Why Solana keeps getting faster — and what's next (ft. Jito Labs CEO Lucas Bruder)

What if opening a trading account was as easy as downloading an app?

Lucas Bruder, CEO of Jito — a Solana-based liquid staking protocol — breaks down why he thinks all of finance is moving onchain, and what his small team is doing to make that happen.

During the 2022-2023 bear market, Jito was getting pitched constantly to jump ship to other chains. Lucas explains why they turned everything down, doubled down on Solana, and chewed a lot of glass.

We also cover how Jito acts like a Cloudflare for Solana, why cheap transactions create surprising problems, what convinced Lucas that the Solana engineers were in it for the right reasons, and his vision for a financial system anyone can access with just a phone.

Follow Jito: https://www.jito.network/

Follow Lucas: https://x.com/buffalu__

Highlights

• 0:00 — Intro

• 0:49 — What is Jito and why does it exist

• 1:11 — Why Solana transactions are less than a penny

• 2:00 — What attracted Lucas to Solana from Ethereum

• 2:39 — How Jito is like Cloudflare for blockchains

• 5:02 — The $1,500 Ethereum transaction fee problem

• 7:21 — The vision: all of finance onchain

• 7:46 — Onchain vs. opening a Robinhood account

• 8:37 — Lucas's journey from robotics to crypto

• 9:55 — Solana's rate of improvement and Anatoly's Law

• 10:44 — The pitch for people new to crypto

• 15:00 — Staying lean at 21 people

• 15:17 — Nicotine as a productivity hack

• 15:58 — Sleep, alcohol, and the Oura ring

• 16:40 — Smallest hill you'll die on: littering and shopping carts

Follow a16z crypto for more...

X: https://x.com/a16zcrypto

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/a16zcrypto/posts/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@a16zcrypto

Substack: https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/subscribe/

As always, none of the following should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.