Helios Horizon - Episode 0 - Journey to Financial Inclusion

Kevin Lydon: 0:00

Welcome to the first edition of Helios Horizons, episode 1. And this is just a way of introduction into this spaces, which we'll also be putting live on Spotify, iTunes and all that stuff. We'll be getting on industry leaders and so forth. But for this first time we decided maybe just to do a nice and easy breezy episode one, just kind of get people involved and, start kind of getting ourselves towards, something that's consistent every Wednesday and hopefully we we grow over time and get some really good guests through the door. We already have some lined up, but yeah, so to kick off, I'm Kevin Lydon, one of the co-founders of Helios Staking, and it's been my mission to generally bring financial inclusion to the people around me and to do that organically and to kind of let people find us. I haven't been this massive shiller or sharing trade ideas or all that stuff. I just kind of play the long game with staking. We stake for both EGLD and INJ, Injective and MultiversX and you know we've been lucky, we've got a great community around us, and some loyal followers and, we are where we are now right, and so it's great, and I think, now we've kind of decided, it's time to maybe spread our wings a bit more and start doing some more consistent materials and, with Lukas recently coming on board and John as well being there on the marketing side, we have a chance now to start doing a lot more and we have some really cool things lined up. We have an event we're working on that's coming in September that you're going to hear more about over the next couple weeks. This is kind of a first time anyone's done anything like this. There are some examples of it out there, but I think we have a bit of a different angle. So that's about all I can tell you about that for now. And yeah, I mean me and Lukas have been working on it pretty full steam, but we're kind of getting ready to start the marketing and start letting people know what this event is and what it's all about.

Kevin Lydon: 2:34

I'd love for Helios down the road and, in the future, for us to start doing more events and doing more in real life events that help grow adoption and show collaboration and educate people out there. I think one of the biggest things that's missing right now in the industry is, in real life events, people working together and interoperability. I see too much negativity and fighting between chains and I don't see in real life events that are aimed at promoting adoption. They're all just pardon my French, circle jerks, most of them of people going there showing how big their wallets are, you know, showing, showing how much money they have, and you know, just talking in circles. So I kind of want to start doing events that bring in outside, outside people or people have never heard of, heard of, of the blockchain, but we can get into that a bit more.

Kevin Lydon: 3:40

In a bit, I'm going to toss the old ball over to Lukas and have Lukas introduce himself and explain a little bit more about his role and how he fits into this mission, and then we'll get John to do the same thing and then we'll just start chatting. Oh, and a reminder there are two Vapor NFTs up for grab for anyone who's here listening today. So we'll announce that probably tomorrow morning or maybe shortly after this space is. It's a bit late here in Europe. So yeah, we'll see.

Lukas Seel: 4:19

Thanks, Kevin. Yeah, very excited to be here. Been in this space for a bit now, kind of came into the blockchain space a little bit sideways. Traditionally. I was more in sort of the entertainment and arts industry. Then discovered the blockchain and have been passionate about similar things.

Lukas Seel: 4:40

I think that Kevin has been and always cared about this financial inclusion as a concept and really when I found blockchain and learned more about Bitcoin initially and then other ecosystems, really became very intrigued on how this technology can sort of democratize the financial markets and yeah, so I found a home at Helios a few months ago and ever since we've been working on quite a few initiatives.

Lukas Seel: 5:12

I think that can kind of further these goals of financial inclusion and bringing education to people that might not be familiar with what blockchain is, what blockchain can do, and then inviting them to try out the space and inviting them to dive into it more and yeah, so I'm very excited about this because this really also ties in with that kind of, you know, trying to break the echo chamber a little bit, trying to bring education to everyone about different chains, about their capabilities. Obviously, Helios is not MultiversX on but also on Injective, so there's two different ecosystems are presented by default, but there is a lot more out there and there's a lot of interesting applications and in real life applications, which is something I've been always very passionate about of the of the blockchain technology. So, that's really something we want to highlight in in this as Yeah. eah, I'll leave it at that and and let you talk about yourself a little bit, John.

JB Carthy: 6:21

So thanks for the introductions, guys. It's really nice to just hear a little bit more about like, as I'm already familiar with these, but about your background, and to share with people here and people who might be listening, but and personally got involved, obviously from a financial sense, like, maybe for a while I was thinking about, like the concept of a of a type of money that and was outside of the control of any centralized entity in bitcoin. When I saw some of the things happening, like in the early 2010s, like the Arab Spring, and like I remember watching the TV and going when people weren't necessarily accepting the governments that were in power at that time, I was thinking what happens when people choose not to accept the money and or not to accept like money anymore, and what could happen with the financial system. And then obviously got into reading a little bit about bitcoin, got into it around like a little bit more um, in the late 2010s and started maybe investing a little bit or like storing a little bit of bitcoin, and then was lucky enough to come across some great people, like Kevin, like yourself, Lukas, but work with Helios here for about 18 months now, just helping contribute to everything that's going on.

JB Carthy: 7:28

I think the space as a whole. Obviously it was founded, maybe upon financial principles to transform the monetary sector, but I think the principles of Web3 and blockchain transcend simply the financial sector and the transparency has the ability to revolutionize and a number of industries or almost every industry, has the ability to reach almost every industry and transform it a little bit. And yeah, and I'm just personally very excited to have the opportunity to contribute to everything that's going on. I think what Kevin touched on there is probably a need for like a more like unbiased objective education platform or more people spreading like unbiased, objective information to educate people about the power of Web3 and blockchain and, hopefully, at Helios Horizons. That's something and we can do a little bit going forward.

JB Carthy: 8:25

And yeah, no, that's everything really about me like I'm just happy to be here and happy to contribute to everything that's going on. I'm learning every day and happy to have access to these opportunities and to meet so many great people, have the ability to work on so many exciting things and looking forward to more of it in the future. And I suppose maybe something that struck me as the two of you guys were chatting and maybe a question I might have for the both of you is what are your personal highlights from being involved in the space over the last number of years? Obviously, Kevin, since maybe the mid-2010s, and then Lukas I'm not sure exactly when you maybe got into the space. But since you got in, what are your personal highlights? I'll start with you, kevin.

Kevin Lydon: 9:10

Crazy question. 2017, I think, started. 2017 is when I got in. My personal highlight is actually throughout the time. My personal highlight was seeing the promise in ETH. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here today. I was into Bitcoin and then I started researching and I got lucky enough just before the big, big blow off the top in 2017, early 2018. I was lucky enough to accumulate enough ETH and have the foresight to exit. I think I got out at like $900 or something like that and I bought it under $100, which is crazy, and I didn't buy that much and I wasn't this rich guy or whatever. I think it was like $400 or $500 or something. But I managed to to make quite a nice little egg. And then one of my my highlights is actually a sad story, but it actually turned me again into the person I am I am today.

Kevin Lydon: 10:17

It was the ICO boom. So right after, right during this time, there was the, the ICO boom, and I invested in a few. With my winnings and my, my profit made, I kept some and kind of set that aside for for dips and maybe you know longer term and I bought one coin I'm not going to name names, and I lost it all. I lost a lot of it, and then I lost on another one and then I was like, okay, here we go. This isn't all what it's what it's cracked up to be, you know. And so I started learning some hard lessons really quickly, and I started realizing, you know, I kind of blindly aped in on some of these . After, you know, digging into some of them, you know they were lying, lying, it was total bs and and all this stuff, and I and and I should have known to research, and so I I still had about half of of my my profit, and then I started kind of doing research, and thinking about things on a bit of a longer term. I started I started buying a little bit of ETH every Friday, the same amount, regardless of price, started DCAing and started taking more sound long-term investment approaches, started doing that with Bitcoin as well and saved some money for the side in case of any major black swan or whatever. But the highlight being this bad story and the reason being is I learned to research and what did I find I found Elrond at the time. I found Matic as well. In fact I was kind of drawn into the ICOs on Binance. I was very skeptical but I started reading about them and I started researching kind of their white papers, really researched the teams and decided I was going to take a punt on a few of the ICOs. The one in which I did the most was, Elrond, ERD, and I decided then with the chunk that I did have to get into well, what's now Multivers X, I dollar cost average, dollar cost average and then eventually, with my skill set, was able to set up a staking agency, got the attention of the team and became a Genesis partner and validator and long-term partner of MultiversX.

Kevin Lydon: 12:42

But the key here and again the highlight, which is actually an actually a bad thing that turned out to be a super positive thing. I think the point I'm trying to get at here is is is failing sometimes has has a silver lining. It sucks. It sucks at the time and, yeah, you might lose money and it might feel really bad, but you can pick yourself up and learn from it and if you feel that there is promise within the industry that you're investing in or whatever you're planning to do, then you just chalk it up as a learning experience and then move forward in a positive manner, and that's, that's that. That's why it's it's probably my highlight from the early days.

Kevin Lydon: 13:29

And then, obviously, after that, my highlight would be when, when you know MultiversX, well, Elrond took off, EGLD took off, things blew up out of proportion.

Kevin Lydon: 13:41

You know I, I went from being just a normal, you know struggling human being, to all of a sudden having, this staking agency and, you know, a fairly nice wallet, and it was, a huge highlight, but also came with a lot of, a lot of lessons as well.

Kevin Lydon: 14:06

So yeah, and then you know, after that, I don't really know what else after the, the, the big EGLD run up to 500 or whatever. I don't think I'll ever feel a high like that again in this space, I hope to, but I mean going from you know a few hundred dollars in 2016 to, you know, quite a nice amount, in you know 2021, maybe it was it, I don't know that. That's kind of that's kind of it for me. But but yeah, just failure. Failure is a gift, and if you learn from it, you can end up being stronger and better than ever. And going long is always the right move.

JB Carthy: 14:57

Yeah, I'd agree in terms of.

JB Carthy: 15:00

Just the thing that I probably am most grateful for in being involved in the space is just the level of like personal responsibility that it has taught me to have, and just in terms of like the self-custodial aspect and like the irrevocability of transactions on the blockchain, and like needing to manage your own funds safely, securely and ultimately having to take responsibility for anything you do and has taught me a lot like about myself. It's transcended even like and the financial aspect of things, so that's something that has probably been a highlight for myself and, if I was to reframe the question, even for yourself, Lukas, it's like you know, taken away even from like financial things like as such. What is like, say, was there any events, any highlights, any, any things that stood out to you or things that you're excited about, if that makes sense, going forward, you know, in the space.

Lukas Seel: 15:53

Yeah, the funny thing is I was listening to Kevin.

Lukas Seel: 15:55

It was like I never really had that experience because I'm obviously somebody who's never taken profit. So I got into the space in like 2020, right, and so whatever you bought at that time like went up a crazy amount and I was just like, okay, that's cool, but I always thought of the investment as having roughly like a five-year horizon and so I never sold anything. I was like, oh, this is nice, I like that going up, but it didn't really matter really like seeing a number go up or something like that. For me it was always very interesting to see sort of the community around it develop and also seeing the opportunity and I mean specifically economic opportunity that it brought for a lot of people. And then I think I started thinking about like how to use this technology in the real world pretty early, because everything that I saw out there was just a casino in one way or another, and to me, the sort of everything that wasn't a casino was interesting, although, of course, I am a poker player, so the casino is also very interesting to me.

Kevin Lydon: 17:17

You pretend to be a poker player, sir. I just throw that in there.

Lukas Seel: 17:23

I lose money in crypto and in poker.

Lukas Seel: 17:26

So you know I'm certainly consistent, exactly, but so for me, the highlight would have been when a few people maybe know here, I started a company called On Chain Smokers which was really taking the blockchain technology and using it in the real world for something that made sense, in this case, a membership program.

Lukas Seel: 17:59

So transferring, not having to deal with entities that you go through having to give up all your private information, and really being able to interact with consumers on a very different level than you usually would as a business, kind of directly, and so I think for me, the highlight was launching that, and we had three pretty crazy days at the first business where we launched it, at signing up like a thousand people to the blockchain that most of them like 90 plus percent easily had never interacted with a crypto wallet before and had never really wanted to interact with it either, because you know all they heard about it was bad things crypto wallet before and had never really wanted to interact with it either, because you know all they heard about it was was bad things and, yeah, changing that perspective and and really being able to talk to all of these people and then seeing how that, yeah, changed, these people's perspectives and how it really, you know like, helps them in their day-to-day lives, like we have 500 people using the technology every day to this day, and yeah, I think that's that to me is is probably the highlight.

Lukas Seel: 19:06

And then we did some some more events that kind of built on top of this experience. But that would be another highlight.

Kevin Lydon: 19:12

It was the OCS event. That was. That was actually really good. I got to go there. I met Cornish there actually, what's up, I see you there. And it was actually. It was actually really really good.

Kevin Lydon: 19:25

It was the first time I actually got to see people using these people who signed up, basically that the, this OCS customer appreciation party, that one of their well, the founding shop, through everyone, anyone who had an NFT got to come to this party, or any customer as well. And so I remember going there and I walked up to the gate and they're like oh, do you have xPortal open? I need to skip. Can you scan this QR code? I'm like no way. So here I am and you know they don't know my name. They don't know anything. All I had to do was scan in and then it's like yeah, cool, you're in. And it only took you know, six, seven seconds. And when I was in there, I saw people getting notifications on their app, winning prizes, direct push notifications. It was amazing and it was the first time that I actually saw something like that and I got a ll into it. I even jumped behind the booth for a while as an OCS, put the OCS t-shirt on, and you know, had tons of fun and met so many cool people in in the community and I think that's when a lot of things started clicking in in my head about, you know, we're missing a trick here, you know, and I remember, I left. I came home and it was Sunday and I was pretty wrecked. I mean, my head was a bit groggy for various reasons wink, wink, and so I came home and I just I couldn't shut up to my girlfriend about it. I was just telling her oh my god, this is amazing. So I actually sat down at my computer for three, four hours and wrote like basically this manifesto on the whole thing, and shared it around to various people uh, the team an d whatever, and it was at that very second I realized the only way forward with, this space, to gain adoption is to find people who have never touched a crypto wallet and find out something that they need that benefits having a crypto wallet.

Kevin Lydon: 21:39

The one I've been saying even before the OCS thing is imagine a mother, or even a father but let's just go with the traditional paradigm here who just wants to give everything they can for their kid, and especially at Christmas, maybe an extra present, or, you know, an extra present or a holiday, but because of bank fees, because of all these other overreaching things, you know they're a bit strapped, but if you could reach some of these people and explain to them, oh, did you know, you could download an app that will save you, you know, 40, 50, 60, 70 euros, dollars, dollars, whatever it is a month in fees, and you can start interacting and getting, you know, cash back, and, and loyalty programs and all this stuff, and at the end of the year, you'd have, you know, an extra 600, whatever to spend on your kids. You reach that demographic, and mommy's talk, you know daddy's talk, let's just go with people who have kids. You know they they're in these groups and they're saying, oh, did you see this? I'm actually going to have about an extra thousand dollars to spend and we're going to be able to go on a, on a trip as a family. I didn't think we'd get to do that until the kids got a bit older, or you know. There's all these different things, and that's just one example right.

Kevin Lydon: 23:05

Ocs was kind of the nail in the coffin. That event was just like wow, adoption is possible If we give it to people, if we show people that if they use it, they benefit, like i t doesn't have to be all about shilling coins, meme coins, DeFi and financial, this financial whirlwind of crypto right now and it's actually ignoring the fact that what it's really built for is decentralized, GDPR or privacy compliant peer-to-peer interactions, and why aren't we focused on that? Instead, it's just all about coins, making money and degen stuff. That you know, unfortunately, I believe, needs to start taking a back seat if we're going to actually take this industry seriously no, just and even in terms of like, that kind of like b2c like interaction.

JB Carthy: 24:06

In terms of, if you think of like, probably the biggest challenge most like businesses or and even most consumers have with businesses right now is how like they manage their data. That's one of the biggest concerns. And if you think the NFT is almost like, that's the anonymous layer where people can prove they are a member of something or they can prove they have a, they have a vested interest in like the success or aligned interest in the success of a certain business. The business can reward them with certain tokenized rewards and and even then the ability to trade those tokenized rewards. So the ability for people to like sell airline points at the going rate, for people to sell reward points at the going rate and from certain businesses like, it's just going to revolutionize the entire concept of like business loyalty and the reward point system or the business consumer and loyalty system. If that makes sense.

JB Carthy: 25:01

And I think on MultiversX at the moment I think like Inspir3 are building something interesting in that regard. They partnered with a lot of large companies over in Romania, so it's going to be very interesting to see how that maybe develops. And I see Lukas, you have your hand up man, so feel free to chat.

Lukas Seel: 25:19

I don't have much more interesting to say Well, I just wanted to emphasize that too. Like, I think we've seen a major development towards useful applications and user-facing applications. I think at the time when OCS launched, it was completely revolutionary, in a sense, to see blockchain integrated with real life stuff. I think we were one of the first companies to actually actively think about that. But now, with Inspire and there's some other really cool initiatives I mean we launched around the same time. I mean we launched around the same time.

Lukas Seel: 25:55

I think we beat the Starbucks now sunsetted system, loyalty system by like a month or a few weeks, but a lot of these sort of natural use cases of blockchain have become more commonplace. It's still I think the chatter is still too much focused on like number go up and all of this stuff, but I think we've reached a point where people have started considering the real life implications and the real life use cases that this can have. And maybe this is a good time, Kevin, to kind of also talk a little bit about not in detail, of course, yet, but like the initiatives with Helios and like this, education and different use cases is something that I think is something we really want to highlight through this series as well.

Kevin Lydon: 26:47

Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. Well, the initiatives, you know there's collaboration is going to be a huge one, working together for a common goal, because when we all win, when one of us win, we all win, and if we work together and stop casting stones, you know, anything is possible. So that's one of the first initiatives. The next initiative is adoption, and you know how are we going to do that. I've thrown around the idea Now, this isn't the event I've been talking about earlier, but I've thrown around the idea of kind of doing our own event that has an NFT ticketing system, where there's, you know, someone fairly famous as a DJ or a band or whatever, whereby it requires outside people to download, maybe xPortal or something on other chains as well. We won't go chain agnostic. We'll allow maybe two or three chains to to be able to take part in something like this.

Kevin Lydon: 28:04

This is something that I've been thinking about really hard about and again, that was from the OCS stuff. And if you think about it, you know, let's say I don't know who's fun and cool to see, let's say Snoop Dogg, and not saying I'd get Snoop Dogg just. But I'd love to see Snoop, that'd be amazing, but like he's probably way too expensive. But let's just say, because Snoop Dogg's a big NFT guy anyways, right. So let's just say, for all intensive purposes it's not going to happen. Uh, this, this is not event advice and NFA, but let's just say I booked, or Helios booked, Snoop here in Amsterdam with you know what, with Willie Nelson. Let's just go for it. Two of them, boom reunited.

JB Carthy: 28:50

What a combo, what a combo.

Kevin Lydon: 28:53

Right, it'd be amazing. So let's just say that that's what happened, right. So, basically, what I would do would release a ticketing portal. It'd be the first time we'd release it. It would be NFT ticketing, whereby you have to download the app, to download one of three apps, or maybe we have our own dap that connects.

Kevin Lydon: 29:19

You know who knows this semantics? You hype it up, obviously, and you know, let's say it's for 10, 000 You. ou don't do any white lists, you don't do any of that bs, and you know you obviously sell the tickets and and and boom, that's probably you're going to get a solid. It gets the demand to be out of this world and and you're just boom, one, one event and then with inside the event and this is again from OCS is you get push notifications for your various deals. Maybe the taco booth, by being an xPortal user, is giving everyone 10% off for the next hour, right? Or if you pay in INJ over there, you get 5% off. You know, and, and, and, or maybe it's, it's it's crypto only at all the vendors, or the beer and all that, right. So now, all of a sudden, you're creating an economy within there. So it's a very, very, very powerful idea and you don't have any crypto boost in there. You don't have anything about. Oh, come buy my coin, no shilling, nothing like that.

Kevin Lydon: 30:34

That is not the intensive purpose of this event. The event is to get people who don't have crypto apps to come see Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg, like plain and simple. And then all of a sudden, people be like oh, this is really easy. I don't even have to give my email or name because it's all peer-to-peer. So next thing, next thing, you know, actually they probably would have to, but anyways, let's just not get into that. But but next thing, you know you have a business model.

Kevin Lydon: 31:01

And then you know, the following week, you know, I get I don't know Shania Twain and I don't know anybody. Wow, Seal, Shania Twain and Seal. Imagine that. You know what I mean. Just like there's, or. And then it's just. It's just like it's a crazy, big, hairy, audacious goal and idea, right, but, but these are the ideas that are going to bring people into crypto and see the value of it. And NFT ticketing you know it's out there and people are using it, but they're not. They're not creating a demand, they're not. They're not. They're not creating a product that is forcing people to want to use the NFT ticketing app, and that's why you got to do something as bold and audacious as Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg. Right, I think I have a new

JB Carthy: 31:59

I think what you're saying is like very clear and I think the and the overarching principle is that, like web3, blockchain, cryptocurrency, digital assets have to be the obvious, have to be presented to the obvious as the obvious solution to something that is people want. And it's like it's clear that there are obvious solutions that can present and we just have to bring more of them to the mainstream and make the mainstream more aware that they exist and integrate them in such a way that people begin to understand the power they can bring, if that makes sense.

Lukas Seel: 32:31

Yeah, I think it's all about this first time experience, right, because that's the biggest sort of uh hurdle. If, like, for me, the reason I even got into um any of this uh blockchain stuff was using bitcoin just seemed so impractical. You know, I was like this, can't? You know? People talk about this as if it was the future of anything, and here I am like trying to like write down a number letter combinations that are like 30 digits long, and then I wait for something for hours, not knowing what happened to it and see if it arrives somewhere else.

Lukas Seel: 33:10

It's impossible for anybody to think about this as future technology, right? So that's how I got into it and I think then finding things where it's like, oh, you can actually transact in in seconds, in fraction of a second, sometimes, with people around the world and use it in different ways, and then finding out, like all the stuff, all the composability of blockchain applications that you can build on top of this stuff, and I think really giving people this first experience and having something like, oh, this makes sense, I can use this. It's not just like some speculative thing, this is something that I can use, that benefits me directly, and it's about giving that first experience. And I think, yeah, Kevin, what you're speaking to there is really like, what is that draw and how can we kind of drive education through these real-life initiatives to give people a first touchpoint? And I think, yeah, that's something we're doing there and, yeah, I can't wait for Snoop Dogg to show.

Kevin Lydon: 34:18

But abstract layers are coming or are already here, right, and so what an abstract layer is to all of you out there? An abstract layer is when you log into something. You don't really know the ins and outs. It's kind of like Outlook. When you send something which Outlook is so outdated I can't believe I even used that as an example. But let's say Outlook. When you send something which Outlook is so outdated, I can't believe I've used that as an example, but let's say Outlook or whatever. And so that's an abstract later, because you don't know what's going on in the background to send your emails, but you're using something that allows you to send and receive emails. And so what Lukas was getting at is Bitcoin, cumbersome ETH, cumbersome, you know cumbersome. You know seed phrases cumbersome, necessary. You know but now even on MVX and INJ and, I think SOL, even you can log in now with with Twitter, Google and all this stuff, and there's actually chains in the works, uh, Burnt being one of them. Xion, that um are strictly abstract layers. So you won't even know you're using the blockchain and this this is paramount into the growth of blockchain, while all of us de gens and all of us pre-adoption people, we have the know-how, or some of us do on on shots fired and on h ow do you you know self custody, how to use this stuff and how to be, you know, a bit more tech savvy? But the fact is and it's a hard truth a lot of people aren't. I mean, just go look at, look, go look at the community chats, look at trader chats, look at Twitter. People are always getting drained, people are always losing seed phrases and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. MVX with the Guardian, so far ahead. I use it myself and I was so pumped when Guardian came out, because, even if I lose my seed phrase now, there's absolutely no way anyone's going to be able to do anything right, and that that that to me, is huge.

Kevin Lydon: 36:28

And now, with you know, Google logins, Twitter logins, and and all this other kind of stuff, and with abstract layers, you will actually, be, your, your hardware device will actually be encrypted. You'll be able to download a seed phrase, but that hardware device will then, um, be forever bound to, to your, your encryption. So it's kind of it's almost as secure, if not more so, and with this stuff coming, the next big adoption wave is going to come, because people are going to be using websites that and will not even know that they're using crypto by that point, and that's kind of what an NFT ticketing company should be looking to do. Um, you don't really want them to even know that they're using it. Right, and even though they are, it's they are using it. And maybe, if they, you can, you can get people in in the door through the abstract layer and say hey, did you know that if you own EGLD in EGLD pay , we'll give you 15% off? And then just click this button on the dApp to enable you know purchasing of EGLD, and then you start educating people on how to learn the financial system behind all this, right, the financial system is great and, of course, same with the internet.

Kevin Lydon: 37:49

It was all about money, money, money, money, money. Let's just say porn was the big thing right there. It was actually the big thing that that that ignited the internet was being able to take credit cards over the phone, through the internet or something like that. It was over the internet, yeah, but it was through a phone line or something it was. It was crazy. There's there's this whole group of guys who did it and it was for porn.

Kevin Lydon: 38:24

Let's be fair but that that online payment thing, is what really kicked off the internet, Amazon, you know, and and and all this sort of stuff. So, yes, crypto's kicked off because it makes people money, it does payments. We're building the financial background of it all, but, like I've been kind of saying as a theme throughout this whole thing, when does it end? How many meme coins can we have? How many pump and dumps can there be? How many more rugs can there be? Can there be? How many more rugs can there be? You know it's kind of time to you know, mature a little and start looking towards adopting people into a system that provides value at all levels of your life and not just financially.

JB Carthy: 39:14

And I think maybe the integration of like real world assets and the tokenization of real world assets on chain is probably a step in the right direction. On that I know, like Injective, have done good work in that regard, but then it probably is going to go a step further in terms of, let's say, when. So probably there's currently real world assets that are not able to be represented on chain because there's like maybe geographical restrictions around the implementation of it. So things like houses, things like cars and land property, all these, all these sorts of things that maybe don't currently have the ability or not recognized when they're represented on chain. And I think probably the whole meme to me anyway a little bit in my uneducated opinion, like the whole meme, coin craze is simply just, or these sorts of movements that occur, obviously they're really fun at a certain moment, but it's probably just filling a gap where people have a thirst for, like filling the , like the market, if that makes sense. And then I think the second thing, maybe to touch on what you were chatting about, Kevin, in terms of the abstraction layer, and I think another big thing is going to be the interoperability coming up in the next few months or in the next few years, and so I think the last two, three years, even since I maybe got into the space and like interoperability or moving moving funds between chains and is often a cumbersome experience, but it's getting a lot like more efficient. You see MVX integrating Axelar and you've got Wormhole. That are doing great work.

JB Carthy: 40:53

You got Entangle that were recently integrated with MultiversX as well, or are being and in terms of offering interoperability opportunities, I think very similar to the, the comparison that you made between, let's say, outlook and how.

JB Carthy: 41:08

People don't necessarily care like what's going on under the hood with outlook or what, UX or UI they're sending their email to.

JB Carthy: 41:17

They just want to know they're sending an email and somebody gets it. And it's going to become far less about like where something is built and far more about what's what is being built, because the liquidity avenues are just going to be far more open and transparent and free. And similarly to how maybe the globalization of like maybe the world economy opened up new, like compounding opportunities for growth on a global level, like, I think the, the interoperability and like link, linking between and making easier bridges and links between blockchains is going to amplify all the value and the liquidity on all chains and it will be far easier for maybe builders to, like, get the attention for their project that it deserves, or for the project to authentically receive the demand that it deserves, because there won't be as many obstacles or barriers to entry, and it will be far less about luck and it'll be just be far more about like, the core offering of the thing, because it will be able to be accessed from anywhere, if that made sense.

Kevin Lydon: 42:15

I want the thing, I want the thing. John, I want the thing, I want the thing. So I think you know we have 15 minutes. If anyone else wants to say anything, you know now's your time. You can raise your hand, you can ask a question, you can go on a rant. This first episode is, again, just an introduction and just a chat. chat going to be getting some really cool guests on in the future. We'll be, you know, releasing, some of our plans and and and all that sort of stuff But but we also, you know, are a um, and we want to work together. And you know, if there's anybody out there, you know, who wants to put their their stamp on this first episode. Just, you know, throw your hand up or request to speak and you can um, go , so yeah, I'll bring you back Kevin kevin, if I may, for a second.

Lukas Seel: 43:22

Basically, what we've been touching on the past 15 minutes or so is all this stuff that we will talk about in future episodes. This is what it's about. We're talking about, like, how to drive adoption, what the technology can actually do, how we apply the new system that we're able to develop and be a part of in the real world and in the financial world. To expand financial inclusion for people who don't have it, to really dive into these use cases, to talk to people who develop those use cases and do great work in the um blockchain with three sphere, but also beyond. So, if there's obviously AI is a big, big topic at the moment.

Lukas Seel: 44:08

Things like that i s all things that you'll hear over the next episodes here. We'll do it weekly, so there's going to be a lot of um a great guests. I just wrote down three more while you guys were chatting because they came to mind that will request. So, yeah, really looking forward to having these conversations and kind of diving deeper into each of these topics that we touched on today in turn with people that have a great grasp on what's going on in these individual verticals. Let's say, Adrian, what's up?

Adrian: 44:44

Hi guys, just wanted to pop in and say hello and congrats on the initiative, like what I'm hearing. So I do agree that I think there is a lack of I don't know inspiration or people talking about real life use cases that blockchain can help and optimize and improve, and stuff like that. So I would really like if you guys can touch more and more on this and inspire other people to think differently or think of other solutions. So that's great.

Lukas Seel: 45:26

Yeah, and, by the way, if anybody ever has like a suggestion for a topic, something to dive into, we have a bunch planned out already. But, Adrian, like, if you know a great speaker or know of someone or a topic that is worth touching on at some point

Adrian: 45:49

I really had a interesting experience today, for example. I was talking with some friends about zero knowledge proofs and stuff like that, and they were saying, oh well, what's this, what's the point of this? Blah, blah, blah. And once you explain a bit, oh, if you go to a pub and you don't give your ID, you just show something and they confirm that you don't leak your data and everything gets resolved in the background that's a pretty nice use case. And and then they were suddenly oh, I didn't thought about that. Or you can apply for a mortgage without giving your bank statements for the last three months. Nobody cares. You can prove yourself on- chain, which is hopefully in my lifetime. We'll get there.

Kevin Lydon: 46:36

I think we will. First off, thanks for being here, Adrian, and I've seen you around a bunch and I like that you're here engaging. Persona itself will, will be enough to get you know, mortgages approved where you are KYC at a peer-to-peer level. One thing there, though, and this is you know the big, the big question is you know regulation right and and questions like that are, you know, for purists and degens alike. You know a question around. You know, proving your identity on- chain is against the whole point of what bitcoin and crypto was initially set up for and I think there there's a bit of that there, and, and that'll always be there, but the blockchain technology itself, for those who choose to use it in the manner in which you're speaking, will be there, and I hope it will be there within my lifetime too.

Kevin Lydon: 47:58

Thanks for that. It's a really good example. It's kind of you know separating this. You know and the original crypto design versus you know, the blockchain technology and on-chain technology itself. They're two different things, in my opinion, and they can live together. You just choose one way or the other. It's just the way it is.

JB Carthy: 48:28

So yeah, thank you for that, Adrian no, sweet, thank you, anyone else, like to come on and have a little chat? Um, or else you'll just have to listen to us three for another five minutes, and I'm not sure if anyone wants that anymore.

Kevin Lydon: 48:48

No, it's fine, it's fine I can. I can talk forever, it seems. Right now I guess you caught me at a good time. I'm a night guy and so usually, usually, and so I tend to be a bit more inspired around these times, I suppose In the mornings. You know, even the guys can tell you Lukas and John. In the mornings, or, you know, midday, I can be a bit more not nice, or just a bit more groggy. We'll go with lethargic, perfect, perfect. That's the PC way, to not offend me.

Lukas Seel: 49:33

Well, maybe, Kevin, we can tease a little bit. We talked a little bit about what we were planning, obviously sort of like community events, cross-chain stuff, IRL applications, then the work on Injective and MultiversX that we're actively driving through, some initiatives at the moment. But, yeah, what's sort of the what would you say, kind of the idea where do you want to take Helios in the next year or so and how does that tie into this? Yeah, well, you can talk for another. I'm just giving you a reason to talk for five minutes.

Kevin Lydon: 50:13

Sure, Helios, yeah. Well, helios is something that I first off never thought it would get to where it is today. So to try and think about where it's going to be in the future sometimes is a bit tough for me. Reach and the education and the swaying, the, the undying support of of some of you out there, has kept, has kept me going and I hearing some stories like there's that Zany guy from, from New Zealand, you know, young guy, who's just compounding, compounding, compounding, and you know like these stories are, are just amazing. So, you know, in the future I'd like to hear more stories like that. I'd like to know that Helios was helping people. I think that's that's really the only real goal here for me is to to kind of start shedding the noise, and bringing the education there and giving, showing people the long-term benefits, and giving people, you know, a shoulder to cry on if they need it and helping them, help, help, pick them up and, and, you know, show, there is, there is another way, you know.

Kevin Lydon: 51:34

You know with my ego in check, you know it's, I don't care about the money anymore. It doesn't it like and, and I'm lucky to have that, very lucky. And I thank myself every single day. Oh, not myself, I thank whatever, you know, I'm not really overly religious, but you know I just, you know, I thank whatever karma, whatever energy or whatever it is, you know, to be here and to be able to shed my ego, and that's kind of contradictory, but just, let's just go with it for now, and and then really truly try and help Vapor, like Vapor Republic, being one of the one of the examples, you know that to me was, you know, something that that I hold very, very close to my heart, and something that I can see is helping people and allowing people and yes, it's a financial thing, but it's strictly community, it's strictly a community project and it's it's governed by the community and there is no, you know, hands in the pie and there is no, you know, look how awesome we are, and check out our wallet, or check out this or this and that and the other thing.

Kevin Lydon: 53:04

It's sickening to me now at this point the amount of just flexing and all that that's out there. And I guess the goal, the ultimate goal, is to just show people there's a different way. Are we going to go viral? Are we going to get shilled? The ultimate goal is to just show people there's a different way.

Kevin Lydon: 53:22

Oh, check this guy out. He's the next best thing. I doubt it, because no one likes. No one likes the true empathetic story. Everyone wants to hear about how much money everybody makes. Who wants to? Who wants to roll in my Bugatti? You know what I mean. Check out my new mansion, check out my new watch, check out my boat, check all this out. You know what I mean.

Kevin Lydon: 53:46

And those are the people who get all the clout, which makes no sense. Because, at the end of the day, half those people are just lying. They're totally full of shit. They say they got in at certain times and they're just, they're just out there. Engagement, farming, and and and the herd will always follow that. Um, but if, if you know people like Zayny, you know, I gotta give a shout out to Rico. He's been around since the beginning, thank you, Rico, and I really look forward to meeting you, Techie as well.

Kevin Lydon: 54:20

You know, Adrian, you've been around a lot of you, you're all here, and the more of us. You know John and Lukas, obviously. I guess I can't really forget to to mention Mark, who was here a minute ago, but my co-founder and one of my best friends who I've known since I was like four or five years old. But, that's the sort of thing that that I just want to keep going. You know, getting more and more people, aware of that. You can go long, you can find sound investments, you can find people who are actually looking out for you and who are transparent.

Kevin Lydon: 55:00

When bad things happen, you know, nothing's always going to be good. It's important that you just tell the truth and don't try and frame something like it was meant to be that way, and so I think that's probably. It is just getting more people through the door and more door, and if it takes one at a time, and if it's organic, which it's been, if that's what it takes, that's what it takes and, like I said, will we blow up? Will we become this next best thing? In some ways I don't want it, because I don't think I could handle the fame or I couldn't handle that amount of stuff and I you know who knows like.

Kevin Lydon: 55:47

I doubt it would change me at this point. But you know, people have done crazier things, you know. So there's that always to think of. But at the same time, you know, if we get other people doing it, or even just getting other people following this model and creating little, small pockets of of groups like this which they're out there, there's definitely more more of us out there. But if we get more little pockets, of of this type of vibe, then yeah, I think we'll, I I think we'll have succeeded, and that's that, that's what I want. I don't want anything more and I want us all, all to be there, um, you know, watching Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson together.

JB Carthy: 56:28

No, 100%. I think like for everyone, knowing like why they're, why they're doing what they're doing on a personal level and not like needing to compare themselves to other people to justify the value of like their actions. And I think like there's a old saying like comparison is the thief of joy, and I think even what I touched on earlier for myself, like the whole personal responsibility piece, ties in well with that. And I just feel all the things you're talking about like over the last few years just trying to put one foot in front of the other, move forward and obviously, like this sort of space you get into it from a financial sense, but like when you learn to take responsibility for yourself in one sense, you begin to learn to take more responsibility for yourself in other senses and it kind of like bleeds out to other areas. So I think that's like one of the things I'm most grateful for for being around, you know.

Kevin Lydon: 57:16

Cool, so I guess we'll just end it there. Lukas, do you want to say anything? And then I'll close up.

Lukas Seel: 57:23

Yeah, I mean I'll just emphasize that I think having this counterweight and providing like non-hyped education and something that doesn't quite buy into this showing off of riches and bling culture that I think is very, very prevalent and very toxic in many ways, is something that we've always like the three of us here on stage Adrian I include you, the four of us here on stage always cared about, and I think that's very important. And I think, again, this is sort of also what will bring in the non-degens into this space through real applications of the technology, through dependable investments, with people that have a similar mindset and are doing really useful things for people. And yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to with this series.

Kevin Lydon: 58:27

All right, so I'm just going to close up, okay. So thank you for everyone for attending our first ever episode of Helios Horizons. It's been a slice. I can't thank the community enough for your undying support, and thanks for those of you who engaged on the Twitter feed and for Adrian coming to speak, because there's only one of you, I'm not going to say all of you who spoke. I'd like to thank John and Lkcas as well for working in the background on this concept.

Kevin Lydon: 59:03

Look forward to next week, where we'll have a guest speaker on from Injective, I believe. More info on that to come and the following episodes, where we'll be releasing some more information on some of these things we've been talking about. So that's exciting. Look out, tomorrow, we'll just post something and we'll announce the two winners of the Vapor Republic NFTs for anyone who listened. And yeah, I don't know what else to say other than thanks, thanks so much again for being here and on Episode one. And, this is only the beginning. So, yeah, I'm going to hang up now and say goodbye.

JB Carthy: 59:52

Everyone mind yourselves. Have a good evening.