Hyperliquid, Solana, and Crypto's Outlook | Livestream

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What's up, guys? Just wanted to let you know about the Block Works Digital Asset Summit, which is back in New York March 24th through 26. We'll have top speakers from leading asset managers, financial institutions, DeFi protocols, crypto companies, and policy makers all under one roof. Think of Black Rockck, Coinbase, Robin Hood, and more. Follow the link in today's show notes to buy tickets, and make sure to use code 0x200 for $200 off at checkout. See you there. Nothing said on Xerox Research is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is forformational purposes only and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Pocachio Ryan and our guests may

hold positions in the company's funds or projects discussed. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Zerx Research. Today we're joined by Ian from Chyros Research. Ian, how the hell are you? >> Welcome, Ian. >> I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, guys. I really enjoyed that exhale as well. I think it just kind of you're prepping yourself, you know, physically. >> I got very excited. I got very excited. We haven't had you on ZX Music for a long time. You um last time we had you on, you said some naughty stuff, so we had to start we had to start betting you before you came up. I'd go to the penalty box.

>> Yeah. >> I feel like the last time we had Ian on regularly, we were all debating pump revenue and whether or not how real they are. Basically, >> we're still here. >> We're still debating the exact same thing. Um, Danny, how are you feeling? How's the market been treating you? How do you like life? We don't have to ignore Ian, but let's do our classic market stock and then we'll include Ian afterwards. Yeah. Um, speaking to the markets, I think, um, I don't know. I'm not I'm not a trader.

So, this is where I feel like we're in a sort of price action the past almost like 8 10 months now. That's uh the voices that I see. It's like dominated by traders and these macro expert type people. And I've seen a lot of doom and gloom like you know concerns around Iran and price spikes and shocks in oil causing maybe some downside potential. But um I've been hanging out. I've been chilling. Haven't really changed much of anything in the past like six to eight months I would say.

um other than maybe like starting to, you know, DCA into some things like I've been buying Bitcoin here, but nothing crazy. Um now that we're down, I mean, what 40ish percentish 40 50% from the top last year. So, feels like a good time to uh if there's things you like, you know, and maybe you're not allocated to them, you could allocate to them. Um, if you're worried about more downside, you know, maybe you should consider like are you still 100% allocated to risk assets and did you ever take any profits? Um, I don't know if now is necessarily right time, but probably in general, it's like good to have some cash if you don't have any.

Like kind of as a general rule of thumb for markets, broadly speaking, >> markets down 60%. I got to take some risk off, >> you know? I mean, if you're freaking out dayto day, um maybe true maybe it's a reflection of what your portfolio looks like. So, you might need to take like a harder look at at what you're doing there. But, yeah, I don't know. I'm not I'm not much of like a a week toe, day-to-day type of uh trader of my things. So, I feel quite fine either direction, up or down. >> Um would you say, and Ian, I also want your take here. Would you guys say that the Panicans are winning?

because it seems like they're winning slightly, right? Like the thing is that I came on the stream last week and I I was like, "Oh, Quinn, he's always talking about like XY Z." And he's quote tweeting himself, bears are like peak winning. And then the market's down like 3%. Like the S&P is down 3 4% after that. So maybe, God forbid me for telling saying this, uh the the panicans are correct. You know, it's down. I mean at this point it's >> yeah I think in the short term like again not an expert but I think we're seeing like just a sentiment shift right in the past maybe week or two where a lot of people expect

as we've come to expect from the Trump and this administration of like anytime there's something bad they tend to be pretty quick to uh you know do whatever they can to get people excited again about markets and so I think people were maybe expecting a really fast resolution of this Iran thing, maybe similar to like an ousting Maduro in Venezuela um recently, but that has not played out. And so I think people are kind of being forced to reconcile like if this goes longer, do I need to be more or less concerned about my portfolio? And I think probably for most people if you're again, if you're like fully allocated to risk, then you probably need to be a little bit more concerned. But um >> yeah, that's fair. Um it is in a weird spot because I feel like with

The S&P is down 6% from the top, but Bitcoin is down 60% from the top. So, I don't know if you want to like exit all of your crypto or like some alts are down 90%. I don't know if you want to leave those, but yeah. Um, Ian, any hot takes? One thing I will say before you get started is I am a bit surprised that Iran wasn't as quick as Venezuela because Iran, Afghanistan, these are historically countries that have been like super easy to invade. So, I'm a bit concerned about the way that the military has done it. I will have a chat with them probably at some point.

>> You should probably get them on the pod. And see what coins he's buying here. >> That's what I'm thinking. >> Yeah. I mean, it's I think it's Yeah. structurally different from Venezuela for sure. Like >> I think there's like one one guy who is mostly disliked by the entire country. Um, it seems like Iran, I don't I have no real working dogs around it, but it seems it's like much more of like an ideology uh that like they're fighting as opposed to kind of like a one kind of top down leader. Uh, and yeah, I think that's kind of the first real test of like how much confidence Trump can instill in the market because with like the tariffs and all these other things, um, a lot of that was like, okay, like

we can just kind of, you know, we can you can taco on that like you can you can chicken out, you can reverse, you can even just like, you know, have negotiations with all the countries, whatever. But, uh, I mean, yeah, this is a it's a global global issue for sure. Like, you know, we're not feeling it much in the US. Um just because like you know we produce as much as we consume as a country but like you know outside the US it's sounds like it's pretty bad like Bangladesh like they're telling people like just kind of not go to work on Wednesdays because they don't have enough fuel. Um like I understand like Thailand like the fuel pumps have been empty there for quite a while. Like oil imports are like like seven they spend like 7% of all GDP on like energy

imports or something like ridiculous. Um, so yeah, I mean it's was was rally correct? Probably always. Um, yeah, it's it's a rough scenario, but yeah, Bitcoin kind of front ran, you know, the like um >> you think Bitcoin ETFs knew that? >> No, not at all. Not at all. But like it's just already so depreciated like versus everything else. I think just kind of mainly from like 1010 obviously not like there's definitely no like crystal like yeah I bit holders looking into their crystal ball and seeing the Ayatollah getting bunker bustered. Um yeah like that's definitely not happening but I

mean a lot of like alts as well are kind of like now reaching their 1010 like wick lows as well. So, I mean, things could get interesting there, but I think there's still not that many investable assets out there. Um, we'll see some big unlocks in like, you know, the next couple quarters as well. Like, I think the pump unlock will be pretty interesting. Uh, because that's one that like hasn't really moved in a while. Uh, obviously like there's a few few funds that like if they can sell like they're going to make a lot of money, early investors in that. Um, and obviously there's like a massive gravitational pull there for them to just nuke their bags. Um, and you know, like raise another fund, return capital, whatever.

Um, >> I mean, some of these guys got in at like sub 100 mil, right? >> Yeah. I mean, there's good like, you know, nine figure outcomes for some of these funds if they're able to sell above like two billion FTV and even like maybe between like uh 1.5 to two. like there's there's like good outcomes for sure. Like you're going to see a lot of selling there. A lot of like coins trading hands and so that's where that will get pretty interesting in in my opinion. But um yeah. >> Okay. A lot of stuff there. First of all, I didn't see the Bangladesh thing, but I saw that in Indonesia they have like worries and they told people maybe not to visit people during aid um just because of fuel prices. Um >> second up, a lot of tokens are down

except for one >> hype. Yeah, Hype is doing again tremendously well. >> Yeah, there's like 500 million open interest and like just Brent and crude like uh per >> it's like I I ran some numbers the other day and I will uh it was on the Xerx Research newsletter. If you are not a subscriber to the Xerox Research newsletter, I highly recommend that you are because once a week I write on there and it's very good stuff. Um, but what I was going to say is they over the past month, six out of 10 of the top traded assets on Hyperlquid have been um commodities or indices. Um, and four out

of 10 have been commodities. Um, and I think the second most traded the third most traded asset in February was silver. Um, and I think now the third most traded asset is crude oil. um which is pretty intense if you think about it because no other um competitor even comes close to it except for Austium kind of is trying to stay relevant. Lighter doesn't have very limited commodity trading on it. Um I don't know if Solana has any. I know they have gold. All chains have gold trading on it, but Ian, Danny, you guys are a lot more involved with Solana, so maybe

you'll know if they if it has it. From my understanding, it doesn't. >> Um, but yeah, Hyperliquid's just been doing and let me uh I almost forgot to do this. There we go. Hyperl has been doing really, really well. Um, surprisingly. Well, not unsurprisingly, I guess, but I guess any takes. Yeah, I want to I want to highlight you mentioned at the start of that that hype token price also has been doing well. I think Ian made a great comment though about the pump upcoming unlocks like hyperlquid price was not doing well when they were also like when we were weighing the potential for unlocks on that token as well. So, I think especially when you consider that, you know, they're still printing a ton

of revenue, but it's it's not been growing in the same way that hype has been since it's, you know, token initially came out and since the platform, you know, like a year ago, um the the activity then compared to now. Um those are two very different looking pictures for like a pump versus hype. So, I definitely think like that unlock is going to be that's a big open question. Maybe the maybe the market for the past few months has been reading into that. Maybe it hasn't even started reading into it yet. Um TBD, but I think I agree with a lot of Ian sentiment there. >> Ian, do you know what the when the unlocks are going to be? I'm just going to pull it up. Don't know.

>> I think it was like the it was a one-year cliff and I think it uh TGE I want to say like early summer. >> Yeah, I think it would be July July. >> July. Okay, nice. >> 20% unlock. um for uh yeah 20% unlock for team and existing investors um as per tokenist which I can also double check with defi a lot more because they tend to do a better job but significant amount being unlocked um that like two they have two billion in cash it's never materialized or anything right like that was just like we thought it wasn't a meme for a bit and then we

realized realized it was a meme and then now we're like, "Yeah, it was definitely a meme because they took out most of it offchain right?" >> Yeah, they've sent like around 900 million to Kraken deposit addresses. Uh I mean granted, I've said it before, but like you probably don't want to keep 900 million of stable coins on chain just for the sake of having it on chain. Like obviously like there's, you know, we have like custodians and all these things for a reason now. Um, but yeah, I mean doing that with like zero coms is a bit confusing and I mean we haven't really se like uh I don't know if they like gave up on their streaming product. Do you guys know anything about that? Like I know there's like there there's some excitement there but I don't know if it materialized to

anything. I think it kind of got weird to my understanding. >> I asked about this the other week to Danny and he didn't know and I thought he was a big pump fun streamer which >> probably the biggest. It's still live like it's still a product within the stack. I think I agree with you like they're being hit on multiple fronts. One lack of comms really bad especially with the direction that the industry's been going. It's like you're your tokens and teams are getting rewarded now if they like commit to saying hey the token is the only thing like there's no equity. We're going to you know make sure we direct x amount of revenues.

they've done that part of hey we have some discretionary buyback of the token with the onchain revenues but they have not said the other part um so that that's kind of like left open open to interpretation and I think you know as well as I do that like when you assume things within this industry you tend to kind of get the short end of the stick um so yeah I don't know I don't I just don't think they've reassured investors enough and even you know not that I would necessarily want them to go out and spend 500 million in a year I don't think that there's meaningful things to do with that amount of money for a business of this size in the first place. But they've made some small acquisitions. It's just I think the overhanging like lack of comms, like unable to give clarity to people around

like their commitment to the token um are just going to continue to be a drag unless they address it directly or give some more like proof that um the market is asking for. >> Yeah. How are these guys still making $40 million a month? >> Yeah. So, you know what I mean? Like just off bonding curve, well, bonding curves makes up most of their money. Makes around 20 25 mil. This AMM fee has steadily started going up now, I guess. Like, here it was quite low. Um, Danny, echo everything you've said.

Like, I think it's fine that they're not spending that much money first year on Kane. Like, they've clearly done some things. Um, I just don't know if they've done great in terms of comps. I I'm not sure if they've done they could I mean yeah I think they have to do it like they have to get like better oncoms around like the unlock uh or like just you know I think the market as well can just kind of like instill confidence there or the opposite as well like um yeah I mean yeah it's surprising like they I mean the tokens held up quite well obviously but they've done like 300 million plus of buybacks um I don't know what other tokens have bigger unlocks coming as well like uh is Jupiter fully unlocked now or they

probably have like one more I think are they monthly clips. >> I think they still have some supply to come online and I think they've still they've had to go through some votes because they burned some tokens right um out of some in some of the ecosystem incentives like you know debating on whether or not to do you know the Jupuary airdrop stuff. I will say maybe to bring it back to the to the hyper liquid thing as well there. I mean you I feel like you saw similar sentiment from what the community or the market around like why why is Jeff and the team not saying anything about you know are they going to delay the unlocks? Are they going to reduce them? This is a lot of money that's going to come onto the market like we should be concerned.

>> Um and I think they got hit for that. So I think if Pump is going to attempt to do the same thing and basically not say anything uh I think they'll get hit for it as well. Like you're not immune to this. >> Yeah. One thing I will say is Hyperlquid ended up reducing the unlocks by 90%. Eventually because like you said the market was got um wary of the amount of unlocks that were going to happen. Um and they also had to make a statement at some point about what some an ex team member was selling all of their tokens the moment that they received them. And they had to be like this is an ex team member. Um there's nothing that they could have done about that. But

it is interesting that more people will like I think a lot of people will assume that pump is always doing the worst and hyperlquid is like always doing as good as they can. Um, despite I would say like at one point Hyperlid didn't have as many comms as they should have. Probably >> agree. >> But that's probably because I think if you watch like I don't know if you've listened to Jeff versus Alon maybe you just assume that Jeff is more of a standup guy than Alon. Not that like I think this. I'm just saying market maybe express this way.

>> Yeah. I think there's more people who are happier with hyperl because they received a token and it went up as well and they didn't receive anything from pump. So I think that explains some of it as well. I think the other part is like this is still like a a pain point for the industry like we don't have if you buy a stock like you can go and see if you know Brian Armstrong is selling his coin that gets released to you on a regular basis and you can know whether you know the CEO is buying more or less and all of the like meaningful directors and higher-ups within that business. Um, so the fact like we're at the point still where we have to like beg these founders to say like, okay, you know, are you guys selling? Are you buying?

Are you holding it? We, you know, we'd like to see some, you know, do you have faith in the business growing larger from here or are you cashing out and maybe we're less, you know, you have less belief in growth multiples going forward? >> Yeah. >> Do you know how this Sorry, Ian, go ahead. >> I was just saying like for the um hyperlquid unlocks as well. I think like there's so many onchain sleuths for that ecosystem as well like MLM tags everything that happens but like he'll he has like you know he's tracking like wallet clusters and everything like he's got some pretty good analytics. Um so that entire event I think was like broadcast really well like even by like third parties so like everyone can kind of go and verify. Uh

whereas like there's not really a whole lot of onchain sleuths for Salana on the same way like I think one just because like there's not many tagged wallets over there and like a lot of the people it's also just like really painful to read the Salana Explorer and then even like for Salana like Arkham itself uh it's just confusing because there's a lot of like just different interactions with programs and stuff. So even a swap doesn't look the same. Like I think the clunkiness of not really clunkiness, but like the way the EVM is built like kind of makes it good for sleuththing. Uh and I think people move money less I would say on like the like like EVM like L1 like or Ethereum L1 rather. Um and then they end up bridging to hyper liquid. So

like there's a lot more kind of like tags over there. But yeah, I think having any sort of sleuth over there too could maybe help. >> Orb is pretty good though. No, >> I think orb is Yeah, the thing is it's like um >> it's a bit like slop though. Like it looks really good, but >> you can't really tell. >> Yeah, >> I saw some things tagged better. Like you just need to like aggregate the tags across like Soul Scan. >> Yeah. Arkham or because like they all have things that you know like just you know aggregate all of the data would just be like really nice. I saw Mert and Helas put out I think they're just kind of like messing around with product ideas, but he dropped something for Salana that was like, you know, they

they came out with some newer, you know, API that you can call that gives you all the transactions for a wallet or something, but then he he just like vibe coded a little tool that lets you just make like a quick graph of like here's all the in-n-out flows of this thing over its entire transaction history. I mean it's like I don't know you just somebody just needs to make that product that says like okay we've identified best as we can all of the team and investor wallets for this thing and you can clearly see all their in and outflows so you can clearly tell like okay they bought they sold they're holding um that it's just still like an amb ambiguity and you're right even we like we rely on like these sleuthther people to kind of tell us um and then maybe get confirmation after the fact

from the teams um but something that we like still there's It's just a lack of capability here in general. >> Well, there used to be a guy that does it, which was Dan Smith. His special interest was Salana blockchain, but now he's like way now it's propos now he's way too focused on focused on building the blockworks product. So, >> we got to hope for TTF and IR to uh maybe deliver something there. >> Yeah, that's one thing I was going to say. Maybe it is like okay TTF and IR are very important but it might also just be like in addition regulation stuff right like if regulation says you have to start disclosing like your buys and sells I think that's probably the most logical way of approaching it as well like just doing quarterly filings

but now the trad bros are trying to get rid of quarterly filings. So kind of in a weird spot where like we're like as block works we're going very much like we're going to do quarterly filings and then the SEC's alone like >> well they're just going to reduce potentially the minimum. I don't know that every company would necessarily immediately do that but certainly maybe if you're smaller you might job bomb >> you're like a sketchy biotech company. Because maybe the other thing to like the other point is like you know the the SEC just dropped some of the or the SEC and the CFTC kind of agreed on some guidance around what's a digital commodity versus a digital security. I

think it it does maybe open up this new gray zone where like potentially all these protocols try to pretend that they're not a digital security for as long as possible and try to become a digital commodity. But to your point around regs, like probably ideally those things that are relatively close to being a digital security just register as digital securities and then we just get some of the disclosures. >> Yeah. I just can't see a founder willingly going out and saying yes, I'm a digital security given that like they do, do you know what I mean? Because especially like if them sweep midterms, this is my American politician hat coming on. the Democrats sweet midterms.

And then now we're looking at like, you know, Trump, all power to him, the family went a little, you know, very, they went very crypto forward, let's say, put it that way for sure. >> And then, and then, you know, everything is allowed. Prediction markets are legal and definitely not gambling or sports gambling. And then come in and they say, "Whoa, guys, you know, this doesn't really add up." and then you're the founder that went ahead and said yes I'm a digital security and you're cooked you know because then >> I do think the upside would be I mean this is very dependent on legislation passing but like let's say you get clarity through and it codifies it and you can then sign up and there's like a

very clear like okay sign a thing and you know come talk to the SEC and become a digital security then you're you're probably stepping on the right side of history there rather than trying to like remain in the ambiguous zone because then I think that puts a target on you, you know, come 2028 if there's a sweep. It's like, okay, you're trying to skirt the laws that we just set. Uh, I don't know if we like you so much. >> Yeah. Um, I also need to figure out when Hester Pierce's term ends because that is like when her term ends. That's probably the worst day for the worst people that you know, like all the people who probably shouldn't have been here for a while.

>> Um, she well she Yeah, she announced like a while ago, right, that she's just not going to be involved anymore in or in politics for a while. um or regulation even like apparently she's really passionate about beekeeping or something. Um >> that's very nice of her. That's very good. >> Yeah, that's actually really sweet. It's like super wholesome to go from like you know tokens and obscure laws and trying to understand all this and getting yelled at on Twitter and just like hanging out with some bees and you know making honey, all this good stuff. So >> yeah, one year in crypto legislate.

Well, not obviously many years, but like one year being the official like frontman in I want to get out. >> Yeah. I wonder who the front I mean it's like uh you like the CFTC chair um like like he's been obviously like a he's clearly for the industry and it seems like obviously Paul Atkins is as well but like I think the bullish thing I guess is like Mike is obviously much younger. he's like, you know, he's extremely young for uh being in that position. So, I assume that we'll see him for like many years to come. And I think it's also like the CFTC is making a lot of uh like uh like collaborative pushes, I'd say, with like the SEC to get these things

regulated. >> Um I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I'm not >> Paul Atkins. >> It's Paul Atkins. Um, I will say both Paul Atkins and Michael Sailig will be at the Digital Asset Summit in New York starting next week. I don't even think you can buy tickets anymore at this point. I'm just flexing on people. Um, Ian, will you be attending? >> I will be at the digital asset summit in New York. >> I'm very much looking forward to the digital asset summit in New York >> by works.

>> By Black Works. Um, very good. If you want to see Ian, you can email him before the digital or you can download the digital after summit app and send him an invite to connect the pink. Um, that'll be fun. Um, I want to talk a little bit about Salana and then I think I'm going to the analyst of the week and then we're Is that okay with everybody? >> It sounds perfect. I'd love to hear you talk about Salana. >> What is Did you see the like Jupiter Solana Foundation kurfuffle on Twitter? Yeah, I don't honestly don't really understand the full details. Like I know like Salon Foundation released some product that I guess competes with Jupiter, >> but I don't even think

>> so. Okay, maybe I'll give a bit of background and then you guys can >> tell me about the I'm unaware. >> Okay, so Solana launches tokens, right? Like this new that sounds really dumb when you say it that way because it makes it sound but it's called like tokens by Salon. It's the handle is >> XYZ. >> Yeah, the handle is tokens. I can't even Oh, there you go. Um, and what it does is tokens.xy. I'm going to share my little screen. One sec. Share. I think this. Yeah, perfect. Can you guys see? Yes. So, tokens on Salana and you can essentially you go down, it shows you everything, right? So, it says

currencies treasuries ETFs metal stocks. These are everything that exists on Salana. Conceptually, I think this is a very cool idea to have. I don't love the interface. I don't think anybody goes on like, oh, I want to trade and it's like the first thing that you look at is latest added, highest volume, biggest gainer. I think they probably need a product guy to take a look at this at some point. Um, but conceptually it's a very cool idea. And then you look over here and then whatever you want uh what do you want to buy? Let's say you want to buy syrup USDC. Very interesting to buy. It will show you aggregator Jupiter Titan Dflow Orca Radium by real.

I don't understand why the Jupiter guys would be upset at this, but essentially they put out one of their team members put out a few tweets about how tokens was competing with the Jupiter flow. Technically, it's very good if you own the front end fully. And what that means like that's what Jupiter has right everybody uses Jupiter on Solana. I mean I'm sure there's like a function there's like a small group of people who use Dflow. I can't remember the is it Titan? No it's not. There's another one. Um but vast majority of people log in Jupiter. It says do you want to use a Jupiter

wallet? You say no and then you connect and then you trade through it. Um I think they're kind of upset about losing this. Um, but I was also a bit I just thought it was a bit interesting that like they're still clearly being mentioned in it. So, what do you guys think? >> I think it's uh interesting in the idea that like I don't think we've ever seen a foundation make like a product explicitly like this. I could be wrong on that. Like maybe some like the longer tail like L1s are a lot more involved.

Um I yeah I think like the it's it's I don't know foundations in general are are are really weird because like they're essentially fake businesses like you know like this makes like this makes no money right like this is it's this like uh it's bizarre like the whole whole foundation model is like uh you fund yourself through like treasury management and so like you're like selling covered calls and stuff on like uh like the base asset you're getting staking rewards s um you have like no actual real business and so I think like there's if you don't have like a real business you don't have any real risk and if you don't have any real risk you don't have the right incentives and so I think like foundation models in general

it's like really weird same thing with Ethereum foundation like obviously not just the Salana foundation and any foundation out there um yeah it's like >> any foundation out there [ __ ] you >> yeah it's it's so weird I mean it's like we shouldn't have these right like they exist purely >> purely because of regular Yeah >> yeah exactly Uh, so it's it's weird in that regard. I think it's interesting that like they're trying something, you know, like if the Salana Foundation wants to build products that drive value to the soul itself, like I'm all for that. I just don't really uh see what the point of this app is. It kind of looks vibe coded. Like I don't really um Yeah, I don't I don't really get like the why they built it. I think it's just not

really clear as to uh yeah I I don't really have like too many like developed thoughts on it really outside of that but uh it's an interesting idea I guess like if you want to build products as a foundation and you want to do stuff around that but I think like you should have like it's like why are you doing that really because um you know if you're essentially just like saying hey you can plug into any of these apps like I don't don't really see the benefit honestly like just >> missing the you know forest for the trees but I don't know >> maybe like before we move on just to highlight this and then so we can give

like a proper take so this is Itala who's the CTO of Jupiter um and he said what like I don't really understand the project doesn't make a lot of sense um there's already a lot of apps showing tokens and serving them through an API including one from Jupiter itself. So are we not competing? And then the general Salana team feedback has been that most of the world is completely unaware of Salana. And uh I don't know that's not really an answer. Sorry, I just kind of pulled that one up. But maybe Vivu has something. Um he says your APIs don't aggregate assets the way this does. Um breaking news account was primary motivator. Even if you did, we have our own MA road map. I'm excited to see

that. and they want to have an independent version light. Um, sorry Danny, I just like kind of cut you off there, but please go ahead. >> Yeah, I was going to say, um, I'd say I'm relatively neutral, maybe even lean positive here. I think I agree with Ian to an extent about foundations for a long time have kind of just been like this sink that don't do anything. Um, and maybe part of that is like path dependency around what we thought would receive regulatory response in the past.

Um, but I think realistically they're I mean if you're going to have one, you might as well try to, you know, promote or, you know, further the reach or, you know, get build some more product or, you know, support more product on your thing that you would ideally like to increase in value because I mean ultimately they they are beneficially impacted by if the price of soul goes up that like there's some reward there for them monetarily. So there's at least some incentive alignment. Um, I do think on this one, like I don't know, the push back feels a little like they're just kind of mad. Um, that it's like, "Oh, are you competing with us?" It's this classic like ethos debate of like, "Well, the foundation can't ever like

pick a winner or do anything because then it's competing with everyone else and we don't want them to compete." And I think generally that's basically just led them to be a no action thing and they and they've stagnated for years and years and done nothing as a result. Um, which is probably like the losing formula. Not to say that you should go and just like, you know, build the exact same, you don't have to build the exact same product that everyone else is building, but you know, a news account that then like directs people to trade assets on Salana. >> That sounds like a good idea from like a reach and distribution perspective, assuming they have the ability to like target another audience that like Jupiter is not hitting today, which >> yeah, >> maybe they can. Maybe maybe they do have

that ability. Um, I don't see it as so bad. I mean, historically as well, like, yeah, Jup has its own token discovery page and plenty of other like sole app providers do, too. But there's also like Dex Screener has kind of just like owned this for a long time. So, I could make the argument that like, you know, Dex Screener doesn't necessarily push traders to Salana. It's sort of just like what's trending in crypto today. Like, am I going to trade on base? Am I going to trade on BSC? Um, they don't really care. So maybe if you can if you can own that app experience a little bit more, maybe you can directly incentivize people to go to soul versus like a like base or even hyperlquid.

>> So I have two things to say about this. First of all, I think this is a fine attempt. Like I think the direction is fine in that you can build a front page aggregator for the rest of the thing. It's a little bit of competing with Jupiter, but also at the end of the day, I don't think that the product that they've put out now is competitive enough to compete with Jupiter. Maybe in the future they're going to build something like very very similar to Jupiter and they're going to like use, I don't know, their advantage as a foundation to push themselves up front, but for the time being it doesn't seem like an issue. But the second thing is we are now seeing and we're going to have a bunch of other chains that do

this is like chains realize that they have to make money. It's not easy to monetize blockchains. They have to make money and they're going to keep pushing their own products. So if you are I don't know like I off the top of my head LSDs I think are like prime for disruption. um aggregator probably as well. It makes sense. Bunch of these types of apps. I think like you're the chain that you're on is probably going to eventually come for you. Um except for Ethereum, which to me feels like doesn't really care about it that much.

Um and to be honest with you, probably not a bad thing. Like they're if you're building on Ethereum, it's not a bad thing. >> I agree. On the ETH thing, I feel like we're seeing them come to a position here where maybe everyone kind of agrees that the valuation doesn't make sense, but they're also kind of in alignment of ETH can just remain this thing that, you know, there is no like centralized person that's going to say, "Hey, we need to like make sure we drive revenues from this. We're like fine with everyone agreeing that it's kind of a co-op.

We're all, you know, staking some ETH to support the network and uh maybe we technically lose money on that, but it's okay because we support the the vision. >> Exactly. It's not it's not a money-making business, but it's like, you know, it's credibly neutral. Let's all stake $10 million of ETH. [ __ ] it. It's fine. And that's what it ends up happening. I don't think that's a bad pit. I think it's a much better pitch than like like we [ __ ] on ETH a lot, but we [ __ ] on ETH because it's still semi-relevant. And that it's like that pitch is I don't know better than 95% of other things out there except for like maybe two or three of them.

>> Yeah. I also wonder how much attention this would have gotten if there wasn't like the Jupiter team engaging with it. >> Yeah. >> Like I feel like it just could have flown under the radar completely and I don't know. So I think that's kind of a funny aspect of it as well. I think it's not s like not to say that we've completely seen this from the soul team but they have been pushing certain types of initiatives at the very least like they're very like supportive of like what like sunrise defy and trying to get you know non-native assets on chain and they you know they back all of those posts and they're like we need to do more trading on the chain. So, it's not surprising to see an app like this where it's like the same idea of we

want to direct more people to like look and trade assets on the chain. >> Mhm. Um, and I think I've seen some similar efforts where they're looking at I mean obviously that we have the Salana IR portal like Blockworks X Salana has built that out but they've also explored some other things around I think it's super early stage but like if you're uh if you're a builder or if you're a venture minded person like some applications to just sort of like get in the conversation in terms of you want to raise money or if you want to build products like come talk to us and let's let's figure something out. So >> yeah, >> they're trying to be more involved certainly.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah, they're I >> they've been involved from I guess like kind of the IBRL standpoint as well, right? Like they've definitely helped a lot in that in sense of a lot like the double zero stake pool that's like Salana Foundation stake if you like track the wallets. Um it's like them and jump. I notic like jump is very aligned with Salana as well like building out you know fire dancer. Um, I think it's, yeah, it's definitely interesting to see them take the product approach. If they can build better products, like cool. Um, if it actually does become a problem, I think that's just going to be kind of interesting because it's I like who who would really be benefiting in that regard. I don't know. I think Jupiter also has like a

kind of multi-chain uh long-term mindset as well, like building like Jupet too. So, I don't know. Yeah, it's it's definitely interesting. I think Fox's very right too on the sense of like a lot of these things can be enshrined technically um if that's the word we want to use like the foundation's kind of building these things out. I think just it's a bit of some weird like path dependency where it's like >> you know you're doing it now as opposed to like in the very early days. >> Um I think could totally do that right now and no one would care. But and they did it as well, right, with um what did the Fast Lane guys build?

>> Oh, yeah. So, they they integrated um Shiman >> their Well, they Yeah. So, like that's like their liquid staking token, but they integrated like the Mev sidec car like kind of into >> uh consensus itself like uh so it's all part of it. I think like that's kind of a cool idea. Um, and they did it in a way that's like, you know, aligned with their entire like stake delegation policy and all this other stuff. So, um, because they have like a lot of opinions around NEV. Um, but also it's like I like who who who really cares right now as well. It's very early for Manad like just to be like completely honest like no one cares. Um, just because it's so

early. >> I think you make some good like you make some good points there around like if it became a problem. And I think I want to delineate maybe what that would look like. I think to me, even if they built products on top of Salana that it's like maybe they competed directly with Jupiter. I don't know that it's still necessarily a problem. Like nothing is stopping Jupiter from continuing to improve their product. And if customers want to use their product over, you know, the foundation product, then you know, if you offer better rates and you have, you know, better trading experience and better integrations, then like I'll probably like I'm not going to use this this tokens product as it is right now. I'm gonna use Jup screener, whatever else that exists today that's already good.

>> Um, if they make something competitive, then that's cool. I What I would say though is you mentioned enshrining some of these things. It's like if you enshrined a like really poor, incapable router directly into the protocol and it like charged me 10% on every trade. I don't know. I probably would never want to use it ever again. And maybe like then you end up with like, okay, what's the out of protocol solution? And it's like, is there a point at which you you like induce something that's like so terrible for the user that they're forced to consider not even using the chain at all? That's probably where it becomes a problem. But I think even like we're seeing this debate around, you know, the block builders might lose their revenue stream if we enshrine MCP, but I think ultimately that's going to be a lead to a better product experience

for the user and then it's up to the block builders to find out is there another way that they can make money in the future. >> I want to say two things on this. First of all, when Solana was just Cheeto, it was very good. You know, it's much easier if you know who you're dealing with. They're very aligned. Turn off the ME, it's not looking really good. You turn it off. This is the ideal way to set something up. Now, the command economy doesn't work very well in a lot of cases, but in the case of blockchains, like you want to be able to control the resource as much as possible. That requires you to have the key infrastructure partner. Hyperlid does it the best. Trade XY Z uh and unit, you know, there's a separation. It's not the same

team, but it's as good as possible. The second thing is I don't really know why you would do this instead of funding. No, Zoomerfi. Do you know what I mean? This account has 9,000 followers now. It's very new. It just started. But why not pay Zoomer fight a 100 grand a year to link to the aggregator? Do you know what I mean? Cuz he has a 100,000 followers and people actually follow him. And like do you know what I mean?

>> The news aggregator. >> Yeah, the news aggregator. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> And like and this was also like if you go over here, they also need to fix some of this stuff. This is a cool idea in itself, but so I press on that thing. I want to trade United States Oil Fund. Great. $49,000 in liquidity. And also there's no chart like this is not you need a candlestick chart this and then you just press it's just difficult because what they should have done here is and I can see why they're not able to do it because then you're directly competing with Jupiter but you need to either build a super useful product and

you need to compete with Jupiter or you need to just I know Danny you have to go soon so I'm going to do our analyst of the hour and then we can let you out. I want to give the right to give the analyst of the week to to Ian. Ian, you get to pick one analyst from the Blockworks research team to call on the week. >> Um gosh, this is a lot of pressure.

It's got to be Toma, >> dude. He got it last week. >> It's just winners win. >> Winners. >> He got it last week. He can't get it two weeks in a row. Okay, >> congrats on Alice of the week again. You can collect your >> I'm gonna shout out Zuk. >> Shouts out Zoo, >> guys. This isn't We can't This isn't how the system works. So, we get one per week. >> Okay. Shout out Zuk. Shout out Toma. Um, any other shout outs? [ __ ] it. Let's give everybody Alice of the week.

>> Shout out Shondaanda Deans. >> Shonda Deans. If you're listening to this, contact me. >> Sh. Let's meet up with a piece on derive right? >> All right. I got to drop. >> All right. Um, >> it was a great chat. >> Great chat. Thank you for coming on, Danny. >> Have an amazing weekend. the pod. Okay, Ian, we're going to end it together. Um, I also want to give a shout out stop. Where's the live? I also want to give a final shout out to Ryan Connor, who I don't know if everybody saw, but he's leaving. So, >> shouts out Ryan Connor.

>> He's actually the analyst of the week. >> Ryan Cash Connor. >> Ryan Cash Connor. It's crazy that he's leaving. And I never got to rub his head once, which I think is insane. How many times did you ask? >> Like three times. >> I think you would have gotten on the fourth. >> Yeah. >> Like did he get did he warm up to it each time or like what was the initial reaction? >> He just kind of gave me a wink >> kind of. So yeah, he was he was playing hard to get. >> Yeah. All right. Uh Ian, thank you for coming on. Um if you want to hang out with Ian, he'll be at DS next week. I will not be, but you guys should try and get him on. Um Ian, anything final you want to say? Check out Kyros Research.

Check out first set staking. >> Oh yeah. >> Stake with them on Salana. Stake with them on Monad. Stake with them on Babylon. >> On Babylon. On Celestia. On Fogo. >> Fog. Fog. >> Foggo's coming. Fogo fall's right around the corner. >> Fog fall right around. We got three four months left. All right. Peace. All right. Cheers, guys.