The Decentralized Era is just beginning. Come join us on the Socials:
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The Decentralized Era is just beginning. Come join us on the Socials:
X | @decentralpod | @chicag0x | @disc0x
YouTube: @decentralizeddawn
Web: https://decentralpod.com/
Welcome to Decentralized On, where lifelong friends Chicago and Disco navigate the ever-evolving crypto landscape With genuine curiosity and a commitment to nuance. As our North Star, we offer clear-eyed exploration. Our goal To empower listeners with the tools and insights needed to flourish in this decentralized age.
Speaker 2:Here we go. What a week we have had. I feel like we only had one week off of kind of mediocre news and now we're back to just every time we're about to start the show. Be like, what did Elon say to who? So we have fun stuff to talk about today. Hey everybody, I'm Chicago and I'm on the left and we're both lefties, so I'm happy, and on my right is Disco.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody. It's a little hello fuss. We're excited to be here. I'm really excited with the little time off, really once you make you want to get back into things and, as Chicago said, we're never at a want for things to cover. So I'm excited to jump in and have a fun show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and we always do the news first, but before the news we just focus on, we start with a positive and we end with a positive. And my positive this week is actually on persistence. And you know, when you're doing stuff in life we can get in our rhythms, we can get in our routines and kind of get stuck in those ruts and we think about doing something or think about trying something. And you know, doing a podcast is always something I've wanted to do. I know Disco feels the same.
Speaker 2:I used to have a radio show in college so I did a lot of comedy in my 20s. Yes, I was funnier when I was younger, I promise. So this is exciting. So you know we're doing it. And they always say in the bear, build in the bear. And you know it's a little cliche now but it's true, like, do what you love, try new stuff and just go for it. And along those lines my new thing is obviously this podcast and Disco. I thank you for that. But also I am on day 498 of Duolingo, learning Spanish, and my Spanish has gotten good. I took three years in high school and maybe two or three semesters in college and you know, until you go there and you know BNK2.
Speaker 2:Wow, that was done, dondeos. Okay, yeah, they're done, dondeos. So I'm at 498 days. Obviously I'm going to get to 500 on Duolingo, so I get the little golden dude who flutters around for a second and I get my little drip of awesome. But then I think I'm going to uninstall this and I'm going to focus on. You can't really see what this is, but it's a meditation timer. I'm going to go for, if I can do 500 days, learn in Spanish and I'll get back to it. I'm just burned out and after 500 days I'm going to go and try and do you know 365. Well, next year, 366 days. Next year's a leap year, but I'm going to try and get to 500 days of meditating and kind of journal and see how I feel there. I always feel better when I meditate. I've done it throughout my life, but more in patches in and out, but whatever I do and I'm just more present for the family and the kids and calm, and it's just generally feels good. Mr Anxious can let you chill out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mr Scary takes a bit more ofa backseat when that happens and you'll have less Sunday scaries and things from that perspective.
Speaker 1:But I think it's a great thing and I've been trying to work it into my life more consistently because I do find a definite value add just in terms of being able to shut down some of the internal chatter and I don't think it's necessarily that I have a lot more chatter than other people, but I think that we're just getting so many inputs and things are scheduled in such a way you're just getting constant ding, ding, ding, ding ding and it's really probably more important than ever to just take 10, 20 minutes and just tune it off, become more of an observer of your thoughts and then you're able to kind of look at it there and, as you said earlier, it's like I always think that and it's a stupid cliche, I'm sure there's a bunch of little desk plaques you can have, but I do think, I know, but I do think that life begins kind of at the comfort zone.
Speaker 1:It's like once you start, you know, overcoming things that used to just be things that you wouldn't address, it becomes almost addictive in that and I think that that's crucial if you really want to be a lifelong learner and develop and, you know, kind of embrace all the new things that are happening. And I think that's part of what we're trying to do with this show as well is, you know, let's not just stick to a certain format or this or that. Let's try to, you know, improve each week and kind of find our flow and do things we haven't done before.
Speaker 2:So I uh go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, no, I was just going to say I throw the, endorse the uh, I thoroughly endorse the movement away from the Duolingo and just do something different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what Disco said? Just we're going to weave together different stories. I think you know there's so many people who tell stories like then this happened, then this happened. I think where we have the most enjoyment is just, you know, going off the script and just all these things are so connected and kind of a bigger fabric that's being woven and obviously in our whole decentralized crypto uh, ai wouldn't you name it? Industry, but also kind of in greater humanity, and those are the, the patterns that we're kind of looking to identify.
Speaker 2:And I will say one last thing a meditation like just after you meditate and if you do it for a while, you realize how much tension you're holding in certain parts of your body. We desk people are always, you know, we're always doing our shoulders, but I think so many people have stomach issues and digestion issues and they store so much stress in their kind of belly area and they're breathing uh, you know where you're breathing stuff, and if you just breathe like rhythmically and slowly from your lower belly, it it makes all the difference in the world.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and not to go too far off off script on that. But I know that I'm the sort of person that feels and I operate off of feelings and I often feel through my kind of gut, you know. Like that's how I process, if you know whatever's going on, so if I'm stressed, it resonates there. So it's good to just trying to be, you know, kind of mindful of that and understand. It helps you to, you know, kind of maximize your focus and I'm all for it. I think it's a good development for sure.
Speaker 2:Yep, I totally agree. All right, so you know we need some good sound effects. I think we'll start getting more of those. But to transition to things, but we're getting to the news section now. Wow is there? There's so much going on. It's insane.
Speaker 2:Let's start with the uh so blur season two. I think it was supposed to end like four months ago. It finally just ended. And I mean, what a Maki big brother. I think he, like, spent eight million losing ETH to get two million in rewards. And you know, I don't know if I'm getting those numbers exact, but you know that that was something we could all probably predict. If you don't know exactly how the algorithm's working.
Speaker 2:And you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, right, and you know, obviously Maki's a smart guy, a good trader. But like we're playing in imaginary blur tokens and now we're playing in imaginary blast tokens and you know they're getting a lot of flak for this, going to this layer two, blast that, you know, is paradigms on board again and and they're getting a ton of flak and I think it's kind of well deserved. You know, I I'm in America, so I can't, technically, technically, cash in my blur tokens, right and. But like for a friend let's say I hypothetically did there was a screen on Blur's website that's like hey, welcome to blast, like stake them here. And it showed it kind of was misleading, because, let's say, you got a thousand blur tokens. It was like if you start staking right now, all you have to do is hit this button. Here's your points. And it actually showed your points like a thousand twelve hundred, like you're like it.
Speaker 1:You could feel like they were creating they were creating almost right there with their projections.
Speaker 2:I think what Blur has done better than anybody and it's not even as much talked about. Yeah, they had a very simple trading platform and open sea. Everyone was sick of them and and you know, obviously they moved way too slow because they just they were the first mover and never really adapted. But what Blur did really well, especially in these airdrop seasons, is their branding, the, the videos they had and the stranger things 80s vibe that they did with it is, I mean, honestly, it's enjoyable to go through just to hear that retro music and the old school video game, kind of pixelated omega man or or battlefield, most of you people haven't even heard of the game, but we're getting into like literally a 3d game.
Speaker 2:That's just lines like think, almost like polygons, because obviously it was. It was so hard just to just to get that going with with the little ram and processing that we had back then, but they did a great job in that I. You know if I was advising my friend. I thank you for the tokens blur to eith and eith waiting to stake, right.
Speaker 1:So I guess for me which is, which is you sticking to a thesis and having some discipline?
Speaker 2:so I like that, yeah and I guess the longer I'm in this space, the more the less stressful it gets, because the more you're like I'm betting on the whole ecosystem. So, bitcoin, obviously, ethereum, ethereum staking like I don't know which meme coin is going to pop. Like you know, munger just died two days ago and you know, rest in peace, charlie munger. But you know you, you certainly didn't make a lot of fans and crypto by calling it what do you call it? Rat poison, squared like he had some pretty yeah, he had some pretty unique statements there.
Speaker 2:So, munger coin they said it was up 31 000, but I just checked e-crypt this morning and now it says only for up 409 percent, which is still pretty good for a day, right. So you know, munger coin and the meme coins is a thing, but again I'd rather take the long play and you know, one of my validators just made another proposal. I think I'm up to six proposal and three or four months now and I think it was like, you know, a tenth of an eth. I'm like, thank you, I will take that, I'll scoop that up like the, you know, little hungry, hungry hippo. Pull that, pull that little eth back and that little marble back into my zone and, and you know, just move on.
Speaker 1:So whether I'm active on vacation, or whether you know and not tuning in at all, or whether I'm standing at my computer like I could check it or not check it, it just keeps, you know, betting on the ecosystem it's kind of it makes me think you know you have all these, you know you're getting it's airdrop, and then there's, you know, airdrop hunting, you know, and all these people that are so into that and everything, and it makes me go back just and it feels like going way back. But just going back a couple weeks, slash months, and it's like everything is so speculative now based around these. You know, oh, you're gonna get dropped this or that. And, to be honest, like I remember when friend tech was coming, coming up and going and it's like, oh, you got to get in and you know, get your tokens in here, get that going. Now it's like I don't hear much about it, you know.
Speaker 1:So, just along the pathway, there seems to be all this oh you got to get it on this, and then you're in there I don't even know what to do right, well, friend tech.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that one was interesting. I bought five of my coin because we had we hadn't launched the podcast yet and I bought five of yours. And I'm like you know, as one of my other business partners always says, he's like I'm, I'll bet on us. You know, and that's what we always tell our clients, like I'll, we'll bet on us all day long. So if you want to, you know, if you want to have us cut the development costs, and you know we'll take a minority stake in your company, if we believe in it, obviously we'll bet on us, like, yeah, we're in because we're gonna make you an awesome system. So you know, I don't know if there's much more to talk about that, except for that 623 million in blast is now locked. It's it's just, I say locked. Like a Canadian, I'm gonna get Canadian citizenship soon, by the way, guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just. You know, in a week it's gone to 600 million, which is insane. I think Coinbase's base is not even close to that in perspective. Solana's at what? 500 million, 600, yeah, so both Solana. Solana's over a billion. Now it's gone up a lot in the last week, but it puts it into perspective how quickly people locked in here. And the craziest part about this is right now the system's not even ready. It won't even be ready for this season. Three blast on the L2 until next spring, if they even make that deadline.
Speaker 2:All this 600 million is in a multi-sig wallet with three to five signers. You don't know who they are. I think Pac-Man is Doxed, but I don't know if we know who the other five holders are. So it's just amazing that you know. I guess if you're making money on, you know coins that are out there, like Blur, and you did a lot of trading like if you go double down and you look at that kind of FOMO thing they had with like look at your points that you're making right now and you know when I pulled out they're like no points. It was like frowny face, something you know. It's like every drip and social signal telling me, like what you're doing is wrong, you know, and oh, oh, you're staking, oh, and you're giving this multi-sig the money. Oh, that's good like.
Speaker 1:Look at your, look at your points, ramp up so yeah, yeah, and like the button to stake is like enormous. It's like click here, one click. Okay, you're in the system. Goodbye, yeah, you get like a where to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get an animated trophy handed to you and stuff like that. So, yeah, I just this time around and and what is this? My third, hopefully the start of my third or fourth bull, like I'm just gonna. I'd rather take more guaranteed returns. You know, nothing is a hundred percent safe from attack, even the Ethereum system I mean Bitcoin is obviously by far the most hard. But even Ethereum itself is changing. But you know, just Ethereum is a whole. Betting on that was staking to me is like it's. It's certainly a calculated risk, but one worth taking and I think it pays. It still pays good dividends, from three to six, seven percent, depending on how lucky you get with your proposal.
Speaker 1:So well, just to just to talk about that for a second. So you've mentioned multiple times we keep going to the fact that there's a deflationary asset right which is so out of step with what's happening just in the investment opportunity worldwide and everything like that. So that's super unique, but it's weird because, like these I don't know if it's FOMO influencers, I don't know the whole system behind it, but people really do understand it. You know how you kind of get this. You know these kind of like feels. I'm like, oh, I got to do this, I got to do that.
Speaker 1:But let's take a step and just look at how these things are positioned, because I was looking through like crypto, twitter and Instagram and you're sitting there and they're doing these charts or these little things. You know like, oh, for the next run, here's my. You know thousand to five thousand X, you know potential coins or whatever, and here's my five to ten X and the five to ten X. Or you know like the bitcoins and ethereums and stuff like that, and that's almost shamed, whereas if you looked at any like investment manager, if they promised 10%, they're like, wow, that's a great return and that's what you need to do. So people are sitting there frowning on a 5x or a 10x return on something. So it's just so skewed that I have to yeah, that's where greed takes over.
Speaker 1:I think, right, yeah, Because, ok, well, I want to make my $100 bucks turn into a $500 million. It's like, well, yeah, the odds of that coming through are obviously not as high as you know what, though?
Speaker 2:Interestingly, in every market there are folks who are really smart traders and they probably can manage FOMO, and they or they just get downright lucky getting the right NFT, getting the right coin, the right meme coin at the right time. Generally, the people who are making money in the meme coins are probably the people who got them early and distributed $100 million to each of them. So when it blips up from 0.000400432 to 0.000638, they make like 67% on a day. So I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's a different approach and you got to really be dialed in and play in that game and being actively monitoring it. So it's all good for everybody. For me, I don't think I can be that active in monitoring kind of movements and things from that perspective.
Speaker 2:Yep. So, moving on, Bankless Dow has gotten just hammered and I empathize with these guys, Like a lot of us, got a lot of great information over the years from their knowledge, particularly in the e-space, and I think they are two of the smarter folks in the, certainly in the e-space, and they have earned their stripes by really learning and research. If they didn't understand something, they'd learn it and very articulating, articulately kind of crafting that message and sharing their thoughts and they're very candid and, I think, real and honest thoughts over the years with their community and I think that's why Bankless grew so much. But they're getting hammered more and more on different things and I think when you're the biggest, people are going to go after you and I do think, especially on crypto Twitter, a lot of it is jealousy, but there was a lot of voices, some OGs too. There are some warranted criticism and I think they would accept some of that too and their tune from last week Thanksgiving week over the weekend, to this week, week after Thanksgiving, has certainly changed and they're getting less defensive and more like all right, let's look at this for real, Because some of the biggest names in crypto and some people we respect have certainly kind of said like whoa, there is a difference.
Speaker 2:So the big kerfuffle this week was that Bankless LLC or Bankless HQ, I think they call it owned by David and RSA, is being mixed with this Bankless Dow.
Speaker 2:They did start and I believe that was a $250,000 or $250 million coins whatever it was, it was a decent percentage of coins and they started it. And they started it because Bankless is a movement across the world and I think and that's back when Dow's were just starting, but I have a little insider track on this I bought Bankless tokens that I think I spent like $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 on those things and you had to buy them to get in to the club. And I wrote for this little element of Bankless Dow called the rug and there's some great people in the rug and we had some really funny articles and it was fun to write for and we'd call it chopping peanuts, making the jokes and helping each other kind of a writer's room. So it was a fun thing to be. I did a lot of comedy in my 20s so it was a nice to combine my love for crypto and trying to learn about Dow's with comedy. But they got dinged because Bankless Dow was like a $1.7 million or 1.9 million proposal to was a polygon or arbitrum.
Speaker 1:I think it's arbitrum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to get tokens, and a lot of people were like, if you didn't have Bankless HQ, like this is egregious, You've got not a huge following, and so what came into question was the Bankless brand with the Bankless HQ. I got to be specific here and that's why people get so confused, Because their first thing RSA and David was like how could you confuse that too? It's like, dude, they're both the same brand, the same logo. Of course people are going to confuse them and you started it. You're not going to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like having different domains. It's like, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know it was theio or thehq or whatever it may be. And for people that aren't in that day to day, how are you supposed to keep all this straight? And I think that I completely agree with you that it's been an incredible on-ramp for a lot of people and I think that was really the goal when you look at their Genesis story and their mission and what they were looking to accomplish. So I think that was totally. They've done a great job of that.
Speaker 1:And then I think that they're just having a really hard time straddling this. Are we an investment group now or are we an entertainment group? Because then you'll have the disclaimer side of it, like, hey, this is the shows or entertainment, but we're investors doing the show. So if we get alpha from the shows or the relationships that we get as a result of the show, who's to say that we shouldn't be able to capitalize that, on that, by making investments and supporting projects that we hear about that we think are great? So it's kind of a.
Speaker 1:It's very nuanced to really look at which side of it is right or wrong. So who's to begrudge these guys for wanting to get staked in these different programs that they think will ultimately benefit the overall mission and the overall movement of crypto and decentralization and going bankless. But by the same token, you can't assume that everyone else is understanding what's in your mind or in your little smaller group strategy between whoever's running the show there and they need. I think they've tried to be pretty good with disclosures relative to a lot of organizations. You can kind of see what they. But even if you go to that, it's a little confusing. It's like, oh, but this is here and this is tied to there, so there's a little gray in that and I could see how people could get a little confused and frustrated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, and I think people are missing the main point because I've been listening to bankless for years. I like the guys, like I said, I think they're really knowledgeable. You know, I wrote for the bankless now, so obviously I knew the difference between the two. But I think I think a lot of people who have been listening to or to them for a while are upset. But I don't think it's been fully articulated yet. And you kind of touched on it. You know. You said, like they started this venture fund of 35 million in earlier this year I think it was March of 23, but they've been investing in companies, you know, for a couple of years.
Speaker 2:And think about it. Think of the deal flow you would get when you're the most influential podcast on Ethereum, like you pretty much could get in on any deal you want. And I think the problem becomes is as much as I trust what they're saying and their information. A lot of times they'll do the disclosure either at the end or maybe after an article, like hey, by the way, we're back. You know they're a bankless sponsor. By the way, I'm a consultant here. I think when you listen to something and then it said later it's not like your brain's like, oh, remove that from the file cabinet, from this one to more. Like, oh, this one's kind of biased, so unless you go through you know the individual disclosures. Like look at this, I mean, ryan Sean Adams has 70, 70 different angel things he's investing in. Like think about DeFi and NFTs he's not a big NFT guy, but just think about all the different things in the space. There's only so many categories. Like think about how much overlap these companies have within the Ethereum and greater crypto space. Like you're pretty, you know, got doing analytics. You got all like pretty much all the L2s are involved with you know. So like, when they give information, you have to be like you literally have to have this sheet open, you know. And full disclosure.
Speaker 2:I've been listening to bankless less and less as time goes on and who knows, maybe part of it. You know I was in crypto way before them but you know my knowledge of ETH was not nearly as good as theirs. I was more of a Bitcoin guy and they helped me get more up to speed and ETH and really fine-tuned some of my perceptions and attitudes about this and for that I thank them. But I think where they're going now is. I don't, even though I believe they believe everything they're saying is like non-biased and spot on. You can't be an angel investor of 70 companies like RSA, advise another six. And then you know your sponsor disclosures. You've got 10 or 11 major sponsors paying, you know, probably well over a hundred grand a month for these Like. So when you're talking about you know, I know, I know we were saying early, I think they LIDA was a big sponsor early and I believe now Rocket Pool is more, is bigger, so I think they skew more conversation. I don't see them in Q4. Maybe Rocket Pool is not a sponsor anymore, but I think it wasn't Q3, but they. It will skew your conversation.
Speaker 2:And the only analogy I'll give here is back. I used to work for an entertainment company and in advertising. There was a year where Walmart was a big sponsor on some of the networks that I worked on and they pulled a lot of money from us because we weren't news networks, because they were moving all their money to local news. Like buying, and for people who don't know, buying nationally is like clicking the easy button and buying local markets is literally going market to market. You know you get these spot buyers that can aggregate them, but you have to create contracts for each market and run schedule. It's if you have Nash. If you're a national company, you run nationally Like it doesn't even make sense. And unless you're you know, if you're in more than eight markets locally, it actually is cheaper to run nationally. So they went locally and you scratch your head, why would they do that? The reason Walmart ran locally is because if you run in the local news, who's less likely to run stories about you? Man, maybe the local news.
Speaker 2:So my only point is, when you have sponsors, you build relationships, you become friends with these people, and rightfully so. These, I mean, we're all in industry that we love. But when you form these friendships and you have these sponsors, you know, like MetaMask, they're working on some new programming language. Like to me, it's pretty non-news, but it made the cut in their podcast. Now, did it deserve to make it or not? Was it? Was it biased or was it not? I think it was, but they might be like no, that's what MetaMask is, the biggest, you know the software wallet out there.
Speaker 2:Of course it should be mentioned, but to me, just the fact that I have that question it takes away my trust in what I'm hearing, even if that trust doesn't deserve to be taken away from them. So I guess that my net net is. I think they're some of the smartest guys in the room in the Ethereum and the whole crypto ecosystem and they deserve every bit of success that they've had. But with the amount of sponsors and the amount of venture capital and the amount of looks they'd have like, are they getting some of these sponsorships because they have the show, of course? Are they getting like free equity for having this show, maybe for a mention here or there?
Speaker 2:I think they say no, but I don't know. That's that's a hard one to trust and that line would very easily go from a fine line to a gray one. So I'm going to still listen to them, but now I cherry pick. You know I don't listen to the roll up as much anymore because I just don't trust that I'm getting unbiased news. And part of the reason we started this podcast because I wanted. I wanted to do the research for myself and kind of DIY. So you know, love you backless. But now I was kind of a super fan and everything you had I listened to. And now, like, I'll cherry pick here and there, but not going to listen as much for those reasons.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's. There's so much to look at me could be a show in and of itself, right, but even looking at the disclosure of RSA, like what's the delineation between being an advisor versus being an angel and being in an angel being an angel? That? To me that implies that you're investing early stage as an angel, right. But is the? Is there agreements where you also get set amount of equity for that and that's you can put that question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, because then you have a rooting interest, right. So it even on. You know different, you know CNBCs and stuff like that. They have to try to put the disclosure and it's pretty clear in terms of they own this and their fund or this or that or whatever it is. But this is a step in the right direction, but I don't think it fully paints the picture and really, you know, hits all the elements of what this stuff can mean.
Speaker 1:And to your other point that you made you made a lot of good ones, but one of them that stuck out to me was what you can't unhear something. And if you hear something from a trusted source and they're saying you know, and then at the end it's like, oh, and by the way, this is a disclosure, you know it's, it's, it's way out, it's way out of there. And you know from looking at, you know statistics of listening and stuff like that and analysis, it's not necessarily close to even 50 or whatever percent that people are going to listen all the way through to catch that disclosure. So people hear what they want to hear when they hear it and you can't really unhear what you hear.
Speaker 2:That's a good point and I just want to add one thing on top of that. Think of so you know, we're looking at at 70 Angel for RSA, david's got like 30 or 35 or whatever, and then all their advisory and all their sponsors, think about all the competition that they don't sponsors. And then you have to think about, like the negative space, the, the no mention, you know.
Speaker 2:So it's again, I think the way they went with. You know, at some point they have to pick, like, are we a media company or are we an investment company? And I actually I respect the choice they made to go for the investing side because if you understand the business so well, there's no better way to have influence and make money than actually being an early investor in some of the ones that you can pick. But you know, the problem is you can't have your cake and eat it too. By going down that road, you're now going to be put in the camp of. You know, I love a 16 Z. I think they've done. I mean they're. They're by far the best investment company and fund in the world for startups. I mean, I think it's pretty undisputed.
Speaker 2:But if they have a podcast, I'm obviously coming in like, hey, I'm going to learn something, but I'm going to take the great assault, depending on what it's about and to see if they're a sponsor. And you know, I think now bankless just falls in the same thing. And my choice and everybody has a choice instead of yelling at them, just listen to them less or cherry pick what you listen to, because speed, you know they get paid on listeners and eyeballs. Stop listening or just cherry pick the shows you want and problem solved, like you. Don't yell at them. I think they're honest people who've made this space a better place by far. But just vote. Vote with your ears in your headspace.
Speaker 1:I think just to kind of say one more thing that sticks out to me just in listening to some of their recent shows and I've seen them kind of trying to retool some of their structure and things like that.
Speaker 1:So, but I listened to something that they did earlier this week in response to, I would call it, I guess, the FUD from the Thanksgiving weekend, and I feel like they're going through a bit of a existential crisis themselves right now and it's like, hey, why are you guys picking on us? That really ruined our weekend. And kind of in that side of it, it's like, well, because you're probably making you know you have naming rights to stadiums Like that comes with the territory of having that next step, and I almost wonder what the shelf life of churning out of the you know, churning out these shows, is really going to be. And maybe, you know, maybe maybe there's a future where they're. They step back a little bit and focus more on some of the, on the other elements of it. So it'll be, it'll be fascinating to see how it plays out and we're certainly not here to to stir up any negativity on it no, no no.
Speaker 1:You know there's a lot, there's a lot of sides to this issue, so it was interesting and it certainly captivated the, the Cryptoverse, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and you know, to finish this segment, they they deserve a huge salute because they they definitely onboarded and helped more and more people understand Ethereum. You know, our UI is not all built out and Ethereum is not even remotely with the normies yet and the mainstream, but I think we can all feel Bitcoin, ethereum and someone maybe argue Solana, are going there. Those guys help bring a lot of people on, so for that, you know, I thank you and, and you know I still listen I'm just going to be more selective how I listen. So you know this is everything we talk about here. All these threads keep weaving in and out, so we'll we'll keep an eye on this one, but you know it's, it's they've made a huge positive impact and, and I think they deserve that to be the last thought that people have. I just think there's a conflict of interest now between where they're headed with ventures and what they report in the news. That's fair, yeah, so cool. Where are we going?
Speaker 1:next, we're working through the news. Oh, really quick, this is this is not the same, but it's kind of the same in a weird way. So we have a massive, powerful entrepreneur, aka, you know, just a creator in the terms of Elon Musk, and I'm not just talking about creating, creating news stories, but, you know, if you really do kind of zoom out and look at the accomplishments, it's pretty remarkable. It was also pretty remarkable, you know, he's going through this situation where you know he's getting branded as anti-Semitic for, you know, supporting a certain comment, and I don't really understand all the X's and O's of that. So, but I will say that yesterday he was at this New York, this business event in New York, where they had, you know, like Jamie Diamonds and all these people talking or whatever, and basically the big message that he gave. They directly asked him you know, what do you want to say to the advertisers that have, you know, gone on strike, so to speak, to not work with your, with, you know, not advertise on your platform? And he gave a big go F yourself and it is just, I don't know man, it's just, it's.
Speaker 1:It's kind of exciting, just you know, just watching that and to see someone just you know, and then basically also kind of went directly after you know, the CEO of Disney, you know, or he was like hey Bob, if you're in the audience, that's how I feel, you know, and it's like so he just doesn't seem to have that, that fear to control. You know what he says and you know, maybe he, maybe he's done enough, that he, that he's at that point. So I'm not looking at the morality of it or anything, just the the bombastic nature of being in front of a group like that and just throwing out go F yourselves to, you know, the biggest companies and power players in the world. So it was just something kind of interesting to watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard not to really admire Elon and maybe working directly for him would be tough, and I think his expectations of himself are super high, so I'm sure they're extremely high around you. But it's hard. You know I don't love to be like, oh, billionaires and and like I don't, I don't give two craps how rich someone is, but like his attitude towards you know the old guard of you know entertainment and media and you know these guys have these big platforms and they don't. They've always been able to kind of control the narrative and I think through COVID we've learned how much of the narrative they've been able to control. You know we could argue Elon probably overpaid for X by a couple of factors orders of magnitude and price, and you know now it's got to make it profitable. But just such respect for him for being like I'm going to do what I'm going to do, like the guy is a genius. I mean, tesla was was 10 years ahead of its time. Everyone's playing catch up now. Spacex reinvented going to space.
Speaker 2:His favorite books is one of my favorite books Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is probably the most humorous. If you want a good like easy, almost big Lebowski-esque philosophy on life. Like it's a great way to do it through humor. So I just just the fact that he's just saying, like you guys are idiots, like like you're, you're trying to control everything and just like, see, I'll figure it out.
Speaker 2:You know whether it's through subscriptions. You know Twitter and X by no means is perfect right now, but you know we're all there and you know sometimes when we get angry, when stuff of ours gets ignored or it's so negative on there and you just feel dirty after you scroll through, especially with how nasty crypto Twitter is and Bankless saw that firsthand you just want to uninstall it. But at the same time, like he's making improvements to it and and Twitter is where the crypto and decentralized where it lives. Now I would argue Farkaster is making a very good concentrated run for that, but you know it's early. So, elon, from me that's off to you, man. Like good for you for speaking your mind.
Speaker 1:I think that you touched on something that actually, you know, I talked to some family members over the holiday about, which is it's part of a bigger picture thing that we've kind of touched on and addressed in some previous shows, when you were saying, you know, the old guard right and having disruptors and younger people leading new generations coming in and being more belligerent right, but to disrupt you almost need a little belligerence, like that's not necessarily not what's there, but you look at, you know you look at like Charlie Munger that's another story. You know like he passed, but you know you have these people. You have, you know you look at the makeup of the Senate and you look at the makeup of you know who's representing and it's basically we're representative democracy, democracy at our core. But if it's not really representing it and not representing the mood of the people, there's going to be frustration to that point.
Speaker 1:So I think that we're just at a point where there's just a lot of people that are in place and in kind of position that are not interested in giving up the keys to the car and letting you take the car out for the ride for the weekend and there's just this building friction and it's obviously, you know, nature will take care of it at some point, but you just want to see a situation where you would have fresh ideas and it isn't just this. Let's hold on to what we have, and I think we're seeing that, even with you know, good gosh, who's against? Like the ETFs? Nobody. So why can't we just get this in place and why can't we have some of this progression that, if you put it to a popular vote there would be? You know, all these things would be, you know, completely addressed and moved on.
Speaker 2:Or it worst, for us in crypto, it'd be a non issue. People be like why, elizabeth, are you going after this? It's ridiculous, you know. And the thing about the passing of power like it's not even like the younger boomers, which now we're probably in their late 60s or maybe early to mid 60s. It's like older boomers, you know, and I know everyone makes fun of that generation.
Speaker 2:But it's like I think, the biggest issue we have in crypto and decentralization, everything they at some point you know, I'd like to think I'm going to be a learner for my whole life, but at some point you do not have or desire the capacity to keep learning. Things are happening with crypto and decentralization and cryptography and shot 256. Like they're happening for a reason because we're trying to get more secure, as we, you know, fully embrace this information, nano tech, age right. And these old boomers, they're regulating against things they don't even remotely understand. Like I'd love to be at, like the Democrat well, I guess there will be no Democratic primary debate, but I'd love to be at some sort of presidential or debate and when someone's rippling on crypto, be like you know, when was the last time you made a transaction? What? Where did you get your first crypto. I don't, I don't do it. It'd be like exactly. You don't understand it.
Speaker 2:You just whatever you read in mainstream media a lot of it recycled, half truths are just downright lies. You've never even tried it or researched the other side of it to know how game changing this can be for humanity. And that's what I think drives us younger generations Absolutely nuts. Like guys, go play golf, retire. Like let's let some new ideas come in here, because these old ideas are just getting so stale. It's like we're running a digital information vibrational age with like analog people and that's not any rip on them. They just they grew up. Analog and digital only hit them and the latter part of their lives like with their, you know, with my dad, like big, big finger on iPad, you know, and getting frustrated to send an email like let's, let's, let's pass the baton and have some smart people making smart decisions for decentralizing humanity. And that's that's why we're here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can. You can look at, you know, just the resistance to new movements or new expressions over the over time. And I, you know, I'll go back again to music. You know people were trying to say that rock and roll was the devil's music, and you can remember the, for those of us who are of the age of Chicago. And I, you know, we can remember, like the PMRC, and the fights against two live crew and the fights against, you know, hip hop as it came, and you know, and in the end, the force of the force of change wins and it will win. But you, just, it's just like, come on, giddy up, let's, let's get some progress in place and let's start seeing these things come to life. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:Because the younger generations are going to bring those things with them for sure. So so much interesting stuff. This one's interesting Coinbase We've been talking about them a lot lately, but Coinbase custody so there are more. You know they're custodians for a lot of these big institutional players. They we just found out nine of the 12 ETFs on the table of the SEC. We think we'll get approved early next year. Nine of the 12 are under Coinbase custody and, interestingly, bitco is not listed on any of them, although they say there is one in the works, gemini, who we've also talked about in the show.
Speaker 2:Vanek. It could be with them, but it sounds like nothing's official. But you know, at this point, with all the dominoes falling, with FTX, gemini, ftts, the token I always get those confused. But with Gemini, with all this bad stuff like Coinbase and Kraken really have been the two kind of stalwarts who have good security and who have just tried to go slow and steady, even when the SEC doesn't even give them good guidance. So you know, hats off to Brian Marnstron and the Coinbase crew for really being the foundation for this next wave we all think's coming.
Speaker 1:And let's also acknowledge that they had a significant jump in their stock price over the past couple of weeks and I think that the not so I mean the obvious elephant in the room is CZ and Binance, you know, kind of getting, you know, taken out to taken out back by the Department of Justice and everything going on there. So Coinbase, you know, rises from that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no for sure. Like when others fall, you use 10 to do well. So you know, now that Coinbase has gone up above 100 again, I think I'm only down like 64% from buying the bags on the day of they went live on the New York Stock Exchange. But I guess I can't keep complaining every show about that and you know what? And I did hold it because you know of all the ones I do believe in Coinbase. So not financial advice, obviously, but probably better to buy down here than it was on day one with Brett Eisen a bushy tail.
Speaker 2:So Michael Saylor, I mean at it again, buys another 593 million more in Bitcoin, bringing his total number of Bitcoin to 174,530. So you know if MicroStrategy, you know they were a tech company and you know all in on Bitcoin, I have a feeling, you know it got in the 20s, you know, beginning of this year, and I, you know, maybe even 19 or 18, whatever it went down to, and I'm sure, I'm sure behind closed doors, there might have been a couple sleepless nights there, but I feel like with him he was still probably like a bulletproof, like you know, like like it cannot fail, like, I wonder, he probably slept like a baby still. And now you know we're at $37,000, $38,000, not the price matters, but I have this sneaking suspicion. You know that the word on the street is that BlackRock is already secretly buying Bitcoin from the miners, which, as we all know, would be the easiest way, kind of on the side, to be like just whenever you got we'll take it, you know, because you obviously don't want to tip that price.
Speaker 2:And if you start buying off the exchanges who don't own a ton of you know they don't have a ton of the supply anymore. Like at some point that that toothpaste is going to get squeezed by the steamroller my, my favorite analogy, and maybe I'll come up with a, a second one that I like even more.
Speaker 1:But it goes back to I mean, in a way it goes back to what you're saying in the in kind of the something good segment of the persistence and you know, being locked in, and I know that you've said a couple of different times. You know, had you just stuck to holding X, y or Z I believe it was like Bitcoin and ETH you would be wealthier than now. It might not have been as fun and I don't know if it's as fun just to go down one silo like he's doing, because the whole space is so fascinating. But you know, kudos to him for sticking strong, I guess, and you know, maybe he'll see his, his victory laps coming around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think he might, but I really want him to get into, like Bitcoin ordinals and buy an ordinal punk. I think that would be. I think that would be the icing on the cake, because I, to me, that's the crown jewel collection of of the ordinal space and I would love to see guys like him just come in, although he probably, he probably deserves his own. Like, if anyone can get a legendary sat and a legendary is the first sat of the new haveening, so this next haveening I think that would be the fourth, so only four legendary sats and scribing something specifically for him on a legendary sat, I think would probably be very well deserved, and I'm already kind of jealous that I would love to have something like my my grandmother's old brownie recipe inscribed on that instead.
Speaker 1:But the seeds have been planted. We shall see the follow up from this.
Speaker 2:He spent $300,000 putting his grandma's delicious brownie recipe on a sat.
Speaker 1:It's, but it's a great recipe, so it is they are delicious, they're delicious, they're, they're.
Speaker 2:They're a little crispy on the outside, but they have that chewiness to them, so big fan.
Speaker 1:I prefer the crispier corners. So I agree Exactly Always grab the corners and then.
Speaker 2:But you've crispy at some point the crisp has to give away to the chew and there's that. There's that yin-yang balance.
Speaker 1:So there's the point of impact. The point of impact must be subtle, yet moist and ultimately slightly chewy. It's interesting how it can all come together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm going, I'm going to say probably no more than an eighth of an inch of crisp, because you know the outside, you want, you almost want to be dissatisfied, like the crisp almost is the foil or the antithesis of of the chewy. You couldn't enjoy the chewy. It's like you can't. You can't enjoy the most beautiful days of life if every day was the most beautiful day of life.
Speaker 1:So it's it's like getting past the bouncer at the club.
Speaker 2:As yeah, with four dudes like you don't even have you don't even have cute girls with you. You're like, hey, they let it, they let me in.
Speaker 1:I'm here. Well, it's whenever we go food. I get very excited, so we'll have to.
Speaker 2:We'll have to incorporate that more, so, yeah, Last piece of the news and we'll we'll go short on this one, I think. But Altman is back at the helm of of open AI and and I think you know we all saw it coming and that was the word and it seemed almost inevitable from two days after he got let go. The only differentiating factor now, that's of note is Microsoft, which, with like 49% ownership, I can't believe they didn't have a couple board seats, but now they get a board seat and it is non voting. So you know, I just listened to Elon on Lex Friedman podcast and it was just interesting because he's one of the early guys there. It's like he put the team together which is like what? What doesn't Elon like touch? It's just incredible.
Speaker 2:But you know, he was asking and I guess I would ask too like how open AI started and they wanted it to be open source. Elon certainly did. How open is open AI? Now, you know, with Microsoft, this this brings them back in the race with Google, like the God that they need this. You know, obviously, with the whole phone battle and you know, I think in the Steve Ballmer days he was like Bill Gates is like top sales guy I would argue an horrible CEO for Microsoft, like it was probably the worst era of growth for them. But you know, microsoft fell way behind. They lost the phone game to Apple and Google and now, finally, in their search engine has always been, let's just call it for what it is a total joke, right?
Speaker 2:And now they're yeah, and they're catching up big time. Like I use a couple browsers, depending on what client I'm working with, just so all the logins are more manageable and like the Bing with open AI in there, like it's, it's better. It's not great, but it's it's way better and I use it now more. I probably still use Google more than Bing, but you know they've made a big comeback anyway.
Speaker 1:So how open is open AI? So this is a just a thought that came in and it comes back to you know. Okay, so Elon, you know, was formative in this and it may be interesting to look at the scope and the span of influence with, like you know, people coming up with new ideas and innovating. And you know we talked about it in the music show where it was like the record labels try to lock up the artist for like their peak years of creativity, you know, and then they come back and now you see, like the chili peppers, they're putting out new records but they're too worried off what they did before.
Speaker 1:So I almost wonder sometimes when you look at Elon's plays and we're like, oh, he's done everything. Were a lot of these kind of in place Like was he peaking potentially seven to 10 years ago when he was coming up with you know, like putting together the pieces for open AI, really launching Tesla, and could we possibly be seeing kind of a hubris fall, you know, with kind of him lashing out at everybody on the, you know FU to advertisers and potentially getting Twitter or X, like, if that doesn't come through, that was decide like he made that play what two years ago. So I'm just wondering are you seeing kind of the residual impact of, you know, peak, brilliant, so to speak, and innovative thoughts? Could that have really kind of been engaged, you know, 10 years ago, with Tesla, you know, and all that stuff? Are we starting to see it? So just something I was thinking about with that.
Speaker 2:That's a really good thought exercise. I mean, I just finished Oppenheimer the book and and you know, there there is proof that mathematicians you know the highest level scientists and thinkers generally peak. I think it was your upper 20s and maybe lower to mid 30s. You know, at some point as you get older, you know you can still manage, you can see broad strokes of things, but you're you better. Have the people who can put the pencil to paper with. You know the super deep math and stuff and you become more of the conductor. You know, I, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 2:He's definitely lashing out more, but I think you know, and I think billionaires are eccentric people and I think whatever Excentricities you have that are kind of suppressed and lower when you're not a billionaire is you get richer and richer. Those things accentuate, all your oddities accentuate, because I think your attitude is like Billionaire, like I could do, fly or I can do whatever I want, or hire anyone I want to do or try anything I want to try, and I think that just creates these eccentricities. I do think he overpaid for acts but and I think he does lash out, I do think some of its warranted, but I also think his shelf life would probably be longer if he just knows to the grindstone and, you know, just kept turning stuff out. I still think he's creating cool stuff, but you make a good point. His he's 52 now.
Speaker 2:That would say like in his early to mid forties is probably when he peaked and now we're seeing all the fruition of that. I mean, look at apple, like, yeah, all of Steve Jobs, you know the iPhone is still. You know, because everyone's like, why would I switch unless something totally new like a crypto phone Comes out where I'd have incentive to switch, like there's no reason in this iterative process of the phone and I think that's the Era that we're in to switch. So Cook is just writing those coattails. You know, even Apple Watch, I think, was around when Steve is around. I don't know if he loved Apple Watch, but I think most of these ideas now were him, and even the VR.
Speaker 1:Maybe that wasn't but I don't know, you could. You could almost argue that you know, siri was a early I thought and play. You know, if you kind of look at how that was, so that those I'm just I just say like you look at you know artists and geniuses, and there's definitely periods of peak productivity. There was a. There's an incredible documentary. I'll put it in the show notes, but there's an incredible documentary that reflected on like seven years of David Bowie's life and he was just spit. Now it was just like, oh my, and you know God bless him and I love you know that he kept making art all the way through. But there was this peak period where it's just like, dude, he could do no wrong. Yeah, pushing and pushing and it was incredible. So when he went to Berlin for a while and things like that, no, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 2:It's like I said. I saw Peter Gabriel recently and, like his last four or five albums I wasn't familiar with, neither was everyone in the audience. And that's what we got 80% of, maybe even 90%, and you know, I'm glad I saw him, but I, you know, unless and I'm not even a hit guy, more of a B side guy, but like give me some old B sides, like make everyone a little more happy so it's probably why you had to close with Bico, because everyone knew the words to that yeah, it's true, I know the words and I'm not a lyrical guy.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, bico, because because, because, All right.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we covered the news and this is kind of a disco deep dive and it came about extremely organically and I've mentioned Parts of kind of this, this topic to Chicago and passing, but it's really interesting. I've been you know this is my first time going through you know a cycle and I've really been trying to check myself on Registering FOMO and I think it can even go to the meditation side of it just being mindful of, like, what's triggering my mind and understanding that there are very manipulative, well thought out forces at play that can judge, they can motivate actions, and I think one of the things that I'd like to pride myself on moving forward is An ability to kind of tune out the short term gain side of the FOMO. So if you look at Tik Tok or you look at Instagram like I think I'm savvy enough at this point to when I see a steady stream of you know Lambos and you know big parties in Vegas or yachts and all that, I'm like well, they can't.
Speaker 1:They're not really pulling that off by a purchase of you know this token, you know. So you kind of get your, get your guard up, and I think that most of the folks that are in the space and have been in the space, pretty cognizant and aware of that.
Speaker 2:But well, most of the people have been in the space for a while and the beauty of the bear to was those like they don't all go away, but most of all the Lambo pictures and all the the super shilly stuff. Not all of it, but most of it goes away and it's such a welcome. It just, it's just my. Put your mind more at ease.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it's. You know that's. That's a battle that I've been kind of working through and thinking about but, ironically enough, a lady that you know was in kind of the outside of my life, so someone who's not you know tight in my life or anything like that it was a mom of a old you know acquaintance or friend from growing up, friended me on Facebook and I'm on Facebook about 10 minutes a year. So it was just kind of weird that this happened and I accepted it and I didn't think anything of it. Then I was talking to my mom, who's definitely of the boomer generation and she wouldn't like me to disclose age and she's a very young spirit etc etc.
Speaker 1:but but she said to me she goes. So what am I missing out on? In my mind. So she goes what am I missing out on with all this crypto? All these people are making so much money. Are you making all this money off of crypto? Every time I go on my Facebook, I keep seeing all these people having, you know, this huge amount of money from crypto and I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean full disclosure. I haven't made money in crypto.
Speaker 2:I got into the last peak mom, I'm still waiting for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've enjoyed it and you know I'm bullish and fulfilled and happy, but no, I'm not. No, I'm not sitting on a pile of money because I'm quote in crypto.
Speaker 1:She's like well, I keep seeing all this where people are just making so much money and buying houses and boats and cars off of just putting a little bit money in the crypto, and I'm like what the heck are you talking about? I'm like you have FOMO, so I guess the title of this deep dive is so now even my mom has crypto FOMO, which lets you know that bull is definitely heat now.
Speaker 1:It means that there's opportunities that are getting ready to benefit from the next wave of adoption is kind of the net of what we're seeing and just to kind of walk through it, I started looking at the Facebook feed of this lady that reached out to me who was a realtor, and I think that that's an important thing to think about, because if you go to the Facebook page and you see the Facebook feed of this lady, that's the realtor. But I think that's an important thing to think about because if you've looked at you know kind of Boomer Facebook or anything like that, the realtor's kind of really use that as their springboard for marketing themselves. So they're very familiar with it. They have no shame in it. You know like realators will read books by like the real, you know million dollar listing guys where it's like, hey, I'm in five different gyms because it's more people to meet and network with. So there's no you know, kind of grace in terms of how they look at the platform. It's an opportunistic way to look at the platform and you just start seeing, you know.
Speaker 1:So I went in and I looked at this lady's feed and I started seeing this, this bait, and I'll just kind of read a couple of them really quick for the folks that are listening without visuals. But she's saying I'm proud to see this couple get the rewards they absolutely deserve 577,000 crypto profits. They've been trading consistently for four months on our platform and now they have a lovely BMW to show for congratulations. So four months, $600,000 in profits. Crypto Twitter who's who's doing that?
Speaker 2:you know like that's a success Right in the bear, like I liked it in the whoever's made money in the last year, year and a half, like yeah, when, when did this happen and how? It seems odd to me, and whenever I see pictures like you know it's what's the right word. I want to say scammy, but you know it's somewhat shady. When they're the material possessions, oh, like we can never afford a BMW or whatever. And now we've got the bow on the BMW made famous by those annoying Lexus commercials from like decades ago. You know the interior it's brand new, it's just like it's. So it's so tacky, but it's it's always. And now you got this material possession. Could you? You did so well and and it's it's like the the worst baseline hook of all time.
Speaker 1:And if it was, and if it was one like, I could let it slide mentally, like, okay, maybe there is a one off, but if you look at some of these other instances just on this page, here there's another one congratulations, we're debt free, house and everything. 570,800 dollars in crypto earnings like no specifics as to what was purchased or the strategy or what was going on. The next picture shows you know some boats and what's so.
Speaker 2:You gotta have the boat because you know, because you got there's boat lovers to right well, if you really think about it, it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a very Someone's pretty smart in terms of what they're targeting, because these are kind of the aspirations of people in that stage of life like, okay, well, I want to have my retirement and I've always wanted a boat and cryptos the way to do it. So it starts feeling reverse mortgagee to me. It starts feeling very suspect that this one lady who was a realtor in like not in like a total crypto hotspot even you know what I mean and she's posting that I mean these twice a day, every day. So how can one person have all of this access to this crypto knowledge to give people, you know, quarter million dollar gains so that then they can purchase homes and purchase cars and purchase boats? So if you just there's, there's.
Speaker 2:I feel like, I feel like these pictures and we'd have to validate this, but I almost feel like these have been used yes other scams.
Speaker 2:I'd love to have Amazon recognition could do this. Google may have something. We can take a picture and actually see. But I'd be curious, like, were these really taken by this realtor? Or these pictures that have been recycled? Because if you look at that blackboard, like you know I'm no designer, but you know I've worked with designers forever like there's nothing easier than to have two people holding up a sign and then you know, even if there was something already written, you just, you know, put a little black in there to make it blend in and then write whatever you want and fake chalk, and that's what that looks like to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're tapped into what I was seeing on Reddit when I was doing a little research on this. They're like, you know, I've seen I think I've seen these pictures recycled for different, different scams in the past. So, just to round it out, there's a couple more where now it's talking about how, you know, we were able to make this move and we were able to, you know, purchase another home. But you start seeing, which is a little bit more interesting, I'm like, ok, but what, who's taking credit for this? Like, how is this happening? And you're starting to see, look at the next picture, because that kind of starts really painting the picture, painting the story.
Speaker 1:Oh, so now they're actually thanking a platform for their crypto profits. Right, and that was. I was like, ok, so is this just this one individual doing it this way? You know, posting these pictures and doing it kind of you know something that she's cooking up or a part of, or who's behind this? And you see, you start seeing that this, you know, due to my trading platform, they were able to achieve this. And I'm sitting there. Part of me is like, well, what's that trading platform?
Speaker 2:because I'm in like I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind, you know, turning some profits or sniffing that out, but after all the shows we've done like forty seven hours of shows of all we talk about is like, if it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true and you were literally like, well, what is?
Speaker 1:this. Ok, I said a small portion to me was like wait, what is she onto?
Speaker 2:because I would like to know more than small. I'm sorry, I'm going to call you out on that one.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't mind a boat. I'm landlocked, but it'd be nice to have it in my driveway, like these pictures, but anyhow. So it just kept coming and it's not. I'm only showing, and only talking about, five percent of this person's feed. So it is twice a day where people like my mom are getting fed pictures of wow 450,000 and crypto profits 45,000. But then you start seeing, when you dig a little closer, that they're specifically thanking the OKX platform and that's important to kind of understand as we walk through this journey.
Speaker 1:If we go the one thing when she launched it, you got to hit the next one when we got. So when we got into this, the, her announcement when this stream started was that she became. She's been working on this for a while, but she's now a cryptocurrency certified Bitcoin professional. So I look at this kind of as the validation you know. So this is whatever this, whoever's putting this together. However, it's being rolled out.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the ace in the hole. To say, hey, I'm certified Bitcoin professional and, to be fair, like to someone like my mom who is a realtor, deals with realers, is like OK, well, what's your certification or what have you done? That makes me want to be in the position to listen to you. How do you become that authority? And you can become a certified Bitcoin professional or a certified Ethereum professional from the cryptocurrency certification consortium C4. Yeah, which is C4, which is a nonprofit, and this is where it gets kind of nuanced and interesting, because I don't look at C4 as having any sort of active role in what we're trying to uncover, but they're getting leveraged in a way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you're getting, because it's one of, probably one of the only places that allows you to get a certificate. So C4, because that's that's got some of the biggest OG heavy hitters and all of crypto trying to trying to educate the world on crypto, right, I mean, this is like if you're OG, this is like a who's who, but you're saying they're using, like the people are getting, these certificates and then they're being kind of leveraged like hey, no, I'm a crypto expert, which I'm sure this class is great, but it's being used for these totally other means, if you will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's. And again I would say and I'd like to be very clear about this because I want to go deeper on this this is, you know, just something that I uncovered and wanted to start exposing, or at least try to suss out and see I believe there's architects behind this. I don't think that C4 is at all involved cognizantly and I don't have blame necessarily or fault even with the individual who's doing it, because I think that it's easy to wanna have another chapter in life. It's easy to kind of look past certain things and not necessarily know what you're gonna involve with and what you're doing, and I probably would have looked past this thing overall. But when I started having my mom be like what the heck's going on? All these people are making millions of dollars every day I'm like my radar's up and it's like I wanted to get into like a scrum with the woman on Facebook, but then I decided I better do a little board digging and try to figure this out. So that seems to be kind of the validation that they use. And then, when you go back and take the next step, you start looking at who is this exchange, so what is OKX?
Speaker 1:And we've done shows and looked at a lot of different things and have looked at the market share for these different exchanges. So I don't consider myself a complete new beyond that. Like I understand, I've used some different exchanges. I understand kind of the landscape, but I hadn't come across OKX very often, if at all. But so I was like what is this?
Speaker 1:And then I went to the site and started looking at it and the first thing that came up is that hey, okx exchange products aren't available in your region.
Speaker 1:So doing a little more looking like it is not available for anyone in America and a large portion of Europe, so it is not something that my mom could go and start amassing her crypto empire through this OKX. So it all just starts adding up to like I don't really understand what's going on and how this is working. This is an exchange that I know nothing about. It could be extremely legitimate Like I don't know enough about it at this point but I don't understand why an American woman who's promoting people having their putting some of their investments into crypto would be advocating for an exchange that isn't legally operating in the United States. We talked about it earlier with, like Coinbase, having their hands on a lot of different things and being tied into kind of playing by the rules that aren't really rules yet, but trying to do that in good faith. Here you have an actor that seems to be a part of this whole deal and you're not able to access it in America.
Speaker 2:Interesting, Interesting. So if you can't access it in America, how is this being promoted where people are making? It's always like 400 grand, 500 grand. So I love how it's always like it's a ton of money but it's never like $30 million. That doesn't feel real. And if it almost feels accessible, to like people getting out of debt and paying off their house or just like, if I just had like a couple hundred grand, I could God, I could just make my life so easy.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so it's aspirational to that point of kind of incremental life change, right, like you can just kind of go up to that next step and alleviate more of your day-to-day problems, right. So it's in that kind of range. So, yeah, you go out of the site, which I did, and dug in a little bit more and they actually do call it the broker scheme, and I just find the term scheme, just that might be the most up-bruthing in this whole scheme.
Speaker 2:Serial defined scheme. I'm pretty sure scheme has 911 negative connotations and maybe one half slightly positive.
Speaker 1:So, like you can't make it up, I'm like, oh my goodness, they're really calling it a brokerage scheme and if you look at what else is on this page, you can see that there's different elements of the sort of broker you can be, and there's an API broker, there's an authentic broker and then there's a nondisclosure broker. So in my little napkin math of trying to break that down, I think that the nondisclosure broker is essentially enabling you to whitelist it and refer to it as your exchange, as opposed to you're doing it through the OKX. And in looking through the Realtor's post, the new Bitcoin professional who's making people all these deals daily she refers to it as on my trading platform. So there's something in there that I just it's just riveting.
Speaker 2:And I'm not going to go back to those pages, but does it in the actual text of the tweets? I know we saw it in the pictures. Is the OKX platform mentioned by this person? It is not, so it's my platform. So that's the ND. Like, I don't think we have to guess if ND brokerage is KYC, I mean, nor do we care but I assume what you're saying is this is how they trojan horse. You know, obviously we're in the United States. That's how they trojan horse in the United States through this nondisclosure broker and probably through this simple API. So you set it up, your little storefront, and people trade with OKX as the backbone through your little mini site, if you will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, almost. Here's a somewhat of an example, so we've talked a little bit about it. We'll probably do more about it. But, like Alto, ira is an operation that's supposedly helping people move some of their IRA funds into crypto funds and it's before you can do it through an ETF and things like that, so you can take a portion of it, but they're pretty upfront that it's basically running through Coinbase. So when you get an account and you make transactions, it's going through Coinbase and you get literature on if Coinbase is delisting something and X, y or Z, so you see all of that.
Speaker 2:So it's pretty transparent, like hey, we were smart enough to offer these retirement products to you, but Coinbase is our backbone. Which to me right away says like, oh, I know Coinbase. I try and keep as much stuff as I can in my own hardware wallets, but for retirement obviously you can't do that, and that opens up a whole slew of options for you with a trusted backbone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So now you're seeing this being promoted to drive people towards a trading platform that isn't operational for the United States, which is where they're targeting said people. So there's a lot to it. Oh, and this part they legitimately have a pyramid scheme allegedly graph on the website. Yeah, this is all allegedly Like. I would love the answers. You know like if someone from OKX would love to explain it to me. But they do have a graphic showing how it funnels its way up and you get different pieces of the process.
Speaker 2:So those of you who are listening. There is literally in the shape of a pyramid, or maybe a working org chart, if you will, with a hierarchy. It basically says like two commission sharing mode broker and user. The broker and user gets 40% commission, the broker gets 30%, the users get 10%. Or the broker, sub broker, user. So the broker then gets 20%, the sub broker gets 10% and the users get 10%. So basically the broker the other word for that is first one in in that side of the pyramid, like structure thing getting in first, and then you get the sub broker under you. Well, the sub broker could get people under them. So now you've got a sub broker, sub broker.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like if you're allegedly if you're trading crypto, these people set you up on this trading platform. You trade through them. It almost feels to me like because essential oils is not pyramidy, but there's all these different women's products and kitchen products as our name for it.
Speaker 1:They call them MLMs if it's more of a scam.
Speaker 2:Multilayer marketing.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:So MLM, so this has a very big feel of the more people you can get in under you. And kind of back to your point realtors now have. I try not to use them if at all possible. I don't move around much, but there are some realtors who are worth their weight in gold and I have you some and they're awesome, but some definitely aren't. But what I've noticed that realtors have done now is they the bigger ones, the ones you see on the billboards. They consolidate their power. They have these massive teams, so then you have to funnel under them and they're taking a little cut of your cut.
Speaker 2:So it's a very hierarchical system. I don't know, if I was a real estate person I would not love that, but I guess if I was just starting maybe it gives you a little salary or a draw or something, but it's funny that it happened there. So you're already kind of used to that structure where the person higher up on the food chain takes more than you and obviously every corporation indirectly is like that. It's not a direct apples to apples, one to one, but obviously the sales directors are getting what all the sales managers make and the people on the street are the people working for the sales manager, and on and on. And the president of sales gets the biggest reward. So it was he or she.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as I was saying earlier, you're exactly right. Relators have been encouraged to grow their network at all costs. You need a realtor and they're going to try to follow you. Like a minute later you'll get a request because that's their currency. So you, potentially, if we just kind of look at this thing from a bigger picture perspective, that's kind of the digging that I've done so far, and now I kind of want to get into more of like what does this mean? Or what could this mean? Somebody's smart enough to figure out that hey, there's these people that are willing to do what they want to do to make a deal. They're willing to promote themselves, they're willing to do this. They have said network on social media. They're already familiar with posting and how to kind of put things out there through social media. It's kind of you can see kind of the light bulb going off for whoever made that connection. If you know what, they'd be pretty good to start shilling my platform and get them in.
Speaker 1:And I just don't know if we're watching something evolve right now and maybe this sort of stuff is how the shilling stuff has worked on the other platforms for the younger generations.
Speaker 1:To me this just kind of jumped off the page of like, wow, this is something to look at, because you really don't want people to start getting targeted on something that they completely don't understand and get blinded by pictures of boats and paying for their house and taking their savings and putting it into something and I don't know.
Speaker 1:You know from recent experience, sometimes it's hard to get your e-thout or to get things out. So who knows the accessibility once people would transfer funds to a platform that's not legally operating in the United States, like where's that going to go? And how many older people really don't need that to happen to them at that stage of their life? And I, just as a public good, I just wanted to sound the bell Like I'm not sure I'd like to go deeper into it and I will just out of my own curiosity, but to have this non-disclosed brokerage model available, with the click to apply and being able to just kind of pad your resume to be able to get what you need to start representing for them, it's just, it screams concern to me and it screams just wait till a Elizabeth Warren or a Gary Gensler starts getting tipped off to this sort of thing.
Speaker 2:It's more vector for just full attack, and rightfully so. And you know the SEC and whatever governing body. These are the things you should go after, Because what scares me most about this is we're just probably entering this next bull run and this system is all queued up, and maybe that's why OKX was not allowed to be in the US to begin with Maybe rightfully so. They were like ah no, we don't need your MLM here. But I think the net net of what you're saying is a public good. Like as we go, more family and friends and normies are going to enter the space. So, just when people ask questions, just look out after them and maybe even be proactive.
Speaker 2:Like you said, you don't want to have to have a scrum or battle every single person because you probably won't get heard and it's probably not worth the energy. But certainly the people around us. We need to make them aware as they get in and learn more about crypto and make their first investments to look out for this stuff, Because, at the very least, if you go through these and you're buying Bitcoin, Ethereum or whatever coins they have, you're probably paying much higher commissions and your exchange rate is probably not that great. They're probably taking on both sides. So you're doing them a service there and, like you said, getting it off this platform. If the SEC calls them in, that money could easily be gone.
Speaker 1:So be careful. Yeah, it goes back. It just taps on a lot of the themes of what we're trying to do with the show and we've talked to trying to understand how you want to position yourself, how you want to be, how decentralized you want to be, and I think that we're getting to the point of really understanding or seeing that there's kind of a merge happening where some of the centralization is going to factor into, kind of the next leg of this and so we can argue from a straight decentralized island that coinbase is too decentralized. But then when you start seeing some of this stuff, it's like, OK, well, I kind of understand. If I was going to advise my mom to get into this space, I would be along the lines of purchase a small amount on a centralized exchange, dollar cost or all the things we've harped on. And it's just the complete antithesis of that is take your life savings and flip it into $700,000 in three weeks and buy a boat.
Speaker 1:That's not what we're into. So it's incongruent and it doesn't feel right and I just wanted to kind of talk to some folks about it.
Speaker 2:Yep, the net. Net is look out for your loved ones. So with this guy that was awesome. Appreciate it and, yeah, take care of your folks out there. So the last portion of the show. What we love to do is just we love to weave our threads together. I have a loom somewhere around here that I haven't used in a while, but we like to follow up with past shows and things as stories evolve. So where do you want to start?
Speaker 1:Disco the super cool awesome, fun thing, or that all. I think we'll start with the big reveal.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you're talking about. Please tell us.
Speaker 1:Well, yes, perhaps we'll have to get a drumroll at some point, but you know, I frankly use these conversations to help inform actions that you know, you know kind of see and think things through and it's kind of a sounding board for some of this stuff. And you know, we started our first show with, you know, an exploration of a specific NFT community and you know I was wondering, you know, is this the one I want to enter? And you know, by way of background, I have, you know, probably 50 or so NFTs that I've collected over the past couple of years. Most of them are music NFTs, most of them are tied to, you know, to that side of it, and but I haven't really jumped into a community and I've been really, you know, sitting on the side watching and trying to figure out what would be, you know, what would be a purchase and an investment that I would feel really good about making.
Speaker 1:And, as I say, we've done shows about, you know, the advent of the ordinal ecosystem. We talked about the azuki ecosystem. We've talked, you know, kind of on the fringes about yoga and you know some of the cool things going on there We've really looked at. You know, how do you want to judge where it's stored and things like that and all that stuff going through my head. You know, I did settle on a purchase and I'm going to be making it a PFP and everything like that and I'm excited to join a new community. So I don't know if we want to do a little drum roll. I guess I will, but I think that we'll try to reveal.
Speaker 2:You do the drum roll and then I'll reveal. What do you think he bought everybody. We've been talking about it a lot in the show, but boom, All right and without further ado, here it is there he is.
Speaker 1:I'm passionate about him. For those who can't see, I'm going to ask to MFers follow MFers anymore? And looking at this, I picked up a MFer. It's number 4533.
Speaker 2:I like it Parathrees Nice, yes, I like that.
Speaker 1:My kids resonate with it because they think it screams. Stand from South Park with the hat.
Speaker 2:That hat is solid and the white ear the hat, with the contrast of the white ear muffs or ear muffs, headphones, the headphones. Wow, I should almost strike that out, but I might as well just.
Speaker 1:No, keep it for authenticity. I like it.
Speaker 2:But I love those white headphones with the hat and the gray, the charcoal. It's just strong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you could probably roll back the tape of some of the episodes where Chicago and I danced around me seeking advice in terms of what to do and he kept referring me to figure out what you like and what resonates with you and that's the right way to go. But there was a kernel of a bit of an admission that if he were to be in my situation then he may lean the MFer away and I do feel like that was strong advice and I looked at a bunch of things and I'm still looking to grow the collection and everything. But for all the things that people say, when things align with the kind of spiritual vibe and an aesthetic vibe and kind of the story vibe and everything, I'm very excited to tap into the MFer community and ecosystem and I'm proud to be able to have this in my collection and I thank these conversations for some of the guidance and getting me there For sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the MFer is definitely one of the most active. I love that. There's no utility. They're just. I think these are timeless and I think they are going to stand the test of time. But, yeah, if I had to do it all over and I was just starting and I didn't have a lot of Ether, bitcoin or whatever the first NFT I would buy I think almost certainly, especially for an NFT community, would be MFers, so well purchased and, yeah, I love this. This is a classic, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome. So one other thing I wanted to touch on, just from circling back to other shows, is yesterday I think it was yesterday Spotify dropped the RAPT for everybody from their last year, and my kids are teenagers and they're all excited. They're like oh, you haven't watched yours, oh, we got to watch it together. I'm in the dot it up percent of you know Tyler the creator. I'm in the dot it up percent of whatever my son's like way off on some odd jazz stuff.
Speaker 2:So I'm checking right now, while you're talking about it.
Speaker 1:So, so he's in some really high stuff. I'm in Frank Moody. I'm like a super fan for Frank Moody, which I also have some. Oh, let's watch. That's very curious for yours. Can you see it?
Speaker 2:Is this the gaze?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A little sandwich comes. So wait, what's the meaning of is? Are the graphics just there to make you?
Speaker 1:No, look, it'll show your percent of what you're listening to, what genres, and then it'll give you your artists and it'll give it to you by month.
Speaker 2:We know this is. This is a gaze butterfly 3000. This is very perhaps one of my favorite albums in the last couple years.
Speaker 1:Very Chicago centric in terms of it. I like it.
Speaker 2:More Wolfpack and my brother got me a Wolfpack, so great, great album. So I'm I'm learning about my list through looking at the screen of me.
Speaker 1:Yes, I guess we're doing. We're doing Chicago's reveal on the raft right now.
Speaker 2:Wow. This is a very obscure band that I guarantee nobody's ever heard of. Well it looks like a lot of Wolfpack there. All right, so I won't Okay, I won't steal any more thunder. Hopefully they'll do it for me again.
Speaker 1:But well, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:So wait, why so much buzz on this? I honestly, next time I logged in to Spotify, I guess I would have maybe tapped on it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, that's my entire point. Like all they're doing is scrubbing your data and presenting it back to you, right? So this is what you've done.
Speaker 1:I don't know from a favorite yeah it's like, well, that's probably why it's popular, right? Like, oh, look at my data, you know. And one it got me thinking like, good gosh, how cool is it going to be when we move more on chain? And you know, this is not that fascinating, but it really gets all over social media. It's like, oh, the raptors out, you know, you got to check yours out and people are getting so responsive. Then I'm sitting back thinking about our show where we can have, you know, generative NFTs that are tied to tours and all this stuff. So I'm just like let's get out of this. Like, oh, spotify told me what I listened to that's so phenomenal to. Let's move on chain and make this stuff happen, because we can do so much cooler stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like if I got for for Butterfly 3000, you know, or for Wolfpack or one of these, and I was like a top listener and got like kind of a. Even if I got a Wolfpack, you know, it had a little gold frame around it, I'd be like, oh, mine's golden, Is that silver? I see I believe gold's more expensive per ounce, isn't that? So so, yeah, that's, that's pretty cool and the possibilities are endless. But it's also it's permanent, right, you get an NFT and then it's you just show it off in your collection. Like I said, my collection I'm gearing towards in five years hopefully, when we all have a VR thing that's hopefully open source that we can all agree on. When I bring you guys into my lounge, like the things I collect, I want to be proud of either walking people around or, you know, it's got a little recording like, hey, this is what it means to me. I love the story behind the art as much as the art itself, because it just makes it like three or four dimensional as opposed to like two dimensional art.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the only thing and it's just at the very end and I don't want to give you a spoiler, but I will, because we're doing a show the last thing they do is they have the artist that you most listen to say thank you. So like my wife's was De La Soul and at the end she had Pasta News and we're like thanks for supporting us. We appreciate it, but it's annoying to me because that's not customized to like hey, chicago, you're this and here's an NFT. So like they're using the data, it's getting closer, but once you kind of understand the capabilities, you're like dude, this is going to be so much better. Let's just warp, speed it up, like let's just build this and release it and ship it and get going.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, yeah, I mean, the possibilities are endless. And these web, two companies like, especially for us early adopters, they're just missing out. But you know, more importantly, we're missing out because I want that NFT of my patterns. Now, if that NFT were like Michael Jackson or something I'd be like who's your?
Speaker 1:number one. I'd be like never mind.
Speaker 2:Something's broken, something's broken, but now that's cool and that's interesting. I never even thought of the kind of that next wave because I never even paid attention to this until you told me about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know, chicago started off the show with something good and I'm going to move to kind of my bookend of the something good and normally I have something very specific. But this is a little bit more broad and it's due to some of the things that were going on with my family over the past week or so. But I just think that it is pretty remarkable to look at how technology has been impacting the medical community and how people can survive. What are some really before, even 10, 20 years ago, things where it's like I don't know if they're going to come back from that.
Speaker 1:But I had someone very close to me go through some surgeries and went back for more surgeries and he's doing great and was released and I was just thinking I don't think that if it was 30, 40 years ago that we'd be like, oh no, he'll be, he'll be released in a couple days and going and he'll be able to kind of kick back or give right back into gear. So I think that we look at technology in all these different ways and I just think it's exciting and gratifying to see the progress that has been made and then to really think about the next level of care and innovation that's going to come to that space specifically and it's exciting and I give kudos to the folks that are on the ground floor doing that work every day to make people be able to extend their lives and be able to have more fulfilling lives. So that's my something good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great one and it's loved to your friends and family and all those who had to go through that, because it's difficult for everybody. But yeah, it's easy to get down on the medical profession and insurance and all this stuff. But the progress that has been made you're right has been able to prolong lives hopefully in a healthy way that every decade or two it was prior unimaginable. So that's a beautiful thought to end with Sweet. So so do we have anything to tell our wonderful listeners and listeners? By the way, if you have any ideas for a show, decentralization or any new stories, or you want to come on the show and talk about something cool related to decentralization, please hit us up and please subscribe to us, hit the like button, do all that stuff and review and all that, because the more you do that, the more we might get seen by other folks and kind of start a new trend for a decentralized dawn. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, as always, this show is for entertainment purposes only. If you're going to make any investments, we encourage you to do your own research and not to get over your skis and invest more than you can afford to lose. So until next time, thank you.
Speaker 2:Take care everybody.