Bankless - ROLLUP: $100k BTC? | Gensler Resignation | Trump’s ‘Crypto Czar’ | Memecoin Rugs

Starting point is 00:00:00 Bitcoin just crosses 99,000 right now at the time of recording. That's crazy. We're going to watch Bitcoin cross 100K on this episode. By the end of this episode. We are $1,000 away. That is nuts. Bankless Nation, for the third week in a row, this is an all-time high week on the bankless weekly roll-up. We've got a Bitcoin all-time high.

Starting point is 00:00:22 We've got a crypto market cap all-time high. We might, David, I'm not sure. We might have a Solana all-time high as well. On the episode. Yeah, on the episode. So that'll be here. But that's not all. I feel like there was a clip that went around this week

Starting point is 00:00:36 that pretty much summarizes this cycle for me. The current moment, the current zeitgeist, very much, yes. Can you just play this? Yeah, let's play this. There's some context that needs to be said. Pump. Pump.com, the place that majority of all meme coins spawn from, has a streaming feature. There's streaming embedded in Pump.

Starting point is 00:00:57 On Pump.com Fun, there's streaming? I didn't realize that. They're streaming. Right. And so like the devs or the creators of the tokens, people can stream. And so what we are about to watch is a kid, a 10-year-old in middle school, 12, who launched a token. And he's about to rug everyone in his token.

Starting point is 00:01:20 And so let's go watch this kid rug everyone. Well, thanks. Wait, what? Wait, I'm so confused. What are you? It's nuk, why is it new? No way. Oh, holy f***

Starting point is 00:01:35 Holy fuck! Thank you for the 20 bandos Yeah, he did... Yo, yo, you, yo, yo, you, yo, you, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, you, what the f***, Okay, what didn't we just watch? What is this?

Starting point is 00:02:07 What is happening? Dude, the double middle fingers with it, thanks for the 20, bandos, is absolutely iconic. Okay, wait. So he made what? He made like $30,000. He made $30,000. I don't know how much. Actually, I don't even know where this kid get money because you can't open up a crypto exchange

Starting point is 00:02:27 unless you're like 18, I'm assuming. So somehow he got sold. Sure. He's in the trenches, right? He doesn't take much to, you know, start a coin. I'm assuming he started this coin. He's been in the trenches. He knows the game.

Starting point is 00:02:39 He's been playing around. He finally got some attention on one of the tokens that he launched. He got it up to, what was it, over a million dollars in market cap. And then he dumped all of his tokens collectively. While live streaming. He did what, I've learned what an R, an F-S-H is, Ryan. and I can't say it on, I'm not going to say it. But he did an FSAH, which nuked the price.

Starting point is 00:03:05 And then he went from like a million dollars down to like $200,000. It's like, rugged everyone. But that's part of the game. That's what the trenches do. But that's not the end of this story. Just this kid, this middle schooler kid flipping off the camera saying, thanks for the 20 bandos, which is $20,000. It's just so iconic.

Starting point is 00:03:26 He made himself into a meme. and all of the people who got rugged by this guy decided to enter a revenge arc used this clip, clip this very iconic clip made it go viral on Twitter drawing so much attention to the token that the token went from after dumping, went from a 1 million... After he dumped it. After he dumped it. So this kid no longer owns it. He dumped

Starting point is 00:03:50 it in a million dollars, went down to like $200,000 market cap, went up to $50 million where the kid would have had like He's starting to approach like a million dollars. This middle school kid would have had a million dollars. And so, you know, missed out on those games. However, those games never would have happened had, you know, he hadn't made this iconic moment. But it doesn't stop there. They docks the hell out of the kid.

Starting point is 00:04:14 Like, they figure out his family. They find his mom's Instagram. That's not cool. That's bad play right there. But they're like, yo. So the token was called Gen Z Quant. and so then they made meme coins out of the entire family. And so there's mom quant and dad quaint and sister quant.

Starting point is 00:04:32 And they all have tokens. And now they're in the mom's Instagrams. It's being like, yo, your son like rugged us. Like your son stole our money. Oh, shoot. Yeah. That ends kind of in a dark way. I thought this was a fun sort of coming of age story.

Starting point is 00:04:49 When you enter the armpit of the internet, like, you know, at your own risk. All right. The way I experienced this was just like watching that clip and watching this kid, dual fist, middle fingers, and like seeing this meme across like, and it felt like this kid, this image basically summarizes this cycle for me. And it summarized the week, particularly for like ETH holders. Like if you are like looking at the shenanigans going on and you were an Eith holder and you're like, Eith is not moving at all. Bitcoin's going up. Solana is like close to all time highs. And then you have ether.

Starting point is 00:05:23 and you see this, meme coin, like, you know, $30,000. This activity is like why Solana is at the center of crypto right now. I felt those middle fingers, like right in my face. So, all right, there we go. That's the weekly roll. But it's all-time week. We got a lot more to talk about, including Bitcoin is on an absolute tear. Why is the question?

Starting point is 00:05:48 Because, like, it has been lately. Maybe it's because micro strategy just made its biggest Bitcoin by, yet. And I get a question for you, David. We talk about micro strategy. Is Michael Saylor the new main character of this cycle? I like, I hope not, because that comes with some implications. Also, some options on spot Bitcoin ETFs. That happened this week. So maybe that's the price pump. Or maybe all this is just manifest destiny. I mean, the Bitcoiners told us so, didn't they, David? Everything that the Bitcoiners have said is slowly becoming true. Not just that Trump is considering hiring a crypto czar for the White House. There's not that many,

Starting point is 00:06:23 names of who it could be. So we've got some information for you on that. And then also the Treasury and also the SEC of which we got a letter of resignation from Gary Gensler to Twitter today right before recording. Gary Gensler is officially going to resign on January 20th. So there are some open positions coming up in the White House. Who is Donald Trump going to fill those positions with a lot of who these positions are really matters for the future of crypto? So we're going to get to all of that and more. But first, a message from our friends and sponsors over at Legion because now that we have made crypto great again we want to bring back meca compliant public sales and that is what Legion is trying to bring you so we can get out of

Starting point is 00:07:03 this air drop farming high FDV low float meta we want to bring so we're going from meme coins to meca compliant here okay this is very much we're trying to do suit and tie back on we're trying to do above board ICOs we're trying public sales are dope they are highly aligned they are the right way to get tokens into people's hands. People put up capital for risk. They get a bunch of tokens early. Everyone's happy. Opposite of the Qaeda kid.

Starting point is 00:07:29 Opposite of the Kwan kid. If you can do that, you can go get your Legion score, which is like a merit-based score based on your public influence, your developer reputation, also your developer score from your GitHub, as well as your on-chain activity. So are you a merit-based investor? Do you want to be getting into early for some awesome ICOs?

Starting point is 00:07:49 go to bankless.c.c.c.com slash legion and get your, get your Legion score now. Gary Gensler wouldn't like that, maybe, but he doesn't get to decide for much longer. His opinion just matters less and less these days, and it'll matter zero on the 20th. Let's look at the opinion of the market right now on the Bitcoin price, and that opinion is Bitcoin deserves all-time high. That's what the market is telling us. So give us the official report. Day after day. What's the official number on the week?

Starting point is 00:08:15 Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Are we almost 100K? almost 100K. We are, every single hour for the past, like, 20 hours has been an all-time high for Bitcoin. We are currently in, at the time of recording, 98,172, which is a current all-time high. Bitcoin up 10% on the week. 10% on the week, which is like every time Bitcoin goes up 10%, it gets harder to go up 10%. Yeah. But it doesn't feel like that. It is a top seven asset. It is flipped gold last week, flipped the big Saudi oil company this week.

Starting point is 00:08:49 Yeah, Bitcoin just absolutely steamrolling to 100K. I wouldn't be surprised by the time we release this episode tomorrow, we're above 100K. Look at this. Look at this, David. Saudi America. Okay, so there's only six other assets that are larger in terms of, so Bitcoin is at almost $2 trillion, $1.94 trillion. It is close to flipping Google. It is like one or two percent away from flipping Google.

Starting point is 00:09:16 So it would be Google, then Amazon. It's basically the big tech company's. Microsoft Apple. It is very close to flipping both Amazon and Google. And then it's gold after that final boss. That'll take some time because that's $18 trillion. We have Microsoft Apple and Navidia. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:29 But after the big tech companies, after the new fangs, you just got gold. Making some progress. Oh my God. Okay. And maybe the reason for the 10% on the week is this man right here, Michael Saylor. So he just announced, Micro Strategy,

Starting point is 00:09:43 bought actually, not an announcement, another 51,000 Bitcoin. So that's $4.6 billion. worth of Bitcoin, okay? Yeah. So he is buying, they've grown their holdings at Micro Strategy to over 330,000 Bitcoin. This one right here. So much Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:10:02 Well, this one was the largest buy ever. So that was a 16% of all Bitcoin held by the company who's just purchased last week. And I don't know if you've seen Micro Strategy stock. You ever go to like Wall Street bets these days? Like our slash Wall Street bets. It is. I think it has done something like a 30x in the last like quarter. 600% to date is the number for micro strategy of stock.

Starting point is 00:10:25 And it's on the back of this. And it's trading at a premium, I believe, to book value. I haven't looked in depth that micro strategy stock. Yeah, it's like 2.5x nav. So if you consider micro strategy like a trust of Bitcoin, when you buy a share of micro strategy, you're paying like $2.5 for $1 of Bitcoin. Okay. So some people are saying that Michael Saylor is like the main character, he's become the main character.

Starting point is 00:10:48 and I can totally see it. We're seeing a lot of patterns to the GBT trade that started that wound up the bull market last cycle. I agree. There was a premium to NAV. And so, and rather than allowing everyone to take advantage of the premium to nav of the gray scale GBTC, only Michael Saylor gets to take advantage of that. But nonetheless, he's floating the entire market. That's fine.

Starting point is 00:11:13 Everyone knows that exists. Like, what's the, like, so anyway, the main character type of. syndrome is every cycle we get a bunch of main characters and generally a number of them fly too close to the sun and they blow things up and they screw things they screw up the party for everyone. So like last cycle was SBF and Doe Kwan and Alex Mishinsky and that whole tribe. Some people are saying, uh-oh, Michael Saylor is getting to main character status in crypto. But it feels to me like his business is like super safe. It just feels much different.

Starting point is 00:11:43 It's just a bet on Bitcoin and everything you just said that kind of that trade in the premium nav. I don't know. That's the market doing what it wants to do. I don't, like, the assets are there. As long as Michael Saylor sells the assets, he's not doing an SBF type thing. It's a publicly traded company, audited financial statements. I don't see how this could, well, you tell me, do you think this could blow up? I can't, hell if I know. I'm sure Michael Saylor understands his business more than I do. It's just like, it just feels weird, man. Feels weird. Another week, Michael Saylor finds $5 billion to buy Bitcoin with. It just feels weird.

Starting point is 00:12:16 I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure it's fine. Not just Michael Saylor running the micro strategy play. Name some companies, David. There's like a whole bunch of companies this week that purchase more Bitcoin doing the micro strategy play. Who are they? Similar Scientific raised $21 million to acquire $215 Bitcoin's.

Starting point is 00:12:35 Not that, you know, only $20 million. But it's like a healthcare software company. Really? And it was introduced by micro strategy to Bitcoin. And so it's this much smaller company who has been orange-pilled by Michael Saylor to start buying a bunch of Bitcoin. Marathon Digital, which is a Bitcoin miner, offers $700 million in convertible notes to acquire Bitcoin. It's not unusual for miners to buy Bitcoin. They're Bitcoin bulls.

Starting point is 00:13:03 And historically, miners are known to be very good traders because miners have just information and a lot more at stake in the Bitcoin market. Metaplanet and Japanese company issued 1.1.000. $1.57 billion yen in debt to buy more Bitcoin. That's $11 million annual interest rate of 3.6%. So, like, no, nothing. So when there's low fiat interest rates and people can borrow interest rates for 3.6% and go buy Bitcoin with it, this is the low interest rate kind of phenomenon. And so other companies are doing the saleo strategy. Yeah, there's a whole list of them. If you ever want to see that list, by the way, Bitcointreasuries.net is a great website. where you basically see all the companies with their treasuries buying Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:13:48 And the Bitcoin community does a fantastic job, let me tell you, as part of kind of the money cult of broadcasting these wins and propagating it and encouraging more. So, like, your number one role as a Bitcoiners is to go convince your friends to also buy Bitcoin and become like Bitcoiners too. And that seems to be what Michael Saylor is doing. It wasn't just that though. Michael, Michael Saylor is up 2x on his Bitcoin. So he has put in $16 billion and his Bitcoin is worth $32 billion. Yeah, I was going to say like the micro strategy average purchase price is something like 50K.

Starting point is 00:14:23 I was reading something around that. It's not low, but it's not low. He acts like he bought Bitcoin at like $100, you know, the way he's so evangelistic about it. But anyway, he's a good trade over there. And speaking of good trades, options on spot Bitcoin ETFs also launched this week. So this was something that recently got approved, and they were crushing in terms of volume. So just a reminder, if you're not in the TradFi world, what is an option? A call option gives buyers the right but not the obligation to buy an asset at a specified price within a specific period.

Starting point is 00:15:00 Now these are available for the Ibit Bitcoin ETF. So just injects even more liquidity in the market, makes it even more possible to buy the Ibit Bitcoin ETF in size. and that seems to be exactly what institutions are doing. Yeah, options are kind of considered like leverage. It's like a leverage tool. You can very cheaply get exposure to very high-price Bitcoin, and then if Bitcoin goes up to that price, you win. You win.

Starting point is 00:15:27 All right, Ryan, you're ready to move on to Ether? I want to talk about the fantastic week that Ether's had. Yeah, I'm sure it's going great. All the amazing things that are happening. Let's check in. Let's check in on Little Brother here. All right. So Ether started the week at $3,150.

Starting point is 00:15:39 Yes. Up 6% to 3,350? Okay. If you add, if you add Bitcoin and Ether together, if you have one Bitcoin and one Ether, you get $100,000. So if I own one Bitcoin and one Ether, you have $100,000. Combined might of these two assets, you get $100,000. Okay. So if I have that, if I have one Bitcoin, one eth, am I over allocated or underallocated on Ether, David?

Starting point is 00:16:09 Answer me that question. I know my answer. I'll let the listener decide on that one. We got to ask the quant kid these questions. All right. So not so great, but like 6%, you know, at least 6%. Honestly, 6% in a week is great. It's just like...

Starting point is 00:16:24 People are coping. Like, the reason David and I are coping about this is because it's down so bad. Relative... Look at this. You want to see the ratio? I've never seen Ether underperform so hard before. So hard. In a bull market, right?

Starting point is 00:16:37 Like, look at the ratio here. We almost... Okay, so do you know there is an Udi, death of ETH party if the ratio goes under 0.03

Starting point is 00:16:46 Yeah if it hits 0.03 and I said I'm attending. I don't know if you're attending this one

Starting point is 00:16:52 but like I need to attend I think I have Udi blocks so I don't know if this unblock him for the death of Eith party because if we go there because he deserves that

Starting point is 00:16:59 yeah he deserves that so it's like we didn't quite hit there but we got as low as like what 0.0.032 and then as of this morning we're back up to

Starting point is 00:17:07 0.0332 but just like I mean there's no the trend of ETH BTC is unbroken. Oh my God. In fact, it seems to be accelerating. Yeah. But like, accelerating is what you'd expect to happen towards the end.

Starting point is 00:17:21 Like it accelerates downwards. It's, it's when... It's the beginning of the end, right? When Ether is at 0.03 Bitcoin, when it moves any amount, that is moving twice as much relative to Bitcoin as it is at 0.06, for example. And so like a move from 0.03 down to like 0.029 is equivalent to a move from like 0.06 to 0.0. Sure, sure. 5.8. You know, ether is not shown strength this cycle at all.

Starting point is 00:17:51 So we are, I feel like we're entering very much the second half of the bull cycle. And to like this is, ether's time to shine. It's like it's now or never, little eth, you got to bring it. To be a part of this and of this current cycle. If you want to be part of this cycle. If you want to be in the game. Yeah. You want to be in the game is so far not not been in the game.

Starting point is 00:18:09 It's still still asleep and forgot the game is happening. Am I stupid? I'm still bullish. Am I stupid? I might be stupid. I'm feeling kind of dumb right now. The way that I summarize this is like, Ethereum is like the longest of time horizons.

Starting point is 00:18:22 And there's like a big old middle game going on. Yeah. That like we're still researching like cryptography and doing like the long term game. And meanwhile we have like 10 year olds, you know, flipping you off on pump. That fun. Look at it again. And either there's just there's no 10 year olds flipping anyone off on Ethereum right now. Yeah. When I look at the ratio and the eat-soul ratio, I see this kid. This kid is staring right at the face.

Starting point is 00:18:45 The Ethereum ETF flows didn't go negative last week. Okay? I was looking for this. We're still positive. We're still in the black. We're still positive. I think today's going to be actually a good day since, you know, today we've been up like 6-7% just on the day. So that's looking good. Okay. Let's get to total crypto market cap because that is hitting all-time highs as well. What are we on the week? coming in at $3.4 trillion. The last crypto market cap all time high set in early or no late 2021, November 2021 was like $3.2 trillion. We got $3.4 trillion. Can we get to $4 trillion by December? That's asking for a lot.

Starting point is 00:19:29 That's asking for that $600 billion in five weeks. It's within reason, but that means they're getting very frothy. We probably want to slow down. It was funny. But man, we're moving quickly with the all-time, with the total market cap. Every time we hit all-time high, David, you're asking for another like half-trillion. Half a trillion. Half a trillion.

Starting point is 00:19:46 Because, like, last time we were at all-time high, you were like, you know what, if we get to $3.5 trillion by the end of the year, that's like the – and then you've just raised it. You just raised the bar yet again. Well, I think the last time or maybe just two weeks ago I was talking about this is like, yo, three trillion can come real fast. And we were at like $2.5, and $3 trillion came really fast. We're at 3.4 right now. Things are moving quickly.

Starting point is 00:20:08 When Bitcoin goes up 10%, that's, that's, it's almost half a trillion. It's almost half a trillion dollars. Yeah. Oh my God. Okay. And sole price. It's almost at all time high as well. It is kissing all time high.

Starting point is 00:20:24 It is not at all time high. The all time high for Solana, $259.96 cents set on November 6th, 2021. We are currently clocking in at $258. and 28 cents. So about a dollar away from all-time high. Look at that. You got to give a shout-out to anyone who bought Salana in 2021. Well done.

Starting point is 00:20:45 Did not sell it in 2022 and 2023. And is still holding that same salana. If you bought Solana at all in 2020, 2020, 2021 or 2022, and you still have that salina, congratulations. You did a great job. You did it. You played it well. Better than David and I on the, on the Eden.

Starting point is 00:21:02 There were a number. there were, I think, two explicit weekly roll-ups in 2022 and maybe also 2023 where you and I were like, yeah, that's probably going to pump. Yeah. I remember saying this. Yeah. No, no, no. We can collect that little bit of clout. Now, we didn't do anything about it.

Starting point is 00:21:17 I did not. No, I bought, I bought like two or $300 of soul. You did. You bottom ticked. I bought the bottom tick of soul with like the tiniest little buy. It was like two or $300. Oh, man. Yeah, so congrats to all the conviction players there.

Starting point is 00:21:33 We'll see what it does for the rest of the cycle. Again, the second half of the bull market. This is Travis Kling, though, making the observation that, funny enough, some people are not euphoric right now. I've seen a number of tweets on my timeline saying this. Like, Bitcoin is almost 100K. Why is there not more euphoria in the crypto space? I don't know if that's just a vibe.

Starting point is 00:21:54 Are you feeling that? I think there's definitely some euphoria going on. I don't know if you've seen some meme coins, which we're going to talk about. Actually, can I just show you some of the euphoria? Yeah, show me. Can we talk about some movers of the week? Okay, because I'm not feeling the euphoria as a, like, predominantly e-moor coins. I got no euphoria.

Starting point is 00:22:12 I'm just like- No meme coins. Yeah, okay. Okay, so the big mover of the week is this meme coin called a chill guy. I do not know, Ryan, I cannot tell you where this meme came from. I do not know if it came out before crypto. I do know that the artist. This is dog-looking guy with-old.

Starting point is 00:22:27 It's just a chill guy, bro. He's just a chill guy. I like it. The artist who made chill guy. is not in crypto. Crypto just adopted this chill guy. It's like a little dog wearing jeans and a sweater

Starting point is 00:22:38 with his hands in his pockets. It's just a chill guy. It looks like a kid's character. It looks like a kid's character. Yeah, we like our kid cartoons and animals. We're skewing middle school. Nothing yet. Yeah, I love middle school.

Starting point is 00:22:51 Yeah, that's right. It's up 32X in three days to a $500 million market cap. How or why the animal spirits caught on to this meme coin? I couldn't tell you. No. What do we know?

Starting point is 00:23:02 I can tell you that Naïbe Buckele, the president of El Salvador, has tweeted out the chill guy meme to 188,000 likes on Twitter. Well, the IMF is not going to like that, David. Apparently on, I don't follow Naïbe Buckele on Instagram, but apparently on his Instagram story, he has a screenshot of, like, his, of the portfolio of El Salvador and the Bitcoin in portfolio. Just Bitcoin. He's not doing meme coins in the El Salvador treasury.

Starting point is 00:23:31 Not mean, just Bitcoin, just Bitcoin. But he's like posting screenshots of his, have how El Salvador is up, which like, taking a screenshot of your portfolio being up is like such a strong meme. Like, you're supposed to sell when you do that. Yeah. Anyways. Okay. So the original artist, I thought this was interesting.

Starting point is 00:23:48 I always like when this happens. The original artist of a chill guy. Yep. Again, not in crypto, benefited not at all from this meme coin, did not launch this meme coin. People just took his art and made a meme out of it. And so they made a Salana address for him and sent him $300,000 in meme coins in Salana. Well, that's a happy ending for him.

Starting point is 00:24:08 So this guy, yeah, it's a happy ending. This guy got his life changed. Yeah. That does not end the euphoria in the world of things going on. This is not an investment. This is not an endorsement by anyone. Vitalik bought $50 of this AI meme coin on podcast. $50?

Starting point is 00:24:25 Yeah. I don't know why Vitalik needs $50 of an AI meme coin. I don't know if that like unlocks a door for you so he can play with the AI agent on Farcaster. Oh, it does, right, with this? This is a meme coin with some utility on Farcaster, isn't it? Oh, okay. Do you not know that? No, I just thought it was a...

Starting point is 00:24:40 You're just buying this for speculation? How dare you, David? Yeah. No, no, no, no. This does cool things on Farcaster. What does it do? It's in my list to go investigate it, but apparently if you have this coin, if you do something with this coin, something to do with, like, you...

Starting point is 00:24:54 Oh, okay. It allows users to post anonymously if they hold 20,000... and on tokens. Okay, so if you have the meme coin, oh, I could tweet a lot. You didn't even know that? You were just buying this on speculation? Dude, my guy, my buddy, shout out Michael Wong,

Starting point is 00:25:10 tells me to just like buy these three farcaster meme coins and I'm like, I say no more. And I just do it. Turns out it was 31 hours before Vitalik bought. No, this has utility so you can feel really wholesome about it. Okay. So like, go use it. You know, I'm sure this is why Vitalik bought it to answer your question of $50 to actually

Starting point is 00:25:26 use like the ZK. I'm sure Vitalik is not speculating on me. coins with $50. We got some other things on the week. Bitwise has now registered for a Solani ETF in Delaware. So there was some, I think Van Eck registered for this. I want to say several weeks ago, now Bitwise joining the fray. So again, Gary Gensler has resigned, Trump presidency, anything could happen.

Starting point is 00:25:48 All bets are on the table. Honestly, get more ETFs out the door. Soul ETF. I want a Doge ETF. I would love a Doge ETF. I want more crypto ETFs. I want as many as possible. That are like ready, the ones that have aged.

Starting point is 00:26:04 Yeah. We just do ETFs for everything. Is that how this works? Not every asset needs an ETF. Not every asset, but like we have more assets that are ready for ETFs. Okay. All right. Well, I'm sure we'll be getting some more.

Starting point is 00:26:18 And this is also what Bitwise thinks. And then lastly, this is a really cool graph. If you're tracking the stable coin game, Brian Armstrong to do this out. Instring Graph actually Visa put this out and it shows the different settlement networks in the banking world in the fiat space of which of course if you don't know Fedwire is like kind of the bottom layer of how dollars ultimately settle in the Tradfai financial system around the world. So you got Fedwire at the top, you've got ACH, you got Visa remittances, PayPal, you got Bitcoin. Stable coins is now up in terms of annual volume of stable coins is now up to visa levels at this point. in time. Yeah, when it comes to kind of like settlement layer. So stablecoin's doing a lot of settlement transaction volume these days. It's very impressive.

Starting point is 00:27:04 I like how this chart is in log. Stablecoin payment volumes is just just two orders of magnitude away from Fedwire, which two orders of magnitude is a lot. But, you know, we think in exponential terms. This is an exponential industry. I'm here to have exponential growth in my bags. That's why I bought ETH. Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:26 How's that working? And stable coins are just two orders of magnitude away from parity with Fed wire transfer volumes. That's amazing. Yeah. That's a huge success. Exponential experiences. That's why we're here.

Starting point is 00:27:38 That's why we're here. Unless you're an Heathholder. Coming up next, though, Trump is assembling a team. You know this, but who's this cabinet and how does this affect crypto? What are the key crypto positions? We've got to talk about Treasury. We've got to talk about the SEC chair. Who gets Gary's job after he's gone?

Starting point is 00:27:55 and also is Donald Trump buying a crypto exchange? This actually could be true. We'll talk about all that and more. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this possible, including Cracken. This is the place to go get equipped and ready for the crypto bull market. The second half, if you don't have an account, go create an account on Cracken. If you want a crypto trading experience backed by world-class security and award-winning support teams, then head over to Cracken.

Starting point is 00:28:20 One of the longest standing and most secure crypto platforms in the world. Cracken is on a journey to build a more accessible, inclusive, and fair financial system, making it simple and secure for everyone, everywhere to trade crypto. Cracken's intuitive trading tools are designed to grow with you, empowering you to make your first or your hundreds trade in just a few clicks. And there's an award-winning client support team available 24-7 to help you along the way, along with a whole range of educational guides, articles, and videos. With products and features like Cracken Pro and Cracken NFT Marketplace and a seamless app to bring it all together, it's really the perfect place to get your complete crypto experience.

Starting point is 00:28:55 So check out the simple, secure, and powerful way for everyone to trade crypto, whether you're a complete beginner or a season pro. Go to crackin.com slash bank lists to see what crypto can be. Not investment advice, crypto trading involves risk of loss. Tired of juggling multiple wallets and websites just to navigate Web3, meet Magic Eden, the home of Web 3. It is becoming a super dab where you can do everything cross-chain all in one place. They're solving Ux issues by building products across every chain ecosystem,

Starting point is 00:29:20 swaps, borrowing and lending, NFTs, perps, and more. All seamlessly cross-drain. Instead of hopping between countless sites and handling multiple wallets, just use Magic Eden. Save time and get to the meme coining faster. Plus, the M-E token is coming out this quarter

Starting point is 00:29:34 from the M-E Foundation. If you've used any of their protocols, like the NFT platform, you can claim some. So check out Magic Eden today and watch them become a super-dap and the home of Web3 in real time. You can get there at magiceden.io to get started. The Uniswap wallet is officially the preferred wallet

Starting point is 00:29:50 of bankless, and it's the one we use any time when we want to transact on chain. Whether you're on your browser or on the go, Uniswap wallet makes it easier than ever to swap anytime, anywhere. Use your wallet to transfer funds directly from a top centralized exchange and capting thousands of tokens across Ethereum, and over 10 other chains like base, arbitrum, and optimism. Uniswap wallet delivers deep liquidity, fast execution, and reliable quotes with zero gas swaps through Uniswop X. And when it comes through security, you can rest easy knowing it's backed by Uniswop Labs, one of the most trusted teams in Defy. Their code is open source and independently reviewed so you know it's protected.

Starting point is 00:30:22 So why wait? Download the Uniswap wallet today on Chrome, iOS, and Android. And don't forget to claim your free uni.eath username directly in the mobile wall. Start swapping smarter with Uniswap. Breaking news just before we started recording this podcast, Gary Gensler has released a tweet thread announcing his resignation on January 20th. Two months. Two months to the day. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Gary.

Starting point is 00:30:46 You know, we really appreciated Gary all of your guidance. your support of our industry as well as your influencer videos, which are so helpful. Office hours with Gary. I'm going to miss office hours with Gary. I'm sad I never got to be able to come in and register. But thank you for leaving. Well, thank you for leaving. It's the best thing you've done for crypto. It's the best thing you've done. Wow. So it's got to mark this, though, the end of an era. We got to say that. It is an end of an era. I will always remember the Gary Gensler years in crypto. And that will never change. So you did that, Gary.

Starting point is 00:31:24 You're very memorable. You got that going for you. You know, Trump said on day one, he'd fire Gary Gensler. So this is, this is Gary giving the last word and saying, you can't fire me, I resign. You got to respect that, right? Sure. And now that Gary Gensler is stepping down, I'd like to open up the Operation Chokepoint 2.0 Architects Board that Nick Carter has put together. There are 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. There are 13 total people on the architects of Operation Showpoint 2.0. This is our most wanted list. This is our needs to get the F out of government list. Please resign list. This is a please resign list. We have some progress. Brat Rumadi, he left in September of 2023. He is the senior

Starting point is 00:32:09 counselor to the president. He's gone. Sherrod Brown, who is the senator out of Ohio. He lost his race. Marty Grumberg, chairman of the board. I believe. I believe he stepped down last week, or announced his recognition last week, and adding to the list this week, Gary Gensler, stepping down, which leaves just five more people.

Starting point is 00:32:31 Nellie Leang? Oh, well, you're not getting Warren out. She's there. Yes, correct. Yes. But nonetheless, they're still here. I would like it if Elizabeth Warren was gone. She's on the list to get the boot somehow. We still have to do that. Michael Barr,

Starting point is 00:32:47 Michael Gibson. These are are in the Federal Reserve, and then the New York State, Adrian Harris, the superintendent, and then Nellie Ling, undersecretary for the domestic finance. These individuals are the remains of Operation 2.0, Choke Point 2.0. If Operation 2.0 can continue, highly unlikely. But it would be great if these guys could get the boot anyways. Yeah, it's over. This is going to be four more, and it's a bingo.

Starting point is 00:33:12 I mean, we're done here. They're all going away. But the question is, who's going to replace them? I think that's the big question on everyone's mind. So in a Trump administration, remember Trump has promised that he would be pro-cropto, obviously. He's got some campaign promises. And there's three big positions to watch. So we got to go over each of them.

Starting point is 00:33:31 The first is who's going to take Gary's place as the SEC chair? The next is Treasury, Janet Yellen. That's a very consequential, influential, influential decision. Who's going to be the Treasury Secretary under Trump? And then also, David, this was announced earlier this week. there's a potential position, a new position. There's never been this function inside of the White House or inside of the executive branch. A crypto czar.

Starting point is 00:33:55 I'm not sure that it's formally called that. It's like the lead of crypto. And potentially this position could report to the White House. Okay. So there's some rumors talk that Trump might actually create a new position, a crypto czar type of position. So who gets those three positions? They're super important.

Starting point is 00:34:13 I guess in the running, we've got a bunch of names as usual. So let's start with the SEC chair. Who's going to be the new SEC chair? Do you have any personal hopes for this position, David? Who would you hope for? Personally, I would hope for Hester Perce. Hester Perce. Of course. She's been named. She said she's not probably going to do it. I think Heserperse is fatigued. Yes, I agree. She is, maybe she's done. Maybe she's out. Although she might make a good crypto czar as well, you know, new role, different agency. You never know. Mark Ueda is a Another SEC commissioner has been pro-crypto. Very strong second best.

Starting point is 00:34:49 He said no. He said he's not going to do it. He's not in the running. So there's two other names, according to this Washington Post article that have been named. One, his name is Dan Gallagher. He is the chief legal officer at Robin Hood. He would be very pro-cropto. That was a good one.

Starting point is 00:35:03 And also a gentleman by the name of Paul Atkins. This is an SEC alumnus. So he's been there before. Don't very like know much about him. But his objective, he said when he was SEC Commissioner is do no harm. So I got to think he would be crypto favorable-esque. He's not going to be Gary Gensler.

Starting point is 00:35:22 I'm sure anyone is going to be more crypto favorable to the SEC. I am now just like sensitive of just like people saying vague things about crypto. So it's like, yeah, I want to like, you know, support the crypto industry with regulation or like what do you want? Like what does that mean? Yeah. And so. Do you remember we were hopeful about Gary Gensler? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:44 Everyone was hopeful about Gary Gensler. Yeah, I mean, he literally taught classes on blockchain. And at the time, Jay Clayton, who he succeeded, like didn't really know much about crypto. So unfortunately, Gary turned to the dark side, as we all know. How does this all work, though, these cabinet positions, these appointment positions, these positions in the administration branch, it's all political jockeying for power, David. I'm pretty much. So we've seen a lot of people traveling down to Trump headquarters in Mar-a-Lago. They're jockeying for power, I'm sure.

Starting point is 00:36:12 They're, you know, like trying to make the case. week of kissing ass. Kissing the ring. I mean, probably, right? That's how it goes. Here's why I'm so awesome. Here is how I'll bend the knee harder than everyone else.

Starting point is 00:36:23 Yeah, and so they have to be pro-Trump, I'm sure, like loyal. I'm sure that's what is being selected for. Also, you have to support the things that Trump administration supports. And so that's got to be pro-crypto, no matter how you slice it. It's interesting this, too.

Starting point is 00:36:36 Some news came out that Trump is meeting privately with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. Let's go. Okay? Let's go. Asking. Like, who do you think? maybe who should be the Cryptozar who should be the SEC chair that is we don't we don't

Starting point is 00:36:50 know the nature of the meeting this speculation is speculation is I mean what else could it be to begin it's something about crypto to discuss personnel to discuss personnel appointments is definitely a speculation wow yeah and and the reason this this matters is because last time do you know who is selecting all of those those positions the Gary Gensler all of those choke points somebody who is very influential who's on your list Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Warren. It was Elizabeth Warren selecting all other people. She did a lot of it. Okay? So this is something I didn't understand four years ago. Who's the number one financier of Elizabeth Warren? Who's the category of industry that donates the most money to Elizabeth Warren?

Starting point is 00:37:28 Who are you going to say? It's the banks. It's the big banks. I don't even understand what her objective was. The big banks, like, you know, the big banks have turned crypto supportive as well. I mean, many of them, BlackRock, et cetera. I'll never understand it. Yeah, but I think they want to slow down the, like, the more that they stamp out, like, true crypto, Wild West Crypto, the more like, you know, civilization, like institution crypto exists. I guess. I still don't have a theory of mine. But the point is, Elizabeth Warren, who established an anti-crypto army, no longer gets any influence in this cabinet. Okay, so that's the SEC.

Starting point is 00:37:59 It's going to be good. No matter how you slice it. How about Treasury? Another very important role. One of the candidates that was proposed for Treasury, his name is Howard Lutnik. He's actually the guy from Cantor-Fins-Gerald. So he's like the CEO of Cantor-Fins-Gerald. And if you recall, they're the main bank of tether.

Starting point is 00:38:17 He's a tether guy. Yeah, he's a tether guy, a crypto bull. Well, it's not going to be him. There was speculation that it was going to be him, but it's not going to be him. And the reason we know that is because he took another role in the administration as the head of commerce. So he's running that. So we got somebody who is crypto-friendly, not him. But there are some other names.

Starting point is 00:38:37 Let me just show you the polymarket around this because, like, we can bet on these things. We can see this in real time. Do you see these names? Scott Bessett has about a 60% chance. Mark Rowan, Bill Haggerty, Kevin Warsh. Polymarket is so great because you get the probability of the market. Scott Bessett, who's in number one, who as of like today just jumped from 40 to 60% coming in at 60% on.

Starting point is 00:39:01 Kevin Warsh, 18%. Mark Rowan, 17%. Bill Haggerty, 16%. I just watched these numbers change in real time. Really cool. Really, really cool. Scott Bessett. Who is Scott Besset?

Starting point is 00:39:12 Yeah, Scott Bessett. is the original favorite. So he got in a knife fight with this Lutnik guy, apparently, this is insiders rumor mill is saying for the treasury. And, you know, so Scott Bessett is a Trump loyalist. He's one of the early supporters. He would be very crypto-friendly, basically. Also, this guy, Bill Haggerty, he's at 17%. I think if you ask anyone in crypto, he might be the name, you rise, of these options. They call him Bitcoin Bill, all right? If that gives you a name. I like that name. So he has previously served as Trump's 45th ambassador to Japan. But the end of the day, some of these are more crypto-favorable than others, but they're pretty much all crypto-favorable.

Starting point is 00:39:54 Also, a name, David, we didn't mention it, but the CFTC, guess whose name is being thrown around there? Summer, Mercinger? Remember Summer? We just talked to her on the podcast? Really? Like a Hester Purse of the CFTC. Yes. Like, fantastic insight into the space, very knowledgeable.

Starting point is 00:40:12 very kind of like the right touch when it comes to crypto regulation. So all of that is leaving me feeling pretty bullish about who these selections might be. Ryan, I'm just going to read this to you live because I get these tweet notifications on my phone. This isn't in our agenda, but Tier 10K just tweeted out, Trump's Crypto Advisory Council expected to set up promised Bitcoin reserve. What? What? What is going on?

Starting point is 00:40:40 What? This day is insane. Can you pull up the Bitcoin price? What's the Bitcoin price doing right now? This is like beginning of the pie. 98,000. It's another all-time high. Wow.

Starting point is 00:40:51 Wow. Crazy. Okay. Just to repeat that again. Trump's Crypto Advisory Council expected to set up promised Bitcoin reserve. So we are, according to this rumor, we are going to get a Bitcoin reserve. Bitcoin just crosses 99,000 right now at the time of recording. That's crazy.

Starting point is 00:41:09 That's crazy that we're going to watch this. We're going to watch Bitcoin cross 100K on this episode. By the end of this episode. We are $1,000 away. That is nuts. I would love the details on that. But at minimum, so we talked to Cynthia Lummis about this, who's been an advocate for a strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

Starting point is 00:41:28 And at a minimum, this has got to include, you know, the 200,000 Bitcoin or so that the U.S. has seized over the years, just not selling that. That could be the base. But her plan, a bill that she put in front of the Congress, calls for an additional 800,000 Bitcoin to be purchased to a total of like one million Bitcoin. She wants to purchase Bitcoin. Yes, she wants to buy 800,000.

Starting point is 00:41:50 So, I mean, there's levels of what a strategic Bitcoin reserve could look like, right? One, it just could be like a, yeah, we keep our existing Bitcoin, we set up custody for it. We call that the reserve. The other could be like U.S. government actively buying it, which would be absolutely insane. That would be nuts. Absolutely. Oh, my gosh, crazy, crazy times. All right. So I guess back to our regular schedule with this last position, I wanted to mention somebody who might help set up the strategic Bitcoin Reserve. If indeed that happens, that's the position of Crypto Tsar. So that was the rumor. Trump, Trump team, this is in writers way is creating first ever White House crypto role. Okay. And this would be somebody who is responsible talking to the industry, a small staff, maybe reporting directly to Trump, maybe not. The question of who's going to get it.

Starting point is 00:42:37 Or Baron. Yeah, Baron Trump. I mean, crypto Twitter put a whole bunch of names down. It could be anybody. It's probably going to be someone in the industry or like quite favorable to the industry. I mean, like, who do you think? It could be anybody, basically. It could be somebody from crypto lobby.

Starting point is 00:42:52 It could be someone like Jake Chervinsky. Could be someone like Ryan Selkis. Jake Chravinsky would be so good. Oh, Jake. That would be so good. Right? There was a tweet out of News of Alpha who tweeted out, Chris John Carlo, eyed for Crypto Zarbons as Fox News, who would just

Starting point is 00:43:09 Crypto Dad. OG Crypto Dad. He gets it. It would also be great. It would also be great. Man, we are as an industry just winning, man. We are just winning hard.

Starting point is 00:43:18 You know what? That's not all. One last thing is the coup de grace on all of this. There's speculation that Trump's social media group, you know, he has truth social, social media group, is in talks to buy backed, backed the crypto exchange.

Starting point is 00:43:33 You remember this was like a trap-fi crypto exchange? Yeah. Okay. And it's been like handed around, right? It's kind of this like bought and sold, bought and sold. We got a polymarket for this. The odds going into this episode were 50% chance that he would acquire crypto exchange this year. And they've just jumped to 65% chance.

Starting point is 00:43:50 If Trump sets up a Bitcoin strategic reserve in the United States and we actually have to buy Bitcoin and Trump buys a crypto exchange, where do you think he's going to buy the Bitcoin on? Where do you think he's going to put that volume? This is it. I mean, Trump is like, you know, he thinks a lot about. Trump. As we all know, everyone knows this. People who voted for him knows this. Trump is like a Trump Maximus for sure. And now we have Trump, who has $5 million

Starting point is 00:44:16 in ETH. I got to say that. I got to include that, okay? He's got an NFT collection. He's got his own D5 protocol, potentially a crypto exchange. He's going to have a crypto czar. He's got all of these crypto election promises, including a strategic crypto reserve. He's got all of these crypto-friendly

Starting point is 00:44:32 people already in his administration, like Elon Musk, like the Vake, like RFK. This man is positioning for a mega crypto pump. And you may not like Trump. You may not have voted for him. There's all sorts of other reasons. But like, I think this is relevant information for your investing decisions toward the end of 2024 and going into 2025. This is unreal. So even after all of all the pro crypto people that Trump is going to put into different cabinet positions, the SEC is being sued across 18 different United States states for basically overreach.

Starting point is 00:45:08 unlawfully expanding its jurisdiction without congressional approval as evidenced by aggressive enforcement actions against crypto firms. And so 18 states are suing the SEC just for just straight overreach. And so, I mean, it doesn't really matter because I'm assuming the next administration's SEC is going to just be much more favorable to crypto. But it's also good to know that like we're fighting this war across all fronts, taking no prisoners. And the ties have turned. It has been, like, time flies, man. Like, the onslaught of regulation that started in 2020 and 22 and 23 feels like it was just a blip.

Starting point is 00:45:49 It was two years. Just a blur. Yeah. But now it's just like the level of the reverse. Like the reversal is so strong. Kind of insane, man. Yeah. Kind of insane.

Starting point is 00:45:59 On the back of that reversal, by the way, we've got some news coming out of Coinbase releasing USC with 5% yield. But on chain, this is a new thing. and Binance also has a stable coin, not to be outdone. They've got 20% yield. Where does that come from? Also, straight out of like 2021, McDonald's partnering with the NFT project, Doodles.

Starting point is 00:46:18 You remember Doodles? And they're launching like a Christmas collection, very beautiful coffee cups and like McMil, like Big Macs and all of this. We'll talk about all that more. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. New projects are coming online to the mantle layer two every single week. Why is this happening? Maybe it's because Mantle has been on the frontier of Layer 2 design architecture since it first started building Mantle DA, powered by technology from EigenDA.

Starting point is 00:46:45 Maybe it's because users are coming onto the mantle layer 2 to capture some of the highest yields available in Defy. And to automatically receive the points and tokens being accrued by the $3 billion dollar mantle treasury in the Mantle reward station. Maybe it's because the Mantle team is one of the most helpful teams to build with, giving you grants, liquidity support, and venture partners to help bootstrap your Mantle application. Maybe it's all of these reasons all put together. So if you're a dev and you want to build on one of the best foundations in crypto or you're a user looking to claim some ownership on Mantle's Defi apps, click the link in the show notes to getting started with Mantle. Launching a token worried about the IRS.

Starting point is 00:47:19 Talk to Toku for five minutes to learn how to save hundreds of thousands of dollars for you, your team, and your investors. Now, if you do an initial consultation, Toku will cover the cost of your token valuation, which is what you need for your launch. So don't wait. Reach out to the team right now at Team at... Toku.com. That's team at

Starting point is 00:47:36 toku.com. Centralized finance held all the power, and now Defy gives it back to you. Enter the Unlimited era with D-Y-D-D-X Unlimited, featuring instant market listings where you can list and trade any market instantly with liquidity. Experience trading like never before with all the trading tools you know

Starting point is 00:47:52 and love, all on chain. And then there's Megavalt, your gateway to automatic liquidity and yield, just deposit some U.S.EC and start earning yield immediately. It's so simple, and D-Y-D-X-U-Llimited comes packed with so much more. prediction market perpetual futures, instant deposits, and there's even a revamped trading rewards program to get rewarded for every trade you make. So visit dygdx.t.tot today to get started.

Starting point is 00:48:16 All right, now that you guys are all hot and bothered for all of that bullish, bullish first half of this episode, I got a little bit of water. I got to douse on you guys. There is a court case in the state of California, the California basically versus Lido Dow, which ruled that Lido qualifies as a partnership under California's general partnership laws. Yikes. So something happened. This guy, Andrew Samwell's,

Starting point is 00:48:42 purchased LDO tokens. In April and May of 2023, he purchased 132 LDO tokens. At about, I'm guessing, an average of $2.25, because that's about what they were during that time frame. So he spent about $300, Ryan,

Starting point is 00:48:56 buying LDO tokens. A month later, in June, he sold those tokens. for a loss at $175. So the guy lost about $70. As a result, as a result of the losses that he incurred, he has decided to sue the Lido Dow.

Starting point is 00:49:16 On the allegations that the tokens were unregistered securities and argued that the Lido Dow should have registered with the SEC. Yes. And so he said Lido's alleged actions are not those of an autonomous software program. are actions of an entity run by people. The judge pointed out that the Dow manages a treasury, employs 70 people, and makes governance decisions through token voting. And additionally, they also named some of the VC investors who participate in governance

Starting point is 00:49:47 as operators of the partnership. Because the complaint alleges that Paradigm and Andreson Horowitz participates in Lido-Dal governance, it plausibly alleges that they, possibly alongside others, jointly carried out in Dow operations for profit. Miles Jennings, who is the head of decentralization at A16Crypto, kind of a funny title, says, today a California judge dealt a huge blow to decentralized governance under the ruling any Dow participation, even posting in a forum, could be sufficient to hold Dow members liable for the actions of other members under general partnership.

Starting point is 00:50:23 He says, it's time for Duna. What's Duna, you asked? decentralized, unincorporated nonprofit association, which is a legal framework recognized in the state of Wyoming that grants legal entity status to DOWs, enabling them to enter contracts, pay taxes, while shielding individual members from personal liability through limited liability protections. Ryan, could you like just like talk about why liability, direct strict liability towards individuals in a partnership is a huge deal and why that's inappropriate for DOWs? Yeah, because like the point just to emphasize. is this sounds like a frivolous law case and like a legal case and it probably is but but the court the judge ruled in um the plaintiff's favor in this case right so so that would make if you have it sets precedent yeah it sets it sets some precedent so if you have a uh down token right and you comment you participate in governance are you liable as a partner for the doubt entity okay so like if you don't have a limited liability in those cases then any bad thing any lawsuit that happens against, you know, the doubt, you could be liable for that in the state of California. In theory, you could be liable even if you just hold the token because a token is a share of a partnership.

Starting point is 00:51:39 Right. And then every additional thing you do to participate in governance, like a comment on a message board or something, like that could be held against you essentially in evidence that you're part of this partnership. So it would be a terrible precedent because, of course, like, you know, governance tokens are not quite this. They're different than equities. Although there are some similarities. The problem is we just don't have. clean legislation regulation around like how we manage these things. Anyway, I think the TLDR at the end of this is like this is one court case. So don't panic. It kind of starts the conversation. It's like one one legal case in California. It's not the end of the world. So don't panic. But do take a look at this Duna rapper from the state of Wyoming that Miles Jennings is referring to. So Wyoming already has some legislation, state of Wyoming, where you can actually get a rapper on, on Dau's called a Duna

Starting point is 00:52:29 rapper. I don't know all of the details, but this limits your liability. It makes it such that in the law of the U.S. government anyway, you know, you're not de facto treated as a partnership in this. So some do's and don'ts coming out of that. All right. Stablecoin Wars. Binance has launched a yield-bearing stable coin coming in at 20%. Brian, where's that yield coming from? You know what, David? I don't think anyone knows at this point. So the goodness, it's called BFUSD, right good to be f u sd big freaking deal usd uh 20% yield we don't really know what the uh where the yield is coming from so like i mean be specular it'll be be skeptical when you have yield this high if you don't know where it's coming from i think a lot of folks are but it's it's right now it's cap to 20 million tokens so there's some limitations as far as that goes maybe binance will uh we'll clear this up in the future but binance maybe getting into the stable coin game that's the news I actually think this is bigger news, David. Coinbase wallet introducing USDC rewards on Coinbase wallet.

Starting point is 00:53:35 So you know in Coinbase, if you have USDC and it's parked there, you can like click a button and be eligible for basically the T-Bill rates, right? Basically 4.7%. Okay. And they call this rewards, but it's almost similar to like a money market effectively that you get inside of Coinbase. So what Coinbase is doing as a next move is now making this available to anybody who's on base. So you take your USDC that's non-yielding, you withdraw it to base, and you click a button,

Starting point is 00:54:04 I presume, in the Coinbase wallet, and you get the 4.7% yield. This is amazing. In your bank account right now, if you live in the U.S., you're probably making like pennies. You're probably like doing 0.15% in U.S. savings account. If you have a crypto wallet on Coinbase, right, you can make 4.7%. It's already a much more effective bank account. And they pay it to you on an annual basis. I'm definitely going to take a look at this for some of the stable coin dry powder that I have. It's a pretty cool product. And you could see what they're doing.

Starting point is 00:54:37 It's just like in one fell swoop, this is basically the risk-free rate of dollars. And they're making that available for everyone in the base ecosystem. So they're bringing users on-chain inside of base. It's just like a super obvious move, but it's a killer move to pull off. and I think it will drive their 130 million retail users on chain. Very bullish. And we know where the yield comes from. It comes from like, you know, Uncle Sam.

Starting point is 00:55:04 We very much know where the year's coming. It's crazy how the scams of last cycle are just like the reality of very solid products this cycle. Remember when Tara Luna, the Anchor Protocol, was giving out 20% yield and there was a bunch of retail facing apps. Yep. Of like, hey, deposit your dollars and you get 20%. And that's how like a lot of retail got burned. Got shredded. And now like same structure.

Starting point is 00:55:25 Like download the app, put in the dollars, get the 4.7%. But it's money printed by the government. I will take this moment, Ryan, to get on a soapbox if you'll allow me about the Coinbase wallet. Sure. Because I've mentioned how I'm a user of the Coinbase wallet to like mint NFTs on base to like slowly farm the base token air drop. Yep. I wanted to go do something else. Hypothetical, alleged like future based.

Starting point is 00:55:48 We don't know nothing, right? Base token. I don't know anything. I'm just like, you know, I'm just like, you know, I'm, yeah. I don't know anything, but like I'm still farming. That's what I'm doing. That's my actions. I'm farming the air drop, whether the airdrop exists or not.

Starting point is 00:55:59 I don't know. Anyways, I wanted to like go and do something on a different chain. I wanted to probably buy a meme coin on like Arbitrum or like optimism or something. And so I wanted to go over to my wallet where I have just like fresh powder when I'm available. And I wanted to bridge it over to Arbitrum. And Coinbase charges me $50 to bridge. $50 to bridge out of base. out of base to where

Starting point is 00:56:24 to any other layer two you can go back down to the Ethereum layer one it does what does it actually cost them in terms of it doesn't you can go to a cross Heart Lamber's a cross and you can pay 10 cents yeah you can bridge in unrued you just do that

Starting point is 00:56:39 I did and I took my money out of the Coinbase wallet because that is extractive oh you're saying it was just on the Coinbase wallet and it's just on the Coinbase wallet it's just on the Coinbase wallet you didn't know any better yeah I mean it tells you coin base fee $50.

Starting point is 00:56:53 But it's like you can bridge to base from any other layer two for free. Yeah. You can bridge two base from the Ethereum layer one for free. That's a banker move right there. Bridging out of base costs $50 on the Coinbase wallet. Very extractive, very exploitative. And now I don't have any money in the Coinbase wallet. So take that.

Starting point is 00:57:14 Jesse and Brian. Fix it. Fix it. That's not fair. That's not right. It's not very lined. You know what? I'm sure they'll fix something like that.

Starting point is 00:57:21 But like in the scheme of things, I don't think that this 4.7% move could have happened under a Biden administration. Like, look at the timing of this. They could have done this months ago. Why do they do it now? It's why do they do it? It's because we're getting a crypto czar. It's because Brian Armstrong just met with like, you know, Trump. And so now we all get 4.7% outside of our bank account. Thank you very much. Feels great. David, does this feel great to you? Do you see the doodles on McCaffee? Like McDonald's mugs here? What do you think? Does this, if this happened in 2021, okay, at the height of NFT Media. Doodles would be pumping so hard right now.

Starting point is 00:58:00 What did they do? What are doodles? Do you know that NFT floor website's been a while? Hey, NFT floor. It still exists. Here it is. Okay. So over the last 30 days, doodles is up 90%.

Starting point is 00:58:12 Okay, so pretty good. The market is reacting to that. That is a lot. Yeah, but that would have been 900% in 2021. That would have been 900%. Easy. Yeah, yeah. Because this is actually a legitimate marketing.

Starting point is 00:58:21 campaign here. This is legitimate. This is tweeted out by McDonald's. Look at this. It's cute little doodles graphics. I really like the art. I mean, it's a good kind of like... You like the art? Why don't you buy one? Why don't you buy one? Why don't I? Because it's a JPEG. Why do you think I don't buy meme coins? Because I'm a moron. That's why. All right. There we go. Another news item as well. Do you know wrapped Bitcoin? Apparently Coinbase has delisted them and it's all because same kind of vibe bro. It's like they're introducing Coinbase is introducing CBBT

Starting point is 00:58:56 which is going to be a fantastic product Oh you're alleging something else here It's on the Ethereum layer one It's on base And coincidentally Coinbase decides to delist Rapped Bitcoin Ah

Starting point is 00:59:08 Well we all become monopolists over time You want a more charitable explanation Why they did this It was because Justin's son Purchase BTC And like, who knows? Did that actually go through?

Starting point is 00:59:22 Yeah, a portion of it, something like that. That's a more charitable explanation. You're alleging some, like, you know, a monopoly-type behavior, aren't you? Hey, where the incentive fits. Coinbase is great. Brian Armstrong is fighting for our interests. They have helped us so much with Fairshake. Don't become the baddies?

Starting point is 00:59:39 They are also 100% going for regulatory capture. Ooh, spicy. For sure. Do you think that's just the incentives? That's just, yes, that's the natural. So keep an eye on there. incentive. Yeah. Yeah. Keep an eye on Coinbase.

Starting point is 00:59:52 On the back. Coinbase is a bank. Yeah. Coinbase is a bank. On the back of all of the success, I think that's like the air. We could go in the other direction where just like crypto becomes not about defy, not about peer-to-peer finance, it becomes something else. Yeah. Coinbase is aligned with our interests and them and Circle are going for regulatory capture and we need to keep an eye on them. Well, they're going to fight against Tether here. Do you see this? This is Hadron by Tether,

Starting point is 01:00:18 a revolutionary platform, let's see, tokenize anything. So this is basically Tether coming out with a tokenization platform. I don't know anything about this, but it seems like it could be big because Tether is taking its capable of what are US, what is USDT? What is Tether? It's a tokenized real world assets. It's just like basically tokenized wrapped stablecoin T bills underneath. And they're taking that capability and they want to do AML. And they want to do, I should say, like tokenize all of the other real world assets. So try to get to treasuries, maybe real estate. Like why not? Why not? Like, why not? They take their AM, LKYC, they take all of that, and then, like, they scale it. So that's what Hedron is. And I just don't know if this is a big deal or not, but I'm thinking potentially it's a big deal. Like, Tether, obviously, very successful. If anyone's going to do it, like, why not them?

Starting point is 01:01:03 I mean, $100 billion real world assets, the biggest one out there. So I guess they're going to expand beyond that. All right. That's it. David, we should mention, though, bankless is actually looking for some talent in the podcast editing department. So shout out this role because we are, we are, we're hard. hiring. We need some help. If you are a YouTuber and you've edited your own videos or if you've

Starting point is 01:01:23 edited podcasts prior or you just know how to use editing software, video and audio, we want to talk to you. Our team is very fun. It's very fun working for bankless. So join us. We want one more podcast editor because we're going to start. I'm Ryan. I'm going to start a new podcast. Wait, what? We got to talk. I'm starting a new podcast. We're going to talk. All right. And then we also have the bankless summit. All the sessions are now basically online. So a bunch of those are coming on the public feed, but a whole bunch are only available for bankless premium citizen subscribers.

Starting point is 01:01:54 So if you are not... You can find them on Twitter, too, if you look. If you want the convenience, it's in your podcast. It's a bull market, man. Treat yourself, a little bit of luxury. There'll be a link in the show notes. You can upgrade to bankless citizenship, and you get access to a special podcast feed called the Premium

Starting point is 01:02:10 Podcast. We'll release a whole bunch of extra content for you, including some of these sessions. Ryan, I regret to inform you that Bitcoin did not break $100,000 on this episode. But it got really close. It got to $99,000. Maybe next week.

Starting point is 01:02:24 Maybe next week. We'll leave you guys with the meme of the week, which is the meme of the man who's riding a bicycle and he sticks the stick through his own bicycle spokes. Michael Saylor's riding the bicycle. The stick that he is pushing through the spokes is he's buying the Bitcoin top. But the meme, the punchline here is the stick just breaks. And Michael Taylor just keeps on biking.

Starting point is 01:02:45 Keeps on riding. Keeps on riding. That's what it's looking like. Nothing knocks the Michael Taylor off the bike. Yeah, it's certainly looking like that. Gotta let you know, of course, crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in. You could topple over on your bicycle, but we are headed west.

Starting point is 01:02:59 This is the frontier. Unless you're Michael Saylor. It's time for everyone. But we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.

Bankless - ROLLUP: $100k BTC? | Gensler Resignation | Trump’s ‘Crypto Czar’ | Memecoin Rugs

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.