0:00You want to send your kids to school, you want to you need some healthcare cover, you want to go for holidays or

0:05buy more assets, right? So why selling your assets if you don't have to if you can actually use the tools that are out

0:11there in the market to leverage these assets, stick to them and then just, you know, kind of extract the monetary value

0:18out of these assets just like you do with mortgages, just like you do with your houses when uh, you know, you need you need some more money. So we really

0:24wanted to make it as as seamless and easy to use uh as possible. Now we are at a stage when they're coming

0:30proactively to us and they're asking okay so how could we participate in the market

0:35[Music]

0:41welcome to medium of exchange the podcast where we spotlight business owners building on a Bitcoin standard.

0:47Today's guest is someone who's tackling one of the biggest problems in Bitcoin. Igor Noman is the founder of Firefish, a

0:54lending platform making it possible to borrow and lend directly on Bitcoin. No banks, no middleman, no permission

1:00needed. With Firefish, he's building something radically different. The ability to leverage pristine collateral

1:07in a way that's open, transparent, designed to serve anyone, everywhere. Igor, welcome to Medium of Exchange.

1:14Hi Jason, thanks for having me. I'm so pumped to have this conversation with conversation with you. So,

1:21lending, why lending? Why how did you get into this? I mean, I I think as you mentioned, I mean, it's one of the one of the

1:26toughest nuts to crack when it comes to Bitcoin, right? And uh I mean, as as an

1:32idea, it's nothing uh super new, right? So, what we're trying to bring to Bitcoin is basically helping Bitcoiners

1:38in the first place to never having to sell their Bitcoin because we know that this is a great asset and we want to

1:44hold on it until forever, many of us. And secondly, I mean, uh, as always, a

1:49real life situation actually led us with my co-founder Martin into into building something around Bitcoin back lending,

1:57which was there was a there was a life situation, an investment opportunity basically that Martin had, my

2:02co-founder. And he needed some funding for his project, right? And one of the options that he had was like obviously

2:07to sell his stack and then fund the project, but obviously he didn't want to lose the control of his bitcoins and to

2:14basically sell them and pay taxes and whatsoever. So that's why we've been looking for the alternatives like what

2:20is the best second best option basically for getting funding when you're a bitcoin holder right and at that time I

2:27mean I'm sure you remember these were the times like a couple of years ago with you know sales and blockfy and all

2:33the other all the other platforms that went belly up uh we realized I mean both of us with Martin were coming from

2:38traditional finance so you know the first thing you always do is you know you check the risks right so we

2:44understood that you uh relying on what we call the trust bro model where you kind of send your bitcoin to a custodian

2:52or to centralized lender basically and then you just hope that they will return your loan after or bitcoin after you you

2:59repay your loan. This model basically broke down as as we've seen in the past. So we've been looking for alternatives

3:05and at that time they have there haven't been too many right one one was obviously DeFi where you could wrap your

3:10bitcoin send it to some other network uh you know trust some foundation and and you know all the bells and whistles

3:17around the defy protocols which I I think personally that not too many people really understand all the risks

3:24linked to this. So we were we were trying to find out if there's any any other better way and as as it happens in

3:30life you know if you don't have an alternative you build it yourself right. So that's why we decided to build a

3:35non-custodial Bitcoin back lending marketplace where really we are helping

3:40Bitcoiners to not sell their Bitcoin to never sell their Bitcoin to use it as a collateral and get funding against it.

3:47Right. So that was that was the background of the story. That's awesome. I love that you guys are

3:53building in particular a non-custodial. I want to get I want to get into that a little bit later on. So first I I want

3:59to learn a little bit more about your platform. Before we get too deep into that, I just want to zoom out for a second and talk about why

4:07borrow and then we can get into how borrow. Right. If you're are you familiar with Dave Ramsey?

4:14Not necessarily. No. Okay. Okay. Well, here in the States, he he's kind of this uh personal finance

4:22influencer. Let's let's say he's written a bunch of books, right? And he's in the same hometown that I grew up in. I've

4:28met him before a few times. and he has he he's really good at helping people get out of debt. And so I just want to

4:36clarify for a second what we're talking about when we talk about debt, right? And the narrative is debt is bad. All

4:42debt is bad. It's really, really bad except maybe for your house, but other than that, debt is bad, right? And it

4:48got me thinking about how when I was a kid, I would every year we had this TV show on this channel called the

4:54Discovery Channel, and they had this thing called Shark Week. And part of it was about how sensationalized

5:02sharks are. The narrative is that they're super dangerous and you should probably kill one if you see one because

5:07it's probably going to try and kill you, right? But in reality, they're a really important part of the ecosystem. And

5:14similar to how sharks have sort of a branding problem, lending maybe has a banding branding problem, but really in

5:20reality, it's a tool that can be used really for good or for bad. So, can you just share a little bit about the power

5:28of lending? You know, you talked about never sell your Bitcoin. The rich have used this buy, borrow, die strategy. I'd

5:37love to hear your perspective on that. Yeah, I'll just stop there. Yeah, listen, I mean, borrowing or credit in

5:43general is a two-edged sword, right? I mean, you really need to be careful about, you know, how you manage your

5:49whole finances in general and credit is a very important part of it. Obviously to to your point actually I don't know

5:55if if you know but really here in in central Europe uh credit also has been

6:00sort of it has this connotation of being very negative is like something that only the poorest people use and they

Understanding Debt and Credit

6:07always get into the debt spiral and then they get bankrupt and you know they lose

6:12their houses and stuff like that right so really the sort of perception of credit in in this part of the world is

6:18also rather negative also credit cards you know credit cards are have been historically used only either by the

6:23richest or then the really by people who are living from, you know, your day-to-day from salary to salary. So I I

6:30fully understand this credit is actually something that fuels fuels the markets, right? Fuels the the the financial

6:35markets in the first place in traditional finance. And secondly, I think if if we actually zoom out from

6:41the concept of credit to what what is the underlying assets under the credit

6:46that you're taking actually, I think that's the very important point, right? Because what we are really trying to get to as you mentioned like there's this

6:53exception of yeah maybe you can you can take credit against your house but then there are other other instruments other

6:59assets and you mentioned also the wealthy people have been using this strategy forever. Good assets you never

7:05sell them right you want to stick to them you want basically your family or your your kids to inherit them and so

7:10forth. So you want to stick to the great assets at the same time you might have some funding needs right you you want to

7:17send your kids to school you want to you need some healthcare uh cover you want to go for holidays or buy more assets

7:23right so why selling your assets if you don't have to if you can actually use the tools that are out there uh in the

7:29market to leverage these assets stick to them and then just you know kind of extract the monetary value out of these

7:35assets just like you do with mortgages just like you do with your houses when uh you know you need you need some more

7:41Medium of Exchange is brought to you by Polaris Payments. Let's face it, for now, businesses still need to take fiat

7:49and credit cards. Polaris Payments helps with all of your credit card processing needs using a consultative approach. You

7:57can think of Polaris like a performance coach, helping take your business to the next level when it comes to taking all

8:02forms of money. For more information, check out polarispayments.com. Now, let's get back to the show. and you

8:08just pledge your house against your loan. So this is the same concept but at the same time as I mentioned really I

8:15think we always uh tell people do not overleverage yourself uh you know make sure that you'll be able worst case

8:21scenario you have either enough of additional collateral in terms of bitcoin for example or you're really

8:27able to manage your manage your finances in the proper way because really as I said it is a two-edged sword and you

8:33know people should be really careful about using it because it might cause troubles in other words.

8:38Yeah. Yeah. I I like how you mentioned the sort of the polarization. You're right. It's it seems like we have the

8:46implication is that, you know, to tie back in the shark narrative, it's like we have lone sharks, right?

8:52Yeah. And the implication is that they're extractive, they're greedy, there's no

8:59concern or care for the borrower. They're sort of the villain in the story. And then you've got, you know,

9:05you've got the rich who, when you talk about billionaires, I think sometimes people think they literally have

9:10billions of dollars in their bank account, but they're not living on it's

9:15it's equity in their businesses, right? And then they take loans out against their e equity. And as Bitcoiners, we're

9:22able to be smart and, you know, use wisdom, but we're able to do the same.

9:27That's assuming the tools are there. We need tools like Firefish. And it's really exciting to see what you're

9:33building because you saw all the people get wrecked, you know, from all the BlockFi and Celsius

9:39and stuff. I was able to pull out my money like just in the nick of time and and it was fine. But so tell me so tell

9:46me so let's let's go on the on the the rich side of things for a second on tell me a little bit about buy, borrow, and

9:53die. How do Bitcoiners leverage that? What tell us what that strategy is? How

10:00do bitcoiners leverage that strategy and how do they do it in a smart way so that they don't get wrecked?

10:05Yeah. So, uh I think what I really like about Bitcoin is that uh uh it allows

10:12the regular folk, regular Bitcoiners to actually apply the strategy that has been uh available only either to the

10:18richest people or people with with houses, people with mortgage and especially the younger generation nowadays. You know, people struggle with

10:24uh with real estate. It's basically impossible if you're a uh unigrat uh to to be able to afford a house unless you

10:31want to really uh kind of stay in debt for for the rest of your life. So with

10:37Bitcoin which is really accessible to everybody, I think this is the beauty of it that anyone who holds at least a

10:42portion of Bitcoin can start living this way, right? Can start actually leveraging Bitcoin, Bitcoin as the

10:49ultimate collateral, as the ultimate asset and and start living off it, right? So one of our actually statement

10:54is that uh never sell your bitcoin live of it. Right? So that's exactly what we're what we're trying to bring uh to

11:00the to the market to regular bitcoiners as well as obviously institutions to to your point this is really very important

11:06like as we've discussed there have been institutions that basically went belly up. People lost their bitcoins and all

11:12that. So really the first thing and also like in traditional finance when a bank

11:17goes bankrupt there's always someone you know to to you know a government let's say or an you know government

11:23institution that can help you to retrieve your funds and all that certain

11:28you know transactions can get reversed and all that whereas this is not the case in bitcoin right so once you send

11:33your bitcoin somewhere else then you're done right you only really you need to trust the counterparty to be able to

11:39fulfill their obligations and return the bitcoin back to you. So that's why I think it's really crucial for everybody

11:45before they jumped on the this sort of strategy or I would even say lifestyle right like leveraging your assets the

11:52way the rich people do to really do your due diligence as as we say in Bitcoin don't tr don't trust uh verify and

12:00really try to understand what it is that the platform or the institution is is offering right and there are really a

12:06lot of nuances uh first thing what I would mention is really the the difference between custodial and

Navigating Risks in Bitcoin Lending

12:12non-custodial sort of approaches. I'm not even talking about DeFi where really you need to kind of trust some code that

12:17sends your bitcoin somewhere reps it somewhere and does who knows what with it with all respect obviously to the

12:23defi community but uh with with with centralized lenders again as I mentioned if they go belly up you know there's no

12:28central institution in bitcoin that would help you to get your bitcoin back so that's why we felt that the uh

12:34non-custodial way of of storing of bitcoin which is literally when I say non-custodial meaning that you are

12:40actually not sending your bitcoin to us you are actually just leveraging ing native Bitcoin technology like multi6,

12:47partially signed transactions and some some other features of of uh or native features of the network that safely lock

12:55your bitcoin and you get it back only in case you repay your loan in case you do not repay loan. So if you default

13:01obviously bitcoin goes uh goes to the liquidation and the investor or the lender basically that that provided the

13:07loan for you will get their investment covered right. So this is the first thing that I would definitely check uh

13:13as a as a potential borrower. Uh and secondly then there are other other important components like uh for example

13:19the loan to value ratio right which means uh if you're taking a loan for example you want to borrow 100 grand

13:27what is the amount of bitcoin that you need to to cover this loan right so in in our case for example or I would even

13:33say the market standard is around 50%. That means uh if you want to borrow 100k, you need to deposit 200k worth of

13:41bitcoin. Uh there are obviously platforms or institutions that uh that you know have these LTV is lower. That

13:48means you need to kind of pledge much more of your bitcoin makes it safer for you. But on the on the other side and

13:54and we've seen a lot of cases even uh some of our users uh came to us with their own experience that uh they went

14:01they were kind of greedy. they went to a different different vendor that offered like 80% LTV. So really the cushion for

14:08for potential liquidation was only like 20% roughly and then they got liquidated

14:13because Bitcoin as we know it is still pretty volatile even though I think it's much the volatility is much more more

14:21calmer or or sort of matured than than it used to be in the past. But volatility really can kill you, right?

14:26So don't be greedy if you're a if you're a borrower. Try to be conservative. go for LTVs that are safer or you know that

14:34where you do not risk a quick liquidation right because normally normally in in lending or borrowing

14:41there is always the kind of party that is providing the funds for you right so they need to be protected as well so

14:46that's why you are always pledging more bitcoin than than the actual loan but at

14:51the same time you know if if this ratio is is very high meaning that you deposit only slightly more than the loan itself

14:58and if the bitcoin price goes against you really you're at very high risk of of liquidation. So that's that's another

15:04very very important point that I would mention for anyone who's who's uh willing to try this strategy or get into

15:12Bitcoin back uh borrowing basically. Yeah, it's nice that volatility is lowering. I I don't think it's

15:19necessarily an 80 asset anymore, but it's obviously you know there is some volatility and so I think 50% probably

15:27makes a lot of sense. uh 80 I think is maybe not we're not market is not quite

15:32mature enough for that quite yet as as some people have have seen as you mentioned. Yeah. No, I mean I think what

15:39an incredible tool to be able to be long the appreciating asset and short fiat.

15:45Um it is a sharp tool. You know you you have to be careful with this tool. Uh but the ability to live your life and

15:54you know we have expenses. we, you know, sell your chairs. Like some people still need chairs. I I I do. Okay. So, so

16:02let's go into your platform here. The platforms that

16:09I'm the most familiar with are Strike, who who just, you know, launched their lending platform. I've been a Strike

16:15user for a while. I I started playing around. I I started

16:20looking into their lending. I haven't actually taken a loan out on their platform, but it's a 50% LTV.

16:27I felt a little bit hoodwinkedked on the interest rates cuz he's like single digits and then guess how much you have to borrow in order to get single digits.

16:34It's like it's like it's $5 million loan, which means you have to you have to pledge $10 million worth of Bitcoin.

16:42Okay. and strike is like it's a custodial, you know, that's a pretty

16:48significant amount of Bitcoin to hand over hoping with this trust me bro model

16:54that, you know, you're going to get it back. Another tool that I'm more familiar with is Unchained where it's

17:00this more collaborative custodial platform. You know, they're not rehypothecating.

17:05You know that, you know, it's it's super safe. Um, but the interest rates are are

17:10not super low and uh and at the moment they they only have it available for

17:16businesses. One of the really cool things I think about Bitcoin is that it is financial

17:22empowerment for the little guy. Not everyone has a business. Not everyone has uh you know large minimum capacity.

17:32And you guys have what is it like $800 or so minimum? Yeah, exactly.$800 is the minimum. And

17:38what what's kind of your average loan size that you're seeing? It's around it's around 10K I would say.

Market Dynamics and User Experience

17:44I mean u it's important to mention that we've we we've started with uh sort of focus on on on the retail market right.

17:51So really the sort of your bitcoiners uh we wanted to really bring this tool as you mentioned like some some of the

17:57other providers or platforms you really need to be super rich to be able to get to you know nice interest rate or even

18:04for them to be able to to speak to you. So really we we we tried we we started the bottom up uh from the bottom bump

18:10approach. Yeah. I mean there's millions of Bitcoiners and they all know uh to not sell your

18:17Bitcoin and and they all still have expenses. So this is this is globally

18:23you can get a loan through Firefish. Is this correct? Yeah, absolutely. I mean uh unless

18:28you're from a sanctioned country, you know, the platform is open to basically anyone.

18:34Mhm. And so what are the so it's like what 50% LTV a loan to value ratio. In

18:40other words, if you want a $10,000 loan, you need to pledge $20,000 worth of Bitcoin.

18:46Correct. Yeah. And then what are you what are you guys doing in terms of terms? Is this like a one-year term or

18:53Yeah. So in terms of terms, we have like standardized terms from 3 months all the way to two years. I mean there's been

18:59really a lot of demand recently uh from the community and you know a lot of bitcoiners would tell you who do follow

19:05the sort of bitcoin fouryear cycle that they want to get the foreign loans but obviously you need to consider also the

19:11the other side of the of the equation right so uh I think what what's important to mention that we are just a

19:17marketplace right so we're actually connecting the borrowers with the lenders uh we are actually not and

19:23that's the maybe the difference to strike where strike has a they are a balance sheet lender basically right so they have an entity behind them who's

19:29providing the loans and they are dictating the terms and the interest rates. Whereas on our platform it's an

19:34open market where you know the borrowers come they say hey I want to borrow at I don't know 8%.

19:40And they see all the requests by the other borrowers. If the lenders find their requests interesting they can you

19:46know kind of just click and click and deal basically. So we are literally just a a platform that is matching these two

19:52sides and we've seen the interest rates actually going down in the last couple of uh couple of months which is great

19:57because uh that obviously proves that uh the open market sort of um model uh

20:03really is the best for price discovery and really getting the best rate that you can at any point in time. And at the

20:11same time, you know, once, you know, people people start playing with the platform, you know, starting with 800,

20:16800 bucks, whatever. Uh, and then they see, yeah, I got my Bitcoin back. You know, the investors the same or the

20:22lender is the same. Basically, they send the money to someone, they get their money back, they see that it works. So, you know, the the volumes and the

20:29adoption and the overall liquidity is actually growing. So, that's why the interest rates are going a little lower

20:35as well. Uh so we really feel with a large adoption and also what what's important to mention is that the way

20:40we've built the platform is to to make it really super easy for both parties right so if you're a lender for example

20:47you've got some free fiat or stable coins you want to invest invest them you know you don't want to keep them in the

20:52bank at you know 1% 2% 3% especially here in Europe you can invest into Bitcoin bank loans but you do not have

20:57to be Bitcoin native right so your only role is basically send the money to the counterparty and then receive the money

21:03back and also from the borrowers perspect perspective. You know, one of the tricky sides of Bitcoin in terms of the overall adoption, I would say, is

21:09really the concept of of self-custody, right? I I I don't think everybody's ready for for being a self-custodian um

21:16or custodian for their own uh bitcoin. It has many uh many pros, but at the same time, you know, once you lose your

21:22seed, you get you lose the access. If you if you keep your bitcoin with a custodian or just like when you when you

21:28keep the money in the bank, you don't have to worry every day, you know, is my seat safe, you know, is there going to be a fire in the building or whatever.

21:34So with this in mind, we also created uh a slightly different workflow for the

21:40borrowers where you do not have to actually store any seeds, keep your keys or or things like that, right? So we're

21:46using a specific technology where you as a bitcoiner once you lock your bitcoin, you do not have to get any or you do not

21:53have to basically fiddle with any cryptographic material, you do not have to sign transactions and stuff like that, right? So we really wanted to make

21:59it as as seamless and easy to use uh as possible. So this is also an important important differentiator there I would

22:05say. Yeah. How does it work? Like do do I let's say I want to get a loan. Do I send you my Bitcoin or is it somehow

22:10like you lock up my Bitcoin then I can't access it? Like how how does that work? Yeah. So in in in very simple terms

22:17basically as a as a borrower uh on the platform. So once once you're matched with a counterparty with a lender um you

22:24get to a process of locking your bitcoin. So what what uh the platform does basically on in in your browser uh

22:31you generate a an escrow address directly on blockchain. So uh it's an

22:36address that is generated by you to which you send your bitcoin later on. But you what you also do you pre-sign

22:43particular transactions. So that's what I I mentioned at the beginning that we're leveraging the partially signed Bitcoin transactions sort of technology

22:50uh bitcoin native technology which means that you actually no it's actually PSBT iss you know it's a simple basically

22:57thing where where you have four particular transactions that you sign at the beginning and that means that you're

23:04actually limiting what can happen to your bitcoin right so your bitcoin once it's locked on in the escrow can either

23:10move back to you right once you repay your loan or it goes to to the liquidator if you if you for example

23:16default. So there are four transactions, four not three uh one is the repayment. So you actually pre-sign the repayment

23:23transaction and one we get the notification that yes you've uh uh repaid your loan, Bitcoin moves back to

23:29you. The other transaction that you pre-sign is a default. That means again as I mentioned you don't repay and then

23:35Bitcoin gets to goes to liquidation. Third transaction is so-called liquidation which means the price

23:41liquidation. So if bitcoin falls to LTV 95% then you get liquidated. If you do

23:47not stop up collateral obviously at any point in time you can go to the platform and add more collateral if you see that

23:52bitcoin is moving against you or even at the very beginning you know as as as we discussed the uh default LTV is 50% but

24:00we've seen that many many people are actually uh locking more bitcoin because really they do not want to lose

24:05basically our default rate is 00001 you know we had a two or three cases literally in in in the history where

24:12people weren't able to repay their loans right so that's the uh price liquidation and Then the fourth transaction is

24:19something what we call a zombie ep apocalypse transaction. In case that you

24:24know firefish would disappear you know our plat or the infrastructure would go belly up. The last thing we wanted to to

24:31happen is to get your bitcoin locked in that escrow forever. So after you know

24:36particular time after certain conditions are met and we are using time locks in that particular case you can actually as

24:43a borrower you can retrieve your bitcoin back if we really disappeared if there's this zombie apocalypse. So apart from

24:49these four particular scenarios and apart from the your own address or the liquidator's address there's nothing

24:56else that can happen to you or I mean to your bitcoin in particular. We can't send it to ourselves. We can't send it

25:01to police if police comes and say like hey you know this guy he took a loan through your platform send us his bitcoin. So we can't do that right. So

25:08this uh there are only two addresses that are hardcoded and we can only or actually bitcoin can only move to either

25:13or of these addresses. What's cool is you guys have leveraged

25:19technology to have an escro service without having to have actual escrow

25:25company. Exactly. That's the beauty of Bitcoin. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people were

25:32arguing at the very beginning like, hey, well, you know, there's nothing going on on Bitcoin. I mean, the layers too are

25:38the future and and you know, things like that. Uh, so we're like, okay, let's let's think hard. So, it took us couple

25:43of months obviously to come up with this uh what we call Firefish Protocol. So, which is the set of rules and you know,

25:49what happens the multi-y setup and all that. But I think we've proven that even with the existing technology that we

25:55have on Bitcoin, you really can create something that is much more safer than than you know standard trust me bro

26:00models. I would say obviously there's no rehypication which is very important because that's also where a lot of

26:06people lost their lost their bitcoins. Yeah. Even even though people as I mentioned people argue that Bitcoin is

26:11not as flexible as DeFi uh or Ethereum in general the the whole ecosystem I think you know and we've proven it that

26:17even on Bitcoin and the the technology that exists right now uh you can build something that is much more much more

26:23secure it's resilient and uh future proof. Yeah. I mean it's kind of like an 80%

26:29LTV versus a 50%. It's like do you want something that's like secure where you're not going to get wrecked or

26:34Exactly. Where do you see I come from the real estate world. I've

26:40done a ton of escrow deal, not a ton, but I've done several escro deals where it's just like loads of paperwork. Um,

26:48and and you know, I've well, it doesn't matter. My point

26:55my point though is like I'm in my mind I'm so used to a 30-year framework. Now

27:0230 years obviously it's like it in this case with the United States government is like subsidizing these loans.

27:08Mhm. For like housing loans and so maybe that's unrealistic to start doing

27:1330 years anytime soon. But where do you see the terms in let's say the next 5 years or so cuz you said that the terms

27:20tend to be extending and interest rates have kind of been lowering as the market's maturing over the next like 5

The Future of Bitcoin Lending and Market Trends

27:27to 10 years. Where do you see this going? Listen, I think especially since last year, I think that was the that was

27:32a tipping point for for Bitcoin really. I mean, love it or hate it, I think the ETFs in general had really kind of

27:39helped with the adoption of Bitcoin and uh they sort of helped to move Bitcoin from a from something that people used

27:46to perceive as a you know terrorist financing tool almost to a legitimate commodity almost. So I think the times

27:54where Bitcoin lending in particular and borrowing was driven by only a handful of institutions

28:01who were charging you very high interest rates are over. So we see the the adoption of Bitcoin in general and with

28:08the entrance of new entities especially the traditional finance institutions asset managers you know banks almost

28:14every week there are news that a bank is entering the bitcoin bitcoin we feel that there the capital that has been

28:20locked outside of the bitcoin ecosystem is now getting into the bitcoin ecosystem and that's going to help with

28:26lowering of the interest rates and also extending the terms right so at this point in time I think you know many of

28:33the platforms would would offer you really you know maybe from overnight or or 3 days to like half a year terms we

28:42really are seeing a lot of demand for the longer term and I think it's just really a matter of time once more and

28:48more liquidity from from the traditional finance uh is pumped into this market the rates will go down as well as the

28:55terms are going to be much more much more attractive for the regular folk it's a two-sided marketplace that you

29:02have right and so you really need to have supply on both sides. You need to

29:08have borrowers who are looking to borrow and lenders who are looking to lend. Are

29:13you obviously we talked about borrowers who are looking for longer term and lower interest rates. That's pretty

29:18obvious. But are you experiencing challenges with like what's your

29:24greatest challenge with having that two-sided marketplace? Are you really try struggling trying to find lenders or

29:30kind of where are you at there? Well, definitely at the at the very beginning it was a hard sell, right, to

29:36to the lenders. So, I would say like 90 95% of the lenders at the at the beginning, you know, two years ago uh or

29:43a year and a half ago when we launched the platform were Bitcoiners themselves, right? Because they did understand the proposition. We obviously were were

29:51talking to a lot of Trackfy institutions and when you come came to when we came to them and say like, "Hey, you know,

29:57why don't you start funding Bitcoin back loans?" They're like, "Oh, yeah, no, Bitcoin that's, you know, we can't do it." and and and so forth. Uh as I

30:03mentioned, you know, with the ETFs, with all the regulation as well, I hate it of love it. Um these institutions are uh

30:10becoming much more receptive to Bitcoin versus Bitcoin. Um at this point in

30:17time, I would even say that half of the marketplace or of the lenders are non Bitcoin native, right?

30:23um with uh with you know sort of Bitcoin becoming really something much more standardized people are um sort of

30:32getting interested in okay so that that the interest rates are still rather high compared to other other market market

30:38instruments uh at the same time the risk reward profile uh and the security sort

30:44of uh setup is is super attractive right so a lot of people come to us they're like you know how on earth can I get how

30:50come that I can get you know 10% on on on on euros or dollars where uh you know the banks are offering only like two to

30:585%. If these go if these loans are actually overcolateralized I do understand there's much more bitcoin

31:03than than the loan that I'm providing right. So how come this is the case and it's really just a case of the market maturity and the liquidity. So let's say

31:11two years ago when we started started the project a lot of banks or trfa institutions again were looking down at

31:18us. They're like well no way. Now we are at a stage when they're coming proactively to us and they're asking

31:24okay so how could we participate in the market right so you know we see that the the demand is definitely there there's

31:30as you mentioned millions of bitcoiners there are a lot of institutions every week again you have news about a new

31:35bitcoin treasury company coming to the market and this is also one of their strategies like they use their bitcoin

31:40as a collateral to get a loan to buy more bitcoin right so they're kind of leveraging themselves so that's one

31:46thing and the other thing is obviously miners miners is the biggest holders of bitcoin I mean I can I can feel for them like every time they have to sell their

31:52stack you know it is really painful so what are the what is the other option they have right so basically borrowing

31:57against their stag is is I think a natural strategy that they they want to employ so in terms of the demand side

32:03I'm not demand side I'm yes the supply side has been a little a little of a

32:08challenge but really really as I mentioned we we see a lot of improvement actually in this space so it's not only

32:14bitcoiners anymore it's um you know I would even say people who are into investing I I mean in the US definitely

32:20the the you know almost every other every other person owns a stock portfolio here in Europe it's not the

32:26case that much but more and more people and especially people really who understand investing they finding this

32:33particular market or instrument very attractive because they see the yields are there they see that it's very very

32:38secure and uh we see a lot of lot of demand coming from this sort of traty

32:44space I would say you and I understand that you should be long Bitcoin and short fiat and your

Bitcoin as a Long-Term Asset: A Shift in Perspective

32:51assets should be in Bitcoin and your loans should be denominated in fiat. One of the cool things about your platform,

32:58you know, Michael Sailor talks about how Bitcoin is like Manhattan 100 years ago and you don't need a billion dollars to

33:04buy real estate in Manhattan. You just need a few dollars. So, you can buy the equivalent of Manhattan 100 years ago

33:10today through Bitcoin. But what would you say to like the regular everyday

33:15person who is buying Manhattan aka

33:21Bitcoin? They're interested in holding that appreciating asset and borrowing using a platform like Firefish, but want

33:29to do it in a smart and and wise way. you know, one of my concerns, uh, we're

33:34not necessarily advertising, but but we are sharing to the world information about your platform, and I think your

33:41platform is really important, but one of my concerns is all the people, you know,

33:46I've got friends who bought Bitcoin at the top, sold at the bottom, and

33:53and have never looked back, have never bought Bitcoin since. they are

33:58emotionally scarred and as we talked about this is a really

34:04cool powerful tool but you can also you need to be really careful so so is

34:09there a framework or sort of a heristic for someone to be smart about a platform

34:15like firefish I think I think the really the key point here is is uh you know what people

34:22expect from from Bitcoin right so I would say that 99% of people who come into Bitcoin they come in for for the

34:28money, right, for the wins, for for the the price appreciation. They they buy it at the top, sell it at the bottom, and

34:34they want to forget about it, right? Ah, yeah, crypto don't even mention that anymore. I I think what we as the

34:39community have to do a little a little more is that really to differentiate the positioning of Bitcoin as a as a

34:46speculative asset. And I started uh my my Bitcoin journey trading it, right? So, who who didn't? Basically, we need

34:52to help people to shift their minds from this is not something that you're going to get rich overnight

34:57it is an asset is it's something like as if you bought a piece of Picasso painting, right? Or something that

35:03really doesn't appreciate. I mean the bad thing about Bitcoin actually is that it does appreciate a lot, you know,

35:09year-over-year. So people really see the quick buck there. But uh and I I've

35:14experienced it myself as well like once I stopped thinking about Bitcoin as a as

35:19as a as a tool for getting wealthier rather a tool apart from all the other

35:26elements of Bitcoin or or you know the use cases of Bitcoin just like you know payments and and you know all the all the freedom and liberty things behind it

35:32which which I really love. But when I started looking at Bitcoin as an asset, something that is purely mine, that no

35:39one can take from me, basically something that really sort of ensures that in the future, worst case scenario,

35:46I'll be fine because there's going to be Bitcoin. Bitco Bitcoin will help me with my future needs. Then, you know, you're

35:52sort of relieved of the pressure of, oh yeah, looking at the charts every single day and and trying to calculate how much

35:58money you made or lost and all that, right? So, stop thinking about Bitcoin as a as a trading asset. uh look at

36:03Bitcoin as a as a long-term asset that really appreciates in time that brings

36:10you many many other benefits. I mean obviously if you get a piece of uh Picasso painting it would be difficult

36:16for you to sell it and and all that but with Bitcoin and it's um sort of

36:22fundamental it brings much much more than just you know u any other commodity or an asset

36:28that you just trade and want to want to get rich on. Right? So stop thinking about Bitcoin as a as a speculation.

36:33Think about it as a long-term asset. And that's that's when people you know uh get it and uh start understanding that

36:41even taking a loan against Bitcoin is not something that you do just to kind of leverage yourself even more and get

36:47richer quick quicker whatever but it is something that actually helps you with your long-term goals helps you to kind

36:53of live your life even in a much much better and sort of sensible ways. So

36:59that would be my take, right? But we've seen it everywhere like you know people getting burned on on in the crypto markets in general and Bitcoin as well.

37:05So I I think this this would be the key differentiator. So maybe the first question is what is

37:11Bitcoin? I also like to flip it. I like to invert

37:16it and think of this not as a speculative asset but as money. And I'm

37:23doing the most conservative thing you could do which is just saving money. It's just a very normal thing and it's

37:30only because fiat is broken that we have the financialization of everything and the whole reason why I started buying

37:36real rental properties to try and store my wealth and and preserve my purchasing power and all of that. And so uh I mean

37:43Bitcoin as a tool for financial empowerment that you control that no third party

37:52central bank institution anyone can steal from you all the very very amazing

37:58quality all the incredible qualities of Bitcoin many many qualities of Bitcoin that make it so special. Before we

38:04before we wrap up, I want to shift the conversation to a very different topic if that's okay, which is I was doing a

38:11little bit of research on you and you mentioned the payments and and the

38:16medium of exchange eras maybe starting to happen over in the Czech Republic. So, can you share a little bit about

38:22that? What's you know, here in the States, it's pretty hard to buy goods and services using Bitcoin and

Bitcoin Adoption in the Czech Republic: A Case Study

38:30I know a lot of Bitcoiners that would like to do that. Can you share a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean uh I think so we we're

38:37based in Prague in Czech Republic in in in central Europe and I think you know many people call Prague the the capital

38:43of Bitcoin at least in Europe, right? Because you know there's a lot of history of you know the local people

38:48trying to sort of get to their or fighting for freedom since the medieval ages through all the way through the

38:54communist times and all that but really people uh I think appreciate the the the freedom and liberty or or perceive it in

39:00a different manner than maybe uh sort of people in the western world where you know we've been under communist

39:07suppression for for decades uh we experienced terrible wars and all that. So I think we we have it in almost in

39:13our DNA that you know having freedom and not only freedom of speech or freedom of

39:18movement and and things like that but also freedom from the state in general is something that is very very deeply

39:24engraved. So that's why I would say it's one of the reasons why the adoption of Bitcoin here in Czech Republic is really strong. As I mentioned, we we also see

39:30it on our platform where both on the borrowing and lending side we see entities or companies like small private

39:37private companies. So people who actually are the mini Bitcoin treasury

39:42companies, they do hold some Bitcoin on their on their balance sheets. And here in Prague in particular or in Czech

39:47Republic in general, the adoption is really pretty strong. I mean, first and foremost, we have a very strong

39:53community. uh there's a kind of a decentralized but semi-organized community called 21 which is like you

40:00know micro communities in in different cities there's a lot of meetups there are a lot of podcasts and all that so

40:06really uh there's a lot of uh sort of um content being created in this space and

40:12secondly also in terms of the adoption I mean the there's one company here in in Czech Republic that provides like a QR

40:19code for restaurants so if you go to a restaurant you do not have to wait for the waiter You just scan the QR code,

40:24you see the menu and you can also pay and then actually they do do allow for Bitcoin payments as well, right? So

40:31instead of waiting for the waiter and you know paying with the cash, you can just scan the QR code. So I I have heard

40:36that it's around 70% of the restaurants in maybe Prague or Czech Republic in general have this technology and you can

40:42actually pay with Bitcoin. So that that's really crazy. Second thing is% Yeah. And second second thing is there

40:48is a there is a some sort of like a local Amazon. There's a company called Alza which is really like a top provider

40:55like basically like a check Amazon I would I would call them where you can really buy online anything from you know

41:01furniture through through cameras and whatsoever and you can they do accept bitcoin as well right so anyone who and

41:08they're really really big I mean anything you want to buy it's like going to Amazon and paying with bitcoin. Can you imagine that right? So here in Czech

41:13Republic people have the option and that these are just two two examples of the adoption right. So I think uh bit due

41:21due to the historical reasons be due to the fact that people here are really the community is very strong. There's also

41:27one of the one of the local podcasters he's got like 100,000 followers on his

41:32podcast on YouTube. Considering that the Czech Republic has only 10 million people I think it must be per capita the

41:39most successful Bitcoin only channel. Right. So I think that explains a lot. That's incred. Do you know the the

41:46platform the name of the company where they provide QR code uh for restaurants

41:51and Bitcoin payments? Yeah, it's called Queroco. It's Q W KO.

41:58It's like QR, but it's Q wer KO. Yeah, you can look it up.

42:03Okay, cool. I'll have to look it up. Well, um, Eigor, if if folks want to

42:08learn more about Firefish and what you're up to and the incredible platform you're building, where should

42:14they go? Definitely reach out on either directly through our website which is firefish.io

42:21or we're pretty active on X. So it's firefish_io. You can find us there. One

42:27thing I would mention also on our website you can we've published a book actually bitcoin the ultimate

42:33collateral. You can download the book as a free PDF. I mean it really explains the concept of collateralization.

42:39There's a couple of authors behind it. one of one of our partners from from Brains which was the first mining pool

42:45in Bitcoin. So definitely I would I would recommend that but otherwise you reach out either through the website or

42:52ideally through through the X. I'm going to have to get this book. Is it available on Kindle?

42:59I'm not sure. I don't think it's yet available on Kindle. I think you could buy it on the Amazon, but you can

43:05actually download it as as a free PDF on the on our website. Just go just go to the Firefish io. There's a the menu book

43:12and you can download it there. Perfect. Okay. Well, I'm going to have to get that book. Thank you, Eigor.

43:17All right. Thanks so much. Thanks a lot, man. Thanks for having me. Have a great one.