{
  "episodeId": "SLP664",
  "speakers": {
    "stephan": {
      "name": "Stephan Livera",
      "role": "host",
      "tag": "STEPHAN"
    },
    "igor_neumann": {
      "name": "Igor Neumann",
      "role": "guest",
      "tag": "IGOR"
    }
  },
  "segments": [
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "00:00",
      "start": 0.16,
      "text": "What I really like is that this kind of way of living or, or kind of managing your, your wealth is now accessible also to regular bitcoiners, right? Because very few of us are able to kind of hop on multiple real estate projects, you know, having a couple of houses, collateralizing them through mortgages, buy stocks, this and that. So really the, the approach towards your assets as something that you never sell because it appreciates over time brings, brings a lot of value. The democratization of this, bringing it to all the, all the bitcoiners out there, I think is, is Obviously, well, let's see, Bitcoin might really start competing with, real estate as the top asset for, you know, from this particular purpose, right? From the monetary perspective. So yeah, this is a, a really big shift, and I think with the growth of adoption of Bitcoin, you know, it's gonna just become bigger and bigger."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "01:00",
      "start": 60.28,
      "text": "Hi everyone, and welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast, brought to you by Bolt. For American listeners, you can buy and sell Bitcoin over at getbolt dot io. Now, rejoining me on the show today, or not rejoining, sorry, joining for the first time. First time is Igor Neumann. He is a co-founder of Firefish, which, as I understand, is one of the, relatively new European lending startups, and I've been talking about this a little bit on the show, so thought it would be good to get someone on from the team to explain what's going on here. So first off, welcome to the show, Igor. Thanks a lot, Stefan. Thanks, for having us here. So, yeah, just give us a quick overview on, I guess, you know, who you guys are, what are you guys doing, and then we can sort of get into more specific questions."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:43",
      "start": 102.84,
      "text": "Absolutely. So, first and foremost, we're, we're Firefish, as, as you mentioned, we're a, Czech-based startup, so we're based in, in Czech Republic in European Union. we started our platform or the project roughly two years ago or three years ago, when, when we also think about the, the development phase. and basically, what is Firefish? Firefish is an open market for Bitcoin-backed loans, right? So when I say market, we do have two sides of the book, right? So"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "02:12",
      "start": 131.86,
      "text": "Bitcoiners who never want to sell and they want to use their, Bitcoin as the collateral against a loan. And on the other side, you have also lenders or investors, as we call them, who are basically people who are funding these loans, right? So on the platform, you can act as, actually, as the borrower or also as the investor. Now, we do support, fiat currencies like Euro, Swiss franc, and some others, as well as, USDC stablecoin. So if you are long liquidity, if you're long fiat basically, and Interest, or a yield basically on your currencies, you can obviously, act as the, as the lender, and what's very important, obviously, we've built the platform in a, non-custodial way, right? So, we aren't centralized lender, we aren't centralized custodian, we're literally just a marketplace actually that is connecting the borrowers with, with the lenders, and the, the important fact, as I mentioned, borrowers have the ability to lock their Bitcoin in a non-custodial way, right than centralized lenders or custodians, and also what is important to, to mention, we are Bitcoin native, so, what we've developed, maybe we're gonna go through the details a little later, is what we call Firefish protocol, which is basically a script that is taking, Bitcoin native, components, and then, you know, in a particular way, puts together, a, a scripting, scripting, basically code that locks your Bitcoin on chain, right? So that's where your Bitcoin would belong. So that Gotcha."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "03:43",
      "start": 223.08,
      "text": "Okay, yeah, and as I recall, I think a couple years ago at BTC Prague, I've seen, your booth and stuff around, so definitely I've seen you around from, from those days. I guess just People who are familiar with the Bitcoin lending market, they may know there's different people out there, right? So in the US, you've got like, the Unchained Capitals, although I believe nowadays they don't do individual loans, they do like corporate loans. There's things like Letin, who I think they started in Canada, but they've now shifted, but, you know, they're still out there. There's, people might know of HodlHodl, Lend, and DeFi,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "04:17",
      "start": 257.24,
      "text": "there's Lava, and of course, there What you're saying, is it-- or you explain to me where it's different. Is it similar to like a Hoddle Hoddle Lend kind of protocol or is it a bit different? Can you explain a bit there?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "04:36",
      "start": 276.32,
      "text": "in principle, we could say that it's, from, from all what you mentioned, actually from all the, all the protocols or platforms out there, it could be, we could say that it's similar to Hoddle Hoddle Lend. So you basically do have two parties, you know, the li-- the borrower and the liquidity provider Or, you know, how the, the scripting works, how your Bitcoin is actually locked, because I think the, the biggest, difference, what I would say, and that was from really very, very first moment when we were, thinking about how to develop the platform, is that we really wanted to kind of break as many barriers for the traditional liquidity to join the Bitcoin back, ecosystem, right? So basically, we've developed the platform in such a way that, you as the lender, you don't have to be Bitcoin native, right? So To provide liquidity, so literally sending, sending a bank transfer, to your counterparty or USDC, obviously, but you don't have to operate any cryptographic material, you don't have to have an app or, or store keys, you know, or sign any, any transactions. So also the very, very, details of the, of the, the Firefish protocol are different, than, any other proposition I would say out there. As well as for, from the borrower's perspective as well, you don't have to be online, all the Transactions, so we are using actually a combination of multisig, pre-signed transactions and time locks, and that brings, I would say from the user perspective, a very smooth experience because literally you as the borrower, initially you just lock your Bitcoin on the platform, and then once you repay the loan, it's automatically either moved back to you or if you default on the loan, it gets, gets to a liquidator, right? So there are s-s-similar-similarities in terms of the marketplace nature, I would say, but also there are, there are certain, certain And, the way, obviously we are, we are working with, with your Bitcoin."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "06:30",
      "start": 390.37,
      "text": "Okay, understood. And so as you're saying, this platform is available not just in Europe, but globally?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "06:37",
      "start": 397.06,
      "text": "Absolutely, absolutely. We started obviously in Europe, we wanted to g- gain some traction in the domestic market, as I mentioned, we're from Czech Republic, but, you know, the market, I mean, many people say that Prague is actually the capital of Bitcoin, and you can see it on BTC Prague, it's a, it's a, it's a very, very sort of robust and big market, so even domestically. So we actually started with the, with the harder part, which is the fiat loans, and then later we also, Actually join the platform, register and start, interacting. If you're from the European Union, you can, interact in, in, in fiat, for the time being. For the other countries, you will have to stick to USDC, but we're also, obviously with time, we're expanding our proposition also into, into different markets. But yes, the platform is actually available globally."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "07:26",
      "start": 446.09,
      "text": "Gotcha. And so just to give people an overview before we sort of go further into detail, can you give us an overview, what are the loan terms? Like the What is the normal LTV or at least the allowable LTV ratios, and what are, let's say, the, the typical interest rates, even though I know it's a market. So let's just start with the, the loan term."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "07:47",
      "start": 467.31,
      "text": "Yeah. The loan term for the time being, we support, we wanted to kind of, normalize the market, right? So we didn't want to have any kind of broken dates and all that. So at the, at this point in time, we support loans from three to eighteen months. Obviously, there's a very big demand for longer term loans, in particular four years, for obvious reasons. so we're gonna be expanding, expanding the terms as well. So, in terms of the, the, the terms is three to eighteen months, in terms of"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "08:18",
      "start": 497.79,
      "text": "ticket size to whatever, whatever your tier, your user tier allows you to. and in terms of the interest rates, as we're not centralized lenders, as, as, as you mentioned, we aren't setting the interest rate. So, this is also, I, I would say a, a nuance of our platform where, you know, the, the interest rates aren't actually set by the lenders, it's the other way around. So it's the borrowers who come to the platform and submit requests like, \"Hey, I wanna borrow ten thousand euros at particular The, the interest rates are bor- ba-basically driven by the borrowers, but obviously, as it's a marketplace, there has to be enough demand from the lender's side, you know, to, to help on, your particular request. So for example, if someone asked for five percent, definitely there won't be enough demand. at this point in time, if I look at the, the, the current state of book, USDC, for example, have been, dealt at around,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "09:16",
      "start": 555.91,
      "text": "eight to ten, Shorter rates, loans are, or usually have a lower interest rate, so that would go from around seven to twelve, thirteen percent. now there's also one, one additional thing, we also have a, a service called, instant loans. So for example, if you're the borrower and you need the money very quickly, you don't have to wait on the marketplace, we already have a pre-committed liquidity, so you can literally just, start the process with locking your Bitcoin and the, the funds would be disbursed,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "09:46",
      "start": 585.93,
      "text": "to you And in terms of the LTVs, we have a standard LTV, of fifty percent, but it's a good practice actually we've noticed on the platform that, you know, Bitcoiners obviously they are fully aware of the volatility, of, of Bitcoin price. So, I would say the, the, the average LTV is around forty percent. So it's always, you know, the Bitcoiners sleep better obviously when they, when they have bigger cushion, than, than just, fifty percent. Excellent."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "10:13",
      "start": 613.17,
      "text": "and one other thing, you mentioned, the amount, so you said on the low end it's eight hundred euros. Is there like a maximum or is it just, you know, however much people wanna put up?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "10:24",
      "start": 624.4,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, if, if you think about it, the marketplace obviously the pre-- predominant is predominantly driven by retail, right? So, I would assume that it would be difficult to, to find a lender that would borrow, or sorry, that would actually lend to the borrower, let's say one million, one million dollars. So normally what we see on the retail marketplace are tickets, up to like fifty thousand euros or seventy thousand euros. but we also do have what I would call like an OTC sort of flow where we are matching bigger tickets, Particular, or preset, counterparty. So, in, in theory, actually the upside is unlimited. Also, as I mentioned, it depends on your, on your tier because, love it or hate it, we know we need to do KYC and, andAML checks. So depending on your, on your user tier, that there's a particular amount of, of, of transactions that you can, process on the platform."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "11:16",
      "start": 675.73,
      "text": "Yeah, I see. Okay, yeah, so fair enough. And so then talking about the user types, who are the main kinds of users that you have seen? On the platform so far."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "11:31",
      "start": 691.28,
      "text": "So initially, I would say, predominantly this would be the typical Bitcoin Maxis, right? Because, as you can imagine, Bitcoin Maxis, you know, they, they don't trust centralized lenders or custodian per- custodians per se. so there, there has been really a very, very strong demand from the Bitcoin Maxi space, mostly retail. but, since we've been gaining traction and, you know, the platform has been, as I mentioned, up and running for a couple of years, you We see more and more of, additional user types on the platform. So we do already have a number of, SMEs on both sides actually, which is interesting, right? Because, if, if you're an SME and you hold Bitcoin in your treasury, which is pretty common here actually in, in Czech Republic, as I mentioned, there are a lot of Bitcoin lovers, you want to use your assets, you know, not just kind of waiting for the pi-price appreciation, but also, you know, using it as, as an asset SMEs are also on the, on the borrowing side, but, as it's a, as it's an open marketplace, a lot of, SMEs, as well as obviously retail, have been using the platform on the, on the lending side, right? So, people basically, if they compare, the yields that they earn on, let's say, term deposits in, in a bank or, or even treasuries or some securities, the, the yields on the platform, are much higher. So a lot of people are actually withdrawing"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "12:58",
      "start": 778.28,
      "text": "Or even peer-to-peer, additional peer-to-peer unsecured platforms and kind of using, using it on our platform as liquidity providers. And last but not least, obviously we do have a number of, high-net-worth individuals, I would say. So, you know, again, these are, these are kind of tech and finance savvy, investors who know, who understand the proposition, who know, you know, where to find the yield or find the, or generate alpha basically. And as I mentioned, really the interest rates, as, And, any, any other alternative in the money market or, or fixed income space, you know, there, there's been, growing demand from, hundred or individual borrowers on the platform as well. but eventually we're, we're also opening up, the platform for, for institutional borrowers, naturally, miners, you know, they're the natural, natural borrowers because, you know, their revenues are in Bitcoin, whereas they need to kind of fund their operations, you know, by technology and so forth. So, so Basically borrowers."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "14:00",
      "start": 839.66,
      "text": "Interesting. So yeah, as, as I understand, the typical story is, you know, often like Bitcoin Maxis who don't wanna sell, fair enough, many of us have been there, and people who, they've got a business case where they can borrow at a certain level from you guys or through your platform, let's say, and they've got somewhere else they can go and deploy that capital. Into a business and they can actually earn more than what they're paying, therefore, you know, make that, make, make that difference, and then, yeah, but, it, it is interesting you point out, Czech SMEs even are into this. I'm curious, do you have any, obviously not doxing individual ones, but can you spell out a bit about what you're seeing there? I think listeners would like to hear a bit more about that, like You know, how prevalent is that? Is that kind of a common way? How are they thinking about this?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "14:48",
      "start": 887.89,
      "text": "Yeah, listen, as I mentioned, I mean, I, I, I think the, the Bitcoin community in Czech Republic is really, really, very strong for, for many, many reasons, and you know, the guys actually from BTC Prague had a very nice video about it, last year, I believe. So, you know, it's not, not uncommon here in Prague, for example, when you walk around, you go to a restaurant that you can actually Very high level, you can pay with a QR code, you know, just through your Lightning and, and stuff like that. So, in terms of the adoption, I think that's the foundation of why so many people are, are into this. And, many of, many of the, entrepreneurs who are in, in Bitcoin are trying to leverage Bitcoin either as a payment, sort of, channel for their businesses. So, you know, there's a number of companies that, where you can obviously buy, I don't know, I have actually one of, one of the biggest, distributors of, or something, I would, I would call them like, check Amazon basically, a company that is accepting Bitcoin for, for as, as a payment, payment method. but as I mentioned, there's, there is a growing number of SMEs and institutions that are holding Bitcoin on their balance sheet and now they're discovering, you know, what to do with, with it. So instead of just kind of receiving Bitcoin as a payment, sort of, or using it as, as a Real asset just like you do with equities, with, you know, fixed income instruments and all that. So, I would say really the adoption, and I would also love to invite everybody to BTC Prague, we're gonna be there as well to learn really, more about this because, you know, we, we-- I think we are in a very, very interesting environment where the whole market is very acceptable, accepting Bitcoin, I would say, and, you know, the, the traction is just proving that, you know,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "16:38",
      "start": 997.66,
      "text": "And I'm also"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "16:38",
      "start": 998.12,
      "text": "curious if you have any, let's say, stories you can share from the lender side of things, right? Because this is kind of the, the thing where obviously once you're truly a Bitcoin maxi and you believe Bitcoin is gonna be the money of the world You often don't wanna give up your upside, right? So then it's like, which people are doing that? Are these people who maybe they already have some Bitcoin as well, but they've got like a small fiat allocation and they think, okay, well, I'll, I'll get some, I'll get some fiat yield on that fiat allocation side of it? Or are they, people who just haven't gone down the rabbit hole and they just, to them, they don't even know, they just kind of put some fiat in and get some fiat return out? How are they seeing it"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "17:17",
      "start": 1037.13,
      "text": "Yeah, definitely. I would say at the, at the very beginning, the vast majority of the lenders were actually native Bitcoiners, right? So because they, naturally would understand the proposition, the security proposition in the first place, the fact that these loans are over collateralized, they would understand the risks, you know, related to, investing in Bitcoin-based loans. So at the very, very, first point in time, I would say, the vast majority of, lenders, were, coming from the Bitcoin space Also like looking at what's been happening in the markets, in the last couple of months and years, like starting with ETFs, you know, and the sort of overall shift of perception, of, of the global markets on, on Bitcoin, more and more people from TradFi, starting understanding that, hey, actually, this isn't a terrorist financing tool anymore. Bitcoin is really a, a legitimate, asset that is, widely accepted across the globe. Wall Street is there, the governments are, contemplating on accepting Bitcoin or putting Bitcoin Sheets and all that. So more and more people from traditional finance, I would say, are, getting into this. and what we've also seen is actually growing interest from traditional finance institutions. and I'm, I'm really talking about banks, I'm talking about funds, I'm talking about family offices, right? So really, the, the part of the market that really we wanted to help to, you know, unlock their, unlock their liquidity and bringing it to Bitcoin-backed loans, because I think from the sort of risk-reward, perception, you Like loans are, are extremely, I would say attractive in terms of, you know, the, the downside is very, very limited. Obviously, there's nothing like no risk, but the downside is very limited for, for the lenders, whereas the upside, you know, the, the yield that they can generate on their free fiat is, is definitely much higher than, any other alternative they, they actually have access to at this point in time. So really, I think, starting from the Bitcoin Max is going through the, the, the shift In the market in general, we're gonna see more and more traditional institutions in this field."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "19:22",
      "start": 1162.45,
      "text": "Yeah, really interesting to see how this is, growing and developing. And I'm curious as well, I'm sure you got this question a thousand times, but a lot of people are thinking back to, you know, what happened last cycle with, you know, FTX and BlockFi and Celsius and all this stuff. of course, I understand the difference, there, there are some differences here, but can you just explain for people? How you're thinking about that? Are we gonna see the same thing all happen this cycle, this, this go around in twenty twenty-five? What do you think?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "19:49",
      "start": 1189.36,
      "text": "I don't wanna prophesy, honestly. I mean, it's, it's very difficult to sort of estimate what will happen. I mean, even, even if you asked us, let's say two years ago, like, \"Hey, what do you think where, where, where is gonna be Bitcoin, you know, in, in twenty twenty-five?\" You know, that would be a crazy bet, maybe The last two years. in terms of, in terms of the risks, I mean, one thing that we've noticed, and I've, I've, I've seen a couple of also research papers on this, is that the, the overall volatility on Bitcoin is decreasing, right? So, seeing days of, Bitcoin falling forty, fifty percent, I hope these days are, are, are, are gone. but again, that's just my, my personal, personal guess, and I think it's also thanks to the fact that the market, as Much wider and, you know, in general, Bitcoin is much, much more accessible than it was before. And also, as I mentioned, the perception of people ha-has changed. And last but not least, obviously, there's a lot of, institutional, interest in the market, right? So really seeing the collapses of, of the previous years, you know, I'm, I'm sure there's always a rotten apple in the, in the basket somewhere, so I'm sure there's s-s-some of the projects or, or, or services might not necessarily survive,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "21:12",
      "start": 1272.48,
      "text": "similar domino effect like we saw with, Celsius, BlockFi, you know, Three Arrows, and FTX. So I think the mar- the, the market has already kind of reached a, a bit more mature state"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "21:24",
      "start": 1283.88,
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    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "22:58",
      "start": 1377.66,
      "text": "Absolutely. So when it comes to the Firefish, what we call the Firefish protocol, which is basically a script that is locking your Bitcoin in an escrow address on, directly on blockchain. So again, no, no wrapping, bridging, you know, and all these hocus pocus of, of the DeFi world. So we really wanted to, basically, bring something that is Bitcoin native, and literally what we're using in the Firefish protocol are, as I mentioned Pre-sign Bitcoin transactions and time locks, right? So three components that are, Bitcoin native. We also use a, a very maybe, kind of unusual setup for the multisig, which is three out of three keys, right? So there are three keys, one key is held by the, the borrower themselves, and also this particular key is what we call ephemeral, right? So it's a key basically that you use only to pre-sign the transactions, and then obviously you aren't signing any more transactions in, in the future. So the addition- So two keys are, held by what we call oracles. So we have a, a price oracle and a payment oracle. the role of these two oracles is literally for-- in terms of the price oracle, it's just to check Bitcoin price because obviously there might be a liquidation due to collapse or the, the LTV basically reaching the liquidation level. So there's an oracle that is actually holding the key that signs the transactions for liquidations. And then there's the, payment oracle because as I mentioned, we are, operating also in a fiat, fiat We need to understand whether a particular fiat transaction happened or not, as we obviously don't have access to the banking data, you know, we need to rely on, third party source, right? So in, in current setup, you know, basically the lender would say like, \"Hey, I've sent the money to the borrower,\" borrower would say, \"Yes, I've, I've received the money,\" and, the payment oracle would basically then sign the tran- the corresponding transaction. Now, so these are the three keys, and then, as I Your Bitcoin in, in the escrow, on, on, on blockchain, it can move from that particular escrow address only in, in, in two parts, right? One is back to the borrower once they repay the loan, or, to the liquidator in case they don't, don't repay the loan if they default or if they default due to the price, price decline, right? So- So just quickly, the liquidator in this case is that"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "25:16",
      "start": 1515.85,
      "text": "Firefish or is that the investor?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "25:19",
      "start": 1518.91,
      "text": "So there are two options actually. There's As, as I mentioned, we also wanted to kind of bring in traditional, you know, or retail, basically fiat retail people, who aren't necessary, Bitcoin native. So anyone who has, you know, some, some euros on their bank account or other currency, they can actually start using the platform. obviously that's, if, if they opt for, for the Firefish liquidation, which means that we are gonna liquidate, sell, sell the collateral on their behalf, they obviously need to trust us. So that's, you know, we, There basically would receive the corresponding amount of collateral, in case of the liquidation."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "26:00",
      "start": 1559.7,
      "text": "Okay. So, just help me understand a little bit about the kind of exact setup there with the five fish protocol. So the multisig, the borrower has signed, and then you have the oracle price and the payment, sorry, price oracle and payment oracle."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "26:16",
      "start": 1576.43,
      "text": "So I guess as you, as you spelled out at the start, the lender, the investor isn't touching cryptographic material, they're not touching the keys and so on. The borrower, are they doing this out of like a phone app or a hardware wallet or like where are they operationalizing this?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "26:33",
      "start": 1592.95,
      "text": "So we have a, we have an app, I mean, like a website basically, where you can log in. So, we're, we're leveraging the, you know, the native, native browser technology. So there's a code that is running, you know, on, on your, on your browser, where all the calculations are, are, are done and the signing, basically happens, on that side. So you as the borrower, literally, you just go to the platform. Once you're met, or matched with,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "26:59",
      "start": 1619.19,
      "text": "with QR code or just copy the, copy the, the, the address, and then, there, there, the calculations, obviously happening on your backend inside of your, inside of your, browser, and once Bitcoin is locked, obviously investor gets the, notification and they can send, send the funds. So that's where actually the whole process for the borrower stops, that, you know, you don't have to hold any keys, you don't have to d-download an additional app or, you know, have any additional infrastructure, store seeds Once the, s- once the, the, transactions are pre-signed, you know, there's nothing else, you know, no one else can kind of fiddle with that. obviously once Bitcoin is sitting on the escrow, address, as I mentioned, you know, very often people ask like, \"What if, what if someone hacks the, the escrow account?\" It's impossible because there are two, only two parts hardcoded. It's your return address or is the liquidator's address. So, you know, even Firefish,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "27:58",
      "start": 1678.43,
      "text": "cannot But if the police comes and they are like, \"Hey, you know, send us, send us this, user's Bitcoin,\" we can't do that, right? So, it's hardcoded and it's part of the, the, the security proposition. I see. As part of the,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "28:13",
      "start": 1692.79,
      "text": "let's say from the user's perspective, when he goes to sign up on the Firefish, website and the protocol, he is sort of saying, \"Okay, just for example's sake, I wanna borrow, say, ten thousand euros, and I'm putting up, My return address, that, you know, once I've paid back the tw- you know, the ten thousand, euros, in this example, send my Bitcoin back to this address. And so that is the address, that's one of the pathways, and then the other pathway is, the Firefish Liquidation pathway. and so that's, that's what's being pre-signed there or what exactly?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "28:53",
      "start": 1733.09,
      "text": "Yeah. So let me, let me get exactly to the, the, the pre-signed transactions, right? So as, as you mentioned, yes, once borrower, gets to the platform, they go through the process, they do set up their return address, obviously they can double-check it whether it, it is theirs. and then also lender, when they're actually accepting one of the, one of the deals from the platform, they can opt like, \"Hey, And gonna use their own, address for the liquidation, or in case of Firefish liquidation, you know, they just move on into the, the, the payment process. Now, as I mentioned, we're using also pre-signed transactions. So part of the multi-sig, when, when the, when the, borrower is actually signing the transactions, there are four particular transactions that are partially signed by, by these, these three entities. So the borrower and those two oracles. So the first, first pre-signed transaction or partially signed transaction is a Repayment transaction is, already signed by the borrower and is signed by the, the, the pricer oracle because the only key or the only signature missing there is the, the confirmation from the payment oracle that yes, the borrower has repaid their loan, right? So once the borrower repays the loan, the payment oracle adds the missing key and obviously, the Bitcoin is moved back to, to the borrower. So that's, that's repayment. then on the opposite side, you have the default, situation where borrower doesn't repay their loan Which is happening very, very rarely, literally, I mean, until now we've pro- we've processed thousands of deals and there have been literally only two, defaults, for, for various reasons. So really, it only proves the fact that Bitcoiners never want to lose their Bitcoin, but basically the second transaction is the default transaction and, again, this is pre-signed, by the borrower, it's pre-signed also by the, the price oracle, but the signature from the payment oracle is missing. So again, if there's- As a default, borrower confirms that, no, I haven't repaid the loan, and lender as well confirms, no, I haven't received the money. Then the oracle adds the missing signature, and in that case, again, Bitcoin moves to, to the liquidator, right? Be it, the investor Damsel or, Firefish as, as the liquidating, liquidating- One question"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "31:05",
      "start": 1864.78,
      "text": "I have at this point is, how do you deal with, let's say, the different prices at this time? So as an example, let's say I entered My, my liquidation price is, I don't know, fifty-five thousand, or let's say the price somehow goes down to forty-five thousand and I get liquidated. How exactly, where is the-- Can you explain that part of it, the liquidation, price signing part of it? Yeah."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "31:31",
      "start": 1890.78,
      "text": "Exactly. So that's actually the third transaction, right? So there are four percent transactions. So we had the, we had the repayment, we had the default, and the third one is, is price liquidation, transaction. Okay. So in that case, for that, we So we are using ex-external data from various venues. There, you know, we're filtering out obviously some spikes and stuff like that. So you don't wanna get liquidated because, you know, Binance went down or, or there was a, a technical glitch on, one particular venue. So we're taking multiple, multiple venues and the price feed from those venues. And whenever, the price hits your liquidation level, which you know from the very beginning of the loan, in that case, basically the, price oracle signs the, the liquidation Transaction, right? So in that case, obviously, Bitcoin is moved, from escrow to the liquidator. So that's the, that's the third entity, and in the price liquidation, obviously, the price oracle is adding the missing signature."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "32:31",
      "start": 1950.64,
      "text": "Yeah."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "32:31",
      "start": 1951.0,
      "text": "And then what's the fourth one you mentioned? So the fourth one is something what we call the zombie apocalypse scenario, right? So as you can imagine, emergency"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "32:38",
      "start": 1958.28,
      "text": "recovery kind of thing. Absolutely,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "32:40",
      "start": 1959.74,
      "text": "absolutely, yeah. So that's exactly for the case I imagine that, Firefish would disappear, the To sign, any transactions, the last thing we w-w-wanted to, to happen is that Bitcoin stays locked in escrow forever, right? So basically, there's a fourth transaction, that is actually signed by all three entities, so both the borrower and those, two oracles, but this particular transaction has a time lock on it, right? So that's the third component of the, of the script, and the time lock is actually set for one month after the, after the maturity. So if Firefish disappeared The loan would get matured, the, the particular transaction becomes valid, one month after, after the loan is, or has basically expired or has matured. In that case, the borrower can broadcast this transaction and withdraw, Bitcoin back to, to their wallet or to their return address. So that, that's literally just for the scenario, the zombie, zombie apocalypse scenario, if everything goes belly up and Firefish is not collaborating or not able to sign any transactions."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "33:45",
      "start": 2024.99,
      "text": "I see, okay. And so at that point in the emergency recovery scenario, does the user have to do anything? Like, does, does he have to broadcast something or how, how does that, like, does, does he get a PSBT or does he get a valid transaction that he can only broadcast in? Nineteen months or what?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "34:03",
      "start": 2043.06,
      "text": "Exactly, exactly. So actually right on the platform, when, when you look at, in, into your loan details, you, you can download the, the recovery transaction. So it's literally like a text file as you would, as you would, guess, which you can just copy paste into any mempool, and basically broadcast it into the next one."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "34:20",
      "start": 2059.99,
      "text": "Isn't"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "34:23",
      "start": 2062.97,
      "text": "that like the transaction hex, and you can broadcast that? Exactly. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's, that's it. So from and, and then broadcast it if the, you know, worst case scenario would happen."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "34:35",
      "start": 2074.53,
      "text": "Right. And I think sites like, I think Blockstream dot info has like a thing where you can paste in a transaction hash or some of these different sites have, yeah."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "34:42",
      "start": 2082.36,
      "text": "Yeah, it's literally a mat-- matter of copy-pasting it into, into any of these blockchain explorers and broadcasting it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "34:48",
      "start": 2088.26,
      "text": "Yeah, okay. What about, okay, here's another one. What about if the fee market really shifts in that time, you know? Like, what if we pre-- pre-sign it three satz per vbyte and then, let's say, in nineteen months' time or what, you know, it's, a hundred satz of vbyte or whatever, you know?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "35:03",
      "start": 2103.08,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, this, this, this has been a tricky one because we've experienced obviously massive spikes on, on, on the fees in, in the past, like with the runes and with all these kind of, crazy, crazy projects on, on, on Bitcoin. so w-what we actually do, we, as a Firefish, we are bumping those, those transactions, right? So if there's a repayment, we set the minimum, minimum like one, one, one set, fee at the, at the very Transactions, for you, right? So there's obviously portion of these transactions that is, or, or a portion of the, the fees that are, that would be covered by, by the borrower, but in most cases, you know, we are the ones who are actually then bumping, bumping the fees for the future, because as you mentioned, I mean, you, you can never tell like what, what the fees will be. So that-- This is one of the downsides of being on chain, but obviously, we believe that there"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "36:03",
      "start": 2162.72,
      "text": "Yeah. And by the way, what's, what's the fee, on the Firefish side? Is there like an origination fee or like what's, what's the fee that you guys get?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "36:11",
      "start": 2170.92,
      "text": "Yeah, it's a, it's a simple origination fee of hundred fifty basis points, right? So that, that is paid by the borrower, so, you know, that's, that's the portion that would be taken from, from the collateral, but as it's, it's, it's per annum basically, right? So it's a hundred fifty per annum"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "36:31",
      "start": 2191.29,
      "text": "Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then, can you explain a bit around dispute resolution, right? What if you get like a case where, you know, the guy says he's paid, but actually the other side, the investor side is saying, \"No, no, I can't, I can't see the payment.\" How does that work?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "36:47",
      "start": 2206.85,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, so this is, I would say the number one question that we always receive from, from the users because, I, I think it's kinda unusual that people are doing, you know, peer-to-peer, random peer-to-peer transactions, right? So, literally you could be sending money to someone in Germany or, or Portugal, and, you know, so we are kinda-- we've created this, very, very, unique network of, of borrowers and lenders, across Europe, but, in terms of this, One party would be saying that, hey, I haven't received the money. we're dealing with, with fiat system, right? So it always can happen, that, you know, you send the money, it gets blocked either by your bank or by the receiving bank. there's always some AML procedures and all that. So, so really depending on the bank, the money can be, can be postponed or the transaction can be postponed, significantly and significantly, especially when it comes to like swift transactions. So that's actually one of the reasons why we actually"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "37:46",
      "start": 2266.45,
      "text": "because like sending dollars inside of Europe, for example, from let's say Germany to Portugal, it's super expensive. You never know when the money comes, you ne-never know how much, money comes and all that. So, so these are the nuances of the Fiat system, but in terms of the resolutions, basically, in the, in the, we do have a resolution procedure basically that kind of follows certain steps. In the first step, we would be just literally waiting for the confirmation on the platform from both sides, from borrower and lender. Then if they,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "38:16",
      "start": 2295.93,
      "text": "And says I haven't received the money, then we need to wait, for both parties to submit, like, transactions, from, from, from their bank. Like literally we would, ask the, the lender, like, can you share the statement or the transaction that you actually processed it? and the same we would, ask from, from, from the borrower. So there are a couple of rounds of, you know, when we're trying to confirm, with both parties, you know, where the payment is."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "38:46",
      "start": 2325.79,
      "text": "Respond or delayed for a significant portion of time, but they always appear somewhere, right? So it's either returned, to the sender's bank or then, it appears on the receiver's bank, bank account basically. So, yeah, there is a pro-procedure, as I mentioned, you know, Touchwood, we haven't experienced too much of the hassles. I would, I would, assume that's mostly thanks to the fact that, the payments in euros or in all the other accounts inside of Eurobar pretty, pretty fast, right? Party within the same day. So, and, again, at this point in time, I don't, I don't think we've had any, any real bad actors that would be trying to kind of, play with the system and all that. But again, for the borrower, if they claim they haven't received the money, they're still the collateral locked, so you know, it, it would be difficult for them to kind of end up with both money and, and collateral. We would really need to get a proof that the money hasn't arrived, but as I"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "39:38",
      "start": 2378.07,
      "text": "mentioned Technology, is your technology using like discrete log contracts or not? Like, I, I guess as I understand you're not, but it's like there's elements of similarity with, like this kind of DLC style Of loan."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "40:00",
      "start": 2400.39,
      "text": "Yeah, it is, it is very similar, actually, in principle, we're doing, I would say, doing the same thing, but we're not using DLCs for, for various reasons. but, as I mentioned, li- literally what we've built is a combination of multisig, of the pre-signed or partially signed transactions and, and the time locks, right? So we felt that also this particular approach would have, particular benefits, oracles in particular, yes, we need to rely on a third party, but Dealing with this. So, I, I wouldn't even say that there's one, one particular way that is better than the other. You know, both, both approaches, I would say have, its certain benefits. We went, this path, and, you know, so far, you know, it's been be-working pretty well for us."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "40:43",
      "start": 2442.64,
      "text": "Yeah, yeah. and then one other question I had around, So this is unfortunately the reality of today, where there's a lot of banks, people are getting their bank accounts shut down and all this kind of, you know, and what I have heard, even in, like, not just in the lending area, but like, let's say people doing like Bisk and HodlHodl and, you know, this kind of thing, or I think now there's also Vexel, it, also another check kind of peer-to-peer one. There's Peach. Like, you hear stories of people getting their bank account shut down because,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "41:17",
      "start": 2476.71,
      "text": "From what's it about? Show me an invoice, show me this, show me that, and, you know, obviously none of us like this KYC AML law, these laws, but how has your experience been? Maneuvering around that, have your customers or users had issues on that front?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "41:35",
      "start": 2495.34,
      "text": "very few. I mean, sometimes it happens that, I mean, it al-- again, always depends on your bank, your relationship and your history with, with the bank, right? So if they see, you know, a, a lot of smaller transactions and then suddenly they see that, you know, fifty K arrived from Portugal, you know, they might, raise eyebrows. but it's usually only checking like, okay, where did-- where is this money Coming from, do you know anything about it and all that? we actually on the platform, we do provide a, as, as you are actually taking a, a peer-to-peer loan, which is absolutely legit legitimate, kind of financial instrument in a way, we do provide you with a, a confirmation that, you, person A, have taken a loan from person B. Those, you know, in, in that statement, obviously, we don't say the names of those, of those people, but we confirm the bank accounts from where the money came from."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "42:27",
      "start": 2547.04,
      "text": "Now, literally, we didn't have, any issues with regards to banks stopping peer-to-peer, loans, or basically the, on, on the receiving end, if you send money to someone, the bank would stop the transaction because they feel that it's illegitimate, illegitimate. So, ninety-nine point nine percent, I would say, the, the confirmation from the platform, is, is good enough. In that zero point one percent cases, you can actually download because you do have actually a bilateral contract, legal contract with your counterparty, right Yes, there is an approach that, hey, let's, let's be all, all digital, all crypto and all that, but we feel that also from the perspective of being able to bring in, more liquidity into, into Bitcoin-based loans, more liquidity to cover, Bitcoiners' needs basically, we wanted to also add this kind of legal layer. So that's why you have a bilateral, bilateral agreement with your counterparty, and that's definitely enough, for the bank to, to accept this."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "43:23",
      "start": 2602.85,
      "text": "Back to the show in a moment. This show brought to you by Coin Creators of the best Bitcoin hardware security devices such as the Coldcard Mark IV and the new Coldcard Q. Now, we use Bitcoin hardware security devices to keep our keys offline, our private keys offline. Now, the way these work is you can do that setup, write down your twelve or twenty-four words on the, the seed word cards, and keep that secure. Now, you can use this device to interact with the Bitcoin network using software such as Sparrow Wallet, Electrum, or Bep20 Desktop. Or Nunchuk as a few examples. Now, you have a range of security features that you can use with these devices, such as passphrase, or you can use seed x or, or my favorite is multi-signature. Now, if you're starting in a basic way, just start with the device and the USB-C cable, plug it directly to the computer and use it that way, and then later improve your setup. But I believe these devices are great at helping secure your coins, especially as you start to migrate up into multi-signature security. But Don't be disheartened or don't be, scared away. They are accessible, and I think you actually do learn about Bitcoin in the process. So to get yours, go to coinkite dot com, use code Livera to get a discount on your cold card. This episode is brought to you by Galloy, builders of banking software for the Bitcoin age. After years of risk and uncertainty, Bitcoin and banking are colliding. The regulatory environment is rapidly shifting in favor of Bitcoin and digital assets. Fintechs and crypto-native companies can become chartered banks, and traditional banks And credit unions will launch Bitcoin products, but the legacy core banking software that many financial institutions run on wasn't built for Bitcoin. The Galloy banking infrastructure stack delivers all the key elements of a modern core banking platform with cloud native infrastructure, event based architecture, and robust APIs coming together to meet the security, scalability, and reliability needs of banks of the future. Whether you are launching a modern financial institution from the ground up or you are adding Bitcoin backed lending or payments to your product offering, talk to the team at At Galloy, visit galloy dot io or reach out to the team at b i z at g a l o y dot io. Gotcha, yeah. So I guess in most cases, if your bank asks you questions, you, I guess the user, the borrower in this case, is showing them, \"Hey, here's the contract that I used to borrow this money, that's where the source of the funds is, et cetera.\" Yes. And then that's usually, I guess what you're saying is that's usually enough for the bank compliance officer to kind of, \""
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "45:57",
      "start": 2756.98,
      "text": "The, the, the statement is pretty simple. I mean, it confirms that you've taken a bilateral peer-to-peer loan on Firefish. it doesn't obviously mention anything with Bitcoin or crypto because some of the banks until now are still pretty sensitive. So literally, literally, you, you were-- it, it only states that you've taken a peer-to-peer loan. this is the counterparty's bank details, this is the date of the processing, and, you know, best regards, Firefish. So that's been really enough until now, I believe."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "46:26",
      "start": 2786.05,
      "text": "Yeah, interesting. I'm curious, okay, one other question on, the liquidation. I've seen on, I was looking on your website, I saw there's a five percent premium. Is that on the Firefish liquidation or like, can you explain that part?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "46:38",
      "start": 2798.08,
      "text": "It's on both actually, right? So if the counterpart either defaults or there's a price liquidation, whoever the liquidator is, either the investor or the lender, or Firefish, they keep five percent liquidation premium, obviously, because, you need to count also with the, with a little delay of when the, when the, the collateral moves from the escrow to your wallet so you can pre-hedge yourself and all that. So it's kind of like a, a fee for the liquidator for the hustle of, of liquidating the collateral."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "47:04",
      "start": 2824.12,
      "text": "Gotcha. Okay. Or in"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "47:05",
      "start": 2824.86,
      "text": "other words, basically that's a, that's a premium for, for the investor that they've bought, Bitcoin cheaper by five percent."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "47:12",
      "start": 2831.58,
      "text": "Gotcha, right. So"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "47:13",
      "start": 2832.58,
      "text": "a little bit"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "47:13",
      "start": 2832.96,
      "text": "of a, let's say a k- a kicker or an incentive maybe for the, for the lending side, the investor side of this. Okay. Yes, exactly. And then Yeah, I guess just kind of zooming out a little more broadly, I'm curious how you see things going in the EU, from a Bitcoin laws perspective. Like, obviously, I presume you're Czech, right? So the Czech, government seems very Positive on Bitcoin, right? They've put in this new law, I think it's after three years of holding, no capital gains tax. This Czech National Bank has been publicly talking about maybe buying Bitcoin. so I guess, do you have any- Sense of where things are going, at least at the Czech government level or at the EU level on Bitcoin?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "47:56",
      "start": 2875.7,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, like, first and foremost, I would say really things have dramatically shifted since we started, right? So when we started Firefish, there was still this crypto winter, right, where Bitcoin was fifteen K and all that, and, you know, people thought like, \"Yeah, that's the end of the crypto, and, and Bitcoin is, is irrelevant and, and, and all that.\" as I mentioned, also, you know, be it, That like the really the mindset have shifted dramatically, so even, at the very beginning when we were talking to particular, banks or potential liquidity providers here in the market, everybody was like, \"No way, no way crypto, no way Bitcoin.\" But, it's been happening recently that some of the institutions are coming to us proactively, like, \"Hey, you guys are doing something with Bitcoin, let's, let's talk,\" right? So I see that there's been a really dramatic shift, and especially the banks and the local banks have been extremely, I would say conservative in their, in their approach, so, you know, even previously, if you, if you, in, in, was filling the ML form, you would say like, \"Hey, yes, I'm, I'm, I'm dealing with crypto,\" they would never open your account or they would shut down your account if you, transferred some money from a, from a crypto exchange. So, yes, we, we do see a very positive, shift, and, and sentiment overall towards Bitcoin, as you mentioned, the central bank governor,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "49:19",
      "start": 2959.09,
      "text": "I Tensions or was it more like a sort of political statement? but there's been a lot of pressure, on, on the government and, you know, the institutions about kind of leveling the playing field for, for crypto in general, right? And Bitcoin in particular. so we see that things are improving. As you mentioned, there's been this law, like previously you would have to pay like, big tax on, on once, once you sell a Bitcoin, now obviously after, after three years of holding, you don't have to pay the in- income Things have been improving, as I mentioned, more and more vendors, accept Bitcoin as a, as a payment rail, let's say, and, in terms of European Union, obviously, I don't wanna talk about MiCA regulation too much because that's a, it's an incredible, incredible pain. We obviously have to go, have to go through the process and, you know, the requirements are, pretty tricky, and I'm, I'm a little concerned about whether this will actually help the market or rather kill the, you know, the entrepreneurial If you asked me, like, if, if I would start, Firefish, with Mika being in place, in the European Union, I would maybe say, \"I don't know, I would, I would, I would move maybe to a different country or, or restart it from somewhere else.\" So really, I mean, on one hand, I do understand the regulators, they want to protect, you know, retail and, and, and investors in general, from scams and, and, you know, all these legal activities. At the same time"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "50:49",
      "start": 3049.41,
      "text": "Of bringing better products to the market, you know, or even protecting, protecting,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "50:56",
      "start": 3056.04,
      "text": "basically retail. So, yeah, I think on one hand, it's good to have some, you know, sort of a, level play field where you understand that, you know, crypto is legit. At the same time, I think, the path that EU has been going is, is maybe an overkill in a way in terms of how much of the bureaucracy is required from the companies involved in this market."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "51:19",
      "start": 3078.88,
      "text": "And zooming out on the lending, Bitcoin lending market generally, I think this is something that probably many of us in the industry are seeing that the just in the recent-- I mean, I'm curious to hear your view, but from what I've heard, it's like in the last, let's say, six months, there's been a lot more interest in Bitcoin collateralized loans lending, and we could arguably say that's both on the borrowing side and on the lending side. So can you explain your experience? Right, you started in twenty twenty-two, have you seen that same pattern? Like just recently"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "51:50",
      "start": 3109.6,
      "text": "Absolutely, absolutely, and I really think, as I mentioned, you know, coming back to, to the ETFs, like, you know, suddenly, anyone can actually hold Bitcoin on, on, on their pension, in their pension scheme, right? So suddenly it's a, it is a legitimate commodity almost, or an asset, and obviously that brings in all the other use cases around it, right? So, I would say, you know, when, when you come into Bitcoin, obviously the first things you, you think about is like, you know"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "52:18",
      "start": 3138.16,
      "text": "The Bitcoin is becoming an asset, just like real estate or, or securities, that is gonna be, bigger and bigger in terms of the, use case of, collateralization, right? So, especially the bigger institutions, they, they sense that the market is big enough already to be kind of participating in, in the, in the, basically collateralization space, and as I mentioned, we've also seen a lot of domestic, entities starting, you know, thinking about custody and, Bitcoin and then obviously bringing new, new products into it, and literally as you mentioned, it's been last six months, and we, we've already seen a lot of, products even here in Czech Republic actually, particularly competitors coming up with, with the similar, similar, sort of models. but I would say most of, most of the Tratfy guys who, who aren't interested in, in Bitcoin, they would go the custodian, the centralized lending kinda, kinda path, right? So, you know, I think Not a custodian, we are not the lender ourselves, so we are like a really retail-driven, peer-to-peer marketplace, ultimately, as I mentioned, we'll, we'll be working also with bigger, bigger institutions, but, there's definitely growing demand, from both the borrowing side and, and the lending side that we've been seeing in the market."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "53:38",
      "start": 3217.96,
      "text": "Yeah, interesting to see. Yeah, I think there's just been so much interest, you know, this cycle on-- I mean, there's a lot of things all happening at once, right? It's not just kind of the fiat tradefi stuff, there's technological things improving in Bitcoin and Lightning Land too, but yeah, this, this lending thing just seems to have really-- there's been so much more interest in it now, so I mean, yeah, we could see that happen. And I guess I will of course remind listeners, please do, of course, you're big boys and big"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "54:08",
      "start": 3247.54,
      "text": "But, don't lever over your head or don't, don't be crazy with your leverage, because cycles can turn, right? Like we're kind of in this huge bull run now, or it seems like that, that's what it seems like, but, you know, cycles can turn and, you know, what you think can be the time that everyone can think, \"Oh, it's so safe to kind of lever up on things,\" then that can be the time that people can get wrecked. So just, you know, be conservative about it is what"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "54:38",
      "start": 3277.56,
      "text": "Are doing and what, you know, the market is, you know, if people can borrow, as you said, interest rates, something like, eight to ten percent ish, and it, you know, o-over the longer term, Bitcoin is doing much more than that. If Bitcoin is growing, I don't know, forty, thirty percent a year, then you can understand that there's a clear case for that. And so, we can't, we have to be honest about what the trade-offs of that are, and that, yeah, there, there, So, you know, we have to be balanced in that, in that way."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "55:12",
      "start": 3311.86,
      "text": "Absolutely. One thing that I would, that would, perhaps add is like if you think about, you know, how the-- We al-- we always talk about the, you know, high net worth individuals, the rich investors, how they live, you know, so they, they never sell their good assets, right? So that's the whole, whole concept, like, you know, you stick to your good assets and just borrow against them in a, in, in an asset fiat, basically that"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "55:36",
      "start": 3336.24,
      "text": "is way of living or, or kind of managing your, your wealth is now accessible also to regular Bitcoiners, right? Because very few of us are able to kind of hop on multiple real estate projects, you know, having a couple of houses, collateralizing them through mortgages, buy stocks, this and that, so, so really the, the approach towards your assets as something that you never sell because it appreciates over time, brings, brings a lot of value, the democratization of this, bringing it to all the, all the Bitcoiners out there, I think is, is And ultimately, well, let's see, Bitcoin might really start competing with, really stayed as the top asset, for, you know, from this particular purpose, right? From the monetary perspective, perception perspective, then. I mean, so, so yeah, I think that's-- that this is a, a, a really big shift, and I think with, the growth of adoption of Bitcoin, you know, it's gonna just become bigger and bigger."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "56:32",
      "start": 3391.76,
      "text": "Yeah."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "56:32",
      "start": 3392.12,
      "text": "Alright, well, I think that's a good spot to finish up. Where can people find you online? definitely reach out to us through firefish.io. We've got all the links there, so that's the only, only thing you can, or you have to, to, remember, firefish.io, and, you can obviously find us on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on, on other platforms, but on the website you'll find all the, all the relevant links."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "igor_neumann",
      "time": "56:53",
      "start": 3413.22,
      "text": "Fantastic. Well, I guess I'll see you in BTC Prague and listeners, don't forget, I've got code Livera, btcprague dot com code Livera for people going for that. And, Igor, yeah, I'm looking forward to catching up with you there."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "57:04",
      "start": 3424.33,
      "text": "Definitely. Looking forward. Thanks a lot, Stephan."
    }
  ]
}
