The CFTC’s Policy Shift, HYPE’s Valuation, and the SOL DAT Trade | Livestream
29 Aug 2025 · 1:14:29
CFTC guidance that could let non-US exchanges seek US market access raises a competitive question for Coinbase, though panelists cite sticky services and institutional links while calling its valuation full rather than cheap. They frame Hyperliquid as cheaper on token-holder revenue than major L1s and as taking exchange share, tempered by volatile revenue and possibly points-driven app traction. For Solana, the panel says proposed treasury vehicles may add buying flows, but locked-token funding, compressed NAV premiums and a widely anticipated trade cloud the thesis; Pump has regained share and routed onchain revenue to its token, while streaming remains unproven.
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If you care about what's actually happening on chain, subscribe to the Xerox Research newsletter. Our team at Blockworks Research sends a daily brief with analyst insights, datadriven breakdowns, and sharp opinions on what's happening on chain built by people who live in the arena. Subscribe at the link in the description today. Nothing said on Xerox Research is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is forformational purposes only and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Pocachio, Ryan, and our guests may hold positions in the company's funds or projects discussed.
>> All right, welcome back. Another episode live stream, Zerx Research. Uh joined today by a big research crew from the Blockworks Research team. Uh Nick Carponito aka Ox Metalite. Uh, we've got Mark Arjun, Ryan Cash Flows, Connor, and Carlos. Um, haven't seen a few of you in a while. Nick, I think this is your second time on the pod. Ryan's been out for some time. Uh, he's been working on some of his takes. Um, he's brought maybe some new quips to the table. So, glad to have him back. Um, how's everyone feeling today? The markets are a little red, so I don't know. Are we doom and gloom or we are we feeling optimistic?
>> Feeling optimistic. How about you guys? Yeah, optimistic as always. I love a little red in the market. >> Definitely feeling optimistic on my end. >> No, I'm super bearish. I can't take a single down day. It's It's not in me. I don't have it. I'm selling all my coins. I'm going to cash. It's over. Uh at the very least there's something to be optimistic uh in terms of block uh block works events. Uh D London is coming up in October, October 13th through the 15th. I know Mark Arjun here
will be there. Um so you can get your tickets, come out and see him. Our Lord and Savior Bacio will also be there uh confirmed. So, uh, you can meet some of your Xerox Research heroes, uh, live at DS. Uh, use code Xerox 100, you get 100 pounds off, uh, your tickets. Uh, check links in the descriptions or just go to the DS London website. Uh, and hopefully we'll see you guys there. Um, and then another another thing to shout out, and Ryan, you haven't been on since we've started talking about this one, but uh I'll lead this one in for you as well, but uh we are currently hiring a research data analyst uh at Blockworks.
Um so if you're someone who loves to dig into the onchain data, um you live in SQL, you like making sense of kind of like the onchain noise, chaos, turning things into signal, um check the link in the show notes, apply. I think we got a little QR code as well. Check that out. But uh hiring at Block Works is a big big demand I think across uh the whole company right now. So check that out. Uh and I guess Ryan if if you have anything you want to say as well on the hiring side. >> No man, I mean the team is um the team's unmatched. Um you know I'm the I'm the I have the lowest IQ on the team. So don't look at me and think that that's what you're getting. Like no, the team's
spectacular. It's a it's a really great place to work. Um Mike and Jason run an incredible company. Um they're top tier founders. So great place to be if you're crypto talent. Uh we want to talk. Love it. Short and sweet. And then uh one last shout out to Aptos sponsor today's stream. Appreciate you guys. Uh you'll hear more from them later, but uh for now we can get into it. Um, I think one of the maybe the interesting conversations we we sort of touched on this a little bit this morning on an internal call, but uh there was an announcement or sort of an update a bulletin from the CFTC um about an advisory regarding um non-
US entities um allowing US customers to trade on their platforms. um basically seems like uh you know they were previously maybe forced out of the US um you know just due to cracking down by SEC or other like US regulatory stance a few years ago. Um seems like you know with the new admin with everything else that's like pro crypto in the kind of Trump admin right now um we're seeing a shift here as well. So I guess the the main thing is that uh the CFTC is saying um they've issued an advisory regarding the FBOT registration framework for non- US entities um that legally operate outside the US can seek to provide
persons physically located in the US uh market access to their trading platforms. So, you know, that could mean like a Binance, that could mean a buy bit. Um, you know, similar type exchanges. Um, could maybe see the, you know, a re-entrance of of US customers. The big question mark there was, and we and we we started debating this this morning, and I'd love maybe if we dive into this a little more. Um, there was a question of like, you know, how bad does this hurt Coinbase? How bad does this hurt, you know, insert other US-based corp today that might, you know, see some new competition from this? Yeah, I um I mean it's very beneficial for me personally. I have so many funds locked in uh over uh offshore exchanges after they KYCed and locked down in at
the end of 21 in 2022. Like I'm excited to get some H&T back. That's what I'm looking forward to. Yeah, Carlos put out an an awesome post on coin versus hood yesterday and one thing I caught in there that >> Mark, >> sorry you put out yesterday, >> um, moral of the story though, something I caught in there that I I had maybe assumed was a little bit of a lower number is that 75% of Coinbase users are US-based.
Um, obviously I think it's it's the dominant exchange in the US and I think one of the safer exchanges that the majority of people use, but that said, it's um it was interesting to see that and I'm it leaves me wondering what Coinbase's moat is today for their US customer base at least. I mean I I don't live there but do is Coinbase any of you guys in the US primary exchange? I'm just like wondering how strong their brand recognition is in in the country. You know they're like the oldest and safest and they're they're you know sec they're public traded publicly traded company.
So I'm like wondering you know what's the switching course and then you know they have these other features like you know the Coinbase one Coinbase Prime they have banking services they have their link to their onchain stuff like I'm just wondering if these sticky services and with this friendly administration as they add more offerings I wonder if it just is it going to make that much of a difference even if the CFC allows derivatives they just purchase there a bit as well. So, all of this has me I maybe I'm not as bearish as I should be on this move. I actually think it's a good thing because if anything, it's going to grow the pie and get, you know, increase competition, possibly get more users in because they're going to start advertising in the US. Maybe you'll see it on the subways again. But I don't know what
what just back to my first question. Is it your primary go-to? Uh >> my my situation's unique because I'm in New York and it's basically the only crypto exchange that you're allowed to use. Um, but I think the the more co Coinbase is a tough one. I think obviously they're going to do well for a very long time. Um, but you do have this interesting dynamic where you're allowed to compete with them for the first time. So, you know, you know, it's a it's a huge market cap. They're opened up to competition for the first time. just thinking just like as an investor, okay, I don't want it's not the story that it was in 2022, 2023 where it was just like trading at four times sales. Like I
think it's at 10 times sales now and and and you got a competition. So I think the riskreward isn't what it once was. I'm sure they'll do fine for a long time. I and I don't even know how much the retail story matters. um because like 90 I think 90% of their volume or 80% of their volume is institutional now. So that relationship is flipped. I could be wrong on that number. We'll we'll fact check me. Um >> No, that's great too. >> Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. >> How's the revenue mix look despite that fact though?
>> They retailers they make more revenue from retail trading than they do institutional trading. Retailers less price sensitive >> and then >> Yeah, that was kind of my guess. Okay. >> Yeah. Then you think like okay then they expand their services to inst like you get more out of the of of the prime side of the business. You you expand the per you do the options business. Um I think that they have the optionality you know like like banks like it's like they there's just like infinite financial products that they can kind of dream up and and sell to customers and there's like nothing but tailwinds from Coinbase. Um I do think their distribution is overrated though. I think that's what you were getting at Mark. like, "Okay, cool. You got 78 million monthly activives." Like, Robin
Hood has, you know, 11 and um Telegram has a billion. And, you know, we talk about Coinbase distribution advantage. I really don't think that exists for retail market. I think it's pretty overstated. >> Yeah, I guess I I would echo some of that. Like, I'm not um beholden to NYC regulations and where I can use uh brokerages or trading services. So, uh, what I would say is like the Coinbase brand is pretty big. I think if you were to ask, uh, the average retail person about crypto. Um, that's, you know, Coinbase or Robin Hood might be the names that come to their mind. Um, but personally, I don't use it. It's a
little anecdotal, I guess. But um the um yeah I guess just that interesting part there around like can they grow the institutional side of that of of that picture and if it's you know if that's a 10x and you know maybe it's not as meaningful to the revenue today as the retail activity is but um you know we see all the connections they have today via you know the ETFs and other kind of connections that they've been building. Um, maybe that's a path to uh just continued growth regardless of of what the retail user does. Um, I feel like we've been seeing more and more like competition over that over that retail user dollar. Anyway, >> I I still think I think when I was looking at at the financials like
institution the revenue purely from institutional trading was was a small part. I think it was the fourth largest and then obviously they make some money from the institutions again with their other services like custody and you know some staking stuff but that's you know it's wrapped into their whole subscription services so the numbers aren't like delineated out clearly but it's still you know in that it's it's surprising to me that it has such an institutional narrative I mean it it is the institutional play but it's still retail that drives most of it and then when I was comparing it to Robin Hood of Robin Hood segments or or like product lines. I was surprised at this at least the biggest the biggest segment was options tradings at Robin Hood bigger
than even crypto and that's just options for um stocks obviously and so then I'm wondering what happens when we get options you know for crypto you know derabit or and then we introduce that to retail I mean if it's already the largest division um segment for Robin Hood what could that do to um Coinbase's um revenues just on the retail side alone and perhaps more importantly on the um institutional side as I guess maybe the other question is like what is the what's the user behavior like we you know we know the size of the retail user base on on Robin Hood and we you know like you just mentioned we know there's a a tendency to do a lot of options trading maybe even like
short-term options trading um and probably also like you know short-term crypto in maybe memecoin adjacent trading as well um where they're capturing you know higher fees higher spreads on all those trades. If the average user on Coinbase is just like, you know, DCAing into Bitcoin, that's not going to be as meaningful as if um, you know, if they do roll out options and they've kind of started working and rolling out their purpose product, like I are all of these users, are they inclined to be doing that activity and therefore like drive that that revenue for Coinbase or is that not really the the user base that they capture today? I think that's probably an important question.
Yeah, either way, like Ryan said, I think there's tailwinds. There's good long-term structural tailwinds and catalyst for Coinbase. So, you know, it's it's it's not cheap like it was. It's 10x like Ryan said, and that's it's trading at even its PE ratio, it's trading at like one standard deviation above its one-year average, which means it's like close to its, you know, it's it's not expensive, but it's not cheap either. It's it's pretty um like fully valued, I would say. But, you know, long road ahead. Yeah, it seemed, you know, seems priced for growth. It see it's it seems like it's gone from, you know, underestimated, uncared for to, you know, maybe appropriately valued today is maybe the the thinking there. Um maybe another another one to discuss,
Carlos, you did a piece uh on the Zerx Research newsletter. Um reminded everyone out there to go and check out the newsletter. Um the team here is putting out great content daily. Um talking about Hyperlid, um is hype still cheap? Um, I feel like that's something we should talk about and I do have some of the charts and data that you put together for that one. But, um, you know, sounds like Coinbase isn't really cheap anymore. Um, hype continued to grow. Um, trading volume's up, like market share up, um, token price up. Is it still cheap? Like, is this still something we're looking at? Is there still a trade here?
>> Yeah, I guess you can look at it from two perspectives. The first is if you just look at it from the L1 perspective, it is now uh the blockchain the leading blockchain by RV or revenue. So in the past two weeks he has made $28 million in revenue. U he now has a 36% market share. Um, some people were like arguing back against the post saying that I shouldn't be able to compare Hyperlquid to these other blockchains. But in my opinion, even if you don't believe it is an L1, even if it's just like a an application, like you would still be able to compare um Hyperliquid to Sana, Ethereum, etc. just on the dollars they
generate for token holders. And just on on that metric, Hyperlid is is cheaper today. And then the other thing that I would like to look at is how how hyperlid has grown um versus centralized exchanges and all the data points out that both in the spot in herbs markets. Uh they are taking market share away from centralized exchanges. It is obviously still a long way to go for hyperlquid to surpass Binance volumes for example, but they are growing like um significantly faster um particularly when you look at like per data but but also spot.
>> I I have a question. um if we if we are doing the comparison to L1's right not saying this is right or wrong but then the the question becomes will that premium or that discount that hyperlquid trades at like converge over time to let's say Salana and and I ask because you know if you're just if you're looking at these things as dollars generated and and we look at it as revenue quality right um some of these other more generalized L1s they generate their fees from multiple sources so if ever you know if whenever there's a slowdown in memes or slowdown in this section, there's there's multiple other sources that can possibly cushion that fall, right? And decrease volatility like that revenue volatility. And like I'm just wondering if you know in my
head, you know, two equal businesses that would deserve a like multiple premium. I I don't know what that would be for the L1's exactly. Um but then so I I wonder if there will always be that gap unless like the hype EVM starts to actually get meaningful adoption. But you know I wonder if that that gap will always exist just because of that you know that one truck trading um source. >> Um what I would say is like two things. The first is that if you look at Sena revenue, I would be willing to bet that 80% or more just comes from trading activity. And the same was for Ethereum like when it did when when it was leading chain by REB like most REB just derives from highly contentious
transactions and that's mainly like due to trading activity. Um, so at the end of the day, like I I wouldn't say like it's super diversified in terms of the revenue they're generating. Like most of the revenue still comes from just um trading. And then the other thing is like asking this question like it's important about L1 premiums like do you think L1 premiums will stay that high forever? I I do not think so. I think that they'll eventually maybe not disappear, but they'll eventually like compress towards a more reasonable multiple. Like Ethereum is like 1,000 times revolena right now it's like a 100
times red. I don't think it will stay that well forever. Like today we're in a flowsbased market, but like eventually if you're like purely fundamentals driven investor, like I I don't think you can justify that premium staying that high forever. Yeah, I think um I think there there is I I think you're both right. I think that if you look at daily hyperlquid revenue, it does exhibit more volatility. So the peaks are higher and the troughs are lower. At least that's
what it's been since like If you're looking at the blockworks research website like since basically May it's 100% correlated to Salana revenue but it's way more volatile right and perhaps that is that um you know it's not as it trading venues like yeah hyperlquid is a platform I think I think it's fair to call it a platform you have buyers and sellers going there to to do stuff but I do think that the generalized L1s are a little bit more of a platform now it's like you know how much do you want to bake that into your your modeling. I don't know. Um but I think there is something to be said about the potential.
Yeah. I think you know there is the potential for more durability with an L1 platform. Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. Yeah. So you see, you know, they essentially have a one to one correlation and you know on up days hyperlquid does much better. On down days it does a little bit worse, right? Perhaps that is that, you know, that L1 business model of more diversified applications on top, but who knows? >> Danny, I don't want to frontr run anything, but Ryan, are you saying that hype is the beta, the better beta play to Salana >> for over Yes. Yeah. From from since May to now. Yeah, it has higher up beta and
lower down beta for sure. Undeniable. I think we're understating a little bit the recent traction on the Hyper EVM side though. Like take the the Hyperlid platform out of the equation here. You're seeing quite a few apps launching over the past few months and gaining meaningful traction. Now whether that's sustainable, whether that's driven by points programs is unclear as of yet, but it's I've been following this new company Mercury, which is looking to build sort of a Jupiter mobile style experience for the Hyper EVM. And while that probably doesn't drive a meaningful increase in the short term, I think having all your Hyperlquid apps
integrated into a single platform and showcasing for people who may not be in the ecosystem what exists on the Hyper EVM today is going to generate meaningful traction over the long term. >> What did um so this is very much the Binance model. What did um what is Hyperlid doing right that Binance did wrong? Wait, what do you what do you mean? >> Yeah, like so so Binance has its own chain and they have their own exchange, right? They have their own kind of platform chain and then they have their own exchange where they compete on listings velocity. Like I mean did I
mean you know did what did Binance do wrong? I guess that's like that's probably the incorrect framing. like they obviously did a lot right and they're like in control of the Asia market. Um but it seems like the I don't know it just seems like Hyperlids is much more dominant today and and a lot of Binance activity on chain is questionable. Uh right like we we discount a lot of it. Um I don't know what maybe it's the wrong question. >> I mean I do think Hyperlid benefits from you don't have to KYC to use the exchange. Um, >> yeah. So, so that was big, that was the big fork in the road then and Binance complying.
>> That's probably one part of the story um that allowed people to, you know, Hyperlook and potentially others to to kind of re-enter this this competition with them. Uh, I would say um and we, you know, we know that, you know, there's users on Hyperlid that are VPN. Not that I, you know, I'm not going to call them out and, you know, tell on them to the whichever authority would would chase after, but uh I do feel like that's that's a piece of it. Um, and the other part, I mean, this is maybe less less so meaningful, but I don't know, airdropping your biggest users a million dollars. Um and then them shilling it all over the uh very active trading discourse of the market um to get others
on boarded probably helped as well. Now obviously if you were around in 2017 you you could have made a lot of money on Binance but um because they you know launched that coin at a extremely low valuation and it's up you know a million% since then. Um, but they, you know, hype's kind of given their early users the same chance to kind of make it and maybe that's fueling the a wealth effect right now as well because the B&B sort of had that in 2021 when when Binance Smart Chain was incredibly active and the token had risen quite a bit after offering it up in like an ICO.
Um I'm not the best person to explain this but like in my opinion a big difference between the relationship of hyper core and hyperbm and call it binance exchange and BMV chain or coinbase and base is that for decentralized exchanges b and are not really connected to the centralized exchange in the sense that people building on base can't really like into like Coinbase exchange liquidity if that makes sense. Whereas with a hyperbm with a core rider upgrade, you can sort of like make use of the compos like like the
exchange of the hyper core exchange becomes composable with the hyperm ecosystem. So for instance, you can use a first position as collateral in your bonding market. um that that would be like one example of like this composability like it's supposed to grow in tandem and be composable with each other. Whereas with BMD and base like sure they have their own chain and they can direct users there but they're not really like connected with the exchange if that makes sense. >> Yeah, >> I think hyper >> Go ahead, Mark. Go ahead.
>> Okay. No, okay. I was just gonna say I think that's a good point, Carlos. Um I um I do think it's you know it's kind of slowly changing. They're trying to like work in that tokconomics that link between the chains you know like that moro integration the dex integration on base and you know I see Binance doing some stuff as well and and to that point Binance actually used to do a lot like at one point in time 2020 2021 Binance was my go-to exchange and but then in here in the EU and the UK they cracked down they had to get rid of their Binance US dollar. Um they had to get rid of their staking services. they had to get rid of a lot of the services that they offered and then I just left um Binance because it was just no longer
giving me what I wanted. Um but I I mean I will say that I don't think I mean Binance is still the leading exchange. The token is at an all-time high. So like things are still going well in their regards. Maybe we don't see it as much because of our Western bias, but um yeah, I mean I think what they did I think a lot of what went wrong was like out of their hands. Yeah. Sorry, Nick. Go ahead. >> No, you're good. I was just going to say I'm I'm not sure what's driving this, but there's certainly a higher density of talent and developers on the Hyper EVM, like people building novel use cases, not just forking unis swap to a new chain type stuff. Um, and so yeah, I mean it's I I don't know what would potentially be driving that, but you're
definitely seeing the developer adoption accelerating quite a bit over the last few months, and I don't expect that to slow down anytime soon. >> Yeah, I think those are good points. I think the regulatory crackdown as well, Mark like mentioned it, but it it I think that opened up an in for, you know, new players to kind of seep in or existing players to maybe take up more market share. Um, and it to your point, it's like it's interesting how well Binance and BNB are doing despite all of this. Like it's one of the best performing altcoins cycle over cycle.
Um, or over the past like four, five, six, seven, eight years. Um, BNBcoin would be way up that list. So, uh, I I think that's an interesting maybe sort of counter to point out is that they they are doing extremely well despite all of this. Um, but to Hyperlid's credit, I do think maybe one other thing like an area where B&B sort of did things wrong is that, you know, they they kind of put out the BSC chain and, you know, they built that early DeFi ecosystem and I I feel like they kind of just let it sit around and do nothing for a few years. like it kind of ignored it and maybe part of that was a result of the regulatory clarack like maybe they couldn't be so involved in the onchain DeFi landscape be for those
reasons. Um but I do think you know if they had had the opportunity to kind of like double or triple down on what they were doing there invest more capital in the you know the apps that were being built. Um you know a lot of the stuff on on B&B is like it's like forks of of EVM you know apps so they weren't really doing anything novel and yet they were still very successful. So, I think if they had been able to or had spent more time there and were able to, you know, pump out or get, you know, consistently new developers building new applications there, um, they they might even be more successful today than than they arguably are now. Um, so hard to say if that was all, you know, regulatory, you know, evasion or kind of like avoidance related or um, partly their own fault.
>> Yeah. One one last thing I'll say about Binance is just outside of the US and the UK, it's still the most used exchange like for crypto. Um like from my perspective, it's still like the easiest way to on ramp and off ramp. And so I I just think like despite like the BNB like headwinds like Binance the exchange has it like just the exchange is still like super useful and objectively it's the most used exchange in the world still love it. All right. Um, want to go on to our next topic, but before we do, I want to do a quick shout out to our sponsors
for today's stream. Apttos, uh, Bitcoin DeFi is heating up on Aptos with nearly 400 million in BTC assets on chain. Aptos users can now yield earn yield on their Bitcoin via Echo ABTC and OKX's XBTC without the typical bridge risks and high fees. Thanks again to Aptos for sponsoring today's stream as well as Igen layer. Is your treas treasury losing value to inflation? Learn how to make digital assets like ETH and Soul productive with uncorrelated protocol-driven staking rewards for CFOs, DATs, and corporate treasures. The path to integrating liquid staking and restaking should be riskmanaged and aligned with long-term strategic goals.
The productive treasury report from liquid collective incloud outlines practical adoption and a forward-looking vision for the role of the modern treasury as a strategic enabler of new technology. Read the productive treasury report today by following the link in today's show notes. Um, let's get back into it. Mark, you mentioned uh one of the things I wanted to highlight today or talk about. Uh we we kind of debated this one internally already. Um and I know Ryan Cashfuls Connor is maybe cooking something up um at least in his mind or maybe he's got a a report to follow. Um but this idea of like the sole DAT trade uh I think there's been a lot of kind of general chatter and discussion about this. ETH ETH kind of definitely had its DAT
trade. um the asset itself up significantly on the year. Um the largest ETH DATs have accumulated billions in in the native asset. Um, we're seeing there already are a few soul DATs, though not not as large like as a relative percentage-wise of soul as some of the largest, you know, BTC and ETH DATs, but we're hearing um rumors and announcements of of potential raises in the billions of dollars from um the likes of Panta and others to do, you know, bigger sold efforts. Uh, I guess I want to just kick off the discussion of like is I guess maybe maybe the simple question is that's been talked about is is this priced in or is there still like this sold trade that's out there um where you
can get long in advance of these potential tailwinds? I mean, it's definitely been front run, but at the same time, not a single dollar hasn't been like buying soul from these new capitals that we've seen use over the past few days, right? Like Galaxy and Multicoin are raising a billion dollars. Spanta is raising $1.25 billion. Uh Sharps Technology raised $400 million. Defi Dev Corp announced uh $125 million raise. Uh they still haven't bought like on the open market.
So even if people are front running it like you'll still you you will still see positive flows like into soul uh going into Q4 towards year end. I think the big uncertainty is like what percentage of this races is going to be in lock soul versus actually raising cash to buy on the secondary market and we can debate that. Uh but yeah, that's just my two before I talk about B on that blocked soul versus on the market. I wonder if it if it makes a difference because in one end if you if you buy it like OTC then
it doesn't really have any buy pressure on the market but then if you know if you if you buy it on the market I don't really see the difference I don't really see the difference between the two in the longer term because it you know it's you're taking it out and you're not going to sell it anyway. So, I mean, does it does it really matter where you buy it from? Because if it's locked soul, it's, you know, is if it's from the foundation or if it's somebody like they just they just wouldn't have sold it, if I'm making sense. >> Um, I do think it matters though because if you're buying the lock, you're not impacting the price of the secondary market like or am I mistaken here? Like, >> yeah. Yeah. No, no. Yeah, you're right.
I'm I was more thinking about it from public price point of view. So yeah, if you buy it over, you know, if you buy it over the over the counter, you don't actually move the price. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> which I don't know, maybe some people want, maybe it depends on the company too. Yeah. >> And you're giving extra liquidity to the people selling you the the lock soul, right? Because they are able now to just sell the stock like because they're having like a testing schedule or whatever. Like they they just can't like exit their position.
I I guess it could be longer term supportive to the asset if that if that keeps those locked soul sort of in place. You know, if these DATs are just going to let that sit there um and those would be sellers in the future have now been, you know, they've sold whichever DAT code stock like Carlo me Carlos mentioned and um it's not like it's out of their hands now. Um sort of rung out of the market. But in terms of yeah, I would agree like in terms of the immediate price action it feels like it is material. Um just because if you know if I'm raising 500 million lock soul behind my Dco then all of the money that I would potentially shove into the market is only going to come from like the ATM of me selling the shares and then buying back soul on the market.
Whereas if I raise 500 million in cash and I can immediately put that into the asset and then I can also then sell shares when I'm you know trading at a premium to mnav um then you get sort of like that double whammy effect. >> Yeah. Okay. That's that's fair. But I mean for me is market dynamics. It depends on when it is you're either going to have sell pressure or you're not going to have the buy pressure. So there it is. But then you know you mentioned that earlier Danny you mentioned that ETH had its that trade right and then I was just looking at I was looking at um our treasury dashboard and I was looking this month um August which isn't even done yet. How much ETH has been bought by DATs and they bought roughly
um I think that's 1.6 million which is 1.4% of the supply from August 1st to yesterday August 28th. And then I just looked at yesterday alone. They bought.1% of the supply just yesterday alone, which is the most recent data we have. So it it still seems like the that trade is still on. And um you know, while MNAVs have decreased, I wanted to compare to emissions rates as well. So for on average this month, these dots have both have purchased 22 times the emission rate. Like 22 times the daily admission rate. That's how much pressure they're absorbing off the market. And we're not even talking ETFs either, right? We're just or anything else. We're just talking DATs. So, I
still think others will pop up. I think there'll be multi- like multi-asset DATs soon to come as well. And I don't think, you know, a lot of, you know, the big players in the space, they're not they didn't they're not trying to rug pull even though I think we're very used to that in crypto. Like, they they set up these company structures for long term. they have the Michael Sailor P playbook in mind. So I, you know, I expect this to continue to be ongoing and I think it's going to be just as supportive for Salana as well. >> Yeah. I guess the one thing I'll I'll comment on the ETH side of it is that like expectations are a big part of all markets. And so when you look at the MNAVs today versus or the premium MNAV
today versus what they were a month ago um and you look at the amount of funds that they were shipping in then versus the amount that maybe they have or can or will um you know over the next you know over the forward month um you know the picture is materially different if you know you're you're trading at 3x to mnav and you can consistently like be raising new cash to then shove into ETH versus when you're trading at 1.1 and like your forward picture for raising more funds to put into the asset are significantly reduced. So, I guess that's where I would say like not that the trade is necessarily over. I I agree with you that I think more will raise like we we'll probably continue to see these until, you know, unless they're all at a unless they all get to a point
where they're trading, you know, 0.9, you know, or all at a discount where they just literally cannot they have no other other means to to raise cash to put into um the asset. Um, it it probably continues, but like the the big chunk of the move might might be mostly behind us here. >> No. Yeah, you're right. I think Ryan, sorry. I think just if you could pull up the MLAB chart and just like zoom in in the past like few few weeks, maybe you will see how how strong that compression has been. But yeah, Ryan, sorry. Go ahead.
>> Oh, yeah. I I agree with with you, Danny. I um I think that there is look if you extend your time horizon long enough on any call you might be right. Right. So like I think six months and yeah I think this this phase of the market is over. Um I think the the closed end fund market is most constructive here where as like an equilibrium for this market. Um where if you look at like fixed income closed end funds they're actively managed things.
they they have the reason that they exist is so that they can give investors access to esoteric fixed income exposure in a liquid way in a basket and um look when they're doing really well some of the top performing ones will trade at 20% premiums to NAV um when they're in steady state 99% are trading at discounts uh maybe a handful will trade at premiums um because like the manager of the basket is like been particularly good And really investors just chase it. So you know it starts ch tra trading at a premium after like the things have already gone up. So usually like retail misses. Um it's like very similar thing with the DATs. Um prices right now are
out of whack. Like I don't think DATs are a bad thing in a vacuum. They're they're certainly not. I don't they're not. But the but a 2x premium is incorrect. That is not what you want to be participating in. So like when I think of like what should the premium look like if one exists at all it's like okay like you subtract like the management cost so that should be a discount and then you want to like add some ability to generate staking yield which is like at most 7%. Um but then like that's also market return so you don't want to pay a premium for that. So that goes back down to zero. Then it's like okay can you are you do you have the size to transact with the foundation repeatedly at a discount? Okay, maybe you do like give it, you know, single
digit premium for that. Like at best bull case like it's a five like ultra bull case is like a five to 10 percent premium on these things. Maybe you get something like sailor who like I I actually think that the Tom Lee framing on sailor is like really interesting where he describes Sailor as like the sovereign put. If you want to if you want to buy in size and not see price impact, the only place you can go is to Michael Michael Sailor as a as a sovereign nation who wants to move Bitcoin on their balance sheet. So like that's actually a really interesting framing and I think maybe that's why like uh Micro Strategy is special, but I don't know. I struggle to see why 99% of
the DAT ecosystem shouldn't trade uh at a discount uh in steady state which I think like you know it's like a six-month thing six months away >> to the um to the point about like a massive buy into getting Bitcoin exposure. It does feel like you know IBIT for example is has nearly eroded that um advantage that they have right like that I want to say what 70 billion um market cap or so and and strategy maybe trades at 90 100 so um you can maybe continue to make that argument for a little bit longer but I think it you know unless unless we see you know another big
massive growth for uh strategy on the go forward like the consistency of inflows to IBIT seems like eventually that that relationship will flip. Um >> yeah, the the path dependency there it's like going back to the closed end fund example like the reason that they are popular is because like it's hard to get access to esoteric like reverse floating fixed income like like you know idiosyncratic exposures like you know non- agency R&Bs like you can't do that as a retail person. Um, CLLO exposure is like very hard to get. So, it's like you buy a closed end fund. Uh, funds aren't allowed to hold crypto assets. They don't have a custodian, right? Like they they might be barred
from doing it in their fund docks and like, okay, I have to on board a custodian that takes six months. I have to change my fund docs. I have to pay lawyers and it's like a multi-month process. Okay. So, if I need crypto exposure, you know, Micro Strategy is a or strategy is a, you know, onetoone correlation with Bitcoin. It works. And I think that that's why these DATs exist. It's like this weird path dependency where like people want that exposure but the regulatory environment hasn't caught up. M market microructure hasn't caught up. Um that's going to change with like you said like the ETFs like that's going to reduce that demand and >> and maybe the final question is like I mean wouldn't these funds be able to buy these ETF products today or could there be restrictions there too? Because my
feeling is that if you can buy like strategy, I don't understand why you wouldn't be unable to buy IBIT or ETH, >> right? Yeah. So, so that's already impacting I think you know the the the premium on Micro Micro Strategies premium was like a multi-billion dollar it was like in the tens of billions. I think it was like $50 billion premium to what they owned and now it's something like 10 or less. Um you know that but that's that relationship still exists with Salana. Like there's a lot of people who won't even purchase SSK because of the the like you know you're just not filling your fiduciary duty with like the tax structure and like a you know 150 bips management fee or whatever it is. So yeah so yeah those those structures
still exists. >> Yeah just pulling up we have uh the MNAB chart for Micro Strategy. So yeah, I mean as high as and and probably even higher in the past, but trading upwards of like a three times back in November and now 1.5 1.6. So yeah, it's been trending down consistently. >> Amazing. >> Yeah, I I agree. I agree. I agree with the points here. like um I don't think it makes sense for DATO to buy ETF shares especially for proof ofstake assets because you will be forgoing um a majority of the staking yield like if
there is a bull case for that goes it is that they can be more efficient at accumulating the underlying token and they can do that via like taking the majority of the staking yield like I you'd see a long-term scenario where these DOS for instance on Solana like buy Jetol and go loop that on Cababino multiply and that way they have like a 15% yield on their like underlying tokens and they're more efficiently accumulating sold and then ETF which has more restrictions as to like they can't stake the majority of the fund because
they need to have like enough liquid enough liquidity to fulfill daily redemptions. So in that sense like if you were to make a bull case for that go I think that would be it like being more efficient at accumulating like the native asset on a pure basis. I I think there's an interesting question here and something that I I don't have any context on but maybe you guys can can get into is James Kristoff was asking in uh the Xerox research telegram this morning alongside Dan Smith and uh Noah Goldberg but the conversation around like does does it even does it make sense in where you have these basically public companies who are then essentially operating as
like onchain funds or even hedge funds like is this like a regulatory arbit arbitrage today that that gets closed. Um, does the SEC or someone else crack down on this in the future? Because, you know, I don't have all the context here or knowledge of the law, but I don't know that this is like typically something you'd be able to do without being like an actual hedge fund and and then, you know, access to being able to purchase um exposure to that would not be as simple as just like buying a stock on the stock exchange. Yeah, I think that I think that that is again going back to the closed end fund example, those are a lot of the closed end funds especially in the fixed income space are hedge fund strategies
um that they just sell in a different wrapper. Um so so yeah, I think it is I think it a it is a bit of a regulatory arbitrage but um um it's you know TRI does it too. again. And then maybe I'll I'll do the reverse side of here is that if the current administration is in full deregulation mode, um maybe it's a moot point and they, you know, they're going to make private equity open access to retail. They're going to make XYZ other thing open access to retail. Like maybe this becomes a sort of unregulated piece of the market. Um and they're, you know, these DACOs are enabled to kind of continue operating as is. I guess that
would be sort of maybe the bull case. Cool. Um, there is a second piece to this conversation that I want to dive into with all of you. Um, before you do that, let me give another shout out to our sponsors for today's stream. Uh, Aptos with nearly 400 million in BTC assets on chain supported by a secure, fast, and affordable MVM environment. Aptos has become the BTC growth chain. Aptos users can now earn yield on their Bitcoin via Echko's ABTC and OKX's XBTC without the typical bridge risks and high fees with support from Echko. OKX and STAX's SBTC. Aptos is the place to go for best-in-class yield on Bitcoin.
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Thanks again to our sponsors for today's show. Uh let's get back into it. The other sort of half of the conversation that uh we we went full into the DAT piece. Um the original question here is like is there still a trade for Soul? And if there's a trade for Soul, is there a trade for Soul Beta? Um with the sort of potential DAT story coming into play for Salana, uh I'm curious what you guys think. Is this um something where you know we still see upside because you know the DAT whether it's lock soul or unlock soul like it doesn't really matter like they're going to have a premium to MNAV like the same old story they'll raise cash they'll buy the the asset on the open market they'll push the price up um and given the size that they're at like relative to the market
cap of Salana it should have some some meaningful impact regardless of of front running. Um, do we think there's a play here for Soul or is is it even better to go and look at, you know, soul alts, um, some of your big ones like pump, jet, juke, um, or even just general like soul defy tokens. What do we think? >> I guess I can go first. Um I I think all of the above would be my my answer is um I do think like we'll see tailwinds for soul in terms of structural inflows from like trady like since 2024 like BTC and have been the only two assets with access to trady
flows. Now soul is like joining the party as the only other asset like with with that access to institutional flows. So it's not just that co it's also ETFs. There is a very high likelihood that st like staking ETFs will be approved in October and these ETFs will have a more favorable tax structure than Rex Osprey's SSK because Rex Osprey is structured as a CC corp. So staking distributions inside the bonds are taxed to investors as dividends. Whereas with the staking ETFs under the 33 act, you essentially don't have that. So they're more tax efficient and you have like 17
pending applications from ETF issuers. You will have a lot more distribution. Um the other thing is that they will include inkind recreations and redemptions and potentially you will have a jetto soul staking ETF which is still unclear but a jetto soul staking ETF would be a lot more operationally efficient than a plain staking ETF staking with a third party provider because you can stake a higher portion of the fund. Um, all this to say that that co will have this added tailwind of also going live with ETFs.
And what we've seen for Ethereum in the past two months is that for every $3 that has gone into that goes, $2 has gone into ETFs. So you kind of had this flywheel of not just that goes buying the underlying asset, but ETF flows growing in tandem with that. And regarding like the beta question, I do think that Sena ecosystem coins are undervalued today. Um I think pump has taken back market share. You mentioned pump uh and they are doing like a billion plus dollars in buybacks uh on a daily basis. I do think it will meaningfully rerate higher if this continues. Um and a bunch of Sena DeFi ecosystem coins have like the momentum
if so continues to do well like I mentioned Jetto ETF like obviously it's JTO um Jupiter launched like it's um money market with fluid Camino can benefit from that goes depositing into the money market so a bunch of tailwinds for the ecosystem at large I think >> yeah I think pending Go ahead, Ryan. >> No, go for it, Nick. >> Mine's short. Just pending regulatory approval. I am definitely bullish Geto and definitely bullish Marinade. I see a little bit of a marinade comeback story on the horizon here. And then as a sort of a derivative of that double zero
after they go live, I believe will be one of the better sole beta plays if institutional staking, not institutional staking, but staking by these institutions. SLE ETFs becomes regulatory clear and more mainstream. >> I think that's a great call on on double zero. Yeah, I I agree. It's it's it's really exciting. I'll give you the the bull case and then I'll give you a bare case. Um the bull case is that yeah, you kind of have a double whammy of trade flows. You had the ETH ETF for a while, kind of floundered and then DATs came along and then you saw the thing really take off. And so, you know, you have both of those things happening with the
same time as soul. You also have a very strong fundamental story, a fastest growing ecosystem in crypto, number one by most measures, and number one on metrics that I think are very um familiar to Trady, which could really help. Um, you have strong revenue generation and a more favorable multiple multiple on sole versus ETH. Um and then a lot of things in soul ecosystem I are just objectively cheap. Um I mean pump fastest you know breakout consumer app chamino's singledigit uh multiple double zero is extremely exciting. Um the rise of these um you know the just the quality of the builder. It's like a
bunch of HFT guys like you know building their prop AMMs. Like it's it's exciting stuff that's going on over there. um bare case is that um the ETH thing caught everyone off like offguard. Um you know it was happening and then you're looking at it and you're like is this really a thing? Like are we actually going to pay this much premium to get exposure and are like is this actually happening? It was almost so absurd like the the premiums that you saw on the market for these vehicles and it just took off and there was really no room to like you know you had to act fast and I think a lot of it was like panic buying. This one's very widely telegraphed like it the playbook already happened so the market's already
prepared and typically when the market's already prepared the thing that you think is going to happen it's like usually the opposite that happens. So while like I can do like this check the box of all these good things that happened to Seoul in the fourth quarter, there is this overarching risk that it's a little too telegraphed and like you know therefore the thing won't happen. I think the other interesting thing is going to be testing like I think like so like when you look at soul flows like you don't just look at like the positive which is like the buying pressure that will come from that person ETFs you also have to look at the negative which is like unlocks and
inflation inflation specifically I think has been very detrimental to soul in the past year in terms of like just price action Um, and I think like it's too high today and I think that CND228 would have been net beneficial for the ecosystem. like the people who were against MT228 I'm thinking figures like Ley the CEO of the or president of the Sena Foundation like argue that nominal inflation being high is positive for institutions coming into the market like with ETFs and that because like if you see a staking ETF that's paying you like I don't know 7% APY then you kind of buy it like that's
kind of like the left thesis Um, so it would be interesting to me if because the staking ETFs have high APY, same as the DAT codes, like does that really like benefit in terms of inflows? And and I think that would really like put to the test this like argument against C228 back in um April or March. >> Yeah, that's a that's a really good point, Carlos. I'm going to second the flows thing. Um like with the even with the ET ETFs if you you know if you go in our ETF dashboard and you and you look at Grayscales ETFs alone and you look at like the monthly flows um ETH you see
it's like negative every single month since launch and it's it was outpacing the inflows coming in and so I mean like the ETF was actually the launch of ETFs was actually a negative catalyst for youth and then with um you know to Carlos's point with SIB 228 you know if all of these institutions starts taking and there's more emissions coming on coming onto the market. I don't know how of a good thing that is even with e if if if Ethereum wants to have this store value narrative. I'm in the account that even they should lower their emissions because you just want to have a negative emission rate like a higher burn than emissions just for the just for the narrative just for the store value narrative you know if if not anything else. And to kind of revert back to the
main point about solo and beta like a few some weeks ago, months ago when pump launched, you know, we were talking about it and I I didn't um get in because I just did my very left curve um math and saw it was the most valuable app without a without an L1 chain on the market. And today I went and checked it out again. It's now the third most valuable. um A and Jupiter being the two most valuable but you know I'm I just um annualized last 30 days of sales for each of these three and A is trading at 32 time sales Jupiter 11 and then pump is at seven so I mean even if you're not even if you're not thinking it's sole beta I mean it seven times sales still
still seems relatively attractive in this space right so um you know and that's that's half a billion in um in in annual revenues by the way I mean like what other crypto project is doing that insane and it's not even like we're at crazy meme hype stages right now you know so uh it it it looks attractive to me and I might like just do a little bit uh DCA starting this weekend NFA >> yeah I do like the um I think I want to comment on both points one around around the ETFs like for soul at least relative I'm excluding ETH here because um I think Carlos mentioned but the ETH ETFs have had sort of an outsiz impact since the uh the DataCo Treasury Minia of the last couple months for ETH, but uh at
least relative to like BTC inflows by market cap, just the SSK or the Osprey Soul ETF um is is sort of sizing into Salana on a nearly relative um scale as the Bitcoin ETFs um do today relative to the to the size of the market cap. So, um, something I'd be interested to see is if, um, you know, the large players come in come into the market for sole ETFs, um, you know, your your Black Rocks and whoever else get in there. Um, the the more trusted names, if there's not, you know, additional outsized flow impact to Salana, um, because we we just know historically from looking at all of these come to the market like would expect Black Rockck to have the largest
flows of any of the ETFs um, and then kind of go down the line, Fidelity, Grayscale etc. um to be, you know, sort of downsized from there. Um so could see upside for surprise for, you know, general ETF flows and especially so if if the sort of DAT plus ETF thing um plays out like everyone's expecting. Um but I I like Ryan's point around around caution there. You know, when everyone's sort of expecting it, maybe um you know, maybe the maybe the market front runs this a little bit. Uh maybe nothing happens for two, three months. You know, we kind of go we we've sort of consistently seen this both with Bitcoin and ETH actually.
um right at the launch of these vehicles that sort of like nothing happens and then all of a sudden something big happens uh a few months later when when no one is expecting it again. Um so maybe we're sort of doomed to repeat that again. Um but then on the pump side of things uh I do think some things worth sort of highlighting is you know it looked sort of doom and gloom you know a month or two ago when um they started losing market share to Bonk. Um but over the past couple of weeks like that's that trend has entirely reverted. Um they've started shipping 100% of the onchain revenues into the token. Um so yeah overall like the valuation in the picture for pump everything has looked up. Um and the price is continuing to range you know at levels below the ICO
price uh of 4 billion. So, uh, it does seem like there's some upside for pump, especially so if we're especially if we enter like a sole season. Um, you know, seems like a pretty good candidate for some outperformance there. Um, I think the other names listed are are pretty good. But the I guess the big thing I would point out for like a soul season is I don't know if you if you kickstart like a little bit of a gambling uh you know memecoining trenching wealth effect again um and you can you know sort of pump up the launchpad pump fund numbers again then you know it makes it look even more attractive and then you know it's beta to soul and and it can maybe sort of kick a little bit of a reflexive loop there.
people on the timeline still saying are still saying like are still questioning if pump is aligned with the token. It's like unreal. Like they how like how how many days in a row do they have to pump back 100% of revenue into that token for you to like consider that there's alignment there? So yeah, I I agree with you, Danny. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I I do wonder if the main thing is um I don't know like the sort of like trench burnout like Hyperlid doesn't seem to have this problem being in the per space. Um you know there's not really like um at least when it comes to sentiment within kind
of like our space anyway. You know you see people all the time like memes aren't what they used to be. You know you you can't hold a meme and and make money anymore. Like people are average hold time is 6 seconds. um it's all just like a scam, pump and dump, you know, garbage, dog whatever. Um and per like per and per platforms don't really have that sort of like sentiment narrative. Um so, and obviously the the upside for hype as well is that, you know, the token is up a lot. The platform is is also growing. Metrics look really great there. Um so, you know, I don't know if this is just like additionally a sentiment price related thing. You know, the token looks like crap right now. people are burnt out from losing money on on meme coins that
they thought they could be a billionaire on or, you know, make a million dollars on. Um, and it didn't play out. Um, I do think this is one of those things where, you know, if if you get a soul season and and pump price goes up and metrics go up, then that sentiment completely reverses and it's like, oh, it's the best product ever. I love memes. I love pump the tokens up. You know, we we see that price leads narrative like all the time. So, uh, I could see people completely flip on this in in weeks if that does happen. Well, yeah, and I think you're even starting to see it in the data today, like as a trench person, okay? Like you're pretty steady on revenues for the past few months, so like really no change. But like on our Salana Launchpad dashboard,
the number of tokens launched uh across Launchpads that has achieved uh $1 million market cap is at new all-time highs as of I don't know. I can't say I feel like I I might have to take this back. I feel like the data is wrong. But yeah, so like the the numbers approaching like all-time highs and um like I don't know like I know that there's a ton of coins launching perhaps like the graduation rate isn't as attractive but I still think like you're getting the runners that keep people like paying attention like objectively like looking at the revenue you are seeing that people that
there is a steady state right that's been reached and and that like derisks the token right like you have this like minimum viable business that's throwing off a lot of passion like above that it's just like optionality on new products and hopefully like an Axiom competitor like hopefully streaming takes off things like that. So yeah, I think it's um I think it's you know I think risk adjust is pretty strong. Yeah, I just want to highlight we have the chart on Pump's historical revenue and you can see the dip down when when Bon took market share in this space, but yeah, otherwise it looks like they've kind of just been they've they've hit this uh consistency point here of, you
know, call it 8 to 10 mil a week in in revenue. Um, which you know, now is getting shipped into the token. Um, so yeah, I guess outside of everything else, the the other question mark is just like what what's the forward expectation for the platform? Do you think if you think the trenches are cooked, then of course, you know, maybe you're not going to be bullish on a pump token. Um, if you think, you know, onchain season returns, um, then it should be a creative and you'd expect to see some some outperformance here. And if you believe in pump and their ability to grow in the future, then um everything else stated today, like it makes it look kind of makes it look cheap relative to sort of where they're
running at. >> I agree. Do you think they'll lean into streaming more? Like it feels like the next like area of growth. >> I think so. I mean, I think they're already kind of leaning into it. Um, streaming's tough though. I I think it's a really tough market to enter. For one, like I think even the streaming giants today like don't don't make money. Um, I know that like even though Twitch is valued very highly um and owned as a subsidiary of Amazon, like I think they they basically operate that as a loss to Amazon, but all of the sort of bakedin
benefits that and like you know, sort of integrations that Amazon can then run from there. you know, you get your Prime membership and maybe that gets you some some bonuses on Twitch and and maybe creators on the platform then route users to buy products um that are sponsored or recommended uh on their streams to then go purchase back on you know on the uh the e-commerce website um things of that nature. So I if it means that pump as well and we see this with other like kick as well is uh operates an online casino and their platform like they're definitely hemorrhaging money on the live streaming platform kick but stake the business I think is hoping that um this maybe opens up potential revenue by driving you know maybe new
customers to um you know if it's slots or other venues to uh turn revenues on them. Um, so if that's a playbook here for Pump, like it it might be a little bit of like a loss leader and um, they might need to shove, you know, some additional incentives at it. We've seen them play around with those ideas, like, you know, million-doll content idea. I expect that they'll probably have to keep doing that to to get people excited, but um, the benefit they get is this this sort of like token associated with the stream as well. So maybe they don't have to incentivize directly with dollars as much as they otherwise would have um if the token acts as an additional incentive for creators. Um but I think it's going to be
challenging, but it's a space I'm watching. You know, small streamer coins like that could be it could be a narrative. Um it could be a narrative that or something that grows into a bigger narrative. And um you know, you have a chance to be early there because there are very few and they're not worth very much. I like I like the streams. I like the Gainsy stream. I think it's like very small proof of like I I enjoy it. Uh I tune in and like the clipping helps um go goes viral. It's pretty good. >> You guys may disagree here, but I think that a business model like Pump demands a constant flow of new users because a certain amount of users on a daily basis
will become disenfranchised and won't come back, right? And so like you said with kick that a casino is a great way to offset that a little bit. But I think for Pump's business model today, a lot of what we're going to need to be seeing is ways to bring streaming enthusiasts and crypto noobs slash people that have never touched crypto before into the platform. And yeah, I think incentives help that, but I think leaning into live streaming is really the best bet they have right now. I might disagree to an extent. Um, just because people earn paychecks and they can keep shoving in 100 every week, but and and like it's not like casinos go out of business because all their
customers lose all their money and then never come back again. Like sure, like maybe your customer comes once a year, you know, they fly out to Vegas and they go to the casino for a couple days and then you don't see that customer for a year, but all the other, you know, the customers kind of flow in and out depending on when they have cash and and when they're feeling, you know, excited to gamble their money. Um, so that's maybe the one counter I'd have, but I do agree in terms of like expanding their market, like it it does feel like it could be meaningful if they could onboard some some creators with meaningful audiences who otherwise are not trading meme coins today. Like that would be definitely a net positive.
>> And maybe to challenge my own point a little bit here, your hump fun like user retention is extremely high comparative at least to the other launchpads that we're seeing today. And I think user retention is probably the a metric that I think very few people are tracking closely but one of the most important here and so user retention on streaming platforms is obviously very high as well. So hope to see additional incentives that align pump with closer to a interested not gambling audience.
Maybe a thought a thought you just prompted for me is that I would imagine like we can assuming nothing else changes like I would imagine you'd expect the activity on pump and other lap you know launchpads and trading platforms to sort of continue in this cyclical fashion where you know when everyone is feeling like we're so back that's when they want to jump in and and gamble their money and then when they feel like it's so over you know maybe they stop trading for a month um and we see like those reflexive cycles in activity I guess if you can drive this like live streaming audience that tunes in every day and doesn't, you know, isn't like logging off because the coins are down. Um, maybe they're just logging in every day no matter what. Um, it could maybe bring some like positive
buffer or like put a floor on their their their daily activity. um which could be a plus as well, but I guess we'll see. I think it's I think it's sort of an unproven thing and we're sort of seeing them attempt to prove it out in real time. Um Zora is like a different expression of this, right? Like can the Instagram model work? Um Pump is is going for the live stream model and you know it's still small. Look at most of these coins, they're pretty tiny. um the product is still in a very early stage like no I don't think any of these users today would tell you that like using the pump live streaming platform is equivalent or
you know better than the other existing services out there. So um it's going to be an uphill battle for them. Cool. Well, I think we can leave it there for today, gentlemen. Um any other last thoughts or exciting things going into the weekend? Everyone headed out to touch some grass. I hope um otherwise I'll do a couple of quick shout outs. Uh if you have data analyst chops, Block Works is hiring. We are looking across all fronts, but certainly on the data analyst side of things. So uh if you are in the weeds of onchain data um check the link uh check the QR code on the screen um or the links in
the descriptions and uh we would be happy to chat with you assuming you got the chops um various segments of the business are are expanding right now but uh certainly on the data side more and more we need lots and lots of data to keep uh this this business growing. Um, and then DAS is coming up in October. And be sure to check out the Zerx Research newsletter and hear from all of these fine gentlemen on the research team. Um, as well as the Zerx Research Telegram. Come chat in there. Um, we find we pull topics from there. We find questions in there. Um, a lot of good discussion. I think a lot of people are are making close friends and maybe even enemies at sometimes uh, in that chat.
So, uh, feel free to hop in there and get in the discussion. But uh otherwise I'll leave it there. Uh >> newsletter is fantastic. Um if if if you aren't paying the you know few thousand subscription for the institutional product. The newsletter is like we're giving away too much there. So get it while it's hot. It's like very very good. It's too much alpha that we're giving away for free just for an email. >> Definitely 100%. uh great insights into the sector, into the space every single day, day of the week. Um so definitely check out the newsletter uh newly revamped and coming at you hot from the analysts. Um but other than that, until next time and
thanks for coming on today, gentlemen. We will see you all next week. [Music]