The Rollup TV: Friday, September 5th

Transcript

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Hey, hey, hey. Guys, [Music] welcome back. Happy Friday.

>> Happy Friday, Andy. >> September 5th. It's Friday. Made it through the week. Long week this week. It was a fun one, though. >> It was busy, but it was good. Busy, you know. Did we get a lot of news today in the market like uh >> Yeah. Did we get >> something happened? Because I just woke up and then market was it was going up and then now it's down. >> Okay. Well, we got some job uh some payroll numbers that came out from the macro side of things. Those got adjusted down. Unemployment is up. We are now firmly pricing in two rate cuts. >> Uh September is essentially a sure thing. We could check the prediction markets, but they're going to tell us that we are going to cut rates probably 25 basis points, but there is a chance now, I think, of 50 50 basis point cut

in September. That'll happen in a couple weeks. Um, they're also starting to price in another cut by the end of the year. I think more importantly though, Soul Strategies >> got approved for a NASDAQ listing and that comes after the NASDAQ was vocally clear that they were going to scrutinize these crypto companies that really their only purpose is to buy and hoard crypto. They were going to be extra tough on the listing requirements for these companies. Well, Soul Strategy is the first Solana Treasury company that was approved for the NASDAQ. Interesting.

Okay. >> All right. So, and I saw today actually that Kyle Sommania is going to look to be the chairman of a$1 billion dollar >> that's >> Salana that is Salana Strategies. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. It looks like uh it looks like uh Mr. Sani will be uh I believe they call it the advisor the equivalent of Tom Lee and Bitmine Sailor. >> So, so today's market was like not bad news is good news for rate cuts. It was actually just like okay bad news is bad news type bud. It was um reaction to the macroeconomic environment being a little bit uh more precarious than previously thought recession wise. But but the thing about it is that you know

when the the the economy issues one of these like you know poor drivers that looks a little bit weaker than than we would have thought. >> It's like okay well the immediate reaction is down. Oh the economy isn't as strong as we previously thought. But then the reaction to it is that now they're going to come in and they're going to do some sort of easing some sort of tight uh loosening or dovish uh economic policy and so then it recovers upwards, right? So it >> I mean if the if the economy isn't as strong as we previously thought, like who really cares? It means that they're just going to adjust and make it looser anyway.

>> Interesting. Yeah. I mean, sounds like it's really hard to get a job. >> Unemployment was 4.3% in uh overall. Uh what I found interesting was that US unemployment rate for ages 16 to 24. You know, you and I are both just out of that range. >> Yeah. >> Uh but in that range, 10 and a half%. >> 10 and a half% unemployment >> in for ages 16 to 24. >> That's man, male and female. I don't know about you, but I had a job pretty much the whole time I was in that range until we found >> Yeah, I was in and out of jobs as you know. It was uh Yeah, I mean I just think it's harder now to get a job. I

mean I I saw this guy put out a tweet uh the Roy guy from Culie. He was like um you know there's hyper competent people that coming out of university top.1% 01% and the rest are just hyper incompetent and like struggling to get jobs and and stuff like that. >> Yep. South. >> That's pretty accurate. Um, I also think more people are choosing not to go to school. Um, especially if you're a competent person, but maybe, you know, you would have to take loans if you're not in a financially uh, privileged situation. It just makes so much more sense to go into the business world, leverage AI tools, and progress your uh your place in society as a result of using using the technology at

your fingertips more so than the social capital that you may build in college. >> Yeah. All righty, guys. Well, we got a fun stream today. We got uh Eric Chen and Stephen McClair coming up. Unfortunately, we had Vance had to deal with some personal matters. So, we're going to have to reschedule Vance from framework for a later day. That's all good. Uh we will uh get him back on at a certain point. Honestly, it'll be more fun if if the market's even higher, which I think we're we're probably going to be be moving higher as long as Bitcoin continues to hold the line. Uh coming up, like I said, we've got Eric Chen, CEO of Injective, Stephen Mc Mccclur, CEO of Canary. We're going to be talking a lot about the instit institutionalization of the asset class which we know and love which is crypto.

Um I believe there in the background I believe that they're ready. This is the first time having the uh Stephen on as well as I think we we've had Eric on once back in the early days of the injective time. So um we're going to get them up guys on stage. We're going to talk ETFs. We're going to talk institutionalization of crypto. uh kind of get their input as to what they're seeing, what Eric's building out with Injective and more. Uh happy Friday, guys. And Stephen, Eric, welcome to the show. It's good to have you guys on. >> Thanks for having us.

>> Happy Friday. >> Absolutely. >> Happy Friday, guys. Uh congrats on uh all the all the good work and uh the first US state uh ETF and filing that with the SEC. Uh this is something that I think we're going to see a lot more of and you guys were were pioneers in this place. So congrats on that. Um what what was the experience like kind of kind of working on this uh project that's a little bit uh less familiar of a structure than maybe some of these other treasury companies and other ETFs are are uh working on.

>> Yeah. Well, maybe I I'll start off by talking about the the ETFs and then hand it over to Eric to talk more about the treasury companies. But uh you know I I've been involved in ETFs since really around 2009. Uh I was a an institutional money manager mostly managing insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds and pension funds and and the like and hedge funds. And uh the firm that I was with at the time decided that we were going to buy an ETF company. So we we went out and bought a Ryex and Claymore, put them together and and I became the portfolio manager for for all of that and decided we would uh you know launch our own flavors of things. So I'm actually used to uh attempting to launch and launching

very esoteric style uh offerings in the ETF world uh even in traditional finance. So launched the first asset back security uh ETF um you know was what did the very first build America bond if you remember that and uh and of course launched uh other products around that. So some of those took a long time. Uh it just takes a lot of patience and grit and and some of them are um are are easier. So when uh the last firm I started which was Valkyrie we filed for the um you know some of the first uh Bitcoin related ETFs. Uh we launched the first Bitcoin futures on NASDAQ, Bitcoin mining companies, and then of course uh we were one of the many on Bitcoin spot.

And uh you know, we're always looking for unique angles that uh the market might be interested in, might be looking for uh that doesn't exist. And that's really where where we're focused. So for instance, when uh when ETH all the ETH ETFs began to launch, we just didn't think it was going to be that compelling unless you had staking involved. So, we decided to bow out, let Black Rockck take all the all all the gains. And then, of course, when we started Canary, um we took a big risk. Um we didn't know who the president was going to be, what type of administration we were going to have, what the SEC was going to be like, but we decided that we were going to plow forward anyway. So, uh we filed a bunch of the early uh altcoin ETFs last year. Uh one of them, of course, um

being being staking. So um we try to uh incorporate staking in every ETF that we file that uh allows staking. We think it's a very important feature of the network. We think it's very important feature of the coin itself and of course it's an extremely important feature for investors uh that want access. >> Yeah, most definitely. I mean, I think that I I'd like to get into some of the nuances of how you guys are thinking about liquid staking versus, you know, validator withdrawal cues, these types of things. But Eric, just want to give you a chance to kind of put it put this from the builder perspective, right?

Launching an ETF, trying to, you know, get these things or sorry, filing an ETF, trying to get these things uh moving to open up the the type of capital allocators which can allocate towards something like uh Injective or the INJ token. you know from from from your perspective uh kind of similar train of thought how are you thinking about the ETFs for uh you know uh token projects staking etc. uh what is your frame of reference for for uh launching these types of things? >> Um I think for us there's really two ways to think about it. Um one is you know more on the technical aspect of things where we had to do a lot of work to support these type of product and making it much more you know institution forward and friendlier uh for a lot of

these platforms and issuers and um you know institutions to be able to you know hold and be able to you know uh mobilize these like stake tokens. So one of the really interesting part is we decided to create like a specific you know feature module um in anticipation for uh the ETF and also uh for you know uh the the most recent DAT dedicated towards J which allows for you know the transfer of uh um uh state uh INJ positions between addresses uh so that you know different types of escros can be moved uh uh you know amongst them uh freely and it also allows for you know uh um kind of like the skipping over on bonding period uh for you know uh um the list of like

different types of like stake inj amongst of various whitelisted you know permission addresses and so that's really really cool feature that we did to like support um um kind of like all these features in anticipation for the institutional adoption and I think as an ecosystem and as a you know blockchain especially um in this extremely you know innovation forward uh type of administration and this political luh landscape um we've just been you know doing our best to be able to support to be able to you know push forward with a lot of these you know very innovative products like the stake DTF and on top of that you know uh uh the DAT that's recently launched as well. Um uh overall it's just extremely exciting time for us and we've just been you know keeping our

eyes peeled with the overall progress for the commentary period for the Indic ETF as well as you know like the uh you know announcement from the Pineapple Financial. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty uh it's pretty interesting times in the in the world of financial engineering. And Stephen, I'm I'm I must say, you know, in response to what Eric uh has kind of laid out with regards to these treasury companies, I think a lot of people in the space were surprised at the way in which that this kind of market cycle, if you will, has played out. you know, you mentioned that when the Ethereum ETFs came out, you know, you thought there would be little demand for those outside of just, you know, without staking, let's just say. And, you know, I think a lot of us thought

that a lot of the demand for the market to move this cycle, let's call it two years ago, was going to just come through these ETFs, was going to come through these 401ks. Really, I mean, what Eric and a lot of others have realized is that a lot of the demand is actually coming through these more treasury type vehicles. Um, you guys at Canary have I mean I don't know exactly ho how many but probably upwards of a couple dozen ETFs filed uh for various assets and I think a lot of us in the market are kind of waiting on the floodgates to open right a lot of us haven't really been able to uh participate in debt. Also they've only really affected the top couple assets in a meaningful way at least up to this point. Um, what I'm getting at here is I

think a lot of the community is curious from your perspective what the actual state of these ETFs are. The Injective ETF, the the staked ETFs, the Pangu ETFs, the Litecoin, Dogecoin, etc. I know that you guys have filed a ton of them. What is the state of these? What is it going to take to actually get these through? And would love to just understand if you had an estimated timeline as well or any predictions and thoughts there. Yeah, look, I'll give a guesstimate because the reality is is I know nothing.

>> Okay. >> Um, but the the the bigger reality is is I know some things and what we do know is that the exchanges have filed for generic listing standards with the SEC. Uh, that is going through a public comment period. They're going through revisions as we speak. And there is an expectation in the market um this again this isn't for certain that those generic listing st um standards should get approved sometime by the end of this month and then uh the SEC will work on ways to actually uh open up for tokens that qualify under the generic listing state uh standards to be launched in an ETF. So my expectation is probably

sometime in October is the right date for anything that has a current US futures market. So that's the that's the first stage of these generic listing standards. Uh there were conversations earlier for other uh qualifications that were more quantitative such as market cap and trading volume in the US and it seems like that has been put on hold for now but there is an expectation that those more quantitative measures will probably come out you know three to four months after the first round of generics come out. So, uh, so look, if you just look at CME, Coinbase, um, those are the probably the two biggest markets for

futures for crypto. Anything that's been, uh, that's had a futures market for over six months would qualify once those get approved. So, um, again, my expectation is sometime in October, maybe pushing into November, and then next year, probably in the spring is when we get the the new standards, which would include uh, a lot of the other things that we're working on. Very cool. >> That is an accelerated timeline. >> Exactly.

>> Well, in my opinion, I mean, I'll just I'll just say this. There's a few things that probably should have should have been approved a little earlier. Um, you know, but um, you know, it it it is what it is when you're working with the governor. >> Yeah, we we've seen that. Um, I I I have a question kind of for for both of you guys, but I'm sure you have you you have some unique perspectives on it. Um in st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st st staking in general. We had uh a live stream actually at permissionless in New York. We had uh asked a couple of really smart guys, Tun from Robot Ventures. Uh

he sort of explained, look, we're seeing staking yields go down across the board. Um he said he was he was uh bearish on built businesses that were built around staking revenue uh LSTs, protocol validators, but but very bullish uh on businesses bringing stable coin demand and companies on chain. Um but those the staking yields were coming down quite a bit. And then his buddy over at at Dragonfly, Hibb uh agreed. He said, "We're going to go down downhill from here. Staking mania uh was a bit of an illusion." um and and the idea that you're paying for security is kind of a meme. And so he also agreed that these staking yields were going to come down.

But he followed that up by by saying, look, with these digital asset treasury companies, that was that was sort of false. And and in fact, these companies are making quite a bit uh and and increasing their MNAV as a result of staking yields. And so I'm curious, you know, Stephen, from from your perspective with respect to these ETFs and these particularly these staking ETFs and then Eric, you know, just generally the builder perspective on the chain, where do you guys see staking yields? Are are they trending down or is there enough demand from these treasury companies and these ETFs to to really keep these staking yields alive?

>> Go ahead, Eric. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, so I think one of the most interesting part about um uh a lot of these like LSD uh type of protocols and uh LSD product is that they're typically, you know, extremely utility focused. Um they serve a very uh you know uh a precise and interesting value proposition for a user and it's typically you know like I said a smart contract um that's typically open source etc. So it makes it so that like it becomes a very very competitive field um because there's no specific differentiation between different types of LD LCD protocols. So it could be you know like a kind of like race to the bottom. There's not necessarily like a mode or network effect uh between a lot of these you know like um uh kind of like staking protocols that are

happening on chain and if a user wants to migrate it's honestly you know maybe a waiting period as mo at most uh but it's honestly just a transactional way. uh this is very different in terms of um what the ETF uh you know space is trying to offer and what the DAT space is trying to offer because uh first of all it has a very distinct advantage of kind of like this uh differential capital flow uh between you know the institutional capital flow you know wrapping it under like a compliant and regulated product uh to interface with the general public the general like investment investor crowd within like a traditional financial rail that they're used to and this creates a completely different uh kind of process and access uh which gives it you know a significant advantage and obviously like value

proposition uh that can't really be easily beaten by you know just another like commoditized protocol and I think that's really like the different uh differentiation here is that um you know like staking yield is probably going to collapse and the fee for it is probably going to uh uh kind of compress over time but uh that as a product uh you know that's being commoditized versus an institutional product that's being you know uh uh where there's a lot of effort going into you packaging it into a compliant uh uh kind of like structural product or compliant you know like offering uh to be interfacing with you know like a massive set of tradition uh traditional investors. That's a completely different type of product we're seeing. It's to you know expanding access uh it's the you know grow the

influence of uh um or you know like uh grow the kind of like uh the beauty of crypto to a bigger investor base. Mhm. >> So from that lens then there are still these structured products or these kind of financial uh uh rails that provide yield on a token like injective which are interesting to a a subset of investors. You're saying that basically this concept is still somewhat new enough or interesting enough from their perspective to uh want to allocate to these types of uh of investments then.

>> Yeah, exactly. I think and I think that's why it's very very exciting. Um because at the end of the day like um it's almost like saying like you know bridge protocols um uh can be commoditized which is certainly not the truth. Bridge protocols have you know like a very very strong mode. Um it has um basically like a network effect as it congregates more like a usage and flow and like you know like a TDL and basically a lot of these products are like the bridge protocol where you know they bridge between uh um the web3 defi world with uh you know the trafficy world and obviously as it expands in size um the moat just becomes stronger and stronger and stronger and therefore you know it becomes a very powerful uh and very longlasting moat.

Stephen, do you agree disagree with some points? What are you seeing on the staking demand yield side of things? >> Yeah, look, I I think there's a ton of demand for for the staking and and I actually find it quite interesting. Um, you know, my my previous background was more in fixed income. So, I I completely understand that, you know, a staking yield is is is indeed in in some ways income that you get for holding on to holding on to an asset. And uh that's something you don't get with everything, right? So um you don't get that with with with fine art unless of course you lend it out. Uh you don't get that with a lot of things unless you lend it out.

But uh for you know equities that have a dividend or or fixed income or or a protocol that u that you actually earn the yield for the transactions uh that that occur on the protocol. Those are all very interesting and um and people love yield, right? So uh when you have for instance the difference between an ETF and a DAT is uh you know in a DAT you're investing in the business of the yield right so in an ETF you're uh investing in the yield itself uh and you do have two different types of investors investing each one um ETFs are mainly um you know it's a big financial advisor type instrument because it's it's pure

it's clean um financial adviser might put their clients in a portfolio of 90% ETFs uh with with maybe some mutual funds or direct stocks uh or even a direct fixed income whereas um a DAT is going to be probably a lot more retail um a lot more fast money or or hedge funds and then of course um you know institutions are going to be split between the two. Uh they may not have it in their mandate to own an ETF but they might have it in their mandate to own a corporation that has a treasury. So, um or or vice versa. So, you really are looking at, you know, very little overlap in the investor, but you're also, uh you're also investing in two

different structures. And I like both structures. Uh they both accomplish a different goal, right? I kind of mentioned already with with with ETFs, it's going to be you you buy it, you have direct access to underlying, it's probably a little bit less expensive, and then you get a you get a yield out of it. the DAT is going to be a lot more speculation on um not just the token itself or the yield itself uh but also the discounts and the premiums. So right now most of the DATs are trading at premiums. I do believe they're a point to where they'll trade at discounts and they'll keep going back and forth. It's just the nature of capital markets. So whether it's a closed in fund or or or an equity. I mean, there's a lot of companies out there that trade it below their their book value and uh right now

DATs are trading uh above their book value based on the understanding that they'll likely utilize that book to issue more shares to buy more of that book, right? So, that is that is really the play right now. So, it's a it it is a very different instrument that does different things. And if you look at something like Micro Strategy, it's very possible that it's included in the S&P where an ETF cannot. So, uh, that makes it, uh, a really interesting play, uh, when you start including these treasury companies there. >> What do you think are the the knock-on effects of Micro Strategy getting added to the S&P?

>> Well, I I'm I'm probably the biggest doubter out there. Um, you know, that's that's in crypto that that'll actually get added. And one of the reasons why is because its operating business is now such a small part of just the the overall income of the company and and a large portion of that is is is Bitcoin. Whereas on a DAT like um you know for like Injective for instance um you actually have an operating company that operates validators that does active that does active things you know with it with with its treasury to create value and to create income. So, uh, in and of itself, it is a it is an operating company. It's a tech company. So, um,

that's that's what I like about something like that. I think that that's probably a little bit more um of a of a fit for an index like the S&P if uh if some of these get a little larger. But, but look, the knockout effect is this. Um, if if Micro Strategy is included or any other DAT is included, then you're getting indirect access to cryptocurrencies via an S&P index, which I think is really, really interesting. That that's never happened before. >> It certainly hasn't. And I think that the, you know, the next order becomes these ETFs. if you know if if if we follow your timeline that you've you know guesstimated for us um by the end of the year you know we could have mom

and pops buying uh cryptocurrency ETFs in their favor and I think this opens up a whole new horizon and Eric I think you know just as well as us there's only so many injective ninjas out there warriors or whatever you guys call them there's only so many folk in crypto Twitter left there's only so much liquidity that we've kind of you know got here in our little bubble and and I Then the next step is really getting that next, you know, phase. I think there's a acronym called Henry's. Uh it's like uh something something not rich yet, but it's like these >> I earning not rich yet.

>> There you go. That is kind of like the next big target I think for a company like Injective. So question for you becomes let's say we follow Stephen's timeline, we get a staked injective ETF, we get an Injective ETF. Obviously, you've got the hund00 million pineapple DAP DAT uh for INJ, but I'm curious from your strategy perspective of expanding, you know, distribution of the token. How does your strategy as a protocol CEO change once an ETF is live right there? Now, there's this massively new market of available buyers uh who may listen to a finance podcast or may subscribe to a a newsletter in this category or they might go to those meetups. You know,

from a marketing from a a strategy perspective, how do you how do you envision Injective kind of getting into those Henry's? >> Um I I I think like uh overall like first of all like it's just about you having like an amazing team and just do what we do best. um you know keep doing our job and building and expanding out the protocol and uh kind of like uh um approaching and growing the DAP base uh to be much more um kind of like general uh facing to to be a lot more consumer friendly to on board a lot more users um that are not necessarily completely cryptonative and that's the work that we've always been trying to do uh to create the best possible financial infrastructure for that and then on top

of that you know it just means that like our work gets uh uh more um intense and like harder to like uh try to like advertise to try to you know like uh put ourselves in front of a much broader uh user base, a much broader audience. Um and making sure that you know we're being considerate and we're trying to uh make sure we're getting enough facetime in front of um different types of like channels and different types of avenues. Um so you know overall it's just about like more work for uh our engineering side and more work for our you know BDM marketing side. Yeah, Eric. So, if I may, man, then in that case, right, I mean, in our show, we're taking it more into this in institutional realm, getting the this type of audience, trying to grow that and trying to, you

know, provide that kind of bridge as you say, in a different way, right? You know, you're talking a lot about bridging in a financial way. We're talking about bridging in an educational way. But when it comes to your pitch to institutions or to Henry's like you know if I may you know you know entertain us here with what is the injective pitch to institutions? What is the institutional appeal for injective and you know what is the appeal to these Henry's for uh why they may want to consider investing in Injective. >> Um oftentimes we like to let the product kind of like speak for themselves. Um but typically if this is like a institution that doesn't necessarily have a lot of knowledge or experience

about DeFi or about you know like crypto uh in general which has been you know predominantly the type of conversation that we have to you know get really really uh used to these days. Um it's really about like a framing objective as uh a finance forward blockchain that houses um uh kind of like the next iteration of the financial stack. Um being both you know extremely performant and at the same time extremely um uh kind of focused on different types of financial rails on different types of you know like efforts including tokenization including um um you know like different types of consumer use cases. So we are taking care of both as a enterprise use case and as a consumer

use case both at the same chain and that's really like what we're uh trying to pitch to you know different types of institutions. It's about you know kind of like bridging both being like the nexus of like financial activity for both institutions and the general everyday consumers uh in the same place and you know doing that within like a blockchain infrastructure. I I got another follow-up question on the on the staking side of this. Um my understanding was that there was no staked ETFs that were live and so I I just did a quick search and it looks like there is a Solana ETF that also offer staking, but there's still no Ethereum ETFs that offer staking. How are you guys able to get this through

and and why do you think the other ones are getting held up? Yeah, look, the uh >> uh Stephen's on mute, but >> well, look, the uh the ETH uh ETF uh a lot of the issuers have applied for staking and it looks like it will get approved um very very soon. The Salana one is sort of tricky, the one that's out there. It's not a true uh it's not a true ETF. It's a it's a 40act that holds um it it holds other ETFs and other and other things. So it's not a really direct Salana. So so that one doesn't really count. Um but we we do expect that when gen the generic listing standards get approved uh it's going to approve staking across the board. So we

we do fully expect uh for instance um you know we've got a um a couple of other ones on file and and one of them you know will probably be the will probably be the first one um uh here in October. So, um, we're we're kind of keeping our fingers crossed there, but we we fully expect, uh, that next batch to include staking if staking is available. And then, of course, um, you know, all the all the subsequent ones will have staking day one. >> Makes sense. Quick, another followup. This is aside from the ETFs. I think we're kind of flip-flopping between the ETFs and the DATs here, but I saw an absolutely ridiculous proposition of a DAT to invest in other DATs.

Like how I mean this just screams mania, but I'm just curious from your perspective like I think you're generally bearish DATs, but just explain to everyone else like what this could possibly mean for like the MNAV of a company that is betting on these other MNA. like is this this is just this is just an accelerant to what these these more vanilla dots are doing. >> Yeah. Look, I'm you know and to be clear um I'm actually I actually am bearish on a lot of the DATs that are out there, but I'm bullish on the on the concept in general.

>> There's a lot there's a lot that have been done wrong and there's a few that have been done right. So um you know for instance um you know there's there's some out there where you know the managers are are charging anywhere between three and five points to just basically hold a token for the company which is not market. It's absolutely ridiculous types fees. The ones any any anything that's like more in the realm of like 1% is is reasonable. There's also a lot of DATs where they rewarded people with, you know, a lot of warrants. And I mean, there's a lot of hands in the cookie jar on a lot of these things. And I think it's all going

to blow up on their face. But uh but but but then of course there's some that are very clean, you know, like the one that we worked on um Eric and I together where uh it's, you know, it's very limiting on, you know, giving a lot of free money away from people that are participating and and high management fees and and and we just basically eliminated all of that. We're like, look, we're going to do this what we think the market is or what the market should be. But uh but no, we've seen a lot of them that have just absolutely done poorly because of they're just they're just they're just, you know, scraping scraping fees, scraping um uh money early on from investors, whereas the ones that are thinking more long term, I think are going to be big

winners. >> Um so, so yeah, I mean, look, we're we we also at Canary, we invest in a lot of DATs. uh we probably invest in 20% of the ones that we see because you know once we see oh we're paying the asset manager 5% we're like we're out you know 3% we're out oh look at these massive warrants that we're paying we're out >> um you know but those are some of the biggest questions that we ask and um you know so so there there are a lot of good ones out there and I think those are going to be the ones that that are very successful long term uh but you just have to avoid the bad ones as as with anything >> and to tie these these things together.

We if we do have staking yields coming down and we're we're we have these fees that we have, you know, that these DATs are paying these advisors, at a certain point, these we're going to find an equilibrium here where it's going to make where it's going to make, you know, the MNAV um either positive or negative if you extrapolate this to the long run. And so what what you're describing is that by keeping those fees low, even if we have some staking yields compressed, there's still there's still some some clearance there where the adviser gets paid this the holders of the DAT and the ETF, they still get their their room and they can get their yield and the and the operating company can make remain profitable even as they're operating and they're they're running these validators

and they're collecting this yield and that is what you're saying makes a good debt different from a bad one. Yeah, that that that's exactly right. So, look, I I I look at the treasury as the treasury. It'll fluctuate in value and you just have to like you just have to understand that it's no different than in my past when I invested in emerging market bonds, right? So, there might be a company in Brazil that its balance sheet is Brazilian Royale and you know that it's going to fluctuate against the dollar and you just have to understand that that's the case. But regardless of where what the treasury does or the balance sheet does uh there has to be income that's earned and that income if

if operating costs exceed that income >> then it's a bad company. If uh if if operating costs are underneath the income and and then it's a good company. I mean it's it's really basic stuff here. And a lot of these DATs out there, you know, they might have, you know, like an Ethereum DAT for instance that yields 3% and then they're paying their manager 3%. Well, how do you cover the rest of the operating cost if that's the case? So, those are some of the some of the analytics that we're looking at when we're when we're deciding on what to invest in and what not to. So, as long as the staking yield or or other types of of operating activities exceed your expenses, then the company's profitable

and it's going to continue to grow. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Um Yeah. Go ahead, Andy. >> Yeah. Just um one thing that you said prior was about the nature of some of these companies and so I'm curious when you guys went to build uh Injectives uh data out, right? Uh one of the things you mentioned about strategy was that it's basically its entire operating business is more or less just accumulating bitcoin now and issuing debt and a lot of these other dats you know that that the businesses which they were uh prior things from like whiskey businesses to like furniture to uh other kind of financial services very kind of broad scope. How did you guys form injectives that such that uh you guys

were able to uh ensure that there's longevity with this while being able to uh you know run the accumulation strategy because I I mean I I don't mean to like send fear down our spines here but I do feel that there may be some issues in in in the future where it was very clear that these companies didn't actually have an operating business and that you know whatever happened with the DAT happened and there may be some scrutiny or push back. How do you guys avoid that? what structure did you guys kind of follow and and orient around to make sure that uh in the future uh you guys you know steer clear of any issues.

I think uh first of all one like truly aligns with um basically like what injective is about and what you know like the space is about and luckily enough I think uh pineapple financial is a mortgage underwriting business which has a very very successful presence within uh Canada and also coincidentally it's also one of the largest underwriters which could have a lot of the synergistic nature of it uh with the overall blockchain ecosystem and uh this is you know uh I feel like one of the most important thing that was like oftentimes missed by a lot of the uh uh you know that's out there.

>> Yeah. >> And then second of all it's about having like a good management team uh a management team that's like there to uh ensure the longevity of both the ongoing business and also uh for the overall like uh you know that strategy and it's about being long-term aligned. It's about you know um having a very much uh um a long-termminded uh incentive structures. It's about um basically structuring it in a way where like not u you know uh short-term minded where it's not uh you know onetime payment and then you know uh they're free to do whatever they want. Um so I think all these like factors come in together to make sure that first of all like this whole offering is extremely clean. It's non-extractive. Um it's it's long-term minded. It's it's about you

know having the best possible you know like treasury representation of uh uh you know both the INJ ecosystem and you know be the best representation of like their ongoing businesses. Um and yeah like we're very very excited about like uh final financial uh obviously and you know how they uh kind of like took like a leap of faith and like believe in us as well. Um and we are obviously like uh very very picky when it comes to you know uh um standing behind like a certain firm that's you know decided to adopt the strategy. So we we've done a lot of you know like research and uh you know background and we just think that uh they are probably like one of the most promising firms out there uh that are looking to adopt uh you know uh

stat. Yeah, I appreciate the candidate answer, Eric, because I know it's it's it's kind of a pointed question and uh it's I I do think there will be uh in the next 18 months we will see scrutiny amongst some debts. Stephen, I don't know if you had anything to add there. Again, I know it's a touchy subject. >> Yeah, look, I mean, I I it's it's not touchy at all. I um you know I think it's going to be even sooner than that because there I mean we've seen so many deals where again you know and I hate I hate to like just kind of you know blast all the other deals out there but um you know but there are some where it's like this operating you know I saw one where was like the operating company um has about $500,000 left on its balance sheet

it's burning 2 million a month and they're like yeah we need a debt we need a debt and uh it's like you know crypto bros bail us out you know we're about to go bankrupt. That's that's that's really how it feels and you could tell like you know right off the bat. So I mean I mean first thing we look at is the P&L and if it looks like it's a company that's just going you know just straight down in flames. Um you know it's it's time to back off because usually what that means is let's say you raise a hund00 million treasury they're going to they're going to take 10% of that just to bail themselves out and uh try to you know keep running the operating company underneath. And that's that's not a good situation at all. you you want most of that treasury staying in the treasury

and >> yeah of course >> I mean that's that's that's the whole purpose of this thing right so uh but yeah no I mean I think there's going to be a lot more scrutiny uh in the coming months not not not not even a year out but but >> even by the end of the year and I think some investors are going to look at deals that they're in and and realize that it was a bit of a stinker and um try to you know try try to get out or or take other action. So, you know, that's that's one of the most important things of, you know, when you're dealing with a public company is I mean, you've got to you you you really have to operate it well because all eyes on you and you're all of a sudden transparent. So, I mean,

that's going to be very important to us and that was very important to us when we were um you know, when we were getting into you know whether you know investing in some of the asset we're investing in or being involved you know more directly in a lot of other ways. that that that's that's a very important place to be in. >> Yeah. Stephen, la last question for you. Um just a couple hours ago, uh the NASDAQ approved Soul Strategies uh to get listed. They pre previously said that they were they were going to start to scrutinize these uh DATs a little bit closer, make sure that they had uh you know, a lot a lot more legitimacy around them, but then they come out, you know, and they approved the Soul Strategies one. Just wanted to get your reaction to uh to that approval. Yeah, I actually

just just saw that coming across the the ticker as well. So, first of all, big congratulations to my old friend and former colleague, Leo Walt, who's the the CEO over there. Um, we've we've we've we've we've been friends for a long time and built companies together. So, uh you know, big big congratulations. Um so uh and and I think that that's that's warranted too because you know Soul Strategies was the first Soul uh DAT uh up in you know and and they were up in Canada and they were really the the first ones to take that risk on Soul and um and again part of their business is running a Salana validator. I mean that's that's the business of the company. They're running a validator. So it's not just their own

soul that they're staking. They're staking uh other people's as well. and they have a a quite a large community that they're staking. So, um so so that is a that's a tremendous business. You know, it's not just, you know, 7% of their treasury. It's it's it's way more than that. So, to move that over to NASDAQ, I think is a really big accomplishment. And uh and I believe they'll they'll be extremely profitable uh through their through their uh validator activities. >> Amazing. Eric, also just want to give you a a chance to sign off, man. Where can our community find you? How can we get involved? Uh yeah, >> absolutely. So follow at Injective or follow me at Eric Injective. And honestly, I think the best starting

point for the overall Injective ecosystem is honestly injective.com. We spent a lot of time rebounding and making making sure all the information is there. Um and yeah like uh um definitely you know stay tuned. I think uh there we have a lot of very exciting stuff coming up uh especially with EVM mainet etc. we already had to deal with a lot of you know uh activities that are coming in from the test end even though it's supposed to be a very very short testing period. So that's been you know what we've been uh very very excited and busy with. >> Yeah. Yeah. Awesome man. And uh wish you the best of luck through Steven's firm with Canary. Again I I mean Stephven's timeline was was the highlight of my of my questions today. If this plays out this will be happening sooner than than

expected. we could see 20 to 50 crypto ETFs passed this year. One of them being Injective, hopefully a staked Injective ETF as well. Eric, also Eric, I just applaud you on your journey, man. I also dropped out of university fully, you know, six years ago and just have been bootstrapping businesses on online and kind of Rob and I have grown this one together and uh yeah, going from going from dropout to uh you know millionaire to ETFs to crypto to institutions to growing up in different things and just kind of having your own journey is uh you know it takes a lot of grit and uh also just willingness to be embarrassed.

So, I know what it's like to just kind of be like take the other path and uh hope you hope you're glad that you did. Stephen, appreciate your time as well. Would love to have you guys both on in the future again. Talk more and kind of see where we're at in a couple months. >> Thanks for having us. Thank you very much. >> All righty. >> See you next time, guys. >> See you next time, Jen. >> All righty, Rob. That was the first session of the day. A little uh little ETF action coming in for the boys, aren't we? Injective ETF staked inj um man. What else do we have coming?

I uh I think it's pretty interesting. Just I I didn't really have a question teed up, but something Stephen said on the on the micro strategy getting edited added to the S&P. Um yeah, kind of made me think >> and you know if we kind of play that out what that what that could look like is obviously Sailor you know knows what's at stake here and >> he he would you know fight tooth and nail to get added to the S&P that's a landmark uh achievement >> of course >> and so if he's coming to a similar conclusion and these are both smart guys sailor smart Stephen smart then he pro Sailor probably knows that micro strategy has a limit limited operating

business. Most of their business is in Bitcoin and to if I'm sailor, what that tells me is I need to beef up my operating business >> and they're not a furniture like he's running a Bitcoin business now and so you you know we applaud Soul Strategies for running soul validators. What that means for Sailor and Micro Strategy means that they probably go and deploy a lot of their Bitcoin and they put it into Bitcoin DeFi. Maybe that occurs on a different chain. Maybe they do a Bitcoin backed stable coin or they do a Bitcoin lending market >> and they start to engage in more pro productivity and monetization around their Bitcoin holdings to beef up that

operating business so that they are eligible for the S&P. And I think the and so this creates and so that who knows how long that'll take to play out, but I think this creates an incentive alignment that we haven't previously seen in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Like how do you mean? >> Because previously it was the miners that owned most of the Bitcoin and miners were not trying to put any Bitcoin at stake and it was people early on that were taking the store value approach. They didn't want Bitcoin cash to survive. They didn't want Bitcoin to be a currency. They just wanted pe they just want it to be uh oified.

Leave it how it is and just just grow it and let diminishing inflation do do the trick. But we're seeing this incentive alignment such that it's pushing one of the largest Bitcoin holders in strategy to become more to deploy more and to be more productive with its Bitcoin. And and I actually think that's going to be pretty positive for the Bitcoin ecosystem overall because it's no longer just telling the Bitcoin ecosystem just oify. And it it's going to cause more velocity and c like Bitcoin velocity, market velocity, capital velocity to start spinning. And we're going to see a lot more Bitcoin moving around, which to me is the signal for a healthy market and a healthy ecosystem, healthy economy

is once we once you start to see the velocity of money kick up and you start to see people doing things with their capital rather than just sitting it and letting it rot. So, I I I I think this is going to end up being quite bullish for the Bitcoin ecosystem. And I I do think Sailor is smart enough to recognize this and do something about it. I'm particularly bullish on what this means for some of the infrastructure companies and the L2s and the lending market that are geared around Bitcoin. Remember, we did a whole Bitcoin and Beyond series and >> did that not fall? So, like it popped off. We did that. The timing was excellent. Bitcoin L2s were all the rage, but we haven't heard anything from those guys in three months, right?

>> No. Plasma is the new Bitcoin L2. >> Stable coin L2, stable chains, right? Because stable stable coins took took the reigns, but I do think we're going to see a resurgence. Not of all of those, some of them are going to fall by the wayside. But I think the stronger ones and it does bring up, you know, guys like Babylon, guys like Starknet who are starting to position more around Bitcoin Fi. I I do think now like these worlds are colliding such that it's going to push entities like strategy into the direction of deploying their Bitcoin and if other Bitcoin treasury companies want to follow suit that's going to be the direction for them to operate their businesses at this scale >> money dude. Well, look, I think that

there's a chance that we are deep in deep value in the revenue meta. And if you look at Hyperlquid and uh pumpf fun, what you'll notice is that we're deep value revenue meta full maxing right now. So, just wanted to throw that out there, guys. Um, two tokens on the market. >> Didn't Didn't your tweet start the revenue meta? >> It did. It did indeed. >> Stupid tweet. I was uh in New York at a basketball court with uh Jacob from Celestia. We were talking and I tweeted it.

>> Did Jacob from Celestia play ball? >> No, we were just chilling. We just got some like some food and drinks, a couple friends, I think. And anyway, yeah, we were just sitting there and we were like, we're talking about revenue and Celestia and other kind of metrics in the space and uh we're like, yeah, this this revenue meta is just like crazy. And then we were like, revenue meta. And then I was like, I'm going to put a poll out. And then boom, the revenue meta started. Pretty wild. And now it's like a real term, but we're actually in it. like it's fully like the tokens to own are the ones that are generating revenue uh and producing actual revenue. Now, with regards to the DATs and ETFs, dude, I think uh Steven's response to the ETF

news today was super freaking bullish >> that these things are going to be approved sooner rather than later. >> Yes. Incredibly bullish. Like September, October launching before the end of the year. Are you kidding me? What is What are the knock-on effects of that? This is basically like just another another opportunity for retail and the public market. >> It is just Yeah. They don't have to buy it through these treasury companies. They can just go buy straight up. Dude, what if H Yeah. So like treasury companies right now ETFs come on, more people buy the ETFs, pumps the tokens, dude. ETF, dude. They're going to launch

the ETFs of so many shitcoins at the top. Oh my god. >> What What happened? Like ETH ETFs, Bitcoin ETFs, you know, there there is several now. What was >> Yeah, just those two. >> I mean, BTC obviously has had massive inflows. ETH didn't really have that many that much inflows until the last couple months, at least comparatively. they're going to launch these things and you know, I mean, although the thing is a lot of these altcoins are still like really down a lot, but like launching the XRP ETF at $3.50 just feels criminal, you know? Launching the Soul ETF for

public use at 300 feels criminal. Oh man. Well, Rob, I mean, short stream today, man. I'm bummed that Vance couldn't come, but that's all good. We're gonna have a good uh next week on the stream. Uh, you know, it's been a it's been a busy week for us. We got We're working on a lot in the background. Um, it's Good Friday and, you know, I'm just kind of thinking that I don't have too much else to go over and I think we should save our energy for the uh for the rest of the day into the weekend into next week.

Yeah, I'm just looking at how these historically how these ETFs when after they've launched like what the what the impact on the price has been. So the >> what has it been? >> Well, obviously we know that like you know Bitcoin is still, you know, above 100, right? Fluctuating around all-time highs. ETH pretty much same thing. >> Yeah. So in January of 2024, the SEC approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs and began trading on January 11th. Spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted massive inflows, 50 billion in the US and another 15 billion in mid 2025, climbed from 45K to 120. I guess it's just a longer time frame. You just look

at this and you see, yeah, like these ETFs went live in 2024 and then we saw a massive run up. >> Yeah, we did. Uh well, it's just that like should somebody want to speculate on crypto, they can actually do it um in an easy way. It's like it's not like, oh, go download Coinbase, wire your money to Coinbase, pray to God that it doesn't get it's like, oh, open your call your advisor. >> Yeah. Have them tell him or her to buy you the injective ETF.

>> Yeah. You don't have to. You can just you can trusted fiduciary. Yeah, you have plausible deniability for your for your own ego by by not touching any of this yourself. >> And then now you have uh ETF advisors being like, "Hey, you guys should maybe consider allocating to the Crypto 50 index." >> Oh, what's the Crypto50 index? Oh, it's the top 50 crypto assets in that have ETFs in one index. >> Wow. The top 50. Take my money. >> Take my money. Where do I sign? I mean, that's what Marcel is going to want to do.

>> He's going to be >> he's he's going to be buying. He's got Marcel, check that Phantom wallet, man. That that pumpf fund tokens up like 30%. >> There we go. Um, the other thing that happened in these Bitcoin and these ETH ETFs when they got approved, which is not going to happen for most of these altcoins, is that the grayscale unwinding occurred. Oh, we got Marcel behind the scenes. >> It did. Wow. 47. >> Yes, sir. Welcome. Welcome to the madness man.

>> Welcome to the revenue meta. >> I wanted to send you a good one. Yeah, we sent our producer like 200 bucks of pump of pump. Fund to onboard him to crypto and uh I think we're up like 20%. 260 now. Boys are up. So, looking good. >> Looking good. >> Probably a good place to sign off. We've got a lot. >> Yeah, Rob. We'll see you next week. We're going to go every day, so it should be a fun one. And um >> I hope you're ready. I hope is ready. >> All right, guys. See you soon. >> All right, >> peace out. Much love. >> Have a good weekend.