Bankless - ROLLUP: Jay-Z NFTs, Axie Infinity, China's Bitcoin Miners, Coinbase USDC, (5th Week of June)

Starting point is 00:00:01 Hey, Bankless Nation. It is the fifth and final week of June. We have begun July and it is time for roll-ups. Weekly roll-ups. David, you ready for this? Absolutely. I drink my coffee. I got the energy. I'm ready to roll up the week in crypto with you, Ryan. Dude, it's almost like the 4th of July. Are you celebrating this weekend? Yeah, tomorrow I'm going on a boat. And then on Friday, I'm watching fireworks as one does. Or excuse me, on Sunday. Yeah, as am I. And I was. And I was kind of curious, is like, what stage you think will be in where blockchains have their own holidays? Do you think that'll happen? Like, there will be a day. Like, maybe in the future, it was it December 1st, ETH, ETH2, staking first went live? Will the Ethereum community celebrate

Starting point is 00:00:57 that as a holiday? Right. Yeah. Well, I can tell you, the United States of America would, will not be celebrating that because that's a nation state holiday, not a blockchain holiday. So really only kind of be for like the Ethereum native to like have kind of their own day. but then it's not a holiday, right? It's like, hey, it's the 10th anniversary of EIP-1559, like, not coming into work. Like, no, like, that's not going to happen. All right. Well, maybe we'll celebrate on bankless. Anyway, sorry for the digress, guys. This is the quickest way to get crypto downloaded into your brain every week. We cover market releases, news takes. And then what we're excited about this comes out every Friday with your morning coffee, live, not live, but it comes on YouTube

Starting point is 00:01:35 and also on the podcast. Feels live. Want to get it. Feels pretty live. David, we should talk about Khyber first because we've been promising this for a while, but they just rolled out a really cool liquidity program. What's going on with Kiber? Yeah, Kiber is doing a liquidity mining program, both on the L1, but also on the Polygon L2. This is part of the DeFi Summer Thesis L layer two edition, is that there's going to be a bunch of liquidity mining rewards existing on the layer two. So if you're looking on the screen, you can see all of the different ways that you can get some extra yield on your yield. Yo, dog, I heard you liked yield. So if you are supplying stable coins, get yield on your yield. If you're supplying stable coins, take a look at Kiber's new Raid Maker liquidity mining

Starting point is 00:02:19 program. There's a link in the show notes below where you can find out how to get some extra KNC and some extramatic tokens if you are bullish on those particular two assets. Guys, 25 million in rewards over the next three months, not a small amount. So check that out. Make sure you check that out. All right, David, you ready to get to markets? Let's do it, Ryan. Let's talk Bitcoin first. What's going on with Bitcoin price since last week. Bitcoin started the week at $34,000, dropped all the way down to $30,000, we jumped up to $36.5,000 and it's currently at the level of $33.3,000. That's what happened with Bitcoin last week. Is this crab season? It's just a little back and forth, sideways.

Starting point is 00:02:56 Feels like crab season. Yeah, we go up a little bit, people get bullish. We go down a little bit. People get bearish. At the end of the week, we're at the same level we started with. Crab season. Crab season, crab summer. Okay, what about Eith? Same story. Dude, these charts look similar. Actually, that's because it's the same chart. Never mind. I have Bitcoin price twice. The story's going to be pretty much the same.

Starting point is 00:03:18 Ether started the week at $2,000, fell down to the low, low price of $1,700. Spooked some people, and then it jumped to $2,300. Got people excited again. Now it's at $2,100, and then once again started how, or ended the week how we started it roughly at the same price. Grab season, yo. Let's see if we're seeing any story in the eth Bitcoin ratio. What's this ratio showing?

Starting point is 00:03:42 Are we up or down on the week? We are up on the week. We tapped a new local low of 0.055, but Ether seems to really be allergic to anything below that. And so we jumped from 0.055 to almost 0.066, so almost up 10% versus Bitcoin on the week. I tweeted out, there was a day where Ether really jumped. up first Bitcoin. I think it was like two days ago and I tweeted out, uh, ETHBTC up 8% uh, resume flippinging talk. And clearly that tweet, the product market fit because it got over like eight 700 likes in like a day and a half.

Starting point is 00:04:21 Have you seen some flipping talk yet though? I haven't seen as much as we saw. I told people to resume it. So I guess we'll see. Okay. So now after the roll up guys, you can resume flipping talk. You know what? I want to take some credit for this tweet, David, because I said this in December 2020. This may be hard for some of you to hear, but ETH will outperform Bitcoin again in 2021. Quote me, I said, I threw that out there, David. And you know what? At the time, it was really Bitcoin maximalism season very much. Like Bitcoin was just like wrecking everything else. And here we are, six month in. Bitcoin is up 16% year to date. ETH is up 188%. This was right after the defy season.

Starting point is 00:05:05 This was right after defy season, right after everyone was bearish on ether because all the defy tokens mooned and ether just lagged behind. And then you tweeted this. And then it was like, oh, yeah, ether took the reins for the next like six months. But Ryan, question to you, do you think, is it going to happen again? What about them for the next six months? Like, you mean the next six months? Next six months, yeah. Outperform?

Starting point is 00:05:26 I want to say yes, but I'm not putting my full weight into that prediction, David. Where I'm putting my full weight is I think by end of the year, if you look year to date, ETH will still have outperformed Bitcoin. I feel really comfortable with that prediction. I'm not sure what the next six months will bring. I still feel like it's probably true. Although look at this, man. Eth is already up 188%.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Whereas Bitcoin is up 16%. It's like it just has to kind of hold that. And the prediction comes true. So I'm being sort of conservative. I think it'll happen, but I'm not too sure. We'll see what that ratio does. Granted, Bitcoiners said very similar things about Bitcoin versus Ether throughout 2019 and 2020 because Bitcoin really outperformed Ether.

Starting point is 00:06:08 And really it was just kind of signals like, well, maybe I should rotate then. Because if you sold Bitcoin for Ether while Bitcoiners were talking about how Bitcoin has outperformed, that was the right move. Or just don't worry about it and hold both. You know, that's a secret. Okay, let's talk about Defi Pulse. What's going on with total locked value in DFI. We're at $52 billion down from the highs.

Starting point is 00:06:33 still haven't hit that like that 100 billion mark seems kind of far away at this point. But what's happening here? We're just crabbing. We're just crabbing. Stay keeping the head above $50 billion locked in a defy. Avey staying around 15% dominance, not really too much churn going on right now, I would say. All right. How about DPI?

Starting point is 00:06:52 This is our index of defy tokens. Looks like that's kind of also flat on the week, is. Shocker. Crabsington. How many times are we going to say it in the market section? Not another time. Let's talk about the DPI index to Ether. So this is a different seasonal benchmark.

Starting point is 00:07:10 Oh, man, we're below 13%. We are below 0.13. Yet I am still feeling good about the DPI bottom. It's still proximate to 0.13. I didn't get the specific number, but I'm feeling good about it being the bottom. And I remember when we had ledger on the state of the nation, fantastic episode you should go watch it he talked about how like the the point one three level could be like a good entrance and it might like dip below it and then and then kind of zoom back up for hopefully

Starting point is 00:07:42 a dpi bull market maybe but like i'm still feeling good about the bottom like maybe the point one three wasn't the perfect call but like if this is actually the bottom the point one three call will be great entrance if of course it doesn't go any lower but i guess i'm just kind of like biting my own tail here. Guys, we know that's important to David. So buy some defy tokens and support David's cause. He doesn't want to miss that one. Please. I'm buying DPI right now.

Starting point is 00:08:07 What's this? This is L2B. I know you guys looked at this last week, but this feels like the defy pulse of layer two. It's like total locked value in Ethereum's layer two platforms. What is this showing us? Right. So just like DFI pulse, it shows you all the value that is deposited into all these various layer twos.

Starting point is 00:08:27 There is $322 million in L2s. Last week, it was $340-something million. So down on the week. But this is something that we are going to track moving forward. This is very reminiscent to very early DeFi post pages where, you know, when we were initially looking at the value locked in defy, we were looking at the tens and maybe even the hundreds of millions of dollars, whereas now we're looking at the billions of dollars. And so I'm pretty sure this story is going to be one to follow, which is why we're going

Starting point is 00:08:57 to come back to L2 beat frequently just to track the growth of layer two on Ethereum. It's kind of cool that it's pure layer two. It doesn't include Polygon, for example. If it did, it would just drown out literally everything else on here. Polygons got many billions now. Billions, billions and billions, yeah. Which is why we know that this is coming, right? Like optimism and arbitraum going to open up in July.

Starting point is 00:09:22 That's really where this game is going to start going. All right, guys, we are going to be back with the hot, releases for the week, but before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. The AVE protocol is a decentralized liquidity protocol on Ethereum, which allows users to supply and borrow certain crypto assets. AVE version 2 has a ton of cool features that makes using the AVE protocol even more powerful. With AVE, you can leverage the full power of defy money logos, yield, and composability all in one application. On AVE, there are a ton of assets that you can supply to the protocol in order to gain yield. And all of those same assets can also be borrowed from

Starting point is 00:10:00 the protocol if you have supplied collateral. One of my favorite AVE features is the ability to select a stable interest rate. Once I've selected a stable interest rate, I'm protected against any interest rate volatility that may happen in DFI and allows me to plan my DFI finances for the long term. V2 also features the ability for users to swap collateral without having to withdraw your assets, trade them on Uniswap, and then deposit them back into AVEA. With Avey, users, users, can do this in one seamless transaction, saving you time and gas costs. Check out the power of Ave at Ave.com. That's Aavee.com. Balancer is a powerful platform for flexible automated market makers. Typical AMMs just have two tokens inside of one liquidity pool, which can lead to fractured liquidity

Starting point is 00:10:43 across the many pairs in Defi. With Balancer, you can access the full power of multiple tokens inside of one single AMM, which unlocks an entirely new playing field of possibility. This makes Balancer an awesome building block for so many different use cases. Balancer pools can make asset indices, but instead of paying fees to portfolio managers, Balancer lets you collect the fees from traders who use your portfolio for liquidity. Additionally, Balancer smart pools can be programmed to have properties that change according to predetermined rules, such as changing the swap fees based on market conditions, or even liquidity bootstrapping pools, which can help you launch and distribute your token with day one liquidity. At Bankless, we use a liquidity bootstrapping pool.

Starting point is 00:11:24 to sell our BAP teachers to much success. V2 brings powerful new features that makes your money work even harder for you. In V2, idle tokens are capable of generating yield in defy without sacrificing liquidity in the pool using asset managers. Balancer's vault architecture lets you trade between Balancer pools at a fraction of the cost versus other platforms, and you can even take advantage of dynamic fees which automatically adapt to changing market conditions. Balancer's mission is to become the primary source of liquidity in Defi by providing the most flexible and powerful platform for asset management and decentralized exchange. Dive into the balancer pools at app.balancer.fI.

Starting point is 00:12:05 All right, guys, we are back with releases. David, we've got to start here. Compound is doing some cool things. They launched the compound treasury, which it seems like provides institutions the ability to earn 4% APR. That's like 30x what you receive in a traditional savings account. So not insignificant. I think the difference is they're offering this to like a different audience.

Starting point is 00:12:26 It's not the defy natives and crypto natives. It's institutions. Any thoughts on this? Yeah, these feel like the base hair follicles of the defy mullet. This is where the defy mullet grows out of. Here's a super weird metaphor for you. But yeah, beautiful. Yeah, this feels like a compound just advertising.

Starting point is 00:12:45 Hey, just use us for your yield. Figure out how to attract capital. That's your guys' problem. but come to us for yield and we'll solve that yield problem for you. So compound, opening up surface area for the defy mullet. Do you want to see some defy mullet? David? Sure.

Starting point is 00:13:00 Check this out, man. Current. Already. Do you know what current is? Look at this. Now I do. Yeah. They say they're not a bank, but they kind of are a bank, right?

Starting point is 00:13:08 They've got like bank connectivity. But look at this. Improvement upon a bank. Sure. But yeah, but look at this. We're excited to work with compound treasury to be able to offer our members access to the protocol's interest rate through a simple unified experience. Defi mullet, FinTech.

Starting point is 00:13:21 On the front, compound on the back. It's really cool to see. A single solid hair growing out of current, out of compound hair follicles? All right, how long should I take this metaphor for? I keep going. All episode, I'm really digging this. I'm really digging this. Okay.

Starting point is 00:13:35 10,000 word article coming in. The dissection of the mullet. All right. Polygon launches a veil. A veil. What is a veil, David? Yeah, a veil is a data availability layer on Polygon. So for those that are familiar with the project,

Starting point is 00:13:51 of lazy ledger. This is a similar data availability structure for the Polygon layer two. So if you're into the world of cryptography and in blockchain and consensus, you kind of know what I'm talking about. If you're not, then you're probably really confused, which is actually kind of closer to where I am. But basically, there's this data ability problem, and there's a number of different ways to solve it. And Avail is trying to solve it for the polygon ecosystem. Roll-ups have this limitation too, right? Storing data on chain is one of their limitations. So this is really an effort to like further scale L2s and rollups by offering a data availability layer on top of Ethereum. I haven't dug into the details.

Starting point is 00:14:28 I'm sure this means even more to some of our listeners. But this is another scalability tech being based on Ethereum that's going to really propel the rollup roadmap, which is super cool, super exciting. And this is one of the bulk cases for Polygon is that any chain that Nick can and needs to be built will be built. And so that's kind of why MaddoC token is so highly valued, at least in my opinion. It's kind of cool, too. I think it's bullish for Polygon, too. It's like they're not stopping with just a chain, right?

Starting point is 00:14:54 And I know they've said they're coming out with roll-ups and ZK roll-up like tech and that sort of thing. But also a whole data availability solution. I was not expecting that. It's kind of cool. All right. Cream Finance announcing integration with Polygon 2. So what is Cream?

Starting point is 00:15:10 They're deploying on Polygon, another protocol part of the theme here. But like, what are they? Cream is a money market just like compound in Ave. I put them on, there's a different risk spectrum that every single money market really likes to take on. Compound is kind of known as the conservative risk off money market. That's why they have such few assets on there. That's why they can do the defy mullet. That's why they can do the defy mullet.

Starting point is 00:15:32 Yep, protocol sync thesis. Avey is kind of more in the more in the liberal camp of risk, but still not, still pretty good, right in the middle ground. Cream is like, yeah, let's open up the floodgates of all the assets. Let's list all the assets. A little bit more risky, but to some degree, you can only get liquidity on many different assets using cream. And now cream is on Polygon. There you go. Very cool.

Starting point is 00:15:57 All right. Let's talk about perpetual protocol. So they have launched a cross-margin trading limit order, multi-collateral protocol. This is basically on Arbitrum that they're launching as well. It's called Curie. What's special about this data? There's just a number of different. use cases for financial activity that really can only work on layer two. And perpetual swaps is definitely

Starting point is 00:16:23 one of them, just high frequency trading or just people that want to be really active with their trades. And anyone who's day trading, really, it works a lot better on layer two. So perpetual protocol, I'm actually doing a Meet the Nation with them. I'm recording with them today. So that will probably be out sometime early next week if you guys want a deeper dive into perpetual protocol. But overall, it's just a suite of trading activities. And now it can be done on layer two. Speaking of Meet the Nations, actually, I think state of the nation, we had Element Protocol on Not Too Long ago. Their founder is on Will.

Starting point is 00:16:57 And now it looks like they have finally deployed to Mainnet, which is super exciting. What is Element Protocol, David? What's the TLDR? Yeah, Element Finance takes one asset and splits it into two. And so you have the principal asset and the yield asset and it allows people to kind of break apart the different properties of a single asset and allows people to express their opinions about what they want in more granular ways. Do you want

Starting point is 00:17:22 really the yield side of an asset or do you want the principal side of an asset? And it allows you to express your financial opinions about the future in different ways. Go check out the state of the nation for more details. One of the really exciting things about Elman is the team. A bunch of Ethereum OGs, both on the team itself as well as the advisors.

Starting point is 00:17:43 Just core Ethereum, consensus like with Ethereum 1 builders along with just Ethereum L2 advisors as well. Eric Conner is on the advisor. Danny Ryan is an advisor. So just an all-star team with an all-star product. Very cool. All right. We also have more yield happening this time on Coinbase. So this is super interesting to me. Coinbase is now going to start offering 4% APY on USDC coin inside of Coinbase. So previously, I think they have sort of a savings light type product. But if you have USDC on Coinbase, it offers like something like 0.15%. Like I thought it was similar to things right at that.

Starting point is 00:18:23 It was like 1.5% when the last I checked. It was at one time, but then it dropped all the way back down. So it's not really, it's more like a bank savings rate. A little bit higher, but not much. This is something different. This is where Coinbase is actually lending out your USDC, similar to how a BlockFi might lend it out. and is providing that that higher API, that 4% rate.

Starting point is 00:18:46 So kind of interesting, it's unclear where they're getting the interest. It's kind of like BlockFi. It's sort of like a black box, David. It's a little bit coincidental that you get 4% on Coinbase and compound gives you 4% with their feature. I was going to say this. Same way, kind of interesting. I mean, they could get 4% from compound, right?

Starting point is 00:19:07 That would be protocol sync thesis. Absolutely. But anyway, interesting that they are offering this, certainly competing with the block fives of the world, maybe doing some protocol sync, getting into compound, we're not sure. But we're actually going to have Robert Leshner on State of the Nation on Monday. So he's been very involved. He's a founder of the compound protocol to talk about compound treasury. He is very involved.

Starting point is 00:19:33 Without Robert, it wouldn't have happened. Very involved. Very active contributor. Yeah, I may have downplayed. that a little bit. He does some work for compound. Kind of a big deal there. Anyway, he's going to tell us hopefully maybe about, maybe I'll have comments on this Coinbase 4% API because I know Coinbase and compound have been close in the past too. So there you go. Sort of interesting. It's going on here. David, we got to we got to end releases with this. We have a couple of raises to talk about,

Starting point is 00:20:00 but a new crypto comedy show has been released. Yeah. Dude, I watched it. It was fantastic. Yeah. I love not having to like do the work to produce it, by the way. And like, and I could just enjoy it. So what is this? What did you guys put out there? Yeah, this is top signal, the newest show out of the bankless ecosystem with Bankless's newest anchor, newest co-host, Michael Wong, one of my, actually the person that hired me for my first crypto job ever. And so we go way back. It was an ICO advisory company back in 2018. And that actually kind of led into our first like gag that we did where we presented the three guests. It was a, it was a ICO advisory company back in 2018. And that actually kind of led into our first like gag that we did where we presented the three guests. It was. It was, was defy dad, Kevin Milwaukee, and Anthony Sizzano. We presented them with two ICOs. One of them was real. One of them was fake, and they had to pick the real or the fake one. All three of them got it right. So it sounds like we need to get more creative on our ICOs.

Starting point is 00:20:50 But we also did a crypto and on crypto Twitter fantasy draft. And so each person had to draft their favorite and on crypto Twitter personalities. And so we got to like kind of jostle for who wants to pick what crypto anon and then the pitch our team and how our team is better than the rest. And we did some around the horn, just quick takes on different topics. It was super fun. The through line or the kind of the tagline for Top Signal is that it is in a superposition of a complete sciops or the best alpha you've ever seen or just a normal factual statement.

Starting point is 00:21:26 It could be any of those three. We don't know because we don't do any fact checking on Top Signal. It's just kind of fun. And I don't know what you guys have in store for the future, but maybe some rap battles. that's a rumor. Hayden Adams and Carl Floresh. We want you guys as a rap battle duo on top signal. It's going to happen at some point in time.

Starting point is 00:21:46 That would be amazing. It's just a fun show. I can't wait for the next one. It sounds like there's no real schedule. Like when's the next one going to be, David? As soon as we can as soon as we corral the guests and get them on to the show. It's going to be different every single time. We have Alexandra Betez, the chess streamer.

Starting point is 00:22:01 And she's going to come on with her co-host because she's actually also producing Ethereum content as well. and I'm going to try and find the four best chess players. You can try to beat them in chess? Yeah, we're going to try and four v2 them and see how far we can get. But overall, it's just going to be a fun time. That's awesome. All right, guys, let's switch to some of the raises really quick.

Starting point is 00:22:20 So one is Nansen. So Nansen is kind of like a blockchain data analytics provider. Big data consumer, right. Yeah, and they provide a lot of Ethereum data. So they just received a funding from A16Z, $12 million. not an insignificant amount. Any other takes on this? Yeah, no, I think this is really important infrastructure

Starting point is 00:22:41 for just people who want to view the chain for data. And the Ethereum blockchain has an insane amount of data. And so you need systems to parse and consume and, like, digest that data. That's what Nansen does. And so this is going to just be really important infrastructure moving forward. Also with layer twos, man. All this data needs to be digested and consumed.

Starting point is 00:23:02 So super important there. Also, the Tracer Dow closed 4.4. $1.5 million in a raise. Some pretty solid VCs were behind this. So one as Framework Ventures, who we've had in the podcast, but also some, also some angels like Mariano Conti were part of this. And what is this protocol? It seems like it's perpetuals again. So it's another story. And they're deploying on arbitram as well. So it's another layer two first deployment, not main chain, which is kind of interesting. We're seeing that trend. Anything else to ask? about Tracer Dow, David.

Starting point is 00:23:37 Yeah, the Dow tagline makes me think that it doesn't at all stop with perpetuals. I think it's going to be kind of something similar to a DX Dow where they're just making a suite of financial services that's owned and operated by the Dow. And those suite of financial services makes the Dow money. And there's really positive statements by basically everyone involved. Mariano O'Conte is somebody I definitely trust for Signal. So when he says that he's excited about something, I pay attention. So, Tracer Dow, I'm going to be looking at you guys.

Starting point is 00:24:07 Mariana Conti, the Maker Mafia. Maybe that's the thing now. All right, David, let's talk news, man. First is some Ethereum stuff. This deserves our attention. A defy education fund was proposed in Uniswop governance. Of course, we've talked about before. Uniswap has an absolutely massive treasury.

Starting point is 00:24:25 It's mostly in Unitokens. You hear it every single time in the bankless ad. Aliens. Exactly. That's right. But now this is a governance, proposal to actually create a defy education fund in quotes. This is a non-profit.

Starting point is 00:24:40 So a 501C4 nonprofit based in the U.S. And it's trying to fund all of the following. Policymaker education. Oh, interesting lobby type stuff. Thought leadership and research. Legal fire power messaging, grassroots advocacy, and best practices. It has people like Jake Tjavinsky on. It has people in the, in the D5 space.

Starting point is 00:25:04 as well. A lot of Dow experts here as well. A lot of Dow experts, a lot of legal minds and defy. And this is, I feel like David, this is DFI starting to flex this muscle and saying, hey, we want a voice in legislation and we want to expand into hearts and minds. And we have the money and funds to do that. So we're going to go deploy them. What are your thoughts here? Yeah, they are asking for one million uni tokens, which is a lot. How much is that? That is $15, $18 million, depending on the state of the market. Let me go check the price of uni right now. $17.7.7 million at the time of recording is what they are requesting,

Starting point is 00:25:44 which is a large amount of money. But also, like, what the hell is the Treasury for if you're not going to open up the purse strings, right? And so these are absolutely the right people to ask for this amount of money. and so I'm kind of pretty excited to see what they can get done with this. There is definitely some opportunities available for people to go and capture this. So kind of think, I'm pretty sure, think of this as like its own like micro uni grants, right? They are taking uniswap money and then they are going to also give out grants with it. So it's a grant giving grant.

Starting point is 00:26:20 And they have definitely goals and objectives that they want to reach. And there's a decent amount of things that the listener of this show could go and, and produce for money. And so they are looking for, my eyes go to the thought leadership and research post where they say, we need more written and video content explaining defy and its benefits in a medium

Starting point is 00:26:40 that positively impacts the public perception of defy. Yo, like, Ryan, you and I can do that. And so we might be going after this. Bankless Dow, I challenge you guys to go after this. Bankless listeners, I also challenge you guys to go after this money. This money is for you, so long as you can produce

Starting point is 00:26:57 what these guys want you to produce. Yeah, and what this really speaks to is I think DFI is now fighting for hearts and minds and it's deploying capital to fight for hearts and minds. And this is not just like convincing people of the narrative. Exactly, going on the offensive, but also like regulatory, which is really good to hear because guess what? Banks have this kind of regulatory firepower. Even crypto banks have it.

Starting point is 00:27:20 We're going to talk about some FTCS news. They're deploying capital and, you know, all sorts of ways. So DFI needs a voice in our legislative. legislative halls, and I think this is a step towards that. So kind of cool. David, let's talk about this. So Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, put out a post called Embracing Decentralization at Coinbase. And the headline here is basically talking about Coinbase creating kind of an Apple App Store experience, right, but treating DFI protocols as first class citizens. So DeFi protocols being kind of the apps and Coinbase custody being sort of the like the custodian solutions being sort of the

Starting point is 00:27:57 user inner like the the I guess UI and the bridge to all of these apps. Kind of cool, David, because I think this is the protocol sync thesis in action. Coinbase is recognizing, hey, we don't have to build all of the apps. We don't even have to have maybe the most liquid trading markets in the world. We could just provide an interface to Uniswap and charge a fee on top of that. This to me is the future of banks. Now, we'll have to see how they enact this. But I do think it's going to be good for D5 protocols overall. Not everybody's ready to hold their own private keys. They need some handholding at least at first to get into this space. Any thoughts here? Yeah, they really advertise the crypto app store, which gives me flashbacks to 2017 and 2018 where people were like,

Starting point is 00:28:42 oh yeah, we used to have apps in the traditional app stores, Google, iOS. Now we have these D apps. And so we're going their fundraise $100 million to build the D-App store, not realizing that D-Apps don't actually exist as something that you can download. Like, imagine going to your phone and downloading Uniswap. That's like a nonsensical thing to do. But that was like the vision back in 2017. But now this can make a little bit more sense now. I think if people are, people are looking for familiarity when they come into crypto, they are straight up looking for like the defy tab in their coinbase wallet or like, where's all the defy things? And so maybe it's, it's actually a really power play to put all of defy into one single UI and really make that

Starting point is 00:29:27 available as a consumer in the ways that they are used to when it comes to the app store. So they can literally tap on uniswap and then they open up uniswap. Yeah, I was never a fan of the 2017 like DAP thing. Like we're creating an app store and like that was just such a because it was very unfocused. But I am a fan of this because I think money apps are the thing. That is the thing that we are producing in crypto. It's a better banking system, a better financial system for the world. And so this seems much more focused.

Starting point is 00:29:56 Remember the DAPs of yesteryear, it could be anything. Like it could be like a decentralized social media thing or it could be like a, yeah, all of these weird things that no one was actually using. But like, hey, if I can get 4% on my, my USDC on my stable coin by using an app through Coinbase, I don't have to figure out defy it. Then cool, you know, sign me up. David, let's talk about this. Cain's glorious return.

Starting point is 00:30:24 So Cain of the synthetics product, he co-founded that. He has now returned to save the project. What's going on here? I didn't know synthetics needed saving. Was it in trouble? Yeah, so Cain likes to joke how he had taken a step back from the benevolent dictator to kind of just the guy that writes blogs over at synthetics. Because to some degree, like, he is the Vitalik of Ethereum 4.

Starting point is 00:30:49 He is the Satoshi for Bitcoin for synthetics. And if we like decentralized apps, we want our applications to have leaders. But there's a friction there because, you know, to some degree, leaders are leaders for a reason. And it sounds like after Kane stepped away, there was a bit of an unfilled power vacuum that never really got filled by the Dow. And so it sounds like Kane's coming back in to really just kind of be that guide that synthetics needs. Dowing is hard. And so maybe we do still need to, you know, come to terms with the fact that while dows are cool, they do need like maybe some one single person kind of calling the shots until these things really grow out and mature.

Starting point is 00:31:33 Yeah, it seems like it's going to oscillate back and forth between that and the Dau structure where you like, you decentralize and then you maybe do it too much and you need to like, you know, recentralize or get some more structure and then maybe do that too much. And you kind of ebb and flow until you get the exact combination. Maybe that's how this is working. It seems like it's the next ebb and flow of synthetics, though. David, let's talk to NFT stuff, man. We've got to start here. Axy Infinity, the gaming platform is absolutely booming.

Starting point is 00:31:59 I was amazed when I saw this. So this is William Pister, who writes the Bankless Metaversal newsletter. He just put this post out today. Look at this, dude. Last 30 days, Axi Infinity has provided $11 million to its players. Wow. Like, that means you're playing Axy and you're making money while you're playing video games. My God, that was my dream as a 12-year-old boy growing up.

Starting point is 00:32:24 Like, it's here. I can literally like, there's a generation too late, Ryan. Right. I know, man. Like, I can play video games for a living and not just stream it like, you know, the Twitch streamers these days. But like the items I'm mining and the skills I have in this game, I can actually, these are real items with real world power.

Starting point is 00:32:43 It's like, man, it's all my childhood fantasies are like. like happening now, David? Dude, I'm a kid again. Imagine if Diablo, if you could have made money from Diablo too. Like, imagine how much money like a bail run would have gotten you. Oh my God. Imagine how addicted it I would be, though. Yeah, right.

Starting point is 00:32:57 Yeah, maybe bankless wouldn't have been existed. You still be playing. It's crazy that AXI Infinity is making a substantial amount of more money, at least, again, at least in the last 30 days. 30 days, not a short amount of time than Maker Dow. Axi is Infinity pulled in $11 million in revenue versus Maker Dow's. $8.4 million. I'm not, I'm not sure if that 11 million revenue for Axi Infinity goes to like the Axi team or is that if that's more like going to the players who are playing. I think it's going.

Starting point is 00:33:25 My understanding it's going to the players. I think it's going to the players. Right. You earn these things called like love potions and there's a market for love potions and then you can sell the love potions that you're earning on like uniswap for for money. So this is like again, intersection of like gaming NFTs and defy all mash together. Totally. And this is actually not the first time that we've seen the story of people generating more income than their minimum wage in their home country. We saw this with Gosen Chain. There was a story of some Brazilian player who was making like two to three times the minimum wage just playing Gauzen Chain and collecting scarce assets. I think this is the signs of things to come. Yeah, look at this. Axi Infinity. This is

Starting point is 00:34:06 Linda talking about Axi Infinity players in the Philippines earning living wage through this. really cool how global this is as well. All right, David, on the NFT subject, Twitter is dropping its own NFTs on Rarable. That seems like a big deal. What's going on? Yeah, Jack Dorsey is on one side of things telling us that Lightning Network is coming to Twitter,

Starting point is 00:34:29 yet Twitter seems to be coming to VARABEL to issue NFTs first. That's an interesting little juxtaposition right there. I don't know why these NFTs are valuable. They don't, I think, I don't really think they're... It seems like they're testing. There's just tests. It seems like,

Starting point is 00:34:41 Yeah, she's like a test, right? Like these aren't historical Twitter moments. It's not like Jack's tweet where he actually did sell that. These are kind of just random little Twitter creative drawings. So it's kind of the fact that the verified Twitter account is selling these things. That's really the big thing. It's not necessarily NFTs themselves. Back to your comment about Dorsey, though.

Starting point is 00:35:02 Somebody asked him or somebody said this. I've talked shit about Jack being a maxi in the past, a Bitcoin Maxi that is. But ever since following somebody, he's looking into it more. only a matter of time before he buys into Eith. Jack Dorsey buying Eth. And then Jack Dorsey comes in this thread. He was tagged on and says, no. No, he is not buying Eith.

Starting point is 00:35:23 And I love this follow-up. I think this is the follow-up. Chain link God says, how'd you pay the gas fees to mint these NFTs then, Jack? Somebody busts about Eith. Somebody's buying Ead. Either it's Jack or Twitter itself. Is this cognitive dissonance?

Starting point is 00:35:38 Like, why does... Just capitulate, Jack. It's okay. Just come on bankless. Let's have a talk about it. We'll be really nice. There can be more than one coin. There can be more than one store value. Okay, a couple more things going on in NFT world. The first is Tim Berners-Lee has sold an NFT. This guy was one of the main people behind the internet that we know and love today. He sold some original code in NFT form for 5.4 million. This is another piece of crypto culture, or excuse me, internet culture getting preserved and valued.

Starting point is 00:36:11 as an NFT. Any thoughts here? Yeah, I really think this is one of the core legitimate purposes behind NFTs. Not people just like spinning up some 3D animations and graphics and selling in that. That's cool too. But NFTs are art and art is partly historical. And if you want to own a piece of history, that's kind of the role that art serves. And if you want to own a piece of internet history, that's product market fit for NFTs. And so this is going for $5.4 million.

Starting point is 00:36:41 That's actually kind of where I see NFTs, kind of like planting a flag and saying, this is what we are for. There's many other things. There was an NFT mania that happened. But the high-priced one-of-ones of deep internet culture that happened before NFTs were even a thing, I think that kind of phenomenon is here to stay. So congratulations for Tim Berners-Lee, created something open-source for free, and then got $5.4 million dollars like 30 years later.

Starting point is 00:37:10 Do we know who bought it? Did Pleaser Dow get it? Pleaser Dow did not buy it. I think they voted against buying it. Oh, interesting. Well, you know what? Unknown buyer. Every time this happens, though, David, it makes CNN, you know?

Starting point is 00:37:24 And that in itself is cool. That's a great thing for crypto. All right. CNN has issued some NFTs last week, not apparently. Fun fact. Yeah, we don't have to go into it because they were a bunch of BS. But they're also a new NFT game. All right.

Starting point is 00:37:37 You can't not be an NFT game, I guess. Even if you're Jay-Z, this is crazy, dude. This is Defi Dad tweet. Never thought I'd see Jay-Z with a Cryptopunk in his profile. So Jay-Z bought a Cryptopunk and turned his profile into a punk. Is that right? We don't know the first part, but we don't know if he actually bought the Cryptopunk. But yes, his avatar is a Crypto-Punk.

Starting point is 00:37:59 It would be weird. It would be a transgression if you didn't own the Cryptopunk. That is your Twitter avatar. Yeah. That's a hot Cryptopunk, too. Yeah, simple features, looks like Jay-Z. You know, black eye, funny hair, gold necklace, like, looks like Jay-Z. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:38:17 That's the right crypto pun for him. So we don't know if Jay-Z bought that or, like, somebody on his team bought that, but somebody knows what they're doing with respect to, like, NFT culture and crypto-culture to do that. And I guess was that because he's minting an NFT? So he minted this NFT and maybe you could talk about it. But he also looks like has hov.e. as an EMS address, hove.eath. He's got 99 problems, but minting ain't one.

Starting point is 00:38:44 I love that, man. What's going on here? Yeah, so he minted an NFT contract. And if you are paying attention to the ceremonious event of minting a token, people like to put in ASIC art into their token contract, just because it's free space, why not? And so they put in this big ASIC-Art, JZ, into the token contract that they minted for whatever this NFT that Jay-Z is issuing.

Starting point is 00:39:07 I don't think that Jay-Z is knowledgeable about Cryptopunks or ASIC art in token minting contracts himself. I think that he hired a very well-informed, just like assistant or somebody to help guide or advisor, and that advisor is doing a great job. So, Jay-Z, nice pick on your advisor, bro. It looks like somebody from the Ethereum community got him Hove.e. It too, which is really cool. All right, so this is the actual auction. So he's releasing this NFT on Sotheby's.

Starting point is 00:39:36 So again, mainstream, like artists, rapper, cultural figure meets mainstream, art distributor, meets crypto NFTs, another pretty big event. I don't know, man. It doesn't seem like NFTs are dead to me. It seems like stuff is still happening. No, I think NFTs are just becoming more precise. That's what's going on. Is a lot, the sheer number of NFTs being issued is definitely going down. But like the NFTs are left behind or going up, up, up in value, right? Yeah, it's super cool. rumor is Katie Perry Kennedy Perry NFD next I mean I'm going to

Starting point is 00:40:10 all the artists getting into this all right it's crazy California girls here we go Bitcoin stuff Bitcoin minor migration

Starting point is 00:40:17 man that's been a big story so like what's happening bottom line is all the Bitcoin miners are leaving China right now due to oppressive

Starting point is 00:40:25 China state regulation essentially as they're doing that hash rate going down down down down down down of course this adjusts

Starting point is 00:40:33 algorithmically every couple of weeks or so. The hash rate does not. The Bitcoin or the difficulty adjustment adjust to accommodate changes in hash rate. Right. So what's happening here? Are we just seeing the results of the migration going on in hash rate and difficulty adjustment? People turning off their ASIC units to put them in boxes and ship them elsewhere anywhere anywhere else. I think there's a lot of, that's a really important thing to find out. Each different farm. Texas. Yeah. People are really optimistic. that it's coming to America.

Starting point is 00:41:07 People and Bitcoiners are really trying to stamp their feet saying like, hey, like, America is the right place to set up your Bitcoin shop. It's good for just the PR of Bitcoin if more hash rate is onshore in America where Bitcoin is largely going to become regulated. So favorable regulations if hash rate moves onshore, people like that. But also the other conversation is that China's really dirty, really dirty energy, lots of coal. And so anywhere, moving anywhere else out of China is positive towards like

Starting point is 00:41:35 the whole green energy narrative that Bitcoin desperately needs. David, I'm going to skip ahead this one, but this is Bitcoin mining firm. Tara Wolf orders new machines. So $100 million in Bitcoin A6, it seems like they just ordered. Actually, I don't know if this is exclusively. Yeah, it seems like it's exclusively Bitcoin A6.

Starting point is 00:41:57 What is going on here? So companies are still investing quite heavily in Bitcoin A6, $100 million here. How does this link to the Bitcoin minor migration story? And what do you think the lens on this is? Yeah. And this actually isn't the only story of its kind this week. There's actually been a number of stories going around about just mining firms just

Starting point is 00:42:15 allocated like raising a bunch of money to purchase new ASICs. This is something that as a Bitcoin miner you have to do. You have to always be cycling through ASICs. But like this very high, this is the highest number that I saw, 100 million going to purchase A6. What the strategy for Bitcoin mining, and this isn't true for, this is just true for Bitcoin mining across the board is that you buy like a hundred. million dollars with a Bitcoin Asix and then you are going to mine Bitcoin at a discount for the next

Starting point is 00:42:40 like three to five years. So that hundred million dollars of ASICs turns into somewhere between 200 to 500 million dollars worth of Bitcoin over the next three to five years. You get this kind of fixed costs that you have to amortize, right? Exactly. The point that I would like to make is that this hundred million dollars going to purchase ASICs, all of that hundred million dollars and all of those A-6 are going to be deprecated probably by the end of five years. And five years is already kind of long. Like it's three years- Deprecated, you can no longer mind using them.

Starting point is 00:43:11 No longer profitably mine. They're dead. And then they can't, like, that's the other problem with A-6 is they can't be repurposed. And so, like, to some degree, like, that's nice for security, as in, like, there's nothing else for A-6 for the Schof-256 mining algorithm computers to do other than mine Bitcoin. And so when you purchase an ASIC, the only thing it can do is mine Bitcoin. As soon as it's dead, like, you can't. repurpose it. You can't plug it into a different system. There's only Bitcoin. And so three to five

Starting point is 00:43:38 years, there's $100 million of ASIC waste that happens because these things are just literally trash. And to me, this is why people say that proof of work is just proof of stake with extra steps. If you are purchasing $100 million worth of ASICs, you are locked into mining Bitcoin. That's the only thing you can do with your $100 million investment. You are locked into these ASICs. you are locked into the value of Bitcoin, the value of the Bitcoin blockchain and the value of BTC, and then you get discounted Bitcoins over time for the next three to five years. But it's not even efficient proof of stake because you have to keep on spending capital to buy more A6, and the A6s keep on getting burnt and wasted.

Starting point is 00:44:22 And so, like, this is just, I wanted to bring this up, just because this is good anecdotes and good lessons for why proof of stake is what it is. It's the same, there's the same similar properties to proof of work. It's just cuts to the chase, which is that proof of work is just proof of stake with extra steps involved and a lot of waste. Stake is just tokenized A6. We've said that before. I think it's true here.

Starting point is 00:44:46 Two other points I want to make on that, David, is one. We don't often talk, we talk about the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining, but we don't talk about the hardware energy consumption of Bitcoin mining. All of those machines need to be thrown away. And there's a whole energy ESG debate. here that they're totally trash after a few years. But I will say on the flip side, Bitcoiners will say that's actually an advantage, David, because what it does is it recycles some of the capital, right? So like it distributes capital in a way. Like they'll, they'll say

Starting point is 00:45:15 that staking A6, if you want to call them that, they don't deprecate. They don't deprecate. They never inflate. So that establishes a ruling oligarchy plutocracy in the network that that Bitcoin doesn't have. I think we've had Justin Drake on that, kind of debate that. And what's interesting about that debate is like the actual amount of Bitcoin that gets distributed at this point in time from that is like super small, like relatively small compared to the cost to the system to do that distribution. And then the other thing is, I guess, like, who's it getting distributed to? Right. It's definitely not getting distributed to the mom and pops because they can't, they get afford $100 million to run A6 in a data center.

Starting point is 00:45:57 no one's mining out of their homes. So, you know, there is a counterpoint that Bitcoiners would say about this, about it being a good thing. I don't know. I have my counterpoints to those counterpoints. I don't know if we want to keep on going. Lay them on me real quick. Okay. So the whole proof of stake rich get richer thing is like, you know, it's good that A6 deprecate because then if you are a mining operation, you keep on having to expend capital to keep up. interesting take that doesn't mean that like proof of stake is the complete opposite where like the rich only get richer if you are staking and you are a hundred million dollar fund or you're an individual with just like three ether you are receiving the same rate of return same rate of

Starting point is 00:46:40 return and so like yes no economies of scale the the stakers are getting richer as a proportion of the overall e supply versus non-stakers but if you want to participate in consensus the whole reason why proof of stake is so cool is I can do it for my laptop, I can do it for my home, and I have the access to the same rate of return as a gargantuan hedge fund. And so to some degree, like, it's not a distribution problem if everyone can access this stake, right? If everyone can access the upside. And that's a really important point to point to drive home. The other thing that Bitcoiners often talk about is how, like, you know, Bitcoin is going to be green because it's going to incentivize energy production.

Starting point is 00:47:16 And Bitcoiners and Bitcoin mining operations are actually going to be the source of energy. because they are going to be paired with an energy generation facility and Bitcoin miners are actually going to get their energy for free. This is a thought, a theory as to the future of Bitcoin miners, this is articulated by Bitcoiners. The problem with that is that once Bitcoin miners get their energy for free, then it's the same critique that they were just critiquing proof of stake about where the rich get richer because these miners have zero capital cost

Starting point is 00:47:43 because they're getting free energy. And so there's friction, there's tension between these two narratives articulated by Bitcoiners that you can only pick one. All right. Interesting, right? There's definitely both sides to this argument. And it's interesting to see that play out. But wow, a lot of money on Bitcoin mining still happening.

Starting point is 00:48:02 Well, we're on Bitcoin, David, let's talk about Kathy Woods, Ark Invest. They are planning to create a Bitcoin ETF called ArcB. Now, whether they'll be successful, who knows? No one's been successful previously. But this is really interesting. They had been buying Grayscale in bulk, and they're still doing that. they're buying both grayscale GPDC and the ETHE version of gray scale. This is kind of a departure to kind of cut out the gray scale middleman and apply for an

Starting point is 00:48:29 ETF directly. Whether they'll be successful or not, who knows, only the SEC knows. Only Gary Gensler and crew are in control of that. But it is an interesting move at any rate. It definitely shows bullishness on Bitcoin and crypto writ large. The pile of proposed Bitcoin ETFs just continues to grow. I really feel sorry for the SEC. because they are really...

Starting point is 00:48:51 Do you? It's easy, man. I have a way out for the SEC. Just to prove them. All of them. And then if you don't approve all of them, how do you select which ones to not approve? It's definitely not credibly neutral.

Starting point is 00:49:05 Right. It's not a credibly neutral choice. And they've really backed themselves into a corner on this one. But, you know, Kathy Wood, love what you're doing. I really hope that you get your Bitcoin ETF. And I hope you come on bankless.

Starting point is 00:49:17 Yep, that one too. That's been coming soon, hopefully. All right, let's talk about this. Conclude Bitcoin News. Adults in El Salvador are getting $30 in Bitcoin as El Salvador is unveiling details to make crypto a legal tender. We talked about this a couple of episodes ago. It's big news, right?

Starting point is 00:49:35 Making Bitcoin legal tender and El Salvador is big. There's always this question of, okay, how are the people going to benefit from this? This is kind of cool, David. It looks like the El Salvadoran government is going to give individual citizens up to $30 in order to promote adoption. They have to buy that Bitcoin from somewhere. They can't just mint it. They can't produce it.

Starting point is 00:49:55 This is not a fiat currency, right? They have to buy it in order to get it or mine it. Maybe some volcano mining. I don't know. But it's kind of a cool story. And I think it's great for the Bitcoin community and great for Bitcoin adoption. And if you are an El Salvadorian citizen and you are skeptical about El Salvador's usage of Bitcoin, perhaps this move.

Starting point is 00:50:15 Free money helps. It's literally the purpose of AirDrops, right? And also, if you want to generate a Bitcoin native economy inside of El Salvador, you need Bitcoin to be in the hands of people. Like, imagine if you're just like, if your family in El Salvador is talking to his other family in El Salvador, and they're like, oh, Bitcoin is legal tender now. Do you guys have any? No, no, we don't have any Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:50:34 Oh, well, now you do. Everyone just got $30 in Bitcoin. So now you can actually start that Bitcoin native economy inside of El Salvador. I think this is a really good move that really indicates that the president of El Salvador naive, his heart's in the right place. His heart and mind's in the right place. So good move. Good move.

Starting point is 00:50:50 I saw naive, you shaking hands are standing next to Peter McCormick, a podcaster. What a crazy world we live in, David. Like media podcaster shaking hands with the president of the nation to talk about Bitcoin. Kind of wild stuff. Anyway, we'll be following that as it progresses in the future. Let's talk about Binance and UK regulation. This is our regulatory section. The UK is cracking down on Binance, ordering the exchange to see.

Starting point is 00:51:17 cease operations in the UK. I'm not sure how much they're able to actually restrict Binance's operation, but it seems like they're trying to. And he takes here. Yeah, the longer that Binance continues to exist, the more and more it's going to just come under the purview of nation states. It's a meat space company that's operating under meat space laws. The meat space is going to come after finance at some point in time, and it's going to have to bend the knee to nation states. That is my take. Yep. I think it's happy to bend the knee too. All right, let's talk about the Fed now.

Starting point is 00:51:48 So this is a vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, Randy Quarles, and he authored a paper called Parachute Pants, an article that is, and central bank money, which basically he argues, the TLDR is our existing banking system is fine. Our payment system works well. It's getting even better all of the time. And we don't really need a CDBC stable coin at all or a CDBC strategy to compete with China. He said this, and then he also said, which I find very interesting, but yes, we should be saying yes to stable coins, to private stable coins.

Starting point is 00:52:23 So his take is no CBDDC, we don't need to create a centralized China style CBDC, but yes, stable coins are fine, like private stable coins acting as sort of a proxy CBDC, that's okay. So it just shows, David, that there continues to be some division, I think, within the U.S. government and the Fed on what its strategy is, unlike China. it, which seems like, no, we're full steam ahead. We're doing the CBDC thing. We're going to digitize everything. The Fed is kind of waffling on, should we do one? Or should we not? We're not really short. And it keeps going back and forth, it seems like. Yeah, on the last weekly roll up with Anthony Sazano, we had a topic about how the Fed is continuing to research and look into

Starting point is 00:53:02 central bank digital currency. I'm like, oh, great, more research, more talk. This is interesting that a Fed vice chair is saying, hey, let's let the private market produce the products. I'm aligned with this, actually. That makes more sense to me. I mean, do fix your banking system is not what you said it was. If that was an actual quote, let's be real here. And also, stable coins are the solution to that. But I also agree with you.

Starting point is 00:53:27 We do not need a central bank digital currency for the U.S. dollar. All right. Let's talk crypto banks really quick. So FTX, which is a crypto exchange, crypto bank, as we call them, has just recruited Tom Brady and Giselle, Tom Brady's wife to be the spokesperson for FTX. FTCS. I don't know, give them some equity, some investing as well, some money in exchange for this. Really interesting how crypto banks are starting to saturate into mainstream. We talked about this from a regulatory perspective,

Starting point is 00:53:55 but now like mainstream influencers. Not on the DFI bandwagon, but like on the crypto bank bandwagon, I don't love this. I don't hate this. What's your take? Yeah. My question is, do you think Sam Bankman Freed is really all that much of a sports fan? Oh my God. I don't think he is. I don't think he is. Answer that question is no.

Starting point is 00:54:18 But is he a savvy business person? Is he a new level banker using all the tools at his disposal to make more money and make FDX bigger? Yes. Yes, that's exactly what's going on. Well, I don't know how this ends. I guess it's okay for crypto. I don't know long term if it's good for decentralization.

Starting point is 00:54:37 I feel like there's some final bosses out there, but there is a mini boss where DeFi might have to fight the crypto banks at some point in time. I've always thought that. We'll see how it goes. I like FDX, SBF has me blocked on Twitter, but if I could tweet at you, I'd be like, hey, come on bankless. Let's talk about what your plans are. Let's talk about it. All right, let's do some drive-bys, David.

Starting point is 00:54:59 ICP, that's not insane con posse. What is ICP? What are they doing? ICP is the internet computer. Is that what that means? I think that's what that means. It's the token for DFINITY. And DFINITY has been largely critiqued by its large, high production launch and

Starting point is 00:55:17 high media, just overall, just like a ton of marketing, ton of PR, ton of production. Take it forever to take it to get their product out the door. People who pay attention to DFINITY say that their code is really interesting. But I think that they have just taken all of the opportunity that they could have had to be a legitimate product and they crumbled it up in a piece of paper and they threw it in the trash. because the team dumped so much of the tokens into the free market that it just tanked the price. And so the DFINITY team walked away with, I think, something like, can you go back to the first screenshot, Ryan? Something with 300, they dumped 20 million ICP tokens, DFINITY tokens.

Starting point is 00:55:59 The average price of $300 walked away with $6 billion in the first two weeks of trading. So they said, hey, all you people that are bullish DFINITY, that's great. we're going to dump on you. And there's no way, there's no faster way to just ruin your legitimacy as a project than to dump on the people that are willing to buy into your project on day one.

Starting point is 00:56:18 Like, big mistake, big mistake. It's it. Yeah, we'll see how good. Well, I mean, how do I say it's a mistake? They made $6 billion. But also, you ruined your legitimacy. Yeah, it depends what their intent was. And legitimacy, I think, as a currency, as a money in particular.

Starting point is 00:56:35 It's gone. Yeah, that definitely feels gone. Or at least it would take a lot. for that to come back. Let's talk about Visa. Visa makes five strategic crypto hires and placements. Dude, Visa is doubling down in crypto. We're going to have the guy behind this Q Sheffield on bankless to talk about what Visa is doing. Hopefully at some point in the future, they just have to get that cleared by legal. But I want to hear what Visa is doing, man, because it seems like they've got a crypto strategy and they're gearing up. David, this last thing. USDC Stablecoin is now expanding to multiple

Starting point is 00:57:04 blockchains could soon be on 10 networks. So this is not just a theory. but it's Tron. It's, I don't know, wherever else can support. L2s, I'm sure. Salana, I'm sure. Any thoughts on this expansion? It's just inevitable? Nope.

Starting point is 00:57:21 The U.S. dollar owes no allegiance to any blockchain, but I expect the majority of the U.S. E.C. to stay on Ethereum. All right. Guys, we are going to be back with some hot takes, but before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. Bankless is proud to be supported by Uniswap.

Starting point is 00:57:37 Uniswap is a new. paradigm in asset exchange infrastructure. Instead of a cumbersome order book system where trades are matched with other humans, Uniswap is an autonomous piece of software on Ethereum, which is what Ryan and I call a money robot. No human counterparties or centralized intermediaries, just autonomous code on Ethereum. Input the token you want to sell and receive the token you want to buy. Something brand new in the Uniswop ecosystem is the Uniswap Grants program is now accepting applications for grants. We have been saying this for a while and we'll say it again. Dows have money and they are in need of labor. If you think that you have something to contribute to the Uniswap Dow, apply for a grant to Uniswap. Just look at the size of the

Starting point is 00:58:20 Uniswap treasury. It's almost $3 billion. This mountain of capital is looking for labor. Do you have something of value to contribute to the Uniswap Dow? No matter how big or small your idea is, you can apply for a uni grant at Unigrants.org and help steer Uniswap in the direction that you think it should go. That's exactly what we did to get Unoswap to be a sponsor for Bankless and you can do the same for your project. Thank you Uniswap for sponsoring bankless. Gemini is the world's most trusted cryptocurrency exchange. I've been a customer of Gemini since I first got into crypto in 2017 and it's been my main exchange of choice to make my crypto buys and sells. Gemini is available in all 50 states and in over 50 countries worldwide and on Gemini there are markets for over 30 various

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Starting point is 00:59:43 So whenever I buy something, I get a little bit of ETH bonus back to me at the same time. You can open up a free account in under three minutes at Gemini.com slash go bankless. And if you trade more than $100 within the first 30 days after sign up, you'll be gifted a free $15 Bitcoin bonus. Check them out at Gemini.com slash go bankless. All right, guys, we are back with the takes of the week. Then we're going to get to memes. So stick with us.

Starting point is 01:00:08 The first is from Gajesh.eath.com in the 90s. Dot eith in the 20s, the 2020s that is kind of a cool take. This is like the new internet. That's what this is saying. Dot com to dot eth. Any thoughts here? Yeah. I'm also not paying attention to this, but the world of like dot-eith addresses,

Starting point is 01:00:29 like I got David Hoffman. Dot Eith, you got RSA.Eath. Like there's a world of speculation to be had in there. And I don't know why that's not a bigger world. Like, you got to claim the EN Esto names if you think that this is true. I'd pay a few hundred dollars for David Hoffman.eath, like even now. Dude, I offered the guy that owned David.Eath, five, eth for David. But he wouldn't, he, the lowest bid was 13Eath.

Starting point is 01:00:53 And I was like, oh, no, I like ETH too much. Ooh, that's a lot. You know, funny story, we can't get bankless. Dot Eith either. Somebody's got that. Actually, you know, we did get bankless. Yeah, we have it. We do have it.

Starting point is 01:01:06 You bought it. Sorry. You bought it. I was going to say, it's like you told me you got it. Yeah, no, we spent, I think like $3,000 on that. Yeah, we spent some money to claim that. That was a good move. Sorry, I was thinking of bankless dow.eat that we can't do.

Starting point is 01:01:20 Yeah, someone squatting on that one. Oh my God. I don't even know the E&S names we own. We have bankless. We have bankless. Dot Eith, guys. Never fear. You know what?

Starting point is 01:01:28 Jegesh is also, he's like a 13-year-old kid. Do you know this, David? So he listened to bankless. He's DM me before. He's a blockchain developer. He's a kid. He's got almost 20,000 followers. And the meme for his header, like this guy is deep in crypto culture.

Starting point is 01:01:44 The godfather? Yeah. I wonder. He's with it, man. How many people do you think, like, listen to the show who are like 18 or like under 18? I don't know. Maybe the Instadap brothers who made Insidap. They were both under 18.

Starting point is 01:01:59 When they started working on Instadap, I think the youngest one was like 15 when he started working on Insidap. And then they raised some couple million dollars. a few years later before one of them hit 18. It was crazy. This is awesome, man. This is millennials handing the torch over to Zoomers. We kind of started this thing, but like you guys are going to take to the finish line. So it's awesome to see. All right, let's do those take. So this is, I think it starts with Gutenberg. Why don't you read this out, David? Yeah, this is a tweet from Greed Eisenberg. He says,

Starting point is 01:02:26 the Gutenberg launched the printing press when 96% of the people in Europe were illiterate. That's how it feels to be building in Web3 slash crypto today. It's just early. And there's an interesting, like, you know, a thought experiment to be had where, like, imagine you're inventing the Gutenberg machine and somebody, some investor comes up to you and goes, why would you invent the printing press when only 4% of the population can read? Like, that doesn't make any sense. No one's going to want your product. Bad UX.

Starting point is 01:02:52 Bad UX. Turns out it was a printing press that taught people to read and then became the most influential piece of technology of, like, the next 500 years. So Anthony Sizzano quote retweets this tweet and says, this tweet has been messing with my head since I saw it yesterday. And then friend of the pod, Josh Rosenthal, the guy behind the Crypto Renaissance podcast, goes, Sazel is in the note. It's a great point.

Starting point is 01:03:13 And even more spot on than the original poster of this tweet. Josh says, permissionless communication drove the Renaissance combined with ledger-based fintech in the 1400s, unraveling hierarchies and empowering communities, links to YouTube video. I'm pretty sure that's our podcast. And that's why that podcast was so good. And if you haven't listened to the Crypto Renaissance podcast, you got to. to go listen to it. Links to a specific part in this podcast.

Starting point is 01:03:39 That's great, dude. I love this tweak. I think it's, I think it is spot on how many people are learning finance through crypto today. Right. Me. This is how I'm learning finance. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 01:03:49 All right. Let's talk about this. Coinbase, this is Brian Armstrong. Again, he says, we plan to list every crypto asset. We're legally viable. This is a departure, I think. But I'm glad they are at least broadcasting this.

Starting point is 01:04:02 because there was a time in place where Coinbase was seen as sort of a gatekeeper for retail. Like they would help you avoid bad investments, like terrible assets. And I think now they're saying like, we're making no statement as to whether these assets are good buys or bad buys or complete scams or not scams. If it's legally viable, we're just going to list it. It does feel like that is the lowest common denominator for exchanges. Like if Binance is listing it, how can Coinbase not listing it? So I understand this approach. And like I guess I appreciate the clarity there.

Starting point is 01:04:35 It's like just because it's on Coinbase doesn't mean you should buy it, guys. Totally. They used to have the Coinbase like asset framework to really gauge the quality of an asset. And they would score on different like different scores. And that was kind of like a cover your own strategy that they were doing. And I think actually that might have backfired because if you start talking about the different natures of the different properties of the asset, it's centralized, who hones the supply, blah, blah, blah, blah. well, then you actually start to get into a realm that you maybe didn't want to get into the first place,

Starting point is 01:05:04 which is delving too deep as to the nature of the assets. And so instead of having that like five part like point level system that there was the original framework, they are just doing a binary one or zero. Like is it legally viable? Is it legal? Or is it not, right? And to some degree that like, you know, removes responsibility for even commenting on the quality of the token. So as a profit maximalist and a business maximumist perspective, it makes it makes sense. It makes sense. Yeah, it's kind of fun is Uniswap doesn't even check for that. It's even more credibly neutral. It doesn't even rely on the legal system. Is it an ERC 20 asset or not? That's the only level of gatekeeping or permission you need for Uniswap, which is a beautiful thing. All right.

Starting point is 01:05:44 Let's look at this Vitalik quote, David. This is really cool. And it's a Vitalik quote from a long time ago, actually. But it's held up, like a lot of things Vitalik has talked about are done over the years. Whereas most technologies, Vitalik says, to automate workers on the periphery doing menial tasks, what blockchains do is automate away the center. So instead of putting the taxi driver out of a job, blockchain puts Uber out of a job and lets the taxi driver work with the customer directly. I think that's a super powerful quote,

Starting point is 01:06:18 because what he's talking about is like a new architecture for the economy. We just had this conversation with some folks about the creator economy, our panel that we just had yesterday, David, and we talked about this being a more friendly era and economy for individual creators. I think that's what Vitalik is talking about, that blockchain is actually creating a mechanism for creators to interact directly with the market without having to go through a big web 2.0 middleman or an Uber, for instance. That is kind of the end state goal of this. and super cool if we can make that happen. Yeah, this reminds me of another Vitella quote where he says, like, the cool thing about

Starting point is 01:07:02 Ethereum is it doesn't put the taxi cab driver out of a job. It puts the CEO of Uber out of a drop or it puts the middle management or the bureaucracy out of a job. And bureaucracy, by almost definition, doesn't add value. It's just an efficiency. And, and yeah, it's just like it's not the value creators. The value creators are the Uber drivers or the content producers or whatever. and this is actually the original version of DAOs.

Starting point is 01:07:27 DAUs these days are really kind of just nicknames for digital organizations where people just exist in a Discord and have a plan and a goal. The original vision of DAWS was code at the center and humans at the periphery where Uber drivers would come interact with like the Uber app, the UberDAO, the Uber D app, and the UberD app would autonomously ascribe them like tasks and then they would the Uber humans would do the tasks and then the UberDAO would award money to them. Code at the center, humans at the periphery. That was the OG version of DOWs, and that's still yet being built out, like stuff like Airbnb and Uber and the sharing economy stuff,

Starting point is 01:08:02 really hard to do. But that's the vision that Vitalik is articulating here. And I still think that's the vision for Ethereum. It's just like probably the hardest thing to tackle. And Jesse, our friend Jesse Walden would say this is the ownership economy. So it's not just the Uber driver earning money. The Uber driver is actually earning ownership, which means equity in the platform. And so upside, right, which is super cool. and a way to flip capital markets on its head. Let's talk about this. So, Kupitruba, another participant in the Dow panel we just had.

Starting point is 01:08:31 So, guys, check that out if you haven't yet. I think that's on YouTube right now. We're probably putting it in the podcast, too. Oh, it's out on the podcast. It's out on the podcast. Wrote a great piece on the Dow landscape, David. What are some of the highlights from this article for you? Yeah, Cooper is a great writer.

Starting point is 01:08:47 And he's just paying attention to Dow's at large. And so if you are, we keep on talking about Dow's on bankless. and if you're trying to get up to speed with DAOs, definitely check out this article from Cooper. He both like just talks about the current state of specific DAOs as well as more high-level broad, just ideas or thoughts about how DAWS are organized and some good mental models and graphics to go along with it.

Starting point is 01:09:08 All right, David, it's that time of the week. What are you excited about David Hoffman? I got an article coming out on the bankless newsletter next week. And it's been a while since I've written. And it's been a while since I've written to this level of effort. Some of my most recent articles, I've kind of just written it and send it out, but this one I've really been taking my time, really going back in editing. It's all about

Starting point is 01:09:26 the march of defy capital efficiency in the lens of ether the asset, right? So, defy is always in a competition to become more and more and more capital-efficient. Every new successful DeFi protocol is successful because it's a more capital-efficient version of any predecessor. Uniswop v2 is an improvement on the capital efficiency of V1. Uniswap V3 is a capital-efficient improvement on V2. Balancer V2 is a capital-efficient improvement upon Valencia. It's all about capital efficiency. It's all about capital efficiency. Layer on capital efficiency to how ETH is the native asset of Ethereum and receives all of these capital-efficient tailwinds. And that's completely aside from ether as ultrasound money. Ether is ultrasound money specifically at the protocol level.

Starting point is 01:10:14 Ultrasound comes from the Ethereum protocol. D-Fi is doing something completely differently, which is also putting tailwinds behind ether, the asset, which is allowing Ether to become the most capital-efficient asset of all time. That's what I've been writing about. Still in the editing process, really trying to make this as punchy as possible. But I think this article is going to be a good one, and that's what I'm excited about. This is new for you. You seem oddly bullish ETH, which I've never heard from you before, David.

Starting point is 01:10:37 I've come around to Ether later. It sounds like an article from like 2019 or 2020 when you were writing these big thought pieces on how Defy Protocols we're going to kind of consume and eat up ether as an asset. So, man, I'm super excited to read that. Yeah. That's an interesting way to put it. Yeah, it's always been, the game for defy applications has always been to gobble up

Starting point is 01:11:01 ether, right? And the competition for defy apps to become more capitally efficient is just incentives, better and better incentives for people to deposit their into, they're ether into these defy apps. Defy apps want your ether. They're trying to eat it. And so they're trying to convince you to put it in there. And they do that by making a better.

Starting point is 01:11:18 product. It's crazy. Competition. They're competing for your ETH. Yes. We always say competition is good for the consumer. In DeFi, competition is good for ether. Absolutely. Ryan, what are you excited about? I'm excited about DOWs, man. I'm feeling that Dow energy did a conference about DOWs. I need to get caught up with. We had a creator economy panel on DOWs. I'm seeing what's happening the bankless Dow. We had four hours of Dow content on bankless yesterday, by the way. Oh my God. So much content. And I listened to your Meet the Nation with Coordinate, which was awesome. They talked about at the end about like kind of Dow theory. And I'm just appreciating this, this Dow energy and seems so simple, right? What are Dow's? They're programmable LLCs.

Starting point is 01:11:59 But this is so fundamentally important, like programmable capital coordination tools. You got multi-sigs, which are like the programmable treasuries. You've got tokens, which are like programmable cap tables. You've got this all built on top of Ethereum as a programmable banking system. It's global. It's internet native. It's completely open. Cooper Trooper said this too lately where he said basically NFT, DOWs are where NFTs were a year ago. And I feel the same way about DOWs as I felt a year ago about NFTs, which is like, I knew they were this really exciting, really awesome primitive that we're so early in using. And I know that DOWs are going to be absolutely massive. Jesse Walden said, we're going to have a Dow sometime in the next couple of decades that is bigger and more important.

Starting point is 01:12:48 and more complicated and interesting than social media tech, like Facebook. Wow, like bigger than the biggest companies in the world. I like, I plus won that. I agree with that. But here's the interesting part, David, is like, I know they're going to be absolutely huge as a primitive, but I'm not sure exactly how. Like, I expect to be surprised, just like NFTs. Last year at this time, we started doing some NFT episodes before they just blew up and became

Starting point is 01:13:13 absolutely massive. And that's what's so cool about crypto is. You know this stuff is going to be big, but it's so emergent. You don't know when or exactly how. You just know that this is going to be massively impactful. So maybe something in gaming? I don't know. Which communities haven't gotten a hold of these Dow primitives and technology before?

Starting point is 01:13:37 We'll have to see how it plans out. I mean, World of Warcraft Guilds feel like the original DAWS, right? Like people coming together from all over the internet, fighting over scarce resources, sounds like a Dow, right? So we've seen this energy before. I think when Kupa says Dow's are just a year behind NFTs, I think I'll add that like it really feels like Dow tooling

Starting point is 01:13:59 is really the subject matter that really needs to, that we are currently building right now, is Dow tooling is kind of where NFT tooling was a year ago or so. And this is why the people that coordinate are doing fantastic work. Dow's need tools. Dows need help. You can't just put people in a Discord and mint a token.

Starting point is 01:14:16 you need tools to help facilitate how to Dow. And so I think we are about to embark upon the golden age of Dow tooling. And once that gets finished up and once we figure out what are the tools that Dow's really need to Dow, then a thousand Dow's will flourish. Yeah. And guys, if you're listening to Bankless, you're looking for some alpha, right? I think that this is alpha. Remember when we were talking to the founders of Nifty Gateway?

Starting point is 01:14:44 And they're like, we always believed NFTs would be huge. Right. We're saying this in 2018. We're saying it 2019. We're saying it in 2020. And now suddenly early 20, 21, the whole world understands it. But like, we've been building and saying this the entire time. This is what Dow's feel like to me.

Starting point is 01:15:01 So if you're looking for opportunities in the space to plug in to work for, like maybe work for a Dow, earn some income, maybe invest in some of this underlying infrastructure or some of the Dow's themselves, now is the time. You're still front running that opportunity, but it's going to be big. I think it's going to blow up in a big way. So maybe some alpha there. We'll have to see. If Jesse Walden thinks that there's going to be a doubt that becomes bigger than Facebook

Starting point is 01:15:25 over the next 10 years. Like if you can find that, like nine years before. If you can find that one, if you can find it, like that's, that's, you can retire. And here's the thing. Okay. So Facebook was not open to investor, like to Main Street investors. It wasn't open to the world. Just a small set of people who are credited investors in the U.S.

Starting point is 01:15:47 could invest in Facebook and realize those early gains. Like Facebook didn't IPO until like, I don't know, 2008, 2009, something like that. Right. With Dow's, you have immediate access to buy into a Dow and earn some equity from day one. Massive opportunity. Yep. All right. Don't miss it.

Starting point is 01:16:07 Don't miss it. Let's drop something cool really quick. And then we'll talk to me in the week. David, what are we looking at here? We're looking at a map, a map of the bankless nation. We're actually not looking at anything. You're going to have to show it, Ryan. Oh, sorry.

Starting point is 01:16:23 There we go. Are we looking at it now? So this is a cool map made by a member of the bankless Dow Perci. Shout out Perchie. And there's a link for this in the show notes if you want to go and look at it yourself. But it's just one of those maps that has something in every single corner. But it's overall the bankless nation, right? We got Bankless Dow in the top left connected to Bankless LLC.

Starting point is 01:16:46 I think we are a radio tower, Ryan. That's kind of cool. We got the charts for the mountain range. We have hard cap hills for Bitcoin. We got the cold storage deep in the mountain range. Got the yield farms. Got centralization harbor. There's just a bunch of cool little Easter eggs all over this map.

Starting point is 01:17:02 And so it was really just creative work out of the Bankless Dow, out of Purchy. And I really enjoy just going around and seeing what's in here. Yeah, it's really cool. Definitely. It has kind of like a Lord of the Rings type feel, medieval type feel to it too. I think this is the Citadel, the Bitcoin Citadel, that looks a little familiar. Maybe Soron's Tower. I'm not sure.

Starting point is 01:17:21 It's quite the great eye. We don't have to say the quiet part out of that. You think that's coincidental? Okay. Anyway, it's a super cool drawing, so make sure you check that out. All right, David, meme of the week. Explain this. What are we looking at?

Starting point is 01:17:32 This is the classic Anakin and Padmei meme. And so Anakin has got laser eyes on in the first panel, and he goes, laser eyes until $100,000, $100,000 Bitcoin. And then Padmei says, you're going to take them off if there's a bear market, right? And then the next panel is Anakin still with laser eyes just now with a McDonald's cap on his head. So no, you're not taking it off even though it's a bear market. And really, this is just a meme about conviction. It's like, I'm going to go to McDonald's and work for McDonald's before I lose my conviction in Bitcoin.

Starting point is 01:18:03 So that was a pretty fun meme. The McDonald's crypto memes just won't stop. They'll always be here with us when the bear market's on. Good stuff. All right. I think that is it, Bankless Nation. Thank you for joining us for another recap. As always, none of this was financial advice. Crypto is risky. ETH is risky. So is Define Bitcoin. You could lose what you put in. But this is the frontier. We are headed west. Thanks for joining us on bankless.

Bankless - ROLLUP: Jay-Z NFTs, Axie Infinity, China's Bitcoin Miners, Coinbase USDC, (5th Week of June)

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