Finn 0:42 Hello and welcome to The Ether. Today is Wednesday, February 2nd 2022. This episode of The Ether is brought to you by Luart. Luart is the first gamified NFT platform built on the Terra network. Luart provides a seamless minting and trading experience all while earning you rewards just for being a user. Be sure to follow them on Twitter and join the community in the Discord server for the most up-to-date news and announcements regarding all the hot new NFT launches, platform upgrades, and new projects hitting the secondary marketplace. Are you ready to #PutYourHelmetOn and join the movement? Find out more luart.io. This episode of The Ether is also brought to you by Orbital Command, a community validator on Terra dedicated to educating, expanding, and promoting the LUNAtic community. Follow Orbital Command on Twitter using the link in the show notes to receive regular threads on Terra protocols and yield strategies, news, resources, and Twitter Space discussions. You can also support their community efforts by considering them next time you're delegating or redelegating your LUNA. Find out more at orbitalcommand.io. TerraSpaces appreciates the support from all our sponsors. Today on The Ether we have the Orbital Command AMA with Outlet Finance. Let's take a listen. Dr. Doscoin 1:56 Alright, alright, alright. So we'll give everyone a moment just to come in. I'm waiting on Patrick, the founder of Outlet, to make his way to my screen. Once he's up, we'll invite him up as a speaker. But for everyone who's just tuning in, my name is Doctor Doscoin. This Space is hosted by Orbital Command and is recorded by TerraSpaces. Today we're gonna be talking with Patrick from Outlet Finance, about some changes that have been happening on their end regarding the integration of Terra money, and using UST to make payments in the real world with their new debit card, which is set to launch, I believe, in the next month. So hopefully we'll get some answers on that very shortly. In the meantime, just sit tight. I'm just shooting Patrick a quick message to let him know that we are live. And then once he's in we'll get the show rolling. Patrick, we are live. Channeling my inner Bruce Buffer there, for anyone who follows UFC. So I've certainly got some questions lined up, just to kind of give a rundown of how it's going to flow. We've got an hour, an hour in total here. It may go for 5, 10 minutes, but we'll try and keep it on target for that one hour. I'll probably ask some questions for the next 20 minutes. I've got some questions that I've prepared. And then once we've had a conversation and found out about the updates, and a bit of history and what's going on and what's on the horizon for Outlet Finance, we'll open the floor up. Anyone who's listening will be able to ask questions and will get to hopefully get some really solid answers. Here we go. I'm seeing a request coming through. Pat Manfra, this is the man, the myth and the legend. So he is being brought to the stage as we speak. Pat Manfra 3:39 Hey, how's it going, everyone? Can you hear me? Dr. Doscoin 3:42 Yes, loud and clear. Got you there, Pat, can you hear me? Pat Manfra 3:44 I sure can hang on. I'm actually joining on the Outlet account as well. Dr. Doscoin 3:50 Oh, fantastic. The more the merrier. What we'll do here, Pat, I was just in the middle of just saying sort of how this is gonna roll. So the next 20 minutes, we'll have a conversation, you and I. I'll ask a bit about history, about what's going on behind the scenes, what's on the horizon, all that sort of stuff. And then once we sort of get to the end of that, we'll open up the floor, I'm sure some questions will be sitting in people's minds and they'll want to put them forward to you. And we'll just do a bit of an AMA type situation. And if all goes well, we'll have this wrapped up hour from now and you can go and get some sleep, I believe what is it, about nine where you are? Pat Manfra 4:29 Yeah, it's about 9pm right now. Dr. Doscoin 4:32 Gotcha. And where are you? Where are you based? Pat Manfra 4:35 East Coast in America. I'm based in... Right now I'm currently in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Doscoin 4:42 Okay, fantastic. Well, what we'll do, let's start off with... Well, thank you for joining us, by the way. I would love to get a bit of history. I've been doing some research myself, a bit of reconnaissance work, but from the mouth of the man who founded Outlet, I'd love to hear a bit of history of Outlet itself. When did you start it? And how did you get started? Yeah. Pat Manfra 5:05 Yeah. So outlet essentially... Excuse me. Outlet essentially started roughly a little bit over two years ago now. And we started this company to kind of be more of a true bank account alternative. From day one, we've really wanted to introduce normal people to DeFi. And we kind of switched a bit of our app and what was going on back in 2020 during the crash back in March, if you remember that. If you're a true DeFi OG, I think you do remember, rates were very low. And we kind of... At that point we were really an app strictly for non-crypto people who are looking to get involved in crypto in some type of way, right. So essentially, we changed our strategy to become a bit of a CeFi app, and work with different market makers and OTC desks. And that is currently the version of Outlet that people are seeing. But we started this company really to get people involved in DeFi and excited and completely replace their bank account with these new superior decentralized economies. And I'm really excited about what's going on on Terra. And we want to be a big part of the movement, right, of printing UST and be a big staple in the community. I think we're in a really unique position to help a lot of people easily on and off-ramp between their UST and kind of their fiat currencies. And there's really a big in-between layer missing. And I think outlet is going to really perfectly fit in between the two. And hopefully, get a lot of people on direct deposit. Because that's kind of the goal here, right, is to truly replace your bank account. So when we are fully onboarded on Terra, on... Within the next... I'm going to give it 45 days or so, I would say, we should be completely onboarded and have all the features that we would need for you to completely replace... Dr. Doscoin 7:34 Gotcha. So are you still there? Or are you just cut out? I think you might have just cut out. Hello, Pat, can you still hear me there, mate? He might have just had the old Twitter eject. Orbital Command 7:44 Yeah, he's gone. I can hear you pretty well, though. But it seemed like he got cut off there somewhere. Dr. Doscoin 7:50 Sure. What we'll do, Pat, if you can still hear us... Pat Manfra 7:54 Yeah, can you hear me? Dr. Doscoin 7:57 Oh, yeah, he's back now, there he is. Pat Manfra 7:58 Oh, I'm sorry. Someone randomly called me. So it just went in and out on this phone. I apologise for that. Dr. Doscoin 8:05 Gotcha now. All good. So you were saying you've got 45 days, you reckon, until the Terra aspect is launched and live. What's needed to happen? And I'll back track in a second, but just for this question, what needs to happen in the next 45 days for that to take place? Pat Manfra 8:22 Yeah, so it's really working with our on and off-ramp partner, PrimeTrust, wrapping up a new partnership with them to onboard us to needed UST so you can use all the exciting protocols directly through the single balance that is the Outlet account, right. We're not going to be scraping any type of yield from Anchor or anything, you can just go ahead and use these protocols yourselves all while enjoying direct deposit right into your Outlet account, you can convert these dollars to and from UST whenever you would like seamlessly. One of the more exciting features as well is you can go from UST directly to your bank account instantly. So instead of waiting for five day ACH, you can go back and forth instantaneously, which is really exciting and gives it a whole feel as a true bank account replacement, right. It'll feel just like a normal bank account. And that's we're kind of excited about. But it's still kind of an app and towards the non-crypto person, you'll see a single balance. But on the back end you can interact with different apps through Wallet Connect directly. Dr. Doscoin 9:44 Gotcha. So I feel like some of the questions that will pop up later will be more about the specifics and the technicalities of what's happening on the back end. I just want to sort of go back to the basics for a second which is around... Your goal is to essentially introduce normies to DeFi. But on the journey so far, you did say in the middle, you've kind of gone CeFi. The road that's been taken so far, has there been a particular reason that you've gone the kind of CeFi route, and now I guess, transitioning back towards the true DeFi aspect? How close can we actually get to true decentralization with Outlet? Nexus Protocol 10:20 Well Outlet, the way it's set up, right, you can't really have a truly decentralized mobile app. So we're just essentially giving users an access portal to these decentralized world. And I think that's kind of our product currently. So we're looking to partner up with different protocols, and people are building exciting things on top of Terra that could power the Outlet account. But yeah, that's kind of our business and company. Dr. Doscoin 10:58 Okay, so regarding the integrations, do you have any specific... When you look at the ecosystem, do you have any specific protocols that you're looking at? Are there any exchanges? Who are you looking at integrating with and collaborating with? Pat Manfra 11:11 Yeah, I'm just to... Obviously, Anchor is probably the number one integration that we're looking forward to. I think another one that we're really excited for is actually a protocol that is yet to come out. It is being called phaze.money. This protocol is a team that is looking to build a new type of insurance. And I'm really excited about it. And with that, we'll be able to back users' deposits in a similar way to how the FDIC would. So I think it'll give the Outlet account and users of it a pretty cool perk for joining Outlet as opposed to other apps that do similar things. Dr. Doscoin 12:00 Right. So that was actually gonna be one of my questions was I was in my perusings of content about Outlet that I was just going through, someone was mentioning how you currently or in the past, you have been able to have that FDIC insurance, because essentially you're not a bank. But you still need to have some sort of coverage. What's working as the coverage for you at the moment? And what happens with that when you start using, say, Phaze Money, or working with Phaze Money? Pat Manfra 12:31 Yeah, so I don't know how much in detail I can go on Phaze. But essentially, Phaze is a really unique take on protocol owned liquidity. And it's meant to keep a stablecoin vault safe, which would power the Outlet account. And that's where we kind of work together, and the partnership is really seamless. But the current coverage in the account is essentially as follows. It is Fireblocks coverage. And all loans are over-collateralized, so we're really handling the credit risk involved here, as well as, I believe the exact verbiage on Fireblocks is electronic risks. And we're also our app is really still towards really non-crypto folks, so managing keys is not a thing within our app. So that risk is taken off the table for our users currently. If you want to use Anchor and these other apps directly, you're going to need to create a noncustodial wallet with us. And we're going to make some changes in-app that is going to show what you need to do to kind of safely store and keep these keys. So you can access this higher tier product by having access to all these different exciting protocols yourself. And we want to build a real community around doing so, this movement around running your whole life through stablecoins is really possible through Outlet. And we want to be the plug into this new decentralized world for you. So I... Oh, go ahead. Dr. Doscoin 14:21 I was just gonna say, totally on board with that. Love that. And curious to know, obviously, you've been in the works for two years now, and you said you've mostly got normies onboard at the moment. So we can get a kind of indication of how extensively it's being used, do you have some numbers you can provide of the amount of active users at the moment, and which countries were sort of mostly operating in? Pat Manfra 14:47 Yeah, we are only in America right now, and we have 40,000 accounts with us right now. Currently, actually, if you look on... There's a certain website ran by the government in America, I can tell you have a bit of an accent, [chuckle] but the FDIC or something DACA, I'm actually forgetting off the top of my head, has a website where it shares with you how much on deposit these different banks have. We have more on deposit than half the banks in America currently. So and we're currently growing very quickly. So we feel like what we're building here is really just a new, exciting way to do banking. And, honestly, we're going to put some exciting features out there when everyone's direct deposit relationship, that's really what we're after. Currently, we're only in America, we are going to be international, I believe, closer to the end of Q2, or Q3, when Phaze.money is live for everyone to use as well. Pat Manfra 14:49 And so as far as being international, Q2, Q3, would you be looking at Europe? Where are you looking at first? Pat Manfra 16:09 Yeah, all major English speaking countries is ideal target for the first countries that we're in. We want to launch throughout Europe, we're also getting a lot of traction around Asia through the Terra community, so we're actively thinking that through. But we're going to really see right where where the demand is, and kind of focus on a couple different launches. But PrimeTrust is available just about anywhere in the world. So it's going to really open up a lot of different possibilities for us. So we're looking forward to printing a ton of UST this year. Dr. Doscoin 16:48 Yeah, that'd be amazing. And my first thought when you said getting some interest over in Asia, obviously, we know that TFL is a Korean company, and we know that UST is already being used with apps like Chai, Chai payments, is there space for you over in Korea, do you think? Or is it... What are your thoughts there? Pat Manfra 17:06 I would love to be in Korea, honestly, I would love to be wherever Outlet is kind of naturally being pulled. I think that's where we should be as a company, and I want to better serve the people who are attracted by our mission, what we're doing so we can win that relationship, because there's only one direct deposit relationship you have with some financial companies, with some bank. So we want that relationship, we feel like we have the most compelling product in the coming months, for a lot of you guys out there who are using crypto wallets as an actual savings account or bank account currently. And the big switch as to why now is regulation, partnerships, who these banking as a service partners are able to partner with, banks, different levels of tolerance, there's also different chain and regulation related to banks and how they can touch stablecoins. So there's a lot of reasons why Outlet is becoming this different company, and much more exciting one. Pat Manfra 18:13 And we've been kind of watching behind and seeing what's going on with DeFi and it feels like the LUNA community needs a product like this compared to something like Seashell, or other apps, which are more centralized. We're building something that is a pure noncustodial wallet to give you a best in class experience. Whereas others are really focused on kind of taking your yield. And we've really been in that business, we currently are, and I think it's time to get out. I don't think that's going to be the way to build a product like this that reaches, really, the mainstream in a huge way because your margin is my opportunity. And we're going to build something that's much more attractive and better in a way that people aren't thinking at this moment in partnership with new protocol. So that's something to think about when you see a product similar to Outlet as well, not only are we ahead on the product side, we're also really thinking this through as to what's going to power this account most efficiently. And I think the answer is what you're not seeing today. It's going to be an announcement with Phaze and what is kind of going on there in the next... I believe they're going to do it in the next 30 days or so. And I think it's going to be a very impressive DAO. I don't know I'm gonna leave it at that, but I think you're gonna see see a lot about them in the Terra community soon. Dr. Doscoin 19:48 Very cool. And so there's a couple of questions that open up for me as you were talking then the first one is, as you're saying where this is what we're working on, how big is the team? How many people are working within Outlet Finance? What are the divisions that have been filled in? I noticed as well that you're currently advertising for some Rust developers. Are those still some gaps that you're trying to fill? Pat Manfra 20:10 Yeah, absolutely. So we're always hiring Rust developers. So we are currently a team of eight people, we are growing the team to a team of 34 people. And a lot of this is going to be mainly developers, and world-class marketing people. We're also hiring a lot of different community managers during this time, we're still kind of looking for a community lead, and someone to kind of build a team around at this point in time on that aspect, but it's going to be mainly developers. We're hiring customer service reps at this moment, community people, etcetera, throughout the... We're really hiring on all fronts. We want true DeFi people who are involved in these communities, to be a part of our team to understand how we can fit in within these communities and how we can better serve the people who are really using these protocols, and be their direct deposit institution. Because I think that type of customer needs their own special bank, it doesn't need another Chase on the corner. That customer needs their own experience, their own product. And that's what we want to do. And we also want to get more people to be like that, right? Dr. Doscoin 21:27 Yeah. So regarding those job opportunities, community leads, customer service reps, devs, and things like that. If anyone's listening, of course, reach out to Outlet if you have those skills and you are interested. From what I'm hearing it sounds like your ethos, you really are advocating for the adoption of the decentralized finance part of things. And of course, I know that traditionally speaking you were running with Ethereum, there were... Was it USDC that was being used through Outlet? Pat Manfra 21:58 Yeah. USDC on top of Ethereum, we're currently lending with OTC desks and prime brokerages. Dr. Doscoin 22:04 Okay, gotcha. And so is that still happening as the Terra rollout happens? Is that still gonna be... Pat Manfra 22:09 Oh, well, in reality, it has to be because accounts are going to be on this and we're going to move it over. They're gonna move it over themselves. So if a user wants to not manage their keys in some type of way, the current Outlet account will be there for you. Or you can opt in to use Anchor Protocol directly yourself, and move away from these prime brokerages and earn a higher rate with UST. And we're also going to be making documentation on other protocols you can use. We're going to be out speaking and reaching out to the community more, showing people what you can do and the power behind the Outlet account. So if you guys are familiar with Wallet Connect, this single balance will be able to connect to Wallet Connect as well. So on your mobile phone, you can go on to... Open up Safari, for an iPhone that's the go to, and you can just go ahead on any fancy protocol. Just go to Astroport, their website and their app, and you can connect that wallet. And it works really seamless and it'll feel like you have all of Terra basically in a single app in a way, in the single balance. So on the back end, you can move your money and do whatever you wish. So it's kind of like, if you're really advanced, you can use the protocols. If you're not advanced, the Outlet account and the app will feel pretty darn similar to what it is today. If that makes sense. You'll see more about this. But I think most people will have a pretty good picture. Pat Manfra 22:37 So we're looking at 30 to 45 days out, we'll start getting some... It's kind of like your version of Do Kwon's REDACTED. You've got some hidden Alpha there that's coming out in 30 to 45 days and once people see that the pieces of the puzzle will start to really come together. Pat Manfra 23:58 Yeah, absolutely. I think big things take time. So we're moving a lot of infrastructure over in our app. It does take some time. We're launching on Avalanche these cards with people. So the cards are coming to every single user probably within the next coming weeks, and shortly after we'll be on top of Terra, and shortly after that, we'll be launching these FDIC insured bank accounts and you can do things like direct deposit and everything else I was talking about. Dr. Doscoin 24:38 Wonderful. And so with these cards that are coming out soon, I did see the display video the other day where the first transaction, the gentleman walks into the coffee shop or whatever it is, the little corner store and does the transaction it's literally that. It's just people going to go out and just pay for things with their UST as if they're just paying with the regular fiat currency or debit card. Pat Manfra 25:01 Yeah, that's literally it. So remember how I kind of explained really quick that you don't need to do an ACH, right. It's not a true ACH, it's going directly from... Well, I guess it is, right. But it's from the same institution, from the wallet directly to... Dr. Doscoin 25:18 Can you clear what an ACH is, please? 'Cause I actually don't know what it is. Pat Manfra 25:20 Oh, okay. I don't know what country you're directly from. But it's just the way transfers are done in America standardly. So it stands for Automated Clearing House, and it takes a couple days for these transfers to clear, because the government is essentially in some way checking out these balances exists between the two counterparties. And I think it's called a SEPA and the EU, if that makes sense. Maybe it doesn't, maybe there are some differences. But yeah, so instead of taking three to five day transfer to go from crypto to fiat, it just takes a couple seconds, basically a single block. And that's a really big advantage, right, when you're going and you powering a card in crypto, or you're launching a card and an app. So it'll feel just like UST, in reality it's just going to go through with your FDIC insured account real fast and directly be spent on the card. This is so that you can't commit fraud with us. We're kind of protecting ourselves. And same with MasterCard, etcetera. But it'll feel just like nothing. And I think that's what we're really solving for people. It's the UX problem around DeFi. As well as consumer protection with this new protocol. Dr. Doscoin 27:01 Yeah, okay, I hear that. And so the first thing that jumps on my head as you were talking, you mentioned MasterCard just a moment ago, and I thought about how Kash, Kash is... Was it Kash or Kado? One of them has just recently done a partnership thing going on, or a sponsorship thing going on with MasterCard, part of me feels like there's an advantage in that regard, because MasterCard is very known and trusted. For you guys coming up and being new in people's minds, what are the tactics, I guess, that build that trust that may not be there by having MasterCard written on the card? Pat Manfra 27:47 Well, MasterCard is on the card. And it's a direct partnership with MasterCard as well, to issue this card. But yeah, I don't I don't know exactly what these other companies are doing at MasterCard, I'd imagine it's the same exact thing that we're kind of doing. But the advantage with our card, again, it's really the seamlessness to spend it. I don't know how quickly these other apps are going to be able to get it back into these spending accounts, but we'll see kind of as things progress. We also have our cards out in users' hands as well, perhaps some of them are in this event right now. But we'll see how things go. We have been quiet on Twitter, but we're hiring a lot of people to make the change to kind of build in public, and get people excited around what we're doing. I think we're going to be the first to ship features like direct deposit, these debit cards, etcetera. They're gonna be really important to us as a company and users, so they can actually run their lives through these stablecoins, and actually be really full time actively participating in these decentralized economies. So I think it's a big advantage. Dr. Doscoin 29:17 Right. Yeah, there's definitely a first mover advantage there, because when I look at what's being built, obviously, I've got my eyes on things like Kash, Kado, Alice, Beema, Proteus, all doing similar things. And so I feel like the ones who ship first with a really good working product that is easy to use, easy to understand, are probably going to do very well. Not saying that... I think there's possibility and room for all of them to do well. But I think if you're giving me timelines of 30 to 45 days, and saying that you've already got over 40,000 active users, for me it's like, cool, this is already... It's telling of this could be a really good thing, could be well adopted, and I hope that it is. I'm really rooting for you here. With the UST, obviously, decentralized algorithmic stablecoin. Did you have any... What were your major considerations when choosing to do this, building on Terra? Pat Manfra 30:20 Well, the reason why we built on Terra is a couple reasons. It has a rampant community about printing UST. We, as a company, do one thing and that's managed stablecoins. I think there's a lot of alignment there. And there's a lot of key features that are missing, for people like yourself and others listening, who are really using their wallets as a true savings account, or some other type of way to really power a large portion of their finances, I think. And they're missing some key features. They're missing a way to offload it easily, spend it, they're missing a way to like actually originate cash into this new system. And there's a couple other things in between. But, I don't know, we're kind of excited about being, honestly, most people's direct deposit institution in this community. And I think that's kind of where the opportunity is, because people are using these wallets, almost as if it was direct deposit already, right. There's constant recurring deposits that people have into their wallets. Money is always flowing in, I think... I mean, you and I... [chuckle] Or maybe not you and I, but I'm speaking on my own behalf, I always enter these markets. It doesn't even matter the price of what's going on, I just want to dump more money into the LUNA ecosystem. And I think there's just like so many people who feel the same, and are looking for an easy sleep product to kind of go in between the real world, so to speak, and this decentralized one. Dr. Doscoin 32:12 So it sounds like to me, it sounds like you're a bit of a LUNAtic? Pat Manfra 32:14 Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I'm a bit of a LUNAtic. And I'm generally really excited about these decentralized economies, especially ones like Terra, and LUNA, that have a built in business model for everyone to kind of enjoy. And if we're going to support a community with Outlet, it should be one of those communities as opposed to something else. So that's why we're here. And I feel like it makes sense for everyone, for us to be here, as opposed to building on something like Solana, Avalanche, just, etcetera, the list kind of goes on as to where we should be. I think there's two communities that really stick out to me, it's absolutely Terra community, it's also the Celo community, which is just a very similar chain in mission and business model as a EVM friendly chain. And I really like what they're doing and the mission that they're on. Dr. Doscoin 33:16 Cool. What I'll do now is I will open up the floor here, we'll get some other speakers to start opt in to come in and ask them questions. We'll do this for another 28 minutes or 30 minutes. And we'll try and squeeze as many in as we can. So anyone who wants to... I can see some people in the call RyanLion, LUNAomics, Phil, lots of people that are on lots of Twitter Spaces. If you have any questions, feel free to request to come out and Pat will do what he can to answer those questions for you. And while that little queue is building up, you did just say the LUNA community and obviously the Celo community as well, is there anything that is happening with that community? Is there any plans for Outlet and Celo in the future? Pat Manfra 34:06 Yeah, so the same protocol that is going to be powering the Outlet account, we wanted to also be built on EVM. And Celo, I think it's going to be the home for this EVM at this point in time, due to essentially CUST. If you guys... I don't think we're going to go too deep into CUSD, but it's similar to UST and I think dollars involved in that system would go really far for the market cap of Celo. And when we're introducing non-crypto folks into a product like this, they don't necessarily care what chain, what coin is associated with it. So long as the yield is is what it is, and it's achieved in a safe way. However, we want to give people best in class yield. I think right now that's on Anchor. So things make sense to kind of start there. So that's kind of the game plan of what we're doing. Dr. Doscoin 35:11 Okay. Sorry, I'm actually starting to look at CUST while we're talking here. Do you do you see, as far as thinking about the integrations component again, and do you see a time in the future where you'll maybe have options for people to take out some loans, where on the back end perhaps it's integrated with Mars Protocol. And your regular normie is able to take out some sort of loan via Outlet that's running through something like Mars? Is that something that could be on the cards? Pat Manfra 35:44 Yeah, you totally could. What you can do is just go to... If you're saying that's what Mars Protocol does, I'm a little bit unfamiliar, but you can go to Mars Protocol itself, and just connect your Outlet account. It is, at the end of the day, a noncustodial wallet, and you can do that yourself. So if you're interested in any Terra protocol in some type of way, you can use that protocol still with your Outlet account. So you can get on direct deposit, directly into Anchor in this smooth little app. But then you can also, if you're a more advanced user, just open up your Safari tab, or your Safari app and connect this wallet to any app. And I think that is going to be a killer feature. So you can use anything, literally anything. I'm trying to emphasize that. So if you guys are in need of an app on the go, that you can run your whole life through just on Terra, I think it's going to be perfect. And I think there's so many people who are. Dr. Doscoin 36:51 Yeah, that's... 'Cause I'm thinking as well at the moment we've got the launch of Prism, which is taking place, I think we're in the third day into the Forge part of the launch. I don't know, are you paying attention to what's going on with Prism at the moment? Pat Manfra 37:04 A little bit. I have been really busy with work this past couple of weeks, but I know exactly what it is. I know the drop, I'm aware they're doing some type of token drop that's similar to Phaze zero or Phaze three of Astroport in a way, kind of finding a true fair token price, apparently. I'm sort of following it, but I'm not super up to date as probably some of you guys. Dr. Doscoin 37:29 Yes. So my thoughts are... Because you're saying literally any dApp, you could use on the back end type of thing. I was just letting my mind run a little bit there, trying to consider the ways in which it could be used. Pat Manfra 37:41 Oh yeah, you could interact right into that. If youu guys are really interested in Prism... Well, at this point, right. But in the future, if you want to go directly from your paycheck into XYZ token drop that's coming out, maybe that becomes kind of the new meta to launch a token on Terra. And perhaps there is good yield using that strategy, you can just go ahead and get your paycheck right into it and do that strategy yourself. The possibilities are really endless when you get your paycheck or whatever, however, you're originally in cash into your life into UST directly. Dr. Doscoin 38:25 So this all sounds really good, the possibilities are endless and all that. Are there limitations? Is it gonna be usable for online purchases if I want to buy something on Amazon? I can set that for direct debits for Netflix... Pat Manfra 38:38 Yeah, yeah, it's actually that good. You can literally use the debit card, right. If you want to buy something on Amazon, if you want to connect to pay your bills, or pay your rent with your bank account, guess what, we have a bank account too. You can connect these balances in DeFi to traditional apps everywhere. And I think that's something that's going to really shine through as we roll out more plans and we go live with a little bit more things. We're trying to build a little bit more in public now and build more of a cadence around what we're doing, essentially show off these different features. Dr. Doscoin 39:18 100%. Because this is the thought I'm having here, Patrick. So I'm aware that people buy from people they know, like, and trust. Typically they need to be sold on the product, the person, and the company. And so with your situation, the product sounds amazing. I hear everything you're saying, I'm like, the product sounds phenomenal. I'm just gonna accept requests that's coming up at the moment, LUNAomics is about to jump on. The product sounds amazing, the company, we've got a bit of a background on. It's two years strong. Any other finer details that you can offer about Outlet itself, any hurdles that you've come up with? Because obviously the journey in business is never just a straight line. It's not a straight line to success. There are going to be hurdles that come up, inevitably. And so I find often in the trust building process, it's like, well, what have you come up against? Everything sounds very good. Is there anything that has been troublesome or burdensome? Or is there anything in the early days, which might have been a sticking point? And what do you foresee could be some obstacles in the future? I'd be curious to know that. Pat Manfra 40:27 Actually, well, to be honest with you, the whole company was really difficult at times, because as you can imagine, doing this product back two years ago, paying for gas fees on Ethereum for normal people as a pre-seed company was really costly and expensive. And getting this company really going to the point it was, was hard. That was actually the hardest thing I've ever done. And I think we're just getting started. I think public interest is really at a point where things are really starting to shift and this conversation of what we initially set out to do is now becoming a complete reality. Two years ago, other partners when I told them what we did would never have conversations with me. Now they're bidding for my business. And I think that's kind of the difference here as to why this is the shift for us, where we are no longer just a small project and more of a company. So at this stage, it is very easy for us to find money, actually, there's a lot of people... Dr. Doscoin 41:51 The tides have certainly changed. Pat Manfra 41:52 Yeah, oh my god, yeah. There's so many people... Just the other day we had four VCs contact us. And these aren't just some small people, these are like tier one VCs. And I think it's like a really big shift in what we're doing, whereas back in the early days, when we said we were doing this two years ago... I think now we also have cemented ourselves actually one of the product leaders in this space, undoubtably, I think we are currently the leader in the US for total volume in this product category. I know who other products in this space are using as infrastructure partners, I have a good clue on the volume that they do. So with that being said, I think we're going to start printing a lot of UST comparative to some of the other apps out there that are meant for non-crypto people, because that switch just doesn't happen. And a lot of the people that are in those communities right now on those apps are actually crypto people at this moment. And they're just not going to use the app, to be honest. I don't know, it's a very interesting position. But basically, our seed round was extremely difficult to put together. That was at a point in time... There was a chart recently where last year there was more funding in the crypto space than every single year prior combined. And we raised the seed round in 2019. And I've kind of been... We raised like 1.25. And I've kind of been scraping by, but killing it I think in our KPIs, and what we've been doing as a team, and who we've recruited. And I'm really proud of who we've actually assembled around our team. I think it's just the time where we become a real company, instead of just a small project with these eight people. And I think it's going to take a good push from the leadership involved in Outlet, but it's going to happen. And we're gonna look very fantastic. And I think deserve the direct deposit relationship between every single other app out there. Pat Manfra 44:21 Because no one's going to pay you like we do. I think there's going to be a massive movement around what we're doing when we partner with this protocol. And yeah, man, I'm just really excited. There's a lot in the early days that is different than now, a lot. I remember actually during our seed round, we were pitching people when we did $40,000 total in volume. And now we've done over $120 million in volume, and that's a big difference in numbers there. There's a lot of growth and the team, the people involved at the core of this project, and just the thought process we've had and involved in this. We know that regulation, things are changing, or banks are now desperate to open up more and more accounts, and are looking to partner with apps like ours. 'Cause at the end of the day, it's gonna pump some bank's bags, it's gonna increase their KPIs by getting someone on actual direct deposit, even if it's just to pass through to UST. So other people are excited about what we're doing now too, not just us, not just the UST community. And I think that's like a really big shift. And because we have this pre existing volume, we're able to really play with some infrastructure partners that other people might not be able to. Orbital Command 45:53 Thank you for sharing that, Patrick. LUNAomics, we got you on here. Do you have a question? LUNAomics 45:58 Hey, Dr. Dos, Orbital Command, Outlet, thanks for putting this on. Yeah, I had a question. Do you guys hear me? Orbital Command 46:05 I sure can. LUNAomics 46:08 I was just wondering if being in this space, you guys have any heads up information on regulatory announcements that the US government is going to be announcing this month? And if it's going to affect these type of on and off-ramps and DeFi? And if so, what are those regulations and how it's gonna affect it? I heard that the Cash App, and some of these other third parties are subject to the $600 reporting to the IRS. Just wondering what kind of information you guys have on what's coming down the pipe. Pat Manfra 46:53 Yes, no, thank you. So I don't have any true insider leaks for regulations across the boarder or anything. I'm sorry, within America, I kind of meant broad regulation by "across the border". But I'm really hoping that the United States government does not mess things up on this. We'll see how things go, just like everyone else. It's obviously something that I'm really keen to learn more about, but I think generally we'll be okay. There might be different changes that not only myself or Outlet as a whole, but others will have to make. And we'll make those changes at a time. In terms of tax reporting, you should be reporting this, your Outlet account, as taxable income, just like all crypto transactions, but I'm not an accountant, or a CPA to kind of properly recommend anything. But I think that's just good common practice, to be honest with you. So if anyone else has any other questions, I'd love to chat. LUNAomics 48:15 Thank you. Pat Manfra 48:16 No, thank you, man. Orbital Command 48:18 I think, Dr. Doscoin might be struggling with some technical difficulties. If anybody else has some questions, definitely come up. We got a few more minutes here. One of the things that I was thinking is, what are some testimonials that you've heard from the normies? Let's say, as far as their ability to get 9%... Are you guys still at a base of 9% or 6%, round there? Pat Manfra 48:51 Yeah, we're currently at base rate of 9%. We actually have an awesome event going on on Friday, kind of talking a little bit about this and users' experience. So we're having a user on who has been with us... I actually don't know how long he's been with us. But he does a bunch of different work around the world, doing this different volunteer work and stuff. And he's gonna talk about his experience with Outlet and how it's actually helped him quite a bit. He has a fairly large account with us and we are his DeFi lending solution, or crypto lending solution, maybe just to be more accurate. But yeah, you're going to hear from users on Friday. And we're getting into this cadence where we want to build more in public. And we want to do more interviews and Twitter Spaces, talks, and be more involved with the community to let users know that we're listening to them. Interactively engaging this broader movement to really power your life, your stablecoins, and I think we're the best app to do it. Orbital Command 50:14 Cool. Yeah. So we got Jose here. Do you have a question? Jose 50:19 Yeah. Can you guys hear me? Pat Manfra 50:20 Yes. Jose 50:22 Speaking of having a large account with you guys, can you touch on security and how safe the funds are? Because crypto has a lot of stuff going on with it, and yeah, if you could touch on security. Pat Manfra 50:37 Yeah, I absolutely can. So Fireblocks is our custody partner. Fireblocks, I believe it is the best in class custody partner and asset manager in the space. So we use Fireblocks to kind of ensure and custody all user funds in the app. These funds are even covered in between transactions as well, which is the unique Fireblocks coverage that they have. And also you can only go to and from your own bank account, there is no way to send funds within the Outlet account. So say for example, someone figures out your Outlet account, username, and password, you can only move this money to and from your own bank account. So the risk of hacking is very much so mitigated. These functions do not exist within our app to send money. So really it's that, and now essentially, another big risk that we currently take care of is credit risk. So all loans are overcollateralized, just like they would be in DeFi. The difference is most CeFi apps are undercollateralized or partially collateralized loans. Ours, we run an overcollateralized book. So those are kind of the risks that we take care of and are basically the main risks involved in using a product like this. When you're on Terra, specifically, we are going to be working, essentially, with this new team to build a new protocol called phaze.money. And this protocol will be a special new type of insurance model that will keep funds safe, which leads back to kind of the security question I think you're asking. Orbital Command 52:42 Yeah, thank you for that question, Jose. Jose 52:45 Yeah, that was awesome. I'll take a look into Fireblocks and stuff like that. Thank you. Dr. Doscoin 52:50 Fantastic. Yeah, I've just jumped on the Fireblocks now to have a quick look myself. And the way they describe themselves is an all-in-one platform for building digital asset businesses, and currently powering over 800 financial institutions and securing 215 billion in digital assets per month. So yeah, that sounds pretty cool, be doing some more research on them as well. What we'll do here is to keep everything kind of ticking along well, we'll have a question from the crab, AVL121269. And then we'll start winding down towards closing this off. So AVL, when you're ready, mate. AVL121269 53:24 Great. Thank you. Thanks, Pat for taking the time here. Really exciting product. I just had a question. I'm just thinking about maybe use cases of integration with Terra ecosystem. And let's just say, if you're someone who wants to be able to schedule pulling out a set amount of money, for example, paying rent or some sort of monthly expense, is there any way to kind of automate that, I guess, off-ramping from Terra to Outlet and what would that look like? Is that potentially something that lives in the LUNA ecosystem or within Outlet? Pat Manfra 54:08 Yeah, that's a great question actually. So how I could see that easily working is actually from the other apps interface, right? So for example on... Let's just say, you're trying to pay, I don't know, a Verizon... Like a bill, recurring thing. They typically set this on reoccurring. You could set it on reoccurring and this will just basically pull out of the FDIC insured account within Outlet and I could see that working that way. But yeah, that's difficult to do though, on a true noncustodial wallet. Because no one can move the money besides you. So the best way to do that... AVL121269 54:54 You ultimately have to confirm at least once a month. Pat Manfra 54:56 Right, exactly. So you would have to basically load up this FDIC insured account with the right amount, and then that transaction can kind of go through. So what we'll eventually do is figure out kind of the best UX for users who are doing stuff like that. As time goes on we can kind of make some tweaks but for like an MVP, the first way it's gonna work will essentially be this third party app that you need to pay is going to probably ask you can you do this reoccurring, and then you can hook it up normally like you can with any other FDIC insured bank account, if we're routing an account number, that'll just be our account, and just kind of keep it loaded up. But over time, perhaps we could make that a better UX. But that's how it'll work, I could see it working very easily from day one of launch on Terra. Pat Manfra 54:58 I'm just getting ahead here in picturing life with Terra and Outlet and kind of how that would look and ease of use and things but it sounds pretty straightforward, and the capabilities are there in some form. Pat Manfra 56:14 Right, yeah, we could probably actually share a video of it working on Terra testnet at the moment. The problem is like some of the app looks kind of crappy with some of the new features with old UX, basically. We're redoing a lot of the app currently to kind of reflect changes on Terra. So yeah, but we're forking the Terra Station wallet to our app so you can use it on the back end. It'll have a similar flow to set up your wallet and everything if you guys are familiar with that, it sounds like you are but... AVL121269 56:15 Awesome. Pat Manfra 56:15 Yeah, man. That sounds really cool, though. And I'm happy you're excited for it. AVL121269 57:00 Great. Yeah, thanks, appreciate it. Orbital Command 57:03 Alright, so it looks like we don't have any more questions. Patrick, is there any last thoughts that you have? And last thing you want to leave us with? And then where everybody can tune into to find more information about Outlet, just the updates that are coming out soon? Pat Manfra 57:23 Yeah, absolutely. So please... I did want to give away some type of shirts or something for people in this call. I think the best way to do that, though, I don't know how to do that kind of fairly for everyone at this point. But I think the best way to do that is maybe join the call on Friday. And we're going to figure out a really nice system for that. But Friday at 3:30, we're going to have a call with a real Outlet user using the current app and how he's using funds and using the stablecoins to make a difference in his life as a non-crypto guy. So I think it's gonna be really exciting. And then we're going to go into some further detail, the timelines, and things like that, feature wise. I think this will be a pretty broader call, but exciting one nonetheless. For those of you guys interested on the Outlet website, outlet.finance, you could just use the homepage, and you can just sign up and get your first $10 for free if you're not currently using the app. All the changes in Terra will go live within about like 45 days or so. So thank you so much for checking this out. And if you have any questions, check us out on Discord. You can hear from other users in our current community. We're growing every single day. So thank you. Orbital Command 58:56 Awesome. Thank you so much, Patrick. We lost Dr. Doscoin at the end, but thank you for coming in and speaking with him, for the most part. He was very curious about your app and how it works, so I think we got a lot of good information from you. And everybody that's listening, thank you for checking in. Definitely make sure you tune in on Friday for that use case scenario. I think it's important to get that perspective as well so that the UST continues to expand and getting normies involved in some way I think is a huge part of that. Pat Manfra 59:33 Totally. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm always happy to chat about UST, Terra, and Outlet, or whatever's going on in the Terra ecosystem. Thank you so much everyone. Dr. Doscoin 59:44 Really appreciate you coming on and just for everyone that is listening to this after it's all shut, Outlet are looking for a community lead. They're looking for some customer service reps and some Rust devs, so don't be afraid to reach out. Is there a place that you'd like them to send an email to or message to specifically, Pat? Pat Manfra 1:00:01 Yeah, the Outlet Twitter, I think is actually the best spot. We want to hire true DeFi folks from the community to really understand what's kind of going on so that we can better serve folks who are using wallets as bank accounts today without the proper infrastructure. So I think that would be really ideal. And I'm hoping to hear from some people. So thank you so much for bringing that up. Dr. Doscoin 1:00:30 You're very welcome. Thank you for your time. Thank you everyone for jumping on the call with us and spending some time. We have some more amazing chats coming up next week. We do have a call with Kinetic Money, self-repaying loans on the Monday, and I believe we've got Tix, decentralized ticketing platform that we'll be speaking with probably on the Wednesday so just keep your eyes and ears open for that. In the meantime, take care everyone, look after yourselves and we'll be seeing you soon. Pat Manfra 1:00:55 Thanks, everyone. Finn 1:00:56 Thanks for checking out another episode of The Ether. That was the Orbital Command AMA with Outlet Finance. Recorded on Wednesday, February 2nd 2022. This episode of The Ether is brought to you by WeFund. WeFund is a community crowdfunding cross-chain incubator on Terra, and it's the first launchpad that implements a milestone funding release system to protect investors. All money raised for projects is deposited in Anchor Protocol and it's refundable, and all decisions are based on community voting power. WeFund is community focused and designed to be a user friendly experience for both project creators and investors. Be sure to follow them on Twitter and join the Telegram for more information, links are in the show notes, and check them out online at wefund.app. This episode of The Ether is also brought to you by Talis. Talis Protocol is the NFT platform for independent artists on Terra. Talis helps to provide artists with the tools and resources needed to transition from traditional art into the NFT world. With their V1 launch coming soon, Talis will be the place to see real world art reflected on Terra. Be sure to join their Telegram and follow Talis on Twitter for updates on their roadmap, validator, and other Talis news. Find your next favorite artist on talis.art. TerraSpaces appreciates the support from our sponsors. For terraspaces.org, I'm Finn. Thanks for listening.