Conversation with Backpack CEO: Everything is Meme, Bitcoin is always the upper limit of value

Original title: The Truth Behind Crypto 's Super Apps With Mert Mumtaz & Armani Ferrante

Source:The Rollup

Organize & compile: Shenchao TechFlow

Guests: Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius; Armani Ferrante, CEO of Backpack

Host: Robbie & ANdy

Broadcast date: April 21, 2025

Summary of key points

The competition for the ultimate crypto super application is in full swing. Who can master the user experience?

This episode talks with Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz and Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante. Armani shares his experience of transitioning from Apple to Alameda Research and how this journey has led him to build one of Solana’s fastest growing platforms.

While the market is coping with tariff tensions, institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies is quietly accelerating. We delve into the “fat wallet theory,” the changes in the role of Bitcoin in smart contract platforms, and the opportunities brought by the combination of finance and cryptocurrency.

This podcast also discusses how Backpack can balance censorship resistance and compliance, which is one of the biggest challenges cryptocurrencies face entering mainstream markets.

Wonderful view summary

• Bitcoin is the first and only real Meme, and that's the purest meaning.

• As long as everything is Meme, Bitcoin will always be the upper limit of value for all these crypto tokens.

• It all starts with exchanges, and it starts with liquidity.

• I always felt that Alameda and FTX’s culture was a bit loose, and such an engineering culture was not the environment I wanted to be involved in.

• Backpack is built more like a traditional engineering-driven company, and our culture focuses on products and creating excellent things for users.

• I think now is an excellent time to re-enter construction.

• One of the most valuable things in the industry at present is to bring more value to the chain.

• Finance itself has no direct purpose, it is just an accounting system used to transfer representative assets. What really matters is the actual goods and services in the physical world.

• As the real world gradually merges and accepts the crypto world, cryptocurrencies will truly promote the upgrading of the financial system. Only by combining real-world assets and rules can we achieve this.

• We all believe that crypto will become an important pillar of the global financial system, but we still have a long way to go.

• A bridge between DeFi and the traditional financial world is forming. Bitcoin is that bridge, and its dominance is rising.

• Institutions may provide a lot of help to Ethereum and may drive Ethereum prices to rebound.

• The value of the entire crypto market is not as valuable as that of Nvidia. We all think this situation will not last.

• Crypto, finance and technology will penetrate deeply into the financial field and are closely connected with every major financial institution around the world.

• You must have one of these two attributes: either censor-resistant or compliant. Anyone in the middle has no way to go, and I firmly believe it.

• So many RWA companies have been created, why hasn’t one succeeded? Why don’t we all use tokenized securities on the chain now? Because no one has the elements of distribution, no one contributes to RWA like Coinbase did for Circle.

• Backpakck is a very special product, located between two economies: one side is the traditional economy, the traditional banking system, and the other side is the crypto economy.

Introduction to Armani and Backpack

Andy:

Welcome back to Roll Up. Today we invited Mert and Armani to discuss the amazing growth of Backpack, the story of Fat Wallet theory, the macro updates of Solana and the dynamics in this field. I would love to learn about your background, especially your past experiences with some interesting characters, how these experiences have led you to create Backpack.

Armani:

My experience is ordinary on the one hand, and a little special on the other hand. I entered the cryptocurrency field in 2017. At that time, the bull market of Ethereum was in full swing, and prices soared. When I was working at Apple, I saw my colleagues trading. I read the white paper of Ethereum and then switched jobs, and the next thing became history. My initial goal was to work in Ethereum’s smart contracts in 2017 and 2018, but by chance I joined Alameda Research, a small trading company based in Berkeley, California, when there was no FTX at that time. Basically, I worked there for about three months and quickly realized that it wasn't what I wanted, so I left. This was before the FTX story, when Sam and some people from Jane Street were doing a lot of trading, mainly in South Korea and some early exchanges.

Through Ethereum's work, I have participated in the development of some L2 technologies, worked in state channels for a period of time, and also worked on some other L1s. I became very interested in the expansion problem, and so were many people at that time. After that, I went through a tortuous path and participated in the development of some open source technologies. When FTX and Alameda started investing in Solana in 2020, they contacted me again and asked if I would like to work for Solana. So I started to study Solana, met many people, and was very excited, thinking that it was the coolest crypto project at the time, and really began to realize the dream of "world computer" that attracted us into this field.

Mert:

By the way, I created Anchor. Do you know what Anchor is? Are there any corresponding tools on EVM, Armani ?

Armani:

There are no direct corresponding tools, as there are many other tools that count as something similar to Solidity and Foundry, even going back to early Truffle. If you want to learn about early Solana development, I have been involved in many early Solana projects, including wallet tools, DeFi and developer tools.

Armani's FTX resignation experience

Robbie:

We won 't talk about FTX all the time, but what are the reasons why you mentioned early feelings that make you feel like you don't want to stay there for a long time?

Armani:

I think Sam is a trader and I am an engineer. In companies run by traders, traders usually focus on trading, and they focus on how to maximize profits, which is not what I pursue. I left Apple to participate in open source projects, and I look at the problem more from an engineer's perspective. Backpack is built more like a traditional engineering-driven company, and our culture focuses on products and creating excellent things for users.

I always felt that Alameda and FTX’s culture was a bit loose, and such an engineering culture was not the environment I wanted to be involved in.

Solana's Technology Vision

Robbie:

There are indeed two aspects of cryptocurrencies: finance and technology. Now let’s talk about technology. You joined Solana because it has the mission of becoming a world computer. I thought that was Ethereum’s goal. What has changed?

Armani:

This problem can be viewed from multiple perspectives. For me, I was working on state channel and L2 technology in 2018 and 2019. At that time, Ethereum was fully promoting the design of sharding and Serenity. I quickly realized that it simply didn't work, and it was a bad idea.

Sharding is not an extension in the traditional sense. The technical feature you really need is linear horizontal scaling relative to a certain resource. Just like traditional databases, such as DynamoDB or Cassandra, these innovative NoSQL databases, the system can be infinitely expanded by adding more machines.

This is the first knowledge I have been exposed to in advanced database research, and Solana is actually the first project to do this with regard to machine resources. By adding more cores, leveraging Moore's Law, you can get higher throughput in your system as machines become stronger and faster. You can take advantage of technologies such as parallel processing and pipeline. As an engineer, I believe Mert has the same idea. It's obvious that a single threaded virtual machine won't work. If you ask any engineer in San Francisco, they will tell you the same thing.

This is actually what people are pursuing in the bull markets in 2017 and 2018, with many professors receiving funding for projects. Many smart people are looking to solve the problem of extension. Later, there were Sui, Aptos, and now there are projects such as SEI and Monad. But in fact, all of this is to apply relatively mature and modern system technologies in the context of blockchain. Honestly, this was very obvious at the time, it was just a matter of execution and who really had the engineering capabilities to implement. Solana is the first project to achieve this on scale. Ethereum is clearly affected by path dependence and technical debt and cannot rebuild the entire system from scratch. So, there are a lot of subtleties in this story. But overall, Solana is the first team to successfully achieve this, which makes me very excited.

Current market analysis

Andy:

The market has been favoring the combo Web3 philosophy and we have seen many fast, cheap and well-designed blockchains have achieved great success. We are still very excited about expanding this ecosystem to thousands of chains (whether it's Rollups, network extensions, or standalone L1, etc.).

Mert, what exactly happened to the market? Will Solana rise to 500?

Mert:

The situation is clearer now. Although the price seems a bit unreasonable, the direction is clear. Trump wants other countries to pay more, while others respond: "No, we are strong, so you have to pay more." So countries have raised tariffs one after another, which has affected businesses and people have begun to withdraw funds from the market.

The recent macro factors have indeed attracted attention, while the prices of Solana, Ethereum and Bitcoin are all falling. While the market trends during this period are not entirely certain, people attribute it to seemingly ridiculous reasons, such as Pump.fun selling tokens instead of holding them. I often say that whenever the economy goes down, thanks to Pump.fun or Nvidia.

The comparison about Meme is very interesting. Someone just posted a tweet saying that Trump claimed that he could stop tariffs on other countries, but tariffs on China would continue. In just four to five minutes, the market increased by about $2.5 trillion in market cap, which is more than the market cap of the entire cryptocurrency market. However, the tweet was fake and five minutes later, the market fell back. I think this is basically a Meme in a suit. The dynamics on Twitter are always unpredictable, and content posted casually can cause a sensation.

As for the impact this has on cryptocurrencies, I think it is completely different from the past cycle. Past cryptocurrency events have almost all been caused by internal crashes . It may initially be considered a Ponzi scheme because of the lack of use cases; it was later because of the outbreak of a certain exchange or other scams. Taking the FTX incident as an example, I was not worried at the time, but others were worried. Because if you look at the reality, nothing has really expanded or worked well as Solana, especially two and a half years ago. Now it can be said that there are viable alternatives, but there really weren't then.

But now that I'm just back from New York, I'm in a completely different mood. That's why combining your thinking with too much historical data is a mistake. We've gone through three cycles, so cryptocurrencies are still in their early stages. Not only cryptocurrencies, but also the scale of smart contract platforms is also very early, probably only about three years. With the slow organizational movement and long sales cycles, they started the process a few months ago and are now going all out. The number of inquiries we are receiving from institutions, exchanges and various fintech companies is the highest level we have received during the bull market.

So, despite the red stuff on the screen and the k-line chart looks bad, the reality is that these companies are actually all on the chain. Even if Trump could have an impact for a moment, he still did a lot of good things for cryptocurrencies, and many lawsuits against exchanges began to be dropped. Overall, I think now is an excellent time to re-enter construction.

Andy:

Yes, it seems that this is the biggest difference between fundamentals and price movements I've seen. The lifting of many investigations is particularly optimistic. The news about ETFs is also crazy. I have never seen so many applications from legal companies, such as PENGU applying for ETFs. Now let's see how these will develop. There is constant institutional pressure in the market. I flew from Brazil to New York today and will be there next week. I want to take advantage of this atmosphere and get into that mentality because I feel there is a huge difference between what is happening on Twitter and the market, and these institutions think differently. I feel like we have finally achieved neutralization of career risks in the past seven years of cryptocurrency work. After the 2017 bear market, I was very worried about whether the industry would recover and whether I needed to look for other jobs. Later I did some online marketing work and returned to this industry in 2018 and 2019. Even in the last bear market, I was wondering whether we can survive? Now I feel that career risks have been alleviated, and those who think for a long time will win.

Armani:

One of the key points you mentioned is the integration of the world. Cryptocurrency native populations are building incredible financial technology, which is at the heart of Bitcoin and many DeFi projects. Although new market structures are everywhere, there is no place that can fully control it.

But there is a little strange thing about finance that it has no direct purpose in itself. Before the sentiment of “institutions are coming”, DeFi fell into a downturn, what is the purpose of DeFi, why do we make these transactions, why do we build earnings mining, and why do we do these circular, meaningless operations. Because this is actually financial technology, and finance itself has no direct purpose. It is just an accounting system used to transfer representative assets. What really matters is the actual goods and services in the physical world.

We all know how to build a market. I think one of the most valuable things in the industry at present is to bring more value to the chain. The statistics mentioned by Mert are shocking, and a tweet can make value higher than the total value of the crypto market fluctuate instantly. But I would like to add that the value of the entire crypto market is not as valuable as Nvidia 's market value, and we all think this situation will not continue. We all believe that crypto will become an important pillar of the global financial system, but we still have a long way to go.

To achieve this goal, it is not just to solve technical problems such as how to expand blockchain and how to build a decentralized exchange, but to bring assets to the chain. Stablecoins are a good example. I think that's the core of what we make at Backpack because we can't pretend that the world doesn't exist, and countries have different rules, regulations and assets, whether it's U.S. stocks, local government bonds, retirement accounts, currencies around the world, or real estate. We need to bring that value to the chain in order to invigorate all the amazing things we have built over the past few years.

This convergence is exactly the trend we are beginning to see and the exciting reason why “institutions are coming” is coming. As the real world gradually merges and accepts the crypto world, cryptocurrencies will truly promote the upgrading of the financial system. Only by combining real-world assets and rules can we achieve this. This is exactly some of the current development trends and what makes me excited.

Bitcoin and Altcoin Season Dynamics

Robbie:

I think you're very right. We want these values ​​to come on the chain not just because we build these systems. Yes, we did build them and want to see people use them, but more importantly, they are actually better than traditional systems.

I often say that blockchain is the best coordination tool in existence. This applies to robots, AI-driven economies, and human-driven economies. Typically, coordination involves risk management, staking and allocation of scarce resources. All of this can be made more efficient, transparent and visible through blockchain.

At present, we have observed a macro-level safe haven phenomenon, where funds flow to cash, bonds, gold, and then digital gold - Bitcoin. On the other hand, technology stocks represent another part of our industry, which is Ethereum and Solana. Thus, Bitcoin acts as a bridge at the intersection of these two worlds. We see that cryptocurrencies are maturing, integrating with traditional financial systems, and a bridge between DeFi and the traditional financial world is forming. Bitcoin is that bridge, and its dominance is rising.

In the past, these cycles have always passed through Bitcoin first and then expanded to other cryptocurrencies and blockchain worlds. So will this time be different? As institutions begin to adopt on-chain technology and value on the chain, will we bypass Bitcoin and see funds flow directly to technology platforms, such as Ethereum, Solana, Monad and all L1 and L2?

Andy:

When will the copycat season come?

Mert:

This is a complex question. Regarding whether counterfeits such as Solana need Bitcoin to lead the rebound to recover, or can they operate independently, I personally think that they can operate independently, and there are several different angles to consider.

First, historically speaking, Bitcoin should have been a digital cash and P2P payment system over the past eight years. Although the functions such as Lightning Network mentioned in the white paper have not been truly implemented, Bitcoin has become a solid alternative to digital gold. Even the Finance Minister mentioned two days ago that Bitcoin has found market adaptability to some extent. Although Bitcoin is still a risky asset, it is not completely out of the market. A few days ago, everyone was asking why Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were decoupled from the market, but there was a sharp drop in ten minutes.

My point is that the main use case for cryptocurrencies in the past has been store of value, which is somewhat decoupled from cash flows in existing markets, probably about 20%. However, if you look at the upcoming emerging things like stablecoins, payment integration, and even on-chain listings, these do not require Bitcoin, they work directly with underlying technology companies.

In this case, I think this is their best chance ever to be decoupled to some extent. I don't think this will happen in this cycle, I think it will take a long time to really form a consensus. For example, I'm just in New York where people already know what Bitcoin is, but they'll ask me why I should invest in Solana instead of Bitcoin or Ethereum. In their minds, Bitcoin is one thing, and Ethereum and Solana are another.

This phenomenon seems to be happening. From the perspective of market size, Solana's market value is about US$55 billion, which is not too much. Therefore, only some relatively strong institutions need to operate and hold capital on these chains and they can achieve a rebound. So I don't think Bitcoin needs to lead all this anymore because they are not the same thing. Although they are all blockchains, Bitcoin is completely different.

Of course, you could say that there are new L2s on Bitcoin, which is right, but I'm not sure how these L2s can benefit more than Bitcoin itself. On the other hand, the situation is just the opposite, and L2's benefits may be slightly higher than Ethereum itself.

Institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies

Andy:

This is a very interesting paradox. Indeed, crypto participants may feel that Solana has a clear advantage when institutions consider Solana, which is one of the reasons why Ethereum has performed poorly in the past 18 months.

If investing in Bitcoin, it is indeed the choice of the lowest risk and best risk-to-return ratio, especially for allocation purposes. But if you want to configure a smart contract platform, buying Ethereum in the past bull market may not be the smartest option, because it has a high market capitalization, while Solana is faster, better, cheaper, and has more use cases in the current crypto iteration. For “Meme,” DeFi and fast trading, Solana is a winner.

Ethereum has indeed faced a dilemma over the past 18 months, trying to find its place. However, institutions may provide a lot of help to Ethereum and may drive Ethereum prices to rebound.

We talked with Arthur Hayes last night about Ethereum and all L1 and smart contract platforms. Ethereum is indeed very low at present. He predicts that after Bitcoin completes its rise, Ethereum will lead the next wave of rebound. Institutions may see the potential of Ethereum and drive its adoption.

In the long run, institutions may think that it is difficult for Ethereum to reach a market value of US$1.5 trillion, while it is relatively feasible for projects such as Solana, Celestia, and Hyperliquid to reach a higher market value. This view reflects the market's different views on the potential and value of different blockchain projects.

Robbie:

From a technical perspective, helping institutions realize that they are still in the early stages of technology, but the technology is resilient. If they choose to adopt a certain L1, they actually get the entire ecosystem. So Mert, I think you point out the dynamics between the network and its Rollups, such as Bitcoin’s Rollups currently get more value than they give back to Bitcoin. The same goes for Ethereum’s Rollups. Ultimately, these naturally occurring symbiotic relationships exist in reality. I'm not a fisherman, but the only fish I caught are the small fish swimming with sharks. It eats the shark's insects, which benefit the sharks, and the small fish can also get food. This is a very symbiotic relationship, and I think this relationship can be implemented on the chain.

Regarding L1 and L2, we don't seem to notice the play of this relationship. So, Andy, your question is, why is this still a valuable investment for institutions? I think it's because they get the whole. If someone buys Ethereum, they think they have obtained Ethereum and all of its Rollups, and may ignore these Rollups also have their own governance tokens.

Judging from the institutional sentiment I understand, when someone thinks of Ethereum, they think of all Ethereum and its Rollup. This is completely different from Bitcoin. I'm curious about your views on Solana and its network extensions. I think this is more similar to what Ethereum and its ecosystem thinks, not the same as Bitcoin, because when someone thinks of Solana, they think of Solana and all its network extensions.

I have two questions: What are the sentiments about Solana and its network extensions? How do these network extensions and Solana 's L1 ensure their symbiotic relationship?

Armani:

I want to go back to the core of this question, which is related to the view that Bitcoin leads the rebound, whether they can replace themselves. I think it's very simple. Anyone can lead any rebound, it only depends on who has achieved product market fit in a particular field.

The reality is that every project now is a Meme. Bitcoin is the first and only real Meme , and it is the purest meaning. Therefore, it is the way to store value. As long as everything is Meme, Bitcoin will always be the upper limit of value for all these crypto tokens.

When you analyze the relative value between Ethereum and Solana, you will find that Ethereum is already high, while other projects such as Solana and Celestia have relatively low value. Obviously, investing in low-market projects will be more attractive because they have more room for growth compared to Bitcoin. And the question is, how to bypass Bitcoin and tell the huge growth potential of Ethereum or other chains. The answer is simple: product market fit and real use cases. I think this has to be the story of any smart contract platform. In fact, it only takes one company, a use case, or a protocol to achieve escape speed. That's why I'm optimistic about any founder who dares to create L1, because you only need an app, an "Instagram Moment" or a "Uniswap Moment" to create the growth you need. We can say we are in the early stages, but the reality is, if you want to achieve that kind of breakthrough growth, I think the key is whether you have a global use case that everyone is using, whether it’s institutional DeFi, stablecoins or anything else. But ultimately, it's all about product market fit, which is not surprising.

Recommend Solana to an institution

Andy:

I think the concept of network expansion may not be very relevant to our current discussion, and I think the main reason for recommending Solana to institutions is its advantages in global data synchronization and high-speed transmission. Mert, have you had in-depth exchanges with institutions about Solana and Helios recently? What are they particularly interested in what you said, or do they not understand very much? How did they react?

Mert:

Of course, there are several angles. First, it depends on the capabilities of the institution itself, but fundamentally, they want to effectively transfer funds from point A to point B, or implement certain functions. If it is a fintech platform like Robinhood, they may want to attract new user groups or expand in the market, such as entering the forecast market. Therefore, they usually express their desire to work with stablecoins or real-world assets (RWAs), or they are more innovative fintech companies themselves, such as Klarna or Robinhood, or some fintech company in the United States or Brazil.

In the case of asset issuance, they usually adopt a multi-chain strategy. Judging from what I have seen, like the case of BlackRock, they obviously rely not only on Ethereum, but choose a multi-chain strategy. The issuer behind it, Securities, just announced that it will expand to Solana, which is not the first time. Companies like Visa, PayPal, Mastercard, Stripe, Google, etc. are basically unwilling to take the risk of investing on just one chain because it is too risky for them. Therefore, they usually focus on the top two or three chains, usually Solana and Ethereum. You can also see these institutional investors, such as Evan Echo, Franklin Templeton, whose portfolios usually include Bitcoin, then Solana and Ethereum, and possibly some niche projects.

For these institutions, the normal operation of the product is key. They need compliance control, payments to be predictable and stable, and security. This is usually their focus. In addition, there are some companies that are more inclined toward "Web 2.5" and their main concern is who can attract them. In my opinion, as long as you have a good B2B sales team, you can successfully cooperate with them. You can see that companies such as Ripple, Stellar have many such transactions. If you look at their team structure, it is usually 60 business developers and 1 engineer.

It's a combination, but ultimately the technology is key. If the product is not good, the user will not use it at all . So for those institutions, I think there is some asymmetric upside, which is why Base is important to Ethereum because they have a great B2B team. They know how to sell, which is why Solana has a team like Helius who has done a lot of work in policy governance and recently hired a chief business officer from Jane Street.

What I mean by business development is the actual talent. But the point Armani mentioned is indeed interesting. In a world where everything is Meme, Bitcoin is obviously the upper limit. While it's not a pure Meme, it takes a lot of social elements to get it to really work.

If we accept that these chains are more like the premise of tech stocks, L1 or other chains, people will actually start to focus on some traditional factors, such as how much money a chain can make. As a shareholder in this chain, assuming I am a token holder, can I get a reward from it? For example, what happens if I stake on Ethereum or Solana? Can I really make money? These issues become very important.

The discussion about Solana's proposal SIMD-228 is also a good example. This proposal basically means that we will significantly reduce the on-chain issuance. However, the objection from the Solana Foundation and some institutions is that they actually like high pledge returns, although this comes from issuance rights, such as 8% to 9% returns.

That's why I like Rev. Although some people don't like it, it's at least a relatively good indicator, especially compared to those that are prone to forgery. Rev is harder to forge, especially when it persists. It is not only a proxy for demand, but also an proxy for economic benefits flowing to users in the network. So, you can start focusing on some fundamentals. This may take some time, and this may be related to the network extension.

It seems to me that when people start L2 on Solana, there is not much difference, but the implementation is different because of the different architectures. Maybe it is used for storage, or so-called temporary rollup, you may just start it for a specific task, and then roll back after performing the operation.

The biggest difference is that Solana's L1 is not shared. It is basically improving the BMS and reducing latency. We don't care what you do on this block space, but how to operate as much as possible on this platform, because there are clear economic and technical incentives for users in the network. Therefore, this design is very reasonable.

In some application scenarios, it doesn’t matter if the technology is not perfect enough. There is an option to develop an algorithm that utilizes assets on L1. The main advantage of L2 is to expand on the basis of the existing value ecosystem on L1, which is also the attraction of Bitcoin L2, because Bitcoin itself is very useful. The same is true for Ethereum, which has a lot of assets on L1, rather than simply expanding L1. Ethereum actually supports the development of L2 by adjusting L1 and forming a rollup-centered model. But it should be noted that even with rollup as the center, rollup still needs to work in conjunction with L1 and cannot be ignored. This may be one of the root causes of many problems. If L1 can be maintained well, other problems will be solved in the long run. Even like Ethereum, after a long enough time, some viable alternatives will emerge, such as those who are reluctant to use Celestia can choose to use sovereign rollup or similar technologies. At this time, the incentive mechanism and economic foundation may become blurred. Regarding network scaling, I think the biggest difference between Solana and other ecosystems is that Solana core focuses on its own development, while other ecosystems may adapt their solutions so that rollup can benefit from it. So, Solana is more determined.

Backpack Theory

Andy:

I think we are basically consistent in our view on "unbiased design". When I think about the dynamics of BTC, I found that technical design also focuses directly on a single tradeoff and maximizes it. The market has always seen this as a factor in enhancing the user experience and the overall appeal of Soul tokens, while also using and building the Savannah chain. Although I am a little tired of Point Funds and think it may be a bit too much, I can discuss it later.

Interestingly, this is combined with what Armani does at Backpack and what Mert mentions, and the Solana ecosystem seems to be growing in a super-applied way. When thinking about the concept of the best products in the crypto space, many people think of wallets, exchanges, stablecoins, and some kind of mix of these, whether on their own chains or on fast, cheap chains like Solana. Jupiter is obviously the main trading venue for Solana, but recently Pump actually moved from Radium to Pump Swap. Jupiter has added a different product suite, and Camino has just added an aggregator to their platform.

So we are entering a world of Solana ecosystem and feel like there are many competitors who want to be super apps. I 'm curious about what Backpack's theory is, and why do you want to build this platform so that you have the distribution rights of the end user? At the wallet level, you can direct users to exchanges where they can trade, earn fees, and use those fees for repurchases and other financial incentives. How do you view the acceleration of this flywheel effect?

Armani:

Backpack theory is somewhat counterintuitive, especially for those who have a deep understanding of the crypto field. I mentioned a point before: the total value of the entire crypto field is not as good as the market value of Nvidia. I think there are two possibilities for the future of this industry.

One possibility is that we are basically stuck in our current state and remain an unregulated offshore speculative gambling. Because the main use case is to trade some assets that have no actual value on the chain, this can also become a good business. Gambling, as a form of consumption, can bring happiness or sadness to people, depending on how personal views gambling are. But gambling is indeed a real thing, and this may be where we are restricted.

I don't think any of us would believe this possibility. If that's true, all four of us may choose to turn our business to AI or other areas. I personally believe that crypto, finance and technology will penetrate deeply into the financial field and are closely connected with every major financial institution around the world. No matter which country you come from, what religion you believe in, or what political stance you hold, we can ultimately use these computers with minimal trust to trade and exchange of value, all over the world.

Next you might ask what companies and protocols would you build in such a world where the trillions of value of traditional finance are tokenized and traded on-chain. I think there will be two types of attributes in the end.

要么是完全去中心化、完全抗审查的，代表着这个领域中最好的东西， 比如Uniswap、以太坊、Solana 等。它们的地理分布非常广泛，吸引了大量的参与者。每个人都在使用它们，但没有人拥有它们，因此合规的概念就像是一个未定义的问题，就像除以零一样，没有任何意义。比如，美国如何在某些服务器运行在中国的情况下施加合规规则，而中国的合规规则与美国完全相反，或者在阿联酋、非洲或南美等地的情况。

这就是抗审查性的概念。我用太平洋来比喻它：太平洋是一个强大的交换媒介。美国可以向日本发送船只和集装箱，台湾可以向美国发送货物，中国可以与日本进行贸易，没有人会认为某个国家会突然摧毁一艘船，因为它控制了特定的海域。太平洋之所以有效，是因为没有人控制它。这种不受控制的状态创造了惊人的人类协调。

因此，我认为区块链就像是这些新的自然媒介，存在于我们处理财务交易的环境中。抗审查性是一个非常明确且重要的属性。如果我们希望这个行业在日常生活中真正有意义，合规性也是一个非常重要的属性。

如果你是集中式的，控制某些东西，可以关闭某个系统，或控制人们的资金，甚至重新排序他们的交易，关闭匹配引擎等等，那么你就必须在某个国家设有实体，这个国家有政府、法律和军队。你必须遵循该国的规则和法规。

这听起来可能有些简单，尤其是对于那些来自加密领域之外的人来说。法律和规则是存在的，但我认为大多数人并没有真正理解这一点，尤其是那些非常熟悉加密的人，因为我们在一个没有明确规则的行业中成长。因此，我们在专业上受到了这种反生产的训练，认为规则无关紧要，一切都是虚假的。

实际上，这些都带来了后果。如果你为朝鲜提供服务，你可能会入狱，这些事件都有真实的后果。因此，我认为合规性是另一个非常重要的因素。如果你希望数万亿美元的价值在链上运行，而这些价值根植于现实生活中，比如苹果公司在加利福尼亚，就必须遵循那里的所有规则。所以， 你必须具备这两种属性之一：要么是抗审查的，要么是合规的。任何处于中间状态的都无路可走。我对此深信不疑。

因此，Backpack的理论是，实际上，没有多少加密原生的人会选择合规这条路。许多出色的建设者，比如Uniswap、Jupiter 等，正在构建优秀的抗审查技术。而真正关心我们在这里构建的东西，并希望建立一个加密原生金融版本的人并不多。这正是我们试图定位的方向，我们可以为更广泛的加密生态系统贡献优秀产品。我认为这就是我们以这种方式构建公司的基础道德背景。

Backpack 的超级应用战略

Andy：

在实际实施合规愿景或有效地向新受众开放技术方面，你们的战略是什么？

Armani：

有几个关键点。我认为对我们来说， 最重要的事情是流动性， 因为一旦你获得了流动性，其他一切都会随之而来。像这些交易所就是流动性中心，你不仅连接到一个链，而是连接到每一个链。而且你不仅仅连接到每一个链，还连接到每个国家的法币进出通道。实际上， 这是一个非常特别的产品，位于两个经济体之间：一边是传统经济，即传统银行系统，另一边是加密经济 。因此，如果你想实现我们想要实现的目标，首要目标就是攀登这座流动性之山。因为一旦你能够建立和利用这团流动性，无论你是在交易合约、拥有现货资产，还是在进行法币的进出，你都可以利用这个位置来构建出色的产品。

你可能会问，比如说，如何构建稳定币？毫无疑问，所有大型稳定币都有一个集中式交易所，比如USDC 在Coinbase，USDT 在Bitfinex，这一点并不奇怪。稳定币是现实世界资产的第一个例子，即使Circle 并不称自己为集中式交易所，但从所有实际目的来看，他们实际上就是一个集中式交易所。你在一个链上存入代币，无论是Solana 还是以太坊，然后你可以提取到法币或其他资产。你基本上是在将一种货币转换为另一种货币。你在包裹资产，这就是一个交易所。这种流动性使他们能够获得USDC 的分发，并实际上创造了今天行业中最重要的产品之一。

我认为我们会看到越来越多的现实世界资产（RWA）随着时间的推移而发挥作用。你可能会问有 这么多RWA 公司被创建，为什么没有一个成功呢？为什么我们现在不都在链上使用代币化证券呢？因为没有人具备分发的元素。没有人像Coinbase 为Circle 所做的那样，为RWA 做出贡献。

因此， 首要目标就是推动这团流动性，建立一个非常深厚的交易所 。因为从那里，一切都会随之而来。然后你可以开始讨论钱包技术、现实世界资产、汇款和支付以及其他许多引人注目的用例。但这 一切都始于交易所，始于流动性 。