🚨LIVE: Situational BLOWUP, Zcash's Upgrade, Coinbase Earnings Miss, Sovright, Abra, & The Block in

Transcript

Heat. [music] [music] Heat. [music] >> [music] >> Thank you.

Lord [music] [music] we'll see you around the timeline. Feels good to be back. I think the rollup is one of the [music] most premier media brands in crypto and Andy and Robbie are great experts at everything they talk about and [music] it's my favorite podcast. >> Adding it to my library every day >> potentially multi-chain deployments. >> We are at the connect [music] day one here. You guys see?

[music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat.

[music] >> [music] >> JP Morgan, Black Rockck, DTCC, Fidelity, the entire thing was just institutions. It's just it's next level. This industry is going to the next level. And guys, I I don't know what else to say.

I'm bullish. >> He said it. He finally said it. So bullish. >> It is bullish. I'm bullish. We're bullish. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat.

[music] Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. N. >> [music]

>> Parol is headed to the top. If we're not already at the top, we're going to the top. >> Roll up is my favorite. People >> from all walks of life, all over the world, all over this industry come together for the rollup. >> [music] [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat.

[music] >> [music] >> Zoom out. The institutions aren't coming. They're simply here. It's the golden age of crypto, guys. Get right. Let's go. [music] >> Welcome to the next. See you on the show. Clap it up. Give me some sound effects.

Happy Friday everyone. Happy Friday and shout out to you for not running it up to 45 billion and then losing it all. Uh hello and good morning and good afternoon to everyone, especially Leo Penburgger. Um much love. Uh it's been a fantastic week. Hope you guys rocked with us during our in-person stream live from Las Vegas. Uh the Arya Hotel put on tremendous event. I mean, you guys saw the lineup that we had started off uh with Bitwise and then just continue to run all the way through the AI uh portion of the show and then into the Clarity Act, guys. I mean, if you you missed the show, there's a bit of an

Easter egg there at the end of the show. Do not buy anything that guy was selling, but uh man, absolute tremendous, tremendous times in Las Vegas. Had a fantastic time with the team as well. and uh just overall great vibes. First time in Vegas, probably going to be the last time for quite a while. So, we're in Florida today and uh we're keeping it real. Um so, we're going to get into today's show. Another fantastic show to close out the week today. Uh as we mentioned, Leopold is uh sort of the talk of the town. We're going to be going over it. We didn't stream yesterday. We were traveling back from Vegas and so we're going to cover it today uh and what this means for the market. Uh, and we're going to get into

all of the great guests we have. Zaki, uh, is going to tell us about the Zcash Ironwood upgrade. Uh, plenty happening there in Ironwood uh, did go live. And then we've got Bill. We've got Hyper Meet, our local Hyperlid spokesperson. And then uh, and then we're going to hear from Steve Chung live uh, from the block, Mr. Block himself. So, we're going to get into it today. Obviously, shout out to Plume. These guys are sponsoring uh the tokenization tower. Today we're in Florida, but the office in New York is humming. And today's topics are powered by Treasure. You guys heard all the great guests we have today to wrap up the week. And it is the last

day of July. So, we're going to wrap up the month as well. And uh we're going to see how things are reacting to the Citadel uh purchase acquisition of Leopold Situational Awareness Fund. Guys, let's keep let's keep the show moving. Shout out to FRA. Uh FRA is Open Stable and Borderless Money. We had a tremendous stabled up segment with Sam from Las Vegas. Uh FRA is based in Las Vegas and these guys are doing incredible things, spending a lot of time there, working a lot uh with those uh some of the larger businesses. Uh we're going to hear a lot more about that. He also had a great story about the Secretary of State in Vegas and so or or in Nevada and um

plenty happening there. We had a really really great conversation about uh how these governments can make more money from stable coins as well as uh these consortium models for stable coins, global dollar network, open USD from Tempo. There's a lot of kind of posturing about how these institutions are viewing the stable coin space. uh Visa, Mastercard are getting involved as well. And so check out uh Sam uh live from Vegas on our stabled up segment from this week. Uh today's weather powered by Relay as always. Uh we had about 110 degree weather out in Vegas and uh Relay, man, when the market's hot, Relay will take you where you need to go. Uh it's 87 degrees in Florida. Uh and it feels warm

as well. Very, very good times happening here in Florida. Freedom guy, I did not hang out with Ellie after the show. I think you have a bit of a crush on Ellie. Uh Eleanor is a friend of the show. Shout out to Crypto in America. Um Freedom Guy in the chat. I uh I I man, I hope you find love, man. Let's do it. Uh and uh I'll put in a good word with you with uh with our friend Eleanor. Uh let's keep the show moving. Love you guys out there. Keep it moving in the chat. Let's have a good day. Let's have a let's have a fun stream. Uh hit me up with questions for our guests and what you guys are thinking about the markets today. Uh let's keep it moving. Shout out to Dinari. Uh guys, big big things

happening in the tokenized equities world. Uh this is a massive market. Everyone wants to uh get some market share in this market. Uh tokenized equities is a trillion dollar t and uh dinar is doing incredible things. We're uh also hearing rumors about maybeo getting uh acquired. Um they were kind of eyeballing that. They had some unfortunate things with their founder as of recently. Uh Greg, thank you for asking. My blackjack results. Uh I did end up walking out of Vegas a winner. Uh this is something that most uh people uh don't end up doing. Um [snorts] I originally got into uh crypto via poker. Uh, I was playing online poker.

Excuse me. I was playing poker at my local c casino in South Florida. My friend said, "Hey, you can play poker online with Bitcoin." So, I [snorts] started doing that. Uh, but I did play some blackjack out there in Vegas. Had a good time. Walked away. Nothing crazy. Few hundred bucks and uh ended up uh green. So, uh I uh I was selling the top there, which uh felt pretty good. Uh we've got some news. Feds barking. Don't know if I would have voted for higher rates this week. And so guys, we're reacting to inflation in real time. Feds Barkin says it's a close call. Whether rates are higher enough to bring inflation down, it's a close call uh whether rates are high enough. Don't know if I would have voted for higher rates this week. And so we're seeing

this play out in real time. I mean, just incredible things taking place. Feds Barkin says it does not feel like a tight labor market. Uh so we may or may not see these things uh take place over the coming Fed meetings, but we did have the Fed meeting on Wednesday. And so this was uh a pretty significant development. Uh they decided to hold rates steady. Okay. And so that was uh that was a pretty important development because that that meant uh that look going into the the rest of the the Fed meetings here. There's going to be uh quite quite a few things that we're going to be watching when it comes to inflation. We don't know how the war is

going to react. We see the markets today powered by Zama. Uh Bitcoin E Salana chain link down. Bitcoin broke down below 63. Uh ETH is still hanging around that level where Bitcoin was 6465. So, I think that if we were to pull up the ETH Bitcoin chart, it's still looking pretty promising near having a great day today. Uh, green while the rest of the market is red. So, these are the things that we're watching, guys. Um, and I do think uh, Bitcoin is now becoming decoupled and decorrelated from the rest of the uh, equities market. Whereas the rest of what we see here, especially aside from ETH, Salana Chain, like Near, Near got hit pretty hard when all the AI memory stocks were getting hit pretty hard.

those are obviously bouncing today. Um and so now uh near is recovering along with uh some of those AI stocks. Uh just a lot of volatility happening in the equities market which we'll get into as well. Uh markets as always powered by Zama. Zama is on an absolute tear and we anticipate privacy tech here at the rollup is going to um is going to just continue to charge forward. That means Near, Zama, Zcash are all in a position to do incredibly well. Um, big shout out to Zama. These guys are doing fantastic. We had a great uh quarter 2 summary around Zama Freedom Guy on Andondo. I did say I saw reports

that they are potentially eyeing an acquisition. Um the big question in that world was hey if someone like ano gets acquired what do the token holders get as a result of the the project getting acquired um what ends up with the token obviously there's so many token holders um but what happens to them and from the previous examples of teams with tokens getting acquired there's no precedent for value to flow into the token uh that may be different with but it remains to be seen and so that is a big question uh in that world. Regardless, tokenized equities are a massive category that we anticipate are going to continue to rise. Uh let's keep things moving. Um

first, let me tell you about Near AI super cycle partner and exclusive AI uh team. Uh these guys are just absolutely crushing. You saw how they're doing in the markets, bouncing with the rest of memory and the rest of the AI equities. Uh they had a 1.0 release of their ironclaw product. Uh, I anticipate Near is going to be one of the leaders in the cycle. They've also got Near Intense. This is a revenue driver to the Near token. Believe they're buying back a significant portion of the revenue that they have happening on the Near Intense protocol. Big big shout out to Near, our exclusive AI partner. Um, this also happened earlier in the week. Coinbase uh plunged 7% after posting work worse than expected earnings. Uh, these guys

missed the mark. I think they had two consecutive quarters of down revenue. Uh 1.22 billion in quarter 2 2026 revenue below roughly the 1.3 billion estimates and posted a $359 million net loss unfortunately. Uh Shine O all the good projects will be bought out leaving crypto in the wind. Well, uh, what seems to be happening is that the bad companies, if you have good projects, bad projects, the bad companies, um, are getting acquired by the good companies.

And so that's what we're seeing play out in the market, uh, the the industry is still going to survive. I mean, this is just one of the most bullish bare markets that we've ever had. If you're not looking at the prices and you're just looking at what is happening underneath the surface, we see tokenization, we see stable coins, we see all these things. Coinbase um unfortunately is getting caught in this apathetic market uh cycle. Uh and this is terrible for exchanges. Obviously exchanges like Coinbase also like Hyperlid lighter the rest of these purpose exchanges they profit on volatility. They profit on volume. Uh without volatility in the market whether that's up or down volume goes down and revenue for exchanges goes down as well.

Uh and so the stock fell from 165 down under around 153. Uh 20% industry decline in spot trading volume signals. Look, we are in the apathetic part of this market. There's no doubt about it. Um I do think that we have seen all of the capitulation in this market. um you know months ago we were looking at equities and we were saying hey once equities correct that's when crypto is going to um really see some upside and react the quickest it's typically the fastest to react to liquidity conditions in the market and uh now that equities are correcting we may very well see the bottoming out and the reaction from the crypto market as it does tend to react

the quickest uh I do think that we may have further downside in the equities market and so we might have to wade through do some of these liquidation cascades, work our way out of the commotion in the equities market that might continue to correct for a little while, but I do believe uh Bitcoin and the rest of the altcoin complex will react the fastest to improving liquidity conditions and a bounce. We just don't know how deep this pain is going to go. Let's keep moving. Uh Coinbase, we're going to make it out of this apathetic market eventually.

Uh next up, uh we've got Flood who is arguing that crypto traders piling into memory and semiconductor stocks may have marked the top for the trade. I mean certainly the the top is in on memory. I mean that is just we've seen the Christmas trees in Micron. We saw them in uh SKH Heinix. Leopold had massive positions here. Uh this may have been accelerated by Ken Griffin at Citadel, you know, kind of spooking into higher rates. Uh but ultimately, uh Leopold got liquidated.

Uh there was a margin call. He had to sell off his assets in a fire sale. Uh the reports are that he sold off uh his situational awareness public book uh to Ken Griffin at about a 50% discount, but that is unconfirmed. Uh it might have been closer to like uh 20%. We don't know. Uh but we will see. And let's see. Let's see. Um, uh, yeah, that's the top on memory. I think there's there's really no doubt about it. And so now it's just about how deep does the equities market correction go and how quickly will we see it recover? Obviously, Bitcoin tends to be the quickest to react to these improving liquidity conditions. And so once we start to see equities correct, if you're

just then buying Bitcoin and and and digital assets, it's probably too late. Uh so there is a sense of urgency now. I think the fact that we're seeing the equities market correction happen right in front of our eyes. Leopold getting liquidated is quite the bottom signal. Uh not to say that this is the bottom buy now, but there is starting to feel like a sense of urgency in this market uh as a result of what is happening in the equities market. Um let's continue to move quite along. We've got a lot to get through before our first guests. Um but first shout out to 1 in. Uh, 1 in. You might not have heard this concept of shared liquidity flying around, but products like 1-in Aqua let you approve one wallet balance to back multiple positions at the same time across pairs,

ranges, and chains. You're not splitting your tokens, and you're not depositing them. This is what I find fascinating about this Aqua protocol. But you're not leveraging either, right? It's a totally different way to keep your liquidity active in more markets. Uh, if you want to know more, check out 1inch.com/aqua. I find it fascinating because your coins actually stay in your wallet, but you're still providing active liquidity. Um, it's effectively a token allowance that they can use to pull w uh coins out of uh out of your wallet on demand, which means that you can continue to use the coins in your wallet as you would typically do unless there is a reason to provide them as liquidity. Pretty fascinating uh mechanism from a true true OG builder in the Ethereum space.

All right, Him here says, "Weird but true. Without crypto, the current AI boom would not have been possible. Today's data center buildout would have been impossible without Bitcoin and miners spending a decade building the knowhow around power sites and scale in remote locations. I completely agree with Hib's take. Um, I was chatting with uh Todd Alt uh who is the founder of the Alt blockchain. This is part of like a whole big consortium that they have. They got hotels, whole big conglomerate that they have. It is publicly traded. I think the ticker is GPUs and he's working on restructuring these companies. So that's a little bit easier to understand. But the one part that I really took away here from this stream in Vegas that we did together was that he had a Bitcoin mining operation that is now pivoting towards AI data centers.

This thing is on pace to generate like $3 billion in revenue. It's absolutely incredible. and the the data center is only at like 17% capacity. And so what Hib is arguing here is that we're now repurposing so many of these mining sites uh around, you know, because they already have the power, they already have the scale, and they're operating in remote locations. So they needed the electricity there. And so now what's happening is that they're repurposing a lot of these Bitcoin mining sites and turning them into AI data centers. And the fascinating thing that I heard from Todd Alt was that it is so much more profitable to to to mine uh AI tokens, right, rather than mine Bitcoin. And we walk through some of the numbers. You

know, obviously the mechanism at play here is that uh you know, people miners are going to pivot off. They're going to leave the Bitcoin network and they're going to start to provide their compute to the AI data center uh providing you know, compute for these frontier model companies. What that means is that as people and companies leave the Bitcoin mining network, the difficulty is going to adjust. Uh it's going to become easier for these companies to mine Bitcoin and it's going to there therefore become more profitable. And he said even with the difficulty adjustment, it is not even close to the level of profitability that they're currently seeing contributing their compute to uh AI. Um it is fascinating.

Uh it is absolutely fascinating to see. Uh data centers um are just continuing to cause quite a stir uh narrative-wise in the US. Uh people are saying that they're coming from our farmland. They're causing too much noise, taking too much water. Uh a lot of this is getting caught up in the political rhetoric as well. And so there's kind of this like stirring like anti- AI rhetoric um that's also tied into these data centers. like the physical presence of AI is becoming a lot more disturbing than maybe the digital presence of it uh is much easier to avoid. Uh but this is all getting tied together. Uh so it is fascinating to watch. Uh I think you know this is also potentially contributing to the negative uh market conditions in the AI world. Uh this is

all a narrative game and so we're continuously seeing how momentum is now decreasing decelerating in the AI markets. Um eventually this this deceleration is going to lead to a correction. This is what we're seeing play out. There will be liquidations. Leopold is probably not alone. And uh just a matter of time. Just a matter of time. Uh it's very cool actually to see again that Bitcoin and digital assets are just one step ahead in the cyclical nature of these markets. Um obviously after capitulation comes apathy. I would argue that Bitcoin and digital assets are currently in apathy and we're now just seeing uh capitulation in the equities market. So, you know, once we

start to see equities transform into apathy, that's when I would expect uh Bitcoin and digital assets to do quite well in terms of a recovery. All right, let's keep moving along. Uh this is something that we're continuing to watch and h points out exactly this. It wouldn't be possible without those mining companies already in place. Here's Catrini. Imagine for a moment you're an LP in situational awareness, the fund that launched on a pitch that was essentially AI is the only thing that matters. And if you recognize that and wish to be invested in a vehicle that will express that view by getting massively nips to nuts.

Yeah. Um that means tons of leverage. uh they I think were levered up 4x on $4 billion which means that their notional volume was something like 120 which you can deal with right if you're you know say you take a 25% you know downturn and we'll we'll hear a little bit more about this because Martinley puts this in actually Martin Shreley yeah that guy uh puts that in uh pretty good easy to understand terms um Catrini says this was immediately wrong but at least it still looks like Liupold was indeed about to cause the bottom seems to be calling ing bottom. Uh it's funny that Catrini put this out maybe two days before this guy got liquidated. Like he said, immediately wrong. Uh but that's effectively what we have here. Uh

Catrini is one of the best in the game. Uh always open-minded, admitting his own mistakes. Uh pretty important that we see. Um so let's continue uh because we want to cover our I think we've got just one more uh um before we get a little bit deeper into situational awareness. We bring up our first guests. Jason Yenowitz, big shout out. Uh, there's a sea of change happening right now with investor relations. Old school IR is stale. Tradex conference calls. No more in this world. New investor relations exciting. Podcast streams.

Investor days. Deep involvement of the poster class. Get on board or underperform. Here is Vlad. He says, "When I listen to my own company's investor presentation, I was bored. And if I was bored, everyone was bored." Guys, this is exciting. Blockworks is doing great in the investor relations space. They know what they're doing with this regard. We also are excited to provide a platform for companies to join and express how uh how things went in the previous quarter and you heard Zama, you know, come on last week. Uh they did a tremendous job in quarter 2 and uh we're very very excited to hear a lot more about this. I think it's a lot more dynamic. We can get the chat involved.

You guys chime in, you ask questions. you guys had a actually some great questions uh for Zama and uh we really really appreciate you guys chiming in. I think the rest of the the founders of these companies appreciate it as well. Guys, first and last Equity uh and that is our final segment before we bring up our first guests uh Zucky uh and um Zucky and Pseudo to talk about Zcash's Ironwood upgrade. Uh let's get into daily equity so we can chat a little bit more about situational awareness. This is what you guys want to know about. Uh and then we're going to bring up our first guest.

[music] All right. So we're going to play this clip. Uh Martin Skrey uh actually you guys probably know him for the pharmaceutical, you know, debacle that he had um price gouging and whatnot. He also, you know, bought that Wuang album and then never released it. So, very strange guy. He's been involved in pop culture, but he's also been in finance for almost his entire life. Um, he puts, uh, what happened with Leopold into perspective. And so, we're going to play the clip. Uh, he does a great job. This is coming from the TBPN podcast. And we're going to cover a little bit more about the situational awareness uh,

before we bring up our first guests. >> Right. So if you I'll give you sort of an example you're asking the question. So let's say you know you're at 45 billion you know sort of try to trace this back >> 10 billion of that in anthropic from what we understood. >> Uh so you have $30 billion of of cash in your bank account. >> Uh and running forex lever means you have 120 billion gross market value. >> Oh. Um, so if your GMV drops, I don't know, 25%. That doesn't sound so bad at 120 billion, uh, maybe that's, you know, I don't know, uh, 30 billion. So, you're down to 90 billion, but that's not your

equity. So, your equity drops from 35 billion to 5 billion. Yeah. And no, no prime broker is going to let you keep 90 billion of gross market value because once you dip your equity below zero, it's their loss, not yours. and they're not going to lose a penny after Archaos and after these other kind of blowups. I mean, that's not their job. And they kind of have the right to take over your portfolio, >> which is is sort of uh, you know, something I hope nobody ever has to experience, but they basically call you in and say, "Listen, >> you know, these are our our assets now, and you know, we're we're going to decide what what their disposition is going to be."

>> And the rumor is over the week. >> So, this was effectively what happened. This was a obviously a development that played out over the last couple of days. This guy was 4x levered. Uh I mean there's just incredible lore around this guy as well, Leopold. Uh you know, he uh is engaged to I believe it's the CTO of Anthropic. Um I I don't know if I got her role right, but they were planning on getting married. I think they still are getting married this weekend. I mean, what a just whirlwind for Leopold. Um, guy gets liquidated, sells his assets to Ken Griffin, and then gets married a couple days later. Not sure.

Might be little awkward family reunion at the wedding for some of him and his uh his his friends there. But um and then and then obviously, you know, as you heard uh Martin explain who had some terrific reporting here and this entire segment is great. Encourage you guys to watch it. Kind of talks through how these deals get done. One, how easy is it to get leverage? uh these prime brokers are are you know supplying margin. Uh but you know he was able to do you know a tremendous runup and keep uh keep the momentum going but once things start to turn around you know 25% decline levered up 4x is 100% blow up and the prime brokers are just they're going to call you in and uh make sure that you know there's still time uh for

you to fire sale those assets and that's that's effectively I mean that's exactly what happened. So, um, I understand now something came out this morning that, you know, the assets that were sold to Ken Griffin, we don't know exactly what the discount was, but I think it was somewhere between 50 somewhere around 50%. Uh, so Ken's a, you know, just massive win here. Uh, but it was only the public stock portfolio. Uh I think he had over um something like I mean at at least a hundred million I think closer to a billion dollars of anthrop anthropic stock that uh that did not get sold um and that is going to continue to stay in the situ situational awareness fund. So um yeah this is the biggest news that's happening here on both the

AI side the finance side. uh we're covering it here and uh we anticipate this is going to send ripple effects through not only the equities market but also a bit through the crypto market as well. So that's been the daily ex daily equity segment for today. We're obviously continuing to watch this and uh and yeah, I mean big winner here is Ken Griffin uh who steps in and provides liquidity and uh seems like this is now his role. It's a good position to be in the lender of last resort when it comes to these hedge fund blowups. uh he becomes the the hedge fund of hedge funds uh to come in almost like the central bank if you will uh to come in and buy these assets cheap on the dollar. Guys, let's go ahead to our first guests of the day. We're going to

be chatting about uh Ironwood, the Ironwood upgrade uh in Zcash uh which is very very exciting because we saw so much happen um in the world of AI as Zcash was kind of navigating this. they were able to preemptively use AI to mitigate the the risk of any sort of contagion or exploit or vulnerability in the Zcash protocol. The Ironwood upgrade has now been live and so we're going to get an upgrade on how that's going. Uh we've got Zucki, uh the head of engineering and board director at SAV, right? And we've got Sudo uh and so we're going to chat with uh chat with both of them. Let's go ahead and bring them up on the show.

Hello. Hello guys. Good to see you again. >> Yeah. >> Hi, Zucky. You were on not too uh not too long ago. And uh Sudo, it's I think your first time on the show, but it's a it's a pleasure to have you. Um Sudo, maybe we could start with you because it is your first time. Uh would love just a little bit of an update on uh you know, how how you ended up and and how things are going. And you know, we'll we'll we'll get into uh Zcash and and Ironwood's upgrade. >> All right. Um I first started working with the I first met this ECC team in 2018 including Zuko at the time when I was head of BD at Anchorage and then in 2021 I joined the first ever Zcash community grants panel and then in 2023 I joined the board at ECC then but in

June we renamed to Subright. >> Very cool. Awesome. And uh Zucky I mean you wear many many hats around uh around the ecosystem. We rec most recently had you on with our near uh friends. Um and now we're here talking about Zcash. I know you've you know you you've contributed uh all across the board. Um for the sake of this conversation, we're going to be focused on on Zcash and Ironwood, but you know, maybe you could just help us understand what your involvement here is with Solver, right? And uh you know, Zcash generally. >> Yeah. So, I think I've had a I think even before like cryptocurrency, I was like I've been very interested in privacy. Um I'm I like uh I sort of co-founded this privacy nonprofit called

Restore the Fourth. I have been um and then like in 2014 uh Aeron Trowmer gave a talk at my Bitcoin meetup ex like about zero which was like the original uh which was like the the paper that Zcash was based on and I'm like I don't understand what you're talking about but this is magic. This is witchcraft. Like how is this possible? like how can you prove arbitrary computations uh in these like in these small proofs like it doesn't make any sense. Um and so I was like I have to learn how this magic works. Um and so you know learning about how snarks worked and all of this was like a huge sort of uh guiding light in my like learning about cryptography.

Um, so you know I'm people you know mostly know me for like my Cosmos things but like do various other stuff but like learning how snarks worked and contributing to Zcash um has been something that I have been doing basically since Zcash launched. Um and uh so like one of those roles has been being on the board of this organization um that now is now known as Sveright um and have been doing this since 2021. Now we're just sort of building infra. >> Fantastic. Yeah. I I want to talk a little bit more about the infra that you guys are are building specifically, but before we do, obviously Ironwood is kind of, you know, the the front uh of the

focus here. Um given that it went live very recently. Um, I mean, as I understand it, uh, you know, there was sort of this potential vulnerability, but it was discovered because AI was deployed onto the network intentionally to preempt anyone else from finding this kind of even potential vulnerability. Um, and we had Josh Sweheart, um, and we had Mert also on the show kind of talking us through over the last few weeks as this situation was developing. Um, and so the the idea was that this pool would go live uh and we would migrate funds from the old orchard pool to the new Ironwood pool. And we by doing so uh if all of the funds were migrated, we would know that there was

no infinite mint and uh you know all of the funds that uh uh migrated would effectively be you know uh removed from the potential vulnerability. Maybe you guys could just correct anything uh in the context of Ironwood and then also tell us, you know, like what this kind of like a technical undertaking such as this one. You know, we we heard a lot in the buildup to the upgrade, but tell us like actually on upgrade day, what happens on a more granular level? >> Sure.

Um I can I can I can dive into those pieces. Okay. So I think things that are important basically to understand is um the most recent um quad opus 48 discovered uh uh vulnerability uh in Zcash was not the first of these vulnerabilities in Zcash. Um, basically I think as long as I've been involved in Zcash, um, there has like these infinite mint vulnerabilities, um, have come up. Um, and I think what was cool about this, so Ironwood is the combination of existing Zcash mitigations, which is this turn

style concept, which is basically the amount of money that goes into a shielded pool must equal the amount of money that comes out of a shield pool. And now we and we have four shielded pools right now. Um, uh, Sprout, Sapling, Orchard, and Ironwood. Um but then it was this new capability um that is basically the our Zcash the Zcash communities all of the technical contributors this like tour to force of basically never again um and as much as we've in you know this decade of contributing to Zcash always wanted to say never again um to all of the vulnerabilities and the amount of time

of energy into securing Zcash that Zcash has always has always been just like orders of magnitude more than you know basically any other project that deploys advanced cryptography. um we've never been able to confidently say never again but basically so AI helped us find this vulnerability but then AI was also like a key enabler to doing this process called formal verification where you basically generate mathematical proofs that the specification that describes the protocol and that the code that implements that specification are equivalent um and formal verification you know I've I've been part of any formal verifications of various things uh in the in my whole time in

cryptocurrency has historically been this like huge expensive process um and which take years um to like formally verify uh and you know in the past you know we've looked into formally verifying Zcash's shielded protocol just wasn't feasible what has been amazing is AI has allowed us to do this whole formal verification in two months um basically you know it was it's this you know on one hand we had this capability get created which was like found this vulnerability that had been latent in the code for 6 years but then the same AI capability allows us to truly do this Ironwood thing which is the never again basically uh uh reality of the

situation. So we have something that is just unprecedented in the level of confidence in the uh basically in the supply of Zcash um and in the integrity of Zcash going forward. Now >> I I'd like to emphasize that it took a grand total of one day for us to find this bug. So, it's it's existed for a while, but security engineer uh security auditor Taylor Hornby, who was engaged by Shielded Labs, he received special access uh to this version of Opus, right? Zakio was Opus, right?

>> Yep. >> Um and and then within one day, he's like, "Oh, guys, I found a thing." So, it was something that was discovered and then closed very rapidly. I just want to emphasize how incredible that was and how short the window was. And I think it signals to the rest of projects, companies that are taking, you know, their protocols seriously and they're looking at AI and they they're seeing all the hacks out there and they're thinking, how can I protect myself against this? Well, take a take a page out of Zcash's book here. Um, and deploy these tools to prevent anything like this from happening. Um, and there's really a sense of urgency to do this now because these tools are becoming open and available for everyone to use for good and nefarious purposes. But it's

also really important to realize that the only reason Taylor could find it in one day is because he's been doing this for years. He worked at ECC as security engineer a long time ago. So I think it's it's we should not understate context and and true experience uh reviewing a thing that is missionritical even if you have the help of AI tools. I I I I mean we could talk about this for a while because you know that I I I I understand what you're saying pseudo there is I mean deep deep technical knowledge and experience that goes into this. There's also people that are out there solving like Jacobian math problems that have been you know 80 plus year math problems and they're like go make a scientific breakthrough make no mistakes.

It's fascinating like the pace of innovation here and it's it's it's just incredible to watch. Um, regardless, this Ironwood upgrade did go live. Um, and so I'd love an update on how how it's going. Um, I believe it went live on July 28th, so we're about 2 3 days in. Um, and so is what we're watching now effectively the migration of funds from the old orchard pool to Ironwood. Um, how are we? What is kind of the status update on the flow of funds out of the orchard pool and what is it signaling to us thus far?

>> Yeah. Um, so there's this block explorer for Zcash called uh Ciphers Scan app and they have basically the best dashboard. Um, I don't know if you got you want to you want to try screen sharing it or not? Um, >> ciphers scan.app cipher with the CI. >> Got it. >> Cypherscan.app and then there's a/ironwood is their is their analytics site. >> Um, >> okay. >> Yeah. I I you know I don't know how annoying it is to spring this on you right now but it's like I can take you through the whole the graphic and it would I think it would be it would be cool. I don't think anyone has done does this on on stream so far.

>> Okay, I'm going to pull it up. Leo, let's see if we can get it on the screen. I know I know you guys can see it in the meat, but just give us a Zucky. Why don't you just start explaining at a high level while we pull it up for everyone else to see? >> Okay. So, what what happened with Ironwood? So we did um uh Zcash regularly undergoes hard fork upgrades. Um that's it's been part of the culture of Zcash sort of like Ethereum in that in that sense you know where like there are going to there's a plan there's already planned in a welloiled system of you know doing a network upgrade. Um so when a network upgrade goes live um the [clears throat] consensus rules change

everybody has to deploy news. So what what this did is it made it so you could no longer put funds into the orchard pool. So the orchard pool turns paused in one direction. Um and funds can only flow out. Um and then there's this new Ironwood pool. Um, and so then the question is is like, okay, so like there's, you know, there's like sort of, you know, I would say I, if I remember right, there was like almost 4 million ZEC, um, in this in the Orchard pool.

Um okay. >> When the when the when the upgrade went live um, and the and so then there's this process. So now as a user you don't have to do anything like we don't believe that there's any sort of massive you know urgent reason to migrate your funds. Um but as a community thing migrating the funds uh to to Ironwood does demonstrate I think an increased level of confidence that like the the vulnerability that was found in the orchard pool was never exploited. Um and so what we're do what what there's this so wallets have to

participate. So if if um so wallets have to participate in the migration process. Um and so uh several of the wallets in the Zcash ecosystem, the cake wallet, which is um this wallet called Wiser, have deployed automated migration systems that basically you, you know, update your wallet and you're able to uh uh and in the background able to do this. The most popular wallet in the Zcash ecosystem is the Zado wallet and it currently does not have any sort of automated migration um associated with it uh or like implemented within it.

It's planned. Um but we've been basically migrating about 10, you know, like 8 to 9,000 8 to 10,000 Ze uh an hour um basically since uh since the migration went live. Uh Ironwood is now the second largest pool. Um and everything it's you know it's all going as intended. Um and I think that the pace of migration has been really good. It's actually been I think quite surprising how good how how the pace of migration has been and how many like sort of large uh accounts have migrated or you know large amounts of value. So basically when you migrate the network doesn't see any addresses but what it

does see is the amount that was migrated in the transaction. Um >> and so the automated migration systems have all of these privacy things that are built in um that are designed to sort of not really to leak as little information to anyone who's observing about who is migrating their funds. So you know standard denominations so like it will mig you know we migrate 10,000 1,000 5,000 100 uh uh you know 55 10.5 you know units of Ze. So like you migrate in standard denominations um in all of this automated software. Um yeah.

So if you I So you can see there the size of the Ironwood pool has been steadily growing. Um >> Yep. Upwards of uh 600,000 cap. >> It was like 500,000 this morning when I looked at it. So >> Oh wow. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's moving. Uh yeah. So it's it's like about 10,000 an hour. But if you scroll down >> um >> Okay. This is this is a cool animation. Uh but like actually not that informationrich. And then scroll down a little bit further.

>> Uh that's also not that interesting. Uh there's like one graphic I'm trying to get to that is like the cool one. >> It just one comment here is that there's Orchard uh obviously 500,000 plus Ze coming from there. Most that's most of it, but there is 100,000 Ze of the 600,000 in Ironwood that's coming from Transparent and the Sap. Yeah, people people are they're people are people are coming like old funds sapling funds are being migrated like yeah I mean >> to be the shielded sorry go ahead >> yeah sorry to be clear only people with funds in the orchard pool need to do or should be advised to do this migration if you had sprout if you had sapling uh shield addresses you you you could

choose not to migrate and if you had transparent then you definitely don't uh don't have to do that but as you point out people are migrating from transparent into shielded sec. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. This is this is a gold I mean this is this is the gold standard private pool in crypto right now. >> Uh so okay so this is like the rate of migration which is sort of interesting. It's like a it's spiky. Um >> y >> uh >> I'd imagine that you know now that it's a bit it's just a bit linear right there was no incentive to get in like as soon as it went live.

>> So this this is what I think is really cool. um this this this graph at the bottom with the dots. Okay. >> Uh >> it's okay. So >> the so basically we have three colors of dots, green, orange, and red um for people. And as you see, there's like this population of green dots that continues to get. So basically, if you're the wallets that have the fully privacy enabled m automated migration are generating the green dots. Um and then you have people who are manually migrating who are generating the orange and red dots. Um so red a red dot is basically just like full send your wallet um to upgrade to or orchard. Um

which is basically all you can do in zodle right now to like if you want to like fully upgrade all of your funds in zodle hopefully zle will be producing green dots in this in the future. Um but then you have orange dots which you can which is just like also man like manually sending but only sending manually sending uh you know uh uh basically 10 you know units standard units of Ze um to your and then you have the the the sort of like maximum indistinguishability green dots. Um, but I think it's just like really cool, um, as like [clears throat] kind of, you know, how the wallet ecosystem in Zcash is evolving, how different wallets prior have like gotten these features deployed. Um, and yeah, and and

hopefully as as as time goes on, and we migrate more of the pool, we see more green dots. Um, but yeah, I would also I'm there's a lot of speculation in the Zcash community, I think, about how quickly migration is going to go. Um, I'm pretty hopeful that we're going to see I don't know within the next 30 to like 90 days like basically the entire orchard pool empty out. >> Shout out shout out to Kenback who made this. I think this is the most beautiful dashboard we've ever seen. This is one benefit of people showing interest in Zcash. Again, >> this is very cool. I mean, it's indicative of like the early days where anyone can come in, anyone can contribute. It feels more like a decentralized community of contributors than even Bitcoin does the this these

days. And I think that is indicative of a lot of the core ethos and why people are are you know uh taking an interest in Zcash. Um and so can we definitively say now that there is no infinite mint there was no counterfeit Zcash put into the ecosystem and if not now when will we be able to see that? What are we watching out for? >> So I think there's there's two questions. So, one question is is like if you hold Zcash in a shielded pool in the Ironwood shielded pool, do you hold that Zcash and is there no infinite Zcash out there waiting to debase the Zcash that you hold in the Ironwood

pool? To that answer, we know that definitively. Now, if you hold Zcash in the Ironwood pool, you definitively hold that Zcash and there is no excess supply coming. Um if you haven't yet migrated from orchard there is some low probability that you know that this that the um and basically as every day of this migration goes back that probability that there's there is someone sitting there with an infinite number amount of Zcash in the orchard pool uh goes goes down every you know every minute every every block that gets made and every every every ze that gets migrated.

Um, and so I think at that point, you know, I think as as you get cross over and the Ironwood pool becomes the largest shielded pool in Zcash. Um basically just every everyone you know everyone will have confidence and you know there will probably be lost keys and and stuff like that that you know there's some just like you know there there is there's still 35,000 Ze in the >> can maybe can I maybe try and re frame that in more like normal people terms. So if if um Zaki confirm if true um if every single token if we forget you know forgotten keys etc. everything in uh Orchard migrates to Ironwood and nobody

says oh crap I could not migrate I could not withdraw my funds then we are sure that the bug was not exploited is that correct >> 100%. That is a very non-aututistic person way of explaining. [laughter] >> Okay. And so and so pseudo. So you're saying you're saying that if uh we would have some sort of community outcry if someone went to go move their funds from Orchard into Ironwood, but for some reason they weren't allowed to or they weren't able to, their b their their transaction would be reverted. Correct.

Um but we haven't heard that outcry and with every day that passes it's less and less likely because these people are going to be migrating. >> Yes. Yeah. Like and I think one way to think about it is that there's this term called a turn style. [snorts] It makes no sense except to people who work on the protocol or who spend a lot of time studying it. And if you think about like if I operate turn styles for like the subway and every person that went in I make a counter and no more people that went in can go out like the moment you know everybody that I counted went out my turn style stops working.

>> It's just about it's like what a bouncer at a bar is doing you know just to keep you know everything under the fire code you know make sure the number of people who went in and the number of people went out are the same. Um, >> because there's a record of everyone who went into the orchard pool >> of every Ze that went in and there's a record that of every Ze that went out and in orchard no more Ze can come in >> and the vulnerability would be if there was something minted like spawned inside already without going in and turning the turn style.

>> Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. You can't just magically appear inside the bar to like you're under 21 and circumvent the uh every mind and then it goes through a turn style into a shielded pool. >> Mhm. >> So, every Ze that has ever mined does pass through a shielded pool. That's one of the protocol rules. So, every Ze that was ever mined pass through a turn style. >> But each pool has its own turn style. >> Mhm. Yep. So we would we knew everything that goes in, everything that comes out and we can match that up with what is happening in the orchard pool and the and the ironwood pool.

>> Yep. >> Um guys, that's a fantastic explanation. I I I do really appreciate it. I feel like I have a better understanding of the way that this turn style mechanism works now. Um and so zooming out a little bit and just talking a little bit more holistically about the Zcash ecosystem. I mean obviously the fact that this you know was discovered there was this preemptive uh cryptographic research that was done and you know it sort of signals to the rest of the ecosystem that this is possible and it it it does set a precedent uh for the way that we should be thinking about security in the AI or maybe AGI era like this is what I think a lot of people have been missing about like a more institutionalized digital asset world um is you know kind of this return to fundamentals this return to our cippher

punk groups that seems to be happening in Zcash and so people are taking a really really strong interest paying a lot more attention to this ecosystem. um what's next? Like this thing was discovered. You know, it had a like Zcash was already catching a bid, for lack of a better term. This was discovered. This fix is now put into place. We're going to see this migration happen into the Ironwood pool. Can you guys give us just like what you're now most excited about as we sort of move further and further away from like this era of the Zcash protocol? What's coming up next that we can look forward to? I know we've been hearing about quantum resistance and these sorts of things.

What are you guys most excited about? >> Yeah, I think maybe Zaki can open with the uh scaling road map a little bit on quantum and then I'll I'll talk about what Sveright wants to do. >> Yeah. Okay. So I think like one of the other things that like um has been really cool and just like personally really awesome about what's happening in the Zcash ecosystem is you see a lot of talent frankly from Cosmos um coming to the Zcash ecosystem kind of the most diehard cipher punk people in the Cosmos ecosystem. So like Dev Oja, Evan from uh Evan from Celestia, Tal from Penumbra, um have all become like major contributors. Like TAL led the le led

the formal verification effort for uh Ironwood uh and just you know knocked it out of the park as I frankly knew he would. Um, and so we've had this like extraordinary sort of talent, you know, as people are like people who came to crypto for the cipher punk things. Um, I would definitely put myself in that category. Um, and basically were like we we were here we're here for a revolution, not just to make fintech backends. Uh and so when we were like so this infusion of talent and this infusion of talent has uh uh been driving basically so like I think unlike Zcash which unlike Bitcoin

which sort of went it down the we are just going to be like digital gold uh we are going to give up the peer-to-peer electronic cash vision. Um so um you know there's this design there's basically this like talent plus you know the uh Sean who used to be at ECC and is now leading the Tachon project. So this thing called Tachon um but basically there's like a collective we're going to make uh uh you know uh Zcash scalable. We're gonna make it super scalable and frankly just given how well we just executed on Ironwood, it's just like seems obvious that like the design like all of this will get done like very

quickly. >> Why we have scalability problems like >> okay I yeah I can talk about I mean my joke about Zcash is Bitcoin has two problems. One is scalability, the other one is privacy and fungeability. Um, Zcash solved privacy and fungeability but made scalability worse because like currently Zcash does about two transactions per second. Um, and so but like this this I don't you could do a whole episode talking about Tachon, but basically like this design of the system >> this design of the system called Tachion is uh uh basically enables to have a thing with the privacy properties of Zcash. Um but like Visa scale

transactions per second is like sort of um and so you know I think that like one of the things that like >> Zcash wants to fundamentally be right now is we want to have the scalability onchain to deliver peer-to-peer electronic cash at internet scale. um but [clears throat] then also have the organizational structure that like delivers that and provides privacy and all of the stuff around it so that like you know this is what we actually give to the world. Um and it's kind of I don't know still it feels to me like we're finishing the Bitcoin mission.

>> Yeah. Very cool. One thing I'm super excited about, I can't talk that in depth about it, but >> our core engineers have been talking about have been worried about postquantum for a number of years now. And we do have a sort of plan. The first thing on the plan will not solve the problem, but it will it will make it a lot easier to solve down the road. And >> first thing on the plan is also shipped in Ironwood. Every single transaction that every single migration that goes into Ironwood, like you could go into the Ironwood pool, like migrate your funds into the Ironwood pool and then like put your keys in a safe and like go away for 50 years and your money will still be there and there's not a

lot of cryptocurrencies that can currently >> Can you explain that? >> Well, yeah. So we there's this so without having to make any protocol changes um it's again a wallet side change but all the wallets that are supporting Ironwood are all using this fe basically doing this thing called quantum rec recoverability which basically means that in the future when a quantum computer is determined by the Zcash community to be a significant enough threat um that it is time to disable all the uh pre-quantum um anonymity protocols. So, sprout, sapling, orchard all get disabled. Um there will you will be able to using

just your existing wallet make a proof in the future that basically I hold funds in the ironwood pool that uh I with a proof that is uh not vulnerable to a quantum computer. Um, so we don't use these proofs today, but we basically have laid the everybody who migrates their funds in IRwood. So it's basically, you know, this is like a oneandone kind of thing. Um, for for people who just want to uh have their apocalypse money and, you know, wait for the apocalypse.

>> If if I can kind of normal person summarize, it's it's a >> this is great. [laughter] Yeah. It's a future where um in the future when we think okay quantum computers are here or will be here next year you can then press a button and then you can extract your fonts into at the time an upgrade that is postquantum secure >> but the user doesn't have to do anything that's okay the key thing is is the user doesn't have to do anything like you migrated to Ironwood Zcash community decided quantum computers are a did a bunch of protocol upgrades. You come back 20 years from now, you're like, where are my where are my money? I

have my seed phrase. Your your funds are sitting in this post in this pre-quantum Ironwood pool that no one can take money out of anymore um without these postquantum proofs. U but no, people can't transfer funds within it anymore. And you can do a migration, but you can do that anytime in the future. >> Wow. Okay. So the wallets will have to be doing this. >> Ironwood is like a hundredyear is kind of like a hundredyear protocol and we did it in like two months. It's crazy. >> Cool.

>> You get what you want. >> Yeah, absolutely. This is fantastic. I think we will do an entire stream on Tachion uh when we're getting a little bit closer because there is a lot to dig through. Um but we already have our our next guest ready in the back. Uh, and so I I appreciate you guys sticking around uh a little bit over time and explaining to us and this has been I mean this is a great tag team because Zaki is like super super deep you know very very technical pseudo obviously you're very technical as well but able you know to put it into terms that I think a lot of people can understand. So this is a fantastic barbell approach that uh I really really appreciate you guys uh sticking around and and explaining to us today.

>> Thanks so much guys. Uh go Zcash. We are big believers and uh we enjoy that it's uh returning us to our roots. Uh thank you so much. We'll see you guys next time. Um okay, we've got our next guest that is coming up and we're going to get back on schedule here. Um we've got uh Bill in the green room now. Let's go ahead send him in to the live room. We are ready to get um ready to get Bill up. Um, I mean guys, Zcash is uh kind of the talk of the town amongst like like the privacy world of builders and cryptographers like people that get it like they're all excited about Zcash.

This is what people want to learn about. This is what people are excited about because this is ultimately where the uh pinnacle like the the the bleeding edge of computer science and cryptography is happening. It's happening on Zcash. It used to be the case that the bleeding edge was happening on Bitcoin. Um, but now it really really seems as if um it really really seems as if Zcash is where a lot of um a lot of this action is. And so we're going to chat uh you know great episode with Zucky and Pseudo. uh all of the action does seem like when it when it comes to the you know the the cipher punk ethos the bleeding edge of

cryp cryptography so much of that is happening on Zcash um you guys heard obviously about the ZK um approach obviously this is baked directly into the protocol u but that is in addition to all of the quantum resistant uh cryptography that they're programming in obviously they had this turnstyle approach with Ironwood and uh and it it does seem like with the Tachon upgrade uh you know they've got the privacy they they were able to shield everything is confidential. Now they're bringing scalability up on par um I mean they said with the Visa network so obviously turns uh what is currently like two transactions per second into something you can actually use as a medium of exchange as money. Uh very very cool to

see and um well I'm excited. I'm a believer in Zcash. We're gonna bring up our next guest, uh, Bill, uh, the CEO at Aubra, and we're gonna be chatting a little bit more about clarity and yield. Bill, welcome to the show. >> All right, good to see you. Thanks for having me. >> Absolutely. Thanks for being here. Uh, Bill, you're founder of uh, founder of Aubra, regulated crypto wealth platform focused on high net worth and institutional clients. Um, lot of turmoil out there uh, in the markets these days. is a little bit of a bare market in crypto for the last few months and now seems like things are hitting the equities markets as well with the old Leopold liquidation we saw over the last couple of days. Could you just give us a like a reality check? How spooked

are investors markets? Do they kind of see this as a bottoming out or do they feel like, you know, maybe they agree with the one side of crypto Twitter that says, "Yeah, we've got one more leg down to go and flush this whole thing out." Well, I would say investors aren't spooked. I would say speculators are spooked, right? So, you know, what percentage of of money moves the market in in, you know, in equities or crypto? It's actually a very small percentage and because it's where the leverage is. And and so, you know, Apple down 10% in one day, Amazon up 15% in one day. looks like a meme stock to or a memecoin to crypto folks or or a Tuesday, you know, if it's co for crypto folks. Uh but but

for equity folks, it's confusing because day-to-day, they don't really feel the impact of excessive leverage of of um you know, small amount of money moving the markets. And I think that's what's happening right now. And um look, at AB, our goal is not to basically time markets. Our goal is to be a fiduciary for our clients to get exposure to what they want to get exposure to, facilitate loans against assets. It's it's a very long-term proposition, right? So today it's mostly crypto. Soon it'll be tokenized everything, but it's portfolio management at the end of the day, right?

So so we're not we're not really focused on the speculator. Um, and and that's like I said, you know, the speculator might move the market in the very short term, but in the long term, the market goes where, excuse me, market goes where it needs to go. And and I think that the AI trade is not done, not by a long shot. Uh, I think it's a a generational shift, right? We're going to see the downfall of SAS as a as a generic industry and the rise of of the machines, as as they the Terminator likes to say. and and so you know that is a that is a sea shift in how the ones and zeros get processed and uh it's not a it's not a smooth ride for sure

there's going to be a lot of bumps along the way and at the same time from a macro perspective something's breaking right so the the downward 40-year channel in in the 30-year broke during COVID it hasn't recovered and it's not going to in my opinion why because the jig is right? You know, uh we we print money for 45 years and expect that the rates are going to go negative. Is that how we're going to sustain growth? No. Eventually, nobody wants to buy your debt anymore. Uh and that's where we're at now. And we're basically using our position in the world to convince people to buy our debt. Now that happens to be coincidentally happening at the same

time that we're having this generational shift which in a way could save us because you know declining uh working population could be replaced with robots and AI productivity. We don't know will it make up the difference in $40 trillion in debt? Probably not. Uh but it's a pretty complex equation, right? So all this is happening at the same time. Is is it truly the case here that the only uh mechanism that um like politicians, the powers that be, central banks, the only tool in the in the toolbox is money printer go burr like they all they can do is all you know is is print money to you know try to pay uh the high yields as you know the the bond market kind of goes out of control.

Maybe they, as you're talking about, maybe the AI productivity boom saves us. But, you know, whether we we run the economy hot and get saved and bailed out by AI or not, it seems like the only reaction that they they can put forth, whether it's a bailout to print money or if it's printing money to run the economy hot, it seems like either way they're going to print money and kind of the debasement trade is back. >> Yeah. I mean, look, the system has been rigged for 50 years. Uh, and it's been rigged against the middle class, right? I mean in currency and then ultimately price inflation is simply attacks on anybody who's not levered into the markets and and um you know that's that's the reality. Now is it the only tool? Of course not. We could do the

right thing, absorb the pain and not pass it on to our great grandchildren, but that's not going to happen. So So uh and it's not me being sarcastic. It's simply not. They don't. No, no politician has the will to go back to their current constituents >> except maybe if we eliminated term limits >> or or created term limits, sorry. Right. >> But but no politician has the gumption to go back to their constituents saying we broke the system over the last 50 years and we need to absorb the pain to fix it so our great grandkids can have a better life. No one is that that message is not going to be understood, never mind accepted. So, so it's easier to blame the rich. It's easier to say we don't tax enough. It's easier to say, you know, modern monetary theory, print more money, and and we end up with the

rise of China and the decline of the American empire. And and unfortunately, you know, our best hope, not unfortunately, but our best hope now is, you know, productivity, massive productivity gains via nextg exponential technology, AI and robotics and space and, you know, Elon basically. >> Yeah. So we've I mean we've been seeing this massive shift in that direction and people have been you know allocating their chips and capital in that direction as well and this has been all the way from retail kind of shifting from crypto over to the AI equities you know markets. It's also taking place at scale with these Bitcoin mining companies you know repurposing these these big centers into data centers for the AI

buildout. it do you feel like this is a one-way do do you think this is a pendulum that ultimately swings back or is this a a one-way train and you know all of the attention that used to be on crypto is now shifted into the AI world >> well proof of stake you know kind of was a was one nail in [laughter] half the coffin u and and this you know staking is is a very inexpensive business to run so so it's really Bitcoin versus AI it's not even crypto versus AI anymore unless you're doing other things like you know tokenized compute or something like that which is interesting but that's just that that falls more on the AI side of HPC. So so you you know Bitcoin

look I think Bitcoin will be fine because given the discussion we just had the 65,000 price level is not sustainable in my opinion. And I think Bitcoin needs to be at 300,000 and and just given the demand that's coming right now. The demand is has been via US ETFs and there's very little European demand right now for for Bitcoin, which is crazy to me given what a mess Europe is. And and so if old money starts to find its way into the debasement trade and sees Bitcoin as the way out, which I think it will, and the money printing accelerates, which I think it will, then we have Bitcoin at half a million and

then a million. And then at that point, mining become back to your question, mining becomes extremely profitable, right? And don't forget what one of the things that's happening as a result of of of of all this energy consumption is is that they're making these systems very efficient out of necessity. >> And that's going to pay dividends for for for for Bitcoin miners eventually as well because it'll make those um those bitcoins more profitable when they mine them. Um but anyway, that's I don't think it's cyclical. I think this is a one-time thing because Bitcoin is coming down and we had a rotation into AI um out of the ETFs in some cases like and

and so um as Bitcoin goes back to new highs in Valhalla which is inevitable. I don't see how it's not. I mean obviously I can't say it's 100% certain but how what's the alternative? we get our act together financially from a macro perspective and all of a sudden run surpluses and pay down debt and you know go back to a commodity based monetary standard. I I just don't see it happening >> that I I I agree with you. I think um there's one there's a couple things actually that I want to bring up here. One of them is, you know, you you make the point that um you know, this is ultimately going to become a lot more profitable for AI miners um or excuse me, as for Bitcoin miners as uh this, you know, price increases. Um uh we in

the news section of the show, we were reading a tweet by Hib who said that the AI buildout would not have been possible if it wasn't for the Bitcoin mining companies because they were originally the ones that went they built out electricity and power in some of these rural areas and now we're learning from a lot of that. you make the point that and and we say on the show sometimes the casino funds the research lab which I you know I think is true of you know kind of what we're seeing in the prediction market space and you know some fun things that are happening over there but it's also true that you know these two industries are learning from one another and they're ultimately both benefiting from the more efficient power that we're generating as a result of learning and building out these systems

for our own benefit. Everyone can end up reaping the rewards of of that buildout. I want to I want to get into the how, right? Because obviously, you know, Bitcoin at a half a million or a million solves a lot of problems incre, you know, including the the Bitcoin mining problems, but how do we get there? Um, you mentioned, you know, with the demand that's coming and then you you started to talk about Europe. I'd love to just dig a little bit deeper into that. Why do you see the next net net new unit of liquidity in the Bitcoin world coming from Europe? You mentioned it's kind of a mess. I think there's several reasons.

you know, we could we could say that, but I'm curious, you know, financially, um, why is it Europe that is in the biggest position to benefit from allocating more capital to Bitcoin? >> I don't know that Europe is in the biggest position. I'm just shocked that, well, not shocked, I I I think it's unsustainable that Europe isn't actively participating to the degree that wealthier Americans are. And even Asia, old old Asian money to to a large extent, is is on the sidelines. and and the the the rising and falling tide raises and sinks all boats depending upon the tide as it relates to monetary policy, right? And if we're the US leads the way, why does the dollar look

relatively strong in a market where we're running a $40 trillion deficit? Because every other currency is going to even faster than our currency, right? And and and I don't you know if I'm a wealth manager I'm not looking at this like misery loves company. I'm looking at this like I need to protect my clients. They need to protect themselves. And to that end right Bitcoin gold you know start to look very interesting. Bitcoin is not a viable gold replacement yet. Why? It's too new. It's too volatile when it's being adopted. when thousands of people own it, it's it's volatile, right? But

when hundreds of million millions of people own it, the volatility goes way down. And that's what we're seeing each cycle. The earliest cycles, BitMX could manipulate the price of Bitcoin, you know, with one to 5% of the float because they were running 100x leverage. Can't easily do that anymore, right? That's why the volatility this cycle although it feels painful. Everybody's pessimistic. It's actually muted versus previous cycles because the amount of the float gets worth more. There's more people holding. There's more under lock and key. And so that'll keep happening at the same time that every country is forced to print money. The only

countries that can't print money are based on dollars. So uh and and and so that's not going to stop. And and so, you know, back to your original question about Europe, you know, what's the exit strategy? You know, where's the release hatch, right, for for, you know, middle-aged money, it's it's not looking good. And I think that makes Look, I don't want this to happen. I'm super bullish on the future, by the way. I'm not a pessimist. I I am a believer in exponential tech. I think it's going to be a glorious future. I just don't know if it's going to be a dollar-based future or or a fiat-based future. I hope not, but but it is what it is at this point. So, I I am a huge believer that the future is going to be a marvel and I can't I'm so excited to be part of it.

But we have a monetary problem in the West that we created and it the problem isn't going to just solve itself via some miracle, >> right? And I I feel like, you know, what we're hearing more and more about is this national debt crisis, especially with the bond market. We're going to start, you know, paying interest rates on all of this debt. And it feels like with the midterms heating up in the US, this is just becoming a just an absolute um focus for both sides of the political aisle. You know, on the right they're claiming the left, you know, is is paying too much via entitlements and on the right that we're paying too much to the military. Both sides are paying too much. Both sides are contributing to the national debt. It's becoming the the forefront of the the narrative. And it seems like now Bitcoin and then

obviously inflation and all this, you know, money printing translates into higher prices and that is ultimately what reaches the public. Bitcoin feels like it's positioned against that. You also with data centers have a little bit of an anti-AII narrative. Bitcoin, as we mentioned earlier, is sort of pivoted against that as well. It feels like it's Bitcoin versus AI, not necessarily crypto versus AI. And so in a lot of ways, Bitcoin feels like it has decoupled and is starting to become inversely cor maybe decorrelated, but inversely correlated from the the traditional equities markets that are primarily fueled by AI these days.

That's one part, right? The the altcoin complex feels like with all the attention on revenue feels like very correlated to the equities market. And so I'm just curious if you're if you're seeing this similarly. It feels as if altcoins are are increasingly correlated to the equities markets, but Bitcoin has sort of gone off on its own and decoupled in a lot of ways. H do you agree with this? And what how how should we react to this in in a forward looking? >> Yeah, a lot there. So So let me let me see if I can kind of simplify for myself. So So I look, I think that right now, as I said, Bitcoin isn't a viable replacement for gold yet. It's too new, but it's it's it's getting there rapidly. I think in less than 10 years,

Bitcoin becomes a viable replacement for for gold. And that's a miracle because we're talking about 25 years soup to nuts all in Bitcoin can replace gold for society and it's proven that it can do it. That's incredible. Okay, so I think that does happen. Now, right now, the price of Bitcoin tracks global liquidity. Okay. >> And and so does NASDAQ. Okay. But the difference is is that NASDAQ tends to track M2, US M2 closer. And my impression is Bitcoin tends to track global liquidity closer. And and you know, China has not been helping with their, you know, the real estate crisis they had and other things. You know, they the global liquidity has been flat

while US is printing money because of what's been happening in in in China. It's my impression. I'm not a macroeconomist, but but I know enough to know that, you know, the the the global situation is is even worse than any US situation right now. And of course, US rates rising means that the US is going to keep printing. And I think I think I think global global equivalent of M2 has turned and it's increasing. And I think that's coming back and and stocks as well. the volatility daytoday again that's that's a narrative driven thing about you know AI and DRAM and you know metrology whatever equipment they're they're selling to do this stuff but but again it's a generational shift and I see that all going up and to the right magnified by by money printing so

meaning the exponential tech is like a levered bet on you know the money printing just like Bitcoin acts like a a levered bet on the money printing uh and and so like I said that's that's the escape patch and you know if uh I heard I heard another macro guy that I I'm friends with he he said if you're if you're if you're b you're treading water at 7 and a half%. Right now uh and and from a lifestyle savings and if you have no leverage and you're earning 7 and a half%. Uh that's crazy right but it's true.

>> Uh and and that's that's what we the situation we've created for ourselves now. Yeah, it is. It is a fascinating development out there and it doesn't seem like it's slowing down. Um, and so you've decided, you know, to to allocate time and resources to ABRA and and and build this out so that more people can get involved here. Um, I have here that uh Abra is looking at a $750 million uh spa deal to list on the NASDAQ. Um, and I and I take it maybe the Clarity Act is sort of wrapped up in this, but I I'd love just a little bit of an update on like, you know, how Aubra is doing, what you're seeing, what is the the customer segment look like, um, and how you're approaching this potential listing on the NASDAQ.

>> Sure. So, so we did announce a business combination agreement uh, back in uh, the I think it was the late spring uh, with New Providence and u that's in motion and and so a bit of a a quiet quietish period there. uh more, you know, documentation to be filed soon and all kinds of disclosures and whatnot. And, you know, do hope to to get it done very soon. And everybody, lawyers and accountants and everybody are working feverishly to make sure we get this listing done as soon as possible and that's what we're working towards and we are committed to that. On the business side, uh we're we're really pushing the envelope with a lot of new stuff right now. Uh we've launched a new uh basically yield bearing stable coin.

It's a synthetic dollar uh on Salana uh USDAF. So the platform is called Abrify. Uh and USDAF basically is allowing you to basically convert Tether or Circle into USDAF and earn I think we're paying it's like 8 8 to 10% on any given day. Uh it's been higher. Uh and then there's rewards tokens. So right now I think the juice yield is something like 25% that people can earn which is remarkable. So, I keep a lot of my dollars in there. Um, and then we're we're doing similar things with Bitcoin yield. Uh, and then incremental yield on top of staking for Salon and Ethereum. And our goal is to basically take Oh, and then we also have a very large lending business against

Bitcoin. Uh, so, you know, high net worth clients, institutions that want to borrow against Bitcoin can access DeFi networks through Abra and RAIA without having to know know the complexity of DeFi. So, we we handle all of that through our technology. they're borrowing against DeFi, but without having to know all the ones and zeros of of how it works and dealing with private keys and all that stuff. So, that's really cool and that's been a big win for us. But, but what this is doing is it's setting the stage for what's next, which is tokenized everything. So, as a as an RAA, you know, we are we are a fiduciary, we are an investment adviser, even though right now it's basically crypto, the next generation, it's going to be tokenized everything. So all the yield that we're able to generate on

Bitcoin, on dollars, our goal is to be able to do that with anything, right? Even if you're also earning dividends. So and then enable loans on any tokenized asset, right? Especially, you know, liquid assets especially. So So that that's where this is going. And portfolio construction in the wealth management space is about to be upended because of the combination of tokenization and AI, right? You can build real-time automatically rebalancing portfolios, fungeable tokens. You can move your Apple into Bitcoin, your your Bitcoin into private companies or, you know, whatever, right?

Any combination of them and borrow against the value of the portfolio, which I think for a lot of people is the future of of banking. Meaning, I think wealth management and banking are going to kind of merge in this in this new world order of always on markets. And you'll see wealth managers offering perpetual futures, right? Uh because they have no choice. Otherwise, the inheritance is all going to go to Robin Hood. And and so, you know, this is I think good news for ABRA because we're laying the rails for uh all of these services in the wealth management space. And and so do you think that we're at this point where with inflation with the high bond yields, we're at a point now where it's going to be like it

even if this isn't actually the case. The perceived the perception is that I have to use leverage. Like it it's like I have five years to make it financially or else, you know, I'm going to be in the permanent underclass. like this is going to fuel another era of just an increasing amount of leverage in the system. >> So there is this perception growing perception for the 35 and under crowd that that's their only hope and and that is just not true. Okay. >> Um there's a lot of things you can do from a cash flow perspective and you know I I dd dollararized my life. I act my personal beta is Bitcoin right? I think about what can I do to ultimately

have more Bitcoin? Or if I'm making an investment, >> is this investment going to return more than Bitcoin over five years that includes time to liquidity, >> right? Because I may make an investment in a startup that could go 100x, but if it's not liquid, then doesn't matter that it went up 100x, right? So, so all of that factors into how I think about, you know, my own wealth, but I'm not normal in that regard. And so I have to basically re-calibrate when I'm talking to my clients because most of them think in dollars, which makes sense, right? I mean, we've been uneducated and brainwashed to to think in dollars, right? Because we need that uh to to perpetuate the the scheme. So So anyway, I think that's going to change and I think, you know, back to your question,

yeah, there is this perception that you need uh excessive leverage, which I'm convinced you don't. Um, but you need to be smart and the kind of of diverse portfolio if you're 25 may not work. You may need more concentrated bets and that's okay because if you're if you're look if if I would tell people right I'm not giving investment advice here because each person is different but in very general terms if if you understand exponential technology and you could ride that 10-year wave you're going to make money.

I don't I don't see I don't see a scenario where you don't Okay. And and and so but but the time preference the time horizon is the key. >> Yeah. Yeah. The the you're you're absolutely right. And um it it reminds me of a uh chart that I saw. It was the equities market and and this was before the most recent correction in the equities market. I saw this sometime last week, but it was the equities market. I think probably S&P or maybe NASDAQ priced in gold. M >> and this thing is just >> it's not down only, but it's just been ranging since like >> like the 80s or 90s >> and and you know this perception is that this market is just totally gone, you know, berserk and it's overpriced and

it's expensive and I don't want to buy in expensive stock market. >> Yeah. >> What's up? >> It's being measured incorrectly. >> That's it. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. >> I think it was Michael Sailor years a couple of years ago I heard him and I and I I wasn't sure if he was right and I went and checked. He basically made the point that if you track the S&P from the 50s to today, it basically was, you know, more or less flat post World War II, right? Because the the money supply was not increasing and but it has basically tracked the the rate of increase of the money supply for 75 years. [snorts] What does that tell you?

Right? And that's with the massive productivity gains of information technology >> and now you know internet and and AI robotics coming right so that tells us that that is also offsetting a bunch of stuff which is rapidly in decline right [laughter] so so you know it makes it confusing for people who think they should just have a diversified portfolio that made sense when the empire was still at its peak in the 80s and the '9s when you know, you may have been on the other edge of the the peak, but you didn't know it, right?

Because it's everybody was still riding high and the dot was working. >> Now, I think you need concentrated bets. It doesn't mean leverage, you know, it and you know, look, if you if you take 5% leverage in your portfolio and go, you know, put money in into, you know, startups or whatever, that that's fine. But but it's not for the average person because the average person will lose those bets on startups because you have to make such a wide variety of bets to to get a home run in a startup. But the point is, you know, I do think I do think exponential tech is people's best chance. And that includes crypto. You know, the L1's I think are going to be huge winners. It's my my my belief, right? I think I think that there's

going to be like five L1s that are just going to ride the next wave of money in along with some of the DAPs that, you know, are getting big revenue. Um, and that's part of the exponential tech thesis for me. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, we we're kind of short on time, but we just got a couple minutes left here. And you know, we talked earlier about how there's like all this demand on the sidelines and you know, we we sort of figured out geographically where this next unit, you know, the next new buyer comes from.

Talked about Europe and Asia, but where are they currently positioned? Like who do you think are obviously we're, you know, we're bullish on on Bitcoin here. We're bullish on some of the L1s. We're bullish on, you know, exponential technology as you put it. And who are the biggest losers? Like where do you think all the liquidity that is currently on the sidelines, but it's ultimately going to flow into those categories? Where do you think it comes from? >> Where is it currently positioned? >> When you say do you mean the money or or or the the the demand?

>> Maybe you could what what what's the what's the difference? >> Well, okay. So, so I think that we are on the cusp like I said earlier of global money printing, right? And and right now it's very US concentrated and I think a lot of the US money was diverted to AI, >> right? Right. >> And and I think that rotation is is going to hap is going to come back to crypto this year and I think but it's going to be more broad-based globally because global money supply is increasing and and look that's happened. This would be the fourth time basically that that's happened and it would be the first time it doesn't happen, >> right? So, so, so that's a good bet, right?

>> Uh, and and so at the same time, the narrative around the use cases is crystallizing, right? Obviously, last year it was about stable coins. This year, uh, the narrative has been, you know, kind of appended with tokenization as the next evolution of of more broad-based stable coin usage, uh, or more broad-based tokenization usage beyond just stable coins. And then I think you're going to basically get into real bank replacements around lending and, you know, DeFi part three is going to have its day when it's going to be, you know, not even just the neo banks, but the banks themselves are going to become DeFi based, DeFi enabled, etc., etc. And so all of this is going to create more and more narratives for

these um you know layer one blockchains and it's going to become hard I think it's going to become harder and harder for companies to just keep releasing new blockchains. I think um you know I yeah I I I continue to happen but I don't think it's going to bas I don't think it's going to matter as much as it probably did you know a couple of years ago. um application specific blockchains just I don't know it's it's it's too hard at scale. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And and so do do you think you know we we I think agree that the AI buildout is continuing to happen. This is just still very early in this generational run. Um but do you think you know this is going to come from uh

is it going to come from the bond market? We're going to see a a bond selloff. Yields are going to go through the roof 7% on the you know 15 year 30-year. Do you think it's going to come from, you know, the the nonAI equities like SAS? We're going to see this migration, capital rotation into into Bitcoin. What, you know, like those structural categories, where do you think, >> you know, we're going to start to suck the liquidity out of? >> I think I I do think bond markets have a major problem, right? I mean, look, you know, they're my friends, but many RAAS are lazy, right? So, so meaning meaning the 6040 allocation should have been labeled as dead five years ago and which it was.

It should have well it should have been. It wasn't. I've been saying it for 5 years. Um and yeah it's it's uh if that rotation starts and mass and wealth advisors start saying you need to be 80% equity maybe 20% other fixed income instruments besides treasuries interest rates are going to go through the roof >> and I don't know what the government's going to do to respond to that other than just keep printing yield curve control whatever they're going to call it which is going to lead to massive price inflation massive massive price inflation. And so, so anyway, that that would give us a double whammy because you would have the money coming out of

via that rotation plus the excessive money printing that it's going to take to buy those bonds in the first place and and that's going to flood the banks with more cash. And so, so I can paint a couple of scenarios here that really get us to a million dollar Bitcoin the next five to seven years. And it's not a stretch. Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing in my head. You know, million million dollar Bitcoin sounds like a stretch until eggs cost 20 bucks a dozen. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> You double, you double, you double, you're there.

>> And the money printing is going to have to be even bigger than it was during COVID at some point because the servicing of the debt unless we default and restructure, which is what latestage empires do sometimes according to Dalia if you read his book, which I think he got it right. But if save restructuring, we're gonna have to print even more just to pay the interest on the debt. Not to mention the fact that at some point, you know, we're gonna have to deal with Taiwan and and you know, all of that, which is going to mean more military spend. And and so, um, it all basically points to, like I said, you know, that rotation plus the money equals, you know, risk on assets. And and Bitcoin in that regard, because it's not gold yet,

is still a levered bet on risk on assets. Yeah. Um, Bill, thank you so much for joining, man. This was uh I I I I really like this conversation. I feel like it it got us a little bit zoomed out of our our typical uh typical tunnel. Um, and I hope the empire, you know, I like it here, you know. I hope it continues to to work out, but uh where if it doesn't work out, where where are you moving to? I'm going to >> I'm not going anywhere. I'm I'm uh I'm I'm going down with the ship. No. Um I I I want to fix the ship. And I think as we restructure, I think this is the last kind of empire cycle that that the human race will will live through this way because I think you know we're less than

50 years from merging with the machines at which point the cycles don't make sense anymore. Traditional monetary theory doesn't make economics certainly goes away, right? Um and maybe something like Austrian takes over via Bitcoin and other technologies. I don't know. Um, so we'll all be fine. It just won't be fine as defined by a traditional empire anymore. And and our great grandkids will be going, "You all did what? And how [clears throat] you really? Well, you stupid." And and so that's I'm looking forward to that day.

>> Yeah. Exciting times. Uh, Bill, thanks so much for joining me. I would love to have you on again soon and best of luck with uh this NASDAQ potential spa. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Look forward to seeing you soon. >> Absolutely. We'll see you again soon. Um, all right. We are going to get our next guest up on the show. We are cooking, guys. We are absolutely cooking today. Uh, Oneararmmed Bandit in the chat. Edward in the chat. Uh, yeah, Freedom guy in the chat. Guys, we'll we'll address the uh the fake Satoshi guy that came on the show. Uh, don't buy anything that guy is selling. I was cooked after seven hours of a live stream and my producers said that I had to get this guy on the show. Um, so we are not going to platform any fake

Satoshi's for quite a while. Um, we're going to get our next guest up very very soon. Uh, we've got Beef.HL, uh, the Hyperlquid Man himself. Uh, you guys heard him last week and, uh, and we're going to get him up again. He's got a update for us from the Hyperlquid ecosystem. And, uh, I'm excited. Uh we're going to go about 10-15 minutes with beef and then uh we're gonna we're gonna keep it rolling. Uh he's got a presentation for us. Um I hope you guys liked Bill. Bill was a very very uh big thinker, fun guy, obviously been around the block a little while. Um according to my notes, he is a serial entrepreneur. Um and he did a

2011 TED talk on Bitcoin when it was at $3. So this guy's been around for a long, long time. I tend to trust the guys that survive from cycle to cycle. Um, and Bill has certainly done exactly that. So, very very cool to have Bill on and I think he's going to continue to do well. I think he's right about a lot of things including uh everything he's saying about the bond market. Um, he also talked about where the next new buyer of liquidity comes from, uh, you know, Europe, the Asian markets, as well as, uh, the categorical, you know, shifts that we're seeing in the equities market and in the bond market. I mean, it's just pretty pretty insane uh what we're seeing out there. Late stage empire type stuff. Um

I think we've got Beef in the back. We're going to bring him up and he's got his grill report. So, we're going to get an update on the Hyperlquid ecosystem. There he is. Beef, you're on the show. Welcome back. >> What's up? What's up, man? You're having me on >> having me on right after you say this is like doomer type stuff, huh? >> [laughter] >> Well, that's the thing, man. I think it it might be doomer type stuff for certain parts of the market. Obviously, you saw I'm sure you saw what Leopold, you know, Asenburgger did and, you know, his his uh situational awareness $45 billion fund, you know, blew up uh this week. Um got bought by Ken Griffin. Uh so there are, you know, certainly like there's it's volatile times. Um but part of the thesis is that you know I if you

get the the bond market blowing up and you get cracks the equities like there is a rotation here that ends up in digital assets and so it sort of doomer times depending on where you are and what you're allocated in. And I think um you know we've kind of already seen a lot in my opinion we've already seen a lot of the pain uh in the digital assets market. Um, and so I think we're kind of in apathy. You know, maybe it's low volatility, low volume for a little while, but we're uh we're gonna we're gonna make it through beef. We're gonna be just fine.

>> Amen to that, man. I couldn't agree more. You know, especially if you've been in the hyperlid ecosystem, you probably haven't felt that same level of pain. You know, it's only been recent that we've we've felt it a little bit, but a lot of the metrics are at all-time highs. So, the vibe is completely different if you're in HL. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, let's get into it. We've got your grill report. Uh, let's go ahead get it up on the screen here. The audience can see it now. Um, and I'm excited because we did this again. Uh, we did this last week. We're going to do it again today. Uh, give us the, uh, the grill.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hot and fresh off the grill. All right. So, obviously, you know, all my chart enjoyers are aware of where hype is. We're kind of in this chop city zone. Uh, looks like a big recent liquidation cluster dropped a little bit, maybe around like 48ish. Um, used to be like 52. Um, so who knows? Does that mean we go a little bit lower before we go back up? I think they'll just adjust it again, drop it further. So eventually the pain will end. Um, but this is what was really big. So we talked about it last week. HIP 3 is really firing on all cylinders and we're talking here. We've now had new all-time highs for volume and just the whole week uh has been killing it for RWA. I think

it's like 67% today uh of the volume has been um hip three markets. So primarily that's trade XYZ as we all know with some other uh smaller ones markets paragon um super cool to see this but uh again it's flipped crypto which is pretty awesome to see. It's almost double. Yeah, the it's more than double um the total volume trading there. So people, you know, those crypto natives are are being taken by surprise here. But I mean, if you see like the total trady volume that usually trades and you think, okay, this will eventually make its way on chain, we are seeing that and Hyperliquid is is definitely uh putting up some big numbers on the scoreboard.

So this is very exciting to see. Uh so over the past seven days, we've burned 145,000 hype or 7.91 million. Uh you know, we've got the Coinbase native yield also going to be kicking in soon, too. And and further firing up these buyback mechanisms that's really going to get stuff flowing even more. And I think that starts um is it next month? I think I I >> Yeah, I believe so. I think I think so. Very soon. Um and that's that is when uh interest is going to get kicked in, right? And then you're saying that the anticipation is all the most if not all of the interest that's generated on deposits in Hyperlquid is going to be used to buy the token because it's

counted as revenue, right? >> Correct. Yeah. I think it's 90% of that yield is going to go back to buying the token. And if I'm not mistaken, I think it equates to uh over 100 >> like $400 million a year. Yes. Which is >> There we go. There we go. Oh, that's a big one. [laughter] >> Yeah, this is a good one. So, open interest, uh, Hyperliquid's flipped bybit. So, we are climbing. This is, in my opinion, the true battle for Hyperlid. You know, it's cool when we're battling the the Dexes, you know, the per Dexes, but this is the real battle, right? The sexes. If we can keep climbing these ranks and make our way from to Binance and keep chipping away at it, that's going to be so impressive

to me. So, I'm very proud of where we've come as the community. is, you know, this is great to see. This is great signs. Again, we're climbing the ranks. So, Hyperlid's definitely taking over. >> Yeah. OKX seems like it's just right around the corner there. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's neck and neck, but I mean, hey, we're doing it, man. [laughter] >> And OKX is the uh the Korean exchange, right? So, I mean, they're having some rough times over there in Korea in the equities markets. >> Oh, for sure. And that's definitely contributed to why HIP 3 has been doing so well. You're getting some extreme volatility. And if you're if you're able and you got the skills to catch some of these wicks, you are making it rain.

Unfortunately, that's not me, but other people. Yeah, for sure. I'm sure they are. Um, this is pretty cool. So, Hyper Core TVL is now near the all-time high. So, we're like about 2% away. Uh, this is a good sign. So, even though the price is down, activity, deposits, people using portfolio margin, staking is is getting up there. So, in my opinion, this is just further positioning. I I think we're we're going down the right road here. >> Beautiful. Very cool. Um, and yeah, let let's keep let's keep going. Don't let me slow you down.

>> Yeah, I had a couple I had a couple other like key news points. Um, I'm sure you guys covered them to certain degrees here, but this was pretty cool. Um, there's tons of theories about test net. Um, there's whitelist addresses that are like being tested right now. People are speculating this might be the route that like say a Coinbase goes, you know, that's pretty strong speculation, but like uh an entity where people have to be KYC, this would be a great route for them to do. So interesting theories. >> General compliance with US regulation could be achieved um if we were to see some sort of rule making per rulem by the CFTC uh in the US uh in which each user would have to be KYC. they could

KYC and do a whitel list or an allow list of the markets that they're able to trade and the accounts that are able to trade them. >> Exactly. So, there's tons of potential there. That's exciting to see, but who knows for sure what it's for, but we'll see. It's nice to see that I think the SEC said even if Clarity fails, they're still going to implement some new rules, I think. Yeah. So, that's exciting, too. >> Very cool. Very, very cool. This just got live today. Um, TestNet Hip 4, they talked about it now. Jeff announced today that it's actually active now. People are already trying to set up their markets and and test things on TestNet to get it super ready

whenever it's fully live. So, that's exciting to see. And then, I'm sure you guys covered this, but this was good to see Trade XYZ again showing how classy they are when they had that one share that messed up the oracle. you know, they learned from it and they're going to uh make sure to take care of people who had losses after that price anomaly. >> Yeah. Uh do we know how much trade XYZ is going to cover here? How much uh liquidation losses were we looking at? >> No, you know, that would have been a great metric to have, [laughter] but no, no, I'm not going to I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not sure. I think I don't think it was that much. Um I think it was only a couple hundred thousand dollar and that much you know for me that's a lot but no not that much

>> I mean the Korean markets have had so much volatility it's been insane to see uh it seems like four or five days in a row they've limited down they've limit down in their uh in their markets and so that contributed to the Oracle feed as well but uh but yeah it's very cool to see that trade XYZ is covering this uh and here I see you've got some uh some news in Japan which is also doing some pretty wild things on the macro front uh and intervening in the Japanese yen to US dollar currency market. But here you've got a company that is adding hype to their corporate treasury.

>> So this is exciting just getting that worldwide buyin in the traditional markets. Uh I don't I don't know how you say it for sure. I think it's Eel, but um I'm hoping that I'll be able to speak with the uh like the CEO soon uh for an interview and kind of get where they're coming from. But this is exciting to see. Another good sign that, you know, people are recognizing the value that Hyperlquid's providing. >> Um this is pretty cool. Don't know if you caught this, but there is a new page on hl.eco with HRC. um awesome research coming out there and they have this fantastic financial breakdown where you know you can it's much more familiar to like the Tradfi type user who might be

investigating Hyperlid or if you just want to sound smart and and share some numbers definitely check this out really cool stuff and this is great for our ecosystem when people make stuff like this >> absolutely I mean we love all the dashboards and we appreciate uh all the work that you've done here as well keeping us up to speed on the research Arch front. >> Hell yeah, man. I appreciate you guys having me on and helping, you know, spread the word of Hyperlid cuz people are curious. They just don't know where to get the information. And uh that's where we come in, right? You know, um but yeah, we've got a new uh episode, Hyperme episode coming out Monday or Tuesday this upcoming week uh with the Hype Economist. Uh be on the lookout for that. And then this Saturday, tomorrow,

we're going to be having a Hyperlid social community spaces. So, if you are curious about Hyperlid, come vibe. I'm gonna have some bourbon and it's gonna be a good time. >> All right, Beef is drinking bourbon with his steak this weekend. Very cool. Um, thanks again for joining us, uh, Beef. It's uh, pretty incredible times out there. Market is uh, Chop City, but I do believe we're going to get a reaction in the markets pretty soon. Tons of volatility in the equities markets, apathy in the crypto markets, and uh I believe there's going to be a rotation at play here. We're going to see some more volatility, more volume, more open interest, more revenue. Um and uh we're ultimately going to see these things do quite well very, very soon. Uh

appreciate you putting this together for us and uh joining the show as always. And uh what do you say, Beef? Same time next week. >> Hell yeah, man. Sounds great. Thanks for having me on. >> Let's do it. We'll see you again soon. Thanks, Beef. Have a good weekend. All right, guys. You guys heard it. That's the update on the Hyperlquid ecosystem. Very, very good stuff happening. Um, obviously, you know, it's a low volatility environment right now. It feels like it's chop city all over the place. Uh, it's apathy in the digital asset markets. Uh, we're going to keep bringing you guys everything you need to know on a daily basis, but it is important to recognize that, you know, exchanges build their businesses on volume. Volatility means

volume. When volatility is low, it means volume is low. Um and uh that is directly affecting the bottom line for exchanges. So we saw uh BitMEX wind down. I believe we saw Bit Mart wind down. I think I got that right. Um and you know it's directly a result of what is happening uh in the markets. Uh it's a low volatility market means low volume. It means um low revenue, right? Because less people are trading because there's not as much volatility in those markets. And so we're seeing that happen uh despite you know you know what's really exciting though

is the indication that the market is rebuilding itself. And I think look, you know, 1010 October wasn't even that long ago in the grand scheme of things, less than a year, uh, significant liquidity crisis, crunch, whatever you want to call it, um, happened and now, you know, we're almost at, if not slightly above the levels of open interest on these PES exchanges that we were around 1010. Um and I think you know despite the low volume market conditions and the low excuse me the low volatility market conditions contributing to the low volume it is very very encouraging that we're seeing open interest at the levels that we were at when prices were much higher. I think this is a very strong

indication of the fundamentals are very strong underneath the surface and I think this sets the tone for when volatility does return to these markets that ultimately volume will increase and therefore revenue uh will increase as well in these exchanges. Um so that's a little bit on um the hyperlquid ecosystem but also you know this is just this is happening all across the board. This is a a general um indication of just the way that exchanges are reacting and the way that they tend to react to the lack of volatility as we enter some of these uh these apathetic market conditions. So guys, we're going to get our next guest uh Steve uh Chung. Uh he is CEO of the block uh and we're going

to get his view on the market. Steve Chung took over as CEO of the block in April of this year. uh he is now focusing on scaling the institutional research and data using AI and bridging crypto with tradi. I mean that is that is the direction that is the trajectory for our industry as we converge uh with traditional finance and it all just becomes finance. Let's go ahead bring up Steve on the show and uh Steve welcome. It's a pleasure to have you. >> Hey Robbie, nice to meet you man. >> Absolutely. It's good to meet you too man. Thanks uh thanks for joining and uh I think it's your first time so uh love to just you know hear a little bit more about you and yourself and and we'll we'll get into what you're seeing at the block.

>> Yeah, thank you. Uh thanks for the invitation and not only is it the first time on your show, it's actually almost like a threemonth to the exact day anniversary for my joining the block. So it's it's a pleasure to be here. >> Congratulations. Thank you. >> Yeah, it's good good timing. So tell us a little bit more about you know how you ultimately landed here at the block. Uh what were you doing beforehand and and a bit about your journey? uh to where you are today. >> Yeah. Um look um you know I I actually got my career started in Tradfi. So uh worked at Goldman Sachs in New York as my first job out of college. Um and uh through my windy path uh uh I was the chief digital officer at Fox. Uh where I was managing the the digital business for the local owned and operated station

group. Uh so that's that was my exposure to the news part of the business. Um and then uh you know more recently uh I was the COO of ASUKI uh which is the the famed NFT project. Um I was brought in with with the founders uh to really sort of grow the postNFT um uh part of the business. Um and so that was my intro to crypto. Um and here I am as the sea of the block. Uh and for me, you know, the block uh had this rare thing that is really hard to actually build, which is a great brand integrity, um you know, and be trusted by uh the institutional um you know, decision

makers, but still be able to be cryptonative. So, it's it was a really unique and exciting opportunity uh to take the helm of a of a brand uh that is eight years into the making. Um, and so it's a pleasure to join you uh as part of the crypto media ecosystem here. >> Absolutely. We we love you guys. We love the block. Been uh uh looking at everything that comes out for a long long time. And you know, our industry has gone through so many twists and turns, ups and downs. I mean, it it feels like there's never a dull day. So, uh it makes for a really really fun position to be in. Um and and I mean despite the market conditions that we're seeing here now, uh still never a dull day. Um obviously, you know, given that

the the crypto industry sits at this very unique convergence point between AI, between traditional finance and tokenization, all of these things happening at the same time. I'm sure. Uh the first thing I want to ask you about actually is this uh situational awareness guy. Like just >> I mean what an absolute >> levered up just character that guy is. Uh he took I think it was 25 million to like or no excuse me 250 million to 45 billion. Yeah. Had it 4x levered up to 120 billion and then obviously a 25% decline >> levered up 4x is 100% decline. Just got bought out by uh Ken Griffin. What do you what do you what do you make of the

situation generally and then do you think there will be any spillover effects into the crypto industry? >> Yeah, I mean it is phenomenal. I mean the numbers, you know, I'm a little older than my uh crypto colleagues uh mostly in the industry. Um and so I've I've seen some cycles, you know, my first job at Goldman was in 2001 and the first shock to the system there was 911. Um, you know, for many of you who have read about it or have been through that, that was quite the shock. Um but you know fast forward to 2026 you know I think you the situational awareness um situation so to speak I think is a little bit emblematic of kind of the the the times we are in today

when you know market caps reach trillion dollars in the equity capital markets for you know some of the biggest market caps which you know I never imagined companies would have a T uh in the on the back of the market cap and here we are and some of the biggest companies have swings of 10 15%. So in that sort of like volatility at that scale um a blowup like this to me is um you know honestly not surprising. You know trillion dollar market cap companies aren't supposed to move that that much.

Um and but when you have this c kind of capital investment uh and especially the AI trade you know swinging the markets up and down um you know like names like SKH Heinix um that uh obviously went went public through the ADR process. I think uh a lot of that like unwind and and the connectivity between uh you know capital uh especially levered by the AI thesis um I don't think this is like the last one we'll see you know um uh we I've seen you know some of these things happen whether or not this will be yeah I I don't think the good news is that this is like a system systemic risk to the the market but you know the the fact that the crypto markets uh which have uh

you know I think one of the most sophisticated markets in terms of le, you know, using leverage as tokenized stocks and crypto kind of fuse. Uh I think that there will be unfortunately more situations like this uh where you're blending kind of this 24 by7 always on availability with the power of tokenization and crypto uh with the leverage of DeFi. I think some of these outcomes are going to are going to happen both on the the the massive wins and the massive liquidations like like what we saw today.

>> Yeah, absolutely. It feels like we're entering an era of just increasingly levered up people and companies, hedge funds included. Um and this is the paradigm that we live in. I mean, Apple is down like seven or eight, maybe 10% today. Amazon is up like 15%. Microsoft went on a double-digit rip earlier in the week. Um, this feels I I I mean it feels like this is going to become it's more likely this becomes a new normal than this is just a thing that passes and we move on. So, >> yeah. And and it's a little very scary and I think, you know, people like you and and us at the block, I think we're we're going to play a more important role than ever to just bring some insight uh and perspective to this sort

of um you know, highly volatile market. Um, and so, you know, from a media company perspective, you know, there's a lot for us to to dig into, you know, and I think growingly, uh, as as you sort of put in your intro, the fact that the block has a a great fundamental sort of institutional client base, uh, both on readers, but our block pro side, which is sort of our data, dashboard, research part, um, there's a lot of interest on that side of the business. Um, and it's it's an area that we really would love to to grow and double down on.

>> Given that there's sort of this like feeling of like, you know, on the retail side, it's probably best characterized as, you know, I've got five years to make as much money as possible and then I'm and if I do, then I'm I'm part of the Citadel. If not, I'm part of the permanent underclass, right? And it it calls for like this just extremely levered up, you know, uh, philosophy as they enter the markets. and and institutions are kind of following suit in in a lot of ways and you know we saw that with Leopold's hedge fund um and we're seeing that play out in the bond market. Do you take a different tone? Is there one that like is it just faster paced all the time? Is it just continuously trying to like dig deeper scoops from from like a journalistic

media perspective? How do you react to these kinds of animal spirits in the market? [laughter] Yeah, you know, I think uh us being in media and it's really fun actually, you know, as a you know, operator in media to be on another media platform because we can sort of talk shop about that. Um but I do think that general news especially is transforming you know and um I think you know and I used I in previously I was also at a company called CJ Entertainment which um is the the largest uh media and entertainment company in South Korea K-pop Kdrama Kilm produced Parasite and also um owns a studio that does severance uh but there >> also severance and and you should check

out some K dramas too man. Uh those are pretty addicting as well. Um >> Parasite was great. One of my favorite movies I've watched this year. >> Yeah. No, it is phenomenal uh and phenomenal company. But anyway, um the the Bob Iger, the former CEO of Disney had a great quote when he described sort of entertainment and that industry is obviously going through transformation similarly is that you know basically general entertainment is dead >> and the only entertainment that's going to survive are very specific targeted you know audience. you really know what the audience wants and you deliver that. Um, but and it's not commoditized or general or bland. And I think in this day of uh, you know, AI, that's even more accentuated, right? AI could pretty much give you the same commoditized news

and information at the the tip of your fingertips. So, as media folks, as folks in med in in news especially, I think the the market is is segmenting to a few different categories. You know, on the one hand, uh you have kind of breaking news and audiences there don't really value like your uh insight or curation. Uh they do, but the the most important part of that is speed and just raw data, right? >> And it's like let me do the my own analysis. just give me the the facts as soon as you can and and either plug it in the back end or give me a push notification or just get me that

information a second, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, you know, faster than somebody else. So that's one bucket. Then the second bucket are you know uh on the other side of that spectrum you know insightful analytical you know counterintuitive or or counter thesis um articles or or insights and news or research that change the way I think about something or shine a light on something that you know wasn't um uh uh you know kind of uh up to the front. So you have kind of this barbell whereas a lot of the news uh in the previous years were more generalized more toward sort of everybody. Uh but now you're sort of seeing the the split of that barbell. Uh

and then the rise of uh the the more personalitydriven uh you know narrative video um long form in many cases you know similar to what you guys are doing as well. Um you guys done an amazing job uh you know building your brand and your audiences. Um so that's another category uh that's I think emerging. So uh long story short I think the when we can call news or information that is transforming and in that age you know again with AI being so disruptive to that mix it's um what you asked about sort of me joining the block I think it's going to be very difficult for a newcomer to have a brand like the

block uh where for eight years you've you've built up your audience and the trust and the integrity um and you're able to have that great brand but also have you know that cryptonnative um credibility but also an institutional readership. Uh so I think there's going to be the the middle masses of generalized non-differiated commoditized news are going to all go away and the folks who are remaining are going to kind of uh be in one of those three buckets. um and you know somebody like the block I'm really excited uh by kind of what this means for us because I think we're going to get stronger uh in this sort of new ecosystem.

>> I I think that's absolutely right. Um and uh it's it's intelligence that's that's at the heart of all of these conversations these days and there's so many different ways to to slice it and dice it and portray it and format it. Um, and so ultimately, you know, we see how intelligence is becoming commoditized, but it means that we're always constantly demanding more of it because we know that it can now work for us because it is so much more powerful. It can shift and shape into whatever we need it to be at any given moment on demand. So there's there's a lot that we're we're pulling out of these intelligence mechanisms and it's being served to us in so many different shapes and sizes. You know, there's there's

human intelligence, there's AI generated intelligence. Um, and it really feels like now there's a market that can just pick and choose exactly what form they want to consume this media news intelligence in. Um, and they can all complement one another. So, it it's been very very cool to see. But I think you're absolutely right about trust. Trust is something that is not given, it's earned. And it it does require some consistency and um durability in the market in order to maintain and bolster that trust which I think is something the block um and and I think you know the rollup has done a great job at and I want to I want to actually read um something here from another company in the crypto media space um Cammy Russo who's from the Defiant.

You're probably familiar with with her and the Defiant as well. She wrote this article, maybe maybe you read it. Um, breaking a crypto media crisis is upon us. VC money is flowing to AI. Trust in media is at record lows and crypto is growing up. Um, and you know, she goes on to say that, you know, there's just been so much uh kind of I guess destruction for lack of a better word in the crypto media space. Block Works Newsroom gone. Uh, bankless layoffs, Unchained layoffs, decrypt layoffs, Cointelegraph, Google debacle. two companies not mentioned in here, the Block and the Rollup. So, shout out. Um, >> yeah.

>> And and she says, you know, starting in the second half of last year, at least for the Defiant, things got hard. They got hard only on the sales front, though, which was frustrating because our traffic and subscribers were and are near all-time highs. And so, I'm just curious if, you know, you had a chance to read this article, what do you think, you know, just general reactions? And and I'm curious, are you seeing similar things at the block where, you know, sales and market conditions are correlated, things got hard, but traffic and subscribers are near all-time highs. >> Yeah. No, I think uh you know, a lot of great points in that um in that write up. You know, I think I think the fact is that the news and information category at large is under attack and in

transformation. And so there's no denying that. And then you couple that with, you know, the tale of two cities of crypto where, you know, the the token prices and the protocols and the L1's and the L2s, you know, they're really suffering. Um, at the same time, you've got this amazing institutional wave coming on, which is what crypto always wanted and is sort of all finally here, but somehow the uh economic realities of that end state don't seem to sync with our expectations of of the previous year. So I think that's where the dis the kind of the cognitive dissonance is like how can we be at a place where you have you have somewhat regulatory

clarity and more's coming hopefully uh and you have all these institutions and trillions of dollars of assets coming on chain uh but how could we be suffering so hard I think that is the the the interesting um and and sad reality of today you know for many folks that's an opportunity for many folks that's the death now um and so I think that the the the the point you raised there um very very important but uh I think the age of media companies monetizing solely from advertising and sponsorships while that will still continue to be to be important um if that is the only reliance uh on sustainability I think the the future is not very bright for

that sort of a media organization um and in part of the block's sort of uh differentiation we've got really two sides of the business we have our our news deskes which continues to put out trustworthy you know integrity uh news um that are insightful and and and breaking. The other side of our business is actually a B2B business. That's the block pro. There you have data and research. Um there we have a new product called campus which is um a new ed platform to help the market understand the basics of crypto. Um, you know, recently we did a um a a campus uh course on prediction markets sponsored by Poly Market. Um so we're really you know figuring out other ways to serve

that institutional wave of interest in in crypto. But that business is is based on recurring revenue. It's platform fees. It's long-term relationships that um help shield from the volatility of the market cycles uh which is very sensitive uh when it comes to just advertising and sponsorships. So you use the word intelligence. I think that's where the future is. Uh and you know just the monetization on traffic uh especially in a changing world of AI and SEO and GEO uh you know you got to be positioned as a media company uh to where the audience is is finding that um value and I think it's not going to be just commoditized volumebased

trafficbased uh type of business model. it has to be where where's the value and people paying for that value through that intelligence layer. And so for us, I think the ultimate goal is in in our vision like if you're in a crypto or crypto adjacent business that you can't do your business um and you can't get through the day without touching some part of the blocks product and that's the the big goal for us. That's where we want to be. >> Yeah. Very cool. Uh you mentioned GEO which is another another facet of the business that has just I mean just appeared in the last few months and and you know is now a big a big portion of you know what where we spend our time

and what we have to focus on in order to you know continue to to um you know continue to serve customers and and and audience. Um so I think you know that's just another another new fun thing that we've just uh we've been participating in. >> And Robbie I'm curious you know you guys have been at this for a while too. I mean, how do you think about AI disrupting our business model? You know, what are your thoughts there? >> Yeah. Well, I I you know, it's a great question because this is something that I think, you know, not only media is faced with, but I think it's every industry. Every industry is becoming an AI company. Every company needs an AI strategy. So, I think there's just an increasing focus on what to do about it.

How will it affect us and and how can we uh react most effectively? I I think um like we're seeing uh the intelligence itself, the frontier model companies with uh the open source models out of China uh and the frontier models here in the US are bringing prices down and so intelligence is becoming extremely extremely affordable and extremely good and quality and so at what point it becomes commoditized I don't really know but it does feel like it's you know similar to block space in that sense where it does feel like it's becoming a a more more abundant uh and affordable.

And so I think it's important to to to remain creative in how we're reacting to the commoditization of intelligence. And so I'd imagine that um what happens is very similarly, we end up kind of thinning out the middle again and the barbell continues to proliferate. So you know what is above the stack in terms of the intelligence itself? What are the different formats? What are the apps that leverage the intelligence? How do we in you know continue to to generate you know good products good applications uh that are leveraging this intelligence and then similarly actually providing the intelligence. Yeah. And I think from a media perspective that looks like GEO on the infrastructure side because we're providing the intelligence itself that the frontier model companies are then

you know proliferating to everyone else in the industry. Yeah. Uh and then on on the app side it's like okay well how do we take the data take the intelligence take the takes and you know everyone who's providing that intelligence and help to package it and format it in a way that is much more digestible uh and and usable than just reading it on uh reading it on a screen. I think that is >> yeah I think that's ultimately where where we are and you know it's this messy middle uh that I think the intelligence is right now but going on both sides I think that's that's uh what is ultimately providing the most value uh in into the future.

>> Yeah. No I totally agree and and I think the good news for our industry I think there are new primitives and new markets that are opening that are crypto adjacent. So, one of the big sort of hot topic areas for us is really prediction markets. Um, you probably saw, you know, obviously Robin Hood uh what I thought was just a a a blockbuster revenue uh topline uh number on on prediction markets. I was quite surprised that now it surpasses uh you know stock uh as well as crypto trading fees, you know, uh and only second to to derivatives. So I think prediction markets you know because it's got a linkage to to crypto and blockchain at least uh for uh many

of the prediction markets. So I think you know the good news is that there are crypto adjacencies that are opening up that are quite exciting. I think that gives me a lot of hope for new growth areas for the industry. Um, I think secondly, you know, there's a story I have a a good friends with at uh Goldman Sachs, obviously I've worked there, you know, many years ago and a partner there who's on the wealth management side. She's like, "Man, Steve, I can't get my son who's in high school to be excited about stocks at all." It's like, all he wants to do is talk about, you know, crypto and this is this is a partner at Goldman Sachs who, you know, is in charge of a the wealth management business or an aspect of it. So um I I spoke to him and you know he's like yeah

I mean stocks are so boring you know it's [laughter] like there's not enough leverage and why why I mentioned this is that I think your previous guest also mentioned that the size of that you know we talk about perhaps a hundred trillion dollars of inheritance that are going from you know Gen X to the millennials and Gen Z and this uh you know the 20s and the 30s now and even younger are very much crypto native and so uh we talked about like using leverage and being able to be uh you know sort of the DeFi primitives that crypto is very familiar with and you know whether that's a per or you know other kinds of options you know this idea of of a sophisticated kind of consumer retail

that understands deeply leverage uh with this onslaught of of of a trillion dollars of inheritance I think makes somebody like the block or the rollup very relevant and increasingly relevant uh as those audiences continue to grow up and and have more wealth um and the traditional media companies I think are not very well prepared for that. So um you know I think I think that the the the the future is bright in my view despite you know a lot of the gloom um that you know that infects some of the the markets today that I think that you know if we can really serve that customer give that customer real good insight of value if it's breaking news

get it to them as fast as you can if it's insight give them something they've never heard before really helps I think that's where we really win and then with the institutionals coming on um you know I think the blocks in a really good place that some of the biggest names that that you know are in the space that are either banks or asset allocations or investment managers are are the blocks customers. So we're really doubling down speaking to them what more can we do to help them uh understand the market and do their business. Um so anyway uh sorry for that long rant but but I'm actually quite excited about about those sort of new markets opening up for us.

>> Yeah. And and I I mean I think you mentioned prediction markets and that is I mean a fantastic you know uh thing that we're going to continue to see that the chat is talking to me and they're asking they wanted they wanted ISUKI and they're curious with your experience at ISUKI what is it going to take to bring NFTTS back. >> Wow. You know what ISUKI um what a fantastic group of of folks uh very creative. Um I got to know the the four uh co-founders obviously when I joined. Um, look, I mean, ASUKI's strength, uh, was about quality of art, uh, as well as the strength of community. And that was sort of my first crash course on crypto, you know, starting at a NFT company. Uh,

you you get thrown into the deep end of the pool real quick. Um but yeah, look, I I mean, you know, NFTTS um had its sort of from an asset and uh and appreciation perspective, I think it's seen its, uh it's it's its highs before. I think going forward, you know, I know um who I'm still obviously closely in touch with, they've pivoted to like a trading card game, for example. U they've also launched anime.com, which is more of a web 2 experience. So, I think a lot of the the promise of NFT, the community and the IP that's unfortunately has hasn't played out in the in the way that I think everybody hoped it would. But I think the strong

players, the blue chip NFT companies, uh, like an Isuki or a Pudgy, uh, and some of the strong communities that have found different ways to grow and continue to, um, you know, enrich the communities in different ways, I think they're going to still survive. you know, as far as a a big Isuki, you know, I think they're much more affordable now. So, um I I I sport an Isuki on on on my uh Twitter account and and where PFPs are and I'm still very proud of my time at ISUKI. So, so I I I'm I'm a long long-term holder of of that NFT and I hope that even though it may look differently that there will be a comeback, but probably in a different form than what we we saw, you know,

three, four years ago. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're actually seeing and I'm hearing things that is where uh the DTCC and tokenization could be headed as well. Uh is using NFTTS as part of their technology to help with tokenized equities and keep track of the custody format. Um aside from the NFT market, just last word on uh the market generally. You know, there's kind of like there's there's two wolves. One is calling for another leg down, a flush uh a final liquidation uh capitulation. Uh others are saying that we're in apathy. It's just a matter of time before uh we resume upwards. Where where do you stand?

>> You know, I I I do not make predictions like that. Certainly not that. But look, I I don't know if we've all all still have gotten to the bottom of what happened in October, you know, and I think there's still a lot more to be found out about about that as well, for example. Um, and I think the the part about crypto, you know, I've met some of the most brilliant people uh that I've ever met um in crypto. And I think that a lot of what we do is very complex and there are sort of macro things that we didn't really expect. You know, I know a few days ago, uh, we were talking about internally about the mythos, um, uh, you know, kind of security vulnerabilities

on on on cryptography as an example. Sort of like a few black swans out there that we we don't know what we don't know. Um and I know in your previous guest talked about sort of security as an important topic uh overall. So um look as a media company the block will be right there. We can promise you that when the biggest issues or uh insightful things are are needed to be sort of shed light on we'll be there. That's what I can promise you. I have no idea uh whether we're in the middle of of of another um you know kind of bear that'll last a long time or we're just in general apathy waiting for the next catalyst. I don't know. You know, you're a venture capitalist. Uh maybe you

should give us some advice. Uh but uh my job as a media company news coverage with you know what we do um you know we we'll be right there to help everybody kind of understand as best as we can I think. >> Beautiful. And one last question for you. I I'm just curious if you think we play this buller bear game with uh with our guests and I I I'm just curious from a media perspective because obviously we do a lot of these with regards to the markets, but media platforms that you're bullish or bearish on, you know, is there uh you know, maybe it's legacy media, mainstream media that you're a little bearish on or crypto media in particular that you're bullish on? If you could shout out a couple platforms here, what do you think?

Wow. Uh, look, I mean, I think there are some businesses out there, you know, when I was um, uh, still kind of in traditional media. Uh, you know, a a company that can came came out out of nowhere, but has really sort of solidified its position is the information. If if you're familiar with that outlet, you know, they they sort of went to the newsletter route uh, when people thought you can really make a business out of newsletters and they went super premium. Um, I think that's an interesting model. I think political pro uh you know for example has really changed from just a media you know news coverage to really having a sustainable business model. Um and you know I think going forward it is that you know

obviously Bloomberg you know kind of as the OG in financial news I think they are a great partner of ours but also just like everybody are going through uh you know a self-evaluation as every media company should of of how you know customers inter interface with their data etc. So, you know, I think there are elements of those that that work. Uh, obviously some of the newer uh outlets that are more personality driven um that combine, you know, content with transactions I think are very interesting business models um that it's not just delivering news but also it has a tie into transactions. Um but I'm not sure that we have solved you know what is the next media format going to look

like that will become a billion-doll company. Um hopefully the block will be a strong contender in that. Um but yeah, I I I think those elements that I mentioned of of the information or the political pro or Bloomberg, there are elements there that I'm hoping to combine into like how the block is positioned for the future. Um and so but you know, we'll find out together. I think we're going to take some uh some chances with some interesting features and and new partnerships that we're very excited about and really figure this out, you know, while the the the world is massively shifting and changing, you know, underneath us.

>> Yep. Very, very cool. Well, Steve, thanks for uh spending some time with us. Thanks very much. And uh it's it's fun when worlds collide like this. can't always talk shop on the media front with everyone here, but uh it's good to uh you know take a take an extra zoom and and double click into the media space with you know someone who's been around the block uh if you like that pond there and um and uh yeah very excited for the future of uh of uh fintech media, crypto media, digital assets and uh would love to do this again soon. Whether you know you come back here, we we do a little guest post on the block, we'll let's continue to do some uh some more of these m you come on to our show. Yeah, we've got >> a lot of a lot of fun.

>> We've got a show called The Starting Block that we just started with Garrett Jenson. And so, yeah, maybe we should return the favor and uh and and have you guys come on some of our platforms soon. >> Love it. Absolutely [laughter] love it. Thanks Steve. >> All right. Thanks. >> We'll see you again soon. >> Thank you. Bye. Bye. >> Cheers. Bye. >> There you have it. That was Steve Chung from the block. Uh guys have been around in crypto media for a long, long time. So, uh, very cool. Obviously, intelligence is premium these days. Uh, and man, I think, uh, I think it's going to take a little bit more than just news.

There's going to be tons of takes. Everyone, you see prediction markets getting into news. You've got obviously the frontier models that are able to access all of the data sources. So, where are they pulling? Um, where does uh, a lot of the revenue come from? These are becoming the questions. Uh we're feeding the frontier models, but then they're feeding us intelligence. So, it's happening. It's really happening. Uh we're really doing it, guys. Thank you for rocking with us. Um I think we only did three streams this week, but we had an absolute doozy on Wednesday. Uh and then obviously tons to cover today. Another fantastic show.

Give me some dubs in the chat, guys. Come on. What a fantastic week. Market sideways, so we got to have some fun somehow. Where are we closing out the day? I'll also address Satoshi coming on the show. That guy wasn't Satoshi. He did have a $3 million Richard Millie on his wrist. That was real. However, he claimed to be Satoshi. I kept thinking he was going to say it was a joke the whole time. There's a lot of comedians and magicians in Vegas. At a certain point when I realized he was not kidding, it felt like I was dreaming. It felt like someone had put drugs in my coffee.

I was just totally I was cooked. I was just a complete my mind was just like what is happening right now? Um I had no idea that this guy seriously I mean I looked into his eyes and typically like you can typically do like a pretty good judge of character. Like you look in someone's eyes and you can usually tell whether or not they're lying. But the thing is that this guy, it was like this guy like believed it himself. Like he had convinced himself that he's Satoshi and he had a couple like other and I think you guys saw some some like there was some groupies that he had that were pretty brainwashed.

Don't buy anything that guy is selling. Yeah. I hope I hope everyone got a good laugh from him coming on the show. Uh, we're not going to talk to any more fake Satoshi's for a while. Um, guys, thank you for rocking with us. Give me some W's in the chat. Um, and uh, we're going to keep rocking. Yeah, new type. Check out the the end of that Vegas show from Wednesday. Tell tell us what you think about that guy. Um, much love and we're going to have you guys on uh, just an absolute tear here soon. We're part of the transition. Uh bare markets ending, bull markets starting, equities are rolling over, and uh we're going to keep things rolling.

We're going to keep having fun. Hope everyone has a good weekend. Give me some W's in the chat, guys. We're going to see you next week. See what happens. Weekend pump. Let's get a weekend pump going, guys. Fantastic show as always. We will see you next week and uh appreciate everyone. Much love. Thanks for rocking with us here at the rollup. >> [music] [music]