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In this special edition of Edge of NFT, co-hosts Josh Kriger and Richard Carthon bring you exclusive conversations live from Korea Blockchain Week. They sit down with leaders in the Bitcoin and Web3 space to discuss the latest trends and innovations shaping the industry.
- Trevor Jones, co-founder of Pizza Ninjas, shares his vision for expanding Bitcoin adoption through creative events, including the exciting BTC Bar, which is hosting five days of activations during Korea Blockchain Week.
- Rena Shah, COO and co-founder of Trust Machines, reveals how her company is bringing DeFi to Bitcoin and the innovative protocols they’ve built to ensure transparency and security for users.
- CJ (Jeehyun Chang), co-founder of the iconic BTC Bar, discusses the origins of the bar and its evolving role as a hub for the crypto community, hinting at a future filled with Bitcoin-exclusive services.
The conversations explore how Bitcoin is evolving with DeFi, Layer 2 solutions, and community-driven initiatives in Asia.
This episode is brought to you by Bitlayer, a revolutionary Bitcoin Layer 2 platform that enhances scalability and innovation in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitlayer is committed to supporting developers through its Booster Program, offering grants up to $1 million for promising projects.
Additionally, this episode is powered by Pizza Ninjas, a fun and engaging platform that combines the love of pizza with the excitement of Web3, offering unique experiences and rewards for pizza enthusiasts in the digital space.
Please enjoy!
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Key Topics Covered:
- Pizza Ninjas and BTC Bar: Trevor Jones discusses how BTC Bar is bringing together Bitcoin enthusiasts and the broader crypto community through innovative events during Korea Blockchain Week.
- Bitcoin DeFi with Trust Machines: Rena Shah explains how Trust Machines is unlocking DeFi on Bitcoin and creating secure, user-friendly protocols to bring liquidity to the ecosystem.
- The Evolution of BTC Bar: CJ shares how BTC Bar evolved into a community hub for crypto enthusiasts and hints at future plans to make the bar entirely Bitcoin-centric.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let us know in the comments on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@edgeofnft/
Episode Highlights:
- Trevor Jones: “BTC Bar is more than just a place to grab a drink; it's becoming a hub for the Bitcoin community, where innovation and networking happen daily.” [Timestamp: 08:45]
- Rena Shah: “Bringing DeFi to Bitcoin is about unlocking the trillion dollars of untapped potential in Bitcoin and making it accessible to everyone—from farmers in Vietnam to traders in New York.” [Timestamp: 15:20]
- CJ: “We are thinking of turning BTC Bar into a fully Bitcoin-integrated venue, from payments to ATMs. It’s an exciting future ahead.” [Timestamp: 22:35]
For the full transcript, see further below.
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About Our Guest:
Trevor Jones:
Trevor Jones is the co-founder of Pizza Ninjas and one of the masterminds behind the BTC Bar concept at Korea Blockchain Week. His vision is to create unique experiences that drive Bitcoin adoption and bring together the global Bitcoin community.
- Twitter: Link
Rena Shah:
Rena Shah is the COO and co-founder of Trust Machines, a company at the forefront of bringing DeFi to Bitcoin. She has a background in building secure and transparent financial systems and is passionate about making Bitcoin more accessible for everyone.
Jeehyun Chang (CJ):
CJ is the co-founder of BTC Bar, a vibrant community space for Bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts in Seoul. He’s passionate about building communities and is considering turning BTC Bar into a fully Bitcoin-integrated venue.
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Transcription:
Josh Kriger: What's up, everyone? Josh here at BTC Bar with our partners at Pizza Ninjas. I'm here with Trevor.
Trevor Jones: What's going on here? Yo, we're just kicking off today. You know, I think people are flying in, but we're already going strong at the BTC Bar. We got a ton of partners. We got five days of events and parties, great activations, and a sick bar that we took over and made it very Bitcoin-y.
Josh Kriger: Absolutely. I remember this bar from the other two times I've been in Seoul. It's a great spot and it's totally transformed.
Trevor Jones: Yeah. Yeah. No, we did a whole build out. It was a lot of work. I was, I landed at 4 a.m. yesterday and left here at midnight and we got it going. It looks fantastic.
Josh Kriger: All right. If you hear this on social, there's still time. We've got five days to come by BTC bar. What's the address?
Trevor Jones: Uh, oh man, uh, but you should look up wonder fruit. You got to go to lu.lu luma.lu.ma slash bdc bar We got like 13 events. We're going 24 7. So, you know if you can get the address on the luma page, uh again lu.lu.ma slash bdc bar We're always going here. If you don't know where to go at any time come here. There's gonna be people hanging out drinking and talking about Bitcoin and Oracles.
Josh Kriger: Of course, you guys are partnered with the BitLair team. Who are the other partners putting on this whole week of events?
Trevor Jones: Yeah, I mean, we have Stacks, so they're hosting the happy hour that we're at right now. We have Leather, the Bitcoin wallet, BTC Startup Lab, Casual Crypto, Meta Arena, BTC Con, I'm just reading all the logos here, BitBoy. There's a lot. BitFlow, Bomb, Alex. So we got a ton of partners for this event, and it's just great to bring everybody together to do something, you know, larger than anyone. community. I think that's how we grow together.
Josh Kriger: But this is part of a broader sort of mission to sort of spread the Bitcoin ecosystem gospel with your friends at BitLayer. Ethan Nunes, you guys doing great events together. Proud to be partners. What else is going on? What's next?
Trevor Jones: Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely here to, you know, speak at KBW and BTC Con. There's some other Bitcoin events going on. I think people are starting to notice what's happening on Bitcoin, whereas typically KBW is very Ethereum focused, very like Wemfree. This is the first year where there's a lot happening around Bitcoin and we're proud and excited to be part of that movement. Cool. And then after this, Singapore? Yeah. Then, of course, Token 2049 is like two weeks away. So I'm stuck in Asia for three weeks here and excited to go to Singapore, the Ordinal Summit there. We're hosting a BTC masquerade party, which is going to be amazing. A masquerade party? Masquerade party. It's a sick venue. And yeah, I mean, this is like kind of the month to celebrate everything exciting in Asia and what a contributor it is to the broader crypto ecosystem. So we're happy to be here.
Josh Kriger: And what's the significance of Asia when it comes to the Bitcoin ecosystem and sort of the pizza ninja family?
Trevor Jones: Yeah, I mean we have a relatively small tight-knit community here, but we're definitely interested in growing it because Korea has a huge Bitcoin ecosystem. They have some of the biggest exchanges in the world here. And they do, they love Bitcoin. They do a lot of volume here. And Korea is a generally innovative country. innovative culture in Asia, you know, K-pop, K-dramas, e-sports, great technology here, Samsung, LG, like you know all the names. And so, you know, it's great to be here in Korea because I think that it's really pound for pound one of the stronger crypto ecosystems in Asia. But it's one that you got to be on the ground to meet with and to grow it.
Josh Kriger: Absolutely. It's a close-knit, tight community. Definitely, Korea Blockchain Week does a great job of getting everyone out here. You know, we were just in Hong Kong together and that was exciting and sort of a big milestone for the Bitcoin Ordinals ecosystem. Now we're breaking history again here in Seoul. So if you haven't come by, you definitely should. And if not, see us in Singapore. Hi everyone, Josh Krieger live at BTC Bar in Seoul, Korea. I'm here with Rina Shah, the COO and co-founder of Trust Machines. I don't think you've ever actually been officially in the show. We see each other a lot at fun events.
Rena Shah: I guess I wasn't cool enough until now. I finally made the cut.
Josh Kriger: You've always been cool enough. So tell us a little bit about what's going on in sort of trust machines, and we'll get into leather wallet as well. What do folks need to know about trust machines and what you guys are up to these days?
Rena Shah: So we've been building in stealth for quite some time, but there's a lot of cool things coming out on our end. Number one, Bitcoin is getting DeFi. We are getting ready to launch a Bitcoin DeFi protocol. We've been incubating it in stealth for almost a year now. But the kind of genesis is that everybody got wrecked by BlockFi and Celsius because it was not on chain. And if you ever wanted to bring Bitcoin DeFi on chain, you needed to do that. with the platform that gave you that transparency. And so we're building on top of Stacks. We've launched a pretty interesting protocol. It like does all the pitfalls of DeFi that we have basically reworked. When you lend in DeFi, there are some protocols on the EBM side or Solana side, take your pick, that take the collateral that you've posted for your loan, reuses it for something else to generate more and more yields. They kind of yield farm with it. But if I'm going to put Bitcoin up, I don't want anyone touching my Bitcoin I want to make sure that those coins are still mine at the end of the day So we just say to architect our protocol a little bit different. We're using DLCs discrete on contracts So the idea of only the protocol and the borrower has access to that contract for that Bitcoin is stored And so it's a really secure mechanism so that you have the safety and kind of comfort of When I put collateral, I'm not going to liquidate you. The protocol will not liquidate you until it absolutely has to, and it will only liquidate until you solve it. So just that threshold that you need, not all of it. And it's a very borrow-friendly mentality. Kind of the other aspect that I love about the protocol, off-chain notification systems. I don't know about you guys, but I've definitely been wrecked on Aave because I did not like top up fast enough because I didn't remember my smart contract was going to get wrecked. But we've designed a system to do notifications through Telegram or other chat apps.
Josh Kriger: That's great. So congrats on that. I'm sure a lot of hard work to get to this point.
Rena Shah: Can I share one more cool thing going on?
Josh Kriger: Yeah, I had just a question first, though, on on DeFi. Sort of how do you look at what you're doing in the Bitcoin DeFi space versus these other DeFi protocols popping up and and everything? And what's your overall perspective on the potential for all these different players to coexist and sort of have a multiple sort of platform DeFi approach to Bitcoin?
Rena Shah: I think Bitcoin is always going to need like different layers to access DeFi. People are going to have like their own interpretation of what DeFi is. Some people want the more kind of custodial model of like, I just want to lend borrow from like a trusted third party. Some people want it fully on chain. Some people want different L2s. Some people only want native Bitcoin with Lightning. I think there's room for everyone to kind of grow this ecosystem together. The most important aspect of it from my perspective is there is a trillion dollars in Bitcoin and no one's using it. Let it be used. Let it kind of give on-chain liquidity to folks like it. It really breaks my heart that over the last some years I've held Bitcoin, but I couldn't take a loan out against it in like an on-chain way. What if you are a farmer in Vietnam who has Bitcoin, one of the largest holding countries of Bitcoin, and they just want access to the dollar, whether it's via stablecoins or some other means? This is the only way we can actually move society forward by having financial access to all. And so like for me, kind of bringing all the different players in the Bitcoin DeFi is a rewarding experience. And I think there's room for everybody.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. And you know, speaking of like, what breaks one's heart, for me, it's folks in the US where I'm based that have sort of traditional savings accounts and not taking advantage even of like, the money market racer out there, right? So inflation 20%. If you're not sort of using, you know, financial instruments, you lost 20% of your money overnight. Because you've had that 0.025% interest rate from X large bank fill in the blank, right? So I think I could relate to what you're saying there in terms of leveraging your assets, right? That's what it's all about.
Rena Shah: Even like if you were to take it a step further as Americans, we get hit with taxes on everything under the sun. Like, let's be honest with crypto. But when you're going into DeFi, if you're locking up Bitcoin, taking a loan and you're going to pay back that loan, may not be a taxable event because you're locking and then pulling back. You did not trade or move the asset. So that's kind of a instant liquidity event that people should be able to take advantage of.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, very good point. And you had another fun fact about Trust Machines?
Rena Shah: Yeah, it's not on the DeFi, so like Trust Machines builds a lot of different products on Bitcoin. One will be kind of centered around Bitcoin DeFi. The second is on the domain side. We've acquired a TLD called .Locker, and we are actually doing the entire .BTC domains, kind of bringing that namespace to kind of a Web2 world. And so if I was to own Brina.Locker, I bought it on GoDaddy, that's my website, I can do what I want, build a portfolio, show the world, who cares? It also doubles as my Bitcoin wallet, it's arena.ocker, you can send me BTC or nulls, anything like that. But it's the only solution that actually works with ICANN that they're actually in sync. So Web2 bridges to Web3 seamlessly, one stop.
Josh Kriger: All right, well, we have other domains right now, and I think we definitely need our Edge of NFT BTC domain. I got you. All right. Awesome. Congrats on that. That's also big news that you just kind of slide out there. But but yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of people even think of like, restaurants, they're going to be taking BCC might want to sort of have their domain, right? It's sort of gonna can be a real badge of honor for sort of organizations that are sort of fully on board with accepting Bitcoin.
Rena Shah: I think every person business DAO community will have to have an on chain persona. And it might as well be
Josh Kriger: Yeah, and then you have your wallet ready to go. And then let's talk about leather wallets. Thank you for the segue. Let's talk about leather wallet. What's going on there?
Rena Shah: So Leather has been going through a whole kind of a reformative transformation. We have completely redesigned the UI to be super beginner friendly. All of these like incremental steps is leading up to our mobile launch probably at the end of the year. And it it will be so easy that my mom will be able to download Leather and not even realize that Bitcoin is running under under a background. That's Android, iPhone, Android, iPhone, things like that. And it's like, we've really designed it in a way that's intuitive for like a normal human being, not a cypherpunk or anything like that. But The idea of we created an integrated dApp store so that all of your Bitcoin dApps are in one place. So the idea of your Bitcoin goes with you, you are mobile, Bitcoin is a way of life. And so when you think about, I want to get some money out of my Bitcoin alone, the lending protocol is there, I want to pick up some beautiful pieces of Bitcoin art. then there'll be an integration with Gamma or Magic Eden, like all of these things should just be in your singular place for your home for Bitcoin.
Josh Kriger: Cool, and so some of the technology that you're building on the trust machine side will be fully integrated. So will I be able to eventually get my BTC domain from the wallet?
Rena Shah: 100%, you should be able to do everything from leather. Leather is more than just a Bitcoin wallet. It really is like a Bitcoin lifestyle. If you believe that Bitcoin is a part of your everyday life, your fabric for your on-chain identity or web three connection, whatever you want to call it, leather is
Josh Kriger: Very cool. And if folks want to sort of stay in touch, obviously these are upcoming milestones, so they're going to need to follow you guys on social to get the latest. And that's going to be what handles?
Rena Shah: Leather.btc on that one or trustmachines.co and then mine is just my name.
Josh Kriger: All right, Reena, it was fun to hang out with you at this BTC Bar Brunch. Shout out to Bit Layer Pizza News for hosting us today and congrats on all the building. Looking forward to seeing these things come to fruition. Thank you so much. What's up, everyone? This is Josh Grieger here live at BTC Bar, also known as Wonder Fruit, with one of the original co-founders of the bar, CJ. It's good to be back at this place. I have nostalgia. This was one of the first places I went on my tour of Seoul two years ago. And you guys have been open, and things are going well.
Jeehyun Chang (CJ): Yeah, yeah, it's been great. Like, and then I'm glad that like, you know, we have this VTC bar right now for all the crypto people and Bitcoin guys. And yeah, it's already Monday, just brunch time. And it seems like everyone's like, you know, having a great time. So yeah, it's great.
Josh Kriger: Yeah, it's great. There's like orange everywhere. And you guys have a hookah lounge and I remember like the arcade games. So what's it been like sort of running a bar? I know this was just like a fun side hustle that you and some friends did. What's been the experience?
Jeehyun Chang (CJ): It's been good, like nothing too much, but it was just like, you know, friends and family thing. Like, you know, we come out to Alcazal, we just like, you know, hang out here and do stuff. But other than that, like, you know, it's great to see our community people and like crypto boys, they all come up here and like, you know, hanging out here. It's great. Yeah.
Josh Kriger: Oh, all right. So for all the entrepreneurs out there that decide what the heck, I'm going to start a bar. Well, what's your advice?
Jeehyun Chang (CJ): Well, I mean, like, you know, for the bar, there should be like, you know, a big concept. And then it's just like, you know, a crypto community as well. This is community and then like the regional community. And plus, like, you know, whomever you like to host here, it has to be like you like to host and you want to be part of this community. I think that's like the key feature of the bar. And it's weird that, well, of course, a lot of my friends, friends, they come and hang out at this bar before pregame to like, you know, after hours. But Uh, it happened to me. They're all into this, uh, like digital AI and IT and the crypto industry. So we are actually really debating, like, you know, fully changing this bar into like Bitcoin bar. So like, you know, Bitcoin ATM to Bitcoin, like, you know, drinks, Bitcoin, like, you know, uh, like, uh, payments. So it'd be pretty interesting. Yeah.
Josh Kriger: All right. A little bit of alpha. Thanks for joining us, CJ. I appreciate your time. Thank you.
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