The Wolf Of All Streets - Official FED Pause? Altcoin Season Brewing! | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

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Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 All right, so we have another ticker. Lawyered, are you there? Yeah. Yeah, I was going through the agenda. So we have the ticker for Invesco and Galaxy HQ spot Bitcoin ETFs. BTCO has appeared on the DTCC website. It's like everyone's obsessing over that DTCC website. We'll probably find out later that it's always been there.
Starting point is 00:00:21 Scott, hold on. Wasn't the story before that, what did it end up to be the facts? Because BlackRock's ETF was- Back where they had been there. Scott, hold on. Wasn't the story before that, what did it end up to be the facts? Because BlackRock CDM... It had been there since August. Yeah, I mean, it was like this breaking news in crypto that IBTZ had been listed that BlackRock was up on the DTCC website
Starting point is 00:00:40 and then it crashed the website when everyone said that it had disappeared and then they weren't sure if it had come back. The website came back, it wasn't there and then it was there and then everyone realized it had basically just been there since August. So that's the conclusion. It actually has been through August.
Starting point is 00:00:55 It's been there since August. Who reported that it's up on the DDC website? Is it Cointelegraph? I don't remember who it was. It was actual news it would um you'd sell it probably this is everything everything can pump this market people are very excited you should scott you should tweet it out i think i'm having some sound issues. I can't hear Mark.
Starting point is 00:01:26 It's muting for some reason. Now it's back. Can you hear me now? Okay. I was just saying, I was saying you should, you should tweet something and just say it's up on the DTCC website. The,
Starting point is 00:01:35 the crypto town hall ticker for the, for our ETF is up and we'll start our own bull run. Yeah. CT BTC. It's going to be great. I think Ryan is here. I'm not sure if he can hear us. I mean, I think we could kick off the show.
Starting point is 00:01:49 The markets look pretty much steady. Your thoughts? Actually, I came late to the show. What's your thought on the pump we saw? Sustainable? Go back to new lows? How's the chart look? How's your sentiment? I think sustainable.
Starting point is 00:02:04 I think with Bitcoin, I think new lows how's the chart look how's your sentiment i think sustainable oh wow i mean my sentiment is i mean but i think you know with bitcoin i think that uh definitely looks sustainable i mean even rationally as you kind of view what's been happening at the price actually it just doesn't seem like there's any major sellers in the market i mean i do think we'll see retraces but when bitcoin goes up like this it tends to uh bounce higher than people are expecting and really leave them behind on the sidelines. They're always waiting for that retest of a key level. But I mean, you know, we were kind of screaming about 25K even after the drop from 31 being kind of a great opportunity potentially. And that played out.
Starting point is 00:02:39 I think that, though, you know, I think there's a lot to like here with Bitcoin right now. It's really crazy when you kind of zoom out and think about it. So, you know, I think there's a lot to like here with Bitcoin right now. It's really crazy when you kind of zoom out and think about it, forget even the chart or how you feel. I mean, we have what Larry Fink, Stanley Druckenmiller, L. Arion, Paul Tudor Jones, all in the last 10 days to two weeks, calling Bitcoin either a flight to quality or saying it should be a part of their portfolio. Druckenmiller literally kind of FOMOing and saying, I wish I owned it. I don't. I mean, to him, I say, I don't know, just buy some. Seems easy. And then El-Erian coming out and saying he liked the barbell strategy of cash and Bitcoin just two days ago or yesterday. I mean, these are the most respected institutional investors,
Starting point is 00:03:27 legends, and every single one of them is talking about Bitcoin here again. And I just think that you can ignore largely what's happening elsewhere. I've always thought that. And just add a bit of this to your portfolio. I don't think the price really matters. I think that everybody agrees that with time it's somewhat inevitable christian where do you stand on this christian you there hi guys sorry yeah sorry i um well i i think i mean what you read about it then i try to not read too much online
Starting point is 00:04:06 because there's so much fake news on it, as we saw last time with the whole ETF news coming out. But I think you read so much about the ETF that that's really the main thing that's driving it. But the other thing that I saw now is that RSI has crossed above 70, which is normally indicated at its start of a bull run, I think it means.
Starting point is 00:04:28 And it's an interesting thought to see that anticipation to news that is coming might be the trigger for something like this. Anticipation to news that is coming. So this is all just speculating what's there to come. What about the narrative that Ran was talking about earlier? It's like the market will not...
Starting point is 00:04:50 So Scott, do you remember when Ran was saying this? And I think you agreed with him. The market would not react to news and then suddenly just blow up because of all the good news that we've seen over the last few months. But however, you're saying now the market is starting to react more if we see more positive news. We have a different to what we had what a month or two ago maybe yeah i mean what i'll tell you is that oh sorry go ahead no no go ahead go ahead i was just gonna say i mean we we've seen the market react massively to two fake news stories over the past few weeks
Starting point is 00:05:20 that news was great Go ahead Yeah, no, exactly That's what I mean, like there's So much speculation on what the news Is going to be, because we all expect That ETF approval and that Different ETFs are going to be approved and stuff But it's all still just speculation
Starting point is 00:05:40 And FOMO for them The news might hit any day now, I don't want to miss out But there is not Really news, right, it's all speculation them. The news might hit any day now. I don't want to miss out. But there is not really news, right? It's all speculation on what the news might become. And I think that's interesting to see, especially when, you know, now I believe that
Starting point is 00:05:57 RSI, and I'm not super familiar with this, but I believe they look at a 14-week average on how strong uh price movements are and that due to this news it's for the first time since 2020 that it hit this uh this level again above 70 that overbought yeah overbought and and i've pointed out that uh you know a lot of people obviously with rsi you view overbought as a likely top that can be true sort of on shorter time frames but the christian's point when you look at it on a time frame like the weekly when it hit overbought the time he's talking about
Starting point is 00:06:28 prices at 12 000 and it pushed to 69 000 or 65 000 while still overbought from that point right so that was basically a 5x while hitting it so it's considered sort of the power zone at this point for for pushing if you're looking technically hey matthew siegel i see you in the audience we. We're trying to bring you up, but if you request, maybe we'll be able to get you up here. Lawyer, do you have your hand up? I can't help but wonder, with this being such a foregone conclusion, wouldn't it be priced in quite a bit? And when the actual news comes, I wonder if there'll be a bit of a sell-off. My comment on that has consistently been by by the rumor by the news dip i wouldn't i wouldn't want to short an etf approval or view
Starting point is 00:07:16 that as an opportunity to necessarily sell my bitcoin but perhaps you do get a an event is it actually i've got a question it might be a silly question to you guys but not to me because i'm not too deep in that world when it comes to an etf approval is there so remember when we the when the etf whatever i thought it was approved earlier the market reacted very positively on the coin telegraph news because the the the fact that it was approved so early means it mean that what it meant it was more. So is it is there a difference in terms of how positive something is based on when it gets approved, or which ETF gets approved first, or doesn't really matter when or which one they're all the same? Anyone?
Starting point is 00:07:58 I would say that to Matthew. Matthew, I would love to know your answer on that, obviously, since you're at that. Yeah, hey, everyone. I just love to know your answer on that, obviously, since you're at FANF. Yeah. Hey, everyone. I just want to point out one statistic, which is in the last four weeks, there's been about four hundred and twenty million dollars of flows into Bitcoin ETFs, whether that's the spot products in Europe, Canada or the futures products in the US. That's four hundred million. The total Canada, or the futures products in the U.S. That's 400 million. The total year-to-date number is 600 million. So two-thirds of that coming in the last month. I don't think it matters which product gets approved. I think that that's the catalyst for additional flows into the space because of the regulatory certainty it provides.
Starting point is 00:08:53 I also think that it appears as if many of these products may go effective at the same time, at least if the SEC is following their ETH futures roadmap. And why wouldn't they be? The potential government shutdown on November 17th also throws a wrinkle into this. If you recall, ahead of the ETH futures approvals, the SEC was clearly kind of hurrying up the paper pushing, trying to get those products in line before the potential shutdown. So I don't have any edge on when the timing is likely to be, but just want to highlight that November 17th issue. And you've mentioned three things. You've got obviously the Fed, whether they're going to pause or not. You've got the government shutdown.
Starting point is 00:09:36 You've got the ETF. If you had to rate each one of them out of 10, Matthew, one to 10, 10 being that it's going to have the most impact, one the least impact on the market in terms of importance. How would you rate each one? ETF approval is an eight. Government shutdown, I don't think, is necessarily a catalyst until like some type of funding agreement was signed. And, you know, when you get another two trillion trillion deficit next year, you know, that's probably
Starting point is 00:10:06 a five or six for Bitcoin. What was the third? Third one is the Fed. I think that's it. That's an eight or a nine. Okay, we just see. So you think that the the Fed not going as we like, could, could, could kind of discount any impact that we have from the ETF since the approval, like if credit is still bad and the Fed is still hawkish moving forward over the next few months. Yeah, it's like what price does that happen at though, right?
Starting point is 00:10:37 Like is the Fed going to pivot with the S&P where it is now or is it going to pivot when S&P is 10% lower? And if the S&P is 10% lower, then where's Bitcoin? It kind of depends on what are the factors that lead to a cut for a pause. But we can see the charts floating around. M2 correlation with Bitcoin is very high. Okay, and then if you look at the rest of the market, Scott, jump in when you like. I know I get greedy sometimes with asking questions.
Starting point is 00:11:06 But Matthew, when you look at the rest of the market, how do you think the rest of the market will react if we keep seeing the upward momentum? If we see the ETF go the way we expect, the Fed, let's say it's hawkish for a bit more, starts to pause. If everything goes as expected, there's no government shutdown. How do you see the crypto market over the next 12 months and then the rest of the market as well? When will the capital flow into alts? Yeah, I still think the risk reward is that Bitcoin dominance is going to rise into and after the halving. That's the historical analog. This is an asset class which requires inflows just to keep the prices flat. And the ETF approval is an obvious catalyst for those inflows. So until we get that more explicit Fed pivot, you know, I'm reasonably cautious on risk assets overall, observe the
Starting point is 00:12:04 relatively high correlation over the last couple of years that Bitcoin has had with risk assets and assume that, you know, crypto might be weak if the macro is weak. But that with these Bitcoin specific catalysts, Bitcoin dominance can rise. There's also, you know, the ETH BTC ratio just broke below the three hours capital low. There's not too much support here at current levels. And there's a bit of a negative ETH narrative, you know, in the market around the scaling roadmap. You know, we think that that will sort itself out. But if you go back to, again, 2019, Bitcoin dominance rose in the second half of the year. It rose even after the halving. And then the full power of the bull market wasn't unleashed until ETH dominance started to rise.
Starting point is 00:12:58 And that's the time when we get more constructive on alt. Although, you know, there's always some exceptions. Solana is up 100% this month. You might have noticed VanEck just put out a research piece last week with a $300 price target where we modeled a scenario in which Solana is the first blockchain to host an application with 100 million users. And we've been really impressed with the technical roadmap and execution from that project. So, you know, there are some winners, but broadly speaking, I expect BTC dominance to rise.
Starting point is 00:13:36 And the miners, we can see really a big divergence in the miners. We can get into that. But the low-cost guys are definitely outperforming here ahead of the having. Yeah,io solana just actually broke 40 sort of as we're speaking here and that officially broke the high price right before the ftx collapse so it's effectively a race to spf uh from the planet which is what we're all looking to do here anyways holy but yeah solana absolutely and you know to echo obviously
Starting point is 00:14:05 what matt said we effectively did a whole solana show yesterday ran was reporting live from break point uh in the netherlands and he was really really excited and some of the people i respect the most have been sort of beating the drum on solana here for for a while largely because of the fundamental reasons fire dancer and everything that's coming with that protocol, which echoes again what Matt just said. So I think there's a lot to like there. Mario, you still don't know if we lost you, but yeah. No, I cut out.
Starting point is 00:14:38 Yeah, I cut out. I keep cutting out, but I saw Solana. I was just looking at the chart. I had no idea, man, because of this war and shit. I'm not even keeping track. So that started. That started. It went back down to eight bucks. It was eight dollars.. I had no idea, man, because of this war and shit. I'm not even keeping track. So that started. And this thing went back down to $8. It was $8. Yeah, that's crazy, man.
Starting point is 00:14:49 It doubled almost since October. Since last month. That doubled since last month. Yeah, in two weeks. Two and a half weeks. So I think it was trading on October 12th it was trading on like October 12th around 20 bucks. But what triggered, what changed? So is that the hype behind, what exactly?
Starting point is 00:15:11 I mean, I think that there's, I mean, Matthew, I think just laid it out, but I think there's some actual fundamental improvements. Obviously, people will disagree emotionally whether those chains count. But, you know, with Fire Dancer, the ability to do just mind-blowing amounts of transactions per second, the amount of developer activity, the amount of, I guess, hype surrounding it, I think that there's a belief that Solana could kind of be the base chain narrative of this next cycle.
Starting point is 00:15:41 You know, like kind of everything was built on ETH in past cycles, and maybe in this cycle it's going to be of everything was built on ethan past cycles and maybe in this cycle it's going to be what's being built on solana ran laid out some pretty uh yeah i was gonna ask you what did what did right yeah what did ryan say yesterday yeah and raul paul had done the same uh i i had him on my podcast on sunday and he went through these sort of numbers of how just in fact how cheap it is to for example mint nfts on solana you know it was i don't want to quote the numbers there's like 10 000 nfts for you know 15 bucks and then you looked at ethereum and it was a few hundred bucks you looked at ethereum layer 2 and maybe it was 40 or 50 but
Starting point is 00:16:15 when you get up to minting a million nfts or something like that it was just a couple hundred bucks now on solana and it was thousands of dollars you know on um a matic or a layer two and it was literally millions of dollars on ethereum so i think that there's a lot of people to what ran was saying that want to build on a layer one they don't want to deal with layer twos and bridging and they're not going to focus on ethereum when it's cost prohibitive or there's reasons not to do it i mean we have a lot of speakers here who can probably speak to this more clearly than i am but that was the general i brought up i brought up scott i brought up i brought up a chris he said sorry interrupt but he said like if we have anyone else chris was there yeah exactly he was there
Starting point is 00:16:56 when solano was getting shot on and he was one of the few defending it in the midst of the hate um chris can you first give us your thoughts on everything that scott said and uh first welcome back um uh you know welcome back to life uh how's adoption like is it still gaming gaming projects launching on solana um give us a bit more insight and behind the scenes on the developer side am i coming through clearly by the way because i'm in a vehicle yes all right yes it's called in a car not vehicle but go ahead yeah i'll make it's a cyber truck no not really that'd be sick huh uh so i'll be real quick about solana and some of the things that are probably making the larger buyers uh
Starting point is 00:17:35 more bullish right now a couple things that solana struggled with was for sam bankman freed right which the world has kind of discovered the truth about all of that. And that's really helped us getting out from underneath that rug. But at Amsterdam, they recently showed off a few pieces of technology. One of them being the FireDancer technology, which is a new way for node validators
Starting point is 00:17:58 to process transactions on Solana. Right now, it costs like three grand to build a computer that can run a Solana node efficiently for like a year or two with current hardware. However, with the FireDancer update and the partnership with Google Cloud, AWS, it'll make it to where for like $30 a month, you could afford to run a Solana node. And this also helps us protect the network as we scale in transactions and fire dancer is able to handle one. And this is not bullshit. 1 million TPS on test net. So if we fracture that down 90% and we talk about what it would look like if on mainnet, 10% of that power existed.
Starting point is 00:18:47 That would be 100,000 TPS. And to somebody's point recently, who said they think that Solana could be the first blockchain to host an application with 100 million users. Well, this is possible with FireDancer. Because on testnet, FireDancer does 86 billion transactions a day confirmed. If we get 10% of that on mainnet, we would be able to confirm 8 billion transactions a day. That's enough for every human on the planet Earth to have one transaction confirmed per day on Solana blockchain. It's absolutely unbelievable, Mario. And with the cloud-based services now active, the Solana Foundation could divide
Starting point is 00:19:28 some of their treasury amongst a bunch of nodes so that if we ever have a massive uptick or an attempted botting attack, which happened 10 or 12 months ago and hurt the network's TPS dramatically, we could spin up nodes on command that would be able to process those additional transactions. And the last thing I would like to say for the
Starting point is 00:19:49 haters who go, won't slot a turn off. The last time that happened where we reset the nodes was because 4 million TPS was ingested by a node for a mint, and it passed the transactions off to other nodes, crashing them in succession. You just heard what I said about FireDancer. Even if it's at 10% capacity on mainnet, we could handle 4 million TPS in 40 seconds. Unbelievable, Mario. It's the first blockchain infrastructure that can scale into
Starting point is 00:20:26 Web2 applications. Scott, this guy is pretty damn good at getting excited. He's really excited. Do you buy tits? If you open a used car lot, I will literally buy a piece of shit from you. I'm buying Solana right now. I now i'm at the peak
Starting point is 00:20:45 right now i'm leveraging this purchase i don't know how to leverage scott i've never leveraged in my life but i've never just being sarcastic just for the audience um go to thomas go ahead oh hey thanks guys uh just from the perspective of like i guess ftx being such a large i don't recall bag holder we like the project. It's great to hear all that stuff. So thanks for sharing. You know, if the, this is a huge asset for the estate. Most of it's locked.
Starting point is 00:21:17 And they signed a seal with Genesis to help manage the, you know, the crypto. And so when you think through that, I mean, they could have maybe sold or hedged some of it. But most of it's locked. So I doubt it. A lot of it, I think, is being staked is what I'm hearing. And I think they even kind of, you could see that kind of action, I guess, either on or off chain or whatnot. The other thing is, so if you think about it, it's 56 million tokens. So you're talking about an asset that's now $2.2 billion-ish.
Starting point is 00:21:43 I mean, to the point where FTX, given all the other good news, is pushing towards 100% repay, the whole clawback discussion around customers would totally fall by the wayside. You can't have clawbacks in a 100% repay scenario. So Solana could end up, Anthropic and Solana could end up saving the entire estate from clawbacks, including, you think, the knock-on effects of like a Binance. Like Binance was bought out in 2021 for, 2021 for what 2.1 billion or something and there's a potential of being a
Starting point is 00:22:10 cause of action there but it's a 100% repay case you can't bring those causes of action so it would be also a big boon for uh for uh cz so maybe he should be pump pump pumping up the uh solana bag uh but it is interesting to think through those implications of Solana now breaking 40. If it goes 40, 50, 60, you could be looking at well over 100% repaid case to Solana creditors, and those would be the knock-on effects. I really wish Voyager had been heavily invested in Solana, Thomas. Well, I think Voyager has a claim against FTX. So once the customers are made full,
Starting point is 00:22:46 they would start be looking for their own recovery. So it could end up flowing through the other estates as well. Yeah, FTX, it's pretty incredible how the creditors are seeing the benefit of sort of the delay, right? Because the ones that
Starting point is 00:23:01 move faster were selling their assets into a much more aggressive bear market. And now, you know, if things continue up to your point, it could make everybody whole in these other cases, in these other bankruptcies, which is pretty incredible.
Starting point is 00:23:14 Because you and I, obviously, we've got quite, quite... I was going to say, yesterday there was 1.6, or maybe it was two days ago, like 36 hours, something like that. 1.6 million sold was unlocked by FTX and price went up like 12% because motherfuckers are just buying it at this point. Look, it's nickels and dimes compared to entities like we've got BlackRock trying to file for this ETF.
Starting point is 00:23:38 Right. And think about what their company is in retrospect to all these other like companies how many assets they have under control so people who've got billions or you know uh hundreds of millions even buying a few thousand soul that's a pretty safe investment for them right here versus like because think about you get 1500 soul for the price of like two bitcoin right or 1600 soul for the price of like two Bitcoin, right? Or 1600 sold for the price of two Bitcoin. Yeah, but how is that relevant? You can buy fractionalized Bitcoin. That makes no sense. I'm sorry.
Starting point is 00:24:10 No, I'm just saying that people who are buying, who have invested in cryptocurrencies like ETH and Bitcoin, it would make sense if they took a very small fraction and decided to buy into Solana when there's... But that's... Yeah, when they start thinking that, that's the top. That's the but that's but that's yeah when they start thinking that that's the top that's the that's the yeah actually yeah yeah i'd say i'd say as soon as like yeah people will have to be able to take out some of their bitcoin and put it into their
Starting point is 00:24:33 solana i'm like all right cool i'm crossing it let me go hold on let me go sell my leverage solana it's gonna be two seconds chris scott you take over i gotta sell my leverage solana that i bought two days he's now shorted it with uh yeah can you teach me how to short scott please if you don't mind i'll just say top signal by the way when someone who says he's joking obviously someone says teach me how to short oh my god maybe that's actually bottom it's gonna just rock do you mind if i ask quickly for the latest with it with ftx obviously i haven't been keeping up so it's kind of a recap and the audience i don't know if the audience might like it, but I'm curious. What's the latest with Sam?
Starting point is 00:25:07 Thomas, can you do that? What was the question? What's the latest with FTX? Gosh. The claims market or the bankruptcy estate? Not a lot has changed in the bankruptcy estate. They did, of course, put out the term sheet and there's a lot
Starting point is 00:25:24 of little tertiary issues that need to be settled on like how do you value crypto at the date of the petition like whose number you're using using corn gecko corn market cap what's the index for prices what about tron and the tron prices on on ftx were 5x what they were in the general market how you're going to sell that um in terms of clawbacks how do you actually calculate the prices because it's supposed to be based on when the trend like when the transfers happen you got to dollarize those so there are a lot of little tertiary issues that i know are being worked through um kyc aml issues like a lot of creditors are having those issues and i know the estates on the ad hoc and the ucc are trying to figure out how to how to come up with a compromise and
Starting point is 00:26:03 like we want to have some kyc aml so we're not like oh gosh hot topic funding terrorists but you know there's no real requirement of the bankruptcy code for there to be like kyc aml so it's kind of like a tricky issue um but not too many updates i do actually i've got an update scott i don't know if you guys know this i didn't know a few people sent it to me then i realized um yeah i'm not sure if ryan is here because i think ryan was with me when that happened not sure who asked that question but i came up in the um i'm here bro i'm here i'm here yeah right we came up in our space when we had sam you know how we said we got him and it's going to come up in court it came up in court did you find did you know
Starting point is 00:26:40 did i tell you i did i did i I did. I didn't read it yet. What does it say? Who asked the question? What was the question? Oh, you guys know. Okay, you know more than me. I mean, a lot of people have commented about it. Yeah, you also did an interview hosted by someone named Mario Nofo.
Starting point is 00:27:00 Do you recall that? Sam goes, not specifically, but I'm not saying I didn't. Okay, that's cool. Sam, go do this to me. Isn't it? So, we soon then walk through the timeline until December 1st. Twitter space in question.
Starting point is 00:27:13 We seem to jog Sam's memory a bit. Isn't it true, yes or no, that you stated on this podcast that you were not involved at all in Alameda trading? Yeah, he fucked up with that one. That you were not involved at all in Alameda trading. Yeah, he fucked up with that one. That you're not involved at all in Alameda training and hadn't been for years. And then Sam goes, I don't recall what I said. Oh, please don't invite me to this course. Record it.
Starting point is 00:27:33 I wasn't super involved. Then he says, from a man who sounded a lot like Bankman for back and free, I wasn't super involved in Alameda. I was not involved at all in the trading. That's what he said in our space. Let me see if that's what he said. Yeah, exactly. I was not involved at all in the trading so that's what he said in our space let me see that's what he said yeah exactly um I was not involved at all in the trading I hadn't been for years I was intentionally not getting involved in it because I was concerned about the conflict of interest after shutting off the tape so they played the tape that's your voice Sam isn't it correct
Starting point is 00:27:58 he's like it sounds like it so that's the quote they got him on I wasn't super involved in Alameda and then then it continues why that got him into trouble. But I'll read it after the space. But yeah, man. I mean, I think it's great. But I mean, is that something that can incriminate him, what he said on a public podcast? I mean, he's not under oath when he's on a podcast.
Starting point is 00:28:19 He can say whatever he wants. I mean, he could say he was whatever. No, man. I mean, yes. yes also the sorkin interview yeah i mean whether it's a is or not i mean it's very damning and i think it reinforces other things they're saying they basically used everything that he said on that like two-week road show where sam decided he was going to clean up his image by not listening to his lawyers aggressively going on. That was the weirdest roadshow. What an absolute
Starting point is 00:28:47 dumbass. That was the weirdest roadshow. I really, you know, I was quite skeptical as to whether or not he's going to get jail time. I've been following inner city press every day he publishes these amazing, amazing updates.
Starting point is 00:29:02 And I mean, if Sam doesn't get 40 years plus then the u.s justice system is completely broken i think you had skepticism i think you had skepticism about the u.s justice system that maybe is slowly being erased ran i mean is that correct because like from day one even me as an american i was like this dude is gone like he's going away for a very very long time and i think a lot of people not in the U.S. fairly looked at what happens here with sort of regulation and legislation and how broken things
Starting point is 00:29:30 are. And I think they sort of extrapolated that and assumed that that also meant the justice system was broken. But we've seen the justice system just dunk on, well, the SEC for one, and certainly on him. So I think that, you know, it was fair skepticism. But at this point, man, it would be pretty absurd, as you said,
Starting point is 00:29:45 for him not to get absolutely buried under the. Yeah. And apparently the judge, from what I'm getting from what I'm gathering, the judge hasn't been very friendly to SPF. I mean, the judge has had enough of SPF's bullshit and not being able to answer questions and stuff like that. What did they say? He said, I don't know, or something to that effect, like 150 or 175 i mean let's just let's just recap i mean is it was sam is sam banking free the genius or is he
Starting point is 00:30:13 i mean you know like we all thought he was a genius and he did actually manage to build something that was quite incredible it was quite highly used how do we feel today? Is the man, is he, is he a genius or is he just pathological? Both. Pathological. Yeah. Genius at certain things and an absolute ignoramus. No, no,
Starting point is 00:30:37 no, there's no, there's a term that you, that, that what's his name? Who's the other gentleman that came, who covers him really closely. And he's the one that came on our space last time. I really bad with names he came on our space last time because he was in
Starting point is 00:30:48 jail himself for the hedge fund shenanigans he did and yeah yeah yeah yeah so much really used a term i'm sure you guys will remember it he used a term to describe him when someone when someone lives when someone's is in that mindset where they think they're above the law, when they think that – like he genuinely thinks he didn't do anything wrong and he feels untouchable. Yeah, narcissism, but he used another term. I can't remember what it was. So I think he's extremely intelligent but really got to his head. Like if anything, crypto got to all of our heads. If you think – just think of yourself today.
Starting point is 00:31:22 You're going back to earth, realistic, et cetera. Try to remember the days when the market was pumping you're throwing money around you know we we most people in crypto thought they were untouchable and if you put sam and the and and the achievements he's had the amount of money he's made i think you're not um he he was at a different level all the politicians he paid off etc so um but the question i have i want to go to the markets and matthew i'll ask you one more question if you don't mind um can't remember who mentioned this maybe it was on our space that when when sam does go to jail um if and when he goes to jail uh that would be a positive for the market like the market hasn't really priced in like a
Starting point is 00:32:00 complete cleanup right now we still have the shadow of sam above us everyone still talks about him ftx is still there but when he goes to jail it's like that chapter is closed could that mean anything i don't think that matters but i did have a question maybe for tom like about these ftx solana holdings which is it seems like the ftx 2.0 reboot is a legitimate possibility and that creditors might have to log in to like the new FTX in order to claim their assets. And, you know, that might result in a lot of these assets being left on the new platform. What's the probability of that? You know, it depends on what the bids are. The probability is getting better and better if we're in a wave right now.
Starting point is 00:32:51 I think it's possible. I haven't really underwritten it. I think early on we were pretty skeptical that it was a possibility, but it does appear like it's a possibility. I think that they have a deal with Galaxy to manage the estate. You have to go and really look at how that deal works. But yeah, 2.0, I guess I should say, they can basically structure it any way they want.
Starting point is 00:33:15 So if a bidder says, I want this, I want that, I'm going to pump in $250 million, and I'm going to give my credibility and my licenses to reboot this thing, they can do that so that so so the debtor has a lot of flexibility um to try to maximize value for creditors so so matthew to john ray the third likes the idea right yeah i think but why would they like it now that why would they like it now that they can make everyone whole theoretically with uh these investments i mean i thought the premise of ftX 2.0 was to maximize recovery for creditors. If it's going to be 100% recovery, potentially, why leave it? It's all about the power, right? They want to
Starting point is 00:33:52 be able to hire the new execs and capture some of the value and have a say in what happens. I will warn you. We're talking about 100% recovery, but we're really just talking about customers. There are other silos that are kind of left out in the cold. There's a lot of creditors, like general secured creditors, trade creditors left out in the cold. And even if you think of the equity holders of people that participated or a company that was bought, like I think Blackfolio was bought by FTX and it was paid for in stock. Hold on, I got to put money in the meter guys um i i mean i i think that that not only is is uh the credit is going to be made whole but i also think that there's it's
Starting point is 00:34:33 almost inevitable that the exchange that we are going to get an ftx 2.0 i mean it from what i understand the discussions are actually going to are quite far down the line that there is actually going to be a reboot a reboot of this exchange. My question is what happens to the token holders? Because the token does crazy things. You often see the token spiking in a day. And I wonder if token holders actually really believe that they're going to reboot up the exchange with the same, I use the word obligation because there's no real obligation to token holders,
Starting point is 00:35:07 but the token holders seem to be quite um um optimistic about it i think i think you're because the recoveries are so high you are looking at potentially a little bit of a battle royale between like how the stuff is calculated i'm going to the bankruptcy code everything's dollarized at the petition date and that's hard to get around but you do have equitable arguments for why you shouldn't get the uplift so if i'm a big if i'll say i have all eath and now eath from petition dates now it's gone up a lot and i'm 100% repay based on dollar dollarized petition date value of ethereum i'm like well that's kind of shit like i should be getting like the uplift in value so you are going to have different factions and creditor groups like pop out of the woodwork and potentially like state claim to the to higher recoveries and you know guys you do
Starting point is 00:35:43 have a like a lot i mean like like the voyager estate's gonna have a pretty sizable claim against sam i mean sam offered to buy voyager for uh what is it 72 cents on the on the dollar and then i think the recoveries are now in the 50s well that delta is a is a breach of contract claim now it's subordinated recovery last i checked was 30 36 yeah whatever it is okay it's it's 30. So, I mean, think of what the delta is. That's your damages right there. So, like, they might not get first cut at the assets, but if it's 100% repay plus based on dollarized petitioned crypto values,
Starting point is 00:36:19 those creditors are going to start showing up in court and be like, hey, your honor, you guys can cut us a check as well. So I think 2.0 is interesting and anybody that makes an offer can slice and dice up the estate any way they think they want that they can get past the debtor. It's also important to get the support of the UCC and the ad hoc. So I haven't really, 2.0, I haven't really gotten a lot of feedback from the UCC and the ad hoc on what they'd like to see. But it seems increasingly likely. It's in the cards.
Starting point is 00:36:50 It's become a possibility to a probability, I think. Would you put your money on FTX 2.0? Would you use it? Would you trade on it? I would with the right operator. I don't see why you wouldn't. I mean, companies go through restructuring all the time. I see those audited
Starting point is 00:37:07 financials. I mean, let's say they put in Brian Armstrong. So let's agree that Brian Armstrong is one of the best operators in the world. So I'm just using him as an extreme and say, let's say they put in Brian Armstrong and they said Brian Armstrong is now in charge of this FTX exchange. Would you then
Starting point is 00:37:23 put your money back on the exchange? Myself? Yeah. I wouldn't see Brian Armstrong as crypto gold. I don't see why you wouldn't. If a Kraken or a Coinbase showed up and did an SPV structure, they're going to ring fence it. They're going to say,
Starting point is 00:37:41 we're going to put up $500 million. We're going to run the exchange. We're going to port our licenses. We're going to run this. I don't see why people would get behind that i mean it would come down to what the custody solution is right so as a as a new york-based market participant at the moment uh i'm only holding my coins uh with qualified custodians you know that would mean coinbase gem Gemini, Anchorage. FTX never got New York DFS approval. There were multiple provisions of BitLicense that they definitely couldn't satisfy, including the reporting of off balance sheet liabilities. And, you know, that's going to be the determining factor. But I want to mention one piece of news yesterday that
Starting point is 00:38:23 might have gone under the radar and may be contributing to some of this strength is the ga the gao uh ruling that sab 121 was improperly implemented by the sec sab 121 is the accounting rule that forces publicly traded companies like coinbase to what's that i'm saying this is serious yeah it's totally serious right so state street and bank Bank of New York could be back in the business of custodying crypto if this rule is taken off the books, which it looks increasingly probable. This is the rule where they had to have a dollar to match every crypto asset that was that was custodyed? Yeah, they report the asset and corresponding liability on the balance sheet.
Starting point is 00:39:03 I think this is very positive for Coinbase's cost of capital. I didn't even see that, but completely unnoticed. And that's absolutely huge. Rand, did you have something else to say there? Sorry. No, I mean, I just I did. I did read it. I did read about it.
Starting point is 00:39:23 It is quite a quite a quite a serious thing. I mean, I'd love to hear from I don I did read about it. It is quite a serious thing. I mean, I'd love to hear from, I don't know if you can get a poll going on Twitter spaces, but I'd love to listen to the, I mean, we've got 4,000 or 5,000 people on the space. I'd love to understand how many people here would actually put their money back onto FTX at a time when other people said it was their best user experience.
Starting point is 00:39:41 I mean, I didn't find it a very good user experience, but I mean, I think the difference is different. I would want to see it rebranded. I mean, still, listen, I understand it's a different company and different whatever, but I think there's no three letters more damaging to the perception of crypto worldwide
Starting point is 00:39:58 than FTX. So the notion of relaunching something that's still called FTX to me just feels like shooting yourself in the foot if you're looking for success. Yeah, I'm just going through the comments here. Anyone that wants to put a comment just from the audience, just check in the bottom right corner.
Starting point is 00:40:14 All of you guys are just messaging about Sol. The community is massive. We're not even talking about Sol. I can't even imagine the comments you'd have yesterday because the focus is Sol. They all know. They all know I'm at Desolano DevCon. Man, man, man.
Starting point is 00:40:25 And I also said on my thing, I saw that there were a whole lot of Solana shorts building up this morning. I saw the funding rate go ridiculously negative. And then I saw a lot of people opening shorts. I saw the open interest opening. And, you know, the thing with that is that I just think that I agree that Solana's had a massive pump.
Starting point is 00:40:43 And I think that, you know, naturally after a pump, you can get some kind of consolidation. But, but, but, but, but this is where it gets tricky. Problem is Max Payne for all these shorts would be one more wake up, and now we all of a sudden got that wake up. I think Solana went up to $41. Yeah, new high. Yeah, new high for the FTX we were talking about right before he got there,
Starting point is 00:41:03 and it's a pretty big move. But, yeah, that could be that last short squeeze there, right? Well, I think, yeah, Max Payne is these shorts getting destroyed and the price going to 46, 47, 48. I'm not making any price predictions. I'm just saying if the market wants to flush out the shorts, that's one way to flush out the shorts. Right now, the sentiment in the community is that a lot of
Starting point is 00:41:26 people are now short. And the reason why they're short is they're kind of thinking, buy the rumor, sell the news. We bought the rumor of the event and now the events happened, now I want to sell the news. But I think there's a couple of surprises. I mean, it looks like the beginning of a surprise move upwards. How's the sentiment like considering the market? Are you seeing a difference yet? Are you seeing people's attitude change? Are you seeing them get a bit more greedy? Or we're still in kind of a bear market.
Starting point is 00:41:54 It is having an impact, yeah? It is having an impact. One thing that I've actually picked up at the Solana conference was that projects that have been raising money for a while have all of a sudden closed their rounds in other words managed to manage to fall their rounds so that like i'm not gonna mention names i don't want to like hurt any other project but i know one or two projects that were trying to raise for the last three or four months and struggled to raise at the valuation that they were raising at and
Starting point is 00:42:20 now over the last two days at the solana conference, they closed their race. And I think that that's a combination of sentiment in the market and sentiment in Solana. So I think a lot of people had a lot of, a lot of people had a lot of, wanted to see the sentiment at the Solana conference before they made a full commitment to Solana. And then when they went to the conference, they actually realized that the heartbeat of the conference was very good. And I interviewed Toli, and he told me that more tickets were sold this year than were sold last year for Breakpoint. And remember that last year was like peak mania,
Starting point is 00:42:58 you could say, before FTX went down. And more tickets were actually sold for Breakpoint this year than were sold last year, which is a very, very, very, very promising step. That's good to see, man. I'm glad to see that sentiment change on the ground. Yeah. And anecdotally, like I think he's speaking specific to Solana, but I'm sure you guys see it too.
Starting point is 00:43:18 A lot of projects that had been in touch with me over time, a lot of things that even I invested in or others invested in a year or two ago that have just not launched because they thought market conditions were bad. I'm starting to see them talking about, you know, considering finally actually sort of coming out of the dark and and watching their projects. And the other thing you might have not seen, Mario, which I said yesterday was going to be like your wet dream. I think I don't want to quote the number wrong, but I think A16Z said that they want to do another $3.5 billion fund or something. Did you see that news? No, man, look, I'm in war mode.
Starting point is 00:43:54 I don't see anything right now. I don't even talk to my team. I don't know what's happening on the sales side. But that's pretty crazy that it's just moving so quickly. Like we just had, when was the uptick? When did we have that massive? It doesn't, it's crazy. which kind of isn't that but isn't it but is it no man no but isn't that concerning we went from a bull back to the raging bull remember you you kept asking me do i still think we're in a raging bull and i i turned it down and said i think we're in a bull
Starting point is 00:44:19 market but we're not in a raging bull market and it now feels like like all of a sudden but is this concerning but then doesn't that mean we haven't bought him like we should people should be i thought there'd be more blood in the waters that'll take more than just one big ass candle what happened last time how much how much more how much more blood do you want honestly like how much how much do you want i mean just just i just look at like ryan we have a lawyer we have a lawyer on stage with an nft profile picture and lawyer yeah but when people say like we need to capitulate we need poor pain that's like when uh people look back on their ex-girlfriend that was a complete psychopath and they hated her and a year later like yeah but she was kind of awesome you know that's like
Starting point is 00:44:59 looking back at back at ftx a year ago and being, it wasn't that bad. 2022 was the most miserable, even conceivable time to be in this space with FTX, Voyager, BlockFi, Celsius, Luna, prices dropping. And now you're like, your parents are like, we need more pain, guys. I don't know how many more rounds
Starting point is 00:45:20 I could have handled. I'm going to be honest. I got to a point where after Luna and then three arrows. I remember when FTX collapsed, I was at the Solana Breakpoint Conference. Then I went from there to Token 2049 in London. I just had the wind knocked out of my sails for Luna. I'd lost a packet on Luna. It was a very hard time for me Luna and then I just remember like you know my other big bag was Solana and I just remember the feeling I just remember like what are we doing in this industry I just remember feeling so demotivated that I didn't actually want to make the video around token 2049 in London and be smiling and
Starting point is 00:46:01 you know be bullish and be positive and whatever else. And I mean, I just I just I think back on that feeling of how bad I actually felt when it happened. And you can't check. Ran, I just went to check. So now I guess it was probably a year and three or four months, it was at consensus that you and I sat down and I interviewed you for the podcast. Actually, one of the most watched and listened to podcasts I've ever made. It was right after Luna and you kind of opened up for the first time about your losses there, your feeling, exactly what you described. And that was before FTX, right? So I just think when people look back and talk about
Starting point is 00:46:45 the amount of pain, I'm looking at it right now. Rand Nooner, losing over 100 million with Luna helped me reevaluate my life. That was the title of the podcast, which was last summer. Right. And so I think for people who say there needs to be more pain or another drop, don't remember that there's people who are the most bullish people carrying this industry on their backs like rand who are ready to quit um uh you know what scott i think that anyone i think that there's there's there's like two camps of people one is the camp of people that has didn't didn't get affected and there are some people didn't get affected they didn't have money on celsius they didn't have money on voyager they didn't have money on blockfire they didn't have money in solana they didn't have money on Celsius. They didn't have money on Voyager. They didn't have money on BlockFi. They didn't have money in Solana. They didn't have money on FTX.
Starting point is 00:47:26 They didn't have money on Luna. And then, you know, you get another camp of people who were, you know, all in on some of these protocols. When I say all in, obviously I don't mean 100%, but you know what I mean? In mind, they were all in and had all their stables on places like Celsius, or maybe even had
Starting point is 00:47:42 all their Bitcoin on places like Celsius. And, I mean, I don't know. When you speak to those guys, a lot of them still haven't come to terms with the fact that they may not see their money again or they may not see a big part of their money again. So I don't know, to say that we haven't had max pain, Mario, I don't know where, you know, maybe you just have a different perspective, but I can't even imagine. No, no, I thought we had max pain until I saw the market recover and the sentiment changed so quickly. But no, you can't say too quickly.
Starting point is 00:48:08 But you can't say. No, it goes up. Yeah, I was going to say it goes up with the sentiment. 700-day bear market. Yeah, true, true. And ETF, we've known about the ETF forever. And now, finally, we've seen the market give it the credit it deserves. And more to lend more credence to the idea that the maximum pain is up. forever and now finally we've seen the market um give it the credit it deserves and more you know
Starting point is 00:48:25 more to lend more credence to the idea that the maximum pain is up i mean ran even for the people who took these massive losses like myself obviously on voyager i mean there's a bitter sweetness to the market going up because you you'll never if you never can avoid even mentally no matter how much you try to detach from it what it would have been you know like when we got our recovery from voyager at 36 it was really 24 because of what the assets were worth on the day that they pegged it which is you know a year ago july so the the bitcoin was bitcoin was like 20 000 when they basically set our finish line and said that's what what it is so like you know you now yeah we got a 36 recovery on that data it was 24 and now bitcoin's
Starting point is 00:49:15 almost doubled right and so you see like what your balance would have been if you still had these assets and it will always be painful in either direction, you know, for anyone to Rand's point who kind of experienced one of these bankruptcies. I'm so like, I couldn't be more thrilled for FTX creditors right now. But this was such an epic show that there's even a fighting chance for getting even 100% that they get like a serious, serious payback, because I can tell you, it's not a great feeling to get back a quarter of your money uh and and then see that it's you know 10 20 15 of what it would have been well i mean it's better a quarter of your money is better than most people actually thought that they were going to get a lot of people didn't think that they were going to get anything back and uh you know now
Starting point is 00:50:01 and they have uh they have um they have a quarterback, which I think is big. But I think Travis King was saying that the claims, I don't remember the exact number, but I think he was saying the claims are actually selling now at plus 50% or 55% or something like that. Thomas, yeah, that's correct. I mean, Thomas is flipping the claims. No, I mean, we're probably the largest broker in the space, but we also buy on behalf of clients. And, you know, it depends on the type of claim you have,
Starting point is 00:50:32 like the size and the seller and where they're located and how clean the claim is. Clean meaning like person who's selling clean, jurisdictionally clean, you know, just like you were buying a house, like, you know, who actually built the house and things. So all these little things go into it but it is pushing smaller claims pushing 40 larger claims pushing 50 55 um you know a large institutional Thomas what is the yeah what is the anticipated time frame here like when you guys are looking at claims what's the anticipated time frame so like
Starting point is 00:51:03 all that you know you obviously we ever you're obviously discounting the claims at a certain period of time right correct so just wondering what what the time frame is so um we have our own model right and then every client that we might broker stuff to has their own model and you know a whole team of analysts that all went to like you know whart and whatever, and they think their model is better than yours. But basically, most people are anticipating either mid or late next year, a first distribution of call it. Some guys are modeling in like 10, 15 cents. Some guys are modeling in like 30 cents, 35 cents.
Starting point is 00:51:40 So call it a year from now, 20, 30 cents. Another year after that, maybe 20, 30 cents. Another year after that, maybe 20, 30 cents. And another year after that, maybe another 20, 30 cents, depending upon whose model you're looking at. So it's kind of like maybe three, four year payback of 80% plus is kind of like where everybody's models come down. So if you put that into IRR calculation, I'd have to do the math, but roughly most of big
Starting point is 00:52:06 distress firms underwrite to like a five-year double um 15 to 20 type of irrs um so they can return to their lps like you know net of their fees like the mid-teens the low teens um you know institutional size capital bases people with billions of dollars are putting to work um trying to make i mean i yeah i mean i'm an investor in a fund uh i think i can probably say it's publicly i mean i'm an investor in multi-coins fund and multi-coin had a lot of a big part of their treasury on big claim tx i think big claim so i mean that's great news for people who are part of these funds. Yeah, very, very good. I mean, yeah, he even said it was great news for Voyager. I'd love to hear that.
Starting point is 00:52:49 Yeah, well, I mean, Multicoin and some of the other guys, I mean, Multicoin had a decently close relationship, it would seem, with Sam or with the Solana ecosystem. So this is, you know, the Solana ecosystem stuff is great for multi-coin i don't think they'll you know i'd like to think that there's never going to be any connections between actual spf and and multi-coin i don't think there's anything there but it is things to worry about it would it would probably affect the pricing of what their claim would move at because of the deep and sort of rich connections that uh solana had and multi-coin had and ftx but you know there's no reason no reason that I haven't actually seen their claim or anything like that. But the biggest digital claims are selling in the 50s. Yeah, easily. I actually remember when I tweeted before the exchange went down. So I got a message via the grapevine that Sam was going to sue me for causing the bank run.
Starting point is 00:53:46 And I must be honest that I had the information that I had when I tweeted. I said, withdraw all your funds from FTX now. This is financial advice. And the tweet went completely viral. And a lot of people who were stakeholders in one way or another actually contacted me and threatened me.
Starting point is 00:54:04 Multicoin contacted me too. And said, you know, delete your tweet. What the hell are you doing? You know, what are you doing? And I said, look, I have information and I'd rather be safe than sorry. And I mean, I think that tweet went completely viral. I think a lot of people actually took their money off FDX. But I always had this thought in the back of my mind that if SPF does survive this, he's coming after me.
Starting point is 00:54:26 And, you know, if he was going to come after me, he was obviously going to be much richer than I was going to be. And, um, you know, the one,
Starting point is 00:54:33 the one lesson in life is you never go to court with someone who's much richer than you, because they'll just beat you up on the legal costs. You know what I'm saying? So, I mean, you know, it's a little bit of a silver lining.
Starting point is 00:54:43 At least he didn't come after me. I mean, I would have, I would have, I would have you know, it's a little bit of a silver lining. A decent income after me. I mean... I would have hired David Silver, though, to protect me. It would have been fun. I would have represented you pro bono, free of charge. How viral?
Starting point is 00:54:57 David charges us per hour just to let his icon be on, avatar be on stage. It's crazy. How viral? How viral did your tweet go very i'm very very very viral i don't remember the numbers i had the press contacting me asking me what i knew at the time um i had a multi-coin capital who i'm an investor what what did you
Starting point is 00:55:20 what did you know ran well first i saw the balance. Then I got a whole lot of informants that explained to me that they were going to get liquidated at 22. And then by that time, kind of like, I would say 48 hours before FTX went down, I kind of knew. I knew that there was a massive, massive, massive hole. I just didn't know the extent of the hole. And that's when I had, I mean, look look let's just be clear here i was a massive investor in solana and the solana ecosystem and you know tweeting that tweet i knew when i tweeted that tweet that it would smash my investments if it was right at the same time i didn't want to i didn't want to sell my i didn't want to sell my investments because if it was wrong,
Starting point is 00:56:05 then I would have been throwing away good tokens, which I'm now vindicated that I held on to most of my investments and most of them now are above water. But I mean, I think that tweet probably saved a couple of hundred thousand people. It probably saved their money. Yeah, you could have pinned it above. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say that i caused the bank run because i didn't uh but i think that that tweet really added a lot of it was one of those tweets that
Starting point is 00:56:30 just went crazy mental and you know people started phoning me and saying what do you know um yeah i mean as i say i've got the message that uh when this whole thing's over stan's gonna sue me for causing it me for causing the bank run I'm still waiting We'll make a whole team of lawyers But you know what's interesting is So like the estate And the pref settlement The preference settlement or clawback settlement
Starting point is 00:56:56 They basically used the Coindesk article As the line in the sand But if the Coindesk reporter Had that balance sheet And I will not name names Because I do not have a bone in this, there were clearly some other counterparties out there in the market that had that Alameda balance sheet, right? So there are going to be some people out there that had a little bit of,
Starting point is 00:57:19 you know, we'll call it fancy information on the market and probably could have been either hedging or protecting their own balance sheet, which market participants do. But that's super interesting. Yeah, in hindsight, to hear about all this stuff and what went down before. Yeah, I think you're safe now.
Starting point is 00:57:40 Yeah, well, when he's done, I mean, when he's done... Look, we never got along. We never got along. FTX was one of the exchanges, one he's done look we never got along we never got along FTX was one of the exchanges one of the only exchanges we never ever worked with actually because I just felt that you know
Starting point is 00:57:52 I knew Sam when he started when he started FTX and I just think he became too arrogant too picky so you know we just never got along and so we didn't land up
Starting point is 00:58:01 working with him but I thank my lucky stars because you know saved the whole community yeah your thoughts then say then then ryan your thoughts on binance um i like but yeah you're the you're the the the whatever they call this thing that tells the future so you're the oracle you're the oracle now see like he broke up right when you asked him the heart yeah exactly like why what happened to the oracle what happened to the oracle now see like he broke up right when you asked him the hard question yeah exactly like why what happened to the oracle what happened to the oracle that saved all these people money
Starting point is 00:58:30 fds it's a joke by the way guys i if i had to guess like i wouldn't even compare the two so i'm just messing around with ryan it's full disclaimer come on come on uh you can't compare binance fdx although i must say my one concern is you know that if the authorities want to put you behind bars they'll find a reason to do it. And I think that if you remember Binance's business in 2017 and you remember the altcoin business in 2017, none of the exchanges could handle the influx of new customers. And KYC wasn't really a thing. KYC was something that was done in most exchanges after the fact.
Starting point is 00:59:02 And so I just fear that with enough pressure, they could do what they want to do. No, I don't think so. I wouldn't go that far. You've got to get some trust in the legal system. I think they've done most of what they want to do. They've reduced the market share of Binance, of BUSD. So just the incumbents can come in. We're going to see that over the next few months.
Starting point is 00:59:25 So I think they've achieved most of what they want to achieve. And I wouldn't, yeah, I don't think it's going to be much. I think people are overreacting in how bad it will be. That's my two cents. I keep saying with Binance, the longer that this thing goes on for, that nothing actually happens, the better. Because, you know the other exchanges are getting stronger the one central point of failure in the industry is
Starting point is 00:59:49 slowly slowly you know we're becoming as an industry more diversified which is uh which is a good healthy sign for any industry not not that i wish bad on cz or anyone at binance but i just think that it's it's healthy for any industry to decentralize itself from one single point of failure. And this is great. Yeah. I think we've seen all the hit pieces we could see about Binance. I'm sure there's going to be more to come, but we've kind of become immune to it. Remember, before whenever a hit piece came, everyone was like, holy shit, there's a hit piece on Binance.
Starting point is 01:00:18 Now they come and they go, and we don't even mention them in the space. So I think the people have really priced in all that fear and um and they're usually the same sources it's usually the wall street journal or i think it's the new york times or you know one of those can i ask a question mario and ran like y'all are y'all are better in the space and the crypto space than i am i'm more in the bankruptcy space like binance like the cause of action that these states have, or I should say the FTX state has against them, like, do they have the kind of money to pay off, like, a $2 billion cause of action to unwind that transaction?
Starting point is 01:00:56 Look, first of all, they may... First of all, the chances of a clawback are very, very, very, very small. Because I think the clawback is only done in, I'd say, exceptional circumstances where people really benefited from inside information or inside knowledge. I think clawbacks in the ordinary course of business become a lot harder. Two, I'd imagine that Binance has assets worth over $2 billion. Binance has been a highly profitable business for a long period of time.
Starting point is 01:01:29 Three, if they are required to raise capital, I believe that Binance is worth enough money to go out into the market and raise $2 billion if they need to, or the shortfall of the $2 billion. So I'm not too worried about that. For those reasons, I'm not really worried about a clawback, I'll be honest. I mean, maybe the lawyers here want to chime in. I'm not too worried about that. For those reasons, I'm not really worried about a clawback, I'll be honest.
Starting point is 01:01:46 Maybe the lawyers here want to chime in. David? The only thing I would caution is that the government has the ability to go back in time. And I've said this for a while. Binance circa 2018, 2019, 2020 was very different than Binance today. And I think the allegations are going to be more historical than present. And that could still potentially be a problem. I do think if they
Starting point is 01:02:23 have cleaned up and they're working with and what Rand said, I agree with what Rand said, but for a different reason. The longer this takes, the more likely it is the government is working with them. I don't think they're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If all the problems were early on and all of the KYC and all of the stuff, if Binance turns everything over and is working with them, they call it like a honey deal. You know, if they do all of that, then the longer this takes could be because they've given over all the documents, they've given over all the information and everything they're fighting about publicly, privately they're doing.
Starting point is 01:03:03 I do think there's something left from the early days that the government's going to be able to clean up. I don't think that what we're going to see is the accounting issues, the thievery in 2022, 2023 that we've seen with some other people in this space. Or I'd like to hope so. But what would be the repercussions of something that was back in 2017, 2018? Does it make a difference if it was that long ago? The biggest difference would be they can basically let Binance live and let CZ take the fall, not go to jail, but have someone else come in and replace him and work to do that. So if it's all older and CZ cleaned it up while he was there, but someone has to take the hit for what happened in the older day, in the olden times, I think a lot of what we're going to
Starting point is 01:03:50 see is there was a lot of KYC, AML, patriarch violation, secret court subpoena violations, and that sort of thing. CZ can take the fall, but then he can keep all of his money, he can keep all of his equity, and he can move forward without any issues. It's just going to be someone else running Binance. And the longer it takes, the more likely is Rand is right that something like that can happen with Binance. If we don't see the salacious stuff that people like me always believed was going to come out from 2021, 2022, 2023. And then all the finger pointing at CZ, he wasn't doing as he wasn't doing necessarily, let's call it evil things with other people's money as recently as last year. Dave, how worried are you about these Hamas funding allegations? And specifically around the, was it the sec case where they where they quoted
Starting point is 01:04:46 certain members of staff and there was a specific mention to hamas like how how concerned are you that that's real i think that the hamas definitely used some crypto financing i think they use the u.s dollar to a exponential value more. So I don't think that I think the people who want to say there was funding and then they throw out a number like I know all the numbers were retracted, but let's just say it was 10 million instead of 100 million. Who gives a shit? They stole a lot. They steal. They got they got a lot more money through USD. The numbers, even though it's 10 10 million was nothing for what was done here 100 million was nothing for what was done here i think people are just using the argument who
Starting point is 01:05:30 don't understand the argument um in reality i don't think it was was some crypto used to fund terrorism absolutely was some money used from goldman sachs to fund terrorism a hell of a lot more um the gold standards are going to pay the fines and eventually crypto will be, I don't want to say the gold standard of equivalent of Goldman Sachs, but you get my point that, yeah, a little terrorist funding
Starting point is 01:05:53 is coming through crypto. Most of it's still coming through the US dollar. I agree with what you said. Hey guys, you think we did it? Yeah, yeah. We did what? As in we rap? Yeah. I mean, I'm with what you said. Hey, guys, you think we did it? Yeah, yeah. We did what? As in we rap? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:07 I mean, I'm with you guys. I think we covered it well. I think it was great. Yeah, we did. We did it, guys. We did it. I don't know what you did. I mean, David just said that we won.
Starting point is 01:06:16 We're the gold standard. We're like Goldman Sachs. Do you remember when, by the way, just a side note, do you remember when SPF, like with a straight face, said that he thought one day he could buy Goldman Sachs? Do you remember that? I don't, but did Sam – if Sam came to you and said back then when whatever was happening was happening, if he said to you, hey, did you talk to him about doing an interview with him? I had him on so many times. No, no, after the shit i
Starting point is 01:06:45 hit the fan no i want nothing to do with that no you want to do you want to do an interview i know this is typical scott you actually when you you you uh when you did your spaces with him you invited me to join i think and i was like nah bro oh okay you know you missed out you could be on the court papers with me today we'll be we caught paper buddies all three of us me you and ryan except it's just me and ryan i'm just gonna go ahead and view not having my name in any court papers favorable or negative as a win okay bro i think we can wrap thanks everyone perfect thanks guys

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