Bankless - ROLLUP: Coinbase NFTs | Bitcoin ETF | DeFi 2.0 | Andrew Yang | Joe Biden

Starting point is 00:00:07 Hey, Bankless Nation, happy second week of October. David, what time is it? It's a roll-up time, Ryan, where we roll up the whole entire week of news in crypto, which is always an ambitious endeavor, yet we do it every single week here on the Friday, Bankless weekly roll-up. Yeah, we've got some crazy headlines for you. One, Coinbase is rolling out an NFT program. What's that about? We're going to get into the specifics. Also, Hester Purse, regulator who's been on bankless before, just dropped a firepiece. Absolutely. loved it. We're going to get into the details of that. There's also rumor this week that Biden is going to issue some kind of executive order, maybe for crypto, probably against crypto, possibly. We're

Starting point is 00:00:49 going to dive into what that could possibly mean. It's a rumor now, but there's lots to dissect there. All of this and more, that's what you're getting on the weekly rollout. But David, I got to ask you before we dig in, man, how's your week going? I feel like we've had a great week. Is that just been me or did we have a great week? I had a fantastic week. There's a podcast that I listened to called Yang Speaks. Andrew Yang shows up every now and then and it felt something similar like that this week, but it felt it was a different format. I was somehow involved with this one. I don't know. Dude, guys, we got Andrew Yang in the podcast, is what they would say. And it was a fantastic episode. We recorded this, I believe, on Tuesday. And, you know, I generally don't get nervous about

Starting point is 00:01:30 doing podcasts anymore. But like, you know, some, some guests who've never done before, I got a little bit nervous prior to that. I was a little bit nervous going into the Andrew Yang conversation. And there was absolutely no reason to be about like a minute in. It just felt like talking to, to a regular person. And we definitely had a great discussion with him. That podcast is now, by the way, isn't it out? It's out for bankless premium subscribers. Yeah. If you pay for bankless, we can pay for the newsletter. It is out. on the private RSS feed. So it's on your phone.

Starting point is 00:02:03 It's also the videos on YouTube as well. So you can go watch that right now. And he dropped a fire line, which here it is. What is there for, you know, the crypto community in the forward party? I want to make the forward party the crypto party, truly. That is awesome, guys. And that is just a taste of what you are about to listen to with Andrew Yang when you get that podcast beamed into your ears.

Starting point is 00:02:28 So we're excited to release that. We're also excited about the permissionless conference, David. So a new tranche of tickets just went on sale. If you recall, we've talked about this on the roll-ups every two weeks. A new tranche of tickets sell for permissionless. This is going to be the largest defy conference. I think that's ever been thrown. And you still have a little bit of time because it's not until 2020, too.

Starting point is 00:02:50 But you also don't have time because these tranches sell out fast. And every single tranche, the price goes up. I think the price is now up to like $364, something. something like that. Number go up. It started at $15, guys. All right. So every two weeks, this thing is increasing.

Starting point is 00:03:06 And if you don't do it now fast, probably as you're listening to it, probably this morning, tickets will sell out. So if you want to come to that conference, David and I are going to be there. More than that, we're actually helping to plan the entire agenda for the event, covering Defi, covering the Metaverse, we're covering regulatory landscape. It's going to be hot. A bunch of speakers have been listed, have been named, but we have a lot more to come as well. so make sure you pick up your ticket.

Starting point is 00:03:30 If you are a bankless premium subscriber, you also get 30% off of that ticket. So we'll include a link to that in the show notes. Another perk of going bankless premium. It's been a ton of fun working with the Blockworks team to organize this, and we are trying to make this the cultural event of 2020. If you have ever gone to a crypto event before, you know what I'm talking about.

Starting point is 00:03:50 And if you haven't, you should definitely experience it. But these events are festivals. They aren't conferences. They're closer to something like festivals. And so not only is there going to be. be the conference, but there's going to be a bunch of satellite after parties. We are going to throw an after party. And that is going to be a ton of fun. And also, we are looking for specifically defy apps and DAWS to help sponsor the event. We are holding back the floodgates

Starting point is 00:04:16 of the CFI companies and the centralized exchanges of the world to get their sponsorships lost. They all want them. But defy companies, defy teams, Dow's, they haven't had this opportunity previously with able to sponsor events. So if you You are a DAO, be on the lookout for governance proposals in your governance forums about perhaps sponsoring the event. So stay on the lookout for that because we want DAOs and Defi-Native teams to help sponsor this event and push them before all the CFI teams come and eat at all. Also, last thing, guys, before we get into the meet today, our friends, a sponsor,

Starting point is 00:04:50 pool together. They are back and they've just released the fourth version of their product, the fourth version, the best version of their product. pool together is a no-lost lottery guys it's one of the first defy apps to go tell your friends about because it's super easy like look at this interface incredibly easy to just join a pool and the best thing about it is when you join a pool like you can win the lottery david i've won the lottery before okay i've won a pool together lottery you know not a lot of money but i won something and it feels good to win all you have to do is a put money usdc for example into the pools and pooled together, takes care of the rest. It incentivizes you to save. So it gives you a prize based on that. There are some pool tokens that you can earn as well as yield. And their version four is really hot because there's now more prizes than ever. They're also releasing about a million dollars worth of additional prizes. And you can do this all on layer two with near zero gas

Starting point is 00:05:52 fees, transaction fees. And what they've done is they've combined the pools across like Polygon and Ethereum mainnet. So if you deposit on Polygon, it's the same as depositing on mainnet now. That is all new in version four. So really hot. We're really excited to introduce pool together to you guys and their fourth and greatest version. And important to know that when you win the lottery, you also get the cost of the ticket back. So this actually, a very important point is that you aren't actually risking. And you're not spending your money. You're not spending your USDC. You are getting, you putting your money into a pool with a chance to win, but you can always get your money back out. That's why pool together is so cool. That's the no loss part, guys. So if you

Starting point is 00:06:34 want to check that out, go to bankless.cc slash pool together and you'll learn more about that. All right, David, you ready to do this, man? It's market time. Market time. Yeah, that's a fun day to talk about the markets. It is a fun day to talk about the markets. Okay, let's talk about Bitcoin crept up to all-time highs, closed. to all-time highs this week. Am I right about that? Yeah, pretty crazy, right? Started the week at $53,700, which was also the low for the week. And then it crept up to the high of $58,500, where the all-time high, I think, is a little bit over $60,000. And then we are currently at $57,220, overall up 4% on the week, a nice week for Bitcoin. How about Ether? Ether was lagging at first, but it seemed to have gained some

Starting point is 00:07:22 ground over the last like day over the last 24 hours or so at the time of recording because just in time to get into the weekly roll-up it knew we were going to talk about this you know so it's pumping for us so where did it start where did it end yeah start of the week at $3,430 which was also the low for the week and then it is that currently at its high for the week which is at $3,787. We did touch a little bit right over $3,800 just a moment ago but that's where we are right now. One of those up 10% days, you got to appreciate that in crypto. Also, how are we doing on the ratio? So this is the ether to Bitcoin ratio always tells us a story.

Starting point is 00:08:01 What's it telling us this week? Yeah, painting a higher low over last week. The low for the last week was 0.06-ish. And we are currently clocking in at 0.066. And so, again, still in that range-bound area that we've been in for the past like half a year now. But like I've been saying, a pretty. high in the grand scheme of things versus Bitcoin. Yeah, it'll be interesting to know. Still, the, the rumor of the Bitcoin ETF continues to heat up. People are saying October still might be the

Starting point is 00:08:32 month for this. There's rumors of that. I'm not sure what I think yet. But that's why Bitcoin, it seems to have led so much. You have to wonder what's going to happen to this ratio if Bitcoin comes out with a powerhouse ETF. Will that leave every other asset in the dust and take all of the energy out of the other crypto asset markets. Yeah, a funny story. I'm in just a group chat with all my friends from college, and I DM them, was like, guys, I think the Bitcoin ETF might be approved in October. So I'm going to go long right now. And then they're like, you're going to buy Bitcoin. I'm like, no, I'm going to buy Eith. Because if Bitcoin gets the ETF. Like, Eith is also going to pump. Yeah. And it just might take some time. So I wonder if that happens. You think that happens

Starting point is 00:09:16 immediately, or do you think there'll be some sort of delayed effect where Bitcoin has its run? that cycles back into ether, and we get the same thing we've seen hundreds of times already. Yeah, I think if Bitcoin gets the ETF, it'll have something like a 15% pump day. Eth will have maybe 10%. It'll definitely lag behind. But I think then right after the Bitcoin ETF, people then speculate it's like, well, why not the ether ETF? And so the ether ETF won't be far behind. Well, if the SEC is flirting with ETF approval, which I hope they are, total locked value in DFI is also flirting with $100 billion loss.

Starting point is 00:09:51 We're at 95 billion. We can't yet celebrate David. It's got to be like any time now, right? Just give it a day. And that 100 billion mark might be reached. So close to all-time highs on that. Anything else to say? God, if we have, if I see a nine at this number this time next week in the roll-up, I'm

Starting point is 00:10:09 going to be angry. I'm going to be upset. Deserves to be higher. Defy Pulse Index. How are defy tokens holding up? And this is, of course, are the top-weighted Divers. Defi tokens by market cap, those that have been around for six months or longer, longer. There's some other criteria that go into this.

Starting point is 00:10:28 How are we looking on the week? Yeah, start of the week at $336 for the DPI, hit a low of 305, hit a high of 352, and we are currently clocking in at $337. Overall, up half a percent on the week. Defy tokens just cannot catch a bid, man. Do you know what's interesting, though, because there's this whole narrative of like defy 2.0, right? We talked about it this week in our Tuesday state of the nation with Jay from Rari Capital. This whole concept of defy2.0 or zoomerfy. Some people say this is just a new packaging for a narrative,

Starting point is 00:11:04 for a new set of protocols, and it's just nothing more than narrative. You know, this is just sort of an evolution. Others say, like Jay was making the case, no, this is, we're, defy2.0 re-evaluates token economics and puts on the accelerator. on some growth things that the older Defi has not. What's your take on this? Because Defy 2.0 tokens called the Rari Capitals of the world or the OHMs, they are not captured well in the Defi Pulse Index, and they have been absolutely flying lately. Do you think this Defy 2.0 narrative is a thing

Starting point is 00:11:40 and a thing that's important and lasting? I do think it's a thing. And actually, there's some bits of content that's coming down in the pipeline to unpack what this hell, this DeFi 2.0 thing. is I had an hour-long conversation with Scoopy Trooples from Alchemics who talked about this new primitive for yield farming that doesn't create toxic liquidity of people that just farm your token to death and then move on to a new farm. Instead, there is a new primitive, a new yield farming primitive, which is being spun up by Olympus Dow, who we're having on the

Starting point is 00:12:11 state of the nation on Tuesday, Zeus from Olympus Dow, to talk about this new primitive, which is being spun out of Olympus Pro. So Alchemics is changing its yield farm. primitive to this new mechanism. And I talked about that with Scoopy. And so that show should be up on the YouTube sometime soon-ish, I think this weekend, perhaps tomorrow. And then we're going to unpack the whole entire thing with Zeus from Olympus Pro on the Tuesday State of the Nation.

Starting point is 00:12:34 So tune into that. We are digging into this DFI2 thing. So, yeah, stay tuned to that. If you want to make up your own mind and whether this is a thing or not, let's check out the DPI index versus E. Skip it. Skip it. We can't skip it.

Starting point is 00:12:50 We're below 0.09 now, David. Oh, God. What are we looking at this week? Oh, God. Yeah, 0.089, just a straight linear chart downwards. Like, again, can't catch a bid at least versus ether. Yeah, all right. Well, we don't have to believe it by that point.

Starting point is 00:13:06 Let's move on to the Bankless Bed Index. That is up on the week, I believe. Yeah, so what's, where did we start? Where'd we end? Started at $153, hit a low of $143, hit a high of $113,000. hit a high of $167, which is roughly where we currently are right now, overall, up 5% on the week. So global crypto markets at in medium, in mean, average, of 5% on the week. Got it.

Starting point is 00:13:32 Never. Got it. Got it in the end. Layer 2B.com. That's where we see. This is kind of the new total locked value. This is the new D5 pulse in some ways. At least this metric is going to be super important.

Starting point is 00:13:44 It's at all-time highs. There's over $3 billion locked in. in layer two. We're not talking about side chains. We're talking about layer twos that are actually secured by the Ethereum network now at all time highs. It's pretty phenomenal. Great news. Yeah. And I think this chart is just going to continue marching up and to the right. It's Arbichum. It's DYDX. These are the overperformers. Optimism hanging in there, but Arbitrum, D-YDX just crushing it recently with some of those numbers. It's great to see. David, Let's talk a little bit about burn numbers, EIP 1559,

Starting point is 00:14:21 because we just hit an important threshold. That is 500,000 ETH, not $500,000 worth of ETH, 500,000 ETH, it's billions of dollars worth of ETH, have now been burnt, okay? We are just over two months into this thing, and we're talking about, like, half a percent of the entirety of the EAS supply. So listen to that again. two months into EIP 1559 and we burnt just about half of all the ETH supply in existence already.

Starting point is 00:14:54 What does that make you think? Bullish? I mean, that's only one answer. Like, we're not even at proof of stake yet. Right. Man, we were burning way more ETH than we ever thought we would. And we're still in our proof of work form, which is issuing a ton. And it's absolutely insane.

Starting point is 00:15:13 And, like, we've been of the opinions that, like, gas fees on the Ethereum L1 are kind of, like, always up. Like, it's always going to trend upwards over time. And so, like, we are only going to burn more and more ETH. So, congratulations to Ethereum. Wow. We crossed 500,000 ether this week. We're at 531,000 ether. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:31 That's crazy. That's crazy. I mean, it's just, Eth burns every day. Heath burns Eith every day, right? Like, I feel like people need a reminder of this, David. Right? Because, like, we're in crypto so often, we want to chase narratives. We're just like, oh, what's the new bright, like shiny thing?

Starting point is 00:15:48 Defi 2.0. Oh, okay. It's Eith Killer. Which Eith Killer this week? Where's the hottest yield farm? And that's cool. If you have time for that, like, go do it, go pursue it. Go try to make money that way.

Starting point is 00:15:58 But in the background, what's happening with these core reserve assets, what's happening with ether is this just continuing to burn ETH according to usage. And it keeps getting used more and more and more. And you know I had to fit this meme in, David, because I like this meme. I was going to fit it somewhere. Well, my eyes went to the alpha that's in your DMs right now. Oh, shoot. Let me just close that real quick.

Starting point is 00:16:25 I love that you waited until you're done to say that. Yeah, you know. Got some alpha. That's only for YouTube viewers, though. People in the podcast are going like, what? What just happened? Yeah, well, they also weren't able to look at the meme either. So.

Starting point is 00:16:39 True. Okay. Well, let's explain the meme. It's good guy, Greg. Okay. People don't remember this classic meme, but it's good guy Greg. And he's taking your ETH for gas, but then what's he doing? He's a good guy.

Starting point is 00:16:51 He's burning it. Yep. He's a good guy. Giving it back in a roundabout way. All right, David, this was an interesting report still in the market section. Of course, report from coin shares. And they asked the question of a whole bunch of fund managers. So I'm not sure how much money these folks managed.

Starting point is 00:17:07 $400 billion. Okay, you know, respectable, $400 billion. Which digital assets you believe has the most compelling outlook? This is based in a September 2021 study. Number one, Ethereum, over 40%. Number two, a distant number two, Bitcoin, under 20%. And then we have multi-asset, which I don't know. And then what surprises me is like 12% Cardano.

Starting point is 00:17:34 Yeah, see, like, well, while this percentage, While it's this great, it's a great number, 40%, like, it believes for Ethereum's going to be the most growing platform. It just really just like takes the wind out of the sales when you see Cardano clocking in at 10%. Well, you know, there's always some core fund managers who just have no idea what they're doing. But here's one of the takeaways is what would this graph have looked like a year ago at this time, David? Right. Yeah. What do you think it would have looked like?

Starting point is 00:18:03 Well, it was in the middle of DeFi summer a year ago. So maybe you should be. It's not ETH summer, though. Do you remember at the time, like, even three errors capital, we're like, a defy is great. Ah, right. Yeah. Okay. It sucks.

Starting point is 00:18:13 It's talking about the asset. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We are talking about ETH the asset. And I think the script and the narrative has completely changed of the last 12 months, particularly with institutional funds, right? Heath is now an institutional grade asset.

Starting point is 00:18:31 I always think about Bitcoin and Eith. They're now in part of the same sentence. every time when you see it listed, some investors is buying it. And that's a total change from where things were 12 months ago. Hey, sometimes it's just Ethereum. There's plenty of instances I see where it's like people, I think Ethereum's really awesome. And that's the full stop. Yeah, full stop. How many people own crypto? I don't know if you've looked at this article yet, David, but I have, but I'm going to ask you. I'm going to get your guess. What do you think is the total population that owns crypto worldwide right now? If you can see that, close your eyes.

Starting point is 00:19:04 Over 300 million. Did you just read that? All right. What percentage in America because you can't see that? What percentage of America? Yeah. 10%. 10%.

Starting point is 00:19:13 Yeah, about right. Nice. The numbers out, now, you know, different groups have different numbers. I've seen the numbers for America at about 12%. But what's interesting about this is sort of ranks it by country, right? So 300 million people worldwide, 10% of all Americans own it and say it's, you know, somewhere between 10% and 15%. or so. Look at all of the people in India who are crypto users. Wow. Do that sort.

Starting point is 00:19:42 A hundred, a hundred million people in India. That's great. That's great. Like, where's Bankless India, David? We've been missing something. That exists. Bankless India exists. It does? Yeah. I think so. Who does that? I think at least it's an Instagram account, Bankless India. Pretty sure. We didn't even know. I mean, like stuff like this pops up and happens and can happen without us, which is absolutely awesome. But I'm just saying global movement. It's incredible to see the adoption. And across all countries, we're hovering at about 10%, which is really good. When we get to 20%, when we get to 30%, right? These are population sizes that governments and those in power can no longer ignore because then to ban crypto or do something

Starting point is 00:20:22 against crypto, you're actually like you're impacting the lives of millions of your citizens and potentially in India's case hundreds of millions of your citizens. I would like to know how much of these percentages are people that own Bitcoin and Ether versus what I would call fake crypto, but I'll leave that topic for a different day. Well, we don't know. You know, crypto, put it in a big bucket there. ETH held by miners, David, this is an interesting chart. Do you want to explain this? Yeah, so this is a chart saying, looking at the supply of ether held by a known minor wallets. And ever since the July of 2020, so a little over a year ago, it has been on a very steep incline. So it started in July 2020 at 8 million ether held by miners and now is basically climbed

Starting point is 00:21:06 in a relatively linear fashion all the way up to 22 million. That's a really high number, especially for when the total supply of ether is like 120 million. So there might be some interesting ways that coin metrics figured these numbers out. They might be inflated, but overall directionally I think is really what is the important takeaway here. As miners are stacking eth, which makes sense because they all know the merge is coming and mining will be defunct at some point. And so they need to retain their business. And how do they do that? Well, they stack as much eth as possible. So when it comes time for proof of stake, they can just stake their eth and go from a miner to a staker and actually not have to lose their business. This makes a ton of sense to me.

Starting point is 00:21:45 This is another reason why I've always thought the argument that, hey, miners, when you switch to proof of work, miners will just fork. Well, no, they won't. Like, they've known that this is coming. And many of them are highly invested in proof of stake at this point, right? They've been they've been hodling their eith for the day when it switches to proof of stake, and it looks like they're continuing to buy, continuing to hold their eith for that eventuality. So they are part of the new community, the new staking community. Some of them will be stakers rather than minors, of course. David, can you explain this one from Justin Drake? Oh, he's thrown out the ultrasound stuff. What's he's showing us this time? Yeah, so this is a distribution of the average gas price

Starting point is 00:22:23 for inside of blocks, and so that the blue line is the average gas price. The red dash line on the left is the ultra-sound barrier, as in how much gas prices need to sustain in order to be ultrassown money during proof-of-stake, once we are at proof-of-stake. So if gas is higher than 27-Gway, we are burning more ether than we are issuing. Currently, the average gas price for Ethereum is 77 in Gway. And so Justin Drake's math is that we are at mock 2.8, as in we are burning 2.8 times the amount of ether that we are issuing when we are under proof of stake. So, fun little graph right there. So what that means is once the transition to proof of stake happens, once the merge happens, likely early next year, maybe, you know, partially slipping into the second

Starting point is 00:23:12 quarter of next year, anytime gas, Gway prices above 27% eth is deflationary, or 27, Gway, excuse me, ETH is deflationary. I haven't seen Eith at below 27 Gway in like a year. Right? It's been so long. Remember that? It's not going to drop either because, you know,

Starting point is 00:23:31 roll-ups are going to consume it. Obviously, we've had other, you know, NFT boom, all sorts of things will continue to consume. It's not going down. That's for sure. All right, David, that has been the market section. Guys, we will be back with news. We will be back with releases,

Starting point is 00:23:48 meme of the week. stuff that you cannot miss, but before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. Living a bankless life requires taking control over your own private keys. Not your keys, not your crypto. That's why so many in the bankless nation already have their ledger hardware wallet, which makes proper private key management a breeze. But the ledger ecosystem is much more than just a secure hardware wallet. Ledger is the combination of the ledger hardware wallet and the Ledger Live app. And if you're used to seeing all of your crypto services and favorite Defi apps all in one spot, Ledger Live is where you want to be. Not only does Ledger let you buy your

Starting point is 00:24:24 crypto assets straight from the app, but it also hooks into all of the Defy apps and services that you're used to. Using Ledger Live, you can stake your Ethan Lido, swap on Dexes like Paraswap, or display your NFTs with Rainbow. You can also use Wallet Connect inside of Ledger Live to connect to all the other DeFi apps that keep coming online. Defi never stops growing, and the Ledger Live app grows alongside with it. So click the link in the show notes to see all of the Defi apps that Ledger Live has and stay tuned as more apps come online. And if you don't have a Ledger hardware wallet, what are you even waiting for? Go to Ledger.com, grab a ledger, download Ledger Live, and get all of your Defy apps all in one space.

Starting point is 00:25:03 Arbitrim is an Ethereum scaling solution that's going to completely change how we use Defy. And now it's live with over a hundred projects deployed. Gas fees on the Ethereum L1 sucks. Too many people want to use Ethereum and it doesn't have enough capacity for all of us. us. And that's why teams like Arbitrum have been hard at work developing layer two solutions that makes transactions on Ethereum cheap and instant. Arbitrum increases Ethereum's throughput by orders of magnitude at a fraction of the cost of what we are used to paying. When interacting with Arbitrum, you can get the performance of a centralized exchange while tapping into

Starting point is 00:25:36 Ethereum's level of security and decentralization. That's why people are calling this Ethereum's broadband moment, where we get to add performance onto decentralization and security. If you're a developer and you want to save on gas costs and overall make a better experience for your users, go to developer.offchainlabs.com to get started building on Arbitrum. If you're a user, keep an eye out for your favorite Defy apps building on Arbitrum. Many Defy applications that are on the Ethereum Layer 1 are migrating over to Layer 2s like Arbitrum. And some are even skipping over layer 1 and deploying directly on Layer 2s. There are so many apps coming online to Arbitrum. So go to bridge.obritrum.io and start bridging over your Ether or any of the tokens list.

Starting point is 00:26:16 and start having a defy experience that you've always wanted. All right, guys, we are back to tell you about the hot releases of the week. David, let's start here. NFT avatar support on ENS profiles. ENS, of course, is like the domain name for Ethereum. Lots of people have dot-eath addresses. Now they've added NFT avatar support. What's that mean?

Starting point is 00:26:36 Yeah, so you know those whole like generative little icons and metamask for your wallet just to let you know, like putting a little color or image so you know what wallet is what. But ENS is allowing you to put in a link to a file so that you can have a file represented as that little icon of what your wallet is. And so when you type in Ethereum address, a nice little icon can show up on wallets that support this. So that's pretty cool. This is why I think profile NFTs are not going anywhere.

Starting point is 00:27:07 And they're only going to get stronger because we're going to find all of these new use cases for them because people want them everywhere. If you bought one, you want it everywhere, right? You might even put it on the wall behind you as you're recording a podcast. Oh, that'd be weird. Yeah, that'd be weird. Never be that. Let's talk about this.

Starting point is 00:27:23 FlashBots protect. Someone's going to protect us from the sinister MEV that is front running from miners and other entities. Tell us about that. Yeah, so if you have ever logged on to a different EVM network via Metamask, like by doing the whole drop-down pointing to Polygon or Arbitrum or a TestNet, this is one of those. It's an RPC endpoint. and a few other things as well, but I feel like the most relevant thing is the RPC endpoint.

Starting point is 00:27:48 So you can select a different RPC endpoint, and so it'll be routed towards this whole flashbots protect product, which will allow your transaction to be protected from some of the monsters that lurk in the mempool. And so that's pretty neat. This is new. So definitely do some research before you do this, and I kind of do what I do,

Starting point is 00:28:11 which is I just wait for other people to do it first. But overall, there's also a few other things as well, such as an API that developers can integrate into their applications to have this same sort of service. So if you want to learn more, check the link in the show notes. That's a pretty good resource, though. You may try it some time. But, yeah, like you, I'm kind of waiting for it to cook a little bit more. Speaking of cooking, Starkware has been cooking some things up. Starknet is coming to Maynet.

Starting point is 00:28:39 You like that segue, David? So what this basically is, is. is kind of a holy grail that crypto has been waiting for and hoping for for a while, at least especially the layer two community. And that is the ability to have general purpose smart contracts on a layer two. And this is a ZK roll-up layer two. And Starkware says they are shipping this in November. Okay?

Starting point is 00:29:06 They got alpha now. When they ship it, my understanding, David, is it's going to be kind of a permissioned type of shipment. So similar to the rollout of optimism where it wasn't like everyone's here and it's just kind of an application at a time. But still, this is earlier than I thought. And we are going to have the Starkware folks on sometime in November to explain this in further detail. But I think that's what we're looking at here is the potential for smart contracts on a ZK rollup layer two. I don't think it's going to be super seamless. like drag your app from Maynet into StarCware and it just kind of works like that.

Starting point is 00:29:48 It won't quite be like that is my impression. But the fact that we are this close to this functionality is super exciting to me. Yeah. And we're actually going to be able to see how easy it is for developers to get their application on a ZK roll-up, which is a little bit more involved than an optimistic roll-up. So that will be an interesting thing to watch and we will definitely watch it. And look, hey, man, the tech, the tech is. out there, it's already working. StarCore Tech is what powers D-YD-X, for instance, right?

Starting point is 00:30:17 Many other exchanges as well in the space. Okay. Arbitrum is dialing it up as well. I feel like this gift kind of summarizes, you know, this is like this guy in a race car and he's, you know, he's got wind resistance and his cheeks are flying back. And it says, my transactions after the Arbitrum Nitro upgrade. I think this upgrade, what's going to do is just like drastically improve transaction speeds, transaction times, transaction volumes, and decrease prices on Arbitrum. Is that what's going on? Yeah, that's exactly right. They are just upping the juice with Arbitrum.

Starting point is 00:30:51 And that's the cool thing about these Layer 2 roll-ups is they actually come on to Ethereum and they have their own, in addition to already being scaling of Ethereum, they have their own scaling roadmap in addition to that. So Layer 2's only scale even more. That's not here yet. and TBD on when that date is, but look forward to Arbitram Nitro when that comes. Also, David, this is kind of cool. Tell us what this is.

Starting point is 00:31:15 Is this some kind of a new defy wallet? Yeah, yeah. It's perhaps a metamask competitor or overall just a new wallet plus ecosystem, a wallet ecosystem called XDefi, which is now claiming to be the fastest wallet in defy. I've been having a ton of trouble with my metamask lately, so I can definitely use some alternatives. There were some grumblings in the greater community about how this wallet is not.

Starting point is 00:31:41 Their code hasn't been open sourced, which is kind of against the ethos and makes it hard to verify what's actually going on under the hood. But the team said that they will be ultimately releasing their code to be open source in the future, just not yet. Overall, if anyone has tried this out, ping us at bankless and let us know. Yeah, more wallets, you know, all the better. I do think our existing wallet ecosystem could use some improvements, some user interface. improvement. Yeah, I know some of the troubles with MetaMask have been like browser related as well, which has been somewhat frustrating. Like, you know, Chrome changes a few things and then you lose support in Chrome. Like I've had to use MetaMask with Firefox for a while now, but

Starting point is 00:32:19 so much work could be done to smooth out the wallet experience across the space. So it's glad someone else is joining the fray here. Also, another options, DFI protocol, joining the fray. What's this, David? Yeah, pods. Pods, finance on Twitter. It says, We are thrilled to announce the release of pods on the Ethereum mainnet. So pods is an on-chain options protocol that aims to bootstrap markets for any EURC-20 token using an algorithmic pricing and specific options AMM. Basically, you can buy and sell puts, and you can also use pods for yield. You can actually provide liquidity and get some yield, and that is now live on the layer one,

Starting point is 00:33:00 which is interesting. I kind of would expect something like this to be to kind of deploy it on layer two first. But here it is on layer one. So check that out at app. Pods. Dot, guys. There you go. Klima Dow.

Starting point is 00:33:13 It's going Mainnet. Once's that happening? Going on Polygon. Yeah, Klima Dow and the Klimat token. Go live on the Polygon Mainnet on October 18th. That's this coming Monday. And so you can check out the announcement post for details. We did a Meet the Nation with Klima Dow.

Starting point is 00:33:27 They're basically a fork off of Olympus Dow, but focusing on having carbon credits as their collateral. And so trying to sequester carbon using defy, so a very noble cause. And so if you want to find out more, there's a link in the show notes. Why is this defy 2.0, sir? I don't know. What do you think? I don't know.

Starting point is 00:33:48 I think it is. I have no clue. Maybe we don't know what defy 2.W is yet. And we're in the process of discovering it. Binance chain is not defy 2.0, by the way. I do know that. But they have just, Binance has just launched a one, billion dollar that's billion with a B growth fund for Binance smart chain and this just reminds me

Starting point is 00:34:12 that the treasuries and the war chests are very very deep when it comes to the crypto banks particularly when they are trying to make their way into defy and they are definitely not going anywhere Binance chain is not going anywhere not because it's decentralized but because it has the support of CZ and Binance behind it. What do you think about this, David? Yeah, they're just like brute forcing the D-Fi side of Binance smart chain. Like, it is what it is. Ultimately, they're just innovating on the EVM.

Starting point is 00:34:45 So all the value ultimately flows back to Ethereum. Yeah, hopefully some value will be produced here, and it'll be a good thing. I don't hate it. I just don't love it. I do hate calling it defy, though. And this like bastardization of the term like CDFI just, uh, really annoys me. But it's a large ecosystem. And if you don't like it, just ignore it. Don't use it. Last release of the week, Optimism has just updated their website and showcasing, really, all of the

Starting point is 00:35:13 cool things they're doing. This is the optimistic roll-up on Ethereum called Optimism. David, what are we looking at here? Yeah, they just have a little like a scroll or carousel of all of the applications that you can play with on optimism. So it's going to be fun. Watching this number grow, Quinta, I think is the newest one as well. I did a Meet the Nation with Quenta, which should be up on the YouTube right now to let you know that Quenta is actually doing its own thing out of synthetics. And so that is worth watching as well. And they are on optimism. And that's, that's the news. Uniswap synthetics, Lyra, Rubicon, Quenza, and one inch. One inch is a recent one as well. Very cool to see that growth. Raise time. Consensus is raising. So these are the makers of

Starting point is 00:35:57 Metamask and many other tools. They're kind of OGs in Ethereum. They're raised. raising $65 million, I believe, at a $3 billion valuation. So a big raise for them, big valuation for consensus. I guess good to see more money coming to the space. I wonder how much this $3 billion valuation rise on the back of MetaMask, just absolutely printing money with their swap feature. Because they are just breaking it in with that one application, right? There's definitely other applications that are definitely making a lot of profit

Starting point is 00:36:31 for consensus, but like they, while they, consensus kind of was critiqued with like spinning out a thousand projects all at once, like, and then five of them being successful, those five have been really, really successful. So congratulations to everyone at consensus on that three billion dollar valuation. Yeah, it's, it's like the baby turtles, you know, rushing towards the sea before they get eaten by the birds, right? You know, you have tons of, tons of turtles. So hopefully some of them will make it to the sea, some of them will survive. That's sort of consensus strategy. Look,

Starting point is 00:37:02 Metamask. If you want to go long on Metamask, speculation that there's going to be a token, which there's not yet, but the native swap feature for Metamask is an on-chain footprint

Starting point is 00:37:12 that Meta-Mask can find its users by. So if you want to speculate on whether or not there will be a Meta-Mask token, go use the swap feature. I want to speculate on that, David. $9 billion in trades through Meta-Mask, which is absolutely blew me away that that feature would be so popular as well,

Starting point is 00:37:27 as you said. I used to use Macha, and I love Masha, and I use Masha all the time, but I've been using the Metamass swap feature just on the speculation. Have you really? Yeah. It's just quicker, more convenient? No, no. They're, they're, it's basically the same price.

Starting point is 00:37:40 In fact, I kind of actually prefer the Masha UI and the engine. They have more features. But if there's a token at the end of my Metamast swap, I want service area to that. We don't know that, to be fair. But yeah, we do not. We do not know that. Yeah. A high contender.

Starting point is 00:37:54 Another big raise this week, Jolato just raised $240 million, led by Insight Partners. It's a lot of money. What are they doing? Big number. Yeah, Gillado is smart contract automation. As a non-developer, this has been kind of confusing for me. But basically, there are some smart contracts that need to be poked or interacted with in order to make them execute. And gelato's doing smart contract automation. It kind of feels like smart contracts for smart contracts. If I was a developer, I wouldn't be able to explain this a little bit better. But I'm not. The way I think of it, I have no idea if this is right or not is like an if there's then that sort system for smart contracts. You kind of wire these smart contracts together. But do not know.

Starting point is 00:38:33 There's a lot of money. They're doing something big here. We'll see. Yeah, congrats. Paradigm just raised $1.5 billion, too. We've had people from Paradigm on a number of times, really smart investment shop. I think one of my favorite VC shops in the space, just from a thinking perspective and the value that they add their portfolio, $1.5 billion, okay? This is in the back, Remember, was the A16Z in their crypto fund? They just raised $2 billion, $2.5 billion, something like that. Okay? So much private money, venture capital, is going into crypto at this point in time.

Starting point is 00:39:11 So people are looking at, like, the private market for these deals. Like, the private market is absolutely crazy. Like, buying some of these investments before, you know, they tokenize or before they go public, the valuations are sky high. is because all of this money is pouring in. Anything else, David? Yeah, the great thing about paradigm is that they use this money to fix some of the most core fundamental problems about this industry.

Starting point is 00:39:34 They, you know, Dan Robinson apparently built Uniswap V3 himself. I don't know if that's true. But they are also working to solve M-A-V and some of these just core hard problems. So when I see a $1.5 billion going into Paradigm, I see $1.5 billion of like just problem solving in D-Fi. So that's awesome. Yeah, it's really good. Who else do they have, David?

Starting point is 00:39:53 The Savior of Defy, White Hat. Oh, Sam'sy Son. Sam's son, of course. He works a paradigm as well. Put money into him, man. Him alone. I mean, that's like, you know, that's worth a third at least, $500 million in terms of protection for Defi.

Starting point is 00:40:11 All right, let's talk about this. Merit Circle, they just announced the closure of a seed raise round of $4.5 million. So this reminds me sort of like YG, sort of one of those gaming gills. type of concepts. I think they provide scholarships to maybe many Axi Infinity gamers. So this is another play on crypto gaming. I think we'll see a lot more in that space to come to. This next one, David, Moonpay. This is a crypto payment startup. They're just valued at $3.4 billion. This is after their first funding rounds. You know what I said? These private valuations are getting absolutely insane. If you think coin market cap is crazy, right? And the top 20 list,

Starting point is 00:40:51 the private valuations are are getting similar. This is a $400 million round. And I think what they're doing is, is this sort of similar to Ramp? We were talking about their raise last week. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. Fiat on ramp to crypto.

Starting point is 00:41:08 Yep. Which I mean, it's important. Is it $3.4 billion? I don't know. Oh, I don't know. I'm sure, you know, somebody has thought that three, right, David? Yeah. Right?

Starting point is 00:41:19 Right, definitely, definitely. The market would never be irrational. That's right. Zora is a centralized open marketplace. So I think this is maybe a bit more of a decentralized open sea, although what is decentralized even mean in this case? But one thing that they're doing is zero percent fees on all of the NFTs that they sell inside of their marketplace.

Starting point is 00:41:41 And it is entirely permissionless and also on chain. Zora says it's how marketplaces should be. but that 0% fees thing is certainly very interesting and very attractive. So this is maybe a bit more of an open system

Starting point is 00:41:57 pushing against open seas, massive dominant market share, and I am happy to see more competition in the space. The thing Zora did recently is the only used to have these Zora items, things that were launched inside of Zora, and now more recently,

Starting point is 00:42:12 they've added the ability to add all of these other collections like art blocks and everything from super rares and me bits and board apes and everything else that you find and you could purchase it without a commission fee so seems interesting open c is a great platform have nothing against them except for the fact that there's only one of them so having zora open up this world into having some competition and it's actually not the only one this week we'll be talking about another one here shortly

Starting point is 00:42:37 but yeah congratulations to zora let's also talk about trading view david that's a charting platform I know, like, you're a power user, right? You do your T.A. You do your triangles. I've seen you from time to time. Draw some shapes here and there. You know, connect some dots. Yeah, I've seen your shapes.

Starting point is 00:42:53 Yeah. It's looking great. So, they just raised $298 million at a $3 billion dollar valuation. I guess everybody's the unicorn now. Who cares about unicorns? Do you remember that? Remember unicorns? That was a big deal when you passed a billion?

Starting point is 00:43:08 What's a billion dollars? Another billion. Anyway, this is kind of cool. I guess this is all about amateur traders, you know? The amateurs are becoming the professionals, I think. Yeah, and Trading View has an increasingly higher and higher percentage of people that are looking at crypto stuff. Yeah. And so they've been pushing up the crypto to the front, you know, more and more to the front of their offering.

Starting point is 00:43:29 And so Trading View is kind of just becoming like Crypto View. Trading View equals Crypto View because you're doing all your trading in crypto these days. If you're anything like us, if you're also like us, you probably want a job in crypto. This is your weekly reminder. Weekly reminder. Tell them. Get a job. Get a job in crypto.

Starting point is 00:43:48 It's better. Whatever. I'm sure your job is great, but your future crypto job will be a lot better. It's just the vibes are better. The work culture is better. You probably get to work at home. You probably get tokens depending on what job you apply for. And so go to pallet.

Starting point is 00:44:03 com slash list slash bank lists slash jobs or go to the link in the show notes to go get a job. Ryan, what are some of the jobs that we got on the board today? We got a CTO on the board today from E. Argronom. E.R. Gronom. E.R. Gronom. Sorry, E. Agranum. That is just difficult for me to say. CTO role, though. That's a premium role right there. General counsel at SmartDefi, also finance and operations, senior back-end developer at SmartDefi.

Starting point is 00:44:38 You could be a technical CTO for six months at Merit. You could be a community manager at Argon. You could be a founding blockchain engineer, a founding one at that highlight. Senior software engineer popcorn, community lead popcorn, senior front-end web developer. Here's what crypto needs, okay? It needs developers and it needs community builders. Those two skills, it also needs, by the way, like managers, you know, operators, project managers. That's what you see represented on the bankless job board.

Starting point is 00:45:11 And these skills are probably skills that many of our listeners have. You know, I know we have developers listening to this. I know we have people who are highly organized, ability to put together projects. They're looking for people who, quite frankly, listen to bankless, David. I've heard people like in job interviews, this has come up. Like, what do you read about crypto? How much do you know? What information do you consume?

Starting point is 00:45:36 and when you tell them bankless, it's going to get you positive marks. So you're already doing part of this by listening to bankless right now. So why not take the next step and see what's out there in the job market? I don't feel like I'm working anymore. Do you? No. Uh-uh. No.

Starting point is 00:45:53 Like what is it? It's not work. What do we do here? Well, for some reason, I'm like doing whatever it is I'm doing for like 12 hours a day, but it's some combination of work and fun. And that is the whole point about working in crypto is like it's more of just a vibe. It's a, definitely a work hard, play hard environment, and it's not ever work and it's not ever play. It's something in the middle. Yeah, it is something in the middle. There's got to be a

Starting point is 00:46:15 new term for that, but I don't know what it is. Vib. Yeah, vibe. Vibed out. Vib for now. All right, guys, we're jumping on the news. We got three big things to hit. First, Coinbase NFT, second, Hester Persis speech. Third, what about Biden? Is he going to crush crypto? Let's start with the first, David. Coinbase NFT, it's coming soon. They're starting an NFT marketplace. You can join the wait list. Brian Armstrong tweeted out. They've got one million people already who have joined the waitlist excited for what Coinbase is going to do in the NFT space. What's happening here, David? Yeah, so they are making a competitor to FTX's NFT platform. So this is a centralized NFT platform that's hooked right into exchange where you already have your crypto monies.

Starting point is 00:47:00 And so now Coinbase is basically making a competitor to OpenC that is much more centralized, I guess, custodial opency. And I think that's actually, it's just going to do a lot of onboarding efforts, right? But actually, so David, we don't know whether it's going to be purely custodial or not, do we? I mean, to be fair, at least I don't. It doesn't say in this. I would guess that it is. Definitely. I understand that assumption, but we don't know for sure, right?

Starting point is 00:47:27 This could be also non-custodial. and they could be like minting on layer two. They could be minting on Ethereum. It could be through their non-custodial Coinbase wallet. One thing they will have that OpenC doesn't, when we talk to Devin about this, Finzer from OpenC, is Coinbase has a Fiat on ramp. Right.

Starting point is 00:47:48 And OpenC is just you start with Ether, you know, you can't on ramp. So Coinbase has that advantage out of the gate. But I'm actually excited to learn about how this is going to be built because we don't know all the details yet. Yeah, if you can put an NFT on a credit card via Coinbase, that would be kind of cool, actually. Do you remember, so back in. Also dangerous.

Starting point is 00:48:07 Also dangerous. Some people are saying this feels like when Coinbase first listed ETH back in 2016, right? It's kind of a mainstreamy moment, I suppose, for Ether as an asset. Prior to that had been Bitcoin, maybe some other assets. Coinbase is definitely jumping into this because NFTs are here to stay, and they are mainstream. And, you know, Coinbase wants a big part of this market. So we'll have to see.

Starting point is 00:48:35 Actually, Brian Armstrong is coming on the podcast. Yes? Yeah. We scheduled it. That's great. So we're going to be talking about this. I'm sure we'll talk about this. I'm sure we'll talk about regulatory matters.

Starting point is 00:48:49 Lots to talk with Brian about. We've never actually had him on the podcast. So I'm excited about that. Anything else? Good timing to talk about that with him. post launch of this NFT platform. It also looks like it's going to be a social media platform too. So you get a profile with a name and you can follow people, which is interesting.

Starting point is 00:49:07 So Coinbase not only getting into NFTs but also getting into social media, that's a big move. Yeah, it's a big move. Very cool. Over a million people signed up now, of course. Another big move is Hester Persis' speech. So Hester Perce, SEC Commissioner. Crypto Mom. Is one of five?

Starting point is 00:49:27 SEC commissioners? Seven? Five or six? Is it seven? A handful. One of a handful. Well, I looked at it out. Well, David just called her crypto mom.

Starting point is 00:49:36 And, you know, she would be fine with that. We actually asked her when she came on the podcast. And the reason she is crypto mom and the industry has five. David's saying five SEC commissioners. The reason the industry has deemed her crypto mom is because she has been supportive of the values that the crypto industry is trying to She has engaged with the crypto community, not treated us as outsiders and scammers. Or children.

Starting point is 00:50:06 Children, yeah, not patronizing, actually, like, digging in. And so we had her on the podcast, I guess, earlier this year. And I think this was before we knew, it was definitely before we knew what Gary Gensler, what his reaction was going to be. It was back when everyone was optimistic about Gary Gensler. We asked her. And I remember it's like we're kind of like trying to feel around, you know, Commissioner of Purse, do you think Gary Gensler is going to be helpful to this industry or not?

Starting point is 00:50:36 And I don't think genuinely she knew, right? And she didn't commit. And she said, we will get clarity is one thing we'll get. I recall her saying that. I kind of miss the old days now. You want the non-clarity part? I'll go back. I'll go back.

Starting point is 00:50:52 I'll take it back. Let's get to the speech, though, because this speech was fired. Like absolutely, this is at the Texas blockchain summit. She came there, she talked. And the analogy she used, David, the west. Going west. We are headed west. She talked about a book that she read called The Pioneers about the early, I guess,

Starting point is 00:51:13 you know, settlement of the west and how people moved from the east. You know what? I'm just going to read some quotes here because I think it's that good. The settlers who moved west came not only with high. expectations, but with a whole range of talents and professions. They cultivated other skills by necessity after they had arrived. The society was rougher than the one they had built, but nevertheless, it was governed by the societal norms they carried with them by law and by mutual concern heightened

Starting point is 00:51:42 by the difficult conditions in the early years. And she goes on, she talks about how the people who are headed west were headed to escape kind of the paralyzed, stifled, stymied, East Coast elites, basically, where there's no opportunity for them. That's why they were going to greener pastures and settling new lands and establishing cities, okay? So she paints this whole story and she says, I am, you know, part of that story, Ohio, that's where I live, that's where I kind of grew up, that's where I went to school, that's what America's tradition has been. And then she pauses and she says, guess what? Crypto's doing the same thing.

Starting point is 00:52:24 It is the journey West. It is the modern journey West that the crypto industry is on. And she says, sure, this home to a lot of code slingers, she says, and speculators and some hucksters too. This new West has all sorts of fights. Friendships are forged. And she says, it's just like the west of the past. There's rough and tumble, but so much value and so much good is being created there.

Starting point is 00:52:49 And then she goes on to say, do we really have legal clarity around digital assets? I think some in her, you know, in the regulatory bodies would say, that's perfect legal clarity. Right. I've heard these statements. Like, of course we know what a security is in crypto, right? 1946, howie. It's obvious. It should be obvious with the security.

Starting point is 00:53:13 And she said, I don't know. Do we really have legal clarity? And then she says, are we enforcing rules by settling or something? settling for ambiguity. It's what we want is clarity. Are we settling for ambiguity? She poses the question. Are we fighting for investors or fighting for jurisdiction?

Starting point is 00:53:30 Wow. That's powerful. She's asking the question. This is a regulator. Are we protecting investors or denying investors' opportunity? Oh, God. Okay? Right?

Starting point is 00:53:40 These are the speech headlines. Okay? You guys have to go read this entire speech. Are we going to pretend everything is centralized so we can regulate it? hitting hard. Yes. This is so awesome. It's amazing.

Starting point is 00:53:55 Are we catching bad actors? Are we creating a catch-22? Are we creating conditions where it's like impossible to identify the bad actors and where everyone's a bad actor? And she goes on, her conclusion, okay? This is the best part. Her conclusion. Actually, the whole speech is the best part.

Starting point is 00:54:13 But she ends with this. To paraphrase the standard closing words of a popular crypto podcast, which follow an appropriate warning about the riskiness of the space. We are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone. Dot, dot, dot. And she says, thank you for allowing me to drop in on your journey west.

Starting point is 00:54:36 That footnote, if you go and click there, who she quoted. Bankless, weekly roll up YouTube October 8th, 2020. Wow. Dude, I have chills right now. Wow. That is crazy. And that is why. Commissioner Perce, if you or your office is listening, this is why we are so appreciative of the work that you're doing.

Starting point is 00:54:56 You are asking the questions that other regulators have not been willing to ask of their agencies and of their approach on this space. And we sincerely appreciate it. I sincerely appreciate this speech. You are saying far more eloquently everything we had hoped to say to this industry and the regulators. And this is posted on SEC.gov as a statement. speech, a commissioner's speech, powerful stuff. Sorry, David. I wanted to go through all of that. It's just just such a hot speech. I just love it. Yeah. No, it definitely feels like the, whatever we talk about on bankless is coming out of the words of Hester Perce in one of the most important rooms in the world

Starting point is 00:55:38 when she was giving that speech. And I think my one comment about this thing, it's not just arguing about the technicalities, about clarity and, like, rules and these catch-22s. It's also talking about the culture, right? She's talking about crypto culture and why we want to go west in the first place. Why are there these motivated groups of internet code slingers, which is a great name? It's awesome. Why are they motivated to be crypto people at all? Why are they motivated to go to the metaphorical frontier of wherever that frontier is,

Starting point is 00:56:15 which is no longer anywhere except now it's on the internet? Why are these people motivated to escape the perils of already instantiated society? Because no one feels free anymore. Everyone has this motivation to go westward and escape the problems of Eastern society, of rules and regulation and tyranny. Right. And so she gets the cultural aspect and talks about, like, I hope people listening to the speech ask themselves the questions, why are there these deeply motivated people who are going on this westward journey? Because if they can answer that question, maybe they can come to terms with some of the better strategies to regulate this industry. Well said. Well said. There's more we could say, but I think what you should do is it takes some time to read this entire speech. David, third thing in the week, is Biden going to crush crypto? I guess that's a question outstanding. I can't pull up the Bloomberg article right now. But there has been talk of an executive order that Biden and the White House are creating to provide some oversight on everything in the crypto markets, everything. that's going on. What this executive order might be, people are speculating, perhaps it's

Starting point is 00:57:30 sort of an executive order to all agencies to go do some more research and go, you know, ask some other questions. But one of the issues that they have identified is there's no overarching, you know, crypto czar, as they called it in this Bloomberg article, somebody that spans all agencies and can look at this industry and what's going on in crypto holistically, right? And what's interesting is this comes on the backdrop of a lot of executive branch regulatory agencies that have been particularly aggressive to crypto lately. At least it seems that way, coming from the SEC, coming maybe from other agencies as well, Treasury with the recent bill injecting that language in the infrastructure bill, for instance,

Starting point is 00:58:20 right? So, you know, those in crypto are kind of bracing themselves for like some not good news. Now, it doesn't mean there's going to be immediate executive order to do all these things. They'll probably be research first. But you know it was crazy what struck me from this article, David. Let me read the paragraph because I know where you're about to go with this is. Read the paragraph, okay, because this is crazy. Go ahead.

Starting point is 00:58:41 So the paragraph is Tim Wu, a special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy, has knowledge in the area, the area being crypto, but is recused from working on crypto because of his personal holdings, which includes. between one and five million dollars in Bitcoin and as much as a quarter million dollars in file coin as of when he filed his financial disclosures earlier this year. So there's one guy in the White House that owns a bunch of crypto and he had to recuse himself from even being a part of this conversation as to what this executive order might look like. The one person in the White House that holds and there probably understands crypto can't partake in the conversation.

Starting point is 00:59:23 whoops uh-oh this is what's hilarious to me this is the irony right because the article concludes with that and it says basically the trouble the White House is finding is we can't find anyone

Starting point is 00:59:34 who knows anything about crypto except this one guy Tim and Tim can't do it because he knows about crypto and he's and he already owns it because he knows about it nobody else knows about it

Starting point is 00:59:48 the one guy who knows about it of course he owns crypto right because he knows about crypto. The most bullish thing about crypto is to be understood. The guy that understands it is bullish and can't guide legislation.

Starting point is 01:00:03 Talk about catch-22s. Because if anyone actually understands crypto, I would argue that they are, they therefore become bullish enough to actually own some, to actually buy some crypto. And if they buy some crypto,

Starting point is 01:00:18 they have to recuse themselves from the process of being a crypto a czar and actually informing policyholders of it because they're biased. The logical conclusion of this is just hilarious, right? And so, like, if you just extrapolate this out, like, the only people that are allowed to, like, make policy are people that are invested in dollars, right? Like, you only have dollars in the bank account. And the banking system, the existing banking system.

Starting point is 01:00:44 These are the people without bias. Yeah, crazy. Absolutely backwards. Well, you know, you and I, none of our listeners could ever, I guess. us do this job because we all own crypto assets. And so I think they're going to find an increasingly shrinking pool. But I guess the tragedy of this is what they have to do is find someone who doesn't know about crypto or like I guess feels like maybe they missed the boat on crypto. And some people get bitter in that experience, right? And it's likely they're pooling from that

Starting point is 01:01:16 pool of candidates, the person who is going to regulate crypto, somebody who maybe are already hates it. Right. You guys got a 10,000x gains on your crypto? Well, I and I didn't. I'm going to regulate that until it goes back down to zero. This is the problem, guys. So I don't know how to solve that. I understand there are things like conflicts of interest you have to deal with. But to know crypto, I would argue, is to be bullish on crypto. And what are you going to want to do? You're going to have some allocation in your portfolio in it. So what do we do about that? This is why government can't attract talent because if you want to express your talent and like generate wealth and capital, government is like, well, no, no, no, no, no.

Starting point is 01:01:58 Crazy. Yeah. Absolutely crazy. All right. Let's get to some Ethereum stuff. Those are our leaders. But let's talk about German auto firm is becoming the first European EU to EU auto firm to use the Ethereum blockchain to finance cars. What's going on here?

Starting point is 01:02:15 Yeah. So in the press statement, the Germany-based firm noted that the moved aims to, um, aims to eliminate all the paperwork in facilitating its core business of car financing, which is interesting because this is, you know, DFI, Ethereum, actually executing on the original vision of the internet, which was totally to remove pen and paper from all offices, except, like, that never actually happened. And the reason why that never happened is we didn't have crypto. We had our traditional pen and paper-based financial system. And so the internet never actually made offices paperless anymore. But now we can,

Starting point is 01:02:49 can with crypto. And so I think this is just going to be the first of many companies to start to use Ethereum smart contracts to finance stuff. They're not using defy. They're using custom built smart contracts. But the point is, is they're using smart contracts in the original, like a way that they were intended as contracts between two parties, two counterparties. Yeah, it's so true, David. Like all of the, all of the, you know, pen and paper stuff that that we see nowadays, right? That's going to be programmically driven in the future. It's going to be smart contract driven, right? So like we think right now, what's a digital contract? Well, that's a PDF you receive on doc you sign and you can sign digitally. Now, not in the smart contract world.

Starting point is 01:03:33 In the smart contract world, that document doesn't even exist because the majority of it is code and is actually executed on a blockchain somewhere. So it's cool to see somebody getting back to to those roots. Polygon is hitting its minimum, it's increasing its minimum gas price by 30x. And this is in a bid to foil spammers, is the article title. What's going on with Polygon, the side chain?

Starting point is 01:03:57 Yeah, last week was the monolithic blockchain week. And this is another tip of the hat to how if you just have a juice up blockchain, you ultimately are going to collapse back down to a database or you need to increase fees. And so you have to increase fees if you want to preserve any amount of decentralized. And so that is what Polygon ultimately was forced to do because, you know, if you have very, very cheap block space, spammers and people can just throw in trash into your chain because you don't actually have any way to meet your consumption. And then if you want to do that as sustainably, you have to go back to a database or you increase fees to make actually spamming the chain really, really expensive. And so Polygon has chose in the commitments towards staying decentralized by increasing fees. And I bet you this is actually not the

Starting point is 01:04:43 last time that they actually have to increase fees. I think we're going to see this happen again in the future. My understanding is actually they're going to turn this over to a mechanism. So this time they did it manually by increasing gas price fees, but they're going to have like a mechanism like EIP 1559 that's going to sort of mechanistically increase or decrease gas fees based on demand. So it'll get smarter in the future. But yeah, I mean, you have to increase gas fees or else these systems do not work in the long run. this is an interesting conundrum that Maker is starting to ponder as well. Where do they pay taxes? Where does the Maker-Dal pay taxes?

Starting point is 01:05:22 What jurisdiction does it belong to? The Maker Foundation has dissolved, of course, and what's left is this protocol. Geography unknown, geography, Internet. So they're having this debate, David, in their forums about how do they address kind of the tax issue, right? Do they just get ahead of this and say, yes, we are an American registered C-Corp, right, or an LLC or something? Well, then they'd be subject to the laws of the U.S. And the laws of the U.S. don't handle Dow's very well. They'd be treated as a partnership.

Starting point is 01:05:57 Do they pick another territory and try to get ahead of it that way? Do they wait for the jurisdictions to come to them and say, say, you know, 10, 15 different jurisdictions say, oh, yes, I see you have members in France. and the Spanish government comes in Spain, and the IRS comes and says, you have people in America, and they all claim territory, and they all try to extract tax from Maker-Dal. So what does it do about this?

Starting point is 01:06:24 And the foreign force is interesting because they don't really have a clear answer because there is no regulatory clarity or regulatory status for this new internet-native institution that they are running right now. Quite the conundrum. Yeah, listeners might be asking this. themselves, why does a defy app even want to care about paying taxes?

Starting point is 01:06:44 Like, isn't the whole point supposed to be like you're actually not domiciled anywhere, you're domiciled on the internet? MakerDAO is a little bit of a different case because MakerDAO wants to include real-world assets into its collateral, into its faults, right? And so if you have real-world assets somewhere, well, those exist in jurisdiction. So Maker-Dow has always had, as part of its just, like, vision to be integrated into the real world, which then kind of lends itself like, all right, well, where? and so that conversation shall continue.

Starting point is 01:07:13 Yeah, it's definitely a conversation that many of the DOWs are starting to have right now and MakerDal because it is most mature as having it first. More good news from the devs, the protocol devs of Ethereum. What's this news here, David? Yeah, I was joking about this with Anthony Sizano. This is just that time of the year where all the Ethereum developers get together and they make all their clients speak to each other. We talked about this on the roll-up last week.

Starting point is 01:07:38 for the non-technical people, the vibe is just like, oh yeah, you see all the developers smiling and clapping and looking at code on a screen. So like, hey, yay, the developers are happy. The developers are doing things and they're happy. And also, this is just a really cool picture. You have all these different client teams all looking at the same screen, all, like taking photos, just clapping, being happy. It's like, it's like a nice, like, you know, cultural event. And then you also, of course, have Vitalik right in the middle doing the classic Vitalik, Vidalek pleased

Starting point is 01:08:08 to clap. Vitalik, it must be pleased and he should be pleased. This is happening very fast. Looks like it's going very well.

Starting point is 01:08:15 And this is all the march towards the merge, which is ever so important for Ethereum. Visa, in other news, moving beyond Ethereum, they are launching an NFT program as well.

Starting point is 01:08:26 What's this? Yeah, so they are not sending NFTs through the Visa Payments Network. That's not what's going on. It's more of like an NFT incubation studio. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:08:35 They're trying to just help support artists and, you know, celebrities and people do NFT stuff, which is an interesting, like, divergence from their core competency, their core business model, but I'm into it. I feel like one thing Visa is trying to say is like, hey, guys, we like crypto. We're serious about it, right? They just like buying a crypto punk, you know, releasing white papers about new crypto interoperability protocols. They're just like, hey, we believe in crypto. We think it's the future. We want to be part of it. So good positive vibes coming from Visa these days. Positive vibes, yeah. What about this? Crypto startup, no, crypto startup strikes a deal with

Starting point is 01:09:14 Vycom, CBS. Wait, that could lead to SpongeBob and South Park NFTs? Yeah, dude. Yeah, so we talked about this, I think two roll-ups ago. Steve Cohen, that billionaire is invested in this NFT platform. And apparently this NFT platform got linked, you know, billionaires, they tend to have connections. Yeah. So they linked them to Viacom's CBS. Right. Yeah. And so they, uh, they studio that owns the rights to Sponsrop and South Park might issue NFTs. Importantly, and this is where I'm going to get emotional

Starting point is 01:09:44 here. They they brand themselves, the NFT studio, brands themselves as a multi-chain studio, right? We'll issue NFTs on all the chains. If they I'm going to swear, so turn it off if you have kids, if they list the fucking SpongeBob

Starting point is 01:10:02 NFT anywhere that's not on Ethereum, I will actually die. I will, because I'm, if the SpongeBob NFT gets minted and on Ethereum, I'm literally selling a unreasonable amount of my ether to buy that SpongeBob NFT. And this is how NFT works, right? You don't, everyone is skeptical on NFTs until some NFT comes that like they actually really, really want. You must list the SpongeBob NFT on Ethereum or I will die. Someone, whoever has a connection to this NFT company, please get me in contact with them because I want that SpongeBob NFT and it needs to be on Ethereum. How are you going to die? You're just like going to die of a broken

Starting point is 01:10:39 heart? You're just going to give up on like it just heart failure. Like yeah, broken exactly broken heart. Yeah. You know, it'd be shame if they did that. If you're if you're going to do this, do it right. So maybe somebody from Viacom is listening to us right now. Don't kill, don't kill a man. Don't kill David. Okay. He's he's a valuable co-host. We need him for the bankless revolution that is coming. All right. Just issue your, your NFTs in the place. Ethereum or layer two. My mom was very strict about no TV at the dinner table.

Starting point is 01:11:11 But she always made the exception for Saturday morning SpongeBob. And so like, you know, SpongeBob holds a very close place in my heart. There you go. All right. Some of these NFTs are launching tokens, though. Cyber Kongs, BoardApe Yacht Club. Why are they doing that? What do you think about it?

Starting point is 01:11:29 Yeah. Why are they doing that is probably just financial incentives, right? So like if you have a community of board apes or. or you have a community of like the cybercongs and these things become really, really valuable. What can you just mint a token that is like the currency for this NFT thing and how that be valuable? Isn't it like a governance token though? Like maybe it can be what the community does next. It can be whatever it wants, right?

Starting point is 01:11:51 And so like, well, so like imagine if all these board apes or these cybercongs all collectively had like a currency that had like a 50 million dollar market cap that therefore is their treasury to do stuff. Right. And so yeah, there's also NFT projects are. issuing currencies. Yeah. And so I have a take on this later in the show, but more or less, it's like, well, we're kind of creating like our own like civilizations, right? Like we have our people, we have our societies.

Starting point is 01:12:17 There are the profile pictures. And now we have the money. What happens next? Aboard ape nation, board a society, basically. Yeah. Yeah, it could happen. ERC 721s. They can't resist the ERC 20s, can that?

Starting point is 01:12:32 No one can. Matt Hogan says, the New York Stock Exchange just filed for a Bitwise Bitcoin ETF. That's cool. A Bitcoin ETF, New York Stock Exchange, all right? And it holds not futures that are settled in some other currency. It would hold actual Bitcoin. And that goes through why that's important. And a 100-page analysis, of course.

Starting point is 01:12:58 Well done. Bitwise team. New York Stock Exchange, all right? again the pressure is mounting right what can the SEC continue to deny some of its favorite institutions on earth possibly the bank's now coming to them fidelity uh saying hey we'd really like a bitcoin nfti it's time new york stock exchange saying it who's against this at this point what did i say nfti oh my god i got two of the letters right i guess uh yeah so i mean i mean i It feels like it's over.

Starting point is 01:13:33 Everybody, who doesn't want an ETF at this point? Who? Gary Gensler, might be the only guy. Just Gary. All right. So, he'll do it. He'll do it. This is interesting, David.

Starting point is 01:13:46 I think this is, there's a couple of stories about this, but Bitcoin mining crackdown, of course, in China and summer. These miners move somewhere. Some of them moved to Kazakhstan, I believe. But a lot of them moved to the U.S. And so a lot of this mining institution is, now U.S. base. What's going on here? Yeah, the United States of America has the largest share of Bitcoin hash power, clocking in at 35% of all Bitcoin hash power now domiciled in the United States, which is nice because that makes it easier and easier to make the case for adopting

Starting point is 01:14:20 Bitcoin into the legal system, the financial system, all the things that have been resisting Bitcoin, the more and more becomes domiciled in the United States, the more and more United States regulators are happy about that. And more and more infrastructure, like one of the big things that has been allegedly holding the ATF back is that BTC price discovery has been happening offshore that has been more and more moving onshore. So the more things about Bitcoin that come to the United States, the better. And the United States, now the number one domiciled hash rate operator of Bitcoin. Yeah, it's been holding the NFT back all this time. You know what's cool about this?

Starting point is 01:14:58 This is actually a prediction that Bitcoiners made, and I think they're right about. It's the game theory of trying to ban Bitcoin in your country. It doesn't work because some other jurisdiction just adopts it and becomes more powerful. So it's to your disadvantage to go and ban cryptocurrency and adoption. Interesting thing is happening with Defi as well. As China continues to contract its regulation and squeeze its vice grip on defy and crypto writ large, it just moves elsewhere. Or it goes underground and becomes a secret. And that's China's disadvantage. If the U.S. did the same, it would be to the U.S.'s disadvantage.

Starting point is 01:15:34 David, interesting story this week in Forbes. I think it was the cover story. I think SBF, Sam Bankman freed, made the Forbes magazine, Bankman, emphasis on the bank again. The guy's worth $23 billion now. And he made this all in crypto over the past three years. So, you know, that takes some doing. But one part of this story that fascinated me was something I'd always kind of expected, but I didn't really go into detail about SBF because, you know, he has me blocked on Twitter, even though I've never interacted with the guy. Really?

Starting point is 01:16:11 Yeah. Did you know that? Are you blocked on Twitter? I don't think so. Maybe I am. You might be. I don't know. I've never interacted with SBF.

Starting point is 01:16:19 You know, I'm fairly nice on Twitter. I don't, like, I don't get into scuffles very often. And I'm blocked. But that's aside the point. Interesting thing about, I'm blocked. I'm blocked too. I'm blocked, yep. Well, you obviously said something to him.

Starting point is 01:16:35 Oh, yeah, definitely. And it got us both blocked. Here's a quote from the article. Bagman Freed is no crypto evangelist. He's barely even a believer. He's a mercenary, dedicated to making as much money as possible. He doesn't really care how solely so that he can give it away. He doesn't really know to whom or when.

Starting point is 01:16:57 Okay. That makes sense to me. It all makes sense. There are people who are in crypto for the mission. There are other people who are in it because they're mercenaries, and they're trying to make the most amount of money possible. And then leave. They don't actually believe in the values that we talk about in bankless,

Starting point is 01:17:19 or they value those things very loosely. What they prioritize is making the most money possible. Maybe if you give SBF the benefit of doubt, he's going to give it all away, and that would be an act of altruism, and that would be a great thing, possibly. Not a great thing for crypto. At the end of the day, David,

Starting point is 01:17:40 I believe many of these people are short-term rent-extracting entities. I believe some of the crypto banks will end up being that way as well. and I don't, like, I do believe in this industry, okay? Right? Like, you can make money in this industry, and that's fantastic. I hope we all make lots of money. There's tons of opportunity. We should make money where we can,

Starting point is 01:18:03 but we should not sacrifice our values in order to make that money. Like, I am here for a larger purpose than that, and I think many of you listening are, but it's important to note that not everyone else is. And I don't judge SBF. I'm just, I appreciate that transparency. Okay? It's not my life, like not my life choice.

Starting point is 01:18:25 We're going a different path. Many of you are going a different path. You're here not just for the money. You're here for the greater purpose of crypto, which is to decentralize the world, to create a better open money system for our kids and for our grandkids, hopefully to unscrew all the broken institutions and protocols

Starting point is 01:18:42 that are so freaking screwed up right now. that's why you're here maybe. Some people aren't, okay? But like, what pisses me off is when people, like, they go to him for guidance on the layer two or the layer one of choice, for instance, right? SBF's backing of Solana, quite frankly, for me, is a huge turnoff of Solana. Yep. Right?

Starting point is 01:19:09 Okay, so a mercenary backs your project? That's not what we want. Who cares? Right. the self-admitted non-believer of the values and drivers of what makes crypto-crypto is backing Solana like I'll just I'm not I've no comment after that like you take that for what what it is let's move on well you know what SBF you should unblock us and you should come on the podcast and we should discuss it and we should you turns out turns out I'm not blocked

Starting point is 01:19:38 it's just you it's just you thanks for that just me uh you know it's interesting this ties into our earlier conversation. Senator Lummis actually just disclosed a Bitcoin buy of $100,000. You learn about crypto, you get bullish. Yeah. I mean, Senator Lummis has always been bullish. She was the first senator to put laser eyes on. So she's always been a bullish individual. But I mean, don't stop buying. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's interesting, though, right? It's like the question of does that bias you or not? It's a longer discussion is people think that no one in Congress should actually own stocks. I'm like, I don't know what, you know. Okay, so cool. You're just going to drive away all of Congress so they can be wealthy elsewhere? I guess, right? I mean, stocks are America's savings account. You want to put their money in the

Starting point is 01:20:28 like what you're asking them to, I don't understand. Anyway, longer discussion. Maybe there's a debate there at some point in time. So rare is under investigation as a gambling platform. What does that mean, David. Yeah, yeah, so So Rare is that fantasy soccer platform also expanding into other fantasy leagues as well. And so because you can make predictions about the future outcome of things and make money off of that, they are being deemed a gambling platform by regulators. A statement in response to this by So Rare that says, we are very confident. So rare does not offer any forms of regulated gambling. This has been confirmed by expert legal opinions at every stage since the company was founded. So something to watch. No real breakways other than that. We'll see what unfolds.

Starting point is 01:21:15 All right. We're going to burn through these next one. A16Z. They are coming to Washington and pushing crypto policy, big venture capital firm. They have some connections behind them. The Calvary is riding into D.C. I guess that's what that means. And I hope they're able to convince some people. Stripe is hiring for crypto, which is neat. Stripe the payments company, the company that interrupted a bunch of other payment providers by just something like 10 lines of code is now helping trying to build the future of Web3 payments. So if you want to work at Stripe and you want to work in Stripe Crypto, go apply, I guess. Do this one too. Yeah. Oh, Alchemics. Yeah, Alchemics says out of the Twitter account, the future isn't written stone, but rather arises

Starting point is 01:21:58 from the cumulative blood, sweat, and tears of dreamers on a mission. We proudly present our roadmap to transmute Alchemics and Defi along with it. Get a sneak preview of of the future in our article. TLDR, Alchemics V2 is coming. Also, tune into that conversation with Scoopy Trooples on the bankless YouTube. It's coming sometime this weekend and also take a peek under the hood

Starting point is 01:22:18 as what's coming in this document that they have. Very cool. Last one for the week. Report in that BlockFi, they released a credit card. Their customers spend at a rate five times of other, like, legacy, traditional credit card holders.

Starting point is 01:22:34 So what's interesting to me about this story... Yes, because they all come. got crypto rich. Okay, but what's interesting to me about this story is like when this is about the time where the banks wake up and they're like, oh, all the crypto people that we kicked off of our banking system, we didn't support, we didn't provide service for. Oh, our time instead supporting the wealthy and the rich. Oh, these crypto people are rich now. And like they're going to start trying to incorporate crypto back into the banking fold. And crypto's just going to be like, yeah, basically.

Starting point is 01:23:11 And crypto's just going to be like, no, we don't need you guys. See ya. I'm close to my Wells Fargo account. Forever. Yep. Going bankless. Block 5 is not bankless, but, you know, it's on that path. Yeah, it's, yeah, right.

Starting point is 01:23:27 Enough said. Guys, we'll be right back with the takes of the week. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. Masha, everyone's favorite deck aggregator, has just launched an open beta for gasless trading. So if you're trading more than $5,000 in common eth and wrapped Bitcoin pairs, then your gas fees on Macha are free. And that's why you should be using Macha. Macha routes your orders across all the various DFI exchanges on Ethereum, Polygon, Binance smart chain, and gives you the best possible price without any trading fees or unnecessary slippage.

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Starting point is 01:25:41 and join the Discord to keep up to date with Alchemics V-2 and to get involved in governance. All right, guys, we are back with the takes of the week. David, let's start with this hot take from David Hoffman. Dot Eith at Custlis State. Great guy. All Dow's are ultimately steps to become digital nations. I feel like you said something like this earlier in the episode.

Starting point is 01:25:58 What did you mean? Yeah, yeah. I think the logical conclusion of digital organizing. organizations is to have your own currency, your own perks, your own infrastructure, your own, like, reason and values for being. I think, you know, what starts off as a Dow, the logical conclusion of where these goes are digital societies, digital civilizations, digital nations, nations in the cloud. So each Dow is its own country, its own digital nation, and it's all just trying to grow its nation together with the community. And when you say nation, you're talking about like a community, right?

Starting point is 01:26:30 So these could be like tiny nations. Your nation could be like 100 people in your Dow, if that's what it is, right? And you could be part of multiple nations as well. Totally. Yeah. Each one is its own civilization with its own purpose and it's going to grow its nation as much as it can. That's why we call it the bankless nation, don't we? Who's this guy?

Starting point is 01:26:51 You know, he's a turtle. So he's got to be someone important, okay? Definitely not. Got to listen to him. Do you want to read it? Yeah, sure. This turtle man says, This isn't the 1990s for crypto.

Starting point is 01:27:03 This is the 1790s. We've just written our own constitutional protocols, and we get to build our digital nations. Hey, digital nation. Yeah, I just think, and somebody should write an article about this. I just need to school up on my U.S. history before I feel confident writing an article about this. But I feel like this is very much like just, you know, at the kind of the end of the Renaissance, sort of that time period where revolutions were happening, right?

Starting point is 01:27:30 So existing autocracies and tyrannies were being called into question and people set out for freedom. It reminds me of the early American Republic. And the founding fathers of the American Republic, I mean, they were, you know, learned people. They sort of knew what they were doing. But they were like in their early 20s, man, many of them. Some of them were 19, like Alexander Hamilton, it was like 21 years old or something, right, in the revolution. When they came to write this document, this protocol for governing. a new nation state, that's exactly what they were doing, right? They were writing a new protocol. And I feel

Starting point is 01:28:06 like that's what we're doing in crypto right now. And we're at the very early stages of it. We have the skeleton of this decentralized, the set of decentralized protocols. And now we're starting to build everything on top of it. Unlike the analog world, this is going to happen so much faster. All right. So, you know, we've done the revolution part. I guess that was the, you know, the Bitcoin. Now, we've written some of these core constitutions. and we're going to spin through the 1800s and 1900s, and pretty soon I think crypto is going to have an economy that rivals the largest nation-state economies in the world. But it's kind of what we're building, is this new, you call it a digital nation,

Starting point is 01:28:46 a new digital nation for freedom of expression for property rights. So it's the 1790s. It's not the 1990s. That's the take. Very in line with the whole crypto-renaissance concept that we had that one podcast. on the 1990s trope just for people who I don't want to miss that the line is that like you know we are going through the evolution of the internet but now we're doing it for crypto so people say oh we're in like the early 90s of the internet evolution and that's what that's what Ryan is referring to

Starting point is 01:29:15 and I've said that before too right I think that's a good analogy too both are true both are true yeah but but what you're saying is the whole like we're at the genesis of a nation take is less appreciated and that's why it's a take agreed agreed um Tim Swanson so Okay, well, actually, this is a take that Vitalik Buren has. Maybe we should go straight to the source. I'm going to read it. This is a Reddit post he made. I think this is on something about Buckelly.

Starting point is 01:29:42 So somebody was speaking out against Buckelly and his support of Bitcoin and Bitcoin or support of him. This is, of course, the president of El Salvador. And Vitalik Bueyton responds and says, nothing unpopular about that opinion. Making it mandatory for business to accept a specific cryptocurrency, it's contrary to the ideals of freedom that are supposed to be so important in this space. Additionally, this tactic of pushing Bitcoin to millions of people in El Salvador, at the same time with almost no attempt at prior education is reckless

Starting point is 01:30:12 and risks a large number of innocent people getting hacked or scammed. Shame on everyone. Okay, fine. I'll call out the main people who are actually praising him. Shame on Bitcoin maximalists who are uncritically praising him. And of course, if anyone else had said this, this would have just passed by the wayside. but because Vitalik Buterin said it, you know, publicly in a form, I think Bitcoin Maximilus went crazy. I saw this headline just about everywhere.

Starting point is 01:30:37 Vitalik speaks out and people angry and calling him a hypocrite and all of these things. So that's what actually happened, David. What's your take on this? Yeah, the Bitcoin a reaction to this was that this is just Vitalik, like talking badly about Bitcoin and being upset about Bitcoin adoption, right? And so they really turned it around and made it about. Bitcoin, not about the authoritarianism of Buckele, which is exactly what Vitalik is talking about, right? Like deflecting the whole authoritarian thing. It's like, no, no, no, Vitalik, you just don't

Starting point is 01:31:10 want Bitcoin to be adopted because you have like bias against it and you want Ethereum to be which is completely beside the point. We saw Alex Gladstein, who I've had my tussles with on Twitter because I think he is a Bitcoin Maximus hiding behind a human rights advocate in disguise. And he says on Twitter, Andres didn't even bother criticizing Buckelate's human rights record. V. Vitalik's harsh words were against Bitcoin adoption because he doesn't like Bitcoin, not because he cares about El Salvador. That's what Vitalik's point is that he literally is only caring about El Salvador and Bitcoiners aren't, which kind of just proves the point. It totally proves the point. You know what? They're also totally wrong about Vitalik.

Starting point is 01:31:51 If this had been the Ethereum community, and this was ETH and instead, no question of my mind, Vitalik would have been calling out ETH and probably like 10 times as harshly as this. And, you know, much more publicly about the same sort of thing. So people who think this is just like bag bias or anti-Bitcoinerism, they don't know Vitalik. And, you know, I mean, they're just spinning this for their own narrative. So it looks a fair point from Vitalik. I don't know. What do you think about it, David?

Starting point is 01:32:21 what do you think about Buceli's move and this whole Bitcoin adoption thing? Is this actually good for the people of El Salvador? Is this even good for Bitcoin? We asked this same question to Nick Carter when we had him on the state of the nation to help unpack this El Salvador knows. And he, I think, said it right, where he said this is a fair critique. This is a fair criticism. And so there are some bitcoinsers out there, good ones like Nick Carter,

Starting point is 01:32:46 who I think are on the right side of this whole debate. and while the cool thing about what El Salvador did is they went from one legal currency to two legal currencies. That's cool. That's one more option. But what they could have done is just removed the one legal currency at all and had zero legal currencies and make them all legal. And that is more in line with the Ethereum ethos, right? Like pick your own currency. There's a bigillion tokens on Ethereum.

Starting point is 01:33:15 You can pick whatever one you want. You want USC. You want Rye. you want die what like what do you want like pick your favorite and and so like opening up more freedoms rather than just adding bitcoin i think is the right approach here and on that note uh vitalic tweeted out in sometime in 2017 something along the lines of like if and this was in the middle of the iceo mania where they were just like terrible ideas getting funded money a bunch of money thrown around and he tweeted out something along the lines of like if this is all that crypto is which is token

Starting point is 01:33:43 speculation i'm out of here and like when i read that tweet i was like oh god like he's serious Like, he's actually going to leave. Oh, and I remember the comments, David. I got scary. Everyone was angry at Vitalik. Like, you're going to pop the market. Like, what are you doing? Like, why are you saying this?

Starting point is 01:33:58 Everyone was angry. Right. Yeah. But no, if Ethereum went against Vitalik's ethos and values, he'd be out. He'd just leave. All of us should be like that. Absolutely. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:34:09 This is not protocol maximalism. This is values maximalism. Yep. And, yeah. Anyway. Anyways. Good take. There was a take.

Starting point is 01:34:16 Eric, right. What's he say? Blitzscaling. Okay, in Web 3, Blitzscaling will be replaced by good vibes in community building. Don't underestimate the impacting value capture of a well-coordinated community. This term vibes, David, good vibes. I heard you say it often in the Peter Pan, the episode you did with Peter Pan, who is a real person with Layer Zero, you know, and what does good vibes actually mean? Because people hear that and they're like, what, like, you're talking about, like, you go into a party, you're just feeling good about things.

Starting point is 01:34:46 What are you actually doing? What are you building? Where's the work that's getting done? So the metaphor that we used in the Layer Zero podcast was like a DJ, their job is to establish a vibe, right? And like have that be like a call in response with a crowd, right? And then they want to generate a vibe and then sustain that vibe throughout the life of the party. You have something. There's a cradle of life here.

Starting point is 01:35:09 And he wants to sustain that vibe. And these same vibes are defined in circles of friends. you and your five friends. The reason why you guys are all friends is because you guys have a vibe. Company, company culture, that is good is a vibe. And you want to carry that vibe of ambition and progress. And I said this in the Dow Season 2, the Bankless Dow Season 2 launch, that all a Dow really is is a vibe.

Starting point is 01:35:34 And we also talked about on the gaming panel that we just had, that the gamification, like what GameFi is or the intersection of crypto gaming is that gaming is becoming a little bit more like, work because you can make money, but work is also becoming a little bit more like gaming. And vibe isn't just play. A vibe is a feeling. It's an emotion. And when you have a Dow with a bunch of people in it that are all vibing, that is the energy that upholds a vibe. And so it's some combination of work and play. You need to work because you need to generate economic resources because you've got to put food on the table. And once you have food on the table, you can then

Starting point is 01:36:09 play, which is establishing the vibe. And so blitzscaling, this is this Web 2 verb, which is a verb, is like, can you scale out your Facebook or my speak as fast as possible? Aaron Wright says, blitzscaling will be replaced by good vibes and community building. Because if what we are doing here in the crypto world is to do anything, is to allow the world to just vibe more. And I think that's pretty cool. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:36:32 And to your point, I think earlier that you made people think that when you're vibing, you're not working. But like, if you're vibing well, you're vibing well, you're working, right? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:36:43 And work and vibe kind of, equal the same thing. Which is why people love the bankless Friday weekly roll-up, because all we are doing is vibing for an hour and a half. You know what? This isn't work? This isn't work to you? No, not at all.

Starting point is 01:36:56 Do you know, I guess it's all about economic vibes. That's what we've created in crypto. That's what Dauze. That's a great way to put it. Economic vibes. Here we go. Okay, Zeneca says, there's one thing all the most successful NFTs projects have in common. And what is that one thing, Zanika?

Starting point is 01:37:11 We need to know. Time. That's it. Is it that simple, David? Just time. That's all NFTs need? Yeah. So what he's saying is that NFT artists and MTV creators, they need to balance scarcity, right?

Starting point is 01:37:24 They want to, you need to issue NFTs because that's how you make money, but you can't issue a million of them because then each one's worthless, right? So what Zeneca is saying is that NFTs are going to be valued by some function of the time that an artist puts into that NFT. And that is what makes these NFTs scarce, right? Like you only have so much time in your life. You only have so much like skill and labor and time you can commit towards an NFT. And so NFTs are going to be art,

Starting point is 01:37:51 basically is going to be valued as a function of how much time an artist put into the NFT. There you go. All right. Next take. What was this? Somebody got hacked by a pirate? What's happening here? Just tell me what's happening.

Starting point is 01:38:03 This is just something you will only ever see in crypto. And so Robert Miller says, imagine being hacked for $1 million and having to negotiate with someone roleplaying as a pirate to get it back. And he has a screenshot of somebody's comment in Discord, who apparently is the guy that, like, you know, black hat attacked this protocol. And so Captain Hook is in the Discord and goes,

Starting point is 01:38:24 Ahoy, I feel bad about plundering your vessel and would like to talk about returning some treasure chest, would you remind me except during a me, a matey offer, friend request, so we can discuss. This is the hacker saying this, Dan? This is the hacker, just acting like a pirate. And saying, like, hey, I stole your money. If you want it back, send me a friend.

Starting point is 01:38:43 friend request. Oh, that's hilarious. That's hilarious. So how did this resolve? Did he get his money back or did you have to pay the pirate? It doesn't even matter. It doesn't even matter. I mean, matters to Robert, but that story is hilarious. Sorry for your pirate troubles, Robert. All right, what's this take? Yeah, I had this tweet earlier today. I just noticed that, you know, you know how like global supply chains are broken? Yeah, I did. There's just like deflationary goods everywhere. And so I say global supply chains are broken and can't deliver

Starting point is 01:39:12 deliver physical goods. Meanwhile, NFT volumes are breaking records. Coincidence? I'll just leave that up to the listener. Sorry, kids. Daddy's getting you NFTs for Christmas this year because the supply chain is broken. Did you know they just presented or they're just like recommending a new Christmas czar in the U.S. to help fix this. There's like one trillion dollars in products that won't make it in time for the Christmas season, the U.S. wants. So they're trying to, to figure out a way to appoint someone to go take care of this. So you might actually be right. Maybe there is some like boom coming to NFTs because we switch from the physical into the digital.

Starting point is 01:39:53 What are things after all? What do we really need when we have the essentials, right? You know, we're looking for some status. We're looking for some fun, some collectibles. Maybe NFTs hit all of those boxes for your Christmas gift wish list. I don't know. Over like I'm a little bit like facetious about like, oh, you like you don't have your physical goods. You got to buy NFTs. But, But I also, like the broader commentary is we're moving into the digital world. Like physical stuff is hard now, apparently. But you know what's becoming easier? Digital stuff.

Starting point is 01:40:22 That's good. I mean, that could be good for a lot of things. Could be good for the environment. Could produce consumption. I don't know. What are you excited about, though, David, that time of the week? Oh, what do you think, man? So I volunteered for the Andrew Yang campaign for the 2020 election campaign.

Starting point is 01:40:37 Sadly, he did not get elected president. but I remember going to his Seattle event in Gasworks Park, shaking his hand in 2019. I have a little clip from a, of me, just shaking his hand taken by my buddy, Michael Wong. And then in 2021, I get him on the podcast, right? It's just kind of like a nice A to B. Like 2019, just volunteering for the campaign, 2020, getting him on the podcast. So that was a nice little, like, life checkmark. And I have to tip of the hat to you, Ryan, for actually getting out there and scheduling that with him.

Starting point is 01:41:08 That was awesome. That was all because of, I think, the bankless community is because we actually have people that listen to the show and watch the show. And so we are getting like large politicians with the following to come on the show. We are getting like lots of different names who would never have previously known that David and I existed or cared about crypto to come on the show. So it's all thanks to you guys as well. And yeah, what an exciting episode, man.

Starting point is 01:41:34 Big milestone for us. And a fantastic episode too. I feel like we've chilled it enough, guys. If you're a premium member, you can listen to it now. If not, on Monday, the episode drops. And let's just say Yang has some good things to say about crypto. And we might have a politician in our camp to help us fight this fight, which is what we've been wanting for.

Starting point is 01:41:55 I don't care if it comes from the right or the left, right? Crypto, remember what we said last time? If we get them to adopt crypto protocols, then they adopt crypto values. So we win in the end. And that's what the mission is to get them to adopt crypto protocols. to protocols. 100%. There's that line about like don't meet your heroes in the sense that like, you know, your hero, you have some vision about who your heroes are in your head. And then when you meet them, you realize that that's not actually who they are. It doesn't live up to it. Yeah. That was not

Starting point is 01:42:22 true about Andrew Yang. He is, he is the guy that he advertises himself to be. Yep. Meet your heroes. Have your heroes. Have your podcasts with your heroes. Whenever possible. Just overall have good heroes. Have good vibes with your, with your good heroes. Yeah. Economic vibes with your heroes. It's getting weird. I don't know where this is going next. Ryan, what are you excited about? Hester Purse. I mean, she crushed it. And, you know, we already went over kind of the speech.

Starting point is 01:42:46 And she quoted bankless, which was, which was, I think, huge for us. And, you know, another great thing that happened this week. And I think for me, it was just another reminder. We have so often we kind of paint regulators as kind of like, oh, that, you know, the evil regulators. Like, you know, we are the mannequins. They are the puppeteers. They just, you know, pull the strings. and now these are people like these are real human beings these are people they're just like us okay

Starting point is 01:43:14 except they're regulators many of them are caught inside of the system okay and uh they're not machines i mean this goes back to like what are we fighting for at the end of the day we're fighting for hearts and minds we're fighting to convince people in government that crypto is a valuable thing and that it matters and that it's good for the country and that it's good for the world and that is good for our fellow citizens. And so, I mean, that's just a reminder to me. I think that's just huge. She quoted us from a weekly roll-up is really cool.

Starting point is 01:43:48 And I think just to humanize the people in government, I mean, is an important thing for us to do because it allows us to focus on our mission. And that mission always was, and it will continue to be, a battle for hearts and minds. If we win the hearts and minds, we cannot lose. this crypto revolution, this crypto battle. If we do lose, it's because we haven't convinced enough people. It's because crypto hasn't done enough good in the world to make them believe in our narrative. And yeah, that was just a reminder for me. So, cool thing. It was cool. No, it is, it is very cool. And you talk about how it's important to humanize these regulators

Starting point is 01:44:28 because they're humans too. I think one of the cool things about Hester Pers's speech is that she was trying to humanize crypto people, right? Yes. They're not shadowy super coders, Elizabeth Warren. Like, I'm just a guy. Like, I feel like a kid sometimes. Like, stop calling me a shadowy supercoder. Like, it's mean.

Starting point is 01:44:46 I don't like it. It'd be awesome, though. Are you going to dress like that for Halloween, shadow decoder? I'm going to dress like my crypto punk. Oh, really? Oh, that's right. Spoiler.

Starting point is 01:44:54 Is that happening? God, I got to get together my... Yeah, because you can't get a turtle, can you? Hey. Is that, is that a dare? Are you doing? Is that we're going to be? Am I just creating you?

Starting point is 01:45:05 We don't know. of your Halloween costume right now for you. I might try to resemble my, my, my, that means I'm smoking a cigarette. You know, I have a hat on. You don't smoke cigarettes. No, I, if I want to be like my turtle, I do, apparently. All right, guys, let's get to the meme of the week. What is the meme of the week?

Starting point is 01:45:21 What are we looking at here? Let's see it, Ryan. Right click save. Right click savers, yeah. So people who are taking pictures of art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And this reminds me of one of my friends that I saw on my Instagram. story who was taking a picture of a Fidenza at the Texas ArtBlocks conference. And so I just sent her message like, you are literally right-click saving a picture of a

Starting point is 01:45:46 right-click save. Just go download the Fidenza. Yeah. It gets very meta. But look, this is human culture, right? You know, this is what we do. We take pictures of things. It's a good example, though, just because you took a picture of that, is that Van Gogh on

Starting point is 01:46:03 the Star Night. Yeah. Just because you took a picture of starry nights doesn't mean you actually own starry nights. It doesn't work like that. And everyone in the museum knows that is the case. And I think right click saving is dead. We've talked about that before. But it's obviously true in NFTs as well.

Starting point is 01:46:23 That's it, man. Wrapping up. ETH is risky. Defy is risky. Bitcoin is risky. You could lose what you put in. None of this has been financial advice. but we are headed west. We are on the journey. Let me quote Hester Purs now from her speech.

Starting point is 01:46:38 This is the frontier. It's not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot. Hey, we hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, head over to Bankless HQ right now to develop your crypto investing skills and learn how to free yourself from banks and gain your financial independence. We recommend joining our daily newsletter, podcast, and community as a Bankless Premium Subscribe. to get the most out of your bankless experience. You'll get access to our market analysis, our alpha leaks, and exclusive content, and even the bankless token for airdrops, raffles, and unlocks. If you're interested in crypto,

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