Burnt Banksy, CEO of XION, on Being ‘Stupid’ for Burning a Banksy Painting and Industry Being ‘Extremely Close’ to Mass Adoption Via Chain Abstractio

In an exclusive interview with Cryptonews Podcast , Burnt Banksy, the founder of XION , a blockchain specifically built for consumer adoption, discussed burning Banksy’s ‘Moron’ and why it was “dumb.”

He talked about creating the first walletless Layer 1 blockchain, wholly designed for consumer needs, and why it is “lame” for L1s to compete with each other, especially when more specialized L4s, L8s, L12s, etc., are likely to arrive.

Lastly, Burnt Banksy discussed why we are close to mass adoption.

‘We Were F***ing Stupid’

In 2021, Burnt Banksy made news when he burned a Banksy print called ‘Morons’ in a livestream.

Burnt Banksy said he was a fan of Banksy but was up for an experiment.

Prior to the boom barely anybody new of NFTs. Even once these assets became world-known over the past several years, people did not see it as having any sort of value.

They’d say it’s worthless, a simple JPEG that can be copy-pasted.

Burnt Banksy and his two friends chose an undeniably valuable work of art – to destroy and test what would happen to the value of the NFT version.

The trio bought the piece for $95,000 and would later sell it for $380,000, breaking the previous NFT sale record of $90,000.

“And if I’m being honest, we were fucking stupid. It was dumb,” Burnt Banksy said.

“We set the min bid, I think it was like $40,000, and we’re like, you know what? We had a lot of fun doing this. No matter what, it was a great time. And if we don’t make money, that’s okay.”

Additionally, the trio had no idea how difficult it would be to actually burn the print. They struggled to set it on fire with a lighter.

“I remember standing there as I’m lighting this thing on fire, thinking, hey, this is paper. It should light on fire really easily. But if you look at the video, it looks like I’ve never done anything in my entire life before,” Burnt Banksy said.

Abstracting Everything!

Burnt Banksy remarked that before XION, he was already “pretty crypto native.”

And he wanted to keep working in this industry. But, like many insiders, he acknowledged a major issue: “UX is terrible.”

“Unless you know exactly what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, you can’t use this stuff,” he argued.

But he wanted a product that anybody could use without having to think of or understand the underlying technology. “I want my parents to be able to use this.”

Indeed, XION’s was the first testnet he had ever worked on that his parents could actually use, Burnt Banksy said.

Therefore, XION is “the first and only walletless Layer 1 blockchain designed to completely abstract everything crypto-related and aim for complete consumer applications,” its founder said.

Meanwhile, XION recently announced a successful beta launch of the EarnOS platform. It saw over 200,000 verified users participating and more than 1,300,000 unique brand interactions.

Key to EarnOS’ user-friendly experience is XION’s chain abstraction infrastructure, the announcement said.

Users can log in with their email and interact across all devices without seed phrases, plugins, wallets, gas fees, popups, or complex transaction signing.

The First Non-Competitive L1

The XION team said that this is the first non-competitive L1. “It’s so lame to be competing at this level,” Burnt Banksy said.

There is absolutely no sense in L1 fighting each other over a small area. “We can all win,” he said.

It would be better for the industry if the projects focused their resources on expanding outwards rather than consolidating inwards.

“I think the tribalism and this idea [that] if I want to succeed, someone has to lose, is not a great way to run a company,” Burnt Banksy argued.

Decisions should not be made based on tribalism or grants. Rather, projects should look for a blockchain that is the right place for them.

“If I’m a DeFi project, I could go to like an Injective. If I’m a gaming project, I can go to like Immutable X or something like that,” he suggested.

Furthermore, the XION team believes that projects will be specializing.

There are “going to be other L1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 8s, 12s,” argued Burnt Banksy.

Crossing the Chasm to Mass Adoption: ‘We’re Extremely Close’

Crypto adoption will likely follow a similar path to Facebook’s, Burnt Banksy said. The evolution will be exponential.

He argued that,

“With everything that’s going on, I do really think that we’re actually extremely close. And I think next bull market, we’re going to thrive in the bear market.”

For adoption purposes, what people care about is the actual product, not what underlines it.

Therefore, everything will be product-led. “There’s no reason for people to just casually enter crypto.”

We’ll have useful products that draw people in, providing a seamless experience with all the inner workings abstracted.

That said, “right now, crypto is extremely solutionist as most non-mature technology narratives are.”

The founder noted a book called Crossing the Chasm (1991) by Geoffrey A. Moore.

Among other things, it argues that to reach mass adoption for the Internet, we needed to ‘cross the chasm.’

Indeed, the Internet is an integral part of our lives now.

This “mirrors crypto to a T,” Burnt Banksy said.

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That’s not all.

In this interview, Banksy also discussed:

• how important burning a Banksy painting was for his personal brand and Xion;
• what chain abstraction is, solving UX and fragmentation;
• issue with popular narratives: ‘chain abstraction is not for the Web2 people, it’s for the Web3 people’;
• the crypto industry catch-22 and disadvantages of accepting grants;
• why the industry is susceptible to the grifting and change;
• there’s always going to be short-term volatility and long-term growth;
• money going from private to public via Web3 projects: teams working for the good of the people;
• evolution in the space and of project founders.

You can watch the full podcast episode here.

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About Burnt Banksy

Burnt Banksy is the founder of the XION blockchain specifically built for consumer adoption.

He aims to democratize Web3, making ownership accessible to all by removing unnecessary barriers and complications through chain abstraction.

This will make blockchain technology easier to use for a larger audience.

In 2021, Burnt Banksy burned a physical Banksy. This act ignited global discourse on NFTs and Web3.

Leading publications covered the story, and it is often cited as the catalyst of the NFT revolution.