Onchain Oracles: ETHDenver Preview

Audio

Transcript

Introductions

[00:02] Bob Summerwill: You are live. We are live.

[00:05] Colin de Picker: Hello.

[00:06] Bob Summerwill: Hello and welcome everybody.

[00:08] Colin de Picker: Hello.

[00:08] Bob Summerwill: Hello. It's the week before ETHDenver. One of the major events of the Ethereum calendar, basically like the regional event for North America. So that's coming up. So yeah, as well as the usual STRATO crew, we have Colin de Picker here. Is that how you pronounce your surname?

[00:33] Kieren James-Lubin: Colin?

[00:34] Colin de Picker: Yeah, yeah, that's correct. That's my name. Hi everyone. So yeah, Colin is my actual name. Most people know me under the name of Shiba Tarzan which is like the crypto name I use. But yeah, my actual name is Colin.

[00:46] Bob Summerwill: So sometimes Shiba Tarzan, sometimes Crypto Tarzan.

[00:52] Colin de Picker: So the Twitter handle is Crypto Tarzan. I mean that was my name that I chose when I initially joined the space and then when we did our like ENS thing with Boo, then I had to come up with an original ENS name and then it became Shiba Tarzan. I don't know how but I came up with it. So I think it's quite funny if you think about like the meme.

[01:13] Bob Summerwill: Guess it sticks forever like Victor's vickforwong that we've told the story of before.

[01:19] Colin de Picker: Yeah, yeah, probably, probably is going to be the heritage. Heritage handles story.

[01:22] Bob Summerwill: So yeah we're here. Myself, Bob Summerwill, Head of Ecosystem. Kieren James-Lubin, CEO. Victor Wong, CPO. CPO. CPO. And Michael Tan who has got a little demo for us which we're going to start with.

STRATO Spotlight: Vault demo

How an Autonomous Trading Bot Generates Yield on STRATO

You deposit into a vault, an autonomous bot trades on your behalf, and you withdraw whenever you want — with more than you put in.

strato.nexus

by Michael Tan , February 09, 2026

[01:48] Kieren James-Lubin: Sure.

[01:48] Michael Tan: Hey everyone. So back here with another demo of STRATO. This for the last week and week and a half going forward we're gonna have. We're currently in a trading and referral contest which I'll be showing you an update on. Let's start with that sec. So right now our top gainer is anonymously. 10210d28f4 percent gain. You know, not very much. So everyone's got a chance if you would like to have a late entry in. As for the referral contest, we currently have 3 by this user in our community. And yeah a couple referrals here. We're also going to be talking about the vault that we've added as of last Friday. Let me show you that. So this is, this is the current position of all position I have on mainnet deposit 144.96 of UH Gold. And I'm current. I've currently earned 1.84. But let's do a little demo on the testnet. Make my first deposit here. This account currently has USDST and Silva and silver.

[03:08] Bob Summerwill: Oh no silver.

[03:11] Michael Tan: Let's put five USDST. Confirm deposit. Still pausing. Successfully deposited. Great. So if you click this link you can see what tokens are currently in the vault. It's a market making vault that just kind of rebalances the pools and we give everybody an opportunity to participate. And some of the APY on the mainnet is currently 102.67 which is great. Can also find recent activities of swaps by the vault here. And this is all done with our automated market making bot which you can actually find a blog about on our website, How an Autonomous Trading Bot Generates Yield on STRATO. And if you ever want to withdraw you just hit the withdrawal and there you have it.

[04:02] Kieren James-Lubin: Hear me?

[04:04] Michael Tan: Yeah.

[04:04] Kieren James-Lubin: Jumping on the bot quickly. So the APY obviously phenomenally high. As the assets go up it will probably not be as phenomenally high. It is measuring the true change in underlying asset value. So theoretically all the trades are profitable, or it doesn't do them. But it's also the. So then the risk is sort of inventory risk right. Like it still has to hold ETH and so on but it is up in absolute terms. And when you deposit to it it's sort of one asset at a time mark the market. So if you got some gold tokenized, you deposit that, you've got some ETH, you deposit that and so on. But you can't just pick and choose on the withdrawal. So you just get a sort of pro rata share of the bot's assets on withdrawal which hopefully have increased. But just so you know. So if you deposit and then you're confused when you get a basket of assets back. That's the why. But yeah it's APY is very high at the moment. We're excited about it.

[05:11] Michael Tan: Everyone take advantage now where you can.

ETHDenver logistics, tickets, and side events

[05:18] Bob Summerwill: Okay, well thank you. I guess we'll move on to ETHDenver. Want to hang around Mike? You coming to Denver?

[05:26] Michael Tan: Yes. I'm arriving Monday night.

[05:30] Bob Summerwill: Excellent. So I was trying, I was counting how many times I've been to ETHDenver and I think 2019 was my first. So I think this is maybe my fifth or my fourth. Anyone else?

[05:46] Kieren James-Lubin: Veterans moved down though I went early and then I sort of. We, you know we had a few years where we just sort of skipped it in our deep in our enterprise days. But I think we went and sponsored in 2017 actually and so it was still kind of had like an organic feel to it. I think it still does. I mean it's one of the unique ones where by the way. Okay, so how are the tickets done? I know we've dealt with it at a corporate level but it's a free event. Right? But yeah. Is it like a lottery? Like how do you.

[06:24] Bob Summerwill: No, no, it's a bit weird.

[06:26] Kieren James-Lubin: Yeah.

[06:27] Bob Summerwill: So you can go for free right? That's kind of a key thing. Right. You know it started out very hackathony. So it's always been a, you know, grassroots volunteers like, like no ticket prices for, you know, normies. But you have to join the SporkDAO for your free ticket so you have to do this onboarding. At least now I think you don't actually have to use a wallet. I think you used to in some prior years. You had to. There seems to be like a web 2.0 onboarding kind of flow gasless that gets you there. But there's quite a few screens of stuff to click through that's for sure. Or you can just pay.

[07:25] Kieren James-Lubin: Um.

[07:26] Bob Summerwill: But yeah, so I mean I don't know what the numbers are going to be this year. Probably around 20,000 from what I understand. That seems to be what the case was last time. How about yourself, Victor? Have been. You've been a few times.

[07:43] Victor Wong: Yeah, like Kieren, I was there early and then I think I went again. My first kind of kickstart is the words last year.

[07:55] Bob Summerwill: Right?

[07:56] Victor Wong: Yeah. Now we're going back again so.

[07:58] Bob Summerwill: And I know it's your first time, Colin.

[08:01] Colin de Picker: Yeah, for me it's going to be the first time. I mean I started actually going last year to ETH events so this is the first time that there is like an opportunity for me to go to Denver. So yeah, I'm excited. I heard like a lot of different opinions. People say it's great. Other people say kind of changed over the years and it's a bit more, you know, more marketing related and less you know, core Ethereum stuff. But yeah, I mean I'm gonna try to experience it for myself and see what it's all about. I mean like I said 20,000 people is still. I mean it's the only major US event I think there is in the year, so yeah, I'm quite excited to explore it. I think it's going to be great. Also they changed the format from what I heard. I mean, maybe Bob, you can explain a bit on what changed there and if it's going to have an impact on the previous years, of course. But yeah, I'm quite excited for my first time.

[08:54] Bob Summerwill: Have you been before Mark? Have you been before Mike?

[09:00] Michael Tan: Oh, sorry, yeah, I was there last year with you.

[09:03] Bob Summerwill: Oh, yes. And that was your first.

[09:06] Michael Tan: Yes, that was my first.

[09:07] Bob Summerwill: There we go. There we go.

[09:09] Victor Wong: So.

[09:10] Bob Summerwill: So yeah, I mean, Colin, you were at EthCC last year. I mean, I think, yes, they're fairly comparable ish sizes. I kind of think of like, you know, EthCC is the European one and ETHDenver's the North America one. You know, kind of similar. Is size different?

[09:31] Colin de Picker: EthCC just had like, I feel like it had like a lot of side events. I mean, because like for EthCC, the main event tickets were just like. I mean they were super pricey. I think it was like €500 for a ticket. And just like many people or like many developers just came to Cannes and then they just like went to all the side events to get like the free drinks, the free food like always, and then try to connect somewhere, try to get a job. I mean, I spoke to like many people at EthCC. That were actually trying to get a job into the crypto space and they said, oh yeah, the main event is too expensive. So that's like, that's why I also think there were so many side events at EthCC. I mean, for like the location, Cannes is not that big. I mean, Bob, you explored it. I mean, compared to like a city like Denver, it's like super small. And then I mean there were so many side events was just incredible.

[10:20] Bob Summerwill: Yeah, I mean, I think it's become the curse of the major events. Is they kind of become like a meeting point. You know, they're like, all right, if you're there, like people will be there. Right? You know, so they become like, are you going to be there? And it's kind of like not so tied even to the main event. It's just like, are you physically going to be in that place on those days?

[10:45] Kieren James-Lubin: Yes.

[10:46] Bob Summerwill: Great. Where are you going to be? What are you going to be doing? I don't know. There's all these different side events. You know, just sign up, sign up for 100 things and see what you get and see where people are. They can be very, very fragmented. I mean, my understanding of the move to Cannes was partly to try and like counter that because at least it's like a physically smaller place. So the side events have to be kind of closer together so you're not so fragmented. When I went to EthCC the prior year in Brussels, I felt that was very, very fragmented. Like, I think, you know, that was kind of a really bad kind of year that they had to sort of react to. And it has been a criticism of Denver as well. I mean, one thing I've seen that's happening in Denver this year, happened in Devconnect. Kind of like the World Fair, lots of things under the same roof. There seems to be kind of a push to that kind of thing. Right. Of saying, well, we're going to get lots of threads under that same banner. It's like, come to the main site and stay right. There's enough going on that you don't have to leave. You've got these different threads happening.

[12:18] Victor Wong: Well, I think one of the challenges that ETHDenver has, and I kind of felt this at Devconnect this year. What was that? The event itself is in the middle of nowhere. So you gotta kind of make a call between like. And a lot of the side events are downtown. So you gotta kind of make a call of like, do I stay downtown or do I go out there? And it kind of depends on who you're meeting really. You know, sometimes it just makes more sense to kind of stay downtown.

[12:44] Bob Summerwill: Yeah. Have a day here. A day in the middle, a day on the other side.

[12:50] Victor Wong: There's no middle. That's the problem. Right. Like there's just. You just gotta go one or the other. You know, I almost, I tried a Bird scooter for the first time last year trying to shuttle myself and I. That was terrifying. I'll never do that again. I'm way too old for that.

[13:09] Bob Summerwill: Yeah, I went on a Lime scooter thing in Austin one time and it was like, this is so dangerous.

[13:19] Kieren James-Lubin: In Austin.

[13:20] Victor Wong: Yeah.

[13:20] Bob Summerwill: Wow. Okay. That's just like a rattly crappy bit of road at the side. No helmet. Just like, this is bad. One of the things I saw as part of our sponsorship, which was quite interesting at ETHDenver, is they actually have a condition in there to be a sponsor of the main event. That you have to promise not to have a competing event during core hours. I thought that was quite interesting. It's like, right, yeah, you want to be in the gang. No straight competition. Because, I mean, that's like the real killer thing. Right. It used to be side events were, you know, in the evening, days before, days after, and now it's just. No, we're just like. We're having our main conference on exactly the same day as you. Like, just straight competition. Yeah, it's funny how the norms have changed. Like, Victor, you talked about that with regards to Ripple and consensus.

[14:21] Victor Wong: Oh, no, it was SXSW Toronto.

[14:23] Bob Summerwill: SXSW.

[14:26] Victor Wong: It was, yes, that they got booted out. And then they made their parallel conference later though. Their parallel conference, you know, had.

[14:35] Bob Summerwill: And this was a few short years ago, but very amazing and controversial at the time that you would dare to, you know, have some competing content. Same city at the same time.

[14:48] Victor Wong: Yeah, I mean, it was. Yes. And, well, I think the big thing was they had these like, giant Ripple buses in front that like, ferried you to. So it was just like. Yeah, like, you know, also in the days when they saw blockchain as direct competitor to SWIFT, I think that that ship is zeroed. Like, I think it definitely is a competitor.

[15:12] Bob Summerwill: Yeah. I mean, talking about sort of the corporate thing that you were mentioning there, Colin, so, you know, there has been some criticism of ETHDenver specifically for having, like, headline sponsors that are Ethereum killers in quotes. Yeah, so it's like, you know, how dare you have whatever, like Polkadot as a primary sponsor or BNB Chain, you know, or Cosmos or what have you. But they've always had this. They've always had a line. So it's not like we had a token where you've got Tron everywhere pasted all over the shop. You know, like, that's not happening. And you're not seeing like, Bitboy as a main speaker has happened in Blockchain Futurist in Toronto. So there is a line which I think is sort of been like, you know, Ethereum and friends with a number of those friends having become L2s or EVM support over time. Anyway, so it's kind of like a big tent vision. But also saying, you know, that sponsorship is key for keeping the tickets free for normal people, which is.

[16:46] Victor Wong: Well, now that Vitalik doesn't like L2s. Do we still have that? Are they out of the tent?

[16:54] Kieren James-Lubin: There we go.

[16:58] Victor Wong: Yes, exactly.

[17:00] Colin de Picker: Like.

[17:00] Victor Wong: Well, the other thing that's a little bit different, Colin, about ETHDenver, it's like you have like the hardcore dev conferences, Devconnect, Devcon.

[17:10] Colin de Picker: Mhm.

[17:10] Victor Wong: And then you have like what I call the commercial conferences, you know, Consensus. Yeah, TOKEN2049 or these ones. But ETHDenver is kind of in the middle. I think they try to be the culture conference, but it's a little bit of both. So it's.

[17:24] Colin de Picker: Yeah, I think also like, for example, like, Devconnect is like almost fully organized by the Ethereum Foundation. I mean, they have like a full DevConnect team for it. So that kind of makes sense. But like, from what I spoke to a few guys of the EF also lately and they say like, they have been making their way more into Denver this year than they did before. Like, there is going to be an Ethereum Foundation day, if I am right. Yeah, there's going to be like a full day for them. And they have like a whole section also this time. So like you say, like, I think what you say, Victor, is a bit in the middle this time. And absolutely like on other events, like TOKEN2049 Dubai, TOKEN2049 Singapore, that's like even more to the commercial side. And I mean you won't see like that much. There's not much of the core principles. I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a bit in the middle, but I see still like a lot of chances and opportunities. I mean, it is still like the biggest, like I said before, the biggest US event. 20,000 people coming there. I mean there's still, I mean it's a big audience, but you don't need to lie about it. It's a big audience still. So I think there's a lot of chances for them.

[18:27] Victor Wong: Yeah. And Kieren, like, in the past, I think, like the first time we went there were like a couple hundred people. And then like next year it got huge quick.

[18:38] Kieren James-Lubin: Yeah, it felt, you know, familiar. Right. It was kind of. And it was very Denver. Like, you know, it was like down the street from the dispensaries. There's kombucha on tap. You know, I assume that maybe still is there, but, yeah, it had a kind of like hippie Agora feel to it, which maybe it still does. We're gonna see.

[19:01] Bob Summerwill: Sports castle was a cool building. So apparently I was wondering like why it had the setup it had which is like these sorts of like stories with like ramps around between them. But apparently it used to be like a car warehouse place. That's why.

[19:16] Victor Wong: Interesting.

[19:17] Bob Summerwill: But you just had this multi level thing with sort of ramps going up and round it and some of them were, you know just were talks and stuff. But yeah, it was only a few hundred.

[19:30] Kieren James-Lubin: I might be getting this wrong but I remember. So I think the venue has changed again at some point. It was like a rodeo, right?

[19:39] Bob Summerwill: No, it's the same. It's the same venue but a different building on that same complex.

[19:43] Kieren James-Lubin: I see.

[19:44] Victor Wong: Gotcha.

[19:45] Kieren James-Lubin: But I remember I was catching up with John some years ago and he was telling me just the you know, the legacy had to go to deal with the amount of people who wanted to come which are pretty extreme. Like you know on the order of renting out a stadium. Which is pretty funny to me.

Museum of Ethereum and the Ethereum Time Machine

[20:02] Bob Summerwill: Yeah, it's certainly a pretty major kind of undertaking there. But yeah there has always been a you know a large sort of cultural and artsy kind of part to it as well. So yeah, I mean the thing I've been mainly involved with there is this Museum of Ethereum. So when you come into the venue you go through the main ticketing you. There is going to be an area which is called Buidl Alley New Buidl City which is kind of a Blade Runnery sort of futurescape somewhere like Meow Wolf or Harry Potter, Diagon Alley kind of vibes of going through this area and there are going to be various different sub areas and zones in there. But yes one of the large ones there is Museum of Ethereum which we are sponsoring as our Golem. Golem of Devcon 0 presentation age and then ourselves Devcon 1 era. So super OGs still going. And it's a mixture of physical and digital artifacts drawing largely from the early days of Ethereum - Early Days of Ethereum bios and interviews and everything. Also some photos through 2014 largely from Taylor Gerring, also some of them from the Toronto Bitcoin Expo in April 2014. Then the other thing I've been working on for that which I think is really really cool I've called the Ethereum Time Machine. What I'm providing there is an authentic experience of running original software. I have got two 2010 era white plastic MacBooks and two chunky ThinkPads. And so I was trying to get back to Frontier software. I can run Frontier software. However the second phase is actually mining. So the goal I had is can you run you know, 2015 era software on contemporary hardware? CPU mine the chain back to life. So that's what I've been working on like in the background for a couple of months. So basically like GPUs at first get the thing moving and then as it's moving the difficulty's coming down and you're easing off. So I'm in the final phases of that I wanted to revive Frontier. Sadly that's a very very expensive proposition that maybe some other future sponsor would like to drop 15 or 20k of GPU on. But yes, I have revived Homestead. So you know what you'll have there is running Mist. Running Mist at Homestead, CPU mine transactions back and forth, sitting there getting you know, the real experience of 10 year old software. Original chain, original protocol. So that was fun.

[24:10] Victor Wong: Optional in the real experience or like, I'm sorry, is pulling out your hair in frustration optional or required experience? Because I remember a lot of that myself.

[24:22] Bob Summerwill: I'm just hoping they don't crash too often.

[24:24] Victor Wong: Yeah, I remember Mist crashing a lot like when we were playing around with it.

[24:31] Bob Summerwill: So yes, there will be reboot instructions on hand. So there's also.

[24:39] Victor Wong: Are you gonna be doing tech support on hand too?

[24:43] Bob Summerwill: I hope not. I hope to have left sufficient instructions that competent people can keep it going. Otherwise there might be some downtime. But yeah, so there's that. There's also a big chunk which Jessica Angel, the creative director has taken the lead on. To do with some orbs that you can put your hands on and reach consensus between each other and light up different phases. And then there is also a centerpiece which is still in motion. So I won't talk about. But yeah, you know the hope is that a good chunk of those 20,000 people are gonna walk in and they're gonna experience a bit of Ethereum history really touching on those early days and people that they may have got no clue were around, and have a little bit of a flavor of what that year was like and get your hands on and.

[25:49] Victor Wong: And you're speaking on the main stage about it too. Right?

[25:51] Bob Summerwill: So like I am talking about early days of Ethereum as well. Yeah, that's on there's a stage that's like storytelling or culture. I can't remember quite what that was called. It's called like New France Stage I think. So yeah, I'll be giving a little talk there though. Likely what I'll do is play some ancient videos for people's amusement. There are, there's really fun stuff from the very early days that a lot of people again they won't have seen. I mean particularly that Toronto Bitcoin Expo. So that was in April 2014 and it was like the second time probably that most of the people on the team had met each other. You know some had met in Miami in the January and then some again met in that April. But at that point Ethereum was like a company. So Ethereum were the headline sponsors for that event and they had a booth and they like gave away hundreds or thousands of T shirts and flyers. And so it was you know it was the Ethereum company for the one and only time that you ever had that. But with a new Ethereum Foundation being engaged again that's, they're not being the company but they are starting to you know to have a presence at events again which I think is a very positive thing to see. You know that engagement, you know they're obviously never going to have an EF stand up token or what have you but having a presence at ETHDenver and EthCC absolutely makes sense. So hopefully they'll have a good presence.

[27:46] Colin de Picker: Yeah, no, I mean we're looking forward to see you speak Bob, but I remember like, I think you were kind of planning the same, I mean or like also speaking about Ethereum, early days at Devconnect, but then there was like all issues with like the Wi-Fi or something or the Internet. I remember. So I hope this time that like the Internet is going to be good because I remember like Devconnect. So many people just left the main venue again because they couldn't do anything. Like it was super badly the Internet and you can say okay it's like Argentina but I mean come on like they should have like at least decent type of Internet. Hopefully.

[28:19] Bob Summerwill: I mean, yeah, it will not be a problem in Denver I can assure you that. You know they've got good, they've been there a good chunk of time and they know what they're doing. But yeah, the Wi-Fi in Argentina was dreadful.

[28:36] Victor Wong: I mean we went to offsite coffee shops for Wi-Fi and you know so I don't think it was a general Argentina problem. It was definitely a problem.

[28:45] Bob Summerwill: I think it was just like a capacity problem because there were so many people there. And I mean the problem specifically at the Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress was they only got in the venue like two or three hours before the event. It was an absolute like rush job. But yeah, yeah I mean they.

[29:02] Colin de Picker: They did everything on like the volunteers. I mean they had like so many volunteers because of course like the most of the core organization of your privacy they were just traveling. I mean it was at the beginning of Devconnect so most of the people were just arriving and they said okay we're going to let it be run by volunteers to set up all. So yeah, maybe there was like an issue but I mean it was great. Just like I think you just unfortunately couldn't do your talk there. But yeah, hopefully to see in Denver would be amazing.

[29:32] Bob Summerwill: Yeah I mean I, that talk I will re-record with them at some point. That still hasn't happened. But yeah, I mean it was just a bit of a mess on the day but yeah Denver's fine. I mean they've been planning it for forever. So yeah, what's happening with Book of Ethereum? How's things in your world?

Crypto winter, markets, and macro backdrop

[29:57] Colin de Picker: Yeah, I mean we're trying to manage the winter period of crypto as we speak. I mean it's crazy times actually. But we're doing our best. We're managing things, just focusing on building the community. Really making time to invest in community building. I think it's like super important. I see these months of a big chance to improve UX, improve onboarding strategies because I feel like that's something that really we still miss. If I speak in general crypto, Ethereum specifically also. I mean because they always speak about the millions of people we're still missing out on board but then you also need to do something about it. And I see like these times are pretty good to do it. I mean like there's slow volume days. Markets are like terrible at the moment. So yeah it is what it is so we need to look at other things to do now. But yeah we're like really active still. And yeah gonna be our first time in Denver now so and we will do other events this year also. I think we'll be at EthCC also this year and we're going to Devcon probably also in Mumbai. Really looking forward to that one as well. But yeah for the rest like we're just like I said building the community, focusing on the onboarding and UX and I mean we will see when the markets pick up again but yeah for now it's just a bit low volume. I mean like I said they call it the winter days so yeah we'll see. It's my first time experience in this so yeah we'll see how it goes.

[31:33] Bob Summerwill: Um.

[31:34] Colin de Picker: But yeah I feel like the sentiment all over is a bit lower. I mean I feel people are kind of like, I wouldn't say depressed but you know most of the investors are like at least a bit down low sentiment because of these times. So.

[31:47] Kieren James-Lubin: Yeah do you, I mean I think we all feel that a little bit. Do we prefer though like the euphoria times have some real downsides too. You know it's kind of hard to be. There's so much noise in the euphoria times. I kind of like the quiet times you know. Although it's been a weird this past you know cycle if you all believe in that. There's not really been any much too much of an alt run up you know which we had in the previous one and so I think the euphoria never set in to the same way. It's sort of been like still a value accrual to staple assets mostly and a few breakouts but you know it's not like like it was.

[32:34] Colin de Picker: Yeah no I don't really believe also in like the four year cycle or whatever it's called. I mean I came in even after like the last supposedly perfect four year cycle but I mean I don't really know if you would ask those people. They can never really explain on what it's based like and I mean even the best traders in the world they cannot explain how the financial markets work like what is going to be the future. I mean they all just gas a bit on their feeling and you know they put things out of context to kind of try to find an explanation for things.

[33:06] Bob Summerwill: Um.

[33:07] Colin de Picker: But yeah like for example right now at like the, if we look at Ethereum the asset just. Over the past two years I mean the way it's been moving there is no real like clarification for it like why it's going to a new all time high and then again like completely down. I mean, feels like there is some unexpected like market manipulation going on that like we don't have under control in some way. I mean you could say like in the, in after like the April crash last year, you could say, okay, like people like Tom Lee and others brought back some hype with their staking announcements and all these things and like the treasury companies and I mean it was a big thing in the summer. And then you saw like ETH doing very well. And then with the upgrade in the end of November that Ethereum did with was massively. And you would think like everything looked perfectly fundamentally for like January and like Q1 in common. I mean even like Tom Lee did some crazy predictions on the price of Ethereum. But yeah, like you see, it's not what it looks like. I mean it's not because fundamentally everything is looking fine. That for that reason also like the price is going to that target. So yeah, in my opinion it's just unpredictable. I mean, I cannot predict it. Maybe you guys can. I cannot predict it. It's kind of hard and it just is what it is. I mean, in my opinion, just from the perspective that we have to undergo it and see what's going on and just focus on the building. Because like I said, I've said this also many times to our community. If you're not here for the building, the movement, the culture, then you will not last. If you're just purely here based on the temporary price of the assets, then you're never going to be here for many years, I think. Seems also quite like a different, a difficult space for that. So, yeah, it's just my opinion.

[34:56] Victor Wong: Yeah, it's funny because my current thought about what's going on is that if you look at previous winters and you know, I know we've been through quite a few but like they've been sort of more internal focused. Like the thing you could point to that kind of triggered them is like something happening in the crypto sphere itself, like ICOs going bust or NFTs or meme coins or whatever. And now, you know, it's really. A lot of things in the world are happening simultaneously and crypto is just one of those things, right? Like metal prices have changed, equity prices are changed, currency prices have changed. And so my current thing is that it is a little bit different this time because I think what's happening is crypto is becoming part of the macro infrastructure. And I think we'll look back and kind of think okay, this is the time that crypto did just become part of the regular financial system I think.

[36:05] Bob Summerwill: Sorry. So moving more away from speculation and more to utility.

[36:10] Victor Wong: Well, I mean I don't know if it's more speculation or utility like you could call the stock markets affected by a lot of speculation too. But I think it's moving more toward a more stable view of like people's view on what they are. And the use of it is kind of becoming more stable and widespread like the number of holders are you know, like I think the choices that people have are not like oh, do I move my crypto bags from one crypto to another? It's like, you know, it's clear that people are kind of considering like okay, should I move it into metals like we saw that happening or should I move it into you know, other assets that are completely outside the crypto sphere.

[36:58] Kieren James-Lubin: Yeah, it's a funny thing and tokenization makes that a lot easier. We saw Eric Voorhees buy some huge quantity of PAXG and it to hit the Internet in a big way. And I think on balance this is a good thing. Although yeah it makes you a little bit. Yeah, it's not the old days.

[37:19] Colin de Picker: Right.

[37:20] Kieren James-Lubin: And I've said before, you know it's unfortunate right that ETH, Bitcoin etc seem to trade like a high beta tech stock. They're risk on assets still. And they're not behaving like metals which you know are somewhat anti correlated let's say with what the stock market does. But you know, I think so. You know the positive side is RWAs can help achieve a certain type of like practical day to day sovereignty where you have a basket of assets that are both resilient from a price change perspective. In addition, you know the RWAs may be a little bit less purely cypherpunk. But again we've seen strange thing also like so stables in circulation have like doubled year over year a little bit more and floating crypto prices went down, you know. And I suppose there's no in principle reason those things have to go together. I mean eventually usage goes up, you'll see crazy crypto prices go up in kind of a commodity way. But yeah, you know, interesting times.

[38:37] Victor Wong: Well I think on that note, like the other thing that's not you know, typically when we've had these other winters, total volumes have gone down and that's not necessarily true now. So I, you know one way to kind of think about it that I've been thinking of is that we thought crypto was the hedge against the mainstream markets. But I think the actual mechanism is DeFi. Like people are using DeFi to hedge in all kinds of different places and because it's global and 24/7 it allows you to do that way more efficiently than it's the rails themselves that are the hedge.

[39:13] Kieren James-Lubin: There's a lot of leverage in the system now too.

[39:15] Victor Wong: Um.

[39:18] Kieren James-Lubin: Still people believe that the big sell offs have been liquidation driven. So we saw the beginning kind of like in the FTX cycle. We saw the beginning on 1010 and things are still shaking out. I've seen tweets today about BlockFi suspending withdrawals. So supposedly a bunch of big firms are just trying to manage maybe effective insolvency from leverage. And you know it's just, it's more leverage than before. The Hyperliquids and the like kind of created 20x effective leverage out of thin air. I believe and you know there's a good use for these products and so it just means the swings are going to be bigger, the blow ups and so on. So yeah, interesting, interesting times all around.

Onboarding, UX, and agents

[40:09] Colin de Picker: Yeah. Like what I also feel a bit is that like what Victor has been saying, like I think DeFi is going to be making a major move. I mean it has to be also because like I said the stables have doubled and I think that's also because people take less risks and especially like the builders, they're taking less risk. They're like exploring ways like how can DeFi like generate this passive income over time without like needing to take unnecessary risk. And I think if you look into it it's like, I mean it's a big, I mean like I said, I think if they can explore it more and we can actually do what people like Vitalik and Gavin Wood have been saying from the very beginning on. That's like whether you're going to build on Ethereum and all the places to build applications, I mean we haven't seen I think all the possibilities of Ethereum yet. Like I said the past cycles we have seen a lot of speculative things and we had the NFTs hype and everything. But the real upcoming trend of DeFi applications that are real businesses built by individuals also. You don't need a big corporation anymore to start your own business on Ethereum. And I think that's going to be a major one also. What I see recently is that like for like in the past it was very difficult for people that were no like software engineers to build something on Ethereum. But what you see now is and the Ethereum Foundation is also quite bullish on all these things that are the agents. Especially with like the Claude stuff that's going around now, the Mold Book. I mean even we as a community, we have done our own ERC-8004 agent who is like now participating in hackathons for us, who is like building things for us. I mean we are exploring with it as well. It is the future and I think a part of like bringing people in decentralized, you know, the self custody story and all these things. I think the opportunity for people that will never be able to build something or to create something to now with the invention of AI and agents to build their own DeFi applications. I think that's going to be something we're going to see in the next years. I feel like. And it's also something I feel like the builders are more pushing forward to. I mean it's kind of the subjects and topics everywhere right now. And less like the highly speculative or volatile assets, you know. So I think building building infrastructure during this winter is going to be in your advantage.

[42:33] Victor Wong: Yeah, yeah I totally agree with that because it's like you know, without the noise I said in the article. I didn't know if this was just because I'm Canadian and I have a fondness for winter generally but there is a quiet building that happens and you know Ethereum itself would have never launched at the time it did unless it was for the winter we had it there. Like it also forces you to kind of focus on what is really meaningful for the future. So I think that's the, you know, that's one. No one likes the pain of bad prices but it does allow you to kind of refocus your efforts on things that are on a smaller number of super important things.

[43:16] Bob Summerwill: Yeah, I think it's good as long as you don't die.

[43:20] Victor Wong: As long as you don't get completely wrecked. Yeah, basically.

[43:24] Colin de Picker: Yeah. I mean that's what I mean. It's kind of hard to like build products but like fully be dependent on the price of your assets. You need to like find solutions for that. Like I said like with stablecoins like building up yields, farming yield, all these things like generating your fees and everything. Like there's so many possibilities you can explore on. I mean it's also because of the long bad times, especially I mean on chain, if you look on chain, there has never been a good moment since I think just before Trump got elected I think was the last time we saw like some big on chain volume. So since then all those teams, bro, they have, they need to look at other opportunities. So yeah, that was what I've been seeing lately. But I think that like the actual, the projects that are building the assets of them will, they will recover in due time. If they can adapt to this new way of moving. And those that will adapt, I think those will be the ones that are going to be successful. And if you cannot adapt and if you just stay in the old format of like, oh, we're just going to do some hype and just purely based off, no value, no fundamentals behind it, then I think it's just going to die like Bob says. But if you actually really can adapt to the future and use all of these things and push forward, I think better times are ahead 100%. But you just got to continue. And I think the real projects, that are non stop continuing to build, I think those will be the ones that will make it eventually.

[44:54] Victor Wong: Yeah. And I think also you got to take a broader view. Like if my thesis of that crypto is now part of the mainstream is correct, then you're not just comparing to other crypto projects, you're comparing to legacy banking systems that were basically built in the 70s and haven't been updated. So like if you think like now the question is like where are the next booms coming from? It's that are people going to trust their money on those systems or are they going to move to global decentralized 24/7 systems? You know, and I think for all of us the answer is obvious, but I think the world is just starting to catch up to it. Like in abroad.

[45:32] Colin de Picker: Yeah, exactly. I think it's like a really important moment now because a lot of the banks are starting to really get into crypto now. They want to bring crypto to their platform so they can handle their customers directly because there's coming more and more interest. People want to buy Ethereum, people want to buy Bitcoin, people want to buy Solana or whatever and the banks need to provide for it, especially in Europe. I'm seeing this right now. They are trying to push forward with new laws to be voted so that the banks are allowed to like handle crypto and stuff. But I see already like kind of issues with it and it will be like purely people that will own the asset and they will see it purely as an investment. And unfortunately what I'm seeing is that people, if they go with the bank way, they will never be able to like explore their full potential. They won't even be able to have their own ownership of the wallet. The bank will host it again like they always do. They're just gonna see it as a new way of like stock investment type of thing. And they're not really like knowing what's going on. So that's why I think, as a project now in the on chain space in DeFi, you really have to focus on onboarding and UX because there is a lot of potential now to get people on. I mean I wouldn't say your side but like to get them into DeFi so they don't choose the banks because otherwise we're going to get into like a big trouble where it's going to be a fight whether like the banks can onboard more people or whether we can onboard more people. So I think that's something to look into. And especially it's what I'm trying to do for my generation. I mean all the people that are currently at like at uni studying or just like young age, they have like the potential to make the difference. So yeah, I think that's really important because otherwise all these things we're doing, like the building is just not gonna matter. I feel like so we have a big chance. We have all the infrastructure, we have the technology. We just have to focus on onboarding and UX. That's I think the most important.

[47:29] Bob Summerwill: And I think agents are maybe our largest customer base.

[47:33] Kieren James-Lubin: Moving forward feels like, yeah, that's a really good. Because it will be just a while before legacy financial can deal with agents. They'll figure it out eventually, but it's like there's a lot of problems. You need, you know, a meat space person to deal with when you've got a bank account that you just don't have to in the crypto world. Just adding on to Colin's point, one thing I like to say is I look at like an Uber as a model in the sense that you know, they're operating, you know, a little gray, right? Like they kind of, you know, they're going and letting people give car rides and they're. The taxi union doesn't like it and so on. And consumers picked it. Right. And you know, at least Uber mostly won in the United States. You know, they get taxed and so on. In Europe sometimes it's just going to the local taxis and so on. But it's a model. People picked it because it was awesome.

[48:33] Bob Summerwill: Right?

[48:34] Kieren James-Lubin: Crypto is awesome, but it's awesome like unevenly. You know, it's, there's just a lot of sharp edges that you don't know how to deal with as a newbie, it's a little bit unfriendly to people who are not super expert. A lot of jargon, a lot of, you know, it's a kind of feels like an insidery culture.

[48:56] Colin de Picker: Right.

[48:56] Kieren James-Lubin: And so we've got to be more, you know, more kind of normie friendly I would say, in the approach. Yeah, build the tech, how you talk about the tech and so on. And it's to Colin's point, it is absolutely a fight for the same, you know, deposits, if you will. Right, yeah. And crypto is more capable than what the legacy financial world has in ways we also just haven't even imagined yet. But yeah, it just needs enough liquidity and whatnot to see all of that happen. So you know, I think, by the way, big guiding principle for the things we build is to try to keep it true to cypherpunk values to the maximal possible extent, but make it as easy as possible to onboard the regular human being.

[49:50] Victor Wong: Well, and I think one thing, you know, and Colin, you talk about UX, which I think people think of as just like how things look or how you interact with it. And you know, Bob, you kind of coined that term that I like, agentic experience. I think part of it is how should the system behave in a variety of ways. And I think one aspect that crypto hasn't done well and we are really kind of focused on is how do you create sensible defaults where if you come into the system, you're highly unlikely to get wrecked. Like other systems tend to push you to be super highly levered. And you know, when markets hit these winters, you know, you just get destroyed and you never want to come back. Right. And so like it is, I think part of the overall experience is like what does safety look like? And I don't think it's about cyber security as much as it is about, you know, like I said, sensible defaults that you should keep in order and you know, banks impose that on you. So there should be some user choice here. But you know, you got to give users options at least at the starting point and then move them toward more leverage or riskier behaviors when they understand the system, which is kind of hard to do right now.

[51:11] Colin de Picker: Yeah, yeah, I mean, exactly. Yeah, sorry, go. I mean, I just want to add that like, that the thing is, I feel like what I mean with UX is also, I mean I look back at my own story. I mean I joined when I was 16, was quite young. But when I joined in the first year, all the money that I brought into crypto, I lost it all. That was my first year of experience in crypto and what many of my friends also experienced of people where I came in touch with first mostly on these random Telegram groups. And this is how I entered the crypto space basically. But then back then I was so young and I was just thinking it's all normal and this is like the way you need to get yourself into it. But now I'm looking at like a more business perspective and seeing like, hey, this is like absolutely not normal. I mean we're like, we're more like people that getting in are just getting out again because they don't feel the safety that they should feel. They don't feel, they don't get the support they should get, they don't get the right things to use like the right tools, the right onboarding guidelines and everything. And I think that's what I mean with UX, with onboarding, all the companies building something on crypto should really make a priority of it that they can bring the right people in, and that they can educate them first before even letting them just explore the on chain world. Because otherwise like, like Victor said, you're going to get wrecked, you're going to lose money. People will just go out and like they will speak bad about the space. I mean everyone will be speaking bad about crypto is all just because they got wrecked on whether it's a random coin, they got scammed because they pushed, they clicked the wrong links or their wallet got drained, or they sent money to the wrong wallets. Like all these type of cases, it could be so easily prevented. Just if we kind of educate everyone that is coming into it and I know it's like time consuming maybe and it takes time to do this. But it's super important if you want to be successful in the long term. I mean and that's just something that I really feel from my own experience that we should focus on more. And like Kieren said, and this is the last thing I want to add to is like yes, and this is also what Vitalik has been saying in his recent posts. Like, yes, like the cypherpunk culture is super important. Decentralization, self sovereignty, like self custody, all super important. Privacy and all these things. And we have been building the tech, we have been doing absolutely amazing on the builder side but please like keep it to that. And for the customers, for the public. It's not relevant if you're not a like computer science guy or like someone we built. It's not relevant for you to read these things or to first start with. I mean because then you're going to be completely lost and you wouldn't understand. Keep this on the background but bring it over to your customers as like, hey, this is super safe to use. These are all the advantages. But like explain it to them like Kieren says in a normie way that they all can understand. And I think if we can really push forward these type of methods then we're going to see a big progress. Yeah, over the next years. That's just.

[54:08] Victor Wong: Well, and Colin, your story is bang on. Like, I mean you're super brave for losing everything and then coming back and recommitting. But I think, I think you know, when I think of UX, the moment that we are, one of our principles is if you're a beginner, you should be able to get in and make a little bit of profit very, very easily without having to worry about all these things. Right. And it's only like when you step full on the gas then you have to worry about. But if we can change that simple experience from like your first experience with crypto where it's like, you know, Vitalik talks about low risk default. Right. Like if that can be like the first thing where, oh, I've just made a little bit, like I've done something simple, hardly anything and I've made a little bit. Then you can kind of explore and that then we can have that gradual on ramp to kind of get to the next people. Because I think very few people are as brave as you, Colin, frankly. Or coming back.

[55:07] Colin de Picker: Yeah, no, I mean I just feel like, I mean there are thousands of people like me who experienced this. Like thousands, ten thousands, hundreds, thousands of people. And unfortunately some of them really like start to believe this is all just a scam and all these things and they just completely leave, they go to stocks or whatever and then they just do some normal stuff like in the Web2 space. But yeah, and like, which is like what you said, it's really important to focus on those things. And what Vitalik has been saying about like low risk DeFi, but also about like his recent post of the layer twos which like, so I saw so many degens on X who were like misinterpreting what he said and were saying like, oh, L2s are bad, we should like close down. It's a failed project. Yeah, this is why Ethereum price is going down, all this type of nonsense. But most of the normal people read this actually and they believe it. But like to put in perspective, like, basically what Vitalik meant I think is that like the L2s are getting a bit stuck in going to their second phase and they're a bit just too competitive to each other. Like, oh, who is the cheapest gas? Who is this? Who is that? Like the mini Ethereums. But what they should actually do is, and Vitalik kind of uses a marketing principle here. He says, like, you need to focus on your USP, you know, like, what is your unique selling proposition? And that's really important for the layer twos is they should focus each on them, on their own USP and bring that to the customers, bring that to the normies and stop with like focusing on, oh, we are going to be the cheapest one, we are going to be the highly competitive one because it's not necessary because the L1 is keeping on scaling. Vitalik also said like, don't worry, like with the L1 we're keeping the scalability high. Look what we did in the past just focus on this. And that's actually what he meant with a long post, like to keep it in like normal language. And but I think that's what the layer twos for example should focus on. And what you said also with low risk DeFi, that's also another major factor. But all these things make sense and I think Vitalik has been saying quite some good things lately. But it's just people interpret it the wrong way like they usually do.

Closing

[57:11] Bob Summerwill: All righty, well, I'm looking at the clock, we're coming up on the hour, so I think that's probably a good time to leave it. So I shall see you all in Denver next week.

[57:21] Victor Wong: Yes. Playing with Mist on wetland.

[57:28] Kieren James-Lubin: Everyone out there, please. Again, check us out at STRATO. Bridge in big things coming soon. There's the vault, but everything else as well. And also check out Colin's community at Book of Ethereum. Colin, you want to leave a last note?

[57:42] Colin de Picker: Yeah. I mean, first of all, thanks for having me. And, yeah, looking forward to speak to all of you guys again in Denver. I mean, it's been a long time since I see you guys, so, yeah, really looking forward to that. And yeah, let's keep the discussions going further on in Denver. So, thanks for having us.

[57:59] Kieren James-Lubin: Thank you. Bye.

[58:00] Colin de Picker: Bye. Bye. Bye.