085 - London's Bitcoin Bet: Antidote Accelerator Fueling the Next Wave of Innovation

In this episode of Build with Bitcoin, co-hosts Lynne Bairstow and Israel Muñoz welcome Ben Cousens, co-founder of Antidote, a fintech accelerator aimed at fostering Bitcoin innovation in London. Ben shares his journey from investment banking to entrepreneurship, his deep passion for Bitcoin, and the mission behind Antidote.

The conversation explores the regulatory landscape in the UK, the strategic positioning of Antidote within London's fintech ecosystem, and the accelerator's unique approach to supporting startups in the Bitcoin space. Ben Cousens discusses the importance of building a diverse investor base for Bitcoin startups, the opportunities in Bitcoin fintech, and the evolution of micro payments and streaming sats. He emphasizes the need for usability and mass adoption of Bitcoin, as well as the balance between open-source and business models, and offers advice on Bitcoin treasury strategies for startups.

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Chapters
00:00 Intro
06:32 Ben's Journey into Bitcoin
12:44 The Philosophy Behind Antidote
17:54 Regulatory Environment in the UK
22:11 Antidote's Location and Strategic Positioning
24:09 Antidote's Accelerator Program and Services
31:34 Identifying Opportunities in Bitcoin Fintech
35:42 The Evolution of Micro Payments and Streaming Sats
41:52 Usability and Mass Adoption of Bitcoin
46:39 Balancing Open Source with Business Models
49:10 Bitcoin Treasury Strategies for Startups
52:25 Attracting Talent to the Bitcoin Ecosystem

References
https://antidotebtc.com/
https://x.com/AntidoteBTC

https://www.buildwithbitcoin.xyz/
https://x.com/BuildwBitcoin

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❗ DISCLAIMER: This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions, consult a professional.

Transcript

Ben: 0:00

Look at this astrology chart of a price thing, and it's going to go up. Like, okay, great, but that doesn't make Bitcoin useful. That just says, Keep saving in Bitcoin. It doesn't, it doesn't move the needle. And in my experience, founders, entrepreneurs, builders, engineers, operators, all of them are results driven. They care about pro like progress and achievement and driving things forward. And you know, you need to answer the question of, well, what should I do, other than just buy and hold and therefore, like, I encourage founders, like, look deeper. Look at the technology. Engage with the technology. It doesn't cost you money to run Bitcoin on your laptop. Cost you some time, right? So, download Bitcoin, run it as an application, check it out. You haven't bought Bitcoin yet, but you can start to poke around. You can start to see how it works, and you haven't done anything, you just like you're geeking out one Sunday. So start to engage with it for the technology it is.

Unknown: 0:51

This isn't for everyone. It's for the ones who know the old system is broken and are ready to build something that lasts. Welcome to the build with Bitcoin podcast.

Israel: 1:12

London's making its move in the Bitcoin space. An antidote is leading the charge. Today we sit down with co founder Ben cousins to talk startup funding, streaming, SATs, Treasury strategies and the path to mass adoption. This one's packed with insights you won't want to miss. As a reminder, this podcast is for educational purposes only. If you like the content we're producing, please remember to share and drop us a comment, as This all helps us greatly. Welcome to build with Bitcoin. I'm co host igrin Munoz joined with co host Lynne Bairstow today we have the pleasure of welcoming onto the podcast Ben cousins, co founder of antidote. Ben, Welcome.

Ben: 1:48

Nice to meet you guys. Thanks for having me. Absolutely Well, you guys

Israel: 1:52

are fresh off a launch. Antidote is a FinTech accelerator giving Bitcoiners a home in London. Hugely important efforts that you guys are are taking on and we'll, of course, get into all of the mission behind antidote and who's calling antidote home, before we get into how antidote operates, though, Ben, we'd love to get an understanding of who the founding team is and a little bit on your background, so maybe we can start there With what your experience is and how you got introduced to Bitcoin? Sure, yes,

Ben: 2:25

I mean my quick background on myself. I started my career. Was a teenager, actually, in video games development. Both my parents were games developers, and went from there into being a producer, which is like getting games done on time. This is back in the like Nintendo Wii era, if any of your listeners are gamers, but it turns out I was much too materialistic, so I packed that in and became an investment banker. And I did that for a decade where I was focused, actually on I did maintain a focus on gaming and the tech media sort of world at that point in time. And I worked at the beginning on mergers and acquisitions, but later started to concentrate on capital raising. And the biggest deals I was part of as a banker were like softbanks acquisition of arm the chip company in the UK. And then I was also part of the team that was helping Epic Games raise money after they had loads of success with Fortnite. But from there, I was really drawn more and more and more to entrepreneurship and that that led away from the like, transactional nature of banking and advisory into, you know, the investment world of basically, like, as I'd put it, like putting your money where your mouth is. Like, bankers are very good at telling companies what they need to do, but they don't have a stake in the success. They just take fees when there are transactions. And I was also drawn, you know, I would define myself as a bit of a frustrated creative. I'm drawn to the creativity of new ideas, and particularly new business ideas. So I ended up joining a venture capital fund called lakestar in here in Europe. And I was together with a guy called Mika Salmi. We set up their gaming arm, investing in gaming businesses. But by this point in time, I was a really like died in the world, bitcoiner behind the scenes. And you couldn't talk about this stuff in investment banking, because no one in like that era wanted to hear about it. But in in venture capital, there was a little bit more open mindedness to it. And this was just around the start the time lightning was becoming like a mainnet thing and slightly viable. You could, you could do some experiments. There was the lightning torch on Twitter that you could pass around that kind of stuff. So I was, I was really focused on lightning companies, because my original complaint about Bitcoin as a non technical person back then, was like, It's slow. How do we make it fast? And lightning was like, Okay, it's fast now. And I ended up, in the course of that, trying to find investable companies at lakestar that were doing this. I met the guys at fulgave Ventures. I met the guys at initial capital. I met stillmarks team, and then I stumbled upon an actual company in ZBD. I think the business was three months old or so, and I led their seed and series A rounds before ultimately joining the business. The call of Bitcoin was too strong. I'm Chief Strategy. Officer there today, and I've been doing that for now five or six years together with so you know that that's sort of a brief background on me. I have two other co founders. One is one of my very, very old friend of mine, and he's a he's a developer, but he's also a serial founder, Andy Campo. We've known each other since we were in our early 20s. We both met at business school. We're very close friends, and then we're supported by Michele from Fulvia ventures. So the three of us essentially bonded over a frustration with the UK's lack of seriousness about Bitcoin, and that was really the genesis, or the thing that was incepted in our minds 18 odd months ago that we would, we would be the team that would actually launch a hub in London and get it off the ground. Ben, I

Lynne Bairstow: 5:41

want to, I want to take a step back, though, and ask you how you were first introduced to Bitcoin. Because if you're totally passionate about it, in a traditional financial, you know, industry, that's not always, I mean, it doesn't always track. So how did you come to be become so convinced that that Bitcoin was the future that you wanted to pursue.

Ben: 6:03

Yeah, so I like, I'm, like, one of those people where there's, like, your professional life, and then there's your personal life. And I am a, I'm a nerd, like, I'm a really big nerd. I mean, like, a huge gamer. I still play tons of video games. My favorite new thing is a steam deck. I play it like all night. My wife hates it. And then we I was a music pirate back in the day, like quite a keen Prince fan, and I was collecting live Prince bootlegs. And there was a whole scene online that was doing, like, basically soundboard recording. So, like, as good as the audio quality can be of Prince performances live. And if you're into Prince, like, no performance is the same. He made up songs on the fly. Like is one of the best performers of all time. I cried when he died. So I was, I was very familiar with this kind of early stage Cypherpunk world of BitTorrent. And as you know, fast forward a few years. I was in, I was in a flat share in London with two of my close friends, and one of them is, was Argent is Argentinian, and he was mentioned Bitcoin to me, and he was like, I'm using it to send money home back to Argentina. And I, my first reaction was, like, that sounds like utter nonsense, like internet money? What on earth? Like, that's totally a scam. What are you doing using that kind of thing? But I'm but I'm a nerd, so I wasn't like, I'm not going to look at this. This this is all in the course of the same evening. And he was very, very insistent that it was like real and that I should come and see what it is. And he was obviously encouraging me to buy some I remember he we opened up my laptop, and he I bought some bitcoin on Coinbase, which was operational in the UK at that time. And then it was blockchain dot info was like the wallet site that people were using to go non custodial, so he gave me a good education. And the main, the main thing I'm grateful for about the way I was introduced to Bitcoin is I was not introduced to it through a price chart. And my wife actually comments on this, like most people meet Bitcoin through a line on a screen that goes up and down. I met it straight to non custodial, just because my friend was showing me how to use it, because they were using it as money. And when I saw a bitcoin address for the first time, something in my brain went and that's like, encryption. And I'm not like, I'm not technical. I was like, that looks like a, you know, encrypted thing. This reminds me of BitTorrent. Wait, is this like, P to P money? And he was like, yes, you get it. And I was like, Oh, wow. Like, they've made, they've made internet money. And then I completely, like, instinctively, just got it, and I very naively, was just like, yeah, it works. It's great. It's amazing. Like, didn't really, didn't really question it. And then I think I went very then my investment banker hat came on, and I was like, Where do I meet the team? How do I find out about the roadmap? You know, like, where's this going? And that was, that was the journey back into Cypherpunk hood. And, yeah, fast forward many, many years later. And, you know, once you've seen it, you can't unsee what Bitcoin can be to society.

Israel: 8:51

Yeah, well, I mean, it's, it's funny, you you mentioned how you were introduced to it. Everyone has their own story, right? But I think it is very true that when you're introduced to it more as just money, and how it can actually be used as money. You have a different perspective. You kind of see the power of the network, let's say. And then, of course, eventually there's the price component that draws us all in as well, and the hard money aspects. And anyways,

Ben: 9:16

I do think the introduction in money thing is a is a valuable one. I mean, I really did not treat Bitcoin as an investment. When I was introduced to it, I really was like, well, this could just be like, well, it just had, it just happened to have $1 price. And it was like, floating around. And I went, and my whole thing was, like, what can I buy with this? Where can I go? What can I do? And this is where I came at it. Where, like, it's slow. I didn't understand any of the process behind bitcoin, right? So the first thing I went and did was like, Oh, I can buy a VPN, and then being like, into anonymity, privacy, that kind of segment of the internet, I was like, great. VPNs accept Bitcoin, cool. I'll go buy one most expensive VPN I've ever purchased in my life. My God, what a waste of money. I did it, but it was my only experience was like, wow, that was really clunky. Like it took. 20 minutes, but it did work. I've got a VPN now, okay, like, that's where I sort of wanted to find out about the roadmap, because I assumed you could make it faster, but I didn't know what was the bottleneck, and then you get into, like, mempool and what all that. And back in that period of time, lightning was a white paper. It was, it wasn't even around. And I managed to find that white paper, and again, just some lucky naivety, I kind of read it, and was like, checks out. Sounds like it might work. And then kind of just waited for lightning. And once in that interim period, that was when I was really going down the rabbit, because there was, like three or four years between, or something like that, between, like the white paper coming out, and the first implementation, and that's where I sort of did the reading, started running a node, and really kind of became a bitcoiner, so to speak. And that, I think a huge part of that going on in my private life was what led me out of banking, because you just start to want to contribute to something larger in the world.

Israel: 10:52

Yeah, and we, we've definitely come a long ways with lightning. So quick side story, I tried co founding a company in 2014 doing remittances through the Bitcoin network then, and lightning wasn't around then, of course. And we you're right. It was, you know, it was slow and clunky, and you had to deal with these 10 Minute confirmation times, and you ideally want to wait for two confirmations, right? And so you had these. And I remember some potential investors were asking us quite heavily, you know, how are you going to deal with the with the currency exchange risk in as you're, you know, moving out of, out of and into Fiat in two different countries. You know, we tried to manage risk around it, but, but it was hard to really answer that question, because, I mean, ultimately, you couldn't get to any sort of final settlement in real time. And then, of course, Lightning has changed a lot of that. And you know, your experience with with ZBD and lightning, I'm sure, will be quite valuable to the to the ecosystem there as well. But let's, let's maybe get a little into antidote. I mean, what? What's the philosophy of antidote? Ben, I mean, what? What was the origin as well. Why did you guys decide to get together and launch this in London?

Ben: 12:06

So I'm, I was, I think, I think, like I am, as a person, I want to be an investor. I'm drawn to investing, and specifically in startups. I'm just drawn to it that the good ideas are a real magnet for me, like they take my attention. I want to put my time into them. And then the best way you can do that is, like, there's a whole ecosystem called venture capital, and you can be involved in that. So I, even when I joined ZBD, what I was surprised to find was, like, I quite quickly started digging out startups in Bitcoin, where I just, like, right? I just did interested in the ideas. And it wasn't really, at this point, it wasn't about investment. It was like, I wanted to know the founders. I wanted to talk to them. I wanted to hear about things. And I'm very into music, as you've probably gathered from the prince things. So quite quickly, I was drawn to fountain and Sam at wave Lake, and the efforts going on there with the value for value stuff. And so we all started talking, and I realized that, like, the relationships we were building with each other were ones of trust and like, advice and idea sharing and brainstorming about how to take what is really very, very cool, empowering technology for musicians and bring it out of Bitcoin language into language that they can understand, so that it can appeal to them. And, you know, we had a lot of thoughts about that so long winded way of saying I was still drawn to startups, and I was also through ZBD, traveling the world a lot. ZBD is a fully remote company, you know, Andre and the team really took me under their wing in terms of taking me to a lot of these, the kind of Bitcoin summits around the world, Bitcoin Park, Bitcoin Commons, and particularly in America, I was watching Americans do what Americans do so well, which is, like they started, they found something they cared about, and they started structuring and organizing around it and putting money behind it. And then we came back to the UK, and I was like, I'm going to go to the UK Bitcoin scene. I bet you it's great. And it was like, meet in a pub, drink beer, and talk about Bitcoin. And like, Okay, I enjoy that. I enjoy doing that. But it wasn't anything like as productive as what was going on in America. And so by this stage, I was, I was really close friends with Michele, as you know, Andy is a lifelong friend of mine. So we were all orange pilled and going to these meetups. And we were leaving, and we were going, there's more to do here, and one of them, and this was a the sort of seminal one where we came up with the idea that we were going to do this a senior software engineer at a very well known UK startup. I'm not, I'm not going to dox him, but he, he turned up at one of these meetups. And I was like, I got talking to him, and I said, Well, how come you're here? Because I know the startup you're working with that's a big one. Like, I didn't know they had Bitcoiners inside. And he was like, Well, I'm, I could leave my job and work in Bitcoin, I'm looking for, you know, what's going on here, and I'm not impressed. And I heard that, and I was like, Okay, I'm not alone in thinking this. Michele and I aren't alone. Andy, Michele and I aren't alone with you know, where there are people in the UK who see the opportunity Bitcoin represents, but there isn't this structure to catch them. So we went away and we. Said, Well, what is a Bitcoin hub? How do we make them work? And we looked at all the hubs that were the models they were doing, and we landed on a combination of bringing together the policy making that America has established so well, bringing together the venture capital ecosystem that is forming, and then fostering the entrepreneurship builds an ecosystem in the UK from where you can actually do things in Bitcoin that are productive and have a positive change on society. Like, it's good for Bitcoin, it's good for the UK. It's it's very like all sort of missions align in one place. And I believe and hope the UK, well, I believe the UK needs it. I hope the UK wants it, and that the attraction we pick up becomes self sustaining.

Lynne Bairstow: 15:39

Let's talk a little bit more about UK. Now, obviously you're from London, so it's natural that you want to build where you where you are, and create the ecosystem that you want to be a part of. But no, we were chatting about this a little bit before we started recording the perception of the regulatory environment inside of the UK. Right now, I think from globally, is perhaps negative thinking it's anti innovation or anti Bitcoin. But can you, can you enlighten us about that? What is the reality on the ground, and how did you come to partner with Bitcoin policy?

Israel: 16:10

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Unknown: 16:31

with Bitcoin. Yeah, it's isn't like ideal the regulatory environment in the UK. I think it gets a very bad rap. And I think, honestly, it gets a bad rap, because the UK and the British hold themselves to a high standard, and the country has a reputation, so when it doesn't meet what people expect, it gets fairly criticized. But if I look at like regulatory regimes in Europe and elsewhere like I actually don't think the UK is too bad. However, on Bitcoin in particular, it is pretty atrocious, and the engagement with the ecosystem has been very poor. There is a there has been a cultural resistance and and to even like engage in understanding what this is. And actually, at the launch party yesterday, one of the one of the messages we wanted to highlight was like, if you look at this, is going to sound quite high level, but bear with me. If you look at like, humanity's achievements, right, and how we've received them culturally as a society, Bitcoins are really interesting out there. Because, okay, we split the atom. So you create, you know, you unleash the power of nuclear force. And everyone's like, bloody brilliant, great, excellent. You know, we with this. We invent CRISPR so we could actually edit our genes. We can make our skin glow in the dark if we want. And everyone's like, yeah, fantastic. That's great. We come up with the internet itself, right? Everyone loves that. And there was the whole era in the 90s. But why when the internet came out, for example, did the Daily Mail in the UK be like, the internet is a passing fad? Like, where does this cultural Luddism come from that we just want to cynically dismiss things, when actually they make you rich and they drive growth. Like, these are good things. So where does that come from? I question that, and it applies most egregiously to Bitcoin, where it's like, here's mathematically sound money, and people like, God, that's preposterous. How could we do that? And it's like, well, we can we find a human being on a spaceship, into the air with a computer worse than a calculator, and landed them on the bloody moon and then flew them back. But apparently, the idea that someone could come up with a mathematical system for money is just like out of the question. I don't, I don't follow that logic and reasoning. I think there's a human psychological thing that needs to be studied there. Why, when it comes to money, do people instantly go, No, it couldn't possibly work, I couldn't possibly so that there's that attitude is pervasive in the regulatory regime of the UK, and yet Financial Services is 20% of the economy at least, so that that mismatch needs to be closed. And the work that Bitcoin policy UK is doing, I think, is exceptional. I've been I've they came on my radar as they were announced, just because I was browsing social media, and I made great efforts to get in touch with them on CBDs behalf, to try and figure out, like, what can we do in the UK? But ultimately it led to me forming, you know, really quite tight bonds with Susie, who runs Bitcoin policy UK, and Freddie news, their chief policy officer. And we we realized that collectively, if we could pool our resources in a physical space in London, then actually it was easier to get people to engage with us and hear the message, and hopefully that is the basis of, you know, change for the better in when it comes to treatment of Bitcoin over here.

Israel: 19:29

Yeah, I mean, London has been lagging in the Bitcoin scene, and I'm glad to see you guys making sure that that doesn't happen anymore. The partnership with Bitcoin policy. UK is, I think, extremely important as well. And London has always been FinTech hub. Ben, so how, how is Bitcoin perceived at the big fintechs, I'd say, in the region,

Lynne Bairstow: 19:52

in the startup scene in general, in the in London,

Ben: 19:55

the fins, the I mean, London is a FinTech hub. You're, you're absolutely right. And one of the things we've. Very tactically and deliberately done with antidote is we've set it up in an area of London called Farringdon, which is the specific street we're on. Is Hatton Garden, which is the diamond district. And it's funny, if you're a bitcoiner, because it's a street full of safety deposit boxes and signs that say, sell cash, buy gold. And we're going to do sell gold, buy bitcoin. But to answer your question, like 20 minutes walk to the east is the FinTech hub, where you have Monzo, true layer, all these businesses that are actually like billion dollar unicorns, venture capital backed Neo banks, financial infrastructure plays, API's for money movement like all that is a walk away and then 20 minutes walk in the other direction. To the west is the capital is Mayfair, where you've got all the money right, and their hedge funds, the venture funds, the private equity funds. So we're sitting at the intersection of those two areas physically, and that makes a difference. One of our core theses is that we can attract the talent, very highly skilled talent, that works in financial services and specifically FinTech, and bring them over to a bit and to look at things through a Bitcoin lens. And when you apply that knowledge and know how to Bitcoin, then hopefully we drive, you know, Bitcoin forward, as Jack Dorsey likes to say, is everyday money, which I think is a great expression, you know, I think the FinTech system and ecosystem over here is extremely healthy, and there is, there are deep venture capital markets to support that. So to even pull a little bit of that into the Bitcoin ecosystem in a credible way would move the needle. In our view. Let's get a

Lynne Bairstow: 21:25

little bit more tactical in terms of how antidote works with startups. Do you have specific programs, or can you describe is it co working? Is it an accelerator program, the funding that you offer to startups? Tell us a little bit about the kind of the menu of services at antidote, yeah.

Ben: 21:43

So, I mean, first and foremost, antidote is a physical space. It is London's Bitcoin hub, and that is important. It's a central point for the ecosystem to coalesce around in the city. We plan on doing more for public education through that lens, but just specifically coming to founders and entrepreneurship, we offer a six month accelerator program, and it's modeled off of two accelerators. One is the big and obvious one, which is Y Combinator, and we've taken their standard safe format for getting companies off the ground. I'll come back to that. The other one, which I think is far less well known, but I want to call attention to, because it was, it was exceptional when I when I encountered it as a venture capitalist, is a place in Paris called now called hexa, H, E, X, A, but previously called E founders. That was a FinTech start. They called it a startup studio, and I covered Paris for lakestar. I was going there very frequently, and it became like a you had to drop in here. Like the quality of companies and the quality of founders they were getting was just as a VC. It was irresistible. You had, you had to go in and check out what was going on there, that it was founded, I think, in 2011 and if you fast forward to today, they've backed 50 companies. They've had three unicorns. They've created 2600 jobs in France. Like it's, it's been a huge success. It's a really, really good accelerator and incubator. And one of the main things I picked up on that they did when I was working with them, is they did what they called founder matching. So if one guy came in with, you know, one idea and they were a technical founder, they were like, Oh, I've really got this. I'm super into embedded payments infrastructure, and I'm like, ultra technical on it. Look at what I built as a proof of concept, but they've got no commercialization. Know How? They just love the tech. They would say, Oh, that's interesting, because we've got this payments CEO, and she wants to come over here, and she's looking for how to price, you know, the technology that you're building. Okay, you guys are going to go together. Now, you're a company fast, you know? Then you they go through series ABC, successful business because it was well matched talent, like they had a very good eye for that. So that's one of the one of the ways where we're building antidote is around this kind of mindset of Bitcoin. Is our hyper technical they're very, very, very competent, particularly in the founder sphere, where Bitcoin businesses have struggled. I believe it is fair to say, is commercialization the way we the way we put it, you know, in a joking way. But to make the point is too many Bitcoiners build churches, not companies, right? So it's like they, they're, they're building these ideological temples to Bitcoin. But there's no model for how that's going to scale or actually address a consumer problem. So we, we are framing things through the like generate revenue and generate revenue in dollars, you know, because it keeps you alive, like you need, you need dollar based income, because we're not bitcoinized yet as a society. So generate revenue, cover your costs and solve real problems. Is the real framework through which we're looking at this, and then founders with ideas that fit that framework, we take on board. We give you 25, to 50,000 I'll put it in dollars. Actually, it's like 30 to$70,000 to what we call like, make the leap, basically quit your job and come into the incubator, and we'll look after you for six months, and then we take you through three months of mentorship, and then there's three months of building that concludes with a demo day, which is to the investors in antidote and every. Thing is structured and pre baked legally such that it should be the easiest seed round a founder could possibly get with founder friendly terms, like I was a venture capitalist, I do understand concerns about dilution. What is an appropriate amount of your business to sell at that stage? And so to give any founders listening reassurance, you know, they should be able to expect to leave the incubator with north of $750,000 worth of capital in the bank and only having sold between 15 to 20% of the business, which is an extremely competitive way to come to market as a seed funded company, so that from there, the business can either stay in antidote, but unfortunately, you got to start paying for a desk because we're a business too. Or you can go off and spread your wings and grow the company. But hopefully we've given these businesses a sure footing where they have identified their ideal customer profile, ascertain, you know, some kind of proof point for product market fit, maybe even in today's era, driven their first revenue, because the startup hurdle rate has gone up, right? It's, it's, it's the ask of VCs now is a lot higher than it used to be, because you can, I mean, I hate the term, but you can vibe code so much now, and you can get, you can get so far into market having spent a fraction of the money that we want to establish this kind of cadence amongst Bitcoin entrepreneurs mindset. You really can build and build businesses today, so much of the Bitcoin infrastructure necessary for that is already built. It's really about unleashing your ideas and realizing the potential of what you can do.

Israel: 26:29

Okay, great. So enough capital to get going. You go through the six month program, standard terms, pitch and how many companies are accepted into the cohort, Ben, and then also, who is the investor community that you guys have been working on, bringing together, apart from, of course, the backers of antidote itself, foger and initial capital, what's the work been behind the scenes, as far as getting high quality VCs and other investors to get excited as well about listening to these pitches.

Ben: 26:57

So we'll take three founders per cohort. Is the current thinking, and we'll probably do March and September cohorts, but the we will do a pre cohort in in January, because we've had enough applications so far that, I mean, we're in November for listeners, but that we've had enough applications so far that we do want to actually bring in and a couple of candidates we've met and actually show them to the world so that folks can get a less abstract sense of what it is we're targeting in a Bitcoin business, those those founders, is then presented to our investors. So the antidote investors is the investor committee that they are put in, put in front of at the end there, then if they don't like anything they see as a founder, they're free to go out and raise capital on their own, and they'll be in a very good position to raise capital. But the investor base we've got is the only ones I can name, just for privacy reasons, are initial and fulgo. But we have the backers we have sought are. I have made a very conscious point of building a cap table that is not purely Bitcoin. It is people who have built and scaled billion dollar companies in the real world, you know, outside of Bitcoin, because these people are going to provide the mentorship that founders need to really accelerate and differentiate themselves. And I feel, personally, it is very important that you don't create another Bitcoin echo chamber, that these founders hear messages from a COO who has taken a business from, you know, a shared office space to a massive complex, you know, in central London, employing nearly 1000 people like that. They've been on that journey, and then they've had the exit at the end. That's the kind of advice I think a Bitcoin founder needs to hear, how you do that, how you set up the operations to get there. I don't see it in existence in the Bitcoin hub ecosystem at present, perhaps outside of Presidio Bitcoin, which is a project I'm a big fan of, on the sidelines,

Lynne Bairstow: 28:41

and what types of companies are you seeing in terms of, are they infrastructure? Are they consumer facing? Are they B to B? Or what do you feel is needed in the ecosystem? Or what are you excited about looking at?

Ben: 28:53

It's funny, you mentioned that because we, Micheli Andy and I were talking about that this morning. Post post launch, we've identified it very broadly and what is publicly available is Bitcoin FinTech that is however extremely broad. We recognize that, if I can take a stab at explaining it further, you know, on this podcast, we're looking at both B to B and B to C, but those are very different lenses through which to look at things. And why do we say both? Because I, let's say, Take me personally. I have quite extensive experience in the B to C markets, like market as an investor and advisor, primarily through video games, indeed, but also social apps. I have done advisory work in the past to SoundCloud, like Spotify. Like these businesses, I'm familiar with the models the monetization. What you need to watch for the challenges and pitfalls relating to user acquisition, this, this kind of stuff. That is what, what you're really going to end up swimming in if you build a, b to c application, and then B to B is, is much is definitely probably where it gets much more fintechy, so like trade finance, insurance, inheritance stuff. But to zoom out a little bit more, one of the big things we. We do believe, and we are saying to founders, is that so much of what you need to get started has already been built. So to come back to your question about regulatory environment in the UK, not all no business or antidote should need to go and get licensed in this in this day and age, you can just build on top of an API like ZBD, like Coinbase, like strike, like lightspark, like these. These all exist now that you can build that business, and they are providing you with the regulatory air cover so you don't need to worry about it. And then you can think about, well, what application am I building? Am I building a credit scheme for Bitcoin, like a credit card with Bitcoin? Am I building Tiktok, but instead of liking videos, I'm sending SATs, am I building, you know? So there's all sorts of directions that can go in, and we welcome them all, because we've we've got the experience in seeing these kinds of businesses and knowing what they can scale like. And so too do our own investors. You know, fulga is very far from an inexperienced investor in the Bitcoin space. They have seen so much, and they've seen success and failure. Initial capital was previously a video games fund focused on consumer, you know, really consumer entertainment. They've backed Supercell, one of the largest mobile games companies in the world. All the founders were consumer builders, and they similar kind of thing. We can leverage their experience as well. And they have offered themselves as mentors to these businesses, because we all see the same thing is that a Bitcoin founder needs all the support they can get. They're on a they're working on a real mission that is good for the world there is, and they get unfairly dismissed by the traditional venture capital world just because it's Bitcoin. And I do find that, like, I'm tired of that, like I find it outrageous. I just

Lynne Bairstow: 31:39

want to dive a little bit deeper into your background in video gaming, one of the things Israel, and I talk about this quite a bit, one of the things that we get really excited about in terms of potential are, you know, streaming SATs, or creator economy, or just being able to break the existing financial model, because it's expensive to send small amounts of payments. And you have experience with this with CBD. How do you view the landscape of this changing with Bitcoin? Are you looking at at that space in particular, of just really breaking the model from, you know, dollars to and monthly subscriptions to to being able to pay on demand with SATs? I'd love to get your thinking on that model in particular

Ben: 32:20

we are, like, we're starting to is going to be a bit off, off the cuff, like, I'm getting very bullish on, on the trend in general. I will say that. So when we, when we started out at CBD, we were very we found ourselves swimming in our own, like, Lane, all by ourselves. And it was quite isolated. And what I mean by that is not like, oh, boohoo. Poor us. We We were the, we were the only Bitcoin company looking at gaming where we weren't thinking, oh, let's make Bitcoin games. It was like, let's provide the tooling and infrastructure so that game developers can build with this and it meant almost instantaneously. And credit to Simon and Andre and Chris, the founders of ZBD, in a big way here, they recognized this quickly. We had to drop all Bitcoin language. It did not sell in the market, right? Like the games industry doesn't care. They do not care. They do care about what it can do, instant payments, micro payments, that's an industry that absolutely lives on that transaction model. But oh my god, did they not want to hear about sound money, right? Like, just like, not interested. So we very quickly had to drop all that language. And then we would go to the Bitcoin conferences and we would comment to each other, it's like, it's like, we're an alien in our own land. Like people wouldn't know how to speak to us because we wouldn't engage on that level, right? They'd be like, Oh, you're custodial. And I would find myself in those conversations saying, like, have you ever had a conversation with Activision? You go and talk to them, and you say, Hey, we do Bitcoin payments in video games. And they go, where are your licenses? That's the first question. Like, we deal with children, where are your licenses? So that it's just like poles apart the world, right? So we immediately had to meet there. Since sort of that early days of getting having to really prove things out, we've now actually got to a scale where we have found product market fit. We are driving scalability. It was all in mobile games, which is just for the benefit of your listeners. It's like the gaming market is divided in two, and almost ironically, pretty much 5050, there is half of the money generated by gaming is in PC and console, Fortnite, Call of Duty. The other half is generated in mobile gaming, which is like Candy Crush and the stuff you play at a bus stop the game, the demographics of those audiences are completely different. Mobile gamers tend to skew female and skew into middle age, and PC gamers skews, is your stereotype. It skews young, teenage, male, very broadly speaking. So we started doing these micro payouts, and we noticed that the more we stepped away from Bitcoin, still using Lightning, everything is still Bitcoin, but the more we stepped away from talking about it, positioning it in that way, the more the engagement picked up, the more the consumers got it, the more people realized and with the happiest moments we have in ZBD, they they're rare. I won't I won't pretend they happen all the time, but every. Now and then we will get a message through customer support or through our help desk or something, and it's like, Hey, I just wanted you to know I downloaded this random game and it gave me Bitcoin, and then I got your ZBD wallet, and oh, my god, I love Bitcoin. How did I not know about this? And we're like, there we go. Mission accomplished, right? So that's the warm, fuzzy feeling we get. But we also power fountains infrastructure and this kind of value from value ecosystem because, you know, it's the fundamental mechanisms of tiny little, you know, payments being streamed and pinged around. You know, peer to peer audiences are very overlapping between gaming and music. It's a really kind of under the hood. It's a really similar use case for one of a for one of a better word, and it is beginning to scale. But the biggest challenge was always, has always been, the average person in the in the real world doesn't care about Bitcoin. If you speak to a musician of any note and you say, like, hey, you know how the record labels take like, 60% of your revenue, and you know you could keep 99% if you got paid in Bitcoin, you're with they're with you all the way until you say Bitcoin. And then they're like, I think I don't want that. They like those people suck kind of thing. It's like, Bitcoin is not cool. They don't want to go on their Instagram or their Twitter and appeal to people to start paying them in Bitcoin. They're like, Oh, now my audience is alienated. I seem to have taken some position on cryptocurrency. It's just two completely different worlds. And now we see companies like block also stepping up and saying, Yeah, you've got to make it. They, I think they use the term invisible Bitcoin, and this was actually, ironically, a term we were also using internally, which is, you, you enable the Fiat and the Bitcoin to intermingle so seamlessly that actually, for the end user, it doesn't matter, like it's just it just works, so to speak, like money just moves, and that that's where I feel we're hitting, that tipping point, collectively as an industry, enlightening of we're about to there's enough regulated, licensed lightning on and off ramps, and those providers have like systems of payment that can be used by developers, that Things like streaming, payments in music, things like tipping in real time on Twitch. These are, this is all going to start to emerge, and it will be lightning behind the hood that is the infrastructure, but users will be from their point of view, like sending and receiving dollars, you know, to and from their Chase account, yeah.

Israel: 37:15

And I love that framing Ben, and it's true. I mean, most people associate Bitcoin with, you know, maybe this rebellious, you know, Cypherpunk, libertarian ideology, and so you're already kind of branded as as a industry through an ideological lens, right, for good reasons, of course. And the origins of Bitcoin are, you know, quite ideological, and they're extremely important, but to your point, when you get into mass adoption, ultimately, people just want to know, you know, are you helping me as an individual, as a business? Is this solving my problem or not? Right? I don't want to talk about libertarianism or all these other things that get associated with, with Bitcoin, the brand, and I agree, we're getting to the point where I think the usability is gonna start to just improve massively. The block news recently, and you know, all this push of just being labeled as more everyday money is hugely important. Then I'm sure antidotes companies will contribute immensely to that. Because traditional FinTech, when you look at it, it's been extremely good at solving UX design, that consumer facing behavior with money, FinTech and London has been a huge contributor and hub to that. It's, it's, I mean, that's really where I see the innovation of traditional FinTech has been, has been more the, you know, the the UX, ultimately, in design of because it's all been the same rails up until now, right? And so the potential is just multiplied now, because you you have new rails that are more efficient, and you can kind of bring all this talent to that new monetary system, right?

Ben: 39:00

Yeah, there's a there's a few thoughts you made me. You sort of made me think of there that one is people, you know, there is that criticism of Bitcoin, and something I find very ironic to observe in society, or something like hilarious. It's that. It's that meme from inception of Killian Murphy and Leo DiCaprio at the bar. And it's like, bitcoins worthless. Give me one. Then and then it's like, no. And all these, all these folks I speak to, like my friends, my social circle, they know I'm mad on Bitcoin, they dismiss it, you know, they laugh about it. They've all got some, right? They'll, they'll belittle it, but they all have some, and they won't sell it. So why? You know it's like, because it's like, just in case. And then if you, and you also asked earlier about, like, what is the FinTech of London like? What is their attitude towards Bitcoin in general? Well, how does Revolut make all its money? Do you know it's crypto trading? So their bank accounts are actually not, like, not the, the primary revenue driver. It's, it's once they added crypto exchange and people could buy bitcoin, and, yes, all the others like, that's actually where they found. The gold mine and started growing the business. And now you can set up your revolute in the UK to round up into Bitcoin. Again. People just like, aren't aware of this, but the company is very favorable towards it. Monzo, the Neo bank. They're, you know, they've been through they're on their third CEO. Now, the first one was, was ideologically opposed to Bitcoin. Then Revolut went bouffe, right with revenue by adopting it. So the business was like, Maybe we should have it. And so there's, I've heard quite a bit that they are going to step into the into the Bitcoin and crypto space in terms of offering products to consumers in these once you've got Revolut and Monzo, you're really getting into, like, mass market UK awareness, exposure to Bitcoin is like, this is part of your banking, you know, life. This is, this is how, when you interact with your bank, you interact with your bank, you interact with your government money, and you interact with Bitcoin. And where the Neo banking apps, you know, what they really did was they made interacting with your bank next more pleasant, right? You didn't have to go in and queue up and pull out a checkbook. Now you could do it all digitally. You still encounter these ridiculous quirks of our and this applies to Europe, the UK, US, like of our banking system, where there's, like, you appear to be sending this much money to this person, why, who? Well, you know what for? Tell us, you know it's like, well, I'm paying my bloody plumber because my toilets leaking. Like, you really need to know that so. And then you bring in the extra usability of Bitcoin, where it's truly peer to peer, it is permissionless, and you can get all these extra benefits, and it just makes money easier. We forget, though, that in that period, all of us on this being bitcoin is there's the store of value thing, which I think is now firmly established, not really questioned. To my point on, like all my friends have Bitcoin, even though they ridicule it, then we get into the medium of exchange. And people think of medium of exchange equals using Bitcoin as money. You know, in payments, that's unit of account, medium of exchange, I believe, is this, is this invisible Bitcoin thing that you know, block CBD and others talk about where, like, it's behind the scenes, but settlement is happening on Bitcoin rails. And once all that settlement starts to move on to those rails, because it's faster, cheaper, more efficient, global, 24/7, etc, and open source, critically, then you can start to say, like, Well, why are we leaving all of these balances in government money, you know, in all these different jurisdictions, when we could just leave it sitting in Bitcoin, given that's the native asset of the rail we're using. And then you start to get unit of account. I don't know how long that's going to take. Maybe I'll be 70, maybe I'll be 50, I don't know, but it's going to be a little bit of time before all of that happens.

Lynne Bairstow: 42:22

You just mentioned open source. And one of the things that Israel and I, both coming from startup and VC backgrounds, it's something that you know, Bitcoin is open source. A lot of the companies and technologies around Bitcoin are open source. How do you balance the concept of open source with investment in a company. I mean, how are you thinking about that? Because we, we, we've been exploring that too, and I think traditional VCs just kind of rail against open source, but tell us what your view is.

Ben: 42:54

Yeah, I love open source, and I actually am, like, a low key really, like, I'm quite a nerd on this stuff, and I really do like open source. I've never not supported. I've given money to open source causes. You have to choose what you're building. Are you building a business, or are you building a project for humanity like and when, when you know intrinsically yourself, what are you building? Then you can make these compromises necessary to do those things. So if you want a no compromise, open source, you know, maximally available product, then maybe it is just a product that you're building, and you should apply for grants to get that, and you should go and seek out other sources of funding. Now I'm getting a bit absolutist here. For the sake of simplicity, there's obviously open source companies like Red Hat that have built business models around it, but they they aren't common. So it's kind of like playing in hard mode. If you do go closed source, you haven't committed a cardinal sin. Like, you don't need to be like, destroyed. I still challenge Bitcoiners with the question, like, there is no Bitcoin company, like, no dedicated Bitcoin company that has done more for Bitcoin adoption than Coinbase. Coinbase is still, in my view, the biggest driver of Bitcoin adoption worldwide, right? They are responsible for onboarding so many people to Bitcoin, whether or not they go off and gamble in the casino afterwards. Is that is up to them, and, you know, individual preference and so on. But bit Coinbase is still done more for Bitcoin, and a lot of Bitcoin companies, and Bitcoin is will really throw shade at that business. So are we going to do that every time? Like, if someone does come out with a great Bitcoin centric company, are we going to say it's rubbish because it's closed source when it's onboarding people to Bitcoin? Like, I really am, like, pick the battle right, choose where, choose where you're going to have these arguments. Because life isn't black and white, it's a million Shades of Gray, and you just swim through it.

Israel: 44:42

Another topic that we we'd love to get your thoughts on. Ben and Lynne and I have been spending a lot of time thinking through this and working with some startups on on how they think about Bitcoin as a treasury asset through their fundraising journey. How are you and the. Team advising companies, especially at this early, you know, maybe pre seed, seed stage, to think about a Bitcoin allocation if at all.

Ben: 45:08

Like, sorry, I'm going to draw on a bit of personal experience. Like, I can't share masses, because it's not like, it's private information. But like, ZBD has operated a Bitcoin Treasury strategy as well as a Bitcoin company, and it has definitely extended our runway and been a massive asset for the business. I would, I don't think I can sit in front of anyone as a bitcoiner and be like, yeah, don't buy bitcoin and put it on your balance sheet. That's too risky. Like, I just, what am I doing? So, like, it's, I would advise that founders do take a position in Bitcoin with any funds that they raise, but you've got to be, you know, you should have a business plan and know what your monthly burn is. So don't make yourself illiquid. That would be really foolish. So just kind of look at your, you know, runway. Think about the optionality that Bitcoin gives you and make an allocation. But it's it, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go all in on Bitcoin day one. That makes life hard. Bills are paid in Fiat, and you're going to be liquidating Bitcoin all the time and actually incurring tax charges, and you basically just made life harder. That's really where I come at things through this lens of generate revenue. Revenue is freedom. Revenue comes in and keeps you alive, and it can be in government money. And actually, if you get to cash flow, even better, because then you can start accumulating Bitcoin, right? And then this, this sort of Bitcoin you can it's like, in there's a whole Bitcoin public treasury company thing. And the only thing I see that's beneficial for that is, like tax wrappers for Bitcoin exposure, but not much else. They don't, they aren't actually viable businesses. The business is, actually, is in Bitcoin throwing off cash to accumulate more Bitcoin. That is, that is the type of business I want to see more of in this world. And I think, you know, you're starting to get glimmers of that as the venture ecosystem around Bitcoin matures. And you've got to, you know, you a couple of companies now crossing that series A and B threshold, where they are going to be on a path to getting cash flow positive soon enough, if they aren't already, and they can be accumulating Bitcoin as a result of that, but in the near term, yeah, buy bitcoin, but just don't be Don't get yourself trapped. That would be the advice I'd give.

Israel: 47:07

Yeah, well, fair enough. And certainly got to keep the burn rate very top of mind, because ultimately, first you got to survive and and make sure you're, you're still growing as a business and as a team, right? Well, I mean, this has been a great conversation. Ben and really excited to see FinTech and Bitcoin starting to take shape in such an important hub such as London.

Lynne Bairstow: 47:34

You'd mentioned early on our conversation about meeting a developer from a FinTech company who is a bitcoiner, but not yet convinced that there is enough in London for a Bitcoin scene. If you're you know how what would your advice be to developers, founders, product managers, anyone else in traditional you know early stage tech, about taking a look at what's happening in Bitcoin from a from an opportunity standpoint. I mean, how would, how do you view attracting talent to come into the Bitcoin space?

Ben: 48:07

We were extremely pleased with the turnout at the launch event we did yesterday. It was sort of north of 100 people when you're starting. I'm sure you, you've experienced this when you're organizing an event. There's the whole kind of operational side of it where you brick it like, oh god, I've got to get catering. I've got to do it like, and that's all like so much. But then you immediately panic about, are we going to get enough people? And we were actually pleased to find that we got reasonably quickly oversubscribed, and then had quite a healthy waitlist. And then we were pinging people like, don't attend if you can't make it, or say, like, say you can't attend if you can't make it because we have a waitlist. And people were like, No, I'm bloody coming. So that we were pleased to see that there is actually an ecosystem here of people in the wings who were waiting for something like this. That's incredibly reassuring to me as starting a hub in London. But what we, what we, what I do say to founders, or encourage founders to understand, is that, like, try not to look at Bitcoin for a price chart, right? Try look beyond the price chart. And I do find Bitcoin Twitter can be unhelpful here, where it's just like endless, sort of look at this astrology chart of a price thing and it's going to go up. Like, okay, great, but that doesn't make Bitcoin useful. That just says, Keep saving in Bitcoin, it doesn't, it doesn't move the needle. And in my experience, founders, entrepreneurs, builders, engineers, operators, all of them are results driven. They care about pro like, progress and achievement and driving things forward. And you know, you need to answer the question of, well, what should I do other than just buy and hold and therefore, like, I encourage founders, like, look deeper. Look at the technology. Engage with the technology. It doesn't cost you money to run Bitcoin on your laptop costs you some time, right? So download Bitcoin, run it as an application, check it out. You haven't bought Bitcoin yet, but you can start to poke around. You can start to see how it works. And you haven't done anything, you've just like you're geeking out one Sunday. So start to engage with it for the technology it is, and you very quickly realize just how sound that technology is. And. Why it's worth spending time on. You know, entrepreneurs and builders. They tend to be tinkerers, so and they also tend to be people who my dad always said it to me when I was a kid, it's like, you can do anything you set your mind to. And then I've I'm very inspired by a Steve Jobs video cliche, but from back in the day, he says, like, if you poke the universe, the universe moves. And when I was a teenager, that, like, really resonated with me as well, that kind of, like, went in and became, like a tenant of mine. So something else we're we're doing is we are building in public at antidote, like, we're going to show, like, you know, transparently, we'll have Kanban boards in the office of like, this is what we're doing, right? We've got a 1.3 million pound lease. We've got to make sure that we get enough money in the door to make sure this thing stays open. So here's what we're doing. That way we're accountable in the same way that our founders are accountable, because that's the pressure you come under from investors. So it's like, be that change. Be curious. Play with the software, don't play with price charts, and start to like, engage with the community. And what you'll find is so much opportunity. There is. It's Greenfield bitcoin is truly there is so much that can be done and so much to do. You know, if we draw any analogy to the internet, I like to point out that the internet, sort of as we know it, was created in 1983 or sort of the inception, the beginning of the internet, 1983 Fast Forward 20 years, you know, you're getting to the end of the the first.com bubble, like the failure of Google, etc, also not failure Google pets.com, and then the rise of Google, bitcoins 17. So we haven't had the.com bubble for Bitcoin yet. We're not, we're not quite there. You've had all the crypto collapses in the false starts, but we definitely haven't had a mass global everyone loves Bitcoin event yet, and that will definitely have a there'll be a bubble there, there will be a mispricing, and we'll all be extremely happy as Bitcoin is for a brief period of time, and then we'll all be feeling really sorry for ourselves again, and then it will kind of carry on and pick up, but that's when you'll get the game changing companies and get today and the internet's over 40 years old. Well, what's Bitcoin going to look like when bitcoin is over 40 years old, and I think not. I think it's just pure there's just pure opportunity in front of us that that is the thing that we've got to go out there and capture.

Israel: 52:07

Well, very excited for what you guys are doing at antidote Ben, and hope to visit soon as well. Maybe hand off to listeners, just to remind people, not only where they can get in touch, of course, and we'll include all that in the show notes, but also any upcoming deadlines to be aware of, as far as application processes and just in general, people that are maybe in the London area excited to work with you guys one way or another. What's the best approach?

Ben: 52:36

Excellent. Thank you. So the Our website is antidote, btc.com that's, I mean, really, at present, it's like a marketing page of where we're focused. So if you're curious, as a founder of seeing like the areas where we're concentrating around that's all on the website. We do in cut we are taking applications for our first cohort at present, that cohort is going to start in March. We'll have a deadline of probably the end of the year. We were going to say us thanksgiving, but after the launch event yesterday, we actually agreed this morning to extend it because of the people we met then what they wanted to pull together. So consider a year end deadline as for being applying for the first cohort. And to apply, you go to antidote, btc.com/join, it's a very self explanatory form. It's just really telling us a bit about your idea yourself, your background and what inspired you. If you want to engage with us as a community, you know we're on x at antidote BTC, and we will be setting up a pretty serious events roster to come. So if you, if you use Luma, you can find us on Luma at antidote. But we are also, and this is perhaps a call to anyone listening. We are. We have a couple of hires out, so we're looking for a community manager, and we're also looking for an operations associate. So those that post is on Bitcoin. Of jobs, we know you're out there, and we've had 90 applications so far, but if you do, you know, if you do hear this and you're inspired, we'd love to meet and like I said, we're in Hatton Garden in London.

Lynne Bairstow: 53:55

Thank you so much, Ben. We really appreciate your time and sharing your vision and what you're doing. We're excited to follow along with you, and I'm sure we'll have future conversations.

Unknown: 54:04

Thank you, Lynne and Israel, very nice to meet you. Thanks for having me. You.