GM, GM, thank you for joining us here this morning. We're gonna start this show here in just a few minutes. We'll give it a few for folks to filter in. Get our speakers up on stage while we wait. Here are some tunes.
(upbeat music) (upbeat music)
Good morning and welcome to the Lucky Lead. Today is Tuesday, May 2nd. Wow, what a day.
yesterday was likely one of the most important days of the year so far in the NFT market. We got a bombshell from Blair blend is here. It is a game changer. I can't wait to break it down with all of you here on the show today. I do see some friendly faces out there.
Alex, Julian, Hunter, Faded, thanks for joining us. As a reminder for any new listeners out there, we run this show every weekday Monday to Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern. It's a 30 minute show covering all the major news and crypto, web three, and entities. The show was meant for those interested in discovering the space, those actively buying and selling in the crypto and
markets. And those here just doing research. I'm your host Tyler D. I am joined today by my amazing co-host and we have a full house today. We've got Emily loves crypto, a web-free security expert and co-founder of the foolproof app. We've got Logan Hitchcock, editor-in-chief over at Lucky Trader, rep in the LT account. We've got Ghost,
Content star over at Lucky Trader Deep in the So Rare Streets, quietly a whale NFT trader deep in Pepe as well. And then today we've got two special guests. First we've got Peter Jennings, Lucky Trader co-founder, founder of several companies, including successful sales of two. He is our resident macro expert, Peter. Good morning. How you doing?
Jim guys doing well and excited that to have with you guys we got a great crew and a bunch of interesting stuff going on. Stoked and with us to join in and we've also got D's today.
director of bives for tesera and Esher at one point again was directing bives from the entire NFT space. We're definitely excited to have him back here as well. D's GM, how you doing?
GM GM how are you? I'm great. I spent most of my day way too much time yesterday diving into this blend announcement I still don't have a full handle on it. Are you blending? Are you just using the blender throw all the NFTs in there and seeing how much you can get out? Oh, I did I am an
I'm a detective user of by now pay later. So I do have a story to tell on that note later in the show. Well, I want to get right into it. Today is macro Tuesday. So we are going to start with a bit of macro with Peter talk a little bit on the banking
this in a big week ahead. And then the majority of the show will then be everything blur blend by now pay later. We'll touch a little bit of Pepe, some Sotheby's news plus all the headlines before we jump in ghost any housekeeping items for today.
Yeah, as always, if you enjoy these show, it's Tyler does a great recap of the NFT market every morning in the morning minute newsletter. So subscribe to that if you haven't already. We've got that pin to the top. And then a shameless plug for our new AI product there, AI Authority. It's the same great team from Lucky Trader covering all the recent developments in AI. So we've got that account.
up into the top as well. Give that a follow if you are interested in the AI space. Awesome. Go so thank you for that. All right. Well, let's start out with our first topic and in a little bit of macro here. So I think that there's a couple pieces of news. One, we've got JP Morgan taking over first republished
like banks assets. I want to start there and then maybe we'll take a quick look at the big week ahead. So regarding the takeover, I thought there was an interesting thread from Arthur Hayes. If we can get that pinned in the space. He's basically talking about how this deal means that the U.S.
have decided to nationalize the US banking system. Basically because the government has guaranteed their entire deposit base, they will not be allowed to fail regardless of what decisions they make, socialize losses, privatize gains. But then when called upon these
He's calling the eight too big to fail banks. They must absorb their shitty cousins who couldn't handle this this market and The the practical children's equity homes were get a zero first but the depositors will find a new home in a safe too big to fail Bank so that's the beginning of the threat
I will let folks read on on their own. He does get into where he is potentially looking to make some plays potentially shorts and banks outside of that too big to fail rail and we have large commercial real estate exposure and he's talking about putting some decent puts.
here in the near short term on those. So Peter, maybe I'll tee it up for you. This feels like one of the bigger headlines here this week. Any thoughts from your perspective on the banking takeover or anything Arthur had to say in his nationalization thread?
Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting thread and kind of spot on what's happening. We talked a lot about it before, but basically there are costs and there can be these ripple effects of rising interest rates. And really that's what we're seeing across the banking industry.
A lot of regional banks are in trouble. A lot of them hold loans on commercial real estate, which is another shoot a drop here at some point in time. A lot of these banks just lost the positives. They hold long duration lower yielding assets under water.
What ends up happening is consolidation and there's certainly a government aspect to this as well, which is what we're seeing. And yeah, it really benefits the big banks and JPMorgan's probably positioned the best of all the big banks. So I don't love where it's going.
I think it was right to raise interest rates. I just think the Fed acted really slowly, which put them in a position where they had to raise rates really fast and there's consequences for that. So yeah, there's more to happen here. And I think that the big story overall is that from a business perspective,
these big banks really got a benefit and if you look at JPMorgan stock, it's done quite well recently and I think a lot of that has to do with these regional banks being in trouble. And I think we'll see more and more regional banks have issues potentially given specifically around commercial real estate. Yeah, I mean, if you're
If you're in one of these non-too-bait-to-fail banks, we're, I feel like we're reaching a tipping point of, you know, why are you still banking there versus going to one of the bigger players? And it feels like we'll to see more, you know, more people fleeing for the more safe havens here. You mentioned the interest rates. So it is
is a big week ahead, right? So tomorrow we have the next FOMC rate decision. It looks like estimates are calling for 25 BPS hike. And then we've got the ECB rate decision coming on Thursday along with the non farm payroll
role numbers coming out on Friday. So any thoughts to share there, Peter, expecting that the 25% high or 0.25% hike in any reactions the market might have. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what we're expecting. I think I'll
Australian numbers just came in there and the inflation data was a little hotter. I believe they raised rates again as well. So I actually need to look back into that. But yeah, this is just kind of what I think the Fed is really trying to fight inflation more than anything else. And to me, the interesting thing to watch here is it
we get into a stack-flation situation, which the odds of that keep going up in my mind. So I just, I don't, I think it's going to be tougher for inflation to really go down. There's certainly some big deflationary courses like AI that could be really helpful, but broadly just with how much money still out there.
where employment is and there's just so many things that are inflationary forces that are concerning. So I think the Fed is just fighting that more than anything else and the tools they have is to raise rates and there's definitely consequences there. So I'm accepting 25 basis points, that's what the market
saying and we'll see how hawkish they are tomorrow. You know given that and you're expecting stackflation to come I'm curious are you making any macro plays right now or mostly just kind of holding in cash if you don't mind sharing an indeed I might to you up for the same question as well here in a minute.
Peter's. It's really hard to plan. I'm just bringing it back for crypto and not financial advice. But I think the story is getting more and more compelling every day for Bitcoin. I think there's really, really cool use cases for other crypto assets. But as I think the world needs a store of value, given what we've seen with
just the crazy printing and spending by central banks around the world and then trying to cool off inflation and just all the different stuff that is happening with central banks. It just makes the story for somebody more compelling and a true story of value. So yeah, I think Abaddi is really interesting. I think Bitcoin is really interesting.
And yeah, just trying to think about how to protect our family and then do what you can. It's definitely a concerning time. And we'll see. There are some really big outs. I mean, I'm really, really excited about how deflationary AI can be. We're seeing so many things. Chug I saw today.
45% that's a company that helps kids with studying and all these things and they say they're massively disrupted by chat GPT. And I think we'll see a lot more destruction for white collar jobs and industries that ultimately is deflationary. So we need innovation and new things and that can be a really good force in economy.
a lot of the other indicators are leading towards the stagnation, which is really troubling for the economy. I really appreciate your opinion there. Certainly, I think I'm with you that there will be some deflationary forces and agree that Bitcoin could very well be one of the primary winners of this economy we're in. Deez, I'm curious, from your
take maybe looking at crypto. I feel like in some of our conversations, it seems like you might be looking to stack, you know, ether crypto at this point. So anything to share from kind of your current mindset. Yeah, similar to Peter, I moved money around. So I didn't have more than 250K and any one bank account just because I was super paranoid about the FDIC shit. And
And if something were to happen and me not being covered other than that, I do think it just makes me want to own more Bitcoin and ETH than trying to get as much ETH as I can from some NFTs and throw it into LIDO and some other shit. But yeah, I mean, nothing, nothing groundbreaking from me. I mean, I'm just trying to make sure that I'm also
safe and not blowing up by having too many eggs in one basket. Got it. Well, that makes a lot of sense as well. Well, Peter, these appreciate both of your thoughts on macro Tuesday. I think we can go ahead and move on to our second main topic for today's show. And that's the bombshell announcement.
out of blur and launching blend and their new by now pay later program so I'll do a quick overview and then we'll get into some questions for the speakers. So I mean it might be in blur shocked most of the nt world of monday with this major announcement folks like me were expecting new features like trait bidding or maybe the addition of art blocks or ad
to their platform. No, they went in entirely different route with lending. They launched a new peer-to-peer perpetual lending protocol named Blend. The goal from reading their documents is to unlock more liquidity for NFTs and then ultimately create the next version of NFT Native financial
primitives to bring the NFT market closer to broader financial markets. So certainly applaud that goal. There are two components of this launch from my perspective. One, a pure lending against NFTs program that we have seen before with some new elements and then a brand new never
before seen by now pay later, which we call BNPL, which combines elements of lending and leverage, kind of functions like an options market. So I'll quickly walk through how each of these works. So on the more of the pure blend lending side, so individuals create loan beds and then
the NFT collateral, the two sides of this, that's what makes it peer-to-peer. The loans don't have liquidation prices or expirations. That's what makes them perpetual. The loans have fixed rates, borrowers can pay back at any time, lenders can also call the loans due at any time, which creates a
option to find a new lender and then if no new lender comes in within a 30 hour period, the NFT is then liquidated. So that's how the liquidations happen. There are zero fees for borrowers and lenders in this program and then a lot of the formula behind the protocol fees, the max interest rate in auctions are managed
by Blair and we'll go to the governance team after 180 days. So we have seen mechanics like these on platforms like NFT, FI and Bendow, but never altogether like this. And it feels like that the Dutch auction feature, if the initial lender chooses to opt out alone, it is one of the true
differentiators. I want to cover by now pay later as well. This is the bigger wild card. So effectively, interested buyers can now buy NFTs with like a 10% down payment. So at launch yesterday, three collections went live, Punks, which you could buy for $8,000 against $50,000 for
So how this works is using a zookey as an example, and user chooses a zookey off the floor chooses by now, they can toggle the down payment which adjusts the interest rate on a sliding scale. So the more printed
the lower the interest rate you have to pay. The user effectively buys, be a zookeeper, let's say, to ETH being connected with a loan in the Bler lending pool for the remainder to cover the price. That buyer who used buy now pay litter has limited control over the AT. They can list it for sale on Bler. That's pretty much
They can't move the NFT and they can't listen on other marketplaces. They're racking up daily interest fees while they're holding it. Again, the buyer can sell the NFT or accept a collection bit at any time and the lender can also call the loan at any time. The loan is effectively only closed if the buyer sells the NFT.
or if the lender calls it without it being picked up by the lending pool. So that's a lot, there's more that we can walk through here. It's a lot to digest. I spent hours yesterday combing through the information, trying to get a handle on this. I'll tee up some of our speakers here. Maybe just first general,
reactions or thoughts on the launch, maybe if this will be a net positive or a net negative for the space, go maybe I'll tell you at first. Yeah, I thought it was really really interesting and it's I don't know if anyone was expecting that, but it's interesting to see blur continue to move into different markets of the NFT space. And now
kind of competing with Ben Dow and some of the other lending mechanisms there. I thought it was a really interesting launch and I think it's a positive for the space to have as many advanced financial tools as possible. I do think that there's going to be a lot of people in this space that aren't advanced enough or don't understand the
And I think they're just going to jump in and not really know how to use it and then get wrecked by someone like OSF or Mando who might be experienced in like the
some negative fallout from folks who are just digiting in and aren't running the right numbers or gambling with too high a risk. But the concept is pushing the space forward in my opinion and unlocking more tools, more things you can do with the assets. And I'd love to get your thoughts on the launch if you were surprised.
and maybe, you know, net positive and negative. Um, so I, I must appreciate any company that's providing DAPs for the JPEGs that we do have because very few people actually are at this point and that's what gives them value. What I think is really
I don't know volatile about what they've introduced into the market is that they're creating a protocol that lets you buy something on margin or loan someone else based on the price of
one of these assets, but the price of the collateral is so volatile that it means that the terms of the loans become uncertain and the reason they're volatile has a lot to do with the way the blur platform works itself.
So it's like, it just creates such a crazy amount of unpredictability. It's clearly meant for short term. I couldn't imagine using it in any sort of long term capacity because your loan would just keep getting rebot. It reminds me a lot of what goes on in mortgages and
in general. Like the technology is as soon as the technology exists that exists, that's at the end. There's nothing you can really do about it. And I don't know. It's just like, it's really crazy to me just how fast a market
to move when you attach the financial mechanism with the asset itself, like those things are using the same rails and combined in this case, or they as they have been with NFTs. So, you know, I think there's going to be a lot of price discovery that goes on and there's going to be a lot of kind of
to our activity that goes on and we're going to see some really interesting effects but I do not want to be an NFT buyer right now at all. Interesting and I think I agree with certain components of your thoughts for sure. Okay, we, hey, it's definitely moving fast and the market has already shown that
in these first three collections. And I'll get into that here in a minute with some of the price action. And definitely this is ripe for manipulation. Wales can have a much larger impact on these markets now than they could before. Deez or Peter, I'm curious, maybe Deez, I'll go to you first. I'm curious as, as a
punk holder have you thought seriously about using the new lending protocol for your punks or just kind of thoughts on how this might impact the punks market. I mean, we've already seen it jump from 50 to 55E basically overnight. So I'm curious for your thoughts on it. Yeah, sadly.
I don't have any four punks and that makes trying to get alone very hard. That being said, I would use this as exit liquidity if I wanted to get rid of four punks. If I can get a good loan and just not pay it back at zero TV, and just do that. But yeah, I mean, I'm not using my
This is current state is more geared towards floor assets, most likely floor PFPs, which is in general where blur has focused so far. This program is not really ready. I think for larger rollout to like art blocks or art entities, I think there are other lending platforms.
right now that make more sense for those types of assets. But I'm curious, I'll tell you that. Has anyone used the program yet? Goes, maybe I'll put you on the spot. Have you looked at making any loans or maybe making any BNPL purchases yet? I have not yet. I don't feel like I fully understand it.
waiting for the smarter people to really jump in and give a blueprint. But I've always kind of stayed away from the lending. I like to play in markets that I understand and I don't have a full grasp of it. So it scares me a little bit. I know that you did it with a New Zuki yesterday. I saw it. So I'm interested to hear your perspective on it. But I have not jumped in yet. Sure. So I
I can report I am now officially closed my by now pay later trade so this came out about an hour in maybe two hours in I've been diving through the program was launching commentary to buddies left and right decided best way to learn it would just to be to to a pen so
I bought in a zuki off the floor for 15.9 I paid 2.2 ETH to make that purchase I actually toggled up I could have gotten it for last I think I could have gotten it for like 1.6 or 1.8 I toggled up until my interest rate dropped to like 0.2% the floor
If you pay the minimum, you're typically paying 3%. I didn't want to crew that because I wanted the option to hold it longer term. As more chatter came out through the day, I started getting a little bit more nervous about holding the asset for too long. I have to admit, just given the volatility. I listed the thing for $60,000.
16.9, it sold overnight. There was some big action overnight that floor basically ran from 15.9 to 17. Mine sold. So after fees, effectively made like 0.9, ETH on 2.2 principal put up. So about a 40% scalp there.
was fun for sure it was exhilarating and I might do it again. I'm definitely actively monitoring this. This is Zuki Market primarily. I think we're going to pull back a bit this morning. But if it pulls back closer to that 16 level, I might run this
book back out. So that was my experience. Feel free to see up any questions for me, but I think that the conversations I'm having folks are already starting to look at, okay, what's next? What other collections are going to be included in this program and trying
to front run that because expectations are maybe the public is no it's right but the public thought is whenever the next collections are announced to be a part of the by now pay later they're going to pop 10 to 15 percent. So if you can get ahead of that you know you can maybe front run that trade. So the
The better is if you go to the points tab of the blur homepage, it's got a list. And the top three of the list are punks of Zuki and the lady. And then it goes D. God's Beans, the Kindle Club dogs, Fort A. P. Yacht Club, Clonac, Stoodles, Mibits, Moonbirds, mutants.
other deeds in Pudgy Ping-Wins. So some folks are thinking maybe that's just the pipeline right there. I think we've already started to see some market action in those collections. D-gods up 6% to 8.4, beans up 7%, but that all
could be tied to the to the azookie action. So that's what that's what I'm watching. You know, I'm curious for thoughts maybe on where the market goes from here. The board is green this morning. Do you think we can continue in the green? Are you eyeing any plays yourself, Ghost? Maybe I'll tell you up to this one.
I mean, it's really hard to say where we go. I think that I agree with you. I think there's going to be a short term pullback after we saw some green and the market kind of reconfigures to the new mechanics here. I haven't really been making any plays. I obviously got into Pepe and I've been doing that a little bit.
But if we do see a start of sustained run and NFTs here and see people rotating back in, it might be time to start buying again. And I know you're supposed to buy the lows and then sell the highs. But I do want to see a little bit of momentum more than just probably a 24 hour stretch here before I start getting excited and buying back into a lot of the projects here.
Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. I think the other question in the market is around these, the midtears. And are some of those lower, you know, three-eath floor PFPs in trouble? Because if you could buy a Zuki for two to three-eath, why would you buy a moonbird?
So I've seen a decent amount of chatter around that So that that's the the blur and blend overview. I'm sure we will cover it more on the show later this week I want to make sure we get to a couple other topics before we close out for today before we do that and
Let's read the news. Today is Top Headlines powered by Lucky Trader. Trading volume jumped 30% to 16.5,000 a month after the launch of Blend with volume on the top movers up considerably. Most NFTs in the green 5 to 15%.
has launched its own curated secondary marketplace with 2.5% fees, enforced royalties, and aggregated one of ones across other marketplaces. Jack Butcher has launched the Opt-in for Opeppin Pax 01, 01, and 002 on Monday, both of which were significantly
over subscribed, meaning they will in fact launch. The Phantom Wall released multi-chain support on Monday covering ETH, Polygon, and Solana, allowing users to keep just one wallet to cover all three of those ecosystems. OpenC Pro announced some new updates for its platform mostly tied to the handling of ERC
1155 Anatize, one of its primary edges overblur at current time. Artifact announced its season 1 apparel has started to ship along with the unhubbing for its crypto kicks which will take place later this month. Azerbaijanla shared news on its plans for a relaunch including a point system separation of jigs.
and Azerbaijan, IP and more lore. And then Alexis Ohanian rocked Koda cufflinks at the Met Gala last night along with a Gucci suit. So a little bit of a yoga shout out there around went three and crypto crypto was down Monday Bitcoin down 2% at 28,000 8 down 1% at 18 30.
Pepe soared overnight to I think a $600 million market cap after being memorialized by people in his latest every day before settling around 500 million market cap this morning. And then tiny tap a Web 3 edtech platform raised 8.5 million to accelerate expansion into the Web 3 education system.
So a fairly lengthy list of news headlines from yesterday goes. I'm curious anything that caught your eye.
It's a bit ripe for disruption there. Interest to see a phantom can really take over market share and introduce some nice things there. That's such a great analogy. My men-a-mask usability lately has been absolutely terrible. It crashes all the time. It's incredibly slow and I'm ready
for a new option and man like Phantom seems to be making some significant progress so shout out to them. I also want to T up D's I wanted to hear about the Sam Spratt sale for the the Skull there I saw a major purchase there so curious to hear your thoughts on that move there.
Yeah, it's kind of a no brainer. I'm sitting here watching food right after a dab a couple hours. I mean, I'm watching TV eating food, not watching food. Sorry, that'd be weird if I was watching food. But I'm basically sitting here, get a call from Redbeard. I just sold this ringer that I was looking to sell for a while. And I've been looking at skulls
for a few months. And I could never find one I like. So when Robert called me and showed me this one on the floor, I just ran my computer and bought it. It's a one out of 50. It should probably be worth more than a hoodie punk in my opinion. I'm going to try to sell a couple of punks to make up for the liquidity. But yeah, kind of a no brainer. If you spend time with Sam,
I'm a Sprat, RRL, any amount of time you'll realize the value, if not, you might not understand it from Twitter and that's cool. But yeah, it was kind of a no-brainer to me. And when I got the opportunity, I just ran my computer and market bought it. So it's so interesting that you say that and you did this. So when I wrote up my consensus
take aways from last week. One of my primary takeaways was the cult following that Sam Spratt is building right now and agree. If you spend any time in the room with him, it feels pretty obvious. And it seems like he is absolutely one of the biggest kind of
coming stars in the digital arts base. I'm curious. Did you go to the, were you at that Skoles event, the dinner in New York City? No, I didn't own a Skoles for that. Okay, so that was just Skoles owners for that. That was Skoles only. But I did get this spend a good amount of time with Sam outside of that event while it
New York City. So that maybe help I don't think a whole lot of people know about this goals collection. You maybe give a quick rundown. It's kind of like that they are one of ones, but as you mentioned there are 50 of them. They're all unique. It's kind of like that the PFP for for Sam's world. How would you describe it?
Yes, these were basically gifts to the people who bid on his first super rare piece. So it was his way of showing love to his early supporters. And I think there are a couple that didn't go to bidders but went to like good friends in his ecosystem so he could get a clean number
50 but they're just basically gifts. They remind me a lot of punks in the sense that they were free. Just give it out to people for free with no promise or anything and he's building something bigger with them. So yeah, I mean at the end of the day they are free 50 gifts that people have
decided to hold or sell along the journey and they were coming from his first super rare 101. So if you just bid on that 101, you ended up with one of these skulls. Amazing. And it seems like he is actively building a world with his art at this point.
So definitely one to look out for out of my price range right now. I'm going to have to do about 50 a Zuki B and PL flips to even get close to the range from one of these goals. But maybe a nice goal for the year. Well, appreciate your thoughts on that. Deez, maybe last thoughts, maybe just
quick reactions to the Sotheby's marketplace news. It sounds like, and this was a bit of a surprise, and I feel like Sotheby's has had kind of mixed reactions from the digital art crowd, in some ways tied to their fees. I'm curious if you have any thoughts for their new marketplace.
Yeah, I just pinned the skulls threat that Sam wrote. Sam's just a super eloquent thoughtful person. So if you're interested in skulls, go to that pin. And so the views marketplace definitely cares so much volume they get. It looks like they're doing like a rotating cast of characters for the secondary marketplace and they're taking a
a 2.5% platform fee on top of it. So really maybe just trying to compete with OpenC but having a way more curated platform with some of the higher end stuff. I'm just going to be paying attention to see if any new buyers come in. Like if it's just fucking NFT buyers buying on South of these, it's a nothing burger like how it normally
But if some any any new traditional collector with money comes in and values anything advise it like that's a good good sign, but I'm pessimistic that it's going to be mostly just NFT collectors looking at another platform for potential deals or arbitrage and it's not going to be high volume or
massively adopted by any of their traditional buyers. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That is the metric to watch here. If we can get some new blood in the game, who might be Southern Bees native from the traditional art world, but not digital art. So that'll be one to watch.
Well, we are running out of time. I think we covered everything on the list today. I'm sure we will hit more blurb lead as this week goes on before we close the show. What's dropping today? We've got steady stack legends coming at 12 PM Eastern focus block at 12 30.
and then Leera coming at some point later today. Definitely another slower day of new drops. Expect full attention on a new blurb blend protocol and those three collections available for the by now pay later along with some new speculation on what might be next.
So that is where I'm expecting the volume in demand today. All right, folks, that is it. That's our show. We'll be back tomorrow at 2D in Eastern. Thanks to our listeners for tuning in. Thanks to my co-host, thanks to D's, Peter for jumping on. Everyone, enjoy your Tuesday. Let's make it a great day.