ROLLUP: Uptober Rally | Tom Lee $1B ETH Buy | Vanguard Flips to Crypto | Stripe Stablecoin Play

Summary

Bankless Rollup: Uptober Rally | Tom Lee $1B ETH Buy | Vanguard Flips to Crypto | Stripe Stablecoin Play

Date: October 3, 2025
Hosts: Ryan Sean Adams & David Hoffman
Theme: This episode dives into surging crypto markets (“Uptober”), billion-dollar ETH buys, institutional pivots (notably Vanguard’s crypto flip), Stripe entering stablecoins, TradFi-crypto integrations, explosive DeFi and stablecoin trends, and what it means for the future of both blockchain and mainstream finance.

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Episode Overview

The hosts ride high on the green price action of “Uptober,” discuss major shifts in institutional sentiment and participation, and unpack groundbreaking developments in stablecoins, L1 vs L2 chain design, and AI x blockchain intersections. Not only are blue chips ripping, there are tectonic shifts: previously crypto-hesitant players like Vanguard are capitulating, Stripe is aiming to disrupt stablecoin duopoly, and Swift is exploring EVM integrations. The show also spotlights new DeFi power plays (like Tether-backed Plasma), major perp DEX innovations, regulatory scrutiny, stablecoin explosions, and the challenges of crypto ethos in a tradfi world.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. Uptober & Crypto Market Rally [00:00–08:19]

• Uptober kicks off: “Prices are high…we’re green. We’re moving up.” – Ryan [00:30]
• Bitcoin up 8% weekly, Ether up 13%, brushing against all-time highs. Global crypto market cap at ~$4.3T, flirting with new highs.
  • David: “When something as large as Bitcoin moves 8%, that is $200 billion...minted out of thin air.” [07:36]
• Bullishness abounds: Hosts split on how soon new highs come, discussing whether we’re set for a blow-off top or a slow “quarter-million dollar Bitcoin” grind by 2026.

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2. Macro Backdrop: US Government Shutdown [03:27–06:51]

• First time a US government shutdown has coincided with a crypto bull run during the show’s run.
• Market reaction: Shrugged off—“Crypto prices just started moving…market doesn’t care.” – David [06:14]
• Broader context: Political standoffs, minimal market/Fed impact, government furloughs, likely to resolve with backpay.

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3. Market Movers: Zcash’s Explosive Rally [11:11–14:56]

• Zcash ($ZEC), a hybrid privacy coin, is up 42% in a day, 230% over the past month.
• Discussion: Technical strength of Zcash, history of exchange delistings due to regulatory pressures, and debate over privacy as an app vs. asset.
  • “Privacy is not an asset, it is an app… the cryptography behind Zcash: top notch.” – David [13:53]
• ZK themes bubbling: Intrigue about renewed institutional interest in zero-knowledge crypto.

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4. Institutional Flips: Vanguard & BlackRock [14:56–16:30]

• Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, finally bows to client demand, allows access to crypto ETFs after years of “paternalistic” resistance.
  • “They just gave it all to BlackRock… and still had to capitulate… Better late than never.” – Ryan [16:22]
• Cites rising client demand, SEC ETF approvals, and new (BlackRock-aligned) CEO as drivers.

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5. Mega Player Activity: Tom Lee’s Billion-Dollar ETH Buys [16:30–19:48]

• Tom Lee continues aggressive ETH accumulation—another $1B buy, 2.2% of supply.
  • Ryan: “Every two weeks he’s putting in a billion dollars. A billion dollars. A billion dollars.” [17:05]
• “Not the flipping I was hoping for, but a flipping of one sort…”—More ETH is held in “DATs” (digital asset treasury companies) than Bitcoin as a percentage of supply. Hosts debate the significance and limits of this metric.
• SEC is probing potential insider trading at some DATs, noting price moves often precede major announcements [21:24].

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6. New Chains & The Layer 1 vs Layer 2 Debate: Tether’s Plasma [21:37–32:23]

• Plasma, Tether’s new EVM chain, rockets to 6th by TVL ($6.5bn+ in less than a week, powered by aggressive XPL rewards).
• Hot topic: Why not launch as a Layer 2 (L2)?
  • AJ Warner (Arbitrum) thread cited: L2s save on decentralization/validator costs but don’t get the “L1 premium.”
  • Ryan explains: “For whatever reason, right now the market is assigning a juicy premium to layer one tokens versus layer two.” [28:15]
• David: “That’s how the L1 premium disappears—froth brings low-quality L1 launches until it gets milked and we enter a bear market.” [32:06]

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7. Stripe’s Open Stablecoin Issuance & Breaking the Duopoly [32:23–38:35]

• Stripe, via its Bridge acquisition, launches “open issuance,” enabling anyone (wallet, fintech) to roll their own stablecoin.
• Phantom wallet launches ‘Cash’, a native stablecoin, on Stripe infra.
• Why issue your own stablecoin? “They get to dictate the yields…would otherwise go to Tether or Circle.” – David [34:12]
• Prediction: The Circle/Tether duopoly (once ~92% market share) is shrinking; expect stablecoin “explosion” as wallets, exchanges, fintechs each launch theirs—users to get better yields.
  • “All the fintechs are doing this…and this is going to lead to a stablecoin explosion. Hopefully…abstracted, just called dollars.” – Ryan [37:18]

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8. TradFi/Crypto Mergers: Cloudflare, Society General, Swift, and More [38:48–53:24]

• Cloudflare launches a stablecoin on Base, using new x402 protocol standard for web payments (fine-tuned for microtransactions, both human and machine/A.I.).
  • “20% of all websites” could soon support this, highlighting Web2 and crypto convergence.
• Societe Generale: Launches euro and dollar stablecoins, integrated with Morpho (lending) and Uniswap (trading) [50:28].
• Swift x Consensys: Global payments juggernaut explores EVM blockchain use with 30 major banks; possible prelude to huge TradFi/crypto integrations. No details yet, but the hosts are bullish on the trendline.
• Meta-story: This quarter is an inflection point for crypto in mainstream finance.

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9. Perp DEX Innovation: Lighter & The DeFi Arms Race [44:19–49:19]

• Lighter, a ZK rollup-based perp DEX, launches to challenge Hyperliquid/dYdX. Massive user interest, $800M+ in deposits.
• David explains bridging/onboarding, contrasts ZK guarantees of Lighter vs. black-box L2s like Hyperliquid: “Lighter uses ZK proofs to ensure user property rights. There’s a ZK exit hatch.” [46:50]
• Perp DEXs are red-hot, with varying designs and serious DeFi mindshare.

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10. Stablecoins, Regulation, and The Crypto Ethos Debate [53:24–57:17]

• News that Circle is exploring reversible USDC transactions sparks a debate about crypto's immutable “cypherpunk” ideals versus mainstream usability.
  • David: “The important thing…is that if you want all of the cypherpunk ethos, you have that option…will there ever be a cypherpunk-dominant stablecoin? Perhaps no, but it can serve its niche.” [55:00]
• Ryan: “Maybe the future’s just: we have crypto-native assets and RWA-backed stablecoins. The middle hasn’t held.” [56:13]

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11. Deep Fakes & Crypto for Authenticity [57:36–61:43]

• OpenAI's “Sora” demonstrates shockingly realistic AI-generated video, amplifying the need for cryptographically verifiable content (data provenance, ZK proofs of authenticity).
• Uma Roy (Succinct): “Urgency to deploy cryptography at scale just 100x…ZK will power the https of reality.” [59:41]
• Hosts remain unconvinced on practical implementation but see it as an urgent, unsolved last-mile problem: “Please help us, we don’t understand.” [61:43]

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12. Polymarket, CFTC, and Generational Tensions [61:51–63:45]

• Polymarket’s Shane Copeland gets “flipped off” by the CEO of CME during a CFTC panel after calling him “older.” Lighthearted generational clash moment underscores how much crypto “outsiders” are cracking traditional finance’s doors.
  • “Young crypto startup founder disrupting old Boomer CME founder. You call them old, Boomer flips him off…that’s hilarious.” – David [63:30]

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Notable Quotes

• “This is the quarter, man…October, November, December is historically the best time.” – Ryan [09:14]
• “They (Vanguard) just gave it all to BlackRock… and still had to capitulate other people’s products.” – Ryan [16:22]
• “Why is Plasma not a layer two? There’s a juicy L1 premium…market rational to be a layer one.” – Ryan [28:15]
• “The Circle/Tether duopoly will continue to fall…it’s the incentive for a stablecoin explosion.” – Ryan [37:18]
• “Lighter uses ZK proofs to ensure user property rights…there’s a ZK exit hatch for users to withdraw funds.” – David [46:50]
• “The important thing about a blockchain is if you want all the cypherpunk ethos, you have that option. And if you want to strip it away, you have that option too.” – David [55:00]
• “ZK will power the https of reality.” – Uma Roy, quoted by David [59:41]
• “You call them old and Boomer flips him off…that’s hilarious.” – David [63:30]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Markets & Uptober: 00:00–08:19
• Gov’t Shutdown Macro: 03:27–06:51
• Zcash Rally: 11:11–14:56
• Vanguard Flips Crypto: 14:56–16:30
• Tom Lee ETH Buys: 16:30–19:48
• Plasma/L1-vs-L2: 21:37–32:23
• Stripe Stablecoins: 32:23–38:35
• Cloudflare, SocGen, Swift, TradFi-crypto: 38:48–53:24
• Lighter Perp DEX: 44:19–49:19
• Stablecoin Regulation/Ethos: 53:24–57:17
• AI Deep Fakes/Crypto Provenance: 57:36–61:43
• Polymarket Gets Flipped Off: 61:51–63:45

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Tone

The episode is exuberant, irreverent, sometimes conspiratorial, always crypto-native—but grounded in real finance. The hosts blend technical analysis, regulatory/political awareness, and banter. There’s humility about unknowns, and excitement about the scale and trajectory of adoption.

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For those who didn’t listen, this episode covers the pivotal developments defining crypto’s future, from price action and institutional adoption to technical and regulatory frontiers, with an eye toward what’s bullish, what’s broken, and what just might be next.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. It is the first week of uptember.

[B]

No, no, no. It's uptober. God damn it. We practiced this.

[A]

Bankless nation. Listen to my voice. It's croaking. David.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm not going to be able to get through this. Roll up. It is the first week of October. Yes.

[B]

That's.

[A]

Prices are high. How you feeling, David?

[B]

Are up. How awesome was it that, like I looked at the prices on the first.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, oh, hell yeah. We're, we're, we're green. We're moving up. We're moving up. And I'm like, oh, it's the first. It's October.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Prophecy is fulfilled, of course.

[A]

And now we're recording it on the second day, which is also green. It's also green. So what can we conclude about the third day of October and the fourth day and the fifth day?

[B]

30 days of green, baby.

[A]

30 days of. Wait, 31 days of green.

[B]

31. It's a long month.

[A]

All the. Thank God it's 31 days of green. Is that what we're calling this is.

[B]

This is how Ryan and I do analysis on prices.

[A]

We got a lot to talk about and forgive me bankless listeners for my voice. I'm a little croaky on the week. I got a cold.

[B]

I'm so excited.

[A]

We got to talk about Tom Lee. He caused a flipping with a $1 billion ETH buy. Another $1 billion ETH buy. Not the flipping I was hoping for, but a flipping of one sort or another. We'll talk about that. What else?

[B]

We got another flipping from Vanguard, the previous crypto haters to now crypto capitulators. So Vanguard is now allowing opening up crypto ETFs. So what caused them to flip from anti crypto to pro crypto? We're going to talk about that. And then also Stripe has released a product that could just kind of just blow open the doors of the USDC USDT duopoly between Tether and Circle. They have like 92% market share or something. Very dominant. Stripe wants to change that. So what do they release this week that's going to change the game?

[A]

We also have Swift, you know, the big juggernaut of global payments. Are they finally coming to crypto because they are teaming up with Consensys on some kind of an EVM blockchain. That's been in the headlines. Also, you know that tether backed plasma chain that layer one focused on stablecoins for Tether. They had a massive launch. This plasma.

[B]

Plasma is the name.

[A]

Yeah. Plasma. Yeah, what did I say? They had a massive launch on the week. All right. And the only question I have is which we can discuss. Would it have been even better as an L2 or is that some eth.

[B]

Maxi cope the perennial question. Before we get into all that, we got to talk to our friends and sponsors over at zero G. That is a AI dedicated layer one. It's just got a bunch of features to help build the supply chain. The end to end supply chain of building an LLM in a decentralized fashion. So all of the AI labs, OpenAI, Google, meta centralized black boxes building LLMs. Very valuable, very valuable. But black box zero G is how you build an LLM and then just have inference in this like a marketplace of LLMs. All these, you know, the app layer, app layer around LLMs. The whole end to end supply chain for open source AI that have already trained 107 billion parameter model fully on chain. Pretty cool. There's a link in the show notes to learn a little bit more about.

[A]

Zero G. It's pretty incredible some of the partnerships these guys are racking up too. Alibaba, Google, also some crypto native companies like Chainlink and Optimism. It's really cool to see that Fusion. All right, tell me about prices. Actually, before we do that, can we talk about. This is the first US government shutdown that we've ever seen in the course of doing this podcast. All right, the government is shut down right now at the time of recording.

[B]

You on the United States government. What does that mean exactly? Like are what rules have gone away?

[A]

Okay, Just chaos out there.

[B]

Do all the rules still apply?

[A]

No. Okay, so important stuff like Medicare, right? Seniors receiving their health care checks, stuff like air traffic control, that's still happening. That's all still running. Okay. But the non essential programs are effectively closed. So 900,000 almost a million federal employees were just sent home without pay. Just being like, sorry guys, the government shut down. You don't have to pay federal employees. Yeah, federal employees.

[B]

Okay, so not like state police. We're not doing a purchase.

[A]

No, no, no, that's the state. No, that's the federal employees. I'm sure the military is still operational, at least I would hope so. They got to be.

[B]

Some of the essential military is asleep. Quick, invade the United States.

[A]

Anyway, so this shutdown happened on Wednesday due to a deadlock in Congress. So this is. Democrats basically have the ability to kind of like shut down the government. There's disagreement on spending levels. Democrats want more for health care. There's some affordable care act stuff. There's some Medicaid stuff. Republicans don't want to give it to them. So the Democrats are digging in, saying, we're going to shut down the government until you give us what we want. I think this is also broadly. More broadly, some political posturing, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Republicans have been pretty much in control since Trump took office, and they're just, like, dominating the political agenda. And it's felt like Democrats haven't really regained any strength. And so I think the left is basically saying, democrats, you got to stand up for Trump to Trump, you got to do something. This unchecked executive. So I think there's a little bit of political posturing going on, which is this is the Democrats standing firm against Trump and his agenda. This will all play out in the court of public opinion, of course. Like, does the public blame the Democrats or the Republicans for this? How does this get resolved? The last time this happened was in 2018. So again, before the podcast, I think probably another. I was in the crypto bear market of 2018. It was the longest shutdown in history, was 35 days. So that could happen here. Hopefully not. Hopefully shorter.

[B]

I mean, crypto prices just started moving, like, going up as soon as the government shut down.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Coincidence.

[A]

The market doesn't care. I think, like, even stocks, they're not down on this news yet.

[B]

My stocks are up. I don't know about yours.

[A]

Yeah, they're doing okay. Right. And crypto is, like, way up. So the market is just brushing this off.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It could shave about $1 billion off GDP per week as long as this lasts. But when the shutdown is back on, basically government's open. All the payments that were furloughed get repaid. So I think the market is basically pricing in that this gets resolved. It's just political posturing, and it's like, no big deal. Okay. All right. So that's the shutdown, David. All right, Congrats.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

You know, doing a shutdown again, we can't.

[B]

Again. We just can't. There's nothing we can get away with while the government is down. Like, what can we do here?

[A]

I don't know, man. I guess it's. Maybe it's good news, like, for government employees. You get to have a little, like, early holiday. Fall holiday.

[B]

Yeah. But it's unpaid, though, right?

[A]

With us, October. October.

[B]

With us, it's unpaid holidays. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Unpaid. That's not as fun. All right, bitcoin price on the week. Give us the good stuff.

[B]

Yeah. Bitcoin up 8% on the week. To $119,800. It's kind of remarkable. I'd like to take a moment and just like pause and say, when something as large as Bitcoin moves 8%, that is $200 billion that gets added to the bitcoin market.

[A]

Wow, you say it like that.

[B]

Bitcoin is like way, is like number, I don't know, five, biggest asset in the world. Something like a big one. And that is just. It just moves by 8%. That's huge. That's so much. $200 billion is minted out of thin air.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Ether up 13% to $4,450. Also looking very good. So, yeah, blue chips are green on the week. Very, very green. Very green.

[A]

We're close. Close to all time highs on both. Right. So all time high bitcoin price is 25, 125,000.

[B]

124,000.

[A]

So the thing is, I'm 123. 5 is what this is telling me. There you go, There you go.

[B]

So, yeah, we still have $4,000 away.

[A]

And eth has never broken 5k. That'll be a milestone.

[B]

Thank you for reminding me.

[A]

Anyway, it's looking good on the week, of course, and we'll see how that progresses.

[B]

We've got a mover of the week, Ryan.

[A]

Oh, okay. Before we do that though.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, we're pretty close to an all time high for total crypto market cap too.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, we're basically there. 4.2 feels good.

[A]

4.2, 4.3 strong. And that's pretty much all time high crypto market cap. Okay.

[B]

Do you think we get to five before the end of the year?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I definitely do.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah, I really do. I think this is. Wait, do you not think this is going to be a. Do you not believe.

[B]

You know, I totally think 5 is within striking distance.

[A]

I think. Do I think we're striking distance by next roll up, David, by next week we could be at 5.

[B]

We could. We could have one of those weeks. You're totally right.

[A]

Do you not think that this is going to be the most bullish quarter of the cycle for crypto?

[B]

Uh, yeah. I mean, seasonality suggests so like October and November and December have historically, especially when you pair them inside of bull market years of which this is one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

October, November, December is historically like the best time. So like we potentially have the best time ahead of us. Nonetheless, I would still like to slow cook as long as possible.

[A]

Not me, man. I'm ready for it. I'm Ready for. I'm ready for you. I'm ready. This is the quarter, man. This is if it's going to want.

[B]

To have the blow off top that ends it all.

[A]

I don't, I don't. I still don't think we blow off top this quarter. I know. I was talking to Michael NATO, you know the crypto fundamentals episodes. We do. He thinks that we're going to get a bitcoin all time high this quarter and it's going to be the cycle high as well this quarter.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Cycle ender.

[B]

You guys are calling for the top. That's. You guys are bears.

[A]

Don't say that's Michael Naino. Okay. I am still kind of a believer. I think that's a possibility. Give that 30% odds. I think that we'll still get an extended bull cycle into 2026 and that's kind of my base case, at least into Q1, into Q2 as well. And we'll get the bitcoin cycle high sometime there and then we'll have eth. Highs. Cycle highs and altcoin altcoins, you know, cycle highs and that kind of thing. Anyway, we'll see.

[B]

I'm. I'm personally going for quarter million dollar bitcoin by December of 2026. So five quarters from now, a quarter million dollar bitcoin.

[A]

Wait, really? Just 2026? I think the cycle could be over by then.

[B]

Well, I don't want that. I want to slow cook our way up to a quarter million dollars over the course of 15 months.

[A]

I know you don't want it, but what do you think is going to happen?

[B]

I think that is totally reasonable.

[A]

We've given bankless listeners, you like just about every, you know, possibility under the sun here. So we should just like, like leave them with. We don't know what's going to happen in the future, but we do know what has just happened with the mover of the week. You were just telling me. What is it?

[B]

What year is it? Zcash, the privacy coin from Zuko, which is both a transparent and a privacy coin. So you can have the shielded side of zcash and the unshielded side. So you can like disclose your transactions to the public or you can hide them. It's a little bit of both. It's hybrid. Hybrid is up 42% just in the last day. If you scroll down, I'll tell you exactly how much is up over the last like 14 days, which is 30 days. 230% over 30 days.

[A]

That is not crazy.

[B]

That Is now.

[A]

Look at this, man. This is a God candle. This is. This is really impressive.

[B]

Happened what Animal spirits happened, where everyone is like, it's time to bid zcash.

[A]

It's kind of surprising, right?

[B]

Have you ever tried to use zcash?

[A]

Yes, I have.

[B]

It's. It's hard.

[A]

It's a little hard. Yeah. It's a little hard. Well, has it improved much? I mean, it's been a long time since I.

[B]

The last time I used it was when we had Zuko on the podcast and he was like, please use zcash before I come on the podcast. I was like, okay, I will. And I haven't recovered any of those tokens that I have on that chain.

[A]

Do you screw something up or.

[B]

No. It's just so cumbersome.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember the wallets were difficult. Like, it was very difficult to use. But yeah, when we're talking about that kind of a gain, we're still pretty low as far as market cap. Right? 2.1 billion.

[B]

I mean, that's billion. Why it can go up 230% in 30 days is because after going up 230 days, 230%, it's at $2 billion. So it was like at 600, $700 million prior to that. But still, it's a big move.

[A]

I was looking into this. So zcash is currently listed on Coinbase, Binance, Kraken and Gemini, but it's been delisted in a number of places too. So, notably, Okx delisted Zcash, Bitrex delisted it. Huobi back in 2022, Chinese exchange delisted it. Binance actually flirted with delisting it in 2023 and 2024, in part due to some EU laws that. Yeah. So the threat for privacy coins like zcash that don't have defi ecosystems is that exchanges can delist them if governments get hostile on privacy. I mean, zcash is basically an app chain for privacy, correct?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That can only use privacy around a very volatile asset, which is like zcash, the. The asset. Mm.

[B]

Yeah. Which is. I've. I mean, I think it's your. And my stance that, like, privacy is not an asset, it is an app. And so there are privacy apps on Ethereum, Tornado, Cash, Privacy Pools, Veil, that can give you privacy on your assets rather than make you buy an asset. But also, nonetheless, the cryptography behind zcash, top notch. Zuko, very normal. Like, zcash was birthed before Ethereum was really a Thing? I'm pretty sure, yeah.

[A]

It's a great project. It's. It's. If you are a supporter of crypto, like values and crypto, you gotta love zcash.

[B]

You're a supporter of zcash. We like zcash.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, do you think this continues? You think we're gonna get.

[B]

I have no idea why this happened.

[A]

10 billion.

[B]

I have no idea why this happened.

[A]

It's kind of funny, actually. Umar Roy says this is getting ZK back on people's radar. So maybe she's calling for a ZK a season. Zk. Zcash running. And the lighter mainnet, which we'll talk about later. Institutions coming in. This is bullish. Zk. Right? So zcash is really the first at scale chain to ever use zk. And this is a sign of more that's come. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[B]

That's right. Let's get into some schadenfreude. Vanguard's finally offering some crypto ETFs. So Vanguard, the world's second largest asset manager after BlackRock. BlackRock, notably crypto favorable. Vanguard has always been crypto unfavorable. They've been like, no, sorry, clients of. We are the paternalistic protector of. You guys are not allowed to buy crypto ETFs. We are not offering them to you. And everyone in the crypto industry is like, why are you guys doing that? Like, no one. You're not winning any new clients by doing this. You're actually just losing clients that want access to crypto ETFs anyways. They've just been like A, holdouts, like crypto holdouts. They are changing. They are changing due to A, rising client demand for digital assets, obviously. B, the SEC recently approving new listing frameworks for ETFs. We talked about that last week or the week before. And then Also a new CEO who used to work at BlackRock and helped launch their Bitcoin ETFs is now making Vanguard reportedly to rethink their digital assets.

[A]

That's probably the big one, right?

[B]

New leadership. Yeah. So 50 million global clients again, second biggest asset manager after BlackRock, finally opening up the door to crypto ETFs. They missed the door on shipping a bitcoin and ether etf. Like they could have had a competitive product, but no, now they don't. They just gave it all to blackrock.

[A]

And they still had to capitulate.

[B]

And they still had to capitulate other.

[A]

People'S products now, but at least they're Coming through the door now. And so maybe we should celebrate them too. David. Better late than never.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Speaking of someone who is not late though, which is Tom Lee. Okay. He is early to the party. He purchased another $1 billion worth of ETH last week. So that was a 234k ETH purchase. Wow, look at this track record.

[B]

Casually buying a billion dollars.

[A]

Just to remind us from. I started this process back in July of this summer. Okay. And you could see just some sustained. Like this is how Tom Lee dollar cost averages in. It's like every two weeks he's putting in a billion dollars. A billion dollars. Billion dollars. Billion dollars.

[B]

Same. You know.

[A]

His size is size. So now he's got about US$12 billion worth of eth right now he's got about 2.2% of total eat supply. You remember over the summer people were like, he said I want to get 5% of all eat supply. And people were like, okay, Tom Lee, that's nice.

[B]

He's same. I also want that.

[A]

Yeah, that's cute. Well, like in three months time he's got almost half that. He's on track to do this.

[B]

And. And the M nav is at 1.3.

[A]

Yes, that's positive too.

[B]

That's large.

[A]

It also caused this. David. So this is a chart of Bitcoin total Supply in Bitcoin Dats like MicroStrategy and friends.

[B]

Percentage of total supply, percentage of total.

[A]

Versus ETH total percentage of total supply Ethereum dats. And this is the, this is a flipping of a story, not the real flipping, but there's more ETH as a percentage of supply in Ethereum dats than there is Bitcoin in Bitcoin dats.

[B]

I think this is a notable metric, but I don't know if this is useful for any reason.

[A]

Probably not.

[B]

I think what we're actually measuring here is the. A combination of the age distribution and like overall maturity of the respective store value networks that each of these things represent. And so what you're actually just seeing here is that Bitcoin just six years older than Ethereum.

[A]

Yeah. But it is notable how quickly Ethereum has done this. Yeah, that is true because like Bitcoin has been doing this for five years. Yeah. And as a percent of total supply ether just caught up this summer.

[B]

It is also, it's also measuring how fast that happened, is actually measuring how easy it is to acquire the same percentage because of the lower market cap. So it's just like, it's just like a weird metric that like it it shows a bunch of different things and I don't know if any of them are useful.

[A]

There are some power laws at play with some of these DAT treasury companies and one of them is volume because you actually want your debt treasury company to be highly liquid and that like liquidity begets. Liquidity begets, MNAV begets more purchasing of the underlying asset that you're trying to buy. Bitmine with strategy together they command 90% of all trading volume of digital asset treasury companies. Bitmine has about 40% of that. So it is winning on the volume metric side of things and I think that is notable also. Tom Lee is winning on the photo op game. Okay, here's. Here's Tom Lee.

[B]

Tom Lee loves his photos.

[A]

Yeah, we got him with Vitalik this time. This was at token 2049. But by the way, on token 2049 have you heard much coming out of that? I know you didn't attend but.

[B]

Yeah, I'm not a Token person.

[A]

Yeah. Like what's. What's been the vibe or what have you seen or what have you heard?

[B]

Not too much really. Yeah, I don't the token like. Yeah, the whole Singapore Dubai axis of conferences is like away from what I typically go to. So I'm not.

[A]

Not really sure. Yeah. Okay. Well I guess maybe tune in to. We don't have any takes on this.

[B]

People. People are there right now and they're coming back and so people will have their. Like here's everything I learned at Token tweet threads next week.

[A]

Okay. We'll have to look it. It doesn't seem like it's a very loud conference in. In token 2049's with the of the past I've seen more content. More kind of like I don't know, party content. Something.

[B]

Yeah that's what I understand Token to be is like a very big like party party festival. My silo conference is more down in DevConnect Ryan where there's a. Everywhere asado and mountains. That's. That's what I'm going for.

[A]

That's a good to.

[B]

To round out the DAT conversation. This came out of Reuters. U.S. regulators probe stock market moves before companies made crypto treasury announcements. So apparently the SEC is looking investigating insider trading at some of the DATs which actually kind of like checks out because I would like. That's great look at the all the like data announcements and then you would see that there has been just like price volatility mainly to the upside for a lot of these assets like a couple days to weeks before they got announced. I'm like, huh? I don't know if it's supposed to be like that.

[A]

It's not supposed to be.

[B]

I don't think it's supposed to be like that.

[A]

Yeah. And so the SEC is cracking down where it should, right? Where insider trading laws are being violated. So yeah, that's a good thing to me. David, what do we have coming up next?

[B]

Coming up next, plasma, the stablecoin chain backed by Tether becomes the sixth largest chain in less than a week by tvl. But Bankless asks why aren't they a Layer two? And then Stripe wants to give everyone a stablecoin. So hopefully the duopoly between Tether and Circle is over. And then also Cloudflare is launching a stablecoin on base. What is Cloudflare doing with the stablecoin and why is it pretty neat? Why do I think it's pretty neat? We're going to talk about that and more right before we get to some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible, like Uniswap. It's a browser wallet, it's a mobile wallet. It's a very fast chain. It's the best place to do defi. Let's go here from Uniswap. Right now, Ethereum's layer 2 universe is exploding with choices. But if you're looking for the best place to park and move your tokens, make your Next stop Unichain first. Liquidity Unichain hosts the most liquid Uniswap V4 deployment on any layer 2, giving you deeper pools for flagship pairs like ETH USDC. More liquidity means better prices, less slippage and smoother swaps. Exactly what traders crave. The numbers back it up. Uni chain leads all layer twos in total value locked for Uniswap V4. And it's not just deep, it's fast and fully transparent. Purpose built to be the home base for Defi and cross chain liquidity. When it comes to costs, Uni Chain is a no brainer. Transaction fees come in about 95% cheaper than Ethereum mainnet, slashing the price of creating or accessing liquidity. Want to stay in the loop on uni chain? Visit unichain.org or follow @ Unichain on X for all the updates. Bit Digital Ticker BTBT is a publicly traded ETH treasury company that combines the two biggest metas of our time, Ethereum and AI Compute. Bit Digital believes that Eth will power finance and AI Compute will power everything. Bit Digital gives you direct exposure to both Bit Digital holds more than 120,000 ETH with institutional grade staking and validator operations. On top of that, the company owns roughly 73% of White Fiber, an AI infrastructure business that runs high high performance GPU data centers that adds a meaningful exposure to the growth of AI compute with over 27 million shares. This is an ETH treasury backed by real operations designed to capture staking yield today while positioning for the future of intelligent computing tomorrow. The ticker is btbt. This ad is not financial advice. Do your own research, learn more about Bit Digital and try their M nav [e-mail] that's bit-digital.com Bankless is being compensated by Bit Digital for this ad. You can find out more information by clicking the link in the show Notes Introducing Kgen, AKA Verify, the world's largest verified distribution protocol or vdp if you're trying to grow a real protocol or app, you need real users doing real actions. If it's not Verify, it's just noise. At the core of verify is Poggy KJN's identity and reputation framework. It helps you reach humans, not bots. Improves what your users actually did so your budget goes to the right people. With Verify, you can run verified user acquisition with confidence, keeping people coming back with retention tools like loyalty rewards, quests and achievements, and even power AI training and evaluation using trusted verified user groups, ensuring your models learn from clean data. And when it's time to reward your community, there's the K Store, a global rewards marketplace where users can redeem perks that connect directly back to your app. Put simply, when growth is built on real users, you grow faster. And that's exactly what Verify delivers. If you're building a web three AI or gaming, request a demo to grow your product [e-mail] demo. That's www.kgen.IO demo. In less than one week, the new Plasma Layer 1 has been able to put $4 billion oh excuse me, $6.5 billion into the AAVE deployment on plasma. Making that AAVE deployment the number two largest AAVE deployment after our Arbitrum, a 4x bigger than their third place Arbitrum, which is pretty crazy plasma. Of course it's the tether. Not incubated but tether, bootstrapped backed and enshrined Layer one. So very fast payments chain for the tether stablecoin growing very very quickly by pretty aggressive XPL incentives. XPL is the token of plasma and so if you deposit like Tether you get a bunch of, like, rewards. And that can go anywhere between like 12 and 20% rewards, which.

[A]

And that's what's happening with like a. Right. Like the yields are juiced with xpl. Yields are juice.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you have like a bunch of tether, you can get some yields and juicy yields. I remember when I was farming AAVE on Polygon during Polygon, summer of 2021, Ryan, and I was getting like. I was like, no one tell anyone about this because I'm getting like 60, 60% APY. This is ridiculous.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So some of that's coming. Yeah. Question, Ryan. Everyone in. Everyone in the ecosystem is asking this.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Why is plasma not a layer two? Why is it a layer one?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of technical reasons that are given for this, for sure. Actually, this was a tweet thread that I enjoyed from A.J. warner from Arbitrum, who actually says that ironically, plasma would have been much better off with a layer two. And one of the reasons why right now, plasma does not have a decentralized validator set at all. So it's a layer one, it's evm. But plasma is the only group that's actually running the validators for this chain. So it's like completely centralized now. In order to decentralize, they're going to have to give some of their XPL tokens as rewards to validators. Right. And so they're targeting about 5% of total annual issuance per year to go to validators for rewards. So if you kind of like do the numbers on that, add an FDV of an impressive $10 billion, which is what plasma is trading at right now. Five percent of that is about 500 million per year. And that's a cost to holders of XPL tokens. Right? It's a cost essentially to the network. And AJ makes the case that, well, like, you could just save all of this money if you were a layer two instead. And when you look at that, I mean, it seems to kind of line up. I don't think there are technical reasons that really, that really fundamentally prevent plasma from being a layer two. At least all of them seem like they could be navigated. What I think is actually going on here, David, is something that I think of as the layer one premium. So for whatever reason, right now the market is assigning a juicy premium to layer one tokens versus Layer two. And I can give you some comps for this. So think of something like arbitrum as a layer two FTV. It's. You know, 4.3 billion. Optimism, about 3 billion. ZK sync is about 1 billion. Then switch to layer ones, like Tron for example. 32 billion plasma, 10 billion, right? There's like a nice juicy layer one premium that layer twos are not getting. And let's say that 5 billion of the plasma FDV is that layer one premium, right? Well, like it's not worth it for them to become a layer two just to save 500 million a year. I mean, it would take 10 years for that to actually pay off from an ROI perspective. In addition to that, they can adjust issuance down to whatever they want in the future, can't they? So it's 5% now in the future it could be like 1%, it could be 2%. So I do think that there is a driving market incentive and ROI for chains to launch as layer ones so long as this L1 premium exists. And people in the Ethereum camp were saying like, why isn't this, why is Tempo? Why is Ark? Why is plasma not a layer 2? It's because the market structure is not rewarding that it's like market rational to be a layer one. If you're aiming for and you think you got a shot at a deca billion dollar valuation, then just be a layer layer one. You can always pivot to a layer two later and the market is just rewarding that now. Anyway, that's my take. What do you think?

[B]

Yeah, I think if we're doing the whole layer two thing, we've called layer twos dictator in a box, right? One single box, one single dictator constrained. So like dictator can't be bad. Like it's constrained for what that the powers that the dictator has. But then you get all the benefits of centralization and you have just this one node that can go super fast. We also do know, especially when we did our, our SOV episode with Jonah, we did this thought experiment where like, all right, if all bitcoins in the world got centralized to one person, what would the value of Bitcoin be? And the answer would be far lower because part of the value of Bitcoin is that it's a payment. It's a distributed payments network. It's owned and operated by a decentralized set of stakeholders. And so perhaps the layer 2 model is like destructive value destructive because there's no network, it's just this one operator. And so maybe, yeah, maybe from a user perspective the chain is the same. And actually maybe it's even better as a layer two. It goes faster, has lower latency as a layer two. But you don't have a distributed ecosystem set of stakeholders because you've done the whole dictator in a box thing. And so perhaps layer twos are like value destructive in that sense. Like you don't get any sort of like Metcalfe's law premium that we are seeing in the layer one.

[A]

Maybe. Or maybe the like layer one premium will always exist or maybe it goes away over time. Maybe it's kind of dumb that it's there in the first place and it's just comped based on Bitcoin and xrp.

[B]

It's always been there.

[A]

It has.

[B]

I am noticing that there are layer ones launching at very high valuations lately. Like double zero, not a layer one, but it is a token launched yesterday at $7 billion FTZ.

[A]

What did double zero we're going to talk about later.

[B]

Yeah, and so we're having token launches coming in at like, oh, but double.

[A]

Zero is not a layer one, like blockchain. It's a completely different thing.

[B]

But my point is that when we launch tokens at billion dollar valuations, we are going to that is early stage froth. That's a froth magnet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And like all of a sudden like, oh, $7 billion, let me go launch a layer one. And that's how the layer one premium disappears is like the layer one froth magnet gets a little too strong. We launch a bunch of low quality layer ones and then that premium gets milked and then we enter a bear market.

[A]

Yeah, I could see that happening as well for sure. I mean if, if the premium goes away, it's going to go away for some chains, not all chains during the bear market, isn't it? It's not going to go away right now let's talk about this next story. So it begins with Fantom launching a chain. So Fantom, of course, is the browser and mobile wallet most popular on Solana. Also extending to other chains. They have launched a stablecoin called Cash. You recall, was it last week or the week before Metamask launched its own Stablecoin? Seems like all of the large wallets are going to have their own Stablecoin, which is notable. So Cash is going to be Phantom's native and default stablecoin. Here's where it was actually issued. It was issued through Stripe's Bridge infrastructure. David. And that gets into the next part of this, which is Stripe launching a platform called Open Issuance. This is a Stripe collaboration, Recall, they acquired a company called Bridge. We had Zach Abrams, the founder of Bridge, on bankless back in September and he told us all about this. But Bridge is basically a stripe product that allows anyone to roll their own stablecoin and Phantom used open issuance as the easy button for just rolling their own stablecoin. Why do you think they did this? Like what are the reasons why Phantom would need or want its own stablecoin.

[B]

For the yields that they get to pocket? Isn't that the whole idea?

[A]

Yeah, and sometimes it's Pocket, but it's at least it's not giving them to USDC or Circle or Tether. They can give it to their users too.

[B]

Right. The answer, the answer to your question is like why does this entity that has distribution, why do they issue a stablecoin is because they get to dictate the yields that would otherwise be going to tether or circle. And so they get to give them to users, they get to pocket them, but they now it's theirs to to.

[A]

Have and that's the main use case for open issuance. So picture you have large AUM and stablecoins. You're a wallet, you're an exchange, you're a bank, like whatever you are. Right. You're some sort of entity. Well, if you have like $500 million in stablecoins on your platform that users.

[B]

Have deposited into your wallet. So if you're Phantom and I'm like, I'm a user, I've deposited a thousand dollars into usdc.

[A]

It's work you've done. You've got that a right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well your customers aren't getting us. They're not getting it. Yeah. So who's getting, who's getting that, you know, 25 million a year or whatever, the 5%, something like that on your, you know, 500 million in stablecoins. It's circle, it's tether. Yeah. And like you're doing all the work. This is what Hyper Liquid realized and they were like, we don't want to give this yield to stablecoin. We're going to, you know, create an RFP process for a native hyper liquid stablecoin. Anyway, that same conversation is being had by all of the fintechs, anyone with the wallet. Yeah, all of the exchanges. And now there is a very easy way to just roll your own stablecoin so they can off the shelf get their own stablecoin. So picture this. A user just contributes cash into a wallet. It's just converted into something. It's not USDC or Tether, it's just called digital dollars. It's completely abstracted from the user it's like Venmo.

[B]

It's from ve. I have $200 in Venmo.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or it's even like $200 in Phantom.

[A]

Yeah. Or it's like a Starbucks card. Right. You don't get Starbucks dollars. Right. Let's say you have a loyalty card.

[B]

Yeah, you just have dollars.

[A]

It's on the Starbucks balance sheet, you know, but it's basically just dollars and that's how they denominate it. I think this is going to happen all over the place. In fact, Nick Carter wrote an interesting essay this week which is he basically thinks that the tether and circle duopoly where they've had. I think you said like 90% of the market. I mean something close to that. Yeah, 91% of the market in March.

[B]

91.6. I said 92.

[A]

So it's fallen by the way right now it's 86%. But Nick Carter says it's going to continue to fall and it's basically because there's an incentive for a stablecoin explosion. Intermediaries rolling their own chain where they get to customize the properties, they can figure out what reserve assets they want, who gets the yield, they can use that yield to incent customers and growth. That's what all of the fintechs are doing. And this is going to lead to a stablecoin explosion. Hopefully not in a way that's like fragments the market because I think it's all going to be abstracted and they're just going to be called dollars. As long as it's a genius bill stablecoin, it'll just be called dollars in the user experience and that duopoly will end and that that market share will shrink.

[B]

I mean this is, this is, these are new banks. And I say that like positively. Where like why does Phantom want to do this? Well, they want to have the deposits so they can get the yield just like a bank. But the difference is, is that it's a stablecoin on a blockchain so you all get to audit it. It's not a black box. Users have the ability to exit and it's just like a lot more transparent. And so like to me, I look at our episode with Austin Campbell that we did a while ago, which was like his whole thesis was, you know, if 2008 happened under a stablecoin paradigm, we would all have been fine. And actually there would not have been 2008, it just wouldn't have happened. Yeah, because of the transparency and the auditability and the lack of the Black box nature. If customer deposits in banks had been stablecoins, not fractional reserve lending.

[A]

Yeah. And that's the other thing is like, it's not going to be the phantoms of the world and exchanges of the world that are keeping the. The 4% yield for themselves. I think they'll be forced to pass the majority of that to customers. To users.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

They might carve off like 25 bips.

[B]

Very small. You know, the 25 bips that you were getting in your savings account in Wells Fargo. Now that's the 25 bips is actually what Fantom is getting.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And the users get all the money.

[A]

Yes. So users, consumers benefit from this and it's really fantastic. It's a byproduct of the genius. Bill, thanks for fucked. You mentioned Cloudflare earlier in the episode. So what are they doing?

[B]

So issuing a stablecoin on base. So they're working with base. Base is building this thing called x 402, I think we've mentioned a handful of times on the weekly rollup. It's a payment standards. It's a payment standard for the Internet. Kind of like, you know, HTTPs, tcpip.x402 is when a website is like, hey, you just pinged my website, but if you want my data that I have on this website, you gotta pay me. Yeah, pay me 4 cents and I'll show you the data. And that goes through the X402 protocol. And the idea is like, you probably have a wallet in your browser. And then the browser's like, hey, do you want to pay this website $0.07 to, like, look at what's going on here? And you're like, yes, I do. And then you can open up that website and it's beautiful. And there's no ads, is the idea is my version of the future that I would like.

[A]

And so I think that's a good version. It's also. So that's a human doing it, but also in many more cases is probably just going to be machines like your AI ChatGPT interfaces, just.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Microtransactions to get, hey, my user asked me to go do this service. Can I do this service? And you're like, yeah, you can totally do that service. Pay me 7 cents. Pay me a dollar something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[A]

So this is Cloudflare doing it with their own stablecoin, deploying it on base. Reminder, 20% of the Internet runs on Cloudflare.

[B]

I thought it was more than that.

[A]

I thought it was too, but I don't know what portion of the Internet they're talking about? A large portion of the Internet runs on Cloudflare. So this is distribution for machine to machine or Agenic payments using this X402 standard. And Cloudflare can just like insert their stablecoin into the process, make that a default and win that way too.

[B]

It's a great 20% of all websites. I wonder if what represents traffic? What if traffic, that is.

[A]

Yeah. But it's a huge deployment and opportunity for partnership between Coinbase and Cloudflare. I'm pretty excited about that blend of Web one, Web two and Crypto. In fact, we're trying to get them on the podcast, right?

[B]

We're going to get them on the podcast. Yeah. The creator of x402 and then potentially the founder of Cloudflare.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

Gonna be thick. All right. Coming up next is Lighter Ethereum's answer to Hyper Liquid. We're gonna talk about Lighter, a decentralized perp secs that just hit Mainnet this last week. Shane Shane from polymarket gets flipped off by this old guy from CME on at a CFTC roundtable. What's going on over there? And then also Swift is teaming up with Consensys to do something on an EVM test net. What could possibly happen next? We're going to get to all that and more but first we're going to talk to some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. Introducing FRAX USD, the genius aligned digital dollar from frax. It's secure, stable and fully backed by institutional grade real world assets custody by BlackRock, Superstate and Fidelity. It's always redeemable one to one, transparently audited and built for payments, defi and banking. The best of all worlds. At the core is fraxnet, an on chain fintech platform built to align with emerging US regulatory frameworks where you can mint, redeem and use FRAX USD with just a few clicks. Deposit usdc, send a bank wire or tokenized Treasuries and receive programmable digital dollars straight to your wallet. Fraccent users benefits from the underlying return of U.S. treasuries and earn just by using the system. Whether you're bridging, minting or holding you, your FRAX USD works for you. FRAX isn't just a protocol, it's a digital nation powered by the FRAX token and governed by its global communities. Join that community and help shape FRAX Nation's future by going to frax.comr Bankless Frax designed for the future of compliant digital finance Imagine a world where traditional finance meets the power of blockchain seamlessly. That's what Mantle is pioneering with Blockchain for Banking, a revolutionary new category at the intersection of TradFi and Web3. At the heart is you are the world's first money app. Built fully on chain, it gives you a Swiss IBAN account blending fiat currencies like the Euro, the Swiss Franc, the United States Dollar or the Renminbi with crypto all in one place. Enjoy real world usability and Blockchain's trust and programmability transactions. Post directly to the blockchain compatible with Tradfi Rails and packed with integrated DEFI futures. UR transforms Mantle Network into the ultimate platform for on chain financial services, unifying payments, trading and assets like the MI4, the Meath Protocol and function FBTC backed by developer grants, ecosystem incentives and top distribution through the UR app reward stations and BYBIT launch pool for MNT holders. Every economic activity in UR drives value back to you, embodying the entire stack and future growth of this super app ecosystem. Follow Mantle on X at Mantel Underscore Official for the latest updates on Blockchain for banking. That's x.com/mantle underscore official bullish Exchange has officially launched in the United States and is now open to institutional clients. Built with institutional grade infrastructure, Bullish offers deep liquidity, low latency and compliant Rails. It is already one of the top regulated BTC and ETH spot venues worldwide with over $2 billion in daily trade volume. On Bullish you'll get more than just trading. Custody, liquidity and execution are all tied into a single global order. Book fees are designed for scale with 0% maker fees and ultra low taker fees for institutional accounts. High throughput 8 APIs support programmatic strategies and onboarding is already seamless across 20 states with more coming soon. Markets may be unpredictable, but execution should not be. Access the new institutional [e-mail]. that's bullish.com. there's a link in the show notes for more information.

[A]

Okay, so I've been seeing some stuff about lighter this week, David, which is like a perps exchange using some ZK magic. It's like a ZK Ethereum layer 2 rollup. I don't know. Is this like Ethereum's answer for to hyperliquid for like a layer 2 perps dex? Is that what this is?

[B]

Oh, potentially it is lighter. It's a decentralized perpdex just like dydx, just like hyperliquid, just like Any of the other decentralized perp Dexs that have come before. Did you ever use DYDX when it was a Stark X ZK rollup?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And all of everyone, Ethereum was like, this is sick because it was super fast and you just had your assets on Ethereum. You just bridged in and out. And then DYDX was decided to go off into the cosmos direction. And then we were like. We were all collectively. Ethereum was like, confused. It's like, why, why are you doing that? Just stay on Ethereum. And then. And then we had GME with the AMM perp Dex model. And then Hyper Liquid came in, like, blew the doors open with just like, yo, we just have like a very low number of validators and we're going to truce up this chain. And that's the Perp Dex lighter. We're going full circle. We're doing the ZK rollup thing again.

[A]

But it's a different kind of ZK rollup. It's not using, like, Stark Net.

[B]

It's not using Stark X the. It's not using Starks. Yes, there. It's using Succinct's Prover network. So Succinct is like kind of this backend service provider to do the entry and exit deposits onto the ZK rollup. And so property rights, user property rights are assured that way. I remember you had a tweet that went out a while ago. I was like, yeah, what if, like, Hyper Liquid down, like, how would users get their money back? I don't know if you ever got an answer to that. The answer on for lighter is like, oh, there you got ZK proofs.

[A]

Part of the answer was, stop fighting Hyper Liquid, Ryan. Like, why do you hate it? And I was just like, oh, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just kind of wondering.

[B]

No, it was a fair question. I think people. I mean, okay, maybe to give that reaction, the benefit of the doubt is like, maybe people thought we were fighting people's bags, but like, no, we were just asking. You were just asking. It's like, yeah, what, like, hypothetically, what happens to property rights?

[A]

Right.

[B]

They also said unknown answer. Unknown answer.

[A]

Yeah, I think it basically. But the answer is if. If basically Hyper Liquid goes down or the validators go down, it just shuts down. The same way Coinbase would kind of shut down now once it was the.

[B]

Same way that, like, Solana. If Solana shuts down, can you get your assets back? No. Same thing with Ethereum. If Ethereum Went down. Can you get your assets back? No.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

But Ethereum's have gone down, so.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Anyways, lighter. Lighter uses ZK proofs to ensure user property rights. So there is. I'm pretty sure this is true. There's like a exit hatch, a ZK exit hatch for users to withdraw funds. But other than, other than that it's just an off, off chain. It's its own ZK roll up and it's a perp Dex. And it has accrued $800 million of USCC. Excuse me. Yes. $800 million of USCC deposits. So quite large. It's been running in beta for the last eight months or so and it just took off the. Took. Took down the gates. So anyone, anyone can go and join the perp Dex. And it's got a ton of hype. It's gotten a ton of hype.

[A]

Yeah, well it's just because it's like per deck season. Right.

[B]

And this is like what just defined like this is worth billions of dollars.

[A]

So these are all the hyper liquid alts basically taking a crack at it. You've. You've deposited some into this. So you've tried it out. What is like the bridging experience like, because it's actually like kind of hard and kind of cumbersome to go bridge to hyperliquid right now. Like for instance.

[B]

Yeah. You have to uscc. I know I haven't done it. I'm sorry. Hyper liquid people deposited. You would deposit USDC onto Arbitrum and then there's a bridge from Arbitrum to hyperliquid.

[A]

Yeah. And you can short cut all of that with some like. But you still have to bridge. You have to take your existing assets. Yeah, it's kind of a pain. You have to do the same to get in into.

[B]

You sign in with your wallet. You make an authentication transaction with your wallet saying yes, I own this with this wallet. And then with the USDC that you have in your wallet, you're. You hit click the deposit button, you sign the transaction and then it's in there.

[A]

It's immediately there. Or like does it take time?

[B]

So you have to like initialize a wallet. So you have to like make an account with, with lighter and that takes like 15 to 20 seconds and then after that it's instant.

[A]

Okay. And is there like gas fees to do that? Like eth layer?

[B]

There are eth layer one gas fees which cost me like seven cents.

[A]

Okay. Yeah, that's good. I mean that's pretty similar to how it is to get Assets on Hyper Liquid. Much easier than a centralized exchange, right? I mean far easier to go through aml, KYC and your name and identity password. Like way easier.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So just to comp it $840 million in USCC deposits on LiDAR and that's compared to Hyperliquid's almost $6 billion of USCC deposits. So Hyperliquid obviously very strong, but like for a beta that's now on mainnet, you know, coming up on a billion dollars is pretty good.

[A]

How is this different? So this is a ZK rollup approach. How is this different than the synthetix like perp exchange that you were talking to me about last week?

[B]

Syntax doesn't use ZK and so it is trusted actions. The order book is trusted. It's a black box. Order books that clears every 12 seconds. This, there's a little bit. So we're having the founder Vlad of Lighter on the podcast. So these are questions that I would love to ask Vlad because like once you, once you have money deposited into Lighter, you can just start clicking buttons and like you don't need to authenticate your wallet or sign a transaction in your wallet once you have USCC in there. So like is that trusted? I don't know. I don't know.

[A]

There's so many different designs for these kind of like perps. It's pretty interesting, David. Crypto is going mainstream. Tradfi mainstream in some big way. Some more evidence of this on the week Society General. How is that for my accent?

[B]

I don't know how you pronounce that.

[A]

Company they launched, this is a big bank, of course. SG launches a stablecoin with Morpho and Uniswap.

[B]

What?

[A]

Yeah. What a major bank parting with Defi companies. This is Mika compatible stablecoin, Euro Stablecoin and then a dollar based backed stablecoin. It just goes to show how much DEFI business development is integrating now with traditional finance firms and even the big banks. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So what about the morpho part? The stablecoins are directly deployed into morpho lending vaults and institutional retail users can borrow or lend the Euro, Stablecoin and USDV against eligible collateral. And then Uniswap their part in this is listings. They're gonna create spot markets on Ethereum for all of these assets. So there you go. Also the Swift news. So this was the headline Swift. This is of course the global payments network that basically handles all payments across the globe. It is the absolute juggernaut. They teamed up with Ethereum software giant Consensus for a blockchain prototype. What is going on here?

[B]

We don't really know, but that's kind of the thing. So we. They're teaming up with Consensus, which we kind of know where that's pointed. Like they have their own EVM layer two. We watch somebody from Swift mint a tokenized bond on the Sepoya Testnet. So an EVM Ethereum testnet. And so they're just doing Ethereum things without. We don't actually. There's no announcement to talk about, there's no release. But they're teaming up with Consensus and they're minting bonds on an EVM test net. So like maybe a calm before the storm, before some big hammer drops, but we don't really know at this moment.

[A]

When you say a big hammer, you're talking about a good big hammer in a good way.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So you're saying this could be the start of something really big or it could be a nothing burger.

[B]

We just don't know right now. It's like, you know, announcements of like a trial. Very coded. It's like we are. Do we're testing things. I mean, like, does that turn into something.

[A]

I don't know, something serious is seemingly happening, I guess. So Swift Consensus is going to involve 30 major banks. So they got a lot of names here. HSBC, bank of America, JPMorgan, Citi, Deutsche bank and others. And the aim is to enable real time 247 international transaction using a shared digital ledger. We don't know if this is going to be built on Ethereum mainnet, like the demo that you're talking about here. This is Sepoylia, it's EVM Ethereum testnet. But we don't know if that's the final destination or if they're working with consensus. Whether it's the consensus is layer two like Linea or what. It could be something else.

[B]

Maybe it's on jpm. Quorum Chain. Exactly, it's on Quorum.

[A]

Yeah. You never know with these kind of corporate initiatives, like whether it's real or whether it's something else. Actually, David, I wanted to talk to you about this because we've been talking a lot about stablecoins this cycle and.

[B]

We'Re getting a lot too much, honestly.

[A]

Okay, so tell me about this. This is. I saw this headline, Circle Exploring Reversible USDC Transactions in a break from the Crypto Ethos. This is a Cointelegraph headline. And the president of Circle, Heath Tarbert, apparently told the Financial Times we are thinking through weather or not. There's the possibility of reversibility of transactions, but at the same time, we want settlement finality. He's talking about reversibility of USDC transactions. Like, that's a good user experience type of feature. You know, if someone is scammed and you can kind of reverse a transaction, then you can make the person who was scammed whole. And so the idea of reversibility to USDC transactions in general, now this is completely antithetical to the crypto ethos, right? Which is like, we're dealing with immutable blockchains and code is law, and yet stablecoins are this hybrid thing where they follow some crypto rules and they also follow some legal rules. But in general, I was just thinking, like, do you think the cypherpunk era of crypto is like, dead now that we've gone more mainstream and tradfi is entering and they're starting to be like, oh, you know what would be nice? I love the blockchain thing you guys have going on, but the immutability thing, I don't know, like, how about we just add reversibility to this and make it even better? When crypto natives would say, like, immutability is a feature. It's not a. It's not a bug here. Like, what are you doing? What's your overall take on this?

[B]

Yeah, the important thing about a blockchain is that if you want all of the cypherpunk ethos imbued into the product that you use, you have that option. And if you want to strip away all cypherpunk ethos away from that same product, you also have that option. And so is the cypherpunk vision like the ethos dead? It's like, no. It's always been about choice. And comparatively, the centralized, trusted solutions are faster and easier to deploy and more aggressive, and so therefore more mainstream, but at least those users have the ability to exit to a more cypherpunk ethos. Stablecoin. I kind of want someone to just redo the MakerDAO play. Now that MakerDAO is kind of like, it's kind of bent the knee a little bit. Can somebody just go and redo, hey, like, DM me say, hey, I'm raising for a startup where it's called MakerDAO and I would like that cap money is like, newer stablecoin that I like that has the cypherpunk ethos. Will it ever get to, like, the billions of dollars that like, circle and tether are? No, but it has enough capacity to support me at some Level though, in.

[A]

My savings, I feel like we've tried it. We tried many of the crypto native like stablecoin type things and it seems like there's this bifurcation now. There's like real world assets and they're going to have some real world types of limitations. Right. Which is meat space settled, maybe reversibility. Certainly the issuers have the ability to freeze and censor and do all of these things. And that's kind of veered towards one side and then on the other side we still have all of our crypto native assets. Right. There's still bitcoin, there's still ether, still can't be frozen, still can't be censored, you know, still is completely immutable. And the middle really has been the thing that hasn't held. And maybe that's just. Maybe that's the future. Like, maybe there's never going to be a cypherpunk kind of stablecoin that exists. Maybe it's just we have crypto native assets and we.

[B]

No, I think there are cypher cipher punk stablecoins that exist. They just don't exist in like large size. But that's also. Okay. That's okay. It doesn't need to exist in large, large size. It just needs to provide its quality service to the people when they need it.

[A]

I want them to be. I. There was.

[B]

Yeah, you want them to be dominant. There's. Yeah, there was a time in 2019 where like cypherpunk ethos is going to be the largest tam and that. That has not happened, but it has.

[A]

I mean, we have seen our crypto native assets grow like bitcoin above, you know, 2 trillion eth.

[B]

Yeah, that's true.

[A]

Half a billion. Half a trillion right now. So, yeah.

[B]

Coming down to the end of the rope, we've got our second to last subjects. We're going to talk about ZK really fast, especially with the release of Sam Altman's Sora. Have you played around with Sora, Ryan?

[A]

No, it's like I can't. I don't have a private invite code.

[B]

I'm sure I will get you one. I got mine from a Jazz who is connected with the OpenAI people, Ajaz, one of the two hosts of Limitless. Well, actually, let's go. Go tap into the Limitless podcast, which everyone should be listening to so we can download people on Sora.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Not Zora Sora.

[A]

Yeah. First, what is Sora? It's like it's AI generated video from OpenAI, basically.

[B]

Yeah, it's like getting really good Instagram, TikTok, except everything is AI and like you can type in your prompts, you can like upload your face and say a few words and then all of a sud, sudden you're in Sora. So you're the actor, which is kind of creepy. Let's go hear the segment from Limitless. In this video that I'm showing on screen right now, someone cameoed Sam Altman shoplifting in Target.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Can you please turn the audio on for this? This is so good. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yes. I want people to hear, please.

[A]

I really need this for Sora inference.

[C]

This video is too good.

[B]

That's great. I love how we just did a clip inside of a clip.

[A]

Yeah, that's perfect. Clip section here.

[B]

All right, so on the.

[A]

How does this look to you though?

[B]

It's very real. It's very real. They're showing a clip of a video made by Sora of Sam Altman shoplifting a gpu and it's Sam Altman. It looks like Sam Altman. It sounds like Sam Altman.

[A]

It's from like the perspective of a security camera in a convenience store, right?

[B]

It's just like, it just nails it. It just nails it. And which, which like begs the question is like, all right, when these things get even just marginally better, like, how are we going to be able to tell what's real and what's not? Like, we're basically there. And it has been a long standing conversation in the crypto space for years about data authenticity, data provenance. And now that deep fakes are like real, like crypto has the solution here, right? Like, we can solve this, right?

[A]

How? How do we solve this?

[B]

Okay, so Uma Roy from Succinct who's got the ZK proving network, she says, holy shit. Urgency to deploy cryptography at scale just 100x provable. Images, video and audio will all be integrated into timelines. ZK will power the HTTPs of reality. So Uma is like, oh yeah, we'll use ZK to prove authenticity. And I think conceptually that checks out. But I think also both me and Ryan are like, how, how, how does that work?

[A]

Yeah, like, so how. Like I, I get if you are doing an officially related. Like if we're doing the, the bankless roll up, for example, and we wanted to sign it cryptographically and just say, this is the authentic bankless rollup. And you can tell because David and I have signed it with some private keys, right?

[B]

And we tweeted it out and started Twitter account Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we could tweet out AI and be like, this is real.

[A]

Exactly. Or somebody else. Or like, I mean, that just seems like a. It's a pretty narrow use case. Right. An example of you're catching Sam Altman in a convenience store security camera. Is that the real Sam or not? Right. It's not something he would be authenticating. So how does ZK actually do it? It's like, are you putting some sort of ZK timestamp in every security camera, in every iPhone, every picture you take.

[B]

ZK circuit in cameras and it.

[A]

On the hardware. Devices on the hardware.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it timestamps it and it throws it on a blockchain somewhere.

[B]

Yeah. And the thing is like if for CCTV, like local cameras, you have to be ZK signing because they just run. They just run 247 and they keep the last 30 days of footage. Is all of that ZK signed? And where are those proofs going?

[A]

Exactly. This just seems like a massive last mile problem. We will solve it, and we need to solve it with zk. That totally seems like the solution. But there's no easy button for this. Right. If somebody listening knows more about how practically how we can solve this using cryptography or cryptocurrency or blockchains, let us know.

[B]

Because, I mean, we've noticed this segment is this call to action. It's like, please help us. We don't understand.

[A]

There we go. All right. David, do you see this clip? The CEO of polymarket gets flipped off by the CEO of the cme, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Let me set the context for this. So Shane Copeland, he is the founder of Polymarket. Of course he was invited to a panel with a whole bunch of important people. SEC invited him. It's a CFTC roundtable. So ice. I don't think this is the same ice. Oh, it's the Exchange. Ice, nasdaq, cme, cboe. We're all there. And so was Shane. He was invited. And this in itself is a big deal because it's legitimacy. Less than a year ago, his apartment was being raided by the FBI, right, as kind of an illegal crypto project. And now he's being invited by major regulators to panels like this. Anyway, I'm gonna play a clip because at this point in the panel, the CEO of the CME flips him. The bird man, gives him the middle finger.

[B]

Yeah, okay, but he deserves everything. Shane called him old.

[A]

All right, let's just play the clip. Users, listeners can decide they want to.

[B]

Win on Blockchain and really you're at.

[A]

A fork in the road where, hey, I can either go and wait and.

[B]

Lobby and do rule makings for five years while everything happens offshore and we're left with consumers having to, you know, work with guys like you who are a lot older.

[A]

May not.

[B]

With all due respect.

[A]

There it is, there it is. Middle finger up, tear it stuffy. With all due respect, guys, they're a little older. Cme.

[B]

I mean that was just in good jest. That's just like a funny moment. I was just like young crypto prediction market startup founder disrupting old Boomer CME founder. Yeah, it's like all you calls them all and Boomer flips them off. That's just hilarious.

[A]

There you go. All right, so I think that's it. I think we're at the end of the roll up, David.

[B]

Yeah, we are, Joe. There's a three day weekend coming up, Ryan.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I'm letting you know and also the listeners know that I will be climbing. Oh, I'm climbing. I'm gone.

[A]

So good things. Last time you climbed Ethereum hit all time high.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And no, last time. Last time I didn't climb, I was at Burning Man.

[A]

Oh, you're at Burning Man.

[B]

Last time you were out, I was off the grid. I'm just letting you know. I'm just letting you know. Do what you will with that information.

[A]

Okay, I think you're talking about the 13th of October.

[B]

Yes, I disappear on. I leave the 11th and I disappear on the 12th and I will return on the 14th. There you go. But meanwhile, I'll be on top of map.

[A]

Place your trades. Everybody get on those.

[B]

Place your bets.

[A]

Purpose changes, go 5x10x long. 10x long on ETH for October 12th.

[B]

On October 12th. This is not financial advice.

[A]

We do have a moment of Zen for people, but I should say maybe we'll do the disclaimer first. You guys know none of this has been financial advice. Crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in. But we are headed west. Not for everybody, but we're glad you're with us in the bankless journey Moment of Zen. We've been having this conversation about big banks wanting to edit the genius bill, take away rewards. They want to do it all the interest for themselves. This is a coinbase parody in response. Enjoy this. See you next week.

[C]

Can we actually take that part out of the clarity act? Which part? The part that allows for crypto rewards. We've been working on this bill for months. I know. And we've already signed that part into law. Yes, I know. And now you're trying to undo the law. It sounds so much worse when you.

[B]

Put it like that.

[C]

And you already said allowing crypto rewards was fine with you. I said that? Yes. We definitely talked about how more reward options are better for customers. But did we talk about the community banks? What about them? Well, I'm worried stablecoins will threaten their bank deposits. Actually, there's no significant link between stablecoin adoption and community bank deposit outflows. So I'm not think about the community banks. This is about protecting consumers.

[B]

Really?

[C]

You can either have crypto rewards or you can protect our monopoly. Sorry, What? Sorry, I meant protection for consumers. Okay, so if crypto rewards are bad for customers, should we also ban your credit card rewards too? Well, those are different. How so? They just r. Got it.