Rollup TV: Flare Networks, Rialo, PanteraCapital and Blockchain Association
15 Nov 2025 · 1:50:43
Andy and Robbie Klages, hosts of The Rollup, run through a lineup of guests touching on Flare Networks, the layer-1 built around decentralized oracle data, along with emerging protocol Rialo, venture firm Pantera Capital, and the crypto policy group Blockchain Association. The conversation moves across oracle infrastructure, venture investment strategy in digital assets, and the regulatory landscape shaping crypto policy in Washington.
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[music] We threw down two days live stream little dinner. We got an event planned Q4. [music] Stay tuned. We're going into the events business. Robbie Andy the boys [music] straight days live stream TV [music] number one. [music] I'm the mother. [music] [music]
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[music] the [music] >> [music] >> We'll see you around the timeline. >> Feels good to be back. >> Yo yo, happy Friday. >> Happy >> Friday. >> Hope you guys are enjoying the day two of the bare market. >> Um or maybe it's day three of the bare market.
How's your bare market going, Rob? >> When do you think we entered the bare market? Like, was it when we dropped below 100K or where do you think the line was? >> No, no. The bare market started in probably in like early October. Yep. >> Interesting. >> Yeah, it's been a good bare market so far. Lost about 30% of the port. How you doing over there? Well, it's funny because you know these asset I was watching Arthur Hayes yesterday and the general thesis is like as long as we're printing money these things go up into the right and the
debasement trade is pretty much in full effect and Bitcoin is at 95K. It feels like we could go all the way down at 75 80K and Bitcoin's still in a bull market. Seems like he's still in the denial phase, folks. It's good to know, guys. We've got a uh we've got [laughter] >> I'm buying all the way down. >> We've got Hugo Filion from Flare coming up. Uh running a little bit behind here, so we're going to get him fired up, get him up in the stage. Hugo is going to be talking about bringing XRP, Ripple, um into DeFi, kind of what that looks like for their team. Um, and yeah, pretty pretty excited to talk with him. I feel
like XRP has gotten a ton of traction as of recently, um, because of the just broad adoption and huge raise that they had. So, let's bring him up on stage and, uh, let's get this show on the road, guys. Hugo, welcome to the show, man. >> Hey, thanks for having me. >> Absolutely. Uh, it's a pleasure, man. We've, uh, we've seen XRP in the market ever since we got started back in 2017. Uh, you guys were there building. um had some trials and tribulations along the way. Uh certainly who hasn't? But you guys have uh made it through the storm, persevered and made it out uh into a much greener pasture of the current uh landscape for digital assets market conditions and regulatory environment.
Maybe you could just talk to us about what building in Ripple world feels like. How long have you been did you did you go through kind of like the the times when when Ripple, you know, was getting persecuted by the SEC and the lawsuit? What was it like? How has the uh experience of building in Ripple evolved over the last couple years? >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh so let me try and give you a bit of an overview of Flair. So Flair is a standalone layer 1 EVM. Um and uh we specialize in data. So we're the uh effectively the only major layer one with fully enshrined data protocols both for price oracles and for web two and web 3 data. So all of that's handled by the validators. All of that's secured
by stake. Um and you know we've been very aligned with uh XRP from the beginning uh mostly because we think that there is a sensible strategy to bring assets uh like XRP that don't have smart contracts onto uh a chain. We wanted that chain to have its own data protocols because uh otherwise you know why not just use a wrapped version through a custodian. Um and so we've built bridges based on those data protocols to Flair. Um, so that's kind of long and short of why Flare exists.
Uh, we've been very focused on XRP because Bitcoin has uh, you know, already wrapped Bitcoin. It's quite large. You know, there's hundreds of Bitcoin L2s, most of which won't survive. Um, and you know, we thought that the XRP market was a a particularly good market. Uh, you know, ready for DeFi. Um, and no one else thought that at the time when we were raising, not a single person. Um almost every VC said to me the XRP army will never use DeFi. Um what we've seen is that uh more than 70% of the XRP that has come to our chain since we launched the bridge five or six weeks ago is in DeFi. Um so we can dig into that in a sec. Uh but it's
quite it's quite refreshing to see uh those people uh who everyone said they'll never touch DeFi uh actually really really get stuck in. So uh you know in terms of building in the RIP Ripple ecosystem or the XRP ecosystem um you know is hard uh there's nothing you can do with the other chain or you know very little in terms of like being able to get programmability from it but that's why we exist. Uh but that means that building a bridge is quite difficult. Um it's the same with building you know a really robust Bitcoin bridge non-custodial bridge. Uh so uh you know we've we've worked with the Ripple team. We've worked with the developers uh non-Ripple developers around the uh you know the XRP uh
ledger. Uh and in fact we'll be talking about smart accounts in a minute which is a product we're working on uh with a wallet called Zaman which is the large one pretty much the largest XRP wallet. That's not a Ripple team wallet. uh that is a group of independent engineers uh and we are working with them to make the onboarding experience into DeFi on Flare very very much easier. So hopefully that's a short synopsis. >> Absolutely love it. Uh I mean you've got to have some pretty thick skin in order to build in the ecosystem. I'm also curious just to to hear maybe the steel man to the argument of why XRPers uh would use DeFi. I you know we Andy and I we come from this yield farming DeFi
summer 2020 background. Uh so we're intimately aware of you know all of the opportunities that DeFi making assets productive assets. Um you know we're we're very familiar with that. Um what what's the argument? Why wouldn't you use DeFi to me? You know squeezing some extra yield turning these things into productive assets. It's a no-brainer. Why what were the what were what was the counterargument? Why were people suggesting that? I mean, the counterargument was that, you know, the XRP army, as they colloquially called, uh, are just going to huddle. Um, and I think that's, you know, I think there's a very good percentage of the XRP army that are just going to huddle. But there's two things that massively go in our favor. Uh, one, you've never been able to get yield on the asset and other
and they've gotten burnt from uh, you know, things like Celsius. So, they are looking for a DeFi opportunity. So, large amounts of XRP were lost by Celsius. um you know together with other coins but specifically really are the XRP community. Flare is uh you know the DeFi offering for XRP. Um and then you know secondly I I I think you know I think at the time uh venture capitalist when we were starting which was 2018 uh venture venture capitalist really thought that XRP wasn't going to stick around. Um and you know in fact quite the opposite. It has stuck around and in fact it's gone up from where it was let's say two years ago. Um so I think you know I think we we hopefully having
stood the course and the test of time we're in the right place. >> What do you think about the XRP ETF being one of the biggest ETF launches ever? It just broke this Salana ETF record of like two weeks ago. Well, uh I mean if ETF trading is related to market cap, which I suppose there must be some correlation, it's no surprise that it did. Um I think that you know, one of the things that uh XRP has in its favor is it has um it has a slightly older population, uh slightly older community, which means most of those people actually do trade stocks and bonds, um or you know, they have retirement accounts, right? So therefore, uh, you know, they're likely
to be ETF buyers, perhaps more so than, uh, cryptonative buyers. For instance, I I I personally don't have an ETF account. >> Um, yeah, that makes sense. When you're when you're looking at the demographic of uh the audience for XRP, makes complete sense that they're going to be more aligned with with those ETFs than some of the other uh, ecosystems. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about uh Hugo was Firelight which seems to also be expanding uh the opportunities for XRP DeFi. This is a a recent advent. Um maybe you could give us some insight into Firelight and and how you guys may uh may be uh aligned.
>> Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So, Firelite is an XRP um let's call it staking protocol on Flare. Um and they exist from a uh request for uh proposals that we put out and uh effectively we we looked at the uh Ethereum ecosystem and other ecosystems and we we we noticed that the base asset that most things are operating in is actually the staked asset. Um because people want to be able to borrow against something that's early, right? They want to be able to, you know, lock up an asset that's earning uh yield in order to get another asset that they can earn yield from. And having this productive staked asset is, you know, a really beneficial aspect of
being a um a proof ofstake chain. Uh now, obviously XRP does not have proof of stake. Uh and there's no natural yield for XRP. So, we wanted something that was as close to as possible uh to that. And of course um you know people like Ian layer and and the others have come along and been like oh well you can stake this asset to secure other chains hasn't really worked out um just just the market's not there um you know I get they've pivoted right so that the idea of uh you know staking to to these other services it just the market's not big enough there's not enough size for it um so you know fireite is effectively building a coverage protocol
in order to effectively cover risk across DeFi on whatever chain flare, Ethereum, Salana, whatever chain. Um and so whereas you know uh older other staking models pro you know focus purely on yield um and rely on a validator set to exist uh you know violite kind of inverts that model uh the the staked FXRP which is our version of XRP the the XRP that is bridge to flare FXRP uh is pulled as collateral to use to underwrite essentially smart contract economic oracle and bridge risks. Um uh so the coverage uh and payouts uh you know are predefined and not subjective
uh and you know uh independent assessments within fireite remove I guess centralized decision making allows people to deposit to whichever firelight pool they're interested in which particular coverage they want to do. So this moves, you know, this moves staking from, you know, trusting protocol to, you know, more of an onchain risk framework. >> Got it. And a lot a lot of the value in DeFi comes w with respect to Bitcoin and ETH, maybe some more familiar assets to our audience comes from the collateralization element. It it comes from Bitcoin being, you know, some some very uh, you know, bulletproof collateral. Um and and ETH the same
thing except ETH has, you know, a native yield. What would you say is XRP's strongest value proposition when it comes to its place in DeFi? >> I mean, you know, what we want to pioneer is that collateral usage, right? Um we want people to stake their XRP in Firelight, get a yielding asset out and then take it to a lending protocol, borrow against it. um you know that's effective or a purpose protocol uh you know on chain uh and use that to trade markets. So I think it's it's broadly the same uh you know the same use case.
It's just applying it to an asset that now has been around for 12 years um is consistently in the top five uh and has extremely broad liquidity. So you know there's no reason if you look at it as a pure asset why it shouldn't have the same collateral uh use case. Yeah, we just want to be the people to bring that to to market. >> Yeah. Um, do you guys have like a a regulatory like policy strategy at Flare? Ripple's really came and dominated a lot of the kind of policy and a lot of the regulatory actions and getting in into contact with the right people. H how do you kind of think about the the new
environment with regards to your strategy? Yeah, I mean we're just waiting for it to unfold. Uh we have a few irons in the fire. Um I think you know we we we are very very you know as an entity decentralized as a chain extremely decentralized. Uh we've always been extremely careful to uh on the side of caution with regards to any statements we make so as to not uh you know uh inspire the wrong kind of uh attention. um you know our policy is basically so we're we're decentralization maxim maximalists that's why we built an oracle into the chain itself as opposed to buying an off-the-shelf oracle with a small very small validator set um you
know we try to stay as far away from policy as possible that's uh you know we we try to be as insulated as possible uh that said that's not always uh feasible um but you know we make sure that we're in accordance with all the regulations and all that kind of stuff you'll see on almost all of our tweets because I'm British. Uh nothing applies to the UK. So, you know, who knows how this is going to work out. It's a very uh you know, it's a nice time in the US for crypto. Um you know, and I hope I really really hope it remains that way.
>> Yeah, we we certainly believe so. Um the administration has been putting together regulation and you know th this in theory you know would would put a halt to the wild west but it feels like now the industry is re re- uh uniting around uh America. What what would you say is kind of the biggest roadblock for for you guys whether it's regulatory or engineering? You know, what what's on the road map that you're still trying to focus on unlocking the next pillar of DeFi? Is it more interoperability, more engineering, trying to unlock more assets? What what do you think is going to take the the you know 50 million XRP that's already been bridged to Flare and and increase that uh tenfold?
>> Okay. So, um I think those are two different questions because uh if if if you don't mind um just because I I think what will uh increase XRP the 50 million that's been uh bridged it's now 60 I'm quite glad to say um uh what will increase that 10 times fireite um will increase that by 10x like firelight is built for scale uh it you know if you look at uh insurance markets uh you know they're 30 40 50 billion dollars right we can take 30 40 bit 30 40 50 billion dollars of XRP in order to ensure and in order to give cover to those markets. Um so we it's it's really built for scale and because
XRP has no native yield uh just being able to give some yield back is valuable getting that stake representation and then putting that into the Flare ecosystem to maybe borrow against that stake representation and do more with your money. I think that grows to you know multiple billions you know already. Um some of the hurdles there are uh where are the pools of XRP? So you have a big retail pool uh but you also have a huge amount of retail that are holding their um their XRP at um custodians and exchanges. So uh onboarding exchanges it has been pretty critical for us. Uh that's a process we're very uh comfortable with where we are. Uh so I think there'll be a number of exchanges
participating in Fire Light. Uh first of which is already announced called Uphold. Um and then really making the experience as easy as possible for retail with smart wallets. Um that is critical. So smart wallets allow a XRP user to only ever make transactions on the XRP ledger. They never need to come to Flare. So they can bridge their XRP to Flare uh and direct where that XRP goes on Flare without ever touching Flare. Um just because we have data protocols that can read a memo field uh on the XRP ledger so we can uh basically abstract away all of the complexity of using uh using Flair and that's coming
hopefully in December. uh that uh combined with the wallets that work uh in in uh on the XRP ledger uh to me I think that's a huge unblock uh because getting people to come from XRP into the EVM ecosystem which is what flare is is really really tough um in terms of what where I think uh DeFi goes which was the other part of the question um I think we've seen a lot of problems with vaults uh with vault curators how they're structured uh I think we We'll see. I think that's the regulatory hammer that will come down. Um that actually is the bit that I think is going to be the the the next, you know, bad thing in our industry, which is that if you look at
how vaults are curated, it is very very hard to say that that is not fund management, >> right? Um, and I I think, you know, one of the things I've been very keen on emphasizing is that uh, you know, we want the vaults that are on Flair to pretty much do everything on chain and for those to be that to be enforced by smart contract. I'd like to go further um and I'd like to build uh verifiable compute to make sure that uh effectively uh a user subscribes to a risk model and uh the vault cannot do anything beyond that risk model. That to me is like okay so now I'm just subscribing to an algorithm that sits in a uh sits in a
verifiable layer. Um, and I'm subscribing to uh effectively an algorithm from a curator that is already in existence. So the curator does not make independent decisions on an hourby- hour basis. It's all done by algorithm that abstracts away the whole thing and then you're just then you're just subscribing to data and that's a totally different deal. >> Yeah, we we saw what recently happens when you unleash an ecosystem. uh we're friends with the guys over at Near. Uh they launched their intense product and it hope helped open up this entire Zcash world and now Zcash has been on a a tremendous tear. And so if anything is similar in the XRP
ecosystem, unleashing this, connecting it with EVM, pretty much opening the gates of capital and liquidity to flow in and out of this ecosystem is um you know in in a really good opportunity to uh to open up and and really see how things unfold. Um Hugo, I I think you know, we're running short on time. I'm I'm curious just any closing thoughts on your end. I can also see how, you know, a lot staking ETFs are gaining in popularity. Uh, Solana staking ETF went live. There's no native yield, but you guys at Flare, uh, you know, would be the venue to generate some yield on XRP, and I could see a major partnership with some sort of ETF provider providing that
yield. Any any things or plans like this, any alpha you can share to wrap us up? >> Well, I mean, I'm definitely interested in getting there. I think getting people um I think getting regulators around the hurdle of it's not native yield, it's coming from risk. Um even though there is risk in staking, right? Like that's let's let's be absolutely clear, there's risk in staking, but it's a different type of risk, right? Um >> so, you know, I think I think we'll get there. Um it's definitely on the road map. Uh it but you know, it's going to be a a lot of work with uh you know, the regulators that matter uh there. Uh closing thoughts uh you know just uh watch it unfold. Hopefully it'll unfold
in a in a positive manner. Um and you know we're launching Flare 2.0 which is pretty much all about verifiable compute uh you know mid mid next year. So I think that'll be quite interesting. That's when I think we can start really really upgrading the way vaults are managed in the industry. >> Love it. >> I mean that offchain opaque vault management is just not going to work long term. So, >> I wanted I wanted it to be all algorithmic, all autonomous, uh, and all verifiable.
>> Hugo, appreciate your time, man. Thanks for joining us today. Um, wish the best. We are entering, uh, what Rob calls the Goldilocks era of crypto. So, strap in, brother. >> Nice to meet you. >> Likewise. We'll see you soon. >> Cheers. >> Bye. >> Bye. And it it is pretty nuts that um Ripple like the XRP ETF was, you know, one of the biggest uh ever. Like I I mean it actually just surpassed Salana as being the biggest ever, >> right? The first the day one.
>> Yeah. >> Uh trading volume. >> Yeah. Which is pretty impressive. >> It shows that there's still a bid out there right? >> Of course. So, [snorts] I think we got Summer next, CEO of Blockchain Association. Um, she is ready. She's in the back. This should be a good one. They are they've uh they've been doing a lot of work in the market structure build with Genius Act. Um, you know, they've been talking a lot about Clarity. Um, generally they've had some new partners join their their team. So, excited to to chat with them uh and chat with Summer and and kind of get an update as to where we're at here. I think the bigger a lot of people in in in the market are trying to figure out, you know, the ETAs
on the market structure bill and just generally where this like what the next step for the US government is and so looking forward to having having that uh kind of conversation. So yeah, Ro. >> Yeah. Um I'm pretty stoked because uh we've heard a lot about this. Clarity is definitely going to um I I think it's going to just further clear like clarify literally it's clarity act define the rules of of the road. People are going to come back to the US and they're going to understand what they have to do in order to capitalize on this business opportunity. Um also uh there's going to be beneficiaries of this regulation like you know we we see a lot of bull market
warriors come across our desk. You know, these are guys that are, you know, usually pretty crypto native, but they're building something that uh it's not um fully, in my opinion, it's not fully realizing uh the opportunity at hand, which is this institutional cycle that we see playing out before our eyes uh 2026 and beyond. It's significant capital markets entering the ecosystem, thinking about tokenization. uh they need clear rules of the road and and for someone who's not building with the Clarity Act and and you know this regulation in mind, I just don't think that they're fully realizing the opportunity here.
>> Agreed. So, let's get Summer up um and let's get this show on the road. Um looking forward to having an kind of a continuation of some of the policy conversations that we had at SmartCon last week. Um that was a really really high quality event. Uh we got to speak to Cody from the digital chamber. Uh we got to speak to some uh Adam Chainlink's head of policy. So yeah, looking forward to catching up. Uh guys, I think we're just having a
little bit of tech difficulties here. Um yeah, I think we're up and good. >> So, uh the regulatory landscape is shifting. I I do think that there's going to be a big push uh to get Clarity Act in before the midterms. Uh Arthur Hayes mentioned this during our conversation um couple of times and generally this is uh this is something that is such an important piece of this industry. Um they're we're just going to have an easier time pushing it through uh with a very aligned Congress. I do enjoy even though there there's a lot of bureaucracy, there's a lot of uh like
red tape and it kind of feels like we're getting further and further away from the code is law test and prod basically just ship code and that's that's what matters. Um as we get into businesses that are a little bit more like touch and go, this this becomes more and more necessary. So, it it's just, you know, we've we've seen how this industry evolves, and it's interesting to see how as we get into bigger capital markets, we end up shifting shifting the goalposts almost or shifting like the the the entry points of this capital. Like what brings in, you know, the next trillion dollar asset
manager? It's not necessarily like obviously we need Lindy protocols, we need smart contract audits, we need all of this, but the the the aura of safety and security is what they're they want, right? They want the financial security and insulation that we talk about and and the thing that gives them that sense of security is quite a bit different than like early on what gave us that tense security. >> Right. Right. Exactly. And and it's it's actually yeah I mean we there there's a long conversation here about kind of the [clears throat] crypto ethos you know being taken away
>> uh and people being upset about that and just generally like where they stand on that [snorts] and that being a reason why a lot of these OGs are kind of fleeing the space and and people realizing that you know they built all this infrastructure spent all this money to build all this infrastructure and that a lot of these just institutional folks are just going to come and deploy it. I saw a tweet it was like crypto has spent, you know, billions of dollars building infrastructure but very little actually deploying it which effectively kind of just means apps. Um and that was particularly kind of alarming.
Now, I remember a conversation that we had with a woman at FIS Global, >> one of the largest financial institutions, and we talked to her, I think it was back in 23, maybe it was early 24. >> Yeah. >> So, so, you know, [clears throat] quite a quite a long time before this institutional wave really uh really arrived. >> And one of the things that she said that stuck with me was that, you know, her company and other companies like hers own the relationship. they they own the enduser uh relationship, right? In the sense that there's consumer behavior and there's a shelling point and a Lindy effect to their brand.
>> End users trust their brand. And so when when we're thinking about deploying this infrastructure, you [snorts] know, is it enough to say that, you know, we have the the plumbing and the pipes are all kind of like the cryptonative smart contracts. We're not necessarily going to get these customers off of FIS Global or off of Black Rockck or off of Janice Henderson. >> Right. Exactly. >> They already have the consumer behavior and the trust that is built into their brands. So, they're going to continue to own that, right? But in the back end, they're going to use cryptonative infrastructure. Maybe they acquire it.
They they incorporate it deeper into their own offering or maybe they partner, right? And they use this infrastructure as a software as a service model. But what I hear in that in that tweet you mentioned is like that's not enough, right? Like we need to build our own frontends, our own applications and serve those to the end users to really fully develop this stack. I I just I don't think it has to work out that way. I think we can kind of build the infrastructure that exists behind the scenes and the industry can still do quite well.
>> Yeah. Sandra says, "Great live show. Good work, guys." Thanks, Sandra. Thanks, Sandra. The last thing I'll say about that is that um that is a fat protocol thesis, right? And there's an entirely other there's a counterpoint and an alternative fat application thesis that would be the the counter to to my argument there. >> Yeah. Yep. Interesting. Well, we got to we got to deploy this infrastructure that we've beat or that we've built or else it's going to get deployed for us. And [snorts] that's kind of like I think the big takeaway there. Yeah, I guess my thing is I don't think getting it deployed for us, as long as it's being deployed is still implementing a better system. What's the I don't think it's so
bad. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have others deploy it for us. >> Yep. Yep. [snorts] >> So, Summer's going to join us. Um there's still regulatory work, policy work to be done. It feels like >> this is one of the number one priorities for the US government. Uh, [snorts] which is pretty incredible. >> It is. It is definitely one of the number one priorities. Um, >> Andy, let me let me ask you something. >> Yeah.
>> What do you think mom Donniey's crypto policy is? >> Oh my gosh, man. I don't even know. Um, >> what do you I don't know. I'm gonna ask [laughter] I am curious what you think, but I'm gonna ask the chat in the meantime. >> Um, Who do you think Mum Donnie's crypto policy is? >> He's just for it to be honest. >> Actually, no. He's probably so against it. He's probably so against it. I I changed my mind. I think uh I think he sees it as probably just like this capitalistic way of people to make all this money and Trump, etc. I I bet he's against it, but he's not going to be able to do anything.
I just think um what Mumdani shows is that there is a uprising of um like socialist policies and just socialist vibes in the air which I think is only a natural um counterweight to the current administration. Um, and so I I expect that there's there's M Donnie, but then others are going to follow suit. Like we're going to get more mom Donny's. And you already see AOC getting even further into M Donniey's camp. Bernie Sanders is like endorsing him and they're almost abandoning whatever it was that their, you know, Democratic party line was beforehand. They're kind of like they see the strength of Mumdani's campaign
and they're they're going and they're now um articulating and verbalizing and spreading a lot of the same messaging. And so I I kind of see how they're going to coales into whatever this new Democratic party is going to be. And I'm just trying to think like Manny seems to be a leader of that new wave. I'm just curious like what that what the Democrats stance on crypto would be. And I think whatever Mom Donny's stance on crypto is is going to is going to uh be reflected in the Democrats uh positioning when it comes to crypto.
I just asked Chatbt, I mean, apparently Mom Donnie uh was a sponsor or [snorts] co-sponsor of a a bill on proof of work if it used on-site energy generation. So, they're still hung up on um like environmental protection for uh you know, proof of work coins. Emphasize consumer protection in crypto, especially pointing out that when crypto companies collapse, it isn't the rich who suffer, it's small investors who disproportionately come from lowincome and communities of color.
He has not publicly espoused a pro- crypto growth agenda. Rather, his views suggest more regulation, especially around environmental impacts and investor risk. Pretty interesting. I think Chad GBT is just going to basically, you could also tell it, all right, think like a leftwing, think like a right-wing, go. And it it'll have its own crazy takes as well.
>> Yeah, I kind of just use it. It that's certainly true. It does have come up with crazy takes. I kind of just use it as search engine now. Like to me, it's like I want to know what Mundan's actually said out there. Um and and it can just it can pull from multiple sources at once. And I I do like how now it gives you the source, right? It'll give you a bulleted list and then each bullet has like where that it has a link with where it came from. [snorts] >> Yeah. Which is nice. I mean I I do not use Google anymore. I just use um >> a chat basically.
>> Yeah. If I and if I use Google it's usually Gemini giving me something. It's not like I click on any of the links. >> I just like to know that there is a link back there somewhere. >> Right. All right. Well, we've got Summer in the back. Summer, if you want to get your cam on um and your unmute here in the back, we'd love to bring you up. Um and yeah, let's get this show on the road. Yeah, [snorts] we're gonna we're gonna figure out how to bring uh how to bring Summer up here. Um just uh
just figuring out the platform on our end. You know, I saw something on our run of show today. This is episode 82 of Rollup TV. And so to think that we're still uh we're still figuring it out after 82 episodes is um come a long way. Hey, we still got a long way to go. What else we got going on? I'll uh Oh, we got Marcelo in here now as well.
Hopefully, he can uh pull some some godlike powers. >> I'm just going to espouse my market perspective. >> Yeah, please do. in case in case anyone cares and in case uh in case we still are trying to get summer up. >> Bitcoin, give us your uh give us your market perspective, please. >> Sure. So, Bitcoin's at 958. [snorts] Um I think you know 100K kind of flipped from support to resistance. We tapped it quite a few times. Uh now that we're under it, I do think we're going to have a little bit of trouble breaking back above it. But my thing is, look, we're still in a bull market. I think
Bitcoin can go down. Uh, and I look, Bitcoin, ETH, Hype, and very few other coins are things that um, you know, as long as you don't use leverage and you just use spot. I kind to me it's like, you know, if you can preserve some capital on the way down, great. But rather than trying to time the market, you don't have to try to time the market. You just pick the direction and we know the direction is up and to the right. And so to me, yeah, Bitcoin maybe, you know, sweeps the low 90s, uh, gets into like the yearly open, uh, maybe gets into the high 80s, but rather than selling on the way down, my thesis has always been,
look, get some cash flow and buy at those lower levels, right? So rather than sell and buy, sell and buy, try to time the market that way and get potentially get caught off sides, just just make sure you have some cash on hand for the dips and just buy the dip and hold everything else. I think repeatedly time time and time again, we've seen holders are the ones that end up doing well. And so to me, I haven't, you know, we don't use leverage, don't sell any spot, just, you know, persevere. Uh, and to me, as long as Trump's in office, as long as we we've got positive regulation coming down the pipeline, uh, we're still in a bull market. Even if we get down to, uh, you
know, 69, 420, 70s, 80s, just put some cash, put some cash aside, buy the dip, and inevitably they're going to turn the money printer on. They always do. It's the only option that they have. So, when they turn the money printer on, you buy the dip, and you're in a good spot. All eyes are on Michael Sailor and Micro Strategy. Did you see Michael Sailor's post today? >> I heard him refuting claims that he sold. >> Did you see the post of of the Titanic going down and him in a lifeboat?
>> Yes. >> Hodddle. He's in a lifeboat and the Titanic is shipping or sinking. It's pretty wild, brother. But I'm not sure a sinking ship in flames is the right image here. >> 4 million views. >> Nice. Look, Arthur, hey, I I'm a big fan of Arthur, you know that. Um, and uh I think you made a great point, which is basically like, look, the counter thesis would be Oh, we've got summer coming up. Just to close that thought, the counter thesis would be if you ever hear politicians talking about austerity, uh talking about, you know, washing a lot of the the dirty debt out of the cycle, trying to clean things up, that's when
that's when you're, you know, potentially going to see a credit uh squeeze, but we're not seeing that. Uh we're talking about handouts and tariff checks and and all these kinds of things. So, to me, that's money printer on. That's great for Bitcoin. Also, positive regulation is fueling this next wave, the institutional cycle in 2026. I think Summer is going to be able to speak to that. Uh she played a significant role in Genius and all the all the regulation. We appreciate her patience behind the scene. I think we're going to try to make it quick and blitz through a lot of topics. Uh let's bring Summer up and have a chat. Summer, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming.
>> Hey, thank yeah, thanks for having me on. >> Definitely. >> Absolutely. It is 2025 is the year of of blockchain and crypto regulation. you're sitting in a very unique position to kind of oversee and have a a unique vantage point for all that has happened. So, honestly, it would just be uh very helpful for the context of the conversation to understand a bit more about that vantage point. What does your kind of day-to-day weektoeek look like as a CEO at Blockchain Association? Who do you work with? What types of projects are you guys working on? Um it would be it it would be cool for our audience to get a bit of a lay of the land.
>> Absolutely. Let me tell you a little bit about Blockchain Association. We're the unifying voice for the digital asset industry uh in Washington DC working with policy makers to ensure that any policy that comes from the federal government uh recognizes the importance of the innovation in this space and ensures that we can continue to move forward and innovate uh within the industry. uh day-to-day we work a lot with Capitol Hill uh right now certainly in the United States Senate where they're working to draft a bill that's uh similar to the House passed clarity act. We also work very closely with the administration uh closely with the white
house who's also very interested in getting market structured legislation done and then treasury and some of the financial regulators uh like the LCC CFTC who are all working on regulatory uh efforts to help this industry and specifically on the Genius Act. Uh Treasury is working to have some rulemakings to implement that uh legislation. >> Incredible. Um, you mentioned the Clarity Act. This is something that we've heard a lot about, we've seen a lot about, we've talked a lot about on this show. I'm curious, what is the biggest sticking point uh that's left in the Clarity Act to push it through?
Without getting into timelines, we know, you know, 2026 coming up, the government just reopened. Um, Democrats are pushing for consumer protection, but what exactly is it about consumer protection that that we're still looking to clarify? There's a lot of questions around um anti-moneyaundering and know your customer. I think there's some misunderstanding or lack of education on the fact that a lot of that is already done, especially when you think of the on-ramps and off-ramps to the whether it's DeFi or to these exchanges, those th those processes are done. So, I think we've got to better educate some of the Democrat members so they understand that
the these aren't the concerns um that we should be worried about. These aren't the customer protections that we should be worried about. We should be thinking about disclosures and making sure the customers have all the information they need. Another sticking point that we're really focused on is making sure that there are developer protections that we're not setting up a situation where protocol uh people who are issuing protocol, people who are writing code somehow become liable uh when their code or their protocol is used in a way that they you know used in a way that's not not legal. Um you know it's the idea is that th those are true developers.
They're not they're not exchanges. They're not custodying the money. So, they really shouldn't be held liable um for certain activities on those protocols. >> Got it. Very cool. Um I I also, you know, have been keeping track of you guys and blockchain association has been doing some great great work uh in DC and and beyond. Uh you recently had uh Kristen Smith and Rebecca Retig uh join the team. I'm just curious how you're looking at the institutional strategy moving forward into 2026. How do you anticipate that the strategy is going to involve now that tokenization has come front and center? You know, tell us a little bit about what it was like back
then and and what you anticipate the strategy is going to be going forward. >> Yeah. If you look at just even less than a year ago, you know, just the be beginning of 2020, you know, five, beginning of 2025, end of 2024, it was a very different posture for the association and our member companies. You know, that was kind of the end of the Biden administration. There was a time of in regulation through enforcement. Um, almost a witch hunt going on at the time. And now we've pivoted to a very pro- crypto administration, Congress that has heavy bipartisan support and interest in this uh in the crypto and the industry and blockchain
technology. And so really where we're strategizing or where we're headed is making sure that whatever framework is put into place that it protects innovation and sets up a regime where these markets, especially those that have been overseas, come back into the US and kind of to the president's point, the US truly does become the capital of crypto for the world. >> Got it. Um I I was asking Andy actually before before you jumped on while we were uh getting you set up. Um we were in New York for SmartCon uh last week.
Uh coincidentally mom Donnie and the mayoral race was happening at the same time. And it just made me think that um the crypto voter is is a rather independent uh singleisssue voter and and I think maybe a lot of uh crypto people that are left actually voted for Trump because of his crypto policies. and Democrats may adapt and adjust their crypto policy as to not lose this constituency. What do you think is Bombani's crypto campaign, but more broadly the Democrats crypto campaign going forward into the into the midterms? You mentioned there's bipartisan support in Congress now. How do you think the Democrats are going to reshape their their crypto policy into the midterms and and beyond?
Yeah, they need to look at this as an opportunity, not as some kind of concern for illegal activity. I think a lot of times there's this focus on again the anti-money laundering um elicit finance and that was kind of the lens that a lot of uh Democrats had been looking at the industry through. Now they recognize that there's a lot of opportunity here. You know, the the innovators, these are the the new small businesses of the economy. they really are going to be drivers of the economy. And at the end of the day, a lot of this technology allows more people to access financial services and gives people more freedom over their finances. And I think those
are really important uh really important for the Democrat party, you know, something that they've always been very interested in. And so I think they're starting to recognize that they have to, you know, they have to see where the average voter is going and the fact that they want to be in the space. They want some control over their own finances and that this really is good for the economy, good for society, and really going to improve financial inclusion uh across the world.
>> Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, it it it seems like it's been a an issue that um notably the new administration has really taken on as like a a spotlight of the their entire regime and policy. So, you know, you could argue like the Republicans are pushing this forward, but but I think again, as Rob mentioned, I think a lot of us, especially on on the younger side, we're just single issue voters. It's like if you're not going to support this technology, then we don't really care. I would say like the like the majority of crypto people are probably middle left actually in terms of their uh you know republic or or their political stance but but again I think in this previous
election it it was pretty obvious that um you know Biden's campaign kind of fumbled the bag per se with regards to their crypto policy. Camala didn't really have something. She didn't really have a a stance. And you know, I I think Trump had came out and basically said, "We're gonna make uh America the crypto and AI capital of the world." And and so it's just it's it's really interesting because it there's a lot of reasons why this younger kind of generation has a completely different outlook on politics and on the state of affairs. notably growing up in the social media era completely changes like the mental structure of people's thought processes and just generally what what they care about. Um you know I think something that we're a lot of us are kind of uh
thinking about is how DeFi is kind of facing is still facing scrutiny uh in Washington DC. it's still kind of difficult to understand the future of this specific, you know, decentralized finance world with with regards to its adoption. I'm curious kind of like what you're hearing, you know, from Congress or what kind of uh practical safeguards, consumer protection ideas. Um, basically what I'm trying to get to is like you you mentioned that we don't want to outlaw open protocols and open protocol design. you know the tornado cash guy Roman storm he he's been through hell and back because of his privacy protocol. How do we prevent developers
and uh entrepreneurs from facing scrutiny going forward and what what is actually happening to uh you know further enable innovation. Yeah, and it's a it it it is a good question. If you look back kind of throughout history as technology is, you know, new technology has come onto the scene, we really have been a country that's protected the technology providers, protected the innovators and held the bad actors accountable for the bad actions that they're they're taking.
So, you know, I think again this is kind of an education process. It's the same thing. I I kind of go way back and use the example of, you know, we didn't hold the M we didn't hold Ford and the Model T liable for bank robbers. Um why would we kind of have a similar, you know, position when it comes to uh developers and protocol um the protocol issuers and developers and tech. So I think it's just trying to get trying to get people realize this isn't just because this isn't just because this doesn't mean that we have to approach it in a way that we make sure that we are providing proper protection. And I think the other
piece of this is getting people to understand if we don't have a good environment here in the US, if we don't allow this here in the US, it's just going to move offshore. And that is so you know to me absolutely not not what we want. We want this these markets. We want this innovation. We want these developers in the US operating in the US and able to do what the president has asked which is let's make this the crypto capital of the world. >> I agree. I mean that is like what we don't want. and and fortunately for for the US I think uh because of the stance of you know the new administration we we kind of I mean it it's clear that the US
is the hub of crypto it's also clear that New York City is the crypto capital of the world it's you can't even argue that the amount of development on the institutional front that we saw last week there was absolutely absolutely fantastic um just a couple more things for you I think we're coming up on time we had some tech stuff Um you guys have been doing a ton of these uh member listening tours within the blockchain association. What is the single most consistent pain point you've heard from founders uh entrepreneurs uh policy makers that are trying to navigate US compliance? Is it around the same issue that we've you know kind of been orbiting or is there something else that that there's a consistent pain point
that you guys are looking to alleviate? >> I think a lot of it comes down to just regulatory clarity. So there are a number of products and markets that uh people are ready to bring onshore. Uh I use the the example of perpetuals a lot that is you know offshore activity that really should be in the US and under under US um regulators. And so the members really would like to see some clarity built around that. What can we do? How do we make sure that we are following the rules? And same with, you know, a lot of the uh things going on at the SEC, it really is just providing clarity. It's not necessarily changing
rules. It's just explaining this is how we view it. These are the rules and this is how it applies to what you're doing. So that's what we hear a lot. And you know peop part of the reason people want market structure is that will give a lot of clarity but they also recognize there's a number of things that the administration can do now to provide that clarity to people who are innovating here in the US. >> Um you you guys have uh building on the the member listening tours you guys have a policy uh summit that's happening in December. Um what are what are your goals? What what are you hoping comes out of this summit?
Yeah, I'm hoping that the our members get a real sense of where Washington is at this current moment, where policy makers are, what they're trying to accomplish, how how we can be helpful. I think that's the other big piece to this is we've got a major um industry here with a lot of energy and how do we take that and really be you know productive on the side of getting legislation clarity making sure that we set up a system where if the administration changes over in three years we're not back to the Gary Gendler world here. So I think it's a lot of it is you know hearing from those policy makers about
what they are working on and having them help us better kind of better focus our energy to make sure we're doing what we need to do as an industry to get to the end game and um make those those goals happen. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a big concern of a lot of us is like we do all this work for four years straight and then we just go right back to it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I I'm I'm curious actually how how you're thinking about this uh inside of um the legislation in DC because from my vantage point, I'm you know, not not as in the loop as as you know, you and the members, but it seems
there's two main adversaries. There's the Democrats that are trying to hold up the the regulation. uh the Clarity Act specifically. And then there's the banking lobby who are trying to hold up a lot of the innovation when it comes to stable coins and DeFi. And this is kind of a three-headed beast because the Democrats and the banking lobby don't really aren't aligned politically from, you know, from from what you hear, right? So, how is it a similar strategy that you're taking to kind of, you know, work on both of these groups at the same time? How how are you trying to navigate this landscape so that we can continue to march forward on our goals? H how how difficult has it been to work with or against each of these two groups, the
banking lobby and the Democrats? >> Yeah, I think the Democrats who maybe have not been as friendly to crypto. I think a lot of that is just us getting to them and explaining uh what it means to, you know, issue a digital asset, what these markets are about, who owns, you know, who has these uh holdings. I think that when we start to explain to them like these are your voters, these are your constituents. Uh that helps. Um another thing that we often try to explain is that we're proconsumer. This is what consumers want. this is the financial services um kind of framework that consumers want. And so I think that helps and we really do see shifts uh
from certain kind of pockets of of political ideology as you start to focus on the fact that this is a proconsumer market and that we want to have pro-consumer protections on the side of the bank lobby. You know, they've been around for a long time. They've been very powerful in this city for a long time and I actually think this is the first time that they've really had to go toe-to-toe with another um industry or another, you know, kind of type of another group that maybe doesn't agree with the way they're they're approaching things. Um we're really pushing back uh whether it's on letters that they write to the administration around rulemaking,
some of the press that they put out, they've put out some uh letters against a number of uh number of industry uh players who are applying for OC charters. And so our job is to push back, get the facts out there, help people understand that this is nothing more than protectionist uh activity. uh that most of these issues the banks could very well compete and they just don't want to. And that's really the kind of the message we're trying to get to people and we're on the side of the consumers. I say that all the time.
That's that's what we have going for us is we are on the side of consumers. That's what we care about. And if you look at what the banks are saying, it does not feel proconsumer at all. >> Yeah. And I I think a lot of these groups, most of them, if not all of them, would say they're proconsumer, but you got to look at their actions rather than their words, right? Um innovation. We believe in technology, empowering people with these tools safely, of course. Uh we've seen, you know, things happen. But if we can give people these tools safely, then it really feels like the best of both worlds. This is this is also fascinating. you know, we don't hear uh too much about what it's like on the inside, you know, working between these lobbyist groups. Could you just
could you just like how does this work? Are you essentially competing to influence the lawmakers? Is that is that really the objective here? >> Yeah, some to a certain extent it's a messaging game. you know, getting the right message out there, whether it's to the lawmakers or even to the public who are the constituents of these lawmakers, making sure that they have the the right narrative. And so, a lot of times it becomes a little bit of a media war to a certain extent. So there's that piece to it, but there's also the piece where we have to be, you know, whether it's on Capitol Hill or meeting with administration, we need to be in the policy makers ears, explaining our viewpoint, making sure they understand,
making sure they know that this is about their constituents. And so it's it's a lot of being on Capitol Hill, doing a lot of meetings, talking to staff, talking to White House staff, talking to you, Treasury and OC and and other agencies, making sure they understand that, you know, where where we're coming from and the support we have behind us. So it is kind of a two-front fight. One of it is, you know, kind of in the press and media and the other is on the ground. We call it shoe le shoe leather lobbying. It's like going door todo and just making your case to the various policy makers and whoever you know sometimes um that's what it takes is just the hard work that people are
willing to put into it and our industry is not afraid of hard work at all. >> Yeah. >> And I take it some some of those lawmakers are maybe o more open-minded than others. Others you know they might say hey what's in it for me? What's in it for my constituents? Right. and and are those normally what when you knock on their door say hey you know this cool thing this cool crypto thing I'm sure you've heard about it I want to tell you more about it what's generally what's what's the reaction >> there's a lot of questions about you know help me understand this um I think we're still at that stage where we are doing a ton of education we've done a number of crypto 101 briefings on Capitol Hill and we usually have a full house of of staff who are just trying to
understand the technology. So there's that. There's there are those who are very open and want to work with us and actually want to get more involved in a positive way. And then we find there are a certain number of members who will say well I've heard that this is just another way to you know for money laundering or I've heard that this is you know how elicit finance happens. And so again, that's an educational opportunity to explain, you know, here's the safeguards that are in place. By the way, the most commonly used elicit finance mechanism is cash. Um, and having things on the blockchain actually provides a lot of transparency that doesn't exist elsewhere in the financial
services um, sector. So, it really is, you know, kind of educating in two different areas. One is just from the start, what is this technology? Why is it important? And then the other is trying to debunk some of the um misconceptions that have been planted within a number of um you know a number of policy makers um kind of kind of planted in their heads almost uh that we have to combat and push back against. >> Yeah. Yeah. And honestly I think there's blame to be had here on you know the kind of SBF FTX debacle as well, right?
Like I'm sure people that you speak to have this in in their mind as something that happened to them uh or you know somebody that they knew or one of these debacles from 2022. I I it's just hard to overestimate how much you know the the Gendler FTX kind of combination set the industry back not only from an actual adoption and uh you know innovation perspective but just from a perception perspective as well. >> Yeah. I was at the CFTC when um the the FTX collapsed and there we had a actually part of their business was a CFTC regulated entity and it's interesting the regulated entity was the only one where it it was fine. It came
out of bankruptcy ahead. Um we knew where all the money was. Uh there was there was no way to commit fraud on that particularly regulated entity. So it kind of was a good demonstration of why it is important to have um some regulation in this space. But you know there was a lot of it it definitely led to a lot of mistrust. Uh what I try to tell people is that was just fraud. That was not anything that you know yeah it was crypto market but that was just traditional run-of-the-mill fraud that occurred and that can happen anywhere any time. And the best thing to do is to have a federal over have federal oversight to put some of those safeguards in place that make it a lot harder to commit fraud on you know
millions of people. Yeah. Um, Summer, last question for you before we let you go. I I was reading through Paul Atkins's uh statement about this token taxonomy. Um, >> and and you know, he mentions Mike Celig is coming into the CFTC. Still got to get confirmed. But, you know, this is starting to take shape, especially as clarity becomes more and more defined as well. It seems that we're pushing the uh oversight from the SEC more into the CFDC. I is that the right way to think about it? And just coming from your experience at the CFTC, what would that mean for the asset class for it to be uh regulated by the CFTC rather than the SEC?
>> Well, the majority of these assets are not securities. So, I always start with the fact that like listen, the majority of this 99% are commodities. They are they are not securities at all. And so, it makes complete sense that the CFTC should be the frontline regulator here. Yes, there are going to be times where a a token looks like a security or we could be talking about tokenized securities. That jurisdiction of course still sits with the SEC, but for the bulk of what we're talking about, it falls at the CFTC naturally. And so you are seeing this kind of push to make sure that um you get the right leadership a pro- innovation you know pro-inovator um chairman which Mike Sig
is uh getting the right leadership in and then working closely with the SEC. I think the two agencies really have to work hand inand because there are these issues where you could have tokens transform one starting as a security and then becoming more of a commodity in a secondary market. So, I think it's really good to see that the SEC is so uh kind of out there and and upfront and getting out ahead of a lot of these issues. I think you'll see the same thing um continue with the CFTC and you know with CLI and his uh relationship with Atkins and coming from the crypto task force that just means they're going to be able to work very closely together and try to make this as seamless as
possible for the industry moving forward. Summer, thank you so much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure. Uh these really appreciate it. >> These conversations just further reinforce our our belief that 2025 is just line in the sand type of year where following this it's really going to be a different a different asset class, a different industry, a more legitimized, mature, and just generally uh you know wider distribution of of token holders of informants and of policy makers and important people shaping the future. So, we appreciate your your efforts in this industry as well.
>> Thank you guys for having me on. >> Absolutely. Love to have you on again sometime soon. We'll see you next time. >> Thank you. >> Bye. >> Bye. >> Bye. >> Bye. All righty. Up next we have Franklin from Panta and Addie of Realo and we will be talking about the RWA tokenization realo thesis amongst other kind of general topics with regards to Realo and uh the idea of a realworld assetbased blockchain. Rob, how can you leave that conversation and not be bullish?
That's what I've been trying to tell you, man. It is perma bull season. Look, we can down. We could have six months of negative price action, chop. People get super frustrated because it's not up into the right. I don't care. I'm going to say it's a bull market the entire time. And I'm not selling. I'm just going to hold and buy. Hold and buy. Hold and buy and hold and buy and hold and buy >> and let let it do its thing. Okay. Let it do its thing. Hold and buy. What else do you need to do? It's been the best performing asset class of the last 20 years. We know what happens. It is it is them printing money. It is the debate debasement trade. So, we know exactly
what's happening. Um, and it's just a matter of staying patient and letting it play out. >> I'm uh I'm pretty excited for our next chat. We've got Aay, we've got Franklin. These guys are legends. Uh, >> let's bring them up. >> Let's bring them up. They've been uh they've been getting set up behind the scenes. Panter is obviously a legend of the game when it comes to the investment company. And uh >> I think last time I spoke to Franklin, he was in Rio. Actually, no, that was not Franklin. That was a different uh Panta legend. I think this is the first time. Franklin, nice to see you. A welcome to the show, guys.
>> Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, all of us at Panta, we we wander the earth looking for great founders. So, you probably met a few of us somewhere. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah, absolutely. We have. Um, you guys have been great. A we had a two-hour meeting in Singapore where you sat me down and [clears throat] you said, "This is everything that's wrong with blockchains." >> Uh, and this is how we're going to change it and make it better. Um, and I imagine you probably had a similar conversation with Franklin and you sat him down and you said, "Look, this is what's possible." Um maybe you could you could start by giving our audience a similar not a two we don't have I wish we had two hours for you to go into the details but give our audience somewhat of a concise version of what uh you know what what
you pitched Franklin and myself and and uh generally how you were able to convince us. >> Yeah. Yeah. Nice to meet you all. Such an honor to be here. You guys are legends also. So uh thank you. >> Where do I start? Um I think part of what you know and grateful to the Panta folks for listening to me for more than two hours. Uh but at the high level we uh you know we think blockchains today are great like they they've done a good job given what given what you know what we had what we knew and everything evolves. We believe that as we're seeing more and more people wanting to come on chain, the the fragility of the system starts to show its cracks, right?
Were going to be that important when we designed Ethereum or Bitcoin. So these things are starting to show its cracks as we want to get more and more people on chain. So I believe that uh the base layer should continually evolve as the needs of the world grow and just the same way smart contracts merged into you know bitcoin then to become ethereum other components that are now table stakes should also merge into the base layer and become table stakes to enable the next generation right this used to be a an old phone was just a call-in now we have cameras we have all these features why don't we also do that with the base layer I think it's going to enable the next generation of applications So that's that's a high level. Yeah.
>> And guys, just a bit of context here for you, Franklin A. We spent the last week in New York City uh with institutions of the likes of JP Morgan, DTCC, the Fed, the White House, uh Goldman, we had the uh CEO of the digital digital chamber on on the show, Chainlink's head of policy, Sergey. And so there's this massive massive tokenization real world asset bull run happening in New York City. And if you look on crypto Twitter and if you look anywhere else, it feels like we're in the depths of a deep bare market. But but there's this bifurcation of realities happening, man. It really feels like the wild wild west in this kind of like tokenization real world
asset play. Franklin, pass it to you kind of building on what what uh Audi has brought to light here. talk to us about kind of how you view this base layer transition happening with regards to how it kind of pertains to this institutional adoption phase, right? Because it's only happening once the seats at the table are being set. The table is being set. How do we capitalize? >> Yeah. You know, the reason why I think Realo is just going to where the puck is going is because what we're seeing right now with tokenization in stable coins, we're seeing JP Morgan, my former employer, and actually where I started my blockchain journey over 10 years ago, starting the team, the blockchain team there, and working on things like
JPMCoin is you're you're seeing that the current phase that we're in is still that part of the internet cycle where people were putting newspaper articles online, right? People aren't really thinking about how to issue cryptonnative assets yet. They're not really thinking about how to incorporate this into their actual workflows and bring their entire enterprise stack or financial workflow on chain. So even, you know, with all the success that stable coins have had, you know, $250 billion onchain so far and, you know, growing exponentially, um, that still is really just the first layer of the financial system, right? I mean of you know fintex today a lot of the traditional VCs are coming into
crypto now with stable coins as their first stop because that's what they understand right payments is this massive TAM but actually you know the fact that we have Turing complete smart contracts means that we can go way beyond just payments right but for us to be able to serve that we actually need to evolve beyond what today's blockchains can do right everyone says that blockspace is commoditized and you know we have way more supply than demand but I would actually argue that it looks commoditized because everyone's been building a commodity product right what we're where we actually need to go is we need more featurerich blockace right so the surrounding functionality
all the ways that it integrates with the existing financial system with existing applications and the rest of web 2 that's what's going to make it featurerich And not only that, at the end of the day, uh, blockchains have just one customer, right? It's not traders, it's not speculators, it's developers. And so, you know, the moment that we met A and Lou who are building realo, we realized, okay, these folks are keyed in on the developer experience, right? I actually met A uh I'm not sure if he even remembers uh like four years ago at some crypto party where one of our portfolio companies was trying to recruit him uh to come over from Netflix and all I knew about him at the time was
he was a superstar backend engineer systems engineer uh and he was kind of a a crypto skeptic right he was trying to figure out hey what's what's really going on here what can we actually build doesn't seem like it's all that great and we were trying to convince him and I think that's why he has such a good perspective on this, right? I mean, he's built real world applications that serve millions of users at scale and he's looking at what's available to developers today and saying that's not enough, right? I mean, even the JP Morgans of the world, they want to bring more of themselves, more of their whole selves to uh to the onchain economy, but they can't. they can just sort of get stuck today with just sort of simple transactions and payments while the rest
of their data and the rest of their workflows just doesn't have the space yet on chain to really um start to migrate. So we've had this this thesis through our technical kind of learnings over the last 18 months let's say like the rollup was very like modular the the future is a lot of chains specialized block space customized chains purpose-built execution environments tons of DA huge amounts of experimentation for the sake of it let's lower the barrier entry and go and you know it it's played out in a fashion that has supported that thesis, but perhaps a little bit different than what we thought. We got like these stable
coin chains. You got these L1s. You've got uh a ton of different L2s that are like kind of like perexes now. You got the hyperlquid. We all thought maybe, you know, it was going to be an Ethereum L2, but it ended up being kind of this weird L3 thing, L1. Now you got lighter. So like the the thesis has played out, but it's we're still very very early, you know, we think in this thesis. A from from your perspective, what is this customized, you know, product market fitesque or purpose-built block space mean for this real world thesis? Like what technically uh and architecturally speaking are you guys looking to implement that will get you to a certain outcome? Talk us through the tech and
then talk us through what outcome that enables. >> It's a fantastic question. Um so the intuition for this came from uh me and my co-founder uh Lou who was we were both exmist early engineers. So I was one of the earliest engineers at mist labs working on the sui blockchain. So was Lou phenomenal place to work probably one of the best places I ever worked. We learned a lot from there and then we tried to build applications in the world and also learned a lot and part of the thing actually it's something we're drawing it's explaining to someone behind me here is blockchains the original design were almost a rejection of web two you know it was like we're going to build our utopia over here and if you want to do anything you have to build yet another plumbing
Oracle just to get data okay two chains want to talk a bridge automation so it was like it was almost this thing that was designed like the cipher punks wanted their own utopia Now that we've realized distribution adoption are a key goal, now it's like, oh my god, these patterns we created are actually fighting us. We design distribution and connectivity as a core primitive. Everything in the world is behind some kind of API already. We've spent decades building that system in web 2. You want to you want to verify that a person's a human, you don't need to like scan your eye with with an orb in web two. there's systems in place like if I can check you have a FICO score and you have bank account and
other things I can get a very very solid chance that you're a person otherwise you would never have gotten a FICO score right so when you have these connectivity and APIs as core primitives all the plethora of things that already exist in the world can just be brought on chain and used to move the move the world ahead you want to tokenize something just point to where it's at for example real doesn't use oracles because you don't need oracles if you can just implement the same feature of tracking data where it is. So the core primitive of connectivity is just opens up the entire world. That is one of the things that we think is going to make real world assets um extremely easy to implement and we already have demos. But it goes even step further. The other advantage is also distribution the other
way. Not just bringing data onchain but also being able to connect to existing systems. If you ever try to get a web two company to come on chain, one of the biggest problems they face is the amount of plumbing they have to do. They need to now think about gas management, key management. They need to scale up their team to get an EVM dev and it's just a mess. But these guys already speak APIs. They have systems for this stuff. So if you make web 3 just look like any other API platform, the switching cost for them to go from web two to web 3 is very low. It's not a whole behemoth. And we've seen that firsthand. So the existing blockchains today have this design philosophy that's a historical it's based on when web 3 was this thing
that you that rejected web two. Web designing web 3 as if it's goes hand in hand like it's a nice transition. And the way I like to say it is web two was never designed as a rejection of web one. It was designed as a nice smooth run. We went the opposite way. And we're asking why is no one coming? There's only two reasons to come to crypto when it's so complicated. financial gain and intellectual curiosity. No one is going to go to something complicated unless [laughter] it's easy to use. So we designed with connectivity as the goal. The technology behind this is allowing networks go offchain and resume. So it's called asynchronous transactions. They can basically pause, go offchain, do something, come back. That breaks all
the rules of blockchains today. And this is why, you know, we think it's a different model, but it does work. It means no need for oracles, no need for a lot of the extra stuff, bridges, all these things are kind of removed. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And and Andy, your your question is so good, too, about, you know, why hasn't the modular thesis played out sort of as uh in as interesting of a way, I guess, as as we kind of had had all hoped. And I would say we're still on our way there, right? Um it's just that at this moment in time, we're at the part of the tech cycle where we're getting to the hyper optimization point. Um, you know, we've we've established that there's a killer use case for stable coins and for tokenization and now all the platforms that have distribution for those kinds
of things are starting to internalize the value, right? By establishing stable coin chains. And so that's that's pretty normal to see, but it's also transitory, right? I mean, I think for a VC, you have to look at sort of the full cycle of of how technology tends to evolve. And it's it's pretty obvious to me that um stable coin chains in particular, you know, they're going to serve absolutely serve a valuable purpose, but they're also sort of like a Frankenstein kind of um thing, right? I mean, that's why people have this reaction to uh this so-called corporate chain idea, right?
It's because it's sort of a a hybrid of just the market sort of meeting the market where it is, right? Or meeting users where they are today. But you know what we're most interested in is what's going to lead to the step change, right? Uh and for for that to happen, what we're looking for is um a breakthrough that actually unlocks a new class of applications, right? I mean, that's what we're all looking for when we talk about, you know, why does a new chain or a new L1 or a new platform um need to get funded and need to exist? And so with Realo, I think what we're seeing is that uh by integrating web 2 so easily and by enshrining things like oracles and
bridges um for developers to use, you actually do unlock a whole new class of applications, right? I mean, people can take their social data, their credit data, they can take all the things that, you know, they they've had to leave behind whenever they try to do something onchain. And that means developers can actually do some interesting things that build off of everything that already exists on the internet. And so it's easier to go from zero to one when you're not actually starting at zero. >> Yeah, Franklin. Then so kind of building on that, you know, if Realo succeeds, what is the kind of web 3 stack further look like? And perhaps I think a more interesting question is like what what
are we doing today that Realo wants to render obsolete? And this probably goes for both of you guys. >> Um I can go first on this. Uh so I think what's the web three stack going to look like? Uh there's a few ways this will play out. Web3 stack I I like to you know SAS software as a service, right? It was a thing. It just looks like an API. I want web 3 to just look like an API call, right? I think this is one of the claim to fame for Stripe was like few lines of code, you're using Stripe. It's actually possible to use, but it took a lot of work. You had to like the engineers do the hard work behind the scenes and then
you expose an API. That's really what I want. That's the goal here. But I think the second question was uh sorry, what was your second question? I think I missed it. It was basically around like okay so you know what are we doing today that >> right >> seemingly going to be looked back because we always look back and like I can't believe we we were doing it that way man like we we used to have a landline are you kidding me we used to spin the thing on the numbers >> I I I I have a lot to say here uh one of the few things we actually have a demo running on this is as a developer um one of the things that I think is going to fade away is uh the concept of needing in an oracle needing to depend on a
third party just to bring data that you can always bring yourself, right? And I think the Oracle business is great, but it was designed when blockchains were not supposed to see the world. There were these ledgers that hide away. So, you needed another system to tell you what's going on in the world. Well, it turns out all that data is behind some API or some service. So, depending on some, you know, a BD guy to do a deal just so you can bring the price of Google on chain where you can literally just go get it yourself right so we think these middleware will collapse that's one thing another thing is I call it the security um security convenience curve so in crypto maximum security was the default seed phrases private keys
all this stuff that's actually very difficult for users to leverage and this is why we saw privy doing really well it's like extension of trust I already trust Google I already trust these services. I'm going to use that to log in. People are going to want more and more in that curve, right? Like I only have $1,000 in my wallet. I just want convenience. Like I don't need to, you know, my mom just figured out passwords. She doesn't want to do seed phrases, right? So it's kind of like you're going to see more and more UX features as base primitives. And this is one of the things Realo offers. With Real, you can have different ways to leverage the network. And it's up to you. You can set refresh rates. You can actually do 2FA in reality where you can say hey I need to you know have multiffactor
authentication to send this transaction. We have in protocol fraud detection because these things exist in web two. We can call the fraud detection APIs. So a lot of things we had to stitch together ourselves will just become table stakes. Uh and then the other part to this also is being able to leverage uh identity is a big piece for us right now. Your off-chain world and your onchain world are two different things. We provide you the option to merge them if you want. So you want to take an onchain loan leveraging your FICO score. Sure, you can get better rates and that that that that actually means it's much easier to get someone from web two to come to web 3 because they don't feel like they're starting from zero. Um so this is one of
the biggest things. And then the last one that I'll mention is on the partnerships, people trying to businesses trying to come on chain. There's a lot of plumbing that's nothing to do with the blockchain. Every time you get someone to use crypto, the hardest part is we call it solutions engineering. You need a whole team to onboard them. You have these expensive deals. Everything is a multi-million dollar deal to get a, you know, Starbucks onchain and then it ends up being so costly. All those things are going to fade away and coming on chain will just be one API click. Gas is hidden behind the scenes and you're good to go. That's the future I think is going to happen.
>> I've got a >> Yeah, go ahead. >> I was going to say the the other thing that that really comes to mind too in terms of what's going to change in a in a postreo world is that, you know, we're we have all of these um sort of frontends that are built just for crypto. And that's really strange to me because blockchains are a back-end technology, right? So, right, so the fact we've been blocked off from the rest of the world because of regulatory constraints, right? And because of the hesitation of sort of the rest of the web 2 world to embrace blockchains as part of their backend stack. So, I think what's going to happen is we're we're going to have less and less of these sort of cryptospecific frontends uh like
unis swap even or um 1 in and 0x uh that are just meant for trading assets and transferring assets um on chain and instead I think we'll start to see more and more embedded blockchain technology right into the frontends that we already use. So things like Twitter and Telegram I think will be one of the first places where we'll see this right because um messaging in other places around the world has already been financialized. You see super apps in places like China do extremely well because people like to talk but they also like to transact with each other and participate in commerce um at the same time that they're socializing. And so, you know, the
ability for someone to call a blockchain and in initiate the transfer of an asset or buying something on chain from someone else should just be part of the functionality that exists in these front ends, right? Uh, but that hasn't been possible. Um, >> and it's funny, we we actually have demos of this already, right? I think I showed it to to to Robbie. We have demos of composing Twitter and Telegram today without any without their permission. We can connect two web two systems that do not talk and transfer assets. That's that's the power. This was the vision of crypto that we actually had. We actually Yeah. So the things like this are now possible with real.
>> I just want to push back here. So chain link is absolutely uh coming at the Oracle space and basically building an entire suite of products to effectively solve like a similar kind of dynamic of of let's just say situations. Um and and they're that they're so deeply entrenched to DeFi, to crypto, to institutions now, uh with so much lindy, you know, nearly 100% uptime. Uh you would think I'm I'm a I have a fat bag of chain link. I did buy at about a dollar and I sold at about 20 last cycle was great. Haven't really participated much since. Like I I just don't quite see why anyone would take a swing on what you guys have here instead of just
going with all reliable if it's a very similar suite of products and ideas. Um is is it a pricing? Is it an economic thing? Is it a like like why would I ever if I'm a big company, why why would I just not just go with what it already exists that is battle tested? The largest institutions in the world use it. Um, how do I h how do you guys think about like that getting over that hump and even like competing with chain link? >> Uh, so we're not actually competing with chain link. Uh, >> you said oracles are going to be I think in the past.
>> But that's the thing. What is oracle? An oracle is something that brings data on chain today. We mostly just use that for financial like the assets and stuff. And that's our point. Oracle to us could be anything. credit score data, your private banking information to use for collateral uh to use to signal uh risk models on chain. The thing is in crypto our view of oracles are very narrow because all that's mattered is trade in basic assets. That's our point. When you open up that space, it becomes the wild west. Everything is now an oracle problem. And so chain link is doing a great job in what they're doing. And but but when you think of the idea of being able to just see the world and one of
the things we're seeing a lot of trends on is under collateralized lending. People are wanting more signals to use to give people better rates or better collateral. If you had to most oracle providers do not give you that option like they they don't have access. Exactly. But it is still an Oracle problem of like I want to see the world. Something in the world is out there. And that's our definition is much broader than just what the current Oracle providers uh give you. So it but does that make sense? >> It does. Franklin, do you have anything to add there? >> Yeah, I think I think Chainlink's approach is is really scalable and I think that's what's so special about them, right? Um it's that you don't have to depend on the uh firstparty integration, right? you can depend on
sort of attesters, you can depend on thirdparty validators that bring data on chain and that's what makes them particularly scalable, right? And so, you know, I don't think that it excludes chain link from being able to work with realo or being able to serve the users on realo. uh it's more that real expands the surface area for people to interact and bring their data on chain and hopefully we see many more firstparty Oracle feeds or developer initiated Oracle feeds right that um are enshrined on realo and so you know I think that's opening up the optionality for developers to say hey if chainlink doesn't um have a solution today for this particular piece of data in the
real world and I need my application to be able to see that I can at least go to the APIs that are already available in web 2 and that can be the solution that I use. Whether chain link can offer something superior to that or maybe more real time or get there gets there before the developer even thinks of it I think is fantastic, right? Because at the end of the day, the developer is the customer. They're the ones who matter. >> I think it also >> Oh, I was going to please. >> I think it also goes the other way. It's not just about reading data on chain.
It's also being able to post go out to the APIs. There is no service for this in crypto that allows you like on real can text you if you wanted to. It can tweet and we have this running right now. It can call chat GPT. Being able to go out to the wall directly is a feature that oracles don't give you. But also on the other side, um there is a benefit to having these things integrated. Oracles today are not part of blockchains. there's always another hop which means it's a cost it's a BD sales cycle it's it's it's it's a process and what you get when you integrate these things is like when you have GPS in your phone developers can create Uber you get to create net new things when it's always a system that's not integrated
the surface of creativity is quite limited because it's more brittle so making this a core primitive we think will start to happen more and more where developers get way more control on how data is brought on chain how it's used and that's what the future looks like. >> I think an interesting like micro analogy in in this little microcosm that we call crypto is you know Zcash recently has been all the talk. It was a siloed island for so long and then all of a sudden near intense came along and was like oh guys welcome to the party. Now if if we think about this on a macro level crypto has been existing and blockchain has been existing in this larger macro silo. Realo is kind of coming and saying hey guys welcome to the party. Rob did you have something to add?
Yeah, I think these guys said it extremely well, which is that chain link creates new [snorts] data feeds and supplies those to blockchains. Uh, Realo lets you uh access data feeds that already exist out there in the wild. Um, and I think that is that is one of the key to understand here is that uh it it adds that extensibility. Um, my question that I wanted to open up to you guys was uh and and a maybe you could start here is why hasn't this already been done? you know, is it a philosophical thing like we wanted to rebuild this alternative utopia in our own world? Was it an engineering problem or a regulatory problem that you know, Franklin kind of pointed to that these are backend systems but we were regulatory uh we were we were restrained
from implementing them. Well, in your opinion, why hasn't this already been done? >> It's this is a phenomenal question. It's a mix. Um the I'll start with the philosophical ones. uh if you go check on the internet, you will find questions about this this exact this like why am I dependent on a third party system and it it's always just that's how it is or you know there was this ideologies that you had this everything had to be its own network its own island and now we have a network of network problems in crypto one network just for ZK one just for FH and as a developer it's a nightmare having to stitch all these together but when we had these philosophies we didn't anticipate this mess. So, it's actually come back around to bite us. That's one
reason. The second reason is technologically block space used to be scarce. Like you couldn't do that much like Ethereum is a great technology, but we were trying not to pack overload it. So, we had to get another system, right, to do just price feeds. And now that's it's the opposite case. It's the same way handheld devices, right? Early phones, the chips were small. they weren't that powerful. So they just did calling and then you had another thing for iPod and another thing for GPS. Then chips got better. Now you could do more.
It's the same thing. There's a lot more block space. Networks can do much more. That's another big technology. And we learned this from our experience building blockchains from zero, right? We we were unencumbered. Me and my co-founder were unencumbered by these philosophies. So when we came to build blockchains, we were just like there is no rules here. Like why don't you just do something different? So that actually helped us come up with a different ideology. And then of course another piece is just honestly great backers like Panta and a great team. One thing that being able to go against the grain and having someone support you all the way is something that's been immense for us, right? We we wanted to this is not a this is not an existing narrative. It
was much easier for us to just pick a narrative and go, you know, stable coin chain or art of viewing chain or whatever. We wanted to create an entire new class of things and having the right people that will support you and let you create a category and the right team is actually harder than it seems. It's always easier to just pick what's trending. So, I think it's a combination of all these things. >> What uh what makes Franklin and and Panta such a great partner? Why why did you guys choose them? >> Glaze glaze our boy here for a minute. >> Oh, yeah. Easy easy to glaze. I think uh you guys actually said at the start, I I have this um I I I have these wild ideas and me and the team, we have crazy ideas. And
having an investor who's patient enough to sit with you and go, we're going to hear you out, right? And we're going to take a bet on you and the team. It's it's actually it's it's it's it's such an immense thing. And you you see that in their track record. They consistently back category creators, right? They they let you do ambitious things like even the story of Panta was a very big ambitious bet on crypto, right? So that that gave us a certain level of comfort that they would give us the freedom and flexibility to evolve. Beyond that, there was also a bit of um like it there's being a founder is tough.
There's many places where you you know you there's self-doubt, there's complexities, you know, uh and being able to reach out, right? Franklin has seen I bother him so much like being able to just reach out to folks and go, "Hey, you know, um how do I solve this problem? How do I get the resources?" Uh you know, it couldn't have been better. So, yeah, I think that the entire package has been amazing. Uh yeah. >> Yeah. And it takes it takes one to no one too, right? I mean when we back founders we are looking for people who can be contrarian and aren't looking for external validation right because that's what it takes to actually build something that's that's truly breakthrough um but the other thing too is they have to have the uh the stamina
to actually see it all the way through right I mean we have so many battle scars from all the market cycles we've been through right it's been over 12 years uh we've gone through FTX we've gone through Mount Gaus we've gone through all the big crises in the space and that's where we feel the most alive right I mean that's how I know there's something wrong in you know wrong in our heads is that we sort of crave that part of the market cycle because we know that's when we're investment buyers that's when the most interesting things are going to happen but also it's not going to feel good I mean we're if you're trying to find people who are going to say hey congrats for being in crypto uh you're probably not um be making the best bets in the world So, you know, I think for us, finding the
founders who can build through every part of the cycle, has a long-term vision, has the conviction to see it through, and is just so keyed in on what actually matters, right? I mean, the developer experience and giving developers more optionality to build the next big application, that's that's the north star, right? Everything else um doesn't really matter. >> Yeah. >> Yep. I [snorts] I mean we we have this saying on on the role of bull market warriors for our fund where it's like there's so many bull market warriors right now. We've been kind of like pulling out of the of the early stage side focusing on the liquid side because we we we want to invest in people when it's like you know let's say Bitcoin's back at 60k or something altcoins are
decimated and there's nobody else around and it's like all right we'll start we'll start re you know we'll we'll look for some winners here. Um, so you know I I assume and and I hope that that the reality team is going to be around for 5 10 20 years and has that similar mentality. I think on that point A what does the road map look like? Close us out here. What is Q4 look like and what does Q1 look like for you guys? >> Q4 you know it's funny like you just said that like I I love the this the peace right now like building it's just less noisy everyone's heads down. Um uh Q4 is phenomenal. We we basically have uh private test net running. Um we have some killer applications that we'd love
to share. Uh and it's everything ranging from cross app interactions literally composing WeChat and Telegram and things that don't talk today um to net new RWA use cases to interesting new loan mechanisms. So we're going to start rolling those out. We have a developer ecosystem in ter uh that we're working with. We have had over 400 pe uh developers and builders apply and we want to start we're going to start making more noise getting the stuff out there. Our style is more show don't tell which is why we've been a bit reclusive because we wanted to have something to show uh and then we are expecting to launch fully publicly uh next year uh earlyish next year and then it's going
to be open for people to use. Uh but yeah, otherwise we basically are going to you're going to start seeing more of our applications. The goal is using Realo without knowing using Realo. So you might not know if you're on Twitter, you might have interacted with Real without knowing it. That's kind of a thing we're working on. And uh the goal is to show people that crypto can be seamless. Yeah. >> Beautiful. Franklin, what's on your mind for Q4, Q1 from Panta Side? >> I think it's just to keep looking for great founders. Uh we're kicking off our our fifth venture fund at this point and it's it's crazy to say that, you know, we're that far down the road. Uh but I think it's one of the most exciting times to be building. Um you know, going back to uh what you were saying about
the how the market has sort of uh this tale of two cities going on. Um I feel like it's it's a great market to be in right now. Um if anything, we haven't even hit the bull market yet. And that's sort of controversial to say, but when you look at what's happened over the past year, I think that's so true. You know, we've gone from 60k Bitcoin to 120K Bitcoin, now a bit down, but it hasn't been because the narrative has changed, right? It's it's just because new capital inflows have come into the market. And that's great. That's great for all builders because it's a bigger pie to go after. Um but it's just taken us from this you know one plateau to a higher plateau [snorts]
and that means there's still so much opportunity to go after. Um it's you know great that we've had so much new wallet installation so many new enterprises and institutions and fintexs um installing sort of their implementation on chain. And so, you know, at this sort of uh point in the cycle, what that means is it's a really good moment for builders to reset and say, "Okay, what is the next big unlock that's going to happen?" I I just feel it in my gut that we're sort of about to hit that right now. Um while everyone else is sort of feeling complacent and maybe slightly depressed and whatnot. I mean, that's exactly how it feels right
before the big uh the big moment. >> It's exhaustion, man. It's investor, builder, community exhaustion. And it's like it's it it's, you know, we've we've just entered this world of like 2025 being this line in the sand here. And it's it's no longer going to be like, "All right, guys, two years off, go chill on the beach for a year and come back for the, you know, second year of the bear." It's like, you know, deal with some volatility on the upside and the downside, but like the trend is quite like, you know, it's probably going to be more linear at least for this like, you know, the good assets, let's say. And uh it's just going to be a grind like and and for us, I mean, from the investor, from the builder, from the media perspective, it's like it's what we've wanted. I mean, we've
gone through these boom and bust cycles where we see our revenue shoot up and then shoot all the way back down. And it's just like it's hard to build a business in an industry where there's no kind of steady state. And now it's just like, all right, who can outlast each other? Like, can you outlast the people next to you? And honestly, Robbie does a great job of this. I'm a bit more volatile. I'm like, dude, we're up, we're down, we're up, we're down. Damn it. You know, Rob's just like, "Dude, just keep it keep it keep it cruising." So, >> my it's my role here at the Rollup, Andy's babysitter. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, I I'll give you a little bit of uh uh something to chew on, I guess, because I think it helps in these moments to know what you're looking for, right? like where's the the
light at the end of the tunnel or like where does optimism come from? And so, you know, what I look for when it comes to the next bull market or the next sort of feel-good part of the phase is a big technical breakthrough. Um, a narrative that retail investors can participate in and a class of use cases that have an unbounded TAM, uh, an unbounded ceiling. Right? So far over the past two years, we haven't had anything like that. And so, you know, there's no the exhaustion just comes from constantly having to search for that while seeing the prices go up. And now seeing the prices go down, it's even more exhausting. But that's those are the indicators you have
to go go out into the market to look for, right? And so when I look at Realo, I see all of those um check the boxes. Um, and you know, as long as we continue to see builders that are shooting for, you know, big hairy goals that check those boxes, I think that's the exact reason to be optimistic, right? >> Yeah. >> Absolutely. That is where optimism comes from. Uh, thank you for reminding guys. >> Yeah. Thank you for reminding us of that, A. Thank you so much. Uh, guys, congrats on all the great work so far. We're not going anywhere. I know you guys aren't going anywhere either. We're going to be building no matter the market conditions. And uh we'll see you guys next time. Thank you so much for coming on.
>> Absolute pleasure. >> See you later. Bye >> guys. >> Best of luck. Have a good weekend. >> Great chat. Talk soon. >> All righty, Robbie. Good stream today. Uh I've officially decided instead of complaining about the bare market, I'm just going to buy a boatload of Zcash. >> There you go. See, >> I don't even know why. Why hold ETH? Why hold anything else? There's literally one performer in the market right now. It's just I'm just like why would I I like Bitcoin's down 5% today. Zcash is up 13%. I just like I'm tired of being sidelined on Zcash. I'm tired of it.
This thing's going to a thousand. >> And whether you like it or not, it's probably going to go there straight. Like I I honestly could see it going straight there while the whole market bounces. If Bitcoin bounces back to 100K, Zcash to a thousand, clip that. I'm buy cash to a thousand. Clip that. I'm buying I'm buying Zcash. I'm It's probably over as soon as I buy it. I'm buying it. I'm tired of this. I'm, you know, let's go. >> There's nothing else to it. I'm glad that you're no longer complaining about the bare market. You're you're doing something about it. And I think the thing to do about it is to buy. So, >> well, Zash looks great. Rest market looks terrible, boys. We will see you guys sooner than than later.
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