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Ethereum Sentiment Skyrockets!🚀Sharplink CEO INTERVIEW · The Paul Barron Crypto Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Eth is rage pumping. And today, of course, when we're
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: breaking that down, is this the moment we've been waiting
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: on around bitcoin and ethereum finally disconnecting, You guys want
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to stick around for it. Before we get started, I
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• 0:47
  Speaker 1: self custing. One thing I want to focus in on
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: right now, eth of course, is it rage pumping, because
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: right now people are looking at this even though the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: strait is closed. Totally agree with that. War is kind
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of back on CPI looks good. Okay, I would have
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: say agree to all of those things. And when you
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: compare that to the chart, well, there's Eth versus Bitcoin,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and it has been up into the right and it's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: actually in an area right now that maybe in a
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: green zone that could go into a breakout. So we're
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: watching this one very closely, and we wanted to bring
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: on a guest today to kind of break down some
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: of the narratives behind what's happening with ethereum, and of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: course I want to bring on our guests, and that
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: is Joseph Shalom, who's been with us before, the CEO
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of Sharp Blink.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: How are you doing great, Paul, happy to be back.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So a lot happening here. First of all, when
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: you look at the charts and what's happening with Eth
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and Bitcoin today, you kind of consider the macro headwinds,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: even some of the news on CPI coming in much lighter.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Do you think Eth is actually breaking away from bitcoin
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: right now?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I think the last month or so you've seen a
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: rapid growth in the price of Eth from what was
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: a multi year low of about fifteen hundred today's trading
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: in the high eighteen hundreds. Shockingly, I don't think it's
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: actually macro. I think there's been a number of significant
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: ecosystem announcements that over the last several weeks, the largest
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: stewards of Ethereum have injected a bunch of confidence and
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: stewardship and new organizations that are essentially reshaping the narrative.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: And I think it's says much a narrative than a macro.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: The other announcement that was really really positive was Robinhood
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: choosing the THEEUM ecosystem through arbitrum, and this combination of
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: ecosystem support, the new narrative and another use case has
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: been very, very bullish for THEEUM ecosystem and also for
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the price of ether.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: All Right, so a lot of things happening because you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: maybe we did a video last week actually to that point,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: is Robinhood causing a little bit of this pump because
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: it's opening up some new narratives here and we'll get
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: into some of those some of what's been happening on
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: robin hood chain as we see a whole meme culture
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: start to rise. But I think there's going to be
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: some narratives that maybe have not played out just yet.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I was looking at a tweet you guys put out
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and it's a reference to your launch of eth Systems.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: This of course gets into a whole layer of partnerships.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: You've got of course Joe Lubin, the found co founder
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: over there, and of course you guys Sharplink and bitmin
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: as well. First of all, what is this and explain
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to me why this particular partnership.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Sure, this is the third of a number of recent
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: announcements in the Theorum ecosystem, and I want to be
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: very direct, the theorym ecosystem lost lost its narrative and
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: a bit of confidence as the Ethereum Foundation narrative scope
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: and reduced the size of its group. Over the last month,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: there have been three spinouts from the Ethereum Foundation, eth
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Labs as an infrastructure builder, Ethereum Institutional, the go to
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: market for Ethereum, and today a for profit organization called
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Eths Systems that is focusing on institutional privacy and compliance.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: These are some of the densest talent organizations that are
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: going on offense now along with the private sector. And
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  Speaker 2: it's not a surprise that the backers of these three
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  Speaker 2: organizations are Tom Lee from Bitmin, Sharplink, and Joe Lubin
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: because the private owners in the dats realize they have
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: an aligned interest to support the ecosystem. And I think
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: we see a rejuvenation of confidence and a turning around
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: in the sentiment around eth The actual scoreboard has been
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: great for Ethereum, leading in tokenization, leading in stable coins,
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  Speaker 2: leading in DeFi over by large margins. This is the
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: sentiment and the confidence catching up to reality and facts
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: don't lie, even though the price has lacked. So you're
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: seeing a conservative effort by the largest stewards and owners
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: of ethan the world to bring some clarity to what's
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: coming in the future, which is this massive institutional adoption
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: super cycle. And we're telling the story better than we have.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I look at this and I kind
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: of compare it to what's happened in the tech industry.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Most of the time. In the tech industry, you've got
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the titans of industry not working together. They are in
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: factual working against each other in many cases, trying to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: steal talent, all that kind of thing. So why wouldn't
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: these three entities just merge just great one giant Ethereum
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: machine and take it from there, Why not go that right?
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: It seems like I don't think you're in cooperating.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I don't think we need to merge to have aligned interest.
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  Speaker 2: You know. Joe Lubin is a co founder of Ethereum,
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  Speaker 2: a large holder of ETH, runs one of the largest
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  Speaker 2: Ethereum companies called Consensus. Tom Lee runs Bitmined with a
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: very retail oriented voice. I have a lot of respect
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  Speaker 2: for him. We have a more institutional approach, but I
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: think there's nothing wrong with having coopetition in an industry.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: But we're at a moment where we have more aligned
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  Speaker 2: interest than competition, and we're putting our dollars in ETH
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  Speaker 2: to that interest to support the ecosystem. And you're seeing
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's a correlation or a conversation,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: but since this concerted effort, you've seen the price of
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: ETH rise from a low of fifteen hundred rally over
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: twenty percent. Not because it lacked the capabilities, it lacked
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: the sentiment, and the sentiment it's turned to be very
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  Speaker 2: very bullish.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it has turned very bullish. And I think one
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: of the factors that might be leading that in is
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: what's been happening on the robin Hood chain. This was
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: an interesting analysis right here in terms of robin Hood's
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  Speaker 1: rent paid to theeum by this is where they are
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: right now in terms of factor of four if you
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: look at the Arbitram's rent paid. So the point is
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: is that there's a lot of movement here on this chain,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: very early on, is going to cause maybe the core
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: architecture of ethereum just to continue to grow in the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: price to go up. Is there anything that can slow
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: this down?
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I think we're at a moment where the world's
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  Speaker 2: largest financial institutions, government central banks, top tier gesibs, and
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: fintech companies are making a choice about their financial rails
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  Speaker 2: of the future. Arbitram had a lot of choices across
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  Speaker 2: other layer one, layer twos. They chose Arbitram, and they
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: chose the Theorum ecosystem because of its security and modularity.
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  Speaker 2: And I think what you're going to end up seeing
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  Speaker 2: is a number of these case studies by the largest
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  Speaker 2: financial institutions in the world. And I think we're at
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  Speaker 2: the bottom of the first inning of tokenization, stable coins
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: and on chain activity before you even get to an
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  Speaker 2: agentic revolution. So I think it's a proof point and
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  Speaker 2: it's a case study, and in a matter of a week,
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  Speaker 2: the volume you're seeing from Robinhood on the Arbitram Layer
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  Speaker 2: two ethereum chain is massive, and we're just getting started.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's a direction of travel. It's not the endgame.
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  Speaker 2: It's the beginning of an adoption supercycle. So we're very bullish.
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  Speaker 1: That's the application revenue I'm showing on screen right there,
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  Speaker 1: in a very short period of time, Robinhood flying up
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  Speaker 1: the charts.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Here.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think that Robinhood will hit the same wall
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  Speaker 1: that base did.
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  Speaker 2: I think what we're going to end up seeing is
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  Speaker 2: that's a drop in the bucket. You're going to see
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  Speaker 2: arbit You're going to see Arbitram support Robinhood on massive
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  Speaker 2: amounts of tokenized equities. You're going to see SpaceX trading,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: You're going to see Nvidia in tokenized format. So I
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: think as much as this is starting as a crypto
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  Speaker 2: platform and a crypto story, I think this is the beginning,
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  Speaker 2: not the end of the cycle. So I anticipate this
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  Speaker 2: growing very rapidly and rather than hitting a wall. The
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  Speaker 2: target audience and the target market is any participant on Robinhood,
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  Speaker 2: not just those who are buying and selling bitcoin. It's
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: going to be tokenized assets and funds and commodities. So
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I think robinhood is making a bet that these ecosystems
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  Speaker 2: are converging and the target market is not trillions, it's tens,
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  Speaker 2: if not hundreds of trillions.
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  Speaker 1: Interesting tens if not hundreds of trillions. So all right, Well,
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  Speaker 1: with that being the case, what would you say is
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  Speaker 1: maybe the next big retail chain that would jump into
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: what is happening right now with Ethereum, because this has
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  Speaker 1: been a big move with I guess you could call
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  Speaker 1: robin in essence of retail chain, but in reality it
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: is moving a little differently because of its tied to
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  Speaker 1: the financial industry. What about another maybe major corporation, retail, hospitality,
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  Speaker 1: you know? Where do you say?
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  Speaker 2: I think? I think the next thing you're going to
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  Speaker 2: see is most of the online brokerages who are competing
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  Speaker 2: with Robinhood but may not be as tech aligned or
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: crypto aligned, start building wallet infrastructure so crypto n chain
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  Speaker 2: wallet infrastructure side by side with their analog accounts, so
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  Speaker 2: that investors who are coming to them to say I
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: want to own bitcoin or Ether or tokenized SpaceX or
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: a tokenized black rock fund can continue to own that
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: asset within a traditional brokerage firm. So I think Robinhood
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  Speaker 2: is starting the battle, and I think you're going to
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  Speaker 2: see people rinse and repeat because you have a younger
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  Speaker 2: generation who may not want to own mutual funds, who
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: may not want to own private funds. They want to
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: own things in tokenized format so they can trade at
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: twenty four to seven so they can lend against it,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: borrow against it. So I think you're going to see
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  Speaker 2: people copying Robinhood because otherwise Robinhood is going to take
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  Speaker 2: not just the twenty year old demographic, but the thirty
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: and forty year olds around the globe. And I think
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: this is going to be a global phenomenon. Traditional brokerage
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: firms and banks building wallet infrastructure to appeal to a
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: new generation of investors.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Do you think that tradfi was caught off guards by
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the success of where robinhood was going, because I think
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: even Robinhood was maybe a little caught off guard here.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: The traditional broker dealers and financial advisors have two challenges
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: ahead of them. One is the neo banks and the
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: fintech platforms that you see like a Robinhood in Hong Kong,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Futu in Korea, toasts and cacaopay. These are institutions that
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: are appealing to a completely different generation. We're inheriting trillions
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: of dollars of wealth. That's one challenge. I think the
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: second challenge is agentic. Do you need a financial advisor
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: who's fifty six years old who can only manage one
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty accounts, or are the younger investors going
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: to start using clawed in other capabilities to build portfolios,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: to rebalance portfolios, to move assets, to pay people. So
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I think the banking system either needs to open and
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: engage as well as asset management and financial advisory, otherwise
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: they could be left out and intermediated by the new
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: tech that actually makes it easier to manage your money
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: than calling and visiting an advisor.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: One other question I want to ask you, Joe, when
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: you look at the biggest over overhang for bitcoin and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: you kind of consider what Michael Sailor is up against
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: right now and where quantum and QDA is for the
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: core of core devs, how would you weigh that out
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: right now in terms of the biggest overhang for bitcoin
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I think the two biggest overhangs are one narrative. You know,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I am a huge proponent of bitcoin and people owning
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: bitcoin in their portfolios. This is not an eth versus
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: bitcoin story. And when I was at black Rock, we
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: launched the largest bitcoin ETF in history, called ibit, because
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: we had institutions who wanted to own it. The narrative
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: was that it was digital gold. It was a hedge
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: against inflation, it was a hedge against geopolitical risk. So
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest challenge is it hasn't been behaving
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: that way over the last year or so. It's been
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: trading as a risk on asset, and when investors want
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: other risk on assets that might have higher returns like Nvidia,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: sk Heinix, Samsung SpaceX, you know, bitcoin is a little
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: bit out of favor. The second issue, as you mentioned,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: is quantum. You know, Ethereum and other platforms are building
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: very quickly to quantum proof themselves before twenty twenty eight,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: twenty nine, or whenever d day is, the bitcoin ecosystem
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: is going to be very very challenged, especially the fact
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: that there are very large accounts that have not been
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: opened or touched. It's very unclear who the owners are
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: and if the Bitcoin ecosystem needs to fork and change
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: their code, are they going to leave behind some of
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: the largest portfolios and holders of bitcoin. So I think
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: it's narrative in getting back to this being digital gold
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: and you want to own it because the world is
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: debasing their currencies and you need to make sure it's
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: quantum proved. Otherwise, I think you have a fundamental risk
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: to bitcoin and the price movement, and I think it's
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: been lagging because it lost that narrative.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Do you think that that has come home to realization
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: within Wall Street traditional finance of seeing what's happening right
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: now with bitcoin, seeing the drama with what's going on
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: with Stretch and micro Strategy, and understanding the real threat
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: from quantum and Bitcoin's kind of enter turmoil that they're
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: dealing with right now. Have they realized this at Wall Street?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons why bitcoin has declined
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: in price is that Michael Sailor and Strategy went from
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: being a massive net buyer of bitcoin to at this
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: point a bit of a seller. And it's part of
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: the bitcoin conundrum, which is it's a great asset to
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: own if you believe governments are going to debase currencies.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: That said, as a treasury asset, it's quite challenging because
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: if you want to drive returns, outsized returns, you have
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: to financialize your stock. And you're seeing Michael Sailor in
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: a bit of a pickle on the one hand, needing
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: to satisfy debt repayment on convert dividend payments. I'm preferred,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: and the only way he can do that is raising
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: new capital or selling bitcoins. I think you have selling pressure,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: not an incremental buyer of bitcoin. I think that will
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: change over time, especially if the AI narrative on Wall
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Street slows down, you'll see people rotate back into bitcoin
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: and other crypto assets.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I don't know if it's going to
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: slow down. If you look at the AI mining boom,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: which is another effect that it has, it may reaffirm
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the whole concept of what's going on with Ethereum in
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: terms of proof of steak, because this is a typical
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: miner that's out there getting price bumps because of just
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: contracted AI data center deals that they're doing. And this
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: is one of many. We talked about Terra Wolf the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: other day. Obviously this being HT eight, I mean, do
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you think institutions are understanding that there is a bit
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: of a dynamic shift right now in the core center
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of where bitcoin is actually curated.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're a bitcoin minor and you have a
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: large data center or rigs or compute capability every day,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: you have a logical choice. Do I point those machines
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: at bitcoin mining and at this price it's pretty underwater,
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: or do I go with the AI narrative and become
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: a hyperscaler. The best example of someone who's done that
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: really well is Galaxy Digital and Mike do Overgratz. They
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: were one of the largest bitcoin miners out there, and
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: instead they're building West Texas data centers as a new strategy.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: So I think that is a challenge to bitcoin and
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: that is a decision people make every day. But once
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: you pivot your strategy away from mining and you're making
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: multi year commitments to hyper scaling data centers, you're selling
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: your capacity. It's very hard to switch back to bitcoin mining.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: So with what you just said, wouldn't proof of stake
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: wouldn't this kind of be the time for it because
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: everybody's going to realize that this is a completely different
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: model of how to do this.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the reason why e Theoeum is more
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: attractive at the moment is Bitcoin does a great job
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: store of value. It's cryptographic, it's decentralized, but it's not programmable.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: You can own bitcoin, you can move it. Etheroreum is
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: ending up to become the new financial infrastructure, not just
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: of stable coins and crypto and tokenized assets. The world's
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: largest financial institutions Blackrock, Franklin, Templeton, JP, Morgan, Robinhood are
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: building the next generation of tokenized deposits, funds, ETFs and
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: retail platforms on a programmable, decentralized ecosystem. So Etheroreum is
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: more in demand. And the most important thing is why
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: is because you can have large portions of the financial
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: ecosystem trade twenty four to seven with instant settlement and
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: reduce all the risks you see in T plus one
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: T plus two trading in the US and Asia, so
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: you have to worry less about counterparty risk and a
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: war being launched on a Friday night in you being
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: locked in. It gives a much more nimble, programmable experience
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: to investors, and that ethereum is becoming that global settlement
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: layer in a way that bitcoin can't as just a
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: simple store of value.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Well, taking what you just said, ethereum
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: becoming a global settlement layer versus where bitcoin is going.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: This came in from Sailor and fong Leai. We've of
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: course had fun on the show before, and they basically
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: some research for them the Bitcoin Banking Adoption Index. I
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: want to show this to you guys, because this is
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: surprised even me in terms of the list. Right there,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: You've got Fidelity, BNY, Goldman, et cetera. And they've got
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: a whole list of what they're dealing with, both on trading, custody, products, margin,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: et cetera. But they're claiming claiming, I don't know if
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: this is accurate, but claiming that there are thirty two
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: percent in terms of an adoption index. How does ETH
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: compare when you look at the same kind of names
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: right there, that's a pretty you know, star stud list
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: of top banking industry right there in the US. How
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: would ETH compare.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So I haven't seen this report, but I'm assuming this
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: exposure and adoption is largely coming from the wave of
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: ETFs that were launched in January of twenty twenty four,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: where the banks themselves may not own this bitcoin, but
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: it could be that they're custading it for customers. If
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: you're a large wealth manager, it's in your portfolio, so
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: that is an interest from their end clients to own it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: I don't think most of this is in the banking
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: balance sheet. Ethereum people are building on it. The world's
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: largest financial institutions are adopting it, and they then have
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: to own eth to secure their transactions themselves. So I
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: think it's a difference of exposure versus use, and I
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: think in Ethereum you're going to see a lot more
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: adoption and use of the platform rather than just holding
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: it on behalf of your customers. That would be my
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: take having not seen this report.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: So, Joseph, if you talked a little bit about FinTechs
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and the idea of what we're going to see in
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: terms of adoption. A lot of this new market out
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: there is dealing with variable and stable yields. One of them,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: of course, is Ave's new stable vaults infrastructure. This is
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: now launching, and now you're going to see almost any
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: fintech out there that be able to offer this kind
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of on chain yield to their users. My question is this,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: do you think fintech users would choose stable versus variable
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: yields if they're similar to each other. I mean, I
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: know where i'd go, but what do you think in
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: terms of users.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I'll be a little bit controversial. Most depositors at banks
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: and most people who have idle balances, they're not even
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: getting interest or market reads. So the first step is
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: to give them real world yield, even if it's just
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: three three and a half percent, you know, money market
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: type rates by owning a stable coin or owning a
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: tokenized yield vehicle. There are hundreds of billions of dollars
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: of idle assets at the largest banks in the world
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: who are earning no interest. So I'm going to be
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: a little bit controversial. The first step is giving them
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: yield and giving it to them where they want to
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: have it, which is in a non chain portfolio or
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: non chain wallet, and hopefully the largest institutions will start
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: offering that. You saw Charles Schwab offer wallet infrastructure, fidelity
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: and not just robinhood. The second question is what other
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: types of yield can you get on chain? Well, a
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: lot of these protocols like Ave and Morpho or not
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: just earning yields. They're actually offering you credit type exposures.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: They're offering you an ability to take not just your
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: bitcoin and lend it, but if you own tokenized Tesla,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Nvidia or SpaceX for the first time, or retail investor
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: can lend it, secure that and get a return. Large
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: institutions and Wall Streets have been doing that for generations.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Take an asset, lend it with a counterparty, three days later,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: get it back. Now retail is going to be able
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: to do it, and with agentic, their agents are going
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: to be able to do that autonomously. So you almost
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: have a CFO in your wallet. For a retail investor,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: if you have an on chain wallet, you have an
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: access to yield. It can rebalance your portfolio, and it
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: can get you credit exposure and returns that you can't
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: have if you're just parking an asset in a traditional institution.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: So I'm very bullish that this will actually be amazing
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: for retail investors. This may be a generational step up
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: of capabilities that to date was only reserved for Wall
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Street and Wall Street treasures.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Well, and to your point, because this is something that
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: sailor has been trying to do with Stretch, and that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: is legitimize the idea of credit, private credit, and also
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the idea of stable which of course did not turn
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: out so well for Stretch. So it's probably going to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: put a little bit of pressure. But back to my
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: original question, I think at least when you look at
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: fintech operations out there, whether it's ave Morpho and several
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: others that are going to be offering this, and especially
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: if this goes into on chain yield for almost any
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: fintech out there, wouldn't people lock in on these stable
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: yields versus these variables, which is what we've seen happen
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: with Stretch and choose that over.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: I think it's two different investments. One is someone trying
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: to seek a three three and a half percent stable return.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Those are no brainers compared to where you're parking your
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: cash and assets today. I think the second is an
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: investor trying to take a credit risk, trying to get
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: eleven twelve percent return and hoping that the collateral and
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Michael Sailor have enough confidence that you've got great collateral,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: you've got great security, and now you're able to get
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: eleven twelve percent returns. I think It's two different investment thesis,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: but I think they're both available, and you know, these
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: are revolutions compared to what was available to a retail
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: investor even just two to three years ago.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Let me ask you this. You have
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: seen all of these FinTechs. They've launched wallets. Now, you
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: see DeFi and free wallets out there. MetaMask good example
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of this right here. They have their money accounts live.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: You can get six percent apy right now. There's variations
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: on this as well. Do you think that the next
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: generation of retail customers who are now getting access to
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: all these new tools, that they would choose a five
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: dollars subscription? I mean, right now, I'm paying five bucks
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: a month. I think for Robinhood Gold that's sixty dollars
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: a year versus a wallet product that I get for
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: free and I get very similar services on it. How
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: do you think that's going to land out for companies
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: like Robinhood and a lot of these other neobanks and FinTechs.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I think five dollars a month is a very small
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: subscription fee. I think what's more important is people are
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: going to be doing more of their daily financial lives
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: social lives and prediction lives in these infrastructures. Think about it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: You can have it almost as a bank on your phone.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: You can get yield, you can buy crypto assets. Soon
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: you're going to be able to buy tokenized stocks or
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: wrapped ETFs or SpaceX. Then you're going to be able
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: to borrow and lend it. You're going to be able
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: to get credit like returns and take credit risk. You're
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: going to be able to participate in prediction markets, which
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: is just another way of voting your sentiment. So I
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: think you're going to see people like they spend a
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: ton of time in the meta ecosystem, you know, with
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Facebook and WhatsApp and Instagram. These are new financial centers
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: for people. And I think the banks are going to
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: have to really step up their game because you have
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: a generation who's inheriting the greatest wealth transfer in history,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: over one hundred trillion dollars in a decade and a half.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: These people trust code their phones more than they trust
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: traditional institutions. So I think this is going to be
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: a center financial activity more than just a yield play
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: or deposit play or crypto play. And when most token
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: when most equities in the world become tokenized, they're going
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: to sit in wallet infrastructure. So I think it's just
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: a new primitive for how people are going to manage
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: their daily lives. When you layer an agentic, it's going
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: to be the greatest consumer experience they've seen, as long
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: as the guardrails are correct.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, speaking of that, Okay, let's look at Clarity
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: and let's let's go one direction. Clarity Act fails, Let's
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: let's we're assuming that, not saying it will, guys, but
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: let's say it does. You look at the performance of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the recent performance of what's happened on Robinhood Chain, which
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: has gone almost completely retail oriented. Why wouldn't Bitmine and
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: sharp Link type entities look at retail versus institutional if
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: in fact, we get a failure at Clarity.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: So first, well, I'm confident it will happen. It's not
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: clear it'll happen before the August recess, but I think
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: there's enough impetus to get it done this year. If
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: it doesn't happen, you have Chairman Actins at the SEC
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: and Chairman Selling at the CFTC. While I'm not saying
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: they're acting in unison because they're independent regulators. They have
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: a plan to rule make most of this. I think
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: if the Clarity Act does not pass, the biggest losers
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: are going to be the DeFi protocols who don't have
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: a clear operating model on whether they're a software company
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: or a regulated financial institution. Stable Coins are in good place.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Tokenization is in a very good place. So I'm really
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: not concerned about that now, Sharplink. Our goal is to
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: give our investors access to this large ethereum opportunity. We're
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: talking about, stake our e give yield to our investors.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: So I don't think you know the digital asset treasury
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: companies are highly affected by Clarity. The more important thing
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: is that you have clear rules of the road for
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: DeFi participants, because DeFi is going to be the new
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: transaction layer for a tokenized economy. So I think stable
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: coins will be fine. Tokenized assets are going to be fine.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: DeFi is going to be challenged without clear regulatory guidance.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: All right. So with that statement, you look at something
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: like a UNISWAP. I'm just looking at this right now.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: UNISWAP is literally bumping into circle right now. When you
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: look at fees as well as the overall market cap
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: as well as just the activity that's happening right now.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: When I'm looking at this chart, you've got uniswap moving
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: up quickly. Do you think it could ever get into
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: a position where uniswap could actually flip Circle?
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: So I think there are two different things. Uniswap is.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I think one of the most successful DeFi platforms in history.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: They have an ability to create a automated market maker
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: trade anything for anything on chain. To date, probably eighty
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: percent of it has been Bitcoin e Solana against Tether
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: and USDC from Circle. I think if tokenized assets end
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: up coming on their platform, they will become one of
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: the most important venues for exchange of value and liquidity.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I think the selling of Circle and this narrative that
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Circle would be less successful because of a launch of
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: a new stable coin called OUSD. I think that is overblown.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Circle and its USDC are largely the most used stable
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: coin for regulated type activities buying and selling moving assets.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I think Tether is still more of an offshore, unregulated entity.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: So I'm actually bullish on Circle, especially in the age
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: of agentic finance, where these agents trading with agents need
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: to make micro payments. They're going to make it in
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: stable coins. That's going to happen on tether in USDC
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: A Jeremy Layer, the CEO, put out a great primer
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: on agentic finance. I would actually encourage people to watch it.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: It came out earlier this week. So I actually think
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: it's not uniswap versus Circle. It's really a question of
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: will will they have the regulatory clarity to do what
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: they need to do, and when assets become tokenized, it's
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: going to become a righteous cycle for both of them.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Well you look at Robinhood and just
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: their twenty four hour decks volume. This is insane, these
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: kind of numbers, But it just shows you the appetite
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: that we're looking at right now. And remember Robinhood is
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: doing all of this on GUSD. So I'm kind of curious.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Do you think we would see that stable coin really
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: start to rise up the ranks? Could it be one
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: of the top two or three?
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: I think so. I think you know stable coins on
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: the venues where people are transacting, that's in hype, it's
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: in uniswap, it's in Robinhood. The real QUI is are
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: they going to be open infrastructure in architecture allow any
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: stable coin to operate. I believe they will or will
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: they do things to give preference to their own corporate
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: stable coins. And I think we're in a very important
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: moment in the stable coin adoption space. Is this going
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: to go into a world of oligopoly where there's three
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: of them they dominate it like every other tech trend
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: we've ever seen, or is every corporate going to have
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: their own stable coin with preferred access and yield if
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: you're working in their app. And I think that battle
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: has not been decided. That said, the top two stable
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: coins are probably ninety percent of all transaction buying. Its
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: history is still going to be written as to whether
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: this is going to become something that is distributed or
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: is it going to be highly concentrated like every other
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: tech tech trend we've seen over the last two decades.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And just for clarity, I'm talking about USDG with
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Robin Hood In terms of the stable coin side of things,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of activity around the idea of equity, okay,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and this is getting larger and larger, the demand on
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: it is getting more integrated. We're going to see more
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: projects coming out on this This, of course, is another
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: one that's starting to launch, which is a project called
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Casts and we've talked about this one before, but now
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: we're starting to see equity tokens starting to show up
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: in very interesting places, and even now where we may
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: see native tokens come out with an equity architecture within it.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Do you think equity season has begun, especially with everything
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: that's happening with uniswap most likely maybe down the road
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: with hyper liquid, etc. How do you see this playing out?
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Well, there's two equity stories. One is in the token space,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: and I think it's fair to say that we haven't
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: had a token launch that's been highly successful in the
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: last several years. The vast majority of token launches are
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: down ninety five plus percent because there's no alignment of
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: interest between the labs or company that owns the equity
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: and the token holders, and the distributed governance has been
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: really challenging. I think you're going to go back to
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: the standard VC model, where someone raises capital it's in
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: the form of equity, and they live or die based
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: on the revenue they produce, because I think we've seen
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: zombie protocols who raised massive amounts of tokens but actually
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: don't have real business models, but they're surviving nonetheless, Paul.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: The second story, which we haven't talked about, is tokenization
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: of the world's equity markets. That's a different equity story.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I actually think you're going to start seeing most public
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: companies tokenized over the next couple of years, and you'll
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: have a better experience owning the tokenized version because you
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: can trade a twenty four to seven on chain on
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: a centralized exchange or soon on NASDAQ or New York
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Stock Exchange. So when there's a war declared, it on
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: a Friday night and you want to us your view
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: that you want to sell a stock, you don't have
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: to wait till Monday. So I think for sure the
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: token DeFi story is really challenged, and I think you're
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: going to go back to the VC model. Tokenized equities
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: in the hands of most investors, to me, is the
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: bigger story. It's there's one hundred and sixty trillion dollars
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: of public equities that are waiting to be tookenized.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Well, interesting analysis there, I'm gonna We're obviously we're playing
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: very close attention to this as we watch many of
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: these projects kind of going this direction, so we'll see
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: how that lands out. Joseph, it has been great having
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you on the show today. Thank you so much for
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: coming in. We appreciate it.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Paul, and I look forward to being back soon.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: If you like this video, like and subscribe, drop a
• 34:47
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• 34:51
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