How the US is Bringing Crypto Back | Round Up

Transcript

there were a lot of people who were like ah too little too late whatever no not in the slightest and Hayden had the best take he said that that the too little too late this is pandering crowd is missing the point Dem establishment has finally realized that being anti-crypto by letting Warren run Financial policy will lose them elections this is a big deal nothing politicians care about more than winning elections welcome to the new era couldn't have couldn't have said it better myself this episode is brought to you by SE say's V2 upgrade introduces the first high performance parallelized evm already live on public devet maet comes later in Q2 you can follow along with the say Journey on X say Network

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thanks to scale for sponsoring Empire what's up everyone my oh wow not looking great today not looking great today y y's y's making me wake up early so uh me I would love to push this thing back I know right haven't taken my morning walk haven't seen my sunshine today oh yeah well here we are there's a lot to cover before before we hit the record button Jan said something that uh is going to be probably the center of this episode he said that he felt that last week had been the most important in crypto from an Institutional

standpoint and I kind to believe it so why don't we just start there yeah let's start there so um so you bailed on us last week oh so we should start with the YouTube comments actually but you know after we came out and said that we're reading the YouTube comments it they were they were the kindest YouTube comments I've ever seen actually so we'll take the love but we do need like one or two Jabs every week to make this a funny section so just just calling that out also before we get before we actually get into the episode dude you missed the uh Monaco you missed the grand pre huh yes it's very loud if you remember uh last year we recorded you could hear the cars in the background they were practicing Thursday

Friday uh so I I decided to leave this year and um spend it elsewhere and was actually in Miami meeting with feels like everyone's in Miami I mean I was in New York as you recall with with you guys who did the event then Miami you have friction list guys you had U Casey was turning topology you have a bunch of people there and so had a really good set of meetings felt like Miami's changed a lot become a important crypto Center so what what are you doing when you go meet with people are you deciding if you should like allocate capital or are you just learning or what are you what are you doing I'm observing observing no let's say like when I go to San Francisco or something like I'll go

meet with I don't know some of the like protocol like some of the big like Ci Founders or protocol Founders and we're trying to work out something between them and block works like it's so I'm just Cur like what are you what are you actually doing in this case I've already I'm already an investor in these funds and just wanted to catch up um I generally think it's highly inefficient to travel like business travel is very inefficient in my mind but in this particular case it was um sometimes it's just good to spend time um and you know I feel like if you go to New York if you go to Miami or San Francisco the benefit of those cities or

even London is there's just High concentration of people you can cover in three days you can just see many many people so yeah yeah and I'm not gonna lie I I haven't really kind of left the hotel yeah yeah STI texts me or tells me on a call yesterday the day before he's like Miami is awesome it's great love this city I think I got to drop my biases about the city being a Party City like oh what you been doing he's like yeah I haven't really left my hotel yet but you it is great I have left the hotel um but I'm here with I was here with family too and and um so anyways yeah it was good by the way apologies uh for anyone listening if my audio is crap I've been uh booted out of my office my

home office because apparently we are wallpapering today so wallpaper's good I like I like wallpaper you know the wallpaper I have back home that like fake books and everyone's like why don't you just get real books I'm like I do I'm not just going to show you my personal collection of stuff in the back necessarily although I have considered Shifting the orientation Your Personal Collection do you have any like you you don't have a you have like mind comp sitting back there like you got a book you can't you got a book you can't share or something no no I mean you pictures and stuff I can do it now speaking speaking of I bought another Harry Potter stuff you got it let's go not that one that that

is going up for bid in three weeks I considered I considered preempting it but uh uh you know auction people being auction people yeah what' you get I had one of these well similar to that front cover illustration the artist I think it's Taylor it's the only the only SEC like the only second illustration that's out there that he gifted to a really good friend and it's like a part of the uh so it was like a teaser it was the appetizer put that what' you pay what a reasonably I paid similar to a top tier nft collection in

salana it's a good way to describe it like what I paid what madlads um probably what the base of a Mad lad's cost said sir do you take madlads for this I SW the mads for do you take mad a good uh episode that we recorded this week with Armani from Mad Lads and backpack the wallet and backpack The Exchange uh and the protocol that he built that I forget um the name of it very impress so really good episode that dropped soon uh we didn't talk about this because Quinn was on last week instead of you but what did you think of the punks um so punks came out uh last week or the week I think it was last week and announced that they had built these kind of like 3D they built this thing called super

Punk World which is like a 100 piece collection um and they're essentially these like what they call like hybrid 3D sculptures um that in their words blur the lines of race and gender and reflect upon virtual versus Real World identities it felt like a very 20201 2022 type of thing to do I'd say people really kind of blasted them for it probably a little bit of an overaction just because people love to BL like the woke stuff these days but what did you think about it as a big Punk holder what you just said okay yeah is it well do you think it was bad enough to cons reconsider your no like I mean I would be lying if I didn't tell

you I have reconsidered holding uh punks in the way that I do I will always keep the one that I have 9159 some of the others could I let them go I'm not like as I said I don't I've come in the Pod saying that I don't necessarily like collecting and investing is two different sports for me uh when I went in and bought these or Meed these punks I didn't necessarily think that they were like an investment um but you know I'm always open to reconsidering and there could there be more productive uses of capital maybe like would I sell

one or two punks to buy this uh Harry Potter thing that's going up for o the estimate is 400 to 600k yeah know I sell one or two punks or whatever yeah um like on that basis like I know what I like more and you know the answer to that yeah like one is a one of one and it just speaks to me in a way that maybe like yeah other punks like don't yeah I saw some different Punk holders on Twitter so Jonah who hosts sou next one of the other pods is a punk holder said this makes me want to delete Twitter sell all my crypto put on a suit and become a junior corporate bond Trader Fubar said all right I might

actually have to sell my punk if they're acting this ridiculous posted a picture to uh you remember Flat Stanley the like cartoon Flat Stanley I don't know read those Child books but like you didn't read this here hold on let me show you this let me see this I probably did but I just it's uh this is a picture of the flat stand yeah and then if you compare it to like what they look like I mean it can we go back down memory lane like me bits was not as was actually favorably re like it was well received by most in the community right because you were if you were a punk holder you received Mi bits they actually look more animated and

um I actually sold my Mi bits or did I I think iits mint I'm PR sure and then I don't know what happened to my Mi bits I forget what I did with that but like no one ever talks about Mi bits anymore in the same way that most people don't talk about sequels or you know the there is a You could argue there's a dilutive effect to like all right let me ask you a question you like Star Wars M okay what do you think about the Mandalorian not a huge fan H maybe like the first season but like no one's talking about it yeah yeah yeah not there are good memes like this

is the way and you know the small Yoda like the baby Yoda is really cute but absent that people think about Star Wars and you think about you know The Empire Strikes Back yeah yeah turn of the Jedi like there is something very pristine about that and look in a similar analogy Disney bought the you know bought it from what is it Lucas um entertainment and you sort of knew that they were going to try to squeeze more dollars out of it because they needed to recoup the investment maybe that's sort of like the intention here like it's we've recorded these podcasts when Yuga acquired punks and I think they've

done some good things includ most importantly the IP stuff which they become more they addressed it headon I think folks like G money were really kind of pushing around hey what can I do with this like I have a punk a very well-known punk I I want to build my identity like let's talk about IP so I think Yuga has done good steps on that front launching more collections like this I don't think is going to add and let's put it this way it has felt that most people didn't like him most people wouldn't buy them if it weren't remotely attached to like the punk name and maybe that you know has some sort of appeal

but on on their own like you want to buy them right so so so like the question to you is like if you're Yuga and you're there what do you do if I'm in their position I would just like try to create like something very unique that speaks to the current time of crypto yeah this is a versus this is just feels like a derivative of me so Yuga Labs right like people my so Yuga started with B ape and they've been acquiring all these they've essentially been trying to build an IP portfolio so they've got meit they acquired Mi bits and crypt punks from larva labs in March of 22 they've got the metaverse game other side they've got the art series 12old they've got um 10 ktf they've got they just acquired um Moon Birds I think

it was um the proof Collective the the problem with uh Yuga in my mind has always been that they are focused on this like kind of like the crowd that I think came into cryto at the Pico top of the last cycle it's this like web three interested in like the metaverse like it's this uh I I'm trying to I can't really put my finger on like the the specific crowd but it's like if you ever seen the the parties of the the videos of the board ape Yacht Club parties there's like a bunch of dudes like dancing like this like that's that's the audience of yugul labs in my mind um Miami Vice or it's people who like work

at I don't know Reebok and AD and Budweiser and like nothing against them but like they're into like the the web they're not really into like crypto and um historically talking to that crowd has been a losing game um and trying to and so I think that's what Yuga did here is like they're appealing to that crowd they're not appealing to the to the crowd where like their real customers are if you think about the like punks like I've been to like David Hoff's house in Brooklyn like that dude's got a massive literally Punk thing hung up on his wall like you've got like a punk is your PFT and you've got them for like your fam like uh yeah yeah you know yeah it's uh you know people that don't protect phips don't necessarily collect uh Hub hubot yeah exactly don't try to

mix them together they they you won't have you you won't find necessarily A pip collector having a hublo well you can actually have the same parent company owner I think but Rishon like luxury conglomerates exist I get it but they don't they don't mix they don't mix audiences and oil and vinegar man like uh yeah yeah yeah so what Yuga did here is they said okay we know our board ape audience and we're going to try to apply that to the we're gonna try to talk to the crypto Punk audience like they're the board ape audience and they could be more different audiences so I I think on this point around nfts we're not going to make this episode about nfts is look at the it it it is relevant in the episode of Armani that we just

recorded it has felt to me like the innovation of the NF space has sort of been like non-existent there is so much that you can do with nfts and I understand prices are down and Floors you know it's the attention is not on nfts yet it's on Meme coins which you know is a an nft and and of itself but more accessible not CA with 10,000 or just a high floor price but you know you could argue and memes are a are not that very different than what people from an emotional standpoint want to feel when they're buying these things right now they're just buying memes on pumped on F or just they buying whiff or whatnot um so the question is like well let's if you're thinking about nfts I think the potential is there retails

here like um this just felt like to your point just not very Innovative and I was thinking the other day the most interesting thing about nfts I think will be earned nfts not purchased nfts and I'd like to see someone come up with something more novel than just a 10,000 collection out there MH you know give me the possibility of proof of space and time and doing stuff and you know doing something in in an interesting way because ultimately that's what when people talk about their experiences it sure you could say hey look I own this Punk or I own this item but you associate it with what actually

happened it's like sort of that classic bech Philip is like you never own it you just like take care of it for a future generation that's sort of their Hallmark ultimately like it what would you care more about the you know Toran or matla that you purchased and maybe that has a very deep meaning because you bought it at the time where salana was like coming out of a difficult difficult spot or the the 20 nfts that you collected because you went to a concert and you met an you like music you met like I don't know like a particular band that gave you an nft in their first first concert in the US like what are you

gonna what are you gonna like talk about in your collection what are you gonna display it's funny so madlads are are actually that for me like when I think madlads I think about a dinner I had with uh Tristan in Denver in the like absolute depths of the bare Market I think it was February 23 like you know the prices started turning again in like let's say beginning of q223 if I remember correctly at some maybe July 23 um but like February 2023 was about as dark as you could get and I was with at a dinner with like Tristan stonnie some other people and we were talking about nfts and they were like PE you know Pico bear and Tristan's like we're we're launching an fft collection everyone's

like what what are you doing that for and he's like and you know he had this whole thesis for it like building community and then launches a product on top of that and so I actually associate madlads with a moment in time it's interesting yeah yeah yeah so let's let's move on to um move on to the eth so your question at the very beginning um so I yeah why do you think last week was the most for folks yeah yeah I was reflecting on last week and um it didn't really hit me until I was at this dinner a couple of nights ago which I'll talk about but my takeaway is last week was the single best week that the industry has ever had in in the history of the industry um there have been better weeks for maybe

price price action or even though you know things did run like 20% there's been better weeks for Price action there's been better weeks for like I would say like crypto Nativity and several companies raised big rounds or you know coinbase going public was really exciting things like that but this was the single greatest week in terms of like General institutional government level thinking around crypto and like narrative building around crypto changing so you think about last week fit Sab eth ETF Gruenberg getting the axe uh cbdcs uh Trump turning on crypto which then kind of turned Biden on crypto um

right Biden then waved the statement on fit Schumer has kind of like turned on the Dems and is now like supporting crypto like there's a massive 180c change and again it was really exciting like you know watching Trump talk about Bitcoin like that was was nuts and maybe I can even play the clip for people who missed it and he's talking about self- custody um and there's a whole backstory of that statement there and I can share it if interesting but um I went to this dinner that was hosted by portal Ventures uh which just yeah shout out to Katrina and Evan and stuff they're for portal Ventures Le less known name but they're probably one of the best like first checks into companies these days like do they do a lot of preed uh investing Insight Insight yeah x evans's x insight

Venture Partners they're yeah they're really good F they've been in a lot of the really good like preed they're like you launch a product and three weeks later like you'll maybe portal can lead your pre I've done a few investments from them they're great um so the the whole conversation was like very can't can't share who's they were they were like kept laughing at me like hey media guys this off the Record but um so I can't share like any of the names or anything like that but um you know there's a one of the larg like a massive fund from from Hong Kong there one of the biggest like Silicon Valley venture firms um Ju Just Like It Was a Very like big trafi dinner I'd say like some big lawyers and stuff and like the

conversation I would say the theme and the theme if I could summarize it in like two sentences was up until a week or two ago they will not touch crypto and the reason they won't touch crypto is still FTX so in my mind FTX is so far in the past but for a lot of the fol F who maybe like had LPS who they had to describe to them for weeks or months why they invested in FTX like it is a big thing to get over that uh this is the first time that they're like okay okay i' i' I'd consider allocating again like this is clearly a a us this is now a us thing that politicians are talking about okay this seems here to stay so yeah it it was a now that being said they're

still not allocating and they're still not and they're still not doing anything with the 10 foot pole but it's I see the gears turning a little bit um unlike a month ago where a dinner like this they'd be like I'm not touching it I'm not interested yeah yeah I'd be I know I wasn't here for the episode last week but would definitely agree that the crypto become one of the more interesting topics of this election that was not on my bingo card that was in the very hopeful box of if this ever happens like crypto at some point will become something the politicians rally behind to appeal to a younger voter base that

cares about it but I never thought it would be this election cycle certainly not at the presidential level maybe at the local level um but yeah it's it's definitely felt like has it has opened just to recap the things that in my mind have been most impactful the started with uh speech that Trump gave at Mara Lago Ryan sukus was there and a few other folks and he he very openly talked about being pro crypto and it being important for the US to maintain a competitive you know Edge against you know places like China and you know he he rallies behind that and and I think it's important we

we've been advocating for that here and you know behind closed doors and you know it is the message right the US is losing its Competitive Edge like these are serious companies that are going overseas like you don't want that you know you know there there might be a risk of just like you know human capital and resources and capital is going elsewhere like that's just not very American um and so it started there that to me was very that I think detonated a lot of stuff the the other one was the the vote right Sab 121 or SB 121 Sab 121 uh um where you saw Democrats uh you know detracting and falling out of line

right party line and and I think realizing hey maybe it's interesting because at some point they're going to do stuff that doesn't compromise their ability to get reelected and I think for they're just appreciating that uh you know them voting against that was not something that that was probably gonna hurt their career yeah and so that was also really because historically I think the Democrats have just been very United on against his front right top down directive like you know and and that was really um the second most important thing and you know I think to your point that really quickly percolates down to Wall

Street and in my mind all of this can be summarized in one thing right I know you like to talk about like last cycle was so obvious Co and I and I'll go on the record saying this cycle would be very couple of key moments like we had a Bitcoin ETF that absolutely legitimized this asset class like there's no question this is no longer like not an asset class the second one was in short order you had an ETF also approved and that is the second point I'm trying to make is Wall Street now understands and Wall Street can now make money out of this industry and they're going to historically they've been anti- crypto

and now that they can make money off of these ETFs and whatnot then then they're on our side and that has an incredible amount of call it political Goodwill to will this into existence and make sure that you know are we going to see a soul ETF or a doge ETF this year I don't know there's certain things that need to happen first but I'll put my money on them being here more ETFs coming in the next 12 months faster than most people think um and and I think uh any time I'm not going to try to pretend to time how

these institutions are going to come when they're going to allocate but if I've learned anything in Prior Cycles is that the things that you think are not going to happen or will take long to happen just happen faster and sometimes it's sort of that thing like what you think is going to happen in 10 years happens in two and two and 10 and so yeah that's um there was this there was this uh so the president of the New York Stock Exchange was speaking at consensus yesterday and I just turned on a random clip and was watching it for a sec look at this quote president of the New York Stock Exchange they asked her about launching crypto trading well the New York Stock Exchange launch crypto trading spot crypto trading like will you be able to trade salana a New York Stock Exchange owned entity she said if

there were if there was a clear regulatory guidance it would be an opportunity to look at and then just kind of like smiled and a you got the feeling that they're doing something and I like I said in this tweet like I would guess this happens a lot sooner than people are predicting yeah and look if the New York Stock Exchange launches crypto trading then uh then NASDAQ launches crypto trading like crypto allows financial institutions to monetize and earn a different Revenue line and it is now allowing Brokers and financial advisers to sell an ETF with a higher fee and also my interactions like when I was parfi like we were pitching

defi I was very surprised and I've always been very surprised positively like even going to talk to regulators about proof of stake and staking and validation and running your own node and whatnot in 2019 2020 you would be shocked and I know we've had multiple folks in the blockchain association and they'll probably agree with this the the the staff in these agencies in these companies have had a better part of a decade to understand and study this asset class that sure has evolved quite a bit but a lot of the core components are have been you know they've had multiple years to study this and they're

quite knowledgeable and I think at this point like when I went and talked to allocators they're like we don't disagree with anything that you're saying around D5 yeah maybe the smart contract risk and we need insurance and whatnot but again it sort of all hinges on the reason why nine out of 10 someone wouldn't give you money to invest in crypto is that regulatory lack of regulatory guidance so the question is this cycle like how much Capital do you think has been sidelined waiting for Clear regulatory guidance in the US in in in the in the largest financial Market of the world

because yeah you've seen a rally that no one expected let let me give you let me give you a data point too that we have is so last year 38% of the speakers of permissionless dropped out last year's permission list was was a was honestly a nightmare internally because the regulatory apparatus was cracking down so hard week after week on crypto that we had 38% of the of the onchain speakers dropped out in the last month so whether it's Unis swap or a like none of them would come speak in person at the event because they were worried about honestly being on us soil look at the speaker list that we have today who are they're flying into the us some of

these guys live in Europe they're some of them live in as they're flying to the us so you got BAGI uh youve got the big names like Tom Emmer's coming Paul GRL Chris Dixon noats like these are names that we weren't able to get last year and then you have the protocol Founders Shri Ram Keon from manad Evan the suie founder Ben Jones optimism founder uh Devin the Open Sea founder uh Harry the arbitrum founder like the protocol Founders be fair to be fair like all those guys live in the US right a lot of those guys live in the US but they wouldn't but LA but last year like man emailing people like Ju Just trying to get them to come speak at a US event was impossible they would they wouldn't do

it and now they're like it is a complete it's a complete 180 so and then I think on the allocator side too it's like I mean let me let me share this clip can people um if I share this Santi can you hear it sure yes I will ensure that the future of crypto and the future of Bitcoin will be made in the USA not driven overseas I will support the right to self- custody to the nation's 50 million crypto holders I say this with your vote I will keep Elizabeth Warren and her goons away from your Bitcoin and I will never allow the creation of a central bank digital [Applause]

currency first things first is credit to where credit is due obviously Trump does not know much about self- custody I think David Bailey from Bitcoin mag is the one kind of behind this advising Trump on a lot of these things and so got I just want to give credit where credit is due big shout out to uhh to David Bailey for for what he's been doing behind the scenes so when I saw this I think that a lot of people said wow that's amazing if Trump gets elected it's gonna be so good for crypto my reaction was what is like that that speech right there those 40 seconds just forc the Biden's hand and sure enough it came out last night uh the the block had a had like this exclusive where they said Biden campaign ramps up crypto

industry Outreach and surprisingly uh in surprising tone shift and their their like summary was uh Joe Joe Biden's re-election campaign has begun reaching out to crypto industry players over the past two weeks for guidance on crypto community and policy sources told the block they noticed a significant shift in tone from the Biden Administration and campaign towards crypto with a new willingness to understand crypto and their communities uh and that is like that is the impact of that of that Trump statement and uh I think Hayden from Unis swop had a good there were a lot of people who were like ah too little too late whatever no not in the slightest and Hayden had the best take he said that the the too little too

late this is pandering crowd is missing the point Dem establishment has finally realized that being anti-crypto by letting Warren run Financial policy will lose them elections this is a big deal nothing politicians care about more than winning elections welcome to the new era SP on couldn't have couldn't have said it better myself yeah I mean I tweeted about this last week you know one you can no longer not talk about crypto or care about it and yeah I think that you you you saw it Sab 121 or sb11 just people have been are now feeling the pressure that if you're anti- crypto you're going to hard of

time being reelected yeah I mean your your point I think your best point there is like you said five minutes ago is the last cycle the last cycle in hindsight it felt obvious but maybe in the moment it didn't because like the world was crashing and and it really didn't but you had these moments looking back where it's just like Paul Tor Jones come out comes out calls Bitcoin fastest horse in the race start pumping egregious amounts of capital into the system and like looking back you're like man that was so obvious right right now the moment I would just have everyone like slow down and think about you now have a presidential election where both us candidates are pro crypto we've never had that in the history of of crypto uh and we've got the ETFs um and we're

entering a season of like you know you have rates got jacked up and now maybe rates are getting pulled down again like it's uh put rates aside you have infrastructure you have good applications it's easy to onboard people mhm and there's stuff to do but like yeah I feel in tell you the truth like and maybe this is I'll go down as and this might be made a meme but I feel very calm I have my thesis this cycle and I keep reevaluating it but it's further solidified we talk about the celebrity stuff that is happening that again people are it's reminiscent

last cycle top signals and is it a top signal I don't I don't think it is in in the slightest um but uh yeah you know people I know here have commented that I'm very Arrogant with my thesis on salana and I just for me it's um it is further crystallized and become clear um and I don't I don't think we're in in later parts of the cycle I think if anything like having the ETF in short order because there was like three weeks ago people saying oh the ETF may happen like maybe a Q3 kind of thing and now you have it yeah and so I think maybe I'm reading too much into that but I

have let's put it this way my thesis hasn't been invalidated yet and I continue to if anything sort of accelerated I've deployed even more Capital outside of the system uh because uh yeah I just I feel I feel like we're you know this cycle might be uh quite big I still stand by my price predictions that I did in December by the way remind me of those th Soul 600 uh 6,000 e what do you think what do you think Bitcoin goes to such a difficult question but like 100 I'm also like thinking about the

actual flows but uh 120 to 150 yeah that's that's I think that's kind of there's also like the the the fan like who knows man have a couple sovereigns that might just come in and just but it is I'm just thinking of like the amount of flows that is required yeah because if bitcoin's at 250 or what is Cathy's wood price Target like she was here in the pot like some she's always thrown out crazy stuff but what was it like it was more than that it was like 250 500 no yeah exactly yeah that's like I don't want to that's not my base case let's put it that way but because

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time Ramone the other day sent me a message on Telegram and said you got to try this onboarding I'm super proud of it please just go ahead and try this out tell me what you think it is the most magical seamless onboarding experience onto an L2 that I've ever had uh you can you can try it out it's engine nn. Kinto doxyz I would really recommend going through the whole onboarding flow just to see what the future of crypto can feel like and what it probably will look like in the future go on board nn. Kinto doxyz let me know what you think and if you want to chat with their founder rone happy to make the intro hey everyone Jason here I know you've been hearing a lot about the intersection of crypto and Ai and that's why I'm really

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stage one is rebirth where we've got like the exhaustion from the bare Market still exists there's like Sparks of hope that pop up everyone's still focusing on the bare market blowups prices are quietly recovering um but like people don't really talk about it only the deepest like crypto natives really realize it most people are still in disbelief that we're in the bull market that's phase one stage two is where we've been at stage two is uh is excitement I'd say we were the first half of this year was was excitement right both bare Market has officially ended coins are hitting are nearing all-time highs some have even blown past alltime highs everyone in crypto understands we're in a bull market but like your Normie friends still aren't texting you I'd say there's like a weird combo of like anxious and excited stack

is growing don't feel like you own enough coins you start to see companies start hiring again I made the joke of like your friends start ordering guaca Chipotle again like everyone feels like they're starting to win again that's the Cal before the storm that's where I feel like we've we've been for the first half this year but I tweeted on um this weekend I said stage two is coming to an end stage three is around the corner and I originally thought stage three would come around the election maybe this fall September ooco depending on who was gonna win like win I thought it was going to come like September October November I've accelerated when I think stage three will come uh just because of what we've been talking about on this podcast and like the complete 180

reversal in policy and and and regulation um stage three is Euphoria like everything you own blows past all-time highs there used to be a new narrative every month now there's a new narrative every week private markets get crazy VC start to announce their 300400 million doll funds near the end of stage three you start to like really skip due diligence race to deploy everyone's announcing a new hundred million do raise we're mainstream again Forbes for Bloomberg cmbc they love crypto again weirdly enough and then at the end of the cycle like the weird stuff start happening like you see like Fortune 500s by Bitcoin you see like the athletes and the artists get involved again uh you see the celebrities get involved again like everyone starts to believe that

like crypto is going up forever and that's when delusion starts to seep into decision making I'd say and and then you have like the the the last leg of the cycle which is kind of like dis disconnection from reality a little bit um and that'll that's a mid 2025 thing I think but yeah I've kind of accelerated when I think things will start to get a bit crazy and we saw that we actually because of the celebrity yigi and Kaitlyn Jenner and so I didn't I posted that like just on the back of like regulations and the 180 and then sure enough this week like yeah you had I mean let's talk about the celebrity stuff you had like I think Caitlyn Jenner came out created her own meme coin which was a total Jenner but it was created by this

guy heal and it was a scam I honestly haven't paid too close of attention it TS I think seil has had a track record of scamming and his social a lot of these celebrities have a social media team that candid doesn't have a lot of understanding of crypto and unfortunately tends to reach out to the wrong characters to inform their strategy and in this case they had been working with this particular person that has anyone in crypto probably tells you run away from yeah uh and then they they did a series of launches turns out that they launches Jenner coin turns out Jenner didn't own any actually and so she never got the coins and so it was just a very messy operation

um and but then Iggy uh what is it last name is a Leia isia isia yeah the Australian American kind of um artist she hosted uh Twitter spaces and I actually joined kind of I I always I I joined for most of it and I was quite surprised with her understanding of crypto her kind of sense of like reason she was like no I'm not going to work with this idiot to heal someone the subtle things that she's like no I'm never going to connect my phone number to my Twitter like I'm not dumb like she said that I was like okay she's uh she's sophisticated and um

you know of course she's playing with memes she's like you you know people were asking do like cat or dog obviously you know people want to off of that like run a meme right um and she also said uh one of the more interesting I tweeted she said uh I think crypto is she was she did a series of like Hallmark tweets she say crypto's sexy you know she she likes Phantom she's using phantom um and also um she said uh that she found crypto more interesting than her only fans which I thought was very interesting I think she's making a lot of money off of her only fans account someone asked her that if she launches her token or meme coin would that that

allow people to then subscribe to her only fans account and she said well I don't know how that actually would work so anyways she was also with her brother who was see he's like a 10 years younger but I think he's like 20 something she's 30 in her early 30s but that maybe I'm trying to not look at it for what it was last cycle um I do think that of course it's un let's just let's just get a couple things out of the way people in crypto like there's nothing wrong people come to the space because they want to make money speculation is I'll keep saying it speculation is is a is a huge driver for any technological Revolution um I think the the manner by which it

happens obviously is important um but um yeah yeah like we know how historically celebrity coins have gone down and a lot of them are frauds or scams you know like uh there's a number of like Soldier Boy and some of these personalities like you know even FTX endorsements right um but let me ask you a question if crypto goes mainstream like don't you think that it's sort of like going to it's inevitable that you have not just celebrities but athletes and major football clubs and entire entertainment industry music

industry like adopt this technology and try to figure it out are they going to get it perfect the first time around no I think you can look at like how the internet evolved in how music like Napster versus Spotify like that was a messy what I'm trying to say is technological revolutions are messy and you don't usually get it right the first time the further challenge that this space has is that you don't have one Chief marketing officer one product officer one CEO you have multiple projects competing for attention in this chaotic world where furthermore capital is moving way faster and at a global scale and so

there are weird experiments some sometimes it's difficult to observe these because if you've been in the industry long enough you sort of say yeah this feels and has a lot of Hallmarks of a scam but like I don't think I think it was anim that tweeted um and I sort of agree with it which is if we are from this point forward if we're going to treat every celebrity that comes into the space every artist every company as a top signal and be critical and not help them out then I think we've lost the plot and I think the best we can do as an industry is actually extend a hand and say we can definitely do better and the only thing we can't control as an

industry is make sure that these people are listening to a panel a group of the right set of people you know what I mean not this random sahil guy who has a long track record of scamming people or Sams of the world you know what I mean um so I welcome any and everyone that wants to think about how to use crypto in their strategy you know what I mean yeah what's the difference between lvmh doing um pendants of holders and selling them for like 20K and a celebrity doing their own coin I guess one of them it tells you very quickly if the price goes up and down if the price goes down it's a scam if the price goes up she's the best

thing then the you know she's the best artist now of all time and but if your pendant you know maybe doesn't have as liquid of a market but if that pendant goes down in value it's like oh no no it's You Know Tiffany You Know Tiffany is Tiffany I don't see the distinction uh here's the distinction in my mind so the distinction in my mind is that these folks have never ever come into the industry they've never once said their interested in the industry they've never once like been in the industry and like their first time ever mentioning crypto is promoting a token so I think the right way to here's here's my like jumbled thought

on this because I haven't been paying Too Close of attention um all right first thought is like we want Mass adoption like eventually these celebrities are going to come into the industry and that is a good thing like you want everyone in the world paying attention to crypto so that's so that's a really good thing um on the like and there was more than just Iggy right it was like Rich the kid trippy red like David O which I think is one of the biggest artists Coming Out of Africa I'm pretty sure um I I haven't dragged that yeah he's got like 65 million followers or something like that so anyways there's a lot of celebrities doing it the there's a right way and a wrong way to do it I think so if you look at like um yeah lvmh like lvmh has crypto people

in house they were looking for like multiple years at crypto there's a top down directive from uh who's the rich dude Bernard Arno who runs lvmh like has a big crypto portfolio um and is like a big nft collector and like so you there's kind of this like ethos I think that permeates crypto and um there's like a genuine interest from the top about lvmh the what bugs me is when it doesn't even bug me I don't pay I spend no mental energy on it it's just not going to end well when like a celebrity who's not and they're not all the same it sounds like Iggy actually has like a brother who's actually pretty interested in crypto whatever she is yeah I mean or she is so like I'm not gonna bucket

every all celebrities are very different right but someone who just comes in is like has never once mentioned crypto has zero interest in crypto and you can kind of tell that like and then they launch a mcoin like I promise you that ends in tears um yeah for the record I agree with you yeah but eventually we're goingon to need like these people like my thesis on crypto is that all the world's value will live on chain and there's two types of value there's Financial value that's like traditional Wall Street which is moving into Defi and then there's things that like the world has never really ascribed monetary value to uh in like a very clear and obvious way and that'll also move on chain and that's the like music and all that kind and attention and all that kind of stuff

um so the the slabs are part of the second part of that yeah I think a lot a lot of these CBS and I do cons like one of the observations someone said was a lot of these celebs are like Pastor Prime and it's like seeing celebs do like ads for products you know sort of like a meme right like if you're starting to do like you know Old Spice commercials you're kind of like not doing Blockbuster like Grammy Award winning movies Oscar winning movies you know so I get it um humans are going to do things to you know you know they see an opportunity that they can make money well there are

ways of doing that right as long as you don't compromise your values principles yeah I agree like most of these celebrities like it's important you know it's a it's a cash grab you know call it a such this is why again as an IND that the only thing we can do like let's put it this way we're not going to we're likely going to see more of this across the board space continues to grow so the question for us that have been around and the industry is what can we do to help um you know um you know educate them create a platform for you know helping them understand this and somehow monetize it like you know of course they're going to want to do something if they're

attaching their name and their followers and their attention so yeah I think you'll you'll probably see a couple startups this cycle get funded on the back of working with Hollywood like almost like a like crypto native agencies or a crypto like a tech platform but you'll probably see it funded by someone who's deep in the Hollywood scene in the same way that there's a lot of great def5 platforms that were started by like X cap markets guys yeah like who is talking to what is it the the talent agency company you need people who CIA and Endeavor CIA Andor Endeavor we you need I was actually looking at Endeavor last night because I was comparing it the any was ktic Combat versus like uh the

traditional like Ari Emanuel and uh Mahan I think have a public company called KO group and that Trad at 18 billion I was just looking at their stats I was looking at the company um my buddy was the F uh was the guy at Endeavor who runs celebrity uh Investments essentially but not in not actually Investments it's like you get 10% of a company to promote them so like You' like a I don't know like Rihanna doing coconut water or whatever that's exactly right so like a a clothing brand would come to them or like a pizza brand would come to them and be like hey we want like a mid 20s celeb who's like really good-looking and they'd go to like I don't know I don't know mid-20 celebs who are good-looking

but um they like uh Sydney Sweeney like okay so they go to Sydney Sweeney and they've got Sydney Sweeney and they're like hey Sydney we've got a pizza brand you just need to they're going to give you 15% of the company but you got to like pump the hell out of that pizza brand I mean and it and it works massive dver be it's funny because i' I've come to this realization like the more and more and in this trip i' I've met like someone who actually like work with um Sydney launch her own clothing brand swim swim um wear brand and she ended up ditching it but what was funny is that um she said yeah she in the second season of whatever she was

wearing she had contractually said that she was going to wear this and I was like wait arst also have a saying the what did they wear on stage like absolutely like they um you know they they're promoting the stuff so anyways like this is what like a lot of the crypto native people that don't understand how Wall Street works or how the entertainment industry works it's like no no no these guys have been pedaling [ __ ] it's like a it so what's Happening Here is an Evol okay is is's in the influencer market let me here I'll make the comparison between you look at celebs and how they got paid on social five years ago is all ads like you you'd post an Instagram pick and you'd say hashtag ad and you'd get paid 200k for that now You' see much

less of that and you see them all have their own products they have their own skincare brand they have their own bathing suits whatever was the the Kardashians have done this exceptionally well like what's she uh yeah yeah exactly Jenner what's her name yeah yeah yeah Kylie Jenner so if you think about how the sobs got paid off of crypto in the last cycle it was like FTX ads big sponsorships LeBron doing an ad for crypto.com Matt Damon doing the ad for crypto.com all all that kind of stuff now you're gonna see them try to do their do their own products what I will say is on the I'm very bullish on them doing things on chain I extremely bearish on memein launching a token meme

coins as a tokenized representation of any celeb like I I love meme coins but I think a big mem coin like a good meme coin needs to embody an ideology uh fair enough race or class or sexuality or geography or politics or thinking it it's a dogs cats dogs dog I mean like yeah exactly but like what does that repres more General that is yeah I see your point like whiff in my mind represents like just crypto people crypto people on and are cute and this is the cutest dog out there that's that's exactly right obviously obviously I'm biased obviously I'm biing um not buying biased Bodin Trump coin like all these

things like those are the good meme coins like yeah you know Jenner coin not not a good me coin so yeah agreed um what else can we talk about or worthy of talking about can talk about a lot but what is worthy of the Empire pod that's yeah the the the so I wanna I want to float go oh go ahead Mount go was moving some coins they she said that they were going to move in they were doing like a test uh trial run of in advance of moving some coins but people are trying those wallets um so I I came came across I was reading so I like Shane Parish um he has a great

newsletter and he had an excellent uh you know segment in his newsletter talked about hard work that I tweeted and that spun up a whole series of conversations with different people reflecting on their success so what I wanted to do is I had an really good conversation with one one and two people really and I want to bring them on the Pod to go down and discuss this um and there were like four parts of it was all about hard work and the different types of hard work will you share it will you share the five types of hard work yeah yeah yeah I can I can share them now I think uh so I'll read

it actually it's a I tweeted about about it and I actually may may want to end this podcast just getting your perspective and I we asked her M this is it this one exactly yes and I wna we all asked Armani this in the podcast yesterday about what he thought the success had back back and had been so yeah the Shane goes on to say there are four there are different types of hard work first one is outthinking it's a better strategy a shortcut the second one is pure effort so you're working longer the intensity of it the third one is being opportunistic so you're positioning yourself to take advantage of

change and I think a lot in crypto has been that uh fourth is consistency so you're just doing average things for longer and the fifth one which is different than consistency is focus a lot of that is saying no to distractions and I thought it was an excellent observation so I am curious uh in the success that you've had of building block works like or just investing however you want to answer the question like what of those five do you think speak most to you and your success outthinking pure effort

opportunistic consistency Focus um if I had to rank all of these probably I mean two two and four pure pure effort and consistency I like I don't think like I think it's probably diff I think most Founders I mentioned this with Armani would say some combo of two four and five pure effort consistency and focus but especially with a business like blockworks like this isn't this isn't a rocket science business like we're not we're not building like the Next Generation smart contract protocol to eliminate blah blah blah like it's you know we're not building Rockets we're not building AI like we're building a digital media business that drives into conferences which drives people into a subscription

data and research platform and that basically just just takes a ridiculous amount like a ridiculous amount of execution and I think execution is just a byproduct of uh consistency and effort so it's actually it's funny Mike and I have talked about this a lot I think investors make better podcast guests and Founders founder I enjoy talking to Founders more but they are not as good on podcasts and the reason for that is building a company comes down to execution and ability to execute and I think uh being a good investor comes down to thinking and often times you're trying to build these big thesis

about the world and like your thesis on salana like very different than other people's thesis on salana in the in like you know let's say a year and a half ago for for me like man just stay the course effort consistency outwork other people and just try to stay alive essentially and I'd bucket that into consistency um there are things like opportunistic like we have done things when we saw folks like I don't know coindesk and coin Telegraph not covering the industry like how we thought it should be covered like that was our opportunity to launch a better news business when we saw other platforms not building a research and data platform that we thought was was you know world class that was our opportunity but yeah I think a lot of

people have tried to do that and they they can't execute it so being a Founder I think just comes down to execution capabilities what do what do you think for a founder or for me for you um opportunistic and focus I would have probably said consistency um up until three years ago why is that because I've been in the space for a long time and I've just stayed and I've uh I think I think being a opportunistic in crypto like anyone that discovered this and has discovered this even to this point has been opportunistic you know because it's it's an industry that is still discounted it

is hard it is you know you might think it's easy but if you're if you've been here for for a long period of time I think you're a person that taking risk requires you like to be opportunistic said differently if you're not taking risk I don't think you're an opportunistic person and if you're in crypto you're taking risk so i. you're opportunistic um it's sort of that idea that if you're positioning yourself in an uncomfortable spot you're at pushing that Frontier um and so taking risk I think involves three um and I've and I think I still take a lot of risk in my portfolio yeah um I want to I steer more towards Focus

because the example is a someone that discovered Bitcoin early on and has only focused on bitcoin has been a consistent person he's sort of focused on that particular ecosystem uh someone that I think is a maximalist is very consistent in his thinking um and I think sometimes as an investor like I would caution someone from being overly consistent because because then you're not willing to change your mind it's sort of that idea of like oh I'm rooting for the New York Giants and you never want to change because you're a Giants fan or whatever uh maybe it's a stupid example but what I'm trying to say is often times we we we try to stay consistent

even though we feel that we need to change because of ego because of fear that we might be not called we might detract from a community that we've been the long part of and I think in early stage investing and even in this industry that I bucket wholeheartedly as still very early stage and early stages of inception you don't want to be necessarily consistent I think you have to be consistent in your process in the way that you absorb information and as a framework of an investment I think as you develop a process I think you want to be consistent in that the things that you do to position yourself to take advantage of opportunities but I like Focus because in order

to you know markets are competitive and I think you need intense Focus to understand things before other people do yeah because you could position yourself and be uncomfortable and look every everyone was hearing salana people were vocal tweeting constantly right but if you're not focused I think you will likely be carried away um you need resolve and I think and I think you you have to go deep to understand this Tech you have to go deep to talk to people and the the the most wonderful thing is it's it's an open source movement like the access to information of Founders is unparalleled like you have people like going on this podcast you can go to their Discord

Channel like you can be intensely I think you need to be intensely focused and also I would also actually think both from an investing standpoint and Founders you can do a million things in the space right even as a Founder you can try to experiment with so much but you I think to really win a category you need to be intensely focused and so I'd rather be focused than than just consistent um so anyways that's a long-winded answer well I'll say is I never want to do one out thinking I never want to assume that I'm smarter than other people I just think markets are it's hard to it's

hard to like let's put it this way I think the people that are blow up might want to might say that one has been their thing long-term Capital Management three hours guys embodied that I think in a lot of ways so I just think you should never think that you're smarter than other people aged as a as ano yeah I mean there's one thing on here for Founders that it comes down to there's one thing that it comes down to for Founders that is not on this list and It ultimately just comes down to resilience I think like the mo the best Founders that I have met are just the most resilient people and like if I think about the number of times that blockworks probably should have failed or like Mike and I

had to stop paying ourselves to make payroll or you know 82% of our Revenue got wiped out overnight in Co like I think there's just a resiliency it's not a hard work thing but you know p p effort would you say that's pure effort probably pure E I mean look there's this yeah it's probably pure effort there's this um there's this mark andreon quote it goes something like this the world is a very malleable place and if you know what you want and you go for it with maximum Energy Drive and passion the world oftentimes reconfigures itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would originally think and it's a I think it's a spin-off on the Steve Jobs quote which is something along the lines of

like when you when you look around at the world like and start to realize that everything around you was cre created by people who are no smarter or no different than than you and me the world becomes a much more interesting and fun place I'm watching I'm watching both those quotes I'm sure uh that's essentially being a Founder is just like picking something going at it with maximum drive and energy and just being being resilient and not willing to quit so that that I love that Steve Jobs quote and I think a big part of your Discovery maybe as a founder or as an investor is to always be opportunistic and position yourself in environment where you can be surrounded by people that you think are highly successful and

then you you'll realize like because sometimes we glorify Founders you know from the like and once you get to know them and if you have that opportunity it sort of it puts a human element to that's it's like these people actually go through the same struggles same problems and in their Journey we no different than you and I and so you know maybe there's like a saon out there you know I mean like folks like Elon Musk or whatnot but or Jim Simmons you know some of these people like but there's like most Founders are just like uh you know doing things that are normal and going through the same struggles you know and uh sometimes they feel so far out and

and I think being surrounded by sounds like you are in a position where they going to these dinners you're talking to these people and you're like are they fundamentally different like you see a lot of parts of yourself and you then believe it like I can actually make it you know I mean maybe if you met a media exec like Bloomberg or whatever you're like sounds like what he's describing in the early days like I'm kind of going through you you kind of there's a there's a there's I see myself in in what he was doing and and if he can make it then I can make it and candidly I think that that is probably what makes America the best place in the world still it's this idea that like you know people celebrate success and failure and it's it's an environment where you can go to these institutions

like Harvard or not Harvard or just Silicon Valley and through osmosis just surround yourself with these High Caliber people that will actually take an interest in you you I mean like I felt that culturally in America people are more likely to open the door and say yeah you're building a company like I'll I'll talk to you I'll give you advice like the the mentors put it this other than my dad three out of my four mentors and I tweeted about this are all American all in the US think about that and I've traveled I've lived everywhere like there's just this idea in the US of more like whereas in other places it's more hierarchical it's like oh you weren't you know you're not old money like we can't talk to you like no you know it's like and and I think for

that reason the US is is is still the best place in the world because they care less about status um you know hierarchy and and class and more about you're someone that's smart I'm gonna open the door and want to talk to you and that's that truly is amazing and as long as the US doesn't lose that I will bet all my chips on the US I agree I agree that feels like a good place to Rap Man um God bless America I I got to do a plug for permission list which is um I mean we're pumped we we had a we had a big conversation after last year's permission list like do we do it in the US or do we go somewhere else do we go to Europe or we go to Singapore and look

we made the decision to keep it in the US and feel very yeah very good about that we're gonna be it's gonna be Miami I will bet I'm on the record it's Miami no it's in h it's in Salt Lake this year it's in Salt Lake no no I know like the follow but future future ones I plead the fifth on this one I can't share my top secret top sec blocks Str buy my ticket to Miami for on on the podcast but uh go if you guys have made it this far come to permission list we've got an Empire code for you um it's usually Empire 10 but I just typed in Empire 20 on the on the event to see if it actually works and Empire 20 Works Empire this is gonna get boted heavily let's try to find Empire

25 no Empire 25 doesn't Empire 30 doesn't so I would recommend going on the permissionless page the code is EMP Empire 20 looks like it works but you could try like Empire you could try Empire 90 and it that's my code to you guys I think I think we're gonna be capped to 20 I think uh the marketing team told me Empire 10 but Empire 20 seems to be working so no I I got a different Cod it's empire 90 Empire yeah Empire free I will say we just we just uh signed this thing to get a podcast Studio on site we're actually going to have like a block works like Empire podcast studio so come hang with me and record the pod great we're on the dot for an

hour n um thanks everyone for listening and uh we'll be reading the comments we didn't read any this time but uh we will uh we will they're too kind we need kind we need some spice jab here's my call Action go go buy your permission list ticket and then go either give a little jab to either me or Santi we'll see we'll see what the comments say this week nice all right okay nice all right see everyone a good good weekend and we'll see you Tuesday all right cheers all right you heard about say a couple times just want to give them one last shout out big thanks to se for sponsoring this episode of Empire there are a ton of reasons to build on say if you want to get in touch with them you can reach out to me I'll put you in

touch directly with the team you can also get in touch with them on Twitter at say Network you can follow the journey at say Network they are currently live they've got sav2 on public devet today mainnet goes live later in Q2 really excited to have SE sponsoring and partnering with us on this episode of Empire [Music]