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Hedera Roundtable, $HBAR in Davos, $100 billion WIPED out?!
Recorded: Jan. 19, 2026 Duration: 0:58:49Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent Hedera Roundtable, participants discussed the significant $100 billion decline in the crypto market, the NYSE's launch of a 24-7 tokenized trading platform, and the strategic partnerships forming at the World Economic Forum. The conversation highlighted emerging trends in institutional adoption of blockchain technology and the evolving regulatory landscape for stablecoins, with a focus on growth opportunities despite current market challenges.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Well, well, well, guys, welcome back to another Hedera Roundtable here, this beautiful, kind
of cold Monday morning in Florida.
This is your host, William, behind the Wolf Crypto account.
My goodness, it's going to be a very fun one today, I feel like.
We had a lot of crazy news over the weekend that's resulted in $100 billion being wiped
out from the crypto market in the past 12 hours.
So that's been exciting, right?
That's really good for crypto.
That's really good for our bank.
There you go.
I love the sound effects, Houdini.
Thank you, you magical human being.
So yeah, $100 billion being wiped out from the market.
Also, some interesting news this morning.
We had the NYSE, that's the New York Stock Exchange,
apparently announced they're launching 24-7 US stock trading
through a new on-chain tokenized exchange.
So I don't really know much about how they're doing this or how they're going about it.
I don't know if anyone on the stage here actually knows what the details are on this, but I'm
actually going to throw it to my wonderful co-host, Nat, before we get started here.
How was your weekend leading into this $100 billion liquidation?
It was actually pretty calm.
I spent it with the family this weekend.
Funny enough, before that liquidation happened, I was on a trading space with Cade.
before that liquidation happened, I was on a trading space with Cade. And I was telling him
that based on the pattern that I was seeing on the four hour chart, typically whenever I see that
specific pattern, two things happen, right? There's an aggressive move, whether we see it to
the upside or to the downside. And as I was speaking, we saw that aggressive move to the downside, man. It was beautiful to see, right?
I mean, what can I say another day in crypto?
With regards to the NYSE thing, I believe they are creating their own platform, right?
This is completely different from what we have seen in the past in the stock market.
This is something completely new.
I'm excited to dive into that, man.
But besides that, it has been an incredible weekend, a nice, peaceful weekend. And I can't wait to dive into that man but besides besides that it has been an
incredible weekend a nice peaceful weekend and i can't wait to dive into it today yeah it um
it was definitely a nice weekend i have to say i try to stay i started this new thing this year
kind of a resolution of mine where i try to stay away from my phone on the weekends i like leave
my phone on my desk and i just try to like hang out with the wife and, you know,
just in my friends and I don't know, just like stay away from all of the news and like stop.
It's funny because I was at dinner with her a couple of weeks ago and it was like last weekend,
I think actually. And I left my phone at the house on purpose. I was like, let's go on a little
dinner date. It'll be fun fun and i noticed i caught myself
checking for my phone like seven times like at least seven or six times i like reached in my
pocket and i was like oh no my phone's not there and i was like oh no this is a problem like this
is an addiction um but it helps keep you present though especially once you guys have the baby and
the baby comes you'll see you'll you'll miss your you won't miss your phone the baby will keep you
guys busy but right now it helps keeping you present for sure at least for me oh yeah i'm excited about
that i felt her kicking again last night uh it was insane i was like talking to her you know to
the belly i was like what's up i'm so excited to see you uh i'm not trying to get did you say
did you say hidera to her or not yet? I didn't say anything crypto related just yet.
But when she's here, I'll be sure to slap a Hedera sticker on her or something.
And she'll be like, oh, I'm onboarding.
I'm just going to make it roll with feet on the page here, onboarding at its finest.
I think that's content for you in a nutshell.
But yeah, I want to throw it to the rest of the speakers up here.
I mean, a lot's happening right now, guys. Like we talked about, $100 billion liquid data. We have a lot of volatility in the nutshell. But yeah, I want to throw it to the rest of the speakers up here. I mean, a lot's happening right now, guys. Like we talked about, $100 billion liquid data,
we have a lot of volatility in the market. I think the VIX is up like 20% today, which is
absolutely insane. We have the HBAR fam in Davos for the World Economic Forum as well. There was
a stage shared last night with MasterCard, I believe, or it might have been today. I don't
even know. I'm losing track of time here. But Hedera's making a lot of moves, man. I'm seeing a lot
happen. And to the point of this New York Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange launching
this 24-7 US stock trading, I'm not sure what chain they're using or what kind of architecture
they're using. But do we think Hedera is, I guess, a a key winner here or do you think it'll be a key
player in this in this decision they're making hashback i want to throw it to you i see you
throwing the hundreds up yeah i was muted what's up hey super happy to be here thanks again for
the invitation uh always always a pleasure man uh i was throwing up emojis man because of your
family situation uh i'm really happy we talk about oftenly about the tech side i think what we call web3 but man family is absolutely everything and yeah i'm just I'm really happy. We talk often about the tech side of things, what we call Web3,
but man, family is absolutely everything. And yeah, I'm just happy for that. For Davos, I don't
have any insights or precise key information around that. Hopefully, they can clutch something
great for us, both on the enterprise level, especially on the retail side of things.
I think it just started. Also, it's throughout this week, I saw Mance posting up a photo up there.
So yeah, hopefully they can come up clutch and bounce some great ideas on there.
But no, I don't have any insider scoops or any precise info.
I guess, I mean, to that point then, regarding Hedera's style,
it's essentially like an open permissioned ledger as opposed to being,
it's like a public permissioned ledger as opposed to being a public permission ledger as opposed to being public and
permissionless. So do you think this is a key reason why institutions and government entities
would choose something like Hedera in this instance? Let's say New York Stock Exchange
had to pick from three blockchains here. And they have X, Y, and Z, and let's just say Z is Hedera.
Is that something that's working for it in this instance, where it can do everything the New York stock exchange
needs it to do, but like super cost efficient, yada, yada, yada, like, do you think that's
like a viable reason to think that this could be a thing?
It's interesting.
I think at those levels, and the same goes for probably any level is like the connections that you have, and especially the business relationships that you made throughout the time. We've seen, of course, Manz and Lehman were at Mar-a-Lago, was it like a year and a half ago when Trump was up in office?
you can get rewarded. And it's really the great risk to reward ratio, I think, really is a great
thing. And for sure, I mean, for sure, Hedera is at the forefront of all those discussions,
because we've seen them like with great partnerships. And, you know, we can talk about
the ETF, we can talk about the current funds also. It's already interesting. But yeah, looking forward
to what they bring, man. It's going to be an interesting week. And I know it's for you guys.
I think it's a holiday today, right?
I don't even know anymore, honestly.
Yeah, yeah.
I think so.
Yeah, the real markets are opening for real tomorrow, I think.
Yeah.
I'm a Canadian dude.
But I think it's a day off for you guys.
So, yeah, it's going to be an interesting week again.
Looking forward to it.
What's the โ oh, it's Martin Luther King Jr.
Oh, my God.
I didn't know, dude.
I'm so focused
on the headlines and
Twitter just filling my mind with nonsense
that I lose
track of time.
Yeah, it's crazy.
So yeah, holiday for you guys today. You're not even supposed to work, man.
What if we went back in time
and Martin Luther King Jr.
was doing a speech and he mentioned
crypto or
something like someone used like ai and did like a it'd be pretty funny i don't know i just thought
about that that'd be crazy i would love to throw it to joe next to get his thoughts on on all this
i mean it's been a very crazy week but i do like this news i'm actually doing a research on it as
we're as we're talking here about the New York Stock Exchange
with their on-chain platform.
It's pretty much kind of business as usual.
They want near instantaneous settlement, T plus zero.
I know we've talked about that before on here, where traditional trading, traditional markets,
financial markets, you have like T plus one and T plus two, which is trade plus one, trade
plus two for those that aren't't familiar which is settlement times so this would basically be near instantaneous
settlements as opposed to lag settlement times um and access to like stable coins etc um i i just
i'm trying to think i'm trying to like do more research to see like where the i guess there's
no indication as to what chain they're going to be using.
It just says black.
I can't find a word about that either.
Just the article in the NYSE, part of the Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.,
which is the ticker is ICE,
which is probably not the best ticker to have in the U.S. right now.
you have that. You can't make this
up, dude. You really cannot make this up.
This is actually insane.
No, they,
yeah, the USA Hedera
house, the two of the
main sponsors are
Web3 and their
Ripple and Hedera, which is great because they're in there with Microsoft and MasterCard and some other huge ones all week.
So I think it's kind of a mini, like, I want to say trade show, but nicer.
So it's the U.S.-based based companies people popping in and out saying hello but the
schedule i have uh some of the schedule um hedera is sponsored um speaking time is today
and uh let's see if i can post those in the that's's so interesting. So Ripple and Hedera are on a... So is this common with Hedera?
Do Hedera and Ripple folks,
do those people mesh really well or no?
Well, do you know,
Charles from Cardano came to HederaCon last year.
I know that Mance and Brad
have been at some of the same mingling events and places.
This is the first time I've heard of them co-sponsoring something like this together.
Hedera did the Hedera house two years ago or three years ago at Davos.
So it was all Hedera-focused.
They spent a ton of money on it.
And then this year it's better because it's the USA house,
but tomorrow it's in the comments.
Today, 1145 to 1230.
I don't know if that was our time, the way I was looking at it on the website,
or if that was local time.
But there was a U.S. digital asset moment sponsored by Hedera
with some really good people
and then somebody from Chainlink is going to be there
Euroclear, Atlantic Council
and then Nominie Rubin, the CPO from Hedera
was speaking
but tomorrow
Wednesday, sorry Wednesday I'm not sure what time, again,
President Trump's the keynote at the USA House.
So there will be direct contact with President Trump and Ripple and Hedera.
with President Trump and Ripple and Hedera.
But the bigger thing is since yesterday
that the folks that are there from Hedera
have been mingling with people from all over the world,
obviously, but a lot of the top U.S. corporations.
So direct contact, a lot more intimate conversations.
So that's the positive I take away from that dude davos is
gorgeous by the way guys i just saw some photos of it this place i mean i've been in the swiss
alps once before and billionaires play play land it dude switzerland's gorgeous like i took a train
ride through switzerland i went to logano and i went to zermatt for for part of my honeymoon
and my god that country is just gorgeous, dude.
Oh, man, the Swiss Alps.
The Swiss Alps, especially during the winter, man,
is beautiful.
And, man, Davos looks no different.
Houdini, I love the reactions here, man.
I would love to throw it to you,
get your thoughts on the conversation.
Good morning, good morning.
Yeah, thanks for letting me hit the soundboard buttons.
It always gives me giggles. Yeah, good morning, everybody. Dude, it me uh hit the soundboard buttons it always gives
me giggles yeah good morning everybody it's been a bit how you been good yeah sorry i missed a
couple weeks or something yeah it's been uh good busy you know work is busy life is busy beginning
of the year i don't know why that part of the year has to be so busy all the time but you know
it's good all is well it's almost inconvenient right like it's like's like the holidays, I feel like I get super slammed with certain things.
I'm trying to spend time with family, of course, but no one's available.
So you're just like, yo, I need an answer on this, or I need this done.
And everyone's like, oh, I'm out of office for four weeks.
And you're like, shit.
Yeah, maybe that's what it is.
Around Thanksgiving, everybody checks out.
And then January, it's like, oh, shit, we've got to go do stuff.
We could run a business again.
Yeah.
But, yeah, all's well.
We're deep in audits on Silica, my biggest project.
So that's fun.
It's a grind, but part of the process.
What are we talking about?
What do you mean deep in audits?
I'm curious.
There's like an auditing process every year you do,
like an annual auditing process?
No, and it's not really that deep.
I'm just more lamenting, I think.
So, you know, it's a DEX, so it's relevant that, you know,
one is as safe as possible with things.
And there's a threshold on the dev side that, you know, once they change a certain
amount of things, they, you know, they want to re-audit it, make sure it's safe. So you call the
auditing company and say, hey, we changed a bunch of stuff. Can you guys take a look at this, try to
hack it, try to break it, you know, and then they do that for, in this case, about a week, a week or so.
And then they come back and say, hey, we, you know, well, we broke it and you got to do this,
or we couldn't break it, but you might want to look at this, or while you're amazing, you know,
those kind of things. So, but it's just checks and balances, you know, I think, I think any
big platform that's moving significant amounts of
these collectible tokens should be should be audited you know you see wallets get audited
decks get audited those are the kind of things that you would expect to happen um but it's not a
it's not a fomo fun part of the process there's no rocket emojis in the audit chat or anything so
it's just you know it's a little boring hey
it's not boring when you explain it my man it's not boring you explain but i guess to really into
the conversation uh what i'm curious about is uh joe actually just said that ripple and hedera are
sharing a stage or we're sponsoring this uh this this uh panel if you will in davos the world economic forum and so i'm curious is is the future
like like so let's just say like hedera is gonna be like a main a big one of the largest players
in the future i just say that let's just say that is as a hypothetical here i know we're all super
bullish here um is it is it more like hedera with a side of ripple or like hedera and ripple like
what's the what's the platter looking like in the future?
Yeah, right now it seems like the push is Hedera and Ripple.
We've seen this with Hedera before.
They tried to make friends with Elgorand a couple years ago,
maybe Cardano at one point.
But we see these little things.
They did the DREC initiative where they got a bunch of people together from layer ones
in the effort to make make it not as hard for people to lose their private keys and things
um so we see that and it's good um the davos thing davos thing's a fun one and there's been a big
player there two years ago they put in like 10 million and sponsored the whole thing. There were banners everywhere. Adair is definitely a part of that world.
And that's because of Lehman.
He's from the NSA.
These guys are military to begin with.
They had these contacts.
They were SAFT, SWIFT, and ISO and all the acronyms.
They're one of the only chains that are all part of those things.
that are all part of those things.
So it makes sense.
It's natural.
It's a bit of an eight-foot pole, though, for most in the space
because I think a lot of people in the crypto space came here
to sort of get away from banks and have another option.
So as far as on crypto Twitter, it's a bit of a โ
people don't really talk about the wef and davos is
too much um so it's always a tough time of year when hedera is out there doing the thing but um
long term i think obviously everyone appreciates it's good for token price right um i think you
were talking about whatever the news that someone wants to tokenize stonks.
And there's a few different people trying to do that.
And, you know, Hedera makes perfect sense.
Why wouldn't they should use Hedera, right?
It's cheap, it's fast, it's open, yada, yada.
And I'm sure it's on the list.
And I think a part of the reason we don't see,
when we see these announcements, we often don't see,
oh, it's going to be on this chain.
It's going to be on this chain. I think that's because these announcements start that bidding war from the chains in part right so uh each is going to be like well we want you in our chain we'll give you
you know 100 million in east and and solana's saying the same thing and base and and then
hedera's in the market saying we'll give you this so And I'm sure it's a decision from the platform, not only based on the money, but it's the tech and the money.
But it's a complicated dynamic.
And then whatever chain gets it, it's a long-term play, right?
So the chain just put out, whatever, $500 million into this project.
The chain just put out, whatever, 500 million into this project.
It's going to take a while for that to undilute itself in the space.
But I still think it's a good thing.
It's good exposure.
Spreading the net as wide as you can, that's super important in space.
So I think it's a good thing.
But I think a lot of these enterprise things, and that's what we've seen, they're extremely long-term plays.
They're like, you know, they move like icebergs, right?
But they are huge.
So it's positive.
But in this space, no one wants to get too close to the Wuffers.
Well, I mean, I guess my question then there is, or my response there would be, doesn't that play to Hedera and Ripple's strength then?
Like they're catering to these institutions
as opposed to, and marketing to them
and like focusing on them.
Totally.
As opposed to just CT,
because it's kind of just like black hole.
Yeah.
No, totally.
And so we have Hedera,
who has all the acronyms,
is already certified by every secret agency in the world.
They're happy with Adara.
And then we've got XRP that's already been through lawsuits and won them.
So they're clear as well.
They're both great options.
They're both fast.
They both have great tech.
They both have atomic tech, no EVM or EVM integration, but not atomically.
They're both great choices.
Sorry, Joe, to step on you.
Oh, no, I was just shaking my head. My neck was starting to hurt with most of everything you said.
No, that's absolutely. And I don't know if it was AI yesterday, but did anybody see
Charles and Cardano going off on Brad Garlinghouse about agreeing that we need to get a deal done
so that we can have clarity. And Charles's stance is they sued us, they took us to court,
you're going to let the banks win just like that. But I'm kind of on both sides of that. But yeah,
I could see down the road that if everything in the world is going to be tokenized, that means military and governments are.
Why not Hedera for that?
But what did Charles say yesterday?
Exactly.
I'm curious.
I did not hear about that.
He went off on Brad for saying we needed to make some adjustments and some concessions
for the Clarity Act. You might know a little bit better
who do you need. Oh, you said Brad is a
do-nothing, blow-hard
extractor, effectively,
and sort of MF'd him
and said he should step up and do something.
But yeah, I'm not sure. I saw that too.
I was on the fence if it was AI or not,
but it was good. Could it have
to do with the whole
stablecoin rewards thing? Because I know that is the thing that Brian Armstrong, he was very vocal
about because then again, it's like counterproductive to what's written in the
genius fact, right? So you want a devil's advocate take on that, NatNap? Yeah, go for it.
Coinbase wants to be a bank, and they're not approved to be a bank.
So if they were a bank, then they would be all over this clarity action that would already be pushed through.
They're fighting back because they aren't registered or approved to be a bank in the U.S., which means that if it gets pushed through, they can't
act as a bank and the lender and the creditor and the rewards provider and the savings account
holders.
So they lose on that.
And he's worth $11 billion.
So I don't want to take a lot of what he whines about to heart.
You know what? I don't want to take a lot of what he whines about to heart.
You know what?
That makes a lot of sense because they are,
they're making this big push on becoming the everything app.
Right.
Yeah.
And which means they want to be bigger than a bank.
And I don't,
I don't understand that.
You know, who is a bank in the U S and I don't know why Coinbase doesn't do this,
but FTX is a bank in the US they bought that little bank
so they could be a bank
true
who's FTX again? I never heard of them
who are those guys?
the guy, the people, the wrong, no more money, all money kapoof
8 billion or so
or whatever
thanks for bringing back bad memories
you're welcome
FTX is well solvent at this point based on Bitcoin price Thanks for bringing back bad memories, Nat. Oh, you're welcome.
FTX is well solvent at this point based on Bitcoin price if they would have let it ride.
Just a footnote on that one.
That's insane to think about, actually.
But I want to roll it back to the Coinbase topic here.
So I guess, obviously, taking what Brian Armstrong says with a grain of salt.
On the flip side, I kind of support his decision not to support the current Clarity Act. I mean, I get why. I get the main pain point there
is, hey, these banks are saying stablecoins shouldn't have native yield. And obviously,
that's to protect their interests and everything with $6 trillion in deposits that they risk losing if people go
to these stablecoin alternatives and get paid native yield. So I would love everyone's thoughts
on that. What do we think about the Clarity Act, I suppose, in its current iteration? Are we for it?
Are we against it? Do we see any issues with it? And by all means's welcome to you know go up here i'll throw it to hat
i'm looking it up right now but um i think point base is the wealthiest holder of crypto
period right is that right earlier top three um yeah so she's right up there too so
you know i think i think they got to play their leverage, but yeah, somebody else.
I know Nat go for it. And then Joe, and then we'll get a hashback.
And then we have Patricia up here too.
I think for me, it's going to make things a little more interesting. Right.
I think with this move, it, for me,
the issue as it stands right now is the fact that we're doing the opposite or we're trying to do the opposite of what the Genius Act says in proportion to the stable coins.
Right. So I think there has to be some kind of middle ground or some kind of agreement with regards to what we're going to do with stable coin rewards based on what's written in the Genius Act,
right? Just to keep the playing fields a little bit leveled. But I'm curious to know what everyone
else thinks. Yeah, yes. I mean, same contemplating right now. I'm an observer. Of course, I'm paying
attention to because of course, like the job requires it and it just makes sense from even
from a user standpoint, right? You need to be up to the minute in terms of details and whatnot um i salute the patience that coinbase has and especially the
balls that they have even though of course they have bags to back whatever they have so on a
personal level for sure i mean you know it makes sense for them potentially to go out there and
push the news out but after that there's so there's so many levels to that and from what i know and i
know very little because i'm not into the inner circle.
Again, patience is key for that because we're at so many intersections right now.
And for sure, Brian's having lots of, what's it called in English, hurdles along the way, for sure. And he's seeing lots of obstacles.
So patience is key, man, because down the road,
you want the act to be well and thoroughly made,
not only for his users, for sure,
but broadly speaking.
And again, intersection is key right now,
especially in 2026.
I think it's going to be the biggest year
in terms of where we're heading
into what we call Web3.
Big shout out to patience is my key takeaway.
Yeah, I think patience certainly is key.
And I just wanted to kind of bring into focus too like guys five years ago like 2021 we had like some of the worst like we had like
zero regulation uh you know just no one was even like taking us seriously back then i guess like
there was a rising you know tide that was happening there price action was incredible due to a lot of
factors but i feel like there was almost more like bullish sentiment then that there is now.
Like everyone is so depressed now.
We've had the most like for a lot.
And this is me being punny, of course, but we've had we have more clarity around like the direction of where we're going.
And there's way more like there's a vision, right?
There's an actual vision being formed.
Like you have institutions involved, of course, and all this like amazingly bullish stuff.
But the sentiment is just so doggone like awful, man.
It's terrible.
I just feel like that adds to my slight conviction that a bear market could possibly be in play here.
Because we're seeing it year after year.
Whenever we have such amazing news and so much going for us,
but the price doesn't do much, right?
We see, at that point, at some point, actually,
we do enter into a bear market.
But this year could be different, right?
This year could be different.
If we are continuing the four-year cycle,
then the top is already in. And we're going to hit low sometime later on this year could be different if we are um continuing the four-year cycle then the top is already in and we're going to hit low sometime later on this year if the four-year cycle is in
fact exactly but william real quick with regards to the whole coinbase thing i just came across an
article on on yahoo it's written by benzinga um so he's saying the exact same thing i i mentioned
with regards to um wanting the the playing fields to be at levels so he's saying and he's saying the exact same thing I mentioned with regards to wanting the playing fields to be leveled.
So he's saying and he's accusing the banks of stifling competition, which goes back into what Joe was saying.
So I think this is all very interesting. I'm curious to see how this plays out.
Yeah, I mean, and I guess there is a legitimate, you know, in my mind, there's a legitimate fear there where you have, if you think about it, there's so much that's built on top of
this like house of cards that we call our banking system.
And it is kind of scary to think, to imagine that shifting overnight, pretty much, right?
Like it's kind of terrifying to think like, oh my goodness, like all this capital might
leave the banking system.
It would cause so much chaos. So I do understand the fear there. But I also understand the incentive where they're like, well, this is our profit.
You know, this is all our profit margins. Like they're all going to disappear overnight.
Oh, my goodness. We're so we're our rigged game is going to be taken from us.
And I and I'm almost like in huge support of that. But I do understand like the hesitation, of course.
But Joe, I want to hear your thoughts.
I'm very curious, man.
Well, Coinbase, and this is other people's research.
I'm just reading through it.
Coinbase is Circle's largest and most strategic distribution partner by contract,
which means they get a revenue share from Coinbase,
which is why they can pay crazy staking fees and rewards to
their customers. And, you know, that's suggesting that that's for user acquisition. So with that
being said, that would put them in a position as if it passed the way they wanted it to, and
it wouldn't create a monopoly for USDC rewards or stablecoin rewards, but it sure would put them bigger than any bank out there as far as the Web3 market in short order.
So I think a lot of it's selfish.
You know, it's right for their legal counsel to say, well, we want to continue having the dominant position that we have now.
And I think they play the sympathy card to a bunch of not dumb. No, I don't think many people
are dumb. I think naive crypto investors and holders. And they can play for sympathy saying
we're standing up for Web3. But to put it frankly it frankly i personally i was on the coinbase side
four days ago and the more i studied the more i researched the more i call bullshit on their
stance it's about how much money they can make and extract from holders in the long term if it
were to pass the way it's written bam look at that boom i need a mic drop moment there for that. I'm definitely going to be clipping that, Joe. I could see your point for sure. I think that Coinbase, of course, they have incentives to make money. But when you have to look at the, let's just look at USDC, right? They make a ton of money on USDC. And that's kind of why I invested in Circle during the IPO, but I soon sold my position after, I mean, that was a wild ride up.
But I got, thank goodness, this is kind of like a gloating response for me.
But I got under the IPO at like $30 or whatever, $33, and it just rose to like almost $200, $300.
There's no way this is sustainable.
But also, when you look at the deal flow, when you look at the deals that Circle has signed with Coinbase,
you realize, crap, Circle's not making much money here at all.
They've given up a lot of their profits to Coinbase in order to get that distribution.
So I could see if this act were to go in Coinbase's way, the way they want it to go, they would benefit greatly.
So we can't ignore that incentive there for sure.
Houdini, I see you throwing the emojis up.
I'm going to throw it to you next.
And I do want to hear from Patricia afterwards.
Yeah, rewards.
You talk about a house of cards.
Rewards are a house of cards, right? So they're all based on, I think Joe was saying, these incentives when partnership happens, when sort of BC puts money in, that's where the rewards come from.
every institution, Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, whatever,
they have to keep pushing these things forward
and making new deals so that they can continue doing the rewards.
Because they know if they stop or they slow down,
they'll lose their customers.
So I think what Coinbase really wants
is the ability to do USDC rewards, obviously.
But what that opens up for them is a ton of new investor money
that'll pour in and it'll increase their valuation.
So, you know, same end game,
but I think they have a bigger perspective on it is all.
Web3, though, is it to replace banking
or is it to become the banks?
Like, I'm curious.
It's to replace banking i think
that's coinbase's goal for sure and it's also to compete with decks um that are that are doing usdc
rewards and you know the sort of um different levels of competition there i don't think they're
mutually exclusive i think yeah in the future you'll you'll see most institutions will probably be a bit of both, especially in the U.S.
The banks that win will acquire institutions or partner or whatnot, make deals.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like the banks that win would be like, oh, they partnered with Hedera or they partnered with Ripple or something, and they just co-opt their tech.
Is that what you're saying?
Or Bank of America buys Hashpack for for six billion dollars and now they use
hash pack is well i hope hash pack sweeps some floors when that goes down
wow hash pack spill the beans spill the beans is that deal in the talks here? What's going on? Listen, I don't think so.
See how short he was, guys?
I think something's happening.
I think there's a deal happening. He can't talk about it.
He's like, oh, I have to go. Look at the time.
Oh, no.
Excellent rugging. Uh-oh.
He's definitely talking to Bank of America.
Look at that.
When you log into your Wells Fargo thing and there's a hashback
logo and you can hold Adara in there next
to your credit card
debt, yeah, that'll be a big
day.
Next to your high interest yield
savings of 0.25%.
I love that.
Thanks.
Shout out Wells fargo there uh
patricia i want to throw it to you i would love your thoughts on uh on this convo
hello hello i'm sorry for the delay guys but uh i had the ac company here and they took their
sweet time as usual for everything related like uh things like this um You know, I keep saying the same thing,
but I really think that banks will have to be able to earn money from this.
And then cryptocurrencies will be the best thing after cotton candy,
because as soon as they can implement a tank and have stables or crypto and they can offer those to their clients then
they will say yes crypto is amazing is regulated you can hold it you can buy it via bank and they
are going to charge people fees that are a lot higher than exchanges um to to even to have the crypto in the bank because they are going to call it, you
have to pay a lot for security.
They are keeping your crypto safe.
They will probably have a certain amount that they are going to have in charge.
Like there's right now with fiat, at least for us here in Europe, we have that.
I don't know about you guys in the States, but here in Europe,
you have up to 100,000 euros safeguard in case something happens with the bank.
So maybe they will come up with something like this for cryptocurrencies
and then people will trust it more.
And the ones that are not going to go to an exchange,
are not going to discover what an exchange even is,
are going to adopt crypto via their banks.
But again, they will have to have a mechanism to earn fees from this
because if that doesn't happen and if they don't have all the tech implemented,
maybe via partnerships, we hope.
Let's hope that banks are smart enough
to make partnerships with the current, I'm not going to say projects, but the current
products available. We are going to have to wait for this to happen, sadly.
Yeah, I mean, it's just, it makes sense to me that the banks would co-opt this tech. They wouldn't just reject it like we're seeing with obviously the stock market and New York, that they start co-opting it behind closed doors
like we've been seeing with JP Morgan and such,
and start maybe implementing their own controlled version
where they're paying out maybe a little bit more yield,
just maybe a little bit more to kind of entice customers
to come choose their bank.
But it's still like a fraction of what could be offered.
Like if you have a Coinbase account, for instance, and you're holding USDC there,
you're getting like, you know, 3.2%. And I mean, hell, SoFi has a high yield savings account of
3.2 as well, or 3.1, depends on the interest rates, of course. But I just think that you're
going to see a lot more banks maybe increase the yield that they're offering because of these competitors like SoFi and whatnot and
in Coinbase. But if this bill comes through, then it just makes me wonder what competition is going
to look like, I guess, in the future. What does competition look like in the future?
Yeah, that's a great question, William. And I just wanted to add a little bit to what you're
saying. I can see that 100% happening being that JP Morgan, I believe they issued out a statement last year, I believe it was that they are looking into launching their own stable coin, right? That will be used within the bank for instant settlement stuff. And I think that's going to make everything interesting. And I think the competition, like you mentioned, I think you're on the money with this one, William. As you mentioned, I think what's
going to drive the competition is the rewards, right? The yield. So right now, as it stands,
I think USDC has, if we compare it to the banks, and if I wanted to earn or park my money somewhere,
banks. And if I wanted to earn or park my money somewhere, I would choose USDC because of the
yield, right? So I see a scenario similar to what you mentioned. For example, if JP Morgan,
they do go ahead and launch their own stable coin, they would want Coinbase with regards to
the yield percentage. And that would drive some consumers away from Coinbase back to the banks,
back to JP Morgan.
And I think that's going to be very interesting because if bank,
let's say, for example, Bank of America decides to do the same thing,
then are they going to want up Coinbase and JP Morgan at the same time
and double the yield?
But I think that's going to be very interesting.
And it's going to put the consumer in a very interesting position to decide where to park their money.
I could see it benefiting some of the consumers, at least in the interim, until things get settled down, right, with regards to the percentage yield.
Right. So, for example, if it does become very competitive, then I think the consumer will have more options as to where to park their money.
Because as of right now, it seems like Coinbase has the upper hand.
So is the future just like a bunch of different stable coins then?
Like, is it just like JP Morgan coin, Bank of America coin, Wells Fargo coin?
Yeah, from what I'm reading, that's going to be the narrative, which is very interesting.
I was on a macro space and we were talking about this, but you got, I don't know if you guys remember, but this was like maybe two or 300
years ago where each state has their, had their own like dollar or their own currency in which
they did business in, in which they transacted in. And then at some point, all of that went away and
we all decided to use the American dollar. Right right but i think it's going to be something something similar to that right because
first we're seeing every state um has a plan to launch their own stable coin right and then we're
seeing banks having their own launching plans to launch their own stable coins right so i think
it's going to be very interesting and it's going to um it's going to, it's kind of going to resemble how things were two or 300 years ago, but this time with cryptocurrency.
Oh, God, I don't know how I feel about that, Joe.
Can you imagine?
You can't imagine that every bank, every institution, every state would build on the same technology.
So I think on a different topic, it would bring in a lot faster interoperability.
There would be the pressure there to make all of these different stablecoins interoperable for exchange and settlement.
Because right now, it's too cumbersome and there's too many steps.
So that's the next consideration.
Okay, you've got 50 different bank stablecoins.
You've got all of the market stablecoins. You've got all of the market stablecoins. You're dealing with several hundred
stablecoins that are trying to work back and forth multiple times a day. And if you have to
worry about porting tokens and swapping tokens,
and you can't have them all running on the same platform.
I think that's a major cog in the system.
I mean, all that really comes to mind for me
is just how well the treasury market's going to do
when all this comes through.
Dude, treasuries are going to be the hot commodity again.
There's going to just be so many purchasers of treasuries.
We don't have to worry about any failed auctions ever in the future, especially all these coins.
And it almost becomes an advertising point too, right?
Like you become the advertiser for these banks when you use their coins.
So like when I'm like going to a restaurant and I have Wells Fargo coin in my wallet or Bank of America coin.
And now like I walk up, I'm like, oh, do you accept Wells Fargo coin?
And they're like, it's like a credit card almost.
And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, we do.
We accept cryptocurrencies, these stable coins.
And it just kind of makes me sick to my stomach.
I don't know that we'll be using them.
I don't know if it's like on a retail thing.
I think it'll be the banks will be using it for settlement and transactions on their own.
So you may have that in your account or wallet, whatever we're going to call it 10 years from now.
But I think more as a placeholder for your fiat that'll be moving throughout the system. So you may have $25,000 in Wells Fargo token,
but if you want to spend that, it converts it to fiat for you through your transaction because
we'll be a cashless system anyway. So your fiat is what's being moved around on a retail basis, restaurants, retail stores, bills, utility companies.
But the banks will settle and do their behind the scenes transactions in their own stablecoin.
Because the goal, you know, hopefully is their stablecoin is held one to one inone in short-term treasury bonds or actual money in
the safe. But I don't think we'll transact in that many different stables.
So what you're saying, we can't do fractional reserve banking anymore? Oh my God, the banks
must be hating this. I mean, as interesting as it sounds, William, as much as we're kind of like, oh, my gosh, I hope they don't do this.
It's written in the Genius Act, right?
Stable coins backed by the state government.
All of that, the rails and all of it, it's written in the Genius Act, which makes it all very interesting.
Yeah, for sure. No, I think I lost you there. I'm not sure what happened uh can you hear me now
i can hear you now yeah yeah yeah so i don't know what you heard but i basically just said that as
as unrealistic as they may see right now how we're all like on the fence on each state or
each bank having their own table coin is actually written in the genius act or the possibility of probability or their infrastructure, the guardrails of them being able to do that.
It's written in the, in the genius act. Oh yeah, no, I definitely agree there. I definitely agree.
And I saw that as well. I mean, the genius act was a great first step. I'm excited to see what
the clarity act does here, but go, to your point, before I throw it
to Hedini here, I saw his hand up, but Joe, I was going to say, you mentioned $25,000. I had $25,000
before this $100 billion liquidation, man. Come on. What happened? I have no money now.
I am all out. I am tapped out, as they say. So we have a home improvement fund, and it is some of the fiat that we have, and we keep it in a one-year CD and roll it over at the bank, so certificate of deposit.
I think the most recent one is like 3.5%, and Stephanie asked me when I was complaining about the market. She's like, well, you know what didn't go down?
So she got a good jab.
She got a good jab in on that one.
That's debatable that it didn't go down.
That's right.
Yeah, there's no chance I'm going to try to explain that to her while she's gloating.
Well, then to your point about CDs then, Joe,
sorry to cut you off the Houdini,
but I was going to say, like,
are CDs going to be even a thing?
Like once stablecoins become more proliferated
through society, everyone's using them.
Everyone's getting these native yields.
Maybe there's some native yield there.
Maybe there's some controlled native yield there
associated with the banks.
Is there even a point to holding a CD?
That's probably just going to take the exact same structure and rename it something cool in crypto terms.
CD is pretty cool.
And then brag about their high yields, yeah.
It's CD+, guys. CD+, it's a whole new thing.
It's a whole new initiative.
Houdini, I'm going to throw it to it to you man sorry for cutting you off there no you guys were all spouting good stuff
for sure um so every bank every state every company will want to print a token right because
if you have a hundred dollars and you tokenize a hundred dollars now you have two hundred dollars
so fundamentally everybody that's going to be allowed to is going to want to going to want to
print a token for for good reason i think where we might see some friction in the integration with
banks is the insurance side of it right fdic insures your accounts dtcc insures your trades
insures your accounts, DTCC insures your trades.
I know there's talk of insurance for the tokens,
but those insurance companies are now,
they're gonna be required if whichever one of them
steps up for the new agency.
Now they're gonna have to insure twice as much money
with, I don't know, four times as much risk or volatility.
So I think that's going to be a big friction point
as we get closer to the stuff or sort of the next steps.
I know right now, the Genius Act and all that stuff,
it's great.
It's a first step.
I don't think it's greatly written or anything,
but it's a first step.
It's good that it certainly validates crypto.
I think it's an overall good thing.
Yeah, I feel like we're still in this discovery phase, right? Where we don't...
I think a lot of Web3 and a lot of CT kind of like we talked about the noise here,
where people don't understand the ramifications that enabling this technology throughout
our financial system has on other systems. Like you mentioned insurance there.
I think people rarely even think about that in terms of how much that's affected
and who gets hurt, who gets hurt, who benefits.
I think these are real conversations
that need to be had.
And I just think people are always going like,
oh, number go up, pump my bags, daddy,
you know, kind of thing.
And daddy has not pumped our
bags, so I'm just going to...
Crypto's very much
still in the inflation and distribution
stage of its life.
So, you know, until that ends,
you know, it's
going to be an up and down road.
And that's
where people, that's where the fight back is.
That's why I take the fight back from Coinbase is that, you know, they're trying to put some guardrails on that.
And exactly what you just said, Houdini, it's still in that phase.
And consumers expect that phase.
The current consumers, not maybe people that are on the outside looking in.
But yeah, that'll change. One day. One day. Let's hope. Let's hope we all wise up and get a little
smarter here, guys. I don't know. CT at least. Come on, guys. We need to shape up. Start going
after those institutional guys. Start talking with them more. Honestly, the last time I talked to anyone
from these institutions was what,
last year I went to the NASDAQ building
in Times Square with Wolf Financial.
It was an awesome experience,
but there was a client of ours launching an ETF.
And so I was talking to a bunch of people
from like Morgan Stanley,
who I had no business talking to at all.
I'm just sitting there just like, you know, looking nice in my suit.
But I had no idea what I was talking about.
And I was just talking about crypto because they had no idea.
They were just like, oh, we're here because this like ETF sounds cool and we're invited to come.
But they didn't really understand.
So I kind of like start talking about Deepin, of course.
I mentioned chains like, you know, Hedera, Avalanche, you know, Solana, of course.
And they were kind of like eyes wide open, like, oh, my goodness, like this could be huge.
This could be massive.
And I'm going to talk to a lot of my clients about this, but we can't really offer these products yet.
And that was last year, of course, before the Genius Act, before a number of things had passed,
and then before these
institutions were more and more on board so i can only imagine now going back this year if i end up
going back there or even next year and talking to those same people and seeing how far they've
progressed and how much change they've made like how much uh how much progression they've had with
their with their clientele on like maybe talking about these products because i think it's it's
going to be massively important i know we're at the top of the hour here, guys, an amazing
conversation thus far, I want to say. Listeners, if you haven't already, make sure you're following
all the speakers up here on stage. I highly recommend you do so. Check out what they're
building. Check out what they're posting. You will not be disappointed. Please, please, please do so.
And if you haven't already, if you've enjoyed the conversation, make sure you retweet the space as
it is recorded. And so you can tune in later on. I can tune in later on and other people can
tune in later on who maybe weren't able to show up today. All that being said, I'm going to throw
around the panel here for some final takes, maybe some final thoughts going into this week.
It is a little nerve wracking what's happened over the weekend. I know that my bags hurt. I'm
sure your bags hurt as well, but I feel like I'm a little nerve-wracking what's happened over the weekend. I know that my bag's hurt. I'm sure your bag's hurt as well.
But I feel like I'm a little optimistic.
I feel like I'm going to throw it to you first because you love the soundboard.
So I'm putting you on the spot here, sir.
Final takes, final thoughts, go for it.
Oh, yeah, it'll be okay.
There's still a little downside that could be realized.
But, you know, we're closer to the bottom than we were last week.
So that's good.
We're making progress.
Okay.
Concise, short, sweet.
I love that.
Thank you, Houdini.
Always love having you here.
Patricia, I want to throw it to you next.
We'd love your final thoughts,
final takes for the space today.
You know what?
I haven't checked my wallets for over a week
because if it's not going down by 25% or 30% on the daily, I don't care.
I'm numbed. It's not my first bear. It's not my first bull. And I know that we keep saying this
for the last 10 years that we are still early, but it's true. We are still early. So this is
something that people still have time to jump jump on board and uh there's still
uh profits to be made before the banks jump on board things start uh to be a bit more expensive
for um retail users so um there are still opportunities out there still opportunities
and honestly i think i'm gonna keep saying we're still early even when i'm like 95 years old in a
wheelchair and like we're still early and my when I'm like 95 years old in a wheelchair. And I'm like, we're still early.
And my grandkids are like, Grandpa, stop saying that.
Like, you keep saying we're still early.
And I'm like, no, no, it's true.
Like, we're still early.
And I'll be like the last thing I say when I die, maybe.
I don't know.
But, uh, Trisha, thank you so much.
We're still early.
I definitely agree.
Hashtag, I want to throw it to you.
Then we'll go to Joe.
And then Nat will close us out here.
So, Hashtag, go for it.
Uh-oh, I cannot hear them.
Oh, no.
Twitter!
What have you done to us?
Well, Hashback, I'm sure you have incredible things to say there.
I'm so sorry.
X is rugging you.
I'm assuming it has something to do with wishing us well
and staying optimistic and bullish
throughout all this turmoil.
So I just want to say thank you for being here.
Excited to have you back on next week.
Joe, let's go to you, then we'll go to Nat.
Yeah, since Web3 has decided that gambling laws be damned
and prediction markets are just fine,
I'd like to see a prediction on if Wednesday Donald Trump mentions Ripple, XRP, Hedera, or HBAR.
I think that would be a good one if somebody can run that and let me know.
I'm actually going to request that on Calci today.
I'm going to type in and be like like hey will he mention any any of these three
these three things these three tokens and uh or chains if you will and go from there but i i do
like the uh i do like that a lot joe i like the idea thank you so much man always love having you
here now i'm gonna throw it to you what you got for us all right i love the take so far uh more
downside equals more buying opportunities in the the meantime, let's keep our
eyes on commodities. We have silver continuing to rip to the upside and natural gas has been
moving today and oil seems to be signaling something. So it's going to be a very interesting
time. But Hedera is at the forefront of all of it. And as I mentioned before, I feel like this
year, everyone's going to know what we've been talking about for such a long time because all roads lead to Hedera.
Thanks for having me, William.
All roads lead to Hedera.
I love it.
And yeah, definitely pay attention to commodities, guys.
Natural gas, I think last time I checked, was up like 20% today.
I'm actually buying a ton of copper right now.
I think copper has a way upside for sure with all the tech that we're implementing we're going to need all
of that um so i think commodities are a huge opportunity definitely look into that maybe
it's tokenized commodities maybe it's just an index fund whatever however you can buy them
go for it i'm not saying you know buy commodities it's not financial advice of course guys you can't
be saying financial advice here but i i do love holding at least some commodities including some
bitcoin of course uh but really appreciate you guys being here. We do this every Monday,
12 p.m. Eastern, another Hedera Roundtable next week. We'll actually be live from the
front lines of Greenland, if we're lucky enough. I had to crack that joke. Maybe I'll be up there
shouting out media pass, media vests going on,
talking all things crypto in the icy battlefields.
We'll see.
All jokes aside, really appreciate everyone being here.
Really appreciate all the speakers and their time.
Yeah, really excited, guys.
Really excited for the future.
I know our bags are down bad, but we've talked about, just as Nat said,
opportunity, lots of opportunity, guys.
Lots of opportunity.
Keep researching.
Do your own research.
Keep your eyes open for that next play.
Could be Hedera.
Could be something else.
Who knows?
We'll see.
But, guys, thank you so much.
We'll be back again next week.
Like I said, 12 p.m. Eastern.
Be on the lookout for that post.
But until then, enjoy your week.
Catch you guys later.
Insights
Project L
The New York Stock Exchange announced the launch of a 24-7 US stock trading platform through a new on-chain tokenized exchange, marking a significant innovation in traditional finance.
We had the NYSE, that's the New York Stock Exchange,
apparently announced they're launching 24-7 US stock trading
through a new on-chain tokenized exchange.
P
Over the weekend, a staggering $100 billion was wiped out from the crypto market, indicating a significant decline in market value and investor confidence.
My goodness, it's going to be a very fun one today, I feel like.
We had a lot of crazy news over the weekend that's resulted in $100 billion being wiped
out from the crypto market in the past 12 hours.
Hedera is making strategic moves at the World Economic Forum, sharing a stage with major players like MasterCard, indicating strong partnerships and industry recognition.
even know. I'm losing track of time here. But Hedera's making a lot of moves, man. I'm seeing a lot
happen. And to the point of this New York Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange launching
this 24-7 US stock trading, I'm not sure what chain they're using or what kind of architecture
The NYSE's new platform aims for near-instantaneous settlement, which could open up new yield opportunities for investors through stablecoins and other digital assets.
They want near instantaneous settlement, T plus zero.
I know we've talked about that before on here, where traditional trading, traditional markets,
financial markets, you have like T plus one and T plus two, which is trade plus one, trade
Hedera and Ripple are co-sponsoring events at the World Economic Forum, showcasing their collaboration and shared vision for the future of digital assets.
Web3 and their
Ripple and Hedera, which is great because they're in there with Microsoft and MasterCard and some other huge ones all week.
So I think it's kind of a mini, like, I want to say trade show, but nicer.
The discussion highlights a trend where institutions are increasingly looking to adopt blockchain technology, with Hedera and Ripple positioned as key players in this shift.
hedera's in the market saying we'll give you this so And I'm sure it's a decision from the platform, not only based on the money, but it's the tech and the money.
But it's a complicated dynamic.
And then whatever chain gets it, it's a long-term play, right?
The conversation reflects a growing concern about the regulatory landscape for stablecoins, with implications for competition among banks and crypto platforms.
to these stablecoin alternatives and get paid native yield. So I would love everyone's thoughts
on that. What do we think about the Clarity Act, I suppose, in its current iteration? Are we for it?
Are we against it? Do we see any issues with it? And by all means's welcome to you know go up here i'll throw it to hat
Despite recent market declines, there is a sense of optimism among crypto enthusiasts about future growth opportunities, particularly with the ongoing developments in blockchain technology.
But I feel like I'm a little optimistic.
I feel like I'm going to throw it to you first because you love the soundboard.
So I'm putting you on the spot here, sir.
