Claude Code, Stablecoin Adoption, and 2026 Trends | Weekly Roundup

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I think we're going to continue to see this sort of existential kind of hollowing out of the middle in and crypto venture. Uh and we're going to see more of the things that work get gobbled up by, you know, the generalist investors. The crypto VCs are going to have to figure out how to adapt to that. >> 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 Blockworks team may hold positions in the companies, funds or projects discussed.

Welcome back everyone. I do exist. Sorry I missed the first pod. I heard ratings were pretty good, but Nikita Beer crushed crypto Twitter. So, I don't even know why we're recording, Rob. Even if we're >> He can't crush the pod, though. He cannot crush the pod no matter what he tries. >> We're going to have to go direct to our listeners. And uh but yeah, man. I I feel like uh I mean, Kaido, obviously, we should talk about that, but I don't know if it's because I'm tweeting less or my tweets are less relevant, but I am getting very little engagement. Um, and my timeline is just not cryptoreated at all. Like I'm seeing more Warren Buffett and AI and cloud work and stuff like that. But is that true with you, Rob,

too? My my experience with Twitter's totally changed. >> So, well, it's different for you than it is for me, too, because you've got like what 150,000 followers, right? And you know, your engagement is like some level much much much higher than mine, right? But you should you should track it as like followers to engagement. That's when you know people bought a lot of followers. I >> think you get pretty good engagement. >> Did you buy a bunch of followers? >> No, not at all. I didn't even do the the pump hack of like follow unfollow. You know what I mean? Like that was like a a thing back in the day.

>> There was this hack where you could like follow a bunch of people and then unfollow them so that once you follow them, people would follow you back. So that was like a growth hack back in the day, but I I I've not done any of that. Got it. Okay. Well, I have not done that either. Apparently, I need to learn more about how to, you know, grow my my follower accounts. I got I got a measly like like under 15,000. So, you know, measly like 10% of you >> prediction of the year that goes to 30. >> That's your prediction of the year. >> Unless markets nuke and like there's no sentiment. Uh but that that grows a decent amount, I would say.

>> All right, let's go. All right, you got to follow me. Um, no. So, uh, but I will I will tell you, so I mean it makes sense that everything is AI right now. Like that is just like generally true, right? Like AI is like eating everything. I mean um I don't know if you've used cloud code, but like >> I earmarked a bunch of time this weekend to play around with it. Have you? >> Uh yeah. Yeah. So, we're we're playing around with it a little bit at the firm and it's the first time where I mean you've seen a bunch of people tweet about this, but you don't have to be technical at all and you can like build something that you know is really works and you know it's not you're not going to build the most complicated thing in the world, but you can take you know

what would take a software engineer a week or two and you can do it on your own uh in an afternoon uh with cloud code and not be technical at all. Right? Like the world of software engineering has completely been upended and changed with clockout and you know we we've talked a lot about cursor and and maybe not on this pod but you know more generally and these things are obviously being used like very broadly by engineers. Cloud is the first time that you can be a normal person you and I never done any software engineering and you can build something that's really cool. Um, and so like that is my, you know, my expectation is like that is going to like eat a lot of the

conversation because it it it should absolutely. Um, and then I think Warren Buffett is just because you uh you're in your, you know, fundamental like, you know, value investor, you know, era right now. This is we should like superimpose Warren Buffett's face on top of you in the next uh the next empire. >> All right. Well, I miss for price of sales. Insert Patagonia vest meme. Here's here's a little price of sales for you everyone out there. You didn't think you didn't think I was done with this, right? Uh look at this. Talk about cloud work and what AI is doing.

Uh this is you're seeing for anyone listening, this is a chunk 2021 to to today multiples price to sales for uh SAS company software as a service. Um you know you have Salesforce and Adobe and HubSpot and Octa and Workday. some of the best sales like back in the day there were darlings that multiple gone crushed since like you could draw a line of when open AAI like started and like when it really accelerated and multiple is now back in the day it was like over 30 35 times price of sales >> it's down to five I'm paying attention to that I think uh I think there's some some value there potentially um but I've

also heard heard a lot of companies like on renewal saying, "Wait a minute, they're trying to jack up price, not worth it." Um, when cloud is, you know, I don't know, like what is it? Manis is like 40 bucks per month per user. It's like a bargain in my opinion. But yeah, this is pretty crushing. By the way, this went from 40 to five. Who knows where it goes from here. As a gentle reminder, crypto price to sales for most networks are in the hundreds range. Maybe maybe 60. is like like bargain levels. But I'll leave it at that. Interesting observation on cloud work. How are you um what would you prototype? Like I'm curious like maybe we should save this for another episode.

But I'm actually really excited because I'm not technical, but I do have a lot of ideas and like I talk to my engineers and be like, "Hey, I want you to build this. Uh this is like how a financial product would look like for a company we acquire. Like go and show me a demo." And now like you and I can do a demo. >> Yeah. >> It's great. a demo would have taken I don't know six weeks or four weeks to do. Now it's like a day less. >> We It's It's actually crazy. We We've been doing some like little stuff like you know just managing and automating certain workflows like being able to take you know all of my notes from some calls and you know build a you know kind of a really interesting like CRM and um digging out like tidbits that maybe I

wouldn't get otherwise. We've done some stuff around like an actual pretty um interesting tracker of like our deployment pace and our categories around our deployment and you know some some different things and no longer do we need a software engineer to do it. We we have software engineers here. I mean uh both AE and and uh and Tom have have coded in the past. Um, but we like now I can do this stuff, right? And you talked to the guys at Enthropic and like they're I I heard this from somebody else, not from gentleman directly at Anthropic, but that the one of the engineers anthropic was saying now 100% of the code on claude was being written by claude right?

>> Cloud work was built in 10 days, 100% by cloud. Claude, >> yeah, it's it's crazy, right? Um you and I talk about hiring at the board level. >> I will say like we are obviously paying for these tools which I think are bargain because we get so much productivity and everyone on the team is like you need to be an expert on this. You need to be on top of it because you get so much value. But I I I think we're it does beg the question of like I've always like in my venture investments and talking at founders, they always will tell you that they have one or two when things get tight and they need to cut budget and they need to cut staff unfortunately. They'll say like there's always that one or two engineers that

they're like we just cannot let these guys go. Like they're 10x engineers and I'm like well why didn't you just hire 10x engineers? Right. Um, but you know, I think uh it really forces the question like I don't know if you're seeing it across your portfolio, but what is what is the pace of hiring look like from here and how do you think about like building teams? Because before that it it would have been like a very important thing that you would discuss like hey you need to have like this organizational structure to support the backbone of a company and typically this is what you know these functions that you need to fail.

I can tell you from my perspective like we're lean and mean and I don't necessarily you know there's certain roles that we're not needing now for us at least. Are you are you seeing that in your in your portfolio? >> Yeah. Yeah. So one of the qu I mean one of the questions I ask uh all of the founders now is you know not you know really early but as you know we talk about series A and series B series C is you know how how many of your commits are at least AI assisted right at this point it should be close to 100%. Right it shouldn't be shouldn't be far off from that for you know people that are generally you know uh just software companies. It's always been true in crypto that especially on the open

source protocol stage, you just needed less employees, right? Like there was the that um the type of software engineering here did not require you to have, you know, a huge organization, right? Um and so that's coming down even further for sure. Uh and now we're seeing this happen in, you know, traditional SAS, we're seeing this happen in, you know, uh across AI. There's a lot of hand ringing right now and I I don't invest in the space so I'm not as deep as as maybe I should be but there's a lot hand ringing right now about the fact that potentially there's you know all of these organizations organizations are spending a bunch of money on you know Microsoft co-pilot and a bunch of AI tools and then they're

like not using it nobody's using it like appropriately and so there probably won't be all these re-ups and so we're a little ahead of ourselves but it sort of feels to me like the pace of change the pace of additional productivity is outpacing like anything to do with um you know hey this this you know piece of Microsoft copilot or whatever doesn't work very well it's just going to get good enough that that won't matter and companies will keep spending money on it but yeah um it it should be changing the way every single person is doing work >> totally I always tell people you're not going to get fired >> by an AI you will get fired by someone you'll be repl you won't be replaced by AI you'll be replaced by someone that really knows how to use AI

Um I am one other thing that I was thinking about is like every time like there's like a race right in AI going on like every LLM like from Chad Manis all these companies and I feel like it's it's having like this creative destruction in real time where like I have kind of sympathy. I think about like venture funds investing in AI. Like how many of them have like portfolio companies of their theirs have gone to like zero because they were rappers and all of a sudden like Chad GBT enabled that functionality and you're kind of cooked at that point. It really begs the question of like what is the moat for certainly like existing businesses like Workday and Salesforce and um HubSpot

and what is the mode for like on the venture side? Um maybe the question relevant for the audience is like how does that impact like crypto? I could tell you from my standpoint there's like five or six portfolio companies of mine that I invested in that were like doing automated like threat detection on smart contracts. Now I think there's like a larger player traditional player coming into the space and I forget who it was. it was quite notable and I was like okay well you could almost see the writing on the wall for that type of very niche specific company. Um but it is it is chaotic. I do wonder like if you're if you're what what's going to be the performance of these AI focused venture funds that made a lot of investments and maybe the better the

better investment would have been just like punt the S&P. Well, I I will tell you I bought um I don't trade a lot of equities. I'm usually just like kind of long ETFs generally. Uh the thing that I actually bought today for the first time and this is the first like kind of sector specific ETF I bought in size for a long time. Uh and it was SHLD uh which is the like it's the uh defense technology defense technology ETF because I I really think there's like two things there's like three things to go along right now which is um innovation in crypto innovation in uh in um you know AI and um seems like global unrest.

>> Yeah, those those are the things to be along right now unfortunately. >> God damn it, Rob. We're just starting the year. You can't. You're all you you quoted you tweeted me about there's something about your prediction for the year is all positive and you're calling me a bear and all of a sudden you're telling us you're the world's >> positive and crypto. >> Yeah. Um >> crypto AI and defense >> but even even then like so I I'll tell you I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last couple weeks. Uh I read like just a ton of books on like really off of social media. I don't think I'll ever come like I'm tweeting way less or just reading more and just focusing on what I'm doing. Um, it's crazy to like read like historical anecdotes. I'm like I read like the guy that ran the banana trade,

Ted Turner, like Boon Pickins, like all these guys across different centuries and eras and sectors. Uh, I read this really good book of Zam Cell that I've talked about in the pod and they all kind of say the same thing of like you really need to deconstruct an investment thesis with supply and demand. And I tell the analysts seems like if you don't understand supply and demand, the curves and shocks and what can really then you haven't really understood a company really well. Um the reason I bring it up is like this creative destruction is very real in the supply side. Uh like the demand side for AI is like super strong. The demand for crypto is you could argue tied to macro and other stuff. Uh but it's growing. So like I feel like most people don't disagree like the demand the aperture of

crypto is growing. Stable coins are going to grow. So that demand is super strong. Like you can you can underwrite a hockey stick of of stable coin growth as an example and you've been very vocal about that. But really I think where you make most amount of money is if you really understand the supply the the supply curve like what is how how inelastic is it? Maybe a company has a different slope than a than a an in like a a disruptor. Um, so I I I like now I'm of the mind that like supply is the most important thing to understand for you to make money because the demand is fairly easy to underwrite as stable coins as an example, you know. Um, like for instance, for inance rain, right? like what does Ry curve look like

>> because I think that forces what is the moat of that business in a world where everyone will want to kind of >> play a part in that and you have legacy players that have some sort of business that can eat into that and and I I mentioned Rain because it just obviously raised a great round. You guys are investors like one of the fastest growing companies in crypto you've been talking about constantly on the pot. Yeah, listen, I think you're you're right. We're um I'm I'm speaking at a leadership summit for one of the largest asset managers in the world next week around like broadly what like stable coins and tokenization are doing to their business and what that could could mean. And I bring that up because I think a theme that I'm going to have in

that conversation and a theme that I've that's been around more broadly, we've been talking about it a little bit also on the uh prediction market side is that there is so much demand for new novel financial product, new asset management, new wealth management, stable coins. Um there's so much demand for prediction markets, right? And it seems time and again that for these things that don't necessarily have really deep moes in terms of the tech or really deep moes in terms of you know some sort of like regulatory moat as well which are also are going away that a lot of these

things are are more and more than than I've had in probably my entire advice career. It's really just been about like how do you distribute who what is the top of funnel? What is your aperture to bring people um into your product? And Rain's a very interesting story because I I think I agree with you that there are very few businesses that I look at today where I I say nobody else is doing this and will be able to do this in the near term uh and anyway as effective as this company. And so they have a quote unquote supply mo to your point, right?

Rain is kind of that company and and we can talk about like you know where there are others in crypto but on the prediction market sides like obviously a lot of people can launch prediction markets. Koshi and Poly Market are by far and away the biggest um they have you know I would say a head start but they wouldn't have what I would say kind of an indefensible moat. Rain in on the other hand has kind of this full package of like the best tech. they have the um regulatory mode in terms of having their their MTLS only a few people have that um and as well as their um some of their international relationships and uh and kind of regulatory licensing as well as this you know kind of preferred principal member relationship with Visa which is very hard to get and you bring

those three things together and they have like a head start that essentially nobody can uh in the market can compete with at the moment. you see Bridge and Stripe have been trying to launch a product for a year that you know still they haven't really been able to and it doesn't really work. Um, and because of that, because of the fact that they are essentially, you know, it's not a sustainable long-term monopoly, but this kind of short-term monopoly, um, they've just eaten the entire market. And they've grown by, I mean, I think they publicly announced that they've grown over 40x on the year. I can tell you in the 15 month frame, it's actually a big much bigger multiple than that. And they've because of that they raised in you know over the last year they they

raised over you know $330 million right uh from a company that was you know call it a million dollars of revenue uh 15 16 months ago. >> Yeah. >> And it's incredible story incredible business incredible founders. Charles and Farooq are awesome. And I think the um Jason's actually doing a pod with them uh next week. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I met him at the Avalanche uh summit which is a small gathering you were part of too. And we actually have talked to them a lot. And when I think about like using stable coins in a way that consumers can use them, like not just hold them to speculate uh and trade in out of pairs, it's very much a Visa card that and when I find myself explaining how do you use stable coins in a traditional business, it's always

you close that loop by saying people can receive dollars in a wallet and then spend them dayto-day. And that was I think one of the missing pieces that was needed to really stimulate the demand for stable coins. Um so I'm actually very excited to you know we we think about that a lot. What is for anyone that just is kind of waking up to rain like what is what is they double clicking on the the mo like they have a partnership with Visa right? >> Yep. >> And >> so they're principal member so they do their own issuing so they don't need a bank. So so the way your credit cards typically work you have an AMX. A MX is the bank. They're the issuer bank. Um, and they're also the issuer processor.

If you have a uh say a Visa or Mastercard otherwise, usually it's a Chase, you know, Visa, right? Or it's a some other bank. And like this is true for for Bridge like Lead Bank is their issuer. So Brid works with lead to to do that. And so there's, you know, different people in the value chain that has you have to the fund flows work a little bit differently, the way the economics work a little bit differently. Rain it because they're a principal member with Visa in the places where they are the direct issuer which is not always true with all of their customers but in the places that they are um they hold like almost 100% of these call like interchange economics that would go to maybe different counterparties and that they control or the customer can control

in some cases they have managed and unmanaged but they can control 100% of the way the fund flows and you don't have maybe an extra you know quote unquote bankop it's just their entities um specifically and so They then settle with Visa in stable coins. Visa's doing I mean we talked about this but you know Visa announced that they were doing you know um $3 billion of annualized direct stable coin settlement. I think that's going to grow um you know tremendously this year. Uh and >> billion you said 30 billion I believe I said maybe 10 but >> uh I said 100 billion.

>> Oh you said 100 billion. That's right. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I I think it's going I think it's going you know way higher. So >> what um why maybe the uh layman question here is why wouldn't Visa do this directly? >> Well, Visa doesn't issue its own cards ever with anybody, right? And why don't they do that? Because like they're the network. The idea around Visa, right, is that they take all of these issuers and all of these issuers have to use Visa to for authorization and for um essentially like the passing of information around um KYC and then use it in their network to settle from like the issuer to the acquirer, right? And so they want

everybody to use their rails because but they don't want to compete with, you know, the issuers themselves, right? because they want all the issuers to want to use Visa. >> Now, it's a little bit interesting because um Visa direct is the fastest growing part of their business today at least in terms of the transaction volume. So uh their services business is growing faster but on the transaction side Visa direct is the fastest growing part and Visa direct is their call it like alternative um off like the traditional rails system where and they actually just announced a a deal with BVNK where they can do these kind of like direct payouts through Visa Direct in a lot of the Visa Direct business in like emerging markets not through their

traditional network rails. Um uh and so they're they're really what it seems like Visa is doing is they're futurep proofing themselves a little bit because they see that a lot of fund flows are moving off traditional bank rails correspondent um bank flows especially for cross border are are getting um are getting eaten away at and so they're saying okay well we want to have these call it you know stable coin direct settlement with somebody like a uh like a rain and then we also want to do visa direct which is you know off our traditional uh network flows. >> Yeah. Where is most of the growth from Rain coming from?

>> So for them it's uh they don't actually have a lot of customer concentration. They have a just a lot of customers. So they announced publicly they have 200 C over 200 customers at this point. Uh people that are you know and it by the way it doesn't have to be true to use them that you have a you know a stable coin or a crypto wallet. Yeah, I mean they they're publicly issuers of um like Etherize card, the public issues of read. Pays card. Um they do it for Cast. They do it for there's an Avalanche card. And so these are all people that have like a stable coin or crypto wallet, >> right? You swipe it and it spends down here stable coin balance. But they also have clients I think they've announced

um a um a Western Union partnership who they might have stable coins or they might have fiat. And if they have fiat, they have the capability to swap that fiat into stablecoin and still 365 days a year 247 settle with um Visa and Stablecoin. So they're doing both. And so they're they're the only one who's able to do both with a direct um being being their own issuer who have the the licensing and also have really really good documentation APIs and um the the right kind of like wallet and logic infrastructure uh to do these kind of fun flows really seamlessly. Who are the other principal members in that Visa network that could potentially compete

it with RAIN or against Rain? >> Well, so so right now there's I'm sure there are a bunch of people trying to get principal memberships today. The vast majority of people doing there's really kind of three players who doing stable coin backed car. I mean that's that's not true. There's there's more than three. There's some others. Um I think Monivate in Europe. Um Exo I think is also uh also a direct issuer I think. Um there's a business called Reap out of Hong Kong uh that is trying to do that but they don't have the same abilities on the on the like B2B TOC side and then Bridge is is trying to do it but today Bridge is using lead as the issuer. Most of the issuers on the uh on the Visa

network are banks right? Um and that's and that's pretty typical. Um, Rain's got a and we I don't have to go in, they'll talk about it next week, so tune in on the pod next week about like how they differentiate between some of those other players. But um, they, you know, built this business for, you know, basically two and a half, three years with very little um, I guess revenue. They were, you know, building traction and proof of concepts. Um, and then were able to essentially turn that on in a way this year that just, you know, accelerated like an incredible incredible amount. And so, you know, I I mean, when is the last time? And so, for anyone who doesn't know, maybe we should saw this beginning, but you know, Rain raised $250 million series C led by

Iconic, who is a legendary fintech investor. Um, and we were part Google Family office. >> Yeah. Originally, yeah. And then it and then they turned into like a much broader um, you know, LP base. Um, and and we've been an investor. Galaxy's been an investor. Um and then the everyone else has been pretty much >> Sapphire Renters which is a pretty good fintech investor, software investor. >> Yeah. So everyone else was a fintech or or traditional or generalist investor. Sapphire, Norwest, Lightseed. Um Lightseed's obviously done a lot of a lot of crypto as well, but then call it the more like only crypto native funds have been US and Galaxy have been been investors for a few rounds now. Um and so Iconic coming in in a big way and a

$250 million round. We I mean maybe correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think we've seen a round like that with that kind of a stamp of approval from that type of investor that big of a uh of a of a capital push since 21. Like it's a it's a real statement in my mind that I Ribbit did maybe GA has done some in the space but not for a while. >> Yeah. Not to 21. They did Talos in 21. >> Fire blocks. Yeah, but again, Fireblocks the last race. I mean, great rounds and great business, but not since 21.

>> Yeah. No, you're right. I mean, look, it it's it's very impressive what they've done. And I think um it's very interesting. I I will tune on to that pod or help record that or just be there to ask him questions. Um but um yeah, very impressive. That that is the highest signal in my opinion, you know, in spite of >> Yeah. Well, and it tells you a lot about I I think generally what the perspective is for the demand for >> you know retailer use of stable coins which people have been I think pretty um dubious about and a lot of people people still are but we're we're seeing the proof in the pudding but to your point part the the reason that they've grown as quickly as they have is not because

it's not just because of this kind of retail demand and the Artemis guys actually put out a really wholesome report on cryptocards today. Definitely definitely check it out. >> Okay. Um but the it's because they're also basically the only one who is able to do this full suite of things that the the providers need. >> Totally. And it obviously helps that Visa as a company Kai and every like has been very I guess a question for them is how much of it like to your point that they weren't able to turn it on so much this year like Visa I think made some key unlocks like that may have facilitated this in a very meaningful way like and I think it's um it's a very synergistic symbiotic relationship I would think that they have.

>> Yeah 100%. >> Yeah. And then the the other piece the Artemis guys I was I remember that report that came out last year where you guys I think cor collaborate collabor collaborated with them where the fastest growing sector of stable coins was not B toc is B2B. Of course rain carts could be issued like could also serve a B2B like or most of their business is just B2B TOC because he would cross retail. >> Yeah. So, so most of the volume in these things is actually a B2B TOC. So, it's um it's an end customer. They're they actually rain actually started as like a Dowo tooling like business expense card management business like a ramp for Dows

uh in 2021 and that's actually >> Yeah. Uh and then Dows don't really work. Um and and RAMP actually um not RAM, sorry. Reap, which is one of the competitors out of out of Asia, like that's kind of their core business. And you know they're they're they're a sizable business as well. But >> how many of the best companies in certainly like not just in crypto have like pivoted in a very meaningful way? Like poly market was always prediction market >> but >> I don't know from your portfolio how many of them have had these kind of pivots. when I was there there's probably one that we're uh going to announce a large kind of series B into

relatively soon that has had um that had kind of a real pivot. Uh but it was all I actually I would say this there we've had a lot of companies pivot. All of the companies who have pivoted have pivoted and done well have pivoted not that much. It's like a degree of change right? So for like the rain guys it's okay well we're going to serve Dows or businesses. is well now we're going to do a B2B TOC product and we still can do that other product but the B2B TB toc product is the one that's like really exploding right and it's a there's changes in the way the infrastructure has to work a little bit there's some regulatory changes compliance changes but it's not it's very related right otherwise >> um we've seen there's a you know another

business of ours that was more like you know doing stable coin related stuff that they you know before doing the stable coin related payments they were doing more like you know interoperability ility for like DeFi um DeFi APIs. So it was a a lot of the infrastructure they had already built could be used and so you know that has worked for them. Um there's like a trading firm that kind of turned into like a DeFi protocol right and so but they were already you know very deep in this thing and we're building um kind of like this quantitative firm that they could then use a lot of that infrastructure for for DeFi. So, so there's stuff like that, but you know, people do pivot and there are success stories, but I don't know if there's a single person in our portfolio who's had a wholesale pivot and, you know, been a

big outcome. >> Yeah, I can think of Slack as like one of the best pivots. Um, uh, uh, mine actually have a good one. Path Dow, I was an investor in that. I I obviously at least 10% of my venture book was like in in gaming like Axi and alvium and all this stuff. Um and I invested in guilds and path was one and say they reached out to me and said hey listen we were paying attention to this AI thing and agents and thing and we want to make a pivot and I didn't think much of it and then that turned into virtuals >> um and long forgotten and you know of course you can argue but you know the token at least has done very well and I think it was it was one of the probably the hardest pivots I've seen but I would

say at that point it's like the founders had a core technical competence that you know allowed them to like at the end of like the trading firm going into DeFi well like you're investing in a large part of it is like the founder skill set like they're financial guys so like they're going to figure something out and just >> I think I think not uncommon for people to pivot um maybe not full hard like pivot but soft pivots to figure out a viable business model >> um how much of when you make a because you guys traffic in Ced, series A, series B. Um, does the weight like if you were to like have different criterias in your

scorecard like Chimath like obviously everyone saw the memo that of Grock and he was like is this a special person? Uh, and you know that's sometimes you just kind of really simplify investment like is this person have the you know the capacity to build something great? Yes or no like it could be distilled into that. There's a number of other things that factor into that, but like how much of in your investment committee process like how much weight do you give to that versus like market supply dynamics, demand dynamics, like all the other stuff that you could, you know, you're looking at and thinking about an investment.

>> It all matters. I I think at the end of the day, the founders matter the most no matter what stage, right? But, you know, maybe they matter less at B or C than they do at, you know, seed. That said, I mean like look, we the two fastest growing things in the portfolio uh right now um at least you know most recently have been Poly Market and Rain and you know these things both of those companies the founders built something that was ahead of its time. where 2021 happens and you know the bare market happens right after in 22 and it seems existential to both of those companies

>> and the founders in both of those companies were steadfast and like I know what I am building is the right thing this is going to change the world this is going to be humongous business and the demand will come but neither of those founders I would say while they were uh they had belief when other people would have given up. They were smart about making slight changes here or there, being reactive to, you know, the demand side as well, right? And so, um, I I think a really underappreciated, you know, founder quality is just grit, right? Like, you know, can you go through a two or three year, you know, bear cycle where nobody seems to want

your product or, you know, it's unclear and not only continue to build, but like be responsible and thoughtful and forwardinking enough to tweak things for where you think the the space is going to be right on the other side. Yeah. >> Um, and so like, you know, those guys, all the hats off to them. the amount of resolve that both those guys had in 22 and in 23 and in, you know, in 24 before I think they both started really accelerating into the end of 24. Like that takes an amount of of grit that just is extraordinarily uncommon.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I would definitely put that in my early interaction with Shane and and some other founders. Um, it has been, I think, particularly a a very impressive cohort of builders in crypto because to your point, the demand was not necessarily there. Like, like if you're going into AI right now and you want to copy X, like you have tangible demand proof points to to apply and say, I'm just going to be better at building this type of product and I'm going to win business against something that's already very proven. And you can underwrite that. And in crypto as an investor, but also as a builder, it hadn't been that case. Right now, of course, everyone wants to build a prediction market because the data is

there and there's tangible demand that you can latch on to. But I think it requires a different set of of founder that says the demand's not here yet. You just have to believe that it will be and then I'm the right person to build this and then I'm going to actually have enough money to see it through. and then I'm not going to spend it all and then like it's it's it's like layers and layers and layers and that's what makes crypto venture has been very um asymmetric if done well and very much power law right those those kind of rare outliers cuz you know when it works and like hyperlquid hyperlid was probably like an interesting example and I know you guys were were proddding there and like trying to get exposure there early

I made a number of prediction market investments because everyone was like underwriting the same thesis, right? It's like exchanges make a killing with prediction markets. There should be an opportunity to do this on chain. Someone's going to figure this out. So, like almost like take a bucket approach and invest part of your book into credible builders that are going to figure this out. I would say most of the we talked about this I think last year, but like why why didn't why did Hyperlink was successful when others weren't? And by the way, there's like many many others that weren't. I think there's like team specific reasons attached to that and then there's also like infrastructure reasons behind that, regulatory considerations around that, but I would

say like um like Hyperlink would launch at a at a different time like obviously Jeff and team are phenomenal. >> Talk about a small team by the way. >> Um but uh more so >> did you read the there was like a Forbes article about him or was it uh I think it was Forbes or was Fortune uh that was just like you know a little bit about him. It was really good. read it. Look at that. >> Yeah, I'll read it. Uh, but yeah, of course, like the the infrastructure is more further advanced that would allow for just a more performant pro protocol on chain. Not the only reason why it exist like proliferated, but just interesting, right?

All right. Well, enough of the theoretical. Um, what else is going on? I mean, obviously we before this pod, we were just talking about maybe to round out this segment of like how's the year starting off? I hate to think in calendar years but whatever we have to do it for the sake of this but are you are you guys actively investing and are you guys like you know you have the dry powder like are you seeing good teams what categories are popping off like how are you thinking about deploying this year like just what's going on in in committee >> yeah our general perspective so I mean we're we're two investment committees into the year uh and those two investment committees

We haven't had a new deal come up yet. I mean, that's also not surprising that, you know, there's not typically a lot of, you know, deals that happen like right after Christmas. We did um we did fund something the first week of of January that we had been working on for for a little bit that will get um announced, you know, next few next few weeks probably. And um the rain that this version of rain we had we had funded a little bit before um Christmas. Um but when I look at you know we we always go through the pipeline every week as well around investment committee. I look at the pipeline and it's not short there but it's not the longest I've ever seen it either. It is

still very heavy DeFi, very heavy payments, very heavy, you know, stable coins. Um there's I I think we're seeing a lot of things around still the you know the trading economy, the degeneracy economy, you know I gaming um you know the uh things like that wallets um and there's some AI stuff but there's not a lot that I would say has been you know maybe completely like net new categories that we've been you know I I think we I haven't seen anything that has seemed like really outside or different yet than you know

what was topical last year. And so, you know, I think right now our expectation, and this can change quickly, >> is that this year is probably a lot more of the same DeFi, CFI, infrastructure, stable coins, payments, you know, wallets, um, you know, fintech type stuff. And we probably expect that we'll that they'll be we'll be doing less investing this year than last year. I'm putting like our our check in the rain into last year because we funded it before the the holiday. But um we did actually probably a pretty decent there's all this talk about like oh ventures slowed down last year and we I mean one the data doesn't

uh show that but two like we put a lot of money to work last year. Now we put >> Were you guys one of the most >> Go ahead. >> Were you guys one of the most active VCs? I I think we were probably >> top five. >> I think us in Paradigm were probably the most active from a dollar out perspective. If you don't include DATs and like these like liquid token, you know, like Panta went out and said, "Hey, we made our biggest investment ever. Bought a bunch of ton and the open market stuff like that."

>> No, no, no, no. Excluding DATs. We don't talk about that anymore in this podcast. >> Dats are dead. No. So I think I think I think it was I think it was probably us and paradigm that were the most active from a dollar out perspective but I don't I don't have that data. So >> yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Um speaking of funds uh A16C raised 15 billion. I think they uh surprisingly I think that encompass what is it 15 17% of 18% of all venture dollars raised. >> 18% of all venture. Yeah. >> Wild for one firm to take that. There's all the screenshots going around of like their DPI and their fund performance across vintages and um some funds have done quite well and I think their LPS are generally happy but

then there's always that person that says wait a minute you could have just bought the S&P and outperformed. Um will be interesting. Uh what is I don't know if you want to comment on that. Uh what was interesting in their letter was I think a couple of things that they kind of they have a list of things that they want to invest behind and they specifically obviously called out AI and crypto which I've always respected them for being one of the first um to like like a traditional VC stepping in and and and through and through over the over the over the years they've they've kind of like held a specific vehicle called A6Z crypto

and the crypto school and you know honestly like a ton of respect for that because it was obviously through a very different regulatory environment and uh yeah this is very interesting that they put it AI specific call out to AI and crypto and yeah you know it's it it bodess well obviously for a number of reasons they do a lot of regulatory you know work which has I think you guys do too but yeah >> they're the most active like them at Coinbase are the most active in DC of anybody in the space so >> you know you what what I thought was interesting about that So, it was great that they called out crypto. What I thought was interesting about that is they didn't raise a new crypto fund. So, they're uh >> yeah, they they didn't raise a new crypto fund yet. Um I I mean the last

fund was 4 billion if I'm remembering maybe four and a half billion, right? And they raised that in 21. So, it's not surprising that they have money left in that fund because like that is just way too much money to put to work unless you're doing >> how much of those they bought like a bunch of like Ian and a few other like venture positions they like double down I think. >> Yeah. And they they but the the liquid stuff they can uh they can recycle, right? I don't exactly know how their funds are are structured on the Z side, but they're they're obviously doing liquid, but the team is not big. I think their investment team is six people, right? And so with with with six people, one of those being Chris, right, who I'm sure Chris is not like hunting for new

deals, you know, they're uh going they're putting to work, you know, over you know, $4 billion. So it's not surprising that they have more money to to put to work. And you know their first crypto fund was you know incredible in terms of um you know from an investment returns perspective >> but I imagine the the fourth fund although they own 10% of SU so you know that you know ran up to $40 billion at some point but >> um I I imagine that that $4 billion fund has been harder to get the same returns just because of that's how the correlation between size and and returns. Um but I I thought it was funny that they talked about it. They still very much believe in it, but they didn't raise a new fund. Uh, and then they had all of these other new funds that were,

you know, they had like a two billion dollar apps fund and like, you know, all these other funds. They didn't talk about those. >> Biotech is like Martin Casal, I think, runs out and >> uh, do you Well, I guess we could have have theories around that, but it may be true that folks like Alex Rampel, like the fintech team is going to now step in. and the growth team is not going to step in to do deals like ramp like sorry not ramp rain like theoretically like the agency growth fund could invest in that and if Iconic is doing that then certainly they can do it out of the growth fund and you know they've done ventic investment so you know it could come out of that so maybe >> it could be could be true that they just have appreciated that the the investable

universe is skewed more closely to what their fintech team would be looking at. So, hey, let's not raise a dedicated team. Or maybe they just want to fold the A6C crypto team within a within the broader mandate. >> They just have they still have a lot of money. Yeah. And they're going to raise a new fund eventually, but there's a lot of money still. I >> I would I personally I I would never co-mingle them. Like crypto is just a very different beast from a capital account statement reporting LPS. Uh so, but yeah, interesting. >> Yeah. But no, I I I also agree with you that one of the things that we've seen happening in in crypto venture is that a lot of the stuff that is working does look like fintech again, right? And so

it is much easier for theoretically like traditional fintech investors to um invest, right? You look at, you know, what are the biggest rounds of the year? I mean, I guess we I I talked about range 250 and I said what has happened? Uh that looks like that's a 21. Obviously the thing I uh stupidly missed is the other thing on our portfolio and and uh is which is bully market with the $2 billion ICE round right like that is obviously incredible and then you know there's Kashi raised you know billion dollars right as well >> these rounds done for like non technical investors mostly >> was koshi paradigm and a6c or who did koshi >> yeah paradigm led the most recent and then they were part of the round before that and drezen's in therea's in there I

The only other big crypto investor in Kry other than Paradigm is Multicoin. >> Multicoin was in the5 billion round I think. >> Um >> they've been out for I think >> uh maybe I don't know I don't know. So >> yeah but they um but obviously those are those are the other two things that have had these big rounds now. But you're seeing like the things that are growing really quickly are getting interest from the traditional investors again. And so that does tell you right or or should you know you should be wondering is just being very cryptonative um still going to get the types of returns? Is it a place where you can still uh is there enough things to do? Is there enough you

know tokens that are going to do well? Do you have to broaden your aperture? Do you have to broaden the you know things you're investing in and and are doing well? Um and then if you do that are you actually able to compete or is it adverse selection? Right? because I I think somebody else I've seen this where a lot of people have been joking like oh every crypto fund is a fintech fund now which is kind of true in many ways but it's always been true in some sense but the question is is are you going to get adverse selected against or not right like are you able to compete against lightseed or you know somebody like that and I do think we're going to see more and more traditional generalist or specialist investors come into the space uh in the next year we're going to see

more of these big growth rounds get done in these like core pillars that are working and if if that happens uh yeah this was a a super interesting one and and I know Mercedes from uh from the light speeded days >> I want to saying that I I saw this I now I'm in the habit of bookmarking stuff because I can reference him during this pod >> uh Yano typically does this but now you know he's rugged us nonetheless there's an interesting chart I want to get your take on which says for anyone listening there's a tracker over 2015 to today over the last 10 years the average time it's been taken to raise VC funds I don't know if they're including c crypto funds but that has been

>> all is everyone who reports on pitchbook >> okay got it all so it includes all VC and that has been grow going steadily up across average fastest quartile median and slowest quartile the difference between the fastest quartile so the fastest quartile is now raising takes eight months to raise a fund and the slowest quartile takes two years. The average and median are kind of the same. It's kind of 18 months. So, you know, year and a half or so. Um, how do you Is this true?

>> Well, yeah. I mean, and it's I think it's especially exaggerated with the crypto funds cuz like >> if we were to have a line of crypto funds, like how would it track? >> I think that I mean, it would definitely track. It would probably be the same or similar, but uh there's just less of us. But it might be it might be worse to be honest. I I don't know if anybody in the space of any real size is doing eight months at this point. Um but you know it's it's taking everybody longer than that. That said, um I think one of the GPS, so so of course Andre goes and raises $15 billion and every single GP Andre is on a podcast uh in the next like two days. And so one of those podcasts I was listening to with I think the GP of the guy who runs the

apps fund um was a 20 VC podcast and he was saying like listen like we're kind of having this like death of the middle, right? And I think we've talked about this before in the past, but like you either have to be a big platform or you have to be a niche like you know general a niche like specialist who has like really good deal flow in the thing that you do really well and the middle is get dying and that's a lot of what you're seeing here. That's happening in crypto as well. I think like the middle generalist crypto um is probably going to die out. You either need to get big and scale and platform or you need to be smaller and be a specialist. Um and and in crypto it's really exaggerated because like if you think about the LP landscape especially for the people who

are raising institutional capital LPs are are the way they're deciding allocations is they're saying okay well I need some PE bucket and within that PE bucket I need a VC bucket and within that VC bucket I need probably generalist VC I definitely need AI and then you know that kind of it and so they have to have somebody on the team who's like oh I also need crypto and so if 20% of your portfolio is private equity. 8% of that is uh VC, right? And then you know what percent of that is in or 10% of that's VC, 5% of that is, you know, generalist, 3%, 4% is AI. How much does that leave for crypto? Yeah.

>> Right. >> Um >> and so there's just this like der or it's just like much harder. There's a much fewer LPs who want to put money into into crypto funds. And so you and the ones who want to of size, they want to either go with the platforms they know that they've already been invested in or that have name brand like entries in. >> Yeah. I'd heard I'd heard A6NC has it's it's been interesting from my perspective like obviously when I was fundraising for like when I was at Parapi even at Sage View I got to look at how difficult it was even for super established tenure folks Ned and Scott you know first associates at KKR left raise a fund second it all in many ways through this process I've talked to a lot of fund managers

and they've said hey it's not the first fund that's hard because the first fund you typically raise from friends and family people that know you you're coming off of another fund, you know, it's either the second or the third fund. And a lot of managers that I've talked to, like emerging P managers that started off doing SPVS, then raised $100 million fund, now they're at like fund 7, 8 billion, um they're like it was the third or the fifth or the third or the fourth fund that was the hardest because you didn't have DPI and you know DPI isn't a big issue now in private equity and um but yeah, it's I would almost want someone to do a chart that shows we talk about the four-year cycle here. There's always a running joke of course in venture

which is people want to give you money when you shouldn't be investing. They should and they don't want to give you money when you should be investing. So it's an interesting time because for instance say that um Bitcoin hit all-time high last year. Naturally easier to pick up the phone and cold call or get introductions. People want to talk to you, right? Hey, stable coins. Rob, you're talking about stable coins. Yeah. Okay. I want to talk to you. You go in there and it still takes a year maybe to convince a large university endowment or foundation or a family office. Family offices are faster, right? But still, some of the larger sophisticated ones might still take time. They would want to get to know you. So, if it is true that it takes like at least 12 18 months, forget

about the four-year cycle. It's like pick a time where the market's starting to rally in a meaningful way, maybe not the all-time high, and then that's when you're going to raise the fund. And then it's like, okay, when is the dry powder going to hit? Um, so I almost would want to see a chart that says like when is the when are the funds like raising? When are the bigger funds like raising? And then how does that track like over the next like 12 or 24 months? Like when do we peak and where's the bare market? I I wonder if that's a better correlation than uh other stuff that we kind of see point to and kind of point to in crypto like four year cycle, stuff like that.

Yeah, I mean I that's almost certainly true, right? Because like the the interesting thing about that chart that Mercedes put out there uh was that it I mean she says this but it's the amount to or the time to close is during um it's from when the form D is filed. So that's when you do first close you have to file this regulatory form D and it says hey I've done first close this how much I'm raising etc. and then you eventually file uh an an amended uh one in in an ADV in the future when you show that you're you know kind of final you've had your final close of the fund right >> and so what you're seeing there is that like when it says it takes 18 months to close a fund that actually is 18 months

between first close and final close which means that you were raising some period of time before before that >> which which could be by the way another 18 months or more >> because it's about 18 months to first close it's probably like six Maybe. So, three to six to first close typically. Um >> 3 to six from kickstart fundraising. >> Uh yeah, probably three to six when you first start first running first close because you'd first close with like typically like call it anywhere from 30 to 50% but you only first close with friendlies. You first close with with insiders, right? Typically I Yeah. So like I for instance I always think first close should be at least 30 to 40% 40% of the capital that you're targeted.

>> People first close a lot with like 25 30% especially if they're near the end of their fund life on the other one >> end of January then. But okay then that would make more sense because I've I guess you want to close a deal. You want to show momentum. You want to have some dry powder and then and then Yeah. But I I hearing you say that. I was going to say I would have thought that the second close is usually faster than the first close, but I I I see your point. I actually don't think that would be true. >> Yeah. what what typically happens and what we're seeing happening in the space is that like you know most people they so you go if you're raising the same size of fund um it's usually much easier than if you're

trying to raise a bigger fund because if you're a good manager 80 to 90% of your LP should reup in the next fund. It's always easier to get a reup than it is to get a new investment. Right. Totally. And a lot of these institutional allocators, the way they work is that once they've gotten the manager approved, you have to suck to like not get kind of reallocated over time. But it's that first check that's really hard. And so you get if 80 to 90% of your LPs are going to to reup, you get, you know, kind of some of the largest ones, the anchors to reup, you get them closed, you start to you continue investing on that new fund, you show some momentum, and then, you know, you get a little bit later into the fund.

And then people say, "Oh, they they they like that, the new investors, because they can look now at, oh, you've already deployed a fifth or a fourth of what you expect this fund size to be, and I can now actually underwrite what you've already put in the portfolio, right? Right. And I can see if I like what you've done and if what you've done is you're showing momentum. Um and so >> go ahead. >> Go ahead. Go ahead. No, it's but so it's it becomes um really interesting that like you're seeing that like it's taking people sometimes two years to raise these funds which what it's essentially telling you is that because of the lower levels of DPI the LPs are demanding that they actually underwrite what's already in the fund a lot of the time versus

like giving you money ahead of time. >> Yeah. Um I was an I'm an investor in a number of funds. One of them is raising another fund and I two of them two of them actually wanted to do their first close and I think both of them took profit and some of their early bets and the prior fund and to show DPI which look is great. I'm not complaining. I do wonder is that a was that the right call?

Um >> do you think they sold too early? Well, you know, it's always of course look everyone this is a common question like Peter Theo goes out saying look I sold Facebook too early but you you know you have to do share responsibility to to return money to your investors and unfortunately that is just the nature of money management and and it's hard to look at in a vacuum like you sold Facebook too early. A it was a great win. No one's complaining and then you could LPs can recycle that money elsewhere. um and B there's like countless other examples where you didn't sell at all and it went you know you could have profited right and so I always think it's like an unfair characterizations of like cherrypicking but it it I it did leave me wondering like I I hear you DPI has become a way

way bigger component now because you know there's not a lot of DPI some of the A16 phones coincidentally have some interesting DPI even though they didn't outperform the market so you could say again why are people giving them money if they're not outperforming the S&P is because a allocators don't think like that, they need to invest in certain buckets to do portfolio construction. So, they're they're going to have a venture bucket, they're going to invest in names that they're not going to get fired for and approve managers. And as long as they're showing some DPI and not sucking, they're going to continue to draw up, right? It's like, yeah, >> if you're like a pension A6c, you got to like it's almost like the reverse now.

They're in a position where >> if you're a big allocator and you didn't invest in the ACC funds, like wait, why didn't you have access to them? You know what I mean? It's like 15%. some of that, but there's also like, you know, >> there's a lot of hurt. >> If you're an LP, you're never going to get fired for, you know, investing in injuries and even if the injuries and fund is not the best performing fund. Right. >> Right. Well, if you're not an LP, if you're the the pension manager, >> again, it's very different like if you get raise money from endowments where most of the capital, if I forget the MVCA data, but like most of like if you think about the 15 billion, if you were to slice up, how much of that is pension funds and endowments where the decision

maker is not the principal, it's an agent. Yeah, >> most of the $15 billion came from I I'm I'm I'm hypo I will check with the data, but I I would say at least 60% of the money is like pension funds and endowments at that scale. I mean it's probably not even I would say it's pensions primarily and then endowments are you know >> yeah which at that point it's a very different decision and what drives the decision to allocate is very different than a family office even though obviously I read like JP Morgan's report a lot of family offices are increasing their allocation to alternatives and liquids and a lot of that of course is

private equity and ventures so the decision driving the decision family office I think is more is very different than like a pension fund right? >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. Interesting. Um or I will more dry powder I guess this year. Um hopefully >> Well, listen in crypto we've only seen, you know, I think we'll see another announcement or two, but we've only seen announcements of new funds from uh Paradigm announced an $850 million fund, I don't know, a year, year and a half ago. M >> uh and we've seen some smaller funds get announced. I think uh Archetype announced a new fund as I understand it.

Like a $100 million fund or so. Um but we haven't seen any of the other large funds. >> Uh Hashki announced a fund. Yeah, that's right. >> $150 million fund. >> But I thought they just announced that they're raised money for their IPO, not a new fund. I don't uh >> No, I think because they're I retail to congratulate them. I will check really quickly. >> Yeah. But um but we haven't seen anyone else announce call it large new funds and that you know >> does does trickle down to the you know VC landscape right if you haven't you know >> if the if the VCs aren't raising big new funds or if they're raising smaller funds there's less money to be invested in VC and so I think it's >> I think we're going to continue to see

this sort of existential kind of hollowing out of the middle in in crypto venture uh and we're going to see more of the things that work get, you know, gobbled up by, you know, the generalist investors and where the crypto VCs are going to have to figure out how to adapt to that. So, >> yeah. So, Hashki raised fund uh nine, no fund four, uh sorry, fund for 250 million in commitments. >> Focus on blockchain infrastructure, mass adoption use cases, and emerging markets. That was announced December 23rd of last year. So 250. That's fairly sizable, I'd say.

>> Yeah. >> All right. Anything else? >> What else? >> We're on the >> start by Nikita Beer nuking infoi. >> Yeah, agree to end it. We're going to have to end with content of the week because that's not a good way to end the podcast, sir. Um I there's there's a new term word of the day, by the way, or word of the year, I would say, because people now dub me as a pessimist or whatever. I'm just an optimist, but I'm also a realist. There was a word of the day as a as a interlude here. Word of the day is what the hell is this? Panoia, which is the opposite of paranoia. And I just learned it says most people successful people I know all almost almost all of them have an irrational belief that everything will work out.

Something you said earlier and I just recently learned that the word for it is paranoia. So, less paranoia, less FOD, more Pinoya. >> Proninoia 2026. That's the word of the year. >> The banner year. >> Uh, but anyway, so the week, >> why'd you talk about it? I mean, our engagement sucks. Probably it's because I'm tweeting like [ __ ] that no one wants to hear and I'm a perma bear now. So, I get why my engagement's nuking, but what did what's happening on crypto Twitter land Rob?

Yeah, I mean there's been all this talk about Nikita Beir uh trying to he's been like deemphasizing like niche groups, I guess. Um but then it seems like he kind of backtracked on that people were getting, you know, some engagement again. I think the reality is is like if you're they've obviously been deemphasizing the following tab and for the for you tab because they want you to kind of discover new things and it's caused this uh kind of and the same thing we talking about the funds is like hollowing out of the middle where like you either go viral and you go really viral or you kind of stay within like a small band and um and so if you have you know 150,000 followers which I think is how many you have right like if you don't uh go and get something that's

picked up really quickly on the 4U side, then you're just kind of getting no engagement whatsoever. Um, but then the interesting thing they did today is Nikita Beer came out and he was basically like straight up um saying that they're now changing the way that the X uh API works. M >> and so you know they they're basically not allowing apps that reward users for posting on X or like apps that you know use the um that that use like the X API to um you know maybe like bet on bet on or something like anything that like might have some sort of like financial

activity around um just like who's posting and what they're posting. They blamed it on like there's too many bots and like you know etc. Um, I I think they're trying to I'm sure that's part of it, but I think they're also just trying to >> um maybe in some way kind of up the level of um quality, right, over quantity on X because the quality has been pretty bad recently. But I don't I don't know if this is it. Um >> yeah, it feels like that. I don't know if it's the old adage of they're taking a chainsaw where they should be using a a uh what is it? A tweezer or something like that to fix a problem. They they have a bot problem. I we all kind of have seen it in the reply.

>> It's gotten way worse since it's >> got way worse. Why? Because you know they're now paying out and so it's it's sort of like an at lo and behold crypto has this problem. Civil resistance you know um airdrop farming also relevant for you know X there's a so yeah it's it's interesting. I I've certainly noticed my engagement cliff off. They think they've dep prioritized that type of content and I think a lot of folks in crypto are upset. Um I don't know. I think it's important to listen to your I don't know. Obviously there's we seem to think we're in a bubble and crypto Twitter is the most important like aspect. I was thinking about like who actually funded Elon's deal. CC is quite a I think he put like a billion dollars

in the deal or something. um which of course I don't think he has any any say in the matter but anyways there's a poly market which we we were showing earlier that that was uh uh it prediction market on like will Nikita beer remain as head of product at X by you know at the end of the quarter March 31st fairly low liquidity um there's what can't see Shane if you're listening man you Got to put it in the top for us.

Making it hard. Uh, but it hasn't moved. I mean, it just launched. It kind of went down quite a bit. Probably I don't pay >> I don't know why people thought he was going to be out. It It didn't really make any sense to me in the first place. Uh, this felt very much like crypto people like misreading what was happening. So, >> yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um but yeah, I think it it's interesting. Um that had an effect on Kauhi, right? Sorry, not Khi, uh Kaido.

>> Had an effect on Kaido, obviously with the apps. Well, they announced a new business today. U there's another one called Noise.xyz, which is sort of a attention market thing, which Paradigm just announced a investment into that I think my guess is they're going to be affected. um as well. Um so there's a number of businesses that are going to be affected, but I I think we'll have to see how this plays out. So >> yeah, totally. Um all right, man. Content of the week. >> Uh we just got new seasons of Industry, one of the best shows on TV.

>> Okay, >> so you gota we have to be watching the industry. And um there's also another HBO show uh which I really like uh which is called um uh oh gosh I'm bl on the or the pit. Sorry. It's like the um it's sort of a one of the main actors um from ER from the '9s. Uh, and it's kind of a, you know, they follow you around like 10 hours in an ER and some, you know, crazy stuff happens that's like super unrealistic, but it's kind of a fun uh, I guess like, you know, guilty pleasure.

So, called The Pit season 2. Both HBO shows. >> I envy you, man. I don't think I've turned on my TV in the last year. I know I did for a few shows, but this is my best friend. Pocket Kindle. Probably had this for 10 years. Favorite color is blue, ladies. old school and I love that. >> Uh I've been reading a ton over the over the holidays. Uh so I just started and I really liked the fish that ate the whale, America's banana king. Um about this guy who like saw an opportunity in the banana trade and pretty fascinating how bananas are like amazing cash cows if done well. Like they they grow everywhere. They're super

like the yield is super high. you can like they're not tech they're berries technically not fruits uh but like they basically grow in tropical climates and they can they grow super fast to the point that you can almost hear them at night grow which is like daunting uh but amazing story about someone that saw an opportunity an arbitrage opportunity market cuz a lot of times to give you an example he back in I forget like early 19th century or like early 20th century they he would be on the dock where the banana like the ships would come in and they unloaded the bananas and they would kind of inspect very quickly if they're good or not. And they would discard a bunch that were cons eatable, but they would just go ripe very quickly cuz soon as soon as it

has a dimple or whatever, like the brown spot, it it you have kind of seven days. And he was like, "Okay, that was interesting." And he basically built a massive business based on that because he said there there's too much waste. And he said, "I can actually sell that." So he with $150 goes to United Fruit which is a massive player in the space says I give you money off of that and if you sell me for pennies on the dollar and then he was like all I need to do is I have seven days to sell this [ __ ] So he built an empire out of supply chain like just basically logistics and I thought to be pretty I always find fascinating stories of people that like can build a lot of value in commodity seemingly commodity industries and in that case you just built a supply chain

that no one else had. So, I'm really enjoying that book and I highly recommend it. >> Cool. All right. Maybe next week we'll get uh the whole brew. You, me, and Jason. >> It probably going to take me to go to New York to do this at this point, but I'll be in New York. I think they're end of month early. But, uh, yeah, hopefully. Uh, >> we got to get an Inerson pod. The Inerson pod hits different. >> It maybe the end of the month. >> It really does. We should definitely I'll check the calendar. I we're opening an office in New York, not far from yours. Finally. Finally. We're just kind of like getting everything set up. Uh so I'm really excited. I'll be spending way more time in New York. Um less than 183 days,

but I will be in New York. >> Hear the tax authorities. >> Like the Peter the old filing like we have an office in Miami. >> You got to get the app on your phone that like tracks you, right? >> Oh, I saw. Do you have that, right? You posted it. >> Well, so I don't have the app because like I'm I'm in I'm in New York. I pay taxes in New York. But, uh, a lot of the people who do like, you know, back and forth to Florida, the app will like track the the, you know, geoloc on your phone and then it'll say like where you were on any given days. Uh, and then you can actually, uh, give it's it's unable to be edited and you can actually give that to the tax authorities >> or you can edit it, but it shows when

you edited it and then you have to you can go and say, "Hey, this is why I edited it because XYZ reason." So, it'd be great if we can have a zero knowledge proof on that so you don't have to share exactly your location, but no problem. Uh, Ledger gets hacked or Coinbase gets hacked and we they all have your information anyway, so it's no problem. But, or this application gets hacked and they have your entire location history. >> Privacy is a meme. The consumers just do not care. >> All right, ladies and gentlemen, we'll come up with a better meme next time. Uh, what is it? Proanoa. Remember that word. We're optimist in this podcast, ladies and gentlemen. No more parod.

>> Uh we're starting off the year optimistic. So anyways, great to be here, Rob. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll uh tune in next week. >> Thanks, AI. >> All right, take care.