We're Still In A Bull Market | Weekly Roundup

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There is more tailwind behind crypto adoption than there has ever been in the history of our industry. And I think there was a title of a podcast that Santi and I did earlier in the summer that was said, "It's a bull market, just not the one you want." And it seems like that still is true, right? It is a bull market, just not the one people want. >> This episode is brought to you by Block Damon. You'll hear more about them later in today's episode. Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is forformational purposes only. And the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial

advice or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests, and the Blockworks team may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the roundup. We got the trio back in action. We got Rob, we got Santi. Summer's over. Santi's throwing up gang signs. We don't know what it means, but everyone's feeling good, looking good, busy. What's What's going on, Santi? What's up, Rob? >> We're cooking. How's it going, guys? >> Listen, it's it's middle September in New York, and it's still 85 degrees. Got nothing to complain about. >> Yeah, and we're all just inside like 14 hours a day.

>> So, I So, uh, update for longtime Empire listeners, you'll be excited to hear we are pivoting the podcast. We are going to be moving the show onto pump and uh the and uh changing it from a podcast into just open sourcing the inversion board meetings. >> Yes. >> Fun part is Sante and Rob don't know this is happening but this will be I thought this would be the more entertaining version. >> We got to turn every opportunity into a revenue opportunity. Every minute, every customer, every prospect needs to be monetized. So we're going to >> number go up. >> Number go up. >> Entire token.

>> Yes. Exactly. Some of these creator coins have done pretty good actually. Like you know 40 million on on the FDV basis. They're not like you know the runners but they're doing okay. So can help fund an acquisition maybe. >> Yeah. Dudas is like a million bucks right now. >> God damn. So So all How does how do the economics work? I I need to seriously go spend some time. I mean it's already midnight over here, but you best believe I'm going to be up till 6:00 in the morning trying to figure out how to monetize my my board meeting. >> We should do live. There's literally these two guys who are like just standing in the corner of a room together with lampshades on their heads like they were like lamps and just stood there for hours and their token ripped to like 30 million bucks. So this

is how >> I mean this is an exact replay of what happened 18 months ago. I mean but it's going to we know how this ends. People are going to be >> someone's gonna have a gun cocked to their head on pump again. >> To be fair, I think they're aware of that going in and content moderation is going to have to be a thing, right? But it's it's hard, right? you got to climb down on it in real time. >> Yeah. Um >> on this point, like real quick, like don't you find it some sometimes like when you're having a really heated discussion with someone about like what drives value like the memecoin discussion that we had like one or two years ago like November two years ago where it was trying like or January of like two years ago and you go and you

hear folks like Chris Dixon be super against memecoins and and it's like okay you peel it all back like what is it like what drives value? It's an it's an attention economy. And so I get that you might be against people like being on the internet and documenting their lives like reality TV, Jersey Shore, Kim, the Kardashians, but how is that any different from marketing spend to drive a consumer action to buy a product? Like it's really not right. And so if you boil it all down, it just can you capture attention? And that capturing attention just becomes harder and harder in this economy. And so honestly, I give I hand it to people that are good at it.

whether you agree with their content or the way they do it, as long as it's principled, I don't have a problem with it. >> Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with you. I think um you know, the way they are doing the creator uh economics like I think that's positive. I think it's I I actually think they announced some new content moderation >> um kind of policies like I know it's on top of their mind. It's pretty clear to me that, you know, this is streaming a lot of different types of things or streaming and live streaming more broadly. I think Yano, you talked about this when we talked about Pump maybe a couple months ago, but live streaming is the future, I think, in a lot of ways.

You know, TBPN, let's just look at what that business has done. Um, and congratulations, by the way, to Dylan, uh, becoming president of TBPN. So, >> nice new role. >> Yeah, >> nice new role for him. I I actually think TVPN should uh should sell right now. I think I think they're see you see this so much in media that there's a it's actually you you can kind of catch fire with the media company in the beginning and you can get these like crazy overvalued multiples um if you're like lightning in a bottle and they have lightning in a bottle right now and then if like by bringing on Dylan now they have to be build like a real business like they're doing like five million in revenue it's not like a real business it's like it's a fun play thing for a couple people but I I think TVPN should

sell is my take. You hear that? Five million dollars of revenue out there. Fun play thing for a couple people. Not a real business. >> You heard it from Jason. >> Okay. Y I'm I'm just gonna bring back this question over to you because you're a media guy. You've been building this uh empire uh like quite literally Block Works. How do you think about what's going on? You see some like Pump and live streaming and is that relevant to your business? Like do you like do you think about it? Like was that a missed opportunity for you guys? Do you still think it's an opportunity for you guys? Like how do you think about it? Um I don't I don't think it's a missed opportunity. I think it's a thing that we are going to I we are very excited about live streaming. I think kind of

the endgame of uh social distribution of audio and video is two sides of the spectrum. You have live streaming and you have short clips. And I think there's a reason why people are so I've given TBPN a little [ __ ] but like they they have figured out the model. That is the model. Thread guy. Thread guy is the model. Um and you'll see that model like right now I think people could list only two people doing it well. TBPN and thread guy. Give it give it 12 months. There'll be hundreds of these in all the different areas, longevity and tech and finance. And um I I do think the 60-minute podcast that we do has a role in consumption. But I I actually think we will look back in 5 years and like the 60-minute podcast will be seen as outdated. It'll be seen as like a little

like millennial boomer to just be like listening to a 60-minute podcast. I mean, we are uh millennials, so that makes sense. >> But also, like, so what are we going to do? What's the future of Empire then? >> We're getting on pump, baby. No, we're I mean, we are we're building up uh all of the backend capabilities at Block Works right now to go really heavy into live streaming and short clips. So, like right right now, I'd give us like a Dminus job of of short clip. Like, we like maybe put out one short clip for an episode. It doesn't really get viral. We sometimes live stream, we sometimes don't. And it doesn't feel super organic. Like that's just that's like very we're like a very MVP right now for what that looks like at Block Works, but eventually it will prol proliferate

across the the the network. >> What's like the winning handbook if there is one for live streaming? Like what's a half-life? How do you sustain it? Like like what is it like speed or what's his name like IM speed? That guy just kind of blew up. >> Yeah. >> He's he's maintained that. How do you like what is the secret formula of success for live streaming? I think people could say that there's a um yeah, there's like a speed like time to the news or it's uh you know, you want to be in the background hanging out with someone every day like they you know, you're kind of the second screen. Um, but I I basically just think it comes down to who's the creator and who's the host. And the dream for us at Block Works, like I look at one business, which is Barcel Sports. And I think they

did such a good job of bringing all the different creators and hosts together. And it's actually an extremely hard back-end job. Like Erica, um, their president, and Stu, their COO, and even Portoi, like the thing that they've mastered that other people don't understand is they have two really amazing, uh, abilities, which most people in the world don't have. They can spot talent super early, right? Right? So, they can find someone with 2,000 followers and be like, "That person's going to rip." And then they can figure out how to uh economically incentivize them to stay at Barto Stool for a very long amount of time. And if you can figure out those two things and and you can keep uh control of the RSS feed and the IP, um that's that that's how you build the future media business. It's not like you need it's uh it's very

creatorled. So, that's what that's how we try to think about it. >> We should talk about prediction markets in this episode. Um, we've talked about predict like is there a scenario where you over like you combine live streaming with prediction markets? >> That's the that's the model. Yeah. Then yeah, exactly. It's not just it's just it's not just prediction markets. It's uh it's all markets by the way. I think it's um >> like you look at the FOMC like that was just live streaming for adults. Like that was fantasy football game. That was that was a prop bet. You know, will uh you know this person run for a touchdown on the next run? like that was that that was that but for 50-year-old men um and and women of course but that's uh that was like I don't know you look at live streaming I think people look at live

streaming as like just this Twitter kind of native thing or Twitch or you but it's uh it's you actually start seeing the exact same behavior and mechanism show up all the time like I'm watching the US Open I mentioned this I think on the last episode or with maybe it was maybe it was with the Kyle episode but watching the US Open just texting friends being like Djokovic is going to get the next shot >> I bet you five bucks I bet you five bucks Jookov wins this point right here. What What is that? That's kind of you're watching the live you're watching a live stream of something plus you're kind of betting like that. That's where that's where this goes. >> Well, I think that the the the component of the attention piece is when you introduce value into the equation like like like money on the line like people

are just more invested and pay more attention. So, it brings back like um that into higher engagement. Uh maybe last question here. Um, are you more bearish traditional media companies, Disney's of the world that just haven't really caught up to this? Um, I was like, uh, just reminded there's like a new, uh, show on Netflix where it was like, I think it's adolescent or something, which I think they there's like every episode they practice for such a long time, weeks on end, but it's just like one shot. Like there's no edits. They apparently they just kind of filmed it all.

>> I don't know if you know this, but I found it like deeply fascinating. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I I mean, never bet against someone like Disney. Disney will figure it out. Many of the um Disney will figure it out. Many of the traditional publications like the financial news outlets you read, the traditional mainstream mainstream media folks wig it out. Um what I do think though that is not obvious to others is that I I do think all of them will have a prediction market. I do think many of them will have a prediction market embedded inside of their platform whether that's through either Kshi or Poly market APIs or whatever that is like I I think it's very likely you'll see CNN have the CNN prediction market in a year from now Fox will have the Fox you know the Fox

business prediction market in a year from now >> you you know it's funny um we were talking about this what actually got me excited about Polyarket when I decided to to make that investment was Um, if you remember Sam Alman got fired, you know, like two years ago now, >> right? >> And he got fired on a Friday and he, you know, got reinstated on a Monday and I I don't know about your group chats, but my group chats, that's all everybody was talking about that whole weekend. >> Yeah. >> And, uh, Poly Market had a a it had a market on whether or not he would be in reinstated that was actually the most volume they had ever done, not in an election market by that time. It was it was dimminimous by like current

standards of how much poly market is doing but and I realized in my group chats that's everybody was talking about it. They were like, "Oh, is this happening?" And they were talking about, "Oh, we should we bet on Poly Market about it." Um, and that was when the light bulb clicked for me that, you know, and it definitely later than for a lot of other people who invested in Poly Market and others, but the light bulb really clicked for me then that, you know, this is something that is going to actually be a social platform. Like it is not just an economic one or a financial one. It is social, right? And so when you know, I get asked by um LPs like, "What categories do we invest in?" And often they'll say like, "Oh, do you invest in social?" And I'll say well you

know maybe we haven't done Forecaster but I consider Poly Market an inherently social investment in a social platform and you know I consider that you know the the um social investment that we have in in that fund. >> Yeah. >> I'll overlay some commentary because um I was at Pari and we did the the seed round. I think Parafi is the largest second largest owner now poly market. I think it's probably going to be I was talking to Ben the other day one of our best investments but it was more around uh at that time I think it was 2020 2021 it was um markets are arbittors of truth and so you know you can infer way more knowledge from a market versus a political pundit you know and this was on the back of like the election where

to people totally miss Trump winning that election you're like you're sen you're like what did the Nate Silvers of the world get wrong and you're like hey if you had a prediction market on that like it'd probably be a better signal if you have all that money on the line. Um, but yeah, I know it's it's become a social phenomenon for sure and I I think I'm really excited. It's probably one of those categories where it's super relatable for people and it's onboarding so many people. And >> what was what was the valuation of that deal? Do you remember >> uh like uh like low? >> Well, I'll tell you what, not to >> I I asked that because I think there was some some stuff got leaked. It was either this week or the end of last week. I think it's Poly Market's raising

it like I don't know the real numbers. 5 to 10 or something >> was like 5 to nine. Koshi's like Koshi's five, Poly Market's at 9. I don't know. It's not confirmed. I'll tell you it was at a time where Augur had not been successful. And it's a classic example for anyone that's interested in investing in technology and like you could have sat there and said, "Hey, Augur was not successful, so this is definitely not going to be successful." The reality is it pays to rewrite the thesis under new circumstances. And yeah, you can laugh sitting there all day long. this time's going to be different, but credibly like Augur didn't work for a number of reasons that we can talk about here. My main diagnosis is you didn't have a stable coin and if you can't settle the bet on a stable coin, it's just it's just

really noisy, right? Imagine if you put 30 ETH on the line and then all of a sudden ETH crashes 80%. It it hurts to to be right and then lose money. But uh poly market I think got it was just different scenario where you had stable coins and that was a big part of re-underwriting our thesis because we had exposure to augur. I had done the augur ICO and you know you you could just be licking their wounds. But I think it the question is what are some of the other sectors that didn't work last cycle that are really going to work? Maybe it's gaming, maybe it's NFTTS, maybe it's a combination of that, right? And so I think it just pays to rewrite the thesis um and and obviously worked for us in a very big way. has worked.

>> I think to your point, one point to make like very clear there is stable coins, you know, we're all invested, I think, in stable coin stuff and and and I think Dragonfly has been very publicly invested in a lot of stable coin things, but stable coins are also, to your point, the enabler of other types of financial markets and financial ecosystems on chain, right? if you don't have a dollar denomination or you know some sort of you have to take a lot of FX risk to your point or ETH price risk to your point it's just much harder to do financial activity in any real way over any long period of time on chain and so I actually think like you know stable coins are at the you know infrastructure layer for a lot of the things that you now need to rewrite or a

lot of things that you now need to rethink about will exist on chain so I think that was actually a very astute point you just made because it it now applies I think to many many other assets has many many other verticals in the space. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. One of the I'll just say one thing which is I heard it from one of the best investors and and it's just stuck with me forever which is anytime you remove friction from a system it unlocks nonlinear consumer behavior the internet e-commerce and then stable coins I think are that primitive for like from e-commerce to gaming to everything in the middle like it's just it's just explosive and I think I think we're just scratching the surface of what is going to be possible here across 30 plus networks and 180 endpoints block Damon Earnstack unites staking and DeFi into a

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All right, we got a lot to cover. I want to just get your guys' gut sense on. So, we just had FOMC this week, and the markets are going a little crazy, right? Bitcoin's up 3%, um, ETH is up like five or six%, soul is up like 10%. And yeah, the coins are running. So, um, I just wanted to get your It's a It's It's one of the most torn I've ever seen the market in terms of like what what people's sense of the market is. I got had lunch with, um, a big investor who's in from Asia yesterday. He said, "We're not even halfway through this cycle." He said, "This we're not even halfway.

We're lo we're loading up the tank, levered up." The next person's like, "We just started trimming everything except for Bitcoin." The next meeting is like, "I'm going public via Spa." like it is uh it is the most torn and then I think you've got people like you know who who these influencers that people follow really closely people like Anom who have had who have had some really good calls basically saying like we've topped I think that is kind of I don't know if you guys have seen Anom's takes recently but Anom is basically saying like this this is it this is the last time to sell at 115 pack it up we're going home um you've got I was looking at uh open interest uh altcoin OI is greater than Bitcoin OI for the first time all year actually since the January local top.

Um, and yeah, there's just a just oi oi in the alts is getting really high which is kind of a sometimes a telltale sign, but just want to get I know we're all long term here, but I do want to get your sense of like just short shorter term markets and how you guys are feeling about things. >> Yeah, I'll start again. And we're not traders to your point and you know I don't exactly know what will happen or I definitely don't exactly know what will happen over the last month or or next month or the month after that. Um I think if you zoom out again and we've talked about this a bunch like there is more tailwind behind crypto adoption than there has ever been in the history

of our industry. There is the Genius Act. There is Clarity Act and some sort of reconciliation. I was at a a fundraiser for a senator uh a month ago who said, "I will guarantee that we will get some sort of Clarity Act reconciliation done in October." Now, you know, that's a politician and I don't know if that's actually true, but this this person was willing to put their reputation at this fundraiser on the line, right? There's at this time right now more Fortune 500 and more institutions, more businesses building on blockchain rails than ever before.

There are more of these people that have RFPs out to integrate blockchains and crypto and stable coins in their businesses than ever before. Like these things are happening. like it is not it's not as if we can just like you know I think put it to the side and act as if it's 21 all over again because it's not you're actually seeing seeing real economic flow exist on chain right and so it really I really struggle with a lot of this like oh this is the last time you'll ever be able to sell 115 because I mean clearly you know people who say things like that are are really it's about just pandering to an audience right and like continuing to increase

you know the amount of engagement but it's when I look at this from the outside in it's hard for me to say anything other than we are getting what we want right I think there was a title of a podcast that Santi and I did earlier in the summer that was said it's a bull market just not the one you want and it seems like that still is true right it is a bull market just not the one people want and so you know it's funny to your point like I was on the phone with him one of the smartest liquid uh fund investors um that I know of in the entire space earlier today. And that person was like, "Oh yeah, we have two months. Two months from now, like you got to be out of of the market, right?" And I asked them why and they

like they're like, "Oh, just like kind of flows and you know, like macro and you know, etc." And it's all like very wishy-washy. And it seems like people like want the market to fall out underneath them. Like it's like all of these pessimists who just aren't used to winning, right? You know, it's like then they're like, "Oh, like this has to go wrong, right? And then I don't think it is going to go wrong if you have the right you know like longevity >> that actually encaps encapsulates so well I think what's hap the market's in this spot where every everything is actually doing well but there are so many people wanting to buy a dip right people are constantly more than I've ever seen calling tops even taking profits and trying to almost ensure that prior cycles never really happen right like like that these excess greed never

really happens and there's these little pockets of greed but once that starts it's happening. Everyone's like, "No, no, no, no, no. Take profits." Um, and that is not the sign of a top. I'm just going to say that is Bitcoin's at all-time low volatility. Like, after almost one year of consolidating around 100K, like that's that's not that's not how something tops. Um, I'm just I'm just going to say that >> there's to overlay what Rob and you guys have just so true, which is there's only one thing that people hate more than losing money, and that's seeing someone else make more money than you have, and that gets to you. And I think that's a bit of the dynamic that you're seeing.

I mean, important note, I've never met anyone that can systematically mar time markets. Not in crypto, not in any other market. So, if you're led to believe that they are calling all the tops, then they're deleting tweets, ladies and gentlemen. So I think the reality is the way I see it and I you know again I'm not a trader is Bitcoin is holding its ground in this range above 100 and that's giving room to for that wealth creation rotate into other stuff and you also have this phenomenon called DATs and you're seeing incredible amount of um buy pressure right you have the forward um uh vehicle buying over what is it now 5 billion of soul in the open market like they're very well

telegraphed buys in the market. >> Yeah. >> Um and that was all all cash and so you know not all doubts are created equal but um yeah it's it's um again of course uh Jerome Powell and and Jensen Huang are the two most important characters that you should be paying attention to. And if any of those two guys have a bad day, you best believe Krypto is going to take a hit. But, you know, it's uh I I continue to believe that this setup is is unlike anything we've seen before to Rob's point. And um you know, of course, macro and and AI can really derail this industry because it's risk on. But um I I continue to believe there there's a lot of room to grow. Um and you know, I

I'm I'll go as far as saying if people want a prediction for me, we have a bit more than two months. It's it's at least six months, I would say. Mhm. >> Rob's like, "Why are we talking about specific months here?" >> I mean, you said you were like, "I will go so far as to say a bit more than two months." That was going out on a limb here. Like a big like proclamation like, "Oh, like Bitcoin will be 250k in a year," you know, and you're like, I got a bit more than two months. >> Yeah. I was I was in CNBC earlier today and they and then I I was with >> you CNBC >> India though. So to be fair, I'm I'm starting I'm starting the minor leagues, ladies and gentlemen. But >> that's okay. I did CNBC Crypto World yesterday, so like, you know, I don't

know how you rank those two. >> Yeah. Well, Rob, you know, you're you're ahead of me, man. Um I I I use this line now, which is crypto is sort of a weird state like I hope that we get to a point where like companies don't make decisions to use AWS or Asure because the stock of Amazon or Microsoft took a hit. That's like we're going to get to a state of the world not too far from now where companies are starting to use this technology and it's totally independent of the price of Salana or Ethereum. And I think that's probably something that most people are bearish on because there's trauma of a bunch of enterprise pilots. But again, I've said it before, we are at a time in an industry where industry executives are more interested

in applying the technology than your typical crypto trader investor that is just jaded because alts haven't ran up as much. And I think uh I think this time like that that's really the big setup that we have over the next couple years. It is like a secular trend and and that really bodess well for the adoption of the industry and and and and the price of these assets. >> Yeah. Let's get into some of the new stories. So, um there's I I think there's probably some interesting convers ideas to talk about like the what what actually happens with these DATs as as a lot of them are starting to trade below NAV. Um Rob, I will let you or Santi where do you guys want to take?

>> I was going to ask I was going to ask you guys um there is a market on Poly Market of Plasma's market cap FDV one day after launch. What do you what do you think that is? greater than eight billion, greater than six, greater than four, greater than two, greater than one. >> It's at like six and a half, seven right now in the pre-market, right? >> Yeah. >> Like I think as a general rule, if it's you expect it, if it's, you know, whatever it is in the pre-market, you should expect it to be a little bit lower um the the day after. I'd have to actually go back and look some of the data around here, but there's enough people that are like hedging, right, the unlock that I would expect it to be maybe actually I'll just I would say I

expect it to be in range like actually what we saw in pump was that it kind of you know traded up a little bit. Um now that was obviously very different because it wasn't a long unlock there there was people funded and they got unlocked right away etc. Um, but usually the way I like to think about it is whatever it is in the pre-market, it's likely to be within some short time frame, a little bit below that. And then, you know, then we'll see how the fundamentals take over. We'll see about the long-term holders, etc. So, if it's at, you know, call it uh whatever 7 billion today, my guess is it hovers in this, you know, call it like five to seven range. And so, I, you know, I see here it says n greater than uh 94% greater than four billion. um for 57%

greater than six like you know I don't know what the options payouts are here but you know my guess is like somewhere you know call it like six is probably the midpoint uh of like what people will probably expect. >> Yeah you you guys uh didn't end up investing did you? >> No no we're not investors. >> Well has had such parabolic success. >> What was that? >> Why has why has plasma done so well? Well, Rob, you want to take full disclosure? I'm an investor, but Rob, I'll >> Santi, why why do you why do you think it's done so well?

I think uh well you'll hear Rob say the story like when they started they had sort of the blessing of Tether and um admittedly like other chains like also ended up having that to some extent but I think there's a strong signaling from from from the tether organization like Paulo I think personally invested and and that gave him you know momentum and then on the back of that they kind of did what I think other protocols have done like like uh like uh blur for instance like you know received a bunch of deposits and TVL. I guess the nuance is like how's this any different, right?

Because blur um or was it blast like attracted a bunch of TVL and then a bunch of farmers. >> It was blast, right? And then that money kind of left, right? I think here it overlays with the stablecoin narrative and thesis which is incredibly powerful this cycle and I think people just want to have exposure to that and I think it's really playing um you know to their advantage. Um, I think, you know, Paul is and team, you know, they keep growing. They they've done a good job in terms of like, you know, building community excitement and whatnot. And so, um, so yeah, I think the the it's been pretty impressive like the caps that they've hit in terms of like just deposits willing to I think I think it went I think they did an echo program which was like you could you could

deposit stables to get an allocation in this round which is fully unlocked. And so, you know, people again want to get exposure to stable coin thesis. And this is like the the you always want to think about like how do people think of it like extreme left, extreme right. It's like don't overthink it. It's like it's like long stable coins, stable coin chain like you know and I guess the comp here pure maybe is like Tron, right? Like Tron is in many ways has been the silent USDT chain, right? Most of us, a lot of USDT sits on Tron and Tron is a, you know, 35 plus billion dollar FD, you know, 35 billion FTV protocol.

>> It's obviously done many, many things to get there and many, many years. Um, but I think that's what people kind of like get excited about when they think about plasma. >> Yeah. >> I don't know, Rob, if you'd say anything different. No, I mean, listen, I think that probably didn't give enough credit to the execution that they've done if I if I'm being honest because I think the reality and and you know, I I spend a maybe a little bit more time looking at like a lot of the things in in venture land here, but you know, at the time that they were raising, there was like three or four stable coin chains raising, of which like two or three of them had, you know, pretty, you know, had actual investments by Palo and by Bitfinex.

And so it wasn't actually that unique that they had had this, you know, backing by USDT and that they were and they were fundraising on that backing, but so were were others. And, you know, at the time, um, there wasn't a lot there. They were early, right? There was, you know, Paul and and his team and, you know, they were, you know, somewhat close to Tether. And um I I think if you you know go back to those days, you know, it was still very unclear like which of these chains would weigh and and it still is unclear. Obviously they've gotten the most hype and I think there's room for more than one obviously but like clearly what they have done since that time to differentiate against you know stable and others who also had some of this

backing um is all just down to execution. Right. At the end of the day they built a better community. they built more excitement. They were able to do better, you know, kind of uh just ground marketing. They were able to put out some, you know, materials and some content that people really resonated with. And yes, it was at the right time of, you know, stable coins really proliferating, people getting really exciting. But there's a lot of, you know, proliferation and of stable coins, stable coin chains and, you know, uh, startups and around that. they've kind of uniquely captured at least the crypton native zeitgeist and they've done a really really good job on the crypton native side. I do think there remains to be seen how they actually tackle a lot of the real world problems

that they're talking about and I think that's where maybe they you know haven't made you know or haven't shown yet that they've made the same you know steps forward and so I think this launch will go really well for them and then I think sustaining or becoming Tron right to your point $ 35 billion that will be the next stage of execution and can they actually go and build a product that real people will use versus a crypto ecosystem that has a lot you know, farmers allah like a bar chain which then you know or a blast as you mentioned which then kind of you know just kind of you know has I wouldn't say died but did really kind of just like trend down for a long period of time.

>> Look I'll tell you I'm an investor from B and all three. what did happen to blast and um >> uh look look we we should have Tishan on um I think uh >> but he's he's like gone I think he's like right >> product to Rob's last point you know it it remains to be seen like product and and it was >> you know what you know what's funny to me there was a time when they were ripping and you said >> you you you told me you said look yeah this guy's he's he's young he's pretty cracked really good developer he uh he he never sends investor updates though uh no here's the thing I I at one point came to me and said, "I want you to be on the council." And then Casey and a few other people like Jess, we're all on

the council. I started observing some of the projects when I when I make a ecosystem bet like like PL, I was like, "Okay, I'm going to bet I'll I'll then reserve capital to invest in projects building on top of that >> and I invested in a number of Wasabi and a few others." And then I started noticing a lot of those teams going elsewhere, going to Salana, going to other chains. Um, and I think it just they messaging and honoring the messaging needs to be like the followrough of that needs to be clear and I think they they delayed the the points program especially for teams and I think that just you kind of live and die by that right the community is strong but it can be very fickle because it's you know you

can just port over and deploy somewhere else especially if it's EVM compatible and so I think there was a lot of that I I saw a lot of teams kind of migrate and go elsewhere and I think that was just uh yeah it was I think down to the points program that >> it wasn't honored to the extent that it was communicated and then just you know >> the community just got pissed off and and left. Barra different I think uh in many ways but the reality is like it is a bit I think unfair uh you know beer's had a bit of a comeback recently in terms of just the price of it um but there are certainly more projects building on top of what I will say is these things take time I think every

every the evolution of every project in crypto is this sort of hype the hype cycle is very real and then can you survive is if you maintain true to the community and look Salana went through this too man like Salana after FTX it just kind of went through and had to really kind of like a phoenix kind of forge itself back and it stayed true to like core things and you had Bonk and you had Deepen projects really come together and dude I mean I think single-handedly I think four or six projects in the Salana community really took it like took it to where it is now like it's and yeah unfortunately for for Blast it just it didn't pan out and um yeah I mean if Tishan wants to come on and and share his story, all the better.

I haven't heard from him in a long time. >> Yeah. Um, getting back to >> Can actually Asanti, can I ask a question? Have you >> tried to reach out to him and he just hasn't been responsive or >> No, I haven't actually. So, I'll ping him now. In fairness, um, and see if he wants to come on. You know, one of the things that, look, Rob, you know this, but like I now I'm acutely aware of this. I think it's incumbent on if you're a founder, you should be sending quarterly updates. Like there is there's a good And by the way, respond in the first five minutes. Unless you're like sleeping, but like, you know, be responsive, dude. Like, respond. I don't >> I I You don't I actually pinged Rob uh super early the other day and I was like, "Yo, you up?" And he was like,

"Bang." >> Let's go. >> Hell yeah. Rob, >> I think it was literally 4:30 in the morning and I was like, "Yeah, I'm up. Of course. You think you're gonna catch me? You can't me." >> Should we talk about that next? I guess it overlays to what we want to talk because I ping Rob the announcement of the head of crypto at Stripe going to Polygon. There's a there's been a couple of a big domino movements you had. So, let's let's start there. Obviously, that the head of cryptost stripe, Josh Egan, John Eaggan, >> John Eaggan, yeah, >> John Eaggan left and went over to Polygon comments there. Biano Rob, I don't know him personally, but you know, >> the comment is uh basically Stripe had two crypto teams and it was not it's uh Stripe had a crypto team. They'd been

building crypto actually for a while working and tinkering and stuff like that. Then Stripe acquired Bridge. That team comes in and becomes basically Stripe's crypto team. Now you have two totally separate crypto teams. Different types of people. Some people are more like different how do you build products, different languages that they like to write in, different strategies um and different like people who they see as their leaders. And uh I would the the old Stripe crypto team from what I've heard is I think John was part of the old Stripe Crypto. Uh, so I think that team is starting to I think I think you've seen some some movements and you'll see some more movements.

>> One of the interesting things about that to me and this is kind of a um a separate point but I had one or two people say to me is like why do you go to Polygon? And you know there's I think one thing people don't appreciate about Polygon and we did some work with a a team called Artemis who's also a portfolio company of ours who does a lot of data and sorry Yanowitz I know they're a competitor to your >> Oh we like we like Artemis I like Artemis. Yeah, but they so we did a a paper with them that was um looking at like crossber and business like stablecoin payments and like how stable coins are actually used for payments.

And one of the things that you see all the time is Polygon is always near the top with Ethereum and Tron. It's always Ethereum and Tron number one and two in terms of actual like stable coin payments. Polygon's number three often, right? and they actually have a humongous amount of flow that's going between uh India and elsewhere because they have kind of this deep um just relationship with that part of the world because of Sandeep and and the team there. And so it actually made all the sense in the world to me that he went to Polygon because Polygon is actually very focused these days on payments and they actually do have a lot of real payments existing on chain even though I think that's like not everyone's like totally aware of that. Do do you know where else I see this show up is uh so Alliance Dow

always shows their um where the founders are building and I think it's usually like you know Ethereum is usually first I think Salana is second and I and uh I think Bass now might be third but I think Polygon is fourth or fifth usually. >> So >> what uh I mean Polygon probably might be one of the most hated chains out there. Um, honestly, one of the reasons why I was very discouraged in the broader Ethereum community, like you have like people love optimism because Carl and Jen, you know, and there's like they hate the sandeps because it just doesn't fit with the norm. It's like it's a very clicky clicky ecosystem. I mean, Polygon no ecosystem gets it right, but they've done a lot of stuff and I think they're probably one of the most

underappreciated uh protocols out there. Uh I don't know if you guys would agree with that and if so like what are some of the other super deeply overlooked or underappreciated protocols? I mean we talked about Tron. I think that's another one. But any others that come to mind? >> Yeah, it was interesting. I mean there was a there was an idea like we hosted a dinner last night with um some Blockworks research customers and uh some of our analysts and stuff like that and the the the main one that everyone's talking about obviously is Hyperlid. But as you start to go down into other ecosystems, the the two that got brought up a few times, one was uh and there were very torn heated debates on this.

One was Worldcoin actually um and one was Telegram. >> Oh, interesting. >> Yeah. So, so the Ton people were basically extremely bearish on Ton. Everybody was not not bullish on TON as an ecosystem until they just got this new guy who just joined as their president. And um basically the thought is like they just really haven't had a capable capable leader until now. But um yeah, now now they've got a killer operator running the business over there. So they could they could pull it out. >> Yeah. I mean I I think one of the ways I like to think about this a lot is like you need to go actually talk to the builders and the developers.

>> Yeah. And if you actually talk to the builders and developers like >> everybody pitches >> this oh like telegram ton integration 900 million users and it sounds so good as a you know investor like service level and then you go talk to the developers and they're like this is a disaster. Um and like you hear a lot of that. Now I know they're they're fixing a lot of it so it's not necessarily you know some of what I'm saying is legacy and they're working to make it a better developer ecosystem. So I do want to give them credit for that and I have heard better things as of as of recent but there has been for a long period of time um I think for you know especially kind of more global developers a lot of concerns about you know being able to to

you know do the things that they want to do in that ecosystem and so I'm hopeful um that considering they're like top of funnel that they can bring a lot of people on chain I mean this is in many ways like Zant's thesis right then then I'm hopeful they can pull people through but we just haven't seen I think the ability for them to go and build you know developer tooling build the infrastructure that is helpful for u making sure that they can build a robust ecosystem. >> Yeah. >> World's kind of a different story and and I think a lot of that has to do with like people find it creepy to scan their eyeballs. Uh, and there's still just I think a lot of that conversation, but I I I the Worldcoin team is like cracked and like, you know, everybody there is

is really good and I I expect we'll continue to see really interesting things um come come out of that ecosystem. I do think probably the you know the other thing we haven't talked about is I right now there is a lot of tailwinds as we talked about before around like institutional like work and adoption that's happening uh in in crypto and obviously we've talked a lot about like okay well Robin Hood's building Ethereum ML2 and you know temp stripe is you know I stripe has been kind of you distancing themselves from tempo the last couple weeks I think for a lot of reasons but like you know kind of has their own L1 one with with Paradigm um and you know some others that are are are um institutions that are building kind of are rolling their

own L1s but we've also seen like a ton of announcements recently like the Avalanche team specifically on like new people building there um I think it was like the state of Wyoming is doing things like you know they're doing like tax returns on uh on stable coins on on Avalanche and FIFA has been talking about doing like actually ticketing for the World Cup and their whole loyalty engagement thing on on um Avalanche blockchain. So I think like when you start to think a little bit about like some of what we talked about before of institutional adoption like I think there's a world in which you know they don't they don't get enough love and you actually tweeted yesterday yano also um I think it was a bunch of data around um Avalanche specifically and if you actually look at like the DEX volume it's just and a lot of like the stable

coin transfer volume it's completely skyrocketed I think since um black hole um uh ended up uh launching as well. So, Maple Story and you know, a few others. So, um there's some some pretty interesting stuff there, I think, happening as well. So, um but I I do think that's probably one of the legacy ones that people have a lot of this like 2021 like, you know, corporate pilot um sort of, you know, overhang that they're like, you know, concerned about Zanti as you mentioned earlier. >> Yeah. I mean, um I will say on just one a couple things. One on on Telegram, I don't know if you guys have made an investment. I didn't invest in TAN. So then I again look to invest in a couple projects building on that as levered exposure. They both of them have floped.

They're like it's impossible. They knew going in it was hard to build. It's gotten it hasn't gotten better. So I hope they can remediate that because look I hope every project crypto wins. But yeah it's a challenge right to your point. It really pays to pay attention to that. On the point of Avalanche so they just hired um Ariel who used to run comms at Salana moved over to Avalanche. So you know kudos I mean amazing hire. Uh, I think it's a lot of a lot of this is just the attention game. Can you capture, you know, and can you paint the really good narrative? I think, you know, they've certainly been able to capture and convert a lot of the enterprises like FIFA and whatnot. Um, you know, a lot of people when we made the choice to build on Avalanche, I'll tell you, we did an extensive RFP

talking to other projects that deployed like Maple, Gonzilla in my portfolio, Stani, like Abby of the world. It was the only project that I evaluated that I didn't have a financial exposure to. And it was the one that I ended up picking. Seriously, like I had I evaluated Arbitum and a bunch of other L2s and other ecosystems where I obviously had exposure to, but objectively look, you're always when you make the choice of where to build, every ecosystem has a trade-off. So I actually don't respect, you hear a lot of projects go out and say we're the unequivocally the best. We have the highest TPS, the across every metric is like green, green, green, green. It's like don't treat me like I'm dumb, you know? It's like every smart engineer and developer. If you want to

build a really good community, treat your customers with respect and and as if they're smart, right? You can't manu like and and so I think that's one of the things Avalanche has done very well. They've sort of understood their strengths and like L1's out of the box and they've gone out and played their own game in a quiet manner and I think respect to them. I don't think you get any love. Um uh you know they're it's good to see that they're getting more love these days and you know obviously we have bias but you know they they've been a phenomenal partner as well >> across 30 plus networks and 180 endpoints. Block Damon earnst stack unit staking and defy into a single institutional toolkit for crypto rewards with multi-layered security full asset control and 247 support. Block Damon

Earnstack is built for scale and regulatory clarity non-custodial staking and seamless DeFi access. all-in-one stack. Direct access to DeFi with no intermediate smart contract or vaults. To book a demo, make sure to click the link in the show notes or head over to Block Damon Earnstack to find out more. Thanks to Block Damon for making today's episode possible. Kicking off for its season 2 in September, Peaks Get Real is Web 3's first campaign rewarding people with tokens for creating real world value. With a total prize pool of 5% of peak tokens initial supply, get real follows a simple formula. Connect your devices, create value, score points. The quest can include such things as driving

around with a web 3 navigator app, measuring local noise pollution, or running an AI agent in your browser. Further down the road, you can get a unique customizable NFT designed by the agency behind the recent Call of Duty rebranding. an NFT that will evolve as you make real world impact. Follow Peak OnX to find out more. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk, terms, and conditions apply. Let me let me shift gears a little bit. Did you guys see that the SEC approved generic listing standards for commodity based trust shares? This >> We're going to have to talk about that, don't we, with this with this?

>> We I mean, we got to talk about at least like some I don't know. feels like the ETFs like so basically the SEC approved generic listing standards for ETFs um which paves the way for crypto ETFs actually I mean we could talk about DATs in the sense that this is probably actually bad for DATs um so there's this long list of tokens where they that qualify um uh which is I think mostly going to be based on like how how long the futures contracts have have really traded on things like either CME or maybe Co Coinbase 2 um and it's a it's a funny list it's like Bitcoin ETH uh but it's also like Litecoin, Dogecoin, XRP, Avalanche, Stellar, CH, uh, Chain Link, Salana, Cardono. It's kind of like the the the the OG list a little bit. So,

I'm curious to get Rob, you see more of these DATs than most people. Curious to get your take on like bucket all this into one, like the ETFs and CME listings and um the the DATs and there's people combining companies with Treasury companies now, which is, I think, going to start to get get a little more public. But what do you think of this? >> Yeah. So, the generic listing standards are are great for more ETFs essentially, right? So, there's going to be more public access vehicles for crypto more broadly. Um, that's pretty clear. The I mean, the SEC actually has, as just kind of friendly as the SEC has been to the ecosystem, they have actually been dragging their feet on the ETFs. So, we

haven't seen I think a lot of people thought we'd see a lot more, you know, ETFs and a lot more assets this year, and it just hasn't been a priority for them. But, um, you know, with this coming out, like I expect there to be, um, a just a much easier route for a lot more people, you know, going forward. Um, and I do expect them more of them to get approvals pretty quickly. I to your point whether or not that's you know call it bearish for DATs. It's probably bearish for um the gold rush that we're in right now for DATs >> the ICO era of DATs. >> The ICO era DATs because you know what is happening right now is like everybody is like saying oh I'm like rushing to put together a vehicle because if I'm the sponsor or you know whatever else I

may make some economics and it's um often done with like very little thought to what does six months from now look like? what is this supposed to be like in nine months from now? What is it supposed to be like in 18 months from now? Right? And so you've seen really just haphazard types of, you know, vehicles get put together for these DATs that, you know, are serve really no purpose other than to allow some of these, you know, sponsors to to to make money. And so what we're seeing right now is if if I I saw a tweet I actually I didn't confirm this is true, but approximately a quarter of all Bitcoin DATs that are publicly traded today are now trading under one times their NAV, right? We've seen NAVs generally come

down um significantly over the last, you know, month, month and a half. And what we've just ended up seeing is the same thing we've seen actually in the broader crypto ecosystem which is just bifurcation between the has and have nots between the high quality and the low quality right and that's what's going to happen to the DATs as well. If you do a DAT correctly it is a better wrapper than an ETF for exposure to an ecosystem. Like if there is an ability to raise more capital, if there is an ability to increase that token per share by whether it's different types of um you know whether it's like a convertible debt or whether it's you know being able to you know when the market is more bullish you know go and do some sort of

like ATM and increase you know at a um uh and play that or between the um the premium to nav and and and one or like do things that are like somewhat interesting that are like maybe more operating uh to create yield. So things like what we're seeing, I mean Kyle's been talking about this a lot and unclear to me how um how able he will be to do as much as he's talking about, but he's been very bullish around saying, "Listen, we're going to do as much as possible for um his his digital asset trading company on chain." Like we're going to try to do some trading on chain. We're going to try to tokenize our equity. We're going to try to do securities lending on chain. We're going to try to do staking, liquid staking on chain. And we're going to try to further

the Salano ecosystem, right? And I think we're seeing a few other DATs and other ecosystems trying to do that as well. And that is clearly a product that is worth existing that is different and wholly differentiated from an ETF and that provides essentially some I think you know maybe levered or additional exposure to the success of an system and there's a flywheel that exists there. So those I think will continue to do well and I think all the others will will go away in a lot of >> I think that's exactly right. I think that the the last thing about for people who didn't listen to the episode we uh that we did with Kyle on what he's working on. I think the most interesting thing is yeah you can an ETF will let you get exposure to Soul and that's great or you could go buy spot on

Coinbase or something like that. But what they're going to do is they're going to I mean they're deploying all that capital into onch on onchain into Salana to be able to do more and more things and you see this in the price right you see Kamino I think went up 40 >> Camino uh love being an investor there. I mean it's up 50%. >> Yeah. Yeah. Commamino to be fair. The funny thing about that is he I think he he was like, "Oh, talking about like DFlow and like Jupiter and Camino and he put a total of like $2 million entirely on chain of the 1.6 billion and but all the tokens ripped." >> Yeah. >> Rob, don't come on man. You can't do that.

>> Rob, Rob, get the memo of of what we are allowed and not allowed to talk about. >> Way to kill the vibe. >> No, but but people are excited about what he's going to be doing and what he's saying he's going to do. And that's a good thing. And that is exciting and it should it does deserve to exist. It is a better product in that case than an ETF. If you want exposure to the success of an ecosystem. >> Yeah. Look, I I think uh the argument that that can sustain a premium is at the at the heart of that is this. Can you create a a cash flowing business because you're staking, you're doing strategies on chain that you know the reality is like soul and ETH are more productive assets or have more ability

to earn yield off of them like a proof ofstake networks or whatever. So, you know, if that's the case, I think great. You know the question is does does the does the premium today support that because a lot of that to your point is on the come and so as an investor should you be going long this dad or should you just call it a day and buy soul because you're buying four billion of them like I don't know I don't know if you're you know you what is best over a six 12 month time frame because you know I I tend to think that we're in the second half of this cycle and I want to be in assets that are just clean without structure and noise I guess.

I mean but but I will say this like for the best performing DATs if you look at Micro Strategy right you would if you held Micro Strategy last year and again I know strategy is it own thing and you know we can we can talk about how that's not replicable but you would have made 75% more holding strategy last year than if you just held Bitcoin spot right that's how much they increased their Bitcoin per share buy right and so there is an ability potentially for the best performers and I don't think that performance is is is repeatable for like now in this you know era we're in where there's so many of these things but I do think it is repeatable that like you are getting better performance than just holding spot if you're in the right one that is doing the right things around

the ecosystem that is aligned with the foundations and labs teams and then all of the others will probably just kind of slowly die and they'll get acquired and you know they'll be um I don't know Yanowitz was talking about them merging with uh like you know other doing like the worst takeovers with like other private companies. So I think we'll see a lot of interesting things happen there. But for the right digital asset trading companies like I am a believer that they not only have a right to exist but they provide really differentiated exposure to the underlying.

>> Uh one last point on this. What do you think is the most important thing being first out of the gate size or foundation signaling and support? I think it really depends on the token we're talking about, right? So, if you're um you know, Bitcoin or ETH or Salana um you know, it's not foundation support, right? It is and it's not being first out of the gate, right? You know, strategy was first out, but you know, on the Ethereum side, um you know, the first out of the gates haven't performed the best, right? On the Salana side, the first out of the gates, I don't think have performed the best, right? um the ability to get size was really around the credibility of the sponsor team, of the management team, um and of their

belief that they can do the things we're talking about, right? And that they can create a a really good ecosystem and that they can go and raise additional capital both from Wall Street and cryptonatives alike. So, I really think it's been about that, you know, team that's involved there. Now, when we go past those they call it those those big three and we go into more of the alts um I think it becomes really really hard for any of those dats to do well unless they are extremely aligned with the leadership of that blockchain or of that ecosystem. So foundation support, you know, um foundation and maybe even part of, you know, advisory boards, um you know, a lab supports like things like that I think are really really important

and that allows you to um really get this flywheel going in a way that you know maybe Kyle can do in Salana because of how deep he is in the ecosystem, but that a you know outside of those big ecosystems where the investors don't necessarily know it as well. you can at least go to that investor base and you could say but look this is this deal we have with this foundation or this labs entity we're able to create this ecosystem and around these tailwinds that exist here and it becomes a um a really interesting consolidated offering where I don't think you need that with the you know those those investors uh in call the big three tokens.

Yeah, >> we got a little bit of breaking news which is um uh so there's been a rumor for the last couple weeks that uh Brian Kinten was not going to get the CFTC position um the uh CFTC chair position and it looks like that news has finally kind of leaked out into the public and is breaking. So I thought that's pretty interesting. Rob, I don't know how kind of in the cluedin you guys have you guys have been there but it sounds like Brian's not going to get the chair position. Uh Bloomberg just wrote a story about this and it looks like they're seeking some other people. Um some names are Michael Celig who is the chief counsel uh or I think he actually currently is the chief counsel to the SEC crypto task force. He was at Wilkkey before. Also Tyler Williams who's

counselor to uh Scott Bessant could be it. I've even heard some things as crazy as um you know this is kind of the first step and maybe they just have Paul Atkins inter putting quotes around this interim do it. This is step number one in combining the SEC and CFDC. Rob, you're shaking your head at me, but this is how it exists in nearly every other country. Um, and the only reason we have the CFTC here is because of these legacy rules from 100 years ago, uh, because we have so many commodities and farming and stuff in America. But, um, yeah, I don't know if you have any takes on that. >> No, I mean, I think this was expected.

U, >> yeah, >> we had been hearing that this was unlikely to happen for, you know, a couple months now. Um, and you know, there was obviously been uh some back and forth and like social media which was kind of wild to be honest. Um, and so I I not surprised. Um, you know, we'll we'll see. I think you know, Michael Celig would be pretty interesting. I think there's um, you know, some some interesting names you uh, you put out there. Um, we'll see what happens. I I think >> a lot of it depends on and or how much this matters really depends on in my mind what the reconciliation of the Clarity Act looks like and if that gets passed because if that gets passed

there's going to be more clear guidelines most likely around um you know depending on the version around you know what the CFTC's jurisdiction is relative to what the SEC's jurisdiction is and how we define that and how we define what a security is. But in a world where uh that continues to get pushed and maybe we don't get that legislation, the rule making is going to have to come still and it's going to come from the SEC and the CFTC. And the White House has essentially said to uh Paul Atkins and and to the CFTC that you guys need to not wait for new legislation, you need to start doing rulem. And so, um, if this continues to, um, you know, go on and be, uh, a little bit of a, you know, kind of a sideshow,

I do think that means that more power will consolidate under Paul Atkins, um, if we don't and especially if we don't get, uh, legislation. So, so we'll see. It'll be an interesting, I think, next 6 weeks or so. Powered by a $4 billion treasury, Mantle is launching You Are, a Swisslicicensed smart money app that simplifies how individuals and businesses move between digital assets and fiat currencies underpinned by Swiss regulation. UR offers a multicurrency account with IBN support for euro, Swiss Frank, US dollar, and RMB and one:1 backed deposits. Its Mastercard principal membership debit card enables global spending and can be added to

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practical adoption and a forward-looking vision for the role of the modern treasury as a strategic enabler of new technology. Read the productive treasury report today by following the link in today's show notes. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk terms and conditions apply. Uh last thing I want to talk to you guys about is the B or Sant. Do you have anything there? I want to get your guys' take on the base token. Uh, is it is it real? >> It looks pretty I mean, so here, okay, here's here's my take on what happened.

So, my take on what happened is maybe Jesse went a little rogue. Um, and there was uh here's here's what I think happened is like Jesse was doing this presentation. It was a great presentation. They had base camp. I heard it was really successful. So, shout out to the base team. Um, had a lot of like developers and stuff there and builders and stuff like that. Jesse did this announcement and just kind of said like, "We're thinking about exploring a base token." And then Brian, the the reason I think this wasn't like a perfectly communicated uh comm's plan is I think Brian then had to tweet um I can pull it up. Basically something along the lines of like uh we we are oh here we are exploring a base network token. To be clear, there are no definitive plans. We're updating our philosophy as of now. We're just

exploring it like kind of a lot of legal legal language. And I'm guessing what happens is their their chief legal officer called up Brian. He's like, "What the >> Yeah, Paul. What the f? Brian, Jesse just announced this. Brian's like, "I didn't know that." And Brian, he's like, "Dude, you gotta put out a tweet. This is crazy." >> It is funny though. I do think people forget uh and the DAT stuff kind of reminds me of this. Um just how much people forget like what it means to run a public company. And you know how you know your language and what you say and how you say it and the relative effect it can have on you know your stock price and like the disclosures that you need to have um how that matters, right? And so I think we're I one of the things I'm

actually interested in seeing is a lot of these like kind of OG uh crypto uh founders taking their companies public over the next uh next 18 months and or 24 months and just seeing you know what that looks like from a um like a PR uh disclosure perspective and a in a market where everyone's used to just like tweeting their way to some sort of token price. >> I talked to a founder of a crypto company that's been around for many years. I was like what are you working on? He's like, "Oh, we're doing a we're going we're going public. Uh can Caner's working on the deal. We're going public. We're combining with the treasury company and our business. We're going public." It's like, "Oh, that's I was like, "That's a big deal." He's like, "Yeah, it sucks though. We've been around for like eight years. Not

auditable at all. No one very unuditable company." I was like, "Oh, boy. This is I was like, "So, are you going to get out?" He's like, "Oh, yeah. We'll get out for sure." So, >> um well, well, if it's if it's unudable, he will not get out. Um so, like that is a >> you find an auditor. Yeah. Um, whatever it is, it is funny. People just forget like the I I've been having this discussion with a bunch of people recently too and and just there is like a level of just like, you know, seriousness that like is required if you're going to be public. It's not just a TGE into some equity and like you're like, you know, wipe your hands of it and then you, you know, uh, whatever.

You sell a four to a market maker and like, you know, forget that it exists. like this is a this is a a long-term business that you're running with shareholders who like can sue you if you like don't look out for their best interests. >> Uh let's put it this way. If you haven't been sending quarterly investor updates and you you best believe that running a public company, brother in Christ, is going to be very very much more difficult than that. So let's just start by sending quarterly investor updates and then we can you know take on the to be fair. Trump said he wants to get rid of quarterly twice a year now. So >> that's uh how they do it in Europe. No.

Uh that's right. Yeah. Under IFRS. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um what uh maybe on last question here, what does that do to the price of Coinbase? Like or is there an interesting structure here where you map out an airdrop to Coinbase shareholders? Uh if there's like a base to >> Yeah, it's either that that's that's the right question. It's like does that does that mean that they if you Okay, imagine you had basemag Imagine you had Coinbase equity on chain. Like we had talked about this a couple weeks ago with the uh superstate thing. Um how Galaxy did I think it was five or six% on chain via superstate. Imagine if coin was on chain then you could actually airdrop base to coin holders.

>> I don't like that though. I think that you should >> I just think you should have one one asset that shows the price of what the of what the underlying business is going to do. It just gets too confusing. It's like the same reason I don't have like having unis swap token and unis swap labs. It's the same reason I don't think Amazon should have Amazon and AWS and AWS talk. >> Oh, hold on a minute. If you're a Coinbase shareholder and and they they do this thing, it's a spin out or whatever, but they keep some ownership and so you're going to see it in the books, right? You're going to see the treasury value like that value of the base token that they have in Treasury grow pretty substantially whether the market appreciates it or not fully. TBD, >> but then in like the coin but then in

coin like it's a one-time good good thing I think, right? Unless disagree with me if >> no because they're going to capture all the me and if if you think if again I think there is there's a way to craft it where you can optimize for the KPI which is retain the user drive more capture continue to capture more of that economic activity within the Coinbase ecosystem whether it's the wallet the exchange the per base keep it all in one if you got on board 100 if you have 100 million users and the the aggregate KPI is arpoo like what is the arpoo of the coinbase user retail particularly for bass if that if you can demonstrate that because of doing this and you believe and that's your thesis and you can prove it go for it you know and I think the

market will appreciate that I don't know I don't know I I I think it's s I think it confuses the market on a long-term time horizon like I I've thought about this with block works it's like do we put Blockworks into it like the Blockworks the media business into one company and then maybe you you could make the argument that Blockworks the data company should be in a separate holding company and then you could well if you're doing that do you put the events business in a separate company because they all kind of have different return profiles and multiples that they should that they should realistically get and you're kind of blending everything together. Um and I've seen when it's like I don't know am like Amazon Google like there's there's just one stock there's just one stock and they keep it simple.

>> Yeah. I would say in the history of like crypto investing, our perspective has always been that if you look across like all of these companies that are like, "Oh, I'm going to have equity value and token value." Um, often 1 plus 1 equals uh like 75 like there it's very very often that you know it just confuses the market to Yano's perspective. I think it's a rare company that can theoretically have equity value and token value. We have started to see I think some signs that the market will support that at least in the private markets. Um companies like actually a company uh one of our portfolio companies um KO who people might know um they have like an enterprise SAS

business that I think has like you know people actually excited real revenue etc. Um and then they have a you know a token that has also earns revenue essentially for some of the things that um that that they do. And so you know there's an argument there that um because there's like the equity business is really an enterprise business and the token is really for the consumer business that they're they're actually you know acrewing more than you know it's 1 plus 1 equals maybe 1.5 or something but that is I think the uh exception not the rule and so we usually want founders to be very very clear on you know where we think that the value is going to acrue because that usually

results and you know the best returns. Now all of that said this is a new paradigm right to rewriting our thesis to Sandi's point to the idea that like you know there is going to be tokenized equity to the idea that there's a public company like Coinbase who might also have one of the biggest ecosystems on chain in crypto and we'll also have a token that'll be used for those consumers. Like it's actually not clear to me that will still continue to be true in this case. um especially because they have a broad set of sort of you know consumer applications that are on chain that people would utilize this thing in that um are somewhat um disconnected to the financials today because bass actually in terms of like

the bottom line and the top line of Coinbase today based contributes basically nothing right you know it's part of the story but it has actually not really reflected in the financials at all and so in that case I do think there's like a network value the of the token and then there is maybe a business value of everything they do otherwise. And I think there's it's possible, maybe not probable, but possible that they're able to make a lot more money for their shareholders by doing both. >> Dude, I mean, here's the thing. Uh there are going to be Asia-based exchanges coming into the US and they're going to and they're going to list. Uh if you're Coinbase, like how do you get a leg up, right? I mean you have okay like you you have to think about okay how do you

preserve that market share and continue to be the dominant player in the US market which is you know the gold mine that they have this might be it you know it it ultimately comes down to an attention game we're going to close this episode talking about the same thing we started with and so if if bays to your point has this intangible value of capturing attention with builders and community and and retail is probably the area of the market where they have the highest margins will continue to have the highest margins because of the convenience Then yeah, I I think it's a it's worth if you're Brian and the team. Yeah, I would be shocked if they haven't thought about uh you know, launching a token and and I don't think it's a random mistake or or or a slip that Jesse kind of like randomly said this in

a conference. >> Well, it would we would be remiss to not just out of all this conversation just talk about the success of BNB considering it hit $1,000. >> Oh my god. BNB is just BNB BNB ICOed at 10 cents. It just hit $1,000. It is. I love looking at the BNB chart because it's such a perfect example of how Western crypto Twitter is so removed from a lot of what's actually happening in the industry. And it's not just BNB. A lot of these exchange tokens are pumping. Not a single person on the feed talking about it. >> Right. Again, totally underappreciated. But the the tok the B&B token has been so instrumental to driving more activity deposits and activi to the exchange, right? Because you had the launchpad.

It's huge. It's huge. So yeah, kudos to CeCe. And I guess Cece is back in charge. >> C's back. C >> back. He's back. >> They said CZ will never be back at Binance. One year later, CZ is fully back at Binance. I mean, we didn't even talk. They just launched. I don't know if you guys have been following. I think it's called Aster or Asteria. Aster. It's basically the Binance Hyperlquid is the easiest way to explain it. And obviously to token pumping and users going up. it did the token continue to pump because I I thought it's it's like the chart seemed crazy when I saw it last night and and I literally only know about it because people were like messaging me about it. I didn't see the tweet. I'd never heard of it before, but a lot of people were messaging about it

last night. >> Um I don't know because there's like four as there's an aster there's an L1 called Aster from Japan, I'm pretty sure. What's the what's the token of this thing? Aster Hyperlid. >> You you just know we're not a trader podcast like we're struggling with tickers here. Like, man, you got to be like, >> scrubs. The Xerx Research podcast, they're like they're fire. They're trading live out here. We can't even find the ticker. >> Scrubs. I I don't even know how to find this thing. I'm out here using Google still. Just googling like aster hyperlquid like a boomer.

That's all right. I don't know what's happening. >> Well, it's it's uh Look, it's it's 61. Is it How many What is this? Uh >> 10 billion. Is this is this $6 billion? Is that what this is? >> No way. Wait, what's the >> Is it uh It's a terx.com. >> Oh, I got it. All right. Oh, it's Oh, yeah. That's a that's that thing's that's a good looking chart. That thing's going up. That thing's going to keep going up. >> J, are you seriously doing TA on on the pod?

>> You want to know my TA? Last time I did TA on the pod, I nailed it. Pump. >> What was it? >> Pump. When the day pump went live, I said pump's going to fall to two billion and then rip to 10. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I picked it up at >> Unfortunately for me, I am an idiot and did not buy a single dollar of pump when it hit two billion. >> Continue to believe that the the compier is hyperlquid and and on revenue basis, burn bases, like the market market totally has missed that. But hey, listen, whatever. I I'm obviously have bad bias. So, I'll I'll excuse myself.

>> Yeah. >> From the discussion. >> What uh what else? Anything else you guys want to cover? >> Uh I think that was pretty good. >> Good content of the week, baby. Rob, what do you got for us? >> All right. So, I'm uh I'm I'm supposed to be heading to Bermuda for the weekend where I was supposed to spend some time on on the beach. So, um got a little fiction for the beach as you know, which is abnormal for me, I know, as as you guys know. But um a uh I picked up picked up a book called Rejection which is like sort of a um it's kind of like a bunch of anthology short stories um kind of futuristic that are like very focused on just like chronically online

millennials. It's like a satire comedy about how we're too all online and like too >> Tony Tula. Yeah, that's the one, right? >> And so I just, you know, I think it's a loved a little bit of self-reflection. >> The first truly incel novel. This is Rejection by Tony Tulamit. The first truly incel novel. >> Yeah. So, a little bit of beach reading for the weekend. >> I'm into it. That's a good Are you going to Bermuda or not? >> So, I am going. I just unfortunately because work has been pretty busy, I might just be on the phone on the beach the whole time and not reading this book. it. That's fine.

>> I got my auto auto sends Friday, Saturday, Sunday at 5:05 a.m., baby. Don't let Don't let >> You can't pulling over on me and you're I'm gonna be up. I'm gonna text you back. >> You You You You pass the test this week. I was impressed, man. That was good. That was good. Uh okay. For me, Janna, you want to go or I can go? >> Go ahead. uh recently been um so I wanted to reread um Alex Ferguson's book uh called Leading I think Al Sir Alex Ferguson uh with Michael Moritz the Sequoia partner just an absolute book about leadership I mean Man United I'm a man United fan and obviously legacy of he's just a legend

right managing like Beckhams of the world and building a cohesive team obviously relevant to what I'm doing now um because being a founder is like parenting um which I don't have experience with, but I guess this is gonna be good experience as I look to have kids. Um, but I found another book called How to Win the Premier League, which is the Moneyball version of soccer, and it's a guy, it's quote, the inside story of football's data revolution. It's by Ian Graham. I think this guy is like Cambridge PhD. Uh, and really fascinating. I think he spent some time at Liverpool and and Liverpool went on to do during his 10 like time there extraordinary things. Um really

fascinating stuff like just statistics. I think to your point if you have statistics on a sports like soccer didn't have it you then overlay that prediction markets right if you have no data then you can bet on everything. So um yeah really fascinating. I think it fits into nicely with discussion and it reads really really well. It's uh it's awesome. I'm enjoying finish it. Um, I don't have the attention span that you guys do right now, so I'm not I can't say a book. I got a podcast for you guys, which is uh actually Ben Horowitz did a uh there's a podcast I like called Lenny's podcast. Um, I I'm spending a lot of my time on product right now. More than more time on product than I've ever done at Blockworks. And um Lenny's podcast, >> why you spend any more time on it?

>> Um, I'm probably spending 80% of my time on the our data business. And um, it's just like by far the fastest growing area of the business. um we will like roughly 10x the revenue on that side of the business this year and the data and analytics is kind of going crazy as the institutional market heats up. Um so I'm spending a but the there all these products that were missing because the demand wasn't there and so we've been sprinting to launch things like dashboard builder and chart builder and an API and uh so I'm spending a lot of time with the engineers and just on on the on the product side of things and with the data team. So there's this podcast called Lenny's podcast for anyone who's trying to get deeper and he also has a great substack anyone trying to get deeper into the product world. Um

it's very very very good. But uh Ben Horowitz went on did an episode called the the 46 46 billion dollars of hard truths from Ben Horowitz. Um why founders fail and why you need to run towards fear and uh it was it was a good episode. So I'd recommend that one. >> Uh by the way um I am looking for a crack product person. So um this is the the required inversion chill. So send them over. >> I actually have maybe someone for you that how how senior >> I care not necessarily. I care less about like that. It's just a crack product person.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Good. Rob >> Rob, you're going to come back more tan next Thursday. >> Well, I'm not going to be here next Thursday, unfortunately, because I've got my 19-hour flight to uh to Singapore. I believe uh I believe 10 1000 p.m. >> Dragonfly put you up in that like you know 40k seats that overnight toilet >> they don't even have that in the New York to Singapore flight because the the planes that that's in are too big to make the 19 and half hour flight from New York to Singapore. So they have to have the smaller plane. So it's like only business and premium economy only.

Um and so so the answer is no. But that was a it would have been no anyways even if the seat did exist. >> I still would have but yeah. I would know. But yeah, >> are you going to T token? >> I'm not going this year. >> Yeah, Rob, it is tradition where Yano and I have recorded in the most awkward setting. People should go look at that episode. It's like literally Yano and I in a room. >> All the comments are like, "Do they have their pants on?" Like, "Do they do they have clothes on?" They're like in a hotel room huddled around, no mics. We're basically like touching cheeks doing the podcast.

>> Let's find a place to do it in person together. Next next, Alex. I'm going to bring Alex live segment. We did it in in Dubai. Let's let's do it in Singapore. Alex, you're listening. We love you. Let's make it happen. >> Yeah, I'm booted. Yeah, do it. >> All right, folks. Thanks for listening. We um we have a Dan Morehead from Pantara, founder of Panta episode going live on Monday. We have a lot of really good guests coming up. We're uh we're booking uh Trick the founder of Koshi, Jeremy, the founder of uh Circle. We've got Mike Norats recording next week. We've got Dan Morehead. I'm recording tomorrow.

>> Mike Kagny at any point. What? >> Figure Mike Kagny. >> Um, I forgot to message Kagny. >> Yeah, let's do that. I I can message you then. >> Yeah. >> Nice. >> All right, folks. Thanks for listening. See you next week, >> guys. Have a good weekend.