Bankless - The Trillion Dollar ETH Pitch | RSA+DH

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

The Ethereum ETF is coming. What’s the best narrative for ETH to sell to TradFi/Wall Street? Ryan and David discuss the 7 leading ETH Narratives and then have a pitch-off amongst themselves. Each of them prepared a 1-2 minute pitch and then they each spend some time unpacking each other’s pitch and analyzing each point. Bankless Citizens get to vote - whose was better? Ryan or David’s? The winner gets a bragging rights POAP.  ------ 📣BANKLESS CITIZENS VOTE HERE https://www.jokerace.io/contest/base/0x0f2211f6727e85dbfae20e7dbfe57875a1f2b706  ------ ✨ Mint the episode on Zora ✨ https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x0c294913a7596b427add7dcbd6d7bbfc7338d53f/13?referrer=0x077Fe9e96Aa9b20Bd36F1C6290f54F8717C5674E  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2    ⁠  🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle  ⚡️ CARTESI | LINUX-POWERED ROLLUPS https://bankless.cc/CartesiGovernance    🏠 CASA | SECURE YOUR GENERATIONAL WEALTH https://bankless.cc/Casa   🌐 TRANSPORTER | CROSS CHAINS WITH CONFIDENCE https://transporter.io/  🔗CELO | CEL2 COMING SOON https://bankless.cc/Celo  ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 2:26 Eric Balchunas https://x.com/EricBalchunas/status/1794023427327533456  4:44 ETH Narratives https://x.com/TrustlessState/status/1795595286972383494   5:58 Ethereum is a Tokenization Platform https://twitter.com/ChainLinkGod/status/1798133271139901668  https://twitter.com/ChainLinkGod/status/1798133271139901668/photo/1  9:26 Ethereum is an app store https://twitter.com/jdorman81/status/1792927796353814640  13:56 Operating system and app store https://x.com/RasterlyRock/status/1791217181012701682  17:15 ETH is Digital Oil ​​https://twitter.com/0xkydo/status/1740750772093296938   20:37 ETH is an Internet Bond https://www.bankless.com/eth-the-internet-bond  23:38 Programmable Money https://x.com/econoar/status/1124311475428790273  25:59 "ETH is Ultra Sound Money" https://twitter.com/drakefjustin/status/1352734923703123968  31:44 Pitches + Debrief/Analysis + Vote https://www.jokerace.io/contest/base/0x0f2211f6727e85dbfae20e7dbfe57875a1f2b706  44:05 Closing & Disclaimers ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures  

The Ethereum ETF is coming. So what is the best narrative for ETH, at least for TradFie, for Wall Street? Welcome to another Bankless takes. David, we're going to have a pitch off today. What's in store for today's episode? We're going to do what I think bankless does best, which is help define, help shape the narrative for ETH. But this time for an audience that we don't typically talk to when we pitch ETH. We have, I think, previously talked about how to pitch ETH to the crypto-native, to the people who really get it.

but what about the people who just want to understand why they should buy the Ethereum ETH, which means they're not taking self-custody. They don't necessarily appreciate the value of self-custody. They also have a very diversified portfolio, and they're generally from an older generation. So how do we pitch ETH to these people, this cohort of what is a very large investor base? We're going to discuss on the episode the seven different leading ETH narratives, and then Ryan and I are going to have a competition. where each one of us has presented a pitch

that we are going to pitch to each other and also you, the bankless nation, and then bankless citizens get a role here that you guys, if you are a bankless citizen, you get to vote on who had the better pitch. Winner gets bragging rights, which I'm sure you're familiar what bragging rights are, but bragging rights is also a one-of-one Poep F&T

that we're going to make our designer, our designers currently designing, and either Ryan or I will be the holder of the bragging rights POAP NFT as a result of the bankless citizens vote. And I'm, I would like to say from speaking from how I feel, I do not want to be the non-holder of the bragging rights po-app. I would like to be the holder of the bragging rights poab. That's just how I feel.

David, not going to lie, man. I'm a little bit nervous coming to this episode because I've seen you train for fights before, all right? I saw you train for your Nick Carter fight. And it was like day and night for like months getting like beat up in the gym, like coming on these episodes, bruised and beaten, so God knows what you had to do in order to construct this eth narrative pitch.

I prepared mine, full disclosure, I prepared mine about an hour before we started recording because I procrastinated. The last minute homework tour. I left to the very last minute. I thought it would be easy, but it's hard. It's actually hard to get a simple, coherent, like one to two minute pitch down for ether of the asset.

It's kind of like there's so many things you can say about Ethereum. That is the art of this. And this actually goes back all the way to, I think a tweet that really inspired this whole thing from Eric Balchunis who tweeted out, one of the challenges for ether ETFs penetrating the 60 former boomer world is distilling its purpose and value in an easy to understand sound bite a la Bitcoin is digital gold. Does a simple one-liner exist like that for ether? What is the Bitcoin is digital gold one-liner for ether?

Now, we're going to give a 60 second pitch, so much more than a one-liner. But this is the beauty of Bitcoin. and I also think the beauty of Ethereum is that, you know, Bitcoin is so trivially easy to understand that you can put it into a one-line soundbite and Ethereum is so incredibly expansive that you kind of need a 60-second pitch. So we're doing the 60-second pitch format here today.

David, is your hope, though, that we can get this to a one-sentence soundbite because you sort of need to in order for a meme to travel, like one single line? I think the Ethereum one single line comes from a more general, broad understanding of what Ethereum is, does the internet have one single line? I'm not sure it does.

Good retort. But that's just because everyone knows what the internet is. Yeah. And I'll say that going into this episode. I think that there will be eras or seasons where different lines are more applicable than others. So in the 1990s internet, when you're trying to explain the concept, you might have said something like the internet is e-commerce, right?

And that would have been accurate, and that would have been one sliver of it. But obviously, just a small segment of the total value that the internet would eventually drive. And the internet became kind of like a bundle of multiple different use cases. I see this very similarly with Ethereum, where there will be eras where one meme or one, one liner works, and that will fade out and another will supersede it. Or that will fade into the background. And we'll have different narratives every couple of years. In fact, David, that's actually been a Bitcoiner charge, like Bitcoin Maximilus charge of Ethereum over the ages, which I think is somewhat interesting, which is like, you guys keeps changing your narrative. I thought it was this and now it's this.

And I think the answer to that is mostly, no, it is that and it is also this. Yes, and. It's yes and. So the pursuit of defining all the narrative started with a tweet where I labeled some of the first four that came to my head. digital oil, internet bond, programmable money, tokenization platform. These are definitely some of the narratives that we've put out here at bankless. And then after this tweet, I went on a hunt for even further validation of some of these same narratives and also adding new ones into this list.

So I've come up with seven different perspectives, seven different angles. It's really six and a half of ways of viewing ether the asset and in no particular order. but I did start with Ethereum as a tokenization platform first because I want to introduce that one as one of the most new and novel perspectives of the ETH pitch. When you and I would write the ETH pitch, Ryan, we wouldn't really talk about Ethereum

as a tokenization platform because if you're going to sell Ether, it's weird to start talking about Ethereum. You and I have been so focused on Ether, the asset, but I don't think that nuance really matters if you only have 60 seconds. So talking about what ETHER, Ethereum does and talking about what its native currency ether is is almost synonymous for people who are

actually kind of naive to the fact that there is a difference there. Ether and Ethereum is basically the same thing. And tokenization as a candy line as like a nerd snipe as something that it is enjoyed by many, many people. I think tokenization has broad appeal. And this is the perspective that Zach Rines, chain link God puts into perspective here where he says every single financial asset in the world will be tokenized on chain. tokenize the world, tokenize everything. This has been a meme that has persisted across all crypto cycles. He continues, there's no longer a question of if, but a question of when.

Larry Fink, co-founder and CEO, BlackRock, has spoken publicly on numerous occasions about this inevitability. When regulatory clarity continues to be a pain point, Larry got both Bitcoin and ETH, ETH approved by an anti-crypto SEC. Beyond that, BlackRock has launched his own tokenized fund on a, Ethereum Mainnet, now at half a billion dollars a UM, invested in Circle, which issues USDC, invested in Securitize, one of the leading tokenized asset issuers, and he used both circles and securitized tech stack to issue Buildil.

There's no doubt in my mind that Buildil won't be the last fund BlackRock tokenizes on a public blockchain. Okay, so really leaning into the tokenization platform of Ethereum and also using the credibility of BlackRock. And Larry Fink, he's not a crypto native. He has like... No, he's not. Boomer customers.

Yes. And so I think it's worth taking a leaf out of his book to understand how he is using and also pitching ETH to his customers. And so Ethereum as a tokenization platform, I think needs to be a pretty core component of what any typical pitch about ETH is to Tradify. Okay. So that is the first of seven narratives that you think are contenders to be one of the key narratives to explain this, to give your 60 second to one minute, to two minutes.

because David, spoiler alert, I think mine's closer to two minutes now. To give me some grace there. But like a tokenization platform, this is not usually the pitch you're saying to crypto natives, but might be like much more resonant to tradify. And indeed, it was certainly that the pitch Larry Fink is given. And of course, you know, the customers of Larry Fink are going to be the buyers of ETFs, right? BlackRock is one of the main issuers of the Ethereum ETF.

they're the leading issuer for the Bitcoin ETF in terms of AUM. So you'd think this guy knows how to sell it. So tokenization platform, it's not exactly going bankless, is it? But it is something that Ethereum provides, and maybe that's a leading narrative for this platform. Totally. And I think we all kind of felt something in our hearts when we learned about the idea of tokenization.

And so it's also reminding people that, like, let's go back to your first days in crypto. and like what really got you excited about crypto? And tokenization, the idea of tokens is definitely up there. Well, you know, one thing I used to say when I was new to learning about Ethereum is that Bitcoin was a mono asset platform, just one asset, just Bitcoin. And Ethereum is a poly asset platform, multiple assets. So that is a similar idea to tokenization, I guess.

It's going to narrative number two, angle number two. Ethereum is an app store. And this is coming out of Jeff Dorman, who put out a tweet saying, attention, black rock, Vanek, digital assets and bitwise. Once the ETH, ETF goes live, please erase the words, supercomputer, ultrasound money, internet bond from your memory. This is not resonate with anyone. What does? Ethereum is an app store. And this is an angle that I've seen many people take.

Ethereum as an app store. And it's, again, something that is familiar to people who do not have a crypto background, who don't know what Ethereum is. And so it's important to know that if we are pitching Ether to people with very little familiarity about what's going on in our world, then we need to pull some knowledge from other corners of their brain that they already have preexisting knowledge. People know what an app store is. People know what a developer platform is. The idea of Ethereum as a tech platform that grows, the more code is written and the more that developers build applications on it, that is something that is familiar to them. and we can debate about like, well, is Ethereum really an app store? And I think if you go down into the nuances, we're missing the forest for the trees.

Sure. Like, simply put, it's a developer platform just like the app store. And it grows in utility over time, the more developers there are. I saw, we saw on a roll-up recently, Van Spencer pitched this pretty effectively in a conversation with Bloomberg, where he said Ethereum is an app store. And then he mentioned some of the various apps. And there was like this slide shown on screen where it showed like Avey and like compound and Maker and basically all of these different logos for the types of money apps.

So I think there is some familiarity there. And you can like point to actual apps that are deployed on the Ethereum app store and say, oh, you want a collateralized loan? Go here. Oh, you want a stable coin? Here's USDC. Go over here. Oh, you want like a payment app?

Go over here. And so I do think that is pretty resonant. And as you say, David, like, everyone knows what an app store is. Is there a human alive that you're pitching in the Ethereum ETF to that hasn't used the app store? That doesn't have, like, dozens of apps on their smartphone, right? Like, none of them. So this is a schematic that kind of works. And links to the last very successful compute revolution, which was the mobile revolution.

And just like, Ethereum could be as big as the iPhone, you know, it calls into mind that. I remember when we had Mark Cuban on the podcast during the middle of 2021, he was talking about giving us the perspective that he had where he was sharing with some of his friends of his age who had download Coinbase and was asking Mark Cuban like, hey, where's like the Defi apps? Where are all the apps? Thinking that there was like an app tab in the Coinbase app, not understanding that it's actually a little bit like it's one dimension larger than that. but people are ready for this. Like people are ready for the app store perspective. They just, you know, in order to be perfectly accurate,

you kind of have to tweak it and get a little bit more educated. But people are so ready to think of Ethereum as an app store. They are ready for that. The way that the weakness of this narrative, I think, is it quickly falls down when they're like, where's the app store?

You can't like point them to one central location to go like download their app or go look at their reviews or, you know, just click and start using. It's just, It's much more like the internet where you have to export on your own and there's rough edges. There's not one central, pristine app store type of experience brought to you by like some

commercialized UX, you know, champion of the world. It's just very rough. I do agree with you that that's where the metaphor breaks down, but we also have to remember who the audience is. The audience is buying the ether ETF, which you cannot use in any of the apps. Oh, they're not users. They're not users. They're not cusseting any.

The pitch. Yeah. And so, like, they're like, oh, Ethereum's an app store. Great. I'll buy it. Like, not considered, like, they're not actually going to, like, take it to the apps because they're buying the ETF. And so they just want exposure.

Which is great. So, like, you can use some of the lack of sophistication of crypto nativity to actually make this pitch, I think, easier, not harder. Okay. So that's number two. Ethereum is an app store. What's number three, David? I called this six and a half, not seven.

Number three, this is coming from Ryan Rasminson out of Bitwise who says, Ethereum is an operating system and an app store for crypto applications. So really adding the operating perspective here to the Ethereum pitch. And I think this is where we also get the opportunity to really differentiate Bitcoin and teach whoever is hearing these pitches and give them a little bit stronger foundation. You know, Ethereum is not digital gold. Bitcoin just does Bitcoin. It doesn't hold apps.

It just is Bitcoin the asset. Ethereum is an operating system and a developer platform. And that's also what many of the other blockchains are like. Like this is where Pomp, when he was on like Fast Money, talked about like all the other smart contracting platforms that are out there. You know, Ethereum, Solana, like all the other ones. And so you can also gain some assurances, some confidence in whoever you are pitching this to

by their ability to be familiar with like the idea of, oh, Bitcoin is separate and it's unique because it's just digital gold. It's just an asset. But Ethereum is an operating system, which is something that you're familiar. with and you build apps on it, which is something you're familiar with. And so I think leaning into the operating system, that is Ethereum, helps emboldened the tech platform angle that I think we definitely want with Ether. And also, I think, helps people become more

familiar with the landscape of all the entire crypto applications or crypto platforms. I know coming into this, you asked, hey, Brian, do you have another one to add to this list of seven? And I told you I didn't have one. But let me just add one now, because this is maybe a half step, right? You're just saying rather than just Ethereum is an app store, Ethereum is an app store, it's an operating system as well. Let me give you a full step, which is maybe a separate narrative. What about Ethereum as the internet of value? And this is kind of like the idea that rather than just an operating system,

it's kind of like the internet only for things that have value. And so it's less, it's more rough, it's more rugged, it's more you kind of have to surf it and browse it and that sort of thing. And it's permissionless. anyone can deploy to it. I think that is similar to the app store, but also different because the internet is not just a sandbox, you know, constrained by one company with like this walled garden type of environment, but it's like much more free form. Like anyone can deploy, anyone can expand to it. So maybe that's another narrative that gets us the full seven here, David,

but it's pretty related to this operating system or app store type of idea, Ethereum, the internet of value. Totally. My commentary on that one would be, it definitely fits and it's a more pure representation, and I like it's a little more crypto-native. But then we've also moved away from familiarity. Like, internet of value is another way to say, like, operating system that's a little bit more true to what Ethereum is, but then you also lose some familiarity and some, like, pre-existing knowledge.

And so I think that's something that, like, somebody hearing this pitch could get to an aha moment about. But I think if I'm just like a 60-year-old person with, like, my savings, and you're pitching me a blockchain app store versus internet of value, I think blockchain app store is going to be a little bit more resonant. I agree too. Like internet of value feels so amorphous, right? Like what is value anyway?

That word value. It's almost like internet of assets might be better. But let's go to number four. What's number four? Number four, ETH is digital oil. Now there's one of these pitches that I'm going to say we should not definitely do. And there's pros and cons of all of these pitches. And so I'm not going to say that Ethereum is digital.

oil is like the perfect pitch, but it's definitely worth talking about as a perspective, especially if we are really looking for that like one liner that Eric Balchunas was really asking for. If Bitcoin is digital gold, then what is the commodity? What is the resource that Ethereum is. Ethereum is digital oil. It is literally called gas. It is the thing that funds and powers the application that is on Ethereum. When you make a transaction on Ethereum to do some app, somebody's computer,

somewhere in the world starts flops. It starts doing some flops. It actually starts doing some computation. And you need to consume ether. You need to consume the oil to power those crypto applications. And so it's not perfect because it's going to develop a lot further questions. But in terms of just like if we're putting things into like perfect commodity like resources, oil, I think is the correct comparison for gold. So Bitcoin is digital gold than Ethereum's digital oil. For the ethibles also has this nice property in that it's like almost a 7x larger than the total market cap of gold. So gold market cap is about $17 trillion, at least according to this estimate right here.

The market cap of oil, if you multiply all the barrels of oil by about $70 per barrel, you get $150 trillion, so a lot larger than oil. And certainly, oil being kind of a consumptive good is certainly resonant with the idea of gas. So bigger market cap, the idea of gas. It's not bad. You're not talking about Ethereum the network in this case, though. You are very squarely talking about ether, the asset, or just eth. Yeah, exactly. And even though it probably generates further questions and a little bit of confusion in your listener, at least puts them in the frame of mind as like, well, you know, from some perspectives, ether's meant to be consumed. Like, you are supposed to burn ether to use

the applications. That is its purpose. And some people like the productivity and the GDP association that comes with like some crypto asset being oil. A lot of people don't like the idea of a deflationary asset. Like they have been trained to think that money should inflate. They have been trained to think that an inflation-based economy is it produces, is better producing of value and resources. And so some people just resonate with the idea of oil, I think more than a, than a, gold or a fixed market cap asset. It does also, now that Ethereum does have the burn in place, right, it does kind of map nicely to you have to burn oil in order to get things done and you have to burn ETH in order to cause movement, you know, pay for transactions on the Ethereum network.

So that's nice as well. I'll admit that for myself, David, I've ebbed and flowed with respect to this narrative. Like there are times where I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's right. And other times we're like, I hate this narrative. Like this is worth, Ethereum's not oil at all. It is a non-sovereign store of value in the same way Bitcoin is. kind of like a money, has gone back and forth on this. But I feel like full cycle, when I zoom out and look at the context, it's not bad. I kind of like this Ethereum is oil or Ether is oil. Okay, we're starting to get into what I would call some of the worst narratives that are still helpful.

And so worse maybe for like presenting Ether as a first time to a first timer, maybe these narratives start to come in further down someone's journey of understanding. And worse for Tradfai specifically is what you're saying. Tramify. Worse for the current audience. Yeah. This is a narrative that we're about to present that I think bankless, you and I have thoroughly enjoyed, but it has come after just years of like education and perspectives and exploration

of what Ethereum is. And that's Ether as an Internet bond. If we have the Ethereum stake rate at what is it now, 3.2% for this Internet native store value asset that's used as a collateral and defy, well, the most risk-off thing you can do, that's also highly exposed to the crypto economy is buy eth and stake it. Buy your crypto asset, buy your money, buy your digital oil, whatever, stake it to Ethereum and you get the internet bond. You get the bond, the stake rate of, of eth. And since, you know, ether the asset is the foundation of so many applications in the defy landscape, the internet

bond is the yield rate that transcends all of depi. This one, once again, definitely requires some prerequisite knowledge to really make this. angle resonant with people. It definitely also requires understanding what defy is and how ether is a money in defy. But this is one that we've enjoyed. And I know that crypto natives also enjoy it, the more that they understand Ethereum as a financial system. Okay. Yeah. I also enjoy it, David. So there's lots of good things we could say about it. Like, it's definitely a differentiator from Bitcoin. And the key, like, ability to stake ether is kind of much different than Bitcoin. Also, you get to comp it to, like, what's the value?

sovereign bonds around the world, something like 70 trillion. Okay. And so the idea of Ethereum being sort of like a nation state only a network state that secures property rights, like we could geek out on that for many episodes of bankless. And indeed we have. So the parallels and the analogs are really good here. And so I definitely like the ether as an internet bond for a crypto-native audience who's really deeply trying to understand how we're securing property rights inside of these crypto economic systems. That said, I totally agree with you. It is like among the worst narratives to present to Tradfai and an eth buyer, not least of which because they don't get any yield in Ethereum ETF right now. Not yet. All they get is the asset, right? So they can't even

they can't even stake this. And when you say internet bond, what like what do you actually mean? A bond of the internet? Like they're not. Because a bond is supposed to come from a government or corporation. Exactly. And they haven't listened to, you know, dozens of bankless episodes telling them why this is like similar to a you know nation state and so it requires too much in terms of fundamentals to easily articulate this to somebody with Wall Street knowledge. All right. Second to last. I think this one is actually a pretty strong one, but again, not necessarily something I would lead with. Programmable money. And this, I want to note that this tweet is from 2019, this tweet from Eric Connor. He says, the original Ethereum vision of programmable money is the

strongest narrative and the one that will translate best to the mainstream. Quit looking elsewhere. Programmable money. If Bitcoin is digital gold, then Ethereum is programmable money. And this gets into the idea of like smart contracts and an app store because like, you know, apps are programs. And then ether is the money that goes through the programs. It also alludes to the fact that like, well, there's other crypto assets out there that aren't programmable. Oh yeah, that's Bitcoin. Bitcoin, not programmable. Ether, program. And I don't think this really helps it deliver an all-encompassing vision of ether or Ethereum. But it does.

It's like I think the only way to really get at what is ether, what is Ethereum, is from, it's from so many different angles, right? That's why we're talking about seven different angles. And this is a very valid one. This is a very simple one. You already know Bitcoin. You already know it's a digital asset on the network. It runs on a thing called a blockchain. Ether is the same thing, but it's programmable.

Implying that Bitcoin's not and applying that, you know, you can do things with the program. Yeah, I do like this. It does resonate with me. However, I feel like it misses something in communicating the youth narrative to the audience, which is like, it doesn't necessarily imply operating system or app store or like platform. When I just hear the term like programmable money in a vacuum without knowing everything that you just said, I might just think it's just one mono asset that I can write if then statements on. And like does not necessarily imply that there will be all sorts of different apps and different tokens and different assets and even chains that can be launched on top of this. So it's not, I don't think it encompasses the full vision of what could, like I would even prefer,

I think the app store type of analogy to programmable money because it feels much more rich and resonant even if it's not exactly accurate. Yeah. And like I said, I think a full, A full holistic understanding of what ether is requires all of these narratives, not just like one. We're just kind of going through the ones by strength. And this is, we're coming up to our number seven, the last one, which I think is going to be the weakest narrative, which you should not use. And that is, ETH is ultrasound money, which has been the funny narrative that many in the Ethereum community has used for a long time, including ourselves. And I think it has been a great narrative while the industry understood what sound money was.

And we would be able to poke fun at Bitcoiners. The idea of sound money versus ultrasound money came from a era in crypto in which it was basically just the Bitcoin community and the Ethereum community. Solana hadn't even gone live yet. Like the only, the other avalanche was like the other blockchain that was out there and had a community. But very few other communities exist. And ultrasound money was strictly a narrative to counteract BitConner narratives. It was a narrative about the crypto. industry for the crypto industry. It's supposed to stay insular into the crypto community. So I would

not suggest if you're trying to sell ETH to Tradfai to BlackRock to your parents, don't call it ultra-sound money. They won't get it. It's super, you know, 2019, 2020s, crypto wars. And this, this meme sort of came out in 2021 as a reaction to many on the Bitcoin side saying, well, Ethereum's just like you can change the supply at a whim. It's just like Fiat. It's just like a central bank coin. The fact that you stake it, you know, even is further evidence that this is just like a Fiat type of system. And you just consume the gas, eth as gas as you go. You don't need to buy ETH in order to store value. You store your value in secure assets in non-sod, like store value assets like Bitcoin and just buy ETH as you need it to

pay for compute, right? And so this was when Ethereum's monetary policy was really being hardened and its issuance schedule. and the realization that ether could be a store of value asset, but it's very insular to the crypto community and is not the way to export our narrative to the broader world. 100%. Okay, those are the seven different perspectives that I thought was pretty useful in forming my pitch.

And so, without further ado, Ryan, shall we get to the pitches? Totally should, David. And I'm too curious as to which of those narratives you used. Or maybe you came up with a David Hoffman special, number eight narrative. I might have. I might have. So I can't wait to hear your pitch. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible, including our recommended crypto exchange for buying your ether,

no matter what narrative you subscribe to. That is Cracken. Go create an account. If you want a crypto trading experience backed by world-class security and award-winning support teams, then head over to Cracken, one of the longest standing and most secure crypto platforms in the world. Cracken is on a journey to build a more accessible, inclusive, and fair financial system, making it simple and secure for everyone, everywhere to trade crypto.

Cracken's intuitive trading tools are designed to grow with you, empowering you to make your first or your hundreds trade in just a few clicks. And there's an award-winning client support team available 24-7 to help you along the way, along with a whole range of educational guides, articles, and videos. With products and features like Cracken Pro and Cracken NFT Marketplace and a seamless app to bring it all together, it's really the perfect place to get your complete crypto experience. So check out the simple, secure, and powerful way for ever.

everyone to trade crypto, whether you're a complete beginner or a season pro. Go to crackin.com slash bank lists to see what crypto can be. Not investment advice, crypto trading involves risk of loss. Sello is the mobile first and EVM compatible blockchain that's built for the real world and designed for fast, low-cost payments worldwide. Driving real-world use cases like Opera MiniPay, one of the fastest growing Web3 wallets with over 2 million users across Africa. Sello is seeing a meteoric rise with over 375 million transactions and a million monthly

active users. Not to mention Tether and Circle just deployed native U.S. SDT and USCC on SELO, supported by leading exchanges like Binance. And now SELO is looking to come home to Ethereum as a layer two. With a game-changing proposal, core contributors at C-Labs, aims to leverage optimism's OP stack pioneering a transition as the biggest L-1 to become a layer two, with TestNet arriving as early as summer, 2024. With the SELO layer two, gas fees will stay low, and users can even pay for gas using ERC-20 tokens,

including native USC and USDT, sending crypto to phone numbers across wallets using Social Connect. But SELO is a community governed protocol. Make your voice hurt in the SELO forum to shape the future of Ethereum. Follow at SELO on Twitter and explore the ecosystem built for the real world on cello.org slash quests. Are you worried about the security of your cross-chain transactions? Cross-chains with confidence using Transporter, the revolutionary token bridging app designed to give you peace of mind. Powered by ChainLink CCIP, Transporter is your trusted gateway for securely moving assets like ETH, Native USC, and Link, and so many more across some of your favorite blockchains. Over $2.8 billion has been hacked from token bridges to date.

Transporter puts a stop to this by ensuring your transfers are protected by the most robust security features available. Chainlink CCIP provides level 5 security backed by multiple decentralized Oracle networks and an independent risk management network. Transporter also provides real-time tracking throughout your transaction with its newly engineered user experience, so you'll never have to second-guess the safety or location of your assets ever again. And the best part, Transporter makes it simple. Whether you're a blockchain beginner or a season trader, Transporter's intuitive interface lets you execute cross-chain transactions with just a few clicks. No additional fees, just a low cost for using CCIP, which can be paid in Link or your blockchain's native gas token.

But don't just take my word for it. See for yourself, why Transporter offers a stress-free bridging experience. Experience the future of token bridging at transporter.io and just send it. All right, Ryan, how do we decide who goes first, who goes second? Do you want to rock paper scissors or should we flip a coin or what? Rock paper scissors. Really? One and done?

One and done? Yeah, one and done. On the camera? Yep. Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot. Paper. So that means I get my preference.

The latency is weird. Okay, so I got paper. Ryan had scissors. So you get to choose. Okay. You go first, David. I want second mover advantage. Like Ethereum has to Bitcoin.

Okay. Just as a reminder, if you're a bankless citizen who is holding a 2022 POAP or later, so 2023, or you're a gauntlet NFT holder, you have voting rights on our joke race contest, which voting is now open. So all citizens who fit that criteria have one vote.

There are 8,000 something Ethereum addresses that are eligible for voting. And so please vote for whoever you think has the better pitch. And remember, it's very important that this is a pitch for people who would buy Ether ETF, who would buy the Ether ETF. This isn't for like getting people

on chain. This is for people who BlackRock is talking to. It's not for you. It's for them. Like it's for your parents and your grandparents. All right. You ready? I'm ready, man. Go for it. All right. Here we go. Ethereum is like Bitcoin, but with the addition of programmability, which really changes the game that Ethereum is playing. Ethereum's programmability evolves Ethereum beyond just being a scarce digital asset to being able to host an entirely online digital economy. This programmability enables Ethereum to be a platform for financial applications. Much like how the App Store and the Google Play Store are developer platforms for consumer apps, the Ethereum blockchain is a developer platform that enables consumer financial

applications that offer services that are familiar to Wall Street, exchanges, banking, marketplaces, borrowing and lending services, even asset creation and indecy products. Ethereum is an open platform for anyone to build whatever financial application that they can imagine. Since Ethereum is an internet-based protocol, it has internet-scale. It has internet-scale, distribution. The applications on Ethereum are accessible to anyone with an internet connection, making these applications on Ethereum some of the most widely used and fastest growing financial service applications that have ever existed. Demand for these on-chain applications on Ethereum produce $2 to $3 billion in yearly revenue for the protocol, which Ethereum turns into

a stock buyback for its native currency, ETH, which materially impacts the available supply of ETH on secondary markets, making it very price sensitive to marginal demand. So, if you're bullish on the growth and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology at large, the Bitcoin ETF simply doesn't offer that exposure. You need the ETH ETF. Thank you. Well done, David. That was great. A plus, where do I buy my Ethereum ETF, huh? I almost want to sell my regular Ethan and buy the ETH now. Buy just the ETH. Yeah, that was great. All right, so tell me, you, you went with platform. You went with kind of open internet like protocol, but you didn't say the word protocol, But you said apps, you named a number of the actual apps, like you said, exchanges, which are big,

and people are thinking about that. You also said a banking, which kind of links both Tradfai and sort of, you know, crypto-native type things. What narratives, it felt like you touched on a number of narratives. You definitely didn't touch on internet bond or ultrasound money or any of the internal crypto ones, but you did do some tokenization-esque stuff. You did do some app store. I said asset creation.

I didn't say the word tokenization. That's probably a miss on my part. Okay. I could have added tokenization in there somewhere specifically. I just said even asset creation and indices. Yeah. So what were you thinking? Like what was that pitch about?

What were you trying to do? Okay. So I wanted to break it down into three parts. And first was apps and developer platform, which was meant to hopefully lead into being an internet economy. And so this was the thing that we didn't really talk about as a narrative in the first seven, but I think it's definitely worth trying to trigger the imaginations of. If we're trying to be ambitious with this pitch, the thing that we should strive for is

thinking of Ethereum as hosting an internet-based economy. We know that there's commerce on the internet, but we also know it's not internet native. Like Visa, MasterCard, like Zell, like these aren't internet native. Like, Bitcoin is internet native. Can we get people to think about like internet native GDP? an internet native economy. And that's what I was trying to get with with like internet scale distribution of its financial apps.

So that's your way to kind of the internet economy is your way to sort of spoon feed them a future idea of an internet bond, right? Because once you have an internet economy with its own GDP and its self-sustaining taxes and economics, then you can start to pill them on internet bond. Then they get ready for that later. Totally. Yes. Yeah.

And so like first you have to get to. them comfortable with like commerce on on ethereum like tokens moving around ethereum black rock tokenizing buildil and that's moving around ethereum then you like then you can wake them up to like well all doing all of that costs fees that goes into revenue for the protocol which is issues an eat buyback that's why we call it gas uh and then you can just like talk about all the other things but like it's really true you load up the idea of like this you know sci-fi economy that's native on the internet and then you can like back into some of the other more complicated things. That was my thought process.

It's like getting the idea of the internet economy and Ethereum is that platform, that was like what my goal was. So open dev, you know, like platform and apply that and then also the internet economy, like seeding them with that. And, you know, like talking about some use cases that they're familiar with and apps

that they're familiar with and seeding all that. That was great. Nice job, man. We sold some Ethereum ETF already. I know it. Can we sell some more? Can you sell some more? Yeah.

All right, let's hear yours, sir. All right, I'll give it a try here. Bitcoin is one asset. It's just Bitcoin. Ethereum is all possible assets, which is bigger. Gold were all the assets in the world. Bitcoin was designed to secure one asset, just Bitcoin. Ethereum is a general purpose platform designed to secure everything else,

stable coins, loans, equities, bonds, derivatives, everything in finance. The word for this is tokenization. People like Larry Fink are saying every stock bond and asset will be tokenized on a global ledger, and even he's thinking too small. tokenization isn't just the assets of the past, it's the assets of the future. AI compute, personal data, social status, and celebrity. Everything will be tokenized. Ethereum is a global computing network to tokenize and program any asset.

Ethereum adds property rights to the internet. Now, tokenization can and will happen on other platforms, but Ethereum is positioned as the strongest contender to ride the tokenization wave. There's 100 million people that own ETH, 100,000 developers that actively contribute to the code. Already, Ethereum settles more than the Visa network, and it's just getting started. So now let's talk about ETH. The cryptocurrency of Ethereum is called ETH and has investable economics, including an algorithmic buyback and dividend program that drives billions per year in earnings to ETH holders. This number, grows as the network expands. You can build a DCF model on ETH as you would with any stock.

A stock may be like Nvidia. And because ETH is extremely secure and decentralized like Bitcoin, more and more people are seeing ETH as a complement to Bitcoin as a store of value. While Bitcoin has greater certainty of supply, Ethereum pays a dividend and is deflationary, with the upside of an entire token economy. Bitcoin is exposure to digital gold. Ethereum is exposure to everything else. I own both, but if I could only pick one, I'd pick the super set. I'd pick eth. Feechills.

Chills. All right, can I tell you what I liked about that? Yeah. Something that we both did is we use Bitcoin as an anchor. And I think that's, you have to do that. Like you have to start at the foundation because Bitcoin is so stupid, simple. And then you, I really like the idea of like ether is the super set of, that. And I think you leaned into that both at the beginning and at the very end where, you know,

Bitcoin is just one one asset and Ethereum is all possible assets. And I think the, that line that you said where Ethereum is both all like historical assets, all assets that currently exist, but then also all future assets. That kind of does the same thing that I was trying to do with saying like open up like, think, you can definitely think what feels good to you. Like we can put, we can put your bonds on chain boomers. Like that's what that's what the bill of fund is. But also think bigger. Like also think more expansively. And I think that's where the Ethereum narrative both suffers and also is his greatest strength is like you get to think bigger with Ethereum. And I think, I think you did that very, very well. It was like think bigger. Yeah, it felt like that was worth

a one-liner. So it was like Larry Think thinks this is cool and he wants to tokenize everything with it. But also think about the expansive use cases he's not thinking about and Tradfai's not thinking about like AI compute or social status and celebrity and that sort of thing. I do have to say this pitch was heavily inspired by a five-minute pitch by Nick Shalick of Ribbitt Capital. You saw that. I think we're going to have Nick on the podcast soon. It's basically like a lot of his ideas because he nailed it.

And one thing that Nick does is he went all in on tokenization. And so I sort of did that too. You spend a lot of time on tokenization. That was I just picked the one thing and I just picked tokenization for my like. you know, 60 seconds to two minutes thing. And I went kind of like all in on that. But yeah, I do agree. You have to start with Bitcoin, not least of which because they already have a Bitcoin ETF. And so like they're likely already buyers of Bitcoin. So there you go. That's pretty good pitches. Yeah, that was it. Pretty good pitches. Yeah. I think we can definitely like iterate and and make

these better and better and better. We're going to, but like you said, we're going to talk with Nick from Ribbitt. And so I think maybe phase two of our pitches comes after we talk to him. David, are you able to distill your pitch down to like one line? Do you think you could do that? Like, if you were to just summarize, just give me off the cuff, just one line to summarize your pitch. Internet economy, I think is like, Bitcoin is Internet economy. Ethereum is an Internet economy. Okay. So I think mine is. Internet GDP. Like, I'm trying to get to them to think GDP on the Internet. I think mine was probably like Ethereum is tokenization or Ethereum is everything else. You know, Bitcoin is digital gold.

Ethereum is everything else. But everything else also doesn't like it is a hot line. It's a hot line. It's a hot line, but it doesn't work. But it's everything. It's literally the opposite of what a definition is. Yeah, exactly. So all the other things.

Anyway, we got some more work to do to distill this down to one line. For sure. All right, Bankless Nation. Bankless citizens, since you guys are listening to this. Go to Joke Race. There is a link in the show notes. There will be a link in the Discord and vote on who you think. The better pitch, me or Ryan.

And one of us will walk away at the end of voting, which will happen on Saturday. Today is Monday, June 10th, to Saturday the 5th, I think. Saturday, end of day, Saturday. So we have until end of day Saturday to decide. And one lucky bankless co-host gets to walk away with the bragging rights poe out. For now, that's a temporary thing. I'm sure we'll come up with some new ways to kind of gamble this thing and exchange hands later on some more competitions for us.

I'm not stepping foot in a boxing ring with you, though, David. I just want to say that's out of bounds. I would definitely get my ass handed to me. Maybe with these narrative pitches I have at least a shot. We've got to end with this. Of course, you know, crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in, but we are headed west. This is the frontier.

It's not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot. New projects are coming online to the Mantle Layer 2 every single week. Why is this happening? Maybe it's because Mantle has been. been on the frontier of layer two design architecture since it first started building mantle DA powered by technology from eigenDA. Maybe it's because users are coming onto the mantle layer two to capture some of the highest yields available in Defy and to automatically receive the points

and tokens being accrued by the $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 a on one of the best foundations in crypto or your user looking to claim some ownership on Mantle's Defy Apps, click the link in the show notes to getting started with Mantle.

Have you ever felt that the tools for developing decentralized applications are too restrictive and fail to leverage advancements from traditional software programming? There's a wide range of expressive building blocks beyond conventional smart contracts and solidity development. Don't waste your time building the basics from scratch

and don't limit the potential of your vision. Cartesee provides powerful and scalable solutions for developers that supercharge app development. With a Cartese virtual machine, you can run a full Linux OS and access decades of rich code libraries and open source tooling for building in Web3. And with Cartese's unique roll-up framework, you'll get real-world scaling and computation. No more competing for Blockspace. So, if you're a developer looking to push the boundaries of what's possible in Web3, Cartesey is now offering up to $50,000 in grants.

Head over to Cartesey's grant application page to apply today. And if you're not a developer, those with staked CTSI can take part in the governance process and vote on whether or not a proposal should be funded. Make sure your vote ready by staking your CTSI before the votes open. Taking self-custody of your crypto is one of the most important things you can do on your bankless journey. It's also one of the hardest things to get right with huge consequences if you don't. If you want help going bankless, talk to CASA.

Kaza helps you take custody of your crypto assets so you don't have to wonder whether you're doing it right. Kasa is a one-stop shop for doing self-custody the right way. With CASA vaults, you can hold Ether, Bitcoin, Stable Coins, all with one simple app and multiple keys for the ultimate peace of mind with a support team to help you every step of the way. But it doesn't stop at self-custody because even though crypto is forever, you are not. We all plan on making life-changing wealth in crypto, but with CASA's inheritance product, life-changing wealth can elevate to generational wealth.

For your kids and your loved ones, who don't know anything about crypto. With CASA, you won't lose your private keys and you won't accidentally take them to the grave either. Click the link in the description to get started securing your generational wealth.