The Agentic Web & Future of Payments | The Post Web Unplugged Ep01

Speaker A: What comes after Web three? It's not Web four or Web five. It's something entirely different. I call it the Post Web. Welcome to the Post Web Unplugged, our newest series, part of the Outlier Ventures podcast. In this series, Jasper Demer and I sit down with the brightest minds shaping what's next. No scripts, no rehearsed narratives, just raw, unfiltered conversations about the future of the Internet. If you want to understand the shifts happening beneath the surface, this is where you start. Let's dive in. Today we're back with a fresh episode. It's been a while. We've been busy beavering away on the Post Web, trying to get these chapters out, uh, and the next chapters for the audiobook. But we thought it would be an opportune moment to get one of our kind of star performers in, in the portfolio on, um, to talk about their progress generally. And they kind of found a journey, um, but then also to talk about how they're leveraging agents, um, uh, to kind of make an abstract away, the complexity of, um, usability of their solution, um, and also then how they think about the agentic Internet and the Post Web at an applied level, a business model level. So, without ado, I want to welcome Adrian Stern, founder of Reveal. Welcome, Adrian.

Speaker B: Hey, Jamie. So good to be with you again. Um, I guess I saw you not so long ago in Denver, but nice to be on the pod with you.

Speaker A: So you're one of my reasons to log into things like LinkedIn, because I know probably each week I'm going to get this kind of numbers go up chart from you, which gives me a nice little dopamine hit. Phenomenal growth story, which is amazing to see in a portfolio. I believe you went through the accelerator way back, actually Q4 in 23. Obviously a lot's happened then, generally at, uh, a market level. But also for Reveal, I think you're one of these great examples of how good founders and great teams are able to pivot, navigate and evolve an offering that might be different to the initial problem that they set out to do. And I think yours is a great example of that. So now I would describe you guys as universal stablecoin payment infrastructure. And you've got a number of innovations being rolled out as we speak, including PayID, which I definitely want to get into. But maybe let's just start at that kind of genesis, the initial, uh, problem that you were trying to solve that led you to, I don't know if you'd say, move down the stack, but you certainly had to solve some fundamental problems. Um, and that was based upon some interesting insights from what users were doing, um, that made you realize that there were some other kind of pain points you had to solve. So maybe we kind of start from the top and, and then, and then get uh, to what you are today.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Um, it's, it's, you know, I think the founder journey is always one of, of uh, learning and figuring out where you can add value. And as you iterate, you know, that path becomes clearer. Um, you know as you mentioned, we started uh, with an application level product, right, which was uh, is because live a peer to peer payments application. You know a lot of people have spoken about you know, sort of a Venmo on chain, right, A global Venmo and our initial product is sort of within that space. Um, one of the things that we did differently though when we launched that initial product is that we thought it was valuable to provide a multi chain version of this and multi stablecoin version of that. From the early days our thesis is that uh, there will be more and more stablecoins coming to market. Uh, there will be more and more chains. And we wanted to provide a solution that could connect users across these different sort of ecosystems, if you will. Now the application allowed us to learn a bunch of things and one of the, I guess most relevant insights was that users were like bridging or swapping funds before doing a transaction. And, and we started sort of digging into that and what we learned is that there's often like a communication um, and back and forth that goes between users ahead of the transaction and you know, it'll go something like hey, can I pay you in USDT on bnb? And the other person is like ah, uh, no, like I, you know, I prefer USDC or whatever. And you know they go back and forth until they agree which Rails, right, which payment Rails they're going to use. And eventually then you've got to you know, bridge funds or swap funds to be able to execute the transaction in the agreed Rails. And so we thought that was an interesting problem. And what it really meant is that users are siloed right on different networks across different stablecoins that they prefer. Um, and sort of following the core vision of Satoshi, we were like well let's try to unify all that and create a universal stablecoin payment experience. And so that required us to sort of go down the stack um, and start building some infrastructure that can really provide that flawless, uh, seamless experience across these different Rails. And that's what uh, Reveal is focused on today. PayID is our really core product around this. Uh, it's a universal stablecoin payment id. It allows a user to send whatever stablecoin they have and the recipient basically can have those funds automatically settle to their preferred stablecoin on their preferred chain. And, and so we've abstracted, you know, not just wallets, not just chains, but even stablecoins within the transaction process.

Speaker A: The numbers are really telling, right? You can definitely say with confidence that you found product market fit with this. Could you maybe kind of talk through firstly the numbers with the original application? It gave you this insight. Was it kind of like, um, you know, statistically, how sure were you that this was a thing? How much did you have to validate it? And then maybe you could talk through the kind of numbers now and how you've achieved that phenomenal growth.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the, the application has been a great way for us to sort of solve for the cold start problem around the network of users that um, will be leveraging PayID. Right. I think, you know, payments in general require strong network effects and so we needed to solve for that cold start problem. You know, the application is a little bit over a year old now. Um, and we are processing now well over $10 million in peer to peer transaction volume per month. So, uh, super happy with, with uh, the growth in this first year. Uh, that's been super rewarding for us. What we've realized and the way we got to this insight was seeing what was the volume that was being swapped or bridged in the app compared to the transaction volume. And that was quite relevant in the, in the early days. And so that's how we, you know, sort of identified this uh, early on. And then, you know, we went through the process of interviewing users and trying to really dig into the problem. Um, so that's sort of how we came to that. We announced PayID in December, um, and we have a massive wait list, uh, or we, you know, over a hundred thousand people, uh, waiting to be able to claim their, their Pay id. And it's, you know, it's now uh, live, we're onboarding people at Reveal id. Um, so definitely, you know, recommend uh, uh, folks to go check that out. And I think the second part of the traction that we're very excited about is some of the partnerships that that uh, we're solidifying and uh, you know, specific sectors in which we see PayID like getting a lot of interest, one of them being AI agent frameworks. Uh, and I think that's, that's super interesting because it's definitely not something we initially imagined. We started with users, human users, um, and we're realizing that this agentic economy has a strong need for a solution like Pay ID in order to facilitate even agent to agent transactions if these agents are on different networks. Right. Um, so there's a lot that we're still learning, uh, but I'd say very exciting couple months ahead.

Speaker A: And so if we maybe kind of focus in on PayID and the idea that um, people, things can have identities, could you maybe just talk us through that identity paradigm? Because you know, I've kind of consistently said that until there is a universal form of decentralized identity on the Internet that can't actually be web. Three because at the end of the day, you know, you can have a decentralized application, you can have all of these things, but actually if you're still using an email address or something else, or wallet on a centralized exchange or something like that, then ultimately um, it's kind of not a fully realized vision for, for the web3 and that's just in the context of people. But then of course if agents have identities, you know, how permissionless is that? Is there some kind of, um, might an agent represent a person? Is there some kind of delegation of identity? How are you thinking about all that from, from the, the simple stuff, the basics of people all the way through to this kind of agent to agent, uh, Internet.

Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of really interesting questions there. I think, um, I think there are a degree of sort of identity components um, that might eventually sort of come together. But we are still in my mind in an era where we have different identities for different use cases. You know, and the Internet had email to unified communication. We um, think PAYID is the way to unify payments. Right. Um, eventually those two can come together and be tied under sort of a master ID if you will, for a specific user. Um, but I still think that at the stage we're at, we can have sort of use ah, case specific identity solutions and that's sort of the focus that we're approaching it with. That identity though can apply to you know, humans, agents, businesses and that, that can be very broad in terms of uh, sort of the reach of that application. But from a use case perspective I think it's still fairly narrow. Um, so you know, obviously our, our perspective is can we, can we bring that vision to life for payments specifically, um, when it comes to agents, what's uh, I think super interesting is that they're eventually Going to behave kind of like humans in the economy. Right. Um, having the ability to transact uh, with each other, with humans, with businesses or to execute transactions on behalf of humans. And so this payment identity becomes very relevant for them as well. Whether it's sort of a representation of your payment ID or sort of a sub id, um, or they just have their own. You know, I think there are different ways to set that up and perhaps that again will depend on specific use cases. Uh, but nevertheless we need to be able to easily identify a specific agent and transact with it. And that's, that's the whole sort of core purpose of an identifier, right, or an identity is to identify. So, uh, super relevant space. M. I think, you know, obviously agents have been a super hot narrative uh, in the last couple months, uh, with you know, crypto really showing that it's got a strong uh, use case for facilitating uh, the agentic economy. And in my mind stablecoins are the natural payment solution for, for agents. You know, it's programmable money, uh, it's the future of money agents and AI. Sort of the future of user interfaces if you will. Um, and with Reveal, we're trying to bring those two together

Speaker A: and um, what do you think are kind of the low hanging, the low hanging fruit for uh, agents as users with Reveal today?

Speaker B: Yeah, we're working on our own agent, um, that will be utilizing the entire, you know, Reveal Pay ID infrastructure. And the way I think about it is when it comes to, you know, tasks that are fairly transactional, agents are a great sort of replacement of a uh, graphic user interface. You know, there are some use cases perhaps like entertainment, where an agent might not make as much sense as a user interface. But when it comes to like payments, um, you know, ordering uh, you know, food or a cab, uh, booking flights, etc. I think those are transactional, uh, you know, sort of uh, tasks and agents are perfect for that. And so I think that the sort of the near future of the agentic economy is about agents becoming the new user interface for those types of services. Um, and that's how we're thinking about it in the context of payments. Right. I think what, what becomes super interesting with an agent is that because it has its own identity, it can engage with you in a variety of different places. Right. And so when we think of payments, you know, we're, we're looking at sort of these different trends. All right, stablecoins are going to take over as the payments Rails, you know, AI is taking over as the uh, Sort of user interface, if you will. We've got a new generation, uh, you know, gen zers becoming adults that have, you know, grown up making friends through gaming platform on social media, um, you know, they're streaming constantly. How do those three come together? And how can we provide a peer to peer payment solution that addresses this new era? And so in our mind, um, you know, PayID is that infrastructure for universal stablecoin payments. Creating an agent on top of that, uh, addresses that UI element and then um, being able to integrate the agent and for users to engage with that agent directly in their favorite applications is bringing that solution to market in this new paradigm. Um, so that's really how I think about it from a payments perspective. And I think that in the next five years peer to peer payments are going to change drastically. Today we're used to pulling up an independent application, right. We had lunch together. I pull up venmo or paypal or whatever it is and I send you 20 bucks. I think in the future that is going to happen directly in our favorite applications. Maybe we're hanging out online, right. And I'm like, oh man, I'm going to get you a coffee and I'll just like text, you know, my agent, hey, send Jamie 20 bucks or 5 bucks for a coffee or whatever it is. Having to switch applications is going to be something that we're not willing to do when agents become the user interface.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean I'd imagine assuming if it can be secure, it's just an API call. Right. So it's an API call. You don't even need to go to the particular app. There's just an API call voice command to your payment agent. It kind of does the call to the API carries out the transaction with the organization. And I mean, I agree, I think there's a lot of the consumer Internet in particular payments, um, because it can be so transactional that really it's just over the top of that whole web experience with some kind of agentic solution. Yeah. Um, so I mean I think that makes, I think that makes total sense. And then I mean, I guess as a consequence to this there is a social, there is a financial graph that forms specific to the user and then there's a whole host of things I'd imagine you could do where, I don't know, a subscription's up for renewal and you can say yes or no to continue that subscription or potentially even, um, there could be some um, financial advice or like a recommendation on switching. It could potentially even replace the comparison website you don't need to go there. Your agent knows your financial graph. It knows how much you're paying, it knows something's cheaper and it just says would you like to switch? And it's a voice command. Yes or no?

Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean financial and transaction data is super valuable. You are able to learn a lot about a user based on the transactions they make, what they buy, when, where, uh, et cetera. So there's a lot of value there and for sure that can feed an agent. And agents are already really good at um, sort of predictive capabilities. Right. And so all of that data can feed that um, and help you manage your finances. Right. The first step, uh, for the agent we're building with Reveal is really going to be, you know, call it a AI payments companion. Right. There are a lot of areas that, that can grow into and I think it'll be interesting for us to see what the initial feedback is. Right. Coming back to our earlier point, uh, in the conversation, we're constantly learning, um, and you know, I think when it comes to bringing AI and payments together, one of the things we need to figure out and learn is what is the, the market's willingness and users willingness to, to trust an AI with their, with their payments. Right. And so I think it's important to go step by step in a really secure way that can sort of build trust around these, these new solutions.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I guess that human in the loop will be down to the preference of the user, the transaction type, volume, um, potentially a regulatory component down the line if it' of um, some kind of regulated activity or regulated advice, financial advice or something. But on the whole, yeah, I mean I, I kind of follow, follow the logic. And so if we kind of look at agents beyond like the wallet and potentially even having that extend into other forms of personhood around this, this financial graph. Um, are you also thinking about agents at a network level to kind of orchestrate payments and batching and I don't know, making the network function more optimally?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we are, um, we're actually already using AI on the back end for certain types of tasks. But I think one of the interesting capabilities of AI is to identify or optimize. Right. Specific routes. Right. How do I execute a transaction, you know, with the lowest fees possible. Uh, an agent is great at figuring that out. And so there are definitely several ways to use AI to optimize sort of the infrastructure, uh, and the transaction side of things. Uh, so that's clearly something we're looking at I think in the stablecoin space, we're seeing more and more developments on the infrastructure side. I think people are starting to realize that this increasing fragmentation is a big issue. And so I haven't seen a whole lot of companies leverage AI to solve this yet. Um, but I have no doubt that that will probably become a thing in the next 12 months. So I think we're still, um, pretty much ahead of the curve in terms of bringing those two, uh, technologies together to bring efficiency to peer to peer payments. Uh, and so that's something I'm super excited about.

Speaker A: Well, look, it's been great catching up with you, um, again, really excited about, um, the launch. I'm going to try and get myself, uh, on that shortlist, uh, as quickly as possible.

Speaker B: Let's get you a pay id.

Speaker A: Yeah. And continue to watch your success. I mean, I think it's just one of those things where you've solved a complex problem really elegantly, um, and the kind of rest just kind of flows off the back of that. But I, I do think, you know, the minute that you start to tap into the network effects around this financial graph, um, I think there's just unlimited possibilities there. Um, so, super excited about what the future holds beyond, um, PayID as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks, Jamie. Always a pleasure to chat with you.

Speaker A: Please note the content of this episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. For specific legal or financial guidance or concern, please consult a qualified professional. Thank you.