The Wolf Of All Streets - Is Aptos The Next Big Crypto Revolution? | Exclusive With Mo Shaikh

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

Join us on The Wolf Of All Streets podcast as Mo Shaikh, the founder of Aptos, reveals how his team is revolutionizing the crypto industry with seamless blockchain integration. From their innovative Aptos Card to insights on stablecoins and payments, Mo breaks down how Web3 is evolving to make crypto adoption mainstream. If you're excited about the future of digital assets, payments, and the power of blockchain, this is the episode to watch! Mo Shaikh: https://x.com/moshaikhs ►► Sponsored by Aptos Foundation: 👉https://aptosfoundation.org/ ►► Sponsored by iTrust Capital Invest in Bitcoin, Crypto Assets & Gold with Your IRA Using iTrust Capital. 👉 https://bit.ly/itrust-scott ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEKDAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/ ►► The Arch Public Unleash algorithmic trading. Discover how algorithms used by hedge-funds are now accessible to traders looking for unparalleled insights and opportunities! 👉https://thearchpublic.com/ ►►TRADING ALPHA READY TO TRADE LIKE THE PROS? THE BEST TRADERS IN CRYPTO ARE RELYING ON THESE INDICATORS TO MAKE TRADES. Use code '10OFF' for a 10% discount. 👉https://tradingalpha.io/?via=scottmelker Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://x.com/scottmelker Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.com/ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c #Bitcoin #Crypto #aptos Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:58 How UX and UI Influence Crypto Adoption 1:45 Introduction of the Aptos Card 3:08 Seamless Payments and Crypto Integration 4:55 Getting the Aptos Card to Mainstream Adoption 5:49 Competition and Innovation in the Layer 1 Space 7:09 Stablecoins as the Killer App for Payments 8:33 Global Economic Inclusion with Blockchain 9:37 Bitcoin’s Role vs. Stablecoins in Payments 10:28 Speed and Security of Aptos Blockchain 11:00 Simplifying the Wallet Experience 12:22 Trust and Identity in Web3 13:50 Balancing Self-Custody with Usability 15:10 The Evolution of the Aptos Token 16:12 Growth of DeFi on Aptos 17:40 Future of Multi-Chain Networks 19:33 Innovators and Builders on the Aptos Ecosystem 20:30 Vision for the Next 1-2 Years in Blockchain Adoption 21:31 Aptos’ Future and Potential for Interplanetary Networks The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

This episode of the Wolf of All Streets podcast was recorded in person in Singapore at Token 2049 and is proudly brought to you by the Aptos Foundation. I heard we might overshoot and fly to Jupiter recently. That would be a very fascinating conversation to have, maybe on the safest spaceship possible. But how do we get it to grandma? The Aptos card. It's crazy. It's freaking crazy.

It's not a problem. Today we have over 20 million addresses in less than two years of the network operating. Right, so on the back end of this, you still need a wallet. I'm not going to bring my Singaporean dollars back to the US. I'm going to blow it all here at the bar. You have to.

Mosheik, the founder of Aptos, is one of my favorite people in this space because of his ability to articulate exactly what's coming for the crypto industry in the future and of his ability to articulate exactly what's coming for the crypto industry in the future and then to actually build it. They launched an incredible new product that we'll tell you about in this interview, and he really broke down how we get to mainstream adoption and how crypto is eventually going to disrupt the biggest industries, including payments, in the world.

So your background obviously is at Facebook. Yep. And we've shared that story quite a few times. But I think you probably learned that UX and UI were the most important things for mainstream adoption. And I would say that's been one of the biggest challenges for the industry thus far. But you just launched a new product that effectively solves that. Yep, that's right. Yeah, actually, I got it right here in my pocket. The Aptos card. It's got my name on it scott we got one for you this one is uh we're gonna hold on to but yeah um i think it's a great point right like we've had situations in crypto where the user

experience doesn't meet the expectations of the webdo crowd why is that because they're used to something completely seamless when they log on to instagram facebook or, or WhatsApp. They know exactly what's happening in each one of those applications. And it's, you know, just flows so seamlessly. When you look at Instagram, for example, you know, you might be scrolling and all of a sudden you want to purchase and you check out, right? And it's done. They get you every time. I love Instagram shopping late nights. But the cool thing about that is we learned a lot when we were at Facebook building this blockchain, the Libra DM blockchain, to make sure that that seamless user experience does not get interrupted. Today, that lives on as Petra, our wallet. Obviously, Aptos is the blockchain.

But now we paired up a card with it together with Arculus. They actually make the same card for American Express, the black card and the platinum card. But the cool thing about that is like, you know, Scott, if you're just walking around at the bar, you don't want to whip out your phone. You have all your assets in your Petro wallet, your Web3 assets available right here in a cold storage capacity. And when you tap and pay,

you can use stable coins like USDT, or maybe if someone accepts APT, you can pay with that too. The cool thing is once you do that here, that automatically gets updated in the Web3 world. And so you have this amazing harmonization that makes users in the Web2 world feel completely comfortable of the experiences that they're already used to. I remember in Singapore and it blew my mind how many times I was at a bar and it took like three minutes for somebody to pay for a drink because they had to hand the bartender literally their phone and then they take their phone away to the computer.

It's 2024 and you're handing someone literally access to your phone to walk across the bar. And so this is actually a huge development. That's amazing. And then imagine that phone being unlocked with all your crypto assets. Yeah, it's terrifying. But this basically gives you all the seamless usage of a credit card. That's right. But it's your own assets in cold storage.

That's right. Doesn't this literally solve it all? We're right there. We're finally at a place in the world where the amazing stuff that we built inside of Facebook is now outside of Meta and right here on this card. Really powerful stuff. Crypto investors in the United States face some major challenges.

One of them is that there's almost no way to get exposure to the asset class inside of your traditional investment vehicles. The other thing is the taxes. They are absolutely atrocious. What if I told you there was a way to solve both of these problems? Well, there is. And it's with a self-directed IRA from I Trust Capital. Guys, not only can you open a new self-directed IRA from I trust capital guys not only

can you open a new self-directed IRA and fund it with the limits each year but you can actually convert over from your 401k your Roth IRA any other IRA that you already have and you can do that tax-free just transferring over the balance and then you can go to cash buy as much Bitcoin and you want and not pay taxes when you sell it you absolutely have to cash, buy as much Bitcoin than you want and not pay taxes when you sell it. You absolutely have to try this if you are in the United States. Use the link down below.

It's bit.ly slash itrust-scott. That's B-I-T dot L-Y slash I-T-R-U-S-T dash S-C-O-T-T. You have to try this now. Okay, so how do we get this into the hands of millions of people? So we've always had the, okay, it needs to be simple enough for grandma, the old meme, but how do we get it to grandma? It's a great point. I mean, think about the credit card application or opening up a bank account and the complexity that you have, the hoops that you have to jump through to make that

happen. I mean, the credit systems and the financial systems are so antiquated, right? If I want to buy a property or if I want to open up and go buy a car or just go shopping, that's a lot of heavy lifting. Today, you know what assets you have, what behavior you have across all these different mediums. And we're tying that together. So applying for a credit card, simple with a few clicks of a button. And so that card not only will capture all your assets, but it'll do it in a much more accurate way relative to, well, let me get my credit score from all these different places and put it together. It's a far more accurate representation of who Scott and Mo are as creditors. So we're working on some interesting ways of changing the way we get this card into the hands of many people without having to jump through those hoops and make it super simple for grandmother or mother,

or even younger adults to be able to click a few buttons and get the Aptos card. So how do you prevent every other layer one competitor from now saying that's the coolest thing we've seen yet? We want to do that. Is it a situation where first to market, get out there, you have to win? I mean, can they literally copy it and say, this is the coolest thing I've seen. We want to do this too. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time people copied us. People, everyone in the space has been looking at Aptos for innovation, whether it's our consensus mechanism, like block STM, move the smart contract language that we also built in Facebook. And I would be, you know, we, you know, we think imitation is the best form of flattery, but copying can only take you so far.

We're already leaps and miles ahead of folks. So not only taking things like USDT, which we're very proud to announce having a presence, but also distribution models, not only with cards, but also working with large partners like SKT in Korea, having models of distribution there too. So we're pretty far ahead when it comes to first mover advantage. And you talk about USDT, obviously the ability to just pay with dollars. I still make the argument that stable coins have really been the killer app. Absolutely. So building for that seems like the most logical sort of conclusion is I just want to go pay with

dollars. I mean, listen, Bitcoiners, we love to think that everyone in the world who has a problem is going to buy Bitcoin to protect themselves from it. But what we've seen is that people buy Tether in countries with hyperinflation because they want access to the dollar. And so payments, naturally, if you're going to actually compete in that space, it has to be largely dollarized. 100%. I mean, payments are so important.

They're the backbone of our societies, right? They're how economies actually function. And for Aptos, our vision is to have a globally connected economy, one that moves money more efficiently. And so this is just the starting point of that. And as you pointed out, USD or the dollar has been such a powerful tool globally, whether you're in a country where there might be volatility in your country and you want to hold dollars to maybe hedge against that all the way to, well, if you have exposure to us treasuries, you can

actually earn, you know, somewhat risk-free interest. Right. And so that's powerful. That brings economy that allows people that typically would not be able to participate in economies to be able to do so almost seamlessly. So, you know, amazing to have things like USDT available in anyone's wallet across the world to do micropayments or transactions, or maybe hold it. I don't know, right? Like if Scott, that's a question, right? Like if you're in, maybe you're in Venezuela or in Argentina, and your view is, I get, you know, my local currency, but I also now have an option to have USD. Would you pay with USD or your local currency? Obviously USD. Would you?

Well, no, I would save my USD and pay with the local currency. There you go. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And so, you know, that also helps us, right? And so, I think it's a very powerful tool. And even today, actually, there was a tweet from Trump. You saw he was coming out of the New York City taxicab and paid with Bitcoin. I was like, dude, did you not see the pizza story? So everybody's been talking about it, obviously. And I think he also went to PubKey and paid for a burger.

But then it was predictably a multi-minute transaction while he sat there awkwardly wondering why he had done this. So listen, I mean, Bitcoin is Bitcoin. It was the first iteration of these things. But it was never, I don't think, meant to be the asset that everybody would be using on a daily basis, transaction speed, obviously. I mean, that's the beauty of it.

That's what makes that secure and makes it a store of value. But the whole world can't use layer one Bitcoin to pay for burgers. We couldn't agree more. I mean, we keep our gold bars for different reasons. We keep our Bitcoin for different reasons. We have dollars for different reasons. We have treasuries for different reasons. I bought Singaporean dollars and I'm not going to bring my Singaporean dollars back to the US. I'm going to blow it all here at the bar. I have to. And so I

think we have all different senses of uses for each one of these assets. And obviously for Aptos, we're laser focused on whether you have digital forms of gold. In fact, we just announced our partnership with Saks, Muneeb and his team on supercharging Bitcoin. So if you do want to pay with Bitcoin, Trump wouldn't have to wait for, President Trump wouldn't have to wait for two minutes. He'd be able to check out much faster than that. But at the same time, if you have dollars or Singaporean dollars on Aptos, those would be moving faster, not faster than existing protocol, they'd be moving faster than Visa, MasterCard, ACH networks. And that is where blockchains are taking and Aptos is taking blockchains too. Right. So on the back end of this, you still need a wallet. That's right. Right? You got to get a wallet, get the assets in.

Would you view that process as having some of the complexity abstracted away since you started? Or do you still think it's difficult? I mean, this is amazing. But, you know, I find like MetaMask to be clunky for somebody. So you still have the, I guess, the back end problem of private keys. That's right. It's not a problem. I'm, the backend problem of private keys. And that's right. It's not a problem. I'm not saying private keys are a problem, but your average person still, I think, is

scared even to open the wallet in the first place. That's right. That's right. It's an excellent point. We are still tethered to this being tied to an account. In the real world, or that I should think, it's really difficult to open to those. That's right. That's right.

And so like, you still need a bank account. You still need a credit card account. And you have to go through that process. With MetaMask and, you know, the previous generation of Web3, it was tricky, right? Like, I'm writing down my code and I'm thinking, where am I going to store this piece of paper? Yeah. Or am I going to etch it in some metal? And where am I going to put it, right?

Like, in a bank account again? I'm back at the bank. So, you know, there are interesting challenges that we've seen. We've done something interesting. We've moved towards keyless accounts and things like pass keys, but really solving the problem at the identity level. So Scott, if you wanted to come and you have no idea how to get to this, you probably already have, I bet either a Google account, a Facebook account, or an X account, or all three.

So when you come to Petra, you can log in with any one of those accounts, simply set it and forget it. And all that complexity with managing your pass keys is kind of put behind, your seed phrase is completely put behind a screen where you can trust it with a much larger entity. Someone talked about, where is the trust today? Well, did you trust putting your passport information into the internet 20 years ago? I don't know. Right?

I'm not putting my credit card information. Do you remember? I mean, do you remember the first time that you were asked to enter your credit card information into a website? Yeah. Now, I'm like, please remember my passport number, my social security number, my credit card, tears my blood type, and don't ask me ever again.

Just look at my face and unlock everything. Yeah. Like, you know, I actually was one of those people that freaked out about WorldCoin at first, you know, getting your eyeball scan. But, like, I'm doing that while unlocking my iPhone with my eyeballs. It's got, I mean, they've got everything. Yeah. I'm not,

I think it's a sliding scale of your level of comfort with custody. That's right. But most people are going to want to be on a reasonable part of that scale that does not require writing things down on a piece of paper. Dude, I have ADHD. I'm my, I'm the single point of failure for self custody. I'm my biggest fear. Yeah, every time. And so do you find now that people are going to be more comfortable with that web to familiar experience and have to require a little bit of trust in the platform that they're

using? No doubt about it, right? Like I think, you know, the analogy that I think about is if I'm a doomsday prepper, I'm putting my money under this couch or this lovely seat. But I also have my bank account, right? Because I need to participate in the financial system. I can do some mix of both. I can put all my money under my couch. But then how will I be? I'm walking around with a suitcase to like go shopping, right?

Like it's weird. Not that I walk around with a suitcase to go shopping, just to be clear. But like, you know, there's only so much you can do with that worldview. And so what crypto, I think, started off with is we've had an amazing core group

of believers in a new type of system, a system where you can own your own assets. And we bring that today with Aptos. At the same time, if you want to take your assets and have them embedded in the larger global economy, you can do that too. And you can do that in different degrees of trust.

If you're going to work with, if you're going to log in with Google, you can trust Google to some sense, but you can still take all your assets, put them in your own cold storage and still have that optionality. So we want to give everyone that flexibility. And very openly and candidly speaking, a lot of people like myself want to keep some portion in a trusted environment and my own trusted environment. So I think that flexibility is super important. And we're excited to obviously provide that optionality. Yeah, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It makes perfect sense. You mentioned before with the card specifically, you said people could pay in USDT.

If they accept APT as payment, you can use that as well. That's right. At this point, how has the token evolved as far as what you can use it for or how you sort of view it as a part of the ecosystem? Because, you know, there's tokens for everything. A layer one absolutely needs a token. You're one of those who literally needs a token.

You know, 99% of these things that are being created don't. They could just use the layer a token. You're one of those who literally needs a token. 99% of these things that are being created don't. They could just use the Layer 1 token. But at this point, how has it evolved? How are you seeing people use it? What do you intend for the token in the future? Yeah, it's a great question. Tokens are incredibly powerful when it comes to the governance of the network.

And APT is one of the most powerful tools to help ensure that governance, especially in the next generation of Web network. And APT is one of the most powerful tools to help ensure that governance, especially in the next generation of Web3. And so not only do we think about how APT is going to help support that governance, but also what else can you do with it across the world, right? So when you think about the number of users, the number of wallets on Aptos, today we have over 20 million addresses in less than two years of the network operating. It's crazy. It's freaking crazy.

It's one of the fastest, if not the fastest growing network out there in market. And the reason for that is, again, we make it feel completely familiar to everyone beyond just the niche special cloud that we started Web3 with. And that's awesome. Now, with APT, what can you do? You can do some interesting things in the DeFi world. And we're seeing some of that. In fact, I was on the stage with Stani yesterday, and we were talking about Aave. Aave, Ethereum DeFi darling protocol. And we were chatting about some of the challenges that Stani and Aave and other DeFi protocols in the Ethereum ecosystem

are facing with navigating that stack. And that was a beautiful stack that's been built, but it's ready for kind of the next generation and moving beyond the EVM. In order to do that, you now have access to a much more efficient, faster version of Aave on Aptos that will be coming soon. And the Aave community is so special. They've done amazing things. And so imagine taking APT, combining it with the power of Aave. There's going to be some really cool things that are going to be happening in the DeFi world. In fact, TVL had tripled over the last few months in the Aptos ecosystem. So you're already seeing not only things like stablecoins and USDT take off and supercharge things, but even new protocols like Aave coming in, protocols that are building in the Aptos ecosystem take off, and that TVL is going to blossom.

And where I believe Aptos is today, just from a market positioning perspective, we are growing by leaps and bounds. And if you look at that compared to everyone else in the ecosystem, there's a lot of room to grow. So do you view then the future being multi-chain and interoperable and things that were built on Ethereum first and successful, I guess, like an Aave, eventually finding their way to where they have a better product market fit? I mean, a lot of people, I think at this point, think it's Ethereum somewhat getting squeezed out. I don't know that I do or don't agree with that, but it is interesting to see these incumbents from other chains starting to make moves to other places where maybe it's a bit faster, cheaper, makes more sense. Totally. And, you know, I'll kind of draw the analogy back to the early days of the internet where you had to still use dial-up to get online.

How many people actually were online? You know, like, and what services did people use? Whether it was America online to, you know, other, you know, services around the world, it was hard. And it only, it limited how many people could actually get on the internet and what could they actually do? Also limited. Today, when you look at Aave, for example, I think they have 2 million users. The internet at some point only had 2 million users. As dial-up advanced to, you know, obviously today, I think they have 2 million users. The internet at some point only had 2 million users. As dial-up advanced to, obviously today, completely wireless and seamless integration of getting connected,

billions of people globally have access to the internet in the palm of their hands. Similarly with something like Aave, with having technological advancements with Aptos, they can potentially have economical impact, not for 2 million users, 2 billion users. And that I think is the world that we want to see Web3 go towards. And do you think that we get there and how long does it take? I feel like in the last cycle, we were talking about there not being enough block space and how would we ever scale? And now

we're in this situation where it's, we got the options, now we just need the people to fill the room. That's right. I mean, I think the use cases are very clear. The opportunity set is very clear. And finally, the infrastructure with Aptos is now here. So, you know, you no longer have to worry about dial-up internet. You have Aptos. You have fiber optic internet, right?

And block space, to your point. It's incredibly cheap. It's faster than existing payment systems. And it's available today. So then it comes down to, well, what will the innovators build? What products and applications will they actually bring to life? And Aave, you know, they know how to evolve. They're just one example of many that are going to be building on Aptos.

So it comes down to the builders. It comes down to the innovators. In fact, we have over 100 different projects that are being built on Aptos, over 250 actually over 250 projects being built that have received grants from the Aptos Foundation. And so some of them have some cool use cases, whether it's in the gaming space, in the social space, or even in the financial space, which we think is going to be some of the most interesting stuff to watch. All right, so what that's happening excites you the most that you think we could see meaningful adoption of in a year or two? And then what excites you the most that we could

see adoption of in 10 or 20 years? Ooh, I mean, great questions. I think, you know, one to two years, we would love to see card and mobile wallet penetration increase to greater than 20% of all card holders or mobile phone devices. That would be something we would be incredibly proud of. And we're very close to that. No different than Facebook grew like wildfire to, you know, competitors like TikTok grew like wildfire. We're right there, right there at the tipping point. And these types of products help make that actually happen. But they can only actually exist on Aptos because a transaction with this, again, sub-second finality and a thousandth of a cent for a transaction settlement. I mean, how will payment networks compete?

I'm not sure. So that's going to happen very quickly. And I don't think people actually appreciate that. Some do. And they're trying to catch up to us. But no different than Netflix came and completely flipped the model for video content creation and distribution. We're seeing something similar happen right before our eyes.

And in two years, man, it's going to be unbelievable to be having this conversation again. So how about 10? Man, 10 years. I mean, it depends how fast Elon gets us to Mars, honestly. I heard we might overshoot and fly to Jupiter recently. I don't know if that's by design or what, but, you know, networks do need to be thinking about going beyond the existing sphere. And I may be saying this facetiously, but if you have satellites that can potentially be outside of just Earth's orbital gravity, and we do get to something like the moon

or Mars, we would love to see our network be an interplanetary network. And I think that would be something really cool to think about not only 10 years from now, maybe 20 years from now. And that would be a very fascinating conversation to have maybe on the safest spaceship possible. Yeah. I can't wait to have that conversation. Unfortunately, we don't have the six hours.

So listen, so anybody who wants to actually try this, myself included, how do you do it? So sign up for Petro and we'll send you a hit. We'll send you a ping and get you access to the Aptos card right after that. I'm getting one of these today, man. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, man. Pleasure. Let's go.