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.