{ "episodeId": "SLP774", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "james_of_arc": { "name": "James of Ârc", "role": "guest", "tag": "JAMES" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:00", "start": 0.0, "text": "Hi everyone, welcome back to Stephan Livera Podcast. Today we're going to be chatting with James of Ârc. James is building an accelerator in Sri Lanka. It's called Ârc. As listeners who might not know, I'm actually born in Sri Lanka, although I am Australian. but, obviously, I met James, and I was interested in this for obvious reasons. So, yeah, James, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "00:23", "start": 23.0, "text": "Here. I really appreciate it, and I'm looking forward to talking about all of this and bringing it back to your roots." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:29", "start": 29.0, "text": "Yeah, sure. And so, look, give, for people who don't know you, give a bit of a background on yourself. Who are you?" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "00:35", "start": 35.0, "text": "Yeah, sure. And I think there's a smaller professional story, and I think there's in my Bitcoin story, and I think these things sort of like collide with exactly kind of like where we are kind of like here. But like, more quickly perhaps, my, my professional story, I'm a chartered accountant, non-practicing, but I began my career, well, first at Accenture, just as an internship, then Ernst & Young. And my full job for the years that I spent there was moving the world's largest companies and richest families to the places in the world that they were treated best. It's like a day-to-day thing would be waking up, working with the board of a Fortune 500 company, and helping them relocate their company or their operations to countries and places where they would be kind of like treated better and have a more favorable kind of like business. And then after a while, which was good fun, I was then coding and developing, and I was lucky to get my first role in Venture Capital at a fund called Playfair Capital in 2013 in London, which was very early in the kind of like London venture, venture scene. Had an amazing time kind of like there, investing in, you know, all sorts of stuff. But the same trends that we invest today, we were looking at AI, robotics, crypto back then. And actually, even as a fund, we looked at Bitcoin. We did place kind of an investment back then. And I, as an individual, was looking at it and around the asset and very lucky to be around some very early believers in the asset. But I was a poor, you know, not quite student, but just an analyst at this fund and unfortunately don't have a great story buying Bitcoin kind of like right then." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "02:02", "start": 122.0, "text": "But then after leaving kind of like Playfair Capital, I've continued to always have a role. At at a fund sense, but I started building my own, some tech companies. the one that I was building with, a close friend, Alexander Mann, who's now the general partner at Fulgur Ventures, which is sort of like the funding and the main partner for the accelerator we're running now. But we run like a food delivery company, kind of like together back in the day, this is 10 years ago. That didn't work so well, but I've been fortunate to have other like companies that I founded that were more successful. I sold more recently a company called Consequence, which was effectively applying early LLMs to databases to help create and rich and query them for sort of enterprises. And I sold it a few years ago and sort of like since then, I've been very, very focused on how we can accelerate the trajectory, of people and places. And so I've been sort of like working around the world, working at some of these more frontier kind of like locations and looking at for a place where I think that we can, you know, build more permanently and sort of like develop, kind of like a technology, sector. Between this sort of story I painted out there, after the food delivery company kind of like went bust, kind of with Alex, I went full time into Bitcoin and into the space. And I guess a short version of that story would be the, you know, come sort of, you know, the height of the monkey JPEGs, I just was completely fed up of all this nonsense and all of this noise that it wasn't what I got involved with the space for." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "03:31", "start": 211.0, "text": "It's like when, you know, that food delivery company died, I was sat there and I was looking at the future, but it seemed to me that all the most important things that mattered, starting with the money, were going to be built, going to be in this industry, and I wanted to go and help and try and help Bitcoin win and solve this kind of source underlying problem underneath all of these other problems. By the time monkey JPEGs were around, honestly, I kind of, you know, I just got way too fed up, and that's why I built the, you know, like the AI company. But I guess after selling that, I started to look at what had been achieved in this space, and for me, all the same reasons that Bitcoin mattered when I first heard about it. Still matter today. They probably matter even more today. And actually, we haven't finished solving this problem, and there's still like a ton of work to do. I think to finally connect it to what we're doing here, so I think that we, you know, I think like Bitcoin is a representation of like our values, right? And it's in sort of like a digital form, and we're trying to help it win digitally. But I think I'm very, very interested too in helping us bridge that into the physical world, which is why I'm doing a lot of stuff in the, in the kind of like the real world. But tying this all together, and without talking too much about Sri Lanka, we're leading that to the next point. Like I'm here, cause like in Sri Lankand I'm super bullish on Sri Lanka as a country that's already on its own independent path and trajectory to a much more positive future for the country and for every kind of like Sri Lankan that is, that is here." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "04:59", "start": 299.0, "text": "And you know, we're here building, exploring, learning, listening to Sri Lankans, and understanding how we can, how we can help. Part of that, we're very lucky to be, to be kind of like partnering with Fulgur Ventures to deliver, Bitcoin Accelerator here, kind of in Sri Lanka, where right now if you are listening to this and you are building an early stage Bitcoin company, kind of like particularly in Asiand maybe you're in your town or your village somewhere, kind of like on your own, not surrounded by Bitcoiners, or at least maybe not surrounded by Bitcoiners that are actively working on still helping Bitcoin adoption, particularly across Asia. And like, this is a call to action to like come and join us, kind of like here in Sri Lanka. It's not just for people that are building stuff for or in Sri Lanka, not at all. It's like, it's, you know, we're, we're sensitive and we're focused here, and we're trying to bring talent here. This all kicks off next month. This hasn't actually kicked off yet. You are still on time to be here, kind of like from the beginning of this, of this journey. But I mean, Stephan, we look at particularly Asiand we're like, it's still really hard in most markets. The world to do something as simple as a Bitcoin. Save Bitcoin. Let alone start spending it or do anything more complex with it. Into, into more markets, into more industries to get more people using Bitcoin to basically to, to bring a better future together." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "06:25", "start": 385.0, "text": "So I've said a lot there, so if you don't like to start." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:28", "start": 388.0, "text": "Yeah, okay. So go ahead" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "06:28", "start": 388.0, "text": "And dive into any of that in more" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:30", "start": 390.0, "text": "Detail if it makes sense. Right, okay. So I guess high level, like it's a Bitcoin accelerator. You are in Mirissa Beach in Sri Lanka down in the south and talk to us a little bit about what the program looks like. What can people expect, you know, if they're interested to come there?" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "06:46", "start": 406.0, "text": "Yeah. So what we kick off next month, the intention here is to build a continuous program. So no companies get built in the six-week or 12-week accelerator, kind of like typical model period, right? They are built over years of hard work and deliberate sort of effort. So I think just from the core proposition, what we're doing is we're just creating a place that is the best place to go and build Bitcoin companies. Now, what does that look like on a day-to-day, kind of like kind of experience? There is a cadence sort of like every month that we can like go through. I think a big part of this is, is accountability, is peers, is one-on-one sessions with hard and clever individuals that are making investment decisions. That's sort of like, it's probably worth noting there's kind of two paths into this. You need to apply online if you go to arc.lk /Fulgur. Arc is A R C /Fulgur, F U L G U R. You need to apply, but we're trying to reduce the barrier for you getting here. Like you don't have to be One of six companies that are selected and funded by a program to be in here. We want to create a density of talent. Maybe you don't even think you have an investable proposition because you're just like an incredible open source developer that's working on Bitcoin Core or something. You know, we want this to be a place that you can come kind of like to, so you don't just have to be searching for capital from Fulgur. For certain people will happily actually fund you to be here. So if we think that you're doing important work kind of like here for Bitcoin, we'll cover the cost of you sort of like being in Sri Lanka and continuing to build from here." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "08:21", "start": 501.0, "text": "And then for companies that are actually ready or for founders that are ready, then, you know, I don't speak particularly for Fulgur per se, I speak for the accelerator, but for those that don't know Fulgur Ventures, Fulgur Ventures is one of the largest and most prolific investors in the Bitcoin ecosystem in the world. They've made well over a hundred investments into Bitcoin companies, and they can write tickets from a few hundred thousand dollars up to tens of millions of dollars. And I think the point here with the program is, you know, capital will not be your problem. It will be much more simple things that we focus on here day to day, which is like, what is the problem that you're solving? In which market? How do you get it to market? And we're just trying to create an environment where you're surrounded by extremely ambitious peers that are working kind of like in Bitcoin with some Then again, if you are ready and it makes sense, there's the people here with the capital that can actually help you then take it to the next level and accelerate. Like, look, we don't expect you to stay in Sri Lanka. We do think Sri Lanka is an incredible place for you to base yourself or to potentially to hire. There's an amazing amount of engineering talent here in Sri Lanka, like an amazing amount of engineering talent. And we really hope the founders that perhaps come here that are, and maybe they're doing like, you know, Bitcoin adoption in Australia or in Cambodia, you know, who knows, but they might come here, start that journey, and then maybe hire and keep a team here. Plus maybe your CEO is still out there, you know, dealing and working with governments and local markets, dealing and working with partners in Singapore or wherever you need to be, right?" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "09:50", "start": 590.0, "text": "We're not, we're being very, very flexible. The point is like every company has a unique journey, which is the best way for them to build that company. But what we can promise here is like a super productive environment with other Bitcoiners where capital will not be your kind of like constraint, and you can just focus really on what matters. Which is getting Bitcoin adopted in more markets and more, in more industries." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:12", "start": 612.0, "text": "Let's start, let's get, get back to the question of why Sri Lanka. I guess that's also going to be interesting for people too. So, why Sri Lanka?" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "10:18", "start": 618.0, "text": "Yes, look, it's like, I don't like thinking of myself as like a venture investor, right? Because I like to think like I'm a founder and I like, and I build things. I do find that I build things, right? But I have to accept the reality that like, I've probably done a lot more investing in my life and I've probably been a lot better at investing than building things, right? And I think if you're a venture capitalist, and I know you do your investing too, like you are, you're not betting on what something is right now. You're betting on what something is going to become. And what you're actually trying to look like as well is like, what are things right now that are like underpriced? Or maybe they are, you know, diamonds in the rough that people don't realize their true value. And you know, Sri Lanka is referred to as a part of the Indian Ocean. And I think that people do not quite understand just how incredible Sri Lanka is, and particularly just how poised I think for a really sort of like productive Incredible future. So I imagine, and before I was here in Sri Lanka, I would, you know, I've spoken to, you know, to two other world leaders this year, not, not Sri Lankan. And just as part of being and looking for like, where is the great place to, for example, to go and run a global accelerator program? Like, where's just a good place to like do business? And I think if you were drawing a graph of like, you know, sort of like the actual substance or reality of a place versus the perception, you know, I think that actually Sri Lanka is very far over here, right? That actually there's a lot of substance here, but the perception of that is off whack. So I think it's sort of like the outlier of all of these countries where it's a diamond in the rough." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "11:48", "start": 708.0, "text": "And I think it's incredible to be. I can be like far more specific for Sri Lanka than that sort of like the abstract, right? But I think it's undervalued. And I think it has a bright future. And as a venture investor, that's what I do. And I look at Sri Lanka versus all countries. And I think it's pretty much one of the best three in the world, without a doubt. That's like abstract. If you learn that much more specific, we can take different parts of Sri Lanka and look at them. One, this is a place that people already want to come, right? Tourism is booming, kind of like anyway. And it's like where we are here, right, in Mirissa, there is, I don't think there's anywhere else. I don't even know that you can go and like see blue whales, right? But like here, I can get on a ferry, like five minutes away, and I can go out to sea for 20 minutes, and I have the highest chance pretty much of anywhere in the world of seeing blue whales swimming around. Sri Lanka actually has like a native population of blue whales, which I had no idea about. But then I can get a car for like an hour down the coast in the afternoon, and then I can see leopards and elephants and crocodiles. There is nowhere in the world that offers that sort of breadth of sort of like nature. Sri Lanka itself is not really a small island, but it's an island and it's super diverse. And so we're down here in a beach town and like Mirissa actually is like, you know, currently rated the fifth best beach in Asia by, by TripAdvisor and booking. It's truly like a beautiful place, kind of like to be. But then like the rest of Sri Lanka is amazing as well. You have Colombo is so over, underrated as like as a capital city to start with." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "13:14", "start": 794.0, "text": "The more time I spend in Colombo, the more I fall in love, kind of like with it. Sri Lanka is super clean. Even, I can't believe how clean like Colombo is, right? For the, for the stage of development. And it's beautiful, beautiful and green as well. You have Suragiya, like old huge rock fortresses. There's like thousands of years of history and culture kind of like here in Sri Lanka that you get to benefit from all, all around you. And then you've got the tea plantations and some of the old colonial bases and parts of the sort of interior. So just as a destination, it's an absolutely kind of incredible destination to kind of like to be in, to sort of like to come, kind of like with. That's like Just is it a nice place, right? The challenge on the place stuff, right, is that particularly if you look here in the south, it might not be the most productive place to be. And that's part of why where we are where we are in Mirissa, is that we basically just have the most, we credit that the most productive, you know, space for you to come and actually do work. There are very few places that you can go and do serious work, particularly in the south, you know, kind of like in Colombo, in Sri Lanka. But we're here because I think that, you know, Stephan and you're like an example of this as well, right? Like being in Australia, it's like places like Sydney or Melbourne are, are kind of a greater melting pots of talent than, than a Colombo or Sri Lanka. And when I first started doing technology events in London, you know, 20 years ago, you know, I would go into a room and I would be, you know, I would, you know, English people would be the minority." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "14:41", "start": 881.0, "text": "And that's why London is incredible, because there's like talent from the entire world that is coming there, battering heads together, building things together. And again, like a, Majority of unicorns that are created out of, you know, kind of in the UK have at least one, you know, quote unquote foreign immigrant that's involved with those, right? It's super important. You need that melting pot. And I think as you look at Sri Lanka, you know, maybe perhaps Colombo isn't the kind of like the most competitive place to like be that melting pot for kind of like foreigners or international talent that can choose to live anywhere. But actually, like down here on the South Coast, this is potentially the best place in the world for like what is on offer here. And I think it's the place that we can build a melting pot between local and international kind of like talent. But it's like back to kind of like Sri Lanka, you know, I think the, you know, the diaspora like you are increasingly looking inwards and back at Sri Lanka. And I think you're going to see lots, lots, lots kind of like more of a kind of activity from the diaspora getting involved in Sri Lanka. You have a huge set of engineering talent. There are, you know, everyone even around here, I swear, is either an engineer that's working remotely or is a student that's learning kind of like computer science. And there are so many companies that you'd have heard of. Already hire incredible Sri Lankans here. Just that currently that value is being captured by companies that are in the US or whatever it is. And I hope that we can, you know, start to help maybe help Sri Lanka capture more of that. I mean, I can keep going on. Economically anyway, things are very favorable, for kind of like for Sri Lanka." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "16:08", "start": 968.0, "text": "The economy is booming. The war in Iran is, is definitely having, kind of an impact, but that's impacting like most economies right now, you know? And Sri Lanka is still growing despite that. So there's lots of amazing stuff. I think it's also super welcoming, super open for business. You know, there's a new digital nomad visa. If you were someone like me that was working, you know, kind of like remotely or for a company, you know, offshore, you're someone that's coming to the accelerator and you think that this is an amazing place that you want to bed down. You know, previously that was more difficult. Now there's a new visa scheme for the digital nomad scheme where effectively you can, you can stay here and you can keep working for, for kind of like for, for years, which is very important. And then you probably know about this as well, but it's a very interesting I'm from Bitcoin's perspective, because Bitcoin has never been illegal in Sri Lanka, but I think that the government is starting to realize that this could be quite important to Sri Lankand is in the process of starting to provide a lot more regulatory clarity, particularly if you are a, you know, like a virtual asset service provider, like a VASP as they're called here. You know, there's legislation on the way that you can have sort of the clarity that you are doing things by, kind of like by the book, and the regulator appears to be very, very open for business. So I'm very positive, and again, like the accelerator isn't about, you know, building things specifically for Sri Lanka, although we will have participants, because there are amazing founders and companies that are building in Bitcoin in Sri Lanka, but you could be addressing all of these markets." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "17:34", "start": 1054.0, "text": "But yeah, I've said a lot there, but I generally think that Sri Lanka is an amazing place. You should come and visit in the very least, and if you want to build some productive Bitcoin companies with us, then you can stay for as long as you'd like, basically." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:45", "start": 1065.0, "text": "Yeah, I mean, it sounds great, and I've definitely, I've, definitely, I mean, my family, we live in Dubai, but, we do visit Sri Lanka a couple of times a year, so I'll, definitely see maybe one of our upcoming trips if we can come down and visit, it'll be fun. And, of course, talk to us a little bit about, like, I think you've got a membership, so talk to us a little bit about what you've got going there, what does that look like, the membership? Yeah, great." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "18:07", "start": 1087.0, "text": "So," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:08", "start": 1088.0, "text": "It's all, it's" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "18:08", "start": 1088.0, "text": "All about coming together, and I'm being very frank that we've been on the ground here for pretty much just like a month, and a lot of that has been, again, listening and learning, speaking to Sri Lankans, and just seeing if even this is, like, the right place to, to kind of like to build. I think it is. And now we're sort of like going to that next stage of really having this all kind of like manifest. So actually, this month we've been doing a lot of work with kind of like local Sri Lankan founders that are already kind of like here. And so we've been engaging with like 34 founders across a program of just helping them sort of like with their businesses. I've been helping four different founders like negotiate kind of like term sheets over the last week. I've just spent all day in one-on-one sessions with founders. So there's already like an early community. And that's mainly more kind of like local, because that's who's here right now. And, you know, part of being here and talking with you and kind of like being in Bitcoin Asia is like, is putting the bat signal out and now starting to actually attract kind of international talent to come here sort of like next, kind of like next month. And so, again, like if you're coming through the program, you know, Fulgur again will sponsor and will, and will cover things. But if you're just like a local Sri Lankan, again, at the minute, we're still working out the best way for all of this. But broadly right now, no Sri Lankan is paid for anything — for any engagement, any description. We're just here helping, learning, listening, and trying to make a difference. And again, like, Sri Lanka is already on an incredible trajectory, and like these founders are already on their own incredible trajectories." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "19:37", "start": 1177.0, "text": "I think like what we're trying to do is just apply, you know, very like small amounts of pressures at key kind of levers, which really try and like accelerate. These trajectories that people are already on, right? It's still always, Sri Lanka's amazing without us. Each of these founders is going to end up being successful without us, right? Or you're probably not the right founder, right? Like you're going to be, you know, good and make it on your own volition, but we're just trying to nudge you a little bit, a little bit further kind of every time. But like, to be even more practical, like what does it look like? We have an amazing kind of like, it's like amazing co-work space. So you can just come here 24/7 and you can just work, and there's likely going to be someone else still working in the room. Whether it's, you know, I'm in the office almost to past midnight every single day. I'm probably not in very often before I am. I will, I will admit. But, you know, I'm in here till almost midnight every single kind of like day, and there'll be someone there that's working for you. We eat all our meals together, we work out together kind of like every single day. And again, we're providing community feedback, like I'm in here at the minute, everyone's doing feedback sessions with each other kind of like right now in the, in the other, in the other room. And so, but, but, but I don't want to overcomplicate it. Fundamentally, one of the things you need as a founder is to focus and to concentrate. And so a big part of what this is, is saying that you, you don't actually have to come here and meet a thousand mentors. Now, we have a lot of people that are watching this and are very excited, and there's also, again, amazing local kind of like venture firms, and there's much more here. It's like, Sri Lanka is not a zero." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "21:03", "start": 1263.0, "text": "That's my whole point about this graph, right? Sri Lanka already has like so much stuff going on. People just don't sort of like realize. And so I think like part of what, it's not my job at all, right? Like this is just like, this is just my passion. This is my hobby. This is just like what I, I'm very, very, very fortunate, right? That I can call this just enjoyment, right? I'm on holiday, basically. And, and just like advocating for these Sri Lankans and advocating for Sri Lanka is not like, is not me being generous. It's just like, it's just like there's an amazing opportunity for other people to come here and to, and to, and to participate in that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:37", "start": 1297.0, "text": "Excellent. And so talk to us a little bit about what kinds of things you could see being built. Like, and for listeners who were, you know, I did a small brief chat with Alex from Fulgur and he gave a few ideas there, but maybe from your perspective, what kinds of things do you think in Bitcoin, you know, and not just in Sri Lanka, but anywhere in Bitcoin, what kinds of things do we need? What things should be built?" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "21:58", "start": 1318.0, "text": "Yeah. I think we look at this pretty simply, to be honest, and it comes back to that first stuff that I was, I was talking about where it's still very hard to buy Bitcoin and to save Bitcoin in most markets in the world. And so actually, there might be amazing founders that are listening to this or considering it. We're not looking, actually, we don't want you to, like, basically, we don't want you to come with a, like, a piece of infrastructure or, like, a technical breakthrough or some, like, new, you know, we, we basically think that Bitcoin works and that what we need to do is drive this incredible technology into more markets and more industries. And so if you have a use case in an industry or in a, in a, in a market, like, you know, a country, a location that you know, where you think that you can make it a little bit easier for someone to just DCA Bitcoin over time, you don't, it doesn't have to be more complex than that. That is the pitch we are looking for, that you understand the local market, that you can localize, like, a DCA proposition to that local market. You understand how people save right now, what their current problems are accessing Bitcoin in this territory. It's like, if you can, if you can solve these problems and make it easier for people to And save Bitcoin. We are interested in funding a company pretty much in every single Asian market to do that, even if there's already an operator there. We think that the, we haven't even got together." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "23:24", "start": 1404.0, "text": "So I don't know why it sounds really simple, but it's like we're not funding rocket science, we're actually funding adoption. This stuff works, we just need to get more people using it. I can be more specific though, there's all sorts of stuff that we are interested around it, right? So there are very simple ways that you can DCA Bitcoin and just making it easier to purchase, maybe it's on subscriptions, maybe it's just, I don't know. But there's more complex ways that you might be able to help people buy Bitcoin. For example, depending on the market, substantial portions of people's wealth is held in property. And actually, I think there's very interesting arbitrages that could potentially be done where people leverage the wealth that they have in their property to actually borrow against that and use that capital to purchase Bitcoin. So if you think about it right now, it's a really normal thing in lots of more developed markets that someone would like mortgage their home so that like it'll get a second mortgage or just like, you know, they pay it off and they get a mortgage anyway to like buy a fancy car or to go on some holidays. And it's like, I think there's an amazing opportunity in a lot of markets for someone to build propositions that allows people to borrow against their home and instead of wasting it on a, on a sports car to buy basically super collateral, which should really just like reduce the risk of the loan that you have in the first place, right? And so again, Bitcoin is this like incredible collateral. And I think we haven't even begun to seen, to see How it can be, how it can be used, and how we can leverage existing assets where people hold kind of like wealth to borrow against them and then add Bitcoin" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "24:59", "start": 1499.0, "text": "As collateral in the basket to potentially even reduce the rates of interest that were being kind of like paid. So that's like a more specific market and that's different depending on each kind of like market, what the regulations and how that would kind of like work. That's why it's so important that you probably come from and represent your market and know that. Again, like another example would be, you know, particularly myself, I'm very interested in actually having AI agents adopt and use kind of like Bitcoin. I fundamentally actually think that a lot of the more day-to-day transactions and use of Bitcoin outside of it" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "25:40", "start": 1540.0, "text": "As a store of value for an individual or for an organization will be executed by AI agents. And so I think it's actually very important for us that we ensure that it's easy for an AI agent to choose Bitcoin and to use Bitcoin whenever it can. If you think about it broadly, I look at the work that I've been doing in this space now over decades, all we've really been doing is building the permissionless systems that are APIs, you know, that allow agents to interact with this stuff at the speed of agents, as opposed to at the speed of fear with a whole bunch of people interfering and getting in the way of stuff, right? So I'm really personally interested in people that are at that intersection of ensuring that AI agents can and do use a kind of Bitcoin. I think if you talk to them, they basically, they want to. They don't want to use the other shitcoins. They, they understand that they want to use Bitcoin. And if we can make that easier for them to actually use that, I think that's really important too. And then I'm very interested in, you know, and again these DCA apps or kind of like as you maybe move from a DCA app into more of like a neobank sort of experience. If you can get it running, if you can build trust with a customer right now and help them, again, escape their fiat system, avoid their savings being eroded by inflation by money printing and helping them store wealth and keep value over time, you get an opportunity to build trust with those, with those customers. And that's the beginning of a, you know, of what is a you know, effectively a 21st century banking relationship with somewhere where, okay, great, you've saved your Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "27:11", "start": 1631.0, "text": "And not that we want anyone to spend it, but, you know, but okay, great. If when you've only got Bitcoin, you need to be able to spend this and use this in the real economy, right? So, okay, your, your savings that becomes more of a neobank-like experience. And I think so many, I think, I think basically all the winning neobanks of the future are either going to be, well, the winning neobanks will be ones which have Bitcoin at its heart, but also the kind of the ones that survive from the traditional banking system will be the ones that adopt kind of like these technologies and help their customers adopt this stuff kind of like too, right? Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I give you a lot of examples there, right? But what, what, what I'm not saying is like, there's this research problem, go and sort that out. Now, if you're an incredible developer, Working on Bitcoin, and you're maybe working at the, at the edge of privacy or something like this, right? Then, look, we think we'd love you to be here, right? But again, we're looking for much simpler, more commercial propositions where it's taking the existing technology to market, not reinventing a wheel that already works, if that makes sense." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:10", "start": 1690.0, "text": "Yeah, and it's interesting, as you mentioned, that of course, in the US market and things like, they've got all kinds of services, right? And of course, we can name, you know, Cash App, Strike, River, Swan, like all these, all these guys who are doing, you know, offering DCA, maybe they offer a card, maybe they offer loans, maybe they offer, et cetera, et cetera. But that, a lot of that doesn't exist in the Asian markets. And so that's probably an easy example where even if it's like DC, just DCA, just DCA in every country, right? And look, I guess that would be another criticism or a question people might ask. Well, okay, what if a person listening now is thinking, hey, maybe I want to go found something like that for an Asian country. Maybe they have the concern that, look, what if Strike comes, or what if, you know, Strike is available in other countries, right? So how should they think about that? Or do you think it, or how, maybe you would say, look, there's space for many operators in that, in each of these markets, right? It's not that Strike or Coinbase is just going to come and dominate everyone and no one else has a chance, right?" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "29:10", "start": 1750.0, "text": "Yeah, my bet is exactly that. I mean, my view is that you can even still launch more DCA apps in the US market. You can go, you can go and compete more, you can go and create multiple billion dollar companies that just help people buy and save Bitcoin in the US. So, yes, I actually, you know, I hope Strike keeps expanding. I hope Strike keeps on going to kind of to new markets, right? But I don't think that should be seen as a negative thing. If you think like all of us here are building that bridge, you know, between, again, between, you know, for the fiat world to bring them here into sort of like Bitcoin, and we're all, you know, it's all part of a big network, and we're all fighting the same sort of like fight, and we're all, you know, making it easier for us to acquire customers and doing that big education piece everywhere. So look, even if you look at the US, let alone a market here where there isn't a real player and if Strike comes in, right? There are a thousand different types of customers with a thousand different use cases, a thousand different quirks and markets. And you have an opportunity as a founder to, and again, your niche can't be too small that it's like sort of unfundable, particularly from a venture perspective like us, right? But there are, you know, eight and a half billion people and growing still, hopefully. It's not actually, we just missed, didn't we? Like the replacement rate on a global scale. We've just, it's basically, we're at Top, peak, up, right? But like eight and a half billion people, and the reality is there's, you know, it, it, you know, there's probably at least eight and a half thousand distinct groups that could be identified as like a different type of user." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "30:38", "start": 1838.0, "text": "Maybe it's because they're older, because they're younger, because they're richer, because they're poorer, because they have ADHD, because, you know, they have different habits and lifestyles. And there's probably again, there's several thousand like distinct groups that are large enough for an investable venture case to be built. And it's highly likely that in your market, that there are multiple of these. Now, don't get me wrong, if you come from a small island nation in kind of like in the, in the East that has a much smaller population, you're probably going to have to have a story about actually how you do go and, and win in other markets, right? So don't get me wrong, a market can be far, far too small. But for most people, it's like, great, you know, maybe the existing competition is excellent for a specific user. I guarantee you there are massive Markets of adjacent users that could be served better by solving a more specific problem to them. So I, I just, I basically think there's like a ton of opportunity and that really competition, particularly as a venture investor, competition is pretty much seen as like a positive signal. It's like if no one else is doing it, sometimes you are correct. But more often or not, no one else is doing it because it makes no sense. And honestly, competition, particularly in the beginning phases, a lot of that is dollars that are being sent on educating the market of not just the kind of like the problem, but the fact that solutions even exist. And then great, that stuff becomes, you know, becomes more competitive and then actually like the fact that there is competition, you know, increases, for example, acquisition costs." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "32:07", "start": 1927.0, "text": "If you're both, for example, at a simple level, like bidding for the same ads, that increase prices. But again, for a consumer, really what we care about, Stephan, right, is just like, is like more people getting easier and ultimately lower, you know, more competition will drive better products to everybody and better, better answers. So yeah, don't worry about it. Just focus on your customer. Basically, just focus on your customer and making a better, easier experience for them to buy, save, use, and then do even more things with Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:36", "start": 1956.0, "text": "Excellent. And so, I believe, is it, you have, you have some events coming up and talk to us a little bit about that to, round things out. So people who are listening now, they should obviously go and check it out and you have this event coming soon. So get onto" }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "32:49", "start": 1969.0, "text": "That. Yeah, so, I mean, so again, but this is, this is continuous and, come and join us, you know, kind of like, as, as you kind of like need, whether that's October, November, December, you know, January, like we will, we will be here. We are here for the long term as long as we're wanted and we're adding value to everybody. But yeah, so you can reach out, you can apply right now. If you are listening to this and you are more of a, you know, more of like a strategic partner or someone that maybe doesn't want to be in the program, but can maybe support the program or get involved or help the people that are in the program, then again, you can reach out kind of like direct to me. I mean, very frankly, j@arc.lk is the email and you can, you can reach out and kind of like speak to me directly if you think you have a direct proposition. If you are a founder, please go through the, you know, the application page on the forward page just so we can deal with the kind of like the inbound and appropriately and if you just I'll just miss it, right? Whereas if you're in the process, you will not get missed, right? And I don't want to miss you. So that's the main reason to do that. If you are a, particularly if you're like an investor or more strategic, we are either getting involved. There's an amazing opportunity to come at the end of this month for Startup Nation, where one of our partners Hatch, which is probably one of the most important local, you know, kind of ecosystem, kind of like companies here, is running pretty much the biggest tech conference of the year here in Sri Lanka at the end of this month. That's not to say it's big, it's actually very, very selective. But if you are keen to learn or find out about Sri Lanka, it's an amazing opportunity to come and get to meet a ton of people and understand the ecosystem and why this place is, you know, on such a positive trajectory." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "34:20", "start": 2060.0, "text": "So you can get involved with that. But broadly for us, like, you know, if you come here, don't worry about there being like a specific date, just come and there's always stuff happening. Like here, always stuff happening. So yeah, but I would encourage you, if you're, the earlier you come, the better, though. Right? So there's like the later stage you are in your journey and building your company. If you've, you've gone out there and raised a multi-million-dollar seed round, you know, if you're doing that for, you know, the Vietnam market, it's probably unlikely that you as a CEO should be here in Sri Lanka at least the whole time, right? Like maybe it makes sense for your, for your CTO and some of the amazing engineering talent in Sri Lanka to be here, but it's like for that stage there. Whereas like if you're just on your own and you're working this stuff out and you want to come somewhere where you can ideate and think about this stuff, then just come as early as possible in a kind of in your journey is what I, is what I would, would encourage you." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:12", "start": 2112.0, "text": "Fantastic. Well, yeah, listeners, check it out. The website is arc.lk/Fulgur. Yeah, links will be in the show notes. And yeah, I'm hoping, you know, some more people are interested and come check this out. It sounds really cool. So thanks for joining me, James." }, { "speaker": "james_of_arc", "time": "35:27", "start": 2127.0, "text": "Thank you so much for coming and for asking great questions and giving me the floor to explain kind of like what we're up to. I look forward to welcoming you here as well. Maybe we'll have some amazing people that you can interview here from the beach in Mirissa and we can make it look epic. It's actually, the weather is incredible there. It just is, they've got the cyclone going through the bay at the minute. So it's unusually kind of like gray. Otherwise, I would have tried to put a whole bunch of like rolling waves, right? Because I don't want to mess this up, right? But if you look through here, there's just, you know, rolling waves, you know, out. And I wanted to make a really, you know, jealous background for everybody of the beauty we look at sort of like every, every day. But I look forward to seeing you here. I look forward to working with anyone that's listening here. Reach out if we can help. Otherwise, you know, thank you so much. You should be here." } ] }