[ { "i": 0, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "We are here with Defi Dad in the studio, guys. Robbie just texted me. I know you guys, if you guys are watching there, uh, he just texted me to be bullish for the sake of his ETH bags. So, Robbie, if" }, { "i": 1, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "you're watching this or other ETH bulls, we got the right guy. Defi Dad's in the house. Great to have you, sir." }, { "i": 2, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Thanks for having me, Andy. Great to see you." }, { "i": 3, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Welcome to New York again. I know you've been very busy doing dad things as you are a lot of little leagues, so it was good to have you in the city." }, { "i": 4, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was I think I was joking with you guys yesterday, but I was like running between three different little league games and like gymnastics and lacrosse with the kids. So, but I" }, { "i": 5, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "came into New York for at least a day." }, { "i": 6, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "So, it's it's been great. I went to uh the ETH conference and I've been just trying to catch some talks and obviously get the pleasure of getting to hang out with you for a bit. I'm stoked, man. So," }, { "i": 7, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "yeah, >> I'm stoked. So, I was just telling you before we hopped on, Edward from the chat, what's up, Rocky? Good to see you here. He says, \"Would like would love for you to compare lighter and" }, { "i": 8, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "hyperlquid a bit more uh you know feel like there's some alpha in lighter with its regulatory setup. It has stronger buybacks in terms of its total uh buybacks per on like a market cap uh" }, { "i": 9, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "kind of weighted basis way smaller valuation but Hyperlid's kind of hit this point of no return in terms of global macro in terms of uh mainstream awareness lighter has not quite got" }, { "i": 10, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "there seemingly kind of like this onetwo punch right now. How do you think about the like hyperl liquid and lighter as products and as investments in in the current space?" }, { "i": 11, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Yeah. So, so the advantage for me with with lighter and keep in mind I'm I'm a positive some bull here. I'm I'm very bullish on hyperlquid, I'm very bullish on on lighter. Uh as much as I think" }, { "i": 12, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "everyone wants to get excited about a smaller market cap, you have to remember that uh the best part about lighter is that you have an escape hatch to Ethereum. So, you know, we have, in my" }, { "i": 13, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "opinion, I think you have this, you know, this greater security guarantee, whereas there's the argument that Hyperlid, if you listen to the hyperlquid bulls, that it's decentralized enough. Um, I I think" }, { "i": 14, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "again, if you were to compare the two, I I think like one again provides for that guarantee to get back to Ethereum L1, which is lighter, which to me is huge, like most important thing is that I can" }, { "i": 15, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "retrieve my assets. Um whereas with Hyperliquid what you know you're uh there's some give and take there. Um in terms of the market caps though I mean it's as simple as this. Like I know" }, { "i": 16, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "everybody wants to bet on the smaller market caps and they want to say that uh they want to look at the two and say if this one can one day be valued the same way this one is, it'll be worth that." }, { "i": 17, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "And so then they they look at the market caps and they do the multiple. The the one thing you want to pay attention to is uh if you use something like DeFi Lama AI, you know, you can ask it to" }, { "i": 18, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "spit out like what's the last 30 days in terms of fees on both platforms." }, { "i": 19, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Nomadic and I were just looking at this recently. We were kind of hoping that there would be >> a more like obvious difference. Yeah." }, { "i": 20, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "That it was like, oh my gosh, like lighter is clearly undervalued. And and I I do want to just point out I I think it was like Hyperlid is just doing that much more in terms of fees. it was like" }, { "i": 21, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "20 or 30x the day we were looking at it." }, { "i": 22, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "So, you know, again, like huge opportunity in something that is probably sitting at 1.5 billion, I think, as a fully diluted valuation. Um, I think there's probably some mispricing" }, { "i": 23, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "there though to like that having that guarantee to get back to >> Ethereum. I think that's an unknown thing about um lighter >> I think I I I don't think people are really that aware of the security" }, { "i": 24, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "trade-off between the two. And by the way, I don't mean that as like a knock on hyperlquid." }, { "i": 25, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> No, but it's not real. You've been in the space for a while, right? Like >> Yeah. It's like it's you know like for example uh most of us probably never worried about the shared pool model with" }, { "i": 26, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "with uh you know a money market like a >> right >> many folks didn't consider like what risk was there but then when you have an incident like what happened suddenly you go oh boy now I understand what worst" }, { "i": 27, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "case scenario can happen. So again, I'm like fingers crossed. I hope Hyperlid just continues to grow and doesn't experience any sort of setback, but my concern is always like what if just what" }, { "i": 28, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "if something bad goes wrong?" }, { "i": 29, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Yeah. And I mean I mean we've seen it in DeFi. You know, we've seen these um exploits or these events and you don't like you know there's a saying you don't care or decentralization doesn't matter" }, { "i": 30, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "until it does." }, { "i": 31, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Yes." }, { "i": 32, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Right. And like that is very real. Um, does the market seem to care at this point? Like we kind of had this whole market structure shift o away from yeah kind of this Dow governance" }, { "i": 33, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "decentralization theater almost you could say a veil of decentralization. I think Kane from synthetics has notably said that on our show a few times and you know it upsets a lot of people but" }, { "i": 34, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "the market is clearly like valuing you know these types of things on product on quality on revenues on buybacks more than like oh how many nodes do you have?" }, { "i": 35, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Hyper has 24 nodes. Yeah, >> that's like that's is that a blockchain or is that like a database? You know, Canton is trading six bill. No one really knows, right? Um >> they all they all have their their pros" }, { "i": 36, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "and cons. So like I think we all we we want uh >> more rigid valuation frameworks and like that's just clearly not how the world works. you know, the the the ultimate scoreboard is price. And so any token" }, { "i": 37, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "that sees its its token go up over time is is doing pretty damn well. And you know, as much as you know, I still am uh I'm probably like 60 70% ETH on any given day and maybe like >> 20% to 25% Bitcoin and then another like" }, { "i": 38, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "10% of a mashup. I I am finally holding some hype too. I mean, I like that." }, { "i": 39, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> And is that just your crypto portfolio?" }, { "i": 40, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Just my crypto portfolio. Yes. Yeah." }, { "i": 41, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> So, what does the DeFi Dad portfolio look like? Is it like you got some real estate, some stocks, crypto, alternative investments?" }, { "i": 42, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> I'm a pretty simple person. I mean, I we have a family and and uh we we own a home thankfully. And then I I am still I think Nomadic was posting about this recently just I am still very uh long crypto" }, { "i": 43, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "irresponsibly long crypto. Um I actually am very comfortable too in this setting." }, { "i": 44, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Like this is a to me this is your your normal 4-year uh cycle playing out. I uh I I know everyone wants to debate that it's not playing out exactly the same way, but I'm like it looks the same as" }, { "i": 45, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "the last one. all the pe all the suits for like a better term came on both of our shows end of last year and basically said this like the four-year cycle is uh not going to happen right they were like" }, { "i": 46, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "it's over it's over it's like >> yeah yeah we did too and and don't get me wrong I want us to move beyond this I I want us to >> uh get beyond this this again this whole thing playing out where we have to draw" }, { "i": 47, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "down you know not just 50% but like I think on average like 70 to 90% across different assets That's uh but I think the main the big difference is today so like maybe going to like more of like my" }, { "i": 48, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "ETH bull thesis um and I I remain extremely bullish on Bitcoin as well and I mentioned Hyperlquid and so forth but in terms of uh Ethereum Ethereum continues to be the most reliable and secure network for DeFi. Uh" }, { "i": 49, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "there's other networks that clearly host their own DeFi ecosystems. I think that'll continue to play out, but Ethereum has clearly had, you know, real network effects play out in its favor." }, { "i": 50, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "The thing that's happening right now, and we we just did an interview with Robert Leer, which I'm I'm hoping we get out in the next day or two out of editing. uh we were talking about all" }, { "i": 51, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "they're doing with superstate and obviously his focus is on uh tokenizing real world assets and then bringing them on chain and and I actually I think you know Robert is uh very dependent on" }, { "i": 52, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Ethereum. I think like more than threequarters of all their liquidity is on Ethereum but they are on other chains as well." }, { "i": 53, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "The asset issuers need to be confident that nothing will ever happen to the assets they are issuing on these networks. And the track record is a 10-year track record for Ethereum. And" }, { "i": 54, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "so anyways, as all this is playing out, the more important story to me is that you, me, Robbie, Nomadic, all of us have lived through this era where it's always Bitcoin is number one, Ethereum has been" }, { "i": 55, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "number two, Salana has had a hell of a last few years, Hyperliquid is now, I mean, Hyperlid is clearly top 10. I I think what's changing is we don't need to see all of the liquidity in like" }, { "i": 56, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "tokenized Bitcoin and and uh just ETH and just like soul and and hype. We're going to see real real world assets finally eclipse all of this." }, { "i": 57, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Yeah. On chain, right?" }, { "i": 58, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> And I think it's top 10, >> right? It's hard for us to accept because to be fair like we're we're long these assets so we want them to go up but no one ever said that we needed to" }, { "i": 59, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "bring trillions on chain and that >> you know my my ETH doesn't need to be worth trillions to host trillions on day one right >> that said I do believe that if we can bring on you know trillions tens of" }, { "i": 60, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "trillions u clearly over time that network becomes more and more valuable." }, { "i": 61, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "The the underpinning of all of its security is uh ETH staking. And so, yeah, ultimately I I just don't see a world where uh I think as Tom Lee put it, can you imagine a world where you" }, { "i": 62, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "try to explain that the US dollar does not benefit from all of these uh stock exchanges that exist here? you know, oh, Google trades here and Nvidia trades here and and the argument being made," }, { "i": 63, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "well, the US dollar doesn't benefit from this at all. And again, different that's a medium of exchange versus more of a >> store of value that I think ETH is. And so, I I think it's silly and and you" }, { "i": 64, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "have to get outside the crypto Twitter sphere to understand this. I I still I love our community. I love being able to like see all that you guys are posting and sharing and and you know all of our" }, { "i": 65, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "other peers." }, { "i": 66, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> But that's not really what moving >> that's not the only conversation out there. Like there's a lot of folks with enormous amounts of capital who are they have very simple thesis about this" }, { "i": 67, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "space. You know, they're like, \"Hey, Bitcoin looks like it's working to me." }, { "i": 68, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "It looks like digital gold. Oh, there's a quantum threat. Okay. I mean, like, is it like something that's going to bring down the network tomorrow? Um, I'm worried about that, you know, like like" }, { "i": 69, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "long term, but >> again, Wall Street is not looking at it with the same sort of skepticism that our our community is. So, >> uh, actually, I have a question from Edward. He's a big ETH bull. He said," }, { "i": 70, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "\"Defi Dad, when you say security is Ethereum's main main selling point, ETH's main selling point, normies will point to Kelp, exploit, a others, and say there's still a lot of risk in DeFi." }, { "i": 71, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "How can ETH bulls respond to this?" }, { "i": 72, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Okay. Yeah, we've been talking a lot about this. I I agree. It's it's been kind of a dark year for DeFi and and a lot of that has to do with the fact that uh there are exploits that are clearly" }, { "i": 73, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "happening because uh AI tools are being used to uncover vulnerabilities. I mean, this this whole Zcash thing to me was really really scary because they're they're an enormous network and like I" }, { "i": 74, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "get worried like what if this happens to other blockchains, any of them, right?" }, { "i": 75, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Yes. So what I think we're missing is that uh things tend to uh normalize over time. What what I expect is that all of the like dismal sentiment around uh what's the next exploit and of course" }, { "i": 76, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "like uh by the way like what happened with like kelp is I believe it's a failure in my opinion it's a failure of layer zero architecture. there was a true hack there. But like Zcash being to" }, { "i": 77, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "me much scarier, I think we will eventually get to a place sooner than later where uh those same tools are going to ultimately shore up all of this security like we're going to ultimately" }, { "i": 78, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "be able to ensure that we don't have these sorts of exploits. Great example is uh uh Nomadic and I are are um you know uh very close with the fluid team." }, { "i": 79, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "We try to stay on top of everything because we are power users above all else. I am most concerned about the security of these protocols cuz I'm storing uh you know a lot of capital in" }, { "i": 80, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "in these protocols. And so >> every time a new model comes out with Claude, they're running that model with I I believe like they're running some sort of agent and they're looking for" }, { "i": 81, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "vulnerabilities >> just like honeypotss across the entire DeFi landscape. So this sort of thing I think is going to like you know continue to play out and you know I >> I have uh heard a rumor that the" }, { "i": 82, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Ethereum Foundation got access to Mythos and has run that. Um I I cannot verify it like you know because I the the source that told me it >> basically it was like one of those things like I'm telling you this but" }, { "i": 83, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "like >> I can't like I can't tell you more." }, { "i": 84, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Yeah. Yeah. I know that I believe Salana also got access to this or at least they either they either had like they either were public about it or again it's something else that I've heard through" }, { "i": 85, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "the grape vine through the rumor mill." }, { "i": 86, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Um and I have no no doubt there's others out there. So you know again it I know it's been dark this year. I' I've seen a lot of like, oh, you know, you're like leading these folks to be slaughtered by" }, { "i": 87, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "these exploits. And I'm I'm like, >> I'll just, you know, say that >> I am as invested as I've ever been in DeFi. Uh there's lots of landmines. I think it's important that we really uh" }, { "i": 88, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "think about what has been stress tested over the years, but then again, don't assume that that's a >> that don't assume that something cannot be exploited. You know, I think what happened with a they didn't get" }, { "i": 89, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "exploited, >> but ultimately they the markets were, you know, taken advantage of because of a failing of layer zero and and of kelp and and of a too. What am I saying? I I don't >> A's risk management" }, { "i": 90, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> to their risk management. So, you know, anyways, >> I had a um one of our uh true true listeners, NOCSM, says, \"Can we hit on the rumor of Zeer talking about launching a new A token?\" I don't know" }, { "i": 91, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "if you saw that tweet. Um so, >> like like a like a new protocol or just like a whole new token for >> there was a tweet that he tweeted that was like um you know, somebody was like" }, { "i": 92, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "a like could be a good value buy here or something and then he was like, \"Yeah, but in a in a different token.\" So, I I truthfully don't know anything about this, but I know that uh I we all know" }, { "i": 93, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Mark was instrumental. Oh, yeah. To a success, and I I like >> I I know he's been very public about like the fact that he's like, \"Okay, well, like clearly I've made some mistakes here.\" Like I I think he has" }, { "i": 94, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "stated some like public regrets about like getting Kelp on board cuz in retrospect, duh. Uh but >> I think it's a new protocol by the way." }, { "i": 95, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> So So I Yes, I expect him to eventually launch a new protocol. Zero doubt. The like he's too valuable of a builder. And actually the this is another reason I just I love Ethereum is that it is the" }, { "i": 96, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "most radical capitalist experiment. He will go out he will I I I would imagine that Mark has the sort of backing. He doesn't need to raise as much money as as other founders. He's going to go out" }, { "i": 97, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "with his own killer team then and I hope they launch a fierce competitor to a I think it makes the whole ecosystem richer and I think honestly I think a will probably >> like maybe there's some uh you know" }, { "i": 98, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "liquidity that leaves them and goes over to some new protocol if this all plays out. But uh >> yeah I I'm not by the way I can I will hand on the Bible. I don't know if they're launching it for sure. I don't" }, { "i": 99, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "uh also know anything about it, but I'm I'm a big fan of like all the work Mark's done over the years. So, appreciate you, Mark." }, { "i": 100, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, he's been instrumental. He was like one of our first podcast guests. He was like our fourth ever podcast guest." }, { "i": 101, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Yeah. He's >> you know, he is again one of the best representations of someone who I he always believed in what he was building." }, { "i": 102, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Yeah. And like that to this day, like that's that's why, you know, not only is my my largest investment in ETH, but like I remain loyal to Ethereum because I think it's still >> not only a a pioneer in the space, but" }, { "i": 103, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "it is one of the best cults to be in." }, { "i": 104, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Bitcoin's a great cult. Ethereum's a great cult. Hyperl's a great new cult." }, { "i": 105, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Say whatever. I I'm a ETH who's willing to say I I have a lot of respect for uh um what has been built over the long term through Salana. I disagree at times with >> you know certain design choices they've" }, { "i": 106, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "made but I uh again I think the disagreements make our whole space richer and it's more enjoyable. It's you get to learn from each other. So >> what's your take on um the upcoming or" }, { "i": 107, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "the news of Tom Lee and Bitine launching a preferred equidend product a preferred shares offering 9 and a half% I believe is the rate." }, { "i": 108, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Obviously Ethereum unlike Bitcoin has that native staking ability to get 2% 3% depends kind of on the year on the time or on the issuance. Um, you know, we're trying to create an environment where" }, { "i": 109, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Tom Lee and Joseph Shalom and Joe Luben can kind of step in into like this like institutional sales arm, if you will, almost. Um, >> let's start, let's start with the preferred equity launch." }, { "i": 110, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Um, do you think that's, you know, meaningful given what we've seen with Stretch right now and Sailor? How do you differ the two? How do you think this plays out?" }, { "i": 111, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Yeah. So, okay, I if you dumb down stretch, yeah, stretch is uh Sailor's way of ultimately raising investor capital to buy more Bitcoin. And he's saying, \"I'm going to pay you guys 11.5%" }, { "i": 112, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "by the way. It's not guaranteed. I'm going to pay you that, but he doesn't have to, right?\" And so, uh, ultimately investors will they will sell their stretch at a discount if they lose" }, { "i": 113, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "confidence in in him paying the dividend. the game that he's been playing is that there is no native yield to Bitcoin. So, he has to ultimately buy low, sell high. Uh, and obviously like" }, { "i": 114, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "his track record is, you know, he's, >> you know, the ultimate diamond-handed Bitcoin bull. So, he doesn't sell, you know, he sold like 32 Bitcoin or something. Everybody lost their minds" }, { "i": 115, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "over it. So the main difference between stretch then and uh what Tom Lee and Bitmine Bitmine will offer is uh >> he doesn't have to sell ETH. He can fund the whole dividend just off of staking" }, { "i": 116, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "yield. And so this is this is again like you don't need I don't need uh stretch and micro strategy ultimately to lose for Tom Lee and Bitmine to to do well and be right here. Like I think it's" }, { "i": 117, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "it's brilliant and and like Tom Lee is, you know, he's doing what he's supposed to do right now. He's accumulating as much as he can. Yeah. Yeah. It's what you want to see. So So that's Anyways," }, { "i": 118, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "main difference for me is um >> it's still it's it's a it's a difficult balancing act and and I don't take for granted that things can go, you know, wrong in in either scenario here, but" }, { "i": 119, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Tom Lee has that native yield. So they're just they're printing money that they can use to pay it out >> and they're staking a ton of that Ether that they have like already like" }, { "i": 120, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "billions of dollars worth. I don't know the exact numbers but it's a significant portion of their holdings are staking." }, { "i": 121, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Yes." }, { "i": 122, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> And so as long as the preferred product doesn't you know get to a substantially large amount. Yeah. You can just pay that yield. Yeah. Just with the estaking rewards." }, { "i": 123, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Yeah. remember when when someone starts to talk about like it's a preferred equity offering with variable like they go through all these buzzwords and like most people glaze over. I'm like" }, { "i": 124, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> these guys are literally just >> they're borrowing money and they're saying I will pay you 11.5% with Stretch. I will pay you is it nine and a half with this new offering through" }, { "i": 125, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Bitine. All they're trying to do is buy low and and and accumulate that so that ultimately their balance sheet should grow over time and then they should ultimately see their their actual like" }, { "i": 126, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "market cap become like a multiple of that. We've seen uh Micro Strategy trade at you know pretty unbelievable premium." }, { "i": 127, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Yeah. Almost like two times." }, { "i": 128, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> It's just the opposite right now. Again, this is a bare market, so everyone's like, \"Oh, it turns out say I I've heard so many people say this recently. Sailor sunk the market.\"" }, { "i": 129, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Everyone's going to blame him. Of course, >> you got to be kidding me. We're going through the same thing we always go through. We look for someone to blame." }, { "i": 130, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "It's like everything >> everything uh doesn't matter, but it also does matter. Of course, he has an impact on the market, but like I'm convinced if if there was no narrative around Sailor, we" }, { "i": 131, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "would be finding something else to kind of like connect the dots back to. And um I agree." }, { "i": 132, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Yeah. So, I I actually really liked uh is it Yan Lieberman, if I'm saying his name correctly, from Deli? He had like a a really nice sort of breakdown about like, hey, if it turns out uh Sailor" }, { "i": 133, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "sold more Bitcoin, that extends their runway. cuz remember he needs this like big pile of cash to pay the dividend for borrowing all of that money. And if he sold a bunch and the market was tanking," }, { "i": 134, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "it's actually he his argument was it's a good thing because people are going to realize he now has 12 to 24 months of runway. But if if he didn't if he didn't sell anything and they still have this" }, { "i": 135, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "like sixmonth runway at current Bitcoin prices, again, this is all based on like the current price of Bitcoin, then just what if what if things get uglier and then what if investors start to lose" }, { "i": 136, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "confidence and stretch? Um, you know, so like I think the key takeaway on all of this is Bitcoin will be fine with or without Michael Sailor, but it has clearly benefited from his buying Bitcoin over" }, { "i": 137, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "the years. Immense amounts of uh buying pressure from from him, just like Tom Lee, if someone said, would would Ethereum have uh >> recovered last year and had like the sort of end of bull cycle it did? I" }, { "i": 138, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "don't know. I'd like to think it it probably was due for, you know, a bounce. It was pretty bad in April 2025, but did he have an impact? Of course he did. Is he having an impact now?" }, { "i": 139, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Absolutely. So, yeah." }, { "i": 140, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Um, so one of the things that Rob and I asked Joseph Shalom is about this kind of like ETH burn thesis. Is this thing still a part of the equation here? Um, you know, we're we're trying to, you" }, { "i": 141, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "know, get a lot of transaction activity on Ethereum, burn ETH, this kind of ultrasound money concept. Um, and Edward here is asking a similar question that I think is like very apparent in all of" }, { "i": 142, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "the L1 founder conversations that we've been having. Yeah. The business model is tr transaction fees on the blockchain generate fees no matter if it's like stellar lumens and it's like a tenth of" }, { "i": 143, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "a penny or Ethereum and it's like you know 50 cents or 10 cents whatever it is and those go to the token or buyback or a burn or something right. It's like a very basic model. Yeah. But at the same" }, { "i": 144, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "time, you have like interesting conflicting forces where one of them is a lot of these chains including Ethereum, including Salana in including Ner, including Stellar, they're all trying to decrease their transaction" }, { "i": 145, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "costs because block is kind of a commodity. Everyone realizes this." }, { "i": 146, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> They want a better experience, better, you know, higher TPS, more scale, right?" }, { "i": 147, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> And also in in Ethereum's case, they're thinking about lowering the issuance." }, { "i": 148, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Near cut their issuance down by 50%, Salana's trying to do it as well." }, { "i": 149, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "everyone's trying to cut their issuance down and so um you kind of have these weird forces where the business model of these chains is like we're going to scale the transaction fees and then" }, { "i": 150, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "we're going to burn the token or buy back the token and of course economies of scale here is how these things work out but the question here is and I think this is like is pretty apparent do you" }, { "i": 151, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "have any thoughts on decreasing ETH staking rewards so ETH can return to ultrasound money total ETH staking is approaching about 40% largely lg due to bit miner so the question here is like" }, { "i": 152, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "yeah >> you know Tom Lee's being an advocate for like we want to decrease the uh issuance, we want to, you know, or or perhaps I'm not right on this. You know, there's been a lot of talk about it. Uh" }, { "i": 153, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "what do you think about this? How like is decreasing the ETH issuance and staking? I >> I think I have a good simple answer on this. Uh so there's two camps that I know of. Uh one of the camps is there's" }, { "i": 154, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "a camp that I've heard say uh if we decrease the issuance we we are ultimately going to uh you know lower that inflation of ETH and again maybe we get back to this ultrasound money narrative. Um I" }, { "i": 155, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "personally don't think it's necessary but I understand some of this is coming supposedly some of this is coming from uh Wall Street. there's there's like some sort of influence there. And again," }, { "i": 156, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "I I it could be just [ __ ] and rumors, but okay, let's let's assume that that's true. So, there's a camp that says, \"Hey, can we just lower the inflation even more?\"" }, { "i": 157, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> There's another camp. This is probably the camp I'm in. I I'm like uh until more arguments are presented to me that like convince me otherwise, I believe that the ETH staking yield is like the" }, { "i": 158, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "you know the native T- billill rate of of Ethereum, right? And when you think about like what makes the world go round, our whole economy really like ultimately is so reliant on these T-" }, { "i": 159, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "billill rates like and so >> if someone said uh hey we're going to just cut it in half and this is going to make the American dollar that much stronger. You're like listen I can like" }, { "i": 160, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "rationalize and try to understand what you're saying there but like you're just you're just like glossing over this like like we'll just make the change. So, the thing I'm most sensitive about with this" }, { "i": 161, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "is that there there's been a lot of criticism over the years, and this might just be a crypto Twitter criticism." }, { "i": 162, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Maybe this doesn't exist outside of our little bubble, but there was a criticism that hey, uh, we need Ethereum to basically like stop making changes. The truth was was Ethereum was scaling the" }, { "i": 163, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "L1 and, you know, working to obviously enable a world where L2s can can work even better on top of it. And so, yeah, we we've got this we've got this all playing out. And I think that the best" }, { "i": 164, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "thing that ever happened was Ethereum hitting its 10year anniversary. I think it was like a wakeup call. Holy [ __ ] this thing's never gone down over 10 years. It's resilient." }, { "i": 165, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> By the way, what does that remind you of? All the arguments we make about Bitcoin being unchanging and predictable and just being simple to understand that this thing continuing to produce blocks" }, { "i": 166, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "is actually its greatest value. Ethereum being a much more like complex and nuanced machine that all that all of DeFi is built on top of. People sometimes lose sight of that and forget" }, { "i": 167, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "that hey the fact that it just keeps producing blocks and it has all this client uh diversity and the fact that everyone builds on it with the understanding that they will continue to" }, { "i": 168, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "be able to predictably build on it like this is its real value. So my fear going back to the uh changing the the staking issuance is I I just I don't want to give fodder to our most fierce critics." }, { "i": 169, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "But believe me, if someone can make the argument, if the community can come to an agreement that this is ultimately going to benefit Ethereum's ability to continue to host the most vibrant DeFi" }, { "i": 170, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "ecosystem, continue to be the most secure L1 >> and continue to ultimately have that priced into the token over the long term. If that if that will all play out, then sure, I I could get on board with" }, { "i": 171, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "it. But I'm I'm still I'm pretty I'm I'm in a in the camp of like can we just please talk more about this and debate more have a like I just I hope that I I hope that you know someone like a Tom" }, { "i": 172, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Lee >> he could be a great person to translate this and like let us know like okay well like what do the biggest capital allocators in the world who have exposure to ETH what do they think about" }, { "i": 173, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "this because we need to know now just those of us who are like the long-term weirdos who are in the So yeah." }, { "i": 174, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, um, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, people want capital gains and they want the income, right?" }, { "i": 175, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "It's the same thing with with with the >> I would hate to use that. I'm sorry. I would hate to lose that uh uh that yield. I think that 2% roughly a little over 2%. I think that it underpins the" }, { "i": 176, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "whole economy. And I think like yeah, when I think about my own DeFi portfolio, I mean, just reminder, I was not in the ICO. Yeah, >> I started looking at ETH when it was around 300 bucks, but I had no money to" }, { "i": 177, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "buy much more than a few ETH. And then I lived through that bare market trying to find ways to like scrape together whatever money I could to buy. But like I I was by the time I had uh really like" }, { "i": 178, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "I would say like >> some savings. I went from like $50,000 of credit card debt at one point to being able to like we we bought our home. We we saved money and we bought a home. And that's when I was like, \"Okay," }, { "i": 179, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "now I can really start to like focus on allocating more here and finding ways to store wealth over time and that.\" So I get it. I know. Like I I I understand when someone says, \"I feel like I was" }, { "i": 180, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "late to ETH.\" I'm like, >> \"Join the club. I was too, you know, like it's it's fine.\" Like it's like I still believe like the uh the market cap of Ethereum right now should be in the" }, { "i": 181, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "trillions based on just all the economic activity that it hosts and the fact that if you destroyed the Ethereum network tomorrow you take down what something like conservatively 60% of all DeFi" }, { "i": 182, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "activity probably more though because of all of the dependencies on L1 you know everyone ultimately L1 almost Ethereum L1 almost acts as a hub between all these chains whether Salana" }, { "i": 183, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "likes it or not. Folks love to go in between these chains and uh somebody did a map of all of that and like it's it's crazy to see like the volume that's flowing back to you know the L1 even if" }, { "i": 184, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "you're a hyperlquid bull >> you're hugely reliant on >> Ethereum or Ethereum $8. Um just kind of closing out here DeFi dad great to great to have you just >> give us your give us your ETH ETH bull" }, { "i": 185, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "predictions here. That's your bull bare case for not even this year. It's too short to give us like I think we're probably going to you know we're in the this closing period of the bare market" }, { "i": 186, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "here." }, { "i": 187, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> I think it's it's pretty obvious uh if you've been through you know what two of these now you kind of see these you're like okay like >> this is we're getting to the end here." }, { "i": 188, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> So you know not this year but next year what what what do you think is possible for ETH? Okay. So, as long as you are avoiding leverage and you're spot buying like what I do over time and as long as" }, { "i": 189, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "you have like a a multi-year time horizon, I mean there's no doubt uh this bare market could be over very soon. I'm not like I I don't care about make, you know, making that public call and" }, { "i": 190, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "saying, \"Hey, we just bottomed.\" But guys, that was the lowest RSI in the in history. I think it was the daily RSI for ETH. It could be. Uh, and I'm like, \"Wow, that is remarkable.\" If you go" }, { "i": 191, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "back and you look at the daily RSI and you bought, every time it went to basically like a local low over the course of a few years, holy cow, you'd be doing really well. So, for me, it's a" }, { "i": 192, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "great time to be buying ETH. I think that uh the best thing that I'm seeing right now is I feel like there's a return to quality. It seems like uh whatever went on with the memecoin mania" }, { "i": 193, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "like it really like it really like washed out a lot of folks. And I think maybe everyone's finally learning their lesson. I think also just really important to you know whether it's me or" }, { "i": 194, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Arthur Hayes telling you that the price is going to go 20x for near and then he's selling it the next day. um you you have to you know own your own decisions and that's part of the reason like I've" }, { "i": 195, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "missed so many great opportunities like I've like >> Nomadic has hilarious stories to tell about me saying if hype just goes to that price I'm going to really ape it this time you know it went down to it" }, { "i": 196, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "was down at $10 in April 2025 or like May and I was already like invested in in way in the hyperlquid ecosystem. Uh, and I just I just kept thinking, okay, what else do I need this capital for?" }, { "i": 197, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "What if 2025 is the start of the bare market? And so for me, it wasn't the right time." }, { "i": 198, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Does that mean that I need to top blast it right now? No. And so I think again like make sure I I I am from the school of thought that I always feel like tomorrow's another day. I don't have to" }, { "i": 199, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "buy today. I'm happy to buy something after it proves that it's back in an uptrend." }, { "i": 200, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> This um so I will say I I think that again ETH >> ETH has been uh playing a game of the fundamentals were catching up with the crazy parabolic moves it made. I mean it is wild that uh Ether went up to almost" }, { "i": 201, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "$5,000 in 2021. I don't believe the price deserved to be there in retrospect, but I'm not going to like chant for the price to have gone down then." }, { "i": 202, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> I think it's been so healthy for the fundamentals to catch up. And this for me, this has been the most excited I've been in years to be able to actually buy ETH again. Um, and that goes by the by" }, { "i": 203, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "the way that goes for uh, you know, another like OG, which is Bitcoin. I'm as excited as ever to be able to buy it, but for totally different reasons. And so the founders that we are meeting with" }, { "i": 204, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "uh whether it's through like an interview like this or whether it's like to invest you know and it could be like my own like it's the audience that maybe I attract or the founders that we attract" }, { "i": 205, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "but >> you know Ethereum is is the one thing that's predictable for them in an unpredictable world of building startups. Everything else is a moving part that could absolutely blow up at a" }, { "i": 206, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "moment's notice. But when they build on Ethereum, that at least is the thing that they know that isn't going to, you know, screw them in the end. Yeah. So, anyways, uh I but I I think uh my my" }, { "i": 207, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "next like major price target like just going up is >> everybody wants to see that $10,000 mark. I think once we hit there, the uh uh we're going to see a lot of folks talking about the price action of" }, { "i": 208, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Bitcoin and what it did because you can't unsee what it did, right? So, they're going to start to say, \"Well, where can it go next?\" And um you know, I love Tom Lee's bull thesis. We did" }, { "i": 209, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> Yeah. He's he Yeah. At at the end of the day, I think >> there's uh what is there there's like 800 trillion in assets. If we capture a small fraction of that, I think we're talking, you know, what, tens of" }, { "i": 210, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "trillions. And at that point, >> ETH would be $1.2 trillion market cap." }, { "i": 211, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> There you go. Yeah. So, so anyways, um I would love to see uh ETH violently repric though here. I think that uh again that RSI was just the most bullish like thing to see. Depressing depressing" }, { "i": 212, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "to see it, but uh you know, harvest your tax losses if you can. Like that's one of the silver linings. and then just sit tight and yeah it's we we've got if there was ever a fundamental failing of" }, { "i": 213, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "the of the network itself I would have already like abandoned this thesis but >> the fact it continues to produce blocks like it does it it's it's the most valuable thing it can do and" }, { "i": 214, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> just a reminder we don't need for everyone that's like building other ecosystems you don't need Ethereum to ultimately lose in order for for you to win. You know, like I I think there's a" }, { "i": 215, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "uh there's been a mistake in the past few years where new L1s were so fixated on eating into its market share when I'm like there's an enormous like world for us to grow into. We're still like I" }, { "i": 216, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "think we're 2 and a half trillion or something >> today." }, { "i": 217, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> We we can get to be so much bigger. I mean I I think it's a I think it is again it's going to look silly looking back and realizing holy cow like I was in this space and it was a few trillion." }, { "i": 218, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Yeah, exactly." }, { "i": 219, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> And now it's 100red trillion. What What was I thinking? So, yeah." }, { "i": 220, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> Defa Dad, thank you for joining us for the ETH bull. I think Robbie needed it." }, { "i": 221, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "We all needed it. I mean, uh that that that that sell off that RSI was insane." }, { "i": 222, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Just the pullback, but but the fundamentals keep growing. Um we're excited about it. I mean, we're called the roll up. The show's name is kind of gone from like ETH LT." }, { "i": 223, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": ">> You guys have been at the forefront of that. I appreciate it. You're you're very technical. So, >> yeah, dude. Thanks for having me." }, { "i": 224, "speaker": "Speaker 2", "text": "Appreciate is fun." } ]