[00:00:00] Joe Benso: Hello and welcome to the Casper podcast where we take a deep dive into blockchain technology and speak with those who are building the future of the decentralized web. I'm your host Joe Benso, and today we're speaking with John Sarson, CEO and co-founder of Sarson Funds. They've just launched a stablecoin on Casper.

[00:00:22] Joe Benso: Before we dive into the specifics, let's take a short moment to understand why stablecoins are crucial in the blockchain ecosystem. Stablecoins, like USDC on Casper, provide the stability of fiat currencies while leveraging blockchain's transparency and efficiency. They mitigate the volatility of cryptocurrencies, making transactions more reliable and appealing for broader adoption. With USDC on Casper, we unlock a new realm of possibilities, driving adoption and innovation across various sectors. I want to thank John for his gracious hospitality and for taking the time to talk with us. But one quick detail that I cannot ignore. This interview was recorded in John's traveling Bitcoin bus, which is pretty impressive.

[00:01:04] Joe Benso: At the end of the podcast, I'll tell you how you can see the Bitcoin bus. But as far as I can remember, this is the first podcast that I have ever recorded in a bus. So let's listen in. Hey, we're in Texas at Consensus and we are in the Sarson Funds bus. We're here with John Sarson launching a stablecoin on Casper. John, it's great to see you here in Texas. Can you give us a little bit of background for our audience? What is Sarson Funds? And then let's get into how we're working with Casper.

[00:01:35] John Sarson: Yep. We're in Texas. We're in the Bitcoin bus. We are located in Indianapolis, Indiana. We run five small crypto hedge funds, but we really consider ourselves venture builders. A lot of what we do involves getting into projects, understanding them, and seeing what we can learn as we explore and do research on individual projects.

[00:01:55] John Sarson: One of our most recent product launches has been a stablecoin for one of our favorite portfolio companies, Casper. So yeah, we're really excited about CSPR USD. It is a U.S. compliant stablecoin that you can use right here in the United States. Even as stablecoin legislation passes in the United States, we believe it will. This coin's designed to be preemptively compliant with those rules, so it won't be getting removed from DEXs or removed from exchanges. That's really the impetus behind CSPR USD.

[00:02:27] Joe Benso: For the listeners, there's a lot of talk about stablecoins and the future of crypto. In your perspective, what do stablecoins unlock for users and why is that important as a foundational building block for a layer one blockchain?

[00:02:42] John Sarson: One of the biggest criticisms of cryptocurrency is the volatility. It's hard to argue that crypto is not volatile. It is. So if you're a business trying to do transactions that you have been doing for years as a brick-and-mortar business, you're used to denominating them in fiat. It's tricky to denominate them in something like Bitcoin or something like CSPR that has a lot of volatility. It's hard to sell that to the board, I guess, is another way of saying that. So we've seen a lot of interest in stablecoins, USDC, and Circle clearly leading the way in the United States when it comes to stablecoins that regulators are blessing and using at an institutional level. But if you're a layer one blockchain, you basically need five layers, five key components to be competitive. You need a block explorer that works well. You need a wallet that works well. You need to have a DEX on your chain so that your customers or users of your blockchain can swap assets. You need to have the ability to mint NFTs for the NFT marketplace and define digital web3 communities for your clients. And then you need a stablecoin. You need a stablecoin that's denominated, preferably in U.S. dollars, and preferably one that's compliant with U.S. laws. So Casper had four out of five of these things. They did have a stablecoin, but it wasn't an asset-backed stablecoin like it's going to be required. So Sarson Funds went ahead and launched what we believe will be a U.S.-compliant stablecoin. It has a dollar of collateral held in a U.S. banking institution for every dollar of tokens that are issued. You can see the collateralization in real-time. You can go and trade CSPR versus csprUSD on Friendly Market. We think that Circle right now is acting a little bit like a kingmaker. They decide who gets USDC and who doesn't. We think that that monopoly is coming to an end here shortly, and Sarson Funds is working to bring stablecoins to layer one blockchains that have demand. So I think Circle is positioning itself for a lot of competition. I think Tether is likely going to be positioned in such a way where they are almost unable to comply with U.S. regulations regarding stablecoins. So it's very likely that Tether will not be available on U.S. exchanges or possibly even on U.S. DEXs. For DEX users that are accessing something like Uniswap, it's going to create a lot of blue skies for smaller stablecoins that are U.S. compliant to pop up. That's why Sarson Funds has expanded into this line of business.

[00:05:02] Joe Benso: So the stablecoin is now officially launched and people can trade on Friendly Market. Can you tell us a little bit about your plans moving forward now that the stablecoin is launched, perhaps a little bit about NFTs and how that fits in with the stablecoin adoption going forward?

[00:05:20] John Sarson: Stablecoins make it easier for businesses to denominate their goods and do transactions without crypto volatility. NFTs are very important for these same businesses to start to define their web3 communities through their digital wallets. In the late nineties, every company in America thought, "Oh my gosh, I have to figure out my web strategy. I need to get my business onto the World Wide Web." There was a lot of money thrown at this problem. There weren't enough service companies to service all of these businesses, so people could demand exorbitant rates to help companies get their web presence. Now we're seeing an evolution of the web. The web is going from web2 to web3. Web3, of course, is when you interact with a company by attaching your digital identity or digital wallet to that company through their dApp. As companies start to go there, the way that you're going to communicate with those customers and define those customers is going to be through the NFT that you leave them in their digital wallet, either as a receipt, proof of attendance certificate, or a digital community that they've opted into through the purchase of an NFT. NFTs are very important for businesses that want to transition into Web3 in addition to stablecoins.

[00:06:31] Joe Benso: John, it's really refreshing to hear your perspective on NFTs in terms of the usability of the technology, and at the core, it's really a technology that's opened up a lot more opportunities. So it's great to hear that perspective and to clarify the potential of NFTs and how this fits in with a broader crypto ecosystem. So appreciate that perspective. We're still very early. The stablecoin has just launched. Where do you see this contributing to the success of layer ones in general and what would you like to see six months, one year down the line for the csprUSD?

[00:07:02] John Sarson: The world's becoming very interoperable, and this is good. In the near future, we're going to see commerce and businesses asking for digital wallets, and they're going to take your Casper wallet, your Solana wallet, your Ethereum wallet, and they're going to drop your credential on whatever chain works for you. Being able to put various blockchains and layer ones together in a user-friendly system that allows your digital community to be spread across multiple blockchains is really smart. AI is coming into the blockchain block explorer space and they're starting to figure out ways to cross-pollinate communities. So we're going to see a lot more emphasis on marketing and on project growth and strategic partnerships that are going to come on the back of NFTs and people's digital wallets that are defining digital communities.

[00:07:50] Joe Benso: So John, how can people get involved with Sarson Funds and Casper Stablecoin? What's your recommendation?

[00:07:57] John Sarson: We want to start building a community. We are likely to do an NFT drop to define our community. It will likely be purchased only with csprUSD, so you'll need to go to Friendly Market to pick up a little bit of that. If you want to buy our NFT, it's going to come with some user benefits, real-world benefits around events, and things like this. There will also be some airdrops happening. I'm excited to be one of the only projects that I've ever heard of that is going to be dropping stablecoins in an airdrop. Please participate in our marketing programs over the next six weeks. There will be airdrops and the airdrops will be stablecoins, which is basically like being given money. It will be less than 400, so we're not going to create tax reporting events for anyone, but it should be some interesting, valuable, easy-to-use tokens called csprUSD.

[00:08:44] Joe Benso: Everybody likes a good airdrop. John, thanks a lot for joining us today. We're excited. Even though we're so early, things are really just kicking off now, and excited that you're supporting Casper with the launch of the stablecoin and looking forward to the future.

[00:08:55] John Sarson: Casper is one of the few blockchains that understands that businesses are a huge economic engine. Businesses need implementation assistance and business solutions. That's why Casper does so well with IBM and helps businesses go from Hyperledger onto public permissioned blockchains like Casper. We saw a presentation on that in Davos two years ago, where IBM traveled to Davos to demonstrate how capable Casper's blockchain is. Casper has consistently scored among the highest of all layer one blockchains by technology CTOs, and that ultimately matters as the layer one world becomes a little bit commoditized where everything can do the bare minimum. Then it becomes a question of who can do the bare minimum the best in coordination with our current systems. Of course, Hyperledger Fabric is the largest blockchain in the world. It's a private permissioned blockchain from IBM. So the ability to partner well with that is exceptionally important. Casper has done a great job at that. Hopefully, the stablecoin makes it even easier for some of their businesses to start to denominate assets or transactions in U.S. dollars. We think the future is really bright for Casper. We're happy to be a partner.

[00:10:03] Joe Benso: I wanted to thank John for his gracious hospitality and for taking the time to talk with us on the bus. If you'd like to see a picture of the Bitcoin bus, you can check out their adventures on Instagram at Bitcoin underscore bus. That's all the time we have for now. So keep building and we'll see you on the next episode of the Casper podcast.