The Rollup TV: Tuesday, July 15th

Transcript

[Music] Best buy. Heat. [Music]

Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

[Applause] [Music] Heat up here. Heat. [Music] Heat.

Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Welcome back to the Rollup TV. It's been a couple weeks. It's crypto week in the USA. We're vibing. ETH's breaking out.

Uh I think ETH, what is ETH pushing? Three 3100 right now. People are shilling ETH on Twitter. Saw Jeep has put out a tweet saying, "Why are people still showing Ethereum?" Oh boy. Um Trump puts out a tweet today saying that we're going to be the crypto capital of the world. We're live from Sweden. Rob's traveling today, so he's not going to be able to join us. Got three amazing guests. We got uh Koopa, good friend from last last bull run talking about his new song coins release. We got Michael from Securitize tokenization Mania is on. And of course, we've got Carell from Union, who is going to be one of the first companies to announce a new product on the roll-up TV. We're

stoked on that. We're stoked that we're stoked to be back. Probably just go two, three times a week for for the foreseeable future. But we've been cooking in the back end. Uh we have new shows coming out as part of the show, as part of the stream. We've got new segments, new ideas. Uh I I see the live stream concept has significantly gained traction in crypto Twitter uh as a result of uh the last eight weeks of the rollup TV proliferation. I'm not going to take all the credit for it. Obviously, a lot of this entire stream stuff has been around for a while, but between some of the concepts from uh Thread Guy as of recently, some of the concepts from the seed club guys uh and seeing Laura Shin, Block Works, and

others doing streams, it's very clear that this is the new me the new content medium. So, look, I'm stoked. I mean, I'm vibing in Sweden right now. We just had a crazy week at ECC. Had another week in Albania. Um and uh I'm I'm live from Sweden. We have three guests. 8 PM here. Did a ton of work today. Got out for a walk, hit the gym, did a workout, feeling great. Um the market looks fantastic. I think we're in the animal spirits phase. I'm pretty stoked. Glad to be here. Uh and just did a lot of, you know, thoughts and reflections around where where we're trying to take the roll up and these streams in particular. So going to be doing more and more of them. Uh excited to be here again today back. Also stoked to have

Rob back. It was good to have Rob back at the permissionless stuff. I know you guys saw the uh permissionless um two-day sprint. That was uh that was hectic, but glad to be here. Uh this will just be a two-hour uh goaround today. And yeah, I mean guys, I mean, if you're here, we are we are leaving the pre-rich zone. So, hope you guys are are feeling good. We've got Carell coming in shortly, followed by Michael and followed by Koopa Troopa. So, yeah, I'm stoked. Um, and I think like the biggest thing that I I wanted to emphasize before we start the actual stream today is around what Trump put out. Uh, Trump put out happy crypto week. So, it's

crypto week right now in the states, in the House, and in the Senate. Basically, the core ideas here, they're trying to pass the Genius Act um and the Clarity Bill. Uh so basically Trump tweeted today that um they're going to get the first vote done this afternoon on the Genius Act and then uh moving towards the Clarity Act as well. And then there's also a market structure a market structure act in there too. Um look I think this is mega bullish for Ethereum. Tom Lee's been going out and talking about how Ethereum is a stable coin chain absolutely bulling till we can't anymore on like a very very traditional financeoriented way. So, so I think uh the Genius Act should be a very very

bullish uh short-term uh impact on on Ethereum. I also think if you look at if if you look at the sentiment and and the charts, I think ETH Bitcoin is starting to finally move uh strongly. So, uh people are talking about alt season. I don't know. I don't really have a a preference on uh you know when necessarily. Look, I'd be excited if Ethereum starts to uh kind of lead Bitcoin here. Um, but guys, we're in a very unprecedented time in the market. So excited to be here. Excited to talk to some of the founders and get back into the groove today. Uh, I just think that like, you know, you have you have you have Trump saying that we're going to make the United States the, you know, crypto capital of the world. It's pretty

hard to be bearish right now. So, um, that being said, uh, coming up, we are going to get Carell in. Carell is a good friend of ours on the show. uh has been on many times and is, you know, part of the part of the bigger picture of the rollup. He actually he invested in us uh back in the day. Uh it was probably like early 23 where where we did a ZK series around um you know how kind of like building out ZK infrastructure, what this means, etc. uh for the space and um you know he he he took a chance sponsored one of the rollups uh initial um initial kind of series and this led

us to launching more and more series uh building out an entire kind of business model around these specific content flows. So we ended up investing into Union in our fund um at one of the earlier valuations. I think they're I think uh I think people might be a bit upset that they're not going to get the TGE announcement today. That's okay. Um again, these guys supported us kind of deeper in the bare market. Um and you know, it's it's going to be fun. So, yeah, let's get Carell up here. Um and let's vibe out. It's been a while since since we've streamed. Carell, what's up, man?

Hey, Andy. Good to see you again. Yeah. Yeah. No time. Yeah, man. Rob's not here today. He's traveling. I'm live from Sweden. It's uh it's 8:00 PM here. I was calling in from the Netherlands. My home country just arrived a couple of hours ago. Dude, we've got Twitter going crazy, man. I don't know what's going on, but I saw some guy was yelling at you because he said you you you stole his ZK girlfriend. Everybody wants huge news. I mean, come on, man. Yeah. Yeah. I think we might have like prehyped this announcement a little bit too much because people are thinking that I'm going to announce TGE or or potentially the little coming of Christ.

That's not the case. All day I've been telling the community like lower your expectations. You guys are freaking out too much. Uh although that will be coming in the future as well soon, but not today yet. Yeah, man. And and we'll we'll dive into the to the news. I think that we'll kind of get that dropped out here from Union and from the accounts uh associated shortly, but man, just like you know, how how are you feeling, man? I mean, it's I mean, it feels like animal spirits are back. I mean, it's it's uh certainly a bull market. I mean, these treasury companies, I mean, it's it's crazy.

Exactly. Bull market is back. Um, we kind of with Union made a bet on Bitcoin and BTC a couple of months ago, right? investing more heavily into that like really narrowing down actually our scope because with Union initially we founded it thinking we're going to connect lally every single chain out there that's still the objective but kind of go to market strategy we heavily tailored that around Bitcoin Bitcoin institutions treasury companies etc so that's actually coming out very nicely right now right like the market is actually exactly doing what we want the market to do as well so so very happy that we basically made that yeah so okay so this transition maybe you can kind of like lay out the the thought a bit deeper here. So um you you

kind of come out building some very technical uh cryptography around ZK around interup and really just you know things like proof agg aggregation zk light clients these types of things um but you know from the founders perspective right from the CEO's perspective uh you know it's it's very it's very important to be able to you know stay in in tune with with the market uh and just generally kind of like where this where the puck is going uh and be able to kind of think longer term and identified this kind of BTC BTC opportunity you know just kind of walk us through that like some you know deeper thought there what you know what is the opportunity that you're looking to seize here you know why are you guys well positioned for it and then let's

you know let's drop some news yeah um the opportunity I see is obviously absolutely massive right like Bitcoin is still uh the king of the crypto assets and to be honest I think now with this new bull market we're going to maybe see it become like the king of all assets out there, right? So, uh, being associated with the Bitcoin ecosystem, being a core infrastructure provider, I think is probably going to be like the best bet that we've made so far. Uh, with Union, it also lines very well actually if you look at our like tech stack, like what do we try to bring to the table, right? Um, as a like intro provider, as infrastructure provider, you have to figure out like your user base, what's like kind of your corner of the sector that your philosophy aligns with? And we align with

decentralization, high security. And that's actually exactly the thing that big Bitcoin holders align with as well, right? They're not necessarily looking to get massive yield, right? They don't want to get a 5x every single day. They're actually looking for relatively low but safe yield because the one thing they don't want is to lose their Bitcoin in a burack, right? Like that's the thing they're the most scared of. They see they're even willing to take zero yields as long as they don't lose their Bitcoin at all. And so Union actually provides like exactly what they want which is like focus on extremely high security focus on decentralization right I as a founder can't break them either and if you actually look at the Bitcoin space itself as like miners in China there'sions there's OG wells there's people who are

selling like LSD in the early days accepting Bitcoin as payments who are super wealthy now which is crazy but there's all people that kind of self so the fact that they don't need to trust union that they don't need to trust me my team and Oracle or Milik, whatever, but they basically they're still effectively self- constrained even though they're using it in DeFi. That's something that aligns really well with what they want to do. Yeah. It's very important for them and like what they believe in, right? You know, that's part of their core ethos. All right. Well, let's uh you know, let's get to the mashed potatoes and and the steak here, the steak and potatoes.

Um what is the big news that you are dropping today for Union, for the community? They've got their pitchforks out. They want to hear from Carell. Let's talk about it. What is Union rolling out today? So, as we went through this Bitcoin specific journey and we started talking with institutions, LPs, wills and clients, we basically realized that we are in the perfect position to kind of create the next generation Bitcoin LST ourselves. With us now being the main bridge in the Babylon and Bitcoin ecosystem, the main BSM, uh, basically securing all of those transaction flows, we're now also in the perfect position to roll out our own BTC derivative. This is great for Union long term because it

provides us with a revenue stream or the protocol with a revenue stream that doesn't rely on us squeezing out tiny users at high transaction fees like we see certain other bridges do. It allows us to basically scale with the AUM or the TVL that we have instead of the like daily transaction volume that we're doing. And so it much better serves the type of transactions that we're doing right now. But we actually don't see like many tiny transfers happening in at the moment. We see people transferring 10 million BTC all at once. And so basically rolling out these asset issuance type products and having the protocol support them natively provides the protocol with a much better growth opportunity long term. This isn't a pivot. This isn't a switching like what

we're doing. This actually really well aligns with what a bridge is supposed to do because if you kind of pull away the veil of marketing from a bridge itself, it's basically the same tech as an asset issuer under the hood. And so with all these synergies that we found across Babylon stack, but also other chains right now, yield opportunities we discovered, relations we had with all the bitcoinies kind of puts us in this perfect position to roll out this product. So, you know, one of the things that a lot of these first of all, congratulations. Um, curious what the ticker is going to be. Is it going to be UN BTC or UBTC or what's this? What is the, you know, g give us the ticker here.

Okay, so this will be dropping a lot of alpha, but it's going to be a BTC because it's like the the gilded version of BTC making BTC the king. And if you actually look at our test net right now, the smallest denomination of the union token test net is also AU. So a little bit of alpha for you on how you refer to it. And for those who like chemistry, AU on the periodic table is gold as well. Of course, beautiful. And so you know one of the big strategies that I was you know that I think the entire market realized from the interop perspective the last you know 12 to 18 months has been you know the opportunity with regards to connecting chains is still very much present but very cutthroat. the opportunity for connecting to, you know,

asset issuers offchain and bringing them onchain and kind of operating within this more uh kind of like uh bridge between traditional finance and and DeFi was where a lot of the big opportunity was. Now you guys are almost like like you know still obviously seeing that uh play out, but almost like skipping a step and going straight to being like okay, we're just going to be the asset the asset issuer and then we'll be able to use our own technology. um to bring that form of this Bitcoin LST to wherever union the protocol already is connected. Um and so you can see a lot of different opportunities for potential yield etc on some of the chains and on Union itself. Is that the right way to

think about it? Exactly. And it transforms kind of the the type of sales that we do when we talk with these institutions. Instead of us trying to convince someone like here's sooie it's a fantastic chain it's fast we actually highlight like the defi opportunities we have for them we can kind of almost even skip al together like the type of chain that is going to be on right and we can just highlight like these are currently like the yield opportunities that we have available this is like our recommended strategy and we can completely omit actually which chain this is happening on what ecosystem this is embedded in or if you need to switch around various assets going to a different one, right? We have an all incompassing package here that kind of does what we set out to do originally, right? Like abstract uh all

of these blockchains away into just one uniform experience. Yeah. So, give us a bit more details about the LST. Um how how are you thinking about rolling this out? You know, what is your what is your strategy to um be able to turn this into something uh that you feel will be a significant revenue generator for the union protocol? um you know the decentralized union network, how are you thinking about um kind of rolling this out? How are you thinking about uh you know you know uh turning it into something that ends up generating quite a bit of revenue and like where are you seeing the opportunities uh for uh a Bitcoin LST in the market today?

Yeah. So we basically see kind of two two opportunities we need to capture. One is of course now that Devil is announcing a whole host of new be sense where I think there's actually a lot of really high quality ones amongst them that actually like reignites the staking opportunity and on top of that what we see most right now is actually a lot of institutions and bitcoin wheels being tired of airdrop farming with their BC LSDs and they're just looking for like solid revenue right solid recurring revenue on their Bitcoin they don't need to chase insane potential airdrop yields they just want something that they can rely on um so we're looking to capture both opportunities here on top of that we're introducing a new technological primitive to the union

stack which we call principally protected vaults. Basically what this means is that we're combining our tech stack our ZK tech stack with a sort of gearbox like vault technology. What it allows us to do is give select institutions access to DeFi opportunities on chains and but completely protecting them from DeFi hex and bridge risk. Effectively, we sort of create this really safe centers for them and we're telling them if you're let's say staking with set layer or you are lping two bitcoin derivatives against each other.

Can you guys still hear me? Yeah. Sorry, my phone went off. Or you're um lping uh derivatives against each other. Then we ensure that your original Bitcoin principle is fully protected in the case that Union might get hacked, in the case that the decks that you're linging on gets hacked. uh basically we offer kind of the best that these institutions want to do which is access to yield in a much more secure way. The great thing for union as a protocol is that this also offers the prime yield opportunity because with this like added protection that we give allows LPS to chase higher yields which means that union as a protocol takes a percentage of this yield and so it puts the protocol in a position where it doesn't need to incentivize its users to do

bridge transfers every single day. It can basically just have its users do a bridge transfer once be active on the chain lping [Music] chasing yields and basically earning passive yields on top of that. So once again puts us more in the asset issuance category. Yeah. Yeah. So, so less less need around volume uh in terms of quantity of transactions through the through through the bridge to incentivize people to use it to get fees more around okay let's provide some of the best opportunities available to get yield through you know some of these partners uh for players that have a lot of bitcoin be the source that they want to actually effectively take their bitcoin and you know either

through some sort of like like uh lock and and and is there's some sort of mechanism right where they take their actual bitcoin deposit into these different vaults which then kind of gives you these uh LSTs um and then that you know then they're able to go and you know basically based on like their level of risk there's junior tranches senior tranches these types of of kind of uh you know risk parameters they're able to then go and earn yield you guys can can basically earn a small cut of that for having th this service that could scale to I mean billions of dollars of of deposits um you know and then you can kind of look at Union almost becomes like a tether type player if you will.

Exactly. And specifically from like a tech perspective what we will be building is basically connections to new chains because there's opportunities for our LPs there. Right. So that's the way we kind of analyze where the future technological like direction for Union is exactly where do we find these golden opportunities? Where's expansion worth it to do so? And then in a very purposeful way, we build those connections as well, right? Focus on integrating with kind of the DeFi protocols that interest us there instead of necessarily thinking we just want to connect that chain because yeah, we like doing two logos in the partnership.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I think uh like while I still am bullish on interrupt protocols that can effectively be everywhere with low lift, there's obviously a power law happening where you know you you basically want to be where the money and where the activity is. You know the the effort focused there on kind of depth over breath I think is very clearly uh kind of like the strategy to to win. Um let's talk about Babylon. So you guys are, you know, you kind of briefly mentioned um, you know, a couple tidbits there, but from what I understand, Union is becoming a Bitcoin secured network through Babylon. Um, receiving a a 25 million Babby token, uh, you know,

allocation, uh, you know, grant, etc. And you guys are going to be able to then take Union and effectively make it into a Bitcoin secured network. uh in addition to whatever consensus you guys have already or are planning to do. How did that come about? You know, what did I mess up? Um and you know, what does this bring to the union network? Yeah, for us specifically brings further censorship resistance to the union network. So, actually previously before this, uh Union itself already has extremely good security properties, but more so it actually embeds us deeper in this BTC ecosystem, right? with Union becoming the default bridge for the various BSNs to communicate with each other potentially

even the default bridge for the BSN to pay Babylon uh in the uh token as well on their inflation right so you might see indeed that you kind of still actually functions as this indeed like pure payment router um under the hood for these various system chains so that's going to provide a whole bunch of volume and traffic to us and then on top of that it kind of makes us that canonical entry points into onchain Bitcoin. Yeah. And and so Babylon has has created they're called DSN's and what does that stand for?

Bitcoin secured network or sorry BSN's Bitcoin secure networks. Okay. So basically with their with their I guess you it's called it's reststake Bitcoin. Is that the correct term? Um I don't actually think it's restst. I think it's all natively staked Bitcoin. Okay. Um and so effectively uh you can you can see it as A assum although a little bit more tightly integrated with each other. Yeah. And so you kind of becomes the communication layer between all of these PS hands. Got it. Okay. And then this enhances your or is a core part of the actual LST product as well. Correct. Like these go hand in hand.

Yeah. Exactly. Because as you can imagine for the LST product to work, we want to actively stake the Bitcoin first on these various BSNs. Um we need to have the direct connection to the Bitcoin chain itself of course and to Baboon. So actually from a technological perspective, it all fits in very nicely here for kind of the main like liquidity layer in this ecosystem to be the main purchase well and the main communication layer. Yep. Yep. Yep. Got it. Beautiful. Wow. That's uh that is uh that is not the union that I uh that I knew a year and a half ago.

Yeah exactly. We're just actually like committing more, right? So, for some probably have already seen the signs, right, than the last couple of months with how we're betting, I think it's strategically the wisest choice and with us entering a new Google market and hopefully Bitcoin indeed uh going even more to the moon, I think we'll be in a very good position. Yeah, man. So, I can't help but ask why, you know, this union community has been absolutely ravenous on my tweets, tagging me on the rollup. You guys have really built this kind of it feels like grassroots, you know, organic community.

It feels like you guys have somehow like zigged when others have zagged in the sense that there's a lot of these kind of like uh you know, very incentivized uh you know, pure transactional community. But you know you guys have been building this for quite a while in in that way that you know you know last time we spoke you mentioned that there's people in your community who are like look you know saying to other community members like if if you're not doing enough work like you know you don't you know you're not going to get anything like you need to be act you know actively contributing and you it feels like you guys have built this kind of culture around uh really trying to grow within each other and for the broader space you know as a as a whole part of that I've seen some stuff uh that you

guys announced in the community call I think today around some of the uh upcoming Kaido incentives as as well. Maybe you could just like give some advice from a founders perspective as to you know how to build a really strong community in the space what that really means and then you know what's coming up for for this community that that so deeply cares about what you guys are shipping. Yeah. Yeah. So I think for us really the turning point was when two years ago we experimented with maybe doing a quest or two on MVHQ. We did one on Galaxy. That didn't work out for us in the early days. B it wasn't genuine. We didn't really get community members from that. Instead was like poor and I just sat down over

Christmas. We made something that we thought was really cool which was kind of like our achievement dashboard inspired by my time playing right. like I kind of wanted something like very reminiscent of that and then we just twins like we really went out there. Um I'm really happy with our community. Uh I make a lot of sarcastic joke sarcastic jokes which sometimes they dislike sometimes we argue on Twitter but I think the thing that we just did as founders we just went out there and just started fighting with them in the replies in the comments and making jokes and almost fostering like our own community. We've had some community members started like a 100 followers who are now like at 5k followers all by kind of building their personality around union and that that's originally when I

went into crypto what happens as well right like we random accounts and just because you like you like chain link marines and y exactly you like build your personality around this entire community. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what we kind of wanted to bring back a bit. Now the market changed of course right with goto and info like you have to play it a little bit differently. you can't do it the same way people did it five years ago. So we had to play into that. But we really wanted to make sure that it wasn't just going to be kind of like a wheel game or the same Ks that you see everywhere like copy to a project briefly almost like mercenary mind share and then move on to the next one. Right?

So even with the new stuff that we're doing, we're looking to make sure that like our OG community members benefit the most and that we attract like long-term community members from this. Not just like a brief spike in mind share and then then moving back to the next project, but having them stay consistently within. And that's difficult to do to be honest. There like almost like experimenting every week to see what does work, what doesn't work, um, and and how do we make this something great. Yeah. No, I mean, Infi and Kaido completely changed things from my perspective as well. Um and there was a period there where you know there was a lot of uh people just doing whatever they could for the uh you know different leaderboard allocations per se and then I think it's kind of calmed down a bit. Um, you know,

I think there's a I think there's a a you know, there's a question to be asked, right, from the content creator's perspective with regards to like your your your your actual influence versus like your your, you know, Twitter engagement and such. And like that that is bifurcating more and more as a result of some of this stuff. But actually what's funny and ironic is that the entire inception of you know of Kaido of these platforms was actually meant to um show who had real influence and who was like either had botted followers or had you know nobody who was a smart follower uh following them. And so that that really kind of uh uh was the point I think and then now six eight months in

it's actually kind of gone full circle in that uh we're seeing like another kind of layer of the onion be unraveled where uh there there are people who have you know gone too too far on like trying to optimize for mind share in different communities and not far enough on optimizing for actual you know intelligent original thought and so be interesting just to see how this all plays out. just a really big human social experiment at scale which is uh is that they're always fun to be a part of. Um just any any more information on this Kaido uh program that you guys plan to to launch uh sometime next week or or just good to tease it here?

Yeah, I'm just going to tease it here for now. I think we're like in a really good position on this since we're like basically built like our own dashboards in house for this, right? So beautiful. And we have a lot of info on our users both like onchain what they've been doing in so far. So we're trying to combine that in a really good way. We know which yappers have used the products and which one. Yeah. So that's a big um like that's like the where that's like where the next step of infopi is going. Like there's a new uh project called banter. They're just tying everything from uh like kind of like mind share to actual conversions on chain. That's kind of like the next it's like the sec the second level of market saturation for this uh kind of kind of

space. So interesting to to uh hear that and keen to to uh kind of follow that and watch that come out. Uh got a couple minutes left here. Um obviously big announcements today been in the pipe for a while. Um looking ahead everybody's ready for mainet. Everybody wants TGE. Everyone wants to see this thing out there in the wild. We want to see your your um Bitcoin LST get to 250, 500, 750, a billion dollars TVL. Um you know, figure out ways to get revenue back to the token, back to the, you know, create this kind of flywheel, etc., etc.

There's a lot of things coming. Um but what is your main prerogative for the next, you know, quarter or so, end of summer into uh you know, the end of Q3, early Q4? Um what's your main focus? What are you guys shipping? and you know kind of how are you thinking about the road to mainet? Yeah, so specifically for this Bitcoin LST or aggregated LST product um we kind of made the uh hires a couple of weeks ago already. So one of my focus still remains like union full mainet. So for those who might think like oh this is like announcement is kind of surprisingly coming out of nowhere no

we're actually planning for this for a couple of months now and now made like all the key hires to be able to execute on this fully with folks who previously worked at other major Bitcoin analyses and now um for me actually now those hires have been made I can actually focus back on uh indeed like I won't say it's the final step but indeed like full mainet the next big milestone for you. Beautiful. Beautiful. Um, and are we look are we thinking like couple months out, end of the year? What's your like uh what's your what's your estimated timeline here? And kind of like what are the next like what are the actual steps that you have to finish off the last iteration of test net? Do some things like kind of like how like what's the steps? What's the estimated timeline? If

you if you can share. Yes, we actually had an original marketing announcement. So our objective is to actually TGE this summer. Um, once again, never promises on timelines, right? Just don't know what happens. Devs are dev community members like I wish I could just press a button and launch an saying a sick token, right? And just be done with it, right? But there's so much work that you need to do to actually like insane amount of work that has to occur. But no, no, that that's still the objective. I don't want to like first get this BTC LST to three billion TVL and then TGE, right? I want to basically have those things happen concurrently in the journey.

Yeah. Beautiful. Well, Carell, I appreciate your time. Congrats on the announcement. Congrats on launching this and um still sounds like you had a busy couple months. So, I'm sure you'll be heads down, but uh look looking forward to syncing up again closer to to mainet and uh watching this kind of go from 100 mil, 200 mil, 300 mil. I'm sure you got a bunch of things lined up. So, uh stoked for this and uh thanks thanks for joining man. Thank you so much for having me, Andy. All righty, buddy. speak soon. Cheers.

There we go. All right, there's the news. The uh the the Union Bitcoin LST is coming out. They've received a they are becoming a Bitcoin secured network. Um they are collaborating with Babylon. They got a Kaido incentive program coming out shortly. Um wow, what a what a day for the union folks. And it is 8:30 p.m. in Sweden. Markets are ripping. It's crypto week in America. What a day. What a time to to be alive.

Up next, we got Michael from Securitize. But I've got a couple things that I want to show you guys before we jump on as to why Bitcoin is kind of lagging today. Uh, and we had about a bit of a four, five, six% drop on Bitcoin in general. Um, which is fine. You know, I think people are kind of kind of freaking out about Bitcoin being at 118K or something. Uh, but what what I'm going to show you is what I think the the reason why and I think a lot of people are uh kind of sketched out about this and and rightfully so. So, we're going to get that pulled up on on the screen.

Do a little vibing. Good. Good. First first uh first episode back first segment. We're live in Sweden. It's 8:30 p.m. I miss Robbie. Where's Rob at? All right. So the news for today is um the uh dormant Bitcoin whale offloading billions. Um wow. Okay. So what's happening here is basically the the problem that the market is seeing is that there has been massive OTC sales of Bitcoin directly on the market uh from a whale who activated their address from I think either 13 or 14 years ago. Um, and so

this person was like kind of I guess you know part of the Satoshi era. It's been 14 years since they were since they've activated this address. Uh they sold 2.3 billion uh via Galaxy Digital and then I think they sent another I don't know I think it was like 2,000 Bitcoin or something to um Bybit to sell. So I think that's probably why the market's a bit spooked right now. I'm not really worried about it. I think this lasts all of a couple of days. This guy's going to finish selling. What a generational trade. I mean, oh my god. Trade of a of a century right there. I mean, you know, he he he got

Bitcoin in from I guess 14 years ago in 2011. You must have thought it was be cents to dollars. Sells it for 1.35 or 2.35 billion OTC. So, I think that that's kind of where a lot of the fear in the markets came from. I get it. It's reasonable. I'm not potentially worried about it. I think it's just part of kind of like the here and now, part of this of the reality of markets. Um, and, you know, I think that something that will probably pass. So, I I think that this gives a good reason for Ethereum to outperform. Um, we'll see though. I'm not really going to sit here and talk my market predictions. I'm definitely not a good trader. I am a buyer and a holder.

I got lucky on Hyperlquid at $2. That thing's up there at 47 now. Got lucky on Pangu. That thing's doing well. So, don't listen to my market advice. Definitely not financial advice. But, um, look, I think that this gives ETH an opportunity to breathe. I think this is a lot of the kind of fear in the market today. Um, and you know, I'd expect this kind of turn of events to be over shortly. So, all right guys, that is the Bitcoin segment. That is that. Up next, we've got Michael Sonishine from Securityize.

We're going to pull the screen back. We're going to go to Michael in a bit. Michael is the COO of Securitize, formerly at Grayscale. Um, it is tokenization mania right now in the RWA front. I don't know if you guys h have noticed, but on my on my uh timeline, I've been putting out a ton more kind of charts from RWAXYZ. Shout out to those guys. Those guys are absolutely crushing credible source for data in the RWA space. Can rely on them for stable coins, private credit, bonds, stocks, etc. coming on chain. Um, so I've been stoked to uh been just using their data more and more. Um, but we've got Michael coming on. He's pioneering a

lot of the work at Securityize. They're crushing. I got a ton of questions for him about the work that they're doing. I'm stoked on it. Let's get back to it. Bitcoin's pumping. Wish I had some music. Gonna have to get some music on the set going forward and some like uh still need some like uh audience clappings and like shebangs and stuff, but that's coming. I need some music on on on the set soon to be able to get get the vibes going, you know, get the uh get the people going a little bit. Yeah. I need a cha-ching. Get Michael comes on here in a in a second or two and he's like 25 billion in RWA. were like cha-ching cha-ching. So, that's coming soon. We got other stuff coming soon on

the roll up. We got new shows. We got new segments coming on the roll up. We got a new focus as well. We're seeing a bit more of these live streams kind of roll out. So, we're going to, you know, we're going to zigg well other zag and uh see what see what comes next. But yeah, we got Michael joining us. He's coming on. We got another 30-minut segment with Michael. Looking forward to having him on. Should be fun. And um yeah guys. Market looks good. I'm feeling good. 8:33 in Sweden. Definitely going to go for some dinner after this stream. About an hour left. Big day. So, let's get Michael in here here any second and we'll be ready to rock and roll. Let's go.

We're getting Michael up here. We're gonna have to turn the professionalism on. We're going full RWA. We're going full full institutions here, guys. Let's have some fun. Uh let's talk security. Let's talk grayscale. Uh let's talk RWAs. Let's talk what's going on with the ecosystem. Um and yeah, uh I'm I'm stoked. I I have a lot of questions. I have a lot to learn still. Um, and I I know it's going to be a good stream. So, let's go. Um, if you guys don't know what what Secured Size is, they are uh one of the larger um players in the tokenization space along with Black Rockck. They're pioneering a lot of the Black Rockck build programs, a lot of the multi-chain stuff. Um, anything that you're seeing

from Ripple to Wormhole to layer zero uh and more uh secured size is likely behind it. So, Michael's ready. He's in the back. Let's get him up. And um yeah, let's have a fun show. Michael, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. Good to see you, man. I'm digging that that that art in the background. What is that? A uh is that an NFT by chance? It is not an NFT, but you know, the fact that we're calling it potentially an NFT. Someone will probably like screenshot this conversation and turn it into an NFT, right? Uh no, it's actually aerial photography. It's a beach. Those are beach umbrellas.

Oh, wow. That's super cool, man. Nice. Yeah. Well, welcome to the show. Um it's 8:30 here in Sweden. You're calling in. You're live. Uh nothing that you say will be used against you unless you uh have some really spicy takes. But um but yeah, man. Welcome on. Wanted to to talk mostly about this tokenization mania that's happening today. I mean it just it it it seems like day after day the news wire rings with different announcements, different collaborations um and a lot of these partnerships really just bridging the gap between uh kind of the traditional finance world and DeFi crypto native world. Um so why don't we just get started with a brief in introduction of securitize really I

think that uh getting to understand what it is that you guys do at the core level would be great and I got a ton of fun questions for you. Yeah. Awesome. Well, it's great to be here. Appreciate the time. So, um, I'm Michael Sunenshine. I'm the chief operating officer here at Securitize. I've actually only been with Securitize for the past seven months. Um, I've been in the crypto space over the last 12 years. Um, so I've been at this at this game for a while, seen a lot of different cycles and a lot of different um, you know, themes and breakthroughs within crypto. But I do think this time it feels a little bit different, which hopefully we can talk about today. Um, oh, don't say that, Michael. Don't say that.

Um, at, you know, at Securitize, um, you know, I really give credit to the team, our co-founder and CEO, Carlos Domingo, who've been really pushing the company over the last seven years. Um, for a long time, was pushing this concept of tokenization. Candedly, no one really cared about it until the last probably 12 or 18 months. And so, really at its core, securitized the technology platform. um it has built the infrastructure to be able to mint real world assets. In our case, we really just focus on tokenization of securities um onto public blockchain. So today we're integrated with a dozen public blockchains.

Everything from Arbitron to Salana to Ethereum to Avalanche to Aptos Inc. you name it. Um and we really work as a service provider for some of the largest asset issuers in the world. uh folks like Apollo and Black Rockck and Van and Hamilton Lane KKR really helping them to bring traditional investment offerings from their traditional formats onto public blockchains. And so we're able to do that both with the combination of our tech infrastructure that allows us to to mint these assets on public chains as well as the fact that we have the right lensure and that we're doing this in a compliant manner. So, we have a regulated broker dealer that allows us to sell authorizes us to sell tokenized securities. We have an SEC registered

transfer agent so that we're always keeping a set of shadow books and records on who owns what. Um, and also a fund administration business. So, as these investments make their way onto public blockchains, we have the right infrastructure to surround how those funds are serviced day-to-day. Um so in totality um it is really a vertically integrated offering for top tier issuers looking to um bring investments on chain. Beautiful. I think I think it's going to be super helpful to understand a bit of like the you know why now question before getting into some of the nitty-gritty. And so you guys have just been uh recognized for being the first to tokenize five different uh RWAS with over hund00 million in AUM each. So

congratulations. Um, you know, I'm curious from your perspective, what these what the top factors that are driving traditional finance titans to embrace tokenization now and you know, kind of what what are these new capabilities? What are these new reasons that have recently emerged um that you know aren't possible in with legacy assets or weren't possible in the past? Um, you know, just like why now? Yeah. So, I would start by saying it's not really hype. Um, I think where we are today is really history in the making. There is always this impatience around crypto, like why not faster? Like why aren't things, you know, happening

faster? Why am I still not buying a cup of coffee with Bitcoin? You know, all those kinds of things. Um, but I think really what's different about where we are now is just the numbers speak for themselves and I think who's involved um only gives that greater tailwinds. um and validity to the staying power not of just the asset class but this subset of the asset class. So when you look at the RWA market, even just the last six months, it's it's like doubled in size almost, right? Like we've gone, you know, RWA's now are over 25 billion um at the moment, which is just wild. Um and when you look at previous cycles or previous breakthroughs within the crypto

space, there was a lot more I think embedded in this idea of speculation, adopting technology early, things like that. and eventually more of those institutional investors um and institutional capital came in. Now when we look at who's getting involved in the RWA space, it's the largest asset issuers in the world. It's Black Rockck, it's Apollo, it's it's folks like that. And so I think that lends the certain credibility and validity to what we're seeing. And it's also not just kind of experimentation, right? we're actually seeing real infrastructure being built um and and the real deployment of assets on chain in a way that is far outstripping far outshining their

traditional counterparts and that's really why I think it's so different. Yeah. Yeah. I mean between and you know like I think there's actually a a deeper driver with regard specifically on the economic side um which is is is actually ironically the the higher interest rates has led to so much more demand for uh T bills and and US treasuries and then stable coins obviously have kind of grown into this into this mega behemoth idea that is so easy to understand for you know the non-crypto folk that is you can act you know you can really just democratize access to not only just US dollars but uh US dollar denominated yields globally right and so I think the

you know while I think the the the rest of the crypto markets are are screaming for rate cuts and even I think Trump is himself I think that uh a larger part of this entire sector and frankly a reason why I think a lot of people like wrote off the their interest in it because it was just oh it's just tea bills. Oh yeah, they're tokenizing tea bills. Great. But that that kind of allowed the foundation to really be built uh you know around okay we can actually bring this real financial product onchain that has a real use case real yield. Um and that I think you know maybe you see it differently but I feel like that had a large that was the foundation in my mind of this entire like concept of RWA's

tokenization. Obviously now it's quite you know quite a bit bigger. Um but I think that you know that part also played a big role and like without the kind of broader macroeconomic reality of higher rates you know maybe this space would have started in a completely different way. Um that's that's certainly possible and you know I think to your exact point you know stable coins have um had have seen explosive growth. They're continuing to you know expand rapidly just even as we're speaking here today. Um, they're certainly reshaping and re recasting the way that people think about value, moving value on chain and there's no question that they have become the common denominator across the crypto ecosystem, right? Whether it's for

trading, for um, you know, moving value, uh, for, uh, derivatives, you know, whatever it is that you're doing, stable coins are kind of showing up everywhere. Um what's interesting about where the RWA cycle is in general though is that things like tokenized treasuries are starting to challenge um the stable coin model, right? And I think the onchain investor is starting to rethink what they should be using to collateralize their onchain activities given the yields and the high quality assets that are available to them and things like tokenized treasuries and even some of the other yield bearing assets that we're starting to see coming out of the tokenization space. So it is definitely a pivotal time for for all of this.

Yeah. One one other uh kind of thought with regards to how this has played out is and I think a misconception of a lot of Ethereum believers early on was that all the RWA are just going to be living on on Ethereum. It's the most secure censorship resistant network. It's where everyone's going to want to be. What we've actually seen is one, it's it appears to be more of a a a lack of a preference for for uh you know general purpose chains, let's call it Avalanche, Salana Ethereum Aptos etc. Um and then also actually a desire for more of specialized and like custom, you know, chain developments converge

with Athena Plasma and stable, those kind of like tether chains, Robin Hood chain. How like did you think that it was going to play out this way? Like were we all wrong thinking that it was just going to be on on on Ethereum? Like looking back like how like did you know is this is is this what you thought would happen? And maybe we we can then make a more kind of forward-looking thought as to where these things will live in the future. Yeah. Well, it's a great point. I mean at Securitize we're certainly, you know, chain agnostic. We're integrated with a dozen public blockchains. So everything from like I shared Ethereum to Arbitum to Avalanche to Salana, you name it. There has definitely been I'd say probably the

predominant amount of RWA minted on EVM chains, but you are starting to see more movement into um you know things like Salana and you know some other parts of the crypto ecosystem. Um, and I think that's a function of the fact that each of these chains, each of these chains and their associated um, entities and ecosystems and enthusiasts, they all have these installed bases um, of participants and investors and people that are looking to engage on those protocols in new ways, right? So if you're someone who's a Salana enthusiast, yeah, sure, maybe you are uh speculating on the price of Salana, maybe you're actively staking Salana, you know, maybe you're doing all these

other things, but now the fact that there are these onchain investment opportunities for you to participate in on Salana creates yet another use case, another utility that maybe wasn't there before. Um and so when you think it we think about each of these as sub ecosystems um you can see why you know we at Securitize are minting assets across so many different blockchains and then also working with great partners like wormhole to facilitate interoperability um across um you know each of these each of these ecosystems. Um and I think one of the other things that we're also doing which is exciting is also working on building another blockchain. Um we're working with the team at Athena to launch Converge which will be a new blockchain

um that's really we hope going to be a you know like a a settlement layer a sub you know kind of common denominator as we think about these really high quality RWAs and how they live and interact with the world of DeFi which for a lot of the onchain investors is really where they want to take their RWAs to get that much more value out of them that much more utility out of them so I think it's too early to make a call. Um, and I think that we will continue to see rapid RWA development across a lot of different chains, a lot of different ecosystems.

Yeah. Yeah. I I mean I think converge is a perfect example of a thesis that we've held at the rollup for a while which is around um you know originally it was kind of application specific chains but I really kind of view it as like okay you you you have these purpose-built environments specific for specific reasons and and for a specific use case and then also for a niche market segment. So it's it's kind of like these niche purpose-built chains are what where I think a lot of the space is going to head and it just happens so happens to be that converge you know accurately fits in into this. So let's go a bit a bit deeper on Converge as you guys as you mentioned securitize is one of the largest if not the largest RWA uh

issuer on Ethereum right if if you don't count stable coins um now partnering with Athena's USD uh which is the like you know top three stable coin top four stable coin in in the world how do you view this kind of uh partnership joint venture this launch of this chain to you know further cement Ethereum and converge GE as the go-to platform for institutional and traditional finance. How do you really plan to make that a reality? Yeah. So, I think it really comes down to the partnerships and the ecosystem that you know we and the Athena team are building around Converge. Um so for one you know on the securityize side we're certainly um hoping to bring many of the

top tier asset issuers that we already work with to the converge ecosystem so that they can bring their products you know to new users and new use cases and new utility. Certainly with Athena a lot of their partners across the DeFi ecosystem I think really can help enhance what that looks like. And so as we want to um you know move towards launching converge hopefully you know in Q3 it's not just about the infrastructure or the issuers but it's a lot of the application partners. So we've already, you know, announced folks like Maple and Morpho and Pendle and Terminal and Strata. And so from the get-go for us, it's really about having

these types of partnerships, these types of, you know, functionality in place as RWAs make their way into the Converge ecosystem and then also making sure that we have the appropriate developer tools so that Converge can really serve as that layer for where a lot of these applications come together or converge. Well, well, Michael, it's crypto week in America man. It is. It is. Yeah, I I don't know if you saw that Trump tweet, but uh he's he's he's pretty uh hardressed on getting this Genius Act bill, this Genius Act through and then also this uh Clarity Act as well. Um very bullish Ethereum on my side as a result of this.

Extremely bullish on these uh kind of uh legally, you know, legal tender stable coinesque uh products as well. Um I mean let's say you know end of week we get genius act passed we get clarity act through you know what does this do for the tokenization RWA sector what what kind of confidence does this instill and you know what does this do for for crypto in America as a whole from your perspective? Yeah, I mean, you're talking to someone that has spent many years, you know, lobbying on Capitol Hill, um, you know, multiple very deep engagements with the SEC, CFTC, Treasury, you name it. So the

environment that we find ourselves in today here in the US really with this desire to cement the US as the crypto capital of the world to have, you know, bipartisan supported um legislation passing through Congress. Um the types of um you know task forces and requests for information and things like that coming out of our regulators and legislators. I mean this is the type of stuff that an industry which arguably is still a cottage industry is tiny compared to all the other industries that our regulators and legislators are responsible for. I mean these are the types of things that we could only dream of right um and I think the stakes are probably higher than ever. Um and I say that because you know

also having somewhat of a global view um of crypto just being in the space over the last decade. It is always and and at the moment remains the US that so many other jurisdictions look to for guidance. Um and so how policies get set up, how um you know different pieces of legislation are enacted here in the US definitely is going to have a ripple effect, no pun. um to other jurisdictions all around the world. So I think this time it does feel different um and the stakes have probably never been higher as to the implications for crypto in general.

Yes. So it's very important that we get this right w which I think why there was a lot of DeFi leaders you know going to the White House going to these meetings doing their as much as they can to properly lobby in the last even just six to eight months. uh specifically with with this Genius Act because you know I think originally there was quite a bit of of nuance missing from the actual act and I think that over time it got to a point where I think a lot of the stable coin issuers and um you know people that were quite in the know of of of the matter felt very very comfortable and strong about about this and so I think the second order effect is going to be we're about to see a lot more stable coins launched like

we are very quickly Yeah, and listen, I think there's a lot of, you know, there are some pole position stable coins like USDC and Tether and things of that nature. And so with this new framework in place and you know, it's very easy to understand you going to run a stable coin, you here in the US and offer it to us investors, things like that, you need to put it in transparent reserves that are registered funds, direct treasuries, shortdated repo, things of that nature. And um all the new issuers that are up and coming probably just kind of feel like they have everything to gain and and nothing to lose, right?

Um and you know, not only do we kind of see this new framework having emerged that I think can spur a lot more activity and a lot more issuers coming, but I also think it says a lot for kind of businesses like Securitize, right? like today um you know the fund that we worked on and continue to service for BlackRock the Biddle fund that serves as a reserve asset for a lot of stable coins right um and so I think those that are looking at tokenization in general they're going to see increasingly not just with stable coins but tokenized treasuries there's just so much more functionality on chain that just traditional rails don't allow for um and in the everinccreasingly scrutinized

world of atomic subscriptions and access to capital 24/7. Um it just further necessitates or almost like a shining advertisement or endorsement that this concept of tokenization of securities and the utility and features that it offers. Um these are just irrefutable and this is the direction that banks are going to go in as they launch their own stable coins. Other payment businesses are going to go in and probably other cryptonative stable coin issuers as well. So Michael with that kind of uh lens of thought and you know kind of uh you know thought process here what is the what is the the part of this entire sector per se that as a result of new

stable coin issuers new stable coins and just this this continuous growth like is there a is is there a a a a part of the sector which you can point to specifically as to like this is something that people should be watching ing in the next year more than other parts or that hey like you know stable coins are very exciting and there's going to be a lot more of them and you know uh tokenized treasuries are great but like really you know there's a lot happening here that I don't think is getting enough love is there anything that comes to mind specifically in this sector yeah I mean stable coins and and tokenized treasuries Genius Act these are all very important topics um a topic that arguably is actually getting more

airtime and I think it deserves our airtime as well now um is to talk about the tokenization of equities um right um and that's you know seemingly this next big foray into expanding the RWA market and the assets that you know we believe are going to be going on chain next you know you've seen a variety of announcements from companies believing that they've kind of cracked the the model um to be able to bring equities onchain and uh you have this overall convergence between wealth that's been accumulated in wallets and wealth that's been accumulated in brokerage accounts and you're starting to see user behavior want those two

pools of wealth to converge um so that you know they have one one user interface one pile of assets that they can um really leverage for their investment strategies and so I think the next natural extension of where we are is the tokenization of equities I'd say broadly two major schools of thought have emerged and I I believe and happy to talk about what secure tag is doing here but those two schools of thought are really one wrapping securities. Um and so you have a lot of folks that are working to create special purpose vehicles or rappers where the tokenized interest is in that rapper itself before the user um has actually any recourse or legal rights or

obligations to the underlying equity that it owns. um we think that that's a problematic uh strategy. Um it doesn't really demonstrate for the users a real ownership. Um instead it's really more like synthetic representation. And I think the SEC has even recently commented, Hester Pur last week put out some commentary on exactly this that these kind of receipts for securities um you know don't really allow issuers or investors to enjoy the protections that you know US securities have. Um we at Securitize on the other hand have taken a much more digitally native approach.

So because we have the infrastructure surrounding our broker dealer, our transfer agent um and DTC connectivity, we're actually able to facilitate the movement of shares of of a security that someone owns regular way back through the DTC system and thus able to mint the asset back to the user um in their wallet so that they enjoy the exact same rights and ownership and governance and distributions and everything that they would normally be experiencing. ing in a traditional environment. And so at the moment these two schools of thought are out there. Um ultimately I think something is going to come to a head around this. Um I think regulators are watching this closely. I think that a

lot of this activity certainly around synthetic and kind of rappers of equity are happening more offshore. Uh but certainly as soon as some of that activity comes back into the US market and into the wallets of US known investors um it is I think it is going to be problematic and I do think this is something everyone should be paying attention to and everything everyone should be watching. Yeah. I mean it sounds quite similar to you know owning Bitcoin in your on the Bitcoin blockchain in a in a ledger versus owning wrap Bitcoin on Ethereum for example, right? I mean it it's different but uh from a very cryptonative lens the there there are there are going to be investors who are okay with that and there's going to be investors who seemingly like are are not

going to want that. Um, you know, I think that's right, but I think it extends beyond that. Like that's a cryptonated analogy that we can sink our teeth into. But, you know, if you really are thinking about this happening in size and institutions coming to, you know, want to trade equities 24/7, 365, they're going to care quite a bit about the tax treatment, the governance rights, the ability to have voting rights on the equities that they own. And a lot of that stuff won't be able to be extrapolated or um make its way into the way that that's done for these synthetic or wrap securities. And I think certainly from a regulator perspective, I don't see how it would be

possible to instill the protections around insider trading and order protection and all the kinds of things and disclosure um that certainly our regulators want to ensure that investors have when they are making these types of investments. Yeah. Yep. Totally totally get it. Um, so I'm I mean I'm I am it is going to be fun to watch these these two kind of uh schools of thought play out. It's good it's good to hear that securityize is very much thinking about this from a uh again it's not necessarily like the crypto ethos per se but it's just this ownership um that is valuable and then all of these different uh kind of aspects that institutions will want um that you just you know kind of put out

there I think will will also fall into line there. Um so I I I I agree broadly as well tokenized equities. I also think like extrapolating that to the next extreme is like um let's let's put you know instead of uh you know I don't think Stripe's ever going to go public but like instead of um you know instead of your favorite app on your phone that's kind of small but kind of big um you know that could do an IPO potentially no no why don't we why don't we think about a way to do some sort of like onchain IPO or some sort of like tokenized version of of these ownerships and I think that could also happen But very, you know, obviously we're still in, you know, step one here of just getting tokenized equities onchain. Um,

but that's something that I'm excited about too. Yeah. Listen, and I think what you just said is is coming, right? Um, onchain IPOs, onchain secondaries. I mean, there's no reason that issuers should not be able to tap directly into this, you know, installed base of investors who are looking for these types of opportunities. And I think it's the next natural evolution um of of capital markets. In fact, you know, we and some others actually think that over time as the tokenization of stocks, you know, continues to pervade, um this actually might be the next evolution of ETFs.

Right? Today, we've seen and continue to see day after day more and more mutual funds shutting down and swapping into ETF format. um you know that's been a decade decade plus you know kind of process um and perhaps over the next you know however many years we see a similar you know kind of movement in user behavior away from ETFs into you know tokenized securities that can serve with those same types of exposures. Yep. Yep. Yep. Very very interesting. Last thing for you Michael that I have is so you worked at Grace for quite a while. Uh I just have a couple questions about that. First of all, um, where were you when Barry Silbert tweeted, "It's going to be a big week." And then that

became one of the biggest memes in crypto. I don't know if I remember where I physically was. Um, but um, you know, that's um, you know, my time at Grayscale, 10 and a half years was is a time period I look back on really fondly. Yeah. lot of wins, a lot of successes, a lot of lessons learned, a lot of great people along the way. Um, and probably a lot of big weeks if I really think back on. Um, what so you guys grew this to I mean a multi-billion dollar uh kind of entity um with you know everything from the ETF products to the kind of like uh tokenized uh or basically funds for different tokens etc. you know, what are

some of the lessons that you carried over in in particular or at least just what are some of the things that you personally uh you know overcame wanted, you know, a sense kind of grown grown skills as a result of your time there that you're carrying over to securityize you know if you could pinpoint a couple things that yeah bunch of things come to mind. So I think first and foremost um you know when I joined Gayscale essentially as employee number one I remember when we were two people, five people, 10 people, 100 people, right? And so over time as the business grew and scaled, it was so important for me and everyone around me to learn delegation um as the company became more complex, our processes

became more complex. Um the ability to delegate and lean on team members um was just something I and everyone had to learn. Um and certainly something that I'm taking with me as I, you know, now am in this role at Security overseeing a whole bunch of different parts of the organization. Um, I think too culture is is so so key. Um, you know, at Grayscale and certainly at Securitize, we want people to, you know, show up as their authentic selves, do their best work. Um, and because we are not a bank, because we are not an institution that has, you know, the rigidity of so many different, um, you know, levels of approval and committees and we want to,

you know, move fast and sometimes break things. Um, when you create an environment for people to just be who they are, um, and do their best work, not be afraid to take risks, ask questions, question the status quo. I always felt and seem to continue to feel that that you actually get the best output out of employees. Um, and I think the third thing, and this is not just a grayscale thing I learned, and certainly not just something I'm carrying with me at Securitize, but is just generally knowledge that I take with me. um the best companies um they hire people they don't hire resumes um and um you know I think when you are building a team building an organization um sometimes

the zero to one people are not necessarily the one to two people and it's not just what's right for the company but also what's right for the individual themselves as they think about their career path. So, um, I always encourage people to, you know, always look at things with with a fresh perspective and and make sure that they're not kind of stifling their own growth or the growth of the the business they're a part of as well. Well said. $25 billion market cap for RWAS today, about 243 or 245 million in stable coin supply. I'm expecting good 8x on stable coins by the end of next year. you'll you can tell me where RWAS are going. I appreciate you coming

on, Michael. Thanks for joining, man. Thank you. It's great to be here. Cheers, man. Speak to you soon. Ke All righty, guys. Um, great great segment there with Michael from Securitize. That was fun. Uh, last one coming up with Cooper Troopa, uh, to talk about some of the work that he's been doing on the Songcoin side of things and some some of the more onchain native primitives. I I'm just so bullish on the growth of RWAs in the coming months, weeks. Little al alpha leak for you guys as I put in a little piece of nicotine gum. You know, we're live in Sweden. It's 900 pm. We're vibing.

Where's Rob? Where's Rob? Somebody call Rob? Somebody give Robbie a call. Tell him that we need him on here. um little piece of alpha is that we're going to be taking this and kind of tuning it up quite a bit more to talk more and more about this concept of tokenization and this concept of um real world assets. I mean if you ask us what is the most important development of this entire cycle it is this institutional onboarding into crypto. It is this this kind of real capital, real people who are going to have a lot of influence in the way that the space goes forward. And for better or for worse, that's

something that we need to accept and be a part of and help shape on our own. And so, we're going to do our best to be to be a part of that. We're we're we're going to do our our best to properly bring the crypto ethos what matters to us and to you guys with us on that journey. But yeah, I I would say little alpha leak for for the rollup is expect a lot more live streams coming up in in in crypto Twitter and Twitter and in in general expect us to be very niche down uh going forward in this kind of sector.

Michael's the first part of it. That was a great episode. Um lot of insights, fun to talk to. The thing that I would like to get more from these um kind of like tok to tokenization RWA conversations is like more concrete like I hate to use the word alpha but like more concrete uh direct ideas that we can then go and take and like and and and iterate on. And so I it may be hard to actually have that happen where like I can do an episode and then go and and like go buy something on chain. Obviously, that's not that's not the goal, but perhaps there's like a bigger there's a bigger way that I can create the conversation such that um it it it allows us to then

go make you know different decisions in the future uh or or like you know have have a a stance or a view do more research on that you use our fund to find early stage projects that are investing in these types of things etc. So look guys, up next we got Cooper Turley who is a good friend. You might you might know him as Koopa Troopa on the timeline. Um it is uh it is going to be fun. We actually talking about uh a song that one of the first songs that he's doing a song coin for um is actually a a song that I would listen to when I was dropping out of college. Um, and so it's gonna be pretty pretty fun to to have

him talk about that and more. I think he's in the back now. We're ready to have him. Let's get him up and uh welcome him up. Koopa, what's up, man? Cooper, dude, so you're telling me that I'm not the only one that was listening to We Rise, We Fall on repeat every single day in in the early grind. Not quite, man. I actually have a good story from that song. So, me and my friend Lucas, he runs uh pods media. We were traveling around Southeast Asia, fresh out of college. We hit up um Singapore for one of our first crypto conferences, Consensus Singapore, maybe 2017, and I see I see my friend Son Holo playing a show in Vietnam. So, you know, we hop on a plane, get over to Hanoi, and who do you run into the airport? But good old Son Holo there takes us takes

us backstage. One of my very first experiences hanging out with him. And so, we've been building that uh friendship together for close to 10 years at this point. So very full circle moment being able to bring that song on chain. Yeah, man. I mean that that song I just I have such a vivid memory. So I went to University of Florida and I would sit at this library called Library West and I would just get these little blue caffeine drinks, like these little energy drinks and I would just crank work and be listening to it on repeat, no calls, just all like cold outreach for an original online marketing company. I mean, it was just like we rise, we fall, us just, it's just good, man.

I mean, that was the golden era of SoundCloud. And I know we'll get into it in the crux of this conversation, but for anyone that was around SoundCloud at that time, you really just felt such a an energy to all the music that was coming out then, all the artists that were blowing up then. And so, the vision I have is how do we kind of do that again, but allow the people who were actually early to finding those songs and finding those artists be able to get upside in those exact same assets. So, a lot to unpack here. I don't want to frontr run the conversation, but it was definitely uh great to know that you were familiar with the song prior to it going live. Yeah, man. And and you know, it's kind of funny, right? Like I mean I thought I thought Soundcloud somehow had this had

the best platform for discovering new songs that you you and your boys would listen to in the car or put on the aux at parties, but somehow just never caught the traction that uh some of these larger players got. And I actually think that what you're saying could have, you know, had we had this thought and had we had onchain stuff in in in in the past, it it could have, you know, it could have saved SoundCloud. So, look, we'll get right into it. We'll talk about Songcoins. You you released this yesterday, Songcoins. You got memes by ICO Beast for, you know, re reframing music NFTts. You clap back. It's great vibe. Um, what are songcoins? Why does this matter to you? Uh what is the you

know core idea here behind stoncoins? Real time markets for music. The idea is being able to prove that you are early to your favorite songs and your favorite artists. I think that anyone who's been in crypto for a long time understands that no better feeling than catching a coin early, getting to watch it go on a run. I think the exact same thing is possible with music. Obviously, there's been a lot of trials and errors to get to this point in time, but I think coins are the most liquid form of this that we've seen to date. I think it unlocks the ability to do a lot of cool stuff with incentives and giving fans their first taste of crypto. And so I'm happy to go down the full rabbit hole here, but at its very simplest form, we're looking to create real-time markets for

music, give people a chance to be early to the songs that they know and love and trying to remove all the friction that's associated with being in crypto in the first place. So, I was in Albania last week uh with a good friend and I sent him a song on Soundcloud that another friend of mine had sent me and I think the song's for sure going to blow up. uh 100% is is is like a dub trance banger, but it has like really solid uh like vocals on it, too. It's just such a good song. Um you're telling me that I can go and bet that that song is going to blow up in like some arbitrary time period.

And if I'm right, I capture the upside as if it was if I was like buying a stock early. I wouldn't use those exact words for it. Let's be very clear that it's not like there's uh royalties of the songs being pumped back in the token on day one, but I would say that you're basically um being early to the the popularity of that song. And I think that these markets represent the first time in music that you can actually put capital behind that belief and that interest. And so sending it to your boys is one thing, but being able to actually place some money behind that, put some skin in the game. That's kind of the new paradigm that we're looking to build here. You know, I'll be very upfront that it's not like we're going to disintermediate Spotify anytime soon.

They have an amazing product, an amazing listening experience. I think the dynamic that we bring to the table is this concept of a market. The idea that songs do have a market cap that you can actually trade these coins. You can buy a percent of the supply. You can send those to your friends. And over time, if we can create better ways to let you earn those coins from actually supporting and promoting the music in the real world. The northstar here is that the markets that are happening on chain can actually influence the popularity of the song in the real world as well. Yeah, that is in a really really cool self-fulfilling prophecy effect. If you can get that flywheel going, that would be that that would be really really cool. So, okay. So, Coupoops Records, your kind of like record company um is and kind of label

here. You you guys are going to bring a ton of these song coins um you know 10x them to uh consumers kind of broadly. Um, you kind of mentioned obviously it's going to be difficult to, you know, uh, battle with the incumbents per se, but that's not, you know, that's not necessarily the the immediate goal. You know, I'm I'm curious how you are going to try to take some some of what you've done here in the cryptonative world to the uh, kind of everyday music fan, people that are not not familiar with the onchain kind of uh, life per se.

Obviously um you know Sono is a great example but talk to us a bit about kind of your your shift towards more broad uh everyday people you know with your personal brand with your label and kind of how you plan to even scale that more with with Songcoins. There's two things here. One crypto is extremely intimidating to most people. It's extremely scammy to most people or they just don't care about it at all. And so I think the first thing is just addressing that headon. And so a strategy we've taken with a lot of these artists is to go to them and say, "Hey, crypto is this entirely new world. We understand that it's not something that you probably have a deep interest in. We understand it's something that you probably feel pretty polarized by. And so how do we kind of act as this trusted

party to allow you to expose your music to the crypto world in a way that feels good to you. And so we have about 200 artists on the platform today. And the way that we do that is by making it extremely simple for them to get started. They just send us a song and a cover art. We make a wallet for them. We upload the tracks for them. They're making income on top of their streaming royalties that they would have never had otherwise. And for them, it's a very straightforward process. We actively say to them, don't worry about promoting this to your fans. You know, crypto is going to get you in some hot water, and so we don't want to put you in that hot water. And so, we're typically just going to market these to crypto native buyers. I think the next chapter of this

that you're referring to is basically going and actually meeting fans where they're at. And so my day-to-day these days basically just going to three to five shows a week, going to festivals like Electric Forest, EDC, you know, Burning Man coming up, whatever it might be, and basically just meeting people where they're at when they're actually consuming and discovering new artists, and then just having real conversations with them. Just showing them the app, getting them through the getting started flow, getting them signed up for a wallet with an email address, and it's really not that sexy at the end of the day, but I think it just comes down to trust and authenticity. I think so much of music really just comes down to like the artists that you trust, the people you go to shows with, the labels you work with, the managers you work with,

and there's no shortcut here. It's not like I can just fastass and just get the trust and validation of all these people who have been going to shows for decades on end. Like, you just need to be present in these environments for a very long period of time. And so, I'd say the last year or two has been really a good starting ground for us to build trust within the electronic music world. And basically, the way I see it is I love electronic music. It's the source of everything that I do. I DJ every single day in my living room. I try and play as many shows and events as possible and, you know, just kind of meet people in the areas that they're at and hopefully over time show them that crypto might not be as intimidating as they thought because it's super easy and because it

unlocked a new concept that everyone gets in principle that we haven't really seen actually executed in practice before. Yeah, man. I mean, dude, your your like DJ sets have blown up. Like, it's crazy. I mean, blown up is a strong word for me, DJing for 100 people, you know, but I appreciate the kind words. I appreciate the kind words. So, you're telling me you're just out there in in the real life trenches doing market research and onboarding new people to be a part of of this, understand what they want, why they want it, getting them on, bring them on without even necessarily even needing to talk about crypto. And then basically you you can build this this very very niche market segment of onchain users um a and bring them new new music based on

you know what their taste could be or what you think is good. Um so you're just out there just like pulling people in on chain one by one. Yeah. Basically. I mean I know it doesn't sound like the most uh sexy thing in the world but look man you got to you got to talk to these people. You know, I think a big problem I have with crypto is that we don't really get outside of our echo chamber very much. And it's hard. It's hard to go up to someone that you don't have a prior connection with and show them this app and they already have an aversion to anything new in the first place, let alone something that has crypto under the hood. And so, I think for me, it starts with the artists. It starts with the quality of content and the music

that's on the platform. And so, the last year or two for us has really just been, let's get great artists on this platform. let's show that we can get music that never traditionally was able to be available in this space because we found a new way to bring it on chain. And I think that during, you know, the whole 2021 2022 NFT era, you had this class of like NFT artists that I think really leaned into being popular in the crypto world because maybe they're having a tough time finding success in the real world. And so I think what we're doing is actually flipping that paradigm on its head where the artists we work with, they already have very large fan bases. They're touring.

They're playing festivals. Their monthly listeners are very high. And we're not going to them and saying, "Hey, we're going to, you know, break you in this new world or we're going to, you know, destroy the music industry or reinvent Spotify." We're just saying, "Hey, there's a new crowd here that could be interested in what you're doing." We see an opportunity to create something that's really new and exciting. And if you zoom out far enough, I think that we can get some really cool things going and hopefully try and recreate that same magic that that SoundCloud era had back in the day, but in this net new format that has, you know, coins and market cap and all these things that we love in crypto.

Yeah. I mean, it gives it gives the small, you know, what what's the saying like starving artist or whatever? Starving writer. It gives that like small um you know for lack of a better term nobody a chance to like a with financial incentives properly placed. Uh it gives them a chance to you know how people have gone from zero to 100k on Tik Tok overnight gives them a chance to do that in the music world in in a completely you know all the properties that that are great of blockchain. um namely in this case the global nature of it really uh the the permissionless participation from anybody to be able to be a part of it either as a creator or

as you know what would be a listener/speculator or believer. Um and so that's a cool property of it. But then the the even like better property of it from my view is like there's a saying in like uh internet marketing for personal brands and such where it's like you have a thousand true fans. Um, this is like a thousand true fans, but like they have a they have some sort of like ownership in the proje in the tra trajectory of your music career somehow. Uh, which is just that is a different level of like co-ownership of somebody that like then the actual artist. Um, there's a lot of possibilities that they can do with that kind of community.

Totally. I do want to be really vocal though that as Coupe Records stands today, it's a curated platform which means that we're like manually onboarding all the artists that we're releasing on the site. And so I think one thing that I've noticed with again just taking a step back like you mentioned at the top of the hour like people think music NFTs are a joke and I understand why and there's a very negative stigma around I I agree. It's not a it's true though. It's like the actual perception of how people think about this space. And I think a big reason for that is the narratives that we used to talk about this new technology are often so grand that they don't feel realistic in their execution.

And so I'm not going to sit here and say that like someone can come and drop a song on Coupe Records today and then blow up tomorrow because that's not possible in its current shape or form. I think in our current mentality, we're still iterating to figure out how to actually bing established artists onto the platform. Once we have the artist on the platform, that doesn't mean that someone necessarily wants to buy those coins or those songs. And so, I just think we need to kind of take a step back and just be really realistic about where we're currently at. That we have a lot of artists that are down to experiment. We're still experimenting with this new format. We have a lot that needs to be done on the product level.

We have a lot that needs to be done on the go to market side of things. But this attempt that we currently have at song coins and being able to buy in early to a song, have a price and a market cap, it's not a new concept to crypto people, but it is a new concept to real music fans and real artists. And so being able to actually address those concerns headon every single conversation I have with an artist is I love the idea of it. How do I make it so that a fan doesn't buy the top on my coin and then lose money? And I can't sit there and say that that's not going to happen or that's not realistic. And so we're basically in this interesting middle ground where I feel like crypto people have more or less gotten used to the volatility that

comes with these massive swings and pumps and dumps and upticks in volume and price etc. But that is not something that artists have ever experienced before. It's not something that fans have ever experienced before. And so being able to blend those two worlds in a way that actually feels appetizing and engaging to real music fans so they don't lose all their money buying a song that they've known for 10 years because some whale dumped on them. There's a lot of dynamics at play here that I think are really really important to talk about out loud because these are the things that we need to be able to figure out to actually bring this product to mass market and get people really interested in it.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I appreciate the um you know just pure down to earth uh realism and and I think you're spot on and that you know that's going to help shape your decisions with the with the you know Coops Records and just with how you want to take this thing um which bring it to my last thing for you buddy is what is the you know what's your main focus for the next couple months right so so you've brought this out to market you're as you say kind of handpicking artists kind of getting this I kind of think of it as as like having training wheels you, you know, maybe start to bring more artists on, more collectors, kind of start to open it up a bit more. What, you know, what does the next like quarter or so look like for you guys?

Real time markets. So, right now, we're going back from the back catalog and just picking out popular songs that have been out on Spotify for a very long time. So, we chatted about We Rise. That song's been out for 10 years at this point. Banger. It's got some nostalgia to it. But, this really starts to work when these songs are being uploaded the same day that they're available on Spotify. And so being able to buy these things in real time the same day they come out everywhere else. That's kind of the main impetus is just having more real-time markets with music that's being released in real time. And from there it's just about the uh ease of use of the app itself. And so we're about a month or so away from having this in the app store.

Very simply put, you sign up with an email, you're able to buy some songs with credits, you're topping up your account with Apple Pay. Basically making it so you don't need to know anything about crypto bass ETH to start playing around in the first place. And then from there, it's actually building inroads into the existing music behaviors that exist today. So, if I'm pre-saving a song on Spotify, how does that unlock some coins for me? If I'm sharing a song on Tik Tok or Instagram reels and I'm adding a hashtag to it, how does that unlock some coins for me? If I'm going to a show, how does that unlock some coins for me? And so I think the big kind of roadmap for us is basically just meet fans where they're at, allow them to have their first positive experience with crypto through the coupe records app and basically give

them their first taste of an airdrop through doing something that they've already been doing which is listening, consuming great music and sharing that with their friends. Beautiful. Actually, one more for you is how do you think about this kind of idea in relation to um Jesse's content coins and coin concept? like is this is this something that that you've drawn inspiration from? Um or or do you see any similarities or parallels? Totally. I mean, that was a really big uh influence for us going in this direction as we looked at what's happening on Bass and on sort of Zora and all these platforms and we're really inspired by it. And tomorrow we're going to be one of the featured apps in this new TBA announcement that's coming out here. And so Bass has been a great partner for us. Jesse's been a huge

advocate of it. You know, you're going to be able to trade these coins directly in the Coinbase wallet app and do all this fun stuff with it. So I think just the ease of use of being able to interact with these coins and sort of normalizing the idea that all content, all media, all music does actually have a price and a value behind it. That's the high level goal here and I feel like we're closer to it than we ever have been before. Beautiful Coupe, thanks for joining, man. Um, stoked for you. Stoked for the next couple months. Keep crushing. Uh, excited to get the app as as as well. if you can help help a boy out with like a beta version or a test flight, I'm I'm I'm there. So, appreciate you, man.

I appreciate you, brother. Thank you for the time. All right, G. Peace out, man. Yeah. All righty, guys. Um I am I am so glad that Coop's still building in in the space. That guy's just great. I mean, he's just down to earth, gets it done. Um kind of had a lot of FUD in the back of the NFT run. uh had a lot of people kind of hating on on that entire idea as as well. Um it's just good to see that he's kicking. Got got a new way to build this out, a new idea. Um so yeah, guys, I mean, what a stream from Sweden. It's 9:30 in Sweden. Been going for about an hour and a half, hour and 45. Going to wrap it up here. See you on Thursday.

Got a big stream Thursday. Tons of technical concepts, ZK stuff, announcements, etc. Thanks guys for watching. Welcome back to Rob TV. We are back going live again every single week, multiple times per week. Gonna scale it up more. Gonna niche it down more. Got new segments for you. Got new shows coming out. We're going to we're going to outpace and out innovate. See you soon. Thank you.