DeFi Lunch (Ep 295) - Feb 16, 2023 / Crypto political strategies / Should DeFi go tokenless? / Siemen's on @0xPolygon / @wavesprotocol dump /

Oh, we're live, sir. Hey, buddy, how are you today? I am doing well, you know, digging out because I haven't gotten any work done for the last three days, but you know, that's...

The way it goes, man. That's the way the cookie crumbles, huh? Yeah, at least your wife's feeling better. She is, she's doing better, we're at home, she's on, you know, lots of antibiotics and other stuff. And you know, we're, everyone's happy, the mother-in-law is in a...
Oh yeah, I forgot about her. Physical therapy spot. We had a little issue yesterday, getting her moved over there, and she's okay now. And yeah, other than that, we're rolling.

What's the, she did a knee, is that right? Or was it a hip? Knee replacement, and she's gonna have to get the other one replaced, you know, sometime. We're gonna go through this all over again, so. Yeah, you know, his buddy of mine, like, I don't know, it was like 10 years ago, former IDF, Israeli Defense Force paratrooper, and he was like 50, but you know, those knees go with all those jumps. And he went in and did double knee replacement at the same time, and that guy was in the gym two days afterwards, working out with staples and other stuff. I was like, yeah, I'm like, how do you do that? I guess, you know, you have to be in tremendous shape first, but you know, I'm kinda like, I'm trying to save those for when I'm in my 70s, you know? Well, my mother-in-law's in her 80s, so. Oh yeah. But I like the parts replacements. I mean, I think that's gonna be part of what that whole idea of people living a lot longer is gonna be. We're just gonna keep being able to replace everything eventually. You know, you'll be an entire, an entirely new body. It's like, it's that old thing about, like, when people are rebuilding cars, you know, is it still the same car if you've replaced over 50% of the parts, you know? So anyway.
Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy.

Let's see what else. Well, heck, what the, I mean, everything's been pumping while you were gone, buddy. Well, you know, I guess I should stay off of it, but here's the interesting thing. Let me, I got the old chart loaded up here. Let me. Good. I'm dying for Sean's presentation tomorrow. Well, look, I think actually Sean's gonna just have been right.

Yeah. Because if you look at it, I mean, you know, there was that other line right over there. The 24 or whatever? Yeah, the, you know, the 24, what is it? 24, 488, you know, popped a little bit over it, but now it dropped two or 3% in the last hour or so. When you go into the daily, you can see, you know, it tried to climb up over, but it's still within the range of the wicks on the last time on the resistance. And you know, it's coming back down. And I think, I frankly think there's guys out there saying, let me pump in and see how many more people I can get in before I let this thing drop, you know? So. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what Sean has been saying the last couple of weeks, you're right. You know, Wade has to go convincingly through that, if I'm not mistaken. Well, and he wants to see it, you know, at least at the end on Sunday night, after the weekly closes, he wants to see it over this, you know, and I would say he probably wants to see it, he wants to see it in 26 range something before he thinks it's flipped on the bear. So it's really interesting.

Yeah, the only thing I was thinking about was, you know, I mean, there is a narrative building up about these debt limit discussions in the US. And, you know, if you want to see something that would drive a ton of people into crypto, it would certainly be the US defaulting or technical default on an obligation. Because that would take the total, the A plus plus risk free paper and all of a sudden knock it down a few pegs. So I don't think that's gonna happen, but you know, that is something that could drive a narrative. So, absolutely. Absolutely. So, Niblett says, Oscar Goldman made mewant neat replacement parts. He said the oldies in the crowd might get the reference. That's a bionic man reference, but I don't know what. I don't remember the circumstance of it, but. He was Steve, he was Steve Austin's handler. He was the older guy, remember? Okay, all right. Yeah, there you go. There you go. $6 million man or whatever that shit was. $6 million man. Yeah, yeah. That was a cheap call. I guess nowadays it'd be the $6 billion man. $6 million, that's like a Starbucks coffee, right? Actually, no, I think it'd be the $600,000 man. Because of all the parts replacements we have now, it's much cheaper. Much cheaper. Yeah, they don't have to be, no bionics required. Yeah, Niblett says, yep, the handler. That's hilarious, dude. The shit that people remember. I would not have pulled that name out. That's hilarious. Yeah, I was looking at it and it was, I would have never remembered that name until he posted it. Yeah, yeah. He says the $100 billion man. All right, there you go.

Anyway, you were saying narrative around debt. Yeah, you're right. Look, yeah, look, I mean, if.

I mean, that's what everybody, that's what everybody in crypto, I think.
I don't wanna say wants, but I think that that could be a giant catalyst. Yeah. Whether it happens or not. Chinese knock. Sean says, Chinese knock off knee joints for Mima. Yeah, it's Omi in our house. And she's, yeah, she, they had to, the doctor had to, told her, they had like a custom one you can get that's like custom made for your knee. But he wouldn't, he didn't wanna do it with her. He's like, because if there's something wrong with it, when I get in there, we got nothing else to put in you. You know, so he's like, I'd rather use the standard one. And then I know if I need to replace it, I can grab another size. So. What is that like kind of a decentralized TikTok app store note or something like that? That's it.

I'm sure Chuck's 3D printing them for her too. Exactly. Yeah, Chuck, you can start 3D printing knees for people. That's good. I like that. I like that. That's a good biz. That's a good biz. Yeah, look, I mean, we'll see if,
we'll see if the new house majority decides whether they're going to honor the debts of the United States government
since we've already spent the money.
Yeah, it's already appropriated. I think that what we're talking, this is talking about, like you said, paying what's already been purchased, I guess, or paying for what's already been paid. For what's already been purchased. It's not like, but you know, I'll tell you what, I saw some numbers over the, well, some are still in DC, but I saw some stuff the last couple of days and I was like, these budget deficits going forward.

And it's like 2 trillion a year or something like that. It's like, nobody's even effing around on that. And I don't know where the cuts would come from, but it's definitely something that has to be figured out. Yeah, yeah. Now, look, I mean, we've spent a lot of money over the last-
10 years. Seven years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He said, seditionists probably won't have a problem defaulting on debts, same goal, different method. Yeah, well, and I will tell you, I think you're right, Joe. Like if we have a major financial process of that proportion, we're very, we're very likely to see Bitcoin become an interesting new place for people to park.

Yeah, hedge some risk. I mean, particularly, I think Sean put that chart up, the CryptoQuant one, he's put it up a couple of times on institutional holdings. And you don't have to be honest. I did not realize how much, I mean, I remember the gray scale effect because we were always trading it. Everybody was talking about it. But I didn't realize how much of that rise in the first half of 21 was fueled by just gray scale buying Bitcoin. Yeah, that was pretty astounding.

I was shocked when I saw that institutional number and then how nobody is sold. And all of a sudden you see that, let's see, point out that little slope going down, which is the 2% management fee. But you didn't see big spikes around whatever Tesla did or whatever MicroStrategy did.

You just saw that one. Now, I don't know, maybe those aren't counted as institutional, I'm not sure. But I mean, they're definitely big entities.

That kind of surprised me though, to see all the institutional in there and how much of it was driven by gray scale, which makes me think that this type of an event would definitely not only bring an institutional, but it would bring in retail too, that has been missing for a while on the Bitcoin side. I think it's all playing over here with us on DeFi. But if we look at that as driving everything, it could be an interesting year. Very.
Shit's gonna get real interesting no matter which way we go. So it's kind of crazy, kind of crazy. So did you see that news on New Hampshire?
Yeah, I saw, oh, let me open that. I've got that tab open. So yeah, I saw this. I didn't read into the depths of it. I saw another headline that said, what they're doing was a legal frame. Well, this says it's a legal framework for blockchain and crypto businesses in the state, providing clarity and certainty to entrepreneurs and regulators while avoiding the onerous and largely pointless special rules regulator, as members of Congress want to impose on the industry. The proposed rules would also protect consumers, depositors, investors, which all sounds well and good. And then they have a headline like, New Hampshire could become an alternative for, whoops, for crypto firms moving to the Bahamas. But here's the thing. I mean, it's like, you know, it's one thing to have a state that has safe haven like Wyoming and now I guess New Hampshire. But at the end of the day, you still got to, if Gary Gensler comes knocking on the fucking door, you're fucked anyway.
Well, yeah, but I mean, they can knock on the door in the Bahamas too. Right, right. But it's a little more, I mean, there's a little more difficulty in getting to you if everything is structured outside. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, you put up at least a little bit of a barrier to them. But in this case, New Hampshire, it's great. Free or die, right? Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting though, they never elect libertarians. It's like this place full of libertarians, but they don't actually get elected. I think it is a big half of it is like Vermont, kind of, you know. And libertarians don't vote. Yeah, oh, that's true. Good point. You know, I did see another thing real quick on Wyoming that they just passed some law just came out of their legislature today that made it, I guess, that you don't have to compel your private keys in a court proceeding. So they're trying to like shield, but one more layer on there. And of course, you know, federal supremacy over states rights on these issues is probably paramount, but still it's another layer of, you know, defense. That's amazing. So it essentially, you know, it's kind of like a lot of the offshore entities where they have to file big bonds. And then by law, they got to give you a 72 hour headstart to, I guess, respond, which I think means move. Get the fuck out. Yeah, so I have a feeling that's what Wyoming- Don't put that plastic charge in. Yeah, and get the hell out of here or get another account at the same bank, you know? Yeah, exactly.

So I think it's just another thing with Wyoming. You know, Wyoming has a lot of unique structures
and it is, you know, these Western states, they really do, you know, cater to that kind of like rancher lifestyle or rancher philosophy that, you know, stay the fuck away basically. And, you know, or we'll fight back. And so, you know, of course, these are all billionaires in Jackson Hole and places like that. It's not, you know, John Dutton on the Yellowstone, but still it's, it's, it's, it's still, it's an interesting thing. And I think it just gives people, you know, it's like those South Dakota dynasty trusts or whatever, where, you know, you know, you can basically set those up and nobody could crack into those, you know? And they're, they're forever, you know? And so you look at what happens in those states, like, you know, who's the governor there and, you know, how do they move those laws through and how do they make it legal? You know, it's again, it's, you know, a bunch of, you know, super rich, you know, piggybacking on that, you know, libertarian mentality, but still it shows that, you know, you can operate and at least have stump protections.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I haven't heard about this. I haven't seen that one. What was that tornado one? So the, they've held this guy without charges now for how long, how long has he been held without charges? You see, he's in Dutch, Netherlands, right? Dutch, yeah. But I can't remember how long he's been in there.

They say he's guilty of money laundering, but I don't think they actually charged him. Anyway, the articles that they finally got access to his laptop and that's, I guess, you know, they probably, part of that was the pressure to that they're keeping him. I don't know if they took his passwords or if they hacked into it or what, but they basically, the article says they're trying to prove that he was benefiting financially by steering the protocol and steering what happened on the protocol and that he was basically controlling everything. And so he was guilty of money laundering because he actually was facilitating it, I guess.

I, you know, I don't know, but, and it's interesting that they're now in his computer trying to figure out if they can prove that or not. What's really interesting here is, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I would always have assumed that personal freedoms and Netherlands would have been more protected. The fact that they can keep a person in jail for this long without formally charging them and not even have the evidence they need to prove their assumption to me is just astounding. It's like, you know, we have plenty of fucked up shit in our justice system here, but if you're not charged, you don't have to stay in jail here, you know? You don't get to hold somebody in prison while you're fishing for fucking evidence, you know? You hold them in prison because you have evidence, you have a charge that you can make against them. So anyway, to me it's just astounding that they're doing this.

Probably, yeah, look, you know, if, like in the US, if there's a fear of flight, then they can hold you,
you know, as long as they want until, you know, not as long as they want. If you got good lawyers, it'll eventually get to a judge. But I think what they're going for here is the terrorism stuff, you know, with this North Korean missile program.

That's probably what they're using to justify. And, you know, it probably has a couple of passports, but yeah, it is puzzling to me that, you know, I mean, they really went after this protocol. Well, look, take away his passports, don't give him computer access, wear an ankle monitor.

I mean, you know, it's not like the guy was bombing shit, you know, and if you think that's the case,
then charge them, you know? Yeah, there was something else about, it is apparent from the first scan that the suspect still has wallets in various places and nodes. So it's probably something about, you know, it'll become clearer in the short term, I think the next one down, but it's the same thing like with SBF and FTX, you know, they went in and took away his VPN access the other day because he streamed the Super Bowl or something. And I guess he, you know, they already kicked, you know, he got in trouble for using signal. And I guess they said he was messaging potential witnesses. Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, you know, that's just, you know, that's just crazy. They're going to fry you for that kind of stuff, you know? Where if he just shuts up and sits there and waits and plays it out and see how it ends up and cuts the deal, you know, he's probably gonna not be spanked that hard. But you know, when you start like defying judges' orders or sneaking around stuff, then they get worried. And then, you know, then they wanna stick it to you. You know, you can't really thumb your nose.

He probably says, if Trump can do it, why can't I do it? Yeah. Well, you know, those are the kinds of things, if you're in there, if you're in the grips of, you know, I guess enforcement people,
you know, it's kind of a good idea to start playing nice at that point. I think I would as well. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't mean you gotta like give yourself up. It just means, you know, make them prove everything, but people like to work through your lawyers. Exactly. You know, don't like break the rules on comms and things. But you know, it is what it is at this point. It is what it is. Maddock has been pumping, and this was interesting to see.
Siemens issued a fully compliant $60 million on-chain bond, reducing costs and need for reconciliation, removing intermediaries, and they did it themselves. Polygon Labs was not involved in any way in them doing it. That to me is a really powerful sign for Polygon. Polygon's pumping, Maddock's been pumping, but that to me is pretty fucking amazing.
Yeah, well, it disintermediates all the investment banks. I mean, you're just doing them in-house. So look, that pretty much gets you at the lowest level of, you know, securities laws too. So, you know, I mean, you're not marketing it. You obviously already have buyers. So, you know, you're probably going to existing investors in Siemens or to the institutional guys in Siemens, or you're going to the banks that are financing you. I mean, you're right, this is kind of a game changer. Because now, you know, you don't have to make all the representations and everything. Yeah. And you know, you could do your own restructuring. Now, I'm pretty blown away that they're doing this. And you know, this to me goes back to making the case that what you just said, you're eliminating the intermediaries, you're eliminating middlemen. It's what we talk about all the time about pushing crypto to push for finance to all move to blockchain and crypto tokens, because then you get transparency, you get the validity of the transactions on the chain.
To me, it's a pretty powerful, pretty powerful thing. So I'm really excited to see this. I'm excited for Polygon. And again, this doesn't happen unless Polygon has proven themselves with other enterprises, right? Siemens doesn't go, Siemens doesn't go, oh, let's just pick this layer too. Let's just pick, you know, Polygon, right? They pick Polygon because Starbucks, Coca-Cola, whatever, all the other fuckers have lined up to do deals with them. They said, oh, well, if they do this with Polygon, we'll do it. So the biz dev has implications beyond the deals you've already done. It has implications for future deals, but also has implications for people saying, what's the safest place I can build this? What's gonna be cheapest, fastest, and what's the chain or the team I can trust to put something like this on? And that, you know, it's fantastic. It's really amazing. Yeah, so look at that, that's the name of Hull, Hulls, or Lump, private bank or whatever. That looks like they're the ones organizing it. So that's probably one of their, well, it's private bank, of course. So they're probably bringing in a lot of high net worth, obviously people into that deal. And it looks like that, I didn't know about this legislation in Germany, you know, the D7 platform, but I guess- EWPG legislation for digitally native electronic securities that they passed in mid 2021. Yeah, so, but so far they've been on private blockchains and this is the first one that's been on a public blockchain evidently. Let's see, yeah, the last paragraph. For the first large corporates to issue digitally native bonds on public blockchain, although there have been many more on private blockchains. So that would probably be, you know, the ones that are doing all the securitizing, a different, well, there we go. Many public ones had been by,
wait, did I say that backwards then?
But anyhow, it's good stuff. Hulls, Hulls, or Lump, private bank, might not be the first bank you'd consider for tokenized securities. This digital asset unit is headed by Simon Seiter, who led Deutsche Borscht's digital assets unit for two years until September, 2021.
That's cool. So they're gonna get a lot of, somebody's in with JP Morgan. Seeman used blockchain for bank guarantees in 2018 and more recently partnered with JP Morgan's Onyx unit for blockchain based payments. We are proud to be one of the first German companies to successfully issued a blockchain based bond. This makes Seeman's a pioneer in the ongoing development of digital solutions for the capital and securities market. That's, this is the kinds of things that kind of happen quietly and then boom, and more people go, oh, and now, you know, the guys at Siemens will be talking to some other German company that needs to do it. And they're gonna be like, hey, we saved a fucking fortune. You know what I mean? We've got this platform, we're using it, makes it simple and quick to do, bam, there you go. So really impressive. Well, you know, when you see all the, when you see all the general FUD in the space, you know, about, you know, whether, I'm not saying tornado cash is FUD, but let's just say it's all the doom and gloom. And then you hear all the doom and gloom and like, you know, say retail crypto.
Because all of us remember everyone that all this big stuff's going on behind the scenes. We don't even really know what JP Morgan's Onyx network is doing. Yep, exactly. And I would guarantee it's doing some giant stuff. Yeah. But you know, they don't talk about it. That's right. And so, you know, so that's why SEC doesn't talk about it. You know, they're just like, well, they know that they can fight back, number one. Yeah. And you know, number two, it's that, you know, they don't wanna be buzzing about it, about it. But you see how blockchain is being, you know, absorbed into the biggest financial institutions in the world, as well as the biggest industrial conglomerates. Exactly. And you know, that's good for us too. Absolutely. Yeah, look, I mean, the more big folks start taking on and embracing the technology, the more it becomes more commonplace and the more accepting others are of it. And you know, it just kind of leads into, well, we're using this for securing and storing bonds. Why not for transferring funds, right? Why not for whatever else they may think of to do? So that just kind of keeps pushing it, you know, to the next level. And to me, it's, that's really big news. It's good shit.
Good shit. Yeah, you know, it's funny cause they,
you know, I was talking to some folks, I'm just wondering why my headset's bouncing off. The Deep State. The Deep State. Yeah. Joe was talking, had some Deep State meetings this week. Yeah, I think my headset might be dying here. So let me just go. Can you guys hear me still? Yep.
Yeah? Yeah, well, yeah, less, but I can hear you fine. I mean, but it's not as good, the sound isn't as good.
Yeah, they must be hearing me talking about them. Yeah, you're getting interrupted.
Can you hear me? Yeah. No, they, no, so, you know, I'm talking, I was, you know, talking about some decentralized stuff and, you know, kind of edgy stuff and I'm like, you know, this is what's going to get absorbed up eventually. So you guys, by the banks and stuff, so you need to understand it. And then I threw out, I mean, one of them was looking for a mortgage. And so I threw out a bunch of stuff on, you know, tokenizing that, I only got the $64 trillion market. And you know, it's like, nobody's even thinking about that stuff. I mean, the first thing they always want to ask me about is, it's trying to explain Bitcoin to them or something. And I'm just like, like, really, man, come on. It's like a two hour thing. And then you're like, but you don't even know about all this trillion dollars of activity that's going on over here. That's right under your nose. But you know, that just shows you that it's, you know, it's getting absorbed no matter what. Yeah. So, you know, it's like, which is good for everybody. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, look, I'm glad to see this shit. I think that's fantastic.
So some on-chain analysts have discovered that Waves, the Waves team was dumping its stable coin to try to top up the bridge of its decks and buy back debt that accumulated in its various lending platform.
I'm not sure who did the analysis. I was trying to see that earlier and I forgot to go back to it.
Well, they're not saying who did the blockchain data. That's not the best reporting. But anyway, basically saying that the Waves people were dumping their stable coin so they could get some cash to cover other shit.
I personally, as much as potential as I thought it had about a year ago or so ago, I haven't not doing anything over there and I'm certainly not gonna start now. So.
So is the implication that they were
like looting the tail rug pulling or is it that they were? No, no, no. I think they had control over that USDN and they were just dumping it because they needed to shore up liquidity on the bridge and needed to buy back debt on their lending platform because they hit a liquidity crisis with their lending platform. They lost 500 million in user funds that were lent on the protocol.
Crypto analysts told Protost that sales of USDN to top up the Wavesdeck's bridge slowed down as the USDN price crashed. Claims come after Wavesdeck's users were unable to withdraw USDT or USDC from the exchange. The Wavesdeck's Ethereum bridge revealed it was depleted of all its USDC and USDT worth 31.5 million and 58 million respectively. At the time Protost was unable to confirm if the Wavesdeck's was using Binance to store and trade the crypto deposited on it. So, look, I mean, it sounds like they needed to try to shore up the peg. They wanted to shore up their, solve their lending crisis. Don't know all the details beyond what's in this brief piece but the fact that they're dumping their own shit isn't a good sign.
Anyway, so there you go. There you go. Oh, well, make sure to go buy a big bag of that soon, right? Right.
Biggest movers, Matt, we already kind of hit this, hits 10 month high as I think it's a good sign. 10 month high is, Avax extends recent gains. So Polygon, I don't know where it is today. This was from, this is Artic. Hey, you know what I wanted to ask you, speaking of Avax, you know that this is the topic that we were all discussing in the Mission DeFi lunch Telegram channel about, you know, the one about, you know, no tokens just operating on gas fees. Yep. I was thinking, wouldn't that run really well on an Avalanche subnet? Yeah, sure. Now you could do that on a subnet. Absolutely, absolutely. By the way, Maddox up to $1.42 today. Nice. Yeah, it's pumping, it's pumping. Actually, and I did a thread, I did a thread on the tokenless thing, Joe. Yeah. I posted a link to it in the group. But basically, you know, I don't think this is the be all and end all of solving problems, but I think that pushing a narrative and an ethos of not having a token, unless it's a critical piece of the functioning of your protocol is a smart move. And I think in the community, we can start pushing for that. The other thing I said is, you know, look, what if Canto not only gave you CSR for, gave you the 20% for not charging fees, but maybe they bumped it up five or 10% if you didn't have a token, right? And so you got a bonus allocation of the CSR. I mean, those are tokens that are getting burned anyway, right? You don't wanna inflate the supply too much, but it's certainly,
I certainly can see a ton of value and create an ecosystem around, look, you don't need a token, don't create a token. Create revenue from contract secured revenue and grow it. And look, I think other people are, Phantom's doing a form of gas-based revenue. Arbitrum is copying the Canto model. So I think, you know, I think there's some potential there. I wanted to just kind of start the discussion on Twitter as well. What it made me think about was, I mean, you know, aside from like dependency issues and things, what I thought was really interesting is, you know, then it has to be people that are building their own protocol on their own to launch, to get it to a launch or whatever starts generating gas fees. So then you start thinking about, okay, that's either independence or that's V2, or that's VC money. And then I started thinking about, well, wait, you know, think the Y Combinator model. Think about, I think I just saw yesterday, A16z finished their cohort of crypto startups yesterday the day before, and they had like 8,000 applicants. And I think they picked 16. So, you know, I started thinking that, okay, you do something like an avalanche in a subnet and contain it there and do it like a Y Combinator incubator. And then it makes sense in a lot of ways, it helps grow that concept. So I think you're right. I think there is a play for that,
particularly in this market.
Yeah, look, I just think it's a better,
it's a better ethos. And I listed out all the potential benefits in the Telegram. By the way, if you're not in our Telegram, t.me forward slash mission defy, lots of juicy conversations going on there, not just the things that Joe and I are talking about right now, you got Sean in there and Shizi debating bull to bear. You got people posting a ton of projects that they're interested in and think have potential, but also join in and these discussions, nothing I pontificate about or Joe pontificates about is,
discuss advice. Yeah, not investment advice, nor is it necessarily the right way. It's the ideas to stoke ideas. And Chuck says, Chuck posts a quote from Benjamin Franklin, the only good token is a utility token. That's very good. That's very good Chuck. I love it. I love it. That's funny. Anyway, so I would encourage everybody to come participate in the conversation. I also did another thread on politics and what I think we should do politically. And it was spurred by a founder of Masari, Ryan Selkis, who's known as 2BitIdiot on Twitter. And I think he's gonna be a great founder of the Telegram community. He posted an emotional thread of three or four tweets talking about how pissed he is at the Biden administration and he had voted for them. And now he's only gonna vote for Republicans. And this is the year to make crypto a deciding factor in the presidential elections. And I just kind of said, look, one of the other things he talked about was, 20% of Americans own crypto. We could have a chance to do it. And I was just basically saying, well, no. Crypto is not going to be a deciding factor in the presidential elections in 2024. I don't care if you spend a billion dollars advertising, not gonna happen. Number two, 20% of people owning crypto, I would guarantee you that at least 90% and probably more 99.999% of those people that bought crypto have no fucking clue what crypto is. They don't know what its function is. They don't know what its value is. They don't know what it can do. They have no idea how it functions. They were speculating and people said, go buy fucking Bitcoin on Coinbase and they did, or go buy Doge or buy, you know, Sheba or whatever. So that was the main point was to address those things. And then I made the point that I always make and I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on it. But the point is this, the only way crypto, well, the other factor was that, in terms of the way that crypto is being used, in terms of elections and crypto getting ahead, libertarians suck. So, you know, that's just the reality because they don't wanna participate because they think it's all fucking corrupt. But at the same time, that means that they don't participate and that means that things don't change. So anyway, the way I summarized and said, I think the only way we have a chance of having an impact is participating in the primaries in the House of Representatives because we won't garner enough money to impact a general election in any of those elections, maybe a rural house election, but for the most part, no. And almost all elections in the United States are decided in the primaries, in the House. And, you know, that's usually where these things get decided. So if you can run pro-crypto candidates and or support pro-crypto candidates and have an impact on much smaller, much less costly elections in the primaries, you can then show that you are a force and that you aren't messing around and that you are actually going to impact incumbents or people that are running and you have a carrot and a stick capability. You have the stick which says, if you vote against us or go against us, we're going to take you out by helping your opponents in the primaries. And if you support us and you're on our team, we're gonna raise money for you. And so that's really the bottom line for me is we have to be smart about what we're capable of doing and, you know, thinking that somehow we're gonna sway the presidential election with crypto arguments is just bullshit. And even in the primaries, you wouldn't run, your super PAC would not be running ads pro or anti-crypto, pro-crypto, your super PAC will be running ads that will harm the person you're trying to beat. Your goal is not to try to persuade people that crypto is a savior because we're not there yet. The only way crypto could have an impact on the presidential election is a major financial crisis in the United States of the world. So anyway, that's me. Yeah, yeah, it's a ton of a bit,
I don't know what the right word is, but yeah, there's so many other issues out there to like the regular all populace. And I don't think crypto is in the top five. You know, Americans are not gonna decide the president of the United States based on their affiliation with crypto. It is not happening. We're good 15 years from that, barring again a financial crisis. And only if there was a massive, massive PR effort by folks in this space to actually make people understand the importance of it. Well, yeah, cause think about it. If he went and said the same thing about gold, he said the same thing about equities, you know, nobody cares. No. Most of the people that are voting don't have any of that. People don't know how their money works. You got a huge educational problem first. Before you even get to fucking crypto, you have to let them know how the system works. They don't think there's a problem. So if they don't think there's a problem, most people don't even understand how inflation impacts them except for the price of milk and gasoline, but they don't understand why inflation happens. They don't understand the purpose of it. They don't understand how the fed works. They don't understand how money gets created. They don't understand any of that. You can't convince them on crypto until you do that. And, and yeah, well think about two things. One, well, first of all, I say, the only thing I do understand is they look at their paycheck and see all that money going out for FICA and everything else. And they're like, what the hell is that? And then, um, second, I was thinking of the.com era, you know, and the, the Bush Gore election was at 2000. I don't remember anything mentioned about.com. Now at all as an issue. Yeah. And that was booming then. Yeah. So it was in all the news. So, and they didn't even, nobody even remotely talked about that. That's right. So, yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent. Excellent. Uh, let's see if we got anything else, Joe. I think you sent, uh, this Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi launches $2 billion fund to accelerate the growth of web three startups. Wow. $2 billion fucking dollars. Wow. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. For a lot of startups. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, we need 1 billion for our startup. So we only got a billion left. Wow. We can start with a quarter of a billion. Well, we want that. Like we got a 300 year runway. Yeah. That's true. That's true. That's true. Hub 71 plus digital assets ecosystem will back companies focusing on blockchain technologies. Abu Dhabi tech ecosystem has started a $2 billion initiative to back web three and blockchain technology startups in the region. Also, we'll get access to a wide range of programs and potential corporate government investment partners. The program will support businesses relocating to Abu Dhabi and promote startup growth in the mid Eastern global markets. The initiative will be based at hub 71. Uh, fabric, the research and development hub. The first Abu Dhabi bank is the anchor partner of the initiative, which also includes crypto exchanges and service providers. Um, gay people need not apply. Yeah. There's some particular rules that, um, you know, cultural rules there. So make sure you know what those are, uh, before you even attempt to do it. Um, the other thing I was going to say is I remember doing some stuff with like audio and a Mar years ago and, um, you know, these groups are, I mean, I'm sure audio sitting on a couple of trillion these days, but they were like right around a trillion back then. And, um, you know, they just have enormous amounts of money, but look, these aren't the kind of places where you just show up and get something funded. I mean, you gotta work it. You gotta go through, you know, different layers of bureaucracy, you know, usually different families and, you know, you have to work it. It's not a, you know, a New York style game where you show up and pitch and you're out of there or you're in there and like, you know, a minute, this is like, go make relationships, make friends, you know, play the local game. It can be a lot of agency fees involved. You know, the standard fee is 10% over there. Um, but you know, you find those guys, they're usually related to the decision maker. And so, you know, you just have to expect to cut in people on those scenarios, but you know, it's a long game. You know, you don't just show up fast, but I'm telling you if you have good ideas and you know, you want to live there, um, you know, there's not really, I'm trying to think, I would take it definitely over Hong Kong these days. And I don't know if I'd take it over London, but you know, um, it's in the middle of everything, which is cool. And you know, once you're in there, then, you know, it's easy flights to every market around there. I mean, um, you know, so it's something to think about and all that money. I mean, 2 billion and there's no rules. So I had open memory the other day we had, uh, what was his name? Dylan Darren guest Darren. Oh yeah. BNB Greenfield. Yeah. I had a site up that he told me to load. I was going to go through some of a BNB based defy projects. It was like, uh, it was like a product hunt for, for BNB projects. And now I can't find the frigging tab. The fuck is fucked up. Hold on. Let me see if I can do a little search here. Was it the one around the chain, which lists the, like all the Bay here. Yeah. I got it. I got it. Oh no, that's here it is. Oh, it's actually from BNB chain. So, um, you know, we're kind of running short on time today, but I think maybe a Monday, um, maybe you and I can go through a few of these projects over the weekend. I'll send you a link to it. And actually, you know what? I'm going to post it in the group telegram and I'll create a BNB group. And I'd love it. If you're listening to this, go into the telegram, click the link and, um, pick a project that's listed over here in, you know, maybe the, the top trending ones. They've got the top TV, Elgrove top performing tokens, but pick one and tell us in the telegram channel, which one you're going to look at and then come back and tell us what you think of it. You know, give us a little summary. What do you think? What does it do? Is it worth shit? You know, cause I have no idea what's going on BNB these days. The only thing I know about is fucking pancake swap and somebody at some point threw me some tokens off another project, uh, as an advisor. But, um, I, I would definitely, um, I would think that would be fun. So I'm going to, I'm going to ask everybody go in the telegram. I'm going to post the link. There'll be a new BNB channel. Go in there, pick one, post it. Which one you're going to look at and then come back and give us a little summary and then we'll quote you guys, uh, on the show. Take a look at the site, uh, on Monday. So that sound good, Joe. I love that idea. Let's crowdsource some analysis and research here. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of analysis and research, I got to tell you people, uh, I signed up for a lifetime membership to Nick Dracon's, um, uh, Ravello Intel. And it is. Un-fucking-believable just the amount of shit, the discord channels, the conversations, absolutely fantastic. Um, I would highly encourage if you're so inclined to at least, I mean, they have a free level. Um, but, uh, you know, at least take a look because the products in this thing are unbelievable. The research they've done, the summaries they've do historical timelines. Tons of projects they're adding Canto, uh, to the grouping. It's just, it's fantastic. It's Ravello Intel.com. And, um, oh, I'm not logged in at the moment, but it is, um, it's a really powerful platform and their discord channel is almost as powerful as the research that they offer, uh, offer in the system. So I would encourage everybody to take a look. Nick's done a great job building that out. Uh, and the research is top-notch, uh, in there. So if you're looking for a place to find deep dives into products, uh, platforms on this, in the space, I would encourage you to take a look at, uh, Ravello Intel. Yeah. I should have put that, I was looking for those analytics companies and I forgot about these guys. Yeah. They don't have like a, a non-chain data dashboard, but they have a ton of like, they do full blown analysis on a lot of these protocols. So they're doing like case studies on each of these protocols. So they're doing like case studies on each one. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Or like a research report. Yeah. Okay. So they have notes on an, and they also do summaries of like every podcast YouTube channel that's serious in the device space and they do breakdowns of projects. Uh, they have the discord, uh, Owen and people that sign up can get a limited edition, uh, NFTs that will incur that will entitle you to some other shit that they're going to launch. So, Hey, I also saw something, I think it was, I don't remember who read, I think Shizzy retweeted it, but you know, a lot of talk about lens protocol and they're pending airdrop. Um, I don't know what you had to do to, I'm hoping you just had to do stuff on Aave, but I'm probably not gonna, it's probably not going to be that. Have you signed up for, have you set up, are you, are you set up on lens? No, I'm not. Get in there. I will, I will. Um, and then of course, Arby, you know, that one's pending big time too. So, um, I think it's good. I think we're just, you know, I mean, I'm psyched to hear Sean's analysis tomorrow, but I don't know, man. It's like when shit starts, when it's been bad so long, you remember this stuff just turns on a dime. So Sean has, uh, Sean this morning said 10, I O one AM Eastern time said, by the way, there is some bullishness here with respect to the bear market structure. So it's not all bear eyes for me, but that's structural and not near term price. He said, well, is he, she's he and Sean are going back and forth cause she wants a dialogue. Yeah. Yeah. Sean, she's, he said, I want you to be a bull so bad. Ha ha. Respect the pump exclamation point. And she's, uh, Sean said, ha ha. I am now technically a metric fuck ton short here. I want to be a bull. I want to join team Lambeau, but I don't want to be exit liquidity or whale food. Anyway, let the tape print and we'll go through my veins in extreme detail. My view extreme detail tomorrow. So need no need for anyone to order sleeping pills. That's awesome. That's great. Looking forward to having him on to talk about it. Yeah. That's always a good show. Definitely. I like that. Absolutely. All right, dude, you want to wrap it up? I think that's about it. I can't think of anything else today. I created the BNB channel in the group. I posted the link to DAPA. I'll do a quick summary of the thing we're doing. But everybody get in there, look for BNB and then pick one and let us know what you think about it. Let's see if we get anybody to do any work. Joe, I think we have a pretty ambitious crew out there. I do too. I hope so. I hope so. Somewhere. We'll see how smart they are now. Yeah, exactly. All right. Nibblets. Chuck. Just nibblets and Chuck today. All right. That's why the quality was so high today. Yeah. Damn, you're right, man. The intellectuals are here. I thought they were... Yeah. It was smart day. Intellectuals domination day. There you go. There you go. Thank you, everybody, for participating. We love and appreciate you for listening and watching. Thank you for your patience with the last two days of not having a show. And everyone, I really, really appreciate all your well wishes for my family. It means a lot and it means that we have a really cool community. So that makes me very happy. If you are watching on YouTube, please smash the thumbs up and smash it like Joe's showing you right now. Smash, smash, smash. And be sure to click the little bell after you subscribe so that you get notified of new episodes when they come out. Euphoric says, saved you from my usual crap. We love your crap, Euphoric. We love your crap. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcast, take two seconds, please, right now. Go to Spotify or go to Apple, search for Mission DeFi feed or DeFi lunch, and then subscribe, rate and review us, please. It will help us get more people coming in to tell us they're alpha. You want more alpha. I know you want more alpha. So just take it. Who doesn't want alpha? Every day you listen to our show and you hear me say the same thing. And you think, I'll do that when I get home. And then it's not the most important thing in the world. I get it. You go to the gym, you see the wife and the kids and you eat your dinner and you have your ice cream with magic shell and pet the dog. And then suddenly we're not important anymore. I understand. I get it. But set a little bell, a little reminder on your phone right now. Get in there and rate, review, subscribe. Yeah. Stop being so selfish. That too. That too. That too. Oh, Niblet said moon base alpha. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. Moon base alpha space 1999 reference. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know anything about that. I'm not that old. Space 1999. I remember that. Wasn't that like in the seventies or something? I mean, I don't know. I would guess doing stuff in the future. Damn. I thought I was older than Niblet's. Moon base alpha is a video game that provides a realistic simulation of life on a natural satellite based on potentially moon based programs. It was made by the Army Game Studio, developers of America's Army and Virtual Heroes Inc. in conjunction with the NASA Learning Technologies. Wow. There you go. I'll check that out. No, but it says release date was 2010. There must be another moon base alpha reference. Oh, here we go. It's the main location for space 1999. I don't know. Yeah. It looks like it was a TV show. Space 1999. I never caught that. Was that one? I bet they put that one out when Star Trek was making money and everybody was like, fuck. I should remember it being, it was a British show if I'm not mistaken. You would get a little bit of that stuff maybe on PBS or the local channels back then. This is pre-cable days, kids. 83 to 90. Oh no, that was the build date. No, no, no, no. That was the build date for actual. Oh, this is the space 1999 Wiki. I have made it into niche hell. I'm in the space 1999 Wiki. Okay. Yeah. I think what was weird is that right around that time period, wasn't that when Battlestar Galactica was out? Star Wars came out in 76, I believe. Battlestar Galactica, or maybe it was 78. I can't remember. Those had a lot of action. I think space 1999 was a little bit drier at that point. The American audience. And you called it, 1975 to 1977. Oh, okay. Yeah. But it was still a cool show. I mean, what were the other ones around then? Listen to the first episode. Nuclear waste set in the year 1999, nuclear waste stored on the moon's far side explodes, knocking the moon out of orbit and sending it as well as 311 inhabitants of moon base alpha, hurtling uncontrollably into space. Yeah, I don't remember it very well. Wow. But yeah, it was definitely an interesting show. But if I remember right too, wasn't that right around when like Monty Python and AbFab and Benny Hill and all those comedies were out, all the British stuff that was coming into the American airwaves. I wonder if you can watch it anywhere. Or the old, what was that one? The Saint. I remember that one too. I'm sure it's gotta be on Netflix or YouTube or somewhere. You can rent it on Amazon Prime Video. It's on Crackle, Fubo. Oh, it's all over the place. Oh, Fubo, okay. Shout Factory TV is the only one with both seasons. Whatever Shout Factory, Peacock has it for one season free. Oh man, I guess that's second season. Well, we know what you're doing the rest of the day. What I'm doing the rest of the day is digging out of all the fucking work I haven't done. I know, I got a ton of admin stuff too. Oh hey, by the way, I did, what was it? What was I thinking? Oh shit, I spaced on it, man. But it was a conference somewhere. Oh, the East Denver conference. Oh, I'm going to East Denver. The same here. I just got invited yesterday. Nice. It was the Waxman people, you know? Who? You know, the PR group Waxman? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah. So I'll see you there. I'll see you there. Well, let me know what your travel plans are and we can at least rig up on the way out there and stuff. First through the fifth. I just put in for getting access to their podcast desk, 10 AM on Thursday. Oh, good. So hopefully we'll get it. We'll see. Yeah, no, they seem pretty, who are you dealing with? I'm dealing with Brianna. Oh no, no, I'm dealing with just the website. I don't know. Oh, okay. All right. They sent an email to me and said, do you need a podcast room? Yeah, that'll be very helpful. There's something else. Yeah, I think I'm doing like the second through the sixth and then going from there out to Palm Springs for a while. I'm flying to Amherst. You can lay the groundwork for us. Yeah, wife's coming because we got free companion tickets because we racked up so many points in Southwest. Oh, sweet. Yeah. That'll be good. A little vacation for her. Two weeks later, I'm going on spring break there. Back and forth, huh? Maybe just rent a place for a couple of weeks. Have your kids like remote schooling off the slopes, you know? All right, let's wrap it up. Hey, everybody. Thanks. Have a great one, Joe. Have a great afternoon. You too, man. All right. Give my best to your wife and mother-in-law.