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Market Cap ep.03 -- BTC 80K, HL Whale Hunt, Aave Horizon, Ethena Convergence
Recorded: March 20, 2025 Duration: 1:26:25Space Recording
Short Summary
In a week filled with pivotal developments, the crypto landscape is witnessing strategic partnerships, project launches, and a bullish sentiment surrounding established assets like BNB and XRP. Aave's new initiative and the Converge launch signal a growing trend towards institutional engagement in DeFi, while the Digital Asset Summit highlights the industry's commitment to bridging traditional finance with blockchain technology.
Full Transcription
I'm looking at Trump's face.
What a mugshot.
That's a good, yeah, that's actually a good.
I think you're actually hard pressed to find an intimidating pic like that from a press.
Yeah, Dam's wish that was his mugshot, right?
The Dam's wish that was his mugshot.? The damn push that was his mug chat.
That's actually crazy. Yeah so I guess I'll be speaking at another conference
you know the guys at BlockWorks. Yeah they have some good events and
now yeah this is like obviously it doesn't get bigger than the US
president so
Yeah, I think this one I
Was about to say I went a little under the radar, but no it didn't
Yeah, well, I was like so
Last minute to like it wasn't yeah ahead of time. I think they just announced it yesterday. So
You know, obviously it was a surprise
damn obviously They just announced it yesterday. So, you know, obviously. It was a surprise. Damn.
Obviously, you know, always, I think overall,
obviously like all of this stuff is bullish,
but you know, like we were talking about
a couple of minutes ago, it's funny how like,
you see a little bit of a dip in the markets
just because I think so many people have bet on
like what this man has said in the past,
that, you know, everyone's kind of,
I think they're
pricing in that the announcement's probably nothing yeah yeah they I think
block works learn like there's never anything good that comes from pre
announcements with Trump yeah like it's always like I let that so they I think
they pull a good move here. Yeah, agreed.
Yep.
Agreed, PR person over at BlackWorks,
you get an A plus for today.
So great job.
Yeah, for sure.
GG's on them.
Like good job on them begging this one.
And the coverage of the crypto White House summit,
like two weeks ago, that was a good move as well.
Yeah, I mean, I think the like, to be fair, like the digital asset summit, there's been a couple big announcements coming out of there, right? Like with I know, we're gonna talk about like the Athena thing here.
and I think they had a panel and some events surrounding it as well.
So a couple of big announcements coming out of the Digital Asset Summit.
Yeah, I know they have a sailor there too. I just saw a pic of my sailor.
the Oh shit, Zach, Zach XBT confirmed it, right?
Looking kind of short. Apparently he's short. I didn't know that until recently.
We're just spreading spudge right now at this point.
All right, cool guys. We can start the show proper, I think.
Just a fun way to start it off.
So yeah, guys, welcome back to the show. Welcome back, like speaking, welcome back to the show.
Welcome back, like speaking, welcome back to the audience.
If you've been here before, maybe it's your first time.
So yeah, we had a layer of research decided to do a new show.
It's Market Cap. This is episode number three already.
It goes quick.
And yeah, what we do is just cover market movements,
recent events, trending narratives,
and especially try to make sense of it a little bit,
if we can at all, if that's possible.
So yeah, what to expect.
We're doing this weekly show.
We're doing it with members from our team,
and we'll have on guests from time to time as well.
We're live on X, we're live on YouTube,
and we'll post it later on YouTube as well.
So with us, we have Daniel, who's our lead researcher,
and we got Kirk, who's our director of protocol services.
And I'm Stefano, director of institutional services
and your host and moderator.
So we're going to kick off the show, but before that, I want to give a quick shout out to
a partner of ours and ourselves a little bit as well, basically.
In two weeks from now, we'll have Southeast Asia Blockchain Week here in Bangkok.
I'll be present.
So a lay of research will be present.
We'll be moderating a panel on Texas versus DEXs and what the latest is with that.
If anyone's joining or attending, feel free to reach out, shoot us a message and catch us at the event.
So yeah, that's it for the household, for the housekeeping. So yeah,
this is Market Cap episode number three. Let's kick it off.
Number three, let's kick it off.
Guys, we always cover state of the market first.
I'll go ahead and pull up the graph.
But yeah, feel free to start spilling the beans.
Real quick, real quick, one more housekeeping item.
I just wanna say, March Madness starts today, Stefano.
So I know people here for crypto
But I hope you're watching some basketball today
Shout out to
Nation
Let's go. We're probably gonna lose some followers because of this because I know everybody likes the like the tank on Duke, but uh
Nonetheless, let's go, baby. I'm pumped. All right
All right.
No, you know, what's interesting is I got multiple.
I don't even watch.
Or yeah, yeah, I used to watch a lot of basketball, but I never watched college basketball.
But I got like multiple this year.
I got multiple like notifications from random apps about March man.
There's like Robin Hood.
Yeah, they have.
Yeah, yeah have yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, exactly Twitter They have their own bracket thing on X like so I don't know what it is about this year that made all these apps
Yeah, we might to this but yeah
Yeah, honestly, honestly, let's let's before we get into this. Let's talk about that for a minute. So it's funny
I think it's like the Polymarket effect, right?
We just saw Robinhood announce like their,
you know, their prediction market.
I can't remember who they partnered with.
Kalshi.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shout out to them, by the way,
that's obviously a big integration for them.
Big unlock for Robinhood users.
But anyway, yeah, I think that's what you're seeing, right?
Is like, you know, so many people are trying to get into that space and there's a lot of
competition surrounding like prediction markets and gambling, et cetera.
So yeah, I think you're seeing like the NCAA finally starting to lean into that as well.
Which is, you know, we've come a long way.
I'll just say that.
Sports is the sport. which is, you know, we've come a long way, I'll just say that. No, basketball has actually like, it's been holding up a significant amount of polymarkets
and volume.
Like they haven't crashed actually, they've obviously gone down after the election.
But yeah, their sports betting is actually like really, they put a lot of effort like
acquiring some like accounts on social media to like basically plug Polymarket
as like a sports betting app. So yeah, I think they have like a handle on how to play it.
I am shocked actually that Robinhood did not, like I wonder why polymarket didn't get that I mean, I got it like there's two DJ like like their founder
Like his door knocked in from the FBI
New York, but yeah, I guess it's like how she is
Kelsi what was like they weren't even allowed to they were like a legal until like several months ago, right? They got approved right before the election. So Kalshi, it's like
a zero to, yeah. They played like the regulatory game, like waiting for all the approvals,
you know, kind of like Coinbase, right? And cracking that approach. And yeah, I mean,
we'll see how much, how much volumes they can pull from this.
I'm sure I'm sure it will be massive if I had to bet. So yeah, I guess shout out to
the couch, man. Maybe maybe a candidate for a winner of the week.
That's not bad. Oh, shit.
I don't want to spoil it. I don't want to spoil it. Anyway, all right, let's talk.
Let's talk more.
No, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, look, I'm European. So like, college basketball
is not, you know, we don't even know like who are who are the teams, teams and stuff
like that. But what I did know is that actually like college basketball is is a huge market for sports bettors because there's way more
edge to be hit, things like that.
So I think it's very interesting to see this current development right now, where we see
on-chain betting and college basketball sort of converging together.
Yeah.
There are some exotic markets that have propped up too.
I was looking at SX Network, SX Bet the other day, who's another betting app.
And I think they had sailing competitions, like sailing races on there now.
You can bet on sailing races.
Yeah.
So come on.
Sailing.
I mean, that's the only way for it to be interesting.
That's the only way for it to be fun to watch.
Yeah, yeah, underrated move.
I might have to get into it now.
I mean, it's a move with everything.
Well, it's an accident.
Look, man, pretty soon you're going to have equestrian competitions on there.
You're going to have best in show, like dog shows on there.
I mean, horse racing is already like a betting market, but a question.
Okay.
It doesn't listen to question.
I mean, and don't forget the original crypto prediction market, right?
The hamster races.
Shout out to shout out to the hamster.
Yeah.
Guys, let's kick it off.
Let's talk some market talk, some market cap.
This is what, this performance on the week.
So hey, actually we're not looking too bad.
Look, BNB, yeah, BNB outperforming once again.
I mean it was outperforming last week on the other down week, right?
It was it was outperforming just by being up 2% now
Yeah, almost almost up 10%
XRP that's a
Definitely interesting
Yeah, he's got a he's got to be able to get his victory lap the It is, it was always supposed to act as,
yeah, somewhat like an index.
It's not an index, obviously, it's one thing,
but it's supposed to move kind of like an index
and kind of just grind higher.
And then like within any given year,
like, yeah, just pick up a month,
maybe you're holding for one month or four months.
It's like which asset has the highest likelihood
that you won't like lose 20% of the money.
It's like I think BNB is a very good one.
Maybe even the best.
But yeah, the past couple of weeks, actually, I think it was more like like CZ's back.
Like back in the game.
Maybe that has something to do with this price action.
So, yeah, we covered some of the BNB developments.
That was more so like last month, I think.
But yeah, they're trying to kickstart things.
Yeah, Binance Labs is getting active.
They got like agent stuff on there now.
We'll see how it plays out.
But yeah, so I think the actual like leaders,
or CZ mostly, but yeah.
It seems like the team's actually getting involved
after a while of kind of like complacency.
I think they weren't really trying to push
BNB chain too much.
I think now they got the, like he's out of jail,
like they got the green light. They're ready to go. So
Yeah, they've definitely got some tailwinds for sure I would say
Yeah, I mean I would I would you know, I would expect BnB to do quite well in the coming months not financial advice, of course
Yeah, I mean, it's like nothing is Lind. Yeah, I mean it's like, Nothing is.
Yeah, BNB is like
actually, from the EVM
chains, it's like a very
sustainable, I
mean, like, look at the
top L2 tokens,
really doing really well, like ARB,
so I think BNB,
from the asset performance perspective, then even from the
ecosystem, right? It's like a, what's it like in top three, top four chain by TBL. Yeah,
I mean, it's always been up there throughout the bear. So yeah, yeah. I mean, there's been
a lot of talk of like this like return return to like these dinosaur coins uh that are
like cash flow monsters and you know x y and z right but like people barely ever talk about bmb
right and and for like all the you know like the l2 coins or whatever you want to say like i feel
like bnb for for most of the market it's kind of got this like lindiness to it now where like
you know it's been around forever. Again,
it's got relatively strong diluted. That's the biggest thing probably right? Like, it's
got to be close to fully diluted. Because if you think about like all these other L
twos with all these insane unlocks, right? You know, even even like, kind of like the
Dow angle is somewhat like in their favor, right?
Where like some of these other L2s have these DAOs that are just like spending their tokens like
egregiously, right? On things left and right.
And you don't have to worry about that.
They don't need to, yeah. They have money.
Yeah, exactly.
So I think there's something to be said there too.
There is alignment there, right?
Whereas with like Arbdow and like, you know, optimism and stuff like that, I don't necessarily
view that as like incentive alignment, right?
So it's a little bit of a different dynamic, you know, and don't even get me into some
of the other ones. Mantle 2 as well, that one's more obviously more underrated but yeah they had some interesting
things on Mantle obviously backed by a big exchange yeah I guess yeah Bass has no token
and I think like there's more separation maybe. I was gonna ask it can base at some point copy their play I
don't know having having the sex I mean I'm not sure like what the like how
they structured it like I know yeah so I'm not sure how like base is structured
and relative to coinbase like what their exact relationship is
I mean the team has said like
Over the months and years since it was a first announced like yeah, they said some somewhat like conflicting things
So yeah, I actually have no idea. Yeah, like definitely if it'll be a base token or I have no clue to be honest. Yeah
Yeah, they've definitely like they've definitely gone back and forth. I agree 100%
I think like when they originally came out like they were like explicitly like no
I mean you have to yeah
So they have to do they have to say we'll never do it will never do
Yeah, for sure and then but then I think I can those days
There's there's been various like subtle hints at it, you know,
over the past couple of years and months. I mean,
there's a lot of builders on, on base actually, that if you ask them, they,
almost, they almost guaranteed that there will be a base token. You know,
I've talked to quite a, quite a few of them actually.
So I don't know what to make of it, man. To be honest with you, I,
I don't know that they need to, and I don't know if I want
them to, you know, personally, like again, like just going back to like this, I guess
the state of like the L two tokens and the L one tokens, like barely any of them do well,
right?
Like it's in my mind, like if I was looking at like, in like investment from an investment
standpoint, like that is not, those are not tokens that are on my radar like i don't want to play those games number one i also don't understand like really
like the value accrual like there's no value accrual to the token um and you've got to have
those like uh liquidity sinks right you've got to have sinks that um you know that they kind of
mitigate the cell pressure a little bit and hardly any of these L2s and
L1 coins have that.
So the ones that do are going to do well, right?
Like you see hype, like hype, I mean, obviously it's suffering a little bit, but I think it
will do well in the long run compared to like ARB and Optimism because there's liquidity
sinks for it, right?
There's utility for it.
So anyway.
Yeah, and I mean, Coinbase,
unlike Bybit and Binance,
and even like OKX, Gate,
these other ones that have tokens as well,
like they already have a stock, right?
They're already publicly traded.
They have that mandate for stockholders,
for their shareholders,
Coinbase has fallen, yeah, it's at like a 50 billion
or a $60 billion market cap.
So that's actually like, that's ambitious,
but like if you're launching a token for a top chain
and then that's like within striking distance
of what you could maybe hope to achieve,
it's like a $60 billion market cap, like best case scenario.
Like, yeah, maybe that could be like a semi-realistic goal.
So I mean, like where's that money gonna come from?
Like, you don't wanna like create a reason
for people to sell coin.
I don't know, maybe that's far fetched, but, um, yeah.
Okay.
Not super bullish on this scenario then.
Um, should we zoom in on Bitcoin a little bit?
Uh, I know it's looking green here, but like actually, um,
well, trading at 86 now, huh?
Trading at 86 now.
It seems to be. Oh no, it's a weekly... Oh yeah, yeah it is. Let's pull up this one. Nice, okay. So I guess, yeah. Okay. I guess the stocks must be, um, doing all right. Okay.
Yeah. I think the, you know, I don't know, there's a lot of rumors circulating,
you know, about, you know, Trump's going to announce 0%, you know,
income tax, you know, on,
on us based investments in crypto and Bitcoin included obviously, but like,
yeah, I don't, I don't know if that's driving it. I mean, there,
there's a lot of like some of the FUD, you know,
I think you saw in the last week and a half
has kind of flipped in Bitcoin's favor.
Like in the short term, obviously, like the hyper liquid thing.
You know, I think that hyper liquid whale
like flipped long a couple of days ago.
So there's no longer like this massive short,
but we can talk about that in a little bit.
But yeah, I mean, you know, I think the Fed, you know, with what they were discussing the
other day actually, you know, has something to do with it as well.
I think a lot of people are viewing that as, you know, some dovish stance by the Fed.
So yeah, I mean, overall.
Yes, it's not bad.
We're talking about the FOMC.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, Daniel, what do you make of that?
Yeah, I mean, it was like,
I think it was like mostly a non-event.
Yeah, if you read some of our newsletters
in the past like two weeks, yeah, basically
like exactly what Powell like said in his, when he was speaking in the past few weeks
prior to this FOMC is like exactly what he said at the press conference, right?
So he said like, Oh, well, taking a wait and see approach, like, oh, he said that.
He said he doesn't, he doesn't like tariffs.
He thinks they're bad for growth,
but he doesn't think that they're inflationary.
Okay, he said that again.
So yeah, I mean, what wasn't very surprising,
I think it was more of a structural thing.
Like they lowered the quantity of tightening by 80%.
So yeah, I think that would be like the biggest,
yeah, it's mainly that.
I think it was the 5 billion.
That's the new redemption cap for treasuries
is 5 billion down from like 20 or 25 billion.
So I guess that was the biggest takeaway.
Hmm.
I mean, I don't know how much momentum like people can get from that.
Yeah.
Or crypto can get from that.
Like, I don't think that's a big enough reason yet for crypto to start outperforming.
I mean, I think the markets are like mostly aligned
on like rate cuts.
So they put out the new, yeah, all the people
that have a better reserve, they put out the new dot plot.
So they're saying like, okay, we're planning
on cutting two times this year.
Markets pricing that in two, They're saying like one cut in June
and then one more towards the end of the year,
like September or Q4.
So they're kind of in alignment there.
And I mean, yeah, so I think the next couple of meetings
should be like mostly,
I was gonna say mostly not eventful,
but then like, yeah, you have like tariffs and stuff
and it's unclear how, like how long it takes for it to seep into the economy
If it seeps into the economy like not on them, maybe it doesn't maybe the terrorists are delayed
Or they're just like repealed. I don't know. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I generally I mean I generally think that yeah
Yeah on the on the tariff bit of it too
I generally think that, you know, on the tariff bit of it too, I generally think that, like, I personally
think at least, like, probably hardly any of them will actually come to fruition. I
think it's all a negotiation tactic. I don't know if we'll necessarily see them, you know.
That's my opinion anyway. I mean, obviously some countries, right? Like, you're going
to have some countries, you know, but yeah as far as like taxing our allies
I'm stuff like that. I don't know
Yeah, yeah, it's actually funny like
He's like Trump is actually the most aggressive towards the quote-unquote allied countries. So this is yeah
It's like a complete 180 like here. It's a real
Recognize real like Trump likes, you know, he likes Putin,
he likes Xi Jinping.
Like, he doesn't like these, like, European,
you know what I mean?
Real, recognized real, that kind of thing.
So, it's a complete opposite.
Believe in something, damn it.
Believe in something.
Yeah, it's like a polar opposite from, like,
not even just Biden, but like the past,
just like, like decades.
Yeah, it's like a complete opposite.
So yeah, that's always interesting to see.
I mean, yeah, like you mentioned,
I mean, some of the terrorists are definitely real.
Like the China terrorists are definitely real.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I agree there, you know, I agree.
Right, the ones on Mexico and Canada. yeah, he's flipped up a lot. I don't really think he's gotten
like that much to show for it yet, to be honest. Like I would want to see more like,
yeah, like automakers that were like operating in Mexico, like pledging to,
that were operating in Mexico, pledging to hire 10,000 people in the US, stuff like that.
So, I mean, you saw some of that, but it wasn't directly from those tariffs from Mexico.
Canada, mostly just energy and stuff like that.
And then China, you have a lot of durable goods,
like electronics coming out of China.
So yeah, those tariffs should be...
There's no negotiations on those tariffs.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I think you'll see those obviously.
Yeah, yeah, you'll see those, but like,
the ones on the allies, I think, that's tough.
And even if they do, I doubt it lasts a longer period of time.
Like I said, I think it's more or less just kind of like forcing these countries to do
something, take some action.
I think Trump doesn't think that that's
a win.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's kind of what happened with Germany, apparently.
What happened to Germany?
Well, apparently, okay, so I'm pulling it up right now, I think. Is it? Yeah, it is.
Yeah, so they approved like new budgets for defense. Yeah like 500 billion or
something like that. Yeah like a very large amount if I'm recalling correctly.
I mean, to Kirk's point, right? Maybe that's like, I mean, I think like, if it goes like,
between like US and Europe, like one of the things that's always like mentioned there
in that relationship is like, oh yeah, US got a bailout Europe every time And Trump is like, you know, Trump is really the type of side man. Yeah, no
You know
You need to hold up like your end of the bargain
It's expensive. Yeah, you know, it's expensive to be the world police
That's a pretty good deal. When you just have one, if you think about it and
where there's no economic block, not economic blocks, but there's no like EU, ASEAN, these
kind of things don't exist and every country has to be aware of their neighbors. That's
like a massive portion of the amount of money in the world that's going to be like siphoned out of more like productive things and into military spending.
So it's like a good move for them to just like drag that out for as long as possible
and try to not like spend on military. Like no one likes it, right? Like everyone would rather, you know, like, yeah, spend money on whatever,
healthcare, building houses or whatever.
So I guess, I guess those days are coming to a close and they got
to print money to do it.
Yes, they do.
The never ending money printer.
Um, I mean, I guess like too, like on the, on the macro, uh, the holistic view of
the macro, I think like
maybe, you know, even though the FOMC was kind of like a nothing burger, you know, semi
W should ever you want to call it, I think does give some certainty to the markets. We
talked about that last week where like, you know, if there's a certain environment and
you can, you know, you know, you know, maybe what the stance is, obviously, it wasn't negative.
And so like, I think you'll probably see,
in the next short period of time,
probably a resurgence in the markets.
And then to like potential,
yeah, yeah, potential ceasefire in Ukraine, right?
That maybe is getting closer, maybe not.
Things like that, I think will stabilize the markets
and allow us to kind of move up.
Yeah, I mean, I think to be honest,
I don't really think, yeah, I'm not a believer
that global conflicts are moving the markets right now.
I don't know, I think those, like it's right,
so the Ukraine thing, that's been
ongoing.
Almost three years.
Well, to the to the calendar. Yeah, something like that. But hey, listen, when it initially broke out, we saw blood in the
market. So like right after.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But about three years. So like, to, you know, digest it and be like okay let's see so I mean yeah I think if
there's like a ceasefire tomorrow I'm not optimistic that that rally will last extremely long same
thing with Israel Palestine whatever yeah but that I think they'll see the the same chop that we've been saying you think we still gonna see that play out in the next
Hmm. I don't know next month or two. I
Would say yeah, I mostly think so because it takes a while to gauge the effects of
Those kind of changes to
the policy.
So yeah, like even if he goes, so,
okay, well first of all, Trump's like teasing April 2nd.
He's like, oh, I'm gonna have some big tariffs.
So he's like drumming up hype for his tariffs.
So that's kind of, and then you're actually framing it
as like, this is gonna go to America,
like this is helping you.
Like this is how I'm gonna slash your taxes
so you have zero percent taxes
is with this tariff on April 2nd, right?
He's like hyping it up.
That's pretty interesting.
But then, yeah, even if you have like no tariff announcements
for a long time, like, I don't know,
he could randomly get strict on immigration, right?
So yeah, I think there was like a couple of headlines recently.
I mean, I don't think too much of it.
Just like, yeah, just like random, like a high profile, like deportation cases.
But when at first, after like the first week, there was like no deportations, very low.
So I think everyone thought like, it's not a high priority at all.
He just kind of gave up on immigration. But if he actually doesn't and if he, you know,
even wants to reach like 20% of his goal, which was, yeah, I think the goal is like
10, it's over 10 million, like, illegals. So yeah, there's obviously certain sectors that are very sensitive to that.
Like if you just, if momentum starts building in that area, construction, seasonal agriculture jobs.
So like there's a lot of random things that Trump could say or like randomly, yeah. Yeah, hospitality. A lot of the directions he could move in
that can affect the markets, right?
So it's like a complete flip from Biden
where he didn't do anything.
And now on any given day,
Trump is actually capable of saying anything.
It could be anything from like an NFT to like a war.
You actually have no clue.
He's on the full spectrum there, man. He's got the full spectrum.
I think, yeah, I think the markets need a little longer, like, yeah, just not announcing tariffs
for a week isn't going to cut it, right? That's not doing it. Yeah, definitely, it definitely helps
the volatility in the markets, I think, you with a you have a volatile president, right?
You got a volatile president. You have a volatile market
100% and I mean at least it's at least it's entertaining right?
It is entertaining
At least when Biden was in office, I knew we were going down and we were fucked. You know what I mean?
one down and we were fucked. You know what I mean? Now I don't know what we are.
Now I don't know what we are
It is. Yeah. But, but, but now,
now you got to deal with like that Solana ad. So you got stuff like that.
So that's the flip side.
That's not even in our notes. Should we?
Sure. Oh good. I don't, I don't want to see that on the, on the screen.
No, no, good. I don't want to see that on the screen.
Don't tease my loser of the week here.
Oh, okay. That's a good one.
To be continued then. We had other entertaining stuff going on as well. I think the massive PTC short on Hyperliquid and
ensuing quote unquote whale hunt, Kirk you posted about this. You were definitely entertained it seems.
Yeah. What was going on? I just think it's, well, I just think it's, I just think it's, it's, it's fun to
watch, like, uh, you know, obviously, you know, people were making a big deal
about the Bitcoin whale and hyper liquid, um, you know, massively short, you know,
I think Bitcoin and ETH at one point.
And then it's just great to see, like, it's just, it's just, again, it's like
movies or something like that.
You see, uh, a group of like, you know,
basically, you know, bullish whales, you know,
coming together.
I think Justin Sun was getting involved at one point,
you know, and coming together to essentially
like liquidate this guy or this entity,
you know, whoever they are.
So I thought it was very interesting, you know,
but then it made me think like,
obviously, you know, I think, I think we saw like what he did, you know, and profit off of right,
like hedging on a sex, you know, his position, right, which is definitely interesting, right?
Like, I think we know that that's what the play is. But it's just, it just always fascinates me,
like the the transparency of the blockchain, you know what I mean? And how like, I don't know, like you just, you're putting you're putting that out there, you
know, you're putting that that on the on the ledger, you're kind of putting your cards
on the table a little bit. And it's just it's just interesting, you know what I mean? Like,
the risks associated with like, trading in size on chain, you know is shit like this can happen, you know, right or wrong
So it definitely makes for an entertaining environment
Yeah, I mean you definitely don't know the person's basis like for any of these on chain
positions, yeah, you have no clue what they're doing.
Positions. Yeah, you don't you have no clue like what what they're doing
Even just like from another wallet, right?
You know, they're just hedged on hyperliquid
from another wallet.
So yeah, is that what, yeah.
Even like going back to the polymarket, yeah, I remember.
Oh, the polymarket oil?
Like the big polymarket position, like, oh,
is this guy like somehow, yeah, he could be hedged.
Yeah, in some way, just, yeah, like short BTC on chain or something like that, or on
sex.
Yeah, just something to think about.
Like you don't, like it is transparent, obviously, but yeah, you don't, you only know his one
wallet that he lets you see.
Yeah. Well, it just makes me think about taking it a step further.
If Nancy Pelosi ever figures out how to trade on the blockchain, watch out.
Watch out, man.
Think about hunting.
That would be it. Yeah.
She would lose her edge.
Because I think the stock disclosures for like centers and stuff
is a lag, right?
Like it's not instant.
So I think she'd lose her edge.
Like if you could just see on chain, like a minute after she takes a position, like she'd
lose all her edge.
Yeah, very true.
Yeah.
Very true.
Yeah.
I don't know.
She might like change her policymaking.
Interesting to see like, yeah, let's let's watch the government force
force all of the trading on chain, like, you know, senators, everybody, you guys can trade these stocks, but you have to do it on the blockchain.
Spicy.
But yeah, as always, you know, I think again, underlying winner of this whole, you know,
hyper liquid whale situation, right is hyper liquid.
This is fantastic.
They weren't last marketing or HLP deposits weren't but yeah, now it's like, yeah, it
wasn't like a really a big deal.
The HLP thing.
Yeah, it is a good ad for hyperliquid. I think they leaned into it. Yeah, I saw like
a poach like, oh, transparency. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, because
I don't think like, you normally see tweets like that from Hyperliquid, like they're not
like a marketing heavy, you know what I mean? They're like a very quiet, like heads down,
ship kind of team. So yeah, that was interesting. Yeah, and I think too, like
you know, again, it just gets deeper and deeper, right? With this whale.
Like I think Zagxpt came out today and you know, was doing an investigation
into the wallet. Turns out, you know, the guy or whoever it is is a scammer.
It's like funded by like...
Yeah, I didn't know that.
Yeah, it was funded by like some drainer links that have been posted online over the
course of the last few years and months and stuff like that and ended up funding one of
the wallets.
Wow, he's in the long game. Wow, so he's training.
Wow, that's very interesting. Okay, that's energy. Oh, he's actually been to jail. So it is
abundantly clear. Okay, that's very interesting. Yeah, I mean, like, the other thing about on-chain,
like when you see these massive positions
Yeah, cuz like what is the edge for taking those big positions on chain but versus on sex like
Maybe you have to you. I don't know maybe like you just can't like
Accept the good and maybe not allowed to access sex is and maybe you don't still want you
Yeah
Just a gambling addict.
Yeah, or maybe trying to, I don't know,
launder some of that money through the blockchain,
potentially.
So, I mean, again, to, you know, I mean,
in my opinion, obviously money laundering is wrong.
I'm not saying it's right,
but I'm just saying that like you can't,
it's hard to like have both, right?
You can't have this like decentralized,
like permissionless blockchain, right?
And then, you know, the other side of it
is the shit that comes with it, right?
And this is like one of them.
I remember in the bear market in 2022, they had like, like, oh, fact was like adding
like crypto addresses to their sanctions lists and they were they arrested the developer
of tornado like the mixer service and everyone thought like, oh, there's no way to launder
money like, like, there's no point in exploits you can't well actually turns out you can like it's pretty for that it's probably
pretty easy yeah I guess that was a pretty easy problem to solve yeah yeah
wait what do you mean like a couple yeah but in like 2022 there's a lot of like
yeah tornado cash you had that and
Yeah, I think people were too bearish on like the like the viability of
money laundering on chain
Yeah, like people thought the money would be stranded or something. Oh, you can't it's worthless
Because tornado like what is can't, it's worthless. Because Tornado cash was out of the game.
Yeah, but what is North Korea buying, right?
Like who are their vendors that are accepting stables
or like accepting, you know,
I think it's the U.S.
Apparently they went to OKX.
B&B.
Oh, went to OKX, okay.
It's in our, yeah.
So like who's like, what Indonesian dude are they using on OKX like to?
Like yeah
Yeah, I mean it's I mean they've got some sophisticated
Measures over there for sure with that with North Korea
Yeah, I don't know I mean
It's like if there's if there's any any way to do it like somebody will do it and they will figure out a way to do it. Right. So no matter what no matter what you know, oh fact does or anybody else does like they're going to figure out a way to do it. Right. Like I don't think there's a way to shut it down completely.
but yeah I mean actually shout out to the tornado devs man I hope I think
their their court case is still ongoing you know obviously hoping for a positive
outcome for for those guys wasn't on bail or or am I something like that yeah I
was thinking that too but maybe it was one of them.
Wait, see if I can find it.
Yeah, same.
Yeah, back in February.
Yeah, the Dutch court suspended his detention.
Oh, yeah, he wasn't even like in prison. He was just like in jail or yeah, I guess they call it detention like before being charged. Okay.
Interesting.
Yeah, and they released Pavel or I didn't know that he was still in France, but yeah,
apparently he can leave France now.
So he's been that was months ago.
That was over the summer. Yeah, apparently he can leave France now. So he's been, that was months ago.
That was over the summer.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he got like picked up in France
and that was a long time ago.
So apparently he's been there this entire time.
That's funny, right?
Like when they get arrested and stuff like that,
it's like big news and like,
when they get released, like nobody nobody like everybody is forgotten by that time
Yeah, I mean because it takes so long to release them
like
like
Yeah
Like who would have thought that they would still be there like without actually, you know being like because they're not in prison
They're just in like their detention center or jail, whatever they call it, like the temporary holding.
Oh, and then the Silk Road founder got out, right?
Yeah, he's out.
Yeah, that's the one.
Yeah, Ross.
Yeah, Ross, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Which honestly good, but honestly good for that guy, dude. Like I hate like,
you know, you see some of these things and even like,
even the tornado cash guy, like the, you know,
if anything had happened really to the Tom founder and they get like in prison
for, uh, for some of this stuff and like lose, you know,
significant portions of their life over it. Um, it's insane to me. Right.
And then you have like, you know, drug dealers, you
know, people that are actually like, you know, doing like hard crimes, I would say, like,
you've got them going away for limited amounts of time, right? And a lot of places. So it's
crazy to me kind of like the the paradox there. Now that said, obviously people like
SBF deserve you know to go to jail. People like that you know deserve to do
some time. Yeah, not even just jail. Like you can't even let him like talk to
people. He's like, he's scheming from jail. Like he did interviews and like yeah
they have to put him in solitary confinement because he's like,
they thought that he's plotting through these interviews, like he's manipulating people to
try to get a pardon or something else. Like, yeah, that's actually crazy.
He's communicating through Morse code, you know, like he's not blinking as often or as frequent
as he was, you know, when he was on like the Adderall or whatever, but like, you know,
maybe there's some code being passed around. I don't know
Man you got to give it to him like
He's a player you know yeah, he is relentless
Watch out like when he comes like when he yeah when he comes out
Like what yeah, what is he gonna do like I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up like, I don't know,
like in government or like just like in some position
that he probably shouldn't be in.
Yeah. Well, one thing you can bet on,
one thing you can bet on especially in this market is like
people like, I don't know for what reason,
but like people will just forget, right?
And then these guys will still find a way to obviously
make money,
you know, and be involved in the system. I mean, just look at the three arrows guys,
you know, the shit that went down there, right? And then all of a sudden, you know, now they're,
you know, they're back to trading again, they were involved in like an exchange again, you
know, you know, over someplace like, it's just, it's just, you know, you know over someplace like it's just it's just you know, if you get that on one thing you can bet on
someone somewhere forgetting like everything that that people have done and just like
Trying to make a buck off of like their their name
Right and kind of like the the infamy that comes along with with being associated with these people
It's insane. Yeah, maybe, maybe.
I do think there are levels though.
Like, I like SBF, like, I don't think there's,
he's not coming back from that one.
But hey, who knows?
Like, we'll see, right?
All right, moving on a little bit.
Staying with hyperliquid for one second.
Should we cover like the introduction of staking, what do you want to call it, tiers, right?
So hyperliquid introduced staking tears Yeah, basically
Will be determined by amount of thought of hype staked
Is this an interesting move or what do we think about this?
Yeah, I think it's interesting, you know, I think I think Binance has something similar I
want to say, you know, but
again, we
talked about it earlier with like, you know, liquidity sinks
utility for, you know, like an L one token or an L two token.
And I do think overall that hyper liquid is doing a really
good job of like thinking about that, you know, for for their
token, right. So, you know, maybe they maybe they are
following kind of like the Binance playbook a little bit here. But
I thought it was an interesting take I saw the other day that basically, think about
all these trading firms that are using hyperliquid, and it forces all of these trading firms that
probably have a sizeable balance sheet to start buying and staking hype. So yeah, I do think it has interesting implications
over the longterm, especially if hyper liquid
maintains the volumes that we're seeing
in the usage of the product.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good,
like there's actually a lot of like sophisticated
individual traders and like some yeah even
some some organizations some institutions using it so you gotta like yeah they don't
have to sell like or maybe a lot less sensitive to sell uh compared to like if you just distributed
your token to like a bunch of retail, so like, yeah, like a hundred thousand retail versus, you know,
a mix of like retail, uh, sophisticated traders and then institutions. So yeah,
you just stuff like this, um,
reward people to have a lot of hype and yeah, yeah, they're all,
they're all not on hype, right? Like they have the buybacks flowing. They, uh,
adding some more sinks. Yeah, so this, you know, you add this along
of like liquid staking and collateral in DeFi,
you know, in the Hyper-EVM.
So yeah, you can have a nice little
selection of things to do with your hype, aside from salad.
selection of things to do with your hype besides salad.
All right, interesting. So you mentioned, it's funny, you mentioned traders, trading
funds, institutions. It seems like, at least with the topics we got coming up still, that
kind of everyone's attention is kind of like shifting towards there.
Let's talk about Aave for a second.
Pull up this one.
So, Yeah, Aave introduces Ryzen, so Stanny introduces their new product and it's going to be focused
on, you know, again, building institutional DeFi products.
They have built this last week and it's an initiative geared towards basically bringing
institutional investors into DeFi, right?
It's going to enable RWAs.
Um, so again, yeah, what do you think?
Is this, uh, is this part of like a wider trend or movement going
on in the space right now?
It is.
Um, as we'll touch on after this as well. Yeah, it definitely is. Um, as we'll touch on after this as well.
Yeah, it definitely is.
I mean, it was always going to be like this.
Like, are you going to let the institutions like build their own thing?
Um, they want to like that.
They have a preference for, yeah, like building their own chain, stuff like that.
Building things to their preferences,
compliance, all sorts of stuff.
It's the off-chain elements of a business
that make it appealing for them to forego
the permissionless stuff and then settle
for a semi-less semi permissioned kind
of thing. So yeah, I think you'll see more of this sort of stuff from the big names in
defy in a bid to like, put themselves in front of these inevitable flows, right? So we're
seeing a lot of Yeah, a lot of interest, to say the least, like we're seeing actual inflows in certain
areas. So, but there's a lot of interest to say the least in like all sorts of areas on chain,
right? Including DeFi and then in DeFi maybe the flows aren't here yet. So yeah, I mean, we'll see how this plays out. Like if it goes to governance,
obviously the community did not like the idea of pushing out a second token. I mean,
I can't understand. Like, yeah, I think they're kind of using like the old 2021, like DeFi stuff in 2025, right?
Like it's 2025, you don't need to, you know,
flood users with the token incentives
to get them to deposit or I mean, maybe you do,
but I don't know if that's the best strategy anymore.
So yeah, I think it makes sense
that the community didn't really want like,
yeah, a new token, uh, just keep it off.
So, I mean, you can even see this in, um, the recent radium announcement, like
from the radio, the Dex on Solana, they're launching their, like their
own version of pump fun but yeah they made
it very clear like the value accrues to Ray like that that's what we're doing
here we're trying to keep a Ray relevant right amidst of changing you
know on chain and environment position art like you got to go where the puck is
going right so yeah it's a good a good move I mean maybe the token thing could
have been handled better but no big big deal. They just saw the reaction. Okay, well, no, we won't do a token. So yeah, for
sure. It was almost like they, you know, you know, the art of the deal, right? Like, I
think, you know, if they could have gotten a token, I think that would have obviously
been beneficial for financial reasons for like, you or Avara or whatever they're called now.
I understand the overall strategy and I agree with it 100%. I do think that
protocols, if their product can be positioned for institutional flow, then it should be.
Because I definitely think that's where a lot of the liquidity is going to be coming from the next
five years, you know, but, um, I'm confused a little bit just because don't they already
have arc? Like, isn't arc already for this, right? They have arc that was supposed to
be for the same thing. So I'm kind of confused. I'm like, so now what happens to Arc number one, but
number two, like, yeah, I don't understand like having to launch a new separate product.
You know, sometimes a new name can mean a lot. Yeah, I was gonna say that. But yeah,
I mean, it's a decent point. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. I mean, so like, it's like a time like,
yeah, yeah, it has to be good if you're doing it a second time
All right. So yeah, no for sure for sure and like
So yeah, I mean I get it and again too like maybe there's legal reasons like as far as like the way that they've structured
Horizon, you know and stuff like that versus how you know arc was structured
My sometimes sometimes it's more difficult to like, you to convert things than it is to just spin
up something new. So I get it. Yeah, the token thing totally didn't... I think the ABE DAO
obviously is making the right assessment there, kind of shooting that down.
It's better than Uniswap. It's better than the governance at Uniswap.
That was pretty interesting.
I just saw that proposal.
They wanted quite a bit of money to consider turning on that fee switch.
Yeah.
Well, you've seen this play out a lot of other places too.
I think it's funny these teams and you know, these teams and like these founders that have like built these successful products, um, you know, and then when they
come back for more money from the Dow, like it's just, it's just funny to see
like the Dow's reaction and like some of the, the politics kind of play out.
Like I think when like the curve, uh, the curve founder and like some of the,
uh, the team that actually develops the platform for Curve.
I think it was like last year, they came back for more funding as well, and there was controversy
over it.
It just kind of comes with the territory, I guess.
Back to Abe, yeah, I think you hit it spot on, Daniel.
They don't need a new token.
They don't need to throw token incentives out there.
They've already got a killer product. They've already got the Lindy effect. So I
think people want to use the product without, without needing token incentives. So I don't
really see a need for the tokens. Like, you don't need to incentivize institutions with
tokens to come on chain. I don't think I think they see the value prop already. Especially if
you can unlock, you know, like lending against some of these RWAs, right, I think that that's
a huge unlock. There's not really a great reason to bring your RWAs on chain outside
of like composability. And so if you can add some additional benefits, you know, for RWAs
to come on chain, then I think that
those products are going to be the ones that ultimately win.
Because right now, what's the point of tokenizing your treasuries now or your money market funds
now?
There's not a whole lot of great reasons.
You know, again, unless you can take a loan against it or you can use it in DeFi somehow otherwise you're just you're just paying a tokenizer you're actually
hurting your yield you know by bringing it on chain so you've got to create
these reasons for RWAs to actually come on chain and then I think you'll start
to see them flooding in you know but you can't hurt the yield the yields got to
be like there's got to be a net benefit on like the financial side of
things or else you won't see it happen.
You know, you won't even see institutions wanna play with like trying to figure it out
from a regulatory perspective unless it makes them more money.
And so I do think that it's a good play, you know, for sure overall from Pramade and obviously
from Athena as well
you know which I think you know we can start talking about if you want to Stefano or we can
talk about it in a little bit. It's right here yeah so yeah this is Dina's bit a converge
converge chain together with Secureties also also focused on RWAs, also focused on TrackFi,
institutional flows, et cetera, et cetera.
Between this and Aave's bit, let's say,
real quick, like TempCheck,
well, what are you more excited about?
I think it's definitely Converge.
I mean, I think Horizon's one of the launch partners for Converge, right?
So I think what they're trying to do with Converge is definitely a bigger deal.
Creating kind of like the rails for these flows to come on chain, not to mention, you know, regardless of what you think about
like, USDA or S USD, you know, as an asset, I much more bullish on seeing kind of like
a crypto native, you know, or crypto native companies building this, then like, you know,
just purely built by, you know, JP Morgan, or, you know, some of these TradFi institutions.
Regardless of what you think of that,
I'd rather see that than I would wanna see USDC or USDT
as the native asset here.
So just my quick take on it.
you know, on it.
Yeah.
Nice, Daniel.
This is like the most warranted chain.
You know, it's not like a chain randomly launching,
like hoping, oh, maybe in a year we'll get like, you know,
some big apps or whatever to deploy here.
Yeah, so they have it lined up before, right?
They have secure ties on deck, right?
That's BlackRock's partner for the BlackRock Buildal Fund
for tokenizing treasuries and even other assets.
So yeah, I think this is, we'll see like what,
I think this is, we'll see like what,
I guess we'll see like how the,
how it balances catering to people,
like retail and institutions.
And like what, yeah, how they can create an environment
that's maybe suitable for both,
or maybe they just like don't care
and then you just wanna, yeah, focus more on institutions. I don't care and then you just want to, um, yeah,
focus more on institutions.
I don't know.
We'll see.
It's not like this thing.
Uh, I think that'll be for a lot of protocols.
Uh, but I feel maybe like, yeah, min max or like choose what they want to optimize
for, right?
Do we want to optimize for maybe providing RWAs
for crypto natives or something on chain,
making something that maybe not even crypto natives,
but just people in general,
couldn't easily access like house, right?
Obviously, or do you want to just, yeah,
go full tokenized treasuries
and just get the big money in? So we'll see how it plays out.
Yeah, I thought it was the most interesting part, I think, is just kind of like the use cases that
opens up. I don't know if you can pull it up or not, Stefano, but I think Athena's got it on their
account. But there's a clip of, I think, the, one of the VPs over at like Apollo, Apollo global, you know, talking
about like the use cases.
Yeah, that one right there.
And so like, you know, the, the big thing that it unlocks essentially is, is.
You know, these, these user experiences to kind of vastly improve for trying to
bring, uh, traditional money on chain.
So having like a settlement layer and having like these native assets set up
in a way that obviously satisfies regulatory requirements
is a huge unlock, but then like,
how do people actually like access these,
the blockchain at the end of the day, right?
And she kind of lays out the case where you could just, you know, you can kind of
set your money on autopilot, you know, for, you know, investing in, you know, an index
of, you know, USD, you know, US TV, you know, if you want to, if you want to hold, you know,
some portion and actual like tokenized treasuries or tokenized money markets, you can write and then you know, it's all invested,
it's all deployed, it's all earning yield up until the point where, you know, the actual second where
you want to spend it, right. And then you can actually, you know, have your money kind of like
earning yield the entire time. And then, you know, say you want to buy a coffee or you want to buy dinner or something like that,
up until the second that you actually want to pull
your funds out of those assets,
now that becomes possible, right?
And it just kind of unlocks a better user experience,
maybe, like obviously now,
then that's not possible in Tradfire right now.
If you want to pull your money out of T-bills,
you're gonna have to deal with the bank and you're gonna have to deal with the delays. You
know, you're not gonna be able to spend that money in the moment, right? And this
unlocks that and I think that's a huge, a huge bit of this. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So
what you just explained, like that's such a simple unlock, but it's so
impactful, right? Like being able to, I mean, that's basically what like we have on chain now,
right? Like liquid staking tokens.
And now you have like another layer, you have liquid restaking tokens.
So yeah, you can hold them. It's kind of like, like Solana,
like if you want to hold Solana,
you can have this other version where you're getting paid
like a bunch of yield on top of it.
And it can be, I mean, I don't want to say easily, but the, this concept is not like
insane.
It can obviously be done in just cash.
And yeah, so I think it's good to, you know, have, have these kind of primitives like hit
the consumer.
So yeah, we'll see how that plays out.
Like I think it's a good way to get like,
I mean, especially like American banks and stuff.
It's kind of like you have Google Pay and Apple Pay now.
But I mean, it's just kind of like,
yeah, it's just not attractive anymore. Like you need something like you use something like Alipay or WeChat or something like that.
It's just like such an upgrade.
But yeah, all of a sudden, you know, Google Pay, Apple Pay has like, oh, you're earning like, you
know, like an 8% yield or something.
Or maybe that's a little high, but whatever it is, at any given moment, like, OK, that's a little high but whatever it is at any given moment like
okay that's a lot better.
So do you guys think like average consumers right are like fiscally or financially aware
enough to care about that type of stuff or like I mean is it maybe like this whole convergence
stuff and that the way it works is like they couldn't care less
but if you just give them the headline yeah hey get I mean ideally it doesn't matter like because
it's such a simple yeah like get eight percent on your money like who or you don't have to use
percent like explain it in percent terms you would just like have it in their bank balance and it just
shows you don't earn this like every year, like just based on what
their balance is. So I mean, it can be really dumbed down. It's just such a simple like
who like that. If it was like, you know, like basis points, like, you know, something very
small, I could get it. But yeah, like 5% like that's adding up. So yeah, even people that
don't like care about any of that stuff.
Yeah, I think they'll get it. I think they'll abstract it. Eventually, it becomes like a bare
minimum, right? Like every fintech needs to have this. Right? Yeah. No, exactly. I think that's a
great point. Like, and not even like, I think everybody thinks about like, oh, hey, like, you know, I grandma,
how does grandma, you know, access crypto and earn the earn the 8%?
Which is true, like you do want to worry about that.
But I think before you even worry about that, it's it's selling the fintechs, the banks,
the wealth managers, the family offices, like easy ways to access these yields.
Right.
And it's abstracting it away for those people,
because a lot of those people managing that money, a lot of them are boomers, right? A lot of them
are the ones that they can't really understand crypto, right? Or they're hiring people that do
understand it, but there's a learning gap, there's a learning hurdle, you've got to get over there.
And so like, I think it's unlocking, This is more for like, for like those types of
people. And then those people will worry about how do we
abstract this away for our users, right? So like your
savings account will be that instrument, you know, your
certificate of deposit will be that instrument, right? And
maybe they actually pass along some of this yield that they're
earning to their users
Finally instead of keeping it all for themselves, which
Another topic
Yeah, yeah, right. Well, yeah
Make money, right? We all gotta make it
I mean it's gonna be a race to the bottom like for those margins as more people do this
will do this. Like in stable coins, you're already seeing it like tokenized treasuries,
What like in stable coins already seeing it like tokenized treasuries, right? Like they're not
right? Like they're not making that much, right? Like in revenue. Yeah, even not in
tokenized treasuries only, but even just like basic stable coins, like you have a Gora,
like that whole thing, you just say, oh, I'm gonna pass on all the yield to the user. So at a certain point, that becomes kind of like a moat,
or a way to differentiate yourself.
Yeah, taking it so that that cut becomes smaller and smaller
until it's all the same no matter which app you use,
and it's very small.
And the user gets almost all of the yield.
All right, we'll see how all of this plays out. Switching gears a little bit, let's talk about
the Morpho and Compound. Let me pull it up.
Let me pull it up. Kirk, you want to talk about this one?
Yeah, yeah.
TLDMOD, like cool.
Yeah. So I think this goes back a while, right? So obviously, I think Morpho, along with
Polygon, tried to pass a proposal that would have, I think, rehypothecated some of the Polygon, you know, bridge stablecoins into Morpho markets.
Huge controversy, right? Like, didn't end up happening. And then, but as a collateral result of that, you know,
Abe basically said, we're leaving, you know, we're not going to be on Polygon anymore. Obviously, a huge hit to Polygon's economics or DeFi on Polygon.
So I think one of the most interesting things about this Morpho compound gauntlet collaboration
and Polygon collaboration is from a strategic standpoint, I think this is a good move for Polygon. Like they had to do something.
Um, so like, you know, it's good from, from that perspective.
Um, but like from like the token perspective, like they're spending, I think $1.5 million in POL incentives on this, um, you know, Compound spending
$1.5 million of comp comp incentives on on this as well
But essentially what's happening is like deposits through compound
Through this compound instance essentially it's curated by gauntlet and gauntlet is deploying those assets into more faux markets on polygon
So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah this is a infamous tweet. Yeah Yeah, yeah, so from that perspective, it makes sense.
I think what critics are pointing out, and obviously the biggest critic is going to be
Mark Zeller from ABE, who's kind of not afraid to voice his opinion, which let me just say
this, I actually respect when competitors don't act like they're friends.
I actually respect that.
I like that.
That's funny. Don't act like they're friends. I actually respect that. I like that.
But obviously, you know, Ave and Gauntlet have a long history.
Relationships are not good between those two entities.
Yeah, I mean, maybe the other approach could be like, you know, don't let your enemy keep making mistakes.
You know what I mean? Let them keep spending time to KIA on incentives.
Let them do it.
And get nothing in return.
Like, maybe that's not a bad thing.
I mean, I think compound, like,
they're just getting farmed out, basically.
Like, yeah, they're being milked,
like, for everything that they have.
Yeah, it's, I mean, it's been around a long time.
Like, yeah, it's a, like one of the oldest, yeah, like a top.
Yeah.
Definitely one of the first 10 DeFi protocols.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure of that.
So they've been around a long time,
haven't been like, yeah,
they haven't been as quick to to punch, I guess, like adapting
to things, adapting to trends. And yeah, so I guess this is what happens.
Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, let's just call it how it is, right? Like, you know, number
one, I wouldn't want to be a compound holder, unfortunately.
No, no, I wouldn't want to be a compound holder unfortunately You know, but I mean at this point like
At this point like when do they concede and and just admit that they lost right?
Like it happens in markets like, you know
The founders not even involved anymore. I think Leshner's moved on like yeah
Yeah, he left. Yeah, he's. He has a fund now, I think.
Yeah, Aave is dominating, right? They've kind of won that. And I just feel like,
it's unfortunate, right? At one point, do you spin it down? You pay token holders out,
like whatever you have in the treasury, you figure out a way to return as much value as you can.
right away to return as much value as you can.
But I mean, at this point, and I get it from the people
that are actually running the Dow,
they wanna do something to remain relevant.
Like this was a, on that level, it's a good strategic move,
but the unfortunate part is you have to spend all
of this money and incentives to try to get people to use it.
I mean, I'm just thinking like why Poly like, like, why Poly, like, why Polygon?
Like, nothing is really happening on Polygon. Like, would you would your money have been
better spent? Like, oh, you know, on, on, on, or like, you know, I don't know, like, like,
why? Why?
This whole story made me feel like I was, yeah, like I'm living in like 2021 or something.
Like, it doesn't feel like I'm in 2025 right now.
Like, yeah, Aave, Compound, Polygon, like, all right, yeah.
I guess Morpho is kind of like stealing the show.
But yeah, I mean, that's the thing about these Dow like the dowels
Yeah, and crypto the you can get liquid very fast, you know, don't have to wait for the SEC to approve you
Whatever just launch a token boom
But then on the other end like when things aren't going so well
Right like in a normal normal you know company or whatever.
Yeah like yeah I've had like a second of years of like underperformance like that right you'd be
like all right all right let's you know wear options but yeah when you have the DAO it's like
very you know self-preserving. Yeah just takes longer to maybe wind down than it otherwise
would have if there wasn't like a liquid token and a DAO
in place. I mean usually I think these types of situations they just run on until like police.
Yeah yeah I mean the tokens like it's not like what are you going to do like you can't delete
like delete the token like it's going to be there. As long as the tokens there.
Yeah. The Dow has like some, some amount of power.
So yeah, it just, just sticks around.
Is this a, is this a loser of the week guys?
Loser of the year.
Shots fired. Yeah.
No, I mean, listen, I was I was debating on on who would be the loser of the week
for me, whether it would be, you know, Solana, obviously, and, you know, the the
brand fallout from from the video.
Obviously, I think they're a candidate.
But I do have to I do have to go with Compound,
to be honest with you, just because it's more or less like Compound holders, like the Compound
token, like we talked about, just continues to get milked. The DAO is not earning any revenue
off of the integration versus the amount of incentives that they're, that they're throwing at it.
So I have to say that the compound token holder is probably the
loser of the week, unfortunately.
Fair, fair selection.
Um, Daniel yours before we move on to winners.
Oh, okay.
So for my loser, I mean, it might be a little surprising, but I'm actually going to say ETH.
I mean, it didn't do bad at all this week. Yeah, I think it was outperforming a little bit.
I just remembered that, yeah, that for a brief moment, like XRP flipped ETH in FTV.
Like to me, that's just like unforgivable. Like that's actually kind of crazy. So yeah,
that's like I think that's a loser. Like yeah, that's I just couldn't ignore that. So yeah,
he's my loser of the week. And no one's picked ETH so far, right? Like everyone, you know,
criticizes ETH, but actually no one one picked eat for their loser of the week yet
so yeah, I'll
refrain from using it over and over again, but
It's kind of messed up just because like you think about like even like just talk about the Solana video for a minute like
Despite that I think Solana is up on the week number one, but like Ethereum for whatever reason,
I've never seen like a blue chip asset get captured so much by like crypto Twitter sentiment than like
ETH has over the last like year. It's kind of, that's the most disappointing part to me is that like
from a fundamental level, like it has the best fundamentals, it's got the most TBL,
it's got the most stable coin TVL by far.
Like on that level, it's just crushing it still.
But I've never seen like an asset just get taken over
by like just bullshit sentiment, to be honest with you.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's, yeah.
The crypto markets, you can never understand them.
I will never be able to understand them.
I'll just say that.
So, um, disregard everything I've said in this episode, because obviously I don't
know what the fuck is going on, uh, because I can't figure it out, you know, for
Eve, um, but yeah, we're trying.
We're trying.
We're trying.
I mean, a lot, a lot of times I find that like it's funny sometimes when there's like a
prevailing narrative like no matter what what event happens it gets kind of like
interpreted through that lens so like no matter what happens oh that's another L
it gets explained as another L whereas Whereas like when you're winning, you know,
like if you do something that's sort of like out of line,
people will say like, oh man, they're winning so hard,
they don't even give a fuck.
Like that's bullish, you know?
I think Ethereum is kind of like stuck
in like a losing rut, if you will, which very unfortunate.
Let's see if they can. like stuck in a losing rut, if you will, which very unfortunate.
Let's see if it can-
It's not like, oh, yeah, like they just keep losing.
Like they gave it their all.
Like there were several fixable things
that definitely could have been avoided.
Yeah, like the, I mean, yeah, just like,
I guess Vitalik's like entire personality, I guess.
Or like, yeah, you try to change it a little bit.
Like, but yeah, so there's that.
Like all the, yeah, all the Ethereum, like foundation stuff, the roadmap for,
um, you know, the end of the decade.
Like, so, so there are some fixable, definitely some fixable things
that could have been done to help.
But yeah.
I mean, I don't think it's like only sentiment.
I mean, I think it's like bearish.
Sentiment is actually affecting the price.
It just means like there's not much volume.
Yeah. means actually affecting the price. It just means like there's not much like volume. Yeah,
most, especially for majors, right? Like the market cap is so big. Like it's gone beyond like
what can be affected by, I guess, like, yeah, people on Twitter and stuff like that. It has the ETFs now, but yeah, it's not proactively marketed, right? Like Bitcoin has no marketing team, but it has like an unofficial marketing team.
ETH doesn't like, they don't have that like corporate, you know, they don't have people
like in the corporate world or in the government like shilling it, you know what I mean? So
So I'm Solana might actually or they had like David sacks. He sold it. So this Lana
But it's a lot of probably does one sec. Oh, I think Kirk got a jump. Yeah, I got a job. That's correct
Right. Yeah, I got a jump
It's fine. We can we can wrap it up at our own pace.
Um, Kirk, thanks for being here, man.
It was fun.
Yup.
Awesome.
Uh, we didn't get his winner, but, um, I think, or no, he, did he, uh, hint at it?
Oh no, he can't do that.
His loser, um, his loser would be Solano, but I think he
changed it. He changed it to the thing that... Compound. Yeah, Comp. Right. So yeah, my winner
is going to be the other side of E, XRP. I mean, it's still up like every time you think like oh, they did you have to short it here?
But you know, actually it doesn't yeah, it doesn't go down. It's continued
to rise at a moderate pace this past week and
Yeah, I think there's something like I don't know
It's the only token that you see people on other social media platforms discuss.
And it's like all age groups as well. It's like 24 year olds all the way to like 55 year olds.
So I don't know how that happened. It's kind of odd.
It's very detached from crypto Twitter.
Yeah, I mean it is obviously because this is a top three asset, right?
By FDV at this point. So yeah, I mean, it's honestly kind of crazy.
I have no clue when like the XRP party is going to end.
Like, yeah, if you just judge from any fundamentals
or anything like that,
would have ended a while ago, but it doesn't.
So yeah, XRP.
Fair, fair, all right.
I think that's a good pick.
They're doing well.
Coleman, so we had our winners, we had our losers. Man, this was an interesting week.
Lots of happened. I think it's especially interesting that so much is happening
with these established DeFi players that are really trying to make a strong bit for like
what feels like might be like a next, how should I say this, like fundamentally different face
to like this whole industry that we're in, right? We're like kind of like under cusp
to like this whole industry that we're in, right?
We're like kind of like on the cusp
of what might be like major institutional adoption.
And I mean, that will change everything.
Yeah, like potentially maybe, who knows.
But I mean, it's edging near.
The other side is that like,
people always care about institutions like in the bear, like when it was bearish, because there's nothing else to look forward to. But institutions,
you can always prolong it, right? Like if the prices go down for a month, you can always
say, like, oh, they're like, they're getting approved, like the institution didn't get
approval yet, like they're checking with their boss, like, you know what I mean? Like, you
can always delay delay yeah because that's always like it's not even just recently
yeah even like like almost like a decade ago yeah you people like institutional
blockchain enterprise blockchain yeah like for payments and stuff and like oh
they're yeah like just wait like they're they're coming
So yes, you can easily justify like why they haven't
Entered yet and like yeah made the price go up basically
more than any of the other
narratives, right like
Like if Trump lost right like there's, like you can't make an excuse,
like, okay, he lost, like this sucks, right?
But at the institution stuff, it's like, okay, I can, you know,
just wait a few months, like the Solana ETF's coming,
like it'll get approved, right?
The new SEC head is gonna be, I think,
they come in April, right?
So there's all these like things
that are just a few months away and it keeps going on.
So yeah, we'll see, but I think it's real.
Like some of it is real.
And yeah, so we can look forward to more things to cover,
more developments on the institutional
and RWA side of things.
For sure.
We'll be back next week to do just that.
Daniel, thanks for being here.
Thanks for chatting.
Yeah, thanks for hosting.
It was fun as always, 100%.
To the audience, to the listeners, everyone tuning in,
thanks for doing so.
It's a lot of fun doing this.
We hope you enjoyed this as well.
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