. Um, I have like a
32:47
kind of a, it's
32:48
a little more nuance and 30,000
32:50
foot view, maybe like 5,000 feet
32:52
view on this, but,
32:54
um, there's kind of like two main
32:56
ways that people are doing this one
32:58
is, uh, onto an X
33:00
stocks. The model is like pretty
33:01
similar.
33:03
Um, they use something called Alpaca
33:04
markets behind the scenes.
33:06
They're kind of, like a white label,
33:07
a stock issuer.
33:09
Um, there was a lot of nuance on
33:11
like the rights that you get when
33:13
actually buy those
33:15
stocks.
33:17
They've been around a while.
33:18
They have a ton of
33:20
assets.
33:23
And the other model that came out
33:25
more recently is backpack
33:26
securities.
33:27
So that comes with a little more
33:28
rights.
33:30
They're a full-on regulated entity.
33:33
And so they're
33:35
actually holding the assets
33:37
for you.
33:39
I believe you get voting rights,
33:41
Or you could set it up to get voting
33:43
rights.
33:44
And so yeah, those are kind of like
33:46
the two models.
33:47
And I would say, I mean, Backpack,
33:49
the first security they listed
33:51
was SpaceX.
33:52
And that was what, like a month or
33:53
two ago.
33:55
And yeah, now they have like six or
33:57
seven and you can trade every
33:59
stock inside the Backpack exchange.
34:02
And so, yeah,
34:04
there's just been a ton of volume on
34:05
Solana for these tokenized equities.
34:08
And I think it's going to continue
34:10
to accelerate.
34:12
We're going to see more and more
34:13
assets coming on chain via
34:15
these like backpack securities
34:17
or all known next stocks.
34:19
We're going see prop AMM starting to
34:21
quote tight in maybe even
34:23
tighter than what you can get on
34:25
the comparable like
34:27
centralized exchanges.
34:30
How do you see the difference
34:32
between like a Robinhood chain
34:33
and JTX in terms of,
34:36
you know, like volumes?
34:37
Because Robinhood Chain, I think in
34:39
the last two weeks,
34:41
like 10x or more, the fees that
34:43
are generated on chain with people
34:45
trading there since its launch.
34:47
Do you think it's better
34:48
infrastructure than Solana?
34:50
Like, I mean, I'm not trying to bait
34:52
you here, but I'm very curious to
34:53
hear your thoughts on the
34:55
difference. Between these two
34:56
approaches.
34:57
Yeah, I mean, one is a single
34:59
server that Robinhood
35:01
runs probably in like US East,
35:03
some AWS data center.
35:05
Solana is a globally distributed
35:07
and decentralized network that
35:10
runs on like 700 validators.
35:13
And so those
35:16
types of things don't matter until
35:18
they do.
35:20
And, you know, we've seen many
35:22
times what happens with
35:24
centralized entities and They're,
35:26
uh...
35:28
When shit hits the fan, it goes
35:29
pretty bad.
35:30
And so I think that's kind
35:32
of like one of the benefits of
35:33
Solana. I think the tech's getting
35:35
better and better.
35:36
Obviously the SVM is super fast
35:38
and it's kind interesting actually,
35:40
like, you know we were just talking
35:42
about prop AMMs and
35:44
those were essentially
35:45
invented on Solana
35:48
and now we're seeing,
35:50
I believe a lot of tokenized
35:52
equities and other assets are being
35:54
quoted via prop AMM on Robinhood
35:56
and base even Ethereum
35:58
now.
36:00
So I think Solana is going to
36:01
continue to lead the innovation.
36:04
And I think it's definitely
36:06
the better chain for these things.
36:09
I saw a few clips of you on
36:12
Ansem and Banks' show talking
36:14
about a lot of different things.
36:15
I'm very curious to hear your
36:16
thoughts on AnseM because I
36:18
was playing around on JTX today and
36:20
it was like one of the first things
36:21
I searched was like,
36:23
can I find Ansem on here and there
36:25
the token was.
36:26
What do you think about Ansem right
36:27
now, the token and do you they've
36:30
managed to revive the trenches.
36:33
I think he has managed to
36:35
revitalize the
36:36
trenches.
36:39
And yeah, I think I got
36:41
in, I think around what
36:44
I, I think, I got like a 50%
36:47
trade on that one.
36:49
So yeah, that creates a lot of like
36:51
extra money and you know, that money
36:53
flows into other assets.
36:55
I'm kind of trading on the side
36:56
here, testing out JTX
36:58
and kind of just having fun on
37:00
chain. So you can definitely see
37:02
it.
37:02
The animals are coming out on
37:04
Twitter. So you can
37:06
kind of see what's happening.
37:08
And I think it was a good turn of
37:10
events.
37:10
I think Ansem
37:13
is just such a good dude.
37:16
And at first I was like a little
37:18
nervous about it.
37:19
It's like, this is like main
37:20
character energy, kind of
37:22
going back to the creator coins that
37:23
we saw last cycle, but he's
37:25
just such good dude that,
37:27
and yeah, I think he has really good
37:28
intentions too.
37:30
So I think its gonna work out.
37:33
Kind of got a little stalled, I
37:34
think, with the Robinhood chain
37:36
activity, but I think
37:38
that's going to come back.
37:40
I mean, I don't know if you've
37:41
looked at some of the charts on
37:42
Robinhood Chain, like the future
37:44
of finance a week ago is not looking
37:46
so hot right now.
37:48
But I think a lot of that's going to
37:50
go back to Solana.
37:51
And as far as the token, I he's
37:54
going figure out something big
37:57
to kind of like it to the next
37:58
leg up, I think.
38:00
I think that was the interesting
38:01
thing for me and I've
38:03
made it categorically clear many
38:05
times that I don't love meme coins
38:07
and I genuinely think it's
38:09
largely gambling.
38:10
But if there was anyone to do
38:12
it kind of right and figure out a
38:14
sort of interesting incentive
38:16
mechanism and build
38:18
virality and sort of
38:20
share some of the wealth, the way
38:22
that Ansem's approach this now is
38:23
really interesting because any of
38:25
the celebrities that were watching
38:26
meme coins had little to
38:28
no understanding of the ecosystem.
38:30
You know, trading in general and
38:32
then just, you know the general
38:33
communities here.
38:35
And I think Anson thought very
38:36
deeply about the ways that they
38:38
wanted to do this.
38:39
And it's just been interesting to
38:40
see it play out. But again, like you
38:42
also can't script when things are
38:43
going to happen. And then, you now
38:45
Robin Hood chain comes out and it
38:46
does feel some liquidity and took
38:48
some wind out of the sales there.
38:49
Cause I think a lot of us were kind
38:51
of sitting here thinking like, shit
38:53
is this thing going to a billion
38:54
dollar market cap?
38:55
Like straight away.
38:57
And that's my next kind of question
38:58
is.
38:59
A lot of people were saying online,
39:02
like, a big meme coin runner like
39:04
this usually kind of signals the
39:06
early stages of the end of a
39:08
bear market and into a bull market.
39:10
What's your general thoughts on the
39:13
outlook for the rest of 2026
39:15
when it comes to markets and
39:17
where we might be going from here?
39:19
Is Ansem the
39:21
spark that ignites things.
39:23
I think it's one of the sparks, but
39:25
there's just so many sparks that
39:27
are happening right now that
39:29
for me, I'm extremely bullish.
39:31
Probably the most bullish I've ever
39:32
been.
39:33
Obviously you have like the on-chain
39:35
stuff happening.
39:37
You have Robinhood, like one of
39:38
these mega financial
39:40
super app companies going more into
39:43
decentralized finance.
39:45
You have crazy decentralized perp
39:47
volumes.
39:48
You have Clarity, hopefully
39:50
getting approved.
39:51
I saw.
39:53
I think yesterday or the day before
39:54
that there was some movement on the
39:56
ethics side of the Clarity Act.
39:59
Hopefully we'll see SEC
40:02
securities tokenization
40:04
exemption come through,
40:06
the tech's getting better and
40:07
better.
40:08
And so like, there's just so many
40:10
things that are lining up right now
40:12
that I am super bullish.
40:14
Hopefully we can get Clarity passed
40:16
and all this other stuff.
40:17
But even then, like, I feel like
40:19
the things are starting to kind of
40:20
like simmer and I think we're gonna
40:23
have a really good rest of the year,
40:25
maybe starting in like September.
40:27
So I think people are kind of
40:29
chilling during the summer.
40:31
When it comes to to JTX right
40:33
now, did you set any goals
40:35
like on paper for trading
40:37
volumes, you know, active,
40:40
active traders, that kind of thing?
40:41
And can you give us a glimpse of the
40:43
first 24 hours and how
40:45
you hope things are going to go from
40:46
here?
40:48
Yeah, there's a website tracking
40:49
this.
40:51
I think it's reasonably accurate.
40:53
We're working with them to kind of
40:54
get some better stats here.
40:56
But it's perp.so
40:58
slash spot slash stats.
41:01
So he's been building this dashboard
41:03
to track the stats.
41:06
I would say overall, things are
41:07
going really well.
41:10
We're seeing a lot of people test
41:12
out SmartPhil, which is one of our
41:13
key order types.
41:14
It's basically like a super fast
41:15
TWOP.
41:16
I'm seeing a ton of T-WAPs come
41:18
through the trades.
41:19
We're seeing a lot of good retention
41:21
so far.
41:24
I would say the main things that we
41:25
are tracking are like new
41:27
users, daily active
41:29
users, retention.
41:31
We have some metrics around swaps
41:34
and what
41:36
else?
41:39
We have other metrics.
41:40
I don't want to share all of them.
41:44
You know, I think that there's a lot
41:46
of like standard stuff.
41:47
And then also like,
41:48
let's see if I can
41:50
think of like example of one, like
41:52
we are over,
41:55
I can't remember the exact number
41:57
without pulling up my doc, but like
41:58
over 20%
42:01
of trades over, JTX
42:03
is 20% of trades over $10,000
42:06
on chain. Wow, okay.
42:08
From like humans,
42:10
not bots.
42:11
So that's the goal.
42:12
We're not there yet.
42:15
So yeah, that's kind of like how
42:16
we're thinking about things.
42:18
It's not really people playing
42:20
around with a couple of hundred
42:21
dollars here and there.
42:22
It's definitely more sort of
42:24
pro-style traders, right, which I
42:25
think speaks volumes to the
42:27
infrastructure itself.
42:28
Yeah, we're seeing some really
42:31
big orders come through.
42:34
I saw yesterday there was a guy who
42:36
put in a limit order for like
42:38
300 or $400,000 of
42:40
JTO.
42:41
And I just kept sawing it get filled
42:43
and filled and filled.
42:45
There's a ton of people trading like
42:46
meme coins on there too.
42:49
So really cool to see that and
42:51
we're excited to keep making things
42:53
better.
42:55
My final question, what do you think
42:56
is gonna lead sort of usage
42:58
on the platform?
42:59
Do you think it's gonna be equities
43:01
or is it gonna be crypto?
43:02
And what do want to see?
43:04
Yeah.
43:05
I think that
43:07
equities are the
43:09
largest market
43:11
that are going to come on chain
43:13
soon.
43:13
All the current interfaces,
43:16
including JTX, I think are under
43:17
serving them.
43:19
And that's going to be the next big
43:21
push for us.
43:22
So we're going to have totally
43:23
custom equities interface.
43:25
I think it's going be the best on
43:27
chain experience possible.
43:28
And I
43:30
think that's really going to
43:32
open up a lot of new users and
43:34
new activity coming onto JTX.
43:37
So I would say that's the thing that
43:38
we're most excited about.
43:41
I think that memes are always going
43:42
to be here. I think people are going
43:44
to continue to trade memes on JTx.
43:47
And so I think it's kind of like the
43:49
barbell strategy.
43:50
I believe Vlad tweeted something
43:51
about this the other day.
43:53
It's like Inside you there's two
43:54
wolves, memes and RWAs,
43:57
and I think I definitely agree
43:59
there.
44:00
So everyone's, everyone's trying to
44:02
get the trifecta, memes,
44:04
RWAs, and then just, you know,
44:06
general, general crypto as well.
44:09
Um, my, my final, final question to
44:10
you, obviously just on the, on the
44:12
current sort of trajectory of
44:14
Solana, um, when I
44:15
first interviewed totally a couple
44:17
of years ago here in Amsterdam,
44:19
uh, he spoke to me about, you know,
44:21
the original vision for Solana
44:23
and, and it being this platform
44:25
for essentially like high-frequency
44:26
trading, that's what you've kind of
44:28
What's up? Nah, dude.
44:30
Do you think that you're finally
44:32
allowing that vision to
44:33
play out properly with the platform
44:35
that ticks all the boxes that he
44:37
envisioned?
44:38
Yeah, I think that's been going on
44:40
for a long time.
44:41
Even when we started Gito and
44:43
started building the block engine
44:44
and all the kind of block building
44:46
infra, you can see there's a ton
44:48
of high-frequency trading going on.
44:50
I would say bots are doing most of
44:52
the volume and most of fees on
44:53
Solana.
44:54
And that's a good thing.
44:57
I think some people like to say it's
44:58
a bad thing, but I think it's good
44:59
thing, that's like what
45:01
most activity on the traditional
45:03
markets is, is just bots.
45:05
And so it's been on for awhile.
45:07
But I think that
45:10
some of the tools and
45:12
people's access to those
45:15
types of tools has been limited.
45:17
And so we're really trying to
45:19
expand that with JTX.
45:20
And right now, we're on day one.
45:22
And it's just going to be so
45:24
much better at day 30, 60, 90.
45:28
Yeah, and I think day
45:30
90 might be around the time
45:32
that Solana Breakpoint happens
45:34
in London.
45:35
So I think we definitely need to do
45:36
some sort of a starting block JTX
45:39
collab for London in a few
45:41
months time.
45:42
But Lucas, thank you so much for
45:43
taking the time to chat to us on the
45:44
show. I'm not sure if this is the
45:46
first interview that you've done
45:47
since the official launch yesterday,
45:49
but we appreciate you joining
45:51
us and just wanna say good luck.
45:54
I'm sure it's only up on me from
45:56
here.
45:57
Yeah, I hope so.
45:58
If you have any feedback for us, let
45:59
me know.
46:01
I will definitely be playing around
46:02
for the next few hours.
46:04
I'll slide into your DMs.
46:07
But yeah, Lucas, thank you so much
46:08
for joining us.
46:09
If you have any questions for Lucas,
46:11
JTX, G2O team,
46:13
you guys know where to find them
46:15
online.
46:16
Go ahead and bombard them with
46:17
whatever questions, feedback.
46:19
I'm sure the more the merrier.
46:20
It definitely helps iron out
46:22
things just after launch.
46:24
And of course, if you enjoyed
46:25
watching the show, please like and
46:27
retweet this.
46:28
Uh you know we've we've had lucas
46:30
here i think probably the first
46:31
interview that he's done since
46:32
launch so i'm sure lots of people
46:34
out there want to hear all about the
46:35
launch the last 24 hours but again
46:37
lucas thank you so much for joining
46:39
us thank you for watching the show
46:40
we will be back tomorrow uh
46:43
with another jam-packed show we've
46:44
got corrie clipston from swan
46:45
bitcoin joining us and then on
46:46
friday charles hoskinson from
46:48
cardano we got some interesting
46:50
things to talk about with charles uh
46:52
on frida really looking forward to
46:53
that so i said a reminder on your
46:54
calendar, we broadcast every day.
46:57
8.30 a.m.
46:58
Eastern Time if you're in the U.S.,
47:00
2.30 Central European Time
47:02
if you're here in Europe, please
47:03
come and join us.
47:04
We'd love to have you with us.
47:06
Until tomorrow, have a fantastic
47:07
morning and evening.
47:09
We'll catch you then.