Decentral Lens: Bitcoin ETF Trading | ETH ETF | Vanguard's Fumble | Fingerprints DAO

Speaker 1: 0:00

Now the big fight that we all all OGs and people who care about security and self-sovereignty and freedom of speech and freedom to transact is to make sure that these bank secrecy laws don't start including every single human being with a hardware wallet.

Speaker 2: 0:22

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: 0:43

How's it going? Everybody Another week, another huge batch of news and so much cool stuff going on. I'm in a much better mood this week, so that makes me happy too, and I had a half-undrunk cup of coffee this morning. Drove my daughter to the bus and I forgot about it, and I will drink cold coffee. I do not care when I forget and then re-remember that I have coffee to drink. To me it's just a big win. Around lunchtime Disco how are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 1:14

I'm doing good. So are you on a strict one cup of coffee ratio? That's your limit per day.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Yeah, I'm always one cup a day, because if I go over, I actually I don't know why this happens to me I spike and then I crash 45 minutes later and the rest of the day is just like I got a nap, which I'll do anyway, but I've got a nap more and I just like it doesn't work for me, like this is to get gets the engine turning and once it's like, it's like the choke, for me to turn the choke off and the engine's humming and everything's fine.

Speaker 2: 1:51

Yeah, I myself find myself in the one cup of coffee camp, but I'm relatively newer to utilizing coffee in my day to day and I have had to. I've had to learn the hard way that if I get amped up on two or three, four cups of coffee, the road down the hill is not worth the road up, the ride up the hill.

Speaker 1: 2:10

No, definitely not. And I think both of our personalities, like our minds, it doesn't take much for my mind to race, and I think you're. I think that's why we're kindred spirits, because I know you're similar, because I've known you my whole life. So, yeah, yeah, one cup is definitely my limit. And then, and then it just it kicks me, jump starts me and it just goes to, even with drinking. Like honestly, like I'm, I have no inhibitions at a party or anywhere. Like you know, sometimes it's fun to just tie one on, but like I, it sounds crazy. I just don't need to drink that much, I just don't.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Yeah, I think that I was. It's something that is, you know you've been more in tune with over time. But for me, like I'm trying to be more mindful and conscious and look at you know how something's going to feel, you know a half hour after it's consumed and you know what that's going to lead to, and I haven't really looked at things from that perspective. It's a newer kind of kind of update to my software system and it's really awesome. You know, like it's good just to kind of think about it. You know I'll be like oh, I really do like that spinach and artichoke.

Speaker 2: 3:23

And then I'm like, and then I'm going to be like all red faced and ready for a nap right afterwards. So is it worth it and it's just part of the evolution. But to get to, to get to what you were saying earlier, it's like every. It sounds like cliche, but every time we plug in and we talk about doing a show and we get ready to go, it's like there's no, there's no lack of of interesting and exciting developments to cover. So I'm excited to to dig into the developments. This is our first post approval show, so it was kind of interesting. I'm kind of happy that we have that one memorialized, you know, because we were sitting there and you, you know, you were more. You were more solid in your belief that it was going to happen and that the world wasn't going to crumble down and that there'd be a rug at the end. But I was a little more nervous about it, but it was really exciting just to see it come to fruition.

Speaker 1: 4:13

Yeah, and I snuck in actually, but right when we were uploading the show and right before I took it down and then just said the Bitcoin ETF is launched. Only because I figure people will be like, oh, this is such old news, like the world has changed now and the funny thing is? The funny thing is has the world changed.

Speaker 1: 4:31

It's, it's. It's so. Much has happened this week around that for me and Vanguard, and we'll get into that. But you know one one I was right about that and probably not worrying, but what I was wrong about was that people were stockpiling and the stats were there. Remember last week how I said that I think it was 9.4% of of the Bitcoin was on the exchanges and and I'm sorry, it was 9.7 and it was 9.4 before that. So 0.3 doesn't sound like a lot, but it actually it's. It's quite a bit and you know when it goes up, that means people are obviously looking to trade, looking to sell, and people did you know we peaked? Did we hit 48? I think we did.

Speaker 1: 5:17

And now we're back down and I should have her in front of me. Were in like the 40s.

Speaker 2: 5:23

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:25

So it really did, correct. Is it a bad correction? No, and it actually worked out for me, because I couldn't buy on Vanguard. But, whoa, let's hit the brakes. We're getting way out of ourselves. So let's, let's break all this down.

Speaker 2: 5:38

Yeah, but that's a good. That's a good point just to start with, because I know we were talking about what was going to be the initial reaction from a price perspective. We're now doing the show, four days into actual trading of the ETFs and it being available on all the markets Right.

Speaker 2: 5:58

Yeah, and I just think that I was concerned. I've been on, I've been on all sides of it. So once it got approved and went up, I definitely had that, that big morsel of oh no, I don't have enough. You know, I just don't have enough. I kind of wish there's a little dip, oh God. And then I had this, and then I had this big kind of positive revelation like wow, it's not sinking to the point of going down 20,000 or this or that. So I hate to say that, like a nothing burger to a degree on price and a slight dip is really good news, but where Disco sits, like I think it's pretty amazing that you kind of withstood that whole thing. All these unknowns became known and there's still an opportunity to acquire at a somewhat decent rate, especially before the happening. And that's kind of how I'm looking at it all.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Yeah, that's, that's well put and I definitely want to put more. And I actually gotten a little bit of a scuffle with somebody and I think it was on the not a scuffle, but it was just like we went back and forth and it was very above board. But he just kept saying, like why what? Just buy Bitcoin? Why do you need this ETF? And I just kept saying to him like dude like what is.

Speaker 1: 7:15

But we all have retirement accounts, we all have different types of accounts and like, is it as good as holding your keys and your own Bitcoin? No, it's one step removed. But these ETFs are a one to one on Bitcoin. But right. So to me, the the tracks have been greased and to be able to just put Bitcoin in any of the retirement accounts I want or whatever, is just so seamless and easy. And everybody's fees are, you know, at least out of the gate. Everybody's fees are are teeny.

Speaker 1: 7:58

I know Fidelity is. I think Fidelity is free or 0.25. I mean 0.25 and ETF is nothing. I know Ark B, cathie Woods, 21 shares. That one is free for the first six months and then it goes to 0.25 or two ones. So like very reasonable with ETFs. But you know, grayscale I can't remember where they were before it was a convoluted mess because it was a trust. But now we know they're at 1.5%. So they're basically saying that they're making a bet that people in the grayscale Bitcoin trust are going to be lazy and just keep it in there. And so far they've been right. They've got 25 billion in assets. The next highest is iShares, which is BlackRock, obviously right At $707 million, and this was snapshotted yesterday, I believe. So I mean the numbers.

Speaker 2: 9:01

You got to look at the numbers. You got to look at the numbers and maybe I'm off on this, but I think you have to look at the numbers. Is grayscale had a big head start on it, right? Because they were already in the game, so to have, but to have $707 million and $520 million like the Bitcoin, the Fidelity, as well as BlackRock, like that's pretty significant.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Oh, 100% yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:23

Like it's like, when you look at that, the 25, I think just kind of skews it the grayscale side of it, and you know, if that wasn't in the game and it was really just new entrance, completely it kind of be a different narrative.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Yeah, and for those, you know, we always have to respect those listening and not looking. The grayscale Bitcoin trust has been our GBTC has been around for years. I was in it for a long time, got out a while ago, but they were at about $26 billion in holdings I think when all this launched maybe $27 billion. So now everybody else is playing catch up. So a big narrative in these first three days of the Bitcoin ETFs all 11 getting approved was well, is there a net inflow or is it just smart people getting out of grayscale Bitcoin trust and going to the low, going from 1.5% fee to one of the 0.25 or free for first six months or whatever fee? So we've seen the total outflows for three days of grayscale at 1.17 billion. So now they're down to 25.5 billion and again that flowed into. Number one was BlackRock at 710 million inflows for the first three days, fidelity at 524 million, bitwise at 305 million and then FourthArk at 227 million. So overall these ETFs and an aggregate, they say that just one of these ETFs is trading more than all the other ETFs combined. So that's how big this market is.

Speaker 1: 11:12

So right now, in the first three days, we've seen, like I said, about a billion out of grayscale into the others. But if you take the overall net net, the net inflow was positive at 803 million in. So that means grayscale lost a billion but the other ones gained about a billion eight or a billion nine. So the net net is 800 million in new money, and not just people go from grayscale to the other. So that in itself, 800 million in three days, is massive. And I mean we could go on and on forever. But we haven't even seen the institutions. We haven't seen like it's going to take so much time for people to come in. But now it's. The tracks are greased. Any retirement account, I assume a pension, as long as they get approval, like anybody has access to these 11 ETFs. It's beautiful.

Speaker 2: 12:09

Hallelujah. Well, I hate to say everybody has access, because there were a couple of houses that didn't really have any candy at the door when people wanted to trick or treat to get in. On the ETF, One quick question I had that came up when you were talking about looking at what's better, holding it self, custody and everything, which is the ultimate view from Puris and everything. But my question to you is this in light of seeing in December there was a little bit of a shiver down the collective spine when people saw a potential vulnerability within the ledger network. So do you think that the ETFs are more secure potentially than self-custody or do you still think that self-custody? But I was just wondering like, maybe technically you might have a little bit of a safety net if you're going through an ETF that's involved with this. So that was just a question that came up. I haven't even thought about it prior to this conversation.

Speaker 1: 13:14

You know it's a really interesting question. You're not holding the underlying asset here. You are holding, you know, literally a digital piece of paper saying that you have a share or shares of one of these ETFs. So you're not holding it. But that said, you know, assuming our financial system stays whole and true and all that stuff, yeah, I mean, if you've got good 2FA not going through your cell phone and you know the, obviously the brokerage houses are as secure as you can get for Web 2, you're in and you also have insurance backed on that, like somebody would literally have to trade out and then transfer it to their own account.

Speaker 1: 14:03

So is it foolproof? No, but is it? Is it as safe as we have come to expect before the crypto era? Yes, because I mean if you had a member with crypto to think about, how many people have lost their keys, or there's a, there's a million things that could go wrong. Or if somebody, knock on wood, dies, like can their heirs get it? What if you have a multi-sig, like, and I am not here saying don't do any of those things I think self custody and holding your own Bitcoin to me is a right of passage and I think it's it's that self sovereignty to me is as important as, like freedom of speech. It's freedom to hold what you want on with in your mind, on your person, however it is.

Speaker 1: 14:59

I mean say it works differently. So I will always be 100% advocate for that. But you know we've all been using, most of us have have some sort of retirement accounts or something and this you know, I feel safe with the places I invest in now. Hopefully I never have to eat those words.

Speaker 2: 15:19

But yeah, I think it's.

Speaker 1: 15:21

It's pretty damn safe.

Speaker 2: 15:23

And and that kind of leads to like the next battle or the next you know thing for the integrity of you know Satoshi and things from that perspective, which is there's kind of this battle coming up of the acceptance of Bitcoin and potentially other you know currencies and things like that being mainstreamed, adaptable through potential ETFs or whatever it may be, and while that can be a very big step forward for the growth and the acceptance of the space, the vigilance to be able to do the self custody and to keep our eyes on those elements and advocate for that is more important than ever so it doesn't just get glossed over with the corporatization of the assets.

Speaker 1: 16:12

Yeah, that's a really good point, disco. That is the, now that the finally and the biggest financial market in the world, we've got these Bitcoin ETFs, you know, and hopefully ETFs will come soon. We'll talk about that in a bit. But yeah, now the big fight that we all all OGs and people who care about security and self sovereignty and freedom of speech and freedom to transact is to make sure that these bank secrecy laws don't start including every single human being with a hardware, wallet or literally a piece of paper or you memorize it. I mean, it's absurd that that could even happen, and right now, with the divided Congress, I don't think it's on the table. But you know, if you get an, all I don't want to say on the Democratic side, but right now, you know the Democrats are, in general, more anti crypto. But I'll just say, from a crypto stance, if you get a bunch of them anti crypto, the name of the bill talks about one of those things that we all care deeply about, like protecting our children or whatever, like you know. So that's obviously that would. That's manipulative, and what they're really doing is making sure that the Treadfy system controls the crypto system as much as possible. I think in the long run, that's almost impossible because Bitcoin doesn't care about any of this. Bitcoin just is, and and through people getting obsessed by it, and through people seeing that it's a non or a low inflationary hedge against the US and the global financial Treadfy financial system, that it spreads itself almost organically. So again, any Congressperson, anyone who passes laws, you're just screwing the people, your citizens. So you know, it's it that that's the fight we have to continue to focus on and to be proactive on, because right now it's not a threat, but if it is, we have to be fully prepared to stand up for our rights. Because remember all the normies that come in like look how many people in crypto who are already in crypto. They don't even care about privacy, they don't even care about self sovereignty you start talking about that on Twitter and they just care about their bags and their NFTs and it's. It is what it is.

Speaker 1: 18:45

I was gonna say it's sad, but it is what it is. It's just like in any organization you're in, 5% of the people are doing 93% of the volunteering, always begging everyone else to get involved, and that's just kind of how life is. It's like the 93, 7 rule instead of 80, 20 rule, like few people do a lot, so we have to have an outsized voice here. And I think that's why 6529 is so brilliant, because it took me a while to be in this space to figure it out. But seize the memes. He didn't accidentally stumble on that. He realized the quickest way to communicate with people is through imagery and short sentences and obviously there was a lot of very nasty evil cultures in the past who were very good at that stuff to manipulate society and stuff like that, but this is using it, in my opinion, to manipulate it for good.

Speaker 1: 19:41

That's why some of those 6529 memes, like some of those early ones, like the Satoshi one and the Peppy pilot, they're timeless Because once you understand that, it's like a rally cry and it shows you how important it is and how much we have to stand up for what we believe in.

Speaker 2: 20:04

Yeah, amen. And as we are talking right now, there's a courtroom going on with the SEC and Coinbase and it is a follow up or it's the kind of the hearing based on a complaint that was lodged years ago and there's a chance that the judge could dismiss it, and it's tied to the 13 or so tokens that were considered. They're trying to see how to categorize them if their securities are not, and all that. So that seems to me like it's kind of flying somewhat under the radar right now that you have the SEC and Coinbase having a face off in a courtroom in, I believe, manhattan right now over something that's very, very important and if it did end up going the way of dismissal, it could potentially be as big, if not bigger, news than what happened last week with the ETF approval. So we got to keep our eyes on that and if any news comes out, Wow, that's a big statement.

Speaker 2: 21:06

Yeah, well, think about it, because you're then talking about all these other securities and some of them are big players right now. You're talking about Salanas in there and Cardano and all that. So it's significant in terms of what it could represent. And I think that every single time you have the SEC and a crypto agency going head to head, every single time that there could be some deadening to the SEC's armor is really important.

Speaker 2: 21:36

And I think that not enough is made of the fact that those previous kind of court cases that the SEC lost really kind of led to you know, kind of Gensler losing some of his bravado and footing and ultimately having to acknowledge that this is a new movement and it needs to. While it's different and it's easy for people to have narratives about it being misunderstood and we don't get it it's very powerful and it's very legitimate in terms of what it offers. So I love that there are some, you know, kind of deadening of the firm, of the firm. You know all this of, oh no, we're the, we're the, we're the authority, and it's like are you really like, is this really even under your jurisdiction? So I think all these are really important things to watch.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Yeah, good point. The SEC is clearly overstepped and losing. That last court case obviously opened the doors for the ETF that has has come out. But you know, these arbitrary decisions that they're made, they're enforcing something Again, like Gary Gensler to me just seems like he's just a puppet.

Speaker 1: 22:43

Right, there are larger forces, I think, in the government who are whether it's the secretary, treasury are coming right from the executive office. Who knows? But there's clearly in the executive office and in that branch there's an anti crypto narrative going on and the most frustrating thing is just hearing the same lies over and over that it's only used for trafficking and terrorist groups and that's simply not the case. I mean, it's been proven that under 1% of the funds get used for that and obviously, like I said, no percent is a good percent, but cash is two or 3%. So, like it's to me, I feel like where the government overreaches is now that there are all the tools out there and all our transactions are digital and through banks and through credit cards.

Speaker 1: 23:38

Because they have the access to it. They want more and more access. But in the history of mankind, like you couldn't in humankind, you couldn't track every transaction and that's how it should be. Obviously, if people are doing stuff illegal, then the powers that be should track that down and find them. But that doesn't mean you get to surveil every single person in the United States to do so and it's against our rights and people need to know those rights.

Speaker 2: 24:10

With the First, second and Fourth Amendments yeah, which really does go back to what we were saying a second ago. The right to self-custody and everything like that is really, really, really important, because if it infiltrates in, then things can get turned off from different systems and it'd be good to be able to have your own access. So it does. I see both sides of the argument. I see what you're saying completely in terms of if you already have funds that are in a system and you're now able to deploy those towards something that you believe in and you think has a lot of growth and a lot of positive potential, that's good for everybody to be able to do that. But I do also understand the purists in the basement like keep it self-custody. Why would you do that? So it's an interesting dichotomy to watch.

Speaker 1: 24:58

Yeah, I have. Have you seen a lot of Noise out there about people just saying? I know that. The noise I heard was at the ETF. You know, once the Treadfy takes it over and the big mega whales come in and the institutions and the hedge funds and the big banks and the brokerage houses, once they come in it, it Manipulates Bitcoin and stays untrue. But to me it's like you can always hold the underlining. You can, I guess. For me it's like you can do both. I can't. I can't take part of my retirement portfolio and Grab a portion of it and then go buy the underlying. I just can't. The legally I can't do it. It comes out of the iron, then I get a Fee. So why not hold it in there? And I'm gonna admit something to you and I've thought about this Because I can buy this. This is horrible, this is D gen.

Speaker 2: 25:53

But because I can hear it.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Yeah, because I can buy Bitcoin through an ETF in there. If I have more holdings there, maybe with my real Bitcoin I could hold more ordinals and NFTs.

Speaker 2: 26:12

You probably Well, you who utilize, who utilizes staking as a way to like Crocodile, crocodile arm your way to not get to your wallet. Um, yes, that's a good, that's a good speed bump and it's crazy, yeah, how exciting, you know, just hearing, just watching this ordinal stuff too. So it's just there's so many good things and interesting things developing and it's almost hard to Focus to show because there's just so many interesting roads to go down. But I think the, I think the net of you know, more people being able to have access to it, that we've been talking about for, you know, months at this point is really exciting. Then, just seeing that it kind of came out and didn't, you know, Hockey stick one way or the other, I think it's pretty exciting. I do think it was interesting.

Speaker 2: 26:57

Just to go back to Gensler really quick. I do think it's awesome and interesting that he ended up voting to approve the ETF and if you looked at the five votes or whatever, his kind of was the decider. So I don't know enough about the inner workings of the SEC and, as we say, who has influence here or there or whatever. There's people you know of the mindset that Larry Fink pretty much got that vote. You know from Gensler in place and you know he kind of had to, he kind of he kind of had to approve it, but then you know kind of not really approved, disapprovingly approve, I guess, is kind of how it came across.

Speaker 1: 27:32

Yeah, it certainly shows you that maybe the big billionaire mega whales, like the finks of the world, like, hey, gary, like hold my lunch, you know who knows. And and maybe that even shows you like, with the executive branch and the big money brokers and power brokers in this world, like who's in control, you know, and the fact that you bring up a very good point though, the fact that it was a 3-2 vote and that what was it? Chambers, what's that? What's that woman's name? But the dissenting opinion was just like Disagreeing with the courts. It's like great, you could disagree with the courts, but what is your role in? Like you know, and and Hester Peart purse God bless her like was like not only should have this been approved, this should have been approved 10 years ago.

Speaker 1: 28:22

You know, we did a disservice to investors and to innovation, and I Mean her quotes go on and on. It's just I hope that she is the next SEC commissioner what, what, how? Treasury secretary how awesome would that be? It's not like she's this Unreasonable Bitcoin Maxi. She's just she's. She believes in innovation and she knows that that Bitcoin is a good hedge. I think, to finish the Bitcoin section is, what people forget is we now have in the trad-fi system a one-to-one hedge against inflation.

Speaker 2: 29:10

Kind of a hedge against the system. You know, like that's what, yeah, so ironic about it? It's like you can technically not necessarily bet against the system but to a degree Get a position that would be, you know, positive in light of potential, you know, deterioration of the existing system.

Speaker 1: 29:28

So that's kind of a interesting but you don't even have to bet against the system to believe in Bitcoin you're betting against, I mean, inflation is Attacks, it's. I think inflation is the most hidden, insidious tax because your hard work, you know money is just energy stored. So let's say you worked your butt off in your 20s and 30s in corporate America, made a bunch of money and You're fairly frugal. You know you want to save for a house or kids, college or whatever. You want to have that money Retain as much value as possible. Now, obviously people do that by investing in the stock market with stocks and bonds, but at some point the if you can't keep up with inflation.

Speaker 1: 30:14

You know posted inflation, a real inflation, obviously, two different things because your basket and my basket are totally different. If I have an electric car, gas isn't that important to me, but obviously energy costs and electricity costs in my home are. Both of us Obviously eat food. That's the basket that you know appeals to everybody. But everybody's basket is totally different. So inflation is different for every single household. And the manipulation of that inflation basket they're changing it all the time to massage the numbers to how they want that basket I think has changed. I heard like over 10 or 20 times since, like the 1980s, like it's just absurd, like you can't, like you can't even have a standard basket, I would argue. Like either rent or mortgage, gas and food and I'm pretty sure even food is Not included like there's some things that aren't included. You're like, so the staples of life Basically aren't even that well represented? Hey, but TV sets are getting cheaper every year and they're getting bigger. Yay for TVs, you know which I don't need.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Right like how about it.

Speaker 2: 31:21

I'm good dude, like I don't need it. It was like there was like that peak when it was like who they're curving, and it went into HD Like that was kind of the last big six K like yeah, 2k was pretty good, you know yeah, it's kind of like the. It's kind of like the iPhones right, like they got to the point where you know you had the generations.

Speaker 1: 31:39

Oh, I gotta get the six, I gotta get the seven.

Speaker 2: 31:41

And now it's like, yeah, I gotta get a new phone. I guess I'll get the 15, because it's what's no Innovation there.

Speaker 1: 31:46

Yeah, it's funny with the iPhone. I actually did just get a new one. I had an 11 pro and it wouldn't the little thing in the in the you know the charging cable it.

Speaker 1: 31:58

It never fit well, but it just got worse and worse and it couldn't charge. And then I had to just do the. You know the magnetic charging, but the 11 doesn't have the magnet in the back so it wouldn't stick. So I'm like so I got a phone out of pure necessity. But, innovation wise, like using this like it's. It's no better app Apple is definitely. They've got their wall garden, they've got their users and to switch, like who's gonna start over with all their Little niche apps to run their lives and their homes? Like who wants to start over and download all those again? Like that's, the switching costs are too high. But Anyway, maybe you're gonna pull will be cool.

Speaker 2: 32:37

Yeah, that's, that's that's what I was gonna ask you about, because my son is that was on some list and he's like we can get it if you want, and I was sitting there thinking about it. I'm like I don't know. You know, like he's like I would keep it boxed, you know, and wouldn't use it. You know probably would go up over time, but I don't know if there's Like a big clamoring to use it, because what are you gonna use it for? You know like we don't know yet. So and that that goes to also Hopefully it can make a big play or help with.

Speaker 2: 33:05

You know what we've kind of been talking about the experience and more of the Metaverse stuff in terms of being able to display our cool ways and interface with and stuff more to see on that, for sure. But I'm not dying to get a new phone. I don't think there's any status or swag anymore. If you have the 15 or the 14 and it's almost like dude, why do you need that? You know there's nothing new, that's that. That's all that great about it.

Speaker 1: 33:27

Yeah, I don't think I know that anybody cares, but if I'm gonna, am I gonna get a vision pro? I mean, um, you know, we develop apps for a living and I would say we did not pre-order them. What are they? 3000 bucks for the base like 35?

Speaker 2: 33:42

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:42

I don't know. I mean it's starting at a high price, I think a smart. They're trying to hit the work marketplace first, but um, I'm sure they'll do a good job with it and it will iterate. It's like the apple watch. At first they were worthless. I only Use the apple watch only when I'm on the golf course to get the distance yardage, because it just makes it so much easier. Just look at your wrist to be like and you know. So you just you get to chill there, put your score in if you really want to, or be like tie web and don't even keep score.

Speaker 1: 34:10

But uh you know, I think, the apple watch to this day is still to me. This is my opinion. It's just like one more thing Tracking you, following around, like do you really want your heartbeat and all your vitals and everything out there? Just to me it seems. It seems invasive and unnecessary, like if I want to see a text, I will look at my phone. If I don't want to see a text, it will remain in my pocket.

Speaker 2: 34:35

I'm, I'm on the fence and I'm I'm at a I don't know the I would say precipice, but I don't even know what that's right word.

Speaker 2: 34:42

I'm at it. I'm at a decision making time where it's like I was like am I now like accountable to this phone and do I really? Or to my watch, and do I really want to have to be accountable Because it'll give you like little warning? It's like, hey, you can still do it. You know you can move more today. It's like dude, I know I can, but I did this, that the other, I don't really need to check in with you and you're right, you know you get the alerts. It's like dude, okay, so I may be, I may be moving on from it myself, because I don't but I even turn all alerts off on my phone.

Speaker 1: 35:13

I don't I don't have sounds or bleeps like I've got a buddy who's like getting news and stock updates, and be like, how do you live without having alert. I'm like, yeah, my phone's at the mercy of my decisions and I'm already addicted to it, like the rest of us. Like I don't need it to be squawking at me. So I turn, except for like timers and reminders and calendar appointments. Like like I don't, I don't let it push my email. I I go into email and then and it, you know it takes like 10 seconds but it loads all the emails and because I don't want to, I want I'm gonna look at my email at my time. I'm not gonna look at email on anyone else's time.

Speaker 2: 35:59

Yeah, that's a good Look, I'm gonna. I took it off. This conversation made me made me take it off. I don't need the shackles, I don't need to know about these spam emails or these offers that I didn't ask about Interrupting me when I'm doing this and that subscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe unsubscribe. Unsubscribe.

Speaker 1: 36:17

I mean, how many lists are you on, like I know? And then, something, something.

Speaker 2: 36:22

My number got exposed somewhere because I've just been Inundated with freaking scam calls over the last past five days. I was like something, and so is my wife, and it's just like oh, we got someone's got our number.

Speaker 1: 36:34

Oh, but do you? You have the checkbox for silence unknown numbers, don't you Disco? No, I don't boomer.

Speaker 2: 36:45

Remember.

Speaker 1: 36:45

I'm a gen X. This goes a boomer. There is a setting. Go into settings under phone and it's silence unknown callers and yes, you might miss a call from someone important. Or if you're expecting an important call, flip it. Flip it back on just for that. Otherwise keep it off and it will silence everything. Most don't leave a message I get.

Speaker 2: 37:10

What if it's that important solicitation, that's that opportunity. Or what if I? What if I really owe the government 10,000 dollars? I didn't know about okay, you're being sarcastic.

Speaker 1: 37:19

I was like turn it off, yeah, silent. That silence unknown callers is Is probably your best friend on the iphone. So definitely turn that, flip that on to silence them immediately and only flip it off when you're needed. Like you know, if you called your bank and then they're calling you back in 45 minutes, or American Airlines, they'll call you back in seven hours and 45 minutes. Um, just flip it off so you can hear it. Otherwise, yeah, just just keep that on and it will make you guys like I think peace of mind in this modern era is like and and you beating to your own drum and not the drum of Everything that's going on out there. It's ready for you, like I'm already. It's not like I don't Check my phone way too much, anyway, I just don't. I don't allow it to check me.

Speaker 2: 38:14

I think you're. My takeaway from this is that you can be Deliberate in your interactions, whereas if you're not deliberate in the interactions, they can inundate in ways you didn't expect and end up taking up way too much space in your life.

Speaker 1: 38:30

Yeah, they get your headspace and then you don't have time to do the things you want. So and I've got buddies who are way better at that than I am, but that's a start like they have. They have iPhone cases where you know you basically have like hd staring at you at all times, so the the it actually blocks the camera and the front there and the back, like you can. There's all sorts of cool stuff you can do with that if you really get into it.

Speaker 2: 38:57

But let me, let me ask. Let me let me ask you this really quick. It's a, it's a, it's a. It's something that just came to my mind on this. Is it completely ironic and boomery to Put a seed phrase in a safe deposit box at a bank?

Speaker 1: 39:15

Oh, that's a good question. I don't know if I could answer that one.

Speaker 2: 39:20

I assume I'm thinking about it myself. I was like, well, if there was a fire or whatever it's like, I'd have it at the bank so I could go, you know, pull it from there.

Speaker 1: 39:28

And then I was do you not have plates?

Speaker 2: 39:32

No, I don't have plates. And I was like, why would I do that if I?

Speaker 1: 39:35

Disco. That's like. I feel like we, these last 17 episodes, we speed ran everything and you don't have some of the basics down. Get a seed plate, a fireproof seed plate? Yeah, don't. But as far as the safety, the soul security box, um, I assume those things are safe, but I don't know. But I, but I also assume that Somebody through the back there has access to them too. So I, but I've never heard of that stuff getting stolen or confiscated. But I feel like in that gold era there was, yeah, like You'd have to look into that. I don't know, I I Personally, wouldn't keep it there, but I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 40:22

Okay, more to more to follow on that, folks.

Speaker 1: 40:26

Yeah definitely get a. Get a seed plate for sure, okay.

Speaker 2: 40:32

Getting back to the bitcoin, is there anything you know they ran some ads and I don't know. You know it's. It's interesting to look at how it's going to be positioned to Um. You know retail and consumers moving forward from. You know being bitcoin and it's also interesting to see it from. You know the Super Bowl of what three years ago, where every other ad is for a different exchange and all that.

Speaker 2: 40:59

So it's like the public, you know, doesn't want to see matt daemon, you know talking about the stuff anymore and you know Larry david and all that stuff and you know half of those were for ftx, if you really look at it.

Speaker 1: 41:09

So I think most of them were, weren't they, I don't think coinbase or crack, and ever did heavy advertising at all? I think it was. That was all ftx, if I'm not mistaken. It was a lot of Larry david, matt daemon and tom brady were the three I remember. I don't remember the tom brady ad, I just know he was heavily involved.

Speaker 2: 41:30

But yeah, yeah, I don't remember and it's kind of, it's probably just been blocked out of my mind, um, because I don't want to remember fortune favor in the brave and everything like that, but it's interesting to see how they're going to. You know, now kind of repolish off bitcoin and come back and explain to folks that it's something to invest in.

Speaker 1: 41:50

Yeah, it's interesting, so bitwise I'll play this one. So.

Speaker 2: 42:09

You know what's interesting these days? Bitcoin.

Speaker 1: 42:13

Cut.

Speaker 2: 42:18

What if we get?

Speaker 1: 42:20

him I would say, of the three, that's the best one.

Speaker 2: 42:28

So for those who are listening, that was the most interesting Bitcoin that was the most interesting man in the world. So at least they're wise my friends, the other ones.

Speaker 1: 42:38

In my opinion the commercials weren't very appealing, and maybe I'm too much of a crypto I say insider, but I've been in it so long. Maybe they don't appeal to me, but they just. They're very plain and boring. Like give it a little spice. But maybe the FTX stuff. Everyone wanted to mute it down and just say like, hey, this is a good investment vehicle, go get it.

Speaker 2: 43:05

Yeah, it's interesting because they don't say crypto, they don't really explain Bitcoin, they're just kind of like getting the name back out there. Right. There was nothing, no real call to action or anything out of that ad. Getting looking back from like someone who you know was in the periphery of the ad business and everything, it's like what's the call to action? What's the point of that? If it's just general awareness about the name, bitwise or whatever it is, it doesn't really hit that hard, you know, and it's not that big a differentiator at this point. So it'll be interesting if somebody comes up with a really slick or, you know, informative ad. But it seems like it's really just kind of normalize and reintroduce the term to kind of the masses.

Speaker 1: 43:47

Yeah, it's a good, very good point. I didn't even think of that. So this ad is not top of funnel. This is like mid funnel ads. It's basically saying hey, you're going to do your research on Bitcoin on your own. We're not going to sit here and try and convince you of Bitcoin because normies obviously have seen it go up, seen it go down. They most probably got burned at the wrong time if they actually got in buying it, peak FOMO, right. So this is coming in mid funnel, basically saying like, hey, we're doing a fun ad, we're saying Bitcoin and when you're ready, bitwise. So that's a good point. And that makes this ad even better, I think, because the ARC one was like text messaging and it was kind of the same thing. It was a very light touch, Like isn't Bitcoin a scam? Like the texts were going back and forth be like you know, like I don't know, it's too risky. And the other person's like well, maybe you can't afford not to at least take another look at it. So it's causing that doubt and go ahead.

Speaker 2: 44:51

It hits on FOMO, the ARC. One hits on the FOMO element and then ends with the ARC shoe, a bit courier, which is, you know, unique play on words and play on terms. So I just think I don't think people really they really have a great handle on what they're trying to accomplish just yet. And again, we're four days in, so it's all pretty much at its complete infancy and I think that it'll be just interesting to see. We kind of have seen in the four days, you know kind of the differentiation of the 11 or so that got approved and we're kind of seeing a little bit of you know who's routing the curve first and you know it's. Would you say that any of the results are, from that perspective, significantly surprisingly surprising, because I don't really think so. It's kind of seems how it was going to play out from before.

Speaker 1: 45:41

Yeah, now you're right. I mean, obviously, looking at the chart again of the new guys, blackrock is number one at 710 million, fidelity number two. Both of those companies manage trillions of dollars, so there's no surprise there. Fidelity obviously made it very easy to get it. They've been very Bitcoin and crypto forward for years. I think bit wise.

Speaker 1: 46:09

That one was a little surprising to be at 305, but they also have been on every. I think they went for the homegrown crypto enthusiasts. They were on every Bitcoin podcast getting their name out there. It's funny because I always skip the ads and I didn't realize that until one of the podcasters like pointed it out. But so bit, bit wise, I guess, is kind of the homegrown hero.

Speaker 1: 46:33

But you know, kathy Woods has also been into Bitcoin for years and years and ARC 21 shares rounds out number four. So interestingly, in the three day flow again, you go 710 million, black rock, 524, fidelity, 305 bit wise 227 million ARC, and then you go to 17 million Van Ekk, right. So there's a huge drop off from the first four, not including great GPTC obviously, which is way number one now, but the top four are head and shoulders above the others. A lot of people think some of these will go away. I don't know what it costs to run an ETF, a one to one ETF. To me it doesn't seem like you'd need a big team. You don't have any stock pickers. It's literally you just execute.

Speaker 2: 47:26

There's not a strategy.

Speaker 1: 47:27

There's none right. So the management fees seem to be tiny, especially if you're. You know you've got the custodial fees, which is mostly coin based. But we've learned that those fees are pretty minimal for coin based. They say, even though they're the custodian of I think like eight or nine of these 11, you know almost all of them that that isn't going to even make it bigger than retail bitcoin purchases. You know, on its own exchanges I let's take a look at that over time. I find that hard to believe that that, cut over, billions of dollars wouldn't add up. You know, it's like the movie office space where the guy's like, yeah, and you're, we'll just, from every transaction, we just we just grab like two pennies and he's like, dude, you put the decimal in the wrong spot and it had like $4 million in three days and and that's the whole, the whole building catches fire.

Speaker 2: 48:24

And we've got a little shout out to Mike judge. The dude's tumor has been on point for quite a while.

Speaker 1: 48:29

Yeah, he definitely nailed it with Silicon Valley and office. I mean, office space is probably. It's probably one of the best understated comedies in the last satire years. Yeah, exactly, it satires my favorite. I was never a big King of the Hill fan, but Silicon Valley I loved it. Got a little crap beer towards the end, even though they were talking about crypto, I think in that last year.

Speaker 2: 48:54

Yeah, they were talking about the decentralized internet the whole time. You know like that was. They had some stuff there for sure, just as a quick follow. As a quick follow to what you said, like I was expecting and I'm not a stock picker as as evidenced by this but I was expecting there to be a bump in coinbase overall from the approval just to the custodian and you know kind of the opening up of crypto markets. But the stock's been down ever since and it's at like 132 right now. So it didn't give any sort of bump and I would have been dead wrong if I tried to make a big play that way.

Speaker 1: 49:29

Yeah, interestingly, I mean, bitcoin went from it peaked at 47, 48 grand and now it's down to 42, five or something like that, and so people were pre-buying and selling the news, right. And obviously it tells us too that a lot of these companies probably had been lining up to pre-buy for a while. So I think it's going to take time, but I feel pretty confident going in and just like parking some assets that aren't being used in stocks and bonds in Bitcoin as a hedge, just like gold. So it makes me happy, but I'm going to tell you now which one. So, oh, we haven't even talked about Vanguard yet, oh, I know, oh, my God.

Speaker 1: 50:15

So, so we got. There's so much to talk about today.

Speaker 2: 50:18

So let's re-jump into that. Yeah let's go. There's no hold on that.

Speaker 1: 50:22

So, so as let's run to Iraq. Vanguard did not allow people to buy any of these ETFs on launch day and they're still not, and their position is basically like nope, we don't believe in it, we're not doing it. So Chicago here, or Blue Toshia as I'm calling myself now, I have funds at Vanguard and I didn't have them at other places I think Vanguard, I think Merrill Lynch, ubs, but Vanguard was by far the elephant in the room who just simply didn't allow trade. I guess Bido which one is that One of them was still working and even GBTC. You used to be able to make that trade if you signed a bunch of like I'm throwing my money away waivers with them and they apparently, when all these went live, they got rid of that. So I called them three days before. I said if this gets approved, will you, will I be able to buy one of these Bitcoin ETFs through Vanguard? And she said let me check with my boss. She went and checked with her boss and the trading desk came back to me like five, six minutes later, happily waiting on hold, and she said yes, if they are approved, we will sell them. So basically that we know that was a super impulsive decision that they made. They've always been very negative anti-crypto, but they said they would do it. So that morning I'm all excited it's approved. So the next, you know, obviously after market hours.

Speaker 1: 52:03

So that next morning last Thursday I went in to nibble a little in a retirement account, just buy a little, I'll tell you which one. I got in a second and it said, oh, it's not active. I'm like, oh, these just came live. This morning it was 841. I'm like it's only been 11 minutes, maybe there's some settling things.

Speaker 1: 52:22

So I called them and I called twice because the first time I don't lose my head often the first one, the way it was delivered to me, the guy was like, oh yeah, our policy is, you know, basically like no, we're not going to approve it. And I was like, and I just went off on them. And then I'm like I know it's not your decision, but you guys are morons. And then I'm like so sorry for yelling, but and I hung up. I was so mad because I felt like it was all about to go up and I wanted to put some at Park Summit, that there. Then I got a cooler head. Six minutes later I called back and she explained to me more. She was yeah, our policy for the indefinite and indefinite amount of time. They're not. Vanguard has no plans to approve the trading for its customers of any of these Bitcoin ETF assets, so I was like and just and just and just to jump in.

Speaker 2: 53:21

That is memorialized in the previous week's show, because you said in the show hey, I called there, I'm all good, I made sure that they're going to let me be able to buy it. So that's on the record. The other thing that's really I came across and I thought was really weird is Vanguard owns. Like they're the second biggest holder of micro strategy. So that's just another odd thing in this whole thing. Like they do invest in right. So the whole thing just doesn't add up. But continue with the story because I like how it's going. It was, by the way, for everyone listening, like if you weren't on crypto Twitter that day. Like it went, it just took out a life of its own, this entire kind of narrative of what is going on with Vanguard. How are they blocking this? So it wasn't just Blue Toshi who was dealing with this, it was all over the place where people were like I can't believe that the gates are closed.

Speaker 1: 54:19

Yeah, it was. We were, I was not alone, we were pissed and every big Twitter handle out there. I piled on and I'm like you know, because they said you know, we were hearing that I'm like, as fast as I could type, can confirm, like cannot get Vanguard, and I was so angry. The silver lining is Bitcoin has dropped 5,000 and my accounts just got, so I basically that day called another big brokerage house that does allow it and I made sure I called them and they allow it and it just settled. It took about a week. So today's Wednesday, so it took like six or four trading days, if you will, and it's already all over. In this new account I moved some of my bigger holdings away from Vanguard and I'm going to do all of them. I'm not going to keep anything with Vanguard anymore because of this, and this morning I got my first little. I'm going to dollar cost average in, but with some cash I was holding I dollar cost averaged in to one of these drumroll.

Speaker 1: 55:30

Can you guess which one it was?

Speaker 2: 55:33

ARK 21.

Speaker 1: 55:35

Yes, but it was not for the reason that you think and this is kind of interesting, I just looked at this Do you know why I picked ARK 21? I already had said I was going to pick it, so I was already leaning towards them, but do you know what solidified it for me?

Speaker 2: 55:52

I don't think it's the fees as much. I thought that it was more kind of supporting Kathy's ethos and alignment with kind of the space overall. But I don't know what this other factor could have been if it wasn't that.

Speaker 1: 56:05

Yeah, so this is really interesting. The other factor is that all of the ETFs prices I'm going to hold my phone up but I'll explain it to anyone out there To hear some of the bottom ones but here's bitwise ARK and the iShares, these bottom three. So basically what do you see there? So iBit's $24.97, arkb's $42.66, that's $42.66 a share, and then BITB is $23.28 a share. So what does that say to you?

Speaker 2: 56:48

I don't understand what that represents, because I thought that it would be in direct alignment with the price. Exactly, exactly. I have no understanding of that.

Speaker 1: 56:57

So which one of those three, though, is actually pretty ingeniously in alignment with a price?

Speaker 2: 57:06

Put it back up. I couldn't see which it was lined to. Whatever's in the 42.

Speaker 1: 57:09

Yes, so ARK is $11.

Speaker 2: 57:13

So they're actually legit one to one, representing what it is. One to one.

Speaker 1: 57:18

Well it's $42.66 versus $42,660. But I'll have to look this up, but it's the only of the 11 that I believe is on a factor of 10 ratio. So when you're looking at your portfolio, you're like, oh, my iShares are, you know, like it doesn't make any sense. My iShares are worth $24.32. So then you have to only compare it to itself, whereas ARK was smart enough to be like wait, let's do a factor of 10. I can't believe everybody didn't do this. It's kind of an unsung hero, but that's a huge win, yeah.

Speaker 2: 58:03

That's a long-term win because you know number go up, we're all hoping right, and it's just you at least know where you're. It's easy to understand your position, right? So it just makes a heck of a lot more sense than see there was one at $7. It's like what is that?

Speaker 1: 58:17

Yeah, look, so we've got okay. So wisdom tree, which is even weirder, wisdom tree and Van Ack are close, but they're at 45 and 48. Discos putting his glasses on Chicago's are Blue. Tosh is already got his glasses on. But yeah, this is the ARK is the only one that's close. It's actually more annoying. Like wisdom tree and Van Ack, like why would you be close? Like that's even more annoying. So I bought ARK because a little detail in planning this is actually a net plus. I don't have to do math. But like, well, clearly Black Rocks is, you know, you just divide by two and add six, we're running 25% under.

Speaker 2: 59:08

Yeah, we're running 25% under. Like it's so straight.

Speaker 1: 59:12

But it's more like 33.9%, like you can't even 25%. You could maybe do the math but like, yeah, give me one. So the net net is ARK is, I believe, one 1000th right. So multiply 42 by 1000 and you get 42,000. So I'm in. So I thought that was an interesting little detail that others clearly missed and maybe, just looking at it today, it just happened to be that way, but I don't think so, because I think I looked the other day and that's when this little seed got planted. So, just like sometimes, the devil's in the details. So I would say Van Ack probably won with the ticker name HODL. That's a huge win, but they're way low on the charts. So I think Fidelity was the other one I was looking at, but again, their price is at 37. So I'll be like wait, it's Bitcoin down to 37,000.

Speaker 1: 1:00:10

No, it's not, so don't want to belabor, but I thought that was an interesting point and I got my first part of my ETF and I got to say when I bought it it was so Did you get a warning sign?

Speaker 1: 1:00:23

I did. I had to sign this disclaimer and I had to reclassify myself. I actually consider myself a fairly conservative, probably too conservative investor. It made me go into. It was the sixth. One was the bottom. It was like ultra risk on or something. I was like, ok, well, that's what you call it, that's not what I call it. So and I decided to disclaimer, and I don't blame Fidelity, but I'll sign something. They're just saying like hey, like you lose, not our problem, fine, I don't care, as long as I can buy it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:58

Yeah, that's wild. It'll be interesting, obviously, to see the longer tail of Vanguard and if the people jumping ship. It seemed, at least from the kind of the Twitter sort of side of things, that the switch for a lot of folks was from Vanguard to Fidelity. So I don't think you were the only one who kind of took that bridge over to there. But it'll be interesting to see if Vanguard holds their posture on that and who knows If it works out for them. Maybe it doesn't, but it'd be nice to see a little bit of pain inflicted on that and to see Fidelity enjoy some upside for being friendlier. And frankly, if this theory on the arc is true, then if there was something kind of a rooting interest, I too would root for that to kind of be the one that really kind of builds and prevails in the long run because of the more long term commitment and belief in the space and the innovation.

Speaker 1: 1:01:54

Yeah, all great points, disco, I think we've hit the Bitcoin ETF from 37 angles, but you can't finish a section if you're going to talk about the Bitcoin ETF Now of course, everybody's like what's next? And Larry Fink has been going on Squawk Box and all the shows and sometimes what is it like? An enemy of my enemy is kind of my friend and not saying Larry's an enemy. But it's like if Larry wants to talk about ETH and the tokenization of everything, I love his vagaries. Like is he talking about the tokenization of pickles because they go down?

Speaker 1: 1:02:39

the assembly line or is he talking about? Real estate Is he talking about, but he's oversimplifying it. But obviously he's speaking to the masses. So you know what? Bring that narrative on and I have been on record. I'm more pessimistic, especially in the next four months on an ETH ETF. But who knows, with this Coinbase lawsuit that's literally going on as we speak. It sounds like the judge is kind of saying like hey, coinbase, you prepared a really good statement to understand this and then you're going into the SEC like you've done nothing, like step up.

Speaker 2: 1:03:24

What's your argument here?

Speaker 1: 1:03:26

So you know, and the reason I bring that up is because for ETH, I feel like we know that Gensler is personally, which we don't get to see that very often, but from the MIT days we know he was into Bitcoin. I assume maybe ETH, but we know he was into Bitcoin. Eth to me feels a little harder to get because of staking and securities, but maybe with the XRP lawsuit and with Coinbase here and with all these lawsuits and the SEC just getting their asses handed to him over and over and losing these things and not really even having a good case. Maybe the other ETFs, whether it's ETH or Solana, maybe those are foregone conclusions, but to me I welcome it. I'll balance my portfolio on my retirement account just like I do in my crypto account.

Speaker 1: 1:04:23

I'm a big fan of Bitcoin and I'm a big fan of ETH and honestly, if you ask me which my favorite is, I know you're supposed to be a one chain maxi now, but I love them both. And even on the art side, like I'm finding all these great on chain ETH things that I had overlooked because I got into Ordinals, which the whole narrative is on chain ETH actually was the world's supercomputer is doing super cool stuff. So bringing ETH as an ETF with a deflationary asset is, especially if they could actually give a dividend based on staking. Now, as my personal nodes and my validators. And the more that stake, the more my percentage goes down, so I'll be frowny face there, but from a just from a ETF Treadfy asset, that's a huge win. Can you imagine not only having an ETH ETF but it just naturally goes up like two, three percent a year because of the ETF is staking? I mean that'd be beautiful.

Speaker 2: 1:05:36

Well, I think the big quote and it doesn't take much, as we've kind of learned from Mr Fink is he's quoted as saying I see value in having an Ethereum ETF.

Speaker 2: 1:05:47

That's pretty basic, but that statement alone could mean quite a bit and move some mountains. The other thing to kind of think about is maybe it won't look like the Bitcoin approval process, maybe there's a way to do it as just like a spot ETF and kind of disregard the staking elements of it in the beginning, and then maybe they start figuring out how to incorporate staking into a model and kind of adjusting it that way, because the thing that keeps coming back to me is there's very few things that excite kind of these Treadfy guys more than what essentially staking would be. So getting that return and being able to kind of leverage it from that side so there's probably going to be a pretty significant charge and push towards getting that first kind of level through of some sort where Ethereum has an ETF, and then maybe it becomes more sophisticated as it isn't as simple as it's a store of value or it's digital gold. That was super easy to kind of get people to understand the notion of everything Right, the mental model sure.

Speaker 2: 1:06:55

Like it was an easy kind of talking point and I think that I'm certain that they'll focus on kind of the narrative and the story and kind of the pitch before we get into these. You know the approvals in earnest in May and maybe it doesn't happen in May, Maybe it happens later in the year or something like that. But I think that when you have Mr Fink say I see value in an Ethereum ETF and going on a roadshow and he's doing that a week after Bitcoin got it, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:07:21

so it's kind of like he seems to get what he wants Disco. I see your point.

Speaker 2: 1:07:26

Yeah, I mean think about this like let's go ahead. Finish your no, no, no, no. I'm just saying all that.

Speaker 1: 1:07:32

Let's say there's 11 ETFs and let's say there's 11 Ethereum ETFs. My only addition what you say before you finish is if it's a legal to do, legal, some of them will stay coming. You're basically saying I'm giving you 3% on top, so the ones that don't? It's just like GBTC with a 1.5% fee. Eventually, I don't know where the spigot will stop. Eventually, anyone who's smart will get out of there. That, like their number should be zero, unless you don't care about 1.5% of your money, which is ridiculous. But ETH is the same thing. If anybody offers staking because they legally can, they're going to figure it out, because having an ETF with a kicker is is like having your cake and eating it too, and that's why ETH, the deflationary asset, is such In invaluable investment medium of money.

Speaker 2: 1:08:33

So it goes. It goes from the narrative of the fixed amount right like the Bitcoin 21 million to now introducing deflationary in terms of the supply and then the element of getting return on it from staking. It's just like they're not going to like come this far and then you know, kind of give up on this, like I think it'll. It'll get a really big push and the fact that the big player you know, days after the big win, is already positioning for the next one means means that there's a strategy and it makes you pretty bullish about where that's going to go, which we did see the reaction in price from the Ethereum side of things, more so than Bitcoin, and we saw that it pumped and it moved up and I just think that that's probably a precursor to where things are going to head.

Speaker 1: 1:09:21

That's a great point and another thing to think, with an ETF coming live whereas GBTC already had 26 billion is kind of vehicle on the ETH side.

Speaker 1: 1:09:33

I don't know what the number is, but it's tiny. So it never took off like the Bitcoin one did. So any of that money Would probably be new inflows and money coming in. And remember when all of this went live, bitcoin went down. But what we saw, you know Solana has been pumping for three months. It was kind of odd. It was like the one in the three just went on the news of the Bitcoin ETF.

Speaker 1: 1:09:58

Solana was like the people degening lower on the scale. More NFT stuff was going on on Solana than ever before and ETH just got pretty much sidestepped and ignored. But interestingly, when the Bitcoin ETF got approved in around that week, even a week prior, right, eth started once it's almost like once everyone knew it was a foregone conclusion. Eth started making its move and now it's it's at 25, so it's not like it's at 4000 again, but it it made its move and it's it's coming up and it's saying you know we were down, not out. I think costs gas fees on the chain. They, they get expensive. So D gens a lot more are going to Solana for those super cheap, fast transaction fees. But at the end of the day, I stand by that. Eth is the right now, the preeminent world secure supercomputer, and it's got an underlying asset that's deflationary, it's. It's awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:11:03

Do you know, what's really awesome about just to kind of look at it from this lens, is You're kind of seeing the equivalency to IPOs for these different program or protocols. Right, and what's brilliant now is that it's not just, you know, insider VC people or whatever it is, who are getting their shares or their opportunities to get in on the IPOs. And I go back to Facebook, and you know there was a lot of buzz on. Is this stock going to really do that well, are they going to figure out how to monetize what we've seen that they figured out how to monetize to a to a filthy degree, if we're, if we're frank about it. I remember I saw your information your private.

Speaker 2: 1:11:49

But I remember that, you know, I remember trying to get access to that IPO and I was able to get, you know, a couple hundred shares when it came out and then I was getting clowned on by people that I was talking to because it dipped right after the purchase, right after the IPO. Like it went down significantly and it kind of stayed down for you know, maybe Six months or so and then it was a while I bought, I bought day one as well and I never to this day, even as annoyed I, was Facebook.

Speaker 1: 1:12:17

I have held and continue your story, but I saw I'm in the same boat, is you? Because I was like you know, and tell them. Tell them the happy ending.

Speaker 2: 1:12:27

Well, my little story on it was always just well, they have a billion users, so that's got to be worth something and this hasn't been available to have, you know, exposure to, and I like in it to. We're almost looking at a potential IPO season for crypto currencies. So Bitcoin is, you know, sign, kind of muddling through. Right now it's choppy, as you say. Gbtc is in play, but a theory, if this gets the same racket and it happens, you know, at the end of second quarter, I think that it would be more of a potential upside because there's it's really never been touched before. It's completely clean, you know, completely clean drinking water when you're looking at that. And then there's no reason, if a theory gets through, who's next and how that kind of goes and roles, and as a retail investor like that's pretty exciting to be able to see this potentially happening for the, you know, for this next cycle.

Speaker 1: 1:13:18

Yeah, it is, and interestingly, the further down the ladder you go, so obviously it would probably be Solana after that, or maybe XRP or Cardano. But but if those go live, you know you're going from what an eight hundred nine hundred billion dollar market cap with Bitcoin. Then ETH is number two at three or four hundred billion or five hundred billion, whatever it is. You know it kind of almost cuts in half to Ethereum, but then below that it kind of cuts in half again and again and again. At some point you make these things live with. You know, let's say it's a hundred billion dollar asset. Bigger whales could manipulate it much more. So just something to think about.

Speaker 1: 1:14:05

I probably would not, and maybe Solana, maybe I would. Just as like a little DGIN hedge. I still consider that in the speculative DGIN chains where, as Ethereum and Bitcoin, I would consider personally, more, more stable long term investments and hedges against inflation. But the more options people have, the merry. And if I have to sign and if America citizens have to sign a waiver to say they're super aggressive traders to get it, fine, go for it. Give me more options and I can always opt not to buy it too.

Speaker 2: 1:14:43

And it'll be this. I'm not sure where this thoughts coming from or where it's going to go, but if you start opening up the market for people to be able to get involved and support you know different chains, maybe it could lead to less tribalism amongst kind of the crypto Twitter and the insiders, because you'd have bigger, never things being able to influence it. I know. I'm just maybe I'm just hopeful it's beginning. You know I'm looking at a brave new world.

Speaker 1: 1:15:12

It's funny because like Bitcoiners, hate Bitcoiners. Think everything's a shit coin right, and then the theory ends think Solana is a shit coin and it's like and on and on.

Speaker 1: 1:15:26

And Solana is trying to get legitimacy from Ethereum and you know they've had a lot of people go and do DGN, nft stuff on both, and Bitcoin still thinks everything's just. You know, I mean, peter McCormick still calls everything just. If it's not Bitcoin, it's a shit coin, and even ordinals on Bitcoin it's like you know, it's, it's, it's it's it's so silly how to do it, but I that's why I think in our show you and I were doing gut checks like it was. I mean, in hindsight, now that Solana is kind of cool down a little and just hovering at that hundred range, it was hard to sit 100% in ETH. Let's put Bitcoin aside for a second and watch Solana do a forex like it.

Speaker 1: 1:16:12

And I think that's why bankless got all they got FOMOE. I don't know if we got FOMOE, but I was more. It was almost capitulation. I'm like you know, I'm not throwing big bags at it, but I'm going to throw some bags at it, like this feels like this, feels like momentum, and you know, I caught the tail end of it, but I, you know, as of today, I'm up like 30 or 40%, like I caught a nice little tail end and my goal is to set up another validator in the next I don't know three months or so, so I could come out and go to the validator or keep Sol and just admit, like it's a DGN bag, but let it ride in terms of DGN bags.

Speaker 2: 1:16:55

It's not a really DGN bag like there's that's not a DGOT or some garbage like that yeah, there's a lot of different levels to the elevator, sir, so there's different places, that things can go well, we'll obviously keep an eye and keep everybody updated on, you know, any developments from the Ethereum side of things and you know it's been a it's been an interesting show so far.

Speaker 2: 1:17:24

But we always like to kind of look a little bit back in the rearview mirror and see if things that we covered, you know, weeks ago or starting to pop back up or have any follow-ups or tails. And I think that one of the things that we had an offline text about really and it goes back to this notion of you know what kind of investor, what kind of collector do you want to be right, and you know we did and you kind of open my eyes a lot to the varying elements of you know how, on chain, certain things are stored and how pure you know, different collections are from these different perspectives and kind of putting your own kind of internal metrics in place as to how you value different projects and how they're put together. And you were telling me that you kind of have been going a little bit more down this more on chain purity side of things and kind of loan some stuff in the last couple of weeks.

Speaker 1: 1:18:19

Yeah, for sure I it's funny, as you say. You know like I educated you on that, I educated myself on it. To. You know, like I said, I've been in crypto since 2015 and if he's only since 2020. It was the end of 22, so I missed the original auto glyphs and crypto punk stuff like that. I was unfortunate year late, but it took me as much as I understood about underlying cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin and ETH. I did not know a lot about that, about NFTs I by the time we had that show, which is like show four or five. You guys should definitely check it out. It goes on to NFTs and Bitcoin ordinals and really how securely your stuff is storage, and to me, that was one of the more fascinating deep dives because I learned a lot and it just solidified what I believe, which is, to me, like I want to invest for a hundred years and obviously I'm not going to be alive for the next hundred years, but you know, hopefully grandkids or nieces or nephews or someone's going to take over my 1977 Earl Campbell football card collection, right? So my thing is like what do I know or what do I think is going to be around? I think Bitcoin is going to be around. I think he's going to be around, and so the more I research, the more I go on chain. I want to dive in. This may even be separated out into a separate show, and I'm kind of talking how the sausage gets made. But let me show you what I'm thinking here. I should have saved this to the end, but who cares? I can just filter any of this out. Inscri, but I should have told you that too.

Speaker 1: 1:20:04

So inscription 3491 is a zoo key. There is anymore, but I have one a zoo key left in the news is UK has been doing all sorts of stuff on their website. They have collector profiles. Yeah, I knew it. Auto fill was lucky. I knew that they've up to their game for sure, and a lot of what we've been saying you know from show one. They blew with the elementals drop. They should have had a whole at least Announcement for the pipeline of making story.

Speaker 1: 1:20:53

So I've sold all but one of my zoo key. I've got, I think, yeah, I've got two beans left. So now there's basically they've already had these badges and they had these emblems. So you get an emblem for having a zoo key, for having a beans, for having a bobo, for getting an ambush piece of clothing, beans and element like there's all sorts of. If you have a spirit you get one. But now they've added this thing like what's your overall score to get to? Like this legend, I love it.

Speaker 1: 1:21:43

So a zoo key is on IPFS. It's it's kind of semi on. It's not on chain, but it's it's on will call it web three, secure storage. It's not as good as our weave in my opinion, but it's it's good, right so. But I'm really going fully on chain. So I'm going to throw out I'm going to ask your opinion, to you in the audience what you would do, so I to me this whole thing of a website that looks really nice to increase my score. So if I want to increase my score up to these other levels, which I assume at the parties you and I went to In Vegas you know they're in Hong Kong, they're all over the world we would maybe get more VIP treatment if I can get to the top. To get to the top, I assume it cost me probably 20 or 30 or maybe even 40.

Speaker 1: 1:22:34

Ethereum, and I guess to me you know you put that back a dollar terms was that 85, a hundred grand, like now. That's not going to happen and to me, this is a self, like a closed ecosystem, self created flywheel. This is, to me, putting a collar on your dog with a stick, dangling in front of him with a carrot on the stick, to me like what incentive at all. You and I both saw the people with the most sought after zoo key, which are the spirits, got their own box at this party. Otherwise, beans, elementals everybody was invited so because they don't want to be exclusive. So how do you like? To me, none of this adds up. I am excited for their anime, but I might.

Speaker 1: 1:23:24

Here's my question I'm posing to you. So I'm getting more and more to the song to chain stuff. This is I could probably sell for, so let's just say, 70, right, so I could sell this for seven Ethereum. I could sell these two beans, probably get one eighth total for both, so that'd be eight E. I'm getting all this on chain stuff, so I've got some options here. I could sell this and actually get the E, e and get into more things like the fingerprints down, which is basically all about empowering on chain Art.

Speaker 1: 1:24:07

So they do a whole curation with people names. You recognize deaf beef plutonium chain left. I just bought his chaos roads all on chain and they're really pushing the limits. It's mostly Ethereum, but even some of the newer ones In the studio, or is. It is on ordinal's. Yeah, so perceptron's is by 3700 and that whole team, the generative team, and that's on ordinal's and that's all again on chain. So to be a member of this, you can buy one of their NFTs for about three ETH or you could buy 5000. And the cool thing is these prints. I think there's like 18 million of them, the numbers not huge, and maybe there's only a million of them, but the total value of prints equals the total value of their collection. Well, they've got how many? They have 26 auto glyphs. I think the floor of auto glyphs is literally 128 ETH, best offer 70. I don't even know. Let's just see what the floor is. The floor, if there even is any being sold 256 ETH.

Speaker 1: 1:25:20

Yeah, so the floor is 256 ETH. There's only 512 of these. Auto glyphs or, those who don't know is one of the very first on chain art on Ethereum. It could have even been first. There might have been experiments before that, but auto glyphs are obviously a grail among grails and they hold 26 of them.

Speaker 1: 1:25:40

So my point is for like three ETH, I could get in on that or Burn this. So I could burn it, lose the money and worry about the fingerprint stuff later. I'll still get on chain stuff later, but then I've got inscription 3491 and my whole positioning, which I believe in, is this isn't a negative thing, this is a positive thing. I love a zoo key, I love the art, I love the brand, but I don't believe in utility anymore. So this is the first is UK and this is the first is UK. It's the only.

Speaker 1: 1:26:24

There's three sub five K. All were mine. This is the first of the three at inscription 3491. For those who don't know, there's probably 43 million Inscriptions out there now this is the first 5000. It's a mutable on chain. I could preserve this art and keep it over here and basically my whole positioning is love a zoo key, love what they're doing, wishing them, all the best, but it's time For 3491 to get off the merry, go round and become the first and only a zoo key that is eternal and immutable, and for the art, or something like that you know, and obviously there's positioning.

Speaker 1: 1:27:09

There there's a tension. Maybe it's done around decentralized on in the show or whatever. But that aside, because obviously you're incentivized if that work for us. What would you do?

Speaker 2: 1:27:23

That is one of the longest questions that I Just just just to give a little space on that. But I think that go back, like if you go back to the rewards within their closed ecosystem, like no thanks, like that is not a. It's cool looking, I guess, but that's almost like an Internal motivator that's not relevant outside of that space at all. And what are you really going to get? So you might get a better With a party, I can buy you a VIP spot at the club well, don't.

Speaker 1: 1:28:03

But don't look at it that way, look at it to like. Remember. They announced a huge partnership with one of the biggest ad agencies in the world, densu, which is out of Japan so very Pacific Rim focused, which is what is.

Speaker 1: 1:28:17

Uki has really thrived in building and anime with whatever that guy's name is, who I won't pronounce it right anyway. So they're good, they're going to try. I don't know if he's really good at it. From what I hear he's pretty good, so let's assume they put a decent product out there. So there still is that utility and for a clean floor PFP. In my opinion this is definitely one of the coolest ones out there. So In it for the utility and possibly web three canvassing over to web two and becoming way bigger in the anime world, or making a statement and going fully on chain and walking away.

Speaker 2: 1:29:03

I just wanted to give that extra perspective there, because that's important.

Speaker 2: 1:29:06

But this is. This is this is a question that I, that I wanted, that I want to bring up anyhow, which is how is utility defined in this scenario? So what is the real utility gained by holding this undeniably cool, dope image, like it's great imagery, like I really my thing with you would be more that it's emotional and you kind of felt you feel aligned with this image that they put. You know this art that they produced with the Jordan's and everything, and you have a personal affinity and affiliation with it and it speaks to you from that side of it. But, again, define what is the utility that you're getting back by holding it?

Speaker 1: 1:29:48

Right, exactly the utility would be if they can successfully, I think make a mainstream brand based on. I don't think they're gonna do it necessarily with all these beans and plushies. I could be totally wrong. Obviously, now that you go with board a sport apes, I think are twenty three ETH right now, which sounds high to people who are new to the space, but it they peaked at about a hundred fifty hundred sixty ETH. They are Herding and down bad. So that whole playbook they got diluted over time. The board just doesn't have the appeal like it used to and like the crypto punks kind of have that universal appeal.

Speaker 1: 1:30:33

A zoo key, I feel like now, there, I don't they're very innovative in some ways, but they're also drafting and now I think they're just drafting off pudgy penguins, who Basically a guy bought pungy penguins out at you know when they were at like one or two ETH and now they're fourteen ETH and he put these plushies and Walmart.

Speaker 1: 1:30:56

He took it into an in real life strategy and people love that and All the stuff on the timeline and, granted, people are always gonna talk great about their bags, but I you know when number go up and you're not gonna hear much bad stuff, but obviously great move for all those people who are already in it or who moved in. But I think a zoo key is now starting to look at them and copy them At least in some business structure for beans and then for a zoo key, which they should have been doing anime and getting the stuff lined up right. When they made that first you know tens and tens or a hundred million dollars, whatever they made, they should have been lying this stuff immediately for animations and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 1:31:38

So here's, here's my my take, now that I processed it slightly.

Speaker 2: 1:31:42

I feel like this operation in terms of having more scale within the community and working up the ranks within that community.

Speaker 2: 1:31:53

Unfortunately, I don't want to say this, but it kind of feels like it's another representation of the project looking to feed off the pre existing members of the community and another way to get people to invest more within their ecosystem without necessarily Giving back more than internal status.

Speaker 2: 1:32:16

That isn't relevant outside of this website and it doesn't really give you benefit when you look at what you're showing with the, the other, the other side of things, where it's like the art and it's all on chain and all that like. I just feel like the winds have changed overall and I think that now that you know there are these new ways to look at inscriptions and you got to look at how there's such a finite amount of those really and how that's all going to impact things as as as this moves forward, I think the space where you would be more interesting and it would even give this more life, would be to get outside of just this you know kind of internal, a zoo, key garden and start looking at how you can either display it like you're talking about outside of that or use it to move into other things that more align with the values that you have as being a hundred year plus collector.

Speaker 1: 1:33:09

So you would, in summarizing, you would get the ETH, you would sell it, move on. And you know, either join fingerprints or whatever obviously I'll do what I'll do, but or get more. On chain art, you're saying move it. You're not suggesting Forgo the eight ETH, burn it and have it live eternally on Ordinals as an inscription.

Speaker 2: 1:33:39

What is the benefit for you as a collector to do that?

Speaker 1: 1:33:45

Well, the state it makes a statement, but it also, if I'm right, sub 5000, sub 10,000, certainly sub 1000, which this is an ordinal's will continue to have value. This is the first one in ordinals. What can be done now with parent-child relationships? I could use this azuki to document, I could mint a collection as children under this and mint a history of you know my history of azuki and where I jumped off and making this immortal. Or I could do all sorts of things with the parent-child relationship. I could make a little museum of the history of utility. It's just an idea, it just dawned on me this morning, but it is. You're right, that's for most people they'd be like you're a dipshit, like, if you're out and you're into this other stuff, be the kind of collector you wanna be and don't leave money on the table ever. I guess what I'm saying is. The only wild card here is if that's the only azuki that's ever been burned.

Speaker 2: 1:35:08

Especially with the low inscription number right.

Speaker 1: 1:35:10

The lowest right. It's under 5,000 and it's the first azuki I checked. It is the first azuki in the entire Ordinals collection, so it's interesting. It's a thought exercise more than anything, right.

Speaker 2: 1:35:32

Yeah, I'm getting really intrigued with what you were showing before the fingerprint stuff. I just think that one of the things that can screw you in terms of being a new adapter of technology is being tied to something that was a phase before, and I think that we had the initial boom with NFTs and I think this represents the first gen of kind of success when you have kind of that first class right of projects that came through. But I just think once the conditions change and the kind of the currency changes, then you gotta just get on board with it, especially if it resonates with you and you understand it. So I think that there's a cool opportunity and we've been talking about it about seeing some of these people really put their best foot forward from artistic perspectives and finding the best ways to make them purely respond to some of the newer qualities that have emerged in terms of, okay, on-chain has definitely become a new metric that people kind of completely ignored in the very beginning. It's just like I don't know, but I have it.

Speaker 1: 1:36:44

No, no, no. That's where I think I disagree. I think it's an evolution of some collectors. I think because our awareness on the show together went to more on-chain. There have been people. This has been going on well before our time, wholly ignored by the main crypto D gens. It's just now you've plugged into that because of what we're doing on the show.

Speaker 1: 1:37:14

It's always been there.

Speaker 1: 1:37:15

It's just in having a crypto punk, I think, inevitably leads you there, because all the early crypto punks already knew this, because they were there when all this stuff was minting. They're intimate with it, whereas I came and then had to retroactively learn about how important on-chain was to me. But most of the D gens out there like if you hold a D-God on your Amazon web server, totally centralized, totally at the mercy of D gods, they could change yards whatever they want, they could take it down, they could stop paying that AWS bill and it's gone. I mean, that to me is just pure D gen stupidity. But at least this stuff is on IPFS. But most people, to my point, are D genning and are looking at PFPs and I think most people still want to belong to these ever-evolving PFP groups and they wanna try. A lot of people try and ladder up to as high as they can get on a good collection and as high on the food chain of that collection as they can. Not everybody, but I think the loud majority. That is true.

Speaker 2: 1:38:31

Yeah, I think the notion of burning and everything it's exciting because it's kind of punk rock. It feels kind of disruptive and fun from that side of it. But I'd have to kind of process and think through what you're giving away or what you're giving up to do that.

Speaker 1: 1:38:52

But it's a compelling thought exercise for sure, Right, I guess I'll leave with one thought If the 6501 is burned, that is, is burned on Ethereum and the only existing one is on Bitcoin, assuming Bitcoin has a trajectory of more and more collectors Obviously that's an assumption. We don't know. If that's true, I think it will be true Could I sell that to, possibly even like a complete maxi, a Zuki maxi, for a Bitcoin? Could I sell it for more than the value of the ETH? And if I sell the ETH one, is the Bitcoin one worth more or less? Does someone want to hold both? I've tried to sell my Bitcoin. I had another Zuki and I tried to sell the Ethereum one with the Bitcoin sub 5K and this is four months ago. Nobody got it. They're like I don't care about the Bitcoin one. I ended up just selling it myself. I said, fine, I'm keeping the Bitcoin one. Like, screw you, you don't get it. Then, but they could not have cared less, which surprised me. But that shows you.

Speaker 1: 1:40:08

Maybe node monkeys was the turning point for Bitcoin ordinals. It's certainly if we look at the volume play. I mean it. Certainly Bitcoin was actually number two to ETH. Again, bitcoin, remember, last week was double ETH, so already ETH is overtaken it. But that shows you with node monkeys and then, slightly lesser extent, I think it was called Bitcoin puppets or whatever those things were, but both of those had high volume. That was a huge week for Bitcoin. Ordinals were way over Ethereum, but now Ethereum's back. Bitcoin is still number two, though, to Solana and Solana's half of Bitcoin, so there's a three horse race here for sure. On NFTs, Wow.

Speaker 2: 1:40:52

So what was it to get into the? What was the entry for the fingerprint thing, the DAO?

Speaker 1: 1:40:58

It's about. You can either buy an image based off one of their auto glyphs or buy 5,000 print either way. It's about three to 3.3 ETH as of yesterday. Okay, and then you know the cool thing is you can talk to other people like that and then you actually I think you know you get early looks at the new collections. I don't know if you get.

Speaker 1: 1:41:26

I guess if that collection goes up in value, the more people that would want to be in prints. It's a fixed supply, so the value of prints can go up. So it's actually I think I'm peaking your interest. I can tell by the questions you're asking. But let's say, print, fingerprint DAO prints. It was $1.61 yesterday, $1.60 today, so it doesn't move a ton. The volume is not super high by any means. But if the value of the collection goes up, so does the price of the fingerprint DAO. So this $1.60 price based on that, it's a 10 million circulating supply there it is. So if those auto glyphs go up in value, then the value of the fingerprint DAO goes up. So it's a pretty interesting like you're making a long-term better in art. Now all of a sudden I could tell it's because I know you're an in real world collector before this and now. This is interesting. It's a digital group. You could get burned.

Speaker 2: 1:42:39

It's phenomenal. It's like come on, so you can just all right, so we did like the DAO Disco Disco's like I wanted.

Speaker 2: 1:42:48

So we talked to DAO and how you know, now, as DAO is doing all this stuff, it's fascinating watching some of these different DAOs really be at the fricking. You know, like that's what I want to study more and be in the loop on are these innovative DAO projects? Cause that's just you know the other ones, the other collections and stuff. It's like they're kind of trying to mimic IRL stuff to web three and find a way to kind of make that kind of work together, whereas this just makes so much more sense of being, you know, native and understanding what it is. So I'm fascinated by it. I would go all on this like not financial advice, but I think that's such an interesting and if they're already tied into like real, real OG stuff, like auto glyphs and all that like come on, I can't believe more people aren't talking about this.

Speaker 1: 1:43:39

Yeah, I'd have to look if you actually like if they dissolved, if you'd own a piece of those. I think it is fractional. I'd have to check.

Speaker 1: 1:43:47

But yeah it's, it's on chain, stuff is interesting. So I've really been using fingerprints as my barometer. Now it's kind of cool, cause, you know, I became, I came to my own conclusions and became an on chain kind of art maxi. And then, with fingerprints, I'm like this is like the guidebook and, granted, they, you know, have their own studio to curate new artists to do this kind of stuff. But, like deaf beef stuff is awesome terraforms, math castles we won't even get into it in this show. That's the stuff I'm really looking at but it's.

Speaker 1: 1:44:24

It's multi-layered, it's on so many different levels. Like it's. It's cool. I'll tell you about it offline, but we'll probably do a deep dive show on it. That's how fascinating it is. Lute you've heard of, but I actually bought these, these receipts Super cool.

Speaker 1: 1:44:45

So basically, I don't know why I fell in love with this one, but with receipts, you basically spend an amount of ETH, that amount of ETH then. So this part this is called receipt 0.0372 ETH. That person spent 0.0372 ETH on so fingerprints collection did that's what they spent on it and then you get this receipt. Let me just try and make it bigger for you. There we go. So, basically, so this this is all on chain too. Mind you, this receipt was made by so I was having to say the fingerprint DAO ETH, one of their wallets. Here's the value. Here were the great gas fees, right here. Here's the total. So, yeah, probably seems a little silly, but the cool thing is, if I transferred to you or if I sell to you this, it then the receipt in real time on the chain updates to show that you were made by you and that it was transferred to me. So just super cool stuff Like and it's you know, never expect to get out what you put into something, but I actually bought.

Speaker 1: 1:46:07

You can only spend. So this one's 0.042, the minimum you can spend now I think they're at like 0.55. It's open. You can go mint one. So if you have 0.057 ETH, I think you could go mint one. So I minted 0.08 ETH. I wanted to pick a number that I loved and then I saw one for 0.04 ETH and I'm like you know, 0.04 is half of 0.08. I'll take and plus. Those are factors of. I was gonna show you my collection, but one receipts orange, so it's just interesting. And the fact that it's still open I wanted to share with you when I got it because I'm like, for like a hundred bucks you can get this on chain thing that you know it's always gonna be open, but there's only been 500 minted because you know, I know you're saying everything's going on chain, but that's what I'm here to tell you is most people, at least for now, don't care about this. I guess I just feel like, from a curation long-term standpoint, that's where it gets interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:47:19

I think I mean when I mean everything. I think I might mean like myself and you Us yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:47:25

Everybody, everybody, you know doing this. You're right about that side of it. But I've been in search of something that lines up with just the whole purity of art and, you know, quality, curation and being able to kind of go in on stuff that's unique and is pushing the levels and isn't just, you know, a regurgitation of things we've seen before. You kind of did this kind of start with Chaos Roads for you into the fingerprints. Was that kind of the gateway?

Speaker 1: 1:48:01

Yeah, I didn't even know it, but the curation team Shane left is actually on the curation team. I didn't know that. No, I actually somebody posted. I said, no, dude, all the interesting stuff is going on in Ordinals right now. And he's like dude, go look at Chaos Roads. And then this happened again with Terraform's math castles, which is one of the ones, the big ones, in their collection.

Speaker 1: 1:48:27

Basically, somebody was like, no, no, no Ordinals is doing with all this recursive and all these different image ways of handling it. It's all on chain Like that's the most interesting stuff. And this guy's like you obviously haven't deep dived down into terraforms. And I was like to me that's just a challenge. I'm like I can deep dive. So I looked and I looked and then I and then that guy, the ordinals guy, Danny, who up, who's the founder of on chain monkeys, which was one of the first recursive collections. He had the founder I think it's 0113, that's his Twitter handle on a spaces and I just happened to be before I went to bed. I just happened to look and I saw I'm like, oh, so he had him on like that night. And listening to this guy talk who made math castles, I was like, oh yeah, I'm so in. Like this on chain stuff is genius. So that was the evolution. It's just another. Another deep dive. Another day, another deep dive, right?

Speaker 2: 1:49:36

Yeah, but it's another example of curating your input and your kind of things that you're exposed to. And I know that when you look at, people want followers or they want this or that, but it's like you really wanna work hard to make sure that the information and the discussions that you're privy to or that you're gonna further aren't just as we talk about these influencers pushing XYZ project for whatever reason. So for you, I know that if you're gonna come across somebody who's then gonna do a space and is gonna get you more intrigued with the depth of kind of the thought and purpose behind how things were executed like that's just right up the alley, right. So you really do. You really can kind of help to define what takes up space in your mind by being more it kind of goes back to the watch, the Apple watch and all that but being more kind of disciplined in terms of what you consume and put your time and mind towards yeah for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:50:46

So whether that resonates with the rest of the market, you know it remains to be seen. Obviously I don't wanna, you know, when the market zigs, hopefully we're ahead of the curve. We're not foam-rowing in and we're zagging but as doing a show like now, we are getting into the nether niches of what could be done. But to me it seems like the more you like on chain art, the more you understand the underpinning fundamentals of why I hate to say blockchain technologies that's something Jamie Dimon would say but why blockchains and the big cryptocurrency chains are so important and immutable to us, kind of moving forward, hopefully for centuries.

Speaker 2: 1:51:37

Yeah, kind of a change in pace, but it is kind of a follow-up to, or it is definitely a follow-up to, something that we've covered. Related to this is over your I always get this wrong but over your right shoulder for folks who were looking at the video feed. There is a new piece that we hadn't seen before and I believe it is fully on chain or that was part of the delay in getting it to come out. But we're talking about the certificates for the completion of the unit class that we took. That was focused on, you know, kind of one of the first online blockchain classes, if I'm correct.

Speaker 1: 1:52:18

Yeah. So you were in that class with me as well and we made a whole bunch of pals from that class. So in fall of 2022, unique out of Cyprus, greece, right, had a great class and we've been harping a little in the last couple of shows like, hey, where's our certificate of completion? And it took a whole year for 6529, and the artist behind it 6529er, and there was one other big artist behind it, but, yeah, they rewrote smart contracts because he's an on-chain Maxi too, and all of this is on chain. Interestingly, I did go into the code and there is an RWEVE link to this art piece behind me, so I don't know if everything is on chain or if just the text of the certificate's on chain. Here you can talk or ask questions. I'm gonna flip the screen and then we can see, because I have the. This is the actual artwork, but the art is kinda cool. It comes as the actual artwork, but it also has the certificate saying Chicago X, my ETH handle.

Speaker 1: 1:53:32

You have completed this course with your score. I got an 89, if I got a 90 and above. I looked at them all. You get purple in it and I love the color purple. Some little bum that I didn't get two points higher. I think green and red is more in the 80s like the B range, so just real interesting, pretty piece. I'm gonna try and get the other part of the service.

Speaker 2: 1:53:56

I wish I got three more points, knowing that you were two points higher than me on that, and then that would have put me in the 90 category as well. But I didn't at the time I didn't really realize my competitive spirit probably would have been going a little harder on the test had I known that it really was gonna be inscribed on the certificate and that you know I would have liked to have aced it looking back on it. But I'll take my 87 or 86 or whatever it was.

Speaker 1: 1:54:22

Yeah, I will say I mean I even did I study before. I guess I didn't fully study before and when we were in those classes. It's not like cause a lot of it was repetitive at least some of it was, but that test was actually really hard. But it was really smart how they did it, because they basically said the thing that beat into my brain although I don't have the number in front of me is there's a certain amount of money like if you do an NFT collection or anything on chain and it has to do with actual real life laws that you can collect from people before the big KYC vampires come out, and I feel like there was a $10 million hurdle and a $25 million hurdle. I'd have to check the numbers. But again, there was. They made it, they asked tough questions and I actually could say I learned something.

Speaker 1: 1:55:16

And I guess, coming full circle with this whole conversation, you asked like, what was chaos roads? What got you into on chain stuff? And I know I think the seeds were planted way before with the CryptoPunk, but also with this class because, they talked about the importance of on chain.

Speaker 1: 1:55:35

They didn't harp a ton. I guess, like I don't know, if they did, you'd think they would have done a whole one on storage, and maybe they did, but I don't think they did. They touched on it, but I know on chain was important to them. So I think through osmosis that also bled through to us as well.

Speaker 2: 1:55:53

And just cheers to 6529, for I'm sure there was a little bit of pressure to move it quicker and get it distributed and everything like that. But they stuck to the core principles of it and delivered that. So it took us a little bit longer and everyone's antsy and grabby and like where is it? Where is it? And I think you'll stand the test of time to be able to hold something that was done kind of the right way and true to kind of the overall spirit. So I'm excited to have it and I do think the art's kind of cool actually. But now you got me all purple foam oats so I don't know what I can do.

Speaker 1: 1:56:32

I don't know. Someone was trying to sell theirs for three. There's either 250 or there's like 500, but whatever the number is, it's a very low number. Who minted it and the unique thing here is that unique university has I guess they've actually minted stuff certificates before on Ethereum and they said even Bitcoin since 2014,. I'd have to look more into that, but this is the first one that is truly on chain, which I think is super cool. So this is a keepsake. I don't know if there'll ever be a market for these.

Speaker 1: 1:57:11

I almost was tempted to take the class twice and pay the.3 ETH test taking fee just to have one that I could sell, and maybe that would have proved to be prescient. Maybe not. I know that if down the line, I knew this was the first one, I don't know if I wouldn't pay three ETH or maybe even an ETH, but to me this is important because it tells you that learning something and getting certified does not have to be a diploma that's stored in some basement of some school that you have to call to get the academic records of. It's a certificate. It's on chain. Obviously, you can buy a certificate off someone else and, with the whole soul bound where it can't move addresses. Let's see your address gets hacked. That isn't necessarily perfect either, but I think on chain certificates are one of those no brainer use cases for the future of learning for future generations.

Speaker 2: 1:58:14

Well, think of it just from a MBA perspective, right? So you're gonna spend tens of thousands of dollars for a master's in business and you're gonna end up with a paper diploma at the end. That's gonna be in the little folder that maybe you're pretentious and you wanna flash it behind you all the time for your office, but the most part is just gonna be like in a shelf somewhere that you're never gonna see. So having it be more dynamic and actually be there is obviously where things have to head. Like these papers, certificates mean nothing and it's ridiculous. And I thought the most brilliant part to your point was that class was available. I think it was no charge, right? Or if it was a real small, it was free for everybody to use you.

Speaker 1: 1:58:59

I think you had to mint the. I believe to get access into the on cyber servers you had to mint the original pass. I think it was free to mint but there was a gas fee so and I believe once they started there were so many people in all those mirrored servers, I think they realized they. I think they stopped gatekeeping right away. So, yes, in essence you didn't have to mint that, it was free. And that's another cool thing we have that original certificate. I think that minting for the I'm sorry that original yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1: 1:59:42

So that close, I think only a couple grand of those were even minted. So it's just to me this is a part of history, we're a part of this early history of the big ones are obviously money for crypto, but I think, proof of who you are and certification and diploma, whatever you wanna call that category, I put that in the top four or five use cases because when you really break it down, especially if you listen to Polyana or Polina, whatever you call them, like he's saying, there's three use cases which is proof of identity, money, and I don't wanna put you on the spot. Do you remember the third big?

Speaker 2: 2:00:28

one Ownership or.

Speaker 1: 2:00:30

Yeah, maybe it's ownership. I thought that was a proof of identity. I would have thought so, but yeah, maybe that's your proof of owner. Yeah, you're right, proof of ownership of art or maybe of public lands. I think he's saying those are the biggest ones. Anyway, I would say that, passing classes and skills. Obviously we've been in the crypto space a while, but if you and I, let's say Decentralized Dawn was hiring, I mean who would you hire? A kid out of college who took Bitcoin classes? Or if someone had this certificate I mean, all things else being equal, of course, and they had the certificate, it's a no-brainer. Be like you, on your own accord got their certificate and whether you went to classes or not doesn't matter to me. You took the test and you've got it.

Speaker 2: 2:01:20

Yeah, and you're right, the test wasn't easy and it just shows. It's just so in line with the spirit of kind of disruption through utilizing Decentralization, and that's what's so cool about it, right, it's like you forego the existing university parameters and overpaying for whatever it may be and found a more efficient way to end up with a better net result. And if you're interested in this space, it's very aligned with your understanding of how things can work. So it's a really good point. And I think that I'm excited about the other thing. It was called the Unic Metapass or something, the thing you had to get in the beginning, I remember just to register. So, wow, I don't know, man, I wanna get into this fingerprint stuff Like I'm a.

Speaker 1: 2:02:12

I could tell the light bulb was definitely going off with that one.

Speaker 2: 2:02:18

Yeah, the lure has been set for me on that, so I wanna do some post-show investigating and kind of take a look at all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 2:02:27

Yeah, maybe we join it together.

Speaker 2: 2:02:30

Yeah, I think it'd be really fun. Yeah, I don't know. I think that there's one thing I wanted to talk about really quick, and it was just kind of a quick follow-up from when we did the we got all day dude we got all day.

Speaker 2: 2:02:42

Well, we've been going a little bit. But something that was interesting is Blau, who started Royal. He in Royal for those of you who don't remember or are not in the mix. It's a platform where you're able to purchase percentages of royalties from musical production, from songs basically, so you can kind of back an artist and their song and get paid royalties. So that notion to me is still just really really fascinating and I'm really excited about where that could end up going.

Speaker 2: 2:03:21

But what was cool was they dropped this week an opportunity for you to be able to utilize a catalog of AI music and what's been coming out of that that's really interesting is people are using this AI music catalog to create their own music and then turning around and selling it and minting it on different music exchanges and generating revenue.

Speaker 2: 2:03:49

So it's pretty early. It's very, it's very kind of next step, next level, but seeing some of this start happening where you can buy into a catalog of AI music, then utilize that to create new content and then you own the rights to that. You are then able to turn around and market and sell that and generate your own revenue, that like is mind blowing for anyone who's spent any time in the music industry and it shows that we are just sitting down to breakfast in terms of seeing how AI can fuse with blockchain to really kind of disrupt and change how we look at the kind of the barriers to being able to produce and sell and create music. So, those of you that are interested, take a look. It's called 3DM, is the model, the AI model that they developed with Royal, and I'm going to get my hands on.

Speaker 1: 2:04:51

So there's only 333 total. How come zero? Nobody's bought one yet? Or are they not available? Maybe they're not, they haven't come out yet.

Speaker 2: 2:05:07

No, I think you have to get them on secondary now. Oh, these have already sold. Yeah, so they dropped it on its birthday, I think.

Speaker 1: 2:05:18

Okay, I think they're coming, but I've been seeing people talking.

Speaker 2: 2:05:23

There's been people talking about the tracks that they've created utilizing this AI music have then turned into things that they've been able to monetize, turn around and flip and sell and mint on, like SoundXYZ and stuff. So there's been a lot of kind of negative stuff going on about where's everything going with music, nfts and stuff. But being able to see this actual integration come to life has been pretty interesting to watch, yeah for sure I'm tempted to get one of those.

Speaker 1: 2:05:54

I like that. 333 have been made. So have you tinkered with the yet, or you haven't gotten one yet?

Speaker 2: 2:05:59

No, I haven't gotten around to it because we had, like some, we had a big cold snap and it kind of really messed up my days with kids not going to school and things from that perspective. So it's on my whiteboard to get into so more to follow on that once I actually join it and get involved and do that. But I just we have to talk about people that are pushing some of the newer innovations and fusing kind of the capabilities of blockchain with some of the AI side of it and, more importantly, being able to take it and make more people be able to have an impact and outputs within creativity and the music industry space, as opposed to having to go through all the barricades and gatekeepers that we know are in place.

Speaker 1: 2:06:47

Yeah, that's. Any creative outlets like that, I think, are cool and music is kind of ignored in the NFT space. It's not ignored, it's just such its own subnich that's so small and hopefully growing, and hopefully not growing with too much input from the big labels. But Disco and I were talking before the show. It's just. The most disheartening thing in this whole element of music is that the libraries of all the big collections are owned by three or four companies and then the touring is owned by one company, live Nation basically, and oh, by the way, they own Ticketmaster too. So it just. We came up with a solution, though in three generations, when all the old music is yeah, it's played, but the old libraries are owned, everybody from here on forth for the next 100 years just doesn't get a label and they can go online. It's very decentralized, and then all the libraries are owned by them, or however they hooked it up with having people split ownership with them with these new kind of decentralized models. That is, in a perfect world, obviously, how that plays out. Who knows.

Speaker 2: 2:08:04

Was that the genesis of a new dial?

Speaker 1: 2:08:06

It could be. It could be. I don't know if that's when I would start. You can start it and then I'll be your founding member. But you're way more knowledgeable into music at least from that side of it, from the management side than I am. But yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 2:08:21

Oh, side note for you, I did see this morning that for the first time ever, Air is going to play Moon Safari Live Front to Back for a handful of dates in February, and I just saw that news today. So that's something to put on the calendar if they do come state side.

Speaker 1: 2:08:43

Really so they haven't announced the locations yet.

Speaker 2: 2:08:47

Well, they have like six dates in Europe that they announced, but the thinking is they would probably take it on the road and come over to the United States as well.

Speaker 1: 2:08:56

And that's all. And they're going to come in February or saying, yeah, maybe they'll do the US this summer or something.

Speaker 2: 2:09:00

Yeah, that's what I would think, because the dates are. I think it's some in Berlin, some in London and I just saw it early this morning that they announced it. So they've never played. Apparently they've never done it. The full album live all the way through. So I'm glad they picked that one. Frankly, I would take my nephew for sure.

Speaker 1: 2:09:22

But if Air comes to the States, obviously if they're in your neck of the woods, I'll just come out there. But it's funny because Air is definitely, obviously it's one of my favorite bands and that is probably my top three albums, probably top two, possibly my favorite. But Air is not the greatest live band, I said it. It's out there Like the beta band, who was to me almost not an offshoot of Air, but it was in that same era where you and your little bro and I were early on all that stuff and that whole kind of French. What do you call that? Like slow tempo scene or whatever it's called.

Speaker 2: 2:10:03

But seeing them live like yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:10:06

I wasn't super impressed with them live. I almost felt like they were nervous or something and they don't like they don't go longer than the song. They don't really jam which you think like that music you could jam for a while. But maybe some of those songs, seven or eight minutes, maybe that's as long as they would want. Now mood so far I would see that in a heartbeat. But it's just interesting. You know, you get bands like the beta band who live they're literally switching instruments in the middle of songs, like that's a band. I've always been shocked. That never made it bigger, but it was just. It was a very unique style and I think when they had that one shot with Dry the rain.

Speaker 1: 2:10:49

Well, dry the Rain was their hit from the movie the Chicago record music store with Kusak and Jack Black, high Fidelity, I believe. That song, I think, was made popular by that movie to a subset of us. But when they had their big chance, their big hit on that album was Squares and the song was it was flat, it was kind of lame and that album was good but it wasn't as good as the old stuff. So I feel like they had their shot and then that album wasn't great and I feel like music had also moved on by that point too. Yeah, that's very true, but if you guys want to go old collection, beta Band, who Disco got me into as well as Air, is a great listen, especially their early stuff like the three EPs and I don't know the names of the other albums but when do you think Beta Band were formed?

Speaker 1: 2:11:47

Oh, I'm trying to think of their accents. Denver.

Speaker 2: 2:11:53

No, as a proud Scott, they are Scottish.

Speaker 1: 2:11:58

Really.

Speaker 2: 2:11:59

Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, how cool I did not know their.

Speaker 1: 2:12:04

And then it's like Scott's Southern Culture on the Skids. Not that it's a fun band where you do heavy listening, but it's so catchy and poppy that you go heavy on them for like four months and you're like I like the Scots. And now I continue on with my life.

Speaker 2: 2:12:21

Yeah, I'll come back to it.

Speaker 1: 2:12:23

But Dirt Track Date got me a Dirt Track Date. Demolition starts at eight. They all drive at a figure eight Got me a Demolition date. That's one of my favorites. Anyway, we digress. Is there any other follow-up stuff? There's so many more. I think we hit the best and the biggest.

Speaker 2: 2:12:44

Yeah, I think that, as I say, we had a.

Speaker 2: 2:12:48

It was interesting talking about kind of the news, but I really enjoyed kind of going more on the development journey, of kind of iterating on new things that provide value or resonate with you and seeing where that road kind of goes and takes us and looking at just talking about the figure prints down and looking at that and looking at the Chaos Roads and looking at even seeing how Royals trying to do things differently and in new ways I think that's one of the coolest parts about being involved in this show is just kind of getting tapped into things that once the show is over I have a little reading list of things to go into and look in and explore more.

Speaker 2: 2:13:29

So it kind of changes my priorities after a show. It'll be new things that I want to kind of dig into for the end of the week and then what's beautiful is then we can build on it and talk about it next week's show. So I really enjoyed learning about some of the stuff we talked about today and I think from a bigger picture perspective it'd be really cool to see a judge make a slap at the SEC and kind of change things from that macro perspective, but the bottom line is there's just so much ingenuity and so many intelligent folks that are building and developing things in this space that there's just so many reasons to be intrigued and excited, and I think that we're definitely on the right track to be able to be involved with significant disruption and improvement of so many different elements of life that I just really feel gratitude to be able to do this show and be able to learn more and talk about these items.

Speaker 1: 2:14:26

Yeah, cool. Yeah, the feeling is definitely mutual. My something good for the week would have to be snow. So we've had a pretty cold winter here but we've had no snow until like a week ago and it just dumped. I woke up that they canceled school and the kids I'm like you know it's going to snow a half an inch and be like 28 degrees, like we went to school and that, and it actually did. We probably got 14 inches or something. It was huge. I think I ran the snow blower up and down the driveway five times in two days and it's still like got so cold so fast I still couldn't stay out of it. But just having the snow the sun hits, the snow makes everything brighter and it just makes getting in the Midwest through the long winters way, way more tolerable, if we can have that clean white snow for January and most of February.

Speaker 2: 2:15:23

I would jump on that, but I would probably take it to the slight step further in terms of the enjoyment of snow, because it opens up recreational opportunities that are pretty fun if you're in a different part of the country. So I know that my wife is pretty much obsessed with monitoring snow, snow counts at various ski resorts and stuff like that. So I'll probably be dragged up there in the next week or so just to take advantage of it. But you're right, it's a beautiful upside to just. It's just when it's gray and cold and there's no snow like that can get to you. But the snow really kind of just is the filter that makes it beautiful.

Speaker 1: 2:15:57

Yeah for sure, for sure. All right, Do we just have the disclaimer? Do we want to share any of this other stuff? I think we hit the media.

Speaker 2: 2:16:07

I think, I think I'm ready for the disclaimer. I think I'm ready to let folks know that this show is, you know, for entertainment purposes only. Nothing that we're saying should be construed as financial advice. We're just trying to learn more along this path and journey and we appreciate you being involved and, as always, you know, if you could hit the subscribe button or you can, you know, smash the like or whatever it may be, and, more importantly, if you want to make comments or suggestions. We're, we want to be a two-way entity and a two-way street, so feedback would be considered a gift and we'd love to, you know, include any new ideas or thoughts that you guys may have. But again, thanks for thanks for spending some time with us and we look forward to putting on the headphones and doing it again soon.

Speaker 1: 2:16:50

Yep, thanks everybody, until next week, bye-bye, bye. Thanks very much.