Latest / The Starting Block / Yat Siu Predicts 100B AI Agents

Transcript

Yat Siu Predicts 100B AI Agents · The Starting Block

3:18
Good afternoon, happy Friday.
3:20
Welcome back to The Starting Block.
3:21
If you're joining us for the first
3:23
time, welcome to The Block's new
3:25
daily show.
3:26
If you don't know me, my name is
3:27
Gareth Jenkinson.
3:28
I'm the host of the show and head of
3:30
multimedia at The Block.
3:31
And if you missed this week's big
3:33
launch, we went all the way to
3:35
Abu Dhabi to sit down for a special
3:37
conversation with Binance
3:39
founder, CZ.
3:41
That sparked a load of controversy
3:42
online.
3:43
I think millions of views across
3:45
all the different accounts that
3:47
shared CZ's thoughts on.
3:49
Binance, his feud with
3:51
OKX founder and CEO,
3:53
Stardew, many, many other fantastic
3:56
talking points. If you're interested
3:57
in going back and listening
3:59
to that conversation, you can find
4:00
it on the Blocks X account.
4:02
Just go to the top of our timeline
4:04
and you'll find that there.
4:06
We will also be releasing a
4:08
high quality version of
4:10
the interview on YouTube in the
4:12
next 12 hours or so.
4:13
So if you don't already, please go
4:15
to The Blocks account
4:17
on YouTube.
4:18
Give us a subscribe, like
4:20
whatever you see there, and go and
4:22
check out our full interview with
4:23
CZ. We'll also be dropping loads
4:25
of shorts throughout the next few
4:27
days from the biggest moments of
4:29
that interview.
4:30
Just to give you a rundown of the
4:32
show, if you're not here or if you
4:34
haven't been with us for the past
4:35
few days, this is the starting
4:37
block. It's a very simple show.
4:39
We have a news segment of the
4:41
Show which we start off with, which
4:43
I'll break down the top six or
4:44
seven stories in the last 24 hours
4:47
before.
4:48
The bells open for
4:50
US trading, then we will move
4:52
into a markets update segment where
4:54
we bring on different analysts to
4:55
talk to us about Bitcoin,
4:58
altcoins, and larger
5:00
movements in the macro economic
5:02
environment. And then we'll move on
5:03
to the hot seat, which is our final
5:05
segment of the show, where we
5:06
interview some big names in the
5:08
industry. And today's show, we've
5:10
got Michiel Thunderpop.
5:11
You will know him if you've been on
5:13
CryptoX for a while.
5:14
He'll be joining us for the market
5:16
polls today, and then we've got
5:18
Yatsu joining us for the hot seat to
5:20
talk about lots of different things,
5:22
mainly AI. He's been pivoting quite
5:24
hard among a number of other people.
5:26
So looking forward to doing that.
5:28
But right now, it's
5:30
time for the news,
5:32
and we'll be jumping into our first
5:34
big story of the day
5:36
where US Bitcoin ETFs
5:38
break a 10-day negative streak.
5:40
With $222 million worth
5:42
of inflows.
5:43
So we start with a green shoot in
5:44
the market. US spot Bitcoin ETFs
5:46
broke a 10 day losing streak
5:47
yesterday.
5:48
They pulled in $223 million
5:50
in net inflows and that's
5:52
the first positive day that we've
5:54
seen since the June the 16th.
5:56
Fidelity's FBTC led with
5:59
166 million and
6:01
ARKB added
6:03
nearly 92 million.
6:04
The loan holdout,
6:06
Blackrock's IBIT.
6:08
Which shared 40 million for its
6:09
11th straight down day.
6:12
And that follows a brutal June
6:14
where we saw four and a half billion
6:15
dollars in outflows.
6:17
That was the worst month since these
6:19
funds launched a
6:21
couple of years ago.
6:22
Bitcoin's back near 61.7
6:25
and that's up almost 3%
6:27
on the day.
6:29
Our next big headline, JP Morgan
6:30
says, strategies Bitcoin sale policy
6:32
has introduced avoidable
6:34
risk into crypto markets.
6:37
They are weighing in here.
6:39
Analyst led by Nikolaos Panucoglu
6:42
said Michael Saylor's newly
6:44
formalized Bitcoin sale policy has
6:46
injected avoidable two-way risk
6:48
into crypto markets because
6:50
strategy can now be both a buyer
6:52
and a seller.
6:53
Its BTC monetization
6:55
program allows selling up to 1.25
6:58
billion dollars in Bitcoin.
7:00
To cover dividends and buybacks.
7:03
JP Morgan wants the firm to hold 24
7:05
to 36 months of dividend
7:07
coverage up from 17
7:09
and with strategy sitting on roughly
7:11
4% of all Bitcoin
7:13
in circulation, even the hint
7:15
of selling they warn adds
7:18
volatility to the whole market.
7:20
Then Robinhood
7:22
saw a big day after its
7:24
big tokenization push.
7:26
CEO Vlad Tenev told
7:28
CNBC the future of crypto is
7:30
in real world assets and
7:32
not meme coins.
7:34
To quote him, if an asset is not
7:36
tied to an underlying utility,
7:38
it's not a productive asset.
7:40
What's the benefit of making a
7:41
million different meme coins?
7:43
He asked if cryptos, he was
7:45
asked if crypto is an enduring
7:46
winter, Teneve
7:48
leaned into the merger of
7:50
traditional finance and crypto
7:51
calling tokenization a freight
7:53
train that be stopped.
7:55
The context here, crypto shared
7:57
roughly a trillion dollars in market
7:59
cap this year, with Bitcoin down
8:01
30% year-to-date.
8:03
In our next headline, Ondo tokenizes
8:05
BlackRock's IVV ETF
8:07
and Micron stock under
8:09
US custodial model.
8:11
Real-world assets are the theme of
8:12
the day today, Ondofinance
8:15
launched tokenized version of
8:17
BlackRock's IVV SMP500
8:19
ETF and
8:21
Micron shares.
8:22
The first time a third party has
8:24
tokenized U.S.
8:25
Listed securities on a public
8:26
blockchain while staying inside the
8:28
existing U. S.
8:29
Regulatory Framework.
8:31
It uses the SEC's
8:32
January custodial model that
8:34
shares stay in traditional custody.
8:36
While Ondo's registered transfer
8:38
agent mints tokens back to
8:40
one-to-one on Ethereum.
8:42
Holders even get on-chain proxy
8:44
voting through Broadridge.
8:46
The tokenized equities market has
8:48
now hit $5.5 billion.
8:50
That's up nearly 150%
8:53
in 2026.
8:55
Then a headline from our show
8:57
yesterday, Humanity Protocol
8:58
repositions towards enterprise
9:00
AI after a $36 million
9:02
hack.
9:03
The starting block had this story
9:05
exclusively and in his first
9:07
interview since the hack, right here
9:09
on our show Humanity Protocol
9:10
founder Terence Kwok said the
9:12
project is pivoting towards
9:13
enterprise AI after a 36
9:15
million dollar exploit drained
9:17
its treasury and crushed
9:19
the H token.
9:20
The breach traced back to a
9:22
compromised developer laptop and a
9:23
phishing email, not a smart
9:25
contract flaw.
9:26
Kwok was blunt on recovery odds.
9:28
He said it's pretty low.
9:29
Comparing it to Bybit's struggle to
9:31
claw back its $1.4 billion that
9:34
it lost in ETH last year.
9:36
The focus now, he says, is a token
9:37
migration and rebuilding,
9:39
not clawing back what was lost.
9:41
If you're interested in reading more
9:43
about that story, you can find it on
9:44
the block's website.
9:46
Alternatively, you could go to my
9:47
profile on X, that's at Gaza
9:49
underscore Jenks.
9:50
I've got a couple of clips from my
9:52
interview with Terence Kwok
9:53
yesterday, if you're interested.
9:56
In checking out what he had to say.
9:57
On the show, of course, you can also
9:58
watch the full broadcast from
10:00
yesterday if you scroll down either
10:02
my timeline or the block code's
10:04
timeline.
10:05
Then Irish authorities recover
10:06
another 500 bitcoins from
10:08
a lost Clifton Collins drug
10:10
stash. This is a wild story.
10:13
The Criminal Assets Bureau,
10:15
with the help of Europol, has
10:16
recovered another 500 bitcoin from
10:18
convicted drug trafficker Clifden
10:21
Collins. It's worth nearly $31
10:23
million.
10:25
That brings total seizures in the
10:26
case to 1,500 Bitcoin.
10:29
That's over $92 million
10:31
in worth.
10:32
The backstory here, Collins,
10:34
who's a former beekeeper, bought
10:35
Bitcoin very cheap back in
10:37
2011 and reportedly lost
10:39
the private keys.
10:41
He stored them at a rented Galway
10:43
property after he went to prison.
10:45
On-chain data still shows around
10:47
$4,500 Bitcoin, more than
10:49
$275 million worth,
10:52
sitting untouched.
10:53
In nine dormant wallets.
10:56
Then another headline, Bank of
10:57
Russia Governor says, everything is
10:58
ready for widespread use of a
11:00
digital ruble ahead of
11:02
its September rollout.
11:04
This is the final story of the day,
11:05
Central Bank Governor Alvira
11:07
Nabulyuna says,
11:09
everything is for the digital rubles
11:11
national rollout
11:13
with systemically important banks
11:15
set to start offering the CBDC to
11:17
clients on September 1st.
11:18
She says, major banks and retailers
11:20
are technologically prepared.
11:22
And the bank is weighing whether to
11:24
let commercial lenders host digital
11:25
ruble wallets.
11:26
Moscow is also discussing stable
11:28
coins, but only for international
11:30
settlements as a compliment to the
11:32
digital ruable and not a domestic
11:33
priority.
11:34
All this as Russia's broader crypto
11:36
bill faces delays and the
11:38
EU pushes a fresh round
11:40
of crypto sanctions.
11:42
That's it for today's top stories.
11:44
If you'd like to read more of those,
11:45
you can go to the block's website.
11:47
That's theblock.co.
11:48
And you can catch up on all the big
11:50
stories from the last 24 hours.
11:53
We're going to be moving into the
11:54
market pulse with Crypto,
11:57
Michiel, of course, Michelfunderpop.
11:59
Don't go away, we'll be right back.
15:51
Welcome back to the starting block.
15:53
We're moving into the market pulse
15:54
now. It's a great pleasure to have a
15:56
good friend of mine from the
15:58
industry, Michiel van der Popp,
16:01
another man who's here in the
16:02
Netherlands. I think we're both kind
16:03
of licking our wounds because South
16:05
Africa are out of the FIFA World
16:06
Cup, the Netherlands are out of the
16:08
Fifa World Cup.
16:09
We were hoping to meet in the
16:11
quarterfinals. It just didn't
16:12
happen, man.
16:13
No man, I just like, that was
16:15
terrible, but I've
16:17
enjoyed a few other countries, so.
16:20
Yeah, the show
16:22
goes on and luckily
16:24
for us, at least there's still
16:25
plenty of good football ahead.
16:28
Mikael, we last saw each other a
16:29
couple of weeks ago at BTC Prague.
16:31
You had the pleasure of sitting down
16:32
with Michael Saylor.
16:33
You guys have just released that
16:35
interview for anyone watching the
16:37
show that hasn't seen that.
16:39
What was the biggest takeaway from
16:40
your conversation with Michael?
16:43
Well, that he is going to sell
16:45
Bitcoin when he needs to, and
16:46
actually, just before we released
16:49
the episode, he mentioned that he
16:50
will do that, and I think that's the
16:52
best way going forward.
16:54
And I just can't find a
16:56
reason to say I need to be
16:58
bearish on strategy and bullish on
17:00
Bitcoin. It's just really hard to
17:02
navigate through that.
17:04
And other than that, I felt
17:05
like, well,
17:08
he's super kind.
17:09
Some people say he's
17:11
arrogant, but he's super kind and
17:12
I... Enjoyed the conversation.
17:14
It was like one of those milestones
17:16
hits and done next to
17:18
the next conversation.
17:21
But I really enjoyed that one with
17:22
him.
17:23
Yeah, and I think like hearing
17:25
from you that the most important
17:26
thing from that is he will be
17:28
selling Bitcoin.
17:28
I mean, they have to meet, you
17:31
know, the dividend obligations.
17:33
But I think he said it many times
17:34
now that they
17:36
will sell Bitcoin, but they're going
17:38
to acquire a lot more Bitcoin than
17:40
they're gonna sell to keep that
17:41
engine going.
17:43
And obviously, there was a lot
17:45
of talk over the last few weeks
17:46
about the systemic risk to Bitcoin
17:48
with Michael Saylor selling.
17:49
But I think in the grand scheme of
17:51
things, he's never going to be able
17:52
to sell enough.
17:53
Bitcoin to really do this
17:55
sort of cascading damage
17:57
that a lot of people would
17:59
have thought.
18:02
Obviously, you're very well known
18:03
for your technical analysis, your
18:05
market insights.
18:06
I've been looking, obviously, at
18:08
your Eurex account every day.
18:10
You post some fantastic stuff,
18:12
you and your team.
18:13
One of the tweets
18:15
that caught my attention was
18:17
this one that you
18:21
Jordan, our producer in the
18:22
background, can bring this one up on
18:24
screen as we talk.
18:26
The tweet says, the largest on-chain
18:27
accumulation ever was recorded
18:29
for Bitcoin.
18:31
That's 270,000 Bitcoin accumulated
18:34
by whales around the $59,000
18:36
mark. What I want to know from you
18:38
is, do you think that's a real gage
18:40
of where we're at in the markets
18:41
right now?
18:42
If that could suggest that we are
18:44
close to some sort of a bottom for
18:47
this bull the S&P market.
18:50
Um, I
18:52
don't know if I'm going to like call
18:53
it a bottom because I've been
18:55
saying that a few times in the past
18:57
already.
18:58
But maybe I've be Simon Dixon
19:00
pilled, but I've
19:02
been jumping a little bit into like,
19:04
how does everything correlate with
19:06
each other?
19:08
And how I'm looking at the markets
19:09
right now is that we've just had
19:11
Michael Seder crashing
19:13
down the markets, whether or not it
19:15
was the actual reason, at least
19:17
people we're emphasizing it quite a
19:19
lot, the Bitcoin ETF retail.
19:21
People have been jumping out of it
19:23
because they were expecting it to go
19:25
down or SpaceX took place.
19:26
I don't know.
19:27
But all of the events that are
19:29
currently taking place are showing
19:31
a different signal.
19:32
So first, we had Kevin Warsh
19:34
saying the inflation is going to
19:36
go up going forward.
19:38
That is basically just the green
19:39
light by risk on assets.
19:41
Then, the day after
19:43
we saw Trump with
19:45
his records making 1.3
19:48
or 4 billion on crypto.
19:50
He knew that it was gonna come.
19:53
So the day after that, you see
19:55
Trump basically starting
19:57
to cheer on crypto and say,
19:59
we're going to be the number one.
20:01
On the exact same day, we see the
20:03
Senator Loomis coming out with the
20:04
fact that most likely the Clarity
20:06
Act will be approved this month.
20:09
And then the day, after that we have
20:11
this news where there's a large
20:13
on-chain accumulation taking place.
20:16
It all lines up perfectly that
20:18
it might build a theory.
20:21
Of saying, okay, Trump has
20:22
been accumulating his positions.
20:25
All his friends have positions.
20:26
All the big guys have the positions.
20:28
They know that the Clarity Act is
20:30
gonna come.
20:30
It's going to be regulated.
20:32
So this is the window that they can
20:34
actually manipulate the markets for
20:36
the last period of time.
20:37
And after this, it's done.
20:39
We're going to go up.
20:40
That's kind of the theory that I
20:42
have.
20:43
I'm not buying into the fact that
20:45
we bottom out in October of
20:47
this year.
20:48
Because if we've just had SpaceX,
20:50
we've just had the Middle East, we
20:51
just had inflation, and we had
20:53
strategy, and we have not
20:55
been making any particular new
20:57
lows since February, I don't
20:59
know what could bring the markets
21:00
down.
21:04
I tend to agree with you and it's
21:05
very interesting, it's a little bit
21:08
contrarian to what I was hearing
21:10
from a lot of very good analysts at
21:12
BTC Prague in particular that were
21:14
kind of saying like, expect the
21:15
market to bottom out in
21:18
October this year.
21:20
Things are looking very different
21:22
two or three weeks later,
21:23
so it'll be interesting to see if
21:25
that plays out.
21:26
Obviously, you've had a very
21:28
interesting couple of years with
21:29
your altcoin portfolio and how
21:31
you've balanced things out.
21:33
How are you seeing the altcoin
21:35
markets kind of play out from here?
21:37
And do you think that they're going
21:38
to follow Bitcoin up?
21:40
What's your general thesis?
21:42
I think the fact that Ethereum has
21:44
picked up momentum and it's
21:46
currently producing the strongest
21:48
weekly candle against Bitcoin since
21:51
August of last year is basically
21:53
signaling everybody is
21:54
positioning in like the fact
21:56
of the Clarity Act will be approved.
21:58
So you see DeFi picking up,
22:01
you see the infrastructure place
22:03
Solana and Ethereum picking up
22:05
momentum. That's usually a good
22:06
sign.
22:07
And secondly, you'll see the DEX is
22:09
starting to wake up.
22:10
So Jupyter, GTO.
22:11
Chitto, Uniswap,
22:13
all those ones are also getting more
22:15
momentum.
22:16
Those are all strong signals that
22:18
the altcoin markets will start to
22:19
wake up.
22:21
So within our funds, we are
22:22
fully allocated into our base assets
22:25
and into our positions right
22:27
now.
22:28
My altcoin portfolio skews a little
22:29
bit more towards AI, but also
22:32
having a play in Solana
22:33
and having plays on Ethereum.
22:35
And I think that I want
22:37
to stay fully positioned, because
22:39
once...
22:41
The sole reason that some of
22:42
those strong altcoins have not been
22:44
performing well over the past few
22:46
weeks was purely based
22:48
on Bitcoin.
22:50
But now that Bitcoin is jumping
22:52
back up above the 200-week
22:54
MA and
22:56
the amount of on-chain activity on
22:58
Solana, Aave, and a few other ones
23:00
are breaking all-time highs,
23:02
it's just a matter of time before
23:04
those assets come back into.
23:06
The fair price of what they should
23:08
be. And that means that there's
23:09
going to be a lot more upside in the
23:11
altcoins versus Bitcoin,
23:13
at least for the short period of
23:15
time that we're going to witness it.
23:18
My final question to you just
23:20
in terms of, you know, Mika coming
23:21
into effect this month and
23:24
I'm sure you saw, or I mean you
23:26
messaged me afterwards, but we were
23:28
in Abu Dhabi chatting to Sizi for
23:30
the opening show this week
23:32
and I think the
23:34
general consensus there was that you
23:36
know they'll try whatever they can
23:37
to get back into the
23:39
European markets through another
23:40
jurisdiction, but how have you seen
23:42
this kind of play out and do do you
23:43
have any strong feelings towards?
23:45
You know, the exchanges that
23:48
are still operating and like,
23:50
you know OKX in particular with
23:52
this big sign up bonus.
23:53
I think they had a $10 million
23:55
allocation
23:56
for people, you know to sign up
23:58
with them if they were having to off
24:00
board from Binance.
24:01
And they've now increased that to
24:03
$50 million.
24:04
So everyone's clearly fighting
24:06
to get users that might want
24:08
to be migrating away from
24:10
Binence with them not having a MECA
24:11
license at this point in time.
24:14
Yeah, I mean, it's just a matter
24:16
of time before Binance jumps back
24:18
into Europe.
24:18
I think it's not going to stay
24:20
away for long.
24:22
And I think that OKX is
24:24
positioning themselves quite well
24:25
because of the fact that they have
24:27
perps and that's one of
24:29
the, that you need a different
24:31
license to actually use perps.
24:32
And they are also going to introduce
24:34
options as far as I know.
24:36
Um, I think for anyone that is
24:38
looking to trade crypto in any of
24:40
these markets, you need to be at a
24:42
safe place. Which is a NICAR
24:44
licensed exchange and
24:47
I think other than that if you
24:49
don't want to be there you can just
24:50
go to DEX but also DEXs
24:52
will be taken away from you at some
24:54
point in time because the government
24:56
doesn't want you to trade on a DEX
24:58
that's also the entire privacy story
25:00
that we all fancy but
25:02
the government is not looking to
25:04
have privacy for you that's not
25:06
their So, I think.
25:08
Just moving your assets to that.
25:10
And I think it's just a matter of
25:11
time. I think Binance actually has
25:12
like three months more to arrange
25:14
it.
25:15
I'm sure they will.
25:17
They are the biggest ones.
25:18
Anyways, they will make it
25:19
work.
25:20
Yeah, for sure.
25:21
I mean, I have no doubt that they're
25:23
working, you know, day and night to
25:24
make that happen. They've got a huge
25:25
compliance team as well.
25:27
And, yeah, it's a it's it's a deeper
25:28
story than then it goes in
25:30
to the audience out there.
25:31
If you didn't watch our interview
25:32
with CZ, you can go back and watch
25:34
that you can find some of the clips
25:36
on on my account, I think you'll
25:37
just see some of them circulating
25:38
there.
25:39
They were they were shared far and
25:41
wide by different accounts, Coin
25:42
Bureau, etc.
25:43
And CZ kind of agreed
25:45
with me when I told them
25:47
that I'd heard a rumor that.
25:49
ECB president Christine Lagarde had
25:51
herself sort of stepped in
25:53
and kind of pressured Greece into
25:55
not giving Binance the green light
25:57
for their application.
25:58
He said he'd heard a similar rumor.
26:00
So really interesting stuff and
26:01
definitely more than meets the eye
26:03
there.
26:04
But Michels, thanks so much for
26:05
taking the time to chat to us today.
26:07
A friend of the show, always a
26:08
friend of mine.
26:09
If you don't already, give him a
26:10
follow, although he doesn't need any
26:11
more on socials.
26:12
I think you're close to a million
26:13
now. Crypto, mech,
26:15
nl, onyx.
26:17
Thanks so much for your time.
26:18
We'll catch you shortly.
26:20
We've got Yatsu back
26:22
in backstage.
26:23
So we're going to take a short
26:24
break, and then we'll be back with
26:25
the hot seat interview Yatsu
26:27
chatting to us next.
26:29
Michiel, thanks very much, man.
26:30
Thank you very much for having me.
26:31
Again and good luck with the show.
28:42
Welcome back to The Starting Block.
28:44
We're moving into the final section
28:45
of our show. It's called The Hot
28:47
Seat. If you're joining us for the
28:48
first time, we check to the biggest
28:49
names in the industry and
28:51
we really get into the
28:53
juicy stuff.
28:54
It's a great pleasure to have
28:55
another friend of the industry,
28:56
Yatsu, on the show, just to round
28:58
things off in our first week of
29:00
The Starting block.
29:01
You'll know him, of course, as the
29:02
chairman of Animoca Brands, Yatsu.
29:04
It's great to have you with us.
29:05
How are you, sir?
29:07
Very good, and thank you for having
29:08
me on the Show. It's always good to
29:09
be here.
29:10
Yeah, it's been a while since we saw
29:12
each other in person, actually, so
29:13
it's good to catch up.
29:14
I think first things first, we had
29:16
Terrence Kwok from Humanity Protocol
29:18
on the show yesterday, his first
29:20
kind of actual media interview
29:22
since the $36 million
29:24
exploit last month.
29:27
Interestingly enough, two years ago,
29:29
you, myself, and Terrence were
29:31
on stage at Proof of Talk in
29:32
Paris when you kind of announced
29:34
that you guys...
29:35
Animoca brands were
29:37
investing in Humanity Protocol and
29:39
had very, very high hopes for
29:41
another really great decentralized
29:43
ID platform really that allows
29:45
you to prove personhood on
29:47
chain and the applications of which
29:49
are many.
29:51
It's really unfortunate to hear how
29:52
things have gone and I just
29:54
wanted to get your perspective as
29:56
someone who I think is also on the
29:57
board to kind of give us
29:59
a rundown and your understanding of
30:01
what happened and what
30:03
the like from here.
30:05
Yeah, I mean, it's very unfortunate.
30:06
I think at this point, it looks
30:08
pretty clear that it was basically
30:10
sort of, I guess, the classic sort
30:12
of North Korean sort of hackers
30:14
that are out there.
30:15
I think one of the things, of
30:17
course, is that one can never be
30:19
too vigilant, which means that
30:20
it's not enough to
30:22
sort of have, let's call it maybe
30:24
sort of biannual or some kind
30:26
of security reviews.
30:27
Literally, you probably need to do
30:28
security reviews at this with
30:30
AI as well as being advanced as
30:32
it is.
30:33
Probably at least several times
30:35
a month, if not more.
30:37
It's one of those things where
30:39
often, when you're thinking the
30:40
classic way of security, a little
30:41
bit of a fire and forget scenario,
30:43
where you're kind of like, OK, it's
30:45
all set up, looks secure,
30:46
we'll do an audit in a classic
30:48
human time once a year, or
30:50
maybe several times a year as
30:52
opposed to maybe consider doing an
30:54
audit several times per month, for
30:56
instance.
30:56
So I think those are some of
30:58
the lessons. The other thing is
30:59
that. The adversarial tools that
31:01
are out there to do this type of
31:03
stuff, to analyze this type stuff,
31:04
has become much more sophisticated.
31:06
So as a result, the
31:08
counter, and I see this,
31:10
obviously the damage is more
31:12
devastating, but I see it as very
31:14
similar to how the early days of the
31:15
internet was with like sort of
31:17
viruses and malware, right?
31:19
In the beginning, the whole world
31:21
was flooded with all those types of
31:22
malware. Nobody really had a good
31:24
way of dealing with it other than
31:25
knowing themselves, running their
31:26
own protocols.
31:27
And eventually applications and
31:29
software started to come out that
31:30
could combat and deal with that.
31:32
And we're kind of at that pace right
31:33
now where you could say the bad guys
31:35
are sort of, let's say, moving very
31:37
quickly and the good guys are moving
31:39
as well, but maybe not quick enough
31:40
in many ways.
31:42
All right, so I think we're seeing a
31:44
little bit of that.
31:45
In terms of humanity, I mean, I
31:47
know that Terence has been talking
31:48
about sort of focusing on
31:50
sort of an enterprise shift and so
31:51
forth. But at the end of the day,
31:54
the underlying tech that is still
31:55
there, in terms of proving
31:57
the personhood is
31:59
still highly relevant.
32:02
It's just a question of where is
32:04
that big focus going to be.
32:05
And certainly for us, we
32:07
decided to take a very big
32:09
bets on digital
32:11
identity, which in
32:13
turn has changed a little bit in
32:14
terms of we always
32:16
thought it was going to be principally
32:18
for humans.
32:20
But it turns out it's probably more
32:22
relevant for agents.
32:23
Okay, right. So that's kind of where
32:25
it's going And so with our own
32:27
sort of MoCA network, for instance,
32:28
we've been sort of very heavily
32:29
investing in that and growing that
32:31
space. And the users are growing
32:32
there.
32:33
And together with what humanity and
32:34
other companies that we've
32:35
supporting to help sort of build
32:37
that space up, we're kind of
32:39
driving, hoping to drive that
32:40
ecosystem.
32:42
So my read on the situation is
32:44
that it's not that they're out of
32:45
the sort of proof of personhood.
32:46
It's just that the applications that
32:48
they are building towards that is
32:49
more on the enterprise side of
32:51
things. We also have to bear in mind
32:53
that the entire hack.
32:55
That took place is weeks
32:57
old.
32:59
It's not many,
33:01
many months, so there's still a lot
33:03
that's going on.
33:05
And I will also say that if you take
33:06
a look at the token, which of course
33:08
has gone down from its
33:10
peak, but relative to
33:12
not just our investment, we'll take
33:14
that aside, but just
33:15
relative to the entire market,
33:19
humanity has actually broadly
33:21
still performed incredibly well.
33:23
We're talking about a token that was
33:25
hacked. We're talk about very strong
33:26
liquidity. We're talked about the
33:28
way that the situation has been
33:29
managed for the most part, I think,
33:31
has been done reasonably
33:34
well.
33:35
And that's all you can really expect
33:37
from a team
33:40
and from founders, that when
33:42
there is a crisis, how do you deal
33:44
with a crisis is really the true
33:46
test of character, rather than when
33:47
all things are great, it's easy
33:50
to look great.
33:51
How do you deal with this?
33:53
And of course, there's
33:55
still a lot more work to do.
33:56
And I guess the proof
33:58
of how it's going to do is still
34:00
to be judged.
34:02
We're clearly not there yet.
34:04
But I would say that the
34:06
team is doing all the right things
34:08
and getting a lot of good support
34:09
from the industry to try to
34:11
basically right the ship as it were.
34:13
So we've
34:15
had in our portfolio, because we had
34:16
such a large portfolio,
34:18
multiple scenarios where portfolio
34:20
companies were I think the most
34:22
Probably devastating and famous one
34:23
at the time was the Axie Infinity
34:25
one back in the day.
34:27
And probably people have forgotten.
34:29
But that was a $600 million hack.
34:30
I was going to say it was orders
34:33
of magnitude bigger. Orders of
34:33
magnitude larger, right?
34:35
Yeah.
34:37
And there are different ways in
34:38
which they did it.
34:39
And I think it's all part of the
34:40
proving and testing ground,
34:43
if I can say.
34:44
And if you look at, for instance, it
34:46
wasn't that long ago that exchange
34:48
giants like Bybit, for instance.
34:49
An exchange got hacked as well.
34:52
So I think this doesn't
34:54
help us as an industry to give
34:56
people the confidence necessarily,
34:59
that, hey, how's everything going on
35:00
in crypto? Because people don't look
35:01
at what happened underlying.
35:03
They don't know the fact that
35:04
custody providers are
35:06
very safe, for instance, or that
35:08
there's procedures around that, or
35:09
that their DeFi platforms are
35:11
incredibly safe. They just see the
35:12
headline and they go, oh my
35:14
goodness, and I still bump it to
35:16
people that say, Oh, but wasn't
35:19
Bitcoin hacked? It's like, no,
35:20
Bitcoin was never hacked, right?
35:22
But we're still at that level
35:24
of understanding, unfortunately,
35:27
because a lot of people just look at
35:29
the headline and then they don't
35:30
really go into the trying to turn.
35:33
But it also shows that how early we
35:35
are in the space still and how much
35:36
work there's still.
35:37
Needs to be done.
35:38
Yeah. Look, we had a great
35:40
conversation with Terence yesterday.
35:42
And what for me was the most telling
35:44
was when I kind of put
35:46
to him the criticisms online.
35:49
Obviously, he'd had a fantastic
35:50
entrepreneurial endeavor earlier
35:53
in his life that sort of also ended
35:55
in bankruptcy.
35:56
And then Crypto Twitter just kind of
35:57
pointed a finger at him and said,
35:59
well, if this is his history,
36:01
what are the chances that this is a
36:03
ragpoll? And he kind
36:05
of pointed to people in the
36:06
industry, like Zach XBT, who very
36:08
quickly pulled the trigger and made
36:09
some assumptions.
36:10
And I think a lot of this is
36:12
now put
36:14
to bed when there's
36:16
very good information
36:18
from the best investigative
36:20
companies in our industry showing
36:22
that there's a commingling of funds
36:24
from the Humanity Protocol exploits
36:27
and other exploits
36:28
that are linked to North Korean
36:30
hackers. So again, it just speaks
36:32
volume of like.
36:33
Our industry has
36:35
so much PTSD from other failings
36:38
that the first thing we all think is
36:39
that this founders just screwed
36:40
everyone and rug pulled everyone and
36:42
like, when do we change that?
36:44
Yes, but I think there's
36:47
also sort of the assumptions in the
36:49
space, and I think it's also a
36:51
little bit where media has gone as
36:52
well.
36:53
So media, unfortunately, and by
36:55
the way, I think this is more
36:57
reflective on crypto Twitter than on
36:59
other channels, shall we say.
37:01
So crypto Twitter in particular, I
37:03
think, sort of exposes
37:05
some of this, which is that there's
37:07
an immediate assumption.
37:08
And I think comes from two
37:09
categories. So one is, well,
37:12
when in doubt. He's probably wrong.
37:15
So there's a little bit of that
37:16
aspect, which is unfortunate.
37:18
So the benefit of the doubt is
37:20
not given a
37:23
lot in our industry because of, I
37:24
guess, the PTSD that you describe.
37:26
But the other one also, and I think
37:28
this is part of the media
37:29
sensationalism that has brought us
37:30
to this point, is that when you talk
37:32
about this, then you just end
37:34
up getting more
37:36
clicks. And you get more,
37:38
I mean, I would I would say that in
37:40
a way, There's very
37:42
few moments where you get
37:44
viral moments that really talk about
37:45
positivity.
37:46
It's much easier.
37:47
And unfortunately, that's just one
37:49
of the things in social media, where
37:50
if you talk about a theft,
37:53
or a hack, or
37:55
a rug pull, or anything like that,
37:57
then it just gets more attention.
38:00
And in my
38:02
role at Cortico,
38:04
which is a spin-off from the Media
38:06
Lab, they
38:08
put out a famous article.
38:10
It's maybe like, I think, six or
38:12
seven years old now.
38:14
But they basically demonstrated
38:16
and proved how basically
38:18
negative conversations and
38:20
things that invoke anger or
38:22
injustice or so on literally
38:24
amplify 10, 20,
38:26
30x.
38:28
And we see this obviously, I
38:30
guess, from
38:31
just seeing what's happening in social
38:32
media. But of course, the algorithms
38:34
see that as well.
38:35
So they tend to push that.
38:37
Because then it's just a story that
38:39
gives more engagement, which means
38:40
there's more attention, which means
38:41
it's more time on your platform and
38:43
so forth and so fourth, right?
38:45
I had a similar thing and it
38:47
was of course much more harmless,
38:49
but I think three years ago,
38:51
I think it was three years, my ex
38:53
was hacked, right.
38:57
And I remember the
38:59
very first thing, the very criticism
39:01
that, one of the very criticisms I
39:03
received rather than, oh my
39:04
goodness, are you okay?
39:06
It was like, no, why does
39:08
a chairman of, oh, I know the branch
39:10
from Zach actually see, why does the
39:11
chairman not have 2FA?
39:13
And then I put out a post explaining
39:15
exactly what happened, right?
39:17
And that there was 2FA and it was
39:19
essentially a different type of
39:20
attack that I had basically
39:21
informed, sort of, I was sharing
39:23
on X to protect yourself.
39:25
And then he deleted
39:27
that post, but he also
39:29
didn't go out and say, oh, you know
39:31
what, I made a mistake, right.
39:32
And I think that's part of that.
39:33
And I don't think it's necessarily.
39:35
You know, a dig on Zach per
39:37
se, because I don't think he's the
39:38
only one that does that.
39:39
A lot of people are not willing to
39:41
go out and say, okay, I made a
39:42
mistake.
39:43
That's all right.
39:46
Here's actually what happened,
39:47
because the same voice that can
39:48
criticize you should also be the
39:50
voice that could correct things,
39:51
right? And it happens across, right.
39:53
And I think someone like Zach who
39:54
does a lot of really valuable and
39:55
important things for our industry.
39:57
So we're grateful for that, right,
39:59
also at the same time should
40:01
understand that he has a voice that
40:03
could actually influence
40:05
the industry in the same way.
40:07
To say, look, if I've made a
40:09
wrong mistake, if I said something
40:10
that wasn't true, if I go out
40:12
and say, actually, this is what
40:14
happened, it might
40:15
also help other people in the
40:17
industry to think, oh, actually you
40:18
know what?
40:19
Maybe it's OK to
40:21
be wrong.
40:22
Because we're wrong many times.
40:23
And it brings more of a
40:25
vulnerability, and it brings a sense
40:27
of humanity,
40:29
no pun intended.
40:31
To actually who we are and how we
40:32
should communicate with each other
40:33
rather than always being supposedly
40:35
perfect and always having the right
40:37
things to say. And when there's a
40:38
mistake, then we kind of sort of,
40:40
you know, hide it and pretend that
40:41
we never did that, which is of
40:43
course not right
40:45
either. And I think that unfortunately
40:46
helps sort of stokes sort
40:47
of these kind of feelings, which
40:49
I think our industry needs to
40:51
recover from.
40:52
Yeah, look, there's a lot of people
40:54
out there in the industry that
40:55
aren't willing to to say sorry, or I
40:57
was wrong um I'm one
40:59
of the first people to always put up
41:00
my hand and own up for mistakes and
41:02
stuff And I think that everyone
41:03
could yeah eat a little bit of
41:04
humble pie every now and then and at
41:06
least, you know Be a bit more
41:09
You know thoughtful of what people
41:11
are going for all the the
41:13
Potential effects when you have
41:14
hundreds of thousands of followers
41:15
and whatever you put out there on on
41:17
social media can have A very a very
41:19
big impact Yeah, I wanted to talk to
41:21
you a little bit about, you know,
41:23
digital asset treasury companies.
41:25
Michael Saylor has been in the
41:27
headlines for numerous weeks now,
41:29
and it's been super interesting to
41:30
see him finally sell some Bitcoin.
41:32
And obviously, the market, you know,
41:34
Bitcoin dipped below the $60,000
41:36
mark. It's crept up above
41:38
that. But there's been bigger
41:40
question marks on general digital
41:43
asset treasury company's.
41:45
You've been involved with Alphaton,
41:46
which is, you digital asset
41:48
treasury company that holds.
41:51
Compute.
41:52
There we go. Alpha compute.
41:53
So I'm very curious to hear your
41:55
thoughts on that and just the
41:57
longevity of these
41:59
altcoin dats and where
42:01
you see that movement going because
42:02
I mean if bitcoin treasury companies
42:04
are feeling the pressure I
42:06
think that the altcoin that's might
42:08
be feeling a bit more pressure.
42:09
Yeah, I mean, and I think Alpha
42:11
Ton, becoming Alpha
42:13
Compute is a perfect example of
42:15
that, right? Which is a company that
42:16
was a ton that basically really
42:18
wants to transform themselves into
42:21
a basically compute company
42:22
with AI compute.
42:24
And most recently, you know, we also
42:26
did a transaction with them with
42:27
Gami on the gaming side as well.
42:29
And by the way, the intersection of
42:30
AI and gaming is really interesting.
42:32
I mean it's the same reason why.
42:34
Google's deep mind invested in one
42:36
of our other portfolio companies,
42:37
the company behind EVE Online,
42:38
because gaming turns out to be a
42:40
really good simulator
42:41
and way in which you can train
42:43
AI models, for example.
42:45
So it's evolving into the space.
42:48
I don't think that the, in general,
42:50
broadly, I don't think that that
42:52
concept in and of itself
42:54
is dead.
42:55
But I do think there is a problem
42:57
when you have 200 or 300 of them.
43:00
So there's an attention
43:02
issue. And I think, in one way, I
43:03
think one of the side
43:05
effects of Saylor
43:08
basically dealing
43:10
with strategy is that
43:12
he was, at one point, a very
43:13
exclusive commodity.
43:15
And now he's become commoditized
43:17
in his own market, so to speak.
43:19
So if you're actually thinking
43:20
about, I want to buy some Bitcoin
43:22
in a relatively
43:24
cheap way, to speak, then
43:26
suddenly there's like 50 to 100
43:28
other. Companies where you could
43:29
buy an implied discount
43:32
on Bitcoin. Of course, there's many
43:33
reasons why the discount exists, but
43:35
it basically just disperses your
43:37
attention. So I think that's one
43:38
issue.
43:39
And I think the second, and I think
43:41
this is the bigger issue, the bigger
43:42
issue isn't the debt in and of
43:43
itself. It's who's leading a lot of
43:45
those debts, because for a lot them,
43:47
it felt pretty easy.
43:49
OK, I'm going to go become the CEO
43:51
of a company that buys treasury
43:52
assets and just accumulate,
43:53
accumulate, accumulate.
43:55
And when the market goes well, then
43:56
that's great. But when the marketing
43:57
doesn't go well, then what do you
43:58
do? And that actually means that
44:00
like any really typically listed
44:02
company for the most part needs to
44:04
be an operating business.
44:05
And so the difference is, is that
44:06
are the people who are in leadership
44:08
actually able to become or
44:10
are operators?
44:11
And it turns out many of them
44:12
struggle with that because that's
44:13
not what they signed up for.
44:15
And that's what I thought they were
44:16
doing. And I think that's one of the
44:17
struggles. So we're not against sort
44:19
of the DAT concept in and of itself.
44:21
But that concept has to evolve, and
44:23
it needs to have an operating
44:24
concept. It needs to be run by
44:25
people who know that and understand
44:27
that. And I think, unfortunately,
44:29
debts are being dragged through the
44:30
mud because the majority of
44:32
the debts are run by the people who
44:34
are not thinking in operational
44:35
terms for now, which I think
44:37
will change.
44:38
I think what will happen is that
44:39
there's going to be debts that are
44:39
going to get consolidated, because
44:41
it is a way in which you can
44:42
basically buy discounted assets,
44:44
and that would make sense for
44:46
someone to consolidate.
44:47
The shell in itself has value to
44:49
some companies and to some people as
44:51
well.
44:52
I mean, there's a premium on shells
44:53
last year because of DATS, and
44:55
now you have more shells available
44:56
because DATs are probably all
44:57
looking to sell.
44:59
And then finally,
45:01
you have companies that do have
45:03
assets, that do of capital,
45:05
and if you look at, obviously,
45:07
the share price aside, if you at
45:08
Alpha Ton turning into Alpha
45:10
Compute, they actually very
45:11
successfully transformed themselves
45:13
into an AI-basic
45:15
compute business.
45:16
Basically projecting tens of
45:17
millions of dollars of revenue at
45:19
this point from
45:20
a business that was really just
45:21
holding Ton in and of itself.
45:24
And it doesn't mean that they're not
45:25
collaborating or working together
45:27
with Ton and with Telegram
45:29
because they're providing
45:31
support for Cocoon, for instance,
45:33
and a compute side of side there as
45:34
well. So there is a relationship
45:35
there. It's just how do you navigate
45:37
into that so that you can
45:39
basically evolve.
45:41
I think for maybe the final thing
45:43
I'll say is that.
45:44
The broader issue, I don't think,
45:46
is strategy in and of itself.
45:48
The broader issues is just Bitcoin's
45:49
attention right now.
45:50
I think Bitcoin, one
45:52
of the very, very curious things is
45:53
that in
45:55
a way we had hoped as an industry
45:57
that us going into TradFi would
46:00
essentially bring TradFi attention
46:01
to our assets, which
46:03
happened a little bit.
46:05
But it turns out that our industry
46:06
was far more interested in the
46:08
assets that TradFi had to bring to
46:09
us. Right?
46:11
So whether it's RWA's.
46:13
Or whether it's basically
46:15
securitized sort of equities and
46:17
stocks and commodities, right?
46:18
And you can see this in basically
46:20
the major exchanges, they're all
46:22
starting to basically allow you to
46:23
trade gold and oil and commodities
46:25
and so forth in tokenized format,
46:27
which is kind of what the industry
46:28
is always looking for, except now
46:30
I think it's kind of quasi
46:31
cannibalizing the base because
46:34
they see more exciting opportunities
46:36
in where they can buy essentially
46:37
stocks that actually outperform,
46:39
you know, many, many crypto assets.
46:41
So that's part of the attention
46:43
that's also dealing with it.
46:45
And so it's part of the maturation,
46:47
it's a part of growing up.
46:48
Obviously we're still long-term
46:49
bullish on everything but I think
46:51
that's something that I think was
46:52
not as expected.
46:54
I think the expectation was, our
46:56
industry would push the assets to
46:58
TradFi which it did a little,
47:00
but it turns out that TradFi was
47:01
much better at pushing the assets to
47:03
us.
47:03
Yeah, for sure.
47:05
Just to add to that point very
47:07
quickly, I think all the
47:08
conversations I had over the past
47:10
few years, my former
47:12
co-host Robert Baggs and I were
47:13
always asking people this like,
47:16
are there too many DATs?
47:18
And we asked, I mean,
47:20
Michael Saylor was asked this on
47:22
what Bitcoin did and he
47:26
destroyed Danny Knowles for
47:28
even insinuating that
47:30
there were too many. But It's very
47:31
clearly the case that a lot of them
47:32
were just. Copy pasting,
47:35
convertible notes sort of offering
47:36
and not really having a
47:38
business that was generating any
47:39
revenue.
47:41
And I think anyone with any
47:43
sort of business acumen would say
47:45
that first things first, you
47:46
actually need to have a business,
47:47
that's doing something.
47:48
And then move it to a Bitcoin
47:50
standard if you're doing it as a
47:51
Bitcoin treasury company.
47:54
And we've seen that play out and
47:56
the bear market is what really
47:58
tests whether you know,
48:00
these companies can survive and only
48:01
the biggest and most well-run.
48:03
Uh can um
48:05
but we've been here before
48:07
If you think about sort of 2018
48:09
and 2019, I mean, obviously,
48:11
Bitcoin, it was
48:12
a bear market for crypto, but it
48:14
wasn't a bear market for equities,
48:16
right?
48:17
And I think we're in
48:18
a similar situation right now, which
48:20
is that it's actually, for
48:22
the most part, a pretty exciting
48:23
market for it for equites,
48:25
ridiculous if you think about it.
48:27
Like, I'm in Taiwan right now
48:28
and I think Taiwan
48:31
hasn't had sort of
48:32
such a buoyant stock market and like
48:34
ever.
48:35
You know and the same is true for
48:37
Korea same is through for Japan,
48:39
right?
48:40
Basically, if you look at the market
48:41
caps, I mean not just SpaceX is
48:43
you know recent IPO, but just like
48:45
we have I
48:46
don't know six seven eight nine
48:49
ten two trillion dollar companies.
48:51
Actually, we include the ones in
48:52
Asia We probably have 20 or I don't
48:54
know I mean, I haven't even done the
48:55
count but we have double
48:57
digit trillion dollar company's
48:59
in the world today
49:04
So that's part of that,
49:06
but I think outside of the
49:08
whole fact that these things
49:10
come in cycles,
49:12
there's going to be a natural
49:13
attention, I think, that will shift
49:14
into other asset classes.
49:16
One of the things that we had always
49:18
said is that ultimately, we do
49:20
feel that collectively, altcoins,
49:21
and this is to be tested,
49:23
altcoins is going to bigger than
49:25
Bitcoin collectively.
49:26
And one of the thing that,
49:29
at least if you want to cherry pick,
49:30
there have been selective assets.
49:32
In the token classes
49:34
of altcoins that have very much
49:36
outperformed many asset classes,
49:38
right? And so the way we
49:40
think of this is that right now,
49:42
the ability for a
49:44
TradFi person to buy a crypto asset
49:46
is fairly limited, comparatively
49:48
speaking, to essentially someone
49:50
who is in crypto who can buy a
49:51
Tradfi asset, right.
49:52
Like if you think about sort of
49:53
where it's moving, it's definitely
49:55
moving more faster in one direction
49:56
than the other. That's for the
50:02
know, like some of the other assets
50:03
that are out there that basically
50:04
have outperformed broadly, right?
50:07
Then from an investor standpoint,
50:09
it's just an asset.
50:10
Whether this is a commodity, whether
50:12
it is crypto, whether this is the
50:13
stock, they look at whether it has
50:15
attention, whether it is growing,
50:17
whether it have potential.
50:19
And so in this mixture of it, it may
50:20
seem more competitive, but they will
50:22
end up buying basically crypto
50:24
assets that aren't going to
50:25
outperform. Like if there was a way
50:26
for them to sort of participate in
50:27
the fastest growing altcoins,
50:29
because it has real utility and real
50:31
potential from whatever.
50:32
Sort of price classes that are
50:33
coming in, then that will accelerate
50:35
as well when it all gets completely
50:37
mixed up, which currently it isn't
50:38
quite yet.
50:39
And so I think that
50:41
to us is kind of that natural next
50:43
step where it's evolving,
50:45
where the technology makes it easy.
50:47
The first step is we're going to
50:49
tokenize securities so that people
50:51
in crypto can buy it.
50:52
All right, fine. Now that
50:53
everything's easily tokenized,
50:55
then the question becomes, okay, so
50:57
what are the change is going to do.
50:59
Probably have to respond in kind.
51:00
You can see this with the Robin
51:01
Hoods and the eToros out there, you
51:03
know, they're all and so
51:05
and so forth that they're all now
51:06
starting to offer crypto assets more
51:08
and more and more, right?
51:09
And so when this all starts to sort
51:11
of intermingle and sort of mix up,
51:14
they are all going to be sort of
51:15
sort of connected in one pool.
51:17
Eventually the consumer is not going
51:18
to care that he's buying a
51:20
so-called altcoin or so- called sort
51:22
of equity or so called commodity.
51:24
He's just going to look at the
51:25
underlying potential of that asset,
51:27
determine that.
51:29
Probably through the help of an AI
51:30
agent and then start buying that
51:32
asset.
51:33
And so I think that the disadvantage
51:35
is that crypto assets just broadly
51:37
have less access for
51:39
the time being to a broader market
51:40
in comparison to
51:42
this whole traditional instruments.
51:44
Yeah, for sure. And I think the
51:45
general sort of directionality
51:48
is, you know, the coinbases
51:49
and finances and Robin Hoods
51:51
of the world are moving more
51:53
towards becoming the decentralized
51:55
sort of stock exchanges of
51:57
the old, you know, so the New York
51:59
the New York stock exchange of the
52:01
future. And that's at least how I
52:02
like to see that.
52:03
And just to kind of wrap up the
52:05
conversation.
52:07
The name of the show on
52:09
X today is Yatsu
52:11
predicts 100 billion AI agents.
52:13
You recently said this in a keynote
52:15
speech. Can you talk to us a little
52:17
bit about your AI agent thesis
52:19
and how it all ties together
52:21
with crypto and blockchain and
52:23
what you see the future holding?
52:26
I think at this point, it's not
52:27
necessarily a novel story, but I
52:29
think when you think about sort of
52:31
the context of everything that we've
52:32
done in crypto and blockchain over
52:34
the last, let's call it five or six,
52:35
seven years, I go back a little bit
52:37
to sort of how it all started for us
52:39
and it started really with
52:40
CryptoKitties for us, for those who
52:41
still remember Crypto Kitties back
52:43
in late 2017, and
52:45
$40 million of sales broke
52:47
Ethereum, right?
52:48
I mean, Ethereum could not function.
52:51
And now we can
52:52
do trillions of dollars of stable
52:54
contractions.
52:55
Without any problems whatsoever,
52:56
right? So we've now come to a point
52:58
where the blockchain is mature,
53:01
but it can do all these
53:02
transactions, but human
53:04
connection to the blockchain remains
53:06
difficult.
53:07
And if you just see this in DeFi,
53:09
I think the on-chain
53:11
user base is still sub-hundred
53:13
million, probably around 70-ish or
53:14
so, in comparison to
53:17
people who own crypto assets and
53:18
exchanges is approaching eight,
53:20
maybe even 900 million, probably by
53:22
the end of the year, right. So we're
53:23
going to have.
53:24
Basically a billion people that
53:26
own or have access to crypto assets,
53:28
while the DeFi world still remains
53:30
at the sub hundred sort of
53:32
million user base, right?
53:34
And so why is that?
53:35
And I think, you know, a lot of us
53:36
in the industry have come to the
53:37
conclusion that in fact, maybe
53:39
humans are not meant to be the
53:41
interface into crypto, right.
53:43
That's why we like to use a
53:44
centralized exchange.
53:45
That's what I would like to sort of,
53:46
you still go to the bank if we
53:48
can, as long as the fees are cheaper
53:50
and that kind of stuff in which they
53:51
will be, right And we still end up
53:52
using a credit card, even though
53:54
it's not super efficient, because
53:55
we're not comfortable with having
53:57
seed phrases. We're not
53:58
uncomfortable with verifying
54:00
transactions.
54:01
It's a little bit like the raw
54:02
internet back in the day before we
54:04
had to make it very user-friendly.
54:05
And so what is that user-friendly
54:07
interface? It's very likely going to
54:08
be an AI agent.
54:09
And that AI agent has that
54:11
intelligence, and we want them to be
54:12
autonomous.
54:13
But then if they need to be
54:14
anonymous, they need have money.
54:16
So how do you make them autonomous?
54:18
Well, then they need to have a
54:19
wallet. That's what we did with
54:20
HelloMinds. With HelloMins, which
54:22
is our own sort of agentic platform,
54:24
they all come with a wallet, and
54:25
that wallet basically gives them
54:27
autonomy, and they can do
54:28
transactions, and they do all that
54:30
kind of stuff, which, frankly,
54:32
isn't something that
54:34
most agents can do for
54:36
the time being.
54:37
There will be a lot of people
54:38
talking, oh, I could tie my
54:40
agent credit card, and so on.
54:42
And while that's neat, the problem
54:43
is that you're
54:45
still depending on a third party
54:46
platform to do transactions.
54:48
If it's a credit card.
54:49
And the other thing is that an agent
54:51
will also be able to discover
54:53
things much more
54:55
quicker. It will rewire the entire
54:56
internet.
54:58
Just think about the last time you
54:59
actually clicked through to a
55:00
website when you were searching
55:02
something on Google or in ChatGPT.
55:04
Chances are it's probably been
55:06
a long time, or very few times
55:08
that you actually really clicked
55:10
through because a summary of AI is
55:11
enough, and the agent is completely
55:13
abstracting all of that.
55:14
And so in that environment,
55:16
we see a mental picture, which is
55:18
very similar to the way we used to
55:20
visit websites, is the
55:22
way that we engage agents who come
55:23
to us with the content that we want,
55:25
whether it's for food or for family
55:27
or for life or so on.
55:29
I myself am approaching like
55:31
300 to 400 agents.
55:33
Of course, a lot of them are
55:34
experiments.
55:36
But the general number, though,
55:38
that if I asked you the question,
55:40
how many agents do you think you
55:42
have, it's probably going to be more
55:43
than. 10, 20, right?
55:46
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
55:47
Right. Yeah. So, so the 7 billion
55:48
people online, just do the
55:50
math, right. You have some outliers
55:52
who are going to have 1000s or maybe
55:54
hundreds of 1000s. And then you have
55:55
the vast majority of people who are
55:56
going have, you know, 10, 2030,
55:58
40, 100 billion agents kind
56:00
of sounds like a bit too small,
56:01
right, so I'm being conservative
56:03
there.
56:04
It sounds like, like a massive
56:05
number.
56:06
Right.
56:07
And the economic model where we
56:09
think this will all change is we
56:10
think the whole advertising industry
56:12
is the tension economy, as it were.
56:14
Is going to be flipped upside down,
56:16
because for a lot of people, they
56:17
don't think of advertising as a
56:19
transaction based economy, but it is
56:20
very much a transaction-based
56:21
economy. The transaction is just
56:23
invisible to us because, you know,
56:25
we're on a website, we see something
56:27
on the back.
56:28
They have the micro transactions
56:28
that pays and sort of shares revenue
56:30
with advertising and ads and so
56:32
forth, right, literally at, you
56:34
know, a million views per,
56:36
like, basically, like 10 cents or 20
56:38
cents. That is the micro, micro
56:40
transaction, right? That
56:41
microtransaction is going to be sort
56:42
of replaced.
56:43
Essentially a micro transaction
56:44
where I'm paying for content
56:46
literally at the same rate.
56:48
And most people are not going to
56:49
care that if they're watching a
56:50
piece of content and it'll cost them
56:51
a fraction of a cent, they won't
56:53
care because out of their 20, 30,
56:55
50, 100 dollar subscription they're
56:56
paying somewhere around the world,
56:58
right, it's going to come out of
56:59
that and you will not care.
57:00
It'll just happen.
57:01
And that's kind of where we think
57:03
that model will change and
57:04
blockchain is a perfect machine
57:06
banking system and economy that
57:07
will bring it forward.
57:08
The slightly more sci-fi version of
57:10
this is that we actually think we're
57:11
going to be approaching.
57:12
Into what we describe into an
57:14
agentic civilization.
57:16
So because AIs
57:19
are becoming smarter and more
57:20
intelligent over time,
57:23
once they have true autonomy with
57:25
money, it enables them basically to
57:27
create the same kind of
57:28
infrastructure for civilization as
57:29
money has done for humans as it does
57:31
for agents. So I think we're hitting
57:33
this new era, which
57:35
I think is pretty exciting.
57:36
Can be scary for some, but I think
57:38
it's a pretty exciting new era.
57:39
And, you know, we obviously want to
57:41
play a major role in that.
57:42
Which is why we launched Hello Minds
57:44
and made doing a lot of investments
57:45
in the agentics space.
57:47
Yeah, I mean, it makes sense.
57:48
It's definitely sort of the
57:50
direction in which everything is
57:52
heading. If you're not already,
57:53
go ahead and follow Yat on
57:55
social media on X.
57:57
It's at Ysu, that's
57:59
Y-S-I-U.
58:01
He's been a thought leader for many,
58:03
many years and on top of most of the
58:05
big trends over the years.
58:06
And I think it's fair to say that,
58:07
you know, this AI trend is not going
58:09
away.
58:11
And this, you now, this kind of
58:12
revolutionary movement of
58:15
money and technology.
58:17
Is happening right before our eyes,
58:18
and we do need to think very
58:20
creatively about how that might work
58:22
as we go forward, and Yart is one of
58:23
those people. Yeah, thank you so
58:25
much for taking the time to chat to
58:26
us. It's great to have you on the
58:28
show, and yeah,
58:30
we hope to see you again soon.
58:33
Thank you for having me.
58:35
Beautiful, and thank you very
58:36
much for joining us today
58:38
for the starting block.
58:40
This is our first week of the
58:42
show. We will be back next week with
58:44
a fantastic lineup of guests.
58:45
We're starting off Monday with
58:47
Joseph Challon from SharpLink.
58:49
He's going to be talking to us about
58:50
SharpLink, he's going be talking us
58:51
about ETH Labs.
58:53
I'm also looking at getting Mike
58:54
Balchion next week from Bitco, and
58:56
we are in conversation with the
58:58
teams from ETH labs and
59:00
ETH institutional.
59:01
So we should have...
59:02
A jam-packed lineup of
59:04
guests joining us for the Starting
59:06
Block next week.
59:07
If you missed our interview with
59:09
CZ on Monday, you
59:11
can find that on the
59:13
Block's X account.
59:15
Just go to the top of the page
59:16
there. It should still be pinned.
59:17
If it's not, we'll repin it this
59:18
weekend if you want to catch that.
59:20
We're also uploading a full
59:21
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59:23
channel as well. So if you're not,
59:25
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59:27
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59:28
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59:29
today's episode of
59:31
the starting product.
59:32
Please like and retweet the stream
59:34
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59:35
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59:37
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59:38
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59:39
a fantastic weekend.
59:40
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59:42
Until then, stay safe and have
59:44
a great evening.