Bankless - ROLLUP: Record ETF Flows, Up or Down? | Trump's New Crypto Policy | California Going Onchain?

Starting point is 00:00:03 Bankless Nation, happy Friday. It's the first week of August. And here we cover all the weekly news in crypto, which is always an ambitious endeavor. And to help me in that endeavor, we got Anthony Sizzano stepping in for Ryan Sean Adams as he takes a well-deserved break. How's it going, Anthony? I'm good. I'm good. Thanks having me back once again. I've lost count of how many of these I've done with you at this point. Honestly, you might as well be an enshrined host of the Bankless podcast, at least on the Friday weekly roll-ups. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Oh, thank you for that. That makes me feel special. Well, we appreciate you coming on and everyone enjoys it.

Starting point is 00:00:37 All right. So let's go into the news. We'll recap the news real quick. Trump showed up at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville and said a lot of words about crypto that people enjoyed. What did he say that got the biggest cheer? Meanwhile, the entire industry is still waiting for Kamala to say crypto for the first time. The ETH ETF flows keep on coming.

Starting point is 00:00:55 Heath had its first day of net inflows. The same day that Bitcoin had its first day in a while of net outflows, coincidence or noise, or noise, eclipse layer two on Ethereum that runs the Salonah Virtual Machine, just hit main net and opened up the doors for debts. And also, California is moving its car titles on chain. Usually I wouldn't get excited about this, but I think it's actually worth unpacking. So we're getting to get into all of this news. Before we get into all of that news and more, a message from my friends and sponsors over

Starting point is 00:01:21 at ZeroX and their flagship product, Macha, who has just built a new pricing engine. As Ethereum has grown pricing and finding the right order and finding the right way to make the most optimized. order has gone hairy, but their brand new pricing engine has contained all the chaos of Ethereum's liquidity and put it all into one easy to use pricing engine, which you can access. There's a link in the show notes to get serious about your trade, whether you're trading $1,000 or multi-millions of dollars. Congrats to you, if you are.

Starting point is 00:01:48 There's a link in the show notes to make sure that you get the best price for your trade. We're going to talk about some prices, some prices. Thank you to the cracking charts for showing us the Bitcoin price. Bitcoin hitting a little bit of a low in the last like 10 days, two weeks of time. $64,690 is where we are at right now, up about half a percent on the week, which I would call flat. And that is similarly true for Ethereum, starting the week at 3,170, ending the week at 3,190, up about half a percent on the week. So overall, flat times in the market. But of course, all the real news are the Bitcoin flows, the Bitcoin ETF flows and the Ether ETF flows.

Starting point is 00:02:29 just to compare Bitcoin to Ethereum, Bitcoin has taken in 16 billion since launch. And it's actually lost $1.4 billion in TVL and AUM, as they call it, in TradFal land over the last week. And also something that actually happened new in the world of the Bitcoin ETFs this week is that GBTC launch, which is the Grayscale Minitrust for Bitcoin. So it's actually been a long time coming. It's interesting that the Ethereum ETFs got their gray scale mini-trust before the Bitcoin ETF trust. But this is why the gray-scale GPTC ETF on the New York Stock Exchange is actually down 10%, because 10% of that AUM went into the mini-trust, where you get much lower fees than the gray-scale bigger Bitcoin ETF.

Starting point is 00:03:18 Anthony, I know you're excited about this. The ETFs have been trading for six days now, six days? six days now, yeah. And while we are losing AUM because of the outflows out of the gray scale ETH E trust, we did have our first day yesterday of $33.7 million inflows. That's on the 30th of July. Now that the ETHs are finally here, Anthony, especially the ETH ETFs. Overall, just vibe check sentiment. What are you watching for as you are watching the ether ETF flows? Yeah, I mean, I think I had been saying this for a little while on my own show. the two main things that I'd be watching for were pretty obvious, basically the inflows from the new

Starting point is 00:03:57 ETFs and also the outflows from the existing ETHE product, which was converted into an ETF recently, as you were just talking about, with regards to Grace Guy having their GBT product. Same thing happened with kind of ETHI. And honestly, it's all playing out as expected. You know, everyone expected for there to be these big outflows out of ETH for whatever reason, right? Maybe people wanted to change which ETF they're with because ETH is a 2.5% fee. you can go get a 0.15% fee on the Grayscale Mini Trust. So you can actually just get out of ETHI and go straight to the Grayscale Minitrust and you'll be able to take advantage of that.

Starting point is 00:04:31 But then every other ETF is like 0.2.25% fees. So you're actually like mad if you're paying 2.5% fees in ETHI, especially if you're paying attention. Obviously, Grayscale is banking on a lot of people not paying attention because there's still what, 40% I think of the original AUM in GBTC. Whereas with ETHI, they're still a large chunk as well. But yeah, if you look at this table that you've got in front of you, it basically shows that most, I mean, all the outflows came from EFE. It's been pretty big. It was front loaded. Like in the first week, there was a lot. But it's started to slow down and we've got some big inflows too. I think total inflows is like $1.3 billion or something like that for the whole period. 83 million is our net outflow.

Starting point is 00:05:18 So that's outflows out of gray scale that we have not regained in the other Ethereum ETFs. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, I think that this is all very short-term noise because we know that this is finite selling, finite outflows from ETHE. And we know that with the ETSs, there are passive flow long-term vehicle. And we know that from the BTC ETFs that they've just kept sucking in money over like the

Starting point is 00:05:39 last six months. So we can expect a repeat in the ETH ETFs. So, yeah, that doesn't concern me at all. But I think it's only been a week. You know, there's not enough data to look at, but it's playing out exactly as expected, I think. Yeah, Bitwise still coming in in second place behind BlackRock for AUM. Bitwise got $284 million of AUM. Black Rock Hikes has 623, so not too many days away before BlackRock's going to punch through that $1 billion number.

Starting point is 00:06:07 And Fidelity finally catching up to Bitwise with 279, but still in that third position spot. I do like looking at this chart, which is the comparing the grayscale GBTC outflows when the Bitcoin ETFs launched versus the gray scale ETHE outflows. And you can see that ETHEEE is outflowing at a faster rate than the gray scale ETFs when the Bitcoin ETFs launched. And I feel like there's a number of different possible interpretations, and maybe the truth is a little bit of all of them. A, we've seen the story before.

Starting point is 00:06:40 So, like, we know, hey, like, what happens when the ETFs launch? Like, well, if you're in Grayscale, the answer is to get out of Grayscale. Another answer is just like, well, maybe there's just actually just less interest in holding the ETHE versus Grayscale. Maybe there was more of a trade on ETHE than there was on GBTC. What would you account for the faster outflowing out of ETHE in the Ethereum ETFs versus the Bitcoin ETFs? Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that you're on the money with like people, you know, we already know this story, how it plays out. people are just getting out, you know, faster this time. But we're also in different market conditions where essentially when the BTC ETFs launched,

Starting point is 00:07:21 it was much more bullish period than it is for the ETH ETHs. So that might be influencing things as well. But yeah, it has been interesting to see that the flows are coming out faster here. But it also might be that there are potentially bigger holders of ETHI than there were of GBTC. Maybe the big holders of GBTC had already sold off everything and the ETH ones were still in there. And they were just waiting until it got converted in order to do this. at the same time as well, the mini trust for the ETH product was launched by Grayscale from day one, not like with GBTC and BTC that they've launched now with their mini trust for.

Starting point is 00:07:56 So there's a place to outflow too. Yeah, yeah, more so than the other ETF. So there is another place to outflow to. And as I said, it has got the cheapest fee right now, at 0.15%, which is extremely tempting. Like if you're paying 2.5% in ETHI, and you've got that option, you're not going to stay in ETHI. And some people will bring up that the fact that, you know, long-term capital gains for these holders where they're just waiting until they hit long-term capital gains because maybe they bought when the discount was closing because, sorry, when the

Starting point is 00:08:23 discount was very steep, I think it was like 50% at some point or something like that. And then once it goes into long-term capital gains, they'll rotate out of ETHI into another product. I mean, as you said, like the story seems the same. It seems like ETHI will have some AUM retained, maybe like 40% of the original AUM, but most of it should outflow over time into these other ETS. And the net flows is all that matters. As long as the net flows are positive, I don't think any of the other stuff matters.

Starting point is 00:08:48 And the ETH mini-trust with the 0.15% gray-scale fee, the mini-trust for the Ethereum METFs, has taken in $200 million of inflows, $200 million on the dot, whereas the grace-scale... Plus they had that automatic conversion of about $1 billion of E-P fee into the mini-trust, like they just did with GBTC. Oh, interesting. But that doesn't count in this... I mean, it's at the top, but it doesn't get, there's like the seed capital, but it doesn't count as the inflows because it was an automatic thing. But that also, yeah, I mean, counts, right?

Starting point is 00:09:20 That's one billion dollars that that's not coming out of ETHI. It's in the mini trust now. Because that would have otherwise have totally come out. Okay, just some number for the listeners. At Genesis, when we launched the Ethereum ETF, the Grayscale ETH, the trust, which got converted into the ETF, had $9.2 billion worth of ETH in it. And then $1 billion, $1.02 billion got automatically rolled into the ETH minitrust with a much lower fee. And so that is presumed to what would have been outflows is now just going to stay as the lowest fee on the market, which is the great scale mini trust with 0.15. And then in addition to that, the great scale mini trust has also absorbed $200 million.

Starting point is 00:10:04 So we are now at $1.32 billion of ETH in the Grayscale mini-trust, which we could have only assumed would have been outflows. Nonetheless, Grayscale, the ETHI has still lost basically $2 billion worth of outflows, which has mostly been absorbed by the rest of the market, except for a net loss of about $483 million of ETH since the launch. And I think that just one thing on that, like the fact that maybe there are people that came out of ETHI and they're expecting the price of ETH to drop because of this kind of continued outflow and they don't want to buy back in yet. Maybe they do plan to buy back in, but they're just waiting because maybe they can get a better entry. Like there is definitely an element of that, especially if there was a bunch of people playing this as a way to trade ETH, as a way to kind of stack more ETH here. So I think that that's happening there because there's so much, I don't know, I wouldn't call it FUD, but there's so much attention on this, where people are like, look at all these outflows, you know,

Starting point is 00:11:05 the ETH price is going to go back to the 2000s, then we can buy back in. Obviously, playing that game is risky, but I'm sure there is a chunk of that capital playing that game that will eventually come back in. And that's why I said that the net flows over time, as long as they're positive, that's all that really matters, I think. And I think we saw the same exact dynamic with the Bitcoin ETFs once they launched. Everyone was surprised by both the amount of inflows, but then also the amount of outflows from Grayscale.

Starting point is 00:11:30 and everyone realized, like, the Bitcoin price is not going up until the great scale outflows cease. And that's more or less what happened. I expect that's kind of like the same dynamic that's outplay here. Like, why wouldn't it be? So, like, the fact that we're seeing faster ethy outflows is like, well, that's the thing preventing the ETH price from going up. But it's happening faster. So at least we're getting it out of the way.

Starting point is 00:11:53 So it's kind of like a wash. I don't really have any, like, strong opinions as to whether it's bear or bullish. It's noise. And it's the same as the rest of what some. has been for the price. It's just that summer lull into summer. It's also summer. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's noisy. Like, if you go back and look at the historical summers of crypto, most of them have just been flat because people are outside doing things, except COVID, where we had lockdowns. And that was actually nuts for the price. Where are we at DFI summer instead. Yeah,

Starting point is 00:12:18 exactly. So that's just the classic thing in crypto. And I don't know people get antsy because they're like, oh, look at the stock market going up. It's like, well, the stock market's a different beast. It's not, the stock market isn't viewed as this hyper risky. asset class. Yeah, and people are paid to stay home and pay attention to the stock market. Yeah, yeah. And crypto are general of our vacation policies are a little bit more lenient than skyline. Yeah, for now.

Starting point is 00:12:41 For now, yeah. Nate Jarosy tweeted out, in one week of trading, the iChairs Ethereum ETF, that's the Black Rock, Rati is in the top 15 inflows of all ETFs launched this year. Top 15 out of approximately 330 new ETFs. Top four inflows, all spot Bitcoin ETFs, by the way. So in one week, Ethereum, the Ethereum ETF from BlackRock has taken in more total AUM than all the other ETFs launch this year, excuse me, top 15 of the Ethereum of the ETFs launch this year.

Starting point is 00:13:13 So you can't really say that's it. In one week, right? Like, I can't wait to see. One week versus seven months. Yeah, I can't wait to say what that's like in a few months. I think it's going to be much, much higher than that, which is pretty cool. It is pretty interesting to note that in July 30th, so two days ago at the time, of recording. Bitcoin had a day of outflows, which is rare for Bitcoin,

Starting point is 00:13:33 lost $18 million in AUM. But that was also the one day that Ether, the Ethereum ETFs, had net inflows of $33 million. And so it could be noise, but also we do know that there is going to be some amount of rebalancing between people with a Bitcoin-only ETF portfolio looking to have both of the major crypto assets in their balance sheet. I don't know if you have any comments or insights on that, Anthony. I mean, I fully expect that that's happening. You know, there's this kind of thing with portfolio theories where you weight things on market cap, right?

Starting point is 00:14:05 It's a very standard thing. So if you're waiting like 70% BTC, 30% ETH because that's the rough market cap ratio right now, then I would expect there to be a lot of people doing that. Because especially if maybe they were like more bullish on ETH than BTC, but they bought BTC because that was the only thing they could buy with the ETS for six months. And now they're like, well, I don't want to hold the BTC ETF anymore. I actually wanted to hold ETH. and they're converting into ETH instead of being in in BTC.

Starting point is 00:14:29 So there is definitely conversion going on. I think that's pretty clear from the numbers. But I do think it'll settle at that like market cap weighted thing and then rebalance every so-and-so months, like what happens in the Tradfire world. I thought this was pretty cool. On the 25th of July, Bitwise and Bitwise's friends and family got to go to the stock market to ring the bell. And I raised the ETHW, the Bitwise, ETHETF flag in front of the stock market.

Starting point is 00:14:56 which I think is just like, it's the juxtaposition there, I think is pretty cool. NatureRC tweets out, what a moment, the word Ethereum hanging from a 120-year-old stock market building in New York, picture might end up in the history books someday. To me, it's kind of like advertising an internet service provider on a phone company or in like a white paper, in a, you know, like the white pages. Advertising Wikipedia out on a library. Yeah, right. Something is funny about this.

Starting point is 00:15:24 Like we're having some sort of like technology and, version where like we have we have the deeper stock the deeper tech stack being advertised on just like some anarchic technology i thought it's pretty cool i saw a tweet about it where someone said you know today ethereum's on the stock market but tomorrow the stock market will be on ethereum right that was a pretty good way to put it exactly yeah the stock market gets to raise an ethereum flag and then ethereum gets to put the entire stock market on itself yeah yeah and that's why it's there uh one thing of note as we are watching the maturation of the ETFs. The state of Michigan, I'm pretty sure Anthony Sizano's favorite state.

Starting point is 00:16:03 Do you know where Michigan is, Anthony? I've got no idea where it is. If you paid me money to point to it on the map, I would lose that. I would lose that money. Like, I wouldn't get that money at all. I point to like New York or something. Anyways, the state of Michigan retirement system has reported owning $6.6 million. of the ARC Bitcoin ETF.

Starting point is 00:16:26 And so congratulations to all the soon-to-be retirees in the state of Michigan, because you now have a Bitcoin in your pension portfolio. And this is where it starts. The first date out of the 50 to get Bitcoin in their pension. This is what happens when you have an ETF, the world of ETFs in retirement and diversification funds and all these things. Their disposition is like, well, they actually have to have a reason not to invest. It's not like, hey, should we add Bitcoin to our balance?

Starting point is 00:16:54 sheet, should we add ether to our balance sheet? It's actually, why would we not do this? Why would we not diversify into this new asset that has been legitimized by BlackRock? That's just the order of operations of how people trying to preserve wealth think. I think in crypto, we are all trying to grow wealth, which generally means concentrated assets, concentrated bets. But in the world of wealth preservation, you diversify. And so your disposition is to include more things into your portfolio. And so this is Bitcoin just getting into the world of the state of Michigan, the great state of Michigan. And I'm sure this is just going to be a trend that Michigan is just leading this like trend here. Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, I agree with you.

Starting point is 00:17:36 Now that the ETS alive, like these things can happen before they couldn't and that simple as that. Totally. Total crypto market cap 2.4 trillion on the week, still struggling to get out of the two range. We've been in here for a really long time. Getting into the world of layer two's, this layer two update brought to you by mantle a layer two of which i enjoyed very deeply 41.7 billion dollars locked in layer two's which is a number that's been like flat for quite a long time now since march of this year march of this year we hit 43 billion for the first time and we've been ranging around there ever since but if you go to activity that activity number is really really good we've been holding 22 23 x scaling factor and a scaling factor is you take the number

Starting point is 00:18:19 of transactions per second that you can do on the Ethereum layer 1. one, how many transactions per second are all the layer two is doing an aggregate? And the answer is 23 Ethereums. And we've been holding 23 Ethereums since for two months now, two months in a row. Anthony, what are your thoughts on just like the growth of the layer two ecosystem? Not surprised at all, considering that we kind of injected a massive stimulus package into the layer two ecosystem when we put blobs live in March and blobs are still free, or basically free at this point in time because they haven't reached the saturation point. yet. Well, they have it like some periods of time, but like not sustained. So yeah, it makes a total sense here that we're seeing this. And also I think that now that there's just all this extra space

Starting point is 00:19:02 builders are building new and novel things. I think gaming is definitely kind of taking off on these L3s. Like I think proof of play and Zai, I think those two are gaming L3s. So there are, yeah, there's a lot of happening that wasn't happening before because of the extra capacity. But it just shows that the Ethereum ecosystem is growing and the roll-up centric roadmap is definitely. playing out as we expected. But I do wonder what this looks like kind of long term, because as we know, blobs are a finite resource once they start reaching saturation, the costs go up. So will we need to, we will definitely need to like scale blobs again. We are already doing that. Like there's already a lot of work on that. But I'm curious to see when we reach that point where it becomes saturated,

Starting point is 00:19:42 just like our one block space is saturated, when will blob space be saturated? And I think it's coming sooner than people think. Because if this is like this during like a summer low kind of crowd, period in the market. Imagine what it's going to be like when the market heats up again. And all that activity follows with that. And we bring all these new people on with base pushing really hard, especially, you know, Coinbase pushing, their users to base pushing payments on there. So I fully expect this activity to just skyrocket. It's going to be very, very cool to see. Yeah. And you're totally right. A lot of this new transaction demand, Zai and proof of play, these are both layer three. I think proof of play is also. You can click roll-ups only on the,

Starting point is 00:20:19 on the thing there and it'll filter out just the roll-ups, like, just the things using blobs. And it's still like, if you click that, yeah, it'll still be up at all-time highs. Okay, so take away layer threes and you have just layer twos that are consuming layer one blob space. You have a scaling factor of 10.

Starting point is 00:20:34 You add on the layer threes, though, like Zai proof of play, your, Zai is a gaming-specific layer three. I think this is correct where it's actually just one game. This is one game consuming a lot of this transactional demand. And we're getting 105, transactions per second over they'll pass like 24 hours. And so like this is like a frontier of

Starting point is 00:20:53 roll-ups that we are just beginning to breach. You can only imagine once like this world become saturated and we have like hundreds of games, all individually having their own roll-up space, settling down to layer twos. Like the whole entire like Ethereum roll up centric roadmap is it really just, we are just scratching the surface of what we can do. And it makes sense to start with chains that are very proximate to what Ethereum is. This is arbitram. This is optimism. generalized block space on layer two that just used generalized blob space on layer one. But as we get more specific, we're also going to get more scale. And so I'm expecting this kind of scaling factor, which it already is to just hockey stick

Starting point is 00:21:32 even further. Like we jumped from, it was like we were hanging around like 60 transactions per second. And then we had Denkun and then we got up to like 160, 180. And now we're at 280. This number of transactions per second secured by Ethereum, secured in the network of chains that Ethereum secures. And I just expect to just, you know, blow through thousands and thousands and thousands. Yep.

Starting point is 00:21:55 Yeah. And the altos are doing their own scalability too. I mean, base has been talking about this. I mean, well, not base. Jesse Pollack from base has been talking about this a lot on Twitter where they're raising the gas limit. It's at like 10 megagas per second right now. I think they want to get to like one giga gas.

Starting point is 00:22:09 That's the North Star. But that's up from, I think it started at like two or 2.5 or something. So they've done an extra like four, five X scalability increase, just the themselves, which will keep pushing their TPS up, keep pushing their activity up while fees remain low. But as I said before, once we saturate blob space and blobs start getting, you know, expensive, then we'll probably see fees start going up a little bit, but that's just by design. And then we give more blob space for the L2s and away we go. It's like that cat and mouse game that I've spoken about before, I think. 100%. Last thing in the market section, Fed, there was a

Starting point is 00:22:43 FOMC meeting that kind of went under the radar. People weren't really talking about it. people weren't really bullish or bearish on it. And that's because the Fed decided to hold rates steady. While also noting progress on inflation, so slowly incrementally approaching that 2% target, but the Fed not really ready to make any decision about raising or lowering interest rates. I think everyone is kind of gearing up for the lowering, the rate cut cycle and the lowering of interest rates. But we all kind of know it's like not here yet. It's on the horizon, but not here. I don't know if you have any comments in the macro world, Anthony. I mean, I think people are just bored of it at this point.

Starting point is 00:23:20 Remember when everyone was watching like every inflation day and like the CPI numbers and it's like glued to their screen and the market would react violently to it? Now it's like, yeah, as you said, it's a nothing burger. No one really cares anymore because it's just been such a long time of this same story. And I think at this point, people are just bored of it. That's just the way it goes, I think with the news cycles. And yeah, I mean, I expect the Fed to cut rather than raise. in the next kind of like few months.

Starting point is 00:23:47 But I think the market already front ran that. Like I brought this up before, but Heath bottomed when inflation was at its peak in June 2022. So the market doesn't wait around for J-Powell to say, oh, it's, you know, tick, you can go gig along now on the market. No, no, no. It does that in anticipation of him saying that. Powell did say that, well, there's no decision being made now.

Starting point is 00:24:09 It could come as soon as September if the economic data showed inflation easing, which that is the trend. And so we just need that trend to continue. I don't really think we're going to have like the rate cut bull market, like the price appreciation of all these like risk on assets because of rate cutting until we get like our third rate cut. We're currently at five and a quarter to five and a half of short term interest rates. Once we get into the low fours with the trend can like pointing down to the threes,

Starting point is 00:24:37 then all of a sudden everyone's like, yo, like that money is coming out of those money markets It's because there's all-time highs in money in money markets, dollars in T-bills in money markets, earning that high for low 5% interest rates. And that's because, like, the stock market, it's been told to offer you somewhere between a 7% to 8% yearly return on average. But that's on risk. So why would you take risk when you could just get an assured 5% in money market? As soon as that number, people starting to realize that number is going to hit three, all of a sudden people are going to go seek risk elsewhere,

Starting point is 00:25:14 which is exactly what we saw during the 2021 market mania, and then people are going to pile on down the risk curve. That's kind of the thing that everyone's waiting in anticipation for. But since we know it's not happening right now, it's still on their horizon. So we haven't made that move yet. That's kind of my analysis. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, classic liquidity cycle things, as you mentioned, like there's just money right now

Starting point is 00:25:34 just locked in one place. And then once that place doesn't become cozy little home anymore and they want to go somewhere else, they'll leave and yeah that's when we get the craziness i think in especially in crypto because crypto is so risk on and it really requires those i guess like for the for the long tail of assets maybe not for ethan btc but for like the long tail that really aren't really are kind of worthless to begin with but the reason they go up is because it's just so much money coming into the market at once and everyone's like oh i've got so much money i'm rich i'm going to go gamble it on these things and yeah and they get rewarded for a while doing that but i think yeah that that'll definitely happen at at some point in the

Starting point is 00:26:10 future. I do, I've said this before on weekly roll-ups, and I'll say it again, the like $16 trillion that was printed in 2021 and in response to COVID of M2 money supply, we printed like $4 trillion, and then as a result of that, 16 trillion was created because that's how the banking system works. That money's still out there. Like, just because we've had high interest rates, we've recalled maybe like 3% of that money in interest rates. But like $16 trillion is still out there ready to buy risk on bags as soon as we can get that money out of the money market funds. Like, it's not that that money's disappeared. Like, we still have COVID levels of money. It's just, like, locked up in T bills. And so as soon as the rate cuts come, you're going to see,

Starting point is 00:26:55 like, assets just soar. That's my hot take. It's not happening soon. Maybe it'll happen in 2025. Hopefully it happens in 2025. That would be enjoyable. All right, coming up next, what was everything that Donald Trump said at the Bitcoin conference, but also not just Trump. R.FK. Jr. you're made in appearance. Edward Snowden was there virtually. Cynthia Lummis proposed a bill. So we're going to get to all of that, everything that would happen at the Bitcoin Conference and more. But first, a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. Especially Cracken, our preferred place to dump your fiat and buy crypto. Do it before all the money comes out of the money market funds. There is a link in the show notes to get started with Cracken

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Starting point is 00:30:16 swap smarter. And we're back. Donald Trump made an appearance at a crypto conference at the Bitcoin Nashville conference 24. This is the Bitcoin conference that happens every single year. Started off in Miami. So even before COVID was in San Francisco, moved to Miami. Post-COVID. Now has moved to Nashville, because I think the Bitcoin conference just keeps on growing bigger and bigger and bigger. And Donald Trump was there. Donald Trump was there for day three. He gave a 40-minute speech, so that's too long for us to play. But we'll play some of the clips. Actually, we're going to play a bunch of clips from various speakers of the Bitcoin conference. So let's go ahead and start with some of the words that Donald Trump said going into Bitcoin or ending Bitcoin 24.

Starting point is 00:30:59 for. Hello, Bitcoinsers. Thank you very much. Hello. It's good to be with you. It's good to be with you. But I'm thrilled to be here in Nashville to become the first American president ever to address a Bitcoin event anywhere in the world. But as well as all of the Bitcoin luminaries and legends here, you have a legends in this room. They really are. Congratulations. Would the legends please stand to owe everyone standing anyway. That's nice. Because we have to talk about crypto. We have to talk about Bitcoin. We have to talk about all these great companies. So that was his introduction. Just calling everyone geniuses.

Starting point is 00:31:45 I thought the funniest part of this speech was when he addressed the entire Bitcoin conference, his high IQ. And this is when he was calling Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, two male models with a brain. Hey, that's accurate. Did you listen to the speech? That's a good description. Oh, man. Did you listen to the entire speech? Not the entire speech, but I saw the clips on Twitter.

Starting point is 00:32:10 And I thought it was, I mean, the funniest clip was when he basically said that he was fired Gary Gensler because, like, it was like telling the wolves that he was about to feed them. It's just, it was just amazing. And I was like, oh, you know what? Like, that'd be nice if someone, it doesn't have to be Trump, it can be anyone, just fired Gary Gensler because he is public enemy number one for crypto. But I think, yeah, I mean, a lot of the comments, he was making a lot of grand promises, of course, as politicians do.

Starting point is 00:32:37 And I don't know, like, I don't want to get political about it, but I feel like a lot of a lot, there's a lot of pandering as well. I'm going to tell them what they want to hear, you know, because these guys have been treated so badly by, by the Democrat Party, they're being so hostile towards crypto, which is fair enough. Like, I don't think anyone in crypto can be criticized for being very, I guess, like hostile to back at Democrats, since they've been so hostile towards crypto people. But yeah, it was just funny listening to some of the comments being like, this guy would fit in right in on crypto Twitter, right?

Starting point is 00:33:05 Like if Trump was on crypto Twitter, he'd fit right in. And the firing Gary Gensler, we're going to play that clip. That was definitely the loudest part of the speech. We got a few more clips to play. So let's play the section right here. My promise to each and every one of you is this. I will be the pro-innovation and pro-Bitcoin president that America needs and our citizens is there.

Starting point is 00:33:28 this will be one industry, but this will be a thriving industry, a great industry, and I'm going to be doing the same thing for every other industry also. Our nation has never thrived by trying to censor new ideas and shut down the dreams of our people. America always plants our flag on the next frontier and pushes boldly ahead. We have to do that. We haven't been doing that for a long time. That was towards the end of his speech. And then in the middle, there was like I said, a 40-minute speech.

Starting point is 00:33:57 But here is the section where he talks about how he will fire Gary Gensler. Day one, I will fire Gary Gensler and appoint a new SEC chairman. Crowd stands. Everyone stands up, starts cheering. I didn't know he was that unpopular. And that's why I thought it was interesting. He actually didn't know that Gary Gensler was that unpopular with us. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:34:27 But I think, like, I mean, he was going to fire him anyway. Like, that's typically what happens, right? You're not going to, he's not going to let a Democrat appointee be in charge of the SEC if he's president. Like, but what I also found a little bit funny was that a lot of Bitcoiners have actually been praising the SEC for their, for them targeting like the things that they consider to be scams. So it was, it was, it was kind of funny seeing that that got such a positive reaction was like, guys, like, Gary Gensler's left you alone. He hasn't gone after Bitcoin. Like, so like, why do you hate him so much? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:34:59 Okay. So the bit is is that like there's a lot of the. The Bitcoin maxis, the hardcore bitcoinsers, the Cyber Hornets, are like, yeah, Ethereum is a security, and you should go after all securities. Totally, like, backwards to, like, crypto, just, like, trying to shut the door behind them. But I would definitely say that that is a minority of Bitcoiners. These are the loud Bitcoiners on crypto Twitter who just want, like, they just want to shut the door behind them. I don't think that's the majority of Bitcoiners.

Starting point is 00:35:24 I think they're, like, the people at Bitcoin 2024 are crypto people, even though crypto is kind of like a bad, word in these like hyper bitcoin circles. Uh, nonetheless, I get booed for saying crypto. Didn't Trump say crypto when he got booed or something as well? I wouldn't be surprised. That's what I was judging it. I wouldn't that's what I was kind of judging it on. Like I don't know what the makeup of the conference obviously is, but I'm sure you're right. There's, there's varying different people there. But I did say some comments from like the Bitcoin maxis on Twitter being like, why are we cheering for this? Look, we like Gary Gensla. He protects Bitcoin and goes after the shit coin is,

Starting point is 00:35:56 right? Wow. Wow. Okay, let me, let me play the second half of this clip where, uh, Trump realizes that he has stumbled into something that is very popular with his crowd of people. I didn't know who's that unpopular. Let me say it again. On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler. Whoa. So he's surprised that this crowd of people is just so into the fact that he's going to fire Gary Gensler on day one. What's funny about that is that you can actually translate that beyond Trump.

Starting point is 00:36:29 I actually think a lot of politicians don't realize just how, like, hostile Gensler has been towards crypto, on both sides of the aisle, right? Yeah, they're just not paying attention to it because it's just not something that's in their remit, and it's not something they really care to pay attention to. So I feel like if they knew just how, I guess, like, popular it was to say that you were going to do these things, like fire Gary Gensler, you know, be pro-crypto. They would probably do it. And as you said, we're still waiting for the Democrats, well, specifically under Kamala now,

Starting point is 00:36:59 We're still waiting for them to say positive things about crypto and actually make an action towards it as well, not just say things. But I do think a lot of it's due to that. Like, I mean, Trump has been close to crypto for a while now. And if he didn't know just how popular Gensler was, like, what do we think the other politicians are in the know about, right? To me, this whole like Trump at Bitcoin 20204 is just like free notes for the Democratic Party. Just like they get to have all the same data. that Trump got while he gave his speech. Okay, so it was a 45, 40-minute speech.

Starting point is 00:37:34 And if you've ever listened to a Trump speech, it's kind of just like a long win. He just goes around in different circles. He kind of rambles. This is like normal. This is how a Trump speech works. But like once you summarize everything, Nick Carter put it up and summarized it pretty well. Here's all the things that Trump said in his very long speech.

Starting point is 00:37:52 Fire Gary Gensler and Operation Chokepoint 2.0, which it was pretty cool for Donald Trump to actually name Operation Chokepoint 2.0, which is coined by Nick Carter, and the Progressives War on Crypto, have a strategic Bitcoin reserves, clarify crypto rules within 100 days, and then embrace stable coins for dollar dominance. Now, are these all original ideas that Trump thinks are good, or is this somebody, an advisor, either David Bailey or J.D. Vance, his vice president, who's a Bitcoiner, are these people just like telling him what to say? Like, it's definitely the latter. But that's also how politics works. Like, this isn't like normal or this isn't, uh, irregular. Like, I don't, I don't necessarily believe that any meaningful politician is going to deeply

Starting point is 00:38:38 care about our industry. I think they're just going to get elected and say what it needs to get elected. And that's kind of how it works. And so, uh, these are like kind of, uh, what Nick Carter says, uh, everything we could have possibly asked for and more. And so if this is where the Overton window has moved for at least one of the two political parties, you can't really be disappointed about crypto's legitimacy within the United States. Yeah. What gives me pause is the fact that, like, it's all still just words, right? And obviously, Trump can't do anything right now because he's not president.

Starting point is 00:39:13 Like, I understand that. But at the same time, like, yeah, until it's actually kind of put into action, I mean, I'm not a U.S. citizen, I can't vote anyways. It doesn't matter. But until it's actually put into action here, I just, I try to take a step back and be like, okay, you know, politicians make promises all the time. They break promises all the time. Let's just be real about this. But I also wish the crypto was just a bipartisan, bipartisan thing. I don't want it to be a partisan thing. It doesn't actually help anyone for it to be this much of a kind of divide between the two parties. So I do hope that over time the two parties can come together. And I know that might be an unpopular take where people say, you know, the Democrats and the progressive, they've hated crypto for so long. Why are you trying to get them on side? It's like, because, everyone benefits if both of the parties are on side. I don't understand why we should just give up and be like, okay, well, they're going to hate us forever.

Starting point is 00:40:00 Let's give up on them. What if they win? What if they, what if Kamala becomes president? What then, guys? So let's try and work to bring everyone towards the pro-crypto side instead of alienating one side and focusing on the other because, yes, okay, they've alienated us, they've hated us for a while now. But, yeah, I mean, it just gets worse if we give them even more reasons not to like us.

Starting point is 00:40:22 100%. Donald Trump, not the only person to speak at Bitcoin 2024. RFK Jr. also came on stage and said some very big words. So here they are. On day one as president, I will sign another executive order directing the U.S. Treasury to purchase 550 Bitcoin daily until the U.S. has built a reserve of at least 4 million Bitcoins. So we're going to buy, according to RFK Jr, if he's elected president. which she's probably not going to be elected president. We're just going to DCA into Bitcoin, 550 Bitcoin a day until we own 4 million Bitcoin. Out of the 21 million Bitcoins,

Starting point is 00:41:06 I mean, it's a great sentiment. These are empty promises because he's definitely not going to become president, but also it's a terrible strategy of just like if you want to own 4 million Bitcoin, you don't broadcast that you're going to buy 550 Bitcoin a day. If we're speaking of pandering,

Starting point is 00:41:22 this is like the most panthering. Pankering, like, I've ever, this is peak pandering. Like, one, the U.S. government earning 4 million BTC would be one of the most bearish things to ever happen to Bitcoin if they earned that much of the supply. Because, I mean, that's like, what, a quarter of the, like, circulating supply. Or you said 21 million, but like there's like a lot of it that's actually not circulating because it was mined in the early days and lost and things like that. But that's just so much supply concentration. So essentially you've just got like, it's just the U.S. coin now. Like your Bitcoin just becomes like the US coin.

Starting point is 00:41:54 Like it's it wouldn't be good. But also like, um, the fact that he's saying this, like it's never going to happen. Like this is just ridiculous. And I, I, I, I, I, I, when I saw this, I was just like, is he just trying to steal Trump's thunder? Because Trump said something similar where he's like, I'm going to create a Bitcoin reserve. Yes. And Jeff, I think this speech is before Trump's. And he's like, yeah, we're going to like buy so much Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:42:13 I want to make a bigger Bitcoin reserve. He may as well have just told everyone, I want to make you all rich. I'm literally trying to buy your votes. The cascate. Here's another quote from the, from his, the cascading impact of these actions will move Bitcoin to evaluation of hundreds of trillions of dollars. He's literally saying, elect me, I will pump your bags. Like in too many words, just like saying he's going to pump your bags. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:42:37 He's almost there. Like, he's just one, one kind of sentence removed from literally saying that. Edward Snowden was there. And Edward Snowden has appeared at previous Bitcoin conferences. And he just talked actually about just the progress of the Bitcoin industry. as he has watched it from afar in Russia is where he is. We are winning ladies and gentlemen, he says, but we haven't won yet.

Starting point is 00:42:59 We have to make sure that we don't get cocky. I watched actually Edward Snowden live in person. He wasn't in person, but I was at the Bitcoin conference in 2020 or 2019 right before COVID. And he was like deeply aware of like some of the issues of Bitcoin, like name dropped Eric Voorhees who was there at the conference. It was pretty cool. Black Rock's head of digital assets team, Robbie, says, as a result, because of the ETFs, they get to look at like who's buying and who's selling. And he says that the ETF buyers of the Black Rock Bitcoin ETF have almost entirely been buy and hold investors, otherwise known as hoddlers.

Starting point is 00:43:39 The BlackRock's bot ETF has had one day of negative flows in six months, he said. So kind of just like speaking to the long time horizons nature of Bitcoin holders, which, is truly like. Senator Cynthia Lummis actually did introduce legislation to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve. So at least when all the other politicians are like saying words about saying how they're going to buy Bitcoin and put it on the balance sheet, Cynthia Lummis, who's a politician, a senator, comes in and says that she's going to establish legislation, introduce legislation. So slightly more real, slightly more real. And then overall, Nick Carter sums it up at the Bitcoin conference, probably the most bullish single political event in Bitcoin history.

Starting point is 00:44:23 Even if you think a lot of these promises are vapid, of which I do, and I think that's kind of the default case, you can't really deny the fact that, like, words also do matter. And we could just got some of the most bullish words from the most biggest people inside of, in the Bitcoin conference. Like the fact that Donald Trump is at a Bitcoin conference, it's kind of huge. Whether he was paid to be there or not, it kind of doesn't really matter, in my opinion. the Overton window has shifted so far away from the extremely negative sentiment that the crypto industry had in 2022 to be probably some of the most positive that we've ever had ever.

Starting point is 00:44:57 Like that whiplash is kind of insane. Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's an overall positive. I'm not going to say it's a negative. Definitely not. Regardless of your politics, you definitely have to recognize that it's a huge deal for a presidential candidate to be at a Bitcoin conference. Like that is just, I mean, just saying that and just seeing it actually happy.

Starting point is 00:45:17 even a few years ago, if you told someone that a presidential candidate was going to actually be at a Bitcoin conference and be actually saying the things that Bitcoiners believe and Bitcoiners have a strong kind of liking of. People would have called you crazy. People would have said, no, that's ridiculous. Because actually, Trump in particular, was bearish on crypto at one point. I think I don't remember what it was. He tweeted out saying he didn't believe Bitcoin was valuable.

Starting point is 00:45:42 It was during his presidency, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think it was maybe 2019 or 2020 when he said that. So yeah, I mean, that's a massive shift that's happened as well. And this goes back to what I was saying earlier about how the fact that, well, if Trump can come around to crypto, why can't the Democrats as well? Like, I know right now it seems bleak because they've been so hostile. But if we keep working to bring them to the table and bring them around, which you're about to show here on Twitter, I think that's a net positive for everyone as well. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:46:09 And speaking of not to be ignored, some Democrats are starting to be frustrated, fed up with the lack of. of positive stance to crypto of their own party. And so this is a letter that Democrat politicians have written to the DNC, the Democratic National Convention, asking the party to pivot away from the anti-Bitcoin policies of Elizabeth Warren. The analysis here is likely in response to polling data, the Republicans pro-Bitcoin policies,

Starting point is 00:46:38 and President Trump speaking at the Bitcoin Conference. So the timing of this letter was interesting, July 26th, the same time as the conference. The conference has just started. This is actually the day before the Trump speech. I'll just read one segment out of this letter. It's not a terribly long letter, so there's a link in the show notes if you want to read the whole thing. Representing the emerging stance of the Democratic Party in the United States,

Starting point is 00:47:02 leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and a majority of House Democratic leadership have recently supported pro-digital asset legislation. However, there is a public perception that the party holds a negative viewpoint on digital assets, largely due to the current SEC's approach to these transformative technologies. We believe this is previous hostility does not reflect our party's progressive, forward-licking, and inclusive values. A refreshed leader of the ticket represents an opportunity to change that perception. And then it goes on and on about why this ought to be the case.

Starting point is 00:47:37 And then they said, we respectfully call on you, you being the DNC, which is basically the whole entire Democratic Party. To do four things include pro-digital asset. language in the party's platform, select a vice president candidate sophisticated in digital asset policy, select a pro-innovation SEC chair, and engage with industry experts. Basically asking for a full pivot of the DNC, of the Democratic Party stance. And then signing this letter are a number of congressmen and women and a number of other Democratic politicians, about like 20 to 25 of them. So like not an insignificant number. So the timing of this is obviously.

Starting point is 00:48:17 very strategic. I think the pressure is on to get the Kamala campaign to say something about crypto. The word on the street is, if you're talking to people who are in D.C., who are familiar with the matter, the crypto issue is on the radar of Kamala Harris and her campaign, and it has been on the radar since the moment of her endorsement by President Biden. There's a crypto super pack in the United States that has now the number one amount of of capital raised $200 million, $202 million. It's the Fair Shake Political Action Committee. And this is a bipartisan committee.

Starting point is 00:48:55 It now surpasses both the biggest Republican and Democrat super PACs that make America great again pack on the Republican side and the Senate majority on the Democratic side. So like we got the numbers. If these aren't just like words about politicians, we got the numbers and the capital and the money to show for it, which is really important.

Starting point is 00:49:13 We have the voters. We know we have the voters. We have the swing state voters, like 20% of voters in the swing state in the swing states of America know that crypto is a hot election issue and are ready to align with crypto voters. But then also we have $2202 million of a single super PAC that is all about promoting crypto. So you know politicians are like they will line up with both votes and money. And we got both of them. So that's pretty cool. And the last thing in this political section, adjacent but super relevant. Shane Copeland, the CEO and founder of Polymarket,

Starting point is 00:49:46 featured in a big Forbes article titled, the 26-year-old building a billion-dollar prediction marketplace. And so not only is mainstream media citing Polymarket, but they're now interviewing the founder. And so this is just another way where, like, crypto, we're getting legitimized by our politicians, but we're also getting legitimized by our apps, too, at least as one of them.

Starting point is 00:50:07 Any thoughts or reflections as we close out this political section, Anthony? No, I mean, I think it's cool to see Polymarket breaking out of crypto and into a different audience. They brought on, I think his name's Nate Silva, who's been in the prediction space for politics, like outside of crypto. He's the guy that predicts the future about elections. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they brought him on, I don't know what position, like some executive position, I think, or something. So that was a pretty big get and a pretty big tide change, I think, where you're essentially bringing in these people that traditionally don't really pay attention to crypto and they're now working within the industry.

Starting point is 00:50:40 And Polymark is definitely an app that is very different to other apps that we've been used to in crypto before. defy and stuff like that. I mean, technically you could say it's some form of defy because it's a betting market essentially, or a prediction market, I guess, technically, but it is distinctly different, I think. And it's bringing in a different crowd because a lot of the political bets are happening on there. And I'm sure that it's not just crypto natives on there. It's new people coming into crypto being like, oh, wow, I want to bet on this stuff on here. And I got to set up a wallet, right? So they're new users coming in. And Polymarker makes it really easy to do this, by the way. They've got a nice interface going as well.

Starting point is 00:51:15 Totally, yeah. And I'm jealous of you, Anthony, that you're actually able to use Polymarket because we're not allowed to use it in the United States. Hey, there's other things that I can't use. Yeah, there's actually an Australian founded company called, I think they're called Shuffle or something. They do, they're building like a gambling side or crypto casino side, and I can't use it. Because Australians can't use it. So don't worry. I forgot you also live in a financial prison.

Starting point is 00:51:38 It's just like a different prison. That's different than ours. Yeah. It was a literal prison once upon a time. All right. That's all for the politics. We're moving on to the rest of the news. Ethereum had a birthday. Eclipse is on main net. U.S.C. is growing on base. And California, car titles are on Avalanche. We're going to get to all this and more. But first, a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make the show possible. New projects are coming online to the Mantle Layer 2 every single week. Why is this happening?

Starting point is 00:52:07 Maybe it's because Mantle has been on the frontier of Layer 2 design architecture since it first started building Mantle DA, powered by technology from I, Maybe it's because users are coming onto the Mantle Layer 2 to capture some of the highest yields available in Defy and to automatically receive the points and tokens being accrued by the $3 billion mantle treasury in the Mantle reward station. Maybe it's because the Mantle team is one of the most helpful teams to build with giving you grants, liquidity support, and venture partners to help bootstrap your Mantle application. Maybe it's all of these reasons all put together. So if you're a dev and you want to build on one of the best foundations in crypto or your user looking to claim some ownership on Mantle's Defi apps, Click the link in the show notes, so getting started with Mantle. Have you ever felt that the tools for developing decentralized applications

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Starting point is 00:54:23 Happy 9th birthday to Ethereum. Which birthday is this? Which birthday is this? Is this the main net birthday or the white paper birthday? Yeah, it's the main net birthday. The main net birthday. All right, so we got a picture nine years ago, I believe, of when the first block of Ethereum was mine there.

Starting point is 00:54:37 Genesis block, yeah. I can name some people in this photo. That's Vlad Zamfrier kneeling on the left. That's Gavin Wood right there. I can't see the photo too well, but I can name like half of them from memory, I think, because there's a lot. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:54:49 That's pretty good. Is that Left Terrace? Yeah. I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't really see the image. And then there's Talibuteron in the very far back. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:54:58 I love how he's like half cut off. It's just like, he's just some guy that hung around there that day, right? Well, hey, like nine years ago, the cameras on phones were just like not that great, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, a new Vitalik photo just dropped. Do you know the context of this? He's in Edcon, which is a conference, a theorem conference. But I don't know the exact context.

Starting point is 00:55:23 There was context given somewhere, but I just came across the picture and I was like, I'm going to tweet this out with this silly caption that people like to use. I'm not even going to bother to try and explain what's going on in this photo. It's Vitalik wearing some Asian garb. And it's pretty funny. Anyways, if you want to watch it and see it in real life, I'm not going to explain anything further than that. All right, getting into tactical releases,

Starting point is 00:55:46 the Eclipse main net is now open for builders. So if you are unfamiliar with Eclipse, we did an episode with Eclipse a while ago. Eclipse is the Solana virtual machine coming in to be a roll-up on Ethereum. So you're taking the SVM from Solana, plopping it into a layer two, having it settled down to the Ethereum layer one.

Starting point is 00:56:04 I believe it also uses Celestia for data availability. People have been anticipating the Salana virtual machine coming to Ethereum for a while. now Eclipse is the first one to do it. Anthony, any comments or thoughts here? I'm just curious to see what kind of gets popular on this, right? Like, if you go over to Salana, you can see which apps are, like, leading the ecosystem there. So I'm very curious to see if we see, like, those apps get ported over to this and they become the popular ones, or if there's new apps that actually don't exist on Solana, but do exist on Eclipse. Like, that's, that's what I'm excited to see,

Starting point is 00:56:35 because it's going to be an interesting dynamic, because then, you know, the Salana connections there because of the SVM, but do the ecosystems actually form differently? Like, does Salana have its own kind of social layer? And then the, the SVM Eclipse thing has its own social layer that's different to Solana. So I think that's going to be something we say over the next year or so, maybe. But I'm curious. I'm sure there's going to be the Solana apps coming over as well. But will there be entrepreneurs being like, well, I'm not going to go compare on Solana because they've already got these big apps. I'm going to do something on Eclipse and try and be the number one app on here. Yeah, I think there, I was talking to the Eclipse scene. I think, I think,

Starting point is 00:57:10 there's just a lot of questions about how this thing grows because like traditionally when a roll up deploys on Ethereum, they just get all the same apps. You deploy uniswap, you deploy AVE, you deploy chain link. Yeah, it's an EVM kind of chain. It's an EVM, you just borrow all the EVM stuff with Solana.

Starting point is 00:57:26 It's like, well, we're not borrowing all the EVM stuff because that's just not how it works. You can't do that. You can borrow SVM stuff, but what kind of SVM stuff? Also, it's not like your uniswap wallet or Metamask wallet is going to work with Eclipse. Like you will need to use a Solana wallet. You're going to need to use backpack or Phantom. And so, like, does that mean that the demographics using this roll-up is going to be predominantly

Starting point is 00:57:50 like a Solana user base? It's going to be Solana apps who makes sense of its Salana users. But then also, there are, the execution environment of Eclipse gets to jettison a bunch of the tech stack of Solana because it's a layer two. Like, you don't need the consensus of Solana. You just need the execution environment. And so, like, Eclipse gets to go faster than Solana like by a long shot. And so like Eclipse is is kind of taking the SVM, which was it was a virtual machine like just juiced up and gets to juice it up even more. And so like there's a lot of questions I think like who's going to use this thing. How are they going to use this thing? What can you do if you take a virtual machine and put it on a layer two? What does that unlock?

Starting point is 00:58:29 And so this is a main net for builders. Main nets for users comes I think sometime in September, but don't quote me on that because I'm not on the team. But congratulations. the eclipse seem for getting this out the door. Yeah, yeah. And I think on that note as well, like, it's going to be interesting to see if the eclipse SVM dive, it kind of goes down its own path. Because typically what you see is that,

Starting point is 00:58:52 well, traditionally the layer two EVMs have followed like main net EVM. So, yeah, but now they're signed to do their own thing. Mostly. But now they're signed to do their own thing and innovate their own ways, especially with these kind of other projects like MegaEath and Rise, like these juiced, like Monad as well as a layer one, these juiced up EVMs. So I think that we're going to see the same thing happen here where Eclipse is going to build on

Starting point is 00:59:14 the SVM, but they're going to go down their own path. And Salina will have its own path as well. So it's going to be interesting. There's also less, there's fewer competing SVM implementations. Like one of the reasons why a lot of the Ethereum layered two rollups all kind of share the majority of the EVM code base is because all the other ones are doing it. But when there's only two, if Eclipse is like the second major SVM implementation, they do kind have their more tolerance, more leeway, to fork the SVM and take it down their own path

Starting point is 00:59:43 and make kind of a new version of the SVM that's optimized for being a layer two, because there's less of a crowd using the SVM as just the Solana main net. Yeah, and that's why I think we'll see, oh, sorry, yeah, that's why I think we'll see different apps than on Solana because there'll be different ways to build apps on there. Right, yep. getting back into the world of EVM-based roll-ups. Brian Armstrong is retweeting a tweet from Jesse, who is Jesse Pollock, the creator, Base.

Starting point is 01:00:12 Jesse's saying weekly USC transfers on base have grown to $20 billion a week. $20 billion a week in USC transfers. That's nuts. Brian Armstrong following up on the comment here saying, the building blocks for crypto payments are here. Base is offering one second, one-cent global transactions. USDC is the stable coin. Smart wallets are the simplified onboarding mechanism,

Starting point is 01:00:37 no more 12-word passphrases, and then also tap to pay for NFC payments. And I mean, I would love to tap to pay with USC. That's got to be like a pretty competitive feature. I would like to have that in my wallet. And so you can kind of see, if you squint and see, you can kind of see the future of the global financial system.

Starting point is 01:00:58 To follow up this tweet, Liam.eath, he says, the best business in crypto is what he calls the Holy Trinity of a stable coin issuer, a block space reseller, and a fiat on ramp. So stable coin issuer, that's circle in USC, the block space reseller, that's base, and then the fiat on ramp, that's coinbase. Really powerful trifecta business models kind of all coming together here. So it's no surprise that USC on base has grown massively. Trading volumes, exchange volumes, transfer volumes of USC on base. Is that $20 billion a week, which is nuts?

Starting point is 01:01:33 Anthony, any comments or reflections? I mean, Liam put it perfectly. I think that Coinbase is so extremely well positioned right now. They had the foresight to build out their own L2. They had the foresight to get really heavily involved with circles. So for those who don't know, Coinbase owns 25% of Circle, I believe. So they are very heavily integrated with that, which, you know, that means they're integrated with USC.

Starting point is 01:01:54 And they have that full stack offering now because they've got the most popular fiat on ramp in the U.S. by far, and they're also, you know, available globally, not in every country, but in a lot of countries. So they really have this beautiful ecosystem now that they can take advantage of. And yeah, I feel like base is going to be like, I don't know if it's going to be the number one L2, like in the, like it's number two right now, but it's going to be, it's going to be like top three or like for the very foreseeable future given they've got such a strong pipeline, like such a strong stack. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think one of the reasons why Bay,

Starting point is 01:02:29 hasn't taken that number one spot away from Arbitrum. Arbitrum's the number one is mainly because like we actually as an industry haven't really taken on new people, new new inflows of users in the last like two years. And so we've had new capital come in because of the ETFs. And then we've had like a rebalancing of capital towards the Salana ecosystem. But like no users are coming in. And so I really as soon as we are ready for mainstream, we have things for them to do. Payments is a thing to do. And that's why we're seeing payments. show up on base. I do kind of think base is going to take the number one spot because like coinbase is with the biggest funnel into crypto that that exists, I think.

Starting point is 01:03:05 Anthony, I've got a story for you. I'm going to walk you down a little, a little investigation I was doing to try and understand this like whole car title thing. So in 2022, this was actually news to me. In 2022, Gavin Newson, who's the governor of California, signed his own like state executive order to spur responsible Web3 innovation grow jobs and protect consumers. And so there was it's executive order out of California called Executive Order N922, which like a pretty robust list of like requests of the state of California to like kind of investigate and invest in specifically blockchain technology. So there's this five page executive order which just talks about like why California should invest in in blockchain. It goes whereas applications of blockchain technology

Starting point is 01:03:52 to financial services, including crypto assets, present some of the most salient use cases posing both unique opportunities and risks. The impact of blockchain technology is both uncertain and profound, with the potential to reconfigure the logic and structure of the World Wide Web, just like a bunch of us kind of like blockchain. Blockchain is a big deal. Perhaps we should investigate it while also making sure that we like mitigate risks. So that was in 2022.

Starting point is 01:04:15 Actually didn't realize this. I think this is following the Biden executive order of the same vibe of just like, hey, blockchain is a thing. Let's like figure out what to do with it. And then this last week, California, the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which I don't know if international listeners are familiar with the meme of the DMV. But the meme of the DMV is a very sterile, boring building that you have to go to to like renew your driver's license, get like the title to your car. It's just like the caricature of slow government bureaucracy. No one wants to go to the DMV because it's just so goddamn boring.

Starting point is 01:04:54 They make you take a number. You sit for like two hours to do a thing that lasts like three minutes and then you get to, you waste an entire day. You have to take time off work. Anyways, the California DMV has digitized 42 million car titles, which I'm guessing is all of the car titles in California. And then they put them on the Avalanche blockchain. And so this is a press release out of Avalanche talking about this announcement.

Starting point is 01:05:17 So basically there is an app, a D&M. a California DMV app, which if you have a car title in California, apparently the title of that car is going to be digitized and sent to your app. And it's going to be hosted on the avalanche blockchain. And so the idea here is you can actually send your car title to a different owner. It's escrowed by the DMV by the state of California. So it's not like a true bearer asset in the same way like a token is. It's interesting that they specify digitize, not tokenized. because I don't think these are tokens. But the idea here is that you'll be able to much more freely transfer a car title with the approval of the DMV, who's like kind of the custodian of it. But you can transfer a car title. This is what they are claiming is going to be able to be true. You can just transfer your car title to someone peer to peer,

Starting point is 01:06:08 almost peer to peer, because that car title is digitized on Avalanche. I think that's kind of cool. I will wait so this actually get release and people actually have ownership of their car titles in their DMV app. It's kind of like pseudo-adjacent to the meme of putting health care records on the blockchain, which would be terrible and we shouldn't do that without appropriate privacy technology as well.

Starting point is 01:06:31 But this is, that has been like an early meme. The idea of like digitizing car titles and making them more freely transferable, I guess, is like part of the crypto revolution. It's not what I expected. Any thoughts or reflections on this? I mean, these are things or use cases, I guess, that have been talked about since. forever, actually. And as you mentioned, there are things that stop these things from happening like privacy concerns, especially when it comes to health records. And typically,

Starting point is 01:06:58 the question has always come up. It's like, why are we doing this? Why didn't we just use a traditional database? Because I doubt these DMV records are going to be plugged into any of the other parts of the crypto ecosystem. It's just going to be in a very closed ecosystem. So those are my kind of open questions then. And as you said, like this, once it goes live and once this actually starts being used, we'll be able to kind of pick it apart more and see what what's going on under the hood. But yeah, for now, I mean, if it can improve the experience of, I guess, like, car ownership, then that's a big plus because, as you mentioned, I know the meme of the

Starting point is 01:07:28 DMV being, like, the worst place in the US to go, like the most boring place in the US. It's not that much different here, to be honest. We have our own version of the DMV, of course. It's not as brutal, but it's still pretty shitty. Like, you don't really want to be there. But, yeah, if it can make it more efficient, make it better than I'm all for it. but I do have that open question about everything these days, to be honest, is like, does this actually need to be on a blockchain?

Starting point is 01:07:52 It doesn't matter what chain it is. I just always have that open question around that. Yeah. I guess like the bullish version of this is like you will be able to have your car title on your DMV app, which is weird. And then you can just transfer it to someone. I would like to see that happen live and to see like how that works and what that process actually is.

Starting point is 01:08:12 And so like as soon as this goes live, if any bankless nation, listener is in California and is interested in selling their car and is going through this process. Please let me know. You'll buy it for the experiment. I'll buy. I will buy your car. Transfer me your car title. We will talk. We will discuss. It'll be a business expense.

Starting point is 01:08:30 But okay, so that's kind of like the foot in the door. But then also just like the later version of this is like, well, no, turn them into a token. Make it a token because then it's a financial asset. And then maybe with like, this is going to have to be like with the approval of the DMV. But maybe you can

Starting point is 01:08:46 put your car up as like collateral somewhere. And if the state of California is actually attesting to the legitimacy of these tokens, then all of a sudden, defy apps do have some assurances like, yeah, that's a real token with a real car somewhere. Like you can't, you can't really third party this thing because it's basically like state run.

Starting point is 01:09:04 But that's kind of the idea. I don't know how we get there, but this is a valid first step to getting there. Yeah. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I'm going to, yeah, see we have these plays out. And hopefully we'll get sort of, more insights into it over time.

Starting point is 01:09:17 Somebody sell your car for science and then let me know how it goes. Out of the eigenlayer system, the eigenlayer ecosystem, they say coming soon, Aves rewards and eigen programmatic incentives. And so the eigenlayer system, of course, has been this massive system of many moving parts. They are kind of all hooking together and starting up. AVS rewards is the newest component of the eigenlayer engine that is being hooked up. And so AVS is will actually like be charging fees and spitting out rewards to operators.

Starting point is 01:09:51 And then if you are, the way that this might be relevant to you is if you are a depositor into an LRT, of which I am, that LRT is allocating capital to operators. Operators are then executing their duties to AVS's. And then AVS are speeding off fees to operators, which goes to you, the LRT holder. And so this part of the system is up and running along with eigen programmatic incentive. So this is also related to season two of the eigenlier airdrop. Just a reminder, I think, what was it, 12% of the total eigen supply has been earmarked for distribution. 5% came in season one. They said another 5% is coming in season two.

Starting point is 01:10:31 And so this is related to this season two, eigenlier Air Drop. You can find out more in the show notes below. Any comments, Anthony? No, no. I mean, this is pretty standard stuff, I think, and it's great to see more news come out around this. So I'm just most excited to see these ABSs kind of go live. People start using them, see what they look like in terms of both, I guess, like the token incentives and then the natural kind of fear of a new that they generate.

Starting point is 01:10:54 And then last bit of news, fellow Ethereum member, community member, Jonathan Mann, and previous bankless podcast guest Brian Fry are swimming the SEC. Did you see this, Anthony? I saw a mention of it. I didn't get a chance to dive into it, though. Yeah, so basically as a result of stoner cats, which was, the Mila Kuna's Asson Kutcher animated like television series,

Starting point is 01:11:18 online TV series, which had to settle with the SEC for a million dollars. The precedent was created that artistic creations are securities because of the NFTs. And this threatens the livelihood of any NFT artist who is making a living, creating NFTs because the precedent is that those are securities. So Jonathan Mann,

Starting point is 01:11:39 who writes and tokenizes a song every single day and has for like 5,000 days. He's written a song for 5,000 days. He's tokenized on as long as the theorem's winning thing. He and Brian Frye, who's also a lawyer, are suing the SEC, saying, no, NFTs are not securities buzz off. And so they are actually taking the offensive to the SEC. This actually made news in Bloomberg Law.

Starting point is 01:12:04 And so this is making mainstream news, which is pretty cool. And I think it's just like one of many things added to the list of, grievances from around the world that are being applied to the SEC. I think it's very cool. I wish them the best. I think, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but the case is solid. To me, like, you can't just like expansively define art to be securities just because it has a token associated with it. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, I totally agree. The more losses that we can get the SEC to rack up, the better for us. So yeah, I'm all for this. And then here, we did an episode with Jonathan Mann and Brian Frye on Bankless, if you guys want to

Starting point is 01:12:41 learn more about it. And then he also made his he made it. The song of the day that he made was about him doing the SEC. And there was also a hilarious music video to go with it. And I actually, now I don't have this link pulled up, but maybe I can find it. Is that there's a bidding war going on between for the NFT. So that like, and you know who's at the number one position for the bid is Jake Schrovinsky coming in at a 2.2 Eth bid, a crypto lawyer, trying to buy. And, you know, the I'm suing the SEC bid. I just think like crypto lawyers are kind of based. I don't know where this auction has ended up. But the auction ends in six days. So if you all are interested in buying the I'm suing the SEC song, it's currently being bid for it at 2.2Eath. Last little bit of

Starting point is 01:13:29 news for the week, some raises out of the bankless ventures universe. This is Hyperbolic Labs announcing a $7 million raise to become the leading open access AI cloud. Hyperbolic is basically trying, the way I would describe this is trying to put AI infrastructure, protocolize AI infrastructure. And so, like, right now you can, like, rent GPUs from Amazon. You can go to OpenAI and get some inference done. That's what's happening when you are typing into OpenLit chat, GBT. It's doing inference for you. And these are all, like, Web2 apps. Hyperbolic is trying to make AI-related infrastructure that's access to GPUs, that's access to AI Infra. They're trying to inference. They're trying to make that like a kind of a deeper level of the internet stack,

Starting point is 01:14:14 like making it democratized so you can contribute your GPUs. They're trying to make it like permissionless and open access and censorship resistant so that like they're just trying to make AI resources a deeper part of the internet. Eric Vortes is his AI application that he is now pioneering. This is built on hyperbolic. And so it's basically AI infrastructure. very deep, very deep in the internet. They raised $7 million. Bankless Ventures was a part of this raise. And then a second raise out of Bankless Ventures is joke race.

Starting point is 01:14:49 Joke Race is the on-chain contest platform. And so you can just make contests. You can customize them in any different ways. You can charge for entries. And the ways to use this is pretty endless. The way that we have used this at Bankless Ventures is to crowdsource podcast episodes from our listeners. That episode is currently being scheduled. So it's a way to engage your community.

Starting point is 01:15:13 It's a way to crowdsource ideas. Or you could just do a, you know, it's a contest. American Idol. You could do American Idol. And so this is from founder David Phelps and a number of others. So congratulations to both hyperbolic and joke race for their raises. Anthony, my man, it has been a pleasure having you here. It's nice that both Ryan and I can go on vacations at times.

Starting point is 01:15:35 And that's only made possible because we have you to step in and step in for the weekly roll up, which we have never missed. Bankless has never missed a weekly row up. And a large part of that is because Anthony is so generous with his time and comes in and substitute teaches for us. Anthony, I sure enjoyed your presence, which is why I listened to you on the DailyGway every single day of the week that you put one out. Where can people find the Daily Way?

Starting point is 01:15:55 What is the DailyGway and where can people find it? Yeah, yeah. So the DailyGway is just an Ethereum kind of educational resource kind of podcast every other day going over the latest news in the Ethereum ecosystem. Pretty deep stuff. It's not really high level. So if you just want to get deeper with Ethereum, then you can listen to my ramblings on there, but you can just find it on my, on my Twitter page. I've got all the

Starting point is 01:16:14 links relevant there for people. Yeah, it's a YouTube. I listen to it on my podcast feed. It's great. It's just a great. And whenever I get it, it's in the morning. And so it's just the way to catch up. Anthony is in Australia time. So whenever happened, something happens while I'm asleep. Anthony's got me covered. So I'm going to be sure you putting in 800 episodes. Congratulations on 800 episodes, my dude. That's a lot of episodes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. It's been a journey since I think early 20, late. 2020, actually, I started doing the episode. So yeah, it's been a journey. But I mean, Ethereum is just so interesting. So many things happening all the time. So it's not hard for me

Starting point is 01:16:48 me to get content. That's for sure. Banks, those nation, I'm about to read to you the risks and disclaimers. But then after that, there is going to be one of the most hilarious Trump, Bitcoin impressions of all time. We're going to add that to the end of the roll-up. So stay tuned for that. It's from this tech comedian guy who lives in San Francisco. He does a great job. You know the deal. Crypto is risky. Bitcoin is risky. ETFs are risky. You can lose what you put in. But we're headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone. But we are glad you are with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot. I love the Bitcoin. A lot of people are saying that it's not real money.

Starting point is 01:17:23 Quite frankly, I know some people they're saying it's fake money, but we know it's very real. We know it's tremendous and it's doing very well for a lot of people. It's a coin on the computer, a computer coin. And by the way, we love the Bitcoin. We love it. We love it. We love it. We love the we love the D-Gens. They call themselves D-Gen apes. They call themselves apes. And we're, quite frankly, when I'm president, we will be freeing the apes from the zoos and we will be buying them Bitcoin. And we will have more Bitcoin in the United States than anywhere. We will be digging it out of the ground. We will be mining it, minting it, printing it, and stealing it, whatever it takes. We're going to have more Bitcoin than most people. We also love Etheram.

Starting point is 01:18:10 And we don't forget, don't forget, doji, do you.

Bankless - ROLLUP: Record ETF Flows, Up or Down? | Trump's New Crypto Policy | California Going Onchain?

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