LIVE: Solana, Hyperliquid and Tokens | 0xResearch

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[music] [music] [music] [music] >> Good morning.

>> Good morning. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Zerox Research. Today, >> [sighs] >> we're joined by Ian from Kyros Research. Ian, how the hell are you? >> Welcome, Ian. >> Doing great. Thanks for having me, guys. I really enjoyed that exhale, as well. I mean, it's just kind of [snorts] you're prepping yourself, you know, physically and mentally. >> excited. I got very excited. We haven't had you on Zero X Research for a long time. You Last time we had you on, you said some naughty stuff, so we have to start We [laughter] have to start vetting you before you came on, but >> I'll go to the penalty box.

>> Yeah. >> I feel like the last time we had Ian on regularly, we were all debating pump revenue and whether or not how real they are, basically. >> We're still here. >> We're [laughter] still here, and we're still debating the exact same thing. Um Danny, how are you feeling? How's the market been treating you? How do you like life? We don't have to ignore Ian, but let's talk classic market stock, and then we'll include Ian afterwards. >> Yeah. Um >> [laughter] >> Speaking to the markets, I think um I don't know. I'm not I'm not a trader, so this is where I feel like we're in a sort of price action the past almost like 8 10 months now that's uh

the voices that I see, it's like dominated by traders and these macro expert type of people. And I've seen a lot of doom and gloom, like you know, concerns around around and price spikes and shocks in oil causing maybe some downside potential, but um I've been hanging out. I've been chilling. Haven't really changed much of anything in the past like 6 to 8 months, I would say. Um other than maybe like starting to, you know, DCA into some things. Like I've been buying Bitcoin here, but nothing crazy.

Um now that we're down I mean, what? 40-ish percentage? 40-50% from the top last year, so feels like a good time to if there's things you like, you know, and maybe you're not allocated to them, you could allocate to them. If you're worried about more downside, you know, maybe you should consider like are you still 100% allocated to risk assets and did you ever take any profits? I don't know if now's necessarily right time, but probably in general it's like good to have some cash if you don't have any. It's like kind of as a general rule of thumb for markets broadly speaking.

>> [laughter] >> Markets down 60%. I've got to take some risk off. >> [laughter] >> You know, I mean if you're freaking out day-to-day, maybe maybe it's a reflection of what your portfolio looks like, so you might need to take like a harder look at what you're doing there, but yeah, I don't know. I'm not I'm not much of like a week-to-week, day-to-day type of trader of my things, so I feel quite fine either direction, up or down. >> Would you say and Ian I also want your take here. Would you guys say that the panickins are winning?

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

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

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

>> You should You should probably get them on the pod. And see if [laughter] you can figure that out and see what coins he's buying. >> That's what I'm thinking. >> Yeah, I mean it's I think it's yeah, structurally different from Venezuela for sure. Like I think there was like one one guy who was mostly disliked by the entire country. Um it seems like Iran I don't I have no real working knowledge around it, but it seems that it's like much more of like an ideology uh that like they're fighting as opposed to kind of like a one kind of top-down leader.

Uh and yeah, I think like this kind of the first real test of like how much confidence Trump can instill in the market because with like the tariffs and all these other things, um a lot of that was like okay, like we can just kind of you know, we can you can talk on that. Like you can you can chicken out, you can reverse, you can even just like you know, uh have negotiations with all the countries whatever but uh I mean, yeah, this is a it's a global global issue for sure, like, you know, we we're not feeling it much in the US um just cuz like, you know, we produce as much as we consume as a country, but like you know, outside the US, it's sounds like it's pretty bad, like Bangladesh, like they're telling people like just kind of not go to work on

Wednesdays cuz they don't have enough fuel. Um like countries like Thailand, like the fuel pumps have been empty there for quite a while, like oil imports are like like 7% they spend like 7% of all GDP on like energy imports or something like ridiculous. Um so yeah, I mean, it's was I was Riley correct? Probably always. Um yeah, I mean, it's it's a rough scenario, but yeah, Bitcoin kind of front ran, you know, the >> [laughter] >> like um everything >> ETFs knew that was going to happen?

>> all. Not at all. They're like, it's just already so depreciated like versus everything else. I think it's kind of mainly from like 1010, obviously. Not like there's definitely no like crystal yeah, I bit holders looking into their crystal ball and seeing the Ayatollah getting bunker busted. Um yeah, I I mean >> [laughter] >> it's definitely not happening. But I mean, a lot of like alts as well are kind of like now reaching their 1010 like as well, so I mean, things could get interesting there, but I think there's still not that many investable assets out there.

Um we'll see some big unlocks in like, you know, next couple quarters as well. Like I think the pump unlock will be pretty interesting. Uh cuz that's one that I hasn't really moved in a while. Uh obviously like there's a few funds that like if they can sell, like they're going to make a lot of money, the early investors in that. Um and obviously there's like a massive gravitational pull there for them to just nuke their bags. Um, and you know, like raise another fund, return capital, whatever. Um, >> I mean some of these guys got in at like sub 100 mil, right?

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

>> Yeah. >> second up, a lot of tokens are down except for one. >> Hype. >> Yeah. [snorts] Hype is doing >> Great. >> Again, tremendously well. >> Yeah, there is. It's like 500 million open interest on like this Brent and crude fuel like uh perps. >> It's like I I ran some numbers the other day and I will uh it was on the ZeroX Research newsletter. If you are not a subscriber to the ZeroX Research newsletter, I highly recommend that you are because once a week I write on there and it's very good stuff. Um, but what I was going to say is they over the past month, six out of 10 of the top traded assets on Hyperliquid have been

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

are a lot more involved with Solana, so maybe you'll know if they if it has it. From my understanding, it doesn't. Um But yeah, Hyperliquid has just been doing And let me uh I almost forgot to do this. There we go. Hyperliquid has been doing really, really well, um surprisingly. Well, not unsurprisingly, I guess, but I guess it takes >> Yeah, I want to I want to highlight you mentioned at the start of that that hype token price also has been doing well. I think Ian made a great comment though about the pump upcoming unlocks. Like Hyperliquid price was not doing well when they were also like when we were weighing the potential for unlocks on that token as well. So, I think especially when you consider

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

>> Ian, do you know what the when the unlocks are going to be? I'm just going to pull it up if you don't >> Um I think it was like the it was the one-year cliff, and I think it uh TGE'd I'm going to say like early summer. >> Yeah, I think it would be July >> July, okay, nice. >> 20% unlock um for uh yeah. 20% unlock for team and existing investors um as per tokenist which I can also double check with DeFi Llama cuz they tend to do a better job, but significant amount being unlocked um that like two they have two billion in cash being it's just

it never materialized for anything. Like like thousands. Like we thought it wasn't a meme for a bit and then we realized it was a meme and then now we're like, yeah, it was definitely a meme cuz they took out most of it off chain right? >> Yeah, they've sent like around 900 million to Kraken deposit addresses. Uh I mean, granted I've said it before, but like you probably don't want to keep 900 million of Civil coins on chain just for the sake of having it on chain. Like [snorts] obviously like there is you know, we have like custodians and all these things for a reason now.

Um but yeah, I mean doing that with like zero coms is a bit confusing. And I mean we haven't really like uh I don't know if they like gave up on their streaming products. Do you guys know anything about that? Like I know there was like there there was some excitement there. But I don't know if it materialized to anything. I think it kind of got weird to my understanding. >> I asked about this the other week to Danny and he didn't know and I thought he was a big pump on streamer, which Yeah, I don't know if he did. >> It's still live like it's still a product within the stack. I think I agree with you like they're being hit on multiple fronts. One, lack of coms really bad especially with the direction that the industry has been going. It's like you're

your tokens and teams are getting rewarded now if they like commit to saying it the token is the only thing like there's no equity. We're going to you know, make sure we direct X amount of revenues and they've done that part of hey, we have some discretionary buyback of the token with the on chain revenues, but they have not said the other part. Um So, that that's kind of like left open to open to interpretation, and I think you know as well as I do that like when you assume things within this industry, you tend to kind of get the short end of the stick. Um so, yeah, I don't know. I don't I just don't think they've reassured investors enough, and e- you know, not that I would necessarily want them to go out and spend 500 million in a year. I don't think that there's meaningful things to

do with that amount of money for a business of this size in the first place, but they've made some small acquisitions. It's just I think the overhanging like lack of comms, like unable to give clarity to people around like their commitment to the token um are just going to continue to be a drag unless they address it directly or give some more like proof that um the market is asking for. >> Yeah. >> How are these guys still making 40 million dollars a month? Can I just >> Yeah, not really. >> know what I mean? Like just off bonding curve.

Well, bonding curve makes up most of their money. It makes some amount 20 25 million. Does AMM fee has steadily started going up now, I guess. Like here it was quite low. Um Danny, echo everything you've said. Like I think it's fine that they're not spending that much money first few on-chain. Like they've clearly done some things. Um I just don't know if they've done great in terms of comms. I I'm not sure if they've done a great job. >> Like it I mean, yeah. I think they have to do it. Like they have to get like better on comms around like the unlock.

Uh or like you know, I think the market as well can just kind of like instill confidence there or the opposite as well, like um Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's surprising. Like they've I mean, the token's held up quite well, obviously, but they've done like 300 million plus of buybacks. Um I don't know what other tokens have bigger unlocks coming as well, like uh is Jupiter fully unlocked now? Or they probably have like one more. I I are they monthly cliffs? >> I think they still have some supply to come online and I think they've still they've had to go through some votes cuz they burned some tokens, right? Um a lot of some in some of the ecosystem incentives like, you know, debating on

whether or not to do, you know, the Jupier airdrop stuff. I will say maybe to bring it back to the to the hyper liquid thing as well. There I mean you I feel like you saw similar sentiment from what, the community or the market around like why why is Jeff and the team not saying anything about, you know, are they going to delay the unlocks, are they going to reduce them? This is a lot of money that's going to come out of the market. Like, we should be concerned. Um and I think they got hit for that. So, I think if Pump is going to attempt to do the same thing and they're basically not saying anything, uh I think they'll get hit for it as well. Like, you're not immune to this.

>> Yeah, one thing I will say is Hyperliquid ended up reducing the unlocks by 90% eventually because, like you said, the market was got um wary of the amount of unlocks that were going to happen. Um and they also had to make a statement at some point about what an ex-team member was selling all of their tokens the [snorts] moment that they received them. And they had to be like, this is an ex-team member. Um there's nothing that they could have done about that, but it is interesting that more other people will like I think a lot of people will assume that Pump is always doing the worst and Hyperliquid is like always doing as good

as they can. Um despite I would say like, at one point Hyperliquid didn't have as many comms as they should have probably. Agreed. But, that's probably because I think if you watch like I don't know if you've listened to Jeff versus Elon, maybe you assume that Jeff is more of a stand-up guy than Elon. Not that like I think this, I'm just saying market maybe the this way. >> Yeah, I think there's more people who are happier with Hyperliquid because they received a token and it went up as well and they didn't receive anything from Pump. So, I think that explains some of it as well. I think the other part is like this is still like a a pain point for the industry. Like, we don't have if you buy a stock, like you can go and see if you know, Brian Armstrong is

selling his coin. Like, that gets released to you on a regular basis and you can know whether, you know, the CEO is buying more or less and all of the like meaningful directors and higher-ups within that business. Um so, the fact like we're at the point still where we have to like beg these founders to say like, "Okay, you know, are you guys selling or you buying or you holding it? We, you know, we'd like to see some, you know, do you have faith in the business growing larger from here or are you cashing out?" And maybe we're less, you know, you have less belief in growth multiples going forward. >> Yeah. >> Do you know how this Sorry, Ian, go ahead.

>> I was just saying like for the um Hyperliquid unlocks as well, I think like there's so many on-chain sleuths for that ecosystem as well. Like, MLM tags everything that happens. >> [laughter] >> But like you'll he has like, you know, he's tracking like wallet clusters and everything. Like, he's got some pretty good analytics. Um so, that entire event, I think was like broadcasted really well. Like, even by like third parties. So, like everyone can kind of go and verify. Uh whereas like there's not really a whole lot of on-chain sleuths for Solana on the same way. Like, I think one just cuz like there's not many tagged wallets over there.

And like a lot of the people that it's also just like really painful to read the Solana explorer and then even like first Solana and like Arkham itself, uh it's just confusing cuz there's a lot of like just different interactions with programs and stuff. So, even a swap doesn't look the same. Like, I think the clunkiness of not really clunkiness, but like the way the EVM is built like kind of makes it good for sleuthing. Uh and I think like people move money less, I would say, on like the like like EVM like L1 like or Ethereum L1, rather. Um and then they end up bridging to Hyperliquid. So, like there's a lot more kind of like tags over there.

But, yeah, I think having any sort of sleuth over there, too, could maybe help. >> Orbs pretty good, though, no? >> I think Orbs Yeah, the thing is it's like um it's a bit like slop though. Like it looks really good, but Yeah, like the UI is Yeah. >> You um >> things tagged better. Like you just need to like aggregate the tags across like Solscan, yeah, Arkham, or cuz like they all have things that, you know, like just, you know, aggregate all of the data. It would just be like really nice.

>> I saw Mert and Helios put out I think they're just kind of like messing around with product ideas, but he dropped something for Solana that was like you know, they they came out with some newer, you know, API that you can call that gives you all the transactions for a wallet or something, but then he he just like vibe coded a little tool that lets you just make like a quick graph of all the in and out flows of this thing over its entire transaction history. And it's like I don't know, you just somebody just needs to make that product that says like okay, we've identified best as we can all of the team and investor wallets for this thing, and you can clearly see all their in and out flows, so you can clearly tell like okay, they bought, they sold, they're holding. Um

that it's just still like an ambiguity, and you're right in that we like we rely on like these sleuther people to kind of tell us, um and then maybe get confirmation after the fact from the teams. Um But, something that we still like still there's just a lack of capability here in general. >> There used to be a guy that does it, which was Dan Smith. His special interest was Solana blockchain, but now he's like he's Now it's Prop B&M's. Now he's way too focused on uh focused on building the Blockworks product, so. >> We got to hope for TTF and IR to maybe deliver something there.

>> Yeah, that's one thing I was going to say. Maybe it is like okay, CTF and IR are very important. Um but it might also just be like in addition regulation stuff, right? Like if regulation says you have to start disclosing like your buys and sells. I think that's probably the most logical way of approaching it as well. Like just doing quarterly filings. But now the trad the trad bros are trying to get rid of quarterly filings. So, kind of in a weird spot where like where like as Block we're going very much like we're going to do quarterly filings and then the SEC's a little like >> Well, they're just we're going to reduce potentially the minimum. I don't know that every company would necessarily immediately do that, but yeah, certainly maybe if you're smaller, you might jump

on. >> Yeah. >> Like a sketchy biotech company. >> And maybe the other thing to like >> [laughter] >> the other point is like, you know, the the SEC just dropped some of the or the SEC and the CFTC kind of agreed on some guidance around what's a digital commodity versus a digital security. I think it it does maybe open up this new gray zone where like potentially all these protocols try to pretend that they're not a digital security for as long as possible and try to become a digital commodity, but to your point around regs like probably ideally those things that are relatively close to being a digital security just register as digital securities and then we just get some of the disclosures.

>> Yeah. I just can't see a founder willingly going out and saying yes, I'm a digital security given that like they would Do you know what I mean? Cuz especially like if Dem sweep midterms, this is my American politician coming on. If the Democrats sweep midterms and then now we're looking at like you know, Trump all power to him, the family went a little you know, very they went very crypto forward, let's say put it that way. >> Yes, for sure. >> And then you know, everything is allowed, prediction markets are legal and definitely not gambling or sports gambling. And then Dems come in and they say, "Whoa, guys, you [snorts] know, this doesn't really add up."

And then you're the founder that went ahead and said, "Yes, I'm a digital security." And you're cooked. You know, cuz then >> the upside would be I mean this is very dependent on legislation passing, but like let's say you get clarity through and it codifies it and you can then sign up and there's like a very clear like, "Okay, sign a thing and you know, come talk to the SEC and become a digital security." Then you're you're probably stepping on the right side of history there rather than trying to like remain in the ambiguous zone, cuz then I think that puts a target on you, you know, come 2028 if there's a sweep. It's like, "Okay, you're trying to skirt the laws that we just set. Uh I don't know if we like you so much."

>> Yeah. Um I also need to figure out when Hester Peirce's term ends. Cuz that is like when her term ends, that's probably the worst day for the worst people that you know, like all the >> [snorts] >> people who probably shouldn't have been here for a while. Um >> she Well, she she announced or like a while ago, right, that she's just not going to be involved anymore in for in politics for a while. Um or regulation even like apparently she's really passionate about beekeeping or something.

>> That's very nice of her. That's very good. >> Yeah, and that's actually really sweet. It's like super wholesome. They go from like, you know, tokens and obscure laws and trying to understand all this and getting yelled at on Twitter and just like hanging out with some bees and you know, making honey, all this good stuff. So. >> Yeah, one year in crypto legislate Well, not obviously many years, but like one year being the official like front man and they said, "I want to get out." >> Yeah, I wonder if the front I mean it's like a you like the CFTC chair um um I guess like Like been obviously like a He's clearly for the industry and it seems I I like obviously like Paul Atkins is as well, but like I think the bullish thing I guess is like Mike is

obviously much younger. He's like, you know, he's extremely young for being in that position. So, I assume that we'll see him for like many years to come. And I think it's also like the CFTC is making a lot of uh like uh like collaborative pushes, I'd say, with like the SEC to get these things regulated. Um I don't know I uh I mean I'm not >> It's Paul Atkins. It's Paul Atkins. Um I will say both Paul Atkins and Michael Selig will be at the Digital Asset Summit in New York starting next week. I don't even think you can buy tickets anymore at this point. I'm just flexing on people.

Um Ian, will you be attending? >> I will be at the Digital Asset Summit in New York. I'm very much looking forward to the Digital Asset Summit in New York. By Blockworks. >> By Blockworks. Um very good. If you want to see Ian, you can email him before the digital or you can download the Digital Asset Summit app and send them an invite to connect. That's the thing. Um that'll be fun. Um I want to talk a little bit about Solana and then I think I'm going to do analyst of the week and then we're going to end. Is that okay with everybody? >> That sounds perfect. I'd love to hear you talk about Solana.

>> What is Did you see the like Jupiter Solana Foundation kerfuffle on Twitter? >> Yeah, I don't honestly don't really understand the full details. Like I know like Solana Foundation released some product that I guess competes with Jupiter. Um >> But I don't even think >> way. >> So, okay, maybe I'll give a bit of background and then you guys can >> about the kerfuffle. I'm unaware. >> Okay. So, Solana launches tokens, right? Like this new That sounds really dumb when you say it that way cuz it makes it sound It's called like tokens by Solana It's The handle is @tokens.xyz. Yeah.

Uh the handle is tokens. I can't even Oh, there you go. Um and what it does is tokens.xyz. I'm going to share my little screen. One sec. Share. I think this one. Yeah, perfect. Can you guys see? Yes. So, tokens on Solana and you can essentially You go down. It shows you everything, right? So, it says currencies futures ETFs metals stocks. These are everything that exists on Solana. Conceptually, I think this is a very cool idea to have I don't love the interface. I don't think anybody goes on like Oh, I want to trade and it's like the first thing that you look at is latest added, highest volume, biggest gainer. I think they probably need a product guys to take a look at this at some point. Um but conceptually, it's a very cool idea. And then you look

over here and then whatever you want uh what do you want to buy? Let's say you want to buy serum, USDC. Very interesting. To buy, it will show you aggregator. Jupiter Titan DFlow Orca Radium ByRial. I don't understand why the Jupiter guys would be upset at this. But, essentially, they put out one of their team members put out a few tweets about how tokens was competing with the Jupiter flow. Technically, it's very good if you own the front end fully. And what that means like that's what Jupiter has, right? Everybody uses Jupiter on Solana.

I mean, I'm sure there's like a function There's like a small group of people who use DFlow. I can't remember who that was. Is it Titan? No, it's not. There's another one. Um but vast majority of people log in Jupiter. It says, "Do you want to use the Jupiter wallet?" You say no, and then you connect, and then you trade through it. Um I think they're kind of upset about losing this. Um but I was also a bit I just thought it was a bit interesting that like they're still clearly being mentioned in it. So, what do you guys think?

>> I think it's uh interesting in the idea that like I don't think we've ever seen a foundation make like a product explicitly like this. I could be wrong on that. Like maybe something like the longer tail like L1s are a lot more involved. Um I Yeah, I think like the it's it's I don't know. Foundations in general are are are really weird cuz like they're essentially fake businesses. Like you know, like this makes like this makes no money, right? Like this is it's this like uh it's bizarre. Like the whole whole foundation model is like uh you fund yourself through like treasury management. And so like here's like selling covered calls and stuff on like uh like the base asset. You're getting staking rewards.

Um you have like no actual real business. And so I think like there's if you don't have like a real business, you don't have any real risk. And if you don't have any real risk, you don't have the right incentives. And so I think like foundation models in general, it's like really weird. Same thing with the Ethereum Foundation. Like obviously not just the Solana Foundation and any foundation out there. Um Yeah, it's like it's just >> out there, [ __ ] you. >> Yeah, it's it's so weird. I mean, it's like we shouldn't have these, right? Like they exist purely because of regulation. Yeah. Yeah exactly. Uh so, it's it's weird in that regard. I think it's interesting that like they're trying something.

You know, like if the Solana Foundation wants to build products that drive value to the sole itself, like I'm all for that. I just don't really uh see what the point of this app is. It kind of looks vibe coded. Like I don't really um Yeah, I don't I don't really get like the why they they it. I think it's just not really clear, as opposed to uh Yeah, I I I don't really have like too many like developed thoughts on it really outside of that, but uh it's an interesting idea, I guess, like if you want to build products as a foundation and you want to do stuff around that, but I think like you should have like it's like why are you doing that really? Cuz um you know, if you're essentially just

like I don't know. >> I don't really see the benefit, honestly. Like >> Yeah, and >> the, you know, forest for the trees, but I don't know. >> And maybe like before we move on, just to highlight this and then so we can give like a proper take. So, this is Ittala who's the CTO of Jupiter. And he said what like I don't really understand the project, doesn't make a lot of sense. There's already a lot of apps showing tokens and serving them through an API, including one from Jupiter itself. So, are we not competing? And then the general Solana team feedback has been that most of the world is completely unaware of Solana. And

I don't know. It's not really an answer. Sorry, I just kind of pulled that one up, but maybe Vevo had something. He says your APIs don't aggregate assets the way this does. Breaking news account was primary motivator. Even if you did, we have our own road map. I'm excited to see that and they want to have an independent version of the light. Sorry, Danny. I just like kind of cut you off there, but please go ahead. >> Yeah, I was going to say um I'd say I'm relatively neutral, maybe even lean positive here. I think I agree with Ian to an extent about foundations for a long time have kind of just been like this sink that don't do anything.

Um and maybe part of that is like path dependency around what we thought would receive regulatory response in the past. Um but I think realistically there I mean if you're going to have one, you might as well try to, you know, promote or you know, further the reach or, you know, get build some more product or, you know, support more product on your thing that you would ideally like to increase in value because I mean ultimately they they are beneficially impacted by if the price of SOL goes up that like there's some reward there for them monetarily.

So there's at least some incentive alignment. Um I do think on this one like I don't know. The pushback feels a little like they're just kind of mad. Um it's like oh are you competing with us? It's this classic like ETH ethos debate of like well the foundation can't ever like pick a winner or do anything because then it's competing with everyone else and we don't want them to compete. And I think generally that's basically just led them to be a no action thing and they've and they've stagnated for years and years and done nothing as a result. Um which is probably like the losing formula. Not to say that you should go and just like, you know, build the exact same You don't have to build the exact same product that everyone else is building, but you know, a news account that then like

directs people to trade assets on Solana. That sounds like a good idea from like a reach and distribution perspective assuming they have the ability to like target another audience that like Jupiter is not hitting today. Which >> Yeah. >> maybe they can. Maybe they maybe they do have that ability. Um I don't see it as so bad. I mean historically as well like yeah, JUP has its own token discovery page and plenty of other like SOL app providers do too, but there's also like Screener has kind of just like owned this for a long time. So I can make the argument that like you know, DEX Screener doesn't necessarily push traders to Solana. It's sort of just like what's trending in crypto today?

Like am I going to trade on base? Am I going to trade on BSC? Um they don't really care. So maybe if you can if you can own that app experience a little bit more, maybe you can directly incentivize people to go to Soul versus like a like base or even hyperliquid. >> So, I have two things to say about this. First of all, I think this is a fine attempt. Like I think the direction is fine in that you can build a front page aggregator for the rest of the thing. The it's a little bit of competing with Jupiter, but also at the end of the day, I don't think that the product that they've put out now is competitive enough to compete with Jupiter. Maybe in the future they're

going to build something like very very similar to Jupiter and they're going to like use I don't know, their advantages as a foundation to push themselves up front, but for the time being it doesn't seem like an issue. But, the second thing is we are now seeing and we're going to have a bunch of other chains that do this is like chains realize that they have to make money. It's not easy to monetize blockchains. They have to make money. And they're going to keep pushing their own products. So, if you are I don't know, like I off the top of my head LSDs I think are like prime for disruption. Um aggregator probably as well, it makes sense. Bunch of these

types of apps I think like your the chain that you're on is probably going to eventually come for you. Um except for Ethereum, which to me feels like doesn't really care about it that much. Um and to be honest with you, probably not a bad thing. Like they're if you're building on Ethereum it's not a bad thing. I don't know about the Ethereum thing. >> On the ETH thing I feel like we're seeing them come to a position here where maybe everyone kind of agrees that the valuation doesn't make sense, but they're also kind of in alignment of ETH can just remain this thing that you know, there is no like centralized person that's going to say, "Hey, we need to like make sure we drive revenues from this." We're like fine with everyone agreeing that it's kind of a

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

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

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

>> They're trying to be more involved, certainly. >> Yeah. Yeah, they're >> I I >> They've been involved from I guess like kind of the IBL standpoint as well, right? Like they've definitely helped a lot in that and sense of a lot like the double zero stake pool. That's like Solana Foundation stake if you like track the wallets. Um it's like they like them and Jump. Uh I know it's like Jump is very aligned with Solana as well, like building out, you know, uh Fire Dancer. Um I think it's yeah, it's definitely interesting to see them take the product approach. If they can build better products, like cool. Um if it actually does become a problem, I think that's just going to be kind of interesting cuz it's I don't I don't like who who would really be benefiting in that regard. I

don't know. I think Jupiter also has like a kind of multi-chain uh long-term mindset as well, like building like Jup net, too. So I don't know. Yeah, it's it's definitely interesting. I think Box very right, too, in the sense of like a lot of these things can be enshrined technically. Um if that's the word we want to use, like the foundation's kind [snorts] of building these things out. I think just it's a bit of some weird like path dependency where it's like, you know, you're doing it now as opposed to like in the very early days. Um like I think they could have totally do that right now.

No one would care. >> But then they did it as well, right? With um what did the fast lane guys build? >> Oh yeah, so they they integrated um >> Shaman? >> their Uh well, they yeah, so like that's like their liquid staking token, but they uh integrated like the MEV side car like kind of into the uh consensus itself, like uh so it's all part of it. I think like that's kind of a cool idea. Um and they did it in a way that's like, you know, aligned with their entire like stake delegation policy and all this other stuff, so um cuz they have like a lot of opinions around MEV.

Um but also it's like I don't it like who who who really cares? Right now it's like very early for MEV. Like just to be like completely [laughter] honest, like no one cares. Um it just cuz it's so early. >> I think you make some good like you make some good points there around like if it became a problem and I think I want to delineate maybe what that would look like. I think to me even if they built products on top of Solana that it's like maybe they competed directly with Jupiter. I don't know that it's still necessarily a problem. Like nothing is stopping Jupiter from continuing to improve their product and if customers want to use their product over, you know, the foundation product then, you know, if you offer better rates and you have, you know, better trading experience and better integrations than like I'll

probably like I'm not going to use this this Tokens product as it is right now. I'm going to use Jupiter. I'm going to use like Dexscreener whatever else that exists today that's already good. Um but if they make something competitive then that's cool. I What I would say though is you mentioned enshrining some of these things. It's like if you enshrined a like really poor incapable router directly into the protocol and it like charged me 10% on every trade, I don't know. I probably would never want to use it ever again and maybe like then you end up with like, "Okay, what's the out of protocol solution?" It's like is is there a point at which you you like induce something that's like so terrible for the user that they're forced to consider not even using the chain at all. That's probably where it becomes a problem. But I think even like

we're seeing this debate around you know, the block builders might lose their revenue stream if we enshrine MCP, but I think ultimately that's going to be a lead to a better product experience for the user and then it's up to the block builders to find out is there another way that they can make money in the future. >> Mhm. >> I want to say two things on this. First of all, when Solana was just Jito, it was very good. You know, it's much easier if you know who you're dealing with. They're very aligned. Turn off the MEV. It's not looking really good. You turn it off.

This is the ideal way to set something up. Now, the command economy doesn't work very well in a lot of cases, but in the case of blockchains like you want to be able to control the resources as much as possible. That requires you to have a key infrastructure partner. Hyperliquid does it the best. Trade XYZ uh and Unit. You know. There's separation. It's not the same team, but it's as good as possible. The second thing is I don't really know why you would do this instead of funding Velo no Zoomerfied. Do you know what I mean? This account has 9,000 followers.

Now, it's very new. It just started. But why not pay Zoomerfied 100 grand a year to link to the aggregator? Do you know what I mean? Cuz he has 100,000 followers and people actually follow him. And like, do you know what I mean? >> about the news aggregator? >> Yeah, the news aggregator. >> Okay, yeah, yeah. >> And like and this was also like if you go over here, they also need to fix some of this stuff. This is a cool idea in itself, but so I press on that thing. I want to trade United States Oil Fund.

Great. $49,000 in liquidity. And also there's no chart. Like this is not you need a candlestick chart. This and then you just press the It's just difficult because what they should have done here is and I can see why they're not able to do it because then you're directly competing with Jupiter, but you need to either build a super useful product and you need to compete with Jupiter or you need to just I know Danny you have to go soon, so I'm going to do our analyst of the hour and then we can let you out. I want to give the right to give the analyst of the week

to to Ian. Ian, you get to pick one analyst from the Blockworks Research team to call the analyst of the week. >> Oof. Um Gosh, this is a lot of pressure. It's got to be Toma. >> [snorts] >> Dude, he got it last week. >> It's just winners win. >> [laughter] >> It just win. >> He got it last week. He can't get it 2 weeks in a row. Okay.

>> Toma is the goat. >> Toma. >> Congrats on analyst of the week again. You can collect your >> I'm going to shout out Zug. Shout out Zug. >> Yeah, shout >> isn't We can't This isn't how the system works. We get to pick one per week. Okay. Shout out Zug. Shout out Toma. Um any other shout outs? [ __ ] it. Let's give everybody analyst of the week. >> Shout out Shonda Devins. Shonda Devins, if you're listening to this, >> [laughter] >> contact me. >> Shonda, let's [snorts] meet up in Bosnia.

>> and derive, right? >> All right, I got to drop. >> All right. Um >> It was a great chat. >> Great chat. Thank you for coming on, Danny. >> Have an amazing weekend. >> Okay. Ian, we're going to end it together. I also want to give a shout out to Ryan. Stop. Stop. Where's the life? I also want to give a final shout out to Ryan Connor, who I don't know if everybody saw, but he's leaving. So, shout out Ryan Connor. He's actually the analyst of the week. >> Ryan Cashflow Connor. >> Ryan Cashflow Connor. It's crazy that he's leaving.

>> And I never got to rub his head once, which I think is insane. >> How many times did you ask? >> Like three times. >> I think you would have gotten it on the fourth. >> Yeah. >> Like did he get Did he warm up to it each time or like what was the initial reaction? He just kind of gave me a wink. So yeah, he was he was just playing hard to get. >> Yeah. All right, Ian thank you for coming on. If you want to hang out with Ian he'll be at DAS next week. I will not be but you guys should try and get him on. Ian anything final you want to say? Check out Cairo's research, check out first set staking.

>> Oh yeah. >> Stake with them on Solana, stake with them on Monad, stake with them on Babylon. >> On Babylon, on Celestia, on Fogo. >> Fogo Fogo fall. Fogo fall's coming. Fogo fall's right around the corner. Fogo fall's right around the corner. We got three, four months left. All right, peace. >> All right, cheers guys.