Lighter’s Token Launch, Erebor Raises $350M & Walmart's Crypto Strategy

Transcript

I don't know if this will what this will mean for you know your Ethereum or your Salana but 2026 is going to be a huge year for stable coin adoption not just in um you know these you know call it treasury management use cases card use cases but it's going to be really big and people actually using them domestically as well in everyday lives >> nothing said on empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products this podcast is forformational purposes only and the Views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice or necessarily the views of Block Works. Our hosts, guests, and the Block Works team may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

All right, everyone. Happy New Year. Very excited about this one. Per usual, we've got two of us, not three of us, unfortunately. Rob, happy new year. Santi, shame. Shame on you. But Rob, happy new year, man. You know, happy new year. Santi was like a like a last minute drop, too. Like, what is with that, you know? >> I know. Traffic. Come on. >> I can't believe that. That That's like the type of thing that somebody says when they just don't want to show up. >> At least make up that you're on like a big customer call or something, you know? >> Traffic. >> Traffic. Okay. >> Come on, man. Um, what's going on? How are the How are the holidays, new year?

How's the start to the year? >> The start of the year has been good, right? So, uh, you know, a lot of people are circling back, right? They're they're trying to trying to make things happen. >> How'd you get to the top? >> Yeah, that's right. But uh you know, Bitcoin was up till it's down back to like 91 today, but you know, we ran up to 94. We've got some positive market momentum. You know, we got a tiny little alt rally. Nobody's you know, doing any sort of um uh tax loss harvesting anymore, right? You know, redemptions of the funds are almost over.

>> Do you Let me ask you this. So, do you you know every single year for like a decade, it's like you see that the the tweets on like December 29th, it's like, "Hey, reminder like crypto doesn't have uh wash tradings or whatever whatever the rule is. Um so, if you sell your Bitcoin, you can just buy it right back and book the loss and then you have you still have the same Bitcoin. Do you do that?" >> No, I I don't actively manage anything, right? because other than the fund because it just it it's the wrong ROI on my time I think to be you know spending my time thinking about trading or you know anything like that and may maybe you know it'd be better if I I did that but um I just have things that I don't sell right and so I feel like an idiot

around December 30th and everyone's tweeting I'm like a god I should should really do this and I'm just like I'm not I'm not doing this I don't have the time >> no >> yeah but hopefully some listeners are smarter than we are and did that. Um, how are you thinking about the year? I mean, we did our predictions, but like any like big things you're trying to do right now, like big I don't know any what I want to hear about like what's happening on the fun side of things. Like what's Yeah, tell me about tell me about what's going on your end. >> Listen, I think we're, you know, as we talked about on the prediction side, I think 2026 will be a good year. I think it'll be a year of have and have nots. I think we'll continue to see dispersion and bifurcation between those who are

doing well and those who aren't. Um, that's both on the fund side, that's on the, you know, investment side. I don't think we're going to see like a broad alt rally, but I do think we're going to see the things that people that are doing well that have product market fit, they're they're going to do well. I'm not, you know, Santi over here thinking that the whole world is uh burning and that we're all going to >> doomer. He's a real doomer right now. Yeah, >> I know. Um, you know, we're sitting on the fun side as well. you know, we had we were actually internally looking at our, you know, deployment pace and, you know, how much money we put to work last year and doing kind of this end of year review and we had realized that we actually put a lot of money to work last

year. Uh, and a couple of those things, a couple of the really big checks will be announced this month. Um, and so they were kind of late things that we did late last year, but we we were really active even though the market wasn't that active. And I think going into 26, our perspective is that we'll probably actually slow down a little bit where because there is we do think there's going to be um a lot more interest in, you know, quote unquote the growth equity stage and maybe a little bit later than we technically get or normally get involved. Um and we think the early stage is probably still going to, you know, probably go sideways for a little bit and we'll probably stay pretty steady there. So, you know, I'm I'm really optimistic about this year, but I don't think it's going to be, you

know, um a banger either way. There's not going to be a lot of downside or a lot of upside. I think it's going to be kind of slow and steady. A lot of the same. >> Yeah. You guys have um how many port codes do you guys have? >> Like 150 160. >> It's higher than that. Uh I couldn't tell you the exact number right now obviously, but it we're, you know, we're on our fourth fund right now. And what what types of the leading question into like what types of companies right now are the hottest in the Dragonfly portfolio. >> I so as you can probably tell through a lot of the things that I like to talk about, but I mean the fastest growing stuff in the portfolio right now has to do with stable coins or prediction markets. Um obviously prediction markets

specifically is um or at least the the most notable one is Poly Market. you know, we do have um we're also probably been one of the most active perex investors uh in in crypto. Um and so our perplex investments, a couple of them very notably lighter um has been doing really really well. Uh we're you know generally long a lot of DeFi um and you know DeFi continues to come along and do well and so we're you know actually I think more constructive than most in terms of DeFi funding right now. I think then if you look at like call it the longer tail there's a couple of um things that are I would say you know kind of don't fit as neatly into a box like double zero where the token hasn't

performed as well but where like if you actually look at like the amount of stake on Salana that is running through double zero that continues to just like drive up right and you look at the their you know what they're launching and so there's a few things that are we're seeing do really well from a you know KPI perspective that maybe the tokens aren't doing as well etc but we're we're we're long-term bullish I mean I think listen the whole market is like stable coins, prediction markets, exchanges, you know, like that is what everybody's focused on. >> Yeah. Why did lighter do the token strategy in the way that they did? It felt like they launched it in kind of like a quiet just like calm I don't know. I feel like humidify did this too is like they just kind of like dropped the token. There wasn't a whole thing

leading up to it. Um I don't know. I I I'm not sure if that's maybe like a new a new thing that'll actually start playing out is like just don't don't build so much hype around the token but yeah tell me about I honestly just love to hear your take on lighter because you guys are a big shareholder and curious to get your take on like them versus hyperlquid the token strategy. Yeah I just want to maybe we can pontificate on that. Yeah, I mean token strategy side, I think you saw this with Monad as well. you saw it with, you know, you said you talked about humidify um you know, obviously no lighter doing this at the end of the year when you've done these call it like these big predeposit vaults and you've done a um you know kind of a lot of work up to the end to try to get

like people like super excited and all this like pre-baked TVL and you know a lot of um work around building to this like momentous moment right I think what we found a lot is that the tokens don't do Well, right. And so sometimes maybe you get a little pop and then they come way down. It's a lot more volatile in in the beginning. You know, we always tell our portfolio companies if you build a product that people want to use, the token will follow. It will do well eventually, right? It doesn't you know, I think it's, you know, who is it? It's it's Warren Buffett or, you know, that talks about, you know, how markets like short-term are a a way mechanism. Um, but, you know, long term they're >> Do you think Buffett likes lighter?

Yeah, I I think he's probably a big lighter guy, you know, like he's probably like, "Give me a perex, right?" >> Yeah. But >> you see an imbalance in the market cap of hyperlquid at 9 billion and lighter at 700 million. He's like, "Ah, this is a valuation fundamentals play >> fundamentals. Look at the cash. I need Santon here to tell me about the relative value of cash flows of lighter versus hyperlquid." Yeah, but um so listen like lighter launched and it's had uh you know it had you know pretty predictable you know price movements within a normal band despite having this airdrop and it's traded very well to start the year and so I think we saw same thing with monad people got you know traded up and it traded down a little bit but it's been within a range and it's been kind of you know up only

for the past few weeks and so uh our perspective is that the the markets follow what you know your ability ability to build something that people want and you shouldn't worry that much about like you know the market cycle or what you're launching into um in terms of how you think about like long-term value and so I I think Vlad kind of took that to heart as well and so you know he didn't I mean and he told people like it's probably going to be the end of the year and you know it's during you know the end of season 2 etc. So it wasn't like he didn't you know uh you know kind of put that out there and there was a very active um points market for uh for lighter where people were buying the points you know speculating what the price of the the TG would be

>> but you know I find this to be a much better way to uh to launch and you know >> um >> I don't know I mean you you're the one who sees all of these projects you guys have all the data like you know do you like have any your research guys seen any you know correlation about you know where the market is and how they you know prepare for these and price action. >> Uh the raw honest answer is like probably yes, but I haven't I don't know. Um we've been we just actually we launched our new website today. So I've been just had we're recording this Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday night and just uh yeah, we just launched our new site today. So basically like uh you can think of it as like Coin Gecko meets DeFi Llama. Um,

you know, we've talked about this a couple times on the show, but we we we got out of the news business. Um, turning more into a data platform and uh we still think owning the distribution is super super super important and um we but we didn't like news as a distribution engine. We but we do like data as a distribution engine. So yeah, we launched this new site and um so yeah, I have not been doing much research on light over cyber liquid. Been heads down trying to get this site live. So >> yeah, I mean I listen, we're um it's interesting to read everything that's happening on Twitter because I think also Vlad, the founder of Lighter, is like a very polarizing figure. Uh there's like people seem to really love him or really hate him. He's he really

is just, you know, kind of building out in public and willing to say whatever, you know, comes to mind and willing to be, you know, very transparent. And um for some people they they've taken I think kind of offense to the way he just kind of says whatever's on his mind. And for others I think they they've enjoyed that. And so um >> I think that's a smart strategy by the way because Jeff is so quiet and behind the scenes that you have to have a um yeah I mean you just have you have to do oftenimes the opposite of what the other competitor is doing. Um and I think I I I like what Vlad is doing. He's clear I mean he's clearly won the hearts and minds of a lot of the right people. So >> yeah.

>> Yeah. So, we're I mean, Hyperlid obviously has a huge head start and a tremendous business and a tremendous >> um exchange and, you know, they we're continue to think they'll do, you know, really well. But, uh, you know, uh, Lighter is definitely the, you know, mo best competitor we've seen so far. Uh, and from an infrastructure perspective, from a team perspective, and so we're excited to see, you know, how that continues to evolve. and it's held up really well post TG in terms of you know volume and and open interest and so um we'll be interested to see how that goes.

>> Yeah. Speaking of, uh winning hearts and minds, I have a stat for you. This is the stat of the year so far. Did you know the worldcoin app is the number one wallet in the world more monthly active users than base meta mask and phantom? >> So this is using sensor tower. So the the people who do the the downloads for uh like it's like all the download information and data for iOS. >> Yeah. >> Interesting. Is is this MAUs?

>> Oh yeah, it says MAU. >> MAUs. Yeah. So I watched their um I watched them roll out their this new world app um a week or two ago and uh >> yeah, it's pretty impressive. I mean they had this whole like product integration with Tinder. So, I guess if you're on Tinder now, like you have to verify your identity using World. Um, and inside of World, I mean, you can Yeah, you can do you can convert like a whole bunch of currencies. You can pay with it. So, I don't know. I feel like we haven't heard much about World Coin recently. But, yeah, it's now the number one wallet, which was uh shocking to me. I'm interested on what um Opera Mini Pay is doing relative to uh to those guys because they're not on here. But um I mean that's a more of a a browser

wallet, but uh that's been growing tremendously in emerging markets. And obviously my guess is that if you looked at the world data like it's mostly emerging markets as well. >> What what is Opera? >> Uh so it's a like a like a browser, but they have >> Opera web browser. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. But they have this um thing called Mini Pay uh that they launched that was on on CLO that was actually like one of the fastest it was the actually the single fastest growing uh stable coin transaction wallet um and all of crypto for the most of the last two years. Uh it's really heavily in Africa and and you know other parts of call it Mina and a lot of emerging markets. Yeah.

>> Okay. So let's um let's talk about this then speaking of wallet. So, did you say Walmart? Um, Walmart just went live with crypto for their I think they have like 150 million weekly users. Uh, and they went live with crypto. So, you can actually you can't pay with Bitcoin at Walmart, but you can buy crypto in the Walmart app. You can sell crypto in the app. Um, you can uh like I don't know. I think you can get rewards in crypto. Um, and I'm curious if you see this and you're like, "Oh, that's a massive thing." and that's going to like you know they have the ability to take on like a bunch of these apps or if you're like oh this is a nothing burger >> I think we need to see a little bit of what happens over time so Walmart's a

really interesting business because they have been trying to and you may or may not know this but they actually tried to get a banking charter in like 2018 2019 they've been trying to get into the um the financial services business for a very long period of time >> because What is Walmart? Walmart is >> They launched I was looking at their I didn't know anything about One Pay. They launched high they have high yield savings. They have credit cards. They have buy now pay later. Uh they have unlimited wireless uh mobile plan. They have peer-to-peer payments. And now they have crypto trading.

>> Yeah. Well, the thing about Walmart, right, is they are the, you know, biggest touch point and the first touch point for a lot of middle class rural America, right? And so they have really deep relationships with um kind of your average person in in the US right >> now. Uh they so right now they use thirdparty providers for all of these things. They also were using green dot for like a card thing as well. And uh >> yeah I think crypto trading is is uh zero hash powers it. >> Yeah it's one pay but zero hash underneath. Right. One pay right? Um and so they've been wanting to get more and more into the financial services business in the same way you've seen um a lot of this happen with telecoms and

with um uh you know kind of these large retail platforms in in Latin America. They've seen this play out especially in you know call it non- coastal cities right in like rural America um because people trust Walmart. They do all their shopping there. Um they've right now use all of its thirdparty providers. They see this as kind of a, you know, top of funnel to allow them to expand um the way they monetize, but they want to get deeper and deeper into those customers and they want to monetize more wholesomely without having to use these third party providers. So, I expect we'll see a lot more from them in going non-custodial because it'll be more easy for them to monetize those wallets. Same thing that we've talked about with like CLA, right? Um, you know, buying Bitcoin is one thing, but we're going to say

stable coins. you know, I know. So, they have a like a big like gift card business as well. They do um a lot of stuff actually where people are sending money as well overseas like a or a remittance business. And I expect we'll see um a lot of conversation about how crypto plays a role in that, right? And I think anybody who has, you know, a really deep relationship with a consumer base who is not digitally native but is also not being well served by the banks, they trust their teleam, their telecom companies, they trust people like Walmart and who they, you know, do most of their shopping with. And so if you can put together a really slick app that, you know, abstracts away some of the crypto, people are going to use it.

and and the people like Walmart, they can do it much more um costefficiently and with much better unit economics than they could if they continue to use like these banking as a service providers, etc. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I just pulled this up. So, I pulled up the top finance apps. Walmart's One Pay is number 12. It's higher than Robin Hood, higher than Wells Fargo, higher than City, higher than Bank of America, higher than SoFi, higher than American Express, higher than Coinbase, higher than Credit One, Discover, Vanguard, Schwab. Very interesting. Very interesting. It seems like this is kind of like uh I don't know a story of fintech that's not being told right now is some of these I mean I feel like everyone talks about the super

app in America and in the US and like how it actually can't really work in the US and how that was just kind of a phenomenon in the west or excuse me in the east and it's not really going to work in the in in the west but um yeah maybe this is the start of that actually changing. Yeah, listen, Walmart, this has been they've been trying to do this for years. Uh, and they I mean they had to withdraw their banking application. I think it was in 22 uh because when the OC basically shut down allowing people, >> but you know, they still have a large financial services team there. And like this is clearly where they believe the road map is going. And by the way, you know, we're hearing that people that look like Walmart, that aren't as big, but also serve, you know, kind of the

same demographic and the same geography both in the US and outside of the US, they're all very actively looking at crypto and stable coins as a way to provide financial services much more cheaply to their end customer. Um, because like the a lot of the banking as a service providers, they were and the embedded finance providers like they they were really costly and they didn't allow you to monetize appropriately. they didn't allow you to scale in the same way with some of those customers and using these blockchain rails like it's it's much much better uh user experience and it becomes much more easy to monetize them appropriately and to share some of that monetization as well assuming that you know um the you know clarity act doesn't have some sort of

you know call it um uh basically revision of gen of of um the um the genius act to try to get rid of the um the yield uh rewards uh kind of carve out. >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh speaking of banks, um did you guys do the Arab board here deal? >> We're not shareholders. No. >> No. Why not? Um we by the we we we were close to you know kind of one of the original founders early on who um raised kind of a a small seed round and you know by the time um Airborne became what it is today and Palmer got involved it was a probably I would say outside of our strike zone a multi-billion dollar company.

>> Why is something like this getting valued at $4 billion pre- launch? I know it's they have some customers already and stuff like that and they just got their FDIC approval and you know they I think I think their launch date is like either next month or the month after February March but like yeah is this just like the the the Peter Teal Palmer Lucky Joe Lawndale >> which is fine >> I I'll say this I we have not done a single banking deal right so there's a lot of you know this is obviously the one that has been most heralded and has done the best from a venture backing perspective um and There is a strong belief by a lot of people that you need a new digitally first, you know, stable coin first bank to go and serve this

market which is growing tremendously quickly, right? We we have not done any of these banking deals. Um there's been quite a few of them and a lot of amazing investors have have invested in them because my general belief has been that banks are not good venture businesses, right? They're very capital uh inefficient. They require a lot of capital to be put into the company over time. they don't scale um with the same reflexivity of other businesses um and they don't get at maturation they don't get kind of multiples that you you tend to pay um Arabore has defied that obviously you know and the kind of their valuations to your point because um I I think the people around the table and like how good the team is and expectation that that team can bring um you know call it a lot of business early

on right um so um you know >> and get and regulatory uh you know approvals in a very fast amount of time. >> Well, listen, I would say this about that like the OC is open for business. It's like very clear they are open for business right now. So, I would expect you to see you know people can debate how many, but I expect you to see 30 40 50 new OC charters this year to be honest, right? And they've been on um they've actually been on schedule. So, they've been telling people they're going to turn you around in a certain number of weeks and they've actually been turning everybody around in those number of weeks. And so I I don't think they move really quickly, but I I don't think uh a regulatory mode is the way to win this market at this point.

>> Yeah. Interesting. Um did we talk about deal rolling out stable coin payroll funding? This is a couple weeks ago. Um but I'm Yeah, this is another one of the announcements where I'm like big big deal or not big deal. I I think all of these announcements by themselves are they matter but they're not you know call it big deals >> right but if you take them all together it's just very clear like the winds have change right you know >> um you know deal is you know a huge platform right and the fact that they're going to continue to do stablecoin they've been doing payouts on deal already they're going to do you know payroll funding uh as well like this is just there there's a couple startups

that do this already um that market has been growing really quickly again it's primarily an outside the US non-domemestic use case, right? But the reality is is and we talked about this with the CLA USD thing is that the more and more people have stable coins in their wallets because they're spending at Walmart with a stable coin or they're spending at CLA with a stable coin and it's being abstracted away then like the whole system starts to work together, right? and you start to see this ballooning of adoption that like I listen my my general perspective is that the 2026 I don't know if this will what this will mean for you know your Ethereum or your Salana but 2026 is going to be a huge year for stable coin adoption but not

just in you know this you know crossborder or not just in um you know these you know call treasury management use cases card use cases is, but it's going to be really big and people actually using them domestically as well in everyday lives. >> Mantle is launching the global hackathon 2025 to accelerate the future of real world assets with a $150,000 prize pool backing from a $4 billion treasury and direct access to Bybit's 7 million plus users. This is the ultimate ecosystem for builders. Mantle has entered a new phase as the distribution layer connecting Tradfi and onchain liquidity. To accelerate this vision, the Mantle global hackathon 2025 is

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technology involve risk terms and conditions apply. Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. Uh, speaking of that, can we talk clarity? >> Yes. >> Do you want to get a state of play first? >> Yeah. Um, basically there's a I think everyone was very optimistic that we would get two pieces of big legislation in 2025. Stable coins and then market structure. As the year went on, it became very clear that we were going to get one of those and not the other one. So, we obviously got genius and we got stable coins. We didn't get market structure. Um, I think the Dems, uh, it has been very tough to get a lot of the Dems on board and there's been very strong lobbying against the, uh, market structure bill. And so, here we

are in January. Um, I'm looking at some of the prediction market odds. We've got um, uh, the chance that we get crypto market structure bill becomes law before April is at 20%. before May is 47%. And before uh before 2027, so in 2026, the chance is 74%. I have heard from I've heard five different things from five different people this week about clarity. Um so I would just I mean let's get the six source. What what are you hearing?

Yeah, I mean from our side um there was a article that came out from uh the ABA, the American Banking Association. Yeah. >> Um I think it was was it yesterday? >> Um that came out >> and this has been a long a topic of conversation, but you know the banking lobby is very concerned around what's happening in the Genius Act in terms of there being a carve out for rewards that they see as a carve out to pay yield. I think the banking a lot of the the banking administ um kind of sector has taken the perspective that the um that these are basically like money market funds and we already have legislation

for how to manage money market funds and so they needs to be carved out of genius and just be you know uh essentially ruled by money market fund legislation. And so they've been pushing if there we're going to get, you know, some version of clarity or some markup of clarity, whatever that looks like, to have in the Clarity Act a essentially um a change to Genius, which gets rid of this um this this kind of carveout for rewards. Um what we're hearing right now is that you know the right essentially right now there's we're in the Senate Banking Committee or the Senate Banking Committee is the one who has the next move right so the Senate Banking Committee um has to provide a markup by

of Clarity Act that passed the House last year by sometime next week. um they and then they would vote on it and it would they would vote to advance it out of committee and then to kind of a full floor u full Senate conversation, right? The Senate Banking Committee has 13 Republicans, has 12 Dems um or 11 Dems. I think the what we um understand is that you know the Dems still, which by the way, Elizabeth Warren is the ranking Democrat on uh on the Senate Bank Committee. The Dems are very still very unhappy with um the treatment of DeFi and DeFi frontends and the regulatory burden put on DeFi frontends for you

know whether or not they need to do AML K uh KYC and to what extent do they need to do that and how do they need to charge fees how are they going to be regulated um and so where expectation is that the Dems are going to vote entirely no right >> and So you need there to be, you know, almost all of the Republicans to vote to um put, you know, a markup out of committee. And what we're hearing is that there are a number of Republicans who are potentially um sympathetic to the bank uh plight or the bank concern that, you know, this Genius Act allowed for a carve out of these >> um you know, rewards or these yield that will hurt community banks. Right.

>> Right. And so what what what we're hearing is there is a potential that um there could be a delay in getting this markup out um or even it could happen not at all if the banking lobby is able to get enough Republicans on their side related to this specific point because then what came happened yesterday is that there um I think it was Tim Scott or maybe it was somebody else that came out maybe it was a Lumis who said there's no way that we're changing genius in this um in in in this you know kind of markup and so you now have this kind of standoff which is like okay do we change genius and do we get clarity act or do we not change genius and do we not get clarity and that is kind of the current state of play and we'll see who

puts first. Yeah, it's look I I read the American Bankers Association letter too and there was kind of these three main points, right? It's the community banks rely on the deposits. It's the um the the prohibition on yield is being skirted basically like there are workarounds and um there are I think they said like six trillion in bank deposits that are now at risk. I think the one that is so compelling and wins hearts and minds is the community banks, right? because they rely on the on deposits which then fund lending for communities for homes and small businesses and your farmers and students and stuff like that. And so uh if you are a senator or you know someone who doesn't really know too much about this stuff um and I mean I'll be honest like they they stable coins probably do hurt

community banks, right? I don't think it I don't think it hurts the homes and small businesses and farms and students. I think the loans still go to them is probably what they're missing. But yeah, it does disrupt a lot of banking and um but I think it's a I I do think it's a compel I worry that it's a actually quite a compelling argument >> there. There was a you know when Genius was going through um uh through Congress uh I had a house rep in our office who wanted to come talk uh to me about this basically what we cared about in Genius and what we cared about was stable coins more broadly. This was obviously one of the biggest topics of conversation and you know one of the things he said to me is like don't you think this is going to

challenge the community banks and what do you think about could there be deposit flight and I told him I was like I do think it is competition and challenge to the community banks but that's a good thing right right now we have an industry that has essentially built bad consumer product that is only exists today because of the regulatory mode, right? Like the these banks have not competed on product. They've not competed on they haven't been able to digitize. They haven't been able to offer better rates because of the fact that they are have had this regulatory mode and they haven't competed in a way in a free market in a long time, right? And so we're starting to see, you know, the push of

digitization around stable coins kind of bring up this idea that maybe they need to be better, right? like maybe the banks need to serve the interests of their community even more than they already do. There are 5,000 banks in the US. The reality is today that the Gibs are getting bigger and the community banks are getting smaller. And that's predate stable coins because the community banks are not competing. They haven't been able to compete and they're not doing it right. And so like the reality is in my mind is that of the 5,000 banks in the US, we probably only need 500. We don't need 5,000, right?

And we are it is probably inevitable that the 5,000 get significantly reduced no m even if stable coins did not exist right because of the way that digitization and reinvestment uh and just innovation is happening in financial markets. And so the community banks, if they're smart, and some of them have started to do this, if they're smart, they should be first adopters of stable coins because that gives them the ability to actually go and compete against JP Morgan who is undercutting them on fees anyways and who is doing everything they can to hurt them.

>> And so listen, I I'm I'm sympathetic. I'm not sympathetic is not the right word. I do believe that stable coins are competition to the community banks and I think that is a good thing, right? And we're seeing it across not just the community banks, but we're seeing it across credit more broadly from, you know, alternative credit providers, right? We're seeing it across now this idea that, you know, u Governor Waller from the Fed put out requests for comment on um the ability to have these skinny master accounts or essentially allow tech companies and stable coin companies to go and um go and be able to work with or in some way interact with the Fed's payment uh rails. And so like if you put all of those things together, innovation is coming in payments, in

banking, that's just a matter of time. And like this is just another like last stitch effort to put some, you know, call it regulatory moat uh and stop from treating the customers better and from innovating. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Who is the tech company that allows any community bank to just roll out crypto? Whether that's offer crypto, you know, ex, you know, buy, sell or custody or, you know, help them move on to stable coins and 24/7 settlement infrastructure. Who is the vendor who's doing that?

>> So, Fiserve announced that they're doing that. Uh, and they obviously serve a lot of these community banks. Fiser is like a a core banking provider. >> Um, they're ferve really going to do that well like Fer >> I don't I don't think so. Yeah, I I do not think so. Um I ferve these I I'm listen anybody who's dealt with banking cores over time uh does not bullish on FIS or Ferve going and like building a brand new like tech first digitally native banking core. There are a number of um startups that are trying to do this as well. Um uh there's a um one called stable core uh that is is trying to do this. Um there's another one um that's called uh A+ uh that is trying to do this that is uh basically started by

some people from the Ethereum Foundation. Um there's a few others that have raised capital into it as well. So I think we're starting to see we're going to see probably a lot of startups try to attack that space in the same way we saw the banking as a service uh space kind of you know get really competitive as well. A lot of those haven't done particularly well, but you know, obviously like, you know, Synapse and others have had, you know, kind of big blowups, but like Enino and Q2 and a few others have done okay. >> Yeah. H interesting. Um, anything else to cover?

>> It's so tough out here being a content creator, isn't it, Rob? It's kind of a I I you know, it's interesting. It's like I was talking to some of the other podcast hosts and uh you know media company people and stuff like that and uh it's uh it's it's light out there right now. It's light. >> Yeah, it's I mean it's it's it's Listen, it's a slow start to the year. I think there's going to be a lot of big funding announcements this month that are going to get people talking about things as again >> fund funds announcing their new funds or companies raising money.

>> Companies raising money. Although I think we'll have some some fund announcements over the next month or two, but I'm I'm more bullish on funding announcements than I am on new funds raising capital. Um I think that's uh going to continue to be a tough market for a lot of people. Um but you know uh I think we'll you know there's been a lot of conversation around the things that are working right and there's been I think less interest in you know the longer tale of crypto but you have seen you know a little bit of life come out there. Um >> yeah. >> Uh maybe the one thing we didn't talk about, you know, I don't know if you have a perspective, is >> on that note before we get into the last thing is um it feels like to me seeing some of these deals come together, it's

the first time that the latest stage markets have actually been pretty hot. I think the earlier stage is less hot right now and but actually like some of the series B, series C, maybe even series D. Like that money is actually coming back into the market. >> Yeah, I can I can tell you right now of two series C's that will probably get announced this month. um both of which with we're heavily heavily involved in that um are you know just like huge companies growing tremendously quickly that like are going to have a lot of headline um convers there's going to be a lot of talk about them in the market because of the headlines and we're seeing that kind of across the space where there's like the the companies that are really working are um really really working and we're seeing like

traditional um investors who do fintech who do you know call it you know our generalists who are coming to this into the space and they're saying we want to involved in this and that's the first time that's happened since 21 >> and um but it's happening in a much more sustainable way honestly this time around so >> um you know >> maybe the one other thing that we didn't talk about uh is MCI did you see this uh >> no >> so you know Msei obviously one of the biggest indis providers in the world um they there had been a um an expectation that they would decide to exclude DATs from their indexes. Um, and you know, obviously that was it's a really big

deal for Micro Strategy, which is in all the indices today, right? Uh, and they came out yesterday and said they're actually going to allow DATs to continue to trade uh, in the indices. They're going to do further review over time to make sure these aren't investment companies, but um, they we had a little bit of rally. I mean, obviously Bitcoin was down today, but we had a little bit of rally after after uh, market uh, closes. Micro strategy up 6% on it. Interesting. >> Yeah. And so and it was really around the ability to continue to have DATs in um uh in in these indices, right? And so, you know, I think that's again like another indication that like the traditional financial markets I mean we also saw this week by the way Morgan Stanley announced their Bitcoin ETF,

>> right? And so, um, we, um, I think we're seeing again just like day in and day out institutional acceptance of this asset class and institutional excitement around the asset class. And so, like to the point, you know, we had earlier, every single announcement maybe is in of itself isn't that big, but there's just so much stuff happening and there like the winds are so obviously blowing in the same direction. So, I don't know. I mean, you're probably seen it with all the, you know, kind of people that you talk to on the um on the more institutional side and the larger funds, etc.

>> We have more inbound. It's is it's actually very interesting. We have more I feel like the cryptonative side feels a little quiet right now, like token prices are down, things like that. We have more inbound on the institutional side. And I bucket I say institutional, there's we we actually categorize it in three buckets. There's enterprises, instit financial institutions, and fintexs. More more inbounds than we've ever had in the history of blockworks on that side. Yeah, >> but the crypto native side is a little quiet. So um yeah it's interesting like we've we've talked about so in 2022 we started training the sales team to sell into protocols and uh it it fell very early right like we weren't making any money from the protocols then like our big customers were like Fireblocks and BitGo and you know BlockFi it was

like the CFI companies right and we started you know training the team to sell into protocols and that went very well now a large amount of our revenue comes from the you know the the protocols the DeFi you know DeFi and L1 L1s and L2s. Now we are starting to really try to get ahead of the curve on the institutional side of things, enterprises, fintex, things like that. >> Yeah. I mean, and half the conversation on uh on Twitter this week has been like, oh, Canton and Rwas and like what does that mean? I mean, there also like um Barkclay's made a strategic investment to a thing called Ubix, which like clearing.

>> Yeah. And I I think again, right, like >> every day there was something new on the institutional side. it just, you know, hasn't meant what people hoped it would mean for token prices. And I think that's continue, we just continue, we talk about this every week, there just continues to be this disconnect between how people feel about markets and then the things we're seeing in terms of like adoption. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, all right, sir. Kind of a quiet app to to start the year, but a good one. People should go check out the new Blockworks website. It's great. Um, if you see something that you want changed on it, just DM me or drop in the Empire Telegram channel. I'll read it. Um, yeah. Anything else?

>> Do you read all of your DMs? >> Uh, no. I can't do that anymore. I actually see all I have my Telegram is extremely organized. So, I most groups I never see except for a few groups. I I have like a custom like folder called unreads. So, I actually I I see every Telegram um every personal Telegram message. Doesn't mean I respond to every one of them, but yeah, Twitter DMs is probably getting like 50 a day right now. I just can't respond to those. >> Yeah, I'm getting too many Twitter names, too. I'm getting a lot of people that are like, "Hey, can um can people come on your podcast?" Uh, and I >> Oh, welcome to my world. Yeah, >> I know. And it's >> probably like 10 requests a day. I was

the best guest for Empire, you know. Like, okay. Okay. >> Well, and I tell people, um, I I'm just a guest. I'm just an every week guest. But >> you want to be on the You want to get more involved with the show until people start asking you to come on the show. That's how it works. >> Listen, until I'm on the header, like I obviously can't decide who's on the show, so someday. >> We're gonna have you do the ad read soon, Rob. That's That's where it gets fun. Oh, uh f we're we're pulling back on the ads this year. Uh we have too many ads on Empire. So, that's the update for people is we're I think we have like five ads in Empire right now or four ads or six ads. Too many ads.

We're pulling back on the ads this year. So, um yeah, >> that's how you know Blockers is crushing it. Blockers doesn't need the ads. Crushing it. >> No ads. You all get the the show for free. Yeah. Um, cool. All right, folks. Uh, good good to be back with you guys. Hope everyone had a good new year. Good holiday season. >> Content of the week. What are we doing here? >> Oh my god. I'm rusty right now. I'm rusty, >> man. Tough start. >> Tough start. >> Oh, man. All right, you go first. I got to think of this one. All right, this one's easy for me because I I saw this movie uh earlier this week and I kind of tweeted about this, too, but it's called No Other Choice. Uh which is a

>> high on the list. I want to see that. Yes. >> Yeah. So, Korean movie >> Leo, right? >> Uh no, no, no. Um it's uh Park Chan Wuk uh Korean movie. >> This is not what I'm thinking about. >> Not what you were thinking of. Yeah. Um no, no Leo in this movie. So, it's entirely Korean. Um it's based on um kind of another um like thriller, you know, create that um uh or the kind of like an American thriller that existed before um from the 70s um car sort of a satirical like black comedy. And it's basically about this guy who u loses his job and you know he's he's been you know working at this company for you know 25

plus years. He's been working his way up. He's etc., you know, great employee. Then eventually loses his job because of um, you know, call it automation and, uh, they got they get acquired by kind of a global company and he gets sort of desperate to find a new gig um, and it's not working out as as well as he'd want to. and he starts thinking about um you know because there's so few jobs left should he like kill other applicants uh and potentially like you know ba basically like you know kill his way into a a new role >> dude what's what's good with Korean films like Parasite Squid Game like it was kind of like a dark twisted thing that >> listen it it was it's a kind of a black

comedy it's super funny it's very sad it's like you know an you know very in-your-face like social commentary about the world we're in today and you know cuz I think a lot of the fears that people have around automation um but like go see it like you know I'm all on board with all Korean film uh today like I'm I'm loving everything I think you know between um uh between Bonjunho who obviously did Parasite and and Park Chong Wuk who who did this and um a couple of other you know kind of films that I I really enjoyed um like go see it. Yeah, I was thinking of the Leo the new Leo movie. One battle after another.

>> Oh, I mean that's great, too. But that's it's been for a little, but definitely see it. >> Yeah, like Sean Penn and Leo or something. Um >> that that's probably going to win the Oscar for best film this year. So, definitely see it. >> Yeah, I got to see that. Um I watched uh Shane Gillis uh Shane Gillis's um show called Tires or Tire or something. Have you seen this? >> I have not. No, I like Shane. It's on. It's like if you just It was over the holidays. It was over Christmas and I was just needed like a little breather and I just watched uh season one of the show called Tires Shane Gillis. It's It's freaking hilarious.

It's great. So, I thoroughly enjoyed that. >> All right. I'm going to check it out. >> No podcast. Oh, okay. Here. People want a podcast. Non-fiction content. I listen to Lenny's podcast. Do you know this podcast? >> No. >> It's very good. It's the best product podcast out there. like people are interested in like you know be like head of product VP of you want to hear from like chief product officers and stuff like that so it was actually there's a company Ripling very well-known like SAS payroll company stuff like that they had the COO of Ripling he used to be the chief product officer now that he's the CO of Ripling it was one of the actually one of the best podcasts I've listened to in a very long time about like company leadership scaling products so Lenny's podcast with I think the guy's

name was Matt maybe rippling COO very Okay. Yeah, I did I did listen to a podcast too as well, the invest like the best, but it was the one with it's a little bit old, but um with uh Martin Escobari who runs General Atlantic. >> Oh, nice. Yeah. >> And I really, if you're an investor, I really liked that one because he talks a lot about how, you know, they've made a lot of money in emerging markets and they're very, very few people have made money in emerging markets. And one of the interesting pieces is that they don't have an emerging market fund. So the point has been that like you have to be able to win mind share and you have to believe the company is just as good as what could be done in the US or what could be done in Europe etc. But he

talks a lot about how you know there's been over time this perspective that you should just keep putting money in the US. The US keeps winning, the US keeps winning, the US keeps winning. And I think in the um kind of backdrop of what happened in Venezuela this week, I actually found it even more interesting because he's he's basically saying like listen, when you look at it from a multiple perspective, an EPS perspective, the US has never been more expensive than it is today and internationally has never been cheaper. And so if you were to ask me what happens over the next 10 years, I would tell you that you're gonna make more money overseas than you are in the US, which is a very interesting I think not not a perspective that a lot of people hold right now.

>> Yeah, that's great. Um, cool. That's the pod. Thanks, folks. See you next week. Awesome.