How Politics is Reshaping Crypto's Future | Roundup

Transcript

you had Germany sell close to three billion of Bitcoin so you're telling me that you're selling a hard asset to buy for euros that you can print and imagine a country like the US says no we're actually going to print money to buy Bitcoin regardless of whether Trump or someone like Jamie damond goes out and says that publicly I think again the narrative is intact we had an ETF that legitimizes assassin class incredibly you best believe that this is just become you couldn't even whisper Bitcoin when I was a JP Morgan the elevator I mean and that has been the case for forever until recently this episode is brought to you by SE after several months of effort

se's V2 launch has introduced the first high performance parallelized evm to the world stay up to date by following say at say Network that's s i Network you can also experience Sayeed firsthand at say. special thanks to say for sponsoring hey everyone the polygon Community grants program was launched with 1 billion tokens All For polygon Builders really excited to share that on today's episode of Empire season 1 of the polygon Community grants program is now live it features 35 million in madic to support the next generation of polygon projects join the aggregated

future today by applying at polygon.net grants big thanks to polygon for sponsoring Empire hey everyone Jason here before we dive into today's episode I wanted to tell you about your wallet's new best friend Harpy Harpy guards your digital assets 24/7 blocking sketchy transactions before they even happen but that's not the best part it's totally free secure your wallet for free at Harpy doio ire Link in the description now let's get into today's episode hey everyone Jason here have you ever wanted to play play casino games with your friends right from your couch I'm excited to tell you about my prize the first multiplayer online casino where

you can play chat and win together when you make your first deposit of $10 or more you'll get $20 for free head on over to my prize.com invite ire to get started bing bada bing bada boom GM everyone what's going well uh starting contest last week I guess there's a lot to talk about so we just dive right into it it feels like uh big turnaround we I mean we would have looked much smarter last week if we said this is the Calm before the storm but instead we said there's nothing to talk about but yeah I mean week-over-week difference from last week to this week last week it felt like

not much news Germany selling prices are getting hammered and this week yeah it's uh feeling pretty bullish going into today so yeah let's talk talk about like the like we always talk about narratives here right and trying to hopefully get ahead of narratives and a common theme that I keep going back to is like we look at prior cycles and we say it was so obvious we overfit it covid stimulus checks people inside they're punting they're bored they're punting and somehow it's just important to recognize that in the moment the market gives you plenty of reasons to be sideline to be uh really [ __ ] in your pants I think the conclusion is position sizing I'm almost

certain I'm never certain of anything that it comes down to position sizing because in moments of choppiness and moments you're going to be more predisposed to to like be shaken out and it hasn't been comfortable for anyone like investing is not meant to be easy right but like let me ask you a question what is as you sit here today and I texted you this before we went on the pot for me this cycle The Narrative is intact it's not up only narrative it's not there is a cycle to things there is a psychology to things but the narrative is very much intact and that is we just had an ETF approved we've been waiting it for it

forever and all the this asset class was hugely legitimized and all the work that has been going on on the background for the last decade plus of evangelizing of convincing people this is actually important then it could be properly implemented right and we're not even seeing the full extent of that but it's that right if you're fast forward three years from now where we're back in down 80% we're going to look back and say oh yeah it was so like it was so obvious like we had an ETF we had all the signs pointing to Greater you know regulatory Clarity and things on the margin obviously make it more in the moment but like I don't know like why are we why does the timeline I

guess go from Peak extreme to Euphoria from week to week that's kind of something new I've observed I'm just kind of curious like how could you explain that I don't really know I think the explanation is because in past Cycles so here's my working thesis is that in past Cycles the it felt like deep be like the bare Market was down then we started cut it was like smoother Cycles there were some like bad cyle they're um like it though because you always have these 10 20 I mean my God in 2014 yeah you had Market you had these what six draw Downs of 30% that people like to look at but this one feel I think this bull market feels a little different than other ones and so people are kind of

like like what's going on like what's going on here like and and and actually we gave a um so we had the company all hands for blockworks yesterday and um we have uh we have 70 people at blockworks now 24 new people so 24 people 23 people started in the last six months wow and and um a lot of those folks uh know what is happen know what is happening on their teams but they wanted to know like what's happening at the rest of blockworks and like get everyone on line but also they wanted to hear Mike and my thoughts on this cycle and um you know Mike kind of LED this part of the conversation but I can do I can maybe abbreviate what he talked about he said look there's probably like three working theories on what's going on with this cycle um the the first

working theory is that ETFs have kind of changed the game right the institutions are here ETFs have changed the game previously the Cycles were so violent because it was just retail Le and Retail buys and they get very exuberant and then they sell and they have to sell everything because they use a lot of Leverage and that caused these violent upswings and downswings first maybe narrative or like thesis is that the ETFs have arrived institutions are just going to keep buying that kind of leads to a slower grind up that's Theory number one Theory number two is that ETFs actually pulled forward a lot of the growth in buying they probably pulled it Forward by like six to nine months so we actually have a pretty normal like normally observed cycle which is intact right now the growth

that you might see in like a little later just got pulled forward and then that's why we've been like kind of choppier down for the last couple of months is because the the the the growth That was supposed to come maybe around this timer in the fall got pulled forward with the Bitcoin ETF and then I think the third theory is like look maybe it just gets easier to to buy these ETFs and you buy it on your Robin Hood and Schwab accounts MH and uh you don't actually pivot into like the longtail and Retail ends up staying in in these ETFs they don't spill over into onchain products and um I think the third one I I would agree with Mike on this the third one is probably pretty unlikely in my mind I don't think retail just buys ETFs and stays you know stays

inside of their Schwab accounts I think it's a some combo of one and two but though that is making it feel the cycle feel a little weird because really is there haven't been new people like when you hear people bitching about ECC it's like why are people bitching about ECC my theory is it's not about the side events it's not about overhyped infrastructure or whatever it's there's no new entrance and a lack of new entrance makes these things really yeah like it kind of breaks some of the some of the what should happen in Cycles so that's my working theory of what's Happening yeah I would agree with some of that I think uh it's really painful to observe the NASDAQ and the market rip alltime highs and crypto not move

directionally in line where it's been high beta and you would this just very difficult and so I would agree with you a lot of it is there's just more there's still money being made it's PVP like a lot of people didn't benefit from like the meme super cycle minicycle that we had um um and then it's all kind of the the range of Universe of things that you can invest in this space continues to go up and there's like Hot Pockets that like last months right and then people move on this hot ball of money but yeah I don't I've talked to like um it's funny because like I from time to time get

pinged from more macro funds that invest in crypto this week two of them ping me wanted to talk and they all put back size they're all flipped super bullish which is you know a Hallmark of a good investor just being able to flip super bullish on the market or on crypto they on crypto they invest they're they're macro guys but they invest in crypto and not just Bitcoin they invest in they have like crypto funds but their their background is macro so I'd like to talk to them and they both reached out and they had flipped bearish they had gone to Stables uh a couple months ago um primarily because of this construct of like there's no money new money coming in you look at ETF flows and they just not there um which is what you're saying but they are now put all the size back

on they're fully allocated and they both seem to think that the narrative is intact for the L of the year and going into the you know going into the next couple years my question to them was what really changed because I don't think Au can really predict why things move just sentiment I guess um and it's was like well you know now we it's become more and more clear that Trump's going to win I'm like well prediction markets had him at 70 plus for a while it's not necessarily new new now he's like uh you know in this solidified himself but it's like and yeah you have Jamie you have JD Vance we'll talk about this in the Pod which you're more of political person I want to get your take on that but how marks just put out a

good memo today just like what has really changed and like when people talk about certainty and trying to predict the markets it's impossible that's like my takeaway it's like you it's going to become more and more uh difficult to predict these markets they're not going to be smooth there's going to continue to beol but markets do what they're going to do you know yeah now memes are back in the menu uh you know like the hats on all say Santi say more say more about um what you're looking like what met crypto native metrics you look at I know we were texting about leverage and stable coins can you talk about those two metrics look um um Joseph our producer was like we haven't really seen leverage

as we did in Prior Cycles I'm like have we I pretty sure we have like there was a uh when the market was going down I mean we had one day where was like the second highest liquidation day in crypto after FTX so there is open interest there is leverage in the system it's moving around it's getting wiped I would attribute that so it's it's not leverage it's just there's not new inflows and when we talk about new inflows particularly on chain like alts right X ETFs you look at St coins that to me is the most important metric um like stable coin circulation so when you have the tether printer coming back on then um you know there's like a whale alert

account on Twitter which like marks a lot of these like new prints for usdc and tether and I think to me that's probably the most important metric that I'm following on chain at least I don't know just like stable coin volumes basically yeah stable coin circulation yeah cuz like it that really went down after FTX for a number of reasons people didn't want to like you're going to Stables then rates go down rates on chain on a and maker and compound or like less like less in treasury so stable coin volume just like like when I sorry stable coin circulation just went down um but now it's coming back up so I think that to me is like the most important thing because then that would

be telling you people are exactly stable coin Supply yeah maybe we can look at it here so St so stable coin Supply is now so I'm looking at this Visa chart yeah it's starting to Trend back up so so I mean it it ripped up trended down in the bare market and starting what is this month September October 2023 running the Bitcoin ETF right you see the meme super if you were to extrapolate here like meme market cap that would have gone off that's where like whiff and some of the other things peaked really um there's a bit of lag right but generally speaking yeah when you see that chart go up that people want to allocate on chain and most of the time they're probably

going to allocate to some of the majors but I would say like a lot of that's like a really good barometer for people's willingness to put money on chain and punt kind of higher risk stuff yeah what is your look at these two charts so usdc versus tether what is your theory on why tether just continues to print higher whereas usdc is like making a pretty slow comeback I'd say xus yeah um you know Joe mccan has a really good newsletter of course we have him on the Pod he was of the mind and I think he very accurately predicted um inflows were coming in central banks were printing injecting liquidating the system Q end of Q3 Q4 last year but not in the US and then you anecdotally I've

talked to some of the largest funer funds that are investing in crypto funds I've talked to crypto managers that are open-ended so they're raising money still crickets yeah like they haven't it's been a very challenged fundraising environment for crypto funds um so we still haven't seen new institutional allocation to funds and to me that's two things one we're early in the cycle still and to funds are not getting new capital and so most of the money coming in is retail probably from central banks printing printing money X us so tether is more Global so let me let me ask you this Joseph question question which I

think um to pick on I love you Joseph I think Joseph is sometimes a good proxy for what retail can be thinking um and I love that's why I love asking Joseph like what are you thinking about what do you want us to ask today and what Joseph wanted us to ask is um he said I'd love for someone to play Devil's Advocate on Meme coins just not continuing to send if there's a next leg up this cycle it feels like the same market conditions that led to meme coins previously are still around except prices are higher even after the major correction you've got AI coins still underperforming memes altcoins not catching bids social F had a start but fizzled no mega useful apps eth continuing to focus on infrastructure why don't meme coins just continue ripping higher here if you

think the market sends higher so would love to hear your thoughts on that yeah well I guess it's important to have two simultaneous conflicting theories in your brain I'm probabilistically think the memes um if the market goes up memes go up um the case where Joseph is describing is what scenarios does the market go up and mean coins don't go up as much or just go down I guess certainly anything's possible is just matter probabilities I let me just say I I would describe a lower probability of the event where B the market goes up I I guess Bitcoin can go up Bitcoin can hit an all-time high and the rest of the market may not move as much including

mean coins then that's your theory which is most of the capital just goes to the ETF and then you extend that further if we have an ETF which it sounds like we're going to have it pretty soon then you could see a scenario where Bitcoin and eth go up and the rest of the market does not um including meme coins and that might be for a variety of reasons including just macro shits the bed and it's not a soft landing and we don't have you know for a variety of reasons you know I guess savings are down and people although people tend to punt more and go to the casino during a recession but you know um I mean I don't know like it's can is there going to be a Resurgence in so with rate cuts for instance imagine a

world where we have 50 basis point rate Cuts in Q3 in September then I think it would make a Resurgence for D5 projects where the yields go higher so now people are more inclined and interested in farming and you know capturing that juicy yield that would be my working assumption like so maybe that on the margin like defi just becomes far more interesting and people just move more towards T but like have we had any cycle where memes haven't performed on par or better than everything else in the market I guess memes as a category right I mean it's going to be of course within the meme bucket there's like a Kai Square

distribution like it's it's a power lot like there's a very few names that like actually command most of the market share everything else kind of like dies away the halflife is really short so like you have cu consolidation into you know last cycle was Doge she um and what else I'm missing one um this cycle you have the P Pepe you have whiff uh you know you have popcat and a few of these things that are kind of wanting to hit a billion but then there's a whole salw of like tail end of stuff that just doesn't do well um but if I were to there's this guy that uh sir what is popcat I've never heard of popcat popcat is like this does cat

uh the whole theory is that if dogs do really well like cats cats should like um you know like be some percentage of that um I don't like wa wait wait wait wait wait say that again say that again the whole we're doing fundamental analysis on slow down slow down and just say that again and listen to yourself again listen listen listen the idea is and I'd love someone come in here and be more educated on this particular topic I'm sure I'm GNA get a you who we should have on is um do you remember do you know morod marad yeah he he blew up he blew up but he um by the way one of the

greatest podcast episodes of all time was marad on H on pom's podcast in like 2018 giving like the the market going up like the world's most bullish Bitcoin episode that was the most articulate Bitcoin episode maybe you'll ever hear in your life unfortunately mad's fun blew up cuz he was too bullish and got wiped out on I think black Thursday in March of 20120 but um very eloquent speaker he's positioned his whole fund into meme coins yeah yeah um and he's got all these elaborate thesis on how to buy meme coins so we should bring that popcat yeah the theory of popcat is if dogs do well cats should do well as well maybe on a more relative bases and it's like that it's like that spread of like Bitcoin dominance it's like dog

dominance for from mcoins um again this point on marad by the way I think I think he's a he's not a dumb individual I mean friending guy like smart um articulate position sizing long-term Capital Management that book I mentioned last podcast like the Forgotten billionair it's all about position sizing by the way it's written by a guy Victor who was at long-term Capital Management X Lan it's all about position sizing every fund that blows up you might have to right thesis but if you're using leverage or the position sizing is off you're going to blow up or lose money anyways just just as an an but Morad you know no you know more than welcome coming here and educate us about memes because I'm I'm a Noob I'm just very

simple I just literally own one uh you when I um or two maybe in 2016 I was working at this Venture from and would walk into um wait by the way is this the first time on the record that I've heard this because I had no idea I mean Y is a VC ladies and gentlemen I mean nah Noah but i' would walk into my boss's office there're these like angry old Sterns like be Sterns Luman Brothers guys and I would walk into my boss's office his name was Tim and I would show him like I was trying to get them to do some crypto deals um I think I think they looked at like I don't know maybe like bit bit go series A or B or something or coinbase series B or C or something like that and

I would um I would show them they're like all right fine send me some information so I'd send them like you know crypto panda on Reddit or like crypto Bobby doing a big Twitter thread and they're like look I'm not listening to I'm not I'm not listening to crypto Panda about this new asset class uh talk about this new asset class like get out of my room kid and I'm picturing Santi you talking to these big macro funds and then they're like look guys you got to go listen to this Santi guy and Empire and then they listen and you're like I don't even know the name of it Bobcat or popcat or whatever you're like look the thesis is cats more than dogs let's talk about some let's talk about some of the other news of the week um for sure so there's by the way have we

rounded up this discussion on on was this a sufficient like I don't know if sufficiently clear answer of like in a scenario where memes go down the market goes up oh maybe I'd ask you to round out the conversation like you mentioned sizing how do you then think about sizing of meme coins because I know you're like I know you're very bullish on like whiff for example but you and so like is whiff 1% of your liquid crypto portfolio or five or 10 or 50 or I know it's it's greater than 10 yeah it's a top two position uh top five not by dollars invested to be fair so the the capital capital that sits in the sheer appreciation of it um yeah and so that then requires a whole set of things we won't go into

this podcast of how you manage a position over time but do you ever hedge a position like will you do will you hedge or you're just like if I don't like it anymore I'll just sell it I don't short yeah I don't short I'll to cash I'll rotate to something else I don't do pair trades like I tweeted about Ando maker I'm sure someone's going to look at that and say that FTV converges I am not uh shorting is something that I never want to bet against I never want to do because your loss is uncapped yeah and it's a it's a timing game I'm not I had a neighbor growing up he was a short only Hedon manager and I just thought this man he he was also one of those people who doesn't have to sleep he would sleep like two hours a night just thought this

man was nuts so this is why Peter the probably said it best the difference between an optimist and a pessimist I tend to think that short sellers are like skew pessimists it's it's like if you're going to a test an optimist is like you can say hey uh so most of the time when you say I may get an A and if you don't you know you may land somewhere in the middle but a pessimist is someone that says I'm definitely going to get get an f and you most of the time get an F right um if you go into an exam saying I'm gonna get an F you're most likely gonna get an F that's a pessimist an optimist is like I don't know like I don't really know it but it's not saying you're getting get an f and so yeah like

you're hedging uh your response but yeah I think Peter the Su of that effect and I I just think short sellers are like incredibly cynical or skeptical and yeah most of the time don't make money there's good ones out there let's let's talk about um let's talk about some of the news from this week A lot of it was related to what I would call I'd call it two buckets one was Elites getting behind Bitcoin and uh Trump in political decisions so I'd actually love to just talk about JD Vance first I think there are two uh there's like the headline crypto news which is um Trump picks J so Trump picked JD Vance as his as his running mate um and this like the the headline crypto news

is that this means for the first time ever we have a Bitcoin holder on the presidential ballot um so for context like and I think that's very cool um but there's actually I think a much more interesting like political lens on this well I think it was just such a smart decision um so I'd love to talk about that I think it's a they the I don't know if do you want to talk about that is that interesting it's not even a crypto I mean everyone is asking for context everyone's asking it this is uh JD van Pro crypto what is his views on that as soon as that came out should I give background I mean I I knew about JD Vance in 2016 he put out his book which is a New York Times bestseller I think it was a PO poiter

prize nominee I don't think he won the H Yi which is this idea like he grew up in a really rural poor area of Appalachia where most of his classmates were like ended up being unfortunately meth heads or didn't go to school didn't go to college he his point at a time where inequality in the US has continued to grow his point was sort of very refreshing which was no the system gives you the opportunity I went to public school everyone in my class had the opportunity to go was free I went I applied myself then he went to college then he he went to I think it was Yale got his law degree there and then worked

at a venture fund a pretty good one at that and so that was like where I stopped 2016 and then I was like oh wow it's actually this guy then he went into politics he was like in Ohio Senator believe yeah so that's the tldr on this um I put it politics aside that's like a self-made man and I respect that a lot I think that represents a lot of what America stands for and what makes it great yeah yeah he's done so right he was Marine in the in the Marine he was in the Marine Corp deployed to Iraq from 2003 to 2007 2007 2009 went to Ohio State um 2010 yeah Buckeyes 2010 to 2013 he went to Yale law school um then he

started uh that's when he kind of started writing his book and stuff he worked as a law clerk um in the US I think it was in Kentucky I'm pretty sure he was a law clerk um then he went to I think he went to sidley Austin practice law and then 2016 obviously he kind of got put on the map wrote the Memoir hillbilly uh elogy or eulogy whatever whatever the title is and then um 2016 I think after the book Peter teal hired him to work at um what's his Venture fund mitol miil mithil Capital it's like his family office yeah and then which by the way that family office was has been pretty good in buying Bitcoin yeah oh yeah it very well and then 2017 moves to Ohio becomes a keep continues being a VC um

but I think leaves Peter TS fund I'm pretty sure starts focusing on uh Investments and startups kind of in like as he called it the American Heartland 2022 he does that for like 5 years 2022 elected as US senator for Ohio 2023 obviously sworn in and then 2024 we we we get this big announcement so that's kind of the resume from a political perspective because you know I like to nerd out on this stuff it's not even related to crypto uh people did not think JD Vance was going to get elected people thought it was going to be um people thought you kind of had to appeal to people thought it was maybe gonna be VC or Nikki Haley or whoever is you know one one one of the other another candidate basically JD Vance I think is such an interesting strategic choice

because he sits at the intersection of basically the two groups of the GOP right now on one side of the GOP you have like uh the like Middle Middle America whites in Appalachia like that that kind of group like working class Americans and then on the other side you have this new group that's came into to like came into the market came into the party which is like the new tech oligarch class um like the Peter teals of the world and chamoth and and David Sachs and people like that and I think his asent like JD Vance's pick or like his Ascension kind of speaks to the influence of like the new rightwing like right-wing conservative Tech Elite but

then his policy positions of like isolationism restoring manufacturing restricting immigration those are all theoretically beneficial to like the you know forgotten working class and I think it's just I think it's a very very very uh Savvy pick uh because the Trump like how I think a big question is like how will the Trump Administration or campaign deliver to both of the those groups I think that remains to be seen there right those two groups have very very very different asks and you can only expend so much political Capital to satisfy those two coalitions so picking someone who sits at the intersection both satisfies satisfies both of those I think the other interesting thing is it

shows how confident Trump is that he's going to win right if you were not as confident you would have to kind of Court the old school conservative campaign beliefs which is like you know already had that in the back well the old school the old school gopers if you were trying to appeal to them you would have picked Nikki Haley if you were trying to do then there's like trying to appeal to the evangelicals right that's why he picked Mike Mike Pence in 2016 Vance is this like new right candidate who despises the institutional GE op and um he either so Trump either this tells me Trump either clearly sees those groups as either already in the bag or now irrelevant which is just a

interesting evolution of the the GOP political party um but I just think it marks this turning point so yeah know it definitely chose like I'm not a political expert I'm not even going to go into it um nor is this a political pod it's relevant for crypto um unlike and we should get into bellic's blog post by the way correction he um so he actually did not I believe worked at Mythril he ended up raising money uh he started a venture fund I believe I'm looking at here so he he worked initially in Revolution Capital that was founded by Steve case who is the co-founder of AOL it was like a pretty hot VC um may still be but not really um

and then he in 2019 he co-founded a fund called narya capital in Cincinnati and he ended up raising money from Theo Eric Schmidt Mark Andries and a bunch of other people um and I think he raised uh 93 million so you know was investing in like the middle as he pointed out like kind of industrial Middle America kind of thing um so he has a connection with eel which is obviously Ultra like right but he's I don't think he worked for me through just FYI I think I think he did I've got it and axio says he got connected with Peter T to your stint at mythal Capital okay but either way either way yeah no I mean I I'm just looking at Wikipedia there there's a great um there's a we

won't summarize it because it's a 30 minute video but he he uh why combinator asked JD Vance to give a talk on policy on his basically like Tech policy I would call it um and there's a that video is floating around Twitter maybe we can find it and put it in the show notes but for people who want to find out his like JD Vance's broader stances on Tech policy I would recommend watching that video for sure yeah um I think um there's also really good video trickling around of like he's talking about crypto and particular around social media and the role of tokenization and how it's important um and his point is something to the effect of like most of the smartest Founders and investors are actively paying

attention more and more to crypto um and it's like it's going to be more difficult for incumbents to like compete uh in a world where you have uh sorry uh for um Legacy firms to compete against like startups that are leveraging this technology so I think he's Pro crypto um although I haven't seen more to that or his views particularly um yeah what is interesting though is like if you look at Poly Market which by the way I was catching B Shane and ECC they hired u n uh was it Nate tiller from was like crazy hire I actually want to talk about that amazing hire which we can amazing higher I love that yeah um he has a great book too so the odz of of trump

obviously after the unfortunate incident um like jumped from 60 perish to all the way to 70 was it like 70 I saw up to 77% and then they've sort of subsided they're now back to kind of close to where they were before all of this happened uh so they spiked a bit they're now still at 66% um you know there's like quarter of a billion dollars betting on this market so I think it's a pretty high signal um so yeah I'm curious um you know I guess on the I don't know if you read anything into that the fact that the odds have kind of come down and are back to where they were before the assassination

attempt um no I mean the Biden campaign put out something that said that he he would consider dropping out if there was a medical condition um and I think that tweeted I'm sick with no thread like it was like yeah and so you know maybe that pulled it back down I think um if you look at if you compare like predict it to poly Market to like poly Market tends to skew actually more in Trump's favor if you look at the betting odds because the people and I think the theory there is the people betting on poly Market tend to be more crypto native and therefore more they want crypto to win they so anything politically related like Trump might be 65% but then unpredicted it's 60%

so can we uh talk briefly about metalic Post Yeah to close the loop on JD the last thing to add about him is he I would call him very Pro crypto there's um just I pulled a couple of different things like 2021 he issued a statement opposing an amendment to the infrastructure bill and his reason for uh opposing it he said it would it would amount to a backdoor ban of Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies 2022 he disclosed that he held between 100 to 250k of Bitcoin and then 2023 he actually introduced a bill that would protect crypto firms and exchanges from being cut off from traditional Banks right that was around the time of like choke point so um I think there are other things that are not great about JD

Vance but from a purely crypto perspective I would say he is a very Pro crypto vice president I want to make a pause here to recap all the crazy timeline that over the last seven days right you had an assassination ATT attempt on Trump dodged by inches God knows what would happen if he hadn't moved this head um and nomination of a vice president that is very Pro crypto understands industry you had the paos SEC lawsuit dropped you have Jamie Diamond which you tweeted about changing his tune on crypto also rumors that he might be the nominee for uh what is it the

treasury role yeah and what else on the regulatory side of things I'm missing did you say the stable coin SC SEC uh dropped their stable coin investigation with paos yeah yeah that I also saw a headline that State Street is looking at getting into the stable coin business uh yeah I I looked I think it feels pretty private blockchaining I think that's a not not as real of a thing yeah on that point because people will texting like oh what do you read into Jamie Diamond Jamie Diamond has been vocal about like critical of like Bitcoin crypto um internally though we've had on the Pod

um you know the JP Morgan team that has been pursuing like Onyx and there's been internal efforts at JP Morgan quite substantial I would say uh which is sort of like to me the most important thing um I don't know people might be saying how real is that I don't know what your interpretation that is my take on it is um I mean Jamie Diamond definitely doesn't like Bitcoin so his company has a 300 to three like J J uh JP Morgan has a 300 plus person blockchain team and we had an interview actually with uh uh Tyron who either runs that team or was like second in command over there and so you guys can go listen to it if you want but J like let me redo these quotes from Jamie Diamond he said this and this is a

man who said quote Satoshi is going to come on there laugh hysterically go quiet and then all all the bitcoin's going to get replaced how the hell do you know it's going to stop at 21 it's a hyped up fraud it's a pet rock that was earlier this year at Davos and then another quote this is from last year he said I personally think Bitcoin is worthless I could care less about Bitcoin if you're stupid enough to buy it you'll pay the price one day this is the last time I will ever answer a question about Bitcoin the other day my daughter sent me an email saying she owns two Bitcoin this was my smart daughter well my formerly smart daughter oh wow so he definitely doesn't like Bitcoin however Larry fin used to say similar things like people can change change their mind when like either

putting when someone who is more powerful than them twist their arm or when their capitalist incentives line up and like my my theory around uh that is uh there's a lot of money to be made by selling the CF product and and Wall Street now can make money on crypto also have you bank with JP Morgan like they're the are they they're probably the largest they're the largest bank in the world I think in the world like how many HSBC may be the largest but JP Morgan's not far in certainly in the US how many people bank with JP Morgan and this is so the private bank for people who don't know is where they so they'll make a lot of their money from people who have maybe uh assets of I think it's what 10 million or more is the is the minimum to bank with JP Morgan you have

10 million or more assets you get a private banker and you can basically do all of your Investments and all of your activities through JP Morgan they make a lot of money that way the number of people who are saying wait I can't hold my Bitcoin here I can't buyit through you guys this is this is ridiculous um I've got Larry fin going on CNBC saying we're buying Bitcoin and JP Morgan won't let me buy it so Jamie Diamond positive as soon as you start losing business right it's like exactly so there was a Forbes article where it said TR Trump actually Forbes quoted Trump saying Jamie Diamond has quote suddenly changed his tune on bitcoin um I've have mix thoughts that be I mean That'll be amazing I mean of course I have a ton of respect I love JP Morgan that was my

house my home off my career um I'll do it again um so that would be amazing like um but they don't forget Trump like Trump picked um uh the Goldman got Gary con Gary con was his I think was treasury secretary for the first year or two before getting fired this episode is brought to you by SE SE believes that the evm is here to stay but they also believe that the evm in its current iteration Lacks performance and scalability for developers say's recent V2 upgrade has introduced the first high performance parallelized evm coupled with lightning fast block times and finality of just

390 milliseconds this V2 upgrade unlocks a new design space with 100x throughput of even the fastest evm l2s stay up to date by following say at say Network that's s e i Network you can also experience saype firsthand at say. special thanks to say for sponsoring Empire this episode is brought to you by polygon polygon Labs is developing the next generation of open-source zero knowledge Tech to aggregate crypto liquidity and user bases empowering developers to grow in a unified web of interoperable chains with the agair that was a big mouthful so I'm going to tell

you what it means in my in my words there's all these things popping up up l2s and l3s and it's chaos right if you are building something you no longer have to worry about bootstrapping liquidity you can basically just build in the a layer to tap into the liquidity of the AG layer and the users of the a layer you get the users you get the liquidity it's the a layer it's hot it's by polygon Labs they've got the polygon Community grants program it was launched with 1 billion tokens Just For polygon Builders season 1 it's live right now it features 35 million in madic to support the next generation of polygon Builders join the aggregated future today by applying at polygon.net

polygon.net to take a quick break to talk about your crypto security I am excited to tell you more about Harpy designed to keep your wallet safe 24/7 Harpy is the most advanced wallet security tool it monitors for risks blocks detected threat and recovers your stolen assets all in real time picture this you're browsing late at night and accidentally approve a shady transaction and it's too late to cancel it I know I've been there before well now Harpy's got your back it jumps in intercepts that transaction and takes your assets away to a vault that you control all completely free it works with all the major Wallets on ethereum base polygon and arbitrum head over to Harpy iempire and set up your free protection today

that's harpy / Empire I promise you that your future self will thank you now let's get back to today's episode hey everyone wanted to take a second to talk about my prize the first multiplayer Casino where you can watch chat and play together with your friends and favorite creators getting started is super easy use a credit card PayPal or even crypto to play over 500 games from classic slots to live table games join the my prize Community now and use referral code Empire to get $20 for free when you make your first deposit or purchase of $10 or more head on over to my prize.com invite Empire link will be in the description of today's

episode let's talk about Larry FR on CNBC did you watch think's uh beautiful Boomer commercial for Bitcoin I mean every other day he's going out oh let me let me let me read you this I'm gonna read let me just mon this quote for a second so Larry fin goes on CN Jim Kramer asks him about Bitcoin he goes I'm just going to quote read this whole thing he goes as you know I was a skeptic I was a proud skeptic and I studied it but then I learned about it and I came away and said my opinion the last five years has been wrong so here's what I believe today this is Larry fin on bitcoin said I believe Bitcoin is legitimate it is now a legitimate Financial instrument that allows you to have a uncorrelated type of returns I believe it's an instrument you invest in

when you are frightened it's an instrument you invest in when you believe that countries are debasing their currencies by excess deficits I believe we have countries where you are frightened for your everyday existence and now you have the ability to invest in something that is outside of your country's control giving you more Financial Freedom I'm a big believer that there's now role for Bitcoin in people's Financial portfolios I believe you're going to see that as one of the I believe you're going to see that as one of the assets we all look at one day I look at it as digital gold and I think there's a real need for everyone to look at it as an alternative to optimism in the world if you want to hedge Bitcoin is not a vehicle for hope it is a vehicle for ex people being able to

express Their Fear about something in the world there is now a great industrial use for it so the summary of that is if you believe that your country is going to experience dollar you know currency debasement if you cannot get access to a bank account in your country if you believe that there's chaos in the world and you need a way to hedge the way to that trade used to be maybe by shorting something and buying gold or something or buying gold and Larry f says look there's now a good new way to do that and by buying Bitcoin agreed and the marginal the ratio of people that are doing that is extremely slow uh small so there's been there's no surprise right the US

fiscal um situation is untenable everyone agrees with that the question is at what point will the market one disagree with that and then bring it to its knees and humble a country if it's not the US any other country would have already been humbled by the market yet people continue to buy Tories like this the demand for that these auctions have not subsided there's at some point going to be a Day of Reckoning it's uh yeah go listen to uh Ray Delio uh San driller everyone agrees it's like it's an un unsustainable budget um what is it now like I want to say up to 40% of like the uh spending of the government goes to cover interest expense or

more um so anyways a bit unsustainable however Japan's been in this situation for a while y y yada the the thing that like most people seem to say so what happens in a scenario where macro really takes a [ __ ] what happens in a scenario where like the market kind of wakes up to this and at what point does that happen and what does that mean for Bitcoin or other assets like where do you hide and I think the conclusion that I've heard from most people that are way smarter than me and mro again the same people I've talked to this week was like I think you just want to being assets that historically or you believe going forward are going to beat inflation whatever that rate may be yeah so what are those historically has been real estate it's treated you very well

uh gold to some extent um maybe a basket of other currencies like Swiss frank the you know maybe you can look at like the some of the golf currencies but they're small right there's not enough so that's like where people like uh Mark Cuban goes out and says hey well in that scenario where big catch is a real bid you know where's the where's the ceiling for that now not only that the second point I want to make is which we've talked about it here at length is stable coins going back to stable coins it's mostly us denominated and they're just increasing the demand for dollars globally everyone wants to hold dollars continues to want to hold dollars so

this is like if you're if you're Jamie D going into the position right as a Secretary of Treasury what what is the most important thing that you're monitoring that the demand for dollars continues to be strong yeah and stable coins don't interfere with that regulated stable coins like usdc is a godsend tether as an organization holds he's like a top five or top 10 holder of treasuries you have a constant buyer for treasuries and it's coming from this world that historically hasn't had easy access to whole dollars right it's all been Black Market Argentina it's not and so this just immediately increases the ability for people anywhere in the world to hold dollars wouldn't you want like

why would you be against that he you have an infinite bid for treasuries yeah you know what I mean and so I think he's seeing that um uh the other thing that it now people are like of course putting their super bullish cap on is Imagine like what is the probability and Shane and Nate if you're here I'd love to get your thoughts on this but like what is the probability of someone like of trump going out saying hey we're actually going to hold Bitcoin in reserve and you had two you had well Trump's got his talk at the at the Bitcoin conference respected about it I mean imagine that scenario let just let's just be you know drink the Kool-Aid for a b oh my God San's putting on the hat I know right not that we

needed it we always skew bullish here um you had Germany sell close to three billion of Bitcoin so you're telling me that you're selling a hard asset to buy for euros that you can print and imagine a country like the US that says no we're actually going to print money to buy Bitcoin if that I mean two couldn't be Polar Opposites you know who I'm betting against but I I mean if you're a central government like realistically if you're in that position like whether you want to be public about it or not but yeah I would print you know beat and buy Bitcoin hold it in reserve that's what I

was talking about last week with Germany is selling and El Salvador is buying and this is a hard asset and a commodity that is moving from one government to another of course we've all seen how the president of El Salvador has taken it to the chin when Bitcoin went down from 60 to 20 and he was mocked and ridiculed now the impact of what is transpiring now even regardless of whether Trump or someone like Jamie damond goes out and says that publicly I think again the narrative is intact we had an ETF that legitimizes assassin class incredibly you best believe that this has just become you couldn't even whisper Bitcoin when I was a JP Morgan

the elevator I mean and that has been the case for forever until recently yeah that can't be overstated do you agree or do you disagree I agree I agree I mean why why are people trading you men you mentioned the Mark Cuban thing the mar Cuban thing let me just read this this tweet for anyone who missed it he said here's a contrary opinion on the Em by the way for context Mark cubin does not like Trump and does not want I think does not want Trump to win he's been pretty vocally against Trump but he said look here's a contrary opinion on the emergence of Silicon Valley support for former president Trump which like all opinions on here probably won't be popular it's a Bitcoin play not because the former president is a far stronger

proponent of crypto that's nice but it doesn't really impact the price of crypto it makes it easier to operate a crypto business because of the inevitable and required changes at the SEC what's going to drive the price of Bitcoin is lower tax rates and tariffs which if history is any guide and it's not always will be inflationary combine that with the global uncertainty as the geopolitical role of the USA and the impact on the US dollars is a reserve currency and you can't align the Stars any better for a bitcoin price acceleration so how high can the price go and again as Mark Cuban continues in part two how high can the price go way higher than you think remember the market for Bitcoin is global and the supply has a final limit of 21 million

with unlimited fractionalization keep that in mind as you consider what happens if because of geopolitical uncertainty and the decline of the dollar as the reserve currency Bitcoin becomes a safe haven globally which means that Bitcoin could be what countries and all of us look to buy as a means to protect our savings crazy it already happens in countries facing hyperinflation and if things really go further than we can imagine today and I'm not saying they will just that this has a possibility somewhere above zero then Bitcoin becomes exactly what the Maxis Invision a Global Currency there you have it I mean uh I don't own much Bitcoin but I think it's ultimate meme right I mean of

course once you hit 80 90 once it clears 100 what's stopping it from 150 and then once it hits 200 I mean it's gets Meed into existence like what's talking from going to a million of course flows I'm not dumb um but I was having a conversation with the founder today and I referenced one of my favorite books which is uh scale by Jeffy West and basically this point is the brain doesn't understand exponential phenomena and that continues to happen in this world as we're becoming more connected and capital is moving freely yeah I think um like the size of the market like imagine like Bitcoin at a million would entail you know pretty large Market G at that

but you know if central banks come on board or even a large in institutional place I certainly possible yeah you know people should go listen to Kathy Wood of course she's uh she's not afraid to put out bold predictions um not just on crypto but also on things like Tesla and yeah what was your prediction 150,000 250,000 no I think it was 1.5 million oh 1.5 million there you go yeah yeah in many ways it's uh pretty refreshing to have people outside the industry newcomers um come in and be less cynical because I think there's a phenomenon where the longer you stay in crypto and you see cycle is like you you can turn cynical

not you should always be skeptical but cynical is just uh yeah I think it's like pollutes the mind in many ways and you're like you become like incredibly you know and I think that probably happened to in the internet and other techn technological revolutions I don't know if kotto Perez talks explicitly about this but like if say you lose money then you become like disheartened and like all of a sudden you don't believe in this Tech and you don't believe in memes you get burn and like you hate it and then you walk away and yeah in many ways maybe trafi is what probably makes the most amount of money in this ass class over the next 10 years than like crypto ogs you know what I mean post do I what metalic post just to

round out the political discussion um crypto is political whether you like it or not the vitalic puts out a blog post we're not going to go in too much detail people should go read it if you want but he says something to the effect of you shouldn't vote specifically for candidates that are pro crypto you should take a longer term View and vote for make a decision that is not just purely based on ideology single issue reminds me of an oped that came out a couple weeks ago right exactly well you guys the tight end of the stick I saw that I saw that

post go up response was quite different I was like put it that way I was like Hey valal about to write the same post we just wrote and get away get away with it and be well yeah the favoritism is uh be God metallic because you are also about to get shredded online well he was shredded on a number of I mean vaccination people like to the Mob likes the comment my point is look it's not a practical post it's like people need to vote for and so like I get it I I get what he's trying to say which is be long-term have a long-term mindset but let's just ground the discussion right we been in a very

hostile environment and how do you expect people to react to that I I mean I think the reality of things and you're a far better political you know expert than I am I'm not but I something that I've appreciated and I'd love your take on is this idea that like political Dynamics across the world have unfortunately become more polarized not just in the US you have extreme left extreme right you're seeing it in Europe in France in the UK in the Netherlands um in Germany across Latin America it's just extreme right extreme left in large part I have my reasons I think like inequality disenfranchisement this feeling of like you know no one's serving you so you need to go to extremes so unfortunately um Paul is you know when you're going to vote it's like

you're cornered into taking a far extreme right either left or right and so you just have to like put it in that context and when you do then you say okay you invert and you say it's not so much just choosing who's Pro crypto is just more so you know voting for someone not voting for someone that's very much against its existence right if your livelihood depends on it if you truly believe you're here you believe this technology can have a meaningful impact um and be positive for society and really change you know I I believe it then how would you not vote I guess why who in their right mind would vote for someone that is extremely hostile and has been it's not a I mean it's

I don't know like I don't know how other way to say it but it's like I take I'm thinking longterm as much as vitalic is here I'm not thinking in forear terms I'm thinking how do I make sure that this industry thrives because I believe its potential I think it fits to solve so many things it's not perfect but it's not perfect in large part because it's been handicapped by the and so when I see a window of opportunity I don't it's not to say that I agree with policies either extreme left or extreme right um I don't necessarily believe in like you know I mean like other topics outside of crypto like abortion or you know where foreign aid goes or whatever other policies that

you you know get might get you know a politician needs to talk about um but I just think I don't know like I'm not first of all I'm not voting the us but like if I could I don't know like I'm not going to vote for someone that's hostile to the industry simple as that I'm not going to maybe abstain but like I want to vote so what do you do yeah I don't know I think it's one of these things people are just like very ideological it's grounded to the [ __ ] ground and what are like you know what I mean like just give a sense of reality it's so abstract and it's kind of frustrating to see that especially coming from him and I agree I get his point I get his message and it maybe in his position I would do the

same I'm not in his position to have Liberty to speak more freely so I so I thought Molly Jan's piece on block Works was was much better than vitalik's piece um vitalic was asked because vitalic piece Senator on one question he said if a politician is pro crypto the key question to ask is are they in it for the right reasons do they have a vision of how technology and politics and the economy should should go in the 21st Century Century and does that align with yours and do they have a good positive Vision that goes beyond near-term concerns and if they do then great you should support them and but if not like if not don't don't vote for them what I'd say to italic is like that is the most unicorns and like fairy tale what's a real politi you know what's autobond

bmark fairy tale idea of like what a politician is and like they good good luck trying to like this idea of are they in it for the right reasons like at the highest levels of politics they're they're in it for the power of politics and to be at that level um and that is my like extreme Bel I think at the Congressional um theory and practice I think in local politics people like really do get involved for for the right reasons um and like even at the Congressional level people get involved at the right reasons but at the presidential level like why is Trump going pro crypto honestly I don't think Trump gives a damn about crypto I think he's I think he's just realizes that like the fair Shake pack the third largest pack because it's for

the reasons that we've been advocating for this technology because you're seeing entrepreneurs leave the us because you know you see that it's you know stable coin is increasing demand for US dollars because you want to keep the US is at the Forefront of innovation because it's becoming a frontier of tech like what more reasons do you want I mean it's it's it's again like yeah I don't know what to say it's other than like people have interests in like Jamie Diamond or like other people like everyone has a motive if you're it's kind of surprising in many ways because like blockchain we we think that we understand incentives and then you come out with something like this and it's like okay well the reality is that I think the operating assumption if you go as back as a white paper Bitcoin is like

people lack in their self- best interest that should always be the operating assumption that's the reality of things and you know um it's hard to understand like or even like take an opinion of like the the alterior or the Deep motives of why people like Tech it's like that idea of like oh people just here because they want to make money and is that a bad thing it's going to drive adoption it's going to fund projects I don't see a problem with that markets like there was a time where I was really interested in politics but then I came to the conclusion that the real impact happens in you just got to be pro market because the market is far more efficient to allocate resources and to coordinate and you just have to be

pro market and as Government light as possible because governments are just not very good coordination to coordinate and to allocate reseearch they're there to like provide security tragedy of the commons protect Parks taxation mostly provide security but when you have like failed States or you have like places where like what happened in California in two years three years that I was living there it just went from being this ideal like the best place in the world to like holy [ __ ] I need to get out of here yeah musk was now endorsing um Trump which is a big impact is now moving the headquarters of both X and Space X away from California to Texas I believe MH and that all just

happened last week dominoes are falling why because I believe that there was a new law that was enacted in California that like they could take something effect of like they could take your kids away for some of this transgender stuff um but like it was that I think if a kid comes to the school and says I want to convert or something like that then there's a now a law that just got signed in or is about to get signed in that says the school doesn't have to tell the parent or or or can't tell the parent or something like that something like that yeah yeah so when you do that if you're a politician like putting aside whether that's right or wrong think about the tax revenue that all of a sudden

California lost and has been losing for the last couple years in other states like and itward is moving in Miami like Ken Griffin moved from Chicago to Miami K Griffin was like singled digit percentage of tax revenue for the state now he's buying $45 million dinosaurs good is to him um but you know I mean like that's a practical reality of things where like if you have these policies like that's what I'm thinking like say you're Pro crypto that's going to bring more tax revenue because it's going to bring ensure that businesses like coinbase that have created so much employment continue to be built in America and I I think that is the most important thing particular at the time where the budget is like you know not

particularly sound yeah so anyways that's a little bit of a rant but I think I think it's just we we ought to be practical and you know yeah like do if you disagree with things I totally get it I'm not but I go back to this idea like political Dynamics can just start have become extreme right you need to put one name on the ballot and that you can't choose 50 % Trump and 50% I mean no politics you need to make it's that unfortunate trade-off that you always have had to make yeah good pod sir yeah anything else no blockworks is hiring we got some open roles so if people like the Pod you

should come work at blockworks come work with s we actually have aead of pod we have a had of podcast Ops role oh oh really oh yeah I me I saw that in your update by the way yeah director podcast op uh so here are the open worlds we have a director of podcasts someone to like basically run the pnl of the of the podcast Network and run all the operations we have a podcast host role for the light speed podcast we have three engineering roles open uh senior backend engineer senior data engineer and then another senior backend engineer for more data products uh we have an event operations role a senior research data analyst and then actually a director of sales uh role so someone to lead the media an ad sales uh team which is a nine-person team seven seven

Sellers and two account managers today nice so we tweeted about what other people wanted to listen I'm just going through the list I think we covered a lot of it meme coins we covered Define narrative to some extent and why that could goop oh oh I have a thing Santi so one thing Santi and I have been talking about that I'd love the listeners take on is um we we we both want to cover more companies that are doing interesting things that haven't been seen for in crypto because it really does feel like there's this like kind of big infrastructure fatigue um and just like kind of infra exhaustion and like what can crypto really do so a company like that would be uh so we were talking about having Sky trade on so San and I both invested in this air rights company called Sky trade but they're preed right

like so they're preed company and they're and they're basically creating the there's an air like the air rights Marketplace bring it onchain so my Pro for doing that episode on Empire is I think it's a really really really interesting use case that literally nobody's talking about also I think that like just air rights in general crypto side are very interesting and not many people know about them the counter is you bring on that guest it's like wait this is some preed company that like Jason and Santi just invested in so I think I'd like to bring on some of those guests but if people think like hey I don't want to listen to these people I'd love for you guys to DM us or post post on Twitter and tag us and let us know if you want to see more of those or less of

those yeah' be great I mean historically we've done some of that we've tried to skew more to more repeat gu that people tend to enjoy talk about what's kind of most interesting to most people but it would be useful I I the way I've initially when you and I thought thought talked about Empire and what direction we wanted it to take is there is some element of getting ahead of narratives bringing on people that are going to talk about things that they're building that proves that crypto is Meaningful that it touches real world and impact can impact your life more so telling you things that you haven't seen yet they're going to become important in six months or in a year and I think we've done that to some extent of course we can't cover it all but um yeah I tend to think it's

super interesting some like Sky tra is a perfect example by the way I can't tell you how many how many people reach out I'm like wow this sounds super interesting get int more people than I more people than I ever have it has been it has been the company that have gotten the most amount of inbounds from funds being like can I get an intro because super interesting same with me Jonathan was like oh my God a lot of investor intros I was like I've never had so I made uh like five investor intros to jonath yeah I made one last night and they said uh Santi already made this one so I said all right fine uh we got huge breaking news to to wrap this podcast which is Trump to announce a USA Bitcoin strategic Reserve in Nashville really no is it I'll show you

this I mean this is from this random guy named Dennis Porter huge breaking Trump sources sauces he should have capitalized sources this is not a joke my sources are credible yeah it's like that Paul Graham post like some very PE High people I know cautioned you to hold Bitcoin yeah yeah no so I actually could see so I know so David Bailey so David Bailey is Trump's main Bitcoin adviser and David Bailey runs Bitcoin magazine which is how they got Trump as a as a keynote speaker uh for the Bitcoin conf confence um I actually could see Trump saying that they're doing a Bitcoin Reserve but then which would be like obviously

ridiculously bullish I would don't think they'd probably follow through on it but I would say nonzero chance that he actually says that so always thinking probabilities and yeah there's a lot of things that I didn't have in my bingo card so truly uh just to round out the discussion Howard marks which I love uh him and Sandra Miller probably my favorite two investors and Soros he came out with a uh good post today or yesterday and I listened to it today um very nice people should go read it super shorter nice yeah nice um the thing we didn't talk on talk about eth ETF comes next week so like three days we'll have EFS yeah just as a parting thought ladies and

gentlemen who would have thought that this would just be a brushed over comment at the end of the Pod of the EFS just coming side so just just just a side note footnote hope hope everyone's uh listening from some beach running getting some exercise in some sun um and uh yeah enjoying touching to The Listener who said can you stop sipping or drinking chewing ice like what the [ __ ] you don't know how annoying it is to listeners I will let you know I did not chew a single piece of ice and only took three sips of my coffee today so you you are welcome you are welcome yeah seriously I I also saw that I'm like here to serve you no ice sorry for the slurping

um anyways uh thanks everyone for listening uh we'll see you next week see you next week cheers folks all right cheers thanks again to say for sponsoring this episode there are a ton of reasons to build on say reach out to me if you'd like to get in touch with their team but if you're itching to get started building or using the ecosystem head over to say. to get started and be sure to let them know that we sent you n [Music]