KAIO, Monad, and Prediction Markets | Livestream

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What's up, guys? Just wanted to give a quick shout out to today's sponsor, Apptos. We'll hear more about how Bitcoin, DeFi, and Apptos is heating up later today, but for now, let's get into the episode. Nothing said on Zox 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. Pokio, Ryan, and our guests may hold positions in the company's, funds, or projects discussed. Hey, good morning. Welcome back to the Friday live stream, Zerox Research. I'm joined as always by my co-host Bacio. And today we've got a special guest, uh, Olivier joining us from Kyo. Um, how's everyone

doing today, Olivia? Glad to have you on. How are you? >> Awesome to be here. Hey guys. Yeah, I'm very good. >> Awesome. We wanted to to chat about what you guys are building over at Kaio. Um before we jump into anything though, uh maybe just some quick shout outs, I want to give a thank you to Apto sponsor today's stream. Also, Picacio, I know we have I think we have a free report out now. Uh >> yeah, we do >> for anyone that signs up for the Zerox Research newsletter, I think.

>> Yeah, we do. So, I'm a bit worried. I'm super buggy, Danny. I realized I should have probably checked the tech before I hopped on. But, we do have a free report out for Metadow um which we wrote month ago, but you can get an update on um everything that's happening with them with Futarch. Um less Futarch actually, more about their new capital formation platform. Um so, make sure to we'll put the link in the show notes, so make sure to sign up to that. Um Olivia, nice to meet you. Um, and nice to chat with you. Danny, how do you want to get started?

>> Yeah, let let's jump into it. Um, was interested kind of heard a little bit about what you guys are building. I was not familiar with with Kyle prior to maybe a week ago, but um, I guess the basic gist that I have is you guys are bringing like interesting funds on chain and tokenizing them. Um, I guess I' I'd love if you can just kind of talk to us about the background like what Kyle is and is doing, what you're building. um maybe what sort of inspired the creation here and we'll go from there. >> Yeah. Awesome. Thanks again guys for having me on the show. So um it all started I would say three years ago. Um I was and I'm still at you know laser digital. It's a crypto entity fully backed by a Japanese bank called and

running running the venture um arm of laser digital and I was looking to invest in RWA platform. You know there's definitely a view has been backed by your global bank that you know many financial product will move on chain and we had actually a strong view that not necessarily your bonds and equities because it's relatively kind of liquid instrument but more the things that are difficult to get access to um and I couldn't find anything to invest in and so we um gave a call to a friend at Breven a world and say why don't we incubate something together you guys are running one of the largest macro H1 in the world. Um, we understand very well, you know, traditional finance. Um, we

both into into crypto as well. Let's build something together. And so that's what we did. We started to, you know, put pen to paper and think about the best way to bring alternative assets on chain. And why alternative asset? because it's probably um one of the most difficult financial product to access for you know traditional uh retail investor uh but at the same time has significant scale you know so yes it's difficult to access you know uh art and classic cars and so on there is some merit to tokenize that but in reality there's not a deep market for that whereas hedge fun private equity private credits there's a significant demand for that but still if you want to access

with your $10,000 uh kind of a brokerage account almost impossible. You need to have, you know, a private bank account with a few millions and then maybe you get access to the to the right hedge fund or the right credit form. And so we thought, you know, tokenization was really a perfect match for this asset class. And we started to design that launch um kind of a alpha version um about a couple of months ago uh started to accumulate close to 200 mill of TBL on four different funds and know we are scaling up we're doing a raise we're going to launch a token a governance token soon that will really help us accelerate the cop plan uh and ramp up across um

additional kind of funds that want to tokenize and also really thinking about a distribution that allow us to um offer that to retail. Today is still for accredited investors but when you say accredited you can enter with you know 100k check size as opposed to a few million. So that's that's already you know improvement but I really want to make this accessible to retail uh so that with you know 1k you can come and access you know various kind of alternative funds that are difficult to to get to get to today. So that's really the vision that we have. We want to bring all of those funds on chain and I'll explain a bit more what we mean also by onchain. not just tokenization, it's the composability of those token into DeFi that we think is also extremely important. Otherwise, you just maybe make this a bit more accessible

but not yet fully benefiting from what onchain finance can can offer you. So, yeah, that was the vision. Um, super excited. Now, it's around 25 people in the team. We have very strong backers. We have Laser Digital, Breven. We have a few investors from the Middle East that are helping us scale there. So yeah, it's a it's a good time to be in RWF, I think. >> Very cool. I I think it makes a lot of sense. Um what I think is interesting, like we've seen a lot of products come out that are focused on bringing, you know, like US treasuries on chain. Um bringing stocks on chain, I think, which I think you mentioned. Um a lot of things that are kind of, you know, currently already pretty liquid, at least maybe if you're a US, you know,

individual, for example, you can already trade stocks at a brokerage. >> Yeah. >> Um with a ton of liquidity. So trading them on chain it's maybe an unlock for sort of the rest of the world. Um I guess why is the the thesis for bringing some of these funds you know you mentioned the access in terms of you know maybe target sort of size that an individ individual might have access to and then therefore the type of funds they have access to today kind of in the traditional market. Um is there anything else different about like bringing these types of funds on chain that um you know is not quite the case for bringing like a stock or or you know USS on chain?

Yeah, I mean the as you pointed out you know stock treasuries um super liquid very easy to access uh funds very hard very uh uh in transparent around you know the settlement time the fees and so on. So we're trying to improve all of that through uh the onchain infrastructure building and then um we're also trying to bring what you currently have as a ultra high network. you have, let's say, a $1 million parked into a credit phone, you can get a a loan from your bank, you know, at various LTV and so on. Very hard again to get access to this if you are uh uh retail. And here uh your uh token representing your credit phone, your

hedge fun are accessible and composable into DeFi. So you can then use that into a horizon or chamino and potentially get uh you know use that as collateral and get some funding on the back of this and that's but we want to unlock this composibility that is available in in defy um but using underlying that are more the kind of the credit fund the hedge fund the um you know more complex instrument um for pure alpha or for for yield generation um yeah that's what is we also have a treasury fund you know most of our clients they also want treasury and there's a you know lots of reason for that and and it makes sense but you know that's really um a product

that we have so the four funds we have we have a black rockck money market fund we have a brew hedge fund you know this is um one of the you know longest running macro hedge fun in the world that we have tokenized we have a hamington lane private credit fund um that's also very attractive to many investors to get this type of yield of 8 to 10% % in real world credit. And then we have also tokenized a laser digital uh uh carry fund. This is more a crypto fund that that extracts yield and then hedge your position. So it's market neutral and um again quite maybe uh easy to access if you are ultra high net worth much more difficult if you are you know like a everyday guy wanted to to

get some of that some of that product. And so that's what we focus on and the you know the fund um are tokenized on ethereum mainet right now but we have also built kaio gateways that allows us to bridge in I think close to 10 different chains that we have uh put in place now so it's available on Solana on Hera on say on a on I think we're launching tone as well so there's a lot of um you know benefit in the way we've designed that that allows then through the gateways to make those fonts representing both tokens available in different kind of L1 and L2s and that's interesting because you know certain people obviously prefer the you know various chains um certain

distributor we're speaking to were also building their own chain they want those fonts to be distributed on their own L1 or L2 so the way we've designed that allow us really to to achieve this um and we in a way had the benefit of starting later compared to some of the other tokenization play out but have maybe a more monolithic approach where you know you have a small platform almost as opposed to to protocol. So once you've done the tokenization all of the logic stays in a offline database for us all of the logic of the phone is in a smart contract and what I mean by that is um because it's finance regulated always complexity around who you allowed to distribute to you know

we're allowed to market this to and all of that logic is embedded directly in the smart contract. So let's say I have a phone that I have tokenized but for any reason it's not available to resident of I'm making this up you know Germany uh well if we have a you know working with a crypto exchange who's distributing that they can look at the smart contract and realize okay that is not allowed to German resident so then they're blocking directly the distribution you can do that only because that with that seamless experience only because we have embedded all of the logic of the uh you know documentation of the phones on chain as opposed to maybe this old approach. I would call it tokenization 1.0. We are really tokenization 2.0. It's really

something that exists and lives on chain compared to to the previous uh to the previous version of tokenization. >> That makes sense. So basically, you know, the strategy has been sort of agnostic to the underlying chains. It's sort of we just want to put we just want to put the products on chain if our customers or distributors, suppliers, whoever else have a particular interest like you know we can fulfill that but don't need to take a preference sort of out the gate. Um that's not our concern. I think that that makes a lot of sense kind of in this especially where we are today where you know you've got several sort of big environments people people have their preferences like you say and um funds kind of move around to these different onchain environments.

>> Yeah. And I'm not I'm not the right person to select the winners, you know, of the L1, L2 wars that, you know, I'm agnostic to that. But what we want is really select the best managers. And you know, that's why we decided from the get-go to work with a um highest quality name in in finance. You know, Hamilton Lane is a trillion dollar alternative asset manager. Laser is backed by Nomra, obviously, Black Rock. So working with those um top tier one um investment manager and convincing them to work with Kio give us the credibility um and the confidence to say that we are you know able to bring the best institutional funds and move them on chain and make them accessible to um as wide a

population that we uh that we can based on the distribution agreement that we have. >> I'm curious how you think about um fragmentation in that sense of I mean you said you're agnostic which I think makes sense. You shouldn't especially in your your like you guys' role and what you're trying to offer. It doesn't make much sense to be particularly focused on like whatever performance. Um but I'm curious how you think about fragmentation um in terms of offering products across you said um Ethereum Solana to me makes sense and then Hideera and say maybe makes a little less from my perspective because I'm mostly focused on um like a

different type of I guess like product. Um so like curious how you guys think about fragmentation in that sense or is it more like we want to be on as many chains as possible. We don't really care that much about it. Yes, I mean we want to be on as many relevant chains as possible I would say. So we we partner with the foundation very keen to you know also uh build up their credibility when it comes to RWA and when it comes to institutional grade product on their chain. Um and uh the model we have on the gateways is if we get support from the foundation with a few developers we're able to build those gateways in in you know in less than a month even even faster if it's EVM. So for us it's not necessarily a complex

thing to add a new gateway and um if that you know helps the foundation that broadens our distribution because they have certain kind of capabilities that you know they can reach out in terms of investors or they have a specific deck where they feel you know there could be a lot of liquidity on that deck then we are relatively agnostic there. So in a sense you know the fragmentation is not something we are thinking too much about and are too concerned by uh but obviously we won't go and and and tokenize on a chain where we feel for different reason it's not you know I would say institutional grade or or or finance ready I would say and um and so yeah trying to to make sure that at least the chains we're working on have at least this appetite for moving

towards maybe the more institutional side of of blockchain. Yeah. And how is appetite for Kaio grown over the past few months? Like I imagine initial launch must have was it difficult to pitch this to people or was it very much like people got it almost instantly the idea and they were on board? >> I think there's a pretty good support for the concept you know of moving those type of product in a in in a tokenized format. Um maybe taking a step back even you know you have this uh stable coin stupive regulation in the US so you have you know hundreds of

millions of fiat moving on chain um what's going to happen to that you know stable coin yes some you know that will go into investment in you know bitcoin and if and maybe some of the top top top coins but not everybody will want to buy uh mecoin or shitcoin. So these lots of investor are going to come on chain uh in terms of digital fiat and then they need financial product uh to deploy and get some some yield or some uh you know strategic pure returns on that. So the investment thesis has this virtual circle of you know more digital fiat needs more digital product to invest in

and you don't want to go and once you are in digital dollar having to go back into I would call them analog product. What I mean by that even if you have tokenize a product but all of the back end is still in PDF and you know in offchain database you not really achieve much. So what you know I think the investment thesis resonates a lot in that you have no fully uh understood concept of digital money digital fiat no it needs digital product to invest in. So in that sense the pitch was um was good with um you know partners and investors. Um I would say the challenge for um many of the tokenization kind of players is still on the distribution.

Now you need to convince people to um move on chain uh and start to put money into those type of products. Uh we have I think good kind of initial track record uh with 200 million of TVL. We have a pipeline for close to a billion dollar in the next couple of months. But what you know and obviously the first billion is probably the hardest but we want to be is like having you know 10 20 50 billion dollar of aum uh offered through different distribution channel to yeah >> uh something I wanted to ask about and curious your thoughts here is we've seen

you know like at least in the US there's been some discussion Trump and the current administration talking about, you know, we want to open up 401ks, for example, to private equity, private credit, some of these different vehicles that, you know, previously they weren't um able to access. Some of the criticism, I guess, of this kind of like broader trend is people are saying, you know, does is this opening up retail or, you know, other investors to maybe like an adverse selection bias? Are they are they being given like kind of like the bottom of the barrel stuff that they couldn't fill with, you know, the more their more meaningful, you know, higher net worth clients? Um, I guess what's your thinking on that in regards to this or just maybe the broader trend here of

like opening up more of these funds to retail who traditionally have not had access, >> right? Yeah. I mean it's [clears throat] like um everything you need to do your research before you know investing whether it is a stock you know a bond or uh an alternative funds um we are uh very cautious when it comes to the managers we want to work with. We check their track record. we uh make sure that they are coming with all of the uh uh kind of necessary risk framework and ability to manage both in you know good times and and bad times the the investment performance. So at least on our side we're making sure

that we are going to tokenize some of the highest quality names and we have rejected already managers who have come to us and say I'd like to tokenize my phone XYZ and look at that and we're not entirely sure want to be associated with names like that. Um so you know for um retail through their 41 41k having access to a broader list of um kind of alternative assets. I would say it's the same that they do in their kind of research regards to equity. You know you you know it's a there's probably still a concentration of performance to top manager. We see that in BC in PE in credit you know compared to the long tail of manager that don't you know don't necessarily have a research depth

or track record or risk framework to be able to generate the returns across market cycle. Um, you know, I I come from traditional finance. I spent many years in in in in you know, Trafi and um it's no guarantee of, you know, being able to select the right name by no means, but at least I know what to check, you know, and we can we can remove some of the maybe more questionable players. Maybe it means we we'll miss a top a top phone uh that has less track record and we could have tokenized that and and that's in a way that that's okay. I'm not in the business of you know selecting the the most performing font going forward but I want to make sure that at least on Kyo the fonts that we'll make available are uh phones that have a have a very strong

reputation. Yeah they could still be failures and you know your point on you know adverse selection in return I think is very real. U we're not necessarily solving for that. I'm not sure we'll be able to offer our tokenized phones to at any point in the short term to a you know pension provider in the US. we are I'm sure a lots of complexity and today we cannot do that. Um but if we are one day able to do this I think we'd want to make sure that at least the funds that we have on our platform are have passed our due diligence in terms of you know the the quality of the management >> is go ahead >> uh is regulation catching up um as you guys expect on your end

>> like because to me I I guess I've kept up with >> some of the regulation but I think like you mentioned a lot of it has been stable coin focused so far. Um as well as like I guess some like trading stuff like futures perpetuals etc. But I I haven't seen that much on like private um fund allocations. So is it is it catching up? Are you excited? I I think it does and you know maybe to your point in the US it's been and rightly so I think more focused on stable coin because you need you know that that was the biggest issue you know getting on ramp if you don't solve for this there's no point tokenizing whatever you want you know it would be difficult still to to find demand so I think it was the right thing to do in in in the US uh

mika in Europe kind of provides a framework for um you know stable coin as well as you know tokenization of assets there are um jurisic iction in the Middle East that are also very kind of thoughtful when it comes to the full value chain you know from on-ramp off to uh securities on chain to uh you know alternative assets on chain um I think still the challenge with regulation is uh this uh you know fragmentation across jurisdiction for a startup like us having to understand all the way globally I mean that's that's that's tricky so what it means is we take a very cautious approach as to where we

can market, where we can distribute. We don't have yet the the size and the capability to go and check every you know jurisdiction in the world or at least even the main one to see what we're allowed to do. So but regulatory fragmentation uh still is there I don't think it's going to improve anytime soon you know unfortunately um so we have to live with that and what it means is that certain jurisdiction are going to be more difficult you know and you're going to have more regional players I think Kayo is very well positioned with the backers that we have to be leading France in let's say um you know Asia Europe Middle East US you have you know strong names already when it comes to tokenization of maybe slightly different products to to us but you know you know

for us is going to be a market we're going to be cautious we want to be there but it's h you know we need to be sure about the rag you know we've seen too many times oh how if you cross the US regulators the wrong way it's very hard to recover and no intention of doing that ever yeah >> that makes sense I'm I'm curious your thoughts on and this is probably a question you could ask any any team within the crypto case. But um you know to the point around RWA and stable coins, I think we're seeing more and more like large legacy traditions, managers, etc. start talking about you know their own initiatives to build out products in this realm. I guess I'd be curious if there's any concern or risk

from your POV that you know a Black Rockck or some of these other large names might um roll out their own you know kind of built-in product to offer some of these funds for example on chain um versus like going through a Kaio. Yeah, look, I spent like I say many years in uh CRFI and um you have to go through so many hoops and committees and whatever but you know by the time they catch up to um you know putting your product out the industry would have moved and what you know what I'm saying is like all funds uh are composible uh in defy on a horizon and cameo we need to deal through the KYC and mail through

different approach. But you know by the time a large stratfire uh puts its token uh representing one of their phone uh on the chain it could be on a permission chain because they're not able to meet you know compliance requirements when it come to a public blockchain and you know even if they get there by the time they are able to get their compliance comfortable on you know that the industry will have moved to onchain uh and then you know you want the composibility of your token otherwise what's the point you know you get maybe a slightly faster settlement time and a slightly cheaper entry point because it's on on chain but that's I call that you know it improvement it's not transformation of finance we are wanting to build you know

a new value chain for finance I personally think a startup is going to be able to do that or at least you know a company that operates at a at a pace where there's less uh vested interest regulatory constraint even cannibalization of you know your own distribution channel and so on all of those traditional players have to think a lot about this and um we have uh we have none of that constraints and yeah they have their inherent strengths around distribution maybe around like I say understanding regulation globally but that doesn't offset the pace um the inability to move at the pace that crypto moves at um and um so I'm I'm I'm not I'm not concerned you know and yeah

maybe in 10 years they'll get there and but who knows what will happen in 10 years and you know we've been long enough in crypto not to worry about the next 10 years, you know? I think let's let's navigate the next one or two. >> Yeah. Maybe just to follow that up, like are are your current clients sort of validating that thesis for you? Like they're they're interested in kind of exploring some of these tokenized products, but it's, you know, it's just not something that they're going to pursue in a big scale or or could pursue, you know, immediate term kind of in-house. So, um it makes sense for them to kind of reach out to you to explore >> 100%. And um you know for many of them I would say they pass the experimentation they want to launch something uh but the cost of doing that internally the need

to navigate internally is sometime just uh uh extremely extremely challenging. So they prefer to work with a third party. uh they learn from that you know they get potentially exposure through strategic participation or you know close strategic alignment and um that resonate with many of the you know trafi and uh players that we we've been in touch and we are speaking to um for us today lots of our uh investors are still crypto uh players people who are already in crypto we you know we still need to do as an industry I think a lot of work to convince you for uh somebody who's not yet in crypto to come and invest into some of those onchain product but

it will come I think we've pass the tipping point no for uh RWA and it's just a matter of know changing culture legacy system and you know starting to have some of that gradual acceleration and it's getting there I think I'm very confident >> well I I think we're we're starting to run over on time here but maybe to round things out I guess um kind of what are you looking forward to I guess for Kaio over the next, you know, 6, 12, 18 months. Is it a more variety of of funds offered on the platform or just continuing that grind of getting, you know, more customers interested, uh, more partners interested in in exploring it? Yeah, we're launching what's exciting me the most now we're launching a retail version of our product um that

will be accessible on a non KYC basis and it will be almost a think of this as an index you know we'll wrap you know free of yield fund into you know we haven't fully decided the weight but you'll have a treasury real world credit and crypto market neutral yield we'll wrap that into a token that will be made available to the earn program or various exchanges or even directly on defy and and that's great. I don't know if we're entering into risk off, you know, I don't know, but you know, at some point we will. The cycle means that people will want some yield. And you know, right now the choice are what? US Treasury yield or cryptonative yield that has its own inherent risk with, you know, smart contract and whatever. Here

we're going to offer something that mix and diversify real world yield, credit and treasury with crypto yield. That's I think is going to be super exciting. Again, I'm not advocating or wishing for a downturn, but you know, that product will be there and it will be, I think, super exciting for people who are looking to get some uh some some yield and staying in crypto and that will be retail accessible. So, I'm very I'm very bullish on this one. >> Awesome. Very cool. Bach, did you have anything else? Uh any last questions? >> No, I um I mean I would want to ask about the I think I'm going to wait and see because I'm excited about this retail product. I just want to see how it's going to work. It sounds

um ambitious, but it also sounds very exciting. I'm excited to see how it works out. >> Yeah, maybe we do another another discussion in you know in two three months we you'll be able to to launch this one and I'd love to come back on the >> uh show here and talk a little more about this one. Yeah, absolutely. >> Awesome. Yeah, >> I definitely definitely agree with your point. um when there are downturns the at least within crypto people they all start talking about stable coin yields um even more than they were before even and stable coin yields right now are already I think pretty a pretty hot topic with um you know we've got Athena and various other products that have that have kind of exploded this past year but um awesome well it was great to

have you on Olivier great to chat all things thanks Kyle and uh yeah we we'll definitely keep in touch um as you roll out that next product >> thanks thanks Den thanks book great to be on the show thank you Awesome. Thanks so much. Have a good one. >> Bye. >> All right. Um, before we jump into anything else, great conversation uh with Olivier. Was glad to have him on. Um, interesting product. I guess maybe it's just my my takeaway generally is like there's like a million teams that are bringing, you know, treasuries on chain in a different wrapped form.

like quite literally like 10 20 projects that have done that. But um >> I don't really see any teams exploring this particular angle of like private funds, hedge funds, private private credit. So it's it's it's unique in that aspect and no one else is really doing it. >> It's cool to be fair. Private credit has done quite a bit. I just like allowing access into specific funds is cool. Um >> and it's almost like kind of front running what will likely happen anyway. like if you're going to use stable coins for settlement, it makes sense just use stable coins to give to funds. Um the reason I asked about regulation is because I I genuinely don't know what the regulation is. And to me, this product seems like regulation just

hasn't caught up to it yet. It's the same as like how what stable coins were like two years ago or three years ago, right? And like how I think private credit, etc. is probably like right now. And I feel like this regulation for this will catch up in three years. private credit will catch up like this next year. But it's exciting. I like it. It's cool. Um I don't know how the reason I bring up regulation is because I mean the funds that they're choosing are very good funds. Um >> yeah, >> but there's still a chance that something goes and something doesn't go right. And then it's like that's when you kind of need uh from what I understand that's kind of when you need regulation. Although like I said, I'm not a professional.

Yeah, the um I guess the upside is you know they've taken the sort of accredited investor approach to start things off. So I think on the regulatory side [laughter] on the regulatory side it's they're safe. It's seemingly safe for the moment at least from from from that regard. But yeah, like a retail friendly non KYC product where they're like wrapping these up that's a bit more interesting I guess to your point. um could be a regulatory impacted product. But as we've seen with things like you know some of the products and like funds that they've mentioned like Athena and USD is like effectively a fund that's wrapped up >> in a stable coin that's non KYC that you can just access on chain. So I don't

know I want I wonder if uh just getting sort of ahead of the tide that people maybe sort of expect is coming. It it seems at least I mean maybe in the US maybe in some other jurisdictions like that's kind of where things are leaning. it's just not quite like written into stone just quite yet. So, um yeah, I mean one angle there is to just get way ahead of it and if you're early and you can kind of capture up some of that market share before anyone else does that it puts you in a pretty strong position. >> We'll have to see. >> But it does sound interesting. Well, I'm I'm curious to see what that product looks like. Um, before we jump in anything else then, uh, I want to do a quick shout out to our sponsor for today's stream,

where's my notes? Aptos Bitcoin DeFi is heating up on Aptos with nearly 400 million BTC assets on chain. APOS users can now earn yield on their Bitcoin via Echo ABTC and OKXBTC without the typical bridisks and high fees. Thanks again, Aptos, for sponsoring today's stream. Let's get back to it. Were you using this one? You were. He always disappears during the ad reads. It's uh something I can count on. I probably should just leave it on my face. [laughter] >> I uh I can't speak about what I have to do. So [sighs and gasps] >> unspeakable things. Well, I guess uh some of the other topics something I guess that I think we should talk about.

We talked about mega last week. The sales ongoing they or sale completed. We at like >> auction is done near >> over a billion in capital. >> Yeah. How much allocation they're going to give me? Yeah, TBD. I think I think we probably got a couple days, maybe a week before that shakes out. So, we'll sort of see how it ends. I don't have that dash in front of me, but I do know, for example, that um enough funds went with the lockup either in, you know, optionally or nonoptionally if they were US-based.

So, um there's maybe an interesting scenario where Megith could uh allocate the entire sale to like locked up uh for one year participants. I don't know if that would make sense from like a liquidity basis. You know, you probably want to have some people trading the token day one unless they've got other um allocations that are going to end up being liquid >> or Monab >> or Mega >> for Megate. from their from their sale. Uh [snorts] but Monad we haven't talked about um but has been it's kind of on the timeline with their airdrop checker and that the checker is complete so I think people know how many man they're getting now um seemingly according to

Kone 10 billion supply um I think >> no one supply >> is it 100 billion >> 100 maybe you're right I forget the >> was it 10 I think it was I think it was 10 is it No, he tweeted out like months ago that it's 100. Bill, >> you're you're soping right me right now. >> I'm not I'm not. I promise. Why would I? >> Oh, it's okay. It's 100. It's 100. It's 100. It's 100. It's 100. I just >> remember pissed because it's like they gave chips to people.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I wanted to talk about is like it the the sentiment is pretty I guess poor right now. But I and I think maybe I'll quote Westy a little bit, but I think uh they have thus far maybe like the expectations management has not been in the proper direction. I think I think for a long time there was maybe like a quiet expectation that there would not even be a monet airrop. It was kind of like questionable if that would ever come to fruition. And then just recently past few months it was like okay there will be an airdrop alongside the token alongside mainet. Um, and then they started getting very loud and noisy about the airdrop. So then people I think got like quite excited and rehyped for it. Um, but now I think with this

with the reveal and the known supply and like the current kind of like pre-market valuation, uh, people are a little deflated. >> Can I say something? >> Yes. >> I don't think that there was any scenario where Monad, [snorts] anybody was happy with Monad. And this is like I'm not trying to be a dick to Monad. It's just like objectively people were never going to be happy with Monad because they raised a lot of money. And I think that's literally it. They raised a lot of money and they kind of signify something that has changed since last cycle. And once again, I don't think

this is Monat's fault. I just think like they're a product of I don't know when they raised let's say 21 22 >> 20 21 >> 22 22 maybe >> they raised >> but they they raised it and they announced whatever but [snorts] now we're in a completely different place where like valuations are much lower than they and people forget like this was the same thing with I think Starknet launched at 30 bill. Can you imagine if an L1 launched at 30 or L2 launched at 30, bro? Like this just was a completely different time. And that's why like like I'm not particularly happy with my Mon air drop, but also like I can't complain that much

because I literally didn't do anything. Um, but I like I don't think you would have ever made anybody happy with the airdrops because even if you do a public sale, you raised that two bill before you raised 250 at two bill. So you've already raised a lot of money and you can't undercut people like you can't undercut your whatever day the last like series A series B what um could raise that tool bill by 50% and raise that one bill. And if you try to raise that one though, people would still be upset with you. They would say, "Why did you guys raise? You already raised 250 more. Why are you raising again?" There's like like the only thing that Mona can realistically do is launch the token and just work towards building the chain

out. is like there's other teams that I think like Mega E very clearly could have things up because they like they they could have made they could have gone from good to bad but I don't think Monad could have ever gone from bad to good and this isn't like again I'm not saying I don't like Monad I'm just saying like because of the product that they are when they launched they they were they're always like going to fight against at least in the initial days I think they're always going to fight a little bit against like this this um reputation that I don't think they should have. Like it's not their fault that they decided to raise in 2122.

Um it's not their fault that they had to rebuild the EVM from scratch basically software and hardware side. Um it took them a long time. Not their fault at all. And I just like a lot of people are going to complain to call Starrop. I already know it. And they're going to call say monad scam. It's like >> it's not that like do you see any reasonable scenario where Monad could have been like >> Yeah. I think I think the only the only the only positive outcome you get is if you launch the launch whatever version the chain is at and the token like two years ago because but even then it's like you're still going to suffer you're going to suffer

the same problem which is what I think you're basically describing is that >> all of these chains these big basically all these big L1s that raised 2021 2022 and maybe have done you know have done bigger rounds since then um but raised then on like you know the kind of hyped expectations of the market at the time there's plenty of examples monad bunch of L2s right if you launched then you know you got a like you said starknet crazy valuation uh if you launched like early enough and you there was still like this kind of um you know overinflated kind of balloon of expectation around what those things

were worth and maybe it's not really that there was so much of a balloon there but just like the way that the tokconomics were structured. So much of the, you know, tokens were sold um to insiders and there's, you know, limited kind of public float, so it can kind of trade to whatever price. Um, but either way, then the market kind of comps them all to each other and then you end up with T at 20 and Snarket at 30 and what have you. um the fact that you're launching like kind of post that period, then yeah, like the the airdrop and the token valuation aren't going to live up to people's like prior standards of how big those numbers used to be or could be. Um so I agree with you on that point. Like there's kind of no winning

there. And then like yeah in the scenario like let's say you launched earlier >> and you launched at the $30 billion valuation then it's like then you'd be you know fighting downhill um you know just unlocks and as sentiment has sort of changed on these networks. Um, unless they really just like the only here's the scenario I'll give that's like kind of the bull case if they launched earlier is you know there hasn't really been like a a chain like this you know EVM activity like meme activity kind of shifted over to Salana because there wasn't really like another appropriate place to go so like if MAD were a live chain in 2022 like maybe you could argue that they could have been um a house for like some

of the speculative trading activity to go to over a Salana and it's like EVM compatible so maybe people would have been more willing to go there than than go to Salana but I don't know it's it's hard because it's it's it's entirely hypothetical but there there is a a case there where it's like you know maybe if there's a high throughput EVM chain in 22 the speculative memecoin game goes there instead. Yeah, that's a good point. I guess like there's two things here, right? First of all, like kind of agree with you, kind of disagree because we've had other chains launch in 2022 that were supposed to have some paralyzed EVM format. Um that like early iterations like think about how many EVM chains died out in >> Yeah, they were they were bad though.

Like let's be real, they were awful. Yeah, but like okay, like off the top of my head, Starknet isn't particularly a bad chain. They're just an L2. >> But it was not a high it was not a high throughput like >> No, but neither would have Monad been back then, like two years ago. I mean, it clearly took them three years to build something because it took them three years. >> Yeah. I mean, it's like a difficult problem. So, >> yeah. The second argument here is like and I think this goes with not just chain I think any product question you can ask is it worth shipping a V1 and iterating on it or is it worth shipping like a V3 but two years late like what's the ideal outcome and

I mean like one taking off my Hyperlid bull hat for a second like Hyper EVM is not particularly impressive. Now, Hyperlquid is still doing really well because they have their own application that is like that generates a lot of revenue and they're focusing on other things, but like the HyperVm has I think six transactions per second. Um, and that's like not like the max limit it can do. It's just like how much transactions are going through it. And that's not a bad thing. Like the chain is still fine, but like that's an example of a of a clearly not particularly optimized chain that was launched. No, may they're in a different scenario because they already have something. Um, but like what's your gut read on that? Because like the mega e

like bread constantly shits on the hyperm. >> He's like, "Oh, chain does a billion DB as yours does." Yes, he's right. We'll see how much revenue Mega and I hope they make a lot because I'm I have exposure. But >> you know on the strategy I I would I would angle and I would lean towards launching it sooner at a at a you know diminished state if you want to call it that or just like you know it's not a fully develop but they're these things are never fully developed. So like I would always be in favor of just like launch it sooner because here here's my here's my big annoyance and like and I think part of it is like the market dynamics at the time were just so like you can't do

ICOs. you have to give all the you know you can only raise funds from VCs and and like they're raising them all at stupid vows because the market was stupid. So it's like >> to that end it was very it's like a very impossible position that a lot of these >> tokens were in because it's like you're just you're anchored to expectations that were just way way out of the norm and so you're going to lose that game. But I do agree that like or I would agree with you on the hype your EVM thing of like I don't want them to just sit around and like wait to deploy the thing in 5 years like just drop it now and then you know do an update you know every six months or whatever and and it gradually gets better >> and that's what Bass did right like

>> Yeah. And that I mean that's what's that's what Salana did. >> Yeah. Like they took >> they had freaking downtime and outages in 2021. Um, but it it's not they weren't going to like sit around and wait to drop the network until it's perfect because >> yeah, >> it's not how you it's not how you build, you know, your market share and your and your product and your brand. >> Well, but there's also like two more things here that first of all, if Monad launched 2022 2023, they would have launched at 30 mil. They would have launched at 2530 mil. >> Yeah. >> Right. So it's like then you're also not happy because you're launching a chain that is not as good as it will be now at a valuation six times higher because right now it's valued at 5 bill.

>> Well, I'll take the opposite on that. If they actually launched in 2022 like in the bare market, it would not have launched at 30 billion, right? It would have launched at, you know, it's still a big number. I'm sure it would still be like some billion number because that's that's still when Aptos and Sui and all these teams were raising X amount at multi-billion. So it would still I think launch at a at a few billion but it would have run up into the 2024 excitement of all these chains into like the tens of billions which I totally agree with and then you know may not have been worth that depending on how much traction they had at the time.

probably, you know, probably just wouldn't have been worth that based on the traction because there's only I mean there's only ever been like one or two chains that have ever kind of like been, you know, reasonable relative to their to their valuation for their their activity. I mean, yeah, it's the same thing with like Sana toi was like he subweeted or quote tweeted at the mega guys for raising at one bill um with like pre-revenue and it's like yeah that's true and also Sana did launch at a very low price um >> yeah I looked it up there they did their sale on coin list at 100 mil

>> yeah it was a different market then too so it's kind of like Yeah. Yeah. >> Like that's just kind of where the valuations are now. But I I also kind of like I kind of agree with that ethos like that sentiment of like me personally, I still would prefer like if you can just go out launch the early call it mainet beta, whatever the hell you want to call it. Pretend that it's not the real finished product, but like launch it now. Maybe maybe you're only worth, you know, 100 mil today or 300 mil. I don't know how inflated the market is right now. Maybe you're still worth 500 mil if you launch some high throughput thing with no users. Um, but I prefer you just you get it out there, you do the sale, you have the token out.

I can take a bet in the public market if I want to. And if I don't want to, then I don't have to buy it. But go out three years later and it's like essentially the same thing because you're still launching it day one. There's no users, no revenue, but I have to buy it at three billion. >> It's like it's just a tougher that's a tougher pill to swallow. just compare. >> Oh yeah, I completely agree. I mean, say was at 10 bill when Starknet launched in March 24. Not when it launched, but like they both launched within that three month um January, February, March window. Um no, the prices were at like 10 to 20 bill.

>> I think 26 bill from start. Um so like that to me was like a very overvalued time. Now it doesn't feel that much like >> No, it doesn't. I'm sure someone's >> It's It's al it's tough to say anything in crypto is not overvalued. Um >> yeah, >> when you like >> But I think I think part of that is still part of that is still like the token the token dynamics. It's like a lot of these are still sitting on, you know, there's there's still investors who are unlocking from raises at much lower vals. So it's like they just they just have this dilute effect of of unlocks that are coming onto the market and like they're just going to like >> kind of probably bleed until you know those unlocks are done. Can they survive

throughout the length of that and then you know kind of grind back up from there? That's I mean that's an open question. We'll have to see. But I think they a lot of them just have to like work through that supply unfortunately. Like that's just kind of what they're left with. >> Yeah. Who are the guys that did all unlock day one? like everything unlocked day one >> all the teams like lately >> well [laughter] >> chain raised money and it was like everything unlocks they were I I think it might have been like a ship object but >> what's interesting is I I actually think the obviously like Salana still had VCs but their I think their their like coin list ICO that was actually unlocked.

>> Yeah. But it like I don't think it it didn't like perform immediately, right? Like the tokens kind of were they were getting on until the like COVID, you know, pump every market boom kind of came in. Um, so there probably was still an opportunity even on soul to like buy it below that that auction price because it it probably ate some >> Yeah. >> In the short term. I don't I'd have to pull the price chart from a long time ago. I don't I don't recall the dynamics there. You're saying there were there was a big team that did an unlock like all unlock a while back.

>> It's Yeah, it's like there need I I really like one thing I agree with you like you need to work through these unlocks. I'm there has to be a better way to do this thing. Like there it it can't just be full full unlocks to this point. Like it it it's I mean just thinking about like like there's like very egregious examples but there's also like kind of not very like I would say soul unlocks are a pretty egregious example because you don't know how much they are and because like it's been out there for so long and the money has like the tokens have gone through so many hands especially post FDX and they've been

relocked and they've been like unlocked and I don't know how like I don't think anybody really knows how much it's unlocking. Same with Celestia. Like when the the like they kind of got away with it by saying not the price, but the team kind of got away with it by saying this is just how all Cosmos does it. like it was it's a massive deal if if um token stakers if VCs can stake their tokens and receive emissions on that and sell that like that's that's a huge like you're essentially I don't know what TIA's emission rate is.

Let's say it's 12%. You're essentially allowing people to sell 12% of their original bag. >> Yeah. >> Every year. It's ridiculous. Um, and then on top of that, they start unlocks a year later. It's there's like very egregious examples of it. Um, I don't know what the fix of it is. I don't know if it's like more regulation to the point that these teams have to file like whatever the crypto version of a of a like quarterly filing is showing like outstanding shares and like who owns what. Um, because the the the method right now clearly isn't working.

Um, I can't tell how many like conversations you'll have with very like smart analysts or like people who manage money and like one was I was talking about this token with somebody and they were like well we can't buy that because of the unlocks and it's like a very like clear thing and it's just something that needs to somehow get sorted out in that like okay not everybody has to pick up pennies in front of a bulldozer but also like we know how big the bulldozer is and how like if it's worth the penny. Um, and it's like some kind we kind of don't know it for a lot of these things. Um, and I also think like the reason I'm bringing this up is we're talking about

multiples and it's like clearly a lot of these multiples are very depressed because or like very compressed because nobody wants to pick up the penny for the bulldozer. >> Um, >> yeah. Yeah. There's so many there's so many risks sometimes stated, sometimes unstated or unknown. like there's and there's no way to know because there's no there's no there's no reporting there's no documentation of it. I I do I do agree with you to an extent. Like I don't know quite what it is. Like I mean for now we're kind of left just sort of like self-p policing you know crying begging at founders like okay so how much is actually like unlocking every month what you know give us the real details and um you know you're relying on the docs to just like be correct about the mission schedule

for example or uh relying on the founders to not OTC their locked tokens and just like exit the project. It's very much just like it's funny that like people come into the space for like it's trustless man. It's amazing. You can just like buy and sell stuff trustlessly and then like >> you know unfortunately it invites a bunch of uh it it invites it invites CD people to like >> you know raise speculative things that don't do anything and then you know trust me bro and then they can they can just kind of cash out um and let that stuff burn down. I do think to an extent though like we I slowly like the market the market learns like I don't know if you look at if you look at a lot of these you look at a lot of these coins

it's like I don't >> who who's buying TIA like look at the chart nobody's buying it goes down it it exists now to be sold and I mean you mentioned the emissions it's like if those guys are you know still locked up but they're getting you know 10% at 12% a year then you know they're they're dumping the unlock tokens they're dumping the staking emissions and >> there's no reason to buy it. Like if you've looked at the revenues, the growth, the scale, you need something to change there materially. >> They're like people are excited about the like proof of governance thing to like reduce the emissions a ton, which would be interesting. But what the >> But that's why a lot of these tokens look, right? It's like they're just, you know, they're just they're just grinding down now on that on that sell pressure

and you don't have you don't have like buyers of them because there's there's nothing really to buy. Yeah, I do feel like we the market maybe is sniffing that out a little bit sooner on some projects. I don't know. A lot of recent like pretty big launches, it's maybe they have a pump the first week, but then you look at the chart and it's like, okay, this was this was priced too high. >> Yeah, it's Yeah, I mean the market just gets smarter and smarter every time. A lot of this blame is put on VCs, but I actually don't know how like I'm sure there are like very predatory VCs, but I feel like it's almost a team almost all of the time, you know, like cuz the team is

allowing for like it's it's very short-term thinking because you're like, "Oh, we we'll just launch a 10 bill that puts my like my paper unrealized value at X amount." It's like, "Okay, but buddy, like, you know, think a year ahead, think two years ahead. What are you what are you doing?" And I guess like, do you know what I like there's a few that have been like there's a few very egregious examples again? Um, like I stuff, um, RWA stuff. I don't want to name too many names, but like these guys were clearly doing something that they shouldn't be doing.

But like I I don't know like I'll sometimes see like >> I'll sometimes see a tweet about like whatever dragonfly and it's like oh dragonfly are super predatory. I don't know if they're super predatory. Like I think I'm sure like they want to make money clearly. That's like that's their mandate. They need to make money on tokens. Uh I I like it's not I mean if somebody comes to you and says hey buddy I'm going to let you like make 12% of your [clears throat] of your allocation every year like you'd have to be to say no. that stuff is bu that stuff is like explicitly bad like just from the team of like you've you've created a way to just like it's it's it's similar in

like soul to doing um like a pipe deal for a DAT and it's like yeah man we're going to raise some funds and we'll just like let retail buy this thing at a stupid Val and like in 90 days you'll get to just dump it on their head for way more than you bought in for. Um and yeah, I think that stuff just kind of agreed. It's like you understand the dynamic and like the way that it works is by getting people who don't know any better to like buy the thing at a bad valuation for them um and then dump it on their head. Like objectively that's >> everybody who doesn't Yeah. Everybody who doesn't know better is now poor.

Like they can't buy anything. And everybody who knows better is like either super cynical like like James and Noah super cynical. they because they they've learned like or like they already knew that you shouldn't do it. Or it's like people who >> very clearly just want to get in and out of a position for a week, maybe two weeks, maybe a month, right? Like maybe you're holding something for a month. Um but the rest of the time it's like a designated five tokens that you are always holding and they're either like already fully diluted. A maker maker is not not a lot of people own it anymore, but >> maybe >> they kind of they kind of changed that one that whole one up.

>> Yeah. >> Or it's like >> or it's like tokens that have some existing buy pressure or Bitcoin like there there's >> when you can like point to flows >> when you can point to >> Exactly. Exactly. or like there's there's a very clear like underlying bid that is coming from the protocol itself and not from like because even that's they've it's really just bit minor and um master uh micro strategy strategy now sorry there's nothing else um yeah I I can't remember the last time somebody was like like people will bid these like mega style of things um we'll see how mega turns Oh. Um,

>> I think they're in a tough position. Like my my internal mental model for these >> especially all of these ones are in a position because >> XPL was everybody loved it. >> Um, and then it like it kind of disappointed a lot of people. And this isn't like the team's fault or anything. They have to incentivize people to come on the chain. Like if you're going to become a DeFi chain, you have to admit, you can't not admit. And they're like in a in a weird position. But like Pulse XPL, I feel like nobody really wants to bid that much into these like non-desated altcoins and designated altcoin I will say is like pump and hype as the biggest ones. Um and then maybe like a like I mentioned um I'm sure there's a bunch of

people in >> in Camino. Um bunch of people but >> apart from that even pump people don't want to buy it. people don't people don't want >> protocols you know you're using the revenues to buy the coin but other people seemingly not wanting to buy it but I agree with like like the mental model for a lot of these I think now is just and it's not really like I can't really say anything about the teams based on this they're just following this model which is basically like an IPO model at this point is some amount of people can have you know can get exposure through a sale um they're [snorts] unlocked day one it it pumps cuz it's like maybe a hyped project. Um those people are instantly up. They can

sell. Um after that like speculative period ends, we we find out that you know just generally still all these alts don't really have like continuous natural buyers and then they just kind of trend they trend down because the vals are their vals are just tough to tend with right now. >> Yeah. an increasing. >> It's similar to a lot of IPOs. Like if you look at IPOs and and crypto IPOs, like you know, sure there's there's some that pop and just like grind up and up and up. Um that's probably the few and far between. Maybe it's like I mean it helps that they're if it's a real business and it makes a lot of money and then they're, you know, they expand revenues and they grow a bunch like year-over-year or something, then that could make sense for a big continuation in the stock itself. But I think we see

it broadly with like I mean especially the crypto IPOs lately too is you get the pop early and then they just they kind of grind down. Gemini is a good example of this. >> I was just about to pull it up like Yeah. >> Oh, perfect. Look at that. >> And and if you compare it to like everyone in their everyone wanted to launch a crypto IPO post circle because it went up what? >> I don't know. It it it feeds the speculative like the you know I mean we're a bunch of dens. The market wants the speculative stuff like people want to trade that like the exciting new action but when the new action is like the old action it's nobody wants to trade it you like you're done. It's like you nobody's a holder of those things.

They just want to trade the speculative movement. >> Yeah. I wonder how how many people think of things in terms of because there was very clearly this this time period in 22 23 when everybody was posting these massive narrative sheets but I wonder how many people are actually like thinking about this in terms of like okay like we've done one IPO we've done two IPOs the first one did a 5x the second one did a 2x the third one only went up 30%. Should I be bidding the fourth one? Right? Like I wonder how many people are cuz like you're not bidding the sixth Olympus fork, right? [laughter] Like or whatever. Like I think people

still bid this. >> I mean in 2021 you were but not not today. >> You were, but now I feel like every four months someone comes in and says, "Hey, like we're actually going to launch Olympus, but we're fixing it up." And then it's like it just doesn't go up. and like it's the 25th Olympus fork. But sometimes maybe it's worth thinking like am I bitting the 20th Olympus fork? Cuz a lot of the times like Olympus is a flawed concept in general, but a lot of these things somewhat resemble it in the sense that people make money on X, then they make like people make money on the first one, the second one, the third one, the fourth one maybe, and then the fifth one. You know, you got to give it

up. Um, I wonder how many tokens you can just like cut out now out of like all of your lists because it's the fifth one and it's probably not worth bidding anymore. We had this with perexes just like a buck for a girl. Like if you were bidding the six perex variant, you were you were cooked. >> Yeah, there's um I [clears throat] don't know why that's such a I mean maybe it's kind of a thing in all markets or maybe just particularly with like retail people, but you look at like the the alpha or like the leader in a segment and you go, man, already pumped. And then people just go down the list of like what's beta to that? um to try to like catch this this like wave of of

next pump on this idea. Um, and it it I think it ends up being funny because a lot of times like in many cases the the best idea is actually to just like bid the winner that's growing and it's having success and you can like you can chart out the path for them to like continue having success versus like okay this this guy's this one is losing and it's beta but like >> maybe it'll pump really hard because it's beta and people will also think like wow this is beta to this other thing and maybe they'll >> we just did our as you know because you were part of it. We just did our like QDR our quarterly decision reviews and this was by far the biggest thing that we noticed is like if you are writing

about something because you're like I think the big um and it did go up a bit but like the clear bid was ENA at that point when it was going up because ENA ended up going up 30% and resolve went up 6%. or like there's like a million examples of this that we have internally where it's like some of them we just don't publish because we're like you know what I think we're like there's no alpha here it's pure beta and it's probably not even going to go up. >> Um it happens a lot like >> I think it's because it used to be it's like an artifact of uh how stupid the market used to be. It's Yeah, it's a lot of this stuff is still just like

people's brains haven't they've not like readjusted. They everyone needs to like take a freaking [laughter] shot of something to like clear their brain of the how the market interacted in 2021 because it's like something would pump and then you could just you could think like one further step of like what's the next beta and you could bid that and then it would go 5x the next week. Uh and that just like doesn't it just does not happen anymore. >> Yeah. And like part of this is also 21 obviously, but also I think a lot of people int like intuitively know some of these things. They're like if if like something goes a 3x in a day, I should sell it or if I'm bidding the third derivative of something, I should

I should probably not buy this thing. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Like you very I think you if you take like 30 seconds, you know it. But crypto is one of those like because of I think because of 21 like when you're bidding stocks you never think like oh this thing is pumping already so I should be bidding like a mic. >> Yeah. Time to go buy something else instead of Apple. >> Yeah. Like without even looking at any of the any of the any of what they do. like not even taking a look at what they're what they're building, what how much money they're making, how much money they're losing, what they're emitting, everything. You're just like, "Yeah, this one thing is pumping, therefore I should buy the fourth thing

that is somewhat related to it." Um I think I don't know. It's I imagine you probably also struggle with it because I I struggle with it as well. Sometimes I have to like hold myself and sometimes I just straight up make the mistake. I like I just like buy something and I'm like, I shouldn't have bought this. Like it doesn't make any sense. And then like the day after it goes down or it goes up and I'm like, you know what? I really shouldn't have bought this thing. Like it makes no sense to buy this thing right now. But 21 is so ingrained in your mind that you're like everything can go if something goes 10x. >> The logical thought shouldn't be the industry like the sector leader went up 40%, therefore my token should go up because it's smaller market cap it

should go up 400%. This is not a logical way to think about things at all. Okay. >> Yeah. I I think [clears throat] I think I I think I worked it out of my system like in late 2023, early 2024 cuz I think I still had a lot of that same like, you know, I was I was I was long soul and like soul ecosystem stuff, but I still had some of the stupid ideas in my head of like, oh, I should just I I need to like put a little bit into like all of these different like silly like onchain app things like, you know, onchain only fans and like onchain this that and the other thing and like the [laughter]

>> but it's like I need to put it into all of these like different things to like maybe to get some like extra beta out of the soul thing but it's like just just didn't really just didn't really need to do that like just there was there was definitely like some outperforming like beta a lot of it was like memes there's you know some of the DeFi stuff went up uh a higher multiple than like Soul did but a lot of those like other silly things from kind of the last cycle games just, you know, maybe they caught a pump because of all the people who had that mindset of like, oh, I need to like shove into these these silly little things, but uh it's not really the case anymore. And I think I think more so now, especially like the past the p this

year, 2025, I think it's very much been there's very few winners. So, you either just want to like be allocated to those ideas and then everything else is pretty much like this narrative rotational thing. And if you're holding it longer than 3 to seven days, unless you have some like super early info, I don't know, if you got insider info and you can be, you know, a week early to every two weeks early to every single trend, um you probably shouldn't be holding these things for that long. Yeah, this is um Earl tweeted about this who was who's always been I don't know if he's always been but he's a pretty smart guy

but his like tweet was um do you know that manager tweet that's like there's free money five times >> like there's free money on the floor five times a year and like I completely agree with this it's saying that it was like an understatement back then but right now it's 100% curated it's like 21 it was actually three money like 300 times a year on the floor. Um versus now it's I think very clearly like five, six, whatever something like that. Maybe even less. Like I can't >> Yeah, there's a few opportunities that you really want to like allocate heavily to, but the rest of the time I think you really just want to be like >> Yeah, I think this year it's been it's

been these sales like the actual sale itself. if you can get in in like the round like pre-public and then get the free upside to public like that's been like that's that's kind of been like the free money uh multiple opportunities this year where if you had access to those like not I I understand not everyone has access to >> those unlock deals uh especially if you're a US investor etc or maybe don't have the size or what have you um but those have been kind of the free ones and like yeah you know allocating to pump and just holding it like you're flat so but if But if you bought it at four and sold it instantly at six, like you got an instant 50%.

>> Yeah. Stuff like that. >> Yeah. >> We have >> Oh, yeah. >> I do have I do have one more thing I wanted to to talk about. Before we do that, I do have to do a shout out. I want to shout out our sponsor for today's stream. One last time. Aposto with nearly 400 million in BTC assets on chain supported by a secure, fast, and affordable MVM environment. And Aptos has become the BTC 5 growth chain. Aptos users can now earn yield on their Bitcoin via Echo's ABDC and OKX's XBTC without the typical merge risks and high fees. With support from Echko, OKX and STAX's SBTCOS is the place to go for best-in-class yield on Bitcoin.

Appreciate the support. Apttodos, thanks so much for sponsoring the stream. Ah, there we go. >> I'm still here. One last thing I wanted to talk about um before we call it for the day is is my No, my screen's not pulled up. Let me pull up. Uh if you saw this um Coinbase earnings call, I thought it was kind of funny, but maybe just the commentary on some of these prediction markets. Um, but the other day Coinbase did earnings and during like right at the end of the call, uh, supposedly what happened is some Coinbase guys sent over the the mention markets or the prediction market to, uh, Brian around what words would they say during the earnings call. And so, right

at the end of the earnings call, he just listed off every word that was listed on the mark on the market that maybe he hadn't said yet or maybe he just rattled through the whole list. Um, if we can Yeah. So, quite literally just pulled it up, listed all the words off. Uh, I think it was a pretty small market. I didn't look, but I think it was very, very low volume. So, uh, if you were if you had yes open on any of those words, like you probably just got a free like dollar for your couple pennies that were

in. Um, the downside here is like I think objectively like these the market like that doesn't make sense. >> Yeah, >> it this is >> that's like you're just you're getting yourself set up to get trolled by [laughter] a CEO like like Brian who's gonna forcibly take the other side of you. Yeah, this is so there's two I'm gonna big shout out to Effort Capital who said one thing that I've ever agreed with in my life with him which is that there like prediction markets for everything makes no sense and it's exactly this. The second thing is there's a price there's an amount of money that you can make on a prediction market of like a political figure assass and this is

something that we talked about when a prediction markets like everyone was like ah did you know this but so I'm going to be that guy now but there is like a amount of money that you can make where you fulfill it and for Brian Armstrong I imagine there's not any money and he just wanted to be funny but yeah I mean it makes no sense like to do prediction markets on something that especially with like tech CEOs because they're very connected to everything obviously and they know what Poly Market is and what's happening and they have guys on their like floor who's probably like putting $15 into whatever that market is to make 30 bucks or something.

>> Yeah. And I and I'm I'm sure like someone's gonna come with this counterargument of like now that Brian's done it, the market can like accurately price in the risk that like on every earnings call from now on he's going to say every word on the list. And it's like sure man, but [laughter] like objectively if you're trading these like that's just that's just not like an interesting market that you want to trade. There's just like you're you're taking a coin flip on whether or not Elon is going to go on Poly Market during some call and just like list off all the words that people are gambling on whether he'll say them or not. Um so yeah, I mean I agree with you and I agree with effort cap like mark prediction markets for everything like there's just there's just things that don't that aren't going to make sense um

like either as a user or as a trader. And maybe the only maybe the case where they do make sense is if you have inside info like if you knew Brian Even in this case, the the the market was so small. Like, sure, maybe you made a hundred bucks. Like, good for you, bro. >> I like that on this pod, we've decided um that the best way to make money in all three situations that we mentioned was insider trading. Very good. And Ryan's going to be very, very happy with >> with the bot after he sees it. >> Hey, sometimes sometimes that's that's how it is. I think u a lot of people are commenting on the equity markets as well with uh Trump and the US government

making acquisitions here and there. Uh also pointing out insider info is quite valuable on names that are getting like single day 30% price moves on announcements of like US government taking a stake in big companies. So >> yeah, >> what are you going to do? Um, well, we can call it there. I think uh that was all I had unless you've got any last words to say. May one last shot at actually um let your newsletter shine. We we didn't talk actually about Metadau specifically, but we did talk about kind of the the difficulties with a lot of tokens, the bygone era of 2021 2022 tokens and like the structuring of those which are very

problematic. Uh, I do think Metadau Futarchi maybe more so this these unruggable ICO style um and leaning in the direction of like rights for token holders uh is a good angle. It's great to see teams kind of working on these types of ideas getting rid of the like dual token equity issue um getting more towards tokens actually having value. Um, so we if you are interested in reading our metadal report from Carlos, the what did Ryan Ryan calls him? The Sultan of Salana. Need a good name. Need a good nickname for Carlos. I don't >> I don't have a good like nickname for for Carlos, but he I think he needs one.

>> Um, but he wrote a great report on Metadau. You can get it. Check the check the link in the show notes. Um, it'll sign up for the sign up for the Xerox Research newsletter. Hear from the analysts. They write every day of the week. Um, and you can get access to that report for free freebie. >> It's it's like it's actually good to the point that I don't think you need to read like I don't know how people consider news and newsletters in forms of investment. Like I know some people have very very different ideas. Some want like just essentially news and they just want like an overview of what happened. um we let the analysts um take uh like give their actual opinions on

what they're looking at and what they're interested in. Um a lot of the times this leads to the newsletter being transformed into a report for the Blockworks research product. Um and sometimes it leads to the Blockworks research product being transformed into a free report through X research newsletter. in either scenario. I would just there's a lot of very very good newsletters out there and there's a lot of very very good news channels out there. Um we have like all of the macro ones, all of the news ones, cryptospecific news ones, all of the like whatever wallet movement ones, etc.

And there's a million newsletters out there. I think our one is objectively very different to what is offered currently. Um, I don't think it's for everybody, frankly. Like, I genuinely don't think it's for everybody. I think some people genuinely prefer pure news newsletters, which is fine. Um, if you're more interested in like analyst spots and what we're explicitly looking at, um, and like what's like top of mind for us, as well as like some general market commentary on indices, um, the market and like some reads that we're doing, like what we're reading into these days. um ranging from like other people's valuation and um models and reports to their like thoughts on

whatever prediction markets etc. Um you should check it out. It's pretty good. Um I look at it every day to check it and I also read it every day because I genuinely think it's useful for me. So yeah, I would I would say check it out. We'll put it in the show notes. I'll make my producer do it and we'll also beat up the producer because he wasn't here on this one and we have to do it all ourselves. >> Oh yeah. Metadour Report Zerx Research newsletter. Check it out in the show notes. Get access. Get get plugged in. Hear from us every day of the week. You already hear from us twice a week on here. You can hear from us five more times a week on the newsletter. Um like Boach just said. So if you're interested, check it out. We'd love for

you to read what we're talking about. Uh, otherwise I think we're good here. Bach, we can call it for the week. Um, enjoy the weekend. Maybe touch some grass. It's kind of I don't really want to touch some grass right now. It's been a bit rainy, so >> I might stay relatively inside. >> But it's Halloween. You're not doing Oh, we should have put on costumes. >> It is. Dude, I forget. This is not like a >> It's an interesting thing. Like we So, here here's what I'll say. I'm not doxing my location or anything, but we we don't live in an we don't we don't live in an area where people can come trick-or-treat at our house. Like, >> yeah,

>> there's no there's no sidewalk like no kids are walking up to our house. I'll just be quite frank about that. So, we don't have trick-or-treaters. So, this is not like a a holiday that I prepared for in that respect compared to other Americans maybe. >> Yeah. >> Um, so yeah, this one catches me by surprise. I forgot that he was even today. Yeah, I'm in I'm in Europe where Halloween is much smaller than I think people expect it to be. >> Um, it's very much an American thing, I would say. Um, I've >> What about Christmas though?

>> Huh? >> Christmas. >> Yeah, it's a big thing. Christmas is big. Um, >> that one's it seems more global. Like even some of the Asian countries like >> Japan >> Japan does Christmas like which is interesting to me because they don't even like Christianity is not like really a thing there either. So it's kind of transcended the religion part. It's very much just like a holiday holiday. >> Halloween never did for like I would say Thanksgiving is 0% a thing here. It's not a thing here at all. Um like anywhere in Europe. Um, Halloween. I'm sure there are places that do it. Like when I was growing up in Turkey, we did some Halloween stuff.

Um, but it was very like very much like borrowed from everything American and to the point of like >> it wasn't an actually big thing. Um, even growing up after that, it was not really particularly a big thing. though. >> What about uh my guess would be Valentine's Day, >> but yeah, >> you know what I mean? >> I think I think I think there's a clear thing here where it's like, oh, you give gifts on Christmas, everybody loves gifts. Oh, you give you give flowers and chocolates and and whatnot to like, you know, significant others on Valentine's Day. Everybody loves Valentine's Day.

You know what I mean? >> It's like a more global thing. >> Yeah. So like I I grew up Orthodox, which is like our Christmas is on the 6th, some celebrated on the seventh, like of January. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> But everybody I know now who is Orthodox and who has kids, they celebrate it, they celebrate two days. They celebrate on the 25th with the rest >> because they want like their kids to be part of this grand like >> Christmas tradition of basically giving gifts and like walking around in the because by January it's late like there's nothing to do.

>> Um and then in January they do like a religious thing. Um >> I think Orthodox tend to be a little bit more religious especially compared to the compared to Americans. Um maybe Catholics. >> Yeah. Yeah. I want to say I know some Yeah. I mean, I don't I mean, this is this is maybe outside of the spectrum of the show, but I I think like religious beliefs have been declining a little bit in like millennium and Zoomer things. So, it's I think it's definitely more about like just Christmas for the presents type of thing and not about the religion at all for most people. Um, but I will say I have had like some Serbian and Romanian Ukrainian friends growing up who I would assume based on what you just said were maybe a little more

Orthodox who would do like double Christmas or even some like you maybe Jewish or like have some Jewish in the family who do like Christmas and Hanukkah type thing. >> Yeah. >> Um, definitely common. >> Yeah. So I think Christmas is less religious and more like a gift giving thing. >> Let's do some gifts. Yeah. >> Everybody loves gifts, man. [laughter] including me. >> Send us some gifts. I'm not going to tell you an address, but just send them. All right, we'll call it we'll call it there. Uh, touch some grass. Enjoy enjoy maybe some time off of CT on your weekends or if you're just locked in and you're trading, then I guess do your thing. Uh, we'll see you next week.

We'll see. Do we have any exciting guests for money? I know we have CMT. >> We have the CMT digital guys on Monday. No, Friday. We have James Kristoff on Monday. >> That's right. How How could I forget James Kristoff, friend of the show coming on on Monday. Uh, yeah. So, next week's going to be great. James Kristoff on Monday. We'll have CMT Digital guys coming to join us on Friday. So, it should be an exciting week. >> Stop rambling. We'll call it there. Thanks so much for watching, guys. We'll see you next week. Appreciate y'all. Peace.