Why TBD's Mike Brock Is Skeptical That Decentralized Applications Will Become Popular - Ep.337

Mike Brock, general manager of TBD at Block, discusses how TBD’s yet-to-be-released DEX is structured, explains why he thinks decentralized solutions do not necessarily need blockchains, and tells the humorous story about how Jack Dorsey convinced him to start working on a Bitcoin project. Show highlights:

• what TBD is and what its relation to Block (formerly Square) is
• how TBD differs from Spiral, another Block-based Bitcoin firm
• how tbDEX works and why building on-ramps and off-ramps to crypto is so important
• who will be supplying the liquidity for tbDEX
• why Mike is passionate about creating digital identity infrastructure
• how tbDEX will incorporate digital identity tooling into its protocol
• what Mike thinks about Vitalik Buterin’s misgivings concerning tbDEX’s design
• why Mike fell down the rabbit hole (thanks Jack Dorsey)
• what lessons Mike learned at CashApp that he is using at TBD
• which stablecoin TBD will be working with
• why Mike is not a believer in DeFi
• why tbDEX (or, seemingly, other TBD products) will not utilize tokens

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Episode Links

 

Mike Brock

• Twitter; https://twitter.com/brockm 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-brock-9030813/ 
• Introduction to TBD: https://twitter.com/brockm/status/1415795490914856961 

 

TBD

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tbd54566975?lang=en 
• GitHub: https://github.com/TBD54566975/tbdex-whitepaper 
• Whitepaper
• • https://tbd54566975.ghost.io/introducing-tbdex/ 
  • https://tbdex.io/whitepaper.pdf 
• Careers: https://block.xyz/careers?search=tbd 
• Other
• • Origin of name: https://twitter.com/TBD54566975/status/1424818221652324355 
  • Vitalik’s reticence: https://cryptopotato.com/vitalik-buterin-tells-how-jack-dorseys-tbd-might-build-the-bitcoin-dex/ 

 

Other Topics

• Spiral (lightning development). Brock helped set up Spiral. 
• • Twitter: https://twitter.com/spiralbtc 
  • Website: https://spiral.xyz/ 
• CashApp
• • Impressive BTC revenue: https://decrypt.co/93793/block-bitcoin-earnings-cash-app-hit-nearly-2-billion-q4 
  • Lightning network: https://blockworks.co/cash-app-integrates-lightning-network-for-bitcoin-payments/
• Aaron Levie
• • https://twitter.com/levie 

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