Venture Mandates, Cloudflare Wallets, Circle Earnings & Saddam Hussein Patek Philippe

Transcript

Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. >> Still don't have a mic. I still have a mic. But guys, it's tough times. You know, memories there was like try this other room with also bad acoustics. >> I'm I'm testing out the acoustics, bro. The reality is um I have my Bloomberg screen right here right now. So, I I'm just seeing the blood bath in memory. Blood bath in crypto. A lot to talk about. Jents. How we doing? Welcome to the roundup. What's up, folks? >> Welcome to the round up.

>> Welcome to the round. What? What did I miss last week? How was last week? >> It was good. I I think um I think Santi is a is a mini Leopold and so uh we had a good a good conversation last week about situational awareness and Santi trying his portfolio. >> Rob, did you not hear from your finance department? I got margin called and I used the funds that you provided for a version to bail myself out. I I'll I'll pro I'll make it all back. I I promise you I'll make it all back. Um just just one more time and just give me a breather. [laughter] >> Immediately put 400 million into a into a private company after that too.

[laughter] >> Yeah. >> I need to be I need to be less liquid. Definitely need to be less liquid. >> Less liquid for sure. >> So no that the the discussion was we thought we were degenerates in crypto and then we discovered Tradfi and and and Korea. But the the the the moral of the story is uh crypto has prepared us for this singular moment in finance. It is it is it is like if you've been in crypto like this is our time [laughter] >> unlock Jordy I think Jordy and some of the guys that are good traders were like Ansom too like we're looking at SpaceX and the unlocks that I think happened today or tomorrow and they're like guys like this is lowflow high FTV it we were made for this singular [laughter] moment in time.

>> I love it. You know, I always thought crypto would become more like finance. I wasn't expecting finance to become more like crypto and it seems like that's happening. So, >> what what's going on in your side, Jason? >> I am uh life life is good. I'm just busy. I mean, we're very busy integrating Misari, right? So, the thing that you know they don't tell you is there's a lot of work that goes into an acquisition post deal. I mean, actually, they do tell you and people >> people do tell you that actually a lot of people warned warned us, but um >> it's good. I mean I will say thank god for claude like there's an enormous amount like we just we just integrated our CRM right so they were using sales Msari was on Salesforce we're on HubSpot and so you have to integrate like you

know tens of thousands of records and you know we sell to this company and they sell to this company they were new you know they were new with us on in September they were new with Msari in May you got to you know consolidate that so there used to be these integration teams of like 50 people and now you know thankfully we can do it with a couple people in AI but there's a Yeah, there's just a lot of work that goes into integrating. So, I'm spending time on that. I will say our crypto native business is slow and our enterprise and fintech and exchange and brokerage business is uh it's the fastest it's ever grown. So, spending a lot more time, you know, in the rooms that Rob likes to participate in, throwing on the suit talking to talking to the >> baby.

So, like you can't blame me. >> Oh, we can always come with a No, [laughter] >> I I feel like I feel like I'm forced to say because he's a board member. Rob, yes. Next inversion board meeting coming up, I would expect you to wear a suit, please. >> So, who's this? What's this board? Is it literally just you two? >> It's just a good It's just a good reason for Rob and I to just sit down and forcefully to sit down. >> We haven't yet done one in person yet. Like, when are we when are we going to do it in in Monaco? >> I was going to say I'll be invited back, >> fellas. Uh, you know, uh, we're going to be back in New York in September, so we should, uh, we should do in person and, uh, yeah, it should be good.

>> What are you coming to New York for? >> Uh, just to see the team. Uh, there's a couple deals out there and, yeah, I'm just going to go out there. >> Nice. >> First week, first and second week of September, I think I'll be there. Sounds like >> Nice. Nice. >> What are we Rob? What What are you guys looking at on the venture side? That's I you guys just did this AI spend thing which actually I want an intro cuz that's a we it's like a problem internally is I need to figure out how much we're spending and what we're spending on. So that was I like that deal that you guys did. It was a non-crypto deal which I I think it was a non-crypto deal.

>> So what I would say about this is uh you know part of the infrastructure. So they they have like three products. So they have um this thing they call agent studio which you know allows you to kind of build your own agents from you know when whatever way that you want you want to build an agent to do xyz thing and like how do you build it what uh capabilities does it need what API does it need to plug into etc. It also has basically like runtime infrastructure for agents that already exist for you today. Um but that's inclusive of things like payments uh and they use x42 for part of their payment stack and stable coins. So um you know Anthropic's an investor and Excel is an investor and Gradient's an investor and a bunch of others but also us and Coinbase uh and

and a few other on on that side as well. And so it is sort of a story around um you know crypto and and AI coming together and certain parts of agentic infrastructure. And then to the thing you talked about, they they actually um they spun out their router business because they found in their first few uh they were basically originally just using it internally for their clients who are also using the other products. But what they found was that for their first few clients, they were reducing uh token spend by about 80%. Uh and so they're like, "Oh, it's working really well. There's obviously a lot of demand for this product. People are spending way too much on tokens and the token maxing era needs to die." And so now they're they're they they kind of

launched that product or came out of stealth with that product yesterday as well. So happy [clears throat] to connect you as a as a as a client. >> So is this a little good as a as a as an investor? >> Yeah, Rob's best BD guy for his port codes. Are you guys going to start doing more non nondirect crypto deals? I mean the reality is like if you look at the portfolio um we well I think a lot about what am or what are we good at and also where am I not going to get adversely selected against and I think you see you're seeing a lot of the crypto venture funds go kind of really far out of their mandate to you know things that are hardware related mechanical engineering related nuclear robotics you know etc right and you know a lot of these investors are very smart

but they don't have experience in these areas uh and there's no real reason for the companies to take their money because like they're not, you know, money is green obviously, but if you have other options for money, like you'd rather take money green from somebody who's like deep in your area typically. Um, and so what we've thought about is, okay, well, where are the areas that are touch crypto but also and are enabled by crypto but also, you know, maybe have these big addressable markets. And so you know a lot of our companies the fintech companies like like a rain for instance has a you know they announced their thing with western union that it is a payments company and a fintech company but uses stable coin rails um you know the prediction markets on the poly market side again you know they have the infrastructure on chain but

much bigger addressable market and sapium is another one of those Venice also another one uh which we had done previously which you know is is is decentralized and private inference and so again like these things are um they're crypto part they're enabled by crypto There are applications that sit on top of blockchains, but they're not, I wouldn't say, um, completely non-crypto, and they're in kind of the strike zone of the things that we think we're good at and tertiary to areas that we've invested in before. >> Nice. Sante, what about you? What are you looking at these days?

>> Oh, we're looking at uh, well, I mean, obviously spending more of my time talking traditional businesses and and really liberating just talk more holistically thinking about like what releases the most amount of value in businesses. A lot of what I've been thinking about not not just tighter inversion but just generally in my conversations even at like the Seleni summit and I think I mentioned it this it's like Rob mentioned something that is a key word operative word that's like mandate and I think uh I think of now the world more simplistically which is like you want to go where it's the best risk adjusted return and absolute return and um I I think there's an element to what Rob is saying which Do you have a

right to win? Do you have an edge in a particular sector? But and I feel like when you think about it, like technology is such a catchall phrase. It's like innovation is happening everywhere. And so I feel like if you I I do think it's like two things can be simultaneously true. A firm can reinvent itself to branch into other sectors and be very successful. What drives success in venture in my estimation has always been to have a good network and can you build a reputation of being like a very good investor. Um but like technology is like has touched every sector in business. So yes, your mandate is to invest in innovation and technology. Some firms have it more loosely for I think of your Sequoia. You're just investing in the best founders that are going to like do

breakthroughs. Now they don't do like biotech as much but they're doing nuclear and they're doing now more everyone's now moving doing more hardware. Whereas like hardware like five years ago was like taboo. It's like you don't do hardware. It's super capital intensive. You leave that to other people. But I will say a question maybe more for Rob is like um how do you think about mandate and just going back to people and saying guys like I feel like if you've been investing in crypto it's been hard mode and if you're principled if you have a good team like think about cry crypto is a you've had to be multi-disiplinary to like win in crypto you have to have a deep understanding of like cryptography and be at the cutting edge of that which requires its own uh you have to be

really good on just security risk management like you're you have liquid tokens you have to manage a position yes your venture you've also had to be like talking about like financial infrastructure right DeFi you've had to talk about other types of infrastructure um applications consumer like and if you're like a crypto investing firm you're competing for dollars against other firms and like if you're an LP evaluating a particular uh investor in crypto you would have had to ask these questions anyways so like I feel like like crypto for a really long time has been a very big industry attacking many different verticals. So I don't know Rob, do you feel like you get push back around like you're a crypto firm? It's like I know

you hear keep saying like fintech and crypto. I just I just would say go as far as saying it's just it's just investing in technology and crypto has just allowed you to cut your teeth and it's been on hard mode. The bigger question is can you build a network so that you're the first call? Yeah. So I think there's also a question around like are you a very early stage like preede seed fund versus like you know later stage maturing business. We um I think I don't actually think to your point being multi-disiplinary in crypto uh was really important especially since 21. So pre21 it really I don't think was that important because like it was more about just like the trend in the wave of

the entire industry. post 21 to your point do I understand the infrastructure and cryptography it you know what will work and what won't do I understand how networks scale do I understand uh capital markets infrastructure do I understand all of these different things and um I think if you were to if we were to open source all of the returns of all of the funds in the space I think what we would find is that um the people who have the best returns are those who built their firms to be multi-disiplinary and had people who were deep in different subjects versus try and uh have individuals be generous across all of those different areas because the reality is I I don't actually think you can be best in the world and be also deep in cryptography and also deep in capital markets and

also deep in some of the other things and that that's my general perspective. Now to your point around generalist investors doing really well. I mean I'll let you jump in. Um I I think there are people who like we talk about Sequoia being incredible generalist investor. I think they're the best firm in the world as as actual investors. I think they're the best firm in the world, but there's, you know, there is a partner there who is doing the hardware. There's not a partner there and there is somebody that's there who's doing something else, right? And so, um, I I think that's how you have to build a firm. the crypto firms other than two which and Drezen and and maybe Paradigm um are all too small and too um uh and and they just don't have the capabilities to go like

extremely generalist. So when we've talked about like oh do we want to be more generalist the conversation has also been okay well here are the things we are good at as partnership well do we need to hire somebody else right those are the things and now yes people can reinvent themselves they can't reinvent themselves over six or nine or 12 months it takes time and and work and over a period of years you can do that but it takes time right and so I I I think that that's the the the way that we think about the world and I think what you're seeing right now is like if I see a robotics company where all of the where most of their big investors recently are crypto uh investors like that doesn't tell me a that's a bad signal to and

maybe it's just that crypto people are more first principles and and they're they're early into this thing but um it also could signal that people who actually understand mechanical engineering deeply are not people who are want to invest in this thing. >> Yeah. Oh, there's a lot to unpack there. On the last point, uh I've I've thought more deeply now about like generalists versus experts. Um and like sometimes experts know too much to their detriment and like they won't do a deal like just go and they're in academia, right? Um but like I think I think it was Benchmark or Sequoia or Andre, all three of them have had like a hardware guy to your point or like a cyber security guy that worked at Palo Alto Networks or worked at like Intel in the early days and like just has the network and knows all the founders and

stuff. Um but um but yeah like generally on like how to build the best investment firm like like what like how much of Sequoia is like the the just the brand that they've built for the signaling whereas like I I guess like the the the argument around like I guess like robot strategy for instance like Andrew Kang pivoted away from crypto and started doing robotics deals. Um so far I think been quite successful. He understands capital markets. He did the whole kind of like I mean I I'm not here to I'm not here to advocate like you're rolling your eyes. I get it. But like I hear your point like why is a crypto investor doing a robotics deal?

>> Time time will tell if they are successful by the way. >> No no no no no. Like I'm not here >> at um making sure that he acrews value. Now what what happens with the the investments of we have time. It's going to take a lot of time. So >> and yeah in um yeah putting aside the robot strategy structure he was in his defense early in some of these robotics deals that at least on paper are worth much more than we like >> yeah put put in a huge check to figure my my point on that is I think how do you reinvent yourself of a firm I think you have to do one really good deal like that really puts yourself as like holy [ __ ] these guys were super early here like and and then you just juice that to

just build a brand build reputation. I think you've seen that in AI, too. Like, there's been some firms that I had no idea who they were and they just did like were early in Anthropic or early in Open AI and like uh uh just kind of built a name for themselves and then use that and parlay that into getting another deal. And maybe that's like this you guys have done some AI deals recently. May like do you see a world where you're hugely successful in some of your AI deals and then you just say, "Oh, [ __ ] it." like we're just going to go do more AI deals that may or may not have a crypto strategy to >> there's another thing that people are misunderstanding a little bit about some of these deals and this is happening in AI too right which is also like venture

math and so like the reason people didn't do hardware before is because these things had to raise a bunch of money and like the valuation could go way up and you could also not >> yeah and um there was a chart that was going uh I somewhat viral on on on Twitter earlier this week that I think was I think it was about anthrop ropic, but it was like, oh, if you put >> the dilution Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. The dilution, right? And then obviously like it's still been incredible because they've had such incredible growth, but it was basically like if you got $500,000 worth of options three years ago, uh it's now worth um like 25 million or $20 million, I think.

>> Um >> but the and so like, you know, that's incredible growth, right? Like you know you've you've had you know 40x growth, but the the valuation in that time is of like a thousandx, right? Uh and so the um for Anthropic that it's totally fine like it makes complete sense. Um now all of the other hardware companies that are raising like their their venture companies like the vast majority of them will not be fine. And even if you're in a situation where you are like you know you exit and like it's a good um a good company over time. Um many many of those investors who are like investing in these rounds at multi-billion dollar valuations are actually probably going to like they may not make any money.

lose money like depending on the outset. >> And I will tell you I want to make one point here. Um I was I've been talking to uh I was uh traveling last week. I was in a hotel when we chatted um because I was talking to a bunch of our LPS and I was talking to some LPs the week before and um you know we share LPS with a lot of different people and you know then we talked to new perspective LPs or a lot of different people and this trend of um you know really expanding the mandate beyond you know the things that um the the things that you know we are kind of like just within our our strike zone or a little bit tertiary. um we have started to hear push back from the LPS and complaints about other funds about them right now.

Now the reality is like no GP is should be investing the you know based on what the LPs say like we should theoretically be the subject matter experts but um there uh and if you're successful it won't matter because like they you know the GP >> but if you're not successful you'll never you won't raise another fund right um and so that is the risk that people are taking who are who are are funds um Andrew Kang's a little bit of a different story because it's it's all prop capital uh so it's not fund capital but if you're a fund manager like that's something you have to worry about and we've even had I I even had one discussion with a really good LP of ours, really big brand name. We we love them. Um who, you know, has even asked us the question at times of like, well,

um you know, if you're doing the same investment with this other person who is a really great name, like looks like a great deal, but you know, should I just be putting more money into them because I'm into this like big traditional generalist um and instead of you guys? And that is the question people ask, and you have to be able to answer that appropriately. Yeah, I I think yeah, I have a pretty firm belief here that um you earn the right to be a generalist. Um I think if you are everything for everybody, you are nothing to nobody. And you know it's important like you know you guys mentioned Sequoia. Sequoia started as a niche firm right they had a thematic focus on technology and electronics. Don Balentine was Fairchild and National Semiconductor. They they were the smartest in the room when it

came to semiconductors and chips and they earned the right to go generalist over many years of having success and um Rob not to you know >> I don't think they went generalist till like the eighth fund right >> exa exactly they they you earned the right and um I like what you guys are doing at Dragonfly because I mean you you did extremely well in crypto you were a top let's call it top three fund in crypto you earned the right to go do payments and other stuff and from the early look of it seems like you're s being you know you're successful with payments right now and you're earning the right to go do more things. What I really don't like is when funds and companies too say, "There's other shiny objects over here. Let me just go try to chase those things. Now I'm a generalist

firm." That's that's a real recipe to end up, you know, jack of all trades, master of none. And uh I I also think there's a brand element here, right? You you have two customers in venture. You have your LPs, but you also have the founders. Like if you are if I see a fund It's you have to think about the brand to the founders and do they want you on the cap table too and the signaling is spot on. Like Rob, I know exactly the deals you're talking about with these robotics and crypto funds. Like to me that's anti- signal to me. I'm like all these other >> Yeah. It's an adverse election problem.

Like if if you're seeing it, it's cuz like all the real robotics pass on it. >> Exactly. How however like Kang like I you know he's I don't know him super well. He seems like he did very well in crypto and is now doing well in robotics. Um time will tell like you know figure is not a good company then he's not going to do well in robotics um because he's extremely levered to figure but I do like that he has picked another niche. Like what I wouldn't what I wouldn't like is if he's like I'm doing robotics and I'm doing this and this and this. Like yeah you got to pick a niche and own the niche. Um and I feel pretty strongly about that.

>> Yeah. That's really >> Yeah. And I and I don't I don't think this is meant to for us to um single him out like obviously it's just >> micro he's actually going to come on Empire soon. we're gonna we'll have a long chat with him >> and and Robo Strategy obviously was you know kind of kind of um you know somewhat early to this but it's obviously top of people's mind but I think it's a it's endemic to your point across the industry >> and so like um it's something that I think a lot of people are trying to figure out right now and I I like the point Jana that you made which is that like um you know you picking another niche I think is is important because you have to become an expert on these things or at least an expert enough

right you had to become dangerous enough um and I think Yano Santi, maybe you made the point earlier about well, how much of Sequoia today is the brand versus the investors? Well, it's a little bit of both because they can hire the best people because of the brand and they can help kingmate companies that uh because of the brand. And so these Yeah, I think um Mickey Malco was on David Henra's podcast. >> You stole my counter of the week. >> Yeah, sorry. Uh but but one of the other things he said uh that I really liked I was listening to this morning uh when I was at the gym was that the only thing that you really have that compounds value over time is yes money compounds value but your brand and your reputation

is the real thing that compounds value and everything else is downstream from that. And I loved that statement by him and I think that's exactly true in all of these funds. >> Yeah. I got before we go into the news, I want to get uh your guys' take on something I've been thinking a lot about, which is like um like the the opportunity set in crypto. uh like and and by the way you hear this like the 21 vintages and after that were terrible for a venture and like not just in crypto but like um you said something earlier Rod that reminded me about just what I've seen because I've been an investor in many crypto funds and I could tell you the returns of you know for most of them as is inventure has been like like pre2021 it was factor like if you do the

attribution it was like look like crypto went from being like a billion dollar business industry to like 2017 it was like a couple billion and then it just ballooned to a couple trillion. Like you how much of that's like just you're tracking the Bitcoin uh and and the growth of the industry. Um and I feel like now you're seeing anyone that's made money after 21 has really earned it like like really earned it because it's incredibly hard to make money. Um, I just don't think I just I just think cry more of a question of crypto like what is the investable universe? Because like after 21 there's been only very few very few pockets that have if you weren't in these names you you not only like underperformed but you just lost money.

Um, and so I'm curious like how you think about the investable universe. We talked like last episode about fund sizes. Is there too much capital in the system chasing fewer deals? I know larger deals are getting done like Kalishi and Poly Market. Um but then you're also competing against other firms that are not just historically been crypto. And then the second question is like um yeah maybe I'll just pause there like how do you think about the investable opportunity in crypto and are you the second followup to that was like are you getting push back from LPS around that? It's like hey maybe you should be raising as much of a like this fund size.

>> Yeah. So I mean we're not we're not um you know we announced the fourth fund earlier this year so we're not like out in market like actively having these discussions about a new fund size. So we we haven't heard that yet but but you know still obviously an active dialogue with all the LPS and there is obviously just a lot of interest in AI and like it's kind of sucking up all of the interest at the moment. Um I was actually to the point earlier too about uh uh you know kind of generalist versus non-generalist. One of the thing that I was talking to a like a venture recruiter because we're hiring for a few few roles right now and one of this the these guys was telling me he was saying all of the interest across all of the valley is for people with uh deep tech

expertise and who because like all of the firms are trying to uh hire people who actually know deep tech and stuff. We're seeing this on the on the fund side as well. I I think listen on the on the on the really specific question about the investable universe and crypto. I think that that what is happening is that tokenized assets and stable coins and you know just all all of finance is being put on chain and if all of finance is being put on chain and it it's in the water supply that means that everything that you know produces and um distributes water all of the applications uh are going to touch crypto and so um in one sense that's a very wide mandate because like that's all of finance globally and that's an

incredibly big addressable market but in some sense it is finance and it is you know some of these AI things we're talking about um and um you know that finance includes DeFi includes payments includes um uh centralized finance includes perpetuals the future of markets you know etc but it doesn't necessarily have all of those other categories that we used to talk about before which is you know NFTs and consumer and social and and I think um somebody put out a tweet like a few weeks ago that was like oh everything that you know didn't work in crypto before will eventually come back and work. Uh, which was like the most nonsense tweet because like that's we've learned something since then and we've learned that, you know, maybe that wasn't um the right those weren't the right things for this modality, this piece of technology and that's fine and

that's okay. Uh, we should learn from the past. But I think I I would even make the the uh more specific point to you Santi which is around okay well everybody uh has it's been hard to earn money since 2021 and I think the um there was a the new Carta data came out uh earlier this week in Wisconsin everywhere on Twitter and if you look at it the 2022 vintage of funds the 90th percentile this is all venture not crypto specific the 90th percentile 2022 vintage is a 1.68% uh times x uh TVPI and a 10 a 12% distributed paid uh distributed capital back to those um and what what would I I

I could tell you is that it shows you that regular venture is very hard and making and so making money in this space was actually much easier before it is now just looks more like regular venture which is also why the deals look more like regular venture and also why people are trying to figure how to change the way that they go uh and invest in the future. And and I was actually surprised by how bad some of those returns were on on the regular side because I'm hearing crypto and I'm like, "Oh, like, you know, we've got uh returns that are are better than that." And we uh and and I'm and and we're like, "Oh, well, it's not as good as, you know, the 2018 vintage, right?" Um uh but I think it's just that this any space, any capital market that

is acrewing a lot of value that where people are able to make money, it gets more efficient over time and that's just where we are today. >> Long gone are the days of 10x in two years. [ __ ] man. >> I think so. >> Should we pack up our bags and just punt the NASDAQ and call it a day? >> Listen, if you could just go forex lever long micron, uh you can take [laughter] 10 million billion. So, you [snorts] know, >> no doubt. No doubt that that ladies and gentlemen is a dig at situational awareness. We are aware of the situation. So is Ken Griffin. Um not to get too much into that.

>> Let's get into some of the news of the week. >> Robots and machines will outnumber humans onchain and peak is how they get there. Peak OS enables any machine to do business on any chain. It turns machines into autonomous actors and liquid assets with ease, giving robots access [music] to capital and the ability to compound their value. That means funds, allocators, and institutions can underwrite, finance, trade, and route capital to machines the same way they [music] handle any other asset. Millions of new potential consumers for any web3 service, from compute to storage to anything [music] a machine may need, without a human in the loop. Head to peak.xyz or click the link in the show notes to

find out more. So um first one I don't know if you guys saw this. It was uh Cloudflare wallets. So I'm going to share my screen. I actually went and claimed my Cloudflare username which is not something I thought I would ever do. So basically uh Cloudflare announced Cloudflare wallets. It is a programmable wallet system. You know quote unquote a lot of this is just reading from their blog designed for the Agentic internet. Basically what uh how it works is so the human controls the account wallet which is like you know your fund storage the on and off ramps policy setting and then from your account wallet you can actually spawn these virtual wallets that are agents um that that your agent controls via API keys and each virtual wallet comes with

a guardrail which is like you know spending allowance and allow list and maximum transaction sizes and overall caps. So imagine you know Santi you go create your wallet and then you have a virtual wallet for buying software on the internet like buying API keys or something like that. Then you have another wallet for trading which is plugged into Coinbase and Robin Hood and then you have another wallet which is mainly for reading news articles and consuming news or something like that. So um yeah pretty interesting. Um >> is is is this is this like cookies are dead. This is like the new cookie. You have a wallet, Jason. Uh, it knows, everyone knows what you're spending money on and like marketers love this.

>> I think it's not just the cook I mean the cookie is dead has been something for many years that people are saying. I think it's another data point that people can use to target people. So, you can use credit card data, you can use obviously your browser history. Uh I think whoever there's a lot of really really really re really really really rich data in wallets and uh it's actually something that blockworks is looking into at the moment to see there's so much rich data on chain that is really not being used right now >> if you if you can stitch it but I mean like for sure right if you're a marketer like crypto's always been like uh pristine data >> yeah exactly so and look it's cool because I mean the relevant thing and why we're talking about this on Empire is each wallet stores and spends using

stable coins um there's these uh you know claimable human readable handles um but then everything else is agents it also integrates the X42 protocol so that micro payments can actually be attached directly to uh you know a web browser like an HTTP request right so if you want to pay for an API or an MCP tool or content or AI inference that's all just done with stable coins over the X42 protocol um it's pretty interesting you can yeah you can go play around right now it's it's uh I I went and set up my set up my handle uh on this handle stuff and Agentic just a moment on that because I know you're so plugged in and you love Robin Hood.

Have you been poking around with like their whole Agentic capabilities and like instructing agents to buy on your behalf? And >> I have and you know who I saw posting a lot about this was uh Tom Shaughnessy. >> Tommy. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. I want to bring maybe Tommy on and have a conversation about that. >> Yeah. >> So any thoughts? Bullish. Bearish this uh Cloudflare announcement. >> No bullish. I mean can't can't be bearish. [laughter] Yeah, I I mean bullish just general um uh I think like the future of just like economic activity there's um you know 25% of the internet runs through uh cloudflare and you know they they've been releasing this data that you know I think we're all up to like 50 between 55

and 60% of like all internet activity or bots now today right and so there's um you know it's very clear that you know the world is going uh this direction I think there's nobody you can talk to today that doesn't think that agents won't play a real role in transactions in the future. Now, what modality uh that is and how and who and like all of that like that's still very much up for debate. Um I think this is very cool. Cloudflare I know the guys who are on the team who are in charge of um this stuff and you know they've been working on this for a long time and they've been thinking a lot about oh do we need our own stable coin? Do we use other stable coins? And you know they eventually have decided

that they're going to use you know kind of be to stable coin agnostic. They've been talking about okay well you know what um blockchain should we use? They eventually decided they're going to be mostly agnostic there too or at least going to support a lot of a lot of the big ones. And their perspective is just has been that agents are going to do many many different things. the right way to transact, the the best path to transact will be uh different for every agent for a lot of different uses. Uh and they want to just be at the the center of uh owning the identity and the authorization layer. And I think that's actually where the value is going to acrewue because I we're never going to be in a world I know people like to be in this like sci-fi area where like oh

like all this economic activity is going to happen from like agents that are doing whatever they want and like aren't going to be owned by a human. I I don't actually think that's true. I think it'll have to be owned by a human and you're going to have to have these delegated uh agents and controls in place, but there will be a lot of value and who the people are that help you control and manage those agents and that's actually part of the thesis of the safety of investment that we did. >> Um and so um and you know I think stable coins are going to play a big role here and um not going to be the only thing people transact in or agents transact in uh but um it's going to be a part of that and so you know excited to see do

>> is two observations here. Will actually I love seeing people that have uh former founders get like Will uh founder of Syndicate uh smart guy. I think I met him. I had ended up investing but I I really liked him now. I wasn't aware that he was a cloud which is crazy. We're going to talk about that later. >> Aqua hired the team. >> Yeah. Oh, the Aqua hired the team. Interesting. Yeah. Good. Good for him. Um one um where was I going with this? Uh I'm curious like we talk about programmable money as like uniquely enabled by stable coins, right? But like you can have like uh wallet like you could have credit cards like like is there a version here which actually bearish? Like to your point Rob like do you believe in a world where like agents just traffic on stable coins. I feel

like a lot of the narrative has been agents you need stable coins to transact because a they're not human so you can't open a bank account and b 24/7 365. Is there an argument to be made here along the lines of like column bank who says like no wait a minute like we can do this in trady. you just set up like specific credit cards or like debit accounts that are specific for the agent and like you have rules and customizations in place and like you don't need a stable coin like this can work with the current rails. I'm just trying to play like the bare case here for >> I mean you can do a lot of this agentic workflows in um like tokenized single use virtual cards um and so it's >> for for anyone not familiar Rob that means not crypto.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's a it's like when people think about their credit card, they think about like, oh, this like thing I have my wallet that I pull out or maybe it's an Apple Pay or whatever, but people don't realize this, but in a lot of uh payments gateways now, um depending on the, you know, type of of business, but OTAAS specifically, so if you think about um um if people don't know what OTAAS are, but if you think about like Booking.com, all right, which is an OTAA, um every single transaction that goes through Booking.com is actually a single-use virtual card. So they give you a a net new number uh and it's specifically allowed to do this transaction at this price, right? And so you think you're putting your your credit card, but it's actually funding a net new credit card. That's the way the

infrastructure works there. Um and so a lot of transactions and Visa's been working on this on tokenized credentials and uh and and tokens for not tokens as crypto tokens and not tokens as comput uh for payments um to to do these things. And so uh there I think where we've come out and there was all this conversation earlier and Jeremy I think dropped something this week too about how um stable coins are you know the the age of are here for the age of agents. Uh I I think where people have come out who are are like broadly looking at the space is like there are types of payments where stable coins make the the most sense to direct peer-to-peer stable coin payments and there are types of

payments where they won't. And but and this is a a personal opinion. I wouldn't I wouldn't say this is a thing that's necessarily broadly believed, but I believe that uh the traditional credit card industry in and of itself is going to stable coin settlement uh over time. And I think Visa has shown that they're investing heavily in this obviously that's been part of our thesis investing so heavily in Rain uh and some others um velocity which we announced uh recently because I think that from a settlement perspective it's way way better and I also think by the way to your point Santi or the column is like oh well we can do all of these things um that might be true for a lot of things domestically but we're also hearing now from some of

these these banks that they want to be able to do tokenized deposits It's for intraank settlement. So it's still it's so it's still maybe not a stable coin but like oh they understand that to get better settlement to run 365 and to not have so much credit in the system there has to be some sort of tokenized asset there in the middle and I and I do think that is where the world's going whether you call it a stable coin or not. A lot of the I know we got to go to other news and speaking of Rain the Western Union stuff of course, but on this point like uh for people that are coming out I think I feel like a lot of the criticism is uh wait a minute what about chargebacks? What about like if it's an immutable transaction like how do you

figure all that logic which is not simple? Has there been like is there a clear easy solution to all this stuff that maybe the folks at Visa and others have like engineered around stable coins and like um you know escrow or something to allow for this because charge jokes are a big are a big component of like online transactions and whatnot or just regular transactions. >> Yeah. I mean for I think the reason that Cloudflare has set it up the way they've set it up which is like oh well you know we you have to on-ramp as a person and then the person can on-ramp the money and then you can set up the agent in the way that you want to set it up and you can give it parameters is done to try to protect themselves in so much as like if the agent if there you need to have a

chargeback and the agent misspends $100 or whatever like it's it's you've taken on that risk because today in the peer-to-p peer transaction uh side of stable coins that doesn't exist now that's been solved It's been kind of dirty solved in a couple of ways which is okay well a lot of these companies who who actually do stablecoin settlement they actually just batch settle and so we think that stable coin transfers are you know atomically settled and that is true if I take you know my non-custodial wallet and send it to your address Santi but like if I'm a payments company who's using one of these service providers bridge or whoever else they're actually batch settling uh and so like if there's a complaint do you have you know some amount of hours before that batch settlement and you also have a counterparty that you can go talk to uh

the The other uh thing that is is happening is is Circle did actually launch like a like an escrow payment protocol for chargebacks and there's a few other people trying to do this. They they haven't really taken off yet. Uh this is again why I think and this is also why you pay for um you know a lot of things that you pay for when you pay for credit cards and etc. But it's again why I think that there will probably be a situation in the future where I I mean I the payments for agents will be done in a bunch of different modalities depending on size and quantum and if it's in a closed loop system an openloop system you know is it you know e-commerce is it enterprise you know etc. cards are going to play a really

big role in that. Uh and and stable coins will play a really big role in that both as settlement and as peer-to-peer, but the peer-to-peer side does have further to go in some of these trust factors. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh let's talk circle. Circle announced earnings. Um >> they got to fix the package. >> Are you going to read through all that, sir? Uh no, but I'll give you the highlights like the good host that I am, Santi. So, um I would call these I would call these uh earnings mixed results. Um I think the stock is pretty flat. Um total though it outperformed I think what a

lot of crypto native folks expected. Um I think you know as we I've talked about this before like don't bet against Circle, don't bet against Jeremy Aair. I think a lot of people like to you know pile on to the bearish circle takes. Um, and I I think those are generally the wrong takes. I think the business is more diversified than people realize. Um, but yeah, some of the highlights, uh, total revenue grew 7% year-over-year. Um, company's now doing like 50 million of net profit. Um, adjusted IBIDA is like 140 million, which is a little bit down quarter. Um, core stable coin metrics um, started to reverse. So, USDC circulation fell from 77 billion to 73 billion. uh onchain transaction volume dropped from 21.5

trillion to 15 trillion. Um I'd say bright spots are the circle payments network volume surged about 75%. Um I think they I think they raised other revenue guidance from about 150 million. They doubled it to 300 million. Um though I'm pretty sure that jump I was reading is a an accounting recognition of the ARC token pre-sale because cash was pre-olcted. Um and then yeah the big thing is they have ARC mainet scheduled for about a month from now September 16th. So uh yeah curious to get your take >> on ARC or on circle here.

>> Well uh the stock just to lay a little bit more color on that. The stock's down like 60% since um well more than that. It's up six. It's down almost 80% uh in last year. Um >> yeah, but they also had that completely absurd IPO. >> I'm looking at the candle. Yeah. Well, it's still I'm I'm not going off the the like Burj Khalifa candle. I'm like looking at like once it's sort of normalized. It was like at like 100 200 bucks. Now it's like, you know, 65. So call it down 70%. If I look at the analyst targets, like some of the analysts came out like to your point, the stock kind of like is down pretty like it feels like it's bottomed here at like 57. Who knows? I'm not a chartist.

I'm not looking to be one. But um a lot of the analysts were the the commentary was similar to what you're saying, which is like I feel like the market got pretty jittery. Like it went down like in May. Um >> because people were like questioning the defensibility of the network. Like it's only going to get more competitive with stable coins. Rob, I don't know if you agree with this, but like I feel like a lot of the worries when what was the open consortium that launched uh >> like the market got pretty spooked by that. >> Yeah. And so I think now it was interesting to see the analysts say like hey I feel like the markets overreacted they do have defensibility they have other partners like it's not so easy to unseat. Um but I think that continues to be the bare case for circle which is

like they it's it's only going to get more competitive from here and what you know um but I do think like if I look at the analyst targets a lot of them are like in the hundred range like some of them revised down actually most of them revised down which I found interesting but like stock sitting at 64 bucks most of the analyst targets are like at 100. So call okay you you have some like you know some upside there like pretty dramatic like 60% upside if you believe it but that's still like 32 times IBIDA of 27 that's not cheap like I just uh I'm I'm I'm curious uh on a on a relative basis like would you would you rather be buying this versus Visa Rob >> uh I think Visa is an incredible

business uh and like I'm actually very bullish over time. Um, listen, I I think on on Circle they um yeah, obviously the market really spooked after after OSD, I think the stock was down 17% uh the date that that was announced. Um, you know, there has been a there was a little bit of a lovely offet, but it hasn't regained uh all of the all of the loss at that point. Um, there, you know, I think it didn't help OSD that it came out like some of the, you know, partners were like, actually, we don't want to we're not really partners. we just were told about this and then our our we didn't know that our logo was going to end up on this thing and um and some other stuff that came out after that and so obviously it made it look a little

bit more halfhazard than it seemed at first glance and so um I think they you know they've benefited from that listen I think for Circle's the only way to directly express bullishness on stable coins you know there if you're you know a normal investor right you know there's people like me obviously private market investors. Um, and there certainly, you know, call it other ways to, you know, prediction markets and and things like that. But there is, um, the only way to directly express it is to own Circle stock. And, you know, Circle is the leader for uh, all of the use cases people are excited about. So, obviously,

Tether has this incredible business and emerging markets and with uh, with retail, but, you know, they're not they're certainly not winning the institutional use case. uh and that is what we're seeing people get really excited about and also like you know the the eneic uh use case and so um and so it makes sense that people are excited I mean I think the the one thing you didn't say Jana when you talked about their earnings which I think is still the most important thing uh on their stock which is that the amount that they are paying for distribution it keeps going up every quarter so they're it's about their net revenue is um about 60% less than the revenue that that that you mentioned in the gross revenue and they're paying on their reserve income

they're paying about 62% of that away today. That probably continues to grow and uh and that is probably one of the biggest headwinds to the stock right now from a revenue perspective. >> Um and at the same but at the same time the good thing has been that we're I guess more constructive about the rate curve at the moment than we've been uh in a while because people about the economy. Um but those are still the two mo the two things that are um >> but also but also the other big thing I missed is that the agreement with Coinbase which everybody was saying the agreement with Coinbase was about to end. The agreement with Coinbase has been just got renewed actually on I think existing terms which means that USDC remains >> core and central to all of the Coinbase

products. So that was a I think I think that was different than what the market expected. So that's a I'd say that's a big >> Yeah, there was definitely a lot of rumors about what was happening there. Um, and then before OSD got announced, there was uh there's a lot of debate about how involved Coinbase was in the OUD product uh as well. Um, but it never really made any sense that Coinbase would want to get rid of that deal in my mind because they get 50% of the net interest and they get 100% of it if it's on Coinbase. So, like I don't like there was no economic reason for that to ever have happened. So, I didn't didn't quite understand that. Um, but yeah, I mean it's it's honestly like and I said this in the post I made about OSD. I think it

would be much more bearish circle stock uh if that had ended. >> It's much more much more sorry much more bullish circle stock if that had ended. Like it would have been way better for them. >> Yeah. Um Okay. Coinbase at what's Coinbase trading at like 38 or 39B. Circle is at 16B. So, Coinbase is trading two and a half times uh higher than greater than um Circle, which uh if you had to put on the pair trade, what are you both doing? >> Is neither an option Robin Hood dude like like like you know I don't own any HO directly. I have some exposure to it in other ways, but uh I don't like either.

I mean, I listen, I'm a I'm a I'm a stable coin bull, so I'm going long long circle. Uh >> well, long long circle short Coinbase at 38 and 16. >> Well, if you were you asked me you if I'm given the choice that I have to do a pair trade. Uh that but like that that's the those are the direction I'm picking, [laughter] but I wouldn't do that trade. >> Well, fellas, what is interesting >> headline? We're making Let's make the headline. Rob shorts Coinbase. That is the >> Yan is trying to get me in trouble right now, >> dude. Rob comes in this pot and has like a couple of lines that he needs to hit to be on the on the headline and I think he's been pretty good at it.

>> I'm taking I'm taking the For what it's worth, I'm taking the long Coinbase. I I I'm excusing myself from the pair trade that I gave to you both because I I don't want to short I'm not shorting any crypto companies. >> I'm not short, by the way. I I'm not shorting anything ever. I'm I >> Me too. Me too. Me too. I'm I'm I'm long Yeah. Long Coinbase. I disagree with Santi here. >> If you want to hear there's great uh postmortems on situational awareness. I guess a lot of it is fair trade related. So like I feel like that's going to you're going to continue to hear that. One one one interesting thing on this point I asked you earlier about Visa versus Circle. What's interesting is at the current level of where the stocks are trading on a forward basis, they're about the same 20 to 22 times forward.

Um IBIDA, which is interesting, right? like the market just kind of brought circle down to gravity. Um, and the analyst targets are expressing that circle is multiple expands from here, which I don't love that. So for that reason, I just I just I just think the stock is rightly priced at the moment and I see a bit more downside than upside candidly because there's [snorts] I don't know for for the same reason that like crypto names are just more more reflexive and Visa I still think Visa is going to continue to it's a Kai and team are just very cracked and they're going to continue to make a portion into this and they're gonna just reinvent themselves. So, I feel like it's um But the thing about Coinbase,

though, can we just talk about that for a minute? Like, uh Robin Hood, for example, has like nine or 10 different business lines that are cranking out like $100 million each. >> 13. 13. >> 13. All right. >> But but but by the way, Coinbase has 12. Coinbase has 12. >> Okay. I was going to ask you that >> Coinbase. >> Interesting. Okay. >> Wait, not that's doing $100 million in revenue, which was what Sante said. >> Yeah. Yeah. That that that's >> Let me look it up. Let me let me do a quick fact check on myself. Hold on. >> Yeah, I think you're giving the total business.

>> I would be shocked, dude. Talk about like integrations, right? You're going through it now right now. I'm sorry. I mean Coinbase the product is not at the level. >> No, no, no. Coinbase, we're growing new revenue streams. We have 12 product lines, each generating over 100 million analyzed annualized. >> Okay, there. >> Okay. All right. >> Good for them. I I I mean, I think the the um learn something like a business point. So like like Santi Santi is like you know making a very good financial stock point on the multiples. There's also like a business point which is um if I think about like competitors today like who are circles competitors today like what kind of scale and size do they have like how far along are they like

the thing that is probably most competitive to circle today is like you know the USD consortium and um then this trend of we'll talk about the Western Union later but like people like Western Union launching their own stable coin uh and their white label stable coin that's like their competition uh and then the competition ition for Coinbase is like every exchange in the world. Uh, and Robin Hood and because they're trying to be the everything exchange and it does strike me that just, you know, it's a a little bit more of a knife fight on that side of the market. Uh, and they're also the things they are doing are so much more varied and like require a lot more expertise across a bunch of different areas than what Circle's trying to do.

>> Rob, you want to hear something funny? Speaking of Western Union, you might actually win the bet. The stock is down quite a bit. Um um it we're going to settle in November. I actually feel bearish after doing all this work on remittancees as as you guys know. Um but to your point around the stable coin because I came into it like registered DAS CEO talks about working capital and preunding and all this stuff. Uh I did a lot of work just talking to people in crypto that are building distribution networks like boots on the ground kind of stuff. um you know folks like yellow card and stuff like that really understanding like where is the demand for stable coins because that the the the premise of Western Union launching we should talk about RAIN right like is know your clientele I don't think that a

lot of people in the Western Union like customer base want this because by the way they've had a debit card before and kind of no one really used it uh because people prefer cash but in my um it just kind of went to pockets like in in places in Africa and Latin America America. A people love cash. B people love Tether. Like people love USDT. So that's the other thing that we haven't talked about here. Like um like Circle and any other person that is going to compete against Circle like USDT for retail and for XUS is king. You have to then believe like who's the how big is the addressable market today and how quickly does it materialize because maybe clarity doesn't pass and

the odds are pretty bleak there. Um, and I I I feel like in a perfect world like you're competing like the biggest opportunity for stable coins continues to be outside the US, continues to be retail and Tether is capturing the line share of that. And I feel like that my point is that TAM is not as big I think as people want it to believe in the next two to three to four years. I can't look farther out than that to be honest >> because I need to make a decision whether to buy the stock. I disagree with you generally because of the point I made earlier about like settlement infrastructure and so and so again I just have this perspective that like I think when you talk to the networks and

I think when you talk to a lot of the uh a lot of the correspondent banks like it feels very clear to me that like we're going to tokenized asset settlement now that's like very unsexy and like people don't like you know love to talk about that in the same way like a peer-to-peer transaction. I think you make the good point though on the Western Union side. I mean Western Union's got uh I mean they do about 110 billion of like crossber transfer volume right now on a principal basis that's on like 50 million yearly active customers every year. Um to your point, like they've tried some debit cards and and stuff in the past, but it's been hard for them to launch globally and it's been hard for

them to um you know, kind of roll out in a concentrated way that also incentivize people to stay in the platform versus outside of the platform. But it's also just taken time for them to um to really expand that infrastructure and build out some of that infrastructure. What changes here is that people don't really need to know that it's USDP. Is that that what it is? Yeah. USDT. >> USPT. >> Yeah. Uh because what's happening is like it's going to be the on-ramp is mostly going to be the same thing today. Now, you know, you can also send a stable coin or you have to send USDT or there'll be swaps for that and you can like, you know, just be a customer of the app today. Like that's not really what they're focused on today. what

they're focused on is the fact that they have these you know 50 million activives uh and they who send you know 200 to 300 million transactions a year from you know places like the US places like Europe to emerging markets and they right now they charge those people and the person in that emerging market you know goes to the agent location and they get cash right but now they don't have to go to the agent location to get cash if they don't want to they can get it in their application they can get um revenue share or you know uh uh whatever rewards for owning the stable coin uh in in the case of um some reward backs and then they can also

get rewards in in the course of owning of using a rain card uh relative to um what they were able to do before. Now in some in some areas of the world like yeah they'll prefer cash and um you know but in a lot of those areas of the world yeah they might prefer cash for their spending but what they will like is that they can hold a US dollar in a form factor and from a a location or a company that they trust uh and can now spend it online without FX fees. they can spend it in any type of location and now for Western Union that means they can go and they can monetize those users in a way that they couldn't before. So that is the story. I mean they're also

talking about like treasury management stuff like that for saving cost but that is the bull case for Western Union. Um even though I might you know win that uh win that bet. >> Yeah. No I look I think to round this out I I think you're absolutely right. I think that is the bull case. Um we just didn't feel comfortable proving that out. I'd rather have Western Union prove that out in the public markets. And if that's all well said and done true, great. I talked to one of the one of the most notable like crypto companies like working with kind of Western Union, their network. And he said like you kind of only want to buy Western Union because you're buying trust and any other smaller player is is kind of like a shittier business model with the same regulatory footprint and requirements, but Western Union has a lot of trust. Um

hopefully they can pull it off. >> Most recognizable brands in the world in money and remittance. Uh, and you know, I just gave you a little bit of of the data. They did, you know, 4 billion of revenue last year. >> Uh, and so like, you know, I think it's 375,000 active agents now globally. Like they have a network. We talk about networks all the time. They have a network. So >> to to see them doing this Rain was it's exciting. So >> yeah. Can can you talk a little bit about the Rain stuff? Like just uh I know you guys are investors there, but where does Rain how does Rain make money here? >> Yeah. So, so Rain is um actually providing um like the entire stack for them. So, they're working with Rain on onramp, they're working with Rain on the card issuance side. Um they're you know,

working with Rain partners on the on the the the wallet side. Um and so um you know I won't each one of these deals are independently negotiated so I won't I won't talk about it specifically but the way these these usually work is that when they provide all this infrastructure there's some sort of you know call it platform fee or or or min fee or something like that. Uh and then they um also get fees on both like you know potentially the amount of users uh and also then a percentage of transaction volume. And so like for for for for like a rain who is sort of uniquely able to to do this product because they can go globally. I mean I think they're uh on day one or yesterday they launched in 37 markets. I think

they'll be in 60 markets by end of year. I think um Western Union is in 200 markets in total and so they're working towards you know all 200 of those and in the next 18 months and the ability to do and operate uh compliantly legally in the all of those different markets to do so uh in US dollars or and also in potentially multiurrency and potentially use um uh uh bins BIN numbers which I people don't know what a BIN is is the bank identification number which is um required for each individual card that can be used also uh you know through the US or through um in in other countries like it it is a actual like it's a thing that has only been able to happen over

the last few years and um it's a huge technological feat and the ability to do that and open up all of these different new geographies is basically a brand new thing that's happened over the last couple of years and that's why you see people like Western Union now so excited about it because it would have been an absolute compliant and legal uh and infrastructure nightmare a few years ago go and and Rain um and now a few others who are trying to do this. Stripe is trying to do it is uniquely able to allow people to open up all of these different corridors with these products. >> All right.

>> You know that I'm an investor so bullish. >> I asked I said Rob, what do you want to talk about today? He goes, >> I don't know. There's a Koshi thing, which is like the Kawhi lawsuit and uh and uh and and rain. I was like, "Oh, you don't say you don't say, Rob. >> I respect it, Rob. You're out here." >> You know, [laughter] >> you're out here hustling. >> Look, we saw there was uh we announced this deal in Velocity and and um this kind of payments company that's doing this acquiring stuff and the the uh the founder went on Twitter or went on one of these podcasts and and called me his CMO. Uh and so, you know, I'm just I'm saying, you know, for >> high praise. When was the last time

Rob's talked about inversion out here, ladies and gentlemen? [laughter] >> He's gonna flip it back. He's like, "Well, do no do newsworthy stuff, you know." >> I almost said something like that, but I I wanted to let you do it. >> Before Before we do content of the week, Santi, I have a watch you should buy. >> Okay. Oh. Oh, that the the Saddam Hussein protect. >> How did you >> Did I Didn't I Did I not READ YOUR [ __ ] MIND? OH, there you go. >> Look at how incredible. Look at how incredible there there's a uh >> so there's a so for folks who are not watching on YouTube there's a PC Philipe Saddam Hussein collab. So >> I you know it turns out in the 80s >> it's an it's an ellipse not a travel. My

bad. My bad. >> Yeah. Beautiful watch. I mean Ellipse is um if you want to get in the watch game uh I I really dislike this idea that you have to buy like and spend a ton of money. You can find beautiful vintage watches. this included obviously put aside the Saddam Hussein [laughter] attachment but Ellipse um is a is a fantastic watch in my opinion. >> So so from the late7s through the through the 1980s the uh when you know Saddam Hussein was leading you know was the like uh you know leading Iraq they were a huge corporate client it turns out of PC Philippe. So PC would give these watches. They were never actually sold to the to the public. They were actually given as kind of political

currency to the Iraqi high-ranking military members and like you know the big you know the bureaucrats and the diplomats and VIP visitors to the presidential palace would you know Iraq you know Hussein would be able to give out you know these watches to the VIP visitors. So yeah, there's actually this it's an amazing website, Loop This. >> It's like a new watch auction website, but anyways, they've got >> Yeah, they've got one of uh they've got one for sale, so I thought of you. >> So So this was not owned by Sedam. It was like probably some dignitary or something was hosted and then they got it. Yeah.

>> So I I bid. I have quickly been outbid. It is now the current bid. >> Oh yeah. >> 26K. Did you actually >> Oh yeah. Yeah. >> Ladies and gentlemen, Jana's printing. I bid at the very beginning when it was not [laughter] 26,000. >> It's all right. It's all right. >> Yeah. After we get off, you're gonna put in another bid. >> I'm tapped out. Can't be doing 26K in in a bare market for >> That's not founder >> for Saddam Hussein protect Phipe watch. Yeah. [laughter] He's like, "Sir, u welcome to the United States. What do you have there on your wrist?" [laughter] >> Well, actually, officer, >> he's not gonna be allowed back in. uh like he's he's >> I dude at least allow me to go back to

the America and uh I want to record [laughter] some imperson guys, you know, can't be flexing around a ton. >> Can't be doing that. Can't be doing that. All right, content of the week, folks. What do we got? >> Ah, you said it. Rob stole it from me. Mickey uh Ribbit, founder, phenomenal investor. I think one of the best investors. Uh founders podcast. Worth a listen. I won't say more than that. Do >> they talk about his art collection? Yeah, >> they they talk about NFTs. They talk about his art collection and the idea behind it. Uh yeah. Yeah. I haven't I haven't finished it. I'm like threequarters of the way there. But re really good stuff.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah. He talks a little bit about they they did this um like digital art. Him and his wife funded this like digital art uh gallery. >> Um Oh yeah. >> And uh yeah. And they talked a little bit about people. Uh he talked a lot about crypto actually. Um >> they're very long they're very long crypto. Like they were seed investors in Morpho and they're Yeah. They're huge crypto investors. I think they were only late. I think they were late investors of morpho or they were like the but they were early like Coinbase like they I mean they've been around for a long time. He's done an incredible job. So >> well he built a company with Wiscades who is obviously a Bitcoin OG OG OG you know.

>> Yeah. Um he's done done an incredible job. Um he he relate to your point talked a lot about like uh oh people ask me if I'm a seed investor and I say yes. They ask me if I'm a late stage investor I say yes. They ask me if I'm a fintech investor I say yes. >> Nuclear investor I say yes. and his point was like I'm a I'm an investor and like you know I I figure out how to do all these things. So he he really backed up your point earlier. >> Well that's and and I think that that's really that you said earlier reputation compounds and I feel like >> he had a total outpour of founders that retweeted David's post around like yeah Mickey rivet guys like [ __ ] the guys just going to battle with you. They're amazing to work with and they really

listen. It's actually pretty impressive to see amazing amazing. We should have him on the podcast if he wants to come on. >> He's been as well. >> Yeah. I can only hope that someday like, you know, people talk about me the way they talk about him. And I love the stuff that he said about uh about brand and you know, compounding and and you know, and I think the thing about him too is everyone he opens his doors to everybody and he's just incredibly nice person as well. Uh and so like there's just there's not really bad things you can say about him. No doubt.

>> Rob, content of the week. >> Gosh, I don't know how I follow that follow that up. Um, >> yeah, I I I will say I was gonna give [laughter] >> you pick your random [ __ ] Rotten Tomato horror movie. I have now a rod continent of the week predictor, man. I have like three theories here. I'm start new horror movies this week I'm seeing there. There was a there is a new movie I'm seeing this week, but I won't I won't pick it. I will um uh uh I was um Gavin Baker was back on uh on Invest like the best uh talking about a lot of the AI jitteriness in the uh in the market and um you know think that was it was very timely uh following what happened with uh

>> he was like I can't explain what's going on fundamentals are getting better and I think he didn't know like but it was like two days before situal awareness blew up explain it like it's terrible and so it was just [laughter] it very interesting listen to it after what happened and like the context of the two of them together because you know he's you know he he's >> Rob we need >> we need that kind of energy from you because like you know I'mma be bearish people know that no surprise any opportunity I can Yano is sort of like in the middle he needs to be neutral you are the guy that needs to be the Gavin Baker of crypto it's like the market is wrong like Salana back to 10,000 Ethereum to 50,000 like >> we do need that we got a dream that we

need that Tom Lee sort of like spending all his cash, man. Like, we need a new figure needs to arise and needs to be ultimately >> It could be you, dude. It could be you. >> It [laughter] could be you. [clears throat] >> We went We went from that. That is not my general demeanor about anything. >> Do Quan to Michael Sailor to Rob Hadock. >> Oh, god. [laughter] >> Rob, you under no Rob, I'm telling you, man. You are under no obligation to be the person you were two minutes ago. It could be you. I'm just gonna leave it at that.

>> So, Rob, you could be this guy and Santi can be the Tony Robbins. That that helps you that helps you get there, [laughter] you know. >> Rob, I charge advisory fees. >> All right. Speaking speaking of bullish announcement, I have I have a content my here's my content of the week. >> Do you guys know what you're looking at here? >> Uh, dude. All right. >> Saddam Hussein. >> All right. Saddam Hussein. No. No. Okay. This is content of the week. way bigger than Milky Mala's podcast on David Senra. Okay, so for for the last like for basically forever, archaeologists believed that the Amazon could only support these tiny little communities because their soil was too bad for big complex civilizations. So then deforest

like you know we basically started ripping all the trees out of the Amazon deforestation and they started exposing these big circles and squares that were carved into the ground. What we we basically just did a bunch of lidar. So they just used all this advanced LAR laser technology and found a huge pre-Colombian network of cities which essentially rewrites our understanding of South America. There's a they basically flew LAR over 4,500 uh uh kilometers and they basically were able to like digitally you know remove all the trees and see what's underneath.

and they found 396 unknown earthworks which were surrounded by 15 feet 15 foot deep connected roads through all these different cities and uh anyways it basically completely re rewrites history >> dude aliens are real I'm telling you like you go in this rabbit hole no one can explain why uh you built the pyramids in Egypt like the engineering marvel of like the precision of laser cut stones and the Mayas and is this is this validating this looks like alien structures man.

>> It looks like old civilizations. I'm reading this on science.org. >> This Yeah, this could just be This doesn't look that >> old but sophisticated >> civilizations that we've known. So, >> I think a as a Mexican, Rob, I'm here to tell [laughter] uh that that looks very sophisticated, though. I I wouldn't wouldn't put it past the conspiracy theories to say this is like [ __ ] alien alien civilization. [laughter] All right. Well, the next block event is going to be is going to be a a cruise on the Amazon.

>> I honestly have no clue what to say when Santi goes >> as a as [laughter] a Mexican >> as a fellow Mexican. I'm gonna raise my card here. Um, when are we going to have a Blockworks event out out in the jungle, man? [laughter] >> Oh, I was supposed to promote D London and D Asia. Totally forgot about that. We have D Asia. Thank you, Santi. D Asia coming up in Singapore around token 2049. We partnered with the token folks. So we're doing it with token October 7th I think it is in Singapore. D London mid November be there. >> Guys go buy your tickets so can out. >> We're back in the season, baby.

[laughter] >> Rob, you Rob, you haven't experienced Empire in a D season, but you guys are my marketers. You guys have to >> be promoting. I'll give you a code. >> We did Empire during D in the in the spring. >> Yeah, but D New York is a ripper. D New York is like sells it. You got to kind of push. This is our first time doing D Asia. You got We're going to have to push this thing a little bit. >> Well, you can listen to to Dante and I talk. We can do a live pod. So, you know, if that's >> we do have we we do have Jeff from Hyperlid is coming. Uh he just confirmed. So, that'll be um we should do a pod on site with Jeff.

>> No doubt. >> Uh would love to. Then I'll just leave it at this. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for listening. But can you just point to us the engagement figures if people are listening more when it's just Rob, myself or the three of us? Yeah, would love to hear that data. >> I think we are a great team, the three of us. I think we need all three of us. >> That was my conclusion. But, you know, take >> a I think as I started off the pod last week, I said the inmates are running the asylum. Uh I think we need to keep us, you know, on the on the on the straight.

He's [laughter] great host. >> Yano's looking at me like Yano's looking at me like you've just betrayed me, man. Like >> Santi hasn't had a mic. Santi hasn't had a mic in like three months. >> You're bidding for a Saddam Hussein Pekk. I don't even have a mic, you know. [laughter] Sign of the times, ladies and gentlemen. >> All right, folks. Enjoy the Friday. Enjoy the weekend. We will uh we have an episode with Paul from Morpho coming out next week. Enjoy. Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or [music] products. This podcast is forformational purposes only.

And the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice [music] or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests, and the Blockworks team may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.