Okay, I am so excited for this one. We are back for another amazing conversation with David Marcus, CEO of Lightspark. Um, we are here in Mexico City in the Bitso business booth is what we're going to name it. Powered by Agora. Shout out to that team for helping us get on base with this. Stable Dash Live is sponsored by Agora. Built for global institutions moving money at the speed of the internet. You can learn more at agora.finance.
Um, this is going to be fun. Yeah. Thanks,
uh give us your quick intro on Lightspark. Have you met someone who doesn't know you on the show floor? How are you introing yourself?
So, Lightspark is a global money movement platform and we have three different things we do. So, the first one is Lightspark Grid that enables uh large platforms, banks and the likes to move money in real time to 65 countries, dozens of uh blockchains and stablecoin assets. uh all orchestrated all real time. Um then we have grid global accounts which we announced six weeks ago that enables like all of the the large platforms that actually do a lot of payouts to now have a branded dollar or multicurrency account with a Visa card that allows that balance to be spent at 175 million merchants plus access to grid. So like balance can move to a local or global payment network in 65 plus markets. Um and then lastly we have Spark which is our Bitcoin L2 that helps us move both stablecoin and Bitcoin in real time uh for the purpose of the platform. Um and our clients are banks and you know very large like gig economy uh creator platforms uh or uh large multinationals that are looking to move treasury around and really
yeah um so the first question I have for you I' I've been following lights um I've been fanboying over lights for many years um we you know I I consider lights to be um when I first heard about it the way that one of my close friends Xander who's also very just deep in the Bitcoin space and I am as well. He framed bit light spark as I think I was in a moment in my career even where I was like okay I want to go work for a company and I want this to be a company that's like really crushing it with the intersection of Bitcoin and institutional like Xander you know this space better than anyone who's doing that best he's like you heard of this team light spark and um since then I've been following you guys and I just it's been really interesting to see some of the things that have held true the whole time but also some of the evolution of even how you've have framed what is top of mind right now. How for for those who maybe have followed Lightspark, maybe that's a question people like me are asking is like um how what are some of these key pieces of learning or evolution that you've that you've experienced as you've built the business and and bring us into a little bit of that. It seems like it kind of started really deep in like maybe some like Bitcoin focused things that have become more open-handed. I'm curious if that's how you feel about it.
Yeah. Yeah. To I mean look um I I actually haven't like explained that arc u before. So it's a good opportunity to do this. But but look, I mean the the whole reason we started Lightspark is that like a bunch of us tried the Libra thing at Facebook and it didn't it didn't work exactly the way that we had intended to because wrong place, wrong time, etc. Uh I mean we we we don't have to go there again. um
many like you've talked about it a lot but like the the the the the base thing is my chronic frustration with the fact that we don't have an internet for money that money doesn't move on the internet like any other piece of content and so when we came out of the Libra journey bruised by the experience we had we were like okay we're never going to actually let ourselves uh be killed so easily um and as such we need to build on top of the most decentralized, the most neutral platform that ever existed for money, which is Bitcoin. And so we started there and started really working on making Lightning better, making it more enterprisegrade. Then really reached the limits of what we could do with Lightning. And so we had to build our own L2. And we also wanted to support stable coins on top of Bitcoin. So we built
one was UMA. Uma was like that moment.
Yeah. So Uma like so the interesting thing with Uma is like you know maybe let's do this like from the end point of where we want to take this and like how we go there and like detours. Uh, so like the end point of all of this is there's an internet for money and you can move any currency, any stable coin in real time 24/7 the same way you send a text message or send an email whether you're a person or whether you're a business and it works and it's cheap and it's available to everyone and you have like an email address, you'll have a money address and that was like the the purpose of UMA. Um, and so that's kind of the endgame. And so we started with UMA which had like three uh properties and UMA stands for universal money address. It's a an open- source standard for global money movement and it has three components. One is uh human readable address. Two is uh compliance. So you can actually exchange like you know AML like you know sanction checks and all these things like before the transaction actually uh is initiated. And three is an FX quoting system that enables like the sender to have a locked quote for a period of time in local currency of the money you want to send. And what we realized is like if you want to do this like you know everyone has to adopt the same address right and it's so hard to actually do a thing where everyone adopts the same thing. It's like a cold start network problem. So, for now, we've kind of put aside a little bit like the addressing piece, but we kept the two most important parts, which are the compliance bit and the FX quote bit.
It was sort of like given your background, it's like you have to use PayPal to send PayPal to someone else is kind of the idea versus like
there's constraints. I mean the general idea is like you know if everyone has an address and everyone adopts a standard which happens to be open source for money addresses it'll be great right no more routing and checking IBANs like you have one universal standard it' be great the problem is like you first need to get everyone on the same network uh before you able to do that and if it becomes a hindrance then you know just drop the part that's actually causing the most friction which is like changing the behavior and the habits of people and businesses in the way that they send money.
Okay.
And so we kept the two parts which are like not the address uh the compliance bit and the FX bit and we packaged all of that on grid. And so now if you're using grid which is our global money movement orchestration platform. Now, if you're using grid, you can actually get a lock code to send any local currency in any of the 65 soon to be 70 countries that we support on the network where we have deep integrations into local payment systems. This is all built on open standards. We don't like you know have any ambitions to own the network and make our clients tenants on our network. We want it to be as open as possible. That's why like most of this is open sourced and and and available to to build on uh by everyone. Yeah. Um and uh and now it's like taking off like crazy because like we we still have like you know forest settlements that's enabled by Bitcoin on Spark and Lightning. Um but we also support dozens of other chains and stable coins. And we think of these as other types of payment networks in the same way that we integrate into you know here in Mexico into the SPEI payment system or PIX in Brazil or SEPA in Europe. Um, and so we support all the chains, all the domestic payment networks. We can orchestrate a payment from A to B in a really easy way. We have, I think, the best developer facing platform that enables you to build with AI agents really easily and get going really quickly. Um, and so we've we've basically accumulated over the last four years a number of capabilities that I think are really unique in the market now.
Yeah. So going into the the three pieces turning into two, what were like that seems like a really really I can only imagine like the internal like debates and conversations around this like what were the key trade-offs or things that you were thinking about because it seems like um I know that the team has been very bold and like very convicted in some ways around this like corporate chain stuff and like the danger of that and the things that you've seen there and the downsides of doing that wrong. Tell like what were those types of considerations because it seems like with this new this new uh going down from 3 to2 in this way it is way more accessible and plays well with others which is great in some ways. It sounds like that's it's being adopted but what were those trade-offs that you were thinking through?
No, I mean look, I think we still want to ultimately build on an open network that we don't control and we don't own and we think that's really really important for the world. Like if we basically take our current payment infrastructure and banking infrastructure and just do a search and replace all uh with the current names and have new names instead of the current banks that control everything. Uh it would be kind of a sad outcome for the world and you know the internet is not that right. The internet is not computer or AOL like with another name. It's like a brand new different open network and infrastructure. And I wouldn't be spending my time doing this if I wasn't building an open network. I feel like, you know, great, you can build a very successful company, sell it for a couple of singledigit billion dollars maybe. And it's like some people are happy with that. I'm at the point of my life and my career where that's like really not that exciting to me. And I really want to build something that, you know, lasts longer than this generation and is like actually an open network that people use to move money around the world in an open non-controlled network uh that looks and behaves like the internet. And um and you know, we're just going to do whatever it takes to actually get there. And and and for that to happen is you still have to give people what they want. And if they want to actually send, you know, USDC on Polygon or USDT on Tron, like fine. like you know use our platform do it uh and you know gradually over time you can use it for many other things that are you know helping you move money in a more uh in a more seamless way.
Yeah. It's interesting because I think most people in this room probably can't say that in terms of their motives for working on what they're working on or building what they're building. I think having single a single digit billion like I think a lot of people who who do build are are doing so for motives in that way. Um I'm wondering like how has your relationship to work changed because of that or um maybe what motivates you or how you measure success and when when did that change would you say?
I mean, look, I feel like, you know, first of all, there are two things. Like you see a lot of payments companies in general or stable coin companies like they get to the point where it gets really hard and and you know it's hard when you start but like it gets really really hard as you move more volume and you interface with more jurisdictions and you have to deal with more regulators and you have to deal with more bank partners and you have to deal with all these things and then you start to see like what it is to operate the a large scale payment system and then you're like whoa like you know to get to the next level to get to the next level is going to be like a massive lift and most people are just like, you know, if they have a good payout because they're right place, right time, they're going to take it. And I feel like, you know, I've done this and so I know I I I know the drill. I've done this in my life. Um, but I I I'm at the point in my career where I'm like actually not motivated by that anymore. I'm actually motivated in something that we can build that's truly differentiated, that's going to be a great business, of course, but that's actually like a a business that gives the the tools to many types of different businesses and banks and consumers and developers to actually go build the next generation global money movement um applications that are going to be used by billions of people. That gets me excited, you know.
Yeah. Okay. So, let's let's um Grid Grid is the hero of the moment for Lightspark, it seems like. Um how did that product kind of come to be and how has it evolved lately? It seems like there's been some really key unlocks with that product um yeah bring us into just how how Grid formed and what you're seeing built with it maybe today versus the future. And I just packed like eight questions in there, so pick whichever one.
That's okay. No, look, I mean for me like so grid is kind of like the the natural evolution of our product iterations. So like we we talked about UMA like in a world where every last bank and wallet adopted UMA, the addressing standard plus everything else, then we wouldn't have to build like all of the connectivity into do domestic payment systems, right? Because like everyone is on the same network. It's a new rail. It's like it's real time. It's super efficient. Everyone's happy. Like it's great consumer experience. it's fantastic for everyone. Sadly, the world doesn't work that way. And so, at some point, you know, I was like, okay, like we're going to again have to do the nitty-gritty work of integrating with all the domestic payment systems around the world and get licenses everywhere and, you know, buy companies and do all these things to actually get to that last mile, which is going to take us 10 years and okay, fine, let's go do it. Um, and so we started that journey. Uh, and now we are live in 65 countries. So meaning if you open an account now um on lightspark like you know grid.lightspark.com you open it right now and we set you up same day you'll be able to send realtime money in local currencies to 65 countries in real time uh with locked quotes that you know enables you to send exactly what the recipient wants to receive in their local currency. um is is random question because we had breakfast this morning with a server who's sending money. Our team was having a breakfast um server sending money to Venezuela. Is that in the network right now?
Not not right now because Venezuela is still a sanctioned country.
Yeah. Okay. Well, that's probably experiencing issues
the sanctions are lifted or eased like we will be able to send money to Venezuela. So is is um is grid more more better understood as a like mainly developer focused products versus something that like the server at breakfast can go and like get that done or would you that person
they would use basically the the the the apps that our customers so like we have like hundreds of wallets neo banks that have built on grid that are using grid as the backbone for money movement. Um, so grid is not only fiat though. So we can also take deposits in USDC and enable customers to make a deposit in USDC and then do swift like if that's what they want to do. Or you want to deposit in USDC and do a payment in rupees in India. We can do that. or you want to do a a deposit in euros and pay someone with USDT in some other countries, you can do that or USDC or any other stable coin, you can do that. Um, so any type of permutations across dozens of chains and you know 65 countries domestic payment networks we can do. Um, and you can do payouts, you can do payins, you can do virtual accounts. So you can do virtual named accounts which is really super helpful for neo banks that want to launch in new jurisdictions and give their customers virtual IBANs and others. Um and so we can do that as well. So it's a it's in my opinion the most powerful global money movement platform available to build on today. Uh and that's just on the grid side and where it goes from now it's basically every single payment system that exists in the world that's real time we will get to. Uh so you know we'll we'll have an announcement this week but uh or you know I can say it right here why not but uh so like you know this week we're announcing that we're adding China to the list of supported countries for instance which is really hard to do if you want to support B2C case like B2C or C2C flows in Yuan but also B2B flows into China that requires
