Ethereum fundamentals, treasury companies and the future of onchain finance

Transcript

GM. Good morning. Welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show where every token just turned by the dip into oops, should have bought more. I'm your host, Jay Hamilton. It's Thursday, August 14th. Can this rally last? Everybody is hyped right now. Everything is green. Where do we go from here, though? What happens next? We look at August, September, and throughout the rest of this cycle. Also, Ethereum almost at all-time highs. It is getting so close. As of this recording, it's almost at all time highs by the time you listen to this. Very possible it's at all-time highs. But there is another 27 billion approximately in dry powder within digital asset treasuries that is

earmarked to buy ETH. So where does this go? Is ETH going to keep ripping? We're going to talk about that. Also, what's going on with all the new L1s? We got Stripe launching L1. We got Circle launching an L1. How is this entire ecosystem going to look as the future of finance moves on chain? And of course, where's the edge and where's the alpha? And how do you make sure you don't forget fundamentals during these euphoric moments of a market cycle? Today to break it all down with us is the one and only Joshua Frank, co-founder and CEO of the Thai, one of the leading data service providers for the digital asset ecosystem. Before we jump in, as you know, we have a team of full-time crypto investment researchers

who breathe the markets. All they do, eat, sleep, wake up, and talk and learn about crypto and how to invest. And this week, we have a awesome pro report coming out. So, make sure you check it out. Hit the link in the show notes to go pro today if you're not already pro. You can also get access to our community. Today's episode is brought to you by Figure Markets. Grow your cash like a bank. No lockups, just real returns. It's also brought to you by Nexo, the platform that grows your capital without locking it away. With that, Joshua, welcome back to the Milk Road Show.

>> Thanks for having me on. >> Pleasure to have you, my man. It's been a minute since we had you on since uh it was last November. I can't believe it's that long. I feel like you and I were joking about how we've lived a lifetime. >> I mean, I don't remember I don't remember the exact date of it, but it seems like I'm your good luck charm. I mean, we had the, you know, the election rally in November and now we have this rally. So, there's definitely a correlation. Maybe I should be on more often right? >> There we go. There we I mean, hey, if you can bring the rallies, we'll have you on and everybody will want you on more often. That's for sure. Let's let's start there. Uh, how are you feeling about this current rally? Is uh is this uh is this is this something that you

feel good to stand on or you think that we got a pullback coming from here? Where where do you think? >> Yeah, I mean, well, how do I feel about it? I mean, you know, I'm looking at 7-day returns and I see ETH up 29% right now. You know, I see Salana up 19%. I see some of the L2s up like crazy numbers like 30%, 30%, 40%, 50%. So, I mean, that's, you know, that's a pretty good feeling. I mean, you know, it's uh especially when you you know, you look at your uh you know, your uh your exchange account or your wallet and you see the balance go up every day, you know, it's it's it's a pretty good feeling. The question of where we go from here and how sustainable it is, you know, obviously that's a very that's a very difficult question. And so, what is

driving the rally? I mean I think everyone you know has the same belief which is that it's treasury companies right and it's you know treasury companies going out you know being set up uh to buy a ton of a particular asset obviously there is you know micro strategy being the first one to do it with Bitcoin and now you have a ton on ETH and you have a ton on alts as well um and so you know the question of how sustainable it is I mean it really is how well these digital asset treasury companies manage themselves how well they manage their risk you know, making sure, you know, a lot of these companies are trying to maximize the amount of a particular coin per share and in order to do that, they will, you know, they will they will lever up, they will borrow, they will

buy more of the token. You know, the problem with with alts is that these assets are pretty volatile. Um, and it's definitely possible that these firms could be liquidated, right, if these assets, you know, run down. And so, you know, the biggest question for me is, you know, how long they can properly manage for, as well as how long these things can continue to trade at a multiple of their their NAV or the underlying assets they're holding. Um, you know, if they're not trading at a multiple of NAV, the sustainability of that, I think, is a little bit in in it's going to put some risk. And I also think, you know, the first one of these things get that get liquidated, and it's going to happen. It might not happen next week. It might not happen next month, but it will happen is going to

send a bit of a ripple effect through the through the rest of the market. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that's that's what it really what I'm watching. But until then, I mean, more and more money is piling in and levering up to buy more tokens. Uh, and and obviously that's a huge deal for ETH. Uh, it's a big deal for Bitcoin, but I would argue it's going to be an even bigger deal for some of these altcoins that are less liquid and that are smaller, you know, that are coming out. I think you'll start seeing um mega activity on some of these alts, right? I mean, I'm hearing, you know, companies trying to raise to buy like 25% of the supply of a token. That's insane. That's also a tremendous amount of risk for that token because if that token get if that that gets liquidated

and all of that supply hits market, I mean, the thing is going to is going to go down way faster than it went up. Uh but I do think it's uh you know there's there's everyone in their grandma is launching a DAT and some people's grandma is launching or grandmas are launching three dats. out. >> Yeah, let's I I want to talk about let's talk about Ethereum first and then let's expand to uh the rest of the debts that are being created because I do think there's a you it's such a it is so early in this narrative in my view and I think we are we are just in the first inning and as you said like everybody's grandma's trying to launch a dad right

now and that's just I think that's just getting started. I would argue we're closer to the seventh inning than the first inning. >> You think so? >> Yeah. I mean, I I think I've been in this industry for a long time and I've seen a lot of these things play out, right? I've seen the ICO craze, you know, I've seen DeFi summer. I've seen so many different, you know, periods of time and it's always the same thing when you start getting texts from people that aren't in crypto about crypto and people start doing things and you know the conversation isn't this asset has a fundamental value. The the conversation is this asset's going to have buying activity because of this thing. That's generally a later stage type conversation, right? Um and so it

doesn't mean that we can't triple again, right? Just because we're in the seven doesn't mean we can't triple again. But it but it but it but it does mean you just got to be wary and you and I I say this a lot and I know it's not it's not a sexy thing to say or an exciting thing to say. It doesn't hurt to take profits along the way. >> Um actually want to come let's come back to that later in the episode. Uh because I do think one of the most one of the most important things that everybody needs to be talking and thinking about right now is your exit strategy. And now is hopefully you already thought about your exit strategy. If you haven't thought about your exit strategy though, you really need to think about it now because we're still early enough that

you can probably think about it with a clear head. But pretty it's possible if this continues that pretty soon you you're going to enter euphoria and it's very hard to think about the biggest the biggest thing that people need to remember is if you had cash today would you put it in the token you're holding? That's how you have to view everything is if if if the answer is no, you shouldn't be holding it, right? Um, and and and and look, don't be afraid to sell early. I I sold, by the way, I mean, I've been in crypto a long time. I sold a ton of Bitcoin at 10K on the runup to 20K in 2017 and I look like an idiot when it ran up to 20K. Um, but

then I went and I bought the dip at 3,700 and I had more ended up with more Bitcoin than I started with, right? And so I think Bitcoin has a lot more long-term prospects and it's sustainable and there's sustained buying pressure and you have the ETF and you have all these things around Bitcoin. But I think, you know, it's it's more important especially as you think about altcoins, right, that are less volatile, that have less fundamentals and things like that. You know, I think, you know, one of the biggest things is one of the lessons I've learned is when you you know, you start to ask yourself, well, what if it doubles again, right? That's when when when you ask that when you when you tell yourself, well, if it just doubles one more time, that's when I think you need to start de-risking a

little bit. And and by the way, you know, my thought on this is going to, you know, means you're not going to pico hit the top, but it also means that you're not going to ride a thing all the way back down because yeah, >> nobody's going to hit the pico top. You should not. That should not be your goal, right? that your goals should be based upon your your own life and your financial situation and your risk tolerance and the fact that you want to buy a house. Like these are all things that like you need to like think about yourself. I think the biggest thing that I'm really encouraging people right now is to to in some way do not plan to sell your entire bag all at one point. Right?

Whether you DCA out, whether you however you think about your exit strategy, >> start to think about it and don't be afraid to sell even just a little bit, right? Even just a little bit to see how to see how it feels during a bull run, right? Because a lot of people have roundt in the past and so to sell a little bit, you know, hey, Ethereum hits an alltime high. >> Everyone has roundtrip something. I've roundt tripped something. I'm sure you've roundt tripped something. We've all roundt something before. Um, and so you're gonna round trip something. I guarantee one of the things, everyone listening, one of the things that you're holding, unless you know, unless you're holding maybe Bitcoin, you're gonna roundtrip it. Uh, if you if you continue

to hold it forever at some point, it might not be it might not be in a month, it might not be in a year, it might be in three years, but but you know, um, something you're holding is going to round trip. >> Okay, let's let's um let's put the uh the exit plan aside for a second. Let's come back to to Ethereum right now. So I had this up before I didn't get a chance to mention it. So um there is about 27 billion in dry prowder across DATs that's been earmarked to buy more ETH. So that's about 6 million ETH if this if this happened. a lot of people saying, "Hey, this is this kind of comes back to what I'm saying of like we're still early in the digital asset treasury

movement particularly around Ethereum and Ethereum has the narrative right now. It's got, you know, Tom Lee's coined the next Bitcoin, right, which is amazing how simple that is and very inaccurate from a technical perspective, but very accurate from a market narrative perspective. It feels like Ethereum's got a lot of room to run right now. for close to all all-time highs. How are you feeling? >> Yeah, I mean I think um I think it's important to remember the conversations we had one month ago, which was that the fundamentals on Ethereum are not what they once were, right? And so if you look at Ethereum's run historically, Ethereum's first run was in 2017. And

why did Ethereum run? Why did it do so well? Obviously, there were people using the chain and things like that, but it was because people needed ETH to participate in ICOs. And so, that created this tremendous because if you look I mean, if you look at ETH's, you know, performance in 2017, it was obscene. It created this tremendous need and buying activity for ETH. What was the next runup? The next runup was DeFi summer when, you know, people needed ETH to participate in DeFi and, you know, NFTts started moving and, you know, it cost $80 to transact, $100, $200 to transact on chain, right? There are these fundamental demand drivers for ETH. What is the demand driver for ETH right now? It is quote unquote fundamental. It is all of this money that is going to funnel in and buy ETH.

Do I think the price is going to go up? Yes, I think the price is going to go up. I think this is going to I think I think the levers are going to be pulled. I think price is going to go up. $27 billion in buying activity for a $500 billion asset is a tremendous amount of buying activity. And on top of that, more people are going to buy thinking that the price is going to go up. And so collectively that I think will push the price up. But I do think it's important to remember at some point the party will stop. And I don't know when the party's going to stop, but at some point the party will stop. And when the party stops in crypto, fundamentals do matter. And everyone was talking about east fundamentals 30 days ago. We're not talking I'm not talking a year ago. I'm

not talking two years ago, 30 days ago. I mean, it's very inexpensive to transact on chain. There's a million, you know, L2s that are out there. ETH isn't the isn't the only L1 anymore, right? Right. And so you have to think about, you know, it is trading at a $600 billion market cap. $600 billion, an obscene amount of money. And now you have Stripe rolling out their own L1. You have Circle rolling out their own L1. You have tons of competition. You know, banks are use, you know, rolling out their own, you know, L1s. There's all these new chains out there. Um, at some point fundamentals will matter again. That doesn't mean ETH can't go to $20,000, though, right? So, these aren't mutually exclusive ideas. You have a

tremendous amount of buying activity or or or or cash that's flowing in that's going to buy ETH and that can move price up. But, I do think it's important um you know to remember that in bare markets, fundamentals really really do matter and we're not going to be in this market forever. >> If long meetings and judgmental bankers are your thing, Nexo is probably not. Nexo is a premier wealth platform built for people who value their time and money. It's built for people who have idle cash lying around and want it to grow fast. Whether it's Bitcoin, Ethereum, or even Forex pegged assets like USDT or USDC, Nexo offers up to 14% annual interest and access to cryptobacked credit in under 24 hours.

Your assets need a platform built for growth. Join Nexo. Why do people invest in real estate? Because it spits off cash flow. But I'm not here to manage rental properties. That's why I'm looking at Figure Markets. Their new democratized prime product backs your money with real cash flowing assets and returns up to 9% APY. It's the first real world asset borrow lend pool built for everyone, not just institutions. Ready to lend like a bank and get more than the 5% A is offering you? Download the Figure Markets app today and get 9% on your idol funds. Go to milkpro.com/figuremarkets.

When we take a look at the other digital asset treasuries, you you and I were talking about this before we recorded. So, it's not just Ethereum or Bitcoin. I mean, Bitcoin has had DATs for obviously a long time. Ethereum's the one that's come come to the party and everybody's wants a piece right now, but there is DATs being launched feels like every day for other tokens as well. when you see that what what does that signal to you? >> Yeah, I mean it signals to me that people want to make money launching these DATs, right? So, you know, it's it's there is a lot of money to be made if you can be somebody who goes and organize ones of the one of these DAT companies. you can go out, you can raise a ton of money, you can bring it to the

market, and then investors are hoping if I go and I, you know, put money into the pipe for a DAT or however it's structured or however it's funded, I'm going to put a hundred dollars worth of a token and it's going to trade at one point or let's say I'm put in a 100 tokens, but it's going to trade at 1.5 times the value of those tokens and I can get out as quickly as possible, right? And so a lot of the times investors want, you know, when I say investors, these aren't necessarily even investors. A lot of the times people putting money in these things are really looking to flip or trade them. Maybe it's a VC fund that was like a large investor in this protocol and they look at public markets as an exit for this, right? And so you got to think about

what is the what is the reasoning behind a lot of people participating these DATs. It's because they want to make money and they want to make money very quickly, right? They they everyone knows or everyone's talking. I talked to a lot of people that do these deals. People know that this isn't going to last forever, right? Or that's the broad belief. And so people are putting money in and they're trying to do deals where, you know, they can sell their shares in 30 days and 60 days and 90 days or whatever the period of time is. It's a very short period of time. And I think it's important understand the dynamic of why people are funding these things, right? They're funding these things because they think if they go out and they launch, they'll trade at some premium to value the assets and then they can go and they can sell them for

more. It makes sense. I would participate in some of these things. Makes sense, right? Um and you know, Bitcoin and ETH, that story's already been played. And so naturally, where do you look? You go down the list of tokens and pretty much any token in the top 100. I I I assure you either there's already a data in progress, there's already five DATs in progress, or they're talking about potentially doing a DAT for one of these things. I I see it. I mean, I was I was doing another one of these, you know, kind of live stream podcast type things um on Tuesday and I literally was talking about DATs and I got sent two pitch decks for DATs while I was on the live stream for this thing for altcoins. And so just for perspective on how many of these things are launching, I mean, I I was I don't

know if I've gotten one. I was actually checking because it would be kind of funny if I got one since starting this conversation, but just for perspective on how how many of these things are there actually are and also a little bit of a signal as to maybe maybe that is why you feel like we're in the seventh inning, right? Like that signal does feel more like seventh inning than first inning. That's for sure. I mean, I've been pitched >> four BNB dats, I think, right? Like there's just, you know, like there's just so much of it there. There's so many of these things and it's just it feels a little and maybe it's a gut feeling and and and not, you know, not necessarily something that's defensible, but it's just having been through nine years of crypto cycles,

I it just it feels frothy. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. I think that like uh Avichel um Gara co-founder of Electric Capital was just on the show and he said it best in my view which was very similar to a lot of other categories and narratives within the market. There will be a few debts like strategy for Bitcoin and there's probably there is other ones MetaPlanet for Bitcoin and others that have done quite well and will be sustainable long term and very likely the same will be true for Ethereum and other tokens that that do last long term so long as the token and the fundamentals last there

will be a few DATs that do well. I mean, the best example on the Ethereum side is just if you can acquire enough ETH and then stake it and create enough revenue from staking that ETH, you've got a pretty good business right there. Right now, that being said, there will be a lot of people who lose money on DATs. And when the music stops, which as you're saying, it's going to stop uh as as the cycle hits its peak and we go into a bare market, there will be a lot of DATs that get liquidated, which is going to impact the tokens that they stand behind and also obviously anybody that's involved.

>> There's also there's also, you know, I think worth adding there are a few DATs that are also just not going to raise enough money that it's worth operating. Right. Right. So, so that you know there's a bunch you know there there's some you know at some point you know the thing needs to be large enough to make sense to financially operate right there's you know there is some amount of management team and board and things it's not a huge company it's you know a handful of people but there's >> there's some overhead cost that needs >> you can't do it with a million dollars right you know like you can't you can't just hold a million dollars of a token in order to >> No I don't think you can hold $50 million I don't think that's either it's gota be big enough Yeah. So,

so would you invest in debts? >> Well, it depends what like would I would I seed would I would I put money into a pipe for something that's not public yet, right? Potentially. It depends on the deal. And look, you know, I would take the same approach that other people are taking, which is how fast can I get out, right? I mean, I think end of the day like I mean, but seriously, right? Like it's like look, I have I have tokens, right? I would, you know, I would be excited about a DAT where I could take the tokens I have. A lot of these DATs, they're not necessarily just raising cash. They're raising tokens in kind, right? So, if I can contribute a thousand ETH and I could get the equivalent of 1,500 ETH and then I could sell that and then I could go buy 1,500

ETH and then I could recontribute it and then at the end I could sell it and have 1,800 ETH and then I could recontribute it. So, a lot of the time, like a lot of the funds that I'm talking to, they're just recycling money. So they're they're putting 20 million, you know, five, 10, 20 million bucks into these deals, selling it, going back to market, doing another one, selling it, going back to market, and they're just continuing to recycle capital. And a lot of these funds are being structured in a way where they have the ability to recycle capital, right? And so they can do that. In terms of things that are on a public market, I I mean, I think, you know, that's up to your risk tolerance uh and and and and what you want to do.

Obviously, some of these things like you put money in micro strategy a few years ago, you would have been done you would have done way better than just holding Bitcoin, right? And so that doesn't mean that there's not opportunities to make money in these things. Uh but I do think if some of these like altcoin things launch and they're trading at like four times the value of the underlying assets. I personally would probably stay away from it. The folks that are making the money are the folks that are launching these products. >> Yeah, it's a great take. It's a great take. Okay, let's talk about all the L1's and you you you're a finance guy. So, one of my favorite questions to ask right now is what is the future of finance going to look like onchain? How how is this all going to play out? Because the big

question that everybody wants to know is is it going to be on my chain? Is it going to be on Ethereum or Salana or Sooie or wherever your investment is? And I think there is a question of like does that matter in this cycle, right? Which is a separate question from an investor perspective. >> Oh yeah. I mean I think to the point on DATs, right? Fundamentals don't matter, right? Like there's be that there are going to be DATs that launch for random tokens. And by the way, I think in some cases the more centralized the token is potentially the better they do um in the cycle because I I mean that's counterintuitive, right? like you know centralized you know super centralized token founder puts 10% of the supply into a DAT you know they raise some cash

on top of it they buy it you know >> those things could do really well >> yeah you can see how that that flywheel could could work uh okay Stripe launches in L1 is going to launch in L1 uh >> where where does this all go how are tradfi and the banks going to use crypto are is everyone going to their L1. Is everyone going to use a particular L1? What's the How do you see it playing out? >> Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really difficult question and I think it depends on the institution. Um, and it depends on the product and what they're trying to do. So, for example, with the folks that are tokenizing, you know, private equity firms or, you

know, or real estate or whatever, they're going to go for distribution because they want retail to buy it, right? And so, you know, Robin Hood is doing a bunch of tokenized securities. They're doing it on Arbitum, I believe, which is an ETH L2, right? And so, um, I I think it just depends on what the product is. You know, keep in mind for for a lot of things, you know, privacy really matters, right, to these institutions, right? You know, when I when I send money or when when Goldman and JP Morgan send money to one another, that transaction is not public. If that transaction happens on ETH, it's public, right? And so I do think privacy is going to really matter to a lot of these institutions and to a lot of use cases.

You know, especially for things like um you know, collateral management and and collateral mobility, right? You know, imagine you're a big, you know, hedge fund and you need to send collateral to Derabit. You don't want the market to know that you're doing that, right? And so, um I think privacy is going to really matter in that case. Um and so, >> yo, please go for it. And then I'll I'll add more thoughts there. I was just going to ask, does does ZK Tech solve that? >> Um, so there's I think I think I think proponents of ZK tech would say that it solves it. I think there are some people that say that it wouldn't. And I think my answer is I don't know because I'm not an expert at tech. So I can't I can't but I do know there are lots of

institutions that are using ZK. So as an example, I believe Deutsche Bank is working with ZK sync on on their own chain. Um, I know that, you know, Midnight, uh, is a new chain that launched and has an airdrop that, by the way, you probably can go claim like if you hold Bitcoin or ETH or Cardano or other, >> everybody can pretty much get the Midnight airdrop. >> Yeah. I mean, it's free, so you should probably go claim it. I think they're calling it Glacier Drop. >> Glacier phase or something like that. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, just as an FYI, you might be able to get free money. Uh, so nothing else.

>> We'll put a link in the show notes for everybody that wants to know about that. So, so but I I you know there there's a lot of people talking there but there's also uh you know one of the biggest blockchains that I think no one is talking about and and we are biased. We are a large holder. We are very involved in it. So I want to be very clear and transparent about that uh is Canton network. So I'm not sure if you guys have talked about Canton network or your listeners know about Canton. >> Tell tell us I know about it but we have not talked about it. >> Yeah. So Canton is a basically spun out of DRW which is one of the largest proprietary trading firms company launched about 10 years ago. Uh basically originally building enterprise uh blockchains there about 50 different

you know enterprises that are building on Canton. So or building on DAML which is their programming language. So like not a lot of people know this but Goldman has like I don't know like 60 or 70 full-time engineers building their own private blockchain on Canton. So you have I mean they've raised money from Goldman, from JP Morgan. They just announced I think Citadel, Polychain, CZ just put money into this thing. So there's a ton of people building and basically before what was it? It was basically these 50 different private permissioned enterprise blockchains. But they realized that a lot of those private blockchains wanted to communicate and imagine you had a Goldman chain before theoretically and Goldman wanted to communicate with JP Morgan. Right. Previously, Goldman would need to run a node for JP Morgan on

their chain and JP Morgan would need to run a node for Goldman. They now introduced basically the Canton network and this thing called the global synchronizer that allows these disperate uh networks to communicate with one another. And so, um, you know, some of the unique things that they do there, uh, you know, they have like tons of privacy related features and shielding features. So, if you know, Goldman and JP Morgan theoretically interacted, you wouldn't not know what actually transpired there. So you would know party A interacted with party B and the amount of you know tokens that canon tokens that were used to cover basically transactional fees on the network but if they sent 500 million US dollars to one another you'd have no idea right and so I think you're going to start seeing and there's a tremendous amount of activity on that network the it's not listed on

exchanges yet but that's that's you know coming but there's a tremendous amount of activity on that network uh and I think a lot of the privacy preserving features uh are things that people really care about. We've actually written a bunch of research. If you just type in Canton research, the tie will probably show up first. You know, we've done a lot. Obviously, we're very involved with the network. Um, but I think that's an example of something where I think you'll see a lot of enterprise adoption there because there are privacy related features and it's being specifically developed for for institutional and enterprise use cases. Whereas, I think a lot of these like public blockchains don't have those same features that I think, you know, a lot of institutions would need. But I do think institutions will choose to do things like potentially build on like an

avalanche subnet and use a permission sub subnet which you know Avalanche calling evergreen subnets I think maybe they'll choose to work with some of these other networks as well but I think it's important to understand what are the things that they actually care about. If they're looking for distribution I think they're very comfortable with public networks but if they're looking to do things that they normally aren't broadcasting to the market they're probably going to look for networks where they can do things that they're not normally broadcast that are not you know being broadcast to the market. Kanton has not doesn't have a token liquid token yet, does it? >> Kanton does have a token. The token is not listed on any exchange yet. So, the token is live. It's trading OTC. Uh, but it's not So, if you are uh, you know, high net worth and you can trade OTC or

you have a fund, it's possible to purchase it OTC, but it's not trading on any exchanges yet. I don't know when that is going to happen. My expectation is it will happen by the end of the year. >> Right. Right. And that's how is that how you think banks will that's the playbook banks will use. It feels like the there's almost like a few different incumbents you have to separate. There's the fintex which you know you mentioned Robin Hood their playbook is so far Ethal 2 right build on Ethereum don't worry about developing their own chain take advantage of the Ethereum network and let's go we're just going to quickly spin up this tech stack using arbitum or orbit. That sounds great. So whereas you're saying the large incumbent banks,

they might not play that game. They might go more the private route, work with some sort of with a with a network like Canton that is >> Yeah. I mean I mean for perspective I mean you know a lot of people have talked about how you know XRP is going to disrupt you know trade settlement of the DTCC. I don't know if anyone saw but this weekend Bank of America, Citadel, the DTCC and Trade Web just settled trades on Canton on the weekend happened on the network. Real activity and so is proof of concept, but the DTCC invested in these guys. So I think I mean the fact that like those are real names, Bank of America, Citadel, DTCC, and Trade Web, right? So, I think, you know, you're you're I think that network specifically is going to do a very good

job at attracting and keep in mind, you know, it's it's actually a company that's been around for 10 years. Um, it's not this is not a it's not a new it's not a new company, but the the the network is is is public, but I do think there are benefits for I think people will, by the way, choose to run their own ETH L2s that are permissioned. I think that will definitely happen. Um, I think people will choose to build, you know, subnets on Avalanche and on other networks as well. I I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I think it depends on do they care to interact with others or do they not? If they want to have their own private environment, in which case, you know, some of these guys might want to have if you want to have your own private environment, it might

make sense to run, you know, another network. Um, but I do think interoperability is something that's going to become incredibly important among these different institutions. >> Yeah. Okay. Very interesting. By the way, like a Canton network potentially in the future could be EVM compatible and could be interoperable with EVM, right? So, it's it's not to say that that's not it's not the case today, but it could be the case. >> It's probably likely the case down the road, especially if EVM becomes, you know, if Ethereum becomes the world supercomputer and is used in the way that everyone thinks it could be used, whichever chain has that, any everybody's going to have to become interoperable with that chain. uh other than Canton,

any other tokens or projects that you're watching that you like right now outside of the uh the you know the typical big guys? >> Yeah, I mean I think I think it's you know it's again it's a question of um I mean I think some of the stuff that I'm looking out for and it's not necessarily a specific token but I am really interested in seeing how TGEs go. you know, h historically or not historically over the last couple of years, TGEs have basically been a like, you know, it looks like a water slide. Um, and and not, you know, not like a water slide for your for your 2-year-old, like a water slide that's like I'm going to die, you know, it's like straight down.

And so I am curious to see, you know, look, you know, you have IPOs in crypto, those IPOs have gone pretty well. You know, the Toro IPO went decently. Circle IPO was ridiculous. I mean, Kraken is looking like it could be ridiculous. I mean, you know, they're raising around at 15 billion right now. So, that's a real number and that's a preipo round, right? Like, >> you know, uh, bullish just >> bullish is today, right? >> Yeah, bullish listed. Um, well, I guess yesterday if you're listening on Thursday, it was on Wednesday. The >> But, yeah, bullish listed today. It was slightly priced above, you know, kind of what the expected range was. So, I I mean, the IPO market's looking good. The Treasury market's looking good. So I wonder like you know you know I want to

see what you know the monad listing is going to look like right like you know how well that's going to do is that going to you know trade above their range. I mean what we've seen you know we saw in the you know the last couple of years is that people launch and then they start questioning fundamentals but right now fundamentals don't matter and so um you know like I I wouldn't be surprised and I have no inside information on this. I don't know if this is the case, but MONAD could launch with a billion dollar treasury vehicle on the same day the token TG is. Like it definitely could happen. Like there's no like it could 100% happen. I don't I don't I don't have any inside baseball there. I don't know if it is. But my point being is like that's really the

kind of stuff that I'm I'm I'm looking out for. Um in terms of like you know where where I'm excited from a from a token perspective >> before before you answer that next question, what do you expect to see from TGS? Because I think I think as you said IPOs all doing well clearly a lot of demand on the Wall Street side. Dats same thing. A lot of demand in public markets for access to crypto right now. What about TGS? Do you think do you think they'll do well? Do you think the water slide is continues? >> I think it depends where they price their listing at. I I think it just depends where they price their listing at because, you know, like as we saw with the Definity listing a bunch of years ago, right? Definitely

launched at $50 billion market cap uh or something crazy like that and it's been down 99% or something since launch, but it's still actually trading at a few billion dollar market cap. If it was priced at a few billion dollars, it might have been a very different story, right? And I think, you know, when somebody looks at a at a at a at a uh at a chart and the chart is, you know, red and down only, I mean, there's very few examples. I think the Maple team, and huge credits to Sid, I think the Oiler team, you know, they've done a good job at kind of, you know, revamping, revitalizing, you know, bringing, you know, bringing price back up. But I think, you know, as a as a as as a project listing, you know, obviously you want to get a return for your investors.

You want it to look good. You want to have, you know, a big number. But I think at the same time you also need to just be cognizant of what what the chart looks like. And also look, you know, projects that have done really well have done really well in large part because the average investor is able to access them and the average investor is able to make money on them and the average investor becomes an advocate for the project and for the community, right? And if if you know things list at too high of a number, investors get in and they just get completely washed, right? It's going to be hard to build that, right? And so I think that's just kind of a you know an important caveat here.

I know that wasn't a sexy answer of like, hey, I think this token is going to do particularly well, but but that's kind of like my, you know, my thought process. >> Yeah. And and it's it's very interesting to get the lens through which any anybody looks at the market and the way they think about it because uh there is no formula that's perfect and these are the >> and it depends on the week in crypto and it depends on the month and and like look, you know, I think I think the next meta is going to be listing and doing a DAT at the same time. I think that is what's going to happen. Um, I I don't I don't think that's a hundred million dollar token listing, but I do think that will happen on these multi-billion dollar listings.

>> Very interesting. Yeah, definitely going to watch out for that. Josh, great to get you back on the show today, my man. Thanks for joining us. >> Yeah, thanks for having me on. >> Thanks everybody for listening in. I got to remind you one final time that today's episode was not financial advice. I'm not your financial adviser. Joshua is not your financial adviser. If you need help with your investments, you should speak to a professional. Thanks so much for listening in, y'all. Have yourself a wicked awesome day. We'll see you back again tomorrow. If y'all are making swaps or trades right now, highly recommend you check out Milkroad Swap. This is a DEX that we built in partnership with Cow Protocol. Why do we build it? Not to make money. Just honestly, so we could have a place to do our swaps for the lowest fees that we

could find. This is the fees on Ethereum, Arbitum, and Bass are only.15% fees. Uh this is a huge difference from uh other centralized exchanges that charge half a percent or even up to 1.2% fees on their swaps. Also, you can swap on Salana all at swap.mmillgro.com. Check it out today. You won't be upset. And you can join me in my favorite place to make swaps on chain. As always, if you liked today's episode, please hit subscribe and make sure you follow us so you don't miss out on the next one.

There's also a link in the description to our free fiveinut daily newsletter where we simplify crypto for you while making you laugh. And if you're willing to step up your crypto investing game, we're going to also leave a link for Milk Road Pro. You get access to our portfolio where you can see exactly what we are buying. This is your number one resource to help you invest successfully in crypto. One final note, this show is for educational purposes only and nothing we say is financial advice. Investing in crypto or any asset is risky and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose. Thanks so much for listening in my friends.