EMPIRE Roundup - Alt Szn, GDP onchain, DATs priced in, Binance back for US users

29 Aug 2025 · 1:08:45

Empire hosts Jason Yanowitz and Santiago Roel Santos run through the week's biggest crypto stories in this roundup episode. They cover the case for a broader altcoin season, arguments for counting crypto activity in GDP figures, how digital asset treasury company valuations have adjusted to reflect their holdings, and Binance's return to serving U.S. customers.

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[Music] 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 Blockworks team may hold positions in the companies, funds or projects discussed.

>> What up, sir? >> Hey, how are you? >> Good. Good. We had little outfit switch. I feel like you're usually in the button down. I I'm I'm the Tratify guy. Typically, you're you know, you're the entrepreneur, but seems like you had some big meetings today. >> That's how that's how it goes. You know, that's I'm one of four people in New York City right now. >> It's the last week of August. Like the fact that we are both in the city right now is >> I took an Uber. I took an Uber from Brooklyn to like Upper East Side this morning and it took about 28 minutes, which would usually take about an hour and a half in rush hour traffic. So >> I'm betting the Upper East Side looked like that scene in 28 Days Later where he like walks out of the hospital and

there's like nobody in the >> Nobody. Yeah, nobody. So I'm I think I'm the sucker. We're the suckers. What are we doing? Anyways, New York is great right now though. We got the US Open. Two best times in New York when the Knicks are in the playoffs when the US Open's going on. So you going >> also Christmas. Christmas is awesome in New York. I'm just going to put that out there. >> Third time. Third time you going to the Open? >> I'm not. So I'm leaving today actually. So, I'm leaving New York. I'm going back to uh Ohio. >> York. >> Yes. I'm from Ohio. Uh my parents were uh Ohio State alums. So, I'm going back for, you know, opening weekend of college football. Ohio State versus Texas. You know, we won the national championship last year, so I've got to go support.

>> Let's go. Let's go. I knew I knew I liked you for a reason, Rob. My my my parents are from Ohio as well. Cleveland though. >> Well, you know, Dayton, Cleveland, it's only a four-h hour drive. It's okay. >> Yeah. Um, any paddle? >> Well, I mean, we played paddle this past weekend. >> Rob and I lost. Rob and I had a tough L. >> We It was close. We like We We gave it our all. We had a really couple really close matches. We're going to get better. Like, we're going to keep playing. >> That was tough. It was tough. Um, all right. I got a stat of the week before we kick this off. There. Do you know there are now more ETFs than stocks in the world?

>> I did. I did know that. Listen, passive investing, like passive investing has absolutely taken over >> crazy capital markets generally, right? >> Um, all right, let's let's talk about these stable coin raises because you are probably you see probably more feel like I see a lot of stable coin raises and I'm not a professional investor, nor am I super deep into the stable coin space. You probably see more I actually would argue you you personally see more stable coin pitches than any investor in the world, I would guess. Um, and so I would like some fun. Uh, there were two stable coin raises. Um, we can start with the Rain one. What was the other big one?

>> Uh, M0 announced raised what 40 million I think. >> Yeah, 40 million. I think Polychain le uh Ribbit was also part of it and maybe a couple others. >> Yeah. Okay. So, let's start with Rain. So, this was from from folks that I talked to, this was one of the the hottest deals the I think of the quarter or maybe even of the year. So, Rain raised 58 million series B led by Sapphire Ventures to become the enterprise stablecoin uh record of platform. And I was reading a little bit from the founder uh this guy Farooq said in the early days of Rain uh Charles and I would talk to our early customers realized that for them stable coins were intellectually the same as money and they expected them to behave like money

and spend like money. Um Rain today is the heart of the stable coin stack, a trusted partner for large global enterprises. Finax and public sector agencies, etc., etc. Um, talked about the fund raise. So, as I read this, it feels like from an outside, I don't know anything about Rains business. They help people launch stable coins. That's what it reads like to me. But I other than that, I really know nothing about it. So, before getting into the raise, tell me about Rains. What what what is Rain, Rob? >> Yeah. So, so that's not not actually quite right. Um, so I'll say two things. One is you're absolutely right that stable coins are like all the rage right now. There's like a million people building in the space and for good reason, right? You know, after the

Stripe Bridge acquisition, it became very clear that this mattered to like large corporates. I think I said on a different podcast with you that I knew of 12 Fortune 100s that had an RFP out to use stable coins as part of their mostly treasury management but also like crossber payments. That is something that is just accelerating now with the passage of the Genius Act a couple weeks ago. And and I appreciate you saying that I see more stable coin raises than just about anyone. I think that might be right. Um, Nick Carter and I were actually like having this debate who has done more stable coin investing over the last like four or five years. Uh, to which I think he has the record for the like more deals and then we've just put

more more money to work. But, um, it's a a a theme that we've been really excited about for a long period of time and we've we've put a lot of money to work a lot a lot of great projects. But listen, on Rain specifically, you know, you're absolutely right. It was a deal that I think was uh quite exciting for a lot of investors. It's a theme that a lot of people wanted around uh to be around. The thing that they they actually do very simply today, their core product is they issue cards that utilize the Visa network and authorization to spend stable coins and crypto. What they do really really uniquely and it's both they call it like a corporate card product and a um B2B TTOC product. So if

there are a number of exchanges that I I don't know if all of them are public so I won't say them yet who are working with them to launch a card and so you will get your you know call it your exchange X card and that card will actually be issued and managed by Rain underneath and what is actually happening for Rain which they do uniquely which nobody else does is they're actually in most cases not in every case their own bin sponsor which means they get they replace the bank. You don't actually need a bank. So what happens today is when you go to um let's say you're a bridge issued card when you and bridge requires you to put your stable coins into a wallet in that wallet and then essentially like locks

those stable coins. You can then swipe that card at a merchant or you know at um you know some sort of e-commerce. Um then they will take that lock tokens that you couldn't do anything with and they will swap them into fiat uh through a bank and then the bank will settle with Visa in fiat, right? And so there's still this like interchange fee with the bank. The what rain does is they're their own bin sponsor. So you don't need the bank and so they actually are the ones who are taking along with their their customers any sort of interchange fee and then they settle. They they do two things actually. So one is they securitize that credit directly on chain using DeFi. So if anyone who's ever done like credit card

receivables, they can do that immediately onchain using DeFi and then they can uh settle directly with Visa in stable coins and through the merchant acquirer 365 days a year. So this is a completely new paradigm because you are getting rid of or you at least can get rid of the issuer bank. And so I tweeted um maybe it was last week that oh issuer banks did not know what was coming and and just for everybody's knowledge an issuer bank is a bank that issues a credit card and so they're providing the credit and they're taking those that interchange fee often you know 2% plus um grain allows you to get rid of or displace that bank. And so one of the things we saw last week, I'll I'll um

maybe you um you covered it, is that the Wyoming state government said that they are issuing their own stable coin. They they issued that stable coin or they're calling it a stable token for some regulatory reasons. Um you can get your tax refund in that stable coin which exists on the Avalanche blockchain and then you can spend it using a rain card. Right? So that that that's the type of stuff that is happening here. Um which made it really exciting. So this round to your point had tons and tons they had, you know, a double term sheets.

They had um all of the traditional investors, some of the best fintech investors in the world trying to get in. We've I've known the founders for a long period of time. We were super excited to be a part of it. Wrote a wrote a large check in here alongside their um the lead Sapphire Ventures, which is a big >> Rob, let me let me ask a question before getting too deep into the round. I I actually I follow some of it but not all of it. There's I feel like there's so many people who have tried doing this over the years and they like even even bridge right like Bridge I think Bridge has a the ability to issue gives other people the ability to issue stablecoin linked Visa cards via API.

>> Yeah. So they have a card product. That's right. >> Right. They have a card product. You've seen so many of these over the years. Crypto.com has cards. Gemini has a card. Binance has a card. Is this Rain gives those people the ability to launch their own cards. >> Right. So Rain's customers when Binance issues a card or Kraken issues a card or all these guys they have a card issuer underneath them in a program. >> So who's the card issuer today? >> So it would be Rain, right? Or >> who who do they usually use or is it Rain? >> So it could be Rain, right? There could be there's one other there's a couple other people who doing like stable coin card issuance um that are are smaller like a Monovate in um in Europe. There's Reap in Asia. Couple other people doing

that or like what is happening in the bridge product. So you bring that up specifically, lead bank, so it's actually a bank is the card issuer. And so when they when the lead bank product happens or when the bridge product works, when you swipe that card, they actually swap the stable coin into fiat and send the fiat back to Lead Bank. So Lead Bank, if anybody doesn't know it, is a big call it like fintech bank. I think Rivetbacked them. They're, you know, a regulated bank in the US, you know, I think >> banking as a service, right? >> Yeah. And but they also are, you know, they take they take, you know, corporate bank accounts, like that type of stuff.

They're a big like fintech infrastructure bank. And so like most of these products, actually the the product that Coinbase launched, um I guess it was maybe a month ago or so. That's an AMX issued card. Same thing. A MX is a bank and they're they also have a a a network, but they're also a bank. So these are all like cards that are issued by banks. So they still take that interchange fee and then they what they do is they just swap your stable coin into fiat and settle the normal rails. Rain is doing something completely novel and new which is they're displacing those banks for these cards. And so it's actually um I think you know if you don't spend time in the in the card space you don't realize why this is so different but it's different because they can do everything from the credit

to the securitization to the settlement entirely onchain in a way that does not happen with any of these other bank products. And so that's why we're really excited. One of the fastest growing businesses in all of crypto right now. Um I think between the time we took it to investment committee and uh last month and that was only there was only a couple months lag there. The business doubled in size, right? Like that's how quickly they're growing. So >> and they're grow. So who who are their biggest who are their big customers? People who their customer is someone who wants to launch a stablecoin backed card and and then everything happens on chain. So these would be exchanges or this is just >> so it's also like web it's also like web two guys, right? So, Nuvet, which is called a large PSP, is also one of their

big customers and they nuve they help Nuvet through onchain rails do certain types of products in emerging markets, right? And so, they are essentially like can operate a little bit as a network as well because of the fact that they do this entire thing on chain. So, so they have customers on the on the web two side like new which is a big PSP. They're, you know, talking to a bunch of the others. They're talking to a bunch of banks. Um, and then they have customers like Avalanche is a big customer. They issue ethi card. people have used EtherFi. Okay. They've got um two big exchanges that I think are not public yet that um I can't talk about because of that that are coming online pretty soon. So, it is some crypto native people like we talked about and but it is also web two.

>> So, what made this round so hot because what what what I heard behind the scenes is that there's this was like one of the most soughta they have many different leads. How many leads did they have? I don't know how much you can share but like how I guess how hot was >> it was double digit term sheets. So, >> double digit term sheets. Okay. cuz that's very very rare that you see double digit term sheets for a company. What did the founders do? Obviously the numbers had to be there and the product has to be good but like tell me the mechanics of the raise that made this is so such a successful raise. So I think when what we have seen I think broadly in the market is that there's just a flight to quality right now and so the really really good

companies the really really good protocols everyone's kind of around them and there are just a lot of people who understand uh that this is the thing that they need to lean into and then there's kind of like the long tale. So, if you go and you talk to I think Alex Thorne has been tweeting about this a bunch and um I think uh there was a there's a blog article that I was quoted in last week about this like venture capital in crypto has actually it's still pretty small and it hasn't gotten nearly to the heights of what we saw in 21 and 22. But what I have found is that the the really good companies and protocols, those rounds are just as competitive as ever, right? It just everybody understands now that what happened in 21 and 22 where like it was all rising tides will lift all boats and

you know any sort of like fork of a protocol could make you money. Now people are really going for those those or understanding that there is going to be this dispersion between the winners and the losers more like traditional venture capital essentially. And so so that's a big part of it. But listen, they're also just incredible founders. They're wellletorked. >> Wait, hold on. Why do why do you say that? Because actually I went to their LinkedIn and the LinkedIns are not the stereotypical like I was looking at um what's his name? Farooq I think it is. >> Yep. >> Um I'm I've actually never met these. I'd love to meet them. We could do an episode with them. But um but like Farooq, let me pull up his LinkedIn. So Farooq, it's like yeah, it's like uh you know, project finance officer for several year

or many years at a bank. Um I don't know, Marshall Marshall fellow, which is great, but like I mean, it's not it's not like they're seasoned veterans here. Um, >> no, I mean, so they're not multiple time entrepreneurs and and you know, maybe you see that in the fact that, you know, they launched this business in 21 >> and they've really found escape velocity, you know, call it over the last year, right? And so, you know, it did take them a while, but that's normal right? >> Yeah. >> This is the this is the natural flow, by the way, I think that you see with a lot of people as you come in at the pico top, like you know, Blockwork started December of 2017. I think we top tick the market by 4 days. They launched November 21. So they they top tick the

market by within weeks. I actually the top was November of 21. So and then you just build through a bear which does obviously make you much better. >> Yeah. >> Was this the original idea that they had or did they pivot? >> So they were always a card business but the original idea was call it you know corporate cards for Dows. So this was at the time when you know everyone thought that we would have a lot of Dows. um that you know product was you know maybe more of like a call it a nosis competitor at some point um where it was like okay we'll have a wallet and then we'll have a card so you can spend it and so you have nois pay they really started to understand that um the real opportunity here was reinventing the way capital flows and money flows entirely

onchain >> right and so they now they have this you know call it B2B TOC product which allows them to serve basically everyone alongside you call it a corporate product and you know you say that that they're not like call it the typical background of like a you know Silicon Valley insider but um being the treasurer of a of the North American Development Bank means that he understands capital flows as well as anybody and in fact um there's um I don't know if you know the business Braille but uh the founder of that business uh Ben Mil is a like a multi-time like if you looked at his uh LinkedIn it's like he's like a multi time like fintech and payments founder and uh when I talked to Ben he said listen Farooq is probably the single

most knowledgeable person I know in payments. Now Farukq will also say that about Ben but it tells you there's like a lot of respect here for people because for these people because they know how capital moves and that's what we really have to understand when it comes to payments. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um is this a this is a winner take most game? >> I think so. Yeah. And and that's why you you kind of lean into the the leader, right? And so there's >> uh you see this a lot, right? Where you know there could be a bunch of different companies that you know maybe do you know really well. You see it in like the exchange business, but the winner take most businesses you you kind of lean in to want to get a you know big allocation and the um in the best companies.

>> Yeah, I'm reading the announcement um you guys are listed right after the lead. Where where did where did that go? Um which so I'm guess so. Okay, right here. So uh funding 58 million series B led by Sapphire with part usually the person who's comes right there puts in didn't get the lead but put in the second most amount of money. This is big check for you guys it seems like. >> Yeah I mean a big round big check for us. Um we were yeah we we landed really hard put put a good amount of money would work for us. >> Why how did they choose a lead rob? Was it just whoever gave them the most money? Like why didn't why didn't they pick you guys as the lead?

>> Well that's a good question. We should ask we should get Farooq and Charles on here and ask them why they didn't uh they didn't make us the lead. You know, listen, we would have loved to be uh the lead as part of it as well or or a co-lead. I think that there was round dynamics that made sense, but we we got a uh a big allocation, a big check in, and we're really excited to be backing them um you know, either way. And and you know, we're we're Sapphire is a big fund and it's a fund that also can scale with rain over time. you know, series B is kind of the latest that we participate. Um, at our size, you know, we have $500 million funds. We try not to put more than, you know, call it, uh, you know, 10%. Actually, our LPA does

not allow us to put more than 10% of the fund in any one position. And we actually typically do not even get, you know, very near there. And so, uh, in the Sapphire case, they're great investors. They've invested in a bunch of awesome fintech companies. I think they were investors in Square. Um, so they really know payments. Yeah. And they're a fund that can put hundreds of millions of dollars more money into RAIN over time if they need it. >> Who is who is Endeavor Catalyst? I actually don't know them and I saw Let's Let's Let's start talking about the other Rays. Um, >> yeah, >> which is M0 and I was just reading the M0 release and Endeavor Cap Catalyst comes up here as well. I I actually don't know them. I pulled up their site again. Yeah. Is it so is this is this a

big web two fund or >> so? So So u do you know in Denver? So Endeavor >> I know Yeah, I know Endeavor very well. Like this is C. This is Endeavor the agency's fund, >> correct? That's exactly >> Oh, okay. Okay. >> Yeah. So it's their fund. Um they're >> and they're just all in on stable coins. And so they just did both of these. Yeah. >> Yeah. So So they've been uh looking at the space uh looking at stable coins. They're, you know, they understand a lot of what happens in markets, I think, before others because they have just so many, you know, talent, so much talent around the the space and they have so much talent around them that um and so many technologists and entrepreneurs and, you know, all of the, you know, people that they represent and so, you

know, I think they're pretty pretty early, but to most themes and so they understand stable coins. They're really excited about it and yeah, they put put money in both here. Got it. Oh, I'm thinking of the the wrong Endeavor. I realized I was thinking of Endeavor like um what is it? Re Emanuel. >> Uh yeah, the the sports and entertainment um agency. So this is their fund. >> Oh, this is their fund. Okay. >> Yep. >> Got it. Um no, this looks like a different fund.

Look at this. >> Peter Kelner. Ah, all right. Maybe maybe I'm wrong. Uh, I actually don't know. I'll figure it out after the episode. >> We can follow up on that. >> Yeah. Um, okay. M M Zero, tell me about tell me about M Zero. So, I saw Metam um I've known that so I've known the MZ founders um Luca for for a while. He started actually with an amazing newsletter which I think is a advice to many people is to to build a brand there. But yeah, big in the Maker Dow ecosystem, launched probably the best stable coin newsletter at the time and then founded M0. Um, they made big headlines the other day. So, MetaMask when they when they issued their card, they did it with MZ. Tell me about tell

me about this phrase. >> Yeah. So, so Muh and by the way, you're totally right. Dirt Roads, which Luca used to write, was like awesome. >> Dirt. >> Yeah, it was really good. Um, and Luca's great. So M0 is sort of a you know site uh stable coin like white labeled uh stable coin as issuance platform. So I think I think their biggest stable coin that they've issued right now is Nobles um where they're under the back end. So they provide a lot of the infrastructure for um if you want to issue a white labelled stable coin um uh you can use you know M0 there there's a couple of others people who do this um Agora which is one of our portfolio companies. Paxos is kind of the OG doing this. Um,

actually Ben Milan at Braille I talked about before, uh, is is someone you can do this with. Um, so there's a a theme right now that a lot of people want stable coin exposure. Um, and a lot of companies want to build their own stable coins because they see it as a way to increase, you know, their revenue pie and they see it as a way to really grow their business and very simply. And so some of these infrastructure providers like Mzero are saying, "Hey, listen. We can be the way where we can provide kind of, you know, in a simple box the everything you need to issue your own stable coin. Well, we can help manage the collateral. We can help manage the APIs, the on-ramp, off-ramps, and then you can you issue your stable coin on top of us." So, Noble is their biggest.

Um, M0 tends to be very cryptonative in their approach, uh, relative to some of the others I talked about who are a little bit more, you know, call it like centralized or they're more focused on >> Is it fair to say M Zero helps you launch a stable coin? Rain helps you launch a card. >> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's right. So, >> Oh, I I made that was a mistake. Met it's not they're not powering the MetaMask card, right? They're powering >> Yeah, the stable coin. >> Yeah, I see. Okay. Okay. >> Nice. That's great. Um, you think we see a lot more of these or is this kind of the are these the is this the I don't know culmination of a bunch of behind the scenes raising from the stable coin providers?

>> It's not done. What I would say is the amount of raises that we've seen for sort of the same things. So call it like a new bridge a bridge type competitor who is like doing orchestration or uh a company that is you know call it you know doing stable coin issuance as a service or doing you know stable coin cards like that theme is still seeing a lot of new entrance right now and we're going to still can see continue to see a lot of people invest in those themes but I do think there's a little bit of fatigue from a lot of the investors because a lot of them do seem really undifferiated right and so we've seen a bit of a dip happening. The the um M0 and Rain were probably at the tail end of kind of like the fever. Um you saw

Agora with their $50 million raise, M040, you know, Rain about 60. So that was, you know, you know, there's been um I think a rumor that's been out there, but hasn't been confirmed that um a business called Zero Hash was raising $100 million. There's a couple of these things happening out in the market. um those were really a call it you know Q2 conversation and and where there was a lot of um fervor around this right before the Genius Act got launched but I can tell you right now there's definitely some uh some fatigue now I do also see that the level of entrepreneur investing or sorry building in stable coins is increasing every day and so we're starting to see some deals and you

know we're looking at one now where the the founders are actually probably the most well-referenced founders we've ever met because they came out of some of the largest payment companies in the world and executive roles at those payment companies and they just know how money flows and we haven't seen that level of entrepreneur before to your point about you know looking at some of these people's background there are people who came in and they really learned this from the ground up and kind of first principles but we're now starting to see you know many of the most successful people outside of stable coins come in and built in stable coins as well and so I think we'll see this kind of like dip in the market and then We're going to see new novel, awesome entrepreneurs, kind of an acceleration into maybe the end of the year, next year.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's pivot to the other hot I feel like. So, every for every 10 deals um that like that I get sent to me and again it's very small amount obviously compared to you guys, but um it's probably four stable coins, four prediction markets, and then two encompassing everything else. So, I think the prediction markets are like the next thing to start. you'll just start seeing fund raise after fund raise after fund raise. Um, and you saw it this week, right? So, there's uh uh these ex Poly Market uh team very very good team from Poly Market launched uh the Clearing Co. Um, so I'm not sure if you've done any of these actually give before we jump into prediction markets, give me the uh disclosure, I guess. Have you guys done Poly Market or Kalshi or

any of these new prediction markets? So, we're large investors in Poly Market and have been for for for a while now. >> Um >> Oh, yeah. This was the this was the Tom tweet about uh >> you should bring that one up. Um yeah, but so so we've we've been large investors in Poly Market for, you know, call before Pol uh prediction markets were were hot, although not as early as as many others. Um we we helped co-lead that round they did with Founders Fund back in um it was like late 23, uh early 24. Um so you know still the business was doing well there we kind of saw this acceleration of people being interested in prediction markets. There was a um when Sam Alman got fired uh they if you

know and then you know he came back the on a Monday got fired on a Friday came back on a Monday like that whole weekend my like group chats were just like completely blowing up about what was happening with Sam and then there were people were talking about poly market and like oh we should put money on this at poly market and that was actually at the time I think their most active weekend ever on poly market now considering what's happened from their volumes over the last you know 18 20 months you know it's kind of Um it's it's funny to look at how small that was relatively, but that got us really excited again about thinking that maybe it was the right time to um that this type of product could do do really really well and would would really enter call it the mainstream again. And then

you know everyone knows what happened last year. They were better at predicting the election than anybody else was. Everybody it was quoted in basically every single major news or or news organization. you know, they Shane and and we have been getting calls from, you know, uh, governments and regulators and, um, companies that just want to work with them because they're so excited about what's happening. And now they're doing, you know, over a billion dollars a month, uh, by far away the the largest prediction market out there. Khi being the second biggest um, and just continuing to to to crush. And so we're um, we're really excited about them. to your point, there's a bunch of new people seeing the success over what happened over the last, you know, year and a half with with Poly Market who are

building new things and Couch was obviously there already having built a decently sized business before that. And so we're going to start seeing a lot of people put money behind that because at the end of the day and and I do this too, so I don't mean this in in um maybe the in the way it sounds because we have done Poly Market early, but venture capitalists are often trend chasers, right? And we do this too. we see that something be successful and so we want to go get exposure to it and so you know we're seeing the success of of these businesses result in a lot of new people wanting to build there and a lot of new people and a lot of new investors wanting to get exposure to that category.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Have you done any of the new prediction markets? >> We haven't. We're so in deep with with poly market. It wouldn't make any sense and we try really hard not to do competitors. try really hard to put large checks, lead rounds, take governance positions when when appropriate, get a lot of ownership and continue to increase our ownership over time in the things that we think are are the you know category winners instead of saying doing like multiples in the same category. >> Yeah. What do you do you look at any of the new prediction markets just to learn? So like here we'll we'll look at these guys who just raised a group called the clear income. I mean there's about 20 prediction markets that are raising right now. Um, I think >> I forget who's announced and who hasn't

announced. I'm not going to share my screen and show anything else, but there's a lot of other there's a lot of other prediction market companies out there right now and it's pretty easy to find them if you just go on Twitter and look up like, you know, prediction markets list or something. But I can share these guys because they just announced they just raised 15 million from uh, Union Square Ventures. I I think um, I think Variant has been doing a decent number of these these new ones. I think Coinbase Ventures has been doing a decent number of them. Um, but yeah, this this team was pretty good. I've heard from ex-polley market people that these were very good team out of poly market. I think a few of them were ex-cali as well. What do you think like when you see something like this I guess

what do you think what do you think and then what do you think the poly market team like do they I don't know I think that the the whack on poly market is that maybe like they haven't innovated recently they haven't you know done new things the settlement should be AI driven you should have like you know per integrated I guess you can't do really pers with prediction markets that well but like yeah what what do you think when you see something like this >> yeah listen the competition is the name of the game to your point. Tony who used to be at at Poly Market um you know and we we interacted with him there you being backers he's great so like >> you know excited for him um you know I think the

time and again the kind of things that people have said about poly market have not resulted in them not continuing to grow right and so um you know they raised that round that everybody knows about but I can tell you they're just continuing to grow there's continuing to be a lot of excitement they announced that they're coming back to the US with a DCO DCM acquisition which will be um a big win for them. And so um I think competition is good. I think you know Paul event contracts and prediction markets will probably follow a similar path that like things like you know fantasy sports has followed. Um it might follow a similar path to you know what has happened in exchanges. So what does that mean? that means there'll be a few

winners. Like it's definitely not a winner take all market, right? You know, Poly Market's the leader right now, but you know, there will be other, you know, good outcomes in this category. And so I I I totally get it. Um, and that's exciting. And to your point, like Coinbase, um, you know, they're also an investor in Poly Market, right? And they believe in this category and they want exposure to a bunch of things and they're a strategic investor. I think if you're not a lead investor and you're a relatively small investor, which I think some of the other guys you called out are, yeah, you might just want a portfolio approach. Um, we have found that for us that's not the way we get the returns that we've been able to get and and what excites us. We try to get, you know, call it a lot of um a lot of

exposure to the things that we we are, you know, wanting to be a part of. And by the way, you up about Don Jr. I think Don Jr. also just invested in uh >> okay I was going to say explain this one to me so this was back from January Don Jr. joins cashy as an adviser and then you know the headline this week was poly market receives strategic investment from 1789 welcomes Don Jr.'s adviser so is Don Jr. just playing both hands here. >> So, so I don't know what's what the situation is. I I can't speculate. Um, I will tell you that obviously when you know that first announcement came out about Koshi, uh, you know, Poly Market wasn't in the US. Now it is, right?

They've re-entered with their DCO DCM acquisition. And so, I'm sure that's a big part of u the story here. >> Yeah, DCM acquisition is big, right? Because I mean, I I I think that people don't realize how soughta these DCMs are. Um, they acquired was it was it did this business do anything? QCEX. I mean, they paid 112 million. I don't know if they did anything except they had a DCM, which is very very very soughta, right? So, I I actually put together a list of DCMS. Um, and there's really only there's a very small amount of DCMs.

It's like I mean designated there's like 19 or 20 of them. And some of there's overlap on some of these where it's like CVOE and Aerosx where you know CVOE obviously bought Aerosex and then there's several of these that are pending but really not that many of these licenses out there. So for people who want to get into the prediction markets game and do it legally in the US uh it's going to be a lot tougher I think than than people realize. >> Yeah. And so so just so your your readers understand or our listeners understand um a DCM is is a designated contract market. It's basically like a a CFTC uh license that allows you to offer a certain type of future in in the um uh in the US essentially. So a certain type

of like event contract which is what they what they do here. So uh you're right that like these aren't uh they don't grow on trees like you know they require a certain level of um just sophistication and operating these markets. The QCX guys they had some volume I believe um not a ton. they just hadn't been able to to really make it work. And there's some others on here, too, who don't have a ton of of volume. Um, but, you know, it was a big win for the Poly Market guys to be able to acquire it and come back and and, you know, serve in a regulated way US customers. And so, yeah.

>> Um, I I think I know they're they're extremely excited about that opportunity. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think some of the big acquisitions you'll see the rest of this year, maybe into early next, are just acquiring DCMs and acquiring licenses. >> Yeah. That that'll keep happening. Listen with with what happened with Genius and what you know people think will happen with the the passing of like clarity there's a lot of excitement about offering you know regulated you know crypto and crypto products in the US and there's a lot of people who are going to be focused on that getting the right licenses I mean uh we can talk about it now or we talk about it later but the CFTC coming out with their that Fbot announcement today uh around allowing through the foreign board of trade um offshore exchanges to offer

crypto products to you know call it Americans. That's a big deal again, right? So the what is happening here explain that Rob? I I I saw the announcement. I didn't I I read the you know headline tweets but tell me tell me why this is a big deal. >> Yeah. So the CFTC um has recently been not allowing for the uh offshore exchanges and offshore like you know products to be sold uh in crypto to be sold to or be traded by US customers. Uh the CFTC had previously had a uh basically a precedent of using this um Fbot registration framework. So the foreign board of trade is Fbot that is

you know not um easy but I would say is like well verssed and people understand it and they know how to go and do this registration framework to offer products to you know call it you know US uh customers. The previous version of the CFTC and under the last administration had stopped allowing that to happen. they had gone away from historical president and they had um not and they had stopped essentially those foreign uh exchanges from from offering product to the US um derivatives specifically. That is now changing. They said that today Caroline Fam came out and put out this um and the CFTC put out this release and again that's along with what we just talked about a big idea or it's a big deal in terms of continuing to bring

regulated crypto markets to US customers which is all that we've ever wanted as an industry. >> Yeah. Uh there are a few problems that I think people duly note out with prediction markets that I want to get your take on. Again, I I know you've probably thought more about stable coins than than prediction markets, but um yeah, curious if you have a take as well. So, so one of them is that they only surface uh truths, right? People say prediction markets are faster than the truth than anyone else, right? The the counter to that that people would say is they only surface the truth because of insider trading. Um how do you how do you think of that?

>> I mean, that's definitely not true, right? Like if there if there is insider trading like certainly you could surface the truth through >> sorry not insider trading in the traditional term of secure like uh if these things become markets not not insider trading in the traditional term of you got a public stock or something and you know what the earnings are going to be but I'd say very insider knowledge >> um and is that a good or a bad thing basically or or here I can phrase it differently the more important a market be a prediction market becomes the more vulnerable it becomes to manipulation and I think the very obvious case that you could point to was like 2024 election probably. Um so >> I mean I would say sort of the opposite right though the the markets become more

efficient with more information right and if you want markets to be efficient then you need more information. So the people with the most information willing to put money behind their view of the future because they have information is a good thing right it it allows it also because it means something to you and I we also are obtaining and we're looking at that information right and as you see on poly market it's not always true I mean all of these things right they're they're options contracts it's not always true that you know they poly market says something that's 70% likely to happen it doesn't always that way, right? Because what does 70% likely mean? It means that you know 30% of the time it will not happen, right? And so

the there's an expectation that um if you allow people and you create a market where people will put money to work that that is a uh an incentive mechanism that makes markets more efficient relative to things like you know polling, right? Where people have an incentive sometimes to lie, right? If you're if you're an economic incentive, maybe you don't have an incentive to lie anymore. And so it's a better way of surfacing the truth because you are creating a incentive for people to bring the information that they have and to express a view with that information. So that's a good thing, not a bad thing, right? As long as it's done in a way that's regulated and it's done in a way that you know, you obviously don't want things like

assassination contracts, which people have talked about and things like that and Poly Market and Koshi and these guys don't don't allow those things. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think one one area that I'm watching really closely is uh actually sports betting. So, uh the I forget if it was the big beautiful bill or another bill changed the taxes of uh sports betting to make it I think it's the I'm going to botch this in some way, but Matt Lavine's written very uh some some great pieces on this. So, you used to have um it was like a 100% could be 100% of something could be written off and now it's only 90% of something could be written off in sports betting.

I'm not a big sports gambler, so I'm not >> It's losses. Yeah. Yeah. of your loss. Okay. So maybe Okay. So it's 100% of your losses maybe could be written off and now it's 90% of your losses can be written off which means that even the best which means it's really no longer profitable for like let's say sports gambling used to be profitable for 20% of people used to make money. 80% of people lost money. Now it's profitable for like 1% of people. So you would imagine that if if that tax bill maybe it already went through. I'm not even sure. If that continues happening, you would actually see sports betting move into uh event contracts on places like Koshi, Poly Market, these new platforms and away from the FanDuel and DraftKings of

the world. >> So, I think you're already seeing it. I'm trying to find the um data and I I'm struggling at the moment. >> We have it on our platform here. Let me pull it up. So, >> I got to get better at block works. So, >> there you go. Seriously. So if you go into prediction markets on the platform, you can look at um >> so if you go look by category, I think it's >> volume volume by market tag. >> Yeah. So sports is already their second biggest uh market, correct? >> Yeah.

>> Yeah. And so you know you see sports there and then uh is the other one is that crypto or elections has been the biggest in July? >> Yeah. politics, um, sports, nothing in science, nothing in pop culture. Crypto, crypto is actually bigger than sports right now. >> Yeah. So, so what we've seen is, and if you look at call it like, you know, back when the election happened, >> it's cryptos and sports. It's like crypto and sports are actually bigger than politics right now in politics. >> Yeah. And but you know, so politics and elections have obviously been bigger during the election period, but right, um, sports has actually been a big part of the growth of of poly market. And you're seeing this in Ky too actually.

um sports more and more of the volume uh in sports is coming to to these guys because people um it depends on one it depends on like you know how and where you're betting there is obviously this thing about around taxes but there's a lot of excitement around using these platforms for for sports and so we we are seeing that as a a big growth engine um uh and so like macroeconomic you know uh culture crypto election like politics but also Not just US politics. We've seen a big uptick on on poly market and things like you know foreign elections as well. All of those things are are growing and you know I I expect that sports will be a bigger and bigger part

of the story over time to be honest. >> I by the way I got that metric wrong. I I was looking at the volumes. I think open interest is probably a better metric than volumes for prediction. >> They're both good metrics. They just mean different things. >> Yeah. >> Right. And so like open interest is obviously you know the amount of >> look look at this open look this is actually an amazing stat on poly market. I think everyone said the OI would tank following the election and you can actually see here OI is actually almost as high as it was during the election.

>> Yeah. I mean this is you're looking at quarter right now and so the they obviously if you look >> I mean I mean they had one extreme quarter right here. >> Yeah. One extreme obviously. >> One extreme month. Yeah. >> Yeah. leading up to the election in October. But yeah, I mean the the the thesis for us when we did the investment was that you know a lot of people passed uh on that round because they said listen like okay well they do well during election years and then you know it craters and they in some sense you did kind of see this in 21 where polymer market grew not to the heights they are now but you know did really well during the election year and then they lost about you'll call it 70% of their open interest in in volume into the following

year but it was also a different time from macro perspective it was different time in crypto And frankly, I I think there the market just wasn't ready for this type of product. It is different today. Like this is this is also a really social platform. So, you know, I don't know if you see it, Yano, but when I'm um you know, something big happens, my chats all hit up with like, oh, check out this poly market and like we're talking about whether or not what we think about it. It happens all of my platforms, but I I don't know if it happens to you, too. >> Yeah, same thing. Same thing. Um my on the on the prediction markets my like mental model for this is that uh in 2017 this it feels like 2017 for

prediction markets right now like in 2017 you had a few exchanges right you had like um I don't know OKX and Coinbase and Gemini and like Paloni X which circle bought and a few others it but that was at the start of 2017 uh Kraken Bitstamp let's call it 10 of them maybe by the end of 2017 you had about a hundred of them and I don't I'm not saying it's going to be that big but by the by the end of 2017 you had so like all all of the all of the new players came onto the scene including by the way Binance right >> um >> and by bit >> and and by bit and most of those didn't work out. Some of them ended up being big winners and some of the existing old

players like the Coinbases and Krakens ended up being, you know, 100 times bigger than they were back then or 15 or 20 times bigger and some of them ended up not doing super well like like the Geminis of the world, right? Gemini, it used to be Gemini verse Coinbase. Now it's definitely not Gemini verse Coinbase. So, um yeah, that's kind >> Binance and Bid are the two biggest exchanges in the world now, right? And they came out of that era. >> Exactly. So, all right, we got to take a quick ad break. I'm not sure if it'll be quick. Might be a long ad break, but thanks for listening. We'll be back. I want to talk about Rob our DATs priced in uh when we get back. So ad break, we'll see you back.

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>> Only 17 of them. Um, all right. Next question. This is from uh let's talk about dats. Um, and we we'll we'll keep the dats tight because I know everyone's batted out, but uh there was a good question from the Empire channel from who asked this one? It was Jamie. Joy. Jeremy. Shout out Joy. is uh he said is is sold is the sold DAT going to pump or not or did we already see it pre- pump? And I I think I'd probably rephrase his question a little bit to just say like are the DATs priced in basically. Um and I want to hear how you think about this.

>> Yeah. Um listen, we're not traders and so you know I I don't think about it maybe in the in the same way. I I will say so we've seen a lot of news about the DATs this week. I think it was Multicoin and Galaxy. >> Yeah, Jumping Galaxy. They're doing a >> um uh they're going to do a I think they said a billion dollar Salana DAT. >> Um I think we also Panta and maybe somebody else was doing four or 500 million bucks. So we've seen news around, you know, some other DATs kind of coming out to market. Obviously, you know, famously I think there was one the asymmetric rise that ended up not working. Um, but there's there's there's actually absolutely capital coming into

the space now. It sounds like it's in the call it you know few billion dollars maybe is what we're seeing for across all the ones. I think there's another announced one that was run by the um the guys from Jambo. Um and so again so we're talking about a few billion dollars. Well, what has Salana done over the last week? It's up 17%. It's I think the number one performing asset over the last week of like any real size. is I think only Kronos which announc which which kind of surprisingly announced a DAT also pumped this week but like other than that Salana was up by far the most >> surprisingly. Yeah.

>> Well, maybe everyone's going to announce a so you you tell me. Um you know on a week where like Bitcoin was like basically flat like Ethereum was like 6% relative to their 17% and I kind of pumped before and and that 17% is like approximately $17 billion worth of value for Salana. And so if you really think about that $17 billion worth of value out of, you know, kind of maybe front running what is a few billion dollars worth of buying pressure that implies to you that maybe it was priced in. Now, you know, there can be a bunch of other variables there, right? There's also been also what you you may not, you know, have priced in, which is and I think the it happened in ETH, right, was like when Tom Lee came out and did his

original raise for Bit Mine, like he raised $250 million. It wasn't a lot of money, but then he hit the ATM or the at the market offering. Uh, and he quickly in like three weeks took that from a $250 million vehicle to a $2 billion vehicle. And so it is possible that through, you know, call it size and expertise and capital markets behavior that that few billion dollars that I mentioned ends up being, you know, much bigger. Is it possible that it ends up being 10 times bigger? I I I don't know. Um, but, you know, listen, there's also just like macroeconomic variables and other things. So uh that said like I think my rule of thumb generally is when everybody starts talking about a thing it is pretty quickly you know priced in at least on on large assets.

>> Yeah let's talk about the macro factors. So um going into so there's probably I mean this is consensus there's probably two things that drive the markets right now. It's interest rates and AI. Um, and we're all basically running on this big AI hype boom, I'd say, and the vision of lower interest rates. And that is causing what feels like a lot of exuberance in the market. I'm not saying over exuberance, but a lot of exuberance. Um, you're starting to see two interesting there's two two interesting things happen this week. One is Nvidia started to slow their guidance. I think they beat I didn't read it too closely, but they beat earnings but started to slow future guidance or forward guidance. Um, and that's combined with Chad GBT five being

a miss from a couple of or missing their whatever you want to call it. >> That's a hot take. It was a miss. >> Yeah, it was a miss. I mean, they they missed the expectations. It was an amazing product, but they missed expectations. So, you've got AI starting to maybe show cracks and slowing. On the other hand, you have Trump yanking the Fed, the um I forget her name, the new what New York the New York Fed chair um which is the first time I think in 111 years since the start of the Fed that that has ever happened which is um >> yeah, thank you. Look, I'm I'm not on we're not this isn't Forward Guidance podcast here, and I'm not the macro macro connoisseur that uh Felix is, but

I mean I mean it's basically like, all right, why yank the person who's against lowering interest rates so that you can lower interest rates and get this market ripping into the mid midterms in 26. Um, but again, I'm not I'm not the macro connoisseur that someone like Felix is, but yeah, I mean, how do how do you think of you, we've probably talked too much on the podcast recently about like are we at the top cycle blah blah blah, but like yeah, how do you think about these two factors? Yeah, interesting thing for the market. Uh, and you know, I listened to the podcast that I missed last week and then you guys did with Row and and you guys were, you know, right before like the Jackson Hole meeting, uh, that where where Powell came out and was like very doubbish and I was actually in Jackson

Hole and the reason I missed it and you saw the market respond really really aggressively on Friday after Powell came out and was basically just way more doubbish than anyone expected. But he said something else there that was really interesting which was essentially hey listen we we are considering that maybe target inflation uh of 2% won't be you know the same it won't be exactly what we're focused on over time and we might change the way we focus on target inflation or there might be you know kind of higher target inflation and the market reacted really aggressively because it seemed like okay well we're going to get you know rate cuts and then the market was really really red on

Sunday and on Monday and I don't know I've been a little bit too busy the last day to to understand what's happening today but we've seen the market react I think um or retrace most of that and so Bitcoin which I said was flat on the week they it pumped on Friday and then retrace basically all of its gain and I think what's happening is the market wants looser monetary policy they want lower rates but it also is concerned concerned about what this means for future growth expectations and you know what there's is there a new normal in this economy that is potentially you know if it's not propped up by AI to your point are there cracks right and I

think that's what we're seeing people digest right now it's it's also the last week of August by the way and so volumes are are really terrible but um I do think that there it's a bit of a mixed bag from a macroeconomic standpoint and so we're we're still in the the market just kind of figure that right now. >> Yeah. What's your prediction? >> I don't know. I'm not the professional here, but I will tell you I um if you asked me to put, you know, a bet on a poly market that whether or not Bitcoin would be higher, you know, a year from now, um it would I think that, you know, I'd put a lot of money on the yes side. So, um but but >> put a lot of money on the yes side that Bitcoin would be higher in August of

26th than it is >> correct. >> Okay. >> Yeah. how much higher, you know, I I don't I don't >> I would disagree with uh Chris saying looks to me like the last big test before the final set of the cycle. >> I think Chris is saying it's it's going to go up, right? Like Chris is agreeing with >> Yeah, but I think he's saying this is like I mean I don't think he says it goes up for a year. I think he's saying this is >> Listen, you've had a lot of people say this on the podcast. I think I've said this on the podcast. Uh this like religious like you know >> four year cycle. I know. >> Yeah. Four year cycle stuff is just like crazy. like I like it just it it defies like any logic and it defies any sort of

like understanding of how like sophisticated markets work. And as crypto has gotten more sophisticated, as it's gotten, you know, better and broader distribution, like there there's no reason for that whatsoever. And so I I just >> you would probably agree with >> Big Sean, baby. It's not too late to invest in crypto. Do it tonight if you can. I think it's going to go up. It is never too late to invest in Bitcoin. I 100% you see this video. >> Not financial advice, but it is uh never too late. No, I listen I I um I had I had lunch with some guys from from Goldman uh who do some of their like macroeconomic forecasting. Um they call it two weeks ago or so. And um actually

very interestingly Trump called out Yan Hatius who's the chief economist there like right after in a in a tweet but I had lunch with these guys and they were they were basically saying listen we we as tariffs have moved through the economy and they continue to see them move through the economy and I think there are still inflation concerns uh related to as we've seen kind of move through PPI and CPI in the last month as that those tariffs have moved through we're we're not we're concerned um maybe neutral on the way the rest of this year works, but we are really really constructive on next year. And so from a lot of the really smartest people in in the market on on the macro side, they expect a really really positive 2026.

>> I have a I have a top signal. Not a crypto top signal, but just a market top signal. >> Is that what it is? >> Oh, no. No. I'll do you one better. Elizabeth Holmes, baby. Elizabeth Holmes had not tweeted since December of 2015 saying, "Congrats to Serena Williams on Sports Illustrated person of the year." And then we got >> Iron Sisters. >> And then we got a nice Muhammad Ali quote saying, "I've never pushed myself harder mentally, physically, or spiritually in my life." Muhammad Ali's I don't start counting the sit-ups until they hurt has become a metaphor for every hour. So we got a decade later back in the ring. Listen, well, you know, we saw Chimath launch us back. All right. So, now we need Elizabeth Holmes

to launch a new company. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Rob, anything else you want to cover? >> No, I think that I think that's, you know, listen, for last week of of August, like that was a lot and there's still a lot going on and I'm excited for what, you know, September and October looks like. >> Yeah, I agree. Content of the week. >> Listen, opening weekend for college football. That's part of my big Ohio State guy. I didn't know that. >> I'm a big Ohio State guy. Yeah, I went to uh the National. >> Go Blue. You'd be like, >> "Oh, no. Oh, no.

>> We might have to We It's a good thing we didn't, you know, make this arrangement official yet." So, we might have to have to break up. >> That's cool. So, you're All right. So, you're going out to the game. That's great. That's good. Yeah. Do you um you go with a bunch of college buddies or >> Yeah. go So, I didn't go there. I went to um a school called Washington University in St. Louis >> uh for for undergrad. But I um I grew up >> when you say I went to WashU like I say I went to Emory which is cuz I grew up on the west coast where nobody knew what Emory was. And then you come to New York and everyone knows what Emry was. I'm like all right I don't have to say school in Atlanta called Yeah.

>> I I'm still scarred by it. I think I was I I was looking at um not to digress too much, but I was looking at like um uh Penn and like WashU and my grandma was like, "Oh, like Penn State like you know great school, but why wouldn't you go to Ohio State?" You know, um wash you like why are you going all the way to to Washington State? Why don't you go to Seattle? >> Yeah. Like um that was that was the family. So um you know, still it's still been beaten into me, you know, whatever 15 years later. >> So content wreck is watch some college football on Saturday. >> That's it. Yeah. There is also, and I I'm going to get the name of this um correct, so I got to I got to pull it up. But um I've been reading uh this

book um I'm going to get this name right, called Wine in War: Um the French, the Nazis in the Battle for France's greatest treasure. So, I don't know if you know this about Mo, but like I'm a big red wine guy. And there's a bunch of call it interview >> red wine guy. Rob, I thought you're more of a tequila shots guy after hanging out with you. But uh >> No, no, no. That's just you and Santi and you guys pulled me into your into into what you guys are doing. So um but I actually I actually really like this book because it's it's you know talking about a little bit like the history of World War II and um through and the occupation through the lens of like what was happening in the wineries in France. Um and so I thought it was actually just super interesting.

>> Sounds like a stretch. No, >> no, it's it's actually really interesting. >> If you like it and and um you know, learned some interesting stuff about how the uh some of the wineries would just give like bottles of champagne to like the French troops to like make them feel better, right? And I was like, you know, like it's it's uh makes sense. So, >> yeah, I I have two recommendations. One is um it's a I I actually haven't listened to this podcast yet, but uh it's with the interact it's about Interactive Brokers. It's by if if anyone likes the podcast invest like the best by uh with with Patrick Oshanosy his business Colossus has another bis uh podcast called business breakdowns. They did a big breakdown on interactive brokers. Um interactive brokers is

amazing story. It's this like Hungarian founder named uh Thomas Peter Fly Peterfly Peterfi I think it is. He still owns 70% of the business. They're a$ 110 billion business. They he's like 20 I think he's like top 20 richest people in the world now. 70 or 80 billion dollars. Um and he's just a stud. Taught himself how to code. Bought a seat on the American Stock Exchange in the late 70s. Um started a discount broker went public in '07. Market cap of like 10 billion. It's up 10x since then. Um net sales of five billion. Pre-tax margins of 70%. Like just a beautiful business. So, >> what do we do with our lives? Ya,

>> launch a discount broker, baby. Um, well, I have another one, which is people should really go read that book, Replay, that I recommended last week or the week before. I think it's now my book of the year. I will share uh a Reddit summary of this book that I thought did it better than I could ever do it. It says, "I just read by Ken Grimwood. Such a fantastic book. Mind-blowing. An absolute gem that knocked my ass out. This is the science fiction I love. the kind that upon finishing you can't move a muscle while while you sit paralyzed thinking about what you've just read. Saying this book was thoughtprovoking would be an understatement and I would go so far as to say it's life-changing.

>> Did you write this? >> No. This is wooden collar 6650. But I will say I my takeaway is not far off from that. So anyways, I'd really recommend if people like sci-fi, I'd really recommend this book Replay. >> I like sci-fi. I'm going to read it. And you and also you need to you need to >> I watched your show. >> I'm your uh the the Danish. >> Oh, you did. You made fun of it, too. You were like, you know, >> I know. I know. Then I watched the trailer and I was like, "Oh, this looks pretty good." I'm on episode five. It's fantastic.

>> It's awesome. Right. >> Yeah. What's it called again? It's called uh >> um >> We Are Family or Your Family? >> Uh yeah, I'm I'm I'm blanking on now because I But um >> Danish Netflix series Family. I watch it all >> like ours, families like ours. Basically, Denmark decides to shut down before climate change like >> because climate change is getting too bad and it's going to flood and uh they only have so much money in the in like the central bank, I guess, and so they want to use the money to get people out and it's a very >> Rob already described it, but my take is it's a a very interesting look at like the social dynamics that unfold as as bad stuff happens and the country shuts down. Like real estate goes to zero.

Okay. So like everyone's wealth is in real estate and then do you try to sell the house and kind of like insider trade on that if you have that information before? It's very good show. So >> yeah, go watch it and I'm I um I'm glad I converted you. So you know after you gave me a you got me >> you guys have been giving me a little bit of crap like I'm bringing the the you know the content recommendations down right and I'm just providing you know fun >> summer baby. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So all right folks thanks for listening. We um the origin episode, the co-CEO of Kraken. I made a mistake. It's coming out this Monday because we had Hester Pierce this past week. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that episode. We've got Kraken talking about the 10-year vision for Kraken. Um goes kind of behind the

scenes of like the acquisitions they've made. Uh stocks on chain, bunch of interesting stuff. Arjun's a great guy. He he also co-founded a firm called Tribe Capital. Um he he he was very early or helped build up a lot of Yahoo back in the day. um I think worked with Shimoth maybe at Social Capital if I remember that correctly. So really bright guy. Um yeah, thoroughly enjoyed that. Thanks for listen folks. Go watch the US Open or if you are like Rob, go watch some college football. See you on Monday. Go Bucks.