Speaker 1: So the big question is this, how do investors like
Speaker 1: us get access to the ideas, information, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: the right people that give us the tools and information
Speaker 1: we need to make informed and educated decisions to have success.
Speaker 1: That is the question, and this podcast will give us
Speaker 1: the answers. This is Mark Moss, your host. Let's get
Speaker 1: this started. Hello and welcome to another episode of the
Speaker 1: Market Disruptors Podcast. Today I am sitting down with Ryan
Speaker 1: Sean Adams. He's the founder of Methos Capital. He's one
Speaker 1: of the outspoken proponents of Ethereum on Twitter. He likes
Speaker 1: to really put ethereum content right out to the bitcoiners
Speaker 1: and really kind of stir the pop. I get into
Speaker 1: why he likes to do that, what he really thinks
Speaker 1: about bitcoin versus ethereum, if he really think there's only
Speaker 1: gonna be one. We talk about the differences of ethereum,
Speaker 1: what he sees being the future, and then we get
Speaker 1: into some defise stuff. What's happening there um with a
Speaker 1: different protocol is some really good conversation. Um learned a
Speaker 1: lot and let's just go ahead and just jump right
Speaker 1: into it. Hello and welcome to another episode of the
Speaker 1: Market Disruptors podcast. Today I am with Ryan Shawn Adams.
Speaker 1: He's the founder of Mythos Capital, and he is one
Speaker 1: of the outspoken proponents of ethereum on Twitter and out
Speaker 1: in the industry, and he has a lot of good
Speaker 1: things to say, so I want to I'm excited to
Speaker 1: talk to him today. Welcome Ryan, Yeah, hey Mark, great
Speaker 1: to be here. Thanks alright, great, So, UM, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and just set the stage. And so for those
Speaker 1: that don't know who you are, why don't you just
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about kind of what you
Speaker 1: were doing before and and kind of what you're doing
Speaker 1: right now in the space. Yeah. So, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: tech entrepreneur by background and trading within the medical um
Speaker 1: software field for a while. UM sold the company back
Speaker 1: in party acquisition there and UM when we started getting
Speaker 1: into krypton, and that was really when I, you know,
Speaker 1: did the first leg down the rabbit hole, if you
Speaker 1: if you will, and discovered bitcoin. UM. A little bit later,
Speaker 1: I sort of realized that, you know, there are more
Speaker 1: applications that were possible use blockchain systems, public blockchain systems,
Speaker 1: you know, general programmable value transfer and kind of fell
Speaker 1: in love with ethereum and decided to start with US
Speaker 1: in seventeen, so with US as a as a capital
Speaker 1: pool UM, and we also provide staking services to crypto networks.
Speaker 1: And I guess I'm just a general commentator and writer
Speaker 1: around this space a little bit. UM. Recently, my passion
Speaker 1: has been around the topic of of ethereum uh and
Speaker 1: specifically how eth is a monetary asset that um, you know,
Speaker 1: deserves a monetary premium and UM topics around that, you know,
Speaker 1: short form like eat his money and UM. You know
Speaker 1: I love you know, mixing it up on Twitter and
Speaker 1: controlling bitcoiners. Yes, you do. You do seem to like
Speaker 1: to uh stir the pot a little bit, which is good.
Speaker 1: Kind of makes it interesting for sure. UM. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you recently wrote a piece titled Ethereum is Money and
Speaker 1: why it matters and uh really going straight at the
Speaker 1: bitcoin maximalist on that because obviously you know, the bitcoin
Speaker 1: is money, um and and so I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's what you meant with with with the piece titling
Speaker 1: at that, but you really went into why ethereum is
Speaker 1: money and UM kind of broke down the triple assets,
Speaker 1: you know, different ways it's looked at UM s O
Speaker 1: V versus medium exchanges, et cetera. So why don't we
Speaker 1: just jump into that a little bit. I guess first
Speaker 1: of all, why did you choose that title? Was that
Speaker 1: just to kind of go after bitcoin? You know, it's
Speaker 1: not so much going after bitcoin, right, So first of all,
Speaker 1: I'm actually people want people that do this. I'm actually
Speaker 1: like a bitcoin bull. Um. Yeah, you know I am.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about Bitcoin originally got me into the
Speaker 1: crypto space. UM. I do think that bitcoin falls short
Speaker 1: in some areas and if your name kind of picks
Speaker 1: off in some areas where Bitcoin left off. But the
Speaker 1: reason I say like eth is money as uh, you
Speaker 1: know the title is that it's it's it's provocative, um,
Speaker 1: and it really it really shouldn't be. I mean, um,
Speaker 1: people in in and before that who said things like
Speaker 1: bitcoin is money. I mean that was provocative at the time.
Speaker 1: The reality about money, whether it's fiat money or crypto
Speaker 1: based money, is that, uh, money is is a meme. UM.
Speaker 1: In some ways, it's it's kind of like a religion. Um.
Speaker 1: There's an underlying belief system that it has value and
Speaker 1: can store value into the future, and that begets more
Speaker 1: belief in it and the network affects, spreads and essentially
Speaker 1: like you can mean money into existence. So when I
Speaker 1: say things like if money, it's just sort of to
Speaker 1: you know, poke at that idea a little bit. Um,
Speaker 1: anything can be a money if people believe it's the
Speaker 1: money and use it as a money. And it certainly
Speaker 1: fits that criteria right now. Um, And I really I
Speaker 1: think of it as kind of a triple point asset.
Speaker 1: We can get into that. One of the likes in
Speaker 1: the you know, the three point stool um is being
Speaker 1: used as a money, being used as a story value asset,
Speaker 1: as collateral backing in the open finance world, as collateral
Speaker 1: backing for currencies like die for instance, which are also
Speaker 1: used as a as a medium of exchange and unit
Speaker 1: of accounts. So um eth is certainly money. We can
Speaker 1: get into that a little bit more from that perspective.
Speaker 1: First is the story value, but then through currencies like
Speaker 1: die when it serves as a as a synthetic backing
Speaker 1: as a medium of exchange, unit of account um in
Speaker 1: the future. I think that with that, I mean it's like, um,
Speaker 1: it certainly is being used as that today. Um. Right,
Speaker 1: it is certainly being used as a store of value
Speaker 1: today where we can see what's locked up, and we
Speaker 1: can certainly see that it is being used as a
Speaker 1: money today. Um. And I think, like you said, like
Speaker 1: anything can be a money, but does that necessarily mean
Speaker 1: it's a good money or the best money or best
Speaker 1: store of value? Right? So, um, is that something where
Speaker 1: you see it like maybe like evolving into that or
Speaker 1: you think it already is good. I think I think
Speaker 1: it partially is, and it's partially evolving into it in
Speaker 1: the same way that bitcoin partially is a good story
Speaker 1: value today and is evolving into a better story value
Speaker 1: in the future, I mean store of value. It's really
Speaker 1: like it's um, it's kind of like a coordination game, right,
Speaker 1: Like you want to store your wealth in the asset
Speaker 1: that all of the other human beings store their wealth in,
Speaker 1: and ideally you want to be a little bit ahead
Speaker 1: of that. Uh. That way you can kind of you know,
Speaker 1: get the the appreciation of the asset and get the
Speaker 1: upside of the story value asset. So the coordination game
Speaker 1: is trying to predict which which asset will become a
Speaker 1: story value. And bitcoin has kind of mean this idea
Speaker 1: of um, you know, scarcity and a sound money and
Speaker 1: hard money being the primary value proposition of a story
Speaker 1: value UM and like, I agree with those things too. UM,
Speaker 1: It's just that EVE also has those properties as well.
Speaker 1: It is a sound money, it is a hard money.
Speaker 1: It does have a scarcity enforced by social contract um.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't have a meme around twenty one million
Speaker 1: will only be produced. But if you actually look into
Speaker 1: the monetary policy of Eve, you sort of like start
Speaker 1: to uh see an asset um that has low issuance,
Speaker 1: you know, approaching one percent over time, that has a
Speaker 1: sustainable security um ust year in terms of its stability
Speaker 1: to pay for network security via new coin issuance. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it has the same scarcity that's enforced by social
Speaker 1: contractors bigcoins. So even from just a scarcity meme perspective, UM, like,
Speaker 1: the fundamentals are there, it's just the like, the idea
Speaker 1: and the meme and the propagation of that meme is
Speaker 1: not fully there in the way that that it is
Speaker 1: with bitcoin. But I think when people start to understand
Speaker 1: these assets more we're just at the very early stages
Speaker 1: of the general public barely understanding these assets, it will
Speaker 1: become more and more obvious that the monetary policy behind
Speaker 1: ethereum issuance is uh, just as good, maybe in some
Speaker 1: ways better or at least makes different tradeoffs than the
Speaker 1: bitcoin monetary policy. Yeah, the tradeoffs that you speak of,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing more are are back to like the inflation
Speaker 1: and then enforcing the security, which, um some of that
Speaker 1: will will be said to be seen right in the future.
Speaker 1: But I think the problem, I guess is you're saying, like,
Speaker 1: the inflation rate is low today, but we just don't
Speaker 1: know what it will be in the future. I guess
Speaker 1: that's the main argument that bitcoin bowls would say, right
Speaker 1: that you're building on something that's unknown because we know
Speaker 1: it's going to change in the future, but we don't
Speaker 1: know what it's going to change too. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is this is kind of you know what I would
Speaker 1: would what I would respond to you, I guess a
Speaker 1: couple of things. So, so first, when you look at bitcoin,
Speaker 1: it's somewhat in a similar boat. So what bitcoin has
Speaker 1: done very clever cleverly is they've fixed issuance, and so
Speaker 1: they have Bitcoin has a security, um like, it has
Speaker 1: a happening and issuance happening. Every four years or so.
Speaker 1: Issuance is decreased along kind of a curve approaching zero UM,
Speaker 1: so that you know, the network specifies only twenty one
Speaker 1: million bitcoin will ever be produced. You can also think
Speaker 1: of that secure party having as or that that issuance
Speaker 1: having is also a security having. So like UM, the
Speaker 1: the amount of bitcoin that goes to pay for network
Speaker 1: securities cut in half every four years. So there's some
Speaker 1: real question as to whether that sort of an issuance
Speaker 1: policy is UH is sustainable at some state and we're
Speaker 1: talking in the next you know, ten years or so,
Speaker 1: UM like bitcoin will have to sustain itself just by
Speaker 1: transaction fees. So like the question in my mind is um,
Speaker 1: you know, is it actually possible to have fixed issuance
Speaker 1: twenty one million or or Bitcoin have to make a
Speaker 1: really hard choice in the future to actually increase its
Speaker 1: issuance and fork the network. Will that be sort of
Speaker 1: a very divisive topic sometime in the next you know,
Speaker 1: ten years, in the next twenty years, whereas ethereum UM
Speaker 1: you know, responds with a more flexible issuance policy into
Speaker 1: the future. UM and the monetary policy of Etherium is
Speaker 1: pretty simple. It's minimum necessary issuance to secure the network.
Speaker 1: So like like security essentially is guaranteed by that issue
Speaker 1: at schedule, and Etherium won't won't have to deal with
Speaker 1: the thorny issue off like, well, we have two hard
Speaker 1: work to maintain security. So in some ways, I guess
Speaker 1: in summary, I think that the meme around twenty one
Speaker 1: million that that bitcoin has may not actually like in
Speaker 1: fact come to pass. That there may be a reason
Speaker 1: in a requirement to actually increase issuance in order to
Speaker 1: properly secure the bitcoin network, and it might cause FOC
Speaker 1: at some point in the future to frame that out
Speaker 1: just a little bit more for everyone, if they're not
Speaker 1: totally caught up, is that UM currently bitcoin is secured
Speaker 1: by mining, and they are earning their their payment or
Speaker 1: their rewards through mining new bitcoin, but as well as
Speaker 1: doing transactions, and eventually UM the mining rewards run out,
Speaker 1: and the only way to secure the network would be
Speaker 1: through transaction fees. UM a risk would be that let's
Speaker 1: say that everybody just hotels their bitcoin and doesn't transact it,
Speaker 1: then there's no transaction fees, and then the transaction fees
Speaker 1: aren't enough and the miners give up, and then there's
Speaker 1: no security for the network. That's the potential risk that
Speaker 1: that is going to play out, and We'll have to
Speaker 1: see what happens. UM. Most people think that there will
Speaker 1: be enough transaction activity to continue to pay the miners UM,
Speaker 1: but it may not, And so that's that's the potential risk,
Speaker 1: right UM. I also see like a middle ground their
Speaker 1: team mark where it's it's you know, UM, there will
Speaker 1: be some security, and there will be like a lot
Speaker 1: of security paid by transaction fees. But but it could
Speaker 1: come to pass that Bitcoin is no longer the most
Speaker 1: secure network, right UM, as you know, compared to other
Speaker 1: networks in the future. So UM, like I probably think
Speaker 1: it's unlikely that bitcoin security like drops to zero uh
Speaker 1: and it becomes useless, But but it could vary. UM
Speaker 1: feasibly come to pass that that Bitcoin is no longer
Speaker 1: the most secure network, and that opens a slot for
Speaker 1: another network that has a different issuance policy, maybe even
Speaker 1: a different consensus system um to uh to jump to
Speaker 1: first place, right, And so we don't know what the
Speaker 1: future holds, and so that could end up being bad
Speaker 1: for Bitcoin. It possibly and and with a more flexible
Speaker 1: monetary policy like Ethereum has, it could end up being
Speaker 1: right where it needs to be. Bitcoin could change is
Speaker 1: monetary policy. So there's a lot to be said about
Speaker 1: the future that we don't know. It just seems that
Speaker 1: the if we look through history, like the best store
Speaker 1: of value always wins. I think you're kind of saying
Speaker 1: that before. We've seen this playout with governments in the past,
Speaker 1: where some thought silver was going to be the best
Speaker 1: store value but they end losing the most of their
Speaker 1: wealth because gold became the best store value. And um,
Speaker 1: where you start to store your value right now, seems
Speaker 1: like having the best monetary policy today would win. But
Speaker 1: I guess we'll have to see how that plays out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I guess the point is, you know what actually
Speaker 1: is the best monetary policy, right UM, maybe we don't
Speaker 1: know yet. UM Gold for instance, has been a fantastic
Speaker 1: story value throughout history, and it has an issuance and
Speaker 1: annual inflation of like one point five to two percent ish. UM.
Speaker 1: You know ethereum UH is projected to have a one
Speaker 1: percent ish inflation rate as well. UH. And then of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the issuance is always going to be enough
Speaker 1: to secure the network. Maybe that's the winning the winning ticket.
Speaker 1: I think the point is we're all it's so early,
Speaker 1: like we're in the first standing of this and so
Speaker 1: you know, at some level, betting on crypto is betting
Speaker 1: on which of these assets become the best store of value.
Speaker 1: And so it's really hard to kind of project into
Speaker 1: the future. We just s don't know. So I always
Speaker 1: encourage like a probabilistic bet on these things, uh, and
Speaker 1: discourage maximalism of one form or another, including bitcoin maximalism. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So today we have, you know, the dollars the reserve
Speaker 1: currency of the world, the financial system. Really, the world
Speaker 1: financial system is built in the US, majority of it,
Speaker 1: and it's built on the dollar. Um. But the dollar
Speaker 1: is also is a medium of exchange, right, but it's
Speaker 1: also a very poor store of value, which is why
Speaker 1: we see ascid inflation in stocks and real estate and
Speaker 1: all these other things. UM, I mean, is it possible
Speaker 1: do you think it's possible that maybe um the theory
Speaker 1: M and bitcoin maybe have purposes of their own where
Speaker 1: one could be a better store value and one could
Speaker 1: be a better financial system or something. Yeah, totally. And
Speaker 1: if I were to predict these things, I would probably
Speaker 1: at this point i'd probably say that that's a that's
Speaker 1: a very likely outcome. UM. I don't think that that, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, bitcoin kills ethereum or ethereum kills bitcoin. I
Speaker 1: think what what will happen is both of these networks
Speaker 1: will coexist. UM. They will be competitive, as all assets
Speaker 1: are or store value in monetary premium use cases. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, gold competes with stock, competes with real estate
Speaker 1: for where individuals and large institutions decided to store their wealth. Um,
Speaker 1: but they will have different trade offs. UM. I could
Speaker 1: very well see a world where there's a you know,
Speaker 1: a proof of work you know, winner from from the
Speaker 1: story value of category. And you know, maybe that's that
Speaker 1: looks like bitcoin uh and and possibly a proof of
Speaker 1: stake category winner uh. And maybe that looks like ethereum uh.
Speaker 1: And that these assets are held on the balance sheets
Speaker 1: of funds and major institutions and even central banks at
Speaker 1: some stage. So it's really about the growth of the
Speaker 1: asset class, like the non sovereign store value asset class
Speaker 1: here uh. And that that's what I'm sort of rejecting
Speaker 1: when I say things like this money is that like, um,
Speaker 1: there seems to be at least this year um this
Speaker 1: bad that bitcoin will be the only winner in that category.
Speaker 1: And I just don't think that's true. In the money category. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the money category and in the non sovereign store
Speaker 1: value category. M hm okay, so um again, so we
Speaker 1: know it. It is already being used as a store value.
Speaker 1: I mean, at least I guess you could argue that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think that's probably the primary use
Speaker 1: case of most people. I mean, we're starting to see
Speaker 1: all the financial system start to pick up bitcoin. We
Speaker 1: don't really see him picking up ethereum. However, we do
Speaker 1: see what half a billion dollars locked up in DeFi
Speaker 1: use cases, right, So I guess that's somewhat of a
Speaker 1: store value. Is that kind of how you see it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I see it as Right now, bitcoin is leading the way,
Speaker 1: um with what I would call crypto banks and kind
Speaker 1: of So if you think of like you know, a
Speaker 1: financial system. At the at the base layer, you have
Speaker 1: some sort of a money, right, a base monetary um
Speaker 1: system that kind of everything settles into, and then a
Speaker 1: layer above you have a banking system. And you know,
Speaker 1: the money in the banking system are very tied together,
Speaker 1: so like you know, central banks and commercial banks and
Speaker 1: institutional banks very very closely tied together. It's all part
Speaker 1: of the same system. So Bitcoin as a base money.
Speaker 1: Their banking layer are these crypto banks. So crypto banks
Speaker 1: being you know, the bit mixes and the binances and
Speaker 1: the coin basis of the world. And in the crypto
Speaker 1: banks right now, bitcoin um is the primary asset, so
Speaker 1: you know, it has the most liquidity, the most trading
Speaker 1: pairs UM even in uh like crypto bank, it's like
Speaker 1: like block fi, there's more lending going on on bitcoin
Speaker 1: um than versus other assets. So it's kind of you
Speaker 1: know winning right now in that crypto uh you know,
Speaker 1: centralized banking layer. Um Ethereum, on the other hand, is
Speaker 1: really pioneering an open banking layer with these decentralized finance protocols.
Speaker 1: So ethere in essentially represents a kind of a another
Speaker 1: vision of the world where the story value asset is
Speaker 1: is E. And on top of that asset there are
Speaker 1: these crypto protocols like um compound and like maker and
Speaker 1: like um d y d X and like set UH
Speaker 1: and within these these banking protocols is really the primary
Speaker 1: reserve asset. The interesting thing I think about it is
Speaker 1: that it can also make use of all of the
Speaker 1: kind of the crypto bank layer that that bitcoin makes
Speaker 1: use of as well, So it is behind Bitcoin is
Speaker 1: you know, the second highest liquidity trading pair uh, and
Speaker 1: on on the encrypto banks like Block five for instance,
Speaker 1: it's you know, the second asset to get listed. So
Speaker 1: I think um EF has kind of two avenues uh
Speaker 1: to create liquidity and to kind of become a money in.
Speaker 1: One is the crypto banking side, where it's kind of
Speaker 1: second to bitcoin, uh, and the other is in this
Speaker 1: open finance defied layer where it's kind of first place
Speaker 1: and kind of king right now. Yeah, some of that
Speaker 1: stuff you talk about with bitcoin UM, I mean you
Speaker 1: talked about kind of coin based and whatnot. I mean
Speaker 1: those are more like on ramps and off ramps, And
Speaker 1: I mean the theoryum is still subject to the same
Speaker 1: requirements of on ramps and off rams. Wouldn't you say? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I would? And I so I think of these exchanges
Speaker 1: as certainly they're on ramps and on off ramps for
Speaker 1: yacht UM, but they're also more than that. They're also
Speaker 1: becoming essentially a banking layer. So as more and more wealth,
Speaker 1: let's say, is uploaded into crypto and like zooming out,
Speaker 1: I think that's the that's the long term trend here
Speaker 1: is that we're going to move more and more of
Speaker 1: the world's wealth into crypto. Right now, we're at you know, um,
Speaker 1: hundreds of billions of dollars. Just a few years ago
Speaker 1: we were at tens of billions of dollars. I think
Speaker 1: in a few more years will be at trillions of dollars. Uh,
Speaker 1: and the wealth is going to essentially be be uploaded
Speaker 1: into crypto. But these these crypto banks that the coin
Speaker 1: bases and the bit mixes of the world will serve
Speaker 1: us a um like a Fiat on ramp certainly, but
Speaker 1: they'll also provide lending services, will provide borrowing services. UH,
Speaker 1: they'll provide um, you know, the ability to too long
Speaker 1: and short assets. Basically everything that you'll be able to
Speaker 1: do with with a traditional bank, you'll be able to
Speaker 1: do with these crypto banks. Um And, like Bitcoin is
Speaker 1: really essentially using uh, these centralized crypto banks as it's
Speaker 1: as its primary banking layer. Ethereum is using those banks
Speaker 1: as well. But it also because it has a program
Speaker 1: uh programmability aspect, it's it's also creating new kinds of banks.
Speaker 1: These are protocol based banks that are decentralized that are
Speaker 1: inherently like programmable and composable and interoperable. Uh, so that
Speaker 1: you can change these things together and you know, create
Speaker 1: really interesting financial products and economies. Um. And I think
Speaker 1: that is that is a massive area of innovation. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that is like um um, more interesting in some
Speaker 1: ways than just the bitcoin plus crypto banks vision of
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, I'm I definitely think that's interesting. I
Speaker 1: want to jump into a little bit I would say though,
Speaker 1: before we jump into the full full scale, is that
Speaker 1: I think that part of the reason why the financial
Speaker 1: system is taken off so much because without having a
Speaker 1: hard sound money that stores value, we've been forced We've
Speaker 1: been forced to become investors. It's kind of built this
Speaker 1: whole financial system that's forcing us to be investors as
Speaker 1: opposed to just being able to store money and be specialized.
Speaker 1: Like if I could be a brain surgeon, the best
Speaker 1: brain surgeon in the world, parked my money and it
Speaker 1: just and it stores the value. Um, then that I
Speaker 1: don't have to become this investor. But because I can't
Speaker 1: store my value and money, it forces to be become
Speaker 1: an investor. So maybe if we had and these these
Speaker 1: are all big maybes, but maybe if we did have
Speaker 1: a good store value, we wouldn't have this giant financial
Speaker 1: world that we have today. Um. Do you think there's
Speaker 1: any truth to that? I think there's some truth to that, right.
Speaker 1: I mean if you look at where people store their
Speaker 1: valt their their value, I mean they don't store it
Speaker 1: long term in U S dollars right, um, both full
Speaker 1: story and treasuries, the story and um it stocks and bonds,
Speaker 1: real estate. UM. And that is because you all and
Speaker 1: and just in some respects in assets like gold. UM.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I do think they put it.
Speaker 1: They put it in their four own care, their mutual
Speaker 1: fund or whatever, and then they go into these all
Speaker 1: these different types of financial products and and things that
Speaker 1: they have in the market. I don't know that that's
Speaker 1: going to change all that much. Right. So, like the
Speaker 1: the idea, like the somewhat of the fantasy of hyper bitcoinization,
Speaker 1: says all of that story value rather than storing it
Speaker 1: in those other assets. Now, because we have this new
Speaker 1: thing called bitcoin, you could just store in bitcoin. Um.
Speaker 1: But but that's also not diversified, right, Like what what
Speaker 1: if something happens to the bitcoin network? Um? Like what
Speaker 1: like I mean, what if for example, um, like uh,
Speaker 1: government's global governments make Bitcoin illegal and they choose to
Speaker 1: adopt you know, another crypto asset UM like bitcoin has
Speaker 1: a ton of systemic risk as other asset classes do.
Speaker 1: So I just don't think we'll go into kind of
Speaker 1: a mono store value world. UM. I think like wealth
Speaker 1: will continue to be diversified across multiple uh stories of value. Now,
Speaker 1: I do think that assets non sovereign stores of value
Speaker 1: like like eat and like bitcoin can certainly chipped into
Speaker 1: assets like gold, but I'm kind of skeptical that they'll
Speaker 1: ever kind of consume all of that UM story values case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, Well, I I mean I would agree with you,
Speaker 1: and it would be irresponsible for anybody to park all
Speaker 1: their wealth into one asset. And if we go back
Speaker 1: all the way to you know, biblical times, I mean
Speaker 1: people were still storing their wealth and livestock and land
Speaker 1: and whatnot. So UM, I think, but I think there's
Speaker 1: a difference of like real wealth, you know assets versus
Speaker 1: just crazy risky financial assets. But um getting into the
Speaker 1: DeFi space, which I am super interested in. UM, it's
Speaker 1: all been growing on ethereum UM and I'm guessing that's
Speaker 1: because of the program uh the ability to be you know,
Speaker 1: have programmable money. Is that why it's all growing on ethereum. Yeah, that,
Speaker 1: I mean that is the the use case you can
Speaker 1: you can basically, I mean like a smart contract, um.
Speaker 1: You know, in some ways it's a it's a just
Speaker 1: a programmable espero um like agreement, right um so. But
Speaker 1: but Bitcoin doesn't have those capabilities on the base layer.
Speaker 1: Very basic smart contracts as sometimes are possible things like
Speaker 1: multi SIGs on Bitcoin, you can call it that a
Speaker 1: smart contract. But with ethereum um you can. You can
Speaker 1: put a lot more logic into you um, into these
Speaker 1: smart contracts and essentially like you have the ability to
Speaker 1: program value and you know, create if then statements um
Speaker 1: for for various protocols. Right now, the Hello World app,
Speaker 1: like the the Starter program has definitely been clatteralized loans.
Speaker 1: That's really taken off um. There's something like five million
Speaker 1: in um clatterized loans on the Etherian platform right now,
Speaker 1: and that's super cool. But I think that's that's really
Speaker 1: just to start. Eventually, what's going to happen is all
Speaker 1: of the financial verbs, all of the things you want
Speaker 1: to do with value and with assets and with money,
Speaker 1: things like staving, things like infesting things like you know, spending,
Speaker 1: things like borrowing or longing and shorting. All of those
Speaker 1: verbs will essentially be protocols on top of the Etherium platform,
Speaker 1: and you'll be able to do those um in a uh,
Speaker 1: in a more decent centralized, criticcol driven way rather than
Speaker 1: going to a centralized banking service that handles it all
Speaker 1: for you. So that's really the potential, right. So that's
Speaker 1: those are the financial pieces. Um. So you talk about
Speaker 1: like longing and shorting. Well, first you said that, like
Speaker 1: the primary use case right now is is the lending
Speaker 1: market barring and barring and lending. Um, But isn't the
Speaker 1: barring and lending really being done by the investors who
Speaker 1: are longing and shorting and and hedging. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's that's happening to a large degree now, and that's
Speaker 1: natural for like these markets to emerge. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: people criticize people outside of crypto, the often criticize crypto
Speaker 1: in general, and they just say, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: all speculative, right, Um, people kind of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it is, that's the that's the evolution, that's how we start,
Speaker 1: right exactly. So I completely agree it is in large
Speaker 1: part speculative, but it's becoming less so over time, you
Speaker 1: know asked it's like bitcoin are becoming less volatile time.
Speaker 1: So it's natural that these crypto banks would start with
Speaker 1: that kind of the use case. You know, even even
Speaker 1: a lot of there's been a lot of criticism on
Speaker 1: like I c o s for instance, and kind of
Speaker 1: all of the scams have popped up in all of
Speaker 1: the the poor investments UM that like essentially were available.
Speaker 1: But when you look at the primitive of permission less
Speaker 1: fundraising UM around something like a decentralized autonomous organization, that
Speaker 1: is an incredible primitive Like that's an amazing accomplishment UM.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and you know in the initial round it
Speaker 1: didn't have adequate investor protection and it's skirted regulation and
Speaker 1: there were all sorts of problems with it. But the
Speaker 1: primitive itself and the ability to issue a token and
Speaker 1: fundraise on the theory and platform, UM, if it was
Speaker 1: tweaked you know, properly and had those same protections, UM,
Speaker 1: it could be incredibly powerful for global finance. So those
Speaker 1: are the types of opportunities that I think are available
Speaker 1: on ethereum and like available when you have a money
Speaker 1: platform that also has uh like this programmable banking layer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if we look at if we look at the
Speaker 1: I guess that there's like three main purposes of a
Speaker 1: of a bank, right, one would be storage, to settlement,
Speaker 1: three loans. Right, so I guess all three of those
Speaker 1: could really be taken care of. I mean with crypto
Speaker 1: and bitcoin or theorium. I suppose, right, storage obviously goes out,
Speaker 1: we have the ability to transact on our own that
Speaker 1: settlement and now with the with the lending market kind
Speaker 1: of gotten rid of that. So now it's really going
Speaker 1: about going after the larger financial system overall. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you know in the fourth the fourth might be
Speaker 1: investing as well, kind of banks helping you invest and
Speaker 1: help raise funds in the form of investment banks, and
Speaker 1: I think that that is also accomplished by etherium. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a really really interesting protocol called the set protocol
Speaker 1: for instance, which is essentially a protocol that kind of
Speaker 1: does algorithmic or or robot investing for you. So you
Speaker 1: could just put they have a moving average um set
Speaker 1: where it's it's it's almost like a smart contract ETF
Speaker 1: and you can put eth in it and when it
Speaker 1: rises above a p certain percentage from a twenty day
Speaker 1: moving average perspective, UM, it will buy more eth uh
Speaker 1: and if it drops below, it will sell that e
Speaker 1: in exchange for a stable coin UM. And over time
Speaker 1: that has historically shown to outperformed just straight holding EATH.
Speaker 1: That's all done programmatically through kind of like a smart
Speaker 1: money robot. I mean that kind of innovation has the
Speaker 1: potential to replace mutual funds and index funds wholesale. UM.
Speaker 1: So like like all of these like, all of these
Speaker 1: things will be possible. I think on top of UM,
Speaker 1: you know this this programmable banking platform, and on top
Speaker 1: of THEORYUM over time, and what it's going to do
Speaker 1: is software is just going to eat finance and it's
Speaker 1: going to eat money as it's eating other industries. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, if we if we look
Speaker 1: five or ten years out, UM, you know, all of
Speaker 1: all of that will become obvious in retrospect. Yeah. What
Speaker 1: about what I mean, I don't know if you care
Speaker 1: to get into this, but about the regulation. So we've
Speaker 1: seen technology eat everything, as you say, right, so you
Speaker 1: talk about software, but really technology, right, I mean we
Speaker 1: can see the digital cameras took out Kodak or whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: And it's been happening since the Industrial Revolution. But I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know if we've ever come up
Speaker 1: against something that's so big, that has so many like
Speaker 1: incumbents that are gonna that are really going to resist.
Speaker 1: So I mean, obviously taking on money, it's just a
Speaker 1: government's function, taking on Wall Street. Um. I mean do
Speaker 1: you think it's it's something that could severely limit um,
Speaker 1: this new technology's growth or do you think, um, it's
Speaker 1: a war that they just can't win. Eventually they're just
Speaker 1: gonna lose that war. I think it's the latter. I
Speaker 1: think what what will happen is that at various points
Speaker 1: in the life cycle. And when we think about life cycle,
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking about like decades long life cycle
Speaker 1: crypto it's gonna like the Internet, it's going to take
Speaker 1: to kind of impact society and and eat these industries.
Speaker 1: And at various junctions, Um, you know, central banks will
Speaker 1: put up blockers for various reasons. Um you know commercial banks, Uh, well,
Speaker 1: we'll put up blockers to protect their interests. As you know,
Speaker 1: media companies have done to you know, protect against social
Speaker 1: networks in the past, and as other incumbents to have
Speaker 1: kind of done in the past. But the reason that
Speaker 1: won't be successful long term is because I kind of
Speaker 1: believe in the game theory of test and that is,
Speaker 1: if if one of the incumbents, whether it's a nation
Speaker 1: state or a commercial bank, kind of breaks rank and
Speaker 1: actually starts to adopt this technology, uh, they will receive
Speaker 1: a like a large competitive advantage and essentially be rewarded
Speaker 1: for doing that. Um. So unless they can kind of
Speaker 1: all collude together and and stop this and kind of
Speaker 1: crush it, uh, it only takes one or two of
Speaker 1: them to kind of break rank uh and receive a
Speaker 1: competitive advantage for all of the rest to just need
Speaker 1: to follow from a from the game theoretic perspective. That's
Speaker 1: why I think over the long run, um, you know,
Speaker 1: they can't stop it, right yeah, And I mean at
Speaker 1: least at least with bitcoin. I mean I I look
Speaker 1: at it as like the the US financial system has
Speaker 1: already spent a lot of money, potentially billions of dollars
Speaker 1: to adopt it for everyone from Goldman Sacks to e Trade,
Speaker 1: the t du Merritrade, et cetera. And we know they're
Speaker 1: like the largest lobbyists in government, So I can't imagine
Speaker 1: they're going to let that just go to zero now.
Speaker 1: So it's already happening. And you know, I think Wall
Speaker 1: Street is going to discover kind of tokenization of assets
Speaker 1: for instance. Uh, and there's gonna be a gold rush
Speaker 1: for that at some point. UM. So like you know,
Speaker 1: once once Wall Street, once Wall Street, and once even
Speaker 1: central banks kind of start using this this stuff. UM
Speaker 1: like then the horses the horses out and you can't
Speaker 1: you can't stop at that point. So, UM, where do
Speaker 1: you see defy going in the near term, let's say
Speaker 1: the next twelve months, and then maybe where do you
Speaker 1: see it like in the long term, like five years
Speaker 1: or ten years out. You know it's super interesting, is um.
Speaker 1: I find it easier to predict ten years out in
Speaker 1: twelve months for some reason. Okay, you know, like I
Speaker 1: I would agree with you on that. So like, you know,
Speaker 1: ten years out, I think we'll have trillions of dollars
Speaker 1: token on. It's on top of UM likely ethereum, but
Speaker 1: um like it could be other smart contract platform as well. UM.
Speaker 1: I think we'll have all of the primitives that we've
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, UM, I think uh, user experience
Speaker 1: and will be significantly improved so that average retail users
Speaker 1: can quite easily manage their keys and open smart contract wallets.
Speaker 1: I think all of that is coming, but in the
Speaker 1: in the next twelve months, it's really difficult to predict
Speaker 1: what will be UM the you know, the new applications
Speaker 1: UM For instance, I was actually surprised by the rise
Speaker 1: of unite swap. So unite Swap for for your listeners,
Speaker 1: is a decentralized exchange on ethereum it um. It launched
Speaker 1: in I want to say November or December of last year,
Speaker 1: and it's just basically a smart contract pool that will
Speaker 1: as you to exchange various um r C twenty and
Speaker 1: each based assets UM and you know, it's it's not
Speaker 1: an order book type model, so it's not like a
Speaker 1: coin base, it's not even like a m a zero
Speaker 1: x decentralized exchange. Essentially, all of the liquidity is put
Speaker 1: in one place, and UH liquidity providers you know, earn
Speaker 1: um based on the amount of volume that goes through
Speaker 1: the platform, So it kind of pools this liquidity and
Speaker 1: an algorithm essentially determines the price of each trade. So
Speaker 1: I was shocked at the growth of unite slap um.
Speaker 1: I mean it it quickly grew into the millions and
Speaker 1: then the tens of millions in terms of how many
Speaker 1: assets were put in this pool. Uh. And it kind
Speaker 1: of came out of nowhere. It was like basically developed
Speaker 1: by a single person. It was his first application that
Speaker 1: he'd ever created, like not ethereum applications like application in general. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the protocol mechanism just really clipped. So I would
Speaker 1: say that that that, I mean it fit a really
Speaker 1: big market need. I mean then the market needs essentialized
Speaker 1: exchange really bad. And I think it's been searching. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he had a he had a he had a good
Speaker 1: spot for sure. Yeah. So so I think it's um,
Speaker 1: it's tough to predict what's going to hit like critical
Speaker 1: markets fit um. I was just curious, like if you
Speaker 1: think about like we taught, we both talked about like
Speaker 1: the evolution of the space, which I mean in the beginning,
Speaker 1: it's it's speculators. I believe we're still kind of in
Speaker 1: that collectible speculator stage, you know. I don't think we're
Speaker 1: at the store value stage yet. So you look around
Speaker 1: it like, okay, well, what are the what are speculators
Speaker 1: doing obviously that's why the lending and borrowing markets have
Speaker 1: taken off. Um, So I would think it's maybe something
Speaker 1: spinning off of that, right, like more type of investment
Speaker 1: products or or banking products. One thing that could pop.
Speaker 1: I mean people have talked about n f t s
Speaker 1: for a while. Those are like collectibles that's kind of
Speaker 1: in the background, something to Popper in that, But one
Speaker 1: that seems more in your term to me is um
Speaker 1: uh basically money markets just accounts. So particularly the ability
Speaker 1: to put a stable coin like DIE or like USDC
Speaker 1: inside of a protocol like compound and receive you know,
Speaker 1: single digit potentially double digit interest yield. Um. That's super interesting, um.
Speaker 1: You know, and that's less of a speculative use case
Speaker 1: like what kind of like you know, moving moving up
Speaker 1: that ladder of like few and few respectulive use cases,
Speaker 1: and it's more of kind of a saving in a
Speaker 1: money market use case. But it's it's something retail consumers
Speaker 1: can understand. And um, I think that could be a
Speaker 1: pretty massive Yeah, Okay, good stuff. Well, we've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about about a lot of things. I think we
Speaker 1: can probably start wrapping it up here. Um I think uh,
Speaker 1: I did have some other questions, but well we'll dive
Speaker 1: into those at another time, um, because we've kind of
Speaker 1: gone over the time here. But but really good stuff.
Speaker 1: I uh, I love your perspective on it. I'm curious
Speaker 1: you said you started out as a bitcoin bowl. Um
Speaker 1: do you still own both? Yeah? Absolutely, and I'm still
Speaker 1: I'm still a bitcoin bowl. I mean, like, so, if
Speaker 1: I were to kind of summarize it, right, UM, I
Speaker 1: see platforms like Libra, uh, and what Libra is doing
Speaker 1: is it's it's essentially creating a closed money uh in
Speaker 1: a closed banking system. Um. And that's not very interesting
Speaker 1: to me at all. We already have PayPal. And then
Speaker 1: I see projects like Bitcoin and that's creating an open money,
Speaker 1: which is super interesting, but but it's creating an open
Speaker 1: money uh and still a closed banking system. So it's
Speaker 1: you know, scaling through the bit maxes and finances of
Speaker 1: the world Ethereum. To me is like this third possibility
Speaker 1: where it's creating an open money and also an open
Speaker 1: banking system. And I think in the long run that
Speaker 1: combination is going to be far more impactful uh than
Speaker 1: like the combination of just open money. But both are needed.
Speaker 1: So I really like Bitcoin. I think it is. UM.
Speaker 1: It is an open money protocol for sure. UM. I
Speaker 1: think it will be very successful. UM. But my heart
Speaker 1: is really in Ethereum because it's it's both an open
Speaker 1: money and it's an open banking platform. And like the
Speaker 1: why for this for me is is so that individuals
Speaker 1: can essentially be their own banks. We're giving we're giving
Speaker 1: money back to the individuals, we're separating that from the state,
Speaker 1: and we're essentially separating banks from from state control to UH.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's the full soft, self sovereign individual
Speaker 1: picture we need if we don't have. My worry is
Speaker 1: that Bitcoin essentially, maybe it becomes a sound money UM,
Speaker 1: but essentially it will be UM captured in the end
Speaker 1: by by commercial banks and eventually by central banks UH,
Speaker 1: and we won't get everything that we signed up for
Speaker 1: in the scriptive revolution. Yeah, good call. All right, Well
Speaker 1: that's a great point. UM. I love the self sovereign
Speaker 1: piece of it. And so let's end it with that,
Speaker 1: because that was a good that was a good statement.
Speaker 1: So Sean, Ryan, Sean, thanks so much for joining today.
Speaker 1: It was it was great having you. Awesome. Thanks Mark,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Hey, if you like this episode of the
Speaker 1: Market Disruptors Podcast. Please help us take this to the
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