Private Money And The Norwood Supremacy: w/ Mert

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00:00 Also, like this idea that criminals are like geniuses that made like the correct choice of the privacy, like the idea that because criminals apparently supposedly use Monero is like makes it better is like I I've always argued like it's actually would be incredibly easy to cause like mass havoc in society. The reason things keep working is basically because smart people who are the people who could really create havoc realize like hey there are better ways to do like oh yeah I could rob a bank and like that would take a lot of effort or I could like go work a job and make a lot more money right and it it wouldn't be as hard I wouldn't incur so much risk etc. So I I just think it's always like pretty stupid to do this idea of like pointing to criminals using it and be like, "Oh, this is like the peak smart

00:46 people who are using it." And then also like you hear about the criminals using Monero and it's not like it's like more like a low-level drug dealer who is using Monero versus like, you know, like uh like what class of criminals, right? Like there are different types of criminals with different like intelligencia levels, >> right? Like the idea the idea that the guy who is reselling Chinese drugs on the darknet market has done any sort of fundamental analysis of the cryptographic proving ability of any of the blockchains that he's using to privately send money and he's like I've selected this one for its cryptographic integrity. It's like that's just obviously [ __ ] right? Like if I describe that to any person. >> Yeah. And by the way, they also use a

01:31 lot of Bitcoin, right? So that is to say [laughter] >> [snorts] >> um it's not like again I'm not the tech side is very clear on this. If you don't believe me, just ask your favorite clanker, okay? Just be like, look at the tech, which one has stronger guarantees of complete privacy. And like one thing that the people, you know, Monero people used to say back in the day is that, well, Zcash is not mandatory privacy. You don't have to use the privacy. And it's like, okay, sure. Yeah, I don't have to use it, but if I do use it, then it's more private. Like, it's as simple as that. [laughter] And so, it goes back to the cipher manifesto of like privacy is just choice. Like it's not some mandatory thing that you must abide by or you're completely outlawed by the [ __ ] uh party by the Bolshevix, whatever. It's privacy is just choice.

02:16 Like my thoughts are private. I can share some of them. I don't have to share all of them. Same with my social media pictures and my files and whatever it might be. Anyway, and then so that comes to my next point, which is I really hate this idea of marketing privacy as a thing for criminals because privacy is not this niche edge thing that should only be available to like people doing sketchy [ __ ] It should privacy first of all needs to scale to the entire planet such that every person on earth has the choice. They don't have to take it. It's up to you what you do with that choice. But you must have that choice, right? like if I I need not all my conversations are private, but I want the option to have private conversations when I meet. But yes, welcome Mert. We're happy to have you on the PLA

03:01 experience. Welcome back to our listeners. Sponsored by Poly Market, Zcash, Citizen X, and Passage Press, our beautiful sponsors. >> Especially Especially Zcash, though. >> Especially Zcash on this episode. Yes. >> M. >> Oh, yeah. >> You're many things. Okay. You're an icon for beautiful bald men everywhere all over the world. Look at that. Can we get some angles? Can we get some Can we get some left right the beautiful dome? Oh my god. >> Um, >> bro, you know, today I found out um Okay, so here's what I did. I took a selfie and I gave it to Claude and I said, "Help, give me a full head of >> All right. [laughter] And then it's like and it's like, you know, it's giving me some all sorts of [ __ ] gas and it's

03:46 like, oh, you're already like handsome and shit." However, one thing that you might find useful is a matte moisturizer because like your when you have a bald head, it just [ __ ] shines and reflects like an like a goddamn like sun. And I I got one and it does work. So when I'm in the sun, it doesn't [ __ ] shine. So that's um >> I thought the bald guys wanted the shiny head. I thought the shiny head was like a kind of a mog. No, but look at his head. It looks It looks like the uh the Apple nanoglass texture where it has that nice diffuse. [laughter] >> Yeah, I thought like you wanted a little bit of a shine. Is that not Is that not the meta? I thought the meta was like >> Look at I'm just Look at his head. It obviously looks better than when they're completely shiny. Like study the results. You don't need to

04:31 >> Are there like different schools of thought here? [laughter] >> Look, you know, it's it's like it's like fashion. Sometimes it's in, sometimes it's out. I I'll tell you one thing though. When you go on TV, they literally powder your [ __ ] ass so it doesn't shine and like distract the viewers. >> Dude, that's that's the proof. That's like all the proof you could ever need. Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah, that's it. That's like the [laughter] pros. That's what the pros do. Whatever the pros do has to be right, >> dude. I think this is looks maxing alpha that I've never seen before. >> This is like a very You do have a good shaped head. Like if you're bald, you need to have a good shaped head. And if you don't have good shaped head, you're >> kind of You have You have a very good skull shape. And there's a lot of people where it's like they're like, "Just shave your head, bro. Just do the Chad thing. You don't have to care about this, bro. It's gay if you care." And

05:17 then they shave it off and they have those like weird wrinkles on the back and they have like a weird fin in the middle of their head. And you're like, man, it's not super Chad. Like you you just look like a prehistoric animal. >> The looks maxing stuff goes super crazy. I bet you could start to see like skull implants give you like a giga Chad skull shape the same way people are doing like jaw implants now. >> What a crazy world. >> Oh, I I never thought of that. That is a good point. But yeah, I mean if you write that off the company, man, that's uh that's that's you know that's like public appearances, right? That's a writeoff, dude. >> Well, no, I'm uh I'm Turkish and my dad's a hairdresser and so that's the he's like every time I go back, what the [ __ ] is this? like he's like, "My entire profession, you're you're making a mockery of me and you're Turkish [laughter] and you're not getting a transplant."

06:03 >> Where there's the old um Have you ever heard that old that old joke that's like there's there's two hairdressers, you know, one of them has a beautiful head of hair and the other's like half balding in a town. It's like which one do you go to and you go to the one who's balding because the other one cuts his hair or you go to the one that's not, you know, that has like the beautiful head of hair and isn't balding. Yeah. >> Um but yes, you're a bald icon. Okay. Fantastic entrepreneur. We'll get into that. But you have recently become a massive proponent of Zcash. How did that happen? How did you end up getting into Zcash? What happened that made you think this is important? Um, you know, tell us a little bit maybe more on like the soft side like why did you get interested in it? We need what we actually are saying is we would like you to explain our sponsor to us because we like that they

06:49 are private [laughter] money and we love ZK proofs in theory but uh >> we may be a little hairy on the details. >> Sure. >> Let's see where to start. Well, okay. So, this is from a time from when obviously I was all in on Salana. I still am all in on Salana. company is the only exclusive provider on Salana for infrastructure trading and everything. One day we I was at this it's called a salon or let's say a mini conference where it's like bio people, physicists and all sorts of different fields. And then from crypto it's really just me and maybe two other guys. I'm not going to name them. And we're we're talking to like professors and talking about some interesting tech

07:34 [ __ ] and and philosophy and science. And it kind of just hit me that I don't have anything that interesting to talk about other than yeah, we're basically putting markets on the internet, giving people access, and there's all sorts of cool things you can talk about in terms of what Salana enables and hyperlquid and whatnot, but fundamentally the aesthetics are a bit lacking. And I I believe they or at least they left me somewhat empty in that okay in 20 years after I spent all this effort because I work literally 20 hours a day every day for at least the past four or five years have absolutely no life after that what am I looking back on right and the ideological part in crypto especially at this time was getting much more

08:19 institutionalized and the altos and all these different things and I was kind of just like what the [ __ ] are we doing here And so you kind of survey the field and you think about the history and you know what what are the things that are required for capitalism civilizational stuff and all this and privacy is the one thing that seemed to me that was ideologically pure extremely important for individuals versus organizations let's say so Orwell has this uh awesome essay called you and the atomic bomb and it basically talks about how everything that's happened in the past in terms of like tyranny versus freedom is about the little guys having some sort of a defense or a weapon

09:05 that's democratized. Um, and so anyway, you put all that stuff together, I'm obviously skipping a few steps and I was like, okay, after chatting with a few people, privacy is the one final frontier of crypto that we have not looked at. It was just kind of brushed aside because we were scared of the feds or whatnot. And um at around the same time actually a few guys from Zcash, Sean Bo who's the co-founder lead dev and a few other folks came to me and asked me about their Zcash scaling plans. This is called Project Tachion. We'll talk about that today. And I looked at it and I was like, "Oh [ __ ] that actually makes a lot of sense. I didn't even think you could scale something like a, you know, a Bitcoin

09:51 similar architecture in any meaningful way. But if you have this plus privacy, then you have a very interesting system that nobody's actually looking at and you just have to tell the story correctly and execute. And so from then on I obviously kept doing research, kept playing with it myself, dove really deep and then I started casually basically bull posting privacy and mentioning all sorts of different things around basically AB testing on Twitter so to speak and that's kind of how I try to bulletproof my ideas or just see where I'm like super [ __ ] and where there's something relatively interesting. And I just I liked the amount of like the types of people who engaged with that type of stuff and the conversations that opened up and so basically just

10:37 started talking more and more and more about it. And then this was around maybe Zcash around $18 or something like this. It was outside the top 100 and now it's obviously doing much better. And what excites me about that is it's still outside the top 10. It's still below [ __ ] Dogecoin and and Tron and all these different things. And I think those have I mean Tron especially has some underrated merit as well. But like private Bitcoin just encrypted money actual private internet cryptographic money right like people always talk about like the industry is called crypto but you're not actually using cryptography to do half the things you need to enable the things that we said we were going to do. And Zcash kind of just um squares a

11:23 circle on all of those. And so that's that's the short answer I guess. >> Yeah. the uh I think all of us were kind of in this position where we got into crypto because of that like the idea of like private money and then gradually as every cycle went on it became more and more clear that it was like okay we've actually built the uh the global financial panopticon like actually every tradi institution really likes blockchains as ledgers and wants to adopt them and it's like wait a second [laughter and snorts] like yeah >> how did this and then and then eventually people start pushing that because they're like it's like oh shill my bags right so you wind up shilling like institutional lack of privacy uh because that's your investment and it

12:09 it just felt very bad like the industry was very confused I think for the last couple of cycles yeah I mean to to give you like a small history I mean to your viewers at least not you but to give like a quick historical crash course here crypto was started uh against the 2008 financial crisis by the cipher punks right? Satoshi and some other folks. And by the way, what one interesting tidbit here is that Satoshi actually cites Zuko in the first ever Bitcoin post. Uh so like this goes back a long time. And so what do the cyber punks do? Well, the cyber punk's literally entire um operating system is we're going to use cryptography and privacy to give liberty back to the individual, right? who are going to

12:54 write open source software whether it's encrypt encryption in terms of network traffic or whatever tools to actually help these people on the internet have some sovereignty right so those are people who started Bitcoin and it says P2P cash and the lack of privacy on Bitcoin is acknowledged on the white paper itself and Satoshi basically says well you would just create a new address fundamentally whenever you're receiving obviously nobody actually does that right and [clears throat] then guys like Hal Finny and Um, and even Satoshi actually if you look at the early forums are talking about, okay, we need to add privacy. You know, if you were able to add ZK systems to enable anonymity, a much better Bitcoin would be possible. This is quote for quote what he actually says on the forums.

13:39 Um, but obviously given the technological limitations at that time because you must remember ZK is quite new tech. >> We should probably explain ZK to people. I think we should explain certainly if we're explaining the history of crypto, they don't know what ZK is. Sure. Uh, ZK just stands for zero knowledge. And I'm not going to get too technical, but fundamentally it just means you can prove something happened or something is true or something is false without revealing the contents of that something. Right? For example, one example might be something like I can tell I can prove to you that I'm over 18. Just look at my head. Right? But you don't need to see my ID. Right? Now, obviously, you could be a bald kid, so it's not like the perfect example. Um, I think something like that. I've always heard conceptually, imagine

14:24 you're playing Where's Waldo and you're really frustrated and you like go to the guy who made the book, you know, if you're familiar with where Waldo, you got to find the little guy with a hat and then you're like, he's not on this [ __ ] page. You're [ __ ] with me. And what the guy does is he takes the book and only the book behind a piece of cardboard and he cuts out a tiny hole that's only as big as Waldo. and then showing you that he only goes behind there with a book. He places the book against the hole such that you can only see Waldo through, but you don't have enough context of everything that's around him. So, you can't figure out where he is. And so, you still have to go back and and be frustrated. You don't know where he is, but you know that he's on the piece of paper, right? And so, the idea is you can disclose some information without disclosing other information that you would normally need to disclose that information. You could say, "Hey, I'm over 18 without saying, oh, you know, I am whatever age, right?

15:10 Or you could say, "Oh, I'm over six feet tall," you know, without saying, "Oh, I'm however exactly tall," right? Is kind of the the broad idea of ZK. >> Yeah. >> My my example, I guess, is from the KYC side where it's like you can say you can input your passport into your phone and then if you need to serve proof of residency, like proof that you live in the US without giving them access to your passport, right? You now don't have to expose your identity, but you can prove that you are a citizen of this country and you are of this age and so on so forth. Yeah, probably the easiest one is like I can prove to you that I I know how to enter like this locked store without giving me the keys and the way is I just take I just go inside and wave to you, right? Like you know I can get in. I'm not going to give you the key though, >> right? So anyway, um that tech ZK was

15:58 not the mathematics behind it existed but it wasn't really productionized in this context at that time and not for a few years after and so it was primarily a technological limitation right and so anyway a few years after Zcash came to be and it's a fork of Bitcoin it mimics the same tokconomics um it has a transparent side to it as well but then you can shield your coins and make private with zero knowledge proofs. Um, so like the the way I I always tell the story is at first we needed to prove that Bitcoin could even work like this [ __ ] random weird internet magical money people would actually like buy it and sell it and hold it and use it for whatever, right? That was number one and that took a long

16:44 time and it it went through all sorts of regulatory battles and you know uh people used to say well it's just for criminals and moneyaundering and and so then Bitcoin people would say no no it's actually completely transparent as if it's like a desirable future. Um and by the way if you go to uh the Bitcoin Twitter account today it literally says trackable digital gold. So it's like core in that messaging. [snorts] Okay, people kind of forget about this, but anyways, like when I I' I'd watch like the Blacklist or something on TV and be like, "Oh, send me Bitcoin." And it's like this terrorist. And I'm like, "Are you retarded?" Like you you literally that is the worst possible way to do crime [clears throat] because it's completely trackable. Anyway, uh but that was the social kind of perception of of

17:29 >> Yeah. I I think um >> I mean you know you mentioned the cipher punk mailing list and the cippher punk mailing list kind of says what you you were saying and you a little bit alluded to this when you mentioned the the nuclear weapons stuff right is like there's this idea that technology changed right encryption technology basically what the cyber punk list was really more than crypto the cyber punk list started because there was this idea that hey encryption is going to become public and the math behind encryption is very very hard to censor and so we'll have a push back of power where the individual become more powerful visav the state right because the individual can now send private communications and then that became hey we can do money but yeah you know like you mentioned Satoshi Halini etc all of them from the very beginning they wanted I think a lot of

18:14 the early stuff even mentioned private internet money not just not just internet money or not just you know money that was not controlled or emitted by the state etc but it specifically mentioned private I think over time there were regulatory constraints And like you say, you know, maybe some of the Bitcoin people played that cynically to make it more easy for the government to be like, oh yeah, we'll we'll let this happen because it is trackable. And you know, maybe that was good at the time or that was bad. You know, that can kind of be discussed back and forth. But yeah, very much like it does follow the original vision of, hey, what what are we actually trying to build beyond like Bitcoin as a specific asset that it is? Why is it that this is being created, right? And it's it's not just, I think, about having a hard cap or anything like that. I think a lot of it is about privacy and self- sovereignty of of

19:00 capital. >> Yeah, certainly sovereignty and then like okay to summarize this we had to make Bitcoin legitimate and get people interested in like believing that an alternative currency on the internet was possible. Okay. And then Vitalic came and said well actually this is cool but I want to make it programmable. So that's where Ethereum came from. And then Antoli came and said okay that's fine but you can't do much with it if it's not usable at scale. And so then the technological civilization tree so to speak went from Bitcoin to Ethereum to Salana. But then everybody kind of forgot about that last part. And then by the way all those other blockchains inherited that lack of privacy and that built-in transparency as a core thing. So obviously Salon is not private uh which we're working on at Helius and

19:46 Ethereum is not private and all these different things. I mean you know Tornado Cash kind of tried with within a limited kind of constraint there and then went to jail for it. Um and um anyway, so then you put all those things together and you're like, okay, this is the last kind of technological civilization tree branch that is super underdeveloped, but that has a thousandx left in terms of attention impact and techn technological and product development left in it. And so it feels like the obvious thing to work on if you're an entrepreneur or if you're a contrarian or you just like working on or you just wanted to follow through on the original vision of crypto. >> Yeah. And then like so so you kind of

20:31 spoke to some people, you saw some stuff online. Do you think I I think that there's like a very interesting culture around the Zcash and it's kind of interesting how like you know you have some other options you have like Monero there's some other stuff some other people that are trying to do privacy. I think culturally it's very interesting to see the differences between these people. Um where to me it's like just obviously clear that like the gigachad option is Zcash. I've always thought this this is kind of like um and it's always funny when people say like oh this is like the intelligence community or whatever and it just like put one of these you know like people are like oh dude Zcash is like like MSAD is in on Zcash and it's like you know not true but like it's very funny it's like that is just very gig giga chatable like it's just so

21:16 gigachad quote tweetable like [laughter] like do you want your privacy coin to be the most backed one or do you want it to not the msadbacked one. It's like, dude, obviously the msadbacked one. Like, which, you know, which of these things is does the gigachad say? And it's just always Zcash is always that one. Um I I really like the culture, I think, around um the the people who who do Zcash. >> All right, I'll go [laughter] for it. Yeah, the MSA stuff is funny. Um I I don't quite know. I mean like for example uh it doesn't use I'm not going to go into the tech here but like the ZK used for Zcash's uh orchard pool which is the one everybody uses does not require trusted setup um and it's open source code and so like find me the back

22:03 door bro like just look at the code point your fable mythos GPT 5.6 Is that it? >> Is it mythos? This is another We have a We have a fairly consistent thing where we mispronounce all words because we've only read it on the internet. >> I We're both likely internet kids. >> I've been saying mythos, >> right? Surely. >> But again, it's like I've only read it on the internet. Never said this word to me. So, >> it's I mean, I'm an immigrant, so I wouldn't uh I >> But you're also around people who might say this word in in person, right? like you are around other software developers who presumably use this. >> I wouldn't count on software developers doing social sciences [laughter] correctly. Um I I have no idea. Uh I'll

22:50 just call it Claus's latest [ __ ] thing. Um, anyway, point it at this project and let me know where you see the Jews. And then if you can show me proof, >> I will gladly [laughter] >> I will gladly [snorts] >> open source >> Israel. Open source Jews. They're in there. >> It's just It's so funny to me. There's that one uh green text about like Japanese people like read all these like Nazi texts about Jewish people and uh they were like, "Holy [ __ ] this is based like we got to learn from these guys [laughter] and uh it's just it's always so funny to me." Um so about the the Fable thing, a little bit of elephant in the room. I think by the time this episode comes

23:35 out, hopefully the the news will be public and everything will be public. Do you want to give us a rundown on there was not an exploit but there was to my understanding some researchers pointed some version of the latest LM. So Fable they had access to cyber security permissioned version of Fable through anthropic as well as kind of some worldclass researchers and they said hey look there is a possibility that there was an exploit. I think there's a strong possibility just given kind of price action that it is very unlikely that this happened from people who are super aware of these things and understand. Do you want to maybe give us like at first the rundown on like what happened and second like what efforts are happening to validate that nothing did go wrong secondly and then thirdly where that's

24:22 at right if if we have any conclusions or anything preliminary that's come out. >> Sure. In terms of what happened, um I would say so Zcash has a few new core teams, especially as the project's gotten bigger over the past year and a half. There's been an influx of it already had really world-class cryptographers, but just more keep coming in. And [clears throat] so there's more than one core team. There's Valor, there's Tachion, there's Shielded Labs, there's Zodel, there is Ccash Foundation. So like there was quite a few teams and they basically all said like look okay AI keeps getting more advanced and you know there's all these hacks happening. Let's ramp up all resources to audit the hell out of our

25:07 [ __ ] and and you know bulletproof and and and whatever these things for when the AI systems do come. So they started hiring more and more security researchers, more auditors, more formal verifiers, all these different things. And one of those guys who's one of the most knowledgeable people on Zcash on Earth found a vulnerability, right? And then that vulnerability in theory would have allowed for you to mint Zcash in the Orchard pool. Now, there was all sorts of fake news around this like, oh, you can just mint an infinite amount of Zcash. You actually can't do that. What would happen is that single orchard pool would be insolvent. So a turn style would be triggered which guarantees that um what went in cannot

25:55 or what went out cannot be more than what went in to keep supply integrity, >> right? And so that pool assuming somebody just minted infinite amount and then took it out >> would allow the attacker to kind of race out to the exits before honest people in that pool. And so that pool would be insolvent anyway. So that was patched. Okay. And um obviously there was a lot of misrepresentation. Some people didn't know the privacy trade-off versus verifiability trade-off for supply when it comes to these things. And we're fairly certain no exploit happened just given if you look at the shielded pool's numbers over time in terms of increase amounts um in terms of the price action in terms of all the

26:40 characteristics of like okay when you announce that it's actually fixed and that there's going to be a force migration soon you would presumably head for the exits before you never can do that again and all these different things. Anyway, um so to counteract that, >> the Zcash core guys came up with a new shielded pool. This was called Ironwood, which is an incredible name. Um for many reasons. Um and so what what will happen is the the pools from Orchard will go to Ironwood, which will ensure since um the turn style won't trigger. This is the optimal case that no exploit had happened. But much much more important than this,

27:26 Ironwood is formally verified which means it's mathematically sound and proven to eliminate the same class of counterfeit bugs in the future. Right? So you can mathematically prove that this cannot happen to risk the integrity of the supply going forward. And then you know um other folks used uh mythos or however the hell you call it and the latest GPT models. So we can we know how to pronounce fable hopefully. >> Yes. >> Right. We can all agree. >> Fable. Yeah. There. Okay. Fable. Uh and um Fab [laughter] and >> Fab. Yeah. >> Uh anyway, so those audits all show that okay, there's no more exploits, there's no more vulnerabilities. This is mathematically proven to not have the

28:11 same class of bugs. And as a bonus, they also added quantum recoverability in there. So you obviously you've heard about all the drama around Bitcoin's quantum readiness. Well, Zcash will be quantum recoverable in the Ironwood upgrade uh in one week, right? Uh in in in early July um 20 28th, maybe something like this or 18th, I don't remember. But >> by the time this episode, >> probably already quantum recoverable. >> Yeah. And so, and then finally, there's two other things there. They're also adding um they came up with this new node implementation called Zakura, which basically makes Zcash faster. It speeds up block times. It reduces sync time. So

28:57 you finally have a performant version of Zcash and the pool that's coming after that will be it basically gets rid of a bunch of complicated math and makes it much simpler and with that you basically come to a place where Zcash is now mathematically and provably sound. It's much simpler to reason about and reduces a ton of different uh categories of security bugs. It's faster. It's completely quantum proof. is performance and it's unstoppable private money. >> So, we're getting the whole package here. It's just everything. See, I was uh I don't know. I was just vibes based longing on that selloff down to like 270 250 or whatever. Uh we were out at

29:42 dinner. There were a lot of people out there. I'm not going to say who, but there were a lot of people out there panicking over the Zcash price. And [laughter] I was over there with uh >> I don't I don't know if you know Getty uh >> but he was uh we were both just like shipping longs like every time it went down [laughter] because at a certain point it was just like this this candle is too big and too red, right? Like it can't like this has to be a capitulation with especially now because like I don't know I don't know if you noticed things have kind of changed since the ETFs. We no longer get like those flash wicks on majors where you get like a flash wick and then it'll it'll like uh slam up and everybody gets liquid liquidated and then you kind of like recover again. It's just this horrifying gradual descent like you just get ground down.

30:28 When they send stuff down, it's just a march of everything. And uh when you actually do see that liquidation wick, it's almost always just like you can kind of just buy now. Like this has to be the bottom, right? because this isn't like it it was a it was just forced liquidation and you ran out of everyone who you ground down. I don't know. >> So that was my thesis. >> Yeah. Um yeah. I mean I I I'm not good at the chart [ __ ] but you know thank you Mr. President for the winning on all the crashes. >> Like the way I think about it is very simple. Uh it's very left curve. I look at the valuation. I look at what's coming. I look at the fundamentals and physics of it and I'm like how the hell is this thing at $7 billion? Like how is this not even like a percent or like a

31:14 meaningful share of Bitcoin or even Ethereum or even Salon? Like it's just nothing. It's just so small and if you look at the types of people who are getting involved with it um they're the right types of people like the physics and the incentives work. It's super simple to meme and like what kind of man does not want privacy in his money? Like that's just kind of weird to me. Weird behavior. Um, so I I hope this is such a great outflank game. Normally people are like this public kind of weird what kind of weird thing are you trying to do that you need private money for? But you're like no dude you don't you don't want privacy like what are you a total loser freak? Like what is wrong with that's such a great I was also going to say like you also did the brilliant uh did you notice

32:01 he did like he he didn't even do the Curtis Jarvin thing. So the Curtis Jarvin approach to arguments is like you go like, "Well, I think this policy decision made in 2025 is like really bad. We should undo that." He goes, "Well, you see, it all started in 1776. That's the root of uh the entire problem you're discussing." He just like mogs you by going back 250 years. >> He's like, "Yeah, the problem is not the problem is not this stupid thing that happened a month ago. The problem is that you instituted a representative democracy instead of a monarchy. That's the problem." [laughter] >> Yeah. The problem is when he signed the Magna Carta uh in England like and so you you kind of did this at the very beginning when you were like yeah so Satoshi actually uh credits Zuko in like

32:46 the first like Bitcoin. >> We forgot to mention that Zuko is Zcash guy though. So there's a lot of people listening who might not know that but that >> they might not know who Zuko is. They should follow him on Twitter. Great great guy, great poster. >> Um brilliant cryptograph does that have a lot. Yeah, I was uh I was at a I I forget what it was. Some some sort of an event with him and then we're talking about Adaturk who was like the founding father of Turkey. I'm like, you know, I'm trying to tell him about him and he's like, "Oh, no, no, yeah, I know exactly." And he tells me all these [ __ ] facts that I I supposed to I was supposed to have learned in school in Turkey and I just I was like, "Oh, I didn't know he did that. What the fuck?" >> Turkish. >> He just gets the historical high ground on you every every time. But no, I agree. I honestly my my thing on Zcash

33:32 is very similar to you. Like I think privacy is going to be a great narrative. I think it's like the the missing piece in a lot of ways for a lot of things. Um so I'm generally bullish privacy. I think it remains to be seen what what trade-offs are going to happen in the regulatory space. I think something that is super hard pro privacy is always going to be a great shelling point and then you'll have maybe something a little bit more usable and so Zcash kind of really fits that shelling point of like more pure privacy. Um, and then I think um, I think for me it was very similar to you. It was like left curve. It was like we we talk about this a lot on the podcast where like it's it's very hard to get things right all the time, but there is like a group of people who somehow are able to get everything wrong all the time. Like it's it's much harder and and

34:18 you would think that these things would be equally difficult, but like they clearly >> you can go on a hot streak where you're right about everything for like 6 months or like eight months or something, but it's like you can't really you're never hot forever, right? But you can be cold forever. [laughter] >> You can be wrong. There are people who are wrong on everything, right? >> Um and it's just like all those people >> were bare posting Zcash. Uh and this was like a year or two years ago. And so I was just like immediately became very very interested in it because I was like I I have a couple like people that I monitor what they say and I just immediately become interested in like the inverse of whatever they're doing. >> Yeah. They're like our anti-indicators. It's like Twitter list. Like uh >> I much prefer the anti-indicator. >> Beacons of alpha and then it's like

35:03 people who have just been wrong about every single thing they've ever said [laughter] in the >> dude. And the thing is I I just much prefer like the anti-indicator to the pro-indicator because Lucas and I recently met like a very famous like incredibly famous Twitter allocator. Okay, we we won't say who it was but we met super recently like a week ago. Um and this guy is just a total coin flipper. Like we we start asking like why so why do you make the choices you make? And this person's just like, "Yeah, man. I just, you know, like what do I have to lose? Like why not just go long? Like what what could I possibly lose if I just go turbo long, man?" And I'm like, like I'm just leaving and I'm [ __ ] horrified after leaving this like meeting. And I'm like just [ __ ]

35:48 horrified. It's like, dude, like holy [ __ ] this is your investment criteria is like >> I was watching all like an existential crisis as he realized that like uh it's like this person has 200 times my net worth >> and he achieved it >> achieved it by being right on five coin flips and he doesn't know that that's what happened like he thinks that this was all values-based fundamental analysis [laughter] >> yeah I thought this was like >> some deep [ __ ] secret sauce >> it's like the teal thing uh I I don't know if he says this on the Rogen show or some [ __ ] where he's like it's like California and Saudi Arabia where it's like you can just get one thing right which is tech and then just completely else and it just makes up for everything else or like >> doesn't matter >> Saudi Arabia it's like you just have the

36:33 oil and it's like you can make whatever wrong decision you want but if you have the oil it makes up for the rest and so that >> well famously Elon has the poker strategy where he'll just all in you and then reby and then all in you and then reby and then all in you again and reby so I get you know if you have enough coins, coin flipping is actually a legitimate strategy. But I think for for most of us, you know, >> or if you're very lucky. >> Yeah. Or or if you're turbo, I always say this like one of the big aspects of modernity is there's so much volatility in everything like in markets and career and whatnot that you kind of have to accept and like be at peace with the fact that people that just have like a higher risk appetite than you uh like the the main thing that drives how much money you make nowadays I think over anything else is your risk appetite

37:18 almost for sure, right? right? In terms of like the career you're picking, if you're trading or your investment, etc., right? It's like how much risk are you willing to take on more than anything else? Like more than if you're smart or you put in the hours, right? It's just like are you willing to, you know, trade memory stocks on earnings day? Um, [laughter] you know, dude, you see 3% of every single adult in Korea got liquidated. [laughter] >> No way. Is that a real stat? Yes, it's a realistude. 3% of the population >> of the adult population of South Korea got liquidated the other day, dude. [laughter] >> That's pretty impressive. Holy crap. >> Just like this is like a test of the first level, >> right? Like this isn't like this isn't like, oh, we've experienced a big

38:03 sell-off. It's like, [ __ ] they've they've dumped us back one month, right? They've dumped us back to [laughter] May. Like, >> dude, this country is insane. And like I always just think that like Korea is like ahead of us like in terms of in terms of like gender war they're ahead of us in terms of look maxing they're they're like ahead of the west in generally I think >> um >> oh we haven't talked about the way that they're probably beating us on the gambling indicator too huh >> yeah they're beating us on gam like it's it's thing is going to become gambling >> which means that that's what we're going to do oh my god >> you're going to have like your grandmother's going to be like slamming you know like calls on earnings day or something. It'll be crazy. >> You know, I never uh I went to Korea once uh and I didn't see a single bald

38:48 guy and I think that was the only place I ever been there was just zero bald people. I was the only They were looking at me like I'm I'm some sort of [ __ ] like triad member or I don't know what [ __ ] mafia they had. >> Was it good for you? Like were they like >> I like this were they like he's an alien. We've got to stay away. >> It's hard to say, you know? I I don't like being stared at too much and they were just staring but like You know, I the person I was with at the time was like, "You look like a she it was like a crazy mix. It was like a you look like a gang member." And I was like, "Both of them at the same time. Holy shit." [laughter] >> So, [snorts] not amazing. >> You could walk up to them cuz the the Asians really they're not a huge fan of like being hairy, you know? They like clean shaven everything. But like you

39:35 sort of inverted it, >> right? Like they have the up top and then the down. So you could walk up to them and say like you guys are all really hairy here. Like is that a And I think they'd probably be really offended. [laughter] >> Like the hearkinins and Dune that that's what you want. That's the ideal look. >> I wonder. >> So >> do you always do the beard or is that something that that came about later? >> Uh it I mean I took it like so one day I was already balding somewhat. I think maybe I was 25 or something. >> You did the I'm shaving it off meme. >> Yeah. And I was watching uh The Transporter, maybe Jason Stad movie, right? >> Yes. >> And I looked at him. I was like, >> I was like, you know, this guy's pretty

40:21 [ __ ] good-looking. Like may maybe I could kind of get there, whatever. So I just went to the washroom and I just >> shaved that off. And then at first I was like, oh god, this is horrible. I look like a [ __ ] egg. I'm dying. I'm only 25. What is this? Mortal existential crisis. All this stuff. Read some nichi. Uh, and then um the the beer started coming in a bit more and then I was like, >> actually this is an okay look. Uh, because people think I'm much older than I am, >> which for a guy is actually relatively preferable. >> Dude, I've always done that where if I Dude, if I shave off my stubble, I always have like a little bit of stubble. If I shave that off, I look like >> I look like a minor straight up. It's It's like it's it's very bad. Um, so I would always like for work

41:07 reasons I would always leave a little bit of stuff. >> To be fair, listen, I must interrupt here. SA I mean SA's not on camera right now and he won't be when we post the episode, but SA's like I look like a minor. It's like SA's one year out of being a minor. >> The age just keeps going. Like the age that Lucas keeps uh keeps hinting that I am just goes down exponentially. >> We're gradually going to be like four. >> This is the plausibly deniable podcast. the podcast where I talk to my 15year-old friend >> in a totally about about sex and gender related subjects. [laughter] [snorts] >> Here we go. >> Dude, we're going to be one year in and I'm going to be like 16 years old. Uh, okay. I wanted to go back to I wanted to go back to the thing you were saying

41:52 about how you you decided on uh you basically liked Zcash because you liked the privacy narrative because you you did uh like you zoomed out and you analyzed your aesthetic as like a person and you said this is a bad like I don't have I don't have that edge, right? Like I don't have the the privacy edge. Uh I don't have the like I don't know it's like the the core belief thing, right? like you were showing value propositions and you looked at it and said like but this isn't like it doesn't have heart and added that back in. So this is like the funniest possible way that I've heard of anyone to get into another thing, right? Like people always say like how do I pick a hobby or like how do I figure out what I'm interested in?

42:37 And this might actually just be the best way like look at yourself and say uh what do I feel that my character is lacking if I were like on a sitcom or something like that? How am I how am I like low spec? Uh >> but it's more like >> go for it. It's it's more like um like if I were to whatever if I didn't have a Russian girlfriend and I could actually retire with the money I have uh without having to replenish all of it all the time. Um what would I actually work on that I wouldn't I wouldn't get bored by and that I would think is important enough to just warrant all types of brain power and and um effort, right? And it just felt to me like if

43:22 you work on this thing then by the time you're whatever dead at 70 80 or 150 hopefully uh with with some of these peptides um then like what what how would I make sure that I didn't regret what I worked on? And this just felt like the obvious answer to me. And there's all sorts of different [ __ ] you can do like robotics and whatever but like where do I actually have edge where I know what I'm talking about? Blockchiness and crypto math. um the ideological aspects of like privacy and stuff and so I was like okay this is just very obvious. So you I I mean presumably you looked at all of the available options, right? Like you you're not saying it, but to me I'm reading uh >> Oh yeah. >> And maybe maybe we can cut this out, I

44:08 guess, if it becomes too hostile. But to me, what you're saying right now is you looked at all the available privacy options and there's a reason that you are not shilling XMR right now, right? Like there's a reason you're not shilling Monero. There's a reason that you're not shilling any of the other privacy coins or chains or anything else. Uh, >> and that is why sort of you can what? >> I can go with July if you want. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean I I'm because this is a big you know the Zcash versus Monero thing is something that I've largely made as a vibesbased decision and based on the fact that like I just like ZK and the fact that they I mean correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they literally invent ZK? >> They were the first productionized system of ZK. So yes, uh, Snark specifically. >> And in terms of, okay, uh, I'm not going

44:55 to do the thing where I'm like just completely talking [ __ ] about them. So I'll I'll try to do it in somewhat of a personal perspective here. So, okay, there's the tech side, there's the ideological side, and there's all sorts of other factors. If you just look at the tech and nothing else but the tech, then I think it's an absolute no-brainer. Because here's here's how to think about it. uh Zcash completely uh encrypts all the information. There is zero information leakage, right? When I uh let's say I sent you some uh shielded Zach on your wallet, whatever, you don't see from who to who, you don't see the amount, you see nothing, right? What Monero does with ring signatures is it obiscates. So, you know that game where you have like three red solo cups

45:40 and then you have one ball and then you kind of shuffle them around and you're like, "Okay, show me where the ball is." >> Yeah. Yeah, >> that's pretty much how that system works. You just try to hide real thing amongst in Monero's case 15 other things, but that 15 can actually be reduced to six. So six other things and you're just trying to hope that basically you offiscated enough such that it can't be traced. >> So you can basically always trace out a potentiality of transactions, right? Like you can also fractal from Okay. Yeah. >> Yeah. and and and like you can see why this is a problem with AI and computers just getting much more uh advanced over time because you will be able to kind of figure out these patterns over time and there's all like there's like three four five uh tracing companies dedicated to

46:26 doing just that right and so there's a lot of I'm not going to say it's not private it is private but like the level of privacy guarantees that I'm getting I want complete peace of mind I don't want probabilistic peace of mind >> so from a tech perspective It's to me it's not even close, right? Um, but then there's other types of it like I that that was enough to actually just get me started, but there's other parts of it, right? Like when you're basically just saying things like, well, all the criminals use such and whatever. Well, okay, so to do the Jarvin thing, there's a historical reason for that. Um, one is that Zcash, first of all, didn't even work for like the first like five, six years because ZK tech again extremely novel. It was extremely hard to work with. It was very slow, wasn't it? Like the the proof was just mega

47:12 slow. So it's like we can do this thing, but now your offiscated transaction takes 9 years to load and nobody cares. >> Extremely slow. Um the integrations with like the developers and the all these different systems super clunky. It was just a nightmare to work with. And similar to like how for example Tron has really good PMF in certain parts of the world. It's not that it's faster than Salana. It's that for that niche it started at the right time and then that kind of just kept going off with network effects. That's the reason why right it's not that you know criminals somehow know technology or math better than mathematicians. It's that they did right timing and great go to market at that time. Okay. So that's the historical reason. But the

47:57 >> I think it's also like this idea that criminals are like geniuses that made like the correct choice of the privacy like the idea that because criminals apparently supposedly use Monero is like makes it better is like I I've always argued like it's actually would be incredibly easy to cause like mass havoc in society. The reason things keep working is basically because smart people who are the people who could really create havoc realize like hey there are better ways to do like oh yeah I could rob a bank and like that would take a lot of effort or I could like go work a job and make a lot more money right and it it wouldn't be as hard I wouldn't incur so much risk etc. So I I just think it's always like pretty stupid to do this idea of like pointing to criminals using it and be like, "Oh,

48:42 this is like the peak smart people who are using it." And then also like you hear about the criminals using Monero and it's not like it's like more like a low-level drug dealer who is using Monero versus like, you know, like uh like what class of criminals, right? Like there are different types of criminals with different like intelligencia levels, >> right? Like the idea the idea that the guy who is reselling Chinese drugs on the darknet market has done any sort of fundamental analysis of the cryptographic proving ability of any of the blockchains that he's using to privately send money and he's like I've selected this one for its cryptographic integrity. It's like that's just obviously [ __ ] right? Like if I describe that to any person.

49:27 >> Yeah. And by the way, they also use a lot of Bitcoin, right? So that is to say [laughter] um it's not like again I'm not the tech side is very clear on this. If you don't believe me, just ask your favorite clanker, okay? Just be like, look at the tech, which one has stronger guarantees of complete privacy. And like one thing that the people, you know, Monero people used to say back in the day is that, well, Zcash is not mandatory privacy. You don't have to use the privacy. And it's like, okay, sure, yeah, I don't have to use it, but if I do use it, then it's more private. Like, it's as simple as [laughter] that. And so, it goes back to the cypher manifesto of like privacy is just choice. Like it's not some mandatory thing that you must abide by or you're completely outlawed by the [ __ ] uh party by the Bolshevix,

50:12 whatever. It's privacy is just choice. Like my thoughts are private. I can share some of them. I don't have to share all of them. Same with my social media pictures and my files and whatever it might be. Anyway, and then so that comes to my next point, which is I really hate this idea of marketing privacy as a thing for criminals because privacy is not this niche edge thing that should only be available to like people doing sketchy [ __ ] It should privacy first of all needs to scale to the entire planet such that every person on earth has the choice. They don't have to take it. It's up to you what you do with that choice. But you must have that choice, right? like if I I need not all my conversations are private, but I want the option to have private conversations when I meet, right? And

50:57 >> well, it's just obviously it's obviously totally [ __ ] if any party has complete access to all of your transactions because at some point you may do something important that can now get front, right? Like it's just a very basic like you've now turned your life into a prediction market if everyone can see everything that you do. And that's like it's like I don't even have to make like a moral case about this. It's just it's financially nonviable for this to be how a market operates, >> right? We don't even have this, right? Like if I go if I go and I invest in your company, >> uh you you just the average person cannot see this, right? Like it's not like we post the cap table on Twitter. Like [laughter] >> yeah, >> we do cap table on Twitter, but we choose to do it. We we choose [laughter]

51:42 to do it for the club. >> Well, the guy the guy gets kicked out of the cap table after he posts it, right? But like [snorts] >> it's just like this thing where uh that's like a general crypto thing where crypto today is fundamentally worse than the existing system because even the existing system gives you some privacy guarantees like only your bank can see it but not everybody on earth like I don't want people I don't want when I pay for my Starbucks whatever my barista knowing oh this guy goes to Turkey a lot to get a bunch of hair transplant that keeps failing right like >> like get out of my business. Okay. >> Yes. >> Um and uh it's also a network effect. People miss this. People don't quite conceptualize it, but like let me paint to you a scenario. Okay, assume you use Bitcoin and you've practiced perfect offset, whatever. You use a new wallet for all this [ __ ] and you've been doing

52:27 it for 10 years, whatever, and you've interacted with all these different people. Okay, you slip up once, just once or you just interact with somebody who has slipped up. Then the people watching the third party, the chain analysis of the world now know that entire transaction graph. Oh, like Mert transacts with this person because I know this is Mert now. Well, Mert has these friends. He has interacted with these people in the past. Let me make a few calls and understand which exchange that belongs to. And so you have now completely unmasked everything because it kept compounding over the years. And so you have exponentially new information rather than just this one new piece of information, right? So the network effect, right? And I can find the people who have the most money. And >> honest with people that have horrible

53:12 objects. So I need this, man. I transact with people that cannot keep a secret for their [ __ ] lives, okay? They can't keep uh anything, man. They can't keep a secret under like the lowest pressure ever from a FOID, okay? If the if the Feds ever come after them, it's over, man. It's completely over. >> It's also a great option against FODs. If you uh if you think you're going to get divorced or something, just encrypt some of that money. like uh good luck. Good luck finding a sweetheart. >> Official >> adviceable experience podcast. [laughter] >> Commit commit divorce asset fraud. >> Man with Russian girlfriend/wife. [laughter] >> Dude, it's so epic to think of a guy getting divorced and like the cop is like pointing the gun at him like we know you have Zeke as he's like [ __ ] kill me. I have the private key in my

53:58 head. Like kill me you bastard. You won't do it. Like [laughter] it's just so it's so epic that you're like kill me. I don't care. >> The other thing >> can you do so you you can't do too much smart contract stuff with with Zcash, right? >> Yeah. You can't >> an idea. >> Yeah. Sorry. uh you you can't do smart contract stuff and that's by design because smart contracts expose you to all sorts of trade-off between provability and and that I I do think like doing DeFi with Zcash as an asset would be super super compelling. Do you know if anyone is is doing anything like this? >> Um well yeah not on Zcash as an infrastructure layer but using Zcash as an asset. >> Yeah. Yeah, I am. Uh so okay well

54:43 there's a few efforts on this. So, I legitimately did not That sounds like such a disgusting turbo shill. I legitimately did not know you were doing this. >> Um, [laughter] well, we listed Zcash, as you might have seen. Now, it's you can trade with it on near, right? Like you can uh go from Zcash to any other chain. Like my favorite use case of Zcash is like if you shield it in your uh zodal wallet whatever you can pay in any currency on any chain and it's like this little Swiss bank account on the cloud that you can just you nobody knows how much you have but you can just pay on whatever chain and just one click. Um anyway, so but once you enable that like the bridging of it to other chains, you can then start to use it because the store value as credit for all sorts of other

55:29 things, right? So you bridge it to let's say our new privacy protocol on Salana with Helius. Okay. So now you could and and we we're going to add light clients by the way, meaning you can actually um without even bridging, you can just shield some funds on Zcash, generate a proof, and then you can take money against it. And so you can start doing DeFi with Zcash as your collateral basically as your credit um on on Salana uh and probably other chains, but Salana is the only one that matters to me. you know, something something kind of weird about uh the whole Zcash thesis, and I'm sure you've run into this now, but you were saying like, "Yeah, I I like the I like the privacy narrative." Uh, but the problem with that with normal people is, as we were saying

56:15 before, normal people do not understand that Bitcoin isn't private. Because there have been a ton of these videos about cryptocurrency where they have like some criminal gang that gets busted and they're like they then they use the voice changer and they have some guy saying like I'm sending you the encrypted Bitcoin on the darknet web transaction. The untraceable cryptocurrencies are in your wallet. And then so normal people all just think that this [ __ ] is all uh completely private and then you have to go back and explain that actually Bitcoin is more public than like a bank transaction is. And they often don't believe you. Like they think that you're some sort of like a cryptocurrency criminal trying to explain that actually uh no actually you should let my crime be legal, right? Like they think that you're coping and it's like no it's a public like you can

57:01 go to a block scanner and view every single transaction and they're like yeah dude I don't know. And then you you show them the block scanner and they're like it's like a nice hosted CSV file, man. Like what is what does any of this prove? and you realize like there's actually no way to to show a normal mom that [snorts] this is all public. Yeah, it's uh that's a very good point. Uh it's something I want to bring up actually, which is to say, yeah, you're absolutely correct. Oh, I sound like a [ __ ] claw there. Oh, you're absolutely right. Um but um you're you're you're correct in that that is a very valid um let's say hole in like the the how to think about this. And so like the way I think about this is privacy is not the thing that's um it's not the

57:48 main thing. Privacy is kind of the wedge, but fundamentally the thing it's a store of value that's internet native, right? It's just better Bitcoin. That's how I think of it. >> [snorts] >> Um, so for example, like there's obviously like if you had the choice where where you can have your regular Bitcoin or encrypted Bitcoin, why would you not choose the one where you can also encrypt it? Like what is what are you actually losing there? It's just completely it makes no sense to just uh you know uh scam yourself out of that convenience of being able to shield your [ __ ] right? Okay, there's another thing here which is fungeability, right? With any sort of digital money, whether it's banking or crypto, if something has a history of

58:35 some a providence attached to it, then you lose fungeibility and the liquidity of that asset because for example, you can say, well, this came from the Canadian trucker donations. I'm not going to allow you to do anything with that money. You're not allowed to offer rampit. So, it's not truly truly funible in the same way that cash would be, right? Cash has no history attached. If you just give it to somebody, they accept it. And so a truly uh internet native store of value must have privacy to enable the store of value component of it to begin with, right? And so the idea of Zcash is just freedom money, right? It's just money that's internet native. It's internet gold. And privacy is the one thing or one of the things that helps support that narrative, but

59:20 it's not the entire narrative in and of itself, right? I hadn't thought about the fungeability thing because there are like it is actually like a supply issue where you can now have I mean how many I don't know how many ether got burned during the period when they were saying oh this has been tornado cash but it's like you effectively cannot offramp those ether because there was there was a privacy tumbling protocol essentially where it would uh it would obiscate who was sending the uh the crypto to another person and if you tried to offramp that like Coinbase or something, it would say, "Oh, this has been through the tornado cash router. You can't use this money. Like, this money is banned." It's like if you had a $100 bill and you go and you hand it to the cashier and the

1:00:05 cashier goes, "This was previously used in a criminal transaction. Get [ __ ] It doesn't work." And you're like, "Whoa, >> right. >> I I like I didn't" And there's no there's no uh like this it has this designation forever, right? Once the the block has that designation, it carries it for everything going forward. So if I tornado cash the money and then I give it to SA and then SA gives it to Mert and then at some point someone purely hypothetical. >> Yes. But but if this happens now that person is like well but I like I maybe they received this as like a contract payment for like a legitimate job they did, right? and they just find out that it's like I've been given funny money, but the funny money looks the same as real money to everyone else.

1:00:52 >> Uh >> yeah. >> Yeah. So that's like the Okay, the way to frame this is you want to store a value asset to be low entropy. [clears throat] And what I mean by that is you want to have no surprises, right? You just want high liquidity, low surprises, and a stable thing where you can transact over, right? It's akin to gold where like the reason why people buy gold is because they know it's been around. They know it's not going to do anything drastically different. Although now with institutionalization, it's trading kind of like a shitcoin in some regards. But um in general compared to other things, it's the lowest surprise asset you can think of, right? And so and that's also where the quantum thing comes in, right? It's not that quantum is going to happen in five years or something, although it might. Um it's

1:01:37 that I don't want to even think about it. A store of value is something you just put there and you just don't think about it anymore. You just you can transact with it, whatever. You just you have stability and security because it's low entropy. And so privacy coupled with quantum pro uh quantum soundness ensures the lowest entropy thing for something that is supposed to be internet native money. >> No, I'm I'm uh I I mean I think it's very very well put. I think um I I think what what'll be interesting and what I've kind of been, you know, quote unquote like waiting for, if you will, in some ways is like I really want to see um what ends up happening regulatory

1:02:22 because I think right now you're kind of it's like at a weird spot where you're it's kind of allowed, it's kind of not allowed. It's like not entirely clear uh whether you are allowed to hold this stuff or not really. Um I I don't know. I think that's like the one thing that really remains to be seen is whether on a regulatory basis we'll be allowed to use this, hold this, etc. or not. >> I do think the US government might get a little weird with it. Like I do think the US is going to start doing some Chinese things as more and more people attempt to move wealth out of the United States given the you know it's like you start talking about wealth taxes and [ __ ] like that and even if it's like it's probably not going to happen uh you're scaring the [ __ ] out of everyone with capital right

1:03:08 >> like you're scaring the living [ __ ] out of them like you talk to anyone in California who has capital and they are saying like yes I'm scared like you've sufficiently scared me congratulations >> well so the all-in guys uh David and uh Chamath actually brought the exact point. Um, and they didn't explicitly mention Zcash, but they mentioned privacy coins. They was actually an investor in Zod, which is um, the Zcash wallet. So, like that is a like I like saying the antidote to AOC is ZEC. Um, which is to say like when AOC is president, you better have um, a Swiss bank or something offshore or something they just can't completely rip from you. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's a little disturbing. >> Every now and then how normal it like I

1:03:56 I think at some point in the very recent past it was like a very strange concept this idea of like wealth seizures particularly like in Europe in the US etc. And I think at some point like it became somehow like very normal for the >> and there's a group of people that are like pro wealth seizure on principle, right? >> Yes. >> It's like any amount of >> recent development. >> This wasn't a thing historically >> and they're als it's also the group of people that is like aligned mostly with like political violence which is just like well this just [ __ ] blows bro like this is not [laughter] good. >> Yeah. It's less than ideal, right? >> Yeah. Just a little bit. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I don't know. I think almost everyone I know who's like very rich and not super

1:04:42 stupid definitely feels like some kind of way about this and is like very rapidly reconsidering what a normal western experience looks like. expost. Uh, a world where, you know, it's like now, well, maybe maybe you can't take these things for guarantee that like a random freak won't show up at your house and like just kill you, take your [ __ ] that like the government will support them taking your money, you know? It's it's a very strange world. >> I mean, they have like the version of that in Canada where if somebody breaks into your house and you like kill them, you're going to jail. Uh, >> dude, that's so insane. That's always been so like that and squatting laws are

1:05:29 just like makes me feel like >> Well, and then just the UK, like the UK as a territory and the fact that it's you ever defend yourself from a random person trying to cut your head off with a machete, >> they arrest UK as a place that real people live is is a little horrifying, man. >> Yeah. I don't know like how much because I mean you were in uh Dubai for a while, right? And >> yeah, >> Dubai is like I mean you can say many things about Dubai but it is fairly uh normal in this respect right like you can just count on the fact that the government is going to respect the the sovereignty of your wealth right >> yeah I mean it's um it's like a thing where it's like a company that's trying to compete to win your business so to speak right because nobody's really born

1:06:15 in Dubai um they just have to provide >> a service or or or an environment that people want to go to on their own. And so, you know, I I think they're also basically trying to be like somewhat of a Switzerland where their banking laws and banking security um is like oriented around that. Um and and so, you know, they have it, Singapore has it. Uh Switzerland obviously has it. Hopefully there Hong Kong used to have it and then I'm not sure about that anymore. Um but like definitely need more of those in the world. I think Kazakhstan is like randomly also trying to do it more of it now. Um, which I was expect

1:07:00 uh there's not really a lot going on here. You can just say like we'll [ __ ] you less, >> you know, like we we won't finances if you come to our place. >> Yeah. And I think that's like completely um like the low tax stuff. people oh people like oh you know you're not paying your fair share in taxes whatever it's like >> like what is it going towards uh what am I exactly funding with those taxes and in Canada people will say to them like oh was free healthcare okay but free healthcare is like dollar store healthare like if you've actually done healthcare in Canada uh I I went to the emergency room once and I I waited like 12 hours I was like I I'm going to die soon obviously I didn't have anything but like And then you go to like a Dubai

1:07:46 or like Korea even like you just go there. Uh in Dubai I didn't even pay anything. In Korea I think I paid like 20 bucks or something same day care and there's no like eight months wait for a specialists and okay Taiwan had clearly the best health care system of any place that I have ever been to for just like public people. Like if someone randomly visited me in Taiwan and they had some sort of a health problem then they would go in and they would be seen they would be seen within like 25 minutes. Uh, and it it's so it was so bizarre the first time I went. They give you like a little number. Like you know how the DMV you come in and you you pull out the number and it says like 4,621, right? And then you're like, "Oh god, it's one of these things. I'm [ __ ] never going to get called. Like I'm I'm going to be waiting here until they close." But then in Taiwan, you get

1:08:32 called in 25 minutes. And then they go in and they they perform whatever procedure. Like I know one guy who had like a two-hour procedure that required a bunch of like numbing agents and anesthetics. And they brought they brought him between two doctors during this period and he comes out and he gets charged $26 USD. Uh and this is like he has no insurance. He doesn't go here. Uh and you're just like this >> I would feel like there was some kind of scam if that happened, man. I'm going to be honest. >> I think the government just subsidizes this to some degree. And uh I think also it's like without the collusion between insurance providers and uh pharma companies and hospitals, you just don't have this weird like looping price hike where they're just like billing each other massively escalating uh invoices

1:09:18 for things. It is super cool that we give like YC companies [ __ ] for uh doing like revenue loops but then like >> the entire health care system in the United States does revenue loops basically but like with other people's money. >> Yes. Or with imaginary money in many >> if you think about like what exactly is happening with the healthare things like you need to have insurance. Well, why do you need to have insurance? Because healthcare is expensive. Okay. Why don't we make healthcare cheap? Well, almost everyone has insurance so it's totally fine because the insurance just takes care of it. and it's like, "Holy [ __ ] dude. It's over." Um, that's just not a thing that's ever gonna get better. The only policy I've ever felt like was more insane than the American health care system deacto, which is not like necessarily one policy, but a collection

1:10:04 of policies more like um is the Have you ever heard of the triple lock in the UK, Mert? >> No. So the triple log is the pensions have to increase by the greater of these three things. I think it's like either 2% every year or inflation or uh the cost of living and it's like the greater of these three things. It's just like the most insane thing. It's like, how could we design a pension system that could never ever be stable and it's just the UK's pension? And I'm sure there's like a ton of fraud and you know, >> doesn't France have something where you have to like allocate an insane amount towards pension uh of other people or

1:10:51 something? >> Dude, all of these pension systems are going to fail, dude. We we we had an Alex an episode with Alex Rakuzo. I don't know if you've ever met him, but Alex, one of the great sponsor >> Citizen A. Yep. Yep. Yep. He Yeah, he runs Citizen X. Um, dude, like there are going to be wealth seizures in Europe very soon. Like it just the math doesn't make sense otherwise. Like it's these politicians either need to choose between I screw over every single pensioner and every single person who is inside of the system receiving money from the government and I immediately lose the election or I keep increasing the pension somehow and like I need to get that money somewhere and it's like where can I get it? European business is already super destroyed, right? No one no one who wants to start like a super

1:11:36 innovative business or no one who can choose the jurisdiction where they choose start their business is like, "Yeah, I really want to start my business in Europe." That's just not a not a thing that happens for better or worse, right? >> Um, >> and so they're saw the I don't know if you saw the UK age verification thing um where they passed like these two things. They didn't pass all them yet, but to like combat child pornography, whatever. Now, device manufacturers themselves have to basically add spyware such that they scan every piece of content on the phone. And the only way to get around it is to do KYC to prove you're older than 18. And that's on top of another mandatory um scanning by the apps themselves. So there's like uh

1:12:24 nested KYC's just to be able to use your device. Um and that's also I don't know if you saw the track control also passed in Europe now track control one. Um which is to say now these companies will start scanning all your [ __ ] Um the track control one isn't as bad but it paves the way for track control 2 which allows them to basically scan encrypted messages which is kind of just insane. >> Um and but the here's the way they passed it. um the first like four or five times it was proposed um it didn't get enough support in the four votes against the against votes and so it didn't pass and so they evoked a technicality such that now it required a majority to vote against it uh for it to

1:13:09 not pass but then they held a vote for when everybody went on vacation so there wasn't enough people to vote against it uh and so and [snorts] so now it actually passed and That's that's that's the EU, by the way. And so it's basically just keep [ __ ] playing around with the voting things until it passes whatever you want. >> So Europe is just done. >> The trajectory isn't great. Um we'll see what [laughter] happens. But >> the spin master, dude. He's like, you know, [laughter] >> it's the probabilistic outcome. >> You're getting it much cheaper than you were get. You know, if this was a token, you're buying it a lot cheaper than you were buying it a few years ago. Dude, I love whenever I open Twitter and like uh I've like talked about real estate and so my phone's listen to me and like it

1:13:55 it thinks that I want to buy real estate or something and like I immediately start seeing like and you you look at real estate anywhere in the world and it's like Miami $1 trillion for an apartment in South Beach or Bickl. It's like California 1% of the equity of all your children for all times in the future for like a normal two-story home and like the mission. >> Well, it's it's just for rent and it's like it's like for rent in a hacker house. Like you don't even get the home. You don't even own it. >> And then it's just dude and then Italy is like, "Please, we'll give you this house. Please move to our country. Please, [laughter] I'm [ __ ] begging you." And you just see the house and it has like a [ __ ] like private vineyard like pool like dock. Like it's 30

1:14:42 minutes away from like a the most beautiful little town you've seen ever. All the like women in the surrounding areas are are fantastically beautiful. which is like the the trad wife in the wheat fields like with the shimmering wheat fields of wind and then it's like asking price like please like it doesn't doesn't even say >> I know someone who literally bought a mountain side like a mountainside vineyard >> or maybe not I it's some sort of weird farming thing uh in Italy that is like overlooking a massive uh lake there's like a zipline it's like be and it was like 120k it's like actually And I was like, how can this exist? And then I start looking at European laws and I'm like, oh, it's like because the

1:15:28 type of person that has wealth that they need to protect actually can't buy this home. >> Like you can only buy this home if you have no other assets. >> Like, >> well, that's why everyone does uh we were talking about St. Tropz and and Mert, you were saying uh it's it's not all it's cracked out to be. A big part of the reason why these rich people do the circuit every year is actually because they don't want to stay over a certain amount of days anywhere. And so they want to do 180 days on the yacht. >> And so you're you're trying to like spend the day somewhere and then go to your yacht and then move your yacht somewhere else so your yacht isn't parked somewhere for too long and then blah blah blah. And you keep cycling that forever. basically >> like in a certain tier of wealth your entire lifestyle becomes uh oriented around [snorts]

1:16:14 >> paying totality in tax. Yeah. >> Yeah. Especially I mean I I think a lot of these families are mostly inherited wealth and like there is not a lot of production of wealth at this point >> um just because the businesses have been >> true in Europe. Yeah. >> Right. the the business has been choked out and so it's it's basically like a family office that has a ton of money and you know they're great people but they're not oftentimes for no fault of their own. It's not like super you know it's not like there's some fantastic business behind this that that is super productive and so it's more about taking care of what you have than than making more money. Uh >> and and speaking of Zcash again here. Uh >> you are building privacy on Salana. I want to talk a little bit about what MER is actually doing here. Right. You have

1:16:59 >> I I wanted to actually go if you don't mind like tell us how you got into crypto, how you started your company a little. I think you've had a super interesting career and stuff and you're very prolific and so maybe like the quick version, not you know I'm sure you've done like a super deep dive somewhere somewhere else. Um, sure. But you know, how do you get into crypto? Why you decided to start a company? Tell us a little bit about and then maybe we can reach what you're doing today on Solano. >> Sure. Yeah. So, I I graduated in uh math and signals engineering. I worked at BBM uh if you guys remember BlackBerry uh on the cloud infra. Yeah. So, and then I worked with three of the big five banks in Canada. Uh that was pretty disgusting in terms of just how how antiquated

1:17:45 those systems are. uh worked at a few startups and then ended up at Coinbase. Uh Coinbase uh I was like the only Salon Bowl and then I finally convinced them to do a Salana project and then we were doing it and then I was like holy [ __ ] none of the tools that I need for this actually exist and so I was going to build an in-house at Coinbase and then I was like actually I should probably just start a company and do this and then sell to them later. Clearly, there's a big market gap here and I was also building stuff on SL on my own time. Anyway, um so quick Coinbase before the equity vested by the way when we're talking about uh risk tolerance. Uh so basically had literally zero money and student debt as well. Uh and then

1:18:30 got my uh actually roommates from university um from a decade ago. We started Helas. uh we started building tool like one thing that I really hated uh for crypto at least like four years ago. I mean still today but especially four years ago was that there was just no apps. Like it was just all circular like farming games. And so I was like okay like probably one of the reasons this is a chase is because it's just impossible to build in crypto. Like it's just so difficult. And so I was like, we'll just build a tool so that process is easier and so we'll at least probabilistically affect the outcome of there being more assets PMF and crypto. So started building that, got a bunch of customers and just kept building more products for developers over time. Um,

1:19:15 and then now we're doing quite well and then skipped all the stuff in the middle. Let's say obviously like Salana getting destroyed by FDX and all those different things and the EVML2 stuff. At some point I took to Twitter to basically call people [ __ ] for ruling out Salana and then I started going virals for that. Um and then okay so with the privacy thing um it's really everything that we talked about today. Well like fundamentally if you have a blockchain and the blockchain doesn't have privacy um then not only is it like the ideologically wrong thing but it also just doesn't work for finance. like you just what what's super ironic is that institutions themselves won't use blockchains unless the blockchains have

1:20:00 privacy for that. >> This is the thing. This is and I always say this to people and they always think that I'm coping, but what I'm like institutions actually love like blockchain ledger technology because it makes compliance super easy, right? Like it's it's actually way better than having a bunch of random accounts that random employees can change without signing off properly. Uh, but they don't they they're not going to do this on the Ethereum blockchain where I am competing with them for monkey pictures and gas races and all of this other [ __ ] and everyone can see it, right? Because of one, it's it's a compliant like it's compliance uh banned. You cannot go and just show everyone all of your clients transactions like super illegal. Uh but two, it just makes your life really hard as a financial actor, right? So yeah,

1:20:45 they all love blockchains and they all use them internally as like a privately permission chain. >> Exactly. And so like the irony here is that you know we earlier said like maybe regular people don't care about privacy but it turns out institutions actually care a lot and they have to care. Um and so with Salon and then there's all sorts of other things like I don't want to telegraph all my [ __ ] trades. Uh I don't want to do payments on a completely transparent thing. Um, and so we bought a team called light protocol which pioneered ZK on Salana and we're building a complete the canonical privacy layer for Salana where you'll be able to do anything that you do on Salana today but privately. Um, and so that will be out

1:21:30 probably two weeks after this podcast comes out. So, if you're on Salana or if you're in crypto in general and you want the best blockchain in terms of actually working at scale and you probably need privacy, just hit me up. >> So, hashtag [laughter] hash grant. >> Dude, I love the paid like paid partnership. This is not a paid partnership, but we will make mer buy us a couple beers at some point. >> Hell yeah. Well, okay. What what is the difference between privacy on Salana with ZK versus Zcash? Like you were talking about like the the level of uh like the degree to which you can obiscate whether you have like total obscurity versus some of it's

1:22:16 exposed. Can you keep everything totally uh obscured on Salana? >> Uh no you can't. Um so there are trade-offs. So Zcash is just so for example we know the I mean you mentioned tornado cash a few times tornado cash just offiscated like it was a mixer meaning you put some money in and then later you can withdraw from a different address that's it you can't even do transactions within that pool right like once you deposit money in you can't then swap and all so it's not like a programmable privacy mixer thing and just for that they went to jail um they got uh convicted for conspiracy for money transmission without a license. And then they're also um facing a retrial for money laundering and sanctions evation,

1:23:03 which adds up to, if you combine those about 55 years in prison, which is pretty crazy. >> For the record, for everyone who is unfamiliar with this, they actually charged the software developers with this, right? So like people who were hired by a company to build software uh and did as their as their legally registered employer instructed them to are now like facing or they were facing I believe like federal prison charges uh which is just >> yeah like just one of the most insane things in the entire universe actually like the that one is just uh >> it is pretty >> holy [ __ ] bro. Yeah. >> Yeah. And so like one of the things that you can't do for example is uh like this gets a little nuanced but with

1:23:48 Salana privacy like with our new thing to begin with we can't actually encrypt the uh recipient and the sender. So the tokens and the balances and the amounts can be encrypted and hidden. But if you break the transaction traceability graph, there's a very good chance you're going to be you you have the feds coming after you, which is a problem because it's one team developing the protocol, right? It's Helios building the privacy protocol and it's not like a thing where there's like um statue of limitations where like they sue the company. No, no, they come after CEO personally and hold them criminally liable. Um so that's a problem. >> Now the thing with Zcash is you can't do that to Zcash, right? you can't just arrest, you can't just stop Zcash by arresting the CEO because it has it

1:24:33 doesn't have one. Um it's all it's this very bottoms up decentralized thing. Um and um so with Salana, that's obviously a difference. Another difference is the network effects, right? Privacy is a network effect in that for example, if you just go to Zcash and you shield one ZE or let's say 69.69 69 Z and then you withdraw that exact amount. You can see who did that assuming that there's nobody else using the protocol, right? And so to get privacy, it needs to be used by all sorts of different people. It needs to have a lot of money in it such that your funds aren't like just sticking out in ter as like the big bird in that board. >> There's no such thing as a privacy protocol that has one user, right? >> Exactly. like it's

1:25:18 >> and so and so Salana will obviously have a different anonymity set compared to something like Zcash, right? Um uh and then um you know uh there there's all sorts of things like again what we talked about in terms of privacy not being the main thing for Zcash. The main thing is the store of value. The privacy just enables that. But with Helio's privacy, it's just tokens and assets already exist and you want to play with those, right? there's no sov, there's no currency aspect uh in terms of like you know there's no Bitcoin in it. I mean you can encrypt Bitcoin in it obviously. Um and so that's another one. Um and then there's also like nuance things like for example privacy is technically the absence of

1:26:04 something. So privacy is the absence of information leaks, right? And so to have something optimized for that, you have to design it from the bottom up in terms of like networking level stuff, um, validator level stuff, social cohesion, right? Um, where on Salana that's not the case. Like Salana is not a privacy blockchain. We're just adding privacy to it. But fundamentally, there's different leaks that can happen depending on how serious um, of a use case we're talking about here, right? For example, there used to be um the OFAC sanctions for trainer cashache on Ethereum which affected which block builders would include which transactions, right? Um on Zcash, that's not going to happen because it is a privacy chain. Um on

1:26:51 Salana though, you know, remains to be seen. I'm guessing it won't be because it would be really stupid to do that on a confidential protocol as opposed to a fully anonymous protocol. But so that's that's a few of the differences. Okay. So basically it is as as private as Salana's network can support and Salana does have the advantage of probably a lot more users uh and a lot higher transaction volume that are pooling against this to obscure you. The ideal use case is like um if you're like a Neo bank and you want to build on Salana because it has all the users and you know all sorts of liquidity for USC or something. Okay, then that makes sense because you can just give you uh it can give you the requirements you would expect from Tradfi in terms of privacy uh as well as the crypto uh

1:27:36 guarantees. >> But like you know if you're looking to replace your Swiss bank um Zcash is like the low entropy thing with no surprises. It's just completely there. But it's also the asset that you're investing in, right? With Helio's privacy, there's no asset to invest in. >> Will there be an asset to invest in? >> I assume. >> Well, um, who knows? >> I think everyone who does a token hates it, but maybe you maybe you could finally do it. Maybe Mert could be the one. Mert is kind of the god of uh the god of tokens in many ways because you've made two big calls on these things and they're both up like a 20x as very serious coins, right? Like you made two calls on things that at the time

1:28:22 were basically irrelevant investments if you were to go and look at all of the assets in cryptocurrency, right? Like Solano was pretty dead when you decided to all in that one. And Zcash was pretty dead. not maybe dead in terms of development, but definitely dead in terms of its uh market cap relative to all of the other assets in the industry. >> Yeah, it's what I like uh in in Trafy, we call this hostile takeovers or like corporate raiders where you buy like a distressed asset and you basically restructure it such that it succeeds and it actually makes sense. Uh it's interesting. Nobody thinks of this in crypto. Uh but that's actually you can do that on in crypto at scale for anything without permission, right? You could just buy the token of something that you think is super undervalued and

1:29:07 then you can actually go and do the work to help it succeed. Like you can actually fix the physics of it and then the project starts working again and it's like why wouldn't you do that, right? um like otherw like it's I don't like it when um when somebody's just like buying the token and they're just like dev do something and it's like okay sure that's one way to do it but if you're super serious then >> you can also do that thing I mean with you Claude Fab that you can use now you're the dev right like you're the >> fab does sound so good I'm going to be honest >> fab sounds better than fable fable was a shabth clears fable so hard dude it's just it's >> dude mythos was an epic horrible name and then they came out with Fable and it's like dude you resorted this is now

1:29:53 your children's bedtime stories like that's your name like this is just not epic anymore >> dude they are going to run out of like insane aura names pretty soon right like they they keep jacking up the amount of aura they're putting into these names >> well Helas is a Helas is an example of another one of those names that's like it's a it's a good name and it's not a word right but those these are very hard to come up with you would think that there basically an unlimited number of these. Uh, and I'm sure technically there are, but there's a very limited number of them that you can say and be like, "Yeah, I work at this company." And it doesn't it doesn't sound like it's a suicidal guy, right, who's like, "This is the worst name ever, and I work at an unserious thing that makes me feel bad about myself." >> Yeah, Helios is um I deliberately

1:30:39 misspelled Helios um so that I would dominate the SEO and uh that's basically what ended up happening. I love just randomly making >> Do you believe in the the Peter Teal like the name is super giga turbo important? If you [ __ ] up the name, you might as well >> Yes. >> might as well run back the whole company. >> I I think he's directionally correct. The problem is there's always exceptions to these things. Um so like there's just bunch of random [ __ ] names in my view. Um but like the good company and also I feel like okay here's the other thing. the company kind of also makes the name itself, right? Like Apple for example, like if you just started that and you're in the in the, you know, the meeting where they name the company Apple, everybody's like, "What do you

1:31:24 mean it's called Apple?" Like the fruit, but then you keep building like the best products and [ __ ] and everybody's like, "Oh, Apple." Right? Like, so you kind of like distill >> Dude, everyone says that, but I like Apple was um >> I think Apple's like an oral name, right? because you have like the the story of creation, Adam and Eve, what like dude, I don't know. People always say that Apple, >> but I I think Apple was actually like a pretty oral name uh in in many ways if you if you think about it a little. >> Um, >> okay. I think WhatsApp name >> WhatsApp is the one I always bring up. WhatsApp is always one where like you would never name this the thing but it has become such a massive product that it it just doesn't matter now. >> I think I think WhatsApp actually is

1:32:10 like 50% market saturation it would have achieved with any better name. >> Like every time I heard someone think it mattered because I think >> No matter I can tell you it mattered because the first 20 times somebody said yeah we I'll talk to you on WhatsApp. I was like yeah never mind man I don't need to talk to you that bad. Like I actually was [laughter] like this is such a shitty name and you are like it just is so third world coded man. Like it sounds so [ __ ] ghetto that I think basically everyone in a relevant country hears the name and they're just like [laughter] [snorts] >> yeah it's a ridiculous name. I also try to not use it as much as possible. The name scratches me out a little bit. >> It's Yeah, it's I mean Telegram is a much sketchier app and user interface,

1:32:55 but it is a much better name. And so I even prefer that. But I I do think that I mean you can obviously work around the name and the uh the proof against this is just like the SP500. Like I'm looking at the index right now and it's just like on Inc. Comfort Systems, TE Connectivity, Target Resources Corporation. Like these are just bad names. Most >> it's a B2B versus B TOC thing. Like if you're B2B, the name doesn't matter as much because you're just selling to a bunch of random suits anyway. >> But for consumer, it has to be a good name. >> Yeah, that's probably truein. >> It does. It is true that like it's it's very different whether we're talking about consumer or non-consumer actually.

1:33:42 >> Consolidated Edison Inc. like these are genuinely just like okay AI like Mad Libs three random words, right? >> [snorts and laughter] >> like really bad. >> Yeah, >> I still bad at naming. I was just naming a new product that we're making and it was just it took me like five days and I was I was just swearing out. I was like, "You stupid fuck." Like, "Why do you exist?" I like I started crashing out on it. I was so bad at naming. You have [laughter] to do like a like slashgoal uh generate me five million names for my firstborn son, right? And then it's like eventually one of them will be good, right? So, Mert, how uh I assume I assume that you use AI for a bunch of the development stuff that you do, and I assume that a bunch of the people that you hire also use AI for this stuff.

1:34:27 Where do you stand on the grand spectrum of uh it's the singularity, bro? Like, it's over versus like this is going to increase demand for software engineers. >> I don't think it's singularity. Um I think so I was pretty like I was using I actually mandate not mandate but I basically kindly or aggressively recommend people use AI like the day it came out um literally the day it came out uh in in like just the chat GPT interface. I was like you guys should just use this to like bulletproof your ideas whatever. So like we were super early into it. Um and then obviously it evolved quite a bit since then. It's just I view it as a tool. I think

1:35:13 it's super good at doing deterministic tasks and um uh certain other things in terms of like security and and just very software oriented things. Um I don't think like the the way that like Daria went about like it's going to replace all your jobs. I think that was super dumb. Um, I think one of the things people don't understand is that most things in life are relative and it's like market-based competition, which is to say if everybody has the same thing, then your edge is not that thing obviously, right? And so, you need to figure out other ways. And generally speaking, the that is going to be intrinsic to that person, right? Like how you compete is going to be intrinsic

1:35:59 to you and not the tool because everybody has the same tool. Um like there is a a a temporary arbitrage of course in which like >> Yeah. in which people just don't know that it works, right? And then you can you can be the guy who knows that it works and you have an edge just because your mom doesn't. >> Exactly. Or like you know Trump disallows >> Fab from being uh available anywhere outside the US, right? And so like there's arbitragees and arbitrage is a good way of making money and succeed in all this stuff. But if you think think about in the in the limit, I don't think it's going to be um this thing that just like displaces old jobs and whatever. Um I think again like for example, it's completely awful at writing. Um so like there's very clear shortcomings that it

1:36:44 has, but it's also very good at like math- based things, right? It's not an accident that a mathbased system is good at math. Um and so I don't think about it too much. I just think of as a tool. um will use it when it makes sense, won't use it. Like I actually I have another thing where I'm like, if you're writing something to me, I better not be able to know that it's AI because if you have just copy and pasted your AI [ __ ] prompt or output to me, first of all, you are an NPC. Because if your thoughts can be completely replicated by a [ __ ] set of matrices, then why do [snorts] I need you? I can just ask the chat. I can just ask the AI myself. Second, um you clearly have no

1:37:29 original thoughts because you could and you don't trust yourself, right? If you actually trust your own written word and your thoughts, then you would just write to me directly, [snorts] right? And so maybe I'm a little too opinionated on that one, but like there's actually certain things where I like don't want people >> I think this is one of those ones where you get more opinionated on that specific point as you deal with more and more of these people because like I mean in my experience with this stuff, right, is uh someone sends you some AI generated message and you're like why can you just like not send me AI slop? like just write the message and they're like, "Dude, I didn't generate this with AI." And you're like, "Fuck you, dude. Like, I like this is just obvious GPT slop. Like, I know GPT slop when I read this shit." Uh, and then they just deny it over and over. And eventually you

1:38:14 become extremely hostile towards this group of people because they just keep doubling down on the fact that they're not using AI to write this [ __ ] And you're like, "Well, you're you're okay. You're just dishonest as a class of people also. So, [ __ ] you." Right? like I don't want to I want to have very hard un uni compromising rules against this thing that you're doing to me. >> I'll come out here with a weird take. I'm I'm kind of a believer of like and I think Mer kind of hinted at this, but like if it's good enough that I'm falling for it, then it's fine, man. Whatever. >> Right. But that's why the rule is if it's if I can tell, right? Like if I can't tell, then it's like I guess. >> If I can't tell, keep doing it. Yeah, I don't care. >> Yeah, if I can't tell, it's fine, man.

1:38:59 Like, whatever. >> This is like us six months before all AI can fool all of us. Like, >> well, I I think the thing is is it's going to get there. I think there's there's ways of using it really effectively without like it's this massive crutch which you cannot use for any anywhere like ever like you are totally 0% productive without it. Um, but we'll see. Well, it made things like Rust much easier, right? Like uh I think >> it's great for coding. I mean like like fundamentally uh programming is talking to a computer in the language it understands, right? And you have to get very specific which is why in Rust you have all these types and it gets pretty unfriendly. But like all AI does is it

1:39:47 makes sure that the language itself is um translated correctly, right? Right? I mean, it's called a large language model for a reason. And so now you can just program computers by just talking to them. And that alone is super important. And you know, all this random [ __ ] about how it'll change everything is true, I think. But I don't know about the singularity. Um I I don't buy that. >> I really like it. I guess uh just I just I've read too much David Deutsch basically um where like the the model of computation >> that LLMs use is fundamentally different than how a human and like okay so I read

1:40:34 another book like right >> yeah and so you might you might say something like well for example can submarines swim and it's like kind of a meaningless question because they just do the job regardless and so maybe it doesn't even matter on the way it achieves it. Um, but I think like fundamentally it seems unlikely to me that you can arrive at what makes a human human by mere accident and just forcing a few matrix multiplications at scale. I think you'll be able to mimic certain things very very very well and surpass humans for sure. Um, but I I I just like singularity to me implies like just something where like it gets out of control, right? Like where it's like

1:41:19 it's this own like new species that you cannot deal with. You must make peace with it and they'll invade you and all these sorts of different things. >> Um and so like the term singularity itself is also kind of like hard to work with because people think it means different things depending on who billion. It's the same thing with AGI, right? like oh like have we achieved AGI and every it's like there's some person who says we had AGI when the TI89 was invented and there's some people who say that AGI will only be achieved when it's able to do like nuclear fusion on your uh silicon like on your phone like it's able to reproduce through its own like CPU processes a new sun and >> yeah when it starts discovering like new laws of physics or something then I'll be like okay holy [ __ ] that's getting a

1:42:04 little weird uh until That that's that's probably my criteria. It's just arbitrary vibes based, but that's mine. >> Do you think it's going that seems pretty uh >> that seems pretty reasonable. >> Okay. >> Do you think that it's going to do the thing that everyone in crypto is worried about where they're like, "Ah, like this model is good enough that all of your funds are [ __ ] >> forever and you can never use like DeFi lending protocols again." >> Oh. Uh I have a post on this actually. Um it's called um crypto entering the space age. So um how do I shorten this quickly? So okay, one way to think about this is that if you so actually NATO had

1:42:49 a a conference um way back uh I don't remember the exact time it was the 80s uh and it was titled the the software crisis and basically software was being built in a way where people just didn't understand completely how to like bulletproof them which is why like finding bugs in a system and fixing them became so commonplace that it's just completely ingrained like So if you write code, you know there's going to be bugs and so you just that's already highly expected. But consider something like a pacemaker like a spaceship, right? Where you actually cannot have a bug or somebody's dying, right? And so that's where formal verification start taking off. You can actually mathematically prove this is so sound that there will not be bugs, right? And but that process is

1:43:35 extremely cumbersome and so it takes a lot of resources. So it's only reserved for super serious [ __ ] And so what happened is all these apps that you use use kind of the the sloppy software standards. Like if something on Facebook goes down, like okay, what happens if there's a bug? You just [ __ ] release an upgrade and then you get people to update their apps. That's it. Nobody's dead. Nobody lost a billion dollars. Now the problem with crypto is that it's been built with the considerations of like a Facebook rather than like a spaceship or a pacemaker, right? which is to say it has a lot of sloppy standards and like bugs are expected and whatnot and so we thought this was okay because we were just trying to find PMF for the industry but as you get

1:44:20 trillions of dollars on chain you cannot afford the same standards there right like you actually cannot afford a bug it's kind of like a spaceship and that once it's out there you can't bring it back >> right that money is now gone forever if somebody exploits it right and like people got around this because they had admin keys and multisigs and rolling chains back and forking and all those shits, but there comes a time where you actually just can't do that. And so that's why formal verification is so important, right? So if you can mathematically prove that certain aspects of the smart contract hold, um you can harden it to a level where like it actually can support finance without you needing to worry too much about it. So there are formally verified D5 protocols, there also formally verified chains like Zcash. And then like if

1:45:06 you're just holding soul on the native chain and staking, you don't need to worry too much because like assuming there's like a zero day on soul somehow. Um the validator the social layer kind of protects you there. But the risk is in those kind of connect connective tissue so to speak like bridges it's not an accident and bridges get [ __ ] hacked literally all the time >> or like random ass D5 protocols, right? So you need to really do your homework and and understand that have certainty that the developers um have used like formal verification processes and you need to actually do your diligence properly on these things. Um so I don't think it'll be the case that you just can't use DeFi because everything's unsafe. I do think you need

1:45:52 to be at least a 10 times more selective than before um in terms of your diligence and your your caution levels. So how how difficult is it to actually harden a D5 protocol to like a like this is mathematically impenetrable level uh given the models that we have now. >> So like that was a dumb broad question. Let's let's say a random lending protocol uh that does not rehypotheate across 360 billion different pools like it's like one where it has let's assume there's actually centralized management for this. So you deposit into one known pool and then they do things in trads with that cash. I assume it's like one transaction, right?

1:46:37 >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean lending protocols are like probably the hardest ones just because there's so many factors like in terms of oracle and prices and liquidation engine and you know the guarantees that the blockchain itself that they built on top of gives you um you know whether there's a multi-IG that governs the protocol or whether you know there's a Dow that can be governance attacks and like lending protocols you get really tough in my view and so you're I think better off just with those focusing on like whatever is Lindy like in terms of like this has been open source for like 10 years. It's secured like a trillion dollars already and so I'll kind of just use as a loose proxy and then maybe do my own diligence. Um anything that's new I would be super super cautious about. Um but so anyway

1:47:22 you can like if just for example for just like the escrow part of a contract where you're like if I deposit such and such this gets locked and then you mint something else against it. you can formally verify that software piece of function, right? It's like a legal contract in Tradfi. Here it's a piece of code that you can harden to the level of like perfect guarantees basically. But then it's you got to look at the system in isolation, right? Even if you do that, well, can somebody um list a new asset on that lending protocol, manipulate its price, and then use that to withdraw other assets as collateral or something like this, right? So with lending protocols, I would just forget all that because it's unless you're technical, it's going to get or just

1:48:07 like a very involved person, it's just way too much. Um you just you basically just want to look at Lindy. Some of them actually are starting to have insurance and like different types of um guarantees. >> So like that's probably as good as you can get seems like today. >> Yeah. So like Helio's privacy for example will have insurance fund. Um uh so because I don't want people to like feel that they're completely walking in naked when they're depositing their funds into this thing. >> Yeah. No, that definitely makes sense. It's a situation where uh and for those of you who are still listening to this and maybe don't understand or care that much about crypto in general, the reason this matters more in crypto is because unlike like if you have your grandma get scammed in a traditional banking transaction where she sends like $10 million to some Nigerian scammer. Uh you

1:48:54 can typically just call up the bank and say like, "Hey, like my grandma got scammed. Can you press the big red undo button?" And they can be like, "Yeah, sure, man." Uh that just doesn't work in crypto really. like you send the transaction and it is final. Uh if it is on like a layer 2 or something like that, you can basically say like, "Yeah, I'm able to undo it, but now you run into the thing of everybody thinks that your chain is illegitimate because they're looking at this and saying like, wait, you can just like unfucking do anything you want. I'm not going to like I'm not going to use this [ __ ] anymore, man. Like why would I use the thing that has a big red undo button on it?" So, you know, most of the big uh chains like Ethereum, there was an Ethereum hack years and years ago, but now if somebody were to roll back like a large transaction on Ethereum, everyone would freak out. It

1:49:39 would be very significantly damaging to the reputation of the chain. So, uh >> it just wouldn't happen anyway like cuz you need to coordinate across all sorts of different nodes and validators like hundreds of them and they would only need to agree basically and so that wouldn't happen. But with like an L2 for example, uh this kind of happened uh with like a North Korea hack. >> This was blast, right? >> This >> uh no I forget the name, but this is like six, seven months ago at this point. >> Oh. >> Where >> I was thinking I was thinking back in like 2023. >> I mean, yeah, there's been no shortage of these. Um, but like um you're also now opening yourself up to legal liability because if you've demonstrated you can do that but then you don't do that for like an actual crime or

1:50:24 something, well then have fun going to jail because that's you're basically you have all the characteristics of trady burden and that's just it just doesn't fly for too long. >> Yeah. I was wondering uh so we had the whole Salana cycle here where everybody launched like 10 trillion memecoins on this thing because pump fun basically you know it used to be very very difficult to actually launch a blockchain contract on Ethereum because you had to know how to code yourself. You had to know you had to have the funds to actually deploy the thing and it would cost like several thousand dollars to get this thing out there. Uh and especially for complex contracts this was pretty confusing for people. Pump Fund comes out and they basically made like a wacky user

1:51:09 interface where any random grandma can click like their one button and now they can launch a coin. Uh and the result is that the barrier to entry to launching any cryptocurrency project basically went to zero. And uh I feel like this actually has given us a lot of insight into how AI is going to play with the world at this point. Like I I've watched Silicon Valley and what's been going on there with a lot of the startups and a lot of the GPT rappers as AI has allowed you to basically launch the B2B SAS company uh with the click of a button at this point and uh you can basically predict all of the incentive alignment that has come out of that, right? Like the level of uh it's like okay, you lower the barrier to entry and you get a

1:51:54 lot more scammers, right? And then how does everyone socially organize against the scammers once they realize that this is happening and they have to sort of like harden their community because they're being parasitized. Uh and I think a lot of the same things are now starting to happen generally in uh like the tech sphere broadly as happened in crypto when uh pump fund sort of disrupted everything by making it easy for everyone to scam. I don't know what you think about that. I mean, I think it's just like paro, which is to say like 99% of everything is kind of just [ __ ] all the time. And then it requires like the 1% of like somebody with like an interesting insight or like just somebody who's just autistic as [ __ ] who just actually makes it work against stasis. Um, same thing

1:52:41 with token. >> Dude, inertia is very strong. Like, dude, there's businesses that still pay by check like you know, >> and f use facts. Uh so >> yeah, there's people that use there's people use the postage system to send money still >> like um >> it it's very hard times because >> like >> you know people like us you know we we use fob and and we're using mitos and whatnot and so we're we we kind of use the things that are out there. Um I I don't think the limiting factor for most things is new technology. The limiting factor for most things is how do you make the economics work such that the go to market makes sense on this

1:53:26 right and so new technology is great because it pushes the frontiers stuff like zk proofs is great because it pushes the frontiers but for example zcash right like merit correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think zcash was the first implementation of zero knowledge proofs but it was like the one that kind of was the most scalable right >> uh well okay so that's a bad example because it actually was um but >> it was the very first Really? >> Yeah. ZK Zcash is SA like you still have yet to fully accept. >> I thought there was some >> stuff that like maybe wasn't released super publicly that was done prior, but maybe I'm wrong. >> Zero knowledge is a concept exact existed, but ZK Snark's this was the first ever production system. But like like to your point for the first like eight years that made no difference at

1:54:11 all, right? like that tech existed and it was obviously better but it didn't do anything because that wasn't like the obvious limiting factor. Um like I I love it when people are like oh AI is going to like you know do such and such uh to like businesses and stuff and it's like dude writing software is nowhere near the hardest part of building a business. It's like it's not even top five I don't think in terms of like the hardest things a business must do. um like hiring and actually finding an insight that others have overlooked uh go to market like you said scale economics of the business um like co-founder of drama >> I yeah I wish someone would make a better LinkedIn man >> a better LinkedIn

1:54:56 >> dude that thing is so [ __ ] >> that is the worst thing on earth >> bad dude >> yeah it is I cannot believe that the thing everyone wants to do for dating apps and then no one does because you can't actually make money doing where it's like you can only talk to one person at that same time. Someone should do that, but for for like applications where it's like, hey, on this app you can only apply to like five companies a week or something. >> Oh, that could be interesting. Yeah, it it's just it's completely unusable. That's actually the first thing I did with AI where I was like, just monitor my LinkedIn because >> the the real problem is that like there is a huge adverse selection problem, right? Where like if you're good, you'll just back channel most of the time almost always. if if you're really great either on the hiring or on the being hired side, you will be backchanneled

1:55:42 one way or the other. >> Um, but I mean we could definitely imagine like a better world, right? Like we we uh we've spoken to some people who are applying to like hundreds and hundreds of jobs like Roy who's playing like a thousand jobs a day and like great for him and it is like incredibly funny and like you know he should you should take advantage of the system you're in but like we can imagine a better system, right? Um, a lot of that is >> it's also ridiculous because you can slop cannon all of your competitors with this too. Like if I'm like, "Yo, Mer, I [ __ ] hate you, dude. Like, uh, [ __ ] Helas and I see your applications, uh, submission channel on your website and I'm like, "Okay, Fab, like, just hit him with [ __ ] 5,000 apps a day." The requirement I have for like most of these roles is you need to find an intro

1:56:28 to me on signal which is like very specific and that's like the first part of the job application because not many people have my signal but for example if it's lead BD then one of the core properties of that job is having a [ __ ] network and so you need to find somebody who knows me enough that they know me on signal and only then will I actually talk to you about this job. Right? So, like that's like one filtering mechanism and there's others. >> Well, BD is one of those things, Lucas. We talked about this way back when uh this was like a long time ago. I think before we even met in person, ever before Lisbon. Um where you were like, "Dude, I like just accepted this job offer." I think I fumbled so hard cuz like the first offer was really good and so I just said yes. It [laughter] was

1:57:14 like I obviously should not have just said yes. like you you always kind of want like your BD hires to like like I think if a BD hire doesn't ask you for like an extra like 5% on top or something it's just like a huge fumble like massive immediate fumble like you cannot [ __ ] that up [laughter] I think actually >> yeah they all negotiate >> there was a time when >> it was not common to negotiate there was that one essay I think it's by Patrick McKenzie >> um who is this like weird guy who works for Stripe moved to Japan and worked at a bunch of businesses. Super knowledgeable guy on payments. Used to hate crypto, but like refused to engage with anyone moderately intelligent in crypto, but that's that's neither here nor there. Um, but he wrote this I I

1:57:59 think he's the one, right, who wrote like the seminal blog post on negotiating um when you get an offer. And he's like I think one of the things he says is like you can almost always push 5%. Because 5% is like a number where like if they say no, it's not like embarrassing for you to accept the job anyways. and like like 5% extra you >> I do think I do think there is a rare edge case where if somebody gives you an offer that is so egregiously generous and it's clear like they just like you and then you push on top of this you do look like kind of uh clip this out cut this out you look like a hu like it's just >> no this is a thing that happens >> um the the big thing here is like if someone's really making you a sweetheart offer you you have to be able to discern when someone is like dropping their

1:58:45 guard and being like, "Hey, I'm extending my hand out to you." Because if you [ __ ] with them when they do that, it's like you have [ __ ] over this entire relationship, which could have been a positive relationship for like the next 10 years, right? And this is like another big thing I've always learned is like um don't don't really think about where people what company people are at today. And like just always do the really small stuff that takes like two minutes of your time. Um, and it's not because it'll pay off because most of the time it won't pay off, but like the one out of every 20 people that it pays off with will pay back everyone else. It's like a venture portfolio of like small favors, man. Um, I I cannot tell you like there are small favors I've done for people and that people have done for me that have like paid off a hundred times over. Just a thousand times over.

1:59:30 >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say the the thing that the audience wants from Mert is uh the guide to dating a Slavic woman, right? I don't know if you can do this without being killed by the Slavic woman, right? It's like that might be step one guide on dating >> because if he reveals the tricks, she'll listen to this and she'll learn all the all the tricks he's using, right? It's like >> she's looking at me right now, actually. She's >> Oh, no. Um Oh, god. Um I don't know. I mean, if you have specific questions on that, um, I I'm happy to try. >> I was going to say, where do you find them, but that's obviously, you know, it's like right behind you is the answer. You know, that's >> Yeah, right behind you. [snorts] The real honest about Slavic woman, >> Slavic women when you start doing like

2:00:16 Slavic women are generational. People always talk about um >> like the the Asian women in the Bay as being like the top tier sniffer outers of like this guy is going to make it in the next two or three years. Dude, I just I'm like way more bullish Slavic woman as like a like as as this feature [laughter] of like a Slavic woman will catch you like one year before you make it. like they'll they'll really come in at the last minute possible. You know what I mean? >> I will I will say this. >> Okay, so here's maybe one learning. Uh I think it's it's correlation versus causation is kind of difficult on this one because it's more like a Slavic woman will just be like they will just like pressure test bully you until you

2:01:02 succeed. Basically, it'll kind of be like if you have like a bad day at work, you're like, "Oh, I don't know if I did that right." They'll be like, "Oh, you did it correct. You will do it better next time." And they'll just like they just keep going after [laughter] until it works. And it's more like a hard ass like football coach, so to speak. Um, as as opposed to like a genuine internal compass, but that that's just my experience. >> Yeah. I was wondering about this one, too, like how much uh like how direct does the guidance get? cuz I know a lot of Asian women who will like do research to try and guide their husband's career trajectory towards things and they will start like aggressively shilling him like oh like you should go into this or oh you should talk to my friend's dad about this he works in this which I think this field is really like and uh I

2:01:49 haven't so much heard that from Slavic women but I also don't know a bunch of people who date them so um I would say again sample size very small here um No, this is the thing. We want I want to make I want to make it clear we're extrapolating everything about like your one relationship >> to every Russian woman in the world, right? Like this all >> the last word on dating Slavic woman. Okay, you're getting the last word on it. Okay, it's the definitive truth. I mean like they can help if you ask for it, but like it's much more traditional in that it's very like traditional roles in terms of like they will just let the guy do the thing that the guy wants to do in terms of like career like they make the decision. Um the guy does

2:02:36 everything that a guy is expected to do that you would expect. One funny thing about it, for example, in Russia is like in America, you have like all these 247 corner stores like 7-Eleven and like whatever place you just get chips or cigarettes or whatever the [ __ ] In Russia, I actually haven't seen those. But what they do have is an insane amount, and I mean an insane amount of 247 flower shops because it is just absolutely at all times. >> You got to quickly apologize. Do you need like a like seal team six of like flower apologies? [laughter] >> Yeah. Do they deliver much? >> It's like I need I need apology flowers delivered five minutes from now and they

2:03:23 [laughter] just like a group of Slavic guys like bust down your doors wearing Adidas tracksuits with the the flowers. I'm I'm very interested now in the flower meta because I' i've noticed this is actually flower, right? They are like the big posters of flowers on Instagram stories, right? Well, I I was just going to say like in America it's it's this big arrangement, but like every country or I guess locality has their own sort of culture around like the role of flowers in relationships and they have different flowers that they select typically also just like regionally and then they'll also have uh you know like some countries just don't like arrangements that much. There are some countries where it's like you put the one type of [ __ ] flower in the vase. You don't like you don't mix roses with

2:04:08 peies. That's like horseshit. I think one cultural thing >> I think I think one cultural thing that's kind of interesting is um I think in the US it's like it's it's very strange to show up with like a massive bouquet of of flowers. I don't know if this is like I mean I don't have that much connection to like Slavic culture so maybe I'm just like seeing like stuff on like >> it's not strange at all in Slavic culture. >> I feel like it's not strange. I I feel like in the US it's like a big deal and it's like >> kind of almost like too much like too intense a little if you like show up with a big bouquet of flowers like it's it's kind of like strange. It's like what's going on? Like >> it feels sets up a weird dynamic, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I I grew up in Canada

2:04:53 like the West. I don't know if you can consider Canada the West anymore to be honest, but anyway. Um >> Holy [ __ ] [laughter] >> Uh and and yeah, it's the complete opposite. Like you can, and by the way, like there's also like real like weird stuff, at least to me, where it was like, okay, if you get 50 flowers, that's actually bad because you you can only get an odd number of flowers. So, you have to get 51. So, like if you go to like an actual Russian flower shop, they only give them odd numbers. Um, and it can't be red roses because red roses mean funeral or like some somebody died. So, it has to be like a certain color. But like depending on like obviously the type of person you're dating, 51 like let's say something like um I don't know the size of my torso would probably be considered somewhat excessive in the west. Not even

2:05:41 close in in Moscow for example. >> Not even close in in in Slava countries, right? In in the West if you buy that many flowers it's like like what is like did you do something evil? Like what is like did you [ __ ] something up? Oh, he's coming on too strong or like, oh, this guy's obsessed with me or something. And it's the opposite in the other uh part of the world, which is like, oh, this person doesn't he's not a gentleman. >> Weird. Um, you have to be more indirect in the West. And I think almost it's it's almost like in the entire rest of the world you can be more direct. But like in the in the west there's this weird like assertative mating thing where like if you're too into her even if she really likes you if you do too many things that are too direct like girls start thinking like oh he's so

2:06:26 into me like maybe I've really miscalculated like the market value here. >> Our value. Yeah. Like if he's this into me I must be higher on the chart. if he's going after me this >> and he got me this many flowers like is maybe this is like a horrible maybe I'm like really fire sailing myself here and I haven't realized whereas in the rest of the or like even things like going up to a girl and being like hey can I take you out like that's kind of weird in the west like there there used to be like this whole series of like I remember in like middle school and high school growing up now I kind of just don't give a [ __ ] anymore but like there was this weird like convoluted way you would like ask someone on a date but like you would never ever call it a date because it was like really bad to call it a date. Do you remember this or am I [ __ ] insane? Like you did like this weird

2:07:11 thing where like >> this is still a thing. >> Yes. No, I mean our our podcast is called plausibly deniable and this is like the entire meta of America, right? Everything in America when dealing with women, it's like even when you are going on your seventh date, there must be this like it must be plausibly deniable that you like her, right? like there could be a chance that this all has happened as like a coincidence somehow. >> One other thing I'll say is like um okay so like along those lines from what I remember in the west what you have to do is basically you have to formally ask them like hey do you want to be exclusive right like if you're actually like dating dating um they do not have this as far and I'm sure like some subgroups within Russia or Slavic women

2:07:57 have this but they don't have this in in Russia. So like if you just take the person on a date or if you just kiss, you're now dating, right? Like there is no it it is now that it is like very traditional. Um you know there's like this meme of like Russian women just being like super traditional like values orthodox whatever and it's pretty correct I would say. Um, >> I think the other thing that that arises out of that is that like in the rest of the world like boyfriend is not like as significant of a category because dating in and of itself is a bigger deal. Whereas in the in the US like boyfriend is a big deal because boyfriend a lot of times denotes like oh we're not just seeing each other. We're like exclusive and like people know that we're seeing

2:08:42 each other. It's not like some weird secret. Whereas like in in the US like dating quote unquote is like a very big deal uh versus like oh this is my boyfriend or my girlfriend because it denotes exclusivity like in the rest of the world like I'm going out with a girl basically means like it's it's almost like this is your girlfriend. >> The idea of situationships is completely obliterated by the Russian strategy here. Like you can have no situationship because now you're just dating 11 people right now. you're just like it's cheating. You get thrown out of the village presumably. I don't know. A lot of the [snorts] stuff that I've seen Mert comment on, uh, it was when he was living in Dubai and every now and then it's like some big piece of American discourse would go like hyper mega viral and Mert would look at it and like most

2:09:28 of the time he would take like uh like most of the time he would agree with the American right and then on a lot of the dating stuff that involved any sort of uh like whenever traditionalism was at question he would look at it and go like what the [ __ ] are you guys talking about? Like obviously the guy is supposed to like pay for the date or something. Uh, and then there would be some some uh like 20-year-old Zoomer in your replies trying to explain to you that it's like, no, like you don't understand how destroyed it is, right? Like actually, we've destroyed every reason why the guy would pay for the date and also they don't have money to pay for the date anyway and also nobody should be dating in the first place because our country has destroyed the concept of marriage and it's now meaningless. And Mert's like looking at and he's like, is this real or is this

2:10:13 like a hallucinating? And the guy has like a baby Pepe the frog avatar and like I can almost imagine you reading this reply thinking like I'm just going to table this one man like I'll think about it [laughter] later. >> Yeah. I mean it it's I mean I'm also Turkish, right? So I'm kind of like more eastern I guess. But like there's all sorts of like these different philosophies on dating and whatnot these days and and like everybody's like trying to do all these different things. And I made a post I went relatively viral about like really I feel like all you need to do is like gentleman Max and like people have like an ego with this thing where they're like oh but like this person might be like a [ __ ] or something and it's like okay well then you selected wrong to begin with

2:10:59 obviously right or like maybe the thing that you're wanting isn't a relationship regardless and that's fine whatever but like just super simple like if you just and by the way here's another like funny thing like my girlfriend won't she'll She'll like walk up to a door and she'll just stand by it. And like the first like [laughter] f first like first like two times I saw this I was like I was not super used to it. So I was like what is what is happening here? Like are we just not going yet? And I was like oh wait never mind. I'm supposed to get the door and [laughter] it's like [snorts] uh and it's like with that with everything like just if you're just gentle and like obviously you have to like you know you have to get up and then go to the washroom and like put the chair in when you go to the restaurant and all this stuff. just like super like 60s like like if you just like watched Madmen uh like with Don Draper just like

2:11:45 basically everything they would do. That's basically it. Huh. This is dating This is dating alpha that we have basically never gotten on here. This is dating alpha that may actually be so like I think our average viewers like this is literally not possible for my brain to implement, right? It's like they're they're already having trouble walking on like the street side of the sidewalk. Like that one's already confusing the idea now of getting up to grab their chair when they go to the washroom. Like this is [laughter] >> also sometimes super small. >> Yeah. Go ahead. when when you do the street side like walking thing now with a lot of girls uh because like I've done this and I did this uh there was a girl in New York that I was seeing for a bit and this another girl also from London

2:12:30 did this where I I would do that and then they would say are you trying to do that weird thing where you walk on the street side to like protect me or something? I heard that guys from the Midwest do that a lot and I was like, "Huh?" Okay, so noted. This does not appear to be buying me points. [laughter] >> No, no. I mean, you got to just kind of gig shad that and just be like, "Yes, that is correct. You need to be agree with Gig >> like where I'm from. You kind of just have to do that because like if you're from a unsafe part of the world, one thing that's very common is somebody from the road will just uh on like whatever Mobit or some [ __ ] will just grab the bag cuz it's the girls on the on the street side, right? Um and so like some parts of the world you actually have to do

2:13:15 that. >> Maybe not in New York. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's another one of those things where we've like we've evolved away from the reason why we have the protective measure and now we're all like >> why do we we don't even need to do this and then it's like you go to uh >> Brussels for example >> and then suddenly everything is instantly robbed. Yeah, >> I lost I lost my like legendary MacBook in Brussels. I'm extremely bitter about the place. We parked I I put my bag in my friend's car and they left it there for like eight hours and it got ripped out of the trunk. Uh, that was like my Mac. >> Yeah, Brussels is super bad. >> It's actually a terrible country. Like I went there for ECC a few years ago and like my friends who lived in Brussels, this one guy messaged me. He's like,

2:14:00 "Dude, >> don't leave your bag." Uh, like it was like right by the entrance of the bar. I was like, "Don't ever do that. I I can see some people eyeing it." And I was like, "Where the [ __ ] am I right? This is crazy." >> Yeah. >> Uh because it's supposed to be the capital of EU democracy, right? But it's just really the capital of crime. >> Um, same. Why do they have conferences in these places, man? >> Like, why do why do cryptocurrency conventions be like, "What we should do, we should take all of the least socially aware in the industry who have known millions of dollars of private wealth potentially on their phones, and then we're going to send them to the third world with a bunch of people who have no problem killing them for $7." >> Yeah. No, it's just like the world is not caught up to like Europe is the

2:14:45 third world. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Oh, uh I just remembered one other random [ __ ] Russian versus American woman difference which is like the level of preparedness for completely trivial activities is like super striking. So, for example, um we were I I was shooting I I was about to shoot a podcast in um like where my girlfriend lives and like I don't know how to I don't have the any of the [ __ ] apps. I don't know how anything works back in the day. And I was like, "You need to like come with me on the Uber so that you know I go to the right place, whatever." She's like, "Oh, okay. Then I have to get up like early, like two hours or I'm" I'm like, "So, what time do you have to get up because the podcast is at like 12 or something." She's like, "Oh, okay. Well, I have to get up at at least 10 then." And I was

2:15:31 like, "What do you mean you have to get up at 10:00?" I'm getting up at like 11:45. And she's like, "No, no. I got to do my hair and my makeup and I got to pick out the outfit and I got to iron it and all this stuff." And I was like, "What the fuck?" I was like, "You just come out the Uber." She like, "I never go anywhere unprepared." And like you this, you go to like Moscow, for example, and all the women just no matter what they're doing, if it's just walking a dog, just completely dressed up like top to bottom. Versus in America, like the girls will just go to school in pajamas. And so that's like a very striking difference that I noticed. >> I I think there's a level of like non irony where like almost like everything in the west is like a very irony poisoned and that's why like you can't ask out a girl directly. You can't like none of these things you can just like do the thing, right? You have to like

2:16:17 obfiscate the fact that you're doing the thing because apparently it's like embarrassing if you do the thing directly which is is like kind of [ __ ] but you know that's like the meta for whatever reason has become that. Well, and there is some guy in the audience to be clear who's saying, "Well, you're just a [ __ ] Like, you can just do the thing." It's like, "You can just do the thing." Like, I often just do the thing. However, it very frequently uh leads to a sort of bizarre manic uh like three month thing [snorts] that explodes because you weren't tactful, right? Like there is a certain tact that is required and expected when dealing with people in the US now and it is considered like graceless if you just say the thing directly in a very

2:17:02 explicit way a lot of times like >> dude are you hitting up uh any conferences or or have people like just totally given up on the the conference as a concept even >> they have been getting pretty [ __ ] over time. I don't even know if I'm going to go with the Salana Breakpoint one because it's in London and I don't want to get macheteed. >> Dude, it just does feel like the level of like Europe is the third world has uh accelerated in an insane way. >> It's getting really bad, right? Like you now actually have to factor that in, right? You're like, is the value that I'm getting out of this thing worth the disruption and genuine risk to my life? Whereas before it was like, yeah, I'm just gonna go hang out with my friends and people in the industry.

2:17:47 >> Yeah. So that's why I only go to like I'm gonna go to token in Singapore because Singapore is actually a civilization. It's like a normal place. Um and then obviously Dubai generally pretty safe. I mean really as safe as you can get. Um I don't know about any of the others. I'm going to go to token in Singapore, but I got invited to like a real one and I was like absolutely no chance. There's no way I'm going to Brazil. [laughter] by chance. >> I really Yeah, I just do wonder how they come up with these venues, I guess. Like, honestly, >> it's it's kind of like But and you can't do the US for everyone because there's a lot of people that just won't go to the US, too. >> But also, are becoming a little bit harder and

2:18:32 >> Yeah. Okay. I'm answering my own question actually. It's like there's only Singapore and Dubai as like safe places over outside America. And in America, it's like you can do whatever, I guess. But uh anyway, I got to go. Uh great talking to the guy. Great seeing him again. Always a great podcast guest. Anyway, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Plausibly Deniable. >> Yes, sponsor for tuning in. >> [ __ ] that, dude. You're welcome for tuning into another episode of Plausibly Deniable. [laughter] It is good because when you get the guys who listened all the way through to the end, it's like they've either like completely tapped out and their browser is just running on a phone like 30 feet away from them and >> they hate you or they love you. But like

2:19:17 whichever one it is, nothing you do could ever make them change their opinion. >> Change their opinion. Really? Yeah. >> Yes. Never ever change their opinion.