What Makes Crypto Conferences Valuable | Roundup

Transcript

this episode is brought to you by SE say's V2 upgrade introduces the first high performance parallelized evm already live on public devet maet comes later in Q2 you can follow along with the say Journey on X say Network say is spelled s EI go follow say onx say Network hey everyone the polygon Community grants program was launched with 1 billion tokens All For polygon Builders really excited to share that on today's episode of Empire season 1 of the polygon Community grants program is now live it features 35 million in madic to support the next generation of polygon projects join the aggregated

future today by applying at polygon.net [Music] shockingly you know like uh my Spidey senses go up I grew up uh I've traveled a lot I grew up in Mexico and so explain it to me was there only was there one area of Brussels that people kept going or was it like because I know there's the Brussels has the highest crime rate in all of Europe I saw a chart robbery of robbery so what people were people walking around with like nice watches and they're getting scooped or what what

was happening I don't really know I mean I knew of three people anecdotally look probies happen all the time in major cities they happen all the time it's just sort of virtue of like law of large numbers and I don't want to overly extrapolate I'm not an expert on Brussels or uh you know the demographic changes or immigration policies or whatever I don't want to get into any of that I just felt unsafe um London has become also really unsafe uh they're particularly like like Street robberies like they're seeing phones and watches um but apparently three people got robbed um one of them I know was walking in a pretty sketchy ghetto area of Brussels that um but you know I read some of the

comments uh and appears that like a lot of them were like Brussels or belgians that were commenting and they're like yeah our country is like really taking a toll I have a few friends that are from Brussels and uh they no longer live there um but the event was in in the in the main Center uh and there's you know a lot of the side events were very nearby so like mega mega eth had an event right next to the venue I went and was speaking out a movement Labs um uh panel uh then that was a bit farther north in the like Grand Central Station of sorts uh it didn't help that it was like

also torrentially raining so people couldn't move around so it's like biblical rain I don't know what the universe is trying to tell what's going on with these crypto events the rain had that too I know so it seems like the consensus so I saw so I was talking to Mike I'll just read one of Mike's public tweets so like so last year's ECC was one of Mike's favorite events he's ever been to in several years of going to crypto events and he tweeted this thing July of 20123 he said eth CC was electric I've never interacted with so many energized people focused on L2 scaling account abstraction me and ZK Tech he read this whole thread about why it's so great um and he posted earlier today said l uh I said last year I left ECC enthused this year I'm struggling to identify a common theme from the

conference the event feels fragmented across many redundant partially filled side events and worst of all no apps what a I don't know if that's a harsh take um but like what what did the what did it feel like on the ground um for people who missed really enjoyed it I mean I had all my meetings like in my hotel I had eight meetings and everyone was there oh I loved ACC yeah I stayed at the nicest hotel in Brussels and I didn't leave once uh I had people come to me matter of fact I did I mean I'm not going to lie I mean it was uh as far as hotels goes I was like wasn't that special but uh it was uh very convenient I had all my meetings there um did you go did you go to the conference did you did anyone go to the

actual event I don't know I didn't no I mean the point of these conferences are all the people that are there and then I I get to meet like all my portfolio companies were there um and and there was a few events like had I stayed like bar chain was having their a big event Mega eth had a sequence of days of events uh but again the rain made it really hard to go to these so I was just able to go to the movement panel and that was a really good discussion and the second day I met with you know Kane Casey who's launching her fund called apology um um and like eight or 10 Shane I'm an early investor in in poly market and so I caught up with Shane like I ping Shane he didn't respond to me I

want to do an episode with Shane and Nick too sh sh Shane is a is like unre like he's he's such a recognizable figure because he has this crazy hair and so I could I'm terrible with like spotting people like kind of autistically just walk and don't see people but Shane it's like impossible to to like you know Miss and uh so I saw him like multiple times nice uh no it was a good event look I so I can't comment on the content and the quality of the ECC itself but there was a number of side events um that were really good so yeah I I enjoyed it there was a ballic talk uh that is live and people can go watch

so I don't know if I'm gonna watch it can't I'm I'm not really Mike Mike moderator talk with falic and um anoma I think that he said went well but it seemed like vitalic was everywhere he was hopping around apparently yeah that's cool I didn't see I saw a picture of italic leaving he like arrived in the rain like people are talking about him like a Godlike figure it's like he arrived in the rain he like leapt through the crowd got on stage spoke and then left without a bodyguard like who is this man best bodyguards are the ones you don't know to to say it's true true I would be I mean I wouldn't be celebrating to F I'm actually concerned if he doesn't have a body yeah true so it's interesting so you know we have permission list coming

up in October and um side events are like the side basically every single so you know like one of the ways that we make money is like sponsorships at conferences like people buy like a booth or they buy like an activation or whatever it is I mean a booth or there's going to be full of like uh like a waiting room pelaton treadmill a juice bar and cold brew coffee for those who want a little insight into my conversation with Santi I'm trying to convince Santi to pay like 10 to put his face all over a booth that just has a squat rack and a deadlift I'm I'm I'm making progress but uh yeah I might not even go to this conference but yeah sure I'll uh yeah anyways so so anyways we so

the com so it used to be here's the history it's like every everyone like in in in every industry people just like SP they sponsor like the conference and there's like always like some things around the conference but like they sponsor the conference and there's thousands of people walking around on this huge show floor and there's like boost and whatever it's valuable it's almost like a mini the way I think about it is like a Marketplace gets built in three days and then torn down there's like a Marketplace that's in IRL Marketplace and when the money shifted out of the hands of the CI companies like Anchorage and copper and fire blocks and Co and coinbase they're all very used to doing those kind of sponsorships the money shifted to the protocols so and when you go to a protocol like arbitrum or movement or uh

apos or sui or monad or whoever it is and you talk about normal sponsorships at some point I don't know when this happened it seemed it started seeming like the uncool thing to sponsor like just sponsor a booth basically and um what everybody wanted to do was host side events so in 2021 and 2022 that actually that actually was a great strategy like the side events were like the places to be you remember like breakpoint salana like those side events were like they were amazing 2023 everyone ran out of money so the side events actually continued to be good because there were so few companies that could host a side event that it felt very exclusive and rare and unique and you couldn't get into them so they they also remained good 2024 true I I [ __ ]

you not Santi you talked to 100 companies for like about permission list 95 want to host a side event so I think people saw it sounds like you had your you had your agenda at ECC but what I'm hearing from we had 12 people on the ground at ECC the side events were so like fragmented and all over the place that it really really took away from the value of the conference um and I think we've seen like I would call ECC what I I wasn't there but like Peak I think we've hit the top on these side events and I think you'll start seeing people if you're like a monad or movement or like a hot name I would say go ahead or like P penguin Pudgies or whatever like host a side event but like most people should not be hosting their own side

events go host a dinner or something but uh I'm I'm I'm also very biased because I want people I know I'm as biased I'm as biased as you can get like truly because our part of our Revenue comes from people sponsoring our event and not hosting a side event but like if I were in the shoes of an event marketer I'm doing three things at permissionless I'm hosting a dinner I'm I'm hosting a private I'm hosting a private dinner and I'm doing I'm buying a booth truly because I think a booth is like a very is like a very easy way to go talk to like three to four thousand of your ideal customers or users and I'm doing some sort of weird activation if I have a of money and I'm a big brand and I know that everyone wants to like be

around me I'll host a party but if it's not if I'm not one of those Brands like don't try to go create your own thing like you like go to where everyone else is so that that's my take that's my take well yeah you know I don't like uh to be honest I I'm not a big fan of conferences they like I like going to them because that is the highest concentration that I can like meet people that I've never met in real life uh and I want to kind of just get a feeling for the founder um I was like looking I'm looking at two deals they were there I I want to meet them I want to see them in

the like in real life how they interact sometimes I'm there to watch people without just just observing how they behave I've learned a lot over the years of just uh good and bad but mostly bad actually there there's that STI guy again sitting in the corner looking at the founders there just observ like why is he taking notes on that guy no uh no but it's it's good to do diligence um and just get an understanding of the sentiment uh how people are perceiving the number of attendance for the I don't really go to the talks themselves yeah one it's like impossible to a lot of times like the quality of the audio sucks like eth conferences are really bad location wise

and organization wise and like the joke at Devcon in Osaka was like just to put it in perspective massive venue four different floors and there was like two elevators for the entire conference I'm like and this was on a time where there was no l2s and the joke was okay yeah this is the congestion of the network in real like you're seeing it right and then like who in the right mind decided to pick Brussels as a conference spot but like practically speaking no security by the way like and so like really guys like bot like okay Cancun issues with the Cancun and Devcon um so I think we ought to be a little bit more thoughtful as an industry of where we organize these things um seriously um and I uh I think they uh there's there

were a number of incidents so it's like unfortunate to see um but I get it so anyways I don't go to these talks I I I bookmark them and I like L listen and them twox a speed because you know that's just more efficient um but I'm there just to meet with people and if it's at a side event then all the better if it's not is it's at a hotel room at a restaurant great um and a lot of deal making happens there I think yeah so it's good yeah yeah I mean my thesis on conferences is just is very simple it's as the world gets more digital the value of IRL connections goes goes up basically because the frequency of the the frequency of IRL connections will go down but the value of those connections will will go up and like there'll be

more efficient connections so instead of going to an office every day like now you're seeing someone only when you are thinking about investing in them for example so and to to tell you the truth uh it doesn't have to just be at a conference but the conference sort of forces you to mostly talk to builders it's just a shelling point for everyone to convene like my vision for permission list is simply like all the people on crypto Twitter who you think of like bring them together in one place like d d is different D is more like institutional crowd like that's that's what I'm trying to do with permission list yeah yeah what I'm trying to say is like um a lot of times um you in this market environment then we can talk about uh sort of Traders take over and they the timeline like they're

commenting on yeah the charts and 200 moving averages or 200 day moving averages and whatnot going of these conferences for the most part there's a lot of Builders there and I just really whenever there's in moments like these are should really helpful to just talk to builders because you realize like the building continues to happen and uh you know a lot of times Builders don't even pay attention to price some of the best ones just ear phased by the price and just continue building and so I think going of these conferences really resets that mindset because it it could be really easy to get caught up on the sentiment of price and what have you I generally think conferences are are a good reset to you know I I saw and talked to a number of

people that said yeah I was like really energizing to go to the conference talk to builders to see the excitement in the room of just all the different things that are being tried and so so um yeah from that standpoint I did come back more energized from the conference having met with it could be like one really good meeting or two really good meetings where just someone come up to you saying hey I really enjoyed the podcast I'm like [ __ ] that makes my day more so than a 100x Ser seriously uh not to say like it's great to get 100x don't get me wrong only happens so very often never this is this is what this is when I see you tweeting about the social layer not the financial layer the social layer compliments well well so to put comment on that I was talking to uh Smokey from

from be chain and they had a big event that I so I reached out them say I'm leaving um but I can't go to the event and then I'm like talking to this company called Papa like Vaped earn and the whole idea is to like allow help people to transition away from smoking to vaping then eventually habitually to Wayne off of nicotine and you know the bad parts of of like what caused actually lung cancer and the addiction component of it and we were talking about like you know a lot of a lot of what is in the narrative right now is talking about air drops are broken it's hyperf financialized we're not building apps it's just a casino like these it's like a common thing that we hear certainly from

the outside world more so now internally uh when price goes up none of this you know none of this gets talked about but when price doesn't go up you know people start being critical of these things and I don't know I I in that conversation with Smokey we were just talking about something like play to earn is was very much like dismissed because the price of axi went down and the price of steppen went down and then everyone is dismissive of a category because the price went down but doesn't care to like deep down look at I'm still quite constructive and bullish on this coordination and getting people to do things not just because it's a financial return and it's easy to like think about an airdrop think about

like just the financialization like the financial component of an incentive but there's just so many instances and we've talked about it in the social layer like in the context of frch and time. fun and all these things um that like sometimes humans just want to do things because of their good because it brings something else other than a monetary reward yeah and anyways I think those are the type of applications that like earned nfts are really interesting like badges po apps these are things that are not new I just don't think uh protocols experiment with them enough um because the attachment the emotional attachment that you have to things that you earn I think is greater than things that you can just buy sort of the it's like a the

jewelry like watches for instance you can buy one and sure but it's there are certain time pieces that REM they're useful because they remind you of particular moments in time when you get married when you have your first kid when your parents gave it to you when you're in a particular milestone in your life they they're like momentos that like evoke a certain memory the same that a song that you haven't listened to in years comes on you're like I remember exactly where I was because it conjures up a memory and so I think like for that reason I don't think people I think the design space for like the social layer not Community not ter is very unexplored and that was a theme that I talked to uh three

different Founders um at the conference I agree with that they all seem to agree yeah I was looking at um do you know the app called gas do you know who Nikita beer is yeah I was looking at gas by Nikita beer someone posted a a product video of gas which I think he sold to Discord or Facebook um he's and he he's a phenomenal consumer Builder I'd say which a lot of people are not able to do like there hasn't really been huge consumer hits in a long time and it got me thinking about actually the same thing but on a product incentivization level so like my my the way I've been thinking about this is there's three ways to incentivize users there's Financial incentives product incentives and social incentives so a social

incentive might be like what you're talking about Santi just like getting people on board and like I think a good example of this might be Snapchat streaks I don't know if you VI I don't use Snapchat but if you hang out with like a 13-year-old like they have like a 2,000 day streak going and like everyone their in their like sixth grade classes talking about like how like how long is your streak like that's the social incentive a product incentive is like building a product that is just very addictive like uh people should look well I'll link in the show notes to Nikita Beer's gas app like it's the pro the way that they walk you through making a decision and getting you to click the next thing is very it's like it's it's a product incentive like Tik Tok is another product incentive like

they've made the product so good that it's addicting um and everyone in cryptos focus on the the the third bucket which is the financial incentive not enough for focused on the product incentive and the social incentive I'll tell you one observation maybe you agree or just agree this price going down even when price goes up a lot I actually get more stressed when price goes up much more price goes down it's actually like my brain is just sort of wired differently I guess after so many years um humans I think it's like over 70 plus perent of people experience loneliness at some point and at some point meaning like over the last year or last couple years that trend is on the rise if you think that money's going to cover that

you're very wrong extremely extremely wrong money does not cover it certainly can help um the best and I actually first heard it from Kobe it's great not to have to think about certain things putting food on the table like if you think about the hierarchy of needs of M like okay that's like once you break through that that's amazing everyone should hopefully get to that point where you don't have to think about if your coffee costs a dollar or five or 10 um and you stop thinking about those things and it frees up your um you know memory space to think about other things that are far perhaps more interesting um but ABS above that level uh wherever that may be and wherever you

live between 100 200,000 a year or whatever or maybe even less um when price goes down price goes up like people think that like they need more money and they're going to cure loneliness and it's like actually not true at all and so I think what I'm trying to get at is that crypto if you argue that crypto's only value is financialization you're sort of missing the point that crypto is highly entertaining yes it is it's very engaging because you're transacting value and value takes up different meanings when you can tokenize it and express it in in in the kind of the crypto context like digital scarse contest of capturing attention tokenizing it in some way and so I don't think that um to say that everyone is in

crypto just because they're fully interested in making money I think misses the point that I think crypto is also touching a very powerful nerve here which is addressing the loneliness problem that people have um and that may or may not be fixed um but I'm I'm a Believer in that um I I I don't get me wrong I do think there a lot of people come here because they want to make money um and then at some point end up thinking that making money will fix their loneliness problem but along the way it's like that Meme you know it's the friends that we make along the way um and I I think it's part of that is true you know it rings true because I I think um I don't think anyways I'll just say that I don't think you if you agree or disagree that there is far more reasons

or there is more reasons why people are here than just making money agree I don't I would argue that it's uh a vast majority but we can debate whether it's the primary or secondary reason I don't really care but I don't know um I think there's a big opportunity to um to create like to tap into that do you think play to earn like the play to earn and move to earn things will come back this cycle absolutely yeah 100% 100% yeah yeah like uh for

instance uh I've always felt that like straa should have already done this to some extent but they haven't uh the biggest criticisms of play earn is that like you know like it's not sustainable to be get paid to you know $50 to walk a mile and then you know obviously like these economies are not sustainable in that shape or form uh but I think we're going to start seeing it particularly in some like my shell you know where you're you're basically incentivizing people to do something they're going to earn some reward but but the counteract like the network effects that you have in in for instance monetizing your own model um or even being able to use a model that has been trained with human data from say that you're want to learn a language

you're learning Romanian you know you're you're giving feedback to that to that model and then I can use that if I want to learn Romanian by the way I know you're learning Romanian Romanian Romanian is the Lang Romanian is the language that you trose sir I don't know man esic esoteric language I'm trying to say like some sort of I or whatever what I'm trying to say is that like yeah maybe you're you're you're earning some tokens you can monetize that model but um I think that the network effects that you can get um in certain verticals are really interesting and they don't require they don't require that much of like ongoing Supply syns to incentivize people to stay in that economy and to transact in that economy whereas axi was

difficult because actually wasn't a game it was actually not a really fun game it was difficult and then um so anyways yeah well I think on the Strava note like uh if they imagine you had a Strava imagine strava's built as a crypto app the thing that it would probably get wrong is trying to incentivize users too much financially and what straa got right is realizing that it's just like straa is a social app for runners and bikers um and it's like you get leaderboards you can compete against your friends H King of the Hill yeah so yeah absolutely speaking of that I have I found a good YouTube comment for you oh here we go new Santi looks skinnier than old

Santi running is starting to kill the Empire podcast feed me whoever you are uh all right here's one funny how Santi is like a Bitcoin Maxi but about tennis he only plays quote real Sports not pickle ball correct very much corre whoever you are true ex excellent observation regarding vampire attacks y know wimbledon's happening right now ready ready regarding yeah yeah it is it's been wimbledon's been good I've been watching uh regard and then Olympics coming up um regarding vampire attacks Yano you're so pale that the vampire reference seems appropriate for you sorry sorry

dude tough tough I trying to get some color here uh I'm out I'm out uh in Long Island somewhere some yeah yeah somewhere in Long Island Strong Island uh yeah getting some color out here so by the way can we can we address something that because it is summer in the northern hemisphere there have been increasing number of shark attack there I only have one phobia and it's sharks I watch way too many Jaws growing up by the way Lego Lego just launched a Jaws LEGO set which is both fascinating and horrifying at the same time how scared are you of of sharks like are you I don't do Open Water triathlons oh yeah you're scared just don't yeah no you could you could start saying you could scream shark and I'm

gonna pull I'll get I'll get out it's irrational I get it I know I know so you have you have an IR like there are rational fears like I grew up in on the west coast like and you don't really want to go surfing at like Stinson Beach because there there might be sharks in the water and that's a very I'd call that rational like you have an irrational yeah I mean probabilistically yeah like I know the probability is really low that being said there have been an increasing number of attacks in particular places like the Hamptons uh South pedri Island is a hot bed in Texas which is a popular destination um there's like three there was like three there was three shark attacks in a span of an hour the shark just went crazy the theory is that sharks are getting hungrier because the

temperature of the water is rising and so their metabolic rate goes up and so I don't really know I think isn't there a thesis that the water's getting warmer so they can actually come closer into the beach as well uh that may be true as well I don't know or maybe they would want cold water actually maybe no I think I actually I think I think the temperature is more so that their metabolic rates they require more food and you know like there's a bunch of humans there anyways watch out folks like I signed up for an half Iron Man I'm not just gonna here um but uh have you done a full Iron Man noes I've done like five halves at this point so where will where will you swim in a lake lake see Lakes freak me out Lakes are filled with like oh Lochness

Monster no like those little uh you know I actually watched a movie as a kid of uh piranhas uh yeah I know piras are only in the Amazon I believe yeah but barracudas are really nasty creatures but they're like I think in a saltwater yeah but you know most dangerous we can go go the most dangerous um place to go swimming is where river meets ocean because there's so much sediment and nutrients in the water it's full of crocodiles and sharks it's like think in places like where the river just disembarks the River Bank into the ocean like in the brail whatever good to know good to know you

know that crypto is slow we're talking about honestly I was prepping for this pod being like what am me what are we what are we talking about I mean there's this so I went I went on chopping block on the loran's chopping block with h and Tom and Robert yesterday and um foolish week to go on because they basically just grilled me for an hour about the the why media companies should exist and our oped and the cus podcast and tough tough uh tough tough tough episode but yeah I mean what what happened this week there was like selling there was a there's a cou mount go and German a couple things Germany has size down they had three and a half billion Bitcoin now they're down to 7 I think two they have 50,000 Bitcoins so like three three

billion three billion however are you slice it so that was from so my that was from a they shut down it was seized from the operator of movie 2K right which is the privacy or the piracy portal was all seized it was all seized Bitcoin yeah yeah uh they never acquired it to my understanding and then they um they've been liquidating it I think they've liquidated over two-thirds of the position right because they had call it three billion they're now to down to 700 but they've been like like whoever is running this they've sent like they've sent Bitcoin mostly to coinbase Kraken and I think bitstamp I believe uh it's like unsophisticated they yeah I was thinking they should have just hired a Trader for like 120k 22y old and just

like it's just I mean obviously it's very Telegraph when they send it to an exchange but it's it's like very messy I mean you kind of have a fiduciary responsibility to like at be best execution I don't think they are really um yeah doesn't surprise me I mean Germany shut down uh last remaining nuclear reactor uh right when the Ukraine war started so like someone a great tweet was like so let me get this straight they're they're selling Bitcoin for Euros which they can print got it okay makes that will age well anyways there is actually an interesting geopolitical if you think about bit here's an interesting geopolitical thing I was thinking about is if you think about Bitcoin not as Bitcoin the asset but as a Comm as a scarce commodity that

nation states will want to get their hands on one day what Germany's doing is basically sending a precious commodity into the market and El Salvador tweeted that they were buying so you have you you're you're essentially sending like take out Bitcoin think of it like oil or whatever I'm sending precious commodity into the market and sending it to another nation state that is then taking my precious commodity um and it's I think there's an interesting geopolitical angle that's not really talked about today but fast forward probably not not this cycle but like probably five years like the geopolitical aspects of like owning the Bitcoin will I think be become a popular topic yeah we'll see I mean uh I mean government's can always continue to

print money right but it's sort of the market will halt you to your knees if uh you know you're not the def facto Reserve currency IA dollar other countries don't have that favored status yeah but yeah I don't know I mean it's I can understand why they're doing it uh you know three and a half billion in their grand scheme things as peanuts for a government but you know still uh it may not over time we'll see this episode is brought to you by SE se's belief about the world I think is a good one they believe that the evm is here to stay agree with that they believe that the evm is going to look kind of like what JavaScript ended up looking like in the web 2 world agree with that they also believe that the evm

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polygon polygon Labs is developing the next generation of open-source zero knowledge Tech to agregate crypto liquidity and user bases empowering developers to grow in a unified web of interoperable chains with the agir that was a big mouthful so I'm going to tell you what it means in my in my words there's all these things popping up l2s and l3s and it's chaos right if you are building something you no longer have to worry about bootstrapping liquidity you can basically just build in the a layer to tap into the liquidity of the a layer and the users of the a layer you get the users you get the liquidity it's the agay it's hot it's by polygon Labs they've got the polygon Community grants

program it was launched with one billion tokens Just For polygon Builders season 1 it's live right now it features 35 million in mtic to support the next generation of polygon Builders join the aggregated future today by applying at polygon.net polygon.com better this year Nvidia or coinbase stock uh coinbase no no actually coin is up 60% interesting question right it's been choppy though uh it's 221 it went all

the way it's been actually let's see I actually have I funny I have like this chart where it Compares coinbase and video actually um coinbase is up 38% this year right so on the 12 month here here's I just pulled up the 12 month chart uh not sorry I 2024 but look at look at the 12- month chart 12- month chart coinbase was actually tracking ahead of Nvidia for the last 11 months Nidia just just overtook coin so it's I'm seeing uh much more no so I just looked at it now Nvidia is up right 170% year to

date and coinbase is only up uh 40% yeah look at look at look at this chart yeah coin coin is up year-over-year 180 and N Video is up 205 oh I said year to dat you're saying year over year like I saying year over 12 months 12 okay yeah yeah that's right it just flipped right it's like uh today actually yeah is that right yeah coinbase they're actually on par Nvidia one year I'm looking at like trading view right now one year Nvidia 195.40 per coinbase 196 38% yeah that's an interesting chart to follow today ladies and gentlemen yeah yeah it was uh I mean there's it's been

a number of uh but yeah shout out David canel go go subscribe to the Empire newsletter we we were talking about this good good little piece of what do you make of that by the way okay so you fast forward question let's make a poly Market prediction Market here or just look at options um who what outperforms over the next 12 months Nvidia or coinbase next 12 months coinbase for sure interesting yeah okay what do you think [Music] I'm just trying to think of a scenar because think of like Nvidia is up over over the last two years this chart looks very differently last two years nvidia's up I mean what a a th% probably um yeah

well uh yeah no not so yes the question though is do they outperform like the second question of that is is a return positive or both negative so they both go down who go which goes down more um if you because if you assume like it's a ma if it if both go down it's maybe a macro thing like macro takes a [ __ ] everything's down on a relative basis what has a higher beta will probably coinbase and so um but I get your point Bia has rallied quite a bit and so yeah yeah yeah it's difficult to say do you own more coin or more Nvidia more coin yeah um what else I don't know because some of the products

may have definitely have Aid exposure and yeah It's Tricky I don't I actually don't have a good answer to that um I have another I have another stat for you here okay I'll throw it up on this on the on the screen black Rock's Biddle fund their money market uh money market tokenized money market fund passed 500 million uh in assets I think it's the first money market tokenized money market fund to pass half a billion yeah and just for context for people to know like this bid um they're like tokenizing treasuries yeah yeah that's been one of the hottest narratives this year right like

Ando um oh okay here's one for you and then we might have to call this early I feel like I'm grasing straws here um tell me what you make of this story coindesk reported this story hold on I'll pull pull this up top crypto VC says exgen partner made undisclosed side deal with portfolio company poly chain says narj broke the funds policies by secretly accepting advisor tokens from Eclipse so 5% down to 1.36% it's worth you know 13.6 million Bas what I uh what I can what it seems like happened is NJ led the eclipse deal when he was at polychain and um U and I know actually Neil the founder of eclipse was sleeping

on nj's couch for a couple months and maybe there were some side dealings where it says uh Hey if you if you can help sentence can be very misconstrued maybe there was something that said hey Naraj if you uh if you get poly chain to lead this round I'll give you some advisor I I'll I'll give you some side tokens and by the way thanks for letting me sleep on your couch for a couple months um and do I mean like what what do you make of this obviously it's not about board right yeah and I mean it's a good actually very good reporting um people should go read the article if they're interested

um yeah it's I mean it's it's not a good look I mean just $13 million interesting today yeah yeah yeah the last round yeah that that is on the revised allocation that he got he initially got 5% which is crazy to give someone 5% give him 5% that's CRA 5% of a company I mean unheard of right he had more Equity what is this bizarre ad that is running on coin desks this is tough oh are you uh this is some retargeting thing uh anyways uh your um so initially the the initial allocation advisor allocation was 5% and

then that was revised down to 1.33% as wow so that would so they would have given him enough token at the 5% that's worth like 50 million bucks yeah pretty much W um and so I think it got rise down as the company's valuation continue to go up but yeah the the the tldr is you know it's NE you have to disclose these things and obviously it's a conflict of interest right if you're a partner you're personally getting allocation before like it's sort of like huge conflict of interest he he was uh spearheaded the pre uh he pre he spearheaded the precede deal this is very good reporting he spearheaded the precede deal and a coindesk investigation revealed that

around the same time he was allotted about as many Eclipse crypto tokens as polychain itself yeah tough the rule of thumb here is if if uh you're going to get some sort of advisory tokens or whatever and you're working at the fund you're doing the deal those advisory tokens go into the fund to lower the valuation um is that so if you're an employee you kind of have to send that back you you contribute them into the fund first you disclose it second it goes into the fund um there are so iess I guess the lawyers can comment in this but like take an example Bane Capital Bane is also has a management consulting arm they're or a private Equity Fund

that has a huge management they're going to go in and like do some operations work and they're going to get paid some sort of fee to do some management consulting or whatever it's part of the company that they're investing in maybe in that case like like you have like this like the revenue goes to like the the operating unit of black own or KKR this private Equity Fund like The Operators themselves that are going in and fixing not to the LPS but in this case it was just advisory tokens like it just goes to effectively lower the valuation the entry point right um because you're getting more equity for a a predetermined price so yeah the other thing that we should probably point out is the name of the company it's a the psychological operations company the SCS company it's just simulation as I always

love seeing what people name their their holding companies and NJ named it the scops company yeah well it would be interesting to see because obviously Naraj has left poly chain he started ritual which is this AI company poly chain is also an investor in that company um are you an inv Wonder no you gotta wonder why this came out just now it's like I mean I would assume it's because someone off I would assume it's because of the man on the screen here I would assume Olaf needed a little scapegoat to uh to to to take the fall for their their Eclipse investment that would be my I mean usually if you're leading around you're doing diligence you require to see advisory agreements

uh cap table prior cap table and it would have been I I guess maybe like the psychological Ops company like came out and it was like under that entity and they didn't kind of see who the beneficial owner of that was like an employee of theirs the partner was leading the deal but it was uh yeah I don't know it's it's it's it's uh oh this is tough nar's original token allocation is larger than the current CEO of eclipes it's kind of wild so the current Co of eclipse only has less than a 2% Equity that doesn't make sense well not Neil that maybe they were referencing no the new guy the um VJ who came over from dydx who actually did Unis right yeah he's he's great I I

actually caught up with him the other day he's great yeah full disclos you I'm an investor in Eclipse I no knowledge of this I just read the article I was like okay well unfortunate Neil then uh sorry not Neil take down Coming For You Santi yeah I mean uh people know that I'm an investor like you know there's always gonna be one commenting oh this guy invested in Eclipse I'm like y uh trust me it's I'm not happy about it um the thing that VJ was quick to tweet and said they listen obviously you know we're cleaning up shop it's to say that it's not ideal situation I think it's an understatement or something to that effect so yeah we'll say that's all I got this

week yeah is that it what do you got no just making sure big news items I mean obviously ECC there's not much covering I didn't go to the panels themselves uh we talked about Bitcoin uh Germany kind of MX you okay let me let me ask you one I'll ask you one cycle related question so the general consensus amongst what I'd call Empire guests when we ask people about like the cycle and where we're at seems to be something along the lines of there's too much uncertainty in the market the market doesn't like uncertainty we're going to chop and consolidate for the next couple of months and then come October November when there's more certainty around who's going to win the election uh if it's Trump the market ends up ripping and we

go into a big bull market in 2025 if Biden gets elected maybe there's a a some sort of mini bare market and then it delays an inevitable bull that feels like probably 85% of guests who come on Empire say that how does that like yeah how how does that line up with how you're thinking about the next several months I mean I don't think on months basis sir but I think that is probably the prevailing sentiment out there um but also you got to wonder like you know if everyone is thinking that and right doing that then yeah uh I don't know uh crypto markets have a way of acting in a way that is very unpredictable and

I just constantly reminded that it's impossible to time markets and so you know you can be right one time you can't be right multiple times now you know uh I do listen to certain people like Chia I was like Hey listen like I I do pay attention to the 200 day moving average and you know that that was a breakdown you know you've tested 60 something whatever 62 63 constantly and it's just not breaking so you know I think these are moments where like if you have um if your portfolio construction is off if your sizing is off if you have too much leverage it feels highly highly uncomfortable in these moments where yeah it just feels uncomfortable yeah it's going to be volatile it will always be volatile so I think it's more of an inward thing it's like okay I feel comfortable in how I've sized

positions um I always carry some cash um because I always want to be in a position to bid when others never want and don't want to touch it uh are we there yet no absolutely not do we have these moments periodically yes and so it's always nice to have some cash on hand none of this is advice or whatever um I'll leave you this thought um I picked up this great book called The Forgotten billionaires fascinating uh this idea that it's easier to make wealth than it is to preserve it to the point where like none of the descendants of Vanderbilt are billionaires few are actually millionaires uh very few billionaires today inherited their wealth most of it

was created uh and it's incredibly hard to retain wealth over generations and so because people either spend too much invest in stupid stuff just don't put it in an index and let it ride and I think the worst thing that you can do is put yourself in a position where you're GNA have to be a force seller so you should I guess the operating assumption is it can be extremely volatile like you you wouldn't you and I probably won't be surprised if Bitcoin is at 30 next week would you be like super surprised it's certainly possible like now I I I did this like tweet last week of like what is more probable and it was like the exact same ratio for soul BTC

and E of like and the market is still probably skewing actually this would contradict what you're saying right I I tweeted July 5th what has a greater probability of happening in the next six months so at 200 or so at 66 and at that time it was like up 50 down 50 um similarly for Bitcoin 112k or 28k 6,000 for e or 1500 and Bitcoin and Solana were 75% believed that it was the higher number so it was going to go higher So Sol 200 Big DC at2 75% people believe that that was that had a higher

probability than the than the downside case eth was slightly lower at 2/3 believe so 66% not 75 for BTC and soul believe that still e like positive skew uh over the next six months so I continue to hold my thesis which is I think at the end of the year we'll see all-time highs for the majors meaning Bitcoin Soul East I think we end of the year um breaking um like and higher than where they are now um prediction markets are telling you that Trump's going to get elected everything points to that it's a pro that Administration probably be

definitely seems like it's going to be more crypto friendly um you're going to have the ETF eth ETF likely you know cranking um probably maybe I don't know salana ETF surprises people comes sooner maybe not probably not this year but still you know markets are forward looking um so I don't know but like I'm not like do I feel the need to like go really out on the risk spectrum and I don't think I'm the challenge with all of this is that the traditional Market is ripping right that's the hardest thing right now because you're like you're definitely taking less risk in traditional markets presumably uh this is higher beta so I riskier um and so you're not the question is are

you being comp so like if you're trafficking both like are you being compensated enough to like go out and bid right now when equities have just been so generous and that's a challenge right yeah so what's your book called forgotten billionaires forgotten billionaires okay I have a related book that I'm reading right now it's called um it's called Aster it's uh it's WR it's written by uh uh Anderson Cooper from CNN um so so Anders Anderson Cooper's actually Vanderbilt he's part of the Vanderbilt family um and he has this Unique Look he he he wrote another book called Vanderbilt from a lot of like the private family files that he has and

stuff but this is about Aster so if anyone for New Yorkers will be familiar with like Aster place and there's Aster Street and things like that um it this guy John Aster was like yeah John Jacob Aster was like your quintessential American Dream story he came to the US in 1783 and they basically they were one of the wealthiest families in the whole I think they were the wealthiest family in the US at one point they were like one generation before the kind of two generations before like the Gilded Age group um so like he was friends with like Thomas Jefferson and things like that um but it's a really interesting story just about the yeah about the entire Aster family and from like 1783 to

2009 they were probably a top 10 like wealthiest American family and it just shares the story of like making great wealth the American dream and then like the ability of a family Generations removed to lose that wealth so blow up Generations yeah it's uh it's difficult that Buffett famous he said like uh rule number one in investing is down those money rule number two is don't forget rule number one you know it's simple but you know I also think uh yeah you're not say losing but not selling yeah yeah paper gains and paper losses indeed um yeah it's really interesting I I like reading these fre from books sometimes

like I don't finish them all but like it's constant reminders of things that yeah I really just Howard Marx uh said something that has really stuck with me over the years which is he's like you don't necessarily have to like ascribe to so many different concepts in finance or investing it's like just hold on to like he's like in my career I've held on to one or two things and I've really harped on them time and time again because constantly people lose sight of them and I've just stuck to those because I believe it is just fundamentally what drives my process uh he's not lot not looking to capture the entire cycle he's not looking to capture the outperform he's just looking to dampen ball and like protect Capital at all

times obviously that served him well um so anyways no it's it's a good book it's it's actually a really good reminder um of investing good chat glad you made it back from Brussels yeah stay safe don't go in the it's a nice new hoodie you got oh yeah shout out to Omar on sing guys they just gave me this hoodie he he actually asked me like what color do you want I was like navy blue I only wear navy blue that's sick I want one [ __ ] it's it's it's it's quite com like I don't usually wear merch I know I'm chilling this means I need to get you some blockworks merch after I've asked you for got how many times have I asked there's probably four years of asking for only reason I'm like hey if I best can I get a hoodie this was my only

condition I'm not asking for a board seat I'm not asking for information rights I'm not asking even for I'm asking for a godamn hoodie I can't even get that all right I think you've earned it fine fine fine I'll bring it to permission list that means you have to not know show permission list where you're listen folks I gotta go pay $110,000 for a hoodie all right yeah by the way permission list our our event our our health chats have that's actually turned into a nice little like yeah we need great coffee by the way terrible coffee paper straws no paper straws I told the coin I told coinbase's head of events yesterday they should really build a they they have these like coin base cafes they should build like a base Cafe right next to the show floor and

the only way that you can get you can get free cold brew but the only way that you can get the cold brew is they have a cold brew with like some stats and regulations but the only way here's here's what like someone should do this activation is the you have a cold bre right next to the show floor the only way that you can get the that you can get this free cold cold wallet is you pay with your wallet and the number of people who will be be there and say ah [ __ ] fine and download the coinbase wallet or the or Unis swap should do this the unap like that is a that is a no activation 100% we can have even a leaderboard of caffeine consumption like if you disclose your like there's just so many things why am I telling people to do this God damn it

like there are marketers out there give me [ __ ] good cold brew at a conference otherwise I'm not going that's it if there's no cold brew I not going preach all right sir anyways guys thanks for uh tuning in this slow summer uh get slow free vitamin D don't look like a vampire like Yano look like me you know nice perfectly all right it peace folks thanks for listening all right you heard about say a couple times just want to give them one last shout out big thanks to se for sponsoring this episode of Empire there are a ton of reasons to build on say if you want to get in touch with them you can reach out to me I'll put you in touch directly with the team you can also get in touch with them on Twitter at say Network you can follow the

journey at say Network they are currently live they've got sav2 on public Dev today main net goes live later in Q2 really excited to have SE sponsoring and partnering with us on this episode of Empire [Music]