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Why the Lightning Network is key to scaling bitcoin trading

Shone Anstey · bc

Shone Anstey

Episode

Shone Anstey brings 20 years of experience in building complex technologies and software within search, analytics, and data centre...

Key takeaways

  • Bitcoin functions fundamentally as a trust protocol for the internet rather than just a payment system, representing layer eight of the internet's technology stack and enabling transparency that could reduce corruption globally.
  • The Bitcoin Lightning Network solves Bitcoin's scalability limitations by enabling millions of transactions per second instead of just seven, transforming it into a viable infrastructure for everyday payments and micropayments.
  • New entrepreneurs should focus on understanding Bitcoin first before exploring other cryptocurrencies, as it remains the reserve currency of the crypto industry with the strongest decentralization and brand recognition.
  • Traditional banks face their biggest threat not from regulators but from Silicon Valley tech companies that will leverage Bitcoin's monetary trust layer to disrupt the 600-year-old banking industry.
  • Establishing presence in the Lightning Network now is critical because it will never be easier to secure valuable digital real estate and routing relationships than in this early stage before well-funded competitors dominate the space.

Transcript

Full transcript page · Interactive episode

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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: This is Angela Fae from Canada's podcast.
[00:08] SPEAKER_00: Today we are speaking with Sean Anstey, founder and CEO of LQWD
[00:12] SPEAKER_00: pronounced liquid.
[00:13] SPEAKER_00: The first publicly traded, purpose-built Bitcoin company that's focused on solutions
[00:17] SPEAKER_00: that power the growth of the Bitcoin Lightning network.
[00:20] SPEAKER_00: Let's get straight into speaking with Sean.
[00:22] SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know a little bit about myself, a little background.
[00:24] SPEAKER_01: I'll talk more of the tech side.
[00:25] SPEAKER_01: And certainly my background, I mean tech for home appliances, the mid to late late 90s.
[00:30] SPEAKER_01: And being an internet technology is and worked on, we've found it a company then and we
[00:34] SPEAKER_01: survived the dot com.
[00:34] SPEAKER_01: We came out the other stuff much younger and all those experiences I've made us who we
[00:38] SPEAKER_01: are today.
[00:39] SPEAKER_01: But I've been involved in crypto and Bitcoin since 2012.
[00:42] SPEAKER_01: So I'm not new to the space, not into tech.
[00:45] SPEAKER_01: And my other company is called Big Digital Assets, B-I-G-G on the CSE.
[00:50] SPEAKER_01: It owns netcoins.ca, which is one of Canada's largest crypto exchanges and is the first publicly
[00:58] SPEAKER_01: public company that has a license.
[01:01] SPEAKER_01: So it's actually a regulated entity, which is big music in the last week.
[01:04] SPEAKER_01: So it's the first in Canada.
[01:06] SPEAKER_01: In the public markets like that, and last spring we had about a billion dollar market cap.
[01:10] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[01:11] SPEAKER_00: Congratulations on that.
[01:12] SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
[01:12] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's been great and the team's done well.
[01:14] SPEAKER_01: But I've been there as a larger shoulder in a director.
[01:16] SPEAKER_01: I'm not running operations.
[01:17] SPEAKER_01: I'm not part of the I'm not an officer.
[01:19] SPEAKER_01: The company I did the netcoins acquisition 2019.
[01:22] SPEAKER_01: And combined with our compliance off that was so we created this, you know, compliance
[01:26] SPEAKER_01: first exchange and living it out with that kind of vision.
[01:28] SPEAKER_01: But since fall of 2019, I'm working on a liquid and really focused on the next phase
[01:33] SPEAKER_01: for Bitcoin, which is the Bitcoin lightning now.
[01:37] SPEAKER_01: And why it's important is, well, you want to get to understand why Bitcoin is important,
[01:41] SPEAKER_01: why it matters, even though there's all kinds of crypto.
[01:44] SPEAKER_01: And then we, you know, Bitcoin, the lightning network with this is the next layer to it,
[01:49] SPEAKER_01: who solves some of Bitcoin's issues in terms of scalability and takes it from say seven transactions
[01:55] SPEAKER_01: a second into the millions of transactions a second and really just changes the dynamics.
[02:00] SPEAKER_01: But I think one of the things I like to get into a little bit sometimes is talk about our
[02:05] SPEAKER_01: company philosophies.
[02:07] SPEAKER_01: Why Bitcoin?
[02:07] SPEAKER_01: Why the space?
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
[02:09] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but your frat boys are all mining crypto in their dorms and we're all excited.
[02:13] SPEAKER_01: No, it's, you know, that's the, that's the nonsense part of it.
[02:17] SPEAKER_01: But and I've given some of these talks before and I was actually down at UCLA on a panel
[02:21] SPEAKER_01: that give it, we talk about, we're talking about Bitcoin and crypto.
[02:24] SPEAKER_01: And one of the questions that you really have to ask is, excuse me, very fundamental.
[02:30] SPEAKER_01: Why does Bitcoin?
[02:32] SPEAKER_01: And of course, you get your usual answers.
[02:34] SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's a payment network, it's value store, it's money, digital money for the digital age.
[02:39] SPEAKER_01: It is all of those things, but actually, it is answers are incorrect.
[02:43] SPEAKER_01: What it actually is that it's very core is a trust protocol and it solves a
[02:49] SPEAKER_01: communicative problem of how do you trust on the internet without a third party intermediary.
[02:53] SPEAKER_01: And then now we're handles trust.
[02:55] SPEAKER_01: When you think of it as a trust protocol, first, you can start to, you can start to wrap your
[03:00] SPEAKER_01: head around where it's going to go.
[03:01] SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the important thing and you get this or the privilege of timing in an industry,
[03:05] SPEAKER_01: you have some depth of knowledge in the industry.
[03:08] SPEAKER_01: The internet is made up of seven technology layers and they call this the OSI
[03:12] SPEAKER_01: technology stack, OSI standing for a big long name.
[03:15] SPEAKER_01: Nobody cares about what it represents is quite literally the plumbing of the internet.
[03:19] SPEAKER_01: It's how the internet works.
[03:21] SPEAKER_01: And you've layer one which is the jack in the wall, layer sevens, the websites and all
[03:25] SPEAKER_01: the stuff in between which is developed over time that makes the internet functions today.
[03:29] SPEAKER_01: Bitcoin comes in there as layer eight to the seven layer stack, the trust protocol that we tried
[03:34] SPEAKER_01: to do in the 90s and failed.
[03:36] SPEAKER_01: That's what Bitcoin solved.
[03:37] SPEAKER_01: Now, when you see it as trust first, money and payments is just the first use case,
[03:41] SPEAKER_01: like email is a first use case in the 90s.
[03:44] SPEAKER_01: It's going to be so much more as we change the dynamics of trust online.
[03:48] SPEAKER_01: And does the version one of the internet to democratize knowledge and communication,
[03:51] SPEAKER_01: this new phase in the internet, which is a continuation of the revolution.
[03:54] SPEAKER_01: The internet is going to help democratize finance, but also change,
[04:00] SPEAKER_01: see it changing the ability to reduce corruption around the world,
[04:03] SPEAKER_01: by creating transparency at scale for many different applications beyond money.
[04:07] SPEAKER_01: We can't even imagine that.
[04:09] SPEAKER_01: So we're really just setting the table for these things.
[04:11] SPEAKER_01: I have over the next 20, 30 years that have the world blue chef.
[04:14] SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, we as a company myself and some of those things are working on,
[04:19] SPEAKER_01: and we talk about this.
[04:20] SPEAKER_01: I have a co-author of a book that's coming up, both Trust and the Rise of Bitcoin.
[04:24] SPEAKER_01: And one of the things we talk about is, there's intellectual imperialism.
[04:28] SPEAKER_01: So why do we have corrupt countries around the world?
[04:30] SPEAKER_01: But how these countries that know your whole entire life, they're still the same mess that they've
[04:33] SPEAKER_01: been in for 40 years as long as you live.
[04:36] SPEAKER_01: And part of the issue is,
[04:38] SPEAKER_01: there's lack of transparency.
[04:40] SPEAKER_01: They don't hold on to the best and brightest.
[04:42] SPEAKER_01: And we have this thing, you know,
[04:43] SPEAKER_01: called intellectual imperialism, where we actually strip mine their best and brightest by
[04:47] SPEAKER_01: offering them a better life in Canada, in the United States, better jobs, better pay.
[04:51] SPEAKER_01: They can get ahead because it's a less corrupt
[04:53] SPEAKER_01: countries where you can actually found a business and do things.
[04:57] SPEAKER_01: And so you take their best and brightest out of these nations,
[05:00] SPEAKER_01: and you leave them with their third rate management,
[05:02] SPEAKER_01: their third rate leaders, and their systems are just
[05:05] SPEAKER_01: archaic and forever-mired and corruption.
[05:07] SPEAKER_01: So now the hope is,
[05:10] SPEAKER_01: as the internet's changed knowledge in these countries here,
[05:13] SPEAKER_01: now you have this enhancement of trust, a trust layer,
[05:16] SPEAKER_01: that can over time reduce the kleptocracies and create better voting records and
[05:20] SPEAKER_01: better records for ownership of land and all kinds of things that
[05:24] SPEAKER_01: these corrupt nations are, there's a lot of theft and all these things going on there.
[05:28] SPEAKER_01: And if you can move a country up the corruption index,
[05:31] SPEAKER_01: meaning there's less, as a less corrupt, you have less reason for people to leave.
[05:35] SPEAKER_01: And if you can allow them to retain their best and brightest,
[05:38] SPEAKER_01: you can, over the period of 30 years, plant the seeds that they will stand on 30 years,
[05:42] SPEAKER_01: that will ultimately change entire nations well-being and bring them up the
[05:46] SPEAKER_01: the whole new level of prosperity and what have you.
[05:49] SPEAKER_01: And so, part of this gets down to the sort of looking at the Transparency.org,
[05:53] SPEAKER_01: that their corruption index, the top 10 countries are typical Canada, Finland, etc.
[05:57] SPEAKER_01: They're all like the scores of 90-91, down the bottom, deadlasses,
[06:01] SPEAKER_01: Somalia, and the score of eight, and in between there, you've got
[06:02] SPEAKER_01: African nations, and it's typically in European around the bottom third.
[06:07] SPEAKER_01: And it's no surprise, but ultimately they have been on broken systems.
[06:11] SPEAKER_01: And this is where we know the hope is that we'll see this more over time and
[06:14] SPEAKER_01: then really change the structure of it.
[06:15] SPEAKER_00: I love that analogy, as far as the trust protocol, money and finances,
[06:21] SPEAKER_00: really just the first use case.
[06:24] SPEAKER_01: Correct.
[06:24] SPEAKER_00: Is that why liquid is really focusing on the monetary network?
[06:29] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
[06:30] SPEAKER_01: For sure.
[06:30] SPEAKER_01: So, certainly remittances, reducing costs for infriccion for payments,
[06:35] SPEAKER_01: the ability to create the rail effectively,
[06:37] SPEAKER_01: you're looking at new financial infrastructure, new rails that are open,
[06:41] SPEAKER_01: they call open architecture, really just an extension of the internet.
[06:44] SPEAKER_01: And so, just as back in the day, you'd have private networks for people to try
[06:47] SPEAKER_01: to get on and communicate with, eventually everybody morphed to the internet
[06:50] SPEAKER_01: because it was just so much easier.
[06:51] SPEAKER_01: And so, the same thing is happening now on the payment level where you could try
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: to connect to some companies' private network if they allow you to,
[06:58] SPEAKER_01: or you could just use the open lightning network and everybody's happy because it's easy to use.
[07:03] SPEAKER_00: Well, and let's just talk about that for a second.
[07:05] SPEAKER_00: I understand I have a very basic knowledge to crypto currencies.
[07:10] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[07:10] SPEAKER_00: I've got a little bit of investment personally, but and I understand Bitcoin.
[07:16] SPEAKER_00: Where some of my confusion gets into the mix,
[07:19] SPEAKER_00: shown is I've seen this rise of hundreds of crypto currencies.
[07:25] SPEAKER_00: I saw a map the other day that had logos of all these different cryptocurrencies that are evolving.
[07:29] SPEAKER_00: Why the focus on Bitcoin specifically and or and what is the role of all of these
[07:36] SPEAKER_00: myriad of other cryptocurrency?
[07:39] SPEAKER_01: The big question is the first and the anchor of the industry.
[07:42] SPEAKER_01: It's like the reserve currency of the industry.
[07:44] SPEAKER_01: I mean, it had this weird kind of birth where no foundation established it.
[07:48] SPEAKER_01: It just kind of morphed onto itself.
[07:51] SPEAKER_01: And so there's really no central head to it.
[07:53] SPEAKER_01: It is truly decentralized where a lot of these other
[07:55] SPEAKER_01: there may be tokens for very specific projects.
[07:57] SPEAKER_01: They may be a smart contract network where they try and
[08:00] SPEAKER_01: to establish something within or sometimes they're just simply clones and they're just simply
[08:04] SPEAKER_01: pump and dumps and they're trying to take money out of the market.
[08:06] SPEAKER_01: Mo I would say 95% of the crypto out there is probably along those lines.
[08:10] SPEAKER_01: Some of them are just science experiments with people are trying things and that's great.
[08:13] SPEAKER_01: You might see that technology bleed back into the
[08:16] SPEAKER_01: warmer chair project projects like Ethereum or Bitcoin.
[08:19] SPEAKER_01: But ultimately Bitcoin is the purest one and it's the one that represents
[08:23] SPEAKER_01: native digital currency for the internet age.
[08:26] SPEAKER_01: And it has the brand and has all the decentralization and all those things.
[08:30] SPEAKER_01: And the lighting network is the key to scaling it up.
[08:33] SPEAKER_01: Because it's such a well-known source code,
[08:35] SPEAKER_01: anybody can take it and fork it and make their own type of projects and start them.
[08:39] SPEAKER_01: Adjust for when you'll see some interesting project maybe very
[08:41] SPEAKER_01: specific and what would be currencies, but they may be addressing certain issues.
[08:44] SPEAKER_01: Potentially there's Lincoln ban these other protocols that are trying to take
[08:47] SPEAKER_01: outside data and validate it so it could be used within other networks.
[08:51] SPEAKER_01: And there's interesting things like that whether they're successful or not we don't know,
[08:54] SPEAKER_01: but those are libiallic at those.
[08:56] SPEAKER_01: You want to see legitimate tech projects have a shot at going far whether they see it or not
[09:02] SPEAKER_01: is nothing and then it's nice to see regulation stepping in and law enforcement kick in,
[09:08] SPEAKER_01: especially with all the ICOs in the past and all those things and going after these groups
[09:11] SPEAKER_01: that it's not a free ride.
[09:14] SPEAKER_00: So can I just touch on the safety and security?
[09:17] SPEAKER_00: I know Big has another company blockchain intelligence.
[09:20] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was a wild ride for sure.
[09:22] SPEAKER_01: The company works with law enforcement all over the world.
[09:25] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've been all over the world meeting regulators and training all the site
[09:29] SPEAKER_01: at least and stuff.
[09:30] SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess my question for you is related to this safety and security.
[09:34] SPEAKER_00: There's this and I'm going to pick on headlines only because
[09:38] SPEAKER_00: people get caught up in headlines which are absolutely.
[09:40] SPEAKER_00: Standing I think you might see a headline where cryptocurrency is really just enabling the dark web
[09:48] SPEAKER_00: or it's in bad behavior.
[09:51] SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that's just a small portion of what's happening in the blockchain world.
[09:58] SPEAKER_00: One of my goals is to dispel safety concerns for the average entrepreneur, a small business
[10:03] SPEAKER_00: owner and get into cryptocurrencies.
[10:05] SPEAKER_00: Sean, your thoughts on what is the first step that somebody really needs to take to
[10:11] SPEAKER_00: to get into this new decentralized finance system and why is it so important
[10:19] SPEAKER_00: considering the headlines that are scaring us.
[10:23] SPEAKER_01: And that's a broad way.
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: So some of the headlines are related to the central, some of the defy stuff,
[10:27] SPEAKER_01: decentralized finance that are really cutting edge and the may have problems in the code,
[10:31] SPEAKER_01: the may have effects.
[10:32] SPEAKER_01: And then when we get back to just say Bitcoin, which is what I think people should focus on
[10:37] SPEAKER_01: if they're new to this space is focus on Bitcoin.
[10:38] SPEAKER_01: It's the one and it's the reserve is the first and everything is based on that and it had that
[10:44] SPEAKER_01: the way that it came into being is very unique and on the our impossible to duplicate.
[10:50] SPEAKER_01: So we look at Bitcoin.
[10:52] SPEAKER_01: So if somebody's going into space, I would say you can go to netcoins.ca, open them account,
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: buy a little bit of Bitcoin, get your get into it slowly, read a lot about it,
[11:00] SPEAKER_01: try to understand what it is, try to stay away from all the, there's a lot of hype and people
[11:04] SPEAKER_01: say you should buy this coin or that coin or this thing or that thing.
[11:07] SPEAKER_01: And really that's been just focused on really where they'll just understand Bitcoin first.
[11:13] SPEAKER_01: And then from there everything else you can look at Ethereum and go like other things,
[11:16] SPEAKER_01: but really it's Bitcoin.
[11:17] SPEAKER_01: And the one I have a theory, I like Ethereum, it's a very interesting project.
[11:20] SPEAKER_01: It's made the whole crypto and the public blockchain space come alive.
[11:24] SPEAKER_01: I really think it's in some respects it reminds me of that net state.
[11:28] SPEAKER_01: Because net scaped the non navigator with the browser came out and suddenly the internet went
[11:32] SPEAKER_01: from being this command line thing to like you could see it was cool and it just kicked off the whole
[11:36] SPEAKER_01: space. Ultimately they died at the death of a thousand cuts and the technology got bled into
[11:41] SPEAKER_01: all the other projects and what have you.
[11:43] SPEAKER_01: But that may be the fate for Ethereum, I don't know, but focus on just focus on Bitcoin and
[11:48] SPEAKER_01: learning about that first before they get anything else.
[11:50] SPEAKER_01: And then the rest of it is a bit of the Wild West for sure and there's the good about the ugly
[11:54] SPEAKER_01: with it, but the technology moves at a blinding pace.
[11:57] SPEAKER_01: You mentioned Darkwave and all the scary stuff.
[11:59] SPEAKER_01: I have spent a lot of time on the Darkwave working for blockchain intelligence group and working
[12:02] SPEAKER_01: in Homeland Security and other federal agencies and spend a lot of time in Washington DC.
[12:07] SPEAKER_01: The Darkwave is actually it's a clever name, but ultimately it's called the Torna work,
[12:12] SPEAKER_01: which is actually funded by the US Navy and it's a US government project.
[12:17] SPEAKER_01: Much like the internet started off as part of the US government became open source.
[12:20] SPEAKER_01: The Darkwave is just a way for people to try to communicate with someone with an
[12:25] SPEAKER_01: anonymity and of course people think they have bad people do bad things when they think they
[12:29] SPEAKER_01: can get away with it. And so you see that you've seen a lot of the drug sales and proliferation
[12:33] SPEAKER_01: of all these kinds of things that happen on the Darkwave. Now Bitcoin's usage in it,
[12:38] SPEAKER_01: it just happens to be that Bitcoin is very convenient for making payment around the world.
[12:42] SPEAKER_01: Right. It's super, it solves a huge problem and criminals are typically in the business of
[12:47] SPEAKER_01: either going to make a lot of money, they're going to go to jail or they're going to get shot and
[12:50] SPEAKER_01: killed. Not a lot of choices. And so they're always over an edge. And back in the 90s, they were once
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: the internet hit a certain inflection point like the early 90s, they got onto it right away.
[13:00] SPEAKER_01: And people were like, oh, that internet, it's all full of hackers and crackers and criminals and
[13:04] SPEAKER_01: it's drug dealers and it's terrible. We don't want anything to do with the internet. And of course
[13:08] SPEAKER_01: the banks didn't want anything to do with the internet. They're like, if you had a bank,
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: it's really tough to get a bank account if you're an internet company. And if you had a visa,
[13:15] SPEAKER_01: you took visa number over the internet and you plugged it into your terminal and visa found out
[13:19] SPEAKER_01: they take your terminal away. Right. Now it's like most of their business runs over the internet
[13:22] SPEAKER_01: including the backbone and everything, a bunch of other stuff. The criminals were just the first
[13:25] SPEAKER_01: embrace the internet because it was and ultimately as law enforcement got a hand in law that
[13:29] SPEAKER_01: technology matured became more and more mainstream. It's yes, the element's still there, but ultimately
[13:34] SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of great uses that came out of it. The same thing's happening for Bitcoin,
[13:37] SPEAKER_01: needs to shake off that reputation. This company's like blockchain intelligence group and
[13:41] SPEAKER_01: others that are working law enforcement and law enforcement has got a much better handle on it.
[13:45] SPEAKER_01: It's also become a much smaller percentage of the general overall transaction growth that is
[13:49] SPEAKER_01: climbed drastically and will continue to contrastically and Bitcoin, particularly through the Bitcoin
[13:54] SPEAKER_01: Lightning Network, which is seeing a massive growth. Back to the Lightning Network itself. What
[13:59] SPEAKER_01: is the Lightning Network? The Lightning Network that call it a layer to solution. What does that mean?
[14:05] SPEAKER_01: So you scale the internet up with multiple layers of technology. Bitcoin is falling the same
[14:09] SPEAKER_01: philosophy where there's the base layer, which is really secure. You get your wallet, you buy
[14:15] SPEAKER_01: your Bitcoin, it might take a few minutes for the transaction to complete layer to solution,
[14:20] SPEAKER_01: the Lightning Network solution that runs on top of it and interacts with the layer one,
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: solves Bitcoin speed problems. Now you have the ability to do millions of transactions a second
[14:30] SPEAKER_01: and you inherit some of the security from the base layer and it's great for small purchases and
[14:36] SPEAKER_01: rapid purchases and micro purchases and all kinds of things are coming out of it. So how does it work?
[14:40] SPEAKER_01: It works very similar to how the internet works. So what you have is you have a series of
[14:43] SPEAKER_01: it's a mesh network like the internet. You have a series of nodes. Nodes are simply computers,
[14:49] SPEAKER_01: servers. And with almost servers, you're running the Lightning Network software, which is open source
[14:53] SPEAKER_01: and anyone can use it and be able to fork it. It's part and parcel of the internet.
[14:58] SPEAKER_01: And within you run that software of the Lightning Network and you open up with a call payment
[15:02] SPEAKER_01: channel with other people all over the world. And so you have all these routing nodes,
[15:06] SPEAKER_01: all running on nodes, connecting to other nodes, opening payment channels to payment channels.
[15:11] SPEAKER_01: And you may send a transaction and might go through eight or nine hops until it reached
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: its final destination and eventually and that's where it's passed off to. There's similar to when
[15:20] SPEAKER_01: you go and look up Google.com, you may actually go through Shah or tell us and another half it does
[15:24] SPEAKER_01: a hop speed where he actually gets to their servers and back to you. A similar in concept, of course,
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: a few little differences. But ultimately, this is based upon the scaling solution, how the internet
[15:34] SPEAKER_01: is built. And it's come a long way. And certainly over the last year, you see a massive growth in
[15:39] SPEAKER_01: the chart. You're seeing this hockey step curve in terms of Bitcoin available on the network. I think
[15:42] SPEAKER_01: there's about 143 million in capacity and climbing really rapidly and nodes and payment channels. And
[15:47] SPEAKER_01: the whole ecosystem is really starting to blossom forward and liquid our opportunity in the spaces.
[15:54] SPEAKER_01: Leveraging the capital markets to get as much Bitcoin as we can create routing nodes,
[15:59] SPEAKER_01: participate within this network and make sure that we help transactions go from point A to point B.
[16:04] SPEAKER_01: We don't know where they are. We just sit in the middle and make sure it's passed on to the next
[16:07] SPEAKER_01: layer. And in exchange for that, we earn micro fees off of it. So we're looking for high volume.
[16:14] SPEAKER_01: And we get micro fees in Bitcoin that the network is automatically designed to pay out and
[16:17] SPEAKER_01: based upon what we set for our fee rates. So this is how we earn our money.
[16:22] SPEAKER_01: As our base layer, we're going to continue to branch into other things, but that's the lightning
[16:26] SPEAKER_01: network in a nutshell. And I hope that makes sense. To me, I just want to do the analogy that sometimes
[16:32] SPEAKER_00: standing more traditional currencies. So if we were talking fiat currency currencies, what would
[16:37] SPEAKER_01: be the equivalent of liquid space? That's a good question. I don't think there is any equivalent,
[16:43] SPEAKER_01: but if we have two, you can say there's four of Steelers and there's Correspondent Banks.
[16:47] SPEAKER_01: And when you do a wire transfer and ETF or whatever, make it days to go, but it may go from bank to
[16:53] SPEAKER_01: bank until it finally gets to its final destination, you don't even know what happens behind the
[16:58] SPEAKER_01: things with Swift network. And sometimes they don't even know what else where it is.
[17:02] SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, we would be sitting in the middle of saying, okay, we've got liquidity and we have
[17:07] SPEAKER_01: connectivity to these other providers. And we can make sure that the payment is then passed over
[17:11] SPEAKER_01: to where it needs to go. And they're the ones that are sending it. We're not sitting there trying
[17:15] SPEAKER_01: to do the K way, CNN on this transaction. We're just simply a network provider. It's actually more
[17:19] SPEAKER_01: like if you had to go, we call ourselves an LSP or a lightning network service provider. So we
[17:24] SPEAKER_01: would be like almost like an internet service provider would make it very easy to get on the
[17:27] SPEAKER_01: lightning now, we're getting a bunch and all the stuff happening and all that we cover all the
[17:31] SPEAKER_01: magic. The stuff going on between those between the individuals that are happening all that we
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: just make sure that the wires are working the way it is and we take our fees for that. Did I also see
[17:39] SPEAKER_00: someone in researching more about liquid that you also part of your goal is you actually purchase
[17:45] SPEAKER_01: Bitcoin. So you're there's equity. There's two reasons for that. So first off,
[17:49] SPEAKER_01: Bigtable Livers and Bitcoin, we really for the reason state of prior, we really feel it's
[17:53] SPEAKER_01: the future of the internet and native digital currency and its value will continue to be unlocked.
[17:58] SPEAKER_01: And we can get into the value on the internet. I love to talk about the value of Bitcoin. And why
[18:02] SPEAKER_01: where we see the value of Bitcoin? But ultimately we have this on our balance sheet because we believe
[18:06] SPEAKER_01: in the value in its future value. But here's the big one. In order to run lightning network
[18:12] SPEAKER_01: nodes and channels and connect to other channels, if you're going to open a channel, it is a
[18:17] SPEAKER_01: technical requirement of the network. You must have Bitcoin on that channel in order for it to
[18:21] SPEAKER_01: function. There's no Bitcoin on that channel. It won't function with the rest of the network. So
[18:24] SPEAKER_01: the more channels we have, the more nodes, and we start to run the bigger footprint we have,
[18:29] SPEAKER_01: the more Bitcoin we can put to work, the more Bitcoin we can put to work, the bigger footprint,
[18:33] SPEAKER_01: the more fees we can earn. So it's not hard to parcel, right? Just for Q and Ossity say,
[18:40] SPEAKER_00: how do you operate based here in Vancouver? But do you have physical works in more?
[18:45] SPEAKER_01: With... Do you have an office in Vancouver? We do, but we really are virtual team. We've
[18:48] SPEAKER_01: people working all over the world, the company. And we really could be on a laptop and a mobile
[18:54] SPEAKER_01: and work from anywhere. So it is decentralized in that sense. So we do plan to open an office
[18:58] SPEAKER_01: in San Francisco. We spend a lot of time down there with BIDG in terms of being in that ecosystem.
[19:05] SPEAKER_01: We know that Vancouver may be our home base, but we have to act and think and work like a
[19:10] SPEAKER_01: Silicon Valley company. That's where the tech centralers. And so we'll be down there soon. I
[19:14] SPEAKER_01: expect to be in LA in a few weeks, but certainly getting a business development point of
[19:19] SPEAKER_01: presence down there and continue to leverage our context that we have already from our time working
[19:23] SPEAKER_00: in the industry and establishing footprint there. So what is your thoughts on the smaller currencies
[19:31] SPEAKER_00: that are coming up and getting more? And I could... The OpenEXO... EXO economy, they have EXO tokens,
[19:40] SPEAKER_00: we have seeds, which is really about regenerative land purposes. There are sort of social purposes.
[19:47] SPEAKER_00: Social tokens, social coins, and social tokens. What how can they... I suspect that they will rise
[19:55] SPEAKER_00: in popularity because they're cosrelated. But how will they integrate with the bigger players,
[20:03] SPEAKER_01: the more mainstream... I think that's where those tokens will be able to convert them on
[20:09] SPEAKER_01: exchanges. And eventually, maybe they might get enough traction while people want to take them
[20:14] SPEAKER_01: as direct payment, whether they're city token or what have you. They have a long ways to go for that.
[20:19] SPEAKER_01: And there are some considerations. Certainly, we work with regulators and we hear what's going on
[20:24] SPEAKER_01: down there. They're truly decentralized or some of the token holders in position of a control block,
[20:31] SPEAKER_01: which meaning they actually are the control entity behind it. And so are these actually securities
[20:37] SPEAKER_01: or are they actually true utility tokens? And so there's a lot of unanswered questions that are
[20:41] SPEAKER_01: in that space. And we'll get answered, and certainly it's pushing the boundary for regulations,
[20:44] SPEAKER_01: and it needs to, and the regulation, which will always run behind technology because technology
[20:49] SPEAKER_01: moves so fast, we'll need to catch up and start to address it. But in terms of where some of these
[20:53] SPEAKER_01: things are going, I think they're speculative for sure. And I'm a calculated risk taker. So I'm
[20:58] SPEAKER_01: not... There's some place for speculation, and people's part, if you can stomach it and you
[21:02] SPEAKER_01: control the risk. But personally, I think if you're new to the space, you should just look at
[21:05] SPEAKER_01: Bitcoin and try to understand the fundamentals of the industry first. And it's easy to get caught up
[21:09] SPEAKER_01: in some of these things. But that doesn't mean they don't have value or won't have value. But I
[21:13] SPEAKER_01: wouldn't classify them as currency because they don't necessarily fit the true definition of the
[21:18] SPEAKER_01: may better fit the definition of a security, of course. Great. That's what Bitcoin's weird because
[21:24] SPEAKER_01: it's not... It's come along as a true currency and true trust protocol. Ethereum was used. It's
[21:30] SPEAKER_01: the iso method and it was classified as not a security, I believe. But some of these others,
[21:34] SPEAKER_01: for sure, and they're going to be... I've seen utility tokens, but it seems to me from what I've
[21:39] SPEAKER_01: seen, there's very few true utility tokens. Because if you have the idea that it may go
[21:44] SPEAKER_01: from value or if it has voting rights or any of these things, then it immediately fails the how
[21:48] SPEAKER_01: we test and regularly look at it and be like, no, it's definitely a security. If there's...
[21:53] SPEAKER_01: depending on how it is issued and who it is issued to. Now, what we like to see and we hope to
[21:56] SPEAKER_01: continue to see is that there'll be more mechanisms for people to do actual securities
[22:01] SPEAKER_01: issuance using the whole ICO concept was flawed because it was just the Wild West and fraudsters
[22:07] SPEAKER_01: took advantage of it and the hype in the market. But the underlying architecture of being able to
[22:12] SPEAKER_01: issue and have a zero-day settlement is certainly mild ahead from where the stock market is right now,
[22:17] SPEAKER_01: where you have a three to five-day settlement and you know, even necessarily no home to share when
[22:22] SPEAKER_01: it's... When it was the whole back office that happens behind the scenes, you're... Meanwhile,
[22:25] SPEAKER_01: you can hit a button in the crypto and it's immediate settlement and you can see the markets in real time.
[22:30] SPEAKER_00: And that's where it's all going to go. That's an interesting segue because in my list of
[22:34] SPEAKER_00: questions, I have you. If you become a public-viewed trader company, that is no easy feat from my
[22:40] SPEAKER_00: company. How does a tech company like yours who are specifically in the crypto space that is
[22:48] SPEAKER_00: facing scrutiny? What can you share a little bit about the process of becoming a pro?
[22:54] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the process. So being a public company, there's advantages and disadvantages. You can say
[22:57] SPEAKER_01: private and raise money through VCs that are advantageous. There's also disadvantage through that as
[23:02] SPEAKER_01: well. So it's really... It's a mark... Dealing on the public market is certainly the venture exchange.
[23:06] SPEAKER_01: It's something that we've had success with in the past and we've got a good team around there.
[23:10] SPEAKER_01: It's quite familiar with Navigating and so we have a good opportunity to get chance to be successful.
[23:14] SPEAKER_01: Again, no forward-looking statement. It's not going to guarantee that, but certainly we feel confident
[23:19] SPEAKER_01: where we're going. That said, there's a lot of capital markets that are out there. There's a lot of
[23:23] SPEAKER_01: capital that we can be tapped into and if you approach it in the right way, you can raise it.
[23:26] SPEAKER_01: With a good team and a good vision, there's money willing to back it. We'll have you. But what is the
[23:31] SPEAKER_01: process? The process of a process, certainly, you build your business, you build your business,
[23:35] SPEAKER_01: you build your opportunity. Now we are working within a really big trend. So we're not within this
[23:39] SPEAKER_01: small little... Our opportunity is as a massive scale. So we've got this big ocean of replying
[23:43] SPEAKER_01: within the space we've carved out our niche that we have that has this massive growth potential
[23:49] SPEAKER_01: all over it and that's really what people are backing us with. Plus, they're backing the team that's
[23:52] SPEAKER_01: got some track record. If you're going to go public, though, I keep telling us to other startups
[23:57] SPEAKER_01: that we talked to because as a public company, we'll certainly look for acquisitions and then
[24:02] SPEAKER_01: as the former executive chairman of BIGG, we bought netcoins together with my CFL Kim Evans.
[24:07] SPEAKER_01: So I adore her. She's an amazing person and we've got that transaction going in the public markets.
[24:11] SPEAKER_01: But if you want to buy private companies, you just think you have to be able to get an audit.
[24:16] SPEAKER_01: Auditing and all of this aspect is very important. We come to you and say, hey, we really like to do
[24:20] SPEAKER_01: and we want to join us. We have the cap or we can... If you can't get audit in your book,
[24:24] SPEAKER_01: share a mass, you're not going to be able to go public and you can't retain an audit,
[24:27] SPEAKER_01: can't go public. It's certainly something that's always on our minds. We want to make sure auditors
[24:30] SPEAKER_01: are happy and we have good record keeping and what have you. So that's a big component of it and
[24:34] SPEAKER_01: then certainly having good structure to the public vehicle. It could be done as a reverse takeover,
[24:39] SPEAKER_01: it could be done as a direct listing as they call it, but either way you want to have good
[24:42] SPEAKER_01: backers behind you and you want to know who's so willing to share this and what your market is.
[24:47] SPEAKER_01: So you can maintain some control of your destiny. When and at a macro level, decentralized
[24:52] SPEAKER_00: finance as a concept is really about taking trading out of the control of those who have
[25:00] SPEAKER_00: control now, which is really banks and governments, etc. So I just wonder, is becoming public
[25:06] SPEAKER_00: and traded sort of counterintuitive to becoming decentralized? Yeah, I wouldn't discount
[25:12] SPEAKER_01: in traditional capital markets. They will morph and change and adapt some of this technology and
[25:16] SPEAKER_01: become stronger, but there is some legitimacy that comes with it. And certainly at liquid,
[25:21] SPEAKER_01: absolutely embrace that and maybe draw on our experiences of BIDG where that's become the first
[25:26] SPEAKER_01: public trade regulated crypto exchanging in Canada and one of the biggest. So same mindset that
[25:32] SPEAKER_01: we're sort of running from the regulators, we need to work with them and go forward.
[25:37] SPEAKER_00: So could you put an estimated timeframe on this hybrid digital capital markets and digital?
[25:44] SPEAKER_01: That's a good question. You want to see some of the major exchanges in Canada. I don't know
[25:48] SPEAKER_01: whether I was some of the project heard the CAC is working on a tokenized share offerings.
[25:51] SPEAKER_01: Maybe the TSX is doing the same. I don't know. I think they will be pushed by other crypto
[25:56] SPEAKER_01: exchanges that are going to get into the space as well and be able to tokenize offerings. If
[26:01] SPEAKER_01: they don't keep up, competitions, going to wake them up and force them to move quicker.
[26:06] SPEAKER_01: There is the back office that of course in terms of how the shares are transferred and what
[26:09] SPEAKER_01: have that need to be done and a bunch of it's a big undertaking, but it needs to be pushed that way.
[26:14] SPEAKER_01: It's probably another three to five years out until that actually we really see it, but
[26:18] SPEAKER_01: I believe the next sort of 24, 36 months or a real revolutionary phase where it's going to really
[26:23] SPEAKER_01: wake up. Exciting. This is the thing, right? I give this talk to some bankers, as well as in New
[26:28] SPEAKER_01: York. And we talked about Bitcoin and we talked about the payments and banking and all the
[26:32] SPEAKER_01: kind of stuff. And I was like, what do you think your biggest threat is? And they're like, let's say
[26:36] SPEAKER_01: I'm out on compliance and regulators like wrong. Completely. We already saw that. We have more
[26:42] SPEAKER_01: clarity on what's going on here with analytics and all the stuff we have here on an open network.
[26:47] SPEAKER_01: Your biggest risk is in action because how long do you think it's going to be until Silicon
[26:51] SPEAKER_01: Valley wakes up and realize that they can get into banking too. And they have mobile phones,
[26:56] SPEAKER_01: access to everybody around the world, the Android iPhone and these massive companies are going to
[27:02] SPEAKER_01: look at and realize that Bitcoin is effectively the monetary trust now. We're letting it into banking
[27:06] SPEAKER_01: as well. And so when you look at it from that perspective and more and so here,
[27:11] SPEAKER_01: I'm like from a bank, you have customers, you have bankers who understand banking, you have
[27:15] SPEAKER_01: capital, it's your currently in a pool position. But the sands are ery roading away just like the sands
[27:21] SPEAKER_01: are ery roading away for seers and came out and all the other ones will Amazon and the internet
[27:24] SPEAKER_01: came along and destroyed their business models. And your threat is you're not, you shouldn't be
[27:29] SPEAKER_01: worried about other banks. You should be worried about Silicon Valley and the tightest of
[27:33] SPEAKER_01: tech coming through your industry and as they will do it and they are already working on it. And
[27:40] SPEAKER_01: armies of developers of the best and brightest backed by massive amounts of capital and this army
[27:46] SPEAKER_01: of developers, I know this firsthand because they're guys like myself, they are born and bred
[27:50] SPEAKER_01: into a culture of disruption. We'll have nothing more than to take a 600 year old banking
[27:54] SPEAKER_01: industry in Wall Street, turning on a set. And they are coming for you.
[27:58] SPEAKER_00: I love it. I just want to reiterate something really important that you said is the regulators
[28:06] SPEAKER_00: and the advisors and the policy makers are, I'll call them our friends. So they should not really
[28:12] SPEAKER_00: be threatened by this. They should be excited about this. Yes. Perhaps their individual jobs will
[28:19] SPEAKER_00: change and morph. But to me, policy is what legs behind and makes sense of what's happening in
[28:27] SPEAKER_00: the big picture. Right? What's happening in the population, they try and make sense of it.
[28:33] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely. I think they do their best. There's a lot of new tech coming out them.
[28:37] SPEAKER_01: There's conflicting things that are going on and maybe some of them are trying to protect the
[28:41] SPEAKER_01: traditional banking interests and they're not. Some of this stuff you even see in government in
[28:44] SPEAKER_01: terms of we're going to regulate it and the new laws that we're trying to be passed in terms of
[28:47] SPEAKER_01: how they're going through talking about. We heard this back in the early 2000s and they were like,
[28:51] SPEAKER_01: oh, the internet is evil and bad. And we even heard the senators and we should ban the internet
[28:55] SPEAKER_01: and we should tax it and we should do this all bluster. All went away. That came and went and
[29:00] SPEAKER_01: this is the same thing. It's amazing how there's so many similarities between what's going on,
[29:05] SPEAKER_01: the Bitcoin and the crypto space and the internet. Back then, it wasn't smurfing on and it's very
[29:09] SPEAKER_01: simple is because this is just a continuation of the revolution of the internet. It's just the next
[29:13] SPEAKER_00: phase. There's a lot of uptake in cryptocurrencies with starting with companies and then of course
[29:20] SPEAKER_00: nations. Both are seeing some nations completely ban cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. And then we are
[29:28] SPEAKER_00: seeing other countries actually adopt it and decide, no, that's their now their main
[29:35] SPEAKER_01: form of. Yeah, Salvador is taking it on and others will do it. Salvador right?
[29:40] SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a really a move and certainly getting into it because it is the next sort of reserve
[29:45] SPEAKER_01: currency and it is the native currency for the internet. How powerful is that? And so you look at China
[29:50] SPEAKER_01: and they're sending, trying to back their central bank digital currencies and they're trying to
[29:54] SPEAKER_01: circle the wagons and I think they've really made a misstep here and they've chased all their
[29:58] SPEAKER_01: Bitcoin miners out to tax us and all over in America. It's just winning by default and because
[30:03] SPEAKER_01: it's in the United States and the Western nations are open more and more and it's definitely
[30:08] SPEAKER_01: missed up I think in the future. You'll see a federal banks and they'll have to have Bitcoin as a
[30:12] SPEAKER_01: reserve currency for this new age and you just look at how the generations that are coming up,
[30:18] SPEAKER_01: everything is digital. They don't care about printed money per se and it gets down to also big
[30:23] SPEAKER_01: white Bitcoin as value, too. Where I see the value in Bitcoin and that gets down to that
[30:27] SPEAKER_01: original thing that you're talking about, oh, Bitcoin is layer 8 to the 7 layer OSI stack.
[30:31] SPEAKER_01: So when you just I draw the simple analogy in my mind going, well, back in 1998, I think it was
[30:35] SPEAKER_01: 1999, there was estimates that the internet was worth about $180 billion. That's what it would
[30:40] SPEAKER_01: take Microsoft and yeah, we know these big companies to rebuild the internet. And if fast forwarded
[30:44] SPEAKER_01: about 2004 in Google's public and they're like, oh, it's worth $34 trillion if you think it
[30:49] SPEAKER_01: by 2010 or like, oh, it's worth $20 trillion or massive amount and now it's an unfathomable number
[30:56] SPEAKER_01: with the internet's worth. And that's just the original seven layers of technology. What is the 8th
[31:00] SPEAKER_01: there? The layer that does trust? What's that worth? Right now we're saying it's worth 600 billion?
[31:04] SPEAKER_01: That's it. Some people are just going to revolutionize the entire internet and it happened right away.
[31:08] SPEAKER_01: But certainly as its value is unlocked, it has potential to really hit an astronomical numbers
[31:14] SPEAKER_01: because it represents a fundamental change to how the world will work. And so this is where we look
[31:19] SPEAKER_01: at terms of value or I look at terms of. And in Western cultures in particular or progressive
[31:25] SPEAKER_00: economies, one of the key metrics of wealth has been real estate. So there was a quote on one of
[31:34] SPEAKER_00: one of your business pages that your goal, the quid's goal is to build a strong brand and then
[31:39] SPEAKER_00: capture valuable land in the highly sought after digital payments industry. Correct.
[31:45] SPEAKER_00: You and I know the analogy is digital not physical land, but what do you mean by that?
[31:51] SPEAKER_01: So when we talked about the nodes and the channels and the payment channels, we want to make that
[31:54] SPEAKER_01: footprint as big as possible. We went off connectivity to as many people as possible and sitting
[31:59] SPEAKER_01: in the middle of that and be able to route and handle as much traffic and transaction volume as
[32:04] SPEAKER_01: possible and earn as much fees off of that possible. And once you've established relationships,
[32:08] SPEAKER_01: and unless you really messed it up, it's you're not going to lose those relationships and
[32:11] SPEAKER_01: they become very valuable over time as you hit an inflection point and you start to move forward.
[32:15] SPEAKER_01: And that's where we were saying it'll never be as easy to establish routes and payment channels as
[32:19] SPEAKER_01: it is now in two, three years from now, more mages are in there and then you can have a well-heeled
[32:24] SPEAKER_01: companies moving in. They become much more difficult for a startup there. So we're at a great time.
[32:28] SPEAKER_01: We've got ourselves offered in place to be able to raise more capital and start to really plant
[32:33] SPEAKER_01: our flag at the right time. We'd be want to be early, not too early. And I like to plant spaces
[32:39] SPEAKER_01: that are it's not bleeding eggs, but it's still not quite understood by the public and you're
[32:44] SPEAKER_01: building into this way because you can either be early on time, whatever that means, or you can,
[32:50] SPEAKER_01: but you can't be late. If you're late, you're finished. So it's just not, first start, it's not
[32:56] SPEAKER_01: going to happen because you don't have the capital to buy your way out of the beginning. You can just
[33:06] SPEAKER_00: have a massive urban center. The future is moving to one quality places with super fast access to
[33:22] SPEAKER_00: nature, WHO. You can work for a global company anywhere in the world and still be based in decentralized
[33:31] SPEAKER_00: location. When it comes to the physicality of land, how can we leverage cryptocurrencies in land
[33:40] SPEAKER_00: asset value? Where do you see that going in the next slide? Is land asset value in terms of
[33:46] SPEAKER_01: being able to have land deeds and everything is registered properly on an immutable ledger,
[33:50] SPEAKER_01: especially not so much in Canada, but also more in corrupt nations where you can't have that
[33:54] SPEAKER_01: taken away from you. You can have that sense of ownership, which is important. I think that's
[33:58] SPEAKER_01: one of the first things that are not done on private blockchains that the government can shut down,
[34:02] SPEAKER_01: but actually have markers put into the public blockchain, i.e. Bitcoin. That is backed by
[34:09] SPEAKER_01: world computers that you can't turn off. Nobody can deny that it ever happens. I think that's one part
[34:14] SPEAKER_01: of it. The current season payments, the Canadian dollar, people will be able to do peer-to-peer
[34:20] SPEAKER_01: instant payments using these networks. We're the lightning that represents data markers for Fiat
[34:25] SPEAKER_01: currency on off on other sides where people take Bitcoin natively as they choose. It'll
[34:29] SPEAKER_01: certainly work on that. Maybe you will have, and like you said, people living together is your
[34:32] SPEAKER_01: life-minders that you tribe. You're worth your tribe, and within that, maybe the tribes will have
[34:37] SPEAKER_01: their own tokens and stuff like that down the line. I don't know, but are they just simply embrace
[34:42] SPEAKER_01: the main networks and then it would have you. It definitely plays into it and plays into
[34:46] SPEAKER_01: distributed payments, distributed effectively. They're good at the bout of Bitcoin, and now what
[34:51] SPEAKER_01: you're going to have is you are your own bank. That's good, because now you have complete control.
[34:56] SPEAKER_01: For a lot of people who are unbanked, there's 3 billion people around the world that have
[34:59] SPEAKER_01: unbank or underbanked, and don't even have a bank account. This represents the first time they
[35:03] SPEAKER_01: can actually get access to financial services, which is mind blowing for us to be not a
[35:08] SPEAKER_01: magic can't have financial services, but many people around the world don't have financial services,
[35:11] SPEAKER_01: and you'll never yield for ever to be married and poverty. That's very exciting. Of course,
[35:16] SPEAKER_01: there's the responsibility that comes with running everything on your own bank. If you lose
[35:20] SPEAKER_01: your crypto, there's no insurance and you're on your own. This really is, of course, that's where
[35:25] SPEAKER_01: some people would be more comfortable to use custodial services. There's that
[35:29] SPEAKER_01: comfortably there, and you'll see a hybrid. I like your analogy. I want to come back and finish off
[35:33] SPEAKER_00: a little bit with transacting with Bitcoin using the Lightning Network, which is really liquid's
[35:39] SPEAKER_00: mandate. It was five dog points on your website, which is leveraging the network infrastructure
[35:44] SPEAKER_00: to send payments globally and suddenly and cheaply. You're creating new payment infrastructure for
[35:49] SPEAKER_00: your business, harnessing your ability to leverage streaming and micro payments,
[35:53] SPEAKER_00: controlling your own payment rails, and scalability to use worldwide.
[35:58] SPEAKER_00: Can we talk a little bit shown about a use case if you are a small business or you're a startup
[36:05] SPEAKER_01: today? Companies are signing up. They want to use the Lightning Network. They want to take
[36:10] SPEAKER_01: crypto and Bitcoin as a payment. Yes. Our system there, you hit a button. You get a Lightning
[36:15] SPEAKER_01: Network node in the channel and we help provide some liquidity and you have the ability then to
[36:19] SPEAKER_01: create invoices, receive payments immediately on the network with instant settlement. You're
[36:23] SPEAKER_01: off and you're full control of this. It's actually quite simple. But some of the aspect that we're
[36:28] SPEAKER_01: doing, because we're an LSP, we're actually working with other wallet providers and other
[36:31] SPEAKER_01: to put out ensure that they have liquidity for their clients. Some of these actually are engaged with
[36:36] SPEAKER_01: creating things for podcasters of all things. As a good example, where podcasters can be paid on
[36:40] SPEAKER_01: a period-to-peer basis and the technologies being built in for the first time ever,
[36:45] SPEAKER_01: where you can be paid on a streaming basis and you can be paid in real time.
[36:49] SPEAKER_01: Yes. The money can literally stream in real time for whatever portion you use and it represents
[36:53] SPEAKER_01: these markers. It does represent and you're not beholden to the credit card companies and the
[36:58] SPEAKER_01: fees and what have you. So you have this ability to take payments. From our perspective,
[37:02] SPEAKER_01: we have companies that they sign up. They said one the other day talked to. They signed up,
[37:07] SPEAKER_01: boom, they're ready to go. They can take Bitcoin payments. We abstract away all the complications.
[37:12] SPEAKER_01: We connect them to the rest of the Lightning Network and now they can actually receive payments
[37:16] SPEAKER_01: for their customers and they can take, we have an API system built into our platform which
[37:20] SPEAKER_01: will be getting into more detail very soon in a public way. They can integrate that API into
[37:26] SPEAKER_01: the rest of their system and so they can computationally deal with the Lightning Network
[37:30] SPEAKER_01: but that even having to use our interface is just the interfaces there if they need it. That's
[37:37] SPEAKER_01: growing at our app trend. It's very exciting as we have a great team and a big opportunity in
[37:44] SPEAKER_00: front of us to. When I'm going back to the actual first step, if we're launching a startup,
[37:48] SPEAKER_00: I want to accept monetary currencies, maybe Canadian dollars, US dollars, maybe Australian dollars
[37:55] SPEAKER_00: and yes, I want to accept Bitcoin, seeds, tokens. These are the tokens that I want to be able to
[38:01] SPEAKER_00: receive for payment for services. Do we call you and say, can you help us that?
[38:07] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you call us for the Bitcoin component. You'd say, okay, we want to be able to take Bitcoin.
[38:12] SPEAKER_01: We want to, especially if we want to take Bitcoin over Lightning Network as everybody,
[38:15] SPEAKER_01: like in El Salvador, we've got Lightning Network wallets and people are doing remittances
[38:18] SPEAKER_01: and we're shipping overseas or whatever it may be and that's what we fit in there.
[38:22] SPEAKER_01: Here's your infrastructure, here's your play, here's everything you have, here's a monthly fee
[38:26] SPEAKER_01: and we take some on the transaction side for helping grow payments but ultimately,
[38:30] SPEAKER_01: we make it very easy and it's very low cost and we are a volume company. We're looking for volume,
[38:37] SPEAKER_01: not looking for markup and we're not a credit card company, we're two and a half, three percent off
[38:40] SPEAKER_01: of everything. It's designed for high volume and so that's what we would fit in there and thus
[38:45] SPEAKER_00: there we plan right now. So what would a fair analogy be like a PayPal equivalent?
[38:51] SPEAKER_01: Yes, so in the sense that PayPal, but you're in charge and we provide all the backend rails for
[38:56] SPEAKER_01: it. So we're more like this company called Plad where they provide all this new banking infrastructure
[39:00] SPEAKER_01: that other companies use. So ultimately, you're responsible for your KYC and AMO because that's
[39:05] SPEAKER_01: what your company does. We don't get in the middle of that. We're just there providing you that
[39:08] SPEAKER_01: connectivity and the ease of use of the network and making a very pointy pointy shoot and then
[39:13] SPEAKER_01: when you get on it works and so we make our money off of that, we make it easy for you.
[39:19] SPEAKER_00: For listeners, what what actions can they take from today?
[39:23] SPEAKER_01: In terms of using it, keep an eye on Lightning Network, it's going to be party, future,
[39:26] SPEAKER_01: it's going to be used for payments, but it also be used for anti spam security, all kinds of
[39:30] SPEAKER_01: communications, like many aspects of the Lightning Network. You can't get away from it and it's
[39:35] SPEAKER_01: certainly part of what the new generation wants and it's morphing around the world at a very
[39:39] SPEAKER_01: increasing rate. So whether you deal with it today or sometime, you're going to have to, it's going
[39:43] SPEAKER_01: to cross your path and it's coming like a freight train, you can't avoid it. So it's like trying to
[39:47] SPEAKER_01: not use the internet back in the late 90s eventually you had to and so that's that and if your
[39:54] SPEAKER_01: entrepreneurs and you're out there hats off to you, I know what it's like and there's good days
[39:58] SPEAKER_00: and bad days and you just keep going forward. Is there any additional sort of comment you want to
[40:03] SPEAKER_01: throw in there about Canada? Great in terms of regulation and where we're going to Canada sitting
[40:08] SPEAKER_01: in that space here. So we do have we have a fairly progressive, certainly with the IGG getting
[40:13] SPEAKER_01: restricted dealer license that's definitely a big step forward. I do think we have a tendency to
[40:17] SPEAKER_01: look at what's going on in the United States, the SEC and the regulators have a big hole and we're
[40:21] SPEAKER_01: a small fish in that pond where some of the progressive regulations are. I would look at Japan.
[40:26] SPEAKER_01: Japan is always being about a year and a half ahead in the space. The legitimate white
[40:29] SPEAKER_01: Bitcoin, I mean, a few years back, Japan and their big economy in the world. So seeing what they're
[40:33] SPEAKER_01: doing and so they put some thought into it. Some of these stuff that we we need to look at is
[40:38] SPEAKER_01: I'm going to move the way the FSA and England and Great Britain. They tend to take a risk-based
[40:42] SPEAKER_01: approach. After the 08 financial crisis they had the United States, they may blank at laws where
[40:48] SPEAKER_01: the FSA simply made the hedge fund to register. So they got an idea what each business was doing.
[40:53] SPEAKER_01: They're able to take a risk-based approach. And I think in the case of Bitcoin and crypto and
[40:58] SPEAKER_01: these types of and then technology which is so broad and moving so fast and blanket regulation
[41:03] SPEAKER_01: probably won't work from a practical standpoint. It's not pragmatic. If it can't be a blanket
[41:09] SPEAKER_00: regulation are there opportunities for provinces or cities to put themselves out there?
[41:16] SPEAKER_01: Possibly it could do token offerings for like bonds or municipal bonds or what have you. I don't know
[41:21] SPEAKER_01: how that plays out in terms of some of the market structure. You stuff that market participants
[41:24] SPEAKER_01: willing to buy in and then manage that stuff and then you get into custody and who's going to
[41:30] SPEAKER_01: custom- you know the custodial services that are so important because in certain funds can buy
[41:33] SPEAKER_01: certain things unless it's done a correct way and even if they want to and they like the project
[41:38] SPEAKER_01: like we can't buy it because it's not there's no way to custody this stuff. And effectively you're
[41:42] SPEAKER_01: talking with all these layers of financial services that I mean build up over time and regulation
[41:46] SPEAKER_01: built up over a fair amount. I think yes there's this stuff in 1933 and 34 from the different acts
[41:50] SPEAKER_01: that came out but there's different little nuances that are there and of course the United States
[41:55] SPEAKER_01: you've got and federal regulators and state regulators and and what have you but did it eventually
[41:59] SPEAKER_01: work itself out? Sean how do we connect with your post podcast? If you want to start accepting Bitcoin
[42:04] SPEAKER_01: over the Bitcoin Lightning that way that's what we deal with and mail to micro payments all kind of
[42:09] SPEAKER_01: reach out to us and we can help you out with the financial rails and then you can integrate it into
[42:13] SPEAKER_01: your into your system. For the products and services on the liquid website and we'll be putting
[42:18] SPEAKER_01: links on the where people can sign up for our platform. Perfect awesome okay thanks for your time
[42:22] SPEAKER_01: today. Thank you very much Angela.