Circle IPO investment thesis and Ethereum versus Solana revenue models

Transcript

GM. Good morning. Welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that makes sure you don't need a trust fund to build a legacy. I'm your host, Jay Hamilton. It's Saturday, April the 5th, which means we're back with the Milk Road Pro Research team. That's right. We've got Kyle Martin. Adrian was having internet problems, so he couldn't join us today from Southeast Asia where he's traveling. Uh today we are going to break down some first off some really exciting news which is circle has filed for their IPO. We're going to talk about the IPO. Are we going to invest in it?

What are our thoughts on it? And the impact of crypto IPOs which there are many likely coming in 2025. What does that mean? We also talk about some Ethereum FUD. More Ethereum FUD. Oh my god. Uh, Ethereum revenue hit its lowest month since 2020. Woof. What do we think about it? Is this FUD legitimate? We're going to compare it to Salana, what their revenue is. We're going to dive deep into that. We also talk about bit bonds. What are bit bonds? It's the first time you're hearing this. This is this idea that the US has been told by Trump and his executive order that if any departments

within the US government can find budgetneutral ways to acquire Bitcoin, then they can go do that. So what do you think that does? A whole bunch of organizations are trying to figure out what are budgetneutral ways to acquire bit acquire Bitcoin. Here's one idea. Very interesting concept, very interesting idea. So, we're going to break that down. So, stick around to the end to hear that. If you guys enjoy the show, if you guys are a fan, please, please, please do us a favor. Subscribe and hit that like button or leave us a comment. Two things. One, we want to chat with you guys on a regular basis.

We want to know your comments. We want your feedback. And second, it really helps the show grow. The algorithms love it when you interact with us. So, please take a second and do that if you can. Today's episode is brought to you by Moon Pay. Trade crypto fee free, fast, and on your own terms. Also brought to you by Coin Shift, powering top crypto treasuries with their yield bearing stable coins, CSUSDL. Let's jump in and hear from the Milk Road Pro team. We're back. What's going on, guys? It's the Pro team, except we are without Adrian. Uh he's actually in somewhere in Southeast Asia right now, and I think his internet's not doing so hot. So, uh we don't know where he is. Maybe he'll join us like midway through this episode, but for now it's myself, Martin, and uh and the

great late Jay Hamilton. Uh my dad, we got I don't know. I don't think I hope not. I did show up late for the recording. So, yeah, he did show up late today, but Jay's got uh he's dealing with some some sickness in the family. So, we hope that he can survive through this episode, as well as all the listeners. So, all right, we're going to talk about some big news uh coming out of Circle. Obviously, we always talk about stable coins, but some real big news. Finally, everyone is going to be able to uh get some upside to uh to the stable coin adoption that we think was happening because Circle's going public.

Uh so, we'll talk about that, our thoughts there. Um we're going to talk about uh Ethereum and Salana. There's some stuff going on with fees. Ethereum has hit its lowest fee revenue since I think June of 2020, uh which is quite wild. So, we'll talk about what's going on with that. And, um I think there's a lot of FUD there, too. So, we will just kind of, you know, lift everyone's spirits hopefully. We had Vlad from Robin Hood on the podcast earlier this week. And so, we just wanted to have a little discussion uh after the fact on what our thoughts were and um what we're thinking about Hood as an investment. Uh and then we if we have time, we'll talk about the uh the Bitcoin bonds, a new thing that um is going down in the US.

So, lots of cool things going on in the space. I know people are still quite bearish on the timeline. Um although I don't know, we're recording this Tuesday. Maybe by by Saturday, everyone's, you know, flipped and we're so back. Who knows? Uh we're kind of so back and then we're so over every other day here. So, we'll see what's going on by the time you guys get to listen to this. Anyway, let's start with uh let's start with Circle. I'm just going to share screen here. There we go. So, um some breaking news that came out yesterday. Uh so, March 31st, Circle is has hired JP Morgan and City for uh its IPO. They're filing in late April. Um, which probably means I mean, who knows?

But, uh, assuming that's like 2 to 3 months before they go public. Um, the SEC has been known to make this much longer for crypto companies, but that whole world has changed. So, hopefully we'll get treated fairly this time. Uh, and this means Circle could be going, you know, public by the beginning of summer. Um, which is pretty freaking awesome. Circle is the fastest growing. So obviously Circle is the provider of USDC, the fastest growing stable coin in terms of the big stable coins. Uh in the LA in 2024, obviously they're also owned a large percentage by Coinbase. Um so the two crypto big public companies will be both, you know, Coinbase and then a company owned by Coinbase, which is quite interesting. Um I want to read a letter by Brian Armstrong in just a

second on stable coins, but just yeah, any reactions, any thoughts? Are we pumped? What are we thinking here? I haven't read this this letter from Brian, but obviously Circle going IPO is is very bullish. Um I mean last last year when they were trying to do the IPO, I think their valuation were around 7 billion or something. I wonder how's that valuation has changed over the last year and one once they do IPO this year, what's the valuation going to look like?

And we will also finally see how much of the circle Coinbase owns. And yeah. Um, right. It's getting very interesting. Yeah. Do you remember when they were talking about it last last year when they were thinking of going public? Do you know when that was first middle? So let's say let's say it was sometime in the middle which was most of the year they were around 30 million or sorry 30 billion in market cap uh of USDC uh and they were valued at seven now they're at 60 so they're double so are they now valued at 15 billion uh cryptos obviously also a more bullish industry now from pre-Trump era um so are they yeah what their valuation be is going to

be quite interesting 10 15 billion I don't know we'll see uh what does that mean for maker uh and sky should it be valued at you know some sort of percentage of that at least we're going to finally start to understand uh and you know if circle is is you know 1520 I think that means that sky's got to be a lot higher than it is today um so yeah very interesting for this to to come into the US I'm excited for it I think you know we're obviously super bullish on stable coins we've been talking about it being the number one use case in crypto but you could never really get any upside which is the annoying thing right uh and um other than sky of course and Athena But um from the two kind of majors, tether and circle, you can never get

upside. And now I think that's coming. So here's what here's what Brian Armstrong wrote, which was um just to me it's just super bullish. But um so his TLDDR, I'll read that first, which was US stable coin legislation should allow consumers to earn interest on stable coins. The government shouldn't put its thumb on the scale to benefit one industry over another. Banks and crypto companies alike should be allow should both be allowed to and incentivized to share interest with consumers. This is consistent with a free market approach. Um, and basically what he's talking about is there's the stable coin bill that's coming. I believe it's next month. Uh, is that no set timeline, but very soon. Like some people think by the end of April, May, like it's very quick.

So, actually that timing is crazy. If that goes live, then Circle goes public. Holy We could be way more, you know, bullish for for Circle here. More tailwinds, guys. More tailwinds. You think macro will be where we need it to be by then? Yeah. So, in that um there's like a structure for it right now. It's not it's not approved. It's not live or anything, but part of it was saying uh one, no algorithmic stable coins for two years, which makes sense. Uh I think that we all agree on that one. But the other one was um some basically no yield bearing, which we weren't quite sure why. So, no yield bearing stable coins.

Uh and I think what what Brian's saying is like, hey, we should have that. You know, right now, if you think what he kind of explains in this, it's a long thread, so I'm not going to read all, but basically, he's like, right now, when you as an American citizen, you put your money in a bank and they give you yield. Well, at least they used to give you yield. Now, they give you like, I don't know, like 0.01%. Like, it doesn't count to anything, but for ants. Yeah. You used to be able to get like two, three, four, 5% when you'd put it in your savings accounts. That's actually how banks started, right? Was like, "Hey, come put your money here. We'll give you yield." And then um it's obviously it's still allowed, but banks just don't do it because they don't really need to. You know, they know

everyone will use the bank anyway because they don't want to put it under their mattress. Uh and uh and so they put in the bank, but they pay them nothing. But they're allowed to give the yield to their customers. But for some reason, stable coins, which are essentially the same thing, right? It's like, hey, I just want to hold dollars, but a digital version rather than in a bank. I'm I'm trusting USDC or Circle, sorry, to hold my dollars. And then I can do things with those dollars. So, it's a little more useful than keeping it in a bank, right? Um, but it's it's basically the same structure. There's just dollars in a bank somewhere. They put them in treasuries or whatever to earn some yield and they then share that to the customer. But for some reason in this current stable coin bill, they're

saying um that, you know, maybe this isn't going to be allowed to give the yield back to the customers or the consumers. And Brian Armstrong is saying that makes no sense. Let's just make stable coins the same as a bank, right? Because one, consumers win, right? they can um they can have you know their their dollars and they can get yield on it up to like you know average in 2024 was 4.75%. So that's pretty cool. He's like billions of people around the world also win right because um you know people outside of the US can also get access to dollars and get access to yield. the US economy wins, right? Because stable coin providers like Circle and Tether are some of the top holders of US treasuries and the US needs more buyers of US treasuries. And so if we proliferate

stable coins around the world, you have way more buyers of US treasuries. So it's like, why aren't we doing this? The tech is there. Uh it all makes sense. The only problem right now is the law and we're going to put the stable coin bill in place. If that allows for them to share yield, I think that circle would even start to share yield, which would be really really cool. I mean, Coinbase is already sort of doing this like roundabout way of doing it. If you hold your stables, your USDC in Coinbase app or on Coinbase wallet on chain, uh, you get the yield, which is pretty sick. But they have to kind of do it of like they get the yield from Circle and then they say this is like a marketing expense to the users rather than they're they're just giving the yield through

which is kind of just this kind of weird way that doesn't really make sense. Um so anyway big really big things are happening with stable coins in the next one to two months right we're going to have a stablecoin bill. Hopefully they allow for yield bearing. If they do, I just don't think people realize how much of a game changer this is going to be for the world to to do this because it's not just like, hey, us crypto people can hold on to stable coins and get some yield. It's going to completely disrupt banks because why if this is now legal and Circle and Coinbase are creating these easy ways to do this and Robin Hood, for example, they already talked about doing the same thing on the episode we had on Monday. Um, why would like what are banks going to do? you're

going to have to find a way to start to give yield back to users, which is going to just flip how the US banking industry works. So, we're in like we are months away from potentially just a massive disruption to the US financial system and globally. And I just think that's super exciting because one, you can get upside to it by holding Coinbase soon by holding Circle um and um or or Sky, which we always talk about. Um I just think there's just fireworks are coming. It's going to be very very exciting. I don't know if you guys have additional thoughts here. Yeah, I'm super excited about this. Sorry, I was a little bit uh groggy when you first asked us how we felt. I feel like our reaction to this IPO wasn't as enthusiastic as we could have been. Uh I think that um

like agree with all your comments about Circle, but let's just take a step back from just not even just Circle, but like IPOs happening in the US and the impact of that cannot be understated because I mean just the simple credibility that it brings to crypto. Uh there's a great line um from uh one of um San Kelp, a guest we had on the show last week. He said, uh, IPOs are like crypto's graduation ceremony where it's finally handed a diploma and a chance to explain what it actually does to its worried parents. Yeah. Right. But it's true, right? Like we we now will have a lot of a lot of traditional finance does not

learn about assets until they go public, right? And once they go public, then they then they get into this uh this system of quarterly reporting, which is really how a lot of investors learn about these assets and these asset classes and these companies. And so you you can't understate what having crypto companies at circle scale like not obviously it does amazing for stable coins, but also for crypto. It just brings so much legitimacy and so much education and knowledge to the greater financial markets that are you can't you can't not pay attention anymore. You know it really this this theme of we are going from you know wild west to the uh

corporate suits. We're ready for that moment. We're graduating. We're growing up. Uh it's just further proven by us having these IPOs. the downstream effects for the industry at large is also massive that I don't think people fully understand. The way that that private markets work is you have VCs or or outside capital that invest in companies and the way that they can actually make money off of their investments is companies have to go public, right? Or get bought up by like a Google or an Apple or whatever or bank or something, but that doesn't happen a lot in crypto. And so it's like once a company goes public, the VCs and that capital takes profits and then they can go and revest it back into into the space. So there's kind of like circle of capital, right? And we've had that in the internet revolution, right, with

social media, etc. They've all IPOed, they've all had their moments and they can reinvest it and keep growing. Crypto has never had that, right? The only option you had was if the company had liquid tokens and this is that problem we have of these high FV, low float uh liquid tokens because they're basically the VCs, etc. that were investing, they needed these companies to launch liquid tokens when probably they shouldn't have or didn't need to because they needed to take those profits. Right now, I know everyone hates that VCs doing whatever, but like ultimately, this is what you got to do. If we're going to rely on VCs to put in millions, billions of dollars into our space so we can build cool like they're going to have to get their money out, otherwise they go bankrupt and they no longer exist. And then the innovation flywheel no longer

continues. And so, we haven't unlocked the IPO yet. And so, finally, it looks like it's coming. Circle, there's Consensus, there's a bunch of other companies, Gemini, Kraken, Gemini. Yeah, there's a bunch that are going here. I think there's more media companies. uh and data companies. And so what that does is it it allows you know this liquidity event and so those that did invest early on can take that capital reinvest it in new projects. Right? We've seen that VC numbers are quite down uh and this would be a massive stimulus to this industry to get that back and also it might help with the dynamics we're seeing right now on tokens because tokens are obviously just being sold off by VCs. Well, if they had an IPO way then we could do it differently and we don't have to do that

anymore. And so um tokens can be for community instead of being for the VCs that invested and IPOs can be for for the VCs in the kind of the traditional way. So like it it should fix or even things out. So I think that's actually really good. Um and then most of all I don't know. I'm just really excited to see what the value of Circle is going to be. Um Martin, I don't know if you've put any thought yet. I'm sure you haven't just yet, but I'm just curious. Is there a number that you'd be a buyer uh or that you think we should be a buyer? What's your thoughts on on Circle for that? Give us the report right now. Yeah, do the math in your head. Let's go.

Impossible. Like you don't know all these relationships and who owns how much and those kind of stuff. So, but like I want to I want to commend uh this IPO. What do you think that would happen to crypto if there is similar process? And if you want to list your token or just have a opportunity to have a token, you need to go through this process where you can like show yourself like make sure that like all legal things and everything is set up properly and like because what I'm trying to say is we might don't have thousands, hundreds of thousands of tokens out there and like the money would be so distributed into so many tokens and we

would might have just couple hundreds but those would be like getting all the attention all the liquidity so the the the flywheel of that would improve them even quicker and I think we would be in much better position I mean like I am I am all for free markets and free approach but here it would really help if we had something like that for crypto markets we would we'll still have billions of tokens but because what what what will happen here so by the way I Do you think this will happen in the market structure bill? Uh tokens that represent businesses that are securities, which there are many that are clearly securities. They should 100% need to go and get clearance from the SEC and they

should do reporting and they should announce when they're going to sell tokens and blah blah. They should have all the rules that every other company in the world or the US, let's say, has 100%. There's no reason why we should be allowing what we're allowing right now in crypto. that is it's insane that we allow founders to dump on their community and they don't have to report it or say anything. It it makes no sense and lie about their numbers etc. So right now the industry is a mess that needs to be cleaned up. But mo there are many many many many tokens like memecoins like NFTs like what Zora is doing with tokens around images like blockchains that are decentralized like maybe even Dows but I'm not sure how that'll fit in but like for decentralized things or things that are not securities that are um you know uh

what do they call NFTs like collectibles and things like that. I don't think that they need to go through the SEC and I don't think that they will force that. They've kind of already gave the green light for things like beamcoins. So, I still think we'll have a gajillion tokens on the culture side and on the creative slash um collectible side, but then on the business side, those tokens will probably be more something like the SEC where they need to like like normal uh tokenized or sorry, like normal stocks where they need to go and get approval uh and have like certain regulatory things that they have to follow. That to me makes complete sense.

Um, but I think it'll maybe they'll change those rules a bit and it won't be the exact same as how you have to like how Circle is going to have to IPO. Like I think it might be a bit different because that's costly. There's a lot of loopholes like things you got to jump through. I I imagine they're going to streamline that more because again with crypto you're going to have so many more um, you know, projects and so much more uh, tokens that can go public, let's call it, right? Uh, so I think they'll adapt to the to the technology, but we'll we'll see. But ultimately I think it's it's like you said it's a good thing uh for sure. And also like I think that SEC or whoever said that they don't really approve yield bearing stable

coins and the reason is they are trying to protect the people the users because like not everyone is able to say like okay I'm going to only use I don't know stable coin from maker or Athena because those are legit but people would go and look for the highest yields available and you know there would be so many stable coins offering high yields with unsustainable like ponzomics those kind of stuff. So I feel we should be glad that they approve stable coins first and we need to get a kind of better sense of what yield bearing stable coins are and what are the legit ones what are not and how to differentiate them and those kind

of stuff and circle tether they will eventually also kind of will need to offer some yield. So maybe it still needs a little bit more time, but eventually we will get that, I think. Let's be honest, everything in crypto comes with fees. But here's a nice surprise. Moon Balance doesn't take a cut. You heard that right. No Moon Pay fees when you buy or sell crypto with your Moonay balance. Top up with dollars, pounds, or euros. Then you're ready to trade instantly whenever the market moves. And if you change your mind, withdraw your cash. No Moon Pay fee there either. Simple, fast, ready when you are. Check it out at milkroad.com/moon. Disclaimer: network and ecosystem fees

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circle if they don't allow yield bearing stable coins because that just means more revenue for Circle. higher valuation. But maybe it's not though. Maybe it's not, right? Because Oh, well, it's already growing. It's at 60 billion and it doesn't give yield away. So, I don't think it needs that. Yeah. But does do do you think that um we've never really had this conversation like is Tether's clearly the the breakaway winner, right? Like it would be tough to catch Tether at this point, you know? Is is USDC is circle clearly number two? To me, there's still a battle for number two. Like to me, I could still see a Sky or an Athena catching up to Circle.

Circle is at 60 billion and the next closest is Athena at 5 billion. There is no don't get me wrong. It's a big gap. There's no way. Uh I I think and not only that, but USC is also growing way faster than Tether. But does Te does USC need to flip Tether for it to be successful? Absolutely not. the pile is going to be massive here and I think both are going to grow to trillions in the next couple years. Trillions and I think at this point they are not competitors really because if you are in Asia and you want to pay for something you you have to use USDT if you are in America you have to use USDC. Yeah.

Okay. That's for the payments. But if you are thinking about your savings account or whatever, then you are going to use you know Maker or Athena or whatever. So those are kind of different things. Yeah. Yeah. Um but I think uh I think USC will just continue to grow massively. They're going to be or circle sorry they're going to be a beast. There's just enough there's enough pie as you said like the pie is going to grow so much and there's enough there's enough space for there to be a lot of products here, right? like we can have a lot of different stable coins offering yield in different ways, offering different types of products and obviously at some point I would imagine we find a way to abstract away what the stable coin is. It's kind of like we

talk about practically the blockchain, but like right now there's already, I don't know, 50, maybe a hundred stable coins. USDT, USDC, USD, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. There's no way we're going to have that kind of. You don't have that many letters in the alphabet. At some point, it's just going to be USD. And then I think you won't really know what's behind uh the curtain. Um or at least like like the the organization that's that's running it might like let's say you're holding it on Coinbase or Robin Hood or whatever. Maybe like obviously they'll know because they'll have some sort of partnership, but the user will just see USD in their account and they won't really know or care uh is my guess on how this all plays out in the probably near future. I'd say I got

a question uh for uh for for the audience and then and also for you Martin. Uh I want to know everybody listening, do you are you guys thinking about will you will you think about investing in Circle when they IPO? would you consider buying that or is that no go for you because you want to stay in crypto and you want to stay uh in the the crypto world and maybe you're not so looking to go to the IPO and then Martin are you going to write a pro report like are you thinking about about this as well for yourself and for our community? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. But again there's a lot of unknowns which we are yet to learn and not in in a few in a few months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. 100%.

and we'll have a pro report. I I'm like we'll have to see the valuation, but I think like long term I'm very bullish on it. Um so I I we'll probably be a buyer, but we'll have to see obviously the ins and outs of it. But yeah, I think it's a clear what's the what what do you think that's the bare case for USDC and circle? Uh that's a good question. The stablecoin bill not passing. Um but that would be stupid. like the bare case would be and I don't think that at all this will happen but everyone right now is up in arms about Trump and he's ruining the US and the economy and like you know all the capitals leaving the US and going

elsewhere. So like there's your bare case. If the US no longer remains relevant and the US dollar no longer remains a reserve currency of the world uh then there's your bare case though who's best to like regardless we're going to have stable coins whatever currency it's on and let's say it ends up being the euro which would be a joke but let's say it is sorry to all the European listeners like who's probably best suited to capitalize on that probably circle because they already have the what's it called euro euro eurc I think so like stable coins make complete like are so obvious and the bare case would just be that the US dollar no longer remains relevant but I'm pretty sure circle would capitalize

on whatever the next currency is anyway so I don't know it's hard to find one to be honest I think I think competition is is the bare case like this is a is going it already is fiercely competitive every bank is everybody is about to launch a stable coin right we are going to say I mean PayPal right like we don't talk about their stable coin, you know, and obviously it hasn't hasn't gotten the traction that we all thought it might get. You know, Fidelity is launching a stable coin. Fidelity, I've got Fidelity coming on the show later this week. I'll be asking them about that. Like, so I think I I I that's why I say like I'm I'm not convinced. I think there's a very I think there's a trap here to think that like, oh, Circle's already

won and therefore I should invest a bunch of money in their IPO and they're going to run away with it. And I think it's, as you said, they've got a big mode. It's likely that their network effects are big enough, but there's also fierce fierce competition coming. Yeah. But they've got two things. So they have a So one thing about financial markets that really matters, liquidity, bay gets liquidity, right? So the more liquidity you have, the more likely you are to get more liquidity. USDC obviously has that or circle already has that. So that's that's their mode. Their second mode is Coinbase. you have the number one company that is innovating and bringing crypto to you know upgrade the financial system and Coinbase owns USDC or Circle.

So like you also have distribution right because Coinbase has all the connections with all the institutions and a large part of retail. So they have both ends of it. Um so I like I just um obviously banks have distribution too. So, like maybe they can compete, but banks, the thing people got to remember is these are old, bloated companies that move so slow they can launch a stable coin in the summer. I imagine they don't do for two years. Like, they're going to take forever. And by then, Circle's at a trillion. Like, I don't think banks have a chance. Um, I'm so bearish on old companies. It's hilarious.

Especially old Especially old finance companies. Old finance companies. Yeah. Yeah. Old finance companies. The same way you would have embarrassed an old like uh old information companies at the start of the internet newspapers. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe maybe these old banks they are just waiting for Ethereum to launch their native rollups and then they will do that. I don't think they What about um what about like another another bare case could be they do have very limited revenue stream right now.

Now I'm not saying they can't change that but like they really only have one revenue stream right so that that I mean traditional business that's a bit dangerous. Yeah. Yeah, that's my bare case is um we are bullish on them because they will be used as payments and everyone will accept USDC but we will live in a future I think pretty soon where we will have US treasuries tokenized and at that point like who's not going to accept the payments in like US treasuries those are like super liquid you can you know it's kind yield bearing asset. So like that's basically

what a stablecoin is. What's the difference between tokenized US treasury stable coin? Just a middleman at that point, right? Yeah. But yeah, but circle is the middleman then and we don't really need circle. Yeah. You got to remember though like at least I mean I guess the crypto world's pretty small, but like USDC is the trading pair versus like everything, right? It's used in DeFi. It's used everywhere. It's going to be a while before some random tokenized treasury is going to get that right. Um, and so like across the crypto ecosystem anyway, USDC's already got all the partnerships, you know, similar how Tether does in their world too. So like again, it's a tough thing for anyone new to come in and do. So I don't know. You make good

points though. Those are good those are good bare cases for it. I agree. But think about yourself like if I'm going to provide liquidity today, I'm not going to use USDC or USDT. I'm going to use some yield bearing stable coin with some Okay. So, you'd use SUSDS. What's 50% of SUSDS? USDC, right? Yes. So, either way, USDC wins. Well, it's it's it's different. It's Yeah, probably. Let's not go there because it's more nuanced.

But, all right, let let's let's move off stable coins. We're probably boring the audience now, but I freaking got you on that one. No, you didn't. He just said he had nuance to discuss. Don't let him do that to you. All right, let's talk let's talk real quick Robin Hood. Uh we had we had Vlad on the podcast on Monday. Uh really cool to have him. He's the founder of of Robin Hood. Um they're obviously a beast of a company. They're worth about 40 billion right now or 35 billion, something like that depending on on the markets. Um and you know one of the largest let's say like uh fintech companies uh in the world at least in the US let's call it and they really from what we heard from Vlad are going kind of all in on crypto

which is really exciting. You know they taking a bit of a different route than Coinbase but like they ultimately want to do something similar. They want to upgrade the financial system. They want to give back to to the smaller you know smaller people to retail let's call it uh and give them you know democratize finance give them more opportunity etc. And you know they're already doing a great job of that in the US and their their plans are to you know really to scale globally and and crypto is going to be a integral part of that scaling. So, uh, exciting stuff. Before I give comment over to you guys, uh, or for you, Jay, I know there was a lot of our audience who were a little bit upset, I guess, that we had Vlad on the podcast, which is understandable, uh, for those that don't know, there was some stuff

going on with GME back in GameStop back in the day. And, um, and Robin Hood like shut down the ability to buy, uh, um, buy or sell Game. No, buy GameStop. And so, the only thing you do is sell. So then the the price tanked. Everyone lost a lot of money. Um except for Yeah. Except for Sidell. Well, so like the only thing I think people need to understand is we don't really know the full story of what happened in the background there. Like there's you got to understand Trady Rails don't really work so well. And so when you get a lot of capital flood into something, it generally breaks, which is what they said happened. And so like they just had to do this because they didn't have the capital to to market make anymore.

People can believe that or not believe that. I don't know. Either way, for me it's like guys that was five years ago. I think they are doing so much to help the average person now in the US and globally. Like I think these are things that we can either we just don't understand so we shouldn't have a strong opinion on because we weren't there and we don't really get it. Uh and or like can you forgive? I'm not sure. Like obviously if I lost money in GameStop I didn't like I'd be pretty pissed too. I just um I don't know. It's hard for me to think that that you know that he was trying to do that and like really try to be you know a bad person to those that had it. like I don't think he was trying to tank the stock but um it's difficult

decisions you have to make as a centralized company which is unfortunate and I think a big part of why he's like I want to move to crypto because it sucks to have to like he talked about how much bloat and how much like struggles there is to run a centralized business in finance because it's not you don't get to make the decisions you are at the wrath of the the underlying infrastructure of tradi which is a disaster uh and so you know I think he sees the the opportunity of of crypto and of blockchain and I think he can see that they can upgrade Robin Hood and offer way better things to their um to their customers as a result. So for me I I was quite um it was great to hear that and uh kind of excited for what they're going what they're doing. Jay, I'll

throw it over to you just your comments from the from the discussion. Yeah, like it was so interesting when he talked about when they went to 245 trading on stocks and he was like the lift to do that was monumental in order to figure that out. And and here we are sitting like nodding our heads like, "Yeah, great. You you went to 245 like congratulations and here we are in crypto 24/7 is available." And he gets that. He definitely gets it. I think the the thing that stood out to me the most was how um he was much more crypto uh literate than I expected him to be. Like I wasn't sure if he was if he was just

un saw crypto as an opportunity from a like hey you can buy sell tokens on Robin Hood you know and I buy sell Bitcoin and Salana great and like that's there's a lot of that happening and obviously their target customer is more you know retail so they started offering that like I wasn't sure if it was more of like hey this is a new product or if he really saw crypto as I should say more specifically blockchain chain as new rails to basically completely rebuild his business and the future of finance. And he fully sees that and he gets it and he talked about how they want to use that and they want to offer 247 trading but they've they know the they know how much the regulation uh you

have to work with that you have to understand the compliance and all of that. So yeah, just I mean very again like I I I feel like I've never been so bullish as I am right now. Like every these conversations that we're having with these major players who want to use our tech in order to bring better products to their customers. And he knows it like he what was what did he say? He said it's a it's a 10x uh improvement on their current like rails of moving money across their network and the way that they manage their products.

10x improvement. There was one thing he said I think shocked you and I both kind of gave a double look which was he talked about tokenizing private equity and I was like oh I never really thought about that one like talking about like tokenizing SpaceX or or Open AI or whatever and I was like huh like it's funny we didn't even think that and this is what we do every day but he's already thinking about that and trying to figure out how to do that and I just thought yeah what they're doing I think is going to be really cool and I think um we're gonna it's going to be very interesting over the coming years to watch Robin Hood and Coinbase go at it and really like ultimately upgrade the financial system, right? We we've never really had um finance companies especially in the

internet uh you know um part of the era where they could really take off and flourish right like we had Apple and we had um uh you know Amazon etc kind of re basically reinvent how information and communication is done around the world and they just like took the old companies which were like let's say newspaper companies etc and they just dwarfed them and they they be have become the mo the biggest companies in the world and we've never had that in finance again because what we just said the finance rails never allowed for it. Right? PayPal was supposed to be the thing that revolutionized the the the finance world. Never did it because it just built on top of something that was already broken. And so PayPal's like a $50 billion company right now or

something not even uh the highest it ever got to was like 300 billion whereas you have banks like JP Morgan at like 700 billion, right? So like the the newer companies were never able to like dethrone the incumbents and that's you know in tech usually that happens quick and finance never happened and I think Coinbase and Hood uh are the two opportunities we have for that actually happening and I think both of them could dethrone the banks at some point in terms of like market cap and size because they are Coinbase more than Robin Hood right now but Robin Hood sees it and so I think they're going to go that way too. they are actually rebuilding the financial system rather than just rebuilding on the old financial system. Um, and so that is something that I'm probably the most

excited for of what we're seeing right now is is these two to go at it and really change things. Um, and I know people hate that they're centralized companies and blah blah blah, but like ultimately that's that's what we're trying to do here with crypto is like change and upgrade the financial system to give opportunity to billions of people around the world. And that's not going to happen if you have to download a MetaMask wallet and connect into unis swap and blah blah blah. It's going to happen with these companies that have, you know, thousands of people that can like create this and build this and move this forward. Eventually, our big the ethos of what is we want with crypto will will come true, but like we need this first. We need these companies to push this industry forward. I think Coinbase and Robin Hood are probably

going to be the two that do it. So, I'm I'm really excited for that. Um, yeah. Any other comments on on the Robin Hood conversation? What about uh I was just thinking this um is there going to be is somebody going to come in and and buy a bank that is a failing bank and they and so they you you get the infrastructure you get all the compliance you get all you're you're you're you've got all the legal filings to operate as a bank in the US and maybe even globally. Uh because there's a lot of banks that are not doing well right now, right? And I'm I'm in a little bank, not like a not necessarily a mega bank. Um and maybe

it's not in the US, maybe it's somewhere, maybe it's in another emerging economy. And and that becomes the next player because they understand crypto, they move faster, they understand AI. Like I could really see that happening. I know Raul Paul has talked in the past about he tried to buy a bank like what 10 15 years ago and then decided not to because he just was like I can't work with the regulators and do what I actually want to do. Start a new bank not buy a bank. He's trying to start a brand new type of bank. I thought he was going to buy one though. I thought that was the path. Starting a new style that have anyway. But yes, 100% this coming. I what I think is going to happen and probably the one who might do it is going to be Circle or

Coinbase. They are going to buy not a small bank but a big bank. And because if you think about what they need, right? Once you have like Circle for example, they have the technology. All they need is more distribution. So who is the best thing for them to buy? A bank. There's all the users. There's the dollars right there. Just tokenize it and away you go, right? Like why wouldn't they do that? So I I think I don't know if it happens this year. Maybe probably we need stablecoin bill. We need market structure bill. Like we need a lot of these bills in place. Then you'll see the maybe consensus, the Coinbase. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the exchanges did this. Um or the um who did you have on the podcast a couple weeks ago? Stanie, who um Stani say who is basically Santi

Santi, sorry. Yeah, not Stani. He's basically buying you know who could be the other ones to do this. Uh speaking of Stani is a or DeFi protocols. Um, I could definitely see either Devi protocols or the like the crypto equities that are big and have big treasuries buying banks in the US or around the world and basically putting that bank on chain, right? Which basically is like, okay, I'm going to put all these customers on chain. All their dollars move on chain instead. They all get stable coins. Uh, they integrate into whatever DeFi apps like a would be a perfect one to do this. Um, yeah, for sure. It's just such it's such a simple playbook because you like you said you have the distribution. I mean not simp simple as it's hard to execute but like the playbook is pretty easy to understand. you have the distribution

and you have a like a 10x lower cost way to do this so you can become profitable because profitability is the biggest issue for a lot of these like behemoth companies like with in Santi's case he's not buying a bank he's buying a telecom company that has massive distribution and basically going to turn them into a bank by offering like banking products to because he believes that telecom is the best way to get distribution and get directly in front of a customer like you can see a a lot of a lot of things happening and the in the end it's all on crypto rails. It's all going to be on crypto rails. But the problem is that most apps don't have money for it. But the banks do have those money. And so

once they'll see, okay, we are slowly dying, but we are still worth 200 billion. And there are like pretty good projects and apps in DeFi space which would give us not only which would bring us not only the talent and the infra and like experience and Lindy effects and everything but they cost just like I don't know two billion or five billion. It's you know like so so who who can buy who right? And I think you're saying it's still buy DeFi. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely going to be some sort of merger acquisitions here between DeFi and banks and just crypto equities.

Which way it goes, yeah, which way it goes, I don't know. Like D5 projects are worth eight billion max uh unis and 8 billion FTV. So it's not liquid. So how they could acquire some bank, right? No way. But the opposite way it could work. Yeah. I mean there could be some sort of merger, right? And yeah, I don't know. I don't know how they do it, but for sure it's coming. I I don't know if it's this year or next, but it's definitely coming. Uh that's going to be that's going to be really cool. Also going to piss off a lot of crypto people, I think, because, you know, they hate the banks. And so they're like, "Oh, we can't bring the banks in." It's like, guys, this is this was the plan all along. Obviously, we got to do this. Uh but anyway, whoever is the first crypto

company to buy a bank, they're going to be a legend and they're going to go down history. So, I'm really excited for that. Uh okay. And piss off crypto Twitter to no end. Speaking of businesses that are struggling with profit, let's flip this one over to Ethereum. Great transition. Thank you, Jay. I thought you were going to respect that one. So, okay, Bart, I'm going to throw it over to you in a second, but let me just start this one off. So, up on the screen here, I have a chart of Ethereum's network rev. So this is basically like looking at their their base fees, so transaction fees, priority fees, uh, MEV, and as well blob fees, which is what L2s pay for for data availability.

And, um, you know, if you remember back to last cycle, for those that were here, Ethereum's fees were just absolutely bonkers. Like in November 2021, which the peak of the cycle, Ethereum brought in almost $2 billion in uh, in network fees in one month. just one month. Crazy, right? This is when everyone's like, "Okay, Ethereum is going to be the thing." Like, this is nuts. Now, obviously, that was a different world. Ethereum's fees were ridiculous, but everyone's trading NFTs on the menu. It made no sense. They had no competition. It was ridiculous. Um, since then, we've got a lot more competition. Ethereum has has um scaled in a different way, moving a lot of that activity over to to L2s. They've lowered the or raised the gas target or lowered whatever it was um so it's cheaper. So,

they've done a lot of things to scale their block space uh in the Ethereum ecosystem. Today, in March, which just finished, it's April 1st as we record this, they hit $22 million for the month of March in total network rev. The last time they were that low was June 2020. Okay, June 2020. That was like just before DeFi summer hit. So, like we didn't even have DeFi then. Like, it was there, but no one's really using it. It was like the next month that things just started to take off. So like it's wild to be this low. Um I guess for context I just so Salana which also is down massively like look in January of this year it hit 200 million and it's now

down to you know in March was 18 million. Um but not as big of a difference as Ethereum obviously. Um I don't know. Do you want me to give my opinion first or Martin do you want to kind of run with this for a second? You can start and by the way you have monthly for Ethereum but weekly for Solena. So we didn't change. Oh sorry. Okay. So Solano is actually just to clarify that in January it's 550 million. Today it sits at wow 71 million uh for the month of March. So it's 3x Ethereum. I'm going to let Martin explain what's going on there in a second because I think a lot of people are getting this one wrong. One thing I just want to say in Ethereum obviously this looks abysmal. looks terrible uh and it's not great. But the way that I

sort of think about this is this is Ethereum scaling, right? They have overproduced block space now essentially with L2s. Um and they have changed their business model, right? They sort of disrupted theirelves, which ultimately is a good thing, not a bad thing, right? They've disrupted theirelves. their focus is on DA instead of um uh you know MEV and and all the other ways that they were making money before priority fees etc which was a lot of their m their revenues back in the day and instead they've kind of changed the model so they can actually scale and so this this kind of reminds you of like um back in the day when the internet was getting adopted they I forget what year it was but they built all these cables all around the world and um and so they

basically like scaled the internet and then like no one used it there was just no not enough like actual activity to use up all that bandwidth. Uh and so there was a period there where every like oh is the internet even going to make it like this stuff looks dead. why did we just build all this new infrastructure? And again, they just overscaled and then it took, you know, 5, 10 years, whatever it was. It took YouTube to be invented to start to use up all that bandwidth, right? And then all of a sudden, it was like, holy we actually didn't even build enough. And so, I think the same thing is true here. We've scaled Ethereum and its network. The fees don't make sense, but that's not ultimately what I think we we value blockchains on. And so, now we're waiting for our YouTube moment, right?

Which is, I mean, coming with stable coins, coming with other things, etc. So, like I'm not overly concerned, although obviously it looks really bad, but ultimately I'm not overly concerned. The thing that I think trips people out is well, Ethereum is going down so much and Salana's continuing to go up and now Salana's, you know, 3.5x what Ethereum was. That's the part I think where people are fighting Ethereum and they're like, okay, this doesn't make sense. Ethereum's done. Martin, I'll throw it over to you. What's really going on here? I think we tend to look at the previous cycle 2021 and see like you know billions on the monthly fees. It's just insane. And that year in that previous cycle we were just kind of all learning what so like what smart

contract platforms enable, what should be built, how these blockchains should be designed and all these kind of stuff. So we are definitely not going to see something similar where like Ethereum is going to make is making billions in a monthly fees and it's because we are doing a progress and we have learned a lot of things and there is more competition and a lot of stuff but today Ethereum is scaling through layer 2 and they are increasing uh gas limits. So like they are doing everything they can to reduce these kind of fees that we are looking at right

now. So why is everyone fing that Ethereum fees are going down? Because it's their goal. Everyone wants them to go down. But the point is like even if you think about Facebook or YouTube, everyone was using them like for years because that's where all the users were, where all the content was and they were not charging anything. they were not monetizing like any of it and then at some point when they were big enough they started to think about monetizing their their products, right?

So, you know, they came up with um advertisements and sponsorings and those kind of stuff and now they are making a a ton of money and Ethereum is in a similar position right now. We have learned a lot over the last few years and now Ethereum is kind of um doing and trying to develop a better products for layer 2s and other chains. And Ethereum is not perfect. Um I'm not saying like everyone should go and use Ethereum, but many people are just looking at this chart and ignoring everything else. But really, Ethereum is still the most decentralized, the most

secure chain with a lot of clients. It was it never went down. And those are the properties that people might not um appreciate today, but like institutions who are coming, they appreciate these features like the security is the number one thing. If you know um Robin Hood or Bank of America, they are all talking about using blockchains and okay the the blockchain in is 10 times better and cheaper, but are you going to use blockchains that are like not secure or you are going to prioritize security above everything else? So I'm just going to stop there one sec. When we talked to Vlad on

Monday, he brought up L2s and L3s. He never mentioned any other like L1 blockchain and stuff, but he did bring up potentially building on an L2 or L3 and creating that. So like you could tell he really understood that model on what Ethereum is doing. He didn't really even blink at the other side of things. So I I think you're right. That is what institutions care about and that is where they want to build and we're seeing it. I mean Fidelity and everyone right now is launching stable coins and L2s and whatever on on Ethereum. Um and it's because Ethereum is building for the long term, right? Uh, and so like you said, just like tech companies were, they were just building for a long time.

They wanted to make sure they got their mo their users and they'll figure out revenue later. And I think that's exactly what Ethereum is doing now. Exactly. Yeah. It's it's more of a if you are bullish that institutions and all the apps and Robin Hood and like many others are coming and they are going to use Ethereum, then you shouldn't be just looking at this chart and like, hey, Ethereum is 200 bill. It's too much. It should be repriced and go much lower. you should be like thinking about that future like if everyone is building on top of Ethereum it it it might probably never be able you might never be able to justify Ethereum's valuation if you are going to use um discounted cash flow model or whatever it's not going to what it's not

going to drive the main value for Ethereum at least not in a in a near future in the next five years let's say explain to me why Salana's crushing it though and they're at 70 million man last month. Well, because there is less activity and therefore less me and less priority fees. But what's really interesting here is when you think about Solana, you need to be bullish on ME that are generated on these um blockchains because like 90 95% of the rev on Solana is based on me tips or prior or jot dips. It's basically saying

like, hey, I want my transactions to go first because of whatever reasons. So it's kind of different model because when I was talking about Ethereum it's they they are their vision is okay we are going to scale this very secure um very robust infrastructure and like people can build on top of us and only consume our DA or you know base sequencing whatever we offer but Solana you really need to believe in in uh me and that me will stay and ideally will only grow over time. But the critics are saying we think that ME might be captured by apps or like you know the front ends that generate that ME because

well I also have to say not all ME is extracted. So maybe sometimes like I just want my transactions like immediately happen. I don't want to wait not even seconds. So it's not like I'm trying to you know get the better price. So not all not all ME is bad me, but most of it a lot of it is. So So for those that don't understand me for a second here or or priority fees, what this is essentially is most of it is bots or whales or um or traders like professional traders who are front running your transaction. So you as retail go to trade a memecoin, they frontr run it and do it just before and they take a little bit of cut from what you're going to get. So you get a little

bit of a worse price. This is a bad product for people, right? But it makes a lot of money for those small amount of people. It's a it's a very small number of wallets that make the money on this. Okay. And um ultimately though, that's a bad product for the user. And so again, if we think long term, is that going to remain or is that going to go away? Blockchains have the technology to remove that, right? We already have it with cow protocol for example over in Ethereum. So do we think that in the future there's going to be more me or less me? Right? and as a percentage and my guess I think Martin's guess is there's probably going to be less now there are people like multicoin capital they believe that me is everything that's how you value an L1 we believe

that that's actually not the case and there are many others like um um who are we thinking from the Ethereum Foundation Drake Justin Drake exactly think it's the opposite it's not going to be that and we're going to create either apps or or technologies that um remove a lot of the me and make it a more fair uh place to trade and transact on chain um And so right now when you look as Martin said 95% of all of that rev on Salana is that ME and fees. So let's say in however many years from now we remove that right let's say you removed it today. Salana's uh rev or revenue here is actually only like what 5 million uh something around that would be 95% even less. So like um you know at 71 yeah it's less than five

million. So you can see base fees here that's what it represents. Base fees are just the fees and then you have priority fees, jet to those are the well and vote fees which is six million. Those those remain right? Yeah, vote fees remain. Those are the validators. Yeah. Right. So, okay. So, you're 67 million whatever. So, like way way way way lower. And so this it's kind of actually reminds me of let me just zoom back out on the Ethereum chart here where we said here in 2021 just like remove these numbers from your brain because this was a an anomaly. This will never happen again where you have one chain that has these, you know, $50 fees uh that people will buy these stupid cartoon NFTs on.

Like that that's never coming back, right? And and I don't mean maybe people won't buy NFTs, but meaning like people doing it just to do it and like pay these ridiculous fees that make no sense. Like that's never happening. Plus no competition. So this is gone. You might as well remove that from your memory. I think I strongly believe that this also should be removed from your memory eventually. Now I don't know if this is going to take a year or two years or three years. That's the thing is the timeline is we're unsure, but at some point I think this gets shrunk. Now maybe they can get their base fees to be enough revenue, but like I don't think so. Um I think uh and what Martin thinks and this is what we've talked about before with our data availability um pro report we put out and we did a show on

this before. Data availability is where the big revenue is going to come from. No longer is it going to be mess and tips and stuff. So that's the world we're thinking happens. But when that happens I don't know. Do you have an idea on timeline Martin or do do you have like an assumption there or are we just way too early? I think Solana this cycle will do well because like most of the apps there and there will still be maybe we'll see new all-time highs for Solana real economic value this cycle. I think so for sure. Yeah, that's why we still hold them in our portfolio too.

But like you know when you think about five years 10 years horizon then it's get blurry and I'm not sure there. Yeah. Yeah. The timelines are are unknown, but it feels fairly certain that's the way we're going. Okay. Um, do we want to talk about the Bitcoin bonds? Uh, we've got like five minutes. What do you guys think? Is that a quick conversation or save it? I like it. So, let's just quickly discuss it. Okay, let's do it. Martin, why don't you walk us through? So, Bitcoin bonds, uh, I haven't really learned about it yet, so I don't really know. So, Martin, why don't you just teach me and Jay what it is? Jay just woke up, so he probably doesn't know either. Uh, teach us what it is and let's have a conversation on Bitcoin bonds. Sounds interesting. Okay, I'll I'll just read it and then I'll try to

explain in my words. Trump team says they want to buy Bitcoin in a revenue neutral way. It means they want to acquire Bitcoins and they don't want to pay for it. Okay. And who doesn't, right? It's a it's a good idea. And the way they want to do it is that they want to issue 10 year treasuries and 10% of that collected money is going to they're going to use and buy Bitcoin and the the way it helps them to acquire like Bitcoin in a revenue neutral way is that okay here are 10 year um treasuries

but we are not giving you uh 3% 3% we will just give you 2% but then um we will also give you an upside in bitcoin because we are going to use 10% of your funds and buy bitcoin until a certain point you will get all the exposure to that bitcoin that they used to buy with those 10% but until a certain point your profits will be split with the treasuries because they to the risk and how they are now you think how it's like not costing them anything because now if they are going to issue US treasuries let's say there is a 3% yield so they need to pay 3% interest but now

it can be only like 2% and that 1% kind of difference would bring them that premium that they are buying the the bitcoin so if bitcoin goes down they will still be able to okay we we we might loss 10% of that capital because we bought Bitcoin but Bitcoin went to zero but we issued our debt for 2% and not 3%. So you see the difference and I think it's super interesting. It kind of feels like it still needs to go through legislation or something. But yeah, it looks like it's just a brief by who? Bitcoin Policy Institute. I don't even know who that is or what that

is. Um do you know who put this out? who these guys are. Uh, I don't know. Oh, but it was retweeted by Matthew Seagull from Vanex. So, I think it's a credible source. Yeah. I mean, look, it's super interesting. I think I think that governments should be like I don't know if this is the right answer to be honest. I have no idea. But we have this like incredible asset that is global, that is decentralized, um, that is permissionless. it's getting adoption regardless of governments participate or not. Why not use it to further um the strength of your economy, right? Or the

not your economy necessarily, but like the strength of your balance sheet, let's call it. Uh and so it's smart to start finding ways to integrate this and and this is all what we talked about of upgrading the financial system, right? we've we've relied only on the basically fiat for a long time uh or gold and now we have these new things that you can do a lot of things with and it's like why not experiment with them um and uh and try to find new avenues to I mean ultimately generate revenue for the US um and uh and I guess for the consumer as well if it works out I I don't know it's kind of cool it's interesting in my opinion yeah and I think like we all want you know not just United states, but pretty

much everyone buy bitcoins. But like h how should they do it? Like should USA just issue new money and buy bitcoins for it? Like you know there's your bare circle while they are they are still trying to reduce their expenses and you know fire people and whatever and then they would just issue and to buy more more bitcoins. So this seems like a pretty pretty good way to do it I think. Um, what people need to do here that need to understand is like with this Trump administration and the deregulation of everything they're doing in tech and this like revamp of government, revamp of the financial system, like they're

they're really trying to change everything. And so like this is the one of those moments in time where like what you think you know, you have to start to like get rid of that and be like where could what could the future have in store for us? if we were to rebuild the financial system, what would it look like? If we were to rebuild AI or the internet or whatever, like what would it look like? It's like those are the opportunities we have in front of us here. And um I think that these kind of things are going to be there's going to be more and more of them. They're going to seem weird and reckless to a lot of the boomers, right? But I think like ultimately this is how we get ourselves out of the fiat mess that we're in. Uh is by utilizing blockchain and and

crypto assets to literally upgrade the financial system. Like Coinbase has the best slogan. I love that they say that. That's really is what we're trying to do here. And so like we need to be okay and accepting of these like random weird new ideas. I'm sure there's a lot of, you know, people out there who would look at this and like this is crazy. What are we doing here? Um I don't know. I think I I I I embrace these things and I want to see more of these things because I think it's it's ultimately where the future's going. Yeah. And and I think you can't underestimate when a sitting president says you can acquire an asset as long as you find a as long as you do it in this way, right? Like yeah, a lot of people are now trying to go figure that out,

right? And why not? And like why? Yeah, of course they are, right? They believe in the asset. They believe in Bitcoin. We have an avenue to acquire it. Like let's go, right? So see more more and more of this. Well, we talk about network effects a lot on this show, and there's no better network effect than the millions of people that own Bitcoin and want Bitcoin to keep going up. And so, when you give an opportunity for the people that own Bitcoin to, you know, find more ways for the US government to buy Bitcoin, they're going to figure that out. You know what I mean? Like, that's network effects right there. Uh, so yeah, super super cool. Um, I think it's actually kind of exciting. Let's see. I mean, will it go through? Will it get passed? Like, who knows? Probably not to be completely honest, but like

hopefully. Um, cool. Well, this was a good conversation, guys. I actually learned a lot during this conversation. So, uh, appreciate you guys for, uh, for showing up and being here and having another fun conversation. Thank you, J. Great times. Great times. Let us know you guys listening in. Uh, really, really curious to know if you guys are going to invest in if you're interested in investing in Circle and or other crypto IPOs because we can definitely talk more about that in the future. As Martin said, there's not a lot of right now. It's it's fun to have a conversation about it, but as we get closer to these IPOs actually happening, if you guys want to make those investments, let us know and we'll make sure we we help you think those through and be prepared. Another great episode. Thanks so much for listening,

folks. If you want to hang out and jam in person, have a beer, come to Consensus in Toronto May 14th to 16th. I'm going to be there doing a bunch of shows live on stage. Kyle's going to be there as well, uh, as even a couple more of our team members, I think, are going to join. and we're going to have a Milk Road event and we've partnered with Consensus to get you guys a discount off tickets. So, hit the link in the show notes. You can save $350 on your Consensus ticket. Hope to see you there. Have a great weekend, folks. Thanks again for joining in. We'll see you next week. As always, if you liked today's episode, please hit subscribe and make sure you follow us so you don't miss out on the next one. There's also a link in the description to our free fiveinut

daily newsletter where we simplify crypto for you while making you laugh. And if you're willing to step up your crypto investing game, we're going to also leave a link for Milk Road Pro. You get access to our portfolio where you can see exactly what we are buying. This is your number one resource to help you invest successfully in crypto. One final note, this show is for educational purposes only and nothing we say is financial advice. Investing in crypto or any asset is risky and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose. Thanks so much for listening in my friends.