Why Circle's Court-Delegation Policy Is a DeFi Time Bomb: Uneasy Money

Transcript

Hey everyone, I'm Kane Warwick and welcome to Uneasy Money because what happens on chain never stays on chain. Before we begin, here is a word from the sponsors that make this show possible. >> Multichain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create 50 plus billion dollars in enterprise value for 80 plus clients over the past 4 years. They're the partner to help navigate markets. Build real traction today at multichainadv.com. >> All right everyone, I'm here with my co-host Taylor Monahan, weird hotel expert, and Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Igloo Inc.

Um we were trying to get a guest today, but uh after Ilya, everyone was too scared to come on. Good job. So, um you have to go and check out that show. Um all right, here is our first segment of the week. Um and this is going to be fun cuz I love fighting my own bags and I'm a Polymarket investor, so um let's get into it. Um the the question is did Polymarket resolve the master uh market wrong incorrectly, right? Um so, this is a very interesting story for a bunch of reasons. One, because why the [ __ ] is MicroStrategy selling Bitcoin? That's

the first thing. This should never have even gone close to yes. How did we allow this happen? This [ __ ] promised us that he was never ever going to sell any Bitcoin, like it would never leave his cold dead hands. And then he's like, uh like what let's just sell like 32 BTC to see what happens. Um and it's not going well. Like why? I like that that still Why like why did he sell his Bitcoin? >> half online. Why sell 32 Bitcoin? I don't understand. >> [ __ ] crazy.

>> that much. It's not It's like did they misdo some math and Like I don't >> no, no. It was like a It was a bit of like a [ __ ] test the market, I think. That guy's an insane person. He's like if there was any If there's any question about whether the guy running the giant Bitcoin Ponzi was a crazy we have answered that. Like There There There's a bunch of theories about why like you know, whatever. But basically my my take is he was playing chicken with the market and the market has now skull [ __ ] him. So, congratulations.

That was not a good idea. Um and I just think like that like the idea that you know, people somehow or would be reassured that he would sell Bitcoin to like cover um you know, these these dividends if needed is not reassuring. That's not the reassurance we were looking for. Anyway, so as usual people were betting on whether this would happen. Um and I think that there were uh like three or four markets about like you know, would would they sell uh Bitcoin before May 31st, before like August or like before the end of the year or whatever. Um and um

like my hot take looking at these markets is like they might be forced sellers. Like if something goes horribly wrong maybe Saylor's forced to sell Bitcoin, right? I don't think anyone who was betting on this market necessarily thought that like he would do it as a joke as some kind of weird joke or trick or something. Um but anyway, here we are. So, he did and then we don't really know when because he doesn't tell us, right? The only way that The The only way that MicroStrategy tells us when they bought Bitcoin is usually when when uh he's top ticked it and the price of Bitcoin is like 85 grand and it's like we just bought a

billion dollars of Bitcoin at like 92 grand and you're like wait, what? Like how did you do that? The price is like 10% above. So usually he would top ticket. But here they're like, oh we sold some Bitcoin. They sold 32 BTC, 2.5 mil somewhere between the 26th and the 31st, right? And uh the um the the people who were betting yes, and this was like not a huge amount of money at first.

If I understand it. So so basically um the the market looked like it should resolve yes. And then it looked like it was not going to right? Um and as soon as there's any >> Hold on, Luke. Is this the actual This is the actual question, right? Will MicroStrategy sell any Bitcoin by May 31st 2026? >> Yes.

>> Right? >> But it wasn't disclosed until June 2nd or June 1st. >> Oh dear. >> Because it never is. So like this is like just a the dumb like, you know, and this is like classic Polymarket, right? Like classic Polymarket having a poorly worded thing that wasn't thought through right? Because if you're saying that we would only resolve this yes if it was announced then it should say will MicroStrategy announce that they sold Bitcoin by the 31st. But it doesn't say that. It says will they sell it? And they did pretty clearly, but they didn't announce it and

so here we are. So so like the theory or or the story, right? Is MicroStrategy created these preferred shares and they owe 1.7 billion in dividends, right? And so they got to pay off the debt by what, 2029 or whatever. So apparently he only has like five months of cash, but my hot take honestly is like he can raise more money, right? Like he didn't have to sell Bitcoin to raise money.

Like that's the whole point of this Ponzi scheme that he can raise money by like doing a bunch of other random stuff. So it doesn't really track for me that like he was going to have to sell the Bitcoin this quickly. He's not on the hook to sell Bitcoin. He just has to raise money. So anyway, my my >> All right, but but if he like 32 Bitcoin is not that much in the grand scheme of things. >> This is the point, right? Like this is this is why I say it was a bit of a [ __ ] test of the market, right? Like it's not going to 32 Bitcoin is not the point. The point was maybe like test how does the market react if I sell Bitcoin and the answer is not well.

So >> Okay. So you're saying because ideally he would want to sell more theoretically if the market would allow him. >> Well, he's currently constructed to have to sell more pretty soon here. >> Yeah, they have to >> raise money. Yeah, they have to raise money, right? And you know, historically he's been very good at raising money and finding ways to raise money without selling Bitcoin. So I'm I'm bullish on his ability to do that. Although now less so because the price of MicroStrategy is cratered. So anyway, I think I think like we it's hard to know exactly what he is thinking and you know, again, he has historically said

I'm never going to sell Bitcoin, whatever." Uh but also crypto has a way of like [ __ ] you. So, here we are. Uh but but that's all the point, right? Like it wasn't a question of like why would he sell Bitcoin or whatever? The question was would he would MicroStrategy MicroStrategy sell Bitcoin? And they did. But this market, like many Polymarket markets, was poorly worded. Like just get some lawyers, bro, to write like the things, please. Like we've been saying this for so long. Like just think about how this is going to play out. It would have taken 2 seconds to be like, "What if they sell it and don't tell anyone and then they tell them off like do like literally 30 seconds of poll?" Also, we

have AI agents. You could write you could get an agent that could be like, "Hey, are there any edge cases here in this thing?" And the agent would be like, "Oh, yeah, there's 10." You're like, "Well, okay." >> I feel like this like your your legal intern. This is what they do in their sleep, right? It's just like think about words and meanings and find the loopholes and then close those loopholes. Like I don't >> It's crazy. It's crazy. Anyway, they have a lot of markets and whatever, but like the historically this has just been like a thing, right? Um so, uh it it should have resolved to yes. Um then, and this is the thing, right? Like this this always happens whenever there's like a weird dispute or

whatever. The the volume goes up like 20x, right? Because now people are like, you know, betting on how the thing will resolve and, you know, there's UMA token holders, like UMA whales are getting involved because, remember, this is solved by like UMA, right? Um and uh and, you know, that's that's the oracle, right? I mean, we we talked about this, I think, last week or the week before where uh they had these new markets that are going to be resolved by Nasdaq. And I was like, "Thank god because this is so much better than UMA. And again, [clears throat] like I love heart, like I love Polymarket, but like the days of like resolving this by UMA's weird

on-chain governance thing is just like so like not it anymore. Um So, um yeah. Here we are. Um so, now there's there's, you know, this has gone far worse, right? Situation's gone far worse because now there's a lot more volume and again, like, you know, Polymarket's not like a random DeFi app that no one cares about anymore. It's a $20 billion company. Um And they just they need to be more cognizant I think of like the impacts of these sorts of things. Um And uh and yeah, so

we'll see, I guess. We'll see what happens, right? Like we're still in the limbo period of like how this resolve. And And my understanding is even as of this morning when I woke up that like the market was still open, which I also don't quite get cuz we're like past This hasn't resolved, right? So, like you can still trade it, but like last time I checked it was like [ __ ] the 3rd of June. So, like this is And again, this is this is like, you know, how long does the market stay open? How long does it take for us to determine whether MicroStrategy sold Bitcoin? Like all of these are things that should have been considered before uh this was started. So, I don't know.

Luca, what what are your thoughts here? You trading this? >> No. >> this? >> No, I'm actually Polymarket's not put some money in there. I've just been losing everything. Um It's not not a good Polymarket guy. >> It's not your It's not your venue? >> No. Hyperliquid's definitely my venue, but I, um, you know, probably the solution here is having some sort of SEAL Team Six that like a department within Polymarket that simply just addresses these cases. Um, because it's definitely pretty obscure and I don't know how you would like automate the solution outside of having a department that specifically is built to solve these problems because again, this isn't the first time. It's

interesting though because if I were to take >> Sorry, is that is that like is that post-talk or like is that after the fact come in and and like oh [ __ ] we've got a fire here, put it out? Or is this like before the market blows up in everyone's face? >> Yeah, the problem is is like you can't really like with situations like this like I don't know how you would code or make like a product feature within Polymarket to avoid this because like there's always been some sort of like vagueness around the the wording of how these markets get resolved. Like meaning um, you know, like many such cases in this. So like I don't know if it falls into a category where these type of specific markets in terms of like buy and sells by a certain time, like if there's some sort of grace period

because there's obviously disclosures. But like there's so many variables because some things require disclosure disclosures earlier than not. Like I would just probably think that the solution would be that there is a group within the Polymarket organization that can usurp, you know, Yuma stakeholders in the instance Right. And just overrule them. >> Just at that point, right? Like at that point you just like have those guys resolve the market. You know what I mean? Like >> But I mean you can you can limit it to like the controversial ones or like the ones that are getting a huge amount of attention and I wouldn't even necessarily say I don't know if the need is to like

usurp the power. I think the biggest issue here is like the lack of like trust, right? Like why is this resolving this way? Where are you know, if even the there's often markets with these dates, right? Or is Polymarket going to learn or are we going to do this again in a week or two weeks or right? Are we doing this again right now? Um and I think it'd be nice to have like some sort of formal sort of transparency. Like this is why it resolved this way.

And maybe that's wrong. And but that's you know, it is what it is. Moving forward, we're going to do this or at least here's like let's lay out the facts of the situation. Um because there keep being these really dramatic markets and I feel like the drama overshadows and then erodes the trust of Polymarket. Like I feel like that's really the biggest issue. Um because yeah, especially if you're going >> also there's the like you know, Al She uh factor as well, right? Or like these guys are like the dirtiest dirt bags who will like come up with whatever they can come up with to like undermine Polymarket. Like they're

running Oppo research and stuff. Like let's not hand them this on a silver platter um because they're just going to turn it into fud. So I think like there's also just this element of like don't fumble something like this that's so easy. I mean to your point Luka, like um you know, the the the fix like of course there's always going to be edge cases, for sure. This is not a edge case that no one could have possibly foreseen, right? Like this is like if you took two seconds to think this market through. Okay, will they do this thing before this period? How will we know?

How will the market resolve? They will tell us. Okay, when did they tell us? After the market resolved. Hmm, seems like a problem. Maybe we should make some like to your point like there's a one week period where you know, they have to tell us whether they sold any and if they don't tell us by then even if they did sell it, which is what happened. They came in and changed the market afterwards and they were like oops. Let's just fix this up and clarify this, right? But at that point people were already they'd already traded like tens of millions of dollars because again, people love to run towards fire like this and they're like this will be fun to trade.

>> [clears throat] >> So yeah, I like I I agree with you Luca that like they need a team that is dedicated to this. I think they have a team. It's like the market listing team. That team just needs to be like slightly less [ __ ] when they're listing markets is the real solution. >> Do you know the interesting part about this is this is something that I'd probably like if I try to put myself in like coming up with Polymarket and just underwriting starting that this is one of those thoughts that I would have like you you you know, I'm sure Shane has thought about this a hundred times.

It's actually just pretty impressive because like when you think about the business that is Polymarket and starting a business like that up there would have been so many objections I would have gave myself as to like why I should not go and build this business and this would be like one, you know, like how do you actually like solve all these problems and all of these edge cuz there's >> [clears throat] >> there's tons of edge cases in this in Polymarket, right? Like there's so many outcomes like this that you could think about. I just think I I just think about it like if I was Shane in the early days I probably would have thought about this and I would have probably ruminated on all the edge cases and been like this is just not possible.

>> Dude, that and that's why Shane is the biggest [ __ ] crackhead that I know and he was just so certain of himself and so certain that this was solvable, right? Like not just that, not just the like from first principles what are all the ways this could go wrong. We had empirical evidence. Like Augur, there were there were a bunch of super smart teams. Like Joey is one of the smartest guys in crypto and Augur like tied themselves into knots trying to like handle these edge cases and I think you know timing was good like they were able to to offload the oracle stuff to UMA. They they popped up like that year they were they were

getting a lot of traction whatever. So being able to like just hand this off to an external party but that worked for like 3 years where UMA was probably bigger I think than than Polymarket in terms of like exposure to the market you know they were doing a bunch of stuff and so it's like blame them if something goes wrong right it's all on them. Now Polymarket is like 8 trillion times larger than UMA and it's just this gigantic risk that's sitting there and like a huge like you know liability for them right? And and I mean they are obviously not unaware of this that's why they were like let's find someone bigger than us the Nasdaq let let them resolve the problem right? So I think that they will eventually

indemnify off this but like in the interim there are ways you could make this less problematic and it's like just being a bit more thoughtful about the market resolution and just think things through. So yeah anyway And I mean I think that interestingly there there was a guy on on Twitter which I think is kind of this is like the the crux of all prediction market right? It's like the the prediction market problem right? The oracle problem it always comes back to oracles. Professor Cornell was like SEC form 8-K filed on June 1st so technically Polymarket is right. The deeper read you're never just betting on the event you're betting on who scores it.

There's also an M dash in there, which a little concerning. Never like to see an M dash in in a tweet. Um but here we are. He's a professor, maybe it's okay. Maybe it wasn't AI. Um anyway, I I think we'll see how this plays out over over the next couple of days, but like yeah, I mean, I can't see a world where Polymarket doesn't need to just come in and like refund everyone who cashed this market, basically. But it's pretty wild. >> Agreed.

>> All right. Let's go to our next topic. So, Solana's SOL burn fight. Luca, hopefully you got some takes on here. This is the if I'm if I'm not mistaken, this is like the second or third the third proposal that like messes with Solana tokenomics, right? >> Yep. >> So, yeah, give us give us the download here. What's What's going on? What's totally cooking? >> Yeah, the download is is that there's been now three proposals to go and cut Solana inflation. For those of you guys who don't know, you can stake your Solana on your local Phantom or Coinbase or wherever you custody your SOL and earn pretty good yield. About 6%, 7% some

places. I think in Solana inflates about 7 8 or 8%ish a year, something like that. So, you know, you're getting that yield from the inflation. And uh the elephant in the room is you know, a token that inflates is obviously bad for price, I think. Um Solana is >> Sure it is. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, I got some empirical evidence on that one as well, but yeah. >> Yeah, Solana Solana I think the the the big story is and I encourage people, specifically who are trading crypto, the alpha is to look at market cap, especially in things when you're like charting and understanding value and

I learned a couple years ago to start looking at coins in their market cap. If I was really bullish on something, like I wouldn't underwrite it just simply on what the price was. And you can see that a lot of coins will have, you know, relative market caps to their all-time highs, but price will be 50% less. And the reason for that is because of token inflation or token unlocks, right? Which is also inflation in its own respect. So, um interesting thing to look at. I I obviously am keen and advocate for anything that is deflationary. I think if you can create a product that continues to get better and then also create a tokenomics scheme where the

token inflates very little or hopefully deflates, then you have a recipe for success. Uh and as a big Solana holder and advocate, I hope this passes. >> Nice. Um so, back in the day, uh we had this thing Hey, you know what I You know where I'm going with this, right? Um ultrasound money. Um everyone was rocking like a bat and speaker emoji on their on their Twitter. Um and I think this came I'm going to blame Bankless. Might not be Might not be Hawkings' fault directly, but I'm pretty sure this is a It's a Bankless thing right?

They started this. Um >> I don't I mean, I don't know if they started it, but they were definitely like leading the charge. >> They They blew it up. They blew it up if they didn't start it. So, um cuz I think like Eric Conner maybe was like There was a whole There was a whole crew of people. And the reason why, like to your point, Luka, is like everyone was super excited cuz EIP 1559 Vitalik accidentally stumbled into this like deflationary thing, which wasn't supposed to be the way that it went, but you know, just things have a way of of happening that you're that you don't unintended consequences, right? And so EIP-1559 was Vitalik's

solution to gas market price volatility, right? And we all know Vitalik hates volatility. And so so he came up with this scheme to basically stop the gas market from being so volatile right? Which was a very good idea, but it had this one small unintended consequence, which was that when it was proposed, it took about 2 and 1/2 years because Ethereum was even more of a basket case if you can believe it 2019 than it is today.

And literally we couldn't get it funded. I remember like running around at like Eth Berlin trying to like raise some money because it was going to cost like 200 grand or whatever to fund the build of this thing and everyone was poor. And and so we couldn't we couldn't afford to build this. And then eventually like 2 years later it was built. By then the whole market had changed, we're back in a bull market, whatever. And so EIP-1559 switches on and somehow Eth is deflationary.

And that was the story, not that the fee market was now suddenly non-volatile cuz no one gave a [ __ ] about that in the first place. And this ultrasound money meme was born. And I would argue like there was a period of time where like it definitely had an impact on Eth price and people were very excited about it and >> Yeah. >> price started going back >> what was it? The activity whatever. But anyways, the activity would go one way, the price of Eth would go one way, and then that would impact how deflationary it was.

>> Exactly. >> of people that showed a chart of like how how much burn you know the the burn right the burn chart. Uh Um so my hope is here that um Hoffman having uh sold all his ETH uh replays that for Saul. Um Luca so I I hope that's in your future. You get Hoffman uh doing a Saul burn chart and we need to come up with something other than a bat. You'd like a different emoji. That would be a bit a bit on the nose but like um some animal that uses echolocation and and a speaker.

So I'll leave that up to you Luca to figure that one out. You can start you can start the Saul ultrasound money meme. It was a It was good It was the going was good for a while while while it was there. >> It was so much. It was so much and it was always a little bit it took a long time to I think catch up but it was always a bit of a fragile narrative. Like you're like >> Exactly say. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. >> You're like sorry this gas bear market UX thing is actually ultrasound money like and this is what's going to pump ETH and this is like impacting everything about ETH that you know.

And everyone's like running around with these little bat emojis and everyone's like >> emojis is my favorite. >> I have many tweets of me just being like Hi checking in and that's how I imagine all the people yelling about ultrasound money. >> Ultrasound money. Yeah. Yeah. >> But I don't know. Maybe someone will might do it better than than Ethereum in the sense that like Ethereum kind of got carried away with it and kind of it was like a fragile narrative and then people really piled onto it. >> think the proposal's actually and maybe I'm wrong but I don't think the proposal's actually to make it deflationary. I think it's to take it from like 8% yield to like three and some change.

>> Right. But I'm just looking at the numbers here and it's like 10,000 to 64,000 daily burn, and then the inflation's like approximately 60,000. So, I'm just saying, if it hit 60,001, some lunatic on the timeline's going to do happen. The day when there's like This was the thing, right? Like, no one was expecting this, and then there was like one day where someone like looked at the ETH inflation to like burn chart, and they're like, wait a second, it's going down. Like, this is crazy. And then it's spiraled out of control, which was fun.

Um so, I mean, I think to your point though, Luca like anything, especially in a bear market, anything inflationary in a bear market when like there's no bid for it, it's just it's grim, right? Um so, yeah, like the having some deflation during a bear market probably not the worst thing. I don't really think so. Like, that versus the staking yield. I just, you know, there's there's like two there's two things here, right? Like, there's a lot of fake tall, um and you do need token sinks, right? And so, there is a danger that if, you know, the yield goes to zero, that that token sink that currently exists disappears, and, you know, people are

uh but, the thing that I think Solana has going for it um that uh that ETH didn't, and where where the narrative kind of got poisoned, is when like fees started becoming so insane, right? And people were like rallying around it, right? Like, this was the like pre-L2 era, right? Um and this was like the Su Zhu thing. Like, my my fight with Su Zhu came out of this whole thing as well, where it was like, all of you like jackasses, basically, this is Su Zhu, right? All right, like, sitting around, right? Jacking yourself off over the burn. Meanwhile, no one can afford to use your chain. Which was actually like on the money, like 100% on the

money. It cost like $500 to do a synthetic staking contract. >> And you took the other facade of that? >> I Yeah, it's a long story. It's a long story. I was I like I was sub-tweeting him for like a week, like getting in his head, and I knew he knew, and eventually he lost his mind because I'm a very good troll if I want to be. And he he like added me directly, and I was like, "Whoa, whoa, I don't know what you're talking about. This has nothing to do with me. Why are you freaking out, bro?" And meanwhile, I had I had this like side up campaign for like weeks, just like prodding him, prodding him, prodding him, and he lost his mind.

And and so but he was right. Like we were sitting around Jack and Jill's off over the burn, and it cost like you know, .1 of an ETH or something like that to do complex transactions, and no one except for ETH whales could afford to use the chain. And he was like, "This is not sustainable, guys. Like this is not going to work, right?" So the difference here, I think in fairness, is that Solana's fee burn comes from like massive transaction volume, not massively expensive transactions. So in terms of like sustainability, it feels a little bit more sustainable to be doing like tens of millions of you set

transactions and .001 of a cent is burned, whereas we were doing like a few hundred, $5,000 transactions and burning like $2,000 per transaction. Again, maybe not sustainable, though. Um All right, let's see let's see if this if this passes. This will be uh interesting to watch. Before we continue, though, let's take a quick commercial break, and we'll come back talking about USDC waking up and starting to freeze USDC, which is exciting.

>> Taylor, what's that? >> Multichain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create over $50 billion in enterprise value for more than 80 clients like Piff, MoonPay Commerce, and Wormhole. They've worked with some of the largest and most impactful companies in the space. They're the partner you want when you're navigating markets and trying to break out from the noise. They help navigate TGEs, go-to-market BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations, and more, driving execution from launch to scale. Their results are measurable.

To learn more and start building real traction today, visit multichainadv.com. >> Okay, so this is an interesting story. So Circle, who like historically are very bad at freezing USDC when we need them, decided that they were going to freeze USDC when we didn't need them to. So Tay, walk us through what happened here. >> Okay, so these guys, and you guys will have to fill in if you know anything about the whatever this overnight >> Overnight finance?

>> Yeah. So basically there's a thing overnight finance. Um I guess it's been around for a bit. It kind of seems like a a dead project to me, but I guess there was some amount of activity. Um and then these other guys came in and bought a bunch of the token. But then the person who actually controls the protocol, cuz the token obviously doesn't actually control the protocol like >> Oh yeah, come on Tay, of course. What are you talking about? >> So the guy that actually controls the protocol, so all the guys, all these other guys come in and they're like, "We're going to buy up all the tokens and then we're going to try to take the whole treasury cuz there's like a treasury that is left."

And then the guy that actually controls the protocol was like, "I don't like that plan." And so, he took all of the treasury for himself. Um it's a bit unclear what exactly his plan was. Like, was he rugging them? Were they rugging him? I think my read on it is like they're all trying to steal the treasury. >> They're all bad actors. >> Yeah. >> They're all bad actors. That's just the reality of these situations. It's like these like guys who come in who are like, you know, crypto raiders. They try and like raid treasuries. They're like, "Uh you're doing a bad job." And it's like, no, he's not doing any job. He's like slow rugging it, bro.

>> Yeah. So, that's like step one or whatever. Step two is the raider guys um have lawyers, apparently. And the lawyers um basically like they followed the money. And so, the treasury that the raiders were trying to grab, the treasury moved to a new address. And then from the new address, it went into this privacy protocol called Zama. And it's not a very, at least the USDC Zama pool is not very widely used. Um it's also kind of a weird one because it's not exactly Tornado Cash.

It gives you certain privacy, but not full privacy. Uh it's not really a mixer, I guess. Which is weird. Uh but anyway, so yeah. So, now there's like $12 million in this pool. Um and the raider guys called their lawyers, and the lawyers go to court, and the court they get a like a it's a temporary restraining order. Uh they basically get they just share their side of the story, right? Cuz this happens very fast. So, they go to court, and they're like they make it this big thing, this guy's getting away. Um and they you can stop you can stop the bad guy if you freeze this money, you can stop the bad guy. Um and the judge like kind of looked at it and was like, "Sure, that's fine. We'll figure it out."

Like that was on Friday. We'll figure it out on Monday, but freeze it for now so we can't get away. So like Friday night, Saturday, all of a sudden the smart contract protocol, which is like a co-mingled pool of assets, is frozen by Circle, and no one knows why, including the Zama guys. The people who run the Zama protocol are like, >> Circle, Circle, Circle. >> And And this is because they This is This is like a shielded pool, right? They're like uses like fully homomorphic encryption to shield the pool, but you can see the addresses and all

balances. So there's like some balance obfuscation thing, but the pool is like not all of this money, right? Like it's It's just weird that this guy decided to use Zama as like the exit strategy here. Like >> It's very >> That That's weird. Like I don't I don't get that. But then Circle just came over the top and was like, "Freeze all of Zama." All of the USDC in this pool is is frozen. >> And because he had deposited such a large amount, it was like 12 million out of like 13 million, and that's being quite generous. I think it was like 12.2 out of 12.9 or something was >> [laughter]

>> Right, it was just this one guy. Um It was just like a completely overwhelming number, and then also the way that the the Raider guys sort of their lawyers framed everything up, it just didn't seem like a big deal to freeze the smart contract protocol. But it is worth noting there were like there were other people that had deposited funds there, and suddenly their funds were frozen. On top of it, Zama, who is running this protocol, is like trying to build and trying to get like, you know, activity and like do useful things, wakes up and is like, "Wait, what? It's like, why didn't I even tell us about this?

Um and then the radar guys are obviously like, you know, taking to Twitter and they're defending their actions. They're saying they're just like kind of taking it for granted that everyone's going to accept that one, this was like an okay thing to do, and two, that this the guy that they were trying to raid is like definitely evil. Which I think some people accept because he did, I guess, like run away with money and then put it in a privacy thing. But I'm not uh You said it earlier. I was like, wait what?

>> the loot, bro. >> It's all very evil. >> Like, why would you >> Yeah. >> Um from the token >> And I don't blame him. I don't blame him. Why would you want the raiders to raid you? Um but obviously [clears throat] it opens up a huge conversation about like, there's a lot of pools in crypto. Like, a lot of pool, like a lot of pool. And how big like or how much of your deposit >> This is why this is but this is why like the circle, we only do things when we get a court order.

As if courts are somehow going to be the best arbiter of the impact on a stable coin. Like, it's just so dumb. Like, every aspect of this policy of Circle is so dumb. Like, we will only freeze pools if we have a court order, and we will freeze them if there's a court order without even thinking about it. Like, without like with no scrutiny whatsoever. Um and it's like you can keep doing this for a while, but this is one of those things where like there are alternatives, guys. Like, people will eventually go, eh.

Like, it doesn't take that many cases of things. And this one resolved fine, but like it could easily have not resolved fine, right? Like, if it were a different type of pool, it's an LP token. The Now that stable coin's de-pegged because can't get the other side out. Like there's just so many ways that this could go wrong. Um especially once people realize that you can do these like Friday afternoon attacks. Like Like this is, you know, crypto's so adversarial. Like people will take advantage of the poor judge who doesn't understand the implications of what they're doing and they turn up and say, "This There's a bad guy doing something." And like he's going to get away with it. Like a judge is going to be somewhat kind of

you know, open to that argument, right? Like, "Okay, let's Like courts do this all the time." They're like, "Ah, freeze the thing and we'll figure it out on a Monday, right?" Like But in crypto, freeze the thing and we'll figure it out on a Monday not always a good strategy. >> It was so long. It was so long and like again, this specific pool was not the most used. It was a pretty new pool. Most of the money was this other guy, whatever the overnight guy. Uh but you can imagine >> Overnight Finance. I feel like I I feel like I uh was in this for a while. Um I might still be.

>> I I I never I never heard of it. It was a weird one. And I'm still not sure what they were ever doing and certainly not sure what they were doing at this point, but apparently they had a pool. >> Yeah. I mean there's a lot of protocols that are just like treasuries floating around, right? So >> Yeah. >> Um Yeah. >> Yeah. So I think the biggest issue that I have is I mean we've talked about this before. Circle has fully dedicated this decision to a US judge and there's on on the one hand it it absolves you of all responsibility. On the other hand there's a lot of judges and especially when you're doing the the ex parte TROs, which means like basically I

just like go in under emergency circumstances and tell my side of the story and there's no one else. Not the circle. >> Yeah. >> Not the hacker. I don't have to name anyone else. I I You know what I mean? Um I can I can There's a There's a lot of things that I can say that are like uh let's say skirting the line on truth, right? Like they downplayed the potential impact of third parties. They sort of like just like threw in a line to to make the I guess they've done this before, but they threw a line in saying like, "And if third parties are impacted, like we'll we'll cover it or whatever." The You know, and so the judge The judge is

looking at this and is like, "Okay, it's a it's a boatload of money. You're telling me if I if I order them to freeze it, then the money can't go anywhere. You're telling me there's like not really any harm." Like, "Okay, cool." >> Also, you can like shop for judges. You can like shop judges and find There's so many judges. Just like find a judge who's like There's probably some judges who are just like, "Yeah, yeah, [ __ ] these crypto guys. Like you know." >> 100%. And especially you can imagine there are Yeah, there's a lot of circumstances where like a pool of commingled assets should absolutely not be frozen.

But if you frame the facts and circumstances in a certain way, you can absolutely get it frozen for at least a few days, right? Um and I think I think it's just bad on I think Circle has to at some point realize that the decision to push all responsibility >> Yeah. >> You can't do it. Um It Because again, once you once you push all that responsibility to the courts, you can't say no to the courts. And this is like one thing that Tether does very well is they they have a lot of sort of thresholds and sort of things that have to happen depending on the facts and circumstances, but they

sort of always retain that final say. Um and even when they do get like an order, they say like, "We're just We just happen to voluntarily freeze this." Like yeah, you served us, but like we froze it all on our own. >> a coincidence, man. I know. >> Yeah, yeah. But it's it's to maintain this the the control because if if the court does order a bad freeze, they want to be able to say no. But if you've completely delegated responsibility and said, "You're You're Your entire policy, Circle's entire policy is if a judge orders us to do it, we will do it. That's it. If they don't, we won't. If they do, we will. And I think that can be abused, and I think

people are realizing that. >> it's just like all it takes is a few examples. As I said, like crypto's so adversarial. There's so much USDC floating around in weird places that people can attack like you could go this could be completely unrelated, and you're like, "If we can freeze this pool, then we can go and do this other thing and exploit this protocol. So, let's like figure out some like trumped-up thing of this guy is trying to like steal the money or it's at risk or whatever." And just say like, "Hey, it's Friday afternoon. Just freeze it till Monday. It'll be totally fine." And then by Monday, there's smoking crater there. Um so, yeah.

Circle has to get this [ __ ] Um All right. >> I just want to say too like I don't know. I think that I just I feel for Zama in this situation. Like these guys are just trying to build a freaking protocol, and then they wake up and they got frozen, and it's not even because they were building a privacy protocol. Like it wasn't You know what I mean? They're not even getting So, I think people who are building DeFi should probably consider this risk, I guess, and maybe think about ways to mitigate it.

>> I mean, you know, the funniest funniest thing is like back in the day when I was still like drinking the decentralization Kool-Aid, right? Like we were like we delisted die out of synthetics because die was like 58% USDC. And we're like, we can't trust these guys. This is when USDC was a lot smaller, but we're like, we can't trust these guys. Like their their policy is insane. They could freeze the whole protocol just cuz someone turns up, griefs us, whatever. Um anyway, here we are. Now USDC all the way down. So, congratulations.

Um All right. Uh let's move on to our next segment. Um this is an interesting one. So, uh the this guy, Jeff Sprecher, um who is the CEO of ICE, New York Stock Exchange um and I don't know TradFi well enough to know if there's like beef between like New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. I have to feel like there is. Like I know they compete for like IPOs and stuff, but like um I don't know if this guy is is uh like just, you know, throwing shade on the Nasdaq. Um >> It's no different than Binance and Coinbase. Just >> Right, okay, great. So, it definitely is, right? So, basically this guy, this this TradFi guy who's the CEO of New

York Stock Exchange, is like, "Hey, did you know there are these like 11 kids in like Bolivia whatever uh that are bigger than the Nasdaq?" Which feels like a very good burn. I just like that to me is is awesome. Um so, apparently he said, "This is hyper liquid that we're talking. If you haven't heard about it, it's bigger than the Nasdaq, okay? It's 11 people. You look at it, you're like, wow, that's pretty something." Like I love that quote. It's amazing. Um and then and this has been a while because Kyle Samani was supposed to be like not even in the area. So, I don't know how this happened, but there was a 100K bet. Arthur Hayes challenged Kyle Samani

that ETH outperforms every top 10 coin from And look at this. Okay, Arthur Hayes and Kyle Samani's prop bet that they're setting up has clearer specifications than your average Polymarket market. So, maybe we should get Arthur Hayes to write the Polymarket markets for him. So, the bet is from midnight UTC June 2nd to January 1st, 2027. No timestamp on that one though. So, I don't know. Maybe we assume it's midnight.

Um priced versus USDT on Bybit. They like specify the venue. And Samani accepted. I hope he loses. I really do. I like Arthur and well so but >> So, Kyle's betting Kyle's betting basically soul, is that right? He's betting his soul >> anything. The funniest The most entertaining outcome would be if ETH outperforms ETH. And Kyle wins. That would be the best. >> You know, if that happens if that happens, I win and you guys can all go Oh, try it in the corner.

>> [laughter] >> Uh but yeah, anyway, so uh so yeah, Samani's not Hyperliquid is Binance 2.0 without a marketing team, not fully open source, permission validator is token distributed. I love Samani. Best. Um so, uh yeah, there's there's a bunch of Sorry? >> Does it matter Does it matter because I can literally go with my internet connection and have the best trading experience ever? Like, what are we What are we doing here? Just >> Nothing that Kyle says matters. It's all style. Uh everything that he says is some kind of style for fact. So, um yeah. I I think like, you know, the the reality is that in a bear market, we're now in this situation where we didn't

have the kind of blow-off top in alt that everyone was expecting. Um, and so you had these assets, um, and not many of them, but like there are definitely some out there, right? Like Zcash, even Near, um, you know, Hive, that were coiled for the blow-off, and it didn't come. And now we're in this weird thing where like there's always there's always in bear markets assets that outperform, right? Like you go back to like any any um, any bear market, uh, there'll be there'll be some assets that like start to get some momentum and it looks like the only investable thing, everything else is going down, whatever.

Um, uh, and it's pretty nice if you can It's good if you can get into that, uh, position. Um, but, uh, but this feels like it could be even crazier because usually it's like come off the back of the blow-off top, everything crashes, and then it's like rebuilding from zero, and so they kind of grind back up. Um, but Hyperliquid, you know, I think it went down to like $20, right? Like from 50. So, it was down 60%. Usually with alts, it's like they're down 98% and then, you know, a few will like show signs of life and and grind back up. Um, whereas Hyperliquid was like grinding back up off, you know, $20, and now it's

at all-time high. Um, and it just it feels like through the whole bull market it was one of the few things that was investable, and now in a bear market it's like 10 times, uh, 10 times more concentrated in terms of, you know, what's investable. So, um, yeah, I I think, uh, Arthur probably has the right side of this bet, but you never know. 2027's a long way away. Um, and again, I would love to see Kyle lose prop bet. >> [clears throat] >> Does that mean if Zcash is in the top 10 that it's not applicable?

Cuz that would be the only thing that I think could give HyperRun. >> They could They could actually blow Yeah, I think it was I think it was based on the top 10 >> Oh, yeah. He'll win that That's like a very easy bet to win. I don't even know why Kyle would make that bet. >> I I mean, if you're a founder out there and you don't can't figure out what you should build, Kyle propbet.com. Good business. >> The thing is is people have hype really misunderstood because on the FDV side, like they remove FDV from the equation. Like where where is the rest of that diluted value going? Like potentially another airdrop, which like I feel like Jeff would do that really strategically and at the right time. And then like what the 11 insiders? Like those guys

don't read to me like huge ginormous net sellers. Like once you have your millions, you know, you you could sell into the hype TWAP and it wouldn't even do anything. So, you know, if you just look at HyperLiquid objectively and call it round it up at a $20 billion asset, like it is definitely worth more than 20 billion bucks. I mean, you know, I think the FDV is a big side up for a lot of people. But like let's understand where those tokens are being distributed. You know, it's 11 guys. Jeff, probably the big by far the biggest stakeholder.

He's been rich, right? He's not hungry to, you know, be a ginormous net seller and then some future airdrop. But you know, that's that's probably a ways away. >> All right. Let's see. >> [clears throat] >> Let's see. Okay, a final a final uh segment for today. Um We're actually on time, weirdly. Quite bizarre. Um but maybe we can we can blow ourselves out with this one. So, um, apps are fleeing Maga ETH for Monad.

Um, so, I This is an interesting one to me cuz I'm an investor in both Maga ETH and Monad, right? So, so, you know, I like Shu Yao. I like Keone. Um, uh, and um, and I think that, you know, they're building, um, different different approaches to these networks, right? Like optimizing for different things. Um, but the thing that's been interesting to me throughout this entire thing, you know, especially Monad, it's been like 4 years now, right? Um, is both of them very clearly understood from the beginning that it's the apps on your chain that will make or break it, right?

You have to have the apps. Um, you know, I mean, Luca, you've talked about this, right? Like you got to have the DeFi apps. Even if you don't have Aave, you got to have something like Aave, right? Like you got to go out there and and get that. Um, that's the spine of your network, right? If you don't have the that DeFi activity. Um, what's interesting though is Monad seemed to focus on like fundamentals-based apps, if if that makes any sense, right? Like they were like, um, apps that were not controversial or like super novel or whatever. It was just like, our take on this thing.

And in fairness, like Monad, you know, the the selling proposition of Monad, um, was like another EVM-based L1 uh, with like a few different trade-offs, but it wasn't like, oh, we're going, you know, way out on the risk curve of like a real-time blockchain in the way that Maga ETH did. Um, Maga ETH though went with this uh, very cultivated like small group, you know, five, 10 teams, right? This mega mafia approach. um, and they, uh, they courted these like cracked zoomer teams that were very clearly, um,

trying to build apps that did not feel like they were crypto. That was the goal, right? They were like, and and every single one, I I remember I went to one of these mega mafia events and like every single one of the the, uh, founders was like, we want the crypto to like fade into the background and and we really want this to be an app, right? Like an app that on the app store or web app that you would use and you just don't feel any of this stuff. And I was always a little bit concerned about this because it felt like kind of adverse selection.

Like if you're if you're courting a bunch of teams that don't care about the blockchain aspect of the thing and and want to, uh, you know, make the the blockchain disappear, what possible loyalty are they going to have to your blockchain? Like if it turns out that your blockchain can't do the thing that they want to do, then they're not like there's nothing really holding them there and and I think we're sort of seeing this play out, right? Like there's a bunch of teams, uh, that that were, you know, um, in this mega mafia program that as soon as there was, you know, uh, some incentive to go somewhere else

or, you know, any issues or whatever, they were like, oh, we'll go over to this network. And, you know, like Monad raised a lot of money. A lot of money. They've got a massive war chest, um, and yeah, they like, you know, it's a bear market, teams are looking for funding and, uh, and incentives from chains is one of the best places to get funding, um, and so this this just doesn't feel that I don't know, um, it doesn't feel that surprising to me given given the teams that that maybe ETH uh, you know, was was courting. I mean, look, what's what's your take on this, right? Like from an abstract perspective, how have you thought about the teams that you have

courted incentivized supported incubated? Like, how are what's your strategy there? >> Yeah, I've got an answer that's going to get me in trouble, and I just put it out. >> Amazing. Let's go. >> No, I'm not going to I can't give that answer. I don't want to I don't want to start some stuff. Um, but, uh, I mean, look, I will tell you this. I think that the blockchain business is an incredibly hard business to do right. I think it's really easy to sell a story. I think it's really hard to actually be performant. I think what apps want above all else, and if they look for anything other than this, then I think they're they're they're mercenaries, and so like optimizing for mercenary apps is not advantageous. So,

like, I've been anti-grant, anti-money. What I am what I am what I think a chain's job and an ecosystem's job is to provide distribution for applications. That is the compelling reason why I think an app would go on a chain. I think if you're looking to build your, you know, look at it look at a chain as an ecosystem and in our world, like, ecosystems are like cities, right? Like, if I have a city with a lot of foot traffic, then my promenades and my boardwalks are going to have a lot of good stores that pay a lot of good rent.

And I think that is really the business model that they are in. I have since maybe disagreed in terms of let's just through the lens of token value. I don't think token value is derived anymore by the apps that are built on your chain, which is unfortunate. Obviously, a chain's success and ability to become self-sustaining is, right? Like, the chain business is such a bad business that unless you're making real fees, right? A lot of chains just sell tokens to go and subsidize the the infra and the spend that is running a blockchain. Um and so for that reason, I think you have to have a chain that has good apps on it, but as Polygon showed us, right?

I don't think apps on your chain accrue value to the token. Um unless for some reason, you know, activity then ties in, but the activity you can have the most activity in the world and Solana's proven this, but what it actually does to the token supply in an efficient manner is relatively nominal. Um and I think I think it's really going to be hard to compete with chains moving forward. I think it's a it's it's an incredibly difficult business. Um and and I think if you look at the landscape today, I think if you look at the future of blockchains, I think they're going to be very purpose-built around certain

enterprises. I actually think Near has a one of the few cases to actually become a a top blockchain because of its privacy element and what I think it can do there cuz intense is such an amazing product. Um but, you know, I think I think Monad built really great infrastructure. Um but you know, to the spirit of me not getting myself in trouble, I won't give you my true honest thoughts on what I think is transpiring across that entire landscape. >> Um awesome. Well, uh I think one one thing that's interesting, we saw this in Base, right?

We saw like I was really close to a bunch of teams who who went from Optimism to Base, the superchain, um you know uh some teams I wasn't close to like Velodrome, Aerodrome, you know, whatever. Um and my my experience being in those groups, like the the base uh DeFi groups and and some of these other like base mafia groups, was always that there was this sense from everyone, right? That base doesn't care about us.

You know, they're they have they play favorites, they care about these guys. Now, the good thing about Ethereum, right? Like if you think about it, is when everyone is like Vitalik doesn't care about us, all of the DeFi builders. There's no favorite like there was no one you could point to be like, "But he loves Stani." No, he doesn't give a [ __ ] about Stani either, right? Like so, there was at least an equal playing field in the Ethereum DeFi community where like no one felt like anyone cared. Um and you just had to like survive on your own, right? And it is an interesting place where like these ecosystems where they do play favorites and there's a mega mafia and like base has like their anointed teams. And, you know, I remember base being like

>> Coinbase is not Keynes as a thing, right? How how can you not? Because if you own a boardwalk, right? And there's three places on the boardwalk that are bringing everyone there. Are you supposed to go to the local crevice of that boardwalk and treat that person in the crevice with the same care and attention as your main attractions? >> Well, Vitalik would tell you shut the boardwalk down. Boardwalks, we don't want boardwalks. Get rid of boardwalks. >> it's not it's not ergonomic, it's not efficient. The quality of builders like at the end of the day, you know, I can just tell I I'll just be honest. When I was delineating builders, right? There were some builders that I would talk to and spend time with. And then, I got the same I got the same response from other guys. And the

unfortunate reality, to the best of my ability I've tried to avoid saying this cuz I don't want to hurt their feelings. Today, I care less. Is you were just not the same talent as the other guy. I hate to break it to you. And I don't think you have what it takes as the other guy that I'm spending time and attention with. And frankly, right? I you know, if you treat it like a startup mode, you have to give somebody attention because again, you're you're pronged on so many people other people's success. But frankly, building Abstract gave me a little more empathy for how I think or a little more understanding for how Vitalik went about it. Now, Vitalik was interesting because he was put in a position where post

success, I think it's super important that you have that rapport, uh especially with guys who have like hundreds of you know, 50 100 billion dollars of assets. I mean, it's almost like fiscally fiscally irresponsible not to. But when you're in the startup mindset, he was obviously first mover, kind of created the whole blockchain ecosystem and you know, a lot of power to him for kind of capturing a lot of that value and that momentum early on. But if you're treating a blockchain the day net new, you have to treat it like a startup. And if you know your startup is dependent on other parties finding success, you can't go and give all those other parties the success that you want.

And so you have that dynamic. But the truth of the matter is is you're picking guys who clearly have some semblance of what it takes to go and build, you know, good properties and good attractions on your boardwalk to make your to make a successful boardwalk versus you're not going to go to every Joe Schmo wants to inquire for a lease and king make them and bring them the same value that you're giving the guy that is, you know, developed multiple properties in the past and has multiple successes under his belt, right? And it's just like it's like common sense. The problem is is crypto is not the land of common sense the way the way I wish it would be. And so you're you're dealing with this dynamic that is really frustrating, frankly. And it's even from like a user perspective,

um you know, it it it it it it it's it's really it's really a catch-22 and frankly it is it is it is almost impossible to manage if I'm being honest. >> Mhm. Well um inspiring talk from Luca. Shut the whole thing down. No, but I get I get it. I get you. >> 100% and then I think on top of it all Okay, so regardless every project right now, if they haven't gone traction, they're struggling.

This isn't about a chain thing, right? These are projects. These are people that are trying to build stuff. >> Yeah. >> It's just rough right now. >> And it's existential, right? Like if you raised you know, I I saw a team like a couple months ago that raised like 10 mil um a legend legend like they raised uh 15 mil or something, right? They were like D5 super app, one of our competitors. Um and they burned through enough that they were like, we're down to whatever months of runway, right? Over the course of 2 years.

And they're like, we got to shut this thing down and sell off the assets, right? Like and you know, the problem this is the funny thing, right? Like uh trying to build an app or like any you know, consumer facing app or whatever that is like somewhat chain agnostic you got no hope. No one's No one's going to come and save you, right? Uh you know, because uh there is you're not tied any ecosystem, right? Whereas at least if you were in the mega mafia, you're still grinding like, you know, Meggy probably can help you like help you raise some more money, help you survive because it's existential for them that their apps survive, right? Um so yeah, it's just a hard It's a hard time. Bear markets are hard. People people run out of cash

really quickly. They think I thought there was going to be more time etc. etc. and there isn't. So. >> Wait. But you know, there there's a there's a self-accountability here, too, right? And so, at the end of the day, like if I'm building a product, right? It's nice that a chain or something can bring me value. And I I've always my qualms with Ethereum was never I needed them to king-make me king-make me. I think I needed them to show me some acknowledgement, like a like a stepson to their dad, right? >> Yeah. I could try that. I've said this so many times.

>> Show me a little bit of love, right? Was I think my always my qualm, cuz I would work really hard for so long. But I think the my my my my my my thing is is if you're building a business and you are dependent, right? On somebody else bringing you a user base, right? If it's not a chain, a chain ecosystem is it's quite literally the the the business. But if I'm an app and I think and I think I'm failing because of a chain, right? You are so misconstrued. I mean, you just you may not be built to run a a business, frankly. You might just be an entrepreneur, which is fine. Steve Ballmer was an entrepreneur, one of the richest men on the planet. You can still bring value for yourself and your

family. But this idea that I you know, I needed like I and my my thing was actually really interesting because I was on the other side of it, right? I was the app builder, the consumer in in my own respect, right? But I wasn't ever an ecosystem first. And I had no money for 18 months. I didn't take a salary for 18 months, right? I actually put millions of dollars of my own money into it, and we found success, and we persevered, and we did everything physically possible to go and succeed. I mean, quite literally I tried to run down what were the 20 things that would make a thing successful, and I did every single one of them.

And and you know, at at no point in that early process that I blame Ethereum for not giving me and bringing me success. It wasn't until after we had won and done so much in at such a in such a bad time was I like oh maybe Vitalik you want to or or maybe >> We're propping that We're propping this bad boy up. Can I you buy me lunch maybe one day? >> You know may- maybe maybe a nice maybe a nice comment don't even need to be in public or just some sort of acknowledgement from from my staff. >> just acknowledge that you exist. >> Right.

>> And that you did a thing like >> expected them to save my business, right? Or to create value. >> And I I agree. I agree with that. >> Yeah. I 100% agree. >> I do. I think Luca I think you've you have hit the nail on the head a bit where if you're building on Mag if you're building on Monad frankly if you're building on a lot of chains right now and you are not you have not got that traction. You've not found that product market fit. I think there is a certain class of builder who's sitting there right now saying if the chain falls or >> I mean they didn't fairness the chains are struggling.

>> The The chains are struggling. >> It's grim for chains, right? Imagine if you build your business >> You can't tell me that these guys that are going to move from Mag to Monad or Monad to Mag or base >> It's not going to do [ __ ] It won't help. The only thing that will help is you got a $2 million grant that lets you survive for another 6 months. >> Right. >> That's the only It's like it will not change your outlook as a business, as a protocol, as the team, as a project, right? But it will give you cash. And you know like if you're in an existential like you know if Solana had turned up in in I don't know Luca like 2022 and been like hey move

uh Pudgy's to Solana and we'll give you a $20 million check. You probably would have to consider that, right? Like >> Oh yeah. 100%. During especially during COVID, yeah. You're done. >> That's a missed opportunity totally. Anyway, you got there anyway. >> Um but we'll see. I don't have I don't know. I think I think like you said, everyone's struggling cuz it's not just This is >> Bear markets are hard. Bear markets are hard. Running a chain's hard. Running a project's hard. There's not many on-chain users right now.

It's hard. So, people are going to have to do what they have to do to survive. Which I think is, you know, as Lucas said, like as a founder, that's your job. You got to survive. >> job. >> You got to You got to play the board in front of you. And and I think, you know, that's that's the the reality. But, um But, yeah, it's it's definitely tough out there. Um So, yeah, keep grinding, I guess, is the only the only advice. Keep grinding. Um all right, I think that is it for us.

Um We were on time, but now we're a little bit over. We did it, basically. >> Oh, we almost did it. >> Uh all right. Um thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Unchained Money. Remember what happens on chain never stays on chain. We will be back next week with more fun stories. Until then, do your own research before APing in. >> Nothing you hear on Unchained Money is financial advice. We're just three builders talking about what's happening on chain, and we want you to always do your own research before APing in. You can find all our disclosures at unchainedcrypto.com/unchainedmoney.