Good morning, good morning, everyone, the MGN and welcome to
another episode of Homo. Our day is Thursday, May 15th
morning morning high highs of May.
I play through this month on it. All right, flying by, but this
is our first red morning. What feels like a wild crypto's
down. Stocks are down.
We had some negative Coinbase news landing this morning as
well though. Nice.
You'd surprise. I think the question is our
recent rally, is it over or just a minor pause in this bigger leg
up? We're going to break it all down
on today's show. I got my Co host in the house,
Mando Logan. Stats is supposed to stop by
today as well. How you guys doing Mando?
I'm doing amazing man. Very, very busy last 24 hours.
But but but good market. I mean, it's not that over
really, is it? It's just, it's just a little
bit of a of the wind getting taken out of the sails.
I feel like that's it. Minor, Minor pull back.
Minor pause. Let's catch our breath.
I. Think we're fine?
From what has been a bit of a breathtaking rally.
Yeah, sure. Hey, no more.
I know. Yeah, good morning.
It's it's dreary here. I think it's rained almost every
single day since I've been back from Peru.
So that coupled with the the prices down makes it a little a
little more of Abma little more of a bad morning than than it
would have been when I was in Peru.
But I'm still glad to be here, so.
Maybe our weather will come your way.
It has been absolutely gorgeous in Chicago.
I would like that. I would like that, but it just
rains every day here in, in in Pennsylvania.
Times are tough BM for Logie. Well, hopefully your BM turns
into AGM here shortly, folks. What are we talking about on
today's show? We've got Mando, we'll go
through the market report. PPI coming in negative.
Powell sang higher for longer. We've got it was a big day for
the ETFs yesterday despite some of this action.
We've got this Coinbase exploit. We're going to break down what
that is, how big of a deal it is.
Ethereum's new trillion dollar security initiative, Tether
going deep into big AI. That was a bit of a surprise
yesterday. We've got the launch coin
latest, the eco still cooking, but maybe a little pivot on the
table from Mr. Pasternak, some new entertainments continuing to
grind up and perhaps some more punks.
Reactions from stats here in a minute.
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next. All right, Amanda, if you're
ready, let's get into it. Who is the man Macro daddy of
the land? Can you dig it?
GM, everyone. So we've had a little bit of a
weaker start today. I think the majority of that is
we had, it was a bit of a macro day.
So we had PPI come out earlier today.
PPI is a producer price inflation.
It's like the other inflation metric based on producer prices
and that came in with a big mess.
In fact that showed deflation which is which is kind of
surprising, kind of fits in with what with what true flation
figures have been showing rather than some of the inflation
expectation figures. So big mess maybe points to the
idea that the Fed can cut rates a little bit quicker than than
had previously been expected. And yeah, let's see, let's see
kind of see where that one ends up.
On the back of that. Stocks again, had had a good
period here. They were up again yesterday.
They're down today. So they're down for the first
time in four sessions here. And gold has been heading a
little bit lower for the last few sessions, though it's
bounced very slightly today. So the fact that crippos down
kind of makes sense in the world of macro here because you've got
stocks and you've got gold lower now.
It's not crazy. I would say that that PPI miss
is a good, good thing for the market because I think a lot of
people were scared about tariffs causing runaway inflation.
So if we're at this sort of stage before those tariffs come
in, then I think we're at yeah, we're at a good, we're at a good
point. So I don't, I don't think it's
like some going to be something where Bitcoin gets absolutely
smashed lower. But it's just interesting to
see, you know, 1% move in Bitcoin is absolutely smashed a
bunch of alt coins. And I still think it's another
couple of couple of weeks in this little mini altcoin thing
because I'm, I'm bullish on ether, as I've said a number of
times at the moment, I think that's going to go to 3K3K plus
here. And that will mean that that
altcoins naturally, I think get a bid, but I would be a little
bit wary of other things. And the reason why is, is I
don't think this, this doesn't remind me of Q4 where I felt
like there were a bunch of new entrants coming in to buy bags.
This reminds this feels like the people who are still around
trading between themselves on narratives and assuming they're
going to have the same narrative as let's say the AI move.
The AI move. I felt like on boarded a lot of
people actually at the time and there was a lot of people new
wallets, I think coming in to buy.
I don't see many people buying. I continue to not see too many
new entrants here. It feels like it's a bit it's
PvP world. So I'm still a little bit wary
on like broad alt coins, but but I do think ether is going to go
higher and that will probably mean that, you know, things
don't get all coins. I think, sorry, Bitcoin
dominance could can go a little bit lower in, in the short term
in terms of like big, big news, You kind of covered some of the
main stuff there. So E foundation's doing a
security initiative at the moment.
I I don't even know if that's going to be like some huge
thing. JP Morgan big bank settled their
first transaction on public blockchain and that was not to
be surprising, but you're going to see a lot of big banks come
in and decide they're going to do that.
Mastercard's doing these stable coins.
Yeah, it was it was nothing major in terms of like headlines
overnight, just that we've had a little bit of a sell off here
because of macro and the macro had a good run and, and and this
kind of makes sense. I I would not be selling today.
That's what I would say I am re buying a lot of the stuff I sold
where around this time last week on only on select things there
so ETH and ETH beta. So I'm buying some some ETH meme
coins and and ETH and then I have bought a little bit of far
coin. Little Far Coin Nibble might
like to like to hear that we we we telegraphed this on the show
yesterday, but interestingly, hyper liquid spot.
We did see fartcoin flip Bitcoin in train volume on the day.
It looks like now over the the recent 24 hours it it's now back
to forth, but that was somewhat notable.
A few reactions to your market report.
But first we've got Stats in the studio with us Stats.
Thanks for joining us, Jean. What's up boys?
Sorry I'm late. My I live in the mountains and
my Wi-Fi went down and then my phone doesn't work at home so I
can't just like hotspot in so it's a bit of a mess but here we
are. Took a little 3 minute drive and
now we're good. That's the that's the mountain
life for you right there. There you go.
Mando, I think what was somewhat notable from this morning and
maybe this is just pal posturing, but we had PPI come
in negative, so deflating month over month and he's cautioning
for higher for longer. So you, you think that's just
him kind of holding his cards close to his close to the best?
I mean, he can say one thing and and and he'll not follow through
with it. I, I don't know why on the back
of that figure you'd ever be like higher for longer, but
that's clearly a deflationary figure.
I think the only thing to say here is that Powell, I don't
think can move up. You can't, you can't just look
at this and go like, oh, we're going to drop rates because the
tariffs are about to come in. And I don't think the Fed can
really do anything until late Q3Q4.
Even if, even if they wanted to, they've got to see the, the
result of the tariffs. So there's a lot of focus on
Jerome Powell and what he can do.
I don't think you're going to see Jerome Powell do anything
for for quite a while here. I think in terms of global
easing, I think you got to look at Asia as the main place for
that at the moment. Feels right.
I mean the CME rate cut futures have made some pretty drastic
moves. So July is is still an underdog
for a rate cut that was pretty heavily favored.
And now I think by end of year 20% shot at just one cut that
the favorite at 37 percent is 2 cuts again in Q4.
So along the lines of what you're saying after we we've
seen some of the the tariffs start to to roll in, but then
even that gets muddy with you've got like the temporary 90 day
program with China. We don't know that's going to
get extended. We don't know what's going to go
up or down from there. And if we don't know, pal
doesn't know, right. So he can continue to point to
the uncertainty. No one ever knows.
I mean, that's just the thing about the world and about macro
data. No one ever knows.
I mean, I, I remember when I worked at, when I, when I did
macro research at Goldman Sachs, I'd go around and see clients
three times a year. And I'd say of the seven years I
did that 21 kind of Rd. trips, we don't know what's going to
happen, was the theme of every single one.
Yeah, that is, I mean if we do, if we had the crystal ball, you
know, we'd all be very rich. So I thought that was
interesting. I think another interesting
macro, I mean you mentioned for like no, it doesn't feel like
there's new entrants, right. And I think that jives with what
I'm seeing. But there is one sector of new
entrants that is booming and that's companies specs spinning
up to buy Bitcoin. Looks like another one this
morning. Logan, I don't know if you took
a look at this, is this also in the DJT family now they're
they're. Yeah, sorry.
I was just going to say Devin Nunez is Trump Global Media, I
believe either CEO, board or chairman of the board or
executive chairman or something like that.
He's the one who wrote the letter about the Truth Social
token, if you remember that from a few weeks back.
So I recognize the name. I don't.
I don't know too much about him. So sort of Trump related, yeah.
But it looks like, yeah, $210 million IPO an acquisition.
So I believe this is another Bitcoin acquisition company.
I haven't had a chance to to dig into the specific headline, but
it goes along with the general theme that we're seeing these
new companies spin up as Bitcoin investment vehicles.
And I think it's starting to raise more and more alarm bells
to a degree, Like clearly it's driving inflows in the near
term. I think there's big questions
of, of what happens in a pullback.
I think stats you've been kind of following this and, and kind
of sounding at least on the premium that some of these
stocks have been trading at for these companies who, who are
doing this. I guess what's, what are your
thoughts on where this is? Is this becoming one of the
bigger risks to to Bitcoin and the broader ecosystem here?
I'm not sure I see it as a big risk, to be honest, but I think
that I, I think this phenomenon is going to be very short lived
And, and I think that a person like at the end of the day,
there's no narrative here. Like these guys just know that
the market, Bitcoin holding companies, particularly
MicroStrategy, the market is currently paying two times NAV.
What that means is if they spend $100 million and buy 2 and buy
$100 million of Bitcoin, If you and I get together and say, hey,
let's ask every rich person that we've ever met if they'll give
us money and we get $100 million, we use that $100
million to buy $100 million of Bitcoin.
We go part, we put into this into a public vehicle and the
market says, OK, that's worth $200 million.
And then we sell our stock. We instantly make a 2X like
that's the model because people are looking at MicroStrategy to
say, hey, the market's paying 2.1 XNAV for MicroStrategy, so
maybe they'll pay US 1.5 X because we're doing the same
thing. We just don't have sailors.
So maybe we'll have a lower premium, but there's no
narrative there. Like there's no reason.
I personally think it should trade at a discount 10 AV
because at the end of the day, it's going to be harder for
these guys to sell their Bitcoin spot because I have a lot of it.
And and once once it becomes clear that these vehicles are
selling, people are going to want to front run that and
they're going to lower the price and the price is going to go
down. So ultimately I would think they
should trade it as like discount NAV as opposed to a premium, But
they're just kind of playing on what's been an incredible
phenomenon, which is micro strategy trading at more than
two times the Bitcoin that they actually own.
And I've seen decks for it. I had a friend send me a deck
say, hey, we're raising $100 million and we think it's worth
$150 million in in a week. And that doesn't work like that.
That just simply doesn't work over time.
We saw it with Spacs, we saw it with GBTC.
I think the SPAC phenomenon was better because at least with the
specs, you could go around and you could say, hey, DraftKings,
you know, is worth a ton of money.
Look at this crazy amount of money.
They're going to makeover the next five years.
You should buy drafting stock. My friend is the CEO or the CTO
of a company called Quantum Scape, which was one of the most
successful SPAC's. It's down a lot now, but at
least then you could tell some story about how their batteries
were changing the world and keep people excited for a couple
weeks, for a couple months, maybe even a year.
I don't know what keeps people excited about this narrative for
anything like I I think this collapses very soon.
I just don't see what gives it any longevity because it really
makes no economic sense. It's just leaning on the fact
that that Sailor has created such a following, such an
incredible marketing ability, that people are paying 2.1 X for
the Bitcoin he owns. But it's not like any any other
person can just do that. And the other thing is that as
long as this happens, more and more supply will come to market
because it's free money And, and whenever more and more supply
comes to market, the premium goes to zero and eventually it
goes negative because the sentiment shifts and then
everyone's stuck in these trades.
So I don't know. I'm, I'm extremely negative on
them trading at a premium. You know, if, if someone buys
$500 million of Bitcoin now and later has to liquidate or that
that goes to or it goes to par, I don't think that's a negative
for Bitcoin. Like I'm, I'm not too worried
about the underlying asset here. I don't think it matters that
much. I do think if Sailor ever have
to ever has to sell, that's a huge and that like that that's.
A bit of a cross, but can we talk about how to can I, because
I'm like kind of a little bit interested in in how you would
because I was looking at this too and I was like, right, Well,
maybe you value it like a major commodities trader, right?
Maybe because they're often priced on book that like like
Glencore or or even banks, right.
Banks you might think, OK, these guys own financial assets which
they can make some sort of income stream on.
How do we value it? To put into perspective, I think
banks sometimes they trade below book but they they normally
trade like 1 to 1 1/2 X book. And I think I looked at
Glencorp, Glencorp trades at 1.2 X book and Glencorp makes a ton
of money every year but. Glencorp is a.
Trading firm that had that, that is good at generating returns on
capital. These guys have no illusion of
generating returns on capital. They're simply and capital being
the Bitcoin price like they are simply.
Owning Bitcoin. If Glencore, if Glencore said
hey, we're going to go spend $100 million and buy oil and
that's it. Before we get down and.
And we're doing, it's just going to sit in oil.
That's all we're doing. We're not going to use our
expertise as traders. We're not going to use our
technology. We're simply going to own oil.
That's it. It would trade at the price of
oil. Yeah.
But I guess so. And in general, I agree with
you. I think perhaps 1.
I don't know if it's quite devil's advocate.
Some of these companies like 21 Capital, I believe they're, they
are at least alluding to some kind of like financial
engineering that they're going to do.
This is my point. This is actually my point
because, because This is why people try and explain the way
the equity premium, they say it should trade it to Expo.
He's going to do this crazy thing in the future, whether
it's going to generate some form of yield from the asset that is
the equity premium of these companies right now.
They earn so much, they are going to do something.
And I was like that as a narrative is not a new one.
There's lots of companies that basically buy a commodity or buy
an asset and just make a yield off it and you own their equity.
And the two major ones for me were commodity traders and banks
like and both of those don't trade anywhere close to 2X book.
And they have long track records where you can see their ability
of re generating return on equity.
They have very clear strategies here.
There's none here. There's just like, hey, we'll do
yield sometime and and we don't, we can't really explain it to
you, but we'll do it eventually. So you're buying a dream.
So when you say that, I do. Want to be clear, I think, I
think talking about MicroStrategy and talking about
the rest of them, I think they're slightly different just
because MicroStrategy has built such a religion around it.
I agree. I think they're different to to
wrap this up, you think it's a short term phenomenon?
Do you think it unwinds or or just that the the premium it's
like the premium goes to 0 or even negative and it's pretty
discount. Are these companies just going
to close you up? No, I mean, I would imagine
like, that's why I said I don't think it's that big of a deal.
Like I don't think this is the type of thing that that that's
going to like hurt big. MicroStrategy, I do think does
pose risk because if there's ever a hint that he has to sell
Bitcoin, it is run for the fences.
Because if he goes from being a buyer to a seller like you just
you don't want to, you don't want to be later than the guy
who owns 3.5% of Bitcoin selling.
I don't think that's a huge risk right now.
I don't think he's going to be a force liquidator anytime soon.
No, I think these are, they go to par and then whatever.
It's like people, you know, maybe the investors who put $100
million in, get their $100 million back 'cause that's, or,
you know, or it just kind of trades in line with Bitcoin and
it just kind of sits there as just a, a Bitcoin proxy.
And I don't, I don't think that's a big deal.
I just think we're going to, I think this, I, this phenomenon,
these things trading at a premium, 10 AV is going to, is
going to go away. I mean, maybe if they start
trading at a discount, let's say these things trade at a 20%
discount. I mean, GBTC traded at a 40%
discount, 10 AV. No, just a little bit.
They'll just consult it if that. If that happens, the ones with
the premium will just buy the ones at the discount, right?
That's kind of what that's the whole reason why someone was
going to buy GBTC in the end, because it was like rival this
trade. That creates more risk though.
That creates more risk because then you actually have like if
they continue to trade at a discount.
But again, I think this is all a bit kind of inside baseball.
I don't think it, like I don't think it's super relevant for
us. But yeah, if they consolidate,
if someone buys the smaller ones or if shareholders say, hey, you
know, right now we're getting $0.80 on the dollar, let's just
sell our Bitcoin and get a dollar on the dollar.
Like, like because it's the difference between this and GBTC
is this actually has a convergence mechanism.
Like these guys actually can sell the the Bitcoin and just
get the cash and pay it back to shareholders if they want to.
Right. But yeah, I think that's
probably right that they trade at a premium.
They, I mean, they consolidate unless they all start to trade
at a discount and then maybe they sell all their Bitcoin or
maybe they just kind of wait for it to, for, for, for greener
times. It's an interesting discussion.
I think it's one that will continue to be top of the top of
the timeline as we continue to see these these companies pile
in. I want to talk about ETH briefly
with you stats. You know you're a big ETH guy.
Love to to celebrate ETH showing everyone who who's daddy on the
graze when it outperforms. I know.
He's always crying on the stream right now.
Me. Yeah, you look so happy when
when the E price was mentioned just then.
You know, I'll be honest, my show.
Who's daddy? Like not not to double use a
word, but it's just kind of like a stupid dad joke.
Like it's just like a meme where I know ETH is getting crushed.
So anytime ETH goes up a little bit, I think it's funny to post
like show him who's daddy ETH. Like if he is up on a 24 hour
chart, it's just a meme. It's just a meme.
I'm just taking the piss a little bit.
It's not like a serious, it's not a serious thing.
I'm kind of I've got I probably have more money in Bitcoin than
ETH and I shifted a little bit my ETH over to punk.
So I'm not like a huge ETH guy. I just think it's kind of a
stupid dad joke to keep saying that over and over.
Of course, I know on director radio yesterday, Mando, you guys
kind of went around the horn a little bit.
Just everyone's trying to figure out like, why is he pumping
stats? Do you have a a take how we saw
the 50 percent, 60% move in a week week and a.
Half you know, I I never know the inner workings of what's
driving these things. You know, it always feels like
big players have a big impact, but I, I would think in this
case, you know, I mean, it's if you, you know, it's clearly
we're, we're in a bullish Bitcoin environment.
And if you're in a, if you're in a bullish Bitcoin environment,
regardless of what people on the timeline want to say about
Vitalik or about how awful dot ETS are, whatever people like to
yell at ETH, ETH is the second easiest way to get crypto
exposure in the world for any buyer.
And I think people you see Bitcoin RIP and eventually ETH
can catch a can catch a bid and there's probably some short
squeeze on it where people are underexposed or where people are
short and that that reverses. I mean that, that would just be
my guess, but in a global kind of bullish crypto environment,
which I think we have been over the past month, ETH, regardless
how hated it on, on the timeline it is, it is the best place to
go if you, for most people, you know, obviously ETFs in the US
is just one example of of it being the only other option you
really have. So I I think it I think it makes
some sense. Nice little day on the ETF
Thursday 63 and a half million that inflows.
Let's go BlackRock, Bryan. Everything bullish.
One of the the highest in the last month or so, I'd say for
sure. I always find it interesting to
read like what the the analysts, like the larger institutions
funds are saying. In this particular report from
Bernstein, they are pointing to the growing embrace of digital
assets usefulness as more than stores of value and increased
institutional and retail interest adoption of blockchain
and stablecoins as as what's driving the Ethereum price
action. So I did think that was
interesting stats you mentioned you're storing at least a good
chunk of your ETH in punks. We've we've we've hit the the
punk story a decent amount over the last few days, but would
love your take as a pretty decent sized punk owner.
You're holding three of these things.
It's a pretty. Big I got three of them.
I got three of them. I post I post new AI pictures of
them everyday Look, I, I, I think net net, you know, look, I
think this is a positive. I think that Yuga has I
personally like yuga. I've always had respect for
them. I think that they're generally
good people and I think that they did a good job with punks.
But at the end of the day, it's clear like the crypto community
has issues with them. I think the punk community has
issues with them. So I think, you know, and every
now and then you come across people who didn't want to buy
punks because they associate with Yuga and I think it's nice
to get that overhang out of the way.
It like, is this, you know, like Kobe or someone who like the,
the community loves buys them and then everybody's like, oh
fuck, I got to own 1. So Floorgo shoots up from 45 to
60. You know, it's not that kind of
event. I think this is just more of
like a long haul kind of cleaner holder for, for the asset
assets. Wrong word that a cleaner holder
for punks better association for them.
I mean, it does go to, I mean, it's the people have been
posting about this, but Mickey Mulka, you know, basically it's
his foundation. Him and his wife seated the $25
million on it. Just go to a person like, you
know, it's still got kind of like a bit of an entity.
But, you know, Mickey's been a great steward for the space,
someone who I think, you know, loves digital art, who has
sufficient capital that they're not going to be out there trying
to, you know, squeeze the orange here and, and, and get juice
from it. So I think as far as like one
person who could really kind of be the the behind the foundation
that owns it, I think he's as good as you can get.
So we'll see. We'll see what happens here.
And that now it just becomes more of like a long grind
towards towards greatness. So let's talk price action.
So I appreciate your take. I actually read it on
yesterday's show because I thought it was a nice balanced
1. Yeah, I saw a couple takes being
like, oh, this was like you guys doing like look at how dumb bad
they are because they wanted tax benefits and blah blah blah.
I mean, if you're talking about and they didn't even mention the
fact that they got 414 punks that they own themselves.
They're like, oh, they just this was just a huge L on the IPI
mean, clearly they clearly lost money on it.
But to talk about this without even mentioning the fact that
they own 414 punks is is, I think missing missing the story.
I'm curious how they're going to monetize those.
Yeah, I've heard rumblings that there's a plan, but I, yeah, you
know that that I was big holders are a big overhang.
Sorry, I, I was talking to people around this deal because
I was reporting stories and I, I got no comment on on the future
of the, the Yuga Punk's assets other than that they still own
them so. Yeah, well, makes for that deep
in, that deep in. I know that's that's not too
much. But I've heard small rumblings
that there are plans in which this isn't like a throw them in
the vault situation. But I do I I think that they I.
Think they'll be one thing is. Pretty clear is that you could
does take the legacy of punks quite seriously.
So I you know, it's obviously throw it in the vault is better
than any incremental buyer. But maybe they have.
Yeah, maybe Mickey wants to buy it, Throwing it out when and
out. No, but I want to talk about
this. So just just quickly, so in
yesterday's one of the day shows, I, I, I laid out my 250K
price target for this cycle. Just asking to click on the
spot. Do you have a, a price target
for the next year? Assume assume a the scenario
where it's a it's a bull market we grind up through Q4.
I think punks need a catalyst to really have anything other than
a grind higher price. You know, I mean, one of the
problem with what you're saying is like, yeah, it's very, it's
very, it's just as dependent on the price of ETH as it is the
price of punks. But you know, back in the day
there was the guy who swept 100 punks at once.
That was just like a massive, like a 2X catalyst.
And then Visa buying a punk was a huge catalyst.
Like I, I feel like like something to kind of make the
punk collection get traction outside of our universe.
I think right now in our universe, more and more people
are like buying their first punk.
Like I feel like we're seeing that punks OTC tweets that a
lot. And I think that's like a bit of
a grind higher scenario. But what's the scenario where
you just get a whole new group of buyers interested?
I don't know who that buyer would be.
I don't know if it's like Eric Trump making it his PFP not to
get political here because who knows?
I'm using like, who are the people right now who have kind
of a wider sway and a wider reach that could settle, get
convinced to be part of this collection?
You know, I think you kind of need something that, and again,
I don't think Eric Trump would really move the needle that
much, but like who what is something that could really
expand the audience for these because we've kind of had the
same people buying and selling this stuff for three or four
years. Like, you know, it's, I think
it's still you've you've seen, you know, first it was board
apes flipping punks, then it was Penguins picking flipping punks.
You, you've had those. But right now, at least in this
moment, it's clear that there's nothing else out there if you
want to like have APFP that kind of puts you in the PFP lore
echelon. And so I think more of the space
is starting to get interested. But what what's the catalyst to
get someone new involved is it would be my question.
I've got an idea. Let's go.
Maybe a hot take a little a little out there.
The MicroStrategy of crypto punks.
This feels very non zero to me. I mean, I would put a lower
percent on it. I'd say I put it in like 10 to
20%. We've already seen companies
piling Bitcoin, clearly Ethereum, Solana, Trumpcoin.
We've got an ETF lined up for Pingu and pledge of Penguins.
Doesn't feel like a stretch to me that we get some kind of a
crypto punk institutional buyer. I agree.
All you need is 1.
I mean, Visa bought one floor punk, you know, and and hundreds
of millions of dollars rather than market cap.
So it doesn't doesn't take much. It's got to get you know, it's
kind of why I don't love the whole like do nothing, do
nothing obsession with punks. It's like kind of neat people
out there pushing it like you need salespeople, you need
people marketing it, you know, people doing things like
generate attention, like to get more.
I personally like I've never been a huge like ever.
You must do nothing. But that's clearly the mentality
that the that the that the community has taken.
I think and I think Mickey is going to do something which is a
part of I think the the bull case where I'm taking it over.
Yeah, I hope so. Logan, did you have a take on
I'll cut you off? No, yeah, I was just going to
add, I mean, you know, talk about what, what are the
potential catalysts? I think this, you know, IP
transfer and sales acquisition by Node foundation is exactly
the right type of catalyst, whether or not it'll be
successful. But I mean, if you read through
the the announcement and stuff, I mean, they're very clearly
focused on expanding this IP, not by, you know, doing new
commercial endeavors, perhaps, right, but by making more people
aware of it, which is how you get new buyers in and and
potentially new institutions in like museums, you know, more
museums type stuff like that. I know those are kind of like
maybe little laughing joke things.
I remember Tyler a year or two ago sitting in Norway talking to
you about, you know, mutant apes potentially being in museums.
Remember that big ape coin bill that he and others wanted to put
like that was kind of a, a joke at that point in time, But you,
you'd need that type of stuff for punks to get in the eyes of
more traditional holders to potentially, to potentially
really, really run the price up if that's what we're looking
for, aside from the gradual grind.
So I don't, I, I don't see any other way at this point in time.
I mean, I think this is a really good, a really good move to try
and do that as a, as a, I'm not a punk holder now, a former punk
holder, but if I were holding one, I would have been, you
know, signed off on a transaction like this and, and
at least the vision. I'm with you.
So it's going to be interesting to follow.
We hit punks a good amount. I'm going to talk a little bit
about this Coinbase news. This is pretty huge news.
I think so Brian Armstrong shared a video, personal videos,
about 2 1/2 minutes long, a bit too long to play for the show.
Coinbase also published this blog that cyber criminals
effectively bribed members of the Coinbase customer support
staff to get access to customer data.
They're saying it was less than 1% of Coinbase's monthly active
users. They have a longer a longer
write up here on their site as well.
It the exporters it seems like tried to ask Coinbase for a $20
million ransom, which Brian, I'm strong responded to this
morning. Instead is putting $20 million
out to help catch the criminals who are behind this.
So if you have any information, you can get a cut of that $20
million by helping Coinbase and law enforcement to come after
these these folks. It does.
I think there are some questions that have arisen from this.
They've they've filed the official form of the SECI
believe that the the date they're saying for the hack was
May 11th. I think anyone who has been
involved in the Coinbase ecosystem would perhaps question
that date. The reason I say that is because
many of us have been receiving scam texts, emails, phone calls,
the better part of the last year, if not longer.
So I mean, maybe they've been multiple exploits, I don't know.
But I think the questionnaire, how bad is this?
Phone numbers, e-mail addresses, addresses are a part of this as
well. And with the, you know, the the
increase in physical attacks that we've seen, I think address
data perhaps the the the most important in all this.
Logan, I'll run the horn, but I don't know if you had a chance
to dig into this reactions on your side.
Yeah. I didn't think in specifically
to this one, but I've been following those types of of
things quite closely here. The increase as you mentioned in
in physical attacks, there's a database actually Jameson Lopp
has a database of it. I think there have been 20 plus
already this year that have been reported and I'm sure there are
others that are unreported. Scary for sure, Obviously not
great. It it slaps a lot of the like
KYC stuff, which all of these centralized exchanges, right,
are forced to to, you know, require, of course, legally.
It slaps a lot of that in the face and makes you feel like,
hey, we should have been an honor suit on the entire time,
right? Like these types of things just
in increase. I think the willingness to to do
that. I don't know what else to say
really. You know, I, I've been a
supporter and a user of Coinbase for a really, really long time.
It does appear as if, you know, at least coming out with this,
trying to take it as seriously as they possibly can, But what
more can you do? I mean, I've always kind of
laughed a little bit at the not your keys, not your coin type
thing, just because who wants that additional burden?
Like I actually understand why you would want to hold it with
Coinbase versus keep the private keys yourself.
But at the same time, if you know these things increase,
then, you know, I don't know there, there's clearly arguments
on both sides. So I'm, I'm rethinking, you
know, every day as more of this stuff comes out.
Have you been personally? Have you had the texts and phone
calls? Yeah, and I've I've been getting
them actually I've been getting the not so much Coinbase.
I keep getting this Gemini text weekly at this point in time,
you know, I I've have an account probably at like most of the
major centralized exchanges that have AUS users.
So Gemini, Coinbase, Kraken, whatever, but I so I've been
getting a Gemini like recovery, you know, type thing every
single week here for the last week.
But I I've gotten other calls, emails in the past related to
Coinbase. Yeah and I just, you know, of
course, write them off every single one.
So hopefully there is no point in time in which it actually is
true, because it boy boy who cried wolf.
I'd be out the door, but. I think I've gotten in every
single, every single week for the better part of the past year
to the point where I've just stopped tracking it.
It just feels like routine daily spam call.
So to ask, I'm curious if you have a take on this.
I think a Part 2 of the question is how do you feel about
Coinbase and their custody business model on a three to
five year time horizon with banks getting into to crypto?
Man, I'm kind of with you on the sense that I get so many people
trying to steal stuff from me. I don't even notice it anymore,
You know, like the number of phone calls, the number of texts
I get. And but I will say it's
compelling. Like, you know, I mean, I can
see we're someone who's a bit less savvy than we are.
And not that we're uniquely smart individuals.
We just are on ex a lot and we see people get stuff stolen.
So we're aware of these issues. But I can see where I have a
friend here who has a brother-in-law, the 26 year old
guy, very smart kid and kind of puts all his money to eat and he
had it all stolen. He has someone calling him and
somehow draining as well. So, and I think it was something
of this the ilk of the scams that you're talking about lost,
lost six figures, you know, and that I, I always, I continue to
think that's a massive, it's just a constant, it's just a
constant friction that slows down adoption.
Every one of those stories expands to a wider reach of
people that makes more and more people afraid of the industry.
I don't know what I think is the safest space.
I think that cold storage has a lot of issues as well.
So I, you know, I think self storage is probably where the
majority of crypto gets lost empirically, even if people in
our space don't feel that vulnerable themselves.
As far as the, you know, I don't know really what Coinbase's Moat
is. I, I just don't know enough
about the custody business. I think their consumer business
is at risk because, you know, just one, just two years ago, if
you wanted to buy crypto, you almost had bait and you're
American, you're probably going on Coinbase now.
I think Robin Hood and, and just buying ETFs are extremely good
options, much easier, much more in line with, you know, probably
easier tax reporting, all that stuff.
Like so, you know, I don't know what kind of, especially with an
administration like we have that's so friendly towards
crypto and wants to make it easier for everyone to buy
crypto, then, you know, if it gets easier, I think that
Coinbase did benefit from how difficult it was to buy crypto
and they became the easy option. So I'm, you know, I'm not sure
what, but I just don't know enough about the custody
business to have a strong view there.
I mean, maybe there are real modes there, I'm not really
sure. Institutional side, you know
very well may be safer. I'm just in the camp that if I
personally could hold crypto on Coinbase or JP Morgan Chase or
this your your personal Bank of choice.
I don't know why you would go the Coinbase route and take on
this extra risk. And I actually think they're, I,
it's not clear to me. It's not clear to me that they
have deposit protection right now.
Like if, if JP Morgan goes bankrupt, you're going to get
like depositors are like the first who get their money back.
I'm not sure that's the case with Coinbase.
There, there are some, there are some protections like is it
called Coinbase? I don't know what they're prime.
Is that what it is? Yeah, there are some protections
with that, but it's I think much smaller than like the FDIC is
what $250,000 or something like that at a minimum depending upon
the account or whatever. I think it's like 100,000, maybe
150 thousand. I have to go look.
But I do know that there are some terms there for some
protection, account protection, but you might need to be
subscribed. Yeah, to their to their
subscription business. So I think a good response here
from Coinbase, but I think there's a question too little
too late. So we'll see how this continues
to to play out like one of the biggest surprise stories of the
day. Continuing to go through this
list. I don't know how many folks saw
this because I haven't seen very much chatter on the timeline,
but Tether is getting into the AI business and they're taking a
lofty A lofty swing at this. So they just announced Q vac
quantum verse atomic computer. It is vision to be a
decentralized AI platform to run entirely on personal devices.
No centralized servicers, no big tech middle men is how they're
spinning it up. It's named based on Isaac Asimov
1956 short story The Last Question, which involved the
self evolving computer which takes humanity to the end of the
civilization. Interestingly enough, I skim
that short story. It's worth a read if you haven't
but this platform. Enables an autonomous AI agents
to operate locally on laptops, phones, even like things like
brain computer interfaces. So they've got big, big visions
for this and then also transacting Bitcoin and USDT.
So they're they're really tying this back to tether and the
stable coins here other key features, local AI execution,
crypto integration, and then open source development.
And if you go and and read through some of Paolo's comments
it, it really does feel like decentralization angle is a big
one kind of coming after big tech and not wanting big tech to
be the gatekeeper of of AI and then also to to get crypto in
the door here as well. So I'm, I haven't had a chance
to really dig into this and, and get a whole lot of personal
thoughts on this one. Clearly tethered, very well
capitalized Logan. I mean, we, we chatted with
Jason, the previous CEO of Lucky Trader, who's deep in the AI
game. He basically, I think his
reaction was it's a big vision. It's going to be hard to, to
pull off right now. AI compute on personal devices
is much worse than on higher powered machines and that
perhaps they should go more after Stripe and and look at how
to really integrate Tether. But I'm curious if you have any
reactions to this or? Yeah, I think, you know,
idealistically it sounds great. You know, the idea of the, the
decentralized AI in this manner and, and hearing like not, you
know, AI not being monopolized by one company or two companies.
Like, you know, I'm for that. What I didn't get from this, and
some of that may just be my general technological ignorance
is how, you know, like, of course I understand you wanted
to run locally on these, you know, individual machines kind
of putting it in everybody's pocket.
But there is no, you know, maybe it's just in a piece to follow
this. There's there's no really, at
least in, in my view, there was no clear how is it going to be
done, which makes, you know, forming an opinion on this a
little bit easier. But that that's the part that
I'm still kind of waiting to see is like what what is what is it
realistically time frame wise, implementation wise, like it is
it actually going to be possible anytime soon?
Obviously they feel that way if they're investing this much
money in it in time, but. They're taking some big swings
and this feels like a, you know, a longer term bet.
They're well capitalized, they're positioned to do this.
It does feel like to answer your question, it looks like they're
building their own architecture to enable this.
So we'll we'll see if they're able to pull it off.
Not necessarily a topic that that we are able to invest in
right now, unlike Internet capital markets which are
investable. So I think we can't go through
the market report without talking about this.
I mean the numbers are staggering.
They are, they are pulling back here live during the show.
It looks like so Longs Coin believe app ecosystem sitting
around $400 million right now, $730 million in 24 hour volume.
It looks like their fee numbers have have dropped a bit
overnight. So they're around $2,000,000 as
of last night. They're at like 4 and a half
million. So I think that they've pulled
in somewhere between 8:00 to $10 million in the last three to
four days. So the fees are strong.
Launch coin itself peaked around 360 million, I think 3:40 last
night, holding around 256,000,000 right now.
This comes after somewhat of a big announcement from Ben
Pasternak. The founder said past few days
been wild. We've seen a surge of interest.
We're going to pause on featuring new projects to focus
on the supporting ones. And our priority is making sure
they have tools and resources they need to succeed.
Can I ask a question, Todd? Yeah, very basic question
because I'm out of it. How is Internet Capital markets
different from the game we've been playing for five years?
Like what is that term specifically connotate that has
not been part of the game, the crypto game for a while?
I'd say it's it's there's a bit more substance than just a pure
shit coin, which is just a ticker, OK.
Whereas this this coin is while it's still a main point, you're
not getting equity in any way. It is tied, at least loosely, to
a founder and a product and that.
Some of them. Sure.
And I'll, I'll address that in a second.
And that that founder and product can perhaps integrate
token syncs into their product in the future.
They can figure out a way to tie in token holders into their
ecosystem in some capacity. Interestingly enough, I mean, it
is very similar to the Jelly Jelly model that that came out
back in what January and it was, you know, widely mocked this one
just a little bit more buttoned up.
There's a more of a framework and a team kind of pushing it
forward with the Believe app group.
I think to your comment, Logan, I mean, to reach these numbers,
14,000 token launches, there haven't been 14,000 products
launched on the Believe app. There's not 14,000 builders who
have launched this week on this app.
So the way it kind of works with launch coins, you can tweet a
ticker and it launches a coin. So there are thousands of just
that that are just pure shit coins launching in this
ecosystem as well. What passionate team had been
doing was featuring one, maybe 2 like more true builders and
their products on a daily basis. Perhaps not surprisingly, based
on a lot of the commentary there's, there's not a whole lot
of new entrants in this game right now.
So what we're seeing is hyper rotation.
So when a new product comes out, last night's Hot 1 was Yapper.
Yapper came out, ran straight to 20 million.
All the other leaders pulled back 30 to 50%.
So it became this hyper rotation game and basically anyone who
had bought any of these tokens for the most part, with maybe a
handful of exceptions, was down on their buys unless you got in
super early. I think passion and team saw
that and they're like, hey, we need to pump the brakes on all
of this. So I think from from my lens as
a holder of launch coin disclosure, I do hold launch
coin. I think I personally as bullish
that they need to slow this down.
The hyper rotation was getting very messy.
They also have a pretty big sniper situation happening where
snipers are getting huge chunks of supply of these and dumping
on everyone that needs to be resolved.
It was clearly unsustainable for them to be making $4 million a
day, 4000 launches per day. There's just not enough capital
in this ecosystem to support that.
I think slowing down the pace makes sense, but caveat or
asterisk on that. Like they can't slow it to zero.
There needs to be continued launches even with a slower
pace. So I am curious how they will
continue to to manage it. But my gut Reed is someone who's
in the trenches is this has kind of stopped everything else in
its tracks. Like the longs coin eco has been
the game for the the past couple days.
And I think that's reflected in the on the decks board.
Like let's look at these trump coins always #1 pretty much
right now with respect to volume, but longs coins too.
Yapper, startup Unicorn, those are all launch coin acts.
I'm not launch coin tokens. Glimpse, I'm not familiar with
it. Looks like it is.
Bump is as well. So what?
6 of the top 7 coins by volume are all launch coin.
So this is the game right now. I think that the big question is
how long is it going to last? My gut is that they bought
themselves some time with this pivot.
But Logan, you've been falling. I'm curious if you have
connections. Yeah, I definitely think they've
bought themselves some time to answer stats question, at least
from my opinion, like how is this different from what we've
been doing? I don't really think it is too
much. Of course there is that tie that
Jelly, Jelly like thing where you know there are products is
dupe the luxury furniture or there's one of them.
It was a luxury furniture company.
It's like there are, there are some things here that are, are
trying to be a little bit different than just pure shit
queenery. The issue being that like it's
not equity, it's just a meme coin for this company.
It's kind of like a Kickstartery type thing.
But not all of these, as Tyler mentioned, not all of them have
that like built in Kickstarter benefit yet, right?
So you're kind of just like buying the token, maybe hoping
that they give you like a 10% product discount or something.
So I, I can support the innovation there.
I'm totally with that. I'm skeptical in a lot of these
launching at this point in time. I think if you're a founder, you
know, who's struggled to raise capital or wants to raise
capital, like why not take a chance here?
I'm I'm totally OK with that. Can I just?
Say to Jack, are people owning this for a 10% product discount?
Is that no? That was I mean.
But like if they don't think they're going to get equity, are
they just hoping that what do they think they're going to?
Get that's that's exactly, that's like kind of my point.
It's like, I don't know if dupe or if any of them have offered
something like that, but right, that's the theoretical right,
Tyler. That's like the idealistic
version perhaps is that is that 10?
Percent. Discount is why you want this I.
Think that might be a little simplistic?
That's just, that's just an example.
I, I, I don't know what it would be to offer.
And that's. What all of us to 0.
That's what that's what Kickstarter is though, right?
Kind of is like you're giving some sort of benefit for
investing. Otherwise, if there isn't that,
even if it is a 10% like it, whatever, make it any percent or
any benefit. If those aren't there, like why
are we doing this? You're just giving the person
money for nothing, which may be, again, maybe in an ideal world,
like you're investing, you know, you're what do you want to call
that charity type thing? I don't know what that's called,
but that's the that's the concern for me for a letting
this exist outside of a two week bubble is like, how do you get
people to keep buying these tokens and.
The problem is the problem is I think you I think it's totally
fair to be skeptical and perhaps that's that's the right motion.
I think most of these are going to fail and most of them are
going to be able to figure this out.
It's hard to evaluate this objectively on a two week time
horizon. Like what if it takes one of
these teams six months to figure out a way to integrate a token?
And I mean even like we talked about wreck does it like a great
Internet capital markets example, the wrecked equity
played out two years into the project.
It was it was far down the line and I think it takes it takes
time, yeah. So these builders are going to
so. I would.
Agree. Yeah, my bullish scenario here,
if I was if I was running with these would be like, right, how
could I actually get equity in my company?
So these are in some way right. Is there a way for me to do that
legally? And then secondly create some
sort of flywheel with the token? But but I don't even know if
that's what and I know statue are part of it.
But like this feels we're not doing anything new.
This kind of feels a little bit like proof or moon birds back in
the day, right, like where where it's more like it's come out of
California kind of cruise of start up founders.
We're like, right, we're going to do something and I just don't
even know if they know when you say we haven't like we it's been
2 weeks, we haven't we haven't really seen this.
I think we've seen this story like 1000 times.
Like it happened. It happened all the time during
NFTS. It happened a lot over the last
few years with like utility mean last year and a half utility
mean coins. I think it's going to be
difficult for these, these like more startup as founders to
realise that these guys wanting to pump their bags and if they
want equity and they want a flywheel, I don't know how many
of that, even though these, these token holders, sorry,
these token launch companies have any concept of, of what
they need to do to create medium term value.
And and yeah, we may find out in a long, long time when the next
few months who will do that. Or maybe one person will do it
and realise that's the best flywheel and then all the others
will say, hey, yeah, we'll do that too.
Maybe maybe that's the the best move, something like that.
But feels, yeah, it feels pretty tenuous.
I would highly doubt that the token launchers right now know
what they're getting into from a who's buying this token, who
their consumers are kind of at this point in time.
I would not want to be someone launching A token.
I mean, we had this conversation with the with the boop thing,
like last week, Tyler, like people didn't want to launch a
token. This is the same type of thing.
You're committing yourself in some way to these people.
The only difference is, yeah, you're you're picking up like
sizable fee payments almost right away.
Well, that that's something your founder, you're going to notice
right away. You are.
Yeah, you. Want to keep that going?
The Yapper founder has made $1.17 million in fees since they
launched at 6:00 PM last night. What is Yapa?
What does it do? It is from it's Let me try to
find the It's a deep fray on. There.
Yeah. That's part of that's part of it
too, right? I believe it's had some fairly
big success. No further questions.
Thank you, Tara. 100 million
views. I don't know this guy's full
back story, but so And this was a curated launch, so Pasternak
shared this one. Amanda, what was it that made
you say no further questions? What's what was the ridiculous
statement? Because it's just like it's no
one knows even know what's the product is.
This is just a, this is just the Ponzi, right?
Like it's just whatever's coming today.
I. Disagree.
So I, I didn't really trade that one.
So I didn't like do a bunch of due diligence.
On it all right, OK, I thought I thought it was 1 you own but but
the one thing that struck out to me is what you said and look I I
said told told you I think. It's because he did no due
diligence does not mean he doesn't know.
Oh yeah. Of course, the one thing that
took out to me is you said a coin ran to 20 million and
everything else nukes. That tells me that there's no
new entrance. Yeah, AI coins used to run to
100 plus like 200 and then they then that would cause other
coins to nuke. But like we used to see huge
runs, right. That tells you like the dregs of
his left on this sort of on this matter of like right as to a
start up. And then they they literally had
to tell the the app itself had to say, look, we need to calm
down because 20 million is in November.
That was like nothing, right? No, like random coins were at
20. Yeah, straight away I think it's
it's signing the times for sure. And I so I think you're spot on.
No new entrance. I feel like this all started way
too fast. It blew up way too big and he
really had to slow the pace or like it was really just going to
speed run this whole thing. And I mean, there's been 14,000
launches basically in the last three days, four days.
It's too, it's too many and I'm purchasing.
So every single day, I'm thinking multiple hours per day
how to handle this. And if I think it's going to
continue to go, it's going to continue to dip.
And we lost me and I know we'll wrap things up here shortly.
It's a tricky 1 because in a lot of ways, I feel like this is
stronger than virtuals. It has potential to be better
than virtuals bigger. But a lot of things have to go
right. They have to have some some good
products launch. They can't have anyone who who's
buying a token go straight to 0 when the next product launches
as well. But Logan, I guess.
Yeah, I'm just thinking. I'm thinking through it with you
here live as well. I'm I'm totally for this type of
thing. The issue is going to be you
can't just keep burning the consumers or the buyers of these
tokens. I don't want to conflate
consumer of these potential products, but like if this is
great for the founders, like this potential thing, right, For
people who have either struggled to get to raise capital or just
want to be a little unconventional in the way they
raise capital. Like this seems like a a really
interesting idea. And of course, it's, it's
obviously proven itself even in this two week span, you know,
for a very small short period of time, it is proven its ability
to do so to raise the money for these people.
The difficult part is like, OK, six months out, what does
happen, like is the token at zero.
And then all these people that bought, like if, if you start to
see that play out over and over and over again and people stop
buying the tokens and then people don't fundraise via this
and then it's all over, right? Like I I just don't know how you
sustain any real or enough real token like token launches to to
just extend this thing out and to make it worthwhile for so
many participants. Well, I think part of it, part
of it because I think you need like the Nikita Beers of the
world, you need them to, to perhaps pull in a larger base,
right? And I don't know if that's naive
to think that what two people are going to come in and buy
these probably is naive, right? I'm just saying like that's a
potential example. Of.
What might need to happen? But they keep saying laundry
list of of real founders. And I think if more real
founders and builders come to this, it's going to attract more
attention. Yeah, I think so too.
I'm not ruling that out in any way.
Like someone for myself, right? Like I, I've not actively been
participating in this. Of course, I wish I had been.
It's been a boon for anybody who's been actively playing in
the last week or so. But like to get me to buy one of
these tokens outside of, and I'm talking about the launch tokens,
like from these companies or founders or product whatever to
get me to buy one of them knowing that there is it's just
a meme attached to their product.
Like I, I sort of want something in return for that.
You know what I mean? Like thinking about that, like
if I maybe just because I keep comparing it to Kickstarter and
it's slightly different than that, like I sort of want some
sort of thing in return. And that's what they can't
really offer, right? They can't offer me equity for
it. I guess maybe they could include
the token sync in a, you know, like I said, like a discounty
type thing, but I'm not seeing that at least in these product
launches just yet, right? Like no founder has it drawn out
to where, hey, this is what we're going to do with the token
type thing. That's the type of stuff that I
would want to see. And of course, maybe that takes
time. Maybe that can never happen.
I don't know, because there's obviously legal ambiguity,
ambiguity that I'm not equipped or knowledgeable enough to to
comment on here. So.
We'll see. I I I still am in the campus.
It's very hard to judge this experiment on a 5 day time
horizon. Clearly there's froth already in
this market and and we're seeing it play out.
I think it's a pretty pivotal few days with this, with this
recent pivot from passion and slowing down the pace.
So we'll see how this ecosystem continues to to hold up.
But I mean, it's the main game. If you're in the salon trenches
right now, this is it. So we're going to continue to
cover it because there's a whole lot of other action.
We're running out of time. We're not going to talk about
some of the other NFTS stories, but those eat those NFTS.
It's a nice, nice little rally. So do terrific and it all NFTS.
So maybe we'll cover those on tomorrow's show.
But folks, we're 5 minutes over at the hour mark.
We're going to go ahead and wrap things up.
I want to thank all of our listeners for joining us here
today. I want to thank my Co host, one
of the stats for stopping by. Incredible conversation.
Thank you so much folks. Have a great day and we'll talk
to you tomorrow. Bye.