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The Ugly Truth About Centralized Exchanges | Nick Nechanicky DSH #881
00:35:52
Discover "The Ugly Truth About Centralized Exchanges" with Sean Kelly on the Digital Social Hour! 🚀 This episode is packed with valuable insights as Nick from DexToro reveals the dark side of centralized crypto exchanges and the rise of decentralized s
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- [00:01]
A
Put money. Like everything was good. Like there was this product that, you know, they, they sold to investors. Like everything was good, but the problem was the broker. So they deposit funds into an account, they'd be making money. Like the, the owner of this like algorithm was like everything was legit. And then the owner of the broker stole all the funds, deleted the domain, ran away. And it happened so many times.
- [00:26]
B
All right, guys, last minute episode. But we got Nick from Dextor on the founder, right?
- [00:31]
A
Yes.
- [00:31]
B
Nice. And it's a crypto exchange.
- [00:33]
A
Yep. Decentralized crypto exchange. Derivatives exchange.
- [00:37]
B
Nice.
- [00:37]
A
Powered by Ethereum blockchain.
- [00:39]
B
Why'd you decide to go the decentralized route?
- [00:42]
A
Yeah, so actually I started this immediately after FTX collapsed last year. And yeah, the whole idea was essentially I've been in this industry for like six, seven years now. Start off and building fintech, you know, software algorithms for forex traders, equities traders. And then from there I started my own forex broker and I kind of saw how everything operated. It was all old school, you know, and we were using crypto for like deposits and withdrawals and that's how I got into this whole world. And I just saw everything was heading to be decentralized on chain, but. And yeah, then once FTX happened, I sold that exchange and I took those proceeds and went all into Dextoro because you don't want to see FTX happen again. And I think people now appreciate decentralized exchanges, especially like Uniswap is. Everyone's using Uniswap and Dextor was basically like the Uniswap but for trading derivatives, leveraged Forex, you can trade everything. As long as it has a price feed on chain, you can trade it and have full custody of your funds.
- [01:53]
B
I love it. What happened with the Uniswap SEC stuff? Are they still fighting?
- [01:56]
A
Yeah, they are. I mean, I think it's going to favor Uniswap for sure because there's really nothing you can do. It's just smart contracts.
- [02:05]
B
Ethereum beat sec. So I feel like Uniswap has a good chance.
- [02:08]
A
Yeah, you would assume that. I think the SEC is just, they're just bullying any large protocol that they're trying to get there. They're trying to get their feet into the industry and take a little bit of a share and bully them around. But at the end of day it's just code. Like Dextoro is fully powered by smart contracts. I mean once you execute them, they live on the blockchain forever. You can't alter Them, you can't change it, so you can't really do anything.
- [02:33]
B
You can't manipulate it.
- [02:34]
A
Yeah. Even if you sue them or if you block their IP address or something, it doesn't matter. Anyone who has an Internet connection can use Uniswap forever. The smart contract lives forever. That's why it's difficult. They can go after Binance, obviously, multi year.
- [02:53]
B
They already are right now.
- [02:54]
A
Yeah, they are. And they can go after. Now they're going after Coinbase.
- [02:57]
B
I saw that.
- [02:58]
A
Yeah.
- [02:59]
B
Crazy, because Coinbase is the number one exchange in the us.
- [03:01]
A
They're publicly traded, so you would assume that they're doing everything by the books still. So you can go after all of those because they hold your crypto and they have it in cold storage. I've talked to a lot of executives that keep ledgers and banks and stuff across the world. They have a good system, but it's all centralized. You need human beings that they have dedicated to access your crypto. It's not on a hot wallet, so you can control them. But with Uniswap and with decentralized protocols, I mean, the people control their funds the whole time, so you can't go after anyone. And it's distributed too. So all of our code base is distributed around the world. So we use a unique tool called fleek. It's through the IPS and basically we have multiple copies of the software accessible anywhere. So if one domain goes down, there's hundred other domains that are available to use. So that's, that's, that's how Uniswap would work too.
- [04:05]
B
That's interesting. So dextero can't really be hacked and.
- [04:07]
A
Can't be hacked, can't be shut down, can't be nothing.
- [04:10]
B
Wow.
- [04:11]
A
Yeah. I mean, they can go after me like, as the founder, because like, obviously, I mean, the Uniswap founder too, he's. He's in New York. Like everyone knows who he is, but what are you going to do?
- [04:20]
B
It's like, did they go after him personally or did they go after Uniswap?
- [04:23]
A
After. After Uniswap. Just, I think to make a big, you know, to, to make a big, like headline news about it and basically show others. They always go after the biggest top. Yeah, yeah.
- [04:35]
B
But is that scary to you though, because you might be a target in the future?
- [04:38]
A
I don't think so. I think. I think the difference here is that like, okay, so they go after sbf, right? Once they, Once they go after somebody, they can take the whole business and that's it but if they like go after a founder of a defi protocol. Okay, so you have the founder, but the business lives on forever unless you shut down the Internet and the blockchain.
- [04:59]
B
Oh, so it would still go on. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try@betterhelp.com DSH and get on your way, becoming your best self. My fiance Arielle plays a big role in my mental health, helping me realize my true potential. Everyone's trying their best around you, so take time to appreciate someone close to you. I've tried therapy in the past and it helped me go through some tough times. When I was in college dealing with mental health, I was on prescription medication. I actually had agoraphobia when I was in college and therapy helped me figure out some answers to how to fix that problem. For two months, I couldn't even leave my house or I would have a full on panic attack. So I love companies like BetterHelp that can get therapy in front of the masses. But therapy definitely helped me get better. And I definitely appreciate companies like BetterHelp because it's completely online and it's conveniently suited to fit your schedule and accommodate life surprises. Fill out a brief questionnaire to match with a licensed therapist today with the freedom to switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Visit betterhelp.comDSH to get 10 off your first month. That's BetterHelp H lp.comDSH check them out now.
- [06:08]
A
Oh, it's still gone.
- [06:09]
B
Even if you something happened to you.
- [06:10]
A
You can't do anything because a lot of these smart contracts, they, they basically renounce the contract. So even if you like get a hold of like the D5 founders, like wallets and private keys and try to go into there and try to like switch it off, you can't. They renounce it. So it's like it's immutable. It's impossible.
- [06:26]
B
Wow.
- [06:27]
A
So that whole idea of going against like SEC is that now they're dealing with code, not just centralized entities. So that's the whole, it's a whole different ballgame. And I don't think they can succeed with any interesting. Any of those. Yeah, yeah.
- [06:42]
B
It's been interesting to see how people feel about Gary man over the years. Like at first everyone loved him and now it's seeming like people are going at him.
- [06:50]
A
Yeah. I mean there's, there's videos of him. He saw it like 10 years ago. He was teaching about crypto, crypto like at universities and stuff. And then all Of a sudden, you know, he gets that job as he see chairman and then he changes his whole stance. Right.
- [07:07]
B
Yeah. So it seems like something happened in the middle there.
- [07:10]
A
Yeah. Seems like he got paid to promote the other side now.
- [07:14]
B
Yeah. Because there's a lot of big powerful people that don't want crypto to become mainstream. Right.
- [07:19]
A
Federal Reserve bank, bank governments. Yeah, yeah. Especially when you, when you figure out that you're basically your own bank.
- [07:26]
B
Yeah. Some tough opponents. Same with Forex. A lot of big people don't want Forex.
- [07:30]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [07:31]
B
Because a lot of people can make a living off Forex.
- [07:33]
A
Yep, exactly.
- [07:34]
B
I've met some of the top traders and it's, it's fascinating.
- [07:36]
A
Yeah.
- [07:37]
B
How easy they could. Not easy, but they can make millions just, you know, from their phone.
- [07:41]
A
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I know a couple here. I mean I was in Forex, that was how I started. Also here in Miami is the best, best place to meet all capital. Forex capital and. Yeah, and I mean I've been, I know all the Forex traders listen to Metatrader. And so basically with Dexter, we're building like Metatrader but on chain. What Metatrader did is you basically you can start your own like broker and obviously Metatrader has, they have like 500 brokers that use their platform, MT4, MT5 and so Dextoro, we're launching Dextoro Enterprise. So it's basically like the same thing. Anyone can start their own decentralized exchange. So they would white label Dextoro, they would use our liquidity same way. Similar that Metatrader works and then would basically be like Metatrader but on the blockchain and it's more scalable. There's no kyc, no red tape. You know, all this.
- [08:40]
B
That's huge, man. Cuz selling crypto right now on a centralized platform, they, they limit your withdrawals.
- [08:45]
A
Yeah.
- [08:45]
B
And you have to kyc. So like taxes and all that. There's a lot of negatives to it.
- [08:50]
A
Yeah. KYC is the biggest thing. I mean, you know, even if like the thing with KYC is everyone thinks is, oh, you don't want to do kyc, you're definitely hiding something or you're a criminal. Just. No, some people just value their privacy and you know, you don't.
- [09:04]
B
That was the point of crypto when it started.
- [09:06]
A
Yeah, that was the point. And then obviously we've gone so far away once, once TRADFI comes in and makes their move, you know, soon they're going to, I don't know I think everything is narrative wise. They're trying to make it look bad. Obviously the CBDCs, they want to, they want to like cause a problem, they want to offer a solution. The CBDCs. And that's, that's how I see this industry. But, and I feel like all the founders in Defi are, I mean they have like, yeah, they're, they're building their own like business and products. But at the end of the day I think the larger vision is we all kind of work together to make sure, you know, you know, blockchain decentralization doesn't get compromised by the tradfi, by the institutions.
- [09:51]
B
Yeah. So how do you monetize this if everything is on the contract?
- [09:54]
A
Yeah, trading fees, swap fees. Yeah, every interaction. Um, so obviously like when you use dextoro, we take maker taker fees. So same thing, you take a trade, we take a small cut.
- [10:05]
B
Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah. So the incentives are pretty aligned then?
- [10:09]
A
Yeah, I mean they're, they're aligned. You know, everyone self custody of their funds and so basically it's like Binance. So Dextor's whole vision, and we'll probably execute this in like the next year, is to be like Binance but fully powered by smart contracts. So that's the best way to put it. Zexor is going to be like Binance or Coinbase, but all smart contracts and no, like, no one even needs to like, you know, there's no like hr, there's no like accountants, there's no like people that control your funds or approve your withdrawals or decline your ky. It's just code. Could be run by like a team of five.
- [10:48]
B
That's awesome.
- [10:49]
A
Yeah, so that's, that's what's coming. Blockchain. Now we have like layer twos. I don't know. Are you like.
- [10:55]
B
I've heard of the layers, I don't know exactly what they mean. Could you explain layer one and layer two?
- [10:58]
A
Yeah, layer one is just Ethereum mainnet. So Ethereum base layer, that's, that's a layer one, that's where all the transactions are approved, sequencer fees are generated and then layer two is just scaling solutions. So it basically uses rollups which bundle transactions into a roll up and then they execute that off chain and they send it to the main net. So like Arbitrum, Optimism base, Coinbase's blockchain base, those are all layer two blockchains on Ethereum. So Dexter is on Optimism layer two and still it's, it's fast. I mean it's, it's like, costs like less than a penny to send you.
- [11:35]
B
Wow.
- [11:36]
A
Versus Ethereum maintenance. Like, could be a dollar. It could be $10.
- [11:39]
B
I've paid more than 10. I've paid like more than sometimes like 25.
- [11:42]
A
Depends exactly.
- [11:43]
B
I remember during the NFT craze, like sometimes even 100.
- [11:46]
A
100. Yeah. Especially a swap send. But now the next era, I mean, you could say it's not layer three, but it's just like what Solana has done, where obviously the transactions per second are like near the 100,000 transactions per second. Then you have other blockchains like Sui launching that are doing similar, but we're launching Tauros Blockchain, which is going to be a competitor to Ethereum, Solana, sui, and we're trying to aim for, like, even higher tp.
- [12:15]
B
That's the seed round you're doing right now?
- [12:17]
A
No, that's going to be. That's going to be like end of next year.
- [12:20]
B
Got it.
- [12:21]
A
Kind of aiming towards a Series A, but.
- [12:23]
B
Is that an ICO?
- [12:24]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did ICO. We raised half a million, like less than 24 hours.
- [12:30]
B
Damn.
- [12:30]
A
Yeah, it was. It was pretty crazy.
- [12:31]
B
That's nuts, dude.
- [12:32]
A
These. These token sales go crazy. Like, I've seen some.
- [12:35]
B
If you catch the right one too, you make a quick 10.
- [12:38]
A
Degenerate meme coins raise like 10 million.
- [12:40]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [12:40]
A
A day.
- [12:41]
B
I'm like, the meme coin space is a whole nother world. That's all insider trading. I'm not really a fan of it. But I'm sure you love it with the volume.
- [12:49]
A
Yeah. I only like it when you can actually see who the team is.
- [12:52]
B
Yeah.
- [12:53]
A
Like, if they verify themselves and this is the team, you can see who they are.
- [12:57]
B
There's a lot of scams, so there's.
- [12:58]
A
There's liabilities. Right. So they're held accountable for.
- [13:02]
B
Yeah.
- [13:02]
A
If it's a rug pull or whatever it is.
- [13:04]
B
These celebrity scams are like, every day I see a new one. It's like, why are you fucking up your reputation? For a game coin?
- [13:09]
A
Yeah.
- [13:09]
B
For like, what, to make 100k?
- [13:11]
A
Exactly.
- [13:12]
B
What's that going to do for you to do that?
- [13:13]
A
And then they move on to the next project and they just keep rinsing and repeating and it's nasty. Dude. It's such a. Interesting world.
- [13:20]
B
Yeah. Where do you rank right now in all the decentralized exchanges?
- [13:24]
A
We are, we're. We're like top 10 right now in a year. Yeah. But the thing is, we don't do marketing. We haven't done marketing because I'm like, I'm like a nutcase when it comes to product. Like, it has to be perfect, like Elon Musk, basically. I can't leave. Like, I even tell my cto, I'm like, dude, let me like do all the design, all the ui, like. And I'm like, I should be out like raising capital. I should be out doing that, what a CEO does. But no, I'm like, I'm like in my office doing all the engineering, doing all that stuff. I've been learned to code just by working with the engineers.
- [14:00]
B
Yeah.
- [14:01]
A
All right, now I gotta stop and like raise capital and do more. Go to like the events and.
- [14:07]
B
Well, they say that's actually like a good thing, you know, because Elon believes product is the marketing. He spends $0 on marketing with Tesla.
- [14:14]
A
Yeah, yeah, I saw that interview too.
- [14:16]
B
Yeah. So it's pretty mind blowing because, you know, as marketers, we're taught to spend money and yeah, get eyeballs, but if you just focus all in on the product, that's. That's a way of marketing markets itself.
- [14:25]
A
Exactly.
- [14:25]
B
If it's so good.
- [14:26]
A
Yeah, yeah. So. But yeah, that's, that's kind of the plan now is where we're trying to be the Metatrader in the binance of on chain, all powered by smart contracts, then get into Taurus Blockchain and just basically revolutionize derivatives trading. I mean, nice. I know. Metatrader is so outdated.
- [14:48]
B
Just so old, dude. A lot banned from the app Store too.
- [14:51]
A
Yeah, yeah, man, that was crazy. I was in a lot of like trades too. And I went, I went to Prague and then I had a different phone that didn't have Metatrader on it.
- [15:01]
B
Yeah.
- [15:02]
A
And then I wanted to download Metatrader and I saw that even. Not even just in the U.S. in Prague, it wasn't available. And I was like, wow, dude. What? So I have to like go to my desktop like a trade that's sketchy. I was like, yeah, I think it's time for a change.
- [15:17]
B
Yeah. So you're still trading Forex?
- [15:19]
A
Still trading Forex. Nice. But I'm more or less trading Forex just to see all the flaws and all the improvements on Metatrader and just buy still.
- [15:30]
B
What flaws are you seeing?
- [15:32]
A
Well, to start, a lot of my friends who have brokers, they had to just recently they had to change the, the address in the incorporation country of. They were like in Saint Vincent and Grenadines or these Seychelles, and they had to change it to like different island. And they always have to change things. And MetaTrader is notorious for having scam brokers. I have friends put money, like everything was good. Like there was this product that, you know, they, they sold to investors. Like everything was good. But the problem was the broker. So they deposit funds into an account, they'd be making money. Like the, the owner of this like algorithm was like everything was legit. And then the owner of the broker just stole all the funds, deleted the domain, ran away. And it happened so many times, it's like almost like a rug pull. But it's like they start this fraud forex broker with MetaTrader.
- [16:24]
B
Yeah.
- [16:25]
A
And MetaTrader doesn't do like KYC properly.
- [16:27]
B
Like, and you could fake the trades on there. I heard everything.
- [16:30]
A
You can fake. And then when you're, when you're happy with it, like, because the thing with Metatrader is, is so I had a broker when, when users deposit. So let's say somebody deposited a million dollars. Like I have access to that million dollars. And this is the dark side of owning a Forex broker is that they won't tell you, is that you could fake, you can make fake real and demo accounts and you can fake those completely.
- [16:52]
B
And it looked the same.
- [16:53]
A
Exactly. And when users deposit funds, you have to manually transfer them to your liquidity providing platform. Like we used, we used a Prime. Was it prime prime zero or. I forgot what it was called. But you basically always have access to funds and it's really scary. It's like you could start a broker and you can have access to all these funds and not have any accountability.
- [17:16]
B
Wow. And it's no licensing to start a broker.
- [17:18]
A
No licenses.
- [17:19]
B
You could just start one right now.
- [17:20]
A
Yeah, Easy. So easy.
- [17:22]
B
I wonder why there's no regulation about that.
- [17:24]
A
Nope, nothing. And then because Metatrader just wanted more business and they finally got to it and then they're like, all right, all these brokers without licenses, you're done. And then so they were like trying to transition into getting licenses and they were like scurrying. And then I sold my broker and the owners of that new broker were like, nick, what do we do? And I'm like, I sold at the right time. Sorry, brother.
- [17:46]
B
You know it's coming.
- [17:47]
A
I didn't know. I didn't know. Yeah, I think something with the FTX probably also triggered that.
- [17:52]
B
Probably they were probably getting sued.
- [17:54]
A
Yeah.
- [17:54]
B
Because I lost on a couple of those Forex traders.
- [17:58]
A
Yeah.
- [17:58]
B
Yeah. I put in money into a few of those and yeah, they were scams. You could fake the trades, but the common person would never know that.
- [18:04]
A
Yeah, New wash trading, you can, you can say that it's a live account, but it's a demo account and. But yeah, I mean, I think, I think a lot of feedback from Forex traders that we've been talking to. We have a couple, some of the biggest actually in the industry that we're talking to, try to get them on the team for Dextero. And yeah, they're just like, I've had this idea for so long, you know, like, being able to trade Forex on the blockchain without having to use Metatrader or give my funds to some sketchy broker, you know, and it's like, why do you use an offshore broker? Well, it's because if you use a forex broker based in the US, they're regulated.
- [18:44]
B
KYC.
- [18:45]
A
KYC. You can only trade 50x leverage. There's a rule called FIFO which is first in, first out. There's so much red tape. So they will go to offshore brokers. Those offshore brokers could take your money. So it's like, what do you do as a trader here in the US? Do you settle for 50x leverage with, you know, like Forex.com or Oanda, like a pretty reputable broker? Or do you go offshore and so my broker was offshore, but we had licenses. Got it in svg. But it's. I know, it's just, it's old, outdated.
- [19:14]
B
And yeah, there needs to be a better way. So what will Dextero do with the Forex stuff?
- [19:18]
A
Yeah, so right now we have euro USD, pound USD, Australian gold and silver. For now, you can trade those with 25x leverage on the blockchain. Like, and here's the difference is that when you trade it, you can see all your trades on, on chain, like on the block. Like, you can see your transaction hash and everything. And you can see where you got out of what your profit is, how much eth gas you paid on the fees. And with Metatrader, you can't see any of that. Even when you trade on Binance or Coinbase, you can't actually see exactly, like, how it was executed in the order book.
- [19:52]
B
Wow.
- [19:52]
A
And there's no transparency. They could, they could use scam wicks, Right. They could like hit your stop losses. They can do like the, the craziest stuff. When I had my broker, I had the ability to do like, there's a book and B book, and they even gave me the ability to like, be able to make like wild candlesticks. And take people's like, money, like, stop loss hunting. And. And I was like, no, I don't want that. But they give you that option to like just fuck around with wow. Everyone's money.
- [20:21]
B
And they have no idea.
- [20:22]
A
No idea. All the broke people who own brokers, they know what I'm talking about. And yeah, so, so Dextero is all on the blockchain. Transparent and like, you can't scam wick anyone. You know, you deposit, you withdraw, you control everything with. With a smart wallet that we created on Ethereum is a smart contract wallet. And that's it. I mean all the. I guess a lot of forex brokers, owners, their, their feedback was like, this is awesome. I love it. You know, I want to join. And some of them were just like, they were so, like, jealous and they.
- [20:53]
B
Were so like, oh, I bet they're.
- [20:55]
A
Like, man, I want to, I want to do this myself. This is crazy.
- [20:57]
B
But you might have to white label it. Like, go high level, dude.
- [21:00]
A
That's what we're doing. Yeah. Enterprise. We're building our own liquidity provisioning pro. So we're basically renting out liquidity. Then it's like anyone in the world like, you know, hey, I want to start my own trading platform. But with Metatrader you need, you need at least like 50 grand up front and just legal stuff corporation. But with Dextoro you can white label it. You just have Dextero trading platform. You put your logo there, we'll get you set up. We'll make like the GitHub repo and everything you rent. Liquidity ready to go.
- [21:30]
B
Wow.
- [21:30]
A
Start making money literally from day one. As long as you have somebody to trade.
- [21:34]
B
Holy crap.
- [21:35]
A
Yeah. And then all the fees, everything is like, it gets sent to like a smart contract. Everyone can see the white labels, get their own fee. Everything gets automatically distributed.
- [21:45]
B
Wow, super.
- [21:46]
A
Everything is so transparent and scalable. We could have, we can have thousands of people that have a white label.
- [21:52]
B
That's crazy.
- [21:52]
A
We do that in like one day because it's just replicating the code. Put your logo in. This is your unique, like tracking code. You can see all your volume. And then you just get paid here and you don't have to like, oh, am I going to get paid? Like, no, it's all.
- [22:05]
B
I love that dude. I've always thought about starting a broker because it seems like good passive income if you get a few big traders under you.
- [22:10]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [22:11]
B
That's cool. I like your platform too, because you can't fake the results.
- [22:14]
A
Can't fake It.
- [22:15]
B
Because there's an app called Envolio. Have you heard of them?
- [22:17]
A
I haven't.
- [22:18]
B
A guy named Cy Watson started it. He's like in the crypto space, but it shows people's trades, but you can't fake it. And then it shows like your win rate and everything and then people pay monthly to be part of it.
- [22:28]
A
Is that like my effects book? Have you heard of that?
- [22:31]
B
I've heard of that one, but can you fake that one?
- [22:33]
A
I think you can.
- [22:34]
B
Yeah.
- [22:34]
A
Yeah.
- [22:35]
B
This one is connected somehow in a way where you can't really fake it. I think it's connected your crypto wallet or something. Oh, okay.
- [22:42]
A
So this is for, for, for crypto. For crypto trading.
- [22:44]
B
People do stocks on it too.
- [22:45]
A
Yeah, that's, that's cool. Yeah. So with Dexter, that's basically built in.
- [22:49]
B
Yes. But that's cool though because people that follow people's trades on your platform, they know it's legit trade. It's not like a fake.
- [22:55]
A
Exactly. Plus we have like a leaderboard. So you can see all the traders on our platform, so you can see like how many traders we have in total, registered, active. You can see we have a trader who you know like $12,000 like last week on one trade. And you can literally see on the leaderboard you can see their trend. You can like if you, if you know how to do like on Chain Detective, like you can see everything like.
- [23:17]
B
Yeah.
- [23:18]
A
Proof timestamps, fire.
- [23:19]
B
Because then you can set up a copy trader.
- [23:21]
A
Copy trader. Exactly.
- [23:22]
B
I've seen a lot of people make money off those.
- [23:24]
A
Yeah. And then with, when you, with traditional forex brokers, like you got to pay another company that has the tech for a copy trader, you got to pay them now like $3,000 a month to use their tech and you got to integrate it. Then you have to all these different licenses and it's like with, with, with blockchain, you can just build out one smart contract. You just connect your wallet and it copies. Or you can build out another smart contract and you could set it to do anything you want. So like the future is smart contracts. They're going to power real world assets. Right. BlackRock always talks about that. And it's, I mean the, the future of all of finance, not just trading, like everything like tokenizing, like, like you, you have like you own this office, right? Like the ownership is, it's, it's held like on a specific database where they hold like property ownerships and mortgage and everything. But soon that's all going to be on the blockchain. And it's going to be powered by smart contracts. So that's why we have, like, some of the best smart contract engineers in the world. And that's why I'm. I'm like, I'm trying to find them right now. I'm still for talent because I know that we can build anything. So, like, we're with Dextoral, we can have a section where you can tokenize anything, like ownership, mortgages, auto loans, and you can just tokenize it. And then from there you can even trade it and you can refinance those all permissionless. You can do all that stuff on chain.
- [24:48]
B
Dude, that's really cool. Because the home buying process right now is terrible. If you have crypto.
- [24:51]
A
Yeah.
- [24:52]
B
You have to liquidate it and pay a capital gains tax and then you have to buy it. Convert it. There's a fee to convert it.
- [24:58]
A
Yeah.
- [24:59]
B
Imagine if you could just buy it with crypto.
- [25:00]
A
Yeah.
- [25:00]
B
With a smart contract.
- [25:02]
A
Exactly. And on one chain. So soon, like with chain link, CCIP and, you know, because, like, everyone's like Ethereum, There's Binance smart chain. There's like all these different, like, chains. So I think by the end of this year, there's some big, like, things happening with blockchain tech and you'll be able to, like, kind of operate on like, one chain, like, without bridging your assets.
- [25:24]
B
Wow.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah.
- [25:25]
B
That would be massive.
- [25:26]
A
Exactly. So if you're on Ethereum, you don't have to, like, bridge to, like, Binance Finance or something. Like, soon there's going to be like, one, like, layer where it's just interoperability.
- [25:35]
B
That would be major because right now it's so annoying. With Solana, Binance, Ethereum.
- [25:39]
A
Yeah, it's annoying.
- [25:41]
B
A common person can't figure that shit out, to be honest. Like, it's already annoying for guys like us.
- [25:45]
A
They can. Yeah. That's another thing. Is that the reason why, like, for Dexter, we have like 300 traders, but Daily Active, we only have like, like 10.
- [25:56]
B
Oh, really?
- [25:56]
A
10? But we still generate like 70,000 in trading fees.
- [25:59]
B
Holy crap.
- [26:00]
A
Under 20 million in volume. No, 70,000 total.
- [26:03]
B
Oh, total. Okay.
- [26:04]
A
But it's like 10 traders. Like, what do you expect, right? Yeah, because we haven't done marketing. But. But yeah. So the whole thing is that it's difficult to convince people to move from centralized exchanges to use decentralized exchanges because they have to learn how to use, like, Metamask or they have to learn how to, like, you always have to have ETH for gas Then you have to have your stablecoin. Then you have to connect your wallet. You have to make sure you keep your private key and your seed phrase private so you don't get packed. And there's like so many steps, it's so fragmented. Just to use DEFI protocols. And with like Coinbase or Binance, you just email password sign up2fa. Thank you.
- [26:46]
B
That's it. Yeah, they make it easy.
- [26:47]
A
They have an app. So we're doing that now is that we're implementing. It's called account abstraction. So you won't even have to use a metamask anymore.
- [26:55]
B
You just.
- [26:56]
A
You just sign in with your Google account or your Apple ID with face id and you can start trading on Dextoro just like that. Like a centralized exchange.
- [27:06]
B
That's going to make it easy.
- [27:07]
A
So easy. Yeah, that's.
- [27:08]
B
That's smooth, man. Yeah. There's always the risk of being hacked in crypto. You see it every day on Twitter.
- [27:12]
A
Yeah.
- [27:12]
B
Someone gets wrecked Twitter.
- [27:14]
A
Crypto is crazy.
- [27:15]
B
Yeah. It's so negative. I actually had to stop. Like, you have to be on it for your job, I'm sure. But yeah, it's so toxic, dude.
- [27:21]
A
Yeah, it's overwhelming. You don't know like, what to, like, if you're on there to find some. Some new. Like alpha. Some new coins or you want some news, like. No, you're going to get bombarded with some. Some exploit some hack some whatever.
- [27:35]
B
And any day the market's down, do not go on crypto Twitter because. Just a bunch of people contemplating weird things.
- [27:41]
A
Yeah, Yeah. I just, I honestly, I do know, like, the newsletters I subscribe to, like. Oh, yeah, Milk Road or just a couple.
- [27:47]
B
Yeah. Sean Perry's. Right.
- [27:48]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [27:49]
B
Or is that Sampar? One of them has a crypto on and.
- [27:52]
A
Yeah, so I just, I don't even go on those. I just have one email that hits my inbox a day for a full coverage of all the news. And that's a smart. It's too. It's too overwhelming.
- [28:01]
B
Oh, my gosh, dude, it's. Yeah, it really puts you down.
- [28:04]
A
Yeah.
- [28:05]
B
Crypto Twitter, man.
- [28:06]
A
Yeah, man.
- [28:07]
B
Yeah. All the NFTs are down bad, so people are just depressed. And then the meme coins.
- [28:11]
A
Yeah, it's funny. All the celebrities. Or did you hear the Justin Bieber he bought that one for?
- [28:16]
B
Oh, the board eight.
- [28:17]
A
And then now it's. It's worth the 99 down. It's like worth like $10.
- [28:21]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [28:21]
A
And he bought it for like half a million.
- [28:22]
B
I almost bought a Board Ape at the peak. Yeah. For like 100k.
- [28:25]
A
It was, it was like a good, like flex though, you know, at the time. The eleven nightclub has one.
- [28:30]
B
I know.
- [28:30]
A
And they put it on that big.
- [28:32]
B
Yeah. They actually probably made their money back off it.
- [28:34]
A
I think so. Yeah.
- [28:35]
B
Most people lost money.
- [28:37]
A
Yeah. The thing is you can't generate like, you can buy it, but then you can't like generate income with it. It's not like you can buy Ethan stake it and like generate yield. Like you can't really do that with NFTs.
- [28:46]
B
Yeah. It's like I was a big fan of staking until Celsius happened.
- [28:50]
A
They made it so easy. And then. So, dude, that founder, he would go to these conferences, he'd have that shirt that said banks are not your friend.
- [28:56]
B
Right. I'm like, dude, he did a phenomenal marketing campaign.
- [29:00]
A
Amazing.
- [29:00]
B
I can't even knock him for that.
- [29:01]
A
But yeah.
- [29:02]
B
Yeah, that was messed up, man.
- [29:03]
A
Is he in prison or.
- [29:05]
B
No, he should be. If he's not.
- [29:07]
A
I don't think he is.
- [29:08]
B
We got, we got like 30 back, but everyone else. Yeah. Lost 70%.
- [29:13]
A
How does that work, though? Like, who determines who gets.
- [29:17]
B
They went to court and there was a class action and yeah, everyone got like 30 of their portfolio back, but it was at. When ETH was like 2000, so it wasn't even really 30%. It's like 15, 20.
- [29:30]
A
And so. So that was basically just a Ponzi scheme. Just a classic. Yeah, classic Ponzi scheme.
- [29:35]
B
Yeah. It's crazy that they got that far though.
- [29:37]
A
Yeah.
- [29:38]
B
And they were like, pretty. I thought they were regulated or something. They were. Were they public?
- [29:43]
A
I think, honestly, I think it's just the founder, he would, he would always be on press, he would always be at conferences and speaking on stage and just like he was so good with his words and convincing everyone is like, that was the regulation there. It's like you put your trust into him and see him speak. And the same thing with, with spf, you know, he was like.
- [30:03]
B
He was good.
- [30:03]
A
He was like this philanthropist. Or was it half your money? Well, yeah. What's that? Like he wants to donate all of his.
- [30:09]
B
Yeah, there's a word. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
- [30:11]
A
Doesn't care about the money or something like that.
- [30:12]
B
And that's what, that's what got me. I didn't even use ftx, but I've respected him from those videos.
- [30:18]
A
Yeah. Because they would always. Okay, so it was like, at the time it was Binance and FTX was the Top ones. And it's like the whole narrative that they kind of impose on you is like, okay, Binance is, you know, changpeng's out this Chinese guy. And like, you know, some people against, like China and all this stuff about it and all this, like, fud. They'd create their money laundering. And then you have FTX here, like, based in the us they just. They bought that American Airlines arena and they're so. The founder is so good. And that's why FTX was a huge threat to Binance. And that was the whole success, you know, behind. Behind them is that they really use that to. To. To get users in. And obviously paying Kevin O'Leary and paying all these like. Like Tom Brady and paying all these athletes and celebrities.
- [31:01]
B
Yeah.
- [31:02]
A
Out of users deposits.
- [31:03]
B
Nuts, dude. Crazy. They got away with it for a while.
- [31:08]
A
Yeah. And do you think those. Do you think they should be held liable, though, like the celebrities?
- [31:13]
B
Yeah, I think they got sued. I don't know what happened, but I'm assuming they settled by now. Yeah, they probably gave most, if not all the money back. Yeah, they probably know to be fair.
- [31:23]
A
Yeah.
- [31:23]
B
So it's a tricky one.
- [31:24]
A
Exactly.
- [31:25]
B
Yeah. They probably had no idea. They were just like, oh, crypto.
- [31:27]
A
I mean, when someone offers you like 10 million just to represent the brand.
- [31:30]
B
Yeah.
- [31:30]
A
You're not going to turn it down.
- [31:31]
B
Yeah. Put yourself in their shoes, because people shit on these guys. But he would have taken that money. 99% of people.
- [31:37]
A
Exactly.
- [31:37]
B
You know what I mean? And then you see them hate online.
- [31:39]
A
Yeah.
- [31:40]
B
What.
- [31:40]
A
What's going on with ftx? Do you know anything right now?
- [31:42]
B
I heard they found all the money is the last thing I heard.
- [31:45]
A
I think the new CEO was trying to like, like re. You know, trying to get the brand back going and. Yeah, and get it back going. I don't think.
- [31:52]
B
I know. They had a big salana position and then when that spiked again.
- [31:56]
A
Yeah.
- [31:56]
B
The 8 billion was restored. I don't know what. What happened, but. Yeah, we'll see if they can recover. It's going to be tough.
- [32:02]
A
Yeah, it is. I don't know.
- [32:03]
B
Their rep is so tainted.
- [32:04]
A
Yeah, I don't think so. I think the future is defi is defi on chain and these. That's why Coinbase did base.
- [32:16]
B
Is that defi?
- [32:17]
A
Yeah, they have their own layer 2 blockchain and they have so many interesting projects on base. Dextoro. We were about to go on base, but we have our own plans with Toros. But Coinbase knows it. Everyone knows it. And I think it's just a matter of time. I think we'll see it early next year. All these large centralized exchanges, they'll have their own blockchain. I mean, crypto.com already does. Right? They have the crypto. OKX has their own blockchain.
- [32:44]
B
Yeah.
- [32:45]
A
And yeah, that's.
- [32:46]
B
I think whatever exchange can lock in with a credit card company will be massive for the average consumer. Yeah, but that's been such a hurdle to overcome.
- [32:55]
A
Yeah. I just tell it like a lot of our traders. Same thing. I just like, you know, use Moonpay or use something that's easy. You can't use credit card, though. You only.
- [33:06]
B
Too many chargebacks. Right?
- [33:07]
A
Yeah. Only debit card. Moonpay allows. But that's how I've been using debit card to get into crypto. But it's.
- [33:14]
B
Which bank debit card allows crypto purchases?
- [33:16]
A
All of them.
- [33:17]
B
Oh, all of them.
- [33:17]
A
All of them.
- [33:18]
B
Oh, I thought they banned them like Chase and stuff.
- [33:20]
A
No, no, all of them. Yeah. Because. Because Moonpay is very regulated and like every time you do that, you have to like confirm text. Yeah. And when you do that, you can't say it's fraud because, like they have your. Yeah, they have your digital footprint. So a lot of people would be like, make like a $10,000 purchase on Moonpay and then they'll like, say it's fraud. They get free crypto. And so with adding the text message, it adds that additional layer footprint and they. They can't.
- [33:46]
B
Yeah, they can't win that one.
- [33:47]
A
It's like, no, we sent you this message and you put it. And it's not fraud.
- [33:52]
B
You could say you got sim hacked, I guess, but that's a tough.
- [33:54]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [33:55]
B
I actually did get some hacked ones.
- [33:56]
A
Oh, you did?
- [33:57]
B
Yeah, they went. They went after me.
- [33:59]
A
So what, they. They like stole your phone? No.
- [34:03]
B
So SIM hacked is they call your phone carrier, pretend to be you social engineer, buy your Social Security number off the dark web and then switch the phone to their phone. Like a new phone.
- [34:13]
A
Yeah.
- [34:13]
B
And then say forgot password. And then if you have two factor SMS set up on all your. They get a text to that phone to reset the password.
- [34:20]
A
Wow. Yeah, that's. That's why I only use Authenticator app.
- [34:24]
B
Yeah, I only use Authenticator use sms. Yeah. I would have been screwed if I was using text on my phone.
- [34:30]
A
Yeah. I think also a password manager is. Does change my life because.
- [34:35]
B
Yeah, pass.
- [34:36]
A
I use one. Password is definitely the best and I've.
- [34:38]
B
Heard of that one.
- [34:39]
A
Have all the credentials use like 100 characters for all my passwords. Yeah, 100 characters.
- [34:45]
B
No one's guessing that.
- [34:46]
A
Crazy symbols. Everything. Two layers of two fa. And I mean, you have to. Because my industry, you know.
- [34:52]
B
Yeah, you're a target for sure.
- [34:53]
A
Crypto defy. Like. Like cryptography. And I just love this security stuff about it. And that's why I'm so, so passionate about building this. This future. Future of everyone controls their own data, funds, everything.
- [35:08]
B
Love it.
- [35:08]
A
Interact with that.
- [35:09]
B
Where can people find you? And more about Dextero.
- [35:11]
A
Yeah. Dextero.com. you can, you know, right now. So we do actually have a live token sale too. So it's. I think we're. We'll probably end up doing the whole two and a half million within 30 days. So, I mean, if we did the half million 24 hours earlier this year with one influencer, so I think we'll probably fill pretty quickly. And. Yeah, then. Then we deploy. We launch all of our suite of products. We get into Taurus Blockchain, and I think it's.
- [35:37]
B
It's gonna be gg.
- [35:38]
A
It'll be massive. So. Love it.
- [35:41]
B
We'll link it below and check it out. Guys. Thanks for coming on, man.
- [35:44]
A
For sure. Yeah.
- [35:44]
B
Thanks for watching, guys. See you next time.
- [35:46]
A
Thanks.