Bitcoin Falls To $82K As Samsung Brings Crypto To 82 Million People

Scott Melker (0:00)

Bitcoin has fallen back to $82,000, but we have some big fundamental news. Samsung bringing crypto to 82 million people, and that's just one of the big pieces of news that we have today. We have a great guest who actually hasn't been on the show before. We have Nick Dukoff from Solana Foundation. We're going to obviously talk about that Samsung news and a lot more. Let's go.

Good morning, everybody, and happy Thursday to all of you who celebrate. We just had one of the funnier technical issues that we've ever had on this show. We were sitting here with our background on this amazing LED screen and all of a sudden, it turned literally into Sesame Street. And we realized we bought this screen from Sesame Street a year ago, and I think that they've remotely taken over our screen and might have hacked us. They're probably going to take all our crypto. Oscar is truly a grouch. Nick, sorry to bring you on with that kind of amazing introduction. I just didn't expect to have Sesame Street in my background right before the show. How are you, man?

Nick Dukoff (1:16)

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on.

Scott Melker (1:18)

You're welcome. So listen, before we dive into the deeply Solana stuff, we have this interesting conversation once again, emerging about crypto security that I think is top of mind in the news. Here's the article on CoinDesk. Bitcoin slips below 83,000 as Ethereum researchers bunker mode call divides crypto. We obviously, for some reason, have a very strange view there. Bunker mode divides crypto. So this is now obviously the same guy, Justin Drake, from the Ethereum Foundation, who was talking a lot about quantum and has been a part of that debate. Now saying that we're basically seeing a massive acceleration in AI and we could just get classical hacks that could put our crypto at risk without even getting to the point of quantum. I have to imagine that this is something that you guys have top of mind at Solana.

Not necessarily this specific debate, but the risk of quantum and AI. So, I mean, how do you frame what's going on right now and if this is actually an acceleration?

Nick Dukoff (2:18)

So, Solana has terrific quantum resistance, something that we're constantly working on on the technical side. The rally cry for Solana, of course, is to increase bandwidth and reduce latency, making it the highest performant, lowest cost, most scalable blockchain network in the world. And quantum resistance, of course, is important for resilience and security and is something that we take very seriously.

Scott Melker (2:45)

Do you think that the risk is accelerating because of AI? Now, quantum is quantum.

Nick Dukoff (2:50)

I think the world is getting weirder at a very rapid pace, but I think that's on both sides of the ball, right? You've got offense, you've got defense, and I think it's accelerating on both sides of the ball.

Scott Melker (3:02)

Do you guys, I mean, is quantum, do you view that as a major risk in and of itself, even outside of the AI, because that was a huge part of the debate in the first place as well?

Nick Dukoff (3:12)

Like I said, I think it's something that the core devs take very seriously and are constantly ensuring that Solana has best practices for.

Scott Melker (3:21)

Okay, let's dive into this Samsung news because it's really big. Samsung integrates USDC to overhaul cross-border remittances for 82 million Galaxy users. So this is right into the 82 million phones that are out there. Eligible users will be able to send USDC abroad or send local currency payouts to bank accounts in more than 60 countries starting late October. I think the most compelling part of this news, which is what we're seeing with most of these integrations, is it entirely abstracts away the crypto side, right? This is just in your Samsung wallet that you have on your phone. You have no idea that it's happening with USDC. You have no idea that it's happening on Solana. You're just moving money.

Nick Dukoff (3:58)

100% right. We're entering a tokenization super cycle.

The vision that Solana has for internet capital markets, which is connecting the world's 6 billion internet users with the world's many terrific productive assets, including the US dollar, is afoot. And I think this is great headway towards that goal. Prior to this announcement, there was 13 million stable coin holders on Solana. There's about 15 billion stable coins in circulation on Solana. And for this announcement today with Samsung, bringing Solana stable coins to another 80 plus million users is incredible. And ultimately there's 2 billion Samsung holders in the world, Samsung device holders in the world. And I'd love to think that one day they're all using Solana stable coins.