Bankless Weekly Rollup: Downtober Drags | Tempo Poaches Dankrad | Coinbase Buys Echo | Gold Surge! | Fed Access

Date: October 24, 2025
Hosts: David & Ryan
Podcast: Bankless

Episode Overview

This episode of Bankless dives deep into the ongoing state of the crypto markets in “Downtober,” dissecting why sentiment feels bearish despite Bitcoin and Ether’s weekly gains. The hosts debate possible outcomes for the current crypto cycle, analyze the surprising bull run in gold, and dig into major industry developments, including EF researcher Dankrad Feist’s move to Stripe’s Tempo, Coinbase’s $375M acquisition of Echo (Kobe’s token investment platform), explosive developments in AI crypto trading, and the shocking news of a Trump pardon for Binance founder CZ. The episode concludes with macro news: the Federal Reserve’s signals toward direct access for crypto firms and updates on the fast-evolving conjunction of AI and crypto payments.

Market Rundown & "Downtober" Malaise

[00:04–06:38]

• Current Market Stats:
  • Bitcoin: $111,000 (up 2% this week)
  • Ether: $3,920 (up 0.2% this week)
• Despite positive numbers, the mood remains bearish—host “hedonic adaptation” kicks in, and anything under $114k (BTC) or $4k (ETH) now “feels bad.”
• Bearish Sentiment Reasons:
  • Repeating cycle expectations: Previous “Uptobers” saw BTC rise 40–60%, but October 2025 is down 5%.
  • Bitcoin’s performance obscures a “hollowed out” altcoin/mid-market: “If you were holding the middle of the market…that’s people’s jobs, BD revenue—this malaise has continued.” (A, 05:25)
  • Most altcoins are below post-FTX crash levels even though BTC is vibrant.
• Cycle Disappointment: Three typical “big years” in a crypto cycle, but Bitcoin is only up 18%—described as “moderation, moderation, moderation.”

  “As crazy as the 2021 cycle was, like, 2017 was insane, dude. That was stupid. Yeah. And things just moderate over time.” (A, 07:15)

Paths Forward (Three Scenarios)

[08:04–10:46]

• 1. Topped Already: (Michael Nato) - No new catalyst, volume slowing; some traders now 70% cash.
• 2. One Last Push: (Ben Cowen) - Q4 top likely; possible post-top bounce.
• 3. Super Cycle (Raoul Pal): Extended bull run into 2026, fueled by global liquidity, printing, imminent Fed rate cuts.

“If you miss the 10 best trading days, you’d be down 23%.” (B, 12:49)
Lesson: Trying to time cycles is futile; buy-and-hold continues to outperform elaborate strategies.

Altcoin & Industry Maturity

[13:37 – 15:24]

• Winners & Losers:
  • Many 2022 altcoins are “dead networks”; selective belief in tokens is crucial.
  • Notable new meta: Revenue-based token analysis (vs speculation of previous cycles)

    “For the first time in history we have apps generating a ton of revenue beyond just chain.” (A, 14:23)

  • Notable shoutouts: Pump Fun, Hyperliquid, Athena – massive revenue apps.

Macro & Gold Mania

[15:24–21:24]

• Cash on Sidelines: $7.5T in money market funds (record high).
• M2 Money Supply: $22T at all-time high.
• Gold’s Unstoppable Run:
  • Gold at $4,100/oz (occasionally spiking higher, then dropping 5-6% in a day).
  • Institutional “long gold” trade now more popular than AI or tech.
  • Central banks (notably Russia, China, India, Turkey) have ramped up gold reserves—Europe/Canada selling.
  • For the first time since 1995, gold in central bank reserves exceeds Treasuries.

    “Gold is the best performing major asset over the last 20 years. This has got to be infuriating for everyone.” (B, 19:02)
    “Who the hell has gold in their portfolio?” (A, 19:22)

  • Gold as an inflation/debasement haven—cost in labor hours to buy gold at all-time highs.
  • Crypto "Catch Up" Trade:
    • If 5% of gold’s capital rotated into bitcoin, BTC to $250,000: “That’s a lot of money.” (B, 21:10)
    • Bitwise’s scenario suggests wild upside if gold bugs become “bitcoin bugs.”

Ethereum Talent Moves: Dankrad Feist Leaves for Tempo

[21:42–36:50]

Background [Donkrat's Significance]

• Leading EF researcher (originator of “Dank sharding,” a key L1 scaling proposal).
  • Known for pushing aggressive protocol upgrades.
• Departure after 7 years to join Tempo, Stripe’s EVM chain, causes mixed community reactions.

  “[Dankrad]...pushed against Ethereum culture...some of his goals…were frustrated by bureaucratic, slow consensus…he was kind of the guy that’s like, ‘We need this level of aggression or Ethereum will become irrelevant.’” (A, 31:18)

Tempo’s Allure & Community Impact

• Stripe- and Paradigm-backed EVM chain, raising $500M at $5B valuation.
• Claims the mantle for “taking blockchains mainstream,” attracting a wave of high-caliber Ethereum talent.
• Tension: Is Tempo a friend or rival? (Grows the crypto “pie” but aims to eat their share.)

  “Some people saw this as basically a corporate chain, VCs raiding a public good.” (B, 36:50)

The Bigger Picture

• Eigen-layer L1s with corporate backers may “front run” Ethereum’s roadmap—an uneasy but plausible symbiosis.
• Debate: “The only unequivocal winner is the EVM.” (A, 36:50)
• Vibes: Disappointment in Ethereum that principles/ethos are diluted, but also grudging acceptance that it’s inevitable and rational.

Bitcoin: The Soul Debate – Neutrality vs Purism

[38:01–45:47]

Bitcoin Civil War: Core vs Knots

• Technical Controversy: Core wants to expand OP_RETURN data fields (80 bytes to 100KB) to allow non-monetary data (e.g., ordinals, JPEGs).

• Bitcoin Knots (Luke Dash Jr.): A fork with ~30% node market share, filters out all non-money transactions (more “Bitcoin for Bitcoin only”).

  “They want to filter out all non money transactions from their clients...so if it’s something like ordinals…they just basically filter it out.” (B, 41:37)

• Cultural Stakes:

  • Neutralists (Core) vs Maximalists (Knots): Is blockspace for anything or only money?
  • Slippery slope fears: “When you start filtering bitcoin blocks, where does it end?” (B, 44:23)

• Ethereum Parallel: Debate over “Fossil” (forcible data inclusion in blocks) reflects opposite philosophy—greater emphasis on maximized data inclusion for censorship resistance.

• Host Takes: Surprisingly, David “kind of likes” the Knots take for Bitcoin: “I might as well prune it out and just focus on bitcoin.” (A, 44:47)

Industry News Roundup

[45:47–65:33]

1. Coinbase Acquires Echo & Resurrects UpOnly Podcast

• Coinbase buys Kobe’s Echo (token launch/investment platform) for $375M (part cash/stock).
  • As a marketing stunt, Coinbase bought the “UpOnly” podcast NFT for $25M, returning Kobe & Ledger for 8 episodes.

  “$3 million per episode.” (B, 49:51)

• Echo serves as a compliant token launch/RWA platform; other recent Coinbase acquisitions (Liquify, Sonar) complete the pipeline from startup to full liquidity.

2. Brian Armstrong’s Legislative Update

• Armstrong reports crypto market structure legislation is progressing on Capitol Hill (bipartisan, only 10% disagreement left).
  • Coinbase is lobbying to ensure DeFi protocols (not just interfaces) are excluded from regulation.

  “If he’s going to lobby and represent crypto, he’s got to be supportive of Defi, and he says he is, so that’s fantastic.” (B, 53:35)

3. Prediction Markets Go Mainstream

• Polymarket becomes the “official prediction market” of the NHL—except so does competitor Kalshi (NHL plays both sides to maximize sponsorship revenue).

  “A little birdie came into my DMs and whispered... the NHL…smells the blood...and just caused them to bid each other up.” (A, 55:10)

• DraftKings partners with Polymarket, using it as back-end/clearinghouse for betting UI.

4. OpenSea’s Reinvention

• OpenSea pivots to “trade everything” (not just NFTs), introduces “Sea Token” with airdrop (Q1 expected).
  50% of future revenue to buybacks, 50% of supply to community.

5. Ad-Interp: Trump Pardons CZ

• Former Binance CEO CZ receives a Trump pardon after serving a 4-month sentence for KYC/AML violations (selective enforcement vs TradFi—hosts suggest pardons “may be for sale” but agree SBF should NOT get one).

The Fed Moves Towards Crypto Integration

[60:07–62:30]

• Fedwire Access:

  • Fed governor Chris Waller signals that crypto firms and stablecoin companies will soon be able to settle directly via “skinny accounts” on Fedwire (removing dependency on partner banks).

    “Distributed ledgers and crypto assets are no longer on the fringes, but are increasingly woven into the fabric of the payment and financial system.” (Fed Governor Waller, 60:07)

  • Potentially historic; would mark the first time non-banks join the settlement fabric.

• US “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve":

  • US government currently holds $36B in seized crypto — mostly from legal actions rather than purchasing.
  • Only 3% of seized assets are ever returned to victims.

AI Makes Markets: Trading Bots Battle on Hyperliquid

[64:09–66:29]

• AI Trading Tournament:
  • Alpha Arena runs a contest: $10k to each of six LLMs (DeepSeek, Claude, Grok, Gemini, ChatGPT, Quen) to trade on Hyperliquid (perps).
  • Results: Chinese models (Quen, DeepSeek) lead by far, with ChatGPT/Gemini lagging hard.

    “ChatGPT...is a little bit of a soy boy, you know...Now it’s down to $2,000.” (A, 66:17)

  • Contest provides a live, objective benchmark of model “market alpha.”

AI + Crypto: Agents Get Wallets

[66:30–68:35]

• X402 & Crypto-Payment Agents:
  • New protocol (X402) lets AI agents control crypto wallets and make microtransactions over APIs.
  • Coinbase demo: Claude agent managing and spending from its own wallet to access on-chain services and datasets.
  • “This is one of the coolest things happening right now in crypto—the intersection between AI and crypto.” (B, 68:07)
  • Marc Andreessen’s “original sin” of Internet without payments—finally solved.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Just because bitcoin is doing well doesn’t mean people own bitcoin…The crypto industry: there’s a malaise in the middle of the market.” — David, [05:25]
• “If you miss the best 10 days in bitcoin, being in bitcoin from 2017 to 2024, the difference is being up 8x and down 20%.” — Ryan, [12:49]
• “Gold is the best performing major asset over the last 20 years. This has got to be infuriating for everyone.” — Ryan, [19:02]
• “Some people saw this as basically a corporate chain, VCs raiding a public good.” — Ryan, [36:50]
• “I kind of like the knots…for bitcoin.” — David, [44:47]
• “ChatGPT...is a little bit of a soy boy, you know...Now it’s down to $2,000.” — David, [66:17]
• “Distributed ledgers and crypto assets are no longer on the fringes, but are increasingly woven into the fabric of the payment and financial system.” — Chris Waller, Fed Governor, [60:07]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Market summary & sentiment: [00:04–06:38]
• Cycle scenarios & 'missing the 10 best days' lesson: [08:04–12:32]
• Altcoin challenges & revenue-driven apps: [13:37–15:24]
• Gold’s macro dominance & central bank reserves: [15:24–21:24]
• Dankrad leaves for Tempo; Ethereum community impact: [21:42–36:50]
• Bitcoin blockspace argument—Core vs Knots: [38:01–45:47]
• Coinbase buys Echo & UpOnly podcast returns: [45:47–51:48]
• Polymarket, NHL, prediction markets: [53:48–55:54]
• OpenSea’s Sea token & marketplace pivot: [57:13–58:41]
• Fedwire access for crypto; government bitcoin hoard: [60:07–62:30]
• AI trading competition results: [64:09–66:29]
• X402: Crypto wallets for AI agents: [66:30–68:35]

Tone and Style

Casual, conversational, and at times irreverent. The Bankless hosts riff on data, poke fun at industry drama, and aren’t afraid to call out hype, failures, or government shenanigans—often with dry wit and crypto-native slang.

For deeper dives, refer to the full show. This summary tracks all major content, skips advertisements, and is tailored for listeners who may have missed the episode but want the nuanced analysis and industry insights Bankless is known for.