The Rollup TV: Tuesday, September 2nd

Transcript

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[Music] Let's go. Welcome back to the rollup TV. Today is Tuesday, September 2nd. We are live. Good to see you guys. Fun weekend, Labor Day weekend. Hope you guys had a good good weekend. Uh and some shenanigans happened over the weekend.

Let's talk about it. What's up, Rob? How you doing, man? What is going on, brother? Happy Labor Day. It's good to see you back. Ready for another banger week. Tons of shenanigans happening all across the board. Gavin Newsome's launching a memecoin. We're gonna be talking about that and more on today's show. Andy, what kind of shenanigans did you get into over the holiday weekend? >> Looks like MetPlanet bought some Bitcoin. I just surfed a ton. Um, and is it Metaplanet or Microplanet? >> It is Micro Strategy and Meta Planet.

>> Yeah, that's what I thought, dude. So, MetPlanet looked like they added some Bitcoin. Strategy bought 4,000. Metanet buys another thousand. Um, I was surfing. I was hanging out. I did some work. >> Um, yeah. I mean, these guys keep buying Bitcoin. Bitcoin bounced at 109. Bottom on Thread Guy stream. Uh, the tier tier list. Um, late cycle shenanigans for sure there. Uh, Soul showing some strength. Thread Guy bottom pumped up fun. CT75 was pretty funny yesterday. Um, yeah, definitely some late vibes.

any uh anything that you would have done differently on the CT75? Oh, >> I mean they snubbed a bunch of the OG technical analysis traders and such. It's so hard to make these tier list. I mean we have ex like we have uh practice on it with different like RWA companies, different like projects. It's so hard to rate people uh A to D. Uh and then like people are mad because they're in the D tier, but like they're on the list. Um, so that's kind of how how I thought about it, but I just thought it was funny. I thought it was funny that it would mark the low is like there's nothing else to talk about other than uh making a tier list for for Crypto Twitter.

>> Crypto Twitter has its own cultural phenomenons. It has like this entire reality TV show >> like experience. It's got a whole cast of characters and people tune into it. And you're right, like typically when there's things going on, it's almost like commentating, but when there's nothing else going going on, it commentates on itself and that's when it creates like this re this like introspective look into what CT is. >> Yeah. >> Which is a little bit it's a little bit self- serving and it's a little bit like, all right, what are we really doing here?

Shouldn't we all get back to work and like keep kind of like trying to shepherd this technology outward? Uh yeah, but I mean it's just a big high school vibe which is funny to watch uh from the outside. So maybe we'll make the uh the 75 to 150 list hopefully. You know, shout out to Thread if you're watching. Snub me on the first one. Um yeah, I mean gold is ripping too. Um I mean I don't really know exactly why, but I think it's because maybe we're lowering rates into an inflationary environment already at 3%. So I think Bitcoin should follow. Um, yeah. I mean, it gold looks crazy strong. It's funny like the gold that I sold, like when I sold crypto last cycle and bought gold,

that thing has doubled. Um, and has been zero headache, whereas like this rental property is a massive headache and has definitely not doubled. Should have put more into gold. >> Yeah. I mean, Bitcoin and gold obviously share a lot of the same properties as far as like a safe haven asset when it's behaving that way, but generally just if the denominator is going to zero, Bitcoin and gold are both great numerators. >> Yeah. I mean, >> um >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's just it just makes sense. Like if you're if you're structurally bullish on the denominator going to zero, it you know, you can you don't have to go all in one or the other. like the Peter shifts of the world versus the Bitcoin maxis of the world like probably it, you know, you can break out a little

bit and probably get some decent exposure. >> I mean, I remember Arthur Hayes in the bare market last time wrote gold to 5k, Bitcoin at 250. Uh, kind of looks like what's happening >> that's playing out. Another uh thing that is playing out is yeah, the strategy qualifying for the S&P 500. This is something that I had brought up a couple streams ago and I stand corrected because I was of the of the understanding that Micro Strategy was not profitable and that was a requirement in order for them to go and be listed on the S&P. It turns out here are the criteria for a company be being listed on uh the S&P. Uh it meets a US listing um on a on a stock exchange. It

obviously has that market capitalization above 8.2 2 billion. It far exceeds that. Um daily trading volume exceeding 250,000 shares. Uh it beat that in quarter two and more than 50% public float. It has that and he here was the piece positive earnings both in the la latest quarter and on a trailing 12-month basis. And so >> um they haven't been profitable or you know positive earnings for several quarters in a row. I was of the under understand they needed three straight quarters.

>> But it turns out >> it's just one quarter and then the trailing 12-month basis. They had uh 24 billion in net income uh in 2025 and they had 12 billion just in the last quarter. And so they had positive earnings in the last quarter, meaning that they uh now check every box when it comes to >> beautiful >> uh being included in the S&P. And so I think that would be a major major news moment. This is obviously something that uh is going to show up in the the mainstream news CNBC if and when it happens.

>> Yeah. Yep. It means that everybody will have exposure to Bitcoin if they own any sort of uh index. Well, if they own the S&P, which I mean 95% of retirement funds, I would say that are like somewhat uh risk that accept some risk own the S&P 500, which means your mom, your your cousin, your your grandma, they're going to be owning the S&P 500. They're going to be owning Bitcoin through Micro Strategy. Let's talk about the guests today. We have Ya and Shillang talking about institutional DeFi. Uh lots to cover there. We've got intern, we've got Kevin from Monad, and we've got Cozy from Premia. Some OG, some in institutional presences today.

Um, yeah, guys, let's get them up. Uh, and we will have a our first conversation today with the, uh, you know, kind of just orienting around, I think, institutional DeFi, what's happening, RWAs. I posted a chart yesterday. It's absolutely going parabolic now. It's like, it's been on a really steady linear rise. Now, it's going parabolic. Stable coin growth is really increasing. private credits increasing, institutions are coming on chain to use um to use DeFi in in you know with the DATs to get yield. So um yeah, we got YA and we have Shilyang up.

So we were going to bring them up. Um and yeah, Rob, let's let's >> another breath of kind of what the institutions are thinking, what the ETFs are going on, the reg the regulatory environment, kind of how some of these institutions are thinking about allocating. Today I saw the Alibaba guy, Jack Ma, I believe is his name, the uh the >> Kang is just he's just being legally back to he added 10 million or 10,000 units of Ethereum. >> Um so they have bought a ton of Ethereum um as as well. We've got them up here.

We're going to get Ya and and Chileang up um and we're going to be talking about what their view is on the state of the institutional DeFi paradigm today. So um without any further ado, let's get Ya and Shillang up. Guys, welcome to the stream. Uh good to have you guys. >> Yeah, likewise. >> Thanks for having us. >> It's a it's a busy time out there. >> Hope you guys had a good Labor Day weekend. You know, we were hoping for a quiet quiet quiet August, but that was not the case, was it?

>> No, it's uh doesn't feel like a summer at all. Just been getting walk across on dads all all summer on weekends. >> Yeah, man. So, so I I I I've been spending quite uh quite a bit of time out here with a friend uh who runs uh you know pretty prominent VC in the space and uh just kind of like seeing how how he was working through August and um you know knowing that se August is like a really slow month on the institutional side. You know him and I were just kind of talking about what you know what some of the larger investors on Wall Street, some of these um Ethereum DAT investors, etc. are going to be doing now that se September's here and you know our theory and we spoke with the framework guys

last week you know we basically have came to that there's going to be just a massive pickup in activity on the DAT side on the ETFs on the institutional flows uh how are you guys thinking about this and what are you guys seeing and maybe first we haven't gotten an intro so I would just love to know first time on the show guys quick intro and then I'd love to just jump in as to what you you guys think the the next couple weeks of September have in store on the institutional side after a not so sleepy Augusta maybe you can go first and then Shillian guys thanks for joining >> sounds good yeah thanks again for for having both of us uh having worked with Chillang in the in the space for such a long time it's always great to be able to trade industry notes uh on a call

like this so appreciate you both for hosting uh my quick background so have been in the space for a bit formerly part of the Panta team and then part of the founding team of Falcon X a C5 prime broker uh which uh Shellane will also speak to and now uh co-founder and co-CEO of August and Upshift. August is our institutional prime business for DeFi and CFI and Upshift is our yield platform. And as it pertains to August and September, I will mirror what Changang said in that, you know, August was not the slow month we were expecting. Um there's kind of two divides that I would take this and uh Shellen has a lot of more context on

this. So I'd love to get his thoughts too, but uh you know the feedback we've gotten is everyone has a limited attention span. So you can only uh send so many dats um and so many of these digital you know these treasury like products uh to the same type of road shows before people start to look for different yield opportunities. And it certainly feels like we might be at the tail tail end uh of that trend. And so um while it has been a very busy August, I think the next question is what's the next yield product for September to to kick us off with? Um there's that. And then there's also, you know, the conference uh kickoff uh that crypto tends to see um with token 2049 really

kicking off the circuit. And so, you know, that tends to also jump start a lot of the conversations on the product and partnership side too. Yeah, just to uh step in there. So, so um yeah, thanks for having me. But um I'm Shalang. I used to run a hedge fund called Ledger Prime, like a multi strategy hedge fund. Uh and then subsequently started another firm called Arbolos Markets uh which was acquired by Falcon X. Um and uh my current fund um Monarch uh which is rebranded to Monarch from M&C uh and is a relaunch of Ledger Prime uh was also majority acquired by Falcon X.

Uh so basically we're an asset management firm. It's a multi strategy largely cryptofocused fund although more recently we've been you know doing a lot more um traditional cryptoreated equities. Um yeah and and you know I just echo what I says uh definitely in August um July August extremely busy on on these DOTs. U for us we invest and so we we do a lot of you know due diligence on them. Um and a lot of that due diligence happens on weekends when you get wall cross on these vehicles and then subsequently we also um manage the treasuries for a handful of these uh DATs as well. And so post you know deal execution as you're accumulating um these assets um or you know hitting the

ATM and and doing subsequent shelves uh will help them accumulate more right and so it's it's been kind of two prongs there uh which has kept us you know pretty busy and yeah I would say you know sitting in New York and in the US it certainly felt like the DAT trade has been going on for a long time but at the same time I think um abroad uh especially on Asia um they've been a bit slower in the pickup uh especially at the you know founding stages and we're starting to see some of the later DATs that are ongoing now actually um being predominantly Asian capital um just because they were kind of left out or weren't all the original um original ones um to begin with. uh there's like a

one, Salana one. Um so a lot of Asian capital actually flowing in now um to these later later ones. Um and so you know there's bit of exhaustion from the US side but I think um globally there there's still a lot of capital and attention um that you know can be you know harvested for for these vehicles. when when you're describing sort of the the later nature of these uh these DATs, h how do you how do you reconcile this in terms of the investability, right?

Like the sustainability of these treasury companies? Is there general macro policies or any sort of liquidity conditions, any sort of drivers that you can point to outside of the DAT structure itself that can show you, okay, this is sustainable or no, this is something that is really just piggybacking and it's copying these other formats. what what are some of the drivers that you look at um that are going to indicate to you this is something that's sustainable and this is something that still has some legs to it uh versus the alternative.

>> Yeah, I think um it's definitely case by case, right? I think um one is uh the shell, right? If you're going to do a pipe, like how clean is the shell? Is there like a a dirty legacy business? Is there a lot of uh warrants and converts um associated with it um that can make the you know stock harder to trade later down the line? Um is there like a lot of liquidity actually in the you know stock already? Uh and so and then obviously the the coming in like the management team, right? Like that's you know a lot of this is is kind of like a marketing game. Um and uh you know how do you grab the attention of of the public markets? Um, and you need someone that can bridge a gap between

crypto and and institutions, right? And and I think, you know, Tom Lee and Bitmine has done a great job of that. Uh but some of the other vehicles that are less known and whatnot, I think um have had our tougher time, right? And and so there's a lot of different um factors, right? And and obviously, you know, Bitcoin, Ethereum, I think are large enough and well known enough to sustain many vehicles, right? But some of the other tokens, lesser known tokens, um that are lesser known in the traditional institutional world, I think it's going to be hard for them to sustain, you know, two, three, four vehicles, right?

And and so uh that that's going to be I think a problem down the line. So So it is, you know, case by case, you know, ecosystem by ecosystem. Um you know, for us in terms of how we analyze it. >> I had anything to add there? Yeah, I mean I would I would just really anchor on the attention piece because you know how many Bitcoin any treasuries you know could possibly exists out there and it's not unique to DATs per se. It's for any product that is either first to market or has um you know a very marketable you know name to it like bullish um that really speaks to the retail Robin Hood trading crowd uh and

so it is very much a marketing game and um you know to Shellink's point there are some organizations that have done a tremendous job of it and then there's others that you know maybe have marketed themselves really well uh but all of the factors that Shellink just mentioned are very poor on the back end management team uh structuring and unfortunately you know I'm sure those will have a much shorter uh lifespan because you know not everyone is good at managing money and uh it works well when prices are up and to the right but if we do have a lot of volatility uh come up I think it'll be very interesting to see you know how these play out given who the manager is across each of these structures. Yeah, I

I think one of the things that is most interesting from our perspective and I think a lot of our our audience is around the actual uh using of you know specifically Ethereum and also Salana in their respective ecosystems to generate yield and to provide basically more ways to keep the mnav higher uh you know than the or keep keep the premium you kind of rolling right. Um you know Robbie and I got our start in early 2020. We were, you know, we were some of the first on year on compound. We were very much in the trenches. So, have a good feel for uh yield farming and and just kind of generating yield. I'm curious when you're speaking uh with your prime brokerage business or on upshift kind of how you're thinking about uh providing

these offerings to either these DAT codes uh ETFs kind of like what what interest are you seeing? um you know I is there is there is there a specific way in which these institutions need to operate on chain? How are you kind of uh seeing this play out? >> Yeah. Uh first off it's good to know you were in the DeFi blue chip summer. That was a fun one. Uh definitely couldn't get off your phone. Yes. Yes. That was a good one. That was that was wild. Um those young days were good days. Uh but um yeah, I would say look a couple things need to happen. Uh the first is you know we in crypto like to say that the institutions have been coming for a

while. Uh Shellang dared me to compare this to the Paul Rivere uh the British are coming quote, but it it we've been saying it for a really long time. And you know, the reason they haven't been able to come just yet is because we're still, you know, we we're still getting NAV and reporting uh organized to a way that, you know, someone can easily review what an APY looks like um without having to, you know, click through a number of different wallets and uh you know, compare different Excel spreadsheets. Um so that's the first.

The second is Oracle redundancy uh smart contract security and underwriting. Um and then the last I would say is security right and I think this is where we've you know we built our business coming out of the FTX days where we wanted to have a more secure um DeFi ecosystem that allows you to do CFI like trading but you know with all the tools and provisions um that CFI extends into DeFi. Uh and so you know when you have these um kind of treasuries set up you typically have them structured as SMAs you have different managers you want to control exactly how they trade where they trade um and today you know that doesn't really exist on chain and so that's a gap that we've been able to

fill but uh it is you know still a very long road I think it takes time to get people warmed up to you know trading on chain having it be you know fully um transparent uh and then also just the operational lift we're still not there yet where you can one-click defy trade um unfortunately and and that's just because the technology is you know very very difficult. It changes every single day and um you just you know new chains pop up, new dabs pop up, uh new loops pop up, yield changes and um yeah so uh you know protocols are managing for that.

>> Yeah. Shillian do you have anything to add there maybe with regards to what's some of your institutional clients's appetite is? Yeah, I think um you know we've always been very active in in DeFi and I think that's been our edge um to a certain extent, right? I think um we're a smaller fund, less regulated um than some of the traditional players and so I've always been able to access DeFi directly. Uh I would say like you know broadly um you know regulation held back uh DeFi access to certain extent um as well as infrastructure. I think you know regulations is broadly getting lifted now right and whether you want to call this era of deregulation regulatory clarity um it does like open the

floodgates um to just increasing you know competition and mind shared and access um and so uh I think you know generally um the the blocker isn't now just just purely um regulation it's actually like infrastructure ffure right it's like I I think people underestimate how much infrastructure has actually been built in DeFi and then also for traditional institutions how slowly they actually move as well um and so even if they could and wanted to I think um it does take just a tremendous amount of lift to

um integrate with all the different platforms uh service all the different customers um if they want to touch DeFi and you know something as simple as cross collateral uhization of of assets and portfolios between CFI assets, traditional assets, onchain assets. Um while it sounds like simple and and kind of like you know the ultimate north star, it's pretty hard to set up, right? And that's you know something that firms like August and and Upshift are are building. Um but for traditional firms right it's extremely difficult and and you know one example of something I'm working actually working on right now with um you know some traditional bankers and and shell entities is uh is

is how do we bring like yield bearing products like to the traditional world right like you right now like absent of going directly you know and touching DeFi themselves which know some firms still can't for you know KYC or AML and regulatory purposes you know they do it through an SPV or or they can um do it through like a total return swap um be like a you know income passback uh method. Um both aren't really like elegant. It's it's cumbersome. So something that we're actually trying and borrowing from the DAT world is, you know, maybe there's a way to um use like depository receipts, right? And and RDC is a firm that basically can can bring um depository receipts uh from a

qualified custodian um basically turn, you know, any yield bearing token uh into a DR that can be held in now traditional rails like a PB. uh and just by acting as a holding vehicle, you you actually get a yield bearing depository receipt um that can also be traded and used as collateral in the traditional world and rails uh of traditional PBS and and you know using that as as collateral to trade stocks and bonds and everything else right and you know there's a bit of lift there as well in terms of getting the necessary liquidity and and prime brokers comfortable with yield bearing tokens but um that's one way of you know how do we bring I guess merge merge of two worlds. Um, and if we

can't quickly bring, you know, CFI to DeFi, you know, maybe we bring DeFi to to CFI, right? Um, so, you know, those are some examples, >> you know, like the original vision here was that, you know, we would all run our own validators. We would all verify the chain ourselves, right? Like I remember when I first opened up a wallet back in those D5 bluechip days, I had to run a val a full node at the same time just to own own a wallet. But what we're starting to get to is is more of this institutional foothold in owning pieces of these networks. And so I'm curious where this endgame develops maybe on like, you know, sort of a midterm time horizon. As we're increasingly seeing

that retail does not want to run their own node, they don't even really want to know that they're using crypto. we're going to start to see institutional uh like institutions take a greater foothold in these networks. And so I'm curious when you kind of forecast this out and Bit Mine owns 5% of the Ethereum supply and Sharink owns another 3 or 4%. And Michael Sailor and Micro Strategy own, you know, a larger percent of the Bitcoin supply. Would you guys say this does this pose a systemic risk to these networks or can it become kind of this this funnel and this outlet for the greater population to engage with the network from a more secure more convenient place?

>> Sheling, I'll let you take that one first. >> Totally have thoughts. >> Yeah, I mean I think there's like two. One is like, is this all in the spirit of what crypto originally like represented? Um, >> I don't know, man. Is it? >> Um, you know, it's kind of like yeah, like the whole like you know, original like Bitcoin saying like not your keys, not your coin, right? Like it's clearly not um but it is what will bring you know ultimate mass adoption.

um at least so so you know you can think of it in terms of like stages right um you know having institutions hold their own keys and custody and everything probably is a heavy lift uh or just the average retail even um and so I would like to think that we will progress you know we are progressing to the stage where it is more centralization and mass adoption and you know getting everyone comfortable and using the rails and exchanging and everything and there will be some point you know after that where you know now that everyone is on boarded um you know doesn't mean that like you know 5% is a lot but at the same time it's not even close to the majority right uh and so I think there is a world

where you know bifrocated world where you have like the institutions and it's very centralized but you still have kind of the self-serving >> um you know individualistic kind of you know world that that crypto origin represented and Uh I I don't see why the two can't coexist. >> Yeah, I would just say um you know I think relative to how much Bitcoin some of the OG holders already own, we've already reached you know some concerns around centralization. And so, you know, to Shellank's point, I don't think these large institutions pose any net new risk that didn't already exist in the kind of

pre-mass institutional stage. Um, I would say the risk that it does pose is, you know, uh, volatility and price risk. If any one of these players takes on large leverage and gets liquidated, you know, that brings us back to a kind of um Black Friday event uh that we've seen in the past. Um that will require centralized stock gaps um again to kind of save the industry. Uh and so I actually think you know I I tend to sit in the camp where centralization uh there's there's definitely some benefits to it but also you know August was born out of FTX and um there is definitely limitations to you know how good centralization can be and um a lot of it

is you know people taking on uh significant risk without knowing how to underwite that risk and we're actually seeing that happen again um you know and and even if you think about what was the trading experience like when you all traded in 2020 over the last five years, you know, I I can't say that the experience has gotten that that much better. Um, unfortunately, and it's just because the techn is really hard. Um, and I think people underell just how long it takes to build uh seamless user experience um on, you know, fully open uh code. Um, and you know, that then leads to people wanting to cut corners.

Um and unfortunately I think what we've seen is in 2020 when we started the business you know we had a lot of requests for um risk mitigated uh features and now we're actually seeing a lot of requests for people to cut those those corners and um be able to do things in a much more seamless way with uh less um checks and balances in place. And uh you know I think the only thing that keeps that in check is just large black swan events unfortunately. And so um you know will we have another one? Uh yes you know always um you know ideally it doesn't happen from one of these large institutions that's holding you know four or 5% of any you know specific asset whether it's Bitcoin ETH or any of

these other altcoins. Um but you know it's it's it's bound to happen uh whether it's one of these centralized parties or you know an exchange or or some other you know large 3AC like hedge fund. Um you know it's it's going to happen again. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think if we think about some of the larger risks for the current bull run, I mean, I think I think obviously there's like the macro factors, something like inflation going up too high, these types of things, but I think there's also like now these uh these systemic uh kind of debts that that are are people are kind of worried about. But but it does seem like there's a bit more of uh there's a lot more concern with what is actually happening publicly now likely as a result of like

PTSD from previous cycles. Uh but also just that that this has been so public. So from my perspective it's almost like well if everyone's already clearly stating that that this is going to be risky and that this could you know cause problems then perhaps it's less likely to actually uh really play out in that way. But I'm not sure if you guys have seen this in Shilling. I'm super curious from your perspective. I know that you're deep in the DAT land. Like has the DAT structures gone from like where they originally started uh which was like more of like I think if I'm not mistaken more of like pipes, then they brought pipes in at the monies. Then they've kind of, you know, have they gone more and more riskier like almost like a senior tunch all the way to like a junior tunch uh to kind of try to get

more yield, try to get more premium. Like are you seeing the risk tolerance go up? Like for example, there was rumors of Tom Lee buying call options instead of buying spot Ethereum right now. I'm not going to, you know, say that those are substantiated, but the the question is kind of like like is that process gradually happening? because if it is then I think we may have that kind of black swan as Ilia or as Ya presented uh at least as as a possibility. >> Yeah. Um I I like to think you know the buying call strategy as um actually just smart execution.

>> All right. We got a DJ on our hands here. >> He's an option trader. He's an option trader. So just >> keep that in mind. >> It's definitely happening. Not saying Bitmire is doing it, but you know, it's definitely happening across the space. Um, >> as like a hedge or as like a way to get more upside or both >> as a way to get more up. >> Oh boy. >> Right. Like one way to, you know, if you know you're going to buy a certain token um, and you think you're going to, you know, ultimately drive the token higher, like you can buy a call option ahead of it, right? as as one way to kind of like amass additional tokens and get additional um levers because like ultimately you know if it finishes in the money you

know you exercise and then you basically buy the tokens at a lower strike as long as spot is above it right I think it'll get dangerous if you know they're selling options on leverage right I think like that's where firms ultimately blow up right if you're buying you're kind of your downside is kind of just a premium spent um but if you're like ultimately you know selling options eventually on leverage for yield, you know, because ultimately the the MNAP premiums for all these vehicles are are going to deflate out, right? And I think, you know, the majority of them will trade at par or at a discount, right? And and maybe the top top ones in high growth um native yield generating, you know, tokens and their associated debts, you

know, maybe they trade at like a 25 to 50% premium uh in the long term, right? I think um you know the majority are going to deflate away, right? And so you know then to differentiate or to survive or or you know generate additional revenue or cash flow to basically you know continue buying the underlying tokens. um and if they resort to esoteric yo generating strategies or you know things on leverage or you know basically running a fund right uh you know and they don't have the proper knowledge or expertise to do that and run these you know more sophisticated strategies.

>> Yeah. then they run the risk of obviously blowing up um and and and ultimately bringing down you know the whole um uh individual entity and and obviously you know the space if if you know if if multiple are doing at the same time. >> Yeah. Um, just a real quick followup there, Rob. Just one last >> one. September 19th, I believe, is a massive expirations date for options for Bitcoin and I believe for Ethereum. Shilling, maybe you can double check me on that. Uh, if you're if you're familiar, I I'm I'm just curious like more in the short term here in September. What is the options market kind of telling you from a from like a IV perspective or just from a risk parameter perspective?

>> Yeah, I mean, there's a few events, right? Like even this week there's been a bit of um VA premium to it. I think there was the ISM today and then there's the unemploy there's the employment data uh coming out on Friday. Um and then you know those are kind of the drivers of you know ultimately later on in the month for the Fed rate decision. Um so all that is getting priced into the options markets as events that can move the market and and so the options market is obviously priced in you know eventful fall um for all these different events and and obviously the big one is the Fed funds um decision later in the month right and even though it's priced in uh I think you know the not not the amount and whether they they actually cut or

not it's it's more about um the funds conflict uh afterwards and how he presents you know, the ultimate rate cut and and everything down there, right? So, the market is definitely pricing, you know, more volatility in September than, you know previously. >> Nice. I got a couple quick ones before we let you go. Uh, one is that my understanding of these stats is that the the cost of setting them up occurs up front. And so to me that that says okay well the longer that these companies survive the less their operating expenditure is if most of their costs occur up front and they're not recurring. And so is there a Lindy

effect to these maybe Sharp Link and Micro Strategy? They've been around for a long time. The newer ones that come up a little bit later aren't going to have as much time to sort of dilute those initial expenses. But some of the ones that you know we saw start months ago, Bitmine, Sharp Link are maybe you know 3, four months old, still relatively early, but have they had a chance to get through some of that initial expenditure and now as we go longer and lar they actually have a a higher chance of survival. Yeah, I would say I mean I don't think fees ultimately it's kind of like fees and even yield to a certain extent like people talk about okay like you know how do you generate yield in the assets like five% like that's not really going to

move the needle for like whether these things survive like 5% yield great like it's not going to like really bring an additional like retail capital to these vehicles right um and same with fees and there's ways to mitigate fees also like one is investment investment banking fees have come down tremendously in the past you know three months right, from a lot of these vehicles to the asset management fees as well, you know, in the past three months. Um, and then there's ways to mitigate that, right? Like you have a one for one like staple warrant to these vehicles. Um, like you know, a lot of these vehicles do this now is, you know, the the kind of baseline MNAV is like 1.2, too. So, it's basically like 20% mode, but like you just throw like either like discounted tokens into it or you throw like a

warrant um on top of it and and basically that that kind of just lowers the whole MAP down to like one, right? And it's not it's kind of artificial, right? Because like the warrant is ultimately diluted into like a share dividend. But, um you know, there's ways to kind of like mitigate that. I mean, it's it's important, right? And people should ask these questions is you know is is management aligned like how much upfront fees there is and everything else but I don't think that that ultimately all of that you know drives the whether the these things survive or not right in the long term.

>> Got it. And uh the other followup I had was that earlier we were talking about Micro Strategy now checking the boxes and meeting the criteria for the S&P. uh they have a decision later this month to take out some companies from the index, put some new companies in the index. One, do you think this happens either now or sometime in the near future? And two, if it happens, will we see some sort of onsw switch flip and, you know, see some liquidity rush in as these passive funds, you know, are accumulating the the S&P? What do you think is the the domino effect of bringing Micro Strategy or another one of these DATs into the S&P?

>> Um, yeah, I think it's I hope so. Uh, I think it will get included. Um, yeah, I think it'll get included and and I hope certainly hope so. And and a lot of the uh success of these vehicles has been on the volatility, right? And hopefully at least in the short term you know getting included in the S&P drives additional interest and price action and increased volatility and so it enables you know Micro Strategy or anyone else um to harvest that right and and kind of you know generate additional yield and cash to to accumulate additional tokens and so I hope that happens. I think you know if it happens it drives additional

volatility and ultimately it's good for DATs it's good for tokens um and it's good for the space at least in the short term. >> Yeah, do you want to add anything there? Yeah, I mean uh again like this all looks great as long as price is up and to the right, you know. Um volatility is not always up and to the right. And so, you know, as uh and I I agree, I think it'll get included in the S&P 500, but that also means that you can, you know, take on additional leverage. And you know there is pretty large systemic risk in you know the va bitcoin relative to um you know the structure that micro strategy has running. I think uh that in itself

is is kind of the black swan we don't love to talk about in the industry but is very very much there. Um and so you know I think uh it's great for the space. you know, it'll be hopefully good also for uh inclusion of non- US funds um once it's in the S&P 500 uh as well, just on a you know, marketing basis. Um but uh yeah, overall overall great for the space. I I will say the one thing, you know, that that we have seen is um to earlier point, there hasn't been that much volatility and interesting yield opportunities in the last two months.

And it'll be interesting to see if September kind of changes that around. But um to take on significant risk to earn 5% which is kind of the call it risk-free rate uh doesn't necessarily make sense. And so you know at some point people will have to potentially offset you know cost by going into more esoteric yield strategies. And that's that's again like talking about risk that's where the risk is um and whether people can manage that well. >> Yeah. Um, I asked I just want to give you a chance to shoot your shot here.

Where can people find you? Where can people use Upshift? You know, who who are you looking for? Um, as as we close out. >> Yeah. Yeah, of course. Um, so uh we actually have uh Monarch as one of our uh one of our curators on the Upshift uh platform. You can check us out at upshift.inance. Uh I would say, you know, a lot of what we focus on is, you know, everything that we mentioned on the call today is mitigation of risk, right? And um it's easy uh to look like you guys know this well come from 2020. It's easy to look like you're a good trader uh when the market's doing well and then really complex when you start to get that volatility. So um as we do expect Vault to increase in September and uh Q3 tends to be a very volatile quarter for crypto

in general. Uh we definitely want to see you know professional managers uh and curators manage that risk. So check us out >> guys. Thank you for joining us. It's been a pleasure. Um, I I I I find this meta of the conversation of the of the cycle to be uh relatively interesting as this new information. Um, but but also kind of like, you know, I don't know. I don't know if it's as if it's as exciting if it's as exciting as winding up uh algorithmic stable coins on weird collateral or uh super super crazy lending, but you know, it is what we got this time around.

Look, all of that's going to be included in in these dats soon enough. So, you know, it will converge. It will converge. >> Yeah, Shillian, stay safe out there in those options territories, man. Burn me once, burn me twice. Shame on me, shame on you. >> Thanks. >> Yeah. Thank you guys. >> Thanks for joining, guys. We'll see you next time. >> Really appreciate it. See you. >> Cheers. >> All right, Rob. What's your uh what's your key takeaways here? the the leverage yield farms integrating into the DATs for better or for worse. That's my perspective. Like we'll we've seen that before. We'll see that again. We kind of know how that works out.

>> Yeah. Look, I mean, I just think that that makes me that whole conversation just further makes me want like, okay, look, I'm very bullish in the shorter term. Tom Lee is going to get 10 bill. He's going to rip this thing. He's going to put an ATM. He's going to issue convertible debt. There's going to be more DATs. People are going to be in action. Asia's getting in the market, but boy oh boy, I'm going to be cash ready in the future. That's what I'm saying. Uh, a dollar today is not the same value of risk-to-reward as a dollar tomorrow post some of these happenings. So, we got Kevin in the background. He's been waiting for a bit. Let's get him up. Um, and uh, and yeah, maybe we can fill him in on on some of that talk because I feel like he's probably gonna

be interested in that as well. Um, but yeah, Rob, I mean, that's my takeaway was like, all right, like full on I think position strong, but my goodness, there's there's there's going to be some some opportunities for those with powder in the future. >> Yeah, I mean, we've again, we've seen it before. We know that rehypotheation, we know where that ends up, whether it occurs onchain or offchain. And these dats are just, they're just another form of rehypothecation. One of the things that does give me a little bit of solace is that we keep hearing how slowm moving these companies are, which to me means, okay, it's slow moving both ways. Slow moving to get into the market and slow moving to get out of the market too, which could make

for more a a more sustained draw down when it ends up happening when this leverage loop takes effect. But >> uh >> we'll we'll see it nonetheless. Kevin to the stream, man. >> Welcome. >> What's going on? Hello. >> Excited to be here. Andy, your hair looks fantastic today, dude. >> Thank you, man. That mic is something else, dude. Look at that. >> You like this? It's got the triple arm on it, >> dude. The blue light is is is solid, too. Nice, man.

>> I'm Hey, I appreciate it. Yeah, we have this like little podcasting type room uh set up in the office. So, every every once in a while when people get excited about parallel EVM, I get to come in here and use this mic. >> Yeah, man. >> We are excited. >> Yeah, we are. Actually, dude, I I'd like to to I I feel like you you do a lot of conversations that aren't like super technical because people people just want to see token. People just want to have the like the mainet yada yada. I mean, I I'm I spoke with James maybe two months ago on a pod in New York City for his first podcast. He's on a Twitter exodus right now. Um, but that's okay.

Um, man, I'm just curious, what are some of the latest technical developments that you guys have shipped uh leading up to mainet? Like what are some of the uh more intriguing experiments that you either working on for the future or that are kind of in test net ready to ship? Um, yeah. Yes. >> Yeah. Um, that is a great question. Uh, there are >> It wasn't on the question list. Sorry about that. >> You're good. I don't even think I got any question list. So, I think we're just we're just going in blind. Um, I would say that there are three to four technical updates that we will be announcing on Twitter over the next two weeks. Um, and one of the rules on the growth team is like we we will give a

bunch of information about announcements that will go out, but you can't like take the announcement for your own personal account or growth. So, unfortunately, I can't like drop the news now because then it takes all the wind out of the actual one that comes from the main account. >> Um, but yeah, I'd say high level is basically like you there is a modded mainet version, right? that's like finalized, complete, will work very well. Um, and everything has just been getting to that level. And so like probably for the next two weeks, it's basically just getting the tech to the point where um like it is mainet ready.

I'm also hearing like I don't I can hear myself going through. I'm not sure if this is me or >> Oh, really? >> something. >> I can. Yeah, I can just turn I'm just going to turn down my volume a little bit. That's fine. >> Um, >> so yeah, it's like getting to the point where it's complete and that is uh in the near future. Once it's complete, then you ship mainet and then once you ship mainet, then you start doing the bonus extra stuff on top. >> Um, so James would be a great person to ask about the bonus extra stuff on top. I think that will be very exciting. he's been waiting years to start putting these in because you know his entire thing has been getting mainet to um or getting monet to mainet readiness. So

you got to get to that point and then uh anything above that scravy. So >> that is what it looks like. I know I don't have a ton of specifics for you on that front but if you turn on notifications for app monad you will find out very soon in the next two weeks some of the technical updates that have come on. >> Beautiful. There's the uh there's the growth team working in in action. Um man, we just finished our nominations for the Monad Cards. I think today's the day for the next round. Tell us about tell us about what what comes next for that. How you guys came up with that idea. I think I saw you on Thread Stream talking about it a bit. Um but we finished our nominations. I think the deadline basically just passed or is about to for those. Um yeah, man. Would

love to get some insights if you can share this of what's to come. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, so I I'll I'll preface it by saying there's some stuff I definitely can share. Um some stuff that will be revealed in the future. Um but yeah, Monet Cards honestly was a brainchild of Kryptones. Um shout out Tunes. He's like >> I I used to call him the master of bad ideas, but ever since Monet Cards happened, now I just call him the master of ideas. >> Um he has more ideas of things to do than anyone I've ever met in my entire life. And some the vast majority of them are like pretty terrible and then like every once in a while he has one. It just completely changes the course of what

Monad does and like how everyone perceives it and so you got to just let him cook. Usually the steaks come out burnt. Uh but every once in a while it's like Michelin star stuff. So shout out Tunes. This was definitely one that I think went really well. um just generally a personalized tribute to a lot of the people that like have contributed to crypto Twitter. Uh I think everyone kind of whe whether it's on purpose or not like everyone kind of takes for granted that like we have this industry crypto that we care about but there's alo this like fun social layer to it and it's like if you imagine working in crypto and they're like crypto Twitter doesn't exist like

that's a pretty bleak place like if you have nowhere to share like the lows with like crypto would be pretty brutal. Um, and I think there's also just been so much um I mean I just call it AI slop that has come over the timeline and kind of has been like poisoning this thing that we care about. Um it's harder and harder to tell if some if an account or a wallet is a real person on the internet. Um AI and automation generally just makes it harder to distinguish real people. And so this was an attempt to like manually go through and figure out who all the real people are that like make the space go around and just show a

token of appreciation. Um give some customized cards like make the timeline fun for a day was really what what we were hoping to do. Um and also just put Monet in front of everyone given mainet is is on the horizon. kind of remind everyone uh what Monad is looking to bring to market and yeah, hopefully spark some excitement. >> Well, you guys certainly accomplished that. Really did take over the timeline. It was all good vibes, too. Like you guys touched several communities and there was a positive reaction all around. I think maybe the only negativity was people didn't that people who didn't get one and felt like they could and then you guys included the nomination rounds after that. I I'm curious h how you guys see it because

you've been building for so long. You've seen es and flows in the community that once you launch mainet and you launch the token the es and flows are entirely dependent on the chart and so you guys now have unique insight into okay there's es and flows in the community that are irrespective of price when you guys see that how how do you manage it what is the what is the cope for community sentiment like pre-token you guys are launching these campaigns when you see it sort of in a in a Ali, what how do you how do you reconcile with community sentiment in in the growing phase?

>> Yeah. Um, I I'll preface it by saying I work at a foundation of a blockchain that has not launched yet and is going to in the future. So, like if I sound like I'm saying weird phrasing, just like roll with it. Um, >> sure. I to to kind of answer the question as directly as I can, I would say like um similar to what you would imagine in a postmet world, I think Monet has actually gone through a number of cycles of attention and hype and excitement and then kind of like dead periods where it wasn't right like there there will be times where Monet is over 50% of the

Kaido TG like it's seems like it's the only thing that people are talking about on Twitter. Um, and then it will go through months where it's kind of like, yeah, people are building and and waiting for it to come out, but it's not the zeitgeist, right? The other things are happening that are more interesting to talk about than like the chain that they haven't gotten a tech update from in in a month, right? And which is natural and that's completely fine. Um, but we we've definitely seen our fair share of like even starting in in late 2023 I think kind of pre initial or preundra like there was this wave that took over crypto of like oh parallel EVM like what is possible when this comes to market and monad was really the tip of

the spear of all of the projects um or the the general topic that like captured all of that attention and so it's like this massive inpouring of attention and everyone who had been there for a while got really excited and like they felt validated in all their beliefs and they started like posting out monads the greatest online and then that lasts like two or three months and then there's you know six months or so of kind of dead period or trough and where like it seems like the attention generally is flowing out um and then we have test net launch and it's like all the attention flows back in so it's it's a long way of saying like yes mainet is not live and like there are variables with that that you know we

haven't had before but there's a lot of things that I think are very similar and that like you understand when like excitement is high this is generally how people act and like when excitement is low this is generally how people act and like the things that break or you know um so there's a lot of learnings from that look it's nothing like the real thing >> um that I pro I put out a tweet that was like kind of a joke earlier today but like >> I swear to God my Rob has been talking about Monad, which is a product that isn't live for like close to three years. Like I there is nobody that wants this thing live more than more than I do. Um I really I really can't wait for that. I think there's going to be a lot of a lot of good things. I think I

think people will be more excited than uh they they generally think right now around Punch. Dude, I'm curious as you've been through this, you know, multiple year journey, the meta of mainet and token and points and marketing, it has shifted so much. I mean, you know, I put out the whole revenue meta thing like three months ago and and and you know, I got a lot of uh heat for it. But now that's the thing. It's like generate revenue, what's your L1's rev, how are you doing buybacks for the token? you know, back in in early 24, airdrops, stake your TIA for air drops, stake this for that, get, you know, farm that, then it was points. So,

like I'm I'm curious like has your has your strategy like like you've been able to kind of watch a lot of this unfold and now it feels like come to a point where you've kind of seen a lot of, for lack of a better word, like hot garbage happened as people experiment. Um, you know, for the better or for worse, right? you know, we we went through these different metas uh for like launching token or for launching mainet or for rewarding contributors, that type of thing. You know, obviously you can't answer the specifics on this, but just more broadly like from from your lens, how how have you been watching this play out? And also, I'm sure participating in it from Kaido, from these types of

things. And then, you know, how how has that kind of thirdparty view been able to allow you to better optimize what you guys want to achieve with your launch? uh you know with the general distribution of token or just distribution of marketing etc. Yeah, there there have been a lot of learnings like we we have had the benefit of watching an enormous number of projects with things that are comparable to Monad launch, right? And you learn something from from all of them. Um some of them you learn something and it makes you more optimistic. Some you learn something that makes you more pessimistic. But like every time a new one goes through the pipes, you're like, "Okay, this is what they did. This worked. This didn't

work." Um, I I think that there there's a lot of different um, how do you how do I want to call it? Uh there there's a lot of different like layers in crypto uh metas or like there there's a lot of different layers in crypto and they uh they cycle either faster or slower depending on the layer and if I give you an example maybe it'll um it'll make more sense but like >> the topic of the day on crypto Twitter might last like literally 10 hours like maybe if it's a fomsy it'll last like two hours. Like that's how long people

talk talk about something. >> There's a the meta of like uh points or like I revenue this on issues should last a lot longer, but like in general like the rev or points or whatever people are talking about like those tend to last like three maybe six months depending on what it is. >> Um there's kind of like the um and then there's kind of like the the building a product. um like that time horizon tends to be like multi-year and so when you're on a you have a multi-year time horizon like foundation, right? So like working on monad trying to make sure that monet is

in the best position to succeed in the long term and you're working with metas that are on the the time horizon of months or maybe topics that are on the time horizon of weeks or trends that are like you know on a single day. Um, it can be very distracting. And I think the the my main learning has been, and honestly learning from Kone, like never get too tied up in the topics of the day or what people want to put onto you or or the project. Um, but also do not dismiss them. Um, like it's almost like kind of try to be a passive observer and like when things come through that are true and are good ideas, like adopt them

and use them. Um, but generally you want to be building your strategy not from like, oh, we saw two or three people do this that seems like a good playbook. Like typically if that is your thought process, you're going to make mistakes and you're going to do things that have bad outcomes uh for yourself, for users, for kind of just everyone who touches the thing that you're working on. Um, generally just like following best practices and then if you discover something like inventing your own kind of meta or marketing scheme or community strategy like that is that is going to lead to to much better results. Like it kind of has to be reasoned from first principles. Uh if you're copying others, you're you're going to end up just like washed, irrelevant or like you know just

doing things that um that don't really work. >> Yeah. I mean especially at this point Yeah. And so what what you're describing is something that Andy and I have referred to as narrative market fit given that it mode's pre-product and and look the rollup is can relate to this because we're effectively pre-product too. Like narrative market fit is our product market fit. They're one and the same. And so you see them pop up like you're saying some of them have different time horizons. You got to figure out which ones are valuable to fit into. And more often than not the most valuable ones are the ones where you can create them yourselves. And so go giving going through some of these es and flows you you've seen and been exposed to certain narratives. I'm

curious which which ones do you think are going to sustain at least from now into like Monad's next chapter? Is there any narratives that stick out to you that you know you think are going to become particularly relevant? Or maybe you could just kind of paint the picture of like okay what does Monad's mainet chapter look like? What kind of narratives are you trying to kind of, you know, permeate through and kind of tell tell the story of what, you know, Monad Monad looks like in this next chapter? >> Yeah, I would say um there are a couple things that are going to remain true. And if if these are not true a couple years from now, then like either we're in a really bad spot or crypto is not what I thought it was. Like in general there are a few

there are a few things that I think are are fundamental and are relevant for monad. Um one I would say decentralization is important. Uh crypto is not going to just turn into a big Google sheet like fundamentally believe that if that's incorrect then like this industry is going to do very different things than I think a lot of people hope. Um decentralization will be important. Um speed, lowering latency, increasing bandwidth is important, will continue to be important. That is kind of the frontier of performance. Um people want cheap block space and EVM compatibility or like more generally just having the common standard and common language uh on top of performance is also valuable.

Um I think that those things just are true. Uh there are I don't know at this point there's probably been like 10 different major metas that people then go well man's a thing how do you fit into this right and you can like either choose to spin it or not or just like let it sit like I feel like every Andy and I probably see each other once every six months and like there's some other things he's like how do you fit into this like I don't know dude like you tell me you guys you guys had the pod like uh you're probably better at understanding it than than I am. Um, yeah, I think like there are there are fundamental things that are valuable to crypto and generally those things don't take a very,

you know, they don't really take a leap of imagination to see, right? Like, oh, like low transaction costs. Yeah, that's pretty valuable. Like, you can understand why that's something that you would want. like decentralization. Yeah, kind of a key component to crypto. Like it's certainly something that is important in the industry. Um, usually I think the more someone has to like convince you of like four or five different logic flows to get to this conclusion, the more it kind of like smells like you're getting tricked.

>> Um, I think that's the main thing for that. I think the reason Monet has been successful like yeah maybe we've done some some good things on the marketing front um or like had some funny tweets but in general it's like hey this thing is just actually pretty fundamentally valuable and it's not that hard to see why and so people gravitate towards that and they get excited >> um >> fast I think that it's like >> cheap chain users decentralized like low hardware requirements >> yeah yeah just like the basics right the fundamentals the true fundamentals read the fundamentals really well and um and people will build cool stuff in crypto.

I think that's kind of always been been the thesis. >> Yeah, dude. I'm curious some of your uh some of your key learnings working with CMS. I'm going to get him on the show sometime uh in the next week or two and I mean we I I was following a lot of his stuff, his podcast, I think. Did you guys have a podcast back in the day or something or he just did a lot of shows I think but I just remember you coming up uh in Twitter in that time. Um and obviously you know you were kind of fresh uh I think out of university probably. What what were some of the you know is there any really funny stories or uh takeaways or just like experiences that you can share w with us that you may not share in a given you you know

monad podcast that are good like personal life lessons or experiences or market lessons or risk managements just anything. Yeah, I I mean I have a ton. Um and I've been like slowly I slowly I probably put like one like oh this is something from CMS days uh out per month on Twitter. Um I would say Dan has like the best for people that operate in like crazy smart space. Dan has like the best common sense of anyone that's there. Um, I think he knows the areas where like he has good information and he knows the areas where he doesn't and is just like

super okay with that. Like he I remember in in 2021 we're talking about NFTTS and he's like dude I literally I know nothing about this. I don't have the time to learn about it but like I'm sure if you're trading them you can make a ridiculous amount of money. And I was like how this is the thing that everyone is doing in crypto. How do you just choose not to know? It's like because he just has his bread and butter of like just trading the majors. He understands the flows of capital and that's like where all his alpha is. Um I think he has actually been trading crypto in size a lot longer than most people realize and like probably a lot longer than like anyone else that is still on crypto Twitter. Um, like Dan was head of trading at like Circle

Trade, which isn't even a thing anymore, but from like 2015 to 2018, I want to say, um, the guy has touched a lot of Bitcoin. Like, he has moved a ridiculous amount of of bitcoins around uh the shared ledger. Um, I think that just like learning like learning from someone who's like been through it all and like also has really good common sense has been huge. Um, I'm trying to think of like any specific uh >> where were you guys when uh when uh when Terra collapsed?

>> Uh, so I >> Were you still with >> I was actually on a trip. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah, I was I was with CMS. Um, I was on a trip to New York, but I lived in Boston at the time, like where the CMS guys are. Um Eric, shout out Eric, uh for like the two weeks leading up to it kept talking about like he's like once this ratio gets hit, like USD has to collapse. He's like, "It has to." And his ratio is like 1.5 to1. I forget what it was like total dollars and anchor versus total USD in circulation.

Something like that. He was watching it tightly though. He's like, "Once that happens, I know it's going to collapse." It got to like one point uh it didn't quite hit his target, but around there USD like started to depin. And I remember this is a good Dan story actually. Dan was like because we had uh loans. Um Dan was like repay like we're not getting liquidated. Like go and repay all your right now. And he he's like 99.5. And Eric's like no if I do this loop like I'm going to pull Dan's like I'm overriding whatever is in your brain. You don't get it. Like when goes crazy in crypto everything explodes. You do not want to die. Like repay all your stuff right now. And so

we did the trade, got out, and then like because of that, we actually ended up not getting liquidated. So like, shout out Dan on the common sense side. Um, but yeah, that that was I was at CMS at the time. That was a crazy kind of thing to see. Um, >> yeah. >> Yeah, Rob, I think I think you and I were in my my parents living room together when it started collapsing like 94, 96. We were like, "Holy gotta get out of here." That was a That was a Yeah.

>> Yeah. I think we were at your time >> your kitchen table, which served as the rollup war room in the early days. >> Yeah. >> Um last one for you, intern. Um what's your thoughts on Thread Guys tier list yesterday? Um what do you were you appropriately ranked? Were you too low? >> You made it. >> Yeah. Who uh who was too high? Who was too low? Who who got? >> Yeah, let me pull it up. I I uh I think I'm appropriately ranked. I got This is like I'm a big golf guy and I feel like there's like no one like crypto golf overlap is so small, but there's this hilarious guy Joel Damon >> who his entire thing is like he doesn't try that hard. He's just on the PGA tour like he's number 70 in the world.

>> Um so I was like around there on the list like somebody's got to be 70 like so I thought it was a good mindset. Uh, all right. Looking at it. Um, I mean, Raasmer and Alys is nuts. >> That's crazy, right? >> Got to be lower. I don't notice. I don't know like three of the people in A. Um, I'd move Mert up. Like, objectively, I think that has to be true. CL probably gets moved up because he is kind of OG and he doesn't really tweet about crypto that much anymore, but every once in a while I'd probably move Gainy up. He's like pretty relevant again. Zack XBT can't be

belist like he's >> That's what I was thinking too. I I just saw Zack. I was like, "No way, dude." >> Yeah. And I think he like generally left out all the facers. Like there's no like Nick Carter in here or like >> Yeah. Or like Eric Wall is not in there. Yeah. Right. Um, >> what about Frank DGOs as number four? >> Uh, so this is like you gota like if you look at this through thread guys lens then it all makes sense >> for sure. >> But like outside of thread it's like no obviously Frank DGOs isn't the fourth guy on all of crypto Twitter. Like he left for like >> whatever months and then he came back and was like yo anyone have TV recommendations?

>> Um I like Jez up there. I'll say that like Jez in S tier is a hot take, but I I think that that's true. I think Jez is one of the smartest guys out there. >> Yeah, I met Jez in Copenhagen last or a couple months back and we were doing like mega ETH uh basically like vetting early stage mega ETH uh projects and uh yeah, he's he's definitely he's definitely looking how he can figure like like analyzing these projects and trying to figure out all right, how can I game this thing and yield farm that the hell out of this thing? like how how can I just maximize my output as a result of your mechanism? Just completely like just straight mercenary like capital allocator mentality, >> dude. He and he is like truly one of the

best people in the world at that. Um, I've seen him do it a few times, like just break down a concept. Like it's almost like the same way like we we read words as text on crypto Twitter of like, "Oh, this is how something works." And like he sees it as like a moving thing. He's like, "Oh, this is where the outflows don't match the inflows like spam exploit exploit." And it's like that's it's like unbelievable watching him do it do it live. I'm sure you're doing if you guys are looking at early stage projects. >> Yeah. >> But I think Jez is like >> probably most underrated guy on on crypto turn in my opinion.

He's still highly rated but like super smart. I would I would long Jez if I possibly could. Yeah. Look, I'm h I'm happy I made it. I I wish that guy at least made me like Ctier or something. You know, someone's got to be in the D tier and I'm happy to take that spot. >> Yeah. I mean, the whole concept of tier list, I mean, we've we've done them for projects before. or we've done them for like different verticals and sectors. They're just they're they're they stir so much controversy for just people's opinions and then they're so people are happy that that they made it but mad that they're on Dtier but it's just such a funny concept to just I don't know it just throws me into like crypto Twitter is a big frat type vibe.

Dude, I lit it made me think of like like Hot or Not or like whatever Mark Zuckerberg's first app was where was like like girls and he's comparing. It's like that's just this for guys like to compare each other. >> But yeah, as a as a D-lister, I'm like look, you're either on the list or you're not. That's kind of >> that's Yeah, that's your vibe there. All right, Kev. Well, man, appreciate your time. I know you're slammed. Um Mayet hopefully within a couple weeks. Definitely before the end of the year. We're all praying. I think you're praying more than all of us. So, we wish you the best. And honestly, man, it's just a new beginning, right? Like, we've seen this. You know, you you launch a token. A lot of people think it's the endgame, but you know, obviously you're you'll have multiple years on vesting

for personal allocations. You'll have multiple years to develop the product. Really, it takes a chain a whole year to even be judged in my opinion. People are like, "Oh, abstract chain is is is terrible." It's like, "Dude, it's month two." Or like, "Oh, this chain is isn't doing anything." It's like guys, it's the fourth month of it being live. So, it's almost like a a whole year. I think you guys will probably like, you know, accelerate that uh traction phase a bit more than than most. But really, I think it's almost like a resetting of expectations and a resetting of a new beginning. Uh because then, you know, now the now the 10-year game starts. So, um yeah, man, looking forward to having you on more and more throughout that process and also just being a part of the community once it's live.

>> Yeah. No, I appreciate you having me on. Um, and yeah, I think you you hit the nail on the head, right? I don't Ke James Ununis, some of the smartest people I've I've ever met. Um, Ke I'm pretty sure, is actually the number one smartest guy I've ever met. Like, I don't know who's second. >> Generational glaze, brother. >> Yeah. I mean, like, he is like, I don't know. You spend time with him and it's like, yeah. Um, yeah, they spent, you know, coming up on four years putting this together. Uh, they're not going to be done in in two months. I think Kony truly sees this as like this is what he wants to build out indefinitely and like hell yeah like it's it's inspiring you to get to work with people that like care that much about what they're doing. So, um, yeah.

>> Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of a lot of this kind of like, uh, what ICO beast is calling it, um, >> I mean, Thread Guy calls it like tweet your way into a six-figure job, ICO Beast has his own little like phrase for it, but a lot of I think what is required for that to be super successful from a personal uh, financial perspective is betting on the right team because like obviously a salary is a salary, but a lot of the upside in crypto is the equity. And so and so, you know, I think that you've done a good job there and hope again wish you the best and uh yeah, man. Have a good week.

>> Yeah, appreciate it. We'll talk to you guys soon. >> All right, buddy. Peace. >> Thanks, Kevin. >> All righty, Rob. What's your uh what's your what's your takeaways on Monad? Bullish, bearish, ready for mainet. What's your thoughts? It's almost like Monet has been around so long without really showing itself that it's it it's difficult to box it and define it as anything. I think it's more bullish that that it hasn't launched yet in that it has it didn't have to go through the high FDV low float negative 80% altcoin market that we've seen the last year 18 months.

>> I think you just look at so many L1s and it's down and to the right. And so I think there are some of those L1s that will survive and they'll do well and they will reemerge. >> Yeah. >> But yeah, I think if they had launched anytime in the last six months, they would have seen >> the same >> similar price action. >> Yeah. The same result. >> And so I I think so many like we were just saying so many of these projects they launch and that's the exit. >> You know, that's that's token generation.

>> You know, they sell OTC. I mean, how many times have we seen that? And so, >> I hope we get uh airdrop allocation from the monad cards because our fund missed this one. I remember DMing Kone like maybe almost two years ago and being like, "Yo, is there a Kell run?" And he was like, "No, man. Not not going to happen." And I was like, "All righty, no worries." >> I just think you can't box Monad in. I I think when it launches, yeah, it's a blockchain, but you really don't even know what it's going to look like when it launches. Yeah. And so to put a put a price on it or or kind of put together some preconceived notions about how it's going to go is just setting yourself up for failure because >> I mean I'm stoked on it though. I think

it's going to do great. I think it's I mean people have their own opinion but I it's just it's going to bring more people on chain um in that community like actively using the chain and then that'll branch out. It's just more more network effects for the entire space. We we get too caught up in like ETH, Bitcoin, Soul. Like guys, just own all of them if you want and and just ride ride the wave and like make the you know help the broader space get to adoption. But anyway, we got Cozy up here. Um >> I am super curious for his thoughts.

>> Yeah, dude. Let's do it. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> I think we're gonna get it cozy up here in a moment. Yeah. Hey, Cozy. One sec there, buddy. Sorry. Just got to get your audio dial. Let's get Cozy up here and uh make sure he's good to go. Uh thanks, guys. One sec. I think we're just loading up the the setup here. I think you've got Is that one of those? Um what are those calls?

>> An avatar. >> An avatar. Okay. All right. Uh, Cozy, just give us one quick sec here as we uh Yeah, but I mean, Rob, I mean, like I think people have too much tribalism. They fight too much around different things and here we are. So, yeah, Cozy, welcome on. Um, as as I was saying, Bitcoin, ETH, Soul, a lot of us fight about these things, but you know, you I think you kind of made it from Ethereum, but probably see things a little differently now. What's your what's your take on that? on and then Ethereum kind of became not

my home because of me preferring that over Bitcoin. Like it wasn't like me choosing a side and going like, "Oh, I'm I align with Ethereum more." It was just that that's where the things to do were, right? like there was no DeFi in Bitcoin and uh the all the ways to make money were on Ethereum. So, we went there and then Ethereum to me isn't just ETH, right? It's all the EVM compatible networks because like I have this nation state theory when you know people choose their home and that will be their the network of their choice that they they use the gas token and that's kind of the token that they they hold the most of.

But whenever something new comes out, they will go and take a trip over there. They'll play the games, go to the new casinos, they win money, they lose money, and when they're done, they just they bring it all back home, right? Like if their if their home base is eat, they go back to ETH. If their home base was soul and they went over to base to go play around with the base stuff, they sell it all and they go back to soul when they're done. And uh for me, like Ethereum isn't just Ethereum mainet. It's arbitrum, optimism, polygon, phantom, like you name it. Base uh will be mega. you know, anything that's EVM compatible, people will take their trips to, which we all did during uh, you know, I think the DeFi renaissance, you could say. It didn't just happen on ETH mainet. Things got expensive just as

they did when all the soul people started talking about how expensive ETH is and that's why they're trading there. The cycle before that, we did the same thing and we went to Binance Smart Chain, we went to Polygon, we went to Phantom, we went anywhere where there were new DeFi protocols popping up that had yield opportunities. And uh there's no reason to like, you know, choose one winner, right? Like PE there will always be a user base on each of these no matter how big or small. Um and it's fine to to pick a basket of winners, I think. So like owning Bitcoin, Ethereum and Soul because you see that they have the most attention gravity or there's the most economic activity happening there. I don't think it's wrong to do that. And uh I give a lot of push back to the Salana people because of how much

hate Ethereum gets, but it's not that I hate soul. Like I traded memes there. I've traded on the derivative platforms there. Like I was there when Mango did all their stuff and I have Mango, you know, a Mango hat from back then and sold some. Um, so like I've done plenty of stuff on Salana. Um, it's more just in fun to push back because Ethereum has gotten so much hate over the last like two and a half years. And uh, I totally agree with you. There's no reason to like you don't have to to be right by owning one of them. Like you can own all of them and win. So uh, it's always been silly to me that there's like so much tribalism again around you know these like core assets that everyone can hold and participate in. you don't have to like you don't have to choose a singular

winner um to make money. It's funny too coming from a uh from the Bitcoin days when there was a lot of Bitcoin forks and there was Bitcoin SV and there's Bitcoin Cash whole thing with just denominated Satoshi's just get more Satoshi's and if you can do that you know by putting a trade on Bitcoin Cash or going on a yield farm in in Ethereum go do that bring it back to Satoshi's and so this native asset portfolio that you're talking about I think makes a lot of sense as we start to grown Are you saying stable coin denominated pairs ruined crypto trading?

>> Uh I I think it depends on like what your goal is, right? Because for some people their goal is to like acquire more Bitcoin, right? And I think a lot of the people from the early days, that's why everything that's why you always see people bring up the the BTC XXX chart whenever someone's talking about how much something's up with, you know, uh I I'll throw out a random okay? Like Cosmos USD. I'm not going to hate on Solar or ETH, but whenever you they'll put it against BTC chart and show how it's underperforming, right? Because >> the goal is to to own own and acquire more Bitcoin. And uh not financial advice, but like I'm of the opinion that Bitcoin will trend up against fiat forever on a long enough time scale

because of the devaluation of fiat currencies, much like gold and other precious metals. So it's like I I understand the digital gold kind of narrative in that aspect that just like gold is valued in a certain way as kind of like a form of mattress money that uh will always go trend up on a long enough time scale, um I think Bitcoin will too. So for some people they're just trying to acquire more Bitcoin and for other people they're trying to just have more cash than they had when they came in. So for them they're going to trade against the USD chart and be happy. They don't care about how it performed against BTC because they have more dollars than they had before they got there.

>> Yeah. What's your what's your or curious both you guys take like where you know are are we are we uh like where are we at in the market right now? Like obviously we're all making money, but like are we close to the end? Is is there an end? Are we super cycling with like these weird new risk like risk on periods, risk off periods? >> Cozy just Cozy just told you that Bitcoin is trending up forever. >> Well, that's what I mean. But like >> yeah, I mean like on a on a infinite >> time scale, right? Like if you look out uh forever, if you really zoom out, I think it trends up forever because like you know, you look at gold and you know when gold peaked a few years back around $2,000, it then traded like back near like a thousand for what the last decade

and then it now just ran up super hard. So like there are plenty of people that bought the peak of that and they were very unhappy. Whereas other people bought it as investment and didn't care. They were just trying to acquire more gold. And when you have that kind of mindset that you know this is digital gold or this is going to you know replace certain systems in the fiat world uh then your time horizon is much more expanded than people trading the one minute chart. And uh whether you buy it at 100,000 or you bought it at 90,000 it doesn't matter to you. Bought it at 70,000 or 100,000 you don't care because on a long enough time horizon it's going to be valued more than it was today. Um, so as far as like where we are in the cycle, I talk about this with Marty a

lot that this current uh kind of like institutional interest as well as I don't want to say meta, but um change in in perspective where you have these DATs that are popping up and Tom Lee cheerleading Ethereum on Wall Street and everyone wanting to like get into ETH and BTC. It's it's a much different um than it was last cycle or any of the cycles previous and it really kind of throws my own uh strategy off because you know I had a certain not a price point but I had a certain uh date range in which I was going to uh go kind of risk off and uh now with when you see you know large institutions

shoving you know eight nine figures uh monthly into Ethereum to uh bulk up their holdings or shove into a treasury company, getting approvals for up to one and a half billion dollars to buy ETH for their treasury. It kind of throws that off a little bit because it leaves you wondering, you know, uh uh not that they know something you don't know. Um you know, they're they're buying the same way that anyone else is, but I think there is a new uh like the same type of traders that were able to control the market before. They don't really make an impact anymore. They may be able to like they they can do that on medium caps and small caps, but like you know the guy with a million dollars uh isn't moving the market the way that he

was, you know, five years ago. >> Yeah. And and what what was that previous time frame that you had in mind? >> Uh end of this year, like Novemberish, I was looking to kind of derisk and uh now I'm I'm not so sure. We'll we'll see when we get there like what things are looking like in that other space in the institutional space and if they're still just as hungry and interested and we still see people piling, you know, buying $12,000 or 12,000 units of ETH uh over a course of two days to bulk up their treasury. Well, we're in a different, you know, we're in a different arena. I hate to use that term, but than we were uh >> than I thought we would be in the beginning of the year or last year.

Yeah. No, I know. I mean, look, I feel like I've done I feel like the like, you know, I still have a bit of like, all right, I I know there's a good bit of upside to be be had here, but I'm pretty satisfied with this cycle in terms of like how things have gone. Um, for sure >> and have started to clip some out >> and definitely not going to get wrecked like I did in 21 roundt tripping seven figs. That was a that was a that was a gut-wrencher. But like at the same time, I just can't help but like keep thinking like, dude, I do not want to sell my coins to the institutions. Do not want to sell my coins to institutions. Like this is like But like in 2017 when when Rob and I first joined, we would be in

the library be like, "Holy I'm going to dump my coins in the institutions." >> But now it's like it's just funny. >> But they're coming heavy now. They're coming really heavy. >> Always another reason to not sell. Like there's always a reason to not sell. You know what I mean? >> That's the thing that grounds me, right? It's like, you know, uh even if there is some like asymmetric information they have in why they're they're purchasing to hold, uh again, their time horizon could be much longer than mine is. Um or it's it's that they're not trading, right? Like they're buying that to bulk up the treasury. They're going to keep buying. Uh and like for a lot of us who don't have that type of capital to be buying thousands and thousands of ETH or you know hundreds and hundreds of

Bitcoin at a time um you know we're going to want to maximize the amount of Bitcoin and Ethereum or Soul that we can buy during the downtrend. So we will be looking for a time to exit for you know a year or two years or so and then start DCAing back in um whereas a lot of those those entities probably will not. So, uh, you know, you may sell to the institution still, right? And, uh, and it's totally fine because you're going to be able to buy back at a lower price point than, uh, at the price that you sold.

>> So, um, you may still want to sell to the institutions. >> No, I think I think I I think I do. I think I I think, uh, a little cushion of cushion of, uh, foundation outside of the market is going to be good for for the mental. >> Totally. Yeah. Everyone should sell something, right? Like I I'm it blows my mind. You see people all day long and they're they're flexing their unrealized gains, but like uh one of I didn't even know that I tweeted this, but like the quotable crypto thing sent me a thing the other day and it was like it's not money until you take it out or something or it's not money until it's in your your account or something >> along those lines. And it's true like you'll feel immensely better if you have some cushion if you if you eliminate

your debt if you you know um change your life somewhat. like you're not doing anything positive for yourself by just seeing a number go up on a screen. So, like find the time that's right for you or the the portfolio value that's good for you to start shaving some out and clipping some out and change your life a little bit. You know, like uh I tweeted it the other day like the greatest thing I ever did was sell some crypto, buy a house, and stop spending as much time on X, right? I start I started focusing put all my focus towards my work my family and my health and uh and you know work is taking up a lot of that now but um it's just a change in like where my focus is allocated to and before it was a lot of posting and making sure to

keep my eye on every single thing that was going on in the space uh no matter how big or small because I saw it as a profit opportunity and uh what I came to realize after you know I I started working in the industry in 2017. So like a after a handful of years of being in the industry, you realize that there are thousands of opportunities to make money and you only have one life. So do you want to spend your whole life just glued to the computer or do you want to start being picky and choosy with the opportunities you take and going enjoying life a little bit? And uh it was hard to make that transition, but uh over the last few, you know, couple years I've been slowly starting to do that a little bit more. And uh I I think it's probably the best thing for my

mental health that I ever did. >> Yeah. Full unck mode. No wonder why you didn't make the uh thread guy tier top 75. Man, you got snubbed. >> Yeah. I mean I I don't scam anyone and uh you know I I am not online. I'm not terminally online like I used to be. So like I I see a lot of people upset they weren't on the list. Like I could care less. Like I like Thread Guy. I think he's one of the the I think he has uh I I think his head is in the right space. He's had some bad influences around him in the past. Um but I think that like what he's doing he's on he's on the right path, you know, and he's he's I don't want to say he's doing a good thing, but like he's uh he's doing well with what he's doing and uh you

know, so I don't care if I'm on his list or not. Like I uh I still respect um you know, him trying to make it in his own way. >> Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Well, dude, some Yeah, go ahead. >> Well, I got a little bit of a different question. Like, you've been around the space for a long time. You uh have been able to protect your anonymity for that long. I I'm curious. Have you ever had pressures for you to like not be anonymous? Obviously, crypto gives you the space where, you know, this is sort of a normal thing in our industry. It's very not normal when it comes to other industries. How have you been able to protect your anonymity for this long? and have you ever thought about doxing or like generally what is your approach to privacy?

>> Uh, okay. So, this is a really good question because uh I I'm not fully anonymous. There's plenty of people in the space that know my face, know my real name. Uh they've they've come and visited me at my house or I've I've flown out to them at their houses. I've been to their weddings, you know, things like that. Uh so, I'm definitely on the pseudo anonymous than more than full fully anonymous. And uh I've had quite a few times when just like in different uh engagements where people have wanted me to dox like I did some podcasts not that long ago and there was a lot of push back about me using my avatar and uh you know because they for them they're like you know it builds trust for you to have your face and d and I just said look

listen I've been using this avatar for years now most people know me on stream with this avatar everyone knows like cozy as something with this like aesthetic And uh and the core thing is like I don't care that like people in the industry that I work with know who I am. It's that I care that the people outside of the industry don't know who I am because that's where the real danger is, right? Like the people that you're doing business with and that you're working with, like they're not really posing a significant risk to you and your well-being. But the guy that lives a mile away from you that is much worse off finds out that you sold some monkey JPEGs for a few hundred,000, you're a pretty like juicy target for them,

right? Um, so that that's more where I like to keep my identity, you know, to my myself is I don't like to mix my crypto identity with my real identity to the people that aren't in the industry and to the people that are just like fair weather industry people that I don't really associate with. Because if you're just someone on Twitter, uh, I don't know you. There's no re like I wouldn't ask you for your name and address. Not you guys personally, but like anyone who's just on Twitter like reply guying me. I wouldn't care to know their name and address and where they live. Uh so it's none of their business of mine or like their face, you know? I don't care what they look like because like they're not a friend of mine and like I'm never going to do business with them. Um but the people that I get close

with are the people that I, you know, throw events with. Um you know, they all know who I am and know my face and they can point me out in a lineup. So, so, uh, there there are plenty of people, you know, when it comes to like the trust aspect that others could ask like, you know, is this him? And they would be able to say yes. Um, so, uh, it's more about protecting myself from the the unknown outside of crypto than like the people that I do know and associate with in crypto. Like, when we turn this stream off, like I'd have no problem taking my avatar off and like talking to you guys face to face.

>> That's not Yeah. You're not like the people I'm concerned about knowing >> obviously, right? So, >> yeah. Yeah. and we've met. So like you know you're one of the people that that knows and I've thrown events with you know like uh uh Uncheck and like Redacted and Vertex like all those people have seen my face and know who I am. Um so yeah there's there's I I think there's uh people often times get it confused with like people wanting to hide from others in the industry and it's not about that at all. about protecting your personal safety when you're in the real world, when you when you turn the camera and the computer off and you're going to do things just like in the places you live.

>> Yeah, I agree. I mean, I have a pretty strong divide between my personal Instagram and my personal stuff than I than on like I'm not like Andy is not my Andy is not what my friends from high school know me as. You know what I mean? Um, but obviously it's like face and everything's out here, but it's just like Yeah. >> Damn. Okay. Okay. Andy is not Yeah, I didn't know that. I thought you were Andy. That's cool though. >> It is a It is a short name. It is a shorter version of my real name. Yes. But like uh so you can put the pieces together, but it but it's not like, you know, it's not like I go around showing off my my Twitter account to like my my my neighbor, you know what I mean?

>> Yeah, for sure. it it it exists in like this little bubble of of the void of the internet which you know a lot of normal people don't exactly exist in. Yeah. When people like ask me what I do and I'm out, I just tell them I'm a consultant because like it's the least it's the most boring thing that like you could tell someone and like I tell them I do business development and I'm a and I do consulting work in >> I I focus mainly on uh fully remote companies, you know, helping them set up systems for for managing their remote teams, business development, marketing. And there's not a lot of questions to ask about that, right? And that is kind of what I do. Like I do have my own consulting firm. I do contract with different protocols through that consulting firm and those are the

services I offer them. It's just I don't tie the crypto aspect or >> I agree. I do the same thing. >> Andrew, what's your usual spiel? >> Mine just like I I I work for a media company. >> Yeah, we do like fintech media stuff like that. Do advertising? >> Yeah, I just work online. >> Anyway, um Cozy, what are you working on uh with Premier Blue, with Cayenne? Um, what are you seeing out there? We're very deeply entrenched in the protocols, need to make money to be sustainable, need to generate revenue, buy back tokens, need to follow Hyperlquid or else you're screwed type vibes.

Maybe that's an over exaggeration. What's your what are you working on? Uh, how are things going? What's coming? Like, you know, just give us an update. >> Yeah. Yeah, things been going really well. So, we have two main products we're working on right now. Cayenne as you mentioned it. The other one's archetype. Uh Archetype we made just for fun. It was kind of a hobby project that we decided to do in the downtime during V3 before we um or no we started working on at the end of V2 and uh then pushed out during V3. And uh it was really just like we wanted to we were you we were going ourselves and we were opening up a bunch of tabs to trade on different aggregators to like check prices, check to see if there were

tokens there and I was like why don't we just like make a a platform where you just put them all together and there are other meta aggregators I think that exist now like sushi swap has one and some other ones but you know the idea was just have one that is best-in-class uh execution, best pricing and uh some other cool like bells and whistles because some some of the features that we were getting asked to build were when can we add why can't we add an option with our swap on v2 >> why can't we add you know what and expanding from that why can't you add per or anything else like why can't you package it together um so we went down and smart accounts were kind of like becoming the big buzz at the time so we're like okay why don't

we take this idea of a meta aggregator and then add some of these cool features because we already have premium. So we can do that thing where we can package an option and we can you know maybe make it more user friendly to the entry level user where options are really confusing. So with archetype uh it kind of has if you go to the option section of it or protection section um a a more v2 like uh aesthetic if you remember our v2 it's more of the old kind of defi feel where um things are are more focused on entry level users and like I think uh people that respect their their time more than the price right like um not saying that it's not cheap but just like you're

looking to do things as fast as possible You're not looking to go to an order book and like scroll through to find the exact option that you want or the per that you want. You just want the swap and you want to protect it for whatever. So, we came with this thing called price protection where it was in a single transaction, you can package a put or a call option to protect your spot buy to the upside or downside. So, if it goes up, you know, you can make money on it or if it goes down, if you buy it on the other side, you're able to make some money while still holding your spot asset. and you know uh account for or make up for the loss that occurs in the value of that spot asset you bought. Um, so we have that and then Cayenne, which

Cayenne is I I don't like to say the hyperlquid of anything, right? But we're trying to do for options what Hyperlid did for Perks. And Cayenne's a low latency, high performant derivatives exchange. We're building on an arbitum. >> The standout features will be portfolio margin combo trading and then RFQ system. And it's kind of just like the evolution of four years of us building in the option space. Uh, every iteration we kind of learn something new. uh as well as got a lot of feedback from different uh user types on what they wanted and what was missing from our other versions. So, we wanted to create kind of a one-stop shop for our users to be able to get an experience on par with traditional centralized exchanges while still retaining the transparency and security

that being on chain offers. So, when Ken launches, we'll we'll launch with options per and then spot will follow shortly after where we'll have our own spot market on Cayenne. >> Beautiful. And and have you seen that there's like like I think a problem that you were facing in the past was just like people needing to learn options and then demand for people wanting to trade. Like have have you found that you've kind of gotten past those two obstacles? >> No. No. I I think that uh well I think archetype is going to be for the people that are not sure what options are, right? and they're like kind of want to dip their feet in because you don't have to package the option with um with the spot uh buy that you're doing or spot swap, you can just go and say like I

want to buy I want to buy protection quote unquote for my whole portfolio of ETH or link or something and you can buy an option and there's like a really easy to use page that kind of you can walk through and go through each field and select how you want to do that and it's like I think it's going to go down or I think it's going to go up and it kind of makes it really easy for you to to purchase an option uh through a different lens. And then with Cayenne, we're aiming more for the protail and institutional traders. One of the biggest issues with options in DeFi before was capital efficiency. If you wanted to buy, you know, a two ETH uh option, you had to put up two ETH of collateral, right? And like that's just not very capital efficient when if you

have your KYC, you can go to Derabit, you can go to OKX or Binance or something and you you can put that on with margin and spend a fraction of it. So with Cayenne, we're aiming for those users. It will be highly capital efficient. We have an aggressive portfolio margining system. Um, and we're doing all the hedging with PERPS. So, it's going to be much cheaper than, you know, when it comes to uh uh hedging than, you know, on some of these other venues where you have to go somewhere else to buy a per to hedge. >> Yep. Yep. Cool. Makes sense. Um, guys, I gotta change gears for you because we've just got a CFDC SEC joint staff statement just dropped. Project Crypto Cryptosprint.

>> I think I heard about this. >> Um, key points here is that the president's working group will report strengthening American leadership in digital financial technology. they should that authorities and agencies will promote regulatory clarity that best keeps blockchain based innovation within the US. Uh and they are coordinating to issue guidance regarding the listed the listing of leveraged margin or financed spot retail commodity transactions on digital assets which is kind of what we're talking about right now. um and it does not prohibit the SEC or CFTC registered exchanges from facilitating trading of of these products. They will promote trading

venue choice and optionality for market participants within the US and uh that they support consideration by each of these respective agencies uh to facilitate trading in certain spot crypto asset products. I mean it feels like we we won. >> I mean look at that. >> I mean that is like that is like no more VPN. That is like purpose for everybody. >> That is like these aren't securities. These are commodities.

>> Guys, what is your take? >> I think it's a huge win. You know, that that's been the argument for the last I you know, you could say decade, but even more so over the last like four or five years is what what are these assets classified as? Right? And like do do issuers need to be concerned about who they're issuing to uh do you need to geoblock? Can people from America participate in some of these offerings? I mean, you can probably like short the GDP Apollo right now because like uh nobody's going to need to to get Polo IDs to participate in any of these ICOs or offshore exchanges anymore. Um the the one question I have for them though and like I don't I really don't understand

is like why don't they just allow US residents to trade on uh offshore exchanges? like just just uh request or require them to do FAFTA reporting so they have to give over the information of anyone trading and you wouldn't have people doing all this weird to get around it to go and trade wherever they want to trade. >> I agree. I mean I think that is a part of it as a part of this entirety which people are saying that that is bearish for some DeFi protocols like bearish for hyperlquid because a lot of its core use case is uh kind of allowing us traders to trade with no KYC bearish for premium because same thing do do you think that's accurate or no? Uh, I don't think

so because you have to remember that there are still people that don't want to like like they don't want to trade on a system that requires them to deposit into >> right >> custodian account. And I think that is one of the like key features of DeFi that you can trade from your own wallet and that you don't have to deposit to someone else and trust someone else to hold and manage your money. Like you look back to like not just FTX but that era of all the custodians that blew up. Like I had family that was using some of those uh some of the other protocols that were the counterparties, right? And uh and they lost all their Bitcoin because they didn't listen and just set up their own wallets. They thought the the 3% yield that they were going to get in this, you know, thing that they

thought was a wallet was safe and didn't realize what they were actually doing was depositing into some custodian account and those people were using their money to do whatever the they wanted with. >> Yep. So I I don't think that it's bearish for Hyperlquid. It's bearish for for Cayenne or anything like that. I think that people are still going to value onchain transparency and the ability to trade from like your own thing that you own, right? Like that you control. >> Yeah. Guys, that's about all that I got. It's been a good stream. Rob, do you have anything else? Otherwise, we'll let Cozy go and I think we we can wrap. It's been a it's been a good call. Um and and it's good to catch up. I'd love to get Marty on with you with you as well in the future, Cozy, and just do a full

markets uh >> for sure. Anytime >> review. >> He's always down. >> Yeah. Sweet. >> Well, cool. Well, cool. Appreciate >> you coming on, Cozy. >> Yeah, it was a pleasure as always talking to uh talking to an OG like yourself and then just kind of seeing the the lessons learned over the years all the way uh coming to a head uh in the current in the current era. So, appreciate you sharing your wisdom. No, I appreciate you guys having me and like really hats off and big ups to you guys. You you I don't think get enough public praise, but you're starting to kind of see it, you know, in like your follower count and stuff like that. Like you guys have really grinded and busted your ass over the last handful of years. And uh it's finally starting to kind of like starting to see some fruits of your

labor. So uh it's really great, you know, seeing you all kind of blow up and grow up and appreciate you letting me come on the stream. >> Yeah, man. Appreciate that, Cozy. anytime. We'll see you soon. >> Yep. Yep. Later, guys. >> Good man. Cozy. >> Peace. >> See you. >> Well, Rob, that is some pretty big news today on the on the CFTC SEC joint statement. I mean, the market's bouncing. >> Yeah, I think this is still pretty vague.

>> Yeah, it is. >> Obviously, it's bullish. I mean, the the whole the whole thing here is deregulation, which is going to allow people to, frankly, just kind of have a more efficient market. It's going to allow more experimentation, and that's something that crypto is best at. And so, I think, yeah, opening the gates and deregulating the industry is we're going to see people get creative, but that's how things take off and that's how things blow up. Like, this is going to create more volatility. this is going to create a further acceleration of the cycle that we've we're already seeing play out. And I think it just it just goes to show that like the velocity of the track that we're on is continuing to

pick up speed. >> So, we're not slowing down anytime soon. >> Combined forces to clear registered firms trading of spot crypto. >> It's just >> registered firms of spot crypto. I think we're like this is again paving the way for not just onchain protocols where that that's something that you know is going to have to get sorted out but it's more so clearing the way for something like a micro strategy on the S&P like clearing the way for larger capital adoption of crypto spot products like an ETF like you know Bitmine we're going to just we're going to see more

and more of traditional firms that have previously been been hindered by this regulation. Now this this regulation is not there. The largest firms in existence are now available to enter the industry. >> Well guys, thanks for joining in today. Been a pleasure. Speak to you guys tomorrow. Another good stream tomorrow. Based rollup stream tomorrow. Tons of guests. Will be a good one. Bit more technical. Looking forward to it. Thanks Rob. Thanks team signing off. Peace out.