{ "episodeId": "SLP698", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski": { "name": "Jack Mallers & Chris Pavlovski", "role": "guest", "tag": "JACK" }, "guest_2": { "name": "Guest 2", "role": "guest", "tag": "GUEST" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:00", "start": 0.14, "text": "I think the space is evergreen in the amount of innovation that there is to come. Like, we have never launched a product that's growing this fast at Strike, so it, it tells you the amount of demand that people have for help me live on my Bitcoin without selling it. And you shouldn't have to lose sleep over liquidation. You shouldn't have to be forced to use a twelve month term. You should be able to get a line of credit." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "00:21", "start": 21.16, "text": "Welcome back to the Plan B podcast, coming to you live from Lugano. I'm your guest host, Stephan Livera. Joining me today is a long time Bitcoin advocate, really doing a lot of great work in the community and, you know, in business. He is the CEO and co-founder of Strike. Welcome, Jack Mallers." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:39", "start": 39.11, "text": "What's going on, man? How are you guys?" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "00:46", "start": 46.0, "text": "Yes, I think you're doing a great job out there, and let's, let's hear a little bit. You know, now you started Strike, was it 2019?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:53", "start": 52.86, "text": "twenty twenty?" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "00:54", "start": 53.64, "text": "Yeah. So I mean, you've been around, obviously it's gone through various iterations. Yeah. I think probably the latest thing now is the lending side of it, but, give us, you know, just a bit of an update. What is the latest on Strike? What's happening?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:09", "start": 68.57, "text": "so Strike, we started as a Lightning Network company. It was born out of the block size wars, which hilariously, there's some infighting in the community now, but it was born out of the block size wars, and we wanted to prove that Bitcoin had some utility value Fast forward to FTX blows up, Binance gets in some legal trouble, and that bear market in twenty twenty-two, a lot of bitcoiners came to us and said, \"We actually want Bitcoin financial services from you guys. We trust you. You build reliable software, you have the right vision and mission and focus. We also had the right licenses. We had everything we needed to be the place that bitcoiners could acquire Bitcoin from, now borrow against their Bitcoin from, custody Bitcoin if they needed, a wallet.\" And so we pivoted from just focusing on payments to being a global Bitcoin financial services firm. And so today, we're one of the biggest global Bitcoin brokerages in the world, and we might be at this point the largest retail lender, so not wholesale. I think Tether's the largest wholesale lender, but distributing Bitcoin backed loans directly to the plebs, the individuals. in six months of the product live, we might be the biggest globally. We offer that product in here in Europe, in the United States, in Australia, and there's six countries in Latin America that we offer it as well. So we've become the one-stop shop for the Bitcoiner, and we serve someone that wants to make Bitcoin money and, and whether that's acquiring it or borrowing against it to finance part of their life, like we serve them financially." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "02:48", "start": 167.77, "text": "Got it. So talk me through the lending product, just kind of the high level, like- What's the interest rate? What are the terms you offer? Like, just some of the basic kind of overview of the lending product? Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:59", "start": 178.82, "text": "so I'm very excited about the lending product, and I know it can be a hot topic. My favorite thing to say is, if you don't wanna use it, don't use it. I'm not putting a fucking gun to your head. But it's the first financial service in Bitcoin that I've seen, and I've been building in this space a long time. I started Strike in twenty twenty, but I've been in Bitcoin for thirteen years. It's the first one that we've seen have real product market fit, like it's actually enabling a Bitcoiner to not just keep it under their mattress in a cold card But it's changing their life. They're able to take this asset that's fifty percent, sixty percent Kager and then turn that into a university degree for their kid Or an emergency surgery for a medical issue, or a new home. We had a customer that had two kids in a tiny little apartment, and they wanted a yard, and they were able to borrow against the Bitcoin and finance a home so the kids could play. And it's the first time we've seen Bitcoin have utility value in an everyday life. And so I'm very excited about it. The initial product and the one that's live today, it's a twelve month duration loan The terms start as low as around nine percent APR, and it depends how much you borrow from us, so we tier the rates. If you're borrowing one USDT, it's closer to thirteen percent, but if you have a more material loan, the rate comes down. And this product, I think it's great But compared to what's possible, I think it's okay. This twelve month isn't the dream duration, and also what we're seeing from customers, a customer, when we launched the product, everyone takes out a loan. The number one request we got is, \"I want two loans.\" So you say, \"That's weird, you already took out a loan.\" \"Yeah, but I took out this one for my dentist bill, and now I want one for my next month's of payments.\" And then they wanted three loans, four loans, five loans, six loans. And it's fascinating because you'd think, \"Oh, people are just leveraging to buy more Bitcoin.\" No. Only at peak, buying Bitcoin with borrowed capital is about fifty percent. People are actually going out and doing things, starting businesses, buying homes, or just financing their credit card payments next month. And so now what we're, we're building, I, I was shitposting on Noster and it kinda got out, so now I have to own it a little bit. But we're building like a line of credit on your Bitcoin. So if you wanna make a Lightning payment, if you wanna swipe a card at the grocery store, you don't have to take out a twelve month- Operation loan in Park Capital for a year, you can just spend against your Bitcoin as like, as if it's a secured credit card. And so, we're, we're really evolving the product to how can you live on Bitcoin without having to sell it, spend it, incur a taxable event, in a way that you can responsibly take on whatever risk is appropriate to you. We don't wanna force this twelve-month term onto people. And so that's really the evolution of the product, and it's the best because, you know, as- As a Bitcoiner, I want people to hyper Bitcoinize. I, I want to live in a world like I don't own any fiat and I don't plan to. I'm not bullish the dollar. And so, I, I, I've engineered a way where I can comfortably and responsibly live on Bitcoin" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "06:18", "start": 377.84, "text": "Fantastic. And so, and I think the shift, the thinking has shifted over the years. And, oh, sorry, one other thing, what are-- Can you clarify for us what are the LTV kind of levels that you normally operate at?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:29", "start": 388.83, "text": "We, we start at fifty percent LTV, and like any good company, if you need anything custom, you just call me. You reach out to us, we have a team, we have a private team if there's a special instance. But actually, what's great about, again, us being a Bitcoin company, we don't work on shitcoins, we don't- Tender and care to the speculative crowd, our customers actually average their loans starting at forty percent LTV. So again," }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "06:57", "start": 417.43, "text": "they're over collateralizing a little bit more. They're" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:59", "start": 419.07, "text": "over collateralizing. So we start at fifty. If a customer needs anything special, they reach out to us, but it hasn't, it hasn't been an issue 'cause Bitcoiners aren't degenerates. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "07:08", "start": 428.01, "text": "And then, okay, so just kind of indicative example, like with, let's just make the numbers easy. Let's say one Bitcoin is a hundred thousand, you can put up one BTC as More safe about it, maybe you put up one BTC and only borrow, borrow forty thousand dollars, and that would be a forty percent LTV. Correct. And so can you, explain for us just like what are the liquidation levels and things like that, just so people are aware?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:30", "start": 450.37, "text": "Yeah. So there's a difference, there's margin call and liquidation. Margin call, we'll reach out to you, and we have your phone number, we'll send you emails and push notifications and say, \"Hey, we want you to get in better standing. It's getting a little too close.\" And then that's around seventy-five percent, eighty-five percent is liquidation." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "07:49", "start": 469.42, "text": "Okay." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:50", "start": 469.92, "text": "And, yeah, yeah. And fair enough. We wanna make sure that you're in this fifty to sixty percent and You know, you can turn off these notifications, but our job isn't to take your Bitcoin, and as a Bitcoiner, I don't wanna do that. I obviously have to responsibly do that, or else no one would trust using the product, but we try and be as communicative as we can. We actually are-- this will hopefully come out this quarter. This is the first time I'm announcing, this, I'm really running my-- That's a scoop. Hey, we got it. Really running my mouth here. we're working on a product where, there" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "08:25", "start": 505.06, "text": "is" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:26", "start": 505.64, "text": "Yes, because it's one of the biggest requests is people, it's-- I don't want customers having to stress, lose sleep, or think too hard about- Finance calculations. It's, Bitcoin's volatility is a gift to all of us, and it shouldn't be a stress to our customers. So how" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "08:45", "start": 524.52, "text": "do you achieve a no liquidation product? Is it like a higher interest rate to compensate, or what is it?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:49", "start": 528.7, "text": "It'll be a more expensive product. Gotcha. I, I don't, I, I wanna make it as cheap as I possibly can, so I don't know exactly what we'll charge. But the point is, you know, at Strike, we were a very profitable business, we already own over fifteen hundred Bitcoin on our balance sheet, And the, the point I made to my executive team and my product team is I'm happy to be long the Bitcoin. Like in a default scenario, I'll take the Bitcoin on our balance sheet, 'cause I know it's going up. If you take- Buying Bitcoin, de-caying Bitcoin over any four year cycle, the worst performance is a hundred ten percent, and I'm not going anywhere. And so I said, \"You know, let's create a product where the customer can feel more comfortable.\" Now, obviously, that product's a premium to where if they own the risk themselves, and then, you know, we can find a way to backstop it by just adding, instead of fifteen, whatever Bitcoin, we fifteen hundred something, we fifteen hundred plus one. A-and so we're working on that and trying to find- find a way to achieve that, but we think we can launch it before the year's over." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "09:55", "start": 595.22, "text": "Yeah, I think that'd be really cool because a lot of people are interested, as you said, in the longer term loan and a no liquidation. Style, and maybe they would pay more for that. Maybe that's worth it for them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:05", "start": 604.75, "text": "And I think the dream is a, a line of credit, like if, if you wanna buy a house, you're gonna want, you know, whatever, five hundred thousand dollar euro loan. But if you want to just cover your credit card payments, if you want to just go out to dinner, you just want incremental spending on top of the Bitcoin, and then your paycheck comes in and you pay it off, right? Just like any, like consumer line of credit. I, I think that's the dream, and then people can appropriate their risk how they, how they want. And the last thing I'll say is, you know, sometimes people say, \"Well, let's say you're at a ten percent, annual APR, and they say, \"Well, that's 'Cause mortgage rates are six percent, four percent. The problem is real estate compounds annually at around two to three percent on average, so it's a really shitty instrument to store your wealth. Bitcoin's compounding at fifty to sixty percent, and so obviously if I can bring the rates down, I will. The problem is it's hard for me to get the capital to then loan on to customers. But what people should be measuring is what's the compound annual growth rate of the asset they're borrowing against, of their collateral versus the rate. So if you, if you have an asset that's growing fifty to sixty percent Ten percent's a steal, right? I'm a huge customer of my own product. I do it all day 'cause that delta's so big. If your mortgage rate is six percent and real estate's compounding at three percent I know the six percent's lower than ten, but it's a really shitty deal because you're not outperforming inflation by owning some condo in an overpopulated city with crime and all sorts of stupid, fucking, broke government decisions, right?" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "11:53", "start": 712.63, "text": "Yeah, and I think the other kind of underlying factor is a lot of people underestimate what inflation is, right? Because they'll tell you CPI is whatever three percent, but actually the base money is growing at whatever nine, ten, eleven percent per year. So if base money's growing at like, whatever, ten percent A year, and you're only paying, you know, ten percent for the interest, it's kind of, you know, it's actually a pretty good deal for you on the, the borrowing side, so long-- again, as long as you are conservative and, you know, doing the right things and not over, over cl-over leveraging and things like this." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:21", "start": 741.23, "text": "Yeah, and, and Strike, you know, obviously we're still a Lightning wallet and, and probably one of the most popular in the world, and if people want to spend Bitcoin and scan QR codes and go to Bitcoin Beach, that We think is like Gresham's Law playing out, where we still live in a world where your consumer goods are denominated in the euro or the dollar, you still need a credit card or a debit card to live your everyday life, and we're just supporting different ways for people to empower themselves with Bitcoin in their life." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "12:57", "start": 777.37, "text": "So let's get into one thing that's, I guess, shifted over the years. Now, you and I have been around in Bitcoin for a little while, we've seen a few cycles. of course, everyone's thinking like, in the recent, like, the cycle Block five cell, CSFDX and Genesis and all this stuff, right? and probably also, now, this is about five years ago, right? So not everyone was kind of here at that time, but there was the big COVID crash in like March, right? At that time, Bitcoin went from like ten K down to maybe three or four thousand, yeah. And this, now, admittedly, an extreme, extreme scenario that maybe caused a lot of people to have a, a fear of these kinds of lending and collateralizing products because of that such a dramatic drop. And I think it happened, Over like overnight, you know what I mean? So in that scenario, you know, I know, and I'm from sure you know, there were like Bitcoiners we know who were like running to quickly load more collateral 'cause otherwise they were gonna get liquidated. And so now, I guess we've, we've seen a shift over time in the, I guess the mindset around debt, because people understand there's so much more inflation, and so it makes sense. and maybe the other argument is actually Bitcoin is becoming less volatile over time, right? Like maybe it's like a diminishing So maybe, as you said, historically maybe it's like kind of fifty, sixty percent or even higher, and maybe going forward it's gonna be sort of somewhere between forty percent down to like kind of twenty-five percent or so. And so, do you think that's also- What's driving, some of this interest now in collateralized Bitcoin products? Because it's like the volatility has come down a bit from earlier, earlier years." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:31", "start": 870.51, "text": "Maybe. I, I think More so, it's primarily two reasons, and this is for us, like who's borrowing against their BlackRock ETF at JPMorgan, is it probably a different customer than who I serve? But for us, it's, it's one, the asset class is maturing, and you could say, \"Yes, that's the same thing as saying the volatility's lessening.\" They might be one and the same, but I would describe it more as people understand Bitcoin much better than they did five years ago. They understand- The concept of money, better, things like Safedine's Bitcoin standard wasn't properly propagated back in those times, right? And, and so I would say the, the asset class has matured, the industry has matured, all of you in the audience, like we've greatly matured in what Bitcoin is and how we can use it. The other is naturally the appreciation, you know, Bitcoiners as an asset class group were very powerful because We've accumulated a lot of wealth, right? Like when we talk to our customers, they say a, a majority of our customers are, over fifty percent of my wealth is in Bitcoin. A lot of our customers is over ninety percent of my wealth is in Bitcoin. And a lot of these customers also bought Bitcoin ten years ago, five years ago, and have come across a substantial amount of wealth. And so then the question is, how can you make it, how, how, how can you impact your life? While not parting with the Bitcoin itself, and sometimes the right decision, depending on your situation, is to part with some of the Bitcoin. We've seen a lot of selling from OGs at this hundred K level, and, and sometimes that's what's reasonable. But a lot of times people say, \"Okay, I have X amount of Bitcoin, I'm gonna borrow against a smaller amount of my stack to get a cooler house, to get the boat I've always wanted, whatever that is.\" and so I think it's that as well, is that we've seen the asset class appreciate so" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:25", "start": 985.44, "text": "Bitcoin's compounding at sixty percent a year. I don't care what else you own or how much money you make if you're the-- if you're in the Premier League, Bitcoin's the majority of your net worth. You can't outperform that thing with a salary or with a cool tech stock, it's just a monster. And so it, it, it crowds your portfolio and you need a way to create cash liquidity without parting with it because you believe in it. So I, I think that's- And certainly the tax" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "16:51", "start": 1010.62, "text": "aspects and so on. Yeah. It's a" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:52", "start": 1011.82, "text": "very interesting product because Bitcoin grows." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "16:57", "start": 1016.58, "text": "Yeah. And I think the other element to what you were saying, the maturity of the asset class, we are now seeing more people, 'cause there's two sides of the house here. You've got the borrowing side of the house, you know, you wanna go and borrow, and you've got the lender and capital provider side of the house, right? Because you on your side have to go out, get capital to be able to lend it to the borrowing side of the house. So I think the other aspect is the capital provider side of this equation has matured a little. Hundred percent to lending startups." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:28", "start": 1047.76, "text": "I mean, like I, I think it's no secret at this point that I have a close relationship with Tether. I've known Paulo for a very long time. We co-founded my other business, Twenty One. Mind you, in 2019, 2020, I, I couldn't work with Tether on this product. You know, Tether now has been instrumental in us creating a no rehypothecation Probably the best pricing you can find, incredibly durable Bitcoin back lending product. Back in twenty twenty, Teth-- interest rates were zero. Tether, T-T-Tether had never made any revenue. There were a lot" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "18:03", "start": 1083.16, "text": "more legal questions around Tether in those days, you know? Right." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:06", "start": 1085.52, "text": "And so to your point, the-- but that's, you, you see, and I hope Paulo, I mean, there's no way he's gonna be in the busiest man in the world, he's not sitting in here, but- Paulo like is a bitcoiner, an OG bitcoiner that cares probably more about Bitcoin than anybody, and you're now seeing bitcoiners have- The amount of wealth to make substantial change where someone like Tether can look at the Bitcoin industry and say, \"Out of support for the asset class, we're going to make sure that this is done properly and support Bitcoin companies like Strike a-as, as one of our LP providers, right?\" So, so anyways, if that, if that makes sense, the industry is absolutely maturing, absolutely." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "18:48", "start": 1127.67, "text": "Yeah, and I think maybe that's, there you go." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "18:55", "start": 1135.05, "text": "And, so I think that may also enable over time, maybe the interest rates can start to come down as more capital providers sort of come to the game and say, \"Hey, we're gonna start lending,\" or \"We are gonna be a capital provider to these lending, Bitcoin collateralization, companies.\" So, I, I think that's interesting. now, another thing you touched on was the- Security components of this. Now, of course, not your keys, not your coins. All the typical, you know, Maxi, you know, obviously we endorse all that. on the no rehypothecation side of things, and, I guess what we're seeing is competition in the lending, Bitcoin lending side, things like, multisig, things like this. Can you touch on a bit of that? Maybe you'll start with the rehypothecation part point." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:37", "start": 1176.62, "text": "Yeah. So there's no rehypothecation with strike loans. That should be a" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:44", "start": 1184.15, "text": "I mean, w- about h- we, h- what we charge and how the product works. We only charge the rates. So with other companies, you'll see origination fee, you'll see an early repayment fee, and then obviously, people like BlockFi, they were rehypothecating capital to make money as well. We make money one way, heh, and that's the rates. There is no origination fee, there's no early repayment fee, and there's no rehypothecation, and there never will be. You know, also as a, as a really Bitcoin focused company, I, I care deeply about making a profit as a business. You know, I think, you know, the, the financial way of making the world a better place is being a profitable company, right? Like- It means we're creating more value for those around us than we're consuming from the world. We're creating more for the world than it's taking us to consume from the world. And so as a profitable business, we don't need to- We don't need to do anything else than charge you what we think is a fair rate. So just to be clear, no rehypothecation. Now on the multisig point, thank you, brother. on the multi-sig point, it's, it's interesting because if you go to-- so the way the product works is we go out and we source the euros, the dollars from people that are willing to lend to us, and then we are able to distribute it downstream. We've got all the license, we've got the app, we've got the products, we've got the brand to distribute it to the individual, but we ourselves don't have billions of dollars to lend off balance sheet. We're turning around and we create almost this market. And so when I go to someone and I say, \"We're issuing hundreds of millions of dollars of loans, we're gonna need billions of dollars of capital,\" and they say, \"Cool, here's billions of dollars.\" Now where's the collateral? I need to know where the collateral is, and I say, \"Well, it's in a two of three multisig and you get one key.\" They say, \"Fuck that.\" I'm basically giving you a loan with no-- I don't have access to the collateral. In an, in an extreme event where something goes wrong, which is the whole point of building this product, I can't protect myself. So I'm not gonna give you billions of dollars at cheap terms. I'll give you ten million dollars at fifteen percent. And so it's, it, it's, it's a" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "22:03", "start": 1323.12, "text": "trade-off of what rate they're willing to give and how much capital. Right. So I guess your point is they're willing to give more capital if there's less of a technological hurdle on the multi-signature side. It's going to be" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:12", "start": 1332.07, "text": "tremendously difficult to scale a product where you say, \"Hey, give me billions of dollars,\" and at, at the way Stripe's growing, eventually tens of billions of dollars, and I'm not gonna give you control of anything in return. I listen, I'm as Bitcoin OG as you'll ever find. Like, I will die on this hill, that's my line. But it's a good point I wouldn't give anyone ten billion dollars in exchange for no collateral either. And so there are probably technical ways that we can all improve this, but our approach at Strike is We're going to build the cheapest, most reliable, but also most practical product we can that can scale and service the needs. And if it's not accordance to your risk tolerance, don't use it. You're not gonna hurt my feelings. I get it. And I think the industry will mature and there's ways to solve this over time. But I think the division that you're seeing in the industry is you can't scale a product right now To a scale to where in which the industry needs it, where you're not actually giving the person giving you billions of dollars any, any oversight or, or ownership over the collateral, it's a really bad deal on, on their part." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "23:25", "start": 1405.4, "text": "Yeah. Or maybe it's just a time thing and, a comfort level thing that because, you know, maybe they would have to place a lot more trust in your, kind of in your systems as well. And on their side, they would have to kind of either manage keys or have someone professional to do Without for them, it's like another whole level. So, yeah, I, I think I can understand there's a bit of a, a trade-off there. Yeah, I" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:44", "start": 1423.63, "text": "mean, what, what I'll say is, we only launched our product six months ago about, and- Like, and this is no shade on anyone else that's been building in the industry, but so much of this borrowing against Bitcoin, really bad actors, FTX, Celsius, and so when we entered, we realized There's so much to do, there's like barely anything here. I mean, we launched and in six months we're like one of the top. We're like, there's no lines of credit, there's no secured credit card, there's no sophisticated ways to think about collateral and transparency and really, there's different ways we're working on proof of reserves, there's none of that. And so what I will say is, I think the space is evergreen in the amount of innovation that there is to come. Like we have never launched a product that's growing this fast at Strike, so it, We'll have for help me live on my Bitcoin without selling it, and you shouldn't have to lose sleep over liquidation. You shouldn't have to be forced to use a twelve month term, you should be able to get a line of credit. You shouldn't have to feel like you don't know if there's rehypo. I agree with all of that. The crazy thing that I couldn't believe is that no one had built it. Like it's mind-boggling. I, I feel blessed to be in the position to work on these things. So to your point, I think with time, it'll get better. It's been weirdly an under-invested sector of our industry that's been almost crowded by- Shitcoiners and scammers, to be, to be blunt." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "25:10", "start": 1509.89, "text": "Yeah, and I think, maybe we, we've all kind of all sort of, as, as we've kind of gone through the ups and downs of the industry, as you said, I think that has kind of, each time we've kind of taken a big down cycle, that's kind of scared a lot of people away and maybe scared off some of the capital providers, scared off some of the people who wanna do the b-- on the borrowing side as well, because they've been scared too. I got a number is going up and more and more people, wanna huddle. So, you know, last, you know, any closing thoughts, last one or two minutes, that's all we've got time for. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:45", "start": 1544.76, "text": "No, I, I mean, I, I appreciate the support that we get as a business. You know, I, I was so wrong on what I thought the world needed from Strike as a founder five years ago. It was like, looking back, I was an idiot. I thought people wanted us to process Lightning payments, and it's this crowd and, and to be. So I think as a business, we just deeply appreciate the support and the fact that everyone's vocal with us, and you have me on stage, I mean, it's an honor, like I said, to build these products for Bitcoiners and feel like we are a small piece, but an important piece to, progressing the asset class and helping Bitcoin change people's lives. So I'm just very grateful and thankful for all of you guys and the relationship that the company has with the community." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "26:33", "start": 1592.59, "text": "Fantastic. Well, that's all we have time for. Put your hands together for Jack Mallers from Strike. We are here on the Plan B podcast coming to you live from Lugano. My name's Stephan Livera, I'm your guest host, and I'm re joined by Chris Pavlovski, CEO and co-founder of Rumble. Chris, it's been a very exciting, year for you, hasn't" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "26:51", "start": 1611.06, "text": "it? It sure has. It's been, it's been fun to say the least. It's, co-total different landscape than it was in the" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "27:02", "start": 1622.29, "text": "On your public numbers, was it Q3, you had like twenty-five million in revenue and you've got like, is it like fifty million MAU users and you're seeing a lot of growth on the platform, aren't you?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "27:13", "start": 1632.95, "text": "Yeah. So, the last reported number in Q2 that we reported publicly was fifty-one million monthly active users on the, on the Rumble platform." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "27:22", "start": 1641.66, "text": "Excellent. and so, I think, I, I'd love to, dive into the Bitcoin and USDT wallet. Wallet, we spoke about this last time, but, I know there's probably been some movement on that. Do you wanna give us a bit of an update, what's happening there on the Rumble wallet?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "27:37", "start": 1657.29, "text": "Yeah. So yesterday was the very first day that we, Frey, and, we made multiple tips, so it was the very first time a large platform was receiving tips in, Bitcoin and USDT, and that happened, yesterday morning. So, we're gonna be rolling it out in the, in the coming months here to multiple different creators and users, and hopefully for full release early December to mid-December, and have that out to the entire, entire user base on Rumble. So, we've been building that in cooperation with Tether since, they took a big position us in, This year. Fantastic." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "28:14", "start": 1693.97, "text": "And I'm, I, I guess I'm, maybe I'm more of a Bitcoin nerd, so I'm just curious, and you tell me if you're not as deep in the detail, but is it like a Lightning supported thing or is it just kind of on-chain payments? Like, can you give us a, a bit of information on that?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "28:30", "start": 1709.53, "text": "so the wallet's gonna have, Bitcoin, you're gonna be able to tip in Bitcoin, you're also gonna be able to tip in USDT and, XAUT. We're gonna keep it really, really simple for creators to begin with. We-- our user base isn't, It, it hasn't really been introduced to the whole Bitcoin and stablecoin world that most of them probably don't even know what a stablecoin is. you know, it, it, it, it, it takes a little bit of a learning curve, so we wanna keep it super simple for them so that their experience isn't, not intruded by, you know, the complexities of, what this world has. So it's, we're trying to keep it super, super simple, make, make the user experience super simple and be able to convert a, a population in, in the United States, on, on using this, that hasn't really been that introduced to it. They under-- They all understand what gold is, they all understand what the US dollar is, but once you start introducing USDT, like stablecoins, you know, sta-- a stablecoin in gold or Bitcoin, it, it, it's different. And it's like, it was different for me too. Like, e-- everyone had their learning curve, and it's not something that, you, immediately get in, when, once you get it, World, it's just like a, you know, the same thing as everything else. But, it's, it, s-sometimes it just, t-that complexity there, you wanna remove as much of that for the, for the Rumble users as possible, or for any users for, for that matter." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "30:00", "start": 1799.9, "text": "Yeah. now another big topic is free speech in the West, right now. I know you've been commenting on this. I saw an interesting tweet, I think it was Pavel Durov took, he said, you know, it was his And then you said, you know, things are getting worse around the world, not better, and people are maybe a bit, blinded on this. Can you elaborate a bit, like, what do you see around the world, the state of free speech?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "30:28", "start": 1828.08, "text": "So it's getting-- in America, it was, it's, it's always been there 'cause of the First Amendment. we had a win in France two weeks ago, which I didn't expect. the courts ruled in our favor that, the letters that France sent to us weren't, valid. And for me, I didn't expect that. I didn't expect, the French courts to come in our favor, but they did. So to me, that was a very interesting- win, but I do think things are getting worse around the world. We see what's happening in Brazil, we see what's happening in the UK, we see what's happening in Europe, i-in, it's not easier to- Deliver speech, especially the, the idea of freedom of speech is, is not easy anymore, around the world. It is really protected in the United States, and, you know, very grateful for that, but, the rest of the world doesn't have that same First Amendment, and it seems like it's getting a lot worse around the rest of the world, and we're seeing that it's getting a lot worse. But I, I, I am still hopeful we can fight back, and it's gonna-- you know, freedom doesn't come for free. You have to And that's what we have been doing, and France is an example of us fighting for it and, and winning. So I think we need more of that, more fight. we can't give up because the Trump administration is in power. That's, it's great that, that, that they're there and they protect freedom of expression, but, it's also-- it's, you can't take it for granted because the rest of the world is pushing back on that very hard. And you need big companies, you need a lot of individuals, you need a lot of people" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "32:10", "start": 1929.85, "text": "To fight for freedom." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "32:11", "start": 1931.27, "text": "Yeah. And so, maybe, can you elaborate a little bit on the threat? Like as an example, in the UK, people are getting, you know, sent to jail or police officers are coming to their house because of things they said online. what are the main threats? Is, is that the main kind of threat you see, or is it things like on the chat control side in the EU? Do you wanna explain a bit about, you know, where you see the principal threat here on free speech?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "32:35", "start": 1955.34, "text": "Yeah, I, I would say it's just, it's governments wanting to control what people say. and the mechanisms in which they use it through chats or whatnot are just mechanisms, but essentially the threat to free speech is, is broad. It's, it's basically making sure they control what you say, making sure that they're aware of what you're saying, they wanna get rid of your right to privacy, and that all stems from the ability- Of, you know, you can't really even have a democracy without the ability to have freedom of speech, to be able to say that this government is doing something bad, or this person is doing something good, or this person's doing something bad. If you get rid of that, you're not a democracy, you're not a free society, you're the complete opposite of that, and that's not something that anyone wants to live in, not me anyways. And, it's-- I think the issue is, i-it's not the mechanisms in which they apply, 'cause there's so many" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "33:35", "start": 2014.88, "text": "You know, the public square, or whether it's through chats or whatever it may be, it's just the general broad idea that governments want to have controls over their population, they wanna stay in power, and they wanna make sure that you don't, you don't speak truth to power. Like, that's what they're always trying to crack down on, that's what they're gonna continue to try to crack down on. This is a, an age-old problem, this is thousands and thousands of years. governments and power authorities wanna maintain power, and that's-- they do that by trying to" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "34:06", "start": 2045.9, "text": "Yeah. I wanna pivot a little bit onto the AI side of things. I know you also had a, there was an announcement maybe recently on, Perplexity. So you're doing, a partnership there. can you explain that for us a little bit? as I understand, it's, partnership with Perplexity and the, Comet browser, yeah?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "34:24", "start": 2064.45, "text": "Yeah. So we did, a wide ranging partnership with Perplexity. One is the advertising component, so they're gonna be working with us for, on the advertising Two is that we've bundled them now in with Rumble Premium, so when you buy Rumble Premium, you can get Perplexity for basically the same price as Perplexity, you get two for one essentially, up until December thirty-first. And then, three, we're gonna be using Perplexity to help with our recommendations and, in, our discoverability on the platform. So it's a, it's a wide ranging partnership, it's the first of our kind and it's, it's, you know, something that we're Because we, you know, AI and getting into AI and being able to use these tools are very important to the Rumble platform, and it's especially important to our creator base." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "35:13", "start": 2113.15, "text": "Yeah. And so when it comes to the discoverability side, as you mentioned, how does that change or improve the experience for the Rumble user? Do you think it just means better recommendations or what does it mean?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "35:26", "start": 2125.74, "text": "Yeah. So in, in terms of, we're, we're looking at multiple different things, finding moments in videos, giving, you know, providing that ability for users to find those moments. discoverability is obviously the most important thing for a creator, getting more views and being able to find their content and being able to recommend the right content to the right user. So there's a lot of different things. But, you know, AI is gonna impact video in ways that, we're not even talking about yet, like it's gonna help you clip your videos and- Send them to other platforms automatically. It's gonna help you monetize your video content in better ways that we've ever seen before. I think you gotta really look at how far AI can go, 'cause it can go really, really far." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "36:07", "start": 2166.87, "text": "Yeah, it's a good point on the, the clipping and especially searching and finding things, right? Even like on the making thing side or on the consumption side of things, it's very useful to be able to kind of seek to the exact point that they talked about a particular topic, and, you know, maybe it's not, it's not timestamped or whatever, this kind of search technique, I think that's pretty useful. on the- Comet side. So this is the browser. Can you elaborate a bit there? Is there a partnership on that side as well or no?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "36:35", "start": 2194.96, "text": "Yeah, so the, the partnership with the Comet browser is the advertising partnership. So Comet's spending a lot of money with us to advertise their product to our Rumble base and Rumble users. And when you, you know, you sign up to that browser, there's a partnership there that allows you to get Rumble Premium as well." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "36:50", "start": 2210.04, "text": "Okay, gotcha, I" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "36:51", "start": 2210.84, "text": "understood." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "36:52", "start": 2212.24, "text": "and then I think there's like maybe a broader topic around freedom tech. I think this is something you've spoken about as well. obviously, I think Bitcoin is one of those freedom techs. People talk about whether it's, I don't know, Signal or Tor or these different things. W-where are you, how are you understanding freedom tech?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "37:11", "start": 2231.29, "text": "That is the entire ethos of Rumble. We want it to be a freedom ecosystem, entirely. We wanna be freedom first with every pillar of business that we wanna do. So, you know, the way I like to look at Rumble is it's multiple pillars. Generally speaking, the purpose of Rumble is to make sure each pillar is built around freedom and maintains that freedom ethos. So you have media, which is our video platform, which will eventually have short, our shorts product. It has Rumble Studio product that allows you to live stream. stream everywhere. Then you have your, our advertising product, and the advertising product is allowing, i-in exchange basically for you to advertise your products across the internet, a-a-and not just Rumble, but everywhere. And then the other pillar is the, the financial product, which will be Rumble Wallet, allowing you to, to, to, to transact. The, and another pillar will be cloud, allowing you to build your business on top of an infrastructure. And when you look at those four pillars, they all have an ethos of freedom. So like- Like free speech, you know, the ability to, to, to freely express yourselves, advertising, the ability to freely advertise across all these different platforms. The, then you have, the, the finance side, the freedom to transact, you know, you, you, we're gonna have a non-custodial wallet that can never be canceled and that will never stop you from tipping somebody else. then the cloud, it's literally the freedom highway, it's where all the infrastructure is built to support all these different freedom- products. And then when you look at the future of what we wanna do, we wanna get into AI, we wanna get into productivity suites, email, browsers, et cetera, and we wanna con-- we wanna get into data centers, we wanna build more pillars, and each one of those pillars will, you know, like for AI for example, will be the, the freedom for intelligence, the freedom for you to own your own intelligence, for you to be able to have your own AI on your own phone that you own, that a company doesn't own like us, something that kind of We, we will enable you to use it. We, we're, we can't control it, so, and we can't control your wallet. We wanna do that for all these different pillars across everything we do at Rumble." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "39:22", "start": 2361.66, "text": "Yeah, it sounds fantastic. And so on the Rumble Cloud side of things, I guess that's also an interesting one, just because people historically were getting shut down, right? Like if you had the wrong view, they would sort of try to cancel you at the- You know, cloud level, g- and, I guess, recently there was the kind of big topical AWS, outage as well. So do you wanna comment a bit on that?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "39:43", "start": 2383.41, "text": "Yeah, so- We saw a while ago AWS cancel parlor, and they overnight just took out a business. And when we saw that, we were like, \"Wow, this is existential for us to build our own cloud and make sure that no one can do that to Rumble.\" And we're in a position right now where no one can do that to us. We are completely independent. AWS went down two weeks ago, doesn't even bother us one bit. Well, all our customers are up, Truth Social's up, Rumble is up, AWS is down, all the others are up. Sites are down, we're still up. So we built a completely independent infrastructure, and that is really, really important in the, in the world of big tech, because when you take a look at all the companies, you have Rumble and Tether, that basically are for freedom, they're for resilience, independence, privacy, and then you look at the other guys on big tech, and they're for, the opposite, they're for censorship, control, centralization, and, locked in contracts, et cetera. So we're Really, the freedom based company on all different points of pillars that, that, that we execute on more than any other company in the world, and really it has to sit on that highway, it has to sit on that cloud. If it's not sitting on that infrastructure, then we have no control. So we're building from the very, very bottom." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "41:05", "start": 2465.29, "text": "now I know you've also, been battling big tech in some ways that I know, I think you had, was it a lawsuit with Google around deboisting of Rumble links?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "41:16", "start": 2476.04, "text": "What's happened there? So we have a lawsuit with Google for self-preference, self-preferencing. they're pushing, they're, in, in, in our opinion, they preference YouTube. but this, you know, this happens everywhere, a-in like- They, they obviously, in, I think there's a big antitrust problem with Google on many different fronts. I believe they're a monopoly, on, on many different fronts. we have multiple lawsuits, not just on self-preferencing, but we also have one in the advertising space, which I believe they have a monopoly on the advert-ad market. so there's multiple different fronts that we're challenging, Google on, and, you know, I, I think more competition is, is really important. I really do believe in the Sherman Act. I really believe that, if there's one company that controls everything, that's not good for the consumers and it's not good for society. You can't have a con-- you can't have a company that has more power than a government, and Google's in that, that state where they have enormous amount of power, they have enormous amount of control on information, on advertising, on video, on search, and, I think they have monopolies in so many different respective spaces." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "42:25", "start": 2545.35, "text": "Yeah. There's also, I think people are kind of raising a lot of concerns about things like even nowadays Wikipedia, things like that, that there's kind of a, a certain bias there. does that, I guess, online- Bias play into any of your, building decisions there?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "42:46", "start": 2566.13, "text": "Yeah, obviously they, you know, they slant things to give an opinion about Rumble that I obviously disagree with, Wikipedia in my, my mind is one giant intel op by multiple different intel agencies around the world to basically influence and create propaganda around whatever narrative they disagree with, So they'll characterize whoever they wanna characterize or whatever company they wanna characterize in a way that tries to malign them or defame them. and, that, that's how I look at Wikipedia. I think it's a pile of garbage. I- I, I think it does a disservice to the world in many different ways, but, i-i-it's sad that companies like Google use Wikipedia to, a-and prop them up, and, you know, i-i-it's my thought that they actually use Wikipedia to basically influence their search results to be arms of these intel agencies and these, these governments to kind of push things that, among populations that are, in my, in my mind, just not appropriate, and it's not what they should be doing. We should be treating everybody fairly and equally in their search and not using Wikipedia as a source to, to move certain items up in their search, but I believe that's what they do." }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "44:05", "start": 2644.97, "text": "Yeah, I know we've only got about a minute left, so, I guess any other things looking out to the future, what else can people expect to see coming from Rumble?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "44:12", "start": 2652.27, "text": "So it's the future that I'm looking forward to the most. Obviously, Tether invested in Rumble seven hundred and seventy-five million dollars earlier this year. The plans that we have with Paulo are, are huge and vicious and exciting. we cannot wait to, to walk the future here. all those pillars I was talking about are the future of Rumble. we wanna get heavily into AI, we wanna get heavily into the productivity suites. We, we have the wallet around the corner and, we're really excited to kind of execute on all these strategies. And the best part is, we have a backer, we have, we have the financial means to get this done, and we have a backer that's, very, very ambitious like we are, and that's Tether. So, I've never been more excited about the future. It's, i-it's a lot of work, we put a lot of this work in, into motion this year, and we will, we'll continue to do that in twenty twenty-six, so there'll be a lot of new things that we'll be Development and, you know, it goes back to Bomber always saying developers, developers, developers. It's, that, that, that, that-- That little video that I keep seeing, you know, I keep thinking that in my head, 'cause it's, it's so important for what we wanna build. We need more of them, and, they're, they're so important to what we're building. So, you know, I, I'm so excited for the future and what, what we can build here on, in building the very first" }, { "speaker": "jack_mallers_chris_pavlovski", "time": "45:38", "start": 2738.46, "text": "Fantastic. Well, that's all we've got time for. Everyone, please put your hands together for Chris. Thank you. Thanks." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "45:43", "start": 2743.39, "text": "Thank you. Thanks for having me." } ] }