TopCut Finance: Trading as a Simple Price Prediction

0:00 Welcome back to another episode of the Permissionless podcast. And of course, as always, brought to you by the team at Guardian. And as always, we are going deep with DeFi builders. We're getting to see some new ideas in DeFi, what DeFi builders are dealing with on a daily basis, and where they think DeFi is going in the near future.

0:20 And today we've got a really a fun conversation with Alex from TopCut Finance where they've got a completely new approach to to trading. It it's not a perp it's not an option. It's this new kind of financial game that Alex kind of just thought up from first principles and he he's got a a a small community very interested in the idea and of course this community was growing very rapidly over time of folks who want to trade this new primitive and and I think this idea does have some some legs to it and we'll see if we can get to product market fit.

0:56 But I want to let Alex dive into this new idea of trading. But essentially from a high level, it's basically just picking where you exactly think that price is going to be. And if you are in some of the the top 9% of traders who are able to pick the most accurate price, then you get 10x the rewards.

1:15 So, we'll let Alex go much deeper on this idea and how he sort of came up with this from first principles. And we'll get into all of that in just a second. But of course, before we dive deeper with Alex, my name is Owen and almost four years ago at this point, I co-founded Guardian. And we set out on the premise that at one point the entire global financial system is going to be able to come on chain and we're going to have billions and billions and and even trillions of dollars sitting in DeFi and that we would need a level of security standard that was a stepwise higher than we had available at the time.

1:46 And today I'm I'm happy to say that at Guardian we have achieved the standard necessary for some of the largest institutions with the biggest distribution networks and some of the largest DeFi companies with some of the the highest TVLs to be able to ship confidently and consistently without putting funds at risks or paying out large bug bounties or anything like this.

2:07 We use multiple auditing teams. We use some of the most advanced fuzzing techniques in the industry. And we use some of the best security researchers in the world to solve this problem and give a level of assurance that's so powerful that we're able to put up our own funds as a bounty on the contracts after our review.

2:26 And so really at this point, it's just a matter of time for DeFi to catch up. But of course, now with that out of the way, let us dive into this discussion with Alex from TopCut. Excellent. Well, I mean, first of all, dude, Alex, thanks so much for for taking the time to to join us today.

2:46 I think to be honest, it'd be great to start off and just talk about how did you first even before we get into everything you guys are building today. How did you even get into DeFi and like what time did you originally enter the market? What got you interested in the first place?

3:01 Yeah. that's an amazing question. So I have to briefly touch on this. I have a a background pre-crypto in in finance actually in asset management and and derivatives. So I'm I'm coming from the finance world. that's why I'm particularly interested in DeFi. And so in 2017 I I heard about Bitcoin through a friend. And so that was like the moment where I got orange pill so to say right I really did some research like I didn't touch Bitcoin itself for a month.

3:29 I just immersed myself in research. And back then, you know, it was also different. not like today where you where there's so much noise. Back then you actually still had to look for information.

3:42 Yeah.

3:43 Yes. So that was a very interesting time and and coming from finance I immediately understood the value in a in a currency that is not subject to arbitrary monetary policy like a fiat money is and that is by definition global and international without borders or controls. So I thought that was a very powerful idea back then and then soon after after I got orange built I heard about Ethereum and therefore about smart contracts and that was for me like the moment where I said holy moly this is let's keep it family friendly here this is this is not just money this is finance as a whole because with smart contracts you can do any arbitrary logic and handle tokens which are an expression of value and therefore you can create a better financial system and

4:32 So while I have this kind of history in traditional finance, I do not agree with all of the practices in in traditional finance. Quite the contrary actually. And so back then what attracted me to the industry really to also stick around for it's crazy. It's already 8 years at this point is the vibe that was present back then much more than today is to literally change finance and by extension change the world.

4:57 As cliche as it may sound, right? Because if you change money and the power structures that have to do with money, you literally change society and how

5:06 How the world works. So, I found this an extremely powerful idea and yeah, stuck around until till until I basically started to join other crypto projects in 2021, DeFi projects as a contributor and then from there on things evolved in different ways.

5:23 Yeah, that's just sufficient to say. yeah, dude. Well, I mean I first of all I totally agree. I think there's a huge amount of like pent up potential energy in that if we could disintermediate and disperse all of this surplus value that a lot of these stewards of the current system I'd say you know a lot of the payment rails and stuff like this payment processing is a very lowhanging

5:46 Fruit in terms of examples if you're able to distribute that surplus sort of obviously I guess you could say it's exactly their profit margin or their gross margin is what you could distribute back into the economy and have that like that that just that sort of friction doesn't even need to exist really if you've got everything on on blockchain rails.

6:05 So I think yeah I completely agree. I think for the ultimately for the for the betterment of the economy in general and the velocity of money in general yeah I I think that was the ideal. I think we're like you said, you said something interesting there where where it was like initially we were very much like that was very much gung-ho that was the message and now today it's kind of shifted to I don't know a good part of the narrative is like hey how do we just build this into the existing system so I don't know maybe maybe if you if you have any more thoughts on that like why do you think that shift has happened do you think it's just a maturation of the space like what what is the root cause

6:41 For that

6:41 Yeah that's a that's a really interesting question I think one factor is that basically everyone ignored is that the people who joined early in you know 2017 and even earlier than than than that. they were the early adopters they were the explorers they were like the fringe minority of society at the end of the day. Now over the cycles we become more and more mainstream in the industry and therefore we attract more and more of this literal mid-curve

7:11 You know mindset. Also, the midcurve, I mean, it's it's used in the meme all the time, but there is some truth to that. They don't necessarily, you know, care about all of these qualities. They don't want to change the world. They just want to change their own bank account into a higher number. And so, that's I think a huge influence that just comes with natural adoption.

7:34 So, let's see where this is going. But, but I have one hope maybe on on a more optimistic note. This may be a little bit controversial but let's have the spicy takes in the beginning. I think fundamentally crypto is so successful and will continue to be successful in its force to decentralization because

7:54 The user group that benefits the most are actually the top 1% or the top 01% in society like the people who are really rich because you know for Joe Mo it doesn't really matter if the bank has control over his bank account because Josh Mo owns like I don't know $5,000 to his net worth and that's it.

8:15 So they don't really need to care. so it's really about people who want to build something that requires trust like absolute trust that you can for example achieve with immutable smart contracts on a decentralized network like Ethereum or the hyper rich who you know want to know that their money is stored in a in a very safe way and that they can access it from anywhere in the world and they just need to move physically themselves basically to get out of a hairy situation.

8:40 So a weight around capital controls for example which is relevant in China and other parts of the world and perhaps become more relevant in general also in the EU. Let's see. So I think this at the end of the day those are the right curves so to say to to keep with the meme and they will at the end of the day ensure that the that at least some networks will stay actual decentralized.

9:05 Absolutely. You know, I never really fully thought about it that way, but I think you're absolutely right. Like the value proposition to the folks with the most assets, it that's just where the best value proposition is. Like even just moving funds, like if you're going to move funds and do a bank wire and get a fee on that and you're moving a billion dollars, that's going to be like handful a handful of million dollars of like fees that you're going to end up paying.

9:27 But if you do like a layer zero transfer, it's like sense

9:30 If they even allow you to move the money. That's the thing. Yeah,

9:33 That's actually like potentially the bigger problem

9:36 And and and even like normal normal people already experienced like I myself experienced this. I have a totally normal bank account here in the UAE. I wanted to send some money to my family, right? Not a huge amount but they then started to question my family although it comes from my account in my name. Where's this money coming from?

9:56 And of course we have the same family name obviously, right? Where is this coming from? And and and so on and so forth. and in fact that they closed the account of one of my family members. So, you know, it's ridiculous in what type of world we live in in in in terms of how controlled finance is and how repressive it really is.

10:13 Yeah. You really cannot be fundamentally free if somebody is controlling your assets, if somebody's controlling your inflow of assets, anything along that pipeline because I mean in today's world, like let's be honest, like you need to have access to a bank account. You need to be able to have like sovereignty over your own assets.

10:30 Yes.

10:32 So, I think we've we've touched on an interesting point here which I want to go a little bit deeper on on a recent event which is that hey, we're going to need decentralized networks at the very least. you know, some portion of blockchain networks are going to probably remain decentralized just for the sheer fact that, you know, people are going to want there's some subsection of the population that's going to want some kind of a a guarantee that there's no counterparty or no one counterparty or no small handful of counterparties that could just seize their assets.

11:04 So, I'd love to to get your opinion if you have any if you want to express any on the what happened with Sui and the the Cetus exploit if you're familiar where they basically had I don't know in maybe a handful of hours they had all the validators push an update and basically just froze the hackers funds and then now they've had like a vote or something to either just like recover the funds or I don't know what the other option was but basically they voted to like take somebody's funds on the network.

11:35 So I guess if you have any thoughts on that, what what is your stance? Do you think that's decentralized? What are your thoughts on those?

11:42 Yeah. So absolutely not. I think it is an objective fact that you can really say that it is not as given the speed in which this happened that

11:54 Is not is not sufficiently decentralized. However, I think it is actually okay in the early stages of a network. Like think back to the to the DAO hack in Ethereum,

12:07 Right? Which led to the hardc fork fork, Ethereum classic and Ethereum which we have now. where they essentially did the same thing and I think in the early stages of a network that that degree of centralization and the degree of insecurity about censorship resistance at the end of the day is acceptable but as you mature and as you acrew billions and tens of billions and eventually trillions of dollars of assets on your network that is not acceptable anymore that's why I also personally think that there is like Ethereum has gotten its act together in terms of communication recently and they have always been on the forefront of research and sheer economic network effect.

12:48 So I think that they will stay relevant. Let's put it this way.

12:51 Yeah, absolutely. I think it also just makes it harder for any institution to underwrite that network and say like, okay, we're going to we're going to have some type of fund or something on this network after an event like that. I'll even say like being able to push an update like that within I don't know maybe a handful of hours is also just kind of scary to think like I'm pretty sure you didn't get any external audits of what you pushed in the in the number of hours.

13:15 So and I I even looked at one of the PRs and it was like it had a comment like warning this is like a dangerous thing. So like I don't I don't know what the security process was there but that's also just sends shivers down my spine. But but yeah I think obviously yeah that's a great point.

13:32 I think early on, yeah, I mean, even Ethereum has has had the same. I think that it will it will definitely be a consideration for institutions and people who, you know, want to know if they do have a counterparty, who that counterparty is because at this point, at this stage, if you're putting a large amount of funds on Sui, it seems like for now, your counterparty is the foundation and maybe if if a handful of the nodes want to collaborate, that would be possible as well.

13:59 Yeah. So just just an interesting recent event and I think it has been a a point of controversy, but I think it's it's an important point to touch on because like it is like not all these networks are the same. Like there's now I don't even know how many tens of thousands of networks that exist and I think folks kind of just oh it's another L2 or it's another L1.

14:20 Not all of these networks are the same and there is a reason why Ethereum has the line share of a lot of the the DeFi TVL and a lot of the economic activity. and I think I think that network effect will start to become clear. I know ETH has not been performing well price-wise, but I think the network effect and the and the security guarantees there, people will start to realize like, hey, that's not exactly replicable very easily.

14:42 I think that's a huge moat.

14:43 And to be honest, that's part of the game. Like again coming from a certain financial background games are played in the way that is maximally beneficial of course for

14:55 Those who have the capital already

14:57 And they don't want to buy into a hot trend that is you know momentum that is exploding they want things to consolidate so that they can acquire a significant share for a reasonable price and you know so it's part of the game and I think if you take the then it's okay. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I guess following from that, I'm kind of interested to see like what are your thoughts on, you know, ETH versus Solana versus maybe like move like adoption?

15:27 Do you think that ETH wins out over the long term? Like let's say 10, 15, 20 years down the line, does Solana topple ETH? and like for what reason?

15:36 Well, you could argue in some metrics it already toppled ETH, right? But

15:40 The thing is what are the relevant metrics? And I think for a layer 1 and even a layer 2, but specifically for a layer 1, the relevant metric is definitely TVL because right that tells you how much economic energy is basically stored in that network and therefore by proxy how much trust you can have in the network.

15:59 Yeah, there is a really really significant capital network effect in general in finance and that translates into DeFi and into crypto as a whole like as a capital network. That's literally what crypto blockchains are. So I think it is very very difficult for other smart contract platforms to topple ETH over the long run. And at the same time that's also one of the reasons I think that Bitcoin experiences this extreme overperformance at the moment because it has the largest capital network effect among all blockchains by far.

16:32 And therefore basically it's like like a black hole. the bigger the black hole is the more it attracts. So that's kind of like how to think about it, I guess, or how I think about it. But unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum and its layer 2s are actually useful. I mean, this is actually kind of like sort of frustrating to see.

16:50 So when I came in joined crypto or got interested in crypto in 2017, Bitcoin itself was about revolutioning fi revolutionizing finance and money. And then somewhere along the way maybe was it 2021 or 2022 somewhere there around the narrative completely got shifted towards it's a digital store of value and the reality is that a store of value is just one function of the three functions of money right you have store of value medium of exchange and unit of account and so if you have a digital currency that is just a store of value but it is never exchanged between parties because it is sitting in an ETF then you lose lose the property that actually gives it the the right to be a store of value in the long run.

17:34 And so I honestly like okay maybe we don't talk about bitcoin so much but this is yeah I I just observed this that there has been a huge narrative shift and which made me actually bearish long term about bitcoin not not in a short term obviously right but smart contract platforms like ethereum have actual utility that they can provide and they have the community and the researchers in the background actually that are interested in scaling that network also through the various means right and bitcoin doesn't have that so in my mind bitcoin can never be used as money because even if like everyone in the US want to make one transaction on the Bitcoin network in the month just to pay rent for example you would already exceed the capacity of the Bitcoin network so

18:16 It just doesn't work it's just not money and so I think that particularly Ethereum and the layer 2 ecosystem around it has a huge like perspective to cover these type of use cases

18:28 Absolutely and I love the the idea or the the metaphor they made for like a black hole with with the economic sort of gravity that a network gets. And I think like you said, Bitcoin, it's just pure economic gravity. Like at that point, that's how it's growing. It's just relying on the fact that it has a $2 trillion market cap and everybody talks about it to a lesser extent.

18:50 But ETH also has that utility and and the utility to me is like it's like an app store. Like that's the go-to market for ETH to be able to drag in more capital outside of the network effect. Of course, that will continue to compound and compound, but I think what we could see is the utility on top of that starts to compound it even faster because you're building you have I don't even know how many, you know, a couple tens of thousands of developers building on Ethereum in the EVM ecosystem and they're building applications that each do their own go to market and they each try to go and get users and I think unfortunately right now we have the situation where a lot of these developers and teams are just marketing against each So,

19:32 It's kind of just like they're just shifting around the same liquidity, but eventually we will get some of the applications that start to go out and bring more users into the circle. And I think that the really exciting thing about that is that it grows the pie for everybody. And since it's a permissionless, open and like infinitely composable network, then it's like if somebody goes and they bring in another hundred billion dollars of liquidity onto ETH, then everybody on the network benefits from that.

19:59 And that is I think that's truly the flywheel effect that you know maybe it's starting to take off but once we really hit you know maybe those first handful of applications that really start to drag people in like I'm talking about an application that you could run Facebook ads and users will start depositing their funds into it.

20:17 Like once that happens first of all somebody's going to make a lot of money doing that. But when we're able to get to that point then I think stuff starts to get really exciting on the EVM networks. But yeah,

20:28 You just described our long-term perspective and strategy.

20:31 Well, I hope you do it. I hope you guys do it. Yeah. So, I mean, let's let's talk about that. So, well, I mean, before you even get into that, you said you started to contribute to a few DeFi protocols early on.

20:43 Yes.

20:44 So, what were those protocols? What were you interested in initially?

20:47 So, in general always catch my interest like I was like reading in the day it was actually manageable to read up on all of the DeFi projects. was I was interested in in everything that was coming coming out. I contributed to a few one was actually a Perpetual Protocol which was back in the day a big but these days not so big anymore you know on a voluntary basis contributed there and I worked for Flashstake and for Gains Network for some time.

21:16 Oh nice.

21:17 So those were my my engagements before I founded Possum Labs.

21:21 Okay. So I could see definitely in the in the purpose and trading space before perhaps gave a little bit of inspiration for for what you guys are are working on now. But so I guess first of all what what made you decide to like hey I want to start working on on our own projects. Was it just you know seeing how these others were run?

21:40 That is actually one factor. Possum maybe a little bit short about the origin story of Possum. Possum stands for positive sum and this goes back to the idea where crypto came from in 2017 and earlier that that we're here to you know improve at least some part of the world and create value. So the observation was that or is that more and more projects as you mentioned also are engaging in this zero sum competition.

22:06 They're just shifting around the same liquidity with token incentives and other schemes. And so it's like extremely cutthroat and just not the the type of yeah the vibe that that was in the industry before that attracted me to the industry. So Possum Possum Labs was an attempt to say okay you know the advice be the change that you like to see in the world.

22:32 I said, "Okay, I have some skills." and there were some strategic disagreements with the team at Flashstake that I had at the time. So, I left Flashstake. was still working in some capacity for games against Gains Network, but I was thinking about okay, what can I do here to like you know put something out there that that follows a different path at the end of the day and so that is what how Possum Labs came together.

22:57 There was first a was we had even a prototype with some outsourced developers in the very early days which didn't even you know anyone knows about because I killed that before before we went to market but then we created a then I basically first took a break and said okay let me refocus I go on vacation it was summer summer of 20 what is that 23

23:20 Mhm. 23. time is time is a relative concept in crypto. so I was going on vacation with my girlfriend and being being relaxed and I just had this voice in the back of my head that told me, "Hey, you have I was I was working mostly as a mechanism designer, so in the economics department of these protocols

23:43 And so I have this like skill already. what what is kind of like the the missing skill is solidity development coding. So I said while I was on vacation okay cool in a relaxed atmosphere let's just dive into it and that's what I did and when I came back I used AI as also as a tutor as you know as a as a sparing partner asking questions and things exploring concepts really helpful for that not so much for generating code at least back then I don't know how it's not these days and so I came back and basically had the smart contracts ready for the first product that we then launched in November and that because that was an upfront yield product.

24:25 It was called portals. Quite similar to similar in the value proposition at least to what I was working on on Flashstake beforehand but very different in terms of its architecture and economics and so on and so forth. So yeah that was kind of the first product. Unfortunately we had to come to the realization that there are like one key assumption in the economic model didn't materialize in reality.

24:48 And so it's always about you know economics is always about assumptions at the end of the day is your when you try to predict something right user behavior or economic dynamics are the assumptions sound or not and there is no in in the last instance there is no other way to verify this than to try it out in the in the world in the real world.

25:08 So that's what we did. We got like 600 $700,000 dollars in TVL but then it was became clear that there is just an inherent economic scaling issue because of a failing base assumption and so that is basically when the pivot happened. that was that was last year where we had to say okay we need to try something else and there was a whole lot of other things but in between like smaller side projects in terms of governance innovating governance because that's also relevant if you have a token and we had a token because our token was integrated in portals as an actual functional unit.

25:46 So we didn't just launch a token because that's that's what crypto projects do. we actually needed the token but then you know the product doesn't work. So maybe other people would say, "Okay, screw it. Everyone knew what they were signing up for when they buy the token. So let's just abandon that altogether and do something new." Instead, I'm kind of like an idealist and said, "Okay, I mean, I really appreciate when people put trust in me.

26:06 So I want to return that favor and not abandon them even though the product didn't work." And so we still have the token. It was still relevant. And on the way to where we are now, we experimented with treasury management, onchain treasury management, meaning governance essentially in in some novel ways, which actually received some positive feedback for sure from the community.

26:27 So yeah, you know, it's a process. It's a process to build.

26:30 Yeah, absolutely. So obviously you've mentioned a few different ideas you've played around with here. And something I think we see in the founder space today is people doing exactly that. kind of this like venture studio model of just trying different things as opposed to just, you know, raising money and then just going all in on one thing until it works.

26:47 Was that kind of always your ideal to try different things and experiment with different products if possible?

26:52 Yes, because so I'm I'm a big product first guy. I I think that if your product you can you can pump up everything if you have enough VC money in the background you make enough marketing and you know maybe some price manipulation which is not so uncommon in in crypto. So all of that is possible and it's it's done enough times that everyone knows about it but I want to create a product that actually genuinely has value and so I don't need huge amounts of money to do that in crypto.

27:23 You just literally if I can code myself which I learned then the biggest expenses are basically gone because I'm I'm covering all the expensive parts. So then it comes down to get the first couple users and see if you have product market fit and if that is proven then one way is to continue bootstrap it because a product that has product market fit will inevitably grow or the other way is to raise then a series A or whatever you know at a higher valuation which is much more capital efficient as well to then supercharge the growth.

27:52 So I don't want this classical seed round VC dependent type of business model but rather create something that people actually want to use.

28:02 Yeah, I totally agree with the approach. I think more and more people are seeing that in the in the founding space nowadays and I think it's healthy for for business and startups overall. Yeah. So flashing forward to today, you're working on TopCut finance now. Can you maybe TLDDR what it is overall and then maybe we can get under the hood of how it works?

28:18 Yeah, absolutely. quite excited about that. So I think the slogan kind of hits it already. It's it says trading without the fine print or trade without the fine print which really encapsulates the essence of it. So what TopCut is all about is reducing the complexity of trading for the users to the absolute essence of what trading really is.

28:41 And now having enough experience in that area, that's kind of like how this idea came came to me. And I have to I have to add like this is not a process that it's kind of like a process that that just happened overnight but at the same time it's not. It's like some sort of I always had this in the back of my head there should be like crypto is all about trading at the end of the day in one way or another like exchanging value and transferring value.

29:05 There should be a better way of doing this than perp DEXs for example or options. All of these things are just transporting traditional finance on chain. but they are actually less efficient than in traditional finance. They have higher costs for the users which is not great. And so instead of what you mentioned basically taking a proven concept and making it let's say 10% more efficient and raising money for that.

29:33 I want to take the freedom to say how about rethinking the entire premise of what it could mean,

29:39 Right? And that is a freedom that you have if you don't necessarily have investors in your in your neck. Right? So so that is how TopCut the idea of TopCut came to be over at the end of the day years of having a something building in the back of my head and then one one day literally waking up and taking a shower and saying that's actually an interesting idea.

30:00 Maybe we should just do this. so TopCut is about reducing complexity of trading to a simple price prediction. So what users do is they predict a price let's say of Bitcoin but it could be any cryptocurrency. It could also be an off-chain asset like the S&P 500, gold, the euro, US dollar, forex, etc. Anything that has a reliable price oracle like Chainlink, they make a price prediction on that asset for a given settlement date time.

30:29 And then the the best 9% of all predictions get 10 times their capital back. So they make a clean 10x. The others obviously they don't get anything back. They lost this round, right? But of course you can participate in in multiple rounds and and over time etc. So and you can even cast multiple predictions which is also a relevant factor.

30:52 But the point is you don't have to worry about funding fees. You don't have to worry about stop- losses or liquidations or premiums if you trade options and how to structure them and so on. Like there is so much complexity, technical complexity in trading that doesn't need to be there because at the end of the day the best traders are those who can most accurately forecast the next movement of the market in whatever time period they they do.

31:16 And that's the base baseline of of TopCut, right? Just make it simple and at the same time versatile like flexible, useful. Yeah, it's a very like first principles approach to to trading like like take a step back, forget everything you know about perps and options. You predict price, you get money if you get the right price.

31:36 Exactly. Exactly. And it it I I want to also differentiate this a little bit further. So trading I think it is trading but it is also important to note that this is not a financial instrument, right? at like a perp future for example because you're not trading an actual like financial asset. You're just making a price prediction.

31:58 Yeah.

31:58 At the same time it is not gambling because at least in my definition gambling is an activity that has some odds that you cannot influence but in trading in fact you can improve your skill at forecasting prices with technique with experience and so on. So it's not gambling either. It is actually trading but it is not a financial instrument.

32:18 It is just a new way of well trading expressing your market view. That's a good way to put it.

32:24 Yeah, it's kind of like how do you see this in comparison to a normal like prediction market? I think the biggest difference is probably just that there's there's an asymmetric return where it's like either you're in the money and you get a 10x or you're out of the money, you don't get anything.

32:39 That is one thing. Yes. But you could in theory replicate that on a prediction market. For example, if there is the probability is 10% that Bitcoin is ends above a certain price and it actually does that, then you 10x your money as well. But the difference is that prediction markets are incredibly efficient. So if the probability is priced at 10% in the prediction market, it is like the actual probability of that happening is very close to 10%.

33:08 So there is like essentially no edge in in participating in a prediction market and that comes from the fact that and that's a huge difference that prediction markets can be traded up until the settlement of the market. So that means to continue this example you enter when the probability is 10%. But let's say 5 minutes before settlement the probability is actually at 99.9% because it's basically sure that it will end this way.

33:34 So you already made the money. You could sell at that point and don't even wait for settlement. You already made the money. The difference is in TopCut you have what we call a trade duration which is essentially a period where you cannot enter new predictions in that particular cohort until it is settled. Right? So let's say we have a market with a trade duration of one day 24 hours.

33:58 That means 24 hours up until settlement no predictions are accepted. And that means you really need to cast your prediction 24 hours at least before the settlement. And therefore, you have the same kind of conditions than anyone else participating in that cohort because everyone is locked in for these 24 hours and then the market just does what the market does.

34:19 Yeah. And it's it's very discreet in that you can place all of these like it's it's you're placing a discrete bet. It's not everybody sort of trading on this continuous probability. So yeah, it is very interesting to think about the differences there and I think you it it it almost like handicaps the efficiency like you can't like there is edge to be had out of this if you actually are better at at predicting.

34:45 I guess you could say you you have the same edge in a prediction market if you're early on in the market and you have that edge. But

34:53 Yeah,

34:54 I don't know. I I think here it's obviously it's just it's not a way in in which trading has been exposed to people before.

35:01 It is I don't know any other protocol that has attempted something like that. I do know about a gambling I have heard about a gambling type of platform that has used a similar concept but only like the one closest prediction wins the entire pot. So you don't that is gambling because you don't have a reliable way of being the one closest you know on a consistent basis.

35:26 Also you don't know in any given round the amount of participants are different. So you don't know what is your payout. In TopCut all of these things are fixed right you you know that you get a 10x if you are among the 9% of best predictions. And 9% is actually quite a lot like it's not so unrealistic to be among the top nine on a fairly regular basis right so that is why it is actually useful as a trading vehicle and can also be combined with existing financial products and existing DeFi protocols to create like for you know there is the this kind of like I don't really like to think about here in the terms of left curve mid-curve right curve but there is the simple way of using this platform right which

36:10 Is is you say, "Okay, I make a one prediction and if it hits, then I get 10x back." You can go a little bit more advanced and say I maybe make three predictions or five predictions because if one of them is correct, I still get 10x back which means I'm in profit, right? So you can increase your odds at the end of the day because you can place those predictions strategically and and you can also combine TopCut with existing like perp platforms and so on.

36:36 For example, as a hedge, like let's say you go 5x long or we had recently on Twitter was this this guy blew up, right, who who traded the $1 billion position on on Bitcoin. I mean, he is too too large for TopCut like we would not be able to handle the size, which is by the way also a distinction I want to get at but let's say he was smaller.

36:57 Let's say he was actual retail, then he could have put a a prediction to the downside with a small size and and now that he got liquidated perhaps or it's very potentially likely that his prediction would be among the top 9% of in that cohort and therefore he would offset his loss in the long position, right? And so his main position is a a perp future but his hedge position is on TopCut.

37:22 So there is many ways you can you can structure your trading strategy. And so it's it's just another tool in the tool belt of of traders.

37:29 Yeah, definitely. I think there's a lot of things we could get into from what you said, I guess, on the user the user experience end of things. How accurate does your prediction need to be? How refined are you guessing a price? What does that look like from from the user end?

37:45 So this is the great part. it just needs to be more accurate than other participants, other traders, right? because there is no objective type of

37:56 Right

37:56 Offset or threshold. It is really just the system basic basically takes in all of the predictions from all participants and then it calculates onchain in an immutable smart contract what is what are the the top 9% in that cohort and they automatically get assigned their 10x reward. So it's really it's a it's a it's a competitive environment which trading in general is right and so I don't want to sugarcoat this.

38:23 If you're a bad trader you will lose money no matter where you trade, no matter what instrument you use. that's just a reality and that's by the way also okay because that's a start for everyone and that's a learning curve you need to go through. but there is a path to actually get proficient in this and be profitable.

38:41 So you are competing against other traders on TopCut but only on TopCut and this is a huge distinction right let's contrast this with traditional trading let's say even outside of web 3 right a traditional trading you have a broker you trade let's say the forex market or the S&P 500 doesn't matter you are competing as a retail trader you are competing against the biggest financial institutions with the smartest people working on the craziest smartest algorithms in the world using AI and whatnot.

39:16 That's like my mentor in trading has put this very succinctly. He said if you if you come to trading as a retail trader, it's like as if you how you are in your current physical fitness go into the ring in the boxing ring with Vitali Klitschko or Mike Tyson at their highest time, right? the probability that you come out alive is very small actually.

39:40 So that is the reality in trading and that's one of the reasons why especially short-term traders are not profitable like n more than 90% of people just lose money and and that is something that is different in TopCut because you only compete essentially against retail other retail people that are like you. Of course there are quite advanced retail traders as well.

40:08 I'm not going to lie. Sure. But but still on average, we're talking average, right? The probability should be way higher that you're profitable on top because you are competing against retail exclusively. And the reason why you are competing against retail exclusively is because we are norming we're standardizing the the trade size. So there will for example be a market that settles every on Bitcoin that settles every 24 hours that accepts trades for 0.01 ether like $25 or so right only retail is interested in that type of trade size even if you put multiple predictions and then maybe we have another market that is 0.1 ether $270 $300 who who cares maybe we will even have a market at some point that will allow you to bet if you want to call it that way one

40:54 Ether per per trade. that is still nothing like it is okay for retail I would say so our target target customer group or target users right is retail traders with a bank size of let's say $500 to maybe at the very maximum $5 million okay and that excludes essentially all financial institutions but it covers like 99.9% of all retail traders so that's kind of like the the value proposition or an additional under the hood value proposition of TopCut that you compete against people that are like you.

41:29 Right. So from from a game theory perspective, it's it's PvP. There's no house that you you need to beat. And I think you're touching on this at the end here, but you mentioned you wanted to get into how the like liquidity depth works. Maybe you could touch on that.

41:41 Yeah, sure. So in simple terms, traders bring the liquidity for the market that they compete in. So there is no liquidity issue by definition. There can only ever be liquidity issues if there are less than 11 traders in a given cohort and not even traders less than 11 predictions, right? And if you know traders make multiple predictions on average like essentially there are no liquidity problems for retail because they themselves provide the liquidity for the winners essentially.

42:11 Yeah. And I love about this like the way that we've simplified trading from you know all the instrument side of things. It also strips everything down and and makes it very clear that it is a PVP thing. I think that in trading it's so abstracted and you're just trading this this ticker symbol and you've got all this stuff that it's like very unclear that you are in fact trading against everybody in the world who's also trading this this asset.

42:35 So I think it's also very cool how you know once you strip everything away and you approach it from first principles then it is like it's very clear that oh if I'm in the top 10% of traders then I make it 10x which is roughly equivalent to what what happens today and it I would say it's probably top like 1% of traders make like 100x but

42:57 It's it's actually much much harder than that like if you if you are so statistics okay let's talk statistics in traditional trading the top bottom 90% lose. Okay. Yeah. then the rest is starting at break even. Now if you talk about people who make on a yearly basis outperform the S&P so make more than 11 12% on average then we're talking already about like 1% of people.

43:24 So talking about 1,000% per year, which if you, you know, manage your position size correctly on on top and you are among the top 9% consistently, then that's what you're looking at. That is basically unheard of in traditional trading. So the opportunity, TopCut is all about reducing the complexity and maximizing the opportunity for retail traders

43:45 And that is just inherent to the statistics. Yeah, it's very interesting to think about how that plays out and I think I think there's a lot of interesting strategies here where like you mentioned you can place multiple bets or m multiple predictions and so I mean then you can hedge you can set like oh I want to set this range for I want to have coverage for are there any like have you thought about strategies personally like what what would be your approach to to betting on on TopCut?

44:11 Yeah, sure. So actually we're running a prediction game right now in our discord which basically takes the concept and just says okay we don't have the protocol yet and of course there is no risk for people because all you need to do is be part of our discord to have three predictions that you can make and then you know people can just place them however they want.

44:31 You could place them all at one number and so you can win three times if if you know that is the closest number or you do ranges etc. It's very interesting how people are using it and I did some quantitative analysis of it which I will post on X soon can forward it to you if you're interested but it's it's it's like it's actually interesting to see how people are using it and how I would use it in the wild is definitely

44:57 It depends on the situation honestly like that that's trading in nutshell it depends on the situation but there are interesting concepts like for example

45:05 The most basic one is which also many people actually do in the discord Right now if you have if you take three predictions then you can make one to the upside one to the downside and one t somewhere in the middle where you think the market maybe doesn't do much right that is like the basic type of approach I guess but you could also refine this because again like if even just one of your predictions is among the winners you get 10x back.

45:29 So technically speaking you could make nine predictions and if only one hits you still are in profit. and so there is some flexibility to express a strategy or and shape a strategy very much to your personal conviction. So for example, let's say I would take five I would make five predictions. Maybe I would still take let's say I'm bullish.

45:54 I take one prediction to the downside just to basically hedge myself. Maybe one somewhere in the middle in case the market doesn't do anything. and then I take three to the upside at different locations at different prices to to cover a certain yeah price range where I think it's very likely that the price ends up. And so the advantage is not only that it's more likely that one of my predictions is a winner, but also the possibility that potentially even two or even three of my predictions are winners in the same cohort, right?

46:23 Because they're all placed to the upside. So there's there's a ton creative people can can do with that system.

46:29 Yeah. Yeah. And I can imagine folks are looking at like support levels and like placing them around there and stuff like that and doing all the classical TA but applying it to this sort of paradigm. And maybe there's even some new like TA metrics or whatever that come out of this. I know people always look at like the crazy like charts of like I don't know Fibonacci and like all this all this random stuff

46:52 But yeah so I I think it it definitely will be interesting to see that that analysis and see how people are using it. I think it's also like it's like you said I like the analysis like okay it's very easy to be like let's say you place nine trades and only one of them has to hit for you to be in the money.

47:08 It's I think it's very clear that now instead of having to be in the top 90% of traders to break even. Now let's say it was top 10% of traders make 10x. You would just have to be in a 50% trader and then if you place 10 and one of them hits then you're break even. But with the 9% I think you know maybe it's like 60%.

47:28 If you're if you have a little bit of an edge then you can be a break even or profitable trader. So I think it it definitely flattens the curve in that in that sense and allows

47:39 You know it spreads the the wealth in that sense. So I think first of all it'll be interesting to see how this plays out and I think there's a lot to peel back and and think about here like why fundamentally it is that now it's not it's not so much of a winner take all game. It's kind of weird to say that when 9% are taking 10x but that is much better than trading today.

48:02 Yeah I think so I think there's there's some really interesting factors at play fundamentally here but yeah so I mean I'm I'm interested to see that that analysis. So I mean definitely definitely share it when when when you've you've put it out. But yeah I think in terms of what you've been seeing from folks who are interested is it existing traders who are maybe using perp DEXs today that are coming in and they're interested what what's like the archetype of person who comes in.

48:26 Yeah sure. So they definitely need to be interested in active trading.

48:31 Yeah.

48:31 So there is actually there is a reason to that that is inherent in the value proposition. So one concept that I didn't that I mentioned somewhere in the in the beginning is implied leverage. So maybe let's dive into that for a moment because that that gives a good insight into for whom is this product really interesting. So let's say Bitcoin.

48:49 Okay. we try to trade Bitcoin traditional way with a perp future. What would need to be true to make a 10x with a perp future on your capital in 24 hours? So, first of all, what is

49:04 Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's it's hard. You need to have very high leverage because the average day like the 24-hour movement of Bitcoin, not counting the VIX, but like open to close is maybe let's say 2%, to keep the math easy. That's roughly realistic.

49:21 So, to make a 10x, which is 1,000%, you need to have a 500x leverage in a perp future to achieve a 10x in 24 hours. right so the probability you time your entry so perfectly that you don't get liquidated that you don't get stopped out is extremely low

49:42 At this type of leverage right and that does not even consider the trading fees that you incur that further extracts away so basically that exponentially increases the actual leverage that you need for a clean 10x yeah that's that's pretty crazy if you consider that but let's keep the fees out just just the pure price movement would require a 500x leverage on average for for Bitcoin per day.

50:04 So that means if now on TopCut you can make a 10x in a 24-hour period, that means that you actually trade an implied leverage of 500x, but you don't have liquidations, you don't have a stop-loss, you don't have all funding fees, you don't have all of these complexities. That means your probability that you actually arrive in the top 9% is much higher than than trading with 500x leverage on on a perfect.

50:34 Yeah, I would say that I mean not one in 10 people are going to be able to make that trade.

50:39 Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

50:41 So, and that and that advantage that implied leverage is higher the shorter the trade duration is, the shorter the speculation window, right? for example, if you take a monthly like trade instead, then I I don't have the number in my head, but maybe you need a a 50x leverage on Bitcoin instead for 10x, right? And not a 500x leverage.

51:05 So then the implied leverage if we had a monthly market on TopCut the implied leverage would only be 50x which you know is is still good if you can circumvent the liquidation risk and so on as we have just recently seen on Twitter with this guy but still like the value proposition basically goes down that means the product is really for day traders and swing traders so people who want to trade on a 24-hour basis or maybe on a weekly basis we're considering to to launch markets on a 7-day with a 7-day window right at the start.

51:38 But we have to also see what is in demand at the end of the day, right? What do users want?

51:44 Yeah. Also, it there is a very big difference between predicting prices on a 24-hour basis versus predicting prices like 6 months out. I think yeah, much harder to to tell. Like within 24 hours, I'm pretty sure I know, you know, plus or minus 2% of where we are here. That's really where we are unless something wild happens.

52:06 I think that would actually be interesting is like when we come up to some kind of an event, Fed meeting or something like that to see how the predictions are moving and and what kind of strategies people are using. Yeah. It would also be just fascinating to see like cuz you you probably see skews in the market, skews in the predictions where everybody's predicting one side and everybody's predicting the other side.

52:28 And what's cool about this is you don't need to have any funding between those to balance the sides because there's no like counterparty. There's no exchange that's like would be taking opposite side of that. So yeah, that that's really interesting to think about. I think this will be studied for a long time. There's a lot of interesting like novel behaviors because you've sort of just removed this entire reliance on price trading in real time.

52:52 It's just like, hey, put your tickets in and top top nine percent win. But

52:59 Yeah, so I mean in terms of where you guys are at today, what So obviously the product is is not out yet, but when is the the launch plan? What are you guys working on at this moment? How's that going?

53:12 It's going great. The smart contracts are actually feature complete. I am in the last stage of testing, unit testing, and then

53:19 And then of course into into audits. So that goes quick. The front end is also almost complete. Like we're we're moving extremely fast on the technical side. What holds us back is or let me put it differently. What I have learned from past launches is that the go to market to organize that properly and to coordinate with people and to onboard partnerships and so on.

53:41 That is quite important. And so I have a lot of talks with different ecosystems and different players in the market to to make this a good launch

53:50 And to have some awareness from from day one. But from a technical point of view, we could launch in like two weeks.

53:56 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I I think that is like that is a huge bottleneck when it comes to a lot of DeFi applications is like just can you get the the liquidity and I can imagine for something new that's like it's totally new primitive. You're kind of like creating a new market, a new vertical for for trading applications.

54:13 What is that like? I can imagine the approach is a lot of education and a lot of like trying to explain the primitive. So I mean like what what is your approach to this? How how do you think you're going to sort of bring this primitive into existence in the mind share of of DeFi?

54:29 Yeah, I think that it needs to be a a multifaceted strategy at the end of the day.

54:34 Yeah.

54:34 Like long form content like we're doing right now that is great for educating and for going into into the you know nuts and bolts for people to really understand what's going on. There will be certainly formats of that be it in written or in video form or audio whatever but then also those are already you know the people who really want to know things who

54:56 Watch an hour podcast or something like that but you need to reach people in the first place and that is for example on Twitter it needs to be extremely succinct and short and to the point and surface level at the end of the day simple

55:09 100x 100x

55:10 Yeah exactly well it's a 10x but still it's it's eye-catching right

55:14 The the thing is that the beauty of this product which is why I have high confidence that this will actually work out well is that it is simple. it can be communicated in a very simple and effective way, right? as you as you said earlier, place your trade

55:30 10x boom that's it. Like if you want to make it as short as that that's possible. Yeah, it's really about at the end of the day consistency and collaborating with enough people that that you know traders get aware of it and that is in the first step. So the long-term like vision of this is it is truly a new type of or vertical of trading as you said.

55:52 So that is not only interesting for crypto people, that is also interesting for just traditional traders. And and so we start obviously with the crypto people and the crypto niche because that is like inherently the easiest I guess to reach customer group for this particular product. But the idea is that with you know UX improvement with account abstraction and and all of these things over time we can really have a web two type of experience and then also marketed to web two type of users and onboard them to crypto.

56:24 That is the the big vision for the long term to really establish this as a a fundamental decentralized infrastructure for a new way of trading.

56:34 Yeah. And that's interesting. I think like in terms of let's say you know grand vision it could even be like do you see yourself even extending to like mass retail like even the people who are you know not even looking at the charts necessarily and not like doing any sort of TA they're just hey I just want to come and you know maybe maybe like a I obviously I don't want to compare this to like a pump fund but the people who just want to come and they just want to take you know wild bets and they would say like okay I think price is going to go to here because my friend Joey said or you know whatever.

57:07 Do you think it could go you know like mass adoption like that and just have you know millions of people who are you know maybe not that sophisticated but they just want to have like a lowkey way low stakes to take bets like that.

57:20 Yeah. in principle, yes. I I love by the way that you bring up the memecoin traders because frankly I think if we are in competition with anyone really, it's actually the memecoin tra memecoin platforms because the thing is I mentioned earlier like this type of trading can be combined with existing financial instruments and DeFi. So I don't really feel like we're necessarily competing against them.

57:44 But memecoins are really about this you either make it or you lose it all because of a rug pull or because of a pump and dump, right? So this is this in-n-out quick money 10x your thing in a day and that is exactly what we're providing but in a much fairer environment because it's an even playing field, right?

58:01 You know exactly what you're getting get into. So I think that is certainly an audience that is interesting to market to and then well I think there's a lot of people who just generally don't want to do anything in finance and you know have some aversion against that so there is certainly like a limit to that in terms of users but they are in the millions when we talk globally probably like rather tens of millions if not hundreds it's a huge market

58:26 So I'm not concerned about you know

58:29 Limits too will not be a limiting factor

58:31 Yes exactly exactly So it's just a matter of continuing to grow. First of all, of course, first step, baby steps, proof product market fit, actually see how people use the platform, what they want to see, both in terms of user experience on the UI, but also in terms of maybe other markets or different periods, etc., and then

58:51 Going step by step along along the way. I I'm not a fan of road maps that, you know, go out 5 years. I think those are things artifacts made for VC pitches because no one can actually in a startup predict where you end up in 5 years. That's just nonsense.

59:05 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think it's I mean the most important thing here to me is that you have a community that's like actively using it and you're getting feedback in real time before you even have the product. I mean first of all that shows interest. It shows like hey probably without any kind of huge marketing push day one you're going to have people using the product and you're going to be able to get good solid feedback from that day one.

59:26 And and continue to iterate and then get it right. And then I think I the ideal is if you can figure out a platform where somebody comes and they place, you know, price prediction and then they keep using it every every week and they keep placing price predictions. Maybe something I don't know maybe there might be a way to sort of game it give them a little dopamine hit.

59:46 Maybe they hit their first one somehow. But yeah, so that will be interesting to see. and I think that you've got the right setup to be able to get that and just iterate and get get the product exactly right and get the experience exactly right so that when you do take it and you do like the really big marketing push, then you've got, you know, just users coming in and they're staying with you and probably even referring other people.

1:00:09 It is

1:00:09 I think the word of mouth will be the biggest part. This is an interesting point maybe just to briefly touch on this because when I think about building DeFi protocols I don't think about building a business necessarily. I think about building an actual product a piece of infrastructure right and

1:00:26 That means one is that I'm a big fan of like immutability because it like literally ensures everyone who uses it but also builds on top of it that it will remain like it will keep working how it how it is designed to work. It's very important to create network effects but I designed it in a way that there is some revenue and that revenue is fully distributed to participants in a network that add value.

1:00:51 Yeah.

1:00:51 In a in an onchain way. So we have of course a reward for keepers like bots who settle the markets periodically, right? So they need to be compensated for that. There is a revenue share for them. Then we have a revenue share for front-end hosts. So anyone who integrates the protocol the smart contracts into their UI and bring and hosts this to for users like provides access gets a revenue share that is you know guaranteed by immutable code.

1:01:18 So we will run one front end of course but partners can run their white labels or you know a wallet a wallet software could integrate that into their software like there are so many ways to for other people to make a business out of simply providing access to the protocol and they don't need to think about like actual product development or anything because it's already there.

1:01:39 And the third one is we have an affiliate onchain affiliate system. So you said referring people you know if you have an audience you can literally market it to them and get an affiliate reward. And the last one is a trader loyalty reward. So that means you mentioned the dopamine hit. If you continue being active on the platform, at some point you will basically receive this weekly payout which grows over time.

1:02:01 So but your points your loyalty points don't have an expiration date. So basically the the the pitch is just keep on doing it. First of all, you learn along the way, right? Even if you lose money initially, that's just what trading is. But if you stay consistent, not only do you build up experience, but you also build up your loyalty points and at some point if you just keep accumulating points, you will get this significant loyalty reward.

1:02:25 So that is user retention at the end of the day, right? So these incentives are inside the protocol to create an actual onchain system that can grow beyond the capability of Possum Labs and our small team and just you know really is a piece of infrastructure and not necessarily a company. Yeah, I've always loved that fundamental approach about DeFi, which I think mainly it arises out of just the fact that the network is completely open and anybody can come and interact with it.

1:02:54 But that kind of enables something that I don't think has really been at least widely, you know, able to be achieved in in software in business in general, which is that you can give arbitrary incentives for people to manage your protocol. Like I think when I was even like first coming in and you know checking out DeFi looking at stuff like year and like Beefy Finance they have you know incentive for people to come in and harvest the vault and keep compounding it for users and it's a win-win for Beefy the platform.

1:03:25 It's a win-win for the people in the vault and of course the harvester keeper gets you know some incentive. So I think it's beautiful how you can just orchestrate all these different parties and have everybody gain. It's kind of like the perfect example of how economies work, which is that everybody provides value. They provide something of service and they all create excess economic benefit for the themselves.

1:03:49 So yeah, I I think it's beautiful that we're able to build this into protocols. I think that's the real power of DeFi and it seems like you guys are leveraging that in a number of different ways. I mean, I think particularly if people are able to like just white label the contracts as as infrastructure and if let's say they already have maybe they have some kind of a web3 business, maybe they have a protocol already, they could just add that on as another offering to their existing users and you know maybe if they're already a trading venue, they can just add another UI and automatically you'll get traffic from from that already and they'll get a benefit.

1:04:20 They'll be able to have something to crossell in terms of an offer. Yeah. So I mean something I've just always loved about about DeFi fundamentally but yeah I mean exciting man. Is there any are you able to share any initial like partnerships or any maybe cool networks that you're partnering with or is that all under wraps?

1:04:37 We should have we should have set up the call for later if if I could that. So it's it's too early for that. The the talks are still ongoing. But what you just mentioned is exactly the type of talks that I'm currently having with several partners or potential partners. this co-integration into trading near type of projects and UIs.

1:04:56 So yes, there is a lot coming. I unfortunately cannot share anything right now, but

1:05:00 Exciting man. Exciting times, dude. Well, I mean in terms of stuff that's in the pipeline, obviously launch probably depending on you know when the timing is right that you feel and you know maybe some of these conversations that you're having right now. But is there anything coming up that we should shout out and push folks towards?

1:05:17 Sure. the prediction game that we're having right now. Well, we closed it. The cuto off was on on Wednesday, but that was just the first round. We will have multiple rounds. We will alternate with the conditions and the rules and get experience before we even launch the protocol and feedback. So, yeah, definitely like people can join our discord, find us on x at topcut finance, just one word, or check out the website at topcut.finance.

1:05:42 That is that is a perfect way to start and join us join the community and give feedback. I really look for for feedback from from people because at the end of the day as a founder that is product oriented that is the lifeblood of what you're doing.

1:05:56 Absolutely. Well, of course we'll we'll have those links in the description below and hopefully folks can can make some 10 x's in the in the Discord.

1:06:05 But yeah, dude. I mean I I think we've we've pretty much covered everything a toz about TopCut. I mean, super fascinating new primitive for for DeFi and I mean, I guess really finance in general. So interested to see how it plays out and yeah, I mean, just at this point really just looking forward to to launch and and seeing how folks end up using it.

1:06:25 So yeah, dude, I mean once again, thanks so much for for taking the time to to hop on and and discuss with us.

1:06:31 Yeah, thanks Alex.

1:06:32 Likewise. Yeah, it was a pleasure. Really really great. Thank you so much.