The Wolf Of All Streets - Are NFTs Back? | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

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yeah we need to start putting music at the beginning how are you scott i can do it did you um did you make fun of me i haven't looked into uh no because you put the wrong song there's one like all the all the songs are inaudible on on twitter it's just difficult to listen to except one. Did you look at the Kamala? Obviously, you did because you're the one that mentioned it. But did you really pivot? Is it a clear pivot? Because I haven't looked into the details yet. No.

First of all, I don't trust any of them. So I'm the wrong person to ask. And if you're putting your faith on the future of crypto in the hands of any politician, well well you're here for the wrong reasons anyway but no i mean it's just a report from uh you know somebody who's in her camp that said that she's looking to pivot and soften it's the same sort of nonsensical language we've seen um but i'd like her to and i give listen that like and i

you know what alex alex has his hand up and instead of getting myself in trouble i'm gonna go ahead and let alex get himself in trouble yeah no i love getting in trouble what's the worst that could happen um so many i was looking at yesterday i think the i i would call the move yesterday like 10 or 20 better than what we've seen before everything that we've heard from her camp before was basically like anonymous sources on background saying that like she wants a reset or whatnot and what it was yesterday and then you had people who weren't directly affiliated with the campaign like the crypto for harris people being like we're gonna do it and you know kind of like random other surrogates but like none of those can actually speak for harris

so what it was yesterday is that brian nelson who is a i don't know senior campaign advisor for policy but someone who actually works on the campaign uh quoting on the record that like she wants policies that are good for crypto so I will caveat this heavily with it was super vague and it's not like it's her talking but having an actual like attributable named source is you know for anyone who knows like, comms and messaging with political campaigns or administration works, going on the record is, like, someone else in the campaign signed off on him saying something attributable. So, like I said, I'd put it, like, 10% or 20% better than what she said before,

but it's still a long way from, you know, like, say, her specifically coming out and saying, like, she's going to support X, Y, and Z. I want to see one tweet with hashtag fire Gary Gensler. It's simple. Yeah, I think I might have to wait a while on that. It's a step in the direction.

But guys, Alex, hasn't she been slow in pretty much all her policy positions? I think she's been criticized about this for a while. So it's not just crypto. And I think for us to be talking about crypto this early on when she doesn't have a position on significantly more important things for voters, I think it's just a bit far-fetched. You're being way too rational, Mario. I've been saying that too, but then you get

paid. Then you're a socialist. You're a socialist because you said that. I don't know if you know that. I mean, look, there's a lot of people in our industry who really don't like donald trump and really don't want to vote for you know and like have traditionally been democrats and they want a reason to uh go back and support her and i i think it's very reasonable to say like don't expect her to do this it's not that that big an issue, which I think is accurate. There are much bigger things for her to be focusing on and dealing with in terms of the overall election in the country as a whole. But I think there are a pretty not insubstantial group of folks working in crypto. This is really the most important thing. They are really looking for a reason. And I think it's important to point out, RFK's likely endorsement of Trump and also inevitable endorsement of Trump based on what we're seeing has already kind of tipped the scales against Harris. If you look at Polymarket, I haven't looked at it today, but remember how we're talking about Polymarket, Scott? It had Trump, just to refresh the memory of the audience, 75% likely Trump will win prior to Biden stepping down to dropping all the way down to 48% and Harris was at 52, 53. And yesterday, I think it's the complete opposite.

I think Harris was at 47, announcement and Trump's rally being in Phoenix. So everyone's just speculating that obviously RFK is going to lose. There's a few caveats. Yeah, go ahead. What are the caveats? I was just going to say for Polymarket, there's a few caveats i think that it's a decent representation uh as good as we can get because polls are obviously unreliable but i think it's important to remember that americans can't use polymarket and people who are crypto native probably have an inherent bias as to who they would bet on so i would just you know handicap it or no, no, no. I would remove the... Okay.

But then I was going to say the flip side is that all of that makes perfect sense. You had this sort of honeymoon period with Harris. Like anyone who said, listen, I just can't vote for Biden. He's too fucking old. The Democrat obviously somehow

got excited about Harris. So I think that that all made sense. And now as she releases policy, it's going to start to slide in the other direction. I can tell you a pretty wild story. I don't know if I told you this Mario about RFK. Obviously you interviewed him in Austin for the street. And then I did the interview ahead of a Bitcoin Nashville the Wednesday before

he spoke on Friday. And I don't know if I'm supposed to share this, but fuck it. In our interview, we're having this conversation, and we start talking about Trump. And he says, you know, Trump, who is very likely to become the next president, he said this in the interview, kind of flowing through and then continued on. The interview was live. Two hours later, I couldn't believe he said it at the time, because if you're raising money and you're a candidate, you would never say that the opposition is very likely to win, even if you think that's the truth, right?

And so two hours later, we had to take the whole thing down. And it was edited and put back up, right? Because they didn't realize he had said that in real time and then realized it afterwards. fact that he would end up most likely as a cabinet member in whichever candidates cabinet was likely to win and floated that it might be health and human services if it was trump so this was what a month month and a half ago already i think that uh likely it was leaning in this direction that he was going to end up you know know, supporting whoever was likely to win. By the way, I think that was still while it was Biden. So it is different than a terrorist because it's different.

And they've come out pretty outspoken against terrorists. First, that's fascinating. Second, it's not surprising. Third, so he's going with Trump because he thinks Trump is more likely to win against Kamala. I was going to say that. That is true. But maybe with Biden, maybe he was more inclined to go into a Biden cabinet than a Harris cabinet.

That's hard to imagine. He has nothing to offer Harris. I think based on the best polling we have, half of his support was people who hated Biden and half of his support was people, let's just say disillusioned with Biden. Half was disillusioned with Trump. The half that were disillusioned with Biden dropped his, dropped supporting him and moved over to Harris when she came in to the race.

Like he lost half his support, uh, when the Democrats swapped their candidates. So like she's already gotten what she needed for him whereas trump needs that you know three percent of the voters from him i don't know i feel maybe but i feel like uh you know him staying in people view as more helpful to paris like if he just did nothing that would be helpful to her right yes that's what i'm saying trump trump needs him to drop out harris

would prefer him to stay in can we go back to the polymarket comment for a second because last friday if you guys remember was the day that everyone started you know throwing shade at polymarket about how the odds are really happening. And I have a feeling that, you know, Trump's sons or the campaign really got wind of that. And people started realizing that polymarket is only what you want it to be. And I have a feeling that the Democrats, you know, over the last few weeks have been dumping, you know, money into polymarket to, you know, skew the odds in the way that they wanted things to be seen, like knowing that that money was just going to, you know, skew the odds in the way that they wanted things to be seen, like knowing that that money was just going to be lost, right. And as soon as, you know,

the Trump campaign started seeing that, I think, and, you know, all the stuff on Twitter, about those situations, I think it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday, last week started happening, people caught on. And that to me says, all right, like, monkey see monkey do when they realize that they can say, all right, we have to spend a few hundred thousand dollars, that is going to be dead money that we're just going to lose. But we're going to throw it toward polymarket to, you know, do what the Democrats have been doing to us, then, you know, maybe that's also why we're seeing what we're seeing on polymarket. Like, I would not, I don't know. I don't know if true or not is a good theory. But that's why I'm saying you can't like take polymarket as. No, exactly,

exactly. But I think the timing coincides really well with the whole like, this issue about polymarket coming up at the end of last week and then the odds like skewing back very quickly right so i don't know i mean what i'd say is keep in mind there's there's 700 million dollars in the market on polymarket there it there are there are but you only need some hundreds of thousands to skew a percent here and there between the main Kamala Trump bidding market. And by the way, I think it is very misleading to people to say that Americans are not the ones primarily putting into Polymarket because Polymarket only geo blocks on the most basic level. You can use literally – I've never participated in PolyMarket myself before. I've almost wanted to a few times, but you can use any VPN, any VPN. And I do think

that it actually is primarily American money on PolyMarket. I think anyone that thinks otherwise is insane. You said only a couple hundred thousand dollars can swing it on PolyMarket, but there's currently an $8 million gap between the trump bet and camilla bet yeah what i what i mean is like just do it by a few percent you're saying yeah like you can but that wouldn't do it by a few percent not if there's an eight million dollar gap yeah but you can but so basically if you wanted to throw the money completely away, you could overbuy on the order book. So like you don't actually buy the next, uh, like bid offer spread. You actually just spend above it. So you like lose the money immediately. There are ways

to like move it. Um, but again, yeah, I mean, what I'd say is i think if you look at the over while polymarket is sued a little bit more to the right definitely movements on polymarket have matched pretty heavily with both predicted where it's very capped on what you can do and is open to u.s citizens as well as just general polling and like the silver models and stuff. So I'd say I like, I think it's more of that poly market is following the rest of the market and vibe. It makes a lot of sense. Like I said, Alex, I mean, there's a ton of logic to this movement. I mean, Trump was at 70%. Okay.

So maybe other places had him at 60, 65. So you account for the slight, you know, right bias to get you that extra 5% to 10%. But that was versus Biden. Harris comes in, everybody widely reporting on this honeymoon period, right? She didn't do an interview, didn't release any policy. It was just the idea. So anyone who couldn't vote for Biden, as you said before, who might have found Harris or literally anybody but Trump or Biden palatable. That skews it back. And now she starts releasing policies and ideas and becoming an actual human being and a candidate. And it, you know, is going to start swinging around 50-50 probably

until the election. I just don't think there's anything that wild here. Yeah, my view exactly. Mario, you're back. Mario's having some technical issues and I just can't hear him. Dave, would love your thoughts. I knew you were going to throw your hand up. I knew it. Yeah.

I mean, look, you know, as far as whether Polymarket is predictive, the moves are predictive or not. I mean, it is time to her putting out to the most unbelievably leftist proposals that we've seen from a major presidential candidate. No, I understand the capital gain tax came out from Biden. But immediately when it when Biden did it, it came out and it was dismissed. And it was dismissed, because people said, Well, you can never pass it. Right. But here's the problem.

If you support candidates and you worry about up and down ballots on the off chance of Democrats gained a election victory like Obama did, that policy becomes real. And the American entrepreneurial economy is destroyed. It's the kind of existential risk that anyone in Silicon Valley, and I don't care how far left you are, getting rid of the ability for a company to become a unicorn, and literally it would literally stop that. It's that badly proposed and written, because I've read through it. There's no way it's defensible. We could talk an entire thing about it.

It's going to be a big deal, and you can't ignore that. Price controls on groceries, the same kind of thing. We've seen the same thing. It's been well written and well documented. These are the sorts of issues that will make incredible campaign fodder. So I think that's why that move is happening. And it makes sense that the move is happening. Now, as far as the comment on the RFK, I think it's really important to remember some history here. First, Trump was a centrist Democrat. Full stop. Donated to Hillary. You know, full stop. I mean, not Hillary, Bill. He became a Republican because he saw an opportunity to become one. And so he courted the religious right, yada, yada. But, you know, if anyone thinks that he's religious or any of the any of the stuff that people complain about, constitutionalist judges is different than, you know, curtailing freedom. Now, you could like him or hate him. But the fact of the matter is, Trump's basically a moderate. He is. I mean, you could say his supporters aren't.

And that's absolutely true. And you could say his rhetoric isn't. And that's absolutely true. But his policies are. RFK is an incredibly smart man. You've interviewed him for what five hours, Scott, you know that. Right? He's moderate. He's an old fashioned Democrat, he believes definitely wants to redistribute more income than Trump probably would. But who cares at this point, how many

people in the center really give a crap about the the redistribution what they care about is capitalism what they care about is free markets that they care about is ability to do our business that's what where all of our crypto policy issues are and it's not only crypto so you know if you look at rfk and think about him in ancient health and human services it's actually incredibly compelling considering what big pharma and potentially and if you talk about nicole shanahan if you listen to her speeches because you know i didn't know anything about her i've listened to several that she's talked about she has a her big issue is big agriculture which by the way dovetails very very nicely with what rfk says imagine

shanahan in agriculture and kenn Kennedy in health and human services, big pharma and big agriculture companies are probably pretty afraid of that. And they're going to spend a ton of money to defeat it if in fact that's where Trump is going. But you can see a meeting of the minds there because that would fit with Trump's ethos. It just would. So I don't think this is only about politics. It obviously is dominated by politics. It is true that it would give him a big boost, give Trump a big boost. But I think a lot of Kennedy supporters are people who really believe the signature issues are the poisoning of the American food supply, the domination of American medical care by big pharma companies. There are a lot of people who genuinely believe that and that's that that forms his base. So I think it's important to understand that because when you look at first principles, you know, it does kind of make sense and the ads are going to write themselves.

And, you know, it would be a big deal in the campaign, if in fact, that is what the announcement is on Friday. I mean, I would also say like, no political bias. Listen, I was not an RFK supporter. i think i've been pretty clear about that um but i i'm generally an unaffiliated voter but rfk is arguably in my humble opinion the only actual pro crypto candidate or at least i'm not saying that uh what the others say will not be more will not be impactful or helpful to the industry. But the guy has a material piece of his net worth in Bitcoin. He really gets it.

Like you said, I've spoken to him hours. Whichever side he ended up endorsing, that is going to give a lot more people who were deeply following RFK because of his Bitcoin positions. It gives a lot of strength to whichever side he chooses that that influence will be there. Yeah. One more thing on the topic. Anybody who believes, I think that, you know, the meme that I've seen is probably the best one is the wolf standing up in front of a crowd of sheep and saying, after you vote

for me, I will become a uh is probably the best meme uh you know it's when everything that that comes out of this administration is about government control it's hard to believe i mean i i was horrified yesterday when gina raimondo was interviewed and you know basically said she thinks the economy's strong she she didn't believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics and thought it was a Trump lie. The hubris that that tells you about the people who are running this administration, by the way, Harris voted to confirm her, has sat in meetings with her for three and a half years, and there's been nothing stated about removing her. When you have people like that running the government who think they know better and

don't care what the actual data says, you have all you need to know about their desire to control. And crypto at the end of the day is the antithesis of government control. I mean, yes, around the edges, we understand AML, we understand fighting terrorism, we understand there are going to be things that are going to have to give. But I cannot believe that people like that in an administration could be taken seriously when they say we're going to pivot without giving any policy predictions whatsoever

or making any promises in terms of the type of people that are going to be involved in a new administration. Yeah, by the way, Scott, just kind of quick comments here first about the whole polymarket being manipulated by campaign money. I know you don't believe in that, Scott, but it's very easy to push back against it. They just don't have enough money. If you're betting against just throwing money out there, there's enough funds out there, they'll just bet against that and just pocket all that money. Polymarket is very close now.

I think it was just, you know, Kamala was ahead of Trump, you know, kind of in line with polls a few days ago. And then when the RFK rumors came out, now Trump is ahead of Kamala. So it's in line with the news that we're seeing. And now Trump is at what, 52 and Kamala was at 47, at least yesterday. Not sure what it is today. And it was 75% pro Trump when Biden was president. I think it's hard for anyone to disagree that Biden didn't have a chance against Trump. So I think it's in line with the general sentiment. But yeah, if the campaign money puts $100 million, there's enough funds that will put in $100 million bet against that and pocket their free money. Campaign puts another $100 million, enough funds will pocket their free money as well. So it just doesn't.

That's why I'm a fan of these betting platforms. It's just a lot harder to manipulate. Free market. Sorry. If shit market hypothesis. A lot harder to manipulate. If we market, sorry, if we market our hypothesis, a lot harder to manipulate than Paul's, even though I'm a bigger believer in Paul's than Scott, even though they could be wrong

after what we saw in 2016. But that's kind of my two cents. And last question, Dave, before we pivot to NFTs is, we're going back and forth, me, Alex, and Scott. Do you think Kamala is pivoting our crypto after the news yesterday?

Sorry. think Kamala is pivoting on crypto after the news yesterday? Sorry, I think that she has a bunch of advisors telling her she should. She has a bunch of political allies are telling her that she shouldn't. And she's trying to please both. So the answer is no. Because in actuality, if she doesn't throw Elizabeth Warren under the bus and denounce the anti-crypto army and throw a variety of people in her administration that she's already said will be in her team under the bus to make a public declaration of an end to choke point. There are many public declarations she could make.

She's made none. Literally none. Yeah. But what we were talking about earlier, Dave, is that she hasn't made a lot of statements on many more important positions that everyone's waiting on. So I think crypto's low on her priority list right now. And then another argument against that as well. Stop, Mario. No, no, no, no. If you're talking about taxing unrealized capital gains,

think about what that means for Bitcoin. So if you're a Bitcoiner and you hold $10 million worth of Bitcoin, every one of you expects to have to pay a 25% capital gain every year that Bitcoin starts marching towards where it's going to go. If you're a startup founder, and you're going from your Series B to Series C, you know that under Harris, you're going to have to pay huge amounts. Even in the meme world, just think about the amount of wealth that's been created before people sell they're going to be forced to sell for taxes just think about it it's no this is a direct attack on capital formation and on and crypto is at its core the new more egalitarian more open more global form of capital creation

and if america is significantly disadvantaged in that it's a big deal so no she actually has put her first big policy is an attack on crypto at least in a sense but i can't can she say before we go last question everyone get into guys, before we go, last question, David, I'll get into the NFT discussion. Just one last question. Does she have a choice really? Can she be anti-crypto considering RFK's recent likely decision of endorsing Trump? It can just be nothing. Like we believe that you have to be something crypto as a political candidate now, but I think we're still a pretty small echo chamber. They might not view it as a winning or losing

I think it is. I don't know. It's hard to say that after Trump was at the Bitcoin conference. He's becoming a bigger part of it. It's like voters in seven swing states determine this election. It's like the notion that my vote counts in Florida.

It's also the only thing that determines it is marginal voters. They're not like I think their view is probably most likely that most crypto voters already have their mind made up. And even if she backs it, aren't going to move. If they think that's the play, then they're not going to burn it. And just two other quick things on it, because I agree with what a lot of dave said but i think there's two key things here number one you're never going to get a disavowal of choke point because they're never going to acknowledge that choke point was a thing right like choke point 2.0 is a term that i think is pretty accurate

and that nick carter made up they're not going to acknowledge that that thing ever existed let alone back off it and she you know she can't come out and say something like fire gary gensler because as part of the current admin she can't undermine the current admin or her party in general so like they can give some signals but that's not going to happen um so also the fact to that to that line that and this is seen in every every situation non-crypto it's much harder to be the party that's in power than the party that gets to just throw out words and shots right because she's expected or whoever's in power in any situation can't just utilize rhetoric because people can obviously say do something about it exactly whether it's in their power or not the other

party always i mean we've seen a history of this. One party is in power. They get all of the power. They do nothing. The other party throws shots and that balance of power changes immediately two to four years later because it's hard to govern. She could easily, easily do two things. That would be simple. But that's my point, Dave. She has to do something. Nobody's going to believe any of it unless they do. That's exactly right. Dave, what do you think she should do? Well, it's really simple. Two phone calls could create settlements in all the main SEC cases.

She can do it for sure. I mean, if anyone thinks Biden is actually overruling her, if she doesn't have the power now or the power brokers behind her then i used to have a good view of the brooklyn bridge from my old new york apartment i'd love to sell it to you so i mean she could do that and the other thing she could do is uh have the federal reserve approve custodians or reopen at least the case for custodians master account be really easy to do both. Because she has the power to do it. Okay. But again, this is where it comes back to. That would be expending an insane amount of political capital,

taking huge risk at the stories that would get written on interfering with what are supposed to be independent agencies. All again, for I think what would not feel like that big a win to them. And I think that's where the interesting trade-off kind of comes for them and then i would say the final thing because i know mario you want to do it nfts even when we're talking about how like her first big policy was the tax stuff this isn't actually her policy she didn't come out with a new comprehensive plan for what she wanted to do the campaign basically just said,

yeah, we're going to go with the Biden proposal that was put out six months ago. But that's my point. The idea that she's a candidate of change when in reality, she's doubling down on the existing policy is exactly the point. That's all I'm saying. Oh, yeah, I think that's totally a fair characterization. Alright, cool.

I'll jump into the NFT discussion. Sorry, I was ordering food, which means that I'm over the cover of the discussion. You always know if Mario and I are eating that there's trouble. One interesting topic for me is a bit more interesting than it is to these NFTs. I think I do want to – I just don't like us talking about something, Scott, when it's like in late stages.

So when I start feeling this inkling of something gaining traction, I don't want to talk about it early on, even if it doesn't materialize. And we've got a pretty good panel here. Appreciate you guys being patient with us. Anyone can jump in, guys. Adam Cole, Johnny Jake, B1, and Socrates. And Nadia's here as well. Nadia, good to see you. Would love to get your thoughts on the general NFT market. Scott, maybe you could kick it off with the Bored Ape performance two days ago, kind of triggered your attention. And for me, I got enough attention. My team, so we have a crypto space, like a degen space, and they've apparently been doing NFT spaces

for two weeks, I wasn't aware. But then people started DMing me about it when Punks picked up, even though it's still below what they were a couple of months ago. But Scott, what caught your attention? Then we'll go to the panel. I mean, it was just sort of a laughable prediction

that I made at the top of the bull market when I think the floor of apes was like 130 or 140 ETH. And I was on the spaces like this with a bunch of apes. And I said, I'll buy one when they're $25,000. And a couple of weeks ago, they dropped to, I think, 18 grand. And they were down to 90 or something, I think, from a high of 145. But we've had a couple of spaces where we talk about NFTs. And a couple of months ago, we had one where it was all PFPs on stage and they were saying that NFTs were dead.

You remember? They were literally like, we can't get rid of our picture, but it's kind of over. And I said to you, I don't give a shit about NFTs, but I want to buy all of them right now. like we can't get rid of our picture but like it's kind of over like and i was like and i said to you i don't give a shit about nfts but i want to buy all of them right now wait so which which port ape did you get man why and why aren't you rocking it as your pfp man that's what it might already be gone um but that's not the point um you know they went to 13 or whatever um but uh not not the point the point was that like it was you know it they went to 13 or whatever. Um, but, uh, not, not the point. The point was that

like, it was, you know, it was gratuitous froth. Um, and as gratuitous as I viewed that top and a lot of people did sort of at that point, I think we're, we have all the signals of a gratuitous bottom. You know what I mean? Um, for, for, for what people would consider blue chicks, everything else I think stays at zero. I, you know i you know and i have no idea what these things are called but like if you have like a karma chameleon or something i'm sure that shit is worth nothing and will remain there bro stop flooding my karma chameleons um i'd say i'd say look at the core we've seen over the last few months um you know kind of what we would consider grails of like historical nfts rare pepe's spells of genesis kind of the high values um have certainly traded for low prices but there's been

movement we've seen a lot of of uptick in like the super expensive high value ones um kind of trading hands amongst collectors and you know certainly with punks kind of catching some bids over the last you know week or so it does to scott's point feel like we've we've kind of touched this bottom which we were talking about maybe a year ago about like hey what would you buy a board ape at you know and people were throwing out predictions my prediction was somewhere in like the 80th range where there is kind of this bottom for ones which are, you know, well-known, I guess at the minimum well-known or, you know, highly collectible. And so that's what it feels like. And obviously we've seen movement with like the penguins and stuff like that where they're going to be on an L2 and stuff.

So there's kind of this and that layered in with kind of burnout, a little burnout in the meme coin space. So yeah, to Scott's point, it feels like we've hit a bottom here, but, but Adam, don't you think that a lot of the punks movement was pro like it all came or not all,

but most of it came right after the alien sale announcement. So I feel like it, that, that, that data point, I don't know. It feels to me like that might have just been the co-tail. But guys, let's, let's take a step back. What are the indicators that got us to kind of put a title on our NFTs back? Get everyone excited or at least slightly excited. So pump

because a 40 or 50% pump in a matter of days, right? Yeah, but what? I'll get it any time in the last year. Yeah, I know. Okay, say that again. I only saw apes, so everybody else can point out the rest. I was just watching apes because of my promise. Okay. B1, what did you say the volume? How high was the volume?

I'm not sure the exact number, but I know that it was a significant factor above where it's been the last year, right? And it's not just in apes and punks, but it is across a number of different asset classes. I think that if you saw there were two different autoglyph, I'm not sure if they were OTCs, but there were two different autoglyph movements recently. No autoglyphs have moved in a long time. You saw the one confirmation bought something for a pretty decent size price. Like that's like a venture fund. They don't collect NFTs.

They just wanted to buy something as an investment, you know, and that we haven't seen in a long time. Agree. It's going back to before going to Nadia, I wanted to go back to and I see some hands up. Jake will go to you afterwards. But Adam, just look at the market in general. Just look at the metrics. What has been happening in the last few months? So we haven't been talking about NFTs because obviously the market just didn't care.

But has there been movement? Has it been sitting stale? Have they been building? Have they been delivering on any of the promises? And I'm talking about blue chips, of course, because a lot of the shittier ones died off, I'm assuming. But pudgies have been. I don't know about anyone else. Yes, certainly Pudgies have been.

I mean, you got to look at like Frank with DGods. What he did is actually pivot into meme coins and just provide value for his holders as far as like gated communities to kind of trade meme coins. So those have been kind of the two i would say you know collections from last cycle where the founders have kind of delivered over the last you know six months or so and provided additional value to holders you know when it comes to like punks and and apes you know certainly yuga hasn't been delivering and that's why i think we saw you know apes just take a massive uh dive um but punks don't need to actually deliver anything right it's

just you want one of those because they're just it's a grail asset so you know same with autoglyphs same with ether rocks same with autoglyphs absolutely and so we have seen certainly in like the historic nft community like we've seen lost Robbies, we've seen Autoglyphs, those usually trade hands almost OTC. And we have seen some movement in that, not a lot, obviously nothing near kind of 21 bubble hype. But we've seen this kind of transitioning over from what I would consider serious collectors. And so there is some movement there. Is the movement, Jake, is the movement mainly among collectibles or is it also among utility NFTs? Because when we talked about the only two utility NFTs, the two examples that were given before my audio cut out were Frank D. Goz and Pudgy Penguins. I wouldn't even count Frank D.

Goz's utilities. Like, hey, let's move from gambling with NFTs to gambling with meme coins. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I just don't want to consider the gambling with meme coins as a utility, even though it can be considered that. The proper utility is probably Pudgy Penguins is a perfect example. You guys under-delivered. But which NFTs are doing better, Jake? I would say it's still mostly collectibles because we are still really in the early stages of this.

In terms of value, I would say some of the ETH NFTs are up maybe 20%, 30% from the floor price. One thing a lot of people aren't taking into consideration, I haven't seen this conversation, is that the NFT space looks a lot different than it did 3 years ago. We have 3 main markets now. You have NFTs on Bitcoin, you have NFTs on ETH, and then you have the 2021 ETH NFT communities are building their own L2s, right? You have like ApeChain for Yuga, you have Azuki's building their anime-based chain, and then you have Pudgy's who have abstract for their L2. And then you have Solana, which has their own kind of thriving NFT community as well. And last year when quote-unquote NFTs were dead,

the Bitcoin NFT community with Ordinals went through their wealth generation effect where you saw things like NodeMonkeys run from 0.03 Bitcoin to literally almost one full Bitcoin. And so now that market is largely compressed and is really down at the bottom levels and is now aligned with ETH NFTs, Bitcoin NFTs, and Sol NFTs. And I feel like all of these are somewhat aligned, but they're very diverse in where the intentions are going. So I think you'll see some of the utility aspect really pop up on these NFT-focused L2s where they all have a narrative that they're attempting to form. I'll wrap it up here. Remember, Yugo wanted to build Ape Chain three years ago,

and they were largely ostracized about it. Everyone wanted them to stay on ETH mainnet. Now, a few years later, they're finally building it out, but they have a lot more competition because some of their other competitors are coming after the same idea. Yeah, and even Machi's outbuilding them now. So like what, I don't know. I don't like to hold Yuga up as the pinnacle.

I think I don't have, obviously I used to have the mutant demon ape and that's how most people know me. But I think that that project has, you you know taken so many weird twists and turns it's like hard to hold it up as any type of you know light for where things could or may should go but i think a lot of the other projects are so you know doing very interesting things like so i was gonna go sorry sorry, B1, and I did remember you with your profile photo,

but Socrates still has that old profile photo. Nadia, my question to you guys is, what would you make of that recent movement in NFTs? What do you think caused it? More importantly, is it sustainable? Yeah, I think just to take a step back, your interpretation and understanding of NFTs very much depends on how you're exposed to it. So if we talk about crypto NFTs on Twitter, you know, it's very much the blue chip.

It's the PFPs. It's the art movement. But then if you go over to LinkedIn, for example, there's a massive B2B focus on NFTs. Now, crypto is such a cyclical environment that, you know, what's DJing popular culture today is very far down the line what businesses are working on. But because of the fact that the slow moving engine is turning slowly, at some time, at some point, I think that, you know, the two meet because then once again, it becomes popular culture. So in a sense, when we talk about our nfts dead yes there are certain nfts that are certainly dead at the moment uh and you know there's so many different reasons for this that i'm sure has been covered to death on the show uh but then on the other hand i think that there's also a

focus on the technology and what the technology is able to offer. So if you focus on value transfer, if you focus on ownership, these are kind of things that businesses are, it's a completely different paradigm. And many big brands have been experimenting with this in many different ways. If you're talking about loyalty NFTs, or, you know, membership NFTs, marketing and community building has been using a lot of these as well. So I think what is happening and not necessarily this is the reason the market is moving at the moment, but I think, you know, just zooming out a little bit and looking at why NFTs are sometimes in the news, sometimes popular. Yes, the PFPs and the massively expensive

art sales are the ones that, you know, the tall trees that catch the high winds. But I think we are going to continue seeing mention because ultimately it is a technology, you know, it's not just a blue chip investment. By the way, I've just got a story before I break it here. I just want to confirm it. But I appreciate that, Nadia. And I want to go to Socrates and call as well. Just that same question, getting your thoughts on it, guys. Well, the way that I look at it is like you have to look at the Solana meme coin cycle that's going on right now. And what started that?

In my opinion, it's the first mover. You had Bonk, which is one of the biggest meme coins in crypto right now. When Bonk started running, it ran hard, it ran fast. And then ever since that day, the Solana meme coin entire community and ecosystem has just been absolute chaos, absolute ballistic. And NFTs are no different. It's going to take one project that either already exists or maybe it hasn't even launched yet to completely change everything. If Punks ran to half a million dollars, you know, whether it's the end of this year or next year. That totally changes the landscape.

I mean, think about how NFTs changed when Yuga dropped. People didn't even really know what NFTs were before Yuga dropped. We were messing around with like Top Shot and Dead Run. And it was kind of like this weird area. And then, boom, Bored Ape Yacht Club dropped. And next thing you know, for the next year, we were all trading cartoon profile pictures. People were making unbelievable money. I mean, changing their life and things were crazy.

There could be something, you know, maybe not similar, but something that has the same effect that could launch within the next two, three. I mean, it could launch tomorrow and it could totally change the NFT landscape. And I think people are ruling out the idea of new NFT projects coming in and just basically vampiring older ones. I don't know, man. You're talking about a massive shift in human behavior game theory. I think you're

right about when yugo launched and like that triggered as such a deep you know you know human behavior change like the way that we all perceived uh nfts like the jpeg profile pictures and different collections wanting that to like represent us in the social media sphere and that's i think a lot of what drove so much money to that market i mean whatever it is that that was a a clear change in human behavior right i think for for us to consider that maybe there's going to be another new kind of PFP type or art NFT-based collection launch that's then going to change the game again, I don't know if that can happen again. I do agree with you that some new type of NFT collection could launch, but I don't think that it would be just like a new sexy thing it would have to be something that would be more like real world utility based that maybe isn't about the like jpeg itself it's more about what that nft is getting access to like like if solo

house moved their memberships to nft i don't think people give a shit anymore. That's even behavior change. Yeah, I just don't think people care. Utility NFTs are not just getting any traction. You've had all these different companies trying to move to NFTs. I think the collectibles are going to get traction because eventually people will appreciate the symbolic value of things like autoglyphs or or crypto punks from a technological historical perspective but i think that could take a long time our nft is gonna get traction this year i would bet this year next year this cycle my bet is on yes i don't know what you think scott but

my bet is on yes because i feel like it had so much traction in the last cycle that it just needs someone just to light a tiny little match and he's or everyone will just flood in because everyone's waiting for it's like when our nfts back so now someone needs to do just something to trigger that influx of attention scott no matter no matter how people we uh no matter how people like sort of view the history of the last bull market or like to rewrite that history. The last bull market was not driven by Bitcoin or anything else other than Doge and NFTs. NFTs were on Saturday Night Live. Elon Musk was talking about Doge. If you asked,

like, I literally had CZ on a podcast. He said, because of Doge and people wanting to sign up to trade Doge. Yeah, I think his quote was, there's not enough people in China that I can hire fast enough to do customer service to onboard enough people to trade Doge, right? And I heard that from every exchange head sort of in that time at the beginning of 2021. What we saw there was that you had to be on a centralized exchange to trade memes. And those memes then because of that were limited to what was available in centralized exchanges, Doge, SHIB, etc, that eventually made it. And now we've seen sort of this new wave of meme coin interest. It's just being done in a completely different way because you can do it without signing up to a centralized exchange. People can launch them. We've seen that. So like, if you are intellectually honest and say

what drove last cycle what drove most people into crypto like was meme coins dog coins particularly and nfts then expect that nfts are also going to find some different iteration of what happened before that's going to explode at some point what would you if you had to make a bet what would what would trigger uh just another bull run with nfts scott then we'll have dave wrapping up i mean the same thing like if nfts if the existing nfts reach a certain floor and people who lost a ton of money don't feel like they're they have lost all their money again they'll come back and there'll be renewed interest i mean it's the same thing as it's the same conversation that we have over and

over again like nobody wants bitcoin at 15 000 after it was in the 60s but uh when it gets back to 30 and they go oh shit i haven't lost all my money this is pretty cool they start buying bitcoin again you know what i mean it's the same in every market over time. You need the capitulation. I think we've had it. You need the doom and despair and it's never coming back. And then it gets to a certain price and the people who are either holding it take interest again

or it ends up on Saturday Night Live again being made fun of and there you go. It's not that hard. Dave, final thoughts on the discussion? Yeah, I think that, well, first of all, I agree with Scott. I think my views on the existing NFT markets are fairly similar. I want to tell you, I agree with you, Mario, in terms of real world NFT type things, but there's a reason for it.

And I think that everyone in this space is massively underestimating the size of the potential market for nfts for real world applications once the legal risk for doing so disappears from those real world issuers i i can think of multiple business ideas that i would love to explore once that happens i think it will be a land grab like the san francisco gold rush i actually i i i agree with that i i think this is a different it's just a different topic to what we're discussing now which is the i probably shouldn't be because now we're doing going down the pfp path we had r5 on stage yesterday the day before which were tokenizing real world artwork investors so we're heavily invested in the tokenization um and um the

leverage of nfts for real world assets so both tokens and nfts i think it's under underappreciated i just don't think i don't know it just it's not i wouldn't put it in the same bucket as pfps which are kind of more like a meme coin type audience where just something lights it up and everyone just think of it this way soho house is a perfect example okay so lots of people lots of influencers on instagram lots of people are accused of being fake etc etc now imagine a world where luxury brands and luxury clubs can nft and have defined provenance for who actually are numbers who actually are fakers and so you would know who are the fakers the demand for that will go will go crazy just think about that and just think about there are

so many different ways and i can expand on this and maybe we should talk privately because i have some business ideas here but the truth is it's a huge market the reason it's not happening is because of legal risk and that legal risk is likely to go away maybe it'll take five years maybe it'll take two years we don't't know, but it will go away. Eventually, smart ideas will find a way to get out there. So, it's true. But it's very similar to the PFPs because you want people to know you own a Birkenbag? Well, okay.

You can have an Instagram picture. Those NFTs are a lot easier to value, though, because they've got just very direct utility linked to an existing company. So if it's an entry to a concert, for example, it's a very obvious example, the NFT is worth whatever the entry to that concert is. So it's not as they're not NFTs one could speculate on. Can I take the other side of that? Please do. Hold on. Let me jump in real quick.

What's a concert ticket stub worth after the fact? Two sex call. Guys, say that, Dave. But then it becomes a collectible. That's a different discussion. That's the same thing as a stub worth after the fact. True sex call. Guys, say that, Dave. But then it becomes a collectible. That's a different discussion. That's the same thing as a stub worth. Exactly right. The value of a stub, we're kind of moving away from now we're talking about stubs and the value of stubs, not the value of NFTs.

Because NFTs are just a technology that supports assets like the stub or like stamps or like collectible cards rather than NFT having a value within itself and not linked to a real world asset. So now we're talking about the value of stamps as an asset rather than the value of NFTs, which I'm bullish on. So I think it's important to draw a distinction between NFTs and you might disagree, but NFTs as a technology versus NFTs as a crypto asset. Let me ask a simple question. What's the difference between right clicking a JPEG or owning the NFT?

Is that not exactly the same thing as having an NFT that says, I was there in Butler, Pennsylvania, or I was there at this Taylor Swift concert, or I was there at this Super Bowl? Yeah, it's an easy one. So a penguin or a punk has no link to a real-world asset. An NFT representing a stub, a concert ticket, the value is linked to the concert ticket, which you can buy as an NFT with this technology or without this technology, versus a Kupang, which is linked directly to that crypto asset. And I think with the NFT, with the technology,

the non-fungible token technology, increase or decrease, most likely, increase the value of the stub slightly, maybe maybe but it's the stub that determines the the value rather than the nft itself that makes sense mario the company behind it project doing this there's actually a few yeah we're we're invested in a few that did that we you know are you familiar with loud punks no so there's a music festival for rap music rolling loud and they dropped loud punks i think it was like late 2021 but um i've actually so if you own a loud punks it's actually a profile picture nft you know similar to penguins but if you own the loud

punks you get a free vip ticket to every single rolling loud festival and they do like i think 10 or 12 Rolling Loud festivals around the world every year. So if you have a Loud Punks, you could, you know, realistically, you could fly to every single Rolling Loud and go to the event for free with the VIP ticket. Obviously, you'd have to pay for travel. But like I live in Florida

and Rolling Loud comes to Miami every year. And the last two years, I've actually gotten four free vip tickets both years just from owning four loud punks and i think that's around like 1200 1300 in value and right now i could sell my loud punks for like yeah so yeah i'll wrap it with this like i think your example is like an overlap between what dave is talking about what i am talking about. So I'm talking about the NFT PFP itself. And then Dave was talking about the utility technology. It's something you're talking about,

the overlap of the two. So I think we're all on the same page. But net net, Scott, are you bullish on NFTs for this cycle? My answer is yes. I think that, yes, like I said, I think it'll be some new iteration i'm not bullish on all nfts that existed last cycle doing well this cycle i think there are a few leftovers from last

cycle that you know reached a certain level of you know went over a tipping point of popularity where their community will continue to push them higher and then i think we'll see some wild innovation a pump fun you know sun pump sort of uh nft marketplace i have no idea but something that's new and captures the really the fomo and what are you more what are you more bullish on vc back tokens for this cycle or nfts oh god do you like being homeless or okay um i i don't know uh i would again it's gonna be uh certain ones like i don't know that you put them in a bucket yes you can put them in a bucket you mean right now you can say this you can say this okay so you can say this about anything this is the easy way way out. So right now, meme coins are grabbing us.

NFTs. Dominate the narrative. I will go out on a limb because it will sound so nuts coming from me. Wow. NFTs. Wow. Holy shit. I'm very bullish on NFTs, but I wouldn't put them ahead of VC-backed tokens.

So thanks for the press. Yeah, but you know how Barrick, Ran, and I have been watching how this cycle has played out sort of there. I think that cycle played out. I think there will be a few huge winners in both markets. That's the problem. If you want the genuine answer, it's that 99% of both go to zero. So, like, which 1% performs better? I don't know.

Great answer, Scott. 99% of everything goes to zero. But I just, yeah. Yeah, but that's the easy way. Anyway, so I'm very bullish on NFTs, but I think there's no way it's going to be VC-backed tokens. I hope not because we're investing like crazy. But fingers crossed.

Otherwise... But maybe it depends on like, if you look at the last cycle, it's all about timeframe too. Like if you have to, it has to fall in that perfect sort of moment where the things explode like we talked about vc back tokens from last cycle and how either well or depending on who you are how well or terrible they did but if you really look in like at this part of the cycle like the 2024 summer if you equate that to 2020 summer everything failed right so like nothing was popping off that was before even like microstrategy bought bitcoin none of it right and so there was these vc back tokens that were

launching at that point and they all fell into this summer doltrum terrible market but then if my memory serves me correct you know january to may of 25 it It was a four-month window that literally anything that launched, launched at a thousand X to the pre-sale price. So maybe that's coming. But if we're comparing Apple to Apple, VC-backed tokens of the last cycle, that was only really a good thing for three or four months. And NFTs, how long were NFTft pfps really really peaking through that summer i mean bieber buying punk i mean buying a board ape type thing i mean a few months right and so i think they're each going to catch their big moment so i do think that i just think it's going to be the vc back tokens that happen to launch in a perfect time with the right backing and hype and same for nfts if that makes sense yeah to wrap up the space uh i mean i went to high school with a guy

named benny johnson and uh he's a he's a very famous podcaster um there's no way it's true so he said he's a pro pro trump very very outspoken, very well-known, extremely pro-Trump. And he just made a tweet saying he's breaking live from the DNC. He has an interview with Kamala Harris today. He doesn't have any interviews, right? I mean, of any interview. Exactly. Why would she go with the most unfriendly interviewer? Exactly, exactly.

I think that he's trolling. I've just pinged him. He hasn't replied yet. I'm going to give him a call. There's no way this is real. If it is, it's anlling. I've just pinged him. He hasn't replied yet. I'm going to give him a call. There's no way this is real. If it is, it's an incredible achievement. So hats off to him. And, you know, I think it would be a fascinating interview.

But for Kamala to do an interview with Benny Johnson is impossible. Yeah, I mean, everybody should definitely tune in to my interview with Xi Jinping. Yeah, yeah. Guys, you heard it here first. Very cool. Everyone, I'll see you everyone i'll see you see you tomorrow thanks a lot everyone really appreciate it bye everyone great space guys thanks