Yield: The Missing Link for Bitcoin | DAS London 2025 | Day 2 | Main
Summary
Rootstock Overview: Rootstock is a Bitcoin sidechain that is EVM compatible, using BTC as its network token, designed to address hyperinflation issues observed in Latin America by providing a secure and auditable blockchain solution.
Bitcoin Yield Evolution: The demand for Bitcoin yield remains strong despite past failures of centralized companies, with Rootstock Institutional aiming to educate and guide professional investors on sustainable and transparent yield opportunities.
Layer 2 and Sidechains: Rootstock differentiates itself as a sidechain with its own consensus mechanism, secured by 83-85% of Bitcoin's hash power, offering DeFi opportunities while maintaining Bitcoin's security features.
Institutional Adoption: Rootstock Institutional focuses on bridging the gap between traditional finance and DeFi, providing infrastructure and guidance for institutions to leverage Bitcoin for yield without the high fees associated with custodians.
Yield Sources and Challenges: The yield market is evolving with more transparent and sustainable sources, such as tokenized funds and lending markets, though challenges remain in liquidity fragmentation and understanding wrapped Bitcoin products.
Future of Bitcoin Yield: The Bitcoin yield space is expected to mature with institutional-grade infrastructure, seamless on/off-ramping, and diverse yield sources, aiming for direct Bitcoin deployment into traditional financial products like ETFs.
Rootstock's Vision: Rootstock Labs aims to build everyday DeFi use cases, enabling retail users to leverage Bitcoin for practical financial needs, while developing high-grade institutional infrastructure and products.
Transcript
Richard, thanks for being here with us. >> Thank you for having me. Um, let's dive straight into it. Um, how about we hear a little bit about yourself and a little bit about what Rootstock was built for. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, my name is Richard Green. I'm the VP of Rootstock Institutional. V, um, Rootstock Institutional is a team within Rootstock Labs. Rootstock Labs are the core contributors to the Rootstock blockchain. Rootstock blockchain is a Bitcoin side chain that is EVM compatible. Yeah. So something interesting about rootstock which is not like a lot of the other Bitcoin side chains Bitcoin L2s which we'll get into later is that Rootstock you know Ethereum uses ETH as the network token Solana uses Soul as the network token but Rootstock uses BTC or RBTC as the as the network token. Can you like give some more color in that? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, and this maybe goes a little bit back to the the genesis story of of Rootstock Labs and Rootstock, but our um when Rootstock was founded, our founders based over in Latin America in Argentina, um they saw the problems that hyperinflation were causing within the Argentinian peso and things like that. And they were working on the Ethereum chain at the time and believed that Bitcoin was the true underlying asset that could solve a lot of these issues. But one of the problems with that is that there is no EVM compatibility. So that's how rootstock was created using Bitcoin as that underlying asset which is the true store of value, the the the the best asset to be able to do those things in terms of security, auditability and those kinds of things as well. So it was really focused on keeping that as the core and the mechanisms of rootstock the chain whether you're looking at the pow peg which we which we um is kind of called our bridge where you are onetoone pegging bitcoin into the ecosystem into our version of bitcoin which is rtc. Yeah. And another interesting point. So I mean this kind of falls into the ethos of Bitcoin OGs back in the day. Bitcoin is the token and roottock is trying to help embell like embam that. But there is the RAIF token and I know there's some you know mis mystery around that. Sometimes there confusion like can you help add add some color there as well? >> Yeah. So there is another token associated with the ecosystem which is um which is RIFF. And if you're looking at a network and building out a blockchain, there are things that you need a underlying token to be doing. Um, but there's also things that maybe that underlying token shouldn't be doing. So with Bitcoin as the example, everyone wants to hold Bitcoin and they don't really want to give that Bitcoin up. But you might also want to use the use that token for governance and those kinds of things. So with the Rift token, it's a utility token that we then look to deploy into our um DA the DAO, which is Rootstock Collective, and it's just something where we're constantly focusing on adding utility to that, but allowing Bitcoin to remain Bitcoin um within within the the Rootstock network. >> Okay, nice. And before we get into the meat of the conversation, which is the yield, I I wanted to ask a little bit more about roots like the wider landscape of of these Bitcoin scalable solutions. Um there's L2 side chains, there's there's different types of bridges. Maybe we can put some color onto that landscape like how is roottock different? How is the the c custody different? How is there any you know false advertising with these other L2s? not to call any names. So I think layer 2 is a massive catch all term and that's something that's come really into um prominent in the in the past two or three years and then side chain is another term that you that you hear a lot and there are very clear definitions given by certain sources such as Bitcoin layers a website that gives that but um the way that I usually think about it is if you imagine a highway and there is the layer one highway way that is the main highway. A layer 2 is an express lane on that highway. So it uses the same highway. It uses the same tolls and everything like that. But it is it has been built for a certain purpose to sit on that. A side chain is a separate chain altogether. It uses its own consensus but it has a bridge connecting to it. So to the to the layer one. So all of the cars, all of the transactions that are heading across the main uh mainet layer 1 bridge over into a side chain and and that's what rootstock rootstock is. So it has its own consensus mechanism but it relies has all of the security of the layer 1 and that is that is the key thing for us. So rootstock is secured by about 83 85% of the hash power of the Bitcoin layer 1. Um and and that's where we see the value being um that you can use your Bitcoin natively on Rootstock with all of the opportunities that that Rootstock affords you with being the the DeFi layer of Bitcoin, but then also being able to um benefit from all of the the the things that were built into the the Bitcoin layer one. Yeah, I think that's a a good point to mention that 83% roughly of the hash power that goes into securing Bitcoin is used for roottock. So, it's number two on the list up there. Uh let let's talk about the yield. I mean, this is Bitcoin yield is not a new thing. I remember last cycle there were a lot of different companies, centralized companies I should add, um, offering yield to customers and I'm not going to call any names, but there was a lot of mish happenings, a lot of overlever, a lot of overpromised underdelivering, poor risk management, and despite all of this, there was that's insatiable demand for for for Bitcoin holders to get yield on their Bitcoin. um you know it did not turn out well um for those centralized custodians um how is it different now and how and what does that how has that led Rootstock to launch their new institutional offering? Yeah. So, so f firstly the the rootstock institutional offering as I said is is this team within rootstock labs and what our role and goal is is to educate professional investors and enterprises on the rootstock uh blockchain and what our partners are doing and what their integrations look like and guide them through those kinds of things. Um and I think what's changed predominantly is that those in the past year when people were looking for yield it was it was what who were the people entering into the market and what stage of adoption were they at that stage you were probably seeing people who were already super well either super well-versed in holding Bitcoin. So your hedge funds, your people who are looking at it more for um a a speculative asset class in terms of what they were going to be doing for yield. Um or they were sadly retail looking to take a punt in certain in certain spaces. Um and I think that the space that we've now migrated to is that the infrastructure of yield on Bitcoin has completely changed. you are now seeing that in the past I think about six months ago I was speaking um on another panel and the the conversation is always bitcoin is digital gold right and that's what it was you you hold it you set and forget in a way um and you're just looking for that price appreciation there was a huge market of professional investors institutions treasuries wanting to come into the market but the infrastructure wasn't there And now there is and what does that infrastructure looks like look like? Well, it's custodians. It's things like uh IFRS GAP accounting standards kind of meeting the the the matches there. And and the core though the key thing is that the yield sources and the way that that yield is being brought on chain is much more transparent. It's much more sustainable. It's organic. And I think that that means that whether it be a DAC co or whether it be a um an asset manager, they go I'm I'm very used to holding Bitcoin now. I've explored all those different things and I mean I'm looking at the chairs in front of me, right? And like copper, I now have partners and institutions like copper who can provide me with a custodial um service that is exactly as I would expect from the world of tradi that has been around for hundreds of years. one I mean one trade-off with some of these caserians even though asset managers and these other entities are getting more comfortable holding Bitcoin or having somebody else hold it for them on their behalf there still comes a fee with these custodians whereas maybe doing it more natively on chain it kind of let's just say flips the script instead of having a custodian charge you what 10 20 50 basis points you can actually start to earn yield on on your BTC Um, but there there's still some issues with that. Like you're wrapping the BTC, there's RBTC, there's WBTC. Like there's some kind of liquidity fragmentation around that. Like do you see a solution for that? Do you see that changing in the future? >> Yeah, absolutely. And and that is where kind of rootstock institutional came about. It was something where we already have a number of institutions who are on were using the rootstock blockchain for uh lending and borrowing purposes or for yield solutions and they came to us and they asked us about those kinds of issues. They said okay we are sitting with a custodian and we are actually losing value in our bitcoin um because we are getting a 10 to 50 basis point um charge on top of it. Now look, some custodians I think are are seeing that and they are offering free services and offering add-on services to what that revenue looks like. Um, but again it very much comes down to who is the who is the person or the institution holding the Bitcoin and what is their goal. If you are a trady treasury, you are wanting just to maintain and sustain and you're wanting to think about, okay, I don't want to just be losing one and 2% over over the year. Um, if you are a hedge fund, you're obviously looking to do a lot more than that. And if you're a DACO, you're somewhere you're somewhere in the middle. Um, and then on the other sides of the the kinds of wrapped Bitcoin bridges, that's just something that a lot of people still aren't aware of what it means. And so that again is is why roottock institutional is around because it is to educate the people, you know, people on what is the difference between WBTC and RBTC. So WBTC is is is the most widely used wrapped version of Bitcoin. to give you kind of a comparison that is custoded offchain with a single custodian RBTC custoded onchain and what's the what's the difference and why is one important and and one not important and um listening to a a panel yesterday which is the the digital asset hedge fund panel I think one of the comments around that was well when we're going in to look at an investment or when we're going to look at a yield source what's the first thing that we check and as opposed to maybe Tradfy, what they're looking at is the the protocol risk, the infrastructure risk, and where do you start with that? Um, and so the conversations we have range from I am a digital asset hedge fund. I understand Rap Bitcoin. I understand bridging risk. I understand protocol risk. I'm I'm looking for secure transparent yield to a TRDFI asset manager who or a treasury company who has Bitcoin on their balance sheet and they're now thinking I'm coming into this world but I have no real idea the difference between between the two. >> Yeah. No, that's a great point. And you know, you call these different entities, these corporate treasuries, these asset managers. Like right now I think there's about a million Bitcoin on these corporate treasury balances just idle not earning any yield. And but when we say yield we're talking very abstractly here like where is this yield coming from? And that's a very important question to ask in crypto. Where is this yield coming from? And can you elaborate a little bit more on the demand and the supply side for for this yield from the different entities? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, I'm going to one up your one up your number of uh 1 million. I think we 2.5 million bitcoins sits in ETFs, treasuries, and custodians. 99% of that is doing nothing. And when I say doing nothing, it's it's just sitting there and appreciating or depreciating. Um, and I think that the the source of yield going back to that first question many years ago was looking at points and rewards and trying to really incentivize a yield market. Um and that demand has fallen away in especially in those ETF custodian treasury plays. They're they're not really interested in that. What they're interested in is really there's the the two sides to it. There is BTC denominated yield and and that is through tokenized funds. a good example of that uh the work that Midas are doing with the likes of MEV Capital RE7 and what they're bringing on chain and the goal of that is to keep Bitcoin onchain, move into an onchain product and be paid Bitcoin back. That's the ideal solution. There aren't a huge amount of those because the difficulty that you have is that a lot of it has to some some has to sit somewhere offchain. So whether that be Bitcoin, you know, I can't deposit Bitcoin into a Black Rockck money market fund and they'll be accepting the Bitcoin. No, it has to be offramped into stable and then maybe they'll accept stable or they'll they'll have to accept fear, right? Um but that that's the holy grail. That's where we want to be and that's what I think the source of yield that people are really looking for. for and what is really really interesting on the other side which is more on the the DeFi side that that we know is that lending and borrowing market. So people are coming with a a large amount of supply of of Bitcoin and they're wanting to find the other side to that which is which is the borrow side. Um that borrow side on Bitcoin is a bit more difficult because what you've got if you look at Ave as an example I think the borrow rate on Ave on Bitcoin is about 1%. there's not a huge demand to borrow Bitcoin. Two main use cases are probably ETF redemptions. So these ETF providers who have ETF who have the redemptions coming through, they may look to borrow Bitcoin to provide that. And then obviously those who are trading on leverage. Um and so you know within within Rootstock what we within Rootstock institutional what we're really wanting to do is work with partners and within specific use cases and what we have as an example of a specific use case is a group of miners. We are proof of proof of work chain 83% hash rate. Those miners have a large amount of Bitcoin but they are dollar poor. So, they're coming to us and saying, "How can I use my Bitcoin as collateral to then be able to get stables to pay for my um service centers to pay for my overheads and things like that?" And that's kind of where we see Roottock going into the future to be able to provide those um use cases with specific products. >> I mean, that's amazing. I wish I mean seven years ago I had to sell some of my BTC to pay for my master's degree and ended up being a very expensive master's degree. Um so I wish I had that opportunity back then but I'm I'm I'm I was looking at these stats just this morning. Root stocks TVL at all-time high active addresses near all-time high. We mentioned the merge mining um close to all-time highs. Like why are we seeing this success in 2025 at rootstock? What is what is you know the rootstock in institutional launch 8 months ago they have the vault products like is that the reason why or are there other reasons as well >> a mixture of I think we're definitely helping bridge that gap between tradfi and defi or btcfi and defi um we've increased the number of integrations on the platform we're you know at about 170 and what those integrations are specifically help this help this set and as you mentioned there on the on the vault side. What we see as happening with um with Rootstock Labs is contributing a a set of vaults um to certain use cases. Um and we you know where that then growth is coming from is us working with partners on specific things like that. So it's a bit more of a handholding exercise. Um and what do we see that looking like? Well, we we see it looking like something where if I am a institution or if I have a need for something, we can come to Rootstock. Rootstock will look to help build some form of a vault structure within that space. And why are we wanting to do that? Well, we're wanting to do that because that takes away a lot of the complications of getting Bitcoin yield. If you're not coming into a structure like that, it's quite difficult to do. you have to go through maybe a different AML KYC provider, you have to go through a different liquidity provider and things like that when that can provide all of those different things. You see that very much with the likes of, like I say, Midas, Centrifuge, Securityize, all of those different places. Plume as a network, you know, what they're doing as well. Um, and I think that if you if you and our what is our role? Our role is to guide people and build what we think are the right products um in making sure that we again deliver the most secure transparent organic auditable auditable yield. >> Okay, we're we're coming up on time so I'll I'll ask this last question. Where where do you see the broader Bitcoin yield space coming up in the next, you know, 3 to 5 years? H how do we see that playing out? >> Yeah, I I think that the infrastructure will carry on being built incredibly strongly and get to the stage where it is institutional grade investment grade things that you'd associate with tradi space. I think that the the on and off ramping into Bitcoin and into rap Bitcoin will become just super super easy. the yield sources will become very understandable and very clear and become very varied whether that be RWA based. I would love it if at the end of the this period of time we can say we can deploy Bitcoin directly into a Black Rockck ETF or something like that. I think there's a lot of work to be done there but that that's where we want to where we want to end up. And I think that bringing it to what does Rootstock Lab see itself being in the future? Well, we've always been building for the everyday use cases, everyday DeFi. It was lat built out of Latin America for people to use Bitcoin as that store of value, but in payments and those kinds of things. and bringing in all of that capital as an institutional layer will then allow for the retail users to be able to go and get like you mentioned earlier um use your Bitcoin as collateral to pay for a student loan, use your Bitcoin as collateral to be able to pay for a more get a loan and a mortgage and things like that. And so that's where part of Rootstock Lab is focused. But in this side we we really want to make sure that we are working towards building the the highest grade infrastructure and product suite there. >> Brilliant. Thank you very much everybody. Richard Green. Thank you.
Yield: The Missing Link for Bitcoin | DAS London 2025 | Day 2 | Main
Summary
Transcript
Richard, thanks for being here with us. >> Thank you for having me. Um, let's dive straight into it. Um, how about we hear a little bit about yourself and a little bit about what Rootstock was built for. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, my name is Richard Green. I'm the VP of Rootstock Institutional. V, um, Rootstock Institutional is a team within Rootstock Labs. Rootstock Labs are the core contributors to the Rootstock blockchain. Rootstock blockchain is a Bitcoin side chain that is EVM compatible. Yeah. So something interesting about rootstock which is not like a lot of the other Bitcoin side chains Bitcoin L2s which we'll get into later is that Rootstock you know Ethereum uses ETH as the network token Solana uses Soul as the network token but Rootstock uses BTC or RBTC as the as the network token. Can you like give some more color in that? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, and this maybe goes a little bit back to the the genesis story of of Rootstock Labs and Rootstock, but our um when Rootstock was founded, our founders based over in Latin America in Argentina, um they saw the problems that hyperinflation were causing within the Argentinian peso and things like that. And they were working on the Ethereum chain at the time and believed that Bitcoin was the true underlying asset that could solve a lot of these issues. But one of the problems with that is that there is no EVM compatibility. So that's how rootstock was created using Bitcoin as that underlying asset which is the true store of value, the the the the best asset to be able to do those things in terms of security, auditability and those kinds of things as well. So it was really focused on keeping that as the core and the mechanisms of rootstock the chain whether you're looking at the pow peg which we which we um is kind of called our bridge where you are onetoone pegging bitcoin into the ecosystem into our version of bitcoin which is rtc. Yeah. And another interesting point. So I mean this kind of falls into the ethos of Bitcoin OGs back in the day. Bitcoin is the token and roottock is trying to help embell like embam that. But there is the RAIF token and I know there's some you know mis mystery around that. Sometimes there confusion like can you help add add some color there as well? >> Yeah. So there is another token associated with the ecosystem which is um which is RIFF. And if you're looking at a network and building out a blockchain, there are things that you need a underlying token to be doing. Um, but there's also things that maybe that underlying token shouldn't be doing. So with Bitcoin as the example, everyone wants to hold Bitcoin and they don't really want to give that Bitcoin up. But you might also want to use the use that token for governance and those kinds of things. So with the Rift token, it's a utility token that we then look to deploy into our um DA the DAO, which is Rootstock Collective, and it's just something where we're constantly focusing on adding utility to that, but allowing Bitcoin to remain Bitcoin um within within the the Rootstock network. >> Okay, nice. And before we get into the meat of the conversation, which is the yield, I I wanted to ask a little bit more about roots like the wider landscape of of these Bitcoin scalable solutions. Um there's L2 side chains, there's there's different types of bridges. Maybe we can put some color onto that landscape like how is roottock different? How is the the c custody different? How is there any you know false advertising with these other L2s? not to call any names. So I think layer 2 is a massive catch all term and that's something that's come really into um prominent in the in the past two or three years and then side chain is another term that you that you hear a lot and there are very clear definitions given by certain sources such as Bitcoin layers a website that gives that but um the way that I usually think about it is if you imagine a highway and there is the layer one highway way that is the main highway. A layer 2 is an express lane on that highway. So it uses the same highway. It uses the same tolls and everything like that. But it is it has been built for a certain purpose to sit on that. A side chain is a separate chain altogether. It uses its own consensus but it has a bridge connecting to it. So to the to the layer one. So all of the cars, all of the transactions that are heading across the main uh mainet layer 1 bridge over into a side chain and and that's what rootstock rootstock is. So it has its own consensus mechanism but it relies has all of the security of the layer 1 and that is that is the key thing for us. So rootstock is secured by about 83 85% of the hash power of the Bitcoin layer 1. Um and and that's where we see the value being um that you can use your Bitcoin natively on Rootstock with all of the opportunities that that Rootstock affords you with being the the DeFi layer of Bitcoin, but then also being able to um benefit from all of the the the things that were built into the the Bitcoin layer one. Yeah, I think that's a a good point to mention that 83% roughly of the hash power that goes into securing Bitcoin is used for roottock. So, it's number two on the list up there. Uh let let's talk about the yield. I mean, this is Bitcoin yield is not a new thing. I remember last cycle there were a lot of different companies, centralized companies I should add, um, offering yield to customers and I'm not going to call any names, but there was a lot of mish happenings, a lot of overlever, a lot of overpromised underdelivering, poor risk management, and despite all of this, there was that's insatiable demand for for for Bitcoin holders to get yield on their Bitcoin. um you know it did not turn out well um for those centralized custodians um how is it different now and how and what does that how has that led Rootstock to launch their new institutional offering? Yeah. So, so f firstly the the rootstock institutional offering as I said is is this team within rootstock labs and what our role and goal is is to educate professional investors and enterprises on the rootstock uh blockchain and what our partners are doing and what their integrations look like and guide them through those kinds of things. Um and I think what's changed predominantly is that those in the past year when people were looking for yield it was it was what who were the people entering into the market and what stage of adoption were they at that stage you were probably seeing people who were already super well either super well-versed in holding Bitcoin. So your hedge funds, your people who are looking at it more for um a a speculative asset class in terms of what they were going to be doing for yield. Um or they were sadly retail looking to take a punt in certain in certain spaces. Um and I think that the space that we've now migrated to is that the infrastructure of yield on Bitcoin has completely changed. you are now seeing that in the past I think about six months ago I was speaking um on another panel and the the conversation is always bitcoin is digital gold right and that's what it was you you hold it you set and forget in a way um and you're just looking for that price appreciation there was a huge market of professional investors institutions treasuries wanting to come into the market but the infrastructure wasn't there And now there is and what does that infrastructure looks like look like? Well, it's custodians. It's things like uh IFRS GAP accounting standards kind of meeting the the the matches there. And and the core though the key thing is that the yield sources and the way that that yield is being brought on chain is much more transparent. It's much more sustainable. It's organic. And I think that that means that whether it be a DAC co or whether it be a um an asset manager, they go I'm I'm very used to holding Bitcoin now. I've explored all those different things and I mean I'm looking at the chairs in front of me, right? And like copper, I now have partners and institutions like copper who can provide me with a custodial um service that is exactly as I would expect from the world of tradi that has been around for hundreds of years. one I mean one trade-off with some of these caserians even though asset managers and these other entities are getting more comfortable holding Bitcoin or having somebody else hold it for them on their behalf there still comes a fee with these custodians whereas maybe doing it more natively on chain it kind of let's just say flips the script instead of having a custodian charge you what 10 20 50 basis points you can actually start to earn yield on on your BTC Um, but there there's still some issues with that. Like you're wrapping the BTC, there's RBTC, there's WBTC. Like there's some kind of liquidity fragmentation around that. Like do you see a solution for that? Do you see that changing in the future? >> Yeah, absolutely. And and that is where kind of rootstock institutional came about. It was something where we already have a number of institutions who are on were using the rootstock blockchain for uh lending and borrowing purposes or for yield solutions and they came to us and they asked us about those kinds of issues. They said okay we are sitting with a custodian and we are actually losing value in our bitcoin um because we are getting a 10 to 50 basis point um charge on top of it. Now look, some custodians I think are are seeing that and they are offering free services and offering add-on services to what that revenue looks like. Um, but again it very much comes down to who is the who is the person or the institution holding the Bitcoin and what is their goal. If you are a trady treasury, you are wanting just to maintain and sustain and you're wanting to think about, okay, I don't want to just be losing one and 2% over over the year. Um, if you are a hedge fund, you're obviously looking to do a lot more than that. And if you're a DACO, you're somewhere you're somewhere in the middle. Um, and then on the other sides of the the kinds of wrapped Bitcoin bridges, that's just something that a lot of people still aren't aware of what it means. And so that again is is why roottock institutional is around because it is to educate the people, you know, people on what is the difference between WBTC and RBTC. So WBTC is is is the most widely used wrapped version of Bitcoin. to give you kind of a comparison that is custoded offchain with a single custodian RBTC custoded onchain and what's the what's the difference and why is one important and and one not important and um listening to a a panel yesterday which is the the digital asset hedge fund panel I think one of the comments around that was well when we're going in to look at an investment or when we're going to look at a yield source what's the first thing that we check and as opposed to maybe Tradfy, what they're looking at is the the protocol risk, the infrastructure risk, and where do you start with that? Um, and so the conversations we have range from I am a digital asset hedge fund. I understand Rap Bitcoin. I understand bridging risk. I understand protocol risk. I'm I'm looking for secure transparent yield to a TRDFI asset manager who or a treasury company who has Bitcoin on their balance sheet and they're now thinking I'm coming into this world but I have no real idea the difference between between the two. >> Yeah. No, that's a great point. And you know, you call these different entities, these corporate treasuries, these asset managers. Like right now I think there's about a million Bitcoin on these corporate treasury balances just idle not earning any yield. And but when we say yield we're talking very abstractly here like where is this yield coming from? And that's a very important question to ask in crypto. Where is this yield coming from? And can you elaborate a little bit more on the demand and the supply side for for this yield from the different entities? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, I'm going to one up your one up your number of uh 1 million. I think we 2.5 million bitcoins sits in ETFs, treasuries, and custodians. 99% of that is doing nothing. And when I say doing nothing, it's it's just sitting there and appreciating or depreciating. Um, and I think that the the source of yield going back to that first question many years ago was looking at points and rewards and trying to really incentivize a yield market. Um and that demand has fallen away in especially in those ETF custodian treasury plays. They're they're not really interested in that. What they're interested in is really there's the the two sides to it. There is BTC denominated yield and and that is through tokenized funds. a good example of that uh the work that Midas are doing with the likes of MEV Capital RE7 and what they're bringing on chain and the goal of that is to keep Bitcoin onchain, move into an onchain product and be paid Bitcoin back. That's the ideal solution. There aren't a huge amount of those because the difficulty that you have is that a lot of it has to some some has to sit somewhere offchain. So whether that be Bitcoin, you know, I can't deposit Bitcoin into a Black Rockck money market fund and they'll be accepting the Bitcoin. No, it has to be offramped into stable and then maybe they'll accept stable or they'll they'll have to accept fear, right? Um but that that's the holy grail. That's where we want to be and that's what I think the source of yield that people are really looking for. for and what is really really interesting on the other side which is more on the the DeFi side that that we know is that lending and borrowing market. So people are coming with a a large amount of supply of of Bitcoin and they're wanting to find the other side to that which is which is the borrow side. Um that borrow side on Bitcoin is a bit more difficult because what you've got if you look at Ave as an example I think the borrow rate on Ave on Bitcoin is about 1%. there's not a huge demand to borrow Bitcoin. Two main use cases are probably ETF redemptions. So these ETF providers who have ETF who have the redemptions coming through, they may look to borrow Bitcoin to provide that. And then obviously those who are trading on leverage. Um and so you know within within Rootstock what we within Rootstock institutional what we're really wanting to do is work with partners and within specific use cases and what we have as an example of a specific use case is a group of miners. We are proof of proof of work chain 83% hash rate. Those miners have a large amount of Bitcoin but they are dollar poor. So, they're coming to us and saying, "How can I use my Bitcoin as collateral to then be able to get stables to pay for my um service centers to pay for my overheads and things like that?" And that's kind of where we see Roottock going into the future to be able to provide those um use cases with specific products. >> I mean, that's amazing. I wish I mean seven years ago I had to sell some of my BTC to pay for my master's degree and ended up being a very expensive master's degree. Um so I wish I had that opportunity back then but I'm I'm I'm I was looking at these stats just this morning. Root stocks TVL at all-time high active addresses near all-time high. We mentioned the merge mining um close to all-time highs. Like why are we seeing this success in 2025 at rootstock? What is what is you know the rootstock in institutional launch 8 months ago they have the vault products like is that the reason why or are there other reasons as well >> a mixture of I think we're definitely helping bridge that gap between tradfi and defi or btcfi and defi um we've increased the number of integrations on the platform we're you know at about 170 and what those integrations are specifically help this help this set and as you mentioned there on the on the vault side. What we see as happening with um with Rootstock Labs is contributing a a set of vaults um to certain use cases. Um and we you know where that then growth is coming from is us working with partners on specific things like that. So it's a bit more of a handholding exercise. Um and what do we see that looking like? Well, we we see it looking like something where if I am a institution or if I have a need for something, we can come to Rootstock. Rootstock will look to help build some form of a vault structure within that space. And why are we wanting to do that? Well, we're wanting to do that because that takes away a lot of the complications of getting Bitcoin yield. If you're not coming into a structure like that, it's quite difficult to do. you have to go through maybe a different AML KYC provider, you have to go through a different liquidity provider and things like that when that can provide all of those different things. You see that very much with the likes of, like I say, Midas, Centrifuge, Securityize, all of those different places. Plume as a network, you know, what they're doing as well. Um, and I think that if you if you and our what is our role? Our role is to guide people and build what we think are the right products um in making sure that we again deliver the most secure transparent organic auditable auditable yield. >> Okay, we're we're coming up on time so I'll I'll ask this last question. Where where do you see the broader Bitcoin yield space coming up in the next, you know, 3 to 5 years? H how do we see that playing out? >> Yeah, I I think that the infrastructure will carry on being built incredibly strongly and get to the stage where it is institutional grade investment grade things that you'd associate with tradi space. I think that the the on and off ramping into Bitcoin and into rap Bitcoin will become just super super easy. the yield sources will become very understandable and very clear and become very varied whether that be RWA based. I would love it if at the end of the this period of time we can say we can deploy Bitcoin directly into a Black Rockck ETF or something like that. I think there's a lot of work to be done there but that that's where we want to where we want to end up. And I think that bringing it to what does Rootstock Lab see itself being in the future? Well, we've always been building for the everyday use cases, everyday DeFi. It was lat built out of Latin America for people to use Bitcoin as that store of value, but in payments and those kinds of things. and bringing in all of that capital as an institutional layer will then allow for the retail users to be able to go and get like you mentioned earlier um use your Bitcoin as collateral to pay for a student loan, use your Bitcoin as collateral to be able to pay for a more get a loan and a mortgage and things like that. And so that's where part of Rootstock Lab is focused. But in this side we we really want to make sure that we are working towards building the the highest grade infrastructure and product suite there. >> Brilliant. Thank you very much everybody. Richard Green. Thank you.