Ep: 220 - LIVE from Solana Breakpoint, Day 2. Feat. Raj Gokal (Solana), Cathy Yoon (Harmonic), Brandon Millman (Phantom), Ian C Rogers (Ledger)

[00:29] Here's this week's show. [00:31] you [00:32] Breakpoint day two, mini tea day two. I'm on my second mini tea. I don't have a third. Well, can't wait for tomorrow's outfit. We might go shopping. Oh, we're looking at the camera. Kate's giving us a note, which I love a note from Kate. Okay. [00:46] Hi, I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Blake Finucane. And we are Boys Club. We are here at Breakpoint 2025 with Solana in Abu Dhabi. We're jet lagged, but we're ready. We're having a great time. It doesn't even matter that we're on another time zone. It's not even like it's the biggest time zone difference you can ever have. It doesn't even matter. Now, before we get into anything else, Natasha, what is Boys Club? [01:16] We have newsletters, we do events, we do a ton of work on social, reporting live from many of the best tech companies. [01:21] I'm not. [01:22] conferences on many of the best tech companies. And we have a great time doing it. We talk a lot about emerging technology in a way that's accessible and fun. And I think some people enjoy it. I certainly do. I certainly do as well. And I think a lot of people enjoy it. You can toot your own horn. Thank you. Thank you. We're getting snaps from our producer Kate here. And we are at the arena today. [01:45] And I have to tell you metaphorically and literally literally literally. Okay. I just have to say being here reporting from this suite doing interviews in this box. I feel like I am a sports reporter. I feel like sports fans. This is coming from an educated place. Rogers. No, no. Andrews. Aaron Andrews. I love. Well, okay.

[02:09] I don't know much about him, but I love her. [02:13] I've never really seen anything she's done. It's being out there, talking to the guys. Yeah, on the field. And we're doing the same. And we're talking to the women as well. All of them. Yep. Everybody. So I just want to say thank you so much to Zero X and Polygon. They are supporting this live stream. They are supporting the boys. And we can't thank them enough. We are going to have some incredible, truly huge fans. [02:38] interviews today. Raj, one of the co-founders of Solana. Brandon from Phantom. Co-founder, CEO of Phantom. Just for clarity. Just for clarity. And a bunch of other great interviews. So [02:51] Stick around. Stay tuned. [02:57] Camera. [02:58] One, two, three. How do you feel about my pinstripe suit? I love it. The first time I met that suit was actually at a Vogue dinner. Oh my God. I went no top, which was a cool look. Topless, you might say. [03:13] So I met at the Vogue dinner a couple of years ago in New York and it's never left my mind since. And it's still with us, which is beautiful. It's international now. It's still, yeah, it's been many places. It's been worn by many folks. Yeah. And that's beautiful. It's great. It's the traveling pantsuit. [03:27] A sisterhood of the traveling pantsuit. I do feel like slightly overdressed. Well, I wore... [03:33] Running shoes. [03:35] So there you go. With a little in them. The air riffs as they're officially called. The amount of toe socks that have been in this room. 205 suite is unprecedented. Okay, so I took my socks off because I thought it was like...

[03:53] a better look no sock just shoe oh cool in terms of it's almost like a topless situation but bottom on the foot yeah and then I wore a collared shirt because you said that you were wearing a suit and I wanted to kind of match your energy somewhat I love that when I came down to breakfast I was like you look amazing [04:14] as I said to you. Yeah, sure. It's beautiful. Okay. [04:19] We [04:20] are here. We are. We're having a great time. Having fun. Having a lot of fun. We're at Breakpoint 2025, as we have already talked about. And I would love to hear some of your thoughts. You had some really cogent [04:34] takes last night coaching while we were eating french fries and fried chicken our cultural meal of everybody's been like how's the food been and i'm like well the food at the hilton and the food at the andas and the food at the conference center have been american absolutely um i've been having shakshuka so yeah you i that's not out of i i want to have local cuisine that's not out of a lack of desire it's out of a lack of time yeah yeah yeah because you know what we're busy we're busy gals [05:04] Yes, so I think my biggest takeaway, particularly from [05:09] the [05:10] like first video that kind of like [05:13] entry intro to the conference was... [05:17] like solana acknowledged ftx they acknowledged the collapse they collapsed they acknowledged the price action in i forget what year 2023 down to eight bucks yeah so i was really impressed with the fact that they were like hey we're putting it all out there like there's no hiding like we're fully telling the story that's like that's a hot look yeah that's a confident yeah and i'm like okay that that really shows that it's like okay we're owning everything we're owning our history

[05:47] I haven't been in like a crypto bro heavy kind of space in such a long time. Hence me talking about Chrome hearts a lot off camera and off camera, but online. Exactly. Yeah. And so, [06:04] just the kind of like, I guess, youngness and freshness of, I call them kindly the crypto bros. I love the crypto bros. Complimentary. Complimentary. [06:14] At the same time, kind of like the corporate older suits also being here. So like the mix and everyone's actually talking. Everyone's really nice. I'm hearing deals being done. I'm hearing products being pitched. I'm hearing like... [06:27] ideas and development thoughts emotions no no no none of those i don't really feel i don't feel feelings okay yeah yeah just first no no but i'm a feelings first person so that's what i'm seeing um anything to add in terms of what you've been seeing um yeah i would say that it's it's packed crazy packed and what a refreshing experience to be at a crypto conference that's packed [06:57] Booths are active, genuine activity. And like... [07:01] Fun, fun, good vibes, genuinely like upbeat vibes. So I don't want to be like shilling so hard. I know it's upsetting to be like this positive. Yeah. How dare, how dare we spread love and light. Exactly. But I, yeah, I do really sense that it's very clearly something that, um,

[07:19] is working. It's working out there. Yeah. So that's cool to see. [07:24] Um... [07:25] Trying to think if there's anything else that really stood out to me. I gotta be honest with you. I haven't walked a ton of the conference. Yeah, exactly. We've been had much time. We've been locked in up here up here, but, but I plan to, uh, [07:35] I mean, I've definitely taken it in, um, holistically, but I'm excited to sit into [07:40] some talks today. Yeah. And [07:43] get more of a vibe uh and outside of i'd say the conference what's running in parallel and never stops is the timeline and i feel like you may and always do have some hot takes on what's happening on the timeline at the moment at the moment i agree i love to talk about the timeline before i do i'm going before before she does thank our lovely sponsors absolutely as you should we have [08:08] wonderful partners that make this work possible. We genuinely love them. [08:13] starting with [08:14] Polygon, [08:15] Thank you for the support. If you've touched crypto in any way, chances are you've already used Polygon. It's the chain quietly powering a bunch of stuff that actually works that people actually use like Stripes crypto payments, betting on Polymarket prediction markets, which we love and a bunch more. They are the MVPs of Boys Club and many things within crypto. And we are so thankful that they sponsor the pod and other properties at Boys Club. We love them

[08:45] Zero X coming in strong for this podcast. [08:51] Partnership, activation, activation, media room. [08:54] trip, um, overseas, overseas, Middle East. Here we are. Uh, so let's talk about swap technology. Um, [09:01] When you're building swap token, [09:04] token swaps when you're building token swaps dyslexia when you're building token swaps you want tech that you can really trust and that's why you should use zero x they've been experts in the game since 2017 which is in crypto [09:16] A million years. A million years. Their swap API makes it simple and they've solved all of the hard stuff like liquidity aggregation, routing, and all the behind the scenes complexity that I surely am not. [09:27] actively working on right now. No, not right now. You don't need to just trust us either. Zero X power swaps from some of the biggest apps in the space, including Coinbase's Dex trading product, Phantom, [09:39] who we're having the founder on today, backpack and hundreds more. And it's not just about the best prices. [09:46] 0x leads in execution quality at delivering speed. So you can trade any token, even the very newly [09:54] launched ones nearly instantly. Fresh. Zero X world-class swaps built by the experts. [10:00] Love it. Thank you so much, Zero X. Thank you so much, Zero X. [10:04] Should we get into the show? Let's dive in. Let's do it. [10:08] . [10:11] Raj, co-founder of Solana, honestly, couldn't get bigger. Doesn't really need an introduction. Couldn't get bigger than this. We're so excited to have you. Thanks for being here. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. So we talked a little bit off camera about how incredible this conference has been so far. Curious how you're feeling. Feelings check-in. How's it going? Yeah, I'm, you know, uh...

[10:31] We were just talking about Singapore and how last year was so epic. It was large in scale. People came from [10:39] over 100 countries. It was during F1. There were, I think, 5,000 or 6,000 attendees. And it was hard to imagine topping that. But objectively, everyone I've spoken to says that Abu Dhabi in 2025 was bigger, better, more polished. And the balance of everybody coming together just to be together, but also coming together to celebrate the wins of the year and really gear up for what's going to [11:09] I think it is just representative of like the DNA of Solana. People are work hard, but but also play hard and, you know, they show up for each other. Yeah, absolutely. And I guess for those who are relatively unfamiliar with the founding story of Solana, I'd love for you to just go a little bit more into that. I think that. [11:28] builds and is so crucial to the culture that we now see today. Yeah, so [11:34] You know, Tully is the technical mastermind who really had the epiphany in 2017 that you could apply the same scaling principles from wireless networks to blockchains. [11:47] Tolly and I had a lot of friends in common. We had gone camping together years before. I remember him. He doesn't really remember me. There's always one. Yeah, yeah. But you know, I was starting-- I spent seven years in health tech, you know, starting and scaling different businesses.

[12:05] I'd worked with a lot of great engineers in Silicon Valley. And one of them, Eric, was a mutual friend of mine and Tully's. [12:12] And when Anatoly had that epiphany, the two coffees and a beer, and kind of realized, you know, proof of history could be a source of time and all that, you know, technical stuff, [12:21] Eric just kept telling me, "You gotta talk to Tully." And he kept telling Tully, "You gotta talk to Raj." [12:26] And ultimately, you know, in late 2017, we had a coffee together, um, [12:31] And at least that's my experience of how things got started. And, you know, what I what I said to Tully at that point wasn't, you know, I believe that this is going to be successful or I believe it's going to get to the scale it is now. I really just wanted to support Tully because, you know, there's so many things that can kill a startup in the first six months. So. [12:52] I said, I'll give you six months of everything I have. And that was, you know, like almost eight years ago. Wow. OK, I heard I think you said [13:01] somewhere in an interview that you had tried nine other businesses before this. Is that [13:06] - Right? - Probably more, yeah. - Okay, okay. - The story was, there was somebody I talked to, [13:12] who had a big, successful tech business. And... [13:16] I asked him, you know, what, what the secret was. And he said, you know, I just kept starting things until something clicked and, and he had nine failures before he had one success. And, um, I said, I could fail 10 times. Like that seems, you know, it seems reasonable. Yeah. But, uh, most of the, the products that I started before were in, um, in health tech. Cause in,

[13:37] in 2010 to 2015, [13:42] You had Bluetooth Low Energy, a new wireless protocol. There were like Jawbones and Fitbits, and everybody had a cell phone for the first time. And just the idea that you could rebuild healthcare with things like wearable sensors was a really attractive concept to me. [13:57] I think [13:58] What we found, though, was, you know, the U.S. health care system is broken in a way that, you know, finance is broken in similar ways. But in finance, you can build on permissionless systems without anyone's. [14:10] support or buy-in. Like Goldman Sachs said, Bitcoin was rat poison. And, you know, they literally tried to make this stuff illegal and they can't control it. In healthcare, you know, the forces that [14:23] that be there are actually a lot more powerful. So, um, yeah, I think rebuilding and finance has been like, like sprinting and, uh, and, and a lot more fun than healthcare. Um, I'm curious, what were you looking for in those first six months? Um, [14:37] - Like what was gonna keep you going? [14:40] you know we needed we needed the right people to build this incredibly technical difficult project um you know totally had a good idea of who those people were um it was you know there aren't there aren't thousands of them in the world there are you know maybe dozens um [14:56] We needed the money to pay them because they all had families. Some of them had big earn out acquisition offers from other companies that were massive compensation packages. [15:06] And,

[15:08] you know, we needed to get a company off the ground with, you know, Tully who had never started a company before in a way that let the engineers just work. I know how to do all that stuff. And so that was all I really, you know, wanted to make sure we got done in the first six months. [15:24] But I think what we found was, [15:28] the need was just so incredibly large for something this performant. And there was nobody else in the space building for 10,000 times the throughput and scale. Everyone was building for like 10 or 100x. And the other thing that kills companies in those early days is, if it's not one of the things I mentioned, just getting the wrong people or not getting enough money, it's actually getting too much money. [15:51] There were so many teams that had $100 million, $200 million in funding and never shipped anything. Because when you have... [15:58] infinite shots on goal. - Right, yeah. - We could get it done this year, or next year, or the year after. - Totally. - It just never happens, and you don't build a team that's hungry and really tries to get things done. [16:10] I think keeping capital efficiency and keeping tension in the system was also something we prioritize. And we were able to build this network with one-tenth of the resources of most of the competition. I had a really good friend talk about raising money versus bootstrapping. And it's not exactly what you're speaking to. But she talked about when you raise a lot of money, you're in an SUV. Yeah. [16:31] and you're like riding high. And when you have less resources, you're in like a really low car and you're feeling like every bump and every like swerve. And that's really important, especially in those early days. So I feel like that's what you guys experience being more resource constrained than other. Yeah, no, I think that's a great analogy. And

[16:47] When you raise a lot of money, like everyone knows you have money and everyone wants to get some of that money and everyone tells you what you want to hear to get some of that money. Yeah. When you have no money, nobody cares about you. They're like, we're not thinking about you at all. Nobody believes in you. They won't even give you their time or attention. So when you do get someone's time or attention and it's because of what you've built, it's a really strong source of signal and truth that actually you can't really get from high up in the SUV. Yeah. [17:17] you're talking with a couple right here. Um, what advice do you find yourself giving to founders over and over again, like the main things and is the advice that you'd give to someone working in the Solana ecosystem different than you'd give to someone in a health tech startup or is it more general advice? No, it's the same. It's, it's, uh, you know, that's, that's part of what I, what I love, um, is that it's, it's the same lessons. It's actually very [17:46] forget them or they get bad advice. Um, I would say the biggest one is that, um, [17:53] You know, I've never seen a great company with a great product that didn't come [17:57] between three weeks and like six months from running out of money and dying. And I think getting to that point [18:06] And making the most use you can of the focus that comes from a team that has exactly one shot on goal to survive. And obviously you need the team to care about surviving. If they don't care because this is just something they're doing with their time, you know, it doesn't it's just going to die. But a team that really cares about solving the problem and knows that they have one shot on goal, it it it cuts away [redacted address] that is very hard to reproduce.

[18:36] approaching that near-death experience. And I try to tell people to get excited because you're about to have – [18:42] The kind of insight that you can't pay for. [18:47] - Okay, I know we're coming close up on time. I'd love to hear from you. What are some projects you're really excited about, some metas that you're seeing coming out of Breakpoint? - I mean, there's so many. I think the ones that people have probably already heard a ton about here at Breakpoint are, you know, we have massive institutional adoption of Solana specifically, like JP Morgan issuing $100 million of a private credit fund on Solana. - Incredible. - You know, State Street, it's a massive multi-trillion dollar bank doing the same. [19:15] Stable coin adoption is through the roof on Solana. So all of that stuff has attention, and I think that's awesome, and you should watch the rest of the videos to see that. But I think the under the radar things are, [19:28] So Tolly and I did a robot boxing battle out front and people think that was just like a random, you know, stunt. But the company that owns those robots is. [19:40] is deploying them all over the world and incentivizing people with tokens to deploy them to collect training data to sell to other humanoid robot companies. And not just humanoid, they have small rolling robots and crawling robots and everything. So in, you know, Scale.ai is famous for producing the data that trains most of the large language models. [20:02] Now we're moving into a physical world of robots that aren't just language, they're interacting with things. They need training data too. And it turns out that decentralized physical infrastructure networks like Helium and HiveMapper have already proven the model of bootstrapping a data network.

[20:21] by incentivizing a bunch of people to deploy hardware. So, I don't think people even know this exists, but it's on Solana. - Wow. - They've got many major mainstream humanoid robot companies consuming their data. [20:35] Hivemapper also has, I think, [20:38] more than half of the top 10 autonomous driving companies consuming their map data from [20:43] people that drive and use their dash cam and it's all, you know, accounted for on Solana. The honey token is why they're doing it. So these deep in networks are like most people don't even know they exist. But, you know, I think. [20:57] The builders there are, you know, it's just like what we said, right? They don't, they're not distracted by noise. They're building because somebody needs their product and they're not getting even stage time over it. So I, you know, I encourage people to look for those founders and those types of products that are, that are more under the radar. Cause that's what, you know, the next break point and the one after that are going to be about. Yeah. Are you going to have a humanoid robot in your home? I have, as soon as pre-orders open for any humanoid robots, I order multiple. Are you serious? Yeah. [21:27] - Wow, okay, full send. - Yeah, no, this is the, what a cool time to be alive. Like we're, we know it's coming. I'm happy to be an early adopter and [21:36] Get some broken dishes or something. Nice. Well, Raj, thank you so much. Thank you. This is honestly an honor to have you. So thanks for being here. Awesome. You guys are great. [21:44] . [21:47] Brandon Millman, CEO and co-founder of Phantom. So excited to have you here. Thanks for having me. We are huge fans, big users. Literally, we both have our computers open and I do see the Phantom tab on both of it. So we're not, this is real life. We're real life here. So actually, we had a guest on yesterday and they made an incredible comment about Phantom that I just wanted to share. We were kind of talking about the Ethereum versus Solana ecosystems and, you know, sort of the different vibes.

[22:17] talking about asking people, okay, are like people new to crypto? Like, are you using Ethereum? Are you using Solana? Like, and they were like, oh, I'm just like using Phantom. And like, that's their experience of crypto, which is incredible and very exciting. As someone who's worked in this industry a while, just seeing that sort of adoption. And so much of that is, I think, [22:37] a testament to what you guys have built. Um, so curious about what you were thinking about for 2025. What are some of the things that are top of mind for you? Um, 2026, 2026. Yeah. Well, yeah. Happy to talk about, uh, 2025 as well. The wraps, the phantom wrapped of the year. Yeah, totally. Well, you know, uh, phantom is still, uh, you know, thanks for sharing that story. That's, [23:07] It's been really awesome to see how the last wave of new users has really come on and been truly phantom first. [23:18] To a lot of folks outside the industry, they think about when they think about using crypto, they think. [23:24] They think... [23:24] Oh, Phantom is crypto. Absolutely. Yeah. Genuinely. Yeah. And I think that's, well, A, yeah, testament to the team, obviously, but also I think just a general shift in the industry around how... [23:38] centralized exchanges used to be that real entry point into crypto and it's actually morphed now where now that the on-chain ecosystems have gotten a lot faster, cheaper, more reliable, you know, self-custodial wallets have really become that entry point for most folks into the ecosystem because that's that's where all the action is happening. And so yeah, 2025 was all about well 2024 was all about kind of

[24:04] riding the last sort of wave on Solana. That was really sort of all about [24:10] Meme coins? Yeah. And that was such a crazy ride. And then 2025 was all about [24:17] leveraging that position to really go for a broader vision of, hey, let's not just compete in the wallet arena. Let's actually use our momentum and all of the superpowers to really start to compete with, you know, the big boys like Square Cash, Venmo, Robinhood, and sort of start to really fulfill a lot of the initial promise of crypto that I think everyone's been looking for. [24:47] obviously incredibly unique in the sense that you have such unique insights into user behavior, like consumer crypto behavior. I'm wondering if... [24:58] There's some trends or things you're seeing as to how consumers are actually engaging with the wallet, what they're buying. I mean, I know the data is on chain, but I think you have just... [25:11] an inside view that very few other people would have around that. Yeah, it's a huge privilege for us to be able to see all those trends and spot them early, but it's also a responsibility to push the space forward in a way that we wanted to see it develop. And so one of the big themes for the past year, and I think for 2026, is actually bringing the daily money use cases to life.

[25:41] bridge the gap between the real world and crypto world? How do we actually spend your crypto and use it to buy things, send funds to friends and family and things like that? And so I think what we've seen is a real appetite [25:58] for those types of things. And also, we're generally trying to push things in that direction as well. Again, to try to [26:04] really fulfill a lot of the initial promises of crypto. Yeah. And like, you know, Satoshi's initial paper around P2P cash, right? And so I think one big, you know, [26:14] Push for us in the next year is going to be around Phantom Cash, which is this product that we have all around this concept of how we bring daily money use cases to the mainstream. So, yeah. I'm curious if you've seen anything that has really surprised you. [26:30] Um, hmm. [26:33] That's a good question. I mean, I think, well, I think the rise in prediction markets the last, call it just a couple of months, I think surprised me. I mean, I think we've, prediction markets have been around the block for a really long time. You know, in 2017, there was folks like Augur who were, yeah, who were really trying to push the boundary there. And I think we all saw that initial promise. But I kind of, you know, I, I, [27:01] I kind of not necessarily wrote it off, but I think it was a it was a little bit too easy to kind of call it a little bit more of a crypto niche thing. Yeah. But I think what's really surprised me is how quickly it all has evolved in just the past couple of months. And now it's truly a mainstream thing. I mean, I feel like you've seen it all in crypto. So for something to actually surprise you is like that's hard.

[27:31] Thank you. [27:31] Uh, does that mean stable coins for you? Does that mean something different in terms of those daily money use cases? I noticed you didn't use the word stable coin. I don't know if that was strategic or yeah, maybe you could talk about if stable coins is the key thing. [28:01] for a broader audience, including stablecoins, right? I think even today still... [28:06] People hear about stable coins, but the normal everyday consumer doesn't really know what that means for them or how to use it. And so, yeah, phantom cash is underpinned by stable coin tech, non-custodial wallet tech, and all of the superpowers that comes with that. And yeah, we're really looking to just try to make stable coins safer and easier to use for consumers. So is your goal, dream scenario, instead of someone saying, can I Venmo you? It's like, can I phantom you? [28:36] Yeah, I'm not sure what the verb are going to go for you. Can I? Crypto, it's like a noun, phantom. Crypto is. [28:43] phantom and now it's like the yeah yeah that's that's a good way that we have to figure out what the verb is going to be does does cash app already own can i cash you or i think i think so i feel like cash app is kind of it's kind of owned but we're going to get something for phantom yeah yeah we'll put our heads together and think about that it's e-transfer so oh my god that's insane people say that out loud transfer email transfer well yeah i know i get it for clarity everyone

[29:13] or electronic milieu. Um, okay. Any takeaways from breakpoint, anything that you've seen that trends, something about the culture, what sort of, I mean, you've been in this ecosystem for a long time, but I'm curious if there's anything that's. Yeah. Um, so it's actually our fifth Solana breakpoint. Wow. Okay. Um, and before that I was in the ecosystem for four years from 2017 to 2021. Uh, yes. So we were working, uh, you know, I was the very employee at this, uh, [29:42] DeFi company called Zero X. Zero X is the sponsor of the pod. Yeah. So, yeah, that's right. So I spent, yeah, many years with Will and Amir working on early decentralized exchange tech. And however, I think one of the things that we took away from our time there was, yeah, sort of a feeling that Ethereum was a little bit too dogmatic in their culture and not too pragmatic. And so I think when we made the choice, [30:12] to develop on Phantom on Solana at first, it really was, um, [30:17] It really was a cultural thing. And talking with Raj and Toli, we really identified with them as having similar [30:27] engineering values and culture around our own pragmatism. And I think that that sort of like top level... [30:36] culture really reflects on the entire ecosystem. And so I think you see when you walk around Breakpoint today, it's very developer oriented.

[30:45] Whereas... [30:46] Thank you. [30:47] It's sad to say, I feel like Ethereum ecosystem nowadays has been co-opted into a little bit more like investor heavy. Oh, that's an interesting take. Yeah. Maybe nowadays they're kind of turning it around a bit. But yeah, I think if you really want to go where like the true hardcore builders are, they're all on Solana. Wow. Wow. Great. I love that as a take. Well, Brandon, thank you so much. Yeah, for sure. Again, we're such big fans of what you've built. Fans and users. Yeah, exactly. Both. Yes and. Yes and. Thank you for being here. Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much, man. Thank you. [31:17] *music* [31:21] Kathy Yoon, general counsel at Harmonic. Okay. Harmonic is a new open block building system for Solana. You launched in November. Did I get it right? Yeah. Okay. I am excited to have you here today for many reasons. One of them is that none of those words are in the Bible and I would like to understand them better. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It's so great to be here. Uh, like literally fangirled when I like, Oh my gosh, that's so nice. Um, okay. Can you give us a, [31:51] harmonic. [31:52] Okay. It's... [31:54] I don't even know how to explain it to myself. Like I'm five. So-- Thank goodness. Great. We're going to do this together. I think at the very high level, there's a certain way that Solana works. We don't have to go into it, the people who want to do a deep dive and tech geek out. But it's just the way the chain works. [32:12] And what harmonic does is allows it to work better, more efficiently, with more open competition and more valuable. And so the unique nature of Solana is that you're able to build blocks.

[32:28] which means like help build the way transactions are kind of settled. But you can kind of pick and choose, or the validators can pick and choose, the more valuable things. Because the more valuable that a block is, the more money a validator will make. And valuable meaning how much money is moving on that block? Or the value. Yeah, exactly. So if you want to just kind of stack it, I mean, if you can fill... [32:57] a bucket right and if you want to put pennies in or quarters in what are you going to pick of course you can pick quarters yeah and so this is a way to kind of pick and choose and cherry pick and put like all the quarters into one bucket and then you get to like ship it off and then you get a reward based you're incentivized based on the bucket of quarters instead of the bucket of pennies okay okay i'm i'm tracking you're tracking yeah yeah yeah me too i i appreciate the quarters [33:27] You also mentioned that there's a token that you launched. Yeah. So it's a different project. Okay. But it's all related. It kind of is related, right? Because so Humidify was kind of a side project for the temporal team and another third party. And it was to build something called a Prop AMM. Okay. So it's... [33:51] code that kind of just sits out there and it allows different people to kind of up you can upload your own trading strategies into this like smart contract and then it uses a smart contract and it basically allows you to trade and do things i mean this is very high level very very simple i'm not gonna go into it uh like and because i don't think i i fully understand the tech either yeah thank you thank you thanks for being honest thank you so much makes me feel better i was gonna say

[34:21] I have to stay humble. I can't pretend. There's only so much I can fake it until I make it. So it basically allows you to upload more. [34:30] your trading strategy and it will interface with our smart contract. Okay. The great thing about Humidify is that the team has managed to find a way where it's so good. It currently has about 60% of all Solana decks volume going through it. Whoa. Six zero. Not six. Oh my god. Okay. Wow. All of a sudden it became this like [34:52] really hot thing. Dream scenario. Exactly. And, um, but we also know that, [34:59] Because of the success of Humidify, we also saw the limitations. And Harmonic is a way to help solve those limitations on Humidify. Well, this has been just such a theme of interviews that is exciting is people working on projects and then there being a clear issue that sort of. [35:18] it puts a ceiling on the thing that they're doing and then building really, really smart, very successful businesses that then solve that ceiling for the original business. And that seems to be sort of what you guys have been up to. Yeah. I mean, and the greatest thing about this team is that we're, they're so smart. I love marketing. [35:34] for like... [35:36] wants to be not the smartest person in the room. I love that. It's so great. It's kind of refreshing. Yeah. Um, but it, it makes my brain work a lot. Um, but it also makes me really proud to like, to be able to hang like, and, and to just like, and they haven't just said, Oh my God, like Kathy's stupid. It's just like, she can actually hang. Yeah. Which is great. But just to see them kind of pivot and just say, this is a weak point. This is something that we need to fix.

[36:06] able to just turn around and ship it. For me, working in the space for-- it's been almost 10 years now that I've been in crypto. [36:14] So refreshing to see a team who just puts their head down there. Yes, we're here at a conference. But for the most part, our main dev stayed home. They didn't want to come out and party. So they could continue working. And so with dev move. Yeah, good dev. Good dev. But it's it's great. So we did launch a token for humidify. Okay. I TGE on the plane over here. That's something I can. I never thought I'd be able to say. I hope you tweeted that. [36:44] with like... [36:48] like the worst wi-fi ever no i of course and i had to pay for it yeah i had to pay for this wi-fi and it was 25 no oh my gosh it sounds like air canada to me i know it wasn't but and it was business class don't you think like it would have like nice included that should be included so uh that that's a first um but it's doing really well um amazing the chart is green we love to see that we love [37:18] while I have you here, [37:19] about the sort of your take on the current regulatory environment in the US. Like, obviously, the last year has been [37:27] tremendous for the crypto industry in terms of what's possible for crypto and, uh, the genius act among other things that have sort of allowed for a looser environment. What's your take? Where do you think we're going sort of what's the temperature from someone who is, um,

[37:44] A general counsel. [37:47] I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but we don't really quite have the clarity that we want or need. Okay. Um... [37:54] I don't think it's a hot take. I think there's a lot of what has changed is the the attitude and the momentum. Now people can actively engage with regulators and not be scared that they're going to get enforcement action slapped on them. People would go in and speak and then all of a sudden the SEC would sue them. [38:14] And that's what people were scared of. - Yeah. - And so right now, I think this current SEC, especially with Hester Peirce and Crypto Task Force, people are now more willing to engage and talk about things and to actively, and the SEC is actually trying to work. [38:30] with projects and give them a way forward to go to market, which is completely different than it was even 15 months ago. I think startups are expensive. Just starting a project, building the tech, hiring people, [38:46] And to do that where you don't know if you're going to have to delay going to market because you're so scared, [38:55] And I think that's kind of like... [38:57] the antithesis of what building in the US is about. It's just like you want to be able to have like your garage project. Open innovation. Exactly. And to be able to do it. And I think it's people are much more comfortable now building and openly in the US. There isn't

[39:15] clarity still, but I think for me it's like I've always tried to direct my projects to [39:20] say, I want to be able to look a regulator in the eye and make a good faith argument why I'm on the right side of the line. And I think that's, [39:28] probably the approach that people are [39:31] embracing now. Yeah. Yeah. And do you think as, um, like a consumer of crypto, so very much on the consumer side, like that it's important for, you know, investors, like just, um, [39:48] consumer investors to actually understand what's happening on the regulatory side because I think it is it's something that you kind of like here and you're like I have no idea what's going on like. [39:59] should we be following this closely? Should we leave it to the general counsels? Like, how should the normal person, like, interact with... [40:06] the regulatory side? [40:09] In a perfect world, I don't have to talk about this anymore, right? Because in the end, it means that we have something that's sustainable, that's innovative. I mean, no one... [40:19] looks at their phone and say, what were the regulatory concerns of how API is connected? I've never done that. I must admit. I mean, but unless you do, you shouldn't care. Um, and, and, and I think it, [40:32] What's frustrating is that it becomes used as like a political pawn or a piece in order to kind of... [40:39] further drive wedges between the parties and the houses. It should be a bipartisan... It shouldn't even be an issue, right, in Congress. It should just be one of those things where, you know...

[40:51] Mm-mm. [40:52] It's part of internet [40:55] whatever the version we are on right now, right? It sucks that we have like web 2.0, web 3.0. That's stupid. It's just, [41:04] We live in a digital society right now. Everything we do is digital. And I don't understand why... [41:11] we're being made to question and defend, or why we're being questioned why we have to defend, why we're using technology and innovating with it. [41:21] Yeah, especially around [41:22] money which feels like the most natural place to be thinking about how is it's digitized like that feels so there's an efficiency to that that should be [41:32] Thank you. [41:33] Just bipartisan, as you're saying. Yeah. And we, I mean, we live in a world where we all want instant gratification. Yeah. Exactly. Right? And so even, even like... [41:42] the old people in Congress, they still want instant gravitation too. And so I don't understand why they're still trying to [41:49] like keep the old way of doing things when even they're probably using apple pay or other things in order to speed up transactions yeah totally um okay final question here um [42:01] Any takes on Solana breakpoint so far, anything that has stood out to you or trends that you're seeing? [42:08] What's your thoughts? [42:09] It's so big this year. It could be also cultural. No, but it's like I, a few years ago, I was at, um, the last like Bitcoin conference I went to was 2021. Okay. And I was astounded because I was just like, when did this become Comic-Con? Um, because it wasn't just like builders or whatever. There were fans. Fans. There were fans. Totally. Yeah. Costumes. There were fans. Yeah. And I recently met Solana fans at this one. I feel that. I really feel that.

[42:39] So I feel it's kind of encouraging because now it's like kind of breaking out from like our little bubble. And there are people kind of outside in the world who are looking at this. I hope to the point where we won't need these kind of specific conferences and it just becomes a thing. But for right now, it's kind of cool. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It was such a pleasure to meet you and to have you. And so thanks for being here. Thank you. [43:08] We are here with Ian Rogers. He's the chief experience officer at Ledger. He has an incredible, incredible background. The I mean, I could literally go through kind of his resume, just some things to highlight. He was the chief digital officer at LVMH. He was a senior director at Apple Music, to name a few. So I want to talk to him about the culture, OK, in general, but also what I really mean is of Solana. [43:38] - He's here for the culture. - Exactly, listen, exactly. And this is the man that we wanna talk to. So first, okay, I wanna start with a little bit, [43:46] more specific maybe about Ledger. [43:50] Even, you know, Boys Club has been talking about all your amazing collaborations. Obviously, the one that's stood out to us the most, Lamborghini, that just got announced. But maybe you could talk through your strategy around collaborations. It seems very, excuse the term, culture heavy in terms of who you're trying to communicate with, the stories that you're trying to tell. Yeah.

[44:12] I'd love to hear more about that. You know, I mostly we are a technology company. We make hardware, we make software. And, you know, we really believe that security is important. Right. But it's it's not the most exciting thing to talk about. You know, it's one of those things you don't want to be the downer at the party. Like, hey, I got an idea. Let's talk about the worst. [44:42] reality is we all have these incredible, you know, personal computers in our pocket, these super powerful computers, but they were fundamentally designed to share information. And now we have this new movement to, to, to kind of put our personal wealth in these, in, into technology. You know, that's why, why we're all here at, at Breakpoint is talking about this, this kind of financial freedom technology that has been developed over the last 15 years. Um, which is, [45:12] it is a kind of a democratizing force bringing um kind of personal value into a different place in our lives but if we try to do personal if we try to do value on these machines that were designed to share information ultimately we're going to get wrecked and so you know you have to find how can you talk about that in a way that people will pay attention and and so for for us the collaborations are that it's just pointing to the fact that um you know this is a part of our

[45:42] It doesn't need to be, you know, we're not selling pocket calculators, you know, like this isn't only for kind of the financial class. It's for everybody. And that's kind of what we're doing. So you try to use, you know, culture as a way of communicating. Human beings are fundamentally story consuming creatures, right? And so [46:03] you know, we want to tell stories. And these are just some of them. So like every day we're really [46:08] telling you know we're trying to just tell stories of education um you know what is security what can you do with these with this technology how does it work but then you know every now and then you pop your head up with a collaboration and it gets you on to hypebeast so you know you you you manage to get that story to a different audience because that's the other thing especially with something like crypto twitter it's super easy to talk to the people that you already know the same 300 people exactly i mean and then so many of these things whether it's a crypto conference [46:38] world that I love, like it's still kind of a traveling circus, right? Like you just see the same people in a different city six times a year. Right. So how do you like break out of that orbit and get to, you know, a new group of people and you, you know, you have to find another, another way to look at it is for me. [46:55] This is what I realized in music. It's not digital music. There's no such thing as music, right? Music is a collection of communities, right? And so there's a community over here and a community over here. And so how do you become relevant in all of those communities? I think it's the same thing in crypto. There's no such thing as crypto. Nobody's like, I'm super into crypto. They're into something. They're into Bitcoin. They're into Solana. They're into particular.

[47:25] Thank you. [47:25] In that way, it's a collection of communities. And the challenge is how can you be relevant? [47:32] to each of those people who have very specific interests and needs. And so, you know, there's no one thing, you know, you kind of dip in and like, you know, offer something. I actually say there is something that's way beyond crypto in this. A very good friend named Jeff McFetridge, who is a he's a really great fine artist. One of the things that he's done well in his career, though, is work with brands. He's worked with Nike, he's worked with Apple, and he's never spoiled his fine art career, you know, [48:02] done that. Um, but he has this, this really great concept about, um, you know, being culturally generous, you know, and when a brand, the question is like when Nike comes into a community that's insular, insular, like skateboarding. Yeah. [48:17] Do they extract from it or do they add to it? And Nike SB worked because Nike gave to the community in a meaningful way. You know, they sponsor good pros, they made good content, they made good product. And then you see like sometimes you'll see a luxury brand that features like skateboarding or DJing in their advertising and it's purely extractor. And I think that's the lesson that brands need to have is like, can I come into a community and add something? [48:47] Um, you know, and, and there's like a huge dividing line there. Like in both cases, it's a brand that's co-opting skateboarding just as that example. Right. Yeah. But you know, with Nike, they were like, and we're leaving, we're, and we're leaving something behind, you know, like we're, we're leaving something additive here. Whereas, you know, another one will come in and just like, you know, put, you know, put

[49:08] Tony Hawk in the window display. You're like, thanks. I did nothing for skateboarding. Have a nice day. Yeah. Yeah, totally. There's so much to what you just said. And I think [49:18] coming back to, [49:20] Being into crypto as a thing. What got me into crypto a few years ago was realizing that it was actually just a mirror to your interests and like what you are into. There's like this new way of interfacing on the Internet that you can. [49:35] put your thing onto and then build from there. And that was sort of what [49:39] made me have like an aha moment around this technology. And I think there's a lot of brands and a lot of, uh, [49:47] like products and protocols within crypto that come in and are really extractive and aren't thinking about how to give back to and build in this sphere in a way that's additive. And so I'm curious as you guys think about [50:01] being a part of culture more generally and I think [50:05] being tech culture, being the entry point to a story around technology that is much more compelling. Partnerships is a great way to do that. How do you think about storytelling at Ledger? [50:17] being a chief experience officer, like what does experience mean to you for the brand? And how does that sort of show up IRL? And I think in, in real life as well, well, I think you have to be really product first, right? Because if you don't have anything to your point about other people in the space, if you don't have anything behind what you're doing, then there's, then it's just a short lived by definition, right? It's sort of like a, you know, if we created a fashion brand, you know, uh, there's, is it a fad that's going to come and go or is something that's really going to endure? Um, yeah,

[50:46] You know, a great example of that is Satisfy Running in Paris. You know, from the beginning, Brees has never let anyone carry only the T-shirts or only the sweatshirts. Like if you're not carrying the running shorts, which is a very particular thing, then you can't carry the brand. Because he knows that like that's the difference between long-term, right? Somebody who's in for the brand long-term and short-term. So I think the same thing, you have to have something real. The great thing about Ledger is Ledger has always stood for something [51:16] every crypto cycle. Because if not self custody, why crypto? And you know, if self custody, then security. It's physics. You know what I mean? Like, so what makes crypto [51:27] actually different and interesting is it's permissionless money, meaning that without self-custody, well, it's not the same thing, period, right? It's not permissionless money if it's not self-custody. But if self-custody, meaning I, the individual, could be holding my own value, then you must have security. So this is so fundamental that there is this foundational [51:57] The cycle could be about ICOs, the cycle could be about NFTs, the cycle could be about an intersection of TradFi and crypto, which is what we have right now. And there's still a narrative, you know, for [52:09] Certainly for both custody and security because even if we're talking about a custodian you still need to care about you know somebody's holding those coins or tokens and you have that. So I think first of all you have to have something foundational. Now it becomes a problem to solve because you actually have a pretty difficult story to tell. You're like well wow I mean to the very first point like.

[52:31] people don't really want to talk about these things. Like self-custody is kind of heady. Yeah. And security is kind of a downer. You know what I mean? So now you have to get creative. Yeah. You know, so how do you put that on top of it? So I think you do it, you know, you do it through product, right? Like what can you actually do with it? Like that's the place to start. And I think where... [52:51] As ledger and as an industry, we haven't always got it right. Yeah. You know, um, [52:57] And so I think that if there's like one lesson to take away, it's like really to be product focused and product first. Show, don't tell. Exactly. What can you do? Okay, how does this change my life? Totally. You know, there's this great example that I learned recently. There's this guy in India in like, I don't know, centuries ago who was super into astronomy. Okay. Right? Like studying the stars. [53:27] Well, and then, but he ended up like, [53:30] communicating it with astrology and I couldn't get my head around it. I'm like, this guy's clearly a scientist. So like, why did he? And then I realized like, [53:38] Ah, because this... [53:40] So astronomy is interesting for people who are like science-minded and curious. Astrology is the what about me? Totally. The average person is like, nice with all your numbers and charts. What about me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Astronomy is for those people, right? And so I think that you need to think about that too. Like we can love the way we built the product, the technology. I can tell you everything about Ledger's architecture and why it's superior to everything else on the market. You're still going to be like, how does this help me in my life?

[54:10] good for you yeah but how does this what does it do for what does it do for me and so i think you really need to think about that first like hey let me tell you a story of how this impacts your life you know and um and why this is going to you know you're a you're going to get done what you want to get done you're going to be able to um you know to buy and to hold and to earn and to spend and to do the things that you want to do the reason that you're here for the financial revolution [54:40] get tripped up along the way. And you need to start and really tell it in those terms, I think. Yeah. And just like I'm-- [54:49] You've been such an influential art collector in the crypto world. I'm sure you're also a very influential art collector outside of the crypto world. But obviously that's not on the chain. So I don't know about it as much. Thank you. Thank you. Not really. It's not really true. But I could talk more about that. Okay, please. I like this. Yeah. I mean, I was even telling. I'm [55:10] You guys are, I guess, my colleagues, but they also are my friends. Yeah, both. [55:16] I'm a big listener of your previous podcast, so I've followed you without... [55:21] you ever knowing me so this is quite real first time caller literally um so with kind of all your background when it comes to actually the art side of things i'd love to get your take on the solana art scene i know this is a little bit switching gears this is a selfish question i come from the art world um what i've seen at the conference so far in the in the day that we've been here is that really hasn't been the focus it's been more on the trad fi kind of intersection

[55:51] where do you see that side of, I guess, traditional creativity coming over to the chain? I mean, this is, I could talk about this all day. So I'm going to try to be, I'm going to try to be. I know we're limited time. I was so excited to ask you this. I'll try to be, first of all, thank you for saying that I'm a prominent art collector because this is what I tell my kids. I'm like, you know I'm a famous art collector. Which is hilarious because they know me and they're like, that's an eye roll if you know me. Look, I mean, before digital art, you know, I mean, I've got art for my friends. [56:21] Petridge. I have Glennie Friedman, um, some stuff that my wife and I like, you know what I mean? But, but that's also the thing, like I have no advantage in the traditional art world. You know what I mean? Like it's very mature. Right. And others, I don't know enough to get a deal, you know, to find something. So you just kind of like collect things that you like or things from friends and you know, et cetera. But the great thing about this digital art world is it's so new. [56:51] Um, [56:52] You know, the difference for me going to a punk rock show and you're like standing next to your favorite artists as opposed to like they're ensconced in the backstage and you'll never meet them. Right. Sort of sort of thing where this is like new enough that you can really be a part of it. You can really get your head around it. And also, like I believe as a collector, you can have a bit of an advantage. Like I believe that 50 years from now, some people will care about some of this art that I bought for nothing. And I love those stories from the traditional art world. I'm actually re-listening to the book called Boom for the second time, which is such a great book.

[57:22] who in this book do I want to be? You know what I mean? It's one of these things. So I love the digital art world, but I think we have to acknowledge that it's this big. You know, I had someone tell me like, oh, when is digital art going to come back? And I was like, no, no, no, it never was. Like it wasn't. It's not like there was a digital art boom and then it crashed. There was a speculative impact. [57:42] you know, gold rush around digital assets, and that went away, and now we're starting from scratch and building a digital art world, and we are. You can feel it if you look at what happened. - 010. - Yeah, if you look at what happened, like Perifoto, 010, at Basel, like wow, it's real. It's so exciting, and honestly, [58:02] I mean, I don't even want to ask people to be a part of it because [58:06] great things grow organically, and this is a truly great thing. And it'll be so much fun over the next 15 years. But we have to acknowledge that it's this big. So if you are Solana Breakpoint, [58:18] You know to me like you this is the moment to do very qualitative things with digital art and [58:23] things that will be important 15 years from now, 25 years from now. Because I just don't think that, look, when you look at the best things, look at what Andreas Giesin and Vinetti just did with this crazy photo animation thing again, [58:45] it takes me 15 minutes to try to explain it to somebody. And so those things take years to be appreciated. So how are you gonna do that in a world where it's about the announcement from JP Morgan and State Street, which by the way is huge. And good for Solana. Like I'm so happy to see it. And I think that there are things like this. Like it might be the case, I was even thinking about some projects in the world of digital art and I was like, you know what?

[59:15] Actually tokenizing the things that people are building and posting on YouTube and so rare is probably a bigger opportunity than the art world that I care about. But by the way, that's normal, especially for me. Like in the music business, I used to say like when if I had a friend who played me an album and I loved it, I would I would say I have terrible news for you. I like your album. Fair enough. I've never liked anything that's popular. Except the Beastie Boys. In my life. Yeah, true. True. So one. True. [59:45] By the way, I like geese. Where are you guys at on geese? I made Kate today under two... Okay, I love geese. I added it to one of our reels today. I think geese is one of these interesting things because it's totally overhyped. [59:59] And it's actually really good. You know, you could listen to it a thousand times and be like, this is gets better every time. Like, that's rare. It's rare. That's why people love them. Yeah. This is my point that like these things don't come around that often. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And yeah. So I think that I think that like the industry needs like mainstream, mainstream stuff to propel it forward. Yeah. And those of us who like things in the fringes, like we should continue to live there. Yeah. [1:00:29] Don't meet your heroes. Don't make your hobby your job. You know what I mean? Like, you know, we can do both. We can work in digital art, but we can acknowledge that, you know, maybe some of it's an acquired taste. Yeah, there's a lesson in that. Okay, I know we're at time. One last question. What's the latest at Ledger? Anything you want to talk about that...

[1:00:52] It's exciting. Yes, we had Ledger open back in October and we announced a ton of stuff. So one of them is, you know, we've had Ledger Nano is what we're known for. It's, you know, the little USB stick shaped. It's not a USB stick, but it's that form factor that people know. You know, it's been the best in security for 10 years. And then we started developing these touchscreen products. So this was the Ledger Stacks that we developed with Tony Fidel. It's got this curved E-Ink touchscreen. Then we developed the Flex. [1:01:22] edition flex and uh you know that so these are you know it's it's it's the same security of ledger but just a much better user interface but we really wanted to bring this ux down to the nano price point so we developed with tony again the the ledger nano gen 5 um and this is uh you know 179 bucks best security touch screen beautiful product and we we had to talking about culture [1:01:52] for the Apple Macintosh. - So sick. - She's the person that introduced Steve Jobs to Paul Rand, and they developed the next logo back once upon a time. And so this is, we just did a fun little collab with her, where we did these little badges for it. So this is one of the things that we announced, so you can get these on ledger.com today. We also announced Ledger Multi-SIG. So we've forever had Ledger Enterprise, for banks, governments, exchanges, a true enterprise product.

[1:02:22] customer but there's this gap between those two and multi-sig fills that gap [1:02:27] You know, this is the worst year for hacks ever. We'll probably say that every year for the rest of our lives. But, you know, the Bybit hack in particular was one that could have been prevented with Ledger Multisig. So it just sort of spurred us to get this into market as quickly as we could. [1:02:57] know spend we have a credit card uh and and you you know you do it all with security that's the difference you know you download some other wallet from the app store you have the level of security of your phone which is nothing you you do use ledger wallet you get the the the security of ledger um and we added some great new features to it for example we did a partnership with a company called noah so you can easily just go from your bank account to your ledger in minutes it's i mean as somebody who has had my credit card denied a bazillion times trying to buy crypto [1:03:27] And then your bank account like freezes your account because they think it's fraud. And, you know, to be able to just have a payee in my bank account where I can transfer any amount of money and it lands in USDC or USDT in my ledger is like magic. And then I can spend that with a ledger card. So you really get this like where ledger used to be for this one long term risk asset called Bitcoin. Now it's every asset because it's every crypto ledger supports more tokens than anyone. Plus things like tokenized stocks, et cetera. So it's literally everything.

[1:03:57] plus it's a yield bearing savings account. Plus I can easily on ramp. I can easily off ramp with a card. I mean, it's just, it's night and day from what ledger was five years ago when I started. So, you know, that's where we're at. It's super fun. You know, we have the, the, the, the best signers. We have the best wallet. So, you know, if you haven't tried it in a while, go try it out. Ledger.com. Ledger.com. Thank you. Ian, thank you so much. This was such a pleasure to have you. And it's great to be here. Yeah. I hope you have a great break point. [1:04:26] Cool. Thank you. You guys too. Thank you. Yeah. Great. [1:04:32] *music*