Inside Bloom.social: The Future of Market Intelligence

In this episode of HardWired, Harry sits down with Charlie Varley, founder of Bloom, to explore his journey into Web3, the vision behind Bloom, and how the product is rethinking market intelligence and on-chain trading.

Charlie explains how Bloom is building a social layer for investing — where traders and signal producers can share ideas, prove conviction on chain, and help users make more informed decisions. The conversation covers the evolution of crypto through different market cycles, why the space is shifting back toward fundamentals, and how Bloom aims to make trading more transparent, more accessible, and more rewarding.

They also discuss the importance of community, the changing nature of fundraising in today’s market, and why authenticity, speed, and execution matter more than ever for founders building in crypto.

A conversation about market structure, product, community, and what it takes to build something meaningful in the next wave of crypto.

Learn more about Bloom: https://www.bloom.social/
Follow Charlie Varley on X: https://x.com/c_varley
Follow Bloom.social on X: https://x.com/bloomsocial

This episode was brought together by AlphaWire: https://alphawire.xyz/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello everybody. Welcome to Hardwired. Thank you very much, Charlie, for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Thank you, Harry. Pleasure to be here with you.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Very good. So I always start these things off with just a little bit of an introduction to who you are, where you come from, how you've got to be where you are today. So do you wanna do you wanna tell us a bit about yourself, please?

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Yeah, so my name is Charlie. I have been in Web3 for the most part of a decade now. Uh I got in quite early on, I suppose, in the the life cycle of things. I started out uh in a in a very um engineering-dominant role for layer one uh called IOTA, which is one of the big 2017 uh chains and and um very much a kind of leader in its like vision around um Internet of Things and machine economy and and almost all of these agentic pieces that exist today. Uh I left IOTA a couple years back to found Bloom. And uh yeah, the way that I would describe Bloom, we're a market intelligence network where traders and uh signal producers share trading calls and uh it serves as a single uh discovery surface, much like a Robin Hood for trading stocks, tokens, perhaps, um, in the future prediction markets and really just providing a uh you know beautiful interface for people to get into trading, get into investment, but also truly understanding the why behind investment decisions, right? We want to become the single place you come to. If you want to understand what's going on in the market, you open balloon.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Very nice. Well, thank you for giving us that that description. But before we dive into your startup and your product, which I'm very excited to do. So I always ask people, how did you get into this sort of crazy world of crypto? It's always my favorite question to ask. You never know what answer you're gonna get, but uh but please tell us.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah, it was uh coincidental more than anything. So I uh did a computer science master's in London at University College London, and the uh dissertation I did that you had to put down your um your your interest areas and my two interest areas at the time, this was back in like 2016, were AI and crypto. And so uh I I got put in touch with someone who um was from the IOTA Foundation at the time, a guy called Navin Ramachandran, who's I believe now on the supervisory board for IOTA. And he uh he had an idea to build a wallet for the IOTA ecosystem at the time. They had a very rudimentary basic wallet. Uh my exposure to cryp until this point had been purely hobbyist. I was keeping tabs on the industry, I was you know playing around with Bitcoin quite early on and things like that. But um got introduced to Navin. We built out this wallet for the IOTA ecosystem as my dissertation. And uh because it went so well and because the community loved it so much, it became the official wallet for IOTA. So I then um moved into working for the IOTA Foundation. I'd entered, I guess, as a lowly uh senior software engineer and and and left as a director of engineering overseeing all of the consumer-facing software. So yeah, slightly um unusual and and and you know, non-standard route into the space, but um been here for such a long time, uh seen it through all of the various uh phases and waves of adoption since that initial 2016-2017 period. And yeah, I think it's finally at a point where I feel uh satisfied that I've uh dedicated such a chunk of my career to the space because it's now finally coming to fruition in such a way that you know there's so many exciting um verticals and and fields that are blowing up in the space right now, it's a very exciting time, I would say, for the wider crypto field.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

And do you think it feels different than than prior cycles? I definitely do. Like the this cycle compared to sort of 21 DeFi summer, 22, obviously it was a very crazy time, is probably the best way to put it. But even so, more so than sort of 2017 and the ICO craze, like this one really feels like the the kind of involvement of traditional companies has finally started to pick up, the regulations started to appear, people have kind of had like five years of crypto, not just being that weird thing that your cousin does on a Saturday morning that that you don't really want to hear about, but but now people are asking like genuine questions. Have you kind of perceived that as well? Like you've been in it a similar amount of time to me. It seems to be finally changing, which is nice.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Well, I mean, it feels like it's come full circle. So I think back in 2017 there was this um, you know, ideological passion about changing the world, right? Like everyone who was getting into the space was like super into the idea of smart contracts and um decentralization and you know sovereign money and you know, like origination of Bitcoin and Ethereum and all of these CCs were what were driving, I think, all um more or less interest in the space, right? It was very much like a space for nerds. And because it blew up so quickly and it was so promising, and you know, obviously a lot of money was being made, there was this big influx of uh retail, right? Like 2017 bull market was probably the biggest uh market penetration crypto had has has really ever had, right? It was the point at which you'd have friends asking you, you know, what should I buy, what should I be into, like what should I pay attention to? And then we had this like multi-year cycle of uh, I would say not that much added new users, right? You did have waves of people coming at different points, and you had major launches. Um, but I think the the space in in many regards kind of lost its way, I would say, which is natural, right? Like the technology was not ready. It was not scalable, it was not built for mass adoption. You had all of these crazy problems that, you know, even at a basic UX level, you'd have to manage a seed phrase. Uh you you you had like um a complete um cogmire when you went into the cross-chain environment, you'd run into all of these problems with paying gas. So for like average users, it was completely inaccessible. And obviously the uh hype died down very quickly. And then you had this long period of building where you did have cycles, you know, DeFi summer and things like that, which did stimulate excitement, but they were generally more focused on money, right? They were more focused on making money and and and riches and all of these sorts of things. It already attracts like a an audience that um is is different, right? Like you start with the nerds, and then suddenly a lot of people who actually don't really have that much skin in the game, don't really care whether crypto manifests or not, just here as a sort of um, you know, vehicle to to make money. And I think we're now, as I say, coming full circle. We're coming back to that return to fundamentals. I think people are desperate for it. Like people have meme coins are brilliant, and you know, the the excitement and novel social patterns and and financial um uh relationship between culture and money is now a thing that crypto has driven. But I think you can't only have that. And I think people have almost felt uh a desire to return back to the fundamentals, and obviously that's coalesced very neatly with the fact that you have such brilliant um advancements at the moment, right? You have things like the VVV ecosystem and and and pod and all of these crazy um private AI inference projects, you have robotics projects, you have um, you know, people tokenizing uh Lien's on chain, and you know, you have the big institutional influx of interest. So as you were saying, the the space has grown up and it's now at a point where it feels like we're very much on the cusp of um mass adoption, right? Like we're we're at this uh yeah, the kind of older dodge of crossing the chasm. We're like in the chasm currently. And I think the reality is with the natural adoption cycle of crypto, you'll have um uh a kind of uh level of retail envelope involvement that we've never seen before. And that would be spearheaded by you know things like the news around Robin Hood launching that chain, very accessible, you know, building crypto on-chain first. Like the entire financial system is now realized that this is the future. And it feels very much we're at that cusp of you know, step by step into the chasm. Once we cross the chasm, it's you know, you move from um early adopters to early majority. Um we're we're just exiting that early adopters phase, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

No, definitely. I I'm I mirror a lot of your thoughts, to be honest. It's the first time in a long while where I've genuinely started looking at new D applications, new networks, things that are building on top of things that have been tried in the past, didn't really achieve maybe the critical mass that they needed or the revenue that they needed. They're being re-spun up, new ideas with the learnings of the past taken into account, and with a real focus on revenue and core business offering, not just can we launch a token, can we get it invested in? Like they're more leading towards selling equity. Obviously, there's still token warrants, but for a long time it was pure token, sell the token and all will be well. Whereas now it's very much so, have you got an equity component? Who's on your cap table? How is this structured? Which is pretty nice. Yeah, exactly. Is this a sustainable business, not just can we raise five million dollars into a token sale and launch at 30 million market cap? It's not that anymore. It still exists, but but it's not the same as it's not.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Well, it's also um it's also the bear market has been brutal, right? So the um the wheat has very much been separated from the chaff. And if you manage to survive throughout the bear market, which um a lot of very good projects and founders have managed to do, it's indicative of you know a good trajectory from here. So generally, bear markets are are excellent for the industry because it means that the people who are um temporary tourists who are here as a kind of quick um you know vehicle to make cash are filtered out, right? And and the ones who are building something meaningful last and sustain. But obviously, the reality is people have to adapt to the market conditions, right? Like oftentimes people find themselves just simply building the wrong thing at the wrong time. Um but I think generally, if you are a founder who has managed to survive through this phase, um the likelihood is you are on something good and and meaningful. Um and I think this next phase will be where the the kind of next iterations of winners are are established, right? Previous one is you know, the likes of RV space, all of these major, major projects have established themselves as the hemoth monster space. So I think there are a lot of those level caliber of projects that are maybe earlier in their journey, but they're they're they're about to start that phase. And I think that that's going to be super interesting to see that um, you know, shift in verticals and shift in focal points, not exclusively just say DeFi or layer ones, uh, um, you know, these these more sort of frontier technologies that only now are are actually adoptable.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

100% and it and it very nicely leads me on to what I believe and hope will be one of the shining stars of this next cycle, which is Bloom. So you've given us a little bit of an introduction, but why don't you walk me through sort of why Bloom exists, who's maybe like on the on the core founding team, and just tell me a little bit about your journey. Obviously, we we know each other quite well, so you I know I know some of these answers already, but I'd love to hear it in kind of a succinct way rather than the the mixture of messages that you sometimes get having these conversations, like at its core, what is Blue?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think like the um the problem space is obviously something that's that's worth beginning with. I think the reality is if you look at um investment and trading and access to making money through these vehicles, historically, what what have people really done, right? They've they've democratized access in a way that makes the UX nice, right? So you have a nice button and you can trade. But the reality is like that doesn't turn you into a competent individual. You can actually make money through those um endeavors. You are left scratching your head as to why, right? Like, why am I buying this? What is the reason behind this asset that is is valuable? Like why um on a fundamental level should I be investing in this? What is it about the market right now that means that this is a good investment decision? These are the sorts of things that obviously, if you're a competent trader and you've been in the trenches or wherever else for a long time, these are things that come naturally to you. But the vast majority of people find this stuff um completely intangible, right? Like the idea of sitting with 10 tabs open, Twitter, Telegram, you know, scrolling through alpha groups and things like that is just something that isn't a natural process to 99% of the world's population. So the I the idea really is that um with Bloom, we democratize access not only to a beautiful UX that gives you the ability to trade across multiple different asset classes on-chain, but also that structured understanding as to why you're making those investment decisions. So you no longer need this convoluted process and web of tools, you just have Bloom, right? You come in, you understand, okay, cool, I want to know I want to know what's going on with tech stocks, and you can read theses and market intelligence around that, and you can um grow in your conviction and understand as to whether that's something that you should be engaging with right now. Similarly, you know, you could be looking at AI tokens, you could be looking at um, you know, particular uh majors. It doesn't matter what asset class it is. The idea is that you come to Bloom and that structured market understanding through shared intelligence allows you to make sensible investment decisions.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

So to take it back to its most basic level. So say I come onto Bloom, I sign up with my wallet, I I'm logged in and I create an account. What is the primary thing I'm gonna see on the home page at its current stage?

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Yeah, so it's a it's a feed of market intelligence. So you will have uh more competent, I mean, you might be competent trader yourself, but like you will have other traders, other investors who are sharing signals, right? So sharing investment theses about different tokens, about different stocks. And uh it's done in such a way where you can actually verifiably prove that they hold the token, right? So it's always tied back to that position on chain and you know this person actually has conviction, right? And this idea of capital behind conviction is something that is incredibly rare in a market, right? Like if you were to go to a Telegram group or to Twitter, there's no validation. You have no idea whether this person actually holds the asset. And obviously, because of that, it leads to nefarious activities, right? People will um recorrect their track record, right? They'll they'll edit out and delete things that they shared previously, they'll inflate and and and exaggerate things, they'll um they'll they'll be um uh primed into sharing that alpha signal because someone has paid them to do it, right? So you have this um uh inherently problematic information sharing um uh uh reality when it comes to investment, where it's just rife with problems, right? It's it's something that if you cannot provably verify the person holds that, that they're legitimate, that they have a reputation, that they are who they are, uh they say they are, you're you're gonna be in a in a in a cogma ultimately. So the idea with Bloom is all of that is is resolved ultimately. The um people behind these calls, you you can either validate who they are, if they've uh um connected themselves to a real world identity, you have um the uh the the ethos reputation side where you can actually see based on their track record in Web3, are they a reputable individual? Have they been called out for bad behaviors before? And you can see that they actually hold the token, right? So if you follow them, you you trade off the back of someone's thesis, they then sell, you'll know. And you now need to make a decision whether you're going to do the same thing. So it's just plugging in on-chain rails to a process that people already do naturally and making it as seamless and safe and secure and and valuable ultimately as possible.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

No, it it makes a lot of sense and it and it picks on some of the issues that are in the kind of more retail or pro pro-sumer level of investment and trading within crypto, which is it's hard to verify people that might have very good research or a very good thesis on something, whether they actually hold something. And the engagement model and the remuneration model that you've managed to build in the back end of this that allows somebody, let's say I hold a position in Aerodrome, which is one of my little favorite picks at the moment, as you well know, um, I can post on Bloom a thesis that I'm bullish about Aerodrome. Somebody can then click on that thesis and swap natively within the app. So do you want to tell us a little bit about how that kind of functions and how that works?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah, it's um it's all done in a in a self-custodial way, right? So you can come into Bloom and you can sign up with your existing extension wallet. You can uh create a new profile with a new wallet, and we give you that out of the box, right? So whatever flow you want to take, it's it's it's straightforward, right? You can um bring your wallet with you or you can instantiate a new one. When you come into this um environment where you're trading off the back of signals that people have shared, we're again routing that through the the lowest possible fee basis across an aggregation of decentralized exchanges, right? So you're not trading through SX, you're trading through DEXs, and we find you the best possible rate and trade executes in a couple of seconds. So done in such a way where you don't actually have to worry about the chain that these assets are on, right? You could have um USDC on base, you could be trading on Ethereum, you could have um some obscure exotic token on uh Solana and you could trade back to Avalanche or Arbitrum or whatever it is. So the the idea is that you no longer need to worry and think about these brails that exist behind the scenes. And the uh the experience is very akin to a web to native trading experience, web to native investment experience. And then as you say, you have these uh incentivization models that actually encourage both sides of the equation to be active, right? The the signal sharers earn when they share signals. So if you're a trader influencer where previously it was difficult to monetize your um community and and and your investment base, now every single call, every single trade that you place is non-monetized and you just earn a constant stream of revenue from it. On the other side of the equation, you're incentivized to to trade more, right? We have gamification models in place, we have um XP point campaign type things where you're actually encouraged to trade as much as possible. Because the reality is here, you know, the um the the uh the the way that you encourage people who uh otherwise would not be trading, would not be investing as actively and be far more passive, is just to throw them into the deep end, right? Throw them into the gauntlet, try things out, make mistakes, um, and very quickly understand what's working. So over time we'll be layering in more and more supportive tools that actually allow you not only to um gather signals, but also to validate whether, say, your entry is at a good level, right? Like uh an automated chart analysis as to whether this is a smart point to trade, um, factoring not just the individuals trading signals, but the collective, right? What is everyone doing on chain? What is the pluma community doing on chain? So when you when you when you approach it from this um this angle, what what really is happening is you're just giving the individual uh retail user the tools in that arsenal to make good investment decisions and to actually make money, where previously they were just, you know, blindly gambling, right? If if you think about the the history of uh apps that, as they say, democratize access to finance, they don't democratize understanding, they democratize um clicking a nice fancy polish button.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

I was gonna say a buying zero uh date to expiry options on Robin Hood being a fairly good example of that. Yeah, that sort of stuff. So that kind of nicely leads me on to where do you think this is all going next? Like you're very well positioned at the kind of changing of the guard when it comes to trading on chain and having the knowledge and being part of communities, but what's your kind of view on trading on DEXA's tokenized assets, how things are moving towards this ability to own things across the gambit from or gamut even uh from stocks to RWAs to whatever you may want to own? Do you do you think we're at the cusp of kind of a change of the guard? Like what's your opinion?

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Well, I think it's all dependent on the market, right? So um, whatever individuals are trading and investing in at a given time is where you should be placing your attention, right? Obviously, if um you're looking at this upcoming bull market and you know you're you're examining it from a value investing point of view, it is a very good time to find um up-and-coming gems that are currently undervalued, right? But the reality is that you have to be where the puck is moving. And if you're you know trading on shorter time scales, you need to be trading in active um fields, right? Like at the moment, meme coins and Solana are super hot. Um, stock trading at large is super hot, but these sorts of um you know more fundamental basis token plays might not be the thing that people are trading right now, right? Like there was a period where everyone was super hyped about the base ecosystem, what was coming out there, still there, ticking along in the background, but that's not where the primary trading activity is occurring. So from Bloom's perspective, we just want to be able to support every asset class, right? It doesn't matter where the market is at this moment in time. You have exposure to every um vehicle, whether it's you know real world assets, whether it's um you know any any sort of sub-categories within that commodities, oil, SP 500, um, SpaceX launch, right? Like whatever it is, you need to be able to trade that in one place. And I think you know, fortunately we're finally at a place with the industry where the liquidity is sufficient to be able to trade those sorts of assets, the availability is sufficient. In many cases, you don't even need to do KYC where you would in uh a traditional um, you know, stocks and chat ICE type environment. Um to me, it's just is the natural evolution of things, right? Assets are moving on chain from Bloomers' perspective. We just want to support every asset class. So whatever the market dynamic at that moment in time, we facilitate it and you get exposure to you know where the puck is moving.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

It's an exciting time ahead. I'm I'm I'm sort of with waited with baited breath to kind of see how this next cycle shakes out and see who kind of the whole the who are going to be the real winners and losers. Um I want to bring it back a little bit to where you are currently with Bloom and where you are in kind of like the product launch lifecycle, how you're getting on, what what do you want to share with people to kind of know about how they engage with you and and where you're up to? Do you want to dive into that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, so we we came out of stealth um towards the end of last year. We uh did a little bit of initial push and built a a pretty large wait list of over 100k users. Uh, we're now in the um the the early access phase. So we started out. With a small closed-ish group of very core community members, close network, trader influencers, KOL types. And the idea being that we'll just incrementally expand. So over the course of the next couple of months, we'll be layering in more and more people from the waitlist. And there'll be more opportunities to effectively jump the queue. Like ultimately, we're looking for a certain user archetype, right? People who fit that mold. And of course, when you sign up for wait lists and fill out the form and stuff, you can make clear that you are that user class. And so for us, the uh goal right now is to um expand gradually and incrementally in such a way where it's controlled, right? Like we don't want to necessarily have an unbelievable influx of users today. Um, what we're doing is validating all of the core mechanics, um, expanding with um surface areas that make the flows simpler and more seamless. And um over time we'll just be batching more and more waves into the core products. So it feels a little bit exclusive, but it's almost intentionally so. Um and as we go through this uh couple of month period, it will just become increasingly open, right? We'll be more um publicly pushing, we'll be uh initializing various growth initiatives that we have planned with some of our partners, we'll be um turning on referrals and things like that. But essentially the idea is that it should be beneficial for you not only to come into Boom yourself, to, but to bring everyone you know onto the platform as well. Right. Like we want to create this reflexive environment where as you bring more of your network in, it enhances the product yourself, it enhances the product for your friends. You also are um able to earn by way of that model as well. So, you know, it's a social network, ultimately. Um we we we want to keep it in a fairly curated environment at the start. But as time goes on, you know, the for you algorithms kick into place and um it filters for quality automatically. So uh we we we could theoretically layer in a ton of people today, but um ultimately there's there's better value in doing this staged process where we actually just make sure for every single user class and user archetype we meet their needs as closely as possible. We're almost building this product for them. And so getting um recurrent feedback cycles and acting upon that and ensuring that um anyone who comes into Boom becomes a uh uh a sticky user who sticks around and wants to bring others in, that that has to be the primary focus for us throughout this uh early access phase.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

No, 100%. I think it's a very smart way of doing it rather than just opening the floodgates like a lot of protocols do and kind of figuring it out as you go along, being a bit more intentional, being a bit more careful, being a bit more measured, actually getting real feedback from a specific group so that you can then enact that feedback is very important. But you you talked about a point there that I want to go into a little bit further, which is the kind of gamification and the earn sort of the ability to earn through the platform. So do you want to explain those two things to me?

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Yeah, so uh whatever user role you fit within the system, you could be a signal producer or you could be a signal consumer, right? So you have you have gradients of how active or passive you are within those two, but ultimately you're either sharing signals in Bloom or you're trading those signals. And obviously, many people sit sit between both. So from our side, we want to incentivize both. If you're someone who is sharing signals, if you're um uh knowledgeable in-the-no person, then you should be remunerated for that. If you're coming into the product to trade for the first time with Bloom, you also should be remunerated in some way as well. So it's a um a very clean, simple incentivization model where what really is happening behind the scenes is if you are producing value in the Bloom ecosystem, you share within that value, right? So if you are a uh trader or uh a trader influencer who shares um investment calls and people trade off the back of that, you're gonna get a share of the trading fees. So you're literally gonna get kickback from the very nature of the way the revenue model works. Um on the other side of the equation is it's more um points and XP driven, where um, you know, obviously those will convert into rewards further down the line, but we're also gonna be layering in um multiple seasons of rewards, right? So right now we're in season zero, very straightforward. You trade, you earn XP. As we go through this uh early access phase, there'll be more and more rewards available to you, right? So we're gonna follow a um similar model to what has worked in gaming, right? Where you have battle passes, you have um loot boxes and things like that. We'll do something similar where you'll actually get very valuable, almost one-time rewards um based on your trading activity. So if you trade a lot, you'll get um, you know, fee reductions, you'll get points multipliers, like similar to like what Call of Duty is almost, right? Like you have these one-time almost items that you can um execute and and basically just speed up the the route and um rate at which you you accrue rewards.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

I think he's a very, very smart way of doing it. Some of the best sort of run point systems that I've seen have been trading interfaces in crypto. Obviously, it's one of the my main things that people do when they engage with the ecosystem. But that kind of leveling up, being part of a journey, being part of a community, building a real history and a profile on Bloom, especially if you are in that kind of prosumer category or consumer category of retail, where you may have a community, you may be a trader, you may build some tooling, you may build some applications, that ability to demonstrate that following, but also be rewarded for it. Because at the end of the day, the more people that use Bloom, the more people that go through your trade routing system, the better it is for Bloom, but the more so those people can be rewarded. Whereas in the past, like you're sharing what you're looking at on Twitter, you're sharing it in Discord, you're sharing it in Twitter spaces, like those are very good and like you can grow a following, but it's very hard to demonstrate that to say a platform or a protocol. Like let's say you're somebody that's very involved with the base ecosystem and you're following the new D applications, the new lending markets, the new insurance markets or whatever, like it's very hard to demonstrate that you can influence capital to a platform that that is looking to influence people or to spread their message as far and as wide as they can. When you layer in that ability to show a company your Bloom profile and say, Well, I've had a thousand traders that listen to my analysis, my theses around what I'm looking at and why I think these might be interesting to follow, that can become a very powerful flywheel for people to grow their business, grow their following, grow, grow whatever. Um yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Yeah. The um the the the profile side to it and building a profile is absolutely key. I think like look at Twitter, right? Um, if you're not uh at the top of the influence pyramid, you struggle to stand out, right? And and not just from a um reputational and visibility point of view, but also a monetary point of view. If you look at Twitter, it's actually heavily restricted. You have to have um a fairly insane level of uh views over the last few months in the millions in order to actually qualify for creative rewards in the first instance. So there's a lot of guys who are just, you know, people who are by right influential, knowledgeable guys, have market intelligence, have a very deep understanding of the fundamentals of crypto. But in one vein, it's very difficult for them to actually build a profile because of of the nature of how Twitter works. And the the influence pyramid is so entrenched that to kind of go up the rungs is very, very difficult. Whereas if you come into a platform like Bloom, you're starting in a uh a kind of you know big fish, small pond type affair, right? And very quickly you can almost ride the tide as Bloom rises in such a way where you're moving up that influence pyramid at a far faster rate than you would otherwise. And it it doesn't just apply to the you know level of visibility you get, and you know, you have exposure to these 100,000 waitlist uh sign-ups eventually, but you'll you also have a monetary stream that is an order of magnitude higher than Twitter, right? Like Twitter gets revenues from ads and it shares that with the creators. We get revenues from trading fees and we share that with our creators. So it actually, as a as a as a vehicle to make money, is far, far higher than it would be for um conventional routes of travel for these mid or micro influencers. Um and obviously over time, we intend to push people's profiles as far as possible, right? So if you come into Bloom and you show that you can share good uh signals, you can post good theses, and you are influential by the nature of the way the product works by nature, you will then be promoted by us, right? We'll reach out to you and we'll be doing promotion activities for you, we'll be sharing your profile in our newsletters, we'll be doing um AMAs and podcasts with you, we'll be pushing you on our Twitter. So it's almost like um the people who get into Bloom now, they're at a big advantageous position compared to everyone else, right? Because the the tide rises and they'll just rise with it and they'll build a larger and larger following. And we're already seeing this, right? Like even in this first um month or so of having um real users using the product in a real way. A lot of these user archetypes who maybe haven't posted on Twitter these sorts of things for a long time, or they've been doing it on a small level, even yourself. I know this is something that you're you're into. Um it's it's it's obvious that the Bloom model is far more appropriate for these guys. And the level of um activity involvement that already engaging, even in the super early phase, is extremely promising. It shows that that um influence mechanic of rewarding people for being influential is something that um people people find incredibly valuable, right? It's almost like if you are to reward uh influence, um, there's not really a better way, right? Like to reward them directly for their influence than for some sort of adjacent metric of um you know view count or engagement. These things are neither here nor that, right? They're they're beneficial only to Bloom. In Bloom's case, um, or sorry, beneficial only to Twitter or whoever is uh enacting those um influence dynamics. In Bloom's case, because the influence is directly tied to trading volume, you can actually um you can actually make sure that they're you know reliably rewarded in a way that is actually lucrative.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

It's an exciting area to look at. Like I've been obviously during our conversations learning a lot more about the the products, but also learning more about the the area of trading on chain, how people do follow wallets. Like I've been in crypto, what, nine years now, but really only started doing deep research in 21, sort of with Nansen and Masari and all of these other platforms, but they never really kind of cracked that social element of being able to not just research a wallet but also hear what that wallet has to say about their trades. Now, obviously that's not for everybody, but there will be a very large percentage of people that want to share why they're trading the things they're trading and sort of bring people into their thought process and as you say get rewarded for it. One one question that I do have is what do you think is like the biggest opportunity for you and what do you think is the biggest threat when it comes to building a product like this and where we are at in the crypto life cycle? Like what what are you excited about and what are you scared about is always a difficult question to answer.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Well, I think the the tailwinds are there. I think we're we're very much right place, right time. So the the period that we've uh been building, the period that we've chosen to launch, the shift in the way the market is operating is is very much in alignment with what Bloom is as a product, right? As we were saying at the start, people are crying out for a return to fundamentals. People want to understand that structured reasoning behind why they're making investment decisions. So from a you know, um right place, right time, tailwinds point of view, like I think we're fortunate and and lucky in that regard. And I think we have a very um well-architected, very easy-to-use product that um, you know, as we go through this next push is just very well placed to um accumulate as much of that interest as as possible. But at the uh separate side of the equation, the reality is like this is becoming a very um very crowded space in some regards, right? Like we are doing something intrinsically different to the majority of social financial platforms, but there is a clear coalescing of activity, right? The major financial platforms are moving more social. Robin Hood has uh has has released its social trading product recently, has been tested in beta. X has has launched smart hashtags recently, right? So these are all within the realms of what Bloom is looking to achieve. I think for us it's mainly a case of um we uh we are we we we we we're working towards reaching escape velocity, right? You get to a certain point in a startup's lifecycle, and particularly in the context of social networks, where it hits that critical mass and then it just starts uh exploding, right? And and so our goal is obviously get to that point. The mechanics, the systems, the structures are perfect. We now need to execute uh at such a high rate, both in terms of shipping, but also in terms of user traction, such that we reach that escape velocity point as soon as possible, so that we now instantiate ourselves as a future bechamoth within this field, right? And I think that to us is the the kind of major thing that we are cognizant of is just the speed of execution. But I think this is true of every single startup throughout history. The um the single biggest determining factor as whether a startup succeeds is can they ship fast? Can they execute at high quality? And so yeah, I think the um the the game has changed. It's almost a more level playing field now with uh agentic workflows and startups that have maybe 10, 15 people can compete with startups that have like um 50 people, and startups that have 50 people can compete with instantiated enterprises with thousands of people, right? So it's almost very interesting dynamic where you can actually move at a rate that you know was never previously possible for your size, but you don't want to be complacent and take that for granted. You have to constantly be pushing, constantly be improving your own workflows, your own um processes to retain that high quality while also shipping faster.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Yeah. Well answered. It's it's definitely um a changing landscape, much more so than I've I've seen in the past. The ability to get to a product that can achieve that kind of critical mass now more than ever is is sped up.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Um I am and it it changes the like um it changes the life cycle of in fundraising as well, right? Like you can't like startups should not go to VCs now until they have a light product retraction because it will just fall on death earth, right? You have to have something live to be able to raise capital. Obviously, you could go back to a uh you know sort of angels style round and those still do happen, but generally speaking, it you know, as you say, the game has completely changed. Um who who is it that you were uh you were you're having a conversation with?

SPEAKER_00 36:43

So I was just gonna say I'm I've been having a conversation with a smart contract auditing company that I I work with, but more so than anything, about some of the customers they're speaking to, which are launching the applications, they're building smart contracts with AI. And that's both good and bad in many ways. But um, but the point being the ability to build product and get it live in customers' hands, even with some risks and kind of um what's the word, some caveats, um, is faster than ever. And that that I think has changed the investment landscape and leads me to a quite a pointed question of you're obviously I know you quite well and I know your fundraising journey. You're one of the few companies that's building in crypto that I know that has managed to raise capital recently or in the past couple of years from VCs as well, not just kind of friends and family angels. Do you want to obviously nobody likes to tell the whole story, but do you want to tell a little bit how you found that process, how you found that journey? Any advice for anybody out there who's building something or just some commentary on how fundraising has gone in a 25-26, 2025, 2026 world?

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yeah, I mean, I could I could do an entire um YouTube series on all of the ins and outs of of things that you need to be cognizant of. But I think you know, I mean, fundraising boils down to like um uh a handful of things ultimately. I would say um network is key, right? You you need to know the right people, um, process is key. You need to follow a particular cadence that um exudes momentum, right? You're fundraising at the right time and you're speaking to the right people in a uh a very structured form. And then the third is communication. Um, communication makes or breaks a fundraiser. And I think this is where probably most founders have difficulty with. Like a lot of founders are neurodiverse, it's not natural to be a salesman. And I think that this is where people get caught up the most, is like how do you communicate what you do in a simple, concise way that is appealing to investors. And I think the only real way to do any of these things is just go and do it ultimately, right? You can um survey all of your founder friends and gather as much information as possible. And you read all of these like foundraising stories about um, you know, like the uh uh the isolation and loneliness of it and the rejection and all of this stuff and dealing with that. But like until you've done it, like you you don't know anything. Like you have to go out and and and push and see what you can do. And I I think like a very healthy way of looking at it is actually like VCs and and investors, like they're looking for um genuine authentic people, I think. And and it's it's not true of all, but if you approach it in a way where um you you know you're guarded and and you know reveal what you should reveal and and and you kind of keep other stuff closer to to heart, um I think you can follow a fundraising journey in in an authentic way that really resonates with individuals, right? Because ultimately it's a people game. It's you're building a relationship with these people, they need to back you, they need to believe in you. And um, you know, that all needs to just be lined up with you know a lot of luck at the same time, right? You have to be in the right place, building the right thing at the right time. You could, you know, bang your head against the wall for six months trying to raise for a project. The reality is the market doesn't want it, right? And and so this ties back into the idea of just going out and doing it. You aren't gonna know if what you are doing is is gonna actually have legs and be something that investors are receptive to until you actually speak to them. So you can actually treat investors as like, you know, uh an acquaintance who is also a source of information, right? You can speak to them and query them about um their feeling on the market. Do they believe that um the type of vertical product that you're building at the moment can get funded? Um, what would need to be true for them as an individual to invest in in what you're building? But I think we've been um, you know, unusual in the sense in that we've just followed like raw authenticity, right? Which has meant that funny enough, all of the investors that we have in Bloom are um, you know, true, true believers, both in myself, in the vision, in the project. And I think that also goes a long way, right? You know, we have um Lightspeed uh Fiction, which is Lightspeed, one of the biggest um global tech VCs in the world. This is their web three joint venture. We have uh Stanley Konachev, one of the most well-known angels and figureheads in the space, founder of Ave. We have uh Axel Springer and Porsche, which is uh the the biggest European media conglomerate and a car company, right? They have a they have a VC arm. So funny enough, like you you you find roots and discussions with these people through all manner of different means, and it can be completely serendipitous, but eventually you meet people that you just connect with and they get it and they get you and they just want to back you. And I think that um that approach is not something that is typically followed by by most founders. But I I have found that the more you try to play a character and the more you try to be something that is not you, it bleeds through in the conversations, right? It's it's it's something that some people can pull off. But if you're not that personality type, just be yourself. Like just just just be yourself, have a have a structured process, you know, communicate properly, um, and you know, do it in such a way that um you know you exude confidence. And I think everyone will be be jumping to be involved with what you're doing. Uh, but it's not something you can fake, right? You can't, if you're not confident in what you're doing, like you shouldn't be fundraising, right? You want to be fundraising when the iron is hot, when momentum is there, when you speak, people listen, right? You're not gonna be in that situation if you're um, you know, pre-launch, knowing that every other startup with traction is uh is is is you know vibe coding things very quickly and you're trying to raise too ugly. So so many different parallels and and and things to be cognizant of. But yeah, it's um it's it's certainly not for the faint hearted, I would say. I think you know the um the older dodges of being a founder and it being tough is just the reality of it. And it might not be something you love, but you just have to power through with it. And as I say, if you manage it with the right mentality, then you will find people who also want to back you.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

No, 100%. And that was some serious alpha for those out there trying to build a company. Like it's I'm always a little bit in awe of how you've managed to do it and the way that you've approached it. Like we we've had a lot of conversations in the past, all the way through the journey of Bloom, and you have always kept this consistent, authentic momentum in the way that you speak about not only what you're saying to these investors, but the process in which that you deal with them. And I think that's probably one of the most important nuggets of that little monologue is be authentic, but do it in a process-driven way.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Yeah, and be smart and strategic. Like you authenticity to the level where you're just, you know, um letting your guard down and and not taking the the the seriousness of the conversation that you're having is is also the um uh the kind of uh you know um mindfield that you could also find yourself with it. So it's it's yeah, as I say, like you just have to go out and do it. And I think just querying as many founders for experience that you you have familiar relationships with is is always pertinent.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Well, thank you for thank you for sharing a bit of insight that I'm sure a lot of startup founders maybe.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

I need to do like a I need to do like a series on my uh on my ex eventually or something to just drop the the nuggets of information. I I have a lot of founder friends who do that and people find it extremely valuable because it's just it's not out there. Just know, you know, the the kind of people who share fundraising advice are not necessarily the people who've done it, they're you know they're doing it as a different thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

So before we wrap up, is there anything that you'd like to share about Bloom that's coming up, or leave the audience with uh any nugget of final knowledge or shout out anything you want? It's an it's an open-ended uh shout-out for you. Good sir.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

I mean, like I think we've we built a lovely community. I think what is nice about Bloom is um we've almost got um uh a very robust base of multicultural people from around the world, language communities and um pretty much every single part of the globe. And uh what we're trying to do is just be as um as global and and as um within the community as possible. So the it is also just a nice place to hang out. Like it's just a vibe, right? Like we want to create a um a similar sort of aesthetic to what the layer ones used to do, right? I have my background at IOTA, so I'm trying to channel the community building that you get from say the base ecosystem or or you know some of these um these other major L1s and L2s. And so from our point of view, like we're we're intending to like build a pool of, I mean, I guess it kind of starts on like a voluntary basis, right? People get involved for different reasons. Our moderators just came completely organically and they're now um with formalized moderator roles. Like we have a regional ambassador program where people are representing the different language communities. So the idea is to just do it on a very grassroots basis. And I think for um, you know, people who are interested in the space, interested in Web3, interested in trading, interest in investment, this is the kind of place that is just fun to hang out. And um, you know, the the the there's that side where we we welcome people to come and join and get involved. But there's also obviously the um very uh uh steep trajectory of product launch and product releases that we're gearing up for now. So um if you sign up for the wait list and you are uh an appropriate user for Bloom, we'll bring you in as soon as possible. Um, we'll hear you out, we'll listen to your feedback, we'll improve the product based on your needs. And we will um, you know, continue shipping quite substantial feature releases over the next couple of months, extending from you know spot trading of tokens of stocks to perhaps trading to uh greater um coverage of chains, including like Solana support and things like that. So yeah, we're we're on this um this exciting chapter, I would say, where everything is starting to pop off and um it's just worthwhile getting involved early, right? Like we do not um ignore the fact that people, you know, get involved with these things early and contribute their time, right? Like we want to make sure that people are appropriately um, you know, built in terms of reputation, but also rewards and everything. It's it's it's intended to be very much like a movement or so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. I think I think that's been lost a little bit in in DeFi and D apps. Like when I got into it back in 21, so I started started investing in 17, but really started building communities and and engaging with communities 21. Like people used to be there to help each other. Like it's gone a little bit, it's still there a little bit. Maybe I don't see it as much.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

It's it's doggy dog these days. Yeah, it's it's it's symptomatic of the way this base has gone. But I do feel very confident that that type of behavior and and vibe and aesthetic is returning. Like base ecosystem is brilliant for this stuff. Like everyone in base is just like that'll just hold the token for for weeks and weeks, right? I um invest in a project called um Molten, which is is rebranded and launching a new token. And um, it's been about a month where these tokens have been in limbo, right? If you were um looking at the last couple of years, most people would see that as a red flag, they'd be freaking out. But like everyone who's a holder of that project is like, yeah, no, whatever, like very happy, you know. I'm here to support, which is uh no, it's refreshing. Like I'm I'm looking forward to that, you know, being in crypto not just to make money, but because we're doing something meaningful that um will reshape finance, but all reshape many industries. So I'm excited. I think it's a it's a cool time to be in the space, and yeah, both on both on the founder survival level, but also like the individual survival level, like provided you still have a bag and you're still active, um, provided you get involved with things. Like I think the um it's it's the right time to be in this industry, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

100% and very nice that it leads on to find some information on Bloom, and you might even have a bigger bag at the end of it. That's a goal. Well, thank you very much for coming, Charlie. This has been hardwired. Um been a really great guest, really enjoyed chatting to you, and those those uh tips about startup fundraising were were were golden. Um excited for what comes next with Bloom, so thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Always a pleasure, Harry.