DAO Services in the Cayman Islands with Karel Olivier from Lemma

[00:00:00] Karel: There's also certain elements that needs to take place for your pre-TGE. 

[00:00:03] Karel: From a Lemma perspective, we help you set up your back accounts, your accounting side, exchange accounts, as well, custody accounts, opening your Safe. 

[00:00:12] Karel: In order to have a successful TGE, a lot of groundwork goes through this. We work with like HLV, who really helps you set up a successful launch on Day one.

[00:00:23] Karel: In order to get the relevant tax advice, for example, Andersen or Deloitte tax, getting your token valuation appropriately, which is done normally by a company such as Teknos Associates. 

[00:00:34] Karel: Lemma helps you facilitate that token generating event from a coordination perspective, we ensure that all of the right parties are there at the right time.

[00:00:43] Karel: And on TGE Day, it's not just minting the token. Immediately after that, it is the facilitation of movements of tokens as well. 

[00:00:50] Umar: Welcome to The Accountant Quits podcast, where we help accounting and finance professionals learn how to manage a business using crypto. 

[00:00:58] Umar: Today's topic is on DAO services in the Cayman Islands.

[00:01:03] Umar: One school of thought argues that DAOs should avoid any legal structure and remain unregistered in all jurisdictions. But having a legal entity allows the DAO to engage in contracts with real world entities, facilitates holding intellectual property rights, and perhaps the biggest of all, a legal entity protects the individual participants of a DAO from unlimited liability.

[00:01:29] Umar: Think of it as a shield for DAO members. One structure that has gained popularity is the Cayman Islands Foundation structure. This facilitates opening bank accounts, exchange accounts, or dealing with vendors and market makers for the DAO. Now, while this setup does not need shareholders, it does require local directors, a supervisor, a secretary, and a DAO Administrator.

[00:01:57] Umar: One company providing DAO services and acting as a DAO Administrator in the Cayman Islands is Lemma. 

[00:02:04] Umar: And today I've got the pleasure of having Karel Olivier, Lemma's CEO and Co Founder to discuss their range of back office operational, accounting and governance services for DAOs. 

[00:02:19] Umar: Some of the DAOs that Lemma work with include SuperRare, Balancer, ENS, Gitcoin, Ethena, and more.

[00:02:29] Umar: This episode with Karel today will help founders and contributors understand DAO legal structures from the get go, so their are members aren't left facing with unlimited liability. 

[00:02:41] Umar: Lastly, if you're new to this channel, I'd really appreciate your support to help us grow by liking this video and subscribing to our channel.

[00:02:49] Umar: Now enjoy my conversation with Karel.

[00:02:51] Karel: Thank you Umar, for having me on the podcast. Very excited to be here. 

[00:02:54] Umar: So I want to start our conversation today with the topic of incorporation of a DAO in the Cayman Islands. Like why? How? 

[00:03:03] Umar: So around two weeks ago, a California court ruled that Lido DAO, so the popular liquid staking protocol, can be treated as a general partnership. This means that every member of the DAO can be personally exposed to potentially unlimited liability.

[00:03:20] Umar: Now I was reading a tweet from Miles Jennings, the Head of Decentralization at a16z, who said that, well, under this ruling, any DAO participation could be sufficient to hold DAO members liable for the actions of other members under this general partnership law. 

[00:03:40] Umar: Now, Lido DAO is not incorporated in the state of California, but the plaintiff who filed that complaint is. I just wanted to provide this context to the listeners as a reminder for DAO contributors on the importance of thinking about the legal structure of the DAO from the get go. 

[00:04:00] Umar: So I did mention this in the intro that there is a school of thought that believes DAO should have no legal structure, but to protect the members, this foundation in the Cayman Islands, this foundation structure in the Cayman Islands is a popular setup. Can you walk us through why this structure is so popular and how the incorporation setup works in the Cayman Islands? 

[00:04:25] Karel: I think what you've mentioned from Lido is very relevant to where we are as an industry. And when you think about a foundation company, you should view it as if a company and a trust got married. It is the union of those two school of thoughts and a beauty about the foundation company is it takes the aspects that we're well familiar with from a company perspective, the regulatory certainty, actually the laws and legal principles in which a company has been operating on, which has been established for quite a while now, actually, and it also takes the areas of the trust, like there's no ultimate beneficial owner, and it puts both of those elements into one corporate structure.

[00:05:05] Karel: So the beauty about this is that the foundation allows you to interact with the real world through contracting and the general aspects which we know a company can be used for with the protection of the company side. And it also takes out the concerns where you have to have shareholders in order to operate the foundation company itself.

[00:05:25] Karel: And those roles are then moved into certain aspects that you need in order to set up a foundation company in the Cayman Islands. And you mentioned these, but you have your registered office, your director, supervisor, and then your DAO administrator and your DAO operator. 

[00:05:43] Umar: Perfect. So, this structure it's one of the few corporate vehicles in the world that it has corporate personality, but no membership requirements, right?

[00:05:53] Umar: So, but even if it's a memberless foundation, there's a range of other parties that has to be appointed. Like we mentioned the directors, secretaries, supervisor, You guys at Lemma a DAO operator, so can you go through what these roles would constitute of like, yeah, what would be their obligation with respect to the DAO?

[00:06:16] Karel: Certainly, we're gonna start at the very top. You have your registered office and it's as the name implies. That is where your foundation is registered as a company. Then you have your secretary. The secretary has, a very limited role of which the key one is just ensuring filings are made that is required in the Cayman Islands.

[00:06:36] Karel: And secondly, if funds are received through a grant or donation into the foundation itself, that the regular filings are made in line with what is required. Then you move into your directors. You only require a single director and the director is ultimately responsible for the day to day operations of the foundation company.

[00:06:55] Karel: The director might not be actively involved day to day. But ultimately the director is the final decision maker or directors on any foundation. And then you have to supervisor. The supervisor is ultimately responsible for overseeing the director and the supervisor basically takes the position traditionally held by your shareholders.

[00:07:17] Karel: The supervisor can have a broad spectrum of powers or a very limited spectrum of powers. That is defined in how you incorporate your foundation set up. And we've seen the entire spectrum and it's really goes into preference. Those are all the legal must haves in order to incorporate a foundation.

[00:07:36] Karel: And in the past, I think two years ago, that's almost where it stopped. In the two years since the DAO Administrator and DAO Operator has really started to enter into the picture. And those are roles which assist the foundations with their operations day to day. The DAO administrator is quite often administering the DAO daily, ensuring that a broad set of tasks are completed that's necessary for the foundation to run operationally and effectively operate, and the DAO operator is quite frequently someone who comes in with very specific tasks that needs to be performed on a foundation company.

[00:08:11] Karel: I think as time progresses, we're going to see more and more DAO operators into the space on foundation companies. 

[00:08:18] Umar: I think everyone listening right now can hear like a rooster in the background.

[00:08:24] Karel: Chickens are very, uh, are a staple of the Cayman Islands.

[00:08:27] Umar: Yeah? Tell me something. So the DAO operator, DAO administrator, those are two different entities. Like the role of these two parties are different or is it the same? Operator and Administrator?

[00:08:41] Karel: They could be the same. They could also be different. What is happening right now is that operationally speaking, the administrator is quite often a company like Lemma, whereas a DAO operator is quite often an individual. So those are almost a distinct two. So it could be that inside of a administrator, there's also just an individual, and then those two roles are brought into one.

[00:09:02] Karel: What I'm seeing in the industry is that we're starting to split these two out and very distinctive. The administrator side, where Lemma steps in, is a very broad scope of services that we really help these foundations operate and run on. Whereas the operator coming in, generally, has this very exclusive or specific niche focus that they are doing.

[00:09:21] Karel: As an example, marketing. That becomes, that DAO operator's role. The marketing of the DAO itself, of the foundation. Versus the administrators just taking care from the administrative roles that needs to be enabled to for the operator to operate effectively.

[00:09:35] Umar: All right. So you touched on both the role of the director and the DAO operator. Sometimes the director can also act as the DAO operator, either through the same entity or like a related company. Now this creates a situation where the director would now be wearing both hats. They can approve the fees charged by the DAO operator, meaning this arrangement is not really at arms length. Would you consider this like as a threat to independence and what best practices would you recommend like the listeners for appointing the director and the DAO operator? 

[00:10:12] Karel: I think it's a very relevant question to ask in this industry. And we've seen where it happens, where the supervisor, the director, and the DAO administrator is all under one single company. And I think that let's pause right there. With the supervisor having the role of overseeing the director, our stance from a Lemma perspective is we advise against that.

[00:10:35] Karel: The supervisor and your director should be separate entities, not even separate individuals in the same entity, separate entities completely. Because if one thing happens on your director side, your supervisor needs to step into that role and take ownership. On the broader question, in instances where foundation has two directors, it is likely that one of those directors is not a part of the DAO administrator and in that situation, it should be that the DAO administrator and the independent director in that perspective is negotiating on the fees and operational efficiencies from the administrator side.

[00:11:10] Karel: I think also, in the Cayman Islands specifically, you can't actually indemnify yourself against fraud. It is it's legally not possible to do so. So you have, if it were to come out with there was collision, then that would amount to fraud and would be an illegal act, which you can take to court.

[00:11:32] Karel: And finally, I think it's important to remember that a large part of this industry is reputation. And if it were to become known that, from a reputational side that you are unfairly charging the foundation. You are taking more money than necessary to perform your duties, or you are far outside of what the market alignment is doing.

[00:11:55] Karel: I believe that the reputational risk and harm that you would do to yourself is actually quite significant. We, I think we sometimes fall into the trap where we believe that everybody knows about crypto and it's this massive industry that's globally well known. It's still a very small industry, actually, when you think about it.

[00:12:12] Karel: And it's a tightly knitted community as well. It's more often than not, when you speak to these even our clients, they know the founders of other projects really well. So I think if that were to come out between themselves, they would discuss this and talk about it. And the result is likely to be that you would lose clients because of it. 

[00:12:30] Umar: Now, in practice, the supervisor, you stated they have to oversee, they're responsible to oversee the role of the director. In practice, in terms of like, Maybe the more operational stuff with respect to, let's say, governance like proposals being enacted by the DAO. How do they step in, in practice? 

[00:12:53] Karel: Two sides to this. I think the one side is the community has the ability to make proposals. And it's a very important part. And where I'm going to deal with the director's side first and then how the DAO administrator assists on this. The director has a legal responsibility to ensure that the decisions made is to the benefit of the DAO itself.

[00:13:18] Karel: And that's actually one of the very interesting components about this is that the foundation can set explicit objectives of what that foundation's goal is. Growth of the protocol, could be an objective and decisions then made and enforced should be to align with that objective that was set when the foundation was created.

[00:13:37] Karel: So the director has the right to, in essence, veto if the director is of the opinion that it would not be to the benefit of the protocol or would be against the interest itself. I think that's very important. It's a safety check that does exist, in traditional foundation structures.

[00:13:59] Karel: How it works from an operational perspective is the administrator would help move the proposal through all the stages. So after the community has decided on the governance forum, they want to make a proposal and have a vote on it. The administrator really comes in and moves that from the forum onto snapshot traditionally, potentially onto Tally if that's necessary from a governance perspective.

[00:14:22] Karel: If it's funds that needs to be paid out, then they will facilitate the payment of these transactions. If there's certain contracts that needs to be signed, they will facilitate with the director, the law firm, and the final sign of the third party in order to ensure that there's alignment on terms, commercials is aligned with what was in the initial proposal.

[00:14:42] Karel: And then just all of, all of the traditional contracting elements that forms part of this. And finally, that will also ensure that know your client, know your business and anti money laundering laws are adhered to. Potentially have a third party on the foundation side. But that is where the administrator steps in and really assists with all of these elements in order to finally get to the end result, which is executing on the decision that the DAO is communicated.

[00:15:08] Karel: Now, what a beautiful thing about the foundation is it allows for contracts to be put in place between all of these parties. Which goes back to the very first thing that we discussed. It helps liability, but it also ensures that the foundation is able to contract with real world parties. 

[00:15:23] Umar: Before we continue, let's take a quick commercial break. When I started this podcast three years ago, I always wanted it to be the tip of the iceberg, representing something much greater. Our growing community is something I'm immensely proud of. 

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[00:18:11] Umar: All right. So next I want to speak a little bit more about the stages of growth for the DAO. So we spoke before and you told me this can be broken down in four stages. There's pre TGE and for the listeners, TGE stands for Token Generation Event. Then there's the TGE. Then there's post TGE and then there's the maturity phase, which I believe there's just a few DAOs today who are in this phase. So let's speak then more about the first three stages. So during the pre TGE stage, the co founders have probably conceptualized the DAO. They begin building its core infrastructure, hiring developers. They're setting up a lab co. Then there's the Token Generation Event stage. Now the focus is really on launching the token, meaning you have to probably set up a combination of different entities, the foundation we spoke of in the Cayman Islands, maybe a token SPV to handle governance, compliance and token issuance. Can you further elaborate on these four stages, mentioning maybe some of the challenges each stage presents, and I want the listeners to have maybe a checklist of what they have to do at each stage and what are the service providers that come in like at each step.

[00:19:29] Karel: Certainly, I think that the four stages is very appropriate and you're a hundred percent right. Maturity is one of the very few. And there's a lot of people in pre TGE stages. A key part about this is Lemma likes to get involved in pre TGE as soon as possible. And one of the key reasons for that is it's also, it's one element is get to know the team on the other side.

[00:19:53] Karel: You're going to be working together. It's a long term relationship, but there's also certain elements that needs to take place in a pre TGE. And from a Lemma perspective, we help you set up your bank accounts, your accounting side, a bit of a budget and runway about where we're heading and what we're doing.

[00:20:09] Karel: We, exchange accounts as well, custody accounts, opening your safe. All of these things take time and the earlier you have that core infrastructure in place, the better. Then you very much move into the, you have partners to assist you on a pre TGE. In order to have a successful TGE, a lot of groundwork goes through this.

[00:20:29] Karel: It is, you don't just TGE. There's a lot of planning that goes in before and we work with like HLV. who really helps you set up a successful launch on day one. And I think that is a critical piece of it. It's also in order to get the relevant tax advice, for example Andersen or Deloitte tax, getting your token valuation appropriately, which is done normally by a company such as Teknos associates.

[00:20:55] Karel: And throughout this process. It helps to start early, get these in place, and then build up towards your TGE. When you get to TGE, Lemma helps you facilitate the token generating event from a coordination perspective, we ensure that all of the right parties are there at the right time. And at the same time, I once had a TGE where after all, we got everything in place and on the morning of the TGE, one of the other one of the signers, had to wake up at five o'clock in the morning and forgot to set his alarm.

[00:21:32] Karel: Everybody's on the call. We brought together all of the players in the market, all of the players that needs to be present for the TGE to occur. The coordination was done and didn't wake up, didn't show and suddenly TGE doesn't occur. We had to delay the TGE by 24 hours in order to reprep everything. It's a funny story now, but at that moment it was quite, it was a hard hit and there was a bit of fireworks that needs to be settled, you know contained, but that's also where Lemma comes in, it is as simple as not only getting all of this in place, but it's also as important as telling your signers, remember to set an alarm for your TGE that's happening today. On TGE day, there's also not just, it's not just minting that token, immediately after that, it is the facilitation of movements of tokens as well.

[00:22:17] Karel: And if you, for example, use Anchorage as your custodian, it is ensuring that you perform your test transaction and move the relevant funds into Anchorage. Anchorage needs to be online for this. It is also to move funds to your market makers, to your centralized exchange partners. All of that happens on your TGE day in order to have a successful launch.

[00:22:37] Karel: Post TGE, it is, to be honest, more of the boring stuff. You have initial element here where everybody takes a bit of a breather sometimes, and it's just that calm break that kicks in. We've now done TGE, it's out there, it's live. And in that period, it's just operating effectively with your market makers, maybe listing on another exchange or two potentially bringing in a second custodian.

[00:23:01] Karel: But it's also accounting, making sure the books are kept up to date and running. It's also to ensure that, directors keep being informed and generally speaking, just the foundations operations are taken care of and you want that to be as simple and easy as possible. So that the growth on the foundation, or protocol, which is exactly what the labs team is envisioning.

[00:23:18] Karel: That they're able to go out and execute on that. After a while, we start seeing governance and grants, which that is the more exciting piece of this. And Lemma loves being involved in it. I will also say that it is one of the, it is a harder piece than a lot of people imagine. Governance and grants is not easy, and there's a lot of work in order to build it out effectively, design it appropriately, and then operate it finally at the end of the day.

[00:23:45] Karel: Finally, after all of this is done, you move to maturity. And as I said earlier, few of the foundations and DAOs really have reached the stage. And that's just because of how young we are as an industry. But as we move into maturity, one of the things that I'm starting to see from our mature clients is an active considerations of how do we ensure that this foundation runs indefinitely?

[00:24:09] Karel: You can't sell tokens every day. You only have a set amount of tokens. So you need to start figuring out how do I take the tokens I've got and without selling all of them, how do I build out a treasury in order to have sufficient funding to operate this for the next decade, two, three, four decades. And there's companies like eˣTreasury who helps you do this in order to design what that looks like, determine your runway, build in certain elements to it in order for you to determine how do we get to an indefinite life for the foundation and DAO. 

[00:24:45] Umar: Okay. So a few things for the listeners, you mentioned HLV before, and if the listeners wanna check it out, it's HLV.xyz. They provide token economics advice. You mentioned setting up the grants process, is not as easy as it may sound. So that's a topic we'll discuss later for the listeners. And you just mentioned eˣTreasury. Could you share maybe the website for the listeners? I'll include that in the show notes .

[00:25:11] Umar: Now while preparing this episode, I saw that the Cayman Islands just came up with an amendment bill for virtual asset service providers. Now, I want to ask you if you could walk us through like, what are some of the key highlights of this new bill? Maybe how does it impact the topics we've been exploring so far, like the foundation structure, role of directors, DAO operators, and yeah any other consideration the listeners need to know for DAO compliance.

[00:25:41] Karel: Certainly, I think it's important just like the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act or as it's commonly known on the Island, the VASP. It shows, how forward looking the Cayman Islands is as an industry. From the initial bill that was in 2020. This is the first amendment. And really after the initial one came out and was turned into law, the Ministry of Finance, our regulators, CIMA, which stands for the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, really educated themselves further on the industry, what it means and how it works.

[00:26:12] Karel: And a lot of those pieces of knowledge you can now start seeing flowing through into the amendment. An interesting part about the amendment and very congratulations to CIMA actually for doing this. They actually opened it up for public, commentary on GitHub. They published the entire law on GitHub and sent that out and you made your comments on the GitHub document itself.

[00:26:34] Karel: I've, I haven't seen that ever before, but I it's commendable to me that CIMA did it. And I think it's actually fantastic and showing where the industry is going. And all of those comments have been taken on board. And you know facilitated through the process in order to see what is now looking like the final act that they will change into, law.

[00:26:53] Karel: The impact of the VASP on foundations is limited at best. The foundation is outside of the VASP itself. There are certain elements, potentially, where it could, inform decisions made by foundations, but there's no legal requirement. Nothing in the VASP act directly affects the foundation company structure that is used by the majority of vehicles.

[00:27:16] Karel: I think the largest implication on the VASP is potentially just changing the director's requirement and we'll see how that influences the market. 

[00:27:28] Umar: So there's a paragraph, paragraph 8B of this new bill. It states that the VASP must have no less than three directors, including at least one independent director without a vested interest in the VASP. What does this term vested interest in the VASP means? Like if the director, for example, receives a remuneration in that native token, is that a vested interest?

[00:27:56] Karel: I, I'm gonna have to say, I'm not a lawyer, so , this is not legal, legal advice and, and, you know, you, uh, you can definitely, uh, consult your lawyers. That's, uh, the main point to be made here. I think we, we, we can take some lessons from the traditional financial world here. We sometimes fall in a trap by thinking all of this is new, when in reality it's not as new as we would potentially think.

[00:28:23] Karel: It is in the traditional financial world, having your independent directors be compensated in stocks. is very much considered par for the course. And I think that's very similar to what it could be viewed as on the VASP side. Now, there are two schools of thought on this as well. And my traditional finance I'm bringing from being a chartered accountant from South Africa.

[00:28:48] Karel: In South Africa, we have the King Code, which is very much based on the King Code from the United Kingdom. And the King Code specifically states actually that your independent non executive director is not allowed to be compensated in stocks. So, I think, there's a decision to be made on the one hand being compensated in stocks does align incentives.

[00:29:07] Karel: And it's a decision that needs to be made for each VASP itself. And then also the legal advice, whether a token compensation or not tokens compensation, does that impact your independence? Is that considered to have a vested interest in the VASP itself? I'm not entirely sure, but I think what that does show, especially, from the CIMA side, it's just continuously evolving these structures in order to work better for the community itself and protect the community.

[00:29:35] Karel: It could also be that the foundation companies in general take some guidance on that. It's not a requirement at all, but it might be that certain foundations look at this act and say, well, We should maybe increase the number of directors we have on our boards as well. 

[00:29:50] Umar: As a reminder for the listeners, so, Karel is also an accountant. So most of the listeners of this podcast are accountants. So Karel is an accountant turned entrepreneur now and assisting DAOs living in the Cayman Islands and assisting DAOs on being compliant. So another big topic that. I have for today is governance, but governance is so broad and fascinating that I think it could easily fill an entire episode. Now, token holders would use on chain voting mechanisms to vote on proposals, right? Using tools like Snapshot or Tally. You mentioned these tools before. 

[00:30:30] Umar: From your experience working with clients, one from the many case studies you have on your website. So basically Lemma, if the listeners go on the website and check it out, you have very interesting case studies of the governance process for Aave, for ENS, for Optimism and a few others. Now I want to ask you, is there a recurring pattern in the governance process for DAOs? And maybe where do you see some improvement? 

[00:30:55] Umar: This question is being asked for probably new DAOs who are thinking through how their governance process should look like. 

[00:31:04] Karel: I agree, governance is a fascinating topic and we can have another episode purely talking about governance and it would probably be a longer episode than this one. We need to view governance, we need to recognize where we started. Initially, everything was a vote. Everybody was very much on the wagon that any decision made by the DAO has to be a vote and has to get the relevant approvals.

[00:31:25] Karel: And then only then could it be executed. And I think that was fantastic for day one. And then people started realizing that voting on everything is a lot of time, a lot of effort and it was not happening. There's a vast difference between deciding to allocate 10 percent of your treasury to a certain protocol or a project over should our logo be blue or green. Those two decisions are not the same and the amount of community input is potentially should not be the same on those two, two decision makings. And I think what started happening then and we see this as well is the introductions of councils. The community is voting on who is on the council and the council has a certain set of principles and guidelines within which they must operate in.

[00:32:11] Karel: But what also is happening is oftentimes the community has the ability to veto a decision. The council then runs the majority of decision making and were there a decision made by the council that the community really does not like? Then they can step in and create a proposal that says we veto this decision in its entirety, and that supersedes your council..

[00:32:33] Karel: We've also started to see that DAO tooling enter the space like Hats and CharmVerse, and I think that's another evolution of how DAO governance will work in the future. The one thing here that I think every listener who's listening, I want them to know, and It's just what we've seen, what we view as the best version of governance today might look absolutely ancient in a year's time from now, as we continuously redevelop and rethink how governance should look.

[00:33:04] Karel: And I think it's one of the exciting pieces of especially our space. We have the ability to reiterate on governance continuously and in a very quick feedback system to improve future governance on every, project that comes into the space. And I think by no means does this mean that once you've decided this is your governance, you have to stick to it.

[00:33:26] Karel: Governance is changeable. It could be that we're looking in a year's time that some of our, the largest projects out there comes back to their community and say, our governance is clearly not working. We propose updating it in the following manners in order for this to work appropriately and be better as a community.

[00:33:41] Karel: And the community votes in that piece of governance. And now you have a new governance on an old structure. So I think it's important to take the lessons out of it and learn each time we see what is working, but also what's not working and then improve and iterate on the next version of governance.

[00:33:59] Umar: I mentioned in the intro, ENS is one of the clients of Lemma. Is there something maybe in the governance process of ENS that stands out that makes it maybe very fluid? Because so ENS also has a foundation structure in the Cayman Islands. So from the moment the proposal is written to eventually executed. Is there something that really stands out with their process?

[00:34:24] Karel: ENS has weekly calls. I don't think many people realize it, but once a week, I believe it's on a Tuesday. The stewards of the ENS sits on a open Google meet and any person can join that call and they can raise their hand and raise their voice and ask questions, be it on proposals, future discussions, where funding is being allocated to directly to the stewards.

[00:34:49] Karel: And that really holds your stewards accountable. But I also think it's open for the community to be a participant in it. And I like that especially because I like the idea that if you want to be a part of it, you have the option to be part of it. It's not a, you don't have to wait, which that's one of the concerns when you think about a traditional company perspective, you have one annual shareholders meeting.

[00:35:14] Karel: It's in the name, it's an annual meeting. And you, if you miss that window, you have to wait another 365 days before the next time that you can ask your question. In ENS, you have seven days and you can ask every seven days, you can ask new questions. I think that's phenomenal. Whether that goes across the industry, I don't know yet, but it's an excellent starting point. 

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[00:37:16] Umar: Yeah, that's amazing. Now let's talk about one of the common problems for foundations starting out, which is opening a freaking bank account. 

[00:37:25] Umar: Because they don't have shareholders. Banks don't really like this. So it's frustrating for DAO core contributors. And basically it's one of the first fires that Lemma as a DAO service provider has to put out. We'll speak more about the services being offered by Lemma in a little bit, but I want to ask you, how would you assist here with opening a bank accounts and maybe who are some of the crypto friendly banks in Cayman at this moment in time?

[00:37:54] Karel: Umar, you hit the, it was the perfect sentence. The freaking bank account. Honestly, when we started Lemma two years ago I, for one of my clients, it took me six months of back and forth over emails, explaining the no beneficial ownership element of this. And after I, I don't even want to know how many hours, the bank account got denied because it didn't fit within the framework for the bank. 

[00:38:18] Karel: I will say that in the last two years, there has been significant growth in this space. And we now have Rain as an example, where you can get a credit card. We have Tenet Bank , on Cayman Islands, which is open to doing business with foundation companies. Internationally, we now have Western Alliance.

[00:38:37] Karel: We have Sygnum, Dakota Bank, which is brand new that just launched recently. And I think that it's a very important piece about these pieces coming into fruition. And we can now open bank accounts in a fairly reasonable timeframe to the point where I'm actually of the opinion in a year from now, or in the very near future, opening a bank account for a foundation company is going to be as easy as opening a bank account for a traditional company.

[00:39:08] Karel: And that this fire that you spoke about, which you critically need is no longer really a concern. And it's just a smooth process. Probably there'll be something else then that we need to figure out at that point in time, but at least we will be able to pay our service providers.

[00:39:24] Umar: So Tenet for the listeners is tenet.ky. You can check it out. Dakota that you just mentioned, we had them three episodes ago on Episode 76. So the listeners will be familiar with Dakota, which I think is very innovative and worth checking out. Sygnum people, I'm sure they've heard of Sygnum and then there's Western Alliance. Are there, yeah, some other providers that you would typically work with, maybe not banks, but to set everything up from the get go, is there any kind of service providers that come to mind? 

[00:40:00] Karel: You have to think about a foundation in context, especially as, what is necessary to run a normal company? And there are certain key points to this. It's, you have a Google drive. An element here is where Rain becomes extremely important. Rain gives you a credit card. You use your USD stablecoin in order to use it as a Rain credit card.

[00:40:23] Karel: And the credit card is critical because things like Google Drive only accepts your credit card in order to open an account. On top of all of this, it goes, GoDaddy for a domain name. You need to in our case, we use Xero as our baseline accounting platform, and we generally use programs like TRES or Integral to facilitate on chain transactions that connects into your Xero account.

[00:40:45] Karel: All of these elements are needed in order to really build up the foundation for a client. Quite recently, we just actually opened up a DocuSign and the client told us the amount of documents we are signing, you will need your own DocuSign account for the foundation.

[00:41:01] Karel: No problem at all. Or if, and we started seeing this where foundation becomes a very large organization that has Dev teams sitting within the foundation, it has marketing teams, it has ecosystem growth teams. When you have all of these players, suddenly you need a Slack account. You need a Zoom account.

[00:41:16] Karel: Employees need laptops. So, all of these things are coming into place, and we generally work with all of them in order to build out the foundation's core infrastructure so that it can really effectively start operating from day one, which is potentially even before PreTGE.

[00:41:32] Umar: Yeah, these are very practical tips that you're sharing with the listeners. Rain for me has been a lifesaver. I'm not going to mention the name of my bank account, but it's a very widely used Neo bank. And at some point, you couldn't use the credit card anymore. So I had to resort to something else.

[00:41:51] Umar: And then Rain was incredible. I could keep paying my, yeah, Google, Notion like DocuSign, all these other SaaS tools, just by topping my Rain account with like USDC, this is what I do every month and I'm still using it and it's phenomenal. 

[00:42:07] Karel: It's on our side as well I mean Lemma is a corporate entity. We have a Rain account that we use, and it's absolutely fantastic.

[00:42:13] Umar: Yeah! Now we'll speak about Lemma's services soon, but just before I want to touch on the whole grant management process for Web3 projects. It's one of the services you offer and you said that designing and managing this is not as easy as people can think. 

[00:42:29] Umar: So for the listeners who are maybe not very familiar with grant programs, basically in Web3, they serve to grow the protocols or blockchains ecosystem, either by, providing grants to attract talent, or incentivize and onboard new dApps to their network. You wrote a very good article on avoiding the common pitfalls when setting up a grants program. Maybe can you go through some of these mistakes and maybe share some of the tech stack you use for designing and managing a grants program?

[00:43:03] Karel: I would love to take credit for that article, Umar, but it was written by Lucas Philip, which is one of our team members. So, definitely shout out to Lucas for writing a, I agree, a very good article on this. 

[00:43:14] Karel: From a grants program, I've just, you mentioned what a grant program does. I also think it's important to, to state that when grants programs initially were invented or thought of, it was almost a, it was a free money for all. 

[00:43:28] Karel: You made an application. You got paid. Whether you delivered on that or not was a completely different conversation and that, that element has started to change. And that's why I frequently say the grants program is not as easy as most people think it is. I was on a panel with Walker's, one of the premier law firms on island, and they are actually now doing clawbacks on grant programs because the recipients are not delivering on what they said they should be.

[00:43:54] Karel: And that's why contracting is also becoming important. So to dive deeply into just the common pitfalls, it's things like a lack of clear objective for the grant program. If you don't know what you want the grant program to achieve, then everything is a potential grant because you have no measurement to make against which to determine, will this achieve what I would like this to achieve or an inefficient application process.

[00:44:19] Karel: The questions you ask in a grant program is critical. You don't want to have an application process when you get to, as an example, how much money do you need? I prefer putting in certain bandwidth because otherwise you get a grant application and comes and says, well, I'd like a billion dollars.

[00:44:35] Karel: I would also like to apply for a billion dollars, but the reality is you're not getting a billion dollars. So, it's things like that, but. That's a funny part of it, but it's also a clear and successful application process ensures that your grant program runs operationally effectively.

[00:44:52] Karel: You know what you're getting out of it, and you know the information users need to provide to you in order to make it as easy as possible for you to make a decision whether to provide the grant or not. Poor communication is another one. Grant applications are intensive.

[00:45:05] Karel: It is very easy if you have a single applicant that you need to either say yes or no to, and there's a conversation happening with them. If you have 30 applications on a weekly basis, that's potentially 30 individual conversations you're having with the applicant. And you're doing 30 applicants. The application themselves, they are doing one, their own.

[00:45:26] Karel: So if you send them an email asking for additional questions, they come back to you within potentially minutes on answers, if not hours. And they expect a response at the same speed. But you're getting three responses in the same day. So unfortunately, in working through them, But that's a classic example of communication is critical. Giving timelines, setting expectations of your with your grant applicants. It's extremely important part. 

[00:45:51] Karel: Inconsistent overall criteria or inconsistent evaluation criteria. Such a key piece. You want applicants to know this is what I'm being evaluated against so they can understand an effective application will look like this.

[00:46:05] Karel: These are the elements that are necessary. I need to address this in order for my application to not just be outright denied, but to be effectively considered by a committee. Underestimating the need for support and monitoring grant applicants. If you have a very experienced applicant and that not just from an application into grants, a general experience entity that's applying for a grant.

[00:46:30] Karel: A lot of these elements for them is par for the course. They know exactly how to work it. But if it's your first application and you're doing wonderful service, we need it. We're going to give you the money. You tend to forget elements. And one of the classic examples is you receive the funding.

[00:46:47] Karel: If you're receiving in your personal capacity and you're sitting in another jurisdiction, that could be considered revenue for you, which means you need to pay taxes.

[00:46:54] Karel: And that's frequently missed out on, it's just forgotten or not thought about in that initial process. And I think that's one thing with those foundations, especially also need to keep in mind.

[00:47:04] Karel: There is a certain responsibility to ensure that your successful applicants receive the relevant support that they need in order to execute effectively on what they promised you. A straightforward ignoring feedback. Feedback is critical. If you reiterate your grants program consistently, which I believe you should do. I think that obtaining your feedback is really an important piece of the puzzle in order to have a more improved and better experience both for your applications, but also in turn, in order to ensure you get the most out of your grant program. 

[00:47:34] Karel: You want to have a certain, you want to achieve a certain goal for your grant program and you need to ensure that every step that you take is relevant in order to get to that goal.

[00:47:43] Karel: And then finally, I'm going to say just neglecting regulatory compliance. You have to explain this to users and you have to explain it to them so that they understand when you give money away, they might need to go through, know your client, know your business. There are certain expectations about what that means.

[00:48:00] Karel: And it is, you just have to explain it to them and be open and honest that this might not be the easiest process they've ever worked through and, assist them in getting to the end of the door. Now, I think all of these things, and you can read the article, especially if you want even more information, but all of these things form part of what an ineffective grant program could look like.

[00:48:22] Karel: But it's also just important to keep them in mind for your reiterated grant program going forward. We luckily have now reached the time and space where there are multiple applications out there that actually help you run a grant program. CharmVerse is one of them. Gitcoin grants, it think is another one, Questbook.

[00:48:42] Karel: And it helps because if you're running a grant program out of Google forms, And you have that linked up to an Airtable, and then you have linked that up to a third program. If you make a change on Google forms, the link is broken on Airtable, that links get broken on the next platform. And before you know it, you've made four changes, but the entire, your entire ecosystem now falls apart.

[00:49:02] Karel: And somebody then needs to go in and fix all of those individually. And you may have lost data in the process as well, which you never want that to be the case. So having a built out platform like that, I just mentioned really helps to make your grant program more successful, but also ensures that it is seamless on both sides for the application applicant themselves, but also for us from a review and the recipient of the applications details,

[00:49:30] Umar: All right. Now you don't have to mention the name, but is there a client that came to you, their grants program was in like a total mess. They came to you and basically what were the mistakes that they did? And how did it look after, like, how did you resolve to put more order like in their grants program?

[00:49:53] Umar: You don't have to mention the name.

[00:49:54] Karel: It was less about helping them put in order in this instance, it was very much almost going back to phase one, creating the grant overlay the grant program itself from the baseline. And assessing what does that even look like? How does the committee function internally? How are applications reviewed internally?

[00:50:17] Karel: What information is needed? And a grant program is volume. The more volume you have, the more time intensive the process becomes. I have one client where I'm fortunate enough to sit on the committee. We have two applications a week at most. Thank you. It's a very simple process. It's a 30 minute meeting.

[00:50:37] Karel: We all get together. We read the application in the call itself, and they make a decision and communicate it. If you receive 50 applications a week, an hour call is not long enough to review 50 applications in detail. That's more than just more than a minute per application itself. So your committee is spending probably the entire day before going through that entire process in order for the meeting itself to be.

[00:51:05] Karel: If it's a majority decision of three out of five, and there's a two that says yes and two that says no, you want sufficient time for them to be able to communicate between each other how to resolve that. And in this instance, we went back to the drawing board and said, how does this process look? How many people needs to be involved in it?

[00:51:22] Karel: The more people, the more complex it by default becomes. So it was moving them out of Google Forms into an actual application believe we use CharmVerse, which was wonderful for them. It made the entire process simpler and easier as well. And then it was setting certain goals. So we would have two meetings.

[00:51:40] Karel: We have a meeting on a Tuesday, basically, that is the review meeting where we blocked out time and everyone's diary and said, you're reviewing the applications and we want feedback and questions. And you had to fill in a form that basically just said yes or no, it just helped you to understand if everybody said no, we didn't even discuss it.

[00:51:56] Karel: It was the decision was made and that is the four out of five said, no, we also eliminated it was to get to those where if four out of five says yes. We know it's probably good to go and we can just mention the meeting, but where two say yes and two say no, those are the critical ones to discuss in that Thursday meeting that we had in order to make a decision or to potentially even go back to the applicant themselves and get additional information from them.

[00:52:21] Karel: At the end of it, I think the grant program was significantly more effective. We handed it back to the foundation at the end of at the end of our term and that I'm proud to say that program is still running today and from what I've seen, very effective program in and of itself.

[00:52:36] Umar: Alright, so it's time to talk about Lemma. Can you walk us through some of the services that you provide for all these stages we've been discussing so far, like pre TGE, TGE, post TGE.

[00:52:50] Karel: Certainly. I mean As a Co Founder of Lemma talking about Lemma, one of the things that I actually love doing! Honestly, Lemma is really there to make the founders lives significantly easier and to ensure that the foundation is just operating effectively from day one. It is such an important piece that I think people frequently forget the boring elements about this.

[00:53:10] Karel: Having your accounts ready, knowing what your financial position is looking like in your runway, opening up a bank account that we just discussed listing on an exchange or making sure that your information is updated on CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko. All of these elements are things which are so important to just a successful project in and of itself, but it frequently gets just lost when there's not someone that's explicitly focusing on running that. And I found what we bring to the table is both just ease of mind for founders and directors that the foundation is really operating as it should be. And if things are moving forward at a cadence that is important, that works for them and appropriate. But it's also just we are a convenient position to be an advisor.

[00:53:56] Karel: Most people will start one foundation or one DAO, maybe two in their entire lifetimes. We help two, three, four new ones on a regular basis. And then we have all of the knowledge from everyone else that we've also been fortunate enough to assist with those clients. And those lessons learned really gets replicated to each new one that we bring on a new client that we sign.

[00:54:19] Karel: And Founder's projects received that guidance and the benefit of that knowledge. It's also just the relationships. After there's a, if you go to Anchorage as an example right now in order to open up the custody account, that might be the first time that you interacted with Anchorage. We've interacted with Anchorage numerous times.

[00:54:40] Karel: And something that I know that you might not know is Anchorage only works on an Apple iPhone. That's it. They do not work on an Android device. So you go, you open up and you're ready to get started and it says, please link up your iPhone. If you don't have an iPhone you can't move to the next step.

[00:54:56] Karel: You need to go to the store, buy your iPhone, come back and restart the process. I can tell that to you because I've worked with Anchorage. So if you tell me, Karel, we want to use Anchorage as a custodian. My answer is fantastic. I think they're really good in the market. By the way, you need an iPhone. If you don't have one, I'd highly recommend you, whilst we do this onboarding process and start filling out the application, go to the Apple store and buy an iPhone for you, so that when we get there, you have one and we're ready to go.

[00:55:20] Karel: And that's really what Lemma brings in. It's also the, just the knowledge and expertise from a governance and grants perspective and helping you build and design that out and running it operationally, peace of mind. You know that if the community makes a decision, there is a party responsible for making sure that decision complies upon is necessary and then moves it through the process until the point of execution and helps the execution in and of itself.

[00:55:47] Karel: And it's something that I absolutely love doing. There's few things as fantastic as being able to assist a client, avoid a mistake because you've seen that mistake and you can advise them against it. I think It's something that I really have a passion for. And I love doing that with our clients.

[00:56:04] Umar: Maybe a little bit less related, but what's the story behind the name Lemma?

[00:56:13] Karel: I appreciate that question a lot, actually. Can I tell you choosing a name for your company? I don't know. It's one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do in my entire life. And as part of this, I believe it would be similar to naming a child. I don't, I'm not a father, but once you've done it, you're stuck with that.

[00:56:32] Karel: When we tried to when we envisioned Lemma as a company, I've always liked Greek names and I was like, well, let's just Google Greek names and Greek mathematical terms. And in a list of some obscure website, we got to the top 10 and I think number six or seven was Lemma.

[00:56:49] Karel: So that reads quite well. And then the definition of the Lemma, which I first time I ever heard is it is a supporting proof for the larger proof in and of itself. And you wouldn't necessarily show that in your mathematical calculations. You would just say Lemma one, Lemma two, Lemma three.

[00:57:04] Karel: And then in your appendix, you link up to what it means. And it works so well with what we do. We are supporting the foundation in and of itself, and it's a beautiful, and to be fair, this link is only known by mathematicians and I absolutely love it. I spoke to a mathematician about a week ago. I say, my company's Lemma and she goes, that's a brilliant name for what your services are.

[00:57:27] Karel: It's like, that's fantastic, but you're probably one of the few people in the world that actually know this. But yeah, that's how we got to the name Lemma. And luckily, it was available as well, which is another key piece about the puzzle. Many names are fantastic. And once you look at, look it up, you realize, yes, the rest of the world also thought it was fantastic.

[00:57:45] Karel: So it's already been used.

[00:57:47] Umar: Wow. Now everyone knows it. I think it's a really cool story

[00:57:52] Umar: and I think it just fits. Yeah, it fits perfectly to what you guys do. 

[00:57:55] Umar: So one of the last questions I want to go through is on the filing requirements, like for these foundations, like if a DAO is registered as a foundation in the Cayman Islands. So the Cayman Islands is also popular for its tax advantages, right?

[00:58:12] Umar: So there's no corporate tax, no capital gains tax, no income tax, no withholding tax on income earned outside its borders. If I said something wrong, though, please correct me. I want to ask you what would be the filing requirements annually for this DAO Foundation, both for tax if they have to do something and for their financials?

[00:58:32] Karel: Yes, the Cayman Islands is a tax neutral jurisdiction and it's a very important part about it. And because the fact that it is tax neutral, there are no tax filing requirements. We don't as an island have a tax authority in order to where we need to file anything. Piece on the taxes that I can say. 

[00:58:50] Karel: On the second part from a financial reporting perspective, foundation companies actually has no legal requirement to file financial reports anyway. But the law does state that books of account needs to be kept. And I think that is very important. Foundations need to understand where they are from a financial perspective, and it's a basic balance sheet income statement that's necessary in order to make key informed decisions.

[00:59:12] Karel: There's nowhere to file it as stated, but just internally keeping those books ready. Technically, we can be investigated if we by our regulatory authority as a foundation. It is in the law as a standard of every believe most things in the Cayman Islands. And if it's not there, that would be a concern.

[00:59:31] Karel: There are certain findings which does need to be made like a economic substance filing needs to be done in the Cayman Islands. Generally speaking, those are taken care of by your registered office. And Lemma can assist with helping you file those as well. 

[00:59:45] Umar: As the DAO administrator, Lemma, is doing the accounting and maybe how would you be reporting to the community? Let's say, I don't know if it's done on a monthly basis, like how we usually prepare management accounts. How would, yeah, figures of the DAO be reported to the community?

[01:00:03] Karel: I think Umar a really important question there. And that it's one of the areas where we've, started seeing a lot of activity. And I think it was really brought about by Arbitrum's transparency report that they promised in AIP 1.1. And it started to gain traction throughout the industry.

[01:00:20] Karel: That the idea that transparency reports should be released to the community. The cadence of the transparency reports vary. 

[01:00:27] Karel: Balancer for example, does one on a quarterly basis. Arbitrum is annual. But I think the important part about the transparency report is showing the community how funds are being used, which is critical, but it's also in order to show the community just what we are doing as a foundation and what the DAO has achieved in the last period, between transparency reports.

[01:00:47] Karel: And it allows the community to ask relevant questions from their side and interact with this and question and query whether the funds are being used appropriately. And if not, then actions and steps can be taken in order to correct that situation. So, Lemma love helping foundations with their transparency reports and adding in the content in there that we believe is necessary and making it really readable by the community at large, and I think it's, we're on a accounting podcast here, but I think a very important part about it is to understand most people aren't accountants and, the language we speak debit this credit that, which for us, I think is by this time, very knowledgeable. We know exactly how it works.

[01:01:27] Karel: The majority of the world, that's not something that comes natively to them. So it's important. And that's the beauty about a transparency report over a more structured financial report is a transparency board has no real guidelines. So you can present information in a far more, I would say, understandable and digestible format where any person can view it and see it and understand logically what's happening over here and how funds are being used.

[01:01:52] Karel: And I think that's what the industry should be looking actively at is to ensure that All transparency reports are understandable by the community at large and not just by the select few who's in the world of accounting day to day. 

[01:02:05] Umar: Yeah. Perfect. I mean that probably we can wrap up the episode. I'm looking at the time. Has there been anything else Karel, that if we didn't touch on that, you would like to share with the listeners or what would be your closing thoughts, maybe to reiterate the main topic of the day to day was DAO services for DAO foundations in the Cayman islands. 

[01:02:34] Karel: Starting a foundation is not a simple decision. It is one that should be taken with appropriate forethought and considerations of what it means and what your intention is. You don't start a foundation just because everybody else has a foundation, if I can put it that way. And I think really keeping that in mind. A foundation isn't, it's not inexpensive to run it.

[01:02:55] Karel: And there are certain regulatory elements, there's people involved in a foundation, and all of those factors needs to be kept in mind when you make that decision. I think having key people as part of it is important and having a thorough understanding of what it means and your indications, your advice as well, is a really important piece of, about all of this.

[01:03:16] Karel: I think foundations will be very successful in the future and have a massive impact on our industry in general. I could be as well as potentially to say transformed the way that we really interact. I believe Foundation has the capability, but it's also thinking through what you want your Foundation to achieve from the very beginning and setting that up appropriately.

[01:03:38] Karel: So vast difference between a Foundation that is in essence running full on as a company out there versus a Foundation whose primary purpose is; The protocol itself and just interacting with one or two core contributors on a daily basis. Those are not the same element of foundation companies. And I think it's That's the key understanding that needs to be kept in mind when you make this decision to open up a foundation company.

[01:04:03] Umar: I forgot to ask you this question earlier, but the focus today was really on the Cayman Islands, but are there other jurisdictions that you're helping DAOs to go and set up foundations, or are there other jurisdictions that makes it as effective as how the Cayman Islands is today? 

[01:04:21] Karel: It's important to caveat this by saying I am partial to the Cayman Islands, but, Lemma as an organization is actually jurisdictional agnostic. Our operations can assist you wherever you are situated. The caveat being when it comes to regulatory filings, we are not as up to date and knowledgeable about filings in Switzerland versus the Cayman Islands, but there are other jurisdictions, which has similar vehicles, Switzerland being one of them that can be used.

[01:04:48] Karel: I think the Cayman Islands foundation set up for BVI subsidiary has started to become very well known in this industry. There is become a large set of legal alignment about what it does and why it works so well. Because of that, I think we've started to see the growth of the industry as a whole, especially in the Cayman islands.

[01:05:11] Karel: Will that remain the case in future? I don't have a crystal ball as much as I would like to have one. But where we are sitting right now, right here, I think from a regulatory perspective, I think from purely an industry perspective, that this setup operates extremely well and provides the protection to token holders that is necessary and the ability to interact with the real world on a day to day basis, and that's exactly where we want to be.

[01:05:39] Umar: Perfect. Well, thanks for sharing. There's the last question, which I like to ask to my guests before they leave is, do you have like a favorite quote or like a maxim that you live by? 

[01:05:51] Karel: Definitely, but I want to also ask what yours is after I say mine.

[01:05:57] Umar: I'll share mine. I've got a lot, but I'll share what comes to mind.

[01:06:01] Karel: That's perfect. I believe, how you do something is how you do everything. And I think it's a Maxim, which I hope and strive to live in Lemma as well. We really, we're out here working in order to improve and grow this industry as a whole and give our clients the best possible foothold in order to grow in the world at large and be the change.

[01:06:27] Karel: I think in this industry, I love that every single day.

[01:06:30] Umar: That's a great one. Well, I usually never share mine. But because you've asked me one that comes to mine right now is as long as you've tried you've won. I think Nike, the shoe company has one of the best marketing slogans ever! Which is just do it. So it's really about just trying.

[01:06:51] Umar: As long as you've tried to do something, at least your conscience will be clear, you won't have regrets. So that's something that I try to live by. You want to do something, just try. If it fails, it's okay.

[01:07:04] Karel: I like it. I like it a lot as a complete side note. But have you read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight?

[01:07:11] Umar: I haven't read it, but it's, yeah, it's on the list of books to read.

[01:07:15] Karel: It's a high comes highly recommended. I nearly missed the flight because I was so deep in that book. So 

[01:07:23] Umar: Cool. Well Karel thanks a lot for coming in today. I've just learned a lot as well. Just preparing this episode today. If people want to reach out to you. Personally, or they want to get in touch with Lemma. How should they do so?

[01:07:40] Karel: Definitely! The Lemma website. There's a form you can fill in and flows into our inbox. Or you can just type my name karel@lemma.solutions. I'm going to have to preface it. Please check the spelling. It's spelled with a K, which comes from, being from South Africa, actually.

[01:07:57] Karel: Umar just from my side, thank you very much for inviting me to your podcast. I really appreciated it. It was my very first podcast and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and it's been a lot of fun. 

[01:08:07] Umar: Well, we'll stay in touch, Karel. 

[01:08:09] Karel: Definitely!