WBD373 Audio Transcription

Lightning Series: Why Bitcoin is Global Money with Jack Mallers

Interview date: Friday 16th July

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Jack Mallers. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.

In this interview, I talk to Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike. We discuss the Lightning Network as a medium of exchange, the power of open networks, and how the Bitcoin rails change remittance.

“Never before have we had a monetary network that all you need is an internet connection and by plugging in and operating on the same standard you’re natively interoperable with everyone else in the world on it.”

— Jack Mallers

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: What's up, brother?

Jack Mallers: Yo.

Peter McCormack: Yo.  How're you doing, Jack?

Jack Mallers: What's up!

Peter McCormack: What's up!

Jack Mallers: I am fantastic.  Better that I'm talking to you now.  I'm glad, first of all, that you're healthy, you look happy.  My sweet, dear Pete, my Bitcoin boyfriend, my film-making mate was in pain, so I'm happy you're healthy, buddy, and it's good to be here.

Peter McCormack: Thank you, brother, it's good to have my back back to normal.  Give me a few weeks and I'm going to be back travelling and I'm going to be making more films and doing cool shit.  But it's becoming a regular thing now; we talk a lot at the moment. 

Jack Mallers: Yeah, we're like best friends.

Peter McCormack: I know.  Well, no that's Dylan, dude.  I can't be as well.

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  The last time we spoke was obviously the big El Salvador reveal and such.  Because you do these with video, I just recorded one with Preston and his has no video.  So, just for everyone at home, the reason I'm looking to my left is because that's where Peter is but my camera's right here.

Peter McCormack: They think you're looking at notes.

Jack Mallers: Yeah, they think I have a cheat sheet or something, like I'm taking a test.  I just wanted to say that I don't know how really to remedy it, because I could look here but then I'm not looking at Peter.

Peter McCormack: You need to put the camera over the computer.

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  Should I try that now live in real time?

Peter McCormack: Do it live in real time, let's fix this.  They're going to go, "Jack's looking at his notes again".

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  It's my actual laptop though, so this may get messy.  But this is what it's about, this is podcasting in real time.

Peter McCormack: There we go.

Jack Mallers: You get to see my water bottle and my fruit juice.  Okay, so now the camera's below where you are but at least I'm now in the relevant direction.

Peter McCormack: Do you know what?  The funny thing is there's no notes on this one because nobody knows, I haven't told you what we're going to talk about.

Jack Mallers: I know.  I've got to get a haircut.  Bitcoin community, I've been so busy.  Really toss this back, we're going to put the hood on.  Let's go!

Peter McCormack: Let's go.  I did an interview the other -- I look like a fucking moron, I'm too old for this.  I did an interview the other day with Lord Fusitu'a, I always can't say his name right, the guy from Tonga.  I went online and the dude, he didn't have his top on because he's in hospital and he's covered in tats.  So, I took my top off and I did my first topless one.  But I think I look more of a moron with my hood up.

Jack Mallers: It's what the cool kids do, man.

Peter McCormack: I'm not a kid anymore, man.  I can't do this.  Anyway, brother, listen, I'm doing a Lightning series; I did this whole Lightning month.  I can't even remember when it was, ages ago, a couple of years ago and then people keep asking about Lightning.  I'm doing a Lightning series and I can't do a Lightning series without talking to Jack Mallers.  So, here we are, man, how are you; how is changing the world going; are you on top of your shit; how are you doing, man?

Jack Mallers: I'm great, I'm great.  I was born to do this.  I don't know if I'm changing the world, but I'm certainly trying to be as helpful as I can and build cool software.  I hold very, very, very strong opinions, as everyone knows, and I like to stand behind and work towards them.  So, another day, another dollar, man.  I'm just thankful to be alive right now, honestly, while Bitcoin is changing the world, and playing my small part.

Peter McCormack: Fascinating times, man.  Listen, one of the things I've talked to people about, a little bit about Bitcoin, I've been really fortunate to travel the world with this job.  I think I've been to 30 countries, maybe 35 countries.  One of the things I think sometimes Bitcoin has missed is if they're just sat in the UK or in America, they don't understand the different use of Bitcoin in countries which are in a different economic situation.  They don't understand about the different requirements with regards to security, they don't understand how much money they have, how on-chain fees will affect people, certainly in economically-challenged places. 

So, when we look at El Salvador, you and I have spent a lot of time discussing El Salvador; we were there together and you explained to me the whole project you were working on with Strike.  We discussed everything that's happening with the President and stuff that was happening with the writing of the Bill.  But realistically without the Lightning Network, what's happening in El Salvador wouldn't be possible, this couldn't have been done on the basechain, right?

Jack Mallers: Yeah, of course not.  Hopefully, the general public knows now, but the base Bitcoin blockchain wasn't optimised for what El Salvador is trying to accomplish, which Strike is trying to accomplish; it's not optimised for cash finality.  Bitcoin is a bearer instrument, it's natively a digital-bearer instrument, but the base blockchain is optimised for achieving consensus, being able to instil a hard money monetary policy within a distributor network, perform a financial service without the need of trust. 

Then if you can build a base blockchain that is optimised around robustness, security, an ability to scale infinitely no matter your wait-and-see or hardware requirements and be ultimately inclusive to anyone joining, then in theory you should be able to scale protocols upwards in layers. That's what we saw at the internet and that's what we're seeing with Bitcoin. 

So, for those familiar with Bitcoin, its initial intent, how protocols scale, how the internet's scaled, everything is going according to plan.  Obviously, unfortunately there's some disagreements and debates along the way, but from a super high-level Bitcoin is absolutely crushing it.  And Lightning allows this bearer instrument to have instant, relatively free, global cash finality.  It's not a coincidence that all of a sudden a country like El Salvador has a particularly keen interest in that.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  It was a real eye-opener for me travelling there, because the thing about the Lightning Network, it's something I touched on a couple of years ago, but I was never using it, I had no need for it.  Just being an ignorant westerner, I kept thinking, "Well, why do people care about the Lightning Network?  I'm happy with the basechain.  I tend to use it for transactions over $100, usually thousands.  I'm doing invoices, I'm paying off some bills or paying off certain contractors.  I've got no need to spend a couple of dollars on Bitcoin".  So, my whole time I had this nagging doubt that we didn't need the Lightning Network. 

Then I head over to El Salvador and I don't have any cash on me but I've got my Bitcoin wallet.  Everywhere now accepts Bitcoin pretty much; I think there's one restaurant that doesn't, so whether I'm going to buy a coffee down at Garten or whether I'm going to buy a pupusa, I didn't even have to worry about dollars.  I was using Lightning Network and that's when it hit me, "Oh shit, this is why.  It's all the worth being front-run for these use cases, for all these places where people need it".

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  The mental model that I use that I think is actually tremendously helpful is trying to abstract any particular use case and understand.  I fundamentally believe that the Lightning Network is one of the more impressive advancements for money as a technology in human history and trying to isolate that concept.  Then, why would someone like Starbucks be interested in Lightning; why would a country be interested in Lightning; why am I interested in Lightning?  It all starts to make a little bit more sense when you understand the high-level concept and how it's moving money as a technology forward.

Never before have we had, first and foremost, an open monetary network.  Traditionally, we have the Visa monetary network, the Square monetary network, the PayPal monetary network, the SEPA monetary network, the ACH monetary network.  Never before have we had a monetary network that all you need is an internet connection and by plugging in and operating on the same standard, you're natively interoperable with everyone else in the world on it. 

Never had we had a monetary network that can achieve physical bearer instrument clearance without any intermediaries, without any sense of credit; that requires a natively digital bearer instrument that is Bitcoin.  That is a precursor requirement to having that experience.  Never before have we seen a monetary network able to achieve final clearance in cash finality physically as fast as this monetary network.  Never have we seen one being able to clear as cheap, which could be literally free. 

So, all of these things encompassed, now you have a monetary network; it's the fastest monetary network on the planet; it's the cheapest monetary network on the planet; it's the most global monetary network on the planet; it's the most inclusive monetary network on the planet; it's the only monetary network that works for every single individual on the planet given a simple internet connection; it's the first open monetary network on the planet. 

So, by plugging in and being interoperable with it, all the MIT professors that are really working hard on cryptography are now working for you.  Jack Dorsey and his Bitcoin work at Square is now benefiting you; Coinbase going public benefits you; Jack Mallers sitting in the women's closet hacking on Strike benefits you; Bitcoin Core developers in London benefit you.  You get these inherent network effects and economies of scale that you simply can't compete with; open networks are generally exclusive but monetary, but just throughout human history, open networks defeat closed networks.  We saw that very clearly with the internet as the last blatant example.  We're starting to see this now with the world's first open monetary network. 

If you just look at that concept in isolation, you say, "Well, how can those advancements…" those are very clear, defined advancements for monetary networks that we've known prior, 20 years ago before I was born, so where can they be applied?  Well, if you have a country like El Salvador, this is a country where over 70% of the population, active population, doesn't have a bank account, it doesn't have a monetary network; they operate strictly on cash.  Now, all of a sudden, they have native access to a monetary network out of the box, given a mobile device and internet connection.  Boom!  That's huge.

All of a sudden, you have a monetary network that can achieve physical bearer instruments, some of it without any intermediaries, so without Western Union.  You're now talking about a country that's heavily reliant on remittance; that's a huge deal.  Now you're talking about a country that's tremendously under-resourced compared to the developed world; they don't have MIT professors, they don't have engineers at Square, they don't have a women's closet in Chicago.  But, by plugging in to this open monetary network, they gain all the network benefits of all of those things.

Now, you're starting to understand, okay, well if we just encompass and take a high-level look at why this is such a tremendous development and advancement for humanity, why it makes a lot of sense for El Salvador, but also for a large retailer like Dunkin' Donuts.  Dunkin's Donuts right now gets charged 300 basis points by Visa to achieve final clearance.  The Lightning Network charges zero basis points to achieve final clearance.  So, in theory, it would make a lot of sense for them to entertain it too; it would make a lot of sense for cross-border payments; it would make a lot of sense for everything.

Peter McCormack: Dude, when I used to travel and travel a lot, I used to always just take my card and maybe there were better ways to do it, maybe I could have withdrawn some money and paid cash and whatever.  But everywhere I went and I used my card, I'd have a fee; there's a fee that they charge to the recipient.  Say I'm going to Starbucks, they charge Starbucks a fee for me to be able to pay with a card, but I was also paying an international fee and it was maybe 50 cents or a $1.  Every time I swiped my card, it used it.  When I was in El Tunco, just down the road from El Zonte, I was with -- I can't remember his name.  What's the name of the guy with the coffee shop?

Jack Mallers: I think it's Luis.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I was at his place.  So, I go and I'm having a coffee, there's four of us having a coffee and I pay for it.  My fee is whatever, that low sat number, significantly under the amount that Visa charges the retailer and also charges me. 

When I went out there, we were talking a lot about remittance.  This is going to disintermediate the remittance market but actually, in some ways, this is a massive threat to Visa over a long enough timescale.  They've lost part of my business.  Think about this: I'm going back out to El Salvador in August and I'm taking my Lightning wallet.  Yeah, I'll have some dollars, but every time I buy using my Lightning wallet, I'm taking business away from Visa.  I'm just one person, this is very early on.  But as this grows, this continues to take business away from Visa.

Jack Mallers: Yes.  It should, in theory, dematerialise all existing monetary networks over a long enough timeframe.  Like I said, exclusive of monetary, exclusive of Bitcoin, over a long enough timeframe any open network should defeat all closed networks and swallow them up. 

But let's break down what you just said.  So, it was cheaper for you to perform that financial service.  Why?  Because again, there's a plain and daylight innovation in achieving bearer instrument finality.  You know when you make a Visa transaction, the amount of intermediaries and settlement parties that are included in your pounds going from your Visa card to the Starbucks acquiring merchant, there's a lot. 

Visa can't charge ten basis points, they'll be at a loss.  There's so much fixed cost in balance sheet flow and credit issued in order to achieve that sense of finality and for them to assure Starbucks that transaction's going to clear.  Now all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we're able to achieve bearer instrument finality, physical finality peer to peer.  In theory, that reduces the cost to a couple of sats or near zero. 

Another really interesting innovation from the story you just told is that there is a monetary network where a barista in El Salvador was somehow interoperable with you and you're from the UK.  How is that possible?  They couldn't accept Visa there, they didn't have a card processor.  I was in Tunco, there wasn't a card processor there.  They couldn't be interoperable with the Visa network, but they can with Lightning Network, because they had an internet connection.

Peter McCormack: The phone.

Jack Mallers: And a phone.  It was the most inclusive monetary network available and, by plugging into its open standard, you didn't have to go and submit an application, you didn't have sign an MSA with some other business.  All they did was download a service that allowed them to be interoperable and it didn't have to be the same service you were using.  Maybe you were using wallet A, they were using wallet Z; you were using the green one, they were using the pink one; you were using the heavy KYC one, they were using the cypherpunk one.  It didn't matter, it didn't matter.  There is just broad daylight innovation. 

The reason Strike exists is I developed this mental model of working on the Lightning Network for such a long time and I was, "Oh my god, this is humanity's moving forward with money as a technology".  Lightning has nothing to do, in my opinion, with why I think its key proponents and values as a network with Bitcoin being a capped supply, it has nothing to do with how often blocks are mined, it has nothing to do with this hard money, savings technology, gold. 

I'm a huge proponent of that; I own Bitcoin and save in Bitcoin.  But let's do away with that for a second.  We're talking about plain monetary network innovation.  We're talking about achieving physical cash finality with anyone in the world; a cheaper, faster, better, less intermediaries, more inclusive, my open than anything we've ever seen before.  It is honestly unbelievable.

The point of Strike is can we make use of it without Bitcoin the asset?  Can I allow you to use a Visa debit card or a bank account or any collateral on top of this new rails of money?  All the way back to your point of, "In the beginning of the Lightning Network I wasn't really using it"; I don't blame you.  The experience wasn't good enough and there wasn't enough of an insight that we can just make use of the network and make an experience on top of the network beautiful without succumbing you to, "I don't want to spend my Bitcoin, I save in Bitcoin.  I don't want to spend it.  I want to deal with taxes, I don't deal with accounting.  I don't want to have to load it up onto a channel, I just want to link my chequing account, scan QR codes and let this new monetary network make all of my financial life cheaper, faster, better, more global, more inclusive". 

So, that's why Strike exists; that's the insight I had.  Now I think more broadly, people are starting to value the Lightning Network as an independent monetary network in its advancement for humanity in that sense.  It should, at times, be divorced from Bitcoin the asset in this digital, gold, hard money principle thing.  Hopefully that made sense but I think that's a perfect example.

Peter McCormack: It does, but I'm thinking forward as well on that, Jack.  Excuse the analogy, but I'm thinking of El Zonte like Wuhan; Wuhan supposedly the place where the coronavirus started.  It starts there and then another cluster appears outside of China, another cluster appears in, say, Italy and then this thing just spread globally. 

Based on what's happened with El Zonte, I've had a lot of emails.  I went to Guatemala; I met the guys there.  They were, "Well, we want to do that here.  We want to do that on the Lake here".  I've had people get in touch and say, "We need that in Lebanon", I've had people get in touch and say, "We need this in Tanzania".  I'm starting to think that the great thing about the project in El Zonte is telling people, "This works, this is happening". 

You jump forward and I think, "Well look, two years' time, I might be going on one of my little travel routes.  I might be going to El Salvador, then Guatemala.  I might hop into the US and then might hop over to Africa, go to Nigeria and Ghana".  I could go from place to place and all I have to have with me is a Bitcoin wallet.  I don't have to think about a currency in every single location.  I don't have to worry about getting money out, I don't have to worry about my Visa card.  I can genuinely see a time where I can travel the world using Bitcoin. 

The really interesting thing is I know people who are doing that already but what they're doing, they get into a country and they're trying to find someone who'll buy some Bitcoin from them.  We can actually get to this point where it becomes this global currency.  That to me is absolutely fucking fascinating; that's to me how we get this hyper-bitcoinisation. 

I was talking to Ben in Planning for this and the place we came to is the basechain narrative of Bitcoin as a store of value totally works, it totally is, it's totally a saving thing like you said.  But the base narrative for the Lightning Network is where Bitcoin becomes this medium of exchange. 

Jack Mallers: Yes.  I'd even very subtly rephrase, "All you need is a Bitcoin wallet to travel the world".  I think all you need is a service that allows you to be interoperable to travel the world.

Peter McCormack: Okay.

Jack Mallers: What I mean by interoperable, for those at home that don't understand that term, it's being able to speak the protocols, being able to speak the language.  When you want to make a Visa transaction at Starbucks, your Visa card allows you to speak Visa's language and say, "I am authorising money to leave my Visa card and enter Starbucks' point of sale system".  You're speaking Visa's language. 

You just need a service that allows you to speak the Lightning Network and whether that's Strike, whether that's BlueWallet, whether that's Wallet of Satoshi, you can just have a service that allows you to speak the language.  In theory, you're interoperable with the rest of the world and it's an open system, so there are X amounts of wallets and services and developers today, and there's more tomorrow and there's more, and it exponentially grows because everyone's working on the same open thing.  I think that that's beautiful and there's a lot of merit to…

Another thing people don't understand is what this does for the free world and the free market.  Imagine walking into Dunkin' Donuts and there's an open, interoperable QR code, it's a Lightning Network QR code.  You can scan it with any app you want, you can build your own wallet that's super private and you name it and scan it.  You can download Cash App, you can download Coinbase, you can download anything you want, because it's the power to the consumer and it's a totally free market environment. 

So in theory also, the optionality is going to be exponentially internet; it's a more beautiful world and I think that's where we're evolving towards.  Right now, when I walk into a Starbucks, if I were to ask the guy next to me, "Hey, how are you paying for the coffee?" he'd be, "Fuck you.  Like, you're a fucking asshole.  How the fuck do you think I'm paying for the coffee, you moron?  I have a Visa card.  What do you have?" 

Peter McCormack: I know!

Jack Mallers: It's a monopoly.  When I go out and check out, it's Apple Pay, it's Visa, Mastercard.  Those companies know when I order my Uber what coffee I got, all that stuff.  Now, when I walk in, there's an open, interoperable QR code and I ask the guy, "Hey, how are you paying for that?"  "It's a great question", "Oh, did you see this one on GitHub?  I follow this guy on Twitter.  I'm a big fan of Jack Mallers.  I really believe in Jack Dorsey at Cash App.  I built my own, it's running over Tor in my basement".  What a beautiful world.  What an amazing world where the power's in the consumer.

I think yeah, Visa, all these things, anyone that's trying to achieve monetary network settlement, there's a new king in town.  Get with it or get out of its way in my opinion; it's an open network, so it's not going to really wait for anybody.

Peter McCormack: I am making the assumption that Apple Pay is going to add a Lightning wallet at some point or a Bitcoin wallet.

Jack Mallers: Everyone needs to.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.

Jack Mallers: Everyone needs to and the beautiful thing about an open system like this is that's good for Strike.  Traditionally, Apple Pay comes to the market; it's subtractive for Venmo and Cash App.  Why?  Because if I'm using Apple Pay, I'm not using and I'm not interoperable with Cash App.  My Apple Pay doesn't talk to my Cash App, my Cash App doesn't speak to my Venmo, my Venmo doesn't talk to my friends in Germany that use N26. 

In an open network, every new network participant is additive.  It's a new QR code we can scan, it's a new system participant that Strike can integrate with.  At the end of the day in an open system, and I've said this over and over again, it's the best experience and the best brand that wins, not the biggest company that has the most cash in their balance sheet, that got there first and has the ear of the Federal Reserve's Chairman.  That's not how this system works. 

This system's open and I, out of a women's closet, can be as competitive with Apple who's got $1 trillion on their balance sheet.  It's about who understands the protocol better, who's willing to invest in a better experience and who is willing to build a better brand.  That's how we think about things at Strike and that's why I'm really excited for everyone to come, because everyone's going to come, it's going to increase adoption, it's going to increase services that my users are interoperable with and I'm willing to bet that I'm going to build a better experience and better brand than Apple when it comes to the Lightning Network.  I think I can and I think I will.

Peter McCormack: There's an interesting point on that.  Look, I think you will but there's an interesting point on that as well.  I was just talking to Greg Foss before this, and I'm trying to catch up on my interviews because I've had some time off, but he was saying the brilliant thing about the network effect of Bitcoin is that Bitcoin is now a better investment right now at $32,000 than it was at $1,000.  A lot of people don't understand that. 

When you were buying Bitcoin at $1,000, the network wasn't as big, the number of tools weren't as big, Lightning Network wasn't as developed.  You look where we are now.  It's actually a far safer and better investment now at $32,000 than it was at $1,000.  It doesn't seem logical; it seems expensive, people get scared of the price.  But actually right now, Bitcoin has achieved so much since it was $1,000 it is a better investment.

Jack Mallers: Yeah, I think it depends on the context and how you define "better".  There's obviously less upside mathematically.  Now, is there enough upside to justify it?  Yeah, you and I both know that.

Peter McCormack: We know that.

Jack Mallers: You and I both know this thing could trade at $500,000 before this calendar year's over, who knows.  That's totally possible and at some point it will.  I don't know when, but it will.  There's plenty of upside left, but I think what he means by that is it's less risky.  Every day Bitcoin goes on, every new block, it's not going to die.  If it's not going to die, it's not going to be worth $30,000.  It's very binary; it's either going to change the world and dematerialise money as we know it or it's going to zero.  As more engineers, more institutions, more regulation, more everything, you suddenly realise it's not going to zero  So, how long are you willing to wait for it to change the world?  The answer, growingly with the world population, as long as I'm alive and as long as my kids are alive and as long as my kids' kids are alive, of course. 

Also, there's a point to make too, Peter, that money is the most viral product of all time.  People don't appreciate that.  Money is one of the rare products in the world that everyone on the planet uses and everyone on the planet faces the same problems.  To your earlier point on how big the world is and the difference between El Tunco and Chicago, is so overwhelming sometimes and that information isn't widely distributed.  Well, the world can be that big and money is one of the rare products that we all share; all share to an intimate degree and we all are affected by the monetary expansion of central banks; we all are going through the fiat currency experiment; we all are longing for a savings technology that can persist our wealth and really justify and verify the time we spend on the planet and the labour we give to the world. 

Money is the most viral product of all time.  No one downloads an app more than if they're getting money for it or if they have access to better money, if they have access to a better investment.  I don't give a fuck what hot girlfriend I knew on Facebook, I don't care who wants you to download Twitter; money is the most viral product ever.  Yeah, I think that's a subtle point that can be missed sometimes too.

Peter McCormack: Dude, listen; if I make a trading show with Willy Woo, those numbers go through the roof because people want to know how to make more money.  If I make a show about how to run in Lightning node, you know it's going to be less.  Naturally, people care about money, they care about their own financial position, but there is now an incentive for people.  Because, there's a lot of people who are still missing out on the Bitcoin gig.  There's still a lot of doubters, still a lot of detractors, still a lot of enemies trying to fucking attack it; but every year, the network grows bigger and every year it grows stronger.  I think right now has never been a better time to really start digging into the Bitcoin story.

I just did this long interview; I just spoke to Dylan over it.  I don't know if you know Dylan LeClair of Bitcoin Magazine.  He's written this brilliant article covering Ray Dalio's theory on How the Economy Works, the video.  He came up with this great quote because he said, "This financial, fiat monetary experiment is failing.  We have 400% debt-to-GDP ratio globally.  There is going to be a great deleveraging".  He said, "In the future, the debt jubilee will be known as hyperbitcoinisation". 

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  I don't know, man.  I think I've said this on this podcast before: my favourite thing that my step mum does, Bitcoin mum, is she'll ask me, "Why did the price go up?" or, "Why did the price go down?"  The real answer is, "Some days people buy more Bitcoin than they sell and that means the price in theory goes up, and sometimes they'll sell more Bitcoin than they buy and that is when the price goes down".  It doesn't need to be more complicated than that. 

I think the same about this general topic, that Bitcoin is the best money mankind has ever come across; we built it with our bare hands.  That's another under-appreciated point; it's the only money that we built with our hands from scratch.  We designed it to be perfect and it's the only time we have been able to do that.  Being perfect involves being digital; being perfect involves being ultimately inclusive to everyone on the planet; being perfect involves defined scarcity; being perfect involves known issuance; being perfect involves divisibility; being perfect involves ability to audit and identify and not trust and verify, all of these things and we built it with our bare hands.  It is, in fact, factually the best money of all time.

So yeah, whatever, whether there's this GDP/debt ratio, whether COVID blew everything up, to my step mum's point it's, "Oh, did you see what Saylor tweeted?"  Or maybe it was because Elon Musk is in a bad mood, it's, "Listen, Brooke.  Either people bought more Bitcoin today or people sold more Bitcoin today, but it doesn't matter" and, "Whether COVID did this or Trump's the president or Biden's going to pay for my little brother's college tuition by printing money, it doesn't matter", because over a long enough timeframe, the best money wins; money's a viral product and it's an open network and an open system and it's inclusive to all and it's arguably one of the most disruptive things that's ever been introduced in humanity.

I think, yeah, pick your winner.  Sure, it was this GDP/debt thing, whatever, I don't fucking know.  But you know what I mean?

Peter McCormack: I do, dude; I do, dude.  But I feel sometimes I have to try and get it through to people what's going on, because there are only going to be winners and losers in this debt jubilee.  I hope the winners are the people who are going to be holding Bitcoin and the losers are going to be the ones who are going to avoid it during the great deleverage and that is coming.

We can't cover this topic though without discussing remittance as well.  I want to get a little bit more into that, because there's a viral effect with this remittance thing at the moment.  You've introduced Strike into El Salvador.  It is a tool for remittance; you can send dollars from the US into El Salvador for free, instantly, and avoid a number of the problems of having to get off your couch, get a bus, go to a remittance service, have the security risk of picking up your cash.  There's so many benefits, but the main benefit is that you can send any amount at any time, free and instant.  It destroys the use case of these vulture remittance companies.  What's happened off that?  The viral effect. 

I told you I got an email from somebody from a country today that said, "We need Strike".  Hear, hear.  We've had the guy in Tonga talking about 41% of their GDP is remittance.  Who was the other one?  Lebanon at the moment; people in the Lebanon say, "We need Strike".  Everyone is saying, "We need a tool for remittance which is going to offer this free and instant sending of cash".  But ultimately, these poorer countries which rely on remittance, it's going to increase their GDP, it's actually a beneficial tool to the government as well.

Let's talk about how you've achieved this.  Let's talk about what it is that you can do with the Lightning Network to change remittance.

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  So, revisiting why we think it's this monumental advancement for human history, and this money is technology, is that we're able to achieve physical bearer instrument settlement in less than a second and at virtually no cost, there's a few reasons why that's so important. 

First, let me just walk through the user story.  I'm a United States user and I have my bank account linked to Strike.  Let's say there's Peter, who's in the UK, he has his bank account linked to Strike as well, or is using some other application.  What we're able to do because of this new monetary network is, when I want to send Peter $100 and he wants to receive that money as pounds, what's going to happen is Strike's going to take the $100 out of my bank account, live convert it programmatically to Bitcoin in a way in which it can be usable as the most efficient way possible on top of the Lightning Network. 

Then it's going to send that Bitcoin across an ocean into a new jurisdiction, into a new border, new country in less than a second and at no cost; no intermediaries involved; no fees involved.  It achieved final clearance not like credit was issued, like a physical bearer instrument that carries real value that is Bitcoin, it's digital.  It actually landed physically as if you were to close your eyes and you're watching this Bitcoin walk across the ocean in real time and get to the UK, but it happened in less than a second, it happened for free. 

Then we can convert it right back into pounds, because this digital bearer instrument is global, it has a liquidity profile in any currency you could ever dream of, so of course I could trade it right back into pounds.  I give it to Peter and all of a sudden the dollars that are sitting in Chicago at Chase became pounds in Peter's Barclays account instantly and at no cost.

Another really important thing to note is that Visa, for example, another very popular monetary network, they charge traditionally 2.9% per transaction to achieve clearance.  That 2.9% may be on a $500 transaction.  What about a $10 transaction?  Is it still 2.9%?  No, it's way higher.  What about on a $1 transaction?  Is it 2.9%?  No, it's probably 60%.  What I'm getting at is that there are fixed fees and necessary intermediaries that exist in the legacy system that price out a smaller economic goal.  It's very, very, very important to know when it comes to remittance. 

When it comes to all of these countries, the remittance size of payments to and from El Salvador is $100.  When you're, "Oh, I just sent money from the US to the UK over transfer wires and they only charged me a percent or two, what's the big woop?"  It's, "Well, if you were to try and do that with $10 it wouldn't be a percent or two".  For these people, the average income in El Salvador in the town Peter and I were living in was $300 a month.  $100 remittance payments make or break your month and the fees, because of the fixed cost associated, can exceed 50%; that's huge. 

Not only do you have a monetary network that can achieve physical settlement cheaper, faster, better, more global, it's a bearer instrument, so it's physical and it could be traded in and out of any currency.  You don't have to touch Bitcoin, you don't have to be exposed to the volatility, the taxes.  You don't have to sell it, because you think it's going to go up; you're just using this new novel rail.  But this new novel rail also opens up a new economy of remittance, because I can send a $1 remittance payment now, I could send a $10, a $100 remittance payment now, I could stream remittance, I could send $1 every second, I can get my pay cheque streamed to me. 

All of a sudden there's a new concept that there is no MDR, there is no interchange, there is no intermediary and fixed costs associated with achieving clearance.  All of a sudden, that's solved and the world opens up, the world gets a lot bigger.  And a lot of these countries, of course they're interested.  If I'm a sitting president, these are some of the biggest problems I have to solve and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, here's one of the greatest inventions in human history for money.  Wow!  It's not a coincidence.  People are, "Whoa, what happened in El Salvador?  Do you feel lucky?"  I say, "I feel lucky, blessed, humbled" but also at the same time you have to carry the confidence, this was supposed to happen.  There was a lot of hard work that went into this and this makes sense; it's validating.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, it is, but for you it was a lightbulb moment, because I don't think anyone ever really thought about using the Lightning Network as a payment rail like you had at that point.  People were thinking about the Lightning Network as a way of sending sats to each other, not as a way of sending pounds to dollars and dollars to pounds or pounds to yen.  It was a complete rethink of how you can use the Bitcoin network.

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  I told this story before.

Peter McCormack: I know but I love it, man.

Jack Mallers: The whole thing is really amazing.  I had a girlfriend at the time, I'm now very single and maybe one of the reasons I am single is because I was so obsessed with Bitcoin and this is what I was doing while we were in Paris.  But we were in a hotel in Paris and I had this insight out of nowhere; I was, "Oh my god". 

For context, I was working on Zap which is this open-source Lightning wallet.  I'm 27 years old now.  I'm coming up on a decade of being involved in Bitcoin, so I am so intimately familiar with this asset; it's my entire life.  I've given my entire life to Bitcoin and I plan on giving the rest of my life to Bitcoin, so I know it like the back of my hand.  I've spent so much time working on the Lightning Network, working on the protocol, understanding Bitcoin and I had this lightbulb moment where I was, "Hold on a second.  What Lightning actually achieves is the most impressive open monetary network of all time". 

Yes, it's cool that Bitcoin's digital gold and stuff but is there a division between the two and can I build a financial experience akin to a Venmo or Cash App but just use a more efficient monetary network?  Where Cash App is ACH plus the Square network and Venmo is ACH plus the PayPal network, can I build ACH plus the Bitcoin and Lightning Network?  If true, that will be the biggest, best financial experience in the world and I will help usher in one of the more upsweeping disruptions in money services as we know it.

I was sitting in a hotel in Paris, sketching in this notebook and my girlfriend at the time was really mad at me and then later dumped me.  But I kept going and then I convinced my team.  There's a whole bunch of funny stories.  I convinced my team we were doing this hackathon with Square, which was kind of true.  Square was interested in what I was working on; they were always trying to hire me.  So, I convinced them, "Please believe me, this is a huge deal".  We hacked together Strike, I wrote this blog post and then the rest is history.

But it was this really novel insight that maybe Lightning, as a monetary network, is extraordinarily disruptive in its own unique ways when compared to existing monetary networks; it's not simply a way to make Bitcoin on the basechain move quicker and make sure that your withdrawal fees from Kraken are not that bad.  Actually, maybe there's a lot more to this story.  I don't know how I got that lightbulb, but it was in a hotel in Paris with my ex-girlfriend.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, she fucked up.  I spend a lot of time in America, we go out for dinner or drinks and people are always, "Oh, I'll just Venmo you the money".  I'm, "I don't have Venmo" and they're, "What do you mean you don't have Venmo?"  I was, "I'm in the UK.  We don't have Venmo".  The way I always explain Strike to people is essentially, with Strike you've built an international Venmo, you've built a borderless Venmo.

Jack Mallers: Yeah, well Lightning and Bitcoin is a borderless, open, interoperable monetary network and all Strike is -- again, the decisions we make internally as a company, some of the culture that we have is based on two things: are we bettering the experience, are we bettering the brand, and that's it.  The reason is, all Strike attempts to be is one of the best experiences on this open monetary network, but the key insight is that there's not a Strike network and we don't want there to be.  Not only have we built an international Venmo, but also we do talk to the second version of Strike, the pink version of Strike, the blue version of Strike, the cypherpunk version of a Lightning wallet and the corporate version of Lightning.  We all speak together, because we're all on the same open standard which is so explosive and so powerful.

Imagine if your Revolut wallet could talk to your Cash App?  You'd be able to have access to X amount more users, X amount more currencies, X amount more efficiencies, but they're not on the same monetary network.  Cash App's on the Square monetary network, Revolut's on the Revolut monetary network.  What if we all move to the best monetary network of all time?  The other interesting thing, Peter, is that these companies don't want to move and there's a reason; they're not dumb.  Another thing is I write all my blog posts in broad daylight.  I do these podcasts very, very transparently; I don't hold a secret.  I'm a man, I wear my heart on my chest, I wear my heart on my sleeve, whatever that saying is. 

These companies don't want to leave because PayPal's company value, corporate value, public market cap is the value of the monetary network they've built.  By succumbing to the fact that there's a better one, an open one and one that a kid in high school can build a wallet on and that when I walk into Starbucks, I can use a 13-year-old kid's wallet as I can use my PayPal, and maybe his wallet's cheaper, maybe his wallet is pink, maybe his wallet works better in my home town; I don't know.  All of a sudden, I'm opening myself to a tremendous amount of competition, it's a race to the bottom and the value of my proprietary PayPal network went from $300 billion to zero overnight.  They're not even incentivised to move over, but it has to happen eventually. 

The way I see Strike and why I'm so open and aggressive and flagrant at times is because I'm calling your bluff, I'm calling your bluff, I got you where I want you.  Your back is against the wall in the corner and I don't even have to try.  The craziest thing, Peter, I'm the only wallet in this field, compared to the Cash App and Venmo, let's say Cash App, Venmo, Revolut and Strike: every one of the CEOs tells everyone else, "Take the year off"; everyone at Cash App, "Don't write another line of code"; Venmo, "Don't write another line of code"; Revolut, "Don't design anything else.  No more customer support"; same thing with Strike. 

I'm the only financial app that will be better by the end of the year; everyone else will be worse.  How?  Because my monetary network gets better every single day.  Lightning Labs is working on it and my key professors are working on it, this company's integrating it.  My product gets better without me working on it because I'm in an open system that's shared and collective, and open networks come with network effects and economies of scale.  All these other services cannot compete with it and so I'm waiting for them to succumb and resign.  It's fun, I'm having a blast and that's how I think about things.

Peter McCormack: What are your limitations, because I've seen Strike in action, I've been there.  I've seen you use it; I've been there in El Salvador with you.  But like I say, I must have had at least ten emails from different countries with people saying, "We need Strike, we need Strike".  What are your limitations to getting this truly out there and global?  What are the constraints for you adding countries because I think people listening, especially people listening in more economically challenged places or places that rely on remittances, they're going to say, "When can we have Strike?"  So, what are the physical limitations of you guys just going, "Go this week"?

Jack Mallers: It's like doing anything.  What's the limitation of you being with a six-pack and benching 400 lbs?  You've got to get there and you've got to start lifting and then get to 1 country, get to 10, get to 100.  It just takes time to execute, it takes great people, so very actively hiring.  Compliance is a huge issue.  One of the problems with the segregation of the world, that it's different borders, different religions, different cultures, different monies, is that it's really intensive to integrate 200 different things. 

When we launch in Europe, we'll make a significant leap and we'll go from 2 countries to over 30.  Then we do the UK and then we go through South America, Central and whatever we go about, it just takes time and it takes people to execute these things to enable a great experience and a great brand.  You can't just snap, turn it on, like in the USA there's ACH; in the EU there's SEPA.  In El Salvador, they're not banked and so it doesn't matter what banking rails I try and integrate.  I actually need to build 200-plus cashpoints physically with my bare hands to touch the unbanked and ensure that those operating on a cash standard can get liquidity.  But in this country it may be different and require a different licence.

All that's to say you know me, I am the most relentless force of all time.  I stop at nothing; nothing will get in my way.  I will die on this hill and so I'm working on it very actively.  You can see I'm making progress, but it's not necessarily a very trivial thing to accomplish and it doesn't really help that we're first; there's no framework on how to do this.  It requires flying to El Salvador and doing what we did, and then I'll probably get on another plane soon and do it all again.

Peter McCormack: Dude, I've watched you play one-on-one basketball with your best friend.  What was that team, where were we?  Can we say, are we allowed to say?

Jack Mallers: Yeah, Indiana Pacers.

Peter McCormack: I don't know if I told this last time we spoke.  We were in the Pacers' training centre and it's you, Dylan and who was the other guy who was there?  There was the three of you.

Jack Mallers: Xander.

Peter McCormack: I'm going to tell this.  I know Jack's competitive as fuck, but they're playing one-on-one or one-on-one three-way.  I don't know basketball; I don't know how you call it.  Anyway, playing away, having their game and then the guy who's the coach said, "Right, next basket wins.  If we have a win, we play 5-aside.  Next goal wins".  Fucking Jack that second turned into the Incredible Hulk version of a basketball player and he had to win, man.  I know you, you competitive fucker; you're going to do this.

Listen, look: sweet, you're on it, you're going to do it, you're going to roll this shit out.  I believe in you.  I know you're going to do this.  I know you're going to get this Strike thing rolled out everywhere.  I want to have it here in the UK; I need it, because I want to be able to send money back and forth across to my friends over in El Salvador.  I want to be able to send them some dollars as well some Bitcoin. 

But I also want to talk a little bit more about the future of Strike.  There's a lot been going on; you've made a couple of announcements since I've seen you last.  To me, Strike was an app to send pounds and dollars to each other, it's to send money abroad.  But you're also a Bitcoin company, you've added in Bitcoin Buyer and you came out there pretty bold, pretty hardcore, blog post talking about adding in essentially zero fee Bitcoin Buyer.  Talk to me about your strategy there, what you're adding in to Strike, what that meant, what your attitude was, because it was a pretty bold and typical Jack Mallers fuck-you blog post.

Jack Mallers: Yeah, I love it, I live for this.  The announcement is that we're going to let you buy Bitcoin just like you can at Coinbase or Cash App, Kraken but we're not going to charge anything outside of the cost it takes us to execute, which is most traditionally just the market spread.  Right now as of talking, that's just around or below 30 basis points, so 0.3%; and if things go according to plan and just generally speaking, the way the terms go as we scale our numbers and as more people use it, we outboard people off the wait list and we make it public, then that drags itself very close to zero, well below 0.1%. 

The reason that's the shot heard round the world is traditionally, buying Bitcoin for a retail investor can be on Coinbase upwards of 4%.  So, you're talking about fees that are -- that's a sharp, sharp decline.  But the meaning behind it carries a ton more depth and I feel like I'm playing chess versus people that think they're playing Bingo.  Here's the meaning: in the first quarter, Coinbase had $1.8 billion worth of revenue and 94% of that was charging fees to acquire digital assets.  Sure, they had a million digital assets, but it was almost all Bitcoin.  And so, the 4%, 3.9%, 2.9% they're charging users is their entire business.  That's the point I'm trying to make; without it, they wouldn't have a functional business. 

To understand markets, open markets, selling open-source money, but generally looking at the equities market before Bitcoin existed, it's a race to the bottom.  You cannot have a defensible business that charges 4%, because someone's going to come along and charge 3.9% and the next guy's going to come along and charge 3.8%.  You saw this in the equities market; now executing an equity trade is free.  That's called Robinhood.  Those that thought they were building a defensible business by charging 4% to Barclays, now they aren't in business and Robinhood is where everyone goes to buy. 

Anyone with a brain cell knows that, okay, and so you started to see that.  You started to see Cash App come in and they didn't charge 2.9%, they charged 2.5%-ish.  Venmo came in, charged 2.4% or 2.5%-ish.  Swan Bitcoin comes in and charges a little less, River Financial comes in and charges a little less and you're starting to see the free market work itself out.  But instead of me coming in and charging a little less, I went straight to zero.  I want to explain this point.  I'm sorry, I know I rant; it's going to be longwinded but I think it's really important.

Peter McCormack: Do it, man, do it.

Jack Mallers: So, why did I go straight to zero?  A bit like, "Jack, people are going to buy on Strike.  You should charge 10 basis points.  You should charge 50 basis points; it'll still be cheaper than Coinbase and it'll be cheaper than Cash App.  You can make some money".  No.  This is a chess move, this is a point I want to make flagrantly to the Brian Armstrongs of the world. 

Peter, the biggest companies on the planet are open network companies.  What that means: Facebook, Twitter, Google.  What do these companies have in common?  Their open network is the internet.  They operate on an open network that's ultimately inclusive to all and all it requires is a simple connection and they have access to their products.  That allows these companies to have the biggest target audience in the world, which is the entire planet, which is the global population.

The reason Facebook can be so big is because everyone on the planet in theory can have a Facebook account and now almost everyone does.  I think Facebook's user growth is into the billions, same with Twitter, same with Google.  If you look at the worth of one individual user on a Facebook, it's not worth the same as a PayPal or a Cash App or a Chase Bank.  No, but they have more of them because they're an open network company.  Open network companies have a target audience of eight billion people and that is an inherent property that makes them unbelievable.  That's why there is this giant sweep of internet companies, because you can build one product that can be used by eight billion people, never seen before on the internet, ever.

Now, the problem that these open network companies have is that they don't have a native business model.  Mark Zuckerberg appears in front of Congress two times a quarter; everyone hates the guy.  Facebook's brand is terrible, Twitter's brand is terrible, Google's brand is terrible.  Why?  Because the only business model they've been able to manufacture comes at the cost of the relationship they have with their user.  Their user is the product.  They have to sell private data, they have to go against their privacy policy, they have to constantly apologise.  They have a terrible brand and it's limited the companies' upside; it's limited their ability to grow.  What you're now seeing with Twitter Spaces and Twitter Tip Jar or Facebook getting into cryptocurrency or now Google, is they're trying to fix that.  They're trying to re-establish the brand and the long-term viability of their business and unwind the fact that their very user is who they abuse to make money. 

If you take a Cash App, for example, they have the opposite problem; they have a great brand, so good that rappers rap about them and wear their fucking clothes.  The reason they're not bigger than Facebook is because their target audience is a very select group in the US and in order to reach eight billion people, it's infeasible to scale the Square monetary network that big, okay?  So, I say all that to say here's a high-level view of how these bigger companies operate and I'm like this macro trading analyst and I'm giving everyone free advice.  That's how to think about it.

Let's look at Strike.  This is why I think Strike will be one of the biggest companies on planet Earth and it's not because I'm super cool or our CTO's super smart, although both of those are true; I'm like the coolest mother-fucker ever, everyone knows that!  But the reason is because we are an open network company too.  What's our open network?  Bitcoin and Lightning.  And that I can build a product that can be used by all eight billion people.  Yeah, it may take me 12 to 24 months; that's not a lot of time.  Strike's already growing incredibly fast and so, I am an open network company, similar to a Facebook, similar to a Google, similar to a Twitter where I can build a product accessible by eight billion people.

However, I'm a financial services firm, I know how I'm going to make money.  I don't have to sell user data; I don't ever plan on appearing before Congress.  I don't ever plan on surfing with an American flag on 4 July, like Zuckerberg, and becoming the most hated man on the planet.  I actually think Strike will become one of the more powerful consumer brands on the planet, because we have the business acumen and profile of a financial services firm, like a Cash App, and we can build a brand that's tremendously powerful in line and incentivised with our users.  But we are an open network business like an internet company and we have access to all eight billion people. 

All that to say, Bitcoin enables companies to be that disruptive and be that big.  The biggest companies in the world in five or ten years will be Bitcoin companies because they'll be open network, internet-like companies, but financial services firms who make a ton of money because the value of a single user is known, how to make money on them is known and it's incentivised.  The biggest retailer in the world is using Strike's API to process payments and we charge them 10 basis points compared to Visa charging them 300.  We're making money, they're saving money, our users are getting more rewards and having a better experience.  Everyone wins, everyone wins.

Now, all this long rant to say Brian Armstrong, he fucked this up big time.  He just missed it, he missed this opportunity and it shows a very fundamental lack of understanding of why Bitcoin's important, how Bitcoin was going to scale, how the Lightning Network works, why it's the best monetary network on the planet, why it's going to usher in this disruption and how the ultimate scalable business model of a financial Bitcoin company is charging the biggest retailer in the world 10 basis points versus Visa's 300; that you cannot charge and live on 4% for retailer by Bitcoin because it's a race to the bottom and it's going to go to zero anyway.  Buying Bitcoin on an app is a feature, it's not a business; it's a competitive market, it's a race to the bottom and you saw that in the equities market.

So, what Brian Armstrong somehow did to his own fault, and that's why I'm calling him out, is he tried to replicate the equities market.  He found his business advantage as, "I'm a first mover, I was here first, I had the most licences.  Sure, Jack, you can sell Bitcoin but I sell Algorand coin and Pink coin and LeftSock coin and BarbecueChicken coin and so you can never compete with me because I built this regulatory moat and this first-mover advantage". 

What he's done is he's built proxy long positions on altcoins which make no sense, he's replicated the equities market and he doesn't understand everything that I'm saying.  What I'm doing obviously I'm building a great experience, obviously I think the best financial experience is you should be able to acquire Bitcoin in many ways for as cheap as possible.  But more so what I'm doing by expediting this race to the bottom to zero, maybe Brian Armstrong thought he had three to five years to figure this out.  Well guess what, dude?  You've got three to five weeks and you're fucked.  It's like The Big Short, I'm calling you out.

Now, I'm building a leveraged long position on Bitcoin being the true innovation of cryptocurrency, that digital scarcity does have value, that altcoins are implied on intended inflation to the asset class and that if you have one million monetary networks that aren't interoperable with each other, all you've done is recreate an inefficient monetary network system that we already have today and it doesn't develop any innovation.  I'm making a bet that Bitcoin and Lightning are the innovation and they are going to last, altcoins are going to die and that my business model of using efficient better monetary network and using buying Bitcoin for free as an acquisition is going to margin call you. 

I'm pawn to E4, your move, because I think you fucked up.  I think you recreated an equities brokerage and you didn't learn anything from the past and you didn't take the time to understand Bitcoin.  The same brand that Mark Zuckerberg has that's so tarnished, now you have.  Bitcoin core developers hate you, bitcoiners hate you.  You have to act against the best interest of those that built this very industry by listing shitcoins and going against everything that we always say and all the forks that were going to break this industry, you have to support because of the fundamental flaw which you built your business on and you fucked up.  It's been long enough, I'm sick of it and I finally got old enough in my mid to late 20s to build my own company and call your bluff.

Peter McCormack: I'm not sure I'll follow that up, Jack.  Dude, you called him out in our first interview we did in Boston.  What was it three years ago, two years ago?  You called him out then and you're calling him out now.

Jack Mallers: Hey, I was like a teenager; I'm older now.  I figured it out and now I have a product and a brand and I'm doing it the right way.  Strike's fundamentals: how can we do the IndyCar thing?  Why is that a good business move?  It's because I'm building a brand.  No wonder Saquon Barkley calls me when he needs advice, no wonder a president calls me when they need advice, because I have the leverage to act in the best interest of Bitcoin or else, frankly, I would shut Strike down if I ever fucked that up.  I'm a bitcoiner before anything else.  Who's not?

Peter McCormack: You're going to kill PayPal, Coinbase, Western Union, you're going to crush them all?

Jack Mallers: Listen, I'm a competitive guy like you said on the basketball court, so I'm always looking to win, no matter what I do.  But I think I'm building the biggest company on the planet; I think it's in our DNA.  I think all of these Bitcoin companies will eventually be this big.  It's like, internet companies enabled this new massive uprise in business because of the open network property.  The one flaw it had is none of these companies have an inherent business model. 

Bitcoin companies get to retain open network property but get the business models of financial services firms and, in theory, the more people who understand this, the more companies will be built, the more people will build financial services firms on top of Lightning as opposed to building their own on-chain network, the world will be efficient, the world will evolve, disruption will happen.  This is how humanity works and it's why human beings are different to other species.  I think Strike is in a great spot and I'm very confident about that clearly and I'm willing to bet on myself over and over again.

Peter McCormack: Dude, I wouldn't bet against you.  I've played chess against you and you can play with your eyes shut, and you could beat me 100 times in 100 games.  By the way, did you win the chess.com tournament?  I'm assuming you did.

Jack Mallers: I didn't play.  I was in the middle of all the El Salvador stuff, unfortunately.

Peter McCormack: Listen, that's a great way to finish it.  I love talking to you, man.  I miss you.  Hopefully, I'm going to see you soon.  I'm back now in health.

Jack Mallers: Ended it with a huge typical rant where I talk for five minutes straight!

Peter McCormack: And shout at Brian Armstrong!  I'm going to be back out in El Salvador in August for a couple of weeks.  I'm going to be coming back out to the US, I'm going to come and find you, wherever the fuck you are and we're going to catch up.  We can talk about Bitcoin, we're going to go and eat, going to see Dylan, love you brother.  Just keep doing this, man.  Appreciate you, everything you're doing.  Keep crushing it.

Jack Mallers: I love you too, buddy.  Thanks for having me as always and I'll see you when I see you.  Stay healthy.

Peter McCormack: I'm healthy, man.