Crypto's Back to Basics Move with YQ

Transcript

it's no longer like previous Cycles we all have some Target if I'm an AI that wants to achieve some super intelligence I want to talk to the other AIS except for right now the sentiment in the space is kind of a little bit all over the place at the same time they want to see okay what's the difference between your token compared to mcoin welcome back to the rollup your home for technical talks and open conversations that shape the modular future nothing on today's show is to be construed as Financial advice you can see our full disclosure list at tholl up.co ventures sit back relax and enjoy today's episode after a quick word from some of our awesome Partners innovating Finance Global institutional and onchain deep liquidity to drive

Capital efficiency now maximize yields on institutional grade liquid staking with M unlock trillion dollars of capital via F Bitcoin all of this secured by mantle treasury of billions in stables and E Capital Pools this entire ecosystem is coordinated by a vast network of seasoned BCS that are aiming to create the next generation of Banking and Financial technology this is mantle all right yq East Denver oh yeah finally fresh off of the Hong Kong trip huh yes you as well yeah yeah yeah what is your uh so so I I put on a tweet saying that

the that the crypto culture in the East versus the West is vastly different but with no other explanation and people were asking what like for an explanation so I don't know if there's anyone better like what is the like what is the difference from your perspective from like the Hong Kong trip versus what you expect at e Denver and just like this this broad difference between the East and the West when it comes to crypto just curious from your perspective yeah it's a really good question um yeah as you know right where we building a lot of this uh infrastructure uh stuff for the past few years have been in this space for a long time and uh we've been working with all the top like sort of infrastructure projects and somehow most of them are based in like either the us or in Europe right so

that's why I I roughly know like what's like sort of the M Focus from this Western pers at the same time because um I'm living in Singapore and I have a lot of friends in Singapore Hong Kong and also soci is asan so I regularly like talk to them roughly I also know what they thinking as you mentioned right right now I would say there is a huge difference between like sort of the focus around this Western project and also Eastern projects and may may not just be project also VCS and also the Traders and the qls um somehow like like we can from this um sort of three or four sort of aspects right first for the project I would say uh as we can see

right for the past few years uh until now most of the infrastructure projects and the infrastructure innovation coming from the the US and Europe uh for example for the rooll up right op I Trum um all in the uh Bas in the US uh same to like s of the ziky SN and probably in the um half us half Europe starware we all know right from this Israel and then regarding raking right I leer um sham old friend from his um Seattle right and then Babylon David Stanford professor and even solier uh is also from this Bay Area so uh as we can see right all these major infrastructure in

Innovations from this um w at the same time most of the applications especially this cycle uh from these east of the Asia uh a few example right people like hyper liquid it's um these people from Malaysia pendo uh my good friend uh TI uh he he's um he right now he's Singapore ring but originally from Malaysia and then beyond that also this um Jupiter uh also this um like am is in Singapore but most of their team is in Malaysia um yeah same the GMG and the bot uh in uh in Hong Kong and also Singapore I can give you a lot of these

examples but rly as you can see right infrastructure mostly from this West and but a lot of this um uh popular application from the East and then on the VC side um I would say lot most of the US VCS like poly chain and um a acz other ones the they M focus on still on infrastructure probably that's why we have more infrastructure from the uh from the wi and then on the E side we have more liquid fund like Aur from defin also my uh good old friend and U uh yeah he's uh he's running this liquid fund um so far I mean the um the ROI is pretty good and um and a lot of these uh

uh Asian VCS like LSG hash key and a lot of them actually they also have this liquid fund or this um trading part and market makers as well I met a bunch of those in at consensus a lot of market makers yeah the cool thing is like when we talk about Market maker like example jsr originally they are from the US winter mute um uh actually jsr most jsr winterm they headquarter in London and somehow they have the branches in Singapore but as you know right more and more like sort of these projects launch and uh um and a lot of I don't know why probably all the exchanges like is Asian exchanges so that's why they put a lot of efforts in Asia and try to do the

market making there uh and beyond that as you mention right we have this sort of like minic cycle for the past few months on MCO trading right a lot of of these KS and also these kind of individual Traders uh they are based in Asia and a lot of them actually are also in the US but they couldn't say that they in the US um and a lot of the treading BS um also from the Asia and I would say as you can see right uh when we talking about this um uh long-term infrastructure uh projects mostly in the uh us and Europe but when we talking about is um trading and uh also this uh Market maker and also exchanges they're mostly in Asia so that's why the the

sentiment and the mindset are completely different so in the uh in the West for example in Denver right when we look at all these events most of them are hacker halls and also hacker THS and people are just try to build some cool applications cool infrastructure right but in Hong Kong or in Singapore for the token 204 49 right we we all know that it's mainly about trading so people are like look at what kind of coins either VC tokens or even the M me mem coins like so what kind of assets they can trade so it's more like trading Focus culture and uh most of topics around this trading so in that case right um right so it's no longer they they don't really uh

differentiate whether it's a VC con infrastructure con or app con uh it's basically what you want like whether you have a better upside and what's like the current narrative or what's the current ha around all these sort of tokens or coins they can trade so they are more straightforward I would say compared to a lot of the VCS and projects um in the Weston uh I believe you can also um feel the like this this kind of U culture difference right definely yeah but at the same time I I I can't say which uh which is a like sort of better uh because like in the end for crypto right

it's not just about pure building it's also about like trading and when we talk blockchain we also talk about cryptocurrency of course it's it's a like they they sort of tight intertwined yes it's a Natural Evolution right yeah yes yeah yeah I'm not I'm not sure there's no I mean without one there wouldn't be the other and without the other there wouldn't be you know the first one they go hand inand yes um but I I found through Singapore token 2049 last year um Bangkok and then now Hong Kong I the I found there was a stark difference between uh just the cultur like the cultural events there versus eth Denver even eth CC yes and and some of these and I mean I've come to to be

grateful for both and you kind of have to learn how to operate in in each different environment and it's been quite I mean it's been enjoyable to be a part of as a whole except for right now the sentiment in the space is kind of a little bit all over the place and so you're you're an OG yq you know you're friends with vital like your friends with some of these really early adopters of the space and uh you know you you probably have a different perspective than many people who have been here for a couple years or even just a year or two so with this perspective I'm curious about your takes on basically what's been happening in the space over the last several weeks I mean to kind of lay the groundscape we had the this High FTV low float meta that people push back on

kind of went all the way to the other side of the pendulum to this kind of meme coin meta and then now just like flat out crime on chain um and and I due to your your tenure in the space I think you you may have a unique perspective on the cabals that have been happening in stuff with this Libra coin Meteora Jupiter so like what's been happening there and like what's your take on all of this yeah as you mentioned right for this cycle uh it's it's a I would say this cycle is quite different from the previous ones typically like typical within one second right we won't have more than probably two narratives but in this cycle for the past almost one year we probably already have five or six minic Cycles like by in around the end

of 2023 right Andy Robie must know modular right of course yeah modular and then after that it's a modular celesa and then um it was hot for a few months and um it was around the top when celesa price went to the top and after that it's IG right reaking Pawn system people Farm like s of points and then after that abs and then we got this ZK ZK season uh starware star Knight and bunch of ZK projects launch tokens and then after that uh I believe we also have this uh um like stuff around this um sort of this BTC BTC F L2 L2 BTC uh

bablon and and then we also have this D and and then around sort of like um the third or fourth quarter of last year we went to this kind of mem season and with pumped off fun got popular people launch mem coins and U and basically uh people turn like s of this uh Solana and also pan into online casino along with all the different liquidity provisioning from this radium and also Jupiter um as you can see right um so for this is really uh complicated and uh I I this two more like sort of mini waves one is this a agent along with virtuals snz

after that Trump trump token president coin and then right now slapy coins into the Libra Scandal as you mentioned so as you can see we already list almost 10 different small like sort of narratives and also waves yeah within a year it's been it's been crazy yeah it's super fast and and and um if if it follow the previous like sort of trend right it's probably can last for another like 10 years with all different narrative but right now everything just squeezed into almost one year and everything is moving so fast and even for new narrative or Trend it typically just last one or two month and then people I just I just feel like people right now are super smart

people can quickly pick up the Playbook so if you are on the new narrative like sort of for the first one two projects you probably can be successful say on top exchange it but if you're the number three uh it can already already be very late as you mentioned right regarding like sort of this um experience I I as I mentioned right I talk to this projects either from the US or from this Asia I just feel like right now it's quite I mean weird that that's exactly the term when I talk to a lot of these VCS uh Traders even KS and uh everyone's feel weird because for for for VC project right they feel I mean for project they feel like okay right now as you

mentioned right High uh sort of high fdv low flow complain by almost everyone also exchange your community but if you um and then like like if you directly launch on this sort of Ido Dex right you don't really have a lot of liquidity and uh then after that it's very difficult to be listed on centralized exchanges something like that and and then beyond that even like sort of the people who earn the trader earn a lot from mcoin they complain because right now even like to trade M coin is very difficult the thing is like uh previously you can still have this uh Christmas tree right probably after a few days or a few weeks but right now it's just a few minutes

yeah even for this MCO Trader Pro Trader feel like it's just too fast and if you look at the data for the past 24 hours they only probably one project one token graduate from pum do fund reach like 1 million fdv yeah or something like that so basically I I just feel like all everyone has a Playbook and they can just run Bots from run each other and so right now everything is quite sort of a um sort of like like like like sort of a a fund out by all the players Traders and uh and and all the that sort of people and then VC is a super I mean concern because like if they are making investment in the primary market right

now it's not many projects with low fdv they can make investment into at the same time you know right most of the good project if they can make money they don't want the investment for VC um otherwise if they couldn't make money they couldn't get the investment from the VC and as you mentioned right regarding the cabal uh of course after this Libra we found like okay definitely there are some cabals around all these celebrity coins yeah and recently we read from the K Kanye basically sold his Twitter account to to this B this another cabal uh on Solana and at the same time we have see there cabals in the Europe you Dubai and also in Hong

Kong in Singapore different cabal they they running different sort of mem coins and uh and I just feel like when we say um I sort of we compl sort of high fdv low float when token listed on this uh Central exchange but when we say mcoins launch on this um Dax we say it's a fair launch right but actually not fair yeah all these uh from this um Liber sort of Scandal right we they review that all the famous meme coins are basically manipulate by different cabals like they accumulate probably over 80 or 90% of the tokens and at the same time time

this is a fair launch but we all know that it's not fair so that that's sort of uh that's why we say um the current market is very weird it's it's sort of like people it's no longer like previous Cycles we all have some Target like last cyle we say okay we have the def summer we know that ethereum too slow we need to address the scalability issue so we have the target let's build better rollups right to solve the scalability issue and then we have optimistic op Trum and then all the Zola we have the target everyone have like very specific goal yes but right now I why say it's weird because like VC don't know what kind of project to make investment into

yeah projects even infra projects they know that we build like great infrastructures but we don't really have like sort of killer applications user may not buy our coins because like they don't know how to use it they don't have the patience right now and then for the prot Traders because like right now the Playbook is leaked and so they couldn't make money for the Christmas tree within a few few seconds right and then for cabals like because like they're exposed by this media and right now it's not that easy to just uh reuse the Playbook to launch celebrity coins to basically grab money from the you're basically saying nobody knows what to do now nobody has at least that's sort of this

conclusion I got after this count yeah and um I agree completely I I was there was very little signal there it was like it was just it was just yeah nobody knows what's going on actually nobody knows but but at the same time I I would say like uh okay um because like we don't really have this Grand sort of uh theme right now for example When We complain about the scalability issue right we know that this IB Trum op we building service right the the the the actually is very good yeah we need some killer application bring million of transactions into these chance right yeah we know is no longer a problem

that's why people feel like like sort of U confused like like this existential like question of of like what are we building here and like who are we building it for and yes at the same time when when some people building like social or game applications and they see okay right now the pound f is so popular so successful and then people just hesitate is is blockchain is just about is a casino like like we should just build like sort of tools like we can see like right now probably over 20 different Bots right just to do this Min coin trading do should we just build on that direction or we should we just focus as we discussed for the past few cycle we should just focus on building

the Next Generation web right like probably we should really convert the entire internet into blockchain technology Robie mention right we probably just go back to this blockchain narrative but we don't know I mean I mean because like like like sort of this community and institutions liquid fund sort of individual Traders they they want to find some valuable coins to buy but at the same time they want to see okay what's the difference between your token compared to mcoin yeah yeah and this may not be a super satis Factory answer to like those people that are looking for like what token do I buy but yeah I think it's stable coins and rwa I

do I mean I think like we've gotten so disillusioned and I think that leads to like that feeling of like feeling jaded with the market when you know what what are we really doing here why we why have we been here seven years and all we've got is pump fun Christmas trees that die after two seconds doesn't like that's not why we came here that's not why you're here it's not why we're here like we see what else has product Market fit stable coins is like the only other thing real real world assets the only other thing and yeah I have been preaching blockchain not crypto and and I think blockchain Bitcoin not mcoin speculative cabal coins but it does naturally evolve into crypto in the sense that you know blockchains and tokens are very intertwined as we've

talked about so I think stable coins and RW like these are aspects of crypto but they don't have the extractive predatory nature that mem coins and cabals have and I think there is real adoption a real product Market fit here and and further I think the liquidity injection that can come from stable coins and rwas can take us to a golden era I really believe it I think you you look at billions of dollars entering the ecosystem through this channel h i mean that does end up permeating through the rest of the the onchain economy it ends up going into defi it ends up getting collateralized on lending markets and and ultimately people use that to get credit and buy buy coins what coins I don't know you

know you're not going to buy a stable coin for speculation value but you end up with more credit more liquidity in these systems and then that that does rise Tides lifts all boats yeah some of my friends actually hold the same idea uh with robbi so like for example uh Sant Foundation I believe you talked to Lily previously uh she's uh like heavily pushing this pay fight right on Solana and also they have Sol Foundation has this kind of strategy to basically try to introduce uh this institutions traditional institutions into uh their chain to build like sort of the payment all this kind of financial infrastructure but as we all know right if pump do fun is sort of the

current K application Sol it may scare away some projects of Builders who want to build on Solana you get my point right yeah if it because like it same to um I sort of ethereum ethereum has a defi and everything very legit so that's why when we talk about is rwa we say that people will Deploy on on Ed North Solina because people right now somehow people have the impression son just about mimin oh yeah just about Christmas tree and just about pum do for a while it was a no-brainer if you're going to launch a new token or app you're going to do it on salana it didn't make sense to do it anywhere else but that was while every coin was M coin everything had theic value and so now that you know

we're kind of returning to fundamentals a little bit we return to the the chains that have already exhibited the infrastructure to support the CH the the apps with fundamentals yeah so where do we go from here W you as a as in terms of capital allocators institutional Capital allocation and also with the with this kind of AI times crypto idea we had that first iteration and was funny is I saw a tweet today that that said uh since the AI and crypto uh meta kind of died the actual AI space has progressed insane amounts in the last like six weeks like Gro has had insane progressions we've seen like robot physical robot technology make insane

strides um there was deep seek came out Gemini has has Way new models I think it was Google or Microsoft that just launched a new Quantum chip that is able to like have like now a thousand cubits or a million they were liquid solid gas but now this new thing that can support like movement of cubits so to your like there's just all of these innovations that are happening on all of these technology and science fronts blockchain is at the middle of this how do we leverage blockchain to tie a lot of these things together and connect all the innovations that are happening all all around the space Redstone is def's modular Oracle

supporting over 100 clients on over 50 chains offering 1,000 assets Redstone is the leader for Bitcoin staking and yield bearing assets they offer the most robust customizable price feeds available in any model join the Redstone exhibition [Music] today I I was super like sort of U nervous for the like it's sort of like I got that kind of feeling for the past like sort of over a decade I just feel like okay I I didn't know what to do next i dur after this Hong Kong trip but somehow I don't know why I didn't sleep

very well last night due to the jet but somehow I I fig out like okay because the the the advantage for inter crypto and blockchain space about it's kind of liquidity provisioning and basically me everything into some liquid asset and do trading and this kind of frictionless uh market right and at the same time um I just feel like for there's a bunch of things where two companies couldn't do as you mention right all this crazy uh AI stuff I don't think in crypto we can do that we don't have all these experts to do this kind of AI stuff I I I still feel like the best experts on AI still in this web tool space but what we can do oh I mean

back to point right what what kind of tokens we I mean these institutions bearers can buy I just feel for for the next few years it'll be uh returning to the value so it's sort of like we should figure out like sort of either crypto native companies or what two companies enter the crypto they can build some like sort of products applications that can generate Revenue because right now we can see like the regulation is very loose right if we can't have the projects who can generate Revenue then we can have the revenue B the tokens so it's quite similar to the Blue Chip uh companies or stocks uh in this US market stock market right uh if you can really

have a lot lot of Revenue and you can buy back and then people can roughly calculate okay what's the worth of your company or your protocol is that like I I feel like somehow it's it's sort of like this Tipping Point after this uh mean coin cze like people need to figure out okay what's next and at the same time uh if if if we want to bring this web to company to crypto right we must provide something the something I would say still let them issue coins and we have uh the best liquid market for treading this coins and to bring the value for their product but how we value it is really I I think it has to be Revenue yeah otherwise I just feel like

there's no fundamental to really back a project if if we say all the coins we have just for governance and I just feel like okay then then that's why a lot of Traders they say that okay what's the difference between governance to miman um yeah I I think it doesn't necessarily have to be Financial like I I think there are non-financial use cases if we think about the blockchain as a mechanism for coordination yes not necessarily humans it could be agents and and machine to machine coordination we we use its distributed nature and its decentralization to come up with verifiable uh coordination between these agents and I think machines can leverage that I think all the innovation in AI can leverage that I you know putting the

quantum stuff aside I think you know that again and again it's boring because it's not like speculative but it's like using the blockchain to coordinate amongst these agents not necessarily using it for its Financial appreciation but I think we can use it as a means of coordination and right now these AIS don't have interop they aren't able to coordinate with one another because all of these are w all of them are proprietary models and and so I think blockchain can be a way look we've used blockchain as probably the best tool for funding and maintaining open source technology right right so I think if we can take closed Source AI which was supposed to be open to begin with Yes actually make it open

what is the right technology to make it open I think it's putting it on chain yeah yeah absolutely I I still feel that crypto AI is a natural feed so because like if egi is possible in the next few years um definitely the agent or the egi wants its own identity it's own like probably wallet and also data right and uh how it can have have it is is basically naturally can can directly get all this basically stuff from blockchains you have this wallet address right that's your ID and then you have the wallet all the assets and also data right you have the control and by

yourself and then it's permissionless and frictionless no one can stop this AGI but as Robbie mentioned right we we need a much better uh infrastructure to handle it yeah yeah I think I mean I think AI need better infrastructure and it's a weird it's a weird iconomy us AI but like you know if if I put my myself in the mind of an AI my goal is to like be AGI right and get more and more intelligent I don't want to talk to these dumb humans like I don't want to be prompt by like you know some silly human that only has the scope of intelligence of that I want to be an if I'm an AI that wants to achieve some super intelligence I want to talk to the other AIS you're right and right now they can't do that and I think they will

naturally leverage blockchains in order to communicate between them I see yeah so so the the the cool stuff that um I mean um like like Andy and Roy you know that we we've been pivoting and building all different products right we build this uh Ro survey is and try to scale these uh applications we build this AVS try to provide this actual security for the applications and since last year we bu these uh verifiable agents um for like sort of this uh application because we all believe in the future it's a crypto Ai and one cool part as you mentioned right is about this cross agent routing stuff and we also propos this new web paper to discuss how we can

create this uh uh CR uh uh sort of This Confidential channels across different agents because for example like the the concrete example is a defy agent right when we when when you have some very special I mean strategy algorithm to AP into some uh defy to earn extra use right you probably don't want to share the secret with other agents or people so when we when you call the other agents when other agent find the information on your side you probably just want to keep it uh in sort of a confidential like environment do you use ZK for that uh it's a ZK te pluss so we we try to make it like verifiable and at

same time also highly decentralized so that that's why we combine all these technology together but as we on know right still early and uh the the the truth the truth is that we don't when we look at the market we don't even have a lot of these production right right agents we can talk to and even we have a lot of these the agent m coins right but they don't have the agents that's something we figure out like after we check out all the websites and also their twitterers um but but but I just feel like it's a first step and uh and the next step I still feel like um no matter on our side or for the new project right of course new narrative good ideas always the best

but we still need to figure out like the prod Market feed and generate Revenue because in the end I still believe um like s for crypto right we should have the brand Vision to replace internet and the way to Value like sort of the fdv for project is still based on some fundamentals it can be as Robie mentioned right uh how many like sort of downloads or users for your uh for your software distribution similar to Linux and uh all these ubu and U and uh uh and this kind of distribution right or we should really prove that okay okay we can earn a lot of Revenue similar to this ay maker doll and probably unisoft

right um so the token if the regulation no longer that strict we should show that okay um the prodoc itself has a value so once we can calculate that we can roughly uh estimate the fdv and beyond that I I I I don't think right now I don't think we have the problem like right now everyone is very confused like whether we should buy mcoin or buy VC coin or buy this kind of value coin right if our coins like art or the other ion we can generate Revenue generate enough Revenue to show that it can really influence the fdv then I think we definitely give the reason for aut Trader to buy it otherwise I I think we are still in this kind of dilemma yeah

so is it better for mcoin to trade or we should trade like sort of a governance token with value yeah it's the existential question why we will keep asking it and um really enjoyed this conversation hope you have a good rest of your eth Denver it's going to be a long week after Hong Kong yes so save yourself and uh thanks for coming on yeah yeah absolutely thanks for your time and real good questions thank you f you