Treasury Vehicles, Crypto Bills, 401Ks, and Retail Runups

Transcript

Hey, welcome back to another episode of OX Research. We're live. It's Friday the 18th. uh joined by my co-host Bacio uh after his very successful AI personality launch last evening. Uh also joined by Mark Arjun and Carlos from the research team. And we've got Tulks on as well, front end of the show. How's everybody doing today? I'm very well Danny. Thank you for asking. Yeah, I mean crypto market cap hit an all-time high of $4 trillion today. So very happy.

No other strong thoughts. It's just how your day's been. Can you just how your day? What? Sounds like we're depressed. Everything is Everything is ripping. I'm hearing all of the assets are ripping right now. And we're so depressed in here. What's wrong, Carlos Tolks? Tell me what's wrong. Yeah, I don't think all assets are reaping man. That's your I think Ether's up. Ether's up too much. It just dens the mood a little bit, you know.

Yeah, I'll say um it's I'd have to go find the message from David Hoffman in the Xerx Research Telegram chat, but he did mention there's kind of a funny feeling about uh pump bleeding while ETH is ripping uh in the recent week. a bit funny given at least our predictions maybe a couple days back, week back um not looking so great in the short term. We'll see how the coming weeks go. Uh but there's been a ton of news. I don't know. We we could talk ETH, but we could also talk um some of the other like retail assets like we're we're getting into a little bit of like a retail excitement kind of move here again. It seems like some of the

classic names, XRP, XLM, Algo, H, like you name them. Um, they're all up significant amounts on the week like 30 40% if not more for some of those names. And the last time we saw that happen was like post-election last year. Um, when I mean post-election pretty much everything ran, but uh some of those tokens really ran quite hard. Um, it's interesting to see that again. I don't know if anyone has big takeaways here other than like I don't know is is retail back back in now that like the Treasury vehicle mania is kind of is picking up.

I just want to say like ETH's up like 40 something% in the past month and everybody's like why oh my gosh ETH it's so bad. XRP Kadano up 40 60% in the last month and nobody's saying anything. It's not like it's a hated rally right? Um so it it could be for the same reason. Um you know ETH's pumping I think when ETH pumps like if you just go back to last cycles which I mentioned I'm no longer believe in but if you go back to last cycles when ETH pumps everything else follows. So I think you knows like ETH ETH going up is not bad. I think it's good for everybody. They just don't not everybody realizes it yet.

But no no yeah you're definitely right. That that's more that's more jokes the top. I mean, seeing ETH pump is um I don't know, it just kind of gives it gives the market a ton of confidence. And um I'm sure we'll talk about it plenty throughout the show, but like the whole cycle theory, too. Like we did a live stream like two months ago, and I was kind of just like I I don't know what if it does play out that like BTC's kind of stalled. ETHBTC goes straight up. Like Doge started to move pretty hard this morning. Like it's kind of the classic as far as you know, out the risk curve. you know, BTC reaches new all-time highs and then ETH goes up 35% in a week and stuff starting to kind of spill over to I don't I mean, I don't want to say like the later stage type

stuffs, but I do think it is interesting that kind of that I don't know the way it played out all the previous cycles, everybody was so adamant and maybe like I'm more of a believer in in BTC cycles at large are mostly done too. Um, it's obviously going to, you know, wax and wayne, but I do think it is kind of interesting that like once everybody says, you know, the cycle's over, like that rotation from BTC to new alltime highs, chills out, ETH goes up 35% in a week, like like I said, Doge starting to move this morning, like alts in general. Um, kind of how Danny mentioned about all the, you know, retail favorites like up 30 40% in a week. Like it is pretty classic like cycle of previous history, which I think is pretty interesting.

I think people are nervous because every time ETH pumps, everything else goes down. It was like the atom that we had last cycle and we had it with Eve this cycle. But everything seems to be going really, really well except for pump. Pump is going back. What do you mean? It feels sloppy. Is that what you're saying? No, everything feels really good. Okay. I think the difference with ETH moving now Yeah. Yeah, the difference with ETH moving now compared to the past like 3 years is like the inflows and the treasury companies like kind of support it versus in the past it was more just like pers and like people just begging and wishing versus kind of actual you know institutional flow behind it. So, I think that's a that's a major difference. But, yeah, I mean, people

are still going to be a little iffy when ETH pumps just because it's been, you know, three years of people using that as like a downside hedge and, you know, they're long BTC, uh, short ETH, long anything, short ETH really. Um, so a lot of that is has unwound, but yeah, people still get slightly nervous, but again, like it seems like it makes a lot more sense now. I mean, it it it does feel a bit frothy. No, like with all the treasury companies. I think they announced one for Litecoin yesterday. That That's just ridiculous. No, much higher. Much We're not there yet. I want I want treasury companies for Axi and [ __ ] This is not it for a tokens.

But but treasury companies aren't that risky for the underlying asset, right? I mean like they don't a lot of them don't use debt like M you know Micro Strategy is probably the one that uses debt and preferred shares the most and so then if things turn sour they just dilute shareholders they're not going to like be forced to sell the asset they're going to be forced to dilute shareholders which is what all of them do and have been doing even the most successful ones so I don't like when I think selling the underlying assets is last resort but I do what you I do see what you mean Carlos like Litecoin Treasure Co I saw Dogecoin Treasury Co announced yesterday 500 million for that half a billion. But for Doge, I see that, but I honestly I don't see any I don't see I don't think it's as risky as

everybody is making it out to be. How can you say this is just There we go. Yeah, now we're talking higher. Higher. I think to your point, Mark, like the the risk may not be necessarily there today or like immediately, but I I think it it's just another thing that will play into reflexivity uh to the downside if or when it comes. Right. You mentioned like as a last resort, they might have to sell the underlying. Well, it's like I don't know. We get to last resorts quite frequently in this industry and often more quickly than than we expect uh to come. you know, just a few months back,

right? I think there were probably some people who were on, you know, last resort with maybe purpose position getting liquidated when we, you know, kind of gave up a bunch of gains uh following the election. But yeah, I don't know. It's a tough thing because it's like, yeah, they'll just sit there and dilute shareholders and like dump on their heads and like, you know, might not necessarily blow up. But I I do think we talked about it a little bit of like, you know, if you get to a point where nobody can raise anymore and they're sitting around and and maybe the valuations slump a little bit, like I don't know, you could either get stuck in this downward reflexivity loop, kind of like the upward reflexivity loop that we're in right now. We tend to like do both of these things never in half

measures. It's strong on the way up and then strong on the way down. Uh can I say something? Mark James Kristoff is very upset with you because he said because you said it's not as risky as people think it is. Just FYI, just so you know. I will pull up though uh we're talking I don't know about like froth, but I guess just in terms of like how the ETH ETF inflows look. I mean, they look much much stronger uh in the recent week than they ever did at the end of last year following the election. There's a there's a ton of interest now.

And maybe part of that is fueled by, you know, the Treasury CO are getting in people. There's there's been a big move. U people want to get some exposure here. Maybe they're maybe they're chasing. Um I don't know if like these Treasury codes I can't imagine. Are they buying the ETFs for some of their exposure? It doesn't seem like that they would. I don't think that they are. Um so this must be like some chase activity from maybe retail in their in their personal accounts. But interesting to see like this magnitude of flow um near near billions on the daily in the past week.

Oh, it's been insane. I wonder if it's just I mean like is that Tom Lee cosign like how much does that and I do think like going back to two weeks ago I think we kind of briefly talked about how like ETH leaning into the stable coin chain narrative like I do think that's an easy a very easy thing to get across to to people um especially after you know circle's performance and you can kind of just make an easy case that like hey you know you should buy some ETH long some ETH because of the growth of stable coins. Um, so I think that narrative has has really done a lot for them, too. And then, yeah, I mean, Tom Lee just he he's he's got some sway apparently, huh?

It's funny. I'd have to pull up the BMR chart, but he seemingly has some sway, but um, his co is not the one that's moving lately. I think esbet has been on the ripper, although after having a bit of like an Eiffel Tower uh a month or so back. Yeah. And then yeah, BMR kind of has the Eiffel Tower now. Um so we'll see how that how that plays out. But yeah, I mean it's just been I don't know. I mean every day it just gets a little more crazy. And um the thing about froth like in markets and especially in crypto like it it's just you don't necessarily want to be early to calling the froth because

it can the levels of insanity it can reach are I mean like we've seen in previous cycles it's uh I don't know it's kind of beautiful in a way even for what eventually comes after it. Yeah. But it's beautiful in in the in the meantime. Yeah. I do think we're in a bit of like, you know, I think you'd have a lot of people who trade meme coins, you know, going back to last year, there was this similar, you know, they're all going to go to zero. You guys are like burning your money, but it's like when they're going up, like I mean, you want to trade them. Uh, and I think a lot of these treasury vehicle companies, it's it's the same kind of vibe. I mean, I'm I'm personally trading some of the smaller ones like, you know, taking some risk

there, but it's just what happens. Like you people see, you know, these things make big moves and then they want they want to follow and chase that on the next one. They want to be early to the next one. Um maybe jump into some other things. I think uh some big news or I guess relatively big I think Genius the Genius Act we've kind of been seeing coming for a while now. Uh looks like that one just got passed uh in both uh sides of Congress yesterday and supposedly Trump will be signing into law today. Um so that should be relatively a good win I think for the longer term picture for for crypto markets. Um, another interesting one

that just passed the House, I believe the other day is the Market Clarity Act, which I think there's some more nuance there, but the main pieces to the bill are around like defining what is a commodity versus a security and being very explicit about something being a digital commodity um versus maybe not quite meeting like commodity status. um and needing to kind of file and register with the SEC. Um but the kind of splitting up some powers here, giving the CFTC some uh authority over these like so, you know, quote unquote digital commodities, which you know, you think some of the big ones like big blockchain network tokens, Bitcoin, ETH, uh Soul, I

don't know, you could probably list off a bunch of these at this point that probably fall under that purview. Um, but another thing that gets that gets called out is like what is a mature blockchain system. Um, and they're trying to like define language around like a network that becomes demonstrabably decentralized. Basically like decentralized enough to the point to where uh they feel that it the token itself then meets this commodity status and and doesn't have to uh you know be regulated by the SEC. I think there's like some kind of win in there eventually um to get some like actual clarity on this so teams aren't sitting around like I don't know are we going to get sued or we not going to get sued. Um

but I don't know that we have like the full picture of how this is going to look just quite yet. I don't have any regulatory takes. I want to talk about pump fun. Is that okay Donnie? Yeah we can do pump fun. get into it. What's your take right now? Hot. Um, [ __ ] You put me on the spot. I He wasn't even ready and he asked for it. That's crazy, man. Curious what you guys think about I asked to Ryan Connor this morning as well. He said, "Relax. Don't worry about short-term price action." But I'm very stressed out about short-term price action. That's like my whole thing. Um, but more so I'm kind of wondering if um,

A, how serious of a threat is it that they just never get back the activity that they used to have? Tuls, I know you talked about this last time, Carlos, you as well. Um, B, like on Twitter, you can see that the original um, sale was supposed to be around 200 mil uh, to funds. Instead, it was up to 720 mil. Um, which is quite a bit to sell to funds. And these funds are completely unlocked at uh like they have no vest. So, I'm I'm just kind of curious like do we think it's a churn thing? Do we think it's going to I'll be okay? Is my entry safe? Etc., etc.

You sold what entry? Yeah, that's true. by I wanted to give a dramatic effect as if I still have skin in the game when the reality is I sold I was down and I was like I can't [ __ ] deal with this anymore. No pulse left. He's he heard that I sold anyway. He died man. Carlos Mark is my entry safe. I still hold pump. Um depends on if you're on leverage or not. I mean funding rates were crazy. I I do think there's a bit of truth to what Ryan was saying like funding rates in Hyperlid were above 100%. So, I think the consensus was pump was going to just double uh the first week of trading and everyone's going to like be rich. And we all were were wrong, I think. Um I

still hold my pump. Uh I'm not comfy here, but like yeah. Um I don't have a lot of takes besides that. We were all wrong. I don't know what else to say. I kind of curious. I want to pull up this. Mark, do you have a take? No, I don't have a take. I was I was I was away on an island when the pump I happened, so I couldn't I didn't even have the option to buy it. And you decided on not buying it on the public forums?

No, I mean, I just I just did a quick backup knuck. I saw pump was the most valuable/expensive application that doesn't have an that doesn't have its own chain and I was just like I don't know if I want the most expensive app so I'll wait and see. That's right. I um Danny, are you on the launchpads thing on Blockworks data or should do you want me to pull it up? Yeah. What do you want to see? I want to kind of just want to share this a bit.

light mode. What is this? Um, I don't think this is live yet, and I might actually get in trouble for this, but I mean, so this is like I I don't think we should be doing this, but it's been like two weeks of Bonk. Uh, well, one week of Bonk doing really, really well. Um, whatever, 10 days, 15 days of Bonk doing much much better. Um, we see a lot higher graduation rates from Bonk. Um, launchpad tokens are typically there's more launchpad tokens on bonk and revenue for bonk fun is much higher than on pumpf fun which is kind of and agreed with you. I mean Mark I I imagine they're going to launch pump

chain at some point. Don't know how it will work and I don't know if it fits into that like theory that Ryan has that's you want assets to be um close to each other. Do you know what I mean? like you want asset issuers and the protocols to be close to each other. Um to be honest with you, I kind of agree with him on that. If you're doing like a specific like an application like pumped up on, I think there's only certain applications that you don't need that with. Um but I don't know. I like I know I'm kind of bear hauling at the bottom here. Um probably like it's it's been beaten down quite a bit, but I think I get to do this because I sold a little bit earlier. Um, but I'm not sure. I I don't know. Danny, are you comfortable?

Uh, I I feel relatively okay. I think the big thing that Pump has going for itself is they just raised a ton of cash. So like to me the thing that I'm looking at and like the token that I think would even be more interesting is like Axiom in this position because for them like this little battle between pump and bonk fun uh doesn't really matter. They're just kind of hanging out. They're they're driving like 60% of the flow if not more to both applications in aggregate. And so like they they kind of win no matter which of these two like kind of giants at this point uh ends up like coming out

the victor. So but yeah, I don't know. I think like Pump could they have they have leverage here like they have things that they can they can pull on. They could make some relevant acquisitions. Um I I think the thing that they really need and we've talked about this a lot and Ryan Connor has been laser focused on this but like they they really need to own the front end. Um because if all the flow is coming from Axiom and Photon and Bolex and wherever else like it it doesn't matter if your pump or your launch lab or your Bonk fun like you know there might be some some strings they can pull a little bit with like getting the mass token creators you know to use their their platform but what what happens in the

future situation where like Axiom launches a launchpad and all the users and most of the volume is going through their platform already. I I want to ask a question I asked six months ago about pump but for Axium. Why do they need a token? Yeah, I'm not sure that they do. We can't do this. I can't do this question five years in a row. We we we have to admit that everything needs a token. If if we start if we don't start from that place, then it's already cooked because you're questioning too much. Doesn't work. You have to start from the thing that like, oh, this is on or related to crypto or potentially could be related to crypto. It needs a token. If you don't start with that,

then we're getting into way too many questions. I think we can talk about will they have one though and I think for them to launch a token like they would be breaking trend. Like trading bots historically have not launched tokens like Banana Gun stands out. There's maybe a few others, but like typically the leading bots have not bothered to drop tokens even when they've maybe promised or hinted that they would or done points programs or even mentioned that a token was coming in the future. Uh Cough Cough Photon Bolex awesome stuff, guys. Um, and and Axiom even has in their own docs, like I mean they have a point system, they have a a reward system, they've got some subtle nods to a potential like future airdrop in their

docs, but um yeah, I don't know. For them, I mean, you'd have to break trend and you'd give away probably a chunk of your revenue in doing it um because that's what the market wants. So, but the thing with the token is that if you don't need to be if you don't need to have a token um for some form of decentralization purposes or like regulatory purposes and you don't need the money that comes from having a token and I think this is why Photon and Bull X never did it because you don't need like if you're making god I think I don't know how much Photon made I think surely above 56 mil Okay.

And I I can't imagine their team being more than five, six people. Yeah. I mean, more lifetime it's it's done more than nine figures. I was going to say I think it might be like 5x that. But yeah, I mean like what you're talking about, if you're making that much money, there's side talks. Um if you're good, it makes and you don't need to you don't need other money to get a salary or whatever. however, like or to exit really or to like live or whatever, then why the [ __ ] would you ever because you're just giving it's it's such an added complication. I I can't imagine I can't imagine uh I can't imagine this ever again. Sorry,

folks. Continue. I'm out of here, guys. Uh, no. I I do think it is a good point though cuz like you know pump launches and then I mean when you're making this type of revenue with a four, five, six, even 10 person team immediately the token launches and what does everybody want? Everybody wants revenue and buybacks to the token. So like you're immediately just cutting off you know 25% at minimum of your revenue. Um, I mean, I think a lot of people with pump like they're kind of pushing for upwards of, you know, 50% plus. Like, so the incentive for the teams is kind of just to be like, well, why would we not just continue raking in revenue? And then like Bach said, like, I mean, the regulatory aspect is much more clear

now. Um, but I also the the downside of the regulatory being so much more clear is that if I was on a team of a potential token, like I wouldn't be worried about um the SEC in any aspect whatsoever because the regulatory has cleaned up. So then it's like why would I want more overhead, you know, why do I want to launch token and deal with all that on top of, you know, we're printing 50 mil plus a year in fees to our four, five, six person team. like why why would you ever want to change that? So I just don't think the incentive is there for for most of these teams. Um and I think that's something that Pump is is dealing with right now is just kind of like I don't know you launch token at at

this valuation and I think we all assumed the buybacks would be a bit more steady and clear and comms from the team would be a little more clear. Um it seems kind of like in my opinion a little bit of a bare minimum after you raised a billion dollars publicly. Like I don't think it's too much to ask for to be like, "Hey, what's what's actually going on here?" Um, you know, there's times where you're just slamming 10 mil onto the chart and then you don't say anything for a few days and then like Allen's buying.9 soul of like some [ __ ] coins that have been dead for a while and they're going up 30%. Like people are just kind of a little I don't know, we're past the stage where you can just kind of launch a token and and have it go up. It's been

like that for a while. Um, but pump's just another reminder that like there has to be, I don't know, some type of some type of reason for it to go up, which is good. Um, but it's just kind of the stage of the market that we're at. The market demands more and it's it's awesome to see and pump hasn't fulfilled that. And I mean, I'm sure you guys have seen it, but I mean, my group chats have just been filled. Like, what what the hell is actually going on here? Like, why what uh you know, we're going on a week and a half now and it's just like nothing from the team. Um, like I said, the buybacks are are sporadic and relatively small compared to what they've made. Just nobody has any idea what the token does.

Yeah, even though it I don't really have exposure, I was kind of hoping it would do a little bit better because I want to make ICOs great again, but also to kind of um bring it back to full circle when Danny was talking about clarity and then Bach interrupted with pump and then pump chain. actually a pump chain might not be that bad because you know for the clarity act they say that if you are quote unquote mature blockchain um then your asset might be treated as a commodity if certain conditions are met. So there's probably a way if you already have a token and going to go through that regulatory stress there might be a little loophole to launch your own chain and become a you know be a blockchain and have make your asset considered a

commodity and then boom you're in the clear. Uh, so maybe Bulk is right with Pom Chain. They didn't uh there were some people talking about Santi on last week's Empire, too. Like there was a screen clip of him saying pump chain. Um, and I think some people I don't know. I think it just kind of added to the overall excitement heading into their their launch. Uh, but yeah, it would be it would be nice to see. That's for sure. I mean, some type of just direct comms from a team that raised a billion dollars would be nice, too. You know, I feel like that's not too much to ask.

Yeah, I think uh there were some rumors a while back around potential pump chain uh maybe probably even before the sale and raise. But uh yeah, I think like this Clarity Act is an interesting like piece of that uh that could play in as well if uh teams are basically like incentivized to launch a chain for the sake of like meeting regulatory requirements to not be a security especially like when you already did the token and then you did a buyback like that's got to now be like more front and center. I don't know if um being based outside the US helps them at all, but at least if you want your thing traded by, you know, broadly within the US uh on US markets, then it's it's going to be a

concern. I think uh something else maybe just a data point to pull up and where I could see this being interesting but talked a lot about how like a lot of the flow is driven by the trading apps and you can see like so here we have launchpad volume originating from trading platforms to some of these major um launchpads now on Salana bump fun let's bonk radium believe and the interesting part is like what we see this shift here um from pump which had been sitting at around like 50 to 60% of its volume being driven by uh these these third party platforms and then when this kind of shift to bonk and

radium happened that dropped off a bit to you know 30 40% while radium itself has risen up and and radium and bonk both now are like 60 to 70% or more of their volume uh is driven from these apps. So they they've just done a good job of like attracting these trading app users to kind of bid the assets on their platform rather than pump. Um, but I I think the like I mentioned before, like the interesting part about that is like I don't know if you can just if you can find a way to have the more interesting assets on your platform or have like you know the more compelling front end uh that traders are using and you know kind of incline them to route through you

know that your launchpad assets. Uh I think this could you know just as easily go a different direction but the Bon and Radium guys have been doing a good job. I don't I think we've talked about like the slop industrial complex before like mass launching of tokens and uh I do wonder if there's an opportunity to just like if you're a launchpad platform spin up your own kind of algo to just start spitting out these assets because if right now you've got these like you know big major addresses that go and do that and they launch thousands a month um why couldn't you just do it yourself?

Yeah. Which my producer involved us into as well. Yeah, the Pikachio AI agent is um we're gonna get in trouble. I don't think any of those guys are watching this anyway. When marketing one of when are the raids, B? I was promised raids. You were promised the what? Raids. Twitter raids. Telegram raids. No raids. That was that that is that was done. Um, before you go, before you go, do you want to talk about hype a little bit?

And can you explain why to the people that the price is down? Yeah. When an asset goes up 60% in a week, it takes a slight uh stop because people want to take profit on the 60% move. Does this make sense to you? So, there's more sellers than buyers. That's what you're saying. exactly what I'm trying to say. There are few more sellers than there are buyers. Um I'm gonna I'll probably head now, but I I actually have a kind of a a small question. Um folks, you were talking about this is this general idea of uh on the live stream last one you said

meme coins will never die. Do you see us at least taking a slight break on them anytime soon? Um, or do you think they will? Well, we like to be honest, we haven't had the same amount of action that we've had previously. I think anybody who's onchain understands that. Um, do you think we we go further down where it kind of just becomes the side of the market that is always there but is not as relevant as it was before and then we like we start doing other stuff or do you see it um coming back in cyclical ways that it previously did?

Uh, that's a good question. I probably think somewhere in between. Um, I mean, even like on the live stream last week, like I said, I don't think they're dying, but there is very clearly like some ceiling that is there on the market cap that wasn't there before. So, that doesn't mean that they have to die, but it also doesn't mean that, you know, there's going to be runners that are 200 mil plus, you know, that reach up to a billion. Like, I think it's been I want to say it's been like six months now since I'm trying to think the last billion dollar runner on on chain. honestly might still be I guess maybe the goat reach a billion but anyway I just think the the ceiling can be capped but there's some marginal level of like baseline activity that I don't think is is going anywhere um I mean we even you

see it recently with you know with Elon tweeting about those you know the uh what is it the AI image there the AI characters like I mean those tokens have done some some pretty wild volume and but yeah I mean topped out at maybe like 75 mil and you know in the test. I would have thought much higher than that. Um, so that's kind of what I'm thinking moving forward is that there's just some base level of underlying volume and activity that isn't necessarily going away. And then there'll be some new meta that comes along. There'll be some, you know, some goat that catalyzes the next AI meta.

Like it won't necessarily be the AI meta. Um, but it kind of takes one of those going a little insane first. So that's kind of how how I'm looking at it. But the volume, yeah, I mean, there can be months where, you know, it's down month over month and then something will come along, but I just don't think it's ever really disappearing. Yeah, I agree. I wonder if it becomes like, you know, how there's unfortunately always a baseline for NFTs and gaming as well. Like there's always some idiot doing something on NFTs or gaming and but like the bottom is at an activity scale, let's say it's like out of a hundred, they're like at a five. I wonder if just memes just continue at a 15 and like you said when like big token. No, I I think of it

Yeah, I think of it more of like just parlays and like scratchoff tickets. Like there's, you know, around the Super Bowl like betting volume is way up and you know when the Powerball is at say whatever billion like the the lottery sales are way up but like there's always some base level of people that and that's where I think we're we've reached with meme coins where it's just like this is just kind of a new form of online gambling and um in a sense like online gambling going up is something I would be long for the next you know decades to to centuries like and I just think that this is the new form of online gambling And so there's some base level of activity that that will always be there.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I wonder how that affects soul if the base level becomes low and how everything goes. I feel like the the biggest product in crypto is still speculation, right? The best apps are PERS, memes, leverage, treasury codes. Like we just want asset go up when we're long and we want asset go down when we're short.

Um those have been like the the most successful things. Um so I do agree with your point, Boach. I I think there's a point that you're making that like the the specific type of game that people play at a moment in time could change, right? That can be different. We didn't do like, you know, we had we had NFTs for a little bit in 2021. We gaming tokens this year. Last year we had Pudgy went crazy. Like there were some others.

Ordinals. They went ordinals not as much but they still did well. Mhm. The the meme game has been like more persistent like it existed last cycle. It existed I mean 2017 ICO stuff they were memes like let's be real. C can I make a very gentle argument here without offending anybody? What do we think of the argument that NFTTS were a form of gambling with lotteryies like very clear loot box mechanics? gaming also because it heavily involved NFTs and then could we say something of the sort of potentially memes are just one iteration of gambling

within crypto that is continuously evolving and like this right now it's very clear to us looking back and saying yeah memes are the ultimate way to gamble um dude I love people like this new type NFT was moneyaundering fantastic you're the only one that's figured Great. Um, sorry, I'm having a bad day. Um, uh, the Yeah, like what if like right now we look back at NFTs and we say, "Yeah, NFTs were like obviously dog shit." Like memecoins are a much better way to gamble, much better way to speculate. What if there is a better way to speculate as opposed to memecoins? In

that case, they would go. Is this correct? What does that look like to you? Because if you build it and there's a better way to gamble then you can become a billionaire. That exactly what I'm thinking. So actually the live stream and let's start IDing it. Okay. Um no I mean I guess the push back I would have to that is um I just the liquidity and I don't know the nature of like not having a picture. Like Kobe has that famous line that like NFTs were just you know mean coins with pictures. I think that's what he said. But like that kind of reinforces the underlying of people want to trade coins quickly, easily um with decent liquidity and a lot of

volume. And so like I don't know what the next iteration of that could really be. Um but I also like have a personal rule that anything that is NFT related I've just ignored since 2022 and it's done me pretty well. So, I just don't think about NFDs anymore. Um, but yeah, I mean, that's kind of how I would look at it. I I can see your argument that maybe it evolves into something else, but like I just don't know. I mean, even like the earliest stages of crypto, like outside of BTC, like people want to trade other tokens, like this has kind of been the underlying theme for, you know, pushing on 15 years now. And to me, it's just kind of is what it is. in the memecoin like kind of complex that we have now is just pretty close to the

end state. I'm just I'm going to agree with that because if you look at meme coins less it's just just under 1% of all memecoin traders actually make money and that sounds bad on the face of it but it's literally something like 135,000 times better odds than playing the lotto or you know some scratchaway ticket. So like less than just under 1% let's call it 1% is really good odds for gambling to make money. Like you know you in Europe when you when I play roulette there's one zero and my odds aren't even 50/50. I'm scratching 49. So like but meme coins are probably arguably a more fun way of doing it you know. So I like

that. What are the odds on meme coins? Well I was saying 1%. It's way less than 1%. Well, I think here's the other part is that the odds change, right? And I I think that's kind of what fuels part of this market, right? Is if you're hanging around in 2022 and you're trying to bet on the hottest new meme coin and the like the market is crashing, like your hit rate's probably going to be pretty low. But when you're hanging out post election and you're buying all the AI coins and they're all running, you know, up in a straight line, um, you know, your hit rate can be very high. And that's like but people they people see that happen and they jump in and like yeah some people get burned because they like buy

the top or they buy after the run is complete. Um or they try to keep hanging around and like bidding these things when maybe the momentum isn't there anymore. Uh but I think that's a big factor is that like the the success rate changes all the time. Yeah. And I think it's like anything else in life, like you know, if you put a little more effort in than just blindly buying coins, like you know, maybe you go from 1% to say like 25%. Um, and that's entirely different. Yeah. I mean, just like on the subject, as somebody who came from like making a living playing DFS and betting on sports, like my friends are obsessed with parlays and betting on sports now.

I absolutely hate it because like I know it was so much easier before co like before I don't know just data and AI and every like there was there was edges that you can squeak out that kind of models can't tell you and I think memecoins are kind of that way in a sense like yeah only you know 1% wins and I wouldn't advise a random person in the street to be like hey you should go gamble on memecoins because it's better than the casino um I mean it kind of and arguably is but I would also tell them it's like any you know thing in life or skill or you know gym like you kind of have to practice that a little bit and like you know it's not just like immediately like you're going to go there and hit 100x like I don't maybe

there's a tiny chance you will but like you can kind of just observe things for a little while and understand kind of the rules of the game and maybe raise that 1% up to like I said you know 20 25% or so. Yeah, 100%. No matter how much effort I put into it, I roulette always comes red. You no matter how much I study martingale, it just keeps coming red. So, uh I I definitely agree with you there. Um I I do say like this there there's this line between gambling and speculation. I think it's like the same thing basically. Um, but I think that's like crypto's three biggest three biggest features are speculation, stable coins, and scams. Um, those are like the

three big S's. Like I don't know if anybody else thinks there's any other big feature that we have. Um, but speculation is the number one. Yeah, I think like a good parallel as well is like you look at traditional finance and like Robin Hood has made a great business on trading equities, but like a lot of the retail people like they like to come in and trade the zero DTE and their hit rate on those is very low. Like most people are just like chucking their if you're trading those consistently, you're like chucking your paycheck in and probably losing it all.

Um, but I think there's a similar like aspect to it where there's enough to these systems where people think that they can like have or develop some kind of edge whether or not they actually have one. Uh, I don't think it actually matters if they have an edge or not. They just have to think that they do. Um, and you know, you hit one 10x or you know, one 5x overnight and you're like, "Wow, this is amazing." And and you keep keep playing the game. Um but yeah, I mean I agree with a lot of the thoughts you guys both have there.

That is something like options have never taken off in crypto. Um probably just because there's so many assets and like just there's never been enough liquidity to like really get behind those things. I mean I know like Bitcoin there's there's a little bit of an options market there but still quite small. Um, I think options never took off just because like everyone always had per. Yeah, it's like and like I wouldn't take crypto people to be patient enough or um savvy enough price.

What do you mean? And like like the guys that did get options like came in and make made like a killing. Um like it's my understand there's like like a very small subset of people that actually still trade options. um for for crypto, but maybe that will change. Who knows? Also, just kind of generally curious how the trady incumbents think about per stuff like that. I think I was actually going to bring up options too, Danny, but like Ian, I think it I think it might change. I talked about this app on this part before called um Euphoria. It's not out yet, um but it's like a mega ETH app.

And imagine you have the chart in front of you with little grids and you just click, you know, and then in your prediction, you just click somewhere you think the line is going to go and you know, you set your thing to like 10 cents. In effective, you're buying like 60second option contracts without even realizing it. Cuz for you, the user, you're just clicking, I think line goes here. I think it goes down, you know. But I think that might be a fun gambly degenerate way to get like a lot more liquidity and options traders in the retail space.

60C 60C options. Sorry. Ian 60C options. Yeah, I think even less sometimes too. Oh man, we just give them crack in that app too. To I mean, I think to their credit, they said they will not be releasing it with leverage. Yeah, here it is. little this is not like full prod or anything but like a little demo that's gone around but like yeah you you click squares and then if you hit you get paid out but you can do this on like any time frame basically is the point come on how fun does that look it does look yeah the UI does look I'm like I I literally Danny pulled that up and I'm watching I'm like [ __ ] I

should go long something dude you you got to think this would this would oneshot an entire generation of like Gen Z dope booming addicted, you know, new traders. It I think it does open the question though, like I don't know, talking about options versus pers. There's been a little bit of conversation around there. I just went muted. There's a little conversation around like um you know, Coinbase, Robin Hood, maybe like Tradfi, um brokers offering per on potentially stocks, but like sort of bringing them over um into the mix of products. Um, it does make me wonder if like, you know, the zero DTE traders of today would, you know, would per appeal

to them even more strongly, like, you know, going 50x long versus, you know, taking a, you know, super out of the money strike for the end of the week or something. Um, hard to say. They're like slightly different games. Uh, and maybe that brings along like slightly different retail people, but I do think there is there's something there like just in the way that the games are designed and like how people like to play them and like how you get kind of caught up in the game like based on your play style essentially. Now it really sounds like we're talking about a set of casino games.

I don't know. Do you guys think like if per came to like SPY is that you think that's more of a oneshot for like equity retail traders than like zero DTE or like weekly options are? I'm honestly curious like I don't I don't have a strong view here. Um is it I think you'll probably have people doing both realistically. Like I think there's like a nice Robin Hood crowd of folks that has demonstrated a lot of desire to use those like um OTD pro uh products, but I'm not sure how they would adapt to

perks and stuff, but I think that'd be a really interesting market structure to see like form in real time. Um and also like kind of where it takes place if it's like happening on chain or just like on one of these like Robin Hood style products as well. Yeah, I I think it's hard to hard to predict that. I do think like whatever Herbs product goes like insanely viral. I think there's something to if you have ever bought, you know, any type of option on Robin Hood, the ability to simulate your returns at a future price, I think is like crack to people where you can put in like a potential price that it'll be at and you can see your but like a per position like you open that up and it's just like you need the ability to have the math of like, okay,

if I open so long at 150 and it goes to, you know, 172, like what do I make? Um, but I do honestly think that is like a major part of the retail option craze is just like you can click that option and then you can buy one and then you can simulate your return and be like damn if this goes to X I make Y. Um, so I would love to see that feature in a in a PES product. Yeah, unironically I was talking about this with effort cap David from the advisory team and a few other folks just last night about about options and pulling up the simulate returns feature on Robin Hood.

It's like crack. Yeah. A lot of I think a lot of the appeal like especially when you're basically like doing relatively unsophisticated things like oh I just want to like find a way to hit 100x is like you know making the chart look like it's something that's possible. Um, and I I feel like you see that like on CT as well, right? Like people drop the chart for like their favorite meme or their favorite token and then they like, you know, they draw the line and put their target like, you know, 50x higher and they're like, "Yeah, we're holding until until this hits." But, uh, it's it's definitely a big piece of it is like how how the game is presented.

To be honest, you can just draw lines. You can just draw lines straight up into question marks, too. I I do think it will keep option options traders will still trade options. I do think it's probably more interesting for like we're just talking spy for those who use like leverage ETFs because leverage ETFs, you know, those aren't instruments that are meant to be held for a long time. They have very high levels of like volatility drag that decay over time. So like I think people who want that leverage to these big instruments plus liquidity I think and I'm not just talking retail I'm talking I think it'll be a lot a better instrument for them to express like higher beta plays on it than versus these you know these dodgy ETFs so to

speak. How do we think um I guess another big piece of news which I'm not totally convinced there's been some conversation here but like Trump supposedly you know gonna sign some executive order to open up US retirement accounts to crypto. I I'm not super convinced on like the actual meaning of this. You know technically retirement accounts do have some access to crypto today via the ETFs if their like plan allows for that today. Uh I'm not sure what opening that up broadly means. If that means like forcing, you know, 401k uh providers to like list crypto

products directly for, you know, trade uh via these instruments. But um I don't know given the inflows on like ETH ETFs in you know the recent weeks it feels like there's some potential for some you know retail excitement there. Um but I will say it it does feel like I' I'd love to get your guys' thoughts here. It feels like the timing right now, like we're in a bit of um almost like January of this year where a lot of focus got to headlines around, you know, yeah, the the US government is going to sign a bill and and start buying Bitcoin. And now it seems a lot of the headlines around, you know, bills getting in

through Congress and Trump's executive orders around crypto are like kind of back at the top of the feed, it seems like. Um whereas they you know for a while that was kind of out of sight out of mind outside of maybe stable coins like there was a lot of excitement about stable coins a few months back and then circle kind of had its run u but now we're back on like crypto broadly right and bunch of things are running um I don't know how do we feel is this like is it a little frothy I mean we talked about the treasury vehicles but I don't know if this like deep focus on oh he's going to sign an executive order and then therefore that's going to mean lots more inflows Um, I don't know. I think people are setting themselves up to be a little disappointed. What do we think?

Yeah, I I think that's a great kind of analogy to make there to post election where it's like there was all that hype and then everything happened as good. It's like everything got so good. It was like, okay, what can happen next really? Um, and it is kind of now at that point I feel like like we're getting all these good like uh we're getting the news before the actual action plus like the kind of like just market exuberance like the uh I mean all the charts just like insane right now. So I think we're bound to find like at least like a local top some point soon. Um and then like cool off a bit I think. But I think right now there's definitely a lot of exuberance

that mimics kind of the post-election feels Danny. Um I don't know. Can anyone think of any like looming catalysts as like obviously like momentum is a massive part of like markets in general? Um but yeah, I mean everything looks great. Just feel like people are also quite excited, you know. Yeah, it does kind of feel like just with the I don't know with the crypto week this week, I don't know, we'll go into August and August is historically kind of a bad month and kind of I don't know last type of vacation type month people had before coming back to the office. Um, but some of like, you know, the that meme in in the bottom of last

cycle where it was just like endlessly over and over for every day like how much worse can it really get? Like I try and think of that with news headlines and the positive momentum too. Like how much better can it possibly get? Um, and it can always get better, but it is kind of like especially like this week the news flow is just kind of I don't know, we just been stacking weeks and weeks on top of each other. And again, it's similar to when we're at the bottom and you're just like it seriously can't, you know, everybody's force liquidating everything. Like it really can't get that much worse. And I like to think of that towards the top, too. Um, so I think we're kind of personally like kind of in the earliest stages of that, but we're kind of running out of, like you

said, Ian, like not that you need, you know, specific catalyst to go higher. Um, but we're kind of we're we're really pushing the gas down on on everything positive that could happen this year and kind of all shoving it into, you know, front load in the first half. So, we'll see. But yeah, and then as far as the retirement stuff goes, like I don't know. I I would personally advise not and it's more so it has nothing to do with like the potential of where I think you know BTC or or ETH or crypto can be in 3 to 5 years plus. It's more so just like I don't know people who put stuff in their retirement accounts like you shouldn't really be able to have like a

15 20 25% draw down like because of some leverage in a day because if like I would advise my parents to buy that like I know it would go down 15% and they would sell it and then it would be back up you know 15 20% the day after like I it's just not something that people should should have in in accounts like that in my opinion. Yeah. I think another thing that we kind of as an industry glazed over was the fact that like this wasn't just a crypto specific thing. It was like also to be able to access like uh private markets for retirement funds.

So like I think I think like if you're if you're an allocator, it's like you have a much easier time pitching like uh allocation like some of these PE funds just given like there's been like a general uptick in companies staying private longer. So I think like um there's obviously it's like some really valuable private companies uh some of which got demonstrated at Robin Hood's demo day. Uh they like people like want want access to these companies, right? Like and so I think like from an allocator standpoint it's like okay like yeah you can do like crypto for you know maybe like one to 5%. Uh but also like you want to have access to like all these private AI companies as well uh and all these other sorts of things. So I think

like we as an industry totally just glazed over the fact that like yeah like that opens the floodgates but um still like at the discretion of people that are like um managing a lot of these like retirement account structured products and like all these other things like of course you'll have the occasional ape u but like if generally speaking I think if someone wanted to you know fullport their retirement account into crypto or some sort of crypto-like exposure uh all of those people have already done so to my understanding.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. But it feels a bit like like it's not like 100% allocation or 0% allocation, right? You can have like a one to 5% allocation to Bitcoin, I feel. And and that still is meaningful if you take into account all the 41ks. Like I I don't think that would be like irresponsible. Um but I don't know what you guys think. I think that's kind of what uh I think like Bitwise has kind of always um set the standard there of like responsible portfolio allocation to crypto. Uh they've always had some some really good research on that. I think their range is like 1 to 5% um crypto specifically. I'm

not entirely sure if it was like Bitcoin specific, but um of course like there's a lot of other ways now like with all like the like additional kind of like uh equity companies that you can get like exposure to that are like crypto companies. Um not sure if they would throw treasury companies into that mix of uh portfolio allocation for for uh you know crypto exposure. We we can just toss the treasury companies in retirement accounts and we can just absolutely moon. Yeah. I mean Panta has like a fund of um to monetary fund that only invests in treasury companies now. Um but I mean Penta has been in the game for a while.

I mean they were like the earliest um like Bitcoin liquid hedge fund. Um, so I mean clearly they're a little they're more seasoned than some others that I think would maybe draw some eyes if they launch similar products. Yeah, I do think there's a difference as well between, you know, if target date funds start having like, you know, two 5% allocations to crypto and maybe that's just like market cap weighted, you know, so it would be largely Bitcoin, some ETH, maybe some some of the alts in like a few percent of that.

Um, seems fine. seems like it I think it's it's at a point where like it kind of almost makes sense um to have exposure to an asset to asset class that that that is this large now. Um but when an if an individual goes and like self-directs you know 60% of their portfolio into XRP or whatever Doge and then it they get a big retracement. I don't know. James Kristoff had a a funny message in the chat earlier like what happens when all the oldies uh ape their 401ks into crypto and then we get a big uh retrace of the recent move and they have to go back to work again in the current job market. Um I think buy their houses

they'll be selling their houses up for any price any willing buyer. Uh maybe that's the solution is to destroy them on uh on a crypto pullback. Oh, I think the uh Ian, you mentioned the the private equity side of this and I think the um maybe the tougher question mark there is like you know the really strong companies, you know, the Open AIs, the SpaceX is like they don't necessarily want uh retail to to be able to buy uh shares of their equity. Like I don't know. I think the the offerings that you might get like without forcing companies to have to do so are probably the companies that you don't necessarily

want to buy or allocate to. Um, and so there's almost like a self- selection bias thing here where it's like, yes, we need to do PE in retirement accounts, but the only stuff that you can select from is all the garbage that like couldn't find allocation elsewhere. Um, and so that I mean there could be risk there as well. Yeah, all the stuff that you know PE has underperformed everything for the past three to five years, but now we can make it accessible in a in a retirement plan so we can get some some exit exit liquidity. Um, it is funny about just talking about like kind of the the owner base of what you would want for certain things too. And it just reminds me of

that one tweet where it's just something like you know the one guy who has like $10 in the token and he's the loudest guy in the telegram. like you start dividing these studies like thinging dev like hey dev why marketing um I don't know so so that kind of plays a little bit of an aspect too like you know again it goes back to like would I want my parents to have something that can go down 10 15% in a day and then I would think they would potentially you know maybe sell it and then it rips like 15 20% like sometimes assets are just I don't know they're just there's a lot of different assets out there and some of them you shouldn't just hold in in certain accounts Oh yeah. Like um when when the stock market goes down like 2% on the day,

everyone's like, "Holy shit." Like it is it's over now. It's actually over. It goes down 5%. People are like, "It's not looking good." So yeah, I mean hope they like allocate accordingly. But really love the reference there to that like um that infamous I think it was a Bob Lax tweet Tolker is like guy with $20 invest question for the dev. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which is like unironically the beauty of crypto though. It's like you get access to the founder so easily with $15 in it.

Imagine guy with $300 in N in Nvidia asking Jensen Wang when the buybacks are coming. Like, come on, man. I'm waiting. Can you update the road map? Price is down 4% this week. Can you update the road map? I feel like there's actually a relevant like this week, did you guys see the Robert Lesner uh the YHC like attempted takeover of what is it? Liquor House or whatever it's called. Yeah. I was going to retire on it for one day and then then I wake up and I'm like, "Holy [ __ ] I have to slam this after hours and get rid of it."

I I feel like it's another like not quite the same thing, but kind of another like similar scenario of I don't know, maybe getting involved with something that uh doesn't necessarily like isn't necessarily like in your best interest to get into. And I think obviously like I don't know, he's got an audience online and you know probably a ton of people just followed him into that trade when he posted he was like a majority shareholder. Um but it's really funny to like see that happen. the the stock pumps up and then after hours yesterday he says even though CT probably owns the super majority of the company waging a proxy or legal battle for control will be complex and timeconuming and I'm no longer seeking control. Uh and I did not check but I'm

pretty sure it's down. Yeah, it's down a lot. Yeah, there's a uh there's a small group of um friends that I have where I think heading into yesterday's close we had I don't know close to 9 10% alone. So um yeah, I had to had to liquidate that on on that headline. Um but yeah, it just goes to just the overhang and just kind of what you have to deal with. Like it's just I don't know. It's a lot. I mean, we were getting to the point where like do we have enough to like can we call a board meeting? like is that is that a is that a thing we can do?

But yeah, it just comes I don't know there's just increasing headaches to these things. Yeah, I think uh Felix had a really funny tweet like you know the crypto the the Telegram chat learns what a poison pill is. um the trady markets and the equity markets have some they've got some movement that like you know maybe people who trade crypto tokens don't aren't quite used to yet. Although I will say like a relevant one is like the Kronos token. those guys I think a few years back burned like 70% of the supply and then I think maybe a year or two ago then like just went ahead and reissued it at some point um and like kind of

redooting everyone after the assumption that like they were burned forever. Um, so yeah, I remember that. But yeah, I mean it just goes back to kind of what what James has said a lot too, like you know, all the excitement about Robin Hood putting, you know, open, SpaceX on chain, like everybody in crypto is like, "Oh man, this this freaking rules." And it's just like, oh, actually there's there's a ton of legal complexities like to how equities work because, you know, they've been around for 200 plus years and there's a lot of laws that have been passed to to protect people and it's like a little more complex than just being like, hey, let's let's toss SpaceX on chain and then everybody buys it and it goes up and everybody's happy.

Exactly. I will say, yeah, I mean, I didn't know what a poison pill is. I mean, I'm not really paying attention to uh M&A space very much at all. I mean, in Tradpie, so I mean, it's kind of it's it's definitely nice to know that a CTO in Tread Pie is not not that easy. You can't just CTO the coin and update the deck screener and then you have control. Makes me feel a little bit more secure in this whole whole market structure thing. Yeah, there's there's upside in being able to just like take a look, check the chain, man, and see, you know, which addresses hold how much supply and, you know, if they're like bundled up or whatnot. But, um, I do think there's something ironic here in that uh what

Robert said about um I learned a lot through this process about how opaque and ineffectual traditional markets are um in tracking how many shares of a company exist. And then he said, "Unirically, this is something crypto fixes. Tokenized shares provide a real-time level of transparency." But I think the part like the funny part of that that is like not fixed in crypto is that for the most part, I think we typically don't know who owns how much or what of a token. Like there's often a lot of question marks around, you know, how much does the foundation own, how much are they selling, like how much do the the insiders actually own, like have they sold, are they selling OTC? Um, you know, rumors around this stuff like kind

of floats around, but there's a like pretty notable lack of clarity in in many cases. Um, you can check the, you know, you can check the chain, but like you're still kind of guessing for the most part. Yeah, you can you can check the chain, but a lot for a long time like a lot of it was obfuscated for obvious reasons. Um, but I mean it goes back to, you know, launching a token transparency framework. Like that's an awesome thing for the space and we need that. Like it shouldn't be that hard to just be like how much does the foundation own? You know, what is the actual circular? Like you shouldn't have to guess about these things. Like that's that's just table stakes.

Yeah. like it was um that it'd be especially great for like new launches like I think for Pump and Tolk you were kind of talking about this at the beginning. It's like it'd be nice to know what's going on with the company that just raised like you know a like a billion dollars of cash through like various various methods like Ian you're being ridiculous. you can just raise a billion dollars in a public sale and then just, you know, be quiet on comms. And then like we're all just in the group chat like I'm just like refreshing soul scan looking at like buybacks happening. It's like I guess they're doing buybacks. Do we know how much? Do we know how often? No, they're just they're buying the token back. We don't really know what's going on.

Well, Mike Mike Dudis is going to tell you to stop complaining about asking for information in any second now. I will be happy you got the somewhat of a spreadsheet jockey myself though. So I do deserve that pushers. No I think a degree here. You don't you don't think there was enough clarity in his tweet when he just said [ __ ] it. He said that was enough for that was enough for me. Come on. You guys should understood exactly what he was going to do buybacks with that man. Did you see the temp on that as well?

Dude, that this morning. I saw it this morning. Hilarious. It was like one of the first things I saw and I was just literally just laughing at it. I was like, "Oh man, nothing better than beginning the day getting conscious and then seeing that chart." It's actually funnier because it's like it lay it lays bare that like their buyback is not some like carefully constructed mathematical process that's literally just like a 21-year-old kid with like 500 bucks in the bank just like just like th throwing it into a phantom wallet and and saying you know rip it. It's just like really really good.

I had a lot of confidence when I um that wallet that they are using to buy back the tokens they funded it and then they like um put some fartcoin in there. actually might be their the multi sig where they're sending the uh buyback funds to. I'll have to double check that. I think it's the multisig, but that sounds like Bob's haste haste project where he like yeated it into forcoin. Yeah, I mean we're not far off at this point. Yeah, it just be nice to know though in general. It's like like just tell us tell us well give give the market more information to work with here because like like the asymmetry is just like increasing by the minute.

Don't you think partially? Sorry guy talks. I was just going to say we should put pump in retirement accounts though. I do think a lot of it is intentional though. Like I definitely would suspect that they're being like somewhat clever with the token price and news releases. Don't you like I like alluded like I alluded to it before like the second that a buyback starts the token's going to go up like 25%. Like it would totally not surprise me for let to see them like let this thing crash to like you know 42 and they're like all right hey here's an airdrop like you you just have no idea what random like news drops is going to hit the tape and like just send this thing.

I'm surprised they didn't offiscate it like via an unmarked wallet though. Like surely they could have pulled funds from a centralized exchange into like a a fresh wallet and then purchased from there and like then the market wouldn't you know we wouldn't have been going around on Twitter like yep the pump fund team is buying back the token. It would have just been like big whale starts aping pump. It kind of might take away some of that uh front running that basically has been happening every time they get in the order book. Yeah, that's pretty wild. I mean, I think to I think to James point like a lot of and the reason like I was bullish on launch was because obviously the amount of money that they've made, the amount of money they have for buybacks like you would assume that a rational

team like after raising that much and launching the token like would have some stuff lined up for you know the week two weeks after the token launch but apparently that was a little bit too much of an assumption and I do think there is going to be a day I don't know where it rips you know, 40 50%. Um, because of, you know, whatever announcements, whatever, you know, they say they raised the money for, you know, want to kill Twitch and Facebook and like all these these grand visions. Like, there's going to be some roll out of of a lot of of bullish news. But like, I mean, this chart is it's literally one of the worst launches I can remember in a long time. when people were so a lot of what I would consider

very sharp people too were like I don't know like this is it's famous last words too but I mean once you get highly confident like a large scale double that's when you should be like okay what am I actually doing here um but yeah I don't know it's just kind of been from my view like just an absolute [ __ ] show from from launch yeah it could definitely be better. Any any bulls? Are we looking at anything else then?

Like outside of like pump's kind of the big one. Plasma had their started their uh sale the other day after the you know what lock up of stables for a few weeks. I don't know if there's any early data on like how filled out that has been. I was looking around. I didn't see much uh pop up there other than a few people tweeting out like, "Yeah, man. and I got in for X amount into the the XPL sale. It looks like um I can share this dashboard, but um I'll double check and make sure all this is correct, but right now it says like total reserved allocation 17.4 million, total committed

uh 36 million, total remaining 32 million. Um, did you guys overcommit favors just in the event that you can get like an extra fill did I mean the so the um average over subscription is 43 uh 43x and then um the median is 1.7. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think people are excited about plasma. I mean, the thesis is very simple of, you know, Tether Jane. That's that's uh that's about as straightforward as it gets. Um but yeah, I don't know.

It's extremely funny seeing people throw out comps of like, hey, this thing should be worth like 15 billion dollars because of billion. It's like great. I'm I'm happy. I'd be thrilled. But uh yeah, I don't know. Yeah, you would need a relentless tradey bid to get to get it there, you know, via being listed in the equity markets, which it won't be. Did you guys already talk the treasury stuff to death? Do we need not need not touch it? You can give the bare case for that, James. I think we um Yeah, you can give Yeah, get in here, James. Let's You got something on the tip of your tongue.

Let's end on a crash out. I think that's like whatever. I guess like what what's like I I crashed that a little bit when I was talking to Mark. So sorry Mark. Um but like what frustrates me is this comment of like there's no debt. Like it's not a problem. And it's just like dude like this is just not how that stuff works. So like the best way to draw an analogy is like a strategy called like closed end fund arbitrage which like whatever this guy this this firm Saba um is huge in it. like you you target entities that have more assets in their balance sheet than they're trading for publicly and you buy them for the public price and then you bust them open and you sell all the crap inside of it and that difference is your price and arbitrage as the people like to call um

things in crypto these days. It's not just like this this company is trading at a hundred bucks and it's got $120 worth of Bitcoin, so I'm just going to buy the shares and just hold it. Like you you you there's like that that that presupposes that it's impossible for anything to ever trade at a discount because someone would just bring it back to par because they're nice. Like that's not how like that trade works. Like it only works if you close the loop by selling this stuff at the end of the day, right? So, like that's how a lot of this stuff breaks is they just trade very cheap and they need to sell treasury assets to buy back stock to bring it back to par or someone else comes in and tries to do like a a tender

or something like this or they force a proxy and they they force the company to liquidate. Um, yeah. I I think it's like just crazy maddening to be totally honest. Are you saying if everyone is nice then the prices can just go up for forever? No, but like that like you say that tongue and cheek, but like that's like legitimately thesis of a lot of these companies. It's like it's it's literally like no one sell. It's like three three and like I was about to say that three. Like there's just there's just like 8 million of these companies and they're just all doing the same thing and every single like thought leader is like wow they've reinvented finance with a new arbitrage technique. And like why I crash out so hard on this is like just replace Bitcoin with like Microsoft or

anything like Bitcoin is not a special snowflake that lends itself to being a quote treasury asset. It's just a risk asset. So like if you just create endless SPVS to buy up like tractor trailers and you're a tractor trailer reserve treasury like it's the same thing. Nothing about this is unique. It's just unique because it's an asset that's going up and it feels really fun when it's going up. Um, and I forgot Danny, you might have said it to me before, like the cost basis for like so many of these treasuries is literally like $118,000. Like it like it's it's incredible. Yeah. The I think the tough part here is that you know Sailor and strategy like he's been in this game for so long like kind of by himself that he's kind of hanging out and even though his average

cost basis is much higher now because he you know buys every top um it's still only like what 70k like realistically like he can hang out like we could pull back 40% and he's kind of hanging out but all of these brand new ones that just launched in the last month and then raised you know half a billion and and aped it into the market. Like if they're if they're Bitcoin treasuries, they just bought the actual all-time high. Totally. Um so any pullback is going to look really rough for them. And I love I literally love like hats off to him. Like that podcast with uh Ben and the other dude at Paraffy was like awesome. It was like a great podcast. They were just like super transparent. Yeah, I would love to do the pipes because they get like

phenomenal terms. I would never touch this like garbage in the public markets. Like kudos to him for being transparent as to how the trade works. Like love it. I had a little quote here. Thanks to Yaniano. I was just gonna say thanks to Yaniano for bringing them on. But basically the the rhetoric was like, "Yep, we buy the things and we all hold on to them for a while and it goes up." Um, but as an insider like that's cool and I'm ready to dump whenever I'm unlocked, but I wouldn't buy these on the open market like you said. Uh, can't wait to dump on all the three three heads.

It's it's seriously it's one of the most personally like I think underdis discussed aspects of this whole thing is how much the insiders and like early funds whoever are launched these things like how much money they're making. Like it reminds me of why alts have been down for you know like three years straight. Like it's literally just that strategy of we can raise at a valuation that we know the public market is going to bid or it's going to go up on public valuation like how alts used to operate. And it's just the new flavor of alts for a lot of I don't know. I mean to me like a lot of the crypto VCs are excited about it because like they can't make money on alts in public anymore or private.

Yeah. And dude, this is like this is not dissimilar from a lot of the funds that were going to like Celsius and BlockFi and they were getting borrow on BTC and you know they had a they had a six-month lock up on newly seasoned Grayscale shares and then they dumped them, right? Like it's it's not exactly the same trade obviously. It's like not a formal pipe. Um but it's a very similar structure, right? It's like it's it's locking up coins and and selling them at a premium. then the premium, you know, eventually will not exist despite what despite how confident people are.

Yeah. The first time I was like genuinely worried about the treasury companies getting out of hand was this week when I saw like this post on LinkedIn and it was my fault for being on LinkedIn in the first place. But you deserve it. It was just Yeah, exactly. It was like this broccoli head like Zoomer kid and it was like this kind of classic LinkedIn slot format and it was like I recently took a risk to leave my position at Morgan Stanley. It's like like you know he's like tier analyst to take like the bold decision to uh you know become CEO of a public company no one wanted to and it like lo and behold now it's like some you know that treasury company but their whole thing

is they're buying a bunch of assets. They're not they're not just buying like soul exclusively or something like that. It's like our stock is up 1,300. Oh, they're diversified. Yeah, exactly. And I was like, this is crazy. But uh far, can we talk? Sorry guys. I mean, this this is another thing that just kind of surprised me. I was like, uh, if you guys had to guess how many treasury companies for Bitcoin specifically, Far Side Tracks, um, what would your number be? And this is across all markets, not just US markets. Mhm. Say like 110.

No. Well, damn. You would say that I would say my first guess was 27. Dang. I think the the tough part is there's a bunch that are companies that actually make money and then they buy and then the ones that like we really are concerned with are the ones that are like a failing company that then raise funds and buy. But I'm It's got to be a good chunk now. Like 30 50 plus. Yeah. you you and Tolks are close. James is maybe just foreshadowing.

They have they have 34 on there which is still I think like quite a lot. Uh but like there's really like size-wise it's really like strategy and then like uh MetaPlanet the Japanese one. Yeah. Metal planet. Yeah. Yeah. They actually Can we talk for a second about uh Lesnner's liquor company and like everyone everyone on CT finding out that companies like can in fact issue more shares and dilute you and like just Felix had a tweet on that like I guess there was a chat that he was in where the guy was just like stunned that this could happen and like it it's just so good.

But yeah, we talked about it briefly earlier. I said it was my retirement plan for a day when it went up 175% and then after hours it was not my retirement plan anymore. Yeah, didn't have much to add there, James, unless unless you've got more quips about it. But yeah, I think it's just another case of like uh uninformed retail like kind of kind of jumping in. I do think it like it's quite similar honestly to like you know, tra following like um you know, pick your favorite EO into a coin that they shill on Twitter and then being kind of like surprised Pikachu face when that thing goes down a few days later.

Uh I think pretty similar though. I've had enough like non-s serious nonvalue added things. I will try to say something at least what I think is somewhat serious. On the treasury stuff though, what's relevant is like just like the ETH ones have also been like SBET has kind of been going on a bit of a tear lately and the other day they announced another up to5 billion share offering. Yeah. Um, interestingly enough, the stock is down like 8% today, 7% today. Um, so, you know, I don't The other thing is it looked like it was kind of maybe forming a little bit of like a a local topper or rounding off a little bit off of its run from a month back. So, it

almost makes you wonder like, you know, is the share offering just an attempt to like get a little more retail in and it didn't pan out yet? I guess what I'm like I have no view and no inside knowledge as to like when like I think timing this is like next to impossible. The one thing that I do have a strong view is is like I don't think any potential unwind that may or may not occur like will be slow like a drip like grayscale. I think it would be a lot faster this time around. Um, I think like the capital is a lot flightier and I just think like the structure of having this within empty shell vehicles will lend itself more to stuff unwinding in like a shorter time frame because if you effectively think they're all doing the same thing like their M&As are all

going to get blown out at the same time by, you know, relatively similar proportions and I think there might be like, you know, a rush of these treasury companies that they wouldn't be the ones that sell and buy back the stock first. Um, and then obviously if everyone does that, it's not a great result. Are you saying the door is small on the way out? Yeah, I think it's way smaller. Like Grayscale gave you like a great view as to when you probably last cycle, but like you could do it over a huge time frame. I think this window is much much smaller.

I could see that. Yeah. I mean, especially for I mean, once you start wrapping various alts into these types of things too, like the liquidity and the depth is obviously way worse than BTC. Like you could see some I don't know you could see some wild candles there. Yeah. Like if if you remember like the capital markets window for spaxs um last time around like that window closed very rapidly too, right? Like that that was like an absolute mania for all the stuff launching and having a lot of flows from retail. That closed very very quickly. It's kind of funny as well because like IPOs have been doing very well lately. Um, and actually even the crypto

IPOs have too. Um, and yet we're still like like I don't know, we can say whatever we want about about Circle's valuation, but if you just bought that thing, I mean it went up a stupid amount. Um, you didn't have to even buy a crypto treasury company. You could have just bought like the one crypto business that went public this year. The US, they're doing a USD treasury company. USDC treasury. Infinite buybacks. Arguably the most stable one. Yeah, that one is the circle trade is hilarious though because I think like literally everyone like actually in crypto faded it. Um like when their like S1 came out, everyone was just like, you know, like they barely like Coinbase

makes more money from their product than they do. And then like public market investors like Yeah. Like 300 seems like a good price target for Yeah. I tried hard on Robin I tried so hard on Robin Hood. I was trying to shove like 100K into their IPO. Like I didn't really care it was overvalued and stuff just because I don't know. I thought markets were kind of right for it and like it is just like a close your eyes proxy to crypto like public markets were ripping and then Robin Hood filled me on 33 shares in total. I was like oh sick but I definitely didn't think like I would have been out at I think that the original IPO price was like 25 and then at the end of when Robin Hood raised it was like 33 34. So I think that's like

what I got filled at. But I was selling I mean I was going to I was going to sell everything at 50. So, it's not like I would have enjoyed this ride either. But, I mean, that's still really good. I mean, for um I think you read that really well then. Well, they only filled me on 33 shares, so it was worth, you know, about 900 bucks worth of good reading. Yeah. Yeah. So, Danny, I just pulled up. Sorry. Go ahead, James. No, no, go for it, Alex. Sorry, I I interrupted you.

No, no, I'm done. I'm done. You go ahead. I was just going to say, Danny, like when you you were just talking about IPO activity, um like this is stuff that I track because I think it's useful to give an idea of like general capital fundraising and you know how frothy or non-frothy we are. Yeah. So like if you look at IPOs raised over the last 10 years, so 2015 we had 39 billion. We peaked at 335 billion in 2021. So like our previous point before of like that being the peak mania and then we obviously collapsed in 22 at 23 billion. like it has picked up to a degree, but it like it still is not great. Like 2024 was 40 billion in total. So like capital markets to private companies are still not like

wide open of like, hey, wave in any garbage. Like it's quite selective in what's coming to market. And that's obviously both on the supply and the demand side, right? Like companies like Stripe just don't want to go public. So that that skews it a little bit. Um but it's just interesting to look at that kind of stuff um for like a gauge of risk appetite and how much stuff is actually coming to market. and then you know try to think about how that affect affects like you know longer tailed assets like crypto treasury companies. Yeah, I I think that makes a lot of sense. I think like the thing that I was more pointing to is just like and and I think we've talked about this before and it's been a topic of conversation in the industry, but like crypto equities have kind of been just like outperforming

crypto assets in recent months. Um, but even just like going out and buying like basically anything that's IPOed this year has been kind of like up only charts across the board, at least from what I've seen. Like a lot of the big names have just kind of been having a great time. Um, and there is a little bit of that same, you know, like you can look at the core financials and be like, man, you know, like maybe it's a bit maybe it's a bit like extended based on, you know, their their revenue today or like their growth projections. But like if you brought that view to like the circle IPO like we said you would have just you would have been like the rest of CT sitting around sideline. Meanwhile the thing went and like you know did 10x the IPO price. Um just because I don't

know the equity markets are looking great and like people want to be allocated to some of these things. Meanwhile if you sat around like trying to be long your favorite alts like a bunch of them I mean until recently a bunch of them kind of were struggling throughout the earlier part of the summer here. make it all back in one week. But yeah, even today you have you have Coin and Galaxy and Hood hitting all hitting new highs today. Um circle up a lot, too. Yeah, I mean it's I don't know. It's interesting. Maybe uh I mean it could crypto treasury vehicles are just the revenge trade, right? Everybody we all missed out.

Nobody sold the top. They didn't buy the bottom. They didn't buy circle and now it's like, come on, man. I need this one last exit pump to make generational wealth. That normally works out well, right, for all parties involved. Yeah, I'm pretty embarrassed by some of the stuff that I that I hold in my brokerage account to be honest. It's really It's really ugly seeing myself own these companies. Yeah. To be clear, I'm long some of these treasury companies as well. Yeah, me too. It's a little nasty, but it is what it is.

Yeah. I mean, I said it before. But I feel like they've replaced memes to an extent like within the markets. It's like people are seeing the headlines for these things and then and then they rip, you know, 5x and it's like, well, I want to I want to bid those. I don't want to buy. You know what I mean? Like people are having a tough time in the trenches as of late. It's also just the size of US capital markets. Like it can never be overstated. Like it just goes back to I mean what we've seen with the ETH rally this week and the inflows there and like even the launch of the BTC ETF before it was launched. like I don't know some people had some kind of small projections on it and like the appetite was I don't know was 10 bit at best

before launch and it's just like yeah of course there has to be some demand but like I don't think you guys understand the size of these markets compared to what crypto was back before the Bitcoin ETF launch like it's just I mean we're talking you know several orders of magnitude and difference like it's just it's unfathomable to somebody who spends all their time in crypto and especially kind of like the overseas aspect of crypto Like it's unfathomable how big these these US markets are. I like it. Well, uh I think we've we've gone long enough. We're trying. We're stretching for other topics. Appreciate having you guys on. Uh the Wolf Swap dev team, you know, always shipping, always

putting out great content and products. Yeah. New next week, too. really excited for what we can accomplish in H2 of this year. Um I know there I know great things are coming for Wol Swap even if great things maybe aren't coming for the rest of the of uh you know the crypto markets. We'll have to see the the Talos integration will be spoken about. It's a hard shell. Hard shell. I can read out the CA as well. See you guys.

Yeah. Can you send me Can you send me a contract? Don't read out the CA. Thanks for coming on, guys. Had a great chat today. We'll see the rest of y'all. Check out the Zerx Research Telegram. We'll all be in there ship posting uh until we all die. Um have a good weekend. Yeah, have a good weekend. Don't crash out. And uh try to touch some grass. As always, I'll say on Fridays, try to touch some grass in the weekends. It's good for you and stepping away is is good. So, everybody enjoy the weekend. Good call out from Tes. Definitely. Uh definitely touch grass. And uh thanks for watching guys. We will see you next week.

What? Heat. Heat.