Decentral Lens: SEC ETF Approved!!! | ETH's Move | Ordinals | Azuki Update

Speaker 1: 0:00

The best quote I saw on Twitter yesterday. You said what a crazy year today has been, you know.

Speaker 2: 0:06

Welcome to Decentralized On, where lifelong friends Chicago and Disco navigate the ever-evolving crypto landscape With genuine curiosity and a commitment to nuances. 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 1: 0:27

Well, well, well, here we go. My voice is scratchy. Today it's a new year and a new us. This is Decentralized. On I am Chicago. I might turn into Blue Toshi, but that's a story for another day. And on my right is Disco.

Speaker 2: 0:44

Hello everybody. It's great to be back. I gotta say I had a little. I had some longing to get back into the saddle and get kind of things rolling again. And there's no lack of there's no lack of topics to cover or things to discuss, so I think we should be happy about that. And I don't know, I'm pumped for the year and I'm pumped for today and I'm excited to be back.

Speaker 1: 1:06

I share your enthusiasm and I love our conversations, Disco. But I gotta say I'm feeling a little salty today and I don't know why. I just feel like, with the ETF imminent in fact, Bloomberg just said that all systems go we're just, you know, we're on the eve of when it's probably going to get announced after the market's close today, but I don't know, I'm feeling. I'm feeling a bunch of mixed emotions today because I just feel like everybody in fights internally and jockeys for position in the NFT world and all these little fiefdoms within crypto, and there's a bigger photo fight which is just like the regulation and all the BS that has been keeping this industry Down for so long. So I'm sure me being salty makes for a better show, but I guess just prepared for me to lash out at a couple of things, but but not you Of course we may have more of a cranky or Chicago today, but you know that's a very vital Chicago, so we're okay with that.

Speaker 2: 2:08

I think that I think that there's something there, though, on kind of these seminal kind of potential days, or you know, things which will be milestones, where you know, and also you know, getting back after you know taking a little bit of an unplugged and kind of seeing the space, and then you know you could be hyper, in tune or attuned for any of the kind of shilling and toxicity and you know how some of that stuff's in there and you know, being a part of this space and paying attention to it is like its own reality show and its own content and its own entertainment, and up till now it's been of people that had fairly similar at some point.

Speaker 2: 2:49

There's some similarities in terms of their personas and their interests and their makeup and what drives them, and you know, people get the, get the hook for all these reasons, and now it's kind of like we're on the eve of, you know, having traditional finance guys getting into the, into the space as well, and it really should be a time where more of the, the, the purists, you know, kind of band together because there is going to be a shifting in the landscaping of the people involved and you know you'd really hope or or want. You know the folks that believe in decentralization, you know that ethos and you know all that was so attractive about it. We really want that to kind of stay strong and to have people band together and you don't like this little infighting with crews and FUD and all that. So we got we have a bigger stage beyond and you hope that there's some kind of understanding, respected loyalty for folks that you know are kind of involved for a while and really understand the spirit of the of the space.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Yeah, absolutely. You know decentralization is key and just the. You know I think everyone's excited to make money and you know, to see number go up, where everyone love number go up and as much as people pretend that they don't, they do, we all do like we. We all get wealthier and we have more life decisions to make when number goes up. But it's just amazing, you know this, this bull market.

Speaker 1: 4:11

You know we started this show only what? Three months ago. I think we have like 13 or 14 under our belt now and we were still, believe it or not, the end of the bear. Like we knew the bull was coming, but it came so fast and I guess what I'm just shocked at I shouldn't be, but it's just the amount. It's almost like all the D gen and all the grift, like it was just queued up ready to roll for that you know.

Speaker 1: 4:37

But before we go on, I do want to say hit the subscribe button and, like us, follow. We always say at the end of the show but you know what, with all this media consolidation and crypto and you know, with all the kind of influencers and the cabal and I say that jokingly, but you know there's so many people who have interests, who are pumping their own bags I think bankless has gone way downhill over the years and, like this is independent media. We're stating how we feel. Just hit the like and subscribe and follow button and just like if you like what you hear, follow us, tell your friends about it. Like let's keep independent media independent and let's not let kind of these early Twitter influencers like control the narrative, because that narrative it's as we've seen with FOMO it's so easy to jump in and we're just jumping in late on someone's pump and dump bags and I guess that's why I'm salty. I'm just I'm sick of the infighting and I'm sick of the influencers.

Speaker 2: 5:38

Yeah, I think it's valid and fair.

Speaker 2: 5:40

And, you know, I think there's one kind of side to the you know number go up that isn't necessarily related to the financial positives of number going up and I think that it's a bit of a validation for sticking through and having belief that what you were paying attention to and dedicating your day and your time to learning more about exploring, you know, the space and the ecosystem, you know that there's a somewhat of a validation, like see, this is real and you know there is something going on here.

Speaker 2: 6:13

So I think I think a lot of people you know want to like reach out if this gets approved and, you know, kind of talk to some of their family or you know, some of their normie friends and be like, see, you know, this happened because we always feel in our little echo chamber, because it's still such a small space as of right now, that you know everything's so widespread and understood and vital and everything. But then when you talk to other people, it's like they were not. Everybody you know had. Like January 10th circled is like this big day where the CTF might get approved, whereas for us, when that's all, we see, you know, we think that's going on. So, yes, obviously people will be happy to, you know, increase their, their net worth if things happen, but I do think there's also an element of just overall validation for their belief in the space.

Speaker 1: 6:57

Yeah, I mean, if you stuck around in this last bear market a lot of people didn't and you had conviction like I think it's going to pay off for all of us. I just saw a stat this morning that 90% of people holding Bitcoin right now are in the green right. So 90% of the people who bought Bitcoin it you know it has only gone up for the most part in the last four or five months so 90% are are in the green now and I guess the other 10% unfortunately bought and while held right in the 50s and 60s a couple years ago. But I guess for those people I will salute them more like good for you for like, yeah, you held and you know I think it's going to pay off for you. I mean, I can't imagine, you know, if let's just assume the Bitcoin ETF by Gary and the, I mean you can't make this shit up. I mean, truth is always 100% stranger than fiction. So, as you all know, the, the SEC website got hacked, which is hilarious.

Speaker 1: 8:08

I don't think Elon actually weighed in and said that they didn't have to FA on their account. Good job, government. What, gary? Way to teach me about safety and security and not even have to FA on their knucklehead. You probably had like a public telephone line or you know. You probably got some swapped or something. But they said it actually was compromised. So he provided us that because he can see IP addresses and stuff. He said it probably was a compromised account that did that. But it was announced yesterday that Bitcoin went live and went from 4547 within seconds and then within minutes it was proved to be face fake from our friend Gary Gensler that you know. Basically it was compromised and that it was unauthorized and I think it just went out. I suspect it just went out a day early and today, wednesday the 10th, after trading hours, which usually announcements get announced on Wall Street, that's when we're going to hear and I think it's going to be affirmative.

Speaker 2: 9:13

I just think that it's it's it's legendary that it provided like a where were you moment, you know, for it did Paying attention. It was like, yes, everyone's scrambling like who knows what's happening, and it was like, but it was a total, like you'll never, you'll never shake that moment. So we're in the beginning of 24 and kind of the first real weekend and the crypto space has not let us down for dramatic unscripted content and I thought it was fascinating just to sit back.

Speaker 1: 9:47

Yeah, the best the best quote I saw on Twitter yesterday. He said what a crazy year today has been. You know, and it's just like, it's so true, like this, this space, you know, and it's funny, and you mentioned the normies earlier. I don't even.

Speaker 1: 10:04

I guess I'm at the phase now like, if people want to talk to me about it, I will, but maybe because you and I, you know, we dump all of our thoughts and kind of research and deep dives into this show, like I have no desire or need to to itch, scratch that itch with anybody outside unless they want to talk about it. I haven't had people approach me. I mean, people in my town and my softball team and in my little orbits know that I'm that person. I haven't seen a lot of people come out, but you know in the next month for sure that they will and I just I simply don't care. I just I feel bad for the normies because they're going to get in later, you know. So I guess a question I would pose to you, disko, is do you think that you know the the? We saw it go to 47, right, so we can expect it to go to 47 right away. Like, do you think there's going to be a sell the news.

Speaker 2: 11:03

I think that I think that anyone who is projecting either way is really you know. They can build their thesis on whatever it may be, but we're in uncharted territories, so I don't think that anybody really understands what's going to happen. If there was going to be a huge, significant sell, the news event, I think we would have seen more of an initial reaction that would have indicated that. But I just think that what people aren't factoring in enough is the people that have been involved and you know had the bug and the bug enough to you know, acquire some and hold it and everything. Their reaction Is not what a traditional finance folks would think. It would be like they don't.

Speaker 2: 11:41

I don't think people really understand that, like, when you will, when you hold your bitcoin, are you on it? Most of the people you know have it off of the exchanges. They have no intention of getting rid of it. They look at it as a generational asset and something that you know they couldn't believe selling. So, even if it did go up to do X, y or Z, I think it's going to be a little shocking as this plays out how many people are locked in and dug in on holding this for as long, as you know, for years and years and years to come. So I don't think it fits like a traditional kind of I.

Speaker 2: 12:12

I think that there's a different element, due to the complexion of the people who own it, and then, on top of the fact that you now have, what is it like? You know, 10 to 12 different Operations that are waiting to be approved, potentially, and you have that competition between them coming into play, like I don't know how that's all going to shake out in the short term. In the long term, it's incredibly bullish due to the fact that there's X amount available, due to the fact we have the happening coming. So all these different things are in place, but I just think projecting exactly how it's going to shake out is difficult because we don't know, you know, if there's going to be battles between you know Black Rock and Fidelity and what they're doing. You see that a bit with how they're lowering. They're lowering the fees right away and, I think, like Kathy Woods, doing zero fee for the first year.

Speaker 1: 12:59

So it'll be interesting to couple of them have like six months zero fees. But I gotta say just go, but I'm you're not taking a stand here, come on.

Speaker 2: 13:10

You're looking for a number go up or number go down? I think I don't know.

Speaker 1: 13:14

or just what do you think? Short term, medium term? I don't know.

Speaker 2: 13:21

I've always thought that we'll be pumping way past the other high and I think that we would be into six figures within six months.

Speaker 1: 13:29

Okay, that's fair.

Speaker 2: 13:30

I six months.

Speaker 1: 13:32

Yeah, I think by twenty five. I could see that here's an interesting stat that doesn't, in the short term, doesn't necessarily support your whole thesis. The amount on the exchange is I look back at a couple shows ago like a month ago was nine point four percent. Now on the exchanges we have nine point seven percent. That doesn't sound like much but it's actually sixty nine thousand Bitcoin has poured into the exchanges and again, maybe that's just like for short term trading and stuff. But that's three billion dollars that has come on the exchanges.

Speaker 1: 14:08

But you know obviously even armchair quarterbacks and and you know guys in their slippers and bathrobes who have no reason to be trade, doing day trading or probably getting to be like you know what, I'm gonna sell the news and I'm gonna buy right back in. I mean, who knows how people are gonna handle. But I thought it was just interesting that more came on the exchanges. I'm kind of with you. I think they'll be a little bit of sell the news or at least like it'll go up to forty seven, forty eight or whatever.

Speaker 1: 14:37

It may flat now, a little might dip, but then then I just see, you know, because the question at the end of the day is with all of these folks, how many you know, are people going to put their money into these Bitcoin ETFs? I know I am, you know so, and you know I'm just one little minnow out there, but you know, with institutions and companies are gonna take longer, obviously, but I just think in the long term, like, this is just the beginning and I think any insiders, it seems like, and obviously what you're saying, I think that's kind of the narrative, like sure, up and down, now who cares? But it's, it's gonna go, it's just gonna go, it has to, it's gonna squeeze, it has to.

Speaker 2: 15:23

Well, it just ties into the whole, like the whole Culture of it, right, the fixed amount, you know how it so a fixed supply that it's just so counter to what we've seen in currency.

Speaker 2: 15:36

You know, from printing, printing money and everything like that, that I just think it's gonna be just one of the most interesting things to watch how it gets rolled out, how, to your point, what the actual adoption is from the clientele, right? So how many people are gonna be like, yes, I want to opt into that, and I think that people are gonna be blown away by the interest and then the scarcity, and I do think that that will make number go up significantly, way more than what I said for the next, you know, six months to year. But again, I've never looked at it as something to hold and flip or something to flip and take advantage of. It's always been. I'm just glad I have a little bit because I think it's going to be something that's gonna be of significant value in ways I can't even imagine. You know, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years from now.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Yeah, especially obviously you are talking about Bitcoin, but especially Bitcoin, right? Because it's just, it's the first one to get the ETF, it was the first Cryptocurrency and you know, it's stood the test of time and it's probably the most hardened of all of them, and now it's going to have its day in the sun, and all of us who like yeah, well, right, and if it, interestingly, I guess, if you're role play, so let's say they play some game and you know they already got sued, the SEC, I don't know what other.

Speaker 1: 16:53

someone said there's like one other little trick they can pull out of their hat, but that seems very temporary to me. So I it seems like a foregone conclusion, like everyone's registering, you know, we already know everybody's, I'm gonna say handles, but they're, they're called ticker symbols and the yeah, yeah yeah, the Treadfy world, but like, so we know.

Speaker 1: 17:13

So what I pulled up here is the. What do we have? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, so eleven companies. Reflexivity research did a great chart just showing everybody's fees coming in and, as we all know, etf have Very low fees compared to mutual funds. That's why we love exchange traded funds and you can trade them all day because they settle immediately. They don't have to settle at the end of the day like a mutual fund does.

Speaker 1: 17:40

But Look at grayscale sitting at one point five percent, and you know I think their thing is like, hey, we already have the money if we convert GBTC trust over To any TF, like we might as well keep it higher at first. Let's, let's, let's see if there's a mass exodus because we're getting so much money. Now. They're there. At least two percent now, if not With the carry and everything more. So you know they've got the most to lose.

Speaker 1: 18:08

I assume they'll come down quickly, but you know they're all over the place with point two, four right now, with bitwise being the bottom. So it's, it's, it's interesting, it's. They all have bitcoin and assume the same. You know, one to one ratio behind each one in the same way that they're holding it, and coin base is pretty much custodian all but a couple of them. So what's the only difference is the logo behind it and how maybe easy it is for you to get through your broker, but I don't any any ones here. Do you know which one you're gonna pick? Yet I think I know what you're gonna pick.

Speaker 2: 18:44

I don't know which one I'm gonna pick yet, I mean, but it would probably be something, as you would say, that's the easiest stretch, so something that you may already have exposure to. Already you know it's like, if you're already kind of in that ecosystem, right, and then do that. So I think that'll probably be how it plays out. But then you look at, you know there's going to be some battling between these guys and they're not small players and you know they all want you know to win. And you look at like a van neck that's really been focused on ETFs for a really long time and you wonder if they're gonna. You know some inner working understandings, but then you keep hearing so much about black rock on Vanneke has hodl to me that's, that's.

Speaker 1: 19:20

That's a pretty, that's a good choice, pretty awesome actually.

Speaker 2: 19:24

Yeah, like I thought that was, I thought that was cool. But Essentially the last couple of days didn't really come down to people revising or these organizations revising their, their fees and submitting that and getting that all in place. So I do agree that it feels like it's in a button up, you know, kind of getting everything just Buttoned up and ready to roll. And that was probably a head fake in unintentional head fake of a message that went out 24 hours early potentially. But there is a side of me that's like you know, and I don't know if it's, you know if there's a curse side in my mind or whatever. But like what if it is a head fake? And what if he does rug? And that would just be so, it would just be just demoralizing. But by the same token, I still look at it as a potential opportunity to acquire more.

Speaker 1: 20:10

I would, because I mean Bitcoin. You know Bitcoin doesn't care. Bitcoin doesn't care about Any of this stuff. Bitcoin just is right. So this is just another vehicle for folks to get it. I mean, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes one of these to hold as many Bitcoin. A sailor they may never get there, because the more 11 are fighting it out and the more marketing they do and the more people they get in and the more investment money, the more the price of Bitcoin gets kind of logarithmically squeezed up so and the more sailors stuff is worth that he's already acquired it's, it's. It's fairly genius, you know it's.

Speaker 2: 20:55

That's a whole concept that I haven't, I haven't addressed in my mind yet, which is we're going to potentially see the return to direct, to consumer marketing around crypto and you know we saw the, the whole peak of it in that Super Bowl, you know, and it was all the Matt Damon's and you know Larry David's and with the name and the influencers with the NF, with, with the board apes on the tonight show and everything like that. So I can, once they start coming back into the marketing sphere for this, with this, with this, with this option, it will just be really interesting to see how it's positioned and, ultimately, who does the best job of really kind of proposing or explaining the value and and the story behind it.

Speaker 1: 21:42

That's for you, or you're saying, though that should be the winner overall. I mean, you got a figure black rock, van Ack have a, and fidelity have a huge advantage To getting the most out there, and Franklin's pride, big two of Alkary. But you know, I like Franklin. To me it's just like that branding and Bitcoin seem like don't think I'm gonna be a sign of which one's I'm gonna cross out. I think I'm gonna go with our 21 shares. I like Kathy. Would I like what they do over there?

Speaker 1: 22:13

She's always been cutting edge. You know she's got a fun that invests in SpaceX, like she's. She's just been ahead of her time. And you know, obviously, when the market goes down a little in tech, she gets crushed, but when it goes up, she just goes up exponentially. But you know, at point two, five percent, that seems fine to me. Like I'm not, you know. But you know, point two, five versus point eight year point five, like yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna save every fraction I can't For Bitcoin. But you know now, with some of my retirement accounts that I have sitting in literally inflationary cash for last couple years, like I don't see a reason why a lot of that doesn't just go straight into this not financial advice, obviously, but I can't wait that.

Speaker 1: 22:55

I actually called my broker yesterday, which isn't any of the ones listed here, but they're a big, big name and I just said that they've been progressively very unprogressive and have always been kind of like Bitcoin is bad, it's scary. I had to get permission just to get GBTC a couple years ago and I said, if these are approved, will I have access to them? And she's like let me check with my supervisor. Like 10 minutes later, she's like yes, you will have access to my mic. Thank you, you will Get to keep some of my accounts still, so you know, thank goodness I didn't have to move them over, but these will be available pretty much at every brokerage platform, which is great hallelujah. We should just do another show tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 23:41

I know, I know this could be. Yeah, we'll see how we'll see everything shakes out. And, to your point, I do you know, like there's, there are options already in place to do. You know, roth IRAs is crypto IRAs and they go directly through Coinbase. So A lot of this stuff is already there if you're willing to do a little bit of the legwork. But this is really more of the play, where people are just going to allocate per sense of whatever they have towards this and be like okay, I'm covered in the digital asset space at this point.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Well, and you can do it in just your brokerage account, you can do it in an IRA, you can do it in a Well, 401ks. It depends on your carrier and what, what they offer you. But you have so many options now because it doesn't matter if it's behind Text deferred status or not. You know it's, it's just, it's everywhere now. So this gives me way, way, way, way more options, and I think you're talking about through Coinbase, that's all toe and they do cool stuff. But you know you also have to make under a certain amount of money you're to qualify for those.

Speaker 1: 24:48

Like there's a lot of Ifs, ifs, ifs, ifs, and this just opens it up to everybody. So I mean, I guess we could talk to this till the sun comes up, but it should be approved tonight. So we're all finally just sitting here like it's it's suck the oxygen out of the market. As far as what the conversation is, it's been fun. I gotta say, like you said, yesterday I was in a couple of discord groups and then chatting with you like it's approved, and then literally 13 seconds later I'm like and it's not approved, like.

Speaker 1: 25:25

I know it's just like, the emotion is just insane, and I guess that's why I'm getting salty too. I'm just like I like, I guess I've been doing this long enough. I'm like I'm tired of these, these waves, but then again, like you said, the next morning, I'm like I'm gonna go surfing, you know.

Speaker 2: 25:44

It's yeah, it feels like, yeah, it feels like one of those won't. The last one, or the only other one that I can liken it to in my experience in the space overall was, you know, like the merge. You know, like that took up all the conversation. Is it's gonna? It was kind of like a Y2K right, like is it gonna work? What's gonna happen? You know, and then it's like, oh, it happened, it was fine. You know it was successful and you know, obviously, the results were nothing burger, but the event was a bit of a right here.

Speaker 2: 26:11

We've had just so much build up on this and you starting to hear it in, you know the, the traditional business media outlets from the CNBCs, and you hear them start talking about me, get a little giddy because you're like, oh gosh, this is, this could really go down, and then just to get that head fake was just like, oh, come on, man, let's see what this, what this next phase could look like. That being said, there may be some things to take. You know a little bit of data or information from, from the announcement when it happened yesterday and seeing you know like, so, as you alluded to, we saw a price jump up. You know and, granted, we're looking at like a 14-minute window before this whole thing kind of came back around, right. But you saw Bitcoin jump, I think what, 48, up to 48 for a bit and then normalize.

Speaker 2: 26:58

But then the weird one of the interesting sub stories that you can kind of look at is Ethereum had a nice little tick up and that's been kind of the, that's been kind of the beleaguered token if you want to look at it from that way, from a narrative perspective, at least over the past six months. You haven't really heard that, but again, when you're kind of talking about people kind of waiting in the wings and being opportunistic and and having their own strategy, you know it could be, could be something to keep an eye on to see if this does kind of, you know, spring a little bit of movement from Ethereum, from kind of where they've been or where it's been over the past six months or so.

Speaker 1: 27:37

Yeah, if Ethereum's seen finally I mean these, this I feel like in December you know Solana, really October, november, december Solana goes from 20 to 120 and now down to 9900, whatever it's at now and Ethereum just literally crabs from what? 19, 2000, 2100 to 2150, like it just sat there and it was a little. You know, it's funny. Look at this chart here. It almost looks like what am I talking about? It felt so low, but so where was it? So in October it was okay, so it was in the 16, okay, so it was a little lower than I thought it was, but it went to 2000, 2100, and it felt like it just crabbed. It's funny. I guess that just shows you the of people who love ETH, like us, like that, even though, like I'm looking now at this three month chart, you know let's just break it down to 90 here it it's had a nice steady incline up, but it felt, I guess, comparing it to Solana Bitcoin, it felt like a total crab because the ETH Bitcoin ratio has what was it? 24 month low, I believe.

Speaker 2: 28:50

It was a 32 month low. As of two days ago, or yesterday, it hit a 32 month low.

Speaker 1: 28:57

Yeah, so you know that, that ratio. You know when Bitcoin's gone from 20 to 40 and ETH's only gone from you know 17 or 18 to 22. Yeah, it's not keeping pace with Bitcoin, but disco, you notice something. So what happened with? Like you said, we could learn so much just from the fake, hacked SEC pump, but you know what's happened in the last 24 hours with ETH, now that we know Bitcoin's about to be on that precipice of the ETF.

Speaker 2: 29:28

Last time I checked it was up 8%. So people are talking about is there, is there an inevitability of people cycling from Bitcoin into Ethereum, with that being next in line with a potential May approval date for the net, for their cycle of ETFs? And you, you wonder, because you saw Bitcoin go up, I want to say like 81% versus Ethereum's 41%. And you know we have these conversations offline and we also do them on the show of like what's real in terms of narratives, what's being kind of fed through Solana, yeah, whether it's VCs or you know influencers and how this all happens. And you know you look at something that does have more decentralization at its core, although I understand the arguments could be made with you know how much is in Lido and is in these other things, like how decentralized Ethereum really is. But it seems like there's a big amount of people that are going to look to kind of switch and then hopefully, you know, for Ethereum folks, you know we could see a significant rise that would hopefully mirror, you know, the 16 to 48 that we've seen in Bitcoin. So that could be the next chapter, which would be pretty exciting for a lot of people that were kind of sitting there like Okay, I hear everyone's talking on these other things, but you know, ethereum is still doing what it's doing. They're developing out the L2s and you know, when you get a user experience where they don't, where you don't understand that you're even using L2s and it's kind of underneath at all, like I think that's going to be a really exciting time, because I do, at my core, believe that there's a lot of really extremely smart folks that are developing some really cool things on Ethereum, and I think that it will have its time.

Speaker 1: 31:12

Yeah, I agree, I think the. The counterpoint to that, though, is, especially for May, I feel I see this is starting over, and one thing that ETH has that Bitcoin doesn't is it's proof of stake right, which in itself doesn't matter, but it's got staking and validating, and I know you know the, the Lizzie Warrens and the, the anti crypto brigade, don't like that stuff at all. So it will be interesting how you know, as a solo validator and a staker and a happy solo validator and staker, it's been great in the last six months, like that creates for an ETF to me that that could make things more difficult. I'm not saying from a you know, ultimately, an ETF would get the ETH and literally just start staking it so it almost compounds in itself and pass that value to you and just have your you know 0.25% fee, just like Bitcoin does In reality. I suspect, unless there's lawsuits and court cases, that there may be kicking and screaming from the SEC yet again and they may try not to approve it because of that, because you know they, they don't.

Speaker 1: 32:32

I think cryptography is under siege from the US government because they don't like the privacy, they want eyes on everything and I think Ethereum creates a potential snag there and they may want to get rid of whether they can successful or not, I don't know but get rid of like the staking or validating, which obviously is what, in my opinion, eth's greatest asset to be a single person, a little minnow out there with just a little knock to validate transactions on Ethereum.

Speaker 1: 33:09

In fact, this morning I got two. I proposed two blocks Just this morning. I've never I've proposed like five in the last six months and I just proposed to this morning. So a hats off to me. But be like it's, it's, it's an annuity and I don't need an ETF for that annuity. But if an even if an ETF had no staking involved, it was just ETH being a deflationary asset with some of my retirement money, it's, you know, it's either that or another dumb mutual fund or some other thing that that I cringe when I click the buy button, like, of course I would put ETH in there, but I think I think it's a tougher road that people think that's, I understand where you're coming from.

Speaker 2: 33:58

I also think that, looking at things from I don't know the history really of the SEC and you know their how the approach is. I've really just focused on it since Gensler has been in the position and, you know, kind of looked at it in a different way. But the other thing that's important for us to kind of look, pull back and look at as we look at you know the year overall is we are heading into an election year. So we are in an election year and we have the first caucuses like in less than seven days, and I we talked about it a couple episodes ago and it's something that I think we really should keep a really close eye on is how is crypto and how are the 52 million holders going to stand up or be represented or impact you know the election and what role is it going to play, because you know we really do.

Speaker 2: 34:51

If you really do think of 52 million people holding it, people at this point that are holding crypto are probably pretty big believers because they had to jump through more hoops to be able to acquire it and be a holder. You know how will that group potentially impact the political structure in powers that be moving forward, and I just think that that's not enough. People are kind of talking about that in my mind and it's something that I want to pay more attention to and understand, like, will there be more moves to motivate, you know, people to vote in certain ways, will it become a issue that's brought up? Will there be candidates that you know fully embrace or fully go against, and how that whole, how all that's going to kind of play out, I think will be quite interesting to see, as we, you know, kick off a year that is going to lead to a really crazy time.

Speaker 1: 35:41

You know, in November, october, it's going to get just yeah, I think a lot of people are crypto or one issue voters for sure, so I mean that will have an impact. But more importantly, I think, with the alleged approval of this ETF for Bitcoin, I think that all of the Elizabeth Warren Army and Brigade like if people are have the CTF and they have some of their wealth in there the more people that get on board with that, the more they're going to look at those messages as just out of touch and antiquated. I I don't know like it politicians ever surprise me in doubling down on things where they're just tone deaf, but it just to me it seems like it would quell down and you would not want to make that a red versus blue thing, obviously with Elizabeth leading the blue charge on this anti crypto army in conjunction being written with the banks, which is just an absolute joke, and the Republicans being more in general for crypto. But I it just seems to me like it's a nonpartisan issue and it'll fizzle out. But what do I know?

Speaker 2: 36:55

Yeah, I'm just saying you look at who gets appointed and who gets into these different positions and how things roll out, that you know the whole dynamic and tone could shift significantly. You know, because things change relatively. They move slow on some respects, but they could also change pretty quickly too if there's different people who are at the helm of certain organizations and operations.

Speaker 1: 37:18

Well, that's true. I mean, if you have a fully, if Biden Harris win again and you have a full Democratic Senate and House, that would be the worst thing, certainly for crypto, because then they would be able to unless some Democrats are on board with crypto, which some are they would be able to pass some of these. You know they always put names on there, like protecting you, the citizen, first and foremost act. You know it's just like oh, they're protecting me, it's in the name. You know, and every I love the Patriot.

Speaker 1: 37:50

Act, yeah, which is basically a surveillance act, right? So yeah, if it was all I mean, the best thing that can happen I hate to say it for crypto is a house divided, right? We're Senate is one house is the other, just like now. So things are gridlocked and you can't force it through.

Speaker 2: 38:09

There's nothing for a president even to to sign, so it could be interesting if there is any direct fallout to yesterday's fake announcement. I've seen some you know calls from I don't know the specific senators, but some being like hey, we need to, you know, understand what happened here. There needs to be some accountability, like, who knows, maybe there could be, you know, a change in leadership in some of these organizations and operations.

Speaker 1: 38:36

Yep. Well, politicians are just actors to like I said, what made me salty is in our industry, like there's so much in fighting going on and it's true, obviously has been forever at the highest levels and politics, but like there it's all performance art, right, they're, they're gonna, the people are pro crypto, are going to make a big deal about it, and they should. But I mean, hacks happen every day and if it gets approved today, it will just be yet another weird little twist in the river of of this whole thing going down right, but I don't know. To me, to me again, like I said, my, my, my fuse is short for all the theater today because it just seems like people, everyone's yelling across the aisle at each other and nobody is listening and trying to figure stuff out.

Speaker 2: 39:28

And you're speaking, you're referencing some of the more stuff that's going on within some specific communities and you know kind of some of the stuff and some of the different spaces that you're involved with. Not like we're not talking Democrat or Democrat or Republican. No, I'm talking.

Speaker 1: 39:43

Well, yes, but I'm talking all of it. But yeah, I'm talking in crypto. There's so much in fighting me and let's just, let's just get into it. I mean so let's look first at Bitcoin and FT volume, because it's it's absolutely insane, like Ethereum used to dominate volume and in grand and member Bitcoin, your BRC 20 tokens get lumped in. So so the numbers aren't quite so big, but there's no mistake that Ordinal's volume is absolutely off the charts and saying and it's now double I'm sorry, more than double Ethereum Ethereum still slightly ahead of Solana. So it's, it's pretty big. You know, it's coming in and in the last 30 days, 889 million for Bitcoin trades versus Ethereum's 319 million and Solana's 307 million. And obviously all of that was led by. There's a couple. There's Bitcoin puppets, I think, which I don't like the art, it looks kind of silly.

Speaker 1: 40:52

But node monkeys was the big story, and in late December and early January, I mean, I was, I was out of town the whole time. I had a couple. So I was in town, I did the Dutch auction. They did an amazing job of the Dutch auction and then I went out of town and I would have snapped up a bunch more, but the price went pretty meteoric for six days and now it's cool and hit the brakes big time. So you know, there's just within the Bitcoin Ordinal space, just like the Ethereum space.

Speaker 1: 41:23

I feel like there's almost just like groups kind of battling. But but the founder of node monkeys, who I've never had a problem with I think he's, they or whoever did a great job with this release. They did a great job of the Dutch auction and you know there's people calling out the founder. They're calling out this Raktoshi guy, for it doesn't even say it, just says that you know he's, he did shady things and he intimidated me, but there's no and and this is from kind of the other camp that is heavy into these Bitcoin puppets and all these other NFTs. It's almost like there's two camps of NFTs and I think just the infighting is silly but the so far the claims are are founded nothing and kind of baseless and it feels like he's attacking node monkeys because node monkeys had a very successful launch and you know I, we saw it in Ethereum and it's happening in Bitcoin to where something successful comes out.

Speaker 1: 42:23

You know this group of influencers wasn't involved at the floor for it. There's internal fights and probably old relationships that went sour and you know, if it does well and the influencers the big influencers and ordinals didn't have a say in it, then they just crap all over it and that's what this feels like. But who knows, maybe he'll come out with more information. But you know, raktoshi has been nothing but above board. You know I don't have a ton of interaction with them, but I thought, you know, I don't even know if he has anything to do with node monkeys, but I think there's just so much fighting and it's it's silly because there's, like I said, there's a bigger game to play and with all these approvals and with what's going on in Capitol Hill and and you know, obviously not everyone can involve themselves in that, but it just it gets old.

Speaker 1: 43:15

Because the art on Bitcoin you know, we went through a whole show on ordinals and on, you know, on on how cool it is, with rare sats and recursion, and I mean parent, child. There's so much stuff that Ethereum doesn't have everything on Bitcoins, on chain, and you just want to see people. Everyone doesn't have to be fully aligned, but you want to see more people aligned. So, yeah, that's certainly part of it, but the volume is speaks for itself. Ordinals is here and it's it's only going to get bigger and I think personally, I think ordinals I don't want to say it's going to just continue to overtake Ethereum, but I think it could emerge and stay as the number one player, because this, this is on chain, it's inscribed on a sat free turn and he is always Bitcoin last.

Speaker 2: 44:03

Side note, but somewhat funny note in the aftermath of the head fake yesterday, somebody inscribed the Gary Gensler. That's kind of funny but it does kind of show the acceptance, and you know, of ordinals within the space and you know, people understanding kind of that value structure of hey, if I do this on there, it's going to be there forever and it's going to be on chain and I can capture that as a moment in history. So I know, when we first did that show, I was, I was, you know, really trying to learn and absorb and my big takeaway at the end of it was wow, this really does have a lot of value, value propositions that are unique and it would be really interesting to watch. You know kind of how it grows and I know that.

Speaker 2: 44:53

You know we did that show maybe three months ago or something like that, and then it felt like the ordinals went a little quiet for you know a month or so or maybe a six week thing, and then it just seems like, you know, there's a big parade going on right now and I think that node monkeys ushered in you know kind of an era of acceptance and you know they really did it in a great way from what you were saying, with the auction and there's just seems like there was a Lot of credibility blended to that platform and protocol overall and it's just kind of crappy to hear that you know the same kind of murkiness and you know kind of you know daggers in the back play could happen. Still, instead of being like dude, let's just get behind this. This is cool, it's new, there's enough room for everybody.

Speaker 1: 45:34

Well, or you know what, don't get one like no who cares, like nobody's forcing you to buy anything. Like just just don't get one and move on like just the all the.

Speaker 1: 45:48

You know. But but that's what in crypto, twitter, you know, who knows, maybe there's orchestrated groups like fighting just to get ordinals more attention. Like I'm not saying that's the case, but who knows what's going on. It's just I'm tired. I'm tired of the influencers because they have such a strong say. We saw it in the theory and ecosystem, you know, and now we're seeing it in the ordinals ecosystem and it's just like there's so much good art out there, there's so much interesting stuff. We need more independent voices to Curate and find that stuff and just ignore all the douchebags that are out there, because there are so many.

Speaker 2: 46:28

It's it's just, it's tiresome, yeah and it's annoying because there's so many and the ones you know they feed upon the audience feeds upon itself and the algo and everything, and I'm not sitting there like, oh, the algorithm. But bottom line is those voices get traction and there's not really a gauge or filter as to what those voices are saying, as opposed to whatever their motivation may be. So that's where kind of the whole frustration lies. I know that we've kind of talked about it over over the weeks and months of like there isn't necessarily like a Verified news source for this space, you know, or it's like okay, this is the one place that you can go to and get a handle on. You know exactly what's going on, for example, right now, today, where it would be the one site or the one outlet you check to see if the ETF was approved or where it's out with that and who would you trust the most.

Speaker 1: 47:19

And seeing some of these other sites being like, hey, our news is generated from AI searches, and then you know, hey, you're talking about Decrypt, who just partnered with a rug, and both of us, like we like Decrypt news and now that's partnered with a rug, like that's an influencer network from Twitter, you know. And, interestingly, the other thing, while node monkeys was kind of being dumped on by you know, this person who's more attacking, just someone prominent in the ordinal space, on top of that, the a lot of the Ethereum influencers were jumping in and on the node monkey kind of down bandwagon. Node monkeys got up to almost 0.3 floor and now it went down quickly yesterday to you know. Now it's at 0.173 and you know what, like this is a brand new collection. Who cares? And you know I don't care to pump my bags or not pump my bags.

Speaker 1: 48:20

I've got some of these things, but it's more just seeing, like it's funny that the big Twitter influencer Gangs coming over and they're kind of siding with a certain ordinals gang and those there's so many more of those voices than the smaller voices on the other side. So it's just, like I said, it's just. I don't even want to say I'm disappointed, we just want news. That's, and that's why we're here to provide at least the most non-stake we can, trying to distill all the BS and crap that's out there. You know it's funny.

Speaker 1: 48:55

You said you know we need a verified news source. Like I would say pre-Covid, like we all with mainstream media kind of fell for that and like you know, like there's certain news outlets we trusted more than others and I think now so many of us post COVID have to be like, we have to figure out. We have to. You know all that critical thinking we supposedly learned in higher education. You have to figure out now, like, what's this person's angle? What? Like what's the news? What are they reporting? Who's reporting it? Who's, who's in bed with who and it's.

Speaker 2: 49:31

It's exhausting to try and figure it out, but that's why we're here and it's and it's especially exhausted when you're from our generation, right, so we were brought up. I'm like, hey, you can trust what's going on with the evening news or whatever it is. And I think that, like Jen alpha and you know my kids, like they already, they already understand that they have to, you know, filter and verify what they're being fed and why they're being fed it. So it's it's just kind of indicative of that one thing that you brought up, that one thing you kind of touched on.

Speaker 2: 50:00

That I was thinking is an interesting lesson as a collector to to go back to is if you really like the art and you really like a project, there's not that many projects that if you miss the mint or you miss the initial part, that they're not going to be an opportunity to potentially come in and collect right at a decent rate, right.

Speaker 2: 50:24

So I've been watching, you know, the node monkey side of it. I've been watching the inscribed pepies and some of that stuff and it's like those are still on my shopping list and there's no reason that I can acquire them at the right time at a price that I feel comfortable with, because you know it does, you know, up and down quite a bit, so it's goes back to that kind of FOMO filter. It's like dude, you don't have to get caught up when the influencer, you know ship is in the in the harbor and they're all pushing it right. Then it's like pull back, wait a little bit and see how the dust settles, and give it, you know, 30 days and most of the time you'll probably be able to get a decent entry point on something that you're about yeah, I would say that's mostly true.

Speaker 1: 51:06

I mean, you go back with auto glyphs or chromey squiggles or like you know you getting an early or crypto punks obviously getting an early did matter. Now does it? Does it still matter? I think you know now, with I don't know what, we have 40, 50 million ordinals inscriptions. You know obviously the narrative of the first inscriptions. That's obviously gone. You know the first recursive inscriptions that's gone. The first collections on uncommon sats that's gone.

Speaker 1: 51:38

So they're you know now they're doing like rare a rare sat parent with you know, uncommon children and Bitcoin ordinals, which I'm sure to some of you means nothing but like. So there's other games you can play or inscribing on old, vintage sats, like most of those stones have been overturned. More can do it. I think now you get good artists who mix using sat rarities and recursion or whatever that fits the mold of the project that they're working on and I think there's cool stuff there. But that's more getting into art collection.

Speaker 1: 52:17

But you know you could do it with PFPs as well and you know node monkeys, like they. You know their inscription. What? 83,000 to like 110,000, I think. So you know they inscribe last February and just sat on them for nine or 10 months, which is pretty impressive, and the the marketing campaign they did like it wasn't perfect and they wanted to donate money and the people they wanted to donate to the ordinals foundation didn't even want to take it. So it's like I don't know, I just there's. There's so much cool stuff. The door is closed on the most obvious ones, but a smart artist could come, could come in to ordinals and really do something cool, especially if you have an existing base already and if you are out there and are a good artist, like the London police, like come talk to us because we could probably help you launch the right way.

Speaker 2: 53:13

Yeah, I side note, but I there's an artist, young and sick, that I've talked about, you know, in the past and I totally, you know, really love the work and I had an FT or I have some NFTs of his and he did a David Bowie collection on a David Bowie special day or whatever.

Speaker 2: 53:31

And this was the first time that I ordered something that he was promoting on Twitter and it was a straight, just IRL piece and it showed up the other day and there was something really cool about the tangibility of having like the printed out piece, because I don't leave, I don't experience his art digitally up to this point. But then when it came and I was like looking at the art and I was like, oh, that's gonna look so awesome. Right there, you know, there is something you know about seeing how this art develops and seeing, if there's, you know, how they can work together, you know, with kind of the physical pieces as well as the digital pieces, and it was just kind of an interesting thing to get in the mail that I forgot I purchased and I came back I was like, yes, this thing's awesome and it was just seeing someone who's more of a native digital artist seeing the output in a physical piece was pretty interesting to me.

Speaker 1: 54:23

Yeah, no, that's. That's cool. I mean, evan, as you were talking in your last one, I my murals about to go to sleep, so I switch the art on there. But but, like you said, there's digital art is cool, but I love being able to display digital art on my back wall, but you know, there's nothing that takes the place of real art. I mean, my mom was I don't want to say she was like a master art collector, but she loved collecting art and buying stuff in the older she got and the more stuff became available online. She was looking at at people all over the world who just did sketches and she had so many cool things and you know, obviously I grabbed a couple of them after she passed. Rest in Peace, mom. But it's just that there's there's there's something magical about putting a piece of art that you just love to display for all who come over on your wall and for you and your family to see it. So I think that's cool.

Speaker 2: 55:18

Yeah, but just to go back to that, I think that the foundation of opportunity, with the inscriptions and with the ordinal platform, is just sitting down to breakfast in terms of the capabilities. So, like you said, yes, there's the you know, kind of More obvious nuts and stones to take in the very beginning, but as more people start understanding how to use kind of the multi layer aspects of it and all these different things, there's going to be plenty of opportunity for people to really create some dynamic stuff that I'm going to be paying attention to for sure.

Speaker 1: 55:52

Yeah, hopefully we can, like you said, help them. Help them do it, because I think a lot of people are clueless in how to launch it and they go on channels like VV, where you have a web to log in or All right, I know we were talking about you know, cranky Chicago, but I'm going to get a little cranky on the VV stuff because it's like what am I doing with this thing?

Speaker 2: 56:15

I was all pumped up.

Speaker 1: 56:17

Everybody cranky on me. I'm like, oh okay.

Speaker 2: 56:19

No, I'm saying I'm going to get a little cranky if we're going to talk VV, because I got up for the big mince and I collected the freaking collection and I'm like great, I have to go into the app on my phone and move over to look at this and I can't do a damn thing with it.

Speaker 1: 56:32

Yeah, for those of you don't know, vv before you go on disco, vv is a website that Curates art for people. It's got a login. It's supposedly is on chain, but it really isn't, so it's a website that you will never visit, that curates art that you will never see.

Speaker 2: 56:52

That you can collect and keep only there.

Speaker 1: 56:54

Right, it's. It defeats the entire purpose. It's like you could put it on any wall, as long as it's in our warehouse.

Speaker 2: 57:02

Yeah, and you can take a look at it in my it's anyhow. That's so frustrating to me because I was checking it earlier, like I was looking at something else, and then I'm like, oh, I got to check on that and I was like, dude, I can't stand this, I can't do anything with it. And the frustrating part that we talked about before is Coca-Cola is falling for it. You know, all these marvel, all these companies are being kind of told that, hey, this is the way to do digital. What do they call them? Not digital digital collectibles? Right, because they don't want to use the NFT name and they don't have anything to do.

Speaker 1: 57:30

And I'm fine. I'm fine with that name. Digital collectibles, like NFT is a terrible name. We all know it. I think Ordinals and Inscriptions is a beautiful name. Like I said, gave paintings on a wall etched into eternity. But, yeah, digital collectibles, like if NFTs or if the whole industry turned in and it was just called digital collectibles, I'd be good with that. But siloed on one wall in one place called VV.

Speaker 2: 57:55

Yeah, no, thanks, no, but you can't you can't call something a collectible that you own if you can't take it home with you, you know. So it's just, it's like a rentable, like. It makes no sense to me at all.

Speaker 1: 58:08

Hey, look at this picture I own on this website that they own.

Speaker 2: 58:12

Which leads to the whole other thing that's brewing in Disco Subconscious, which is I really want to understand more and I'm going to challenge myself to understand more about the current and upcoming opportunities for displaying, you know, nfts and digital collectibles in the coolest way.

Speaker 2: 58:28

Like I'm in search of kind of that perfect gallery experience. I know that. You know we did that, we did that class with 6529 and you know there were some pretty cool outputs that they put together and I've done I went to like a record release party in the in that metaverse and that's my big charge. Like I think by the end of this year it'd be really cool to really have a good understanding of you know like you have this awesome collection. I see the stuff on the frames behind you and everything. I'd like to be able to, on my own, go and really kind of just spend some time and look at you know what other people have collected and get inspired and really have that feeling and be able to kind of curate and do the same thing. So I'm excited to kind of watch that stuff develop a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 59:10

I mean beyond, on cyber. What have you discovered?

Speaker 2: 59:14

I don't know, okay, well, no, not really, and I think yeah, I think on cyber is pretty cool about it, but I just want to know, like, is that getting enough trap? Like how can we get it so that there's kind of one, one point, because I think that'll be a real magical moment when it's like, dude, I want to go kill you know, you know five hours, instead of doom scrolling or whatever. I want to go get inspired by what other people have collected and what other people have put together and how they, you know, lay it out in their space and how they use music with it or how they use you know, how is it? Just you just put kind of your one collection together or you kind of spread them out. So just kind of the curation side of it. I think we need kind of the payoff from you know, all these people that have all these cool collections. Like I'd love to look, I'd love to be able to experience that more.

Speaker 1: 1:00:00

Okay, well, follow up and it sounds like it sounds like a deep dive to me.

Speaker 2: 1:00:04

Yes indeed. Has it gotten approved yet.

Speaker 1: 1:00:10

No, it's not until after the market closes. We got three or more four more hours, I think Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:00:15

Okay, what else do we talk about? Oh, this could be a. We could talk about a follow up from our first show, which there's been some news from the azuki community in the last couple of days. One of the things that we just saw happen was Chiru, the you know, parent for azuki and beans, announced that they did a deal with an acclaimed anime director I think the best pronunciation is Goro Teneguchi, but, you know, tell me I'm wrong, please, and feedback in the notes.

Speaker 2: 1:00:48

But it's interesting because that was what we kind of called for in the first episode we did, which was a very deep dive just kind of, on all things azuki and the progress to date and where things are at. And we did kind of hope that they would come up with a strategy or plan and start executing it and moving towards it. And it looks like this could be the start of something, and I know we can talk timelines on if it's fast enough or if it's working quickly enough or if it's going to be the right outcome. But there was progress on that front and it did lead to some movement on the floor price as well. So it's interesting to see some signs of life coming from that community and we want to keep an eye on that for sure. Yeah, it's a step in the right direction.

Speaker 1: 1:01:33

I mean the you know, Densu, their ad agency is. I used to come from that world and I know in a way you did too, and that's I think that's one of the top three or four ad agencies in the world. So they're partnering big. They probably saw what Pudgy Penguins did by kind of lapping them and, you know, actually doing real world stuff, and I think Azuki has always done parties really well. I think the team is smart. But my thing from the beginning was like build the storyline any way possible and your community is so smart and creative, Like all you need are guardrails, like what's the spirit? What's a red, what's a blue? Who are these people? And then you know you create a plus stuff, hopefully with this guy, whatever his name is, but then the community can build on top of that. So you know, there's rumblings too.

Speaker 1: 1:02:28

Zagabon always talks in these cryptic codes, but it sounds like.

Speaker 2: 1:02:33

It's like parables of some sort.

Speaker 1: 1:02:35

Yeah, but it sounds like some sort of token is going to be launched. And you know, for me, like Elementals was a flop, you went from 10,000 Azuki to 30,000 with Elementals and 50,000 with Beans. That's to me that's too much art, it can't really support much. You know the spirit dow, like some of those people are holding such massive bags. Like I said, if you're holding a lot you can't get rid of it. You're locked in because you could trickle, sell some of them to offset some losses. But that's about it. But you know you're hoping for the home run here.

Speaker 1: 1:03:10

For me, a token drop, I don't know, is Apecoin. Like I never got into that. I think it did really well for a while and they have people like running it. But I think Apecoin has gone up, it's gone down. But to me, like what's the long term value of a coin to?

Speaker 1: 1:03:27

You know, because some people are talking about Azuki going to bring a bigger community of collections in and kind of be the big kind of headliner for this token, which I think would be a massive mistake. They should stick to their own ecosystem. But you know again, like you got to stick, what kind of a collector are you? And I'm going back to my thesis, which has gone fully away from utility tokens, because utility, you're at the long term mercy of people producing cool stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:04:01

Now, if this anime is timeless, like Cowboy, bebop and some of those, then you know Azuki could be a name brand and they could keep growing, growing it and the OG Azuki collection would probably be worth something, because that's where it started. I think that's your best shot. But until really the US securities laws change and you can actually own a piece almost like a stock and share in the profitability, and not just through proxy by owning a picture, I just think utility right now is it's not impossible, but it's a pretty big dead end. So I want to see Azuki succeed. I still own an Azuki and some beans. Root and Forum have been there since the beginning. This is definitely a step in the right direction, but why are we, two years after launch, like getting the announcement, like come on let's go.

Speaker 2: 1:04:56

Yeah that's fair. So that brings up like the beauty and I'm going to go back to it of, like the model that you know Blau's doing and investigating, just with the royal and you know, that whole program of being able to actually have, as we've talked about, the annuity aspect of a percentage of the royalties of a piece of art moving forward. And if they're not able to bridge and make it that clear, then I think utility is a big gray area and I'm coming to your way of thinking on that to a degree. Ordinals overall are pretty much not utility based, right.

Speaker 1: 1:05:42

That's a good question. Yes, that is an accurate statement for the most part. Some, I think, are trying to have utility. Node monkeys was like no utility and I'm like sign me up like no utility. I don't want utility. Give me a collectible and let the narrative like you know, crypto punks let it create its own narrative If one exists. If not, there's no risk. So there's not any utility baked in, because that, just to me, puts a premium inflation on the price immediately, and then they've got to deliver on this hyped up stuff. So, yes, you're right. Yeah, Minimals generally, some try and have utility, but I don't follow those at all.

Speaker 2: 1:06:26

And then, just as of right now, Apecoin's at $1.36, so that hasn't really rocketed at any point. So I don't know, I don't think the tokens the answer for you know, a Zuki, in my opinion, I think they should put their heads down and keep sticking to trying to create some content that can create more of a community and a lifestyle brand.

Speaker 1: 1:06:47

Yeah, for sure, I'm looking at it for a year. So, apecoin, what you said is a $1.36 and it peaked at $6.

Speaker 1: 1:06:56

So I'm sure a lot of people made money in there. But I guess if there are whole other deeds and that whole ecosystem comes out, then maybe something cool. But again, you can only have so many grail holders who are going to get all the spoils and have the best real estate and then everyone else. How do you keep hundreds of thousands of people which you need to sustain a really good multiplayer game? How do you keep them engaged and sustain for years and years? I mean, you know we haven't seen much about that, or maybe there has been in a while, but I just to me, to pre-sell land digitally is just like the ultimate. Like you know, hey, here you go, like here's your pickaxe and your sifter, like go find that gold. You know, like I want to be the pickaxe guy. I don't want to be the guy who's the 40,000th in line going out west to find, you know, either gold or pyrite fools gold.

Speaker 2: 1:07:57

So Well, with those utility-based communities, right. Like, one thing that I learned from going to the Azuki party is that there's a whole side of it where it's really managing the different status of the different holders, right. So you had the spirit holders getting a completely different UX and completely different treatment and then you had, like, beans holders that were like excited that they were able to use that to get in, and it's just so. Then you're really looking at managing you know people and getting into managing egos and all that sort of stuff, and it kind of gets away from the elements of just collecting and people collecting things that they appreciate and enjoy and believe in. So it kind of gets into a whole more bureaucratic, you know system to a degree.

Speaker 1: 1:08:49

Yeah, for sure. I think that would be extremely hard to manage because obviously you've got 97 spirits in the Azuki out of the 10,000 collections. So you know that one's easy. They're the VIP, vips, right. But then there's all the grails below it and you know, I think they had a dinner for, like, the people who are very active. So, okay, they checked that box. But then what about those of us who own a bunch of Azuki, who aren't in that Like, should we be equal to beans? Like, obviously I don't care, I just like. For me it was fun to go with you for the experience, just to kind of be a fly in the wall and see the whole thing. But if you're a holder, what incentive would you have from the party perspective to hold a bunch? You wouldn't. You'd have incentive if you just wanted to be able to go to the parties. You'd literally just hold one bean if you really wanted to.

Speaker 2: 1:09:44

Yeah, and then the way like elementals was dropped, you know, or how it was, air dropped, it wasn't necessarily. I'm sure there was something going on that I don't understand, but it wasn't an equivalency of kind of the rarity of what you were in the mix for for the elemental drop, based on what you had from the original collection. So it just it gets somewhat political probably and it just there's a lot of managing people and once you get into that, you know that's why I'm more comfortable working and operating in this sort of space. Right, don't have to, you know, have people report to me and report to other people and all that. But it seems like that sort of structure comes into play more if you're looking at that sort of operation.

Speaker 1: 1:10:28

Yeah, that's again no utility to me is is the best utility Like don't, don't, you know? Obviously, in the crypto punk world, some punks are. You know, that's an interesting collection because a lot of punks, quite frankly, aren't that good looking or attractive, right, so? So you've got your floor with certain traits like the, the spots or the pockmarks or whatever, just to think of one. But at the end of the day, a crypto punk holder is a crypto punk holder, you know, no matter what you have and it, you know. And obviously the seed phrase one, the seven trader, or the aliens or the apes yeah, I mean, those are in the, in the hoodies too, obviously, through six, five, two, nine and some of those other guys has has laddered up to be a premium one.

Speaker 1: 1:11:18

But I don't know that they have their own chat groups that they've created themselves. The utility didn't have to be created and managed by the actual company. So for me it's like I'm not looking two or four years out, I'm looking like 10 or 20 years out. Like is a zoo key? Is Chiru labs going to be around in 10 years? I think they probably will be, actually, but are they going to still be able to create this awesome utility. Like at some point the devs want to go do other stuff. Like people want to start start their own projects. They made a ton of money with a zoo key, probably tens of millions each for the founders, right At least. So at some point, like you know, you want the nice bungalow in Hawaii, the ski shell in Vermont, and you want to start your own project and be the head of your own thing. So again.

Speaker 2: 1:12:10

Yeah, no, I think that I know we've gone. I've brought up the point. Well, you know what it takes a while to build a lifestyle brand and do all that and you kind of push back a little bit. And there is a point on the pushback which is brands have their moment to shine. You know, like there's it's, it's of the right time, and that's all that has to kind of click and be relevant. And when you start losing years at a time or two years, three years the spirit that pulled people in initially, you don't know if that's necessarily the currency or relevancy at that new phase of, you know, the development of culture. So you do have to kind of hit when the, when the iron's hot and it's hard to prolong kind of the energy or the juice of being really buzzy on something, because we all know people's attention spans are short and there's always something new and shiny.

Speaker 1: 1:13:02

There's a new drop that you follow into and then you find a new group and then, hey, you were a regular azuki holder. You had kind of a cool looking floor that you liked, but in this new collection that's kind of taken off like you've got the equivalent of a spirit or a fire hair, fire eyes, fire sword or whatever you know and all of a sudden you've kind of laddered up your status. So, yeah, nothing's permanent. I will say I don't follow as many as Zuki as I used to, just because I'm trying to keep my timeline filled with more like more macro stuff and things that we discuss on the show.

Speaker 1: 1:13:39

But the azuki community, you know, even in, especially after you bought your MF or like the MF or community, is still a tight community. But the azuki community is still. I would say I would have given it to MF or is now. I would probably give the tightness of community to a Zuki of the lot that I'm familiar with, because they are well, they have always been welcoming more than welcoming to new people. And the core azuki holders, like the ones I like the most, they're still there and they're along for the ride boomer bus. They want to see, they love the art they always have, they love the spirit of the whole thing and they want to see. They want to see. They've been a part of this great experiment from the beginning and they want to see what happens.

Speaker 2: 1:14:27

I'll say my experience with MFers, and you know, the one thing that I will say that is very credible in my opinion is when I come across other MFers, like I do feel aligned with the spirit, you know, and I wouldn't, and I'm not the sort of person that would necessarily be like hey, come on in, welcome, welcome. You know, it's like it's feel a little disingenuous. So I think that it still is. I think it's a very good alignment and it took me a while to kind of figure out what would be kind of aligned and make sense to me and I have no, nothing but positives for for collecting that and being associated with it. Always, whenever I see them pop up on my feet, I'm like, yeah, dude, that's kind of a cool thing to say. I get it. So you get aligned with the spirit. And it doesn't have to just be, you know, everyone jumping in and being like, oh, we're apes, yeah well, they're under one eighth and they're CCO, which is which I love.

Speaker 1: 1:15:25

it's just, you know, like anybody could take your MF or put it on a t-shirt and or start a coffee company with your MF, or which I know some people are like that's crazy, why would you do that? It's just like nouns. But that that open source spirit to me is just super cool. Like, and you know, crypto punks should be absolutely CCO, and I get why you wouldn't.

Speaker 1: 1:15:48

If I owned Yuga had a big success with board apes, I maybe I'd do the same thing and they gave IP rights to the holders of the Crypto punks. But to go CCO with Crypto punks, I think would be. You know, I might eat those words, but I just think, in the spirit of the art, that would be like just set them free, just do it. Set them free, yeah, so anyone can use it for anything and display it anywhere. And those 5000 to 10,000 people who hold the private keys and actually own one of those, like great, you're along for the ride and you're the you're, you're the key holder, you know, and take that for what is, for what it means.

Speaker 2: 1:16:33

So yeah, Speaking of which, if we checked in on nouns at all recently, um yeah and nouns has been interesting.

Speaker 1: 1:16:43

I've been watching it so they've had we. We talked in the last show about the third fork, right, for correct. Yeah, okay, so there's been three forks now. So the arbitrages a noun, one noun, one little cute little PFP is minted every day and people bid on it. And you know just what? In the first fork they were going for 35 ETH and then it was like I think it was in the mid 20s. For the second for, for the after the second fork, and now after the third fork, yeah, we're down to like seven ETH, so the treasuries below 6000 ETH, right, so what is that? Like 12, 12 million plus bucks. I'm just doing quick math there. I think that's right. I don't think it's 120 million, um, but the winning bids are now seven.

Speaker 1: 1:17:35

So you're, every time these arbitrages group, they buy a noun, every day they stack up and then they split with their share of the treasury and that number keeps going down because, remember, the treasury keeps lending on different things. But, uh, also because the treasury keeps getting eaten down, the amount goes lower. So I was, uh, I reached out to Bren and we were talking about a bunch of other stuff and I just asked him. I'm like where do you think this settles? He's like, dude, I have no idea. So it'll be interesting to see, when the arbitrages are gone, what the bids are. I suspect you might see some days where the bids underneath like or you know, because we're about to go where it now, uh, we're at nine, nine, 75 today, so we have 23 or four more days.

Speaker 1: 1:18:28

Uh, because every 10th one the nouns team gets it. So everything that ends in a zero the nouns team gets. So basically every nine days 10 nouns go. So every in 22 days were in noun 1000. So now we're in four digit nouns. So I think the other three digit nouns will carry more value. But remember they're they're holding like 500 in their treasury, like most of them are being held in their treasury. So it's a. I love the experiment. Don't know what's going to happen. I will definitely own a noun one day. It's how how much I love this experiment. But I'm glad I'm a spectator and I'll get in at super low prices to to be a part of it and not have bought in at 80 ETH or 100 ETH or something crazy like that.

Speaker 2: 1:19:17

From a, from an aesthetic perspective for those who are audio, only the most recent nouns um, they're pretty cool looking. So you know, it's not like they're, like they're bringing it on, that it certainly. It certainly seems pretty cool from that side of it. Did you ever, um, do anything with the curling sponsorship? Did you ever do a proposal? Wouldn't hear anything on that front.

Speaker 1: 1:19:41

No, because me and the family got sick, but also we went out of town for a break, but now everyone's back in school, so I was hoping to look at it over the break but that didn't happen. But I am going to put a proposal, but what I have been doing is reading proposals that have been executed just to see how they laid it out. But I have to. It's one of those where I know it'll take me like five, 10 hours to put this all together. So I just need to look and figure out how, the best way to put it together. But I will be doing it.

Speaker 2: 1:20:13

Okay, well, I don't know, for every show we like to kind of look at something positive and reflect on that, and I would kind of take a page out of what you just said and take it a little bit of a step further and I'm just I think that it's good and I'm very grateful that we get this time after spending time with the family and holidays. But I really like this time of year when you can kind of set intentions, kind of do a reset and kind of take stock in what's important and what you're going to value for the year ahead. And I think it's a good process to go through for a lot of different reasons. I don't necessarily believe in resolutions, so to speak, but I believe in kind of setting a tone, and one of the things that I'm focused on for this year is it's a little personal, but I'll say it is just to consume less, and that's on all different fronts, from food to drink, to spending, to whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 1:21:14

Just reel it in, because there's been times where I'm like, oh, I'll get that, and then I'm like, do I really need it? So I'm trying to look at things through more of a lens of do I really need it and try to just have less of a footprint and just try to consume less overall and just try to simplify things a little bit more from that side of things. So I think that it's a great time to take stock in some of the things that you're proud that you've kind of evolved with, and really to look at the human spirit and just how incredible it is that every day is an opportunity to evolve and to learn more and to change and there's no timeline that you can't do that. But I know it's arbitrary that it's the beginning of the year, but I do think it's a fun step to kind of take and to do some reflection and set some tones for what you want to do moving forward.

Speaker 1: 1:22:02

Yeah, that's a good point. I'm not a big New Year's resolution guy anymore and I'm not a big vision board guy anymore, but at the beginning of the year you definitely take stock in things and what to do. I just did one of my infamous bone broth cleanses and it's just kind of nice. It just, you know, it resets you and it makes you maybe a little more. I always say it's almost like, take a little Windex to the soul, like so things are a little less cloudy, maybe get a lot of that sugar and drink and stuff out and just see things clearly again.

Speaker 1: 1:22:40

But yeah, as I get older too, the more you know as much as I love online. Like you got to be present for the family, you got to be present in real life with stuff, like so many of us here in this space. Like everything happens. Like yesterday you literally couldn't unglue yourself from Twitter and your Discord groups and stuff because it's approved, it's not approved. You know we've all been waiting for this for so long and it's just you know, sometimes at the end of the day you take stock before you get a bed, like like, did I touch grass? Did I walk the dog today? Did I throw the ball, did I, you know? And did I just like, when my children were telling me that story? Like, you know, and sometimes getting back in the world of a child, like it's hard, you know, but you've just got to, like you've got to. Sometimes, sometimes it's easy to be totally present, but sometimes it's not, because you've got so much going on in this world and so much of this world is digital and it's like it's not even real, right, so it's just ideas that we've all created and agreed upon, which is awesome, I mean, we're in this information age. But, yeah, sometimes you just got to take a step back and, especially for those with little kids, just be super present.

Speaker 1: 1:24:00

And my wife said something the other day that really resonated because we, when the kids go to bed, we spend a lot of time with them and sometimes, you know you're just exhausted, but like because the what I've noticed is when kids check in, they want to check in like it's always. It's not always at the times you want to check in, like dinner's ready, you know, and like a dinner. They're like, you know, you could tell they're like leaning in their chair halfway out because they're in the middle of something, but at the end of the night, for whatever reason, when you're exhausted and they're winding down, they want to hang and chat and chat, and chat. And I heard from my wife and her friend that you know the kids said to her, who are grown up now, like, hey, I wish you to spend like you know, instead of just talking me in, like spend the time to chat. And I'm just, I knock on wood. I thank goodness that I have not every night, but I've always like stayed the extra time, even when I was tired, and that's why naps are so important.

Speaker 1: 1:25:02

During the day, maybe a little a little great tea.

Speaker 1: 1:25:06

Yeah, but, but sticking around, because I always find that right before bedtime, for whatever reason, even when they're in high school, is the time where they're just going to be chatty and open up. So you just got to meet them where they are and maybe change your day a little and tweak it to connect with them, because the days, the days can go slow raising kids, but the years go pretty, pretty fast.

Speaker 2: 1:25:32

Yeah, that's fascinating that you organically hit on that, because last night, close to midnight, I heard some scuffling in the kitchen and I ran in and they were both up and I was like we had a great hang, you know, and I'm like I got to wake up tomorrow. I don't know what's happening with the approval and they're like, but we had a really great.

Speaker 2: 1:25:51

we had a great hang making nachos and all that stuff, so it was a great time, all right. Well, hopefully we'll have some interesting foundational news when we next get together. And, as always, this show is for entertainment purposes only. Nothing should be considered financial advice. We encourage you to do your own research, not to invest more than you can afford to lose, not to get over your skis and to enjoy the time. Tune out the toxicity, focus on the positive and try to use those critical thinking lenses as much as possible, because that's, I think, one of the most important things that we can stress on the show.

Speaker 1: 1:26:24

Well said disco. Ciao bella everybody.