The Bull Market Confirmed | Weekly Roundup

Transcript

For anyone who hasn't experienced like an allout rip your face out bull market, I find that the toughest thing is that everything is working. So in the last couple years, your problem was where can I get a 5x return or where can I get a 10x return or where can I even get a 2x return? And now the whole industry is a 3x return. So you need to really really really focus. This episode is brought to you by Geodet, the world's largest decentralized RTK network delivering real time centimeter accurate positioning around the globe. You'll hear more about them later in the episode. Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is forformational purposes only and the views expressed by anyone on the show

are solely their opinions, not financial advice or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests, and the Block Works team may hold positions in the company's funds or projects discussed. Folks, welcome back. We got the roundup. Santi just announced that Inversion is pivoting to rolling up RV chains and uh yeah, what's up? I mean, listen, Bane, I think it was like one of the best investments of Bane Capital was like buying like Pizza Hut chains in like Japan. IPOed them. Killed it. Killed it. Like one of their best deals. Interesting. Sometimes you got to wonder man.

Isn't Domino's the best performing stock of the last decade? I was gonna say like uh is Domino's and Monster. Yeah, Monster for sure. I mean, there there's a lot of these crazy stories where you're like sitting there trying to reinvent the financial system and then all of a sudden you say, "Man, I could have just I could literally just bought dominoes." This is like a classic left curve, right curve, right? which is like you know buy buy stuff that you like and then right curve buy stuff that you like middle curve well DCF and yeah exactly exactly yeah we had this hedge fund manager come in when I went to Emory down in Atlanta and we had this hedge fund manager come in and talk to us and his daughter was

in the class and he said uh he said you guys theoretically should outperform all of me because I'm I'm not in he's like I'm 50 years old I'm not in touch with what's going on so I have to do the models he he's like you guys have another decade from when you're 20 to 30 where you don't have to do the models and you can actually see what people are actually using. So he's like best trade I ever made was when my daughter came home with an iPhone in eighth grade and I saw that and she was saying every single one of her friends wants that. Next trade I made was um was Sketchers, right? When I saw that like they had the little when my daughter wanted all the sketch or the trade I made before that was Sketchers. So yeah, it's an interesting

takeaway. Um speaking of markets, dude, we uh I mean hell of a week in markets. Let's pull up we can pull up some prices and talk through this. I'd love to just get your take on how we're feeling about things. Um, so to run through it in case anyone's not paying attention to the numbers, Bitcoin's up 6 and a half% to 118. ETH is up a whopping 23%. Uh, XRP is up 32%. Uh, Soul is up 11%. Dogecoin 17%. Uh, Cardono Ripping 27, Hyperliquid 11. Um what's your sense of the markets right now? Like what do what do you do when you see this happening? What do you think?

Um obviously I mean not all these are the same, right? Hyperlid has been the darling of the cycle. Uh but you know everything else is pumping too. Memes have take catching a bid particularly you know pump had its ICO which we should talk about that. And I generally think, look, Bitcoin's gone up from, you know, sub 100K to now stabilizing at 100, what is it, 118, close to 120K all-time high. Um, and you know, if it holds that level, it just so much wealth creation after that, right?

So, typically, and people know this, but I'm just going to rehash it, Bitcoin rips, stabilizes, then higher uh beta, high riskier stuff catches a bit. You've had also ETH's gotten a very material bid. There's been like half a billion of inflows on the Bitcoin ETF products. Uh you had the Joe Luben Treasury Company. Um treasury companies are all the rage now. We should also talk about that. I have a very strong opinion on that. You and I were talking about that yesterday that Sharplink Gaming. Um so, so yeah, look at who doesn't like when prices are going up?

Like just unless you're short. No, we have we have this new we have this new employee of Block Works is new new to the industry. He's like, "Yeah, vibes are like so high in this industry. Like I this industry is like really fun to work in, much better than Tradfi." And I was like, "Just just you should have joined uh two years later, two years ago." Look, crypto is one of those industries gives you the highest highs, the lowest lows. Uh important important not to use too much leverage or any leverage at all and just buy stuff that you like and be want to hold for a long time. Everyone, you know, Coinbase is alltime high, Robin Hood's all-time high. You know, I think uh not just crypto markets are going up, right? uh you know the the general market the S&P also hit all-time high

right now. Yeah. Robin Hood, we've been talking about Robin Hood when it was in the 20s. Now it's you know 100. Robin Hood's at 105, Coinbase above. Coinbase ripped through alltime high. I mean now so I have here's a sign of the times. I think this is a good I had um I had my first retail text actually. I've been uh I was surprised that I didn't get more texts at 100K, but I had a friend text me said, "What alt should I be buying? Feel like we're about to see a run. I said I said, "Brother, you're supposed to buy the last two years, not when everything is ripping through all-time highs." And he said, "Uh, I felt really smart for selling at 100K until a little bit ago." So, I think you start to see these cra So, that was that was one

thing. I also my trainer at my gym said one of his clients was buying hyperlid, but they were trading on a platform with 25% fees. So, they didn't. So, I don't know. I don't know how they're buying this thing, but they're trading on a platform with 25% fees, but they want to know how to buy more hyperlid. So, you're starting to see these things. I think we are clearly clearly clearly in stage four. For anyone who remembers over the last two years, I've kind of laid out these four stages. I actually think um I called the timing on this pretty pretty well. So, I'll pull this up. Uh in the in this tweet back in uh 2024, I said um sta stage four, we're mainstream again.

Forbes, Bloomberg, CNBC, they love crypto. Your friend texts you about Cardono. Your financial advisor recommends 5% BTC allocation. This was I think this was the the line here. Tradfi races to quote unquote tokenize things. Then at some point in mid 2025, weird things start to happen. So walk me through your mindset of maybe what you think the next like several months could look like here. um you know, putting aside macro commentary, which I think that always is a very strong um determinant of what markets do. And you know, I do think that we're going to continue to see more of these uh public company treasury deals.

They will continue to proliferate and for the next couple months. You know, you just had this week one of Hyperlid. you're going to probably see more of ETH, more of soul, and then you know a tail end of assets like you know people ping me left and right about these whether hey do you have assets to contribute or do you want to do it these like so I get why people are doing it I had a tweet about it uh which I think it's going to be very valid destructive for the industry I mean this is like spaxs all over again and it is very clearly like what like what all over again spaxs spaxs yes Yeah. Yeah. It go I I was uh in New York last week. I was meeting with JP Morgan folks and they

gave me this guy Michael Michael Slast I believe. He's like very pointed like old school guy. I love his like skeptical cynical takes and he had a he had um he had a great report there. It's actually public and you just go read it. But you know it's it's always good to go back and revisit like what has happened before. Like spaxs were like super value destructive for retail who won the sponsors right? um who did these bags and just uh got liquidity and got some pretty pretty good terms on it and then retail got crushed. Like you can't justify the premium on these things and and everyone says wait a minute wait a minute strategy and you're like taking an asset and then you're staking and you're validating and doing all this stuff. The

reality of it, I have not seen a compelling argument of that coming to fruition or that's justifying the premium. And so the reality is like if you're it's just a word of caution for retail like if you want to buy these things fine, treat it as a speculative near-term thing, but just be very aware that the end the premium to nav can also work and go backwards and go negative. And and I think that I I do wonder if that to your point around the stages of a cycle if if that really derails. I think that's one of the biggest risks to like just being in a position where a lot of this unwinds, right?

Yeah. So are you do are you doing any of these because there's a mindset? Yeah, I did one back in the day a soul one of the largest and the and the the Did you contribute your FTX bankruptcy soul? I have not. No. No. Because the dynamic well the dynamic that I think is happening right now that a lot of get are getting a lot of uh VCs excited. So originally you just had three VCs doing all these. It was Coin Fund, Panta and Parad uh no no coin fund, Panta and Parafi and now every single VC I feel like is doing these and the one of the reasons that they're doing them is a lot of them are sitting on the on locked Salana and locked locked tokens across the board and with these vehicles they're now fun.

they realize that you can actually raise money with uh instead of just contributing cash, you can actually contribute your your locked soul or locked other things. So, and then if you're a VC and you know you were sitting on some locked soul that you thought was unlock in 2027, now you can contribute it in July 2025 and get liquid in, you know, August of 2025 instead of waiting until 2027. Yeah. So, what do you think for the person out there that's uh maybe they don't have access to get in these deals privately, but they're looking at something like ESB, which is really just ripping. I mean, ETH is going up, you know, 30% week overweek. ESB is up what what is ESP up on the week? ESB is up 195% on the month and 77% on the week.

What do you What do you say to the person who says, you know, I just want to almost get levered long these things right now? Yeah. Uh, and that's a fair thing to do. You know, I'm not here to give any advice. I'm just saying like just be aware that these are you're paying a premium on this and you know, relative to the underlying value. Yeah. And that's that, you know, and and look, everyone can make up their opinion. So, I don't have a comment other than I think this at some point unwinds. I'm not here to tell you when or how other than this thing is not sustainable and in the absence of showing material business justification for a premium these things should

like these things should normalize closer to NAV and so what you don't want is to be long the worst case is that what you just said the inverse happens which is the underlying actual does go up over the next 5 years, but because you bought it at 5x the premium, you might actually end up losing money if the underlying what is held in the treasury actually ends up going up. Mhm. And that that would be a shame that you were right on the thesis but lost money because of the execution and the structure.

Yeah. And you know, you can you can buy these things. You can buy the ETF for, you know, Bitcoin and and ETH and very likely you're going to potentially be able to buy the ETF for other products. Yeah. Now, okay, let's always let me ask you here's a question. You're going to construct a you have a $100. You say, I am now of the mind that crypto is, you know, curing cancer. So, I'm going to invest all my my excess savings into crypto. And you can say Bitcoin. Pick one. Pick pick pick a few of these assets. Bitcoin, Robin Hood, Ethereum, Coinbase Circle

uh, and or any of these treasury deals, um, or something else. What do you do? How do you allocate? This episode is brought to you by Geonet, the world's largest decentralized RTK network, delivering real time centimeter accurate positioning around the globe. Powering technologies that enable precise navigation for drones, autonomous vehicles, first responders, farmers, and robotics, Geonet shows that blockchain can be a truly transformative force by delivering realtime centimeter level accuracy. Geodet enhances emergency response, boosts construction precision, and enables advanced navigation for drones and surveyors far beyond the

limits of standard GPS. To find out more, click the link in the show notes or follow them on X. Hey everyone, Jason here. Earlier in today's episode, you heard me mention the weekly CIO memo from Bitwise. In an industry as hectic, fast, and complex as ours, it's incredibly hard to get an easy, nononsense stream of what's actually moving crypto. The memo comes from Matt Hogan, Bitwise's chief investment officer. He's been on the show before, and he has this amazing ability to take the most complex topics and break them down with clarity. Trust me on this one.

The Bitwise weekly CIO memo is really worth the 5 minutes of your time. Check it out at bitwiseinvestments.com/ciome/mpire or just hit the link in the description of today's episode to get started. Carefully consider the extreme risks associated with crypto before investing. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk terms and conditions apply. Who who are you? Are you close to the market or are you my friend who works in the al the the the alcohol industry and he and he just wants some allocation to crypto?

Let's just assume that the vast majority of new people coming into the industry are just, you know, okay, they're like your friend. Yep. I allocate to I basically spread it between bit I spread it for I take a hundred bucks and I buy $25 of Bitcoin, $25 of ETH, $25 of Soul, and $25 of Hype. I spread it between those four. How do you buy how do you express a view on ETH and sold just like go on coin create an account on Coinbase? I buy I buy spot because I buy spot because the people who are I don't think you should buy any use leverage at all at this stage of the market. I think we're clearly in stage four of the market. I wouldn't I wouldn't be using leverage. Um,

but it's I I definitely wouldn't be using it if you're not like, you know, you know who should be using it maybe is like our our research analysts who are literally like glued to the screens 27 hours a day right now. Like they can use leverage because they're paying so close of attention to this. Like I I'll go I'll go days right now without checking prices. I know you're very busy with inversion right now. Like I'm going I'm I'm truly going days without checking prices. Yeah. Uh, and it's just like if I'm going days, you know, my friend texting me, he's excited today, but like he might not check the prices for another month. Yeah. Look, I mean, I think what do you what do you do? What's your answer to that?

I've actually uh would increase the allocation of Bitcoin probably more like 50% Bitcoin and out of the remaining 50% I would sprinkle it probably you know uh I don't know in some equal waiting between or Salana Ethereum M and Hyperliquid. Yeah, I would agree with that maybe.

And then you could also add coin and and Robin Hood too if you Well, on that actually sorry, I forgot that I had given you that as an option. Yeah, I would buy 50% Bitcoin uh 25% or 20 25% hood and the rest just like other stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And and you know the reason I I continue to believe that while Robin Hood has run up quite a bit, I still continue to believe that it has a very big distribution and funnel and and it's a founder organization and they're going to continue to do really interesting things to leverage this technology and streamline their operations and and I and I think like I'm I'm also solving for like how do these things

behave in the down market and and like you Bitcoin is a very useful asset that you Dude, that's why we just sell the top. No, we get it. I I I think and of course it it just depends on what size you have and what percentage of your net worth that is. But as I think about my position, I'm just increasingly more of the mind that I should just put more and more into Bitcoin. And I I appreciate that I've been on the record saying that I haven't owned Bitcoin. Um I now think that has entered into a pretty interesting re now now you're there's something. So powerful a bit like the Bloomberg denomination now in into 0.1 million.

So so good. You best believe the anchoring effect of it's going to go to a million. Yeah. I I just sort of I I think we're going to be sitting here in 10 years and that thing is going to go to a million and you can massive. So are you rebying? Okay. So there was at one point this cycle I think you had sold all your Bitcoin and all your ETH. Are you are you rebying into either of those? Bitcoin. Bitcoin. Not ETH. Bitcoin. Yeah. Yeah. I like especially my situation is different like I don't have any any time any of the stuff that I invest in the early stage that I've gotten liquidity on I'm basically rotating the the the trilogy here that I see is SPX like ETF lowcost ETF uh like from first principles buy stuff

with low fees play the law of 72 where divide whatever your annual rate of return is 72 by whatever your annual rate of return is and that's how many years it's going to take you to double your The market historically has given you anywhere from 12% 14% maybe 12%. Normalize like 10 call 10%. So like you know I'm going to be super busy. If I wake up in five or seven years and I double my money on size I'll be happy. I'm a happy man and and it's money that I'm not going to touch. I'm just going to want to be focused. I've solve them for cash flow.

Like that's all set like I have enough cash set aside for a rainy day. But I do think that Bitcoin continues to be a pretty pretty interesting bet over the next 10 20 years. And so I'm happy doing that. You know, I think I think it there there's a version of this world that does another 5x. And now people, you know, there's just something really reflexive of being a store like a store of value like the mimemetics. It's a perfect meme and everyone can buy it. The type of buyers, you know, so wealth funds can't buy ETH. Yeah.

They can buy Bitcoin. Yeah, I want to call out something that's really important that you're doing, which is changing your mind on something. And uh as someone who's been taking a lot of dude a lot of heat on Twitter these days for uh not liking ETH for a while. I Yeah, I was. You you missed all this. Damn it. How do you How can you hate the dude? How can you hate the man? You know, I was like, okay, so I've been taking all these Ethaxis are like pile driving me into the into the Twitter, you know, the proverbial Twitter ground here. And um I went on a podcast like a couple weeks ago and was like I don't like ETH and I now you know now ETH is ripping and whatever. I would just remind people like now I'll just tell people now I

like ETH and yeah I didn't catch the absolute bottom on ETH. I didn't, you know, but uh there's a there's something that feels um crypto Twitter will tell you that you can't change your mind on anything and that you have to get these assets embedded into like your very bones and your DNA in your I will just remind people listening to this that you're allowed to change your mind all the time. And I now I now like ETH. I like Bitcoin even though at one point in the cycle I sold all all my ETH. So no, I I've actually warmed up to Bitcoin a lot. That's the first thing I buy.

Now now okay people that can't change your mind are like, do you really think that you're going to get it all right out of the gate? Wow, you are truly delusional. Like, get off your high horse and and constantly like, I don't understand this rigidity. Also, it's funny to me because the price of ETH is was similar like hadn't moved and they're telling me, you know, they're they're like, you know, getting on top of me and stuff like that. I'm like, you would have done much better if you just bought some soul or some hype and then Yeah, you like ETH, so now rotate your soul into ETH right now, you know. Yeah, you know, it's um I still Yeah, you can't win. I don't know. I'm really What else should we talk about on the public markets?

Let's talk. I have a I have a question for you. Um what is the likely Okay, the everyone now thinks four four-year cycle is over. That's like I think nar consensus right now is that four year cycle's over like the we're not playing in those four-ear cycle games anymore. Crypto is now main mainstream uh etc etc macro markets have ch macros changed and stuff like that. The contrarian thing is that the four-year cycle is extremely intact and that this cycle we are right now the market is ripping exactly when it should be ripping in a four-year cycle and that we top somewhere between November to December. Do you have any thoughts on that?

I I don't ascribe to this thing that the when up only narrative starts coming along just that's like topish that's you're entering to your point stage five or six or like and so look all of it is subject to M2 like you've se we've all seen the chart of M2 Bitcoin and the correlation around that so I ascribe to that I think it's just a flows game like people are willing the wealth creation effect of Bitcoin and the market then trickles down into higher risk stuff and And that has a reflexive loop and people push and the catch-up trades and like again I I like to study Howard Mars and I like to study Morgan Housels of the world which say one thing over and over and over is markets are are ultimately um dictated by human behavior and that is

super psychological and that never changes and people will push that to extremes and and are we at an extreme level yet? No. I think we're breaking out of uh you know, Bitcoin's entering new ground and Coinbase is just hitting all-time highs for the and and I think I think that this cycle still has legs. Um but you know, of course it the economy and macro plays into that. Yeah. and you know so so again uh I would I would uh I would like to think that this cycle and the drivers of continued like bid and interest in this industry are very different this time around like you have

a lot of institutions getting really excited and you know um you have we should talk about the stable coin the genius act I know we're recording a policy episode tomorrow let's get into that let's maybe pivot from market conversation into stable coins because there was a there were I mean there were a few big things this week. Before we go, can we a lot of the discussion last time with Rob who abandoned us in this podcast um was pump and the ICO and Rob said something effective like there's going to be huge disorderly like all the funds are going to sell and there's going to be a lot of um drama around it. I think we should just like spend a minute on just what ended up happening, what's been happening and uh cuz I think pump is sort of a pretty important um if you

want to understand everything else other than Bitcoin. This is like you always want to look at a new especially in this size it has implications around ICOs and how other projects launch and you have a whole pipeline of projects that are probably looking at this uh implications for Salana Bonk fun and other things right and future projects going to launch. Are they going to go via the exchange route or go through and launch uh on you know directly on chain? So I just want to spend a minute on that because I think it's pretty important what happens. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, there's two ways to look at this. So one is I'll just give an overview and then I'm curious to get your take. So so pump launched. I mean it is basically back to it its launch price from from what I can

see on this chart. Um it sold out in 12 minutes. Sold out in 12 minutes. Yeah, exactly. Actually this is more interesting to me. So by the way, it was 500 million raised. No, I think it was two. Was it 500? 250 or 500? Two. I thought it was I thought they Okay. I Here's what I think originally they originally wanted to raise a billion. They said that VCs were going to get 200 million and the public markets were going to get 800 million. What ended up happening though is that there was ridiculous VC demand. I think they raised about 750 from VCs and then they opened up another I don't know if they I actually don't know. I didn't participate in this, but another 250 million or something in the public markets, but um I I I definitely could be wrong about this. Blockworks put

together a bunch of data. It's free. If you just type in like Block Works Pump.f fun ICO data, you should find it. Um so we had 10,145 unique people participated in the ICO. The medium median price of uh pump tokens purchased was $530. the not the price, the the ticket size. Sorry, the ticket size. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Um uh 45% of the wallets were were created in the last 40 were created in the last 24 hours before the ICO. Another 40% of the wallets were 90 to 365 days old. Um I think that's kind of the

Yeah, buy bit drove the most. Then uh Binance. You mean Binance, right? Yeah, Binance. Then then Bybit. That's interesting. Radium, Sulfi, Jupiter's RFQ. But look, it was the largest one of the largest ICOs ever. Yeah. And it was done all entirely on chain. There was there were some like um raise that happened uh some of these distribution partners like centralized exchanges, right? But it was um like entirely process on chain. Mo most of it was which was Oh, I'm wrong. It was 446 million raised. You're right.

Yeah, it was like it was it was like 400 raised and that was sold out in 12 minutes. So like look clearly they sold out 275 million in one minute. Look at this just minutes post launch. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So this actually makes you think are we are I are IPO ICO IPO are people going to go public on chain in the future? Yeah, absolutely. I I think that's very much the case and this is just a a really interesting comp and I think other projects are observing. Um Simon from Moonrock had an interesting take around like you know uh praising the pump fun the pump team for um not you know quote unquote bending their knee to exchanges

uh as is hyperlquid. And you know I I think it it tells you everything you need to know about the cycle. um memecoin activity is is strong and hyperlquid is pretty impressive what they're pulling off. So yeah, it just uh yeah, but uh yeah, like look the the price is sort of stabilized sort of rangebound between 50 like what is it five and six billion fully diluted. Um it's so so there's I think I haven't seen onchain data but I think there's a lot of rotation a lot of as as we discussed in prior podcast like it feels like there's a lot of volume there's a lot of trading hands we'll see where it stabilizes but um you know do uh overunder do you think by next week because our producer uh

Jared was telling us about koshi and and how those micro markets and are what he's playing it you know he's he's betting on So a as is as is tradition all of our producers retire after a year because they become genius traders empire producers way these are like the the empire cubs so to speak. So Jared I hope you crush it. Um but I so so you have a market is pump uh greater like higher or lower in a week's time and by how much?

I mean, you're it's like, is it going to rain in six weeks? Like, is it going to rain in New York again on like August 1? I don't know. Okay. Okay. You're making me sound like an idiot. Uh, but okay. Like, maybe in in December's time. In December's time, is pump at 10 billion or two billion? Oh, man. I would guess we see some sort of sell-off at some point in the near in the next like 30 to 60 days. We see some sort of sell-off. I mean, if you're a VC who's struggled to book profits this this cycle, you got you got to take some you got to take some chips, right?

Even if it's just a 50% gain. So, that's like I will try to do the short-term betting here that you're that you're okay. Okay. Say different short-term short-term sell-off. Longer term, I think pump end pump ends up doing very well. What What do you think we see first? uh pump at 10 billion or pump at uh two billion and you're and right now it's what 5.4 or something. What what do you think we touch? Two billion or 10 billion? Two or 10? Uh right now for what it's worth for listeners that are not seeing the screen. 5.3 billion fully deed. I think we see two.

Okay. What what would what would make you change your mind of the bed? What type of odds would you want to see on 10? Um, if the price chart starts to look something like Hyperlquid did, which is when there's just no sellers, right? Like if you look at the Hyperlid original chart, like this thing just went up and then it it actually it went down. So, this is what I think will happen to pump. Like it'll it'll do well, but like it will go down, but then it look at this consolidation. It didn't it just floated all of January and February around 20 bucks.

Yeah. And this is just there are no sellers. You exhaust the sellers. So I think you have to go through a lot of that. But look, yeah, I I think Oh, sorry. Here this I didn't get to the end here. I was missing this part. This is what I was trying to say. This is what this is what I think will happen to Pump is like you do have to get through these sellers. Like there were people in Hype who were just like this is in in Hype's case it was the airdrop people, right? In Pump's case it's the VCs. Like people got to book profits and sell. That's a full three months right there. Yeah. Exactly. So that took three months. It went and it fell down to 11 bucks.

You know, April it was at 10 bucks and then it just, you know, steady climb up to 50. I think something similar happens to pump. Yeah. I don't I don't think we see it below two for what it's worth. You think two or 10 first? Uh well because we don't ever because we don't see it below two. You invariably do hit 10 first. But you know, I'm an investor. Yeah, I just I just think that I continue to hold my thesis that if if you're looking at this on like a comp to hyperlquid and the like they started doing buybacks now and and so if if you continue to see memecoin activity and you know the profitability continues to be there and the buybacks are there then I think I

think this hyperlquid is the most logical comp and hyperl 46 billion and pump at five is uh I think that's the opportunity This episode is brought to you by Geonet, the world's largest decentralized RTK network delivering realtime centimeter accurate positioning around the globe. Powering technologies that enable precise navigation for drones, autonomous vehicles, first responders, farmers, and robotics. Geodet shows that blockchain can be a truly transformative force. By delivering realtime centimeter level accuracy, Geodet enhances emergency response, boosts construction precision,

and enables advanced navigation for drones and surveyors far beyond the limits of standard GPS. To find out more, click the link in the show notes or follow them on X. Hey everyone, Jason here. Earlier in today's episode, you heard me mention the weekly CIO memo from Bitwise. In an industry as hectic, fast, and complex as ours, it's incredibly hard to get an easy, nononsense stream of what's actually moving crypto. The memo comes from Matt Hogan, Bitwise's chief investment officer. He's been on the show before, and he has this amazing ability to take the most complex topics and break them down with clarity. Trust me on this one.

The Bitwise weekly CIO memo is really worth the five minutes of your time. Check it out at bitweisinvestments.com/ciome/mpire or just hit the link in the description of today's episode to get started. Carefully consider the extreme risks associated with crypto before investing. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk terms and conditions apply. So, let's go back to markets. I I we could jump into stable coins, but this is like this is bull market episode.

We're not talking stables. I mean, we we we will in a second, but It was just but I mean it's funny right because a week ago two weeks ago everyone's talking stables and you know treasury strategies and you know you know real revenue and stuff like that. Now everyone's talking about like when are the alts going to run. So you mentioned like you know minute two of this episode you said uh for people who haven't seen it what happens is Bitcoin runs and then it starts to flow off. But what we actually saw last year was Bitcoin ran and then it skipped ETH. It skipped alts. It didn't go to NFTs. It went straight to the memecoins because everyone was trying to frontr run basically. They said we can just skip all the alts and go straight to memecoins. What do you think happens this time around? Do we have a more like

let's put a word on it. Let's like like a clean cycle like we rotate to ETH, then we rotate to soul and hype and then we go to the the L2 token or you know the alts and then we go to the NFTs and the memes. Uh what what do you think? Do you have any sort of sense of what happens? I I still think NFTs catch a bid and that's going to be late late in the game. There's a I mean Pudgy Penguins Pudgy Penguins are I mean I mean look how much has Pudgy Penguins up in the last like 30 days. I heard there's like Pudgy Penguins floor price. It's up like 120%.

Yeah, 150%. Oh, baby. Let's go. Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like look, it's up 2x. Look at uh you know the best performing crypto of the last 90 days. Pudgy Penguins is up 2x in the last 30 days. You know the best performing crypto I think is Pangu. Uh Pangu. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. But that's that's different. But I agree. Penu's up 500% in three months. Same as Hyperlid, right? Everyone's talking about Hyperlid, but Pangu is Hyperliquid's up 180%. No. Okay. Okay. So, Hyperlquid since since April, you just showed the chart is up 4x 10 since the absolute bottom. Yes. Is up 10 to almost 5x. Okay. Pangu Pangu is up.

Do you know what was that? Yeah. F 6x. That's what I'm saying. No, it's two billion 40 billion. Way different injection of liquidity. And so naturally like liquidity I think there's a direct correlation between between liquidity like the size of the asset and like how vocal people are. Um but you know again like every everything is pumping right? You're not a genius. Let me let me rephrase my let me rephrase my question. You've got you have to allocate right now. You can't buy Bitcoin ETH soul hype or Coinbase or Robin Hood.

Okay. What do you What do you buy? Yeah. All my bags. Insert bag number one. Insert insert bags. I'm just going to No. Uh, all right. What What do I not buy? Said differently. What do you not buy? I'm probably going to get a lot of criticism for this and I'm probably going to be terribly wrong, but deep end is just so out of favor and I just I'm I don't I don't think it on a relative basis, I don't think it outperforms. So, I'm not going to buy it. As much as I like it on a fundamental case, I just have a view on deepen, but I think structurally there's a whole set

of Okay, not just deepen by the way, it's companies where the market is like very focused on like this equity token distinction, right? Like Helium for instance, like the markets just structurally there's like an overhang. There's funds that bought at the top and are still selling and there's dynamics and I want to say like there is baggage from the prior cycle. Pango doesn't necessarily have that much baggage. Yeah, sure. It launched in December, right, of like a year and a half or a year. It launched in December of this of last year and so you don't have as much baggage from prior cycle.

Go look at a helium chart for a minute and do the max. And I can't explain it because fundamentally like it's getting a lot of traction in users, but Nova as a equity company, you know, is that's what I'm saying. So you you have it ain't pretty folks. You have you have a lot of so so Helium I'm not just picking on Helium. Helium is one where that chart is has some though in the last month it's up 50%. But I guess everything is but it's trailed right in the last month 50. What is Ethereum or Salana up in the last month? Maybe less. So Ethereum's up more than that.

Salana not so much I think. Let's see. ETH 37%. Do you think you're taking you're getting compensated appropriately by taking going farther out on the you're you're trading right? Do you get an extra 10% I I heard it from Brad from Ultimter. I like his framework. He says you have to think about how many incremental risk units are you taking and are you being compensated enough? Helium gave you 40 50% in the month. Ethereum gave you 37. How many did Salana give you? When you're making these le ultimately I I I I think like you have to think about if you're buying anything on top of an ecosystem, it's a levered bet, right?

That's maxer max 119,000%. Yeah. In the last month, Sal Ethereum's Yeah, we saw that 37%. Salana Soul. Yeah, Soul is I think similarly, maybe a bit less actually. No, I think Soul's probably less. Soul is less. Yeah. 18%. Okay. So that's sort of like what I'm not buying are perhaps tokens that have a lot of overhang from the prior cycle. And this is a very crude analysis because you have to look at fundamentals and whatnot. But perhaps if I were to just make you're putting me on the spot here.

I appreciate that. But um the DeFi ecosystem in Salana thematically is something that I like. Uh it's difficult because I have positions like everywhere, right? Um um it's a it's it's a tough question right because you have to is the revenue narrative like we are we are firmly like this is the first time in the like this we are firmly in a bull market no if ends or buts like I think there's been you could debate it are we in a bitcoin bull are we this is a full-blown crypto cycle bull market everything so does everything run does just right like a year ago it was like Bitcoin was

running maybe like the revenue coins were running things that were like real world things were run now I mean everything's going to run it's just what what runs more totally but look I'm going to customize this to show 30-day so I just filtered on Coin Gecko um like top 100 coins by market cap and looking at the 30-day and then filtered to show the ones that have performed the worst over the last 30 days. You have Sky, that's Maker down 8%. Fundamentals clearly don't matter there. You have then I see what you're doing here.

Athena flat. Oh no, that's USD. Sorry. Um you have virtuals which was you know flat basically. So the AI narrative maybe not so much. I mean it's went had a huge run up. the exchange tokens that's interesting like the exchange tokens are kind of flat okay even though this visa with UAE real that is is flat not as much filecoin up 10% I mean it's polka dot tron then hyperlid up 16% over the last 30 days what's gone up the most bonk and I think a large part of that is pangu bonk

Say is pumping. Is that probably a catch-up trade to Suie? Maybe. Stellar out of nowhere. And then Algarand Hideera. You got the dino coins. The dino. You know buy dude. Ripple. Just go on the record. I'm gonna buy Ripple. Do you own Ripple right now? No. But I would buy it. Yeah, it's it's it's a part of my portfolio where it is going to it is still synonymous with um with like DeFi again maker and Ripple one has actually you could argue real on a fundamental basis sky is actually pretty like let go call up the framework guys and and have them or Ben a pair

scream their bullcase for Sky. You know how many times like you know for years you could have like accept the name narrative and then you're sitting there and then Ripple just does its thing. I think taking a very By the way, hats off to Brad Garlinghouse. That guy's about to pull off the Well, but but by the way, now now it gets more interesting one or two like he bought Hidden Road and and he's actually like what one should be doing. is going to use a meme coin to buy acquire real businesses and compete at AOL AOL time. Now, now the question is as is he do you keep it as a perfect meme coin because there's also the the bare case

is that once you start showing fundamentals and revenue, everything collapses because people then focus No, you don't connect the revenue to the token ever. If you're if you're Ripple if you're Ripple, you never connect that. Okay. Okay. Smart smart. Are you an adviser to Ripple? what how you no um interesting yeah like look arbitrum's up 43% I think on the basis of like Robin Hood um so okay maybe let me ask you so so I I'm going to go on the record I would buy Ripple because it has you can throw in a lot of size the market likes it newbies like it and it's well understood and distribution and attention is king and I continue to think Ripple it's just

it's just one of those things it's a top free coin. Yeah. Like the what is it? What is the in what state of this world does Ripple not RIP and something else does? You know what I mean? Like there's just very few edge cases where I see like Ripple is going to catch a bid and then everything else also is catching going to catch bid. That's a dec. It's a levered bet and sorry folks, you're gonna hate me for it, but I Yeah, I don't hate it. I don't hate it. Um, what do you what do you do? I would like block works equity.

You can IPO IPO by the way. B token. Yeah, it's interesting. You see Coin Metric sold 100 million. Yeah, I was waiting I was waiting for you to say it. Yeah, talk about that in a little bit. But um I mean I Jared, if Janna says we're going to go offline and he's going to talk about it, make sure to keep keep the recording running. I I mean I still have a big fartcoin bag. I think that like I do. I do. This is not a serious industry.

Dude, you can't be longing XRP and then laughing at me for longing fartcoin. Like there's no way this cycle hot air rises. Hot air rises, dude. Honestly, can you buy Fartcoin on Robin Hood and Revolute and some of these platforms? I don't that's that's the other analysis I would be making is like which coins can you buy in the normie platforms and I think just making sure that like you have exposure to that, right? Yeah, that's interesting because like by the way Hyperlid is still not listed on I believe Coinbase and Binance. Is that right or am I speaking out?

Yeah, I think Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I don't get why hype isn't a buy if it's like can't you just buy on the fact that it's not listed on Coinbase or Binance yet? By the way, like you know how many people were pumping hood stock on the basis that it was going to get out of the S&P 500 because as soon as Coinbase got out to the S&P 500, it went up massively. Like it's a flows game. Like it's a distribu I keep going back and you're going to hear me say time and time again, distribution is king. And so that is the lens by which I picked uh Ripple. It has attention and distribution. It's listed everywhere and it's easy to buy to your friend that is getting ripped off 25%

god knows where to buy hyperlquid. I don't even want to know where it you mean it's challenging. Uh sky challenging to buy. So, you know, you got to you got to wonder like if if we're going to onboard another however many billions and billions of dollars and flows, new flows come into the space, where is that going to trickle into? Dude, I have I have an I have an app to shill. I'm not an investor or anything, but it's called it's called Loot Base. It's Say that again. It's called Loot Base. Loot base. L U T E.

L O T B. Oh, loot. Loot like loot. I see. I actually want to try to invest in these guys because it's like it is s it's the most addicting consumer. It's a it's built on it's a it's a Robin Hood UI on top of Hyperlquid. So look at this. Let's see if it's I don't know if you can see it, but it's this is this is the UI. It's a really nice UI and it tells you like a hundred a $100 20x long yesterday would now be worth 275 today. like and it uh I I actually went for I know people think I hate ETH, but I did a five and I never trade persp on ETH and uh it's like it's actually so

addicting. I now see why people like it. Per killer product. Yeah, it's a killer. Um, okay. So, it's even more addicting in your phone when you're like I mean Hyperlid pump now that that's sort of like sorry Hyperlid uh Phantom that partnership. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like this is um it's the f it's one of the first like crypto I don't know trading on Hyperl or trading on Phantom you still feel like you're using a crypto product like oh per with the UI of like a Robin Hood it's a dangerous thing. There's a great there's a great app that I invested in shill time called um Euphoria which is pretty cool built on me.

Should we are we just pumping are we just pumping investments right now? No, but it's it's a good it's a good trading experience like very much easy to understand and Nathan's a good builder and he had really understand what's it called? Euphoria. Euphoria. Yeah. Yeah. Euphoria. Yep. Yep. There's too many. There's a lot of euphoria. Euphoria crypto. Yeah. I thought I forgot. No, I can't even find it. But anyways, it's mobile. It's super easy to understand for normies and whatnot. I've got a question for you. So, uh for anyone who hasn't experienced like an allout rip your face out bull market, I find that the toughest thing is that everything is working. So, in the in the last couple years, your problem was where can I get a 5x return or where can I get a 10x return or where can I even

get a 2x return? And now the whole industry is a 3x return. So you need to really really really focus. Actually uh Dan Smith who's our head of data tweeted this this morning and it really resonated. He said first time of first stretch of time in four years it's truly felt like an all-out bull with a dozen things that you need to be giving 100% of your attention to. So how do you think about we've been talking about allocating money. How do you think about allocating time in this period? Overtrading is a thing and I think just assume that you're not going to time the top and work backwards from there and have parameters in place

to protect principle. Cash out and optimize for mental clarity to play this game forever because it really really sucks. If you can change your life, change your life. And everyone everyone in this industry asks you one thing. So when you discover crypto and they all want to get to the same thing of like did you did you make generational wealth and all this arbitrary numbers. I was talking to Ben from Pari last night about it. Um and um he said something that I think is is very true and he said in a way that it just crystalliz it so well and says it is incredible how much of a competitive advantage you have when you think in one or at least one or two years out which means I don't think the cycle persists for more than a year this is just

markets doing the thing if we continue on this pace where everything is starts ripping 50% month over month gravity at some coin takes it to flows dry up and the market corrects. So work backwards from there and say if you came in with $1,000 and you right now will be happy with five or 10, do it. Yeah. But also don't overtrade because a has depending on your jurisdiction has pretty material tax implications. And look, the Charlie mongers of the world say don't compute taxes into your equation. just you know like do whatever it is that you think is going to a protect your principle and then b never forget about rule A which is protect

your principle. Yeah. But um there is something to be said about like I the worst mistakes I've done is assuming that I'm going to tick the cycle. You're never going to do it. So I'm happy clocking 50% of the whatever the total return this cycle is going to deliver. Bitcoin has gone up from 20K to now 120. I mean, that's a 10x in Bitcoin, right? I mean, the low of Bitcoin was what, 20 25K, something like that. That's like an 8x. Yeah. Yeah. That that's massive.

So, are we topped? Have we topped? Probably not. Um because we continue to see new implos. And that's something that I'm monitoring. Like I'm just comfortable saying if my starting base was 100, I'm happy to clock a 50% return because I have 5x the S&P and that's what I should be getting for this type of asset class. And if venture delivers a 3x, you know what I mean? Like if the IR venture and private equity and other asset classes is X above the benchmark, which is markets, crypto because it's so far out on the risk spectrum should give me some multiple of that or some incremental margin on top of that.

Yeah. And I best if whatever I'm allocating now, it's like am I going to really outperform Bitcoin? Because I can tell you I've looked and invested in most or a lot of crypto funds. You know how many outperform Bitcoin? Uh like 10%. Yeah. Yeah. And so again, like don't overthink it. Yeah. Uh I I would I would just be wary of trying to catch traits, spreading yourself too thin, using leverage, apply, stay disciplined, stay in your lane, pick one or two, three things, and and and then like go from there. But like the reality is like it would really I I think the the biggest regrets that I've

if I survey like 100 people it's like [ __ ] man I discovered Bitcoin and Ethereum back in the day and I should have just stuck with it and there I was trading [ __ ] coins and then I lost you got to pick on people in Alabama. [ __ ] man. [ __ ] You telling me? No, man. I I I just Yeah. like 5 years, 10 years time, you'd best believe this house is going to be an order of magnitude higher. Yeah, I wouldn't overthink it too much. Uh I the the real I'm now working backwards.

Of the top 100 coins, which ones do you ascribe highest probability of surviving over the next 5 10 years? Start there. Yeah. Uh because I Yeah, I there's some staying power like Ripple probably. Bitcoin probably, Ethereum, I don't know. Yeah, let's pivot. Yeah. Okay, you've had enough of this rant. M&A. Let's skip stable coins. We've done too much stable. We've had two years other than tomorrow's going to be an episode we're going to record on the policy and it's going to cover the Genius Act, which is really really important.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll skip. So, there's three big policy initiatives. I mean, this is this is DC. This is DC week, crypto week in DC. Not even dubbed, by the way, not dubbed by crypto people. Dubbed by policy makers in DC. Um, this is a Yeah, crypto week in DC right now. There's a bunch of big stuff. Um, actually, I just got a text saying uh something big is happening right now. Vote vote is happening. They did a verbal vote this morning. Chair said the yeses have it, but then Maxine Waters got a postpone postponement. They're back to debate now. This would be the vote on the final passage. So, when you're listening to this Friday morning, we will be late. A bunch of stuff will have happened this afternoon, but we're going to do a really good recap with the uh V uh VP of policy at Paradigm as well

as Rebecca Redig are joining tomorrow morning and then that episode will be out on Monday to give you a full recap. Mantle is pioneering the blockchain for banking, a bold new category combining traditional finance with the power of web 3. With UR, the world's first onchain money app, users can manage fiat and crypto side by side using a Swiss IBON account in Euro, US dollar, Swiss Frank, and RMBB, all posted to the blockchain. Backed by the Mantle network, UR is the access layer that unlocks a purpose-built vertical platform for onchain payments, trading, and asset protocols, including ME, TH, MI4, and functions FBTC.

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Citria is currently on testnet and approaching mainet. To follow their progress, click the link in the show notes or follow them on X at Citria_XYZ. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk, terms, and conditions apply. S, do you want to talk stable coins or you want to talk M&A? M&A. M&A. Um, I mean, coins. Yeah, I mean, other than what? Well, you sent me a thing. Banks. Uh, let's let's skip that for our now resident uh host Rob to talk about that next week. I think it's evolving. But obviously, we can link that to the show notes, but let's talk about

So, Talos acquired um there's two two deals this week that were interesting. One was uh Ono Finance. Ono, like an L1 for RWAS, uh, acquired Strange Love, who is behind, they're like the labs entity, I think, of a lot of stuff that happens in Cosmos. Um, so that was that was actually pretty. We had Jack Samplin uh, exactly on the pod. That's him, right? But this one's way more interesting and way more relevant to Blockworks and I was I paid very close attention to it, which is that Talos acquired Coin Metrics in a $und00 million deal. Um, uh, Coin Metrics was started by, uh, Nick Carter as well as, uh, Jacob Jacob, what's his last name?

Fa, one of the founders of Alliance. Yeah. And and then was, um, Matt Walsh involved in that, too? Maybe. I think so. I don't know. Um, but anyways, Coin Metrics has been around for a very long time. There, you know, if you pull up CNBC and you look at uh, you know, the prices of on CNBC, it's Coin Metrics data. Um they are the they are in the same bucket as their two main competitors are Kao and Amber Data. Um and yeah so congrats to the Coin Metrics team. They had raised about 60 or 70 million and this acquisition is for 100 million. Um so I'm not sure if it was a good or bad outcome for the team but yeah either either way big uh congrats

to the Coin Metrics team. What do you what do you think about this? Uh yeah very interesting. I mean I think clearly the appetite for traditional companies to get on the space and add coverage and uh you know as the space becomes more institutional I think there's a very clear understanding that people are sprint I re this as legacy players are sprinting to get smarter and staff up and build a practice around crypto and so I think that's thematically going to be one of the areas of big M&A activity um information services companies that are facilitating legacy companies to build a practice.

So, you know, this could also include chain analysis of the world, um, data analytics companies, um, all of that. If you think about if you're a legacy business that wants to serve their client base, you want to have really good access. And the reality is like this, the information services space that covers crypto is still, you know, evolving and in the early days. So um but there's you know players like Coin Metrics obviously you guys um and others that are have built really interesting um indexing reporting data analytics platforms and you can clearly see what Talos is doing here by the way. So, Talos is a

institutional trading platform backed by City. What's that? Backed by City, right? I didn't know that, but that's that sounds right. That sounds right. Very institutional business. Um, yeah. Okay. Backed by BNY, City, Coinbase Ventures, Castle Island, uh, Fidelity, Galaxy, Wells Fargo, General Atlantic, Andre. Um, yeah. Big big institutional trading platform. I think they compete. I don't know who they compete with actually, but maybe Paradigm, not Paradigm the VC, but Paradigm the the platform. I actually don't know who they compete with, but um yeah, their their their customers are like OTC desks, brokerages, asset managers, banks, hedge funds, things like that. So, yeah, bringing data

inhouse is interesting, I will say. So, the so the business model of coin metrics is interesting. what you're seeing right now on the data side just because we kind of live in this world is that uh there are different layers of the stack of data and for any founders who listen to the show uh I think it's really important to think about what layer of the stack you're going to play at and the lower you are in the stack I think people look at uh the the L1 premium and they say oh it makes it I really want to be at the infrastructure st layer of the stack or they look at AWS in Azure and they say I really want to be at the bottom of the stack because everything that's built on top of me I value give value from data is a little

different different and I think a lot of other verticals are different as well. So data there's um I broadly bucket it is three layers of that stack. There's storage, there's storing the data, serving the data and processing the data. Storing the data is like data warehousing and things like that. Serving is like streaming the data, APIs, um stuff like that. And then processing the data would be like analytics, uh insights, model training, um helping users take actions on top of that data. Coin Metrics sits at the serving the data part of the stack, which has become a bit of a it's a it's a tough business model to be in the the the API for data uh the the API space right now for a lot

of these data players. So, we'll I it'll be interesting to see what what what happens with the rest of these data companies. M&A was a big category that we had. It's early, you know, I think we're a bit early to it. We were calling at one point that Coinbase was going to get acquired when it was like at an all-time low of like 2030 bucks. Um, lo and behold, it's now 400. No, I didn't say they would get acquired. I said they would acquire a bank. Coinbase? No, I I said that someone in my prediction two years ago, like when Coinbase was at an all-time low, I said someone should actually acquire Coinbase. Um, it was like at a at a problem with that is they just no one has the balls to do that at the back then. Yeah, it was it was it was

political sepico. I get um I'm curious now who do you think you know I think this M&A trend is going to continue to M&A and IPO trend is going to continue. Yeah. Who is the next company that IPOs? Who's the next company that gets acquired? Or or if you don't want to name a particular one in what sector or like type of company? Um okay. Well, we've got I mean the IPOs are obvious because they're they they kind of announce, right? You've got I think the ones to pay attention to are like bullish. Wait, let me see if these guys have announced yet.

Yeah, they just announced. Okay, I can uh figure um figure just announced today or yesterday they're targeting a5 to10 billion IPO. That's Mike Kagny's firm um who used to run SoFi. Uh Gemini obviously is thinking about it. Um we have the CEO of Kraken Arjun is going to come on the podcast next month talk about some of their IPO plans. Um, so yeah, I'd be looking at those. On the acquisition side, I mean, uh, I think other companies in the data space, people that Block Works competes with, I think, are going to end up selling.

What do you think? I can't I we've looked at a few of these. I I don't want to share too much, but yeah, we've looked at interesting. Um, I mean, there just tons of like small teams, right? like coin that maybe doesn't really make headlines as much. So like Coinbase acquisition block works like this like Coinbase acquired open's leadership team. Oh, you can't see. Yeah, that's I remember open. It was backed by like paradigm I think at one point options.

Yeah. So this is like options. It's like it's basically like unis swap for options is how I think about it is like the really dumb way to think about it. But yeah, hires are all the race now. There's tons of these types of acquisitions happening. Yeah. I mean, we're looking at a few of these. There's like a bunch of data data platforms who have like three people or seven people or five people. They have like one to two million AR. Like those are those are good deals. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I would say that's generally true. If you're a if you're a team that like raised money two, three, four, even five years ago and haven't really showed much in the way of revenue, but still have built something interesting, then I think you're going to get acquired. If you're a founder that wants to go build

something again, like think about it's almost more of a reputation game, too. Like, can you say that you exited and get a good exit? Can you can you basically have a successful exit and instead of shutting down your company? And I think a lot of these these founders, that's actually the better move. So, yeah. Yep. Yeah. What else? I know we're bumping up on the hour here, but um what else should we cover? Uh the fun drama of the week was Rob Leer. Oh, yeah. liquor. Lesser bought a liquor company that was trading at like a million dollar market cap or two I think it was trading at a $2 million market cap. He put a million bucks in. Oh, LQR House YHC. Let's see how this thing's trading right now. Oh.

Oh, no. Pump. It pumped and then went down. So, Le So, this is pretty funny. So, Lesner, so LQR House, the ticker is YHC is an e-commerce Oh, there you can't see it. There you go. is an e-commerce liquid retailer and marketplace that sells a bunch of premium liquor products um through their website which is cwspirits.com. So Leshner, this is an incredible move on his interactive brokers account. He didn't use a banker or anything like this. He just went on his interactive brokers account and bought a 57% cons controlling stake for as two million not one million for $2 million. And um he said uh he he then tweeted he said, "I bought a controlling stake in YHC, a

low market cap liquor company with a somewhat shady history. My plan is to replace the board, clean house, and explore strategic alternatives. I have not done extensive diligence. Uh there are signs the company's up to no good. I will sort them out, but please be extremely careful with any low cap mark low market cap companies. I might lose all my investment and you might too." So then LQR turns around and they launch an at the market share sale to try to dilute Lashner's majority. Um so they're basically just I mean they're going to drive the price down, but they're just unlocking a bunch of new shares to try to dilute dilute Lner.

So this is a fun this is a fun game to watch. It truly is. It's a memecoin. Memecoin of his GameStop. I think people are going to pump this thing to I don't own any but pump this to Valhalla. every I mean like I don't want to see Les. Yeah, Marcus has just become so you know their games, right? Their entertainment less so than just like boring uh places where historically old people like park their wealth and like didn't do much. Now it's just pure entertainment. It's like live streaming the [ __ ] you know? It's crazy. Yeah, that's what it is. People again, you and I said it and I've said it before, you said it in last episode. It's it's a loneliness epidemic. And if you understand that and that that being a pretty big problem, then it explains a

lot of the phenomenon you're seeing. Yeah. There's an article I have teed up to read, which is you're not recommending content you haven't read. I see how it is. Oh, yeah. This is my content wreck. I haven't even read it. It's called Long Degeneracy by by Jez. Um, so I don't know if you know Je I think I think Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So um I guess I don't I don't know if he's doxed or not, but we can we can just call him Jez. Um, long degeneracy, hyper gambling is going to eat the eat the world. Um, so I have this queued up to read. He's a good writer. Entertaining.

Nice. Yeah, that's it. I mean, we're all Oh, I have a content wreck. Let's get into the content wrecks. My content wreck is not this long degeneracy piece, but I mean, people could read it if they want to. Um, it is uh the John Adams TV show on HBO. Okay. If you're into if you're into history and like American Revolution stuff, John Adams TV show on HBO. It's a good one. Who plays it? Is it the What's his name? Uh the I don't know. I don't know. I know. I've seen the show. It's It's kind of old, man.

Um Yeah. Yeah, I've seen this. Yeah. It's um Who plays him? He's the chubby guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's a guy to billions, too. The prosecutor. Yeah. Yeah. Attorney General, what's his name? Pauli. Apologia. Great actor. He always plays the same role. I like it. Yeah. Speaking of um we haven't talked about Sue in a while. She was uh she was I was in New York last week. Then she went to the Jackson Hole and it reminded me of a great show which I really like called uh Yellowstone. And so folks haven't seen it. I think it's the least interesting recommendation.

Excuse me. Everyone's seen Yellowstone. Okay. But it doesn't make it the less interesting. It's like everyone years ago. My recommendation is interesting because it's from like 2008 or something like that. So people have long forgotten about it. But yours is yours is like two years ago. Okay. This whole rig roll makes absolut It's okay. This is falling unsaid. It's a good content. It's good. It is good content. It is good content. You know, I'm star for content. Did you watch the sequels like 1913 or 198 or something? No, those are sequels to Yellowstone. I saw there's multiple seasons. I didn't see sequel. Oh, no. It's a prequel.

There's pre Yeah, prequels. Uh 1923 is a prequel and then they go even farther back and it's 1883. It follows the Dutton family's journey to Montana. Interesting. Okay. I don't have any time for TV. I don't think I've ever turned my TV. I was I was thinking about putting a TV. I'm I'm I'm like redoing the office and uh I'm I was thinking of putting a TV on. I'm like you're flipping stuff, right? I flipped it. So before you saw that that was like the background on the script. So now you see this.

But you're gonna I'm going to change the book the bookcase behind me. Nice. Yeah. But I was thinking, you know, we were supposed to tell people what were on the books at the office. I'm bringing uh more books. These are just like I usually now read everything on my Kindle, but I have the Harry Potter. These are really good. They're just illustrated versions. They're not Sorry. I do have another content recommendation. I went to the acquired, you know, the the Everyone was there in uh Yeah, I know. I know. It was funny. I got there. There's like a line around the corner. It was a Radio City Music Hall and 6,000 people showed up to this thing. There's a line. It was like the most homogeneous audience I've ever seen. It was like a bunch of like all the bros are there. 34year-old like wannabe founder energy with like

wannabe founder. Yes. So it was so funny. But it was actually I mean they did an amazing job. 10 out of 10. Um they had Jamie Diamond. Yeah. Was sponsored by Japan payment. So yeah Meredith um I forget her last name. The CEO of New York Times and then Barry Diller. I was it was interesting because I was saying I just finished Barry Diller's book and um which people should read called um who knew interesting interesting if you liked like the 70s 80s 90s in media um Barry Diller is an absolute beast but yeah I would recommend I don't think the Barry Diller and the Meredith interviews are worth listening to but the Jaime Diamond interview is phenomenal.

Speaking of Cable Cowboys, great book and the founders episode on it. John Malone, fantastic book if you're interested in media. Um, John Malone at one point in time in the 80s was acquiring a company every 10 to 14 days for like two years straight. That's crazy. Uh, do you ever think we would uh ever be uh in a position to have an acquired type of uh inerson live podcast? I mean, we do it in the conferences and it's like we've tried doing Empire meetups the last two years and you didn't show up to either of them. You're in a mood to publicly shame.

I don't got any, man. I'm tired. I didn't sleep much last night. I'm tired. Yes, we should do that. We should do that. I mean, if if and that's when you'll know you'll sell like if if 10,000 people line up around. Yeah. Sell it all. Yeah. Just sell it all, you know. Cool. But um All right. All right. By the way, by the way, one thing is on top of mind are where are we in the podcast rankings in the crypto podcast rankings? Unfortunately, just we comp ourselves to crypto still. Yeah, I know. We are unfortunately sitting at number three.

Excuse me. Yeah, I think I think Unchained I think Unchained passed us because they uh they've got these two shows inside of it. Chopping block and Bits and Bips. Okay. Okay. So, they've got a few shows in one. Fair enough. But we got to pump the numbers. Yeah. Yeah. And then who's second? Bank. Bank list numbers are are moving now that ETH is moving. Now that is now that is moving. We have to be like hyper liquid aligned or something. Well, it's tough because all the all the big a lot of the big shows in crypto have been around have been around price action, but have been around actually like uh communities that form around coins. like uh at one point in time the biggest show in the industry was Peter McCormack what Bitcoin did

Bitcoin show and bank ETH show. So um we will stay true to our holistic reporting of this industry and uh yeah I I guess uh we're going to be shaking up a little bit of the content uh coming up and adding more spice to it. I guess all right folks that's the show. Have a great Friday. Great Saturday. We will see you guys on Monday. We have a really good recap uh of DC week in uh crypto week in DC. All right, folks. Have a great weekend. Thanks for listening.