Bitcoin Ecosystem Coins Are Gonna Explode (Get in EARLY) | Crypto Expert Interview

We're about to see a Kodak moment for Crypto today I sit down with two Bitcoin Experts and what I mean by that is if You think what the introduction of Digital cameras did to codec or what the Introduction of Netflix did to Blockbuster or what the introduction of The iPhone did to blackberry and noia What happened was the impossible Happened to talk about the rise of the Bitcoin ecosystem meaning tokens coins Built on bitcoin players who for years Had been absolutely dominant in major Industry within just a few years found Themselves unable to adapt to Innovation And disappearing of course we are Speaking with idago core contributor of Sovereign which is defi for Bitcoin and Alexi Z co-founder of Bob build on Bitcoin the first hybrid L2 to talk About why the Bitcoin ecosystem today is Getting in early is that Bitcoin is Basically going to speedrun ethereum's Early day On steroids and if you want to farm an Airdrop watch today's whole video Because Sovereign and Bob did team up to Sponsor today's video the end half to Offer early users a piece of the new Bitcoin economy like I'm sure anyone Who's listening to your show knows about Like the points programs that have been Going on it's the current meta right Manta and blast Etc so Bob are doing

Something similar like the video and Let's start Austin I love this show Always happy to be here and I want to Jump right in just on backgrounds Because Yago you've been on the channel Before but let's start with you what is Your background how did you get into Crypto so my background uh is I'll I'll Tell the story in two ways but from a Professional perspective I was a Neuroscientist I was working on AI Before it was school and actually that's How I found out about Bitcoin because I Was working on a startup trying to model AI as human neural networks and I was Reading a lot of network science and in 2011 I came across the satosi white Paper in the um in the basement of Carnegie Millan University and it just Blew my mind and um I knew as I was Reading it that it was up all of My life plans because this is what I was Going to be doing probably for the rest Of my life um and the reason I knew that Is because um I was really interested in The internet I always thought that the Internet was missing something really Important which is property rights and That's why no real economy Until crypto came along developed on the Internet but beyond that when I was a Young boy um I grew up in AP partite South Africa my family were um fighting Against aparte and they some of them had

Been um declared terrorists and so they Had become refugees and so between the Ages of 9 and 11 I was smuggling gold Coins out of South Africa uh to get Money to my family and that and a few Other um Family stories of that nature Really embedded in me the importance of Um having control over your financial Life um and that that is ultimately the Key To to to your own freedom and to your Own sovereignty and so Bitcoin just hit Me like a lightning bolt and Alexi how About you how' you find crypto I mean my Story is I guess not that exciting Compared to so um but yeah so so for me I I'm a computer Scientist by trades I Used to work it security and um doing a Bachelor thesis actually one of the Topics was Bitcoin and I really got Excited about not just the aspect of Owning Bitcoin and sending money but What else you can do with the tech and I Actually got really excited about Namecoin so the first altcoin you know Decentralized DNS um decentralizing the Internet censorship persistance um and From there on it was really a bit of a Random walk on the research side I Worked on merge mining wrote some of the Earlier research papers analyzing like What you can do with that whatnot um Spent some time on color coins payment Channels and then I got the chance to do

A PhD at a PE College funded by Blockchain.com and the focus there Turned into side chains Bridges and Layer 2s um worked on E Layer Two Designs early on and then really spent a Lot of time working on Bridges both General cross Bridges and specifically Bitcoin Bridges um and at some point That's where I met my co-founder Dom and We always wanted to do more than just Right p papers I kind of gave up on Academia um after two years of the PHD You know just writing papers and not Really building stuff didn't really feel Right and so we did a spin out and we've Been building uh ever since it's been 2019 since we actually been really just Building day and night trying to do more Things with Bitcoin and yeah super Exciting so my audience has seen it all In ecosystems crypto the ethereum Ecosystem obviously Solana ecosystem Bitcoin ecosystem relatively newer Obviously Sovereign is an OG in the Space um but really the Bitcoin Revolution is popping off today I guess My question is like what is the Bitcoin Economy and why now I I have my answer To that so um I let me start with why Now so three years ago we had an upgrade Introduced into Bitcoin which Fundamentally changed uh the type of Cryptography and the type of Transactions you could make in Bitcoin

It was called tap rout and a lot of People heard about it but then sort of Came and went and it looked like nothing Had happened and um this was because T Was really complicated and developers Didn't know how to really get anything Out of it for Years it was about two years before we Saw the first real use case come out of and that was uh Casey introduced Ordinals um basically introduced nfts on Bitcoin and this was an amazing proof of Concept because it showcased what Happens when you take the oldest biggest Chain you strap on some new Functionality and it goes bananas it Today the most valuable nfts are Ordinals the biggest nft Market is on Bitcoin and it took over established Markets like salana or ethereum almost Overnight and that was that really Caught everyone's attention it showed That Bitcoin given opportuni is just Dynamo of growth not long afterwards um Domo introduced a way to sort of chop up Nfts in sort of like a cluggy way to Create U uh meme tokens that became Pretty big but it was it was a bit of a Hacky system not really working as well And then in December just three months Ago Robin lius published a paper called Bit VM and he showed that using tap rot You could actually make Bitcoin touring Complete you could write touring

Complete Um systems into Bcoin now we're three weeks away from The Haring and I think this is going to Be the most dramatic and exciting Bitcoin uh cycle we've seen since the Launch of Bitcoin because I think one Easy way to think about what's going to Happen to bitcoin right now is that Bitcoin is basically going to speedrun Ethereum's early days on steroids so When the harving happens we're going to Get a new token stand basically the Erc20 of Bitcoin called runes we're Going to start by seeing mem coins then We're going to see icos then we're going To see massive demand for Defi and smart Contracts and Dows and Bitcoin fees are Going to go up and there's going to be a Huge demand for scalability so the Question is how is all of that need Going to be answered and it's by Building uh new touring complete smart Contract systems on top of Bitcoin and Um and so the next step that's going to Happen after that is Roo are going to Get introduced into Bitcoin and um and that's going to Change the game because you're going to Be able to see evm you're going to be Able to see movm like Aptos svm like Salana all on Bitcoin um and that's going to first of All allow all of the users The Depths

And the liquidity to start to migrate to Bitcoin it's going to create entirely New economies and it's going to do it With the scale of the largest chain more Than half of the market even without any Of this stuff plus an ETF I think this Is going to be just an extremely Dramatic uh uh uh sort of next two three Years and I think it's going to take Everyone by surprise because I I've been To conferences people aren't talking About this and that's crazy in my mind To maybe add on to that I think like you Already covered a lot of that a lot of The points um one thing to to kind of Mention there I think Beyond like the Tech the products The Innovation is also The shift in mindsets um I think what We've seen in bitco the last 10 years is Is really a focus on Alific and new ideas were often shunned And I feel like a lot of my friends that Started working on bitcoin back in the Day with me on the research side many of Them went to other ecosystems because They felt they could not really build New things on bitcoin without being Criticized heavily by some very like Early adopters that felt Bitcoin should Only be used for certain use cases and There was always been this debate you Know should biton be used for other Things should it not should you know Should people just leave Bitcoin and go

To ethereum and other ecosystems and I Feel with Ordinals um and of course the whole kind Of last year but orals I feel was Bitcoin's crypto Kitty moments you Suddenly had Innovation coming back to Bitcoin yes it was speculative it was Fun but that's the whole point like taer Wizards was really pushing you let's Bring fun back to bitcoin and suddenly You had thousands tens of thousands of Builders from other ecosystems who are Bitcoiners at Heart come back to bitcoin If you think about it this way we gave The community a way to do nfts on Bitcoin and they all flooded back Bitcoin hit some high in transactions Processed and it became one of the Largest chains in terms of processed nft Volume had you told me this a couple of Years ago I would not have believed it So I think it's really a shift in Mindset as well because now it's okay to Go and do radical things on bitcoin it's Okay okay to innovate um and you can see Also how the media is changing how the Conferences are changing there is Conferen on bitcoin l2s on ordinals it's The main topic it's no longer just Lightning and it's okay to say lightning Works for some cases but it doesn't work For others and I think that should not Be underestimated because Bitcoin the Bitcoin Community turning from perceived

Being perceived as slightly hostile to To new things to welcoming is a big Shift in mindset because if one thing we Should consider 90% of people who get Into crypto get into crypto through Bitcoin so if you look at all the Builders all the users of ethereum Salana avalanche pocon Cosmos they're All many of them are Bitcoin as at heart And they just love the fact that they Can bring their products back to Bitcoin what are the negatives for Building defi Bitcoin building on Bitcoin because to me over the next 5 10 Years why wouldn't everybody choose to Build on the stronger chain the Trade-offs are always scalability that's Been solved so what what what does this Mean for the broader space looking Forward so I I think so right now it's Still early right so we're not just There yet and I think we have to be Transparent about you know rollups are Coming that we know how to do them but It's not as easy right because of course You know you have to do a lot of Engineering there is some complexity Involved and still the tooling on the L1 On bitcoin is still not quite there yet That's where L2 is really becoming Become powerful but there's still work To be done to make building on the Intersection of Bitcoin and evm or other Virtual

Machines easier for developers beyond That I don't know why why would you not Build on bitcoin I mean uh if you think If you zoom out and and look beyond the Web3 kind of inner circle as a new user As a new Builder that is new to web 3 What else would you build if not the Largest ecosystem that suddenly allows You to do all the things all the things That you can do on on smaller ecosystems As well so I think we'll definitely see A ren s and a massive shift of of focus Back to bitcoin over the next couple of Years I'll go further than that so I Think um we're about to see a Kodak Moment for crypto and what I mean by That is if you think what um the Introduction of digital cameras did to Codak or what the introduction of Netflix did to Blockbuster or what the Introduction of the iPhone did to Blackberry and Nokia what happened was Um you had a moment Where the impossible Happened players who for years had been Absolutely dominant in major Industry within just a few years found Themselves unable to adapt to Innovation And disappearing we had a different Moment Like This with the internet um we Had AOL we had Prodigy we had a whole Bunch of companies providing their own Sort of networks and the internet just Ate them all and the reason was Network

Fix so my sense is that there's a very Big risk I I've been um edging out of Ethereum right now and and and and I and And based on the charts it looks like We're I'm not the only one because There's a very very I think there's an Existential risk to a lot of crypto um And if and and and to understand why you Kind of have to understand the history Basically the entire crypto space what People call the altcoin space you know Altcoin Daily um it emerged as an answer to the Question what can't Bitcoin do Bitcoin Can't do privacy we'll do privacy Bitcoin County scale we'll do that Bitcoin County smart contracts we'll do That Bitcoin County fast transactions We'll do that and so you have like Different trains that are um their Entire the only reason they exist is to Be able to answer the question what Bitcoin can't do what happens when Bitcoin when the answer to what Bitcoin Can't do is Nothing I think it completely turns Everything upside down um and I do think That we'll we'll see an accelerated Process of this happening because people Will start to recognize that it's Happening they'll start to the the first Projects to shift over to bitcoin the First users to shift liquidity to to Bitcoin will gain the most they'll be

Like the early players their success Will fuel the next and that will start To create a vicious cycle where it Becomes um you know people start talking About the flippening again but they'll Start talking about the Bitcoin Ecosystem flippening first salana and Then ethereum and and that's going to be Scary for for for a lot of people so so I think there's an opportunity here for Massive Improvement to bitcoin there's a Massive Improvement for for growing a Truly trustless sort of operating system Around Bitcoin and a huge Improvement And leap forward for crypto but for People who think about crypto as as an Investment there's a huge opportunity Coupled with a huge risk um and I think Being aware of what's going on now it's It's it's one of those moments they're Rare but when they happen they're Dramatic Blockbuster iPhone Codc I got chills I love having you on Yago um you break it down so easily and Just for all the new people uh watching The video over the next few weeks months Um for those who have never heard of s Never heard of Bob um Alexi let's start With you what is Bob Bob is a hybrid Layer It aims to connect the security and Liquidity of of both Bitcoin and Ethereum and the mission that we have is To bring Innovation back to bitcoin

Right allow eth users a very simple way Not just eth users but anybody else in The web fre space to ease into Bitcoin To be first early adopters and just you Know use all the existing tools use Existing products deploy Defi nfts and Then explore ways of how you can Actually use that with Bitcoin and the Bitcoin ecosystem get Early Access to Runes brc's ordinals but do that within A familiar environment that's powered by The same Innovation that we have like Evm and tools we already have an Ethereum and really to speedrun this Whole process of adoption and getting People back to bitcoin and essentially Like over the next two years Bob will Inherit Bitcoin security through proof For work and then ultimately like many Other Bitcoin ler twos Embrace bit VM as A way to settle directly to BTC still Maintaining the connect to ethereum to Keep onboarding more and more users and Liquidity back into the Bitcoin Ecosystem I love it so it's like so in The most basic terms it's like what Madic is to ethereum only liquidity is In terms of an L2 but it's the liquidity Is shared so it's a very compatible eth Developers can come build on Bitcoin CL with a difference that it's Also connected to bitcoin so it sits Right between the two largest ecosystems And will be fueled by liquidity from

Both BDC and eth and also the stable Coins and it just gives us a head start It allows us to be integrated with Native stable coins Blue Chip assets Easy integration with exchanges from day One skipping a lot of the you know early Hurdles for adoption and just letting People start using Bitcoin defi ruins Ordinals BR c20s right away right at the Havoc IC Bob is a giant oil tank um I Think there's going to be almost Inevitably a m big big and growing Migration of funds developers users uh Into the Bitcoin ecosystem and the Number one place they're going to come From is ethereum because that's the Number one place where they currently Are and the vehicle that they're going To use and the reason I call it an oil Tanker is because it's going to have to Be big the the vehicle they're going to Use is Bob so I actually don't really See eye to eye with a lot of how alexe Views Bob I think he um under it in some Ways and doesn't really understand what He's actually built but in my view what He's built is the the primary sort of Bridge like uh you know that he's built The ecosystem that is going to be at the Center I'll put it into one sentence I Once took a course in University in Finance and I I I hated the course I Thought it was stupid but everything of Value that I got out I got out in the

First five minutes of the course the Professor walked on to stage and he said Everything you need to know about Finance is it's basically this it's the Art of finding a giant River of Munday And standing in the middle of it I think Bob have found the giant River of money And standing in the middle of it and how Sovereign fit in what is Sovereign The Sovereign is a project That has um pioneered the idea of of Defi on bitcoin and building additional Functionality on bitcoin we recognized Where Tapo and rups would likely take us Uh three years ago uh four almost four Years ago right now and and so we Started building towards this world that We see emerging now um and in the Process a community of Open Source Developers has developed um incredibly Dedicated people who have been building On bitcoin for years building on Ethereum it it it was it became a Melting part of developers from both Worlds and together they've built um What has become the largest defi Platform uh in Bitcoin um and you know We've got trading we've got uh leverage Trading we've got borrowing and lending We've got Bitcoin back stable coins the The most secure stable coin in the world Um and it's all deeply decentralized and Sort of comes with a with a with a deep Bitcoin ethos of security but also move

Fast ethos ethos of ethereum um and Um you know leex say we've known him Because he's you there's been like a Handful like I could count them on my Hands and my toes how many people were Building on bitcoin uh three years ago How many people saw what's coming back Then Alexi was one of them he published Some interesting papers he built some Stuff uh and when he started telling us About Bob um we we started looking into It and we realized that it is likely a Giant old Anor and we wanted to get some Of that Oil so you guys to just just to like Like Sovereign like Eden I we like was the First person I called up when we Basically had like more concrete idea of What we're building because ultimately Sovereign is like if you think about Bitcoin D5 Sovereign is the OG right Like Bitcoin D5 you go to Sovereign Because nobody else dared to touch it There have been attempts like on other L2 side chains right but ultimately like What I find really cool about this is Managing to build a community around Bitcoin defi before it was cool while it Was still frowned upon where it was Super hard are to really defi pill Bitcoiners and building that super Strong community and that Community is Not going to spearhead this entire

Orange tsunami and everybody else is Just going to follow so we're super Excited obviously to to be working with With Sovereign to to basically yeah take Bitcoin defi on this I guess Journey on The o tanker so one of the reasons I Wanted to have you guys on because I've Seen press releases there is a Partnership there is something for the Audience if the audience was wanting to Get into Bitcoin What is this partnership so I can talk About it from the perspective of of of a Developer you know a project who's Building on Bob and also a user so Um when Bob launches we expected to play The function of the primary sort of Bitcoin sphere in the ethereum world and The bridge between the two worlds and um So Sovereign is first of for first and Foremost we're going to be launching Lach in um our Bitcoin uh tooling so We're launching a DEX we're going to be Introducing Bitcoin back stable coins We're also going to be bringing all the Bitcoin uh Native tokens to be tradable On Bob so like runes we're bringing them We're going to provide functionality for Dows around them for Launchpad around Them Etc um in the short Term uh one of the things that we've Done is that um Bob have introduced a Way to make it really attractive for

Users to um sort of step into this world Of of the new um sort of the the new Bitcoin the Bitcoin uh Renaissance and Um the way they're doing this is I I'm Sure anyone who's listening to your show Knows about like the points programs That have been going on it's the current Meta right Manta and blast Etc so Boba doing Something similar and uh um The Sovereign Community voted so this is a Decentralized project so everything is Done via the Dow that the the The Sovereign Community decided to place um Part of our treasury into that project Uh acrew points and then redistribute Points to people who come uh through Sovereign so Sovereign sort of is doing A points on points program if you want To participate in Bob's uh uh points Program you can come through Sovereign You can earn um by coming through Sovereign in additional 50% points plus You're going to get an airdrop of some Of the first runes in the World and Technical question what are Runes versus BRC 20s they're not the Same thing is runes a better Brc2 Alexa you want to take That I mean it's so runes are something That was created by casy himself right In an attempt to improve the way that You can create fible tokens on top of Inscriptions brc's were the first

They're very easy to use but they caused Some issues in in the Bitcoin space like There's a lot of utxos so things that Just get left over and increase the the Data size of the utxo set and that has Caused a bit of a steer up in the Bitcoin Community because it obviously Bloats the network and especially like Nodes and with runes you you kind of Mitigate that it's I arguably you could Say a more longer term thought through Design that allows us to create funable Assets on bitcoin that is more in line With how Bitcoins U so model is designed The cool thing about it I guess thinking About layer 2os is that it looks like it Will be really friendly with SPV proof So like client verification much easier To verify without downloading the entire Data that like really tracing every Transaction back to the to the original Genesis and that just makes it more Friendly for adoption for mobile wallets For real Um also systems like Bob which you can Now really cryptographically verify on Bob what's happening with ruins on Bitcoin and that just allows us to or Makes runes more friendly towards Bridging towards cross chain swaps and Settlement which obviously makes us very Excited because we love runes we want to See more of that and we want to see them On Bob and we'll build tooling and

Infrastructure obviously spearheaded by Sovereign to make that available to Every single eth user that wants to get Into runes early basically almost on day One having tried to build with BRC 20s I Can tell you it's really hard uh runes Is just a much cleaner standard and I Think is going to be um more powerful Cleaner easier to use and see much more Developer adoption I want to ask you More about the Bitcoin defi ecosystem in General but um this this airdrop that You mentioned and farm farm for points How can how can the audience take Advantage Um well I can I can tell you that but Easily the the best way to do it is Through Sovereign because of the 50% Bonus that we provide um and because of The extra runes that you get and because We have a really cool interface um so That's actually really easy you can go To um uh gobob do Sovereign s v r yn. Apppp and and and and um it's an easy uh Interface um I would suggest reading About it you can click into to the link In the wiki and read more about it but To be fair um while it may not be the Intelligent thing to do you can Independently use Bob's uh Bob built Their own uh interface um and um I Actually don't remember the URL for do You it's under fusion. cob. XYZ and then Obviously you if you scroll down you can

See read on the details you can also Find partner programs including Sovereigns um and then we have partner Programs by blockchain okx Um and then you can you know educate Yourself and decide you know how you Want to participate what you want to do Um and we're only running for another Three weeks before we're going to main Nets and then we go to season two which Is obviously the most exciting of all You can then finally use defi nfts Ordinals on Bob and then continue Obviously harvesting spice as we call it Some points at spice um to become a core Player in the Bob ecosystem be And obviously become then a core member Of Bob's Community as we scale and and Really try to bring the Bitcoin inance Um upon the entire we free space links For both of you both your companies down Below I really appreciate you guys Taking the time I have such a better Understanding of Bitcoin on defi the new Ecosystem I want to end with this sort Of a a hot take very open-ended Yago I Want to start with you based on this new Bitcoin revolution in the in a 10-year Time span what's a hot take you may have For example is Solana irrelevant now or Is will this blast bitcoin's price even Higher any hot take big Picture so first of all yes and yes I Think Bitcoin dominance is going to grow

But even more than Bitcoin dominance We're going to see Bitcoin ecosystem Dominance Grow um I'm I've so but I've got two hot Takes which are maybe less obvious one And this will piss off the Maxis Um Bitcoin is going to become the number One place to trade tokens uh nfts uh and All of the horrible lovely exciting Stupidity of the speculation and Panomics that we've seen in other places Is going to come to bitcoin there's Nothing we can do about that it's the It's the downside of Freedom um my biggest hotake is that What this is going to do is it's going To ultimately though end a lot of that Or massively reduce the impact of Speculation in crypto because I think That what crypto is now good so Bitcoin Is 14 years old in in four years it'll Be 18 years it will be an adult and it's Supposed to take its position as the Global Financial system and I think the Technology that is being developed on Bitcoin today is what's going to allow Bitcoin to mature and take on that role And so I think we're going to see a Massive over the next four and then 10 Years we're actually going to see crypto Mature to be what everyone has always Said you know it's actually going to be The system that we all use for our daily Finance I'm hearing you loud and clear

And Alexi I want to end with you hot Take final thoughts I mean there's not Much to add but a bit of a hot take is We started this conversation with you Know there's so many other things that You know all thee the premise of many Altcoins was canot Bitcoin do and I Think one of the big flippings that I Want to see and I think we'll see is Stable coins right now Tron Dominates but think about it Bitcoin is Known everywhere any news outlet that Reports about The crypto space it's Bitcoin Bitcoin goes up people talk About it Bitcoin goes down people talk About it someone adopts crypto it's Always Bitcoin I if you go on like right Now people use us because Bitcoin was so Like lot of the core Community was so Focused on lightning lightning lightning And that's not user friendly people Don't necessarily want to pay with Bitcoin what they want however is stable Coins on bitcoin or back by Bitcoin Bitcoin back stable coins as a means of Payments and transaction and I think Over the next couple of years up until The next Bitcoin having the flipping That I want to see and I think we'll see Is Bitcoin flipping Tron and everybody Else in stable coin volume biton will Become and the ecosystem as a whole with Ler T and side chains will become the Main place to transact

With Bitcoin back stable coins and of Course us usdc and all these new more Centralized but still currently globally Most valid opted usdb stable coins That's something that I think will Really Drive adoption and Bitcoin is Perfectly positioned to do That