 Welcome to Digital Asset News. Take a top story in crypto and bring on a bite-sized piece. Today, just as the thumbnail suggests, Solana is looking to do some pretty amazing things as an integration with the Brave browser. Also, I'm going to take a look at New York Mayor as he says that, hey, we should be teaching more about Bitcoin and blockchain. We're going to take a look how Bitcoin has surpassed Tesla and is really rocking up in that market cap spot. And finally, we'll take a look at Zimbabwe as there's rumors that it may adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. So we'll take a look at all those things. But first, let's just talk about the elephant in the room, which is Simon U is here from Stormpex. What's up, Simon? Hey, great to be here. Thanks for the invite. Sure. So here's what happened, everybody. So what we're going to do is we're going to just do a quick interview. And then me and Simon were talking about it. I go, hey, man, why don't you just stick around and just talk to the news with me because you have more of an insight as a real insider. And he said, sure. So let's just do that. Huh? All right. So here's what we got. First of all, let's take a look at what's going on the market. Simon, this one is trade that changed. This is Alex Massioli's project here. And it says 2.88 trillion, but I think it's a little bit higher, somewhere around 3 trillion. Did you ever think we'd hit 3 trillion by this early in this bull cycle? I didn't think it would happen this early. I mean, yeah, I think everyone's surprised, right? But all the institutional funds start coming in. And this is, we haven't even really started coming. And once we get a spotty TF and more of these traditional sort of capital coming in, I mean, that's why I'm so bullish still, even with all this, everyone thinks that this might be the top. And we're going to see a three-year bear market coming soon. But if things get approved on time, and I do know from a lot of family offices and VCs, they're definitely feeling the FOMO and pressuring their, the LPs are pressuring their firms on like, why can't we get into crypto? Why can't we get into crypto? And there's still a lot of money out there. There's a ton of money. See, these are the things that I'm not privy to. That's why I'm glad you're on the show to really back what I've been thinking, which is these different home offices and different LPs and different entities, they probably get pushed and say, hey, we should look into crypto. But I just hear the stories, but I don't really talk to those people. I'm guessing that is what it is. And it's good to actually hear. Cool. I like that. Let's see here. You know what's funny is that in the last 24 hours, Solana, even though that that great news we just about to talk about, it's still in 24 hours is down half a point. Crazy, huh? Yeah. Let's take a look. So here's what we got. So this is what is happening. So Solana is looking to add tens of millions of users by becoming the native blockchain of the Brave browser. First of all, Simon, do you use Brave, use Chrome, use something else? What wallet do you use when you're going around shopping besides, of course, Starbucks? Yeah, I use Brave and both Chrome. Sometimes MetaMasker integrations, like one works better than the other. Brave in terms of privacy and stuff, it is better. It is. So now imagine this. Now you have all these millions of people who use Brave, and this now becomes the native blockchain of Brave browser. Wasn't it basic attention token before that? I thought there, yeah, I wasn't sure if they're actually building a blockchain or not. But I mean, it's great news. Solana is, you know, it works. It's fast and it's scalable. I think on the UI front, they're upgrading, they're spending a lot of time on that. But I mean, with, with just a few months, I think that'll improve quite, quite a month. Yeah. Phantom will already, you know, doing a great job on that, but it just launched like a few months ago. So, but Solana works. I love it. You love it. And I think, have you guys used it? Have you guys tested it? We have tested a bunch of layer ones. And I mean, we've got them. There's definitely pros and cons. When you look at sort of like 2017, like the ICO, like crowdsale boom, you know, other than ETH, there were some chains like Quantum that were really popular and attract large seller that attracted a lot of capital and companies to start building on it. Yeah. But the issue was like, it was really tough for exchanges and wallets to get integration with some of these chains. And the tokens that launched on Quantum or Steller, for example, they couldn't get any liquidity. And so when there was no liquidity, all the users got pissed off because they helped like, you know, $40,000 of whatever token that was built on Quantum. Yeah. And it was faster. It was like, you know, ETH had like 10 or 20 TPS and Quantum had like 40 or 50 and it was like double, you know, the speed, et cetera. And the CEO was really compelling. He was like, hey, you know, for all the projects that were trying to come on, like he was saying that like, hey, Vitalik is never going to jump on a call with you and help you work through some of these like situations by building on ETH. But I am call me at 3am. I'll pick up the phone. I'll get some devs to help like sort out stuff. It's a very attractive deal. That's why a lot of companies started building on it. But in the day, if there was no liquidity, like, what can you do with the token with your product? And that's why everyone started migrating back to ETH again. And we're sort of in the similar situations because ETH has been around the longest, like exchanges and wallets. And, you know, I think everyone in crypto that has a consumer facing product is trying to deal with a user experience problem. Just like, how do you get, how do you make this even simpler for people to try to, you know, dumb it down and get as many normal people in as possible using your product. But if it's not ETH, it becomes that much harder because some of the wallets and infrastructures are not set up yet. Suck. I mean, you've used Phantom Wallet, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome, right? You can, you can, you can use it. It's super fast. It's intuitive. And also you can actually see your NFTs in it. Yeah. Yeah. That is pretty cool. But yeah, it again goes down to like, how easy is the app to use? And, you know, like, can you just use a username on the Phantom Wallet rather than like a, you know, text? And I think those stuff will probably come soon. And then if it becomes as easy as Venmo, and that that's when, you know, some of these later ones are going to start really popping off in terms of usage. Perfect. Yeah. And just like now, now it's going to happen. And it's all about liquidity and marketing and getting your name out there. Well, as long as you're going to do this and they become, you know, that backbone of Brave, 42 monthly million users, I don't see why this price won't go up. But I guess time will tell. I think it could be a big thing. What do you think, Simon? I think we could see some price appreciation just because of utility. I try not to talk about price. I mean, like it's hard, right? Because I definitely think the usage is going to go up significantly. But at the end of the day, if Solana is like gas fees or like, you know, like three cents to send a transaction, why do you need $100,000 worth of Solana? And, you know, so I think price and, you know, like utility are two different things when you look at layer ones. I think for layer ones, like if there's a better incentive to hold it, well, and for Solana, there's a good staking mechanism and, you know, being a validator and etc. And so that's, that's also good. And if there is more usage and I think more VCs and more, you know, capital on the institution side, we'll start picking it up. So yeah, I mean, I do think it's bullish overall for sure. But we've also seen bullish overall. Layer ones. Bullish overall. Yeah, but layer ones that don't have a product or, you know, anything launched being like straight up, you know, it just keeps going up for no reason. And a lot of crypto speculation still, unfortunately, so it's hard to predict. It's all speculation until you get a massive option. And here's how you get it, I think. You get somebody like the new, the, the mayor-elect Eric Adams saying, hey, we should start to teach about cryptocurrencies and digital assets in schools. And this guy is like a huge bull. And when he said, when he was running, he's like, look, if you elect me, I will make New York the epicenter for Bitcoin and crypto. So what do you think about this one, Simon? Good news, bad news? Or do you think people are going to fight them all the way? I think it's great news because New York as a state is one of the hardest places to run a crypto business because it's a bit licensed, right? And if he could do something about that, I think there will be a lot more crypto companies that are building from New York because it is the financial capital of the world. And, you know, there's going to be a lot of talent, a lot of great, you know, smart people starting to build. I know a lot of people have avoided New York for that reason, but it'd be great to get, you know, education in like a high school course that's straight up about Bitcoin or blockchain because it is the future and something that we need, but to get, you know, younger kids educated so they can start building from a technology perspective, right? And I think you'll notice this with me. It's like I'm more driven by like people trying to build rather than like price speculation more than anything. I just get excited if there's, you know, a 16-year-old that wants to build a next blockchain company instead of wanting to, you know, do something else in tech, for example. Sure. So here's a question before we go to the next one and talk about Market Cap and Tesla. Where'd you grow up, Simon? Which state? I grew up, you know, half and half Portland and Seattle, so possibly in Oregon. Yeah. When you went through school, was there any kind of education as far as like, I mean, STEM, STEM products, STEM projects, and also for finance. When you went through, did they do anything of those types of things? Or was it all after school projects? Yeah. So I'm a very anti-school person. Like, I'm a very like, if I didn't have to go to school, I would have not, you know, just because like everyone learns very differently. Sure. And I was, you know, going to talk about this too. Like, I mean, like certain classes, I understand very fast, like math always just came to me right away. And, you know, like high school, for example, like I just understood a subject that we were going to learn in like five minutes and just were able to skip through the textbook. And then I got so bored that I started playing a lot of tattish on my calculator and I always got in trouble. So I was always that kid that went to the hallway, you know, and I had to raise my hands, you know, kind of thing like, you know, because I was, you know, screwing around according to my teacher, but I always ace every exam. And so, you know, like my teacher, one of my four teachers recognized and he just didn't care, but the others scolded me. But at the same time, like certain subjects, like it didn't come to me right away. And I asked a lot of dumb questions and I asked, you know, because for me, like knowledge is like, I'm just really curious about like stuff all the time. And, you know, just everyone's pace is really different. And then there's a great video on like how people learn by Mark Rover. He's a YouTube, you know, like the former NASA guy. And it's like, when you put a video game with like one guy, you know, like, he ran a test of like hundreds of people were like, there was a score that how well you performed versus there was no score. And at the end of the day, the people that learn from the no score category learned a lot better than the people that had the score, for example, so it wasn't created by like A or B, C or stuff. But it's just, you know, and like, are you like, yeah, so for me, like, I think the education system needs to be a little bit changed. But the important part is people still need to be aware of it, you know, aware of crypto and blockchain. Well, sure. I just because because my big question is, are we, are we teaching the right things in school to actually get get to set up the kids for success? I think finance is one of those things. And of course, if we're not if we're not really pushing the forefront as far as like the STEM projects, then what is the whole point? Right. And yeah, it's just, I mean, like definitely like basic finance, like how do you do your taxes or in high school? And I've actually like spoken a lot about this too. And like local meetups and stuff is like high schools should have a category where people come in and say, Hey, like if you're thinking about this college, and you're going to be, you know, taking a student loan for $200,000, this is what your monthly payment is going to look like. And you're going to have a very miserable life. So you might want to think about going to college, or you might want to think about starting to apply for every scholarship that's out there in the world to try to, you know, you know, get your way or, you know, like try to get a job that might provide you on the financial side of things. If you are going to take a huge debt, like, and be aware of that, because right now, like you're allowing an 18 year old that doesn't know much about life to make decisions that could impact you for more than a mortgage. And that's why our generation has a hard time buying a house or a car, you know, all these things. And the gap just gets worse and worse, because you're so in debt. And I personally went through that, you know, experience of having a $1,000 a month student loan and it was miserable. Yeah. No, no, we all went through it because we were never taught the things that we were supposed to be taught, right? Because we thought, oh, well, we're just going to learn about, you know, social studies and history. And that's great and everything else. But as you kind of get out in the world, you're like, man, I didn't really do anything. And before you know, you're like, I'm super in debt. And how do I get out of this debt? And guess what? There's a there's a shrinking job market. And guess what? There's this thing called inflation inflation. What the heck happened to my money? And before you know, you're like, what investments and assets? I don't understand all this stuff. And you're like, where's all my money? And then it's just a big snowball effect. And now you see that huge layer of people who are kind of under kind of suppressed. And here we are. It's unfortunate. Robert Kiyosaki thinks it's intentional, like that system's trying to keep people poor. So they have to work in, you know, mindless jobs kind of thing. And it is an interesting thought in terms of why it's built like this. But yeah, I mean, there definitely needs to be more awareness to help people as much as possible. Well, it worked pretty well for like, but like the industrial age, I mean, think of that like, like in factories, you go there, you sit or you work and you're in this one little cubicle and you work, then just the same thing as school. Anyhow, that might, that might be a little bit off topic of what we're just talking about. But I think it's more important than some of the things we actually are. Now let's, here's what we'll do, son. Let's let, we'll finish up on these two and we'll get the good stuff. So Bitcoin surpasses Tesla market cap. And I don't, there's nothing really to really say beyond the actual headline, but it is amazing though that to where Bitcoin and the crypto market came from to being laughed at and as a joke, to actually being on the forefront and actually being talked by senators and congressmen and women and actually, you know, presidents of and of nations and actually being legal tender to where we are right now in 2021. So to think of like it's, it's past Tesla and it'll probably at some point surpass meta, whatever you want to call it, as far as Facebook, I think it's a step in the right direction. What do you think still? Yeah, definitely step in the right direction. It's still early, right? I mean, the fact that individual companies are still valued more than Bitcoin. What is really the future of money? We're still early. I mean, should be definitely be higher than gold because it's got so much more practical use cases and there is a finite supply and more continuous getting lost. So there's, you know, it is depreciated. The supply is decreasing in a way. But like you said, just like entire countries, I mean, we first started off this year with companies starting to adopt it in their treasury, because about now we have entire countries like El Salvador just starting to put their treasuries. I mean, it's just the beginning, right? There's still 195 countries in the world and you start getting every one of these and the best part about Bitcoin and crypto in general is typically for like a VC or like a public company, the VCs and all the great like the sort of the insiders get the best rates and then the public can only consume once like the price is really high after, you know, for example, but in the case of Bitcoin, retail got in first, institutions are coming in last and then they're buying, you know, sort of our bags kind of in a way. But that's why yeah, that's why it's created so much more wealth for the average person than it has from any financial capital out there, which is it has leveled the playing field. It's just been amazing. Yeah, and it really comes down to like you just talked about pushing it into mainstream, but then utility, what does it actually do? Does it actually serve a function? It can actually be used, which of course leads us into our last or second to last story, Zimbabwe to potentially adopt as legal tender. Now, don't everybody get worked up as you're watching this. This is just hearsay per se. According to a local news station, country wants to make Bitcoin a legal tender. Zimbabwe government intends to meet the high demand of digital assets. This is by a recent statement by retired Brigadier Colonel Charles Wickwetti, member of the government's technology unit. And then he says, there are presently holding talks with consultants and businesses as to this effect. And then he talks about how the government's still wary of illicit activities and drug use and front running for terrorist acts and so on and so forth. But if we get a second country in just this year alone, how much would that actually lead to the legitimacy of crypto and digital assets? And oh yeah, it actually has utility. What do you think? Absolutely. I mean, the entire country adopting Bitcoin as legal tender is amazing. I think we're going to see more from an institutional side first, like before countries start adapting it, because US and it's going to anger US for sure if more and more countries start coming in. And I think we've already seen IMF trying to cut resources off to El Salvador for the Bitcoin thing, right? So yeah, there's definitely more behind the lines in terms of politics. And it's going to be tough for I think countries, unless they're in a complete sort of desperation state where they have to. But from a corporate side, I definitely think it's coming like more and more companies will start adopting it for treasuries, etc. And yeah, I'll see this exactly right. And this never would have happened if it wasn't for the lighting network and the actual to be actually have it as utility as an actual cryptocurrency. Because I remember when I got in 2017, we kind of figured out that the store value narrative it worked. And the currency narrative didn't work at all because there was such a huge network congestion, lighting network, and it changed all that for that layer too. So as we talk about utility, let's just talk about a little Storm X, because if we're talking about utility, this is one of them. And everybody's watching today, just so you know, what is it November? What is it, Simon? Eighth, right? Yeah. Soon, we're going to be in Christmas season, right? And you probably want to order some things. And if you want to order some things, why won't you just use a little bit of Storm X, put it on there and actually get crypto cash back? Simon, take it away. What do you got? Yeah, I mean, we have really, I mean, we've been doing this for a long time now. And we have really built one of the earliest and most widely used apps in terms of onboarding people to crypto. And a lot of people got introduced to crypto through us. And, you know, whether you're, you know, booking a flight or a hotel, you can use Expedia or a Gota and any one of our vendors, you can buy shoes from Nike or buy stuff from eBay. We have, you know, over a thousand vendors right now where you could just earn it for free. I mean, we do all the negotiating with all the vendors. So we can give, you know, the cash back or for them, like they would have spent it on ad dollars anyway, and just pass it on to the consumers. So it's an easy way for us to, you know, just introduce crypto to you. So even if you don't have an account, like trading account or anything like that, you just want to earn it for free. Definitely use the app and download it on iOS, Android, or Chrome and start earning some crypto. So modest. So just so you guys know, it all kind of goes by membership. It's really like just a reward. It's like, it's a better version of rewards program, we'll say, right? So the more storm exit you have, the better off you are as far as like rewards sounds. Yeah. I mean, you don't have to have any tokens to use the app. You can always earn for free. This is just extra perks, right? So all the reward memberships, these are, think of it like airline miles. So airline programs have, you know, like, silver, platinum, like American Express or American Airlines, Diamond or whatever. But yeah, that part is like, you can never sell your membership back. In this case, like the number of tokens that you own put you into different categories where you just get bonus cash back. And it's great because we're just constantly adding more and more stores and we're launching a debit card where, you know, we'll add 15,000 more stores, you know, which will make it even more useful and you'll just have, you know, sort of extra cash back. And it's that's where the utility comes from in terms of like, hey, there's an actual use case as to why you need these tokens. And like you can, and if you don't want the membership anymore, you can just sell it back to anyone, you know, through the exchanges and, you know, like you can't do that with airline mile, but it's your ownership. And it's, you know, you have the right. And so that's the flexibility. So that's a really good use case. And so for us, yeah, just how do we make this more useful? And currently 99% of the cryptocurrencies don't do anything still. We're really trying to lead, you know, with innovation in terms of like, okay, let's actually make it useful with the product and then more people will come use it. So. Right. And Simon, tell people how long you guys have been around for. Um, so I, like I've joined full time, like 2015, but my co-founder Calvin, you know, built the initial version of the app, like December of 2013. So, you know, it's been like almost eight years now. Jesus, crime and Christmas, eight years so far. And then lastly, I will just say this, I think you guys had a pretty sweet deal that was launched out with an NBA team. It looks something like a Zeese. Yeah. So yeah, we were the first crypto company to be a Jersey patch partner in the NBA. So we made a Portland Trailblazer partnership. Yeah, on Saturday, we got some of our team members and investors got to fly out and watch the game together. We beat the Lakers by a crazy amount. And it's just really awesome seeing, you know, crypto companies being the main stage of, you know, an NBA arena. And we're just trying to expand the mass adoption. And, you know, we're just, we're really early. I mean, it's only. That is true. And Simon, yes, sorry to interrupt, but before I let you go, is there any, is there anything that you can tell us without breaking any confidentiality rules about what's in the future for Stormax? And this is a nothing that you can't say, just anything that's coming out of the pipe. Yeah, definitely watch out for a debit card. It will be different. There are, you know, other crypto debit cards out there right now, but we're, you know, incorporating our vendor relationships and we're, the cashback rates will be very attractive. And it will be an easy way for you to earn and spend crypto. So it will be very different than what's all out there. And it'll be even more competitive than some of the traditional, you know, rewards cards, you know, even on the traditional side. So definitely look forward to that. We're making a lot of upgrades and updates there. And also just we are launching, you know, governance, and we're starting to get more involved in that, which is pretty interesting because, you know, let's say like Apple came out with iPhone 13. And, you know, consumers are really angry because it's like, Hey, you know, there's no innovation. Come on, Tim Cook, like I know you're making a lot of money, but we want to see something different. You know, they can't vote on that. Ultimately, Apple's the one that makes the decisions and they're the ones that pushes everything out. But we're sort of aiming to be one of the first companies where like, Hey, you know, like, we're going to launch this, like, let's get your feedback as users and the users can vote based on where our product will head towards. And that that's going to be interesting. Like, Hey, you don't like the iPhone 13, you want us to make it like a foldable screen like Samsung and the wait until we release then and the users all vote 80%, you know, to 20% no, and then that's what we'll do. And Amazon or Apple or Facebook or Twitter, it's like, none of these guys do this currently. It's a different mindset. It's a different way of thinking. It's a new way of thinking that this will get adopted more because ultimately you're building a product for the users. And, you know, then the users get a say and the users when you, you know, decide, for example, like, should I use Lyft or Uber? It's typically just like, which one's going to be offering a private or like a better rate, for example. In our case, like, Hey, you are the decision maker, like you help this company run. And that's where, you know, we're going to start building sort of these very strong communities that are part of, you know, what's being built in a decentralized ecosystem. It makes sense. Community, utility, mass adoption. Makes sense. Simon, that's it for today. Thanks for being my co-host. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, no problem. And then for you watching right now, if you like the video, like, get a little value, give it a thumbs up, give it a like, consider subscribing. And that's it for today. So thanks so much. And we'll see you on the next one.