FRIDAY MORNING CRASHOUT

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Welcome, welcome. Good morning. Welcome to another Xerox Research live stream. Joined by my co-host, Picacio. How you doing, Bach? And we've got Tes and James Kristoff. uh prominent Wolf Swap development team members and uh Telegram group members, frequent podcast listeners, all the uh all the relevant titles uh that you might want to mention there. How we doing today, guys?

>> Good. How are you? >> Happy happy Friday. Happy Friday. >> PGF, man. You gonna get some pints tonight? Bruce skis. >> I don't think so. >> James, any thoughts? They're quiet over there right now. That's It's not normal. He doesn't realize he's muted. >> He's too He's busy. >> He's gunshy right now. That's fine.

>> Wait, I'm not muted, am I? No. >> He's back. >> No. Gez, I was talking to myself. Oh my god. >> Welcome to the show, James. What were you saying? Hey, we missed it. >> I was just saying I'm actually doing a little bit of work right now, so I'm multitasking. I apologize if I'm a little quiet. >> All right. You don't I mean, you don't have to lie to us and say that you're working. We know. Everyone knows that you're not working right now, but that's okay. >> Awesome. Um well, Ryan Connor is going to join us later. Uh I don't know when exactly. He wasn't very explicit about that. Uh Dan Smith rugged us today. Uh I think we were going to have a little bit of a a conversation discussion around pump fun. I think we'll save that for later for when Ryan comes because I know

he's very uh eager to talk about that in detail. Um Boach said he's not eager to talk about that because we've talked about it six or seven times on the past six or seven pods in a row. >> So, um I don't know, Boach, what are what are you thinking about? Is there something you would like to talk about? >> Um I am looking at two to three things. I like Ethereum D5 plays. if you can find anything relatively sexy. Um, and on the second, I think we might have a mini further arbitrum season. Um, obviously Talis has done quite well. I imagine that brings some attention over.

Um, and we'll see what Onchain Labs has next for us. But um this was actually kind of a struggle for me because there's a there's a few apps launching on arbitrum um over the upcoming few months. But the like existing arbitrum defy is kind of dead. Like you don't really want to buy GMX because they just had that hack. Um also like I don't see how sustainable that model is as a per model even though they were before the hack they had quite a few um they had quite a bit of revenue. Um although I don't know how that's going to work out.

They used to have Vert.Ex which I feel like was arbitum native obviously shut down. Um apart from like there was a time where you had maybe eight nine things that you could long whenever like arbitum was getting a season. Um Grail was a big one. Now it kind of feels dead. So, I'm I'm looking for non-dead arbitum native projects, which I think will there I imagine they're going to launch a few and I imagine there's a few coming up. Um, but that's it.

>> Yep. What's the relationship between uh what is it? Off-chain labs, right? And then onchain labs. They're like kind of like >> officially the offchain labs app layer team. I don't know if that's official, but they tweeted about it multiple times. So I imagine as official as it can get. I don't know. Like these like lab structures are always very convoluted. Um they seem to have the full backing. I imagine it's like one to one and they like they're part of one another, sister company, brother company, whatever you want to call it.

Um, but yeah, apart from that, not not really that much going on. >> I guess I'll give uh two shout outs. One, just a quick thanks to Aptos for sponsoring this stream. But then two, Shauna Deans in the Telegram right now telling me that Pear is on ARB. He did just write about Pair. >> Um, so maybe a quick shout out on that one. >> I don't know. Strong thoughts. Have you have you dug into that to his thesis viewpoint there? >> I have. I think his thesis was more so like that it's undervalued and not that it's like the greatest product on earth.

I don't pair trade to be honest with you guys. Um and I imagine most people who are pair trading very very actively are just putting on their own positions through the hyperl front end. But from what he wrote, it was that they raised at a premium to their market cap and they raised quite a bit of cash and then they were like very low um FTV and they were launching on AR on Hyperlquid. Um originally was on GMX so it made sense as a thesis back then. Um I'm sure it still does. I don't I I haven't bought it. So, >> that's a uh that's a smack favorite, too. And I don't like to be in that. I

don't like being in the business of of fading smack, but I had no idea it was Yeah. I mean, it was at like 4 mil market cap like last week. >> Yeah. >> So, it's up uh Yeah, it's up 100% this week. Um >> that's interesting. Yeah, I personally haven't used it. Um I'll put that on the on the weekend to-do list. Um but yeah, I think you're kind of on something with your stuff. Are you a big pair trader, Tolks? You don't seem like a big pair trader. >> Uh, not really. No. Um, from time to time, but I think it is kind of one of the most like I don't know underrated.

Like, you don't have to look at much more than I mean, you shouldn't really be per trading in in general, but and then pair trading is another level. Um, but I do think that the ratios are are really important. I mean, obviously everybody has talked about ETH BTC forever and um I tweeted earlier this week that I'm a little concerned, not concerned, but just monitoring the fact that that Soul ETH and Soul BTC might be the new ETH BTC of the past, you know, kind of three years where everything else runs and then Soul runs last and then kind of the market dies, which is kind of what's happened this week. Um BTC ran, ETH ran, Soul ran, and then once Saran, you know, hit 200 and then everything kind of kind of started

puking. Um so that's definitely something I'm I'm watching. Uh but yeah, I mean the pair trades, they're they're they're incredibly important, you know? I mean, it's it's such a simple concept, but you know, you pair stuff against BTC and ETH and so on, like, you know, if you're not outperforming those, then then nothing else really matters. Um, one thing I want to add here is that that we talked about this. Was it last live stream? It was with >> Ian and Teddy. Danny, was this last time?

>> And we we mentioned the same thing. essentially that soul. Um Ian was very upset but there is a chance that there is a chance that there is like memecoin season is the best way to gamble this cycle, but NFTTS were the best way to gamble last cycle and we we we'll see how everything goes. Um, on the other hand, they did a pretty bulky upgrade recently >> with compute units. Um, >> yeah, the BAM upgrade was great, but it's more so like it's not necessarily for me like a comment on, you know, onchain trading like any of that. Like we've talked about that endlessly in the

past and I think there's some like I don't know baseline level that it's not going to go beneath, but it's more so about, you know, just the treasury vehicles and the ETF flows. like that's not something that you should try and stand in the way of and um BTC and ETH right now like you know the flows they're getting through those vehicles are just like that's what the main kind of momentum in the market is right now and there's no reason to kind of go against those two assets that have these institutional flows like you know we we've said it in the past again but like it's it's really really hard when you operate in crypto for a living to especially if you're outside the states to understand like the depth of capital that is in these markets. Like it's it's

just bonkers. Um so that's that's kind of the main reason that that Soul has been underperforming in my opinion is just because of ESB and um BMNR and the the ETF flows. like you just, you know, until soul gets, you know, essentially a black rockck ETF, like whenever that comes, um I just kind of think it'll be it'll be uh like I said, kind of in that e BTC of the past three years range where it should start kind of raising some some alarm signals in your head when Soul starts outperforming for any meaningful amount of time. At least that's what I think moving forward.

And he takes James Christopher. >> Dude, this guy just hopped on the live. Dude, >> he's double dipping. He hopped on the live stream just to work. >> He's silent, bro. James, what happened to you, man? He used to be so outspoken. Oh, >> but yeah. Is that what you guys were talking about? Like you said, Bach with Ian, just kind of that thesis of of Soul kind of being the last to perform. >> I Yeah, this is something Glug also. Shout out Glug.

>> Shout out Shout out Glo. >> No, but he does he talks about this a lot. He says every time Soul BTC reaches like some level on his little pretty technical analysis chart, it like we nuke. And I think that's a fair take to have. Like I know not a lot of people believe in TA, but if if if Soul is like dominating all attention and then there's like a pretty big liquidity sync on it and it's like the last end of the risk curve, then it might be denoting that like historically it's been not historically it's been Cosmos and Atom anytime Adam pumps you're like I'm out. Um, and then it was ETH and

>> it was ETH for like three years. Yeah. >> I I also think I mean Soul definitely there's some signal there, but I also think something I mentioned uh last week when he got we got off the stream to Danny like the hype weakness was kind of something that was kind of peing my interest too just because as like Soul was the dominant performer in like 23. Once it kind of like started being a little weak, it was kind of a signal to the market, you know, sold BTC and sold ETH outperformed for so long and sold as an asset. And then when it kind of got to like local tops, the market would kind of local top. Um, and hype has been really since, you know, launch kind of been in that that spot that that soul head is kind of, you know, the favorite

alt that that outperforms pretty much everything. Um, so the soul weakness or the hype weakness, sorry, that's been kind of interesting to me for for two weeks. I think that kind of signals a little bit of risk off and I mean we kind of have been risk off generally for the last week or two. Um so I'd be looking for for hype to to kind of lead the way as well. >> I mean it's kind of the first thing that goes up, right? >> Yeah. And that's the thing like when and then it's kind of just been you know lagging and and weak for almost like two weeks now. And then you know you look at uh kind of what BTC's done since then and some alts have have outperformed. Um but yeah, I think it's kind of just a broader signal to the market because of

how strong it's been in the past, you know, year plus. Yeah, I think the to your point about like some of the stepping in front of some of those institutional flows for like Bitcoin, ETH or even Soul at this point, like that seems to me to be a big factor here where you know a lot of the onchain activity. I mean, we're still kind of like hanging out at relative lows after dropping off from Q1 kind of activity. Um, you know, there's been a tick up since like March, April when there was kind of like max fear in all markets.

Um, but, you know, I don't think like the soul numbers reflect like the 2x from when it was down, you know, near or below 100 to back jumping all the way back up to 200. And the same goes for ETH, right? Like, but when you know that Bit Miner is raising $5 billion to shove it into the asset, it's like, >> yeah, >> you know, you're not going to know they're going to buy it at any price and just shove it into the market. Like, it's kind of a weird >> Yeah, >> it's an interesting dynamic. I think I think I saw Smack maybe mention this as well. Or maybe it was Noah actually talking about >> Soul being at 200 or whatever, but him kind of thinking lower was the right number if you if you took out Treasury Co.'s purchases.

Yeah, I mean even with ETH, like I mean that's that's kind of the thing I've been thinking about this like you know the past couple weeks is all these treasury vehicles, all the ETF inflows, but like you kind of look at you know the fundamental aspects and like you know it's it's I mean you go ultrasound money, you look at like you know the number of users using the chain, the number of users using L2s, like all that stuff is still kind of down from you know uh I want to say what like 24 peak like Decemberish Um, so it's kind of interesting in that aspect. But again, it goes back to just the fundamental aspect of like these institutional like US capital market flows are just so large that like there's no there's absolutely no reason to step in front of

them and you have two assets that are essentially blessed in that regard and people are bidding it and there's no reason to to you know step in in front of that. Um but yeah, as far as like the fundamental aspect goes, like it is kind of interesting that nothing um no metrics really would in my opinion. I mean, stable coin growth has been awesome. Um but outside of that, like there's not really metrics that should support necessarily ETH up, you know, 50% in a month, but again, like these flows are insane. People are buying, so like there's no reason to to try and step in front of that. You just kind of just ride with it.

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I think the we lost him, man. I actually don't I'm worried for James. I'm I'm worried someone has showed up at his place and taken him out. >> He's got to work on the wolf swap talks. I guess the other thing for um soul, not that like necessarily being consensus or non-consensus like is always absolute like the absolute market mover on these massive assets, but kind of the story there of it basically becoming like a full consensus like winner.

uh we kind of had the complete flip-flop, right, where it was like ETH is everything and then over a few years that kind of swapped into like okay Salana is winning all this stuff now and ETH is just like such a big stinky loser. Um and that sentiment kind of flipped a couple months ago. Um and I guess you maybe you know there's some questions going forward here like we have judam and I think maybe this concept of like you know fees go down but then if throughput goes up like do we in the immediate or near-term see like a reduction in rev that you know you need like another step step function like wave of of fresh demand to like pump the aggregate number higher and that impacts the valuation.

So, there's questions there. Um, I don't know. Do you want to talk about Zorabok? Dan Smith was asking for it. I'd c I'd be curious your take. I think um it's got another it's had another like wave of uh excitement again. Uh I think it's maybe worth reviewing it, giving a updated viewpoint or if it's the same viewpoint. Um, but Zora, what the big thing is they got integrated into like the base app now, which is like in private beta. Uh, and they kind of like updated the flywheel, I suppose, a little bit. So, there's like a kind of stack of coins now. There's like the Zorocoin and then

there's like a creator coin and then there's like a coin per post for a creator. Um, to me, like I'm not any more excited than I was when they dropped the token and back a few months ago when they had kind of like a blowoff of activity from uh, you know, Jesse Pollock and the base team kind of bulling about it. Uh, >> what's the what's the Dude, I can I tell you something? I don't think I've ever longed or shorted or looked at the chart for Zora. Um, I ain't Well, it's down 20% today. Pull it up. You got it.

>> Went up 300%. So, >> yeah, >> I'm pulling up the uh we do have a Zora dashboard. That's what I'm I'm looking for something in here. >> Okay. 140 mil market cap. Um I imagine this is mostly because of the integration to the base app. Um logically, this application does not make sense to me. Do you know like still it does not make sense to me but that might just be me mid midcarving it like do you know what I mean? I'm I don't I don't think people want to post for

money. Um I think it's gosh goch. I don't know how you pronounce it in English. Anyway, um but I mean there's a large part of the population who do a lot of things for money on the internet. So who am I to say like you should do this, you should do that. And we'll see. We'll see. I think this is like a pretty clear example of something that I always talk about and that I fought with people over that in crypto fundamentals do not matter as much as people think they do. Like we have gone in a year and a half from fundamentals do not matter at all. Only thing is

narrative. Do you guys remember 2023 and it was just like lists of narratives being posted on Twitter like notes and whatnot. And then like >> yeah, >> immediately afterwards we completely switched up and everybody's talking about rev and revenue and fees and they're like oh but like Zora it makes 30 grand a year. like it does, but there are other plays that like there's there are other things in crypto that matter more than um like it's such a nent market that you can't and even in like traditional markets does it really like a lot of fundamentals don't really matter? Um, like if you pull up the Tesla chart, I

think Elon Musk tweeted out today that like 20 trillion will require good execution, but it's not impossible for Tesla. And it's like that type of stuff moves markets on Tesla. So like Zora integrated into the base app, which people are probably using to farm it and then they're just like buying XY Z on the Zora app like just minting. I mean, I'm sure you guys spent last week like at least opening up the Zora app and buying one or two people, right? Like it's not a crazy I did. I mean maybe you didn't >> I just bought the token instead of buying that stuff. Yeah. Um >> whatever. Like you know what I mean?

Like this kind of stuff. I think crypto's so nent that things like that matter. Announcements matter. Integrations matter. BD matters quite a bit. I mean that matters in real like in Trapfi as well. But um I don't I think we kind of overcorrected and then a lot of people miss like and then we do the Zora versus pump thing where like pump technically is is a great asset but also maybe not because like usage is going down. I'm cognizant that I said I don't want to talk about pump and you know what I mean? It's like, oh, like pump's fantastic. Made 800 mil last year and then it's like it's down what 60 70% on pers whatever 50% on um

ICTO and then Zora is up 135%. All time like I don't know. >> Yeah, I don't have a lot to add. The only I think you're definitely right about announcements mattering. This is the only thing that I'm looking at like in terms of people using the platform right now is you trading fees on the coins trading and it's just like been this thing where announcements about okay we're doing coins now back in February and it pumps activity for a week and then you know Jesse and the team at bass post about it in April and they do an airdrop and it pumps for a week and then now it's integrated into

the base app um and it's been about a week like like I guess let's let's see what happens. Um I'd be happy to be wrong here, but I kind of tend to agree with you that like I don't I don't necessarily know that this is like a product that people actually want. Um I would agree that like sure yeah yeah people people want to make money that's for sure. Uh and I'm sure the people who are like have some posts on here that have like made them some cash are happy about that. Uh, I just don't know if this like really is like the right product format or for like growing into mass appeal in the future or even like growing to mass appeal within just the crypto native audience today.

The video was good. I'll give that to Jesse. It was a It was a good It was a good second attempt at the video where, you know, just framing it as and I mean, you know, there's there's some gray area there, but framing it as a social media platform that you can post on and and make money versus, you know, another platform that that you can't. Um, you know, we'll see the the sustainability of it. Um, I don't know. I mean, sometimes, you know, I think it's okay to say that the bass team and and Jesse sometimes are a little, I don't know, out of touch and and cringe a little bit, but I applaud them for doing, you know, trying trying things. They're in the arena trying things. Um, >> [ __ ] project.

>> They're in the arena. >> They're doing something. It could work out. >> No. Yeah. Uh, I don't know. I I do applaud them for that though. Like I don't know. I mean they have, you know, they have the Coinbase wallet. They obviously Coinbase the amount of users they have like there's something there that might eventually perfectly thread the needle. Um but I'm not sure it's necessarily Zoro. Um I hold the coin now, so I hope it's Zoro and it goes to three trillion dollars. Uh but outside of that, yeah, I I don't know. I mean, we'll see. It'll be interesting to watch um watch the metrics over the next uh the next couple of months. Um I think Dan Smith tweeted out the metrics a

couple times this week. And I am always kind of interested in stuff. Um it was kind of the early like sole bullcase where you could see that obviously after FTX like everything died but then there started to be a slow trickle up of you know users and transactions. And I do think that Zora the metrics kind of have a chart like that where it literally essentially like died and went to zero for you know like a month the metrics and then when they start scaling back up like that is there is something to pay attention to there because generally in crypto like when things have that initial push and then they die like they generally don't come back. Um so anything where you see kind of that that like U shape on you know the metrics whether it's you know users fees um

transactions obviously there's you know there's a lot of you know more granular details that you need to dig through than just those but it is kind of interesting in that aspect um because that is kind of like one of especially as you know we used to kind of transition from cycle to cycle like that was one of the most profitable things in the world is to understand like kind of what died and 99% of the stuff never comes back. Um, but there is kind of that 1% that that does come back and ends up being being massive. Um, so I think it's interesting from that aspect.

I I'll keep watching it, monitoring it, but yeah, I mean, we'll see. >> Yeah, I guess the um like looking forward the bull case for them is that they have uh like there's a big strength in having base and kind of Coinbase uh in your corner from like a distribution perspective. Uh, so like if they can make the right product like a meaningful product that people like and it's integrated into all these Coinbased products for them, um, like that's a big leg up over any other like crypto social or like crypto trading product that's starting from zero. Um, so I think that gives them an advantage. I think it's just a question of like will this thing really take off?

So far we haven't really seen like the the success hasn't like compounded, right? it's the the announcements and like the exciting things uh kind of pump the activity up and then they and then it's faded away every time. So would like to see some uh consistency there I guess is is the main thing. >> Um I'd also like to make sure that they don't [ __ ] it up because oftentimes base ecosystem apps will launch something and then they'll just [ __ ] it up. Like do you guys remember Dracula? >> Do you remember Dracula? >> Like the Dracula founder kind of screwed that one up though.

>> He just just [ __ ] it up. like they they they get something going and then they just [ __ ] it up. I don't know why they do it, but um I don't know. It kind of feels like every time they get like a lot of attention, they have a little weird moment. Um I'm sure it won't happen this time. >> All right, cool. Well, uh before we jump into the next thing, I'm going to do a quick shout out our sponsor for today's stream. Quick shout out for Aptodos. Um, Bitcoin DeFi is heating up on Aptos with nearly 400 million in BTC assets on chain.

Aptos users can now earn yield on their Bitcoin via Echo ABTC and OKX XBTC without the typical bridge risks and high fees. Thanks again to Aptos for sponsoring today's stream. Let's jump back into it. >> Can we come back? >> Block disappeared. >> I left. Oh, we're very What's next? >> Yeah. Uh, I guess there's two things I was curious if you wanted to talk about.

One, uh, that's I think is interesting is is buybacks potentially. Uh, I know Byron from the editorial team, he wrote like an interesting article on buybacks going like way back in the history of companies. I think it's become like a bit more of a thing. Like we don't necessarily need to talk about pump specifically, but like obviously there's a lot of happiness and excitement around hyperlquid 97% buyback. We've talked a lot about like this like fight over the double kind token equity model. Um this like two asset struggle. Um and I think we've mentioned as well like right now the market kind of punishes you if you don't do a buyback, right? you you don't

give faith to like your token holders if you're not doing some kind of buyback. But it leaves open this question of like how how punishing like should the market be? And if someone is doing a buyback, like what's that right number today? You know, is hype doing the right thing by doing 97%. Like should it be all of it? Should it be 100% because you have no faith that um you know maybe the because the status quo for so long has been that just like you know labs teams take all the money you know the equity holders basically take all the money and and don't ever like do anything for the token um or for the benefit of the token in the long run um or is there some leeway here now with the kind of trajectory a little bit at least that

some newer protocols have been on in directing you know flows back to tokens growth, development growth and like funds that positively impact the token in the long run. Curious both of your both of your takes here like [ __ ] it, give everything to the token or no, that's stupid. Some amount is meaningful though. >> I think Hyperl is probably a bit of a unique case just because I hold it and I don't want to say anything bad. Um I imagine I imagine the right answer to this from like a trady perspective is to say no you should reinvest in growth. On

the other hand, we have like you mentioned labs problems, token and equity structure problems which I think warrants um some form of indication to the market and to general investors that token investors that the token will acrue value to an extent and one way to do that is through buybacks. Um, another way to do that is just by like returning, I guess, the stakers, etc., paying out dividends, however that's going to work. Um, I don't know. This is like a really tough question because on the one hand, it's like if you buy back $4 million of your token a day, that's fantastic for

investors. You know what I mean? Um, especially if you're like quite dominant in in in your field. Um, it's like Hyperlid has been doing this since December and I can't fault them for for it because like they've spent they they've upgraded the chain since then. They've continued to dominate. Um, it's not like they're losing market share. So, I don't really see like the the counterargument to that is like maybe they should have grown f they could have grown faster if they hadn't. It's it's definitely tricky. I imagine they're like quite a rich team already um just based off their background. So maybe they're building it out as like we don't

really need immediate payment. We would rather just like do whatever we have to do with the tokens eventually um that are allocated to them. And let's also like not like okay you don't have the cash to spend to do acquisitions but they have a hefty um team allocation because they didn't give out any VC allocation. So I think they have like much larger than what regular teams would have. Um so I imagine a they're still incentivized, b I think they're incentivized to just build everything inhouse as much as they can. Um yeah, and like other teams who have reinvested the money um they haven't

done as much as hyperlquid. It's it's like a it's like a whatif type of situation for Hyperlid. So, it's tough. Um it's been fine since now, like until now. Um for other projects, I think it's just kind of shaky, right? Like, oh no, >> no. >> Oh man, we got the dumb on. >> Sorry guys, busy. I'm doing well. How are you guys doing?

>> Good. Fox crashing out right now. >> I'm not crashing out. I gave I'm not [ __ ] crashing out, man. >> No, he's giving a well thoughtout response about how many how much in buybacks is the right amount. >> All of it. $4 million a day into one token that I hope >> it depends. Yeah, it depends if I'm long or not. If I'm long, it should be 100%. Um if I'm not, then we can have a discussion. But I mean kind of what Bach touched on like I do kind of think it is it's kind of like sector and token you know protocol like specific because there are you know some protocols in crypto like I mean like a for example like you know it's been around for for like what six seven years now like and

they keep you know horizontally expanding but like I don't know some of the protocols that end up taking a giant market share in crypto are like so ridiculously sticky year-over-year at like some base level that Like I think you know reinvesting in in growth is is good but like some percentage should be used for for the token buyback. Um like the bridge yesterday announced that they were going to put 100% of protocol revenue back into the token moving forward. Um went up like 35%. And like yeah you could say maybe you know they should save that money and um reinvest it into future growth. But like realistically like you want them it it depends on the protocol because like what is the bridge going to kind of horizontally expand into like obviously

that's you know the fever dream for every protocol to just be like endlessly horizontally and vertically expand all these new areas but like is that actually realistic you know like the bridge has a good product and they're just going to take revenue and and put it back into token for the foreseeable future and like I think that's probably the right thing to do. Um, I mean 100% is obviously a lot. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I just think it's it's very it's kind of token and protocol specific. Depends on on the situation. Um, and it is kind of one of those things that's a little tricky because you can see, you know, the the vision and the the TRFI version of like, yeah, you should reinvest in into growth and acquiring things. Um, but crypto still like I don't know. Like I said, there's

there's very specific things that like I don't really think can horizontally expand that much, you know. Um, so if that's the case, then I'm fine with them putting, you know, whatever amount back into the token instead of, you know, reinvesting into this hypothetical, you know, future growth and expansion. I will say kind of interestingly or maybe like Yeah, I guess in crypto it's interesting because it's f I don't know if it's easier but it just seems to be that way that like you can have a small team or like a single founder come out and get enough money to just like fund their lifestyle basically to go and like

build an app. Um and in two three months they can have you know they can be operating at you know over 100 million ARR um which or you know maybe it's not really recurring um by the typical definition but you know pulling in like 100 million plus revenue for a protocol um and not really requiring a ton of upfront expense to do that. like you can just go out and ship a product that's better um and steal a bunch of market share. It it it's funny to me how like kind of maybe on the edge of some of these like spaces these apps kind of seem or claim to be and yet like it's not so uncommon for like in the trading

app space there's constantly like every 3 to six months there's a new one that comes out ships you know five six better features offers like a better interface broadly um a better app for the traders and then they take all the market share and they run that for a couple of months and they make you know a couple hundred million dollars and then a few months later like I don't know they like slow down. They're not they don't have that edge anymore. Maybe because they already made the bag. Um and then another founder comes along and does the same thing. Um it's it's just sort of interesting the dynamic we have here where like I think there's a case to be made where like yeah, acquisitions are valuable and like you you can do things with that, but there's also a case to be made where you know the Axiom guys just

showed up into the trading bot space and we're like we'll just ship a better product and then we'll we'll take all the revenue in this category. Buck, what are you munching on, buddy? >> I got some gum. >> There we go. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Some ch um Yeah just [Laughter] what are you watching there, bud?

Um, >> how about >> I think for buybacks >> and stuff like that, like it really does kind of matter like like what is the protocol actually do and like um I think Tulkl raises a good point. It's like also like kind of where where is the development coming from uh like what's the team paying themselves and I think like buybacks in general is just like a subset of like greater alignment around the token. I think like alignment around the token is key for like any protocol that wants to succeed in the long term. Um, so I think you're going to see it work out well, but I think like the biggest risk with with buybacks honestly that we'll probably see protocols run into is like uh poor

execution. Uh whether it's like, you know, because like when when companies buy back their stock, hopefully they're doing it at like a valuation that they seen. They're like they're confident. They're like, "Okay, like this is underpriced. Like we can like take some shares off the market. Uh we're confident that we'll be able to like, you know, have this be like uh this is like a plus EV thing to do." Um, but for like many protocols where it's like just kind of programmatic, um, I think taking that supply off the market at any level is good for a protocol like hyper liquid where like you have deep USD uh, like hype USDC liquidity. Like a lot of these other protocols though, it's like they

don't really have great onchain liquidity. Uh, like for hyperl like it just makes sense because they're an actual like trading venue. Um, I think that's also why you see like exchanges do stuff like this where it's like these kind of, you know, they also like own a ton of the supply and it's just like a lot easier that way. Um, but then for, you know, when you look at a pump for example that like was top lasting uh like 420 soul clips at the top of their chart for at least what is the top right now. It looks pretty dumb in hindsight. Uh but like they are continuing to buy back like small amounts. Um like yesterday they they were buying back like I think it was around like 5k clips for

a good couple hours. Um so I think that was it's just like kind of something to to keep in mind. But um you're definitely seeing a lot of protocols but focus on the token which ultimately I think you need to do. >> I really like the pump fund strategy where you ship $18 million in at like 0.6 six and then by 5K as 0.03 that >> and by and by poopora coin in the meantime. >> God. >> No, it is it is interesting. I was laughing this morning just on the topic of of buybacks and what we were talking about earlier with the institutional flows and how big they are. Like Schwab approved this morning 20 billion in buybacks to their stock and like that would put it as number 12 in the uh

market cap rankings. just those buybacks that they just approved today alone. >> Was it Schwab going to Yale? Is this related to that or is this a separate thing? >> Schwab Charles Schwab the >> No, I'm thinking >> management platform. >> I'm thinking of Clauss from the WF. I'm very sorry. >> That's a good segway though. That's a good segue. >> Let's segue into the WF. >> Let's talk about the deep state. It's a good transition from bla top blasting pump to that.

>> I think that's a great transition. >> I I definitely agree with you though, Ian. like to to to get serious again like they um the execution there in the first few days of buybacks I think uh was a bit I mean like top blasting is one thing they were like they were like creating the top candles like they were pushing the chart up and like I don't know I'm sure Ryan Connor would come in and say you know you don't you don't want to be actively moving the market when you're buying or selling uh you know an asset that you're working through And like they actively moved up the market on those first few days of >> Okay, but counter point. Counter point.

Have you ever put in a large wick on something very illquid and small? It's really fun sometimes. >> Yeah, it is really fun. But I don't think you should do it for a $4 billion asset if that if that makes sense. >> Especially not as the um as like the operators of that >> asset. Um >> I know that's probably fair. It gives like a It gives like a silly It gives a silly look, I think, like, "Oh, these guys aren't serious." >> Especially with no comms because I think a lot of people are also like momentum trading that of like it's like, "Oh, yeah." Like they're just shipping, they're putting it back in the chart.

Let's buy it. Um, and because I mean I mean that was definitely not all them that moved the the price up that much. like in hindsight it was like um what like 12 mil uh on that one day at least. >> Yeah. >> But I do think like um we'll see a lot of protocols that are not hyper liquid that are trying to do buybacks run into like issues um around execution stuff like that. So I think like longer term you probably see something like uh like Oilers's fee flow model where like they essentially take like fees on all their products and auction those off and you can only um pay in the auction in the underlying token itself. I think you're

going to see a lot more things like that because then instead of the protocol being the market participant, they're the market facilitator. And so then they're putting the work of like people gathering inventory to um price these things appropriately and like potentially even like uh make like a profitable arbitrage trade um the same like any searcher would. I think you'll see that happen a lot more in the future. um like Babylon put out a proposal yesterday um to start doing that which I I think will probably be a good thing cuz ultimately it's like kind of why like the IGEN token ended up the way it is because like there's no value cruel back to IGEN itself. Um, so like if you have any protocol that you're making like

fees and other tokens and you're trying to like um have value cruel to your own tokens, like you're going to have to be doing something to facilitate that value acrruel through some sort of like market mechanism. So I think like if you're not like a massive um protocol like Hyperlid which is like trading based that's probably the best way to go. And like Hyperlick already does kind of like other auction things where like you know like you're buying a ticker on there or something like that like what the HIP one mech um that itself is like an auction thing and then they just go and like buy back and burn the hype um itself but yeah I think that's what you see longer longer term.

Food XBT stop buybacks and pay Sydney Sweeney to do an ad. Did you guys see that? Actually, >> you see American Eagle. >> Yeah. >> American Eagle stock up like what 15% off of their ad with her. >> It's so I mean it's it's kind of like what Boach alluded to and I mean what I've talked about in the past too. You can talk about fundamentals all you want but like >> No, I'm talking about the narratives and just like momentum and stuff. >> No, no, no, no, no. when it goes to just like I don't know just the way that like even capital and trad moves nowadays like it's there is a lot of you know whether people want it to be there or

not but like there's a lot of you know narrative and momentum and and just like kind of outside attachment factors that have nothing to do with fundamentals and it just kind of is what it is like it's just I don't know it's kind of I don't know it's like the new economy you know you you adapt or die >> well I think people are making a bet. >> They're making a bet on Sydney Sweeney thinking that it will impact the fundamentals of American Eagle because >> Oh, that too. Yeah. >> More.

>> There's deserve to go up 25% before anything is even I don't know, you know. >> I don't know. You got to press You got to price in the future growth, man. Is that >> That's true. Yeah, that's true. But it's just the way that capital markets like operate now, you know, in the internet era. Like it just kind of is what it is. >> Yeah. Once I finish my CLA payments for the Dr. Swatch soap, I I'll definitely be taking my talents to American Eagle. >> You'll be buying 0.1 share of American Eagle because Robin Hood, you can buy fractional shares now.

>> I'll be buying graphic TE's. >> Ryan, what do you think about Sydney Sweeney signing with American Eagle? [Laughter] This dude [ __ ] hates me. >> She has a hot take here. Load it up. >> I don't really know what she does. >> She makes an actress. >> She's a model, right? >> She's a famous actress. >> She's an actor. >> What's uh what's her big um movie? >> Oh, her big movie is >> did one with that new the guy that looks like Ryan Gosling, but he's new. Ryan Powell. Ryan Glenn. Do you know who I'm talking about?

>> Glenn Powell. You were close. >> I have a huge gap in knowledge on um uh act names of actors and actresses in most pop culture. >> Yeah, that makes sense. >> She was in White Lotus. That's the only one I know. That's a >> Oh, yeah. She was in White Lot >> TV show >> season one. Ryan, have you watched White Lotus? >> You know what she was in? Actually, I saw this. She's in uh she was um in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is a favorite of mine, but like I it was before she was big. >> Yeah.

>> Early in Mats and Girls. Yeah. >> Would you say you're a big Tarantino guy? >> Yeah. >> Big time. >> Should we talk about Hulk Hogan while we're on Top Culture Corner? >> Sure. >> I'm sad about it. >> Yeah, me too. >> RIP. Yeah, >> I didn't realize the um I don't know if you guys saw the like Gawker related details there. I was not aware of that, but some former journalists there got like slammed for being outwardly like, you know, [ __ ] Hulk Hogan or whatever.

Um and then the of course the Twitter, what is it called? community notes were like, "Yeah, um, Gawker got destroyed when he counter sued because they released his private sex tape online." >> Oh, it's one of the best like tech stories there is. Like Peter Teal, I think they outed Peter Teal or something. They did a hit piece on Peter Teal and waited 10 years for the right moment to strike and then, >> you know, funded Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against them and bankrupted them. Like, it's >> Yeah. >> absolute like it's diabolical. I mean, definitely like I don't know the like sort of TMZ media like just putting anything out there for view. It's it's

like that's like pre- internet slop. That's like follow around Kanye West and he screams at you like get the [ __ ] off my lawn because he's just so annoyed that there's always reporters in front of his house type of vibe. And it it's almost like it's it's like the scumier version of just like posting slob content online almost. Yeah, that that was like preodern internet. I think that was like 2013 2014 maybe. >> Yeah, >> maybe 2015, but that's that is that's as late as it was. Yeah. >> All right. Um well, I think now that Ryan's joined, we're set up to run a conversation here. Uh we want to talk about pump before we talk about pump.

Boach doesn't want to talk about pump, but I think we kind of have to talk about >> Did it already? >> No, I'm saving it for you, right? I you're going to be the most outspoken member of this of this call on Pump. But before we go to Pump, uh some quick ads for you. Uh shout out to Aptodos again, our sponsor for today. Uh with nearly 400 million BTC assets on chain supported by a secure, fast, and affordable MBM environment. Aptos has become the BTC growth chain. Apptos users can now earn yield on their Bitcoin via Echko's ABTC and OKX's XBTC without the typical bridge risks and high fees. With support from Echko, OKX, and STAX's SBTC, Aptos is the place to go for best-in-class yield on Bitcoin.

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Back to it, guys. We have to talk about pump. Um I think I mean the big thing that kicked this off if anyone has the pictures from the app does ad. [Laughter] I'm sure the sponsors will love actually love the attribution there. Um, big thing I think that kicked off some more of the discussion. Obviously people have been like staring at the chart go down and they're upset about it. But um, Thread Guy did an interview with Alon uh, founder of Pump Fun or I guess co-founder, one of the founders of Pump Fun. Um, there's some good memes from that. I guess if you guys want to pull up any of the pictures, I think uh, there's some pretty good some photos to look at. But there was a big response broadly I think within the community

around like >> I shouldn't get enough >> big response from the community like lo like kind of loss of faith maybe in Alon or just like upset uh by his answers. There was a big move um there's been a move in P like it's trended lower since that interview. It had a big move down during that interview. I mean, Bitcoin was also down during that interview, but um it was a fairly large move for the token relative to kind of the the recent price action, although it has, you know, it's been pretty much down since um you know, blank mode, which apparently speaks for itself according to Alon.

But, um yeah, I don't know. I think we need to maybe hash it out. Let's talk. Yok, you want to step in here? I've actually been advised to not talk about this for the immediate future >> by who? >> The airrop. >> We do not share too much information on this. >> Yeah. So, a quote from Alon uh asked about potential airdrop said nothing for the immediate future, though they do have plans to do some kind of airdrop.

um just no details or specifics on it yet. Um but potentially coming although personally I don't really think that like the too much of the Here's my view. I'm going to give my take and then I'll and then I want you guys to jump in and let's talk about it. But to me the the viewpoint that I have is that you have people who are long this thing or like maybe even levered up on on pump and they were really expecting or hoping for like a pop out the gate uh to the upside and not to the downside. um and probably did not have a long-term view on Pun Fun, but had this like short or medium-term view of like, you know, they just raised a [ __ ] ton of money, you know, one of the best one of the biggest successes in crypto this cycle. Like

surely this thing can just like get a nice pop um out the gate and that didn't materialize and then like Alon comes on the the thread guy stream and has like nothing concrete that's like coming in the short term at the very least. And I think all these people who, you know, wanted something short term and didn't have any expectations long term, um, you know, that they're maybe getting flushed out, right? Like they just I don't believe in this thing, so why am I going to hold it here? And they dump it into the into the chart. That's that's kind of how I read the market reaction, but I guess I'd be curious if it takes >> I think it's appropriate to start with Tolk's >> Tolk's thoughts. You said you sold after the interview.

I I sold um yeah, I was long going into it. I was relatively optimistic that the absolute calm silence just kind of moving incredibly silly on chain like some of this stuff would be explained. There would be some type of um I don't know. I mean, I didn't, you know, expect him to to reveal everything that pump is going to do for the next year. Um, but with the price action that we've had, the amount of money that was raised from the open market, people talking about it for, you know, a week straight about how it's gone down only while we're in an environment where pretty much every coin that you could have charted against pump

was just up in a straight line. I just had some assumption that there would be, I don't know, some some clarity, some details, um, something on buybacks. I mean, he even like at one point said he can't disclose what the buyback strategy is because the lawyers advised him not to, which is I don't know, like they're an offshore company and you just launched an ICO like I think that's probably the least of what the legal worry should be. To me, it seemed kind of like a copout.

Um, but yeah, I mean within the first, you know, 10 minutes of the interview, you could watch the chart and yeah, I mean it's maybe you can chalk it up to short-term noise. Um but yeah, I closed all longs and happily shorted a lot which worked out well because as the interview progressed like it just I don't know it wasn't and yeah you can partially blame maybe some of like the community and CT like expectations going into it. Um, but I think they were very fair. Like again, this is, you know, the largest ICO we've had what in like 10 5 years, 8 years. Like I don't think it's I don't know. I I don't think it's it's ridiculous for us to assume that there was going to be some more details. And

to me, every answer was kind of just like I don't know. It was like everything has been a great success. Like the token launch was great. Like you know, the the community is great. And meanwhile, like you know, the night before, like he's putting 10 soul into poop or acoin. Like what what are we what are we actually doing here? Like you know, there's there's random buybacks and like he did mention like again like you can't talk about buybacks because of the lawyers like you can just track it on chain. Like is that something that is too much to ask that like we can have a clear detail of like what you're doing for the token when I just I don't think that's that's too much at all to ask. I think essentially every answer was kind of just I don't know like offputting and um again like

it was like this has been you know the greatest launch success of the past you know 10 years is kind of how it came off to me. Um, so yeah, I was uh I was I was displeased with it. And like I said, the the amount of time we've had since launch, like everything has pretty much been radio silence. Like this was, you know, the first interview and I think a lot of people were expecting some details on literally anything. And I think everything was kind of it was very like um it was very kind of like politician talk of just kind of avoiding things without you know giving any details whatsoever. Um and the chart has again responded like yeah you can chalk it up to you know BTC and the broader market going down at the same time but

like again you can chart any other coin against pump since launch and everything is vertical compared to pump. Um so I think the onus at some point goes onto the team and um Allen and explaining what you know what is this token actually for and I don't think that's too much to ask. >> Yeah, I think you make a lot of really great points. Um, I kind of go back and forth on this. I I guess I I'll give my kind of like just the playbyplay of me interacting with this stream. Um, you know, I, you know, having watched equities for a long time and traded equities for a long time, it's like, you know, something bad is happen happening.

The CEO goes on TV and then they make commentary and they, you know, the market response and you can trust the market reaction. And um I missed the first nine minutes of the stream and I saw what the token was doing and I knew that Alain was speaking and my my initial reaction was like he must be doing a an an absolutely terrible job. Um I listened then to like the latter half of it. I think it was over in like you know 10 20 minutes. Um it wasn't particularly exciting but I I obviously missed the meat of it right. I think like that initial calm to the market is probably the most important thing and um you know going back and then listening to the the entire communication like

definitely I would say like certainly net disappointing but um not as cataclysmic as I think crypto Twitter tried to make it out to be. Um but but I think it you know I think it depends on like the type of investor you are like perhaps people knew about this event and then you know like like you said to like perhaps levered into it or wanted to trade the event and then didn't get what they wanted. Um, as a longer term as as someone with a longer term perspective on Pump, like when I think of what's happened since the ICO, there's really only been one incremental piece of new information,

and that's been the continued loss of market share. Um, we wrote about Pump TG. We said that we we expected to rerate meaningfully higher in the coming months. um 7 days into its loss in market share and we pointed that out. So for seven straight days the pump uh you know the pump launchpad has been had been losing market share while Axioms made you know kept making money and while Bon kept making more money. Um, since then, you know, we've had whatever like 14 more days of lost market share. And, um, that's really the only new piece of information. And I think, you know, as far as what Pump has to do to defend

itself like there's no, you know, you want to see the the company's response to this loss in market share. And we still haven't we we still haven't seen that. What we have seen, I think, is that a team that was used to not communicating to the market for like over a year, who didn't have to communicate to the market, now has a token and now has to get good at talking to the market. That was their first, you know, run at it. They get a C minus. I think I think you move on. But I don't think that like you conclude that that the story is over, which is like much of the narrative right now.

>> Yeah. I I think I think the new information the the bonk point is also why I was so frustrated is because it was kind of it kind of came off as like a victor almost like a victory lap type interview and it's like you can look at the the metrics you know the past 3 weeks like and then as soon as the interview ended like Bonfun announced that they're going to be putting 1% of you know protocol fees back into the top tokens like it it's weird to act like kind of just it came off as like this giant incumbent that has no competition whatsoever. Meanwhile, the data suggests that every metric that you could possibly rely on that you've been ahead for, you know, really since launch is just deteriorating at an increasing rate. And you know, like history is kind

of littered with, you know, the complacency of these is these large massive companies that get beat out by smaller incumbents. And like that was also what kind of like again like it almost kind of angered me in a way like it it was just talking like you know we're so committed to this like we have this market share you know we have all these grand visions and it's like okay well what's happening in the meantime like that matters too you know and just kind of like that I don't know just the refusal to kind of accept like any competition and declining market share and declining metrics like everything is kind of down only and to launch and Bonk is executing at like an awesome rate and to just act like, you know, just because you have, you know, this war chest now, everything is going to be fine. Like,

that's not that's not exactly how, you know, competition and and early stage startups work. Like, you know, the the interim and the short term like mattered and everything has been against them and this interview was kind of just I don't know, it was it was very frustrating. Yeah, I think that first question that they they kind of did do a victory lap on like the largest ICO. Like I think all needed to say at the end of that, but was like all he all he needed to do is say like but that was the past. We're focused on the market now and how we need to do XYZ. And it's almost like the entire interview would have been changed. It would have gone from, you know, my my view to a C minus to something much higher. Um but yeah, we we'll see how they do

communicating to the market um in the future. Um they're they're obviously very new to it and they haven't had to do it historically. So um I'm excited to see what's next. I don't think that they're done shipping product and like what they do ship um on a forward basis will kind of like help us under better understand their strategy. So >> yeah, I think what they ship matters a lot. um he made a nod to like the mobile focus. The mobile app looks great. It's the numbers are, you know, at all-time highs or whatever, but it's like of course they are. Um it's a very new app.

Um and you didn't have a mobile app before. So if any amount of activity went there, then you know, I'd expect the numbers on there to be at kind of like highs because there's not much historical data. But I think the it opened up a question mark for me. Like I would love to see them ship a little bit harder in the direction of like I think they have a few credible threats right now, right? There's discussion of Bon and Radium, but then as well like I don't know, we've talked about this a lot, Ryan, with with Axiom. Um so much of the flow between all of these launchpads is determined by just third party trading apps and like Pump is not competing there today. Like they they just absolutely are not. They don't have a comparable. I mean, they have a simple kind of like pro experience on the the

web app now, but and the mobile app is like getting slowly like marginally um better in that direction. Um, but I do think there's like a night and day experience difference between pump products and like using something like an Axiom and even other trading apps um that are like really tailor made for the people that like get in and do the most volume in the trenches right now and do all the sniping and like are trading in and out of these things constantly. I think like I think it's great to have a view like even Phantom as well, right? Like their mobile first approach. Um, I think it it almost maybe works better for them because of the like probably higher retail usage of of the Phantom wallet um to a broader extent and like just wanting to use the products baked

in there. But people who are like trading the meme coins in the trenches like day in and day out like are probably more of a proumer audience today. And I think like you really need to cater to that now and then build that bridge to the future broader like mass appeal retail audience. I think if you're pump or if you're a if you're bonk. Um, so to me it's just like, okay, now you have an extra 1.3 billion, but you guys have already made a bunch of money. You've expanded the team. Like, I I would like to just see you ship a little bit faster to be quite honest. Um, let's let's see some improvement there. Um, because when I go and pull up the Axiom page, it's like every week.

Yep. We ship these 15 new features um for, you know, you you trenchers out there. Um, and you'll you'll see a new update every single week. And I don't see that from Pump. >> Yeah. >> I want I would like to see that. I mean, there's also a thing here to say that these guys made 800 mil and they probably don't need to ship that much anymore, you know, like they might just be comfortable with what they made. They raised an ICO. They have plans to launch a few things. Maybe they're not as hungry as the Axing guys. The Axing guys didn't I mean, they made a lot of money, but you know, >> I don't know. I I don't think I don't think that they took the $800 million home and put it under their mattress.

like I think it's in an entity and >> and there are investors that you know believe that it's a going concern. >> I don't know. I also can't imagine early investors are happy. Recent investors are not happy. Retail is not happy. I mean this is probably the time where you're like, you know what, like sentiment's at peak low. Um chart looks [ __ ] horrible. It's down 60 70%. Let's make a movie. But >> like are you make a movie mean that means let's buy the token?

>> Let's do something anything good. See, that was the thought process going in the interview, too. And it was just like >> it's been down only since launch. like you know you would assume that again part of it too is like you raised you again again the public was willing to give you the money but like I don't know there's something just a little like I don't know it doesn't sit well with me that like you raised that amount of money and like this is how you've operated in the two and a half weeks since like some you know like I don't know >> that's also the I mean yeah operated I don't know communicated could communication could have been better but operated like what do we expect them to do in that small twoe period And does it even matter? Like I honestly don't think

that matters at all. >> Uh I think that >> focus matters at all. >> Bonk does not matter. It's Axiom that matters because Axiom Axiom controls the flow. >> Bonk is 80% of the volume right now though. Like yes, maybe eventually in the future, but >> Bon's making a million a day and Axiom is making three that like like the launchpad stuff underneath is a distraction. I think it's it's all at the it's all at the top layer. I I would I think I would generally agree with that right now because I just I envision this future like what's to stop Axiom from making the launchpad and having the slop complex go there when all the traders are already there and then like and then they run a flywheel and it's like and if you trade through

the Axiom app and you trade the coins from Axiom >> like and I think any of these platforms could actually do that, right? Like if you had the front end and the back end, then you can have a little bit of like a double dip flywheel where it's like if you're trading coins and creating them on our platform and using our trading app at the same time, there's like a little bit of like a bonus, you know, get some referral rewards, build up that build up that stack. >> But doesn't Bonk have telemetry and Bonkbot as well? >> Yeah, I mean that that's the other thing that doesn't that's why like I'm look I I'm sure Bon's done a lot of great things for Salana. So the story goes I believe that story. I've used their products over time. They're nothing to write home about if you go to Bonkbot

today. I mean, it's just it's not the Axium experience. And what they they've been around for two years like shipping products of that quality. Like I think it's pretty obvious. Um I don't know how obvious it is. I I think it's I think it's justified to not be, you know, screaming screaming with your hair on fire like it's the end of Pump because Bon took some market share for 25 days. But I don't think people care about the bon thing that much. I think people just care about like pump not doing well and the main thing that they point at is like a communications b they haven't done anything good like objectively since the ICO they haven't done a single good thing right like they

bought back the token not at good prices or with enough size like they did this awkward thing where they bought the literal pico top painted the top they top blasted it and then afterwards they were like, "Oh, we're actually just going to buy 20k a day." And then they had horrible comms. Um, I think most people are just bothered about that. And the main competitor that they can point to is Bonk. And then the argument that comes back is, "Oh, Bonk, you should actually not worry about Bon. You should worry about Axium." No, you should worry about Bonk. Because they're very clearly playing a game where they're like undermining Pump. They're waiting for the stream to be over to announce news. they're launching their launchpad a week before they do the ICO.

Um, like it's very carefully designed clearly. Um, and I imagine there's like multiple parties involved as well to work on this. Um, and on top of that, there's the potential threat of Axiom. It's not like, oh, you shouldn't worry about Bon, you should worry about Axium. I think they're both threats. I don't know how credible of a threat Bonk will be in the long term if Axium launches on token launchpad. That's a different story. But at the current state, Bon is clearly a strong competitor. Um with more products out than Pump has, first of all, more avenues to revenue than Pump has. They have more products. They have more products that are used more.

Bonput is >> Bonbot is the opposite end of the barbell to Axiom. Yeah, but I think Bonkbot's not they're not in the conversation. Like I would imagine the Pump Fund mobile app does more than Bonkbot today. >> They're doing a few million in volume a day. It's like it's like a zero in in the salon trading bot space. They were very big back in early 2024 though that like they dominated and then like everyone came in and iterated. >> That's the interesting thing about the um the protrader terminal thing. Like Axiom has done a fantastic job. I love the app. I think it's I think it's fantastic. Uh but the turnover there has been quite high and it's like how do you make that app sticky? Um I I I think that it's mobile and no one's really

done the mobile trading pro terminal well yet. Um so so that that's why I think that axiom is perhaps vulnerable and that's why you know pump having a mobile app I think is is meaningful. Oh [ __ ] >> This freaking guy you done with work now? Come on. Well, I'm sorry. >> Summer Fridays. >> It's clearly summer Fridays. >> I think um >> people with real jobs don't work on Fridays. >> I want to round out maybe the Bach Ryan combo there. Like I think what Bonk I think Bonk like solidifies the concern around like an axiom or like owning the interface, right? If the if

the flow never shifted, then like we wouldn't you wouldn't have been the market wouldn't have been presented with this like big concern of like oh you know these just these backend things that have the tokens launched on them like that those coins can go anywhere. Um meanwhile you know this trading app is still just printing. um the fact that it did happen, I think it it's it revealed that weakness like I think you know we kind of knew that that was a concern um for months now we've been talking about it but it it just kind of proved the point and so now you have just you have to question some of the durability of the revenues of like well if the flows and the coins can shift elsewhere then like how much do you discount that activity or like how do you actually value that going forward

and then if the trading the like interface trading activity is the more meaningful part like what do they need to do to get that and can they like meaningfully compete with like the existing you know pro proumer terminal and like trading apps today. Also, can we say that pump made an attack? Not an attack, but whatever. They did something hostile towards Radium in which they brought Pump Swap in. Um, and then Radium built out Launch Lab and actually made it semi-successful so far. Like, it's only been two weeks that Bon Bon Fund's been doing well. up.

You know, it's like a pretty good pretty good counter. >> Yeah, they definitely punched back. Like it it's in the in the immediate term like that pump swap move is kind of been um has kind of backfired on them right now. >> I got a question for you since you're you're pretty smart on this on the trading terminal stuff. um like what do you guys think is the is the main moat for stuff like Axiom and like what what do you think they need to do to prevent like an incumbent from spinning up to something marginally better with slightly better fees and like see people port over like I'm always just curious if it's a double-edged sword that these things can generate revenue so quickly and get off the grounds like does that make them susceptible to some someone coming in and you know just vampiring

them off? >> It does. >> Yeah. I I like right now what I would say is they're shipping like crazy and obviously they're making money and I think the big thing is like they're they're sort of doing the I mean a mobile app would be great like Ryan mentioned like kind of just hit both of those things right have the pro terminal slap out a mobile app that's maybe even like a little more less proumer and like more retail oriented but to capture both pieces of that um but keep shipping like crazy. I feel like the big downfall often in these is like is if you look back throughout a lot of these trading like app teams is they hit it really big, right? Like they drop the next big iteration and they kill it for like five, six months and then like

naturally, you know, when you make $300 million, you slow down and you don't ship the next big update or like you don't think of the next cool thing um to come to market. Um, Axiom did like, you know, let's do Salana memes and like really clean up the desktop proumer terminal experience plus, you know, add hyperlquid ps in there. Um, it's just a good like it's a good step change over what the existing trading apps were. Um, and then they like kind of iterated on the rewards flywheel of like, you know, let's do the referral rewards, let's give people points, like let's give them cash back, let's do all that stuff to like keep them on the platform. Um, but I completely agree with you that like if another team comes in and they, you

know, ship one step better of a product or like a a meaningfully better product than Axiom, like there's very much a chance that they could steal away market share, especially if they if they slow down, if they cool off. That's what's what's happened historically over the past two, three years every time. >> Yeah. And and that's I always wonder like if if part of part of Hyperliquid's thinking with like you know having tokens to unlock fee discounts um if that's something that these guys these guys would think about doing in the future to kind of lock in users and force them to be you know like economically aligned with the protocol to to lock them in so to speak.

>> I I think that the the wedge is um a mobile app with social state. Um, so something that, you know, once you have social state, it's incredibly hard to get rid of an app. Um, one of the things that the pump app is doing is like chat within communities per coin on the mobile app. Not saying that I think that that's it, but something unique to keep, you know, once you get enough state, it's hard to move from an app. Um, so, so I think that that's I think that's what they're focusing on and that that's the wedge because historically the the trading terminal apps have not been sticky. You just port to the next one with the best features and that's it.

That's an interesting point there, James. Uh, kind of what like all the centralized exchanges do where it's like if you do certain amounts of volume, you get like lower like make your taker fees. Um, but I think the problem there for like launchpads in general is like uh there's not people that would want to be like consistently trading a lot of these things just to trade them. Whereas like there's plenty of people that will they know they're going to be trading like Bitcoin over like you know X time horizon and stuff like that. But um yeah, I'm just kind of curious in how any of these launch pads really kind of facilitate their their like long-term moat really or like if there is one like just like from like

the pure way like they're making fees like just like trading and all these other things launch coins that are launched. I do think there's just like a lot of stuff that goes on in the background that still is like just very opaque that you know we've talked about for a while. Um, so I think it's just kind of hard to to quantify the the incentives there for like uh like industrial deployers, industrial um traders, if you want to call them that. Like there's not people that are trading these things because like they're like directly la these meme coins. They're trading these things because they're getting volume and you know they're making money off of of of dumplow or retail or whatever you want to call it. Um, so I think it's just

that's that's an interesting question to see how that plays out over the longer term. >> Yeah. Do you think um I'll comment well I guess two thoughts like one on the social thing that Ryan mentioned like I feel like a strategy that you see actually from a lot of the trading apps is the the reason that the referral scheme like referral of rewards design works very well is because you get these you know larger personalities within CT or like trading communities and if you onboard that one guy who's got a thousand followers and then that you know and they're going to all trade on the app too. Um, and you give it that guy a nice big kickback from the trading fees and volume that that uh his followers um on board. It's like it

gives them incentive an incentive to hop on. Um, but that probably also fuels like each of these iterative like rotations to another platform where like they don't actually hold any loyalty to it um beyond the fact that uh you know it just happened to be the one that they got referred to join. So when if the next kind of like crew of traders goes to the new platform um and they get offered a slightly better deal or maybe they think that they're early to the new one um and it's about to do a bunch of volume or whatever um or more people will use it. It's like there's an incentive for them to then hop on board kind of the new the new entrant and uh maybe earn a bunch of kind of kickback referral fees.

And I also think this is kind of like if you if you think about this stuff just as as akin to gambling um which I think it is it's very similar to like the online sports gambling market we have now both like onshore and offshore. It's not like there's a single monopoly, right? But everyone's quoting the same exact odds on different platforms. Like there's no reason FanDuel is going to subsume DraftKings and vice versa. So, like I I don't see a universe where there's not, you know, a dozen of these things floating around all kind of doing the same thing and people just have their own little niche that they they prefer a platform for.

>> Yeah. So, if you guys were Alon, um, what are you doing Monday morning? Like you you're the one at the wheel. What are you doing to turn everything around? I think Ryan touched on like, you know, market calms. I'm curious if anyone else has any other like things that they think like you know they the team could do better like starting on Monday. >> I think they should rip the slop industrial complex and just build it. Like you want to have the tokens on your platform. Like you're losing flow to Bonk because the tokens the deployers went to Bonk and they're not deploying on pump. But like >> be the employer be >> Nobody said Yeah. Nobody says you can't just do them all yourself. like just spin up the bot uh spin up the algo and just make sure that there's 30k tokens a

day like there were before. >> Um and then you know if you can put >> some incentives behind that like I think they can play with the flywheel. They have a token now. Bonk is doing it. Um and I think at least right now like that excites people. >> Question do you deploy token incentives yourself or do you wait till bonk runs out? It's a very expensive game to play. >> Yeah. I mean, Bonk is >> also that >> Well, if they're feeding a big chunk of it from the fees that are generated from trading on the platform, it's like, do they run out? Like, I think you kind of have to go on the offensive at least to an extent. Like, may you maybe you don't

need to like take your, you know, 800 mil and just shove it into coins, but like, you know, you can take some of the fees that you're making right now and and, you know, shove some of those in additionally. Well, they've only had a few day like like what have they done 15 days in a row or 25 days in a row with um a million bucks a pop. So they have 25 million real dollars and then >> then they have a bunch of bonk bucks that they can deploy which is much harder to do and and then hurt hurts you as the you know the supply side sells. I guess the downside that um kind of pump has relative to Bonk is probably that like you know the Bonk team and when they launch these products they do this like I mean they've been pretty

consistent about yeah we're just going to take all the fees from this and just like buy back and burn the token and I think they're aligned with that because the core like development team behind Bonk you know they've I'm sure they all probably own a nice big bag of Bonk themselves and and have for a long time or maybe it's still vesting. I don't know the specifics on um you know the the maybe team vest there if that's like complete and they're just kind of you know they run these initiatives and maybe they sell a little bits here and there but they're kind of aligned behind buying back their own token if they own it. Um and the same might be true for Pump, but like if you want to invest that money to do other things, you're you're kind of you got to fight in a

couple directions. >> Yeah. I mean pump >> Pump got away for years. I mean years 12 months 14 months um with not doing any to that that's why it was such an incredible story. It's like one of the few projects that incent like they didn't they didn't need to deploy incentives. I mean you got to be thinking that they think that they can keep doing this without token incentives and just let Vonk burn through cash assuming that that's what they're doing which no one seems to know what Bonk is doing to get the volume but you got to assume that there's some kickbacks.

There's also like I mean what >> go ahead James. >> No, I was just going to say I think like if Hump's number one plan is like a financial engineering flywheel with incentives as opposed to like a net new product to bring in more users, I think that signals that they're in a lot of trouble. Like if the if the big, you know, the big reveal is like, you know, XYZ token incentives for new deployers, like that to me would would be pretty bearish as opposed to like a new product. Agree. >> Yeah, I do think there is though. I'll just say like I think there is like actual competition though over the fee flow to so like you know they rolled out pump swap. They give what five bips to

the creator. Uh, I I can't tell you off the top of my head what that is for Launch Lab or like Bonk coins, but I'm just going to imagine it's a bigger number. And they went around and like essentially marketed it to the deployers and said like there's no reason you shouldn't deploy on Bonk than Pump because all the trading doesn't even come from from Pump. Like it comes from Axiom or trading bots. So like you'll get more money if you just deploy over here because like we're giving you more of the fees. Um, so I don't know like to an extent I would agree with you James like if that if financial engineering is like the only play like that's not ideal but I do think that probably you meaningfully have to like compete in that realm at least to some extent. He did mention

that they are going to be making some kind of changes to like pump swap 2.0. I would imagine maybe that involves some kind of change to what the fee structure looks like and how much goes where and what the total aggregate fee that people pay for for tokens swapped on the platform is. But I think the other big thing is like I mean and we've talked about it a million times like you need a really good like front-end interface um for people to use and I and I think they need to really iterate on that product like faster. >> Yeah. I I think Danny what you said on them in housing um essentially like all the deployment of like new coins could be really really lucrative uh because

like they could also just like wave their fees there. Um I don't think that it's like cool like you're doing like creative creator incentives for like people that launch coins. It's like great. Um, but like at the end of the day, I think like it's largely still an attention game and you know, if you could just like in-house all the, you know, bots that are scraping the internet looking for like culturally relevant things and launching coins around those um because that's like ultimately like what meme meme coins are. It's just like uh they're exact they're exactly the same as memes. Like they're just attention games, but we put a financial price on them through markets, which is hilarious. Yeah, the interesting thing too like just to add is like if you're the market maker, you

know, if you're the swap industrial complex creator of a bunch of these coins, like you then you don't have to necessarily like dump them into the chart when you're like finished with it. They could just create these coins and like you said like they don't have to pay a fee for swapping on their own platform like it's money they're paying themselves. So what they got to pay the priority fee, priority fees and that's it. Um you know just the fees to get a transaction landed on Salana. um you know if you're doing thousands of those it adds up but like if it brings millions in additional volume because you got more tokens there's a clear like value statement to be made >> would it be possible do you think for Alon to drop a meme coin that meaningfully reaches like close to the size of pump's valuation and would that

be good or bad >> well farcoin exists >> no I'm serious like like that that to me would be a very humorous outcome if he drops like a really stupid shitterter and it rip it rips to like you know half a bill like what does that Okay. >> It's not all the question. >> Um, >> is that what you're asking, James? >> I think it would be positive. >> Yeah. I don't know. I think I think if if he launched an actual coin, I think he just short pump and shove everything possible into the new coin because people would be like, "Oh, the valuations why buy pumpet 2 billion when there's the new coin that he launched at 25 million >> and I think

well I think they eventually both go down a lot. I think you buy it and you ride it and you don't you don't do the short leg >> because it'll be accretive to the pump valuation like the the big like the big investors aren't going to sell their pump because he launched a memecoin is my view. >> You don't think so? >> If you were investor in there and you were like why is he launching coins? >> Not if it drives billions more volume on the platform because he ran a token up to two billion market cap or whatever. >> Yeah, Alon it's time to time to launch a coin.

This is free free advisory right here. >> I'm getting a call from Alon's lawyers. We're supposed to stop talking about any Alon created meme crime. >> I mean, they are doing like a 25% buyback as well on top of all that. Like seems to be like a daily thing. >> So, I I definitely think that would be like helpful for the protocol. But um yeah, I think anything they can do to incentivize more trading um just like so I guess like really incentivizing the supply side and just seeing where the demand shows up organically because like I I don't I think the hard like the more effort you put on trying to incentivize demand on like um assets that are like entirely worthless more or

less from like an intrinsic value standpoint. I think that's like kind of a dumb game to play, but I think people will happily decide for you what assets are valuable um in in the meme coins basically. So, yeah, I think that's a really interesting point, Danny. Oh, MST at Radium said it's five bips. I think that was in reference to the pump uh portion of fees that goes to the creator, unless he was referencing Launch Lab or Bonk. Maybe he'll clarify.

But yeah, either way, I think it would be interesting if any of these platforms Let's Bonk fund fees to creators five pips. Okay, thank you for clarifying. Um, I think it'd be interesting if any of these platforms like set up the ALGO and spat out the tokens themselves. Like I don't think I don't think there's really a good reason necessarily not to. >> I wonder what the daily cost of creating thousands of tokens. The user pays for them now, right? >> Yeah. I guess like they'll um whatever soul they have to put into the initial bonding curve if they do decide to do that. But like um you could also have it like on a timed way where it's like okay

like just have soul in these coins there if like the token doesn't um graduate within like a week just like remove the soul and like then like just burn the the meme coin there. It's kind of like just keep playing see what hits. Um like I think that's where the initial uh like cost would actually be is just like kind of facilitating the um the capital at the very beginning to get like the bonding curve going of any sort. But I mean you can also even have that like lower like I what is it right now for like um >> bonding curves?

>> Yeah. For different platforms like what's like the initial amount of soul that's in there? Oh, I don't know the number of soul, but I mean typically you're looking at like hitting what 70 to 100k market cap is. The soul amount is I mean it's probably a small >> I think. Yeah, I think pump does their bonding curve denominated in soul like I think it needs like 69 uh >> of course >> 694. Yeah, it's super cool. Super cool.

You make a good point though, Ian. Like if you ran it yourself, then you could like you could recapture all the rent and like just set a timed thing of, you know, if tokens >> go below X market cap for X amount of time. Like just >> people would like that, you know, because there's so much like dog [ __ ] on the feed. It's just like prune it, right? Get rid of the dead wood. Deadwood. >> Yeah. Like there's so much there's so much soul that's locked in a lot of these like hitters now. Like >> yeah, >> there's a there's like a there's a material amount of of soul locked in random tokens that >> um no one could ever name. Oh, >> do you would do you think the team would

like do you think people would like try to market these coins or are you just saying like create 30,000 pieces of [ __ ] every single day and just let them hang out at like 6K market cap and see if other people discover them or are they going to like >> you know hire people in other countries um in Southeast Asia to like post about them on Twitter and stuff? I think like like just like facilitate the supply side and let the demand side come naturally because I think like that like ultimately like weird things like that will end up happening like you're going to have people be like this is the one or like these are the ones and then just like use like their industrial slot marketing um you know being like you know like these these are the hot tokens of the day. But I don't think like the

team themselves should be like trying trying to anoint coins. I think they should just like throw a bunch of supply at the market and see see who bites. Uh and then on top of that like let creators continue to like like organically launch their own coins because like obviously like there's some people that are like manually launching a coin here and there. Uh and then you also have like the guys who are like you know like the Kanye West of uh pump fun where it's like three three shooters a day for like every day all summer. Um you know it's like just manually waking up launching a meme coin going to sleep.

Like there's like I remember I saw like a tweet one time about like a guy who was doing that because it was clearly like not a bot because there was like it was spaced out too like strange. >> Um he ended up clearing like cleaning like a good amount on that which is hilarious. But um I don't think we should overemphasize too much on like the creator side here of like like these are like it's it's roughly in line with like Zora content like at the end of the day it's like it's slop. uh like no one really cares about this content itself like people want to trade the attention of it. Um, so like yeah, I don't I don't like >> but there is stuff there is stuff like the the algorithmically like AI generated like really horrific slop like

if you just go to like new coins it's like bonky mcbc bunkster face like an 85 versions of that like if if you're just creating an endless supply of that like I think I don't think that's a supply issue like I think that's just >> even more like ftier slop like it's all trash but you need to at least be like somewhat elegant with it and like at least or tends to be clever. >> Yeah. I mean, I think the the curation aspect is the important part, right? like you want you want to build like the the ones that are successful, right, are these deployers that are like algorithmically like creating coins around news and hot events and like they're doing like the YouTube algo thing but with tokens where it's like they're generating like what they think the best ticker and the best description

and all that is based on you know articles that they're like feeding through an LLM and it's saying like yeah like let's do you know Hogan ticker for the recent you know because he died or whatever and it'll be tribute to Hulk Hogan. Um, I agree with you, James. Like, if you're just if you're spitting out like bunk one, bunk two, bunk three, bunk four, like that's not going to be great. But we already know that like for like relatively matterof factly that there are accounts that just do this today. Like there are mass deployers that do algorithmic token creation based on news, feeds, stuff that's happening.

uh and they make a ton of money and like I mean they they just they create the token and maybe they instantly dump the thing into anyone that buys it. Um and that's tends to be profitable for them. But as a team like you could do that. I mean maybe you just need to hire one of these teams to do that for your platform or you build it out. Like either way it it doesn't feel like there's downside when that's kind of like what's driving a majority of like the token creation and and smalltime trading right now. >> Yeah, they they should talk to Ian. He's a a serial deployer and rugger. So if if they need any help, um Ian can help. >> It's my forte, my favorite pastime, my passion, if you will.

>> I don't actually do that. Let's clarify that. >> He He doesn't. He doesn't. He's a good guy. >> I've lost so much money on just like buying chill X like like I would like I just saw Chill Hulk >> at at permissionless. This guy was like, "It's the Chill House meta, but like anything anything but chill house." >> Miss Chill House. >> It's like, yeah, because even if you like have a billion tokens a day or whatever, it's like stuff like Chill House will ultimately come through where it's like it's just so stupid that like it it's almost hard for like an AI to be like, "Yeah, like that's funny." Because it's just taking like two like two it

was like Housecoin and chill guy coin and then chill house. Like it's just dumb. It's hard to I mean when the LLMs are getting to that level of slop like the brain rot is prevalent >> I don't think yeah >> never imagine >> I don't think they can think on a deep enough a reason on a deep enough level to understand why chill house was so funny and so good like I don't think they're quite there yet >> I don't know GPT5 man Sam Alman said he he was amazed like it just it just understood this thing that he had to really think about. That kind of sounds like a chill house type of a application.

>> Yeah. Like you have to think that AI is outperforming humans on so many different dimensions now. Like if you own the feed of memecoin creation and subsequent market caps, like why couldn't you excel at that? Like I don't think you need a human. I also wonder if a lot of the deployers, which I wouldn't be surprised about this, are also like then trading these things. Um, like obviously like there's like just like rugging stuff, but like I think the smarter deployer bots would probably also let it breathe a bit if it does break out. Um, so I think that's another thing to maybe consider in like this

model though, like how much of the because like I mean like last like last uh fall and winter it's like we saw a couple coins run to levels that were just like absurd and you have to you have to assume like that wasn't all organic. There's probably like some weird stuff going on. Uh but it's like also I don't know that's all speculation. Well, if you think you have like a elegant deployer model that like can can take in news and and create good coins, then it obviously would would reason to follow that you can turn that on the market itself and trade it based on the same like training set, right?

>> Yeah. >> Yeah, I think that's a fair point. I'm just pulling up the data on this since we have it. Um, and now that now that Bonk and Launch Lab uh are doing the most tokens, they're doing like on the order of, you know, mid 20,000 token launches a day. And the top 100 addresses are doing six to 9,000 of that. So, you know, on the order of like a third and the top 1,000 are doing, you know, upwards of what 15,000. So, um, more than 50%. So large majority of all the coins being created are you know these few addresses at any given time.

It was the same for pump. Um this the data is not uh as exciting now that the numbers are smaller for pump but it was the exact same dynamic where you had you know the top 100 creators were doing thousands of the like 30 40,000 tokens a day. Um, so like we know this is happening because you're not you're not setting up this bot to just deploy a thousand tokens and like and lose money consistently every day. Um there's clearly the incentive is clearly aligned where like they are turning positive profit by creating these things constantly and like in a timely manner or like with the right ticker at the right times to you know if that's just creating it and like dumping your supply immediately or if that's

like catching the you know five BIP creator reward that you get when it graduates and then trades on the uh AMM. um you know it it's clearly paying out for these guys or they wouldn't just be consistently spinning these things out over and over again. >> Great data. >> I wish we had um >> we'll have to maybe dig some more and see like if we can get more granular on like profitability of those guys like onchain. Um, I think we might have that for Pump, but it would be interesting now to see the numbers specifically for Launch Lab. I'll have to annoy Sharp

Sharples again. He's been all over this stuff. Um, I don't know. We've been going for a while, guys. Anything? James, I know you wanted to talk about something actually maybe before we close out for the day. Uh, >> yeah. I forget already. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Um, no. I was just curious like where do you guys think we are in terms of like what are opportunities you're looking at in the market? And I'll frame it by saying like my own mental model now is like if you're focused on majors and like getting additional entries, it's probably the wrong time to be doing that. And if you're not already like fully fully allocated from much better levels, I'm not sure like there's really

any good riskreward of like buying soul ET BTC here. Um, but I do think we're at like an interesting stage in the market where like you can find really scammy stuff that's going to run from like 5 mil to 100 mil in a couple days. Um, and like that's kind of where I'm spending most of my time focused on those opportunities. Um just curious like what you guys think the opportunity set is for the next couple months. >> I kind of think it's an alts like you said. I mean you kind of said the 5 to 100 mil like that will definitely be the case as well. Um, but I think I mentioned last week like it's

interesting that there's been so much talk about how um kind of cycles aren't relevant anymore and I generally agree with that. I think BTC is like institutionalized in a way that you know maybe the the draw downs won't be as severe. Um, but as soon as everybody started saying kind of, you know, the normal cycles like aren't a thing anymore, BTC ran to alltime highs, ETH, you know, runs 75% in a week and then alts start going crazy like kind of at the exact time that the the same scenario happened in the past. Um, and then I mean even today like it's just, you know, kind of a one day snapshot, but really this week like you know BTC is down like 2% today and there's a lot of alts that are down less andor green on the day and it's kind of been like

that this week too. Um, so I think we're kind of in that that later stage um that later stage traditional type cycle where you know BTC ripped and um I think BTC will will make some new highs again um before the end of the year if I had to say. Um but I do think it is interesting that kind of I don't know all the talk is you know cycles have ended alter dead and then as soon as as soon as that kind of peaks BTC rips what happens next ETH rips what happens after that you know soul rips and then alter um it's kind of the exact playbook that we've had every fourear cycle um like I said I'm not like a a strong believer in that that

would be the case moving forward but I do think it is pretty interesting to to monitor at this stage um and I mean we've seen the ETH BTC rally uh you know the past month or so as well. And again that's just kind of traditional like how stuff has worked. And so I think that's that's pretty interesting. But what that would lead me to focus on at this point is um is alts generally um kind of stuff that has you know structural bid um buybacks. Um, I kind of been bulling about ENA lately just because of the announcement, the Treasury vehicle that they have, you know, 5 million in buybacks today, plus you have kind of ETH beta for whatever that's worth and then um stable coin narrative attached to it as well. Um, so just kind of looking for for idiosyncrat

idiosyncratic stuff like that. But I do think alts at this point with how beaten down they've been and how we are kind of playing out the classic cycle in a way um I think that should probably be the focus moving forward. Yeah, I think you're right. I think um look longterm I very very bullish. I think it's all all that matters is for risk assets is AI. Um but so like I think any any dip is to be bought. Um I think over next two months I think is what you said James and um you know I think markets have been pretty hot. I think

they need to slow it slow down a bit over the next two months and that should give you some pretty interesting opportunities in the the long tail which is crypto stuff. Um I really like deep pin things. I think you can pick your spots accumulate over the long term and I think you have some obvious winners there. Speaking of deep end, um, Helium, what is they're like toying around with wrapping Nova equity like all into one uh, entity underneath the H&T token cuz I mean I saw it was I I traded it a little bit on that announcement and then I mean I think it's up close to like 100% the past month. Um, and that's just goes to, you know, kind of what we were talking about earlier in the show, just like, you know, buybacks and token

versus equity, like them wrapping in into one, you know, kind of pure asset like is is really good for for the market responded, too. >> Yeah, I think that there's an obvious trend where the market's punishing the bad token issuers and you're I think you're going to see a lot more um a lot more teams move in that direction by really cleaning things up, especially like, you know, with our transparency effort kind of pushing people in the right way as well. Uh but but Helium is also a special story in that man like that's probably the project with the most like real world PMF like that's like not um inward-looking like crypto only. There's like some like AT&T's paying them money like meaningful amounts of money and the valuation got

pretty low relative to what they were bringing in and what was on the horizon and and yeah, I think that was like kind of like perfect storm with with that announcement. I think that that team's doing everything right. Yeah, stuff like that is is really really exciting. I mean, Helium was that was kind of like one of my outside of like Bitcoin was like one of my first loves in crypto. It was just like this just makes so much sense in the world. And I still point people towards like Helium and that Helium map that like you can look at when people ask about kind of what you know the impact and what is the use case of of a token and how you can I don't know just kind of compete with with the incumbents through these new capital markets. It's still one of

like I think the best examples that we have. It's also >> similar about stepping >> Oh jeez, what was that? What was that? >> Oh [ __ ] >> Hey, can you guys >> try again? Can you guys hear me? Okay, you're good. >> I think I have like turned >> um Helium's a good example of why you need to wait like that that project's been around forever. Um and patience is um you know it takes a long time for a

lot of these things to get to PMF. A lot of things in crypto like new new projects in c crypto are increasingly like they're they're like not a dex especially in the deep space. like you can't just like open up and then start collecting fees like 100 million in fees and then you know go to zero the next day. Like these things are building real businesses and like it's going to take some patience with a lot of these stories and um I think those are the ones I'm excited about because they're going to be discarded by normal crypto participants that are more that are looking for a quick buck and not willing to look at stuff like Helium. I I think that makes it attractive.

I also think just in like Helium's, you know, like you're saying AT&T paying them like, you know, real world like hardware distributed across the globe, like that also opens up, you can point to Helium and what they've done and it kind of in a way like you could you could underwrite that as like an institution and what we were talking about at the top of the show was just like not fighting the institutional and treasury flows that are into just the two blessed assets of BTC and ETH right now, but stuff like Helium like you can easily see to where I don't know the larger capital markets would be interested in in something like that because of what they have and like those again just like the size of US traditional markets like it can't it can't ever be like overstated how large they are. So having tokens that that can

have some potential access to that is just is massive. >> Yeah. at the James question over the next couple I think you're gonna see like >> Ian your mic your mic >> your mic is >> I can't tell if he's doing it intentionally >> try try leaving and coming back I think your your mic got killed >> is it still horrible now >> you're better now you're better >> I thought it was a bit you you were talking at like 02 speed and I was like I think he might be mopping that I don't know.

>> I thought he was I thought he was doing a bit too. It was so impressive and clear and slow. >> No, but um yeah, to go back to James' like um original question, I think over the next couple months, I think tokens that or projects that put an emphasis on value cruel solely to the token and not labs will outperform meaningly, especially those that have like proven mark uh product market fit. And honestly, like if you don't have like PMF, you can't really put uh it doesn't matter if like you're all align like aligned around the token because like there's nothing going to it. So, I think you'll see over the next like months and year probably some DeFi juggernauts um really cement themselves as like core

winners just because they're going to acrue all value to one token. And I think in crypto as well like the moat is between capital and mechanisms. Um because like everything's open source. So like you really just need to like you know have the the right the right incentives to people come use your platform stay there and then acrew value back to the token and try to keep it going that way. Um but yeah, I think we're starting to see a couple teams now like fully rally around uh just their token itself. And I assume that trend continues as people see the market react positively to this um because like that labs

token structure has always been like so weird for people. So I think that's what we see. And then in terms of I guess like how treasury codes play out and all that TBD. Um but yeah, I think that's like from the from the protocol standpoint. I think that's how we see things play out over like the foreseeable future. >> Yeah, I think I would generally agree like I'm I would be broadly more excited for tokens and teams that are leaning more on this transparency angle. Um aligning more of the value to the token rather than the equity. Um, I feel like I'm

just kind of repeating what everyone else said, but it's like we we we played that game for a long time where like I guess if you really wanted to hold the uni the UNI token and bet on them that you know maybe you were excited a few years ago and then like they just never did anything with it and the labs team is um really eating um >> yeah I don't want to I don't want to ever see that again. like I would never want to like h be stuck holding this thing that's literally a meme um when you know that the protocol is printing cash because it's a successful product.

Um so yeah, I think teams that step in that direction are going to, you know, excite people more. They'll they'll they'll gain trust because I think that's kind of what the market requires right now from you is like a little bit of trust. There's no guarantees of anything in this space. like the equity holders might have some contracts and some guarantees, but the token holders don't have any contracts or guarantees around what the token is. And so you kind of have to like build trust through that. And if that's buybacks, if that's you know driving revenue towards a token in different ways um you know merging the the equity entity underneath a token or something along those lines like I think these different pathways are going to have to be um explored and that's where you could maybe like have faith or

trust and like believe in the longer term success of the token itself. But I do think to Ian's last comment, uh, treasury companies, that's a big question mark. I don't know the timelines on like all of these pipe deals and like when, you know, some of the big ones and the insiders into those like start unlocking. But, uh, I do think that would be like a big question mark because right now there's sort of like an infinite bid from those into like different coins like ETH. there's like billions just like getting shoved into ETH whenever they can whenever they can uh you know clear you know shared dilution onto the market given the volume today um when when those pipe investors like are not stuck holding those companies um I don't know I don't

know how that's going to look on uh on the markets >> all good things come to an end >> James you want to close it out for us. Give us your takes and then we'll then we'll clear for the day. >> Uh on treasury stuff or just in general? >> Everything. You asked everyone what their thoughts were for the next few months. So, we need yours. >> Um yeah, I I'm like pretty I think I'm pretty mod like moderate to slightly pessimistic. Um >> I definitely want to get long a lot of scam I want to get long scams early on in their in their price action.

>> Um I say that like jokingly, but I'm actually serious. I think that's kind of a time in the market where people are going to get frustrated that they haven't made enough money. um on majors where they like chop themselves up trading per bid like really really dumb crap really really high. So I think there's probably some interesting opportunities over the next couple months to you know buy some runners and vaporware products. >> Yeah. 100 million TPS coming to a network near you soon um in a token that can run to an infinite price.

>> Exactly. >> That's what everyone's looking for. Awesome. We'll close it out there unless anyone has some last thoughts, but uh I think that was a good end to the discussion today. Thanks for hopping on today, boys. Uh great discussion of all things pump and launchpads. I think we're all waiting for the slop industrial complex to uh to just grow even more. I know Ian's excited for it. Um maybe he's even maybe he's getting involved there. We'll see. Uh James, >> I have one more thing to say. There's a there's a guy in the comments. Um, did you guys talk about the commenters yet?

>> Which ones? >> Big suck. >> Big suck says he says, "Yeah, that's right. I'm starting to like this, Ian guy. Keep going, man." Followed up by Jew mode. Um, so thank you, Big Suck. Uh, thanks for tuning in, Ian. You have a new fan. >> That's big, man. Shout out Big Suck. >> Have a have a good weekend, everyone. reminder. >> You know what they say, it it it it it's self-explanatory. It speaks for itself. So, >> all right. Well, we'll see you guys next time. Thanks for coming on, guys. And we will see you all next week.

>> See See you guys. [Music] [Music]