Boomtime: Internet Capital Markets Are Here | DAS London 2025 | Day 1 | Investor
Summary
Metaplex's Evolution: Metaplex has evolved through various crypto eras, including the NFT boom and memecoin wave, and is now focusing on internet capital markets with its new protocol, Genesis.
Genesis Protocol: Genesis is an onchain protocol for launching tokens on the Solana network, designed to prevent issues like front-running and sniping, thereby rebuilding trust in crypto markets.
Market Impact: Metaplex plays a crucial role in the Solana ecosystem, powering 99% of tokens and NFTs, and aims to be a foundational layer for new blockchain projects.
Launch Mechanics: The Genesis protocol supports various launch mechanics, including pre-sales, launch pools, and onchain auctions, catering to diverse project needs and investor types.
Transparency and Efficiency: Metaplex focuses on creating transparency in token economics and market efficiency, providing tools for market participants to make informed investment decisions.
Global Venture Transformation: The rise of onchain capital markets is transforming venture capital, making global participation possible and positioning tokenization as the new Silicon Valley.
Revenue and Community Engagement: Metaplex has generated significant revenue and uses a buyback mechanism to align protocol success with token holders, while maintaining community-driven governance through its DAO.
Future Outlook: Metaplex plans to scale its Genesis offering to support more projects and founders, continuing to innovate and support the growth of the Solana ecosystem.
Transcript
maybe mention a brief a bit about yourself, but then we'll dive straight into Metapplex. You know, it's been through a few different eras, the NFT boom, the memecoin wave, and then the internet capital markets, and then you can talk about how each of those different eras, so to speak, shaped Metaplex in that journey. >> Sure. Yeah, I'm happy to. We're live now, I'm assuming. Yes. Okay. Hi, everyone. >> I'm Stephen. I'm the founder of Metapplex. Uh Metaplex is the standard for tokens and NFTTS on the Salana blockchain and the SVM. So 99% of the assets created on the network use Metaplex and we play a role similar to ERC20 or ERC 721 um for the Ethereum and EVM ecosystems. We actually started and were were best known for creating the first NFT standard and the first users the first um adopters of the technology were really digital artists and community builders. Uh and so if you remember the big like profile photo NFT boom that was powered by a program that we created called Candy Machine. Uh and that led us then into the memecoin era and now internet capital markets. Uh and uh most recently we announced a product a protocol called Genesis which is effectively a candy machine for fungeible tokens. It's an onchain protocol for launching your token directly on the Salana network but doing so in a way that eliminates frontunning sniping and all of the games that have really broken trust and confidence that um you know of in the public's eyes in terms of of crypto. And so our goal is really to to rebuild that trust and provide a framework for founders to uh to launch directly to their communities and effectively use blockchains as a form of community financing for new technology endeavors. >> Yeah, you you you mentioned a key point there about that loss of trust and Metaplex was also coincidentally around the times of the FTX collapse and a lot of other major negative crypto events. How how would you say that's shaped the ethos of Metaplex and and in building resilient infrastructure? >> It's true. You know, we've we've uh we've walked a long journey and I'm really grateful actually, you know, our core team really stuck it out through the collapse of FTX. Uh and um in a way like our therapy now is building products that structurally solve the issues that defined that era which is having tokens that represent a direct connection to the product and the revenues of a technology. And ultimately that is best for both the founders and their teams and the capital markets that are supporting them. And so, um, it's really, frankly, like very kind of, uh, exciting and I think, um, you know, motivating for us as a team to be able to help this next generation of of projects that are launching on Salana to to do it the right way. >> Okay. Yeah. I I I I see it as I see Metiplex as a winner out of all this, not just a survivor, but it's also it's also like an invisible layer, a dominant, but behind the scenes. Is this you know a lot of projects you use Metiplex and a lot of users may use touch different products without even realizing it. Do you think this is a feature to show how seamless integration it is and how smooth it is or do you see this more as Metaplex needs more branding outreach? >> Yeah, it's a great it's a great question. It honestly it was intentional from the start. You know, even in the when I did the first uh brand design for Metapplex, it's black and white. It's simple. It's minimalist. Like it it was designed to be a canvas for the artist and the projects. And our success is the success of the projects that are launching on Metaplex. And so that's really where we focused. But at the same time, you know, as we all know, crypto is largely driven on narrative. And um you know often times people come up to us and they're like how can you literally be powering everything on Salana and no one knows who you are. So um in a sense that's why I'm here today uh partially um to uh you know make uh make the world aware of of the role that Metapplex plays uh in the Salana ecosystem um but also to uh to sort of raise our hand to uh make founders and teams aware of us to to reach out as they're preparing to to launch a token uh for them to know that we're available as a resource to be in their corner to help them through that process. >> Yeah. and we're glad to have you here. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. >> You mentioned, you know, Genesis. This is a new service offering from Metaplex. It's not >> it's not maybe it it's kind of different from the others, but still fits into that similar flywheel. Can we um can you just explain a little bit more about what Genesis is and who's using it? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um I'm actually you know excited uh later today uh we'll have uh a team called Play Salana uh launching with Genesis uh they've built a uh a mobile device for crypto gaming and have really rethought the stack in terms of the experience of crypto gaming and the transaction flow and the onboarding flow. Um and we've had a handful of really exceptional projects launch to date. um DeFi, Tuna, Collector Cry, uh portals and have a have had a chance through that process working with them to really R&D and dial in Genesis as a launch protocol um which now supports a number of different launch mechanics. So pre-sales with allow lists um which are really effective in building hype ahead of the token launch. So you in the same way in the NFT era, you can run allow list campaigns where people have to participate in certain ways in order to gain access to the allow list and you price the token favorably and then you're able to build this community energy before the launch. Uh we have the launch pool which collector crypt debuted uh which allows anyone to participate. It's a way of getting the widest distribution possible. You're guaranteed an allocation in the token launch by depositing into the pool and it gives you real onchain discovery. And with Collector Crypt, there was over 700 unique participants uh in that token launch. And what we saw following it in the week after, and maybe some of you noticed this, it felt like for a week almost the the channel on crypto Twitter changed to talking about uh Pokemon card tokenization and RWAS. And that was largely because of this launch group that was now directly tied into the success of the product. And I think actually the most exciting part of that was seeing not just the attention of the product, but the actual fundamentals of the product. the usage, the revenue of that platform increase because this launch group that had an opportunity to get in early was then out evangelizing and and bringing in that next wave of users. Uh and the third mechanic is an onchain auction. So there's been a lot of talk about Dutch auctions uh and how that is like from a theoretic perspective is the most uh efficient precise way of getting uh capital formation. Um, Dutch auctions are a little bit complicated from a user experience perspective. So, you know, what we built is very similar. It's technically called a a timebased uniform price auction, uh, which allows anyone to place a bid on chain. Again, this is fully onchain on Salana. You can see all of the bids and then, uh, the allocation clears at the lowest bid. So, similar to a Dutch auction, everyone gets the same price. You get the benefit of that launch group. And the reason for that versus a launch pool is that when you're talking about really largecale token launches where you have funds that want to participate in size, you know, seven potentially eight figure bids into uh new token launches, they need to be able to express that bid um and and know the clearing price. And in a launch pool, it's kind of moving around in real time. And so we think that auction system is going to be best for tokens that are launching and appealing to more of an institutional audience. Uh and but the three of those together, it was funny. We kind of went into it, we're like, we're going to do some experimentation. We're going to see what works here. And what we found is actually all of them worked. Um but for different reasons. And so now we have a playbook where we can work with teams to help them decide like what type of project are you launching? What are your goals? Is it really about price discovery? Is it really about community? who are you catering to? And that's allowing us to build um that something that that really accounts for the the the diversity of assets and projects that are launching on chain ultimately. >> Yeah, that's a good point you bring up there because you're helping teams now in this space launch and structure and distribute their tokens. It's um and and pardon my language here for the lawyers in the audience. It's kind of akin to investment banking services. How how do you do you see that comparison as a fair one? >> Yeah, I think ultimately it's up to the market to underwrite these projects. I I I don't view that as our role. Um, but I do think that our role is working with the team to make sure that all of the relevant information that's necessary for market participants to construct their own valuations to come up with their own thesis uh and then to make sure that that information is like credibly and verifiably on chain. So part of what Genesis provides is you can see the token economics like it's not a mystery. You can see where liquidity will graduate. you can see what how the allocation is split. Um you can see the onchain investing contracts. Um and so you know ultimately our our goal is to create transparency and efficiency in these markets and there clearly is a demand for these tokens. like you see it right and you see it from some of the just like the big disastrous token launches like you know like the Libra token launch that happened you know a year or so ago that um there really are is a large global internet capital market that wants to participate in these early stage uh ventures um but uh the technology hasn't existed to create accountability on both sides and to create transparency and that's really what we view our our role as ultimately >> there was a talk earlier today about, you know, crypto collapsing, the distinction between public and private markets. If onchain capital markets get a little bit more popular, do you see that affecting the venture capital market somehow? >> 100%. I I really think we're we're going through the most important transformation in in venture um probably since you know since its inception. I I grew up in Silicon Valley. Uh and it is true like for for the you know when you look back through the evolution of information technology like transistors to you know the mainframe era to um PCs to web to mobile. I'm skipping a lot in between. You really had to be physically in Silicon Valley to participate either as an investor or um as a builder in one of these companies. But now Silicon Valley is on chain. like the best teams are looking at tokenization and access to these global markets as the new Silicon Valley and um you know our goal is to to really open up both the capital markets and the talent pool. So the the you know that energy like what really makes Silicon Valley special which is the combination of those two things can really happen on a global scale >> and you know you know venture they they make these bets for return on investment. um with Metaplex. Speaking of returns, we're looking at a protocol that I checked it this morning. Over the last four full quarters have done over $24 million in revenue. Um you know, it definitely makes it one of the top protocols by, you know, annualized revenue, but it also makes it amongst the cheapest. Um and and on top of that, it has buybacks, right? And buybacks are a big topic as of late. um there's some controversy behind it because they think maybe the token should be reinvesting it, maybe the token should be distributed to shareholders. How do you think about this um revenue value acral mechanism? I think it's important for projects to signal uh and create a direct connection between the economics of their protocol and the token holders and um you know ultimately the the buybacks they provide that link so that people who purchase a token know that as the protocol grows that they're going to benefit in that success. Um and not all buybacks are the same. So in our case, when tokens are bought back, they're then contributed to our DAO. And our DAO is empowered actually to vote on how that 50% of our our protocol revenue is used. So if our our DAO was to to issue a proposal saying like, let's stop the buybacks. Let's let's take that revenue and let's reinvested in community grants, it would be empowered to do so. Um, and our goal is to build Metiplex as as a a communitydriven platform. And of course there's a balancing act there. Like there's a reason why every direct democracy in history has ultimately led to a representative system. Like people don't want to vote on every single issue, but they want to know that if there is an issue that's important enough that there is a venue to express that. Um, and so ultimately, I think, you know, for us, it's it's working in partnership with our token holders and our community to do what's most efficient and ultimately moves us closer to the vision, which is building the onchain Silicon Valley, building the internet capital markets. Um, and we've been really fortunate to to have, you know, have built what is the largest tokenization platform in all of crypto, which has brought in um a number of really incredible um uh funds and individuals and creators and artists and founders that uh that make up that community. >> Yeah. Awesome. Um and you know, one one of the you mentioned the largest organization platform. I mean I know that and I I quoted the 20some million in revenue over the past four quarters and a part part of the reasons why I'm can get this stats is because Metaplex is one of the few protocols to put out a monthly update you know here here in Europe they put out updates every 6 months and in the US they're looking to maybe move away from the quarterly distribution why why monthly does it help you things are very fast-paced like what's your thought process around that >> to give credit to to Mac, our head of strategy for putting together those updates. Um, but this is crypto. This is startups like all of this data is onchain. In fact, the updates are happening in real time. Like you can visit our our public dashboards or or on top ledger. Uh, but you know, the monthly cadence is is good for us. And in fact, it really started as like an internal process, which is like every month we're sitting down, we're looking through these numbers, we're thinking about strategy. And in the spirit of building with our community, it just made sense to to share that. And I think a lot of good ideas have have come from that and like that engagement has made, you know, has hardened our strategy and our thinking as well. >> Yeah. As an investor, I I definitely appreciate it. Um so just to pivot a little bit, obviously Solana is where it's at, it's where Metaplex is at. It's where a lot of most of the volume is, most of the tokens are being created. that I can go on, but Metaplex is also on other SVM chains, Fogo, Atlas, some of the others. Um, you know, can you give some color around that as well? >> So, it's interesting like I have to admit this isn't something that we really ex expected um would be a significant amount of our work. And to be honest, it actually isn't a ton of work because the MPL uh runs on the SVM. So, we can deploy the MPL and it works out of the box. But really what happened is we started getting uh calls from these new networks being like we're talking to these other teams and they like literally can't deploy their programs without you because 99% of all tokens and NFTts use Metiplex. And so, um, we've then had an opportunity to to build what has effectively become the closest thing to like an OP stack for the EVM, which is but but for the SVM, which is the combination of the SVM and the MPL, which provides that underlying asset protocol. And there's a good reason why these chains are being built. The SVM is the fastest engine on the track. like if you're really looking to build a performant blockchain and to take advantage of of this technology um you know the the teams that are really looking closely understand uh the the value of the Salana virtual machine and and what that will allow them uh to to build with these specific chains and it's interesting time like I I think you know what we're seeing with Hyperlid and with plasma and others there's a lot of um innovation happening with these more vertically integrated sort of specialized chains and we're starting to see that same type of experimentation happening in the Salana and the SVM ecosystem. >> Yeah, that that's really fascinating that you know you're such a necessity in the space that teams can't launch on new chains without you. That's seems like a a deep moat. Are there any other moes that you see with the protocol? >> Well, like as as Anatoli would say like the only real mo is hard work. So, you know, I would say that's our internal mindset is like it's it's an earn it game. And, you know, you look, we've been here since 2021. And that's not an accident. We survived FTX and the blowup even though Alama Research was one of our first uh investors and we did that on the back of just hard work and determination. Um but you know ultimately being at the asset layer really does give us the ability to to think um in an innovative way across the ecosystem and I think actually has been one of the superpowers of of Salana generally which is when we're looking at new asset classes like we're looking at equity tokenization we're looking at stable coins we're looking at IP tokens we can create the standard we can update the metaplex program library which are all the supporting contracts and then we can distribute that out through our SDKs and our developer tools and now the thousands of applications that are built on us can immediately integrate with these new technologies and the EVM is just structurally different. Everyone's deploying their own smart contracts. There's a ton of fragmentation. They're really tricky indexing problems. Um, and so I think I like to think of that like that foundational layer um, and space that we occupy as a real advantage for the entire ecosystem because it allows us to then innovate at new at the asset standard layer and then bring that value up the stack to to to the applications and users on top of it. >> Yeah, 100%. Um, we're coming up on time. One last question. What's next on your road map and what does success look like? Well, we're coming out of this period with Genesis where we've just seen incredible success and demand for onchain token launches. So, as I mentioned, uh, Play Salana, their Play token will be going live uh, later today. Uh, and now we're really focused on on scaling that offering and bringing it to a larger community of of projects and founders. And so, you know, if you're listening to this and you're a a pre-TGE team that's planning a token launch, come find us. We're downstairs. uh and you know we'll be here for the week um or you can reach us on on X or wherever we're terminally online u but that's really where we get our energy is helping uh support new founders whether that's at the token launch or once you've launched building with Metaplex in terms of creating digital assets and um we're going to continue to do what we've always done which is follow that inspiration and supporting those those great teams and um excited to see where that leads us. >> Okay, love it. Thank you so much Stephen. >> Thank you Mark. I appreciate it. >> Thanks everybody. Thank you.
Boomtime: Internet Capital Markets Are Here | DAS London 2025 | Day 1 | Investor
Summary
Transcript
maybe mention a brief a bit about yourself, but then we'll dive straight into Metapplex. You know, it's been through a few different eras, the NFT boom, the memecoin wave, and then the internet capital markets, and then you can talk about how each of those different eras, so to speak, shaped Metaplex in that journey. >> Sure. Yeah, I'm happy to. We're live now, I'm assuming. Yes. Okay. Hi, everyone. >> I'm Stephen. I'm the founder of Metapplex. Uh Metaplex is the standard for tokens and NFTTS on the Salana blockchain and the SVM. So 99% of the assets created on the network use Metaplex and we play a role similar to ERC20 or ERC 721 um for the Ethereum and EVM ecosystems. We actually started and were were best known for creating the first NFT standard and the first users the first um adopters of the technology were really digital artists and community builders. Uh and so if you remember the big like profile photo NFT boom that was powered by a program that we created called Candy Machine. Uh and that led us then into the memecoin era and now internet capital markets. Uh and uh most recently we announced a product a protocol called Genesis which is effectively a candy machine for fungeible tokens. It's an onchain protocol for launching your token directly on the Salana network but doing so in a way that eliminates frontunning sniping and all of the games that have really broken trust and confidence that um you know of in the public's eyes in terms of of crypto. And so our goal is really to to rebuild that trust and provide a framework for founders to uh to launch directly to their communities and effectively use blockchains as a form of community financing for new technology endeavors. >> Yeah, you you you mentioned a key point there about that loss of trust and Metaplex was also coincidentally around the times of the FTX collapse and a lot of other major negative crypto events. How how would you say that's shaped the ethos of Metaplex and and in building resilient infrastructure? >> It's true. You know, we've we've uh we've walked a long journey and I'm really grateful actually, you know, our core team really stuck it out through the collapse of FTX. Uh and um in a way like our therapy now is building products that structurally solve the issues that defined that era which is having tokens that represent a direct connection to the product and the revenues of a technology. And ultimately that is best for both the founders and their teams and the capital markets that are supporting them. And so, um, it's really, frankly, like very kind of, uh, exciting and I think, um, you know, motivating for us as a team to be able to help this next generation of of projects that are launching on Salana to to do it the right way. >> Okay. Yeah. I I I I see it as I see Metiplex as a winner out of all this, not just a survivor, but it's also it's also like an invisible layer, a dominant, but behind the scenes. Is this you know a lot of projects you use Metiplex and a lot of users may use touch different products without even realizing it. Do you think this is a feature to show how seamless integration it is and how smooth it is or do you see this more as Metaplex needs more branding outreach? >> Yeah, it's a great it's a great question. It honestly it was intentional from the start. You know, even in the when I did the first uh brand design for Metapplex, it's black and white. It's simple. It's minimalist. Like it it was designed to be a canvas for the artist and the projects. And our success is the success of the projects that are launching on Metaplex. And so that's really where we focused. But at the same time, you know, as we all know, crypto is largely driven on narrative. And um you know often times people come up to us and they're like how can you literally be powering everything on Salana and no one knows who you are. So um in a sense that's why I'm here today uh partially um to uh you know make uh make the world aware of of the role that Metapplex plays uh in the Salana ecosystem um but also to uh to sort of raise our hand to uh make founders and teams aware of us to to reach out as they're preparing to to launch a token uh for them to know that we're available as a resource to be in their corner to help them through that process. >> Yeah. and we're glad to have you here. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. >> You mentioned, you know, Genesis. This is a new service offering from Metaplex. It's not >> it's not maybe it it's kind of different from the others, but still fits into that similar flywheel. Can we um can you just explain a little bit more about what Genesis is and who's using it? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um I'm actually you know excited uh later today uh we'll have uh a team called Play Salana uh launching with Genesis uh they've built a uh a mobile device for crypto gaming and have really rethought the stack in terms of the experience of crypto gaming and the transaction flow and the onboarding flow. Um and we've had a handful of really exceptional projects launch to date. um DeFi, Tuna, Collector Cry, uh portals and have a have had a chance through that process working with them to really R&D and dial in Genesis as a launch protocol um which now supports a number of different launch mechanics. So pre-sales with allow lists um which are really effective in building hype ahead of the token launch. So you in the same way in the NFT era, you can run allow list campaigns where people have to participate in certain ways in order to gain access to the allow list and you price the token favorably and then you're able to build this community energy before the launch. Uh we have the launch pool which collector crypt debuted uh which allows anyone to participate. It's a way of getting the widest distribution possible. You're guaranteed an allocation in the token launch by depositing into the pool and it gives you real onchain discovery. And with Collector Crypt, there was over 700 unique participants uh in that token launch. And what we saw following it in the week after, and maybe some of you noticed this, it felt like for a week almost the the channel on crypto Twitter changed to talking about uh Pokemon card tokenization and RWAS. And that was largely because of this launch group that was now directly tied into the success of the product. And I think actually the most exciting part of that was seeing not just the attention of the product, but the actual fundamentals of the product. the usage, the revenue of that platform increase because this launch group that had an opportunity to get in early was then out evangelizing and and bringing in that next wave of users. Uh and the third mechanic is an onchain auction. So there's been a lot of talk about Dutch auctions uh and how that is like from a theoretic perspective is the most uh efficient precise way of getting uh capital formation. Um, Dutch auctions are a little bit complicated from a user experience perspective. So, you know, what we built is very similar. It's technically called a a timebased uniform price auction, uh, which allows anyone to place a bid on chain. Again, this is fully onchain on Salana. You can see all of the bids and then, uh, the allocation clears at the lowest bid. So, similar to a Dutch auction, everyone gets the same price. You get the benefit of that launch group. And the reason for that versus a launch pool is that when you're talking about really largecale token launches where you have funds that want to participate in size, you know, seven potentially eight figure bids into uh new token launches, they need to be able to express that bid um and and know the clearing price. And in a launch pool, it's kind of moving around in real time. And so we think that auction system is going to be best for tokens that are launching and appealing to more of an institutional audience. Uh and but the three of those together, it was funny. We kind of went into it, we're like, we're going to do some experimentation. We're going to see what works here. And what we found is actually all of them worked. Um but for different reasons. And so now we have a playbook where we can work with teams to help them decide like what type of project are you launching? What are your goals? Is it really about price discovery? Is it really about community? who are you catering to? And that's allowing us to build um that something that that really accounts for the the the diversity of assets and projects that are launching on chain ultimately. >> Yeah, that's a good point you bring up there because you're helping teams now in this space launch and structure and distribute their tokens. It's um and and pardon my language here for the lawyers in the audience. It's kind of akin to investment banking services. How how do you do you see that comparison as a fair one? >> Yeah, I think ultimately it's up to the market to underwrite these projects. I I I don't view that as our role. Um, but I do think that our role is working with the team to make sure that all of the relevant information that's necessary for market participants to construct their own valuations to come up with their own thesis uh and then to make sure that that information is like credibly and verifiably on chain. So part of what Genesis provides is you can see the token economics like it's not a mystery. You can see where liquidity will graduate. you can see what how the allocation is split. Um you can see the onchain investing contracts. Um and so you know ultimately our our goal is to create transparency and efficiency in these markets and there clearly is a demand for these tokens. like you see it right and you see it from some of the just like the big disastrous token launches like you know like the Libra token launch that happened you know a year or so ago that um there really are is a large global internet capital market that wants to participate in these early stage uh ventures um but uh the technology hasn't existed to create accountability on both sides and to create transparency and that's really what we view our our role as ultimately >> there was a talk earlier today about, you know, crypto collapsing, the distinction between public and private markets. If onchain capital markets get a little bit more popular, do you see that affecting the venture capital market somehow? >> 100%. I I really think we're we're going through the most important transformation in in venture um probably since you know since its inception. I I grew up in Silicon Valley. Uh and it is true like for for the you know when you look back through the evolution of information technology like transistors to you know the mainframe era to um PCs to web to mobile. I'm skipping a lot in between. You really had to be physically in Silicon Valley to participate either as an investor or um as a builder in one of these companies. But now Silicon Valley is on chain. like the best teams are looking at tokenization and access to these global markets as the new Silicon Valley and um you know our goal is to to really open up both the capital markets and the talent pool. So the the you know that energy like what really makes Silicon Valley special which is the combination of those two things can really happen on a global scale >> and you know you know venture they they make these bets for return on investment. um with Metaplex. Speaking of returns, we're looking at a protocol that I checked it this morning. Over the last four full quarters have done over $24 million in revenue. Um you know, it definitely makes it one of the top protocols by, you know, annualized revenue, but it also makes it amongst the cheapest. Um and and on top of that, it has buybacks, right? And buybacks are a big topic as of late. um there's some controversy behind it because they think maybe the token should be reinvesting it, maybe the token should be distributed to shareholders. How do you think about this um revenue value acral mechanism? I think it's important for projects to signal uh and create a direct connection between the economics of their protocol and the token holders and um you know ultimately the the buybacks they provide that link so that people who purchase a token know that as the protocol grows that they're going to benefit in that success. Um and not all buybacks are the same. So in our case, when tokens are bought back, they're then contributed to our DAO. And our DAO is empowered actually to vote on how that 50% of our our protocol revenue is used. So if our our DAO was to to issue a proposal saying like, let's stop the buybacks. Let's let's take that revenue and let's reinvested in community grants, it would be empowered to do so. Um, and our goal is to build Metiplex as as a a communitydriven platform. And of course there's a balancing act there. Like there's a reason why every direct democracy in history has ultimately led to a representative system. Like people don't want to vote on every single issue, but they want to know that if there is an issue that's important enough that there is a venue to express that. Um, and so ultimately, I think, you know, for us, it's it's working in partnership with our token holders and our community to do what's most efficient and ultimately moves us closer to the vision, which is building the onchain Silicon Valley, building the internet capital markets. Um, and we've been really fortunate to to have, you know, have built what is the largest tokenization platform in all of crypto, which has brought in um a number of really incredible um uh funds and individuals and creators and artists and founders that uh that make up that community. >> Yeah. Awesome. Um and you know, one one of the you mentioned the largest organization platform. I mean I know that and I I quoted the 20some million in revenue over the past four quarters and a part part of the reasons why I'm can get this stats is because Metaplex is one of the few protocols to put out a monthly update you know here here in Europe they put out updates every 6 months and in the US they're looking to maybe move away from the quarterly distribution why why monthly does it help you things are very fast-paced like what's your thought process around that >> to give credit to to Mac, our head of strategy for putting together those updates. Um, but this is crypto. This is startups like all of this data is onchain. In fact, the updates are happening in real time. Like you can visit our our public dashboards or or on top ledger. Uh, but you know, the monthly cadence is is good for us. And in fact, it really started as like an internal process, which is like every month we're sitting down, we're looking through these numbers, we're thinking about strategy. And in the spirit of building with our community, it just made sense to to share that. And I think a lot of good ideas have have come from that and like that engagement has made, you know, has hardened our strategy and our thinking as well. >> Yeah. As an investor, I I definitely appreciate it. Um so just to pivot a little bit, obviously Solana is where it's at, it's where Metaplex is at. It's where a lot of most of the volume is, most of the tokens are being created. that I can go on, but Metaplex is also on other SVM chains, Fogo, Atlas, some of the others. Um, you know, can you give some color around that as well? >> So, it's interesting like I have to admit this isn't something that we really ex expected um would be a significant amount of our work. And to be honest, it actually isn't a ton of work because the MPL uh runs on the SVM. So, we can deploy the MPL and it works out of the box. But really what happened is we started getting uh calls from these new networks being like we're talking to these other teams and they like literally can't deploy their programs without you because 99% of all tokens and NFTts use Metiplex. And so, um, we've then had an opportunity to to build what has effectively become the closest thing to like an OP stack for the EVM, which is but but for the SVM, which is the combination of the SVM and the MPL, which provides that underlying asset protocol. And there's a good reason why these chains are being built. The SVM is the fastest engine on the track. like if you're really looking to build a performant blockchain and to take advantage of of this technology um you know the the teams that are really looking closely understand uh the the value of the Salana virtual machine and and what that will allow them uh to to build with these specific chains and it's interesting time like I I think you know what we're seeing with Hyperlid and with plasma and others there's a lot of um innovation happening with these more vertically integrated sort of specialized chains and we're starting to see that same type of experimentation happening in the Salana and the SVM ecosystem. >> Yeah, that that's really fascinating that you know you're such a necessity in the space that teams can't launch on new chains without you. That's seems like a a deep moat. Are there any other moes that you see with the protocol? >> Well, like as as Anatoli would say like the only real mo is hard work. So, you know, I would say that's our internal mindset is like it's it's an earn it game. And, you know, you look, we've been here since 2021. And that's not an accident. We survived FTX and the blowup even though Alama Research was one of our first uh investors and we did that on the back of just hard work and determination. Um but you know ultimately being at the asset layer really does give us the ability to to think um in an innovative way across the ecosystem and I think actually has been one of the superpowers of of Salana generally which is when we're looking at new asset classes like we're looking at equity tokenization we're looking at stable coins we're looking at IP tokens we can create the standard we can update the metaplex program library which are all the supporting contracts and then we can distribute that out through our SDKs and our developer tools and now the thousands of applications that are built on us can immediately integrate with these new technologies and the EVM is just structurally different. Everyone's deploying their own smart contracts. There's a ton of fragmentation. They're really tricky indexing problems. Um, and so I think I like to think of that like that foundational layer um, and space that we occupy as a real advantage for the entire ecosystem because it allows us to then innovate at new at the asset standard layer and then bring that value up the stack to to to the applications and users on top of it. >> Yeah, 100%. Um, we're coming up on time. One last question. What's next on your road map and what does success look like? Well, we're coming out of this period with Genesis where we've just seen incredible success and demand for onchain token launches. So, as I mentioned, uh, Play Salana, their Play token will be going live uh, later today. Uh, and now we're really focused on on scaling that offering and bringing it to a larger community of of projects and founders. And so, you know, if you're listening to this and you're a a pre-TGE team that's planning a token launch, come find us. We're downstairs. uh and you know we'll be here for the week um or you can reach us on on X or wherever we're terminally online u but that's really where we get our energy is helping uh support new founders whether that's at the token launch or once you've launched building with Metaplex in terms of creating digital assets and um we're going to continue to do what we've always done which is follow that inspiration and supporting those those great teams and um excited to see where that leads us. >> Okay, love it. Thank you so much Stephen. >> Thank you Mark. I appreciate it. >> Thanks everybody. Thank you.