Stablecoins from the Future: Holyheld

Space Summary

The Twitter Space Stablecoins from the Future: Holyheld hosted by Shade_Protocol. Delve into the realm of Holyheld and Silk_Stable, where user privacy, data control, and innovative DeFi solutions converge. Holyheld stands out as a beacon of user-oriented decentralized finance, offering tailored services to meet the diverse financial needs of its users. Silk_Stable's advancements in technology and commitment to data privacy set new standards in the DeFi sector, enhancing reliability and trust in financial operations. Explore the future prospects of Holyheld in revolutionizing traditional finance through its bridge between conventional systems and decentralized solutions.

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Space Statistics

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Questions

Q: What sets Holyheld apart in the DeFi space?
A: Holyheld prioritizes user privacy, control over data, and tailored DeFi solutions.

Q: How does Silk_Stable contribute to the evolution of Stablecoins?
A: Silk_Stable advances Stablecoins' technology and promotes data privacy and user empowerment.

Q: Why is user control over funds crucial in decentralized finance?
A: User control enhances security, confidentiality, and trust in financial transactions.

Q: What impact can Holyheld have on traditional finance?
A: Holyheld has the potential to revolutionize traditional finance by offering user-centric DeFi solutions.

Q: How does Holyheld bridge traditional finance with decentralized solutions?
A: Holyheld serves as a connection between conventional financial systems and decentralized finance offerings.

Q: What benefits does Silk_Stable bring to the DeFi sector?
A: Silk_Stable enhances stability, reliability, and data privacy in decentralized finance, setting new industry standards.

Q: What customization options does Holyheld offer to users?
A: Users can tailor DeFi solutions on Holyheld's platform to meet their specific financial needs and preferences.

Q: How does Holyheld address the growing demand for privacy-focused financial services?
A: Holyheld emphasizes user empowerment, data control, and privacy to meet the increasing need for confidential financial operations.

Q: In what ways does Silk_Stable enhance the overall experience on Holyheld?
A: Silk_Stable's integration within Holyheld's ecosystem elevates stability and reliability in decentralized finance operations.

Q: Why is Silk_Stable considered a pioneer in data privacy within the DeFi sector?
A: Silk_Stable's commitment to user empowerment and data protection sets new benchmarks for privacy in DeFi applications.

Highlights

Time: 00:15:42
User Privacy and Data Control on Holyheld Exploring how Holyheld empowers users with privacy-focused financial services.

Time: 00:25:19
Silk_Stable's Technological Innovations in Stablecoins Discovering Silk_Stable's advancements in Stablecoin technology and data privacy.

Time: 00:35:08
Holyheld's Impact on Decentralized Finance Landscape Examining how Holyheld reshapes the DeFi sector with user-centric solutions.

Time: 00:45:57
User-Centric DeFi Solutions by Holyheld Understanding how Holyheld offers customized DeFi services to meet individual user needs.

Time: 00:55:36
Silk_Stable's Role in Enhancing DeFi Reliability Highlighting Silk_Stable's contribution to stability and data privacy in decentralized finance.

Time: 01:05:44
Future Prospects of Holyheld in Finance Discussing the potential transformative impact of Holyheld on traditional financial systems.

Time: 01:15:22
Silk_Stable's Privacy Standards in DeFi Exploring how Silk_Stable sets new benchmarks for data privacy within DeFi applications.

Time: 01:25:10
Customization Features on Holyheld Examining the tailor-made DeFi solutions offered by Holyheld to its users.

Time: 01:35:49
Holyheld as a Bridge between Financial Ecosystems Understanding Holyheld's role as a connection between traditional finance and DeFi solutions.

Time: 01:45:28
Silk_Stable's Data Privacy Practices Analyzing how Silk_Stable prioritizes user data privacy and empowerment in DeFi operations.

Key Takeaways

• Private DeFi offerings through Holyheld cater to users looking for secure and confidential financial operations.
• Silk_Stable plays a significant role in advancing Stablecoins' technology and adoption.
• The importance of user control over their funds and data is central to the Holyheld platform.
• Exploring the potential impact of Holyheld in reshaping traditional finance and DeFi landscapes.
• Understanding the benefits of Holyheld's user-centric approach to decentralized finance.
• Holyheld serves as a bridge between traditional financial systems and decentralized finance solutions.
• Silk_Stable's commitment to data privacy and user empowerment sets new standards in the DeFi sector.
• The customizable nature of Holyheld's platform provides tailored DeFi solutions to individual users.
• The integration of Silk_Stable within the Holyheld ecosystem enhances stability and reliability in decentralized finance operations.
• Holyheld's emphasis on user empowerment and data control aligns with the growing demand for privacy-focused financial services.

Behind the Mic

Introduction and Wait Time

GM. GM. We'll wait probably, like, I don't know, two minutes or something. Let people roll in too. All is good. It is Friday. It's slow. Everybody is either still in their beds or outside. So, yeah, it's always. There's a. There's a recording. So afterwards, people hop on and join in and listen. More convenient time if it works for them. I know. Yeah. That's what. That's what I do. I mean, you'll have. You'll see like, 20 people in. In a call like this, and then 800 people have listened to it three days later. So it lets you know that the time and the energy isn't wasted, you know, so. It never is. It never is. It's all we do. And it just resonates with, you know, with people that need it. There's a lot of curious people in the space. There's a lot of updates going on. So it's never in vain. It's never.

Geographical Context and Company Background

Now, between your GM and your other comment about, like, coffee or people getting out of bed, are you. I thought maybe you were in Europe, but are you western hemisphere or whatever you want to reveal about where you're. Where you're located? I understand. Not wanting to be too precise with that, but. Oh, I am. Yeah. I'm based out of Switzerland. Okay. So we're a European company. We were based. The home is Switzerland, and we also have an office at a company in Lithuania. That's where we have a license. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, I saw that on your site. Cool. Well, yeah, that's a little bit of fun, get to know you stuff that was just off the cuff for people rolling in. But I'll go ahead and, like, take us through sort of a formal intro, and then we'll jump in to the conversation.

Formal Introduction and Agenda

So thanks, everybody. Wherever and whenever you are listening into this, gonna be a great conversation today. I'm Sean Merrick, kind of part of the voice behind Cilk and a contributor with that. And my voice today, as you might have heard, is a little bit tested. Not feeling so well today, but all good. We'll make it through. Great conversation planned with Anton. This is part of this little mini series of spaces we're doing called stable coins from the future. And so we did one with pay a few weeks back. We had one scheduled with trueflation recently. I know a lot of people were amped with that, and then it actually didn't happen in relationship with that big hack that took place, and so we're so, like, gut wrenched for our friends at trufflation there. But feel free to go back and check out the pay one in particular, if that's of interest.

Series Focus and Purpose

But this whole series is really about connecting with innovative thinkers, projects who are shaping the future of web. Three payments, stable assets, wallets. That whole category of progress is what we're interested in. Obviously, silk is trying to be that, trying to be a small puzzle piece in the future of money, and we want to talk with other people and connect with other puzzle pieces who are doing the same. So that's why we've got Anton here today. He's the co-founder of Holyheld. Holyheld is a card for all your crypto. You can pay from your phone, use your self-custody wallet. Choose the crypto, the asset that you're spending, and I'm sure we'll get much deeper into the project and what's behind it. But that's the warm-up for the pitch, I guess.

Engagement and Response

Anton, thanks for taking the time to make this happen today, for making a little investment of energy in being here with this community. Excited to chat with you. How's the day going for you? First off, thank you very much for inviting me. It's always a pleasure to speak with really innovative projects and people building the space. So thank you very much for inviting me. Yes, it's good. I always like to joke that we humans are very rational. So if everything was rational, you would expect that the business week, so typical business week, Monday to Friday, that the load would be sort of averageized. So Monday wouldn't be really that different from Tuesday, you know, Wednesday, etcetera. But the reality is sort of different. You can really see that in payments specifically because it's Mondays and Fridays that they're the busiest.

Observations on Payment Patterns

Because, as I'd like to think, people, when the week starts, they really like to push some things that probably been hanging over the head or something they're really worried about. So you can see a really big push on Monday and then sort of a bit of a slowdown throughout the week. And then Friday. Now it's like, oh, shit, it's Friday. So I really need to wrap up all these things there and you can see a search again. So in that regard, it's really interesting how also payments are really something that's hidden, something that we don't think much if it works well, but it's the crucial part of everything, keeps. It just keeps everything going. So with that, regards again. So thank you very much for having me on here.

Mission and Unique Value Proposition

I guess just to speak a bit about holy health, our mission is very straightforward is how can we use our little magic Internet beans as easy as possible in the real world. Now, with that simple mission, we have two things that are going on. One is that you describe as a b, two c product. So it's something that users directly can use. It's an app. It is indeed a cash account or debit card. And the unique difference between everything else is that it is your external self-custody wallet that manages your account. So it could be anything from Metamask to Coinbase smart wallet to rainbow. There's over 200 wallets, and you do control, you sign in, authenticate, you sign transactions, everything happens through your wallet.

Orchestration Layer and Blockchain Functions

And the second part is our orchestration layer, or in other words, the clearinghouse with a very speaking name. It's blockchain reconciliation, remittance record. So, in short, and what Brrrr does is that it does two things really well. One is that it allows non-crypto fintechs to become crypto natives without having prior knowledge, understanding infrastructure, resources to really go deep and maintain. And the second part is that it allows financial institutions to clear and settle transactions between themselves using crypto. And we can go dive deeper into all of these things. For some, it may be super boring, but I think that for people that are interested in payments and stablecoins specifically, there's a lot of aspects to unveil here.

Diving Deeper into Product Aspects

Anything from privacy to speed to settlement times. There's so many little aspects there that all together combine as to what we as users call experience. Yeah, that's good. We'll see where the path takes us as far as like exploring different pieces of the product. I'd be curious, though, to zoom out a little bit more, go to like a stratospheric view almost. I'm going to take a wild guess that you probably believe something or see something about the world that made you feel like it was important to get into the payment space, self-custody. So I'm curious, do you have a thesis or a motivation around the vision of holy health that, like, that started the ball rolling and then keeps you moving forward today? Is there sort of a pillar like that?

Curiosity and Background

Absolutely, yeah. I don't think there's many people in this world that, you know, wake up one day and be like, hey, I want to go into payments. I think that there's two parts of it. I think that as I was growing up, I've always been fascinated about this magical, mysterious thing called banks, because everybody is always afraid of banks. Everybody hates banks, but at the same time, everybody uses banks. So I was always curious about what is this thing? And, like, ephemeral thing, like the name, how does it really work, how did it happen, etcetera. So from the history to everything else, but the second part of it is that I was born in Ukraine, and probably a lot of you guys know that since 2014, there's basically been a quite a lot of changes there.

Impact of Global Events on Financial Systems

And ultimately what happens is that from the financial side, so we all speak about human lives, we all speak about war, we all speak about deaths, etcetera. But then there's also the financial part, and not many people know, but on the financial part, there's something called us sanctions, for example. But what it implies is that imagine this situation, which is like a real thing. There's a bank of the river on the left side of the bank of the river, and again, the bank, river bank has nothing to do with the financial bank. It's like the side. You have access to all the services, so you have your swift transactions going through, you have your banking system, you have your credit cards, debit cards, etcetera.

Sanctions and Access to Finance

So everything is fine. But then on the other side of the river, that's a sanctioned territory. And what it means is that you do not have access to the global financial system. And the companies that would like to provide that access, well, they will face severe restrictions, imprisonment, fines for founders, operators, etcetera. So literally, you as a person just living their entire life in that territory, now all of a sudden you're cut off from the system. So that made me really curious to understand, how does it work? Because finance is so distributed. There's so many layers. When you just tap that card in the, you know, in the machine, somewhere in the coffee shop, it feels seamless.

Complexity Behind Seamless Transactions

But there could be up to 50 or 100 intermediaries or companies, entities that are involved in that process, like, altogether. So it's really not that clear, not that obvious. It's very, well, I'll say obfuscated, but at the same time, somehow it works today. So we can all agree that majority of the world, as people listening to this, you probably don't think of how it really works. And specifically for people that are not in crypto, they haven't touched. Maybe they've heard about crypto, but never really touched it. It somehow just all works, et cetera. It's all there. That got me extremely curious to understand how it really works.

Initial Encounter with Ethereum Community

Then somehow, back in 2016, I happened to be at one of the Ethereum meetups, and there was this thing. It's like, hey, let's try to build the global. And then the question was like, all right, well, if this thing really works, what can you build? Can you really build new systems? Can you really build new paradigms, new something that we call primitives there? And somehow, again, it's really hard to say now, I don't think there was a unilateral process like I just heard. And I was like, yeah, that's it. It's somehow over time, but that really got me down the rabbit hole. And somehow together, here I am.

Excitement About Payments

So I'm still super excited about payments. I still think that even though it's the most resolved thing, it's the most unresolved thing, there's still so much segregation, there's so much differences, so many different things that can still be improved that it's just. It feels like it's an endless work.

Mind Blowing Transaction Process

Yeah, I mean, that is absolutely mind blowing to hear you say 50 to 100 intermediaries on a potential transaction. I mean, I would have never pegged that number. That's really surprising to hear. Crazy. Oh, it is when you start thinking about this. So, for example, let's just take. Let's literally just try to break it down the high level. Let's say you're using Apple pay or Google pay. So first of all, you tap that phone on the terminal. Well, Apple or Google, it's already there. So that's a tokenization mechanism.

In-Depth Analysis of the Payment Process

Now, when you tap, it goes through the NFC, and then there has to be a terminal there. So that physical machine that has a screen, you know, the one that shows is like, hey, a transaction went through or not. So then there's a manufacturer of that machine, and then there's an operating system on that machine, which most of the time is developed by someone else. And then that operating software is then connected to different protocols, like Visa or Mastercard or Amex, et cetera. And then there's something someone calls acquirers. But acquirers, typically, they sort of bundle together into an aggregate network of acquirers, so the bigger ones.

Flow of Information Between Acquirers and Issuers

So information is passed from one, it's passed to another one, and then it goes to the Visa and Mastercard, and then the Visa Mastercard connects it to the issuer, and then it could be an issuing bank, but then the issuing bank could also work with someone else, with a processor. And then the processor could actually be related to the card issued by someone else. So even on the high level, you can see that it's just like that one side when you tap that card, so that the information goes to the issuing bank. The one that actually makes the decision, hey, do we allow this transaction to go through or nothing?

Transaction Validation Process

And then the same process then goes back so that on that terminal, you can see it's like, yes, it went through or not. So it is. With all my love. In regards to crypto, I would say that this insanely sophisticated and in some ways, highly inefficient system, but somehow it works, and it powers billions and trillions of dollars of payments every day, annually, et cetera. So the thing is that it's like if you just really start unraveling and going deeper, what exactly has happened, then you would figure it out that there's so many potential rooms for errors that it is surprising that it actually works so well, considering all the factors.

The Challenge of Improving Payment Systems

So it's really just then you try to go down and break down into, how do we make this better? And what's really wrong about this or how it works? And the deeper you go, the more you realize that. I would say it's so very much well oiled that nobody really wants to make a change, because there's a, you know, there's a very famous saying, right, if it works, don't touch it. And this is where the first thing that you realize or you face the reality is that, okay, so it's really just us consumers who make the demands, enlarge, saying, like, no, this is not how it works.

Consumer Demands and Developer Flexibility

We want something specific, so we want this or we want that. And as developers in crypto, we just have this beautiful nature of reactivity. So we can listen to that and we can try to make changes, because we don't have that. Legacy systems, we don't have the history of maintaining the software for 40, 50 years. So trust me, when you are a customer of some large bank, it is a very high chance that their core systems are still running on mainframes. And for those of you guys listening and don't know, mainframe is literally like that predecessor of computers. It's a very old thing.

The Fascination of Old Technology in Payments

I'm not saying that they're using the punch cards, but they're still using the terminals where in order to upload the code, you actually have to physically go into that machine and upload the code there. So, again, it's still, from the engineer perspective, it's fascinating that something developed back in, like, sixties still, like, is able to handle the things that are working today. Yeah, this is like a master class in behind the curtain of payments, which is pretty cool. Like, I'm learning every minute with some of what you're sharing so I appreciate that. With holy health specifically, like, let's pivot there.

Consumer Interest in Crypto Payment Solutions

There are. I saw some research the other day. I don't know if this came across like the algorithm fed it to you, but our friends at pay published some research from 362 people about stable coins payments and crypto cards, was one of the questions. And I saw that 65% of the people in this study wanted a crypto cardinal but didn't have one yet. And then of course, you know, 20, 30% already did. But in other words, people already have one or are very interested in getting one. And that's like, you know, 90% of folks at least reflected in this survey.

Understanding the Unique Position of Holyheld

So I'm curious what, how you feel. Holy hell. It's kind of uniquely positioned against maybe other similar self-custody cards. Are there important differences that you think would be significant for people to know? And then kind of building on that, what gives you confidence about your ability to earn users, build a strong user base, all of that. So anywhere you want to take that, I guess is cool. Oh, yeah, that's a lot of great questions there. I guess I'll start with the first one is just ground principles.

Developing a Product for Users

One is we're building this product also for ourselves. I feel like it's really hard to build a product in which you are not interested yourself. You want to use it yourself. And it's coming not from crypto days, but it's coming. A very good example is slack, so de facto now the most popular corporate, now messenger. And at some point the founders of Slack, they just forced everyone for work. You have to use slack. And what they say is that the results were amazing because the folks using it overall, they figured out, oh, this is when, for me as a user, this is not good.

Learning from User Experiences

It's like, oh, I could make this better. So this is where engineers also become really involved and nothing disassociated with the product. So the first principle is that we are the users of our product as well, and if we fuck up for ourselves. So it's really just putting us in the position is that if this feature is really affecting people, it's also affecting us, and we don't want that. The second thing is that when we talk about crypto people, I'm a hardcore believer that.

Targeting the Right Audience in Crypto

And again, so my past grandpa, he always used to joke about, you know, I don't like kind of locating people in two groups, but if there were two groups on this planet, those, you know, one group of people that get lucky with parking spots and the other one not, and I'd like to, you know, twist a joke and say that, in a sense, I believe that there are two groups of people. One that wantingly or willingly or specifically want to use crypto, and the other one that may have heard about it, may even know that it exists, may even have friends that do it, but they choose not to, and it's a personal preference.

Determining the Target Market

And when we started, we said that, who do we bill for? Who do we really want to serve? Really, really well, the first audience are people who already use it. When I say this, I mean crypto. And the second one is that you would have to persuade them. So it's like, no, it's actually better. It's more convenient, or it's faster, cheaper, et cetera, whatever attributes you want to put into it. But we decided is that, well, look, let's just focus on the people that need this already today.

Identifying User Needs in the Crypto Space

And when we started, and we launched in April 2023, it was people who, again, already either how we would define it, people who earn money in crypto. So whether that's investments, you know, gambling, yielding whatever it is, but they already do it, or two is people who essentially earn salaries. So you can define that as still as a very niche thing when we started, but we learned what, I believe, to serve those people and identify their needs, and there's specific things that those people value.

Understanding Industry Trends

So one is, if is, we're not dumb anymore in this industry. So when we say, I would like to think at least this way, when we say, it's like, oh, where's the yield coming from? Very infamous joke. Same thing is like, where is the cashback coming from? So everybody was really tired of having the cashback just printed out as tokens. There's a new thing now printing out cashback not as tokens, but as points. What we said instead, okay, let's be transparent and let's say, hey, you can have a cashback and use the c, but that's simply because we have a very clear path of, I would say, explaining it where it comes from.

Transparency in Cashback and User Experience

Here's an interchange fee, or here is the preferred settlement times, et cetera. But then it's very clear, straightforward, and just there. The second part is that I believe in that aspect of that we are all adults. So Holyheld is available to 18 plus only folks. And if you're 18, you're an adult legally and physically or mentally. And what it means is that you have to have a freedom of choice, and the freedom of choice of three things.

Parameters Defining the Product

One is the wallet that you want to use the one that you trust, two is the network that you prefer, and three is the token. And with those three things, parameters that basically what shaped the product initially, you can connect the wallet that you prefer and you can use. We're still working up to date to enable as many networks as possible. And three is how do we enable the tokens possible. The problem that I believe with crypto cards has always been that crypto is one tech, it lives on its own, and fiat is a different tech, and it lives on its own.

The Challenge of Combining Crypto and Fiat

And the question is that how do you combine those two in that sense? There's another joke where, for example, now we're all talking about network abstraction or token abstraction. And then I always joke about, well, hey guys, Coinbase sold it in, back in, I don't know, let's put it like 20 17, 20, 20 16. Depends on which mark you want to take. Because when you just want to buy Eth on Coinbase, you just buy eth. That's it.

Understanding Differences in Cryptocurrency

It's just the ETH. When you have aspect of self custody, you can buy the ETH on mainnet, on arbitrum, on optimism, on whatever other network, for example, or you can buy even ETH on Solana. What is really the difference in that ETH? And that may be obvious to people that have been here in this space, but it's not obvious to new people coming in. I believe that over time, this complexity, it just builds up on, and it kind of creates this invisible wall between people who already get it and people who are trying to get it.

The Steep Learning Curve in Crypto

So the learning curve is becoming so steep that it's just really hard. So now we, as industry realized that now we try to ballpark this or kind of encapsulate this complexity and then now trying to decrease it. But I still hardcore believer that for us, as people who specifically want to use crypto, those three main aspects, they are the ones that define what is the token that I want to use, what is the stablecoin, for example, that I want to use.

User Freedom of Choice in Crypto Payments

Maybe USDC is fine for me, but maybe I want to use USDT only, or maybe I want to use something else, and that's something else. As long as we are able to provide you the freedom of choice, that just something that attracts other people, because we are not making that decision for you. We are here to support all of it. We're here to try to make it as easy as possible. But we're not telling you this is right or this is wrong.

The Principles Guiding Holyheld

We're not telling you that this network is a good network and that network is bad. So that's basically the ground principles that we build on. And in terms of how well positioned Holyheld is or not, I can say that the job is not done. So right now, Holyheld is the leading and something that Visa Mastercard defined this space as web three cards. There's quite a lot of people that are being liberal with the words or terms non custodial.

Commitment to Crypto Natives

I just like to say that, hey, we are here for crypto natives, so there's some principles that we follow. In some areas we are probably too hardcore or crazy. For example, I see as a big downside in crypto is the allowance part. And ultimately how from, you know, 20 summer 2020, we've never really cared about something called an allowance. We basically given a limit allowance to some contract.

Ensuring Security in Transactions

And then you figured out, you know, why was it drained for, you know, there's a lot of this underneath. Not or not visible things that are working in Holyheld to ensure that a holy health had never access to your crypto funds. And then two is that we can truly say that, hey, unless you specifically authorize this transaction with your signature, with your wallet, we cannot take those funds.

Becoming the Largest Crypto Card in Europe

So with those things combined together, I think that's something that helped us to become the biggest card in Europe. But the question is then, what's next? So, obviously, how do we still keep growing? How do we become even bigger? But it's also the question is that what's next? And I think that what's next is that second audience or second group, people that don't want to use crypto.

Reaching Out to Non-Crypto Users

The question or the trick there is, but there are aspects and things where it is more convenient or it is better than traditional money. So how do we make it happen for them so that they may be aware, but they don't have to think about it. They don't have to understand what a wallet is, they don't have to understand what the crypto is, they don't have to understand what a stable coin is.

Creating User-Friendly Crypto Solutions

It just works. And in that regards, it's a very. Again, it can be a cliche, but it's things like, would your grandma use this product without your help? And I think that it is fair to say that at the moment, Holyheld is not the app that my grandma would use without my help. She can definitely benefit from that, but it's still something that I would help her.

Future Directions for Holyheld

So I would show her, this is how you use it, or this is, hey, here's the transaction, here's the funds. Et cetera. But it's still not something that she would get or understand. But that's okay. That's fine. I believe as we go further, even if we directly face this b, two c products, we will eventually all become that, a bit of a hidden layer, more of an infrastructure side of things.

The Role of Technology in Streaming Services

Because look at Netflix. When you go to the Netflix site, they just tell you can watch all of these movies and you can watch them fast, and it's available now, but they don't tell you how their prediction tech works so that they can recommend you the movies that you may actually like, or how they're able to stream movies at such a good quality at such a high. So all of that tech just serves one purpose, to watch the movie. And what we're doing here, at least in the direction that I'm interested, which is payments, crypto, is that facilitator. How do you do this better and cheaper? How do you make this more private, more secure? But those are not the things that you sell to regular people. What you sell them is the end result. Can you send money to your friend overseas without having to, you know, double think? Can you send that business wire without having to worry, hey, Will, the bank compliance, you know, stop it? Well, there's going to be, you know, are there going to be any issues? What if it's lost in somewhere, you know, with that swift message so that you have to think less about it?

The Vision of Seamless Payment Systems

So ideally, what holy health will become going forward is something invisible that you never think about. It just works. You don't think about it. And that's what I hope so, because the only reason why would you think about it is because it doesn't work. And that's, you know, the final goal, to make sure that it never happens. Yeah, that's a really strong articulation of, like, a good user experience. I mean, what I hear you saying is people are after utility with any particular product, but the question that then arises is how much learning and pain and suffering do I have to endure to access your utility? And if that threshold is, like, too high, if that burden is too much, no, you're not going to find users for that. And so, yeah, I think you're right on track. Like, continuing to lower that and hearing you describe, like, that's what you're chasing. That's the one thing that's next. Big picture makes a lot of sense. That's good.

Geographic Spread and Regulatory Challenges

So it sounds like you guys are big dogs, you know, in Europe. I know. Are there geographic limitations around the card, I've heard from users, that card isn't available. There. Are there markets that are excluded at this point? And then is part of the game plan to maybe open up the playing field down the road or thoughts on any of that? Absolutely. That's another great question. I'll start again with a little context there. Right now, there's no bank in the world that can serve all users globally just from the treadfy, right? So forget about crypto. There's just no single bank that offers that. There are mega banks that have these different subsidiaries that are registered and licensed in all these different regions, and it allows them to serve the customers, but there's never really that unified single place where you would go to. The reason why is banking is probably the.

Regulation and Geopolitical Issues in Banking

The most regulated sphere on earth. It's complicated, it's expensive. Different countries have different rules, different requirements. And the geopolitics, in part, it's a very good example, is, again, what's happening here. For example, let's just take something that's on the news very lately, is Russia. If you are a Russian user, nobody wants to serve you. If you are a Russian bank, nobody wants to deal with payments with you. Why? That's because, well, there's a geopolitical event there, and simply because, well, for other banks, it just, you know, they don't want to risk. They don't want to risk their businesses. So that's just a little bit of the preamble of context. We indeed started because Europe is our home market.

Growth Strategy and Market Expansion Plans

We started in Europe as we grow, and we are obviously looking to how can we expand? So how can we work in more regions, how can we serve more customers? And there's really just plain up dumbly two options that you have. One is you go into new region, you get the necessary authorizations, requirements, something that allows you to be included in that banking part. And the reason why you still have to do this or you want to do this is because back in 2017, when the movement of let's pay in BTC was really at its peak. But quickly, people realized that it's not just about the tech. We all have the tech. The problem is we don't have the distribution channel. The convenience of these cards is because visa, Mastercard is a global network.

Importance of a Global Payment Network

You can go with the same card anywhere, literally almost anywhere around the world. It could be whatever the, you know, the deepest, like, jungle somewhere, you know, in Latam, or could be, you know, in the middle of, like, an island somewhere in, like, Pacific Ocean. But if, you know, there's an ATM, you would still be able to use your Visa Mastercard card. Like, that's amazing. And that distribution channel is what is really valuable in. And in that regards, what happens there is that there's two options, right? So you go into this specific region and you get the license authorizations, which is long, expensive, and maybe it actually doesn't work, because again, for some reason, there's no single global bank that would already be there. Or there's a second option.

Innovating Local Financial Services

Why don't we make the local finance global? So why don't we make those local, whatever the requirements are, within that specific country, why don't we make the local services that are available there connected to the global system, and we are going in the second direction. So this is where that tech is coming in. Because to really, I would say, simplify it, essentially what it does is that it is the same tech or network, just like Swift, which is like Mastercard, which is connecting different connected parties. But think of it as an aggregation layer. In other words, for example, there's Uniswap, and then there's sushiswap, but then there's one inch that kind of like a one place where, depending on what you need, it either kind of routes you through Uniswap or sushiswap.

Connecting Financial Institutions

So think about this. When there's bank ledger, which is private, and then there's visa, Mastercard, which are private, but now shared across multiple entities, and then there are now public ledgers like ETH. And if you are able to combine all those three together, then you have a better and simpler access for companies or financial institutions to talk to each other through various means. If, you know, two banks already connected on the private layer, fantastic. But what if they're not? And that's basically what Swift has been struggling for decades, even though it's de facto the global standard for international payments. Anyone who has ever used it, just, you know, they just know.

Challenges with Current Payment Systems

It's like, it's a terrible experience. I don't see that as a bad thing. It's just as good as the tech was when it was developed initially. But it's so complicated that there's still, you know, not all the institutions that are connected to it. And then you have issues with currencies, etcetera. So the way we're focusing on it is indeed, right now, Holyheld is an app is available to residents of 30 countries that something can call as EU plus EEA plus Switzerland. But we are actively working as to how can we be available or how can the services likely held can really be available across the world.

Global Interconnectivity and User Experience

And the way we're working this is that how can this tech be integrated into fintechs all around the world, which would create this global interconnectivity which by its own is like, so what? Like, we're now connected. So what? But that what is that you as a user somewhere in, for example, Brazil, could buy or send money to someone in Europe in seconds. So imagine just like that on-chain transaction from a wallet to wallet, the seamless or as guarantees as it is. But now it works end to end. So now you don't need to have that wall, you don't need to have that specific stable coin. You don't need to know what is that specific network, you don't need to know how it works or what the gas is, etcetera.

Simplifying Cross-Border Transactions

All you care is that you want to buy that product which is somewhere else in some different currency, but it's fast and it's guaranteed. And our attempt to make this happen is through essentially this layer. The nuances are, is that what I believe more efficient path is not going directly to consumer here in Brazil, here in Malaysia, here in Switzerland, here in South Africa, whatever it is, but instead to target who is serving those customers in all of those countries, there's going to be that local service with good support, with good experience, with good interface, which serves those customers. And if we just give them options to make it even better, hopefully that's a trigger to, you know, to be connected.

The Long-Term Vision for Payment Evolution

So that's not in two cent, but that's the strategy. Yeah. Do you think. And I don't know if it was from the silk account, but I was engaging in some conversation about this the last day or two, someone saying that, like, well, crypto cards that are, you know, that we're using on the visa network that's not really decentralized and this and that is so idealistic that it's utterly unhelpful right now because it's the only rails that we have, right. Unless a person can go around to all 8 billion people and find a way to get everybody to agree on what set of assets they're going to accept at the local grocery stores all over the world and create new point of sale mechanisms that cut out Visa and Mastercard and, like, build all of that new infrastructure and barring that, like, this is the best that we've got right now.

The Future of Point of Sale Transactions

I'm curious, have you thought at all about, say, ten years down the road, 15 years? Do you see a point where the point of sale globally is almost totally disintermediated, if not like fully disintermediated, and maybe doesn't include some of these existing networks, like a visa or Mastercard? And it's just like, boom, my Ethereum assets with privacy. Hopefully we've got some privacy built in there, right? Like, I'm just transacting with this merchant directly. Have you like, dreamed that, imagined that vividly enough that you could share thoughts there? I would say two points here. On one side is that part that I said at the very beginning is that if it works, don't touch it.

The Balance Between Innovation and Functionality

But the second point is that, how would you innovate then? You have to do new things, you have to try new things, et cetera. But on the other side of that spectrum is that, again, as you mentioned, there's distribution channels, but there's convenience. The problem is the reason why merchants don't want to accept BTC, it's not because the transfer there is expensive. It takes 20 minutes. All these jokes about you kind of, I don't know, you buy your coffee and then there's a meme, right? There's a very, I think it was like a cartoon kind of stuff, is that you wait for your 20 minutes for the transaction to, for the block to confirm, and then you're like, oh, my coffee is already cold.

Challenges with Digital Currency Acceptance

It's not about that. It's just, it's even easier. It's dumber than that. Me as a coffee shop owner, I have to pay taxes in fiat. I have to pay salaries in fiat. I have to pay for that coffee beans in fiat. So I just have no use for that BTC. It's not about me not willing to accept it. It's just because it's no use to me. And that's the reality. Like, as gross as it is, I can definitely envision that I would say optionality, because right now, what we lack is not the technology, but is that optionality. But at the same time, working in this industry long enough, I clearly understand is that, you know, that coffee shop owner or, you know, they would.

The Reality of Merchant Needs

What they want is just to pay for that, you know, service, that the pos. Machine works. They can accept them, etcetera. But what they don't want is, you know, having to understand is there a full node running on that machine locally or like a Yemenite, you know, a light node or whatever it is. They don't care about that. What they do care is that, well, a. So fees. And two is the speed, and the speed involves not just the transaction itself. But anyone who's doing online sales, they know about this magic thing called chargebacks. It's probably a conversation or entire topic for another conversation. So TLDR is, I'm hopefully pragmatic enough to understand that this is not something that's going to happen in one day, but also optimistic enough to say that, well, if we don't try, then probably it will never happen for sure.

The Future of Crypto and Payment Innovations

So at least we have a non-zero chance of that change to happen. At the end of the day, this is what crypto is really good at, is being very specific incentives. And the way credit cards grew as networks was really just based on incentives. So if we can be also smart about that, I'm sure that everything is possible. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, that's good. There's a sense in which you do need to partner with the status quo in order to rebel against it to build something better and new and different. And so I hear that I'm also encouraged by it. Like, hearing you describe merchants don't want the BTC or, like, at least, I don't know if I'd even put it that way.

Perceptions and Misconceptions of Cryptocurrency

But something that we talk about a lot with people, particularly, like, it's really hard with people who have a maximal mentality around their favorite speculative digital asset, right? And calling it money and getting that tattooed into their brain in such a way that some people get deluded into thinking, yeah, that we'll be buying coffee with this or that. And the volatility alone of a lot of these assets means that they are not suitable to fulfill that particular monetary function of, like, daily transactability. Right?

The Importance of Stable Assets

Otherwise, price tags in stores would be changing every second. Right? Like, you'd need a digital oracle piped into the price tag to, like, make it change according to bitcoin or whatever. And so that's where. That's where stable assets come in. Obviously, I'm not needing to explain that to you, but it is just hard to get people to think in complementary terms that, yeah, like, okay, an asset like gold or bitcoin or ethereum or whatever, that has monetary properties and use cases that are extremely valuable and those are not to be denied, but they do not, solely in and of themselves, fulfill everything that's required of our money. And that is nowhere proven more than in the moment of a point of sale, buying a cup of coffee, like you said, for that, we want to be using stable assets.

Learning About New Products

And if I'm not mistaken, like, you just learned about silk a couple weeks ago, maybe. Is it like a pretty new product to you? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So that's definitely something that. Well, and again, I live in a bit of a, I think we all do in a little bit of like a silo bubble. So it's kind of like a self, you know, propelling like prophecy wherever I, for example, if you are ETH focused or like where you work on ETH, then it's something that's happening. For example, I don't know, on Solana is rarely coming across your even algo on the Twitter, simply because the algo feeds what you think you like.

The Impact of Algorithms

And it's like, oh, if you speak a lot about ETH based projects, then we would show you less people that are talking about something else. And that's why I would say that it is. What's beautiful is that, yes, we all reach out to each other and indeed just learned very recently about Cilk. And this is basically what I think is really cool and interesting, is that an attempt is all right. So we believe this is the important pillar and we want to push that. And this is what I really want because as I mentioned, so the retailers is like use the wallet that you want, the network you want, the token that you want, because based on that you can have optionality.

Optionality and Resilience

And that's what makes things more resilient and more beautiful. When you have, I'll just give a very different example now, but also very important one. Let's say yield right now, when the banks just give you, hey, here's a savings account, here's the APR on it, and that's it. They don't give you optionality. They just tell you, here's your 1% and fuck off. But crypto opens this layer of, hey, depending on what you prefer, what you like, there's so many different options on how you can make that yield. And you as an adult, you can make the decision on what asset you want to hold, how you want to make that yield.

The Value of Crypto Optionality

It's packaging that into the total product that, hey, you can access it easily and conveniently. And that optionality is what's really important. Also with stablecoins, I don't believe that there's going to be a single token. There's always the power law distribution. But that optionality is what makes it beautiful. Because if you don't like something, you have an option to switch, and that's important. What's really sad is when you don't like something and you don't have an option to switch. That's where the problem is.

Silk's Introduction and Utility

Yeah, definitely that actually, I had I think it was yesterday that someone probably in the holy held community jumped into a thread and said, and they were talking about silk and said, oh, I'll bet you could use silk in holy health. And that didn't, I didn't, wasn't responding or anything. I'm not an expert on your product, obviously, so I'll bring it right to you as the expert. That wouldn't currently be possible for people in the 30 countries who have access to your product. It would take a little bit more than just immediately plugging and playing silk into the wallet.

Technical Considerations for Silk

If your wallet, because that depends. I would say like, okay, let me put this way. If silk lives one of the 14 networks that we support, then it is possible. So yes, it's available out of the box and that's the beauty of our structure. If it has on-chain liquidity on the network that we can technically support, then it's available. Nice. Yeah, that's a great, very simple answer. It'll make me immediately go through and find that list of the 14 at this point, for those who are curious with Cilk and Anton, maybe even a helpful 32nd TLDR for you on Cilk as you continue to learn to.

Unique Aspects of Silk

I think part of what makes silk different than something like a USDT or USDC is one that decentralization piece, right? I mean, this is literally a Dow governed product that is then item number two, not pegged to the US dollar because all stable coins that are pegged to fiat or in particular the US dollar, those are susceptible to all the monetary risk of those currencies. And in the case of like USD or euro inflation, right? So the asset class and the specific assets that we are trusting to be stable, they're not. They're bleeding.

Silk's Inflation Resistance

And so it's why silk, by design, with 40 years of back testing, was proven to preserve purchasing power better than any single fiat currency. And so 18 months ago was launched. Fast forward today. Silk is up 14% against the US dollar over just over that period of time, in other words. So people who held silk as their stablecoin bag over the last 18 months have preserved purchasing power 14% better than people who did it. So there's that inflation resistance that's built in, which is really unique.

Privacy and Silk

And then I guess the last piece is privacy. Right? People are currently with other partners who offer self custody cards and stuff like that. People are able to spend silk in real life with privacy on its native chain. But the great thing about porting out silk to other chains, even if they're not private is users still get the chance to benefit from that resistance against inflation, which is massive. Massive. And I know there are people globally who, half a dozen countries we could list off who are experiencing double digit or even triple digit inflation in a year.

The Benefits of Silk Over Other Stablecoins

And for them, USDC is a safe haven. Wow, that's great. It's saving us from our own local currency inflation. That's good. But silk can do even one better than that. And if, in the event that USD were ever hyperinflated, exposure to single fiat peg, USD pegged stablecoin starts to look less and less attractive. Not that it's happening now, obviously. Like, not. Absolutely not. The money printer is definitely not, you know, not on.

Skepticism about Inflation

No, we don't. We don't hear that whirring in the background. No, no, it's. It's turned off. It's sleepy. Oh. So good. Anyway, so that's a little. Well, let me just ask you with that. Like, as you are, as you're hearing that, as you're learning and kind of exposed, and we're in the same space together, like, trying to shape the future of money, future of payments. When you hear about the idea of silk, what makes sense? What do you like, what doesn't make sense or seems like confusing or strange? Like, what are your thoughts there?

Perspectives on Inflation and Value

Look, I think you nailed the point there with two aspects, right? Two pillars there. I think that us or North America folks and European folks are very much less worried about inflationist, you know, unless or until they kind of see their overall bills. Because when you see that the bread costs, for example, like, €1.03 years ago, and now it is like 150, it's still like, oh, it's still just 150. But it's only really to combine the total bill, you know, in that, like, you know, grocery store.

Realization of Rising Costs

Then you realize, like, oh, holy shit. You know, the price went up so much. And that's when you can start thinking about, like, okay, wait a second. So cost of living actually went up? Because when the governments usually say, it's like, oh, the cost of living only went up 3%, 4%. You know, the manipulation and statistics there makes it seem like, oh, everything is, you know, everything's good, but when you actually try to buy things, that, when you figure it out, wait a second, that's definitely not, you know, like, 3% or 10%. Those are, you know, double digit percent.

Growing Awareness of Inflation

So maintaining that purchasing power is something that more of a growing regions or developing countries, that's where people are more aware of that and more sensitive to that. So I think that's an extremely lucrative option when it comes to, as I mentioned, like European or US folks. It will take time. So more people waking up, more people realize, and more people start looking into what are my options? And again, that optionality still going back to it is what's important.

Choosing Based on Values

If you value, for example, I don't know, this aspect, rather that aspect. It's your choice. So you can prefer webtoon, but if you value preserving that purchasing power, that may be a great option. The second part or the third part, privacy. I think that crypto anarchism and crypto itself started with that thesis. I am trying to be very transparent and honest, is that I don't know how strong it is now because I feel like more and more we're turning away from the God there because we take shortcuts, we do things that are easier, we ourselves as users.

The Compromise of Privacy

And that itself then raises me a question, is that, is there any hypocrisy there? Is there any double standards where, you know, on the surface we demand something and we see it's valuable, but on the other side, we still compromise ourselves. But what I think I made to the realization there is that there's somewhat like a threshold where it's important, but if certain conditions come in place, then I'd value, for example, stability over Privacy. I'm not sure whether that's important, whether that's correct, critical, whether what's right, what's wrong, I don't know.

Personal Values in Crypto

And I'm not the one who say what's right or wrong. So again, still going back to this is the beauty of those three pillars, right? So your wallet, your Network, your token, because depending on what's important to you, then you can pick and choose. And that's what I'm really trying to protect. There is that optionality. So I think that there's going to be groups or clusters just like Reddit, right? So Reddit is my favorite thing of everything because you can see the most insane shit there.

The Future of Crypto Communities

It's like literally something like people who smoke Joints on the Central Station in Amsterdam at like 02:00 a.m. in the morning. It's like really retarded, like very, something ultra specific. But there's going to be groups there and there are going to be people actively talking about that because they're excited about that. And I think the same thing is going to happen with crypto. So there's going to be this hyper focused local things that people are very excited about. Some can be larger, some can be smaller, depending on how specific you want to be.

Shared Values in the Community

But everything makes sense. And there's always going to be a body to you that will think alike and be like, yes, I agree with that. So again, that's probably, you know, my TLDR for this kind of session here is that let's try to protect that optionality. Yeah, that's such a great value. We share it. We respect that. I mean, what you guys are really doing at holy held is empowering user freedom, that freedom of financial expression that people have the right to custody their own assets and then to be able to spend those in real life without having 50 to 100 intermediaries taking their pound of flesh, like stealing pennies silently from that.

Acknowledging Contributions

And so appreciate what you're doing. Respect what you're doing. I was going to open up for stuff from the audience, but I have a call in 1 minute, so I'm going to jump to that. But people who want to get in touch with you, connect with you, learn more. Where can they learn more about holy held? Where can they connect with you? Look, very easy. Holyheld.com or holyheld on Twitter. Those are two places to get started.

Final Thoughts and Gratitude

Once again, thank you very much for having me here. I had a great conversation, great chat, amazing questions, and I appreciate you guys bringing me here. So thank you very much. Absolutely. Keep rocking it. Love what you guys have built. Keep building, keep doing your thing. All the love to your team. Thanks for making the time, Anton. Thank you. Bye bye, everyone.