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[Music]
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Anatoli is the CEO of a little crypto
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project known as Solana,
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one of the fastest growing blockchains
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in the world.
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As CEO of Salana Labs, he's driving web
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3 innovation.
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Black Rockck, the world's largest asset
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manager, expanded its $1.7 billion
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tokenized money market fund to Salana.
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Why don't we all switch to Salana? I
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mean, Salana sounds like it's actually
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commercial and the other guys sound like
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that they're antique. Everybody in the
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world should be your customer. Crypto
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will eventually win. It's inevitable.
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[Music]
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Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
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Salana co-founder Anatoli Yakaveno.
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[Music]
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There he is.
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Oh man, thanks for having me.
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You doing?
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Thank you. Welcome.
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Thank you.
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How much of a difference has David Sachs
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made in the first six months as
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cryptozar for your industry?
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Oh, it's been incredible. Um, I mean, I
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think it it's night and day. I don't
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know if the industry would have survived
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another four years of the Gendler
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regime. Um, the Genius Act, I think, is
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going to unlock, you know, people
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estimate 1 to10 trillion dollars worth
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of stable coins uh that are going to be
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on public permissionless chains. So if
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you kind of look at those charts who
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owns treasuries and people it's China,
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Japan etc. countries right now I think
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tether is somewhere around number five I
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think within 5 years the internet is
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going to be the largest holder of US
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treasuries.
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Yeah
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and and at such a scale that I think you
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know I'm an engineer I cannot honestly
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comprehend how that's going to change
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finance but I think it'll be
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transformative. upside downside. I mean,
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are there concerns there as well with
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that huge impact in democratization or
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are you kind of a, you know,
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libertarian, let the chips fall where
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they may, so to speak?
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I think um it's a huge opportunity to
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really accelerate American innovation
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and spread American finance around the
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world. I think we actually have the best
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financial system in the world. It's the
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most trusted, the most robust, the best
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regulatory environment for for what it's
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worth as well. Um, but it was built
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after World War II before the internet.
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So, its APIs are kind of like a fax
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machine based. What crypto is allowing,
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I think, is this new technology stack
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built on top of the internet that's
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completely western aligned. It's for
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transparency. It's for capitalism, but
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now we can actually interface western
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US-based finance to the rest of the
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world. And I I think America is going to
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benefit primarily from this like more
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dissimilar to our media business going
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around the world and you know infecting
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people's consciousness
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when you were getting Salana off the
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ground. How much of it was um a
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technical and architectural vision that
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you had versus maybe a set of trade-offs
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that you were trying to solve that ETH
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didn't fill or Bitcoin didn't fill and
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you said I'm just going to try and do
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this.
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I I think you know I can't speak for all
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founders but you know I think founders
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are driven by kind of crazy vision. They
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have to be a little bit insane. Um, so
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my insane vision is always this idea
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like imagine finance 20 to 50 years from
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now. The science fiction version of
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finance. What I imagine is a single
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giant ledger, a single computer for
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every market in the world. That means
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it's available in Nairobi, New York, in
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London, in Singapore. And all of these
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things are synchronized at the roundtrip
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time of speed of light through fiber
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around the world or, you know, through
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Elon satellites. That's 120
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milliseconds.
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So a dollar can be in New York, in
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London, in Singapore, in Nairobi in 120
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milliseconds. So velocity of money,
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velocity of assets are as fast as
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physics allow. Um, this is what
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nerdpilled me on building this like it's
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a physics problem. It's a massive
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finance problem. It's a really fun
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engineering low latency.
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And did you feel that you had missed it
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somehow? Um when I when I had my kind of
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Eureka moment and I did the back of the
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envelope calculation for design, I'm
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like, "Oh, this is a thousand times
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faster than ETH." And when I started
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talking to folks in the ETH community,
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they're focused on settlement.
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Settlement doesn't have these latency
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problems. You can do settlement in
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minutes and that's fine. So I always
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felt that, you know, Ethereum being
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world's settlement layer, Salana is the
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world's execution layer. Um, and you
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know, um, I, you know, so far so good.
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Yeah, so far so good. Execution is where
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all the money's made.
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So, I think we're on the right track.
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And, uh, a fast execution engine can
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also do settlement. That's kind of a
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feature. So,
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you've been, um, super critical about
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two projects. Uh, memecoins,
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even though they they do throw off, I
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think, some revenue for Salana, and also
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the idea of a crypto strategic reserve.
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What about those two projects um tweak
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you a bit?
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Um I think primarily we could not p
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predict what's going to happen on chain.
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We called it blockchain and NASDAQ
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speed. That was our tagline and the idea
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was always how do we get stocks and
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bonds and treasuries and real world
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assets on chain from all around the
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world to be traded by everybody around
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the world. Um, but it turns out that is
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a much harder legal and regulation
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problem than it is an engineering
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problem. But anybody in the world can
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create markets for anything, including
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memecoins, including NFTs. And those
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things took off. I think in part because
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of how slow regulation was to catch up,
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which makes it annoying that those are
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the things that come out instead of your
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true mission.
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Yep.
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We saw we saw Dena from NASDAQ here
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yesterday. she announced the
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tokenization of uh securities that we're
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going to trade on the exchange. There
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seem to be a lot of regulated exchanges
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and businesses that come from that kind
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of deeply regulated background starting
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to experiment with blockchain
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technology. Do you think they're going
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to be advantaged or disadvantaged given
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where they're coming from? Does the lock
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in with regulators, the relationship
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with regulators, lock in with the market
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participants give them some leg up or do
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you think that the disruptors are
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ultimately going to be able to operate
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more freely and more quickly? This is
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the big challenge. Um I think the
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advantage that we have that we are very
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nimble and we can operate everywhere in
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the world. The advantage that they have
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is that they're already regulated.
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They're they're already operating with
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those assets that we want on chain in
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United States but they don't have global
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availability. NASDAQ is still in its
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little sandbox. Um so we'll see what
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happens. I think once the regulators
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allow uh public keys like cryptography
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to manage and transfer assets that's the
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interface that you can wrap around and
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start moving fund you know start moving
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anything from inside NASDAQ to Salana
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and vice versa like once that interface
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exists I think you kind of the genies
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out of the bottle you know the the
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toothpast is out of the tube.
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Do you ever meet with the regulated
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exchanges and are there ways to kind of
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build integration and partnership that
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benefits both?
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Of course. Yeah. So we've we've talked
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to folks I think across the spectrum
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from banks to regulated exchanges and
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and regulators themselves. Salana is
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fundamentally a protocol. It's like an
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email standard. It's a bunch of
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software. Um the people that run it
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don't report to me. I can't fire them.
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So I can't stop it if I wanted to. Um,
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and if we succeed, if the protocol is
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awesome and globally synchronous and
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super fast, NASDAQ would make more money
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by just running a Salana node and
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integrating with it more directly. So,
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like to me, it's ultimately a win-win.
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We're never going to build an exchange
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that is on boarding US institutionals
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and serving US customers. We want NASDAQ
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to do that and to run it on Salana, and
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that would be great. There's um there's
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a common claim by the masses, meaning uh
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masses meaning not everybody that's sort
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of all in on crypto that it's still
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extremely complicated to understand. You
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know, even if it's like just minting and
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burning or you know, yield farming, you
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say it to just like the norm core person
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and their eyes glaze over. Um what's the
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turn in the abstraction of all of this
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stuff that makes crypto truly ma mass
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market? I actually think that the human
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brain has to change to adjust to it. I
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agree with you. It's really complicated.
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But I landed in the States in 1992 from
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the USSR effectively. And there's no way
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my parents could understand what a web
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link was,
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right? So it it's all whenever you have
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a new technology, it just takes people a
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long time to adopt it and build a mental
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model for it. But now they do. They
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understand the web after years of of
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using it. So I think as stable coins
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proliferate to the back office in a lot
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of companies, people will figure out,
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oh, this secret key is actually really
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important. I need hardware. I need PKI.
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I need trusted displays. All all of the
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security stuff. And they will build a
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mental model for cryptography having
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true ownership over something that is
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globally transferable.
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I saw a chart recently that showed that
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the number of L1 and L2 projects keep
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growing year-over-year over like the
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last three or four years. Why is that
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happening?
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Um, I think I think because this
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what what need are they filling?
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Well, I think the opportunity is so big
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to be the Google of finance, right? If
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you're like the one place for all of
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finance, all markets run. That is a
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massive opportunity. So, I think people
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are going to keep launching L1's and L2s
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and all competitive. They're all
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competing with Salana and that's fine. I
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love competition. Uh, until somebody
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wins it. Um, I think as long as we're
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laser focused on improving the product,
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making it faster, cheaper, more
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reliable, we have a really good shot of
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of actually becoming that global
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execution engine that's serving all of
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finance.
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Outside of finance, what do you think is
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the vertical that has the most promise
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over the next 5 years
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in crypto or in general? in crypto,
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whether it's for Salana or any crypto
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project, where do you think people
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aren't putting enough attention?
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Um, I think all the stuff that people
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have tried, it's kind of like early 90
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days experimentation, frontster, all of
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those things failed until there was a
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critical mass of people that understood
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how the web works and then Facebook took
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off. So I think even the weird
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experiments with NFTTS being a way to
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create a community of artists to build a
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movie or story and create true new IP
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all that will happen just 5 years from
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now or 10 years once we hit critical
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map.
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So a lot of false starts and somewhere
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in that graveyard you might find some
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really good ideas.
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Absolutely.
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Just like what happened and then the
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social network concept always seemed to
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me to be such a winner. you know,
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whether it would be like a dig or a
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Reddit format where you could vote
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things up with a cryptocurrency. Your
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comments were somehow related to that.
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And there were a couple of little
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experiments I remember looking at for
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investment, but candidly I didn't think
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the founders would pull it off and I was
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right in that case. Is that the one that
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you think could break out if Elon put
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into X, Dogecoin, or put in Salana and
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there was some sort of currency inherent
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to the objects and the behaviors? I
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personally think that you could build a
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competitive product to Tik Tok with
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crypto if the magic you caught that kind
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of lightning in a bottle because the
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monetization mechanism with crypto is so
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different than the ad-based one and the
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ad-based one kind of creates this
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forcing function for a lot of spam and
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duplication to ride to the top.
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How would that work? Just describe your
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product thinking there that that new
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kind of experience. How do you think it
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would work? I think you're kind of
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seeing some of these things play out
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with memecoins where you have creators
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that are associated with a coin that
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continues to have uh market cap and
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traction. And now the regulatory
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environment isn't here yet to clearly
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tie the success of that creator to the
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value of that coin. You need to remove a
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whole bunch of bottlenecks there. But
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the product exists. People watch that
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particular creator stream and go buy
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that coin. Like once it's once it is
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actually looks like an investment thing
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that Jason would be like okay I have all
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legal protection to actually put money
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in here. I think
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this is related to the financing
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question I was asking Neil and Ari about
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which is can creators raise funding this
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way and then can they deploy that
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funding but then the coin holders can
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actually have equity in that project and
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in the performance of that project over
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time
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rather than it just be you know
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if if the regulatory environment changes
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like people have been dancing around
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this but like there's this project that
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I love Clanosaurus is these cute little
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dinosaurs that are they've like kids
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love it looks like a Pixar dinosaur
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they've won awards for their animations
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and they raised funding because they
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created this collective set of of dinos.
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Now, it would be awesome if those dinos
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could actually have copyright and
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revenue association in the future, but
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like we can't do that yet, and that's
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frustrating, but it could totally happen
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once we have enough clarity.
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Well, just imagine like we we bought
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collectibles and if we all bought Marvel
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comics when we were, you know, younger,
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but we had equity in Marvel and 30, 40
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years later those characters hit and you
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own Could be Beast. I mean, it could be
00:13:28
Mr. Beast or it could also be the next
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creator. Like, you're watching an up and
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cominging creator. You want to bet on
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that?
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Is that the next piece Sax is working
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on? Is that the
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um the Clarity Act is the big piece.
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It's kind of a big piece of
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Explain it for everybody. Yeah.
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So, um again, I'm an engineer. This is
00:13:44
from my lens is raising money in the US
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and trying to launch a token. Uh we
00:13:48
raised a seat seed in a round. It was
00:13:51
about 14 million bucks, which is
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amazing. It was, you know, like outright
00:13:56
crazy success for a new a first-time
00:13:59
founder. I had to spend two million of
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that on lawyer fees, which is a more
00:14:03
than 10% of my runway to figure out how
00:14:05
to launch a token in United States. And
00:14:07
because I have kids in the US, this is
00:14:09
my home, never leaving it. So, I had to
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do it in America. A lot of founders
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actually just left to do it outside of
00:14:15
the US. So the Clarity Act is a whole
00:14:18
bunch of complicated legislation to try
00:14:20
to minimize hopefully that cost to make
00:14:23
it much easier for founders to launch.
00:14:25
It's far too much friction right now.
00:14:26
Provides clarity.
00:14:27
Our um our partner David Saxs launched a
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company a few years ago that was trying
00:14:31
to tie crypto to real estate like a real
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world asset. Tell us about what that
00:14:37
movement is all about and what the
00:14:39
utility is that that is there if it
00:14:42
works. So um people want real world
00:14:45
assets on on chain because there's
00:14:47
demand for um in DeFi for non-correlated
00:14:51
assets. Like if if everything that is in
00:14:54
crypto, all this innovation around risk
00:14:56
management in real time between you know
00:14:58
borrows and and lenders, it's useless
00:15:02
because if everything's a memecoin,
00:15:03
everything's correlated. It'll all crash
00:15:05
at the same time. There's no hedging,
00:15:07
right? And the only free lunch in in
00:15:10
finance is uncorrelated assets if you
00:15:13
have true hedging. So we need real
00:15:15
estate, bonds, insurance, whatever have
00:15:18
you that has
00:15:19
oil.
00:15:20
Exactly. Commodities, but like even
00:15:24
California fire insurance. It would be
00:15:25
awesome to put that on chain because
00:15:27
then people could actually buy
00:15:29
insurance. Um all those assets if Thank
00:15:32
you.
00:15:34
All those assets, if they exist in this
00:15:37
kind of global synchronized giant state
00:15:39
machine environment, can all be used
00:15:42
together to reduce risk for the entire
00:15:45
system because they're uncorrelated and
00:15:47
that's actually the the only free lunch
00:15:49
you can get in finance. Um, so there's a
00:15:51
lot of demand for them and the
00:15:53
technology is there to leverage them.
00:15:55
Now we just need kind of the regulatory
00:15:57
side to catch up.
00:15:58
Can I um change tracks a little bit?
00:16:00
You're an engineer. You work in
00:16:02
cryptography. Have you visited quantum
00:16:04
projects? What do you think's the state
00:16:05
of development in quantum computing?
00:16:07
Everyone's got a different story. How
00:16:08
much is kind of hype in marketing? How
00:16:10
much is real? And what do you think is
00:16:13
going to happen over what period of
00:16:14
time?
00:16:14
Honest answer, I feel like 50/50 within
00:16:18
5 years there is a quantum breakthrough.
00:16:21
And part of that is because of how fast
00:16:23
AI
00:16:24
define breakthrough
00:16:25
like
00:16:25
you can run short algorithm.
00:16:27
You we we should migrate Bitcoin to a
00:16:29
quantum resistance signature scheme. Um
00:16:32
this is my bet and this is because we're
00:16:35
just so many technologies are converging
00:16:37
right now and this asymptoic rate AI and
00:16:41
how fast is accelerating going from a
00:16:43
research paper to an implementation is
00:16:45
is like astounding. Um so I would I
00:16:49
would try to encourage folks to speed
00:16:52
things up. My key for this is Google and
00:16:55
Apple adopt a quantum resistant
00:16:57
cryptographic stack. this is the time to
00:16:59
go migrate because now the consumer side
00:17:01
of it is effectively solved and you
00:17:03
don't have to kind of
00:17:04
so you watch where Google's going.
00:17:05
Yeah. But yeah, I would I I think the
00:17:10
the people you should be worried if
00:17:12
you're in the field, but for the general
00:17:14
public, quantum computing is such a
00:17:16
massive unlock in terms of how much we
00:17:19
can process that it's going to be as big
00:17:21
of a wealth creator if if we pull it off
00:17:24
as AI. So I think this is to me like a
00:17:27
lot of work, engineering work. We have
00:17:29
the right people to do it, but like for
00:17:30
everyone else, it should be like a huge
00:17:33
opportunity.
00:17:33
But to your point, the the reports on
00:17:35
the breakthroughs on the Willow project
00:17:37
at Google are driven by AI modeling and
00:17:40
AI is unlocking a lot of the
00:17:42
capabilities to make it real, which
00:17:44
seems to be an accelerator. It's pretty
00:17:46
powerful.
00:17:46
What's the intersection of all of of
00:17:48
that world of just AI in general and
00:17:50
crypto?
00:17:51
Um, this is a funny thing to ask because
00:17:55
um, I feel like AI is going to be
00:17:57
everywhere and crypto is going to be
00:17:58
everywhere, but where those lines cross
00:18:00
is just really, really hard to pinpoint.
00:18:02
I don't want to say something lame like,
00:18:04
oh, we have agents sending money around
00:18:06
because that's kind of obvious. Um,
00:18:09
I mean, I think the first attempt was to
00:18:10
kind of say maybe there are distributed
00:18:13
networks of compute and maybe we can run
00:18:15
distributed learning or distributed
00:18:17
inference, but those projects really
00:18:18
haven't
00:18:19
taken off and really generated any
00:18:21
momentum.
00:18:22
Yeah, not yet. And again, because
00:18:24
they're competing with a data center
00:18:26
that is all colloccated, that is funded
00:18:28
with traditional finance and and those
00:18:29
things like and yeah, you can put those
00:18:31
assets on chain and that that's a lot of
00:18:33
ways how I think things are going to
00:18:35
integrate. Probably the most kind of
00:18:37
like singularity bet we can make is you
00:18:40
have an agent that is a creator that is
00:18:43
like an ex personality that you can
00:18:44
interface with tokens and buy into and
00:18:46
pay for the GPUs. That could be fun. But
00:18:49
Bitcoin has turned out to be
00:18:51
surprisingly resilient. Um and but now
00:18:54
we're starting to see certain players uh
00:18:57
corner the market on large percentages
00:19:00
of it. And that was never supposed to
00:19:02
happen. So if something like Micro
00:19:05
Strategy owns 6%
00:19:08
that's actually maybe 50% more than that
00:19:10
because there's so many dead coins out
00:19:12
there. Does that worry you the
00:19:14
centralization of Bitcoin and does that
00:19:16
mean there's an opportunity to start the
00:19:18
game a new?
00:19:20
Um I think Bitcoin is resilient to these
00:19:25
entities collapsing. Now it's not going
00:19:27
to be without painful risk that in terms
00:19:31
of like people that own Bitcoin, but the
00:19:33
thing is it'll survive that and all the
00:19:36
properties of Bitcoin that people value
00:19:38
will remain through that transition. So
00:19:41
if you really value Bitcoin, you should
00:19:42
see that as like an opportunity to own
00:19:44
more of it. So
00:19:46
even if somebody were to own 20 or 30%.
00:19:50
It seems like there are people who
00:19:52
actually have this intent. That's why
00:19:53
I'm asking. Yeah. Um, I think as long as
00:19:56
it's an open global competition for to
00:19:59
acquire Bitcoin and anyone can
00:20:01
participate in that and we don't end up
00:20:03
in some kind of regulated nightmare, you
00:20:05
know, like you can't acquire gold or
00:20:07
something like in the 70s, um, I think
00:20:10
Bitcoin would survive those kinds of
00:20:12
shocks. Is Bitcoin valuable enough now
00:20:14
where
00:20:16
it makes sense for I guess North Korea
00:20:19
does this but I was just going to
00:20:20
generalize and say like state sponsored
00:20:21
ways of either trying to penetrate it,
00:20:24
hack it, take individual accounts like
00:20:26
it just seems like there's an an
00:20:28
emergent trend here of this.
00:20:30
It is um its beauty is that it's the
00:20:33
simplest protocol you can build because
00:20:35
it is focused on just settlement. It's
00:20:38
very easy to understand from an
00:20:39
engineering point of view and uh proof
00:20:42
of work is kind of a I don't know it is
00:20:44
a brilliant it's masterpiece yeah it's a
00:20:46
masterpiece in terms of like elegance
00:20:48
and simplicity and it's very robust to I
00:20:50
think all sorts of attacks. Now, that
00:20:53
doesn't mean that, you know, you can't
00:20:56
have an attack that could cause, you
00:20:57
know, roll back that's unexpected, but I
00:21:00
think it's extremely hard to pull off.
00:21:03
Very unlikely, and the internet is so
00:21:05
super connected that it can
00:21:07
automatically kind of respond and take
00:21:08
action.
00:21:09
I actually meant more just like, you
00:21:10
know, states targeting accounts that
00:21:13
have large Bitcoin holdings and trying
00:21:15
to figure out who owns them and then
00:21:16
just basically getting them to give them
00:21:18
the coins.
00:21:19
Yeah. the those kind of state sponsored
00:21:21
wrench attacks. Um
00:21:24
I think what like we should do live
00:21:28
living in the in the west is really have
00:21:31
strong opinions about property rights
00:21:33
and how important they are and how
00:21:35
foundational they are to wealth creation
00:21:37
in in the west and America.
00:21:39
Completely agree with this
00:21:40
and this is our best defense.
00:21:41
I completely agree with this and be
00:21:42
hyper transparent who owns the coins
00:21:44
because then it's like you can't take
00:21:46
away something that everybody knows you
00:21:48
own. But when you try to hide your
00:21:49
ownership of it, more likely it's easier
00:21:51
for somebody to take it away.
00:21:52
I I think privacy is a right. So it's
00:21:54
somebody's right to to be able to do
00:21:56
that. But I think our best bet in, you
00:21:59
know, wealth creation is actually
00:22:00
defending these rights and defending the
00:22:02
right of somebody to to own Bitcoin if
00:22:04
they want to.
00:22:04
It's extraordinary that it hasn't been
00:22:07
hacked with so much at stake. Maybe you
00:22:09
could speak to it as just a an architect
00:22:12
yourself and and
00:22:13
it is. it. The reason it hasn't been
00:22:16
hacked is because it's so simple and you
00:22:18
know as an engineer you always strive
00:22:19
for simplicity to achieve a certain
00:22:22
outcome. You can't always always achieve
00:22:24
that. Salana is much more complicated
00:22:25
because the outcome we're striving is
00:22:28
hyper performance and it's just hard. So
00:22:31
like Salana is much more complicated as
00:22:33
a result of that. But Bitcoin is
00:22:35
designed for a very simple settlement
00:22:37
layer that is I think you know the
00:22:40
coolest thing the coolest piece of
00:22:41
software written in the last 20 years is
00:22:44
I would say the Bitcoin like Nakamoto
00:22:45
implementation
00:22:46
there's been an enormous um reanimation
00:22:49
in the ETH market recently where do you
00:22:52
think that comes from is that market
00:22:54
driven and speculatively driven or do
00:22:56
you think that there's a a fundamental
00:22:58
reimagining of where ETH lives in you
00:23:01
know between Bitcoin over here and
00:23:02
Salana over here.
00:23:04
Um, I'm a honestly a huge fan of
00:23:07
Ethereum. Like I think Vitalik is an
00:23:09
amazing person, amazing engineer, and
00:23:11
has a very strong vision. It's very
00:23:13
different from my vision for Salana, and
00:23:16
it's really cool to see those two play
00:23:17
out. Uh, if I could predict what I do
00:23:20
could cause a price change, I I'd be a
00:23:23
lot more successful.
00:23:25
Well, you've been pretty successful,
00:23:26
too. But right we it it's just really
00:23:29
really hard to attribute the work that
00:23:31
you do.
00:23:31
Okay. So look your transaction network
00:23:33
is quite liquid. It's going to become
00:23:36
more and more and more as you have more
00:23:38
validators, more clients, all that
00:23:39
stuff. Um another market that seems
00:23:43
has built a monopoly or a duopoly around
00:23:46
transactions who's a little bit at risk
00:23:48
is Visa and Mastercard. What do you
00:23:50
think about that? My my like uh contrary
00:23:53
opinion is that I think Visa and
00:23:55
Mastercard are more technology companies
00:23:57
and if you look at their like profit
00:23:58
margin on the gross payment volume it's
00:24:01
like 10 basis points. It's like vapor. I
00:24:04
think the
00:24:06
the issuer and receiver bank those are
00:24:09
the most disruptible pieces on there
00:24:10
because their profit margins are like 2%
00:24:13
like much much bigger right and Visa is
00:24:16
a technology company that owns end to
00:24:18
end the customer. If they could remove
00:24:20
the banks out of the loop and just do
00:24:22
stable coin transfers behind the scenes,
00:24:24
I think they become a lot more
00:24:26
successful and they can do a lot more
00:24:28
for, you know, a lot less.
00:24:29
Long stable coin, short banks.
00:24:32
That I not an investor, but maybe
00:24:35
Chimoth seems like a good premise.
00:24:38
I can't comment on this.
00:24:39
So that's a yes. Everybody, everybody
00:24:41
short the bank.
00:24:44
Everybody telling you to do this. This
00:24:45
is financial advice.
00:24:48
Unless it doesn't work out.
00:24:52
[Applause]
00:24:54
Thank you so much.
00:24:56
[Applause]
00:24:57
Appreciate it. Appreciate it.
00:25:00
Thank you so much. You're awesome, dude.
00:25:02
Appreciate it.
