The Bull Case For Ethena’s Ecosystem and the Helium Network | Round Table

Transcript

like any deep pin thing to be successful like there needs to be like a latent resource that people have that um they effectively have a zero opportunity cost um dynamic to contribute that resource to make money right it's like if you live in the middle of New York you can't build a cell tower there but you can put up this router and start making money like you buy this thing and it starts printing for you right like why wouldn't you do that it needs to be easy quick shout out to today's sponsor Algarand we'll hear more about their algo Go kit 3.0 and how it's built to supercharge your app development on Algarand later on in the episode. Nothing said on Zerox research is a recommendation to buy or sell

securities or tokens. This podcast is forformational purposes only and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Pokio Ryan and our guests may hold positions in the company's funds or projects discussed. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of ZeroX Research. Today we are joined by Nick Carponito, first time on the pod, and Daniel Shapiro. How you guys doing today? Doing well. Doing well. Yeah, everything good here. Awesome. Great to have you both on. I think before we jump into things, as always, we have to give a quick shill and shout out for Permissionless. It's coming up end of June, June 24th through the 26th. Um, as always, use code 0x10 if you want 10% off tickets. A bunch of

the research team, a bunch of the Blockworks team is going to be there. um people from around the industry as always will be at permissionless. So if you want to come out, meet some folks, chat it up, see some great um great talks and hopefully maybe some fun games and side events and other things that we're cooking up um we will see you out there and it should be a ton of fun. So hope to see you there. Xerx10 link in the description. Um let's dive into it for today. Uh the I think the big sort of talk in the markets lately um it's sort of the same thing but it's the continued like US admins you know talking up and down of the markets. Um I think it seems people are really just like unsure of what's happening right now. Though I've noticed there's a bit

more of like macro doomer takes on the timeline. Um whatever that means. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. I think it's really to me it seems like it's very hard to say just given that like the market kind of sneezes depending on what Trump wants to say or tweet for the day. Um and that's kind of been how things have been feeling. But I'm curious Shapiro if you have any big takeaways like how are you feeling about the next like maybe couple weeks or months? Um how do you feel about the market? Yeah. Um in terms of couple months um I'd say that's probably where I'm most uncertain. Um longterm still feeling very bullish. Um short term I think is in terms of like next couple weeks that's probably where I'm most uncertain. Um I I still think that there is some um tariff uncertainty out there.

I think uh the market could be getting a little ahead of itself in terms of uh thinking that like a deal could come with China. I think tariffs might be stickier than people realize. Um, so, you know, that would have me leaning towards somewhat of a bearish bias, you know, especially considering we have, you know, we've rebounded up to, you know, mid mid 90s now, um, you know, quite aggressively. But then at the same time if you look at a lot of the order flow data um you know things like funding rates um open interest premium um you know Binance basis you know or even like CME basis like those are all very low still which indicates that um you know typically after a move like

this you'd see a lot of people piling in um but that doesn't occur or that doesn't look like uh it is the case. So, um, to me it looks like there might be a little left in this rally and, um, that's kind of outweighing, I guess, like the tariff thing. So, I'm I'm actually pretty I'm feeling pretty neutral right now. Um, I don't feel like there's any strong um, riskreward um, setup either way. I think if you have longs from the bottom, just kind of holding them, but yeah, just letting things kind of unfold and um, I think is just being patient is where I'm sitting right now.

Yeah, that it does seem to be a common takeaway or theme that I'm seeing. And even in some of the newer token launches, it's kind of like one way or the other. Like Zora was kind of hyped up and then I don't know, people saw that the token was like not going to acrew any revenues or anything from the protocol and it was just kind of like a meme coin and then it went down following launch. Um, and then Inisha I think was kind of the opposite. is like sort of not really talked about sort of um and maybe an under the radar a little bit. Not that they're necessarily were actually under the radar, but just maybe under discussed or undertalked about at least on the timeline. And um I think it performed fairly well in the early maybe few days

or week. Um, we'll see where they where they go from here, but you know, if we were still in like max bear mode, I would think that uh we would we would see all tokens just absolutely plummeting um at their, you know, fairly high launch valuations. So, um, there does seem to at least be some like, you know, some people are maybe a little bullish, some people a little bearish, maybe maybe a lot of neutrality or just uncertainty. Again, it it it feels a little bit similar to maybe a few weeks ago or maybe a month ago where it's like, you know, it wasn't max bearish quite yet when the when we ticked way down in the markets, but people were like, "Yeah, I don't know what to do."

Like, we don't have any clear answer on what what's going to happen with tariffs. Trump's like a time bomb. No idea. So, I'm just going to like sit on my hands. And that seems like what maybe what's happening again. We'll we'll see how it plays out. I think uh we have to maybe wait for the next like now is a good time to buy or not now is a good time to sell from Trump himself to to see how the maybe broader markets can react. I know I you know something that that you've brought up that I really really like is looking at um looking at like yeah like new token launches and then also like the top meme coins as as kind of like a metric for for risk. And so you see like you saw Fartcoin um you know kind of front running uh you know

the the last week of price action maybe over the prior month. Um you see these new launches doing doing well. And I think this goes back to a theme that you know I talked about you know anytime I come on this podcast like let's say back in Q1 um we were talking about like the idea of like you know are we still having these four year cycles? Are those over? Um, I think moving forward kind of treating this like, you know, I I think we all kind of took the stance that we think that the market structure changed and there aren't these four-year cycles anymore. And I think under that context, I don't think you should ever get, you know, too scared and kind of, you know, buy into the macro dumerism too much. I think there's always going to be opportunities and, um, yeah, when prices

are depressed, that's that that, you know, that could be times to buy. Um, but yeah, right now it feels like we're, you know, with the bounce, we're kind of now back kind of in neutral and waiting to see what the what's the next catalyst. What's what's the next thing that that Trump does. Yeah, I've seen and we've talked about this a lot over the past months even because the like Bitcoin decoupling from equities or risk has like continued to be a topic. And I I'd say that it will continually be like hard to pinpoint whether that's true or becoming true or not until like very much after the fact where that becomes clear. Um if it is happening there won't be it won't be you know short-term data is not going to give you like a clear indication of like

that is happening or not. Um I will say though I've been been listening to a lot of macro guys and they are starting to take notice. If you look at Bitcoin um since the day after since November 4th since Trump got elected, I think it's you know it's up I think double digit percentages um the Q QQQ is down like 8%. Right? So and then if you measure it year to date um Bitcoin's up year to date Q's are down year to date. So I think that there's early signs of a uh of that divergence actually occurring. Um, I think that there's now, you know, stat like solid statistical evidence.

Um, and then you compound that with the fact that, um, Bitcoin typically lags gold by like 90 days. And obviously gold stopped, but gold's been ripping. So, I think that there's there's a couple things on our side that would support the, uh, the decoupling thesis. Yeah, I think that we're going to have to kind of continue to see how things evolve. Um, it is, you know, how much is the is the current admin playing into that changing of price and and potential here? Like was was pumping up Bitcoin following the election just did it get pumped so heavily and you know the sailors and the whoever else is piled in enough that we're still like outperforming the cues or is it something sustainable? I think

we we'll have to see. Um, and maybe more broadly on like, you know, whether people think four-year cycles are based on like Bitcoin itself or if that's, you know, I sometimes I question whether that's something more like human psychology based of like when everything was based on, you know, a lack of fundamentals and we were just pumping things to stupid valuations with, you know, no real revenues or cash flows or anything like that. It's like you know maybe there is some semblance or like basis for some human psychology based you know cyclicality to the markets which you do kind of see in the broader markets as well where there are periods of um you know overvaluations and undervaluations every you know whatever whatever the cycles are of like

you know 7 to 10 years or so we kind of tend to see those things play out. Um, maybe that's something that's more concentrated here. Maybe not. Maybe it's just the early stages of a of an industry that's growing. But either way, we'll we'll save that conversation for a later a later debate. Um, I want to bring Nick into the fold here. He is not the newest analyst on the team actually anymore, but one of the newer analysts on the team. Um, our so-called deepin guy. Um, I think we've wanted to do more deepin specific content for a long time and just sort of struggled to have enough, you know, resources and sort of, you know, strict focus and expertise.

But, um, Nick is very much that guy coming in to to fill that need for us. Um, and recently did some some deep dive into Helium and kind of laid out um, his thoughts and the thesis around the project and everything that's going on over there. So, um, I kind of want to open it up for you a little bit, Nick. I think most people are aware of Helium, what they're doing, Helium mobile, um, etc. There's a lot going on in that play, but, uh, if you can kind of run us through and maybe just sort of start from the beginning and like what Helium is and where they're going, uh, would love to to dive in.

Yeah, thanks Danny. I uh yeah, like you said, I think a lot of people are familiar with Helium or at least were at one point or another, whether it was during kind of the conversion to Salana or during the rapid expansion of the IoT network. But a lot of Helium's focus has shifted over to the mobile network side over the last 18 or so months, I would say. Um, an important caveat here is there's the Helium mobile network, which is like the the subdow under Helium's governance and reward structure that rewards for mobile offload, cell phones, laptops, any kind of Wi-Fi, things like that. And then you've got Helium Mobile, the MVNO, with the same name but

operated by a parent company, Nova Labs, who originally started the Helium blockchain and is the carrier that you see and like if you go to Helium Mobile Twitter account today, that's what you're going to see is like the the MVNO side of it. Um that said, Helium mobile has gone through quite a few changes and maybe the broader Helium network as well has gone through quite a few changes over the last sixish months. Most notably, I think and and maybe the one that people are most familiar with would be the return to H&T as they dubbed it. um as they look to expand the mobile network into

the a as the mobile network ex was added to the helium network more broadly the token structure was divied up so that there was a subdow for the IoT network and a subdow for the mobile network each with their own respective token mobile and IoT which you may have seen trading on Salana um through the return to H&T T all rewards, all governance has shifted back to the H&T token and the IoT and mobile tokens are redeemable via the treasuries with the ultimate goal of having all of those tokens eventually get redeemed and the underlying H&T be issued back at the broader market. Um, from the mobile side, some

interesting developments. I think probably the most notable in my mind is Inversion Capital and Santiago Santos proposing the ability to become the second service provider with Helium mobile, the MVNO being the first service provider on the network. uh Inversion is looking to acquire Latin American MVNOs's and then convert them to Helium mobile from a cost optimization standpoint as well as a building a broader network coverage and improving legacy system standpoint. Um and so they have not made their first acquisition yet but are looking to in the coming months and that's something that I'm definitely tracking at this point. Helium mobile.

The MVNO has also partnered with Moviear to help offload data to hotspots. Uh Movie Star is one of the largest uh telecom operators in Mexico. And so Helium Mobile's mobile network is effectively um open for deployment all over Mexico. and the 2.9 million subscribers of Movie Star are going to begin roaming onto Helium hotspots which should increase fees generated but also the number of people connecting on a daily basis. roll out has been pretty slow so far. I think primarily because very little of the community was based down in Mexico, but

some enterprise deployers are spinning up operations and um have been rolling out coverage in the highest density areas that they can in the region. Another interesting one that uh kind of happened after my report is AT&T partnered with Helium mobile the network to offload data to Helium mobile or to offload Helium mobile coverage to the subscribers of AT&T on I think all of AT&T's current plans. So prepaid and um contract plans. This is interesting because I think it it really marks the first time

that a a big four or big three MVNO in the US or M in the US has been willing to publicly state that they're working with a decentralized wireless project. We also saw XNET and Carrier 1, which are two other North Americanbased wireless networks building in the DY space, announced similar partnerships around the same time. And so you're really seeing like a I guess a coming out party for team or for AT&T as they begin to recognize the the benefits of community-owned infrastructure and the cost efficiency as opposed to them building their own um Wi-Fi offload networks. Alongside that, another

interesting development is brownfield hotspots on the Helium network. Up until about October of 2024, the Helium mobile network was entirely composed of uh I guess proprietary would be the right word, hotspots. And yeah, I would love to pull up that chart. Um with that purple line representing hotspots produced by Nova Labs, the company the parent company of the MVNO. Uh but brownfield hotspots have come on the scene and begun onboarding significantly over the past uh 6 to 8 months or so. Brownfield hotspots are basically any existing

Wi-Fi gateway that's compatible can flash a firmware upgrade. Now, it serves whatever the original use case was, whether that's enterprise Wi-Fi or some sort of private Wi-Fi network or carrier roaming, but also have a packet on there that installs everything you need to be a Helium mobile hotspot. And so, while they don't earn the proof of coverage rewards, they are rewarded for data. And we've seen that eclipse the number of standard hotspots deployed. I think both from a cost efficiency in the ability to install them or maybe they're already installed and you can just kind of click a button and have everything come online, but also the fact that they are typically a higher powered unit and I

think larger operators prefer to be able to have a little bit more granular control over their hardware. Nick Nick, do you know I'm just curious looking at the brownfield data. I don't know if that's just due to a lack of like data points or polling or did like several larger sort of like groups or operators turn on like a significant number of devices at one time here. Yeah. So those big spikes up are from single or maybe a few operators at a given point in time onboarding a bunch of hotspots. I think part of that is driven by kind of the slow roll out of firmwares like it only certain manufacturers are supported over a period of time and so once new

manufacturers come on people have an incentive to onboard them but yeah I do know that the majority of brownfield hotspots are have been onboarded and are being operated by a pretty small number of uh enterprise suppliers. Do um what what's like your expectation for um like I guess like the mix between standard and and brownfield. Do you think it's just people are going to go with the you know what they have or is there some is there like an economic advantage to to one or the other?

I think your your enthusiast, your home deployer, if you will, will continue to buy a standard hotspot because like I said, there's that component of the proof of coverage, which is essentially in Helium's ecosystem the universal basic income as long as it's plugged in and it's it's you're not gaming, you're you're verified, you're going to have uh a consistent reward, but as and and wellperforming hotspots should earn multiples above what that proof of coverage reward is in their data rewards. So I think your enthusiast will continue to deploy standard hotspots unless they decide the as a network that standard hotspots may not need to be produced anymore with the compatibility

with brownfield conversions. But I think anyone that's deploying Helium hotspots more as a business model and less as a a hobby or an interested party would probably lean towards brownfield hotspots. And I would say I I would expect it to be 10 times higher than the current figure a year from now. Um in terms of a path forward, I think for Helium, it's it's really interesting to see a their ability to either onboard or offload data to existing carriers um internationally as well as domestically. I think they've they've

proven their ability to do that in the last two months or so pretty effectively. Uh that said, I'm excited to see what happens in terms of international expansion. I think that's that's probably on the horizon. Europe is probably a prime target for this right now. Um and have heard some rumors that there may be some testing going on in certain regions in Europe. But I think probably the the most compelling thing about the the project right now and maybe the biggest catalyst going forward is going to be more MVNOs's not necessarily MOS's and like full-fledged carriers but MVNO networks that are looking to save on costs uh adopting Helium's technology and

offloading to Helium hopefully domestically but definitely I think within the next few years that should be a a global trend. And yeah, I think this this chart paints a a really compelling picture as well. It's on a logarithmic scale, so it's it's hard to see the the stark difference here, but your gray line here represents Verizon's cost of user acquisition at a given number of users. And then your your purple line represents those same figures for Helium where up until that 100 million users point, uh, Helium maintains roughly a 10x lower um or I guess like a 90% reduction in

terms of the cost of user acquisition. Do you do you think those lines are going to cross at at some point or do you think that they kind of both as like approach same like asmtoic value? I think there's there's definitely a point where they cross. The the caveat here is that like the the figure for Verizon to acquire its first user and and really almost all of its users is primarily constrained and and so high because the Verizon had to go and build out cell phone towers, right? Like it it took them decades to get this done. They have to continually maintain them. They have to continually put up new ones in regions where they may not have enough

coverage. Whereas Helium is obviously not deploying cell phone towers, but is akin to a cell phone tower in that you're deploying a hotspot that can serve coverage to a much smaller region, but also at a much smaller cost and offloading the responsibility of deployment, maintenance, and ultimately the rewards to a community member or an interested party. Um, we've seen companies build out business models around being a Helium deployer. I'd say there's 10 to 15 that are out there today that have have built full-fledged businesses around the model. Um, and we're seeing that take off, especially in regions where building new cell phone towers may be limited by either some sort of

government regulation or uh is just not feasible given the landscape. Whether you're building D5 protocols, enterprise solutions, or next-gen DAPs, Algoit has all the tools you'll need to build faster, safer, and smarter on Algorand, Algoit 3.0 now offers native TypeScript and Python support, visual debugging, and seamless testing. Build, test, and deploy with tools designed for speed and simplicity. Start building with Algo Kit today by following the link in today's show notes. This episode is brought to you by Ledger, the global leader in digital asset security. Celebrating 10 years of innovation, Ledger remains the most secure hardware wallet for your crypto and login. Trusted by 7 million users and securing 20% of the world's digital

assets. Follow the link in today's show notes to grab your Ledger now. Yeah, I think it's really interesting the the the forward-looking question I have, and I think you kind of addressed it as like if they can break into maybe some of these international markets. Like I guess we'll sort of have to see how that how Inversion Cap kind of goes about their operations here, like who they're planning to acquire and if they can scale that. Um and and I guess I'm just wondering like you know you me you mentioned early on like the change from the sort of multi-token model all to like back to H&T which I think was probably just a ton of confusion in reality for you know

someone maybe considering like an investment in H&T for example. Um it it does make you wonder in my mind at least for a lot of the deepen projects is like does does the token really make sense as an investment or does it make more sense like as an enthusiast to simply run a node or is it some you know maybe some combination of things. I think that's kind of what I'm always wondering because just due to how the incentives have to be played out in that you know node runners have to be incentivized in some fashion like you know as just an owner of the token you may be kind of you'll be missing out on maybe some of the value of like the network and why it was built. I'm curious your thoughts there generally Nick like how do you

feel about Helium and like H&T and how that interaction plays with with operators? Yeah, I think something that I I probably missed here is the caveat around data credits. If you can pull up that chart. Um, but the data credits are really like the the API credits, if you will, of the Helium ecosystem. Um, anyone who wants to use the Helium network, whether that's the IoT network or the mobile network, pays in data credits, which are fixed to a price that's pegged to a dollar. It's it's a very small fraction of a dollar, but they're they're fixed in price to the dollar. And Helium has a burn to mint equilibrium where when you burn data

credits, Helium is minted for that data transfer and then rewarded to the hotspot that made that happen. Um, Helium's price I think is reflective right now of the amount of data burn that we're seeing, but the catalyst I outlined could dramatically increase this. And so there's a high likelihood that we see some H&T price price appreciation over the next 12 months. That is unprecedented and also much more stable than any Helium price appreciation we've seen in the past which was largely based on speculation and that'd be based on like the expansions and potential increase of of users from some of these networks that

are going to offload to to Helium. Yeah, I think if you if you look at the the chart here like this is about a year of data. the the past year of data burns or data credit burns. But that said, this represents maybe 1 to 200,000 users using the network on a consistent basis. Um, including all the IoT stuff, which is obviously priced far lower than Helium's uh mobile network is in terms of gigabyte usage.

But that said, this if like the the movie star expansion is a great example, I think um 2.9 million subscribers onboarded but very little supply side, very little coverage deployed in Mexico. And of those 2.9 million subscribers, very few of them have opted in. Currently, it's an it's an opt-in edition. It's not a a paid edition per se, but it's something they have to manually enable. Once that becomes automatic and installed on every new phone, every carrier in Mexico, we should see this dramatically increase.

And then I think uh this data is a little bit old, but there's definitely been a surge up in data credit use or at least will be a surge up in data credit use through uh AT&T allowing all of their subscribers in the US to connect to Helium mobile whenever it's available without knowing about it. So, I guess long-term price appreciation, I think, or I I hope and think that it should be slow and steady as we move on. I don't necessarily think that it's going to be another rocket ship the way that the H&T token has performed in the past, but I'm generally pretty optimistic on the network right now. And

I think that the token is a compelling investment if you believe that Helium mobile will ultimately be able to eclipse some of the web 2 incumbents like Boingo who deploy similar Wi-Fi networks at a much higher uh opex. Awesome. Yeah, it definitely seems like I mean partnering with AT&T Movie Star as well like the the growth side of the picture is seems fairly clear and we'll just we'll be looking to kind of see that play out right where you expect to see more offload more usage and more of these burns like you mentioned.

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it it comes back to partnerships, partnerships, partnerships and both through acquisitions in the inversion cap case, but also Noval Labs is very likely has some some deals cooking in the in the back rooms right now. And I think we should expect those to see those come to fruition with um maybe a little bit of an accelerated pace post AT&T coming out of the closet. Awesome. Love it. I think uh this is probably a deep dive into helium and I know your full report it's available on the research site for the subs um that you know some I know some of our audience has probably been asking for for a while that we have not been

able to provide them. So glad that you were able to do so. Um we're going to do kind of a complete 180 pivot in another direction. Um we've got Shapiro on to talk a completely different topic but um Athena has also been um a hot topic lately. They've got talks of their converge chain. Um, everyone is super excited about stable coins right now. Um, and you know, tokenizing different funds and other things on chain. Um, and like there's some implications of Athena kind of being in this realm and ballpark. So, um, Shapiro, I want you to kind of take it away like what's the what's hot with Athena and what should

people be thinking about um that that maybe they aren't already? Yeah, absolutely. So, I I feel like um coming out of D this year um the the team was very like I guess was very constructive on stable coins, right? Um, in terms of like the the the one theme that I really heard from everyone is is people think that stable coins are are going to grow a lot, right? And there's there's regulatory reasons for that and we'll get into that. Um, but just thinking about like you know what what is a way to express that view um you know given the liquid tokens that we can invest in right now and um at least personally I felt like Athena um was the first thing that came to mind for me. Um

and obviously like you know we've we've written about them once before um you know just like diving into SUSD and the mechanics behind it but this time um it was much more about right like they're they're completely they're really going through an evolution right now right they're going from a single synthetic dollar issuer to now um an entire like KYC um you know tradi enabled um fullon defi chain right so they're they They're evolving. They're growing their product suite. Um they're attacking new markets and I guess like the one common theme is that um you know they're they're kind of stable coin oriented. But I think that

right we're starting to see them um move into like all of DeFi and specifically um permission DeFi. So you know I felt like it was a great opportunity to dive into them. like they've grown so much in a year and now they're they're in the process of changing so much like um I think that uh it they're you know they're they're worthy of of um further analysis and so um first thing we'll focus on right is their growing product suite. Um obviously USD that's their flagship product and in just a year um it sits you know around like five billion in TVL which um you know it's one of the fastest growing DeFi apps ever. like there's clearly demand um for this yield

and obviously it's cryptonative yield. So um ba you know from the uh from delta hedged uh funding rate um basis arbitrage and that actually tends to be um inversely correlated to feds uh to fed fund rates. So I think that um you know I mean basis arbs there's there's probably I think over you know I I did this analysis around maybe um 1 trillion 1.2 2 trillion AUM in basis ARB funds. Most of that is like um you know treasuries but still a significant amount hundreds of billions in equities, commodities, um precious metals. So um you know this is a very

common trade and the ability to tokenize it um you know where not only you can capture the yield but also um you now hold the token that's composable, you can put it into a DeFi product, you can take a loan out against it, right? like this is such a great product and it's um you know I I truly think it's it's superior to the to the Trady alternative right because it's tokenized and you gain those composability um benefits and I think right like Tradfi is always searching for yield and so um you know the fact that this does you know does bring diversification benefits to a traditional portfolio uh makes it even more um exciting to them right and So to bring it to them, um the first product that they're that they're

in the still in the process of making is IUSD. So I USD is effectively just a uh e uh US but with a uh KYC KYB um compliance wrapper around it. Um essentially they're just trying to make uh USD and the stakeable version SUSD accessible by Trapi. So, um, my guess, and you know, no information here, but I'm guessing that they're going to be releasing this sometime around, uh, the time when they release Converge, um, which is slated for Q2 of 2025. Um, so obviously this quarter.

We'll see if that happens. Um, but, you know, supposedly they're on track. Um, the next product, uh, the next new product that they're, um, actually have already released is USDTB. So USDTB is their treasurybacked stable coin um which uh in the case of this this is generating yield um through its its uh reserves right which are effectively backed by treasury specifically with uh USDTB um Athena purchased around um I think a significant portion of the black rocks bidd upwards of 50 60% if I believe or if I recall correctly um and bidd reserve reserves, right, which those are

backed directly by treasuries, um, account for 90% of USDTB's backing. The remaining 10% is a mix of stable coins. So, I think USDT and, uh, or yeah, USDT and USDC um, and they have some of those stable coins um, for the uh, just to allow people to uh, mint and redeem smoother um because it's just easier to mint and redeem with those stables than it is with Biddly. So um I think USDT is is really interesting because um or really I think it's interesting for a few reasons. So the first kind of clear and obvious reason is it's it's synergistic with um USD right? So um USD only generates yield or you know a

significant amount of yield excess yield um when funding rates are high. So um if funding if you know if people are speculating on crypto funding rates move up um you know USD yield can can get anywhere from like you know 10 to 30% right I'd say even higher than 10% maybe 15 to 30% on average um kind of during bullish times in the market during bearish times it can compress all the way down to like sub 4% so below treasuries and then in some scenarios um you know even negative Right. And so we have seen USD yields go negative which um the stakers incur that loss directly.

Um what Athena is actually doing is during uh bearish times they'll actually change the the mix of USD's reserves um to kind of soften that I guess like persistent negative funding rates. And obviously they're they're highly mean reverting. So you know negative funding rates aren't going to last for more than like a day or two max. usually even less than a day. Um it to to the tune of it actually directly impacting USD staking yields. Um but what Athena can do with USDTB is they can actually um as funding rates drop they can increase the amount of USD reserves um as or by adding USDTB um and that kind of provides a floor to

the funding rate right so if USDTB is yielding effectively you know whatever like you know the typical 10-year Treasury is let's say around like 4% or you know short-term T bill let's say it's around like 3.94% um that effectively provides a floor on USD. So that that derrisks um USD right it it by adding that floor um and I guess it just you know gives it a more consistent yield and now Athena can do that with its own product right so I think that they're very complimentary um which which you know I think that's that's part of the part of the reason why they're trying to make converge is um I think that they're going to be able

to create some really cool products by like mixing and matching um you know these different stable coin instruments you know you you put a purpose platform on there you know Ethereum you put an options platform on there derive and I think that there'll be some really cool products that come out that are a mix of all these um one of the biggest risks right now to converge is actually the um is the reg is the stable coin regulation that's coming out and um I mean now might be a good a good time to talk about it um you have the stable act and the genius act.

The Genius Act is mostly bullish. That's going to enable uh I guess fully legalized stable coins um and make it so that they're not seen as securities. Um the stable act though is a little more bearish in its current form. Um and like Coinbase has pushed back on this and and the motion's been denied, but in its current form it would disallow yieldbearing stable coins. So um I think that would make sus a security but you know something like USDTB um obviously you know users won't be able to collect uh yield on it but um I think that USDTB by adding this to the product suite um which is effectively

right like circle or tethers model um it just gives them another product that um is a that makes them a little more resilient to you if one of those stable coin acts comes out and um potentially has negative ramifications for USD. Um so that's USDTB. Um I think very bullish development currently sits around 1.5 bill TVL. Um and finally like the big thing that they're doing right is they're creating their own um chain um converge which they saying is going to come out in Q2 of this year. um converge. I think uh I think what's what's going to make it interesting

obviously the the architecture is a little interesting. They're using a custom arbitrum sequencer and Celestia for data data availability. Um they believe that this combination is going to give them like really good scalability benefits and you know they're in an ongoing partnership with Arbitum to help kind of uh to customize this chain to to do exactly what they need. So, um, that's pretty interesting. But I I think the the thing that actually might make this different, right, than your just like, you know, your next typical run-of-the-mill L1 launch, um, or L2 launches, um, they're going to tie together both permission permissionless and permission apps together and make them all accessible from the same chain. And so,

um, this is really important because to me, the largest user of DeFi is going to be Tradfi. And the only way that DeFi grows 10x is if Tradfi starts using it, right? Like there's only there's only so much retail in the world. Um, the vast majority of capital sits inside these massive banks, you know, asset managers, CSDs, FMIs, you know, etc., Right. And ultimately they're only going to be able to use these products if um if users can you know prove or verify that you know they are a you know actual person right like um as much as yeah as

much as we want like you know fully permissionless capital markets and there will be an environment for that. um for a lot of the you know I at the end of the day governments are the ones that sets the rules and I I think that um I think that you know permission chains will be a thing right so um what they aim to do with converge and obviously they're partnered with secure ties um with this um they're going to move all of their products onto converge at launch so um they'll be around 10 10 billion in TVL right away you know between uh USD um USDTB and then um securitizes Apollo diversified credit fund ACRED. Um you

combine all that and you know probably a couple more securitized products, you get 10 bill. So that's fantastic. Um but the the thing that I think is really interesting about Converge is that I think that um if they are able to kind of launch the compliance rappers on their stable coins so that TRDFI can start you know purchasing or um you know they could expand into other venues. I think that this could be a a massive growth factor and um the reason why is because um the vast majority of revenue that that Athena generates with with USDE um is effectively limited by the total open interest of uh crypto centralized

exchanges, right? Uh perpetual futures exchanges um with the launch of the Bitcoin ETFs and obviously we have um CME futures as well. those have been around for quite a bit longer going back to um 2020 in uh bitcoins in in the case of bitcoin options um 2021 for bitcoin futures um actually the majority of bitcoin oi um and ethoi actually sits off centralized exchanges right um it's sitting in CME and uh and bitcoin um ETFs and you know options on the bitcoin ETFs so um CME futures um between you know Bitcoin futures options, ETH futures

options which both are um coins that Athena delta hedges with um currently around you know just under 20 billion in open interest there um currently around 14.4 4 billion in open interest across all the uh Bitcoin ETFs that have options. So like IBIT, FB, FBTC, which is Fidelity's um ARCB which is uh ARC 21 shares um BitB which is Bitweises and BTC Grayscales Bitcoin mini trust um 14.4 billi. So um you combine those two together and it actually uh slightly eclipses the the total oi across all the um the exchanges that um Athena Delta

Edge is on. So that's Binance, OKX, Bybit and Derbit. And so you know let's say they launch Converge and they have IUSD right and this now satisfies or you know let's say like back just back up. So the goal here would be right to drastically increase their revenue. They need more OI. There's all this OI sitting in CME and options. If they can start delta hedging there, then they could safely mint a bunch more USD um and significantly increase the TVL and revenue. Um in order though to delta hedge on those exchanges, right, they're going to need to be

compliant with US regulations. So um you know my guess is that that's the that's the reason why they're making converge right if they can have if they can you know have IUSD which is backed by you know CME um and the opt and the ETF options and then you have SUSD which is backed by the crypto side of things you know it's effectively the same product um but the other ones are regulatory compliant and that's that's a massive market now that they go after. Um, so yeah, I think that this is all part of the plan for Athena. Um, and yeah, makes me makes me very uh makes me very bullish on them. Algoit 3.0

includes all the tools and open source resources you need to unleash the power and performance of the Algrand blockchain. Access a resilient network with instant finality, consistently high throughput and low fees, and layer 1 features like atomic swaps and native assets. No smart contracts required. Whether you're building D5 protocols, enterprise solutions, or nextG dabs, Algo Kit has all the tools you'll need to build faster, safer, and smarter. Start building with Algo Kit today by following the link in today's show notes. Ledger is the global leader in digital asset security, trusted by 7 million users, and securing 20% of the world's digital assets. In recent years, Ledger has built a comprehensive ecosystem of products and services, making digital ownership more secure and accessible for everyone. Ledger's newest

devices, Ledger Stacks and Ledger Flex, introduced the world's first secure touchcreens, making it easier and safer to manage your transactions and assets. Alongside Ledger Stacks and Ledger Flex, they have also launched the Ledger Security Key app, offering a safer alternative to traditional passwords and enhancing your digital security. Follow the link into today's show notes to get started with Ledger today. I did want to comment on one thing because I I I do see this like becoming more and more of um a bigger ticket item it seems for the larger projects and businesses in the space is like we're seeing the continued like stepping stones into like these permissioned apps and the permissions space even Coinbase like they're experimenting with permission liquidity via unis swap v4 on base and I'm sure

like in that scenario you can imagine you know they they have maybe you you know, KYC or maybe even like accredited investors or others like on their platform that they want to be able to allow them to use products on chain that are compliant and this is probably a piece of that. I guess the big question is like the regulations maybe shake up a lot of this, right? You sort of you went over that that piece around, you know, if yield bearing stable coins are kind of a no no, then like, you know, maybe they're a security, maybe they need to step through some additional hoops. I guess the hope at this point is with the sort of like pro crypto admin today, you know, you would maybe expect that like following the stable coin and you know,

some market structure bills, you would maybe see some additional things that offer more clarity around like if something is actually a security like how to register it versus the prior um sort of environment where it was like, you know, get sued or yeah, you know, go out of business. Um and and maybe that's the goal, but it it seems some of those pieces are unclear today. Yeah, I don't think it's Yeah, you're you're absolutely right. It's not the end of the world if you know there's something comes out and says like all right, if your stable coin returns yield, it's not it's a security, which like I mean that to to some sense like that in to some degree that makes sense, right? Like if you have a tokenized basis basis trade that is you know

tethered to a dollar because of the nature of the trade like that you know to me that's not a stable coin right that that's a tokenized you know basis trade right that's that's an actual strategy you have to a hedge fund yeah like you have to invest in a hedge fund that is promising you know that's saying they're going to make you money to invest in that. So, but right, if there's new regulation that comes out that says like, "Oh, yeah, this is fine. Come register it. It's it's a security. It's this type of security. It's fine." Then, you know, that that clears it up. Um, you know, that might slow down the adoption rate.

Um, but right like my confidence in that happening is high. Um now if that occurs right the other risk that gets introduced is competition which leads to yield compression right so like right now Athena right now Athena looks at um the you know these new avenues for like it new avenues for growth and I I think that they're going this approach because like they've effectively tapped out like all that they can grow in the crypto market right like if they start expanding beyond 20% of all open interest they actually could destabilize the market, right? So, you know, we're actually Blockworks advisories on the

risk committee. Um, and they've been part of research that effectively determined, right? Like you don't want to go above that 20% limit. Um, and so it's just yeah, like there's only so many people in the world that are going to go make a Binance or Bybit account and start, you know, longing on purpose, right? Like I'm sure everyone here has had that experience. you go do that for a month or two and you're a lot poorer and then you stop and then you just you know then you get comfy in spot. Um, right. I think, you know, unless you're a very sophisticated uh trader, um, really the only other way people use Perks, which I think is smart, is is hedging, right? Or running this type of delta neutral trade yourself. Um, you know, or if you're like a protocol and

like, you know, you're shorting your own token um, as a way to like or before unlocks, but that that's another story. Um, right. But really, it's it's, you know, it's that funding trade. So, um I think that um yeah, I I think that that will be derisked, but also right like everyone in their mother wants to do this and I guarantee you um Trad is looking at like, you know, Tether's um revenue and going, you know, why can't we do that? And then the next thing they're going to go look at is a tokenized basis trade.

So, I do think that there'll be a lot of competition, but Athena is the first mover mover. They're cryptonative. They they know how to do this. And so, you know, they I think that they'll have a leg up on the competition. Yeah, I think that's I think that makes a ton of sense. The one thing that I I see as like sort of um a risk in sort of the DeFi adoption that we see today of products like USD is that they've become very prominent within lending markets. um obviously due to the nature of you know them being yield bearing and you know the PTS available on like pendal markets for example as well and like I don't know you just you they've become very intertwined with both pendal markets and then like a lot of you know morpho for

example you see both USD and also the pts um from pendle being used quite a bit um as collateral or as devices to earn yield on the deposits being put on those platforms and so it does make me wonder like you know if if it were to become true that you cannot have a yieldbearing um stable coin or even like funded fund token um on chain, it could totally shake up those dynamics. But um I guess we I guess we just have to be hopeful that the people uh advising on this bill are um you know incentivized to make that not happen. But yeah, I mean I think that they do it in a smart way,

right? by like having USD separate from SUSD, right? Like you you kind of insulate USD a little from um you know you can still use USD which is fully backed by reserves or delta hedge positions and only if you stake it right that's when you're now taking the risk to get that yield. Um if you don't stake it right you're not taking that that risk. Um there's obviously DPEG risk which exists which is amplified the more that it's used in all these different pools. Um that is I don't want to say impossible to model but close to impossible to model accurately. Um and so right that'll

always be a risk but there is no you know systematic death spiral you know Luna risk here that that mechanism is just just not at play right. Um it's it's an entirely different type of algorithm or it's a it's a different class of algorithmic stable coin, right? Um I wouldn't call it an algorithmic stable coin, but yeah, I agree. I mean, I I asked the team and they thought that regulation, you know, I said, "What what do you think the biggest risk is?" And you know, they they said probably regulation could slow them down the most if it came in pretty bad. Yeah. And and maybe the outcome is that, you know, markets that are permissionless today have to become and transition to being permission markets for the products that

maybe end up getting deemed, you know, securities or whatever they have to do like registered as some type of special asset. But um yeah, it it's in the future. We'll we'll see how that plays out. Otherwise, I think great deep dive. Um we'll call it there on Athena. I thought that was really great. You went in super detail. We went in pretty good detail on both Helium and Athena. Um, going to change up the plan. Let's jump into AI for today to before we close things out. I'm curious. I'd say you guys are probably the the two prominent folks on the team that are keeping up the most with AI adjacent tech in the marketplace. Um, and I'm curious like what we're looking at. There was, you know, a few months back a ton of

excitement, right? New models were coming out like deep research and all these things were popping up. there was the AI sort of meme agent craze. Um, and it's kind of died down quite a bit, especially as the market has uh contracted since, you know, beginning of the year, end of last year. Um, where are we sitting today? Like, what are the most exciting things that maybe people are not quite looking at yet? What are you guys thinking about? Yeah, I think a couple of things that I've been thinking about more broadly on the AI sector as it sits within crypto and maybe even just within distributed systems in general. Um the the primary narrative that I think I've I've been paying attention to is that the centralized AI

can work at scale. It probably will. And I think different market catalysts, especially tariffs, may cause this to happen on a little bit of a shorter time horizon than we were expecting. But the players in these markets are primarily going to be existing data centers that are serving some sort of web 2 use case already and are looking to monetize idle compute. I think that's that's probably the most compelling thing about decentralized AI today is that you can kind of pivot on and pivot off as you increase or decrease scale in a primary business model. Uh, but I think this whole narrative of like we can train models with a whole bunch of gaming PCs distributed at a thousand houses is dying and and will die very

soon. Um, that said, I think I'm still bullish on the sector as a whole, but decentralized AI projects need to scale into some sort of semblance with the efficiency that we're seeing in the web 2 sector for training and inference specifically. Um there are some new technologies coming out of Nvidia in terms of being able to train on distributed clusters but none of the web 3 projects are supporting this today. And overall I think web 3 projects really they need to provide either some sort of benefit in terms of savings or in terms of performance or maybe

reliability over the existing solutions that exist today and I'm not seeing that anywhere across the sector currently. I don't know, Dan, do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, so I'd say sticking on um compute and training, training and inference right now. Um and I know I know we talked about this like I I completely agree. Um right, I think when you look at these GPU marketplaces and maybe you know say you're a little disappointed with the growth um something that doesn't go mentioned is is reliability. um at any point during during like pre-training if like a single GPU goes down in the cluster like the entire training um will will stop and and get screwed up right like

so you need you need everything to be super reliable um and then obviously you know you need a bunch of GPUs to do pre-training um and typically right I know you you brought up distributed training like um you know Google's doing a little like colllocated um data data center distributed stuff but all those data centers are within um 50 millisecond latency from each other. Um, yeah, typically to do pre-training you need low latency interconnects, meaning like you actually need all the GPUs to be like hardwired together. Um, and to be, you know, which means that they need to be in very very close proximity, right? Um, noose just raised 50 million from Paradigm, which I

thought was interesting. Um, I I I'm, you know, I'm I'm definitely uh I'm I'm a little bullish on news. Um, I mean obviously like the whole space in general I'm I'm a little lukewarm on but you know just as you are Nick but um I do think what they're doing with their DRO optimizer which um the technology is based on an algorithm um written by one of the co-founders of Noose and also one of the co-founders of OpenAI. So like I I do think it's legit. there's something there like they were able to train a 13 billion model um 13 billion parameter model um relatively efficiently um but then right like to support what you were saying Nick like

they used a combination of like a bunch of like tier 2 you know GPU cloud services right like a like a lambda and like some other people so I think right similar to like like why is helium successful like for any deepin thing to be successful like there fundamentally needs to be like a latent resource that people have that um they effectively have a zero opportunity cost um dynamic to contribute that resource to make money, right? It's like if you live in the middle of New York, you you can't build a cell tower there, but you can put up this router and start making money. Like you buy this thing and it starts printing for you, right? Like why wouldn't you do that? It needs to be easy. So if you have all these data centers that are you know their chips go out of date within 5 years and now like

the the life cycle of these chips is accelerating or or the the lifespan of these chips is decreasing in an accelerating way. Um so it's getting shorter and shorter. So people have excess chips, they have potentially spare capacity and then at all the open um all the hyperscalers right they have backlogs multiple years because you know AWS is backlogged from enthropic Google you know Gemini is just using Google and then Microsoft's data centers are backlogged from open AI so um the AI labs are getting priority access so I do think that you know like we'll see like If DeepSeek R2 is like 95% of 03, I think that's going to be

massive because I think 03 is, you know, it effectively saturated the benchmarks. Um, and you know, it doesn't look like a big increase, but I do think that the leap from 01 to 03 was significant. Um, specifically with tool use, like it actually feels like pretty close to like a general purpose assistant that is smarter than you and everything. It's pretty much there. So, yeah, between the dropping costs, um, people needing, you know, wanting to access the, you know, compute, it's backlogged somewhere else.

There's excess chips. These second tier labs can buy them and, you know, or or take decommissioned chips and offer just like spare, you know, spare compute that they wouldn't sell anyways. And then you can connect all these into a single, you know, single network. Like I do think I I guess like I'm becoming more um I'm become I'm becoming more bullish on on that being like a real thing. Um I still think that there's there's time between now and then and I'm going to need to see like, you know, how big of a performance and how cheap are these are these new models going to get. But um yeah, I I do think that it's it's something feasible that that could happen. So um we'll see though. Like I

up until I'd say up until maybe 3 to 6 months ago, I was pretty I was pretty bearish on the compute deep pins, but um I guess I'm I'm kind of warming up to to these new ones um as of recently. I think there's also kind of an angle here with something like double zero, right? like it. They're targeting blockchains today, but in the future could target a pretty wide variety of use cases. And something like D0ero access to private fiber 10 to 100 gigabit per second speeds could really change the distributed training landscape both within crypto and outside of crypto. Um, if data centers are already participating in deepin plays

like double zero and are uh equipped with double zero hardware or maybe even redundant double zero hardware, they may be able to effectively enable training at a much wider number of data centers. That said, I still think it needs to occur within a data center, but something a project like NAS could theoretically take 10 tier 2 data centers that are zero enabled and be able to have them support the training of their next model and and hopefully that is the case in the coming years. I think that's a great point about the pivot. feel like we've actually seen similar it it's somewhat different but from like Bitcoin mining focused

companies that have in the past maybe been entirely focused on that mission and then saw the opportunity to transition into like HPC or other like AI based compute or offer that as like a separate offering just based on the the infrastructure that they had for supporting you know tons of devices ton of energy output um it was there was sort of a natural fit there So, um, like you're saying, Nick, maybe there's an opportunity to kind of play in this field for now and perhaps like a a sort of lateral move into another opportunity might present itself in the future that like kind of keeps the wheels turning for a lot of these things.

Have uh have any of you been following the new like the OpenAI updated 40 and um its personality kind of changed a little and people push back like you know now OpenAI has persistent memory so it tracks you know it it remembers everything you've ever you've ever told it um and you know I've seen people start discussing how the model instead of optimizing for maximum utility it actually starts learning you and starts optimizing for maximum engagement. Um, you know, like a social media app. And so to me, that's that's incredibly bullish. I mean, maybe maybe Elon and Grock, you know, maybe it's bullish Elon

because uh maybe he keeps things neutral, but I mean really it's it's bullish decentralized um models, right? models that are um pre-trained and you can you know you or I mean whatever you could even just you know use like deepseek v1 like or whatever take the best open source model distill it and then you know you do decentralized um post training reinforcement learning on it to whatever optimize it for whatever use case you want and you know like this is the model you're getting it's not changing to you know to to make you more addicted to using it or whatever, right? Like this is the model. It's optimized for this use case and I know for a fact that this

is how it was trained and this is how it will be. And so um yeah I think um if you know the the centralized model models you know kind of start moving towards you know I guess like yeah the same path that like social media went right and just trying to make it addicting and maybe potentially less useful then maybe there will be a mark you know an actual fundamental reason other than just saying oh it was trained in a decentralized way like there you know the decentralized models might actually start to produce better outcomes or have more utility. for you.

So, um, that's something else that did occur in the last week that I thought was interesting. Yeah, I actually have been following it and I I've seen some comments that like, you know, Alman saying it it's a little crazier than they thought it was like a little unhinged even and like acting a bit like an unexpected responses almost for some people based on their interactions with it, which I find a little bit funny. Um it I think you do make a good point though like you know while I think everyone sort of expects and is believing that at some point there's like a path to profitability. Um I mean this is a clear lever right like Tik Tok makes a ton of money because they keep

people on the platform. they, you know, have ads and sponsors and other things that like as long as somebody's scrolling like they're or or like via the marketplace and other like, you know, auxiliary things that they that they get cash flows from their their users on, um, they found an effective way to monetize monetize that platform, you know, just with the scaling and and the amount of usage that they have today and their their upfront costs like, you know, I think these these large AI AI teams are still quite far away from that like picture of like operating profitability. Um, so it wouldn't be surprising to see that be like a lever.

Um, get people addicted and then find ways to add little monetization schemes into the design, whether that's like pay for additional special interactions or like some odd marketplace combinations or other things that they can figure out how to bake in. It could be embedded into the model, right? Let's say, you know, just to pick an arbitrary example like um you know, like I asked it, you know, I asked it the other day, like find me a recipe for like the best butter chicken, right? I mean, what if you have a cooking company, you know, pay it, say, hey, if someone searches this, like, you know, nudge them my way, right? And you know maybe like things that are like opinion based could start

to get skewed by advertisers and in the back end that actually gets pushed through the into the training stage where the model will you know actually think that whereas like let's say use like a neutral decentralized model it might give you a different answer because it's just looking at consumer reviews or whatever right so yeah I think there's a million ways that they could they could monetize this and um yeah we'll we'll see I mean they're they're collecting all of our data and thoughts. So I think uh early movers in like the the AI training SEO space like if you can if you can optimize your website or your content to be better ingested or more relevant during training, uh you're going to see that data be much

more prevalent in the responses from the model. And so interested to see how that plays out. I know a lot of people are thinking about it, but I'm I'm not sure anyone's doing it effectively quite yet. Um, other than decentralized training and and inference, do are there any other um I guess you know people just throw around the word agents, but are there any other than maybe those are there any like other use cases in DAI that uh that interest you? I think trading is one that a lot of people are trying to tackle whether it be kind of an autopilot like assistant for your trading or fully autonomous trading.

I've messed around with a couple of these platforms, thrown a few USDC in or whatever, and and found that they can't even like outperform the uh every time I've thrown money into a decentralized trading system or an autonomous trading system, it has lost money on every trade, which is is really interesting. Um, I think part of that is that current AI models don't seem to have the strongest understanding of like understanding, ingesting, and making reasonable insights from market data.

Whereas I think they can they can explain your current position. They have a hard time forecasting what'll happen next. Um, but I think there there are definitely avenues for agents to come back into the spotlight, but I I don't think it's going to be the same wave that we saw late last year with virtuals and Zero Bro and all the the agents that were flooding Twitter. It it really needs to be more focused. It needs to be more valuable. And I think that we within the next year will probably see some very useful agents come on the scene.

I like that. I was um I was following the sort of like DeFi narrative for a bit as well and you know they were essentially like glorified generalized trading bots um a few months back but with limited traction and you know not making any money. Um, I do wonder if we'll see a return to that, but so far it seems that just, you know, teams that can sort of, you know, find targeted ways to incorporate AI features or like just add meaningful features into their applications. Like multi-product DeFi is a thesis that we have. Um, you know, the most successful teams are kind of tacking down tacking

on extra verticals and like leaning into different revenue streams. I think these like very simple generalized attempts at just like putting the same chatbot interface in front of people and saying like yeah just type anything DeFi related and it will like do the action for you. I don't know that like users really want that open world of possibilities. It's it it's probably more likely that like you give them a similar interface but if you can bake in some of that behind the scenes but still on the front end it's like you know I have my buttons to do this that and the other thing. Um, I think they'll have to be a bit more smart and and you know, pointed about how to build those things um to see them get any meaningful traction, but we'll see. Um, awesome. I think this was a

great conversation, guys. Um, we were able to talk through a ton of stuff and glad, Nick, to have you on for your first step. um going over Helium, the sort of big uh big, you know, narrative contender for all of DPIN, uh I think most would say. Um before we hop off, I guess, do you guys have any big takeaways? If it's about the markets, if it's about AI, if it's about Deepin, your favorite project, um what are we feeling going into the summer? Um, I I think um unfortunately I still think um macro uncertainty might be in the driver's

seat a little bit um in terms of price action but um yeah, I mean there's there's there's green shoots popping up, right? Like I think what what we've seen over the last month is that um there's always a desire to bid something and if the market shows signs of life like um you know there there will be green shoots and so um you know these are three categories like you know helium is a deepin leader Athena is a DeFi leader and now kind of like an R you know a leader in kind of like the RWA sector and and you know um you know there's some raises in in the crypto AI space. I think just staying close to close to the metal um and researching now because um yeah if there is some

form of um certainty with respect to all the tariff stuff and macro clears up like I think that the market would be in in a great position to rip right and I think now is the time to um figure out the things that that you want to buy and accumulate so that you're you know you're ready for for when that occurs. So, um, if I had to guess, probably a slow slower summer like last summer, but, um, yeah, opp there's still a bunch of opportunities and this is the best time to to kind of put your, um, head, you know, head in get down the weeds and and do that research. Yeah, I think I'm I'm really looking for catalysts that are going to bring new people into crypto, not new capital, like new

individual users, I guess, is a better way to put it, whether that be an institution or just a retail participant. Converge, like we talked about, fills that gap. I think there are quite a few use cases that are going to fill a similar gap, but generally not feeling incredibly bullish about markets right now. I think that in the near time horizon, there's going to need to be some sort of bullish catalyst to push us up to maybe not price-wise, but sentiment-wise to closer to, I think, what people expected for 2025.

That said, I the the sectors that I'm tracking namely are going to be institutional adoption as well as just deepen in general. And I I expect to see in the coming months some interesting adoption in both of those from either large corporations or institutions who are looking for alternative avenues, especially as traditional financial markets continue to chop and be very uncertain. Love it. And I'm going to take a cop out here and say I'm excited for Permissionless coming up end of June. Uh June 24th through the 26th, 10% off, 0x10. The link is in the description.

Buy some tickets. Come out. See the crew here. We'll talk to you about Deepend. We'll talk to you about Athena. We'll talk to you about I'll talk to you about trading bots, consumer apps, memes, whatever you want to talk about. Um and join the Telegram. Join the Xerox Research Telegram. The link, I think, should also be in the description. Um we have a lot of fun in there. Uh the research crew is in there. Tons of people from around the space. All of our favorites that that like to chat are in there. So, um, thanks so much for coming on, guys. It was a great chat today and we will see you all again next time. [Music]