Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Living on Blockchain. Today we are speaking to John. John is on the founding team of MantraDAO.
He is an absolutely great guy. He’s a friend. I’ve worked with him on multiple product lines together.
And, you know, we had a really, really amazing conversation about how he got into this space and, you know, what MantraDAO is planning to do next. They have multiple product lines and they are scaling in a tremendous way. They’re really creating some good stuff for the DeFi community.
They’re pulling up the entire ecosystem with them. So yeah, I can’t wait for you guys to hear this. And just again, in case you have any follow-up questions for John, please put them out in our comments, in our socials, or any of the other podcast platforms that this episode is being streamed on.
I’d be happy to get them across to John for you. So yeah, let’s deep dive right into the conversation. Hi John, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us today.
How are you doing? Yeah, doing fine, thanks. It’s been quite the hectic couple of months, but all good on my front. The markets have been crazy, so that’s keeping us on our toes.
But all good across the board. Yeah, no, but I like what you said in the beginning, right? The market is what it is. You just have to sort of keep building.
For sure. Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, we’ve been in the game for quite some time now, so we’re not new to this type of tumultuous market and volatility.
Yeah, you get used to it after being there in the wild, right? Like, you know, the people who just get in, they’re obviously very appalled by the kind of fluctuations. Once you’ve seen like one or two cycles, then this is just a part and parcel of being in the sector. A hundred percent.
I mean, you’ve got to be able to stomach all the lows to be able to kind of enjoy the highs as well. Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so for our listeners, I would love for you to give us a little background about how you got into the blockchain and crypto space.
Sure. Yeah, so I’ll take a little bit of a step back. Basically, when I was graduating from university, I was going to school in Spain, and I was a fairly early adopter of Bitcoin.
I bought my first Bitcoin back in 2013, but at that point, I was a poor college student, so it was basically a trade-off between drinking beer that weekend or buying Bitcoin. So, you know, not every weekend was buying Bitcoin, I’ll just say that. Okay.
And then, so when I graduated, it was kind of the peak of the European financial crisis, and I was looking for jobs. I was going to school in Europe at the time. I’m from the US originally, and there was pretty much nothing, so I ended up going to B school, and in B school, I really started getting into the general topic of fintech, so I was always interested in tech, always interested in finance.
And up to that point, I’d been looking at a more traditional path, which I continued to progress on down the line. But long story short, I was interested in looking at this for quite some time. I ended up doing a master’s degree in both Germany, in management, and then in China, in economics.
So once I was over in China, part of this kind of double degree, we continued to look at fintech, and I became a little bit more kind of engrossed with it, particularly as right around that time was when international people and foreigners were able to actually participate in WeChat or Alipay. Before that, it was really, really hard to even participate in those things, actually. I think it was illegal.
So it really kind of struck me about how this type of technology can really kind of change the human experience with how you interact with your finances and commerce and all these types of different things. So I saw that, and it kind of struck a chord in my head, thinking about how different types of technologies can really impact the commercial use and kind of the end user. So at that point, I was lucky enough that I was able to get a job at a bank in Shanghai called Guotai Junan Securities.
So I was continuing down the traditional path a little bit. I was actually one of the first foreigners to ever work for this bank, and it was quite the experience. But then I ended up actually becoming part of this emerging technology research team that was focused on looking at all different types of emerging technologies.
And that was really where the kind of the conflux of everything that I just spoke about kind of came to fruition. And I was able to kind of position myself to be the kind of the research lead for crypto and blockchain within this little small emerging tech team that was meant to have a global focus. So I really started just deep diving into all things crypto and blockchain.
This is around 2015, 2016. And it was kind of a right place, right time kind of thing to a degree, but after that, I started basically writing a lot about different FinTech and crypto opportunities that I was seeing, participated in, it was very early in things like NEO, which was previously called AntShares, some of these different things. So that was kind of like my first foray into it back then.
And then since then, I’ve been involved in any number of different things from crypto exchange business to more traditional side with a US broker deal that has a license for digital securities. Now Monterdao, which is obviously DeFi focused and a couple of different other things. So I’ve gotten my hands into a lot of different stuff over the years.
Right, okay. This is very interesting. So initially you were saying that you were working with a bank, right? And they were already looking at these emerging technologies that they were looking at blockchain and Bitcoin, et cetera, then? Or was this a tech team that was focused on some other technologies like AI, ML? They looked at everything.
So the way China works or tends to work is that through the central government, they have these kind of five-year plan milestones or kind of high level topics that the government kind of sets out as like, this is what we’re looking at. And obviously the market takes it as a signal like, oh, we should look at this too. So, because that’s obviously how you’re able to kind of assess your strategy based off the policy that you will imagine is going to come to the market in the future or at least during the next five years.
So they had things like machine learning and AI and blockchain was one of them. I mean, I think smart city was one and automation and all these types of things that were topics that are over the broader idea of kind of emerging technology within the Chinese scope. So I was positioned as one of the individuals who was actually looking at that team or within that team.
And I just kind of focused myself on something that I was the most interested in. Does that make sense? Yeah, that does make sense. But it’s interesting to the way that is the kind of work culture that they embody that, you know, that there are these minuses that are being said and the government itself is kind of encouraging, you know, entities to sort of look at these technologies because the same thing cannot be perhaps said for other governments as well.
Wouldn’t you agree? Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, it’s interesting because, you know, the bank that I was working for is a state-owned bank. Yeah, so, I mean, it wasn’t like a JP Morgan or something like that, which, you know, has even had its own, you know, kind of ups and downs with Bitcoin and crypto. You know, it was kind of interesting to see, you know, how some of these, you know, kind of like very kind of traditional conservative institutions were looking at these type of things.
I’ll give a lot of credit to the leaders of the company at that time for looking at this stuff. I will say that, unfortunately, in the end, it actually never ended up amounting to anything, at least while I was at the bank. You know, so I left kind of before, you know, anything really emerged in respect to, like, actually being able to act on this information.
So, yeah, I mean, that was the main issue. You know, taking it, and I think there was a lot of kind of learning and educational experiences that happened from it, but, you know, being able to… Execute, that might just… Yeah, there might be a lag here. That was the trick.
That was the trick. Yeah, execution is always key. So, but it’s interesting that, you know, that is the way we kind of undertake and approach innovation.
So that’s interesting. So moving on to other things, tell me a little about what you guys are doing at Mantra now, and how you got started, and let’s start with that, and then I’ll ask you about your next big milestone. Sure.
Yeah, so Mantra, I mean, we launched, what, like, almost exactly a year ago. So I think 10, about 10 months on August 18th is when we officially launched the token. So we were relatively early to the DeFi game, I would say.
We launched in a nice time within kind of the middle of DeFi summer last year. And essentially, you know, what kind of led up to Mantra, and it’s actually kind of an interesting thing, is a series of failures and very, very near misses. Obviously, a lot of this was perpetuated by COVID and just kind of unforeseen circumstances, but it is interesting.
And, you know, I’m actually very kind of blessed and happy that it happened this way, because I love the product that I’m working on and, you know, the outcome that we’ve achieved so far. But essentially what happened was I was working with that broker dealer company, Tractorian Capital, which was doing kind of regulated STOs and various offerings. And actually we were working on a very kind of high-profile deal in the U.S., which was the contract tokenization for Spencer Dinwiddie, who was an NBA player for the Brooklyn Nets at the time.
And I mean, basically this launched like right before the peak of COVID. So everything was going quite well. And, you know, we finally had this big on our table and on our desk that we were kind of, you know, kind of going to use as the champion deal for all of these future things to come.
Obviously COVID happened and, you know, the world changed. So that, you know, long story short, fell apart. And, you know, then we needed to find something else to do.
So I actually got asked to join, or actually I was talking to one of our investor friends and he asked me to help him start this new kind of like security tokenization platform and ecosystem. And I was going to do this together with Will, who is, you know, obviously another one of the Mantra co-founders. And basically we got to like literally right around the point where we’re about to get a seed round check signed for $3 million term sheet signed.
And the LP would have been signing off on it the night before we’re supposed to meet him. He also got COVID. Oh, okay, wow.
So that fell apart. Yeah. And then we got asked to run an exchange.
And, you know, again, kind of like right on the stroke of twilight, the funding behind that pulled out. So it’s like, you know, within three or four months, you know, there’s like these three opportunities that presented themselves that ended up falling apart. And then, you know, the, we were, we kind of were like forced to figure something out.
And lo and behold, we were working together with some of the people from Rio DeFi and, you know, someone had the idea to do MakerDAO on Polkadot, which, you know, it’s a fairly high level idea. And, you know, we basically took that like very high level concept and everyone’s like, okay, you should do an ICO. And we’re like, does, you know, do ICOs even work anymore? Because this was before there was anyone doing ICOs again.
This was back in like, you know, April, May of last year. So people, it wasn’t hot again. You know, there wasn’t launch pads.
It wasn’t any of this stuff. And we went for it and we kind of developed this whole ecosystem focusing on staking, lending, a validator business, and an emphasis on community governance and community participation within this kind of consumer facing financial product based platform. And that’s kind of Montreal.
I mean, we basically launched it back in August. Like I said, it was really originally focused primarily on the Polkadot ecosystem. You know, we still are actively building on Substrate and within that ecosystem, we are running nodes for both Polkadot and Kusama, but it’s just taken a little bit longer than what we expected.
So we had to kind of build out our platform and our products on Durium in the short term. So we’ve launched a multi-asset staking platform. We have a lending money market.
We have a kind of a lottery style product called the Mantra Pool, which takes rewards from our validator business or assets from our validator business and basically raffles them to five winners on a weekly basis. And those winners, in order to enter the raffle, have to pay or spend their own tokens to access it. We launched that.
What else did we launch? We have a launch pad, which you guys participated in. And we’re also launching a regulated DEX, everything gone full circle. We’re working with the broker dealer Triton through a joint venture in the US to launch a regulated DEX product, which I think the timing right now for that is just absolutely perfect.
We’re building and launching on a bunch of different chains and we’re currently live on Ethereum, BSC. We’ll be launching multiple products on Polygon, Echo, Solana, and of course, Polkadot and Kusama through various parachain down the line whenever that gets worked out. So yeah, so we believe in this, kind of the multi-chain blockchain agnostic approach.
We’ve always said it from the beginning, we’re not maximalist in any sense. We support the Ethereum ecosystem, we support the Cosmos ecosystem, Polkadot ecosystem, Solana. We’re not firmly in any one camp.
That’s the only way to grow, right? Like the ecosystem is not going to grow if you’re just going to be support, if you’re going to be like a Bitcoin maximalist. That’s not going to happen. There are so many teams, there are so many people that are building on other things and they are doing some wonderful work there.
You guys are creating like a huge ecosystem from what I can hear and what I’ve seen already. I would like some, you know, tips perhaps later on how I should manage traffic. Of course.
Of course, I’m happy to help. Yeah, no, no, definitely. I’m going to be sort of buzzing you regarding this, but this is like, as I said, you know, you’re a startup with the envisioning of this entire ecosystem.
Did you have this in mind when you had started Montreux? So we did have a pretty big vision, I would say, when it first started. I will admit like, you know, we have changed significantly with respect to kind of how things have actually developed. I mean, that’s just a part of the process of, you know, trying things out, iterating, you know, finding what works and then just opportunities kind of presenting themselves.
So, you know, we did have a vision, but, you know, and actually I would say that we laid out a roadmap when we launched our token last year, which was basically three quarters. So we had, you know, Q3, Q4 and Q1 of last year that had, you know, various things that we need to accomplish within a set amount of time. And we accomplished basically everything, you know, within that roadmap.
The broader, larger vision is still, you know, more encompassing than that. I mean, there’s still a lot that we are working on. I mean, we’re far, far, far, far from where we want to be, you know, not only with the existing products, but with new ones.
And, you know, we’re always constantly trying to, you know, take a community feedback, improve it, see what the market is actually valuing, you know, adding additional features and things and, you know, trying things out all the time, adding new chains, new networks, new ecosystems, this type of stuff. And constantly, again, you know, having our own kind of reflections on what works, what, you know, what we need to improve on, various products where they need to get better at, you know, how we can have better value capture for the token. The token part is really, really important.
It’s an interesting conundrum because, you know, the company itself, like we make a lot of money. We have multiple revenue streams that, you know, even in bear markets still make a decent amount of money, particularly the Valorator business, I would say. And, you know, because of that, and also just because of the fact that we raised offering back in, you know, mid 2020, everything is significantly appreciated since then in terms of price.
So a lot of the assets that we either received as part of our token offering and, or we invested in back then have gone up significantly, you know, so we’re sitting on a fairly sizable treasury. So we’re in a good position for a bear market, I will say, especially compared to, you know, some of the, you know, projects that, you know, raised when ETH was at 4,000, for example. So that definitely gives us a leg up, I would say, but, you know, again, we’re far from, from where we’re going to be and we still have a lot of building to do.
Yeah, absolutely. So what you said about, you know, sitting on a good treasury, so that is very important. Like if you’re going to be building and scaling a product, right.
That, you know, you should have that peace of mind that, you know, your runway is going to sustain you, your company treasury will sustain your innovation. So that is very important and more part of you guys are being able to sustain it and create these multiple revenue channels, which is where a lot of projects kind of, I believe fail, right. That they’re not able to sort of monetize on a lot of multi channels or perhaps scale the project in a manner that they can take all the, you know, multiple product lines that they’ve created and scale.
So, yeah, so that, that is all very commendable. Now that, you know, you, you mentioned in the beginning how COVID had a certain impact to the way you can launch the product. So now what would you say has been the impact of COVID now? Like especially on your team, like, is it a remote first team? How are you guys managing that? Yeah, good question.
So we have a fairly sizable team. The vast majority of it’s been remote actually. So I’m based in Hong Kong.
The management team is in Hong Kong and we tend to focus operations here in Hong Kong, but finding good dev resources in Hong Kong is challenging. I will say, so what, you know, we’ve actually built out a fairly sizable tech team. All over the place, but you know, the core I think would be in Australia actually.
Then we have a team, a couple of teams across Eastern Europe. We have, you know, a couple of advisors that help out and support, you know, locally and also in the United States. So it is kind of all over the place.
COVID has obviously made it, made it so that, you know, we’ve a lot, you know, a lot of the people that we work with, I’ve never met before, at least in person. So I’m looking forward for that to change, obviously looking forward to meet all of our team coming months, you know, year plus. So, you know, definitely looking forward to that.
But, you know, I’ve always worked on projects that have been like for my entire crypto experience that have been kind of global in nature. And there’s been people all over the place, you know, so pretty used to late night calls and early morning calls. And, you know, definitely was very familiar with zoom well before crypto well before COVID happened.
So I believe that, you know, with the COVID hitting us, the one silver lining is that you retire and quit from, because remote first has become like a norm, right? So you can actually hire wherever good talent beckons. And that I believe is like a big advantage now because you know, you’re kind of, if you’re appealing to a global audience, it’s good to have like a global team as well. The diverse nature of your team can actually help the product in many ways.
For sure. I agree. And then, I mean, to be honest, like we have products that, you know, somewhat require, in my opinion, 24 seven vigilance to a degree, you know, so it helps me sleep a little bit at night knowing that there’s just, there’s always some eyes on it.
You know, that doesn’t mean that it’s not, you know, that you’re not worried that something’s going to get hacked or exploited or something like that. That’s always a worry, but you know, it’s not as bad as it could be when you know, you have trusted people that are 24 seven awake. Yeah.
Somebody or the other is always like looking so that’s like a good advantage to have. So what is like the next big milestone for you guys in terms of, you know, the multiple product offerings that you have, what would be like one big milestone that you want to achieve? Good question. The next thing that we’re going to be launching will be focused on the swaps that we’re launching.
So one is a crypto focused, a crypto only swap. I don’t have a name for that just yet. We’re thinking either like mantra swap or shipper swap.
That’ll be on the mantra Dow app. And then the other product that’s a big one is Soma finance decks, which is the U S regulated decks for crypto assets, tokenized equities, you know, ETFs, STOs, you know, you name it, that’s being built and it’s actually in the middle of its fundraise or at least the seed round right now, although that’s looking like it’s going to be well over subscribed. So, yeah, I mean, that’s a, those are the probably the two ones that I think will be the most seen.
We’ve undergone, you know, a lot of like kind of a backend improvements on stuff, you know, so we’re launching a bunch of new APIs for all of our product just to kind of help with the connectivity and kind of the ability to, to build and, you know, connect back in front end within our own platform, just making it easier and more streamlined and faster and just a bit more quality that doesn’t obviously show as much to the end user, but it does make the experience better. That’s one thing. What else are we doing? I mean, we’re doing, we’re launching a bunch of different chains on a bunch of different chains.
So, you know, we’ll continue to have, I think we’ll be on across all of our products on, you know, four to five different chains within the next month to two months. Max that includes, as I mentioned, Polygon, Heco and Solana. And then, you know, we’re building some pretty cool stuff on Substrate natively.
Actually after this call, I got to go to our builders, parody builders program call with the parody team. And that one is, it should be interesting because, you know, some of the like more comprehensive financial products are being built natively in, in ink or on Substrate. So that’s, that’s also a pretty cool thing that’s going to come in and hopefully not too distant future.
Yeah, no, this is all very exciting. You know what you’re saying that like having your product lines and on multiple chains, I believe like so much work goes into all of this. Like I understand that.
And you know, you’re seeing this, it’s completely effortlessly. So that kind of confidence I’m really liking. And I, for the fact that, you know, you guys have such a big milestone in terms of launching the swaps, et cetera, they’re going to be a hit.
Like you already know it because this is something I believe that the market already kind of, you know, there’s a niche there and people want this. So whatever you’ve said in terms of your milestones, it’s all sounding, you know, fabulous. I’m already like, You guys are making, you’re creating some wonderful products.
And as I said, it’s an ecosystem in itself. So yeah, like more power and kudos to you. Now, you’re kind of moving on from your work and getting some of your personal opinion perhaps into the conversation.
This is like a question that I’ve been asking almost everybody who’s been coming on the show recently and off late, like what is their opinion about NFTs because you know, that there is so much noise there was now there has been like, it’s kind of plateaued, but there was like a boom in NFTs, right? So recently, I would love to know what you think about NFTs personally. Sure. Yeah.
I mean, I, I mean, not that it, I, you know, again, I’ve seen the crypto bubbles multiple times in my experience. So, you know, seeing how ridiculous that went was, you know, I could see that was coming. I don’t want to say a mile away, but you know, well before it happened, meaning the burst of the bubble, I do think that NFTs are still really cool products.
I think there’s a lot of use for them to be implemented into financial products actually. So there’s a lot of different things outside of just, you know, crypto punks or, you know, bit clout, you know, tokens and whatnot. It’s just a lot of improvements I think will come.
And, you know, sometimes you gotta have the, you know, the crap get washed away in order to actually, you know, get some of the great stuff. So I still think that there’s a future for NFTs. I don’t think they’re going anywhere.
But you know, the random, be frank, I’m not, you know, not really. Well done, piece of art that sells for, you know, a hundred thousand dollars, plus, you know, you know, I’m glad that that’s, you know, not. That’s the norm anymore.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that you know, that it was kind of kinda, giving this space a bit of bad name so to say, right.
All the people think that first perspective, you know the major and then, you know, you have this piece of artwork. I understand that beauty is in the, kind of, the eye of the beholder and people who are buying it, obviously I’ve seen something that perhaps, you know, I’m too individual to understand, But even I was not really, I did not feel very positively about this entire, the boom that, you know, the $69 million artwork by B. Pulitzer, it just, I was not able to wrap my head around it. It, as you said, that it’s a very, very interesting space, it has a lot of potential.
But right now, I believe that that potential is yet to be discovered, like for day to day use, like what is that problem that, you know, that is being solved perhaps here, that that is kind of, you know, being overshadowed by all this glitz and glamour of all the money that is being thrown away on these art pieces, which, again, like everybody can have their opinion. But I also thought that, you know, it’s just a bubble ready to, you know, kind of waiting to be burst sometime soon, which it did now, yeah. So I’m just hoping that, you know, a real use case, where would this train sort of end up? I believe that it’s like a fast going phase train, but where is it going to end up in? I don’t know.
I do hope that it ends up somewhere good. And I believe that there is immense potential here. I agree completely.
I mean, I think there’s still a lot of cool stuff that’s happening in the NFT space. You know, you’re definitely getting a lot of eyes on it, too, you know, from, you know, big galleries and from, you know, big institutional players and whatnot. So I don’t, you know, again, I think that there’s still a lot of room to go.
But you know, some of the more mediocre stuff needed to get washed out. Yeah, no, as you said, at times you need the crap to sort of wash away to actually get to the good stuff. That’s like a exact good analogy, in my opinion, as well.
I believe that there is a lot of potential, but then, you know, that that entire this bubble that we kind of went through that that would have been avoided, it would have been better had it been avoided. But then it’s fine. You know, it’s I believe it’s a trajectory.
So, you know, we went through that part as well. So now on to like my next question. There are so many people in this space.
And, you know, if a newbie is sort of starting out and trying to get into the crypto space, which thought leaders or influencers would you recommend to these guys to start like tuning into to get the right information? Because at this moment, it’s very important that people get the right information as well, right? No, completely. I mean, there’s a lot of BS influencers out there, too, who just show whatever and, you know, don’t disclose anything in terms of what they’re getting paid to do so and all kinds of kind of shady stuff. Yeah, one particular one that I definitely support would be Blockchain Brad.
OK, I think Blockchain Brad is great, unbiased, not completely unbiased, but he is complete, you know, class act. He will always disclose if he’s ever invested anything. He’s an educator at heart.
You know, so these types of these types of traits are something that I admire. I think that the Three Arrows guys, Kyle and Ju, they have some some really cool stuff and interesting stuff. I like Hasu, who I think he’s a researcher at Paradigm.
He has some really interesting stuff on DeFi. Who else? I’m actually just looking at my Twitter line to see who I see, who I’d like to follow. Those are some of the good ones.
Yeah, interesting names, actually, but you’ve actually pulled out some good influencer names as well, because usually people take a lot of names of founders. And now that we have some good influencers here as well, these are good people to look at because, as you said, they are more forthright about what they’re doing. And I believe something that has been missing off late in the conversations that people have in the blockchain space, because a lot of people are kind of, you know, promote as a sales rep or they’re getting some advantage by putting out that information.
And some obviously people who come in who have just come in, they, you know, they can get burnt as well. So it’s always good to have, you know, have like a good balance of operators and influencers and the kind of information that you’re assimilating, obviously do your own research. Good names that you’ve put out as well.
So coming to my last question, you know, this is something that I ask everybody that kind of comes on the show. If somebody is hearing it from the outside, so to say, what would be your two cents to this particular person who’s intrigued by the blockchain crypto space, but still hasn’t really stepped in? What would be your two cents to them to start living on blockchain? Good question. You know, obviously do your own research.
I think that, you know, you got to start to learn the fundamentals and, you know, it does come down to kind of, you know, having a passion for it and finding your passion for it. So, you know, read as much as you can, you know, follow people on Twitter who seem like they are key personalities, watch YouTube videos, you know, go to meetups if you can in your country, you know, if it’s actually allowed and, you know, reach out to people who are who are actively participating in the space, see if they can help, you know, give context, give feedback and, you know, share some of their stories. So that’s one key thing.
And then I think, you know, more importantly than anything, just get active, get your hands into it, you know, play around, you know, get a maybe start with Bitcoin and Ethereum, but, you know, get a wallet and put a little bit of money in there and, you know, try to find these various protocols that you find interesting, because I think really without getting your hands dirty, you’ll never be able to kind of, you know, it’s not never, but it’s just harder to catch up because this industry moves so fast. You know, so if you want to learn to figure out what’s going on in DeFi, you know, you got to participate in DeFi, right? So, you know, get a MetaMask, get a ledger so you can protect yourself and go play a little bit. You know, maybe you will lose some money, so don’t put anything, you know, life changing in there at first, you know, but I think it really does come down to trying to participate in, you know, just figuring out what it’s all about.
And, you know, you’re going to make mistakes and, you know, maybe you’re going to buy some some shit coin that, you know, doesn’t doesn’t ever do anything. But, you know, that’s all part of the experience. Right.
I think even the best of the business, I’ve had tokens that never performed or, you know, rug pull or anything like that. So, you know, actively participating both on your own, you know, just actually trying, but also just, you know, reading and reaching out and just taking an active approach, I think is the best way to get involved. Yeah, no, absolutely.
I think it’s very good advice. There’s also like a misconception that people have that this space is too tech heavy and it’s only for developers. So this is something that I try to dispel.
And every time I sort of go out and talk, you know, we have opportunities for people from all profiles and backgrounds. The only thing they have to sort of do is be open to learning, right, because there will be a hyper growth and learning phase when you enter the space just because it’s so dynamic and it’s so new. But it’s totally worth it.
And you don’t really have to be a completely, you know, a techie to actually get into the space. 100 percent. I think that should never be something that, you know, scares you too much from joining BASE.
You know, you can come from any number of different backgrounds and I think you can still be an active, solid participant within the ecosystem. So I 100 percent think that that’s extremely important to just, you know, continue to get out there and give it a shot. Yep, absolutely.
OK, so this has been a really fun conversation, John. Any kind of last thoughts before we wrap this up? No, I mean, really appreciate, you know, having me on here, you know, always happy to be a partner to you and Mohit. And, you know, we’re glad that we’re able to work together on so many different things.
Absolutely. I look forward to working together on bigger things as well in the future, and I’m really grateful that you could take out the time. Thank you so much.
It’s my pleasure. Thanks. Thanks again for having me.