Modular by Design: Building Everything on Bitcoin | Bitcoin 2026

All right, we already uh we already got intros out of the way, so we're going to skip those. The title of the panel is modular by design, everything building everything on Bitcoin and that's meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Let's go down the line. Opening question, Drew, first. What do you think building everything on Bitcoin means? Feel free to qualify it. >> Okay. All right. So, my attempt to answer that question like what is Bitcoin if it's anything? It's decentralized money. What does decentralized mean? At least to me, it means peer-to-peer markets. It means markets with buyers, sellers, demand, supply, asks, bids, order matching, and settlement. Except the entire market needs to operate in a peer-to-peer fashion. So, to build things on Bitcoin, in my view, means to learn how to invent new peer-to-peer markets that also transact in Bitcoin that help us decentralize other goods and services beyond just money and transactions. So to me, building on Bitcoin is really all about building on the most neutral, open, and decentralized money platform ever invented. And it can take many different shapes and forms. I like to think of Bitcoin as TCP IP for money and uh building around that. So Bitcoin is a currency and it's a network. Uh it's also an ethos. So for me, building on Bitcoin is finding Bitcoiners, helping them use their Bitcoin, but it's also exporting that those internet values and making sure that uh people can maintain control of their lives. So while each of you guys gave answers I agree with, if we were to drill down into these, we could come up with differences of opinion. I'm going to try to do that. So um I'll throw it back to Matt. Will uh Matt you said uh you said programmable money and a lot of what's been on the stage has been about pristine collateral. Maybe it's both. Dive into this for me. What do you say programmable money? What do you mean? So it's funny cuz most of my book lately is about pristine collateral. Um, I think that there was a step function uh with the advent of Bitcoin where you can take not just going after the Fed and not just fighting back and and introducing real scarcity and lasting value, right? That's pristine collateral. But you can also take things that uh aren't just central banks. You can go after retail banking. You can do things like um I I financed my home with Bitcoin. And what's great about that, I've tried to do that three times. And uh the first time I was told that this lender loved Bitcoin and I showed up and they said, "Um, we love Bitcoin. Sell it. Come back in 30 days. We won't tell anyone." Um, today without asking anyone's permission, without doing any paperwork, without going into anyone's office, um, I can effectively create my own mortgage with Bitcoin. So um for me it's just extending the core promise. Um the programmable part is secondary though I think to to what Bitcoin really is which is pristine collateral. I'll throw a question to you David. You just announced yesterday on this stage grid. Very cool, pretty impressive product roll out. But grid takes a different approach I think than using Bitcoin script, Bitcoin programmable itself that you introduce a counterparty settlement system for a lot of things other than Bitcoin. Can you explain this and how this how your view of Bitcoin as a neutral layer impacts this? Yeah. So let let me break this into pieces because I think it's important to understand how Bitcoin fits in everything that we've been building for the last four years. So the first thing we did is actually connect domestic payment systems that became real time in the last four years. Uh but not interoperable with one another except with correspondent banking that takes 3 days to settle and doesn't work a Friday after 5:00 p.m. and on weekends. um and actually start with lightning and connect basically payment systems with lightning. So you can send money from one country to another country in real time 247 all interoperated with TCP IP for money bitcoin on lightning in this case. Um, and that was the starting point. And then we're like, okay, this is great. But then I had like my whole schizophrenic journey with stable coins. And I decided that after looking at especially what Block was doing when they started doing USDC on top of Salana and thinking about like basically stable coins as just another fiat rail basically and you know making it available to their users that I was thinking about it in the wrong way. It's not one or the other. you just if you connect Bitcoin to all of the different payment systems and all of the different places where money is, then not only more money can actually flow through Bitcoin, but money can flow to Bitcoin more easily. And when you get a grid global account that has a dollar balance, a Bitcoin balance, a debit card, payment compatibility with 65 countries payment systems and chains and all of these things, you get a Bitcoin wallet. This is like actually a thing where you're you're you're giving people a dollar account that is a Bitcoin wallet that runs on Spark. And I think if we want more people to have access to Bitcoin and to use it, connecting it to all the things actually makes it more possible. And and so that's that's been our approach since we've had that little aha moment and realization. >> So Drew, Unchain's one of the older more tenured companies in Bitcoin. pioneers I think of like Bitcoin collateral and lending. Um but you guys don't have a stable coin integrated as far as I'm aware. So this might be an interesting you know wedge issue because um how do you view Bitcoin? We have two I would say more like platform builders. How do you think about Unchain's role in the Bitcoin economy and Bitcoin modular ecosystem? I think Unchained operates at a fairly low layer in the ecosystem. Uh our clients directly hold Bitcoin on the blockchain uh through collaborative multi-IG wallets that we help provide through our platform. Uh our platform aids them, but it doesn't control them. They're of course able to unilaterally exit at any time without our permission, without our help should they choose to do so. Um and given that they're operating at such a low level in Bitcoin, their needs are correspondingly low level. They care about security. They care about uh being able to trade in and out of Bitcoin and dollars. They care about liquidity, being able to borrow against their Bitcoin, even financial advice around how to pursue this stuff. Security advice around how to do it safely. Um I think there are many things that are, I would say, higher up in the stack of what has already been built, what will be built in the future. Uh I love thinking about those things and I love writing about those things and talking about those things. But I think when it comes to my professional obligations at Unchained, I tend to go way back to the bottom and I tend to say, "Okay, what do I really need to do to make multisig collaborative custody safe?" And that's where we spend almost all of our time. Things like stable coins are interesting. I I concede how useful they are and what problems that they can solve for many people. But our clients tend to get more utility out of regular old dollars. That's really what they're looking for. And that's typically where our products and our platforms tend to connect. So, Bitcoiners, we tend to be very idealistic. Um, and it makes I've seen many over the years, many of my idealistic friends try to start companies and fail because they didn't have enough pragmatism. And I think this might be an interesting topic to dive into because especially you look at like Matt, your portfolio of companies, David, uh, Lightspark and the Spark implementation and Drew Unchain's like what we call lower level business model. You see a a spectrum of companies and people who have been building with on a spectrum of idealism and pragmatism. Here's an open question. How do you guys navigate the reality that a lot of the folks in the audience are very idealistic, but you also have to run a business and build Bitcoin products? Open question. I'll I'll take that one. Um, Bitcoin has an immune system. And that idealism is what powers that immune system. So I think um when people say Bitcoin versus crypto, this is one of a number of reasons there can be only one, right? And so that's vital. Um but we also want to build the future. So I mean I found in the past it it's been hard as a builder to the immune system will react. I I've been shipping products in this space for 12 years now and still I'll I'll do something new and uh and the first thing is scammer. So I guess to entrepreneurs if you're building in Bitcoin, you haven't been called a scammer, you need to try harder. Um but I but I actually I genuinely I think it's great. And I think you know the other piece that that helps me uh and that makes me feel good is um two things. one one is that I I care about people who use the service. So, you know, if you're hassling me on Twitter and you're a user, you get to hassle me on Twitter. Like, you're a customer of mine, go nuts. Um, but then I think the other part is that every once in a while, and uh this isn't the same as being wildly successful in business. I get to say I told you so every once in a while. um, BlockFi, you know, and and we have these moments where um, you know, everyone trying to be so conservative actually led to a huge traditional financial failure that a lot of people in this room probably lost some money on. And um, and so I think uh, it takes a balanced approach. Um, and I also think that you need to look at people's track record. Um, but anyway, yeah, um, I I embrace it. >> Yeah. I mean, just to uh I like the immune system analogy. Um but sometimes you have autoimmune diseases. Um, and I think sometimes we've been the victim of that uh with Bitcoin and uh and I think you know at the end of the day and and we we got a lot of that like you know building Spark and you know trying to build the a new Bitcoin L2 that can satisfy real-time Bitcoin settlements across wallets and now like Spark is you know behind the the Tether wallet, WDK, the Cake Wallet, wallet of Satoshi, Xverse like all of the big most popular Bitcoin wallets are running on Spark And there's a reason for that. And the reason is we made it really easy for you to actually move bitcoin have a connect a connection on a self-custodial w that can receive offline from lightning and L1 and one integration etc. But we got so much push back. It's like wait a minute is this like what is the trust assumption that you're making. This is not like owning a UTXO on on L1 and all of these debates which I think are good and healthy, you know, and I agree with you Matt on this. It's like always healthy and it it makes us better. But at the same time, you need to find the right balance between what is the the the compromise that you're willing to make to build a product that can be used by hundreds of millions of people every day, which is what we all want, right? We all want Bitcoin to be in the hands of billions of people. And and for that, you need to make the product actually usable. And that requires making tradeoffs that no one not everyone's going to be happy with. And that's okay because there's always an opportunity for these people who feel really strongly that you need like the purity of having owning your own UTXO and doing that stuff to actually do that. They are free to do it. Um but I think sometimes the the autoimmune reaction uh set us back quite a bit. >> Thinking in thinking about this I I I think pragmatism and idealism are are are compatible in Bitcoin. I'd like to believe that I I'm both at the same time in the sense that but there's also tension, right? I I think where where that I see the tension is often times idealism manifests as things we want to build that we can't possibly get to today. Bitcoin isn't mature enough. The technology may not exist. It's programmable, but it's not as programmable as we'd like it to be. At least not quite yet. Um but you can still be idealistic. I think I Unchained I think has the same issue where we're trying to be a regulated financial institution. That means we have to do things like KYC, AML, all sorts of security and compliance issues. These aren't my favorite things to spend time on, but I understand how necessary they are in order to be able to actually operate my business. In return, I think my business has saved hundreds or thousands of Bitcoin over its lifetime because of the collaborative nature of our custodial model. That's something I'm incredibly proud of. Like the people that we've saved from scams and attacks because of the nature of the model. I wouldn't have that if I were slightly more idealistic. Conversely, if I lean too hard into my idealism and I go pursue at work all the cool, fun, magical things that I like thinking about that I discuss often with people here in the hallways at this conference, I think I'm losing the plot. I'm not focusing sufficiently hard on the thing that actually matters right in front of me. And I'm maybe ahead of the curve of where I need to be. Um, but I think there's space for people to make that trade-off differently than I'm doing it, differently than Unchained is doing it. people who want to be working at layer 2 already today on lightning or arc or other systems which may not be ready in the sense of there may not be as much demand for those things today as there will be in the future uh but it's okay that people are working on them they're just making that pragmatism idealism trade-off slightly differently there are people working on layer three projects today which is completely not going to work but I salute them and I'm proud that they're doing it because someone has got to be forging that territory ahead of the rest of us >> so David you mentioned there's There's various trust models. And if we look at the story of Bitcoin, broader crypto, it's a story of counterparty trust and the failure of counterparty trust. And this even gets into the the genesis of why we Bitcoin in the first place. I'm going to I'm going to hit you guys back kind of with a similar question because we have different levels of counterparty trust. We don't have to get into the level of like the technical details because it's not a technical panel, but you know, do you think we should as builders in the Bitcoin ecosystem seek to minimize counterparty trust as much as possible? >> Yes, >> 100%. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. That was much faster. >> Yeah. >> Um, let's switch let's switch let's switch gears then. uh stable coins. >> If you want me to say something that's Yeah, say something, man. >> Give you a little bit more. I think um I want to meet Bitcoiners where they are. And today's Bitcoiners um aren't they're definitely not managing like an Electra multisig. They're definitely not playing with Sparrow, right? I mean, some of us are, but um uh I wouldn't even put, you know, I don't Anyway, I won't comment on Sparrow. Um, I guess what I'm where I'm going is uh we have Bitcoiners today in boardrooms and they want qualified custody. And uh for years as an engineer, I didn't understand that. And I thought that they were missing something. And it's taken me a long time to realize like our job is to meet people where they are. Most growth over the past few years in our space has been ETFs. How do we serve those people um while still helping them find eventually self-custody? Yeah, I like that attitude. I think I've gone through a similar journey. Unchained of course is again very low level layer 1 keys in the direct hands of our clients, but I recognize that that means there's only a tiny fraction of people who are excited about Bitcoin that I can even reach as a customer. And it's leading our business to try to reach forward a little bit, right? to go meet those people where they are today, which often means not starting with keys, but starting with Bitcoin ownership through some sort of proxy structure, whether it's an ETF, whether it's a custodial relationship. I think the progressive journey from, you know, from from being not interested in Bitcoin at all to being really interested in Bitcoin, having your own keys, passes through that stage. It certainly did for me. I purchased my Bitcoin originally on Coinbase. I didn't have a hardware wallet when I first got into it. And if I didn't have that option, I probably never would have gotten to self-custody. So, I think it's powerful when an organization, and this is where we're trying to get to, can say, "Well, we'll help you along that entire journey, right? Because it just means you're getting to people earlier." And and truthfully, you're preventing some of them from falling into bad traps such as BlockFi and other systems, which I think are are actively a little bit dangerous. >> Yeah. I mean, owning is the first step towards caring about Bitcoin. And so, however you get access to your first fragment of Bitcoin, we should support that because like people will go on a journey and like even if you own a little bit of Bitcoin, you'll start caring about it. >> Yeah, there's probably no bad way to start owning Bitcoin. I think there's probably some bad ways to hold on to Bitcoin as it grows in value over the years and never ever think about it. That's that's probably not productive, but yeah, almost any way you get started is is better than not getting started. Yeah. >> So, stable coins, stable coins are are interesting because it your opinion on stable coins can place you along that pragmatic to idealistic spectrum. Um, everybody every app launched here's got a stable coin, but not every company here in the room is incorporated stable coins. I invite you guys to opine talk about the current state of stable coins, where they fit into a product or a finan or the financialization of broader crypto and bitcoin. Um, and uh do you think that stable coins at some level are fundamentally opposed to the success of Bitcoin? >> I'm happy to jump uh onto that one. Um, look, I mean, for me, the key moment of realization with stable coins is actually when we figured out a way to make Spark a Bitcoin L2, like what I think is like the most efficient way to move stable coins around, you know, the world. And when we figured that out, it's like there there was this aha moment where you have a wallet address, a single wallet address that can hold dollars or you know any type of stable coin and Bitcoin with the same address. And that to me is not a small thing because if you give people and businesses a really powerful dollar account or fiat account that's actually represented by stable coins and those wallets and those accounts are actually Bitcoin wallets at the same time then you can get like hundreds and hundreds of millions of people onboarded onto Bitcoin and they'll need the fiat equivalent of their home currency to spend and use every day. And is it a better alternative to actually have that balance represented in a Bitcoin wallet or in your bank? And my answer is definitely in a Bitcoin wallet because that gives more people Bitcoin wallets and addresses that can actually have both things in one place. And so I think it's I if done right and I mean for sure like this is going to sound super self- serving and it is but like you know I think what we did with great global accounts is that is exactly that if done right it's just going to drive massive Bitcoin adoption >> for me it's not an area I think about too much just to be honest again I think I don't get as much demand from my client base uh which tends to be wealthier here smaller number of clients, larger transaction sizes. I think stable coins maybe are are useful in that context but are certainly more useful I think in the large scale retail context where you know lots of people are on boarding and this kind of thing. Um truthfully I think Unchained already struggles with trying to build quality robust secure usable interfaces that are connecting Bitcoin and dollars. That's already a big task and we're still in the middle of that you know years into our business. adding stable coins, adding other cryptocurrencies. These are things that feel outside of the remmit of where we need to be spending our time. And so I I I I just don't have much to say about it, unfortunately. >> I feel like Charlie's trying to court controversy and I'm trying to >> try to drive a wedge. You guys are too polite, though. >> I got you. >> Go for it. You got five minutes, by the way. So, yeah. >> Okay, I'll take it. Um, you know, I think the funny thing, I don't know your clients, um, obviously, but what I see is that people want yield and they want to borrow. And if you look on chain, and I won't call out any chains in particular, but Bitcoin here, you can see rates that are 3 and a half to 5%. And the delta, Bitcoin is pristine collateral. it needs, it deserves uh pristine rates. So, you know, I remember last year when uh I was at this conference and heard all these new lending things getting announced and you know, there's little asterisk and you see the rates and you're like, I don't I don't think uh I want to pay that interest on my BTC if it's the best collateral. So what we've been working on is and particularly for public Bitcoin uh holders is giving them rates that uh like the rest of the ecosystem can provide. Um my favorite actually is using you can even you can build stable coins backed by bitcoin and you can offer people below treasuries. um even with USDC and USDT you can get below treasuries because you have the whole rest of the world who doesn't have access to treasuries and uh and and they want yield and they want USD exposure. So I think I don't think that stable coins are a great step toward self- sovereignty. Um, I I think maybe a Bitcoin backstable could be, but but I think they're a great step toward finding our customers for Bitcoin and giving them giving them what they want, which is borrowing, yielding, and security. Okay, we got 3 minutes left. I'm going to switch gears. Um, let's talk a little bit about AI. Um, what's the future of AI? Does it have anything to do with Bitcoin? Do agents use Bitcoin? Do agents live on chain? Droo, what do you think? It's such a huge topic that I can't possibly begin to get into it. I'll just leave like a few ideas that I'm playing with a lot right now and enjoying. It's just the notion that like I don't think it should be called artificial intelligence. I think it should be called artificial life. Uh I think eventually people will build agentic or just automated AI tools that aren't in anybody's control uh that are eating and living and breathing bitcoin to pay for their very existence. Uh, I think Bitcoin is something like the energetic currency of their digital ecologies metabolism. These words don't go together very often, but I'm trying to make them fit. Um, I wish I had more time to talk about it. So, yeah, I think Bitcoin should be the currency that's defaulted for agents transacting with one another because it's the only unit of accounts that can't be messed up by humans. And so I think they they like if I was an AI agent, I would prefer that like you know um >> it's the only money you could trust. >> Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And like so the interesting thing by the way it's like we've built this agent delegation stuff for like the grid global accounts and then we we connected two agents and and we asked them to send money to one another and they have like seven different options like you know they can send dollars to a bank account. They can send dollars or bitcoin to cash app via lightning. They can send BTC on L1. They can send USDC on Solana or USDT on Optimism, whatever, right? And inevitably like the shortest path is always like going to be like, you know, send via if you have a cash app account like via lightning. Uh, and it's it's kind of interesting like it's like the lowest point of friction, lowest cost, real time. And that should be the default currency for AI agents. So I say this as a reformed ML person. Um I kind of see these as two opposing forces uh in society. I think you have um it is very difficult to provide AI today at scale without it being this collectivist force and this collection of capital that the rest of us are hoping stays up long enough, right? Um, and I think I I think what's interesting about it is though you have all of these things that are dematerializing. Well, it's okay. I don't need that app. I can just create a new one in 10 seconds. You have fewer and fewer things you own. And I think I think the um the stark difference between how we're feeling the economy change and then Bitcoin and our ownership is is really remarkable. Um, so I'm waiting for that moment where I see agents discover Bitcoin and it's all uh peer-to-peer and it'll be lightning, it'll be Spark and it'll be all of our different systems. Um, but I'm also excited to know that I I jumped over uh the permanent underclass uh by being a Bitcoin holder. Maybe next year that's all we'll talk about is bit is AI. So, thank you Drew, David, Matt. Give it up for these guys. Every year, this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year, the stage gets bigger. Sound money, center stage. So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.