Why BitMEX's Shutdown Got Nostalgia While Dead Tokens Get Rage: Uneasy Money

Transcript

You can hate freezing. You can hate controls. You can hate You can hate it all you want. That's totally fine. I totally get it. However, the flip side of that is that you also get basically no rights, right? If there are literally no controls, if there's literally no nothing, you can't have either way. It's just a free-for-all. It's just PvP. The second we start getting into more experimental and more whether or not it's fully permission or not, but actually having controls, then you unlock new capabilities where maybe you can actually have rights and upsides and like actual information on what you just bought with your money.

>> Hey everyone, I'm Kane Wark and welcome to Uny Money because what happens on chain never stays on chain. Before we begin, here is a word from the sponsors that make this show awesome. This episode is brought to you by Cape, America's privacy first mobile carrier. Same premium service you'd expect from any other carrier, but designed so your number, your location, and your data actually stay yours. Get 33% off 6 months at cape.co/unchained. All right. Hey guys, I'm here with my co-host Taylor Monahan and today we are joined by a very special guest, Stephen Goldfeder, co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs, the team behind Arbitum.

Welcome Stephen. >> Great to be here. >> Yeah, thanks for thanks for jumping on the show. Um, it should be a fun show. Uh, I always love your uh takes when we catch up in person. So, uh, let's let's make sure we uh we get some hot takes out of you before we wrap this up. >> Yep. All right. Um, so first, uh, first segment is 2026. Crypto is not dying, but like so many things are dying. Like maybe crypto is dying. I don't know. It's it's uh it feels like early early bare market. It feels like we always have this story where like people that just limped over the line during the bull market. Somehow

they somehow survived and they're just like, "Ah, I'm tired, man." Like it's it's over, right? And they just capitulate like within we're only like we're less than six months into this bare market, right? So, it's not like we're we're two years deep. Um, but it just feels like like there's like a there's like a window of uh it's socially acceptable now. You've tried hard enough in the bare market that you could just shut down and be like, "Okay, I'm I'm done." Right? Like a month in is like a little on the nose. Like like come on, guys. like just try like try and scrge around to get some money. Like the the guys that are like capitulating at the peak of the market and you're

like all right like come on guys. But then six months in it's like yeah okay they tried like they but it just feels like there's been like 10 a week. I think I think too it's there's been enough cycles on the history books at this point where I think people are more willing to say like shut down and clean it up and >> where back in the day they would just like quietly >> Yeah. still died by the way >> yep touche even without an announcement they were still dead. Yeah.

>> They just like it slowly disappeared or didn't like you know what I mean? Well, in in the Arbitum ecosystem, um, you know, like just, uh, probabilistically, you guys have had like what, like you must have had a thousand projects or something like that that that have been on Arbitum at this point. Like, do you guys track them? Do you have like any sense of who's who's alive or >> Yeah, we have like a strong ecosystem team that's uh, tracking projects. Obviously, there's a lot. So, not every project, but certainly a bunch. And definitely I think you know seeing a massive uh consolidation everywhere. Um but also like you know I guess what I track probably more than that is like one level up is like arbitrum versus its competitors as well which we've seen

like massive consolidation. Um I mean I think I think it's healthy. I think it's it's probably a good thing ultimately because there was so much capital in crypto and uh the idea was also you don't have to think about revenues just like put this thing out make it open source get people to use it launch a token and that's going to save everyone I think we're coming very very much back to reality where because a lot of the like the some of the projects we're seeing shut down like at least some of the ones maybe they haven't like that I'm talking to founders like I'm like hey but like things look really good for you guys like what what's going on it's like yeah we have users we just we just we don't make any money off So hey um >> whereas back in the day having users was

sufficient for the token price like your users would buy the token that was how they paid you. >> Exactly. And that those times are like well well gone and now like people like these like words that used to be foreign like revenue are actually now important and um yeah ultimately I think it's healthy you know for those that will get to the other side is healthy. >> Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. So, so uh so like you know there's there's a number of uh kind of different categories even that that I've been seeing where like um you know you go okay well you raised even ignoring token projects right like there there projects

that raised like a year ago 18 months ago um and and I think this is like one of the challenges with crypto is because it's so cyclical, you feel the need to really compete in a bull market in like unsustainable ways, right? And and so, you know, teams that raised what would in a normal uh like ecosystem be like a three-year runway, right, in like a series A or something like that, like you know, two to three years burn through all their cash in like a year and they're like, "Ah, it didn't, you know, didn't happen. and like what are you know what are we doing sort of thing. Um and and so how do you guys uh in in like the option do you help

founders with that sort of stuff like do you you know do you uh does your ecosystem team try and help them or are you seeing like mergers and consolidations like how do you try and like keep the the the heart beating when people are like burn through cash there's no capital available like what what are the options there? Yeah. So definitely the ecosystem has funding options available um you know grants but like recently I think we as many as well as many others have moved towards more of a sustainable like investment model over grants but ultimately like you know we'll like do whatever we can to help a founder succeed on arbitrum but like if the product isn't like good or isn't going to succeed like there's no like propping it up and sometimes it's just a

hard conversation which is like but let's think about what's going wrong and let's actually like you know understand like why why aren't you being successful? Uh maybe it's just like the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe there's something that's fixable. Maybe there's a pivot required. So we do a lot of strategic works work with like uh builders and arbitrum saying how can you succeed? We'd obviously love everyone to succeed but it's also like a very competitive market. You know the big thing about arbitrum which we've said which I think this like differs arbitum from uh you know uh differentiates arbitum from some other L2s is we don't really get involved at the app layer. So you know you're not playing against us.

Um but at this meeting like we don't have an arbitrum uh decks or like you know tokenized assets that like are first party like we're very much you know build good technology build good infrastructure level playing field at the same time so you're not playing against the house which I think is a plus but it's you know obviously still a very competitive ecosystem if you uh you know want to launch a dex you're competing against unis swap and the large dexes you know etc down to every protocol. Um, so I don't think there's any like benefit in like propping up negative bad protocols. I think there's a lot of healthision on the market. Um, but but also like as you said like you know the bull market versus bare market dynamics are so different. I think arbitum but also every ecosystem you look back on like previous grants and

you're like what were we doing back then? Like like >> what happened? everyone's drunk on, you know, like like how do we give, you know, $5 million to like Pokemon on the blockchain or whatever thing is, right? >> These numbers, you're like, "Wow, those were good times." But ultimately, again, I think that none of that is sustainable and like no one like was asking the hard questions back then, which is um or many weren't where is the money coming from? Where is it going to? I think we were always been more prudent on the grand side of others which is you'll make bad bets in life but like for every dollar that we give out we should have a story of how $2 come back to the arbitrary ecosystem. If you don't have a story then your and your and your and your and your sort of growth story which you've

seen so many ecosystems is I'll give like a dollar now I'll get this big logo and somehow I'm even though I'm paying everyone today somehow next year everyone's going to start paying me because they're seeing all the big logos. that's like been like the downfall of so many protocols >> and I think we're just seeing these a lot of these uh players just die they have no more capital left they don't have any game left whereas an arbitum while there obviously were grants for the ecosystem was much more focused on good products sustainability and as things tighten up um I think there's still a core like a strong nucleus of really good products that will get through the other side and again like I said before this consolidation we're seeing consolidation I would say around two things around uh solid distribution um that's like really really big whether

it's Coinbase or Robin Hood but like real distribution partners with real users and also um solid technology and sometimes these two things will complement each other well you know case in point is there's also working very close >> I mean let's let's talk about that for a second right so so at the moment there's like a proxy war going on right between you know my old friends optimism and arbitrum u but it's not the chains themselves right it's these like giant behemoths that you guys have uh have somehow, you know, rallied to your side. You've got your two champions that are like fighting it out, you know, battling it out in in Robin Hood, chain and and base, right? Like um and and probably a couple of others, but like realistically

those are the two um you know that that are uh talking about distribution, right? That have the distribution that are like you know uh taking the technology and and saying like we are going to make this our own home sort of thing, right? So um like that was not on my bingo card five four years ago when when all of this started. I was not I was kind of expecting that it would be arbitum and optimism would be directly competing with each other but now you guys are facilitating as much as you are actually on the front lines. How like is that did that surprise you how that evolved that that whole thing?

>> Definitely. Yeah. It surprised me how like looking back 5 years ago did not think that things would evolve this way. I don't think I would have thought at that point that Robin Hood would be like this >> have a chain. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> I think is like ultimately very forward thinking and they're like, you know, leading the way of the amount of like even like inbound BD from like >> massive massive like Wall Street firms that we've gotten since then and continue to get is like so I think they're they're on to something and there's a trend here. But like ultimately, no, I never I didn't see this coming. But I also think when it comes to you know the proxy war as you said the the next level down on that is we we've architected our business very very differently and we ate you know got

a lot a lot of flack for this early on uh particularly when it comes to things like licensing um and the lock in the ecosystem right a core difference between um you know our our strategy and say optimism strategy is um you know do these people actually have to pay you right in Coinbase's case and bases case they were faced with the following decision. Should we continue to pay OP or should we just stop paying them? And that was like the decision, right? Because there was no >> this, you know, communism sometimes comes back to bite you, you know, if you if you try to establish a communist uh regime, >> particularly when there are big capital interests. Yes. That are like, you know,

Yeah. Uh leeching off off of that. Well, if you if you invite, you know, a bunch of capitalists into your communist utopia, like there might be some consequences to that potentially. >> So, um that that's Yeah. And that's so that's I think the number one thing which is like a very different then that all goes down to the licensing model and and the business model which you know I think um we built a sustainable model. It wasn't like back in that old age which I just mentioned where the thought was give everything away don't worry about revenue token is going to solve everything. This was very like you know uh um controversial like oh the you know unis swap first like this this license the business the business source license.

>> Yeah >> today it's actually uh something that's helped us very much to actually have a sustainable ecosystem where you know the large behemoths you know actually need to engage with us and can't just say hey I'm going to take that software and go and run it on myself and cut these guys out. Um and I think that that's been you know very helpful. The other thing for us is you know bes we've we've still done this dual strategy where arbitration one is still doing you know quite well as a chain particularly in DeFi has a lot of adoption on the chain and um we don't plan to see that. So while we're facilitating these proxy wars as you will and we're a very close partner with Robin Hood and Robin Hood chain success is like top of my list that I like want to ensure that but also

equally top of my list is arbitration one success uh as well. >> Yeah it makes sense. It makes sense. I I think you know it would be it would be uh a very high-risisk strategy to sort of completely rely on proxies to to drive the the ecosystem right um you need to make sure that uh you know you you've got you your own uh your own sustainable ecosystem that you have full control over because this is the challenge right >> proxies don't sometimes don't do what you want they have their own agenda and you're like ah we're good good friends and then all of a sudden we're not right so >> definitely Yeah. So, so I think back to back to this uh the great die- off, right? Um you know, one interesting thing is I

think people on the timeline uh see a startup dying, right? And there are kind of two very different takes depending on what flavor of of startup that is, right? If it's a startup that has launched a token, then it is not amazing, right? like the the the sentiment on the timeline is very bad, very bad. Um, you know, people people uh on the timeline lost money holding that token, the token's now likely going to go to zero, etc., etc., right? Um, if it's a startup that raised venture capital, didn't launch a token, you know, had a different business model,

um, it's it's tends to be a different perspective, right? Like it's like, oh, well, I didn't lose money, right? Maybe I'm mad I should have got an airdrop or something like that. Like there might be a little bit of that but like typically it's just like h that that you know and and the the difference in reaction to token based startups and traditional startups shutting down like never ceases to amaze me. But I think this one was particularly crazy. So, BitMX >> shuts down. Um, never did a token.

>> Almost all the OGs traded on there. Like, if you were if you're a trader, you were on there. Even if you weren't a trader, like I remember I gave uh I gave all when when we were launching per I gave uh our whole team uh I think like one BTC or something. It was like so long ago. It was like I gave them all a Bitcoin and I was like, "Go and trade on BitMX. lose your money so you understand what it is like to trade on perks, right? Because a lot of them hadn't traded per this is this is so long ago, right? And and so uh you know that was the first time and some of them then obviously became addicted to per and and were trading on bits all the time and not writing code um which was a bit negative EV. But but the thing that was

quite interesting to me seeing the shutdown was no one was angry. It was like nostalgic. people are like uh whereas if there had been a BitMX token, if there was like a mech token or something, uh it would have been like histrionics. So like is that just like the nature of people losing money, they get really angry about it? Like what what's your take on that? Like why why is there such a a difference in reaction when it's a tokenized startup versus, you know, a startup that so many like almost everyone used BitMX? It's sad that they're shutting down, but people aren't angry about it.

>> I think part of it is like like I thought BitMX shut down a few years ago. >> Maybe that's my bad. But cuz they had like the whole deal with >> Yeah. >> like you know >> Arthur got in trouble and the ankle bracelet. >> Yeah. And it was it was a few it wasn't just as DC. There was a few different like avenues they were coming after them and then I think they restructured, there were deals, etc. And I I kind of thought like I knew that it still existed but I I kind of thought it was mostly on paper to like um because you can't just like shut down overnight or

it's kind of a [ __ ] to shut down like literally overnight. >> Yeah. >> I just never really thought about it until this. Um, so yeah, maybe that's maybe that's one reason is that everyone sort of thought that it was a like this is just like the final >> the final this is this is the funeral, >> you know. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, and I do think also though that it is one of the projects that the nostalgia is quite real. Um, and so it's probably I think like some of the like we've been there's been this trickle of like various shutdowns that have mixed reactions and stuff and this

one was like the one that was just fully nostalgic and so you're sort of it's sort of capturing the feelings from >> like a cathartic thing where >> for the general bare market, you know, not just BitMX necessarily. >> I would say most similarly reminds me of the reaction of Zapper recently where it was like >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> I love that. That was awesome. But like no one was No, no, there was no token. No one was invested. A lot of people had >> invested. Thank you very much. I was invested. >> Yeah, we don't care about >> um and it was like nostalgia, but I think that Taylor a lot of people had already moved on. It was like just like that's like the uh >> Yeah. Yeah. I think I think it's like

you know again if if you have a token then you look at like token projects right and I the other thing maybe that exacerbates this and I'm not sure to go back to like the earlier conversation about you know if you're a token project so much of what you're trying to do is attention based and you know if people buy the token that is actually almost works in lie of having revenue or sustainability or whatever and so if a bunch of people like you and they hold the token and they buy the token And then then you know that's your lifeblood. Um and and so token projects tend to be these like you know oftent times uh like things that either go long-term zombie right or like they burn

through all their cash and then you just they kind of disappear they grind to zero and then eventually they shut down or like the labs entity shuts down when there's like nothing left. And to your point Tay like people are like oh I thought that they were dead. I didn't I didn't. So, it's like but but you know the the um I think like whenever there's a a tokenized project that announces a shutdown, it it seems like the reaction is always so much worse. Like people are so angry. They like start dredging up all the mistakes that were made. Like I didn't see anyone being like, "Oh, you know, Arthur should have done this if he done that." But like when you think about it in terms of you know like startup kind of trajectories

like it's wild that BitMX and and of course there's rag issues and and what have you right like there there's no question but like um you know uh BitMX started in a time where you didn't have KYC that was the first thing right uh it was like no it was no KYC how >> more than that it was or less than that even it was like >> but like but like being free for Oh, >> but like being powered by Bitcoin was theme in 2014 is like sufficiently decentralized, right? Like you got a you got a you got a database and all these things, but like people are depositing Bitcoin, so that's totally fine. Like that's a wild thought. Like if you

turned up today and you're like, "Hey, um >> especially with my casino >> with a troll box." >> Yeah, with a troll box. But like if I if I turned up today and I was like, "All right, guys. like here's my casino and like uh you know it's a database running in my basement. Um but like deposit Bitcoin I think like Nat al- Naji tried this right he was he was like uh big cloud it's fully decentralized you pay with Bitcoin it was like no bro that was like a generation ago you can't get away with that anymore like Arthur got away with that but that's not going to fly in in 2022 or whatever whatever it was. Um so so yeah I mean like >> it's just a different time.

>> It was a different time and and it but it just feels so um so weird to me that that a a project and this is like startup reality, right? Like you know I see I see people get so angry about token projects when they fail, right? And then you look at BitMX and go well BitMX failed. They were so early, so right, did everything right. And yet somehow some confluence of things happened that they failed. >> And it's like there's a bunch of reasons and stuff, but like startups are really hard.

>> Most startups fail. Even the ones that, you know, if you went back to 2015 and said like what are the startups that will be like the kings of crypto in in 2030, everyone would have said BitMX. Everyone would have been like Bitex will be top 10, >> you know, and and uh and Binance didn't exist. >> Binance didn't exist. Yeah. >> Binance didn't exist. And everyone I mean Ethereum was >> Bitrax. It was Apollo. Yeah. Bit >> Coinbase. Coinbase. Kraken for like the US fiat, right?

>> Yeah. >> And then what? Bit Yeah. Bitrex. Bitfinex. >> Bitmax. >> Bit Polo. We're a long time. Polo. I was a Polo. I was polo 100%. I still miss my polos. >> And like Yeah. And and so so you know, you look at you look at that and go like, okay, you know, of like most of those didn't make it. >> Yeah. >> Like they were early, they had everything going for them, making tons of money, and like somehow they made like some series of decisions and got out competed or, you know, things happened. Like startups are really hard even in an industry with so much money, with so much momentum.

so many tailwinds and yet you know these things uh these things do fail. So um yeah I I I think like it's quite in it's just always interesting to me to see the difference in reaction to like startup failure when someone on the timeline has lost money >> that it's like so personal. >> It's like how dare you fail? How could you fa you how could you fail me? I had so much writing on this and it's just like all right man startups fail. Um so >> yeah I think it's it's hard.

>> I think there is something though that like with the token ones people do feel like they have the right to to comment on why they failed like viciously. And I don't I don't exactly know why because it's not like you could actually do anything, right? Like the influence as a token holder or the influence you have over a token project versus Bitmax is essentially the same. >> Yeah. >> So why but why do you feel so much more empowered to be like well token project? This is why you failed. >> This is why you Yeah. No one's like doing like you know uh Monday morning quarterbacking of No. I mean I'm sure there's a couple. I didn't see them on the timeline. There's always going to be some [ __ ] It's not the same. It's not the same visceral re It's like ah

like someone lost money but it wasn't me. That's it's interesting now. It's not like you know diabolical the way the way that uh it it feels like if if it's a token project. Um and yet like token projects you know are so much less sustainable than BitMX was right. Like that's the irony is like bro like you bought a token that had no connection to anything or revenues or anything and you're like shocked and appalled that like it didn't make it like you know and and yet BitMX the thing that like absolutely or Paloni X or whatever like that absolutely should have made it didn't make it. Um and and it's just yeah it's like maybe like a little bit of uh I don't know there's there's

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stop handing your real number to every app that asks. Go to cape.co/chained co/chained and use code unchained for 33% off your first 6 months. >> Okay, hacks of the week. We are back. Um, all right, T, I'm going to head over to you. Uh, what what's going on here? What's happening? >> I actually I was like, oh shoot, the hacks of the week. >> Um, okay. So, I think the biggest one we had, man, we had so many bridges and it's not even last week. I think there were four or five, but in the past month there have been many. And I don't know if it's an AI thing at this point or if it's like um it has to be the same

reason why that headline on our segments made no sense is the same reason. The same guy that is hacking and taking all of our money is also writing our headlines and they're really good at one of those things and bad at the other. It's quite bizarre the spikiness of these agents >> like who predicted that they would be amazing at >> Yeah. And the most interesting thing about the bridge hacks specifically for me at least has been this used to be a thing like 2022 it was like you bridge nobody trusted bridges and then somehow we like overcame that.

>> We I think we got better. No, we should not have the we we shouldn't have. Bridges were always at risk, right? Like and I mean, you know, you guys have one of the most systemically ri like high value bridges in the universe on arbitrum, right? Like um you know, I feel like I feel a little bit like Larry from Yeah. Well, I mean the whole like rollup design was made to like actually have at least from like Ethereum to arbitrum a this concept of a native bridge that you don't have to rely on um you know uh at least active signers and multisig. Um, but then this Jeff guy showed up and was

like, "Hey, you got to there's a nice looking bridge there and build his own bridge next to it and he's like, "H, you're not allowed to see this one. Like, this is this is going to do a lot of traffic, but I don't want you to inspect it." >> Obviously, on the network there's there's a you know, a lot of a lot of different bridges. In fact, I think the >> the largest and this is a distinction that people don't understand. So, one of the uh larger uh hacks of the week uh I guess was uh an independent hyperledger like Arbit Bridge. >> Um but and I think the initial headline was like like someone posted this like Arbitron Bridge is hacked and I was like, >> "Oh yeah, >> that was scary. That was scary.

>> Activated on >> blockade. Get your clanker in check guys. You're scaring out of ecosystem. Please stop. >> You took like 10 years off Steven's life there." Oh, you have no idea. So, we obviously and obviously we don't want uh any bridge to be hacked, but um you know, we take uh >> if there's a bridge that's going to be hacked, you want to do someone else's like let's be real, right? Like not yours, right? Like >> Well, we take obviously personal responsibility of course over the arbit bridge. So, we activated very quickly. Uh we uh confirmed that it wasn't the arbitrum bridge. We uh figured out whose bridge it was. We we uh we have an active chat with them. So, we alerted them, offered to help in whatever way we could, although there wasn't much uh to

be done at that point. The hacker was uh pretty swift in uh swapping to ETH and and bridging back to Ethereum. But um but that headline, yeah, definitely uh I would say caused me some gray hair, but at this point, it's almost all >> Yeah. >> Well, yeah, we tried to code the narrative pretty quickly because the last thing you want is people to like misunderstand this and then start panicking. Um, of course, yeah, panic can induce all kinds of secondary, you know consequences tertiary consequences, right? So, um, >> yeah, we were so so >> we were also panicked cuz our internal feed called it a hyperlquid style bridge.

>> Yeah. >> I don't And so, >> okay. But obviously when you're like looking at your phone on the run and it's like one of the hack alerts like you don't really see like the Dash style part of it and you're just like oh god >> it's not too hyphenated style. >> This is an Ethereum consensus style bug. Like no man like it's not like what are you talking about? Like don't say that clankers. And then I checked Twitter and everyone's like, "The arbitron bridge has been hacked." And I was like, >> and you're like, "Oh, good."

>> You're like, "Oh, wow. Okay, great. No problem." >> So, it ended up being So, it ended up being the bridge for this Purpex AFX. Uh, it was like the bridge that they it was like the the outflow specifically were coming from this bridge. This Purpex AFX has like existed for like a month and a half. Um, I think we've attributed this one actually at this point. This one's the same guys that did layer zero. >> Wow. >> Like exactly the same guys. So >> five five compromised hot validator signing keys.

>> Five. >> Yeah. >> Well, you know, you can have more than one key per server, >> right? >> But yeah, I mean it is a hyperl style bridge situation. So, which is very I think Hyperlood now has >> style >> style style. Um um we also saw them like on hyper the hyperunit bridge though. So I got to learn a lot about bridges because I was like who are they targeting next? >> Um but yeah basically if you I mean if you're in crypto you're going to be targeting this is the DPR the big DPRK guys the same guys that got kelped out and stuff right?

>> Um they're quite good at what they do. Even if you have them on separate servers, they can still get them. But they've been doing this since Ronin. These are the same guys that hacked Ronin, right? Yeah. They're very good at getting on these servers and then being like, "Huh, I found all your keys." >> Yeah. >> Um it is. I don't know, but it's been with this hack combined with all the other bridge hacks has just been just so top of mind for me. Why the technology has not changed that much? The offsec has not changed that much. Why did we get to this period where it kind of felt like the bridges were like safe? Like we weren't seeing bridge hackers every

single day. >> I'll tell you why. I'll tell you exactly why. We started off and we were [ __ ] and we did a bunch of really dumb things cuz we didn't know what we were doing. >> Bad things happened. We realized there were consequences. We put humans up against other humans and we were like, "All right, we're going to get the best humans. There's a lot of money at stake here. Let's make sure that we like really think about this." And we were able to like, you know, find an equilibrium where like the best humans were able to keep the other best humans at bay for a period of like 2 3 years. And then like [ __ ] aliens landed and they're really good at hacking [ __ ] And we haven't yet like marshaled our alien

army. We're working on it. Like you can see it happening in real time. There's a bunch of things that people are working on like you know Codex just uh just open sourced their um like security CLI whatever. Um we now have like you know K3 and and Quen Coder 3.8 that are actually allowed to do cyber security stuff which is a blessing and a curse. But like we I think this this you know it took us a year or maybe I mean maybe Stephen you have a better sense of the timeline of this but like it took a year or two for us to like stop bumbling hard on bridges right like did you guys like you know as an L2 >> br like bridge you know there's bridges

all over the [ __ ] place in arbitrum land right so like how did you guys kind of enforce some discipline and rigor across the ecosystem for arbitum like was there some program that you did to like upskill people like how how did you guys actually on on your side right like start to stem the bleeding on on that back in the day? So, so the first thing we did was obviously harden the native bridge and uh a lot invested a lot there, but also like educated folks on how to use the native bridge uh correctly. for example, uh, and you'd think this is probably counterintuitive, but like initially actually many of the large exchanges were doing like immediate sequencer only confirmed withdrawals and we did a

campaign that you should wait until it lands, you know, gets L1 finality or just have like some like tolerance of like, okay, I'll keep like, you know, a million dollars at bay, but if like a really large withdrawal comes in, like whatever your like threshold is, just just have that, you know, explicit. We did a campaign around this. So both uh hardening and education and um I think there was definitely a lot of consolidation around like a few of the larger larger bridges. So they are all over the place but definitely like >> you know >> they're they're the same tech the same underlying tech that's being deployed right.

>> Yeah. And um you know we take less of an active role I mean we'll do whatever we can we'll advise people. We take obviously less of an active role in actually auditing the third party bridges on the platform. But like you know we do have like uh when we engage with teams when teams and say hey you know uh can we get your endorsement we don't audit their code but we try to check out are these like legitimate people. We don't obviously want you know do due diligence to make sure that we're not uh promoting scams. Not that it's like foolproof or 100% but like you know we just do like kind of second level diligence like >> do these people look like they're taking the right steps? Um right? And so we may not like have our auditors audit the fullness of their code, but we'll ask

them the right questions. And of course, it's an open platform. We don't control that, but we can try to influence things uh to the extent that we can uh you know, using uh our influence and association. >> Yeah. I mean, it's it's interesting, right? Because like there was a long period of time in early early uh Ethereum days, right? Um even early crypto days, but it was still kind of prevalent. People would roll their own crypto, right? like they would do their own weird crypto schemes because they thought they're really smart and you know smart engineers love >> people uh they use like tertiary remember do you remember this like >> yeah I remember this yeah and they were like they're like no no no like we going to do our own crypto thing like don't worry about it it's fine um and and

people had that beaten out of them right they were like don't you can't roll your own crypto don't do it if you do it like we know you're [ __ ] like that is such a signal that you have no idea what are you doing if you try and roll your own crypto? And so it got kind of beaten out of the market that like you don't roll your own crypto like you you have to uh use like a proper library that's like been vetted. Although you know again like libraries you know they've been around for 20 years now get cracked so whatever. Um all bets are off. But there was a period of time in the early L2 proliferation era right where there was not yet this sentiment of like you can build your own bridge. Now, the irony of this is that like if I said

to my like local municipality, uh, I'm going to build my own bridge. They would not allow that. You can't build your own bridge, right? Like, no one would think that was a good idea. I'm like, "Oh, no. This is Kane's Bridge. It's going to be amazing. Like, don't even worry about it. I've got the best engineers. It's going to be cool." Um, like it's in the name. like >> it literally didn't exist a month ago. Now it's got >> now a billion cars a day like just like driving over over this bridge, right? And I'm like, it's fine. It's fine.

Don't worry about it. Like um but but it took a little while for people to be like, "Actually, please go build your own bridge." I know it sounds like an easy thing to do and you think you're really smart, but like to your point, Stephen, like we have some bridge technology. Like use that. You can still own the stuff, right? like you know and and I think centralized exchanges also did a lot of this right like they would they would you know like kind of set up their own infra like and we saw a lot of like early centralized exchange hacks were around this kind of like the connection to a new chain uh risk right where where um you know they would do stuff like not care about finality

they're like ah we know what we're doing we got smart engineers >> the other thing is and there have been sorry I was just going to say there have been a couple hacks where it was actually it it wasn't like a key compromise or infra compromise but it was the it was like a specific sort of like logic vulnerability or spoof on one specific chain that allowed we've seen a couple on like Cosmos to ETH the Cosmos ETH whatever >> I said the other thing is I think it's just like a human nature thing is like people have very very short-term memories and the longer you go without like an incident the more risky both like >> but also like users like will ask like fewer questions like I'm in the business

like at least you know for a long time I consider myself to be in the business of like selling security right because al often like people would come like why build on this L2 just build on this other like you know back in the day side chain or whatever that has like one validator and you say no no no it's like really important because if something goes wrong like you're going to care about this you're going to care about the fact that it's decentralized you know etc like the list of things but like in good times times no one like hears about security which they just say like give me the features give me the lowest fees >> and give me that and then it's like you know often it tastes like an FDX event go whoa oh this is what could go wrong okay I understand the need of security

so there's always I feel like this like unfortunate cycle where like we forget we drift off we're reminded >> I mean FTX feels like two months right like uh let's not use centralized exchanges actually they're pretty useful Let's let's go back to Binance. Um all right. Uh let's go to our next uh segment. Um permission defy. Um so unis swap put the compliance check inside of their um pool contract. Um so these are permission pools launched by unis swap labs with securitiz superstate and dalgo. Um, and they basically allow issuers of tokenized funds uh to restrict trading to approved uh

investors um while still getting the benefit of V4. Um so Lesner, we should probably get Lesser on the show at some point. That'll be that'll be fun. Um uh the CEO of Superstate um said until now compliance for tokenized securities lived at the app layer. A gate standing in front of the market permission pools move those rules into the pool itself. that's the piece of plumbing tokenization has been missing. Um so so I think the the kind of innovation here is not needing a centralized party to some extent like there's obviously an oracle like scheme right u but now the oracle is embedded in in the pool um and and so you know the pool itself is checking whether or not

someone has the pass that's that's required to be able to trade here. Um, I guess people don't like this stuff because uh like they just don't like things. >> It has the word it has the word compliance in it. >> Yeah, compliance and and and what have you. >> Yeah, we all hate these things. These things are evil or whatever. >> Yeah. Well, so I you know I think the interesting thing about about Superstate, right, is um you know, Robert has been trying to kind of thread this needle of have tokens be valuable, >> which is a kind of a wild >> approach to the world. Um but I think

he's learned some lessons in his career, right? Um and and like I think the the um core thesis of of superstate um and this is like you know infra that is needed in order for this to work right um is let's not have these um assets called tokens that have no rights um no obligations no uh you know ties to uh revenue or anything like that right let's let's replace the bad parts of those things, right? Which is like no investor rights, no anything. Just trust me, bro. Um you know, uh incentive alignment or whatever. Um with an asset

that does actually have uh some or all of the properties of an equity, right? Um the challenge with that is law. The law, right? Like the good thing about tokens is you can just do whatever you want because they're like this illegal thing. Not you know um not not financial or legal advice on that one. Um but but so you know this is this really interesting tradeoff space right where it's like if you want a thing that actually uh has value in the real world right um it can't be this like you know extra legal uh thing floating around that like is not attached to anything

but that has consequences which means some people may not be able to trade it right like you if you know if uh if you allow anyone to trade it then you run into issues etc etc. So like you kind of need this infra. Um but I think people uh just look at that especially like you know like the rural um kind of hardcore uh like decentralization maxis um look at it and go this is not worth the trade-off like >> okay but this is this is a separate let's call it a separate product right they're calling it permission pools >> and it's unis swap tech plus permissioned Right.

>> Yeah. >> So you're it's not like they're adding it's not like they're permissioning every single unis swap one. It's just a >> it's a very >> it's just that this this product in the series of products it now has permissioned optionality >> for this use case >> like practically right let's imagine we had a time machine we go back to whatever it was 2019 or something like that 2020 when when you guys were starting arbitum Stephen right um and uh I'm I'm Lesner from the future right and I'm like all right guys like here's what I want you to do instead of issuing a token and you know again a chain is slightly different here I think because

chains can actually have value uh you know without necessarily having investor rights attached to them because like they have like core functionality so chains are probably the the only exception to this rule but there's an argument that like uh even chains should should consider this right and I say okay you have two paths you can issue this token that only works for the chain but has no legal rights and you know uh doesn't get any revenue from activity or any of these things, right? Or because you also have equity in like an an entity that's in the real world, right?

What if rather than having this split, you just issue one thing, which is this equity-like instrument, right? And we're going to bake into the chain some compliance checks and stuff to make sure that only certain people can own the token, etc. Um, in 2019, 2020, you would have been like, "Get the [ __ ] out of my house, man." Like, what are you talking about? >> Seriously, >> there was more value on the table for permission list though, right? >> Yeah, of course. Like, like, am I am I like like the technology didn't exist, but let's imagine that this guy comes from the future and says like, "Hey, I've built the technology." You're tell like you're like, "Whatever. Go back and do the lending thing, man. Like, stop this nonsense."

I mean I I mean arbitrage is like very unique in the sense that like forgetting about all the economics and the revenue and the flow of of actual value like you know we discussed you me you mentioned kelp and and and the hack there like and obviously there was the arbiter security council action there like it was by design that there was this external entity right that's like you know broadly elected and it wasn't like me that had the power to do that and the token is what ultimately like facilitates that right via like a regular governance vote when you're doing like uh more like an upgrade you have more time for the token holders electing the security council which itself is a distributed entity that can

make this decision I think that was like a good proof that it actually works well and I know that like arbit is is very unique but the point is like separate from economics and any like value there like and this is where we differ from like unis swap unis swap has immutable contracts so like >> you know it's more of a question of where do you can just like deploy something and be like, "Hey, yolo." Right? Like >> right something that you're going to upgrade and you actually want to have the power sometimes to do really fast upgrades in emergency situations like you need wide distribution and I I think you know a token is a very good instrument for that. But nothing that you guys have would preclude you having this like pseudo equity token, right?

Like if if instead of this being the arbitrum token, which is a distinct instrument from Offchain Labs equity, right? If they were the same thing, first of all, you'd be in jail. So, let's just, you know, um let's let's uh not forget that part, right? Because 2020 was pretty dark. Um but if if you had done that, right? Like there's an argument that you say well no like what this does is clarify what this instrument is. It doesn't stop you from having a security council like we have boards in the real world. We have you know uh entities that are responsible for doing things like all you would get is more clarity about the relationship of this token to future revenue etc etc.

And again like arbitrum is a bad example because it's a chain. Um I think if if you were you know uh compound or some like you know or a or something like that this would be this would be uh maybe less controversial but >> yeah I think there's no question about it like a lot of the like token designs that were like popularized were very much a function of of the Gensler era a lot of the like uh advice on the relationship between >> in a good way right like because he was such a good guy right like >> to ever do it the best to ever do the best to ever do it. a lot of the relation I think LAPC Corp and like and like you know token holder and like foundations or Dows like was guided by

you know how do we how do we stay compliant and and innovate uh during this era and I think a lot of that is being >> revisited now and clarity you know both lit literally and figuratively I guess exactly what we what we want here and there are a lot of uh in a world where there is more clarity and more paths to do things that are more innovative and like you know uh you know give people different rights that I think that that people didn't do that because it wasn't like oh I don't want that. It was I don't know if that's legal. I don't know how >> yeah we didn't have the technology. We didn't know you know how the risks were far outweighed you know there was a there was like an incentive like incompatibility right where like no individual entity was going to take that

risk. >> Yeah. No one wanted everyone wanted to use the exact same for formula that anyone else has used. you know, like even if the SEC at the time isn't like saying like this is blessed, you know that like okay, this is sort of the paved path that everyone else is using. I think that's just sort of, you know, that's not the place that you want to innovate on in 2020, right? I'm going to do exactly what everyone else is doing. >> Yeah. Yeah. Don't be the slowest guy when the bear is coming off to you. >> Yeah. >> Um and well, so so then interestingly, Radium did the same thing, right? So, so you know, uh I know I know Leer well.

He's been pitching me Superstate for for a long time and and I'm an investor. So um you know I've I've thought this was a very interesting um kind of angle right this idea of like reduce the uncertainty of these instruments by like making them more equity like you know having clear disclosures etc etc. Um because you know back in the day we were like oh no that's okay we'll invent our own disclosure regime and it'll be totally fine and uh that didn't work out as shockingly as well as we we might have hoped. But but um it does feel like uh the the the like you know crypto anarchist in me is like there's a bit of

a capitulation. We're like adopting you know the the evil empire's technology to like make our stuff better. Um, but it still is somewhat of a hybrid, right? Because, you know, you're going to have potentially tokens that are are, you know, um, have investor rights attached to them, but therefore have obligations in terms of who can own them and trade them. Um, and and, you know, that from an innovation perspective, I guess, like will be a very good test for the ecosystem of like do people prefer these, right? If everyone hates them, then they won't get adopted. Like to your point, Stephen, right? you know, uh, you couldn't raise money if you were like, "Hey, we're raising money, but also we're going to take on Gary

Gendler." No one, that's not fundable, right? Like be like, "Sorry, bro. Like, I'm not giving you my money to go and take on the SEC, right? Like, just do the [ __ ] thing that everyone else is doing and just keep your head down and go and like build the thing that we want you to build, right?" like um but you know uh if if uh if people start to actually adopt these things we will get like a natural experiment of like does the market prefer you know a thing even if the distribution because I I think it's probably worth maybe clarifying this right like anyone in the world can own arbitum token >> like as long as they're not Iranian or North Korean or whatever right like there's probably like a few but like

let's call it nine 958% of the world right can own the arbiters token can participate in governance can get elected to the security council etc etc like it is the most open like >> in theory yeah >> in theory right in theory >> I mean like in theory like anyone can own this token and anyone like in theory even like the the council is like open to anyone in reality though there are uh various like let's call them controls although that's the controls that you know influence the like like how the things are put together and what

realistically can happen I think that it's in most of crypto historically the controls very much are fluid and live more at the social layer right of where it's like Twitter being like don't >> you can just interrupt Stephen jump in jump See, don't don't don't hold off. You can just jump in. >> No, I I I think yeah, I think I think definitely like in theory and but also in practice like anyone like any non-sanctioned entity can go ahead and buy the arbitrary token. Obviously there are uh the larger token holders um that will have a larger say but like we for example on offchain don't allow uh ourselves or employees to directly vote uh with their tokens because we don't

want to you know we want to like leave space uh for the community for delegates to actually take place. I would say the hardest place I don't I don't think this is just for arbitrum generally uh in in making this work in practice and something which we we've you know I think done pretty well on but it's it's it's a battle is actually get to the place where people are uh engaged and the smart people actually want to vote and they're not just saying because what was this there was this thing recently where I remember where like >> where someone voted and no one paid attention and they just took all the money I don't remember >> oh there were like 10 of them bridge barn bridge Yeah. Yeah. Right. So like that that's the problem where sometimes just people aren't paying attention. And I think one of the mistakes that we made

early on in the art ecosystem is we like went we overemphasized decentralization to the point where we like there's a difference between like decentralization. >> We've all been there. Don't worry about it. It's fine. >> The difference the root of power versus like operational logistics. Like the DAO should not be voting what brand of toilet paper to use at the arbitrum. the Dow the Dow is going to say no toilet paper, please. >> People are going to the Dow and saying, "Can I get like $5,000 for uh this conference?" And then you get where you get is apathy where the smart investors like, "I can't handle this sort of volume."

>> I don't want to. That's not my problem, man. Five five grand is too Yeah. Yeah. >> You have these professional delegates that are like, "Oh, I I'll I'll answer this." So, what we did was we got rid of these professional delegate programs. We we uh put in a set of procedures where votes go live now on Thursday, right? So like there's not like just like you have you know when to look when new votes will go live and we also like put in via a vote but put in charge certain operations like the arbiter opt you are the the opco you are the operating company so we don't need to bring decisions like toilet paper by the way if there was like a revolt and it was a terrible brand of toilet paper you can come back and like take away like >> turn it

good times people vote on that >> right yeah and I think you know a lot of people like organically synthetics was like this you know we had we had uh delegation, but you know, we had a a council that it's like not everyone wants to vote for everything, so you're going to delegate. And we probably went went further in terms of like how much power was delegated to the the council. Um but then we had other checks where like you could vote them off instantaneously, right? Like if someone really did something wrong, then like you just, you know, dissolve the council and and whatever. But but sorry, just back to this question of like >> so at the moment, let's say 97% of the world is allowed to own the arbitum token. uh they can own as much as they can buy. There's no limits. Um no

disclosures. It's it's a you know um it's a a one of the most like when you when you think about that, right? Like you know sitting here in 2026, one of the most amazing things that we've ever pulled off in in finance is that like we have this like thing that just is everywhere accessible to everyone uh etc. the alter the the this you know alternate timeline where Lesna comes back in his his time machine and pitches you on the arbitum superstate token that is actually offchain labs equity but tokenized and has these restrictions let's say 5% of the world is allowed to own it right um

>> like functionally if we if we take our ideology away for a second functionally um the only difference that I can see here right is that even though 97% of people and this is this is I think is the pitch of superstate and and the pitch of leester right even though 97% of people can own the arbitum token there's a a small segment of people let's call it five or 10% or whatever that are sophisticated that don't want to they actually like well I'd prefer to own offchain labs equity because at least then I have investor rights and I can call Steven and say like stop doing dumb [ __ ] or whatever they think that they're

going to do, right? Um, and and uh this is the trade-off that we've made like implicitly like the implicit trade-off is like there is a there's a category of people that probably don't want to own this instrument because it has no rights and they are sophisticated and they're like h this feels dumb when I can just go and invest in the equity and that feels normal even if it is literally just as you were saying earlier Stephen like do the thing that everyone's doing like if you are the Harvard endowment like go and buy equity in a thing if you're excited about it. Don't buy the magic beans that the guy's selling, right? Um and and so you know there's there's a group of like institutional

investors etc. As much penetration as we've gotten with tokens and you can own tokens or whatever and I know you guys have sold tokens to some very large uh you know sophisticated investors, right? So, so you've been able to like bridge this gap, but not all of them, not all the time, like you know, different different markets or whatever. Um, how do we feel about that trade-off? Like you as a founder, how would you feel if you were living in that alternate reality where only 5% of people could own the arbitum token versus now where it's 97%. Are you okay with that trade-off where like there's just a group of people that are sophisticated and go, "Eh, I don't like this." And and would you make that trade?

I don't think so. I I think we need a better token regime where we get cl you know I want my cake and eat it too. you have you know 87 and they and we can have that sort of uh you know more clarity of what you can do but like >> again for me and maybe this is like unique to arbitrum or a few projects it's much more about the actually like you know actually going back in time because you know in that era I can I can tell you when we raised our uh seed round was 2017 2018 there were a few investors that said like hey um we'll only do it if you like do a token and back then I'm like I don't think arbitum needs a token I'm not doing a token So like we like literally turned down investors that that said that at the

time. Um fast forward we only and at the time by the way arbitrum was like the deploying like uh the the vision of arbitrum was like these like shortlived chains. There was idea of the like oh I want to play on the L2. So I spin up a chain I wouldn't call it chain. I spin up an arbitum instance. We get our validators. We play chess we shut it down. and like this notion of like a long live chain and then it's like okay but then you have uh these mutable contracts you need to have uh and that's really where the token it really didn't come from in our case a place of like um you know and obviously eventually all the revenues were sent to the token so that came afterwards but like it didn't it didn't come out after that from that it came from a point of like need for

governance and the thing I said before around like we want this to actually be decentralized dist distributed control um and so For me, like the 97 is important because like the question is on the five is like >> how many people where are these, you know, where are these five doiciled and how easy would it be to compel the five to do something, you know? Uh whereas the 97 hopefully is much much more difficult. Uh >> whereas they're in New York, let's be let's be real. The five are in New York, right? So like maybe one's in LA. He's like visiting like watching the Lakers or something. But um yeah. Yeah. So, okay.

Um, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Um, I just think it's going to be very interesting to see this cycle for sure this is going to happen. For the first time, we're going to see tokens that are like pseudo equity. I think I think Superstate is going to uh like kind of break out and we'll see some big projects make this decision. So, we will get to see this experiment in real time. Um, the interesting thing for >> Yeah, sorry. I was going to say what's what's the what's the take on the on the timeline? Is there any like actual tangible >> most most >> Okay.

>> Most I think I think most people that see this the annoyances with like unis swap right especially because unis swap is like to your point Stephen the immutable one right like the one that's like the most >> yeah they're the they're like the >> free and and but you know they've been doing stuff for a while BSD license they invented that people hated that. um you know so unis swap has been doing non-communist things for a while right and people don't like it um so so this >> okay but most most of the visceral hate on the timeline right now is like it's permissioned >> and even if they tell us we hate this and they're going to freeze all the tokens and >> okay >> and my only my I don't know my my response to that is like you can hate

freezing you can hate controls you can hate you can hate it all you want that's totally fine I totally get However, the flip side of that is that you also get basically no rights, right? If there are literally no controls, there's literally no nothing. You can't have either way. It's just a free-for-all. It's just PvP. The second we start getting into more experimental and more whether or not it's fully permission or not, but actually having controls, then you unlock new capabilities where maybe you can actually have rights and upsides and like actual information on what the [ __ ] you just bought with your money.

>> But Stephen, you said clarity. Like do you do you think clarity is actually going to give you a superstate like thing in a in a classical token? Um I I don't I so I I think clarity will open the doors for us to really have these like you know deep conversations rulemaking and follow legislation of like okay there's a framework this stuff is like legal like understood and you know how much can you know a single entity own like these are things that are that are discussed here which I think are really important what does decentralization look like and mean and so I don't know like uh specifically clarity itself will answer this question but I think if we move into this regime of like okay we're taking this on we're we're like regulating this uh we know

like the rights of a DeFi user. We know like what and I think that's going to be I think um very important to getting um you know the answers uh to to these questions. >> Interesting. Interesting. So yeah, I think it it's like more of a platform for us to kind of build build on than like instant clarity like >> I would say so. Yeah, I I don't I mean I think we'll be probably you even if clarity passes tomorrow I think >> it'll probably be a year or two till we actually like have the effects of that um you know really entering the market probably >> it's a signal that we're taking this seriously >> and you wonder why we just do whatever the [ __ ] we want right like I don't have a year man I'm don't have time for that [ __ ] like I'm just going to launch

something just going to launch something I don't care um so uh all right let's let's wrap it up because we're a little bit over we'll One last segment though. Uh because we haven't mentioned Kyle Smani on the show yet and >> Kyle is back. >> We're contractually obligated to do it. Um so uh Kyle Kyle versus Multicoin. Um so Kyle Sani told Salana Builders that the firm he co-founded working against them. So this was one of the most amazing tweets of the bare market so far in my opinion. I have been, by the way, I've been waiting for this take.

I did not think he was actually going to say it. I think like as the drama was like kind of it was simmering. It was simmering and I kind of felt like there was something like this. I didn't I had not I had obviously not called that this is like what he was feeling or whatever, but obviously there's a disagreement. But my god, look at I hate Kyle, but I also love him for actually coming out and [ __ ] saying it. Like this is bare market drama. Like love it. >> So So the the I think we just flashed it up, but if you're building in the Salana ecosystem, you should understand that multicoin is working against everything you're building. Like you don't want Kyle fighting against you. Like it's

just negative EV. Like you just don't want he's too crazy. He's too cracked. Like as much as I I find Kyle like hilarious and ridiculous and and have had my beefs with him, like you know, he also took 50 grand off me because I'm an idiot, right? And I was like, he bet me some dumb Ethereum thing. Like he just has a way of >> he has a way of thighing people into things. Like I would never bet anyone else except for him 50 grand that Ethereum would be like a trillion dollar, whatever the hell I thought it was going to be, right? Like what are you doing? Only Kyle would I do that with, right? Um, so yeah, you just don't want to be on the other side of of Kyle.

Um, but um, some so I think I think the the core of the issue here is that uh, Multicoin now supports Hyperlid. They bought a bunch of hype. Um, and the hype went up a lot. Um, I don't know what their their cost average uh entry is, but they're they're up a lot. And you know, Two Shar is obviously doing victory laps in whatever shared channel they still have, if they have one.

>> Um, and Kyle is as salty as I've ever seen him about anything. And yeah, it's just wild. Um, >> I mean, this had to be a big thing because this is like this is probably maybe it's not the thing, but it's got to be one of the the things that led to Kyle leaving. >> Oh, I think it's the I think it was the thing like I think he was like you will you will invest in hype of my dead body and they were like goodbye. >> Yeah. And his thesis is that because >> doing so basically will is a conflict with their Salana.

>> Yeah, it's for Salana. >> I mean, >> yeah, go Stephen. Just >> a lesson where I thought Salana learned a long time ago where >> like know FTX era where the dependence on like a particular investor to like be like >> doesn't always end up well. I actually think like from I mean from multi coins perspective like you know they can invest what they want from Salana if I'm a Salana user and think that there's any single VC out there that oh my god if they buy someone else's token that's like bad for >> it's over >> like that's a problem I think in the ecosystem and I think a lot of people actually thought that Salana was dead after FTX because they thought they had you know were way overpropped on by a

single and you know to Salana's credit they showed that they were not and they were resilient and they would they were able to to bounce back but like I know if I'm a Salana holder which I'm not uh I think we have bigger problems if I'm concerned about what a sing that a single VC is also invested in in a competing project >> you know it is it is a very Salana thing though right like they had you know SBF was like too big to fail for them and then they're like all right that didn't work out well how about Kamani like they didn't really learn their lesson they're like uh we need need a new guy to be the king of this place right um And and you know it's it's funny because like there is something very Salana about that right like they the trenches

in Salana um are like much more culturally uh homogeneous if you will um than than say Ethereum right like Ethereum we could never we can't even agree if we want Vitalic to rule us right like um you know like the the the Salana trenchists are like you know we love Toli we all agree on that. And also, we need some guy to give us money. So, like, how about let's elect Kyle to be that guy. >> Um, so yeah, it's interesting to see like, you know, Kyle still has a lot of money. Um, the thing that I was kind of surprised by is that he didn't just instantly go like, I'm launching some money ventures. Like, that has to be coming.

>> That has to be coming. Like >> that's why that's why I wonder if this is really about if him leaving Multicoin was really about Hyperlid or if it was like another >> because Yeah. Why hasn't he launched his >> you know I feel like there's something else. >> My prediction is he will. My prediction is he will. He will. All right. Um >> maybe he's just taking a break like me. >> But he keeps getting dragged back in. He keeps getting dragged back in. >> Please stop getting hacked so I can take a real vacation like you know be employ. All right. Uh, thank you so much, Stephen, for joining us. This is a great show. Uh, thanks for for joining us audience as well on this episode of Un Money. Um, remember what happens on chain never stays on chain. We will be

back next week. Nothing you hear on uneasy money is financial advice. We're just three builders talking about what's happening on chain and we want you to always do your own research before aping. You can find all our disclosures at unchaincrypto.com/unemoney.