Phantom CEO: The Next Chapter For Phantom | Brandon Millman & Donnie Dinch

Transcript

That's actually the big opportunity we see like that's like with Phantom moving forward is that the initial mission of of building like a great wallet to bring make crypto accessible to everyone. I think mission accomplished in a lot of ways. But now it's like how do we leverage crypto to build like the next generation consumer finance platform. This episode is brought to you by Zcash. You'll hear more about them later in today's episode. Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is forformational purposes only and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests, and the Blockworks team may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects

discussed. All right, everyone. Welcome back to Empire. I've been waiting a long time for this one. Very excited about it. Uh we have uh Donnie, who's the VP of strategy at Phantom. used to run Bitsky, uh, who you guys know and love, and also Brandon, uh, who's the CEO and co-founder of Phantom. So, Brandon, Donnie, welcome to the show, guys. >> Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks so much. >> Yeah, excited about this. Um, I actually wanted to, we'll talk about the future of Phantom and all that kind of good stuff. I wanted to start with the old days of crypto because Brandon, you were at Xerx. Donnie, you guys started Bitzky in 2018. How has the what did what do you think you guys got right about how the industry evolved and what did you where where has it evolved where you're

like I didn't really see it going this way. >> Um well yeah first of all thanks for having us. Uh >> yeah a bit nippy here in New York >> cry. Yeah. Welcome to town >> the west coast. Uh but uh yeah it's always it's always good to be back. Uh and uh yeah tons of crypto people here. >> Yeah. Where are you from here? >> Uh I'm from New Jersey originally. >> Jersey actually. All right. Yeah. >> Donnie, where are you from? >> Pittsburgh. >> Nice. >> Yeah. Nice. You don't want to build in Pittsburgh? >> No. >> Crypto's capital of the world. >> I think it's like sunny 30 days a year there. Not great.

>> Yeah. Nice. >> But uh yeah, we can talk a little bit about sort of the the olden days a little bit. Um yeah, I got I got my start in crypto uh in 2017 uh at uh like you mentioned very very early stage uh DeFi startup at that time called ZeroX. Yeah. I remember there was like a a telegram group where like some people were kind of like spitballing about like what we should call this budding industry. >> Yeah. >> Uh I think DeFi stucks there was like some similarity to like uh the word defy uh and and all that. Um but by the way I was in a similar group for naming what NFTts were called.

>> Do we think we got that right or wrong? >> Hard to say. Hard to say. >> Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, yeah, that was that was a crazy time where I mean, obviously the industry was a lot smaller back then. >> Yeah, >> we were celebrating, you know, like thousand user milestones and things like that. And yeah, I think one thing that really struck me especially um from from Zerox's mission was that they they really got right was that the world was moving towards this more tokenized format and that we were accelerating towards a world where you know the world is going to be tokenized and all value is going to flow freely on on blockchains. And so I think that yeah,

that part uh we got right um back then. I think the part that we really got wrong at at Zerox in that time um was I think a lot of dogmatism around the Ethereum um ecosystem specifically and how >> you know back then it was you would pretty much get um you know you pretty much get shued away if you were like to whisper any the name of a different chain that was not Ethereum >> kicked out of the group chat. >> Exactly. Yeah. Um made fun of, bullied.

Um, and yeah, I mean, um, and we, you know, we got a little bit of that when we started Phantom, right? >> When did you guys start Phantom? >> Um, 2021 early >> 21. Was this because you were just a MetaMask user and you thought it was bad and you wanted a better thing or what what was the >> Yeah, I mean it that's the long and the short of it basically. I mean, I think we we spent close to four years building apps and protocols on Ethereum and at Zerox and basically realized that, you know, MetaMask spec specifically was actually holding a lot of the industry back in terms of like there's only so much there's only so much that we can do as application developers. you know,

MetaMask and sort of the wallet layer layer had to hold up its end of the bargain to really properly onboard users and properly educate them. And so we felt like, yeah, that wasn't really happening. And so the best the highest leverage way that we could apply ourselves to accelerate the entire industry was by really fixing this usability layer um like at the very top which we felt what basically lived in the wallet. >> Yeah. Anyway, that's happy to go more into it, but that's kind of why we got started. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

>> Donnie, what do you think? Um, bu building a wallet is so so freaking hard and and you did this for many years. Um, what do you think Phantom did that because there there are so many people who had the same thesis like I you guys had the same thesis like, well, wallets kind of suck. Let's make the wallets better. And Phantom has kind of run away and I feel like won won that. like what what what do you think from an outsers's point of view? Someone who's competing against them for many years, what do they do? >> Yeah. You know, it's interesting. So, when they were at ZeroX, I would I you were on the Matcha team, right? >> Yeah. I worked on Well, Chris uh so we had three co-founders. We all came from Zerox. Yeah. Chris Chris was sort of the general manager for Matcha XYZ.

>> Yeah. >> And then I was sort of the on point person for Xerox API, which is like the actual smart order routing engine. >> Sat behind it. Got it. >> Xerox alumni. Good good alumni list. >> Yeah, >> Linda. Tom, >> you guys. >> Yeah. Gold. Uh, Gold Sky. Uh, there's a couple other ones that I'm I'm missing, but >> uh Blowfish, which you also >> Blowfish, of course. >> Oh, I didn't realize there were >> Yeah, >> Blowfish. F Yeah, that was Fabio. Fabio and I actually went to college together. Um, and then he was the first employee at Zerox, and that's >> one of the reasons I actually found my way there event in the first place.

>> Nice. And uh yeah, Fabio, we we brought him back. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> it's great. Uh well, so to answer your question, yeah, to kind of answer your question, >> Matcha was this sort of >> like Bitsky, our whole thing was that yes, wallets suck. The approach that we took was let's just like make it so people don't need need to understand what a wallet is at all and let's abstract that complexity. Let's build the Gmail for wallets. And um actually one of the first customers of that product was this team Matcha at uh I think our first dollar of revenue came from you guys.

>> Um and I think the big delta between what we built and uh what Phantom built is I think Phantom just did a much better job of serving the existing market. I think that we did a we looked in the future of like where we thought the play like the space was going and I think ultimately we we got that right on the wrong time uh wrong timeline. you try to build for like the normie users. >> Yeah. What basically what we're seeing today like where you're seeing like you know these products like FOMO or even Moonshot last year like these things that are abstracting away the complexity of what's actually happening but still providing this fun experience. Um but Phantom just did a really really good job of uh nailing the core market and then also you know making a really good bet on Salana. I mean that was a that

was a I mean that that worked out really really well. Yeah, I'd say that was the primary sort of >> that was the thing >> master stroke in the beginning which was very it was a very deliberate and sort of premeditated thing where we realized that a lot of folks were trying to they you know it was a very obvious thing to compete with MetaMask and they were sort of the ultimate sitting duck in a way where they you know they just had a reputation for having bad UX and so if you could fix the UX, then you could beat them, right? But I think a lot of folks tried to do that exact playbook and then it didn't work out. Um and so you know one of the things that we

realized was that how how powerful the pole position is in in the wallet arena and how how much network effect there is actually around that both from a developer and user perspective but also from like a brand and trust perspective like um and so there's there's momentum that goes with that and I think Phantom did a really good job of capitaliz on the initial momentum that they built uh when they launched just you being a part of Phantom and seeing like or paying more attention in real time to the adoration from the community. I think it's it maybe goes unspoken a little bit just how much that was sort of like just a baked in sort of fundamental way that the company was built and the product was built that it

was just very empathetic to what the users needed and listened >> and um like you basically didn't let go of the the momentum and energy that you guys captured early on. Yeah, it was a it was a little bit of an atypical startup experience I'd say where when we started I mean typically in startups there's sort of the the idea maze wandering where you're trying to figure out the right thing you're trying to find a product market fit. >> Uh but for us we kind of just it just happened like right out of the gate and then ever since then it's just been about like >> was there one thing that happened like did you get the the blessing of Raj and Tuli or did you get the tweet from the Salana like what kicked it off? I mean, yeah. I mean, honestly, it was just we

just started tweeting and we just started tweeting. Uh there was this kind of very early dynamic uh between us three when we started where Chris, you know, I'd wake up and check Twitter and Chris basically had >> signed us up to build something that we hadn't even started building because he kind of like would tease it in a design and then people would get so hyped for it. >> You're like, "Oh crap, I got to build this this week." >> Exactly. And so we would just kind of like kind of do that like one up each other um throughout 2021. Um and but yeah, I mean the initial signal really just came from Twitter I'd say in terms of like people we just really struck a chord. People were like really really wanting something like this. And I think specifically with Salana as well, I think we did a really good job

with the with early Phantom product just highlighting the speed uh the speed and and and cheapness of Salana as well. So I think a lot of diehard Salana folks are like, "Oh wow, this is the first product that's really, you know, putting the best foot forward for the ecosystem." So >> I I'll say one other sort of intangible part about this is that Salana wasn't the only chain to claim to be faster or cheaper than Ethereum, but it was the only one that had like what felt like a AAA like wallet experience. And I just feel like the the the combination of what Phantom built actually helped Salana get off the ground as well. I don't think it was just the other way around. Um so the the the alchemy of like success in crypto like there has to

be a lot of things that go right. Um and uh yeah seem to be what happened here. >> Yeah. How important was it to have a designer as one of the co-founders? Yeah, I mean extreme extremely important, you know, in terms of our specific I mean our whole mission at Phantom is to >> accelerate the adoption of crypto, but our specific role in that is to fix this usability layer that you know we've we've all been talking about how UX and usability is so bad for so many years and so really trying to fix that and so because that's our approach it was pretty much you know very necessary for a designer to be there from the very beginning just making sure that >> and that's Chris, right? Chris is a

product person, designer. >> Product person, designer, >> uh allaround renaissance man. So they Yeah. unfair to paint him just as a designer, but uh definitely a generational design talent. >> Nice. Maybe let's get I want to get into um something Donnie said about maybe what you guys got wrong at Bitsky, which is building for the normie user versus the crypto native user. >> Yeah. >> Um this is something basically for the last 50 since Yeah. Since for as long as crypto's been around, anyone who has built for the normal user has failed. >> Yeah. >> Building I think going deeper down the stack and deeper down the cryptonative user base has has always worked.

>> Yeah. >> Um better. Do you think that is a >> uh do you think that that is shifting now? Like if you're talking to a new founder today >> um would you recommend like look just focus on the crypto native user the normies will come and use what the cryptonative people are using or would you focus on the normies now? I I I think I think that the the ecosystem is a lot different. So um you look for these signals like the thing about that the big head fake in crypto around 2020 I think was the the the pace in which NFTTS captured like the cultural zeitgeist.

>> Yeah. >> And and in a lot of ways today we see like what I thought what I thought NFTs could do for bringing crypto to get used by a lot of people effectively. I think stable coins are going to like execute on that quite well. >> And so you kind of you kind of >> you success in crypto is a function of the shots on goal that you take the number of shots. And I think that um >> we're now in a place where there's a maturation in infrastructure where you can build some I don't know if normie is the right word but more like internet native as opposed to like cryptonative. And so when you look at things like specifically memecoin trading, memecoin trading was like an abstracted experience where people doing it mostly didn't care about the underlying blockchain aspect of it all. Just this

idea of trading something of value uh that you thought the internet was going to think was funny for a couple days. Um I would say that because of tools like you know uh relay or you know phantom connect which we can talk about or these other sort of uh these these infrastructure services that kind of abstract that I think it's easier to reach a broader demographic and I think that it becomes less about uh the specific cryptonative use case though I mean I don't know if you have a different take on that but it is it's it's not to say that there isn't things to build for like the crypto native specifically.

But we've just we've gotten to this level where where this space has just elevated like a further away from the metal than it was maybe 5 years ago. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think generally that all resonates with me. I'd say yeah, infrastructure over the last Yeah. call it five to seven years has has really gotten better in a number of different areas. I'd say there's there's the actual I think a huge thing that happened was that fast and cheap blockchains got solved >> and that really opened the door for crypto on mobile. >> Crypto on mobile is extremely cumbersome or Ethereum was just not the right platform for mobile >> or to build apps on mobile. So, I think that was a big unlock. And then also obviously as as um as Donnie alluded to,

the whole stable coin infrastructure, not only from a tech perspective, but from a regulatory perspective as well. I think all of those things combined make it pretty much the best time to build something for a more normie audience. Uh but I will say I think folks will I think the the best uh the best result results are going to be from folks who can take what's going on in a crypton native context and kind of the bleeding edge but then making sure that it's it's accessible, safe, and easy to use for the more normal audience. Yeah.

>> So it's a little bit of a a needle to >> thread. Let's um I was listening to a podcast you guys did a little while ago. You describe Phantom as a consumer finance platform for internet natives. >> Let's I want to go deeper into thinking through like what that world looks like because in many angles like I'd say the people winning that today are probably Robin Hood and Cash App >> I would argue. Um Coinbase doing a great job. You also like more what I'd call crypto native companies. Phantom you guys are probably leading that. There's also other people right like Axiom I think has done a decent job. MetaMask has a big user base. like how do you think about who who wins that I mean you guys think you win that game but like how does this space develop?

>> Mhm. You >> want to go first? >> Yeah, sure. So, I mean I I think that this idea of like building a consumer finance platform on crypto the big unlock is stable coins is sort of the atomic unit of of that. It's the bridge of taking all the assets and all the things that you've acquired on crypto and and putting them in a place or in in a mechanism that allows you to spend them at, you know, Chipotle or wherever you want to do. Um, and so I I think that uh the crypto the crypto native companies have an opportunity right now where there's this o this opportunity window where the genius act is passed.

The blessing of like our government for stable coins existing is there. It's probably probably have a few more years before anybody asks a lot of questions about anything. Um the services like getting debit cards and things wired up to stable coins is is you know that's all very possible now. The trick is to do it with it with an existing scale. And I don't know that there's another crypto company uh that has a more active onchain user base than Phantom right now. >> And so for us when we think about this consumer platform right now Phantom is a very much riskon experience. You come in and you kind of you know do this or that speculate on things. we'd like to offer a bit more of a sustainable long-term experience where there's more riskoff things to do. And I think that we already have this like

>> inherent hook of people opening the product. And so for us, it feels like a bit of a no-brainer to offer a broader set of things that you can do with your money. And I mean, we we can get into the details of like, you know, Phantom Cash and the stable coin as well. But >> yeah, I mean, okay, so as a from a user's perspective, I'll tell you guys what I for me is the inhibiting factor. I want to hear how you guys think about it. So, I'd be comfortable putting a million bucks into Robin Hood >> cuz I'm like >> it I don't know. It feels safe and secure. >> I don't want to put a million bucks into Phantom right now. >> Um, how do you grapple with Am I just like am I wrong? Is it safe? Like how do you grapple with that idea?

>> Well, first of all, that's a it's really funny because a lot of people don't feel comfortable putting like $50,000 in Robin Hood like just because it's mobile and it feels like free and loose. And so I think that there is this sort of like generation. >> I think millennials and Gen Z are now over that hump like mobile first is gonna win like whether >> Yes. Totally. Totally. And I and I think uh I think that the a younger trunch of individuals probably feel that way about Phantom and and and where to some extent I don't think Robin Hood feels boomer to them yet. But uh I I think that that there's just sort of a lendy effect that we just have to kind of play with that we're just going to have to like work through.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah. No. Yeah. Like Donnie said, I think there is there is a there is a generational aspect to it where I think we are shooting for this sort of past millennials and even past Gen Z a little bit >> to sort of like Gen Alpha and I think in general that that group and cohort is going to be very comfortable with using things on the internet. >> Yeah. >> Um so there's that aspect. Um but then I think there's a lot of other things that uh around yeah user safety onboarding etc. I think a really big one is really getting the on-ramp and off-ramp >> Yeah.

>> um experience correct because right now when you put a million dollars into Phantom and you want to get it out, it's actually a pretty cumbersome process where you have to go you pretty much have to go through a centralized exchange and and all of that. And I think that's just it's just putting more and more barriers to you feeling like more comfortable using this as a as a broader platform. Um and so >> that's I'd say another big area to really get right. Who's your on and off ramp provider right now? Spoon Pay. >> So, >> how do you do that? >> So, currently in the app, it's it's kind of an aggre so one of the big um challenges with running a crypto uh product at true global scale is with the on and off ramp thing. It's it's it's

coverage in different countries and reliability and all that kind of thing. So, >> Oh, you can buy from Robin Hood. I just pulled up your app. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Pay with Robin Hood. That's interesting. So we have a we have basically sort of an aggregated experience where it's like depending on where you >> transact, moon, coinbase, share four. I see it now. Exactly. That's cool. And you show the prices of all of it. >> But if you're you're in Europe, you know, that list will show Revolute and things like that. Um, however, um, now with the introduction of this Phantom Cache product that we're releasing soon, uh, and we kind of announced a couple weeks back, um, it's going to have completely, uh, native on and offs that are powered by Stripe that are all built into the product, white labelled. You

know, it feels like any other fintech app, right? You don't have to go into some weird popup or anything like that. So, we'll have those. And then obviously the card as well acts as like a bit of a offramping mechanism as well. >> Yeah. >> This episode is brought to you by Zcash, the decentralized digital cash that is encrypted to ensure agency and safety with a fixed supply of 21 million and proofof work consensus. Zcash is encrypted Bitcoin. Buy, store, and spend encrypted Bitcoin using the Zcash powered mobile wallet, Zashi. To find out more, visit their website or click the link in the show notes. Thanks to Zcash, for making today's episode possible. Shout out to today's sponsor,

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>> Let's talk about cash. >> Why did you guys get into the stable coin space? >> Um, >> all right. And and maybe for people who missed it, what what is cash? Maybe we can start there. >> Yeah. So, I'd say there's two things that we that we um announced a couple weeks back. So, uh, Phantom Cache is going to be a brand new inapp experience. It's going to be its own new tab and it's essentially a cash count slash I'd say quote unquote neo bankanking like experience in the app in that it's all denominated in US dollars.

You can deposit your paycheck into there. You can spend using your card. uh you can send to your other friends on Phantom or other crypto, you know, native addresses or you can send to bank account. It's all kind of abstracted. >> Uh you're just dealing with sort of internet cash. >> Um and so that's that's the product that we've built and then it's built on top of a stable coin that we designed uh in partnership with Stripe and Bridge called Cash, all capital letters. And that's sort of the stable coin that underpins it. So those those are the two things that we released.

>> Yeah. And and uh the big the big idea behind Cash, you know, there's a lot of stable coins out there. There's a lot that we could have ch chosen from. Um they didn't quite do exactly what we needed. The the big thing was that we wanted to create a stable coin that was actually used by people in like daily habitual use cases like grabbing a coffee, lift, whatever it may be. Um, so, uh, we wanted to partner with someone where we'd have immediate merchant distribution with a stable coin. So, cashes will be accepted at all stable or all stripe powered merchants. Um, so that just a bakedin way that we can start to live in this world where your crypto is now usable in real life.

>> Um, the other component of cash is that we wanted this to be the stable coin that anyone could put like build into their product. And so um the the the the yield rewards go to the originator. So any developer can sign up to be an originator of cash. They can bake into their product and they collect all those rewards. Um so in in some ways we kind of think of cash as a bit of like a public utility that um anyone who wanted sort of their own stable coin or wanted the the the benefits of having their own without going through the rigomeroar of making their own. Um so you know we we've sort of a leader in the space and kind of felt it like an like something we could give back. So this is bridg's product and you're just the first customer. Is that the right way to think

about it or >> No. Uh I don't I don't I don't Well, so bridge and stripe developed this uh open issuance protocol which is a a platform for anyone to design their own >> the cash protocol. >> I don't know. So this is the open issuance. Okay. It's called So they have a platform called open issuance where you can work with them to develop a new stable coin. So we we worked with them to use their platform to design this stable coin called cash. It was the first stable coin on open. I see. And then Phantom Cash.

>> Okay. Oh, I get it. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Nice. >> But just to just to kind of emphasize what Donnie said. So when we when we started building this consumer product around stable coins, uh you you have there's a decision point where you have to decide which stable coin are you going to build on top. >> Totally. Totally. Or do we work with a provider or any Yeah. >> Yeah. And so and there's really only two choices. There's USDC which is you know it has ultimate um utility. It has adoption everywhere. It's uh you know it has liquidity everywhere. However, it does not have the customizability and control that you might want it especially in the realm of developing a new business on top of it. Right? You

can't really >> you can't really get the yield from the stable coins uh in a way that you might want to if you're building a new product on top of stable coins. And so once people end up, you know, doing that calculus, they're like, "Okay, what's the other option?" The other option is to launch your own stable coin. That's a I think most folks don't appreciate how much of an operational challenge that is to get to get to the same kind of utility as as USC if you want it to be, >> right? And that's why people work with USDC is because it's an operational headache to >> Exactly. Yeah. So cash the stable coin is basically a bit of an in between where anyone can sign up to become a distribution partner. So you can build an app on top of the cash stable coin,

you can have users onboard into cash, etc. All those cash stable coins that you're responsible for breathing into life through your app, you you get the yield on it. Um >> Oh, the developers and the businesses keep the net revenue. >> That's right. >> Exactly. and and they they can then choose how to use that revenue >> in they can share it back to their users. They could keep it. They could >> Yeah. >> Right. And this is kind of counter to some things you've seen like in in the hyperlquid space when there was like the USDA and like you know 50% going back to the ecosystem. We kind of took the path of we don't want to decide where the yield goes. You decide.

>> Right. Right. That that seems like the natural evolution of what stable coins will look like. When we thought about cash, we basically looked 10 years down the road and like what what does stable coins look like and we just kind of burn things down to that point. >> Yeah. Can we talk about decision making inside of Phantom? Shifting gears a little bit. >> Yeah. >> And using cash as an as an example or we can talk about hyperlquent per or what whatever. But how do how do you make a decision like this at the company? Like is there a big like do you get a three-person team together? Do you get 20 people together? Do you have is it decision by consensus? Do you make the final call, Brandon? like how I'd love to just hear the nitty-gritty of how you how you do something like this.

>> Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a it's a hard one to answer and it's something that we are always tuning as the company is evolving, right? Like, so now um >> Well, how big are you guys? Personally, >> Phantom is 160 people now. >> Yeah. Uh we really had a bit of a growth spurt the past year. So, I think when we started it was the year is less than 100. >> Yeah. And similarly when we started kind of decided that we're going to do this cash thing that was like at the end of last year before this spurt. So anyway so point is it's a it's a bit of a it's an ongoing iterative process. I will say it's it's a very intuition based uh like in terms of what to go after and how to navigate. I'd say for a long time it was

a little bit of like three co-founders acting as a three-headed hydra of >> um help guiding the company and I think at an early stage it it has to be like that basically where it's you can't really get too bogged down in the >> writing a million Mckenzie style case studies on what's the next trend like >> you know we've been in crypto for a while it's it's very intuition based but now we are trying to scale fill that out and actually build more of a proper leadership team that can help guide things from the top that way. But anyway, so >> I don't know, there's a couple aspects to it, but but generally it it is, you know, because we're we're in there and

really in in in the trenches, so to speak. Um there is a sense of like just kind of just kind of knowing what to do. >> Yeah. I I'll add to that that I think there's a there's a component of this that is very much intuition and the ability to to to build consensus around an idea um and to bring people along. I think that ultimately though what it comes down to is that this company has a set of strategic pillars that we sort of live and die by and as new ideas and shots on goal come to mind to the extent that they like fulfill the opportunity in those pillars we get tighter conviction on like executing on those things >> and and you know I think I mentioned this earlier like any any company like

any company is is success their success is defined by the number of shots on goal they can take and their hit rate on Like if we if we want to like as a as an early stage startup, if we want to continue to have exponential growth, we have to take these sort of like out like these upside like optimize for upside opportunity bets. And um so at any point in time at the company, if we're not doing that, we're we're we're basically not trying. You know what I mean? >> Yeah. Do you how do you guys align the company now that you have 160 people? I have a lot of friends who are running have gone to they're running 50 person companies, 70, 80. It's fine. you manage it and then once you hit around 150 becomes a lot tougher to manage. How do you align the company towards those

strategic things like do you use OKRs? Do you have quarterly priorities? Do you have annual goal? Like love to just hear about the planning process. >> The meme from like Charlie from Always Sunny like with the lines on my wall like every every two months >> rerouting. Well, I think for us, you know, part of the focus just comes from having a very dialed in sense of like, hey, we're we're we're working on this. We're single product um and we're all working towards this same core user as well, which is this consu consumer um consumer mobile. And so, um yeah, I think that that

inherently makes it a little bit easier to align folks. Um, and the company is very product driven. We're we're develop, you know, we're we're shipping at the end of the day a product. Um, and so in terms of OKRs, I think again it's like an iterative thing that we're always figuring out. Sometimes we have just one single northstar, which uh nowadays is monthly active traders. >> Monthly active traders. Yeah. Not users. >> Um, >> what's a trader mean? A trader means that they've actually uh actually performed like a swap or like a per action within within like a Phantom property within the app. So like the swapper or whatever.

>> So if I go to Phantom and I deposit 100 bucks, I'm not a monthly active trader. No, once I make a swap, I'm a tra I'm a trader. >> Yeah, got it. So I think monthly active trader was a good uh proxy in terms of just engagement as well because just people opening the app and just looking around it's valuable to some extent but we we we really want to be helping users drive behavior um and helping users figure like you know perform the actions that they're trying to do. >> Uh if they're just opening up the app and not doing anything it's it's it's probably because we failed somewhere.

>> Yeah. And and a big part of that like monthly active traders is a great example. It's not that everyone on the team is trying to do something that like that they're not trying to like directly maybe affect trading but the assumption that is if each team is doing what they should be doing and they're executing on their own set of goals that the result the net result of all of this is that monthly active traders go up. >> Yeah. >> Is there any uh any ways that you guys run the business that you think are really unique to Phantom? For example, I have a friend who, you know, one one week of the month they do no meetings. No. So, no no meeting week. I have another friend who they have no product managers. It's only designers and engineers. Like any any quirky things

like that for how you guys run the business. >> Well, we we have no no meeting Thursdays that we ignore. >> I know we we tried that every year. No meeting Wednesday, no meeting Friday. And then it Yeah. >> Yeah. I I don't actually know who that applies to. Um I we do we do an offsite every six months in person and we do that. Um I don't know if there's anything overtly quirky. >> Yeah. I mean it's >> and as as far as startups go, you know, as far as crypto startups especially, it's a little bit more on the vanilla side. Yeah.

>> You know, it seems to be working. So, >> but we do do like D said, we do do this every six months. We'll bring the entire company in person somewhere. um that has been extremely key especially in a remote environment. >> Is it very bis like you know quotes from business focused or is it more like >> bonding build empathy team? >> It's it's like a half half. Well, it's actually maybe like 25%. It used to be I think a little bit more structured, but now it's probably like 25% like get everyone aligned and then it's just co-working time like in in in activities. And and I will say one thing that I that you just you reminded me because we are remote. One thing that we've seen huge lift on as far as just morale and output over the past year is

we've really really pushed individual pods and teams to get an like an on-site together uh on the kickoff of any new like initiative or project. We find if they're together for like a week or two that it it basically accomplishes eight weeks of >> we're doing the same thing. Yeah. Exactly. I we also find it's very hard to do. We're we're remote as well, but like big product conversations are easier in person. Yes. So, just getting people together for that. >> Yeah. I mean, we listen, one of the just very candidly, one of the conversations that we have always is how do we how do we like build and grow like a defined culture in a remote environment where new people are joining in Zoom. Like, let's say you and I are having a conversation about product quality and Brandon's like sitting next to us. Maybe

he's not in the conversation, but he overhears it and he understands that like product quality is important in a remote environment. and only the people on aing Zoom call know about it. And so it's hard to sort of >> figuring out ways to disseminate like these values in a in a nonexplicit way is, >> you know, we haven't cracked that yet. >> Yeah. >> Without it being too so forced or feeling corporate like here's your Yeah. >> We repeat our values every meeting. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. What value are you today? >> Yeah. Um all right. Back to back to some of the product stuff. I'd love to get your take on um uh let's talk per. So you guys launched um you guys launched with Hyperlid. I was trying to look at some of the data. I think you guys are one of the biggest if not the biggest

affiliate or like driver into Hyperlid right now other than the Hyperlid platform. I so go check me if I'm wrong on that. But would love to hear like maybe why >> two things why you launch Pers and then why launch with Hyperlid specifically. Mhm. Um well, yeah, for for Per specifically, um you know, the whole MO of the company again is to we're trying to take what's on the bleeding edge of crypto and the true like cryptonative innovations and package them up for a broader mainstream audience to use in a safe and easy to use way. Um, and per I feel like are one of those like really illustrative examples of something

that's uh was born in a cryptonative context. Um, something that crypto people love to do but may not be typically uh accessible to a more normie audience, right? I think when >> if you try to throw a quote unquote normie into a per advanced per trading interface, um, you know, they're going to get scared and lost pretty quickly. And so so the whole MO is like okay so how do we how do we take what was traditionally been as a very a very scary and uh unapproachable experience and then deliver it to so that so that's why we decided to tackle the problem of per um and especially in a mobile first way I think that no one had actually

cracked like mobile per yeah >> um and >> you guys launched only with mobile >> only with mobile yeah was that to drive more users and downloads of the mobile product. >> Well, mobile is our I mean, mobile is our pretty much the entire focus of the company currently. It's the biggest. >> Oh, really? >> Yeah. It's interesting. I think when most people >> I'm such a I'm like an old crypto I I'm scared of mobile products still. I got to get over that. I got I'm going to download Phantom right now. >> I got to get a million. You should. I mean, maybe this maybe it goes back. Yeah. Like the the extension is uh it's like it's like the the albatross around our neck. Like >> I I don't use any mobile crypto products, but but people give me like, you know, we hire these like 23 24 year

olds. They're all they're 100% mobile. >> Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, >> I'm downloading it. >> Vast majority of our users and usage is is on mobile. Um and that's happened, you know, over the last over the last number of years. >> Um >> you spend all you guys spend all your product conversations are focused on mobile. >> It's very mobile centric and mobile first. >> Interesting at least. >> Yeah. the next year of roadmap. I don't think I've seen any mockup for extension. >> Yeah. Um anyway, so yeah, so yeah, we felt like there was really no no mobile per product out there that really hit hit the nail on the head. So we decided that we were going to have a crack at it. Um >> why didn't you build it internally?

>> Build um >> Well, I mean it's Well, yeah. So there's the decision to use to use Hyperlquid. Um, so I think I guess there's a couple different things we could have done there. We could have done uh a Perex on Salana. We could have tried to build our own or Yeah. or there was Hyperliquid. Um, in general, our in general, we always try to use something that's on the market already because it helps us not only does it help help us get to market faster, but it helps us um then we can help contribute back to the ecosystem as well. And it sort of has this compounding effect where >> Well, that's counter to the stable coin strategy, >> right?

>> Um >> well, we tried to use something on the market. >> Yeah. >> Wasn't we couldn't find anything that filled like the requirements. >> Yeah. I'd say Hyperliquid, >> we did a thorough look. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, Hyperlquid is really interesting in that. I mean, from a numbers perspective, it's pretty hard to argue like it has the has liquidity that that rivals if not bigger than centralized exchanges. It has it has a ecosystem based approach where people can add new markets and things like that, right? You're not constrained to just a a small set. >> Um, and so >> and yeah, building some building with something on the market helps you get to market a lot quicker. I think we wanted to test a lot of hypotheses around user experience with pers and stuff. It was it was a lot of kind of stuff that

hadn't been tried yet. Anyway, that that's a little bit about why we decided to >> Well, didn't you work with a more like Solana native quote unquote like I don't know. >> Yeah, >> Jupiter or Drift or something. >> I mean, that definitely would have been our preference honestly because it does the whole bridging experience still. >> I imagine it's much more complicated to work with to do high. Yeah, I mean the bridging experience well luckily nowadays there there are good bridging options but I will say that is pretty much still the whole bridging step and even though we we don't call it bridging we call it depositing and we extract as much.

>> Who do you work with on the bridge? >> Uh there's there's two folks that are the biggest sort of bridges on on hyperlquid is hyperunet >> and uh relay. >> Yeah. So use kind of a combination of those depending on what kind of deposit the user is trying to make, right? Are they trying to deposit soul or whatever? >> Wait, why couldn't you work with Drift or Jupiter? >> So that would have been our preference, but it it really was just came down to what was going to be better for the end user. uh which in my mind was all about especially in the context of trading is how do we get users access to the most liquidity the most liquid books best pri which therefore best prices >> and on top of that

>> hyperl also has this hip 3 is really interesting >> in that they're taking they're taking a whole ecosystem based approach to >> per a per stacks right >> drift they're great but they're just one team um and it's going to be very difficult for them to >> compete with this whole army of people who are, you know, spinning together, you know, individual teams are raising their own money >> and all that, right? So, it's it >> so it really just came down to what we thought we could how we could deliver the best user experience. And just to jump in, like that's very much maybe a bigger I think that's that's actually a pretty big deal in that Phantom has been historically associated as a Salana wallet and I think this is a really kind

of a testament to the focus of the company is less about Salana and more about the users and so I I think you know there was some positive feedback around like crypto Twitter the fact that we used Hyperlid for perks but it's really like what is the best service for the users and you know there just happened to be that it was on Hyper Liquid but but I think it's really important is like people think about you know what Phantom prioritizes moving forward and it's always the user. >> Yeah. >> Do you um when you make that decision can you then go to Jeff and the hyperlquid like do you try to negotiate because Okay. So so when you uh when you own the distribution you have a tremendous amount of leverage and conversations.

>> Um I imagine if you wanted to you could have gone to maybe you can't do this to Hyperlid because they also have leverage right? They're also a big platform. So, it's kind of >> uh you know, tail of two equals here, but can can you go to folks and be like, "Hey, we're going to initiate support. Like, we want a really high affiliate fee. >> We want you guys to give us five million bucks to initiate coverage." How do you think about >> to charge or not to charge? >> Um, well, tactfully use leverage. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think that that's we try to play the long game but we but like not using leverage when you have it is you know probably a mistake generally.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So what did you do in Hyperlquid's case? >> Did you say hey give us like a really high percentage of affiliate or >> Well for Hyperlquid I think they they already had kind of built-in mechanism which is the the the builder code system and the referral code system. So they kind of already had set up their ecosystem for this. >> Yeah. Um, I think when we approach early partners, we're really, um, we're really trying to build a long-term partnership with a lot of these folks and we're trying to work with folks who are going to be those long-term partners. And so, I think when we try to when we approach relationship building, >> it's usually not like how much money can you give me like out of the gate, it's like how can how can we basically >> band together to create like a net, you

know, net positive for both. Um, and so that's I think that's mostly what we're trying to when we when we have these early conversations with folks, we're trying to understand what their long-term mission is or how it aligns with us and how we can just both get there faster. >> Yeah. I mean, a lot of the things that we want to exist still don't exist and and that we like to have these conversations with potential partners to say, "Hey, if you could modify your offering a little bit like this or if you could provide this API or slightly like we can get the experience that we want." And I think having the leverage to get those engineering teams to move is often like sort of the the more strategic play in those places.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Just working with folks who are going to going to be able to take our direction and feedback as like sort of the experts of the usability and actually help. >> An example of this just candidly is is the on-ramp stuff that we're doing with Stripe. like this is a this is a net new product for them and we're you know very much a design partner and and knowing that we have the distribution that we have they're you know taking putting the proper amount of resources on it. >> What about new chains because you guys you guys support I think six chain chains right now. >> Mhm. >> What is Ethereum, Salana?

>> Mhm. >> Polygon sooie monad >> base >> and base. >> Mhm. How do you um how do you make how do you decide who to go to and do you like why don't you just do more people like people will pay chains will pay a lot of money for Phantom to initiate support. I bet someone would pay you 10 million bucks 20 million bucks maybe even more I don't know. >> Um >> do you how do you think about that decision? Um, well, I mean, again, it it, you know, not to sound like a broken record, but it really does come down to the user experience first and what we're trying to enable there.

>> But isn't it a better user experience to have all the chains? >> Not necessarily. I don't think I I think it's actually a lot more confusing. Um, I think, um, we're trying to create like a very opinionated, curated experience for the user where we think these are where the best the best ecosystems are and the best things to use. Um, and you know, there's a real cost to adding support for these things in the way that we want to add. Like when we when we add when we when we add support for something, we're going deep on it and we're pushing the envelope on it, especially in user experience. And so >> I think it's kind of against our MMO to like just start adding like whatever random chain cuz then then the experience really starts to degrade and

then you're left with insert RPC URL here >> and that's you know that's what it ends up degrading to. Um and so anyway that being said >> you know we're not against expanding or anything like that but it's just a lot more of a deliberate >> Yeah. And and I do think that it creates drag on pace when you're supporting multiple chains, multiple signing windows, all these different designs. Like there's just a lot that we have to be really really thoughtful about rolling out to to new chains. Yeah. And and to be clear, like they they might pay 10, 20, whatever they might, but >> we we still generate, you know, enough revenue from the products that that people are using today that um we don't we don't move the needle as much.

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On the revenue side of things, the majority of the revenue is swaps and fees. >> Um, and per will like, you know, trading and fees and stuff like that. What percentage of revenue is not fees? Like whether it's ads or affiliates or I don't know if you even run ads um referral affiliate or like yeah how what what percentage is non swap? >> I think it it's relatively low and I think that that's probably the big opportunity that we see moving forward is like how do we get subsequent revenue streams that not only are just you know diversified from from swaps but also more predictable.

>> Yeah. Recurring. I mean we saw this one. I was thinking about I was going to bring this up like when Coinbase went public the Wall Street >> counter to you know their them being a good business was non-recurring revenue and you've seen them in the last like four years really improved the recurring revenue >> close to 50%. >> Yeah. So what what are you guys doing there? >> Yeah. Well yeah like you said I mean yeah Coinbase I think they really they really wrote the >> I've noticed you guys have been hiring a lot of Coinbase people. So >> yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a that's an interesting one. But in um yeah, I think Coinbase wrote the blueprint. I think Phantom looks very similar to Coinbase in 2018, for example, where in in in their case, it was 90% 95%, you know, of their of their revenue was

fees based. And then they made this very deliberate motion to get into other areas, whether it was subscription um premium type of, you know, accounts, um stable coins, obviously. So, you know, our our big bet on Phantom Cash and Cash is sort of analogous to their USDC bet in a way. >> Yeah. >> Uh where it it does give us the ability to Yeah. mature the business and and add this extra dimension that's more durable and predictable. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I think if you look at Phantom Cash, it is a it is a pretty stark departure from the risk-on experience of trade of just speculating and swapping.

We look at that as a much more broad surface area for us to add new product lines that we can monetize as well. So if you look at um I mean if you look at Chime, if you look at even what Robin Hood has done, I think for us putting making sure that we have the the brand and the the identity of like this is now not just a crypto app but it's a money app really opens the it really opens the opportunity for us to like take even more shots on gold. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I'm uh I mean Empire listeners are really sick of hearing me talk about Robin Hood, but I'm like I love I love what Robin Hood's done. I think they've just done an they've probably been like the best execution team in the fintech personal money space.

>> Listen, we we have a picture of Vlad on a dart board. >> So, well, they're the best outside of Phantom, I should say. Um >> Oh, we do consider them to be, >> but I think they execute. They build good products and they execute very well. And they started pushing beyond trading. like um I keep getting pinged that they have a great mortgage product apparently. >> Um and so how do you think about like non >> what feel like non-crypto use cases like taking a mortgage out like will I ever be able to get a a mortgage through Phantom >> probably. Yeah, I'd say that is definitely I think the world that we're going for but more >> accelerated and using all of the powers superpowers of crypto to kind of get there faster, right? Then

>> so you'd use I don't know Orpho or A or Kamino or something like that instead of just >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean whether or not it's a provider today, I think that that's the that's like the long-term bet that that we can actually build a better financial services platform with crypto rails underneath not like and we can move quicker than regulated entities in the US as they are today. So a great example is how fast we were able to get per to market versus any other product. Um the other the other advantage when we look at you know our opportunity being crypto native is that it allows us to spread horizontally international much quicker.

Um so there is a you know you asked me earlier do I have any kids three and a 5-year-old? I expect them to basically managing all their like finances moving forward on like a crypto like like crypto railsbased product phantom. >> And then they'll just have a they'll have a credit the Phantom credit card. >> Yeah. Well I paid for a coffee this morning with the Phantom debit card. So, >> oh, you have I didn't even know you had a card. >> It's part of Phantom Cash. Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's not It's not out. Yeah. It's uh >> Oh, guys, you'll learn. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. DM me. >> Yeah. Nice. Oh, that's that's very cool. And then so you'll you can you it's a debit card, not a credit card, right? So you you you debit it pulls straight from your Phantom wallet.

>> Yeah. Yes. >> Oh, that's very interesting. >> Yeah. Obviously, I can show you later. >> Yeah. Um but but to just to cover this point we that's actually the big opportunity we see like that's like with Phantom moving forward is that you know the the the initial mission of of building like a great wallet to bring make crypto accessible to everyone I think mission accomplished in a lot of ways but now it's like how do we leverage crypto to build like the next generation consumer finance platform. >> Um maybe let's go go there a little bit more. the the user that you've been serving as the like the individual, the retail person. What how do you think about the let's call it like your dream customer maybe was like 0 to$10 million, but if someone was trading like 20 million bucks or 50 million bucks, they

probably use a like a pro platform. How do you think about serving that user? >> Mhm. >> Um well generally, you know, the we are very consumer focused. So I'd say it's, you know, it's very unlikely for us to start branching out and like providing like an institutional product or something like that or >> and again, you know, Robin Hood's a good example in that they they stayed very consumer retail focused and still are basically for the entire life the company and has have done quite well. Um so yeah, we're doing you're doing something similar. However, um protrading is a very interesting um ver vertical uh within crypto and

crypto, the superpowers of crypto actually make it so that you can produce a protrading experience. Today, using crypto without having to build a full exchange that was not possible in the past, right? So when Coinbase uh came out with Coinbase Pro, they bought a whole separate company to do that. It's a whole separate book >> to go was >> um I forget well GAX originally. Yeah. Yeah. >> I don't remember what the original name before that was, but um >> but yeah, nowadays you know because you have the open permissionless protocols on on blockchains, you can develop a protrading interface without necessarily having to rewrite the entire back end

from scratch. Um, and so it does make it a little bit easier to start experiment and and kind of, you know, address some of those other customers. Um, so yeah, a little a little bit of an alpha leak, but we are going to actually be releasing uh a Phantom Terminal trading experience next week. >> Uh, that is geared more towards uh pro traders. >> Nice. >> Um, >> so next week, this will come out on November, I don't know, on Monday. Yeah. >> November 10. So, you're releasing it, is it now?

>> On that Wednesday, if if all goes well >> and um yeah, it's actually uh it's actually been a long time coming. Um it's we acquired this team on Salona called Sniper. Um really great team. They built a pro NFT trading experience and then morphed that into a pro memecoin trading experience. And then we snapped them up uh to basically transform that into more of this protrading Phantom Terminal experience.

Um and yeah, that's coming out. >> Nice. So this will be Phantom's trading terminal. >> That's right. Yeah. >> And I think um and I think over time uh a little bit more of where sort of to our conversation earlier about extensions and web and everything. Um you know, I think more and more our the web version of Phantom I think is going to be pushed more towards this experience. Yeah. How do you think about uh let's talk M&A and acquisitions? You guys have made I think it's four acquisitions recently. >> Yeah. Four. >> Is that right? Four or five. Okay. Do you um do you get do you have a road map and you go find the company? Like are you like I want to go build a terminal and you find Soul Sniper or do you do they come to you and you're like oh

that's an amazing idea. That's a good price that could integrate. >> Mhm. Um well so when we when um I'd say there's kind of two things that we're trying to accomplish with M&A. So uh the first is kind of like what you mentioned like a yeah we >> we know we want to get into some specific strategic area and so we perform a you know build partner buy sort of analysis and if we decide hey the fastest way to get to market and most efficient way to get to market is to buy then you know that might be one reason but I'd say another another big reason we do M&A is to recruit great talent and just make sure the best of the best are working here.

>> Yeah. Uh, and obviously we have one of the fruits of that, Donnie, who's sitting next to me. He was CEO of Bitsky. Um, and yeah, that's just been a really awesome that's just been really awesome for us. Just um, to your kind of question earlier about how do you continue to like scale the company or how do you continue to operate the company as it scales? >> Yeah, >> I think the M M&A and reintroducing >> introducing foreign founder DNA into the company actually is very crucial for that. >> Yeah. because just make sure that we were not >> that's what I I caught up with a friend the other day. They've made eight acquisitions and um >> uh they he I said what like why do you do it? Why is it I mean you're giving up equity, you give up money. He said the

number one thing that you get is you inject founder energy into the company at key within key products and uh areas that we need to grow. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I thought it was very interesting take. Donnie, what about you? I mean you were on the other side of it. You guys got acquired. >> Yeah. I mean, I think it, you know, when we went through an M&A process, there were, you know, there was some interested parties in what we were doing and Phantom was without a doubt the smallest company, >> um, but had what we thought was like the best product, the biggest upside, uh, in a place where our team could make a lot of impact. And I think, you know, having gone through an acquisition in the past in 2014 and having some, I don't know, just it wasn't the integration phase

wasn't like stupendous. Uh it was kind of night and day joining Phantom. I think that Brandon, Chris, and Franchesco are very low ego uh founders that were very open to kind of accepting this graft of a of a new team and new DNA. And um and it really didn't take long to get like just totally dialed. Um so I I think that and I'm sure some of the other founders would would would all say the same thing. I think that uh doing M&A well is not a given. Um integrating the teams well is not a given and it's something that we put a lot of effort into. We have a head of corp dev that that you know makes sure a lot of these things go smoothly.

>> But um you know again we're still you know 160 people that I'd imagine that >> you know there's more M&A on the you know coming and >> you would imagine. >> Yeah I'd imagine. I'd imagine uh you know I'd imagine and I think that >> it's interesting to hear you guys have a head of corp dev because usually you don't see that at a company of 160 people. >> Well you I mean to to to Brandon's earlier point I think we were under 100 at the beginning of the year and uh headcount you know outside of getting our recruiting engine like really tuned up um you can attribute a lot of that to uh to to acquisitions as well.

>> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, yeah, I will say, you know, when Donnie first joined, it was it was very anxietyinducing for me. So, I was like this this, you know, we have this this other CEO coming in. >> Other founder is going to see how all the flaws of how works. >> Exly. Yeah. He's going to see like how Yeah. And then, so I think my initial instinct was like, yeah, like I'm I'm the CEO. I know I know how to run this company. But then I was just like, wait, let's just let Donnie cook for a bit. >> And um Yeah. And it just has been awesome. So >> that's very cool. Yeah, >> that's very cool. Um, what do you think you guys will I'm sure you know, but any hints on what you'll acquire next?

>> Not you don't have to name companies obviously, but like parts of the stack. >> I I would say that in in order to grow to to what we want to be, there's just new muscle that we need to like that we need to create teams that just don't exist right now or kind of are being scrapped together. So to the extent that we can find strategic targets to help us get to that, you know, sure we can maybe build a team over six 12 months, but if we can get to a place where we have a functioning unit, it adds new muscle. Um I guess that's a that's about a detailed >> Yeah. Very good. I mean I think um in general anything related to the trading business, you know, >> yeah, >> that's a that's a big umbrella in which

you know we're we're always looking to add firepower and muscle. >> Mhm. And I'd say and then the other big area is sort of what we describe as money movement >> stable coin related tech um especially especially on the fringe of fiat to um you know stablecoin I think getting that experience the onboarding offboarding >> internationally is going to be a big challenge M&A is probably going to be potentially uh a tool to kind of get that to work um so >> yeah I mean you know the money movement thing is a good point because it's a bit of a it's a bit of an expansion of like the core focus of what historically has been Phantom >> and a lot of what we need to do isn't necessarily massively massively innovative or we

don't need to reinvent the wheel. So to the extent that we can find teams that have executed that quite well um kind of behooves us to see if there's a deal to be had. >> That's great. Mantle is pioneering the blockchain for banking, a bold new category combining traditional finance with the power of web 3. With UR, the world's first onchain money app, users can manage fiat and crypto side by side using a Swiss IBON account in Euro, US dollar, Swiss Frank, and RMB, all posted to the blockchain. Backed by the Mantle network, UR is the access layer that unlocks a purpose-built vertical platform for onchain payments, trading, and asset protocols, including ME, TH,

MI4, and functions FBTC. All economic activity within UR will be captured by Mantle Network to further drive value to Mnt token holders. Follow Mantle on X at mantle_official for more. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk, terms, and conditions apply. >> Will you guys ever launch your own chain? >> Um, probably. >> Don is like, I'm not taking that question punting on that.

>> I don't I don't think so. I think I've been pretty anti I think. No, I don't think so. Yeah, I think for us it it just the launching your own chain is kind of is antithetical to the open permissionless nature of crypto, I feel. Um, and so I think we're always going to try to just reinvest into Salana and the other ecosystems that are already built on is my general. Do you do you think another a non Salana chain will ever do you think someone will eventually overtake Salana or do you think Salana is the final and I mean you guys support Sui and Monet Polygon but do you think do you think Salana has won or do you think

someone could overtake them? >> Uh well it depends on what game they're trying to win or the other so I think Salana really captured the fast and cheap narrative. There was a bunch of people who were trying were going fast and cheap and they won that. That's pretty clear. Um, however, there's a lot of other chains. Hyperlid is a is a is an interesting example. They're not trying to go for fast and cheap. They're trying to be the best per DEX experience. Um, and so I think >> these more verticalized like um domain specific chains I think might potentially take off. So there's the stable coin payments related ones like Tempo Arc etc.

But I think I'm I'm pretty bearish on like someone just trying to compete with SA just on the vectors of fast and cheap. I think that's over. >> Yeah. I'm actually um my co-ounder Mike posted something. He said I'm I'm I'm fairly convinced that in 10 years there'll be no general purpose chains. They will all specialize to some degree. For instance, if you look at Ethereum and Salana today, Ethereum looks to me like RWA issuance chain and Salana looks like trading consumer chain. Miles and I called this quote sector specific block space two years ago when we did our app chain season of Belurve which people should listen to if they haven't yet.

What do you think about that idea? Sector specific chains being the things that end up winning. >> Um yeah, I think that that aligns that aligns with kind of what my take just now around like yeah sector specific domain specific. I think um yeah spec es especially with chains that are trying to do some sort of interface with the traditional world. So specifically payments, right? Yeah, >> there's just certain laws of the universe that they're just not like a general purpose chain is just not going to be able to get around, right? And so folks who are just really like listening to the door dashes of the world and whatever to like and and sort of making sure that we have a solution for them.

Um I I do think there's room for those types of ecosystems. >> Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that fully. >> Yeah. How um influential has have stripe no have Sequoia and um Paradigm been in helping you guys scale Phantom? >> Um well yeah they play very different roles. So yeah A16Z is also three major investors A16Z Paradigm Sequoia all very different. Um uh A16Z is an amazing company factory. They have sort of every resource and sort of niche resource imaginable. Like if you're trying to hire someone in whatever Usbekistan, like they have a

guy who's like just for that. >> I always say it's like a spa for companies. >> Menu. >> Yeah. You kind of have the Yeah. the the bottomless menu. Um so they have been really great in just making sure helping us really go from zero to one and just all the basic company stuff. where paradigm comes in is really like helping us navigate the crypto native aspect of everything and sort of the mic the micro of choosing which which partners and how to look at things because they're so deep in crypto and they they understand the nuance. Um and then yeah, Sequoia, we're still uh you know, we just we just partnered up with them earlier this year. So, uh, we're still figuring out how to use them the

best, but, you know, they're pretty much, uh, you know, the number one VC in in Silicon Valley of the world, etc. And so, the the doors that they open are, you know, >> Yeah. >> pretty much limitless. >> Yeah. I' I'd say the Sequoia impact or influence also is because it's not extremely cryptonative, I think that they're sort of kind of bring the angle of thinking bigger in the upper bounds of the opportunity. like that's it's obviously when you invest at the scale it's kind of what they're excited about but it's a it's a nice uh contrast to you know being very cryptonative in the paradigm perspective as well.

>> Good combo. How does um one of the fun conversations that people like to talk about on crypto Twitter is like this you know their words not mine kind of cabal that's forming around like stripe paradigm sequoia bridge privy how does that actually manifest >> with the narrative >> or the no like uh like if you look at the if you look at the yeah if you look at the cash stable coin right like this was done >> you've got integrated into stripe you you know bridge is the backbone own like >> yeah how okay >> like do you go to paradigm you're like hey I want to go build uh get in the stable coin space they're like boom got it I got the guys you got to go work with them >> well it's not like it's not like they're

forcing us to go in some direction but just naturally they they help us you know talk open the doors to talking to all the right people um and so naturally once you start just talking with these folks and partnering them you you know you end up being able to yeah just make the best informed decision I'd say but I wouldn't say that there is anything like >> there's not some architect >> heavy yeah as far as I'm aware >> I mean but >> Matt is just like yeah >> but in in in lie of that uh I think it is just sort of like a relentless focus on some outcome >> and so for us wanting to do a stable that was accepted in retail and used with debit card and like everywhere um it became clear that and we started

thinking about this prior to like the bridge acquisition closing And so with Zach early on, talking about this idea, figuring out how we can make it work, how we get the economics to work. I mean, these conversations started in January like uh in earnest of like how do we do this? But it was just a relentless focus on this is like this is the outcome that we want and it just happened to be that the people that fell in line to to meet that outcome, you know, >> they're all, you know, >> we're working with Stripe because they're the literal best at money movement in the world.

>> Yeah. Yeah. >> And they're not just they're just they're not just a stable point issuer. They're also a merchant network to merchant network. So yeah. >> Um do you what do you think five years from now tempo will look like? >> Are you bullish on Tempo? >> Um yeah definitely bullish on Tempo. I think it's still extremely early. Obviously it's not even it's not even out. There's some some light documentation. So I think I I really like their approach in that it's very um they are working with the industry and folks again like Door Dash um and others who are actually you know they're actually trying to solve some real problems. So I'm bullish on on their approach um how it's going to end up

longterm. There's so many twisted turns it can take. It's and then obviously ARC I think is going for something quite similar as well. Um, >> it's good to know that bullish on the idea that there's an iron in the fire that is addressing the payment scale concerns for stable coins and I feel like Tempo is obviously well positioned to do that. So bullish on Tempo or someone else that gives as much of a damn as they do about nailing that that product. >> Yeah, I want them to I want them to pop off and succeed because payments is probably I mean that's one of the very original >> crypto use cases. Yeah.

>> Electronic cash like >> um and so I think anything that's anyone's working towards like actually helping us fulfill that um you know are going to help >> um the holy trinity of the year has been stable coins per and prediction markets. So you guys have talked about the stable coins we talked about the perfs. What do you guys think about what you'll do with prediction markets? Yeah, I mean I think it's it's uh again, you know, our whole MMO is taking what's what's going on the cutting edge of crypto and and packaging it up. So I think you'll see us doing something similar sort of uh the phantomification of of prediction markets, so to speak, where we take right now it's it's a very hot topic, but most people are still not

really trading and it's still pretty if you try to use like one of the direct interfaces, it's still pretty confusing. Um and so yeah, how can we really take that and uh yeah, give it to our user in a way that they're they're going to be it's going to be safe and easy for them. >> Yeah, I think that prediction markets as a use case is something very aligned with our audience. >> Um and at the same time will have derivative value with a broader audience as we continue to grow. I think, you know, we talked about this, you know, the holy trinity, but prediction markets, I think, are mega macro trend that I think will be an abstraction that a lot of people like interface with for years to come. So, we're we're pretty

excited about it. We're taking it pretty seriously. >> Yeah. There's only two companies you'd work with probably, Kalian Poly Market. Do you have thoughts on I mean, you don't have to say who you're going to partner with, but like how do you see those two in your head? >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh it's really it really has evolved into a bit of a two- horse race. I think there there was maybe a window earlier this year where there could have been a third or fourth competitor, but I think there was an inflection point that happened. >> Yeah. Now they've run away. >> Unfortunately, that inflection point happened and so yeah, >> and that's sort of the reality now. And you know, >> they're both my you know, >> basically what's going to happen next year is going to be a DraftKings versus FanDuel style.

>> Totally mass media. >> I agree. off where there's Super Bowl ads, there's whatever, and you're just going to be sick of hearing it by the end of the year, right? >> Um, and so, so yeah, just just observing that carefully and trying to understand, you know, how we might best, >> you know, position ourselves, right? >> Yeah, I think the the way that we're thinking about, you know, who we want to work with, I think how how they think about the market today, how they think about the future of of prediction markets. Um, and there there isn't there isn't as much, you know, dogmatic, you know, interest in from our perspective. It's more about how how is this being bu is this being built by a team that understands like the full

scope of what they're actually building and the implications broadly in like the financial markets. So, um, yeah, we're we're excited to continue to figure it out. >> Nice. Cool. Yeah. ETA on that. I don't know. 400. >> Yeah. Yeah. Potentially. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Not Not too far. >> That's great. >> Um, >> what's your ratio of designers to engineers? >> 8 to one. 7 to one, something. >> Yeah. 8 to1, 7 to1, something like that.

Yeah. Six or seven to one. Yeah. I mean, we we have a bunch of kind of different >> And what's your ratio of product people, Tim? Like, what's your product to design to engineer ratio? I is it is it maybe like two designers to one product or something like that? PM. >> Yeah. One PM, two designers, eight engineers roughly >> or one two six. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Call it that something like that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. >> Yeah. >> Um questions that nobody cares about me. >> No, no, it's good. No, no, I mean >> this is things that I'm thinking about.

So this >> I always push. We often do our thinking in terms of ratios because it's like >> it's a you know we're we're building the machine >> the machine has a pipeline and you just kind of have to make sure >> yeah when the designer starts popping out designs like there's a engineer who's ready to take them versa right so >> yeah I actually think looking at ratios is probably the best >> find companies that you are inspired by and actually look at the don't look at their headcount look at the ratios it's probably a better way to think about it >> um >> uh liquidity and exiting. Have you thought about IPO versus token?

>> Um, well, yeah, I think in general I view Phantom as probably one of the very few true onchain consumer companies that can go IPO that has the right potential profile. Um and so when we think about the trajectory in building the company, we do we do hold ourselves up to the IPO bar in terms of like we want a certain operational maturity. We want a certain revenue quality and that diversity that like meets that bar. Whether or not we're pulling the trigger on it is I think >> obviously there's many different factors. There's the market, there's blah blah blah, right? I think for us we

use it we we view it as if it if it is the right tool for us to accelerate our mission we're going to reach for it but it's not it's not necessary especially now especially nowadays where obviously Stripe is the poster child example of staying private forever um but especially nowadays where in private markets you do have you do have access to funding I mean we have access to agency paradigm and sequoia between them we have access to as much private funding that we want. >> Yeah.

>> And so, yeah, going public, um, you know, why why are some reasons you do that? Yeah. either for additional funding, there's some potential brand um assoc like some positive brand association with being public which is actually questionable I think in this day and age actually is like would would a would a crypto person trust a public company more than a more cryptonative company private company. Um but then yeah and then but on the flip side of that obviously it's a huge operational burden to become public right.

>> Totally. So >> those are the different factors that we we juggle. >> Will you um one thing that I'm paying attention to is just companies that have basically both a token and will IPO >> like I you know we're talking about Poly Market. Yeah. >> Like Poly Market is probably going to IPO and launch a token. >> That's very interesting. Like uh Uniswap, right? Unis swap labs equity is valued at 15. Their token's valued at 35. Yeah. Ripple just raised >> at 40. Yeah. >> And they've got a token valued at like 150. >> Yeah. Um or even you could say the exchanges, right? Like Coinbase is public and base is going to have a token. Yeah. Kraken will be public next year and Inc. will have a token.

>> Um what do you think of this dual model? >> Um well, I mean it's definitely completely uncharted territory. I think it's it's pretty hard to I mean once you once you have this token you have this responsibility to the stakeholders and holders of the token that you can't break and so and then obviously when you go public as well you have that and so I feel like we were talking about how the operational difficulties of going public and a lot of that has to do with reporting and how you're interacting with stakeholders with a token it's like layering another one of those on like probably time like in difficulty times two or three. Um and so

what am I trying to say? Yeah, it's it's uncharted. I think it's it's going to be quite difficult to pull off correctly. I think um and there's a lot of risk to it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. You know, one thing that we think about internally is like whether or not we IPO is like getting a path to like IPO readiness and just so we have that sort of hygiene in our company. Um, that's a pretty tall order to think about having like IPO and like token readiness at the same time sounds difficult as Like that doesn't sound like that doesn't sound exciting.

And and and and listen, I it's a funny question to ask because I haven't really put a lot of thought into why other than like you know someone needed the token early on and then they've changed their but um yeah, that sounds it sounds like a very very difficult thing to to do. Well, yeah. I'd say again like if if we do if we did feel like a move like that was going to help accelerate the adoption of crypto, help solve the usability problem, I wouldn't see why we wouldn't consider it. Um, but it is it is something that introduces a huge amount of risk into the company. Like obviously there's the whole regulatory aspect of it, but just managing a live token is I mean we saw something like this happen actually at

Zerox very early on. It's like when it goes well, it's great. However, when it goes poorly, you can create all these effects where like you create like an un undying hater base right? >> Like if you just and it it could not even potentially be your fault. Just could be like a function like, hey, you launched the token, next day Trump is is like turning on some tariffs, then you may have just accidentally killed your company in that moment. >> Yeah. Cuz people hate you. Yeah, the token went down and like well it's obviously it's not completely your fault but they don't care.

>> Okay. >> So >> I think uh for us like >> there's a lot to lose to do that incorrect if we if we did something like that incorrectly. So >> anyway that's just you know what swirls around my head when I think about that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Maybe the last thing that we didn't talk about is just Phantom Connect. So maybe Donnie if you want to get into that would love to hear about it. >> Yeah absolutely. I mean uh you know one of the big components and one of the big trends that we've seen in the space obviously one that we were excited about early on in Bitzky was this idea of sort of a abstracted wallet experience um and Phantom Connect is Phantom's take on that. So um we've spent a lot of time building uh and fine-tuning an an

infrastructure and internal key management stack such that we can provide uh you know a turnkey like experience for all Phantom users. And so moving forward this will be the default wallet type when people sign up for Phantom. But uh what's unique is that you'll be able to have a signin with Phantom button on any product. And when you do that, you that product will have access to that user's wallet information. You can request scope access to sign on behalf of that user. And so it's basically one of our core, you know, we talked earlier about our strategic pillars. One of those is to own the entry point. And so Phantom Connect is sort of a first step in really moving in that direction that we want to be sort of the underlying wallet

infrastructure for everyone. >> Oh, that's really interesting. So instead of logging in with Google, you log in with Phantom. >> That's right. Yeah. >> Yeah. We were actually just talking about that cuz we've got our research and data platform. >> Yeah. >> And it was feels funny to just have a login with Google on it. >> Yeah. >> And we were wondering if you could do a login with wallet and we didn't. >> Yeah. >> But the way it's going to work is that you can have you can have Phantom on your phone. >> Yeah. >> For example, and then you go over to your laptop and you go to whatever site uh you know what's a OpenC or something. Sure. You go you go to open C and you you press login with Phantom and then your your money is there. The same money

that's on your phone. It's all synced up. >> And so yeah, log sign in with Phantom Phantom Connect. It's it's more about creating this ultimate vision of like >> the the native internet financial account. >> Yep. >> And like being able to log in anywhere and bring your your money with you um to any context. >> Yeah. And and I mean this has obviously been something that's been keeping me up at night for better part of a decade, but I think that uh you the other the other cool feature about this is that for new products that want to just have like an email login, they can do that and it'll create a Phantom wallet for the users on on on uh behalf of the app, similar to like a privy experience. But if that if that person logs in with an

email and there's already a Phantom account associated with it, it'll detect that there's a Phantom account and you get to log into your Phantom account. That is very interesting. >> Yeah. >> Huh. That was very really cool. >> Yeah. >> One thing that's tricky about building products in crypto and onchain is you have very little info about the users >> sometimes like you don't know their name. You don't know their location. >> You don't know anything. >> Well, maybe you do know their location if people be like can get it. But >> um how do you how do you get the user information from people >> or how do you think about how how to do that? So I mean well one there's certain things that we ask for we you know username whatever whatever information a user wants. Right now on phantom you can

have a profile you can put whatever you want to in it. Um for us we see the opportunity. Facebook did something very similar in in early 2010s like where they productized login with Facebook and they productized your your friend graph. You were able to take these things to a lot of different new uh apps that you were using. And what it did was create like a really like you know uh strong ecosystem of helping companies get from zero to one uh to building network effects early on. So we see a similar opportunity with people's wallets as well. We you've already you know you have believe you have FOMO you have all these different type of products that are out there that we think would absolutely benefit from being able to immediately bring in their uh the the

network effects that Phantom has. So, uh, now that's what information a user wants to share, that's kind of up to them. But, um, you know, anything that we can do to help build sentiment so so that developers can build better products. I think that's something we're excited about. >> Nice. >> Yeah. I think in general, we always try to have this privacy principle in mind where, you know, you can always use Phantom without without providing any extra in, you know, as just a raw seed phrase. Yep. >> A wrap around a raw seed phrase. But if you want to start to augment your experience a bit more, you can, you know, >> sign up for a username. You can start following some other people on the app and get some of those social mechanics going. So >> Mhm.

>> Nice. >> And in Phantom Connect, um, in beta now, um, start to be rolling out more towards end of the year. >> Cool. >> Donnie, Brandon, thank you guys. >> Yeah, thanks for your time. >> Yeah, this was fun. Thanks for having us. Cool. [Music]