Bankless - Why Gen Z Will Turn Everything Into a Market | Threadguy

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Trading is no longer just a financial activity; it has become a spectator sport. In this episode, Threadguy explains how Gen Z’s internet-native fluency, built through sneaker markets, NFTs, and mem...e cycles, translates into a new kind of market intuition: attention, momentum, and mimetics. We delve into “Entertainment Finance,” where perps, prediction markets, and live trading are starting to resemble streaming and esports more closely than Wall Street. Along the way, we explore why “internet capital markets” may pull everything on-chain over time, what happens when every asset becomes content, and why creators and traders will keep pushing into the open frontier. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄UNISWAP | CONTINUOUS CLEARING AUCTIONS https://bankless.cc/uniswap-cca 🛞MANTLE | GLOBAL HACKATHON 2025 https://bankless.cc/mantle-hackathon 💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Threadguy: “Gen Z crypto face” 2:58 Sneaker Twitter: trade-first upbringing 8:03 Onboarding via social proof 13:08 Two Gen Z money paths 16:53 Crypto as opportunity engine 20:38 Why he won’t leave crypto 23:35 Media growth and infinite TAM 29:31 Entertainment finance: markets as content 37:28 Risk takers become “athletes” 42:27 PVP arcs and downfall appetite 44:25 Trading mimetics: valuation doesn’t matter 49:53 One internet note, spills to equities 55:15 Counterparty: home for internet markets 58:40 Token launch replaces IPO 1:02:38 Where to follow + content grind --- RESOURCES Threadguy https://x.com/notthreadguy Threadguy’s Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/threadguy --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:02 Thread Guy, welcome to Bankless. Thanks, man. I'm excited to be here. How are you? Really good, really, really good. I'm excited for this conversation, mainly because I think you have probably the largest audience that is also the most non-overlapping with ours,
Starting point is 00:00:16 with mine here at Bankless. And I want to, like, learn a little bit more about what's going on over there. Maybe to get that started, Thread Guy is what you are known as. That's your pseudonym. I don't even know if people know your actual name. Michael, it's Docs, if you want to call it. Michael.
Starting point is 00:00:32 Nice to meet you, Michael. Likewise. I've only ever known you as Thread Guy. Would it be fair to call you the Gen Z face of crypto? I will take it with a smile on my face. I'll absolutely take it, yeah. Something that I watched slowly happened in 2021 was there was like a lot of people that came into the industry that like cared about different things than like what we were expecting.
Starting point is 00:00:58 We as being like there was really only like Bitcoin and Ethereum back. and that kind of has slowly manifested into its own, like, pillar of the whole entire crypto industry. And it's really centered around like a new generation of crypto entrance, crypto market participants that have like a very strong like Gen Z. It's like very Gen Z coded. I'm guessing that's when you more or less came into the industry around 2020, 2020, 2021.
Starting point is 00:01:25 So I have a lot of perspective on this that I, as time goes on, I realize not everyone came in at the same, you know, People here for different reasons. Not everyone understands by side of the world the way I understand it. But I came here in 2020 for Topshop to trade. Yeah. Topshot NFTs on the flow blockchain because I was in the internet reselling game. And the hottest game in town was sports cards for all, basically the whole summer into early fall of 2020.
Starting point is 00:01:57 Sports cards were the game. Hottest game in town. I should have been buying Bitcoin, trading crypto. I didn't even know it existed. And the sports cards community was up in arms over these fucking top shots. NFTs are stupid. They're not real.
Starting point is 00:02:11 They're not real cardboard. They're real connoisseurs. And I'm like, man, everyone's so angry and upset about these top shots. I should go buy a couple. And, you know, one thing leads to the next. And next thing, you know, you're buying board apes and you're in the NFT scene full-fledged. But I wasn't here in 2017.
Starting point is 00:02:28 I wasn't here in the early, early days of crypto. But I think. 2021 with NFTs, and then 2024 with Salonamem coins, were the two periods of hyper growth on chain of people that were coming exclusively to trade. They weren't really necessarily here for the cypherpunk ethos or for stable coins or decentralization.
Starting point is 00:02:51 They were here to trade. And it's kind of like an interesting development, I think that's happened amongst crypto. Yeah, I think maybe listeners are like gearing up like, oh, okay, this is going to be a conversation a cultural conversation about how crypto is leaning into just like the casino and like the financial lives. And I don't really think that's why the conversation is I want to have. I want to have the conversation about like what Gen Z is like naturally disposed to and what parts of crypto that resonates
Starting point is 00:03:19 with the most. And I think part of this might be, well, it might be every single generation is more online than the previous, but also the important factor here is COVID. Like COVID happened to Gen Z at an earlier stage in their life. It was like 25 or 26 or something. Yeah, you were in high school. Yeah, high school. I was 18, yeah, in 2020. To what degree do you think, like, COVID, like,
Starting point is 00:03:43 shepherded it in Gen Z into, like, the online trading culture? So I think COVID accelerated timelines significantly. Yeah. But to understand there is this, it's kind of the internet I grew up on, there's this group of, Now it probably skews younger, but this like Zoomer cohort, people who are like 18 to 25 now, in the heyday of what I call like sneaker reselling Twitter, 2015, 2016, 2017 into like all of the Yeezy Kanye hype into all of the like off white Virgil hype
Starting point is 00:04:22 and then blow off the top of it, COVID is, I think this is one of the first generations around my general age demographic that has. has grown up trading things on the internet. That has grown up like in your, like I'm 14 going home from high school early, my freshman year high school, to like bought Supreme and flip Supreme, right, during like study hall. And so there's this whole generation of kids that for the first time were exposed to these like niche cultural markets in a way to make money out of the system. Right. Like when I was, sneaker Twitter was the first time you find, you know, there's a, there's a 15 year old kid that like coded some
Starting point is 00:05:02 sneaker bot is making $100k a month and it's like whoa you can make $100k a month. You can make $500k a month on the internet I remember the first time I bought a Supreme Box logo CDG Supreme Box logo T-shirt for $59 retail and sold it for $450 and it was like my world shattered.
Starting point is 00:05:20 And so I think a foundational level-setting concept is that my generation and then everyone that comes after us grow up in a world where it is standard to make money out of the system in weird niche ways that your parents don't understand, that your aunts, your uncles, your family doesn't understand on the internet amongst these Discord, Twitter, like niche communities. And so I think that prior experience set the stage to be able to see something like NFTs and be like, oh, I get this.
Starting point is 00:05:54 Or to be able to see meme coins at 2024 and be like, oh, I get this. And then you can work backwards on crypto ideology and why blockchain decentralization, self-sovereignty, why all of this matters. And so I think there's this whole generation that's working backwards to what you probably have to work forwards to on some of the cultural NFT meme coin stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of what you said is like the learning to make money on like the margins of society on the internet, like not getting a job, not doing the standard thing, not going to college and learning to make money on the internet. All of the examples that you say that you gave, I noticed were all like cultural stuff. Because like one of the classic early examples that is very
Starting point is 00:06:38 similar that I was used to hearing is, oh, some kid just like coded up a trading bot or an MEV bot and made a bunch of money. Those are the stories I was used to hearing. But the stories you gave are like, sneakers and, you know, other things of that. Because it's very like culturally relevant items. Am I reading into that too far or do you think that's accurate? No, it's 100%. And one, just Just because I had this guy not washed, is his name. He's a pretty goaded on chain trade on the stream the other day. And we spent the whole time talking about, he was a big sneaker guy. So it's like fresh in my mind.
Starting point is 00:07:07 One of the hottest games in town, 2020, when we were in lockdown was there's a legitimate group of people that made seven, eight figures and retired off PS5s. Remember when you couldn't get a PS5 and it was selling for $1,200? Like that was the PS5s in Xbox consoles was the best game in town for like 12 months if you weren't trading crypto. And so 100% it's same game re-skinned. And I think it, you know, I don't know how deep are going on the long degeneracy stuff. I have some takes on that.
Starting point is 00:07:37 But I think on a baseline, basically looking at an entire world that is like conditioned to trade, that is conditioned to participate in speculation games, is conditioned to like make money on the internet. And it bodes really well for, you know, an open, permissionless, borderless global capital market, i.e. crypto. Why conditioned? What can, because like, I don't know if I ever, as, as, I'm like a younger millennial. So I see a little bit of Gen Z and me. Ryan, my co-host, he's like older millennial.
Starting point is 00:08:06 He's like more, there's a little bit of Jen X-kind. But like, I don't think I ever would just feel like I got conditioned to trade anything. I'm also a shit trader. So there's that. But like, what do you mean about like? Maybe a better word. Maybe a better word than conditioned is familiar. I think familiar is a better way to phrase it where.
Starting point is 00:08:26 You know, like, we always talk about onboarding in crypto. How do you onboard the masses? How do you onboard retail? Is it flipping listing prices on open-sea to U.S. dollars instead of Eath? Is that going to onboard? Like, what's going to onboard the people? And at least in my head, the greatest onboarding story that's ever happened is some friend of yours that's dumber than you, got a worse score on his SAT and makes less than you at his job, just made like $10,000 on crypto. or just flipped a pair of sneakers for $1,000
Starting point is 00:08:56 or just sold some NFT white list mint for $25,000 and you're like, I can do that. That to me is the greatest story you could ever tell to onboard someone into a financial market. Why did everyone start trading stocks for the first time? It's probably because you heard some friend of yours or your dad or your uncle was making money.
Starting point is 00:09:18 And so I think as time has gone on, like I don't know about most, but many people have now had like a touch point with someone they know well, making money outside of the system and some of this obscure way on the internet. And so the story starts to become familiar. Like, okay, this is a thing that happens.
Starting point is 00:09:37 It's not crazy. And as time goes on, I'm hearing more of similar situations than I'm hearing less. You can now borrow USDC against your Ethereum and Bitcoin on Coinbase. Crypto-backed loans on Coinbase make assessing liquidity seamless for crypto-hoddlers.
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Starting point is 00:13:00 There's a take that I heard from, we used to work with her, Kyla Scanlon. She's now kind of like pretty famous in just like, kind of like Gen Z, TikTok, finance econ. Like pretty like well researched. Oh, you said. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, her broad strokes of just like what Gen Z's relationship with finances is, is that, like,
Starting point is 00:13:20 they tend to bifurcate into two camps. One, it looks at, like, AI and how bad of a deal college is, and is like, I don't know what to invest my career into, so I'm going to do something that's timeless. I'm going to become, like, a mechanic. An electrician, a plumber, no college, no debt, professions that are just super safe. and they're the stability seeking Gen Z. And then there's a flip side of things, which is like the Gen Z is going after the lottery ticket,
Starting point is 00:13:47 like the hyper gambling in hopes of like escaping the permanent underclass. And I wonder to what to agree, like some of the fact that just like the normal ways feel so much like a bad deal is really encouraging of people, of Gen Z like looking elsewhere to make money. And that's just the opportunities elsewhere are just like, it's just a way greener passers, than doing the normal thing,
Starting point is 00:14:11 which is take that and go to college. What I'll say on this is I, again, the long degeneracy stuff, we can go as deep as you want. I reject dumerism at all costs. And I really almost refusing to accept this. Like I hate this narrative that gets pushed on make it in finite amount of time
Starting point is 00:14:31 or be stuck in a permanent class for the rest of your life. The reason I hate that is because, one, I haven't made it in finite amount of time. And two is like, man, I'm young. I want to have kids one day, right? I would like to think that, I don't know if you have kids, but I'm sure if you don't or you do, you would like to have kids someday.
Starting point is 00:14:46 I'm sure you would want a future for your child that is like, okay, he can get to 18, she can get to 18, live a good life, make money, get a career, be excited to live in this world. And so from that perspective, I reject the one year, this cycle, the last cycle, the last leg up. But I will say that I fall into the latter. camp a little bit, which is like I, I was like a, I was a hustler in high school and middle school. I always had some weird little, not grift, but some little like hustle and selling
Starting point is 00:15:18 friendship bracelets in elementary school. Like I had some, some little scheme to make money. Yeah, you're entrepreneurial. Exactly. And I went to college for a year and I was just like, it was very much, holy shit, I need to figure something out because I'm here. It was COVID year. Everything, I'm on campus, everything's online. You can't even go to the, to the, the food. hall that a mask on and sit next to one of your homies. And I'm like, this is miserable. I'm getting terrible grades. I don't want to be here. And this is expensive. And I need to really find some alternative solution because I'm not going to make it four years. So if I got to make it four years to get, you know, I knew I wanted to be in finance capacity. If I got to make it four
Starting point is 00:16:00 years to get a job in this niche, it's not going to happen. So I got to figure out a better way. And so I do think that these sort of ideology while rejecting the doomerism side does seep through into people's psyche where they're like, okay, if it's not going to be this way, I got to figure something out. And when you start looking at alternative ways to figure something out, I think a lot of people end up here. I also think this is why the long degeneracy is pushed so hard amongst crypto. It's a little bit of like survivorship lies. Like the type of people that do well in crypto is this, you pick from a very unique crowd, if you will, that seems to align with those ideals.
Starting point is 00:16:42 Yeah. Yeah. Like for maybe both optimistic and pessimistic reasons, like I think what is cool about Gen Z, and again, kind of in the same way that like every generation is online more than the generation prior. And I think Gen Z is like both online
Starting point is 00:16:58 and also most willing to, to kind of like choose its own way, carve its own path. But one part of the reason is like, well, the normal path, the normal way is so saturated. And it's like, well, there's just not really any spoils there. But then also, simultaneously, like, as I understand it, I'm speaking as like an armchair millennial here, like if you like ask the average person in like school right now,
Starting point is 00:17:23 like elementary school through high school, like what do you be when you grow up? They'll say like, I want to be like a streamer. I want to be a streamer. I want to be a YouTuber. Yeah, which is like almost, by definition, carving your own path. Because there's no way anyone can just become a YouTube.
Starting point is 00:17:35 There's no job application for a YouTuber. Like, you just have to do it yourself. And there's something inherent about, like, the permissionless finance side of things that works really well with that whole arc of people who want to carve their own ways, build their own businesses, be their own entrepreneur, and enter in the world of, like, permissionless, you know, gatekeeping list, intermediary list finance. I have a couple things on this. The first, I was just pulling it up.
Starting point is 00:17:58 There was this article that went, Bucket asked two, my first one. million views from Ben Roy, notes on internet addiction. Do you see this? So is this, I don't know, is this super viral article and it basically was just, I like Ben Roy, by the way. Who's Ben Roy? He's, uh, let's see, let's see, let's go of bio. He's a squiggle on it.
Starting point is 00:18:17 Yeah, squiggle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Writes a lot. There's just basically this long article about how the internet has generally been, or is generally like net negative. It's making people's lives worse. And also how like the internet. is getting worse and sort of this thought that everybody's on,
Starting point is 00:18:35 everyone's consuming the same viral content. And so if everyone's consuming the same viral content, there's less unique niches, there's less sort of just proliferating spot. Like little utopias on the internet. Like it's getting harder to find. Everyone's consuming the same feed. My thought on this is like, man,
Starting point is 00:18:53 I think it's the greatest time in history to be on the internet right now, especially as somebody trying to make money, find opportunity, like do, escape the system. It's the greatest time in history. And I think some of the things that have like bootstrapped this is the creation of crypto. And as time goes on, and we can talk about crypto a lot, like markets in a weird place, things are slow, on chain volume is dead.
Starting point is 00:19:22 I think the thesis for why somebody would join crypto, why somebody would trade, crypto assets and why somebody would stay here has never been more clear and more obvious. And I think as time goes on and this new generation gets older, has more money, has more access, has more assets. The place that you end up 10 out of 10 times is just, it's internet capital markets, it's open permission list, global border capital market where anyone can go public on the internet at any price. You want to bootstrap funding, just launch a coin.
Starting point is 00:19:55 You want attention, launch a coin. like you want to participate in the market, trade, trade these assets. Like I continue to believe deeply that this trend, however we want to label it or frame it or call it, the biggest beneficiary of flows of users of attention is just going to be crypto, like 10 out of 10 times. And I think, you know, it's funny. Like, as time goes on, I've had experiences twice in my life. The first time was in mid-20204 when it was like the celebrity,
Starting point is 00:20:26 meme coin meta, right? Which is, you know, most people look down, they fucked a celebrity in coin meta, but it was good for me, even though it was bad for the market, right? Like, I interviewed Igiazalia, and I'm interviewing Andrew Tate, I'm in Romania.
Starting point is 00:20:39 Was that in person? Did you interview Iggy in person? Iggy in person. Iggy in person, Andrew Tate and Romania in person. Yeah, yeah. And look, you went to Romania to interview. I went to Romania to interview and entertain. Regardless of what anyone thinks about it,
Starting point is 00:20:49 I'm not here to, like, endorse Andrew Tate. But what I'm going to say is it was the first time where all these really smart people were hitting me up. and they're like, congratulations, you can finally leave crypto. You got a billion and a half views on a YouTube video of Andrew Tate. Like, go take this newfound motion.
Starting point is 00:21:07 You can leave crypto. Like, leave. Go be a celebrity. Go meet celebrity. You got out of the sandbox. Like, congratulations. You broke out. And I'm like, broke out.
Starting point is 00:21:17 I feel like I just broke in. I feel like I'm in now. I'm in the game. I'm fighting five years to be in. And, you know, right after that, we get Solana season, 2024, AI season, memecoin mania, like it, hate it, whatever. We were back. And then the second time that I've really gotten this, and I'm rambling a little bit of wrap it here, the second time I really have gotten this is right now. And people are like, all right, dude, you had a good run.
Starting point is 00:21:45 It's time, no. You run a fucking media company. You are pegged to crypto price. It's time to start covering other stuff, go to other markets. talk about other stuff. Who's telling you this? Is it some people in crypto? This time it's a cynical crypto crowd.
Starting point is 00:22:01 And my thought process- The cynical crypto crowd are saying, congrats to a guy on your success. It's time to go. Point yourself outwards rather than staying here. Like, why are you saying here? And pull the ladder up. And my thought process is like, man,
Starting point is 00:22:14 I came in here 2020, 2020, 2021. To be a new entrant in a bull market, first of all, you have everything against you. You have no idea what's going on and nobody knows who you are. So to be like a media voice in a bull market for the first time, it's like good, good luck. It's really difficult. You get through the bear market.
Starting point is 00:22:32 We come out 2024, things are hot again. And now I'm like, okay, I have like a place. And I have like a place. Like I belong here. These people are my peers now. And then we go, you know, foric again, come back down. And now we're somewhere like at the low stage. And I'm like, man, in 2025, 2026, I'm like, I really have an opportunity to sort of put my sauce on
Starting point is 00:22:54 Like to make an impact, to really, like, do what I want to do, play the game my way, like, look at it through my lens. Like, yeah, like, make an impact, not just be like an observer. And it's like the thought of leaving crypto right now is blasphemous to me. So I don't even know where I started that rant, but that's where I got to and that's where I ended it. So one thing, this will be a little bit of media inside baseball. I pay attention to basically more or less every media company is like traction out there. just kind of like understand, understand the market, right?
Starting point is 00:23:26 Understand, you know, price our sponsors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand, like, who's growing, who's shrinking, you know? And, like, no one in the last, like, three years has really grown. Like, Blockworks, views, they haven't grown. Bankless's views are flat after being down all throughout 2020, for example. Like, obviously, 2022 is a bad year. No one's really growing, except for Thread guy.
Starting point is 00:23:47 For a guy's, like, the only guy. And, like, granted, you put in the work. But I'm wondering if also, like, Millennials, my generation, if you're a millennial and you're not already in crypto, you are not coming to crypto anymore. Like that's not, you would be an anomaly.
Starting point is 00:24:02 Same thing with Gen X. If you're not already in crypto, you're not coming. I don't know if that's true with Gen Z. I feel like Gen Z, there might actually be a slow trickle of people in Gen Z actually coming into crypto. I don't know, actually.
Starting point is 00:24:16 Maybe you could inform me. I think this is one of those, okay, this is one of those things. I basically run around the house all day every day and I just say, like whenever I talk to Malcolm, this is the sentence I've said more than any sentence in my life, is I just think we're right.
Starting point is 00:24:33 I just think we're right. And, you know, as relates to the market, I say now, like I'm not, I don't want to be in the game of predictions. I will just wait for the flows and then I'll follow them. You don't have to be first to meme coins. You don't have to be first to NFTs. You'd have to be first to Bitcoin, right?
Starting point is 00:24:49 You could have bought it 33K in, on a 3x and infinite size. This is one of those things that I'm down to be in a game of predictions on is where attention and flows are going to come in the future. And I am a like deep believe. It's almost like if this doesn't happen, my framework in which I view the world, my worldview is shattered,
Starting point is 00:25:12 is that the TAM for people particularly skewed younger, Gen Z, whatever we want to label them as, that will trade internet as, sets is infinite. I think it's infinite. And I think you can see it in micro-pockets of, like, okay, I think there's this larger shift happening in the world where how much attention people pay to mainstream celebrities is winding down significantly. And there's sort of these, like, niche superheroes, if you will. One of the ones that is like particularly interesting to me is T.JR. Because T.J.R, if you're familiar with him, like, yes, he kind of has this label as like,
Starting point is 00:25:50 you know, Miami, Korseteller, whatever. TjR is a stock trader. He trades stocks on market open. And he's becoming like this like a spectacle. He's massive. He's getting really big. He goes live on Twitch in front of 20, 30,000 people. And he's a stock trader.
Starting point is 00:26:08 And you go on his TikTok comments and all of his comments are two things. One, I can't believe that's my mentor. And two is he's just like us, but he's rich. He's just like us, but he's rich. And you look at the TJR type of archetype and a story of like I was broke. I dropped out of college. My parents told me to stop. I made it in the markets.
Starting point is 00:26:33 I made it in the markets. I learned how to trade. Trading is like, of the ways you can make money on the internet, trading is aspirational. It's this story. You're your own boss. You work for yourself. You don't have to answer to anybody. Like the idea of a day trader is very,
Starting point is 00:26:49 aspirational. The public legacy figures that sort of, when you think of day trader, it's like Trader, Kramer, like these people are sort of the goats, the goats of the industry, but there's kind of like a missing link in the middle. And there's just like newer class of TJR type characters. And people see this and they're like, I want to be that. I want to be that. I don't want to be some, like there's all these weird grifts. I don't want to be an only fan's manager or something. I want to be a traitor. I want to be a traitor. And I think that this is ingrained in people's brains.
Starting point is 00:27:25 I think it's a positive, I keep using the word aspirational sort of like mission. And I think it connects to something deep in people's just like almost like their DNA. And so I think as time goes on here, I don't think it's for everybody. I don't think everybody should be a traitor. But I think that there is just this huge class of people that when given the opportunity are going to fall in love with it. And once again, the place that you end up in is crypto. It's just the place you end up, especially as the rails are finally good enough.
Starting point is 00:27:59 2021, the rails were not good enough. You couldn't buy two NFTs and one transaction. I'm on open seat, right? You're on open seat clicking sweeping the floor buying one at a time. The tech is there. The regulation is starting to get there. And I think it's simply at this point, just a time game, a time game. Newer generation, get a little bit older, a little bit more experience, a little bit more
Starting point is 00:28:18 capital to play with. And the prediction that betting my career on, I don't know, is that more people will be trading internet assets than less in the coming decade. And I guess we're going to see what happens. But there's pockets. There's pockets. If you look in the right spots, it's happening. It's just not happening. Maybe it's glorious and it's beautiful. I wish Bitcoin was 250K right now as well. And I wish meme coin season didn't blow up in everybody's face. And I wish, I wish a lot of things. but we kind of get what we get. And amidst the wipeouts, you get a couple pockets of like, oh, yeah, hyperliquins beautiful. I did just like long Tesla yesterday with the profits that I sold from a Zcash trade.
Starting point is 00:28:57 That is incredible technology that didn't exist in 2021. Like, it's happening, just not as fast as maybe people wish. So this is getting pretty close to the reason why I wanted to bring you on the show. Like kind of the center point of this episode is like this notion of like entertainment finance. like the live stream perp trading that's happening in South Korea. There's like that going out out there. I think even in more spots, there's just like this concept out there of real-time prediction markets,
Starting point is 00:29:25 like drama, the reality TV show around prediction markets. It's like an idea that people are thinking about. It's like, oh, prediction markets, you know, they're markets, but they're also content. And then also we already have Pump Fun live streaming. Like that's also a real product. We have what you're doing on Twitter. which is, so maybe when I open up the episode,
Starting point is 00:29:45 I called you the face of Gen Z crypto, but maybe you're trying to be the face of just like the entertainment finance sector. What do you call this that you are doing? I want to say two things. One, I like entertainment finance. Kyle Samani said that to me out of stream, and I was like, oh yeah, that's the lid.
Starting point is 00:30:04 I'm going to steal that. The second is I have a quick parallel for you. I'll go deeper on it if you want, we can skip it, is gaming is a really interesting parallel. to what we're doing in markets, where gaming, at least as I remember, early 2000s, like I had my first Game Boy in like 2006,
Starting point is 00:30:23 maybe I'm playing Pokemon, you know, fire red, leaf green. Early 2010s, gaming is big, but like somewhere in the midst like 2012, 13, 14, Twitch streaming and content starts out, as I remember, YouTube content for gaming, and it's like the pros, the best players in the world.
Starting point is 00:30:40 What really took it to the next level was it wasn't the pro, that blew up. It was like the content creators. Like the entertaining, not necessarily the best players in the world, but the entertainment side of video games, like took this thing into the fucking next stratosphere, right?
Starting point is 00:30:54 GTA role-playing servers and everything. Fortnite, Ninjas on Fortnite with Drake and Juju Smith-Schuster and Travis Scott. And yesterday there's a Kim Kardashian fortnight collab. Like, it was the content that took gaming into this cultural phenomenon, right? Like, if you were in, when I was in like middle school, If you're like, I'm a, I'm a game,
Starting point is 00:31:14 oh, I do is game. It's like, dude, you're lame. No, that's not cool. Now, gaming is cool, bro. Gaming is a staple. It's a spectacle. It's a staple in culture. Everybody games.
Starting point is 00:31:25 It's not like weird to say you're a gamer. I think trading goes through a similar, not the same, but a similar type of trajectory where, like, when I was in high school learning how to trade options, I wasn't, like, telling people I was trading. It wasn't, like, cool to trade. Right. Yeah, it wasn't a spectacle.
Starting point is 00:31:42 It's not like cool to trade. It's like, okay, dude, you're weird. Like, I know some guy who like scammed 4X courses. Like, you're weird. As time comes on here and people get more familiar. It's like, oh, trading. Yeah, I'm familiar with that. I have friends that trade.
Starting point is 00:31:55 Oh, I have friends that game. And then the next layer of this, I think, is like the content side of it. It's the guys like the TJRs of the world. It's the people that take this on the biggest stage. And it's like, oh, this thing is real. Oh, you don't have to scam. And, oh, there's like cool people that trade. And so I don't, you mentioned the Korea,
Starting point is 00:32:15 e-sports high leverage trading. I don't actually know how that's going to work, but I'm obsessed with the concept. I think it is like, so, I saw that video, the same video you're probably referencing. And I'm like, oh, my, like, I have like a visceral reaction to this video. I couldn't, it's like an out-of-body experience.
Starting point is 00:32:31 Like, oh, my God, I want to host that. Right. And so I think, we're just for the reference of listeners, think just like a Starcraft or League of Legends, except as six people or something just perp trading. On massed screens. On a one second chart.
Starting point is 00:32:45 Yeah. One second chart. And then there's an audience. And a fucking Dana White as the MC. Bill Buffer. As like a Friday night bar activity with the bros, that sounds like a great time. It's electric.
Starting point is 00:32:58 It's like completely electric. And so I, I, trading is, again, it's aspirational. Like the same, I think we're, there's this article I'm referencing. inadvertently that I don't know the name on top of my head I'll send you. But like the same way you know, some kid goes to school
Starting point is 00:33:16 and he's rocking a LeBron James Lakers jersey, this is like kind of how I treat my favorite traders on Twitter. It's like, oh, Jez just took a position. Like, that how do I, I want to watch. Like, I think the best cop I have to this is the James Wynn saga,
Starting point is 00:33:33 which ended in spectacular, just, you know, epic failure basically. But there was like a- When was this guy who was taking yourself massive long positions on hyperliquid? He basically turned like six figures into like deep nine on just like degenerate trades over the course of two weeks. And there was like a 10 day period where James Wynn and that notification that he was either long, short, open a trade, close a trade was like the town square. It was a, there's no better word than spectacle. It was like must watch.
Starting point is 00:34:07 You have to watch. Like, what's his liquidation? What's Bitcoin doing? And I have to see this. This is like, that was it. That was the only content for 10 days was, what is James went doing? And then I blew up and it was, that was the end. But it's like, are we going to see?
Starting point is 00:34:21 It was just because of how much size this guy I had in the moment. How much size, how public it was. Right. The story of he's flipping his way up. It was just this like crazy. Like Steph Curry's going for 75, turn the game on. It was just like this moment in time. Everybody was like, knows about the James Wynn story if you were there.
Starting point is 00:34:42 And it's like, okay, is there going to be more or less James Wynn type of, oh my God, this massive trade is open? I have to watch type of moments as time goes on. And it's like, I would like to bet that there would be more. And I almost can't even fathom an outcome where there's less. So, okay, so like the one parallel that I can like maybe bring this up to explain this in my terms is I remember when this is, actually a really old school parallel, old school anecdote, but Yichro Suzuki was like three hits away
Starting point is 00:35:13 from breaking the hits record inside of a single season. And the Mariners games started to sell out around the games that he would break that record. And everyone in the MLB was like, oh, each year is two hits away. He's one hit away. He's going to do it this game.
Starting point is 00:35:28 And that's kind of like what you're saying, except it's with trading. The fact that it's with trading is this crazy new phenomenon here where something that you said that stuck out to me was, oh, there's this one trade that's on right now. Broadly, generally, there's a trade that's on. And the trading community is like, oh, there's a trade happening. Let me go watch.
Starting point is 00:35:49 And that I think is what you are saying is like the thing that you are betting your career and your content and your media company on. It's just like the cultural zeitgeist of trades that people are putting on in the moment. It's just where we're headed. Look, I'm not, there's a darker, like, you know, anecdote here, I'm not really here to speculate on what this means for society, but objectively we're headed towards a future where the market is the economy,
Starting point is 00:36:17 and they are slapping a market on everything. Everything is financialized. And the biggest winners from everything being financialized is the trade, like the traders are the new athletes, man. I used to say, I used to have it wrong. I used to tweets all the time. People would get really upset. I would take crypto influencers of the new celebrities.
Starting point is 00:36:35 and I would say that crypto influencers are like the modern day gladiators, right? There's that, what's that Chimov tweet where he's like, I'm the man in the arena? I'm the man in the arena. Yeah. We as a society and as, like, okay, I'll even give you a step back. When I was just starting on CT, I didn't know what was going on, but I'm like, the social side of this is really cool.
Starting point is 00:37:01 I wanted, I wanted to do media. And so I'm hosting spaces. and we would go on these spaces during the most glorious bull run that's like ever happened in 2021 and instead of trading the things I would just talk about them and I would always think to myself
Starting point is 00:37:14 like why don't the trade like why don't the traders respect you? I look at these guys I'm like you're so cool like I want to talk to you why won't you let me interview you why don't the traders respect me and I didn't understand
Starting point is 00:37:27 until kind of until I became a trader relatively recently in the last two years that risk takers respect risk takers. And the reason that the traders didn't respect me or respect in general, like content, pure content in crypto, is the same reason that LeBron James doesn't give a fuck what Stephen A. Smith has to say on his post game.
Starting point is 00:37:51 It's the same relationship. And so I think as time goes on, there is just going to be... Stephen A. Smith is the commentator. The commentator. ESPN. He doesn't play. He doesn't play. He doesn't play.
Starting point is 00:38:02 He doesn't play. He doesn't play. The sport in his life. Can't make a layup. I think we're as a society headed towards a direction where if we're going to put a increased focus on markets, on capital, on financializing everything,
Starting point is 00:38:17 then we're also going to put an extra premium on risk takers. Like respect risk takers, I think is the ape, this is an ape wood is. I'm bored ape wood on Twitter, really smart guy. Respect risk takers. And I think society,
Starting point is 00:38:31 as time goes on, is going to have like, you don't know how aggressive it is. I use the sports comp. I more so think of it in more or less. Will it be more focused on this or less? And there will definitely be more focused, praise, pedestal pudding of people that take risk in financial markets in public. And more people will want to watch them less.
Starting point is 00:38:52 And we're headed there fast. And I love, I get so excited about this. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not just taking risk though, right? because, like, I'm fully deployed.
Starting point is 00:39:03 I have long positions expressed, like, left and right. Like, I'm long Robin Hood, long Tesla, long Ethan Bitcoin. But I don't think that is what you are talking about or what a trader would look towards when they say taking risk. Like, because I don't really consider myself, I'm not putting on a trade. Like, these things are just things that I hold. So it's not just about taking on risk, right?
Starting point is 00:39:24 It's something a little bit more specific than that. I think the risk that take, like respect to risk takers. It's sort of just like general, we're headed that direction. And then when I talk about like the spectacle athlete James Wynn type of moment, it's like specific traders. Like CTE does this really well, by the way. Like specific traders sort of like climb the ranks into glory, right? You like climb into Morad 2024.
Starting point is 00:39:52 It's like you're untouchable for, you know, however long it lasts, it might be a day. D.Jamping, it might be a week. it doesn't unclear, unknown amount of time, but they sort of like rise into glory the same way, you know, a starting pitcher throws a perfect game and it's like, you, like, Marad was much must see TV for like three months.
Starting point is 00:40:13 At this point, it's like, okay, SBX is, you know, down a lot, whatever, we're kind of, you're uninterested in the tweets. There was, there was a time I was here for, you were here for, a lot of the viewers were here where Marad was must see TV in the list. Oh my gosh, he's going to add a coin to the list.
Starting point is 00:40:30 It was like this crazy. I mean, I don't know. The list was insane. Every day he adds a new coin to the list and is ripping five acts. It was like you have to watch. You can't not pay attention, right? The way he was moving markets and the way he was getting 5,000 likes on a tweet. And so I think that that, you know, the respect risk takers, maybe like a general trend.
Starting point is 00:40:52 And then these sort of like heroic rises through trading markets. Like the Roaring Kitty is probably the one. He's probably the model is, you know, the worst thing that ever happened to markets is that the Big Short is more popular the movie than the Roaring Kitty store, which Big Short's maybe the best movie ever. But it's more popular than Roaring Kitty
Starting point is 00:41:15 and the GameStop movie and even Wolf of Wall Street minus the scam stuff, different rabbit hole. But even the Michael Barry thing is like this. I mean, he's like a hero, dude. He's like an American hero. He means one profitable trade and now everyone's like, oh, Michael, Michael Barry is doing this. Michael Barry is doing that. I mean, bro, he's an American hero.
Starting point is 00:41:34 Like, he is known by more people. Like, he's a, yeah, it's, it's this. There's just going to be more of this. I mean, he's bigger than a lot of athletes. Some of it's got to be the PVP nature of it, though, right? Like, that's got to be why it's such a big spectacle. It's because no one really cares about, like, the long-term investors who I'm going to call the PVE people, like the player versus environment.
Starting point is 00:41:55 Like, it's really the PVP people, the player versus play. the traders who are trading against other traders, that's got to be where the spectacle lies because no one really cares if you're up on Bitcoin over like five years of time, like you and a million other people too. It's definitely, you know, I haven't thought about that as much.
Starting point is 00:42:12 It's a good take. It's definitely this J-curve of like the now, you know, the internet pile, it hits the snowball and everybody piles in. Also, there's some aspect of influence amongst financial markets where people, just as much as they love to come up,
Starting point is 00:42:28 they love the come down. The come down is almost, you could almost argue the come down is more glorious. It's like, you could almost argue, it's like, without the come down, what is it?
Starting point is 00:42:40 You know, it's like, all right, right, the whole fucking cycle. The story's not finished. Blow up in spectacular fashion, right? I mean,
Starting point is 00:42:46 I've, I've been on the receiving end of, not spectacularly, not mine, but, you know, the D-Gen ping, the Ansel,
Starting point is 00:42:54 crash outs, like, there's definitely this level of, like, people want to see, see Icarus fall, you know, as well. And then do it again. People want, it's like, yeah, they're definitely, crypto Twitter, I think, has this way of every three months,
Starting point is 00:43:10 every six months. It feels like there's a trader that's just like chosen, just like the chosen one that can't miss for six months, right? We've had a lot of these. I wasn't there for some of the early days, but the Ansham, the D-Gen Pings, the Murads, the whoever at any given time. I don't really think we have one right now,
Starting point is 00:43:26 weird market, to be fair. The capo story, right? C-T likes to do this, where there's someone who can't miss for six months and then we try to ruin their life and then pick a new one. Something I was watching your stream earlier today. Oh, how yeah.
Starting point is 00:43:42 And something you said stuck out to me as why I think Gen Z and traders are like tuned into this activity is we are experts at memetics is something you said. We can just trade memetics. And I was reading some article blog posts about how like the early young Gen Z and also like Gen Alpha, they like communicate with each other on TikTok.
Starting point is 00:44:06 They like TikTok and they record their TikToks and post their TikToks and their friends watch their TikToks and they like gossip on TikTok. They yap on TikToks like, oh, are you going to go to like Sarah's party later today? Like here's what I'm thinking about Sarah's party. Like I don't think I'm going to go to Sarah's party because she's like a loser and I don't want to go. And that gets like pushed around the intra-psychic layer of. Gen A and like young Gen Z's on TikTok
Starting point is 00:44:28 and like they communicate and I don't know if you use TikTok or if I don't use TikTok but like you communicate at this like internet through the internet tell like almost for what the boomers would feel like is like almost like telepathy. It's like the Gen Z is just so
Starting point is 00:44:44 in sync with each other and like Gen A is doing the 6-7 meme where the fuck did those 6-7 meme come from? Oh they're just so connected in the brains that they just made up this meme that's so surreal and abstract that doesn't mean anything. And there's like that cultural DNA
Starting point is 00:45:00 of like the younger generations that I think actually works out really, really well when you are trying to trade zeitgeist because that's like the fluency that you need in order to have the edge in the market. That's kind of like my read on the situation. Am I on to something? Two things.
Starting point is 00:45:14 One, set the stage. People don't, for whatever reason, people don't want to accept this. But what Twitter X is to politics and finance, I would argue like undisputedly the town hall where everything starts political, financial. TikTok is the culture. It just is.
Starting point is 00:45:31 It just is. And people be like, oh, I'm on Instagram Reels. Fuck your Instagram Reels. They're late. I love Instagram Reels. I saw it last week. Instagram Reels are good, but I saw it last week. TikTok is that to culture.
Starting point is 00:45:44 I think, for better or for worse, crypto and trading crypto has basically conditioned the people that are here to believe and maybe rightfully so that the way you trade is attention flows, momentum, memetics. Because,
Starting point is 00:46:03 I mean, I did this, I hosted, I listened on my stream to this debate between Santiago and Haseeb talk about how to value L1s and I'm sure you have a take
Starting point is 00:46:14 just like I have a take just like they have a take. The real take is that nobody fucking knows. And I agree with that. No one has any clue. Okay. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:22 At least in equities, we like pretend to have a clue. In crypto, we have no clue. And it's a memetics, flows momentum game. And then you start to look at, I've been doing this recently because I'm bored, but you start to look at other markets, particularly equities, through the same lens. And you're like, oh, okay. Like, yeah, Tesla makes sense.
Starting point is 00:46:42 And like, oh, yeah, okay, some of these things start to make sense. And I, you know, people like to say that crypto, there's this thesis going around that crypto is like the easiest market ever to trade. And I maybe I'm going to just talk out of my ass, but I make content, I make content, that's what I do. So I don't have a ton of experience trading stocks and trading, you know, bonds and other markets. But explaining to someone who'd never traded crypto
Starting point is 00:47:11 what it's like trading crypto, it's like imagine a basket of a thousand assets that have basically no fundamentals. There's no way to value them. Is it cash flows? Is it revenue? Is it sales? No one has any clue how to value them whatsoever. And then every second coin is a landmine that will just like blow up in your face.
Starting point is 00:47:32 And even the green ones that aren't landmines will probably be like randomly become a landmine in a week. And it's like convinced me that that's easy to trade. Like I understand that, you know, Bitcoin has gone up only and generally ether has gone up only. But, you know, show me a spy chart, right? Show me a chart of Amazon. And so I think that. there's this group of people that are come from crypto native
Starting point is 00:47:56 that are conditioned to see markets through this lens. I actually think it gives people an advantage that you're able to sort of step out and be like, okay, I get viral, I get my medics, I get flows. And I mean, I have this one quote, I talk about it all day on stream, I'll just read it. Base 16Z, if you're familiar with him,
Starting point is 00:48:16 wrote this article, that's the only thing I thought about for two weeks. It's called Megadurchtime. I won't read the whole article, but there's this footnote at the end, and it reads, not just American Eagle, referencing American Eagle, Ciddy Swinney trade, not just American Eagle, but all my best trades this year, and I believe an under-exploited edge in today's memetic financial markets is growth investing in some narrative that will become, quote, the one note of the internet that day.
Starting point is 00:48:45 And I think things are heading towards this direction and crypto, traders are the best positions to pivot and capitalize on it. You think all financial markets might just be in the same way that we don't know how to value a layer one, maybe this thing, this property that we have in crypto of just like unknowingness about the animal spirits works backwards into like the rest of financial markets and all of a sudden like everything is a Sydney-Sweeney trade, not an American equal price versus sales valuation. I mean, you have to say the Sydney-Sweeney thing is unreal. I mean, it's up like 75% on like a, you know,
Starting point is 00:49:22 mid-9 billion-dollar company since the city's winning. I mean, this is the same animal spirits that put GameStop on the map, right? That put GameStop on the map, the same old spirits that... It all started with COVID and GameStop and, like, and really Gen Z entering the market. The same animal spirits that dumped at Vidia 10% on DeepSeek launch, like, you know, I'm not a, I'm not here to like,
Starting point is 00:49:43 I'm not going to pretend even for a second to be an equities expert, but it feels like, You know, I say internet markets all the time. It feels, because here's the thing. Like, I'm, I'm conditioned to trade this way. I came from sneakers. Sneakers is an intention game, right? It's like, people would invest in sneakers.
Starting point is 00:50:00 They wouldn't just buy and flip. It's like, okay, cool. Travis Scott is launching a Jordan 1. They're going to sell for $1,500 on the resale market. The Jordan 1 that isn't Travis Scott that looks the closest to the Travis Scott, it's also going to 3X. Just attention, right? It's not supply shot.
Starting point is 00:50:16 It's just purely attention. Sports cards work the same way. it's like insert random you know bull bowl insert right if you were there if you know you know randy james card is brawny james trade like over his stats to psa 10 value like yeah significantly but it's just like memetic attention so i come from like this framing of it's just follow the flows follow the attention and i tend to think that crypto traders that have been bent through it and like look at the world through this lens maybe are onto something a little bit yeah Part of it has to do, has to be because never before we have we had so many people have
Starting point is 00:50:54 like access to make trades. Making a trade is easier today than it's ever been. And the app that you make trades in is right next to your Twitter app. And that is like, you know, prices are set on the margins. And so like the people who value something on a price of sales ratio, they're not, they're not connecting Twitter to Robin Hood. But it doesn't really matter. So long it's enough people are, then all of a sudden that that, and enough people are connected
Starting point is 00:51:18 with enough capital to make these sorts of moves. And all of a sudden, like, you can trade zeitgeist really, really easily. And Zikegeist becomes a more dominant way of valuing something on the market. And I'll also say, like, very loud and clear that I'm not coming here and saying, like, oh, fundamentals don't matter. I'm more so saying I'm fascinated with the American Eagle City Street. Fascinated. Also, to your point, I have another, I just, I have these tweets up because I'm reading one stream. Ryan Watkins, who I think is a really smart from Secrecy Capital tweeted today or yesterday.
Starting point is 00:51:46 He says, sometimes I wonder if the long degeneracy thesis is a reflection of societal forces pushing people to gamble. And it's a more self-fulfilling prophecy fueled by tech bros making the casino ever more accessible. Like, what did you expect when we put zero-day options, meep coins, perps, and sports betting on everyone's phones? It's good take. Interesting take at the very least.
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Starting point is 00:54:15 Thread Guy Media. What do you want it to be? What is it? What do you want it to be? Where's it going? So we call it counterparty. And man, it's awesome. It's fucking awesome. It's the most fun I've had. Isn't owning a media company great? It's unreal. You're getting to talk to cool people all day? It's a tough business. I didn't know it was such a tough business. Tough business. I have increased respect if I didn't already for you guys. But I, it's incredible. And I think it sits on the edge of exactly what I want to do, which is I want to trade and I want to talk to the traders. That's really what I'm the most interested in is I don't just want to trade
Starting point is 00:54:51 because if I just wanted to be a P&L trader, then I probably wouldn't be like a public docks figure putting my face on the internet and talking. I'll just be trading. And I don't want a just interview, but it's sort of the blend of both. It's beautiful. You have an incredible life, I imagine.
Starting point is 00:55:05 And I really think of it like I, I'm a crypto guy through and through. I came here to trade, you know, digital sports cards, and I stayed because the crypto ethos just deeply resonates with where I, again, where I see the world going, what I believe and what I think is important. But I also think that crypto and like hard crypto is to like sneaker streetwear, is to prediction markets, is to Laboo Boo Boo and collectibles, is to the stock market,
Starting point is 00:55:39 like it kind of all, I think, just becomes internet markets, CSGO skins, counterstrike. Like, I think it sort of all encapsulates internet markets. And I think that crypto by far is the best positioned to, again,
Starting point is 00:55:56 kind of just like engulf all of these people. Like, where do you, CSGO, where do you go? You kind of just all end up in this place. And I always think of, you know, the thread guy stream, the company counterparty as like the home for that. I, you know, 95% of what we do is crypto,
Starting point is 00:56:13 but I want to, you know, interview the best counterstrike skin trader and the best sneaker flipper and the best prediction market trader and kind of go like cross the board because I think, I think all of these things become one, like the market. And I think that's good. I think this is good. Like I, I mean, I'm fascinated by the fact that I open along on a 5x long at Tesla on my hyperliquid account yesterday.
Starting point is 00:56:36 It was like, oh my God, this is incredible. These are the things that get lost in God, we've been chopping for three weeks. But it's like, the technology is like, I open it along on Tesla. It works. It's crazy. I'm paying funding instead of an option. Like, is it better vehicle? Is it worse?
Starting point is 00:56:51 I don't know. It could be a different conversation. But the tech works. And I'm seeing all these tweets about, you know, derivatives on Labibos and shit. Is it good for the world? I don't know. But it's really fascinating. Everything's sort of becoming the market.
Starting point is 00:57:06 And it exists, it's going to exist on blockchain rails. Like it just is. It's just a superior product to what's offered anywhere else. Robin Hood knows it. Everybody knows it, right? J.P. Morgan. Everyone knows it. Just maybe taking a little longer.
Starting point is 00:57:19 And maybe they're building their own walled gardens, you know, unfortunate. But I tend to imagine it's not black and white, right? To your point about how streamers, content producers around video games, made video games to be what they are. Yeah. content producers like you, you're not going to be on the walled gardens. So maybe like, maybe we build all those. The Tradfai world builds all those walled gardens.
Starting point is 00:57:42 But like the pinnacle of crypto, the spearhead of crypto, like the frontier of crypto is all going to be on the public stuff. And that's where the content producers like you and the traders are always going to, they're always going to, the PVP land is the Wild West of crypto, which is where like none of that's going to be any of the world garden stuff. Which I think is a beautiful part of crypto. Like I, okay, I'm going to read one more tweet just because I think it was so good. I feel like I'm on stream right now.
Starting point is 00:58:05 Pulling tweets up. Vibu from Solana. Made this tweet. This is my, like, favorite vision for crypto is, it reads, nobody will go public in 10 years. They will just launch a token.
Starting point is 00:58:17 Finance is meeting the direct to consumer revolution that happened in every other category, just 15 years late. And then he goes on to talk about a bunch of other stuff. But this idea that nobody will go public in 10 years, they will just launch a token and that, you know, I was so,
Starting point is 00:58:32 like, mesmerized by, this the first time I heard internet capital markets and, you know, launch your startup on Salana. Like when this, it was a disaster and the Believe token ecosystem was a complete, just mess. And there's a lot of problems, right? Is it equity? Is it not?
Starting point is 00:58:49 What is it? Whatever. But the, it's one of these little brain like mice that once it pops into your head, you really can't. Yeah, you got incepted. Thank you. You get incepted. And I was intercepted by this.
Starting point is 00:59:03 And the thought that crypto, Rails will just be this market where really cool tech just goes public, live, liquid token, tradable from day one. Speculate how you want is just an it's an unstoppable force. And it's also a content machine. I mean, it's like the cool,
Starting point is 00:59:21 what more do you want as someone that covers financial media, right? It's like this is part of the problem. It's like, cool, SpaceX is going to IPO. Cool, it's at $1.5 trillion and nobody has any exposure. Like, fuck, man, it's IPOing it. It's going to go public. liquid at a higher market cap than Bitcoin, the same market cap as Bitcoin.
Starting point is 00:59:38 And so I think this vision of what internet capital markets and what crypto can become, in its own right is a spectacle. And they all, I think they all just end up here, they all come here. I might take a little long,
Starting point is 00:59:50 this is the, my one concern is that being, man, you probably know this, being early and being wrong or like very, you know, what's the difference?
Starting point is 01:00:02 There's no difference, right? Being early being wrong is the same thing until you're right. It's like being a contrarian is difficult because it's like you don't know if you're right or if you're wrong until it's at zero or at the fucking moon. And that's just going to be the crypto story probably is you don't know if you're right or you're wrong until it's way too late to do anything else. And so I just better hope, you know, better get the best odds possible. And I tend to think that we just have them.
Starting point is 01:00:26 For the listeners out there, what, you were you born? 2002. You were wearing a 2008. Global Financial Crisis hoodie. That's what the text is like. If there's like offended anybody, I'm sorry. It was like this cool. I just think it's hilarious.
Starting point is 01:00:40 Like, you don't even remember the financial crisis. Honestly, bless that I don't. If this is like offensive, it wasn't supposed to be, by the way. It's not offensive whatsoever. It'd be different as 9-11, but no. Yeah, yeah. The 2008 global, the text on his hoodie just reads in Times New Roman font, 2008 global financial crisis with a chart just going down.
Starting point is 01:01:00 And is that, is that cigarettes in the background? I don't even know. I think the books. I don't even know. I just put it up, put it up the first time for you, actually. That is the perfect honey that you could wear for this interview.
Starting point is 01:01:11 Thread guy, this is great. If people want to watch you and watch your streams, where should they go? Twitch.com TV starts Thread Guy Monday through Friday at 12.30 p.m. PSD. Or at not Thread Guy on Twitter with two T's, N-O-T-H-R-E-A-D-G-Y.
Starting point is 01:01:24 Thread guy on YouTube. I'm not that, I'm around. I'm not that hard to find. But I, dude, I've been a fan for a while. I've been watching bankless since fucking 2021. And you came on. my stream, which was awesome. I really enjoyed it.
Starting point is 01:01:36 And yeah, man, I'm in the media game, crypto finance media. And you guys have... I'm always been saying we need more... No, I mean, you guys have done... Look, you guys get a lot... You got a lot of shit. People love you, people hate you,
Starting point is 01:01:48 but at least people have a take. At least people have a take. And I think you've done some of the coolest crypto-adjacent media things. Interview some of the coolest people, Vitalik, Tom Lee, all these incredible people. And so I have a lot of respect for you. Just as a businessman, as an entrepreneur,
Starting point is 01:02:02 what you do. So congrats to you guys for keeping it going so strong. And like not burning out is commendable, by the way. I don't think. I didn't realize how hard this was until I started doing it. So I, it's more than, I know this is more than just fucking flip a camera on and upload a YouTube video.
Starting point is 01:02:18 Yeah, I promise it is. So I respect you guys a lot for what you do. I appreciate the words, man. Yeah, the content treadmill. We started speeding up the content treadmill in 2021. And we never really slowed it down until like this year is when we really slowed it down for the first time. And there's two of me.
Starting point is 01:02:34 I don't know how you do it solo. I got Malcolm. I'll give him a shout out as well. He's in the background. He's like shadowy, closing deals and shit. But man, doing his solo is impossible.
Starting point is 01:02:45 You need somebody that you really trust and that can lock. You'll meet him when we come to New York. But he's a special talent. And I've, we've been hiring. I have a fucking research team. We just brought Tulip King on from Masari.
Starting point is 01:02:57 That guy's fucking my quant. The clipping team. YouTube upload. It's a whole operation that goes on. on the background. I don't think people really realize I'm not just the same
Starting point is 01:03:05 for you. You have a venture arm. It's like not, it's no joke. And I have a, yeah, the counterparty team behind me is like,
Starting point is 01:03:12 my job is to show up at 1230 be ready to fucking go. That's it. Everybody else in the background is like so dialed. So it's, yeah, it's awesome that we've gotten this for.
Starting point is 01:03:23 Well, we'll put your Twitch and everything else in the show notes. Thank you. And congratulations for all the success. I'm sure it's going to go way higher.
Starting point is 01:03:30 I wanted to go way higher because that means that your thesis is correct, which means crypto does kind of return back to being the epicenter of the internet where I want it to be. I'll tell you what, man. I just think we're right, dude. I really do.
Starting point is 01:03:40 I just think we're right. I love that. All right. Thanks for coming on. Bankless station, you guys know the deal. Crypto is risky. You can lose what you put in. But nonetheless, we are head to west.
Starting point is 01:03:48 This is the frontier. It's not for everyone. But we are glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.

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