ROLLUP: Buy Signal? | Fusaka Launch | Polymarket Mainstream | Trump’s Fed Chair | SEC Crypto Shift

Summary

Bankless Weekly Rollup – “Buy Signal? | Fusaka Launch | Polymarket Mainstream | Trump’s Fed Chair | SEC Crypto Shift”

Podcast: Bankless
Date: December 5, 2025
Hosts: David Hoffman (B), Ryan Sean Adams (A)

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Episode Overview

This week’s Bankless Rollup serves as a comprehensive pulse check on crypto as 2025 draws to a close. The hosts—David and Ryan—tackle market momentum, Ethereum’s major Fusaka upgrade, the prediction market wars, regulatory winds (including SEC innovation exemptions and Trump’s hinted new Fed Chair), and evolving institutional attitudes towards crypto. Amidst the analysis and banter, the tone is optimistic yet cautious: Are we in a muted bear market, or is mainstream adoption quietly gaining steam?

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Table of Contents

1. Market Sentiment: Bear, Bullish, or Meh?
2. Bitcoin in Gold Terms: Is It a Buy Signal?
3. Ethereum Fusaka Upgrade: Scaling, Sharding, & Vitalik’s Challenge
4. Polymarket, Kalshi, and the Prediction Market Boom
5. Regulatory Shifts: SEC, Trump’s Fed, and State-Level Friction
6. Institutional Adoption: Larry Fink, Schwab, BoA & The “Four-Year Cycle”
7. Tether FUD & Stablecoin Reserves
8. Aztec’s Unique ETH Auction & ICO Resurgence
9. Crypto in Law: UK Property Rights Milestone
10. Memes, Vibes & The State of Bankless Nation

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<a name="market-sentiment"></a>

1. Market Sentiment: Bear, Bullish, or Meh?

• Mountain-climbing Metaphors: David is back from his exhausting climbs; plans easier hobbies for 2026.
• Is it a bear market? Ryan notes consensus is leaning that way, but “it’s a green week” and not all hope is lost.
• “I kind of feel like consensus is moving in that direction [bear market]… I have not quite given up hope.” — Ryan (01:22)
• Price check:
  • Bitcoin is up 2% on the week (“92,350 dollars…feeling way better than the 84,000 that we were at earlier this week.” — David, 07:21)
  • ETH is up 6% at $3,200
  • Total crypto market cap: $3.25T
• Both expect a muted, shallow downturn rather than catastrophic crashes:
  • “I do not think…anything’s going to blow up. There’s no Three Arrows Capital. There’s no FTX.” — David (14:51)
  • A “very mellow” winter at worst.

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2. Bitcoin in Gold Terms: Is It a Buy Signal?

• Bitcoin is “cheaper relative to gold than almost any point in the last 15 years.” (08:01)
• Mark Connors (ex-Credit Suisse) says institutions still prefer gold for the store-of-value trade.
  • “Central banks…still prefer gold… Bitcoin is still a newcomer.” — Ryan (09:17)
• Higher rates benefit gold more than BTC; shows Bitcoin’s maturation.
• Market signals suggest Bitcoin could be primed for “catchup” against gold, eventually.

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3. Ethereum Fusaka Upgrade: Scaling, Sharding, & Vitalik’s Challenge

• Second major ETH upgrade of the year: Fusaka brings “peerDAS”—real data sharding for L2 scaling.
  • 8x more L2 blobs/data, 25% more L1 throughput (“default block capacity [up] from 45M to 60M… a 25% increase” — Ryan, 44:41)
• Minor hiccup: 36% of the network (Prism client) went offline, but Ethereum’s multi-client architecture prevented disruption.
  • “Prism…had a bug, which lost 26% of the network…multi-client is just so beautiful and elegant.” — David (41:16)
  • “Nothing wrong with losing finalization once in a while…in my opinion.” — Vitalik, paraphrased by Ryan (41:47)
• Vitalik’s Challenge: L1 is so scalable and cheap now that apps should consider returning. He envisions a “full sharding + zkEVMs” future, possibly within three years.
• Block Times: Now under serious review: “Six second slots are fully specced…can ship next year…But we shouldn’t stop there.” — Tony at EF, quoted by David (46:10)
• Sentiment: ETH dev momentum is real; “Promises made, promises kept.” (47:28)
• Memorable moment:
  • “We sharded the blobs left and right. I am sharting myself just thinking about how great this is.” — Ryan (43:52, 59:43)

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4. Polymarket, Kalshi, and the Prediction Market Boom

• Polymarket’s U.S. debut: Acquired exchanges for $112M to fast-track CFTC approval; launched a top-5 sports app; now open to U.S. users.
  • “How did Polymarket speed run US entry? They just bought [the required] exchanges.” — David (31:19)
• Competition with Kalshi:
  • Shane Copeland (Polymarket) and Luana Lopez Lara (Kalshi) are now the youngest self-made billionaires (27 and 29).
  • Polymarket: $4.3B spot volume last month; Kalshi: $5.8B
  • Kalshi partners with CNN; Polymarket highlighted on 60 Minutes.
• Regulatory clouds:
  • Kalshi hit by class action lawsuit and state AGs (Nevada, Massachusetts, NY, Maryland, Ohio) trying to label event bets as illegal gambling.
  • David is bullish lawsuits will settle core legality: “Call she gets the opportunity to just like put to rest…and hopefully set some court precedent.” (39:26)
• Shane Copeland on Trump Jr.'s advisory role (35:12):
  • “It’s definitely not to protect myself…I need help navigating that [the pro-innovation climate]. I’m a young entrepreneur…nothing wrong with that.”

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5. Regulatory Shifts: SEC, Trump’s Fed, and State-Level Friction

• Trump hints at new Fed Chair:
  • Kevin Hassett (“rate cut guy,” pro-crypto, 7-figure COIN stake), “one of us.” — Ryan (17:11)
  • “What does Trump want? He wants rate cuts…Kevin Hassett is the rate cut guy.” — David (16:21)
• Fed Dovishness ≠ Liquidity:
  • “Dovish Fed means money printing” might not automatically follow; fiscal deficits and the Global Liquidity Index (GLI) are critical. (17:40)
• SEC’s “Innovation Exemption” for crypto:
  • Expected January 2026 — will offer project clarity and “safe harbor” to revive on-chain launches.
  • “This would never have happened under Gensler.” — Bill Hughes, on ICO legal memos (54:40)

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6. Institutional Adoption: Larry Fink, Schwab, BoA & The “Four-Year Cycle”

• Larry Fink (BlackRock) op-ed: All-in on tokenization, compares today’s state to the Internet in 1996.
  • “Tokenization today is roughly where the internet was in 1996…enormous growth over the coming decades.” — Larry Fink (Read by Ryan, 21:05)
  • “Tokenization is a real thing and we are now bullish on blockchain technology.” — David (22:05)
• Brian Armstrong & Larry Fink buddy up; Armstrong appears next to Fink in mainstream media, as Coinbase and BlackRock relationship deepens.
  • On changing his mind:
    “I have very strong views, but that doesn’t mean I’m not wrong…my thought process always evolves.” — Larry Fink (23:52)
• Other Wall Street Moves:
  • Bank of America allows up to 4% BTC allocation in managed portfolios.
  • Charles Schwab announces BTC/ETH trading for 2026, possibly via “white-labeled” Coinbase platform.
  • Steady mainstream capital inflow = shallow cycles?
    • “Why I see a muted bear market… globally the pipes are just widening and capital is slowly trickling in.” — David (26:10)
    • “The only thing I’ll say is every four-year cycle, we always say the four-year cycle is dead.” — Ryan (26:43)

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7. Tether FUD & Stablecoin Reserves

• Arthur Hayes and risk in Tether’s reserves:
  • 80% cash-like reserves; 20% riskier (gold, BTC). Arthur notes a 30% crash would “wipe out their equity.”
  • Ryan & David’s take: Risk exists but is smaller than fractional reserve banks; Tether is “nowhere near insolvency.”
  • “They could redeem like 80% of tether before they’d have to sell their bitcoin and gold.” — David (52:53)
  • “They’re taking some risk here, but it’s not excessive.” — Ryan (53:13)

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8. Aztec’s Unique ETH Auction & ICO Resurgence

• Aztec launches a continuous clearing, ETH-denominated auction for their token.
  • “This is an ICO, a defi ICO, is it not?” — Ryan (54:07)
  • “They’re just hardcore cypherpunks…completely Defi.” — David (54:27)
• Full legal memos for four jurisdictions — only possible thanks to the Gensler-to-Atkins SEC shift.
  • “This would never have happened under the Gensler administration.” — Bill Hughes, summarized by Ryan (54:40)
• More to come: Bankless teases an upcoming episode on new ICO mechanisms.

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9. Crypto in Law: UK Property Rights Milestone

• King Charles III signs law defining digital assets as new, third type of property.
  • “Before…the only property that the UK recognized was physical stuff…now, digital assets can be…a legitimate property.” — Ryan (56:44)
  • “The biggest property rights change in probably the last century for the UK.” (57:52)
  • David’s take: “Just British stuff, man.” (58:13)

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10. Memes, Vibes & The State of Bankless Nation

• Meme of the Week:
  • John Wu tweets: Sad, lonely mall Santa = “how it feels to be optimistic about crypto right now.”
• Closing Vibes:
  • The Bankless community stands together through market cycles.
  • “If you’re feeling early in the season, we are here with you…Crypto is risky, none of this has been financial advice.” — Ryan (58:58)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On developer momentum:
  • “If we want to increase layer one usage, lower the block times…and we shouldn’t stop there.” — Tony from EF (46:10)
• On prediction market explainers:
  • “You make money if you’re right, you lose if you’re wrong…As more people wager and news breaks, the odds change.” — Shane Copeland (paraphrased, 34:40)
• On institutional adoption:
  • “It’s okay—we are now bullish blockchain.” — David (22:05, channeling Larry Fink)
• On cycle predictions:
  • “Every four-year cycle, we always say the four-year cycle is dead.” — Ryan (26:43)

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Recommended Listening Segments

| Topic | Timestamp | |----------------------------------|-----------------| | Bitcoin’s gold valuation signal | 08:01–10:22 | | Ethereum Fusaka/Shard upgrade | 41:00–47:50 | | Polymarket mainstream moment | 31:17–35:12 | | Trump’s Fed Chair & macro | 16:03–18:30 | | Larry Fink’s tokenization piece | 21:05–24:32 |

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Final Thoughts

This Rollup is a blend of grounded optimism (in scaling, in evolving regulatory posture, in institutional momentum) and practical skepticism (on market cycles, stablecoin risk, and regulatory headwinds). Ethereum’s scale-up, the prediction market arms race, and the mainstream’s embrace of tokenization all signal crypto’s next phase—slow, grinding, but inexorable evolution towards broader adoption.

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For further detail or transcript references, see original timestamps throughout the summary.

Transcript

[A]

Bankless nation it is the first week of december it's time for the bankless weekly roll up david you're back in the saddle man it's so good to have you i've had to do three of these with i'm not going to with fantastic substitute guests okay not the same as david hoffman but they are.

[B]

Fantastic there are fantastic talented podcasters out there that aren't us in crypto that's.

[C]

Right and we found all of them.

[A]

Actually yeah but i miss you man you were climbing mountains i saw the photos looked absolutely incredible i don't know how you're doing that but you were telling me that it might be over.

[B]

For you actually i think i don't need to climb any harder mountains than what i have climbed that one was particularly hard and i was exhausted like four or five hours into it and i knew that i had more than twelve hours left to go yeah and at that point i was like you know what i think i'm gonna find something easy to do for twenty twenty six so that's gonna be my new year's resolution is do easier things yeah.

[A]

All right that sounds good and you know i think you reached your max level right you don't need to level up anymore you've done all the mountains now go focus on something super easy so i can't wait to hear what.

[B]

That is if anyone has got a good easy hobby idea for me let me know knitting open i think i.

[A]

Think you should knit.

Especially during this bear cycle what else are you going to do man make a little sweater for your grandma or something is it.

[B]

Is it a bear circle is that.

[A]

Determined i kind of feel like consensus is moving in that direction i have not quite given up hope but i'm.

[C]

It'S a green week this week it's.

[B]

Pretty green i want to get your.

[A]

Takes on this actually so you're coming at it with fresh eyes maybe you can tell me something i don't know or i haven't seen but we got to talk about bitcoin of course it is cheaper than ever in gold terms you know that because gold is up is that a buy signal it has.

[B]

Been in the past ethereum got its second big upgrade of the year fusaka is live how'd it go and what does it actually bring to ethereum and is vitalik happy with the progress and i hope he is yeah vitalik claps why is he inviting everyone back to the ethereum layer one is the ethereum layer one ready for more stuff we're.

[A]

Going to talk about that also polymarket is going mainstream they were on sixty minutes which i feel like is a mainstream moment also shane the founder of polymarket becomes one of the youngest billionaires ever they're open to us users now also kalshi so the competitors to polymarket they became an exclusive partner of cnn so this is like prediction market season we'll talk about that because there's also some speed bumps ahead for prediction markets aztec token sale it's live there's privacy meta going on we're going to talk about the neat little auction as well associated with that and the sec is.

[B]

About to roll out an innovation exemption for crypto projects why ryan think that's a very big deal and donald trump has pre announced we think speculation around the next fed chair so which donald trump acquiescer is being nominated to the fed chair and then lastly larry fink and brian armstrong best bros you know the two male men holding hands emoji that was larry fink and brian armstrong.

[A]

This last week oh yeah a lot.

[B]

Of love but before we get to all of that and more we have to talk about some of our friends and sponsors over at raya they've got a solution to the crypto perps trading problem what is that problem you either get the speed of a centralized exchange or the security and censorship resistance and property rights of a decentralized exchange hard to get both but raya is closing that gap they've built a base roll up with zk zk proofs it delivers sub one millisecond trading did not know that that was possible zero trading fees and inherits all of ethereum security not only that but the token model the fees collected by the arch perp dex twenty percent of those fees will go to buy and burn ether ether did.

[A]

You know that this is a really cool design actually i was talking to simon about it and the whole thing is a first of its kind so i'm super excited to see how that goes with the perp stack yeah trade.

[B]

Like how ethereum wants you to bankless cc raya that's r e y a ryan you know why december one of the many reasons why december is the best month christmas christmas is one of them spotify wrapped is also your birthday.

[A]

It'S your birthday this month that's why.

[B]

December is one of your favorite months i'm sure yeah that's right that's that's.

[A]

That'S why it's one of my favorite.

[B]

Months see yeah yeah yeah but no it's spotify rap season i always thoroughly enjoy the spotify wrapped um we currently have the record holder of the bankless listener with the most number of minutes coming in at avi a v i i ten thousand eighty nine minutes of bankless listened to by avi in twenty twenty five if you think you can be avi i want to see your spotify wrapped if bankless is in your spotify wrapped we want to see it it's the one time of the year that we actually get to really connect with the people that truly are committed to like listening to the massive amounts of podcast episodes that we release so we want to see it so tweet it out tweet at us i'll put a threshold for me personally ryan if i see somebody tweet a bankless podcast listenership three thousand three thousand three thousand i think that's where i'll give them a follow because i just worth it yeah because that means that they know what we're about they know what i care about i mean they're tapped into.

[A]

The signal that's fifty hours though david all right so ten thousand minutes is one hundred sixty hours it's about fifty episodes yeah a little under i guess that's worthy fifty one out of three.

[B]

Episodes i will follow anyone who listens to one out of three episodes okay.

[A]

I actually i would really love to see your spotify wrapped and particularly i know you got you like excellent music choices but i want to see your podcast choices because as the podcast aficionado here like that's the most interesting part to me this is my list this year do you see this dwarkesh number.

[B]

One i don't listen to podcasts on.

[A]

Spotify it's a problem you don't why.

[B]

Not no i listen i'm a boomer.

[A]

I do apple podcasts oh my god everything i do is on spotify so i don't maybe you could project what yours would look like but dwarkesh got the number one slot for me first time ever got that nice bankless premium because i gotta catch up on episodes i'm not on and sometimes i listen to good episodes again the rest is history club i love these guys two british guys all they do is talk about history lex friedman of course and i'm still on dimitri kofinas with hidden forces that was my number five i've got a long tail of like sam harris and other things but yeah that's my list here what do you think.

[B]

It'S pretty good pretty good pretty good i think the ones that would show up on mine are the daily odd lots odd lots is good odd lots is very good and then sam harris probably doesn't make it on the list simply because he doesn't put out too many episodes but i listen to every single sam harris episode that's got to count for something and also on the brink with castle island that would probably be up there for me as well.

[A]

Would that be your number one crypto podcast you would say apart from bankless.

[B]

On the brink i never miss a on the brink friday weekly roundup which maybe that name sounds eerily close to the friday weekly rollup who copied who okay copied who who came first well.

[A]

See we call it a roll up because that's ethereum centric yeah and nick carter would never dare to go there you know he's gotta be a roundup.

[B]

They do a roundup yeah yeah yeah.

[A]

Well let's honor nick carter by talking about bitcoin prices how are we doing on the week up or down we.

[B]

Are up two percent on the week ninety two thousand three hundred and fifty dollars is where we currently are.

Ninety ninety k in the ninety k range not not at the highs but god feeling way better than the eighty four thousand that we were at earlier this week so we really pumped up in.

[A]

The last few days november was terrible david you missed a lot of november and it was absolutely terrible so seeing any kind of green on the week actually feels pretty good to me so i'll take that ten percent i'm really.

[B]

Bummed that my climbing correlates with green markets track record is broken pretty violently.

[A]

Too yeah it's completely broken i don't know what happened up in the mountains but it was not good for crypto prices let me tell you maybe it was good for gold prices here is a something interesting bitcoin is now cheaper relative to gold than at almost any point in the last fifteen years if that sounds confusing to you it's because this is on a ratio type score bitcoin gold ratio just not relevant here that's right below the statistical floor of a fifteen year power law model something that's only happened once before late twenty seventeen so you take the bitcoin gold ratio and you power law because i guess we can do that because you know bitcoin has appreciated so much faster than gold recently you get kind of this correlation you know you back test it you get this correlation the only time it's been below the gray area here the very bottom was a brief period of time in twenty seventeen and then it's you know kind of caught up so relative to gold bitcoin from a power law perspective might be looking cheap and there could be some catch up here people are saying the reasons this is an analyst take actually mark connor at credit suisse formerly credit suisse i should say say the reason gold is doing well and bitcoin is not is just because of institutional preference i would summarize this and i would say it's too early like the central banks and the major asset allocators the big sovereign wealth funds they still prefer gold for that store of value like fiat hedge versus bitcoin that's certainly true of china's central bank and everything that pboc is doing lately so that's just where we are on the cycle i mean bitcoin is still a newcomer what fifteen sixteen years old and gold is is catching the bid right now for that debasement trade yeah it's no coincidence that.

[B]

I think bitcoin or gold has appreciated relative to bitcoin over the last two and a half years during the time of higher interest rates like lower lower interest rates would definitely benefit bitcoin and also this is a also i'll also say that's a symptom of bitcoin's maturity just like eventually bitcoin is going to stop just absolutely crushing gold year after year after year after year and so you know gold's got to get get one win every now and then yeah.

[A]

I guess you're saying like this this this may not hold right this kind of curve up this power law curve up may not hold completely so but but it does feel like bitcoin has some catch up to do for gold will catch up at some point tell.

[B]

Me about eth price ether three thousand two hundred up six percent on the.

[A]

Week six percent okay that's not too bad i think now during these dark times people ask themselves questions like hey what should bitcoin be worth and hey what should eth be worth there's this website that came out called ethval dot com comma which i actually really appreciated because it has all of the different ways that people have used metrics and numbers and fundamentals let's call it to value eth it's all on one single dashboard so if you are tradfi brained and you like discounted cashflow for measuring eth you can see that price to sales ratio has all that stuff then it also has the crypto native metrics like if you take a tvl multiple all of the value all the assets on chain and you do that as a multiple you get a different eth price anyway it's a composite of all of this these different things and if you add them all together that the fair value of eth is actually five k not three thousand david so it's undervalued at this point and you can sort and change this these numbers at a whim maybe you don't believe in price to sales ratio like me or revenue yields and then the price goes up to six thousand two hundred so.

[B]

I think you do believe in them but you just don't believe in them as like a main character or they're.

[A]

Much more marginal i think they're much more marginal and actually i would say i don't really believe in them no i'm i'm like more of an atheist when it comes to a price to sales ratio for for valuing store value assets like gold or bitcoin do you.

[B]

Believe in the triple point asset i.

[A]

Believe in the triple point ass asset.

[B]

Yes which has capital asset a revenue dividend paying angle to as a component.

[A]

That'S a little bit of my staking though that's my staking rewards here that's that two percent annual it's not yeah that's right it doesn't have to be the fee revenue basically yeah yeah yeah it's more characterized by what are these the staking scarcity that's a metric that's used here there's actually did you catch that debate with santi and haseeb i.

[B]

Know it's out there i'm i'm going to go listen to it after this.

[A]

Okay well santi's perspective is that ethereum is super overvalued because he's like hey it's three hundred price to sales ratio and amazon at its peak was twenty eight price to sales ratio and so like that's crazy it can't be and.

[B]

I'M like i saw a funny tweet.

[A]

Price to sales ratio i saw a.

[B]

Funny tweet i was like yo this guy had like a week to prepare and he just goes with a price to sales ratio.

[A]

I mean here's a fundamental reason besides the store of value thing i don't like price to sales for assets like ether i don't like it for bitcoin by the way if you did bitcoin price to sales it's about seventeen very bearish very bearish very bearish and that's why you don't do it it's silly it doesn't explain how the market is actually valuing it but the reason i think is because of something we saw even this week with the ethereum fusaka upgrade we got a lot more blocks a lot more block space and fee revenue compressed so we got scale and the sales goes down with scale right so are you telling me if you believe in price to sales ratio is the one true way to value eth you're telling me that as ethereum scales you get more bearish because sales goes down what we should.

[B]

Do is we should make blocks so small that you can only put three transactions per block and price to sales.

[A]

Would go through the million dollars per block we could get that we could get that for like three years until everyone moved off of ethereum right right yeah anyway that's why it's an indicator it's helpful but like it's not it can't be the only metric it's certainly not the primary metric that i use david tell us about the total crypto.

[B]

Market cap where are we three and one quarter trillion dollars i was looking at it at like three or four days ago and it was threatening to go below three which i really don't like if i had saw a two handle in front of the trillion dollar total crypto market cap number that'd be a sad day but that is not this day we had three point two five trillion which still wanted to be higher is it's what's the what's the top four point two five or something we're a trillion dollars off you're not.

[A]

You'Re you don't think we're in a bear market i can tell by the way you're saying like i think we are heading towards twos the weight of probability to me is we're heading towards the twos before we hit the the the fours and the fives unfortunately you.

[B]

Don'T want to believe this i think we could touch i think we could be in twos for a briefer moment of time time but like yeah no i don't i am not saying we i don't think we're in a bare.

[A]

Market you're not calling i think we.

[B]

Could we could grind lower but like nothing i don't think anything's going to blow up there's no thrillers capital there's no ftx yeah so i think we could grind potentially down for like a quarter and people just get really like bored but i don't think there's going to be blood and i don't think there's going to be blood so a.

[A]

Muted dip not kind of a crypto winter that we've seen in cycles past is what you think correct i correct.

[B]

I do not think i think that if you're going into winter it's going to be a very mellow one how.

[A]

About how much of your faith in that is based on the fed so trump hinted this week that there would be a new fed chair i don't know so much as he hinted as he basically flat out kind of said it you know trump fashion the guy's name is kevin hassett he is the leading candidate to replace jerome powell when powell's term ends in may and he added he said thank you kevin let's see this is polymarket odds of kevin hassett actually dipped a little bit they're at about seventy percent right now but they were above eighty five percent earlier this week but the clear leading candidate to replace fed chair powell what do we know about this guy not too.

[B]

Much he's pro growth strongly dovish what we do know about donald trump is that he gets who he wants he very clearly wants stuff whether he's finding a judge to like do his litigation or appointing a fed chair he wants.

[A]

Certain outcomes litigation wow yes he's an outcomes driven guy yes he's an outcomes.

[B]

Driven guy and so he will find some candidate who is like i'll give you what you want and then donald trump appoints that person to do his job and that's what i see here and so what does donald trump want he wants rate cuts so who is kevin hassett kevin hassett has a rate cut guy he's the rate cut guy he's he's brady mcrae cut man yeah he is he chaired the council of economic advisors in trump's first term he now directs the national economic council in the white house widely regarded as crypto friendly wow disclose a seven figure stake in coinbase what and then yeah wow me and ryan are reading our notes for the first time and has been one of the key figures shaping trump's digital asset strategy so pro crypto guy who wants to cut rates he's one.

[A]

Of us so my question is did that factor into your decision to be to be bullish basically no rate cut guys coming because i was really thinking about that some people think this means easy money and what does easy money mean it means risk on assets means prices go up that might not be the case this time okay this is michael nadeau he wrote a blog post earlier this week and he said not so fast what you have to look at is this right here did you catch that michael howell episode where he talked about the global liquidity index right yeah this is my bible now the.

[B]

First half yeah i don't care what.

[A]

The fed's doing okay i'm looking at the gli this is the gli and you see that dip there that's the gli michael nato gives kind of the reason for this and it's basically that fiscal spending is down so the deficit is actually down on the year does that surprise you at all like we have more tariff income and government spending is down a little bit so we're kind of down versus before this has an effect oh is that what donald trump promised i guess he kind of did i mean it's not down that much so don't get so excited anyway so less less spending less liquidity you got to look at the gli it doesn't it's just not as simple to say dovish fed means money printing and this is you know it does lead to more bank lending but that might not be enough to impact global liquidity.

[B]

Yeah yeah the negative catalyst that no one really ever expected is that the government actually decided to spend less money and tax more and save more they're.

[A]

Probably only doing that for a little.

[B]

While yeah you can't do that for.

[A]

Very long do you see strategy so strategy has been struggling with mnav recently and if you recall strategy has some debt so michael saylor has some debt he of course buys bitcoin at the market sales right but a lot of like a portion of his bitcoin is actually funded by like pretty.

Reasonable debt not like not crazy amounts of risk in the debt but with debt that means he has to pay interest okay so he has to pay interest on that debt denominated in dollars and if price of bitcoin goes down he still has the interest payment where does he get the money where does he get the money to pay he's still gotta so maybe he has to sell his bitcoin ah not so fast this is michael saylor's strategy to not sell the bitcoin is he sold more of the stock sold more of strategy in order to squirrel away not this time bitcoin but dollars so he could pay his interest payments for the next twelve months or so that's the that's the average.

[B]

Eighteen eighteen to twenty one months oh even longer dividends and interest raised from one point four billion dollars of class a common shares the microstrategy stock just sold into the market which finally i think we're actually seeing some rationality show up in the microstrategy chart if you want to pull open the chart it looks not great yeah but also i think people are just taking out the massive premium because people are realizing that mstr is.

Being cucked by bitcoin so michael tragedy michael michael strategy michael saylor just infinitely prints the equity so he can fund the debt fund the interest ratements fund the dividends required so you can buy more bitcoin and now finally two years later mscr holders are kind of realizing it's like oh wait we're.

[A]

Back to one mnav where the liquidity.

[B]

Here yeah exactly yeah but yeah it'll.

[A]

Go back up in time but not during a bare market right by the way this is every dat strategy it's not just michael sailor strategy if michael.

[B]

Sailor has to be doing some of this stuff which is like bolstering up his defenses you know that every other dat is under a lot more pressure i think it's it's like if micro strategy sneezes then everyone else catches a.

[A]

Cold i think that is true but also i will say strategy has more debt than any of these other entities.

So they've got interest payments to make but they also have the brand name.

[B]

They also have more bitcoin than everyone.

[A]

So let's talk a little bit about larry fink i feel like he is proving that he is no tourist to crypto david so i read this article in the economist that he wrote larry fink so you have blackrock basically tokenization could transform finance this isn't the economist i cannot imagine a more mainstream financial publication than the economist and a more mainstream bellwether financial guy than larry fink writing an article i want to read you a a section of this he said if history is any guide tokenization today is roughly where the internet was in nineteen ninety six when amazon had just sold sixteen million worth of books and three of the rest of today's mag seven tech giants hadn't even been founded tokenization could advance at the pace of the internet faster than most expectations with enormous growth over the coming decades he is all in on tokenization he wrote this whole love story article about tokenization and this is even when prices are down i think he's pretty serious.

[B]

About it when i read this article i felt like i was a boomer being read to by larry fink being like larry fink is like looking at me in my eyes and he puts his hand on my shoulder oh my god you saw that tokenization my fellow boomer tokenization is a real thing and we are now we are now bullish on blockchain technology it's okay to be bullish on blockchain technology now wow i've got i've got this so something else he said is he envisions a future where investors use a single digital wallet to buy sell and hold all types of all assets from equities and debt to real estate facilitated by programmable digital ledgers a single wallet that's pretty cool.

When larry fink says this this is just the shot across the bow of all boomers everywhere it's like boomers it's okay we are now bullish blockchain so.

[A]

The larry fink romance with with brian armstrong i i think continues or maybe heats up this is a picture of the two of them together so they were at a meeting put the two.

[B]

Men holding hands emoji on the screen.

[A]

Brian armstrong and larry fink here actually andrew sorkin ross sorkin interviewed both of them and asked larry fink about changing his mind in crypto let's play the.

[D]

Clip called crypto an index for money laundering blackrock and thieves and thieves yes money laundering and thieves you now have the biggest bitcoin etf so what happened here i have very strong views but that doesn't mean i'm not wrong.

But by having strong views you have to test yourself and ask yourself and you know in my role i see you know thousands of clients a year i have you know governmental leaders and we have these conversations that my my thought process always evolves and this is a very glaring public example of of a.

[A]

Big shift in my opinion look that's great and i what a signal if larry fink can admit he's wrong you can also admit you're wrong about bitcoin as well for any tradfi listeners that are still holding out here okay it's okay now to admit you're wrong it's.

[B]

Okay now okay so the the one.

[C]

One take the positive take the optimistic.

[B]

Take is like oh larry fink just changed his mind he it took him a while you know he's older so it takes them a little bit longer or he just had a product to sell and it was all about money and it's just finally found a way to charge fees on it and that's what changed his mind you know what really does a good job changing people's.

[A]

Mind what's that yeah well both can be true david i think both can be true a little bit not just larry fink though other institutions who as.

[B]

Well who else both bank of america and charles schwab are just leaning into bitcoin more and more and more bank of america now lets its wealth advisors recommend up to four percent recommend four percent of bitcoin allocation then charles schwab says it will offer bitcoin ethereum trading in early twenty twenty six i wonder if they're going to use the whole coinbase whitelisting program you know that you know how this works this is what coinbase is trying to do is like instead of brokerages like charles schwab doing like live trading of bitcoin ethereum on their exchange or on yeah or through them they just pipe into coinbase oh.

[A]

You mean white labeling white labeling labeling.

[B]

Exactly exactly maybe that's what's going on that could be yeah so this is part of i remember when you talked to matt from bitwise yeah he was like oh the bitcoin etf is just going to age like fine wine because now that we have it launched that's great but it's going to just take a while for people to get comfortable with it and it's just a slow opening of the pipes of between boomer capital i know i'm not supposed to.

[A]

Use the word burma just like disciplined older capital with like a dollar cost average in that's not as volatile that's.

[B]

The argument right yeah and to me this is more evidence as to why stuff like the four year cycle is dead and also why i kind of see we're going to have a muted bear market is because globally everywhere across tribefi the pipes are just widening and capital is slowly trickling in and so you know while we had just a complete evaporation of liquidity in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three that's not what we have today we have an increasingly slow grind upwards of legitimacy and acceptance and capital allocation from larger and larger pools of money i see that.

[A]

Take i the only thing i'll say to that is every four year cycle we always say the four year cycle is dead every time this has happened we've said this do we last time it was super cycle but the time before that everyone was like oh my god crypto's changing the world icos whatever it's going to change everything every time we have some variation of this i kind of think that my take is this the the cycle holds but it's going to be shallower it's going to be a shallow bear market and i guess maybe you could start to say that's sort of super cycle y esque and the cycles have changed but to me it's just like a sell off it's just a more shallow sell off and then things resume but we'll have to see how this plays out david a few things coming up polymarket has launched their mobile app they're now accepting us customers kalshi in trouble in the courts i want to find out why you're a little bullish on this also ethereum's fusaka upgrade it's now live what's next and why does vitalik want all the apps to come back to layer one i shouldn't say all of them but did he something like this i'm.

[B]

Paranoid that's what vitalik said we'll get.

[A]

Into all this and more but before we do i want to thank uniswap the best place to do defi go.

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The show notes for more information you.

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[B]

Borrow the long awaited arrival of polymarket inside of the united states along with a mobile app because i know many of you crypto listeners crypto participants probably do stuff on desktop because that's how we do it most people are on their phones so polymarket is now opening up to the united states with their mobile wallet it already ranks as number four in the us app store's sports category and the poly market will polymarket us go live in twenty twenty five is currently at a ninety nine percent chance hasn't resolved but i think that just means that this is in the.

[A]

Process of about how did this happen.

[B]

How did polymarket speed run the us entry after the regime regime change it actually takes quite a while to get clearances and certifications and approval to trade in the united states well they just bought a couple exchanges they bought qcx llc in qc clearing for one hundred twelve million dollars so they just bought the licenses that they needed in order to make this work and that acquisition expedited cftc authorization just for months so that's how they are live so fast last month ally market had a record four point three billion dollars in spot trading volume kalshi just for comparison recorded five point eight billion dollars over the same period and briefly topped the app store's free sports category so poly market and call she's been neck neck in volumes largely driven by sports as i understand it i need to probably check on this take but i think kalshi is more sports than polymarket polymarket has a lot more electricity that was more.

[A]

True the last time we checked i.

[B]

Think yes yeah and i think the reason why is because call sheet's just the back end to robinhood and then robinhood has just like dominant us retail which are very aligned with sports stuff but nonetheless poly market sports and also.

[A]

Notable that coinbase has not made a move in prediction markets yet but there's a december seventeenth announcement what do you mean by that ryan i know nothing i'm just connecting some dots here yeah.

[B]

Yeah uh okay what's pretty cool here like the nice thing about kalashi and polymarket is we just really have they're increasingly apples and apples they used to be decently apples to oranges both prediction markets but kalshi was inside the united states poly market was like this tether outside united states but there's increasingly convergence more and more just convergence over the same thing one of those two things is youngest billionaires ever so shane twenty seven years old is now considered the world's youngest self made billionaire granted all of that wealth is tied up in the company equity that's valued after the advice the ice investment in nine nine billion but he's not the only one luana lopez lara twenty nine year old is the co founder of kalshi world's youngest self made female billionaire wow after kalshi's recent funding round that pushes kalshi's valuation up to eleven billion i swear.

[A]

Whenever you see one of them in the news the other one's got a one up the other they're always like neck and neck no matter what yeah.

[B]

Yeah yeah so yeah so kalsha has the youngest female billionaire shane is the youngest got twenty seven.

So nonetheless the the tale of two cities continues yeah.

[A]

Shane did secure an interview on sixty minutes which kalshi has not yet so that aired last sunday i was i was actually out with my family and i was just like for the sixty i was out with my family and then i just like i look at the tv there was a tv playing and it's like up pop shane copeland i'm like oh my god i know that guy like what it's crazy anyway so it was a good interview i think people are starting to understand this is a mainstream moment for prediction markets i feel like kalshee also executed a deal with cnn so kalshi and cnn they're kind of integrating i don't know.

[B]

What these deal partnership things are their partner both polymarket and call she are partners with everybody under the sun right now they're signing logos yeah yeah but.

[A]

I really enjoyed seeing shane i'll paraphrase a little bit from from the interview he was explaining he was explaining how prediction markets work to the interviewer he said you make money if you're right you lose money if you're wrong and as a result it creates this information that's really useful for people the percentages next to the questions are the odds determined by other bets that have already been made as more people wager and news breaks the odds change i feel like it's pretty simple to understand and it's highly visual as well now he was also asked about taking trump junior on the board of polymarket here's what.

[B]

He said three months ago copeland named donald trump junior already an advisor to kalshee to polymarket's advisory board and trump junior s seventeen eighty nine capital fund invested around ten million dollars in the company i think there's going to be people watching who think that you put the president's son on your advisory board to get influence to be able to.

[A]

Protect yourself so it's definitely not to protect myself i mean look like they invested right we're in this admin this admin is very pro innovation and pro crypto and pro polymarket which is amazing administration yeah and you know i need help navigating that right i'm a young entrepreneur if i have people who believe in what i do who understand how politics works and can help me help guide me and teach me you know there's nothing wrong about that there you go that's what he said not to protect himself is because donald trump junior is super i mean it's useful as an investor all these things what do.

[B]

You think yeah yeah when i i am not media trained nor will i.

[C]

Ever be but if i was in.

[B]

That seat i'd be like what do you they invaded my home like with a battering ram what do you mean of course i need protection they were coming after me bro what do you.

[A]

Expect for real yeah that's something along the lines of what i would have.

[B]

Said there was actually that part where in another part of the interview they asked him about like so you were raided by the fbi so they came knocking at your door yeah and he goes yeah with a battering ram.

He said that dude the thing that i really liked about this interview the most maybe i'm biased and like like you i know shane just from being around around crypto i found him very relatable very personal very personable it's just a guy on sixty minutes a kid who had a belief did you see the email that he wrote to the sec when he was like a junior or senior in high school that he tweeted out about no i missed this yeah he he tweeted he he tweeted out a picture of an email he wrote the at the sec it starts off with hi i'm shane copeland i'm a senior at some high school in america can't remember what it was i am building an exchange that i think i will need to register can we chat and he's in high school bro he's in high school right in the sec.

[A]

More naive days huh no they're going to use against you shane okay they're going to take that gary's going to take that email and then use it against you in court i i i don't think it's over yet in terms of regulatory pushback or government pushback or incumbent pushback for prediction markets in fact we've seen some of this with some of the lawsuits coming down the pike for kalshi this is one they were hit by a nationwide class action lawsuit this is kalshi for operating an illegal betting platform what's happening here yeah so.

[B]

Federal class action lawsuit in new york that alleges that their event contracts for sports are actually illegal online sports bets two customers are wagering against kalshi rather than against other users contrary to how the platform is marketed and that kalshi has an unfair market advantage i might be just what's the word bias here but whenever i see a class action lawsuit against someone in crypto i just have flashbacks to the class action lawsuit against pool together and latent cusack and it was completely frivolous and dumb and class action lawyers can be like ambulance chasers who just you see like oh there are three million people i can win fifty cents for because they were harmed by fifty cents worth of harm and out of pocket fifteen million dollars of legal fees so that's my kind of like initial reaction whenever i see class action lawsuit maybe there's something here the reason why i'm bullish about this you said you said why is david bullish about it is yeah why are you call she gets the opportunity to just like put to rest yeah and then hopefully set some like court precedent so the core allegations is that they are duping their customers that it's an illegal sports betting versus financial derivatives and that kalshi has an unfair market advantage because they think they're trading against their own customers if countries trading against their own customers that's terrible and i would hope that a lot discover that if they're not then we get to know that and always just put that i.

[A]

You know without seeing the core of course it feels like it could be frivolous i'll tell you the bigger threat though that i see david from the regulatory front is actually states fighting against this so prediction markets right now they're regulated under the cftc so it's all federal right so all states you know it's a cftc thing it's not a state thing some of the states are saying hey no this is sports betting legal sports betting one of the states to put them on notice was nevada of course what does nevada have vegas odds vegas sports betting okay a federal judge in nevada said it filed an injunction against kalshi for breach of gaming law and there's other states that have done this too massachusetts and york and maryland and ohio they got they have their ags going after kalshi so it's not just these civil court cases it's also the states that have something to lose what do they lose they lose some tax revenue from gaming licenses and kind of gaming proceeds and then also they lose some control and i don't think they'll give this out without a fight so prediction markets versus the regulators.

[B]

Round two i think yes this is a necessary we just have to go through this as an industry we have to push push through this part of just courts and regulation around prediction markets and we'll be better for it it's just going to be a natural process and so you do have to tip your hat to call she to who seems to be going and fighting some.

[A]

Of these big fights ethereum's second hard fork of the year the fusaka upgrade just went live anthony and i discussed all of the features last week so we don't need to reiterate them but it went live without a hitch without a hitch david the second one of the year that's true that's actually well there was a minor hitch tell me.

[B]

About the minor hits thirty six percent of the network dude that was a huge speed bump.

[A]

I guess there was a hitch actually do you want to.

[B]

Start there so prism one of the consensus clients in ethereum had a bug which lost twenty percent twenty six percent of the network thankfully ethereum has a multi client architecture so the rest of the clients held ethereum up while the prism team fixed the prism bug and got their portion of the network back online this is just how awesome so multi client design is just so beautiful and elegant so that's already in the rear view mirror would have been way worse if there were two bugs but there weren't and so that was the.

[A]

One it would have been worse but not that bad okay so i want to describe what this would have disrupted it wouldn't have disrupted block production it just would have disrupted finalization finality so if lighthouse went down just forty eight percent blocks would still come but finality would stop after about fifteen minutes and the chain would enter this like slow recovery type mode until it came back actually vitalik says like yeah there's nothing wrong with losing finalization once in a while in my opinion he says yeah and yeah i don't think that's cope i think that's that's true like in the design of ethereum yeah the way.

[B]

That i would say this is like this is ethereum unlike every other blockchain has redundancy and so when ethereum is not finalizing it kind of just resolves back down to what most other blockchains are which is just only one layer of defense and so ethereum's multi client architecture with finalization across clients is an extra layer of defense that no other blockchain has and so when it's not finalizing it's kind of just like what other blockchains are which is totally fine.

[A]

Yeah yeah so without a hitch right there was no hitches it just kept.

[B]

Because the multi client architecture is designed for this so if you weren't listening to last week's episode i'm going to talk about the two main things that came with fusaka peer dash peer dash is the big thing here that is sharding ethereum has always been talking about sharding since twenty seventeen like vitalik and others said like oh we're going to scale the blockchain with sharding databases that's how you scale a database you shard it into multiple redundant copies and that's how you scale and then we're still.

[A]

Make you laugh by the way are.

[B]

You no only when you make me.

[A]

Laugh go ahead go ahead continue and.

[B]

So originally we're going to do execution sharding that plan got pivoted into data availability sharding data availability it's blobs blobs are what layer twos use to post their transactions on the layer one and now that we have peer das which is sharding data availability sharding we have eight times more blobs we sharded the blobs sharden blobs left and right i.

[A]

Am sharding myself just thinking about how great this is do you know okay so this is sharding you're right vitalik says peer das is in fusaka is significant because it literally is sharding he said it was not full sharding then though okay right because we're just sharding the data availability data availability he continues if we want to scale to benefit the ethereum l one as well the full vision of sharding from twenty seventeen we need to get to zkevms that's.

[B]

The next unlock unprocess yeah yeah listen to michael dong's talk from the banco summit about that pretty cool to have eight x more blocks on layer two the layer one did also get an upgrade default block capacity went from forty five million to sixty million which is a twenty five percent increase in layer one throughput which is great and david.

[A]

That'S the reason why i don't know if you've seen this but look at the l one like the gas prices have you seen gas prices this low.

[B]

Layer one has been cheap for a while i've never looked at a ethereum.

[A]

Transaction under one cent yeah under one.

[B]

Cent yeah ethereum's been free for a.

[A]

Long time this is what i was saying earlier of the vitalik tweet you could just build on l one mm.

[B]

That'S what he said i don't think we're quite there yet fees are low but this this has been one of the revelings that has happened since fusaka like we have we have quite a lot of scale now more we have more slack in the system than what apps are currently using well yeah so.

[A]

What'S your cycle okay one thing i would say is you can build on l one you could just build on l one asterisks okay asterisks unless you're doing something like a high volume perps exchange unless you're trying to do like lighter okay go build that in an l two but the difference now is there is a plan that is like a roadmap towards scaling the l one pretty aggressively like i do think two x three x next year is totally possible and i do think within three years we might have fully sharded zkevms so why not just build on the l one depending on your application get.

[B]

Ahead of it yeah get ahead of it and in addition to all of that i have definitely seen some consensus around the ethereum foundation that faster block times are a priority yeah you like.

[A]

This you think this is i really.

[B]

Like this i really like this so this is a tweet inception so i'm just going to run through all the tweets mark twineway from optimism says as a reply to vitalik my hypothesis is that the long transaction confirmation time is the biggest bottleneck for increasing layer one usage hayden adams from uniswap says this is very clearly the case don't even need to frame it as a hypothetical if we want to increase layer one usage lower the block times and i'm like hell yeah i love this but then tony tony worcester who's it of the ethereum at the ethereum foundation says and retweets hidden atoms and says six second slots which is fifty percent faster twice as fast because we currently have twelve seconds are fully specked prototyped in geth in prism and ready to ship next year easily one of the most impactful upgrades we can deliver in the hecta bogota forks we'll show the incoming hard forks that will happen next year and then he replies to someone who says will three or six second block speeds really change anything and he goes yes three seconds is vastly better than six seconds and we shouldn't stop there we should keep pushing inclusion times down not cap our ambition the if we never reach x y try mindset is exactly what holds progress back and exactly the same reason why we never scaled the layer y let's fucking go i was so pumped to come i saw.

[A]

This i think it's less i think it is block times for you but it's less that it's more like builder momentum it's more like ambition right it's more like the fact that ethereum just shipped two hard forks this year first time i think they've done that it almost feels like a promises made promises kept type of thing for the ef and ethereum like the momentum for building is back again for the ethereum protocol.

[B]

But with the focus on block times three second block times on ethereum that's years yeah it will that'd be great like three people can wait three seconds and still use ethereum habitually david we.

[A]

Got some tether fud on the week we gotta discuss so arthur hayes is asking questions about what happens if tether's reserves of bitcoin and gold drop thirty percent could they be insolvent also the aztec token sale goes live it's pretty unique pretty interesting and the uk does something bullish for crypto we'll talk about all that and more but before we do want to thank frax our sponsor the decentralized central bank with a stablecoin.

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[A]

It'S time for tether fud again must be bear market is tether in trouble is it solvent actually someone with more credibility here is raising this this question here recently on the week this is arthur hayes saying a roughly thirty percent decline in gold and bitcoin position would wipe out tether's equity and the usdt would in theory be insolvent okay he's taking a screenshot of this yeah so explaining the screenshot tether has about one hundred eighty one billion outstanding that's the bottom line number and it backs that by a lot of different things including about one hundred forty billion worth of cash and cash like equivalents right t bills et cetera but that delta that forty billion delta or so that's all like gold and bitcoin and arthur is just making the point that if that value goes down say by thirty percent then.

We don't have enough reserves to actually back the tether that's been issued that's the point that he's making so i'm not going to call it fractional reserve but it's not like genius bill stablecoins that are one to one for every dollar that's minted you know there's a treasury behind that for tether there's a portion of a treasury behind that there's like i don't know eighty percent treasuries and cash equivalent but twenty percent it's other more exotic things that have volatility gold and bitcoin gold and gold it's pretty much gold and bitcoin so he's calling that into question and he's saying like what happens if we get a crash then does tether become unbacked.

[B]

Well it's not a binary first off there's one hundred forty cash like instruments and then there was like twenty billion dollars of golden bitcoin and like so the worst thing is is like tether would trade on like ninety five cents to the dollar but like he he says the equity of tether would get wiped out like no it wouldn't they could raise so much money so quickly.

[A]

Did he say the equity would get wiped out is that what he said yeah he did say that yeah i would wipe out their equity no they're.

[B]

They'Ve got they're not worried okay i.

[A]

Mean there's some other analysts who kind of went through this including an a supply and i don't know if you can give kind of the the tldr so where does this leaf tether it has fifty percent reserves which is quite high compared to commercial banks but of course much less than the one hundred percent required of genius bill type centralized issuer stablecoins so they're playing it a little bit fast and loose from a reserve perspective but it's nowhere near what fractional reserve banks do today.

And they don't really have solvency risk because they have massive amounts of equity and also massive amounts of of cash and cash like instruments and other assets off they.

[B]

Could they could redeem like eighty percent of tether before they would have to sell their bitcoin and gold yeah you know no eighty percent of tether is.

[A]

Not getting redeemed yeah so i don't know i it seems fine to me.

[B]

Seems fine to me seems fine to me.

Even more bitcoin.

I don't know.

[A]

I'M like they're they're taking some risk here but it's not like excessive risk that seems pretty reasonable risk not sustainable.

[B]

To me so into the aztecs token sale the aztec token sale has crossed over sixteen thousand ether in bids with a mechanism co developed with uniswap a continuous clearing auction i think this is pretty in the weeds to explain how this works but basically there's an auction over a long period of time where you can just submit your bids and you don't have to get worried about like mev bots or anything like this it's just a organic on chain way of discovering price the price of the asic token from the free market and so the way that this works is as more bids come in the price slowly ticks up with this auction mechanism and it's pretty hardcore in the same way that like aztec they're a bunch of cipher punks hardcore cipher punks like privacy max this is an ico a.

[A]

Defi ico is it not like why.

[B]

Like and mega eth and monad they did their icos with you know tether and you know stablecoins but no aztec did it with eth why do they do it with eth because they're just.

[A]

Cipher hardcore cipher pox and they did it on ethereum they didn't use a coin list or even a coinbase ico platform it's just completely defi very cool.

[B]

One of the cool stories happening right now is the different mechanisms that icos are using to do icos and so that is a podcast episode that we are going to work on in the future so you can well this is.

[A]

Bill hughes also making the point a aztec issued a legal memo analyzing the token's legal implications in four different jurisdictions and he makes the point to bill bill is a crypto lawyer he makes the point that this would never have happened under the gensler administration right because every pro no project would release something like this because they'd be fearful this type of a document could be used in court against them in some way by the sec but aztec is just making the strong point that no they're a utility coin a monetary instrument for the aztec network and the united states and the eu and switzerland and the uk this should not run afoul of any securities regulations or securities laws so they're putting that out there so this is another big reason that icos are back it's just because the sec the sec is now like fine they're like friendly or they're embracing of innovation in a way that the gensler regime obviously was not and by the way david the sec you know their whole project crypto thing where some sandboxes some clear guidelines for crypto projects they're expected to release that in a month or so so in january if you're wondering where that was hopefully it's coming in the new year in january i guess the government shut down slowed them down but sec chair paul atkins said he expects the innovation exemption for cryptocurrencies to be released in a month or so so that's good news on that side and should provide some some clarity some safe harbor something that crypto projects can kind of bank on to know what's going to run afoul of sec enforcement action and what's not importantly what's not right.

[B]

Last quick few things uniswap is teaming up with revolut revolut is probably the biggest neobank in europe huge defi mullet plus neobank movement there's a big neobank movement going on so there's now a fiat gateway into defi front ends for revolut inside of the uniswap web app and uniswap wallet using revolut so that's just pretty cool pipes into defi just.

[A]

Getting way larger and the last thing something bullish coming out of the uk on crypto actually and this has got to be the most british thing i've ever seen for crypto so this is a property rights act on digital assets signed by none other than the king the king of the uk the king of the british isles here charles iii okay so this is actually it's a very short act document that was enacted by parliament of course and you know given the king's seal and it basically says that crypto assets are property a third type of property so before the only property that the uk recognized was physical stuff you could hold or ious that you could sue on say you know deposits in a bank that someone owed you you could sue and there was no real room in the property rights apparatus for digital assets for say crypto private keys well now there is this law is basically saying digital assets can be this third bucket doesn't have to fit in the first two and is a legitimate property recognized in the united kingdom so that's kind of cool i know you're a property rights guy david and so this is like the biggest property rights change in probably the last century for for the uk so it's under the radar but it's actually notable that we're getting legitimacy here for self custody crypto assets cool cool i.

[B]

Just kind of think it's funny that a king king charles signs into law.

[A]

That'S just that's just british stuff man you gotta be there yeah i love it though you know it's i like the tradition you got a meme for us on the week what is this.

[B]

Yeah this is john woo tweeting out a very early picture of santa we haven't done meme in a while a very early picture of santa you know you ever get pictures with santa ryan of course you got kids yeah pictures.

[A]

I gotta say though this picture looks like a sad santa in an abandoned mall with no visitors no children yeah.

[B]

He'S kind of waiting for people to show up and john woo's comment is this is how it feels to be optimistic about crypto right now it's just a solo standard a little bit a little bit too early in the season.

[A]

Well if you're feeling lonely bankless nation if you're feeling early in the season we are here with you of course we'll end with this you know crypto is risky none of this has been financial advice you could lose what you put in but we are headed west this is the frontier it's not for everyone but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey thanks a lot.

[B]

No let me do that again sorry.

[A]

Because sales goes down you get more.

[B]

Bearish blobs left and right i am.

[A]

Sharting myself just thinking about how great this is.