Latest / The Starting Block / Hunter Biden $LAPTOP launch looms feat. Ran Neuner

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Hunter Biden $LAPTOP launch looms feat. Ran Neuner · The Starting Block

0:08
Welcome back to The Starting Block.
0:09
It's been two weeks since we
0:10
broadcasted live.
0:12
I've taken a two week break to
0:14
welcome the newest addition to my
0:16
family. We've got a young daughter
0:17
and a few sleepless nights,
0:19
but here we are.
0:20
We're back on the road, ready to go
0:22
for a very exciting end of
0:24
the year. There's so much stuff to
0:25
look forward to in the next few
0:26
weeks. We're gonna be heading to New
0:28
York City next week for Avalanche
0:29
Summit.
0:30
We're going to be at Token 2049.
0:32
Solana Breakpoint's coming up on the
0:34
horizon and then quite a few big
0:35
events. To round off the end of
0:37
the year in December that we're
0:38
looking forward to as well.
0:40
So if this is your first time here,
0:41
welcome to the starting block.
0:42
This is the blocks daily show.
0:44
We've been going for more than two
0:45
weeks, two months.
0:47
Started off.
0:48
All the way back in Abu Dhabi with a
0:50
live interview with CZ to kick
0:51
things off on the show If you've
0:53
missed any of the content or big
0:54
interviews that we've had over the
0:56
last couple of months You can go and
0:57
check that out on the block's
0:59
youtube channel I'm going to give
1:00
you a quick rundown of the top
1:01
headlines You need to know in the
1:02
last 24 hours in the block
1:04
briefing And then we're going to be
1:06
moving into the hot seat segment of
1:08
the show with run nuna
1:09
Of course, you'll know him as the
1:11
founder and ceo of crypto banter
1:12
We're going be talking about bitcoin
1:14
in markets and we're definitely
1:15
going to talking about hunter biden
1:18
and the laptop meme coin,
1:20
which is scheduled to launch
1:21
tomorrow, plenty to unpack with
1:23
run in a few minutes time.
1:24
But let's jump into the top stories
1:25
of the last 24 hours curated from
1:28
the blocks news team.
1:29
Our first headline of the day, Visa
1:31
stable coin business just hit
1:33
escape velocity.
1:34
The payments giant says it's stable
1:36
coin settlement volume has crossed
1:37
the $20 billion annualized
1:39
run rate up more than 15
1:41
times year over year.
1:43
More than 160 stable coin
1:45
link card programs are now live
1:46
worldwide.
1:47
With payment volume up nearly 200%
1:49
from a year ago.
1:50
But there's a catch here, issuers
1:52
have to fund daily settlement before
1:53
they collect from card holders,
1:56
creating a working capital crunch.
1:58
Visa says early stage programs are
2:00
constrained less by demand and
2:02
more by access to the right kind
2:04
of capital.
2:05
Then a big story in Bitcoin
2:07
and the Lightning Network, a
2:09
dramatic weekend heist on
2:11
Bitcoin's liquid network has
2:13
had a happiest ending.
2:14
An attacker who drained roughly
2:16
4,000 BTC from Blockstream's
2:18
Federation wallet has now returned
2:20
85% of that
2:22
Bitcoin.
2:23
The apparent white hat communicated
2:24
through on-chain OP return
2:26
messages and PGP encrypted
2:28
text telling Blockstream to, quote,
2:30
fix the bug first.
2:32
After Atomback's team confirmed its
2:34
bridge nodes were patched, the
2:35
hacker sent back 3,400
2:37
Bitcoin. They're still holding
2:38
nearly 600 BTC worth
2:40
around $47 million,
2:42
presumably as a bounty.
2:45
Our next headline, banking just got
2:46
a little more always on.
2:48
DBS and Citi say they've completed
2:50
the first weekend US dollar payment
2:52
between Singapore and the United
2:54
States using tokenized deposit
2:56
over Swiss digital ledger.
2:58
The transaction settled on the 5th
3:00
of September in minutes compared to
3:02
up to two business days for
3:04
traditional cross border payments.
3:06
DBS says the move strips out the
3:07
weekend and time zone delays at
3:09
slow dollar transfers
3:11
and it's aimed at companies in
3:13
e-commerce and digital services.
3:15
The bank called its tokenized money
3:16
moving from experimentation to
3:19
real world adoption.
3:21
Then Ethereum is putting quantum
3:22
computers on notice.
3:24
The Ethereum Foundations protocol
3:25
team has published a tier list
3:26
ranking 62 improvement proposals
3:29
for the upcoming Hegota
3:31
upgrade and a set a
3:33
December, 2029 target for
3:35
full quantum resistance.
3:37
Two proposals earned must ship
3:39
status. Fossil.
3:41
Which strengthens censorship
3:43
resistance by letting a validator
3:45
commit a false transaction inclusion
3:47
and frame transactions,
3:48
which makes account abstraction
3:50
native to Ethereum and boost
3:52
post-quantum readiness.
3:54
It's an early but concrete roadmap
3:56
for hardening the network before
3:58
quantum threats become more
4:00
of a reality.
4:01
Then Bitcoin is showing its stubborn
4:02
streak.
4:03
The largest crypto was changing
4:05
hands just below $80,000 yesterday,
4:08
giving back some of last week's
4:09
gains. After hotter than expected
4:11
US jobs reports.
4:13
August added 162,000
4:15
jobs, nearly triple forecasts and
4:17
pushing the odds of a Fed rate
4:20
hike on September 16th,
4:22
up towards 60% yields
4:24
and the dollar climbed pressuring
4:26
rate sensitive assets.
4:28
Still analysts say the market is
4:29
showing exceptional resilience and
4:31
all eyes now turn to this week's
4:33
CPI print for the next big test.
4:35
I'm sure we'll be chatting to run
4:36
about that in depth in a few minutes
4:38
time. Lastly.
4:39
Our final story, the legal net
4:40
around crypto exchange Zonda Crypto
4:42
keeps widening.
4:43
Polish prosecutors have charged the
4:45
fifth suspect who was
4:47
detained on September 5th.
4:49
The man faces two charges, taking
4:51
part in an organized criminal group
4:53
and misappropriating around
4:54
$2.1 million belonging to
4:56
exchange users.
4:58
Prosecutors alleged the group
4:59
altered and deleted computer records
5:01
to line their pockets.
5:03
He's pleading not guilty and the
5:04
wider probe involves an estimated
5:06
$100 million in losses.
5:08
And the charges carry up to 10
5:10
years in prison.
5:11
That's it for our top stories of the
5:12
day. If you wanna read more of the
5:14
top news from the weekend and
5:16
early this week, you can head to
5:17
theblock.co and check
5:19
out some of the latest stories from
5:21
our fantastic news team.
5:23
We're gonna move straight into the
5:24
hot seat this afternoon.
5:25
It's a great pleasure to welcome a
5:26
fellow South African, Ran Nuna,
5:29
who is of course the founder and CEO
5:30
of Crypto Banter to the
5:32
show. Ran, first things first, it's
5:34
good to catch up with you again.
5:35
How you doing?
5:36
Congrats, bro, congrats, congrat on
5:38
your addition.
5:40
Thank you very much.
5:41
Yeah, like I said,
5:43
all fair, it's definitely a lot
5:44
easier than twin.
5:47
So having a good time so far, but
5:49
also happy to be back on air and
5:51
doing the show.
5:52
Yeah, first things first, I think
5:53
let's jump into the markets.
5:56
I know you're a wizard when it comes
5:57
to charts and your overall
5:58
expectations of where we're going.
6:00
The last time we chatted was a few
6:02
months ago.
6:03
I'm very curious to see your
6:05
thoughts and expectations heading
6:06
into the end of the year.
6:08
You want to start with Bitcoin and
6:09
maybe some of the other big alts
6:10
that you've been keeping your eye
6:11
on, I will let you
6:13
take free rein here and share your
6:15
screen and tell us what you've been
6:17
looking at.
6:18
So, I mean, I think it's important
6:19
to look at where we're at, and I
6:20
know a lot of people were calling
6:21
for another leg down.
6:23
I was of a different opinion, I
6:25
actually tweeted it, I said I think
6:26
this market's about to trick us,
6:28
everyone's expecting one more leg
6:29
down and the end of the bear market
6:31
in October.
6:32
I said it's either going to last a
6:33
lot longer into mid-next year, or it
6:35
will spike soon out of nowhere.
6:36
And I just noticed when that was on
6:38
the 18th of August, right?
6:40
If you look at the charts, what
6:41
happened on the 19th of august
6:43
is we actually got back.
6:45
Okay now, I'm not
6:47
a Nostradamus, it's
6:49
not that I had inside information.
6:51
It's simply because I was looking at
6:52
some fundamentals and I want to show
6:53
you what the fundamentals or what
6:55
the technicals that I was looking
6:56
at.
6:57
The first thing is I was look at the
6:58
Bollinger bandwidth.
6:59
Now for people who don't know what
7:00
the Bollenger bandwidth is, it
7:02
shows you the level of volatility on
7:04
Bitcoin and generally it's like a
7:06
spring. When you have periods with
7:08
no volatility, the longer the
7:09
period of no volatility the
7:11
more the spring And then
7:13
when it usually moves at
7:15
either move sharp up or sharp down
7:17
now if you look at the bollinger
7:18
bandwidth over here you can see it
7:20
it was it was at under 4.7
7:22
and the last time was under 4 7
7:24
was very very very far back i can't
7:26
even take you that far back i think
7:27
it's like august 2025 and so
7:29
i knew a big move was coming now the
7:31
next question is which way was
7:33
the move going to go and
7:35
the reason why i thought we would
7:36
probably get a move up is because if
7:37
you Look at
7:41
the 200 week moving average.
7:42
What you realize is that.
7:44
In bear markets.
7:46
Bitcoin generally tests that
7:47
200-week moving average.
7:48
That's the 2017 bear market.
7:50
We tested the 200- week moving
7:51
average, we bounced off it, and then
7:52
we started a new bull market.
7:53
That was 2020.
7:55
Same thing happened. We just went
7:56
under it during COVID.
7:57
The only exception was 2021,
8:00
the bear market of 2022-23,
8:02
where when FTX collapsed, we went
8:03
under it for a little bit of time.
8:06
And so I knew there was a move
8:07
coming. The risk return basically He
8:09
said to me, it's better to go
8:11
up than down.
8:13
And I put the chips in.
8:14
And here we are.
8:15
And so I think that now what's
8:17
basically happening is we're
8:19
entering into the next bull market.
8:20
I don't believe that there's another
8:21
big leg down.
8:23
I mean, we may have a little bit of
8:24
a correction after this period
8:26
here of exuberance, but ultimately,
8:29
if you look at other bull markets,
8:31
generally, once we break the 50-week
8:33
EMA, which is where we are flirting
8:35
with now, and I'll show it to your
8:36
viewers on the chart, that's the 50
8:38
week EMA.
8:39
What you'll notice is generally once
8:41
you break it, in a bull market.
8:42
You don't actually come below it
8:44
until the end of the bull market,
8:45
right?
8:46
And we're at that point now where
8:47
we're trying to break through.
8:48
Now, I don't expect us to break
8:49
through very quickly, but once we do
8:51
break through, I think we're firmly
8:52
in the new bull market.
8:54
So my thesis is that we're in the
8:56
New Bull Market.
8:57
I'll show you something like pretty,
8:58
pretty cool.
8:59
If you look at
9:01
the bullmarket or the bear market of
9:03
2020-23, that
9:05
was the FTX bear market,
9:07
it wasn't very different from what
9:08
we had now. We had a large period of
9:10
sideways movement.
9:12
Everyone lost hope and
9:14
faith in crypto.
9:15
It was a very hated trade.
9:16
It was fraudulent trade.
9:18
It was FDF.
9:18
It was 3RS Capital.
9:20
It was Salthius.
9:21
It was, it was a fruit salad.
9:24
And then something happened here
9:26
on the 13th of March, or sometime
9:27
between the 6th and 13th of March
9:29
which actually started the new
9:31
bull market. You can see we broke
9:32
through the 50 week year mayhem and
9:34
we never went below it.
9:34
That was the beginning of the new
9:35
Bull market.
9:36
What actually happened here?
9:37
Well, I'll remind you, That's when
9:39
Silicon Valley banked.
9:42
Went insolvent and what I
9:44
don't know the article here but
9:45
generally what happened was the
9:47
treasury stepped in at the time
9:48
under Janet Yellen and
9:50
they said they didn't actually do
9:51
anything they just said that they
9:52
were ready to backstop the market
9:54
they were really to back stop the
9:56
banks to prevent more
9:58
banks from collapsing.
9:59
The market read that as extra
10:01
liquidity and that started
10:03
a Bitcoin bull market not
10:05
too dissimilar from where we are
10:06
today a large period of sideways
10:08
movement people losing faith and
10:09
hoping crypto.
10:11
Just tending towards the 50-week
10:13
moving average, and Scott
10:15
Besson coming out and pretty
10:16
much saying that they're going to
10:17
increase their treasury buybacks,
10:19
which in layman's terms means
10:20
they're gonna be putting more money
10:21
into the economy.
10:23
And he can't backtrack that, because
10:24
he's basically sent a message out
10:26
to the bond vigilantes that
10:28
they are going to defend
10:30
the long-term table rate.
10:32
And, right now,
10:35
their words aren't working.
10:37
So you can see that the words aren't
10:38
working and the T-Ball rate is, you
10:39
know, creeping towards five again.
10:42
So the next step is he's actually
10:43
going to buy back the T Balls.
10:44
And when he does, that's going to
10:46
send us even into a much bigger bull
10:47
market. So I think that we
10:49
may get another leg down.
10:51
I don't think we go back below the
10:52
lows of the 60,000.
10:54
And I think we're well into the next
10:55
cycle. I think this cycle is
10:57
crypto's most interesting
10:59
and most powerful cycle.
11:01
And I can show you and I can show
11:02
you why if if you're keen to listen.
11:04
Yeah, for sure.
11:05
Definitely.
11:06
I'm going to hand over the
11:08
microphone to you to keep telling us
11:10
why you think and what the biggest
11:12
trend might be.
11:13
So let me show you, so the way that
11:14
I see it is, ultimately there's
11:16
two charts that I want, there's
11:17
three charts. The first one is the
11:18
Bitcoin chart and I think we've
11:19
looked at the Bitcoin charts.
11:21
I want to show you two other charts
11:23
and this will basically paint
11:25
the story of my thesis as
11:28
to why I actually think that this is
11:29
the most exciting crypto bull market
11:30
ever and that I think this
11:32
crypto bullmarket is actually going
11:34
to be powered by alts and not
11:35
Bitcoin. So the important
11:37
tokens in this market is actually
11:39
not Bitcoin, so.
11:40
I showed you the Bitcoin thesis.
11:42
I don't think I want to talk too
11:43
much more about the Bitcoin thesis.
11:44
It's all about money printing.
11:46
And I think that's pretty
11:47
self-explanatory.
11:48
I want to show you a very interesting
11:49
chart.
11:51
This is the chart of ETH versus BTC.
11:54
Okay, now for those of you who are
11:55
here in the past, you probably
11:56
remember the story.
11:57
But for those who aren't
12:00
here, I'll break it down for you.
12:02
So this is a chart of PTC.
12:03
It's been in a nine year downtrend.
12:05
And if you look at that, it's just,
12:07
just, just broken through a
12:08
nine-year downtrend on the weekly,
12:09
which is quite a significant
12:10
downtrend.
12:12
If I were to turn this chart into
12:14
a story, what I'd say is the
12:15
following. This is the chart of
12:18
altcoins against Bitcoin.
12:20
Roughly, it is a chart of Altcoins
12:21
against Bitcoins.
12:23
And for nine years, they've
12:25
underperformed Bitcoin.
12:27
And now they've just broken out.
12:29
Now let's turn that chart into
12:31
words. We launched
12:33
Ethereum and Everyone
12:35
got very, very, very excited, it
12:36
spiked up against Bitcoin.
12:38
And then all the floors started to
12:40
happen.
12:41
ICOs got frowned on by the SEC,
12:44
Ethereum was too slow, it was too
12:46
expensive, it had to move from proof
12:47
of work to proof of stake.
12:49
There were no real use cases, it
12:50
never delivered anything.
12:51
There was some hope in the last bull
12:53
market that some of the DeFi
12:54
applications would work.
12:55
There was yield farming, et cetera,
12:56
et cetera. And then that all died
12:58
because of hacks and whatever else.
12:59
And there was no real use case for
13:01
this technology at all.
13:02
Until all of a sudden we started to
13:04
tokenize real world assets.
13:05
And as soon as we did, we actually
13:07
showed hold on a second, there's a
13:08
massive use case for this
13:09
technology.
13:10
And so right now I think we're in
13:11
the beginning of a
13:13
bull market which is going to be
13:15
driven by alt.
13:17
Now let me show you another
13:18
chart.
13:19
This is a chart of what
13:21
you call others against Bitcoin.
13:23
So what is others against bitcoin?
13:25
Others against bitcoin is the top
13:26
alt coins relative to bitcoin.
13:28
And you can see the chart actually
13:29
tells a cool story.
13:30
We launched altcoins
13:33
There was a promise of altcoins
13:34
doing big things, relative to
13:36
Bitcoin, and then there were all a
13:37
bunch of scams and none of them
13:38
actually worked and we crashed down
13:40
the line.
13:41
And then in 2021, there was another
13:42
promise of new altcoins,
13:44
doing new big things and
13:46
none are them really delivered and
13:48
eventually they all died.
13:49
What you'll notice is that it's on
13:51
an upward trend.
13:52
So yes, they all collapsed against
13:53
Bitcoin, but the trend relative to
13:55
bitcoin was up. Okay.
13:58
So what is this chart telling us?
13:59
It's telling us that if we bounce
14:00
off here, possibly we should go to
14:02
a higher high, right? Like if you
14:03
look at the previous levels, we say,
14:05
okay, well, there's a high high.
14:06
So let's quickly just draw that.
14:08
And just for the viewers, just to
14:09
show them what it could look like.
14:10
It could look something like this,
14:11
and like this and like, this,
14:14
and I can't even get there.
14:15
In fact, let me just try and
14:16
compress my screen.
14:17
That's how high we're gonna go.
14:18
That's the high we've been in this
14:19
cycle. So if you're
14:21
ever wondering, if
14:23
you wondering how exciting the cycle
14:24
is gonna be, just remember how long
14:26
I had to.
14:27
To pinch this graph down.
14:29
OK, sir.
14:30
I mean you laugh but it's not going
14:31
to be so that's the chart and it
14:33
goes I don't know how it goes but it
14:35
kind of goes up here and it does
14:36
appear and eventually it lands up
14:38
way beyond my screen in a
14:40
high high okay yeah and the
14:42
reason why it does this is because
14:44
for once we've actually got altcoin
14:45
use cases which are real altcoin
14:47
news cases which actually dwarf what
14:50
Bitcoin has done for the ecosystem I
14:52
suspect that relative to Bitcoin
14:54
alts will do a six or seven X from
14:56
here relative to bitcoin which is
14:58
not a lot If you think about it
15:00
relative to 2021,
15:02
ALTS actually did outperform Bitcoin
15:04
by 5X.
15:05
And in 2017, ALTS outperformed
15:07
Bitcoin by also about 6X.
15:09
So I'm expecting more or less the
15:11
same thing here.
15:12
So now you ask yourself, all right,
15:13
well, how do you get there?
15:15
How do you from here to here?
15:17
And I think that this is the
15:18
interesting part.
15:20
Crypto has found product market fit.
15:22
When I say crypto, I'm removing
15:23
Bitcoin for a second.
15:24
Bitcoin found product-market fit a
15:25
long time ago. You can see it now,
15:27
it's becoming the debasement trade.
15:29
It's actually performed much better
15:30
than gold since the news of a
15:32
debasment trade actually started.
15:34
So Bitcoin's got its own product
15:36
market fit.
15:37
But let's talk about crypto, because
15:38
now crypto has product market fits.
15:41
And there's multiple places where
15:43
crypto has a product market.
15:44
The first one is tokenization
15:46
of everything.
15:47
We're now realizing how real
15:49
world assets can be tokenized.
15:51
Trader 24 seven Robinhood chain is
15:52
probably the best example of that.
15:55
The SECs come out and basically
15:56
they're pushing everyone to
15:57
basically tokenize on chain.
15:59
So we never had that before.
16:01
So the first use case is tokenized
16:03
real world assets and trading
16:05
of these tokenized, real world
16:06
assets.
16:07
So you've got hyperliquid, you've go
16:09
lighter, you got all these
16:10
protocols, which are actually making
16:11
a lot of money trading everything,
16:13
real world, assets,
16:15
crypto assets, cryptosets paired
16:17
with real world asset, which is the
16:18
new craze that's actually going on
16:19
right now.
16:20
So ultimately, there's
16:22
a lot going on in terms of
16:23
tokenization.
16:24
Interesting.
16:26
The next thing is
16:28
there's something going on in
16:29
crypto, and it's
16:32
quite complex, but I'll try and
16:33
break it down for your viewers,
16:34
because I think it's much bigger
16:34
than people make out to be.
16:36
It's the whole social trading
16:37
narrative.
16:38
Now you've seen PumpFun,
16:40
you've see FOMO, those are
16:46
the biggest applications
16:48
in crypto at the moment, and I think
16:50
that those applications are going to
16:51
become bigger than Facebook,
16:54
Twitter, Instagram.
16:56
I think that, and I'll explain to
16:57
you why, it's actually very simple,
16:59
the thinking about it is very
17:00
simple.
17:01
So if you think about the biggest
17:03
businesses in the world, they're all
17:04
networks.
17:07
And I'll talk about social networks.
17:09
So Twitter is a social network,
17:11
Instagram is a network.
17:13
Now let's break down why people
17:15
enjoy going onto those social
17:16
networks, it actually goes down to
17:18
a hormone that your brain produces
17:20
called dopamine.
17:21
So what is dopamine?
17:22
Topamine is the
17:24
motivation.
17:28
Reward achievement validation
17:30
hormone okay so
17:32
if you do work
17:34
you you do work
17:36
you set out you achieve something
17:38
and then you get recognized for
17:40
it then that evokes
17:42
dopamine in your brain and you think
17:43
to yourself oh my god i'm a genius
17:44
and it gives you motivation to go do
17:46
more processes to
17:48
do more actions to
17:50
achieve more things and to get more
17:52
self-validation it's a drug dopamine
17:54
is a All right.
17:56
Right now, the only fix that we get
17:57
of this drug is we go to Twitter,
18:00
we tweet a brainwave, and we
18:01
watch the like counter.
18:02
And that like counter gives you the
18:04
validation and the motivation to
18:06
actually do it again.
18:07
And based on that hormone, which is
18:09
a drug hormone, the
18:11
social networks have built entire
18:13
businesses. Why do we love
18:14
Instagram? You post a picture of
18:15
Instagram, it gets a billion likes,
18:17
or a million likes, or whatever it
18:18
is, and you're like, wow, I wanna
18:19
post another picture because I love
18:21
the validation. It makes me feel
18:22
like I've done the work, I've
18:24
posted something, and I've got
18:25
likes.
18:27
What crypto has done is it's added
18:28
an extra dimension.
18:30
You do the work,
18:32
you post something,
18:34
you take a trade, you
18:36
get the validation, but you
18:38
also make money.
18:39
Okay, now that is a loop that no
18:41
social network has actually been
18:42
able to emulate.
18:43
Twitter's trying to do it by giving
18:44
the creator payouts, but it's not
18:46
the same because you're not making
18:47
money automatically and people
18:49
aren't following you and giving you
18:50
this. So if you
18:52
think about the world's
18:54
biggest casino,
18:56
Having a baby with the world's
18:57
biggest social network, that's
18:59
what crypto has done.
19:01
Both very good businesses, right?
19:02
So casinos are very big industry and
19:04
then social networks are very a big
19:06
industry.
19:07
What I think crypto has created,
19:09
it's created the ultimate
19:10
combination of a casino and
19:12
steroids, I'll talk about that in a
19:13
second, and a social network.
19:16
And don't frown as to how big that
19:18
is because it's the ultimate recipe
19:19
for social trading, right.
19:21
So I think that
19:23
that's a massive product market fit
19:24
for crypto.
19:25
Social networks around trading,
19:28
which ultimately it's creating
19:30
assets, trading assets, getting
19:31
social validation, therefore
19:32
creating more assets.
19:33
And it's massive.
19:34
I mean, just think about Instagram
19:35
and Twitter. I think these networks
19:37
will be bigger.
19:38
I don't know if it's going to be
19:39
pump or ponds, but it's only going
19:41
to A player, which is going to
19:42
bigger than Twitter and Instagram
19:44
combined because it has the
19:45
financial element of it.
19:47
So that then brings me to
19:49
that's the second part of why I
19:50
think that crypto is going flat.
19:52
And that's before we get onto the
19:53
main part, which is why I think
19:54
crypto is gonna flat.
19:55
So I think for
19:57
years, crypto was a solution looking
19:59
for a problem.
20:01
And I remember many times we kept
20:02
saying to ourselves, we've created
20:03
these things called smart contracts,
20:05
but actually who's gonna use them?
20:07
And then inter-AI agents.
20:09
And first we get ChatGPT,
20:12
and then we get Clawbot,
20:14
and then when we got Claw bot, we
20:15
all realized, shit, hold on, you can
20:16
set up a thousand bots, and these
20:18
bots can actually do shit for you.
20:20
And now you've got Grokbot, which
20:21
basically you can just set up
20:22
different agents to do different
20:23
tasks for you, on and on and one.
20:25
And I've got a probably
20:27
like 30 different
20:29
Grockbots actually running at the
20:30
moment, right? So like different
20:32
agents. And they all do different
20:33
tasks. One does my morning research,
20:35
one plans my holidays, one does
20:37
travel, blah, blah, and
20:39
so we're entering a world which
20:41
every human is going to have 20
20:42
agents working for them.
20:43
And I say 20 conservatively.
20:46
And then you get into a world where
20:47
two agents meet online and they need
20:49
to do a microtransaction.
20:51
Only thing is that they don't know
20:52
each other.
20:53
So the transaction needs to be
20:54
immediate and trustless.
20:55
They can't go to a bank, they can't
20:57
do credit, they also can't do
20:59
contracts. I can't get my lawyer to
21:00
draft a contract.
21:02
So ultimately, the only
21:04
technology that I know that
21:07
agents can use
21:09
between themselves to get full and
21:10
final settlement of an online
21:13
transaction is blockchain
21:14
technology. And I've tried every
21:16
other methodology, but ultimately
21:18
blockchain technology is the only
21:19
thing that works.
21:20
Now multiply that by billions of
21:22
agents and multiply that of agents
21:24
that transact.
21:25
At a velocity that's 100 times
21:26
faster than humans.
21:28
And then you say, all this has to
21:29
happen on blockchain rails.
21:30
And then we go back to this chart,
21:32
and then this chart doesn't look
21:33
that ludicrous anymore, because you
21:34
kind of say, hold on a second.
21:36
Real world asset tokenization, every
21:38
asset now being traded on chain,
21:40
much more frequently than it's
21:41
traded in real world, plus the
21:43
whole social networking credibility
21:44
that comes, plus
21:46
all of a sudden now you've got these
21:48
AI agents who are going to have to
21:50
use crypto rails to do smart
21:51
contracts and settlement amongst
21:53
themselves.
21:54
And you're like, hold on, we're
21:56
actually, like a 6X against
21:58
Bitcoin is not
21:59
a pipe dream. It's actually, it
22:01
could be a reality.
22:02
So I think that that's where we're
22:04
at. I don't think every token
22:06
benefits, to be honest.
22:07
I think it's the select few tokens
22:08
that benefit.
22:09
There are a few criteria for me.
22:11
For me, the criteria are pretty
22:12
simple.
22:13
One, you've got to have
22:15
revenue.
22:16
So one, you got to users.
22:18
And ultimately you've gotta be a
22:19
network where every user that you
22:21
attract to your network increases
22:23
the value of your network
22:24
exponentially.
22:26
So, example, hyperliquid, every user
22:27
that they get on brings more
22:28
liquidity, and eventually when it
22:30
comes to a DEX or a SEX,
22:33
the one with the most liquidity
22:34
lands up winning. So every user you
22:35
bring onto hyperliQUID actually does
22:36
increase the value of the network
22:37
exponentially, two,
22:40
do you have real revenue and
22:42
do you real revenue growth?
22:43
I think hyperliQuID ticks that box,
22:44
right? It's got real revenue, the
22:46
revenue is made from trading fees.
22:48
Then the third one is
22:50
your revenue growing, And then the
22:52
fourth one is...
22:54
Whether or not you've got a
22:56
methodology to hand back the
22:58
revenue to the token holders.
23:00
So now in this case, this is
23:01
actually the best one because there
23:03
are a lot of tokens that have users,
23:06
have revenue, the revenue is
23:07
growing, but they haven't turned on
23:09
the fee switch yet.
23:10
They haven't turn on the
23:11
distribution of the fees to
23:13
their market.
23:14
I think that those are
23:16
the best tokens that you want to
23:17
buy. Why?
23:19
Because... It's all fun and games
23:21
until they actually do switch on the
23:22
fee switch and then
23:25
those that bought early will
23:28
gain the upside.
23:30
So you saw it with Uniswap where
23:31
Unisap, the token did nothing for a
23:33
whole lot of years.
23:34
All of a sudden, a combination of
23:36
Robinhood launching, Circles,
23:38
ARK blockchain launching next week,
23:41
and fee switch switched on and Robin
23:42
and now all of a suddenly Unisapp
23:45
is trading at 7 bucks,
23:47
right, and that's from a low of
23:48
$2.40.
23:50
So 3x.
23:51
So ultimately, if you can find
23:54
protocols that have
23:56
network effects, have users,
23:58
have revenue, the revenue is
23:59
growing, and they don't
24:01
have a mechanism to transfer
24:03
their revenue back to their users,
24:06
that is the number one token in this
24:07
pool market, I think.
24:08
Yep Yeah, I mean, like really
24:10
well said, I've obviously I took a
24:12
two week break. So I came back to
24:13
like a load of different weird
24:14
things and I had my eye on X for a
24:16
while. But the amount of people
24:17
just, you know, posting PNL
24:20
screenshots from, you
24:22
know, like FOMO and a couple of
24:23
other, you know, apps has been
24:25
like a big takeaway for me.
24:27
And obviously Robin had changed a
24:28
big win out of of all of that.
24:30
I just found it really curious that
24:31
suddenly we like have a meme coin
24:33
resurgence going on and
24:36
I can't really place my finger on
24:38
why.
24:40
And I'll be honest, Ron, I thought
24:42
that the meme coin kind of craze
24:43
was over. The narrative was behind
24:45
us.
24:46
Like, why do you think it's kind of
24:48
in vogue again?
24:49
Look, I don't like the meme coin
24:51
trenches, to be honest.
24:52
I think that for me it's a
24:53
distraction.
24:54
I prefer to focus on the picks and
24:56
shovels. I prefer it to own the
24:57
exchanges. I prefer in the L1s.
24:59
I prefer on the protocol and not
25:00
to actually touch the meme.
25:01
But you know, I'm human, so I get
25:03
drawn into the casino every now and
25:04
then.
25:05
I will say one thing.
25:07
We shouldn't kill the memecoin
25:08
movement. And the reason is that the
25:10
meme-coin movement actually
25:11
innovates a hell of a lot.
25:12
Now, I dunno if you've been watching
25:14
ZCat. Have you seen it?
25:15
I know you were awake.
25:16
So what is ZCAT?
25:19
It's a meme coin with a 3%
25:21
buy and sell tax.
25:22
So every time you buy the token or
25:24
sell the token, you pay a 3 percent
25:25
tax.
25:26
And that tax actually goes to buying
25:27
Zcash.
25:28
Right? Mm-hmm.
25:29
So I want to show you a token today
25:31
and I'm only showing you this token
25:32
because I'm actually in this trade.
25:34
So this is BNC.
25:36
BN C is the BNB
25:38
treasury company.
25:39
So I bought this BN B treasury
25:41
company at $2.50
25:43
and the reason why I bought the
25:44
stock at$ 2.50 was
25:46
because, sorry let me just get us a
25:48
good chart here.
25:49
So I brought the stock
25:51
at$ two dollars fifty and the
25:52
reasons why I brought this stock at
25:53
two dollars 50 was because this
25:55
stock is holding seven or eight
25:57
dollars with a BNB.
25:58
And for weeks, as you can see,
26:00
nothing happened. It was weeks and
26:01
months, nothing happens.
26:02
It was just down, down, down, I
26:03
bought it at $2.50 and I was holding
26:05
it.
26:06
And today it spiked up to $6 or
26:08
$5.50.
26:09
What happened?
26:10
They paired it with a meme coin.
26:13
And so it's a stock paired with a,
26:14
it's stock paired the meme coin,
26:16
the meme coins took off overnight,
26:18
and there's a 3% buy and sell tax,
26:20
which means every time people bought
26:21
money went into treasury, and as
26:23
the market opened, they needed to
26:24
buy the stock.
26:25
And so that brought the stock up
26:27
back to its net asset value, right?
26:29
And so, look, I don't know
26:31
what happens out of meme coins, but
26:33
one thing I'll tell you is that meme
26:34
coins which are the ultimate magnet
26:37
for attention paired
26:39
with stocks that have no
26:41
attention become the ultimate
26:43
marketing vehicle for stocks.
26:45
Now, let me give you something
26:46
absolutely wacky crazy, probably
26:48
will never happen, but maybe we're
26:50
thinking about it, okay?
26:50
I tweeted this earlier and I said,
26:52
Maybe we can start the new bull
26:54
market, right? And how we can stop
26:55
the new boom market is we can create
26:57
a meme coin.
26:58
Um, yeah, we can,
27:00
so we can credit meme coin,
27:02
we compare the meme coin with SDRC,
27:04
which is Michael Saylor's stretch
27:05
product,
27:08
every buy and sell tax of 3%.
27:10
We build up a kitty.
27:12
We use that kitty to buy a TRC.
27:15
We try and get FTRC to pay at a
27:16
hundred at a 100.
27:17
Michael said, I can start buying
27:18
again. So yeah
27:20
And literally we can power our own
27:22
bull market through meme coins.
27:23
Now, I'm not saying it'll happen,
27:24
it's probably more of a crazy
27:26
thought.
27:26
But imagine what happens when
27:28
we all of a sudden bring attention
27:30
to these dead stocks using
27:32
crypto assets.
27:33
So, I don't know what
27:36
will happen.
27:38
All I know is that we shouldn't
27:44
shoot down this movement.
27:48
Before we get to,
27:49
before we let
27:51
it mature.
27:53
And so look, I'm not a meme coin
27:54
trader.
27:56
I mean, I must be honest, I was in
27:57
the trenches just for having some
27:59
fun earlier, just because I had some
28:00
time to kill.
28:01
And FOMO, I mean look,
28:03
I'll show you guys the interface for
28:05
those of you who haven't seen it,
28:06
because I know not everyone's
28:07
actually seen it.
28:08
But this thing's full of dopamine.
28:10
Like you got to feed here, who's
28:11
buying and what they're buying.
28:13
There's a whole reason why people
28:15
are buying certain things.
28:16
You can see who's buying, there's
28:18
leaderboards.
28:19
It's like the ultimate, it's the
28:20
ultimate dopamine fest, right?
28:22
It's the ultimately dopamine fest.
28:24
People making insane amounts of
28:25
money. Like if, like insane,
28:28
insane amounts of money I've seen
28:29
people making,
28:31
see if I can find you some, some
28:32
feeds, but ultimately I've
28:34
see people making tens
28:36
of millions of. Yeah.
28:37
I was going to say, I've got
28:39
the app on my phone, I downloaded it
28:41
a couple of days ago, and it's like
28:42
a social media app, I got the
28:43
notifications on, so I'm getting
28:45
ping notifications like I would get
28:47
X notifications, and it is like
28:49
this person has sold this for this
28:51
much profit, this person is
28:53
sold this much for this much of a
28:54
loss, and yeah, it's
28:56
combining a
28:58
great hyperliquid kind of
29:00
DEX trading experience with the best
29:02
of social media apps.
29:04
And then with all the
29:06
mechanics of a casino,
29:08
it's crazy.
29:10
And I'm gonna be honest, Ryan, I
29:11
don't love that, but I can see
29:13
why it's sucking so many people in
29:14
and why it getting so much
29:16
attention.
29:17
And I did want to ask you like-
29:20
Can I stop you just for a second?
29:22
I know you say that and I also don't
29:23
like it I don't act the fact that
29:24
these guys are trading pointless
29:25
coin But let's just substitute the
29:27
coins with with stocks and let's
29:29
call this one AMD and let school
29:30
another one GameStop And then let's
29:32
play the same game and then all of
29:33
a sudden this becomes a very
29:35
different Then it all of us hadn't
29:36
becomes a red different app now
29:37
We're in the process of tokenizing
29:39
all the stocks which is which is
29:40
step one And then it just becomes
29:42
a shit show of people trading for
29:44
dopamine For money and dopamine
29:46
and social credibility and it
29:48
becomes the biggest fight You've
29:50
basically taken finance and
29:52
gamified it on crypto rails.
29:54
And then when that happens, I mean,
29:55
it's 10 times bigger than TradFi.
29:57
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
29:58
It is. Look, let's talk about the
30:00
big news of the week.
30:01
Hunter Biden and the laptop Meme
30:04
point which is set to drop tomorrow.
30:06
I saw you tweeted that his team had
30:07
reached out to you to do an
30:09
interview Why did you not do the
30:10
interview? I'm going to Okay
30:13
He's my next meeting after you.
30:15
He's next meeting I'm
30:17
meeting him just for a pre-interview
30:18
look I'm
30:20
probably not going to be very
30:21
favorable towards him, because I
30:23
tell him what I think of the meme
30:24
coin.
30:25
And I guess for me, the narrative
30:27
is something like,
30:29
your dad was probably
30:32
anti-crypto.
30:33
His whole entire administration was
30:34
completely anti-Crypto, you're $15
30:36
million in debt, and
30:38
now you're launching a meme coin,
30:40
like it doesn't
30:42
really paint a good story.
30:44
Also, to be honest, the way
30:46
that they've done it, I mean
30:49
Meme coins are launched in the
30:50
trenches. They're not launched on
30:51
base and they're not launched
30:53
on, you know, and they are not
30:55
launched on, it's just,
30:56
they don't have tokenomics.
30:57
His meme coins got tokenomics and
31:00
it's just,
31:02
it gets, I mean, the execution is
31:03
super poor.
31:05
I'm gonna, I'm going to, I encourage
31:06
you not to do it even though the
31:07
launch is happening tomorrow.
31:09
I think you're still gonna do it
31:09
though.
31:10
I think it's too late to stop.
31:12
And what I do find interesting
31:13
though, is that like there's people
31:14
like you and I think a few other
31:16
people, three guys also being,
31:18
I don't want to say disparaging, but
31:19
a lot of people have been so
31:21
negative about it.
31:22
And I don't feel like I got
31:24
the same sentiment when Trump was
31:25
going to launch his token and
31:27
Melania came out,
31:30
the Argentinian president's meme
31:32
coins. Like what's the difference
31:33
here?
31:34
I'll tell you what the difference is.
31:35
The first difference is,
31:37
this is when Trump launched his meme
31:39
coin. Hold on, let me just get it
31:40
for you. So Trump launched the meme
31:41
coin on the 15th of January 2025.
31:43
Okay. Let me show you where we were
31:45
on the15th of january 2025.
31:47
We were here.
31:48
We were at a local half of Bitcoin,
31:50
we were at 110,000.
31:51
That's when Trump launch his
31:52
memecoin, right?
31:54
So we're now at the end of a bear
31:55
market, which was maybe even caused
31:57
by the memecoin because it sucked
31:59
out all the liquidity and it was
32:00
a...
32:01
Second thing is, Trump's a sitting
32:03
president.
32:04
Hunter Biden is a ex-president's
32:07
son who's had an alcohol and
32:09
drug problem, who,
32:11
you know, I think there's a massive
32:12
difference between that and Javier
32:14
Millet, who basically, I want to
32:16
say, saved the Argentinian people
32:18
economically, and Trump,
32:20
who was destined to save us
32:22
economically. So far, it hasn't
32:23
panned out, but we're still hopeful
32:24
that it might in the future.
32:26
So, and then you can compare that to
32:28
Hunter Biden.
32:29
This is a, this
32:31
is celebrity scam.
32:32
I mean, let's just call it what it
32:33
is. Seconds to take.
32:36
The guy hasn't been in the trenches
32:37
at all. The guy has never come
32:40
out pro-Bitcoin or anything and now
32:42
he's coming here because he needs
32:43
money.
32:44
Look, I decided to take the
32:45
interview because
32:47
I think we can have a very strong
32:49
discussion as to why he's doing it.
32:51
I really want to understand why he
32:52
is doing it and I know many other
32:53
artists turned it down.
32:56
Look, full disclosure, we knew about
32:57
this interview months ago.
32:59
We knew about the coin months and
33:01
months and we just didn't say
33:02
anything because we didn't think it
33:04
was the right thing to do.
33:05
But I mean, we've known about it for
33:07
months and months and
33:09
Yeah, look, I mean, I've
33:10
been on leave worrying about more
33:13
important things, but I think if I'd
33:14
also had the interview put in front
33:16
of me, I would have wanted to do it
33:17
because I also would have want to
33:19
ask all the questions that need to
33:21
be asked. And I do agree.
33:22
It's like, at the end of the day, I
33:23
think we've seen all of the
33:24
celebrity meme coins kind
33:26
of fizzle out very quickly because
33:27
these people are not really that
33:30
involved in the industry.
33:31
They haven't been here for a long
33:32
time. They don't know what they're doing.
33:33
I mean I don't love meme coins
33:35
and I've made that clear a million
33:36
times on the Bye.
33:37
And I even, you know, the Ansem meme
33:39
coin, I don't love the meme coin.
33:40
But I think the way Ansem approached
33:43
launching, well, he didn't even
33:44
launch Ansem, but you know what I
33:45
mean, managing the token, the way
33:47
he's gone about doing that
33:49
has been really interesting.
33:51
You mean he didn't even launch it,
33:53
right? Yeah, exactly.
33:55
We know exactly what you're talking
33:56
about.
33:57
I mean, yeah, look, this is a
33:58
message that I send my team on the
33:59
22nd of August.
34:00
Biden token launched on September 9.
34:02
I mean it's been out there for a
34:03
long time. If you knew where to
34:04
look, it's been out for a while now.
34:06
It's been on the board for a very long time now.
34:08
It's going to be interesting.
34:09
I can't see which way it's going.
34:10
Look, I'm sure that there's going to
34:12
be a lot of people that are just
34:13
going to FOMO trade straight into
34:14
it. And I mean, if it's launching on
34:15
base, you've got a huge
34:17
amount of people who will have
34:18
access to you to buy in the token.
34:20
And it's a speculator's dream.
34:22
Anything could happen, right?
34:23
I don't know.
34:24
I think everybody's smart enough to
34:26
know there's no longevity in this
34:27
thing.
34:28
Yeah, well I would argue there's
34:30
no longevity in any meme coin, but
34:31
I'm I'm a I'm
34:33
very skeptical when it when it comes
34:35
to that Look run.
34:37
We've been speaking for a long time
34:38
and we did start the show a little
34:39
bit late today So I know it's
34:40
talking taking a lot of your time
34:42
You're kind of closing thoughts on
34:44
where we go into the end of the year
34:46
And I would say from my opinion
34:48
we are in the early stages of a new
34:50
ball run. Is that the right?
34:52
Yeah takeaway and how quickly do
34:54
we accelerate from here?
34:56
I can't forecast how quickly we
34:58
accelerate. It would be double of me
34:59
to try and make predictions, but I
35:00
can tell you that all the
35:02
fundamentals tell me that we're in
35:03
the midst of a new bull run.
35:05
And so, yeah, I think, I mean,
35:07
hold on tight because I think it's
35:08
gonna get very exciting.
35:09
It's gonna be very, very, exciting.
35:11
And again, all
35:13
the other bull markets were all in a
35:14
hope and a prayer. They were all
35:15
like, we've got the technology, we
35:17
think it is gonna work one day,
35:18
maybe it will, maybe it won't.
35:22
This bull run is
35:24
real. And I think it's a one bull
35:26
run where we're going to have users
35:27
and we're going to revenue to
35:28
actually back it. I think its going
35:29
to be huge.
35:30
Yeah, definitely.
35:31
Ran, thanks so much for taking the
35:33
time to chat to us.
35:34
If you don't already go and check
35:35
out Crypto Banter on YouTube,
35:37
subscribe to the channel.
35:38
They've also got the
35:40
Banter School. I forget the name
35:41
right now.
35:42
We've got 17 channels actually.
35:44
We own 17 YouTube channels.
35:45
I've got Crypto Banter, Crypto
35:46
Insider and a whole lot of other
35:47
channels. I'm also on X at Crypto
35:49
Manran. My show is broadcast on X
35:51
every single day.
35:51
So it's going to be, yeah, I mean
35:52
stay in touch.
35:53
Yeah, if you want more of this, go
35:55
and find a run and the Crypto Banter
35:56
team online.
35:57
We will be back tomorrow,
35:59
usual time though, 8.30 a.m.
36:01
Eastern time if you're in the U.S.,
36:02
2.30 p.m., Central European time
36:04
if your in Europe.
36:05
Come and join the starting block, I
36:06
promise you'll be entertained and we
36:08
will be broadcasting live from
36:10
Avalanche Summit in New York City
36:11
next week, Tuesday, Wednesday
36:13
and Thursday.
36:15
So keep an eye out for some big
36:16
interviews that we'll be doing next
36:18
week. Until then, have a fantastic
36:19
evening, We'll catch you tomorrow.