Bankless - ROLLUP: ETFs Flop? | BTC on U.S. Balance Sheet? | Polymarket Booming | Japan Tanking Markets

Starting point is 00:00:03 Bankless Nation, it is the last week of July's time for the bankless weekly roll-up. This was the first week, the first weekly roll-up, I should say, where we have an Ethereum ETF. Just like we said. Just like we said. Promises made, promises kept. Bankless always delivers every time, except the weeks we don't. So after two days of trading of the Ethereum ETFs went live on Tuesday this week, what do

Starting point is 00:00:26 the number say? How did the ETFs perform? Is it all the buzz in Wall Street, or was it a flop? Also, in addition to all of this, speculative rumors about Trump putting Bitcoin on the Fed balance sheet continue to heat up. Bitcoin as a reserve asset, not just in theory. What's going on with all this? Speaking of politics, Kamala Harris is now the de facto Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden stepped down. So the big question on everyone's mind, at least in crypto, on our minds, David, is what's her policy on crypto?

Starting point is 00:00:55 She's an opportunity to maybe pivot? Is she going to? What if we had both presidential nominees that were actually pro-crypto? What if? What if? And I think we might be able to actually get that answer from Polly Market, which continues to just penetrate into the world of mainstream references. Polymarket has some incredible trading volumes, even more incredible than the ones that we talked

Starting point is 00:01:15 about last week. So we're going to talk about them again. And also some survey results that Ryan wants to talk to me about. And I don't know what's going on, but he's going to inform me about something. It's great, a great survey. Actually, this is really interesting. So it turns out, David, that Bitcoin owners might not be as hardcore right libertarian as it seems.

Starting point is 00:01:31 This is really interesting. I want to get your take on it to the analysis here. Where do they sit politically, the Bitcoin holders? Before we get into why the hell the markets dumped late last night into this morning. A moment to talk about our friends and sponsors over at Macha, who has rebuilt their trading engine from the ground up, now built for serious on-chain trading and trades, completely built their, rebuild their optimization engine.

Starting point is 00:01:56 It is now the best place to get the best price on any size trade, whether you're a small D-Gen, or you are actually legitimately making multi-million dollar trades. Congrats to you, if you are. So it's a user-friendly app that can make sure that it is scanning all of crypto, all of the on-chain liquidity sources to make sure that you get the best price on your trade. Okay, so Ryan, yesterday, second day of the Ethereum ETFs, starting to get some numbers in. But towards the end of the day, the whole market nukeed, the crypto markets,

Starting point is 00:02:26 but also, actually, mostly the tech stocks and just the track stocks. and just the trad markets. What the hell is going on? Yeah, look at this. This is the QQQ, David. That's the NASDAQ and you can see just like the steep drop-off. Oh, my God. Those are some large red candles.

Starting point is 00:02:41 Deep red candles. I mean, reminiscent of just a typical day in crypto, I would say. But like, very deep red candles for crypto. So, David, there's some speculation if you want to assign blame for this. Some people are just, you want to find someone to blame. Well, you could blame Japan. This is Zero Hedge. Someone big in Japan is blowing up.

Starting point is 00:03:01 That's a speculation. Taking down gold, crypto, the Niki, all of these indices and the NASDAQ with them. So that is the speculation here. And this is a Chris Berninski tweet. He says, the market is making a fool of everyone, myself included. Somebody, an analyst, just updated me on how much risk is nuking in Japan. It's bleeding into crypto. So the current action, his current action is he's not buying.

Starting point is 00:03:25 He's not selling. He's just riding. You think Chris is maybe scared of something going on in Japan? Well, every once in a while, markets will, you know, throw a sucker punch at you for some reason or another. I don't pay attention to what's going on in Japan. And I'm guessing I'm speaking for the average crypto investor. So if somebody in Japan is all of a sudden fearful and that's reflecting through the markets,

Starting point is 00:03:46 you know, markets are a global phenomenon. This is the first 2% drawdown in QQQ since we've had. And since early 2023. So it's been over a year since we've had. this kind of drawdown in the traditional equities market. And so at some point also, just like these things happen. This isn't an exceptional drawdown. This is a normal, normal sized large drawdown.

Starting point is 00:04:09 Normal sized large drawdown. There's no oxymour on there. Not at all. Yeah, I mean, markets are going to do what they're going to do. So another answer to this is you can't, don't blame Japan. It was just time. It was trying for a pullback. I'm blaming Japan.

Starting point is 00:04:24 David wants to blame Japan on the weekend. And if you want to, you can. It's totally allowed. All right, getting into more familiar territory, despite somebody going risk off in Japan, Bitcoin, at least according to these beautiful green cracking charts, up 2% on the week. So starting the week at 63,600, currently the price of 64,900. So even though Bitcoin did take a little bit of a dip in the last two days, nonetheless, still up 2% on the week. That surprises me. That's great. Yeah, that's great.

Starting point is 00:04:54 I thought it was a pretty bloody, I guess, two days for everyone, but I guess not in Bitcoin if you look at that on seven day. This is this could have something to do with it, which is the Bitcoin ETF flows, of course. So this is an interesting stat. BlackRock, that's just one of the many Bitcoin ETFs. BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF has surpassed the NASDAQ tracking ETF, QQQQ in year-to-date flows. Isn't that crazy? That is insane.

Starting point is 00:05:20 Yeah. Isn't QQQQ just the granddaddy ETF? Yeah, it really, for the NASDAQ, right? For the NASDAQ? S&P that are a little larger. So Bitcoin is, the I shares, Bitcoin Trust is now number four. But if you're going for the year to date in terms of top ETFs, there's a few SMP, there's Vanguard, there's the BlackRock S&P, and there's a total stock market

Starting point is 00:05:42 indecis, just everything. That's, you know, tech stocks and S&P and QQQQ. And then number four is Bitcoin. Is the Bitcoin Trust. And that's above QQQ. We have two SMPETs in one and two. Then we have the total stock market number three. And then Bitcoin is number four and then QQQQ is number five.

Starting point is 00:06:01 Wow. Wow. That's great. Yeah. Pretty impressive in terms of volume. This was a take Matt Hogan actually gave earlier in the week when he came into the podcast is tech investors who are very excited about QQQQ are looking for an opportunity to diversify into the broader tech market.

Starting point is 00:06:18 You can only get that with the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. That's kind of the crypto tech market. That's an adjacent tech market you can't capture in an indecisly QQQ. So I guess if you subscribe to Matt's thesis, not all that surprising that this is going on. Right. In other words, in the Bitcoin world, Cracken has finished their distribution of the Mount Gawks Bitcoin coins. And so now we actually get to see what's going on with the Bitcoin price as a result of the Gauks distributions. It looks like nothing.

Starting point is 00:06:47 They are not selling. No additional trading volumes have been picked up on Cracken or any. of the other venues that have had the Gox distribution. It actually might just be cracking. So while there have been some Bitcoin outflows, as in like people have sent the Bitcoin around, no one is sending it to the market. And so this is kind of what we were speculating on last week.

Starting point is 00:07:06 And now it's come to fruition and we're proven right that the Mount Gox Fudd is indeed just Fudd. I guess to summarize the Bitcoin story right now, Germany's done selling. Gox doesn't seem like it's a big deal. And spot Bitcoin ETFs continue to go up. This is your tweet. and you're just posting the spot Bitcoin ETF flows over the summer.

Starting point is 00:07:24 I mean, really good June and July for Bitcoin. Creshenrewing July Bitcoin ETF. Inflows. Inflows. Inflows. Net inflows. Because all of this red and the back part of the chart, that's all the gray scale. Gray scale.

Starting point is 00:07:38 Kind of bleeding out flows. It's gone now. So it's just everything that flows flows up. Well, I guess it can go down to. Sure. Yeah. Well, on net, well, this is the speculation. On net, like the ETF, the crypto,

Starting point is 00:07:51 Aetaf flows will flow inwards for a very long amount of time. And by very long, I mean like decades. Okay, wait, wait a second. Now I'm looking at the Ethereum price on the week, and I'm skipping ahead because I'm going to get you to tell me this. But like, we just looked at Bitcoin and it was up 2%. And this is Ethereum ETF week. And we look to be down.

Starting point is 00:08:10 I mean, this is why I was feeling the pain in the earlier segment. These crack and charge don't look as good as the Bitcoin. Okay. Give us the bad news. What's Ethereum on the week? Down 7%. Starting the week at $3,400. currently at $3,150, $60.

Starting point is 00:08:25 And so, yeah, Ether took a wallop. Why did this happen? Well, okay, so we got the ETF. Flows on day one, surprisingly strong. Flows on day two, also decently strong as well. But we are watching a faster outflowing of the grayscale ETH-Trust than what we saw when Bitcoin ETF started. And so things are really shaking up quicker.

Starting point is 00:08:50 quickly for the Ethereum ETS. This is how I summarize it. We're going to go through all of this and more. But what we are noticing is that the Ethereum ETF volumes are surprisingly strong and so are the ETHI outflows out of gray scale.

Starting point is 00:09:04 It's a bit of a mixed bag. I mean, we'll do an entire segment on the Ethereum ETF, but the TLDR is from an issuer perspective and from the inflows and volume perspective, the letter grade is A. Like, it was a really solid launch. The second largest in history,

Starting point is 00:09:19 net inflows and volume around 20% of Bitcoin, but the market, at least right now, still seems disappointed by that if we're down 7% on the week. Total crypto market cap 2.44 trillion. That's been flat for a while. Getting into some layer 2 updates, layer 2 is brought to you by Mantle, the layer 2 ecosystem with the LST and LRT tokens on it as well. So some things we're going to bring up here. This is Michael Nato's tweets.

Starting point is 00:09:45 One of the analysts that Ryan and I definitely appreciate who put in some layers. two focus tweets that I want to highlight. Layer 2s now have six times the active users that Layer 1 has, the Ethereum 1. Arbitron coming in at over half a million of daily active addresses, followed by Base at 350,000, followed by ZK Sync at just over 300,000, followed by Linea, Linnea. This is all for the quarter, right, for Q2? This is for the quarter, Q2, 2024, followed by Linnea, followed by Optimism, Mainet, followed by Immutable, ZK, Evia.

Starting point is 00:10:17 Immutable, the first app-specific, gaming-specific ecosystem to get a bunch of users. Actually, makes sense. There's a bunch of users in the world of gaming. And then there are some economics that will pull out as well. And so as a result of 4844, the fees being charged to layer two's dropped $680 million thanks to blob space. And so, of course, activity on layer two is commensibly increased with the drop of fees. And this is what we wanted out of blob space.

Starting point is 00:10:46 You take down the brakes out of layer two and all of a sudden you get more activity on the layer twos. And then the last one, you can also see which of these layer twos are pulling in the strongest margins. So of their usage on their block space and then subtracting the revenue, the fees that they have to pay to the Ethereum layer one to settle.

Starting point is 00:11:04 Base is coming in at almost $35 million on the quarter. So base pocketed $35 million, followed by a scroll as number two, just shy of $15 million, followed by optimism just above $10 million, followed by Linnea and Blast right around $9 million apiece. Profitable business models. What's your takeaway from all this? Because it's just like sum this up.

Starting point is 00:11:27 What do you think this means? The layer two ecosystem on Ethereum is like one of the most healthy things that I think see in this industry. Like active addresses are up only. TVL is up only. ETH-denominated TVL is also up. It's been like stagnating for a little bit, but it's still like marginally up on the quarter. the layer two ecosystem is like a shining spot of like adoption yeah i guess it's not um hockey sticking

Starting point is 00:11:50 at this point it's not hockey sticking it's kind of just steady incremental up and so i guess made me doing what it's supposed to i guess zooming out to where we are in the cycle is sort of a question there's a take i read in pantera capital that that summarizes that they think we are entering into phase two and so we have been in phase one we are entering phase two maybe we have just started to enter phase two. So when I explain this to you, you'll be like, oh, okay, I use different words, but this is what always happens. Basically, phase one is the Bitcoin. Every, every bull market, I should say, has a phase one and a phase two. At least it has historically. If you look at the, you know, 2016 bull market, you know, the 2019, 2020 bull market, the current bull market that

Starting point is 00:12:32 we're in, which maybe started in, you know, 2023 or so, there's a phase one that is dominated by Bitcoin, you know, ticks the bottom and then shoots up. All right. And that's the entirety of phase one. And then there's a marked difference where phase two gets activated. And that's really kind of the non-Bitcoin market, the alt-coin market. So here's how they sum it up. Phase one is the early stage of a rally when Bitcoin has tended to outperform the rest of the market.

Starting point is 00:12:59 Phase two is the later stage when altcoins, everything non-Bitcoin, have tended to outperform the market. And so we believe we are entering phase two. This is sort of like if you look at the chart here. Is there phase three or is it just one and two? One and two. We get two phases in this type of analysis. By the way, phase three is when everything goes down. We don't talk about phase three, right?

Starting point is 00:13:21 Because that's the bare cycle. But Bitcoin dominance in the first phases has historically increased 15 to 20 percentage points in the first portion of every cycle. And at this point in the cycle, evidence that we're in like phase one, it has increased by 17 percentage points. So that's what they think. So basically what this means is Bitcoin has had the majority of its run, at least relative to other crypto assets, and they're anticipating the second phase being the non-Bitcoin assets. If it plays out the way it has played out in previous cycles, what's your take on this? This is good hopium. I hope this is the case. I would love phase two.

Starting point is 00:13:59 Yeah. I'm a fan of phase two. Phase two is when the exciting stuff happens. I mean, right now, Bitcoin's looking real strong, though, I will say. So, So there's always the kind of the strong Bitcoin. Like most likely to be elected candidate talking about putting it on the balance sheet. Like no duds doing strong. It's insane. It has been strong. The Bitcoin ETS.

Starting point is 00:14:19 Like it's been a Bitcoin led cycle. But that's always what happens in phase one is as maybe a counter-tap. Phase one, I feel like is really long this cycle, though. Phase one. It continues to be a Bitcoin dominated cycle. I mean, on the charts, though, it's actually not that long. It's kind of commensurate with... Time just weird for me.

Starting point is 00:14:35 Other charts. Yeah, time might be weird. Time is weird. Depends when you measure it. I don't know, when you start the charts. Well, while Bitcoin is dominant, you know, the rest of the market, it just grows in fundamentals. And here is something that I think everyone is underappreciating, but everyone should appreciate, which is the dex to sex spot trading volume. We like our dexes more than we like our sexes.

Starting point is 00:14:56 It is at all-time highs. So we are approaching 15%, which we have never seen before. Like we've usually hovered just around 10%, maybe a little bit less, of Dex to Sex trading volume, where 90% of trading volume is usually happening on centralized exchanges. We're approaching 15% for the first time ever of Dex volume to centralized exchange volume market share. This is a big deal. This is a big, big deal.

Starting point is 00:15:22 I want 50%. I will not sleep until 50%. The whole goal of going bankless is to have a dominant Dex trading volume. to sex trading volume market share. Yeah, I got to say, I agree with you. This is very bullish. It's very bullish ongoing bankless people taking custody of their own assets, that decentralized exchanges are actually working.

Starting point is 00:15:43 And like for people who have been here for like five, six years, do you remember back in 2019, this is like when Uniswap was just barely starting? And we had protocols like zero X, which by the way later kind of built out the macha system that we're just talking about. Yeah. Yeah. And they were trying, right? People said dexes would never work, that there wasn't like the value there that we never get this on-chain thing.

Starting point is 00:16:06 So to see us go from basically 0% where all of the centralized exchanges were the dominant way people traded assets, to see this money verb, the trade verb, go increasingly on-chain. And to get to 15% is just fantastic. And it shows that like this entire thing that we've been working on for so long is actually starting to work. All right. Coming up next to Ethereum, ETS, two days of trading. or not, we'll talk about all of these details on everyone's takes as well. Kamal Harris enters the race. What does that mean for crypto? Pro-Crypto or anti-crypto?

Starting point is 00:16:40 Is she going to take Biden's previous stance and run with it, or is she going to change her tune? And then apparently, Ryan has a conspiracy theory. What's your conspiracy theory? Oh, I'll get into that next section. All right. Well, let's go ahead and get right into it. Let's go ahead and hear from these sponsors. And then make this episode specialize. If you want a crypto trading experience backed by world-class security and award-winning support teams, then head over to Cracken, one of the longest-standing and most secure crypto platforms in the world. Cracken is on a journey to build a more accessible, inclusive, and fair financial system, making it simple and secure for everyone, everywhere,

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Starting point is 00:19:30 Wow. What a headline, right? bullish headline. And that's what happened. Indeed, the Ethereum ETF products have launched. This is Eric Balchunis posting all of the different issuers of ETH ETFs. I'm not going to read all these out. There's nine of them.

Starting point is 00:19:45 ETH ETH. There's nine of them and they all start with ETH and then one more letter. Yeah. So the question is, we have a day one behind us. We have a day two behind us. We don't yet have a day three at the time of recording. Bankless listeners will probably have a day three under their belt. But let's recap both day one, day two and talk about our progress so far. Day one recap Ethereum ETFs now have $10.2 billion in assets. Now, of course, most of that is coming from Grayscale. That's how we started with such a high number. Volumes on day one were over $1.1 billion from the group. Now, when we asked Matt Hogan, What would have been like an par for the course met expectation Ether ETF's trading volumes number? He said something around like 400 million to 500 million. That would have been part for the course. We got 1.1 billion. And on the first day, total net flows were positive 107 million.

Starting point is 00:20:39 So we had $107 million of net buying pressure on ether from the Ethereum ETFs on the very first day. and also $484 million came out of Grayscale. So $484 million left the Grayscale Ethereum ETFs, and almost $600 million came in to all the other ETFs. And so that was just day number one. The $484 million out of Grayscale was a lot. So the tweet from Eric Baltuna says, damn, that's like 5% of the fund.

Starting point is 00:21:13 So Grayscale lost 5% of the AUM on day. one. Some of that went into the Grayscale Mini Trust, but a lot went to the other ETFs or were also sold. And so he kind of says, like, not sure if the other ETFs can really offset this level of outflows from the Grayscale ETFs, but on the flip side, maybe it's just good to get this band-aid ripped off. Like, let's just drain that thing. So then everything can turn into inflows. It'll negatively suppress the price for Ether. This is what happened with the Bitcoin ETFs. But like, let's just get this done with. And that was day one. So the summary of Dave

Starting point is 00:21:46 one was the Ethereum ETFs did pretty darn well. Killer. They did kill her. Yeah. Yeah. So Eric Baltunis gave this an A on the grade scale. Matt Hogan said that was a little bearish. He gives it something closer to an A plus, which is very impressive.

Starting point is 00:22:00 And basically the volumes were about 23% of what Bitcoin did on day one, which is good. The net inflows were around like 18%, something like this, which was also pretty good. And kind of as expected and like, like, trend. turning towards overperform, I would say. So let's get to day two. What happened on day two? Day two also came in a surprise, surprise high trading volumes, and also kind of the same same with the gray scale outflows, a lot of gray scale outflows as well.

Starting point is 00:22:31 And so there were $1.1 billion of trading volumes on day one, $852 million of trading volumes on day two. About 75% of the total trading volumes of the notional value of Bitcoin ETFs of that. same day. And so the trend continued. Ultimately, day over day, over these two days, there was a total outflow. So we have actually lost total flows. We have lost total AUM in the Ethereum ETFs due to the large outflows out of the Grayscale ETH-E-TRA. So $811 million have left gray scale. And then between all, if you add up all of them, the total outflows are just $27 million dollars. And so, uh, and we are, we are lagging $27 million over the two days.

Starting point is 00:23:19 $27 million, call it a wash. We're kind of flat. Um, uh, but yeah, just like the gray scale is like just out was just like leaking ether. Uh, and then everything else is taking all of it back up except for $27 million. It seems like the gray scale drain, like, because obviously Bitcoin also had a gray scale drainage that was happening. It seems like that might be happening faster in it. I think, I think we're seeing the same story of the, of the, uh, Bitcoin ETFs, sped up, which makes sense. We have to get some more days behind us, too, because right now, after day two, we don't know what day three looks like because we're not here, but like at day two, we're actually

Starting point is 00:23:51 net negative. As you said, I just want to emphasize that point. We're net negative, about 27 million. Bitcoin never went into a net negative territory when it was deflating the gray scale ETF. So maybe it's just happening faster on Ethereum, but we'll have to get some more days in us to actually like see what the net inflow versus outflow cases. is. Meanwhile, it's pretty cool to see all of the Trad Marketing Engine spin up. So all the websites

Starting point is 00:24:17 for all these ETF issuers are up. Here's just a collage of them that I put together. You got Bitwise, Vanek, Franklin, Templeton, BlackRock. Everyone just now has a new website for people who go to these websites to cruise financial investments. I guess you could subble upon the ether ETFs on the Grayscoe website now. Of course. Or the BlackRock website. Also, another Nate Gerrassi tweet, who shared a press release from BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager. Ethereum's appeal lies in its decentralized nature and its potential to drive digital transformation in finance and other industries. This was a press release from BlackRock about the I shares Ethereum trust set to launch. And so BlackRock doing press releases for Ethereum.

Starting point is 00:25:02 Pretty cool. Pretty cool. And then Grayscale, they have their mini trust that is coming in at a whopping $3 a share. So you can buy the Grayscale Mini Trust at $3 a share. This is the one with the 0.15% fee as opposed to their normal trust. Which is the lowest of any of them. It's the lowest one. It's the lowest one. But the other one, the one with all the AUM, has 2.5% fees, which is why you're seeing

Starting point is 00:25:26 just the flood of capital outbound out of the Grayscale ETH E trust. Bitwise, their ETH. Also has some extra cool accoutrements. They donate 10% of their fees, of their point. to 2% fees to the Protocol Guild and the Proposer Builder Foundation as well. So 10% of their money, their profits go into just funding public goods. It's really just a huge tip of the hat to them. And also, I think this like move really worked for them because Bitwise coming in second after BlackRock, not far behind. BlackRock something like $270 million of inflows, followed by Bitwise at just

Starting point is 00:26:03 over $200 million of inflows, followed by fidelity at like $70 or $80 million. That was day one. Bitwise is like nipping at the heels of Black Rock. Bitwise, he's a team of like 60 people going toe to toe with the world's largest asset manager on the ether ETF. You got to just give them a hand. Like, well done bitwise. You guys pat yourselves on the back. Yeah, they're doing a great job.

Starting point is 00:26:26 Matt Hogan says they talk to do 20,000 different like webinars and meetings on crypto. ETS. I know how that's possible. Thank God they're doing that. Yeah, absolutely. On the flip side of things, ETH ETFs won't be available in Vanguard, and that's why we don't care about them. Goodbye, Vanguard. This was not surprising.

Starting point is 00:26:47 Vanguard also is not doing the Bitcoin ETF, so this is just like confirmation. They're just the anti-crypto financial platform for all of you people who might be interested in that, of which there are none of you. It's funny to me because they think it's too soon, right? I guess like too much volatility or something is a complaint, but like there are assets in the QQQQQ, like Facebook that have, I mean, they've gone down 83. They had a larger dip than Bitcoin did during the bear market, right? I know where Liz Warren keeps her money. Vanguard. They'll come around eventually.

Starting point is 00:27:18 You know, there's a take when we had Eric Balchunas from Bloomberg on that he said, which is like, hey, when we were talking about the Ethereum narrative, we were going through different narratives. And, you know, his take was like, I don't really think the tokenization narrative for Ethereum is going to be the one that sticks because he's bearish tokenization. I think the reason he gave for that is because the ETFs all. already do a pretty good job tokenizing things. And he's actually not wrong. You know how we've compared ETS as like an ERC 20 wrapper? It sort of is. It's Tradfai's version of an ERC20 basically.

Starting point is 00:27:51 And they're doing that like real world asset play only for like the real world asset is ether and it's on chain. And kind of they're wrapping it in an ETF. But here's. We also used to put the internet through the phone line too. Yeah. Well, so here's Nick Jarassi with a opposite take. And Nick, Nate, Nate also comes from Trad V from the ETF world. And his take says tokenization is the next step. This is what he says. What my Trad V friends are missing is this. Mutual funds was the past.

Starting point is 00:28:18 ETFs is the present. Crypto is the future. Crypto ETFs are the bridge between the present and the future. Crypto will prove itself as a better investment delivery vehicle, among other things. My opinion, crypto is inevitable and it's truly that simple. It's just basically tokenization is kind of like the next step in this trajectory of, making assets more liquid and tradable tokenization is kind of like just reimagining what ETS would look like if they were digitally native and on the internet.

Starting point is 00:28:48 If they had like business logic inside of the token, there's a way better form factor. Anyways, while now the Bitcoin and the ether ETS are just live and steeping, they're going to steep for a few months. We're going to have James Safer and Eric Baltreus at permissionless. And so we're going to give you guys the three-month progress on the ether ETFs, the six-month, seven-month progress on the Bitcoin ETFs. If you guys want to go to permission us and hear from these men, prices are going up. They are doubling on Monday. And so get your ticket now before they go up, especially if you're a bankless citizen and you have a very large discount on your perks page.

Starting point is 00:29:26 So there's a link in the show notes. So make sure you don't get your expensive ticket on Monday, get your cheaper ticket this weekend today whenever you're listening to this. So everyone has seen, of course, that President Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. It looks like Kamala Harris is going to be the presumptive nominee. And the question is, what's her posture going to be on crypto? You could just default say, well, it's just Biden's posture, right? She's part of the administration.

Starting point is 00:29:51 She's in the White House. She was, like, present for everything that was going on with Gary Gensler and the SAP 121 veto, and you could just default to that. Or you could take a different view and more optimistic view. and recognize that this is Kamala Harris's opportunity to pivot on issues where Biden was relatively unpopular. Crypto being one of those issues. I think Jake Tjavinsky puts this take well. He said with President Biden stepping aside, the Democratic Party has a huge opportunity to win back a big share of the crypto vote. This should be top priority for the new nominee in an election that will be

Starting point is 00:30:25 one on the margins in states where crypto is a live issue. And then he goes through his rationale for why. But the TLDR is just, crypto's important. Biden has been on the wrong side. He's not gaining any votes by being anti-crypto. He's certainly not gaining any political donations from the donor class. And so this is

Starting point is 00:30:45 that Harris's opportunity to set a new agenda and to distance herself from the Biden platform. So now we're trying to really get like details. So like what, how relevant is crypto in the brain of Kamala Harris? Like is she even thinking about this? Does she even care about

Starting point is 00:31:01 this. A tweet came out of Walter Bloomberg saying, Mark Cuban says Kamala Harris has reached out to him with multiple questions about crypto. Sadly, that's all that we know. But if indeed true, the fact that Kamala Harris is getting the nominee for the Democratic candidate and then within like two days is like thinking about crypto at all, I think is like pretty strong indicator that like they're trying to think about how to approach this thing. And so the fact that it's even relevant in her brain

Starting point is 00:31:29 space at all I'm optimistic about. Yeah, Cuban says, I take it as a good sign. Hard not to take that as a good sign. He says, the feedback I'm getting, but certainly not confirmed by the VP is that she will be far more open to business, AI, crypto, and government as a service. So that's a take. There was also some rumor earlier this week that Kamala Harris would actually be speaking at the Bitcoin conference. The very, the same big- considering speaking at the Bitcoin conference. Right. And this was the in talks with Bitcoin conference organizers was kind of the rumor. This is the Bitcoin conference, by the way, that Trump

Starting point is 00:32:00 is speaking at. Just this weekend. Along with like RFK as well. RFK. So we'll talk about that in a bit more detail. But it turns out, David, that that rumor does not have substance. This is David Bailey. He's the conference organizer.

Starting point is 00:32:14 Kamala Harris, he says, will not be speaking at the Bitcoin conference. No surprise. What can she say to us when she's actively imprisoning developers, forcing our industries overseas, attacking proof of work? It would have been a disaster for her. All eyes on Trump now. So pulled out the punches. David Bailey was also the guy that tweeted out the tweet that he talked to the Kamala Harris campaign and they said that they will consider speaking at the Bitcoin conference.

Starting point is 00:32:39 That's true. And then I'm guessing they got back to him and it's like, we're just not ready for this. We're not interested. They just said, no, we're not going to be there. That's true. And then he sends this tweet. So I asked David, do you have any idea why this rumor was circulated? And he did not reply.

Starting point is 00:32:52 But Hayden Adams says it's because David Bailey actually tweeted this to drum up publicity for his own conference. So it was stoking fires on the rumor. He says this. He started the rumor yesterday. The Kamala campaign's mouth. Basically. Fact is she had never spoken publicly about or voted on a crypto relevant bill. It's true.

Starting point is 00:33:12 Kamala Harris, you go to stand with crypto. It's basically neutral. It's like TBD. It's like we don't know. No information. Yeah. Whereas Biden gets like a D or D minus or an F or something with respect to. A deservedly low grade.

Starting point is 00:33:23 And so Hayden says, we shouldn't be so quick to fill in the blank with our own priors. She's likely trying to make friends, not. enemies right now, there's a big opportunity. So Hayden's saying there's actually an opportunity for crypto to be nonpartisan or maybe even optimistically bipartisan start reaching out to Kamala Harris. And you don't win it by like tweeting that all eyes on Trump, you know, Kamala Harris is attacking crypto. David Bailey is not a neutral commentator. He's not at this point. He is a very large Trump supporter. He is the advisor to the Trump campaign about Bitcoin. For sure. For sure. So yeah. So it was interesting to you, David. I talked to you,

Starting point is 00:34:00 Mike Novigrass yesterday, and he was convinced. He's actually betting on this. So episode drops on Monday, by the way. Betting on Polly Market? No, he's not. He's betting with one of the Winkle Vosses, either Tyler and Cameron. Oh, so, okay, money at stake. Counts.

Starting point is 00:34:13 No, no, it wasn't money. I keep disappointing you by saying this. It was like beer. You have to, like, clout. I'll be wrong in the internet. And, like, I have to drink three beers in 15 minutes or something. So, like, get drunk. It doesn't seem like much of a punishment.

Starting point is 00:34:25 Anyway. I'll do that. I'll do that today anyways. Anyway, his point is he is publicly putting his stake on the line and saying that people were quick to point out that he also has Luna tattoos. But that aside, he was saying basically that he anticipates Kamala Harris will flip pro-crypto. And that we'll end up having two pro-crypto nominees, maybe not as pro-crypto as Trump. Because that would be hard at this point, but that would be bullish. And honestly, so long as we get off of President Biden's D grade is a step in the right direction. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:02 I mean, here's the most bullish possible world. Why this is exciting as a prospect is if you have both presidential candidates fighting for us in this escalating game of like, I'm more crypto than you. No, I'm more crypto. And they keep doing this like in this game of one-upmanship. I mean, Trump is going to win that. I don't would never want to play a game of one-up mission with Trump. No, we do. About any subjects.

Starting point is 00:35:22 I mean, neither. But it might kind of moderate the Democrat position on crypto, at least with respect to the White House. So that would be bullish. Lastly, I will say there are some that are saying like even if Kamala Harris's talk is like, even if Kamala Harris pivots talk is cheap and like we demand actual action. So you got to like fire Gary Gensler. Like blood sacrifice. Gary Gensler's got to go.

Starting point is 00:35:48 Yeah. And so you're not serious until you do that. It's kind of all talk. It's like the lowest hanging fruit. Like you, you aren't even neutral to crypto until you fire Gary Gensler. Exactly. Okay. So, Ryan, you have a conspiracy about this, the 2024 Bitcoin conference that's about

Starting point is 00:36:05 to happen starting today? All right. So it's not quite a, like, I wouldn't say it's a conspiracy. By the way, before you start, I have a, oh, it's not a conspiracy. I'm a huge fan of Ryan, Sean Adams, conspiracies. Okay. Well, so it's a prediction. It's a tail event prediction.

Starting point is 00:36:17 Okay. And so the last time I made one of these, let me remind you. The last time I made one of these. of these. It was about the Ethereum ETF approval when people didn't think that was possible. Here's something that could happen. It's a tail prediction. So it's not super high probability. But like, oh my God, if it happened, do you want to be out of the market if something like this happened? What if? So presidential nominee Trump, he's going. He's speaking in the Bitcoin conference on Saturday. Saturday at like two, I think, CEST, something like this. So imagine if he was

Starting point is 00:36:50 up here and he said this. If I'm president, I will buy. or you'll probably say once I'm present, I will buy Bitcoin. There's actually, David, a chance. And I call it a fair chance. I'd call it maybe over 50% chance that Trump makes a campaign promise when he's at the Bitcoin conference in front of all of these kind of like adoring Bitcoin fans to buy Bitcoin to actually back the dollar. Okay?

Starting point is 00:37:16 That would be like the perfect Trumpian style announcement. Not only am I the pro-crypto president. okay, you can't even touch me because I'm the president that's actually going to buy Bitcoin and put it on the Fed balance sheet. All right. And if you blend that with Trump's probability of winning, plus like he says this, and then you have to like balance that with like what's the probability that he follows through on his promise. But you push that all together.

Starting point is 00:37:43 And you get like a fairly likely outcome, not super likely, but above zero, maybe in the teens to 20% outcome, possibility that by the end of next year, the U.S. will have Bitcoin, have purchased Bitcoin on the Fed balance sheet. I don't want to be a Ryan Trump's conspiracy theorist hater here. But like, he can't just unilaterally do this. He has to, right? He can't tell the Fed what to put on the balance sheet, right? Well, here's some legislation that pairs nicely with this.

Starting point is 00:38:18 Right, it has to be legislation, which I'm giving much lower. There's so much they could do with executive orders. And like you could just do an executive order and then it has to get challenged in the courts. But this is Wyoming Senator Lummis. So she's been crypto-friendly. She's actually planning some legislation for strategic Bitcoin Reserve. And she's going to talk about that at the conference. Okay.

Starting point is 00:38:40 So this adds even more. This is also allegedly, we don't actually know this, but we're like kind of gearing up for it. Yeah. And here's an analyst on CNBC was asked this question. So like maybe he's going to be. persuasive to you on this point. Here's what he said. So, yeah, he's going to speak very positively about Bitcoin here at the conference. Do you think that these favorable comments could go so far as to indicate that he'd be open to it being a reserve currency for the U.S.? Yeah, so there

Starting point is 00:39:07 were some rumblings of that on X this week. It could be something that's very difficult to get done, but it is possible. The Justice Department holds about 200,000 units of Bitcoin. So the United States is the largest holder of Bitcoin. And so they could easily just move that over to the Department of Treasury and start right there and have 13 billion worth of Bitcoin on the balance sheet. So it is a possible move. It just could be tough to get done. But what happens is the Justice Department in holding these units of Bitcoin, they've been a random seller in the space. And so if they move from being a random seller at times, which could push the price of Bitcoin down, over to being a long-term hoddler,

Starting point is 00:39:47 well, that could be really good for the space. He doesn't even have to buy it, David. He just has to take all the confiscated Bitcoin and just put it on a different, like, you know, ledger within the U.S. government. If we are to ever confiscate Bitcoin, we just give it to the Fed. We just give it to the Treasury.

Starting point is 00:40:02 I like that. That's better. Also, the fact that I just want to highlight the fact that Cynthia Lemmiss is actually, like, penning real legislation is a very credible path to putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet. Okay, so let's say, if that happens, David, I mean, you've got to acknowledge that that would be a mega bullish territory if Trump goes and he says that on Saturday.

Starting point is 00:40:23 Yes, it was mega bullish. I still think I'm categorizing it in the world of crypto Twitter hopium. Crypto Twitter hopium. Is it similar to the Kamala Harris rumor? Yeah, like the crypto, like Twitter in general was like Biden was like not, couldn't be found for two days because he had COVID. and then like immediately went to the conclusion that he was dead and they were like like we ended up burning him around and then he's like totally fine like Twitter is just like a weird place right now bro.

Starting point is 00:40:54 Too many conspiracy theories for David's brain. So just like this one is just, you know. And I'm usually the conspiracy one. Well, this is a more irrational take that I kind of liked. If you were hearing this entire section where we talk about Kamala Harris, we're talking about Trump and this pro crypto rhetoric and you're just kind of shaking your heads and being like, but guys are the politicians going to actually deliver on crypto like what is their incentive what is their motivation like think about why they're doing this ben de francesco has a great take i'm embarrassed that it took me this long to realize that trump's pivot on crypto isn't about winning single issue crypto voters an assertion i've always found hard to believe because there just aren't that many of us in swing states instead it was about winning over the donor tech class who saw biden's administration aggressive It's anti-crypto as a tent pole in a broader anti-tech and anti-innovation turn from the left.

Starting point is 00:41:47 So Trump isn't embracing crypto, but rather he's just trying to signal to wealthy Silicon Valley types that he will be pro-tech writ large and it seems to have largely worked. And then he goes on to say, and then maybe the Democrats will pivot into this. And if they don't, you know, Trump and the Republicans will kind of like, you know, punish them. So I got to say this rings somewhat true for me after listening to the, You listen to this, right? Mark Andresa and Ben Horowitz, their podcast. The very first thing of why they support Trump, again, Silicon Valley of Silicon Valley,

Starting point is 00:42:19 they are the preeminent venture capitalists in the world. And number one was crypto. It's basically this administration. The Democratic's treatment towards crypto. Yeah. This administration, the Biden administration, has been needlessly hostile on crypto. And it's one of the important, it's kind of a frontrunner of how they're going to respond to other tech initiatives like AI.

Starting point is 00:42:38 Crypto is a canary. Exactly. And so I think that's what Trump is actually, like, going for. He's obviously trying to get, you know, these donations. Maybe the crypto voters don't bring it in, but he is tilting Silicon Valley in his favor by this. And as we pointed out numerous times, Democrats are basically giving him free real estate. So we'll see if Kamala Harris continues in that. But that's probably the pragmatic reason as to why.

Starting point is 00:43:03 As to whether you can trust them, I don't know. I mean, they do have an effect, though, right? Biden can just veto a Sab 121 repeal. There are things that you can do to support crypto or at least stand out of the way from the position of president. So I guess we'll have to see. I mean, why wouldn't they follow through on at least some of these commitments, though, is my question. At least with Ben's take, I think it's less of an either or.

Starting point is 00:43:30 And it's more of a yes and it is a crypto vote and it's the donor class. And it's like one nice package. Like, it's both of these things. Yeah. And it's not that hard to just be pro-crypto. Yeah. It's free words. Since we're talking about the Bitcoin 2024 conference that starts today,

Starting point is 00:43:46 shout out to Nick Carter, who is stepping into the ring tonight. So it'll have already happened by the time. This could have been you, David. It could have been me. It could have been me. He's fighting a different individual, Cody Coon, who doesn't have a broken rib. And so, and Polly Market, actually, since Polly Market, not just for politics, has him clocked in at 69% winning odds

Starting point is 00:44:09 And so, oh, actually just jumped up to 75%. I have been watching, so Nick and I follow each other on Instagram And as soon as I broke my rib And I had to call off the fight Because I was gonna fight him like six, seven, eight days later. Yeah. He started posting his training

Starting point is 00:44:25 Because like I would have otherwise seen it. And like he has not stopped training since our fight. Wait, but he's posting this But Cody can see it. Cody can see it. I don't think he's friends with Cody on Instagram. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm guessing.

Starting point is 00:44:39 And so he's been, like, just, like, going through these fight camps for, what is this now? Like, almost four months. Like, he's an extremely trained individual. So it makes, it makes total sense that he's clocking in at 75% odds versus Cody Coon. I will say the polymarket volume for the Nick Carter fight is at $5,000, so not too much volume. People really wanted to see my fight with Nick Carter because it's, I think David, $167,000 of volume.

Starting point is 00:45:08 The people still want to see this fight, by the way. So who are you betting on? I'm betting on Nick. I'm for sure. Okay, so in the polymarket, you would bet on Nick. Okay, so you've got your uniswap wallet. Yeah. Okay, the brand new, we were talking about this last week.

Starting point is 00:45:21 The brand new uniswap wallet, the nice thing that we liked it about this wallet on bankless is because when any other browser extension wallet would pop up, we can't share it on the share screen. But because of uniswap, it has a little sidecar. It has a little sidecar. So it's on this screen. So you can actually watch Ryan take some of his USC and swap all it and make a little bet on Nick Carter. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:43 I'm not ready. I'm not ready to bet on Nick yet. I got to do my research here. Yeah. Maybe I'll do this later. But I think the question people want to know is, are you going to sign up for another opportunity to fight Nick Carter at a future conference? If the opportunity presents itself, if the opportunity presents itself, I kind of owe it to Nick. And everyone else.

Starting point is 00:46:04 of the $167,000 of people that bet on me in the first place. Not just Nick Carter. There's somebody, there's another celebrity signing at the Bitcoin conference. The Hawk Tua girl is going to go and watch Nick Carter fight at karate combat. So, Nick, you know, like pressure is on. Hock Tua girl is going to be watching. Yeah, the stakes have never been higher. These have never been higher.

Starting point is 00:46:29 We got more. We got some more, we got some more polymarket content, the polymarket popularity content. contest continues. We're going to talk about all the things that mainstream has been talking about about polymarket. But also, Coinbase entering the tokenized T-bills game, Cohenbase trying to put some real-word assets on chain. And then also this is where Ryan talks about how Bitcoin holders aren't as hardcore, right, libertarian as you may think. All this content and more, but first, I want to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that makes this show possible, especially Mantle, the full-stack ecosystem, the layer two,

Starting point is 00:46:59 the LRT token, the yield-bearing eth. If you haven't tried out Mantle, there's a link in the show us so you can get started. New projects are coming online to the mantle layer two every single week. Why is this happening? Maybe it's because mantle has been on the frontier of layer two design architecture since it first started building mantle DA powered by technology from eigenDA. Maybe it's because users are coming onto the mantle layer two to capture some of the highest yields available in defy and to automatically receive the points and tokens being accrued by the three billion dollar mantle treasury in the mantle reward station. Maybe it's because the mantle team is one of the most helpful teams to build with giving you grants, liquidity support, and venture partners to help

Starting point is 00:47:35 bootstrap your Mantle application. Maybe it's all of these reasons all put together. So if you're a dev and you want to build on one of the best foundations in crypto or your user looking to claim some ownership on Mantle's Defi apps, click the link in the show notes to getting started with Mantle. Launching a token, don't let complex legal and tax issues slow you down. Toku provide specialized support to optimize your launch and ensure that you as a founder and your team and your investors get the most tax-efficient outcomes. The Toku team understands the crypto space inside and out and will ensure your token launch is fully compliant while maximizing tax efficiency. Toku can connect you with the best attorneys if you need them to make sure that you have the best advice and Toku can help to optimize

Starting point is 00:48:12 your taxes so you pay the least possible amount of taxes while still maintaining legal compliance. With Toku's guidance, you can concentrate on building your company while Toku handles the logistics. Token launches don't have to be complicated. Talk to Toku today to get a free initial token valuation. The Uniswap extension is here. custody wallet created by the most trusted team in defy uniswap labs designed to make swapping feel effortless this extension lives in your browser's sidebar letting you swap sign transactions and send or receive crypto without ever losing your place on the internet plus with human readable transaction messages you'll always know exactly what you're signing navigate a multi-chain world

Starting point is 00:48:48 effortlessly with support for 11 chains like ethereum mainnet base arbitrum and optimism no more chain switching or token importing all your assets are right where you need them to be the uniswap extension is designed to level up your swapping experience with other Uniswap Labs products as well. Easily on board to the extension using the Uniswop mobile wallet to begin managing your assets across platforms and take advantage of smooth, seamless synergies with the Uniswap web app. So go and download the Uniswap extension today by clicking the link in the show notes. Just another way Uniswap is helping you swap smarter. Another big account tweeting out how Polymarket is the news.

Starting point is 00:49:21 This is Bologi, tweeting out how Polymarket priced in the chance of Biden dropping out appropriately, far before there was even a debate where the rest of the world was like realizing Biden's age. And then he's also saying, meanwhile, legacy media claimed Biden's senality was a conspiracy theory while Polymarket was pricing in the odds of Joe Biden dropping in. I think this is really cool. It is really cool. I have, some of my Canadian family have been actually texting me. There's like, what's going on in the U.S.? Who's going to win the election, that sort of thing? I just send them the polymarket prediction because I, I, I, I, I, I, I genuinely think it's like the best prediction on the planet.

Starting point is 00:49:58 Right now, the chances, it's anticipating the chances of Trump winning at 63%. And I think that's most accurate considering what we know right now. Of course, this can change and will change on a dime. If Kamala Harris gets, you know, like all sorts of steam and her campaign really picks up, it'll be reflected in the price of polymarket, which is brilliant. And people ask like, what's different versus this, this crypto polymarket prediction market versus others? liquidity. There is so much volume on these markets. It's actually insane. Crypto people love trading markets, don't they? And they love gambling on these like outcomes. And so we've

Starting point is 00:50:37 brought that liquidity here as well. Yeah. When Colin Harris was named by Biden as like nominated by Biden, I think Donald Trump had some sort of like 70% like likelihood. So people's like, oh, like, well, if Biden can do it like the Democrats party in shambles. And so it started off as 75%. But then apparently like Kamala Harris drove in like hundreds of millions of dollars of donations and is giving out like like like rally crying speeches to the left and the left is like rallying behind. So you're seeing that immediately drop down from 70 down to 62 percent. You're just seeing real time news. Like do you want to have the best digestion of information and data possible without having to consume hours and news? Just go to polymarking and they'll spit out a number.

Starting point is 00:51:18 Yeah. And also so here's what I love about this. It's like stake on the bet. So someone disagrees with that. And they're like, there's no way. You know, convicted felon. Donald Trump is going to win like another term. Merck is not going to do this.

Starting point is 00:51:30 There's no way. Kamala Harris is like 99% certainty that she's going to win, okay, bet on it. That's free money for you then. Yeah, free money for you. Because everyone has an opinion on things. But unless they have some sort of stake backing that opinion, what's the opinion worth? And so, yeah, I love, I love this kind of like truth source for media and for outcomes like this. I really liked this post, this short post, longer than a tweet, shorter than a blog post, from yuga.eith.

Starting point is 00:52:00 I'm going to read it out. Polymarkets astronomical success is the most important story in crypto right now, but it's so obvious that we are ignoring it when we should be shouting it from the rooftops. Prediction markets are the purest technological manifestation of liberal democracy. They take free markets and free speech as inputs and output truth. In an age where centralized control of information is a systemic risk, prediction markets offer a way of cutting through misleading narratives and viewing the unvarnished truth. Prediction markets are freedom-preserving technology that move societies forward. It is monumental for crypto that Pollymarket is being consistently cited by mainstream media

Starting point is 00:52:38 for election probabilities. The seamlessly of which this has happened speaks to its product market fit. No one talks about the fact that Polly Market is built on crypto because the product is so good. Of course, underneath the hood, it makes total sense why a prediction market should be built on a decentralized financial network. The U.S. presidential election is volatile and many actors are incentivized to obfuscate reality. For most of us, there is no single trusted source of truth. But for those who have followed Polymarket knew that the replacement of the Democratic candidate was always a possibility. Quietly, Polymarket has served as a bulwark against manufactured consensus and sanctioned misinformation, like other products in crypto,

Starting point is 00:53:18 prediction markets face an uphill battle with respect to regulatory clarity in the United States with their utility as applications of crypto is second only to money and finance. If you are a supporter of crypto, the next time you find yourself in a discussion about politics, refer to your friends to polymarket. I thought that was such a great punchy post,

Starting point is 00:53:35 and it really just speaks to just like when a crypto app gains adoption, we have more freedom in the universe as a result of that. I thought that's great. You want to hear a deep irony then here, David? Oh. It's blocked in the U.S. Oh.

Starting point is 00:53:52 So you have to use a VPN. You have to use a VPN. Also a freedom technology. Right. I mean, the CFTC has to reverse course on this. It's absolutely insane that we don't have access to these types of markets and they're trying to protect it and you like view it as gambling,

Starting point is 00:54:08 that sort of thing. Anyway, more work to do. I mean, that would be an important act of an executive order to kind of like reverse the blocking of prediction markets like polymarket. That's right. Getting into the world of tokenization,

Starting point is 00:54:22 Coinbase asset management, I guess, bet you didn't know that Coinbase had an asset manager, is creating a tokenized money market fund. And so this is a coin base getting into the world of tokenizing, yield-bearing assets on chain. This is following the footsteps of Black Rock's build-old success, so they're trying to eat their piece of the pie. Also, in Solana Land, Gito has announced their re-saking platform.

Starting point is 00:54:45 So Gito is now, also like an MEV boost. It collects MEV and puts it into their Gito Sol, which is their staked sole derivative. And now they also have a resaking platform. So continuing to be of like very full stack integration. They're building everything. They're building everything. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:55:02 I mean, it makes sense to like put it all in one stack. It's kind of like, all right, this is getting to be a monopoly here. But like, whatever. And so it's a hybrid staking, resaking, an LRT module. So resaking coming into the world of Solana via Gito. All right, David, you ready for those interesting survey results? Cool. Let's do it.

Starting point is 00:55:20 All right. So this is some survey proof that Bitcoin owners are actually not as hardcore right libertarian as you might think. They're actually... I'm shocked. I am actually a little surprised by this. This is the Nakamoto Institute who put out this survey. So definitely like Bitcoiners.

Starting point is 00:55:35 And they found a few things. So this is, first of all, a robust survey. This was a survey of over 3,500 adults in the U.S. And they were looking at their Bitcoin ownership. and what are the demographics or characteristics? So a few findings to highlight. Number one, this one won't surprise you. There was no strong correlation across many dimensions of Bitcoin holders for race, ethnicity, religion, relationship status, income.

Starting point is 00:55:58 It's not skewed towards like wealthy or not wealthy or financial literacy. Wow. So it's equally distributed amongst all of those things. Yes. The only demographic where it's not equally distributed is it is skewed young and male in the U.S. that probably doesn't surprise you. You didn't need to tell me that. So that's the demographics, but otherwise, apart from being young and male, it was just

Starting point is 00:56:22 pretty distributed, which was neat. And this was actually maybe the biggest shock. Many people thought that Bitcoin ownership would skew towards the political right, toward libertarianism. Apparently, according to these survey results, that was absolutely wrong. By far, the largest holder of Bitcoin in terms of political orientation was basically the moderate, those that are neutral, those that are somewhat liberal, somewhat conservative, kind of that fat middle, very conservative or very liberal or actually the minority.

Starting point is 00:56:51 Interesting. Very liberal. Are you seeing these numbers? Yeah. Very liberal is like 40% higher than very conservative. Yes. Whoa. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:57:01 Of the total Bitcoin owners in the survey, which is representative sample size, and they cut across all demographics. So, I mean, like I looked at the data. It seems like a good survey. 14% of Bitcoin owners are very liberal, which is shocking to me. And 10% is very conservative. Wow, that is shocking. I guess it's just a very conservative ones that are super loud.

Starting point is 00:57:21 And then lastly, they ask how people perceive Bitcoin. And again, this is comparing, all of these results are comparing owners versus non-owners, which is sort of interesting. But this is not a surprise. But if you are an owner of Bitcoin, you definitely believe that Bitcoin is good, a net good. So this is a chart of trust in Bitcoin or moral perception of Bitcoin. Let's look at moral perception of Bitcoin. I find that interesting. Moral perception of Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:57:48 Yeah. So owners, like, is Bitcoin good or bad, like net good, net bad? If you own Bitcoin, definitely you trend towards the strongly agree. Duff. The vast majority is strongly agree. This is just a chart displaying cognitive dissonance. Right. Or the lack of it.

Starting point is 00:58:02 But it's kind of interesting. It's like, and so 46% of people that don't own Bitcoin are like more neutral. in their moral perception of Bitcoin. But on the, we think Bitcoin's evil side of things, if they are non-owners of Bitcoin, 14% think Bitcoin is evil. If they own Bitcoin,

Starting point is 00:58:20 it's like 1%. Imagine you're the, by the way, that 1% of Bitcoiners who own Bitcoin, you still think it's evil. But there's like 1% of the Bitcoin holder population that actually believes that, which is kind of interesting, right?

Starting point is 00:58:33 But like, not a surprise that people who own Bitcoin also think it's good. Yeah, it's one of those correlation causation things because maybe the trick to getting more people to believe that Bitcoin and crypto is good is to just have them buy crypto. Maybe that's the simple political formula, you know, it's just... I think it's probably a chicken and egg problem. Like, as soon as you are convinced that Bitcoin is good, then you will buy it and that will happen in the same moment or vice versa, like, you decide to buy Bitcoin and all of a sudden, like, you can't

Starting point is 00:59:03 hold the cognitive dissonance of like owning Bitcoin and also thinking it's bad. So therefore you change your mind. It's good. It's reflexive. It's a bit of both. It's reflective. It's probably both things, but it seems to be there's correlation and probably some causation. When people own crypto, they tend to think it's good. So that's why the work that we're doing here in evangelizing for crypto matters, David, it manifests in our politics. Bitcoin is good. Bitcoin is good.

Starting point is 00:59:25 This is true. And lastly, on Bitcoin News on the week, Proton Wallet. So do you ever use Proton? Email service? Proton Mail? Yeah. Proton Mail. So pseudonymous email encrypted, fantastic privacy tool.

Starting point is 00:59:39 I have some proton mail accounts. And yeah, just never emailed me with those. No, those are my secret accounts that just like no one knows about. Or maybe I have and you just don't know who I am, right? Because that's the idea.

Starting point is 00:59:50 It's not tied to my identity. I don't check my email. So that's how I get my privacy. I mean, what's interesting though is proton wallet is one of those tools like Signal where they are crypto adjacent, but they haven't gone all in on crypto.

Starting point is 01:00:01 They haven't really rolled out a crypto product until now. So the proton wallet, David, this is a proton email rolling out a Bitcoin wallet, which is non-custodial, open source, as you'd expect, completely end-to-end encrypted and integrated within the Pertan Mail app. So you can basically send Bitcoin the way you would send email. I think not revolutionary, of course. There's lots of different crypto wallets out there, but it's very cool to see a privacy-centric

Starting point is 01:00:28 organization start to embrace crypto. I've long thought that there's an alliance there. We just haven't made. People like Signal, people like Perton Mail, and this is a good signal with their development of this app and I'm looking forward to trying it. This is what Vitalik would call defensive acceleration. Accelerationism, all of protons products I would call defensive products. Yeah, totally.

Starting point is 01:00:49 Totally great. All right, meme of the week. You're going to have to explain this one, actually. This is a you meme. So apparently you signed me up to play pickleball in permissionless while I was out. So I was out earlier this week and now I come back and we are booked to play permissionless. Okay, so like I've not talked to you about this, but like how's your pickleball game, man? Like, mine's not great.

Starting point is 01:01:09 I'm not going to lie to you right now. Mine's pretty good. Really? Did you know that pickleball, the phenomenon that is pickleball, was created on Bainbridge Island, Washington, of which my family has a vacation home? No way. And so my mom, I'll call my mom right now. I'll call my mom right now and be like, hey, mom, has your day going? And she's going to be like, great, I just play like three hours of pickleball.

Starting point is 01:01:30 Oh, my God. My parents play pickleball too. They live in Florida. Yeah, my dad was just here and he offered to just be like, hey, if you need training for this, You'll come down to Florida and I'll help train you. And I do because I don't, how often do you play? Oh, I have only played very few times, but it comes very naturally to me. Okay.

Starting point is 01:01:48 So are you? I'm not like, I'm not stellar, but like sounds like I'm better than you. Yeah, probably. You've got some racket sports though, like, you know, just tennis or, you know. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My pain. Well, so we're going to need to practice some pickleball.

Starting point is 01:02:00 Yeah. So get to permissionless early. Yeah, all right. Well, I got to do some practice here because, you know, I'm not going to, I guess we're on a team versus is it Mike and Jason from Blockworks? I don't know how this works. It seems appropriate that we would go up against Mike and Jason. Apparently Mike has a bad back though, so like you'll go up against Mike and I'll go up

Starting point is 01:02:19 against Yano. All right. I'll be excited to see what the polymarkets look like for this historic pickleball game at permissionless. Another reason to get your tickets before prices go up. There's a link in the show notes. And if you are Bankless Citizen, again, you get like 30% off. So go to your perks page.

Starting point is 01:02:35 Get your tickets before the prices go up. And also the point of this meme is that you can also sign up to play pickleball. This is like an open tournament. Thanks for mentioning that. All right. Risk and Disclaimers, of course. You know crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in. But we are headed west.

Starting point is 01:02:47 This is the frontier. Not for everyone. But we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.

Bankless - ROLLUP: ETFs Flop? | BTC on U.S. Balance Sheet? | Polymarket Booming | Japan Tanking Markets

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