David E. Rutter

Yeah, yeah.

So, um, so, uh, David Rutter and I started R3 back in, you know, 2015, officially launched it.

Right.

Our funding round was 2017.

Uh, but with that, I got very curious, started reading basically the internet about what Bitcoin was, what blockchain was.

Uh, I started bugging my business partner.

We were working on a project at State Street at the time, as you mentioned, uh, David Rutter, and, uh, at first, he was, I would say, skeptical [laughs] of, of the topic.

But I remember he went to some industry event, I think it was, uh, the FIA event in Boca, and he called me up and he said, "I don't know what it is, but when I try to talk to people about market structure, corporate bonds, this and that, all they want to talk about is Bitcoin, and they keep asking me," They're like, "Hey, Rutter, I think you guys know something about this blockchain thing.

I think I'm going back into that.

And a guy named Dave Rutter, who had been a lifelong Wall Street guy, but he was an innovator.

He was always bringing old school ways of doing business in, in Wall Street into a new technological world.

Came to me and said, "Have you ever heard of Bitcoin?" And I laughed.