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#31 - Piracy, Music and Cryptocurrency self-custody
37 Plays3 months ago
James is the COO at Unity Wallet, a self-custodial cryptocurrency wallet previously known as Savl. With a background in disruptive technologies, he offers valuable perspectives on the future of digital finance.
The Changing Landscape of Bitcoin ETFs
The discussion began with surprising statistics on Bitcoin ETF ownership, revealing that 76% are held by private individuals and only 24% by institutions. This challenges the common perception that ETFs are primarily for institutional investors. James views this as a positive development, providing legitimacy to Bitcoin and Ethereum while offering a low-fee entry point for investors wary of the technical hurdles associated with crypto.
Decentralization vs. Institutional Adoption
The conversation highlighted the paradox of early crypto ideals versus current trends. Originally, crypto was about self-custody and financial independence from traditional banks. Now, the enthusiasm for institutional players like BlackRock entering the space seems to contradict those early principles. James acknowledges this shift but notes that ETFs make practical sense for investors wanting to allocate a portion of their portfolio to crypto without dealing with self-custody complexities.
James's Journey from Digital Music to Crypto
James shared his experiences in the digital music industry, where he launched one of the first legal music download services before Napster's rise. His involvement in anti-piracy gave him early insight into how systems such as BitTorrent can disrupt traditional industries. Living on Wall Street during the 2008 financial crisis and witnessing the Occupy Wall Street movement further fueled his interest in Bitcoin as an egalitarian financial solution.
Drawing parallels between the music industry's battle against piracy and the crypto world, James emphasized that user experience is key. Attempts to curb piracy through restrictive measures often backfired by making legal products less attractive than pirated versions. Similarly, in crypto, creating user-friendly platforms is essential to encourage legitimate participation.
Unity Wallet was conceived to address shortcomings in existing crypto wallets, particularly in user interface and self-custody features. James explained that many wallets were not intuitive and lacked true ownership functionalities. Unity Wallet aims to provide a robust, user-friendly experience while allowing users to operate fully in the DeFi space. Focusing on the top 250 coins, it offers services like staking and partnerships that enable spending crypto on everyday items like Netflix subscriptions and mobile top-ups.
Unity Wallet integrates social elements, including an end-to-end encrypted messenger and a community platform for users to engage and share content. These features aim to build a sense of community and make the crypto experience more interactive and secure.
The wallet addresses the challenges of navigating multiple blockchain networks by allowing users to select from various chains within the app. While emphasizing user responsibility, Unity Wallet provides warnings and intuitive interfaces to minimize the risk of errors when transacting across different blockchains.
The Future of Digital Wallets
James envisions significant growth in digital wallets, especially in unbanked regions where mobile phones are prevalent. He predicts a convergence of traditional finance and DeFi, with wallets becoming central to everyday financial activities. This shift could democratize access to financial services globally.
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Transcript
ETF Ownership and Legitimization
00:00:08
Speaker
One thing I actually meant to talk to you about is whether you've ah looked into the ETF ownership of Bitcoin, because I just have recently. And it turns out that 24% of ETF ownership comes from institutions.
00:00:25
Speaker
that still lives like a massive 76% which are private individuals and i I thought ETFs are primarily targeted towards institutions and firms and I was really surprised to see that there's so many private individuals owning ETFs. Yeah, I mean my view on that is it's a good thing um because it kind of gives legitimacy certainly to Bitcoin and Ethereum, um which may be long overdue. But also you know ETFs, it's a great product because the fees are really low and any anyone who's on-ramped or off-ramped in the crypto world knows the fees can be not great.
00:01:08
Speaker
So it's it's ah it's a cheaper way to kind of get into the into the game of those two assets.
Ease of Entry and Ownership Debate
00:01:15
Speaker
Number one. Number two, for people who are Luddites, that's to say that they've kind of got a fear of technology or they're they're kind of In their mind, there are too many barriers to kind of getting a a wallet app and then buying and storing and looking after their passwords. This is a very easy way for them to overcome any technical hurdles. So I'd love to see the data of you know that 24% and and you know kind of what the age range is.
00:01:49
Speaker
it's pretty interesting but yeah i think i think i think it's just you know but then i guess the the issue with the spot ETFs is although the institutions like blackrock etc they have to own the underlying asset the people buying them actually don't own well i mean i guess they kind of do but it's not true ownership it's not like you have it in a custodial wallet so that's if you're happy to kind of live with that then You know, it makes sense and you can just, it's just part of your overall ETF portfolio along with, you know, AI and gold and farmer and whatever it is. So, um, yeah, yeah, I think it's a good, I think it's a good product. Yeah.
00:02:31
Speaker
I like it. It's good. It's good. it's interesting I mean, it definitely opened up the market and it it was received positively both inside and outside crypto, which I think is really
Institutional Involvement and Crypto Philosophy
00:02:39
Speaker
important. um But also if you remember back in the like all like wild crypto days, 2008 onwards, right? First four years.
00:02:48
Speaker
It was all about crypto-maximalism. It was all about ownership and self-custody and like, fuck the banks and all that. And then suddenly everyone's just you know so happy that BlackRock's jumping on board. And yeah I guess that's what adoption looks like. I just find it interesting that the tides have turned to to to this extent within 10 years. I think that's a very interesting point, right? So I missed ah missed that point. But the whole point of decentralized finance is and Bitcoin, especially, is that it was born out of the 2008 financial crisis when people thought that when they put their money in a bank, they owned their money and they could access their money at any time. and Then you saw the run on the banks during that crisis in Iceland and Greece and you know all over the world and people were locked out. They couldn't take their own money.
00:03:40
Speaker
And so I guess the others the other side of it would be with the Bitcoin and the Ethereum ETFs is that it it kind of goes against the whole point of crypto, which is you're supposed to own it in a, ideally in a non-custodial wallet where nobody can take it from you, nobody can touch it. And you know you're the bank, you're the vault, you're the customer all in one, and you own all of that.
00:04:05
Speaker
um But like I said, from an investment perspective, it I think it makes sense if you want to say, you know, 10% of my portfolio is going to be Bitcoin and Ethereum, then ETFs make that really easy. Yeah, for sure. And um I assume you can withdraw your ETF to an actual asset, crypto asset if you want to towards that, right?
ETFs, Fiat Conversion, and Demographics
00:04:26
Speaker
Well, I mean, if you've got, um you know, through BlackRock, their ETF product is called iShares, and then you use any number of platforms, eToro, whoever it is, um Charles Schwab, to buy the ETF, then you sell the ETF on that platform. um You basically cash it out into fiat currency, and then you can just send that currency back to your bank account.
00:04:51
Speaker
and do with it what you want from there. I don't know. you know i It's so not something I've not, because it's kind of a US market thing only right now, right? So yeah I don't have access to that. But I know from ETFs in the US, you have to kind of cash them out and put the money in your bank or you keep them in your account and buy other assets. um But you can't, on those platforms, buy any other crypto assets other than Bitcoin and Ethereum.
00:05:17
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I feel that that makes sense. um So yeah, no, overall, I think that's that's fantastic. I'm really looking forward to see how it's going to evolve in the next few years. See also if the demographics are changing. I'm not sure if it's a product that's going to cater to people that are into crypto because of crypto, if you know what I'm saying? Like it's... Yeah, the maximum. I feel it's... Exactly. Right. Yeah. um Which is in many ways, I guess, what what you guys are doing at Savile.
Self-Custodial Wallets and Personal Journeys
00:05:44
Speaker
I think it caters because it's ah it's a non custo it's a self-custodial wallet, right? So it yeah caters to people within obviously that won' wish to interact with the ecosystem or at least you know have a ah safe way of storing their own tokens. um But before we go into Savl, I wanted to ask you about like your journey in crypto. like How did you get here um and what you found fascinating about blockchain and crypto in general? Yeah, so um i I've had like um I've had experiences with decentralized technologies prior to Bitcoin so I worked in the digital music business and and the digital music business was ravaged by peer-to-peer technologies and by in particular BitTorrent and BitTorrent was this decentralized technology and um
00:06:38
Speaker
And it was pretty interesting because the ethos behind that is kind of the same as with crypto. But then ah so I was actually living on Wall Street in 2008. So I was there for the whole financial crisis and I was there for the whole Occupy Wall Street movement.
00:06:57
Speaker
and um And I kind of thought Bitcoin seemed like a really good idea. It just seemed really logical because people were seeing the carnage and the chaos. um And you know this mythical Satoshi Nakamoto guy came up with this technology that just made a lot of sense for people who wanted to control their financial destiny and it was also very egalitarian. so it didn't you know Whereas in the traditional finance world, you have limited access to financial services based on your you know your credit rating, your geography, whatever it is. Bitcoin kind of did away with all of that, anyone from any walk of life.
00:07:44
Speaker
um could buy it and own it. And if they were buying it at that time, then they would become pretty pretty rich down the line. right So um that's how I got into it. so i was always To answer your question, I was always attracted to nascent technologies that did something different and disrupted industries. So although BitTorrent um you know was ah was kind of a disruptor technology and um did a lot of bad in terms of piracy. um I think what it did, is it made it very easy for people to quickly distribute content over over the internet in the same way you can argue that um you know arguably there are some nefarious people using
00:08:40
Speaker
cryptocurrencies in the blockchain for bad purposes, overall, the applications and for the blockchain are really amazing. I mean, you can revolutionize many different industries um using blockchain technologies, least of all, identity verification. you know It'll be great if one day you know you could do all your mortgage application through the blockchain. How how easy would that be, right? um So I think overall, the technology itself is amazing, but it all comes down to how how us humans decide to use it. Yeah, and that's a very good point. it's I feel like in a lot of things, it's just human nature. You take any tool and you put it in the hands of the wrong person and it can turn into a tool you know for bad, for worse, right? Nuclear fission.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah, like nuclear fission, a kitchen knife, a cup, like anything. yeah It could be used in a way that it's it's not it's not intended. um And I think that, yeah, the issue is us humans in many cases, not the technologies that we build or the purpose that they're built for. um So you say you worked in the digital music industry. What exactly did you do at the time?
Music Piracy and Technological Transitions
00:09:53
Speaker
Wow. So I launched it was actually technically it was the world's first legal music download service. Oh, wow. And it was back in back in the late 90s. And it was called brand new music.com. And I actually partnered with none other than Apple computers. So Apple provided all of the Wow, streaming and download technology through their quick time platform. And this was, you know, five or six years ahead of the time when they even got into digital music, um which obviously happened um with the launch of the iPhone and and the whole music platform there. But yeah, we were doing it really early and way too early. And you don't get any, you don't get, I mean, you know, you get some points for being first, but you don't get many points for being too early. But we were, you know, we came up, we pretty much
00:10:50
Speaker
launched just ahead of Napster. um But Napster kind of got all the limelight and and yeah yeah. But we were legal, they were not legal. so And yeah that was the but like the big controversy about Napster because you could just download anything from anywhere and just just put it on your phone. Right. yeah And then um I was going to just add, so actually when I got out of the music business on that side of the fence, I actually went into the anti-piracy world. So I was working um well working in a team where we were building technologies to interdict BitTorrent piracy. So we were then being paid
00:11:28
Speaker
by the major record labels to help stop illegal downloads of Pink Floyd or whatever it was. We were already successful for a time until the internet got too big and we couldn't we didn't have the firepower to compete against all of the people downloading. It was just impossible.
00:11:45
Speaker
so Yeah, I was going to say like how interesting to see your perspective on on the the war against piracy and and kind of um ah where you think it's probably going, um especially when it comes to streaming services and streaming platforms where you have fragmented data, fragmented shows and and sometimes a worse off experience than if you were to pirate the actual thing.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, my my view on piracy always always was that when you have a business that has intellectual property, copyrights, for example, um and it's controlled by lawyers, you're going to always have a piracy problem because what happens, say, in the film business, the music business, TV business, they tend to control the release of, of um you know, music, for example, they'll tend to stagger it around the world, or at least they used to, they would stagger it. Actually, let's take, let's take movie the movie being an emotion picture business, they would release in the US and the UK, and then they would wait to release in other countries. And whenever, whenever you stagger the release, you create piracy events. And what they should have been doing was releasing in the same time, all over the world and letting the consumer decide how they want to view it.
00:13:04
Speaker
If they want to go to the cinema, if they want to get it on DVD or you know um through Apple TV, they should be able to choose how they want to get it. and as long as Lawyers are controlling this mechanism. There's always going to be piracy. And arguably, even if they weren't controlling it to the extent that they do, there would still be piracy in the same way. There will always be fraud. There will always be scams and hacking in traditional finance and and decentralized finance. you can't You can't ever get rid of it. It will never go away. But yeah you can do things to make it to kind of make it less
00:13:43
Speaker
And I think exactly that's where that's where you can either win a battle in that war against piracy or make it worse. So an example that I'm not sure you're aware of, but in gaming, there's obviously a big discussion around piracy, right? yeah You've got obviously there's a lot of piracy going on in gaming.
00:14:02
Speaker
um So one of the technologies that um the this this company created, Denuvo, I think it's called, they've created an application that embeds itself into the game which you bought and does these really computationally heavy checks to ensure that the game isn't pirated. Now, what's interesting here to note is that a ah an original game that you've paid for with that piracy control software usually has issues like performance issues or starters or like the servers won't connect half the time. like Really, you know, it impacts your gaming experience. Whereas if you were to go on the torrent, get the game.
00:14:39
Speaker
and then install the game pirated, without that de nouveau thing, it would all be a smooth as silk. So a tool that's supposed to stop piracy is actually creating more piracy because the user experience for a game they buy is worse than a user experience for a free game they pirate.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, this was the same in the early days of digital rights management with the music industry. A lot of the time, you know, you couldn't listen to them, you know, you had to be online, you had to have ah the licenses had to match up, they could be syncing issues, they could be server issues. You know, I think I think now streaming services are really good like you know Spotify, Apple Music, they just work really well and you can take the music offline but what you say I think with the gaming world there's so many components to a game that if you're going to layer on you know all these checks it's it's going to slow the game down but I don't know too much about that but it's it's yeah kind of ironic right?
00:15:43
Speaker
It is yeah it's totally
Streaming Solutions and Cost Management
00:15:44
Speaker
ironic. um though I do agree that a platform like Spotify is actually probably one of the best solutions against piracy is just giving the user something that's relatively affordable. It's good, it's reliable, and it doesn't it makes it so much easier than you having to go and download the music and then go to iTunes and synchronize, do all that stuff. like yeah I feel a good experience is the answer against piracy rather than enforcing it by force or by these checks that detract from the experience.
00:16:16
Speaker
A good experience and also huge amount of choice, right? so right you know Arguably, there's nowhere better than Spotify for music. Even you know Apple Music, Apple computers have a multi-trillion dollar company. yeah Their service is not as good as Spotify because Spotify has the biggest choice and people go there because they can get different versions of the tracks they love, you know acoustic, live, whatever it is. so I think I think when you're looking at spending your $9.99 a month for a service like that, it's probably absolutely worth it. where For me as a consumer, where the the the problem is you know if you want Spotify, you want Netflix, you want YouTube, you want Disney. you know by at At the end of it, you're spending hundreds of dollars a month on subscription services. so yeah That's where it gets interesting. i mean who Who has all that money to spend every month? Most people don't. That's also why piracy continues.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, especially when you consider the value you get from it. You might watch a show every other month on one of these platforms, you know, if you get all of them. um But a tip for anyone wanting to acquire any subscription service like YouTube and Spotify um and even Amazon Prime and stuff, um go to a country that's considerably cheaper than the US or the UK. Spotify premium in the US, ah sorry, YouTube premium in the UK is about family plan is about 20 quid a month. Um, now you go to Romania, you pay six quid a month. All you gotta do is just subscribe in Romania, right? Or, or being Portugal or anywhere where it's like, you know, considerably cheaper, right? Um, and then use vp and you don't even need to use a VPN. I didn't use, I didn't use to use YouTube premium. And then I went, I went back home for holiday and my cousin told me, Hey, you should subscribe now. Cause it's cheaper. I'm like, what are you talking about? How much you pay? Well, I pay like six quid.
00:18:11
Speaker
So I subscribed then and there, came back a week later. Everything's totally fine. I can use it as if I would use it, you know, normally I don't use a VPN or anything. It's just three times as cheap. Well, you better hope her Google don't see this podcast because then they're going to, they're going to change all their pricing models. Yeah. Take advantage of it while you can is what I'm saying. Yeah. yeah um
Savile's Features and Ethical Focus
00:18:34
Speaker
Awesome. so So tell me a little bit about Savile and how you guys came up with the idea. um Obviously, you're the chief operating officer at Savile, so you probably have a lot of insight into the inner workings of the company and and what makes it special.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, so really um you know the idea, I think, well, I know, was at the time the business was was conceived and we started building the product, the feeling was that there were you know other crypto wallets in the space. They weren't doing a great job on on the user interface. They weren't making it intuitive or easy for people to to kind of do simple things like on-ramp, off-ramp, exchange. um um Also, a lot of the wallets at the time were not necessarily non-custodial. They weren't self-custodial wallets.
00:19:30
Speaker
so And that kind of went against the whole ethos of decentralized finance, which is really about personal responsibility and true ownership. So it's kind of really libertarian um at it's at its core. And so we wanted to create a product that was absolutely self custodial, but had a centralized feel, but really operated on a decentralized basis. And so the way we made that happen was by creating a pretty robust
00:20:01
Speaker
user interface. um And then also, you know, one of the things we wanted to do was give users as much choice as possible and as many tools as possible so they could operate in the DeFi world. um And that that didn't mean we were going to give, you know, I think there's something like 4000 currencies now. um We don't offer all 4,000 because you know many of them, I don't want to say most of them, but many of them are just not really worth offering. so we we kind of Our offering focus is really on the top 250 of those
00:20:40
Speaker
coins and tokens and stable coins. And then what we've done every you know pretty much every quarter, we've been adding on new services and every month we're adding you know new tokens more or less. But we um make it pretty easy for people to to buy, to sell, to exchange. um We offer staking services.
00:21:05
Speaker
um We have partnerships where people can use um either, I think, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, maybe one other as well, where they can actually buy goods or services. So you can actually get a Netflix subscription. You can top up your mobile phone using your crypto. We wanted to kind of add the ability for people to spend and not, you know, because one of the criticisms is, well, how practical is it? I've got all this crypto, but what can I what can i do with it other than exchange?
00:21:34
Speaker
So we wanted to make it easy for people to kind of spend and we're working on some other um areas as well that will help people um have more everyday utility from their crypto too. But also um we wanted we wanted to be ethical. So we don't you know we never give financial advice. We never push um you know particular currency. Sure, you know we give price alerts and you know we'll say Bitcoin's rising by X percent or Solana's gone up by 2 percent. um But we don't push things. We're not pushing schemes. We're not you know um involved in ICOs or those types of things. everything Everything we do is pretty ethical and we also provide tools to help people transact ethically.
00:22:20
Speaker
I think a lot of people don't don't realize that there's every time you transact, you know you might be transacting with someone who's, let's say Bitcoin, has been used for nefarious purposes. right So we have um we have a tool called KYT, Know Your Transaction, where we have a couple of top tier blockchain analytics companies we work with. um Actually, so what I should do is probably backtrack. I'm sure your users know this, but with with the blockchain, everything is kind of open for everyone to see, right? So your Bitcoin address, your Ethereum address, your Solana address is all public on these distributed ledgers.
00:23:06
Speaker
Now, I might not know the person behind the address, but I can see what he or she has done from the lifetime of that ah that wallet being set up, and I can see where the money's passed through. um And so what that means is um when I'm transacting, I can copy and paste my transaction partner's address into our wallet application and run a very quick report, which gives me a risk assessment, low, medium, or high,
00:23:37
Speaker
Plus, it gives me a detailed PDF report and it will tell me if there's any risk associated with transacting with that person. For example, that person may have been involved in sanctions busting or their crypto may have come from a dark website associated with selling drugs or it may have gone through a money mixer, i.e. it was laundered.
00:24:01
Speaker
And people will say, well, so what? you know It's just crypto. Who cares? Well, it kind of actually matters because when you try to off-ramp with dirty assets or tainted assets, many of these large exchanges also use blockchain analytics companies. And if they if they they don't want dirty assets on their exchanges because they're also pretty heavily regulated now,
00:24:25
Speaker
um And what that means is you can get blacklisted from an exchange and it makes it very difficult for you to actually sell or off-ramp your assets into fiat. It can do, right? So we want people to to really be mindful and we want to try to keep the ecosystem clean. um And it's it's a small thing, but it I think it matters. um you know And it's about educating users on on being safe. Um, so that's one thing, one major feature that we're really proud of. And then we have, um, ah let me, let me start with that for a moment. Cause I think, I think KYT is super important. Um, and I really liked the fact that you guys offer that feature. Um, couple of questions. So obviously it checks if you were to, I guess, send crypto out, but does it also check for transactions coming in? Will, will it flag like potentially fraudulent transactions?
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah, so what it does, actually, it focuses more on on the wallet address, right? So it will just tell you if the assets held in that wallet are tainted in some way, and if there's an associated risk. um It's not, and and it's really just,
00:25:38
Speaker
um It's really just a suggestion, right it's not you know if right? If the report comes back and it says it's high risk, we don't stop that transaction from happening because it's really up. the Again, the whole onus is on user responsibility. It's up to the user whether or not he or she takes that risk assessment seriously. We recommend that they do, but we can't stop them from not taking it seriously. but we don't um I think what you're asking is, let's say I've got
00:26:10
Speaker
my seven wallet and someone is just kind of passively sending me something are we scanning automatically no it has to be user initiated the user has to initiate it yeah.
00:26:23
Speaker
Okay. Okay. So you need to perform an active check to to figure out whether that's a legit transaction. Yeah. and That's at the point of sending or receiving. you You have that option within the wallet to say you want to verify and you just tap the button and it will give it and it will run ah and an assessment ma um from two um major analytics companies.
00:26:45
Speaker
And then we basically what we do, you know um each of those companies have their own methodology. One might be more rigid than the other. So we may get you know a medium risk from one or a high risk from the other. And we're basically aggregating the results to get an overall kind of median risk. Yeah. And do you do you think there's any any challenges or maybe false positives that come out of a system like that?
KYT Technology and Asset Security
00:27:14
Speaker
I remember the story a few months ago, this person sold their NFT on OpenSea and I think they received they they accepted a bid for an ETH or something. I think it was like a mutant tape or something like that. um They received this, accepted the bid. They went to an exchange to withdraw their ETH.
00:27:32
Speaker
and their account got frozen. Not only were they not able to withdraw, right they weren't even able to send their crypto back to another exchange. They froze the assets. you know the The guy that sold the NFT and accepted the offer, you know as far as he's concerned, did nothing illegitimate.
00:27:51
Speaker
ah And then it turns out that a lot of crypto may show up as tainted, even though technically it isn't. It just happened to you know exchange hands so many times that at some point one bad actor was involved within the chain of of custody right until he threatened the end user. So I'm just concerned a little bit about what what you ah flagging potentially you know high risk where maybe it isn't Yeah, so that all comes down to the methodology and the sensitivity of the analytics provider you're working with. So it absolutely does happen. Yeah, there are tons of false positives and there are tons of false negatives, but that's why it's important to use more than one analytics firm so that you can
00:28:34
Speaker
basically um kind of filter that out. right So you know it's like if you get one reading which is low risk and one which is high risk, then what do you do? Well, ultimately it becomes a medium risk. i right and But yeah, I think this you know the the issue of ah false positives happens across many different industries and many different tools. um For sure. And you know it's the same with the technology where they're looking at you know scams and other things. they can be some of the Some of the technologies can be overly sensitive to this. So what you have to do over time is you have to um
00:29:14
Speaker
you have to fine-tune the product to weed out some of the oversensitivities, which is why we work with the providers we work with because this is exactly what they're doing. yeah so it's not you know And that's also why we can't enforce the risk assessment because there's also a risk of enforcing something that may not be correct. That's why it's just a suggestion. But these technologies, they're fairly new, but they're improving over time. And I think that's the important thing. And it's better to have them there
00:29:52
Speaker
and to be a bit more you know sensitive than to not have anything. um yeah Yeah, no, I completely agree. yeah And back to your point of e you supporting only the top 250 assets that I feel that i already takes some risk away from you having to deal with you know scam coins or meme coins. and because I feel that's where you have the opposite happening, right? You have yeah false negatives. There are a lot of them that, oh, the devs are dogs. Then, oh, look at all this liquidity and locked in these pools. And then suddenly, two hours later, it rugs. So many cases like that.
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah. i mean yeah we vote to To your point, we've only just added Pepe coin, right? So this is this is literally just been added recently to our offering, um as well as you know things like Floki. so and And the reason for that, um aside from the development work to integrate those those coins or the blockchains, is just kind of giving it time to see how these things pan out.
00:30:51
Speaker
Right. And then being satisfied that these things are going to be around and and, you know, not just die. So, yeah, it's important. Yeah. And I feel that's a that responsible way of of doing things, which is which is which is great. um So before I stop to you, you were going to tell me about probably ah one of the other features that you wanted to highlight. Well, yeah. I mean, we have, so we also have, we've just added um well recently we added subaccounts feature as well where people can have you know generate multiple accounts from the same master seed so they can then you know have
00:31:29
Speaker
um They can basically separate their investments. They can run different investment strategies. They can have an account for savings, one for spending, you know one for business, those types of things as well. um We've added the ability, I think across about around five blockchains to browse and store NFTs that you own. um Let me just also go to my app right now.
00:31:55
Speaker
um
00:31:58
Speaker
And yeah, so we've got our staking product as well. um And also, yeah, Wallet Connect. How could I forget that? So you know obviously, a lot of wallets kind of add Wallet Connect because it's a great way to open up the Web3 ecosystem to decentralized apps. But we have um You know, we have a pretty robust integration um across a bunch of blockchains. So we feel that we have what we definitely offer more of a more of a user choice when it comes to wallet connects as well. Right. Yeah. And then one other thing that sets us apart as well as we have a built in social community um where
Savile's Social and Security Innovations
00:32:42
Speaker
people... I did see something like that. I meant to ask you about it. It's that your messenger your messenger feature.
00:32:48
Speaker
Well, the messenger feature is is kind of separate to it, so we have an end-to-end encrypted messenger feature, and that really exists if two parties are going to do a ah trade together, they're going to exchange something together, or they you know they want to talk about something in private, they have the ability to do that. Knowing that it's zero knowledge, we're not keeping any logs or records, we can't see their conversation and it just gives them a chance to have a private conversation before exchanging assets or if they you know maybe they're maybe they met through the platform and they just want to talk about
00:33:25
Speaker
stuff that's happening in the industry and then you know that's also where kind of the community comes in so we've got we give users the ability to post content to engage in conversations um and also for major brands in the crypto space whether it's you know tokens or blockchains or you know who whoever it is to kind of post updates and keep our community informed about what they're doing and have a conversation with them So where to my mind anyway, we're the only self custodial app that has that built in. So we're doing we're doing an awful lot within within one app. It does sound like it. Love to see it. yeah um yeah Is your messenger, is it a ah ah conventional, is it like web two or does it use web three messaging or is is there no need for for that?
00:34:16
Speaker
You've got me there. I think it's conventional. I know it's end to end encrypted. I don't think it's fully web three, but don't, well, I'd gots say don't quote me on that, but you're recording this. So I've quoted myself, but I think it's, I think it's conventional at this stage. Yeah.
00:34:32
Speaker
Okay, cool. Just asking, because I know there's developments happening in Web3 to kind of create a messaging layer, messaging protocol, so you can have end-to-end messages between wallets via DNS addresses or other protocols. and ah they're They're quite interesting. They're still fairly early stage, and they require you to use that protocol in order to send and receive. ah so not as Yeah, we're not doing that.
00:34:57
Speaker
Right. We don't do that yet. Maybe that's something we're looking into. I need to ask the dev team and I can let you know, but yeah. Fair enough. Co. um And what kind of how do you deal with multi-chain complexity? There's a lot of the conversation in crypto from what I'm seeing in the last few months. It's all about abstraction, like layer abstraction, chain abstraction, just making the user interface feel more like, hey,
00:35:21
Speaker
This is web3 and it doesn't matter the chains that you're using and this it this is it. this Go ahead and use it, right? How do you guys deal with that? How do you guys deal with the various chains that are integrated into your app and how does the user interact with them?
00:35:37
Speaker
Well, so because we are a decentralized app, we work with multiple partners, say on the exchange side, on the on the swap side of the business. and We basically integrate, um right now we've got about four four um mainstream partners that we work with to provide the service to our users. And so it's really a case of working with what they have and then integrating it into our front end, into our app.
00:36:06
Speaker
um And yeah, obviously, I mean, the the way that it's gone, it used to be quite difficult to exchange between certain blockchains. And now it's got a lot easier because the technology's improved. um But we have ultimately, I think we our offering is is decks and sex.
00:36:31
Speaker
Yeah, but that's the extent of my knowledge on on that side of it. But we work with people like Changely, Oneinch, and Let's Exchange and companies like this. So yeah, that's how we that's how we do it.
00:36:48
Speaker
That's cool. Okay. So use the various services to to provide this experience for users. um yeah What I meant to ask is, do you do you how differentiate between chains? Like do you have to, you know how you use MetaMask and you have to go through, okay, I'm now I'm using Ethereum, now I'm switching to but Optimism or Arbitrum or whatever. Is the user expected to switch between those or? Oh, I see what you mean. So basically if someone is,
00:37:15
Speaker
ah Buying assets or they're exchanging assets, um let's say it's USDT and they can do that through Ethereum, Tron, Optimism, whatever it is, they they'll see a full list of those of those chains at the point when they're exchanging and then they have to the user has to select.
00:37:34
Speaker
Right. right so the own I mean, the onus really, again, is on personal responsibility and the user knowing what they're doing you know and and not sending assets to the wrong blockchain. But it's it's pretty clear in the app. um I'm not sure if that's what you mean. But yeah, but the users can select it and it's very easy for them to figure out what they need to do.
00:37:57
Speaker
it's It's really, really clear because they have all of the choices, all the different, you know, flavors of USDT or, or Solana or whatever it is. And then they just pick the chain that they're using. Yeah. And then we give them, we give them warnings. We give them warnings to tell them, make sure you've selected the right one, because once the genie's out, we can't put it back in the bottle. Right? Meaning it is lost if you make a mistake.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah. And it's what people should expect with a non-custodial service. Self-custody means that you know you own everything, but you also own your mistakes. So if you do mess up... You own your mistakes. Yeah. And I mean, I don't want to sing the praises of centralized exchanges, but that's the one advantage is that if you... make a mistake on Kraken, you can contact their customer support and they can try to retrieve your coin that's lost in the ether, right? Because they can because it's centralized and they can see this stuff. So yeah, it's exactly as you say. But I think um i think the maximalists, like the the kind of serious users,
00:39:02
Speaker
they want the responsibility. um and yeah And the trade-off of you know having no recourse is worth it for them because they have full ownership of everything, of their keys of everything. And I think that's why it's so it's so popular.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think most the vast majority are happy to accept that level of risk. um Obviously, it would be the best of both worlds. It could be non-custodial and have that kind of backup in case something goes wrong. Maybe one day we'll get there. ah Maybe we won't. Who knows? Yeah.
00:39:41
Speaker
Well, I mean, but you know, but what you can do, again, through the user interface, as I was saying before, you can, you can kind of idiot proof it, right? So if you give people sufficient warnings, and you say to them, make sure you select the right blockchain. And in this case, right that means optimism, Tron, blah, blah, blah.
00:40:00
Speaker
you know, if they still make a mistake, then it it really is on them. So we we you know A, we educate users, B through the through the user interface, we make it really obvious and we give them enough warnings.
00:40:12
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And you could also maybe do a check on the on the fields and be like, hey, this doesn't look like an Ethereum address. Are you sure? Do you i sure you want to send to this address? This looks like a pesos address or whatever. We do do that. Yeah. that's That's part of what we do. I would love to know how much crypto, I'd love to know a dollar amount of the amount of crypto lost to people making mistakes. That would be like an amazing thing to know. How many hundreds of billions of dollars you know from silly mistakes.
00:40:40
Speaker
oh you know it had Yeah. It's probably a crazy number from people sending it to the wrong addresses or for people losing their crypto. I feel like every other month, there's a person that goes dumpster diving for their wallet. Oh yeah, you're talking about that guy in the UK who had $250 million of Bitcoin and it's in a landfill somewhere. That guy. Yeah. Wow. If I was that guy, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.
00:41:11
Speaker
Yeah, I did think the same thing. I don't want to spell it out, but yeah, I thought the same thing. But I think he didn't, he asked the council, he said he'd give them half of it if they let him kind of like excavate the landfill to search for it. I think he did say something like that, yeah. Yeah, he'll never find it. And it's probably degraded. Anyway, the hard drive is probably so degraded, it's not recoverable. It would be a miracle if you were able to recover these coins. It would be an absolute miracle. Like, yeah. yeah The only way that it might happen is by blind luck guessing that seed phrase which the chances of that happening incredibly low but hey not zero so.
00:41:50
Speaker
yeah Well, with AI, this stuff becomes a lot easier now, right? With everyone has access to like such vast compute power. you know And although AI can be used for good, it comes back to what we said in the beginning. It can also be used for bad. So I wonder if AI can figure out you know some some of this stuff. um i think it's I think it's probably not so likely, because it's you know if you're using 24 random words, it's probably not possible. But yeah.
00:42:20
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder if i wonder if it's if it's quantum proof at all or not. I know a lot of algorithms, a lot of encryption algorithms right now are not quantum proof. So if, or when rather, quantum computers are going to become a thing that will create some problems. so Yeah. But then you just add a whole bunch of other ah security layers on you know that that that ah that mean a computer can't get around them because there's a There's like an air gap component or the user has to get, you know, they're using 2FA or something else, you know, as well, which makes it harder. And that's the thing, you know, you've got to, as a user, you have to max out all of your security options and you use every, every security option within the app available to you just to make everything extra safe.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. Actually, a good point, and I meant to ask you about this, how do you guys deal with ah security at Savile, both personal and you kind of talked about the KYT side of things, but just personal security?
00:43:27
Speaker
accounting? Well, um so the users obviously we give them where a lot of these wallets kind of do 12 word recovery phrase, we do 24 words now. So that obviously adds a an extra layer of of security to it. um We have you know biometrics and 2FA and all of that stuff as well.
00:43:53
Speaker
um So it's pretty it's pretty robust. Users can import other wallets into Savile as well if they've got there if they've got their original seed phrases. So it's pretty secure. And then obviously we're looking at improving that all the time. um im I'm not going to talk about ah the other security of you know in terms of the business, because it's I just don't want to go into that. but um fair But the app itself is pretty robust. And then on top of that, you've also got um the native features of the device, whether it's an Apple phone or ah or a Samsung phone as well. So you can um you can make it you know rock solid in terms of safety. Yeah.
00:44:36
Speaker
Cool, cool. That's good. um Obviously, the app is free to use from what I've seen.
Monetization Strategies and Financial Integration
00:44:41
Speaker
So my question is, how do you guys monetize Savile? Yeah, that's a good question. So um we we predominantly make money through through transactions, right? So um when people are exchanging and swapping, and this is obviously outside of, um you know, ah there's obviously the the network fees or the gas fees, which we have no control over at all. Those ah those are standard fees on those on a per blockchain basis. But we work with, as I said on the exchange side, we work with partners and we make
00:45:15
Speaker
commissions on exchanges and things. um And then when you you know you have a large user base, that can become a fairly lucrative. very lucrative business. um So that's predominantly how businesses like ours make money. um You know, you can also, you can look at subscription models where you offer, um you know, so for example, we have sub accounts and we have KYT checks and we can fit for kind of very active users.
00:45:46
Speaker
It might be advantageous to them, you know they might want to have a bunch of KYT checks or 50 different sub-accounts and you could conceivably set up a subscription model where people pay a small amount each month and and they have access to more features. I'm not going to talk too much about it here and now but we are going to be launching a loyalty program fairly fairly soon which will reward users for everyday actions within the app as well. And they'll be able to redeem um points against features within the app as well. So you know making your app sticky, keeping the users there is also a ah good way to ensure that you're regularly monetizing. But we you know we work with multiple partners so that we can offer users the best rates, which is why we do that. um But yeah, we we we do make money from some transactions, not all.
00:46:45
Speaker
Right. Right. That's cool. That's cool. um I wanted to go back for a moment to your, um you've mentioned that you allow people to kind of subscribe to services such as Netflix or, you know, subscription based stuff right through the wallet, which I thought is is fantastic because I've always thought I'd love to be able to subscribe to something with crypto. The problem is there's no processor out there taking recurrent payments. It's always a one payment when you send money once through crypto. So I'd be curious to hear from you how you guys deal with that, like what goes on under the hood.
00:47:22
Speaker
Well, we work with a third party um business. so it's you know And again, because we're a decentralized app, that's just how these things work. we basically um We're basically an aggregator of services. We're ah we're ah we're a front end for a bunch of other services.
00:47:41
Speaker
um And so the way it works with, say, things like mobile top-ups is your your um you're buying a mobile top-up or a subscription, you're paying for that with crypto, and then you have a ah voucher which you then use to redeem on those sites. that's how it That's how it works. It's pretty simple. So if you want to subscribe for a year, then you're paying for the year up front and then just going to that site with the with the information and inputting it and getting your subscription. it's pretty um I think it sounds more fancy than it is, but but what we are doing is we're just making it very easy for people to use those currencies for everyday goods and services, including you know paying for vacations on you know hotels dot.com or whatever it is. um And that's happening in about
00:48:32
Speaker
I think nearly 200 countries or 192 countries, something oh wow like this. So it's it's a truly global service. Yeah. That's cool. that That's cool. I love the fact that, you know, you guys are also looking into like use cases for crypto and not just, you know, storing and hoarding crypto, which is, I feel a lot of the people are obsessed with, but it's also, we forget that at the end of the day, it's a currency and it's meant to be used.
00:48:59
Speaker
so but That's really cool. Yeah. And some of these networks, you know um Tron, for example, Solana, they're obviously a lot faster than, say, Bitcoin, which everyone knows is probably not great from an everyday use case use case perspective from a transaction point of view. um But some of the other blockchains are ah really, really fast. So I think there are some ah I think the future there for everyday payments is is is really quite interesting. Yeah. Oh yeah. I wonder how long until crypto overtakes Visa in terms of volumes and stuff. I feel like it's only a matter of time.
00:49:42
Speaker
Yeah, i so I noticed a Visa, they did, there was some data they released because they had a, they did have a Visa card that you could link to crypto. But I think it only accounted for like two and a half billion of their of their um you know turnover.
00:49:59
Speaker
But um but i know I know MasterCard, for example, are looking heavily into that space and how they ah they can tether. they're They're much more open, they're much more receptive to um to working with crypto businesses in kind of tethering mastercard product to to to use as wallet addresses right or ah you know at least having a system where you can exchange one currency for say USDC and then your USDC is tied to a mastercard and if you do a search on the web you'll see many
00:50:33
Speaker
companies are starting to offer, um you know, debit cards that are linked to people's crypto wallets. And I think this is a huge part of the future. Oh, yeah. um You know, there's I think it was Capital One, they've got some really compelling data around the number of what I think it's something like $16 trillion dollars of digital payments are happening globally.
00:50:57
Speaker
And crypto at some point is going to become a ah decent percentage of that. um you know And we're heading to a place where users, there's going to be but about um you know at least a billion wallets in existence in the next couple of years. right yeah not Not just wallets, but users with wallets.
00:51:16
Speaker
So I think the whole space is going to open up. and And, you know, the beginning of our conversation, we were talking about these ETF products. And, you know, what they've done is they've kind of given some credibility to crypto in ah in a way from a financial um institutional perspective. But what I think what we're going to continue to see is the convergence of TradFi and DeFi, because I think it's it's actually necessary for these two kind of verticals to overlap and they are overlapping because people want, as people want to do stuff with their crypto, the only way that can really happen is if is if that's happening in conjunction with the with the traditional financial economy, right? Because you have to ultimately buy stuff with fiat and debit cards operate using fiat currencies. So you you have to
00:52:09
Speaker
the two verticals have to kind of converge at some point into one big financial system. And so that means there's going to be a lot more ah regulation happening. And I think it also means there's going to be some pushback from the maximalists who want to keep certain things outside of the ah traditional system as well. But it's going to get very interesting.
00:52:29
Speaker
It will be very interesting and and I completely agree. I feel like the the future of this is probably somewhere in the middle. It can't be fully you know centralized, but it can't be fully decentralized either. I feel both sides, like we were talking before, have their advantages and disadvantages. so kind of I feel its it's converging in that direction and completely agree but between the overlap of those two verticals. so um What do you think about the future of the wallet industry or wallet as a service? What do you think that might look like in the next two years? Crypto wallet or digital wallets in general? I think let's do both. I think that's interesting distinction.
00:53:10
Speaker
Well, based on the data that I've seen, the growth is is just, like, staggering. i kind of I wish I could pull it up, actually. um Yeah, i so i think I think it's going to explode. I think you've where it gets interesting for me is you've got, you say, certain parts of, say, Latin America or other parts of the developing world where you've got the unbanked population that don't have access to finance.
Digital Wallets and Financial Accessibility
00:53:36
Speaker
um But yet they have mobile phones, right? Right digital digital wallets are really important because you can you could not have a bank account and Yet you can have a digital wallet and someone can send you crypto and you don't need a bank account for that, right? So it's it's opening up finance to To kind of people from from developing from the developing world. So I think it's going to explode I think I think also you've got a scenario where if you're in, you know, you're a FinTech customer like Monzo Revolut, whoever it is, Starling Bank, New Bank in Brazil.
00:54:18
Speaker
but you're also using crypto, right? So you've got your, you know, you've got a whole bunch of custodial and non-custodial accounts. You've got this situation where you're bouncing around from app to app to app on your phone to do one simple transaction. And I kind of, I think people are getting tired of this. This is like, I call it app fatigue, right? So I think you're going to see um Again, it goes back to convergence. I think there's actually the market is driving this need for but like apps to kind of come together where you can do many things in one place. um And that that seems to be being played out when you look at, you know again, companies like Revolut are offering crypto and all obviously all their fiat services as well. So I just see everything coming together and digital wallets exploding.
00:55:13
Speaker
And you know, so many people now just anecdotally everywhere you go, you go to a coffee shop, people are just tapping their phones and paying with their, with their phones, not knowing that what they're doing is actually using a digital wallet. So I think it's going to become, um, the way that everything happens. Yeah. Yeah. These wallets are going to ultimately hold all of your assets and you will live your everyday life through digital wallets. Yeah.
00:55:41
Speaker
Yeah. So do you have any plans on supporting digital wallets yourself then? No, as far as I know, we don't. I mean, we are, we're definitely looking into ways to make it easier for people to do stuff with their crypto for it to have utility. So that does mean, you know, some overlap with our traditional finance world. That's probably all I can say on that. Yeah. I mean, we are looking very closely at things.
00:56:10
Speaker
um Yeah, because i think I think in order to be competitive, we have to evolve. And if if the market is going that way where people want to spend their crypto and tether it to a debit card, let's say, then that's something we have to look closely at. Yeah. Right. Though though you can top up, I guess, your your crypto wallet with... You can buy via credit card or bank or Right now, yes, actually, that's a good point. I missed that. um So not only can you buy um with your credit card or your debit card, or you can you know buy via a bank transfer, we also give users the ability to sell crypto and send the fiat back to their bank card right now.
00:56:57
Speaker
um So it's two-way, and that's that's also something we added fairly recently, and I wish I remembered to say that earlier, but yeah. But we do that we do that as well. yeah No, that's cool. so i mean So yeah, we are already integrated to ah to an extent you know with on-ramp and off-ramp with the traditional financial world. So we're decentralized. um But obviously, with regulations now, um for money laundering purposes, if you're if you are looking to off-ramp or on-ramp with our provider we work with, you have to do um a level of identity um verification.
00:57:39
Speaker
But only at that point, otherwise it's a fully decentralized service where you're not you don't need to do that. yeah You can exchange without doing that, for example. and And I feel that's reasonable and that people should expect at that level of identity checks, like for sure. yeah Especially if you're doing large amounts, right? I mean, if you're sending six figures to your bank account, it's not reasonable to think your bank or someone in that chain is not going to want to ask questions about where this money has come from. so Oh yeah, 100%, 100%. So then let me ask you something um on the feature of Savile itself rather than crypto wallets. um What are maybe features or interesting applications or or use cases that you're planning to support within the coming, let's say six months to one year or anything in particular that you would like to to tease at this current moment?
00:58:32
Speaker
Well, I kind of hinted with probably what we are going to launch a loyalty program at some point soon, which I think um is important because it's a way of giving back to our most loyal users. um And I think we are definitely looking um closely at ways for users to have everyday utility of their crypto assets. um And that's probably all I'm going to say on that right now. Yeah.
00:59:02
Speaker
but gonna I think we want to make it easier. you know we We already make it easy for people to exchange, to buy, to sell, to stake. um and But that's that's kind of all within the decentralized ecosystem, all within DeFi. We want to make it easier for people to use those assets in in everyday life as well. So we are we are looking into into specific products that will help us do that yeah without spelling it out.
00:59:30
Speaker
Cool. That's all I need. That's cool. I feel like you guys are working on creating some solutions that are adding to the current level of of usability of crypto in the space. um Yeah. And I think something like that's needed and it's good to see it. And it's great to kind of hear your progress on this. One thing that I didn't ask that I meant to and I completely forgot is how long have you guys been on the market?
00:59:55
Speaker
Because it feels like it's a, it's a, you know, how you have, I guess crypto products that have evolved in, in stages. Like you have every cycle. There's like a new paradigm and it kind of feels like Savile combines all these more recent ah developments into a, it feels like a more recent product is what I'm trying to say. It comes out of a more recent philosophy.
01:00:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's absolutely correct. So the company was founded in 2018 and twenty eighteen and we we launched in 2020.
Savile's Launch and Technological Evolution
01:00:22
Speaker
So the business is you know the the product is four years old, the business is six years old. um So yeah, that's quite quite and quite intuitive of you to kind of um pick up on that.
01:00:32
Speaker
so yeah it is The product is born out of a necessity, right? Looking at all of the previous wallet applications and what we felt was missing or what they needed to add. And and that's that's really what Savile represents, yeah. Sweet. um And in closing, do you have any um socials that you'd like to let people know of or any specific links that they might want to ah go to?
01:01:02
Speaker
Sure. Well, we have a website which is Savile, S-A-V-L dot com. um We have a Twitter channel which is at Savile underscore official.
01:01:15
Speaker
um And that's probably it for now. Yeah, we do have, we you know, one thing I'm going to say is there's potentially, we' we're kind of waiting on something very exciting that's about to hopefully happen. um And I will drop you a note when we've confirmed that. um I can't say more than that right now, but it's it's pretty exciting. So ah maybe maybe you'll have me back on another time, but I'll i'll i'll send you an email to confirm this when it happens.
01:01:46
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, I'd love to. um It'd be my pleasure to have you on again in the future. kind of dis Sorry for the cloak and daggers. Sorry to be so. yeah yeah It's all good. I get that there's there's something good in the pipeline and yeah I'd love for you to come back on again and and just talk through it once it's once it's live out in the open. Thanks, Andre. Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. Awesome. Thank you, James. had ah had ah I had a great time and wish you a lovely rest of your day, hopefully with loads of sun.
01:02:16
Speaker
Well, I've got to work, but yeah, I can see it out the window. That's, that's good for me. It's better. Sweet. Awesome. Take care. Thank you. You too. Bye-bye everybody.