wBTC Concerns, EigenLayer Ethics, and Kamala's New Advisors | Roundup

Transcript

at this point I've lived most of my life in the US actually why is your English so good if you grew up in Mexico because I'm a [ __ ] Savant shut the [ __ ] up no no not really I'm a lizard brain this episode is brought to you by anoma the universal intent machine introducing a new era of applications where you define the outcomes you want to stay up to date with anoma you can follow them at x.com or sign up for the newsletter at an.net special thanks to anoma for sponsoring today's episode real is a permissionless L2 designed for tokenized real world assets

they've just launched their Rewards program so get started at re. rewards and be sure to use the code in the show notes below special thanks to real for sponsoring today's episode this episode is brought to you by Avalanche Avalanche is a leading network of blockchains giving some of the world's largest financial institutions new use cases and business models while leveraging completely customizable infrastructure check them out it's core. apppp slcover you can explore avalanche's subnet ecosystem at core. slcover of play around earli today really cool hey everyone Jason here have you ever wanted to play casino games with your friends right from your couch I'm excited to tell you about my prize

the first multiplayer online casino where you can play chat and win together when you make your first deposit of $10 or more you'll get $20 for free head on over to my prize.com invite Empire to get started what's up well uh I was promised that it was going to be a slow slow summer is nothing but nothing but man working with European companies we're trying to sell some deals some European companies right now man they're they're out they're out all of August it's insane to me I don't have food in my fridge it's Thursday it's holiday there's the supermarkets are closed I don't know what my chef my chef

left and my backup Chef is not coming and the third Chef somehow hasn't shown up so I'm a simple man my diet is like I um I don't like having that type of stuff run I I I like to just go to the fridge speaking of food I mean I got roasted for eating lunch last week well that I didn't want to sit it but yes that was the guy so one guy comments I understand this is a free I understand this is a free podcast but can you please not eat your meatballs on the screen and another guy goes Jason took literally 20 minutes to eat his lunch which by the way I don't think that's that long of a time to eat food I'm just gonna put that out there but I I love the you know what it is people are paying attention the guy

actually was like to the tea was like time stamped it yeah I was like was 20 minutes yeah I like it shout out to that guy you know you're listening I appreciate you whoever you are I appreciate you someone called you Trump like yeah yeah I saw that it's like entitled back said you have an elite you got access to an Elite Education where'd you go to college uh my safety school be Boston University Elite Education no offense but I feel like yeah that's I saying like I first of all uh I graduated early I got a scholarship from JP Morgan called the launching leader scholarship as a sophomore so I'm going to say I was the youngest of this entire program that got it and then

I got into the investment bank which by the way uh if you've been living under a rock JP Morgan does not recruit at Buu so there's a a later time I'll tell you a story of how it got in actually you don't I was an intern as a freshman actually as well and I was the only they don't have a program for freshman they had to do it bis pooke so I had to crawl my way up to a place where I wanted to work because you know JP Morgan is the best investment Bank along with Goldman but I felt in the department that I wanted to be in the Investment Bank it was the best and nothing was uh it was a lot of luck but uh to say that it was handed down to me like you know these rich kids that their dad calls like hey

Jamie um hey Jamie hey Jamie uh could you have my son inter turn in the MS bank I will say though there is a lot of not but like yeah I mean there is just a pipeline and the pipeline yeah yeah look I mean most of the interns Mo most of the interns come from like these particular schools where the MD comes from Williams or Princeton or whatever yeah it's super like that I agree I remember uh we're not here we're not here to talk about Investment Bank so this junior year internship I was trying to get it on the S&T internship at Goldman I showed up I was so [ __ ] nervous I was like so sweaty and so nervous it's like my first interview at like one of these bulge brackets and there's like all these like you know

straight out of Dartmouth like Northeast boarding school they went to Lacrosse player St Paul's and Cho and all these schools and like they're like oh yeah I've got seven offers already you know I'm just doing this because like my uncle works here and I want that was that wasn't me ladies and gentlemen um to to be fair um my the last thing I'll say in this point which is a i there's a couple things that I care a lot about crypto is one two nuclear energy three education and my biggest frustration was like I was not allowed to take there was an investment banking class in the business school of BU called a and so called Investment Banking you can only take it as a senior and I'm like uh that doesn't make sense cuz all the internships are

lined up Junior which is when the offers go out yeah so I had to go to Harvard Extension School across the river across the Charles I basically showed up paid 3K or whatever 2 and a half K and it was a graduate level course they didn't care if I failed or passed the class but that allowed me to be really proud for the technical part of the interview and then later on the dean of uh Buu who' worked at KKR he was like what can we do better I'm like uh I don't know let me [ __ ] take the investment banking class if I want to what do you care it's my GPA and he's like oh well you need of course you know why they do it right they want you to be there for four [ __ ] years 50k SMS I'm like I don't have that [ __ ]

money it's a scam you think crypto is a scam no no no the reason not to tie it all back to crypto but the reason I do like crypto is I think there's um the the I mean at some point the industry will get like tech and and like Wall Street and stuff and they'll be feeder and they'll be like it'll get exclusive and stuff but like I mean here's what you need to do if you want to go get a job in crypto you create a Twitter account you write some research and you write twit Twitter threads once a week with your two-page research report and you break down a Hot Topic or a hot narrative do that for three to six months and someone will hire you one of the pro or you make money yeah or or or go I mean trade and I hired Nick did you

make no no I hired Nick Chong at Pary and he was I think in high school school or like a senior in high school or just about to go to college and I discovered him on Twitter yeah yeah we made we made we made hires for our research analysts who are out of college like they're they're in college not they haven't even graduated yet the beauty of Open Source systems is the truth services like Talent Services faster you don't need this transmission 11 Paradigm yeah that too that that's honestly one of the more inspiring motivating things for me in these in this open source system that is called crypto um that it really kind of transcends this like pedigree and all this crap because I I I I think it's [ __ ] credentials are important the way we do it currently is um not

effective yeah and and crypto is is much different okay here's a question for you y if you had kids let's say you had like an 18-year-old today that's a scary thought if you had an 18-year-old today would you send them to a public school a private and they were going to college public school private school or home school or maybe the question is more about middle school and high school I don't like maybe just take out college high school but like what would you do with your kids education early on I would like to homeschool them because I I think that um the current curriculum is very ineffective meaning it's still memorization based and um it doesn't stimulate like if you're really talented

in in math or in in writing you should like really really develop that Talent why do you need to take all this other [ __ ] um whereas I'd rather like have my like if I had a rare skill like that I'd want to be nurtured and and fast-tracked into like becoming the best at that MH um I think and so I had the fortune of going to a liberal arts high school if anything like the liberal arts there's liberal arts type of education and like memorization based liberal arts teaches you how to think question the Scientific Method All That doing research like it teaches you a process that by the way it's the same as investing right um and

so I think the criticism of homeschool because you know my sister has kids and she's like what do you know you don't have kids I'm like I don't know she's like your kids are going to be like you're socially awkward your kids are going to be 10 times more socially awkward because they're homeschooled I'm like I to screw that like you can actually like that's where hobbies are for like they could be in a sports League you know they could have friends I appreciate it's on the margin like more challenging it's more work but uh I'd like to do it if they like it but once they're older it's up to them really I don't know what would you do you're like okay this is how the Unis swap curve works this is how a Pool Works um I would uh do by the way I mean

I say this with no kids I think the dream I think the best thing for kid for kids would be um a homeschooling with a large group of parents who have kids in your like actually I think this is best for parents too is like living near a lot of friends and like I think we've totally lost like the element of community um so I think the best model is like living near a bunch of your friends you guys all share your resources you hire like I don't know nannies together and you hire Educators together as well and maybe there's a group of like 20 or 10 kids who who do this together that's I think the best model the thing that like I mean we I'm sure there's all these parents like listening being like go

[ __ ] yourself listening to this but I mean I'm I'm sure the amount of work that goes into that it's like and by the time you you know you have a 5-year-old going to school or however they old they are when they go to school it's like oh my God like just just just put them in the school next to us because like I just need three I I need to walk them to work to school for three minutes and then get to the office so yeah I've invested in ettech is one of those areas where I love meeting people that are trying to reinvent it uh but you know unfortunately it's challenging right my wife sit there Works in ntech it's a tough business it it is yeah like Che kind of but it's sort of marginal um like renting books um but yeah I think I

just read uh I read the new book um by yeah Salon con oh my God what's the name of this book oh Brave New Worlds how AI will revolutionize education because my dad's doing some work in that World um and it's a whole book about like how the education system will get flipped upside down actually I didn't think it was a very good book um but well I thought it was good if you work in the school system and maybe you're not following like chat gbt or anthropic or any of that stuff but it did make you think like man the way that our system works today there's no way that'll work like that so i' I've learned more from and I had the privilege of of traveling that that like I consider myself incredibly privileged because I was able I was able to travel a lot not luxuriously just

travel a lot my dad had a lot of time he's self-employed um to me that is like the thing that that um has given me the most amount of Education yeah going out meeting new people different cultures from a very early age to me that's uh invaluable really so this is a crypto pod should we talk crypto we've got uh we got we got rap BTC there's some political stuff this week and um we got some Igan lay drama so let's start with rap BTC because that's an easier conversation okay so I think let's do this I'm going to tee up the story I'm G to I'll I'll let me share the history of wbtc because and like talk about what it is then I'll

talk about what happened this week with bitg go and Justin sun and Tron and all the drama and then I'd love to hear your take on it um because I think you you were there in the early days of rap Bitcoin and all that kind of stuff okay so for people who don't know what rap Bitcoin is it basically is the W of wbtc is wrapped Bitcoin and it's a way to get Bitcoin onto ethereum it's a way to use Bitcoin in def5 so you deposit your Bitcoin they they lock it bit goes the custodian they lock it it's very transparent and you get wbtc and then you can actually move it onto ethereum and do stuff with it so the backstory of wrapped Bitcoin is and there's this great thread by um ly Lou um at at caliber build and he he's one of the

founders of kyber back in the day so um back in 2018 um a few months after they launched kyber which was on ethereum um it was like very early defi days the really weren't many like alts or anything on ethereum the Dex ecosystem was like a million a day in trading volume there was like no KY was like the first de kyber was it yeah yeah so like tvl was super low um uh I wouldn't be surprised if a was still called Ethan like it very early days right and so they needed some liquidity into into defi so the best way to get liquidity into defi was by bringing Bitcoin liquidity into defi so there were a couple people it was um meowo who is the founder people might know meow because

he's one of the founders of Jupiter and there was Victor Tron who's one of the other co-founders of uh kyber and uh yuron velner I think was the fourth guy they it was like this was the crew and they were really excited about this um and so they ended up linking up with uh this guy Ben what's Ben's last name Benedict Chan who at the time was the CTO of bitgo he's now the VP of engineering at chain link and tell me if I get any of these facts wrong but they they met up they kind of shared the problem with with Ben who was at bitgo um and they basically said look let's work with a centralized custodian model to keep this super simple and avoid any hidden technical smart contract risks and so they ended up creating this thing

called wrapped Bitcoin and and cying the Bitcoin with um uh with bitgo and I remember when this happened there's actually a really fun it kind of flashed me back uh of like the part of the announcement of this it was like nois and compound and blockfolio uh IM token omo like Dharma like maker all these like air swap if you remember air swap like all all these old school def5 people kind of announced this thing and so the the plan was that uh so it's between kyber and bitgo they didn't call it like kyber coin or bitco bitgo BTC or anything like that they wanted it to be a public good which was really cool it was this like neutral brand wrapped

Bitcoin no one owned the project um bitgo bito was going to manage a lot of the offchain technical and legal work uh like minting and burning process integrating it with bco custody and setting up this transparency dashboard which at the time was basically one of the first like proof of reserves things and then uh different members of the team were doing like marketing and all that kind of stuff so fast forward to today that was 2018 six years later um rap Bitcoin is huge it has around nine billion I think nine nine and a half billion in TVO in in excuse me in tvl it is now the like de facto Bitcoin token on ethereum and other evm chains so I'll pause there good summary

questions keep keep going all right keep going so uh today how it works is bitgo is the custodian there's all this transparent stuff and it's domiciled in the US and it's it's really like it's it's a bitgo thing and bitgo importantly doesn't do anything with the Bitcoin when you send the Bitcoin to bitco they keep it in a total separate like custody trust nobody touches it they don't do like any Genesis style lending of it so bito manages all this money or Bitcoin but they don't actually do anything with it so they so if you think about that from a business model perspective they're not actually making any money on that bit on that Bitcoin so what happened earlier this week is that bitgo who is currently the sole custodian and Backer of

wbtc published a blog post announcing that in I think October it's going to form a quote strategic partnership with bit Global bit Global is a Justin Sun company Justin Sun's the founder of Tron that's based in Hong Kong so if you dig into the details and the reason people freaked out so much is the partnership consists of giving bit Global access to two of the three wbtc private keys so now instead of having the private keys in the US with bitgo you now have two of the three keys with um uh with Justin Sun's company and domiciled in one I think one is in Hong Kong and one is

going to be in Singapore so right after that people on crypto Twitter freaked out then maker Dow's RIS team came out they wrote a post a day after the announcement proposing that wbtc be Dlisted as a collateral asset Bel she jumps in on the forums he responds um I can talk I can talk about his responses in a set because I think there's some good things he said and some bad things uh then there's this uh Twitter spaces where Bel she and Justin Trump son were both interviewed by meow again the founder of Jupiter also involved in the creation of wbtc and I think some quotes were important here and then I'll shut up because I'm rambling here but um meow basically pressed belshi who I have a ridiculous amount of like respect for just for for

for building this crypto company for like 11 years but he he pressed he pressed him on the question of whether bit Global could Mint or move the underlying Bitcoin treasury on a unilateral basis right because now they have two of three of the keys so he said is it possible that there's no one single party that has the capability to Mint or move the funds and Mike responds I don't want to quite answer the question but let me give you a couple points around it every security system has a weak point just because that exists doesn't mean you have to change it right now maybe it can be changed in the future okay so that's one red flag in my mind the second is um I think he just kind of like his response for the partnership was kind of flimsy he said it's uh the reason for it was

jurisdictional decentralization as a big reason for that and actually on one hand I'm like oh yeah the US is cracking down but on the other hand I'm like I don't know you're moving it to Hong Kong who's been like very anti- Bitcoin over the years right now is pro but historically has been kind of anti um I don't really understand how that location improves your jurisdictional decentralization and then the last thing and then I'll shut up is um I think it was around like 40 45 minutes in Bel she says that wbtc isn't a profit Center for bitgo and then so me says is bitgo receiving any monetary benefits for the partnership with Justin son and Bel she kind of gave this non answer about securing the space better uh and then

and then the call and then the call ended so I guess I'll close it by saying like I have a insane amount of respect and Trust in bitgo and in Mike belelli and their firm as a whole but I really don't understand this decision um and I have some concerns but again I've been talking for a while what do you think about this and then I can share my thoughts uh I very much the same I don't want to jump to conclusions but the two points that you raised are concerning and I think that given all the precedent in the space like you'd rather play it safe and I think you move fast when there is smoke because

typically when there's smoke there's fire and I don't know the the the idea of not being very forthcoming with the the question around like can you mint unilaterally and I mean it's the jurisdictional decentralization doesn't matter it's like there's two parties here that can collude and can you know act maliciously that's it that's all you need to know like I'm not going to trust like I understand I'll give people the you know the benefit of the do but I'm not going to risk my funds there and I think it's not the right setup there are there is a better way to do this and you're left wondering like why wouldn't you do it that way you I mean like why why would

you I can't think of an argument of of why it would make sense because it degrades all trust in the product that has been working as you said for a while like it is it is pretty embedded it's been used for a long it's a good track record like I just I just can't understand why they would do why they would do it this way and and for that reason I'm I'm just you know I understand the the kind of very the reaction from Acer right I yeah like of course I I would do I would do the same like we've had enough [ __ ] with FTX and other stuff to to to risk and wbtc is something that

is you know pretty embedded I want to call it like super systemic right but it's like 10% of the collateral right for maker I think last time I checked yeah 10 it's uh 10% of dies backing yeah it's a lot yeah what do you think um I think a lot yeah I mean a lot of this comes down to Justin Sun's reputation too like if he were part I mean if they were partnering with someone else I don't know imagine you partner with like Circle or something and it's like oh we're sharing the keys with circle like I think they just have a better reputation I mean there was some like weird proof of Reserve stuff with um remember Justin son they bought poniac actually from circle from Jeremy

uh and then they had they they I think they tried creating their own tbtc year like rap BTC product and then there's some like really weird proof of Reserve stuffs going on so I think there's definitely like a um just a reputation thing and actually this is what Bel she said in his response he said this seems to be more of a reaction to the Justin Sun name than to the facts and so I need to go read bel's whole whole post um but I I don't know here here here's what I'm looking for is um what are they going to just keep the Bitcoin sitting there because there's a [ __ ] ton of money to be made if you lend out that Bitcoin right there's a crazy there's $400

million a year to be made if you go lend out that Bitcoin at only 4% so that's $400 million sitting there where someone can really easily convince someone hey there's there's 400 million sitting here let's just go lend it out in a really Safe Way at 4% trust me bro it's gonna it's gonna work like everyone's lending out at 8% 10% right let's just let's just do something safe at 4% and that is what I'm concerned about um you the operating assumption in crypto should always be that the most economic people act in the self-interest and if there's a sufficiently large Economic Opportunity most people will take it and they will act

short like they will take it and so you have to you have to design systems that the default and the correct kind of the E the acting correctly is also the most economically favorable outcome yeah uh Elon tweeted actually something to this effect which is you um here I'll try to find it um don't kill me here and we can a here's the quote a society should make the right things easy and the wrong things hard and I think that's gets to the core of how you design a a

blockchain um or any system for that matter yeah so I think there's also a bigger technical question here which is hey this is a pretty old school method this was created six years ago like we're just sending like even even just holding it at bito like I mean that's not if something happens to bito that's 10 billion just poof right um right and then there's the question of like okay what's after that it's like well there's like onchain Bridges but I think there's like probably the end state of this is like canonical Bridges or validating Bridges and like if you if you I haven't really dug into this but I was reading one research report about like the bit VM and op cat unlocking like these trust minimized wrapping of BTC using

validated Bridges I think it was way die from one KX um was posting about this um and I I think I think he I think that's a good point which is like what we're doing now is just kind of like Band-Aid over like what should exist at long term so well the the other point is uh you know coinbase I think is jumping at this opportunity right They are promoting like CB BTC so they had a brilliant marketing move I love this they just tweeted no blog post nothing they just tweeted CB BTC yeah and that's basically the same mechanism but you're trusting coinbase all right so what are your predictions with coinbase with uh with with coinbase rap Bitcoin so so Dan ellit actually let me give you let's

start with a over under Dan ell's thing so Dan ellz goes um where did his tweet just disappeared oh boy ah okay cbdc was uh CB BTC was inevitable and super strategic to coin base frankly I'm surprised they didn't ship this years ago uh my predictions a zero fees on mint redeem B zero fees to withdraw to base super smart by the way and C it'll pass wbtc in Supply within six months of launching yes you think okay that's interesting I agree with that take yeah I mean the distribution of of coinbase is massive would would you wrap your Bitcoin and put it on

chain uh [Music] um depends on uh depends on I don't know like I don't here here's what it depends on for me there's the yield opportunity I guess you're going to compare that to like other stuff in Bitcoin I'm going to get ahead of the criticism here folks because I've seen in some chats why would you even move it to a [ __ ] network like ethereum I'm like well you did deposit your money in uh Celsius and uh you know some other centralized providers but uh some of the other like Babylon and that stuff arguably has more risk just has less lendy right than

something like ethereum of course you're trusting the it all comes down to the Nuance wait wait wait wait Babylon has less risk than putting something on more you're go and test all these experimental like l2s or side chains that are cropping up in the Bitcoin ecosystem and your argument is I'm not going to move it to ethereum but I like the yield so I'm going to use it in like a native B like a Bitcoin L2 I'm like uh I don't know I would argue that it's safer to do it through coinbase WAP Bitcoin and then moving it to you know yeah you know so here's here's my prediction this is the start of every single exchange doing this everyone's basically just said like you know what bitgo kind of has this wbtc we don't want to do anything it's the start

of every single exchange doing it Kraken will do it okx will do it binance will do it coinbase will do it you need to have a c custodian arm right yeah so Gemini has a custodian arm coinbase has a custodian arm Kraken made an acquisition of a custodian didn't they okay um maybe yeah maybe I don't know um so anyways I think I think that's the start of that and some of them are going to play it safe um and they won't lend out that Bitcoin and then other people are going to say hey to add1 billion 4% that's $400 million I'm a public company or I'm trying to go public or I'm trying to raise my series d That's $400 million we're leaving on the table I've got my

board breathing down my neck like turn that on and something like that will end poorly so that's one prediction the second thing I'd be looking for is not just the yield opportunities but um I don't know if you can see my screen right now but like I can they've done a phenomenal job at the proof of reserves um like bito has done a great job so you can actually track everything happening um so like if you look at the screen right here like August 14th you can see crypto.com pulling out 100 like what whatever 100 wbtc crypto.com pulling out 150 crypto.com pulling out 100 Galaxy pulling out 73 crypto.com doing their one BTC test that's funny you can see it right here

so you can see everything and you can see it on chain and you can see the fund sent to the merchant and the burn completed and all of that stuff coinbase so some of the exchanges have done a really good job with proing Pro of exchanges like actually okx I think has done a great job with proof of uh proof of reserves coinbase actually doesn't um yeah they don't do that today the argument's always been some of those security for security reasons most right but I would hope that actually for a product like this they would do it I doubt they will because people trust coinbase enough and they have a trustworthy enough brand and I just don't think they'll do it but I would really as a user like to see them do it yeah yeah yeah but anyways no say I agree with your prediction every

exchange probably that has a custodian arble do this yeah um all right should we talk politics uh yeah well we don't have to we don't we definitely don't have to it's but what do you want to talk about the odds just flipping um the great flipping actually I wasn't even thinking about that it it has been funny seeing everyone say prediction markets are the next big great thing they're the greatest innovation in society since blah blah blah since sliced bread and then now that you know kamla is beating Trump on uh poly Market or I don't know if that's still the case because I haven't checked this week but people are like prediction markets are rigged they're a completely [ __ ] mechanism for charged yeah so uh it is possible right I mean I simply asked

the question that that if you if you've raised you know hundreds of millions of dollars for your campaign um it doesn't take much to move the market oh you think that they're putting you think that they're putting their foot on the lever here I mean it's I don't think it's a 0% probability but is it greater than 50 probably not but my argument it's reflexive right there's this Dynamic that if you're a voter and you see the odds you you really in favor of particular candidate then there's like this apathy component like I'm not going to vote because it's already a done deal right and so if you're a trump supporter and you see that the odds are now really

flipped marginally I think it influences certain people like this Dynamic around like voter apathy or just voters not not U voting for this reason I think is real and so it becomes this reflexive Dynamic right if you're uh in the campaign you put money in poly Market you bet on Cala that moves the odds from from 40 to 70 or something doesn't take much money to do that by the way in the grand scheme of things people are looking at that and be like it matters it's driving a conversation and the that I heard on my tweet was like you're an idiot bro polls have been a thing for a while I'm like I'm not talking [ __ ] polls you know it it is a prediction market so there's money on the line and that carries more

weight um and I think it it's far more influential than a poll there's more signal there arguably um so that was my point I mean I I think it uh and to say that like Po Market isn't is only like you know is not visible and only people in in crypto Twitter are paying attention is also not correct I mean the Wall Street Journal just is is referencing this data major news Publications are referencing this data on The Daily so whoever like I just want to push back on that criticism um so there is some possibility I still think prediction markets are good I mean I'm just saying it's funny that people thought it was the best thing since

sliced bread no one saying still it still is though like it's better than media it's better than polls I think it serves a purpose it's really good at quantifying outcomes at a large at a large enough size the problem is all these markets are too small like if you're saying that they're not that small yeah but if you're saying the campaign can just like move the market by like you know throwing a million bucks into it like that's a that's too small of a market the the counterargument to this is like a sophisticated Financial player might look at that and say okay this is clearly this is clearly a big actor trying to infl to play like this that has a non-economic incentive right they're willing to like burn this money so if you're a Savvy Financial

player you'd be like I see that and the odds has become juicier right and so you're going to bet on Trump now and the payoff is greater so that the market equilibrium should oh I you mean like there there is that's the Nuance here there is a party that might look at prediction markets and have a non-economic incentive like a state actor that is willing to burn that money so to speak and influence the odds because it may drive for for non-monetary reasons for driving the conversation and that becomes reflexive and has second order effects yeah but the in theory you should have Financial people that look at that and say okay the odds are clearly skewed

here yeah and we'll balance it out I would like to see more analysis on the transactions yeah um the size of the transaction the origin of the transactions here's the thing there's no way that the if the Harris campaign or the Trump campaign is there there there's no way they're sophisticated enough on chain to be able to hide hide that it was them so like I so we should we got to call up chainalysis here to figure this one out yeah yeah in theory here here's a weird societal question for you um do you think it should be legal to bet on yourself in a in a prediction Market I was thinking about that actually

people do it right boxers do it they bet against themselves or they bet no that's IL that's illegal is it I think I mean that's why Pete Rose got kicked out of the game of baseball boxing oh not boxing though I don't follow boxing I think in boxing like I remember like I think you can oh in baseball you certainly can't shess Joe Jackson rip I I think it depends on on the type of and the thing you're betting on right uh it doesn't feel right so because it technically gets to a more efficient market faster it technically gets the truth out into the public faster if you do that but it it you would have to disclose it maybe but

like like Biden before he stepped down well no is it a fair thing this would have gotten let like this would have is it is it fair for Biden to basically just put down a big old bet on himself that Biden was going to drop out because the fair market people would argue that like deregulation and fair market people would argue that yes it's totally fine for him to do that because it brings truth out into the light but then the you see the problem with it okay yeah I think there's a Nuance here like I'm looking at boxing allows it uh you can bet on yourself you can bet against yourself to hedge you're winning your purse um on a binary outcome you either you

win or you lose you're not allowed to bet on more discreet things like uh for instance uh the number of rounds you know you could you could still win and then you could you know you're going to win but if you bet you're there is going to be more than four rounds then you're going to drag it out and so that feels more easily manipul like easy to manipulate um the thing about like Biden in that extreme scenario he might like bet against himself for instance or for instance uh is the airdrop going to no different than like you work at a company there's these markets on is the airdrop going to happen before X date I don't think you should be able to do that because you can influence that or if you're betting then you have to

excuse yourself from that but if you're a decision maker you shouldn't be allowed to do that right I I it's a gray area for sure yeah I think it's but something something for me the scenario of a boxer win or lose doesn't feel as I have less issue with that unless of course like you'd be like do you care about your reputation do you care about your standing do you right uh that would be the counterargument like yeah if this is the last fight of the guy and he B against himself you know I mean like it might be I don't know uh if it's a repeatable game

in theory like people should uh should be able to do it but not on more discreet um not on more discreet things binary yes not discret but I don't know it gets to the heart of like Insider information and manipulation markets and all that stuff hey everyone Jason here I wanted to talk about something that's been on my mind a lot recently and that is where are all of crypto's killer apps we often ask this question on the show so I'm excited to tell you about Empire's latest partner a Noma the universal intent machine intents are a new way to build daps enabling users to say what they want without needing to specify how it's done let's say you have an nft on one chain but you want to swap it for a

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when you make your first deposit or purchase of $10 or more head on over to my prize.com invite Empire link will be in the description of today's episode all right let's get into the uh politics stuff so Alex Thor posted uh Alex Thorne shout out Legend head of research of galaxy new evidence that KLA Harris will continue crypto Crackdown her advisor choices suggest that she will keep Biden's hostile attitude to crypto Harris is working with Brian De and Barat ramu mury who are uh two key anti- crypto officials from the Biden admin and he posted this This Thread about it and um shout out Bloomberg I think had done this reporting

um uh for those who don't know so uh what's the guy's first name Brian De and um and and Barat are kind of two architects of the Biden administration's anti-crypto Crusade and specifically I think Barat was the like one of the main guys between behind chokepoint 2.0 so there was a lot of I mean like you know we we've tried to stay out of this um but like you know Mike posted what did Mike post I thought Mike said something pretty well I should have pulled this up beforehand this is really disappointing to see I don't care about political theater but appointments like this will have very real consequences to our industry I still can't I still believe the best out for I still believe the best outcome for

cryptos to be neutral but I can't ignore what's right in front of me um Ryan Sean Adams um said Barat Was An Architect of choke point 2.0 if kamla Harris populates her Administration with anti-crypto people like Barat her Administration will be anti- crypto it's that simple extremely disappointing but also a very clear message uh Nick Carter said Harris appears to war in 2.0 Barat equals it's over over um and then Austin Campbell who I think has had very clear um summaries of a lot of what's going on he said this is rather unfortunate but I'm forced to agree with Alex here if the Harris Administration is going to continue operation chokepoint 2.0 it's impossible to support them from an

ethical standpoint and I say that as a Democrat unless you believe administrations should be able to pick winners and losers to get banking access depending on their preferences this is a non-starter for me and if you do believe that you'll believe it's okay for a future Trump Administration to designate things like green energy producers in public sector unions as high-risk industries that should be debanked right I will say I personally don't believe this is okay just like I don't believe it's okay to be doing this to crypto at some point it's my hope that the US political scene returns to a belief in Civic Norms rather than unrestricted Warfare at all costs through the system that are hollowing out the rule of law and core rights of Americans and I mean that about all sides so um this is I mean you know I've been very optimistic

that the uh Democratic Administration Harris or whatever you want to call it would would come out and whether it's novag grats or uh Cuban or scaramucci or someone would have the sway to kind of show her that this is like why are you staying anti- crypto and I I I really was very optimistic that they would turn their stance and go pro crypto but yeah I mean this was this was pretty disappointing to see I'll say looks like a duck swims like a duck quacks like a duck probably is a duck it's a frog it's a frog it's a frog it's a frog uh yeah I don't know what else to say I

mean I I think um I've been surprised by the the odds and po market and predicted and even n silver um I've had a lot of conversations around it I think the market is is responding in real time to that and you know you read Arthur Hay's latest post you you know the sentiment is hey probably sit sit it out for a bit until the election kind of unfolds and then there's uh some relief rally uh mostly driven by monetary policy nothing more than that uh less so around the stance of a particular Administration towards the industry we've been in the current environment for a while and so

so you know I I go back to what I said in the last pod which is I think i' I've looked past whoever will win and I'm just more optimistic for the chevron case uh the peels back uh administrative hour to some extent uh I go back to court findings and rulings for particular crypto cases the ETF approvals that didn't happen and weren't easy it was a long road shout out to everyone that with like was involved but you basically had to sue to get this product out and I think that for that particular reason I think that the train sort of left the station this has become a a a uh a big industry

it's become an asset class in its own right you have Larry fins of the world uh supporting it believing in it and I think is it perfect no do we need to get we need Ru making who whoever comes a power we just need um the administ the we we need uh the legislative branch to put forth Ru making for this industry that is sensible um I hope that with the the chevron case now in effect that the people within the agencies that actually do the work actually draft these things that you can that there isn't enough of a road block

simply because it it's just time to have rules for an industry that is this big that has been around for such a long time and I think time is on our side so if you were to let me ask you a question how would you if you were to plot the degree of hostility towards crypto on a chart how would you how would you describe that graph what's the X and why what's the Y the the the the x-axis is time since Inception the y axis is hostility the greater you go there's more hostility from zero to 100 index so zero to 100

being you know this is no where are we and how will it go exactly um I think we're probably at like a 70 I I think there will be a I think for crypto to win and for bitco Co to win there will probably be a actually I think a lot of it depends on the selection there there could be I think there could be a massive Global like government level Crackdown that we've never seen before like like the like you know who didn't come after us this past cycle was the treasury right treasury can basically shut down self- custody um and so I think there's uh yeah I don't I don't think it's I think it's very possible that it

gets much worse um so you're saying we're at 70 where have we been before how does that line just what does the progression look like and I'm pressing on the progression of this line over time what could it what could it be what could it look like um I mean at one point in the United States they banned citizens from holding gold but 100 years ago they made all the citizens what was it act 60112 whatever it was called I think it was FDR or some someone around that time forced every single US citizen to walk over to the banks and or to the government agencies and to the credit or whever it was and turn it turn in their gold and they came and they tried to figure out if you were holding gold and you had you had to turn it all in right

um and at some point if Bitcoin becomes a threat to let's say Bitcoin becomes a threat to the US dollar um I mean you better believe they're they're banning Bitcoin they're they're they're making it illegal for US citizens to hold Bitcoin I I think that's a I'm not saying this Administration I'm just saying at some point I think I think that's a Poss that is by the way that has always been a risk that's why I care about the progression over time it's the marginal change that I care about and what drives markets it's not the the point in time it's a it's a mar it's a derivative what I'm saying is I think we've peaked and the more time I've always felt that the more time that we have for

this industry to grow naturally that comes down the the this is not like the hostility the hostility could still be very high the repercussion of that hostility I think the the more time we've had for this industry to grow that particular systemic risk that you described which is probably one of the biggest ones has come down I think it's just too big you can do it but it's too big and it's decentralized and you know China's tried to do this and India's tried to do this the US is different animal I get it but um it would be a big unwinding uh and I can't understand the incentive to do that with all the

kind of repercussion uh and so I would say the graph for me looks like hostility varying low 20 30 percolating the CES grows and then and then in the last couple years like much higher right uh choke point being the peak and I think that was the peak I think the the particular moments of ETF um the Ripple case um the uh the bitwise not the bitwise the grayscale case all of those were kind of the peak and now irrespective of the administration the the graphs going forward might look very different and that slope of decline might look very

different but even if it remains constant I I I just think it doesn't remain constant I think we've peaked and we're going down yeah interesting then the second chart is the potential impact of set hostility I think irrespective of the what makes what makes the us such a great democracy and the prob the best political system in the world is that the system works and it transcends a particular figure that is not the case in other places where a particular government official like the the three branches of government actually are very balanced and and that I think makes the US the most sound democratic syst in the world

where rule of law stands right and I don't think that's going away anytime soon yeah yeah I mean you see it even when the SEC comes down on someone yeah you have to spend a lot in legal bills but the courts challeng how many times have we said it in this podcast have faith in the courts if you if you've lost faith in the courts then you got problem got problem forget about crypto we got a bigger problem on our hands yeah so that's I don't want to I I want to as I said before I think we spend too much time thinking about government I think it's incredibly important I do agree with you I think this this particular election result is going to be very critical as to how that line progresses because it could be a very big decline as it sounds

with one Administration and it could be probably more of the same uh with another and it would be nice to have the former not the latter yeah okay Ian game time we had to do the 50-minute warm-up we say The Best For Last well we could also talk about shared sequencers but we can skip that but I am let piled um uh okay great reporting by Sam Kessler and Danny Nelson um coin does it again yeah um top crypto startup drove other projects airdrops to its employees so I'm just G to read some of the story some of the

highlights Ian Igan Labs circulated Igan Labs circulated a list of team members wallets addresses to igen lir ecosystem projects that were preparing to issue tokens some teams asked for it at least one didn't um so let me just read they have four bullets as like the highlights of the story Igan Labs the developer of reaking Juggernaut igen distributed a list of employee wallet addresses to ecosystem projects preparing to launch crypto tokens some teams said they asked igen labs for the list but one said it didn't and felt pressured by the company to send its employees tokens experts and insiders say the payouts worth nearly five million at Peak prices raise conflict of interest concerns um by by the way at

Peak prices it's like you know way way way down from that just to just to flag that igen labs and the nonprofit Igan Foundation have since banned such payouts to employees so on one side of the spectrum and I'm gonna ask you where you fall on this on one side of the spectrum is this is insane Behavior completely disgusting um shiram should be out of SE I'm look I'm going as far to left on this side of the spectum shiram should be out as CEO this is the second kind of like ridiculous ethical thing that they've done they've had some shady internal Behavior the operations are a mess like they botched the airdrop like igen layer like wow really blowing it on the other side I've seen people

say um I'd go so far as to go a step further and say AVS Builder should actually 100% give people who spend all day thinking about igen lay finan stake in the protocol to get their attention and bra brain power it's not so they sh your project or corrupted it's so they have an incentive to meaningfully contribute even if that contribution is [ __ ] on a design decision you made which makes you rethink how you're going about it so that's the other is it Mike no I'm not gonna call out who said this on it was someone on Twitter um no Mike is I would say Mike is as far to the former as you can Mike is Extreme and I'm on Mike's side I well to not without ruining the conversation like I

Mike is extremely disgusted by this is how I describe it amen yeah what do you think about this it's disgusting why so can you explain the this as as you see it yeah just give me give me your overview I there's a couple issues that I have with it um it presents a clear conflict of interest um when we had I want to go back to that interview we had with SH RAM and Calvin in January of 2022 I believe and one of the things that I press them the most on is how they would preserve security and make

decisions uh when you have all these abss because naturally people chase yield and they don't look at that and they could create some issues that was kind of the gist of the question and they said well we're going to have um some sort of Security Council and most of it you know people within Nan and then potentially other people outside the organization presumably hopefully and I that was the first thing that I thought when I saw this like okay well that's an issue um more so for Ian than perhaps any other other protocols an example would be imagine uh imagine uh um an investment Bank

they're going to take uh Facebook public JP Morgan whatever uh and you now all of a sudden Facebook grants all these options not to the investment bankers that are running the deal they clearly want this to be a huge success because their bonus depends on it but to the equity research analysts that are going to publish their price Targets on the stock you think that's a lot I mean no exactly uh I think it's class equal or something so it's not why because otherwise the analyst would say oh you know there there would be heavily influenced to be biased um a imagine has a risk team internally that determines the what

collateral gets on boarded and what are the parameters um and maybe some of the incentives that get allocated to that do you think it would be fair to have these particular team members get a huge airdrop of uh emerging protols would carry way more risk do you think that's not going to influence your decision yeah I mean I mean it will if you're an individual like employee yeah okay two examples and this is the exact same thing for this Security Council thing that's the thing I care most about these decisions around how you treat an ABS um is problematic to say the least um and particularly because I I think carries a lot of some more systemic it's a it's a

protocol that can that car carries more systemic risk than others I'm not saying that it would be n it would be equally or less sorry I'm not saying that if other protocols did it it would be less wrong to do so I just I just find it um yeah I just think it's it anyways that that was my biggest concern when I first saw this that makes sense yeah it does should any like action be taken should any like what's the what happens next in your mind well any individual that receives an airdrop should probably return it they don't want to return it then they should make it very clear and disclose it and

they should not be they should excuse themselves from any type of decision making that involves a particular treatment or of a of that particular ABS or just ABS in general or whoever right if there's going to be a decision around a particular proposal program or whatever you should excuse yourself from that I think personally yeah I don't know if I'm um yeah it doesn't it doesn't sit well um I could see a lot of counterarguments and I'm trying to play those out of what people might say is like oh you know like investors that might have an in

like an investor in igen and then this other company that did the air drop they're going to vote on chain and you know they can you know they have a clear you know interest in these two protocols and they can drive some of that decision and a it's a fair point like I don't think we figured out governance all that well um but when you have these incentives um I think it starts getting complicated or especially when it's not properly disclosed yeah and I and I I think that's probably the solution and the answer to all of this is just just the disclosure around

it yeah that's my recommendation I think more so like blockworks has a you can like you can Google blockworks financial disclosures and anyone who writes content or creates content like our entire research team me Mike any podcast host any of our writers um there's Financial disclosures so anything that we own that's over $5,000 is on that sheet nfts that we own um liquid assets public ass uh equities related to crypto Bitcoin eth Etc it's actually all on that and that's historically always been a media company thing but just because there's so much like Angel Investing and cross like things and there's tokens

like I I I don't know I really actually do think that like it doesn't need to be mandatory but it wouldn't be the worst idea to have more more dis ures than other Industries is what I'd say here's what's going to be the sign for all this the response and how they respond I think is going to tell you you know sometimes when you do things the operating assumption should be If This Were to surface and everyone would know about this particular deal would I feel comfortable and I think that is always served as a moral compass to any decision that you make and I think you might be wondering what a particular employee that was on that

list and how they're feeling right now in the wake of this surfacing to light and maybe they don't have any problem with that maybe they can come up with a very rational solution we're doing a lot of work and you know maybe that is the answer and that's fine for them but I think that is that is the question that I think you should be you should ask yourself right if you in that position how would you feel of it came public of a particular offer that you get and it goes back to I think in crypto often times I mean why iess I guess the counter would be why does it matter that it was to particular individuals what if the company got him maybe we arguably

wouldn't have gotten as much of uh blowback right or or you know outcry I mean there are countless of examples of protocols being incentivized to deploy in a different chain right right do we have a problem with that well you know it's an incentive right it's uh it's but it seems more clear I think the issue is that it's more clear it's very out in the open it's like hey CRV is bribing with this oh let's see what happens um it's very open that I think that's the issue that's the Nuance okay so I I thought about this so much because SPF the SPF and um so SPF funded the block with $40 million you remember that he' given give

a loan to one of the the acting CEO to the CEO Mike mcaffrey and actually and people might give me [ __ ] for this that in and of itself is not like illegal or wrong like I mean it's wrong but it's not the worst thing in the world there's a lot of media companies that are kind of funded by billionaires Mark Benny off in time Bezos in Washington Post Henry and Boston Globe it's that you didn't share it publicly that's the problem I mean and SPF was a scammer and all that kind of stuff and they got treatment but like just disclose it just say it and if you're and and like this is what Mike and I always talk about if you're worried

about disclosing it it probably means you're doing something wrong it's just what I said but a better way a clear way to say it just yeah I think in the abundance of caution it's uh you just disclose it yeah like okayy there's all these projects that are building an i again we by the way received uh some air drops you know actually thinking about this I I think we're gonna add we should add um not not not we in the you and me we as in Block workor should add people's private Angel Investments to this disclosure doc because that's not on there too I don't know I think I'd like to for sure I mean you have research components so absolutely yeah yeah um look every time this has

been and I hope we do this right way here like you know when we have teams on when we talk about a particular project you know first of all nothing is financial advas second of all there is clear bias so you disclose it right like I'm an investor in we just had Mega E I'm an investor in Mega E it's one of the first things you say right I'm an investor in skyra I'm an investor in so many different now you could look at that and say I don't want to listen to this guy because he's clearly biased he's shelling his back I'm like I mean but then what's the argument you can't have them on the pot well I want to share because I think they're building interesting things real use cases and whatever if you want to if you I think there's you're never going to convince

that those people but that's not going to stop me from bring in really good Founders that I've had the you know that you and I or whoever have invested in because they're going to come on and I think it's worthwhile for them to share the story whatever so but I think you you always disclose it I think yeah so yeah it will be interesting uh if you're an investor and I get how do you handle something like this I'd like to really understand the decision making process of who signed off and you know what was the reason not to disclose it yeah and because I you have to pass from

checkpoints right if you're going to get an airdrop in particular like if you're going to get some sort of compensation outside of your work compensation you have to disclose it in most contractual employment agreements and so someone up the chain should have uh knew about it and I think if you come from a traditional background of like you know HR and legal like this would have had to be disclosed so they probably knew about it and then I think it would have been probably wise whoever that person was to um maybe think about publicly you know

making certain disclosures that if and if uh whoever that person that probably has some gray hair on them I think it's on them they're on the chopping block if I'm an investor if I'm on the board I'd be like yeah that person needs to probably go I don't know maybe I'm being too harsh but I don't I don't think so no no no I think this is very serious situation I I I don't think and I think there's more teams who have done this who are now really R getting things under WS probably right now um again these are some things that we need to bring more um transparency and just com there are certain rules in the traditional

world that are really good and they're there for reason and they apply here too and there's no reason why you think they shouldn't because you're creating some novel piece of technology like that has nothing to do with that yeah so it's always worth to uh hire good Council I know sometimes it's expensive and whatnot but uh you know it's really important cool yeah and like transparency and I think like sometimes these the problem uh at times is like you go back to FTX like it was a club deal there's no lead and so no one's really negotiating terms and information disclosures really important yeah someone board composition is very

important and not for the reason you want to be nagging the founder but for the reason you want to be there to support him because sometimes like investors act as a sounding board so who's on the board of Ian you know like I I think that is something that should be like that these are some of the things that like investors can really help you in that um as a as a sounding board for some of these things yeah you want to discuss shared sequence or do we call it oh man what about him I saw your tweet that was pretty Savage man I was I was proud I was like that's my boy I was like fist air fist pumping I didn't even I didn't even think I was roasting I got some messages being like

what the [ __ ] man like why you got why you gotta come at us with that I was like I was promise you I was not thinking of you like as the saying goes Jana woke up that day and he chose chose Islands chose Island so I'll give people the tldr the tldr is that uh rousi who's the founder of movement Labs tweeted all sequencer companies are going to zero uh tldrs that shared sequencing base sequencing Etc as are all going to zero as focused value props as a B2B model these ideas make no sense one there are only five to six rollups worth attracting and if there are five to six shared sequencing groups again this is all rushi is not what I'm saying if there are only five to six shared sequencing groups there's simply no

Market to justify ventur scalable companies two those five to six rollups are all working on their own sequencing implementation for their respective networks orbit super chain move Collective Etc and three 99.99% of the population does not understand nor does not care um nor care so um then he said the sequencing debacle boil is done to this everyone wants their own chain everyone believes they'll be the L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 to roll them all it makes no sense to design architecture around a singular chain because the endgame is just multi-chain not in a corny way but it is BAS will coexist with salana which will coexist with arbitrum whether you like it or not

teams are incentivized to launch their own chains to build their own ecosystems to for better Financial outcomes deal with it that's just the truth I think this is net healthy as competition over time will weed out the top four to five chains just like in web to for websit drink.com bubble now that we okay I mean this is a very long post I'm not going to read it all we can link it but that that that that's that's the gist so what do you think well first of all we had rousi and I'm an investor in movement Labs so did you not disclose that at the beginning of the episode slumpty disclosing it now I'll disclosing in that episode by the way um but I I agree with that I think people should go and listen to the Pod with Anil from Rome

protocol um and with Astria and espressor from like a year ago actually right yeah so I think the vision for some like Rome which I'm also an investor uh is is is great in that like he actually says and I talked to him when I saw that post he said this is exactly why we've gone and in our vision is just more than shared sequencing and I think what he's getting out there is the point that rushi is making which is the size of the market it's not like Venture scale um and for instance Rome is using salana and leveraging that Network in security for the sequencing um whereas the other implementations are Tre creating their own network from scratch and bootstrapping bootstrapping

that um and that's more complex um and yeah I think the the the biggest point that I think rousi made in there was it might work it's just the um is it a venture scale type of outcome yeah and you might say Hey listen the for context the sequencing is incredibly valuable they capture me and so you know as these things continue to grow then that could be pretty lucrative but it depends right if you're sharing that and who what's the networ look like and you know it depends yeah so I have a take that has nothing to do with sequencers which is that if you meet the founders of a lot of these shared sequencer companies and the teams they're actually

some of the best teams in all of crypto so whether that's an Neil at Rome or Josh at Astria or Jill um at espresso and Ben Fish from espresso like just you know I know all three of those teams very well Ben was like a gigabrain from Stanford J was it at a venture fund um before that uh uh what's the other guy's name from Josh from austri yeah Josh was at Celestia before that and I I I just think like Sheard sequencer or not like I think people are I think all first off all of them understand what rousi is saying like I don't think any of them read ri's post was like

oh oh my God like that's that's the truth of shared sequencers like oh crap we don't have a business model like they understood this a year and a half ago um and I just think a lot of their thesis is like there's a lot shared sequencing is about cordinating block production uh block coordin excuse me block coordinate block con yeah block construction across chains um there's like the role of coordinating block construction there's a lot more that you can do with it that's not being done right now and I think a lot of them will end up doing things around it whether that's building a marketplace around it or uh selling temporary sequence or rights or what whatever it is like they're some of the best Founders out there right now say if if you sit at the heart of that see you

will figure out a good business model well it's it's a big mode and then you can capture a lot of value in the same with it if you're running a share a single sequencer like we're going to publish the episode with the mega eth team we talk about this too like it's uh We've go listen to the episodes with stepen from arbitrum as well the single sequencer like there's a lot of value there that's like what captures the me and so yeah I would I would agree with that last statement you just said which is if you if you can create that Network you can build other stuff on top of it and I would actually argue if we had rousi and uh you know Ben and Jill and anneal they would probably kind of all agree on that maybe maybe not yeah I think they would end up agreeing more

than people think exactly that that's yeah and I think that's a good way to end it yeah I started watching industry and it is not the right show to watch before bed it's like so actually so [Music] um this guy I know who worked who was a Trader at Goldman for a while said it's the most reflect it's the show that most reflects what it was actually like to be a Trader um at you know in like at at Goldman you know 15 20 25 even yeah like 15 20 years ago um it's I think set in like 2007 or 2008 so what was that 15 years ago um so it's not like a Wall Street in the 80s Show it's like it's like a Goldman whatever in 2007 2008

2009 2010 and uh so I started watching it I watched episode one has too stressful to watch before bed I was like I was like I was very much like worked up trying like kind of remembering like my trying to get this internship at Goldman and trading yeah I know one of the guys in the first episode I'm just going to ruin it for people he dies from taking too much Aderall and drinking too much red bull because he's trying to turn a deck for a client who doesn't even show up for the meeting you know that's space t story right yeah Bank of America analyst unfortunately and that was uh I was I was a first year Analyst at the time and then that's why they created this protected policy where protected weekend policy I think once a month you had a weekend protected you couldn't be

emailed from the time you left the office Friday I think you had to leave at 700 or 8:00 p.m. and you couldn't be email until it's like Sunday at like noon oh but that is not that does not exist at most places no no it does protect weekend yeah it was a thing because of this problem was so I try to like of course like I'm like well [ __ ] see y' had like the we working up 100 hour weeks plus like but it was good like you know it was just whatever I think it was like the last class of like true Investment Banking I guess um so towards the end of it we had like this protected week and we're like oh this new classes need to get so much better the problem with this policy is fine you leave Friday you're like I'm I getting

an email you enjoy Saturday but you just know when that Sunday no comes Rock oh yeah you just that blueberry that Blackberry you that Blackberry light that just gonna go off like a Christmas tree yeah jigle Bells when I lived in when we moved to New York how many guys we put so Mike and I both went to Emory together and we put five people The Ivy of the South am I mistaken what is this the ivy of the South oh the ivy of the South exactly exactly yeah that's emry baby that's emry football team that's never been defeated because it never played because it never played um bu

doesn't have a football team either really so I grew up in in outside of San Francisco and I was like yeah I'm going to Emery nobody had heard of it nobody so I I like being on the East Coast where people actually know what Emory is um so we yeah we Mike and I the only two of our friends who didn't go into IB and uh just because that was like what you did at coming out of Emory so we yeah we lived with um one guy at evercore one guy Guggenheim and one guy at JP Morgan and they they they were just never home they were just it was amazing Mike and I just had the place to ourselves play our it was great so industry no good I I watched I started watching House of rewatching House of Cards great show great show just just feels right it's I

mean you remember it was the first show ever to drop it all at once yeah yeah it was so good and they looked straight in the camera created just this new genre you're like whoa wait a minute you [ __ ] [ __ ] looking at me looking at me yeah awkward but then it was amazing I don't want Kevin spy to talk to me yeah I know certainly not now I did watch the Kevin spy documentary like oh really putting that aside I know going to come at me cancel me all you it's like listening to Michael I'm like I still listen to it's still a great show and so you know I'm watch I watched that I watched the uh what was another one oh it was uh cartel Cowboys on

Netflix it's uh let me see I think Cowboy cartels or Cowboy cartels that's really good you ever watch about Naros well is I think it's by the same producer Naros and it's basically like how they dismantle the this one of the deadliest uh drug organizations which actually was very problem in my where I grew up which was actually really bad um and uh because they were buying all these horses in the US and like the one of the brothers of the cartel guys was living in Texas and like where did you grow up uh Monterey Mexico and Mexico City but Mo most of it this North Northeast city in Mexico like I spend large part of my

childhood there did you go to high school in the in Mexico yeah in there American School but it was um at this point I've lived most of my life in the US actually why is your English so good if you grew up in Mexico because I'm a [ __ ] Savant shut the [ __ ] up no F no not really I'm a lizard brain funny enough no no no no funny funny enough a lot of we got to make the intro of this episode like just s i a [ __ ] saon oh God that's gonna come bite me in the ass so hard um I made it a point to to not have an accent actually consciously really uh yeah yeah of course I mean I I I spent so much time

in the US but like when I went to college I probably still have marginal accents I mean I went to an American school and high like Middle School and High School most of the classes nine out of 10 are English and then you have one hour of Spanish but most of my friends uh they went to school like you know Harvard NBA Stanford they still have an accent I'm like guys why do you have an accent like you've been living here like they're like what do you mean I'm like you know you have an accent like [ __ ] use your iPhone like listen and for me it was just really important uh to perfect the language H you know I mean like you can you can perfect something like get rid of the accent you know yeah uh not neutralize it like you know I still have an accent

maybe it's a Northeastern maybe it's a I don't know some Hodge pod or whatever but it's elite it's elite n Elite oh God yeah come at me come at this is I I I I I'm GNA be reading these um got get shredded shreded this we you'll see me Sunday night crawled up in my bed sh reading the comments uh I haven't tried learning a new language I think it's might be too late in life but I don't see the incentive now that I moved here like I don't want to learn French but I just think with AI is gonna get so freaking good that like you're it's no no need I

just don't see the point plus like there are languages that you can learn I think if you date if your significant other speaks another language I think that's the strongest incentive to learn it yeah but uh am in the case yet all right good pod good pod good pod sir good pod well uh is that it for the week no you have tomorrow we're recording another yeah we're doing da guys we we have some good apps coming out Mega eth we've got keone and Smokey come out this Tuesday uh founder of monad smokey founder of bear chain come out on Tuesday we had a really good episode with Jeremy aair one of my favorites favorites we've recorded in months um great episode of Jeremy aair so stay tuned for when are we gonna

have uh Brian Armstrong from coinbase is that happening next week that's I think I think the condition that he put to us is once one of us goes bald and uh I'm not doing it so next week right yeah next week awesome all right folks thanks for thanks everyone for listening enjoy the rest of the summer I guess see you thanks for watching today's episode just wanted to quickly mention that the wait for crypto's killer app wve is nearly over thanks to today's sponsor anoma the universal intent machine to stay up to date with anoma you can follow them at x.com anoma or sign up for the newsletter at ana. net thanks again to anoma for sponsoring today's episode

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