The Rollup TV: Tuesday, July 29th

Transcript

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[Applause] [Music] Welcome back to the Rob TV. It's Tuesday, July 29th. Uh, beautiful day here in Florida. Got a great stream lined up for you guys today. We've got Kyle from Milkro Daily. He just did a podcast with DeFi Dad. Should be a good one talking about all the ETH digital asset treasury company FOMO. Just want

to get kind of an update as to what's going on there, what he's seeing, how he's thinking about that. We've got uh Matt from Calera to discuss their token launch. uh what's going on in in rollup land, what they're seeing from builders. Sovereign SDK just launched their new stack today. Curious what he thinks about that. Curious what he's seeing in the rollup token space as well. Just generally like how these new teams are thinking about tokens and revenues and sequencers and these types of uh of ideas. And then we've got Karia from Bit Tensor. Well, is the co-founder of WonderFi who we launched actually with Kevin Olirri, Mr. wonderful from Shark Tank if you know that guy and also um

now has built out this company called um that is is known as XTA. They've launched a digital asset treasury for Bit Tensor, what he's calling the uh the Bitcoin of AI. So, should be a fun stream. Um it's Tuesday, July 29th, and yeah, I'm stoked to be here. Rob's going to be back on the next one uh later this week and then next week we're going to really start ramping up. Uh had a good Europe summer the last couple weeks traveling after ECC um and did a lot of kind of like backend stuff. So getting ready to kind of ramp up the amount of quantity, roll out some new segments, some new shows. Obviously uh the the live stream era of crypto

Twitter has begun. We're we're excited to be a part of it. We're excited to have been one of the leaders, first movers. So, yeah, guys, thanks for being here. Welcome back to Rogue TV and uh yeah, should be a fun stream today. So, uh if you've been paying attention, and I put out a tweet uh stating this, which is that we're going to get more digital asset treasury announcements uh this week and next. I put out that tweet yesterday of a screenshot. After I tweeted out that there's going to be a lot of a lot more debt, I put out a tweet that said uh that there was a screenshot from a VC friend who sent me a text saying like, "Hey, you know what?

What are the uh what what what are the DAT deals that you have?" I had two other friends uh in the VC world also sent messages. So, there's a lot of demand for these digital asset treasury holding companies. Um and our first guest, Kyle, will be great to talk about this with. So yeah, guys, other than that, market's a little bit choppy. Um, have been paying a bit of attention, but I was traveling over the weekend. Um, BTC 117, E3767, Hype 44. Hype went down today for 15 or 20 minutes. I think maybe uh people were kind of a bit worried about that, but I don't know. It wasn't the wasn't the worst thing in in the world. I think there was a lot of Salana haters coming

out for that one. Um, but yeah, guys, we have Kyle in the back, so we're going to get him up. Um, you're watching the Rollup TV. It's Tuesday, July 29th. Um, and again, I think this segment is going to be based off his recent podcast with DeFi Dad, but also just some of the things that he's seeing in the media world, in the DAT world. Um, I'm calling it DAT FOMO. So, Kyle's in the back. Let's get him up and, uh, welcome him to the show. Kyle, man, what's going on? Yeah, man. I just saw that that podcast with DeFi Dad. Uh Eth Fomo is on, man.

Geez. It is. Yeah. Yeah. So man, something interesting happened today, which is uh Tom Lee and their their kind of debt uh or you know situation there. Uh they actually announced that they're going to be buying back common shares of the stock rather than using some capital to buy more ETH. Um people are kind of going back and forth about why they would do this, what the effect is on the premium in terms of the the the value of the stock compared to the underlying

assets. Um, do you have any insights on this? Why do you think Tom Lee decided to buy more of the actual uh common shares of the BitMine company uh rather than using that capital to buy more ETH? >> Yeah, I don't know exactly why. I obviously haven't spoken to them or like tried to figure out their ask them about their strategy or anything like that, but I would imagine they're doing it because they think that their stock is undervalued uh and they think it's a better opportunity. um the the MNAV or the premium to nav for for Bitmine has gone down a lot since they've raised a ton and they've bought um I think they're at like 620,000 or something ETH uh as of today. So they're you know they they've ramped 620,000. Yes, they've ramped it up a ton. I assume they just think it's undervalued and so they want

to they want to buy a good opportunity. That's kind of what they said in their tweet is like we look for where the best opportunity is to allocate capital. >> Um is that a smart decision? I honestly have no idea. We haven't really seen this before, but I imagine I mean, from what I understand, they have a really good team. Uh, and they're building some pretty cool stuff and they're gonna try and do what's best for investors and and so I think that this is what they think is. So, I'm interested to see how it plays out, but we love buybacks in crypto, so why not? >> Yeah, man. I mean, my my take is that I think that the Ethereum and Bitcoin uh side of u of things when it comes to these companies is uh somewhat under control. I I think we're going to start

to see some really rambunctious behavior on the uh like smaller cap tokens that we're already seeing. You know, Swede just had one announced. I think Tron announced the $1 billion debt. Um the level of >> Yeah, man. Exactly. I think uh there's one for SQD coming out. Um man, so I mean uh this is this is all kind of happening all at once here and and I I I have this tweet coming out later today that I was like we asked for you know new use cases and consumer app breakthroughs and all these things and what what we got this cycle wasn't necessarily that uh in terms of adoption and perception changes. It was actually

like we've just had now these traditional finance people uh come on come on and and start to push our industry forward in the biggest, you know, way possible on national TV. Um I don't know, man. Some something just doesn't feel right about about all of this. But there's haters on this and there's people that just think that, you know, it's totally fine and and that there isn't any kind of wrongdoing that could happen. I don't know. Where do you stand? Well, so I think for a long time, at least in the Ethereum community, we've talked about the DeFi mullet, right? We've kind of said that we're going to build these cool DeFi products, uh, and then fintech and banks, whatever, they're going to wrap them in a nice little bow, and they're going to make the the UX beautiful force because that's not what we do. We're here

building decentralized protocols, trying to create new financial services. Um, and we'll let the the fintech companies kind of do what they need to do to to make it actually get used. And I think that's exactly what these things are. These DATs, they're just rappers for ETH. They're rappers for soul and whoever else and they're going to go and take all the complexities out of using DeFi. Like if you buy Aspet today or you buy Bitmine or you buy, you know, any of these all they're doing is buying ETH on your behalf, raising capital to get more ETH, then going and deploying it and things like staking protocols, restaking protocols, a etc. All the things that us DGens do and have done for many, many years. And the reality is most of the world was never going to do that. They were never going to get a MetaMask

wallet and like change their fiat into ETH and cussy it themselves then go like use a and take it like they just most mainstream people don't do that and even a lot of the the like institutional side as much as they understand it and would probably like to do it they just like are not allowed to do it and so I think what these are is just rappers to allow public market capital to come in and get some access and some exposure to DeFi yields into these assets and so I think it's a net positive um I had said for a long time that I don't know that we necessarily need more use cases in crypto. Like we've built a bunch. We just need people to use them finally, right? Like we've had stable coins for like six, seven years or whatever it's been. Just no one's ever used them. And

it's not like we need to do much different than what we already have. We just need to get in the hands of of the people who need it. And same with DeFi. Like a is the same as it's been for many years. They've had upgrades of course, but like a is still a you can lend and you can borrow on it and it works great. Just a lot of people don't access it. And so like these are just vehicles to access that stuff. And I think that that's a really really good thing for this industry because otherwise we weren't moving the needle much, right? Like there's a reason why Bitcoin has dominated for the last three years. It's because public market capital couldn't get into Ethereum. It couldn't get into DeFi. Gensler wouldn't let it happen. We didn't really have access vehicles like we have today. So I think these are a

really good thing for the space to just bring capital in which is what we've been sitting here waiting for for many years. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean capital and I think a perception change as well. you know, I think that um having older folks go on, you know, national television and speak about these things in a investorfriendly way is is super positive for for the space as, you know, as a as a whole. So, >> well, and the the earnings reports that they're going to have to do now every every quarter, right? Like, we've had just Coinbase doing this for years, which has been great. They've been a good steward for this industry to help try to get Wall Street to wrap their heads around this. And then you had Micro Strategy which was like useful to help people understand Bitcoin and that

worked and that's why Bitcoin's done so well over the last three years but you know Michael Sailor kind of does it his own way but now we have people like Joe Luben and Tom Lee and the list goes on and on that are going to start explaining every little corner of what we do in crypto and I think like that couldn't be a better thing for Wall Street. So I think this is a necessary next step for the industry. >> Yeah man. Well, look, I got to call you out because you said pump was bullish a couple days back and we're we're going straight to zero speedrun freaking full sprint 100 meter dash straight to zero along with fartcoin. What's going on over there with pump >> with pump? Look, I said it look I said it was bullish at point whatever it was right right around where it's at now.

It's actually up from when I tweeted that. So you call me out but I'm so far I'm right. But anyway, look, I the I'm not super bullish on like these launch pads. There's so many of them. Like there's no moat at all. But I think what Pump has done is one, they're the innovative team that's kind of kick this whole thing off. They have about $2 billion in their treasury to like use as a war chest to like actually iterate and build things and and incentivize or acquire influencers or whatever they're going to do with that money. And I think the big thing they're going to do and we just saw it today that they're going to buy back the pump token. And so like I don't really play around much in the memecoin world or the DJ world. I'm more of like a fundamental side. I love token

buybacks. I love revenue. There's this revenue meta which I think is the dumbest thing ever. It's not a meta. It's just you need revenue. And I think these guys have nailed that. And yes, their market share is down to like what 9% or something. But if they can just hold 9% for example, they're still making like $4 million a week, right? And if they use that to buy back their own token, then I think we should be much higher from here. So, I think the fundamental setup for for Pump just um it makes a lot of sense if they if they do it right like they need to get these buybacks in order. They need to make sure people know what they are. Are they going to, you know, do an airdrop and launch some sort of staking? If they kind of go the sky route, you know,

where they they actually do some really cool tokconomics, but also like pumpomics, then I think, you know, there's there's there's something that can be be really good here with Pump. Um they haven't really announced much yet. So, I think a lot of crypto Twitter's kind of given up and has has been very bearish. I tend to like when crypto Twitter gets bearish on things because then I'm a buyer like they were with ETH a few months ago. And so, I like to take the contrarian side there. So, I just think it's not a guarantee that pump wins this battle long term for sure. It's not even a guarantee that these, you know, memecoin trading and social networks like even becomes a thing, but I just think they probably have the best chance to do it. and more so I would say in the short term if you're thinking of

like a trade and I don't trade often um this seems like a perfect setup because it's probably well oversold um and they've got just a ton of money to start doing some sort of incentives that gives them the limelight back so I can just see them making some wins over the next you know couple weeks here >> rotating off pump I just wanted to bring that up wanted to get your take I think a lot of people are I think a lot of people lost money on that last couple weeks um I you know I was fortunate just to kind of have watched watched it all unfold. Um, but uh I I was tempted. I I was really tempted. Um, coming back to ETH. So, uh, recently uh, Jason Yanovitz from Blockworks and Anthony Cissano have been going at it on Twitter about what

the right way to think about, you know, Ethereum maximalism versus like leaving Ethereum in bad times, coming back to it. you know, is it okay to be have this kind of like investors mindset where uh you know, strong opinions but weakly held basically, you know, it you know, whereas uh Yano is saying like look, I wasn't a fan of ETH over the last couple months. You know, its narrative was wasn't good. Its uh roadmap, you know, there wasn't much focus on improving the L1 until recently, you know, etc. there weren't there weren't really much treasury companies happening. Now he's like, "Look, I'm bullish on ETH. I think it's exciting. I think that that there's

a lot going on." Um, and Anthony Cissan was like, "Well, you can't just change your your mind. Your media company isn't isn't uh you is incredible. You know, he's attacking Yano." And we kind of just have like this like tweet thread going on, man. What's your take here on on this situation and just generally when it comes to uh kind of like changing your mind when investing in crypto in a world of maximalism, in a world of tribalism? How do you kind of how do you keep your your you know your bearings straight in this world where you're trying to outperform the the the market while also trying to you know kind of keep the technology first and keep the best kind of tech to win. uh that's aligned with our ethos and our

ideals. >> Yeah, for sure. I think they both have good points sort of. Um I think as an investor, right, as a technologist, look, you want conviction in your technology and what you're building because it takes 10 20 years to to you know what you're trying to build to actually like come true and play out, which is what I think the way that sees it. Um and then I think um you know, on the on the blockwork side, although you know, Jana doesn't really say that he's a trader all that often. Um, but if you're a trader, then I think it's okay to to change your mind, right? People do that all the time. That's why you would buy into something or buy out of something. The way I look at it is I separate Ethereum and ETH. They're two very different things. Ethereum, the

technology, I've remained convicted. And I think they've always done the right thing. They've built for the long term. And so, every time we've ever talked about Ethereum or ETH at at Milk Road, we've always said, "Look, what Ethereum is doing, we think is the the winning strategy. This is what makes sense for the long term." Um, and then we said, "Look, ETH, it didn't make sense for it to go up, right? We we saw a reason why Bitcoin would continue to outperform ETH." And we were very vocal about that, too. Um, but it didn't mean we gave up on Ethereum. We continue to support it. We continue to try to build within it. We continue to try to promote what they're doing because we thought the technology makes sense. But there are times, whether you're looking at it from a macro standpoint in terms of the

business cycle where like you might want to be exposed to ETH and you might not, right? Um, at a at a time when markets are risk on, definitely you want to hold ETH. markets are risk off. Doesn't matter how much you love Ethereum, you can sell that thing and you can get out of it. It's okay. You know, you don't have to be like tied to your bags, which I think that's what SAS does. So, um, for me, I just try not to get like too religious over anything and over any investment. Um, you see that a lot with things like Tesla or Bitcoin or ETH, right? Like people just get so religious over these things and I think that's not the way to do it. Um, it's okay to support something for forever and I will always support Ethereum because I love their values and ethos and what they're

doing. But like there are times in the business cycle where I own a lot more Bitcoin or I own a lot more cash than I do ETH. Uh, and so and also like I think it makes sense there wasn't a lot of demand for ETH for a while. It wasn't really accessible on public markets other than ETFs. Those didn't do that well because you couldn't get yield from it. There was no staking and so like there wasn't a reason for a while for people to buy ETH. But when Joe Lubin launched ESPET, it was like, okay, here it is. here's your public vehicle that can actually go and raise capital to buy this. There's the demand we've been waiting for for ETH. And so I think um you know for me I've always been bullish uh at least on Ethereum, but when Joe Luben finally made that move, I was

like, "Okay, here's the demand we needed for ETH." And I definitely turned a lot more bullish. Um now I guess I wasn't as publicly hating on ETH as Jana does. I think the one thing we can do is like it's hard to do what we're trying to do in crypto. We're trying to revolutionize the financial system and beyond the internet really. So, like I always just want to spread positivity rather than put something down. Uh, so I think like it's okay to to change your mind on investment, but I think you should still try to support the industry as much as you can, which to be honest, I think Blockworks did. I don't think that they really like bashed ETH too much or like slowed down Ethereum's growth. So, I think it's just getting blown out of proportion a little bit here.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy how much demand for ETH these uh DATs have created. I mean, just for all the tokens, it it feels impossible. impossible to be bearish on ETH here on even on Bitcoin too and on anything that has one of these treasury companies. It's just to the magnitude that that you know uh ETH has or BTC has. It's just I mean I don't this is unprecedented like we it's funny. I thought that the institutional adoption that the mainstream adoption was going to come through the ETFs. I was like totally that was what like you know early on in this in the cycle per se. That was my thought. We got the ETFs. As you said, ETH had no flows. BTC took all the

flows. That's flipped dramatically in the last two weeks. ETH has actually had more flows than BTC on, you know, given two, three day periods, uh, even over the last like maybe 10ish days. >> Double the amount of inflows in the last two weeks. So, it's mass, which is crazy because it's one the size, right? It's wild. >> Exactly. So like and and the and the uh treasury companies the the buying power actually has a a substantially more uh more of an impact on on Ethereum than than on Bitcoin. It are you holding more ETH or Bitcoin now?

>> I am probably about 5050. I would say maybe ETH is skewed to the upside now since ETH has just outperformed so much the last few weeks. Um, there was a while like last year I started selling a lot of my my ETH into Bitcoin which proved to be a smart move and then as soon as Joe announced I was like finally I love ETH like I want ETH to go up. I think it makes sense to buy it and I just needed the reason and and finally after he announced that I was like okay so I moved a lot more in but I kept it around 5050 but I think you know ETH is almost doubled what Bitcoin has in the last what's been like two months. So I would assume it's it's higher now. I'm across a lot of wallets, so it's hard to

keep track at this point. But yeah, I mean, the demand for ETH is is massive. It's still not as big as Bitcoin in terms of these ETH treasury companies. Like I think Sailor is raising like a billion a week almost. Um, and you add MetaPlanet and that onto it, you're getting close to a billion every week. Whereas the ETH ones are maybe like 500 million. Uh, I mean, we had one raised started today, ETH, what's called ETHZilla or something that just launched like an hour or two ago. They raised another 425 million. So, like, you know, you're probably half the the capital in these ETH treasure companies you're getting in the Bitcoin ones, but again, we're one the size and so it's going to make a lot more of a difference for sure. Um, and then not to mention, you know, they're also staking that and

putting it in DeFi and restaking and all these kind of things. And so, I think the impact is going to be is going to be way bigger. And also, Bitcoin's had this now for, you know, what, five years. Sailor launched this thing in 2020, uh, around the same market cap as what ETH is at today. Um, so you know, a billion dollar buy on Bitcoin doesn't do as much as it used to, but that'll do a lot on ETH. And I think we're just getting started here. Like there's now what, nine or something companies that are doing this. Um, >> but I think they're just kind of like unlocking their investment sort of like flywheels. So I think their numbers are about to pick up. There's more companies. We still are mainly just in the US. There's going to be UK ones.

There's going to be India and Japan and whatever. Yeah. Um, and I think there's going to be more financial engineering, right? like strategy has like five different types of of instruments that you can buy to allocate to this thing. Yeah. Whereas none of these have that yet. They just have the ability to like sell common shares. So there's going to be a lot more coming from these guys in the in the near, you know, probably few weeks to months. >> So I just think like this demand's probably picking up from here, not getting less. So it's pretty crazy. >> Yeah. I'm curious um if you think that the actual uh dollars and capital allocation that's happening into these DATs is taking away from uh like that speculative capital that would be entering the market for other tokens. So

let me just kind of rephrase this. pump raised 750 billion from or sorry 750 million uh 750 million from like liquid funds and VCs and and and I saw this tweet from Arthur Oax that was like um you know it was a screenshot of a telegram chat and I was like that's probably there's probably about 15 billion dollars of like venture and liquid capital from like these types of people if you will uh or entities in the space and so Pump just basically raised 5% of like the available investable capital uh theoretically right by some by some approximation of whether it's 15 bill 25 bill you know in that range um a

and that takes away from like bid from all these you know like let's just list any other token do you think that you know given that today right electric capital arc um you know a lot of big funds in in the space big branded sui uh a lot of these others um archetype the they're investing into these DATs. Do you think that this capital is kind of siphoning away the capital that would previously be buying like chain link and a maker and hyperlquid or do you think that it's just kind of like okay we're going to allocate this capital here it's a short kind of duration bet we get our maturity and like I think it's like 60 days even um and then that capital kind

of gets recycled into other things like how do you think this the FOMO for debts is affecting the like the way that capital allocators in crypto are are looking to allocate. >> So, I've had a thesis for about maybe six to nine months now where I kind of realized that there's not a lot of new capital coming into this space. And really the reason for that is because all the money is in the public markets, right? There's not a lot of money in the sort of cryptonative like onchain uh uh flows. There's just not a lot a lot of new capital anyway, not from since last cycle. And so I kind of realized that hey the assets that you can access through public markets are the ones that are actually going to do well. Um and that's why Bitcoin has done so well over

the last you know this this bull market is because you know institutions sovereigns etc who can't come on chain. Like if you think about it 99% of the world's capital actually can't come on chain and buy digital assets. Whether that's because of regulation whether that's because of risks whether that's because custodial issues third party stuff like there's a lot of different reasons why they can't just hold a digital asset. It's actually been illegal for a lot of them for a while now. It's only just starting to change when we got rid of Gary Gensler and Trump's come in and we're just getting these bills passed now. And so like most of the world's capital just actually can't hold digital assets. Even if they wanted to, they can't, right? And so what I sort of realized is like, hey, any asset that is available in public

markets in a format that like these these institutions can actually buy. So whether that's an ETF or like a a company on the NASDAQ or something, that's where the capital's going to flow in, right? they're not going to try and come around and like buy at OTC because they just can't really do that stuff and actually get onchain. So when they that's why when Joe Luben said, "Hey, we're launching espad." I was like, "Okay, there it is. Finally, we have the unlock that can come and actually buy this stuff." And then you have like, let's say, Athena, you've got Salana that has this. You've got, you know, a few others. To me, this is where the capital's coming in. And I just don't think so, like, is it taking away? I'm not sure because I just don't think that capital was coming on chain regardless.

I think we've been in this like PVP era for a long time where like the the money that's in crypto that's on chain has just been the same for a while. Of course, there's a little bit of growth, but it's very small and it's just been moving from one thing to the next, which is why like Salana was where all the capital went and then all Hyperlink did well and a lot, you know, Salana's done worse while Hyperl was done better and it's like that capital is just moving around and the net new capital is coming from public markets only. And so that's why Bitcoin's had this lag up for a while. It's why last year I moved a lot of my my money into my assets into Bitcoin because I just could tell it had the bid and it was going to continue that until something changed. Finally,

it changed here with ETH. I'm sure there'll be a few more. Plus, there's about to be like the um the indexes that come in. So, you have like the was it the Coin 50 or whatever Coinbase uh index is where they're taking like the top 50 tokens. I think CoinDesk is also doing this. There's a few others. Those aren't in good enough rappers for institutions to buy yet, but it will be soon. So, I think you'll start to catch a bid down the the leaderboard a little bit to top 50. Maybe maybe you get to top 100, but again, it's going to be dispersed by market cap. So, it's going to be a small bid for those. Um, but the other thing I think that you're having too is as these ETH treasury companies buy things or sorry, deploy that capital into things like A's revenue goes up a

lot and what do they do? They buy back their own tokens. So you sort of have these indirect ways that these DATs do give capital into some of the like alt tokens, let's call it, but it's very few. Uh now, of course, you have the wealth effect. Those who hold ETH are going to, you know, let's say we double from here, whatever, they're going to sell. They're going to buy some DeFi tokens things. Like you'll always have that. I think we'll still grow from last cycle, but I don't think we're going to have every token do well like we've had in previous cycles because we need the big money to move these things now. And and that remains in public markets. And I just, you know, they're going to come on change. It's just, it's going to take a lot longer than people think.

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, basically, if you're a head of strategy at a uh >> get out at a foundation, you need a DAT. >> Yeah. Well, they're all doing it right now. Like, this isn't stopping. They're all definitely >> Are you seeing any like in uh like uh decks for it or like investment opportunities or or not really? >> Sorry, say that again. >> Are you seeing like any investment opportunities come to your desk for them? >> Yeah. Yeah, we've had a bunch. Um, so I also run a marketing agency. So we actually work with a lot of these stats and we run their PR and their social media and stuff. Um, and some of the smaller ones too have asked us like, can we be on the board? Can we help in this way and that? So there's a lot of them getting real scrappy here where I think

when you go down the totem pole of the tokens, they can't really get the big investments they want. And so they're like going to friends and family and those kind of scare me a little bit because you need consistent bids or otherwise like you're going to lose and you're not going to have your premium. You're going to go into a discount. So like I don't think I'm not really getting involved in many of these. The Ethereum ones make sense. I think the soul ones make sense. There's a few DeFi ones where they generate revenue. They've got a real product like Athena one I think is quite exciting. Um you know it's kind of your stable coins are the biggest thing in traffic right now and the only exposure they can get is is something like Circle. So I think like an Athena one could do well. They're

going to be a few months until they actually can go live. Um so I think there's like there's a demand for those but like getting down the the you know the risk curve here. I don't know there's going to be demand for all these other ones. Yeah. Um so I'm not I'm not getting involved in many of them to be honest. >> Yeah. Cool. Stay safe out there, Kyle. I appreciate you you coming on. I think we we're going to see 4K ETH if not this weekend next. So uh keep your uh keep your pants on. All right. >> Absolutely. 4K. That's that's bearish, man. We're going much higher. >> Uh keep up the the great work at Milk Road. Been a fan, man, and I appreciate you joining us today.

>> Thanks. Appreciate you having me. Your show's awesome, so keep it up, man. I know it's probably hard work going live and having all these people come in. It's it's a wild setup, but good for you guys. >> Cheers, man. All righty, guys. Uh that was Kyle from Milk Road. Um so he recently did a podcast with DeFi Dad about eats. Got to watch some of it. Got some insights there. I think his partic like the particular insight that that I think is uh interesting for for for you guys and just in general for the space is thinking one if if your token that you're trying to buy and investing in doesn't have a debt you probably need to look around at what is going to be uh you know actually have one of these and kind of reconsider two

actually a lot of the tokens that I'm seeing are actually pumping well before the DAT is announced that is something that we didn't cover but you can see it across the board. You saw it with Athena, you'll see it with other tokens. So, be aware if you see some like big pumps happening uh before these, that's kind of what's happening. Whether it's like insiders or whether it's just kind of the market getting ready for it. Um, you know, that's that's that. Uh, the last thing I just think was like his thought around, okay, look, if you if you uh are investing in these things, probably want to stick to like the bigger ones. Obviously, that's not going to be for us for our kind of uh investment appetite or opportunity. It's

more for like big funds. So, um yeah, that was interesting. So, uh up next, we've got uh Karia Samuru of um Wonderfy and uh XTAW. So, this should be interesting. So, these guys are putting out um actually basically what is the the DAT for Bit Tensor. I'd like to get caught up as to kind of like where they're at. Uh what the deal is there. Um so looking forward to chatting with Karia. I think he's in the back. I think we're probably ready to go. Um so we'll get him up here in just a sec. Otherwise guys, um yeah, it feels good to be back on air. A little bit run down today from

the travel, but uh doing all right. And yeah, get Karia in here next and get fired. Dats, man. These are just these are something else. Um been been an absolute journey watching these things unfold. I mean, uh I believe Sailor just got 2.5 billion on hand today. FOMC tomorrow. We've got Kia in in the building in the back. Let's get him up here. Uh and let's talk about what they're doing.

What's up, KA? How are you, man? >> Andy, doing good. How are you >> doing? Pretty well. I just talked to Kyle from Milk Road. We're one of the uh co-founders. They're a pretty big media company in the space. They just did a a podcast about Ethereum DATS. Uh I think that the topic of today's show is certainly around these crypto treasury companies. No better guy to talk to you or to talk about it with than you, man. Uh good to have you on. Um and yeah, man. Welcome to the show. >> Yeah, appreciate you having me. >> Yeah, man. All right. So you you're uh involved in multiple things in the space. I think the the pressing thing that I'm curious about is around your involvement with BitTenzer, XTAW, your thoughts on these treasury companies.

Would love to talk about Wonderfy, Robin Hood, how that kind of all came about. But um I think you you guys were one of the first kind of like non- Bitcoin or Ethereum treasury companies. I feel like you guys started this before it was kind of the hot thing to do. um how did you guys find out about this opportunity? What you know what's the story behind XTAW and your involvement uh in Bitensor? >> Yeah, for sure. So, I'm going to date myself by telling you the origin story because the inspiration for XTow was I I had been building in Bit Tensor for about I guess about a year or so. Saw the incredible potential. just wanted to

dedicate kind of the next like next chapter to that after WonderFi. And it reminded me of when I first got into Bitcoin and this was 2016. It was just really just crypto community that was focused on Bitcoin. There wasn't really anything that was getting like more of the broader public in uh into the space. And then the first Bitcoin miner went public and it was a business model people could wrap their heads around backed by this high growth asset. And to me that created this huge inflow of just interest and understanding about Bitcoin. And so that was the inspiration uh for Extal when I started this in October last year was create something that an investor and a

Bitcoin miner can understand and uh have have a sound business behind it. something that's cash flow positive, generates revenue, but then it's also backed by this asset that you know I think is going to be a top three crypto asset in the next uh four or five years. >> So um I is the publicly traded company is that called XTAW? >> Yes, it is. >> Okay. What is the uh what is the premium to the NAV to as as it exists today? >> So we are we're announcing our holdings actually tomorrow. So, uh, that you'll be able to be able to, uh, >> it's not public.

>> It's not public yet. Um, but we, >> you can kind of reverse engineer it a bit, but we, yeah, we raised 23 million um, US and the majority of that has been used to buy Tao. So I think that that'll make us the largest uh public holder of uh of of Tao and we're going to be aggressively accumulating more but really also focused on I mean the the core focus of the of the business is operating this validator and growing that and then investing in other infrastructure in the ecosystem. I think there's a ton of value. I mean you guys are are talking a lot about the the DATs, you know, for for good reason. I think they're so so great for the ecosystem. um we obviously have a large treasury but will continue to run the

operating business and I think they're they're complimentary and I think that's important for an asset like Bitensor. Um I look at it a little bit differently than um than some of the bit like than Bitcoin treasury companies and some of the more established assets. >> Yeah. So so you're not just running this exile company just to accumulate as much Bitenzer as possible necessarily. are also trying to run validators and invest and expand the bitensor ecosystem basically. >> Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that's that's how we can bring the most value. And we want to be an institutional product for Tao that has the most credible kind of capital struct like I think, you know, I'm a my background's a kind of, you know, finance and and and securities law. So

I'll never be able to get away from how important I think capital structure is in in these vehicles. And I think it's it's so cool to see how many different styles there are. Uh but I think for for us that was a focus from day one was just having a very sound high integrity capital structure that um can last because again I think for for assets like Bit Tensor they're they're way more nent than Bitcoin ETH Salana of course so you you potentially will have much larger draw downs and so I think you need something that um I think you need something that's generating revenue you need something that's sustainable and that can make it through the next bare market. That's that that's key in my in

my opinion. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm a little bit worried about how uh a 60% drop on some of these tokens affects these uh these treasury companies. >> Yeah. I I am as well. uh that that's I think it's a big issue because especially I mean you guys are I'm sure experts or becoming experts in the in the DAT structures but it's interesting because a lot of the pipes are they're going into existing NASDAQ operating companies that have an existing business they have you know relatively high burn they need to keep the existing non-crypto business going for regulatory reasons and so >> that that that looks fine right now and

That's great. Um I think that and especially with something like Bitcoin Ether Soul, I don't like for Bitcoin, you know, I don't think you you were going to see a 90% draw down. Um but >> but I think when it's something that's newer and people are not as bought in on um you know there's going to be more conflict that comes up when we go into a crypto bare market and you know a company has 100 million or 400 million or whatever it is of um of this uh particular crypto asset and then it draws down. I think there's going to create it's going to create a lot of pressure um around what the company does next and how um you know how it how it can sustain itself and then also if it's burning that much and

it's it's then going to be burning cash it's going to be create you know a forced sell like draw down of the assets and and and force sales I think. So I think I think something that can be cash flow positive despite a large draw down is I think is really critical for doing a treasury strategy with something like like Bit Tensor or other non kind of uh non-top three assets I'd say. So uh in today's um ETHZilla I think is what was announced 425 million or something um in the last post of their tweet they said uh normal operations of our company will continue basically um and you're saying and this is a known fact that

effectively these companies can't just turn into straight uh you know crypto accum accumulation vehicles. they need to for the sake of of optics per se they need to keep their business going earn some revenue from that uh but then on the side they can do these crypto accumulation things. >> Yeah. So basically the structure for the and I I need to dive deeper into into the the one that was announced today, but basically so like with with ESP for example um the the you know the the the ETH um treasury strategy that I think was kind of the the big first pipe.

>> Yeah. >> Um there's yeah there's a legacy business. I think typically the, you know, the company, the investor groups that are putting this capital in are sourcing NASDAQ operating companies that are sort of between like a5 and $10 million market cap. Um, and then they're typically burning, you know, maybe between 4 to 8 million um a year on the on the on the legacy business. And then the investor group comes in, puts in all this capital, it gets allocated all under a um asset management agreement. So it's kind of it's it's basically ring fenced from the existing legacy business. So the existing operators, you know, CEO, etc. are focused on um, you know, the gaming business or the solar

business or whatever that whatever that might focus might be. And then all the all of the new capital that comes in is or or, you know, the vast majority of it is focused on just, you know, accumulating ETH or whatever the asset is. And then you kind of have usually one person like a CIO or something like that that is responsible for that. Um, so that burn is going to continue. I'm a lot less concerned about that with something like Bitcoin or ETH when they're raising these huge pipes. I just feel like that will resolve itself and they'll be able to sort of slowly transition the um you know the board and and things like that to just truly become like a pure pure crypto treasury play. But I think with something that

that is a lot more volatile, there's way more risk around it. Um so that that yeah that that's a concern I think in in in my eyes. >> Interesting. So, so when when you were looking at the landscape for um you know doing one of these DATs or pipes as you call them um you know you settled on Bit Tensor, you know being previously ex you know exposed to the ecosystem and bullish on it you know what makes you so bullish on Bit Tensor like why is this something worth accumulating? Uh why why do you want to accumulate more? You know what's your what's your frame of reference for where Bit Tensor is going to go? Yeah. So for me, I think that spending a lot of time in the ecosystem

and just seeing what is being built gives me the highest conviction and how much talent is being accumulated within Bitensor. Um you know there's over 100 subnetss everybody is heads down building and it's still early so some of the subnetss are not really creating value. a lot of them are starting to do that and um I think to me from a time evolution standpoint it's pre first having for bit tensor so it's like bitcoin in the first part of 2012 um so really hard to see exactly um exactly kind of how big this is is going to be but I think that it has all of the um all the right indications so far and um and so that you know that

that's a big part of it for me and then I I think that more kind of superficially I think the one of the key things of creating a you know a massively success successful crypto asset that we've only seen with a few is something that non-crypto people can understand and wrap their heads around and so Bitensor is not quite there yet most people in the ecosystem can't really explain what Bitensor is but I do think that having the same tokconomics and a lot of similarities to Bitcoin is is going to help uh bridge that gap for for people. And so that's um I I found that that is is a um a really helpful way to bring people into

Bit Tensor is just saying okay you understand Bitcoin you invested in HUD 8 or Marathon or Micro Strategy this is Bit Tensor and it's taking Bitcoin structure and applying it into creating useful AI and it's really early but it's starting to to pump out some really really interesting things. So, so you're going to accumulate a ton more then? >> Yes, we'll be aggressively aggressively buying towel for sure. >> Do you have like a supply goal like a supply target? What what percentages? I feel like uh yeah I don't I don't want to put out a number yet but um I think that we yeah I think that you know particularly because we'll be we'll we

will be investing in infrastructure and then we are going to be looking at um uh working with different subnets also that I think is you know there's a key gap there where subnets need to be able to reach mainstream investors also and I think that XTAW is really well positioned to do that. So, um we're going to Yeah, we're going to be aggressively growing, but yeah, I don't have a specific uh number right now. >> Yeah, I think some of these uh ETH ones are trying to hit I think Tom Lee said he's trying to hit 5% of the ETH supply, >> right?

>> Yeah, that's a big number. >> It's a lot, you know. >> Yeah, >> it's it's actually quite the paradox here with with these uh accumulation vehicles. It's like, you know, you accumulate all this supply of these networks, you know, which is great for the asset price, but then you get a lot of the ownership of these networks effectively in traditional finance vehicles. >> Yeah, it is it is very interesting and it's and then you see the and then you're starting to see the like Robin Hood um or you know, and FTX had done this previously, but tokenized equities.

So you have now tokenized versions of the stock that is a holding company for the asset like >> Yeah. It's like a full circle, right? It's like it's like the snake eating its tail. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Yeah. Yeah. So So do you think that this entire concept of these pipes or like is this going to end um at a certain like point whether it's because of like blowups or deleveraging or people just you know moving on to the next hot thing? Like maybe if you could take a wild guess or prediction like what does the next 6 to 12 months look like for these uh companies? Like are we going to get them for every asset? Are are people going to start copying you and just do bit tensor ones and just

like there's going to like like like what is your like vision for how this is going to play out for the industry? Yeah, I think I definitely think it's it's extremely hot right now and so I I feel like we're somewhere in the, you know, in the peak of of that or or at least approaching it. >> Um, I think that I I think they're they're great for the ecosystem just in general. I think that being, you know, just going back to Sailor, what Sailor did, being able to create this uh bridge for investors that can't invest in Bitcoin to come into Bitcoin, it was genius. And, you know, and to, you know, as he as he admits was sort of a mistake almost like he just kind of stumbled

into it. is like, "Oh, we have this uh massive Bitcoin holding and now when I'm talking to um these different group like, you know, bond investors or or convertible investors, etc., they're like, "Oh, we can actually, you know, we can actually come in in this way." So, I I think I think what he created is really um really, you know, amazing. I I do I do feel that it will reach a saturation point at least with new treasury companies coming in um for for for the for the leading assets because I think it becomes harder to differentiate why would I invest in in this versus a micro strategy or versus something else.

Obviously there's there's there's always going to be nav kind of arbitrage opportunities and things like that. So maybe that just kind of keeps it going for longer than I'm thinking. Um, but I do think that being able to differentiate with kind of, you know, a business model that um that that is investable and that is is is sort of is high growth or has the potential of high growth is is what what this will revert to. And um and so that's that's kind of how we've we've position position ourselves. Um but uh but yeah, I think I think we we probably still have quite quite a um a lot of legs left right now.

So um yeah excited to see the next six six to 12 months unfold. >> So maybe like more alpha more opportunity in like in these DATs or pipes for different tokens like Bit Tensor Suite whatever the newer ones are maybe less differentiated opportunities in the big tokens might as well just buy the established players. Um yeah but but I think generally accelerating here >> I think yeah I agreed I agree. >> Yep. All right, let's shift gears. Uh, Wonderfy, Robin Hood, you worked with Kevin Olirri on this or at least had some sort of association. They call him Mr. Wonderful. You sound Canadian. My parents are from Barry. I've got the Canadian blood in me.

>> So, yeah. How did you meet Kevin? How did that unfold? Let's talk about Robin Hood, their entrance in into crypto. Yeah. So I founded WonderFi in 2021, start of 2021 and the the state of play basically was Canada was not relevant from a like in the crypto landscape and but there were lots of good teams that were building and lots of smart people, good tech. There were dozens of different crypto exchanges that were in Canada all competing for the same customers, but nobody had kind of taken the lead. And so the vision with WonderFi was to create a Canadian crypto company that could compete on a global scale. And so

basically came in um we created the exchange and brand um which Kevin Olirri was a big part of and then we just started bringing in the best tech and talent and we grew Wonderfy to the largest crypto exchange in Canada in the first sort of two and a half years. Um but Olyri so we had just closed the financing or we're in the process of closing it and then we got approached by Olyri and his team. They were looking at investing in regulated crypto assets and WonderFi really was was well positioned for that. And so, yeah, we brought him on as a kind of a lead investor and, um, you know, I considered him more, you know, more of like a co-founder because

he was so involved with the with the company. Um, and yeah, was really really great to work with him and helped us um, yeah, helped us get that to uh, to where we got it. So, yeah, and then I would say when so when I was still running Wonder Five CEO, we had a bunch of plans for expanding into the US and Australia and kind of globally. And then at the same time, we had a bunch of inbound from different companies that were looking to enter the Canadian market. And >> to me, you know, what's what's transpired with Robin Hood, it's, you know, a best case scenario because it's um it's even more exciting than a crypto company acquiring uh Wonderfy. It's having a Tradfly

company acquire is like it's it's just great for the industry. It's really cool to see. >> Yeah. So, all right. a quick step back. Um, Mr. Mr. Wonderful, as they call him on Shark Tank. Um, one of the more uh one of the more, you know, direct, blunt investors on the show. Uh, we'll definitely call, you know, straight shooter. >> Was there any, uh, was there any times in building WonderFi together that Kevin was a straight shooter to you and was like, "Hey, Carl, listen, man. we this needs to be done this way or you're not thinking about this correctly or broadly like was there any like key lessons and and uh experiences that shaped your

entrepreneurial journey that you know you would share to others as advice whether they're investors, speculators, builders etc. >> Yeah, great question. I remember when I first met Kevin and we were already on this path and had a very clear trajectory for where the company was going. And when he came in, he shared his vision and what he thought he could bring to Wonderfy. And um and it it really was this kind of inflection point and and decision decision point which wasn't clear to me at the time.

And um I think basically what he said is, you know, car like Cara, you need to go and do some soularching and see if this is what you want. You know, this is what I'm going to do. Um and I think that so I yeah went back thought about it and was like okay yes this is the direction to go and then once we we got a deal signed the next day and then within a week I you know I was meeting with um like you know CEO of circle um CEO of FTX like all the obviously FTX you know that in hindsight issues there but it was it was really he was opening all these doors to um all these different crypto companies that were focused on uh you know regulatory first and I think that um yeah when

opportunity comes knocking you you got to answer. I think that's that's that's really one one lesson and uh and then I think the other is that for um you know some people just love doing deals and some people just are you know that's what they eat, sleep and and breathe and um I would put uh Oly in in that category um just put so much energy behind a company and um yeah it was it was great to great to to work with him on that. Yeah, man. I mean, I think um people thought that when Robin Hood was going to enter into crypto, then this Wonderfy announcement came out, you know, they thought that with Kevin Olri, with what you guys were building, they thought this was the Robin Hood, you know, kind of announcement. Obviously, they ended up launching the their own

chain. But what I came to realize was that they they like some of the reason why they >> bought Wonderfy, why Robin was interested, was for some sort of licensing or some sort of licenses that they needed. like what was the uh actual details there? >> Yeah. So in Canada, the reason that Canada is lagging in so many areas, not just crypto, but just in business in general, is overregulation. >> Yeah. >> And amongst other things, but that is something that Canada has very much overregulated is crypto in general, crypto exchanges, etc. So we had gone through all of the time, cost and energy to get all these licenses in Canada to operate these regulated exchanges. And

so that, you know, that is a big piece I think for for Robin Hood or, you know, anyone entering into that into into the market is is being able to shortcut that process and get entities that are licensed, have a track record, all all that stuff. So I I do think that's um that's a a big part of the equation. Um, one other one other uh quick quick answer to your last question though. I do think that um and I don't know if it's a I don't know if it's a lesson or not, but I do think that as an entrepreneur, as a founder, you have the choice when these types of opportunities come, whether it's a new partner, you know, funding, um, commercial stuff that's going on. I

think it's really easy for especially um first-time founders or or those that are earlier in their journey to really get stuck in the spreadsheet uh of like you know what are my economics like all of that stuff and I think that in the the the current environment is you know being able to collaborate and bring together a lot of people that have a lot of momentum and force means maybe your economics look different than you know when you had initially structured things but I think it can create this like velocity that's not possible just sort of on your own or with your with your partners. And so, not to say that's always the the right way to go, but I think that I I I've seen I've seen like huge opportunities just um get missed

because somebody kind of has too tight of a grip on on things. So, I think there's a a bit of a bit of a balance there that that can be struck um to to to open up these opportunities. >> Yeah. I mean, so we've been building the roll up this media platform for 4 and a half years. And the way that we kind of think about it, similar to what you're seeing, is we're very, especially in crypto bull markets, very tunnel visioned on like we have our business model, we have, you know, we have our our team maybe scale a little bit, we have our offer, we have our systems and processes. Like we're just very focused.

Um, and we don't try to jump on every single opportunity that comes and try to like expand there. Like we're just like, "No, no, like kind of like less is more, but some sort of some sort of line between that of balance in terms of this fluidity where it's like, okay, well, realistically there are there is going to be an opportunity that comes up at some point in time if you're properly positioned, which is just, you know, kind of being in the right place at the right time, working, etc." And like there is value as you're saying in in in having that agility. I guess like the question is is like how good of a decision maker are you to know which which ones are are worth hopping on.

>> Yeah, absolutely. And I agree. It's such a it's such a balance because you need to be laser focused on what your core business is and um and and then you also need to depending on your role you need to be able to kind of pull yourself out of that and pull yourself out of that execution mode and and sort of see the opportunities for what they are in really an egoless way which is really hard es because it's it is a push and pull right I think the more you're the more you're relentlessly executing and doing a great job of that I think the harder it becomes to kind be um object be be truly objective in the way that somebody that's not not as attached to the business is that could see what a what a growth opportunity looks like.

But and then again to your point in in bull markets you're probably seeing you know dozens of opportunities a week or a month and it's and and and like that that pursuing that is just uh um can can be really futile I think as well. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a I have a saying in bull markets. I mean, it goes for life as well, but just less is more. >> Less is more. >> Love that. >> That's my That's my bull market uh mantra. All right, kind of coming to a close here, Karia. What is uh what is your uh you know, kind of like when you're looking at again kind of back to stats, back to AI landscape, back to Bit Tensor. Um what is it that you are most uh interested in inside of the Bitensor

ecosystem? talk to us about some some of the subnets, some some of the projects kind of like what is the actual substance underneath the uh Bit Tensor ecosystem that is compelling um you know if if I'm a a traditional finance allocator I want to know what I'm investing into. Talk to me about the ecosystem. Talk to me about Bit Tensor. >> Yeah, I think it's definitely the the talent acrruel that gets me the most excited right now. I think it's important to contextualize where Bit Tensor is at in its evolution. It is to me it's it's by far the best shot on goal for a decentralized AI network that competes with any centralized uh competitor. And I think you're seeing

that on specific subnetss where they are matching or outperforming centralized models, but it's still it's still so early. So I think the the the keys to pay attention to really is yeah talent acral how much activity there is on the network and then you are starting to see some products come out of bitensor that are getting really high usage and that are high high performance. So shoots I think is a really good example. Shootes.ai is the website. It's a it's a you know open source LLM um and allows you to use DeepSeek and other open source LLMs all run on Bit Tensor and I think it's products like that that you don't necessarily need to know that it

runs on Bit Tensor but it provides something that's super useful. It's an alternative to chat GBT that uh doesn't hand over all your data to um to open AAI. Um which I think is uh you know is a really massive problem and something that's just growing exponentially just how much how much power is acrewing to a few of um kind of the the large players. And so I think it's products like that that uh provide a really kind of simple interface for for people to onboard into Bit Tensor that that get me really excited. and they, you know, they just announced um I think it's kind of the first series A for a bit tensor subnet um as of yesterday. I think they did a $10 million round from um some VCs and um some of the Google DeepMind guys and

and things like that. So that's that's really exciting to see and I think it's an indication of where things are going to go with with the tensor in the next little while. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think it's it's always a good sign when ecosystem projects are getting funding from like a broader kind of like L1 uh company. Um, do do you think that there's a chance that Bitenzer becomes like the AI project for crypto? >> Yes, I think it it I think there will >> I think that it's I think that it's it's on the cusp of that. Um, I think that it, yeah, it has all it has the I mean the the structure is there and I think the the fact that, you know, you have so many different teams that are building

and building really useful AI products is is there, but I think the one of the challenges with crypto is everybody's sort of segmented into different projects and there's kind of that cult mentality. So I think that it's really going to be Bit Tensor getting more mainstream adoption that will start start to kind of like um make it clear that it's the it's it's the leading um decentralized AI play uh which I think will happen very you know in in in in the in the short term for sure. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. K man I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining on on Rollup TV today. Congratulations on the success with WonderFi. looking forward to the announcement tomorrow where you guys unveil your holdings. Um, and

hopefully you you guys go out there and raise raise another eight to nine figures, buy some more towel, get the get get the market fired up, man. So, uh, best of luck and hope you manage your risk. >> Thanks, man. Great to great to chat with you. >> Yeah, cheers, man. See you soon. All right, guys. Um that that was the D that portion of our segment today. Of course, we had Kyle and then Karia. Uh Karia is actually quite the quite the entrepreneur with regards to his previous history with WonderFi. Uh obviously, so tomorrow he said that that they're going to uh release the uh public holding information of Ext. XTAW is the

publicly traded company for uh this Bit Tensor vehicle. That might be alpha. I I'm never going to tell you when to buy or sell things, but you guys do know that that that that information will be released tomorrow. I assume that they're also going to then follow that up with an announcement shortly thereafter with regards to potential new funding uh and what could could come there. So, um yeah, that guy was pretty bright and uh anytime that you have a chance to speak to somebody who's been working with Kevin Olirri, it's a it's a it's a cool opportunity.

So guys, that is the status of Bit Sensor. Haven't really heard too much recently about that ecosystem, but it's definitely an exciting uh ecosystem. I haven't really invested much in there either, but uh I I know a lot of my whale friends in Telegram who do a lot of trading and investing, they've been big on TA for a while. So I know that if Tao gets a bid, they are going to be bidding and be kind of vocal about it on the timeline and in in the kind of OG chats. And when I say whale friends, it's mostly just like OGs from 2017 who are doing TA and have you know accumulated a lot and get get all of the information with regards to early stage DATs, angel deals, kind of what's

coming. So uh they were bullish on uh on uh TAL for a while. So all right, last but not least, we've got Matt from Calera joining us next. Matt is a good friend of the show. uh has been on the show for quite a while. Uh looking forward to having him uh talk about what they're doing. Dave launched the ERA token rollups. I'm just curious what's going on. I mean, I think the RAS business has slowed down a bit. So, I think I just want to understand what he's seeing from builder perspectives uh post token. Would like to get the story in as to how that all went uh and more.

So, uh yeah, guys, we'll get Matt up here in a sec. Um, otherwise, um, guys, it's been a it's been a fun couple weeks, uh, after ECC is traveling around Europe for a bit. Uh, kind of getting settled, doing a lot of like backend admin, scaling stuff, uh, sales processes, refining some things, couple, uh, new things rolling out for the brand. Uh, again, we we we've been working on this ventures on our venture fund rebrand that's so close. uh as well as some other things.

So, looking forward to rolling those out. Uh last session of the day and then I'm going to head over to the Arc Digital office uh shortly actually to meet up with their digital assets team uh to talk about what they're doing, maybe meet up with Kathy Wood. Um been wanting to get them on the podcast as well. So, looking forward to that, guys. Um and yeah, I think uh I think in just a sec we're gonna have Matt from Caldera join us. So stay tuned. We have not used the money panel today. Uh cha-ching. There it is. There it is. Uh maybe we'll uh we'll we'll we'll start with Matt for that one. Uh celebrate his token launch with the

confetti and the money ching. So um yeah, guys, it's it's good to be back again. This is uh it's been it's been a little slower the last couple weeks because Rob's been traveling a lot and I was as well uh just dealing with some personal stuff both of our ends. But we're going to be back in business uh ready to go in a couple of uh basically next week uh or the week after uh we'll be kind of ramping this up. So new segments coming for you, new features, new opportunities on the Rollup TV, guys. Thanks for joining us. Let's hit the money rain. There it is. There it is. All right, guys. Give me one second.

We'll get uh we'll get Matt up here. We're live. It's the Rollup TV. Where's Rob? No one knows. Pretty good segments today, guys. Pretty good. Tomorrow, by the way, guys, we have FOMC. Uh I think there's a chance that uh the Fed is going to lower rates. I'm not sure uh honestly, but if they were, they probably just lower it by 25 bips. Um I saw that the forward guidance guys, uh Felix and some some macro people will be doing a live um immediately after. That'll probably be a good one to tune into.

Um yeah, I mean I think that what's been nice about the last couple uh weeks to months in crypto is that we've kind of lost the like tracking of the macro that we're usually used to. Um previously we would have this kind of like macro focus where you know everything that JPAL and Trump does and says affects the market and you know we have to keep tabs but that's gone away. I do think that that might come back though if we start to get rate changes. Basically, we we had this period as well in 2021 where rates were really low and we we didn't really talk about macro, but then as soon as there started to be some changing in rates, then it these these FOMC's in this entire dialogue actually became an

event. And so I anticipate that if there is a change in rates this time around, then once again there will be more emphasis on, you know, what the Fed's saying and what the macro policy is. Uh because the the rates haven't really changed for a while. I think at least this entire year. So hasn't really been a relevant factor in the market up till now. Um so that's going on tomorrow. Other news is I think yeah Sailor got a one point or $2.5 billion dollar uh fresh powder in his bank account as of today. So I expect him to start buying there. Um and getting that running. Um

like I said Tom Lee was actually bringing on a uh was buying his his shares of his company rather than buying ETH. So, I think that was interesting as well. We'll see how that kind of pans out. And yeah, guys, um if you're just tuning in from the Calera community, welcome. Um congratulations on the launch of the ERA token. I've not checked up on it in a bit. Uh looks like it's trading at 1.2 today. Um so, congrats if you got the airdrop. Congrats if you're part of that community. I know Matt and Teen had been waiting uh to get that firing for a little while. So, looking forward to

having him on. He should be up here in just a sec. Uh and we'll get this party started. So, um yeah, I mean otherwise in the in the broader news of today, um yeah, I mean we we know that Bitenzer is gonna that the XTAW is going to bring their uh public treasury company uh holdings live and public tomorrow. Uh that should be interesting. And we also know that um there's going to be at least one or two other DATs going live uh this weekend next. Can't say what they are, but the word around town people if you're in the know, they became public. It's funny how in crypto like you know these things become public in these like VC insider chats because

well somebody has to buy uh and put up the capital to uh participate in these vehicles. And so like there's like these groups of these insider venture um funds and large angel investors that get the inside info per se, get the uh get the intel before the the rest of of the market does. And then that's kind of revealed later. But it where it is revealed and what I would caution you is that a lot as I said earlier a lot of these tokens are being bought up before the data actually goes live and is announced. And so like you're you'll see that kind of rise in that uh beforehand. So yeah, guys, um

that is my that is my two cents on the DAT side of things. And yeah, uh I think we'll get uh Matt up here shortly. I think we're just gonna running late, having a little issue here. And yeah, guys, talking about the ERA launch, talking about the rise of Calera. I'm curious what the latest is on the metal layer side of things. So, we're going to get him up here shortly if you're tuning in from the Caldera community. Welcome to the Rollup TV.

This is the uh the crypto founder builder uh live stream of the industry. Uh we are here today with Matt from Caldera coming in hot next. I got 20 minutes then I got a hard stop and and I got to rip it over to the Ark office in St. Pete um and get after it. So yeah, guys, he should be joining in in in a sec and looking forward to getting him in. I forgot about our uh our effects panel.

There we go. We're gonna give Matt a uh a round of applause and a confetti when he joins for for the ERA launch. We'll see how he feels about that. Otherwise, guys, it's 3:40 p.m. We're in Florida. We're live. Uh we're we're missing Rob. He'll be back soon. Uh we have some interesting segments coming up for you guys in the coming weeks. Stay tuned on that. Um another day in in the industry. I think people are getting a little bit uh irritated with the top in the market though. You can see it on the timeline.

People are kind of complaining about this or that or the other. Um yeah, I mean in these times I just kind of kind of zoom out and not really worried about the uh the um you know the day-to-day per se. So guys, if you're tuning in here from the Caldera community, we will be live with Matt in just a second and we should be good to go. Um, thanks for tuning in. If it's your first time watching the Rollup TV, then welcome to it. We've got Matt here from Caldera post era launch. He's probably caught up on his sleep by now.

Let's get him up here. Matt, what's going on, man? Welcome back. >> Hey, thanks for having me. >> Yeah, man. you uh did did you get some rest as of recently? >> I did. Yes. Uh took took the weekend off. Um so I'm back. I'm well rested. Uh the team is actually almost entirely all here in New York City. We're doing an offsite. So just feeling energized. >> Yeah, man. So how did uh how did the like just you know take me through the like the last 10 days like what happened? How you feeling about it all?

you know, what is the what is the process like of being a founder launching a token? >> Yeah, for sure. So, I guess I should start off by saying like I'll speak as in my capacity as an an adviser to the foundation. Obviously, I'm a I'm a founder of our development company here in America, Constellation Labs. Um, but yeah, man, like the last I guess we launched about 10 days ago, so I guess I should say like the last two weeksish have been totally crazy. Um, we've been really inspired by the community response especially. Um, candidly like uh I think the launch went uh better than anyone expected. Um, we came in with high confidence uh and high expectations and I think we uh smashed those. Um, so yeah, overall people are

feeling good. People are excited and and obviously the community response has also been incredible. So overall just feeling good. >> So I got to give you some flak for doing this short airdrop window. What's up with that? Why did why did Succinct do a oneweek long airdrop window? You guys did a short one, had the claim. I missed the claim. Um what is what is the thought process behind teams doing short claim windows for their airdrop? >> Yeah, I appreciate the question. I I think a lot of it um at least for us is it has nothing to do with like supply dynamics or anything like that. It's entirely just the fact that when you're doing a token launch, there's like a million things to do and then, you know, you often don't exactly know the

timeline until a couple weeks before and then once that timeline is hit, you need to figure out criteria, you need to do uh your snapshots, you need to get everything uh sorted on the product and engineering side. Um and so for us, like we opened it and we kept it as long, you know, open for kind of as long as we felt we could. Um but just the reality of of the situation was like about a week was was basically the longest that we could do. Um because yeah just prior to that it's it's really hard to know what exactly is going on. The other side of it is is obviously snapshots, right?

You you need to kind of uh find a balance here of making sure that your more recent community members are still rewarded if they meet the criteria. And obviously, you know, you have to take the snapshot before claims open and the criteria is public. Uh and so for us, we, you know, the decision was made to uh do it around a week before. Uh I personally wish it was a little bit longer, but that's the rationale for it. >> Got it. Cool, man. Um so I'm curious. I mean we haven't spoken in quite a while. I I haven't really talked to uh too many like um you know kind of like roll up uh like uh you know platforms RAS etc.

However you kind of want to think about it. What has been the um what has been like like the last six months like on teams wanting to launch chains also on the way that builders are thinking about tokens and revenues and such? Feels like a lot has changed in like the zeitgeist in the since I mean probably since we last spoke. What like what's changed? How is the what are the dynamics of builders now? Is there different preferences? Is there is it mostly the same? You know, like how is that, you know, all kind of evolved?

>> Yeah, I think one of the themes this year overall is just the increasing maturity of the space. We're seeing that as well in our customer base. Um, you know, go back a year before, there were a lot of people who wanted to launch chains, some for good reason, some because the modular narrative was super hot. Um, now I think we're seeing basically the same levels of demand, but from the teams that that we think are like actually best positioned to use a dedicated chain. Um, even like from the start, we're pretty opinionated. I was never one of those like every app will have its own chain types of people.

There there are many many different trade-offs. Uh just as with building like web two applications, right? Are you going to uh put it on Versell? Are you going to throw a WordPress site on some shared host? Are you going to do what like OpenAI is doing and build your own data centers? There's a a huge uh kind of array of things you can do. The same is true for web 3. And so what we're seeing is like a lot of teams um that we think should launch chains are coming to the table. And actually more of them are coming to the table now than they were before. Just think like big institutions, y banks, fintex, etc. Obviously, the Robin Hood uh chain announcement uh is public base obviously has been uh kind of an early mover in that space as well.

Um so we're we're seeing really really solid demand from a lot of these categories that Kennedy I think are actually like bigger than you know people launching like a chain for a meme or something like that. Um but but overall like um from our perspective like things are quite healthy. Um and and they're they're like from our perspective it's like the types of teams that we interface with changes uh you know kind of on a quarter or or half year basis but um the the level of demand has continued to be strong.

>> So like the uh like like the pipeline of of teams is drastically different than it was like a year ago. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and I think just like crypto overall, it's very cyclical. Um we're seeing a lot of gaming teams, which we're really excited about now, and then things like institutions, payments, um that sort of thing. I think those are our two biggest categories. You know, go back like a year and a half, it was uh a lot of DeFi. Um we're we're able to serve everybody, of course. Um so that's the thing where there's like the most kind of concentration.

>> Nice. So, now that you've got the token behind you, um you've got kind of a fresh start in a way, what what is the most important priority for you guys uh in you know going into the end of the year? Obviously, there's a lot of like I mean there there's a lot of FOMO around these DATs and these kind of treasury vehicles. There's a lot of uh desire for token buybacks, for revenues, for these types of things. um you know there's just the broader institutionalization of the space RWAS tok uh tokenized equities these types of things these are like the core kind of mega hot things right now but as you say it's pretty cyclical you know do you guys find yourselves operating or or

thinking about any of these things or you know kind of where are you placing your priorities >> yeah as a company overall like our number one priority has always been just relentless product execution that's not changing Um, we've got a lot of really exciting releases coming in the pipeline over the next few months. The biggest one, uh, which we did announce recently was our metal layer, which is now live on mainet in a sort of alpha release state. And that's just because we want to be careful, um, around, uh, how we onboard users onto that product, but it's live. It's working, it's audited, and so that'll become increasingly open to the public over time, and we're very excited about that. Um, additionally, one of the things for us that that we just sort of see as like one of the more

important things of the metal layer that I think isn't talked enough about on the interop space is that ultimately like we want the metal layer itself to be uh a key like go to market um partner or tool for teams launching their own tokens. So actually when we launched on Binance Alpha for example that was done on BNB chain and that was actually the first case of the metal layer being used to get a token into a new liquidity venue pancake swap on BNB. Um but we're going to help teams you know who are users of us and also teams that are new users um uh launch their token across all sorts of different onchain liquidity venues.

So we're very very excited about that. Um, you mentioned a lot of these these other things, treasury companies. Uh, again, can't share too much there, but it's of course just like with every crypto company. Uh, we're thinking pretty deeply about that. Um, and you know, overall like for for us like with the launch being so great, the lab co uh, you know, owns some of the uh, supply of tokens. We now uh, there's foundation in the ecosystem that can also help grow the ecosystem. there's just like a lot more ability for us to make really big swings. Um, and so, uh, a lot of our strategy for like the next half year is just getting started on a lot of those initiatives and finding ways that we can, uh, drive value back

into the ecosystem. Um, and then, yeah, last point you mentioned revenue. Like the great thing about us is like from day one, we've been a revenue generating business with a real mode, a real product, like real users. Um so as well like on the revenue front uh we're thinking of ways uh to most effectively use that revenue um and and as that meta has kind of come online again like we think it puts us in a pretty uh strong position. >> Nice. Okay. So let's talk a bit about the meta layer exactly as to where it's at. So again last time we spoke uh you know it it was kind of more in a in an iteration phase. Now it seems like you've got this alpha release live. Uh so one functionality

that you guys are are focusing on is being able to launch uh for your customers their token on different chains and different uh dexes across different platforms. Um I is it is there also just like uh you know there's just like basic asset transfers between uh chains that are built on Caldera and others. uh what is like the product roadmap for the metal layer specifically from where it is now into like more of a beta version and then into more of like a a fully fledged out version. >> Totally. Yeah. So the way we conceive about the metal layer internally is we like to think of it as like we call it a full stack interoperability solution.

Um, so one of the needs like we saw in the market currently is that everyone is trying to do a very kind of small piece of the puzzle and a lot of the challenges as with any engineering problem are in like fitting those different pieces together, right? So you you have a bunch of messaging protocols for example that do great in messaging but if you want to figure out how to do wrap tokens as you mentioned intense bridging of stable coins bridging of majors bridging of your own token like you need to bring in all these different partners and it first of all it's just ridiculously expensive and it's also just a huge operational overhead for a lot of teams um in the space and so so yeah like that was kind of what we conceived before we've been executing on it pretty well Um, basically like the

the the big things we have at the moment are we have a standard messaging protocol. So that can be used, you know, for any sort of crosschain communication like, you know, I send I'm I want to design some custom NFT contracts that allow you to mint an NFT from base or arbitrum or or optimism and uh have it, you know, sent to Ethereum like that works. Uh, currently um we have an intense layer um and with that we've partnered with some of the best teams in the space. So teams like Relay, Eco, Cross, etc. Um, and that'll be able to, you know, basically we're going to be acting as like a go to market partner with them to bring those protocols onto new chains. Um, which is really exciting. And it's something that again, instead of a team having to like

interface with all these other uh teams directly, they'll be able to kind of use that out of the box. And you know, we've been working on infrastructure and instant deployments for three years. So we're going to be able to kind of supercharge a lot of those teams ability to deploy across multiple chains. Um we have our wrap token standard uh as uh was alluded to that will uh will not be using that intense framework because there's a more efficient way to do bridging with wrap tokens but it's based on the underlying message passing protocol. Um and then and we thought this was actually the most important thing and it's it's often kind of underappreciated in crypto is our like UI and SDK layer. So we have like uh you know a bridge interface that works out of the box and again like

aggregates over all those other pieces I just mentioned that exists kind of you know below uh the UI. Um and we have like SDKs widgets everything that a team would need to just like get up and running with interop all at once. So effectively with this we're we're replacing like the need to to work with like four or five different teams and just kind of aggregating every single piece of the interop stack uh and offering that to users. And so like roadmap wise um we've been developing a lot of these things in parallel. Um, so a lot of them are are basically ready to go. And again, it's just we're we're doing a stage roll out right now um to make sure we can work closely with the initial set of users um to to make sure we can provide like the best experience

possible. >> Very cool. Very cool. Um you know what's interesting about the interop kind of space as a whole is that it it's actually kind of shifted now towards being more about asset issuance in some capacity. Like a lot of these interrupt players, especially like the big ones, they're almost just now becoming asset issuers. They always were, but then if you think about it from like actual off-chain like you know, T bills or whatever it is, >> you know, these interrop players are now becoming the way that that that money becomes or that those assets come onchain. Uh and and so that's just like one thing that I've start to put together a bit of a mental model for is you've got some of these

interoperability providers who are now honestly just operating as as uh asset issuers as well. Um so you know as you kind of interface with more of these uh players I think that you know you you'll start to have an opportunity for the meta layer to be something that uh brings uh some of these assets that are offchain onchain and using those you know whether whether it be these tokenized equities or whatever it is T bills stable coins etc. So, um, definitely definitely a a a interesting uh prerogative there and I'm just glad that you guys saw this through because I remember this was in just pure idea form as we're thinking about kind of like okay, how do we go from like being a RAS per se to being like a differentiated

product offering that has like a very solid uh, you know, sustainable long-term plan outside of just kind of building more chains for uh, you know, viable customers. And it seems like this is something that you guys have have ideiated on, built out, and now are sticking to, which I think is bullish. >> Yeah, exactly. And and you're totally right about asset issuers. Like the the core part of the pitch is if you're launching a tokenized T- bill, launch on the meta layer and everyone will get access to it instantly. Um that like that's just something we're so excited about and and already some of those conversations are happening. So very very bullish for the future. I have a question uh way outside of Calera. Have you been uh paying attention to what's been going on on Zora at all?

>> Uh with regards to the token or with regards to the >> Well, obviously the tokens pumping, but like uh like the the creator coins and the content coins and things. >> Yeah, I've I've been trying to keep up with it. I'm I'm not like the foremost expert on it, but I've >> Yeah. Yeah. Me either. >> Yeah. Uh, no. There's just an argument between Totally and Jesse about uh whether like memecoins and content coins or creator coins are the same thing. And um I don't know, man. I I I just wanted to bring it up because I thought it was uh it may be interesting, but uh yeah, I don't know. Like like we're just kind of iterating on these different ideas, these different applications. Um, and I don't know, it's just funny to see

crypto, uh, you know, especially commentary on CT, uh, kind of go back and forth about, you know, what's valuable, what's not. Yeah. I don't know, man. So, >> totally. Yeah. Um, yeah, I I find in a lot of these discussions like I I feel like I I always take like a moderate position. I'm really excited about creator coins. Um, and and obviously like there will be some creator coins that do incredibly well, just like memecoins. there's a lot of additional um opportunity to add utility unlike memecoins. And I think like one thing that maybe detractors might miss is that like the fact that you like own a piece of a creator or have something that's kind of akin to like memorabilia, maybe

it gets you access to like special meet and greets or fan clubs, etc. Like that's a lot of utility. Um at least relative to a lot of other coins in the space. Um you know, there's opportunities for governance. Uh I I think like the these things can bring creators and fans a lot closer together. Um it you know it just seems like in the past um a lot of a lot of these types of things were pitched as sort of like get-rich quick schemes to creators and obviously that's like not the right approach. Um it really requires like buyin from both a creator and their existing community. Um but but overall like I think experimentation cannot be a bad thing. Um so we're watching that space with excitement. Um, yeah, maybe some of those tokens get on the metal air soon.

>> Yeah, you know, that that was kind of like the the the second thought with regards to this uh you know, kind of what we're talking about with uh kind of like infrastructure and launching change for the sake of it. Just kind of like this fatigue with this with infrastructure at large. Like we're definitely in the app part of this like infra app cycle that we constantly go through between crypto bare markets and bull markets. Uh definitely seems like right now we have all the infra to launch apps to build uh things that are scalable, cheap, fast. Um, do you think that that that this pendulum will flip back towards uh infrastructure in like some sort of next cryptobear market or kind of like how are you thinking about

infra uh fat infra fatigue as a result of kind of all these different chains and a lot of kind of I think expectations were very high for a lot of these L2s and and such and they've kind of pulled back in terms of what has been uh potentially you know delivered. Yeah, I I think it's natural like for any technology to have cycles like this. Um, you know, and it has nothing to do with like prices or or anything unique to crypto. It's just like, you know, when infrastructure gets like too good, when there's been an overinvestment in infrastructure. There are legitimate innovations that get developed, maybe they they end up underappreciated by the market for a certain amount of time, but then those uh improvements in

infrastructure allow new apps to be built. And then when we cycle into like an app uh an app cycle and everyone's building apps and everyone wants to build apps, eventually we'll discover new infrastructure problems that apps face. And then we'll see a bunch of uh you know the the kind of early uh uh uh innovators in uh those new infrastructure categories will get hot, get a lot of usage and then that'll bring a lot of investment back to infrastructure. Um so I think this type of cycle is really necessary in order for like the space to move forward overall. Um it's exciting to see a lot of apps. I think it's it's very funny because um when we enter this this space like this cycle I guess on the infra side was about to kind of conclude. Um and a lot of people now they don't

realize how shitty it was to use blockchain like three years ago. Uh huge prices were like you know it might cost you a hundred bucks to mint an NFT. Like we've actually solved that problem. That was like the number one problem that people were talking about at the time. Games couldn't really launch on blockchain. They didn't have any certainty about gas prices. Everyone was solving this in some sort of hacky way. Now these are all solved problems. We can have amazing apps. Uh these app builders, they're going to push the space forward and and uncover new infrastructure problems and then companies like ours are going to come in and solve them. Um so overall it's just really interesting. Um but I I can understand like uh a lot of the discourse around it. There's just like a lot of like short-term, you know, frustration or confusion about this sort

of thing. But to us and and from our perspective, it just feels natural. >> Matt Cat, Caldera, congratulations on the ERA launch, man. Uh, thanks for joining us today. It was a bit it was cut a bit short, but I've got a hard stop. I got to run down to the ARC digital office to meet their their crypto team and just see what's going on down there. I'm back in Florida, so I appreciate your time. Enjoy the offsite. Uh, I'm sure you guys have a lot of work to to do and uh, you're welcome back anytime and we'll we'll have you on again.

>> Awesome. Thanks for so much for having me on. >> Cheers, Matt. >> Cool. Thanks, guys. >> Cheers. All righty, guys. That wraps us for the day. Um, good stream. Two conversations mostly about debts, mostly about what's going on in the uh, broader kind of uh, public markets, traditional finance kind of legacy market catalog. And then of course Matt from Calera with their ERA launch getting a bit more of an insight into what the builders are doing and thinking uh in this uh kind of like new chain L2 space. I figure that that there was going to be a change in kind of dynamic as Matt mentioned. Good to hear that the demand is still uh relatively high. But guys, I I've got a

hard stop. I got to run. Thank you so much for joining us today on on the rollup TV. See you later in the week and see you soon for new updated upgraded segments and more. Thanks guys and uh Sara. See you soon.