Dr. Brook on the Blockchain
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Dr. Brook on the Blockchain
Ep 56: The ATM of the Future with Global Liquidity’s James Andrew
What is Global Liquidity and why is it important?
James Andrew is the CEO and technical director at Global Liquidity Incorporated. He is the creator of Lightning Bridge ATM, which is a personal ATM for your Web3 wallets and a fully transparent and 10x faster solution for depositing and withdrawing funds via the Bitcoin Lightning Network.
This is James Andrew's story...
In 2018, James created his current company, Global Liquidity, where he began developing an advanced electronic trading interface based on real time 3D graphics. Global Liquidity is currently backed by many different institutional investors. He got involved in electronic trading back in the early days on Wall Street and noticed the huge burst of interest in crypto in 2017. He started a community in New York called James’ Crypto Treehouse which was a telegram meetup group that ended up becoming like the center of cryptoculture for 2017-2019. He threw impromptu dinners all around the world just to get people together.
In this episode, you will learn the following:
1. The story of how James Andrew pivoted his company Global Liquidity four times to get to their current product, Lightning Bridge ATM
2. A demonstration of how easy it is to deposit and withdraw funds using Lightning Bridge ATM
3. The fact that Lightning Bridge ATM currently supports two cryptocurrency networks (USDC and Solana) with plans to support more in the future
Connect with James:
Website: https://www.lightningbridge.com/
Free Download:
The Words of Web3 - A comprehensive glossary of terms used in the space https://mailchi.mp/9d043022b5a0/words-of-web3
Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbrooksheehan
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrBrookSheehan
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Hey. And welcome. I am Dr. Brook. I am joined by my co pilot here, James Andrew, who is the CEO and technical director at Global Liquidity Incorporated. He is the creator of Lightning Bridge ATM, which we're going to talk about today. The person personal ATM for your Web3 wallets and a fully transparent and 10x faster solution for depositing and withdrawing funds via the Bitcoin Lightning Network. James is an entrepreneur and technologist at heart. He was an early pioneer of high frequency algorithmic training and deeply involved in the electronification of Wall Street, where he started his career back in 1997. In 2018, he created his current company, Global Liquidity, where he began developing an advanced electronic training interface based on real time 3D graphics. Global Liquidity is currently backed by many different institutional investors and I am very excited to have James on the show today. Thank you so much for being here.
[James Andrew]
Hi, Dr. Brook. Thank you for having me.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Absolutely. So, first things first. As a guest on the show, we always love to hear about how you entered the Web3 space, where you came from and how you got here.
[James Andrew]
Well, it really all goes back to those early days on Wall Street with trading because I got involved in electronic trading back then and it was really exciting. In fact, a lot of people might remember who are a little bit older that there was this thing where all of a sudden you could trade as a regular person as a job. It was called day trading. And it was very exciting. And in a way, it felt a lot like the vibe I felt and noticed when I saw the whole crypto thing happening in 2017. It was like the forefront then. And so when I saw what happened starting around 2017 with the huge burst of interest in all of these things, including trading right. Because that's always been a big part of crypto, I felt like I was just really drawn to that and decided to kind of come back into that market because it was very exciting to me and I felt an energy there in the regular world for a long time.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
That's awesome. That's very exciting. And so that led you to build out Global Liquidity, like where you're at with that company right now?
[James Andrew]
Well, there was one more important step there. What that really led to is before I built a company, I started a community in New York called James Crypto Treehouse, and it was a telegram that ended up becoming like the center of cryptoculture for 20, 17, 18, 19 in New York. Had like, well over 20 people and we know each other. And I ended up throwing probably 50 dinners all around the world just impromptu to get people together. And that's how I probably wouldn't have been able to start the company without first doing that, getting to know everyone, et cetera. And so I kind of was excited that the whole community aspect of what we were doing was there in a way that hadn't been there when I was working, like whether it was on Wall Street or other things I'd done, I'm like, this is cool, this is fun. And then I started the company. So that was an important episode. And I still have that group, but things are a little quieter now.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
That's awesome. I love that. I wish I was a part of the treehouse back then to see what you guys were up to. So you say you guys hosted some dinners and things like that. And it was just a lot of like chatter and talk and community and getting engaged around what this crypto world looks like where we were going. Is that what that was about?
[James Andrew]
It felt kind of like to those of us that knew, it felt kind of like the old rave scene, this real collaborative it wasn't work, the rave scene without drugs. We had a lot of coffee. A lot of coffee. There you go.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
We had a different kind of stimulant. Awesome. Okay, well, tell us a little bit about Global Liquidity and then I do want you I know you're going to give a little bit of a visual for the people who are watching this on video. For those of you who are listening just on audio, we'll also kind of breakdown, but I really want you to talk about Global Liquidity. You've been doing this since 2018. What does this look like? What is this project? What are you building in webs three?
[James Andrew]
Well, I'll tell you, I started the company at the end of 2018 and we have a rather unusual story of the company and that we have pivoted four times to get here. And I'm thankful to have some really some investors that do see the vision and the long term view here because we've tried one thing and another and another, but each time we learn something and have zeroed in on something that I think is really excellent. We started as a company to bring to the market a whole new kind of software for trading where you see the market three D and trade with do automated trading as a regular person. And we worked on that for a while. We ended up finding that there were problems with bringing it to market and the COVID happened, the market wasn't there for it. So we actually pivoted them to make it a multiplayer game, which we still have. We have this really awesome game that I could probably even like wait, is.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
This like augmented reality type game? Like cell phone, download an app and play it like that? Or is this full on like, VR headphones?
[James Andrew]
Oh, no. Yes, it's like that. In fact, let's see. I could probably show something really quick here. I will show a little clip of it. Because what happened was while we made the game, which I'll show in a second. And the game shows our 3D training technology. We basically kept saying, okay, what do we have and how can we make it more applicable to the world? And so we worked on making this game, which we still have, which I'll show in a second. The reason that we didn't actually continue with it is we realized that it needs more money behind it to market it than we have as a small company. Here it is. I'm going to cut to my main desktop. So this is trade the game. Check this out.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Wow.
[James Andrew]
Look. And what we're looking at there is live market data for bitcoin trading, which is the order book, the actual bids, and the offers. But we turn it into a game. And then that's my wife in there with me right now playing. And we have real time audio that's in there. We're talking to each other, and we're competing. And what we're doing is we're trying to bet which way it's going to go, and when you look, it's going down, basically, it's distilling trading down to its essence. Anyway.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
This is what you guys did before. This is what was going on.
[James Andrew]
But we built all this technology. Like, for instance, have you ever seen a web page that looks like that? This is just a web page. Not at all. Right. But what we did here you see these gems up here?
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yes.
[James Andrew]
What we did is we realized that we could use bitcoin lightning. Let me try to find the example. I think I show it right here. We can use bitcoin lightning to make payments or to send to buy those gems. In this case, what we did is we developed this lightning payment system. There I am with my laptop, about to scan a QR code. There, you see? There's a QR code here. See this in the game? See that? We've got a QR code. And what we realized is we could allow people to deposit and withdraw into their let's see if I could does anything show here? Let's see if I go in. Yeah, we're selecting the amount of gems. Watch your code.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yeah.
[James Andrew]
Done. On my phone. I paid it and it was already done. And we bought gems. And the idea of the game was that in that competition, you'd all have to put some gems in, and then whoever is the best trader wins all the gems. And then you can really cash it out to your phone is bitcoin.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
So the gems can be traded into bitcoin?
[James Andrew]
Yes, because it's a certain amount of SATS per gem. Satoshi we charge a certain amount. Basically, you buy them and then you cash them out. And so we found this way to use bitcoin lightning. But what we ended up doing next, we next said, okay, this game is really hard to kind of get it out there right now. So what we did is we ended up building our system into an automated trading system on something called Mango Markets, which is a deck on Solana.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Okay.
[James Andrew]
You can see here look, what we did is see this screen here? Not a game anymore, right? We made it back into a tool. See all these sites and sounds that as you make trades in the real market, you see all these animations to let you know what's happening with your orders. We sort of started to make trading into a game, right? And we've been working on this, but the problem with Solana was having all these problems with its network, so our trades wouldn't go through. Right. But then, lo and behold, we went down to the hackathon last I forget what month it was. It was last year. And this is me on stage presenting trademango. But we presented a very particular feature. Let's see if I could play this here at the end. Yeah. We applied it to funding a trading account.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Oh, my gosh.
[James Andrew]
What's the response from the crowd? Yeah.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Really?
[James Andrew]
It was the best response there. And you know how I know this? Because just two minutes after this, we were evacuated due to a bomb scare.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Stop.
[James Andrew]
No, really? People think it was someone from another chain that called it in and called in a bomb scare. And so we were evacuated. And as we were evacuated, people were running up to me saying, James, that was amazing. The part where you deposited the money into the account with Lightning. So what we did is we said, all right, this trading thing is cool, but we're having problems because of the market, because of Solana not working. And we realized, Wait a minute. What if we can turn this payment system into a generalized payment system that could be used for not just mego markets, but for moving money into and out of your own wallets with such an easy experience? And that's what we pivoted to make this thing called Lightning Bridge, which we have right here. And for those that can't see it, what I have on my screen is it looks very much like a traditional ATM machine. Would you agree to that statement?
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yeah, it definitely does. Yes.
[James Andrew]
Even has the buttons on the side. My figure is that everyone knows how to use this. You don't need to figure it out. And so, look, first thing that's cool to know is to use this. You didn't have to write down a passphrase. You just logged in with Google, and we're implemented with Web3, which gives you your own wallet. It is your wallet. But Web3 does a thing called key sharding, that they store part of the key. You store part of the key in your browser allows the average user to get going immediately without writing out a password. Would I put my whole stash of bitcoin in it? No way. But it's a great way to begin, like, its level of security. And so we're locked in, we're connected. And look, I got balances. Watch this. Let's say I want to deposit just look at ATM. I'm going to deposit soul however much I want.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yeah.
[James Andrew]
And I'm going to use bitcoin lightning now. Guess what? You know what supports bitcoin lightning? Cash app. Cash app.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Really?
[James Andrew]
Yes.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
I have not noticed.
[James Andrew]
Yes. Cash app supported. Actually, I've become friends with the guy, Danny, who worked at Cash App. Wow. Lightning network to them and said we should do this. And they did it. And he's got this real cool service online. Now that I'll get to that later. Bitcoin Lightning. Here, watch this. It shows me I'm going to deposit $5.25. I hit confirm.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yes.
[James Andrew]
Now what I'm doing here is I've got my phone with cash app on it. I'm just going to hit scan the QR code. Scan the QR code. I'm going to pay, and I'm going to put my Pin, and I hit Pin now. And now done. We're detecting that the money has been sent, and now we've just put the money in your wallet, and it's done. And now you have it. Now you have that money ready to spend on an NFT site.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Oh, my goodness.
[James Andrew]
There, it's green. Now it shows it's increased.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Wow. No. I'm so sorry. That is so crazy phenomenal. I've been engaging in this space for the last almost two years now, and it is such a barrier to entry for people to get into or to mint new NFCs, and they got to move this money into Ethereum, whatever, all these crazy stuff. You literally did that in 30 seconds.
[James Andrew]
Yes.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
What the heck?
[James Andrew]
That is our thing. And you'll notice, did you notice the little touches, like how it would make sounds to let you know that it was processing and it would ding when it was done, right? Because what I know is it's just so uncomfortable to try to receive funds on most sites and apps because you're wondering, where is it? Did I get it? Did I use it? And then sometimes it takes minutes or maybe it's an hour once in a while. And there's no ability for that. You're like, whatever. You can't even contact anyone, right? So we said, what if we can make moving money in and out of these chains fun and actually fun and easy like this. And look at this. You can withdraw the same way. Look, withdraw sol $5. Bitcoin lightning now. Cash app is currently rolling out this ability to receive. Not everyone has it yet. So I have to use Wallet and Satoshi because they didn't give it to me yet. But within a week or so, it should be out to everyone. So I'm going to use a different Lightning app called Wallet of Satoshi that's able to receive bitcoin lightning. That's how early we are on this or not even every app supports everything it's moving so fast that they will. So now look, now I want to receive, I hit confirm.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yes.
[James Andrew]
Anything it's going to do, it's going to pop up a confirmation because remember, it's my wallet.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
It's your wallet.
[James Andrew]
I have to confirm it. So in other words, we can't take it from you. You have to send it to us right now. You're doing a transaction to send it to us. Now. We got it. And they were saying, here it is, here it is. We're going to scan that QR code with Wild Satoshi, which I'm going to hit receive. And in a moment here done. It's in my wallet. And your balance is lower.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Wow. Okay. James is waiting for his ATM. That's huge. And so when you were doing that demonstration, I noticed the two options in the demonstration was USD and Solana. There are other networks now that ATM is supporting. Right, okay.
[James Andrew]
In fact, we currently support Polygon as well because we noticed that a couple of things, you know why we went for polygon first, we saw that Instagram did a deal with them, reddit did a deal with them. That's real stuff. Right. And we noticed that with Polygon, it's even harder. Let's say you have a cracking account and you get some magic, which is the Polygon token, right. Well, guess what? You withdrew it on the Ethereum chain. So now you need to go to the Polygon bridge site to do a nine to twelve minute process at some point to send it to the other chain. Right. We can do it in about the same time as you saw. And so what we see is there's actually, I just got back from San Francisco last week there was the Circle Converge conference at Moscone Center. It's Circle is the creators of USDC, right?
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yes.
[James Andrew]
One of the main things that they announced is they are bringing it to more chains. What you're seeing is that I think stablecoins are on their way up, especially USDC, because people realize they're very useful and you need to be able to interact with all these chains. So that's what we're pursuing right now. I love it, adding all these chains so you can move in and out of any of them very easily.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Oh my gosh, it's so powerful because right now, and my audience is going to know this because they hear me on a week to week basis. They also hear all of these incredible copilots that I get to bring with me along for the ride talking about this. But right now, and you mentioned it earlier when you were saying it, we are so early to this space. It's so difficult to onboard new people into it because of all the steps, because of all the friction to entry, because of all of the things that they have to have in line and in place before they can actually do these things. And so what you're doing, I'm sitting here watching it for the first time going, oh my God, my mind is blown.
[James Andrew]
Check this out. I want to show you a slide that talks and tells the story. Look at this. What this is showing is look at the circles over here on the right.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Are you able to zoom in on that? Let me see there. Perfect.
[James Andrew]
So if you look at these circles over here, you see the size of how many monthly active users there are. And you see it's 11 million. Polygon is 2.4 million, a total of 19.6 million. Look over on the left. Look how many users just Cash App has.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yeah. Wow.
[James Andrew]
And Visa has this many. So what we're trying to do is sit right in here in the middle to help these people come over here. That's making these circles a lot bigger.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Wow.
[James Andrew]
Beautiful, right? That's what we're doing.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Okay, well, first of all, that's big. I went to the website before I even jumped on this interview when I was doing some background work on figuring out who you are and what you guys are doing. And one of the things, first thing on the website is like Bridging web. Two to one, three. Yeah, that's the diagram you just showed is that idea with Lightning Bridge, Cash App, Visa, all of that is very old school internet. We're getting ushered into the new world blockchain technology. And Lightning Network ATM is doing just that.
[James Andrew]
Holy freaking cow. One more comment I want to make before I make we can move, talk a little bit about the lighting network itself.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
I think I just want to mention.
[James Andrew]
Real quick because we're thinking of moving. This is how fast things move. We've realized that we don't want to keep this as just an ATM that people come to. So what we're doing right now, I have my developers currently making it into a Widget so that we can add it to all these wallets that, you know, they have a source like you say, oh, go to Moon Pay or go to Transact or whatever. So we're going to be added as a source that supports Cash App and Bitcoin Lightning. And we're going to be able to that's what we're working on right now. It's like the final piece of the puzzle to kind of make this thing go to the levels I think it's going to go. So all of this is centered around the Lightning network. What I want to talk about real quick is I want to show you another thing real quick that enables us to do this, and that is if we go to my desktop. Check this out. I'm proud of this thing here. I built this a couple of weeks ago. This is a public index of what you call Lightning nodes.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Okay?
[James Andrew]
That is the Lightning network is a system of nodes. That is people running software that sits on top of Bitcoin, which means you also need to run bitcoin, the bitcoin software, like the actual Bitcoin node. And now you got Lightning on top of it. And what it does is it enables people to set up connections between themselves called channels. And you have to do that by putting a certain amount of Bitcoin in it. Like if you had a note and I had a note, or our two companies had a node, right? I could get your URL from this index here, and I could go to my node over here, and I can open the channel to you here's. My channels.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yes.
[James Andrew]
And what I've got here, if you look at my note, Lightning Bridge, it's already ranked called a Gold Note. I don't know what they mean, but I'm happy they think it's that. That's cool. Look at my channels here, right? Channels to what other organizations? The exchange. Look Kraken. Oh, wait there's. Okay, coins. Know what? I moved. Look kraken down here, right? Notice a bunch of them to open Node.com and Riverfinancial. The reason is because I learned through talking with someone at Cash App that if wanted to connect or receive payments from Cash App users for my business, what I need to do is open these channels. And what it means is, when I scan that QR code that you saw, payment isn't going to some credit card processor, it's going to my Lightning Node right here. And what that means is really, for the first time, I as a small business, am able to own the rails of the money and not pay someone 3% to handle it. Like in the case of Visa, Mastercard, or ACH, right? This is why I think Lightning is going to be a very big thing soon, even more than it is now. Because it is really like this alternative financial network that lets people take back the control of the network for those girls with their trading peers just by making connections with each other and setting rates on your channels. It's a really fascinating subculture at this point.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
So when you say setting rates on the channel, is that like a rate for the service? So, like, let's say I hire your services to do a job for me. I can pay you on that system without having Visa or Mastercard or ACH Bank, whatever, 3% come in and take that.
[James Andrew]
It's a little bit different. The end result is, yes, you can end up paying trading partners or people over this network. But the way the rates work is actually very interesting. On that diagram I pulled up, it had all those blue and green bars. Each one of them is a channel, and on it is a setting of a rate. And that is how many satoshis per million do I charge for other people's transactions to flow through my note. And what happens is when I send a transaction, the Lightning protocol, it's a very brilliant thing. It's kind of a technical thing. But what it does is it says, okay, I want to go from here to there. How can I get there and who's got the best rates? So what it does is everyone can compete by adjusting their rates. If you're high, you don't get that many. But if you really want your transactions to go through, put a lot of rates and it will go through those channels that have a lot of rates set up. So what's very interesting is people are learning that they can earn you can earn yield on your bitcoin without giving it to someone else by deploying your bitcoin into channels. And it's easily 1%. But certain people are figuring out how to get up to 10% yield on their bitcoin just by intelligently using this channel system to attract liquidity through them. And I think this is going to become a whole big new marketplace, much like D Five became a thing, staking and all that. This is like a new kind of staking. It's like deploying your bitcoin, putting it to work for you. And because more people do that, I think it has the potential to start growing exponentially when people find the benefits of it.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Do you think? Okay, because we're sitting at right now, and for those of you who might be listening and may not know this, the thing about bitcoin is bitcoin is very deflationary in the sense that it will hit a cap, and that will be the end of the mining of bitcoin, per se, in the way that's being done. So we're staying at like 19 and a half, roughly, with another million and a half to go at the point at which all of the bitcoin has been mine. Do you think Lightning Network then is going to really take off at that point? Because now it's going to be moved around transactionally.
[James Andrew]
What's going to happen? It's going to happen at I think what you'll see is on one hand, the amount of money that people are making from layer one mining goes down with the having to beat Norway, but it does go down. But if you look at the rate of growth of the Lightning Network, even though the price of bitcoin has been going down lately, the lighting network has just been going up into the right at a good pace. So I think you're going to see an acceleration of the percentage of earnings that are made by people routing payments. And according to that, if that takes off, would be that a lot more bitcoin is put into the Lightning Network because right now it's only 00:25 of a percent. It's two and a half basis points right now, 2.5% of 1%. Right. That's how much bitcoin because there's only 5000 bitcoin put out there into the Lightning Network and there's already about 20 million. And if you just do the math, it's like not even 2%. It's like it's like two and a half basis points. So you could very easily think what would happen if there's ten times as much, ten times as many nodes, ten times again, all of a sudden, that could become a very significant payments network and it could feed back into the value of bitcoin. And that narrative of the lighting network and deploying your bitcoin could be what sort of drives bitcoin price increase more than just the hoddlett narrative. That's what we're used to.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
I see what you're saying. What would be the logical steps a person can take if they're listening to you right now? Which I'm listening to, and I'm getting super excited, like I'm like, running through my skin. But if somebody is listening to you right now, what are the logical steps for them to get from a part of the lightning network to become the no so they can process those transactions?
[James Andrew]
It does require some amount of technical ability, not programming, but you can get away with doing some things without typing some things into a terminal. But you got to load up the terminal and learn how to type some commands. There are ways that you can like it's getting better, but it's just a matter of reading the instructions. I encourage people that have never done it anything else. Don't be afraid of it, just try it. But what you could do one thing that you could do I think one of the best things out there that hit recently for what it brings to the world is the umbrella node. Do you know the umbrella node?
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
No.
[James Andrew]
What it is? It's a show on my desktop. I think there's some question about whether it's fully it is open source. There's some question about whether it's fully open source. Anyways, it's generally open source. And what it is, it's a little thing that runs generally on a raspberry pi. You have to buy one of those little tiny computers, like $60, and then it runs. And what it does, it gives you out of the box your own bitcoin node, your own lightning mode, and a sort of like app store with all different tools that are also open source that help you run your own bitcoin and lightning node. Cool. It used to take hours and hours of learning. But see, it says right there, lightning node. And you can even buy there's one called the bitcoin box, I think. Is that what it is? Bitcoin box? I don't remember what it's called. You can buy pre made, like, computers to run this, or you can run it on your own computer at home. One of the things that you can do if you wanted to actually play around with lightning is experiment at voltage cloud, because Voltage Cloud will host a node for you. So you don't need to buy any hardware. You can just run it there and then you still have to learn how to use it. But it's the best way to experiment.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Nice. Okay, so. Then getting back to your project, what you're doing, because I want you to be able to take time with what you're doing also. So that's really awesome. So you've created a database then for like an indexing site for people to be able to go to and be able to find all the other things.
[James Andrew]
I didn't make that indexing site. That is our entry on it. That's just me showing you that by building up my notes from scratch and putting some bitcoin in it and connecting it in all these ways, it just shows up on the site. It's almost like claiming your own.com back in the day.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Yeah.
[James Andrew]
So you might want to go get a node just so you can have a node called Dr. Brook and you could be the Doctor Brook.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Right.
[James Andrew]
And one thing I'm considering in my business going into is helping businesses like yours or people that have a business or whatever, even individuals, get on the Lightning network. Because all those connections I made, if you got a Lightning node and then you made one connection to my node, you would benefit from all those connections, you see? So there's like a whole new potential for new kinds of financial relationships where what you're doing is you're actually establishing a note, a channel to someone else for the purpose of sending payments back and forth. So at its infancy compared to where it's going to go. But there's so much potential here, I think, for new kinds of commerce and in ways that are really cool.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
I definitely agree with you and I can see that there's a lot of still unanswered questions because it isn't in its infancy. But I also think just really being able to kind of see ahead and into the future, like there's definitely something with it from a technical standpoint, it's computers talking to each other and connected and those kind of things. But then from the community aspect of building, it's kind of like what you did with the tree house, all of these connections and the built along the way to get you to this point, like building up the treehouse to allow you to be introduced to amazing people who might have even helped you with global liquidity.
[James Andrew]
That certainly happened, yes. I was actually introduced to our first investors by someone that I knew in the tree house because I went to her birthday party and the hedge fund people were there, the PCs were there.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
One connection away.
[James Andrew]
There really is a community among those that run the biggest lightning nodes. They all know each other because they talked. And it reminds me of the early days of computers when you used to like call up different computers with a modem, with a BBS and it was like if you were in on that, then you were like in the know, in this new thing, no one else knew about it. And I feel like with the lightning network. It's at that stage. So if you want to get in on something that hasn't peaked yet and isn't a has been thing, look at the Lightning Network.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Awesome. I love it. Okay. I know we're wrapping up this ride here.
[James Andrew]
Sure.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
In a few minutes. I want to ask you, for those that are listening, what is one thing that you would say because you've had quite a journey. You understand a lot of technological things, say, like you're kind of starting out fresh again. You don't understand much of the technology here's. A new world getting ushered in. What is something you would encourage somebody with as they're kind of starting on their journey into this world?
[James Andrew]
Well, let me think. I would say a really good step with all of this, especially if parents even have kids that they want to teach these sorts of things. I think a really big step, first step is getting something like a treasure and learning how to self custody. Bitcoin particularly. Take that step. That's a big step that someone can take, is just taking that. If you have some bitcoin, it's not an exchange. Go get a treasure. Learn how to back up the key phrase. You really feel good about it once you've done it because not only have you done it, but you learned this skill that could become very, very important in our lives in the future. I really think being able to hold your own funds, I mean, who knows with the volatility of the world. And you never know when it might be an important thing for you to be able to put some of your finances on a little thing and go somewhere else quick.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
That's very true. We have no idea what's going to happen. I love that. That's great advice.
[James Andrew]
And I would say look into getting an umbrella. I think that's a really good move because it's like a move into like if you want to get hands on, look at getting it on board and setting it up.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
I love that. I'm going to look into getting one myself. Even just a little tutorial. You walked over that's really easy. I could do that.
[James Andrew]
That's awesome.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Thank you so much for being here, James.
[James Andrew]
Yeah, thank you.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Connected with you. You have incredible energy. People need to freaking just be in that.
[James Andrew]
We need to search Lightning Bridge on Twitter and look for our Lightning Bridge. Twitter and DM me on there. My DMs are open on there. And you can follow Lightning Bridge to find out what we're doing as we go.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Awesome.
[James Andrew]
Lightning Bridge. The ATM I showed is out right now. You can go to Lightening Bridge.com and play with it. Use it. You could buy MFP. It works.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Awesome. That's so exciting. And I'm going to link all of that in the show notes below so everybody can just have easy access. There's no friction. You don't have to type in anything. Just click the links that James talked about and you will be good to go. So stay in touch with him, stay connected to what he's doing because he is a fastmoving train and you guys are part of what is going on. At least like he had mentioned, dive in, start to learn, get your hands dirty, be play in the world and.
[James Andrew]
Not the most cool.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
Awesome. Thank you so much for being here, James. As we pull this ride into the station, you guys know the drill, make sure you exit to the right and we will see you on the next one.
[James Andrew]
Thank you very much.
[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
You made it. Congratulations. That wasn't so bad, was it? I hope you laughed and learned a little bit more about this Web3 universe and how simple and fun it can really be. Would you be so kind as to leave us a review and share it with your friends and family? It would mean so much to get this out to more people as we embark on the greatest transfer of wealth that has ever happened in human history. Can't wait to see you on the next one.