Latest / The Starting Block / Charles Hoskinson on Cardano’s Future, the state of crypto & AI

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Charles Hoskinson on Cardano’s Future, the state of crypto & AI · The Starting Block

• 0:03
  Are live.
• 0:05
  Welcome back to the starting block.
• 0:07
  We are wrapping up the first month
• 0:08
  of the show with a very special
• 0:10
  interview. We started all things
• 0:12
  live in Abu Dhabi with a special
• 0:13
  interview with Finance Founder CZ
• 0:15
  and we're wrapping up this month
• 0:16
  with a Special Interview with
• 0:18
  Charles Hoskinson.
• 0:19
  Unfortunately not live and in
• 0:21
  person but next time we'll have to
• 0:23
  come to the ranch or something like
• 0:25
  that. Charles, first things first,
• 0:26
  it's great to have you on the show. How
• 0:27
  are you?
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  Ah, doing quite well.
• 0:28
  It's been a very eventful year.
• 0:31
  It has indeed, it has indeed.
• 0:33
  I mean, I think let's kind of
• 0:35
  start there. I mean we've been
• 0:37
  obviously following you for
• 0:39
  years and years and myself
• 0:40
  personally, I worked at
• 0:41
  Cointelegraph for a long time.
• 0:43
  I think you and Cointelegraph as
• 0:45
  an institution were always kind of
• 0:47
  boxing, but this year's been super
• 0:49
  interesting and I.
• 0:50
  I found it really interesting when
• 0:52
  you finally kind of said, and you've
• 0:53
  done this at various points of
• 0:55
  your life on
• 0:58
  Twitter and X, that you wanted to
• 0:59
  leave X.
• 1:00
  And I kind of wanted to just start
• 1:01
  the conversation there about that
• 1:03
  decision, how you actually feel
• 1:05
  about the platform, some of
• 1:07
  the views you've faced online.
• 1:08
  Because I do think as much as we
• 1:10
  love the cryptocurrency industry,
• 1:13
  the vitriol that's aimed at certain
• 1:15
  people in the industry is not
• 1:17
  something that I like or
• 1:18
  am proud of.
• 1:20
  And I think you're one of those
• 1:22
  kind of people out there that's
• 1:23
  like, you know what?
• 1:24
  Fuck this, I'm not gonna sit around
• 1:25
  and take this from people anymore.
• 1:27
  Can you talk to us a little bit
• 1:28
  about your experience of X and if
• 1:30
  you see yourself coming back here
• 1:32
  properly in the future.
• 1:34
  Well, I mean, the problem
• 1:36
  with channels is that
• 1:38
  every channel, it gives you
• 1:40
  a benefit and it
• 1:42
  takes something from you.
• 1:43
  And so X is built for
• 1:45
  basically low information,
• 1:49
  200 characters or less,
• 1:51
  instant rage, instant emotion.
• 1:53
  You can't have a philosophical
• 1:55
  debate, a governance debate or a
• 1:57
  nuanced conversation there.
• 1:58
  It's also a misinformation
• 1:59
  amplifier.
• 2:00
  You know, you mentioned I box
• 2:02
  with Cointelegraph.
• 2:04
  Uh... They're complicit libel
• 2:06
  uh... This be blatantly clear about
• 2:08
  that it's objectively true the
• 2:09
  there's some random guy was no
• 2:11
  material connection to stuff that
• 2:13
  happened in cardinal ten plus years
• 2:15
  ago he made allegations of
• 2:17
  mass fraud uh...
• 2:19
  There was an independent audit by m
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  w e n p d o completely
• 2:22
  exonerated and cleared us on that
• 2:24
  and quite telegraph covered the
• 2:26
  allegation but refused to cover
• 2:28
  anything about
• 2:30
  exoneration.
• 2:32
  It's just journalistic misconduct
• 2:34
  and they didn't even reach
• 2:36
  out to me when they covered the
• 2:37
  allegation.
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  Basic journalism 101, if there's
• 2:40
  somebody being accused of a felony,
• 2:42
  let's contact the person and get
• 2:43
  their side of the story.
• 2:45
  Didn't even do that, didn't publish
• 2:46
  the correction.
• 2:47
  Why? Because they're tuned to
• 2:49
  X and they're turned to
• 2:51
  social media and the goal there
• 2:53
  is controversy,
• 2:55
  rage bait, division.
• 2:58
  Uh... And you can't make any
• 2:59
  meaningful progress there and the
• 3:01
  people who succumbed to it they've
• 3:02
  become over time highly partisan
• 3:04
  and highly hated especially
• 3:07
  among certain demographics.
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  So Elon Musk is the canonical
• 3:10
  example when you look at that.
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  You know he has a hundred and forty,
• 3:14
  a hundred fifty, I don't know
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  millions, millions, massive Twitter
• 3:17
  following and uh...
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  By all rights and means he's a very
• 3:22
  productive human being in his
• 3:23
  personal and public life.
• 3:25
  He's able to juggle having more
• 3:27
  than a dozen kids.
• 3:28
  He's a trillionaire, you know, he's
• 3:30
  taking us to Mars.
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  I mean, there's very few people that
• 3:32
  have ever achieved the success, if
• 3:34
  anyone, that he has,
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  but yet half of America thinks he's
• 3:39
  the world's worst human being and
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  he's a force of destruction and
• 3:42
  negativity, principally because
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  of his conduct on Twitter.
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  So it's a net negative for public
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  figures after a while.
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  Yeah, it's a little bit crazy.
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  I mean, it is really interesting to
• 3:53
  hear you talk about it in this slide
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  because, you know, four weeks ago we
• 3:56
  were sitting down in person with CZ
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  and, you know he contributed 500
• 4:01
  million dollars to the
• 4:03
  takeover of X, you know,
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  and he's very much of the opinion
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  that it's like freedom of
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  like a freedom of speech platform.
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  That's the doctor here.
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  That's the Dr. Hibbert, right? You know,
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  after I own 5% of the steakhouse,
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  I don't think there's any problem.
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  Yeah, fair point.
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  When you've got skin in the game,
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  it's very hard to be critical of
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  anything, you know.
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  But to be fair, look,
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  I think CZ's also got his fair share
• 4:26
  of hate on X.
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  So he hasn't had a different
• 4:30
  experience to you.
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  And I mean, like everyone was
• 4:32
  turning around last year saying that
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  Binance and CZ were wholly
• 4:36
  responsible for the October
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  10 market crash.
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  But he's still there on X and still
• 4:43
  doing his thing and maybe just turns
• 4:44
  a blind eye to it.
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  Yeah, well, it's also hard
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  to know how much is it actually CZ
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  versus a group of people handling
• 4:52
  the account.
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  Look, you don't abandon these.
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  We have a million followers in my
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  case and I think he has more.
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  You don't abandoned these platforms.
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  What you do is you curate them and
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  manage them differently.
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  So there's a heavy amount of AI now
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  that I use in the curation of my
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  Twitter feed and for the vast
• 5:08
  majority of the days I don't
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  do anything with it.
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  It's hard to match terms
• 5:13
  of real-time information
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  Yeah, yeah, it did.
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  They just don't want to talk about
• 5:18
  stuff and you get
• 5:20
  a completely different view of
• 5:22
  the world from the new
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  streams of X versus the curated news
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  of mainstream media.
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  Like we would know Henry Nowak
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  at all. He just wouldn't exist and
• 5:31
  he wouldn't be a person in the UK
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  had X not existed.
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  But now that X exists,
• 5:37
  we know that story.
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  So it's valuable from that
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  perspective, but the problem is that
• 5:42
  it takes from you.
• 5:43
  So every time you go there, part of
• 5:45
  your soul starts.
• 5:46
  You know, getting drained
• 5:48
  away and there's no empathy and
• 5:50
  everybody loves the controversy.
• 5:52
  So they take things and they don't
• 5:53
  use basic critical thinking.
• 5:55
  Like if somebody makes an allegation
• 5:57
  with 11 Twitter followers who has
• 5:59
  no material connection to the
• 6:00
  principle or inside knowledge,
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  that's baseless.
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  And normal people would say,
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  well hang on a second here, how do
• 6:08
  you know that?
• 6:09
  But on Twitter, it can go viral
• 6:11
  and then magically it turns into
• 6:13
  a thing and then everybody's just
• 6:14
  saying, well this person sent this
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  thing. What is your commentary on
• 6:17
  that? It's like, I don't know,
• 6:19
  when'd you stop beating your wife?
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  I never beat my wife, well that's
• 6:22
  what I heard on X.
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  So you gotta prove that you didn't
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  do that, right?
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  Yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah, look, it's not
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  perfect.
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  I think we all know that.
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  Um, but yeah, I also just appreciate
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  you being candid about it.
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  And, uh, I've always watched from
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  the sidelines and been like, man,
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  you've taken your fair share of
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  abuse. So if you want to curate it
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  and use it, how you want to use it
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  that that makes sense to me.
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  And I think if I'd gone through what
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  you had, I would probably
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  be sitting in a similar
• 6:52
  situation, but I have far less
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  followers and I'm, I think a
• 6:56
  lot less divisive than you are.
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  Charles, I want to take it back to
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  you, to the origin story.
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  And I am.
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  Forgive me and indulge
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  me a little bit here because I've
• 7:04
  never had the chance to ask you in
• 7:05
  person um The
• 7:07
  actual story behind what happened
• 7:09
  with the founding of ethereum
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  because
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  I'm not going to talk about the founding of
• 7:12
  Ethereum, dude, and shame on you for
• 7:13
  asking it. Do some basic fucking
• 7:15
  research.
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  It's been 12 years, and I've
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  answered the question 400 times
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  in every goddamn interview.
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  Imagine my life experience, every
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  interview. Hey, you worked at a
• 7:24
  place 12 years ago for
• 7:26
  six months, and books have been
• 7:28
  written about it. Can you go back
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  to that and walk me through step
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  by step everything that happened?
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  You're lazy.
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  Dude, in any basic research, there
• 7:39
  are hundreds of interviews where
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  I've spent 30 minutes, an hour, two
• 7:42
  hours talking about it, going back
• 7:44
  and forth about it.
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  It's, it's, what are we going to
• 7:47
  gain by rehashing the Miami
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  house and then the Swiss, uh,
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  ides of June and all these
• 7:54
  other things, what are we gonna gain
• 7:55
  from that?
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  I mean, let me just
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  explain myself here.
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  So obviously, the block has an
• 8:01
  audience, we have an audience.
• 8:02
  They're different audiences.
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  Some people may not have heard this
• 8:05
  story. No, they have heard it, and
• 8:06
  if they...
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  No, they have heard, and if they haven't heard it,
• 8:07
  tell them to go to YouTube and
• 8:08
  search for it.
• 8:09
  It's boring. Next question.
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  Move on.
• 8:11
  Okay, fair enough.
• 8:12
  Fair enough.
• 8:14
  I had 12 years,
• 8:16
  I know what asked me about 12 years
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  of how we built Cardano to $100
• 8:19
  billion ecosystem and solve some
• 8:21
  of the hardest problems of computer
• 8:22
  science, or you want to talk about
• 8:24
  six months of my life 12 years ago,
• 8:26
  that I've already talked about 200
• 8:28
  times, 300 times,
• 8:30
  400 times.
• 8:31
  I think maybe you misunderstand my
• 8:34
  intention with that, because I think
• 8:36
  that a lot of people don't
• 8:37
  understand what went into the
• 8:39
  creation of Ethereum, and you
• 8:41
  probably deserve more credit than
• 8:42
  you've gotten before that.
• 8:45
  Let's move on.
• 8:46
  We're not talking about a small part
• 8:48
  of my life and Cardano is the big
• 8:49
  part of my life.
• 8:50
  Midnight's the big part of my life
• 8:52
  I respect that and I mean,
• 8:55
  to be fair, I wasn't trying to be
• 8:56
  lazy and I really did want
• 8:58
  to have that conversation with you
• 8:59
  myself because I don't want to
• 9:01
  relive other people's conversations
• 9:03
  with you about these things, I would
• 9:04
  rather ask you myself.
• 9:05
  You can listen
• 9:07
  and watch and you can
• 9:09
  see me go into exhaustive detail.
• 9:13
  Again, if a traumatic event happens
• 9:15
  in your life and you're done talking
• 9:16
  about it, you've said what you
• 9:18
  wanted to say, it's not appropriate.
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  Just keep badgering people after 12
• 9:21
  years about the goddamn thing.
• 9:23
  I'm so tired of talking about
• 9:25
  Ethereum, you know, I'm
• 9:27
  still tired of it.
• 9:29
  Okay, okay. I understand.
• 9:31
  That's that's fair. I will respect
• 9:32
  that and again like I had
• 9:34
  no intention of upsetting you with
• 9:35
  with that line of questioning and
• 9:37
  You've drawn a clear line in the
• 9:38
  sand. So it's let's let me
• 9:40
  move on from this. Let's talk about
• 9:42
  card I know I mean, it's been a very
• 9:43
  interesting year you yourself
• 9:45
  a couple of months ago, you know
• 9:48
  Basically sent out a warning to
• 9:49
  you to everyone in the card I know
• 9:51
  ecosystem saying that things are
• 9:52
  gonna get really tough and it's
• 9:55
  kind of hard to see where this goes
• 9:56
  from here While
• 9:58
  I was at Cointelegraph, there was a
• 10:00
  headline that was written that had
• 10:02
  kind of said that you
• 10:04
  had said in an interview to one of
• 10:05
  our journalists that Ethereum
• 10:07
  was a dictatorship, but part
• 10:09
  of the reason it moved in the
• 10:10
  direction it was is that it had a
• 10:12
  North Star.
• 10:13
  And my question to you is like, do
• 10:15
  you think the Cardano ecosystem
• 10:16
  still needs you to be North
• 10:18
  Star, and is there some merit in
• 10:20
  people maintaining that sort
• 10:22
  of...
• 10:25
  Directionality for a protocol
• 10:27
  and an ecosystem?
• 10:28
  And do you still want to be that
• 10:29
  because it's been a very hard
• 10:31
  journey since?
• 10:33
  I mean, the challenge with
• 10:35
  any decentralized ecosystem is
• 10:37
  people want contradictory things.
• 10:39
  They want the comfort of a
• 10:41
  leader, a clear roadmap.
• 10:44
  Clear direction and centralized
• 10:45
  product.
• 10:46
  Thank you.
• 10:47
  But then at the same time, they want
• 10:48
  total decentralization and nobody's
• 10:50
  in control.
• 10:51
  And so Cardano has been the only
• 10:53
  project outside of, I'd say,
• 10:55
  Tezos and a handful of others that
• 10:57
  have tried to figure out a way to
• 10:58
  square that circle.
• 11:00
  Where what we've done is we've built
• 11:01
  an on-chain governance system.
• 11:03
  And it took years to do this.
• 11:04
  We created a constitution, had a
• 11:06
  constitutional convention.
• 11:07
  It was an enormous amount of effort.
• 11:08
  We had people from 50 countries
• 11:10
  participate.
• 11:11
  We have an on-chain governance
• 11:12
  system with DREPs where you can
• 11:14
  delegate to them, similar to
• 11:15
  delegating to the stake pool.
• 11:16
  We have constitutional committee
• 11:17
  members.
• 11:18
  And what we've been systematically
• 11:19
  doing is building a government.
• 11:21
  Governments typically have three
• 11:22
  branches. They have a legislative,
• 11:24
  judicial, and they have an executive
• 11:26
  branch.
• 11:27
  Well, we built the legislative and
• 11:28
  judicial branch, and we
• 11:30
  did that very deliberately because
• 11:32
  if you start with the executive
• 11:33
  branch, you continue having too much
• 11:35
  executive function, too much power
• 11:37
  nested in one person.
• 11:39
  Well, the consequence of not having
• 11:41
  a strong executive function is
• 11:42
  you don't have that singular roadmap
• 11:45
  nor star as you call it,
• 11:47
  vision and direction.
• 11:49
  And it makes a lot of things really
• 11:50
  hard like commercialization and
• 11:52
  marketing because it
• 11:54
  becomes very difficult to know what
• 11:55
  the protocol is about if there's 400
• 11:57
  different people saying 400
• 11:59
  different things all the time with
• 12:01
  it.
• 12:03
  And so what we've tried very
• 12:04
  deliberately to do is create a
• 12:06
  systematic process.
• 12:07
  Where we actually can get to a
• 12:09
  strong executive function with
• 12:11
  checks and balances.
• 12:12
  So it doesn't become a
• 12:14
  dictatorship and it doesn' create an
• 12:16
  over-reliance on a singular person
• 12:18
  or entity for the ecosystem.
• 12:20
  This is ridiculously hard in
• 12:22
  practice. You have to decentralize
• 12:24
  the development, you have to
• 12:25
  decentralized the financing of
• 12:27
  things, but we already have some big
• 12:28
  competitive advantages.
• 12:31
  If you look at Cardano, in spite of
• 12:32
  the fact that we're only $6 billion
• 12:34
  and we've fallen out of the top 10.
• 12:36
  There was still enough money in the
• 12:37
  Cardano on-chain treasury from
• 12:39
  the revenue and inflation of the
• 12:40
  system to pay over a hundred million
• 12:42
  dollar budget this year to
• 12:44
  finance operations for the
• 12:46
  entire Cardano ecosystem and more
• 12:48
  than three, four dozen companies
• 12:50
  have received funding.
• 12:51
  So very decentralized from that
• 12:52
  perspective.
• 12:53
  I want to contrast that with
• 12:54
  Ethereum because they don't have an
• 12:55
  on-chained voting system or on-Chain
• 12:57
  treasury.
• 12:59
  The Ethereum foundation is laying
• 13:00
  people off and it's trying really
• 13:01
  hard to find Like, where do we get
• 13:03
  our funding from?
• 13:04
  And they're starting to descend into
• 13:05
  a plutocratic oligarchy where
• 13:07
  wealthy benefactors will say,
• 13:09
  oh yeah, we'll cover the development
• 13:10
  of the protocol, but they forget
• 13:12
  there's the golden rule, which is he
• 13:14
  who has the gold makes the rules.
• 13:17
  So if you have these wealthy
• 13:19
  beneffactors, they're never gonna
• 13:20
  tell you to do things that are
• 13:21
  contrary to their best interests as
• 13:23
  an operating business.
• 13:24
  So you basically get a ruling
• 13:26
  council of benefactores.
• 13:28
  So, and what's sad is if Ethereum
• 13:29
  just took 5% of their
• 13:31
  protocol revenue and gave it to the
• 13:33
  Ethereum Foundation, that'd be $390
• 13:35
  million a year of funding
• 13:37
  that they would have to advance and
• 13:38
  grow and thrive the protocol.
• 13:40
  So unchained treasuries, unchained
• 13:41
  voting, I think, are just a
• 13:43
  no-brainer and they get you there.
• 13:44
  But they're useless unless you have
• 13:46
  executive function, because you have
• 13:47
  to know what is the strategy, what
• 13:49
  is the vision, what are the KPIs
• 13:52
  that we're chasing, what is
• 13:53
  this about?
• 13:54
  People very rightfully, your
• 13:56
  listeners and others, would ask,
• 13:57
  okay, in 2030, If Cardano wins,
• 13:59
  what does that mean?
• 14:01
  You know, where are they taking this
• 14:02
  protocol? How are they evolving this
• 14:04
  protocol. That's really the
• 14:05
  important component of all of it.
• 14:08
  So we're trying to
• 14:10
  build that executive function now.
• 14:12
  And that's the last stage of
• 14:14
  the decentralized governance.
• 14:15
  And so how that's gonna be done is
• 14:17
  there's gonna an update to the
• 14:18
  Cardinal Constitution, people will
• 14:20
  vote on it, and then we'll nominate
• 14:22
  elect a group
• 14:23
  of people to basically get a
• 14:25
  roadmap done and get a
• 14:27
  stable budget process done.
• 14:29
  And then we'll have a
• 14:32
  unified front.
• 14:33
  And so you will feel like the
• 14:35
  development of a centralized
• 14:36
  company, but we'll be able to
• 14:38
  make meaningful progress on the
• 14:40
  decentralized front.
• 14:41
  By the way, you've frozen.
• 14:43
  Are you still there?
• 14:45
  I am still there.
• 14:46
  Can you still hear me?
• 14:47
  I'm going to tee up the next
• 14:48
  question and then I will just
• 14:49
  quickly refresh my camera.
• 14:52
  Last week news came out that
• 14:54
  IOHK or IOG had
• 14:56
  handed off some core protocol work
• 14:58
  to some external teams,
• 15:00
  including Midgard Labs, Vacuum Labs
• 15:03
  to do this.
• 15:04
  Can explain a little bit more the
• 15:05
  rationale behind that?
• 15:06
  100%.
• 15:07
  We've been doing
• 15:09
  that for actually three years now.
• 15:11
  The first step was
• 15:12
  contractors-subcontractors.
• 15:14
  Input-output was at the top.
• 15:16
  We had dozens of developers in
• 15:17
  different areas doing
• 15:19
  various things and then we would
• 15:20
  augment them with subcontractor.
• 15:22
  Those subcontactors would
• 15:24
  build up a corpus of
• 15:26
  expertise and now we've gotten to
• 15:28
  a point where we're able to
• 15:30
  actually turn over the
• 15:32
  projects to those subcontractors
• 15:34
  in their own right.
• 15:35
  We did this very deliberately
• 15:37
  because we wanted to have many
• 15:39
  different independent,
• 15:41
  geographically diverse firms
• 15:43
  working on Cardano,
• 15:45
  and also multiple nodes on
• 15:47
  Cardono. So everybody's, oh,
• 15:48
  Cardono's Haskell, and Haskell's a
• 15:50
  weird language, so let's not use it.
• 15:51
  Well, there's also a Rust
• 15:52
  implementation of the node, and a
• 15:54
  Go implementation of a node.
• 15:56
  So A lot of
• 15:58
  people, they just know about Cardano
• 16:00
  from a very particular snapshot, a
• 16:01
  very particular period of time, and
• 16:03
  they just completely write off the
• 16:04
  project if they didn't like that
• 16:06
  snapshot. It's a living project.
• 16:08
  So you have to increase the
• 16:10
  diversity of the code, the diversity
• 16:11
  of specification, the diversity of
• 16:13
  open source project governance.
• 16:14
  There's two MPOs for that, Intersect
• 16:17
  and Pragma, and then also the
• 16:18
  diversity of the development firms
• 16:20
  themselves working on it.
• 16:22
  So what we're going to do at I.O.
• 16:23
  Is kind of move into two different
• 16:24
  directions. One, we're
• 16:28
  So we're gonna figure out the big
• 16:29
  hard protocols because we're super
• 16:30
  good at that and we have a massive
• 16:32
  army of scientists and we've always
• 16:33
  been very good at it.
• 16:35
  And the other thing we're going to
• 16:36
  work on is new venture developments,
• 16:38
  so commercialization of Cardano.
• 16:40
  And we already have several ventures
• 16:42
  that have come out or are coming out
• 16:44
  that are at Cardano launched.
• 16:46
  For example, RealFi is a
• 16:47
  microfinance platform on Cardano,
• 16:50
  Pogan is a Bitcoin DeFi play on
• 16:52
  Cardono, which these both will
• 16:54
  directly massively increase the TVL
• 16:56
  of Cardona, which has always been a
• 16:57
  weak point.
• 16:58
  We're gonna start using some of
• 16:59
  those integrations we have with
• 17:00
  Cardano like Circle for USDCX,
• 17:03
  build that up and get a lot more
• 17:05
  stable coin issued so those metrics
• 17:06
  can look better.
• 17:07
  And then obviously we launched
• 17:08
  Midnight, which is our largest bet
• 17:10
  that we've had and that's directly
• 17:12
  connected to Cardano as well and
• 17:13
  it's growing and thriving like a
• 17:15
  weed. It's a very successful
• 17:16
  project. So that's what Input Output
• 17:18
  is focused on right now.
• 17:20
  Maintaining the Haskell node is
• 17:21
  important but it's
• 17:24
  a economically neutral thing.
• 17:26
  Whether we have a phenomenal node
• 17:28
  or the node not so good, it didn't
• 17:30
  really have any impact on the growth
• 17:32
  of the ecosystem.
• 17:33
  And there's now diversity there.
• 17:34
  There's a Haskell node, a Rust node,
• 17:36
  and a Go node.
• 17:37
  And part of this transition was
• 17:39
  getting those developers into the
• 17:40
  right structure so that they can
• 17:42
  continue delivering that consistency
• 17:44
  and security that people have relied
• 17:45
  on, because we tend to stay up 24-7
• 17:47
  for now eight years it's been
• 17:49
  running.
• 17:51
  But it allows us now to
• 17:53
  go and focus on commercialization
• 17:55
  and growth. And so we can solve that
• 17:57
  next problem because no one has a
• 17:58
  problem with the decentralization of
• 18:00
  Cardano or the reliability of
• 18:01
  Cardano, or security of Cardono.
• 18:02
  That's never typically a criticism
• 18:04
  we get.
• 18:05
  The criticism we get is nobody's
• 18:07
  using the chain and
• 18:08
  it's somewhat fair
• 18:11
  in certain dimensions and so, we
• 18:12
  said let's go solve that problem as
• 18:14
  input-output and actually directly
• 18:16
  go into the arena and build consumer
• 18:17
  products and DeFi products
• 18:19
  and other things, get people excited
• 18:21
  about them and then that will
• 18:23
  increase the adoption of the chain.
• 18:25
  Yeah, I think I want to pull on that
• 18:27
  thread a little bit. I mean, obviously
• 18:28
  I think it was late last year where
• 18:31
  you kind of announced or Cardano
• 18:33
  kind of positioned itself towards
• 18:35
  Bitcoin DeFi.
• 18:36
  Obviously the Bitcoin treasury mates
• 18:38
  has been really interesting to see
• 18:39
  play out and what Michael
• 18:41
  Saylor has done in terms of the
• 18:42
  evolution of the products that he's
• 18:44
  put out are really interesting, but
• 18:45
  there are going to be lots of
• 18:46
  Bitcoin treasury companies that are
• 18:48
  sitting with Bitcoin on their
• 18:49
  balance sheet.
• 18:50
  Needing to generate some sort
• 18:52
  of revenue and Bitcoin DeFi does
• 18:54
  open that avenue.
• 18:55
  Is that something that you see being
• 18:57
  an opportunity here?
• 18:58
  Yeah, and actually, Cardano has
• 19:00
  a unique capability that I
• 19:02
  don't think people fully understand.
• 19:04
  So we can do Bitcoin mirroring.
• 19:06
  So what we can, because we're a UTXO
• 19:08
  system and Bitcoin is a UTxO system,
• 19:10
  and we figured out the zero
• 19:11
  knowledge side of it, is that you
• 19:12
  can take your Bitcoin on Taproot
• 19:14
  and through a zero knowledge
• 19:15
  transaction, you can mirror it into
• 19:17
  Cardano in a non-custodial way.
• 19:19
  So you're not using a conventional
• 19:20
  bridge.
• 19:21
  Now, there's two advantages.
• 19:22
  First, you're in control of that, so
• 19:24
  it doesn't get hacked.
• 19:25
  And the second advantage of this is
• 19:27
  it's tax neutral.
• 19:28
  You're not creating a new asset.
• 19:30
  You're mirroring your asset in a
• 19:31
  non-custodial way somewhere else.
• 19:32
  You don't have a tax event when you
• 19:34
  use that. And there's some
• 19:35
  jurisdictions, including the
• 19:37
  United States potentially, that
• 19:38
  believe bridging may be a tax, uh,
• 19:40
  event. So you have capital gain or
• 19:42
  loss whenever you bridge over.
• 19:44
  Um, so, uh we're building those
• 19:46
  capabilities and have been for a
• 19:48
  while. And we actually, even some of
• 19:49
  the people on the core bit VM design
• 19:51
  work at our research lab and so
• 19:53
  we've invented a lot of stuff and
• 19:54
  we've been able to actually
• 19:55
  successfully move Bitcoin from.
• 19:57
  The Bitcoin network into Cardano.
• 19:59
  Step two is giving people the
• 20:01
  ability to lend their Bitcoin
• 20:02
  collateralized lending to a stable
• 20:04
  coin. So you have this non-custodial
• 20:06
  collateralized lending to a
• 20:07
  Stablecoin from a non- custodial
• 20:09
  bridge system, a mirroring
• 20:11
  system, and when you put
• 20:13
  those two pieces together, then your
• 20:14
  Bitcoin produces stable coin.
• 20:16
  Then what you do is you deploy the
• 20:18
  stable coin to DeFi and
• 20:20
  you get a yield. I'm so the idea
• 20:22
  is that you just click a button in
• 20:24
  your bitcoin wallet.
• 20:25
  If you're a retail user, or you can
• 20:27
  make a deal if you are an enterprise
• 20:28
  user, institutional user,
• 20:30
  and you just basically choose your
• 20:31
  risk profile for the defile
• 20:33
  you wanna be in, and then you just
• 20:34
  start generating passive yield.
• 20:36
  And what's really cool is then you
• 20:37
  can convert the yield back into
• 20:38
  Bitcoin, so then suddenly you start
• 20:40
  getting like, almost like staking
• 20:41
  rewards. You know, you get payments
• 20:43
  to your Bitcoin, and the
• 20:45
  underlying security is the
• 20:46
  underlying security of the Bitcoin
• 20:47
  network, not the Cardano network in
• 20:49
  many cases.
• 20:50
  So that's a really powerful play,
• 20:52
  and it's very different.
• 20:54
  From the prior Bitcoin bridges
• 20:56
  that have been proposed because
• 20:57
  they're only about four and a half
• 20:58
  billion dollars worth of Bitcoin
• 20:59
  that is utilized in DeFi at
• 21:01
  the moment.
• 21:02
  It's a huge mismatch.
• 21:03
  It was a trillion dollar ecosystem
• 21:04
  and like less than 5%
• 21:07
  has been deployed in any meaningful
• 21:08
  way historically
• 21:10
  in any DeFi
• 21:12
  protocol. So I
• 21:15
  It's a huge market opportunity if
• 21:17
  you crack it. And we have a lot of
• 21:18
  people in the OG Bitcoin space that
• 21:20
  are extremely excited about the
• 21:21
  prospect of, especially with
• 21:22
  Midnight, because they can do this
• 21:23
  privately.
• 21:24
  They can lend their Bitcoin to a
• 21:26
  private stable coin and then place
• 21:28
  that private stablecoin in a bunch
• 21:29
  of yield products and there's no
• 21:31
  linkability back to the old Bitcoin.
• 21:33
  It's pretty exciting.
• 21:35
  The other thing is security has to
• 21:36
  be right.
• 21:37
  Every day there's a buck and bridge
• 21:38
  hack somewhere and it's just so
• 21:40
  frustrating and we're all tired of
• 21:41
  it. It happens no matter what
• 21:43
  ecosystem it is.
• 21:44
  So you really need somebody who
• 21:45
  knows what they're doing to build
• 21:47
  these capabilities and audit
• 21:49
  these capabilities and make sure
• 21:51
  that they work. And you really want
• 21:52
  to anchor as much security as
• 21:54
  possible to a big network like
• 21:55
  the Bitcoin network to keep it
• 21:57
  secure.
• 21:58
  So the goal right now is get
• 22:00
  the company out.
• 22:01
  It's called Pogan.
• 22:03
  And the next step is
• 22:05
  to get some reasonable amount
• 22:07
  of Bitcoin into the hopper.
• 22:09
  So probably around 100, $200 million
• 22:10
  worth of it, which by the way is
• 22:12
  DVL.
• 22:14
  And then go and get that
• 22:16
  deployed, and then walk the ladder
• 22:17
  up to a billion and then start
• 22:19
  institutional adoption and
• 22:21
  create products where they can
• 22:23
  get reasonable yields on treasury
• 22:25
  Bitcoin.
• 22:26
  So, you know, you have a little bit of
• 22:27
  Bitcoin in your balance sheet,
• 22:28
  you're a CFO, and you wanna find a
• 22:30
  path to get some yield.
• 22:31
  Well, you'd like to be in the
• 22:32
  driver's seat of that and you can
• 22:34
  layer it with all kinds of products
• 22:35
  to manage it, manage the risk.
• 22:37
  Uh, and then suddenly it starts
• 22:38
  generating a nice little return.
• 22:40
  So you get the appreciation of the
• 22:41
  Bitcoin and you get the return on
• 22:43
  top of that.
• 22:44
  Uh, it creates a beautiful lending
• 22:45
  market. It issues stable coins at
• 22:47
  the same time, because you don't
• 22:48
  want to sell the Bitcoin.
• 22:49
  You just want to, uh, in a
• 22:51
  tax neutral way to a stable coin.
• 22:53
  And then you want to place the
• 22:54
  stable coin, so, uh.
• 22:56
  Omar Hassan is the, um, is the
• 22:58
  CEO of that company.
• 22:59
  We incubated it in our venture
• 23:00
  studio. We've been thinking about it
• 23:02
  for years and it was more
• 23:04
  complex than just building a bridge.
• 23:06
  We wanted to build something that
• 23:07
  was tax-neutral, non-custodial
• 23:09
  and ultimately used as much of
• 23:11
  the security of Bitcoin as possible.
• 23:13
  And we wanted something where
• 23:15
  it could scale from an
• 23:17
  everyday Web3 DGen user
• 23:19
  all the way up to an institution in
• 23:21
  terms of its design.
• 23:22
  So we had a lot of fun working with
• 23:24
  the VM side of the house and these
• 23:26
  other things and figure out how to
• 23:27
  get zero knowledge proofs to work on
• 23:28
  Bitcoin using Taproot.
• 23:30
  It was an enormous effort because
• 23:32
  originally they were horrendously
• 23:33
  expensive, like thousands of dollars
• 23:35
  for a single transaction.
• 23:36
  So obviously that cuts out the
• 23:38
  retail consumer.
• 23:39
  So we had to get it to a reasonable
• 23:41
  cost and latency and we figured
• 23:43
  out how to do that.
• 23:43
  We're very excited about it and it's
• 23:45
  a product that's coming very soon
• 23:47
  actually. It's just about to spin
• 23:48
  out of input output and
• 23:50
  they're getting all the pieces put
• 23:52
  together and the technology is
• 23:54
  nearly done. And we're being very
• 23:56
  methodical with the auditing because
• 23:57
  Dr. Claude is so powerful these
• 23:59
  days.
• 24:01
  It's pretty scary out there, you
• 24:03
  know, for anybody deploying public
• 24:04
  software where everybody can read
• 24:05
  your code, Claude is brutal.
• 24:08
  So yeah, we're definitely taking
• 24:10
  it in a systematic way.
• 24:11
  But we think it's going to be a
• 24:12
  great product, especially in 2027.
• 24:16
  I can't help but feel that
• 24:17
  everything kind of comes back to
• 24:19
  Bitcoin. I mean, you can see in my
• 24:20
  studio behind me, I'm a big Bitcoin
• 24:21
  proponent. And I kind of asked CZ
• 24:23
  this a few weeks ago, like,
• 24:25
  at what point did you make a
• 24:27
  decision to not be like Bitcoin
• 24:29
  only?
• 24:29
  And this is kind of actually why I
• 24:31
  was wanting to ask you that stuff
• 24:32
  earlier. And I'm not going to bring
• 24:33
  it up again, but obviously like when
• 24:35
  it comes to Bitcoin, what's the
• 24:37
  hardest thing about getting
• 24:38
  Bitcoiners on board about what
• 24:39
  you're trying to do, because it does
• 24:41
  seem very genuine and
• 24:43
  You want to help Bitcoin grow and
• 24:45
  unlock functionality, but it's hard
• 24:47
  to get anyone to do
• 24:49
  anything like that in the Bitcoin
• 24:51
  ecosystem.
• 24:53
  So the problem with Bitcoin, and I
• 24:54
  was starting Bitcoin, I've been in
• 24:55
  the industry for 15 years, so I
• 24:58
  should have retired a long time ago
• 24:59
  and I'm just that grumpy old man
• 25:01
  who's here and you keep building.
• 25:03
  But I started with the Bitcoin
• 25:04
  Education Project and back
• 25:06
  in the day there was only Bitcoin
• 25:07
  and Bitcoin was under a dollar.
• 25:09
  No one cared about price because
• 25:10
  there was no price.
• 25:11
  You had to be in it for the
• 25:13
  philosophy because there is no
• 25:14
  money. We had to pay for our own
• 25:16
  coffee at the San Jose Conference
• 25:17
  when they first did that in 2013.
• 25:19
  So Bitcoin...
• 25:23
  The issue with Bitcoin is it's
• 25:25
  frozen in time.
• 25:26
  It's very difficult to change
• 25:28
  anything.
• 25:28
  When we were doing Ethereum in the
• 25:30
  early days, all the Ethereum core
• 25:32
  people started in the Bitcoin space
• 25:34
  and they left out
• 25:36
  of frustration.
• 25:37
  So Vitalik was a Mastercoin
• 25:39
  color coins guy.
• 25:41
  Amir Shatri was the person
• 25:43
  created by mastercoin.com.
• 25:46
  There's dozens of
• 25:48
  founders or founder-adjacent
• 25:50
  people who had started trying to
• 25:52
  make Bitcoin better.
• 25:53
  And I had my own blockchain that I
• 25:55
  built called BitShares.
• 25:56
  And I was trying to solve the
• 25:58
  exchange problems.
• 25:58
  So I built the first DEX with Dan
• 26:00
  Larimer and the first algorithmic
• 26:02
  stable coin. We had BitUSD
• 26:04
  and the on-chain DEX of that.
• 26:06
  We wanted these things in Bitcoin,
• 26:08
  but there was no path forward to
• 26:10
  make these things work.
• 26:11
  I mean, it's like hour long finality
• 26:13
  window, seven transactions
• 26:15
  per second, really expensive
• 26:17
  for the transactions, no
• 26:19
  programmability, no user issued
• 26:21
  assets.
• 26:22
  You can't even do basic things like
• 26:23
  pull payments.
• 26:24
  So you have a credit card
• 26:26
  subscription, 29.95 per
• 26:28
  month. Well, how do you do a pull
• 26:29
  payment? Can't do it.
• 26:31
  So you couldn't do all the
• 26:33
  basic things that you'd need to have
• 26:35
  a financial operating system.
• 26:36
  So we were saying contradictory
• 26:38
  things in the Bitcoin space.
• 26:39
  We're saying Bitcoin is the standard
• 26:41
  and Bitcoin's gonna take over the
• 26:43
  world and Bitcoin is gonna replace
• 26:44
  the banks and Bitcoin gonna do all
• 26:45
  these things.
• 26:46
  But you can't do something as simple
• 26:48
  as credit.
• 26:48
  And you can't even do something as
• 26:50
  simple as issuing your own asset and
• 26:51
  you have no value stability.
• 26:53
  And so we're like, well, there's
• 26:55
  a mismatch here and we
• 26:57
  tried for two years as an ecosystem
• 26:58
  to build overlay protocols that
• 27:01
  could fix that but there
• 27:03
  was no appetite to evolve Bitcoin to
• 27:05
  accommodate the overlay protocols.
• 27:07
  If the programming model of Bitcoin
• 27:09
  script was just expanded a little
• 27:11
  bit to what Russell has created
• 27:13
  at Blockstream with Simplicity,
• 27:16
  probably Ethereum exist.
• 27:18
  All the people would have stayed
• 27:19
  there and they would have put some
• 27:20
  things in, but there's no appetite
• 27:22
  to evolve this and the evolution
• 27:24
  happens every five years.
• 27:26
  So you get SegWit, then you get
• 27:27
  Taproot.
• 27:28
  Well now with Taproot, there's
• 27:29
  enough programmability that you can
• 27:31
  do all the interesting things
• 27:32
  somewhere else.
• 27:33
  But we've never lost the
• 27:35
  recognition that Bitcoin has 550
• 27:37
  million holders.
• 27:38
  It has a great brand.
• 27:39
  It's a very stable asset.
• 27:41
  And if you want to create a
• 27:42
  currency, you typically do it from
• 27:44
  commodity money.
• 27:45
  So gold backed dollars,
• 27:47
  right? So you can create Bitcoin
• 27:49
  backed assets.
• 27:50
  And when you create Bitcoin back
• 27:52
  assets, they feel like they ought to
• 27:54
  be more stable and secure.
• 27:55
  So I'm neutral to all of it.
• 27:57
  Cardano is in many ways a spiritual
• 27:59
  successor.
• 28:00
  It reflects correcting a lot of
• 28:02
  things that I think that Satoshi
• 28:04
  couldn't get around to because of
• 28:05
  expertise or time, but was
• 28:07
  directionally moving there and had
• 28:09
  he stayed around would have flirted
• 28:11
  with and as the founder would have
• 28:12
  the power to actually implement
• 28:14
  those things.
• 28:15
  Like we took UTXO and we fixed
• 28:17
  it. We turned it to extended UTX
• 28:19
  to make it programmable.
• 28:20
  But also we recognized that
• 28:22
  I was around during the inflation
• 28:24
  bug. There was a time when billions
• 28:25
  of Bitcoin were actually printed out
• 28:26
  of thin air because of an inflation
• 28:28
  bug back in 2010.
• 28:29
  And it scared everybody in the core
• 28:31
  development of Bitcoin so they
• 28:33
  decided never to change that.
• 28:34
  You know, it's just like Bitcoin
• 28:35
  script can never be touched.
• 28:37
  So by doing Plutus
• 28:38
  and all the other things we did for
• 28:40
  the programming model of Cardano.
• 28:41
  We kind of fixed those
• 28:43
  types of issues and made sure they
• 28:45
  wouldn't happen.
• 28:46
  So if you look at extended UTXO and
• 28:48
  Plutus now, to me it feels like an
• 28:50
  evolution of where Satoshi started.
• 28:52
  Color coins, our asset issuance
• 28:54
  standard is an evolution of
• 28:56
  the color coin standard.
• 28:58
  So when you look a Cardano native
• 28:59
  assets, they work in many of the
• 29:00
  same ways, just the color kernels
• 29:01
  are built into the blockchain itself
• 29:03
  and recognized that way.
• 29:04
  Hydra is kind of a spiritual
• 29:06
  successor of lightning.
• 29:08
  And we added all these things into
• 29:10
  Cardano to basically make it
• 29:11
  efficient. But now you have that
• 29:13
  channel isomorphism that the
• 29:14
  lightning people have always been
• 29:15
  chasing. So you can do smart
• 29:17
  contracts and payments, and you get
• 29:18
  all these super high performance
• 29:20
  capabilities.
• 29:21
  So it's been really a lot of fun to
• 29:23
  kind of take the original Bitcoin
• 29:24
  roadmap and push it in a certain
• 29:26
  direction.
• 29:27
  But then there's this other roadmap,
• 29:28
  Ethereum, and they've always been
• 29:30
  kind of evolving in their own way.
• 29:31
  And they're very different project.
• 29:34
  And we kind of sit in the middle
• 29:35
  between the two.
• 29:37
  And so on one hand, you know,
• 29:39
  are we better Bitcoin?
• 29:40
  Or on the other hand, are like the
• 29:42
  world computer or the world
• 29:43
  financial operating system like
• 29:44
  Ethereum?
• 29:45
  And that identity has always been
• 29:47
  challenging for us because there's
• 29:49
  different things you do.
• 29:50
  So my compromise was the partner
• 29:52
  chains model with Cardano where you
• 29:53
  can embed other works on
• 29:55
  top of Cardano.
• 29:57
  They can have their own consensus
• 29:59
  and network and transaction logic.
• 30:01
  Uh... And midnight is a great
• 30:02
  reflection of that and now that we
• 30:04
  have that capability it's starting
• 30:05
  to grow rapidly all rapidly we
• 30:08
  don't have to actually choose
• 30:09
  speaking to you can mix matching the
• 30:11
  best things and we're getting a
• 30:13
  point of abstraction where nobody
• 30:14
  really cares about the asset anymore
• 30:16
  we look at intense and multi-chain
• 30:17
  signatures and the ability to
• 30:20
  pay in their recurrent to you are
• 30:21
  paying a stable point the token
• 30:23
  wars are effectively over they'd
• 30:25
  that they're they're still there for
• 30:27
  you know all old guys like Ian
• 30:29
  Massey's.
• 30:30
  Normies don't care.
• 30:31
  They just want it to work on their
• 30:33
  credit card or on their phone and
• 30:34
  they don't really want to care if
• 30:36
  they're on infrastructure A, B or C
• 30:38
  or D. We're kind of past that as
• 30:40
  an industry.
• 30:41
  But Bitcoin, the reason it doesn't
• 30:43
  change is it became a religion
• 30:45
  and when it became religion, I
• 30:47
  lost all interest in trying to
• 30:49
  influence and grow it.
• 30:51
  We couldn't even, because we have
• 30:52
  one of the largest research groups
• 30:53
  in the world and we still do proof
• 30:55
  of work research, we created
• 30:56
  something called NEPA POWs,
• 30:58
  non-interactive proofs of proof of
• 30:59
  work. And it basically is the
• 31:01
  mathematical primitive to solve the
• 31:02
  side chains issue for
• 31:04
  Bitcoin.
• 31:05
  We couldn't get it into Bitcoin.
• 31:06
  And even though it doesn't require
• 31:07
  anything, it doesn' require a hard
• 31:09
  fork or any of this other stuff,
• 31:11
  it's very easy to push in the same
• 31:12
  way they pushed in Taproot, and it
• 31:14
  would massively improve the light
• 31:16
  client experience, massively improve
• 31:18
  lightning, massively improve
• 31:19
  everything else. And it's an
• 31:21
  emergent property of proof of work.
• 31:23
  You notice that certain blocks that
• 31:25
  are made are more rare than other
• 31:26
  blocks, and you can use that to
• 31:28
  create a recurve structure too.
• 31:30
  Prove the history of Bitcoin
• 31:31
  in a logarithmically scaled way,
• 31:33
  so very, very small proofs.
• 31:35
  So, we're like, wow, there's this
• 31:37
  amazing property that Bitcoin
• 31:38
  already has.
• 31:39
  Can you just make Bitcoin aware that
• 31:40
  it has this property so then you can
• 31:42
  use it for all these incredible
• 31:43
  applications?
• 31:44
  And there was absolutely no appetite
• 31:46
  to adopt that BIP.
• 31:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:47
  So when you have an environment
• 31:50
  where all external
• 31:52
  ideas are rejected, everything but
• 31:53
  Bitcoin is a shitcoin, and it's
• 31:55
  become almost a quasi-religion,
• 31:57
  it's not a place for innovation.
• 31:59
  It really isn't.
• 32:00
  So we look at it from afar and
• 32:02
  we do our part in Bitcoin DeFi
• 32:04
  and Carnado, but we don't try to get
• 32:06
  involved at all in any of
• 32:08
  the governance or ideas to fix
• 32:10
  problems, especially this coming
• 32:11
  quantum apocalypse that is going to
• 32:13
  steal all of Satoshi's I'm going to
• 32:15
  send. All the dead Bitcoin and these
• 32:17
  types of things.
• 32:18
  It's a huge issue for them, and we
• 32:19
  have solutions for it.
• 32:21
  They're not very good, but at least
• 32:23
  we have some ideas, but we don't
• 32:24
  even get involved in the
• 32:25
  conversation because there's no
• 32:26
  benefit.
• 32:27
  It's, it's a dead.
• 32:29
  I don't really want to go down the
• 32:31
  BIP 110 route or even
• 32:33
  ask if you're
• 32:35
  following along with a lot of the
• 32:37
  big narratives in the Bitcoin
• 32:39
  industry.
• 32:40
  But since you mentioned the quantum
• 32:42
  threat, I had a great conversation
• 32:44
  with Pierre Richard a few months ago
• 32:46
  and he said to me that maybe it's a
• 32:48
  good thing that if
• 32:50
  we get quantum computers and they do
• 32:51
  bring Satoshi's coins back onto
• 32:53
  the market, that finally we unlock
• 32:55
  that the full total.
• 32:57
  You know, of Bitcoin that will ever
• 32:59
  be created.
• 33:00
  And maybe it's not such a bad thing
• 33:01
  that another million Bitcoin are
• 33:03
  available to everyone because it
• 33:04
  might help it move on
• 33:06
  and kind of reach some sort
• 33:08
  of goal, you know
• 33:11
  as peer-to-peer electronic money.
• 33:14
  Well, what's your thought on that?
• 33:15
  Well, I mean, the core philosophy of Bitcoin
• 33:16
  is you are your own bank
• 33:18
  and you can safely
• 33:21
  self custody.
• 33:23
  And if a flaw exists where
• 33:25
  an external person can steal your
• 33:27
  funds that you're self custody,
• 33:29
  it functionally destroys the entire
• 33:31
  value proposition of Bitcoin.
• 33:32
  There's really two anchors to
• 33:34
  Bitcoin. There's one is there's only
• 33:35
  ever going to be 21 million Bitcoin
• 33:37
  and there's a monetary policy
• 33:40
  So if people adopt it, it gets
• 33:41
  naturally more valuable over time,
• 33:43
  so it's basically the gold argument,
• 33:45
  finiteness, and then the other
• 33:47
  argument is self-custody and
• 33:49
  self-control.
• 33:50
  So this is a foundational
• 33:52
  existential thing, and
• 33:54
  most people when they're looking at
• 33:55
  these, it's a viable money system.
• 33:58
  Part of this is saying when a threat
• 34:00
  emerges, is the system capable
• 34:02
  of clearing that threat?
• 34:03
  What made Bitcoin so strong
• 34:05
  is it survived external threats
• 34:08
  It's survived China banning it,
• 34:10
  Mt. Gox collapsing,
• 34:12
  the collapse of Silk Road, and
• 34:13
  hundreds of events throughout the
• 34:15
  years, including the loss of its
• 34:16
  founder.
• 34:18
  So quantum computers are yet another
• 34:19
  threat.
• 34:20
  There's an expectation that somehow
• 34:22
  Bitcoin's just gonna figure it out,
• 34:24
  and the crown jewels of Bitcoin will
• 34:26
  be protected.
• 34:27
  If Bitcoin's governance is such that
• 34:29
  it's impossible to actually make
• 34:31
  meaningful progress, or they
• 34:32
  compromise the core
• 34:34
  reason to use Bitcoin.
• 34:36
  I don't think Bitcoin is going to
• 34:37
  stay as the number one
• 34:38
  cryptocurrency.
• 34:39
  You're going to have to move somewhere
• 34:40
  else. This is why I put governance
• 34:42
  on Cardano, because every now and
• 34:44
  then you come into a deeply
• 34:45
  philosophical and uncomfortable
• 34:47
  question, and it's really hard to
• 34:49
  decide that.
• 34:50
  You don't want it to be decided in
• 34:52
  some random ad hoc way or decided
• 34:54
  by powerful people behind the scenes
• 34:56
  like a Mike Saylor and a Black Rock.
• 34:58
  You want it be decided out in the
• 34:59
  open as a society as a whole.
• 35:01
  So, with
• 35:03
  Cardano...
• 35:04
  We're going to have to make some
• 35:04
  decisions about what to do with
• 35:06
  quantum vulnerable infrastructure.
• 35:08
  And if there needs to be a
• 35:09
  migration, we can have a vote
• 35:11
  and then there could be an on-chain
• 35:13
  function to do that.
• 35:14
  We can hard fork in a particular
• 35:15
  direction. We've done 11 hard forks
• 35:17
  in Cardano and they're all seamless.
• 35:20
  Where the Bitcoin, there's no
• 35:21
  governance system to converge
• 35:23
  to a decision what to do, whether to
• 35:25
  freeze assets, steal coins,
• 35:27
  just leave it as it is and let them
• 35:29
  be stolen and recycled through
• 35:31
  the system.
• 35:32
  It's really hard.
• 35:34
  The other thing is there's no way to
• 35:35
  get rid of legacy bad decisions.
• 35:37
  There's a multi-sig bug in
• 35:39
  Bitcoin script that can never fix
• 35:41
  their greedy mining is a
• 35:42
  thing with proof of work.
• 35:44
  Um, there's, there're hundreds of
• 35:46
  figured out bugs and issues
• 35:48
  in the software that would require a
• 35:50
  hard fork to result.
• 35:51
  And if you say our policy is never
• 35:53
  hard fork, well then what you're
• 35:54
  basically saying is you forever
• 35:56
  have to live with the mistakes of
• 35:58
  a single person.
• 36:00
  Could you imagine a
• 36:02
  governance system that works that
• 36:04
  way, like George Washington screwed
• 36:05
  something up in 1789,
• 36:08
  and that is, I'm sorry, man, you
• 36:10
  just gotta live with what George
• 36:11
  did. We can never change it.
• 36:14
  That feels fundamentally anti-human,
• 36:16
  because humans are about progress.
• 36:18
  We grow, we get smarter, we gets
• 36:20
  wiser, we realize that maybe
• 36:22
  the opinions of our fathers and
• 36:23
  grandfathers were not as
• 36:25
  good as they should have been,
• 36:27
  and we are gonna be better.
• 36:30
  So saying you're gonna have a money
• 36:31
  system where you can never change
• 36:32
  anything with it.
• 36:34
  That's like saying gold, you're only
• 36:35
  ever allowed to use it for jewelry.
• 36:37
  You can find all the time new use
• 36:39
  cases for stuff.
• 36:40
  Oh, we're gonna use it for this
• 36:42
  radiation shield, or we're going to
• 36:43
  use for fusion.
• 36:44
  We're gonna to use this or that.
• 36:46
  Well, that's cool that we figure out
• 36:47
  a new use case for it.
• 36:49
  Well, the problem with Bitcoin is
• 36:50
  every time you figure out a new
• 36:52
  case, they ban it.
• 36:53
  They say, oh, well, we can't have
• 36:55
  ruins and oracles on Bitcoin.
• 36:56
  This is toxic waste and it's
• 36:58
  destroying the protocol.
• 37:00
  We shouldn't connect Bitcoin to
• 37:01
  layer twos, or we shouldn't do this,
• 37:03
  or we should do that, because it
• 37:04
  wasn't Satoshi's intent.
• 37:06
  It's crazy, man.
• 37:08
  So, that's why it's a long game,
• 37:11
  and people say, well, you have one,
• 37:12
  you lost, your TVL's low, or the
• 37:14
  market cap's low.
• 37:15
  It's like, guys, widen the horizon,
• 37:17
  and in five or 10 years, facts and
• 37:19
  circumstances change, and really
• 37:21
  what matters are the principles
• 37:22
  behind it. Is it recursively
• 37:23
  self-improving?
• 37:24
  Does it get more decentralized over
• 37:26
  time?
• 37:27
  Does it get more feature-rich
• 37:29
  and capable over time?
• 37:30
  And can it recover from mistakes,
• 37:33
  whether they be roadmap or software
• 37:35
  issues or hacks?
• 37:36
  And can survive the death of its
• 37:38
  founders?
• 37:40
  These are basic things you look for.
• 37:41
  And if the answer is yes, if you
• 37:43
  come back in 10 years, you have an
• 37:44
  exponentially stronger and better
• 37:46
  ecosystem. If the answer's no,
• 37:48
  you have a stagnant ecosystem that
• 37:49
  eventually loses all of its people.
• 37:52
  Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
• 37:53
  Look, I wanted to put on the thread
• 37:55
  on midnight and just get your
• 37:57
  thoughts on the overall privacy and
• 38:00
  confidentiality arc in the industry.
• 38:03
  You've got newcomers to the
• 38:04
  market like Canton that have
• 38:06
  strong ties to TradFi,
• 38:09
  Wall Street money that
• 38:11
  are already knocking on those doors
• 38:13
  and you've got them built midnight.
• 38:16
  Can you talk a little bit about why
• 38:17
  you think it's so important to have
• 38:19
  all this privacy functionality on
• 38:21
  chain.
• 38:22
  And how you see competition
• 38:24
  in the market and how are you gonna
• 38:27
  tackle that.
• 38:27
  Okay, well, I mean, I'll throw back
• 38:29
  at you ask you a question.
• 38:30
  Do you want all your bank
• 38:32
  transactions and your PayPal
• 38:33
  transactions and your Amazon
• 38:34
  shopping cart to be publicly
• 38:37
  known by everybody in the world
• 38:38
  forever? No, not at
• 38:40
  all. What about all your Google
• 38:41
  search history?
• 38:42
  What all your text messages?
• 38:45
  You know, so it's obviously people,
• 38:47
  it's self-evident that people have
• 38:48
  an expectation of a private life
• 38:50
  and a public life.
• 38:52
  And the Bitcoin thing,
• 38:54
  It opened up this world of
• 38:56
  auditability, transparency, and
• 38:58
  immutability, but the cost
• 39:00
  of it is publicity.
• 39:01
  You have to know everything, you
• 39:02
  have to see everything.
• 39:03
  That doesn't work for real
• 39:05
  life.
• 39:06
  It doesn't for business, it doesn't
• 39:07
  work for governments, it does work
• 39:09
  for education, it doesn work for
• 39:10
  healthcare, it doesn' work for any
• 39:12
  real thing.
• 39:13
  There's always a private side,
• 39:14
  there's always the public side, and
• 39:16
  what you wanna do is extend the
• 39:17
  concept of self-custody to
• 39:19
  selective disclosure.
• 39:21
  So what you do is instead of saying,
• 39:23
  somebody else is going to make a
• 39:25
  decision how much privacy you're
• 39:26
  allowed, you make that
• 39:28
  decision. Just like you
• 39:29
  self-custody, you self custody
• 39:31
  your information.
• 39:32
  And then you have tools to
• 39:34
  selectively disclose.
• 39:35
  And when you add a ZK system into
• 39:36
  it, those tools are very powerful.
• 39:38
  So what can you do with them?
• 39:40
  Well, here's an example.
• 39:41
  You can prove your age.
• 39:42
  You could prove your country of
• 39:44
  origin. You can prove if you're an
• 39:45
  accredited investor.
• 39:46
  You can prove, if you are a member
• 39:48
  of an organization, like an
• 39:50
  employee of a particular company or
• 39:51
  a member of a government agency.
• 39:53
  But you don't reveal who you are.
• 39:55
  So say, yes, this person is an FBI
• 39:57
  employee. Yes, this is person is
• 39:59
  a trusted traveler.
• 40:00
  Yes, this person as a resident of
• 40:02
  the state of New York.
• 40:04
  Yes, this person's wrecked the
• 40:05
  exempt.
• 40:06
  I have no idea who the hell it is.
• 40:08
  And so when you have a system built
• 40:09
  like that, then what you can do is
• 40:11
  you can finally start holistically
• 40:13
  merging the web two world with
• 40:15
  the web three world.
• 40:16
  We call it web 2.5.
• 40:17
  And if you look at the last two
• 40:19
  years, almost all the growth in
• 40:20
  crypto has been a web 2 .5.
• 40:23
  The binances, the tethers,
• 40:25
  the ripples, the circles,
• 40:27
  the cantons, these are the people
• 40:29
  where they take, they have
• 40:30
  cryptocurrency products, they run on
• 40:31
  crypto rails, but they usually have
• 40:34
  an ownership company that
• 40:36
  is regulated and it lives in a
• 40:37
  jurisdiction.
• 40:39
  Okay, so when you put it together,
• 40:40
  there's this square, and there's
• 40:42
  four sides to the square, it's
• 40:43
  fourth generation, there's fourth
• 40:45
  sides to this square.
• 40:46
  Okay, so You have to have all four
• 40:48
  of these sides and if they all work
• 40:49
  together, you actually have
• 40:50
  something new and different in
• 40:52
  cryptocurrencies and you can bring
• 40:53
  billions of people in and trillions
• 40:54
  of dollars in.
• 40:55
  That's why everybody cares.
• 40:57
  So first, privacy is one component.
• 40:59
  We more broadly we call PET,
• 41:02
  Privacy Enhancing Technologies.
• 41:04
  So you have zero knowledge and
• 41:05
  that's what Zcash does
• 41:07
  and Monero does and all these other
• 41:09
  guys are doing.
• 41:10
  But you also have trusted execution
• 41:12
  environments, multi-party
• 41:13
  computations and dozens of other
• 41:15
  things. So the first thing about
• 41:16
  Midnight is we're building
• 41:19
  a framework for kind of a universal
• 41:21
  pet framework.
• 41:22
  So when you're a developer, you have
• 41:24
  all these different tools and you
• 41:25
  can decide how to put them together
• 41:26
  so that you can figure out what
• 41:28
  your privacy regime is going to be
• 41:30
  for your application on application
• 41:32
  by application basis.
• 41:33
  Then the second thing is
• 41:34
  abstraction.
• 41:35
  Okay, so you want all these things
• 41:37
  to work everywhere.
• 41:39
  You have to meet the users where
• 41:40
  they're at, not where you want them
• 41:42
  to be.
• 41:42
  So there's 550 million users
• 41:44
  on Bitcoin, there's about 200
• 41:46
  million users on Ethereum, there's
• 41:48
  over 100 million, we think, that
• 41:50
  have used Solana throughout the
• 41:51
  years. Okay, so there's lots of
• 41:53
  people floating around there.
• 41:54
  Don't say, oh, well, everybody has
• 41:55
  to migrate over to my system and
• 41:58
  use my token, and then everything's
• 41:59
  perfect. You use multi-chain
• 42:01
  signatures and intents and other
• 42:02
  things, and then they can pay in
• 42:03
  Sol, they can Pay in ETH, they can
• 42:05
  pay in Bitcoin, they could pay in
• 42:06
  ADA, and they don't particularly
• 42:08
  care that they're using the Midnight
• 42:10
  infrastructure.
• 42:11
  So abstraction is a big thing.
• 42:12
  Near protocol was one of the big
• 42:15
  things that was able to push that
• 42:17
  message out. They invent a lot of
• 42:18
  great technology.
• 42:19
  But when you combine abstraction
• 42:20
  with zero knowledge, you gain read
• 42:22
  and write capability with ZK.
• 42:24
  You can prove properties of all
• 42:26
  blockchains you interact with.
• 42:27
  So you can trustlessly interact with
• 42:29
  very similar to that bridge
• 42:30
  question.
• 42:31
  And with multi-chain signatures,
• 42:32
  which is enforced by MPC,
• 42:34
  multi-party computation, be able to
• 42:36
  write to all those different
• 42:37
  systems. And with intents.
• 42:39
  You can tell me what you want to do.
• 42:40
  And then a network of people in a
• 42:42
  marketplace can come together and
• 42:43
  figure out how to do that on your
• 42:44
  behalf.
• 42:45
  So then you have smart
• 42:47
  compliance.
• 42:48
  That's the third thing, okay?
• 42:50
  And smart compliance is that
• 42:52
  selective disclosure realm, but more
• 42:53
  broadly it's about putting into
• 42:55
  the transactions your legal intent.
• 42:57
  And you start seeing like big
• 42:59
  entities coming into the blockchain
• 43:00
  space like the American Arbitration
• 43:02
  Association with the legal context
• 43:04
  protocol. And they say, hey, let's
• 43:05
  get the contracts in because it's
• 43:07
  not good enough to say you sent me a
• 43:09
  Bitcoin, why'd you send it to me?
• 43:11
  Did you send to me to buy a
• 43:13
  Lamborghini? Did you just send it me
• 43:14
  to a house?
• 43:15
  Did you sent it to pay for your
• 43:17
  exotic once in a lifetime trip to
• 43:18
  South Africa?
• 43:20
  I mean, why did you send me this
• 43:21
  Bitcoin? What was your commercial
• 43:22
  intent behind it? What were the
• 43:23
  terms and conditions?
• 43:24
  Why that's relevant is for
• 43:25
  adjudication.
• 43:27
  Another great example would be a
• 43:28
  wallet hack.
• 43:29
  So let's say you run a non-custodial
• 43:31
  wallet company, you're Metamask, and
• 43:33
  you discover some terrible flaw in
• 43:35
  Metamasks, and then this black
• 43:37
  hat is taking advantage of it.
• 43:39
  You can front run the black hat,
• 43:40
  white hat, and take all the funds.
• 43:42
  Well, hang on a second here.
• 43:43
  Do you have the legal authority to
• 43:45
  do that as Metamask?
• 43:47
  Did anybody consent to that?
• 43:49
  What if there was a white hat
• 43:50
  license?
• 43:51
  And when you have a selected
• 43:52
  disclosure regime, what you can do
• 43:53
  at the time of the creation of the
• 43:55
  wallet, you can check the box
• 43:57
  to give Metamasks the right to do.
• 43:59
  Now, nobody knows your identity.
• 44:01
  It just looks like encrypted noise
• 44:04
  on the blockchain.
• 44:05
  But when the event happens,
• 44:07
  a zero-knowledge proof can
• 44:08
  selectively disclose which set
• 44:10
  of people are in the white hat, what
• 44:12
  set of people are not, and then
• 44:13
  you'll be able to pull all of those
• 44:15
  wallets accordingly and you have the
• 44:17
  legal authority to do something like
• 44:18
  that. Solves a humongous problem.
• 44:20
  And there's thousands of things like
• 44:22
  that, like all these RWAs are
• 44:24
  coming out in the United States.
• 44:25
  They blacklist it.
• 44:26
  They say, well, you can't do a U.S.
• 44:27
  Resident. I'd like to be able do
• 44:29
  that a completely automated way
• 44:31
  where if the transaction just simply
• 44:32
  won't settle or contingent
• 44:34
  settlement is another example of
• 44:35
  that. So you send me some funds
• 44:38
  Well, hang on a second here.
• 44:40
  I'm not gonna just go take a million
• 44:41
  dollars of your Bitcoin that came
• 44:43
  from North Korea.
• 44:44
  No, I don't want that.
• 44:46
  I'm a regulated entity.
• 44:47
  I would like it to be a partial
• 44:48
  transaction. It's pending and
• 44:50
  I have to review it and sign it too
• 44:52
  for it to settle.
• 44:53
  So both the sender and the receiver
• 44:54
  have to do that.
• 44:56
  We have a selective disclosure
• 44:57
  regime. You can do all those
• 44:58
  transaction logics.
• 44:59
  You can even do proxy wallets and
• 45:01
  give people the right to pull a
• 45:02
  certain amount of money out of your
• 45:03
  accounts
• 45:05
  every so often so you have
• 45:06
  subscriptions and these types of
• 45:07
  things. So that's the third corner
• 45:10
  and it's what makes regulation work.
• 45:12
  And the finals agents, you know,
• 45:13
  this little corner here, and
• 45:15
  they're the simple, the grand
• 45:17
  simplification of the cryptocurrency
• 45:19
  space.
• 45:20
  Um, if, if I've
• 45:22
  been in 15 years and every time
• 45:24
  I talk to people and every report
• 45:26
  I've ever read, the number one
• 45:27
  problem with cryptocurrency is I
• 45:29
  don't feel safe and I'm going to
• 45:30
  fuck it up.
• 45:31
  That's the number. One thing that
• 45:33
  consumers say is like, yeah,
• 45:35
  you know, I use that crypto.
• 45:36
  I lost my wallet.
• 45:38
  I lost all my money and I
• 45:40
  just, I'm going to fuck it up or
• 45:41
  people trade. And they're like,
• 45:42
  yeah, I tried trading and I lost.
• 45:44
  All my money.
• 45:45
  I tried defy and lost all of my
• 45:47
  money, I mean, the vast majority
• 45:49
  of people, they have some negative
• 45:51
  experience that's connected to it.
• 45:53
  So they have this agentic
• 45:54
  revolution. You got open claw and
• 45:55
  air maze and all these things that
• 45:56
  are coming.
• 45:57
  And agents are super powerful, but
• 45:59
  they need two things to make them
• 46:00
  high fidelity. One, you have to
• 46:02
  unambiguously be able to tell them
• 46:03
  your intentions, what you want.
• 46:06
  And number two they have to prove
• 46:08
  to you and to themselves that what
• 46:10
  they're doing follows your
• 46:11
  intentions.
• 46:12
  It turns out the same math for that
• 46:14
  ZK component can
• 46:16
  prove to an agent that what their
• 46:17
  doing is there and that intent for
• 46:19
  abstraction we just talked about
• 46:21
  previously can unambiguously
• 46:23
  say what you want to do.
• 46:24
  So actually cryptocurrencies are the
• 46:26
  best regulation layer for agents
• 46:28
  and if you have agents you can give
• 46:30
  delegated authority and wallets to
• 46:31
  an agents, identity to agent.
• 46:33
  And the agent can go and trade on
• 46:35
  your behalf or use DeFi in your
• 46:37
  behalf or use crypto on your behalf,
• 46:38
  and it could be there and do all
• 46:40
  kinds of things.
• 46:41
  Like for example, you say, hey, if
• 46:43
  I don't use my wallet every 180
• 46:45
  days, go ahead and sweep all my
• 46:46
  money into this KYC custodial
• 46:48
  address.
• 46:49
  People say, oh, why would you
• 46:51
  do that? Well, if if I only use it
• 46:53
  every 180 days, I'm either dead or
• 46:55
  something's happened and I want my
• 46:56
  loved ones to be able to get access
• 46:57
  to my crypto so it's not lost
• 46:59
  forever.
• 47:00
  Agent can do that, it'll never make
• 47:01
  a mistake if it's structured
• 47:03
  correctly. So we built Midnight to
• 47:05
  basically be the unification of
• 47:06
  those four things. It's a true
• 47:08
  fourth generation cryptocurrency.
• 47:09
  The goal is for it to work
• 47:10
  everywhere.
• 47:11
  So it doesn't care if you're coming
• 47:12
  from Ethereum or coming from Cardano
• 47:14
  or somewhere else, it has a
• 47:15
  framework for privacy and a
• 47:17
  beautiful SDK for it.
• 47:18
  It's built for agents and it's built
• 47:20
  for identity and selective
• 47:21
  disclosure. And then the idea is we
• 47:22
  can merge the web two and web three
• 47:24
  world together and put it into a
• 47:25
  kind of a web 2.5 world.
• 47:27
  And this can bring in the next two
• 47:29
  billion users and 10 trillion
• 47:30
  dollars of assets and suddenly you
• 47:32
  can just have one unified market.
• 47:34
  And what's really cool about it is
• 47:35
  that the core can stay with
• 47:37
  Satoshi's vision of self-custody and
• 47:39
  we just extend it to have
• 47:41
  transitive reflexivity and to
• 47:43
  have self-sovereign
• 47:46
  identity and selective disclosure,
• 47:48
  and it's also decentralized.
• 47:50
  You know, all these other networks,
• 47:51
  what they're doing, because they
• 47:52
  want to trade regulated products, is
• 47:53
  they're actually putting at the node
• 47:55
  level invitation only and
• 47:57
  OFAC compliance and all these
• 47:58
  things. They're basically creating
• 47:59
  the club.
• 48:00
  And they audit the mempools and
• 48:02
  everything and they decide who's
• 48:03
  there or not and they put escrow
• 48:04
  keys inside the system so a
• 48:06
  certain special group of people
• 48:08
  can unblind all the transactions.
• 48:09
  You can't do that.
• 48:11
  It's not private.
• 48:13
  Cause then who gets to see it?
• 48:14
  China, United States, there's some
• 48:15
  nation state gets to it and then
• 48:17
  everybody else doesn't wanna use it.
• 48:18
  You gotta have open infrastructure
• 48:20
  and it has to follow those
• 48:21
  principles of decentralization and
• 48:23
  you'll know basically sovereign
• 48:25
  subnets to form within it and they
• 48:26
  have their own terms and logic at
• 48:28
  the subnet or DAP level.
• 48:30
  And they could do all these
• 48:31
  selective disclosure and invitation
• 48:33
  only things, and they're held up
• 48:35
  by an open protocol.
• 48:37
  So it's been the most complex thing
• 48:39
  we've ever done because this is the
• 48:41
  hardest technology to work with,
• 48:43
  but time has come.
• 48:45
  Folding and recursion are here,
• 48:47
  the proof efficiency is here,
• 48:49
  the AI revolution has massively
• 48:51
  simplified a lot of stuff for us,
• 48:53
  and then ultimately the identity
• 48:54
  standards caught up.
• 48:56
  We can create a single passport that
• 48:57
  unifies identity wallets, you're
• 48:59
  in control of it, and then you just
• 49:01
  use it to build a web of trust and
• 49:02
  prove all kinds of properties about
• 49:05
  things.
• 49:05
  And then once you have that, you can
• 49:07
  make cryptocurrencies safer and
• 49:09
  much easier to use.
• 49:10
  And then products like insurance can
• 49:12
  come in for insuring wallets and
• 49:13
  insuring bridges, and
• 49:15
  you can have hundreds of new DeFi
• 49:17
  products that come in, and they
• 49:19
  can trade everywhere.
• 49:20
  They can be on Hyperliquid or Solana
• 49:21
  or Bitcoin or wherever.
• 49:24
  And Midnight can be kind of that
• 49:25
  coordination and orchestration layer
• 49:26
  to get you where you need to go.
• 49:28
  And it's nobody's business that
• 49:29
  you're doing these things.
• 49:32
  Are you dedicating most of your time
• 49:33
  to midnight at the moment?
• 49:34
  Like, is that like most of you hours
• 49:36
  in a day?
• 49:36
  No, I mean, I work like 12 hour
• 49:38
  days. And so I tend to
• 49:40
  work like four to six hours a day on
• 49:41
  midnight. I read a lot of code for
• 49:43
  midnight. It's like thousands of
• 49:45
  commits right now working on
• 49:46
  actually a database for midnight
• 49:48
  called Umbra DB.
• 49:49
  Uh, so I, you know, there's a lot I
• 49:51
  do for midnight and, uh, I'm
• 49:53
  very deeply involved in the product
• 49:55
  development, the roadmap, and, uh,
• 49:57
  some of the foundational technology.
• 49:58
  I still spent a huge amount of time
• 50:00
  on Cardano.
• 50:01
  Especially because we have to get
• 50:02
  this executive function done and get
• 50:04
  Leo shipped.
• 50:05
  Cardano is going to go through its
• 50:06
  biggest grade ever.
• 50:07
  At the end of the year, we're going
• 50:08
  to be 60 times faster.
• 50:10
  So it's a huge, huge lift and
• 50:12
  we can't just be asleep at the wheel
• 50:13
  for that. And remember, we are also
• 50:15
  a venture studio.
• 50:16
  So we have RealFi and Pogan.
• 50:18
  Probably our most exciting product
• 50:20
  is Midnight City.
• 50:22
  That's an agentic civilization that
• 50:24
  we created that we're using the
• 50:25
  Midnight Blockchain for and it's
• 50:27
  super cool. You create your own
• 50:28
  agent.
• 50:29
  And they just go about and do their
• 50:30
  own thing. Eventually they'll form
• 50:31
  their own government and religion
• 50:32
  and it's completely autonomous.
• 50:34
  And so you just come back and crazy
• 50:36
  things have happened.
• 50:36
  So if you go to midnight.city, you
• 50:38
  can see the madness there.
• 50:39
  So we really enjoy that.
• 50:41
  And then I also have companies
• 50:42
  outside of the blockchain space.
• 50:44
  You know, I have a bison ranch up in
• 50:46
  Wyoming and you know, I also another
• 50:49
  company that does synthetic biology
• 50:51
  and we've been genetically
• 50:52
  engineering plants to do some
• 50:54
  certain things. We'll be able to.
• 50:55
  Finally announced that probably this
• 50:57
  year and it's going to be super
• 50:58
  exciting and mind blowing for people
• 51:00
  and do a lot of work in healthcare
• 51:01
  as well.
• 51:02
  So it's a busy life but
• 51:05
  Midnight is probably the biggest
• 51:06
  time commitment of all the things
• 51:08
  right now because we're in that
• 51:10
  golden year between when
• 51:12
  the main net has launched and when
• 51:14
  the product market fit solidifies
• 51:15
  and everybody's starting to realize
• 51:17
  that it's something real and they're
• 51:19
  starting to realize it's not a
• 51:20
  Cardano thing per It's like, oh,
• 51:22
  it's just Cardano project, whatever.
• 51:23
  It's actually this big thing
• 51:25
  for everybody, including Cardano.
• 51:28
  And its whole point is to work with
• 51:30
  Hyperliquid and Ethereum and Solana,
• 51:32
  Avalanche and BNB and many other
• 51:34
  places to bring these capabilities
• 51:36
  to the industry as a whole and
• 51:38
  make them simple and safe for
• 51:40
  people to check our tagline is
• 51:42
  Midnight Fixes It.
• 51:43
  Oh, I have this terrible problem.
• 51:45
  Midnight fixes that.
• 51:46
  We wanna be that annoying guy.
• 51:49
  I like that a lot.
• 51:50
  We had Elia from Nia on the
• 51:52
  show earlier this week, and I think
• 51:53
  of all the things that I've heard,
• 51:55
  this is the closest thing to kind
• 51:57
  of the Nia ecosystem and everything
• 51:59
  that they're building out.
• 51:59
  And just on the biology thing, I've
• 52:02
  got a one-starer over here.
• 52:03
  If you figure out the translucent
• 52:05
  plants, I want you to
• 52:07
  send me one for my studio.
• 52:08
  Yeah, I want to get them on market
• 52:10
  before the end of the decade and
• 52:13
  Absolutely, and then you can connect
• 52:14
  it to the blockchain because every
• 52:15
  one of them will probably be an NFT
• 52:17
  and then Yeah, and and
• 52:19
  then with selective disclosure You
• 52:20
  can keep privacy in that whole
• 52:21
  system But you can prove how much
• 52:22
  carbon you've sequestered and all
• 52:24
  the properties of the plant have
• 52:25
  leaderboards For us the biggest one
• 52:27
  you can do all kind of you can
• 52:28
  gamify Gardening, you know,
• 52:31
  you're not a good GG if we do
• 52:32
  that. It's over. We've won the game.
• 52:34
  Yeah
• 52:35
  That sounds great.
• 52:36
  Charles, look, you've been very
• 52:37
  giving of your time and you were
• 52:39
  approaching the hour mark on the
• 52:40
  show. I did want to kind of just get
• 52:41
  on some of the funny stuff that, you
• 52:43
  know, has happened in the last few
• 52:44
  years. Like I think that
• 52:46
  the internet memed you to death with
• 52:48
  the bullet and ceremony and
• 52:50
  don't shoot me down for asking this
• 52:52
  as well. But like give me
• 52:54
  your experience of that.
• 52:55
  Like how bad was that in terms of
• 52:57
  pain and experience?
• 52:59
  I don't mind talking about that.
• 53:00
  It's fun, happy stuff and it's
• 53:01
  growth and you know, it's not
• 53:03
  beating the death.
• 53:05
  You know, the bulletin ceremony, I
• 53:06
  saw several
• 53:09
  videos on YouTube of these guys.
• 53:11
  Some were pretty dramatic.
• 53:13
  I don't know if they actually felt
• 53:15
  that they were pushing it out.
• 53:16
  But it was very clear, like, this is
• 53:18
  a super fucking painful, horrible
• 53:20
  thing. So for what people don't
• 53:21
  know, there's a tribe called the
• 53:22
  Satere Maui.
• 53:23
  Uh... Down in the amazon in northern
• 53:25
  amazon uh...
• 53:27
  And uh... They have a ritual called
• 53:28
  the tucandara so what you do is you
• 53:30
  go out into the jungle and you
• 53:32
  collect bullet ants bullet ants are
• 53:33
  fucking huge in fact i'll show you
• 53:35
  guys what they look like i got them
• 53:37
  here
• 53:46
  Yeah, so these are actual bullet
• 53:48
  ants and so you guys can kind of see
• 53:50
  how big they are.
• 53:53
  Yeah, they're just fucking huge.
• 53:54
  So you go and collect them.
• 53:56
  They live in these hives that are
• 53:58
  connected to trees.
• 54:01
  So, you go, and you tap the tree,
• 54:02
  and then if they all start coming
• 54:03
  out and try to kill you, then that's
• 54:05
  a bullet ant hive.
• 54:06
  So, when you find them, you use a
• 54:07
  little pointy stick and you use them
• 54:09
  to collect and put them in a tube,
• 54:10
  and then you pour the ants into a
• 54:12
  bowl of sedative.
• 54:13
  So We get some leaves and.
• 54:15
  That have a certain sedative that
• 54:17
  affects ants and you grind it up and
• 54:19
  you put it in the bowl and then the
• 54:20
  ants go to sleep, then you take them
• 54:21
  and you weave them into a glove.
• 54:23
  And when you weave into the glove,
• 54:25
  then they eventually wake
• 54:27
  up. And so when they wake up, you
• 54:28
  put your hands in the glove through
• 54:29
  a ritual and then you spend about
• 54:31
  10 minutes being stung by them.
• 54:34
  The reason they call them bullet
• 54:35
  ants is because it feels like you've
• 54:37
  been shot with a gun and
• 54:39
  that's for one sting.
• 54:40
  And there's like 500
• 54:42
  of them in the fucking gloves.
• 54:44
  Jesus, man.
• 54:45
  They're angry as hell because you've
• 54:47
  just taken them out of their home
• 54:48
  and woven them into gloves and
• 54:50
  they're not happy.
• 54:52
  So, and also they just sting and
• 54:54
  sting and stings. So for 10 minutes
• 54:55
  straight it stings, so it feels like
• 54:56
  a sewing needle, a hot sewing
• 54:58
  needle that's just going in your
• 55:00
  hand like this and this and that's
• 55:02
  the best part because it's a neural
• 55:04
  toxin. So the worst part is
• 55:07
  it feels like you're
• 55:09
  on fire and it just gets worse
• 55:10
  and worse. It doesn't stop.
• 55:12
  So it starts in your hands and then
• 55:13
  it works its way up your arm
• 55:15
  to the top of your head, to your
• 55:17
  toes, the tip of your dick,
• 55:18
  everything feels like it's on fire.
• 55:20
  And it's like, you're on fire and
• 55:22
  now you're not.
• 55:23
  You're on the fire and you're now
• 55:25
  you not.
• 55:26
  So I trained, I got these
• 55:28
  nail boards that actually have real
• 55:29
  nails and they're called shock
• 55:31
  keyboards.
• 55:31
  And I'd stand on it for 10 minutes
• 55:33
  and like, really zone
• 55:35
  in. And so I was really locked in.
• 55:37
  And so, I've got very used to this
• 55:38
  idea of being stabbed or being in
• 55:40
  pain for 10 years.
• 55:41
  So I train for about six months for
• 55:42
  that. And then I did some jungle
• 55:44
  warfare training in Guatemala
• 55:46
  with Delta Fuego, those
• 55:48
  guys, and they were great guys.
• 55:49
  So I learned how to like be in the
• 55:51
  jungle and all this other stuff.
• 55:52
  So then I went down to the Amazon
• 55:54
  and actually went through the
• 55:55
  ritual. So I did the 10 minutes,
• 55:57
  ready to go, and we filmed it, so
• 55:59
  it's on YouTube.
• 55:59
  You can see me dancing around in my
• 56:01
  fat little body and everything.
• 56:03
  Should have lost some weight for
• 56:04
  that. I was a little pudgy.
• 56:06
  But anyway, so I went there, I
• 56:08
  put my hands in, and I got to that
• 56:10
  10 minutes. I feel great.
• 56:11
  I was like, I got this.
• 56:12
  Then that neural toxin started
• 56:14
  kicking in. And the first hour I'm
• 56:15
  like, God damn, this hurts.
• 56:17
  And I was thinking, okay, well, you
• 56:18
  know, the worst is gonna be the
• 56:19
  first our, that was a lot, I was
• 56:21
  wrong. The second hour, it's much
• 56:22
  worse.
• 56:23
  I was like, oh, this is so bad.
• 56:25
  Okay, then the third hour, it's
• 56:26
  worse than the second hour.
• 56:28
  I say, you this gotta stop.
• 56:30
  It's like a sound that's getting
• 56:31
  louder and louder and louder, and
• 56:33
  louder.
• 56:34
  And then eventually it gets so loud,
• 56:35
  you can't hear.
• 56:37
  And so then we went back to the boat
• 56:38
  and we just started drinking and we
• 56:40
  got shit faced drunk.
• 56:41
  I was like, this will solve the
• 56:43
  problem.
• 56:44
  And it helped a bit, but it
• 56:46
  took about seven hours before it
• 56:48
  reached its peak, and then it
• 56:49
  gradually deteriorated throughout
• 56:51
  the day. So it was real
• 56:53
  tough.
• 56:54
  The pain was real bad.
• 56:56
  But the next day I woke up and I
• 56:57
  felt like I was fucking Ant-Man.
• 56:59
  You know, I had an incredible
• 57:01
  powers, man.
• 57:02
  You know I had a incredibly
• 57:04
  enhanced sense of smell,
• 57:06
  sense of sight.
• 57:08
  I felt incredibly good.
• 57:09
  You know, I was able to navigate,
• 57:11
  I was spearfishing at night, you
• 57:13
  know, and I was doing all kinds of
• 57:15
  crazy things.
• 57:16
  So there's something to those bullet
• 57:17
  ants, I tell you.
• 57:18
  And the tribe, they don't get cancer
• 57:20
  and they don't get anything else and
• 57:21
  they do these rituals all the time
• 57:23
  and they're very healthy people.
• 57:25
  So it was a wonderful experience
• 57:27
  though and I really enjoyed it.
• 57:29
  I did it with some guys who are my
• 57:31
  security detail and they are all
• 57:32
  like former Rangers and Green Berets
• 57:34
  and so forth and so.
• 57:35
  They have that ultra hardcore
• 57:37
  mentality of like, how much pain and
• 57:39
  when can we have it, sir?
• 57:40
  So they really enjoyed doing it.
• 57:42
  And so the other, the thing is you
• 57:43
  can't like back out when you have
• 57:45
  guys like that, you know, cause
• 57:46
  they'll just never respect you.
• 57:47
  So you have to.
• 57:48
  Just do it.
• 57:48
  It's just like, oh God, okay.
• 57:50
  Uh, but it's nice.
• 57:51
  It creates a circle of accountability,
• 57:52
  uh, for the whole thing.
• 57:54
  Uh, but it was a phenomenal
• 57:55
  experience.
• 57:56
  Um, and I highly recommend that
• 57:58
  we, people do it.
• 58:00
  The, the problem with America is we
• 58:02
  don't have rights of passage.
• 58:04
  You know, there, all these cultures,
• 58:05
  they have some thing you do and you
• 58:07
  go through, and then you're like,
• 58:08
  now a man or now done this.
• 58:10
  And, uh you know, they,
• 58:12
  that's like a big deal for the
• 58:14
  Satyari Maui people.
• 58:15
  It's, it's a sign of courage is
• 58:17
  notion that when you
• 58:19
  put your hands into that glove,
• 58:22
  you're gonna experience profound
• 58:23
  pain for a whole day.
• 58:26
  And despite knowing that and seeing
• 58:28
  that, you put you hands into
• 58:30
  it. In fact, the whole ritual's
• 58:31
  built this way. The tribe fucks with
• 58:33
  you.
• 58:35
  The first thing they have you do is
• 58:36
  go collect the ants and they do it
• 58:38
  in a way where you're probably gonna
• 58:39
  get stung by one of them.
• 58:40
  So you start feeling that pain and
• 58:42
  you're like, oh man, this really
• 58:44
  sucks.
• 58:44
  Then they're like, let's have lunch.
• 58:46
  You're like I don't have lunch, I
• 58:47
  just want to get this goddamn ritual
• 58:48
  over with that out of there.
• 58:50
  Going to get lunch. Let's go get
• 58:51
  lunch and then meditation time.
• 58:53
  Just go fuck around for an hour or
• 58:55
  two. And then we'll let you know
• 58:55
  when the ritual is. So you're just
• 58:57
  sitting there waiting and like,
• 58:58
  it's really a good ideas.
• 59:00
  You know, why don't we get ourselves
• 59:02
  into this?
• 59:03
  Oh God, this is going to be so bad.
• 59:05
  And then when you finally do the
• 59:06
  ritual, then, you know, you get it
• 59:07
  over with, you just, there's this
• 59:08
  amazing relief.
• 59:09
  You say, Oh, I did this whole thing.
• 59:11
  So you have a lot of pride with it
• 59:12
  but that's exactly what a rite of
• 59:14
  passage needs to be
• 59:16
  and it's a shame we don't have these
• 59:17
  types of things plus you know if you
• 59:19
  can experience that level of pain it
• 59:21
  gives you a surity that well you can
• 59:22
  get through anything you know as you
• 59:24
  say yeah you know no matter how bad
• 59:26
  this is i can find a path
• 59:28
  forward and you know get it get
• 59:29
  done.
• 59:31
  Yeah, I think the world
• 59:33
  over needs people to embrace
• 59:35
  a bit of discomfort here and there
• 59:36
  because that's really where the
• 59:38
  magic happens is when you you put
• 59:39
  yourself outside of your comfort
• 59:41
  zone and actually Go and do things
• 59:43
  that would leave a lasting
• 59:44
  impression on you and just challenge
• 59:45
  you to do something You don't
• 59:47
  necessarily want to do and
• 59:49
  the other thing I wanted to ask you
• 59:50
  about like earlier this year You
• 59:52
  know when you I think I want to your
• 59:53
  live streams
• 1:00:00
  Hawk is really interesting, right?
• 1:00:01
  Because you actually did some
• 1:00:02
  philanthropic things with this Black
• 1:00:04
  Hawk.
• 1:00:05
  Can you talk a little bit about
• 1:00:06
  that? Did you actually sell it?
• 1:00:07
  Like what's the total story?
• 1:00:09
  Took about four months to sell it.
• 1:00:11
  It's not like you can just go on
• 1:00:12
  Craigslist.
• 1:00:13
  Anybody want a Blackhawk?
• 1:00:15
  Big, thick Blackhawks.
• 1:00:17
  It's funny, I was with Snoop Dogg
• 1:00:19
  once, and I said, hey, you know, I
• 1:00:20
  got a Black Hawk. He said, what'd
• 1:00:21
  you say? I said Hawk, Hawk,
• 1:00:23
  Snoop. Um
• 1:00:27
  I love that shit.
• 1:00:29
  But no, I said gotta
• 1:00:31
  focus, gotta go lean.
• 1:00:33
  I had it for years.
• 1:00:34
  We used it for Hurricane Rescue, for
• 1:00:36
  Hurricane Elena. We worked with
• 1:00:37
  Samaritan's Purse on that and
• 1:00:39
  Billy Graham's grandson and we had a
• 1:00:41
  lot of cool people who flew on it
• 1:00:42
  like Don Jr.
• 1:00:43
  Flew on. We also used
• 1:00:45
  it U.S. Marshals and they'd use it
• 1:00:47
  occasionally to do med-vacs for
• 1:00:49
  high-risk arrests.
• 1:00:51
  There was one real horrible person
• 1:00:53
  that was himself with Colorado that
• 1:00:55
  they, that they used it to catch and
• 1:00:57
  it was like a pedophile.
• 1:00:59
  And so they had to go to the mountains
• 1:01:00
  and find them and they were
• 1:01:01
  concerned because he was armed.
• 1:01:02
  And if any Marshall got injured, it
• 1:01:04
  would be like three hours before
• 1:01:05
  they could get medical treatment.
• 1:01:07
  So they needed a Blackhawk to
• 1:01:09
  be able to get in and out.
• 1:01:10
  And it was during the shutdown.
• 1:01:11
  So we said, well, we have it.
• 1:01:12
  If you put it into like government
• 1:01:13
  use, I have qualified immunities.
• 1:01:15
  So have at it.
• 1:01:17
  So they went and used it for that
• 1:01:19
  and so there's all kinds of things
• 1:01:20
  that we used it for and for a little
• 1:01:22
  while there we were turning into
• 1:01:23
  like the A-Team from the 80s.
• 1:01:25
  We'd go out these crazy things.
• 1:01:26
  We got a Blackhawk.
• 1:01:27
  I love it when a plan comes
• 1:01:28
  together.
• 1:01:30
  And I loved it.
• 1:01:31
  It was an Alpha model that we
• 1:01:32
  upgraded into a Lima model.
• 1:01:34
  So we put a Lima engine and a Lima
• 1:01:36
  transmission in it and
• 1:01:37
  we also put Mike model seats in.
• 1:01:39
  We had Garmin avionics.
• 1:01:40
  I put a Fry's bar in it so you could
• 1:01:42
  jump out of it and you know fast
• 1:01:43
  rope out it and all kinds of things.
• 1:01:45
  It was a badass helicopter.
• 1:01:47
  And because it was Alpha with Lima
• 1:01:49
  and it was the fastest Blackhawk in
• 1:01:51
  the United States, because the Mike
• 1:01:52
  model is a lot heavier because they
• 1:01:54
  put all this stuff on it for war.
• 1:01:56
  So loved it, but we
• 1:01:59
  had to downsize.
• 1:02:00
  We said, let's get lean, let let's
• 1:02:02
  into the game.
• 1:02:03
  And so I sold that, sold an
• 1:02:05
  Aventador, one of the
• 1:02:06
  Lambos, and just
• 1:02:09
  cut a lot of assets out and shut
• 1:02:10
  some businesses down.
• 1:02:11
  Like the clinic, I'd ran that at
• 1:02:13
  a loss for years and years and it
• 1:02:15
  was a great charity clinic.
• 1:02:16
  Up in Gillette, Wyoming.
• 1:02:18
  But we said, look, let's find
• 1:02:19
  somebody else to run it instead of
• 1:02:21
  losing money, make money.
• 1:02:22
  So we found a Mayo Clinic affiliate
• 1:02:24
  named Monument and they rented the
• 1:02:26
  clinic and we transferred it to
• 1:02:28
  them, which was real hard.
• 1:02:30
  My name's on the building and we'd
• 1:02:32
  saved a lot of lives and we had all
• 1:02:33
  these doctors working for us.
• 1:02:35
  And you go from running
• 1:02:36
  a clinic to being a landlord.
• 1:02:38
  It's a very different experience.
• 1:02:41
  But it was an example of
• 1:02:42
  simplification Because it frees you
• 1:02:43
  up to focus on.
• 1:02:45
  The things that are important, like
• 1:02:47
  midnight, the venture portfolio,
• 1:02:49
  Cardano, and these other things.
• 1:02:51
  And it's good to be back in the
• 1:02:53
  game. I feel a lot lighter.
• 1:02:54
  I've lost 20 pounds.
• 1:02:57
  Life is good, and we're
• 1:02:59
  excited about the future overall.
• 1:03:01
  It's not play time, it's work time.
• 1:03:04
  You gotta get involved, you gotta
• 1:03:05
  push in.
• 1:03:06
  You meet a lot of people along the
• 1:03:07
  way, like having the Blackhawk, I
• 1:03:09
  got to meet the entire community,
• 1:03:10
  and there was a lot phenomenal
• 1:03:11
  people there.
• 1:03:12
  Also, being an innovator, I was like
• 1:03:14
  a whole bunch of things I wanted to
• 1:03:15
  change on the Blackhawk.
• 1:03:16
  I'm like, oh, we could add this or
• 1:03:17
  we could change this.
• 1:03:19
  So if I were getting one again, I
• 1:03:20
  think I'll just build one and we'll
• 1:03:22
  make it actually a much better
• 1:03:23
  platform.
• 1:03:25
  But it was a time in my life
• 1:03:27
  and now it's over.
• 1:03:29
  David Bowie, I think it said it
• 1:03:30
  best, you can't get stagnant.
• 1:03:32
  You can't let your feet touch the
• 1:03:34
  bottom of the pool.
• 1:03:35
  You gotta go to the deep end and you
• 1:03:37
  gotta always be reinventing and
• 1:03:38
  doing new things and that's how you
• 1:03:40
  stay alive and that's how you stay
• 1:03:42
  young.
• 1:03:42
  The biggest problem after you've had
• 1:03:44
  a big success is you
• 1:03:46
  continue to let that big success
• 1:03:48
  define you.
• 1:03:49
  If Elon Musk had done that,
• 1:03:51
  then he'd be the guy who founded
• 1:03:52
  PayPal.
• 1:03:54
  It's not like a bad thing,
• 1:03:56
  PayPal's a big deal, right?
• 1:03:57
  But it's not Tesla and SpaceX and
• 1:04:00
  all this other stuff, right.
• 1:04:01
  So he had to take a huge risk and he
• 1:04:03
  went from PayPal to these
• 1:04:04
  things and Tesla was 11 hours away
• 1:04:06
  from bankruptcy in 2008.
• 1:04:08
  SpaceX had one rocket launch
• 1:04:10
  left. And they would be
• 1:04:12
  dead. And everybody said he was
• 1:04:13
  stupid, didn't know what he was
• 1:04:14
  doing. When he bought Twitter,
• 1:04:15
  remember how many people shooed all
• 1:04:17
  over him and said he's overpaid, he
• 1:04:18
  doesn't know he's doing?
• 1:04:19
  He leveraged the Twitter acquisition
• 1:04:21
  to get a trillion dollar plus
• 1:04:23
  valuation out of SpaceX.
• 1:04:25
  You know, it's like the guy's
• 1:04:27
  a damn genius with this type of
• 1:04:29
  stuff. So, you're not out
• 1:04:31
  until you say you're out, but one of
• 1:04:32
  the prerequisites to stay in is you
• 1:04:34
  gotta stay young, and you just gotta
• 1:04:35
  stay current. And you have to be
• 1:04:37
  able to update and do things.
• 1:04:38
  You have to have the courage to take
• 1:04:40
  a risk and look stupid.
• 1:04:43
  Probably the bravest thing you can
• 1:04:44
  do is take your shirt off when
• 1:04:46
  you're a fat guy in the internet.
• 1:04:48
  And I did that with the Tuk and
• 1:04:49
  Dara, right? You take the criticism,
• 1:04:51
  you take all the hits.
• 1:04:53
  It doesn't mean that you're
• 1:04:55
  psychologically a pushover where you
• 1:04:56
  just are glutton for punishment and
• 1:04:58
  you keep going back into the same
• 1:04:59
  channels again. And again, that's
• 1:05:00
  why we changed the relationship with
• 1:05:01
  X, but it does mean you have the
• 1:05:04
  courage to do things and also
• 1:05:06
  admit when things have taken their
• 1:05:07
  course.
• 1:05:08
  The other thing is it's so
• 1:05:09
  liberating, because if
• 1:05:11
  you let assets define you
• 1:05:13
  or possessions define you, and
• 1:05:15
  you're known as the guy
• 1:05:17
  who owns that thing, well
• 1:05:19
  then you become a non-person.
• 1:05:21
  Your whole job is to be a custodian
• 1:05:23
  of stuff.
• 1:05:25
  So when you have the ability to
• 1:05:26
  sell something that you love, move
• 1:05:28
  on and not think about it
• 1:05:29
  afterwards, that's super liberating.
• 1:05:31
  Because you know no matter what
• 1:05:32
  happens, if you lose everything and
• 1:05:33
  you have to start all over again,
• 1:05:35
  you're gonna be okay.
• 1:05:36
  You don't have to be addicted to
• 1:05:38
  this lifestyle or these assets or
• 1:05:40
  these things and you love them for
• 1:05:42
  the time that they were there and
• 1:05:43
  when they're gone, they're gone and
• 1:05:45
  you move on.
• 1:05:46
  Yeah, yeah, beautiful.
• 1:05:48
  Look, I I don't think we could end
• 1:05:49
  the show on on a better note than
• 1:05:51
  that I was really thankful for
• 1:05:53
  you giving so much time to
• 1:05:55
  chat to us today and Being
• 1:05:57
  so candid with us as well I
• 1:05:59
  do hope that we can get you back on
• 1:06:00
  the show in the near future when you
• 1:06:02
  have more updates to give us
• 1:06:04
  On Midnight's on on going Sonic
• 1:06:06
  try out midnight city midnight
• 1:06:08
  dot city. It's great, man
• 1:06:09
  Just blow your mind.
• 1:06:10
  It sounds like Moldbook.
• 1:06:12
  That's exactly where we got the idea
• 1:06:13
  from that and all terrors work on
• 1:06:15
  the Minecraft civilizations.
• 1:06:18
  But yeah, it's the first place ever
• 1:06:20
  where like agents are going to form
• 1:06:21
  their own civilization.
• 1:06:23
  Beautiful. I'll definitely check it
• 1:06:24
  out. And if you're interested
• 1:06:26
  in the audience watching that as
• 1:06:28
  well, go ahead and check that out.
• 1:06:30
  Charles, thank you so much for your
• 1:06:31
  time. We do hope you could come back
• 1:06:32
  and join us. If you enjoyed this
• 1:06:34
  conversation, please like and
• 1:06:35
  retweet the broadcast.
• 1:06:36
  We will be back on Monday with
• 1:06:38
  another version of the starting
• 1:06:39
  block. Until then, have a fantastic
• 1:06:41
  weekend.
• 1:06:41
  We'll catch you next week.