The Edge of Innovation: The Intersection of Crypto and Real-World Applications

In this compelling episode of The Edge of Show, host Josh Kruger welcomes Sidney Powell, co-founder & CEO of Maple Finance, live from ConsenSys Toronto. Sidney recounts her participation at the SEC’s tokenization roundtable—a pivotal moment for regulatory clarity in the crypto space. With $6 billion in loans facilitated and emerging DeFi integrations like Maker/Spark and Morpho, Maple Finance exemplifies the maturity of DeFi 3.0. This episode offers deep insights into tokenized lending, institutional adoption, and the future of stablecoins—a must-listen for Web3 innovators and crypto entrepreneurs.

Key Topics Covered

• SEC Roundtable on Tokenization
  Sidney shares her experience at the tokenization panel, where SEC Chair Gary Gensler and Hester Peirce emphasized clarity, transparency, and consumer protection in crypto regulation.
  
  
• Maple Finance Growth & Strategy
  With $6 billion in loans and $1.5 billion in AUM, Maple excels through on-chain transparency, rapid onboarding (days, not months), and tailored institutional terms.
  
  
• DeFi Integrations Driving Yield
  Maple’s Syrup USDC integrates with Maker/Spark, and looping through Morpho boosts yield strategies—pushing Maple Finance into the DeFi frontier.
  
  
• Tokenization of Assets & Governance
  Discussed the hybrid model of on-chain lending with off-chain collateral, transparent margin/liquidation, and no liquidations in over 18 months.
  
  
• Stablecoin Supply & Future Trends
  Sidney forecasts stablecoin supply growing to $1 trillion within 12 months, citing Tether, USDC dominance—and potential competition from branded stablecoins.
  
  

Episode Highlights

“Chair Gensler outlined liquidity, transparency, finality, interoperability—as good an indication from regulatory leadership as you could hope.” — Sidney Powell

“We’ve closed over $6B in loans and maintain $1.5B in AUM through institutional mechanisms.” — Sidney Powell

“We onboard customers in a matter of days, compared to months with traditional lenders.” — Sidney Powell

“Integrations with Maker/Spark and Morpho allow looping strategies to escalate yield.” — Sidney Powell

“Stablecoin supply could reach $1 trillion in 12 months. Network effects will drive top-tier dominance.” — Sidney Powell

People and Resources Mentioned

• Sidney Powell
  
  
• Maple Finance
  
  
• SEC Chair Gary Gensler
  
  
• SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce
  
  
• Maker / Spark Protocol
  
  
• Morpho Protocol
  
  
• Tether (USDT)
  
  
• Circle (USDC)
  
  

About Our Guest

Sidney Powell is co-founder and CEO of Maple Finance, a leading institutional DeFi lending protocol. Under her leadership, Maple has facilitated over $6 billion in loans and innovated with hybrid on-chain/off-chain lending models. Sidney has spearheaded strategic integrations with Maker/Spark and Morpho, establishing Maple as a pioneering force in yield-optimized DeFi.

Guest Contacts

• Website: https://maple.finance
  
  
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SyrupSid

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Transcript:

Josh Kriger: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to The Edge of Show. This is Josh Greer, your co-host. We're live in Toronto at ConsenSys. And I'm here with another interesting guest, Sidney Powell, the co-founder and CEO of Maple Finance. Great to have you on the show. Thanks for having me, Josh. Been sort of paying attention. You guys have been in the news quite a lot lately, involved in what's going on in D.C. And I understand you were just in D.C. on Monday for an SEC hearing, was it?

Sidney Powell: Yeah, I was in DC on Monday for the SEC's roundtable on tokenization. So it was alongside other industry players, a few from TradFi, a few from more crypto native places. How many folks overall? I would say across both panels are probably 20 people. But the audience, they probably had more than 200 in attendance. And who is the audience for that? I think the audience was a mix. It was a lot of policy figures, people from legal backgrounds, the type of constituency you'd expect to find in DC.

Josh Kriger: But folks that are trying to take the pulse on how to keep evolving the industry or support what you're doing. My question for you is, how does it feel to be in that sort of environment relative to your roots of starting the company five years ago? Things have shifted so much in terms of the climate. Would you have imagined this five years ago?

Sidney Powell: Well, I wouldn't have even imagined it one year ago, let alone five years ago. So, I mean, when we first started Maple back in 2019, and then we ended up raising capital in 2020, launching it in 2021, I think it was a very different environment. And obviously, there was a lot more hostility or a lot less engagement. from the government and from regulators around the world. So I think really since January, we've seen a very positive shift where regulators are looking to engage with the industry. And I think, you know, President Trump has laid out that he views crypto and being number one in crypto to be very important for the U.S. from a national security perspective. He likes to be number one.

Josh Kriger: Yeah.

Sidney Powell: Yeah.

Josh Kriger: That's cool.

Sidney Powell: So what were your takeaways from the session? The thing that stood out to me most was the very positive keynote speech from Chair Atkins. So I think he laid out the benefits of tokenization of assets. These are liquidity, transparency, finality, interoperability. This was about as good an indication from the regulatory leadership as you could hope for. But I think more than anything, I saw a lot of engagement from everyone at the SEC. This wasn't just being driven from the top down. There was a lot of engagement from members of the crypto task force around how do we create a set of rules that is both going to protect consumers or investors while still allowing and fostering innovation in capital markets. And I think Hester Peirce laid out in a speech a week ago, that regulating capital markets isn't just about protecting investors. You also need to enable them to actually grow and allow everyone to benefit from the growth of the economy. And so if you have regulations that prevent retail from participating, you don't achieve that.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, such a progressive view. And I think the big thing that I want to hit on that you mentioned is they want to create clarity, like this idea of intentional ambiguity is sort of no longer on the table, right?

Sidney Powell: Strategic ambiguity doesn't help anyone. And I think preserving that so that you have the flexibility to bring enforcement actions doesn't help participants. Instead, it kind of sets a tone of fear. By providing clear guidance as to what they consider, you know, kosher or, you know, within the bounds of reasonable activity in the space, I think it makes it easier for people like us who are smaller, we don't have big legal budgets to participate and to, you know, to compete with some of these larger players. And really that's what it's about. It's about bringing competition to the finance sector, which has been very, you know, very regulatory captured over the past few decades.

Josh Kriger: And on that front, you guys have secured over $2 billion in loans. That feels like a big number. It's a slice of the bigger market.

Sidney Powell: We're now over $6 billion. We're about $1.5 billion in AUM, but we're still a small player overall, but we are trying to grow that.

Josh Kriger: And I guess, what would you say were the keys to sort of getting that level of loan activity? And how do you scale? Is it about the Super Bowl commercial? Or if not, what's the... I hope not.

Sidney Powell: Those things are expensive. I think for us, a big selling point for us has been the transparency of doing this on-chain. And then where we try and fit in is we have to be faster to deal with, we have to be willing to offer kind of bespoke terms. And that's where we tend to win deals. We onboard the customers faster, we get responses back to them faster. For a conventional loan, over-collateralized loan with a very established institutional player, it can take you three months just to onboard with them, let alone close a deal. And so we're trying to do that. We try and get the onboarding done in a matter of days.

Josh Kriger: Wow, that's pretty cool. And it sounds like it's a tailored offering. So a lot of reputational credit, goodwill, referrals happening. What's your typical customer segment nowadays, and how has that sort of shifted?

Sidney Powell: I think on the borrower side, most of our customers, or all of our customers on the borrower side are institutional. They tend to be more Web3 native. So think exchanges, OTC lending, OTC trading desks, crime brokers, even family offices in high net worths. And then on the lender side, the folks who give us capital and who want to use Maple as a yield product, the customer set tends to be hedge funds, high net worths, family offices. Even now, we're getting a lot more professional asset managers. And the real growth factor for us over the past six months has been the DeFi integrations. So we just announced the other week an integration with Maker or Spark, where they are deploying some of their balance sheet to our Syrup USDC product. And then three weeks ago, we had the integration announced with Morpho. So that allows some of these on-chain funds to do looping.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Sidney Powell: I mean, is working with like an Aave or Compound something that... Working with an Aave or a Compound would definitely be a McCards for us. I think we know that we know the teams there pretty well. And for us, what we would like to do is get SyrupUSDC, you know, the permissionless version of our product on boarded as collateral so they can be looped as is happening on Morpher. I think Aave is a massive market. We obviously have a tremendous amount of respect for the team there and what they've done. Yeah, yeah. We would love to be integrated there. Yeah. And then cross-chain is the other aspect too. Right. We're looking at where can we, you know, where can we bring Syrup USDC, like institutional yields, that's pretty stable, pretty conservative. What other chains can we bring? What's the yield approximately? Right now it's like 7%. 7% plus a couple of awards. That feels like, feels reasonable too. Compared with the backdrop where other DeFi yield rates are, you know, 4-ish. basis is paying, you know, five to six. So it's pretty competitive, I would say.

Josh Kriger: Yeah. And I mean, it's pretty similar to like an index fund or something like that. Definitely. Very cool. Anything else you wanted to share in terms of like how you're dealing with transparency and underwriting that maybe has sort of helped to sort of shine a light on sort of what DeFi, a more mature DeFi 3.0 could look like for the industry?

Sidney Powell: Well, I think our product in terms of risk management is almost a hybrid of DeFi and CeFi. So if you look at what we do, we are lending where all of the loans occur on chain. So it's very transparently visible. It occurs in stable coins. But for the collateral, we can actually keep this in qualified custodians. And so we can take native BTC. We don't have to deal with wrapped versions. Our clients don't have to take the risk of smart contracts here. And the other thing we can do is Because we deal mostly with institutions, we actually have what is called two levels. So we have a margin call level where, and that's, you know, Joe, if you hit your margin call, I'd be asking you for more Bitcoin or to pay down the loan. And then we have another level called the liquidation level. And at that point, I'm not asking for more collateral. I'm just selling the Bitcoin. And so for us, it's been very important to take care of the risk management. We've had no liquidations in over 18 months of running this lending strategy. But the other thing, and I think unlike other players from 2022, the fact that you can see all of the activity on-chain makes it much more transparent and also it allows much more liquid. Yeah.

Josh Kriger: Cool. I guess as we kind of look ahead at this sort of integration that's happening more broadly where you guys are pioneers, do you have any sort of predictions on where we'll be a year from now?

Sidney Powell: Well, I think one of the things I pay most attention to is stablecoin supply. I think within, let's say, 12 months from now, we could be at a trillion dollars of stablecoins. And I would love to see that. Where are we at now? We're at about, call it 250. OK, so Forex. Yeah. Tether is the largest at around 150 billion. Circle has like 70-ish billion. And then you have a long tail of other stablecoin

Josh Kriger: Obviously this new legislation could create a proliferation of stable coins. Is it going to be one of those situations where survival of the fittest and it comes down to like a couple dozen at the end of the day?

Sidney Powell: I think even less than a couple of dozen. So I would say stable coins depend heavily on network effects. And you know, if you're a stable coin, you can't have 200 with the same network effect. Yeah, exactly. It's like having 200 access, 200 Facebooks. It just doesn't. It's not possible. Yeah. The fact that you can trade Tether and USDC across most centralized exchanges today and the fact that they're so ubiquitous across DeFi, I think is a real asset. It's going to be tough to break that. We've seen Ripple and PayPal both try independently to launch stable coins and break into the space. Ripple obviously has an exceptionally big balance sheet to play with. That gives them a lot of firepower. And PayPal obviously has a very large balance sheet of their own. But the question is, can they achieve the network effects and can they achieve escape velocity? That's kind of what I think a lot of us in the market are waiting for.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see where that goes. If folks want to learn more about Maple Finance, follow you guys, maybe follow you on X, where should they go?

Sidney Powell: Well, if they want to follow me on X, I'm at Syrup Sid. Maple Finance is at Maple Finance, one word. And then our website is maple.finance. So if you want to either inquire about borrowing or sign up to use our yield product, you can go to maple.finance or you can follow us on X.

Josh Kriger: And I assume you're a maple syrup fan. I mean, this was not like a coincidence, right?

Sidney Powell: Do you know where the name came from? I'm happy to tell the story. So I used to work in debt capital markets, but in debt, you have senior debt, which gets paid first. You have Mez debt, which gets paid second. And then you have what's called equity, which is the most risky, but gets paid the most. And so it's like a stack. And so I always want a name that was kind of evocative, easy to remember. I didn't want a finance word and a tech word smushed together. And so the maple stack is like the debt stack, Senior Mez Junior. And then the maple syrup is like cash flows where you pay that Senior first and then Mez and then Junior. So that was that was the the origin of the name.

Josh Kriger: Very cool. All very creative and wish you the best with the future of this exciting industry. And thank you for your insight and your time.

Sidney Powell: Appreciate it.

Richard Carthon: Hey everybody, Richard Carleton here live at Consensus Toronto, and I have a very special guest with us. We have Bill Lakeland from Spexy. Thanks for joining us today.

Bill Lakeland: Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

Richard Carthon: Of course, man. Well, you are from Canada, which is awesome, and it's amazing to see so many people both from Canada and from all over the world that have come here to Consensus. What makes you want to come and join and be a part of this conference?

Bill Lakeland: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty exciting time for us. We're kind of this hinge moment at the company where we are, we're a decentralized drone pilot network where we incentivize pilots to capture aerial imagery at scale globally. And so being a deep in project in the crypto space brings a lot of unlocked potential to scale for us and how we're growing our network in a really meaningful way and how we're collecting the data faster than you can any other way. So over the last year we've been in testnet and we've collected over 110,000 flight like independent flights with like 4,000 pilots and the network's growing very so fast we're getting to this critical mass where now it makes sense to actually tokenize the system and I kind of take the companies to the next level to to get a critical mass of data that's really being used for for AI and spatial computing mostly and the explosion in that space is really bring to light the value of the data that we're collecting so yeah here meeting partners and you know investors and ecosystem players and all that so

Richard Carthon: It's a great place to do all that. And it's amazing you've been building that. You're one of the first, I hear, to be focused primarily on the drone footage side of things. So tell me, how'd you come up with that concept? And now that you're getting these data sets, what are some of the things that you're able to do with it?

Bill Lakeland: I've been in the aerial mapping space for a lot of years, traditionally flying airplanes that have very large mapping cameras. A lot of what you've seen on Google Earth might have come from one of my airplanes. Wow. So the underpinnings of maps. globally is kind of my background. And this is the next evolution. This is a disruptive way. This is a decentralized way to get better data faster and cheaper. And how do you do that? And I've always been like obsessed with trying to figure out how to do that. And this is literally the most disruptive way to be able to do this and the most impactful way for humanity to get good data into the system. So we understand what good data is and how users use it. And so now we can actually apply that knowledge and that capability to be able to decentralize, create a protocol to capture it very standardized and in a fun and safe way with a network of passionate pilots that want to fly to earn. You know, they want to fly drones. They love drones. What do you do with it now? Well, now you can actually earn a little bit on the side. We can fly cities at an incredibly fast rate. Like since launch, we've flown almost 200 cities in North America alone. um doing this and it's hard to do that at scale with an aircraft that's burning a ton of carbon and satellites as well that are just so much coarser in resolution there's only so much you can do with the data right when you have the higher resolution data and you've now got ai systems and spatial computing systems and large geospatial models that are being developed that can actually do real meaningful business-to-business work computer interactions with foundational data that's just at a higher fidelity you can do so much more with it so creating like this this reference plane of imagery across the planet for systems to now build reliably on top of these next generation AI and spatial computing systems is the focus for us. And decentralizing the protocol to be able to capture the data into the system is the most powerful way to do it.

Richard Carthon: I agree. And it's something that scales. And like you said, it gives power back to your pilots and everyone else who's creating these videos and data sets in the first place. So as you think about who are the people that would potentially come on and either use these data sets or be able to build on top of specs, what does that look like?

Bill Lakeland: Yeah, so traditionally, you know, it's governments that use this type of data and we're really trying to like disrupt that system. Like in my past years, it's been 95% governments, so state and local governments, federal governments, and use the data for traditional use cases, city mapping and planning, smart city applications, and all these sort of use cases. But because it's cheaper and more accessible, we're now we're talking to like large, Um, you know, last mile delivery companies, you've got like Ubers and DoorDashes and, you know, Metas and, you know, all these types of groups that actually now need this type of data to be able to, uh, logistically, like, where, show me where the front door is of this house. Like, I'm going around a city, I'm trying to deliver an object. As I approach it, just flash up the front door of that house so I know which one I'm looking for. Boom, those sorts of insights, 9-1-1 systems, all these sort of business-to-business use cases can become amplified and streamlined operationally because there's better data, more reliable data being fed into the system to train.

Richard Carthon: That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, I mean, like you said, that can be used in so many different use cases. I even see like a, you know, a use case of, um, like you said, that, that last mile of like, whether it's a door dash or whether it's somebody even like at a mall or even being in here and you want to like, Oh, how do I get to X, Y, Z. And like, you know, maybe have like an AR glasses or something. It can like give you directions to like where you're going. So.

Bill Lakeland: Yeah, that's human to a digital world interface, operationally, it makes so much sense. But then also just creating large geospatial models, like a large language model, but only it's a digital world. So creating this very accurate, high-fidelity digital world that computers, robots, Your cell phone, everything can interact with to give you real-time feedback in terms of what it is you need to do at that moment. Even self-driving cars and sidewalk robots, they all need a digital world in their brain that's super up-to-date. The construction site around the corner, that can be updated on the fly so they know not to turn right within the last 20 minutes to go straight. All these sorts of things that can update on the fly in a large geospatial model to help create a more efficient world you live in, essentially.

Richard Carthon: Yeah, I like it. I like the vision of it. When you think about where Spexy currently is and what's to come for the rest of 2025, what's some of the things that you're looking forward to?

Bill Lakeland: Yeah, I mean, we're at the point now where we're ready to launch a token and incentivize the pilot community in that way. That's going to be the big shift. We're at that kind of hinge point, that hinge moment for the company itself. We've been, you know, test that we've been scaling in fiat. Now it's time to make that transition and that adjustment because, you know, we're a business first kind of a company. We've been building the demand side and the products, the product market fit around what it is that we're bringing to the world as like a new data layer. That at the core is the most important part to us. but then you know now how do we actually like accelerate this how do we put our foot on the gas pedal and accelerate supply and accelerate a meaningful network um of you know and incentivize in the way to really bring high quality imagery into the system repeatedly and reliably and so making that shift over um you know, tokenizing the system and adopting that as our mechanism to scale and accelerate is, I mean, we've seen it happen in other networks. Yeah. And it's worked very, very well. To us, it's been important to get the demands nailed and the product market fit nailed as being the true value of the system to add value. Right. Right. And so we're proving that. And now it's time to actually make the next shift.

Richard Carthon: That's awesome. That's exciting. For those who are listening to this, you're like, yo, this is something I've been looking for. I'm really excited about that. Like, how can they go and learn more about SPEC-C and also potentially be able to connect with you?

Bill Lakeland: Yeah, I mean SPEXI.com, S-P-E-X-I dot com, everything's there. Sign up for the Discord. If you're interested in becoming a pilot, sign up to our Discord channels. And all our feeds are there too. So it'll be, we'd love to have you on board and grow this network. Excellent. Well, Bill, thanks so much. Yeah, pleasure.

Josh Kriger: Hi, everyone. Josh Krueger here, co-host of The Edge of Show, live at ConsenSys. And I'm here at one of the really cool activations the Digital Spenders Club is putting on. And I have the co-founder, Anthony, on the show.

Anthony Rodriguez: Good to see you, Josh. So, Anthony, what's been keeping you guys busy the last few months? It's been crazy. You know, we came together because we really love crypto culture. And we want to figure out how to create the biggest club in the world that just loves it, right? So our mandate is from our foundation, the Acronym Foundation, is to just give as much love relentlessly as we can to the space. So we're talking about telling stories. And I always thought, you know, collaborations and experiences were the best way to kind of deliver new news. Whether you're somebody that's deep in the cut and you know all about crypto, or you're kind of out there and you're crypto curious and you want to learn, the best way to learn is to like experience something and see a story. Yeah, so like take the fishing rod, put it in the water and catch some fish. Absolutely. Right. Because there's nothing like experience. I can describe that to you all day, but it doesn't work the same as you trying.

Josh Kriger: Absolutely.

Anthony Rodriguez: So we went to some friends of ours at Flexa, which is the largest crypto payments platform in the world right now. And we went to other friends of ours. at Berner, which make these hardware on-chain wallets. They're just so cool, right? So we're geeking out about these things. We're sitting around these guys are saying, hey, why don't you guys do something super cool? And what we'll do is celebrate you. And they're like, well, what do you mean by that? I'm like, well, we'll show you, but you start. So they call us three weeks later. You know, these guys are the best in the business on the payment side and the on-chain wallet side. And in just three weeks, they invented CryptoTap2Pay. which allows us to enable people to literally send Stablecoin straight from the card, our DSC card, to the retailer, right? So what you're able to do today is you're able to load the card, so we load the card up for you, and we give you this completely immersive 90s strip mall shopping experience. What we have today is we have a blockchain video, which is our spinoff on Blockbuster video, another celebration of crypto. There's probably over 20 projects and probably 50 personalities in the videos. We've recreated some of Hollywood's greatest blockbusters, but made them crypto blockbusters, which, by the way, if you weren't able to make it here today, you can go to the blockchain video dot com and you can watch an AI movie trailer of the rug.

Josh Kriger: I was going to say, so use the AI to sort of help you with that.

Anthony Rodriguez: Well, we only had a few weeks. And we didn't have $100 million to reshoot Ghostbusters, and we didn't quite get... Maybe next time. Yeah, and we called the New York State Penitentiary, but SPF wasn't available. So we had to do a lot with AI, right? A lot of Easter eggs in this thing. So it's a fully immersive experience. It makes you feel like you're a blockbuster, but in a crypto universe. The second store is the one we're standing in, our apparel. So we launched our first apparel line. It's all cut, sewed and dyed in Los Angeles. And it's a super high end line because we want to take the culture to a different level, right?

Josh Kriger: LA does fashion really well.

Anthony Rodriguez: I think so, and we do street wear. So, you know, right now there's a lot of merch you can walk around. There's a lot of blanks with people putting logos on them. These feel expensive. They are expensive. They're the nicest possible material we could find. So, if you look at our French terry, I mean this stuff is is super high-end, and it feels super high-end. This is something where our price point is somewhere between $300 and $500 per item. But we're not selling it. What we're really doing is finding people in the space like you that we love that are really deep in the cut and helping push everything forward. And we want to swag you out, so we're going to do that today.

Josh Kriger: All right.

Anthony Rodriguez: I'm excited. And then if you come with your car and you want some services, because there's goods in their services, you can get your nails done next door. You can get a portrait next door. I saw your portrait. I won't make you share it. You look very handsome, but we appreciate you doing that. And it's kind of a 90s throwback, right? Remind you the mall photos our parents used to take us to while we were screaming and crying.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, I mean, those are still happening, though, in Asia. They love this stuff. They do. Maybe you're going to start a little bit of a comeback tour here in North America.

Anthony Rodriguez: That's great. We're going to start the portraits. There's a place in L.A. called Tom's One Hour Photo. Oh, cool. That we just love. And they get a line around the block for the old school portraits. So it's a little wink to Tom's.

Josh Kriger: So. So congrats on the success. I guess we should talk about some of the attraction you've experienced so far. You had over 3000.

Anthony Rodriguez: Well, that's just here. So we did a little beta activation in East Denver and over a thousand cards went out. And then all of a sudden we're getting signups every single day. And like, it's been overwhelming the response, but this is really our true launch. Just in our first day, like we got rid of 3000 cards, like people took them all. I mean, technically speaking, it was like 2,400 yesterday. We only had 600 left. We were freaking out. And those all went this morning. So now people are signing up on the website to get cards sent to their house. But you know someone gives you a wallet. That's a super cool technology. It looks like a blockbuster video card right. It's pretty cool Yeah, you want it, and then you get some USDC on it So you get to use some stable coin to buy cool stuff and services, so it's been really cool And what's what's been really fun about? Our pop-up here consensus is turned into a community like I've never seen I don't think I've seen anybody once Like, everyone comes back, we're right in the entrance, and we're talking about it, and we're talking about our experiences, we're talking about other booze, what other people do in the speeches, and that's what we're really happy with here. Like, we created, you know, a plaza here where people hang out, and they come back to experience more every single day.

Josh Kriger: So, congrats on the early traction, as you sort of, hopefully, have some R&R after this, and sort of regroup. What are some of the next ideas that come to mind, or that are percolating so far?

Anthony Rodriguez: For sure. So, you know, what we want to do is we want to make sure we're global. So we're looking at other events around the world to do, you know, different activations and experiences. We're, you know, my background is in the media business. So we're looking for people in the media business to help us get the word out. And, you know, that's probably one of our biggest brand challenges, right? I can build an L.A. brand and slowly grow it, but crypto's not L.A., crypto's not any city. In fact, if you really look at the cities crypto are in, there's a lot of unique, like, 26 or something cities we see out there. So we're building a global brand, connecting everyone through these stories in this apparel. So what's next for us is really a roadshow. We want to go all over the world, bring our magic and get way beyond payments. We're talking to gaming companies, we're talking to original IP companies, we're talking to content companies. So there's a lot more in the pipe. And right now we have about six collabs and we're looking to get to about 12 this year.

Josh Kriger: Nice. And you mentioned to me separately, you had a magazine launch recently. Is that tied in with Digital Spenders or is that separate?

Anthony Rodriguez: It's not. So we are really lucky to be part of something called the Acronym Foundation. And the Acronym Foundation has several projects within it. I'm lucky to be a publisher of that magazine. So we went out and we got two of the best writers in the world. and we're letting them just run, right? Crypto has all these amazing use cases. So Use Case Magazine, you can find us at usecase.xyz. If you sign up, we'll send you an issue. We'll publish twice this year. And essentially, what we're doing is creating a real artifact that writes down and documents like what crypto is about, right? So If you think about it, if we were in the internet age, in the early time, and you had access to every major founder, or if we were in the personal computing age, and you had access to every major founder, and you could ask them, what have you built? Why are you obsessed with this technology? And what do you see the future becoming, right? We have that opportunity right now. So that's why we're building. We're getting the best writers in the world to put together essentially a book of these moments. And what's really cool is Use Case Magazine itself is gonna be a use case. So we're putting a Halo chip, the same as you can find in our Blockbuster video card today, in every single issue. And if we interview you for the magazine today, Josh, and we ask you to forecast what the next five years look like, you better really be sure what you're going to tell us. That's why I like to ask the questions and not answer them. Got it, because what we're going to do is come back in a couple of years, and these magazines that are going to be sitting in everyone's homes will get re-sent an update of your interview. So you can say, hey, Josh, you said these five things, man. Two of them were right, but you were really off on these three. What do you think? And now we have a wallet instead of a magazine, and we're kind of reinventing the consumer or the reader and magazine relationship. So we're just really excited to bring Web 3 into these new paradigms.

Josh Kriger: I just think FDR said something like, if I'm right 55% of the time, I'm batting really well.

Anthony Rodriguez: Yeah, for sure. Mark Cuban loves to say, he watches his basketball player, he's like, this guy has to have a 75% shooting percentage. And he's like, I was only right in business once and made a bunch of money. So I'm with you on that.

Josh Kriger: Well, very cool. If people want to learn more about all these cool things you're doing, where should they go?

Anthony Rodriguez: Well, if you want to experience blockchain video virtually, you go to the blockchainvideo.com. If you want to learn more about Spenders Club, and we'd love for you to apply to become a member, it's spenders.club. And then Use Case Magazine is usecase.xyz.

Josh Kriger: Nice, some really cool domains, really cool use cases. Thank you for telling us what you're up to and, you know, just innovating in a space that's all about the edge. So you guys are definitely qualified for being at the edge of e-commerce, the edge of media. So love what you're doing.

Anthony Rodriguez: Hey, man, thank you for coming. It's an honor to have you. You really do push the culture forward, everything you do with your audiences. So we just feel honored that you decided to spend time with us today. Likewise. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you, Josh.

Josh Kriger: Hi everyone, welcome back to the Edge of show live in Toronto at Consensus 2025. It's been a packed few days and I'm glad to be here with Timothy Chen, the global head of strategy for Mantle. Good to have you on the show. Thanks for having me. So a little bit of background on what Mantle is and all about to kick off.

Tim Chen: Yeah, so our history is we started out as a DAO, which for some of you might remember what that is, but we were successful in actually building a product. We built an L2 called the Mantle Network. It's been around for four years. It's about a three to four billion FDV top 50 coin. We realized, OK, well, what else should we build? And we saw after post-merge on ETH that staking was a thing. And so we built METH, which is a staking protocol, which is about sitting at close to a billion dollars in TBL. Then we said, okay, well, we like this thing called Bitcoin. Let's build there as well. And so we built a wrap Bitcoin instrument that's also sitting at a billion plus TVL. So when we, we realized we're pretty good at shipping products, but we haven't solved the core problem in crypto, which is how do we bring the next wave of users? How do we bring onboard the masses? How do we get the next billion users in crypto, right? And what does that actually look like? And so we have two new products that look, um, one, one is a retail track to onboard more retail. Another is a more institutional track.

Josh Kriger: There's a lot there to unpack, but I think what's really interesting is your previous background, you worked at MSA Capital, you're a partner, and you back giants like Airbnb, Uber, Animoca Brands, has backed us, so we're the same family. What did you learn from your BC side, and with all these traditional brands that you back, that you've applied to the success of Bantle?

Tim Chen: So here's a very prime example. Uh, we're going to launch a crypto neobank, right? And this is a very web two and 2.5 type of positioning and the go to market is very web too. Well, we backed new bank back when I was a VC, we looked at clarinet, we invested in that too. And so we understand how these, these guys play in terms of user acquisition, user retention, and not only in these two markets, right? We looked at the whole landscape of FinTech, consumer banking, et cetera, across Southeast Asia, Africa, Middle East, et cetera, Latin America. So long story short, we take the holistic experience from there and package into the learnings on how we're going to market with this crypto neobank product.

Josh Kriger: So I guess there's just everyone's trying to create that bridge, right? At this point, I think it's clear that now is finally the time where people want the bridge built. Yeah. And there's a lot of effort to reduce friction. What's sort of what's your position on sort of the demand versus the supply of solutions in that area and where we're at as an industry?

Tim Chen: Yeah, so I think the way I look at it is, and maybe using this crypto neobank example, I bifurcate the world into really two spheres. One, either you're dollarized, mostly American, or you're not dollarized, right? And the reason why these DeFi mullet type plays where they give you a wallet and a debit card that's taken off in the rest of the world is because you're essentially giving everybody who is not dollarized a dollar savings account. If you don't live in the US, if you live in the US, you don't know how important this is to the rest of the world. It gets everyone on a parody with the US, right? Because your, your currency, whether it's like a Turkish lira, Argentine peso, it's not devaluing overnight, but if you are dollarized, meaning you're like an American user, you care less about that. Cause you can already get that with your normal standard banks. What you want is better yield opportunities, better rewards. And so there's two different approaches here. We are starting with the former. And so we are unlike solutions out there today that only allow off ramping, which is one direction. we allow users in a couple of minutes to open up a Swiss bank account and they get a globally accepted debit card. And so you can actually top up fiat into that account, which is a game changer because you can imagine a world where if you're salaried, you get to direct deposit into this account and everything comes into one. It's a combined account.

Josh Kriger: It's pretty novel. I mean, do you think traditional banks consider what you're doing to be a threat in the institutions? Are they like friends or foes or frenemies, like with how you're approaching these problems?

Tim Chen: Yeah, I think a lot of their approach is wait and see, right? As they say, pioneers get arrows in the back. So they'll wait, like BlackRock did, to see that BTC, ETF, everything is kosher, then they come in and they take the whole pie, right? But in the NewBank space, you know, that not necessarily is true, which is why you have giants like NewBank, you have giants like Revolut, you have giants like Monzo and these other ones. So I think from our perspective, we're willing to be that pioneer and build that first product. We want to I mean, as ironic as it sounds, in a bankless way, provide banking services to the crypto natives.

Josh Kriger: Makes sense. So, obviously, we're in a very different regulatory market than we were, you know, three months ago, six months ago, you name it. Things are shifting radically. We have an administration of the U.S. here at ConsenSys. What do you think are the remaining regulatory challenges for you guys to be optimized without friction? And what markets are you most excited about over the coming year?

Tim Chen: Yeah. So, uh, us, us is the best game in town. It is the capital market with the deepest liquidity, the most traders users with the highest ARPU and LTV. So obviously we would like to have more regulatory clarity that we can step on, whether it's directly or via partners, such as banking institutions or, uh, payment rails, et cetera. So we can access this market. So are you actively lobbying and working with the targeters today? Not today. We're currently targeting non-dollarized users first because they have a real need and a 10x better solution than what exists out there today.

Josh Kriger: Makes sense. But you're optimistic and hopeful that some of these things will get clarified. That makes sense. Cool. I guess any other sort of exciting features, updates, partnerships, sort of cooking that you want to touch on before we wrap?

Tim Chen: Yeah, I think one other exciting thing is I mentioned there's two tracks, right? The crypto neobank is a retail track. Now, we just announced that MI4 launched as part of our ecosystem. MI4 stands for Mantle Index 4. It is a passive fund, but you can think of it as like a set it, forget it exposure to the crypto majors with yield. And I think that's very, very attractive because if you think about it, there's a hundred billion dollars on DeFi today, but that's a large percentage of the capital on chain. There's a hundred billion dollars in Bitcoin ETF alone. And that's just the tip of the spear in terms of Trifide dollars wanting to come in. So we want to build more towards these guys as opposed to servicing these guys.

Josh Kriger: Sounds exciting. Looking forward to sort of following you guys and seeing what you're up to next. For our audience at home, where should they go to learn more? Go down the rabbit hole?

Tim Chen: Yeah, so follow our Twitter accounts, mental official or mine on Twitter, and it's the best place to get announcements. Your X is what? TX0ZZ. We also publish a quarterly letter that highlights all of our business updates. Thanks, Sam, so much for hanging out. Thanks for having me.

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