1 00:00:10,600 --> 00:00:14,080 Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. 2 00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:18,320 Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Allaway and I'm Joe. WI isn't all so, Joe? 3 00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:21,040 Speaker 1: It's been um. I mean, I think it's been a 4 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:24,560 Speaker 1: kind of a tough couple of weeks for crypto. We 5 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:28,840 Speaker 1: had the price of bitcoin go down below thirty thousand 6 00:00:29,320 --> 00:00:32,160 Speaker 1: UM at one point, but it's shot up since then. 7 00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:35,040 Speaker 1: I think it's closer to But on the other hand, 8 00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:40,800 Speaker 1: we had some interesting developments around the sort of crypto ecosystem, 9 00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:44,920 Speaker 1: around the market structure aspect of crypto. Well, it's interesting 10 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,279 Speaker 1: because all right, we did get this like sort of 11 00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:49,639 Speaker 1: bare market, and I don't know if it's still in one, 12 00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:53,560 Speaker 1: because as you mentioned, it's bounced back. But unlike say, 13 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:56,520 Speaker 1: you know, the sell off in or at the end 14 00:00:56,560 --> 00:01:00,520 Speaker 1: of Seen, it doesn't feel like there's any slowdown at 15 00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:04,000 Speaker 1: all in the pace of investment into this space, Like 16 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:06,680 Speaker 1: where is at the end of you know, is like 17 00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:08,639 Speaker 1: all right, well, maybe this whole thing was a bubble 18 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:12,279 Speaker 1: or a fad. This time it feels like no one's 19 00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:15,360 Speaker 1: thinking that it's like full steam ahead on various business 20 00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:18,560 Speaker 1: plans and so forth, at least in these early months 21 00:01:18,880 --> 00:01:22,280 Speaker 1: since the peak back in April or May. Yes, indeed, 22 00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:26,120 Speaker 1: And as a sign of that investment interest, we just 23 00:01:26,240 --> 00:01:29,920 Speaker 1: had the crypto exchange f t X, which we've talked 24 00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:33,360 Speaker 1: about on the show before it completed. I think it 25 00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:37,360 Speaker 1: was a Series B fundraising of nine hundred million that 26 00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:41,800 Speaker 1: valued the company at eighteen billions. So to your point, 27 00:01:41,959 --> 00:01:45,759 Speaker 1: I mean, the crypto ecosystem itself is clearly being valued 28 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:50,640 Speaker 1: by investors as a future investment. Eighteen billions pretty big, right, 29 00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:52,560 Speaker 1: And of course f t X is the exchange we 30 00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:56,200 Speaker 1: talked to the to the founder, it was not that 31 00:01:56,360 --> 00:01:59,280 Speaker 1: long ago. I think it was either maybe like March 32 00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:04,840 Speaker 1: or April, and it feels like his star, his significance 33 00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:07,960 Speaker 1: within crypto has only probably like gone up like ten 34 00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:11,040 Speaker 1: x uh since like literally like the last three or 35 00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:14,000 Speaker 1: four months. Yeah, I think that's fair. So we're gonna 36 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:16,440 Speaker 1: be talking to the f t X founder of Sam 37 00:02:16,480 --> 00:02:19,800 Speaker 1: Bankman Freed again on this episode, but we wanted to 38 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,120 Speaker 1: do it a little bit differently this time, so we've 39 00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:27,320 Speaker 1: also brought on Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine, one of the best, 40 00:02:27,440 --> 00:02:30,680 Speaker 1: probably the best financial writer out there if we're being honest, 41 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:33,600 Speaker 1: and he's going to join the conversation and we're just 42 00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:36,160 Speaker 1: going to talk about what ft X has been doing 43 00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:39,079 Speaker 1: and where it might go from here. Okay, wait, let's 44 00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:42,000 Speaker 1: do it all right, Uh, Sam and Matt, thank you 45 00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:44,600 Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for 46 00:02:44,639 --> 00:02:49,480 Speaker 1: having us, Thanks for having me. So, Sam, nine nine 47 00:02:49,919 --> 00:02:52,600 Speaker 1: million dollars is you know a lot of money. What 48 00:02:52,680 --> 00:02:55,280 Speaker 1: are you going to be doing with that? Yeah? So 49 00:02:55,520 --> 00:02:59,040 Speaker 1: it's um, I think we're looking good on the yacht front. 50 00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:03,919 Speaker 1: Don't need any more are but no I acquisitions to 51 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:07,120 Speaker 1: serve the based answer? And you know, I think especially 52 00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:09,520 Speaker 1: as crypto starts to bleed into the rest of the 53 00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:13,360 Speaker 1: financial ecosystem, there's more and more points of overlap and 54 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:18,040 Speaker 1: potential uh you know, potential collaboration could expand what you 55 00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:21,120 Speaker 1: mean by that? So what do you say crypto is 56 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:25,080 Speaker 1: going to bleed more into the rest of the financial system? 57 00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:28,120 Speaker 1: How much of that is? Okay, we know that all 58 00:03:28,160 --> 00:03:32,200 Speaker 1: of the big banks or traditional brokerages they're like thinking 59 00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:34,840 Speaker 1: about like, well, what is their crypto play? How are 60 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:37,360 Speaker 1: they going to get in on this action? How much 61 00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:39,640 Speaker 1: of it is? Are you talking about that? And every 62 00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:43,120 Speaker 1: day there's some new uh announcement from like a legacy 63 00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:45,960 Speaker 1: institution about something they're doing in the space, as opposed 64 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:52,680 Speaker 1: to crypto itself encroaching on areas of business, lines of 65 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:56,080 Speaker 1: business that we think of as traditional, where perhaps crypto 66 00:03:56,160 --> 00:03:59,640 Speaker 1: has a potential to userve some of that activity. It's 67 00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,720 Speaker 1: pride merrily so far been the former. And some of 68 00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:05,480 Speaker 1: this is the you know, sort of traditional highly regulated 69 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:08,640 Speaker 1: financial institutions starting to get their toes in. Some of 70 00:04:08,680 --> 00:04:11,240 Speaker 1: this is also fintech, and so you know, I mean 71 00:04:11,400 --> 00:04:13,920 Speaker 1: when people say fintech, they're sort of an increasing chance 72 00:04:13,960 --> 00:04:16,440 Speaker 1: that they're referring to, you know, a crypto company over time. 73 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:18,920 Speaker 1: But but even outside that, many of the definitely not 74 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:23,040 Speaker 1: crypto companies in fintech, a very large fraction of those 75 00:04:23,440 --> 00:04:27,719 Speaker 1: are reaching out to you talk about like like and 76 00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:31,520 Speaker 1: imagine that you're some customer facing fintech business right and 77 00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:34,599 Speaker 1: you know you don't offer a bitcoin right now? Like, what, 78 00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:37,080 Speaker 1: what do you think the most frequent requests you get 79 00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:40,880 Speaker 1: from your customers is? But he's definitely to add bitcoin, Matt, 80 00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:44,479 Speaker 1: what's your understanding of what FTX actually does? Because you know, 81 00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:46,800 Speaker 1: Joe and I have spoken to sam Um a few 82 00:04:46,839 --> 00:04:49,280 Speaker 1: times before. Now I think we have a decent idea 83 00:04:49,400 --> 00:04:53,400 Speaker 1: but what's your impression of it? I like this question 84 00:04:56,480 --> 00:05:00,680 Speaker 1: exposing my ignorance question. Uh, my understanding is FTX is 85 00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:02,680 Speaker 1: like one of the biggest crypto exchanges and that it's 86 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:08,400 Speaker 1: a particularly like uh, derivatives and structured product focus crypto exchange. 87 00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:13,280 Speaker 1: Is that like about right? Yeah, that's that's that's pretty good. 88 00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:16,120 Speaker 1: And you know, we're one of the newer exchange, certainly 89 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:18,440 Speaker 1: the newest of the big ones, you know, started up 90 00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:20,840 Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and more than half our 91 00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:23,520 Speaker 1: volume historic based been derivatives. I think the big reason 92 00:05:23,600 --> 00:05:26,159 Speaker 1: for that is basically, like they're the harder products to 93 00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:28,359 Speaker 1: get right. And you know, I think a lot of 94 00:05:28,360 --> 00:05:32,760 Speaker 1: the exchanges had serious issues when we started up and uh, 95 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:36,719 Speaker 1: and those issues just became much more transparent and played 96 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:39,520 Speaker 1: a much more devastating role when they tried to manage 97 00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:42,400 Speaker 1: you know, margin and drivetives than with SPOT products, which 98 00:05:42,400 --> 00:05:45,560 Speaker 1: are relatively simpler, although we do have a pretty wide 99 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:48,240 Speaker 1: range of products on the site. So I mean, I 100 00:05:48,279 --> 00:05:52,800 Speaker 1: saw Sam someone made a joke on Twitter the other 101 00:05:52,920 --> 00:05:55,719 Speaker 1: day that like, you know, you weren't even like a 102 00:05:55,760 --> 00:06:00,240 Speaker 1: real player or active in the industry, like you know, 103 00:06:00,680 --> 00:06:03,360 Speaker 1: the last bullmarket. I mean I don't think that's totally true, 104 00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:05,800 Speaker 1: because on the last episode you told us the story 105 00:06:06,120 --> 00:06:09,880 Speaker 1: of the U the Japan Premium, which is an incredible 106 00:06:09,880 --> 00:06:12,279 Speaker 1: story and people should listen to it. But so much 107 00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:15,440 Speaker 1: of your success really has come like in the last 108 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:17,760 Speaker 1: year or year and a half, and now f t 109 00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:21,080 Speaker 1: X is this huge thing. What do you explain, like, 110 00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:23,240 Speaker 1: what was it? It just sort of broadly and then 111 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:25,600 Speaker 1: we'll get into like the details, but you sort of 112 00:06:25,640 --> 00:06:28,560 Speaker 1: mentioned some of the operational aspects of running a derivatives 113 00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:31,080 Speaker 1: exchange versus just a pure spot exchange. You know, in 114 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:34,960 Speaker 1: the US people really know coin based globally people really 115 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:38,440 Speaker 1: know buyinance. But what was it in your view that 116 00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:40,480 Speaker 1: you know, you have this thing, Okay, we're going to 117 00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:43,840 Speaker 1: create a product for traders. What was it that f 118 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:47,920 Speaker 1: t X had that really allowed it to just explode 119 00:06:48,080 --> 00:06:52,839 Speaker 1: seemingly out of nowhere, uh, in the last year or so. Yeah, 120 00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:54,360 Speaker 1: And I think a lot of these things were things 121 00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:56,880 Speaker 1: you might even just assume with TRUF all exchanges things 122 00:06:56,880 --> 00:07:00,080 Speaker 1: for two, but that isn't And so one example is 123 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:03,159 Speaker 1: when you look at margining, the norm in crypto was 124 00:07:03,200 --> 00:07:05,320 Speaker 1: you isolate everything, And what that means is if you 125 00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:08,599 Speaker 1: want to go trade if against USD futures, you have 126 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:11,000 Speaker 1: to go like by Spot etherory and move it into 127 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:15,400 Speaker 1: your USD futures wallet and use that as margin. Trade 128 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:17,560 Speaker 1: your each features. If you then want to trade you know, 129 00:07:17,960 --> 00:07:21,040 Speaker 1: Bitcoin against US Spot, you have to go move that 130 00:07:21,120 --> 00:07:23,600 Speaker 1: e thout sell it for US or Bitcoin, move that 131 00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:27,160 Speaker 1: into your US you know Bitcoin Spot margin wallet and 132 00:07:27,240 --> 00:07:29,160 Speaker 1: use this collateral there. You had a margin you know, 133 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:32,720 Speaker 1: managing literally hundreds of wallets on one venue, each of 134 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:36,560 Speaker 1: which basically only supports one product um as this massive 135 00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:38,920 Speaker 1: minigame to manage to be liquidated on any one of 136 00:07:38,920 --> 00:07:41,280 Speaker 1: them independent if your collateral on others, you have no 137 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:44,640 Speaker 1: flexibility on margining. The liquidation engines were not up to 138 00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:47,120 Speaker 1: the task, Like they're losing millions of dollars per day 139 00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:50,760 Speaker 1: of customer assets um to failing to liquid eight in time. 140 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:54,200 Speaker 1: You know, there was just like match engines fault fell 141 00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:57,040 Speaker 1: over whenever markets got volatile, and so it's just like 142 00:07:57,560 --> 00:08:00,000 Speaker 1: all over the place that was like not a great 143 00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:02,640 Speaker 1: customer experience, and you know in sort of like really 144 00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:07,160 Speaker 1: significant ways. So this is like raised the question that 145 00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:08,840 Speaker 1: I have. So you come from a sort of like 146 00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:12,840 Speaker 1: high tech, traditional finance background, you're a chain street and 147 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:17,120 Speaker 1: like one story you could tell here is like this 148 00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:21,440 Speaker 1: is about like applying sort of best practices from traditional 149 00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:25,080 Speaker 1: finance to like the wild West of crypto exchanges, where well, 150 00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:28,200 Speaker 1: portfolio margining is a totally well understood thing, but to 151 00:08:28,360 --> 00:08:31,800 Speaker 1: portfolio margining for crypto products. Um, But I'm curious, Like 152 00:08:32,040 --> 00:08:33,520 Speaker 1: I've always thought that like a lot of the appeal 153 00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:35,760 Speaker 1: of crypto is like all these people from like backgrounds 154 00:08:35,760 --> 00:08:38,720 Speaker 1: like yours, who like work in like the coal mines 155 00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:42,920 Speaker 1: of market structure and whatever and have like a list 156 00:08:42,960 --> 00:08:45,800 Speaker 1: of things or like this is this like traditional financial 157 00:08:45,840 --> 00:08:47,480 Speaker 1: thing is stupid and I could do it better if 158 00:08:47,480 --> 00:08:49,760 Speaker 1: I were designing the system from scratch. And you kind 159 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:51,640 Speaker 1: of went and designed the system from scratch, right like 160 00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:54,000 Speaker 1: you started like a big exchange in a in a 161 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:57,079 Speaker 1: product universe that is not really beholden to any traditional 162 00:08:57,760 --> 00:09:01,199 Speaker 1: rules or you know, customs. And I'm wondering, like are 163 00:09:01,240 --> 00:09:04,440 Speaker 1: there places where you were like like what we do 164 00:09:04,520 --> 00:09:06,000 Speaker 1: here at chanceer it or what we do and like, 165 00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:08,280 Speaker 1: you know, the stock market is really dumb. Like if 166 00:09:08,280 --> 00:09:10,320 Speaker 1: I were doing it, I'd do it differently where you 167 00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:13,680 Speaker 1: actually went and did that at f t X totally, 168 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:16,120 Speaker 1: and I do think the answer is really sort if 169 00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:17,920 Speaker 1: you look at each place and you're like, who's doing 170 00:09:17,920 --> 00:09:19,920 Speaker 1: it right? You know, it's sort of like the crypto norm, correct, 171 00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:22,680 Speaker 1: the crypto exchanged norm, or like the traditional exchanged harm 172 00:09:22,679 --> 00:09:24,440 Speaker 1: and kind of sometimes it was one and sometimes it 173 00:09:24,480 --> 00:09:26,800 Speaker 1: was the other. So like some examples of places where 174 00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:29,440 Speaker 1: I think crypto has like at least an argument for 175 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:31,679 Speaker 1: doing it right now, I personally think they probably are. 176 00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:34,720 Speaker 1: One of these is moving funds around. This is obviously 177 00:09:34,800 --> 00:09:36,400 Speaker 1: one of the first things that comes up with crypto, 178 00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:38,839 Speaker 1: But I at least sort of just assumed it was 179 00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:42,000 Speaker 1: easy to get your money wherever you wanted before I'd 180 00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:44,679 Speaker 1: ever tried to do that. But as soon as I 181 00:09:44,679 --> 00:09:46,920 Speaker 1: I tried to ever move money around, I realized how 182 00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:49,760 Speaker 1: difficult it was. Anyone who sent an int like an 183 00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:53,320 Speaker 1: international wire transfers immediately regrets having to do it. And 184 00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:54,760 Speaker 1: then you look at like a c H and credit 185 00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:58,440 Speaker 1: card payments to take months to finalize, and so either 186 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:01,600 Speaker 1: these all these limits huge, he's on them. There's so 187 00:10:01,640 --> 00:10:04,040 Speaker 1: many roadblocks in the system because like there's two months 188 00:10:04,040 --> 00:10:07,000 Speaker 1: of fraud risk there, and so just doing things like 189 00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:09,599 Speaker 1: funding your account or what do you what if that 190 00:10:09,679 --> 00:10:12,520 Speaker 1: even needs to find your account on traditional exchanges is 191 00:10:12,559 --> 00:10:15,920 Speaker 1: like very messy and can take a while, whereas on crypto, 192 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:18,520 Speaker 1: like the goals to make it as clean as possible, 193 00:10:18,520 --> 00:10:21,760 Speaker 1: and when you're sending cryptocurrencies in that's obviously like basically 194 00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:24,920 Speaker 1: instant on sort of you know, the wire transferred time scale. 195 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:29,120 Speaker 1: But even with with fiat sort the emphasis is like anyone, 196 00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:31,360 Speaker 1: whether you're you have two hundred dollars to your name 197 00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:33,280 Speaker 1: or you're the world's second biggest d F t F, 198 00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:37,120 Speaker 1: you can go to the website, submit kyc infote, create 199 00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:39,600 Speaker 1: an account directly with the exchange, and then there's like 200 00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:41,920 Speaker 1: the deposit button and it has like as many options 201 00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:44,040 Speaker 1: as possible for how you can fund your account. And 202 00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:47,280 Speaker 1: so it's just like a massively easier process. And you know, 203 00:10:47,360 --> 00:10:49,760 Speaker 1: when when you're serve in crypto, what you quickly realize 204 00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:51,600 Speaker 1: like you never want to send FIAT that's like the 205 00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:54,440 Speaker 1: hardest thing to do, and like everything gets settled with 206 00:10:54,480 --> 00:10:56,760 Speaker 1: stable points if if you can get away with it. 207 00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:01,240 Speaker 1: Another thing I'll bring up is it's different nature of 208 00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:03,240 Speaker 1: the products. So when you think of what he's like 209 00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:06,720 Speaker 1: Nazi or cem me or something like they're mostly matching engines, 210 00:11:07,120 --> 00:11:09,720 Speaker 1: like you know, they sort of match bids and offers 211 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:13,079 Speaker 1: from like a few institutions against each other, but they 212 00:11:13,080 --> 00:11:15,720 Speaker 1: don't do anything else in the trade process. Right, There's 213 00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:19,400 Speaker 1: like separate companies that do like custody clearing, m ok 214 00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:23,920 Speaker 1: I see customer on boarding, branding, advertising, mobile app, website 215 00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:28,080 Speaker 1: a p I. All of those are like different companies, 216 00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:30,520 Speaker 1: and you end up with like, you know, ten companies 217 00:11:30,520 --> 00:11:32,640 Speaker 1: stacked together. And first of all, that means you have 218 00:11:32,679 --> 00:11:35,320 Speaker 1: ten rounds of fees stacked together on trades. But but 219 00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:37,360 Speaker 1: second of all, it means you if this really fractured 220 00:11:37,400 --> 00:11:42,520 Speaker 1: experience where you know, access to the actual ultimate liquidity 221 00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:45,520 Speaker 1: and order books is basically restricted to like a very 222 00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:49,040 Speaker 1: very small number of institutional trading firms going through some 223 00:11:49,160 --> 00:11:51,920 Speaker 1: prime broker, and everyone else sort of has this like 224 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:55,760 Speaker 1: very abstracted away experience going through you know, two peef 225 00:11:55,800 --> 00:11:58,400 Speaker 1: off firms in a dark pool and a broker. You know, 226 00:11:58,559 --> 00:12:02,000 Speaker 1: so somewhere in the middle. In crypto exchanges are full 227 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,400 Speaker 1: stack products and so everything I mentioned from you know, 228 00:12:05,920 --> 00:12:09,480 Speaker 1: rereading an account, submitting m l k C information, depositing funds, 229 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:14,000 Speaker 1: um using wold lack gooey website submitting in order, all 230 00:12:14,120 --> 00:12:17,040 Speaker 1: those go straight through the exchange. And so you have 231 00:12:17,160 --> 00:12:21,640 Speaker 1: like small retail customers and giant HFD firms all having 232 00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:25,160 Speaker 1: the same exact access to the ultimate you know, order 233 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:27,560 Speaker 1: books and and and system. And I think that creates 234 00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:32,240 Speaker 1: in some cases and much much more streamlined and frankly 235 00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:37,600 Speaker 1: fair experience. So can I ask just on the margining idea. 236 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:40,240 Speaker 1: So one of the things you did, um, I think 237 00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:42,320 Speaker 1: it was just in the past week er two, but 238 00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:45,600 Speaker 1: you changed, um the amount of leverage that you allow 239 00:12:45,880 --> 00:12:49,280 Speaker 1: on the platform. So I think the maximum people can 240 00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:52,680 Speaker 1: do now is twenty times, which seems like a lot 241 00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:55,520 Speaker 1: to me still, but like it's a vast reduction from 242 00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:58,560 Speaker 1: what it was. Uh, walk us through the thought process 243 00:12:58,640 --> 00:13:02,119 Speaker 1: on that, And would you consider changing the margin requirements 244 00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:07,080 Speaker 1: as well? Yeah, so I guess maybe on your last point, 245 00:13:07,240 --> 00:13:09,320 Speaker 1: we talked about changing that the marginal requirements, and when 246 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:11,800 Speaker 1: we talked about margin leverage, we usually think of them 247 00:13:11,880 --> 00:13:14,079 Speaker 1: is basically the same thing, like one is just one 248 00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:16,720 Speaker 1: divided by the other one. And yes there's like initial 249 00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:19,360 Speaker 1: versus maintenance, like how big of a position you're allowed 250 00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:22,160 Speaker 1: to put on versus at what point your account actually 251 00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:26,520 Speaker 1: starts getting liquidated. But but this this sort of affected 252 00:13:26,559 --> 00:13:28,600 Speaker 1: both of those um and so you know you have 253 00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:32,319 Speaker 1: to post five percent margin now on all positions, and 254 00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:34,599 Speaker 1: at least in many cases much more than that I 255 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:37,960 Speaker 1: would deserve, equivalent to saying twenty leverage. The thought process 256 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:39,959 Speaker 1: behind it, the first thing is that it's actually not 257 00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:42,360 Speaker 1: that big of a change for the site. Less than 258 00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:45,480 Speaker 1: one percent of the volume was trading with leverage higher 259 00:13:45,520 --> 00:13:48,920 Speaker 1: than that before. And the reason is that basically your 260 00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,240 Speaker 1: margin requirements go up as your position size goes up. 261 00:13:51,400 --> 00:13:52,840 Speaker 1: So if you want to put on a big position, 262 00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:54,520 Speaker 1: you need to post way wey weay more than that 263 00:13:54,720 --> 00:13:57,720 Speaker 1: collateral anyway, and you're only able to put on really 264 00:13:57,760 --> 00:14:00,760 Speaker 1: tiny positions with very high leverage. And so it's served 265 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,079 Speaker 1: by definition, not where most of the volume or open 266 00:14:03,120 --> 00:14:06,760 Speaker 1: interest or users were coming from. And so so it 267 00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:09,480 Speaker 1: wasn't like a big part of the exchange. It wasn't 268 00:14:09,600 --> 00:14:12,480 Speaker 1: super relevant to to us or to most of our 269 00:14:12,559 --> 00:14:16,520 Speaker 1: users or their experience. It's also not super economically like 270 00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:19,600 Speaker 1: useful frankly, like when when you talk about you know, 271 00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:22,960 Speaker 1: hedging something or having on some spread or or one 272 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:24,200 Speaker 1: of the many reasons that you might want to do 273 00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:28,200 Speaker 1: a margin trade. If you get down to one collateral left, 274 00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:30,800 Speaker 1: you can't really use that to hedge something because you 275 00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:34,520 Speaker 1: can get liquidated in like a print, like in like 276 00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:37,480 Speaker 1: fifteen seconds. You know, markets could move enough that you're 277 00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:40,480 Speaker 1: out of margin, and so it doesn't make sense for 278 00:14:40,560 --> 00:14:43,640 Speaker 1: any like long or even medium term position that you're 279 00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:46,120 Speaker 1: planning to hold for any reason. You're sort of like 280 00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:50,240 Speaker 1: almost definitely opening yourself up to serious liquidation risks if 281 00:14:50,320 --> 00:14:52,680 Speaker 1: you get anywhere close to that amount of leverage. And 282 00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:54,000 Speaker 1: it's like most of the things that I think, like 283 00:14:54,080 --> 00:14:57,400 Speaker 1: frankly could justify as like the more economically useful parts 284 00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:02,120 Speaker 1: like don't require high like super high leverage anyway. And 285 00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:04,400 Speaker 1: then the last species frankly, like it's something that a 286 00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:06,360 Speaker 1: lot of people look on a scans like you know 287 00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:08,960 Speaker 1: when when you talk about I mean reporters, but regulators 288 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:12,200 Speaker 1: as well, like not that they're like specific regulations around 289 00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:15,520 Speaker 1: this in most jurisdictions, but like there probably will be eventually, 290 00:15:16,160 --> 00:15:18,160 Speaker 1: and and it's sort of like clearly the direction of 291 00:15:18,160 --> 00:15:20,600 Speaker 1: the world's going in and so start of combining all 292 00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:23,640 Speaker 1: those together, like it wasn't important important part of the 293 00:15:23,640 --> 00:15:26,200 Speaker 1: site wasn't super healthy part of the site necessarily. It 294 00:15:26,400 --> 00:15:29,000 Speaker 1: was like a part that was going to start receiving 295 00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:32,440 Speaker 1: a lot of negative attention, and it just seemed like 296 00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:34,520 Speaker 1: it was like it was time to get rid of it. 297 00:15:50,480 --> 00:15:52,920 Speaker 1: Talk to us a little bit more about the technical 298 00:15:53,600 --> 00:15:57,960 Speaker 1: aspects of building um a system in which there was 299 00:15:58,320 --> 00:16:00,520 Speaker 1: you know, as you describe it, the one wallet where 300 00:16:00,560 --> 00:16:04,560 Speaker 1: everything is you know, cross margin, and so you don't have, okay, 301 00:16:04,680 --> 00:16:07,880 Speaker 1: your bitcoin futures wallet and your future's wallet and so 302 00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:11,840 Speaker 1: forth two things. So like how hard is that to build? 303 00:16:12,160 --> 00:16:13,880 Speaker 1: But also we know that like with a lot of 304 00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:16,720 Speaker 1: the legacy or it's weird to talk about legacy, the 305 00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:20,120 Speaker 1: legacy crypto exchanges, they tend to go down a lot 306 00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:23,479 Speaker 1: during periods of high volatility, which is a source of frustration, 307 00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:26,120 Speaker 1: and we see it We've seen with coin based for example, 308 00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:29,200 Speaker 1: where everyone's starting to like slam into one thing and 309 00:16:29,240 --> 00:16:33,160 Speaker 1: suddenly social media has lit up. You like to point out, 310 00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:36,520 Speaker 1: like on Twitter it's like, well, ft X another another 311 00:16:36,640 --> 00:16:39,480 Speaker 1: day of a hundred percent up time or whatever it is. 312 00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:42,680 Speaker 1: How much are those things connected? This sort of like 313 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:46,960 Speaker 1: the difficult stress of legacy liquidation books versus and just 314 00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:51,880 Speaker 1: keeping the site going up. Yeah, So the thing that 315 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:54,320 Speaker 1: really causes the stress there is actually the interaction between 316 00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:58,720 Speaker 1: two different effects, one of which is cross margining. One 317 00:16:58,760 --> 00:17:01,640 Speaker 1: advantage of isolated eargining, and one reason that some exchanges 318 00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:06,080 Speaker 1: do this is you can completely parallelize different products, right. 319 00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:07,959 Speaker 1: You can just like completely separately, say like all right, 320 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:11,280 Speaker 1: there's our bitcoin EOS market, here's our eight futures. They 321 00:17:11,320 --> 00:17:14,040 Speaker 1: have nothing to do with each other, Like, are none 322 00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:15,879 Speaker 1: of our systems need to look at the other one. 323 00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:19,080 Speaker 1: You have completely parallel margin checks, risk checks, order books, 324 00:17:19,400 --> 00:17:22,879 Speaker 1: and it's easy to rent another server, Like if you 325 00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:26,000 Speaker 1: could scale up your business just by buying ton of servers, 326 00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:28,760 Speaker 1: that is the easiest thing to do, and like we 327 00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:30,680 Speaker 1: would do that in a second. The problem that you 328 00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:32,960 Speaker 1: run into is that doesn't increase increase like the clock 329 00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:35,840 Speaker 1: speed of any one process. And so whenever you have 330 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:39,680 Speaker 1: these bottlenecking things where everything needs to feed through one process, 331 00:17:40,240 --> 00:17:43,720 Speaker 1: like buying more computers doesn't help because there's just the 332 00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:46,760 Speaker 1: one computer that's computing that one bottle necking thing. And 333 00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:50,000 Speaker 1: the worry with cross margining is if I send an 334 00:17:50,080 --> 00:17:55,000 Speaker 1: order in an bitcoin US order book, that immediately affects 335 00:17:55,080 --> 00:17:57,439 Speaker 1: the amount of margin that I have available for an 336 00:17:57,600 --> 00:18:01,520 Speaker 1: ethereum futures position, and so you can't treat them as 337 00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:04,399 Speaker 1: completely separable from each other, and you sort of have 338 00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:07,840 Speaker 1: in the end this one process, which is keeping track 339 00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:10,000 Speaker 1: of the master amount of margin and collateral that each 340 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:14,000 Speaker 1: account has available, and that thing has to like every 341 00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:16,560 Speaker 1: single order on every order world has to feed through 342 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:20,440 Speaker 1: that process, and all of a sudden paralyzation is way harder. 343 00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:24,040 Speaker 1: And that means that your risk of that process falling 344 00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:26,680 Speaker 1: over when things get busy, and if that process gets 345 00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:29,080 Speaker 1: bottle lets, you can't accept orders in any order book 346 00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:31,640 Speaker 1: because you don't know if the person has enough margin corps. 347 00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:34,800 Speaker 1: So that that's sort of like the fundamental tension that 348 00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:37,399 Speaker 1: you that you get too quickly when you frost margin, 349 00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:40,920 Speaker 1: and inherent in that is like then you say, well, okay, 350 00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:44,320 Speaker 1: how about traditional exchanges, like don't they cross margin? And 351 00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:46,680 Speaker 1: the real answer is that it gets back to a 352 00:18:46,720 --> 00:18:50,000 Speaker 1: previous point. In traditional finance, the exchanges aren't the primary 353 00:18:50,119 --> 00:18:54,560 Speaker 1: risk check. The exchanges aren't like analyzing correlations between different 354 00:18:54,560 --> 00:18:57,880 Speaker 1: assets and someone's portfolio. Generally, the exchanges are just processing 355 00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:00,440 Speaker 1: the orders. And then you have things like prime brokers 356 00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:03,960 Speaker 1: who are the actual risk check engines. They're not doing 357 00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:06,240 Speaker 1: it in real time really, at least not like tick 358 00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:08,760 Speaker 1: by tick or order by order. They don't have to 359 00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:12,000 Speaker 1: be as high throughput. They're just sort of like periodically 360 00:19:12,119 --> 00:19:15,239 Speaker 1: checking on people's portfolios. And then you say, okay, well, 361 00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:18,240 Speaker 1: why can't we take it out of this critical process 362 00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:20,600 Speaker 1: and just check it every hour or something. And the 363 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:23,760 Speaker 1: reason is, well, what if they went bankrupt in that hour? Right, 364 00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:27,760 Speaker 1: which you now get to surface other piece, which is 365 00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:31,080 Speaker 1: the fact that we allow everyone access to the site, 366 00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:33,720 Speaker 1: including people who aren't like, you know, one of the 367 00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:35,760 Speaker 1: five biggest trading firms in the world that you definitely 368 00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:38,639 Speaker 1: have legal recourse over and they have tons of assets 369 00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:41,000 Speaker 1: outside of your exchange that you can claim if they 370 00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:43,680 Speaker 1: want net negative Like that's not how it works in 371 00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:46,040 Speaker 1: crypt and crypto. We have everyone, and so if any 372 00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:50,280 Speaker 1: account goes net negative value, like realistically speaking, we might 373 00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:53,520 Speaker 1: never be able to like proclaim that, and and you know, 374 00:19:53,760 --> 00:19:56,840 Speaker 1: we just end up eating that. And so we have 375 00:19:57,000 --> 00:19:59,520 Speaker 1: to be real time monitoring the risk of all of 376 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:01,840 Speaker 1: the used years and and that's sort of like one 377 00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,399 Speaker 1: of the easier parts to accidentally get sort of bottle 378 00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:07,119 Speaker 1: necked on. Can you talk about that from like a 379 00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:11,439 Speaker 1: perspective of your capital So, like, you know, exchanges are 380 00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:13,280 Speaker 1: sort of notably thinly like in the in like the 381 00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:15,840 Speaker 1: traditional finance where all the exchanges are not like particularly 382 00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:19,200 Speaker 1: capitalized because they're not particularly capital intensive. Clearing houses have 383 00:20:19,359 --> 00:20:24,280 Speaker 1: like weird capital you know, positions and drawing rights. And 384 00:20:24,359 --> 00:20:26,639 Speaker 1: then prime brokers are giant banks who are who are 385 00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:30,359 Speaker 1: like very heavily capitalized. Um, Like for you, like, do 386 00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:32,919 Speaker 1: you have billions and billions of dollars to cover customer 387 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:34,960 Speaker 1: losses or is it more like you're a sort of 388 00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:38,920 Speaker 1: technological situation where you can you're confident you can blow 389 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:41,840 Speaker 1: people out fast enough that like customer losses are not 390 00:20:41,960 --> 00:20:44,560 Speaker 1: your problem? Or am I just thinking about it round? No, 391 00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:47,280 Speaker 1: that you're thinking about exactly right? Um. And that's a 392 00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:50,520 Speaker 1: really good question to ask. And different exchanges come to 393 00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:52,920 Speaker 1: different answers that questions. Let me give you a little 394 00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:55,760 Speaker 1: bit of a palette of like how one could answer it. 395 00:20:56,359 --> 00:20:58,880 Speaker 1: One answer, which used to be very popular is that's 396 00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:01,359 Speaker 1: not our problem, that's are you years problem? And you 397 00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:03,640 Speaker 1: might say, what you mean if users negative, you can't 398 00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:06,280 Speaker 1: get funds from them? Twix respond sure, but that means 399 00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:09,160 Speaker 1: some other users positive, and maybe you consider of see 400 00:21:09,160 --> 00:21:11,280 Speaker 1: where that's going. You know, there are these things called 401 00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:15,120 Speaker 1: the positive user doesn't isn't actually positive exactly right, it's 402 00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:18,240 Speaker 1: the clawbacks is sort of like the word that people 403 00:21:18,359 --> 00:21:21,240 Speaker 1: used for that. And there are exchanges where like each 404 00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:23,399 Speaker 1: week they say, like, congrats, you did good trading. You 405 00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:25,960 Speaker 1: get paid eighty six point two percent of your penil 406 00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:28,440 Speaker 1: this week. You know, the other thirteen point went to 407 00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:31,040 Speaker 1: bail people out, and and it just happened week after 408 00:21:31,119 --> 00:21:33,520 Speaker 1: week after week. There's millions off per day of losses 409 00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:36,719 Speaker 1: of customers to that, which is not how you want 410 00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:38,879 Speaker 1: to end up, right. That's sort of like breaking this 411 00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:43,680 Speaker 1: like seemingly really inherent inviolable property of a future, which 412 00:21:43,720 --> 00:21:46,359 Speaker 1: is that if you buy a bitcoin future what like 413 00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:49,159 Speaker 1: whatever something, interest rates, something something. But when all of 414 00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:51,520 Speaker 1: a sudden done in the end, you have a bitcoin 415 00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,200 Speaker 1: right have like bitcoint goes up to make it finically 416 00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:57,080 Speaker 1: goes up ten thousand dollars, you make town thous dollars 417 00:21:57,280 --> 00:21:59,159 Speaker 1: if you're like holding its expiration or what effort. But 418 00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:00,520 Speaker 1: all of a sudden, if you're on a getting paid 419 00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:04,520 Speaker 1: back your PNL, you don't really quite have a bigcoin. 420 00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:06,399 Speaker 1: You have something that's kind of like a bigcoin, but 421 00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:09,200 Speaker 1: maybe it's only most of a bigcoin. We'll see. So 422 00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:12,040 Speaker 1: that's like not a good answer, but that is an answer, 423 00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:15,240 Speaker 1: and that is what what some exchanges said. Other exchanges 424 00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:17,560 Speaker 1: give sort of the worst dancer. That's not a good answer. 425 00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:20,160 Speaker 1: Was not the worst answer. The worst answer is going bankrupt, 426 00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:22,320 Speaker 1: and that's not what we want to see. But you know, 427 00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:24,680 Speaker 1: there have been some exchanges blow out in crypto, and 428 00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:27,639 Speaker 1: especially the smaller ones, which gets to your point of 429 00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:30,920 Speaker 1: like how much capital is actually backing these exchanges. One 430 00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:33,480 Speaker 1: of the most dangerous things about using a dinky exchange. 431 00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:36,000 Speaker 1: There's there are two scary things. First of all, they 432 00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:38,680 Speaker 1: probably don't have like very sophisticated tack, so like the 433 00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,040 Speaker 1: hacking risk is way higher. But second of all, they 434 00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:44,000 Speaker 1: probably don't have a billion dollars of capital, and so 435 00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,240 Speaker 1: if there is a loss, like they don't have anything 436 00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:48,879 Speaker 1: backing back, you know, like they they they have you know, 437 00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:50,959 Speaker 1: two million dollars back in they if they lose five 438 00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:54,440 Speaker 1: million dollars and customers lost three. Okay, So so that's 439 00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:56,400 Speaker 1: sort of like another bad answer, but it's the answer 440 00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:58,760 Speaker 1: you've seen on on some of the smaller venues, and 441 00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,679 Speaker 1: then you get sort of like about the biggest venues, 442 00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:03,480 Speaker 1: and the answer to your question is really, yeah, they 443 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:05,560 Speaker 1: do have a lot of capital backing. Like if you 444 00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:08,800 Speaker 1: look at the actual effective amount of capital backing the 445 00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:12,119 Speaker 1: books on on the largest exchanges, it is and the 446 00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,240 Speaker 1: billions and you know, obviously we just raised nine hundred 447 00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:17,399 Speaker 1: or so, but you know, we we we had a 448 00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,399 Speaker 1: bunch of profits before that. And then on top of that, 449 00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:22,800 Speaker 1: there's sort of you know, effectively the equity value of 450 00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:26,800 Speaker 1: the exchanges, which are you know, well should be implicitly 451 00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:29,720 Speaker 1: backing these you know, for sort of people exchanging that 452 00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:31,600 Speaker 1: if you have a billion dollar loss, you can like 453 00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:33,679 Speaker 1: go ris a billion dollars and people are like, well, 454 00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:36,160 Speaker 1: you know, to have equity. Yeah, And so the answer 455 00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:38,639 Speaker 1: is for the biggest exchanges, yeah, there is effectively a 456 00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:41,200 Speaker 1: lot backing it. But but once you start going down 457 00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:43,160 Speaker 1: in the pegging or or to exchange where you don't 458 00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:45,400 Speaker 1: trust that they wouldn't do that, that they would kind 459 00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,640 Speaker 1: of go do whatever it took to make their users whole. Yeah, 460 00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:51,320 Speaker 1: there's real risk there that you know, if their liquidation 461 00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,720 Speaker 1: engine is enough to task neither world their users you know, 462 00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:58,280 Speaker 1: b and if you're like a big exchange with a 463 00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:01,280 Speaker 1: lot of capital, like the empirically, how good is the 464 00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,600 Speaker 1: risk management? Like do you guys regularly have like bloods 465 00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:07,240 Speaker 1: that you don't uh that you're not made hole? It's 466 00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:10,119 Speaker 1: a good question. So we um, we we put a 467 00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,359 Speaker 1: bunch of thirst engine we don't have the issues like 468 00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,080 Speaker 1: we've never had a day I think where there were 469 00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,840 Speaker 1: there's more money that we lost in blowouts too, revenue 470 00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,119 Speaker 1: that we made just from trading fees. So and on 471 00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:25,560 Speaker 1: most days it's effectively zero dollars cost. So this is 472 00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:27,520 Speaker 1: not like a big deal for for us. I mean, 473 00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:29,879 Speaker 1: it's a big deal think about, but like economically it 474 00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:31,639 Speaker 1: has been a big cost to us. So you're not 475 00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:36,280 Speaker 1: doing like a leverage on big positions, is right, And 476 00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:38,159 Speaker 1: that's that's why it gets down to exactly right, like 477 00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:41,119 Speaker 1: are your you are are your parameter is good and 478 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,560 Speaker 1: reasonably as their liquidation into like reasonable in real time 479 00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:45,840 Speaker 1: and stuff. In some cases the answer that has just 480 00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:48,960 Speaker 1: effectively been no. And and you know we've we've stared 481 00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,440 Speaker 1: pretty hard to keep it like pretty effective. But you know, 482 00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:54,959 Speaker 1: when you look at the biggest blowouts historically, especially back 483 00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,639 Speaker 1: in like is the kind of thing you like you 484 00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:00,640 Speaker 1: would just look at that and be like that doesn't work, right, Sam, 485 00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:02,639 Speaker 1: and be like, yeah, you're right, that doesn't work. Like 486 00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:04,520 Speaker 1: he's just like, yeah, fifty to one leverage on a 487 00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:07,720 Speaker 1: three hundred million dollar bitcoin position and just like Okay, 488 00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,720 Speaker 1: that's interesting until it is exactly It's like, can you 489 00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,760 Speaker 1: liquidate like three million dollars a bitcoin consistently with less 490 00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,000 Speaker 1: than two percent impact plus slippage plus movement during the 491 00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:21,119 Speaker 1: time it takes you that Like, no, you can't. Can 492 00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:22,920 Speaker 1: I ask you about? I don't. I don't really know 493 00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:26,359 Speaker 1: the phrase liquidation engine, but like, um, like my my 494 00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:29,520 Speaker 1: understanding is that like there's like a stereotype in like 495 00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:33,040 Speaker 1: the crypto world where when people get blown out of 496 00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,280 Speaker 1: margin positions, they it is done as like sloppily as 497 00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,879 Speaker 1: eggs can be imagined, and like prices like move right 498 00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,920 Speaker 1: jerkily and mechanically in a way that like you know, 499 00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:45,040 Speaker 1: like I'm just I've been thinking about you know where 500 00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:48,080 Speaker 1: recording this on the day of the Archagos report coming 501 00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:51,240 Speaker 1: at where like you know, in traditional finance, like when 502 00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:54,440 Speaker 1: a big position gets blown out, like they don't necessarily 503 00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:55,879 Speaker 1: do a good job of it. But they sort of 504 00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:58,280 Speaker 1: sit down and think, what is the way to liquidate 505 00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,639 Speaker 1: this position with minimal and back to the bank, Whereas, 506 00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,440 Speaker 1: like my understanding is that in crypto exchanges it's all automated, 507 00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,480 Speaker 1: and often automated in a sort of like predictable and 508 00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,200 Speaker 1: dangerous way. Yeah, it's been getting a little bit better 509 00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:13,679 Speaker 1: over time. It's not great, i would say, for us 510 00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:15,879 Speaker 1: to space, but it used to be terrible. So let 511 00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:18,119 Speaker 1: me tell you some horror stories here which are like, 512 00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:21,240 Speaker 1: here's like one really bad example that we did see, 513 00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:26,520 Speaker 1: you know, back in like when when things were really messy, 514 00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,080 Speaker 1: someone had, you know, a two hundred million dollar position 515 00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:32,359 Speaker 1: in bitcoin futures. First of all, it very very strongly 516 00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:34,520 Speaker 1: seemed like there's a human they're clicking, and that human 517 00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,520 Speaker 1: was sometimes to sleep, and and so maybe markets moved 518 00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:39,840 Speaker 1: while that human was asleep, and then the account was 519 00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:41,919 Speaker 1: net negative by the time the human weight woke up. 520 00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,600 Speaker 1: So that's like not a good start. And then you know, 521 00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,040 Speaker 1: you see this position is obviously underwater, and and and 522 00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,560 Speaker 1: what they would do, you know, let's say two percent underwater, 523 00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,359 Speaker 1: is you know, they place an offer for two hundred 524 00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,840 Speaker 1: million dollars of bitcoin futures two percent behind the b BO, 525 00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:00,480 Speaker 1: right and just sit there. And and of course that 526 00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:03,560 Speaker 1: was at the bankruptcy price, like hoping someone would lift 527 00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,320 Speaker 1: through the book and buy two million, two million dollar offer. 528 00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,080 Speaker 1: Obviously that's not what happens, right. What happens is everyone 529 00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:15,040 Speaker 1: sees the offer and things just like crash more, right, 530 00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:17,760 Speaker 1: and it just gets like worse and worse. You know that. 531 00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,040 Speaker 1: That's like an example of not a good liquidation engine, 532 00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:23,440 Speaker 1: so to speak. Yeah, although honestly that's better, Like I 533 00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:25,960 Speaker 1: sort of expected it was like if you hit some trigger, 534 00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,240 Speaker 1: like some automated thing just puts in market orders to 535 00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:30,880 Speaker 1: sell the position. So we've seen that as well, which 536 00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,280 Speaker 1: is sort of the opposite extreme, and it's sort of 537 00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:37,200 Speaker 1: like different exchanges that did different pieces of this, like yeah, 538 00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,840 Speaker 1: and I basically think like both those extremes are bad, right, 539 00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:42,280 Speaker 1: and the market order thing goes about as poorly as 540 00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: you would expect, you know, So where have things been 541 00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,320 Speaker 1: moving over time? Like what's sort of like the reasonable system? Well, 542 00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:48,879 Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's sort of like I think 543 00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:50,720 Speaker 1: you would like if you just like had ten minutes 544 00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,640 Speaker 1: write down something like better than either of those, which 545 00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,320 Speaker 1: is like kind of a decent proxy um, which is 546 00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:59,160 Speaker 1: basically like, you know, what do we do so whatever, 547 00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:01,159 Speaker 1: first of all offices that we cut off opening your position, 548 00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,080 Speaker 1: then if your accounted like it's further you know down 549 00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:06,159 Speaker 1: in collateral, the first thing we do is we just 550 00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,440 Speaker 1: start sending orders on behalf of your account closed down 551 00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:12,520 Speaker 1: the position. It's done in an automated way. It's done 552 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,800 Speaker 1: like bit by bit, like basically twalps it. And you know, 553 00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,560 Speaker 1: we keep it to like a relatively low fraction of 554 00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,560 Speaker 1: of of of underlying volume of the asset, so like 555 00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:23,920 Speaker 1: we don't want to be in position where like the 556 00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:27,879 Speaker 1: liquidation engine global volume, because then then it's just like 557 00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:30,160 Speaker 1: that like the market doesn't have time to get liquidity 558 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:32,680 Speaker 1: for that um. And and that's also sort of like 559 00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:34,360 Speaker 1: one way to think of what happens if you send 560 00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,520 Speaker 1: to market orders like volume for that two second period. 561 00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,680 Speaker 1: You know, that just overwhelms order books and it basically 562 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:42,600 Speaker 1: sort of like chip away with that and and and 563 00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,480 Speaker 1: hopefully that works or it's just like markets recover or 564 00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:47,680 Speaker 1: go down depending on which direction their position was in. 565 00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:50,480 Speaker 1: And you know, but before action, most their position has 566 00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:53,320 Speaker 1: been liquidated, like we no longer have to liquidated and 567 00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:55,920 Speaker 1: and then we stopped. If that doesn't work, like things 568 00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,800 Speaker 1: just keep moving against a position, and like the location 569 00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:00,520 Speaker 1: engine is like going as fast as is willing to 570 00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,280 Speaker 1: go in terms of like fraction of volume and and 571 00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,080 Speaker 1: and like the digits closer and closure bankruptcy you have 572 00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,080 Speaker 1: it spells backs oppliquity prior system where basically we just 573 00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,400 Speaker 1: pass off their mating positions and value the account wholesale, 574 00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:17,120 Speaker 1: like paraded to a bunch of liquidity fighters who have 575 00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,720 Speaker 1: agreed to seven like basically forcibly take on you know, 576 00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:23,840 Speaker 1: liquidating accounts um and so that's what happens when it 577 00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:25,920 Speaker 1: looks like the you know, first stup liquidation and shoul 578 00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:27,920 Speaker 1: wouldn't get their time. And the thought is they're like, 579 00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:31,880 Speaker 1: you know, these market makers have well collateralized, well capitalized accounts, 580 00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:33,640 Speaker 1: and then they can figure out what they want to 581 00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:37,120 Speaker 1: do with those positions. It's not like perfect, but at 582 00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:38,920 Speaker 1: least sort of like you know, the goal is to 583 00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,680 Speaker 1: sort of like get rid of the unnecessary impact, right 584 00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:44,600 Speaker 1: and like you're you're gonna have impact whenever there's a 585 00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:46,880 Speaker 1: forced sale, but like at least you want to have 586 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,240 Speaker 1: that impact be like the correct economic impact instead of 587 00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,600 Speaker 1: like five times that because it's done way too quickly 588 00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:55,040 Speaker 1: or something. Can I ask them about like order books 589 00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,000 Speaker 1: and market makers? Like what I'm interested in is an 590 00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:01,760 Speaker 1: intuition for sort of how liquid these crypto products are. Right, So, 591 00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,000 Speaker 1: like you have like sort of in US equity exchanges, 592 00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:07,000 Speaker 1: you have the stereotype of like there are you know, 593 00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,959 Speaker 1: high frequency electronic market makers. If you sell a lot 594 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:12,760 Speaker 1: of stock, the stock will go down by like a 595 00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:16,240 Speaker 1: sort of predictable amount, and like people are willing to 596 00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,840 Speaker 1: step up to buy at these declining prices a certain amount, right, 597 00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,360 Speaker 1: Like there's there's like a certain amount of capital in 598 00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,320 Speaker 1: the in the order book, there's a certain amount of 599 00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,520 Speaker 1: like any time the market is open, someone is there 600 00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:30,400 Speaker 1: to buy. People complain that they're not as willing to 601 00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:32,760 Speaker 1: sort of take risk as like the old school banks were, 602 00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,120 Speaker 1: but like there's there's a sort of like predictable amount 603 00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,680 Speaker 1: of liquidity like in crypto markets in particularly because they're 604 00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,240 Speaker 1: so fragmented and there's so many products. Like if you 605 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:44,720 Speaker 1: want to sell a bunch, like does the price good zero? 606 00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,600 Speaker 1: Like are there a lot of market makers with capital 607 00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,840 Speaker 1: who are sort of like committing capital everywhere and kind 608 00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:53,920 Speaker 1: of like trading quickly or is it a little bit 609 00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:55,760 Speaker 1: more of a like you never know where you're gonna 610 00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,040 Speaker 1: get kind of thing. Yeah, if well, first of all, 611 00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:01,080 Speaker 1: it depends on the ben years. If you're using sort 612 00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:04,479 Speaker 1: of a dicky exchange, then like it's sometimes like who 613 00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:06,080 Speaker 1: the hell knows what's going to happen, right, And you'll 614 00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:10,479 Speaker 1: see completely wacky prints sometimes go up on liquid fund us. 615 00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,920 Speaker 1: And remember there's no recking mess here or anything like that. Yeah, 616 00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:15,600 Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like in in the US, like 617 00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,000 Speaker 1: you know, every market maker is making markets on every exchange, 618 00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,040 Speaker 1: but I guess there's no there's no reason to expect 619 00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,600 Speaker 1: that in crypto yet, no, And so like the different exchanges, 620 00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:26,280 Speaker 1: like Bitcoin USD on one exchange is like a different 621 00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:29,120 Speaker 1: product from Bitcoin USD on another exchange. I mean, obviously 622 00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:31,320 Speaker 1: it's basically the same thing, but it takes like an 623 00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,040 Speaker 1: hour to turn one into the other through like transfers 624 00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:36,120 Speaker 1: if you're lucky, and like a day if you're unlucky. 625 00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:40,360 Speaker 1: And and there's no there's no nothing forcibly keeping those 626 00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:43,040 Speaker 1: in line with each other. Right, So so that is 627 00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,520 Speaker 1: one thing to note is you see divergences between different 628 00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:50,440 Speaker 1: exchanges when markets are stressed and you usually these are 629 00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:52,960 Speaker 1: tiny because there are over treasures, but like when they're 630 00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,400 Speaker 1: big moves, sometimes they're percent. So it's that's sort of 631 00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:57,600 Speaker 1: like one caveot to make it. And when you talk 632 00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,040 Speaker 1: about which exchanges you see sort of these illiquid and 633 00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,520 Speaker 1: so on, it's maybe not exactly what you think, like 634 00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:04,840 Speaker 1: it's through served of the like dicky ones, it's also 635 00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:06,920 Speaker 1: true of some of the better known ones. And in 636 00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,680 Speaker 1: particular and this is like a huge, huge, huge factor 637 00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:14,360 Speaker 1: any exchange that doesn't allow any leverage or margin, there's 638 00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:16,960 Speaker 1: sort of competing intuitions for what would happen there. But 639 00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:20,640 Speaker 1: in general it's less liquid. And the reason it's less 640 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,760 Speaker 1: liquities like the liquidy fighters don't have any ability to 641 00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:26,360 Speaker 1: margin there. And remember this is like these needs to 642 00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,760 Speaker 1: be deliverables. This isn't just looking at total value. You know, 643 00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,640 Speaker 1: Let's say that someone tries to sell a hundred million 644 00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,440 Speaker 1: dollars a bitcoin on it in a five minute period 645 00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,239 Speaker 1: on a spot exchange with no no margin capabilities. If 646 00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:41,880 Speaker 1: the market makers didn't have a hundred million US dollars 647 00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:47,240 Speaker 1: basically custodied on that particular exchange at that particular time, 648 00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,520 Speaker 1: they can't buy it ladies just run out of dollar 649 00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:51,760 Speaker 1: spy and they might have another three hundred million dollars 650 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,080 Speaker 1: in their bank account or in other exchanges that didn't 651 00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:57,400 Speaker 1: help them buy that offer, and it might take a 652 00:32:57,480 --> 00:32:59,680 Speaker 1: day to get the dollars over there if there's no 653 00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:01,720 Speaker 1: more ginning that. That also makes it way harder for 654 00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,880 Speaker 1: market makers ride deep liquidity because again they're just like 655 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,800 Speaker 1: it's not capital efficient for them to keep seventeen billion 656 00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:12,000 Speaker 1: dollars of reserves of every plausible currency on every plausible exchange, 657 00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:14,280 Speaker 1: right because in the US you have to in like 658 00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:16,840 Speaker 1: US equities, you need to put orders on every exchange. 659 00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:18,800 Speaker 1: But in in crypto to do this you need to 660 00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,680 Speaker 1: like actually capitalize like your maximum order everything that's change 661 00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,360 Speaker 1: separately exactly. And this is the flip that this is 662 00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,440 Speaker 1: a drawback to the cryptosystem where I sort of described 663 00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:30,440 Speaker 1: the miracle of it, you know earlier, of like one 664 00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:34,640 Speaker 1: integrated product and so you get so much efficiency out 665 00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:36,840 Speaker 1: of like you know, you just have your funds there 666 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:38,520 Speaker 1: and you can do anything you want on the exchange, 667 00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:40,920 Speaker 1: and like there are no intermediaries. Everyone can do it 668 00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:44,240 Speaker 1: like this. There's no like stock loan business being completely 669 00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:47,040 Speaker 1: just like separate and a separate company on a separate 670 00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:49,240 Speaker 1: time scale from like the trades you need to be doing. 671 00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:51,600 Speaker 1: You do get a ton of efficiency of this, but 672 00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:54,000 Speaker 1: the flip side is you don't have one central prime 673 00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:59,080 Speaker 1: broker that's capitalizing, you know, simultaneously all exchanges for you 674 00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,800 Speaker 1: with the same apital, Like you have to separately capitalize 675 00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,520 Speaker 1: each one, which is super super expensive, especially if they 676 00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:07,680 Speaker 1: don't allow a margin. So that's sort of like one 677 00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,160 Speaker 1: issue that you run into, which isn't an issue with 678 00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:12,320 Speaker 1: overall crypto markets. Like, if you're looking sort of like 679 00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,759 Speaker 1: the like blended average bitcoin price, that's not a huge deal. 680 00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,560 Speaker 1: But if you're looking at like blowouts of one particular 681 00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,680 Speaker 1: venue that is, then you get to like, okay, sure, 682 00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:23,520 Speaker 1: but like like if you aren't that, like let's use 683 00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:26,520 Speaker 1: just average bitcoin prices across all major exchanges. You're not 684 00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:28,759 Speaker 1: worried so much about, Like, yeah, it sucks that there's 685 00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,439 Speaker 1: like a little divergence, but like generally what's the bitcoin worth? 686 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,680 Speaker 1: Like you know, how much does that diverge? Yeah, you know, 687 00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:36,759 Speaker 1: it's it's better than it was three years ago. Like 688 00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,719 Speaker 1: the market makers are massively better capitalized than they were 689 00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:43,279 Speaker 1: three years ago. Um, and so you know, I think 690 00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:45,800 Speaker 1: something you saw is like on this drap in you know, 691 00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:49,239 Speaker 1: may from like sixty k to thirty k. It was 692 00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,239 Speaker 1: like very very orderly all things considered, Like is if 693 00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:54,040 Speaker 1: a few percent drop in crypto markets like a one 694 00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:56,880 Speaker 1: day period, but like and there's there's a lot of liquidations, 695 00:34:56,960 --> 00:35:01,240 Speaker 1: but like there there weren't massive it liquid prints markets 696 00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,160 Speaker 1: remained liquid and and and and worldly more or less 697 00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:07,640 Speaker 1: to like an impressive extent given the volatility. Contrast that 698 00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:12,439 Speaker 1: with a year ago in March, when crypto dropped from 699 00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,160 Speaker 1: nine k to four k and like a two day period. 700 00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,840 Speaker 1: There are people freaking out there that like they're going 701 00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:20,440 Speaker 1: to be systematic failures in the crypto industry, and like 702 00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:23,840 Speaker 1: you know, think about like it wasn't like our Chagos 703 00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,080 Speaker 1: people are worried about it was two thousand eight. It 704 00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:30,279 Speaker 1: was a a chain of liquidations of businesses started by 705 00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:32,719 Speaker 1: a few and they are like people going around saying, 706 00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:34,759 Speaker 1: we have no idea who's underwater here, Like it could 707 00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:38,759 Speaker 1: be everyone, like lots of businesses and basically predicated their 708 00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:42,239 Speaker 1: financing strategy on the notion that it was implausible depic 709 00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:45,120 Speaker 1: when we go blew five thousand dollars for better for worse. 710 00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,920 Speaker 1: That that was like empirically true. Look love mining firms, 711 00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,919 Speaker 1: there will leverage long bitcoin with like a bankruptcy price 712 00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:55,239 Speaker 1: of like you know, like there's like a huge, huge 713 00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:57,560 Speaker 1: swass of the crypto space that were like maybe in 714 00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,759 Speaker 1: danger of being bankrupt at four k, and of course 715 00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,080 Speaker 1: then you could have massive cascading effects and liquity and 716 00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,200 Speaker 1: markets was completely shot. None of the market makers had 717 00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:10,480 Speaker 1: capital left to buy, even though they are obviously amazing 718 00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:12,480 Speaker 1: purchases to do if you happen to have a billion 719 00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:14,880 Speaker 1: dollars lying around and and and so it was just 720 00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:17,520 Speaker 1: like it was. It was a massive nightmare and like 721 00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:19,880 Speaker 1: really dangerous for the industry in a way that like 722 00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:22,080 Speaker 1: this serious crush was way more orderly, and I think 723 00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,759 Speaker 1: partially the industry has grown a lot partially honestly, like 724 00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:28,719 Speaker 1: no one's business was predicated on bitcoin never getting down 725 00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:31,440 Speaker 1: to thirty cable again, like everyone sort of thought that 726 00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:34,120 Speaker 1: might happen. Is that is that a way of saying 727 00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:38,120 Speaker 1: that the industry has less leverage like than it was. Yes, 728 00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:41,000 Speaker 1: I think that's like basically right, that the industry is 729 00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:43,480 Speaker 1: less leverage to present terms. Now, I think the dollars 730 00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:45,759 Speaker 1: of leverage have gone up, but so was the market cap, 731 00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,759 Speaker 1: and the market cap has gone up faster. This is 732 00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,040 Speaker 1: what I was about to ask, because it feels like 733 00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,000 Speaker 1: you're describing the system is being less levered and the 734 00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:58,680 Speaker 1: market makers and the exchanges being better at liquidating positions, 735 00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:00,719 Speaker 1: being able to do it in a more orderly way. 736 00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:04,000 Speaker 1: But I feel like, at the same time, so everyone 737 00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:06,960 Speaker 1: always struggles whenever there's a big move in bitcoin, and 738 00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:09,279 Speaker 1: I feel like over the past few months we've seen 739 00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,280 Speaker 1: leverage come up again and again as a sort of excuse, 740 00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:15,200 Speaker 1: or whenever the price is dropping, it's like, oh, levered 741 00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:18,680 Speaker 1: positions are getting liquidated, Like is there a disconnect there? 742 00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:21,080 Speaker 1: Like is that narrative of the market wrong? And then 743 00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:25,600 Speaker 1: if it is, what is actually driving the price of bitcoin? Like, 744 00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:27,480 Speaker 1: if you were going to look at the past couple 745 00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,480 Speaker 1: of months, what was the cause of the down draft? 746 00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,399 Speaker 1: It's a really good question. So first answer is there's 747 00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,680 Speaker 1: some truth to it. Liquidations and leverage were a cause. 748 00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:42,279 Speaker 1: One of the causes of the draw from it was 749 00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,719 Speaker 1: just at a level which is large and absolute terms 750 00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:48,880 Speaker 1: compared to two a year ago, but small relative to 751 00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:52,000 Speaker 1: the capital in this space, and so you know, there 752 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,560 Speaker 1: are twenty billion dollars of long positions probably that got 753 00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:58,080 Speaker 1: liquidated over a week long period during the base part 754 00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:00,759 Speaker 1: of the drop in crypto. But the industry is able 755 00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,279 Speaker 1: to absorb that because a decrease in price. It caused 756 00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,440 Speaker 1: a significant decrease in price, but it was like a 757 00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:08,800 Speaker 1: surprising the orderly decrease in price in that like people 758 00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:11,080 Speaker 1: weren't blowing out there there. You know, there are a 759 00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:13,160 Speaker 1: lot of losses from some people, but they, you know, 760 00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:15,960 Speaker 1: weren't generally going. You know, this is sort of like 761 00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:18,520 Speaker 1: large players in this space were very well capitalized. The 762 00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:23,200 Speaker 1: system's technology had improved, so exchange downtime was less bad. 763 00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:26,240 Speaker 1: I don't want to say he's great, Like mostly stages 764 00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:29,719 Speaker 1: had serious downtime this time, but way less than you know, 765 00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:31,920 Speaker 1: a year ago when most exchanges had twelve hours of 766 00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,560 Speaker 1: downtime during the big crash. And so the infrastructure and 767 00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,600 Speaker 1: the liquidity in this space held up much better under 768 00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:40,359 Speaker 1: the liquidations than they did a year ago. But there 769 00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,399 Speaker 1: were real liquidations and it was one of the contributors 770 00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:46,279 Speaker 1: to the crash. Now, one thing I think is worth 771 00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:49,640 Speaker 1: noting there is like they're also one of the contributors 772 00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:52,560 Speaker 1: to run up from ten k to sixty K. I 773 00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:54,920 Speaker 1: think that's sort of like often people sort of like 774 00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:58,400 Speaker 1: want to live in a fantasy land where like leverage 775 00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:01,200 Speaker 1: can make markets go up but not out, and it's 776 00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:03,839 Speaker 1: like not not really how it works, like for better 777 00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,280 Speaker 1: or for worse. Like I strongly believe that the crypto 778 00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,840 Speaker 1: ecosystem is in a stronger healthier position today because of 779 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:29,399 Speaker 1: leverage than it would be if there was never any leverage, Sam, 780 00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:31,880 Speaker 1: and I don't know how much work if we're going 781 00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:33,640 Speaker 1: to really talk about this, but I actually want to 782 00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:37,480 Speaker 1: just ask a sort of question related to the Defy ecosystem. 783 00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:39,920 Speaker 1: And I know beyond f t X you're invested in 784 00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:44,040 Speaker 1: that there is leverage existing DEFY in different ways. So 785 00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:48,720 Speaker 1: someone might post some stable coin to borrow more stable 786 00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,280 Speaker 1: coins that they might post either to borrow stable coins, 787 00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:53,759 Speaker 1: and then they might use that to invest in something else, 788 00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,920 Speaker 1: so then they get another token. Are we gonna have 789 00:39:57,080 --> 00:40:00,040 Speaker 1: to like how well do we have a handle? And 790 00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,920 Speaker 1: I guess what I would say is leverage measures within defy. 791 00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:06,480 Speaker 1: It feels like whether we're talking about an exchange like 792 00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:11,080 Speaker 1: f t X or traditional uh traditional trad five venue 793 00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,239 Speaker 1: like we have these sort of like concepts of like 794 00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:15,440 Speaker 1: how much open interest is there and how many like 795 00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:18,080 Speaker 1: long futures are out there. Are we going to have 796 00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:21,840 Speaker 1: to sort of like reconceptualize how we think about leverage 797 00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:24,720 Speaker 1: in the DeFi space where perhaps there isn't a perfect 798 00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:26,960 Speaker 1: analog to some of this stuff. And do we have 799 00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:30,880 Speaker 1: a good handle on sort of like overall vulnerability to 800 00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:34,239 Speaker 1: disorderly liquidations? Yes, So I don't think we need to 801 00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:38,360 Speaker 1: fundamentally reconceptualize it. I think they're very clear parallels, and 802 00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:40,680 Speaker 1: I think it's like not that hard in some sense 803 00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:42,600 Speaker 1: to think about. I think the big problem is that 804 00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:45,640 Speaker 1: there isn't a guy who's in charge of it. When 805 00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:47,920 Speaker 1: you sort of think about, like, you know, how do 806 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,040 Speaker 1: you figure out like who's in charge of like staying 807 00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,799 Speaker 1: on top of the risk on fts? Like there's an answer, right, 808 00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:56,960 Speaker 1: It's it's like it's me, right, you know, and my team. 809 00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:59,360 Speaker 1: I think when you can defy, there often isn't an 810 00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:01,879 Speaker 1: answer for me in charge of of managing it. Also 811 00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:04,799 Speaker 1: was in church of reporting it, and so I think 812 00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,920 Speaker 1: it's just messy is the answer like like like no 813 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:11,839 Speaker 1: one need serve response taking responsibility and it's not obviously would. 814 00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:13,719 Speaker 1: And so I think that there's just like a ton 815 00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:17,080 Speaker 1: of untracked stuff, and like you know what that means 816 00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:22,360 Speaker 1: is like, yeah, it's just like there's uh more capacity 817 00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:26,000 Speaker 1: for like wacky bad things to happen, because no one's 818 00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,720 Speaker 1: in charge of making sure that when something wacky happens 819 00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,120 Speaker 1: is the good kind of wacky. You know, we were 820 00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:34,080 Speaker 1: We're talking about how it's been an eventful a couple 821 00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:37,160 Speaker 1: of weeks for crypto, and one of the things that happened, UM, 822 00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:41,200 Speaker 1: which would probably fall into the sort of UM negative camp, 823 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:44,640 Speaker 1: was the new SEC chair Gary Gensler, came out and 824 00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:49,120 Speaker 1: started talking about UM token ized stocks or synthetic stocks 825 00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:53,359 Speaker 1: and making some noises about potentially going after those. UM. 826 00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:57,399 Speaker 1: So I'm wondering how worrying is that for you? Um, 827 00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,720 Speaker 1: would you potentially CONSI they're delisting those I saw unite 828 00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:05,040 Speaker 1: swap took them off of well at least the front 829 00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,200 Speaker 1: end of unice swaps. You can still trade them on 830 00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:09,320 Speaker 1: the actual unit swap code, but you just can't do 831 00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:12,040 Speaker 1: it through the unit swap website. Um, is that something 832 00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:14,719 Speaker 1: you think the industry is just gonna have to do 833 00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:19,000 Speaker 1: going forward? So? Right, so I think basically what what 834 00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:23,440 Speaker 1: Againser said, which is frankly not that shocking, is like, 835 00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:26,399 Speaker 1: if you tokenize the stock, it's or is still sort 836 00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,280 Speaker 1: of a stock, and like it's not like it loses 837 00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:33,640 Speaker 1: all regulatory properties UM as soon as you tokenize it. Again, 838 00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:35,560 Speaker 1: not not to put words in his mouth, but I 839 00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:38,120 Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if you're start looking at some parts 840 00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:40,200 Speaker 1: of the industry and being like that sure looks like 841 00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:44,759 Speaker 1: and obviously unregistered security being offered with no email ky 842 00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:49,560 Speaker 1: C registration or terms or conditions to anyone in the world, 843 00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:56,440 Speaker 1: including Americans and restricted jurisdictions. That's not generally how brokerages were. 844 00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:00,280 Speaker 1: I think it's sort of like where you know, awfully 845 00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,360 Speaker 1: that was coming from UM, and I don't think that 846 00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,799 Speaker 1: was a super shocking announcement. I think, like I think 847 00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:09,080 Speaker 1: when you contrast it with what we have on FKS, 848 00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:12,360 Speaker 1: like it's a pretty different situation where we have like, 849 00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:15,960 Speaker 1: first of all, we email ky C everyone fully who 850 00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:18,520 Speaker 1: is able to touch you know, stock and f kis 851 00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:21,239 Speaker 1: at all. Second of all, we restrict it's such that 852 00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:26,359 Speaker 1: Americans can't access them, neither can a number of other jurisdictions. UM. 853 00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:30,280 Speaker 1: We ensure that they're backed, we have an actual license 854 00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:34,160 Speaker 1: from often to offer the products. Um, And it's much 855 00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:36,200 Speaker 1: more like just how like you know, interactive burgers are 856 00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,200 Speaker 1: introducing burgers to them operate. And so I think that 857 00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,279 Speaker 1: like Gazer wasn't saying like if you tokenize the stock 858 00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:44,680 Speaker 1: it makes it evil. I think like his point was 859 00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:47,480 Speaker 1: like it's it's kind of still stock, you know, if 860 00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,399 Speaker 1: like you wouldn't have been able to offer stocks at all, 861 00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:55,120 Speaker 1: like queery, whether you could offer tokenized stocks. Is the 862 00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:58,600 Speaker 1: long term goal that you are offering token of stocks 863 00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:01,480 Speaker 1: to Americans, like either by regulatory changes or by like 864 00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:04,239 Speaker 1: registering as a US exchanged, Like, is this like a 865 00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:07,120 Speaker 1: sort of crypto it's the financial system kind of player. 866 00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,080 Speaker 1: Is this like you're a crypto exchange of since and 867 00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:12,560 Speaker 1: I'll let you do. No, it's definitely the first thing 868 00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:16,400 Speaker 1: you said, um, like yeah, very very clearly, that is 869 00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:19,239 Speaker 1: like our our goal here. And I think that like, 870 00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:21,920 Speaker 1: like there there's sort of a roadmap for this in 871 00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:24,479 Speaker 1: the United States, at least sort of the tooganizing party 872 00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:26,480 Speaker 1: think is complicated in the United States. And I do 873 00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:30,040 Speaker 1: think that like no one has quite issue claritite clarity 874 00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:33,360 Speaker 1: on exactly what it means in the u S regulatory 875 00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:35,760 Speaker 1: context to have a token ized stock. I think against 876 00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,200 Speaker 1: the start of saying like, well, it certainly isn't like irrelevant, 877 00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,440 Speaker 1: like like that's still kind of a stock. Um, It's 878 00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:43,440 Speaker 1: not like when you talk about tognizing it, like what 879 00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:44,840 Speaker 1: does it mean for it to be toganized? Is it 880 00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,440 Speaker 1: free floating? How does that work? Who's thesure? Like there's 881 00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:49,719 Speaker 1: a lot of st complicated questions there, but maybe just 882 00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:51,840 Speaker 1: taking a step back, like how it stalks in the 883 00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:55,440 Speaker 1: first place, like just normal non tokenized stocks. Um, I 884 00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:57,200 Speaker 1: don't know. I mean like we f g x u 885 00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:00,120 Speaker 1: S did recently get a Burger dealer license? Like or 886 00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:02,800 Speaker 1: you know, make of that what you will. So in theory, 887 00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:06,200 Speaker 1: one day rather than maybe you know, like I have 888 00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:10,160 Speaker 1: a Schwab account, or I have my like SMPTF and 889 00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:14,360 Speaker 1: a couple other basic things you could there is a 890 00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:17,560 Speaker 1: day in theory in which I could just have I 891 00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:19,720 Speaker 1: might have all that on f t X dot us. 892 00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,000 Speaker 1: That's right, And I think that there's like a lot 893 00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:27,279 Speaker 1: of advantages that system, because like it's sort of like 894 00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:30,440 Speaker 1: never fun when you're like, oh boy, I want to 895 00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:33,080 Speaker 1: go like do this thing with my money. Oh wait, 896 00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:35,840 Speaker 1: it's in the wrong pocket. Like you know, I I, 897 00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,800 Speaker 1: like wanted to go buy a banana, but it was 898 00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:40,880 Speaker 1: in my Proverge account, or like I want to buy 899 00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:43,200 Speaker 1: a bitcoin, but it was in my bank account, or 900 00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,160 Speaker 1: like I want to go buy Tesla, but it was 901 00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:48,480 Speaker 1: on my crypto account. And it takes like three days 902 00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:52,840 Speaker 1: to transfer, you know, between those Unlike like, it's not 903 00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,320 Speaker 1: a good user experience. You know, you have to have 904 00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:58,160 Speaker 1: decided days ahead of time what you're most likely to 905 00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:00,840 Speaker 1: want to use your funds for. UM and so I 906 00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:04,800 Speaker 1: do think that there's like real advantages to having a 907 00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:08,160 Speaker 1: single platform where you know, for all the most common 908 00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:10,520 Speaker 1: things you'd want to do with your funds, you can 909 00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,200 Speaker 1: do them. And you know, we're moving in that direction 910 00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:15,000 Speaker 1: on the con sumer side in the US, like we 911 00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:18,040 Speaker 1: have obviously Crypto. We have lots of methods here at 912 00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,000 Speaker 1: both Crypto and Fiat on and off the exchange. We 913 00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:23,880 Speaker 1: have a debit card that you can get tied to 914 00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:27,239 Speaker 1: your FDS account UM, which will spend whatever you happen 915 00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:29,640 Speaker 1: to have their whether it's Crypto or FIATO or whatever. 916 00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:32,560 Speaker 1: UM and and so you can you know, have your 917 00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:34,160 Speaker 1: funds there you can do your crypto trading, and you 918 00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:36,920 Speaker 1: can also go buy bread and you know, I have 919 00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:39,680 Speaker 1: like for her dealer license coming online and and and 920 00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:41,440 Speaker 1: so I think that is like definitely a part of 921 00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:45,560 Speaker 1: the vision. In the last time that we spoke to 922 00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:48,600 Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about this, but basically, every 923 00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:52,959 Speaker 1: time someone who's sort of like crypto skeptic starts first 924 00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,719 Speaker 1: thinking about the space, one of the first questions they 925 00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,840 Speaker 1: always ask is about tether. And we talked about this, 926 00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:03,480 Speaker 1: and you're you as a UM I guess the exchange, 927 00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:07,200 Speaker 1: but also with your trading. You're a tether user, and 928 00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:09,680 Speaker 1: you talked a little bit about some of the advantages 929 00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:11,799 Speaker 1: of it last time. But can you talk a little 930 00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:16,120 Speaker 1: bit further about the full experience of interacting with tether 931 00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:19,000 Speaker 1: because people, you know, people of all kinds of conspiracies like, 932 00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:21,200 Speaker 1: oh the money's out there. You never actually no one 933 00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:24,399 Speaker 1: has ever actually sold their tether and gotten us dollar back. 934 00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:26,880 Speaker 1: So forth, can you just talk a little bit about 935 00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:30,800 Speaker 1: your experience, I guess as a tether user and customer 936 00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:34,040 Speaker 1: of what happens when you use tether, when you want 937 00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:37,759 Speaker 1: to redeem tether, etcetera, and how that works as an 938 00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:42,560 Speaker 1: actual tether customer inside totally. I'm actually a little bit 939 00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:45,200 Speaker 1: curious before I jumped in, just like what like, like 940 00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:47,560 Speaker 1: Matt having like, I'm sure there's something that you've like 941 00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:51,120 Speaker 1: seen a lot of people chattering about, Like what's your 942 00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:53,600 Speaker 1: takeaway from what the chatter is like, and also what 943 00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:56,400 Speaker 1: sort of like your trying to like summary or like 944 00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:58,960 Speaker 1: thoughts are on that you know, based on that, and 945 00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:00,400 Speaker 1: then I can sort of dive into what what our 946 00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:04,359 Speaker 1: experiences has been like, ah were to be careful here. 947 00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:12,320 Speaker 1: Um like, tether Is has a strange public relations strategy, 948 00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:15,160 Speaker 1: I guess. I mean, like they talk a lot about 949 00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:17,440 Speaker 1: wanting to get an audit and then don't get an audit. 950 00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:21,840 Speaker 1: They talk a lot about their like high quality commercial 951 00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:27,279 Speaker 1: paper holdings, but don't disclose them because counterparty confidentiality is 952 00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:30,640 Speaker 1: very important to them, which is not true of any 953 00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,640 Speaker 1: other holder of commercial paper in the world. Um Like, 954 00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:37,480 Speaker 1: you can just look at like the complete holdings by 955 00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,440 Speaker 1: QUSIP of every money market fund, but forgether. It's very 956 00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,600 Speaker 1: important that they keep it secret. So if they were 957 00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:48,400 Speaker 1: doing something shady, they sound like what they sound like, 958 00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:50,960 Speaker 1: which doesn't prove that they're doing something shady, but it 959 00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:54,200 Speaker 1: is like it is confidence undermining. I think, yeah, I 960 00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:56,160 Speaker 1: think that's a pretty reasonable way of putting it. I 961 00:48:56,239 --> 00:49:00,360 Speaker 1: think like a pretty pretty odd public relations strategy is 962 00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:04,400 Speaker 1: not an unfair characterization. Um. And I think I'm generally 963 00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:06,719 Speaker 1: sort of like often sort of thought of as a 964 00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:10,279 Speaker 1: tether apologist or something. Is maybe how some people would 965 00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:15,200 Speaker 1: would phrase it. Um. I certainly wouldn't necessarily want to 966 00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:17,520 Speaker 1: say that they've like historically always chose them the best 967 00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,040 Speaker 1: PR strategy or or anything that sounds vaguely like that. 968 00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:23,560 Speaker 1: You know, I can serve a case where there's a 969 00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:25,160 Speaker 1: lot of smoke, but but I don't think there's really 970 00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:28,920 Speaker 1: much fire. But but I like get like there is 971 00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:31,640 Speaker 1: smoke and like you know, and I think that's sort 972 00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:34,160 Speaker 1: of like what's what's going on? Well, for one thing 973 00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:37,719 Speaker 1: is sort of like curious PR strategy, But putting that 974 00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:40,239 Speaker 1: that aside for a second, like, you know, how about 975 00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:43,080 Speaker 1: creating redeeming tether, Like can you do it? You can 976 00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:45,200 Speaker 1: do it, we have done, We've done billions. It's a 977 00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:48,440 Speaker 1: messy process, like it works, but it's you know, you 978 00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:50,640 Speaker 1: sort of look at creating redeeming USCC and it's like 979 00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:53,560 Speaker 1: all right, like they have their U s dollars in 980 00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:55,719 Speaker 1: a US bank account is the same bank that every 981 00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:59,400 Speaker 1: Nelson crypto uses. Takes like thirty seconds to you know 982 00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:02,719 Speaker 1: transfer even like go created, yeah, thirty seconds later they're 983 00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,160 Speaker 1: they're sending you the tokens. You can redeem it thirty 984 00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:07,400 Speaker 1: seconds later, like you see the funds in your account, 985 00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:11,960 Speaker 1: no fees. A very very kind of like straightforward, smooth process. 986 00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:13,879 Speaker 1: And I think you look at Tether and it's like, well, 987 00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:17,080 Speaker 1: it's a messy process, and I think like every piece 988 00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:20,080 Speaker 1: of mess in the process like makes it much harder 989 00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:22,520 Speaker 1: for them to have what would look like is self 990 00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:27,160 Speaker 1: evidently reasonable process. Like it just sort of like you know, 991 00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:29,480 Speaker 1: makes it sort of like really heightens the sense of 992 00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:32,600 Speaker 1: like something weird going on. I think that that's sort 993 00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:35,279 Speaker 1: of like is the answer though, is that like it 994 00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:38,440 Speaker 1: is messy, but but like the like the funds are, 995 00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:42,600 Speaker 1: they're like we see like real which admitting flows into 996 00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,680 Speaker 1: Tether from a lot of places, like massive ones that 997 00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:48,600 Speaker 1: you know then lead to market makers selling and creating 998 00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:51,920 Speaker 1: and sending you know, real billions of dollars to Tether's 999 00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:54,960 Speaker 1: bank account, you know, to create it and like you know, 1000 00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:57,800 Speaker 1: have have relationships with like father and the banks and 1001 00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:00,480 Speaker 1: and everything else involved, and like every think sort of 1002 00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:02,920 Speaker 1: checks out in a in a messy way, and then 1003 00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:04,200 Speaker 1: you can start of give to the question of like, 1004 00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:05,960 Speaker 1: all right, well, what's their business? Mouth is probably getting 1005 00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:07,960 Speaker 1: yield on the dollars? How are they doing that? I 1006 00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,359 Speaker 1: don't know, you know, like some commercial paper like stuff, um, 1007 00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:15,400 Speaker 1: and you know, I think it's like one of these 1008 00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:17,120 Speaker 1: things were like if you want to try and argue 1009 00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:19,440 Speaker 1: but whether it t other's worth likes or like a 1010 00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:21,839 Speaker 1: dollar in a penny, I think that's like a pretty 1011 00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:24,440 Speaker 1: reasonable argument, and like I don't I don't want to 1012 00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:26,560 Speaker 1: take a strong stance on that, Like I I certainly 1013 00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:28,960 Speaker 1: don't want to like strongly are you against any any 1014 00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:31,080 Speaker 1: stance there? But but I think that like when the 1015 00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:33,000 Speaker 1: argument gets like is it worth like about a dollar 1016 00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:36,120 Speaker 1: or like about thirty cents, like anything answers about a dollar, 1017 00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:39,560 Speaker 1: and like you know, the reason that it is fundamentally 1018 00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:42,560 Speaker 1: like basically backed by like you know about the right 1019 00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:44,759 Speaker 1: number probabble bit more than the right number of like 1020 00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:47,760 Speaker 1: kind of dollar like assets just in like a system 1021 00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:51,000 Speaker 1: which is like a little bit messy in every possible place, 1022 00:51:52,760 --> 00:51:55,880 Speaker 1: so they might stretch for yield, but like by buying 1023 00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:59,719 Speaker 1: like slightly nice your commercial paper where they might break 1024 00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:02,960 Speaker 1: the but go to like rather than that's like yeah, 1025 00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:05,279 Speaker 1: that that's my like and so I say this without 1026 00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:07,600 Speaker 1: knowing like exactly what their commercial papers like this is 1027 00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:09,680 Speaker 1: sort of like that that's a twist on it, which 1028 00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:12,239 Speaker 1: I'm just sort of inferring the details of that last 1029 00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:14,719 Speaker 1: piece based on like all the other interactions that serve 1030 00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:16,960 Speaker 1: if we've had with them. They could be putting it 1031 00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:18,600 Speaker 1: all into bitcoin, but that would just be sort of 1032 00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:21,400 Speaker 1: a strange move on their part because like they they 1033 00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:23,760 Speaker 1: have like a good business putting it into commercial pactly 1034 00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:27,279 Speaker 1: like they've got lots of legitimate, profitable good businesses. They 1035 00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:29,080 Speaker 1: don't need to do that. Also is unclear why they 1036 00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:32,120 Speaker 1: would do that, Like it's sort of like incredibly risky. 1037 00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:34,080 Speaker 1: Any of the other thing is like you get to 1038 00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:36,799 Speaker 1: know that people involved here they're not like that they 1039 00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:39,680 Speaker 1: really really aren't scammers. Like it's really not like you 1040 00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:41,800 Speaker 1: come away dealing with them, you're like they're selling me 1041 00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:44,880 Speaker 1: stake oil, Like they're too waitly lying about everything, and 1042 00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:47,640 Speaker 1: like I'm pretty sure that like nothing is like that's 1043 00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:50,200 Speaker 1: not at all sort of like the interactions that that 1044 00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:54,000 Speaker 1: people have with them. Did you watch the CNBC interview, Yeah, 1045 00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:57,239 Speaker 1: there is that, the one with the um with the 1046 00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:01,399 Speaker 1: legal counsel. Yeah. Yeah. I think they back themselves into 1047 00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:04,320 Speaker 1: a lot of positions where like they sort of like 1048 00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:08,319 Speaker 1: make it probably basically correct claims, but ones in which 1049 00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:10,160 Speaker 1: they're not going to, as you said, like they don't 1050 00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:15,080 Speaker 1: feel comfortable elaborating maybe for like just sort of like uh, 1051 00:53:15,239 --> 00:53:18,719 Speaker 1: you know, ethical reasons, maybe because like the truth is 1052 00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:22,000 Speaker 1: like a little bit messier than they'd like to say. Um, 1053 00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:24,520 Speaker 1: but but before a reason to make these claims and 1054 00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:27,520 Speaker 1: then like refuse to back them up, and and that's 1055 00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:30,080 Speaker 1: like never a good look. Although I think it is 1056 00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:33,320 Speaker 1: not that like there's no relationship between the claims and reality. 1057 00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:35,920 Speaker 1: I think he's just like one of those other cases. 1058 00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:39,960 Speaker 1: This might be an unfair question, but I'd be interested 1059 00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:42,800 Speaker 1: in your answer, Like if if the worst of the 1060 00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:47,840 Speaker 1: conspiracy theories were true about Tether, like I don't know, 1061 00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:51,200 Speaker 1: say it's investing, it's investing in commercial paper, but it's 1062 00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:56,040 Speaker 1: investing in like Chinese commercial paper and commercial exactly, and 1063 00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:58,640 Speaker 1: it all goes like bottom up, which which is a 1064 00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:02,560 Speaker 1: rumor that's out there. Of course, um and tether collapses. 1065 00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:08,279 Speaker 1: What would that mean for bitcoin and the wider crypto space? Yeah, 1066 00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:10,000 Speaker 1: so I do you want me to take like the 1067 00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:12,880 Speaker 1: fantastical version if that word tether goes to zero or 1068 00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:14,480 Speaker 1: dru me try and take like what I think sort 1069 00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:17,080 Speaker 1: of the most approximate, like vaguely plausible version of it. 1070 00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:21,640 Speaker 1: How about both? So maybe first I'll talk about the 1071 00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:24,640 Speaker 1: sort of plausible version. So like what if they took 1072 00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:27,719 Speaker 1: a third of the money that they had and put 1073 00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:31,560 Speaker 1: it in like sort be here commercial paper from China, 1074 00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:35,440 Speaker 1: like be here for China commercial paper, and and then 1075 00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:36,879 Speaker 1: you know, there's sort of a run in the bank 1076 00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:39,440 Speaker 1: in China as looks like you know, however that that 1077 00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:42,920 Speaker 1: could happen, um and uh, And it turns out that 1078 00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:47,680 Speaker 1: like this beat your commercial paper like to bolded on 1079 00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:50,640 Speaker 1: average or something, And so you ended up with like, 1080 00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:54,719 Speaker 1: you know, a twelve percent loss of the tether treasury, right, 1081 00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:58,239 Speaker 1: you know percent or something like that. Like let's say 1082 00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:01,040 Speaker 1: that's where you ended up, which at the like you know, 1083 00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:05,360 Speaker 1: sort of like very negative but like not completely implausible outcome. 1084 00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:08,480 Speaker 1: What happens then? So tether is sort of in some 1085 00:55:08,719 --> 00:55:12,200 Speaker 1: some mystical sense, is worth eighty eight cents or well 1086 00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:14,080 Speaker 1: it's worth it at least eight eight sense, right, like 1087 00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:16,520 Speaker 1: you can redeem it sort of maybe for eight cents. 1088 00:55:17,080 --> 00:55:18,920 Speaker 1: You know what's the loss? The loss there's like ten 1089 00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:23,839 Speaker 1: billion or something. One possibility, obviously, is like nothing happens, right, 1090 00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:27,719 Speaker 1: like unless people try to redeem almost all the tether 1091 00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:31,640 Speaker 1: and existence like they could keep processing. Maybe it doesn't 1092 00:55:31,680 --> 00:55:33,399 Speaker 1: even comes out. Maybe it comes out and for whatever 1093 00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:36,920 Speaker 1: rective because system doesn't seem to care. Um. That is 1094 00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:39,120 Speaker 1: like I think a plausible answer, right, it's just like 1095 00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,680 Speaker 1: weirdly things continue on as if that didn't happen. Um. 1096 00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:44,319 Speaker 1: But also maybe there's a little bit of a run 1097 00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:47,960 Speaker 1: on tether um the their banking partners start to get 1098 00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:52,279 Speaker 1: nervous redeeming. It becomes very difficult. Maybe they don't give 1099 00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:54,680 Speaker 1: you a dollar on the dollar for redemptions, maybe they 1100 00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:57,360 Speaker 1: limit them. They say, look, the world can only redeem 1101 00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:01,320 Speaker 1: one billion dollars per week total of tether maximum, and 1102 00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:04,800 Speaker 1: the world wants to redeem billion, and so there's like 1103 00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:06,799 Speaker 1: a race to redeem your tethers, and most people are 1104 00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:11,080 Speaker 1: not getting filled on those redemptions. Tether crashes down cents 1105 00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:14,160 Speaker 1: on the dollar, and markets you know, there's a lot 1106 00:56:14,239 --> 00:56:17,360 Speaker 1: of people who are stockpiling tether have losses of you know, 1107 00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:21,480 Speaker 1: and then I think sort of like, you know, there's 1108 00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:25,800 Speaker 1: some regulatory crackdowns on stable coins, and these mostly continue 1109 00:56:25,840 --> 00:56:28,200 Speaker 1: on as they were before, except that like you know, 1110 00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:32,120 Speaker 1: ten billion dollars total was lost between tether holders. Um, 1111 00:56:32,400 --> 00:56:34,879 Speaker 1: maybe they recover that eventually, right, Like if the tether 1112 00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:38,040 Speaker 1: is effectively backed by the combined equity of bit finex 1113 00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:41,359 Speaker 1: and tether, then like maybe that's like maybe it all 1114 00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:44,480 Speaker 1: ends up kind of okay, although like certainly, like you know, 1115 00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:46,839 Speaker 1: not in the liquid sense, you know, frankly, I think 1116 00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:48,359 Speaker 1: they could probably do a lot of things to try 1117 00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:51,719 Speaker 1: and plug that in the meantime. But like that that's 1118 00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:53,640 Speaker 1: sort of like I think roughly how that that would end, 1119 00:56:53,719 --> 00:56:55,120 Speaker 1: Like you would see each other. It gets sort of 1120 00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,719 Speaker 1: like repriced to like you know, ten cents center or whatever, 1121 00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:01,160 Speaker 1: fifteen cents center, I don't know, you know, it'd be 1122 00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:03,279 Speaker 1: like it's dock split and tether it'xcept you know where 1123 00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:06,440 Speaker 1: you didn't get more tethers and yeah, bitcoin tether and 1124 00:57:06,560 --> 00:57:09,400 Speaker 1: start training a different price price from bitcoin USD on 1125 00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:12,600 Speaker 1: major exchanges. The pig would like mostly break, there'd be 1126 00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:15,480 Speaker 1: like this absolute race redemptions fees for a dem would 1127 00:57:15,480 --> 00:57:17,560 Speaker 1: go up to a percent or two. They kind of 1128 00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:20,040 Speaker 1: slowly get through. People make a bunch of money doing 1129 00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:22,720 Speaker 1: the arbitrage. It would be a really bad look regulars 1130 00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:24,680 Speaker 1: who cracked down and stable points in crypto in general, 1131 00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:27,520 Speaker 1: and life would go on and probably the bitcoin crashes 1132 00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:31,600 Speaker 1: ten percent on like the bad pr that's like sort 1133 00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:35,360 Speaker 1: of roughly my guests like how that would play out? Um, 1134 00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:37,000 Speaker 1: I think it's like, would not be disastrous for the 1135 00:57:37,040 --> 00:57:40,680 Speaker 1: cript because systems, but clearly bad. Now we can start 1136 00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:43,320 Speaker 1: to take this other hypothetical of like what if it's 1137 00:57:43,360 --> 00:57:45,520 Speaker 1: worth as a row, Right, what if they like put 1138 00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:49,560 Speaker 1: a percent of it was in commercial paper of like 1139 00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:55,040 Speaker 1: one company and that one company goes bankrupt or something 1140 00:57:55,080 --> 00:57:57,280 Speaker 1: sort of equivalent to that, Right, Like what if somehow 1141 00:57:57,360 --> 00:58:01,560 Speaker 1: they lose the vast majority of the tether treasury. That's 1142 00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:04,680 Speaker 1: that's way worse. Like now, all of a sudden you 1143 00:58:04,720 --> 00:58:07,760 Speaker 1: have like a seventy billion dollar loss or whatever in crypto. 1144 00:58:08,160 --> 00:58:09,920 Speaker 1: I can't remember the current market gap, but like that's 1145 00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:12,640 Speaker 1: that's the order. You know, what's that mean? Well? Tether 1146 00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:16,960 Speaker 1: like BTC tether markets due to infinity, I guess you know, 1147 00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:20,600 Speaker 1: like like he probably gets it's it's you know, delisted 1148 00:58:20,680 --> 00:58:22,720 Speaker 1: from some venues. So there are a lot of bitcoin 1149 00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:26,080 Speaker 1: tether futures out there. Now this kind of a fun one, right, 1150 00:58:26,440 --> 00:58:28,800 Speaker 1: what if you have a quarterly bitcoin tether future and 1151 00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:32,920 Speaker 1: tether goes to zero? Like, what's your future expired? Too? Is? 1152 00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:35,840 Speaker 1: You know, sorry infinity? And like how do you like 1153 00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:37,840 Speaker 1: what's the pen l transfer there? Like are you trying 1154 00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:43,080 Speaker 1: to transfer infinity tethers each resido dollars from the losers 1155 00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:47,320 Speaker 1: the winners on that from the shorts of loongs like okay, 1156 00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:49,800 Speaker 1: so that that like some exchange you would have to 1157 00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:52,840 Speaker 1: contend with that. And there really are a significant open 1158 00:58:52,920 --> 00:58:55,480 Speaker 1: interests in bitcoin to other futures. Now, if it's a 1159 00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:58,320 Speaker 1: ten percent move, maybe something a little whacky happens. A 1160 00:58:58,320 --> 00:58:59,800 Speaker 1: lot of people thought they had a hedge and their 1161 00:58:59,800 --> 00:59:02,400 Speaker 1: head was not really a hedge. Um, but like you 1162 00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:04,800 Speaker 1: still expirem just like expires of forty four k instead 1163 00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:07,000 Speaker 1: of for d k. Right, if it's actually going close 1164 00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:10,400 Speaker 1: to zerow honestly think that a lot of exchange, would 1165 00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:14,320 Speaker 1: you sort of lie? Right? They just like silently removed 1166 00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:16,520 Speaker 1: the t from the end of the markets and hope 1167 00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:19,560 Speaker 1: no one noticed, and like the indexes would be steriously 1168 00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:24,680 Speaker 1: change and then there would be like like thiss of 1169 00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:29,000 Speaker 1: open interest in them which was collateralized fifty by tether 1170 00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:31,560 Speaker 1: from users, and the tether's now worth zero, and the 1171 00:59:31,640 --> 00:59:33,880 Speaker 1: exchange would have to choose between taking a massive loss 1172 00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:36,760 Speaker 1: or doing a massive claw back, or you know, it 1173 00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:40,320 Speaker 1: would be a mess. In other words, like like like 1174 00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,880 Speaker 1: a tether, like a bitcoin tether future is implicitly a 1175 00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:47,880 Speaker 1: Bitcoin us D future, and when tether starts being us D, 1176 00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:49,920 Speaker 1: they just sort of say, well, we really mentioned in 1177 00:59:50,040 --> 00:59:52,439 Speaker 1: us that's like my honest guess about what would happen 1178 00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:55,920 Speaker 1: on some venues like and and But of course that 1179 00:59:55,960 --> 00:59:58,440 Speaker 1: doesn't solve It's it's an interesting question because it's like, 1180 00:59:58,600 --> 01:00:02,240 Speaker 1: if you are like taking a position on tether, are 1181 01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:05,320 Speaker 1: you implicitly taking a U s D position or are 1182 01:00:05,320 --> 01:00:08,120 Speaker 1: you implicitly like betting on the credit risk? And the 1183 01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:11,840 Speaker 1: answer is, if you're taking a tether USD future like 1184 01:00:11,960 --> 01:00:14,160 Speaker 1: a U S T T gets U S T U 1185 01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:17,400 Speaker 1: s D futures position, you're clearly taking a credit risk position. 1186 01:00:17,600 --> 01:00:19,200 Speaker 1: But if you're putting on it, yeah, but if if 1187 01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:21,960 Speaker 1: it's a bitcoin tether. It's probably exactly no when he's 1188 01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:25,160 Speaker 1: using that, not no one but like open interest is 1189 01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:28,480 Speaker 1: trying to bet on bit, not tether. On this note, uh, 1190 01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:30,320 Speaker 1: And I want to just talk a little bit, make 1191 01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:31,760 Speaker 1: sure we get a little bit more to some of 1192 01:00:31,840 --> 01:00:34,640 Speaker 1: the interesting products you have f t X. There is 1193 01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:37,919 Speaker 1: like you have like this, it's an inverse or there's 1194 01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:40,640 Speaker 1: like a short tether. Is it a short tether future 1195 01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:44,160 Speaker 1: or like a three x short both and yeah, both, 1196 01:00:44,200 --> 01:00:47,120 Speaker 1: But actually like that's been a fantastic performer because or 1197 01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:49,280 Speaker 1: what is it, like a three x long tether thing 1198 01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:53,080 Speaker 1: that's just been like this position product that he's done 1199 01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:57,120 Speaker 1: pretty well. That's just because basically harvesting premium from all 1200 01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:00,320 Speaker 1: the people that are betting on tether's collapse. Like explain 1201 01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:03,040 Speaker 1: that product. I think it's basically right. So like right 1202 01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:05,400 Speaker 1: now I look at the tether. So we have on 1203 01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:07,800 Speaker 1: ft X, we have a U S T t against 1204 01:01:07,880 --> 01:01:10,960 Speaker 1: us D future. It's you know, a cash settled future 1205 01:01:11,360 --> 01:01:13,920 Speaker 1: on the USD price of tether. And so this is 1206 01:01:14,040 --> 01:01:20,000 Speaker 1: explicitly a credit risk product. And you know, and so 1207 01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:22,000 Speaker 1: you can ask what is it trading at so spa 1208 01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:25,920 Speaker 1: U S D t U s D is currently at one, 1209 01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:29,520 Speaker 1: so it's it's trading at a dollar and there's millions 1210 01:01:29,560 --> 01:01:31,760 Speaker 1: of dollars bid on both sides of that one basis 1211 01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:35,400 Speaker 1: point wide market. Now you look at the quarterly tether futures, 1212 01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:41,200 Speaker 1: so these are futures expiring in about two months September um, 1213 01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:44,200 Speaker 1: and they're currently there's forty million dollars of open interest 1214 01:01:44,360 --> 01:01:47,080 Speaker 1: right now on these on FTX and they're currently trading 1215 01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:51,080 Speaker 1: forty cents under you're training. What that means is that, like, 1216 01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:53,400 Speaker 1: you know, the market, if you wanted to read it 1217 01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:56,440 Speaker 1: this way, is pricing in you know, forty BIPs per 1218 01:01:56,760 --> 01:02:00,440 Speaker 1: month or per two months, so twenty a month of 1219 01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:04,680 Speaker 1: credit risk and tether every month that tether doesn't crash, 1220 01:02:05,480 --> 01:02:07,480 Speaker 1: like everyone who thought it was betting it was getting 1221 01:02:07,480 --> 01:02:09,520 Speaker 1: crash like bleeds a little bit, and every who bet 1222 01:02:09,560 --> 01:02:11,680 Speaker 1: that it wasn't giving crash gains a little bit and 1223 01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:16,000 Speaker 1: not surprisingly, like the world is divided into two people, 1224 01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:17,800 Speaker 1: not three people. These people are the people who think 1225 01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:19,880 Speaker 1: it won't crash and the people who think it will. 1226 01:02:20,440 --> 01:02:22,120 Speaker 1: There aren't people who think it's gonna go up to 1227 01:02:22,160 --> 01:02:24,960 Speaker 1: two dollars. It's like a massive bowl on the price 1228 01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:27,800 Speaker 1: of tether like one dollars through what you're shooting for. Um. 1229 01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:30,720 Speaker 1: And so because of this, like no one is like 1230 01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:32,520 Speaker 1: trying to buy this up above a dollar, like the 1231 01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:35,160 Speaker 1: words between the people shorting in at a dollar and 1232 01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:37,120 Speaker 1: the people who are lunging it below a dollar. So 1233 01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:39,920 Speaker 1: it's gonna settle below a dollar almost certainly. With with 1234 01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:42,400 Speaker 1: some cavats we get to actually there's some weird market dynamics. 1235 01:02:42,480 --> 01:02:44,919 Speaker 1: But um, but you know, because you always create blow 1236 01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:48,120 Speaker 1: a dollar basically and it never has blown down, right, 1237 01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:50,120 Speaker 1: and so like just you know, I think this is 1238 01:02:50,160 --> 01:02:54,640 Speaker 1: a prediction market, right like every year exactly every year 1239 01:02:54,680 --> 01:02:57,120 Speaker 1: that tether doesn't default, Like that's a little bit of 1240 01:02:57,160 --> 01:02:59,320 Speaker 1: basing en update against the like tether is going to 1241 01:02:59,400 --> 01:03:02,040 Speaker 1: default philosophy, and it's a little bit of enoughing towards 1242 01:03:02,080 --> 01:03:05,760 Speaker 1: the like tether is worth a dollar philosophy. Um. So 1243 01:03:05,840 --> 01:03:08,080 Speaker 1: if you think about a CDs, right, twenty pips per month, 1244 01:03:08,360 --> 01:03:10,479 Speaker 1: that's what that's like three two and a half percent 1245 01:03:10,560 --> 01:03:14,080 Speaker 1: a year that this is trading under. You know, is 1246 01:03:14,160 --> 01:03:16,320 Speaker 1: that first of it's not an insane number, right, if 1247 01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:19,720 Speaker 1: there's a something that yeah, that's right, you know, if 1248 01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:22,160 Speaker 1: this we're training at twenty percent under that would be 1249 01:03:22,160 --> 01:03:24,080 Speaker 1: an insane number. Like that's the kind of thing where 1250 01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:26,600 Speaker 1: like it's been five years and tether hasn't imploded, like 1251 01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:29,240 Speaker 1: already your your your like your thesis is not looking 1252 01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:32,280 Speaker 1: so good, Like at two and a half percent a year, 1253 01:03:32,320 --> 01:03:33,920 Speaker 1: I think that's too big of a discount, But like 1254 01:03:34,240 --> 01:03:36,400 Speaker 1: I could be wrong on that, you know, I certainly 1255 01:03:36,440 --> 01:03:38,000 Speaker 1: like you know that you can't look at history and 1256 01:03:38,080 --> 01:03:41,280 Speaker 1: be like two percent years obviously too big of a discount. 1257 01:03:41,440 --> 01:03:43,800 Speaker 1: I would say that's tight versus their pr. Oh yeah, 1258 01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:46,560 Speaker 1: absolutely right, this is serve And that's sort of what's 1259 01:03:46,600 --> 01:03:48,600 Speaker 1: going on, right, Like it's sort of trading halfway between 1260 01:03:48,920 --> 01:03:51,320 Speaker 1: their pr on the one hand and the fact that 1261 01:03:51,440 --> 01:03:55,200 Speaker 1: that people successfully redeem it on the other hand. Right, Yeah, 1262 01:03:55,280 --> 01:03:57,520 Speaker 1: I think that like if you have like some experience 1263 01:03:57,600 --> 01:03:59,640 Speaker 1: and trap by like the fact that people have a 1264 01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:01,800 Speaker 1: success where he deemed it for some like single digit 1265 01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:05,040 Speaker 1: number of years is like only so incouraged. And I 1266 01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:07,000 Speaker 1: don't want to frame that as like this should make 1267 01:04:07,040 --> 01:04:10,080 Speaker 1: you infinitely encouraged about it or anything. And I really 1268 01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:12,320 Speaker 1: don't want to push back into people who think it 1269 01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:15,080 Speaker 1: should be at a two percent for your discount, not 1270 01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:17,560 Speaker 1: not not saying necessarily agree with them, but like I 1271 01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:19,960 Speaker 1: don't think they have a crazy position at all. Right, 1272 01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:22,360 Speaker 1: The thing I wanted to push back into the people 1273 01:04:22,400 --> 01:04:25,240 Speaker 1: who think it should have like at per your discount, 1274 01:04:25,720 --> 01:04:28,520 Speaker 1: you know, this is like just not worth anything like 1275 01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:30,920 Speaker 1: a dollar position, which like I think there's a lot 1276 01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:34,320 Speaker 1: of evidence that that position is like not really right, um, 1277 01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:36,280 Speaker 1: Whereas I think when you get to the questions like 1278 01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:38,160 Speaker 1: should this be worth a dollar or like a little 1279 01:04:38,200 --> 01:04:40,840 Speaker 1: bit less? Think of his commercial paper, right, like what 1280 01:04:40,960 --> 01:04:43,520 Speaker 1: you tell the commercial paper trade at you know, a 1281 01:04:43,640 --> 01:04:47,800 Speaker 1: sort of synthetic commercial paper, commercial paper whatever, you know, 1282 01:04:47,920 --> 01:04:49,560 Speaker 1: And the answer is like, I don't know, yeah, you 1283 01:04:49,600 --> 01:04:53,720 Speaker 1: know sort of like, um, I could tell we could 1284 01:04:53,800 --> 01:04:56,680 Speaker 1: we could talk about this for like another hour and 1285 01:04:56,720 --> 01:04:59,760 Speaker 1: a half probably, um, but I know Matt has to 1286 01:04:59,800 --> 01:05:03,200 Speaker 1: go because the Archagos Report is calling him and I 1287 01:05:03,360 --> 01:05:06,200 Speaker 1: have to go feed a puppy. We should try to 1288 01:05:06,280 --> 01:05:08,600 Speaker 1: Maybe we should make this like a regular catch up 1289 01:05:09,000 --> 01:05:10,400 Speaker 1: that we can do every once in a while. That 1290 01:05:10,440 --> 01:05:14,280 Speaker 1: would be fun. I would love to do that. Yeah, 1291 01:05:14,400 --> 01:05:16,680 Speaker 1: this is this is This is a real treat And 1292 01:05:17,040 --> 01:05:20,120 Speaker 1: thanks to both of you for coming out, and absolutely 1293 01:05:20,160 --> 01:05:22,320 Speaker 1: would love to do it again. Yeah, this is super fun. 1294 01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:25,400 Speaker 1: I totally do you great? Yeah, me as well, Thank 1295 01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:43,920 Speaker 1: you guys, Thanks gov Um well Joe. I enjoyed that conversation. 1296 01:05:43,960 --> 01:05:46,320 Speaker 1: It was nice to catch up with Sam as always, 1297 01:05:46,480 --> 01:05:48,600 Speaker 1: and I am very curious to see what he does 1298 01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:52,040 Speaker 1: with million dollars um. One thing that struck me was 1299 01:05:52,160 --> 01:05:55,640 Speaker 1: his sort of vision for the ultimate end state of 1300 01:05:55,760 --> 01:05:59,400 Speaker 1: the exchange, Like this idea of centralizing all your money 1301 01:05:59,560 --> 01:06:03,960 Speaker 1: in one place, not just as not just for your investments, 1302 01:06:04,040 --> 01:06:06,880 Speaker 1: so you're investing in stocks, in crypto, but also for 1303 01:06:07,040 --> 01:06:09,920 Speaker 1: payments like that was pretty intriguing. Yeah, I thought that 1304 01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:12,560 Speaker 1: was really interesting, and I, you know, it really does 1305 01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:15,200 Speaker 1: speak to the scope of the ambition. But again, you know, 1306 01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:18,960 Speaker 1: here's someone or here's an exchange that literally almost nobody 1307 01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:20,960 Speaker 1: had heard of a year ago, and now it's one 1308 01:06:21,000 --> 01:06:23,800 Speaker 1: of the most powerful players in the entire world. So 1309 01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:26,760 Speaker 1: it's like you're like kind of skeptical, like betting against it, 1310 01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:29,040 Speaker 1: and like, would it shocked me if a bunch of 1311 01:06:29,120 --> 01:06:32,080 Speaker 1: Americans had like there you know s P y E 1312 01:06:32,200 --> 01:06:33,920 Speaker 1: T F and t L T and all that and 1313 01:06:34,360 --> 01:06:37,200 Speaker 1: uh F t x U S one day uh based 1314 01:06:37,200 --> 01:06:39,400 Speaker 1: on the trajectory not I also thought that was like 1315 01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:42,280 Speaker 1: a really good episode just because, like, you know, a 1316 01:06:42,360 --> 01:06:46,360 Speaker 1: lot of these like crypto conversations, you know, they could 1317 01:06:46,360 --> 01:06:48,680 Speaker 1: be a little bit like it was just nice to 1318 01:06:48,760 --> 01:06:51,160 Speaker 1: like sort of like strip away or get past some 1319 01:06:51,280 --> 01:06:53,080 Speaker 1: of the whole conversation about what this is all for, 1320 01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:56,400 Speaker 1: which is again another time, but also just like how 1321 01:06:56,520 --> 01:06:59,280 Speaker 1: it really works, and I think learning a little bit 1322 01:06:59,320 --> 01:07:01,840 Speaker 1: about just like this idea of like how crypto like 1323 01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:04,240 Speaker 1: collapsed as a lot of this stuff like whether it's 1324 01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:07,200 Speaker 1: the clearinghouse and the exchange and the broker, it's all 1325 01:07:07,280 --> 01:07:10,120 Speaker 1: sort of flattened into one and thinking about the implications. 1326 01:07:10,240 --> 01:07:13,920 Speaker 1: That was very interesting to hear Matt and Sam sort 1327 01:07:13,960 --> 01:07:16,479 Speaker 1: of riff on riff on these topics. But yeah, also 1328 01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,800 Speaker 1: just weird to hear Matt Levine, of all people referred 1329 01:07:19,840 --> 01:07:23,120 Speaker 1: to the financial industry as trad five Like I was not. 1330 01:07:23,600 --> 01:07:26,160 Speaker 1: I was not ready for that. Um, but that kind 1331 01:07:26,200 --> 01:07:29,280 Speaker 1: of shows how far we've come. Um. The one other 1332 01:07:29,320 --> 01:07:31,680 Speaker 1: thing I would say is I still think there's an 1333 01:07:31,720 --> 01:07:36,200 Speaker 1: open question around tether and we are certainly not done 1334 01:07:36,440 --> 01:07:39,680 Speaker 1: discussing it on on the podcast, So we're gonna have to, um, 1335 01:07:40,040 --> 01:07:41,880 Speaker 1: We're gonna have to dig into that one a little 1336 01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:45,040 Speaker 1: bit more, I think. Yeah, I mean it's like it's interesting. 1337 01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:50,400 Speaker 1: Like I was surprised because just having followed um Sam 1338 01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:54,240 Speaker 1: and his colleagues and even last time, I got some 1339 01:07:54,480 --> 01:07:57,560 Speaker 1: answers to questions, but now I have more questions. Yeah, 1340 01:07:57,880 --> 01:08:00,200 Speaker 1: so we'll have to do another We'll collect all our 1341 01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:03,480 Speaker 1: questions and uh and get back to the listeners. Um. 1342 01:08:03,560 --> 01:08:05,520 Speaker 1: Shall we leave it there? Yeah, let's leave it there. 1343 01:08:05,800 --> 01:08:08,240 Speaker 1: All right. This has been another episode of the All 1344 01:08:08,320 --> 01:08:10,960 Speaker 1: Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on 1345 01:08:11,120 --> 01:08:14,240 Speaker 1: Twitter at Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Wisntal. You can 1346 01:08:14,280 --> 01:08:17,559 Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at the Stalwart. Follow our guests 1347 01:08:17,880 --> 01:08:21,920 Speaker 1: on Twitter Sam bankman Fried He's at SBF Underscore f 1348 01:08:22,040 --> 01:08:25,360 Speaker 1: t X, and follow Matt Levine on Twitter at Matt 1349 01:08:25,520 --> 01:08:29,120 Speaker 1: Underscore Levine. And be sure to follow our producer Laura Carlson. 1350 01:08:29,280 --> 01:08:32,880 Speaker 1: She's at Laura M. Carlson. Followed the Bloomberg head of podcast, 1351 01:08:32,960 --> 01:08:36,519 Speaker 1: Francesco Levi at Francesca Today, and check out all of 1352 01:08:36,600 --> 01:08:40,760 Speaker 1: our podcasts at Bloomberg under the handle at podcasts. Thanks 1353 01:08:40,800 --> 01:09:02,160 Speaker 1: for listening to