The Next Crypto Meta Is Loading

00:00:04:04 - 00:00:15:24
David
Welcome back to the station to the Friday weekly roll up. My co-host, Ryan Sean Adams is out for the week hanging out with his family. And we are tapping in Tom Schmidt from Dragonfly Inn to replace him. Tom. How are you doing, my man?

00:00:15:27 - 00:00:22:25
Tom
Good. Thanks for having me. I was just saying, this is like a nice, crossover app. But you came on the chopping block a couple weeks ago. Now I'm on bank.

00:00:22:25 - 00:00:28:23
David
List right now. You're right. Yeah, yeah. You know, the, the podcast. Just cycling through other podcasters. Eventually we'll have you.

00:00:28:23 - 00:00:29:21
Tom
All right.

00:00:29:24 - 00:00:53:16
David
Yeah, I see everyone should just get into one big podcast and we'll have one room and see how it goes. Overall, before we get into the news of the week, which was a pretty light week, I'll call it. We have the call. She raise. We have some markets to talk about. Nothing too big this week. So in order to kind of kick things off of kind of get your vibe, check, about the state of crypto because we are going from one half of the year to the other.

00:00:53:16 - 00:01:12:09
David
It is June 26th at the time of recording, so we're finishing the first half. And during the second half of the year, I remember general sentiment. I don't know what your market take was going into this year, but general consensus was rough first half of the year for the second half of the year. And I think that that has played out more or less to a tee.

00:01:12:09 - 00:01:13:13
David
Wondering what your take is.

00:01:13:17 - 00:01:34:00
Tom
Yeah. I, I feel like whenever there's some macro chaos, some geopolitical chaos, then it's always taking the driver's seat and crypto is always sort of, secondary and feels like, you know, this week we were kind of covering from a lot of the geopolitical craziness from the past couple weeks. Yeah. It's been quiet. I think, permissionless was taking place in New York.

00:01:34:04 - 00:01:50:08
Tom
A lot of people in town talking about that. But also there's a lot of focus on equities. And I feel like you know, we'll talk a little bit about that, which has been kind of bizarre. It feels like a very much a reversal of like 2020 when crypto was going crazy. And just equities market. Everyone's like looking and there's nothing nothing really going on.

00:01:50:11 - 00:02:09:24
David
Yeah. Yeah. Zooming in on the Bitcoin price. We are up 3% on the week to 107,500 and ETH prices down 3% on the week. So a little bit a little bit of divergence between the two majors. But overall Bitcoin I guess if we zoom out to the three month mark, we're up a pretty substantial amount coming out, up from $80,000 to almost $110,000.

00:02:09:24 - 00:02:24:19
David
We did hit that $111,000 in May. So we are kind of ranging between the 110, 100 and thousand dollars. Are you bullish? Are you like eagerly awaiting the breakthrough of new all time highs or are you more patient?

00:02:24:21 - 00:02:45:28
Tom
How come you mean how can you not be bullish like every week? I heard you read a headline that would have been totally unbelievable, five years ago, let alone ten years ago. Interest in terms of interest, traction, adoption in the space even now. I mean, we, you know, bemoan. Oh, Bitcoin's down $200,000. Kind of insane.

00:02:46:00 - 00:02:56:15
Tom
There's actually, like, a tweet from 2020, maybe 2018, even joking about this fact that, like, hey, in five years, we'll be complaining about Bitcoin dropping two $90,000 a year. And then here we are. Yeah.

00:02:56:20 - 00:03:06:22
David
Now I don't want to pin you down to anything specific because I know that's just not how markets work. But I'm generally feeling that you are in the camp of Bitcoin is currently edging. And we are looking through an all time. We're looking for an all time high.

00:03:06:25 - 00:03:27:16
Tom
Yeah, I think really the only thing that's going to stop this is some sort of bigger shift in yeah, monetary policy, some big again, macro calamity. Maybe we get, you know, dollar strengthening later half the year. That could be really bad for the market, though. Right now it feels like, there's really only tailwinds.

00:03:27:18 - 00:03:30:27
Tom
And so I really know what's going to kind of make us deviate from this path.

00:03:30:29 - 00:03:53:01
David
Yeah, yeah. The total crypto market cap coming in at $3.4 trillion. So that's actually pretty still far away from its peak at 3.9 trillion. So like $300 billion off. But nonetheless, the Bitcoin dominance story I feel like is the the news of the week, at least in terms of the crypto markets side of things, because we are just hitting new all time high, new all time high week after week.

00:03:53:01 - 00:04:15:22
David
There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, maybe eight, depending on how good my counting is. Weeks straight of green candles on Bitcoin dominance to a high that we have not yet seen since all the way back in December of 2020. So Bitcoin dominance is at 66%. When you see this, what do you think?

00:04:15:25 - 00:04:39:16
Tom
That's where I would have, pegged it more for like a 2019 alternative I guess 2020 there is I'll say I can I mean, I guess it goes back to this, the stat being very sick. Whenever it's over, you need to prepare yourself to be back and, and vice versa. And I think right now it's any time there's grave dancing, which is kind of what you see, I think from, from, from Maxis on the, on the rest of the space, in my mind, that just means there's more opportunity and it looks different every time.

00:04:39:19 - 00:04:55:22
Tom
I mean, even the market now looks different than 2021 and looks different than 2017, but there is going to be a shift. And I think things don't move kind of monotonically like that. So you and I did that a year from now, I think Bitcoin dominance will be lower, but I don't know what the rest of the market's going to look like.

00:04:55:24 - 00:05:15:18
David
Yeah. A year from now I totally agree. And from a for an entire year I think you could still slowly see this thing grind up. It's at 66%. It could go to 75%. And there's nothing stopping it. And that grave dancing can just get louder from the bitcoin. Eyes can just get louder and louder and louder, and it'll be more annoying and people will capitulate even more.

00:05:15:21 - 00:05:22:22
David
But when Bitcoin dominance does turn over, it has never gone down slowly. It only goes down very, very fast.

00:05:22:24 - 00:05:41:15
Tom
Yes. I think that that's right. I mean, there's always I feel like there's sort of some new meta which is ultimately going to drive down Bitcoin dominance. And when there's a meta that's the frostiness that we were kind of talking about. And so, yeah, I'm curious to see what that looks like. Again. Different every time. But it feels like there's, there's little green shoots popping up here and there.

00:05:41:18 - 00:06:08:03
David
Yeah, yeah. That new meta that you talked about it I'm going to call it a token issuance meta. The ICO mania in 2017 was what brought Bitcoin dominance down from, the high high number of 96% down to the lowest it's ever been at 34%. That was the ICO meta. The NFT mania in 2021 also brought it down, where it crept back up in that bear market, up to 72% and brought it down to 40%.

00:06:08:11 - 00:06:28:29
David
And then actually, interestingly, the meme coin mania only really like I'll call the peak of the meme coin mania starting in November of 2024, right before Donald Trump issued the Trump token. And with the issuance of the Trump token, the Bitcoin dominance went from 61% down to 55%. So the meme coin mania did not really make a dent in overall Bitcoin dominance.

00:06:28:29 - 00:06:33:01
David
So that was not really the cycle that we were looking for.

00:06:33:03 - 00:06:52:15
Tom
Yeah. I mean I think that is true, which is people always I remember when, when meme coins were going big people talk about, oh, this is just, everyone being tired of, of VC coins, people being tired of Bitcoin and to spike like. Yeah. But in in absolute terms, these are, you know, pretty small numbers.

00:06:52:15 - 00:07:06:27
Tom
Right. This is kind of a weird little pocket of the industry. I think the NFT thing was, was interesting where like again, that would not have been something I think you would have predicted in 2019 that like, yeah, anything to make a big Dan. Yeah, they did. And who knows maybe something, you know, will make that happen this time around.

00:07:06:27 - 00:07:11:21
Tom
Maybe, you know, tokenized equity use or maybe perps will be they could take a big dig in it.

00:07:11:23 - 00:07:32:09
David
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In 2019, I remember, me, Ryan, a lot of the Ethereum crowd of people were just so bullish on DeFi and things like MakerDAO and Uniswap. And we're going to democratize finance. And you know, we got we got that bull market. That was DeFi Summer that did not make a dent in Bitcoin dominance. It was the NFT mania that made a dent in Bitcoin dominance.

00:07:32:09 - 00:07:55:03
David
And that brought in the net new people. And then we were like, you look at our cool new financial toys and they're like, I want to collect the monkey jpeg. And we just we had just no ability at all to predict that, that coming our way at all. And so I'm guessing whatever, whatever brings Bitcoin dominance from 70% back down to like 45% or wherever it goes is going to be something that like, no one actually sees coming.

00:07:55:06 - 00:07:59:22
Tom
Yeah. I mean, it could be, you know, ICOs coming back and we're kind of seen again like sign.

00:07:59:22 - 00:08:00:02
David
It into the.

00:08:00:03 - 00:08:06:16
Tom
Future that. Yeah. You know, I don't think it's the, the worst idea in the shape of like capital formation.

00:08:06:18 - 00:08:11:12
David
Well, you see you're an ICO meta fan. Maybe you can talk about why why you like ICOs.

00:08:11:14 - 00:08:37:14
Tom
I don't know, I would say I'm a fan, but I don't hate it. I think, hopefully we've kind of learned some of the lessons from the 2017 ICO phase, and I think there has been maybe just an exhaustion, I think, of market participants. And that's where I think a lot of the infighting and Twitter finger pointing is happening where, you know, traders and retail investors blame DC and VCs blame projects and products from VCs again to I don't remember, mean something really healthy.

00:08:37:16 - 00:08:59:12
Tom
Yeah. But, you know, it's okay. This is a byproduct of the current state of of fundraising and capital formation. Then there's there's appetite, I think, for more early stage interest also, frankly, the way projects are raising capital is just so much different than it was, you know, five years ago where, early stage teams need less capital.

00:08:59:12 - 00:09:19:08
Tom
They're doing fewer private rounds. You can see that all kind of collapsing at some point where, hey, maybe we don't do a private market, or maybe we do one small private round and then a public sale, and that's kind of it. And I think that has been kind of the only maybe major trend line I've seen in, in private fundraising has been, hey, maybe we don't need, you know, $200 million to make a new blockchain.

00:09:19:10 - 00:09:27:06
Tom
Maybe we need a lot less and a lot less time, and we can kind of, you know, compress, our capital needs, and therefore open up to the public.

00:09:27:09 - 00:09:53:29
David
Yeah, yeah. There was an era, maybe two years ago, three years ago, where the $1 billion raise or the monster raise was truly a signal for retail investors. And now, I think in more recent times, that has flipped on its head, where the very large, gargantuan raise has turned into anti signal, whereas like, oh, this this is like, I'm not going to name any VCs, but there are there's a select cohort of VCs out there that I think are being branded by these as these like token shops.

00:09:54:01 - 00:10:19:03
David
And they do these very large high valuation raises. And like it's just early in the lifespan of said company. And so this is said company is brand new. Getting $1 billion valuation from like the same kind of cohort of VCs. And people are just like flagging that. And that is not is the opposite of what the signal it used to be like 2 or 3 years ago, which like I think, I think is is good is is a pendulum shift.

00:10:19:06 - 00:10:37:16
David
And I think, you know, the it can shift too far. I think as well it can get too toxic. It can be too, too much of like a, too much of a good thing. But that is kind of like, what the current meta is, is like the large VC race is kind of being, thrown up by, by the market, at least the Twitter discourse, I'll say.

00:10:37:18 - 00:10:54:24
Tom
Yeah, I think that's a good way of, of phrasing it. I think obviously this is, in my mind, provide value beyond just the capital in a sense. What I know, like delighted to myself and I think your project products, do you say that about about good VCs? I think there's also a lot of angst around the exchange listing.

00:10:54:24 - 00:11:12:18
Tom
Meta. A large chunk of the, projects going to, exchanges. And, hey, maybe these aren't as positive signal as they used to be. Not everything's going to pump on a by insisting anymore. And so I think that all kind of creates, this discontent that creates revolution. And I think that's what you're seeing right now.

00:11:12:22 - 00:11:33:03
David
Yeah, yeah. The other thing that's happening alongside of that is I can remember what, Echo Round it was or maybe it was the token sale on, on sonar on the new platform. And then like a bunch of, you know, retail investors got access to be able to invest in this thing for the first time. And it was like, very clearly a lot of people's first exposure to VC investing.

00:11:33:05 - 00:11:51:29
David
And, I can't remember what the tweet, but there was like the realization that, oh, this is actually very likely not going to work. And that is the game that VCs have always been doing. And retail things that, like VCs just have this like staircase to Heaven, where every single project you know is a ten x 100 x every single time.

00:11:52:04 - 00:12:10:14
David
But in reality, like, the odds are much slimmer in just retail, haven't they just not exposed to the failures? And now, like Kobe's ICO platform is exposing, like the actual failure rate of venture startups to retail investors and that's a that's a new experience for many in the in the retail side of things.

00:12:10:16 - 00:12:34:21
Tom
Yeah. I think, you know, there's a phenomenon adventure where you want sort of professional LPs who are institutional. You do a lot of venture, who write chunky checks and sort of can, can weather the storm. And it's kind of seen it all and can be extremely annoying when things go well or things go poorly. And I think prior to that same phenomenon where, if things go poorly, like you actually kind of want a VC, backing you who's seen it all and can kind of help you and right isn't going complaining.

00:12:34:21 - 00:12:45:04
Tom
Whereas yes, I think retail can kind of, feel like I mean, it's going to I mean, certainly the median venture fund does not do particularly well. But, you know, the outliers obviously make up for the rest of it.

00:12:45:07 - 00:13:06:23
David
Yeah. Let's turn our attention to the meme coin markets. Excuse me, the trad fi markets where we're looking at the circle price, it's actually come down from the all time highs that it set just last week of 297 ridiculous dollars. It is still ridiculous price of $210. So we had a decline in the circle price. Any any commentary on on the circle price action post IPO?

00:13:06:26 - 00:13:24:25
Tom
I think this is like the most mispriced IPO I've seen in maybe my entire career. I mean, I can't imagine another I can't remember the last time an IPO in pump ten, after listing and the bizarre thing was like they were trying to IPO for the longest time. They were shopping this thing around. No one wanted to buy it.

00:13:24:27 - 00:13:39:21
Tom
And maybe they're just showing the wrong people. I don't actually know who's buying circle stock. I think Robert Leshner suspected sort of TikTok retail traders, which might be true, but it's it's it's he he claims he's seeing, TikToks of, people telling others to buy circles.

00:13:39:21 - 00:13:42:12
David
Like I cannot imagine Robert Leshner is scrolling TikTok.

00:13:42:14 - 00:14:06:13
Tom
I can't either. And he claims, oh, the best TikToks make it onto Twitter. And I'm like, you can just say you have a TikTok account, Robert. Like, it's okay. Yeah, it's it's a big app. But it does seem like there's a weird disconnect between this thing was such a dog in the private markets to now being such a public market darling, and now everyone is taking note and everyone's like, oh, maybe I should go public, or maybe I should, you know, you know, do something in stablecoin land.

00:14:06:13 - 00:14:10:22
Tom
And so it's sort of like the signals are, are, you know, percolating to the rest of the market.

00:14:10:24 - 00:14:33:05
David
Okay. So this might be Cooper. But when people say this is a mispriced ICO and everyone's like, oh, I totally mid curve that I should have bought it on open. It's obviously everyone is saying that in hindsight hindsight 2020. But we understand the circle of fundamentals. And like with that the $31 IPO price aligns with that. It was it's like $150 million of yearly income.

00:14:33:05 - 00:14:33:24
David
It's not not.

00:14:33:24 - 00:14:34:25
Tom
Great.

00:14:34:27 - 00:14:57:08
David
$31 billion. There is already like a me a stablecoin premium baked into a company that has $150 million of yearly revenue, being price at $7 billion. There's already a premium there. So, like in the sense when you say that it is mispriced, that is just objectively true in the sense that we can now look at the price of $300 out of here and just say that that is what is true.

00:14:57:08 - 00:15:07:09
David
But I also, again, I preface this saying, this might be Coke, but like, I don't know, I feel like it's justified at $31 and it's just not justified at 210.

00:15:07:11 - 00:15:27:00
Tom
I don't disagree. I would not have bought it, I don't know, but I didn't buy it. Okay, I didn't really I thought I was, was crazy. I but you know, I think the market you have to take signals in the market and the market is telling you something else. And maybe these people are totally irrational or maybe of a different view than I do, but, I think, as always, you know, markets are forward looking.

00:15:27:00 - 00:15:48:14
Tom
And I think when people look at circle, they see, hey, we have guys act passing the Senate, all these big, fintechs, all these big 4500. It's getting in a stablecoins circle is clearly in the lead, when it comes to sort of regulated, you know, stablecoin issuer in the US, and it's there's really not many other ways to express that view.

00:15:48:17 - 00:15:53:15
Tom
In the equity markets. I mean, there was a bit of a catch up trading in coins. People really.

00:15:53:17 - 00:15:54:15
David
Pulled out up here.

00:15:54:18 - 00:16:00:04
Tom
Revenue. But other than that, like, what else are you going to buy? And I think that that's a large part of the rally, too.

00:16:00:07 - 00:16:20:02
David
Yeah. This was the circle price pump was just a very isolated rally. Why not go in from like it opened up at 30, immediately jump to 70 and then just climb to 130 and no other crypto equity mainly Coinbase was really moving at all. Coinbase actually kind of traded down even, that has changed in the last just four days.

00:16:20:02 - 00:16:41:22
David
Coin stock has gone from $254 to $375, in about nine days. So that's a 50% increase in the last nine days. So coin is doing a catch up trade. I would say like there is a correlation to circle here. I feel pretty confident in making that market call that it was because of the circle price where people are like, all right, circle so goddamn frothy, like, where else can we get exposure?

00:16:41:22 - 00:17:02:01
David
Oh, let's buy the company that has 50% of circle's revenues. And so, like my commentary before this was, okay, there's a lot of private companies that are looking to go public downstream of the circle. Very positive IPO and then trading price action afterwards. Like as soon as something is right after IPO that's very signal. Big signal that the public markets are ready.

00:17:02:01 - 00:17:19:03
David
So like now people are like looking at Kraken and looking at, Chainalysis of all things Fireblocks, all these private companies that could, in theory, IPO and they're like, okay, like that's the next one. There's going to be a next one. But when people were making these comments, I was like, look at the coin stock, look at the coin price.

00:17:19:03 - 00:17:44:26
David
It's not going anywhere. It's actually just a stable coin narrative. It's just about stablecoins. But that is now wrong over the last nine days, because the coin price has hit new all time highs. And so if we zoom out all the way to the Pico top of the 2021 bull market, when coin launched at like 375, I guess it did trade briefly higher up to 420, but it launched at 320 $75.

00:17:44:29 - 00:18:00:08
David
We are at $375 right now, so we are matching one for one the price that coin listed out at the top of the 2021 market. I think that ended the bull market. And now we are back here. Give me some commentary on just like the long term price action that you see in coin.

00:18:00:10 - 00:18:21:04
Tom
Yeah. I mean, I think you're right that again, the credit markets take signal from the public markets, they see is doing well as coin doing well. And now you see all these sort of, longer tail companies now looking to IPO kind of based on comps, right. They're saying, well, hey, if they can get this kind of price with this kind of multiple, maybe we can also get something pretty favorable.

00:18:21:07 - 00:18:39:00
Tom
We'll see. I think Coinbase has been kind of a strange, company on Wall Street where some people look at it and it's just a total dog. And they're like this thing. I remember even the narrative in 2019 was initiated away from exchange revenues, and there's going to be fee compression. And they need to be more of like a bank.

00:18:39:02 - 00:19:00:01
Tom
And then that was like just totally obliterated, right? In like 2020, 2021 was like, oh yeah, maybe if there is no fee compression, maybe they have some sort of, remnote. Maybe they'll change this time around. I do think, you know, certainly. Some of the other trading platforms return that the ETF launch. You could argue that cannibalistic to, some of the revenues, but it's also SMEs strong tailwinds behind it.

00:19:00:03 - 00:19:14:20
Tom
I don't know if I, I'm going to, jump the boat here. Jump the gun here a little bit on on Robinhood. But that's been the other kind of crazy all time high moves. Europe over the past few weeks has been. And, you know, was it like 30, 40% of their revenue is also coming from from crypto.

00:19:14:20 - 00:19:15:07
Tom
So like.

00:19:15:07 - 00:19:16:21
David
Oh, really? I didn't notice that much.

00:19:16:25 - 00:19:35:07
Tom
Yeah. If you look at their last, earnings report. Yeah it's very, very heavily crypto. And it's a very weird segment of crypto. Like I think they're number one or number two asset was like Doge. And and so it's just, just a totally different type of user than probably users trading on, on, on Coinbase or, you know, trading on Uniswap.

00:19:35:07 - 00:19:44:16
Tom
And so, you know, but yeah, again, if you think about them as like a crypto data play, I think that that's probably, another, you know, sort of attractive position.

00:19:44:19 - 00:20:04:10
David
Yeah. Yeah. Are you saying okay, so the recent price action in hood is just phenomenal. They also, like you say, got obliterated throughout like post. When they were, interest rates started going higher and higher and higher and 22 and they also, hood, Robin hood launched also in 2021, in August of 2021. So pretty similar to Coinbase timing actually.

00:20:04:13 - 00:20:26:06
David
And then, you know, launch at $60 and just got obliterated, went down below $10 for a very long time, something like two years. It stayed below $10. And then just in, let's see, when was it about the start of 2024. It was $10 and it started creeping upwards to where it is now at $83. How much do you credit crypto as a part of this price increase?

00:20:26:06 - 00:20:36:27
David
You think the the all time high that hood is seeing and continually breaking on a week over week basis? Is that downstream of crypto or is that more of. It's just like regular business. Do you think?

00:20:36:29 - 00:21:05:23
Tom
Hard to say. I mean, again, as a percentage is quite high. So if you think of, hey like that being a driving force, then, you know, I think it's like a, certainly a big part of it. I don't think weirdly, that's been a big part of running its public story. Like if you think of all their new product announcements, it's actually been about trying to take their existing user base and upsell them and convert them and turn them into this more sort of long term financial plan, which planner which has been or, you know, asset managers have been kind of their whole story the whole time where it's like, hey, you, you

00:21:05:23 - 00:21:26:24
Tom
come for the meme stock trading and you stay for that for a week. And the, you know, I think it's honestly, yeah, it's definitely been a good move on their part. Interestingly, I saw some research recently that, a lot of the Zoomers and the alphas are not actually getting on the Robinhood. It's like they kind of captured this, like, millennial cohort that I feel like I'm a part of.

00:21:26:27 - 00:21:40:20
Tom
And they're aging with the platform. They're staying in Robinhood, but the Youngs are not actually onboarding. And so that you maybe it's okay. Maybe you're getting people as a kind of agent of their peak earning years. But, kind of, maybe a bit counter to kind of the public narrative for them.

00:21:40:20 - 00:21:56:19
David
Yeah. That is counter to my understanding. I mean, I guess I could account for that in a couple reasons. Maybe Zoomers just don't have that money. That much money yet. Maybe they're just not in not investing because I can't imagine where they would go. I don't see them opening up a TD, TD Ameritrade or any other sort of trad brokerage.

00:21:56:19 - 00:22:01:14
David
So if they're not going to Robinhood, I kind of think they're my gut take is that they're not doing anything.

00:22:01:16 - 00:22:07:13
Tom
Yeah, that's certainly possible. Maybe they're going on chain. Maybe they're you know, I don't know, trading.

00:22:07:15 - 00:22:08:07
David
TikTok for.

00:22:08:07 - 00:22:31:25
Tom
Coins. Yeah, whatever. I just pull up their, Q1 earnings. So in, Q1 2025 or 2025, Robinhood made 22. Nil gross on on cryptocurrencies out of nine, 27 nil gross for that quarter. So pretty substantial. I mean, they made as they did more in crypto than they did on options. And it five times more than they made on equities.

00:22:31:25 - 00:22:35:02
Tom
And so yeah it's it's a big part of the business.

00:22:35:04 - 00:22:53:03
David
They have a pretty big announcement at SEC. And can is that is going on Monday. I'm going to that event. So actually they already gave you the embargo. It's very large. Announcement is pretty cool. I'm pretty stoked for it. So basically say you guys will see that in your podcast feed on Tuesday of next week.

00:22:53:03 - 00:23:10:24
David
So, stay, hold your breath for that one last thing before we move on. I don't know if you pay attention to this as much as I do or other people in industry, but I growing number of people keep on showing me this good coin ratio. So yeah, we got the bitcoin ether ratio. But now we also have the hood coin ratio.

00:23:11:00 - 00:23:31:15
David
So like there is also similarly similarly valued. I don't know if this is the price. Yeah. This is the price over price not valuation or valuation. But the valuation is both around roughly $75 billion. So people are in this like horse race between Coinbase and Hood. I don't know if you have an affiliation here, Tom, that you would like to share.

00:23:31:17 - 00:23:49:05
Tom
I do not have an affiliation. I guess I, I don't know either individually or then maybe through an index fund or something. I, I don't know, I, I actually would be impressed, frankly, with, with Robinhood's product execution. I think when you get to a company of a certain age, there's a natural tendency to kind of fall off.

00:23:49:05 - 00:24:01:14
Tom
And, I do think keep shipping fresh new products. I mean, even I either prediction market stuff, for the election and some of the newer stuff they've been doing, I mean, just just cutting edge for, you know, kind of a brokerage of their age. All right.

00:24:01:14 - 00:24:16:02
David
We're going to get into the rest of the news of the week, starting with, call she's raise, they raise a bunch of money. And Tom, I think, had the tweet of the week that we are going to talk about. I won't spoil that, but I thought it was pretty good. And then we're going to get into how you can get a mortgage with your crypto.

00:24:16:05 - 00:24:48:22
David
So we're going to get to all of that and more. But first, a message from some of these fantastic sponsors that makes this show possible. Call the prediction market. Market. The poly market competitor announced their $185 million raise, their series C raise, which values Kelsey at $2 billion. This raise is round, even though to my understanding, I don't think she has anything to do with crypto, this was nonetheless invested in by a bunch of crypto VCs, including paradigm multi Coin, and then also some people outside of crypto like Sequoia and some other VC firms that I am not familiar with.

00:24:48:22 - 00:25:08:19
David
So this has just kind of rocketed around the trad media world because you have the non crypto prediction market. I think fitting in with the non crypto media organizations. And so I think you're kind of seeing like a bifurcation of the internet and people are picking allegiances here. Everything is getting tribal these days. Like I alluded to Tommy you have a spicy tweet.

00:25:08:19 - 00:25:28:08
David
I don't want to get to that yet. I first want to kind of just get your take on a $2 billion valuation of a prediction market. I think everyone in crypto is generally bullish on prediction markets, because that's kind of like our technology. And so that feels like our turf. And we have this non crypto startup raising at a $2 billion valuation.

00:25:28:08 - 00:25:33:23
David
What do you overall what do you think about a $2 billion prediction market.

00:25:33:26 - 00:25:53:02
Tom
I don't think anything crazy about $2 billion for a prediction market. I think 2 billion for Khaleesi is a little nuts in my mind. I mean, you can see some of the metrics, not particularly impressive in my mind. I think they also obviously faces competition issue two I mentioned with with Robert Head. And suddenly this partnership with Robert had a do distribution.

00:25:53:04 - 00:26:12:03
Tom
And that's, you know, pretty, pretty attractive in terms of fees. But you just this platform risk. And there's also the forecast X, which is another, you know, CME events. Platform that Robinhood used for the election. Actually they didn't use Kelce. And yeah, again, they they're the one who ultimately has the end relationship with the user.

00:26:12:06 - 00:26:36:29
Tom
And he polymer considered a really good job of going direct to user having their own brand. I mean Shane post their you know, visitor numbers. And you know that they're putting up the same, order of magnitude of visitor numbers, as you know, some of the biggest, sites in the space. But, I just don't I don't really see that sort of affinity with Kelce early as he paid tweets from, influencers versus actual, organic interest.

00:26:36:29 - 00:26:40:19
Tom
But full disclosure, dragonfly is also an investor in Poly Market.

00:26:40:22 - 00:27:01:28
David
Okay. Okay. All right. One last question before we get into the tribal side of things. What were they? There are what do you think about the crypto companies investing in a non crypto? Sorry, there's no actual firm like rules like crypto VCs can't invest in non crypto projects. There's no there's no rules about that. But nonetheless it's interesting to me that we have some crypto VCs investing in poly markets.

00:27:01:28 - 00:27:04:04
David
Competitor. What's your gut take about that.

00:27:04:06 - 00:27:20:04
Tom
Yeah I I mean I do maybe Kelce has some deeper features in the product roadmap that I'm not privy to. They do I did or they did recently start to accept stablecoins I believe. So maybe they see some of the opportunity in kind of the, you know, design trading going on in crypto land and want some of it.

00:27:20:04 - 00:27:42:09
Tom
But they still missed out on the core component. And I think that's something that does not get brought up enough, which is Poly Market is actually happening on chain. I mean, you can't edit it using this order book, but like the trades settle on chain, you can see the balances, you can see the trades. It's verifiable that, you know, they're using, for the Oracle, like, it's very cool and transparent and embodies so much of, you know, the DeFi story where Kelsey has, you know, none of that.

00:27:42:09 - 00:27:47:10
Tom
It's it's really just an exchange that can take your stablecoins, if you if you want to send it to them.

00:27:47:10 - 00:28:07:25
David
Yeah. I mean, the main difference between Kashi and Poly Market, of course, is that call sheet is legal for United States citizens and entities, and Poly Market is not, and so they're just like an off shore predictions market, right. And so, you know, in theory, it's possible to open up a VPN. I'm not recommending that, but that's technically possible if you're unsure.

00:28:07:27 - 00:28:26:25
David
But to me, it's maybe there's like a parallel here between like, circle and tether, where circle is off shore and has more freedoms and, excuse me, tether is offshore, it has more freedom. Circle is onshore and has more restrictions, but you get to have onshore customers. I feel like that's a fair comparison. What's your what's your reaction?

00:28:26:28 - 00:28:46:13
Tom
Yeah, I actually like that. I mean, I was going to say, I think, you know, maybe the comp was going to be, good versus Coinbase, but, I like the tether circle comparison a little bit more. I do think, you know, people under index on the amount of, prediction market interest coming from outside the US.

00:28:46:13 - 00:29:04:24
Tom
I mean, there's, you know, for the longest time, Ladbrokes was like the largest, prediction market for the US election, which is a UK based, sports betting, site. And so there is, you know, it is the biggest election in the, in the, in the world. And I think, that they're also just more and more events that people want to trade on me.

00:29:05:00 - 00:29:10:10
Tom
The New York mayoral election, Israel, Iran, it just kind of the way people consume news now.

00:29:10:13 - 00:29:28:27
David
Okay. Tom, I would like to get into the spicy side of things. So you have, freedom to take the take the muzzle off. This is a tweet that you tweeted out, with some screenshots saying, never forget that, Carl. She is a team of little rats. And there are some stories here that this one came out of, pirate wires with the title of, call.

00:29:28:27 - 00:29:54:03
David
She paid influencers to target Poly Market CEO after a FBI raid. And then there are some other screenshots that I have. I believe somebody from poly Market, in DMs with a influencer who has a bunch of followers, to retweet the tweet of, CEO Shane Kaplan of Poly Market getting raided by the FBI right before the, the Trump Biden election.

00:29:54:03 - 00:30:16:06
David
So maybe, listeners might remember that, that, the, the CEO of Poly Market, Shane, got raided. I think to this day, no one really knows why. And we have verified screenshots of somebody from the Koski team convincing a general influencer on Twitter to retweet the tweet, saying, yo, this guy looks guilty, which, is, unfortunate behavior.

00:30:16:06 - 00:30:24:09
David
I would I would call that. And so that leads Tom here, to call the call team a bunch of a bunch of rats. Was. Tell me how you really feel, Tom.

00:30:24:11 - 00:30:58:26
Tom
Yeah. Look, I'm, I'm all in favor of healthy product competition. I would say, you know, this is just kind of the public story that's available on you. There's a bunch of stuff below, you know, the tip of the iceberg that maybe not don't want to discuss on this podcast, but, yeah, I think, I, I mean, frankly, I just don't think they really in behaving as good actors in the space, this is, again, one story that might come out, in, in public, but I don't think it's okay to like, you know, basically libel your competitors, or to, you're trying to beat them on things that aren't just

00:30:58:26 - 00:31:15:09
Tom
product. And so, I think on the flip side, Shane's been like an unbelievable builder. He's been building a poly market for, you know, over five years, six years, even during their marketing, there's no volume. And he built it in a way that I think, again, embodies, the spirit of crypto in the spirit of DeFi and what we're trying to do.

00:31:15:09 - 00:31:32:04
Tom
I think there's many ways to take a shortcut. And instead he, you know, I mean, if you look at the contracts, literally, it's like derived from the Gnosis prediction market, you know, way back in like 2017. And so, there's kind of this nice through line here. And, I think it's also just incredible utility for it.

00:31:32:04 - 00:31:53:23
Tom
The world. It's it's crazy to me now that, like so many world events, you know, we previously relied on pundits to give us our news and, Yeah. And they were wrong. And I think we kind of saw this with mean, most recently New York mayoral election, that, you know, this is just a way better, better incentive aligned version of how people get news now.

00:31:53:23 - 00:32:07:13
Tom
And so, I'm very properly market. And again, I just don't I yeah, I don't want to get too, too much into it, but, I think we need to kind of let you know, do some self-policing as an industry and, you know, weed out the bad actors.

00:32:07:13 - 00:32:31:03
David
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For those that don't remember, I remember, Carl, she was operating in this very limited capacity because they were under a lawsuit from the CFTC. That was really restricting their ability to just, like, operate at a startup at all. And then that they won that lawsuit or something like this, and then that when that restriction went away and they were finally open, able to open their doors like not too long before the U.S. election.

00:32:31:06 - 00:32:47:25
David
And so they really advertise themselves as, like, the only legal place for United States citizens to get into a bet on the outcome of the the United States election. But they were just so late to the game because Poly Market had already more or less like started to really crescendo in volumes, ahead of the US election.

00:32:47:25 - 00:33:04:09
David
So they were just very clearly coming from behind. And like, I like my first impressions of them was like, I mean, I kind of feel bad for them because the CFTC was really like not letting them off the leash. And they were really hamstrung by the fact that Poly Market was able to operate because they were targeting an international, international client base.

00:33:04:16 - 00:33:21:11
David
And then so they had to do some like kind of like kind of mean tweets, pointing at Poly Market. And I was like, okay, but I get it. They're an underdog. They need to like, clamor for relevancy. And so I remember some of these mean tweets from the Carlucci team going out, like trying to to fight for relevancy.

00:33:21:17 - 00:33:43:17
David
And I was like, okay, you know what? Like I get it. Like they kind of need it. But then the the, the the distasteful ness also crescendo as well. And they've kind of never really lost that. It's like more than worse in Scrappiness. It's like kind of just like actual, yeah, this distasteful ness growing out of the call sheet side of things.

00:33:43:17 - 00:33:48:01
David
That's my that's my account of history. And again, I won't ask you to comment anymore unless you unless you're unless you have something to say.

00:33:48:03 - 00:34:05:12
Tom
I think a good litmus is, if there's anything that you're doing that you wouldn't want to kind of in discovery or. Yeah, yeah. For everyone to see, I probably shouldn't be doing it. And then there's a lot of things going on at KLC that probably are in this bucket. So again, trying to send a mean tweet, find you, you know, it could be an, product, but, yeah, I.

00:34:05:13 - 00:34:21:17
David
Didn't I didn't exactly start for the mean tweets. It just only got got worse from there. Yeah, yeah. And then. Yeah. And I've also just heard rumors of Kelce just operating very nefariously under the table. But nothing I can actually like substantiate. So all right let's get into I think the crypto Twitter's favorite news of the week.

00:34:21:17 - 00:34:43:01
David
This came out of the US director of federal housing. So he's an appointee by Donald Trump, I believe, who tweeted out after significant studying and keeping with Trump's vision to make the United States the crypto capital of the world. Today, I ordered the great Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare their businesses to count cryptocurrency as an asset for a mortgage.

00:34:43:04 - 00:35:02:29
David
And so this is, this individual who is ahead of the matters that are relevant for this to get the, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are in kind of this, like pseudo private, public operated, companies that, do more I can't really remember. I'm losing my own history, but they just manage the mortgage standards in the United States.

00:35:03:01 - 00:35:28:23
David
And they started to get heavily regulated post, oh eight crisis. And so they are being ordered to look into the possibility of allowing crypto assets to be lever like, leveraged as like valid liquid assets for people's mortgages. So the memes on on crypto Twitter, of course, just went straight into, the The Big Short movie where people are looking at the I can't remember the individual who called the Big Short.

00:35:28:25 - 00:35:31:22
David
But the we have mortgages. What was the name?

00:35:31:24 - 00:35:32:14
Tom
Michael Berry.

00:35:32:14 - 00:35:53:13
David
Michael berry, thank you. Michael Berry. Realizing that there's a ton of mortgages in America that are totally collateralized with fart coin and XRP 69,000, which of course is not in the actual order, but there was no general specific cryptocurrency that was labeled, just like crypto can now be assets for mortgages. Tom, when you saw this news, what was your reaction?

00:35:53:15 - 00:36:28:19
Tom
Yeah. I mean, maybe, maybe two initial reactions. One, it maybe, verify this because this is what I remember, when the, bitcoin and ether ETFs launched their Dtcc and the Depository Trust and Clearing Commission marked both of those ETFs with 100% haircut for for collateral in U.S brokerages, meaning you can't actually borrow against these ETFs the same way you can for, an S&P ETF or any, any frankly, any sort of equity or bond or anything else you would hold in your brokerage that these basically count as zero, for collateral.

00:36:28:22 - 00:36:40:07
Tom
And that hasn't changed. And so it would be extremely bizarre to me if you can count your crypto assets as collateral for your mortgage, but you can't, can your crypto ETFs as as collateral? Free for your margin loan, which is feel.

00:36:40:07 - 00:36:52:00
David
Like you, if anything, if you were taking them more like, marginal steps forward, the ETFs would be the only thing that would be valid. And even crypto on chain crypto would be considered not valid.

00:36:52:03 - 00:37:14:13
Tom
You would think so. And they could do it with, you know, the stroke of a pen, right? You just change the haircut and instead they haven't. And so I would love to see that change. Right. I mean, this goes with all these sort of weird accounting rules. Remember when, there's a sec, staff bulletin around, you know, to count crypto assets, as assets on your, on your balance sheet, but it can only be liabilities which stopped all these banks.

00:37:14:13 - 00:37:32:25
Tom
And so I think there's a lot of weird plumbing and digital finance, ecosystem that still is kind of keeping crypto back in some ways. And this being one of those, and two, I mean, there are a number of startups that have kind of position that themselves. As you know, we are the, the mortgage lending platform that accepts crypto as collateral.

00:37:32:28 - 00:37:45:29
Tom
And I wonder what can happen to them now. I mean, maybe the answer is they move into, you know, more, know riskier versions of this, or maybe they go, you know, target different geos or something. But, it feels like in some ways this is kind of cannibalistic for for those businesses.

00:37:46:01 - 00:38:07:16
David
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so really what I'm understanding here is, like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, they are the gatekeepers of what assets are legitimate or not legitimate for mortgages. And then after that, like once we open up the gates for things like Bitcoin, ether like perhaps even more long tail crypto assets to be valid for mortgages, then it kind of goes up to the free market, to the banks, like, all right, banks, what are you guys comfortable with?

00:38:07:18 - 00:38:23:12
David
And so I guess this is where that kind of private public partnership around Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac comes in, like the government says, like no crypto assets are illegitimate. And so even with this, mean maybe, like, I don't know what Fannie Mae Freddie Mac needs to even do in order to, like, make this a new rule.

00:38:23:12 - 00:38:39:04
David
Maybe that's just like, like you said, like a stroke of the pen. And we could just have this good news event show up on Twitter, like next week. Maybe it's that simple. But even after that, then banks start to actually need to be like, okay with it, which I think is, pretty large hurdle in of itself.

00:38:39:07 - 00:38:57:25
Tom
Yeah, that's a good point. And I think we've, we've seen that, even for just, you know, allowing clients to buy Bitcoin or not even the ETFs. And some banks immediately jumped on the opportunity and some have still been slow to sort of adopt. And so, who knows what it's going to look like for mortgage lenders? Maybe again, they'll just be a distribution, on along the risk curve.

00:38:57:27 - 00:39:04:25
Tom
But, I mean, it's still a good step forward, even if this is just the literally the very first baby step in this process.

00:39:04:29 - 00:39:24:26
David
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, maybe one day we do have a financial crisis because we have, mortgages, collateral damage for coins. Too much fun. Foreign coin in this system. Tom, there wasn't that much news this week, and I feel like we kind of covered it. So I'm going to bring up just a talking point. Vitalik tweeted out this tweet, which is, retreat of Joseph Lubin.

00:39:24:28 - 00:39:45:11
David
And Joseph Lubin is tweeting out Ethereum layer one will be the master ledger for the world. Vitalik retweets this tweet saying Ethereum layer one L1 is the world ledger to which I retweet. So we're going nesting dolls of of retweeting. And I say subtle change from Ethereum to Ethereum layer one. And I have mixed reviews on this tweet.

00:39:45:11 - 00:40:02:29
David
I have some people being like, bro, these are this is so pedantic. Like this is nothing new. Other people are saying like, oh no. Vitalik Buterin specifying that it's the Ethereum layer, one that is the world ledger and not broad. Ethereum is actually significant. Where do you lie between these two debates?

00:40:03:01 - 00:40:26:26
Tom
I mean, I think it's, I don't know, it's significant, but certainly different than the language that he's used in the past. I still I don't know if this quite communicates the shift, the vibe shift that we've seen in Etherium land of more of a focus on the L1 is almost like by distinguishing the fact that it's the L1 and not an L2 like, you kind of draw attention to this weird and sort of sort of split, which is a big point of the drama in Ethereum land.

00:40:26:26 - 00:40:31:08
Tom
And so why not just call it Ethereum? Why not just call it, you know.

00:40:31:10 - 00:40:35:07
David
When I call it a theorem and mean the layer one, you mean like at the same time?

00:40:35:10 - 00:40:54:12
Tom
Yes. It's almost like when you're when you're overly specific, you're sort of invite more questions, versus you know that the product is what the product is and there's not really any more additional explanation or verbiage required. And so, a little bit weird, but I mean, hey, at least there's some sort of, you know, narrative congealing around, you know, Ethereum L1.

00:40:54:15 - 00:41:13:07
David
Yeah, there this narrative congealing around this theorem, layer one, which I'm a big fan of, and I accept the point that it is really also driving a wedge between the fact that there's this layer one, layer two dynamic, and there are some people in on like one side of the Ethereum. I know that layer twos are Ethereum, they are the same thing as Ethereum.

00:41:13:07 - 00:41:46:14
David
They're part of the system. And then there are other people who are like, no, they are technically not Ethereum. They are technically their own layer twos and naming them under the broad Ethereum umbrella is not helpful and not and not productive and also takes away focus from the Ethereum layer, one that I'm kind of leaning. I've been leaning towards the side more and more and more lately, and I actually think it actually is almost critically important for us to figure this out because Ethereum, the layer one, I think there needs to be a line there as to what is and what is not Ethereum.

00:41:46:14 - 00:42:19:02
David
And in being inclusive of things that I think are truly, actually pretty disparate from Ethereum, like the mostly the rollup landscape that we know today, base world coin world chain like arbitrary which are separate chains that use Ethereum for security. I there should be a separation there. In my opinion. There should be a line there. And when we say Ethereum needs to be the world ledger, people ought to like, like you said, ought to think Ethereum two layer one without having to consider the layer twos and layer twos are just customers of these things are just external protocols.

00:42:19:07 - 00:42:31:26
David
And we need to expand the capacities and the Tam of the Ethereum layer one to the best of its ability, and not have layer two be inclusive of that. I'm on my soapbox right now, but, I wonder, I'm wondering what your take is.

00:42:31:28 - 00:42:50:24
Tom
Yeah, I think probably. Right. I mean, I think a good litmus test is like, what percentage of different L2 users know that they're using a theorem? Or if they're using Ethereum, they know they're selling back to Ethereum. Right. I think there's there's probably a spread there. But like, I think a lot of people on base probably don't think about that.

00:42:50:27 - 00:42:52:21
Tom
You know, they are they're probably and.

00:42:52:24 - 00:42:55:24
David
Interested in growing those numbers, by the way. Yeah.

00:42:55:28 - 00:43:13:16
Tom
I, I'm not saying this, in an accusatory way. I think it is more like, yeah, if you're, you know, using a while as a service, if you're funding through Coinbase smart wallet, if you need your funding to Coinbase and using cash, like, why would you ever think that you're using Ethereum or thinking about where does this transaction actually go?

00:43:13:18 - 00:43:31:00
Tom
You're just thinking, I don't know. I want to go, you know, buy this coin or I want to go coin this song or, you know, whatever, whatever it is that you're actually doing. Which is great. I think that's the way crypto goes mainstream. I think that was a large part of Poly market success, frankly, in the election was you can just sign up and use this thing the same way you would use a web two app.

00:43:31:03 - 00:43:41:29
Tom
But the downside is, you know, if DRM is pitching itself, there's infrastructure and, and plumbing and, that kind of gets lost when, you know, users are, different than what crypto users look like.

00:43:41:29 - 00:43:57:23
David
Today, right? Yeah. There are different cohorts of users, people that kind of understand and pop open the hood and look at the chains that they are touching. And then there are users who are just using apps and they don't care, and they just want to press the buttons, and they don't really give a shit about what blockchain they are on.

00:43:57:23 - 00:44:11:13
David
They just want it to go fast and work. And yeah, the growth of those users, is not going to be found on the Ethereum layer one. If the Ethereum layer one doesn't focus on itself in that, in that same kind of capacity.

00:44:11:15 - 00:44:29:29
Tom
Yeah. I to be clear, I think that's totally fine. I think users should care about a chain being fast and cheap, and I think that is, you know, part of Ethereum's goal is to make this make it the obvious choice, for developers, for users that it just kind of blends in the background, which is something that Solana got right.

00:44:29:29 - 00:44:34:18
Tom
And that's why so many people were choosing it when they were looking to just have some very simple plumbing for their app.

00:44:34:24 - 00:44:51:09
David
Yeah, certainly. Certainly. Yeah, it was a light week. Tom, I really appreciate you coming. Going through the news with me since we have a little bit of extra time. What's exciting to Tom? What are you interested about? You guys have done a couple of, club, order book based exchange episodes on the chopping block. What else is going through your mind?

00:44:51:09 - 00:44:54:00
David
What are you. What are you looking at that no one else is looking at?

00:44:54:02 - 00:45:14:08
Tom
Yeah, we had, Vlad from Leiter. It's a, this, on the on the chopping block this week. Very cool tech that you, verifiable matching and all the orders. So you have to trust, you know, a single party, even for a Dex to match orders together. And so you've got this really nice UX. I was, I my my pet favorite Porthos.

00:45:14:11 - 00:45:19:23
Tom
One that I really am a fan of right now is this company called Mega Pod. They're trying to build the world's largest lottery.

00:45:19:28 - 00:45:22:23
David
No, we, co-investors in mega pot.

00:45:22:25 - 00:45:50:07
Tom
That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Yeah. Very cool. I mean, yeah, already up to $1 million today, for the jackpot. And I think the coolest part is aim. It's it's global. Be it's verifiable. It's on chain. But c users get the beta house. Right. You can you there's a Uniswap style LP mechanism where you can provide liquidity or you can buy a token, and the market sort of sets the rate for, you know, what percent goes back to the house.

00:45:50:07 - 00:45:53:27
Tom
So it's not just, 50%, which is kind of the standard for, for a lottery.

00:45:54:04 - 00:46:16:09
David
Yeah, yeah. And to be clear, this is a normal lottery that you see when you are driving down your highway and you see the mega millions like X billion dollar jackpot, same exact structure, no different except for the fact, as Tom said, that the users also get to be the house. The payoffs are much more fair because I think like the rational dollar going into like a mega millions or something, it's worth $0.22 in terms of like actual EV.

00:46:16:11 - 00:46:34:09
David
Mega pot is something much more close to an actual dollar, $1 and almost $1 out. And then users also get to be the yield on the other side. So like, I think users like the LPs have been earning somewhere between like 22 and 25% AP there's a bunch of mechanics, with how that works.

00:46:34:09 - 00:46:47:29
David
But like any, any time that no one wins the lottery, the LPs just continue to rack up yields and then ticket sales. So it's fun that we get to have both sides of the market benefit. You can be a customer of both. I think that's pretty cool.

00:46:48:01 - 00:47:08:16
Tom
Yeah. It's I mean, I think ultimately you let the market speak and that's how you kind of get innovation. I think it's also, frankly, just cool as basically building an API for for lottery tickets. I mean, it's sort of like straight with a single line. You get to do credit card, check out a single line of code, you can buy a ticket, you can be an LP, you can sell a ticket, you can combine it with other people, all sorts of cool stuff.

00:47:08:16 - 00:47:11:27
Tom
People go on top of it. So, that's a pet favorite for go right now.

00:47:11:28 - 00:47:15:12
David
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Were you, done it permissionless at all this week?

00:47:15:15 - 00:47:22:06
Tom
I was, yeah. Seeing some folks doing couple interviews. Overall, a pretty good vibe other than the fact that it was like a hundred degrees in York.

00:47:22:08 - 00:47:23:23
David
Yeah. And sad.

00:47:23:25 - 00:47:26:09
Tom
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But yeah.

00:47:26:12 - 00:47:49:06
David
Definitely the permissionless attendance was actually pretty good as far I was concerned that, attendance for permissionless was going to be down because it was in New York, because New York is such a, there's a magnet for side events there. But, man, people love going to the actual conference. And, and, I mean, this is what happens when podcasters, I think, organize, panels, it's like, it's actually like good and worth, interesting and worth going.

00:47:49:11 - 00:48:03:12
David
And also, block works. Is it a killer job just organizing, in Industry City? There was like a zero ex research dunk tank. So all the Xerox research boys were getting dunked, which is pretty fun. And overall, yeah, the vibes were like pretty good and upbeat. And everyone was there. Yeah.

00:48:03:14 - 00:48:07:08
Tom
Yeah. Going to give a shout out to the Block Works crew for organizing another great permissionless.

00:48:07:14 - 00:48:15:17
David
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tom, you are a podcaster. If people liked your takes and like the sound of your voice, where can they go? Hear you.

00:48:15:19 - 00:48:30:03
Tom
They can find me on Twitter. I'm Tom H. Schmidt, MD. Or you can check out the chopping block or underscore chopping block on Twitter. And yeah, you check out dragonfly or, see me online, and you know me already. But thanks for having me on on your pod. It was great.

00:48:30:09 - 00:48:43:15
David
Yeah, I really appreciate it, my man. There's a ton of fun. Thank you. You guys know the deal. Crypto is risky. You can lose what you put in, especially if you put it into a lottery. That's half of the point. Nonetheless, this is a frontier. We are glad you're with us on the bank list or any. Thanks a lot.