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FOMO HOUR: Liberation Day Arrives
Recorded: April 2, 2025 Duration: 0:59:09Space Recording
Short Summary
The discussion covers significant crypto-related developments, including the launch of the Walrus project and token, GameStop's substantial Bitcoin purchase, Circle's IPO filing, and strategic partnerships enhancing blockchain adoption. These events highlight trends of growth and innovation in the crypto industry.
Full Transcription
Thank you. GM, GM, everyone.
We're going to start the show here in just a minute.
We're waiting to get all of our hosts, our co-hosts, up on stage.
While we wait, some shout-outs.
Let's see, Irking, Young Hole. B. Frank. GM. GM. Harry
Krishna. Great to see you.
Kippa. Punk. 3630.
GM. Fictional.
ST. McFly.
Rocking the little pudgy. Tashi.
Who else we got? Cow.
RGF. GM. GM. Dirt.
Under
Oath. Reed. oath read GM GM folks.
All right.
So we got Logan up here trying to get the rug radio and FOMO accounts up
here.
We're a few minutes after the hour.
I think simps let's kick it. Thank you. Good morning, good morning, GM, GM, everyone, and welcome to another episode of FOMO Hour.
Today is Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025, and it is a stormy morning here in Chicago today, folks.
Just absolutely pouring rain outside. It's cloudy. It's gloomy.
Perhaps a sign of the storm that is coming with Liberation Day.
And Trump set to announce those tariff details live at 4 p.m. Eastern today.
And the question on everyone's mind, is it Liberation Day or Liquidation Day?
We are going to break it all down on today's show.
No Farouk.
Mando is going to be with us here in a few minutes, but I've got Logan on.
He is a writer over on decrits we've been
working together for quite some time logan gm how you doing hey good morning tyler i'm doing really
well not in my normal setup so the camera angle is is tough for me to a little unflattering maybe
need to lay off uh some of the food here i've been consuming in peru but uh things are going well the
the weather is perfect tough to complain too much. Excited for Liberation Day and whatever it brings.
I'm curious how the Peruvians are feeling about Liberation Day. Are you getting into conversations with the locals?
You know, actually, Trump has come up more than once in conversation with our host family here in Peru.
I won't get into the details of such. I don't need to get anyone in
trouble, but it has come up surprisingly. Positive or negative? Negative. Yeah, that's what I thought.
Well, we will see. Perhaps we'll get into that. That is one of the impacts of some of these
some of these tariffs that are going to be put in place.
tariffs that are going to be put in place. Mando's on with us. Mando, GN, how are you doing?
Mando's on with us.
Mando, GN, how you doing?
I'm doing great.
How are you?
Good.
Ready to be liberated and at least get through whatever that means.
And we're going to find out in T minus six hours.
And then we'll see how the world impacts.
So folks, what are we talking about on today's show?
We are going to talk about Trump tariff latest,
our predictions for what's going to happen today.
And then, of course, the impact to the crypto market.
We're going to talk Circle IPO.
It is official.
Coinbase drinking Circle's milkshake.
As we took a look at the financials, Ted Cruz wants to use Flare Gas for Bitcoin mining in Texas.
That was a headline out on left field.
GameStop, ready to buy $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin.
They closed their stock sale yesterday.
Kaido's got a new earn page for yappers.
We'll go around the horn with some memes and NFTs.
The WIFT team's giving the sphere puns back.
We've got a new NFT runner on BearChain and a lot more.
Plus, back half of the show, our conversation with Rohan from
Mistin Labs to talk about the mega successful Walrus launch and what's coming next from them.
So we're excited for that. Before we dive in, quick shout out to our partners, starting with
Galaxis. Galaxis is a Web3 platform empowering creators and brands to build unstoppable communities
with full ownership and independence, trusted by icons like Donald Trump,
Steve Aoki, Mike Tyson, and the NBA, shaping together the future of engagement. And Wallet
Connect. Wallet Connect is the connectivity network shaping the future of on-chain UX.
If you've connected to a Web3 app, you've seen Wallet Connect. That blue logo, it's everywhere.
An icon of trust in crypto, as recognizable as Visa at the checkout.
If you want to learn more, follow at Wallet Connect on X and Telegram to stay ahead of what's next.
We love our partners as always.
Mando, if you're ready, let's get into it.
Who is the man, macro daddy of the man?
Can you dig it?
Yeah, so this is Liberation Day, whatever the hell that means.
Stuff is not as bad, I think, as people maybe initially expected here.
I think we spoke about yesterday that I'm less...
There's some focus on this for me um but not
not maybe as much as some of the other stuff that's going on the stock market um and it's
still a little bit of confusion i think coming out of even from like white house conversations
that people don't really even know what this is until the final moments um it definitely doesn't feel like it's some sort of like obvious
plan that's been out there and vetted um even yesterday it was like oh it's gonna be very very
broad and it's 20 on everything and then you have dissent kind of walking back some of the comments
it's just like a strange scenario i think they're kind of like they're gearing it up and you'll
probably get a very comprehensive plan but i also think it's being decided literally today, which is quite Trump.
You know, like he's very, very much changed his mind on a lot of this policy sort of stuff.
But yeah, we are getting that.
Bitcoin holding up relatively well, 85K still.
The European stocks sort of today, US stocks had kind of bounced slightly yesterday.
And they're a little bit weak today
so mixed bag positioning is definitely more bearish than it's been which is normally a good
sign means that you're not just going to go down 10 20 percent and I the timeline continues to think it'll be pretty bearish, I think, which I think is just an interesting
flip there.
I don't know. I think Bitcoin's
going to stay above 80k, in my opinion, whatever the headline. I don't see it
going lower. I can see
maybe some of the L1s continue to drift lower, but like,
I don't see this causing some cataclysmic, at least today, some cataclysmic bond market
sell-off, sorry, or equity market sell-off. I don't, it's just, it's everyone's position
too bearish for that to happen, in my opinion. So I just don't So I just don't think it's going to happen.
The statements can seem to be that people are now expecting more of a recession.
Goldman Sachs think they could go down 6% in Q2.
But we're just not where we are,
were in my opinion,
rather horrific sell-offs.
Inflation...
Headline out, Justin Sun bailed out TUSD
after stablecoin had a 500 million hole in balance sheet.
Does that make sense?
Thanks, Justin.
He was when he created it.
And I... You know, trueation came out at 1.3 percent today
that's really low um i just don't think it's the sort of environment where things will just go
absolutely horrifically i and i think everyone is positioned way more bearish than they have
been in the past so i think crypto will outperform. Tech stocks here, I think, will follow gold way more from here on in.
And I'm more positive, for sure.
It's good to hear.
I'm trying to pull up those true inflation numbers.
Yeah, I saw this yesterday.
So I feel like there's so many mixed signals on the timeline.
There's folks who are just still terrified of inflation going up.
And I think those are some of the calls that we're seeing that.
I saw a tweet this morning that folks are expecting rate hikes in 2025,
which seems just kind of absurd.
And then like the true inflation data is pretty,
I think it's painting a pretty clear picture right now that it is going down.
So a lot of mixed signals out there.
I am hoping we get a little bit more clarity here later today.
I do want to talk about the tariffs and some predictions here.
So you laid out some of the predictions that we've had.
Goldman Sachs, they've increased their odds to recession.
I think that there's more bearish views than bullish views for sure.
I mean,
Bloomberg's only got a couple.
We've got Tom Lee who's calling for V shape recovery.
I think he's the only loud bull out there calling for that right now.
And then Bessent a little bit more level-headed trying to ease the,
the worst case fears.
I think what really jumped out to me yesterday was
last night or last night and then this morning, just the details that this plan isn't finalized
yet. Like what? Trump, you set this day. And then like originally it was going to be like,
I think they even delayed the press conference. So Logan, I'm curious. I saw you reacting to that.
Are you surprised that perhaps we don't have these plans written down on paper yet? I'm not surprised at
all, unfortunately, as Mando mentioned. I mean, this feels as Trump as it can possibly get. I
think the unfortunate part for many of us who had celebrate isn't the right word, but had been,
you know, positively feeling about him surrounding himself with smarter, more efficient people,
right? Like
you would just hope that this thing wouldn't happen as often, you know, where you get to a
day that has been earmarked for some masterful plan. And there seems like there's no plan.
So no, I'm not surprised. Maybe disappointed is a better word, but it's strong. So we'll see what
happens. Yeah, I think that is fair.
I was trying to find the Besant tweet from last night
where he was kind of outlining what the options are,
but I'm unable to find it.
I guess, Logan, maybe for our listeners,
so I think folks still don't know what Liberation Day is.
How would you describe Liberation Day as a fellow American?
How would I describe Liberation Day as a fellow American? How would I describe Liberation Day as a fellow American? Oh, man. Well, I don't know that there
is a good way to describe it other than Trump has made it very clear that this is going to be part
of this kind of make America wealthy again, make America great again, all those cliche acronyms and
such that he's laid out. This is one of those key days where he's going to reveal plans that put us on that path or
have already started to put us on the path to making America wealthy again.
So I think, yeah, we are expecting some level of detail regarding what happens with the
tariffs moving forward.
I saw some headlines.
I don't know the sources on them, but like things about like Canada would be willing to walk back if the U.S. walked back. I was reading some of the articles who are closest to the ground and the macro and analysts who are being paid. I'm not the guy
who can speak to that. But the people who are being paid to manage other people's money is
saying the exact same thing. There's a great quote from a wealth fund manager in one of the
decrypt articles that said, you know, it's really easy to start a trade war. It's really difficult
to end one or to win one. I'm sorry. I think to win one, it's really difficult to end one or to win one i'm sorry i think that to win one it's like impossible to win one i'm wondering if liberation day is like you know
we're kind of liberating ourselves from not the trade war indefinitely but you know liberating
ourselves from that that mindset of like oh we're gonna win it um he wouldn't you know trump would
never admit defeat i don't think but like maybe this is a cooler heads prevail type thing.
I don't know.
We'll see.
I mean, the best case outcome is to win this trade war without firing any bullets.
So to have threatened these large tariffs and then them all effectively walked back.
or perhaps, for me, the definition of Liberation Day
is trying to rebalance a global trade situation
where the U.S. has losing deals or unfair deals.
And there's a lot to impact, but that is the headline view,
that we have trade relationships with other countries
where they are charging us higher tariffs than we are charging them and to try to even that out. So I think that is as simple as Trump is looking
at it. And we've started to see some reactions. So I think we've seen like Vietnam, Israel come
out and say they're going to potentially lower their tariffs. So I think that is perhaps the
bull case here. I guess, Mando, and I don't know, you've spoken at length.
There's more driving markets right now than just this.
But I am curious, kind of, what do you think is going to happen at 4 p.m. today?
And what's your best guess at market response?
I think there's focus on this.
But like I said, I don't think it's been necessarily the number one thing driving the US stock market.
The US stock market has just been basically made up of 38% of these Magnificent Seven stocks.
So I'm just wary of oversimplifying that this is going to be the thing.
I think the stock market sell-off is telling you with the moves and things like Tesla
that it's not going to be saved here by tariffs.
So I think let's see how the AI thing plays out over the next few months.
But the most bullish thing I see right now is just how the pendulum has swung to bearishness as a consensus.
And that's not just in crypto.
That's like across the board.
And that tells me like whatever sell-off, if we do get any sort of sell-off, I think you're meant to buy it.
Like whatever sell-off, if we do get any sort of sell-off,
I think you're meant to buy it.
Because this is not longs getting wrecked anymore, in my opinion.
This would be, there are people short this market.
I mean, people are the most short ETH they've ever been.
They're the most short stocks they've been since 2020.
I think
that no matter how bearish you think
this is going to be, if we sell
off today
and we go decent, you know, like
Bitcoin goes down to 80k, just buy
it. Just buy it. I'm telling you.
I don't think
Bitcoin's going to break out of this range
on this headline.
I think that is fair. I feel like my gut I don't think Bitcoin's going to break out of this range on this headline. Yeah.
I think that is fair.
I feel like my gut is, we're probably,
I think we're going to bounce,
but I feel like I'm with you that we're also just going to stay in a range and
we aren't out of the woods yet by any means.
Like it's hard for me to,
I want to be on Tom Lee's side and i want to pound the table
and say the v-shape recovery starts today uh it's hard to fully have conviction of that i think
i think we've spoken about this before but i think the expectations for crypto twitter participants
and crypto participants in general are just they work both ways you know like previously we we've
expected too much now we may be expecting too
little. Uh, and, uh, despite the volatility that's going to come in either direction,
it's like Mando said, I mean, it feels like we're, we're too bearish for it to be so bad. Um,
I don't know that may, that's, uh, of course just an opinion. Um, and you know, that's what I'm
clinging onto as like a shred of hopium.
But I full well in a little bit of my bear arc as well right now.
So I'm not expecting much in either direction.
But clinging on to that as a shred of hopium.
I mean, I feel like Bitcoin looks strong.
It's been outperforming stocks. So it led the down move.
So I'm feeling good about Bitcoin.
The alts feel a little weaker.
I have to say,
I get waking up and seeing Bitcoin over 85 and then ETH still below 1900.
Soul still below 130.
Doesn't feel great.
So those aren't out of the woods by any means,
but I want to keep us going through our list here.
We got to talk about the Circle IPL.
So we talked that it could be coming, and then bam, we got the news yesterday.
They filed the S-1 with the SEC.
And as a part of that, we got a better picture of their financials.
And Mando, I know on the show yesterday, we were kind of doing some off the cut,
back of the napkin math,
on whether or not Circle would be a good
buy at $5 billion or not.
I'm curious if you had a chance to take
a look at some other numbers
and if
that's changed your point of view. I did.
I had a look at their numbers. Their revenue figures
is good, but their net profit figure is
shocking compared to that. It's bad. You know, I had a look at their numbers. Their revenue figures is good, but their net profit figure is shocking. Oh,
compared to that.
It's bad.
You know,
how is the revenue?
Like what is being lost here?
That was my question.
Like how,
how is it?
It seems like they give like a billion dollars to,
I mean,
part of this goes to Coinbase each year and then huge costs.
So Jeremy is paying himself a lot of money.
That's,
that's,
that's what I kind of got,
got from this.
cause 2025,
you know,
arguably that figure could go up.
Like we said yesterday,
that figure could again,
double that,
that revenue figure,
but their net income's gone down
yeah uh from 2023 to 2024 which surprised me um so i if i was sitting there i'd be like
cut the costs um yeah like uh that business is maybe not being run as well as I think it could be. That was my reaction as well.
And like seeing that the net income drop year over year with the massive
growth was just like hard to believe.
I think my jaw basically hit the floor when I saw this and started getting
into it.
I do think the bull case,
I guess is continued growth and they do have cost levers.
They could probably pull back on.
It seems like there's the headlines going around
that Coinbase effectively is making more money on USDC than Circle is.
As I understand it, Circle is in conversations with other sexes,
so they could perhaps get better deals there.
deals there, of course, they can reduce some of their other operating costs.
Of course, they could reduce some of their other operating costs.
But man, when I am not a, my expertise is not in valuing companies.
I fed the numbers, the financials through ChetGPT, they said good comps are in the $2
to $3 billion range.
So that made me a little wary of it coming out of $5 billion and being a smash buy.
And then we're thinking perhaps it could even open up higher than that.
I guess it was trading as high as $5.5 in private secondary markets
in the past few months.
So, Logan, I'm curious if you have a thought.
Are you thinking about buying this, selling this, waiting for a dip?
What's your take?
Yeah, I'd like to wait this out a little bit.
I know the IPO mania the last few days in particular has been kind of exciting uh but
core weave you know just ipo last week started down and then bounced back up so it's it this
would be like a wait and see what happens thing for me we don't actually know what price right
yet we don't know when either so macro conditions could be completely different i think core weave
filed as one of the most recent examples,
filed and then didn't start trading until basically a month later.
So maybe we get like an end of April thing type here.
I don't know what's customary there, but it could be drastically different.
I'm in a wait and see approach.
But this was really interesting to read through.
I was reading one of the articles on Decrypt about Coinbase taking this 50%. Basically, it said the more that's held, the more USDC held on Coinbase means you mentioned, Tyler, potential other sexes.
If you scroll down here, there's mentions regarding other banks as well
and other platforms in other countries, Mercado Libre in Latin America,
things like that.
So there are definitely still paths here.
I think everybody recognizes and is optimistic about stablecoin growth
and how impactful that could be. So I don't want to
write off circle here for the future or anything like that, but this would be more of a wait and
see what's going on in the rest of markets before just slapping a yes on the IPO price.
Yeah, I'm with you. Yesterday, I was pretty bulled up and was already starting to make plans
of trying to earmark some capital to have ready for IPO day.
Now I'm in a little bit more wait and see mode.
I do feel like,
I don't think stocks trade on narratives like our,
our beautiful internet tokens do that the stable coin narrative is a strong
one right now.
So I do think there is something to that.
Could it perhaps trade above fundamentals?
I think maybe there is some, some hoping in there, but we will certainly see.
That was the big story yesterday. It was a little bit more quiet just being April fool's day. No
one wants to drop any serious news for the, for. The timeline was just an absolute abortion yesterday,
but I'm happy we're past that. It's April 2nd. This looked like it could be an April Fool's Day
joke here, or at least a strange headline. So Ted Cruz bringing this flare act to use flared gas for
Bitcoin mining. So Bitcoin mining continues to be a hotter-button topic here in the U.S.
I don't think a whole lot to unpack there.
Probably the juicier story, though, was GameStop.
So they completed their stock offering yesterday, $1.5 billion.
Now ready to go, ready to buy some Bitcoin.
That's on top of the $6 billion in cash they already have.
So they're flush over at GameStop.
Mando's high-level thoughts, good or bad?
Should we be rooting for this?
Any takeaways from GameStop potentially being one of the top owners of Bitcoin here?
Really what I said before.
GameStop is not a...
I think it's B...
I had a look at it after the show
it's a double B credit
you would call that
and it may drop down to like being B actually after this
which means
you know
that would be some of the companies
that I used to trade
they could always go bankrupt
they've got an okay chance
of going bankrupt in the next 10 20 years
and that's that's the risk with these sort of things it's obviously because they're buying
bitcoin today there's just buyers of bitcoin like every single day i do man in minutes it's just
all right these guys bought more these guys put more it's it's very institutional yes now um Bitcoin being bought by institutions is probably that and stable coins and RWAs are the three big, strong narratives still.
The L1 narrative, like the use of the L1s, that's been drifting quite a lot lower.
Everyone's putting in multi-month lows in terms of fees generated
and a lot of
questions about like
do we have too much block space versus
demand all this sort of stuff
Bitcoin doesn't
care
there's buyers of Bitcoin every day
I continue to think it's
the thing to own here.
Although it's very boring, it's just the thing to own.
It's plodding along, and it feels like there's just going to continue to be a bid.
It feels like there's a pretty safe floor.
Nothing is totally safe, of course,
but it feels like the safest floor of all of these by far.
And I'm with you.
I think three institutions on my list, big ones who bought Bitcoin in the last day, and that's even throwing away the tiny market cap companies that are trying to generate the splashing headlines, like the one Kobe responded to this morning.
So that continues to happen.
Logan, thoughts there before we move on?
Yeah, I mean, I've said it before,
but those are the types of headlines
that I think we're going to eventually look back at
and be like, oh shit, it was right in front of us.
You know, like all the institutions,
all the big players were buying.
The one thing that, you know,
I'm just not smart enough to think through
all the second and third order effects is,
you know, is anybody off put at all
that these companies, many of them, continue to follow the sailor playbook? Like, is that,
is that off put? Or not? You know, of course, that's a big topic of debate. I'm not the guy
to go through it all. But that's just something that lingers in the back of my mind is all of
these companies stacking up and selling debt to buy bitcoin like is that
ultimately good um i don't know good for bitcoin yes hopefully but like does that introduce risks
that we're not you know not keenly aware of at this point i yeah it is second order i think it's
the sort of thing that maybe in three years or two years people go like oh wait like game stock
could get liquidated
here or this person getting liquidated here do you know what i mean everyone loves it when they're
buying but then if if we go through a sustained period of lower prices um that it just puts more
risk in the system and i mean i think it is off-putting to a group,
a cohort, who view it as
this last-ditch effort.
Especially with GameStop.
Here's a meme company
now jumping into
crypto to help
save their stock price or whatever.
I feel like there's some
fun angles there. I was chatting with Jeebs
this morning. It still feels like there's a huge cohort there. And just chatting with Jeebs this morning,
it still feels like there's a huge cohort who feel like sailor is going to be
liquidated.
And it's a matter of when and not if,
and that we've talked about that.
And that feels like a very unlikely scenario still,
at least since he's effectively stopped selling more,
more debt to keep buying.
so like that's the factor to watch,
but it is a different story for folks like GameStop who are buying. So that's the factor to watch.
But it is a different story for folks like GameStop who are buying for the first time in 86,000.
So yeah, it's going to be a storyline to continue to watch.
Let's keep moving through some of the stories here
ahead of our guest coming on in just a few minutes.
Nice day of punk sales.
I'm not sure if you had a chance to take a look at these.
These two pilots selling 85 and 126 ETH.
That is 2X and 3X the floor.
Same buyer.
And then Canvas came in with 100 ETH on this pink hair punk.
All of these sales pretty well above floor.
Is that refreshed, Tyler? Is that one really six minutes ago? That bottom one's really nice. Oh above four is that refreshed tyler is that one really six minutes
ago that bottom one's a really nice oh that was uh this is not refreshed that was okay okay two
hours ago still that was a nice one at 60 let's check in on the punk bitcoin spread here so 80k
so we're down about six percent versus bitcoin here so we'll see i'm sure we'll tighten that
spread again soon kaido keeps rolling out their updates.
So this is for you yappers out there.
They launched this new rewards station tab.
So now you can very easily see which protocols are effectively paying people to tweet about their product.
And I think this is one of the bull cases for Kaido is they are effectively democratizing the paid content sector of crypto Twitter.
Now you've got all these protocols that are out there for you, and it is up to you.
You're tired of seeing the big KOLs in your timeline being the ones that reap the rewards.
You can go do it yourself now.
So they're opening the excess.
Sorry, Tyler.
Have you, like, tried to go through any of these topics?
For example, I looked at this, and I just chose skate just as one that I
recognize, and actually I bought some, like, skateboard thing, like,
a while ago.
I don't even know what skate is um but i just searched x twitter for skate topics all the tweets are the
exact same um you know that's one of those things that i had mentioned previously about a little bit
of my disdain for kaito right and yaps and yap Um, I'm just slightly concerned about this, but, um,
who knows? Um,
yeah. I mean, you're going to get different tiers of content, right?
And the easiest thing for anyone to do is just to take skate.
For example, you go to the skates website,
you copy and paste as much information as you can.
You throw it into ChatGPT and tell it to write you five posts.
Right.
And that's not a knock on anybody who's produced anything here.
Like I said, I didn't go super deep into it.
I just did scroll through.
And so much of it, what you don't run into that might be hockey or sports related,
so much of it is just like that regurgitated chat GPT,
you know,
the AI slop type content that is not adding value to anyone's feet.
The really big challenge for Kaido,
I think is getting valuable content,
which would benefit all consumers and creators and these protocols as well.
So not suggesting anything that's been shared on screen is not valuable,
but that's just something that I'm thinking about as you've very clearly
outlined now, Hey,
these companies are going to pay you to just say their name basically.
So it's an experiment, right? And we're going to see if it works.
And I think there's certainly downsides.
I think we've gotten a lot of low-quality content.
I think we've already seen folks complaining about some of the folks
who are consistently on the leaderboards for five or ten of these protocols
who are just kind of doing AI slop on a daily basis.
But that's on – I think Kyto's going to have to figure that out, right,
and figure out how to either, either like nerf them to a degree or better reward quality content.
But that's their job.
Like they're building the algo, right?
So there should be ways to do that.
There should be leverage for them to pull.
Yeah.
And it's also on us as consumers to engage appropriately as well and to curate our feeds.
I am guilty of just following too many people
and not curating my feed appropriately.
So I'm getting more of this slop
than I probably should be getting
or that I wish to be getting.
Very fair.
We all have to curate,
especially in the AI era.
Curation is very important.
WIF, we didn't have a chance to talk about this.
Sign of the times.
The WIF sphere funds have been returned.
The team behind this ended up coming out and saying,
basically, they couldn't get the deal done.
They were trying to get it done,
but it looked like communication was becoming more and more sparse.
They didn't want to hold the funds up any longer.
It was hard to believe it to me.
It was like,
dang,
this was a year ago.
So it's been a full year since the whiff sphere campaign has,
has started.
But Logie curious,
do you have any reactions to the,
to this?
Is it the end of an era?
It is.
It is truly the end of an era,
in my opinion,
for those who are not well-versed in this situation,
my colleague Ryan Gladwin has been closest to the ground of anybody.
You see in this tweet, actually, they mentioned the Decrypt Media article spooked our partner.
That was back when we reported that the Sphere had no idea that this was going to be coming or whatever.
It feels like the end of a sector of meme coins from Solana that WIF was clearly the
leader of.
There's a period of time that'll be forever immutably registered on the Solana blockchain
that so many of us participated in with PopCat, etc.
It does feel like the end of an era.
I don't know how best to say.
I think that's really the best way to characterize it.
Wow.
I actually hadn't checked the price.
The age of popcorn is with us now.
Yeah.
400 million.
We've hit 4 billion.
It did.
4 billion.
Twice, actually.
It hit in 2024.
Well, spring 2024, and then again in late 2024.
Just a crazy move when you think about it.
Four billion.
I don't know where that ends the cycle,
like the ends of the next six months.
Is that just down only forever now,
like the rest of Solana meme coins?
Like it's just terrific out there at the moment.
It's only really far coin.
And the daily runner for like the day.
It lasts literally for a day and then it's over.
Yeah, there are a few,
there are more daily runners now than there were a few weeks ago,
but their shelf life is incredibly short.
I fully agree with you there.
On whiff, this is a tough one.
I was a whiff holder for a long time, damn near a year.
Objectively, and I don't want to worry for anyone's bags to go down,
but it's hard to see the bulk case.
It feels like this one is kind of played out.
Block gray sold.
The,
the,
the sphere funds have been returned.
It feels like it's,
it's over and on to the next one.
So yeah,
pour one out for our,
our with hat friends and meme bags there.
Barcoin has been strong.
It really has still over 500 strong. It really has.
Still over 500 million.
Let's see. Kind of a mixed day on the meme board
here. Yeah. Basically,
everything is chopping.
We'll see. Yeah, yesterday was
really strong, though, I think, for some
of these. I wrote a piece over for Decrypt
about the Farcoin surge
yesterday. I think it was up.
Yeah, you're welcome. i think it was up 20 percent
or something like that yesterday right but it's up like more than 100 percent on the month
it's gaining some mind share as well again and just anecdotally speaking from my timeline as
well things i'm starting to see more of those maybe this has been perpetrated by you guys on
the show the fart coin is a leading indicator thing.
Maybe that's really just an us thing.
Yeah, okay.
Well, anyway, it's permeated my timeline a little bit.
And as I was doing the reporting yesterday, I was kind of searching for other takes about
that.
And there are a couple tweets from a while back that are non-FOMO
hour related about Farcoin being a leading indicator. These are like February type tweets,
but yeah. We're spreading the good word. You can leave it at that, but we'll see. Is it
going to tell us where we're going to go? Maybe Farquhar will tell us the results of Liberation Day
before we get to details.
So this is going to be one chart that I'll have pulled up.
Folks, the code is Walrus.
The rollback code is Walrus.
So we will be doing those spins here in about 15 or 20 minutes.
And actually, that is a pretty good seg.
I believe we've got Rohan from Mistin Labs in the studio with us.
So if we're able to get him up, there he is.
Rohan, GM, how are you doing?
Yeah, I'm good. How are you guys doing?
Doing very well.
We are anxiously awaiting what is a very big day here for stock markets, for our crypto tokens as well.
But man, what a week it has been for you.
I'll give folks just a quick background.
If our listeners aren't aware, you should be aware.
We've been talking about it quite a bit on this show.
But Walrus recently launched on SWE.
It's backed by Mistin Labs.
Mistin Labs is the team behind SWE Network.
Walrus Protocol is set to revolutionize global data storage and utilization.
They're trying to bring more of the Web3 world on chain.
And they just announced a little over a week ago $140 million in funding for some of the top VCs in crypto.
And then last week, the Walrus token.
It went live.
Nearly $3 billion FDB, one of the most successful token launches we've had in quite some time.
So it's been a big week for you, Rowan.
Have you had time to catch your breath?
How are you feeling here?
Matt, it never stops.
You know, being in MISL and labs and being in such a high-performance environment, every day is day one.
It's a big milestone for us, absolutely.
Waters launched on Midnet with the TGE.
But now the groundwork has been laid.
Now it's time to scale from here.
So talk about catching breath.
A bit, yes, but it's go, go, go time.
Yes.
Well, we are excited that you took a few minutes away from your very busy
schedule to come talk to us. So I want our listeners to learn more, but maybe can you
just start with a little bit of background perhaps on yourself and then also a quick overview of
Walrus and the vision here? Absolutely. Yeah. We'd love to. Hey everyone in the audience here,
I'm Rohan. I am part of the deal and partnerships team here at
Miston Labs, the team behind the launch of SUI as well as Walrus now. I've been with Miston Labs
for about a year and a half. It's been an exciting journey. It's been a night and day from where we
were last year to where we are today, all the way from the community enthusiasm, the partnerships,
the kind of technological innovation we are bringing to the market.
It's been nothing short of a magic moment for the entire Web3 space, if you will.
Prior to this, I've been in fintech space.
I've been in crypto long enough via M&A, management consulting.
I led the team that launched ApeCoin back in 22,
if anyone here kind of remembers that,
with the Yuga Labs. So I've seen a few of these massive hits into the market and spent enough
time to know what works, what doesn't work. But if I were to bet on any team in the Bet3 space
at the moment, it'll be missing labs. And I'm glad to be part of being on the same side.
Yes. And the team has been doing quite, quite well.
Tons of success with SWE and now, of course, with Walrus.
So that's a little bit of your background.
Can you tell us a little bit more about Walrus itself and kind of the vision?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Look, so Walrus at a very basic level, it's a decentralized data storage and data availability layer that's built
natively on Sui. It's designed essentially to power your next generation of high-performance,
data-intensive applications, all the way from your AI to gaming to real-world assets,
and even modular blockchains. We haven't seen this kind of foresight as well as innovation
since the time of Filecoin and Raveave and some of the other primitives that have existed.
So if you look at, unlike some of the other legacy solutions like Filecoin or even Celestia for that matter, which is a standalone DA,
Walrus, what it really offers is your low latency, highly composable, smart contract integrated DA and data storage layer,
which offers in addition your on-chain incentives to prioritize all your valuable active data assets.
So if we were to lay down the vision for where we want to go and what we want to be and what the path ahead lays,
is we want to make data a first-class citizen in Web3,
similar to how you have tokens,
similar to how you have, that includes
both fungible and NFTs and smart contracts. So the ultimate goal becomes, if you could imagine
a future where you have AI agents that are fetching and verifying real-time data on-chain,
we want Walrus to be embedded there. If you have zero-knowledge machine learning models
that are referencing decentralized data sets for inference.
We want Walrus and Sui to be part of that. Think about modular blockchains and their histories and L2s that publish state affordably and verifiably. That's where Walrus comes in.
So if I were to sum that up in a single line, think of Walrus as that data backbone
of a decentralized and intelligent internet. And that's what we're bringing to life.
Got it.
Well, I mean, that feels increasingly important as we get into this new AI era and the type
of infrastructure I think a lot of folks are starting to pay more and more attention to.
I am curious, like, who are your primary users?
Like, how would you describe that to our listeners who may not have still a comprehensive understanding?
I know I believe Decrypt, of course, one of our partners is a partner with Walrus, but curious if you could outline a few other examples.
Yeah, absolutely.
You pointed out Decrypt.
So we have a very good relationship with Elon and Paro, the rest of the crew here.
They were the first adopters of Walrus
and they've been our steady partner.
And that front, we have another project partner
called Tusky, which you can think of it as
a Google Drive or Dropbox built on top of Walrus.
So now you can store your files with guarantees
that it's A, available, B, it's decentralized
and you can create your public and
private walls depending upon the kind of usage you want to give to your end user, right? And then we
have projects on the L1 and L2 there. So Plume Network is one of our other RWA L1 project that's
leveraging Walrus. So they will make Walrus as the core offering to not only storing the data that they are generating on their network, but also to their broader ecosystem.
So that becomes a default storage layer for their broader ecosystem.
So those kind of partnerships.
And then we are obviously, you heard about PlanoSource coming out of it.
We have some exciting non-public information, which they're going to be utilizing Walrus for storing a bunch of their IP and assets.
And there's a lot more that will come in that function, obviously, on the AI front, which is such data intensive and data generating vertical.
So we have Atoma Network, which is your cloud compute side of the house.
And then you have Talus Network, which works on the AI agentic framework. So they're going to be making Waters as a core where they're not only storing
the data, but when it comes to retrieving that data to build smart contracts and application,
they will be powering that via Sui's smart contracting language.
Got it. Well, I think that helps. That helps paint the picture for what type of entities,
that helps paint the picture for you know what type of entities businesses teams products are
using walrus so i think that does help at least me understand it a bit more let's talk about
clano so this was a fun launch announcement it took me by surprise so so what was kind of what
was behind behind this one why did you all choose to launch with cleaners and kind of what how are
they integrating with walrus yeah as i pointed earlier like there's not much public information i'll be able to share at
this point but they're one of definitely our marquee partners so this has been a long time
coming um with you know partnership team being deeply embedded and uh working side by side with
the cleaners or seeing we think they're one of the best nft projects from the previous era that have actually transitioned into uh today's needs and world and creative
and entirely immersive experience which they want to leverage technology for and we thought sui and
walrus would be a great uh match for that and that and luckily for us cleaners source uh we're
thinking along the same wavelength so we are planning on doing some exciting stuff as I said
we'll have more public announcements coming in the near future in the next
few weeks I should say so keep an eye out on that so that's the alpha you you
can expect from this call but yeah we are very excited to have them as our
partner and the vision that they have completely aligns with how we think about building the future, but from a technology lens.
Yeah, you love to hear it.
It looks like right before the show, we may have gotten one more announcement here.
My Webacy, building this on-chain risk analysis decision layer.
Yeah, so as I said, the verticals keep popping up, right?
So this is one of the newer verticals on the cybersecurity front.
Now, so this is risk and data analysis.
So now think about a world where you can have all of those data labels, like this wallet is verified, can be trusted for whatever reasons.
It could be for airdrops or think about a future where enterprises are starting to interact with self-custody wallets. They want to have some surety in terms of assurances that this is a
trusted wallet. We can onboard them onto our system or provide them special benefits, etc.
Right. So now WebEasy comes into the picture where they provide that risk analysis to their
end parties, making sure that the wallets and the addresses that the enterprises,
businesses, or individuals are interacting with are real and verified and can be trusted.
So these will come with tons and tons of data labels to ensure, right? Using machine learning
and AI to ensure that the hits are as close to and in real time as possible, but as much certainty that, yes, the other party
that I'm interacting with is real. WebEasy and due diligence here, DD, comes from that vertical,
and they'll be storing all of those data access, data flags, data labels on Walrus, which will
eventually be retrieved not only by WebEasy, but their broader ecosystem. They work with MetaMask
and a bunch of other wallet providers and eventually
with enterprises that will leverage this
data set and that create a data
programmability layer around Walrus,
which we are so proud of trying to bring to
the front.
Another great use case that highlights
how exactly Walrus can
be used. That was timely.
I'm happy we had that break right before
the show
so rohan maybe taking a step back a higher level mainnet's live you've got the token
what what now what are you focused on what is the team focused on maybe
second part what are you most excited about here for the rest of 2025
there's a lot of token in the kitchen here, the easiest way to
describe, right? So as I said, so mainnet launch and the TGE is day zero. Now the day one, every
day is going to be day one for us, right? So it's all about bringing in the right partners,
you know, identifying new use cases that will end up benefiting the most from SUI and from Walrus.
But as we move into 2025, there are some exciting developments more broadly in the SUI ecosystem as a whole.
So some of them we are already starting to see from a number which are tangible in nature, right?
So you have DeFi specifically on SUI.
It continues to rip.
There's major focus and we are seeing incredible growth.
Now, SUI is now also among the top six chains
by Dex Volume, right?
So that highlights the rising adoption
within our broader ecosystem.
We are rapidly expanding the key projects
like we have SUI Lend, CETIS,
you got Bluefin,
which are driving more innovation, right?
That's powered by SUI,
it's low latency, fast consensus mechanisms. That has never been done before in the VET3 space as
a whole. And a major milestone ahead is Phantom Wallet, right? Coming out of beta. We've been in
beta with them for a while and we've been seeing some tremendous data behind the scenes as well.
As most of the used crypto wallet with 15 million users, I think this will be a real game changer for DeFi user acquisition,
a lot of our social activity on chain, a lot of new applications that will either be embeddingantom directly or working in tandem because of our
relationship that'll be huge so that phantom partnership is a significant step for us
which makes sui actually the first non-evm chain outside of solana that has integrated with the
wallet i mean yes granted phantom started on solana so that makes it uh the starting point
but we are very excited about about that and then again, you'll start seeing so much more coming out on Walrus,
especially if you'll have some big announcements during our Sui base scam
that's happening in Dubai, May 1st and 2nd.
We'll be revealing a lot more partnerships,
a lot more exciting use cases that I think the community
and the broader ecosystem will love to see.
There are a lot of reasons to be excited.
The Phantom one was huge.
So I had an Ethos wallet from my early days interacting and transacting on Sui.
But I will admit personally, being able to access it via Phantom was a huge unlock.
And it's much easier to get more capital over there.
So I think that's going to continue to be a huge one for you all.
Well, clearly plenty of reasons to be excited.
I want to give you a chance here.
Last question.
Anything you want to leave our listeners with,
how they can get involved?
Any final thoughts for us here?
Yeah, as far as getting involved,
if you're a builder, a developer, reach out to us.
We have three or four different avenues now.
We obviously have our Discord channel
where our community team is very active.
You can reach out to our Twitter handles directly,
whether it be on Sui or on Walrus
or even Missing Labs.
We are available.
Our partnership team, deal team is available.
I know our co-founders and founders,
they are very active on Twitter.
I don't know if you've seen his tweets.
He's kind of our chief degen and evangelist for the entire ecosystem as a whole.
So he's always there.
Sam, on the technology front, he's been breathtaking to watch in terms of how he thinks.
So these are kind of resources that's available.
Obviously, I am available, especially on the deal and partnerships team.
What I would leave the audience here is like we are starting to see a lot of institutional adoption.
I think that has changed over the last few months.
And we're excited about the fact because the premise of SUI and Walrus and the entire Mission Labs team is how do we make it easier for the masses to come on to Web3 as a whole and that's kind of been the starting
point the north star it's still that and with the changing admin and regime we're going to start
seeing a lot more adoption come to life so a partnership with teams like delorean uh labs
with movie pass with one championship we're starting to see that tight turn with partnerships with large
financial institutions and Bitcoin, BTC5, I was about to call it Bitcoin5, and our partnership
with Lombard and Babylon. I think those are the things that are really exciting because now you
can actively strategize for your offense and your defense. It doesn't matter whether it's your bear
market or bull market. Now you can really see the fuller picture of how the large institutions and what they're
looking for will be enticed to come into Web3.
And what are the smaller builders who are actually looking to build on enterprise-grade
technology that powers the vision and the underlying business that they want to build
the vision and the underlying business that they want to build and bring to life.
and bring to life?
Well, I love that mission and that vision to try to bring more of the world on chain into Web3.
So love giving a platform and a chance to amplify the message of every team doing that.
So Rowan, it's been amazing.
I will congratulate you on the success again of Mainnet launch and the token launch here in the past week. So hopefully everyone had a chance to do a little bit of celebration and,
you know, recognize the event that's taken place,
but I know everyone's heads down and working on the,
these next wave of announcements. So wish you guys the best.
We'll certainly be covering it on our end.
It was great to have a chance to catch up here this morning.
Thanks so much guys. Yeah.
Appreciate the platform and great chatting with you all.
Awesome. Well, we will talk to you soon, Rohan. Thank you very much. Folks, that is going
to wrap up our interview, but we still have that rollbit spin. So if we've got our spinner ready
to go, I guess one last chance to enter the code for today was walrus. Walrus was the code.
It looks like we are about to do the draw.
Are we ready?
Here we go.
OXE2G.
All right. He's rocking the zombie punk
OXE2G
You won
Alright
The clock's ticking
Go ahead and request
Try to come up on stage
And if you're on with us here
We'll go ahead and give you that spin
OXE2G Alright And if you're on with us here, we will go ahead and give you that spin.
OXE2G.
All right.
He's got a punk already.
Does he have a chance to win another?
I don't see the question yet.
OXE2G.
All right.
I see.
He's here. All right. Someone is up on with us okay i'm always uh i'm always
thrown off when the the twitter handle or tag doesn't match the the name there so nft eric
gm you want yo hey what's up guys congrats how you feeling? I feel great. That's pretty amazing.
Okay.
I have to write right off the bat to explain.
The punk was just an April Fool's joke, and I haven't switched it, so I need to switch it.
And I got no interaction on that.
All right.
It was an absolute fail.
Yeah.
That happens to the best of us.
Well, good disclosure. So the zombie punk is not yours. That was an absolute fail. Yeah, that happens to the best of us. Well, good
disclosure. So the zombie punk
is not yours. That's good to know. It's easier
for us to root for you now.
Yeah, no kidding.
Yeah, I got to switch that. My bad.
Yeah, so let's pull it up and let's
do the spin.
Let's do it. Let's win a real one.
Here we go.
Hey, it's a wreck guy.
It looks like a nice one.
Hell yeah.
A good one.
Well above floor there.
$1,300 value.
Oh, let's go.
I love that.
I appreciate you.
Yeah, congrats.
Nice little reward for listening to our show here this morning.
Thank you for tuning in.
The team will be working with you right after the show here to get you that rec guy.
Quite a nice one.
So congrats.
Appreciate you guys. Thank you so much.
And you guys do a fantastic job.
Obviously, you know that.
But yeah, always going to be listening and always going to be supportive.
So appreciate you.
I appreciate you as well.
Folks, that is it.
That is going to be our show. I want to thank our listeners as always. I want to thank our partners. I want to
thank my co-hosts. I want to thank Rohan for coming on and giving us a great conversation
and background on Walrus. We'll be back tomorrow at 10 a.m. Eastern. Until then,
go make it a great day. Goodbye. Thank you. Yeah.
