E144: Meteora: The Team Behind Crypto's Biggest Launches Reveals Everything (Kanye, TRUMP, LIBRA)

30:20FTX happened. Yeah. And the crash happened. And so this plan became unfeasible. so we were a little bit down a little bit a little bit just a little bit just a little bit because as always like at the end of the tunnel as always so we have two options right we could just let Mercurial fade away right and just focus on our sister project right putting our resources there we have a successful project that we can actually focus on or we take this opportunity to opportunity to reset the sister project was Jupiter yes but this was like a plan or it was already starting you mean the plan that you had was actually saying okay now we're going to do a Jupiter thing or what became Jupiter oh okay want to talk about the Jupiter part okay don't worry so backtrack a bit We backtracked a bit.

31:24So, Jupiter wasn't planned. Jupiter wasn't planned. So, it was one of those days where I was discussing with Mel about the, that was where we were a bit jaded about the whole space, about the whole LM game thing. So, we decided one of the experiments we did was to create a first cross protocol aggregator swap. Right? So, we integrated it with the serum pools on Mercurial. Just as an experiment, right? because let's do something. Let's try out, right? And so people can swap from one token to another token across the different pools. So it's the first aggregator, right? It's quite funny because like in that period, there were so many new bands all day, like every two or three weeks a new band will form, a new band will form and then it will be flushed with money to give away all the money and attract more deposits.

32:12So Jupyter, so they saw the opportunity and they were like, okay, there's so many bands. How does the user decide which band to go to or which band to lose based on like the characteristics? So they built Jupiter, which is like almost a network of tellers who know exactly where you can get the best rates, the best swap, and then help you extract away all of these new bands from your eye and then just give you the best price. So it's a very unique, it was a good idea at the time. But we didn't, we were still contemplating whether to even do Jupiter, actually. That's the funny thing. Right. Because that time it existed as a feature on Mercura.

32:47so but of course at the time we were a little bit stuck on the whole LM thing so I remember I was in the ramen shop with Mel and then we were thinking we have two options right I mean always two options right we continue to build this as a feature on Mercura right or we spin it off as a complete sister protocol right so we have to contemplate on the pros and cons because obviously now we have to split the team right we have to dilute our attention because we are still going to continue Mercura We're not going to shut it off completely. I can't remember how the conversation went, but in there we just say, okay, let's do it.

33:25So Jupiter was born in a ramen shop. For those who don't know, Jupiter was born in a ramen shop. In triple one Somerset. Why am I not surprised about that? Fuck it, let's do it in a ramen shop. That's how we make a lot of decisions. Even the TG date. Even the TG date was done. that way. People thought that we've spent months and months contemplating pros and cons with a whiteboard of no, no, no, no. Is it good market timing? No, no, no. Ramen? Oh, ramen. Fuck it. Let's do it. Fuck it. Let's go. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's say fuck it. Let's go. Then we call people. Okay, okay. Let's do it. Let's start throwing people.

34:02Let's call people. Okay, let's do it. That's how we roll. That's how we roll. I love it. I love it, right? No need board meetings or whatever. But anyway, so that was how we should do that. so Jupiter was born right when is that exactly Jupiter was born well I can't remember when I have to go back to this is after FTX crash or before September before probably probably I think around September like a month before September 2022 like a month before two to three months definitely more than I think three four months at least definitely not so close I saw it from an outsider so I was like oh this is very cool when I saw it then and it took off very powerfully.

34:42Yeah, because I remember having to spend quite a bit of time to design and then to come up with the first version of the Rupert Swap. So that took a while. So I remember it was quite far away from the whole FTX crash thing. But it was fun. It was fun coming up with a new because routing is another different challenge. So we actually got someone who have a PhD to come on board to actually to think through how the routing can work. So like Gistra algorithm kind of stuff, right? Things that I didn't pay attention in school. So, but we got someone with PhD to do it. So, yeah. So that was the Jupiter part.

35:17Just, what's the approximate revenue of Jupiter per year? Now? Now. 300 million a year. So, 300 million a year protocol was decided in a ramen shop. If you put it that way, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. So, that was the genesis of Jupiter. Yeah, that was genesis of Jupiter. So, but obviously, we continue, right? the two tracks, Mercurial, and then... When you say, obviously, we're not gonna let Mercurial go down. Yeah. Is it ego? Is it pride? Is it, we have investors, we can't let them down? What's the drive? If you say, oh, we have this sister project that is starting to take off.

35:57I mean, obviously, then there is whatever, the shit that happened with the FTX, but what's the mindset there? Because I think it's very important for people to understand who are the people behind Meteora especially given what happened earlier this year where there was a lot of bashing and people come up with this kind of assumption but they're like, actually no, these guys have been here for a long time. When it was hard, they just didn't let go. They tried to, so what was the main motivation to continue and find a solution for this? Yeah, it was tough, right? It was tough at the time. We did consider both paths but ultimately, for me, it was two things.

36:35Number one is, I felt that it was the right thing to do to not throw the initial supporters under the bus whenever things don't go well. So I think that is the kind of perspective or mindset that follow us throughout our, like whether we do Jupiter, Meteora or whatever. So I think that was important and that's why I appreciate about the team as well. It's not easy, but I think that was the right thing to do. So number one. Number two, I really think there's still a lot of potential in the whole liquidity space. Because liquidity to us is really like the foundation of crypto. And I do see a lot of potential in what Mercurial has achieved.

37:18And the whole dynamic vaults thing was something that we still haven't really built and experimented with. So that was also something that pushed us to say, okay, let's do this. Let's do this. Let's take this opportunity to reset, to rebrand, and to relaunch Mercurial as Matura, right? With Dynamic Vaults, Dynamic AMM. Of course, we have to redo a lot. I mean, we have to build community from scratch. We have to regain the trust of the people and then we have to build the credibility again. So everything is there. And then of course, there will be a lot of noise from the community about stuff and whatnot.

37:57So we have to, there are a lot of challenges to tackle. Why do you relaunch under a new name instead of saying, ah, we're going to pivot what we're doing, but we're still the same company or protocol. What's the logic or thought process? Okay, so number one is because FTX, right? So Mercura, I mean, I mean, Mercura didn't do anything wrong or whatnot, but we cannot stop this, we cannot stop this negative association, right? With FTX. People will have this, oh, you know, you get money from them. Are you part of this whole thing, right? We are clean, right? Completely clean, right? But we saw this as an opportunity because we also have the MER token, which is some sort of in the background kind of thing.

38:43So we saw this opportunity to do a clean reset. Clean reset. And then we also have this clean reset. We also have this opportunity to let's say launch a new token, right? And then use that as an opportunity or a way to actually make our initial MER supporters whole as well. So that's also another thing that we think if by resetting and relaunching a new platform we have that option to do it I'm not saying that we're confident we're going to do it but then and rebranding also has sent a strong signal as well right so we're resetting absolutely yeah resetting and you like I mean most people in crypto would have said ah we cleaned this up sorry guys we invested early fuck you correct fuck you fuck you like we're just going to do our new thing and the thanks exactly but you you did this something differently.

39:33Yeah, so correct. At the start at Genesis, we actually set up blog posts, whatever, to nail down, to say that, okay, 20%, 20%, right, to our initial most supporters, right? And really, because honestly, without them, there's no Mercurial. There's no Jupiter. There's no Meteora. So 20 % of what? Of Meteora, of Jupiter, of everything of Matt. Of Matt Supply. Okay. Of Matt Supply. So that was our promise. Yeah. And we are prepared to honor that as well. Right. Regardless. Right. Yeah. So that was our way of doing things and a mantra. And I don't believe that we will change in that way. Try to do our we always try to do what we feel is right by the community.

40:27Yeah. So that was the key. That's something that is not heard enough in this industry. Yeah. Yeah. But I also don't want to paint ourselves as like super like altruistic. We are like, like we are the best people around, right? But we try our best. We try our best to make sure that we don't fuck people over and we try our best to show appreciation to people who will help us along the way. Even now, like LPR, all those things, we really try our best. We try, really try our best to make sure that they are fairly rewarded, right, for their actions or their support. So fast forward two years, you guys are powering what do Solana folks talk all the time about, which is called internet capital markets.

41:14What does that mean? Yeah, I think internet capital markets means to me is that anybody with internet connection should be able to tap into the capital markets of the world. Right now, to tap into Wall Street, you need to be there, you need to sign lots and lots of papers, you need to go through like others, regulatory or compliance, or even just paying like three different bands to help you like raise$10. And then by the time you get the$10, like you've already lost$5 to fees. So internet capital markets is our way of like revolutionizing that and bring the power of that to as many people as possible around the whole world with a simple internet connection.

41:55Yeah. How important is Meteora to this whole internet capital market thesis for Solana? Yeah. How much of a monopoly or oligopoly or how does it work? I want people to understand how big Meteora is in this greater vision of Solana, which is, that's their main thing, right? Yeah. I don't think we have a monopoly on the idea of ICM, but ICM on Solana we started for the first time when we and our partners Beev Launchpad launched and we've been the core champions of ICM ever since we have four or five different launchpads who do ICM in different ways Beev lets you do ICM for the ideas with other teams that let you do ICM with real world assets we even started building out like supporting infrastructure so today we also have an ICM run protocol that incubates future ICM giants and we are a core player in ICM because we have the liquidity.

42:57Solana is a very strong technological stack to move money around but it is our liquidity that powers ICM itself. It's our liquidity that allows you to raise capital, earn trading fees and move things forward. And there's a very strong synergistic partnership between us and Solana over on this. Can you give me one or two examples of this partnership that we have and what is, you say ICM for RWA. This doesn't mean anything to most people. Like what does that mean concretely? Okay, which means that what I mean by ICM for RWA is that you can pick any collateral asset, any real world collateral that you see.

43:38You can patronize it on Solana. When the coin does well, you'll be given the money to purchase the asset. And then the coin will be, the coin will be a representation of the asset. So today you can do that for like a condominium in Cambodia, a watch, different like RWA assets, like bonds and treasury bills and all that. All of these collector words are available for purchase on Soana via these collector coins. So you can go and buy a piece of a condominium in Cambodia today? Yes. On Meteora. On Meteora or on a platform that is powered by Meteora? You can buy it on... One of our key advantages is that a platform works with us to develop these coins, but then these coins then become purchasable or swappable on Phantom, Jupiter, Meteora, Exxon, everywhere.

44:35Most of the people who trade these coins don't even know exactly which team is building it and how it works, but you can easily access it and you can easily find out more. So we bring the power of Solana's like 2 million or so weekly active users to any like ICM team. Yeah. Add to the point because just now at the start we were talking about what's the difference between us and other DEXs, right? I think one key word is the composability. Composability. Because I don't think any other DEXs are focusing on that. Allowing projects to easily integrate on top of our liquidity infrastructure. Right.

45:12Because in order for like the beliefs or time.fund or you know all these projects with very innovative and cool ideas like you tokenized condominium we need to we need to move all this complexity of the infrastructure integration away from these people so that they can just focus on creating cool ideas the business case business case right so that to me that I see that as our core advantage our job right to actually help to push this whole ICM thing forward right so so they come here make it super easy right you just think about what you feel will be the thing that can move the needle forward for your users.

45:52Leave all the messy infrastructure set up to us. Just integrate and off you go. So we really want to become the engine behind the next wave of token-driven innovation. So that's how I see us differing from the rest because we have we focus a lot on this because we really do believe that to move this space forward is not just one platform. right we need to be able to bring all the different minds and all the different projects with really cool ideas and really together right and then only together can we push this forward yeah so this internet capital market is fairly new I'd say right but there was other things before that that was kind of a precursor to tokenizing everything right because I mean it all started with meme coins basically and it was what, I mean, I remember talking to me, I was like, ah, celebrity, celebrity coins.

46:51Right. And so people kind of tokenizing kind of themselves, not really. I mean, a few years ago, some people were talking about social tokens, right. Which is kind of when this meme coin craze started like a year and a half ago, first it was like coins of whatever dogs or whatever, but then it became coins of people, which instead of having these coins, these social tokens that maybe I tokenized myself, but some of my revenue will go to all holders. Actually, the whole thing was much simpler. It was like a meme coin, right? And you guys were actually really big into that. So it was what happened before where you could prove some actual real, the power of Meteora, right?

47:38so you were involved in a bunch of huge launches which I think when people started to know more about Meteora probably the first time that people hear the word Meteora a lot was for the launch of Trump Trump coin because it was the stack right it was Meteora Jupiter moonshot at the top so you powered the biggest launch of the year Trump which was a meme coin basically Trump coin that went overnight to an 80 billion dollar market cap and this happened kind of out of the blue I mean for most people how did you how did you get that Trump launch? I think I'll start first so what's the biggest launch of 2024?

48:29So Trump is the biggest launch of 2025 what's the biggest launch of 2024? It's actually Jupyter's launch Jupyter's token launch so in 24 January we had already demonstrated the ability to launch a token that would that would hit 18 billion dollars like the the highest that Juke went was 18 billion so we while other AMMs focus on launching many tokens as fast as they can as many as they can and seeing one of them pop off to a billion Mintyuan's technology set became the best technology set to do big large scale launches talking about like billions of dollars Trump and like many more coins afterwards.

49:06And we built a very strong like dominance for and reputation to pull that off. So when Trump came about, it's like, if you were Trump and you had two options, one, which is an option, which is an AMM that spits out a coin every five seconds and has never done, and highest has done was 2 billion. Or two is Meteor, which is, you know that Dupe did 18 billion and you know that it's, and you know that it went off without a hitch and you know that this is probably the better option for you. And since then, we've built up a very strong reputation that I would even say that we have a monopoly on any launch that's over a billion.

49:42So Trump, World Liberty Finance, any very, very huge mind-blowing launch or the launches that I would say define Solana pretty much all happen on Meteora. So the other option was that you mentioned is basically PEMP. Yes. PEMP. Oops. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to mention names. I mean, there's not that many in the space anyway. Yeah. So we know how to handle scale, which is something that not a lot of teams can say. And also projects who are serious about long-term longevity of their tokens and not just pump and dump. I think we have established ourselves as the place to go. If they want a coin that can live long and to really add value to the coin.

50:28How does that work? Concretely, if you say, I want my coin to live long. What do you guys do that someone else that is focused on a coin every five minutes or five seconds doesn't do? What's the difference in the mechanism or in the way to handle the whole thing? Yeah. So let's just use Trump as an example. We actually didn't know what the Trump launch is. Most of us didn't know. But there are teams of people out there who are very familiar with Meteor's technology and they are the ones that work with the teams. So for Trump's launch, they deployed a very complicated strategy using Meteor DLMM to launch the Trump token.

51:06And you couldn't have replicated this strategy on any other platform to do the same thing, which is what allowed Trump to set up the launch so perfectly that allowed it to reach 80 billion. There's been many celebrity coin launchers that tried to launch a coin to do so well, but they couldn't do well because of the constraints of the technology they were using. One of the key features that we provide, which Trump didn't use actually, but something that matters to all of our other partners is that when you launch a coin in Meteora, you can earn your fees only in USDC, which means that if you launch a project and you need funding, you can receive a stream of USDC funding to do whatever you need to do to build a project without selling a single coin.

51:47Because the moment the traders see the developer selling a coin, even if it's one token or a million tokens, they will get freaked out. But our partners get to access a stream of like USDC or sole payouts to just keep building. This is actually the main driver of our ICM partners. So this is how they raise money. This is how they tap into the capital markets. You said we didn't know or most people didn't know that Trump would launch a coin. How is that possible? I didn't know that Trump was going to launch a coin. I didn't know as well. Zen didn't know as well. How is that possible? How does it work?

52:29it's a very small group of people who have to communicate with the team the team that is doing it and so it kept it very low key only a very selected group of people know it so I think to be as that is that like Meteor is very lucky to have a lot of people out there who loves Meteor's technology and who is who has knowledge to use it for maximum impact so try and work with a partner that uses Meteor that knows Meteor very well and they deploy the strategy policy. The only reason why we knew at all for Trump was because they reached out to two or three people in the team to make sure that someone on our side knew what was happening and at least be able to make sure that it's more of an insurance policy.

53:12It makes sense. Business-wise, it makes sense. The, I mean, you want the thing to, it's like you have one shot, right? So you need to have someone from inside who is involved to make sure the thing works from A to Z. But it shouldn't need to, right? But you shouldn't need to. Like Case Employee, the reason easy, easy token launch, right? None of the team was involved in it. So it was, it was completely launched permissionlessly. And then we just, we just saw the news and all it launched on us, right? So that's it. That's perfect, right? That's exactly what we want to do to make it permissionless.

53:46So any project you want to launch it, just launch it. There's no need for any intervention from the team or support. Yeah. So it can be done purely on their end. Which is exactly what we are striving for. I'm still trying to understand the, because there was, I mean, when Trump happened, there was not criticism, right? It was like, fuck, this is insane. Like, wow, these guys pulled it off. The whole stack makes sense. Obviously for the next big launch, there is no alternative, right? Like you go for these guys because they fucking pulled, pulled the biggest launch in history, which I don't even know there's going to be another one.

54:27Like that. The moment, yeah. Right? So, but there is also some people who can come and say, oh, but if some people know internally, then they can profit or benefit. And that's what I'm trying to understand because you said before, look, we didn't talk about our investors. We think we're trying to do the best thing. Actually, I think Trump was in January, right? and it was probably just before Katsambul right but then I recorded a podcast and I was talking to Miao and he was saying we do the thing the right way like it's so good etc and then some shit happened later that we'll talk about but when he was telling me all this stuff like you can feel the guy and he's like we do the thing the right way but obviously people from outside with their bad mouth and also like it's kind of understandable that they come and say, hey, look, if there is two people who know, probably 20 people will know, or 30 people because they will tell their friends, all that stuff.

55:32So how, and that's the tricky, the tricky side of this whole conversation is,

55:43you need someone internally to make sure the thing works. You said we shouldn't, right? And in some other launches, we didn't have that. But at the same time, it's business at the end of the day. You said before we're not a charity, right? We're not Mother Teresa. We're doing business and there is competitors who also fight, whether within Solana, but also other chains. For example, for Kanye, there was a CZ going like crazy to try to get them, right? So it means that it needs to be, you want to get the deal, right? Because the Trump launch was, how much money did you do on the Trump launch? Volume or fees?

56:21Fees. Fees. 20? So that's a lot of money, right? So it's understandable that other people want to get the deal. Therefore, it's understandable that because it's capitalism, you will have a team that is going to be doing business development or consulting. That's completely normal. But it's completely contradictory with, we want to do something permissionless that we don't help with because otherwise you don't do business anymore or you maybe don't get the deal, right? Because the other ones, they will have the team. So how do you handle that? Yeah. Like today? Yeah. The funny part is that actually like the other teams that you described, they're doing everything that we are doing except they are like six months or a year behind us.

57:04Like we've gone past the stage of having our own team of people that go out and hunt down projects. Today we have like maybe four to five different teams who really know Meteorology technology and maintain a close relationship with us. And they'll just let us know that oh, something big is happening. I can't tell you what, but just keep your engineers on standby. or they might not even tell us at all and they're just so familiar with using the technology that they can work without using it. And ultimately, I think that's the end goal of anything to get there. Like all of our competitors are trying to get there as well.

57:33And I can see them hiring similar types of people and stuff. This is quite funny. But right now, it's like if you work with Intel, you know that the technology works. And with other platforms, you have to take a gamble on the technology, which means you need to even more high touch. You need to be white-girved even more than if you work with us. And you also know that because of all of our past experiences, we have so much dark rails in place that if you were with any other AMM, you might not be familiar. You might not be confident in the ability to pull off a launch like that. You have the track of record.

58:03Like if no one has it, that's for sure. Yeah. That's for sure. We have the track record of like multiple successes and a few failures. So we know, so people know like what does success look like and what does like failure look like on Meteora. Yeah. What's a success? What's a failure? I think Trump and Kanye West were both like big successes for different reasons. So Trump was a success because we knew about it. Some of our members did know about it, yet it still put off everything almost perfectly, like flawless execution. And Kanye West, which happened like six months later, was a success because it showed that all of our hard work of making the technology easier to lose and making things less like you to F up bore food because we had no idea what was going on.

58:47It worked perfectly and nothing happened at all. Yeah. This is what having so many like volume, so much volume and traction. Yeah, it's the first time I'm so happy to be ignorant. Ignorant. Ignorant. Yeah, I'm so happy that. What? Okay, yeah, perfect. Yeah, it's perfect. So I woke up, I was like, oh my God, Kanye launched a toy. And then I had to check. Then I was like, oh my God, is this really my platform? I was not sure. I texted him. It's like, no shit, right? It's us, right? It's us, right? I wasn't sure. So who knew? Who helped him? because Kanye doesn't fucking have a clue about how to launch a coin.

59:21One of the many teams out there who love our technology worked with Kanye directly and we had no idea. And our Mitoa team itself had no idea. So you made big changes between Trump and Kanye launch because of this Libra token launch from the Argentinian president MemeCoin that didn't really go as expected. can you tell us what went wrong and what you changed in Meteora to avoid that kind of situation to happen again me first okay I think I think the core thing about what went wrong for us was that because meteor technology was too difficult to use and still like meteor technology is the most advanced but advanced also means you need skill to use it so because of that it was because of that we had to know about the launch so that we could make sure that the launch didn't go well and that knowledge of the launch would then be the main reason why we were caught in the crossfire of Libra so when so when Zen and I came on to Meteor like making the technology easier easier easier to lose more reliable easier simpler was a core like tenant and that resulted in the success of the Tanya coin where like basically they did the same thing but it was much easier and also resulted in all these new partners that came up like when we did it we didn't know that making it easier will help so many of our partners grow so well but we only knew that we wanted to make sure that we will never be in the same situation again and that we will never need to know about launch again so that was a tall thing that we did and it has brought fruit and we're quite happy to see the outcome now yeah yeah yeah one of the key challenges was the definitely the process right like you said a lot of things are pretty um like it requires a lot of support right from the team uh in terms of suggesting how to launch it like what kind of config to use and all those things uh so even the technology technology was there what it's not it's not very easy for people to understand how to set things up right so so that's why a lot of involvement is still required and that puts us in a lot of risk because at the get-go right we never know whether there's any back actors that we are supporting.

1:01:36And even though at the end of the day, we are just a platform, right? Our argument is that we are a platform. It's like, it's like you, there's a car accident on the highway. You won't, you won't sue the highway, right? But then that's not how the community sees, right? So that is always about, about perceptions, right? So, so like what Soju mentioned, right? One of the core things we do is to really see how we can make it as, when you say permissionless, right? So as much as possible, the team has to step back, right? And then allow the technology, allow even like simple, even more clearer documentations, simulations or whatever, right?

1:02:14To help people understand how best to set this up. Like we even have like case studies, right? So if you want to do a Trump launch style thing, you can look at the case study, understand how things are set up and then you can by and large do it on your own. And then we also make it clear that we don't endorse any teams, right? Our job here is not to endorse anything. We are primarily a technology platform that provides infrastructure for you to launch your token. So by and large, we do not associate ourselves with any, or we don't endorse any tokens or whatever. So that's also one of the key process changes that we made.

1:02:50Yeah. Yeah, which is important. So I'm going to make a Web 2 analogy. You might not like it, but... Okay, let's do it. Let's come. No, but for example, you say we're a platform, right? Yes. If we take the Microsoft example, their platform, they have a technology, and then there's all these Microsoft partners that help businesses implement this technology. They're essentially consulting companies, right? You are the platform, like Microsoft would be for software in whatever company, corporates, but to launch a coin, or in that case, celebrity coin. Then there is some teams that would be the kind of consultants that are the ones who are in the know, right?

1:03:32So now you're saying we do a permission technology, so we don't know anymore what's gonna happen. And you talk about the risk before, we had too much risk because we knew, or some people knew, now we are transferring the risk to these consultants, and they're the ones who are in the know, and who will help Trump or World of Liberty Finance or Kanye West to launch the coin, right? So we're transferring the risk to these people, who will still know.

1:04:01so how do you because now you're transferring the risk but the problem is still there it's just not in Meteora anymore what can you do what do you do so that these teams the consultant think longer term Don't extract too much. And ultimately, why? Because you want the launch to be a success, because that's what makes the entire industry look good. this Kanye launch is a success or the world of liberty finance is a success or, right? So what can you, because there is, it's so much money, these freaking launches. And there's so much money that can be made if you have the insider information that you want to prevent as much as possible this consultant to make more than consulting fees.

1:04:55I understand. Yeah, I think, I mean, ultimately, our goal wasn't to empower the consultant directly. It wasn't to like, go them, bring them in, train them. I'll go to empower the team's direct itself. So World EBT Finance is actually a good example. World EBT Finance didn't use a consulting team. The engineering team inside WRLFI themselves deployed the pool and it went perfectly. So I don't think, they didn't use a consultant at all. And that is sort of the end goal. We want to reach a level where the teams, where it becomes so easy that any engineer who has utility for like half a day should be able to pull it off CMC without these consultants.

1:05:36But that's because World Liberty Finance is an actual, or it's supposed to be an actual crypto protocol, right? But a celebrity or whatever launches in the future is, I'm a singer, right? I don't have a dev or dev team that's going to do it for me. I need these consultants. So my question is, what did you put in place after all these learnings to maximize the chances of these tokens tokens launches to be a success and to minimize the chances of having these consultants that are that might be not all of them but might be short-term driven and snipe or do some things that are not ideal for the project or the token long-term success right because that's what we talked about before people come to meteorite they want to have something that lasts correct yeah on that note like we launched we did two things first we developed a very strong anti-snipering suite that you can deploy for token launchers and that allows you to prevent snipers even from those who know but that alone is not enough because this is a tool that can turn on and off so the next thing we did was that we made it super transparent to quickly see whether a token has certain restrictions and safeguards in place while you are trading the token so if you are buying like this celebrity coin you'll be able to quickly see like whether someone sniped it whether the anti-snipe suit was turned on whether like certain guard rules were not in place or were in place which leads to the confidence to trade the coins and then we work very closely with all the trading terminals partners Jupyter RUTCHAT to ensure that the data is correctly like displayed yeah yeah I think this is a industry wide challenge right it's not a so every time launch is always like how do we actually protect the users more to prevent extraction?

1:07:25So there are certain things that we can do within our control, but certain things we cannot, right? Like if the consulting team is planning to be a back-end and want to extract, there's not much we can do. But as what Soju said, on a product point, from a product front, we can just put in a few gut rails to warn the user to do their research or to flag certain potential like red flags. Like if this token is held by like, only like three wallets are holding these tokens or Honeypot or all these things. So we will flag all these things. So recently, we have spent a lot of time in making sure that these guidelines are extremely obvious to the users as much as possible.

1:08:10Right. But of course, no system is perfect. Right. So it's a problem that is constantly being reviewed and we're trying to look at how to improve it. So obvious to the user but where? Is it on the end platform? If I go and I buy on Moonshot because I go and I want to buy with my Apple Pay is there like something telling me there where like most of the end users are hey be careful or where is it? It's on most of the trading interfaces that trade Meteora coins. Moonshot in particular only lets you trade coins if it's verified. So you will only see it if it's already verified and by the time it's verified it already passed or passed the smell test.

1:08:50the risk is minimal or if you had copied and pasted the CA in the moonshot you will have copied it from a platform that will have told you the information so that's moonshot in particular but for example Jupiter shows you whether the top line is a honeypot shows you whether the top addresses hold like 80 % of supply and stuff like that but this safety and then protecting users is actually very high on our priority it's a constant battle for us to make it better every time we put in a safeguard something new comes up and then we need to review and see how we can you know cover this scenario of course so it's like constant kind of thing it's like it's like athletes doping right like every time you have a new doping product yes that then the the federation whatever who is checking is like oh shit now we need to go and develop new research to find and we're kind of always a bit late because people are kind of smart and game the system right it's a big it's a big problem and you said before we have this problem industry wide and it makes complete sense because again, Meteor is a business.

1:09:52There is competitors, right? And I was thinking the other day about this anti-sniping technology that you can turn on and off, right? And I'm thinking basically the Meteor side, and I'm thinking they have to do that, the on and off. Because if you say, we force you to turn it on, it reminds me of the big short movie where he goes and he says, hey, why are these mortgage subprime AAA? And then she says, because if we don't give, because they pay us, right? And if they don't give us AAA, they just go to Moody's across the road. And so basically if you force someone to have this anti-sniping technology, they will just go to someone else, right?

1:10:34And so it's the whole kind of thing where short-term driven versus long-term driven, right? And obviously it makes complete sense. And it's a big challenge because I think most of the people who buy these coins or I would say more and more, everything is tokenized. Most of the people will buy these coins because probably at some point, everyone will just buy tokens. They will not know about all this kind of technical stuff. And so how do you make them aware that, hey, this is safe. This is not that safe. Like it's a mega challenge for sure. Yeah. For sure. And I think we need to have some empathy also for the teams.

1:11:17Actually, no, because there's been so much kind of earlier this year, like people criticizing all that stuff, but you always need to look at all the sides of the story, right? And this is so important. Is there still a future for meme coin and celebrity coins? Or it's kind of over? And now we're into this internet capital market that is the next iteration of all that stuff.

1:11:41I think that's still I think I think I think the celebrity coin thing would not die down yet would not die down yet I think it's still going to be there right because it's a cultural thing right it's a cultural thing right so so I think I think I think and it's fun right and so so people will still be drawn to that but but our for our focus is really on moving that focus away from you know focusing on that and ICM something that we feel can really impact the space. It will still be there. I mean, we are still there. We support it. But then I think most of our attention will be more on all the ICM stuff, the RWAs, everything that can really bring crypto to more mainstream.

1:12:28Yeah. I wouldn't say that SabreTi coins, we do not have an opinion whether they'll keep going or not. I think we have the opinion that it's figured out. The technology is there. Trump has launched a coin. even if you don't know what you're doing just close your eyes and copy Trump and you'll most likely be fine like where we what gets me out of the bed and gets our team out of the bed every morning is like how can we push our technology to make it even more special customizable dynamic to unlock new use cases on Meteora which will then unlock new use cases for people trading things or raising capital for things and so on that that's what keeps us going like pushing the frontier forward and we don't know what will happen we don't know whether Celebrity Coins will use, I don't know, maybe a very big Celebrity will use our platform to launch like three months from now.

1:13:15We don't know. But we know that we want to push the frontier forward. And I just have this thought, right? Is that the goal is, anyway, I stole this from Mel, by the way. Is that I don't want people to think that Meteora is building a DeFi app, right? So we are actually building a platform to bring the world to DeFi. So if meme coins celebrity coins can pave the way to do that sure right if ICM is the way to do it it's sure so I think ultimately right if it's whatever that the user sees that can attract them right to actually come and experience right decentralized finance or whatever and to see the power of what it brings because it's like a gateway right so if there's a gateway to bring them in then we can have the opportunity to let them understand a little bit more of how this can actually replace what you understand as trap fire.

1:14:11Actually impact your financial power and all these things. So yeah, that was, I stole from you. Bring the world to defy thing. Bring the world to defy thing. Bring the power of Wall Street to our portrait. No, no, no. You want actually. Bring the power of Wall Street. Do you like the Wall Street thing? The Wall Street. Bring the power of Wall Street to our pocket. I mean, this would be more, this would be for specific audience that would be interested in Wall Street and all that stuff. It's kind of like, I think, if you say bring, like, make DeFi like much more accessible, like this is also, DeFi, the word DeFi is also like a bit too technical, I think.

1:14:54Yeah. I think what I want to do is also like, bring opportunities to everybody. I think everybody wants opportunities to do crazy shit, to do better shit. And Mintua ultimately will bring the opportunity to you. if you want to buy a house in Cambodia if you want to raise money for a new idea yeah that's what we will do for everyone because now there's people are still when I speak to my friends they're still skeptical right because they don't understand it they're still skeptical so the challenge is always how to actually bring them and help them to understand that there's a sea of opportunity here and it's very exciting right but of course be careful right because it's still pretty unregulated Meteora is launching a token very soon tomorrow tomorrow you plan to have 47 % of the supply out there it's 48 now sorry 48 % supply so that's what 46 % airdrop 2 % 45 % airdrop why such a high percentage of supply out there directly without any vesting okay so I think having gone through actually one one major launch token launch previously we see that as a very important step to make the token liquid right a community liquid because if we do a vesting then every time there's an unlock right we have to handle all the inflation and whatnot right so it is extremely challenging right so why not just at the get-go in one day release all the tokens right and start from a clean slate right so I mean to put it bluntly it's like okay if you believe in what we do right you believe in our manifesto you believe in our mission support us right work with us it's more of a to me tokens are always more of an alignment right so you believe in us hold on to our token right but if you don't think this is for you yeah you can leave, right?

1:17:05I mean, it's fair game, right? There's no blame. I mean, it is a free will kind of place. But what will happen after that is that we know that we are working with a group of people that really want to work with us. And I can really focus the conversation around how do we continue to add value? How do we improve the product? Instead of spending all my time trying to justify value to these people. Yeah, we're going to be complaining because, hey, I hold this thing, but why? Yeah, correct. So I've been through that and I feel that this is a, I believe that this is a better way to do it. And send a clearer signal and message to the people that we are serious about building a very solid community that really wants to work things or really build this up with us.

1:17:57So that's the reason why I think this is important. It's risky. It's risky. I don't think it's been done like that before but I'm thinking about the Pengu token did you help launch Pengu or it was completely unrelated it happened on Meteora Meteora right from Michigan Sea we didn't try to know we knew we knew it was Tamrin plus everyone knew it was Tamrin yeah but it was on Meteora another big launch right but they they had this big kind of unlock right and then we had this I mean it's after Trump coin and everything crashed and all that stuff right But yeah, we see the risk that comes with that.

1:18:35I mean, it's also because like, Meteor, because of Mercura, we are five years old now. It's like, over the past five years, many people contributed a lot to get us here. Jupiter helped us a lot. Mercura stakeholders, the LP army. And we don't know, we want everyone to like come together and celebrate the TG together. So we want to turn the community liquid. That's what we call it. And then we want everybody to choose to be part of the mission or not. You say we want to turn the community liquid. Meteora is not fundraising with TGE. What's the logic of launching a token and not fundraising at the same time?

1:19:18Yeah. So I think many teams go down the path of like, oh, let me do a low flow, high FDV team. Let me invest a lot of people. And then the team does most of the selling at TGE to raise funds to build the project. we are quite a lucky team. We are small and we have enough funding to keep building amazing products for many, many, many years. And we are not too worried about that. But along the way, we have like all these stakeholders that we want them to be fully degraded. We want everybody to have full access to their coins without any investing and stuff. So we chose to do that. So we are not doing a pre-seal.

1:19:54We're not going to sell any tokens. Or everything that we are doing will be like market making or centralized exchanges. or the very cool thing that we did was that usually, especially in Juke's case, the team put up tokens into the liquidity pool at launch. But for Meteorology, we are giving the opportunity to our entire airdrop, all our stakeholders to be part of the liquidity pool at launch. So the fees that we will have earned from the liquidity pool will go to anyone who chooses to be part of it from the airdrop recipients. And we designed everything around this idea. And I think it's the first, definitely.

1:20:29to do this yeah so the community can earn the fees of the token launch yeah and you told me the other day because i said ask what's what does a successful tg like look like for a lot of tokens or project is like we want to reach this fdv 1 billion 5 billion 10 billion and then see what happens right yeah you said that some you have a different goal yeah i think for us a successful SOTG is lots of volume because lots of volume means lots of fees for the LP army, people who love providing equity to earn fees. And lots of volume also signifies that a lot of people are joining the mission, joining our goal of what we want to build.

1:21:10And also a lot of volume means that a lot of old people who might have wanted, who were supporters early on, is also taking their chance to be equity and live, which is also something that's good to us because we want them to be able to cash out and cash out their years of hard work as well. So volume is my key at North Star. So you said we don't aim 1 billion AFDV, we aim 1 billion in volume. Yeah. How do you maximize volume? How do you maximize volume? How do you incentivize or maximize volume for a project that, again, is not that known from the, I would say, average Joe and Jane? Yeah, so I think like one easy way to maximize volume is unlock more tokens.

1:21:59So more tokens means more volume. So for the 8 % of the 13th supply will lead to lots and lots of volume. And two, we have designed a launch strategy that will allow centralized exchanges and the on-chain world, which we reside in, to work hand in hand to drive lots of volume. We are making use of... So it was a difficult decision. we are a team who be is that we can one day replace the centralized exchanges with our technology stack but for Meteor CGE we're going to work hand in hand with centralized exchanges to bring to break out of our bubble to go out of the bubble of people who know Trump know Moonshot know Jupiter and bring net new believers in our mission in and I think that will be a very strong driver of volume as well yeah so one of the key things for me at least for TGE is really to expand expand expand our reach right so I think I wrote one of my posts is that I'm always very hesitant about TG right I'm always worried about TG because I was afraid that TG would consume the whole conversation space right because then the technology and product becomes in the back burner but but when I understood that okay there's an opportunity for us to really like 10x the community the LPR me like we're getting different stakeholders to come in like from the SACS new, completely new people who come in.

1:23:22And then when they come in, we need to make it very easy for them to understand what we're trying to do. So that's also one of the key things that we are striving for for this TG. So it's not just a token launch, but we also spend a lot of time in making sure that whenever they land on our product, they have the best chance for them to understand the power of it. That's why I love the idea of allowing people to choose positions, right? Instead of airdrop. So when they claim their positions, they immediately see, oh fuck, I'm only earning like$300, just like that. So powerful, right? So they understand the power of DEMV2 or the products they're building.

1:23:58And like all the juke stakers and whatnot, they will be able to, those people who are not familiar with Meteora, they will immediately be like, they'll be really joined, right? And then to see how this thing can really impact them. So to me, that is very powerful. So that's how I see TGE, right? as a way to actually expand our reach and to let people who previously don't know about us opportunity to find out and see whether this is for them and to join the entire LP army. Yeah. In Meteora's like, Meteora's core power is to help retail make money on chain with fees. And this TGE, we want to expand Meteora by doing an NFT airdrop to the entire Jupiter DAO.

1:24:41So the entire Jupiter DAO is going to come to Meteora, claim this position of the launch pool and claim ridiculous amounts of fees. And then in their head, they will go, aha, this is what Meteora does. And this is effing amazing. I need to know what the hell is going on. I need to learn what's going on. I need to become a Meteora user. So we are expecting a large influx of users at TGE. And we have built up our systems, our infra, our support structure, our education to welcome them to the community and to deal with them. and Meteora will make no money from these TGE fees? The community will? Or did I not understand that?

1:25:20We still have the normal protocol fees and stuff that we always make. But usually the team will put up the money and earn the fees. So in Jupiter's case, the Jupiter team made 10 million in USDC alone from fees. But this TGE, that 10 million will go to the community. Yeah. And you can afford to do that because you're 20 people you told me the other day you make like a hundred million in revenue per year what are you doing with this money what's the plan continue to build products and one of the things also to scale up the team because we're constantly trying to find good people good engineers who share the passion and really want to build awesome stuff right and those people are not cheap I mean it's a fair not cheap not cheap but I think after TGE we're going to use the MAC token and our reserves to like expand the products grow the users and bring more opportunities to people like we are still very far from achieving our end goal we are very far from achieving our goal of like every retail person on the street can use Meteora to make an extra 500 bucks a day in passive income or whatever and we're going to need it to get there yeah what's the end game for Meteora bring DeFi bring the world to DeFi bring the world to DeFi yeah yeah but I that time Shane say is always complain that my my vision statement very lame right you know so but it's really about mainstream bring crypto mainstream it's very cliche it's very cliche but I truly truly believe in that right so in order to take the next step right we really need I think we are close right in order to to bridge that gap but it's not only just making crypto mainstream for traders but builders communities projects anybody who wants to actually build value create value whether it's on-chain or off-chain to be able to do so using Mitora as the infrastructure engine and I think we're getting there so I feel that this next phase is extremely important especially on TG when we have a lot of more firepower in terms of a bigger LP army right we can do that we can do that so that's my end goal right so if my my mother or my friends who are now skeptical will be like oh I mean I can do this without even knowing that I'm on chain right so they are doing certain things without even knowing they're on chain so it's so integrated in their lives that crypto is part of their lives without them knowing it so to me that's the end game right thank you so much Zen and Soju I think that was very helpful for people to understand first better what you guys are doing, what you guys are trying to do.

1:28:13But also I think for me, the most important thing is to see that there's good guys. There's good guys. Not everything always goes according to plan and there's some mistakes or some problems, but like the people, I mean, one of the reasons why I'm so close to Meow and the Jupiter team is because I know that these guys are real, right? First, they're here for the long term. Second, they're doing the right thing or they're trying to do the right thing. And, and despite some, sometimes some bad things happening, like what you want to make sure of is like, what's the spirit and mindset of these people?

1:28:50And like, I think today it's kind of fairly clear for people who are going to be watching that, Hey, we can trust these guys. They're going to be here for the long term. They're trying their best to do the best. Right. And I mean, sometimes the only thing you can do is to do your best, right? And that there is not only bad people or sharks in this space who are successful, but also some good people who've been here through the ups and downs and through the FTX crash and then pivoting and taking care of their investors from five years ago and trying to do the best thing. And I think that's really the most important.

1:29:27That's one of the things I also try to do on this podcast is separating the signal from the noise. There's so much noise in this industry. There's so many people who are critics without even spending five minutes or an hour and a half to watch a podcast and be like, actually, these guys are real guys, right? And so thank you for doing your first podcast ever. Yes, thank you. It was fun. Thanks. It was fun. Awesome. Cool. Good luck for tomorrow. Yes, yes, yes. You'll be great. You'll be great. Bullish, bullish, bullish. Tomorrow. As you probably know by now, I host some of the biggest names in Bitcoin and crypto on my podcast.

1:30:06But a lot of the best stuff never makes it on air. The Shift newsletter is where I share that raw behind the scene alpha, the insights, stories and lessons straight from my guests that you won't hear anywhere else. If you want the real insight take on Bitcoin and crypto, join my newsletter, The Shift, in the description down below.

1:30:30We'll be right back.