Landmark Regulation, ICOs, Downtober & Privacy: 2025 Crypto Year in Review (Part 2) - Ep. 991

Summary

Unchained Podcast Ep. 991: Landmark Regulation, ICOs, Downtober & Privacy — 2025 Crypto Year in Review (Part 2)

Host: Laura Shin
Guests: Doug Kolkat (Co-founder, Foco & Ambient Finance), Gort (Host, The Gort Show)
Date: December 30, 2025

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Overview

In the concluding part of her annual review, Laura Shin is joined by industry insiders Doug Kolkat and Gort to dissect the second half of 2025, a year brimming with regulatory milestones, landmark ICOs, “Downtober” market crashes, privacy coin resurgences, and dramatic industry sagas. With candid anecdotes, sharp macro commentary, and memorable industry gossip, the guests break down what mattered, what surprised, and what they see coming for crypto. The episode balances sharp skepticism with industry-insider humor and a healthy dose of irreverence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Genius Act: First US Crypto Law and Stablecoin Regulation

[02:19–05:52]

• Background: The Genius Act became the US’s first comprehensive crypto law, mainly affecting stablecoin issuers – notably prohibiting them from directly passing interest income to users.
• Doug’s Take: Sparked a “stablecoin season” that benefited overall adoption, but “there really wasn’t much besides Circle equity” for traders/speculators. XPL briefly filled this narrative, but it was largely a dull year for tokens.
  “Bad year for tokens.” – Doug Kolkat [04:04]
• Gort's Perspective: Aware of workarounds for the law (rewards via different contracts, etc.), but notes the obvious influence of traditional banking interests behind the scenes. Calls the interest retention provision anti-innovative:
  “It doesn't seem intuitive why we shouldn’t be able to just be directed yield... that is part of the appeal of stablecoins.” – Gort [04:23]

Memorable Moment:
“Employment act for lawyers. Like, they're always the people who make out the most in crypto.” – Doug Kolkat [05:32]

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2. ICOs, Launchpads, and Pump/Bonk Drama

[05:52–12:29]

• Pump ICO & Let's Bonk: The highly anticipated Pump ICO was accompanied by a media campaign and competing launches (Let’s Bonk), but ultimately resulted in disappointment after a quick pump and persistent downward drift in token prices.
• Market Mechanics Discussion:
  • Novelty: Pump’s launch was unusually transparent and featured buybacks, but guests poked fun at the “circular” nature of fundraising and buy, reminiscent of traditional share repurchases but less substantive.
    “It’s a little bit of this circular thing... in the real world, when there’s equity ... there’s revenue, then net income, and then maybe share repurchases.” – Gort [10:04]
  • Crypto’s Bear Market: Secondary market activity and appetite for risk collapsed, with “down only” launches becoming the new normal.
• Elan on Thread Guy: The intersection of celebrity, meme culture, and token launches exemplified by high-profile endorsements and interviews with personalities like Thread Guy and Elan.

Timestamped Quote:
“The whole bonk thing seemed, like, quite fabricated. Although I am friends with quite a lot of those early bonk investors... I think they definitely put on, like, kind of a PR campaign.” – Gort [06:52]

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3. Stripe Launches Tempo (Its Own L1)

[12:29–15:46]

• Stripe’s Blockchain Move: Stripe spun up its own chain (Tempo), allegedly backed heavily by Paradigm but with uncertain levels of real engagement from Stripe itself.
• Consortium Angle: Comparisons to Facebook’s Libra/DM; questions around whether Stripe is positioning as the ecosystem’s backbone or another player.
• Notable Discussion:
  “It’s not clear to me how much Stripe is all in on Tempo or if this is just one of many, many bets Stripe is taking.” – Doug Kolkat [13:02]

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4. “The USDH Competition” — Governance Theater & DAO Politics

[15:54–20:54]

• The Drama: A much-hyped competition to select a native stablecoin was, according to all guests, a “preordained” affair with the winner decided by those with the most voting power.
• Decentralization Critique: The hosts call out “decentralization theater” in DeFi governance, comparing it to American democracy’s own imperfections. Ultimately, it’s capitalism/cronyism, not true competition, that prevails.
• Standout Laugh:
  “It’s, you know, what color Ferrari does the founder get? ... vote red and then the founder says, ‘no, yellow’ and then everyone votes yellow.” – Doug Kolkat [16:33]

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5. Major Corporate Moves: Coinbase Acquires Echo & Up Only

[20:54–28:33]

• Coinbase’s Acquisition Strategy: $400 million for Echo, $25 million for a season of Up Only, plus “aqua-hiring” Kobe (who now helps with customer service).
  “You acquire somebody for $400 million so that they can do customer support for you? Clearly the best aquihire of the year.” – Laura Shin [21:49]
• Echo’s Vision: Kobe’s commitment to retail early investment access, though debate ensues on whether “early users should be investors.”
• Coinbase Customer Support Rant: Gort tells a story about lost USDT, demonstrating the persistent UX failings even at major exchanges.
• Memorable:
  “What does it say about Coinbase that...it’s taken one guy...to fix the problems we’ve screeched about for years?” – Gort [25:24]

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6. Bitcoin’s All-Time High & the “1010 Liquidations” Market Meltdown

[28:34–43:01]

• BTC ATH ($126,000): Far below cycle expectations, but a historic milestone nonetheless.
  • “Down-only” returns after an optimistic "Udi 400k by EOY!" narrative.
• 1010 Liquidations Event:
  • A flash crash and mass liquidations across perps and derivatives that hit even the macro/old-school crowd.
  • Suspected market manipulation, regulatory/posture speculation, and Binance’s technical failings mixed in.
  • Doug: “I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly what happened on 1010.”
• Adoption Delayed: Gort laments volatility's dampening effect:
  “This is not ideal... We’re sitting here telling people, like, this is a store of value, and it goes down 15% in 30 minutes.” [36:02]
• Circuit Breakers in Crypto: Guests discuss if TradFi-style “timeouts” would help, but are uncertain how they’d work with cross-exchange hedging.

Memorable:
“Thanksgiving is always a bad time for crypto people.” – Doug Kolkat [40:28]

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7. Privacy Coins Resurge — Zcash Narrative

[44:01–49:54]

• Unanticipated Surge: Zcash and other privacy coins post massive runs after years of neglect. Laura speculates about “Thread Guy’s tax panic” triggering the move; guests say it’s more generic narrative rotation and improved political tolerance.
• Gort: “Every few months, we cycle through a new one [narrative]...and one we had not cycled through in quite some time was this idea around privacy.” [45:08]
• Doug on Liquidity: “Z Liquidity is very, very thin. On Zcash, it doesn’t take much to run.” [47:34]

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8. AI Agents & the X402 Standard — Real Tech or Hype?

[49:54–52:36]

• Discussion: General skepticism about the gravity and substance of the “AI agent” trend in crypto. Comparison to algorithmic trading, dismissal of “agent economy” as hype for token sales.
• Gort:
  “It’s a deep misunderstanding as to what AI is... All of this has been intentionally anthropomorphized...it’s somewhat of a charade.” [51:35]
• Doug:
  “It’s very, very easy...to slap AI on anything in crypto and have the valuation run up.” [50:37]

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9. Kalshi vs. Polymarket — Prediction Markets at War

[52:36–58:49]

• Major Rivalry: Two prediction market platforms, both at $10B+ paper valuations, engaged in heated competition and social media sniping. Allegations of legal dirty tricks and lobbying abound.
• Legal Uncertainty: Real questions about long-term viability due to US gambling laws and entrenched casino interests.
• Memorable/Spicy:
  “If you call the FBI on somebody, that’s hard to...” – Doug Kolkat [54:09]

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10. Miscellaneous 2025 Dramas & Debates

Mega ETH & Mr. Beast Allocation Revoked

[58:49–62:49]

• Mr. Beast lost a large allocation for hedging — guests agree it’s flat rule enforcement, not an outrage.

Choose Rich Nick’s Viral Rise

[63:29–65:58]

• Nick’s “performance art” as a cringefactor on crypto Twitter crosses over into mainstream memedom.
• Laura: “He was so thoughtful and it was really a, actually, yeah, it was a really, really interesting interview.” [64:32]

Do Kwon Gets 15 Years

[65:58–71:10]

• Gort: “Collapse of Luna...was very obvious...it was going to be a fallout and yeah, it’s been pretty extreme.”
• Sympathy is minimal; justice deemed proper, though some differences from FTX are noted.

Quantum Threat to Crypto — Real or Meme?

[71:10–76:09]

• Guests are unconcerned about immediate impact; more pressing concerns exist.
• Narrative might contribute to bearish price action, but it’s likely just “one of many” possible stories.

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11. Predictions for 2026

[76:09–End]

• Bullish Tone:
  “2026 will be better, but only because it feels like up only from here. I do personally feel like we’ve likely bottomed.” – Gort [76:22] “When people are kind of this max cynicism...that’s actually when crypto tends to run.” – Doug Kolkat [77:05]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Lawyers are going to be decimated by AI... they’re just trying to make as much money as they can before AI comes and wipes them out.” – Laura Shin [05:39]
• “The trenches have completely died... if a token hits a million or five million market cap now, that’s the runner of the day.” – Gort [11:34]
• “All of this stuff is theory — American democracy. Are you saying some of that’s preordained before?” – Doug Kolkat [19:57]
• “Thanksgiving is always a bad time for crypto people.” – Doug Kolkat [40:28]
• “We try to ascribe...current reason for the market being down...reality: people just sell stuff.” – Gort [74:20]

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Segment Highlights with Timestamps

• [02:19] Genius Act & Stablecoin Law
• [05:52] Pump ICO & Alt Market Collapse
• [12:29] Stripe/Tempo Chain Launch
• [15:54] USDH Competition — Governance Theater
• [20:54] Coinbase Acquires Echo, Kobe → Customer Support
• [28:34] Bitcoin ATH & 1010 Meltdown
• [44:01] Zcash & the Privacy Surge
• [49:54] AI Agents & X402 Standard
• [52:36] Kalshi vs. Polymarket, Industry Infighting
• [58:49] Mega ETH, Mr. Beast Hedging Scandal
• [63:29] Choose Rich Nick’s Memetic Breakout
• [65:58] Do Kwon, Accountability for Luna Crash
• [71:10] Quantum Computing FUD
• [76:09] 2026 Predictions

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Tone & Language

The episode is steeped in insider banter, irreverent asides, and no-nonsense reality checks about the crypto industry’s cyclical hype and systemic flaws. Both guests combine technical depth with humor and skepticism, trading jabs about “decentralization theater” and the unkillable optimism of the space. Laura Shin deftly steers the conversation while landing witty digs of her own.

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Summary prepared for listeners who want the full scope and flavor of this year’s biggest events without the hype.

Transcript

[Doug Kolkat]

So I think it was Kobe who said something right. Like the road from like 100 to 125 will be the easy road, then 125 to like 250 or that that'll be the hard road. And then 125 to 250 will be the easy road.

[Gort]

So I got, I got liquidated on gold and that was like the only position I had open. It's hilarious. Like, I had of course naively had zero idea that I could get liquidated on 3x on gold.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah.

[Gort]

But honestly, it's really not ideal that bitcoin can go down like that in 30 minutes.

[Laura Shin]

Thread guy was hit by a big tax bill and was like stressing about it on the timeline. And literally the next day, all of a sudden we like, see, maybe it wasn't the next day, but like within, you know, 48 hours we see this huge circle search and Zcash. Like am I wrong in thinking that there was a connection there? Or. Or like was was there or wasn't there? Hi everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host Laura Shin. Thanks for joining this live stream, but just FYI that this was pre recorded before we get started. A quick reminder, nothing you hear on Unchained is investment advice. This show is for informational and entertainment purposes only and my guest and I may hold assets discussed on the show for. For more disclosures, visit unchain crypto.com Are.

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[Laura Shin]

Today's topic is 2025 Year in Review Part 2. Here to finish the discussion are Gort, host of the Gord show, and Doug Kolkat, co founder of Foco and Ambient Finance. Welcome, Doug and Gwart.

[Doug Kolkat]

Hey, thanks for having us back.

[Gort]

Thank you for, yeah, round two. Happy to be here.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah, I'm excited to finish off the second half of the year because there was so much that happened. We're going to start with the Genius act which was the first stablecoin sorry the first crypto law that we have seen in the US and there were you know, a few like interesting surprises in there. I think probably the main one that you know has continued to cause controversy and is also I think a sticking point in the negotiations of the crypto crypto market structure bill is that there's a prohibition on stablecoin issuers directly handing the interest off to users. But anyway, what are your thoughts on what happened with Stable with the stablecoin law?

[Doug Kolkat]

Well, I mean I guess it kind of kicked off stablecoin season which is somewhat unfortunate for alt markets because there aren't really many stable coin tokens or at least like tokens to trade. So yeah I mean a great for crypto adoption but I think everyone kind of wanted to. Wanted something to pump. There really wasn't much besides circle equity.

[Laura Shin]

What XPL didn't perform well for you?

[Doug Kolkat]

Oh xpl. Yeah that's actually yeah XPL was. That was the stablecoin play for a while.

[Laura Shin]

I mean I. I think that project could do well but yeah like it's unfortunate. I I mean really it feels like only hype. I'm sure there's at least a few others like privacy did well this year but like it just feels like every token was yeah just down only I.

[Doug Kolkat]

Don'T know bad bad year for tokens.

[Laura Shin]

Court, what are your thoughts?

[Gort]

Well, I think this. Well, I'm not so like tuned into what actually happened with the whole Genius act thing but I do know what you're talking about with regards to not being able to pass along guild but I think there's a lot of workarounds with this.

[Doug Kolkat]

Right.

[Gort]

So they're trying to I don't know what like rewards and depositing a slightly different contract and being able to pay out another or something. So it is kind of interesting how like there's does seem to be with all of the regulation and everything that's going on. It definitely seems like there's some powerful people behind some of the decisions which seems sort of I don't know like you know it. It doesn't seem intuitive why you know we shouldn't be able to just be directed yield if like that is in many ways part of the appeal of stablecoins I think is that we can sort of like pass along that T bills or whatever it may be in the background and like you know immediately this was sort of so yeah I think like the community banks were behind this and I think there's still A lot of work to do. It's sort of unfortunate, but that. That aspect was interesting.

[Laura Shin]

I mean, I guess maybe it's that the banks really feel like they need to pump the. The bags of circle and tether, and that's what it boils down to. They're like, those companies, they're not wealthy enough, so, yeah, they need to keep that interest. Okay, well, it's also a good full.

[Doug Kolkat]

Employment act for lawyers. Like, they're always the people who make out the most in crypto.

[Gort]

Lawyers.

[Laura Shin]

Lawyers are going to be decimated by AI.

[Gort]

Everyone says that the. You know, we've been selling all the picks and shovels, but it's really the lawyers who are truly the ones selling the picks and shovels this whole time. Right.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah. They're just trying to make as much money as they can before AI comes and wipes them out. No offense to any lawyers listening to the show, but, you know, I have been reading about what's going to happen to the legal profession. So, anyway, okay. Another big event around the same time was the Pump ico. This was so interesting because this happened at the same time that let's Bonk was, you know, trending. And there was so much hype, and then afterward there was so much disappointment and anyway, I don't know, what did you think watching the whole thing?

[Doug Kolkat]

It was interesting. There was, like, this narrative that, like, pump is. Pump is, like, dead and, like, they're going to replace it with other launch pads. And it was, like, about. For six weeks. And I mean, as far as I can tell, I think, like, pumps kind of still dominant right now.

[Gort]

Yeah. But the volume has fallen off precipitous.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah. Not because of competitions, though, right?

[Gort]

No, no, you're right. Like, the whole bonk thing seemed, like, quite fabricated. Although I am friends with quite a lot of those early bonk investors as well, so I don't want to. I don't know the details. I think they definitely put on, like, kind of a PR campaign, you know, in conjunction with the Pump ico, in order to, you know, compete. Right. Right then and there. But the ICO was interesting. I don't think it was. I mean, as kind of hilarious as this sounds like, I think it was pretty decently well done insofar as they sold it directly to the public or, you know, there were avenues through which you could buy it publicly. And. And there was sort of a uniform launch price. And they also launched an evaluation such that if you were a large liquid fund. Right. You needed to deploy a sizable chunk at once. This was an opportunity to do so. Obviously. It's like, since then, it's been up and down. I mean, it went up quite a bit afterwards, right. Like, Thread Guy was all talking about how bullish he was, and I think he sold the pico top.

[Doug Kolkat]

Maybe he was the reason Elon was kind of deranged.

[Gort]

Yeah.

[Doug Kolkat]

Tweeting for a little bit. And I was sending. Yeah.

[Gort]

I don't know exactly what's happening now, though. You know, I don't know where I haven't.

[Laura Shin]

Because, wait, didn't they sell it at 0.4 cents? Because now it's at 4 billion 19 cents. So it's less than half. Yeah. I mean, I remember that when Elan went on Thread Guy, he said multiple times to Elon something like, you have so much money. Like, you have an ungodly amount of money, or like, whatever the comments were. And I remember the, like, second or third comment like, that. Elon didn't even, like, just. Just respond. And then Fred Guy. There was like a silence and Fred Guy.

[Doug Kolkat]

Just not gonna dignify that with the response.

[Laura Shin]

Didn't. Didn't mention that again.

[Doug Kolkat]

I mean, it's interesting because, like, unlike an IPO or like, right. Like a company raises equity, they. They have no legal obligation to do anything with them. Like, they could take the money and just pay themselves and go home. Right. It's just a token sale. But, you know, as far as I can tell, I don't think they. They have. But, you know, I. People are kind of trusting them a lot.

[Gort]

Well, they. They did. He did like, you know, so the team initiated some buybacks, right. But they were sort of arbitrarily designed. So I think he was just. I say he. I mean, they. The team, I suppose, were, you know, buying in in sort of sporadic amounts and in. At times. It wasn't sort of this algorithmic thing that, you know, we have with hype. And. And so. And also, again, it's not like. So there's two things. One, it's not so clear the value of launching a token and then making money and then buying back the token that you just issued. Right? It's like a little bit of this circular thing where in the real world, when there's, like, equity and there's, you know, proper revenue and then net income, and then maybe you're doing share repurchases. Like, you know, Apple, like all these companies do this on a regular basis, but when you just kind of create something out, like, you know, conjure or.

[Doug Kolkat]

Something, they do it out of Earnings though.

[Gort]

They don't just exactly. Well, that's what I'm saying.

[Doug Kolkat]

And then go buy back stock.

[Gort]

Exactly. And also like the immediacy of it, of it doesn't like, necessarily lend itself well to like this sustainable flywheel where. Whereby you like raise 4 billion and then you're making, I don't know, not 4 billion, no, nothing.

[Doug Kolkat]

That.

[Gort]

Nothing that's even a reasonable multiple of 4 billion. Maybe at the picot top, but not when it was done. And then you're kind of like buying back in random amounts. It's not. There's nothing that engenders like, oh, this is, you know, this is clearly the way to do financial engineering. But I like, to their defense. Or I don't know defense. But like, to. To kind of be fair, the. The trenches have completely died. Right. Like the volume on. If you look at Solana, the volume is down over 90% from, you know, the Trump launch. And there was sort of that like euthanasia roller coaster. So I. They tried this streaming thing. I don't know how that's going. They were talking about, you know, creators and stuff, like the whole market. I mean, we could talk about how Pump was this massive, you know, ICO and then a drift downwards. But like there's a whole market's done that. Right. So like, I am somewhat sympathetic toward anybody right now. It's like no one is really in a premier spot. Like all these launches have been down only. Right. So I don't know. And Pump does or did make money at. At one point, right? Like again, is that sustainable? I don't know.

[Doug Kolkat]

I think they still do like a million a day.

[Gort]

Yeah, exactly.

[Doug Kolkat]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Gort]

So, yeah, I don't know who's still.

[Doug Kolkat]

Trading like pump shitters, but like a lot of people I know.

[Gort]

Right. Well, like all the, like now if, if a token hits, I mean a token hits like a, you know, a million or five million dollar market cap, now it's like that's the runner of the day. Whereas like, you know, six months ago we had. Six to twelve months ago we had coins, you know, running to fifty hundred million regularly and you know, at times billion. You know what I mean? So it's clear that the trenches in aggregate have been, you know, like it's been a prescribed fire almost.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah. There was this funny tweet after the ICO where someone was like, wait, so we gave you money for the ico, but then now you're using the money to buy the. It was like this whole like circular thing. And yeah, it is it is basically a thing that they do in TradFi. But it's just funny. It's like literally all we're doing is like moving money from one, you know, entity to another and then back and forth and back and forth.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

So.

[Laura Shin]

Okay, well, the next big thing was that Tempo caused quite a stir when it chose to become its own L1. And I shouldn't say it's like an entity. It's in itself. It's like Stripe chose to make tempo in L1 and obviously this became, I think it caused a bit of consternation, I would say, in Ethereum World. But what were your thoughts on that?

[Doug Kolkat]

I mean, it's not. I mean, it's not clear. Like obviously Paradigm is all in on Tempo. It's not clear to me how much Stripe is all in on tempo or. This is just one of many, many bets Stripe is taking. Like if, if you talk to kind of random people at Stripe, some of them haven't even heard. Like, not people work on Kepler block, but like know random employees haven't really heard of or at least haven't like right after the announcement. So like, I don't, I don't know if this is like Stripe's big bet in crypto or is just Stripe as a giant company and Paradigm kind of showed up and was like, oh, all right, you sure?

[Gort]

We'll, we'll.

[Laura Shin]

Oh, interesting. I was.

[Gort]

Matt has. I mean, Matt's on the board of Stripe.

[Doug Kolkat]

Oh, is. Oh, okay.

[Gort]

I'm pretty sure.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah, he has.

[Gort]

I mean, there's a, There's a long, long time connection there. So I think that's.

[Doug Kolkat]

I mean, obviously Stripe is involved in it. I just don't know if like this is like Stripe is. I mean, they're doing Stablecoin payments on Solana and Ethereum too. Right? Like my understanding.

[Gort]

Well, it's like. Okay, I'll be honest. It's like quite. It's not dissimilar from people saying Tether and Plasma. Like, like Plasma's Tether's chain. It's like Tether yeets money at everything. I mean, Tether owns Rumble, Tether has invested in a gajillion random AI startups. Like it's quite similar. You know, you find a big name and then you sort of in align in some capacity. I mean, I think the Stripe to Tempo connection seems more, I don't want to say legitimate. Let me think of another word. It seems more truly, you know, like technical.

[Doug Kolkat]

Like I just don't know how, like, if Tempo doesn't take off like a strip. Going to put like all their resources into making worker and they're going to be like, oh, fine, we're doing like payments on Solana or Ethereum or wherever. Like, it's fine. Like Tempo. Yeah. Yeah.

[Laura Shin]

Oh, interesting. Wait, okay. You, like you. Because, I mean, they're trying to make it this sort of consortium thing. Like, it's basically, you know, I'm sure you saw the memes. It's basically like Libra or DM all over again. But hopefully this time it will actually happen. But yeah, so I, I feel like, yeah, even if they aren't in control of it at a certain point, like, it would be that they, they get it afloat and then they step away. Not that they like abandon it and it goes nowhere. That's. I mean, who knows what will happen?

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, but I mean, like, there's, there's just stuff with, like, how much their fingers on the scale. Right. Like, you know, how much, how much are they going to push, like end users to go through tether versus if they're supporting, you know, alternate channels outside or not Tether. Tempo. Tempo versus, you know, saying. Okay, it's just like one neutral option. Yeah.

[Laura Shin]

Okay. Yeah. By the way, you guys, like, tether does have so much money that they offer to buy this soccer club in.

[Gort]

Yeah.

[Laura Shin]

Italian. Yeah. Which, Yeah. I mean, good for them. All right. Speaking of stablecoins, the next big controversy in crypto was the USDH competition, the hyper liquid stablecoin. Yeah. A competition. Which wasn't a competition. It was. I don't know. I. So I'm, I'm going to say something controversial, but I think most of us would probably agree on the deal, that it was preordained, who it would be. Hopefully nobody will come attack me for saying that, but. Yeah. What. What did you think watching that go down?

[Doug Kolkat]

I mean, it's kind of like the old meme of the DAO governance forum where it's, you know, what color Ferrari does the founder get? And yeah, vote red and then the founder says, no, yellow, and then everyone votes yellow. I mean, I think a lot of things on chain governance are probably.

[Gort]

Yeah, but I think it's fine. I mean, they.

[Doug Kolkat]

It's probably necessary, right?

[Gort]

Yeah, yeah. And also, I don't know this for a fact, but I speculate that it was in some capacity preordained. I mean, you, like, I don't even think there's anything nefarious in saying preordained. Like, they probably were just in close talks with Hyper Liquid and Team, but.

[Laura Shin]

My thing is like if it was preordained, then why not just say, hey, we're going to launch our own stablecoin, we're going to partner with, you know, native markets, blah, blah, blah. Like why wouldn't you know.

[Gort]

Well, I think they. Okay, so I don't know. Again, this is just conversations I've had which is that I think that was the initial idea and then once it was, you know, I think it was sort of understood this was going to become the native stablecoin. And then it got like everybody wanted to be involved and so you got all these teams vying, all these teams submitting proposals and none of that was expected. Like I don't think there was any assumption there was going to be a tremendous amount of hype to begin with. So it was going to look more similar.

[Laura Shin]

They put an announcement in the discord saying like there's we're going to have this little competition.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

So.

[Doug Kolkat]

But I think there's also maybe regulatory stuff around that like you can't. If the team like just picks one. Right. Then it's potentially right. Too much control over the network versus if you have an open. Because also. Right. Like the hype. Hype itself I don't think voted. Right. Like the other validators voted. So you have to kind of make it, you know, from a regulatory perspective there's a risk if it doesn't look like a decentralized and open.

[Laura Shin]

So it was defi theater basically.

[Doug Kolkat]

Well, I mean I like, like again, lawyers. Lawyers make a lot of money and they tell you things and then like at the end of the day, like who knows what the actual rules are? I don't think anybody knows. But sound authoritative when they tell you.

[Gort]

The largest hype holders voted for this to pass. Right, like that. That's how it works. Like the validators, I know the foundation abstained. Right. But they convinced hyper guys, whatever, they're like all the big validators, they convince it is what it is. I mean, yeah, I suppose capitalism is not always fair but like I don't think it's is the controversy. I think what happened was it really blew up because a lot of VCs.

[Laura Shin]

But I wouldn't call it capitalism. I wouldn't call it like it's crony.

[Gort]

Capitalism, but there's a lot of this.

[Laura Shin]

Okay, but real capitalism is competition, whereas that was like a fake competition and then instead it was, yeah, more communist. But they won.

[Gort]

They won with the, the most people. The people with the most money ultimately decided the vote and that's capitalism. Like, I think this is just. I really think what happened was that there was a lot of VCs who. And not just VCs, but founders, legitimate founders. Like Guy, right from Athena, who they all wanted to be involved. Like, they're like, oh, okay, we'll submit a proposal as well. And so it got a lot of hype and it Then it appeared as though this had been preordained after. There was a lot of really good proposals that came in, but at the end of the day, the people with the most money voted for it. Like, I don't. I understand your point.

[Laura Shin]

It actually was decentralized.

[Gort]

But another thing is decentralized. I mean, come on, who cares? Like all of this stuff is theory, American democracy.

[Doug Kolkat]

Are you saying some of that's preordained before?

[Gort]

Yeah, but I'm just saying it's like it doesn't, it doesn't matter. It's not even open source. It's a bi. Like the validators are sent a binary, right. That they run and when they hard fork, they're just sent a new binary, right? And they just start like it's. This is not. I, I think we're overthinking this. There's a lot of like steps along the way prior to like, oh no, the, you know, yield bearing stablecoin is, you know, preordained or chosen. It's like there's a lot of things prior to that where if you're engaged in this network, you realize that there are, there is some top down control and Jeff likely ships whatever code he wants out to the validators and people seem to like the product, so who cares, right?

[Laura Shin]

So it is decentralization theater.

[Gort]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Laura Shin]

Okay, but. Okay.

[Gort]

Yeah.

[Laura Shin]

All right, good. I, for some reason I thought you were arguing that it wasn't and I was like, wait, wait, wait. But wait, what are you saying?

[Doug Kolkat]

Okay, it is, but it works. It's good enough.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah. I mean, if. So, okay, if Hester Purses, what's it called, the safe harbor thing goes through, then yeah, I think they're within like the time frame of when it could be centralized. So, you know, no big deal. And anyway, not like this SEC is going to go after them. Okay. Okay, Next. Next big news was the acquisition of Echo by Coinbase along with the revival of Up Only, which hasn't happened, but yeah, the purchase of up only for 25 or the purchase of a season of up only for 25 million. And then now, you know, Kopi is doing customer support for Coinbase, which is what you do you acquire somebody for $400 million so that they can do customer support for you? I feel like that. That is like, clearly the best aqua hire of the year. But. Yeah. What were your thoughts?

[Gort]

I thought that. Well, I think Kobe. From what? So I don't, you know, I don't know him like that well, but I think what he was, he was really trying to solve a problem in earnest. And I think that, I mean, Fogo used Z. Good opportunity to shill Doug Fogo used Echo.

[Doug Kolkat]

Right. So we did, we did Echo.

[Gort]

Yeah. Like, I think he was trying to solve a real problem that a lot of us had screeched about for a long time. And yeah, it was like quite a large number.

[Laura Shin]

And wait, mind that. You like a good platform for ICOs, is that what you mean?

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, great. Like, like, you early investors are like, I. Ideally, you're like, your early investors should be your users. Like, very few. Like, I mean, I guess there are some VCs that will bring like, liquidity or whatever, depending on the project. But, like, all things being equal, if you're going to sell, you know, X amount of tokens to fund some project development at a certain price, we'd rather have them be users. Right. Like, people who invest are more likely to click on the network versus now if you go to whatever multicoin or whoever. Like, they're not going to go do a bunch of chain activity.

[Laura Shin]

Gord, were you gonna say, oh, no.

[Gort]

I mean, I, I v. I will say that I don't necessarily share the view that investors must be users. It's in the context of crypto. I think it's what we've done. And so we sort of take that as at face value. I don't. There's some nuance to whether or not I agree with that, but I take Doug's point. But I think more. I guess my point was more just right for the past, I don't know, five years, you could probably extend it further than that. We see these tokens launching at like extremely high FDVs, and most of the charts get murdered. And it doesn't seem that, like, this premise of retail having early access to these opportunities was really playing out because VCs were scooping up these rounds very, very early. And oftentimes they were getting bid up in private subsequently.

[Doug Kolkat]

Right.

[Gort]

So it wasn't even just like one round, it was or three rounds. And then all of a sudden you're at 1, 2, 5 billion dollars opening price. Right. And so the premise obviously being that retail could just get earlier access, maybe with some conditions, maybe you need to be a credit investor, maybe there's lockups, but, you know, more replicate what some VCs have been getting for, you know, some period of time now. So, like, I think he was. I saw a lot of Kobe, like when he would come on Twitter and respond to people. Like, I had conversations with him and mostly what I saw was, I think he also agreed that this was a real problem and so he was trying to solve it. So it's a hard thing to solve.

[Doug Kolkat]

Right.

[Gort]

I think at a. At a practical level, we've had Angellist and Tradfi for quite some time. It works differently with, with exits and tokens and dynamics. But I think what. I think it was a passion project because I think from what I can tell, again, I don't know him that well, but what I see him say, I think he genuinely believes in, you know, the idea that he kind of puts forth with. With echo.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah. It was definitely from, I mean, his perspective. Right. Like, Kobe probably has better deal flow than any angel. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, it's very much a Robin Hood type story of the guy who has great deal flow is opening it up. So.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah. And now that's why he does customer support. That's like his other way of.

[Doug Kolkat]

That's a good Coinbase. Could use that. That's certainly.

[Gort]

I mean, I. I will be honest, like, and I think people realize this, but I'll just say it directly.

[Doug Kolkat]

Like, what.

[Gort]

What does it say about Coinbase that there have been problems that have. Not that we've all dealt with for years. And it's taken one guy who was acquired for an entirely separate reason. Right. Like, his company had nothing to do with fixing locked accounts. And he's like, on. He's now being able to rectify this stuff. Like, I don't know. That's a little bit. That doesn't imbue tremendous confidence in like, Coinbase or my perspective that it takes this guy to come in here and, like, he's fixing the problems that we've screeched about for years. Right. My. I gave up. I'll be honest. I only use Kraken now. Like when I'm on board. Like, I, I don't. I. My account got locked. I have one of these back.

[Doug Kolkat]

You never will get it back.

[Gort]

Right. It was. I have screenshots of how hilarious the conversations were.

[Laura Shin]

Why don't you message Kobe?

[Gort]

I. I did, actually. Ironic. It's funny you say that. I talked to him last week. He's trying to Help me because. So here's a good example. I had a friend who's not. Not really crypto native, but, like, I owed him some money and I said, I have some stable coins on Solana. Can you send me your salon address? And he sent me a salon address. Unbeknownst to him, he didn't realize it was his coinbase address. And I had usdt, so I didn't think anything of it. And I sent him USDT on Solana to his coinbase address. And of course they don't support usdt, by the way. This is a completely, like, background infrastructure thing that is 100% solvable. Like, those coins just sit there and I don't. I mean, Doug is more technical than I am. I don't think it's. It's not that hard to fix.

[Doug Kolkat]

No, it's not that hard. They have the keys, right? Like, it's not like they're lost or anything like the address.

[Gort]

But there is a recovery tool now, apparently in. In Kobe's. We're in the process. The first time I tried, it hasn't worked yet. But this kid, now, like, we're friends, he's gonna send me the money back because I ended up double paying him, right? Because I was like, oh, dude, I'm sorry. Like, but when that. When we could unlock that, send that money back to me, right? And so now we're in that process. But, like, that's a good example of like, come on. You know?

[Doug Kolkat]

But I am wondering why somebody has USDT on Solana. That's.

[Gort]

I have a bunch of different stablecoins. Like probably like some incentives crap on.

[Doug Kolkat]

Like some lending stable, coin enjoyer. Just.

[Gort]

Yeah. Why is that so weird? Like, is. You would think I'd have. People, really.

[Doug Kolkat]

People don't really use USDT that much on Solana, so it's like it was on Ethereum. Yeah, I could see. See that.

[Gort]

But yeah. Yeah.

[Doug Kolkat]

Well, anyway, it is. Yeah. That is ridiculous. They can't do that.

[Gort]

It's annoying, right?

[Doug Kolkat]

Like tether a major stable coin.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah, I mean, like, maybe the reason that their regular customer service can't do it is because they are so busy sending our PII to hackers.

[Gort]

Have you, Laura, have you ever dealt with Coinbase customer support? Like, have you ever.

[Doug Kolkat]

You know, you.

[Gort]

You. You like to really stay out of crypto, don't you?

[Laura Shin]

Um, no, I don't.

[Doug Kolkat]

Okay.

[Laura Shin]

I. It's. Yeah, the. I've been in it and out of it at different periods, but I'm now back in it. But, like, I Have somebody manage that for me.

[Gort]

Okay.

[Laura Shin]

So I am not like physically in control of my crypto, just you know, in case for whoever's listening who maybe is like mad about something that I wrote about them or said about them or whatever, just so you know. Okay. Okay. Before the ad break, let's just discuss briefly the bitcoin all time high of $126,000, which is far below what I think a lot of other people kind of thought it was going to end up at the cycle. But. Yeah, what's your. What, what are your comments on this? And, and by the way, this is just a few days before the 1010 liquidations. I mean, basically it was.

[Gort]

I think it was Kobe.

[Doug Kolkat]

I think it was Kobe. So we were just saying good things about him. So I think it was Kobe who said something.

[Gort]

Right?

[Doug Kolkat]

Like the road from like 0 to 125 will be the easy road. Then 125 to like 250 or that'll be the hard road. And then 125 to 250 will be the easy road. So.

[Laura Shin]

I know, but, but wait, like the other, the other funny thing is this happened in October and it was like. Oh yeah, six season apparently is when we reached the all time. And then. Yeah, then it was down toper, I guess, but I don't know. Yeah, well, well okay. Yeah, but so what do you think about that all time high and then, then we can discuss 10 10.

[Gort]

It's exciting. I think obviously everybody thought that we were just going to keep running for eternity and the market tends to punish those who believe there's ever an easy road, I suppose. Yeah, I don't have much more than that. I mean I was. I mean I listened. I think UDI came on. Was it your podcast?

[Laura Shin]

Yeah.

[Gort]

And yeah, so I talk with Udi a lot. Right. And we were both like 400k by the end of the. Well, he was saying 400k by the end of the year and I was like, dude, I love it. Like I'm, I'm in. I would love for that to be the case.

[Doug Kolkat]

Right.

[Gort]

And obviously, yeah, I think what, like what most people who are smarter than I am on macros say is probably correct. Right. We front ran like Trump coming in. We front ran a lot of the tradfi liquidity and we were just, you know, sort of earlier the stock market gold, everything is at all time highs right now and we kind of already ran that up. So I mean, I suppose it was exciting. It hit that and it's less exciting now that it isn't, you know, 30% down, but yeah, I don't have much more than that.

[Laura Shin]

All right, so in a moment we're going to talk about the 1010 liquidations and the rest of the year. But first, a quick word from the sponsors to make this show possible.

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[Laura Shin]

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[Laura Shin]

Now the link is in the show notes. Back to my conversation with Doug and Gort. So yeah, we left on the high note of the bitcoin all time high. Well, though I don't know if that was a high note because it was far below what a lot of people thought the whole time high was going to be. But anyway, we then come to the 1010 liquidations which, yeah, that was, that was like you said, Gore, I'm not really in crypto, but like that was terrible even just for me, like watching, sitting on my computer on, you know, Friday afternoon. And yeah, huge shocker. Interestingly, I feel like it's the first time that I've ever heard of finance like, really something up, you know, not. And that wasn't like, regulatory. Like, this was like, an actual failure on the part of the trading apparatus. And then we also have that element of the whale who made a ton of money. And it's seemingly, you know, somebody who's connected to the White House. So those elements together make for, you know, kind of a spicy story. So what's your take on what happened there?

[Gort]

Doug is like, our Premier expert on 1010. You know, he wrote this thread that was like, one of the most popular threads in Twitter history.

[Doug Kolkat]

Surprised that got. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I feel like we still don't know exactly what happened on 1010. I don't know if we ever will know exactly what happened. And people are like, oh, so and so got liquidated. I mean, look like a lot of people.

[Laura Shin]

Wait, meaning? Do you disagree with the two elements that I talked about? Like the.

[Doug Kolkat]

Oh, no, I think they're true, but, like, I don't. I. I mean, people are still now like, oh, somebody big got, you know, liquidated on 1010, and, like, the market's been broken since then. Or, like, Right. People had, like, conspiracies like, oh, Binance was going to switch USDE to, like, different collateral mode like, three days later. And so this was planned ahead of time. Like, I don't know. I don't. I don't think we'll ever. I don't think we'll ever really know exactly what happened. Um, but yeah, I mean, like, right, like, everyone. Everyone was farming perps. Right? Like, everyone's farming per dexes. Everyone had, like, some leverage on some things. And, like, all alts went to, like, zero at least, like, wick. So even if you were on, like, 2x leverage, and you probably thought it was, like, safe farming, you know, whatever the. And flor just perp Dex, you know, I. I feel like everyone kind of got wiped. Not wiped out, but, like, everyone got kind of, like, hit.

[Gort]

I got. I got liquidated on gold, and that was like, the only position I had open. It's hilarious. Like, I had, of course, naively had zero idea that I could get liquidated on 3x on gold.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah.

[Gort]

But such is the case. Honestly, like, again, I don't have any insight into market structure and stuff. It's really not to the extent that Doug does, so we should press him more on that. But one thing I would say is, honestly, it's really not ideal that bitcoin can go down like that in 30 minutes. And it's also not Ideal. And I'm saying, like, this is something we all know because we've dealt with insane amounts of volatility being in crypto for the past five, ten years, whatever. Like, we've all seen this. But I've been talking to people who are trying to, I wouldn't say bring mass adoption, but they are trying to build products, they are trying to build useful services for people to use bitcoin, use crypto. And we sit here and, and we were all very much sold on this, you know, non sovereign store value. Like, and a lot of people apply that to bitcoin and people apply that to other, you know, assets as well. But it, it's hard to like that this delays adoption. This type of thing really does delay adoption in my mind. Like, and I know we, that's fine. Like, I'm more. But I'm as bullish as I ever will be on bitcoin, right? Like, so this is in the long run, to me, it's like, okay, all this stuff is ups and downs. Like, people know that I'm just. Bitcoin succeeds, great. If it dies, like, I'm gonna die with it. And I'm fine with that. And I know that, right? But like, so it doesn't change my, my conviction, but I really do think that this is not ideal. And we're sitting here telling people, like, this is a store of value and it goes down 15 in 30 minutes and then bleeds down 40% over the course of three months. Like, that is a hard pitch to boomers. It's a hard pitch to people who would invest thinking that this, you know, can preserve their wealth. And then they're down 40, like, and we look, we see gold, we see the stock market, right? These things aren't great. Like, you know, zooming out is. It's really not ideal and it's annoying.

[Doug Kolkat]

You know, And I guess it should have been, right? Like, you would think that ETFs and like, widespread.

[Gort]

Exactly.

[Doug Kolkat]

Hold it, right? Like, it's like there's a story in like 2013 is just a bunch of like, online, like crazy people trading this back and forth. But, like, right at this point, institutions own it. Like, there should be stable.

[Gort]

Right, exactly. Like we, we. That was, the whole pitch was like, the institutions are here. We'll never see this, you know, extreme volatility again. There's a constant bid, right? Like, there's, there's, there's a perpetual bid on the books for massive size. Any whales that have held for 10, 15 years can easily get out now. Without you know, moving the chart because there is a persistent bid and then we have these events and like, yeah, I mean I talked to somebody, you know, building like a lending protocol and it's like it's hard to build financial products around these type of assets when you know, you think you're taking out very, you know, conservative loan and you're, you're just wiped like, you know, put aside me getting liquidated on gold because I had no idea. Of course, like I'm just, you know, degenerately screwing around. But like this is the stuff that I'm, you know, it's unfortunate by like okay, such is life, right? Such as markets. I guess.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah, it's kind of funny. It's like, yeah, crypto people who are true believers had their comeuppance because like gold reached all time highs this year and okay, bitcoin did too. But you know, gold really outpace paste bitcoin. It is just like a lesson in, you know, the market for crypto is still so small and like adoption is still so little and so yeah, like way more people in the world have faith in gold than they do in bitcoin.

[Doug Kolkat]

I mean it's painful. Silver, Silver keeps hitting all time highs and bitcoin is just.

[Gort]

I'm not worried. It's probably, look, it's probably a good thing for to like as a reminder that you know, this is not there, this easy road does not exist. And you know, I obviously I don't think bitcoin's going to zero but like this stuff takes time and this idea that all of a sudden nation states are just gobbling this up in, you know, massive size and will never let it, you know, experience volatility is probably pretty delusional. And I mean this happens in the stock market as well. So like let's not pretend that this is a uniquely crypto thing. But yeah, it's annoying. Like it's super annoying. Especially when I'm talking to people, you know, someone's wedding and I'm saying, yeah, you know, buy the bitcoin etf. Like you know, now you can just get on your brokerage account, like no problem. Don't deal with this custody stuff. Then like three weeks later just nukes. And I'm like pretending I didn't say that stuff.

[Doug Kolkat]

It's never good at Thanksgiving. You want it, you want Thanksgiving to be the old. It's Thanksgiving is always a bad time for crypto people. Exactly.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully people didn't have too terrible of a Thanksgiving.

[Gort]

But wait, I think we should, we, we should ask Doug one more thing. So the. With regards to the whole 1010 thing, because again, he's the foremost expert and almost everybody would say that the one thing I wish to ask you about. So like circuit breakers or something resembling circuit breakers, right. We have these in tradfi where if a stock just nukes in a very short period of time, people, you know, they cut trading and they're like, okay, hang on, let's figure out what's going on. There's some proposed solutions where like perhaps not a pure play circuit breaker, but you know, some short period of time where.

[Doug Kolkat]

Timeout. Yeah.

[Gort]

So what, what are your like, sort of. What were your conclusions on this? I don't know if it's feasible with something like a Dex, but like, what.

[Doug Kolkat]

Are your kind of. I don't think it's a bad idea. Like some of those wicks like to zero you. You kind of. Right. You don't want to liquidate people.

[Gort]

They were finding fair value, Adam.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, maybe, maybe those are the fair value of some of those alts. But. Right. Like, it's not a terrible. The challenge is, I think like, really what happened with 1010 is you have like market makers, especially in crypto, right? Like market makers have to have like, especially you're on some long tail venue. You have to hedge other places. And like ADL kind of screwed everyone here because you're getting closed out on one side of your hedge and you weren't open on another. And I guess like my word with circuit breakers is like, if you're, you know, trading on hyper liquid and hedging at binance and like one is shut down, like that could actually like, really, really screw you because you can't, you can't like hedge your positions.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Like, I feel like it, it would only make sense. Or you. Doug, tell me if I'm thinking about this correctly, but like, it would only make sense if they check that like the, the price dislocation is only on their venue and they have a way to figure out that it's not anywhere else. Because otherwise like, yeah, it can, it can really, like, like there will be people who will be upset if there's like a policy at one place that isn't replicated at the others or if the circuit breaker kicks in when it like shouldn't have. So, yeah, I feel like it almost opens like a can of worms.

[Doug Kolkat]

So, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's, it's tough, it's tough to Get. It's tough to get, right, right? Like in. In tradfi. Like, the nice thing is you can claw back, like, money afterwards, right? So if, like, something's messed up and there's errors, right? Like, you can always go to, you know, Citadel or whoever and you like, right. Claw back money from. You can't. Can't do that in crypto.

[Gort]

It's really. It's bad if there's like. So if so few people know what's going on, if so few market makers know what's going on, they're just pulling all liquidity from the books. That's like, not that it doesn't end up well. Like, and we. When everyone's like, hang on, where is this coming from? And what's going on? Like, yeah, that's really not ideal. That's when you see these, you know, wicks to zero.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, the reality is, like, the technology at crypto exchanges is not great, right? Like the API gateways, like, if there's something that's an easy fix, it's like, make the API gateways more reliable. Like, they just go offline. They give you like, they give you your orders like 10 minutes later, right? And this is something, right? Like crypto exchanges, they have a lot of money they could invest in. Maybe this is like a coinbase, like customer service thing. Like, why 10 years now do they not have, like, reliable gateways? Like, go hire someone from NASDAQ and just build a reliable gateway.

[Laura Shin]

Okay, let's. Let's move on to the next big news event, at least that I remembered, which was the surge in privacy coins. Zcash leading the pack, but a bunch of other privacy coins also in tow. What did you make of. Of that? It kind of came out of nowhere. And I want to float a theory by you, which is that in my mind what happened is Thread Guy was hit by a big tax bill and was like stressing about it on the timeline. And literally the next day, all of a sudden we like, see, maybe it wasn't the next day, but like within, you know, four to eight hours, we see this huge surge in zcash. Like, am I wrong in thinking that there was a connection there or. Or like, was was there or wasn't there?

[Doug Kolkat]

Thread Guy realized that California is a high tax state.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah, but. But is that related to the surge in zcash or not?

[Doug Kolkat]

Was that. I actually, I.

[Gort]

Timing was coincidental, I think.

[Laura Shin]

Okay, so like, why did zcash suddenly surge overnight? I just never understood that.

[Gort]

Well, okay, so in crypto we have these things called narratives, all right? And every few months, we cycle through a new one, and one we had not cycled through in quite some time was this idea around privacy. And there was this, you know, collective, I guess, realization that everything on a blockchain is public. And so that was a narrative. It is perhaps still ongoing.

[Laura Shin]

Like, what caused that to happen at that moment?

[Doug Kolkat]

I guess 10. 10 actually probably did play. I mean, no, no, no, no, no.

[Laura Shin]

Because it was the end of September is Wednesday. Cash in the privacy.

[Doug Kolkat]

Well, I mean, you know, James Wynn and, like, people are talking about, like, being hunted on perp decks. Yeah.

[Laura Shin]

But James Wynn. That was like, in May.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah. I don't know. They were just trying. I, I mean, one thing is, right, like, privacy was kind of. You didn't want to touch it for, like, previous admin. So I think we hadn't done a privacy narrative in a while just because, like, if you're a dev and you're a privacy dev, like, okay, go to jail. And so now it's like kind of the first time in a while you don't go to jail if you're a privacy dev.

[Gort]

I think. Okay, let's get thunder, Laura.

[Laura Shin]

Okay, but one of them just went to prison.

[Gort]

But anyway, I think you're overthinking the why. Like, you know, why did we have this AI agent narrative where these coins pump to billions of dollars? Like, it's just, these things just happen and there's not. I, I. So I think that we hadn't had a privacy narrative in a long time. And I also think that I agree with Doug that this new administration seems, you know, more open to virtually everything. And if this gets us talking about privacy, which is something new to talk about. Right. We, like, run through the same things over and over, then that's probably net good. So. But in terms of why, I mean, why does, you know, why does the sun rise? Like, I think it's like these things just happen within our space and was time. You know what I mean? The, the energy was such that it was time.

[Laura Shin]

Interesting. Okay. I don't know. To me, it was such a spike. I was kind of like, there has to be, like, a real.

[Gort]

Okay, so I have some theories about that, but I won't.

[Laura Shin]

Oh, you know, don't. But say them. Say them.

[Gort]

I mean, it's nothing more than what people have. Have said. Well, okay.

[Doug Kolkat]

So Z Liquidity is very, very thin.

[Gort]

Yes.

[Doug Kolkat]

On zcash there.

[Gort]

That's not.

[Doug Kolkat]

Take it run.

[Gort]

Yeah. There's also a lot of people who have, who've held zcash for a long time. So, you know, there was a dad announced recently. I don't know. You can kind of. I really, I, I don't want to, like, truly, I don't want to say anything because I'm purely speculating, but if you followed narratives for the past, you know, six months, you can probably deduce what may be going on, may be happening. I don't want to, like, suggest anything nefarious. Like, I, I, you know, like, Mert's one of our friends and I, I don't, I'm not suggesting anything like, untoured. I'm just, you can probably make some educated guesses. You could also probably look at who are the big supporters of zcash in the past. Who are the big holders? Like, none of this is like, private information, so I don't know. That's, that's my guess. Like, yeah, look at, look at a lot of the data.

[Doug Kolkat]

I just, like, Barry, Barry Silver was trying to pump zcash for like years.

[Gort]

I know, right?

[Doug Kolkat]

It's just down only chart and. Yeah, and Merc comes in and.

[Gort]

Yeah, I know, right.

[Doug Kolkat]

God.

[Gort]

Tier Kol.

[Laura Shin]

But is he, he's not involved in the debt, is he?

[Gort]

No, I don't think so. But he is.

[Doug Kolkat]

Enthusiast.

[Gort]

He's a privacy advocate now. Yeah.

[Laura Shin]

Okay, so he's like a whale who heard wind of the debt or something. Maybe.

[Gort]

No, I, I really like, I, I know you want us to spew gossip into issue posts like we may do on Twitter, but I really don't have any, like, you know, enlightening information. I'm just. There's things where I agree with you. You see this, like, massive, you know, straight up on the chart and it's like, what's going on? Like, Doug said there's, there was a. You could go look at like, all the exchanges. There's very, very little, like.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, I just don't think it would take, like, the chart is very impressive, but it doesn't take much money to make it look that way. So it doesn't even have to be like most of the Z. It could be like one or two. Like zcash.

[Gort]

Right. And forget, like, you know, what far coin ran to well over a billion. Like, you know, this is.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, the market cap's not. The market cap's not super high. Right?

[Gort]

No, it's not insane. It's not. It's not.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah.

[Gort]

And it's all diluted and it's not like a, you know, low float coin, so.

[Laura Shin]

Right. Yeah. I mean like so I already made this joke on the show, but like to me just the fact that they named the DAT Cipher punk, like, like so least cyberpunk thing that you could do is make a dad. But anyway, whatever, it's a great name. I'm not criticizing the name. I just find it hysterical. Okay, okay, next thing. Well, yeah, so we actually didn't cover AI agents, but like that is like such a, you know, I mean that's been of interest to a lot of people for like the last year. And obviously this X402 standard has, you know, piqued a lot of interest. So what are your thoughts on that, Doug?

[Gort]

What do you think of AI agents.

[Doug Kolkat]

Future, Future of crypto? No, I, actually I, I've been following the AI agent stuff. Not very, I, I should follow it more. I, I guess I generally I feel like there's a lot of hype for. I, I'm sure there's tech there, I'm sure there's tech underneath. But I think it's very, very easy when like open AI is at a trillion dollars to slap AI on anything in crypto and, and have the valuation run up.

[Gort]

So Doug is our resident AI Doomer.

[Doug Kolkat]

AI player.

[Gort]

Yeah, yeah, but not Doomer. Like he doesn't think it's going to decimate him humanity. He's just going to do nothing.

[Doug Kolkat]

I do use it all the time though.

[Gort]

Like every argument we have is.

[Doug Kolkat]

Every argument, but it's AI arguing against AI.

[Gort]

I'm not using AI. Those are my, those are my real thoughts.

[Doug Kolkat]

No, I don't know. I mean, I, I, I haven't really been f. I just think it's very low signal denoise. So I, I haven't taken the time really to see what is high signal in there. So.

[Laura Shin]

Okay.

[Gort]

I don't really know what the x402 thing, apart from like payments agents to agents. I mean this whole, this whole thing is like a deep, in my opinion, like misunderstanding as to what AI is and like what agents are. It's not like there's this whole hype around autonomous agents interacting and stuff. Like it's just code, like agents trading. You know, we've had code trading on NASDAQ in the New York stock exchange for 20 years. It's called algorithmic trading, right? Like nobody is hand smashing market orders, right? They have like a system like all, all of this stuff has been intentionally anthropomorphized in order to sell like this narrative of an agent economy. And it's like there's still humans directing people to do this. And I, I think the whole thing is like, somewhat of a charade. I don't know what the. I. I saw the Expert two thing and there was like, some meme coins that came of it, but I don't actually know what it does. Like, it. It's just another.

[Laura Shin]

It's literally just like a standard. So it just helps create a standard way for people to code AI agents. I. I did an episode with one of the authors and then somebody who founded a company that, you know, also works in this area. And it was. I mean, it was really interesting. Yeah, it's. I don't think it's something that you can directly make money from. It's more just like you know, HTTP or, you know, whatever. So. But yeah, you can build something that uses it. Okay, so we don't have a lot of time left, but there's definitely a few other topics we should definitely hit. One is account sheep versus Polymarket. I mean, this is like. This is just, you know, like blood in the streets kind of rivalry, in my opinion, the way these two companies. Yeah. Just. I don't know, it's. It's so interesting. Like Kalshi, you know, trying to get all these different influencers and like, polymer doing the same thing. Kalshi raised a billion dollars at an 11 billion valuation. Polymarket raised, you know, at a 12 billion billion valuation. So basically, I don't know. What do you guys think of this whole thing going down between the two of them?

[Gort]

I think it. So, okay, I agree with you. I actually think it's the most. It really is like the most acerbic sort of. I mean, I guess we've dealt with this in crypto for a while. Like.

[Doug Kolkat]

Oh, there was like the FBI, right. Like the.

[Gort]

Yeah.

[Doug Kolkat]

We're saying.

[Gort]

Yeah. So like Cal.

[Doug Kolkat]

Polymarket call. She. Yeah. Accusations that they were. Yeah, that's. I don't. I feel like if you call the FBI on somebody that's hard to.

[Laura Shin]

Wait. That Kyle. She called the FBI on Shane. Is that.

[Doug Kolkat]

Oh, they're right. This was right after the election was detained. His phones were searched.

[Gort]

They had. They had Antonio. Was it Antonio Brown? I think tweet. That's like, this guy looks guilty or something.

[Doug Kolkat]

Okay, all.

[Gort]

First of all, all this is alleged. Like, I don't want to get.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, dude here.

[Gort]

So I. I don't know it. But I will say there hasn't been like an extreme denial of that. From what I can tell on. On Galsi's part, I don't. That's that seems like sort of understood to have been true that they had people. I don't think they necessarily called the FBI on chain maybe I don't know. But they did have someone from Koshi.

[Doug Kolkat]

Was like they were dunking on them though at least after like even if they weren't like they were dunking on them on Twitter like for sure.

[Gort]

Well and then also I think they did like reach out to influencers to like insinuate that that.

[Doug Kolkat]

Right.

[Gort]

That was so that's really not a very good look. I don't think that's like very. Again if, if true not a good look. And you know there was like. I've heard Tarek. Is it Tarek? Tarek. Anyways, I've heard him subsequently say like we've. We've made some mistakes. So I, it's like. I don't know if that was an admission or what but yeah, like that's really a. Not a great look from, from Kalsi but like the energy on like the back and forth is like very extreme. Right. And I think it's because it's that you have like two sort of novel. I say novel. I mean you have two companies that are, are or could eventually make a tremendous amount of money. Like these could potentially be extremely valuable and they already are to some capacity and it's like. So the competition is fierce.

[Doug Kolkat]

Right?

[Gort]

I guess that's maybe the most you know, generous way to. To interpret it.

[Doug Kolkat]

Are either of them a large compared to like FanDuel or kind of the traditional betting?

[Laura Shin]

It's a good question.

[Gort]

What is DraftKings trading at? Yeah, like, like trading volume? No, no, no.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, just like actual like volume like profit too.

[Gort]

Okay, so like traffic. Well by. So Poly Market and Kalshi are almost valued market cap wise at.

[Doug Kolkat]

Believe. Right.

[Gort]

Okay. I'm just pointing out that. Yeah, well, it's all paper.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yes, yeah, I see what you're. Yes, I see what you're saying. Right.

[Gort]

So they're being, they're like, I mean they're being underwritten at like you know, I suppose like you know, 100 billion dollar company. But no, I think the vast majority of it is sports betting. It seems for the time being. I know polymarket made this big deal of, you know, showing that they were a lot more prediction market. They had a lot more you know, prediction market volume. Whereas Kalshi maybe has a. Is the vast majority of it is sports betting. So. But I don't know, I mean there's I think what 50, 60,000 daily active users on both like, or One or Poly Market. Like, we'll see. It does seem pretty, I mean, it just strikes.

[Doug Kolkat]

I, I don't know, I, I, I don't know this space very well. It feels like they're kind of out ahead of the skis. Right. Like, we're assuming that, like, one of them are gonna, one of them are gonna win. But, like, to me it seems just as likely. Like DraftKings, you know, DraftKings does election versus, you know, Polymarket does sports, I think.

[Gort]

So I will, like, sort of disclose. Like, I'm friends with people at polymarket. I got, you know, friendly with Shane, I suppose, and also people at Cal State. So I don't really have a dog in this fight. But yes, I do tend to agree that also, from what I can tell, the legal side of this is by no means worked out. And if there is anybody who is, you know, at, like, if you want to talk about a lobby that is extremely protective of what they are granted by the federal government, it is states with gambling and Native American tribes. So there is going to be pushback on this and, you know, we'll see. But I don't think we're done in that capacity. Right. Like, we talk about this a lot with, you know, some of our friends. Like, they're, I don't think this whole fight is by any means won from prediction markets if they are perceived as gambling. Similarly to DraftKings, FanDuel, you know, all the massive Las Vegas behemoths.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah. So I just did some quick Googling to try to figure this out, and it looks like the Gemini AI is telling me that Kalshi's trading volume annualized has reached approximately $50 billion as of Novemb November. And it also tells me that FanDuel has it or in 2024, FanDuel had 20. Sorry, had $50 billion wagered. So, you know, I don't know, I don't know if that's exactly apples to apples, but it seems like, you know, at least there's something that's pretty significant. Yeah. So polymarket is smaller, but, you know, they are only rolling out in the US now, so I would imagine they're going to catch up at a certain point. Okay. So one other thing that I wanted to ask you guys about. I mean, I actually have a few, three more, but one other one, because this just, you know, ICO beast is associated now with Kelsey, but I'm sure you saw what happened with him and Mega Eth, where he basically was like, oh, I received this allocation and he was named as one of the, I forget what they called them, but there was like kind of a tranche that received like more than normal because they had helped the Mega Youth team so much and he was in that tranche. So I would imagine that he, his allocation was like pretty significant and they took it away because he was trying to figure out how to hedge. So what? Because, because there was like a, you know, a lockup on that. So what do you make of that.

[Doug Kolkat]

Doug? I, I mean, I don't know. It was a good, it was a good spectacle. Right? Like crypto, Crypto is all about spectacle. So I don't know. I think it's honestly probably good for Mega eve, good for Mr. Beast.

[Laura Shin]

Okay. Even though he lost his significant allocation.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, it kind of, right, it puts him in the, puts him in the spotlight right now. It's like we're talking about him on a year end recap show on weather. KOLs get that treatment. I don't know. I, I guess it's, it's, it's kind of funny. Maybe it's controversial. Like if you say bad stuff about, about somebody. I don't know, I, I, I, I don't have a real strong opinion. I, I thought it was entertaining.

[Gort]

Would you yank, would you yank someone's allocation if they were.

[Doug Kolkat]

Talking critical, critical of my projects?

[Gort]

Yeah, yeah.

[Doug Kolkat]

No, I don't, I don't think, I.

[Gort]

Don'T, I think that, like, I, I.

[Laura Shin]

I, but it wasn't that he was critical. It was that he tried to hedge it. That's what it was.

[Doug Kolkat]

Oh, he tried to hedge it?

[Gort]

Yeah.

[Doug Kolkat]

I mean, everybody, I feel like everybody.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah. X about, about it.

[Doug Kolkat]

Everybody does it. It's, I guess people don't really.

[Laura Shin]

I know, but it was against the rules.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, it's against the rules.

[Gort]

Okay, so like, okay then. Yeah, I mean, he should have to deal with the repercussions. I will say that I only follow this loosely, but I did see it. And I don't think that, you know, you tweet something and you probably don't realize what the ramifications of that are. So I, maybe one thing I would say is like, I know.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah.

[Gort]

I would think maybe like Brother Bing would have reached out to him and been like, hey, like, this isn't cool, you know, first, but maybe to make a point, you need to bring down the hammer sometimes. But it wasn't that, like, that's not that egregious. So.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah, what he did he mean or what?

[Gort]

Yeah, I don't think it's what he did. And then on, I guess also what they. I mean, if it was against the rules, then yeah, like, you know, if it was lesson learned.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, it was. It wasn't like allocation he held for like years and was like.

[Gort]

Right, exactly.

[Doug Kolkat]

On the value. It was like you're getting a refund for something you did a couple days ago.

[Gort]

Well, and also like, what, like what given token launches this year, like, we'll see if he ends up like losing a ton of money on that. Like, maybe that was the greatest thing in the world, right, to be saved 100k or whatever it was. I don't know.

[Laura Shin]

But yeah, I mean, but the point is that whatever they allocated to him, especially like I said, he was in a special tranche where he had helped them the most. So I think it was a very generous allocation. So. Yeah, that reflects however many years he was helping them and then now he got nothing for it. But.

[Gort]

Okay, well, he's a couchy like shill. He's getting paid, I'm sure not even just shill. He's like a full time like part of their PR team. Like he's doing fine, I'm sure. So lesson learned. I don't think what he did was that bad and I don't think that yanking it's that bad. But like, it is. I mean, it was funny. It was funny.

[Laura Shin]

Okay. Okay, let's talk about something that is like intentionally funny, which is choose Rich. Nick has like really broken through to like even non crypto people. You know, obviously we all saw the, the initial like girlfriend tweet, but then, you know, he went viral for May I meet you. Like now. Now it just feels like he's going viral generally for like a lot of stuff. I was curious for your thoughts on, on him and, and that.

[Gort]

I think he's actually really funny. I think he's funny.

[Doug Kolkat]

I have like full, full caveat. Like we've actually worked with him for some stuff on Bogo, but I mean, look, it kind of reminds me of like Sasha Barricoan, like Borat or like Bruno. Like he really picks these characters and leans into them. Definitely takes like some when everyone's yelling at you and mad at you, like to kind of lean in more to. It takes. Takes some special type of personality. But yeah, I, I think he's funny. He's definitely more cringe people on Twitter.

[Laura Shin]

I don't know if you listen. He came on the show and he was not in his Persona and he was so thoughtful and it was really actually yeah, and it was a really, really interesting interview. He. Yeah, he, like, gave us a behind the scenes look at how they do some of their stuff. And like, I don't know if you remember the avalanche controversy, but there was some, like, avalanche event on a yacht. And then. Yeah, like, so, no, I thought that.

[Gort]

Was all like, a troll, right?

[Laura Shin]

That was only what I thought that.

[Gort]

Was, like, all a troll, wasn't it?

[Laura Shin]

Yeah, yeah. So he revealed that, like, basically what happened was he got kicked off, but nobody sort of knew what for. And then Kobe tweeted that what happened was that he had imitated Justin's son with the. The banana art, but instead he had painted his penis yellow and attached it to the wall. And so Kobe tweeted that and, like, then suddenly that was like the narrative of what actually happened. But yeah, choose Rich Nick came on the show and revealed actually what. What really happened, which wasn't that, but apparently. Okay, okay, so the last two things. These. These two things are like a weird combo. But was just interested for your reaction to the Do Quan Scent do kwon sentence of 15 years.

[Gort]

I'll be honest. It was like, so something that seemed fairly obvious as. Okay, so first of all, the collapse of Luna. It was like, the whole thing was very obvious. Right? Like, and it was pretty clear what happened. There's no. Yeah, I don't think. I think it's fairly straightforward what happened there. Now, I will say that all of the subsequent. The stuff that came out, like, so much stuff, it was like information overload and everything that came out afterwards, it just became like, I wasn't gonna follow every little detail as to what transpired both publicly and in the background. And all the deals he had with market makers and all the stuff, like, was he buying this bitcoin? Like, all this stuff just got, like, so convoluted, so complex to me. There was this post the other day from somebody who was at Terraform. Is that what it was called? It was. I mean, this was like a novella. I mean, it was like, you know, 10 pages would have. So I didn't read that, but I did read the last sentence and. Or the last couple sentences, and there was some sympathy, which, you know, I don't know. Like, at the end of the day, like, how much was, like, was it patently a Ponzi scheme or was it transparent what he was doing? I think that's one side of it. And then the other side of it was, was he doing illegal stuff in the background, which it ended up appearing. Yes, but I don't know, I mean it's one of these things where the whole thing was so obviously broken that you, I mean it gets to the market cap. It did like there was going to be a fallout and yeah, it's been, it's been pretty extreme, but.

[Laura Shin]

So do you think he should be in prison for 15 years for that?

[Gort]

I don't know. I really like, again, yeah, I, I.

[Doug Kolkat]

Just, I feel like Luna itself, right. Like everyone knew kind of the rules of it. I don't think he should be in prison for 15 years because like Luna was like a Ponzi scheme that was transparent and it was kind of like right. Like 2022 people or 2021 people are kind of nuts. But like to Gord's point, like I don't know all the things in court, like who, who like what was the one thing like the, the Chai like payments thing he was lying about? Like how, how much that was used. Like, Right. Like, yeah, you know, he, he. I'm sure he was doing so much stuff like where's their fraud? Like where was he like lying to people about? Which doesn't change like the insurance, like how Luna works. Right. Like this is still like ultimately. Right. Like a silly thing but. And maybe does it like I don't know how many people were buying Luna based on like Chai would have like a lot of transaction volume. My guess is probably not many in 2021. I think people are find a lot of crypto. Those are just silly. But like I'm sure he did enough that there's probably actual like fraudulent acts.

[Gort]

He's not the most endearing character. Like, I mean the way he interacted with people for two years was so boisterous, it was so arrogant and you know, it's kind of like an Icarus type thing. Right. Like if anything that type of attitude makes it more likely that when this does unravel, when things do blow up, that people are very, very curious as to what was going on in the background. And when you are making claims that are probably end up being patently un. Untrue, like I don't know, I mean if he was sort of like a demure Jeff from hyper liquid type who never really was public facing and wasn't really publicly saying what was going on in the background. Right. But it, there may have been some like, you know, kind of reap what you sow and from what I can tell, I don't know, 15 years seems like a lot but maybe it's, maybe it's not enough. I don't know, like, but he's not somebody who I'm like, wow, what a great guy, you know? Like, man, what a shame he got screwed. Like, maybe he's in jail for 10 more years than he should be. Right? Like, I don't know. But, yeah, I don't have, like, much. I wasn't really keyed into that after it fell apart.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah, yeah. I also didn't follow. Yeah. The fraudulent bits. The one sentiment that I saw on Twitter that made a lot of sense to me was that, yeah, people lost a lot of money in Luna, but they lost, like, paper gains, which is different from like, FTX and SPF where they, you know. Well, although, no, yeah, I guess even some of that could be the same, but it's like, they. I mean, yeah, I don't know.

[Gort]

UST went to zero and that was.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, us.

[Gort]

That wasn't really a paper game.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, the bag is how much. How much interest you were stacking. But yeah, you were.

[Gort]

I mean, dude, if you deposited 100k into UST to get 20 yield and.

[Doug Kolkat]

It goes to zero. Yeah, you lost 100.

[Gort]

So.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Laura Shin]

But also, 20 grand is like, like, hopefully people were educated to understand the risks. Whereas, like, what's different with FTX is like, he literally took the actual funds. Whereas, like, dough, it was like a failed thing.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, I. I do, I do agree with that. Like, FTX was straight up. That money was stolen. Like, there isn't. There was no there. And like, ust, like the UST mechanism itself, like, I actually, like, people might be mad or whatever, but, like, people knew what they were getting into and it's just like a question of what's fraudulent, you know, around what he was saying to telling different people. But no, no one was deceived. Like, oh, there's actual dollars behind USD.

[Laura Shin]

Yeah. Okay, so last really quick thing I want to touch on is, like, what do you think of this quantum threat that everybody's talking about? Like, are you following that? Like, I don't know, some people are saying that Nick Carter is, like, over, you know, overreacting to this potential threat. Do you think this is something crypto people should worry about or not?

[Gort]

Okay, I just did, actually, I just did a podcast today on this, so I'm going to show my podcast. I was not going to show my.

[Laura Shin]

Podcast, but now, I mean, this isn't coming out for, like, another week after we're recording anyway, so.

[Gort]

Okay, well. Okay, so I just did a podcast on this. It. Go back and listen to it now with a Guy who is a longtime bitcoin developer, not a core dev, but just somebody who's like, you know, independently hacking away on bitcoin for a while. And he is not a quantum researcher. Okay. He's not a physicist but he is somebody who I think is quite bright and has, you know, is quite pragmatic. He is very, very skeptical. With that said, I don't think so. I think Nick is, what he's doing is in earnest. Like I've read, I read the first one. I'm not concerned about quantum. Yeah, that's like my, my take is that I have basically, I think there's actually a lot of other concerns prior to quantum for crypto one like a use case to getting people to utilize security budget.

[Doug Kolkat]

Security budget. That was last cycle's fun.

[Gort]

Yeah, exactly. You know, again with bitcoin, most of this stuff at least to me right. Like long time, like digging my heels, don't care bull is okay. Like all this stuff doesn't really phase me because I'm going to live by the sword, die by the sword. Like whatever happens, happens. So like I'm not, I am very unconvinced on quantum. I also am like the last person you should ask about quantum. So I hope that helps. Doug, you're more of a computer scientist than I am.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, I, I mean I don't know. I think it's hard to predict like I feel like there's going to be like it's not all of a sudden there's going to be quantum computer tomorrow. So like I think what people are afraid of is like oh, bitcoin core devs are like, it's so ossified at this point that like you can't even make a small change or take 10 years and like you know, they'll be able to develop this whole new type of technology before bitcoin core can even like make a three line code change to the protocol. Yeah, I don't know like I, I, I, it's small on my, my things to worry about. I think there's, there's definitely other things to worry about. But that being said, I, I do think like it, I, I would guess it's probably contributing to kind of the crappy performance of bitcoin the past couple months. Like you talk, oh, what about quantum?

[Gort]

Yeah, I'm, I'm a little skeptical of that. Like I'm a, I'm, well I say I'm a little skeptical. Like I, I don't doubt that's a thing but we can always assign some Valid reason for thought at any point. Like, for example, like, I. I heard, you know, a few months ago that all this bitcoin's ending up with sailor and ETFs, and, you know, long time holders are. Are concerned that it's lost its cipher punk ethos. And I'm like, you know, people just sometimes have gains of 10,000x from mining Bitcoin and they can now exit and buy their, you know, villa in Nice or, you know, in Mallorca. Like, there are reasons that people sell and we try to ascribe, like, you know, whatever is the current reason for the market being down. We're trying to, like, ascribe that to, you know, that that's the reason they're selling. And like, in reality, I think people just sell stuff. And I don't. I would be very surprised if a lot of ETF selling and institutional selling is because of quantum fud. Primarily because those people know exactly zero about quantum. So for them to just start yeeting and like, you know, nuking the chart would surprise me.

[Doug Kolkat]

Is that you don't have to know a lot about something to trade on the narrative, though.

[Gort]

Yeah, but again, I'm just saying, like, there's all sorts of narratives at any given point.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, I, I agree with you.

[Gort]

Right.

[Doug Kolkat]

There's chart, there's chart, and then you come up with explanations.

[Gort]

Exactly. So almost everything that people, you know, say is why, you know, bitcoin's nuking. The market's not doing well. It's like, okay, maybe sometimes people just sell and, you know, they want to go buy a new house. Like, it's not. Like, we don't have to overthink it. And also, the market is derived from a trillion different individual preferences. Right. Like, it's never one single thing at any given point. So, like, I don't know.

[Doug Kolkat]

All right, fair point.

[Laura Shin]

Okay, you guys. Well, this has been super fun before. We, you know, say goodbye. This is going to be the last episode of 2025. Do you want to give a 2026 prediction?

[Gort]

I think. I think 2026 will be better, but only because it feels like up only from here. Right. I do personally feel like we've likely bottomed. So I think 2026 will be better. Fed's about to inject a bunch of capital into the system. So, yeah, you know, we always have to rely on these external narratives.

[Doug Kolkat]

Everything is just. Everything is just liquidity, says qe.

[Gort]

I'm like, all right, that's good enough for me. Like, you know, we're just talking about Quantum Flood. We were just talking about the fall. I. I do the exact same thing, but for bullish reasons. I'm like, oh, qe. Like, there we go. Like, I don't know. I don't know what that means, but, like, I'll. I'll latch on to that narrative, no problem, you know?

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah, I think. I think 2020, like, can't get. I mean, I guess it could get a lot worse, but it feels like. It feels like people are like, max pessimism. Like, cynicism. Like, you. I don't know, like, you go on, like, crypto, Twitter. It's like, how cynical are people? And that's usually good, like, counter signal. Like, when people are kind of this max cynicism thing, that's actually when crypto tends to run. And then, you know, the opposite. When they're, like, euphoric about stuff, then, like, buying into narratives that don't make any sense is actually usually when you want to sell. So. No. Yeah, I think it's. I think it's good from here.

[Laura Shin]

All right, well, you guys, this was super fun. Thanks so much for chatting with me about all the events of 2025.

[Doug Kolkat]

Thanks for. Thanks for having us.

[Gort]

Yeah, thank you. Laura's fun. Appreciate it.

[Doug Kolkat]

Yeah.

[Laura Shin]

And happy New Year, everyone. Catch y' all later.