The Wolf Of All Streets - SBF Trial Starts | Trump Win Is Bullish For Crypto | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

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You can hear me fine, yeah? I hear you. Ah, cool, cool. John, I enjoyed that article. I'm like, I'm reading ex-SEC enforcement of a chief or whatever it was, says this, this and this about Trump. Like, wow, interesting article. Who's that person?

We should get him. And then it turns out that the myth, the man, the myth, the legend. You're on the news now. Thanks. Thanks, Mario. So in a nutshell, and we'll talk about it in a bit. Let me get Iran and crypto man, Iran has caught up. But in a nutshell, the argument that you're making is that if Trump or otherwise, if we get a Republican president, that could end up being very positive for crypto.

Is that a fair statement? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that the commission's really never been more polarized than it is now there've been periods that the sec has been somewhat polarized but here you have three two votes meaning the chair and two other commissioners all three democratic appointees voting in favor of something that's typically anti-crypto, or you could say, Mario, pro-investor, which is how I would phrase it. And you have two, Commissioner Mark Ueda and Commissioner Hester Peirce, who I both know,

I worked with both of them. They both worked for fairly conservative commissioners in the past, one by the name of Paul Atkins, a terrific commissioner who was very conservative, and Hester worked for him. And I think Mark Ueda worked for either him or also worked for Commissioner Troy Paredes after that. So those are the two commissioners. One of those would likely be appointed and is probably going to be Hester, who would be appointed to be the acting chair of the SEC. And it's the question as to how long she would be acting chair or, you know, something different could happen if a Republican were elected. This is if a Republican

were elected. So chair Gensler would resign. And on January 20th, an acting chair would take over. And how much power an acting chair has, I really don't know. It's been different. I served under maybe four or five different acting chairs, and they never seemed to do that much during their time period. I think they were trying to be permanent chairs, so they were doing what the White House wanted, which was trying to just not make too much news. And then someone will be appointed, and I think whoever a Republican appoints will approve a spot Bitcoin ETF, will probably some of the crypto enforcement efforts, the more regulatory efforts and the ones that are not focused as much on fraud will grind to a very screeching halt or at least to a much slower pace. I want to dig into it a bit further. Scott, maybe kick it off with a

bit of a market update. Like yesterday, yesterday everyone's excited. Everyone's like, the bull market has started. We're back. We're back in action. And today's like, yep, all of it is gone already. Yeah, I think that's a pretty classic situation here. We got excited about it. Not all of it. Come on, guys.

Not all of it. Not all of it. Don't be like that, Mario. I don't know, man. I don't look at the markets. I look at the headlines. And the headlines make it seem like it's all gone. Actually, hold on.

It's in your agenda. Let me look at your agenda. Your team's agenda says – maybe I messed up. Let me see. BTC gave up – okay, my bad. BTC gave up a lot of the gains from the pump the day before. These are the potential reasons as to why. Dixie, Fed speakers, RSIs, daily, weekly, 200 moving averages. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just ranging. You know, you can keep getting excited about these moves up and down, but we all know where we are in the cycle.

And we all know, you know, from hearing Gareth and talking about the levels here for anyone trading technically, you've got kind of 25 to 28.5 and then 28.5 up to 31. And right now it's still below 28.5, right? And you saw that sort of move up to the 200 MA on the weekly, the 200 MA on the daily. Those are both very clear mean reversion trades that bots and algorithms and humans will all be looking at. And so I think it was just a very clear move up to that level and then rejection. But I think, you know, listen, I expect nothing

from Bitcoin for quite a while. And that remains the same, which is totally fine. It gives people time to accumulate or focus on the next cycle. I think the real story here, obviously, is that the dollar, DXY versus other currencies, is making new highs continually. Killing it. 12th week in a row. I mean, 10-year yields right now, 4.74%. I mean, absolutely an astounding ripping move up to the upside there, which puts a lot of pressure, obviously, on banks, anyone who, you know, finance debt at lower levels. We all know that the Treasury at some point is going to have to refinance 33% of the, you know, 33 trillion or

whatever it is now in debt at higher levels in the coming months. So I just think that there's a lot of pressure on markets right now. And so I would say the fact that Bitcoin is decoupled and even making moves up and down in this environment is pretty encouraging. But what are your thoughts on what Jamie Dimon and Bowman have said as well? So Dimon said that, quote, be prepared for higher rates. And he talks about it being up to 7%, which is significantly above what we have now. Yeah, 7% is not historically high. It's just historically high how fast we've gotten to the levels that we're at. I have no idea if it'll go to 7% or not. I'm not an economist, but there's

no reason to believe that it's impossible. The funny thing is that we've talked about this quite a lot is that predictive markets and analysts and pundits continue to make these wild bets as to when the market will pivot. I mean, as of seven or eight months ago, there were supposed to be three rate cuts in 2023. I mean, humans are just literally functionally morons and continue to hear what they want to hear. But Jerome Powell's never changed his tone. He's never said we're going to pivot. He's indicated potentially they may pause. Last He's never said we're going to pivot. He's indicated potentially they may pause.

Last time they paused, it wasn't a pivot. He continued raising rates. So I think based on whatever data may come, either situation is possible. I mean, if you ask me, I would say that they've already tightened enough. We need to see what happens from the last 12 to 18 months of tightening still, but that's clearly not the direction that they're continuing to take. Ran? Sorry, go ahead, James.

I think it's clear now. Yeah, so I was going to say what the Fed should do and what the Fed will do are two different things. Correct. They should be cutting rates now. They're breaking the economy. And mortgage rates at 7.5% now. People are in golden handcuffs situations in their properties. Employment is continuing to trend down.

PMIs, services PMIs, crucially, are about to drop below 50. Things aren't looking great. But the Fed has a track record of knee-jerking on the way up. So that is waiting too late to hike rates when inflation is rising. And they knee-jerk on the way down. that is waiting too late to hike rates when inflation is rising and they knee-jerk on the way the way down they wait too long before they start cutting rates and this story this playbook has played out over decades and this time it's no different whatsoever so they should be they should not be hiking rates anymore but they could do right i think i think you may be wrong there i think i want to I want to just talk to two things there. First of all, I don't think that the Fed is breaking the economy.

I think the economy is very healthy. I think GDP numbers are flying. The U.S. has an annualized GDP of over 8%. Yeah, they just massively revised that down. And, you know, the problem with GDP is very fast-looking. Yeah, around that. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

All the metrics that we're looking at are backwards. Right now, the best measure that we have is that the economy is actually very healthy. The unemployment rate is very, very low. The inflation rate is coming down. The rate of growth in the United States, as measured by the GDP, is higher than the rate of inflation. So when I look at that, I'm like, yeah,

you can say that the Fed is breaking the markets. Actually, the markets are pretty healthy. Like the Nasdaq's up like 30 or 40% this year. So I mean, like, you know, these people, the people that turn around and say, well, you know, the Fed's breaking the markets, the Fed's breaking the markets. I think we're talking our book

because we want the Fed to reduce rates so that risk assets can go up in price. But if you look at the data, and I know that you're going to tell me the data is backwards looking, but unfortunately, that's all we have at the moment. No, you don't. You've got surveys and things like that. I mean, you can't tell me that you're relying on surveys to tell me that the economy is

broken. No, no, no. The metrics are highly regarded. Something like posting manager indices data is highly regarded. And that's the most forward-looking you can possibly hope for and all of that is indicating in the services manufacturing sector we're in recession technically and in the services sector it's heading rapidly that way you know of course yeah everything has some sort of lag to it but you need to look at data that you know early signs the economy is weakening so if you look at the American Bankers Association, credit conditions are the worst since 2009.

That's an early warning sign. Yeah, but we want that. But we want that because they were overheated, James. We want that because they were overheated. So you're taking an economy that was overheated and the Fed is saying, we want to slow the economy down. And the Fed is finally succeeding in slowing the economy down. How far are they in slowing down the economy? I think they've actually just started. I'll tell you why I think they've just started. Because for as long as the GDP rate is higher than inflation,

the Fed pretty much has a license to carry on increasing rates, number one. Number two, for as long as the unemployment rate is too low and the employment numbers are too high, the Fed has a license to keep increasing rates. For as long as inflation is increasing, the Fed has a license to increase rates. I've seen broken economies, and this economy is anything but broken. And the only thing that could have happened to potentially maybe stop the Fed from doing what it was doing was a banking collapse. But the Treasury came in and basically averted any kind of risk to a banking collapse because they stopped any kind of risk of a bank run. So, I mean, I think that people that say that the economy is broken, show me, just show me where it's broken. Just show me where the cracks are in terms of data. It's about transmission mechanisms and how long it takes

for different components of the economy to transmit. So high rates that we've got now, it takes around 18 months for that to be revealed in payroll. That's employment data. So certain things are quicker, such as building permits, those kind of measures. And you're starting to see those cracks appear. And honestly, I think this could all turn around much more.

I do feel the markets at the moment, they're getting into a false, certain component of the market is getting into a false sense of security that everything in the US is good and it's okay. And there are plenty of warning signs out there that it's not. Yeah, James, one of the things I'm – Yeah, warning signs – Ren, sorry, really quick.

Ren, you mentioned that people would be talking their book, hoping for a pivot so that risk baskets would go up. Anyone who's doing that is dumb because every time we've ever had a pivot, that's when actually the market crashes and risk assets go down. So the pivot historically is not a good thing for markets. That means things are so bad that the Fed had to pivot and things go down. So I don't know the implication that people want to pivot so that their risk assets can rise is not what has happened in history.

So that's why I say there's no reason for the Fed to pivot right now because right now everything is fine. Everything is dandy now. The data under which the market and them are making decisions on is all very, very, very healthy. And therefore, the Fed has absolutely no reason to pivot. And therefore, I don't think they're going to pivot anytime soon. And that's why I think that I actually think that Jamie Dimon may be right. I think that the year should prepare itself, I don't know, 7% interest rates, but I think that pretty close wouldn't surprise me.

And the other thing I wanted to ask you about, Ryan, is you were talking on your show about the ETH futures and the disappointment that we've seen. The numbers just didn't meet expectations. So I'm going to actually play a quick clip as well from Bloomberg. It's not too long. And that starts with excitement. They're like, yeah, but there's only, what, $3 million or $2 million worth of trading.

Hold on, $1.6 million in trading volume in the first day, which is not too low comparing to other ETFs. But when you compare it to the Bitcoin ETF, the BRO, which did $200 million in the first 15 minutes and then exceeded a billion dollars on the first day, then you're talking about ETH futures ETF, only did $1.6 million. We've talked about this for days, days, and days, and then to look at those numbers is just disheartening. Thoughts, Ryan?

I mean, yeah. Yeah, I mean, who wants an ETH futures ETF? We know how the performance of the Bitcoin futures ETF performs relative to the actual futures. Rather just go and buy the futures than buying the ETF. That means a big demand right now for anything related to crypto, let alone an ETH futures ETF. There was another tweet which I looked at.

I don't have the tweet in front of me, but there were like five reasons why... I don't know if you've got the tweet in front of you. Five reasons why ETH is potentially better than Bitcoin. I don't know if you followed that tweet at all. If not, I'll get it in front of me. No, I didn't see it. I'm trying to find it.

No, I didn't find it. I'll let you get there. And then I want to read one last metric because I want to dig into the discussion with John about the article that was put out on Bitcoin.com and then get into the FTX, the SBF trial right after. So what I'll do now is while you're getting that tweet, I'm going to read out one more interesting story,

interesting metric and something I'm interested in that Ryan and Scott just always get annoyed when I bring it up, but VC funding. This is an update there. So VC funding for crypto and Web3 as that was a B in crypto put out the article is dwindling. So we were complaining how it was dying last month. We're talking how it was dying.

Well, September is this month or last month was lower than the month before. So in August, we're complaining how it's dead. September dropped another 24%. It's like every time you think that's it, it drops even further. So it dropped 24%. But still, not a bad figure. It's still half a billion dollars. Again, nothing when you compare to last year,

but that number is still pretty good. So September's total funding is $510 million. Infrastructure projects dominated the month and that counted for 30% of the total funding. And then DeFi was next at 22%. Where the fuck is gaming? Let's see if it talks about gaming because I was excited.

I thought gaming would do better. Yeah, nothing. It's not even mentioned in the article. Great. So that's the last thing. I'm looking for – Yeah, let me know when you find a tweet, Ryan. And last thing I wanted to dig into, maybe give the mic to Scott,

get into the article that was put out where John was interviewed on the – on his thoughts, what happens to the SEC if we get a Republican president? I know you already gave us a quick update earlier, John, but we had a lot of people join since because we talked about it as soon as the space started. So maybe give us a quick recap of the article, John, and we'll do a bit of back and forth before we dig into the SBF trial. Okay. Sure, sure. When it comes to the SEC, there are five commissioners. Those are pretty much the only political appointees in the entire agency. There's the head of legislative affairs, maybe the head of communications, maybe the way it works with respect to those five commissioners, one being chairman, is typically the party in charge will be able to, meaning the president. So if the president's a Democrat, they can appoint three Democrats.

And they'll have to be, the rules say that there can be no more than three of the main party. So there have to be two of another party. And so typically when an election happens, if there's a transformation, the Democratic chair leaves if a Democratic president was there. And when the Republican is elected, then they appoint a Republican chairperson. So what happens if a Republican chairperson is appointed at the SEC? Well, I think that a Bitcoin spot ETF

would certainly get lots and lots of traction and likely be approved very quickly. I think that the two minority commissioners right now, Hester Peirce and Mark Ueda, both of whom, as I mentioned before, I know I grew up working with both of them. They're both very conservative. One of them will probably become acting chair. Whether that acting chair will do a lot you know sometimes they do but most of the time they don't do much until the permanent chair is appointed but they might be able to do something and it would likely be hester and um she's been pretty much pro-crypto they call it a crypto mom she's voted against loudly most crypto actions. She even posted a dissent when the SEC formed a specialized crypto unit saying that that wasn't necessary. So I think there

would be a dramatic shift at the SEC. It's an extremely partisan place when it comes to the commissioners. When it comes to the staff, there's very little turnover after an election. But so I think if there's a Republican president elected and then a Republican chair put in charge of the SEC or maybe an independent one, sometimes that happens. In either case, most crypto enforcement efforts that aren't directly related to fraud will grind to a screeching halt. And things that are regulatory rules and things that will curtail the industry will probably slow down dramatically. And applications like things for a Bitcoin spot ETF would likely be approved. That's what I think. John, there's a couple ideas to sort of unpack in that article. One is obviously that SEC chair, we have an interim Republican SEC chair, obviously, we know that Hester Peirce,

as you said, is basically pro crypto. Although interestingly called her i said you know to her in an interview hey they call you crypto mom you're very pro crypto she says i'm not pro anything except for you know investor protection and rational regulation so she makes the distinction very clear that it's really not about crypto it's about doing the right thing that she views is correct as a you know as an sec i i agree with you she's she's brilliant and she's really a libertarian she's just and she's not in this for the money she's not trying to get some crypto job she's an honest person an extraordinary intellect a fantastic commissioner i happen to disagree with her on this but she's a libertarian and so am i so i i can appreciate what she says sorry i

interrupted to your point even if you disagree you can see that her approach is to do what she believes is legally correct. Absolutely. That path. Right. So but the other idea, obviously, that you floated is that Trump himself, who we all know, has been at best dismissive of Bitcoin at most has been pretty outright anti crypto that he might actually change his tune. And sort of the implication there was that it would be because it would be politically popular, right? I don't think he would inherently dig into the asset class and formulate an educated opinion based on what you were saying here in the article. You're basically saying, hey, this could be a major part of the constituency. By that point,

it might be to his benefit or another Republican's benefit to say, hey, I'm pro-crypto. I mean, is that a pretty good assessment of how that would happen? Absolutely. I mean, I would even go further. You know, I think that I watched Jay Clayton on CNBC this morning, and he's suddenly this massive pro-crypto guy. And it's comical, given the kinds of things he said when he was chairing and including approving the case against Ripple and Telegram and Kik and a lot of all the ICO cases. But so lots of people do the flip. You see people do the flip all the time at the SEC. They leave the SEC and they join one of these crypto-related companies.

And suddenly they see the light of the innovation and the excitement and the other things that pro- people say. But I mean, I think it goes a step further because I was talking to a very, very close friend of mine who I've known for 50 years. One of the most loyal friends I've ever had. One of the most honest guys. It's Mooch, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I brought it up last week. And so I called him,

he called me yesterday and we were talking about this point, which is, and, and as I said, Anthony is, I, them, he called me yesterday and we were talking about this point, which is, and as I said, Anthony is, I grew up with him, went to elementary school with him, you know, and all the way up through high school, he was president of the student body. I was vice president. When he was vice president, I was treasurer. We had homeroom together every morning. We studied together.

And I just think he's not just one of the toughest guys I've ever known. He's also one of the brightest. And he believes he's, of course, passionately pro-crypto. And, you know, I just happen to disagree with that. But I think that he believes that, and I agree with this, that one of the things I've observed about people who are very pro-crypto or very interested in it or have invested a lot in it. It's a very passionate group. And many of them, their hearts, in my mind, like Anthony's, hearts in the right place, believes that this is something that's transformative and believes it super passionately. And in all the years that I worked at the SEC, I don't think I've witnessed

anything quite like this phenomenon. And Anthony believes that crypto people are really can become one issue voters. And that's where I think I would take it a step further. Scott, you know, in the sense that if if the right candidate drums up things the right ways, they can motivate all of you to vote in their favor. And that's a very powerful constituency. I mean, outside of Biden and Trump, obviously, and I their favor. And that's a very powerful constituency. I mean, outside of Biden and Trump, obviously, and I would make an argument that's about age more than about party, their position on it. All of the other candidates have come out with, whether genuine or just, you know, speaking to the audience, have come out with sort of pro-crypto opinions. Vivek, obviously, RFK, Suarez,

who's less impactful in the race right now. DeSantis, I think, is using it as a talking point. But clearly, there's this outsized gain to speaking about crypto. You get this like 10x press versus what the issue actually is. We've seen it, obviously, with the members of the Congress,

Congressional Financial Committee. If you come out and say something negative about Gensler, you say something positive about Bitcoin, you get a ton of press out of doing it. Right. And so you can see how it's become a major sort of political, political hot potato to be able to play with there. And so if that maintains and we see the market improve, I tend to agree with you. I just am always hesitant when, you know know it's a political statement and not genuine. Right. At no point will I believe whether they change their tune or not. Joe Biden or Donald Trump are particularly pro Bitcoin.

But it's so easy to change your tune, Scott. You know, just watching this morning, you saw Andrew Ross Sorkin asked former SEC chair Clayton, gee, what's changed since you were at the SEC and now? And he couldn't answer. I mean, here's the answer. He got a lot richer being pro-crypto. Okay, that's the answer. He's getting a beach house because of crypto.

And that's just my opinion. And so there's a lot of reasons to turn your attention in a positive way toward crypto. And certainly if you're Donald Trump, it's a very easy way. Although remember his tweet, he says, I'm not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activities. We have only one real currency in the USA, and it's stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable. It's by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the world, and it will always stay that

way. It is called the United States dollar. That was July 11, 2019. We know exactly how he feels, whatever he says, moving forward. I think, Tom, yeah, Tom, go ahead. Thanks, Scott. Sorry for joining a bit late here, guys. So the one thing that I always wonder is we have all of these debates about spot Bitcoin ETF, about regulation. We have all these fantastic Congress hearings that we tune into and tweet about on Twitter. But how much in our own bubble are we and how much are people outside of our bubble

actually paying attention to this stuff? And what does it actually mean? So there are definitely single issue voters out there. I'm certainly one of them that's going to be voting for crypto candidates only. But I just wonder how big is that cohort and how meaningful is it? And I'm still in the bubble that I can't, I can't answer that question, but yeah,

I'd love to hear what other people think in terms of how, you know, we get others out there. Tom, I think we had a chat about this actually on, on the show a week or so ago. I don't, I don't remember. I don't remember Scott, if you remember that, but we said, we concluded that the number of voters that, that they're not, I think the logic that we used was we said, number one, crypto, we've been our own worst enemies with people like SBF and the Doquan Luna collapse and whatever else. Number two, there was the metric that more people have lost money in crypto than made money in crypto.

And I think what we're learning now is we're learning that people that lose money become apathetic about this asset class. If you look at where we are now, we're in complete apathy because people aren't making money around it. And I think that the number of people that are as passionate about this space as we are and as passionate about the ideology of the space as we are is very very very small as a percentage of the total base if you know what i'm saying so the other argument 20 of american adults own crypto and the a lot of the people who do and

who are passionate about it are something like single issue voters. So the stat's not right. The stat's not right. The stat's not right. The stat was done in the peak of the bull market and the stat said that 20% had earned crypto. And it was, I think it was 16%. And it had earned crypto at any one point in time, not currently holding crypto. Now, remember that since then, we've had a massive, massive, massive shakeout. Most people that held crypto at one point in time never want to touch this asset class ever again, because they've lost money, because they've been

defrauded, because they had money on Celsius, because they had money on Voyager, because they had money on Genesis and Gemini and all those things. So I think like, you know, when you take that stat, and look, I was the first one to quote that stat on my show and on other shows. I think that the problem is that, you know, let's not just assume that A, that those people are still holding, and B, that those people actually care enough

for that to sway their vote. Sure, but the people, even if that number is smaller now, and even if the subset of people whose vote it could sway is even if that number is smaller now, and even if the subset of people whose vote it could sway is even smaller, this is, I think, one of the few issues that people are willing to cross party lines for, right? There are lots of single issue voters about abortion, about the economy, whatever, but their views line up with all of their other political tribal views, and they're not going to cross party lines. I do think that, you know, partly because people are, you know, libertarian in a way that neither political major political party caters to and partly because people are,

you know, talking their book in crypto and have a lot of assets tied up in the stuff. If they're passionate about it, like this is something that can produce swing voters in a way that few other issues can. And Zach, I would add to that and Tom sort of to answer your question. I think looking at that through a lens of the situation now and through a lens of the situation in a year when we're really ramping up to the election can be very different things. I sort of joke all the time, obviously, that nothing begets higher prices and more excitement than higher prices. Right. So I think simply if this market is actually entering a bull market or if prices are higher, I'm not saying they will or won't be. But if prices are higher at that time, we'll have a hell of a lot more people who care about this and are voting based on it. If prices are lower, I would say we'll have a lot less. So actually, I think that the market here will largely dictate how meaningful and impactful that that voting block is at the

time that the election comes around. Yeah, and voting set at the margin, right? It only matters, unfortunately, in a handful of swing states, right? There's basically five or six states that elect the entire country. So if those swing states and those hundred to a million people that actually have the outsized opinions are able to be pro-crypto, and if that's their single issue voter stance, then we could have a real meaningful impact. I think the tough part is when you come down to is crypto, the one thing that actually people are voting on versus someone mentioned abortion or something else. Right. And if prices are up, you know, people will vote with their pocketbooks, but you know,

there are certain cohort of people who are going to vote, you know, just down party lines and based on those other things. So I'm interested to see how it goes, but yeah, I think crypto is going to be big one way or the other, the next election cycle and candidates are starting to pick up on that. And it will only get bigger. That's right. Candidates. We wouldn't have every single presidential candidate, at least having a soundbite about it. If they didn't think that it could,

you know, even if they're hedging, that this could be really impactful in the next election. Go ahead, David. Yeah, I just think that, you know, it's funny going back to what John was saying about Jay Clayton being on CNBC this morning. It goes back to the ancestral nature of what's going on in crypto right now. Where is Jay Clayton getting paid? He works at Sullivan and Cromwell. What's Sullivan and Cromwell making all their money on? FTX. I mean, it's an incredibly small circle. We always talk about Gensler and the Democrats, you know, on how they are in this small circle themselves. I don't like the Trump quote from 2019, because I think all he's going to do is point to Jamie Dimon and say how the world has changed since 2019. I think that John nails it.

Trump's going to have an easy pivot to saying, you know, crypto is very different four years later. It's appeasing to younger voters. It's a good topic for an 80-year-old guy to say, oh, I'm pro-crypto. I made millions selling NFTs, which apparently are crypto, even though I didn't know that at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but the Jay Clayton, he's going to start making noise again because, look, I mean, they're going to come up with, you know, and I always talk about the Goldman Sachs right now, who, if Trump gets elected, are going to want to be chairman of the SEC. They're going to be able to now turn around, especially with an eye to younger voters and investors, say, I am going to be the person who

sets this free, less government, less regulation, the Republican way. I mean, it's going to be a very easy pivot for people to make. And I think we're seeing that with Jay Clayton now, how he separates himself very Hinman-esque for how he makes his money and forgets to mention where he makes his money when he's giving speeches or going on CNBC on mornings like today, where the SBF trial is starting. And Sullivan and Cromwell has a heavy hand in that. Go ahead, John. That is so true, David. You know, Sullivan and Cromwell, first of all, it's amazing because Sullivan and Cromwell was paid eight and a half million dollars in fees pre-FTX bankruptcy from FTX and since since then has made over $100 million in fees. They're the only winners in this whole debacle, the lawyers, and it's really quite nauseating.

And if you look at just, it was four days before the FTX debacle, one of the lawyers from Sullivan and Cromwell was sent an email by one of the Voyager lawyers during the bankruptcy saying, hey, we're hearing some scary things about FTX and that there are problems at FTX. And he said, no, no, FTX is solid. This is just CZ spreading rumors. That was four days before the bankruptcy. I mean, what was this lawyer doing making representations about FTX? And then you look at the SBF trial. I know we're going to get into that. We can get into it, John, as well. As you finish your point, maybe you can start telling us about the SBF trial and just maybe give us a quick recap. I know Carlos there as well.

Oh, sure. Well, I mean, look, there are three things about the SBF trial that make it a very likely huge win for the government. OK, the first is that never in the history of all the financial reporting fraud and other types of cases I've worked on in all my career, I've never seen one with this many informants, this many turncoats who have completely, have had cooperation agreements, have pled guilty and have every incentive

to cooperate on the witness stand. And not just on the witness stand, but beforehand, for the last 11 months, these people from Caroline Ellison to Wang, to all of them, and there are plenty that aren't named as witnesses, have been walking the prosecutors through every single document, every single text, every single signal chat, every single spreadsheet. So you have an extraordinary cache of witnesses. Then you go to the documents that are available.

Never in history do you have this sort of access because John Ray has spent close to $200 million in terms on consultants, forensic accountants, experts, every type of lawyer, every type of consultant, every type of accountant is on that case. And it's been paid over $200 million. And remember, the average Sullivan and Cromwell rate is $1,800 an hour. My students, I've been teaching for over 20 years at both Georgetown and Duke Law School. These kids are getting out of law school and charging a higher rate than I charge. And they're getting away with it. But putting that aside, so you have all of

these people, and they're all being paid to just do work to find out what happened. And the government has 100%, almost 100% access to every bit of information that John Ray's team of $200 million consultants can give him. So you have incredible amounts of witnesses who are all highly incentivized. Now we can hear him. You have a credible number of witnesses. You have an incredible number of documents. You also have SBF, who has become his own worst enemy, who has provided hours and hours of commentary that you can use to impeach him.

Now, his defenses, OK, let's just go over them quickly, real quick. You know, reliance on counsel, I don't understand his reliance on counsel defense at all. If you want to say, hey, the lawyers told me it was OK to steal from customers, to lie to investors, to lie to lenders. That's your reliance on counsel defense. And that's why the judge, I think, very initially said, look, you can't say this in your opening statement unless you go forward and say, okay, I relied on counsel because it opens up attorney-client privilege. So you can't assert, you can't use attorney-client privilege as both a sword and a shield. So you can't say, my lawyers told me to do this and then claim attorney-client privilege on anything. So you lose the privilege entirely. So I think he wants to deflect it over to the

lawyers, but I don't see how that's going to work. I do think the lawyers certainly enabled it, at least based on everything I've read and that email I just mentioned to you. But on the other hand, you know, saying that that doesn't make SBF any less guilty because his lawyers helped him. And then the second defense is one of my favorites because it reminds me of my youth when my dad, my late father, used to say when my brother and I did something wrong. And we'd say, I don't know. He'd say, what is this? I don syndrome? Like, you know, gee, I don't know. I don't know what happened. Gee, I don't know. I don't understand this big corporate world. I'm just an engineer from MIT. I don't understand what's going on. I mean, you move to a place like the Bahamas to avoid regulatory scrutiny, and then you're confused by the fact that you're able to do all these things and you have this special code that you've designed to access Alameda funds. So remember, these witnesses

are going to provide an incredible roadmap for the prosecutors. They're going to put on an incredible narrative. They're going to tell a story like every trial I've ever worked on. You tell a story and you build and build and build on it. And this idea that the defense being, I'm just really stupid. I just don't get it. I'm just really bad at my job. It just doesn't cut it when you're spending, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars on things like properties and political influence. And you're dropping millions here and there whenever you feel like it and flying privately and living in a mansion in the Bahamas. It just doesn't go over well with the jury. So I don't think his defenses are very strong. And I think the

government's case is uniquely, uniquely powerful in a way that I've not seen other cases before. I think this trial is, is in fact stacked against SBF largely for those reasons. I don't think the, like, I didn't know that Alameda had all the funds defense is going to work. Right. And I'm very sure that the people at Solcrom and the people at Fenwick who represented FTX did not say that he could misappropriate customer funds and trade them. I don't understand though, this like breathless stuff here about Solcrom and their rates and their role here. Like their $1,800 an hour is not the median at the firm. That's for the partners who are working on this. That's pretty

in line with what big firms charge. When you have something as spectacular as the FTX collapse, you need a major corporate law firm. I've solved all sorts of issues with the biggest firms. But you do need a firm like that when you're unwinding something. And the idea that somehow here there's impropriety, I know you're giving me a thumbs down, but the idea there's somehow impropriety because law firms are making money on large bankruptcy cases, like that just doesn't seem in line with the way that these firms and these bankruptcies work. And I'm sorry. How can a lawyer be independent, though? I don't see the problem here.

But if you're paid $8 million before the bankruptcy, it's in your incentive later on. They were FDX's corporate counsel. That was a giant firm. Right. So it's in your incentive later on. $8 million is not a lot of money to sell crime. Well, it is. It is to me. But the thing is,

is that if you're paid that much beforehand and then afterwards you're engaged, I think it is outrageous. I think you are conflicted. It sounds like this is an issue you have with Salkron. You're investigating yourself. What did they do wrong? It's like hiring a doctor who amputated the wrong leg to now perform heart surgery on you, and then paying them 10 times as much. If you look at that email from four days before, that's metaphorically, Zach, is why I believe what I do, because that lawyer from Sullivan and Cromwell was telling people at Voyager, FTX is solid. And when it comes to 1800, that's the average rate per the documents that I've reviewed with respect to all the filings.

I'm sure that's what you thought. And it's a ridiculous rate. Okay? I don't care what anybody says. It's a ridiculous rate. What do the sole proprietors have to gain by lying about what they did? Let me tell you, it's not rocket science to be a bankruptcy lawyer. Okay?

I've been in this business for 35 years. It is not rocket science to be a bankruptcy lawyer. Okay, it's a skill. And I appreciate that lawyers need to be paid. This really sounds more like you airing personal grievances than an actual argument. I'm sorry. How is it personal grievance? What are you talking about? What on earth are you talking about?

Hey guys, I don't think we need to debate the value of bankruptcy lawyers because we all despise them. Sorry, Zach. No, you don't. Can I jump in and just say one thing? I do think is interesting? I don't care how much people get paid.

I personally like getting paid a lot of money. At the end of the day, if they plug the hole, which now may get plugged because of Anthropic, which is so ironic. If the hole gets plugged and, Scott, you talk about this all the time. David, just before you continue, mention quickly who Anthropic is for anyone that doesn't know the investment. So for the last six, eight months, FTX has had a whole of, let's just say, $2 billion. One of the investments that FTX made was Anthropic. and I think it was Amazon just closed the deal with the chat AI or someone else where there was a valuation which the anthropic investment which is of a similar ilk would mean that that anthropic investment might be able a billion two billion three billion dollars might plug the hole if the

investors walk away from FTX hole putting aside all the criminal for a second, put aside all that. We're not discussing that. If the whole gets plugged and the investors are protected, isn't that what these guys are supposed to do? That's all that matters at the end of the day to me. Let people not be victims. I don't care how much they get paid. If everyone's made whole, everyone should be a winner on that. And then John and I can go knock back some drinks and argue with people who think low-level

associates should be paid $1,800 an hour. All I care is let the victims be made whole. This shouldn't be a Voyager incident where you come back in and after you pay everyone, do everything, you're left with 30 cents on the dollar. Let everyone get their money back, and then we can discuss whether the lawyers were overpaid.

Yeah, you had to talk about Voyager, didn't you, David? I was talking about Voyager, didn't you, David? I was going to have a Voyager creditor and the bankruptcy attorneys blew a deal with FTX, Binance US, and then left everybody with a pittance when they could have liquidated from day one. So I think that it depends on the bankruptcy attorney. Exactly.

It depends on the attorney. Yeah, I mean, so listen, I lean towards John having been through that process, obviously. I want to get Carlo's thoughts on this. And Carlo, I have a question for you. And obviously, we have Jeff and Jesse as well on stage. But Carlo, the question- I'm not here, anyone.

I don't know if- Yeah, just you. Let me bring you down. So Carlo, the question I have for you is obviously comment on anything that's been said so far. Is that if investors are made whole, thanks to Anthropic, does that impact the charges, the criminal charges that SBF is facing or very little impact? No, I think it'll have very little impact. If there was going to be any movement of the needle with respect to proposed restitution or forfeiture in a plea agreement, that would have been something

that could have been addressed. But I think that ship has sailed now that today is the day of reckoning for SBF. He will potentially face an order of restitution and a forfeiture order if convicted of the counts. So the victims will be able to seek compensation through him as a criminal defendant in this case. This is a long time coming. It's been a whirlwind nine months since his arrest. This case has gone to trial on a pretty fast track. It is probably the biggest trial we've seen, obviously, since, or I should say, the biggest criminal fraud case we've seen since Madoff. It's been compared to that, and it's going to be a long marathon of a trial. Jury selection starting today,

and I think those jury questionnaires are probably going to streamline this process a little bit but picking a fair jury in this case is going to be a challenge for both sides i would love to get jesse and jeff's thoughts on this as well and i'm by the way for anyone listening you should definitely check out martin shkreli's i think scott you've gone through his tweets i'm going through them now he's got a lot of interesting tweets and tidbits he should be joining us today as well um and we'll be able to ask him about them. Like, for example, here that Ray talks about Anthropic. I'm going to quote something he said, how they described Anthropic. We should plug the entire hole.

So the way Ray described it, he gave half a billion dollars to this thing called Anthropic. It's just a bunch of people with an ID, nothing. And then that investment could end up plugging the entire hole that ftx has but jesse jeff would love to get your thoughts hi guys the one i'm watching that hasn't been discussed a lot is the role of bangladesh's father joseph bankman who reportedly designed all of the overseas sort of tax structures which is really complex stuff and there's some chatter too that's one sort of card the prosecution's holding. Does he prosecute the parents?

The other thing I'm watching, too, is all those lawyers are really expensive. How are they being paid for? It's from a $10 million gift Bankman Freed gave his father. So the defense seems to be being bankrolled by stolen client money. So it's quite a show here. So there is a civil case right now with FTX creditors where they are going after the parents for funds. And so far, some of the emails that have been released in connection with that suit look really bad to the parents, right? There's one people were talking about a lot on the

internet, where Sam brought his dad on at $250,000 a year, the dad felt like that was not enough, basically called his mom on him. And then there was this both a $10 million gift, and then I think it was $16 million worth of real estate that was gifted to the parents. And so at least in the civil suit, if not in a government action, I think it would not be surprising to see some of that clawed back from the parents. Yeah, and I know there's a lawsuit against the parents as well. I'm not sure if anyone could shed light on that. That was from a few weeks ago.

But from what we know so far how involved were the parents um there's a business week article i think it's the best thing written yet to date very involved his mom was the political fixture who opened the doors to washington and his dad reportedly helped design the ft token and i mean you know creating like offshore corporate subsidies that's not like law 101 and his father is a sort of acclaimed international tax lawyer who had the expertise to do it. So I think mommy and daddy really held his hand for a lot of this, which makes it funny to watch him plead. You know, a poor boy got in over his head because that's certainly the defense strategy, along with, as someone else pointed out, the advice of counsel thing, which you won't actually raise for the reason of he doesn't want his former lawyers on the stand. So, you know, I think he's going down. I don't know what everyone else thinks, but I'd be amazed. There is a difference between the parents being involved in the tax structure and perhaps inappropriately taking money from FTX and

the parents being aware of this backdoor that is the heart of the fraud charges that are at issue in this trial now, right? The thing that Sam did that is causing him to be in criminal court at this particular moment is that he misappropriated customer funds. He took funds that were supposed to be segregated for FTX users. He lent them out to Alameda. Alameda gambled them away. And that was essentially just stealing from customers. And I don't think we've seen anything to suggest that the parents were in on on that particular bad behavior on his part yeah and there's a question i want to go to you jesse and maybe there's i want to ask you a question to add to the mix and that's uh the the headline of a fortune article that came out a few days ago prosecutors have damning evidence of spf's fraud why is he still pleading guilty

why isn't he sorry why isn't he pleading guilty so my question is like is it sounds like a dumb question to me why would he plead guilty is the evidence really that does he have any good argument that he's making so far i mean pleading guilty in this case as carlo is pointed out is there's going to be there would be restitution regardless um restitution in these cases never goes away. They can't go by bankruptcy. Now, that doesn't mean they get anything. A lot of times you get restitution, just a piece of paper. Right. Sometimes that means you get twelve dollars a month from someone's paycheck the rest of your life. It doesn't really help unless, as Carlos said, you use that as part of a plea.

Right. If you make people whole, then you could get more lenient sentencing. In this case, whatever he pleads to, it's it's probably decades in jail, even as a plea. So, you know, if you're just, you know, using this just as a basic logic problem, you know, even if you think you have a 5% chance of winning, then, you know, remember, if you win, you go free the rest of your life. If you plead, no matter what, you're doing a lot of time in prison. And I would, would you know people in this audience are relatively crypto savvy so they probably already have a poor opinion a lot

of people had a poor opinion of spf already right because he wasn't like a decentralization maxi then obviously a lot of people lost money on this so we think okay this this must be an open and shut case and it might be if you look objectively on the facts but juries don't juries are curious creatures and they don't always look objectively on the facts, but juries don't. Juries are curious creatures and they don't always look objectively on the facts. I think they're going to probably try to muddy the waters here. Crypto is hard to understand, right? Even if you've just followed this conversation for 10 minutes, you could easily get lost. You're going to have a jury, their eyes, the best jury, their eyes start glossing over after like 45 minutes. And so there's going to be a lot of messy stuff about what he's, you can can introduce what his parents did you can introduce what alameda did and all his associates and all

of a sudden you can introduce what what even is crypto is this real money we're talking about you know not especially sophisticated people which is by you know that's the whole purpose right of having a jury of your peers they're not supposed to be experts and we've seen high financial crimes from the 2009 crisis where it seems like, oh, these people clearly did something shady and they walk away free. So I think I don't know how much of the defense is going to be just trying to muddy this up. It used to be before DNA evidence was considered reliable. You would just have people like say, oh, shucks, I don't know much about this DNA stuff. But if you don't have an eyewitness, that kind of thing, it still plays. And so

you can say, oh, this looks like an open-up Chuck case if you just look like a quick Business Insider article. This is just going to be weeks and weeks of just 12 people sitting there looking at documents. And I've seen much crazier stuff than SBF. So if you're just looking at, oh, if I plead, I go to jail for 20 years. Right. And if I have a 5 percent chance of going free, I mean, it's it's a I think it's a pretty easy solution for most for most people. I mean, you know, we're not privy to plea negotiations. We don't know what discussions he had with the government. But aside from what this article is suggesting, he does enjoy the presumption of innocence. It is the government's burden to prove this case. Look, we know from what's been reported, there's a lot of strong, compelling evidence that they're going to be able to bridge the gap and make a case that he knowingly and willfully participated in a scheme to defraud.

But his options may not have been good, as Jesse mentioned, because his guideline calculations, given the amount of loss in this case, are very likely off the charts. He's in Madoffville when it comes to potential sentencing exposure here, and there may have been no practical incentive to plea. If he goes to trial, as Jesse alluded to, he can muddy the waters and he can raise some issues on appeal that could perhaps bring him back and give him an opportunity for another trial in this case. There's a lot of moving parts to the facts of this case. It is going to be a long marathon with a lot of exhibits and a lot of evidence to be introduced. And one of the challenges for both sides is keeping the jury engaged. Yeah, I read that article and the, you know, my point was twofold. Yes, as you guys say, he's just trying to pull an inside straight pause because juries are unpredictable.

The other thing some of the white collar defense experts raised was he actually believes his own bullshit. And apparently that's the case with the really good ones like Elizabeth Holmes and stuff like that. He really is that deluded. He's that sociopathic. He really does think he did nothing wrong. So just psychologically, it's interesting. Yeah. And the deal for cutting a plea is long past. Apparently, you do it at the outset, you might get a reduction, but

closer to trial, then you kind of run out of time. There's nothing to be gained by now. Go ahead, John. Yeah, sure. I think, you know, watching the Theranos trial, you can sort of make some parallels. I think with this, we have multiple counts here. So if the jury, I agree with everything that Jesse and Carlo were saying and Jeff as well. I think that when you have multiple counts like that, at least in my experience, when the jury does get a little confused, you have multiple conspiracy counts, you have counts relating to the theft from customers, counts relating to deceiving

customers, counts relating to deceiving lenders, counts relating to deceiving shareholders. So you really have kind of multiple avenues. You have conspiracy counts and then you have primary counts. The jurors will have lots of ways to kind of split the baby if they get confused. But I think also that's totally true about jurors. You know, after every trial I've ever done, I always talk to the jurors and everything I thought they were thinking or thought they thought of me or thought of the evidence is usually wrong, you know, based on my ability to read their faces. So one judge told me that I have the worst poker face ever. So I get it.

I think that but when you look at the Theranos trial and you look at all the things that Williams and Connolly tried to do and Williams and Connolly, clearly one of the best law firms in the world when it comes to these kinds of cases. They just got their head handed to them. And, you know, as far as sentencing goes, I think that people are all over the map with respect to this. The judge could take all of these counts and kind of say, hey, they all relate to the same sort of conduct. So I'm going to treat it as essentially one violation. But when I would do my allocutions, I always had incredibly powerful victim impact statements and victims testifying. And after a day or two of sitting through that, like the Madoff case, you get sometimes sentences like 150 years because it's just so gut-wrenching. And remember, there's a second trial coming up as well after they clear up whatever's going on with the Bahamas with respect to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the bribery relating to China charges. So there's more coming. Why he didn't plea, I think it's the same reason that a lot of these people don't plea.

They believe in themselves, and they're pathological, and they'd rather roll the dice because they've got the money anyway. And the government, just to follow up on what John said about victims, the government has actually doubled down on that because they're not only reserving those victims for a potential sentencing trial, they've listed several witnesses who are victims in this case to testify in the case in chief. And that's going to be a very, very damning thing for SBF to have to overcome, because that's going to elicit a lot of sympathy from the jurors. In such a consistent and bad conspiratorial take in my mind, Bernie Madoff was more politically connected by 10x, I think, than SBF is. And as you said, he got 150 years. And Wolf, to add to that, I don't think Judge Kaplan's going to be at all moved by that.

I think he'd beg to differ with that. He's going to preside over this case and not let politics interfere. Exactly, Carla. And I was going to say, even to add to that, if there's one thing, actually, that may be a silver lining through all of this sort of crypto, you know, SEC enforcement and all these things is that the judicial system has remained an impartial judicial system and should do so, right? I still, for one, politics aside and how nonsensical things can be in this country, I don't think

there's any reason to believe that the judges in this case are going to be swayed by politics. Right. And so I think those are, you know, just in my opinion, I guess we'll see what happens. But I think those are just horrible takes that the government would not waste the resources just for this guy to get off. I think he's going to jail for a very, very, very long time. And that he should. I don't know if anyone disagrees with me, would want to take the other side of that, but I see it on Twitter every single day. I don't think he's going to go to jail for a long time.

Why? Because I think that the system is corrupt and I think that the judicial system, I think that the system is corrupt and i think that he may be sentenced for a while but i think he'll i mean even if he's sentenced for x years i think you know he'll be out a fraction of it for some kind of good behavior that's that's not how the federal

system works in federal system you have time sentences time served it's not like state or local exactly there is no federal court works. That's not a thing. There is no parole. The sentences are pretty much with the exception of some gain time you get. He's going to serve the good portion of his sentence. And I don't see any kind of pardon coming down the road for him in this situation if he's convicted. So what's your what's your guess in terms of the number of years that he'll actually spend in jail? You know, I've done the rough calculations based on the initial arrest. The guidelines have a cap with respect to the loss figures, but there are other enhancement provisions that will kick in, especially now that he's committed to going to trial.

I could easily see this being on a Madoff scale, him being made an example of in this situation. The judge does have the discretion, as John had alluded, to sentence him concurrently to the counts. But after a long, drawn-out sentencing hearing, if he's convicted on the primary counts of wire fraud and the money laundering counts, the guidelines are going to far exceed the statutory maximum penalties for each count. So I could easily see a judge wanting to stack these counts in order to see justice meted out in this case, given the impact and

loss of the alleged fraud. I definitely take the under on that. I don't know that a Southern District judge wants to give out, you know, a life for 100 year sentence, my guess would be 10 to 20 years. Yeah, I said'd say 20 to 30 would be my guess. And you're saying that he'll actually be in jail for 20 to 30 years? Yes, he has to. That's how federal, yes, that's how it works. You don't get good behavior in a federal court case.

Unless you're pardoned. Yeah, I guess I would pardon him. Who is that politically helpful for to pardon him? You're talking like a reasonable human being. I don't want to compromise my transactions that haven't been disclosed yet. He's donated a lot of money to politicians. He's given a lot of money to celebrities.

That's dumb. That seems like a reason they'd put him away for even longer. I don't understand how that would play to his benefit. They're embarrassed. No, I would agree. But I just offered the possibility of a prospect to the comments that he's absolutely going to serve all of his time if he's in jail, sentenced to jail in federal court. I mean, this ties together maybe this with the Trump stuff, which is, and I don't want to like you, Ron, i appreciate your you're obviously giving earnest takes doc john this might even be a shot at john but like this is a very very prominent threat in the crypto community it is very often very conspiratorial

very often very anti-institution everything in the government is corrupt so what you're saying about oh well he's i don't understand you know uh uh wolf uh you know we have a fair judge like there's always another level of what i would consider crazy which then they're going to say okay i'll make you can be pardoned because you know this is the biden will pardon them because xyz and then you get into it just never seems to end and i think it is part of the sort of culture of crypto at least on the the, in, in, in this space, which is, um, you know, everybody, they're all corrupt. Everyone's coming out and it goes all the way to the top. And I think reasoning with that kind of logic is, it's a little bit, it's part of the

unhealthy side of crypto. In my opinion, I could think, I think you can go, uh, obviously a bit, a bit too far and i think the whole anti-institution ever anti every you know post-truth era that we're in kind of uh feeds into that but i mean it's it's similar to him and thing yeah yeah if they hit him hard yeah if they hit him hard with the sentencing it accomplishes a couple things for them politically one it sort of bucks the trend of the narrative relative to Trump's indictments that the Justice Department is corrupt, and justice in the interest, in public interest, is lost under this administration, this Department of Justice. So I think it would be helpful to address that narrative.

The other problem here is the fact that you're going to have basically the boomer crowd, the normie crowd who are going to be looking at this case from afar and wondering, you know, who's right about the crypto space in general? Is it still defined by the degen crowd who are looking for the pump and dump? Or is it now something more acceptable to the to the traditional corporate fiat currency relationships? You know, that's why I'm coming on board. Crypto is to sort of address the legal framework, but from the prospect of what needs to be done to have people of my generation, to have corporations come into the space and trust the space. So for Sam Bankman-Fried to go down hard in a way that Bernie Madoff did as an example,

that's a great way for this judge to address fraud generally and this type of fraud specifically. So there's huge dynamics that are going on here that are going to affect, I think, the future

possible growth of crypto. I mean, I do think that, oh, I to affect, I think, the future possible growth of crypto. I mean, I do think that, oh, I'm sorry, I mean, well, first of all, just really quick on the, in being politically collected, we heard these arguments before he was arrested. Before he was arrested, it was supposedly like, he'll never get arrested, right? He's going to be on a plane to Taiwan. And that never, that never materialized, but which by the way, I thought was a credible, incredible possibility to myself, but it never happened so at least there's at least one strike against i think the conspiracy theorist and that you know if this was going to be if he was politically connected you know on some island with uh you know tupac and whoever uh he's sitting in jail

right now and people are still saying he'll never go to jail but also like how how would you throw this if you like if you have a story about he's going to somehow dance out of this in, like, the most scrutinized trial happening right now in the Southern District with prosecutors who want to make their career, put him away, like, what is the judge going to do? I think if you're pro-conspiracy theory, you need a very specific story as to how this could possibly happen.

When do we do it? Zach, last question, and then we can wrap the show. When do we get our answer? How long will this trial take? So the projection is about four to six weeks, I believe. Oh, we're fine. Let's see.

I think it could take longer. Okay, so maximum two months. Is that a fair statement? I think it'll be done by Thanksgiving, pretty conservatively speaking. So after the trial, you have jury deliberation, right? So there's first,

you have to find out, is he going to be found guilty or not guilty? And then second, there's going to be the sentencing phase. And so it might be a while before we know exactly what he's being sentenced to. Before end of year, we'll know whether, you know, we did a bet, me, Ran, and a bunch of others, each one $100,000. And then if he gets a sentence above a certain number of years, you you know i'll i'll be making a lot of money and then if he doesn't ryan will be making a lot of money i think scott is on my side and it was pretty included me in the debt but i'm all in let's go you may have to hold off on that on collecting that bet until after the new year because if this trial wraps up let's say beginning

of november there's going to be a delay because probation is going to have to do their pre-sentence report each side is going to have an opportunity i accept i accept i can't see this going to be a delay because probation is going to have to do their pre-sentence report each side's going to have an opportunity i accept i accept i can't see this going to sentencing i accept uh that's a great point that's a great point that carla made remember there's also the the pre-sentencing report from probation which is totally independent so it's really like three players during sentencing there's the prosecutor prosecutor who parades all of those victims forward, submits all the victim impact statements. There's the defendant who gets up and maybe somehow expresses some regret or somewhere along those lines or accepts responsibility. And then there's the pre-sentencing report that Carla just mentioned, which is kind of like an independent look at whether at the entire crime at the

proceeding and it's it's it's not done by either side and the judge can disregard all three and do what he wants but those are the that's the type of advice he's going to be receiving cool i think we're going to be covering this for the next two months mario and we can wrap it up it's gonna be fun trial cool guys all right we'll see you again tomorrow's a good space and uh any any uh what any numbers we're expecting to see tomorrow? Anything on the macro side, Ren? Not that I know of. I think it's just going to be another boring day in crypto land.

Cool. We'll see you tomorrow for another boring day. Thanks, everyone. And by the way, make sure you follow the red icon on stage because we're going to start hosting from that account very, very soon. So the red icon on stage, make sure you follow it and we'll see you again tomorrow. Thanks, everyone.