Rates, Robinhood vs Solana, and AI Usage Decline!

0:00That is up everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Full Port. I’m here with my trusty co-host and partner in crime, gmoney. We’ve got a lot to go over today. Rates are in the news, in the headlines, AI usage, decline, metadvising, a decrease in usage. We’ll get into that. And also notably, we are seeing two of the biggest names in the crypto space, swing it out over who will take over the RWA and the rails of modern tradfi finance as they come on chain between Solana and Robinhood. And I think we have some others that are trying to make their move into, I would say the frontier of the modern tradfi finance space, such as crack. We’ll get into all of this during the show. But first, gmoney, how are you doing this morning, my good friend? I’m good. Had a good weekend. You know, I think we want to talk about I want to talk about an update on the Micron trade, I hit the low out on Thursday morning after numbers. And I think this is one one of the reasons why I like options over perps, in that sense, is that it really just, I like knowing my risk being able to see what in advance, like what how much I’m risking on the trade as opposed to maybe, you know, getting stopped out at the lows, which I was on

1:25the purpose position. So it was annoying. But overall, still have my options positions on. And yeah, I guess like, we can get in that later. But I do want to start with rates, because I do think that it’s been very interesting to see rates sticking up here. If you want to bring up my screen real quick, of course, I want to I want to bring up the chart of first the 10 year, and the 30 year also is acting pretty much exactly the same, right, where rates have have gone up, they’re holding out up near the highs. And I think, to me, the very interesting, there’s obviously been in the in the news in the news for a couple weeks, and maybe even a couple months at this point. But to me, the most interesting part about this is that generally, when rates go up, stock prices go down. And the reason for that, right, is as the risk free costs of capital goes higher, the return that you will require from non risk free assets, such as the stock market goes up as well. So usually, in those scenarios, people, you know, money will rotate out of more risky assets into a higher risk, a higher yielding risk free asset, which is government treasuries. And the fact that we’re hanging out up here in terms of rates, while concurrently, the stock market, the cues are at all time

2:59highs, the S&P 500 is a touch above all time highs, I think is really interesting.

3:08And I think that that’s something that I, you know, I think when you look at what are some upside catalysts from here, in terms of, you know, obviously, we have the midterms coming up in pretty much 30 days. And you want to see like, oh, what should I be doing here? How should I be positioned and whatnot? You know, I think that Trump obviously understands what rates are, right? And how important they are to the market. Bessin definitely understands it. I think that I saw this headline right before the show saying that Berkshire increased their position in Lenar, which is one of the largest home builders in the country. And that stock has obviously been doing pretty terribly over the last couple months, because rates have have been high. And if Berkshire is looking is looking to buy a home builder right around here. That means they’re probably making the bet that rates are close to peaking, because home builders move inverse to rates, right? Because obviously, as the as rates go down, then the cost of a mortgage goes down, which means you can increase, you can afford a, a more expensive home. And so I think that that’s, that’s very interesting. So I think, to me, I was also looking at rocket mortgage. Last week, I saw a couple people

4:38tweeting about it last week. It’s also like a rates trade. RKT rocket companies chart looks pretty much the same. People were talking about it last week. I thought it’s very interesting because it is levered to mortgage rates and refinancing if rates are peaking, right? Because it’s like, again, we climb that wall of worry. And if the stock market’s at all time highs, and rates are high, and you know that the administration wants lower rates, right? I think there’s two keys that they’re that they’re trying to do here. One is how do you lower energy prices and that, you know, if some sort of deal is struck even temporarily with Iran, that gets oil flowing through the Strait of Iran, and then the oil is going to be more moves, then, you know, the risk premium on oil starts to go down a little bit, right, which is good for lowering inflation. But then also, it, you know, and I saw this headline this morning, that Bessin basically is saying like we do have a few things that we can do it rather quickly. Now, part of that is probably him jawboning the market. But the thing I will say about what central banks around the world have been able to do repeatedly for the past, say close to 30 years, is that they’re able to pull rabbits out of the hat that might not be there. Because I

6:09And being like, Oh, they’re, you know, the feds cornered, everything’s coming to a head. You know, we need to bring austerity in and, you know, fix these problems. And they always managed to print and pull stuff and get out of the corner. And I do think that maybe we’re closer to that endgame. But I you will never discount the fact that, you These people understand liquidity, understand, you know, I think it’s almost like you’re trying to like land the plane on like a really like short runway, right? Where it’s like, you know, there has to be some sort of inflation because how else are you going to pay off the debt?

6:51But also if there’s too much inflation, then there’s riots on the street and you know, you get some sort of populist style revolt that has happened throughout history. So yeah, I do think that like the interesting setup here to me is the fact that rates are so high, the stock market is at all time highs, when generally it tells you that they should, you know, the stock market should be selling off in this scenario. And so and then you have smart investors, like I said, like Berkshire, buying companies that are levered to interest rates going lower.

7:30And so I think that becomes like pretty interesting. And so I, you know, I saw that this morning, I was looking at Rocket last week, I’m probably going to maybe look to put on a position over the next week or two on that. Because I think that’s kind of interesting, you know, to play that on top of like, you know, the gold plays because, you know, in the in these scenarios, right, like it’s basically like you’re increasing liquidity. So I think Bitcoin obviously does well, crypto in general does well. But then also, it’s like, how can you play these other same types of trades, but like slightly different, right? And so that’s why I think that this is this has been pretty interesting. And obviously, it’s been in the news a lot. And I almost feels like it almost feels like it’s coming to a head. And at some point, we might wake up one day and rates are down, you know, 10 to 20 dips. And the stock stock market will be like flying, right? So I think that’s been pretty interesting.

8:29Yeah, I’m the one area that makes me really think here is, and you’ve mentioned it before, you know, Trump has his eye on, you know, the QQQ. He’s watching WTI, he’s watching interest rates, like, and I think there’s a bit of a thumb on the scale of like him bullposting to get numbers higher across the board, obviously, not for rates. You could make the argument here, then that because we have all this strength and righteous or higher, if they were to go down, doesn’t this accelerate across the board as more money flows back into, you know, risk assets, etc. It could be kind of like a blow off top. If that if it plays out in that scenario, on rates or the market on the market? Yeah, well, I mean, if rates start going lower, I don’t know if it necessarily would be a blow off top, because that means like rates like, like we’re going to be we’re going to be the beginning of an easing cycle, right? And so if rates are going lower, then there’s going to be more and more liquidity coming in. So I don’t know if the blow off top would be anytime soon, right? I think to me, like the big width is whether to me, the big risk is whether like AI spending like slows down, right? Because that’s like, obviously,

9:52the big thing on on everybody’s on everybody’s, let’s say, risk analysis, right? Is like, what happens if the AI build out slows down? And then, you know, the economy is basically like all AI and AI related spend at this moment, right? And it’s being driven by let’s say, like, whatever the top 10 largest companies in the world that are levered to AI and everything else is pretty weak, right? So yeah, I think that’s, that’s pretty interesting there. That’s pretty interesting setup.

10:23Yeah, oh, meta came out. And actually gave some guidance on this and saying we’re going to slow down here, which I think spooked quite a lot of people. I don’t know if you can pull up. So I know, I don’t know if they came out and said that they were going to slow down spend.

10:43They said that they were going to spend less with Claude, right? So I think that they were doing more stuff with internally and the stock was up yesterday and it’s kind of flat right now. And so that as well as Microsoft, I think Microsoft went up yesterday as well.

11:01Well, I think Yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:04The notable thing here from like a spooking perspective is it is clear that large tech companies that have the resources are going to internalize this stuff and build out their own. Because one, there’s economy of scale there as you know, you you don’t have to pay upcharge on usage. But I think also it may be sent like a notice across the industry that, hey, this is the reality that meta is here to play. They’re not going to be operating with the other large companies. What happens if IBM takes the same stance? What happens if Intel takes the same stance? You know, NVIDIA is already taking the same stance that are there for sure working on their own L like I think more seen across the industry.

11:54Right. Well, I mean, listen, I think this is kind of what we’ve heard people drumming the beat on for the last couple months, right is like, you know, are you going to be utilizing anthropic and open AI, LLMs, and they’re going to train on your data? Or will you own that data? Right. And I think that’s kind of been like the big question that’s been on people’s minds. But I do think to me, like the most interesting part of all of this is the fact that obviously they’re not slowing down on spend, but they just kind of want to own more that proprietary data, right? And they don’t want to share it with competitors, right? And so, again, like Microsoft is up over the last two days, meta was up yesterday. So like, I think, to me, the bigger implication here is what does this mean for anthropics ARR, especially going into an IPO in the next what people are expecting the next whatever 30 to 60 days. Not great, because people want to be seeing acceleration of revenue into going public, especially at close what you know, people are saying a $2 trillion valuation. You don’t want to be seeing that slow down because I think I even saw this morning, or last night something around a 65 billion ARR where they’re at right now, which is, you know, I think people, you know, we

13:16were talking last week or the week before of coming out of the year at 100 billion ARR, right? Or 110 billion ARR. So if that starts slowing down, and open AI also starts slowing down, then what does that mean for like, the capex build out, right? So I think these are things to be like cautious of I’m still super hyper bullish on all this, I use AI agents, so much in my workflows that like, you know, we’ve talked about it a couple of times, like when, when I hit my usage limits, I like can’t, I’m like, I’m, I’m useless for the most part, you know, like, I’m like, I’m just gonna wait till I get my usage limits back, and then I’ll get back to work. But yeah, I think like to me, the the bigger indications of that headline yesterday was more so what does this mean for anthropic? And what does it mean for their IPO and the pricing and demand and you know, subsequently, if the anthropic AP IPO doesn’t go that great, what does that mean for the build out for you know, the entire capex build out plan?

14:24Yeah, and whoever’s a bigger animal, and it will be the equivalent of that in the coal mine, essentially. Yeah. And yeah, all eyes are there. That’s where eyes are. I do want to mention because I just saw it come across the screen, SpaceX, $175, absolutely on its hair right now. And you’ve been bullish about this since the low 100s 115 120 year like hey, this I’ve got a position on but on on the one day I tried here, it’s breaking out.

15:00I’d say probably, probably I’ve been law bullish on its price since the 130s.

15:06Since this area right here is when we were talking about it. And you know, I think it’s interesting. I saw I saw a post last night that was referencing an Adam Jonas note who is the axe in automakers. He’s like the best analyst on the street for automakers. He’s at Morgan Stanley. And I think he’s kind of transitioned over to full time covering SpaceX. I don’t know if he’s covering the rest of the automakers anymore. But he, I think in his note yesterday, he basically said that he’s pitching, you know, SpaceX to roomfuls of investors. And then every time he’ll do that, and these are like institutional investors, these are, you know, guys that are running billions of dollars and, you know, like, like the fidelities, the, you know, 0.7 twos, like not like guys like you and me. And he asked people like, hey, like, how many people in the room have, you know, a position in SpaceX? And he said, usually it’s like in a room of like 40 or 50. It’s like one or two people. And then I think in maybe late last week, there was like zero people that raised their hands. So I think to me, that kind of tells me a little bit about positioning of like, you know, people. It’s very similar, I think, to like, almost like what Tesla did in its early days where

16:25there’s a lot of and I was one I was in that camp of like non believers. And I was like, who’s this guy? What does he think he can, you know, be the next Steve Jobs or whatever. And this is before I knew exactly who Elon was. This is when Tesla was at like, this might be a couple splits back, but like, Tesla was at 25 bucks.

16:43And I remember it rerated to like, 100, 125 after like one earnings call. But yeah, I just think it’s very interesting, right? Like it’s, I think it’s, I am now an everyday user of grok bot. I think SpaceX is one of the have the foresight to be able to build compute, but then also can execute on it. Right. And so I think that’s why myself and you know, a lot of other people are maybe smaller retail investors are bullish on SpaceX. But then the key is how do you get Wall Street, right? How do you get the big funds doing the same? So I think that’s very interesting, because then that that tells me that the trade isn’t really crowded, and it’s non consensus. So it could be consensus among retail, but it’s non consensus among funds, which means like the upside could be pretty big, considering that if let’s say less than 5% of funds own SpaceX, and you know, the float is probably really low, like that, like it could, it could be set up pretty nicely to start squeezing at some point, if funds start piling in.

17:55Look, I, I, I always love the contrary bet, it would seem that, you know, obviously, people sold off on the beginning, they had a lot of short sellers in the beginning. But I think from a innovation standpoint, which is always where I bet my money within the, you know, pretty much anything, or you can you innovate. SpaceX is one of the most innovating companies in the world. And I think that their impact, their surface area of impact is now touching not only us on logistics, not only on energy, not only now on the AI front, but also on the social and new like, it’s just integrated into everything. It truly is the like, the everything company at this point, which is wild. I do. How quickly he’s he’s gone from. Go ahead.

18:48Yeah, I mean, like to that point is, you know, I’ve been having this conversation a lot with people is like, AI agents don’t have that much moat, right? They have very like little moat, because it’s like the difference between dots and grok and news and all this and instinct is probably very minimal. And it seems like you can port in between them pretty quickly. But I do think the value that I like of grok bot, and I think that what I think is interesting about news is that because grok bot is linked to x and news is linked to Instagram and Facebook, you now have these social graphs or access to this data that these other agents don’t, right. And so, to me that it’s like that, that is kind of interesting, right. And I we saw this play out a little bit with Amazon two weeks ago, right, with with meta where they blocked news access to Amazon. And that’s what got me to buy it by some Walmart calls, like I, I closed out of it yesterday, just because I didn’t, it just I’m like, I don’t know if I want to be placing my bet on Walmart here, and it didn’t really follow through. And so but like, I just think it’s interesting, because we’re going to probably see more and more of this stuff where either there’s deal

20:04making that happens between a lot of these companies, in order to get access to stuff, and they’re going to be like multi billion dollar deals. But I do think that like, having access to their social graphs and to their networks, is kind of a one up right of like, why would you want news over open AI? Because yeah, I could like, check your Instagram, where like normally that’s blocked, right by all bots by Instagram, right. And I think that’s, that’s pretty valuable.

20:32Yeah, that is those those are definitely modes. I will come back to what I said in the last show, which is I think the largest mode in AI is always going to be manufacturing and hardware development, which is a much longer timeline and much more expensive timeline. And I would say, a much larger like, like, it’s just it is a bigger envelope to address. The only company that has a hardware sector to it right now, that is plain in the AI game, or I guess there’s two really meta is really taking over the wearable space and trying to own that space. Love it. They’re going to be a first mover advantage against Apple, who I think is way behind for either good or bad reasons, you know, that’s your take. But Tesla is really the one that’s like, look, yeah, we do grok, like, we can flick a button and now it’s in everybody’s Tesla. Like that, that’s Yeah, well, I mean, right. Tesla, SpaceX, I, you know, at some point, they’re probably going to merge. But yeah, I think Tesla on the consumer side, but you know, SpaceX obviously gets it on the industrial side. Right. And like, you know, because Elon is able to build all these things. But I agree with you. Right. I think that I’m definitely still very interested to see

21:57what Apple comes up with. I hope they come up with something soon because Siri, I think is getting like even worse somehow. I didn’t even think it could but like I try terrible. It’s I only really use it. I only use it sometimes to ask it to call somebody to set a calendar, like block off something on my calendar or set an alarm. And I feel like over the last like two weeks, it’s actually gotten worse at doing those three things, which it wasn’t that great at doing to begin with. So I hope they come up with something because this is, I want to say it’s not their game to lose because I think these other guys are moving very quickly. But they’re in such a good spot. Because I will say and I said this last week, is that if a if Apple comes up with some sort of solution, like I I trust Apple on the privacy side, right? And so and I think a lot of people do. And and so like they would get so much adoption, simply because they are Apple and they have so much goodwill with consumers in terms of privacy and no, no hacks and stuff like that. Do you think so?

23:08So interesting chat just came in life after life just commented and said, Apple will just win as they sell the product to run all these llms on. I mean, that, that seems to be almost like the winning case here where it’s like, you just you’re going to end up choosing where what hardware hosts this. So so agreed like, so yes and no, because like, I’ll agree with that in the sense that so I bought a Mac mini, right? I have like my entire life on Apple, right?

23:39Like on Apple products. But in a world where maybe like we’re going with less more screenless devices, metas putting themselves in that spot, right? They’re putting themselves in a position that if there is a change in form factor, they’re going to be very quick to move. And they have been very quick to move in the sense that you have your little Tamagotchi keychain thing that will be out in time for holiday. And then early in what I think a q2 next year, they’re saying they’re going to come out with those basically meta AR glasses. And listen, if that’s like integrated with enough of my stuff, right?

24:16Because it’s like, when I look at, okay, what do I use this for? If it’s integrated my most used social I have to most use social media apps, right? One is Instagram, the other is x.

24:28Most people like wearing crypto. So x is is up there. But most people don’t use x. So for most people, it’s Instagram number one, and then tick tock number two, right? And if you can integrate the hardware side seamlessly, with your favorite social media app, I think you’re like in that position to dethrone Apple unless Apple comes up with something out of nowhere, right? But like, you know, it’s they just move very slowly. And that’s I think that’s the problem. I mean, that, you know, to their detriment or and also, no, no, it’s not to their detriment. You could look at this on the iPad side, Apple was not first mover into the tablet space, they were a year behind Android. You know, they were not the first into foldable phones, they were not the first into the HomePod and the you know, the the even the wearable space, they weren’t first to, but I think Apple’s positioning. And what makes them such a great company is it will never put out a product that is half baked. Sure, you could look at the Vision Pro and be like, well, that flops.

25:34But when that came out, that was like, here’s if you did everything perfect on the hardware side, everything perfect on the software side. Does the market want this? Obviously, the market, it was a little too early. I think they’re still pushing the technology harden to people. But they’re dominating, they still continue to dominate on everything else they do. And I think, you know, and I think there is a level of like, they are behind because they’ve lost a lot of senior staff. This has been a conversation I’ve had with a lot of people over the last six months, which is a lot of the OGs that made Apple, the the OG Apple, we all know, are coming to the end of, you know, 2030 year 10 years. And, you know, they’re, they’re tired. They’re like, look, I’ve been at this company doing this. I’ve got 10s of millions of dollars in the bank account. And it’s time for the new guard. And we’re seeing the, you know, the new CEO come in.

26:27I think a lot of the senior research and development staff and engineering staff have moved on at this point. There, there are some growing pains at Apple that are really there. So not only is the entire software and hardware environment shifting on them, but they’re also internally dealing with a lot of turnover and changing of the guard. So will Apple be dethroned here? I doubt it. But they’re certainly probably at the weakest point, in my opinion, for dethroning for somebody to come out and be like, yeah, we got it right on hardware. This is why open AI investing heavily into these humanoid companies is so interesting to me because they own the hardware side. And if they can start to pull in and put money into and splash around, it’d be like, hey, like, actually, we do have a lot of exposure here. And as we get bigger, we’re gonna like absorb and bring them in.

27:20That’s, that’s how you take a company that had no business competing on the physical side, starting to fit like compete with Apple. I look, I’m a mechanical engineer. So at heart, I will always side with the hardware guys, software, people, you, you just type on a keyboard. You tell me.

27:43I think that’s interesting, because I think probably since the beginning of like the PC revolution, right in like the 70s 80s, up until probably now, like, like, there haven’t been many, like, let’s call them like garage tinkerers, right? In the sense that like all the tinkering, you know, went from like in the whatever 50s to 70s, where you’re working on stuff in the garage, and you’re working on your car, like something, you know, with your hands, started to becoming happy, like working on like, this little box with software. And that’s like where a lot of the tinkering economy went. But it’s, it’s interesting, because I’ve had a couple of these conversations in real life. And I’m also tempted to where I’m like, Oh, if I had the space for it, I would buy a 3d printer right now. And I would, because of like, like, I know that I can like, I’m like, Oh, I want to make this. And I could tell AI, you know, I could work with, you know, one of the frontier LLMs. And I could like, hey, I want to make this, I don’t know, glass, I want to make my own custom cups at home, and like mess around with it, or whatever it is, right? Make these, you know, what something with metal, right? And it’s like, you can buy these 3d printers that are

29:01significantly cheaper than they were 10 15 years ago, they’re still not the cheapest. But like, you’re talking about I’m talking about like, I was talking to a buddy of mine who is doing something, he bought some metal 3d printers. And I think like 10 or 15 years ago, they used to cost like, 250 to $500,000. And now they cost Yeah, the top of the line is 35,000. So there’s so much cheaper. And he’s like, yeah, and he’s like, I’m just gonna like mess around with it. And see if I can make these, like metal products with AI, and like, just kind of be like, yeah, but this the fascinating part about this is so the manufacturing industry has has been so, you know, so old, and it hasn’t innovated. What we’ve seen happen over the last few years is you’ve seen companies like send, cut, send, if anybody knows that company, they’re a company that you can literally make a CAD file of a metal bracket, or, you know, a part that needs to be CNC or laser cut, and literally just send them the file. And three days later, that physical product just shows up at your house. That the like modernization of machine shops, and that is starting to happen. Bamboo Labs, which is a one of the larger 3D printer companies, they have allowed you to do very intricate

30:26prints at a very high fidelity that has not existed for I think it’s like 1500 to $2,000. And then additionally, you’re seeing a lot of the CAD companies like SolidWorks, start to come out with and even fusion 360, come out with ways to use AI alongside the modeling side, which is also accelerating skill set up to a certain point, I can just make a peer and happen now. And that is, I think the modern tinkering of like, can you be creative? And the tools are there just to like, make it appear.

31:20So, so it’s it’s funny, because, to your point of like, as long as you have the capital, because I think that I think what we’re probably gonna start seeing, because I was like thinking about it, too, even like having this convo with with a buddy of mine and being like, what would be pretty cool, because like the 3d printer, probably like these, these machines wouldn’t be like, let’s say I wanted to get one, I wouldn’t be using it 24 seven, right? At least at the beginning, right? Unless I come up with like, this cool business idea that requires, you know, 100, close to 100% utilization rate. But in reality, like at the beginning, it’s just going to be like, I’ll probably use it, whatever, a couple hours a week, or whatever. So like my personal utilization rate would be so low. But what would be pretty cool is if I had this shared space, where other people can come right, and it’s like a different version of co working, right? We’re co working today, as you show up with your laptop, you know, you can do all of your work on your laptop, because most of it’s done on the computer, but we’re probably going to start seeing the pendulum swing back to being like, all right, well, I have a lot of these ideas, to your

32:21point is like, you know, I have these on my laptop, but I need to make them. And so like, you can kind of create almost like this type of community and co working space, very localized, right? Because I think what you’re talking about in college, though, probably a new version of college, right?

32:38Like, you know, you but like college where it’s it’s focused on, you know, you know, a 3d printing lab or robotics, but this is like, interval lab, because like, my college experience, so I’m not an engineer, right? I majored in finance, I didn’t spend any time working with my hands in a lab whatsoever. Right? But like, yeah, like, it’s probably like, you probably did, right? Because you were this is the type of stuff in order to understand it, you need to mess with this stuff. See how it works. And, and be it has to be a very visceral feel. And I just think that maybe like, maybe that is like the new form of education on a go forward basis, right? Where it’s not necessarily college, but maybe like, some sort of apprenticeship where you learn by doing and like you it doesn’t cost you that much to like learn, right? Like to, to create a gadget with an LLM, and then cat it up and then send it, you know, have the file and send it to a printer, and then be able to get to get the output right away and then be like, oh, like, let’s tinker on it. Like, this wasn’t right, blah, blah, blah. And you don’t have like that, whatever, couple day delay.

33:45Yeah, like, like, I’m curious to pull this back into like, how do you make money off of this? Because I think that’s a lens that you and I and the listeners probably are thinking like, okay, well, how do I profit? I don’t know even where like, the education space has just been hit time and time again by AI, like Chegg is a great example was at one point like a billion dollar company is not worthless stack overflow, which is also education based. Now, I mean, like, it’s may as well be a ghost town. It seems like the areas that you’re seeing take off are probably around like welding schools, electrical, like HVAC, like, that seems to be like, the only area and that’s AI is not helping that it’s just like, there’s a flock to jobs that can’t be stolen by it.

34:35Why? So I think like that, I think they’re like, similar, but slightly different, right? Because it’s like, again, as somebody that never really worked with like my hands doing like manual labor, in that sense, I am now like being like, Oh, if I want to make, you know, I bought this mic stand, right last week, two weeks ago, but if I had like a 3d machine that could print it, like I would have like been like, Hey, let me make a mic stand and see if it works. It probably, you know, it probably isn’t as easy as it sounds just yet. But like, we’re gonna get there, right? Like, I think it’s like, I don’t know if you grew up watching the Jetsons, but they had like this machine where you kind of just tell it what you want. And it would literally make it in like a minute. So you’re like, I want pizza, but you want like a turkey sandwich, and it would make us each what we wanted instantaneously. Now that’s like probably like a ways away. But this is the start of it, right? Because it started off with plastic. Now it’s like different types of metals.

35:31We’re close to that like ghost kitchens are are like a major step towards like, I want this. And you know, it’s it’s only 20 minutes away, it gets made, it shows up, even though there’s no like, there is no sushi restaurant 20 minutes away from me. But like, this kitchen that just does everything makes it appear. I mean, I bet you if you wouldn’t watch the Jetsons, you would be like, here’s where the world is going. And I know, like, idea wise, you probably get sparked by like, oh, nobody’s done that yet. I should.

36:03Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I think the time that the Jetsons were set in has already passed. So I think we basically failed our ancestors in terms of like, having flying cars and rope vacuuming robots and food that’s, you know, literally on demand. But you know, I think we’re going towards that. And I think that to me, I think I find that kind of interesting, because I think, again, in this world where I’ve noticed that I myself and spending less time, let’s say with people or interacting with people, because you’re interacting with your AI, and it’s giving you feedback or whatever. But these like, being able to create these community spaces where, you know, it’s like, because like, I can go to a coffee shop right now. And I could be like, in a communal space in this third space. But I think like, kind of having this third space where people can be like, there, I forgot the name of this place, but there’s this place in Brooklyn, New York, that’s almost like this maker, like, co working workshop thing where like, let’s say, you know, I add space there, you have space there, you can utilize these machines as a, as like, you know, being like, hey, like I built this, I want to, you know, build it, print it out

37:15on a 3d printer and whatnot. And I think we’re probably going to start seeing more and more of that probably like, smaller spaces, because that was like a huge I think it was an old like Navy Yard. And that was like a huge, huge space. But like, I do think on a go forward basis, we’ll probably start seeing more of this, what that means exactly, in terms of like, what the opportunity is, I just think it’s something that’s interesting. And I think that it’s going to allow people again, why have? Why is it that you want more people to have access to this product?

37:46Because ultimately, the more access you give people to this revolutionary technology, like it’s going to change people’s lives, because somebody’s somebody’s going to have this idea that nobody else ever thought of, all because they have access to this, and then it’ll make the world a better place just because they built it, right?

38:03Yeah, well, like it’s it’s AI, it’s blockchain. Those are the two ones that are going to have radical change across the board on how we are live our lives and every, every life functions. So I think, look, we’re if you’re losing this show, you’re well positioned, you’re in the right place, you have the the right target on on innovation and, you know, how things will play out here. I certainly think we’re seeing both of them, the utilize like their their actual potential at this point, especially with, you know, and I did want to make sure we like mentioned this Solana, Robinhood base, the entire incumbent space right now are trying to say like, all right, things have been done a certain way for the last 100 years on the financial system, we’re going to completely flip everything on their heads. And we’re seeing the most change the most disruption, the most well, why do we do it that way? Like, happen. And now you even have and I love it that ctfc, the SEC stepping in and saying like, well, we’ll just make like, let’s force it, we’re gonna make it like make what we want to happen and how we want finance be handled happen today. Instead of waiting for, you know, the larger incumbent Congress or the Senate.

39:24So listen, I and I think like to that point, right? One is that’s probably that’s more a function of the fact that clarity didn’t get passed. So they already knew that that wasn’t coming. So they kind of had their their probably their drafted rules already set because also, right, they were probably in they were definitely in those conversations as well, right and a pining on that. So but I again, I do think to me, the most interesting part, when I when we talk about, let’s say, the overall tokenization trend from here is probably stocks, right tokenized stocks, and we call them RWAs. But in reality, it’s just tokenized equity. That’s what’s made me really bullish on that space.

40:06And I feel like, to your point is like, I think a lot of these guys realize this. And what we saw over the last 10 years and still today, even over like tokenized dollars, right?

40:17And stablecoins is now going to start happening with equities on a longer term basis. And it is the wild wild west, it’s still such a nascent industry, right? To your point, you mentioned Solana Robinhood base, I think of those three, I think Robinhood probably has the most mindshare just because Robert like the Robinhood brand, in terms of equity, but you know, Solana has done a really good job in terms of volume. And I think base is like a distant third. And what the one company I’ll put in there, which we were talking about before the show is Kraken, right? Because even though Kraken has been, let’s say quieter with regards to it, they do own the xStocks platform, which does do a ton of volume on Solana. And they are, I think, number two issuer behind Ondo, in terms of tokenized stocks on Chain. But I do think, to me, it’s like right now, it’s the main the main horse races between Solana and Robinhood. But we’ll see because I do think that like a lot of all the players understand what’s at stake in terms of long term volumes, because you saw it happen, right in the stablecoin space, right? Tether number one, circle number two, in terms of like, volumes on accepted worldwide basis, right?

41:44If somebody, if somebody if you ask somebody to send you a stablecoin payment, right, like you’re like, give it to me in USDT or USDC, right? And people will be like, Oh, do you like, will accept this? And I’d be like, no, like you just like it before you send it to me, transfer it over to one of those two that I know and I trust. And then like I can convert it into whatever I want, right? And so I think the same type of thing is going to happen with equities. And again, this is kind of like my bull case for quote, Ron’s, like, of like a lot of asymmetric upside risk upside reward, with very minimal downside risks, because I do think a lot of these platforms, obviously, most of them are, I say private, and there’s no way to kind of express that in a physical market or in a in a liquid market. I know there’s the backpack token, which is also up there, I think it’s between them and xStocks on volume on Solana. But I’m not sure the backpack token, full disclosure, I’m a seed investor in backpack from a couple years ago, but I don’t think I’m not exactly sure what kind of exposure the token itself gives you to, like the fee revenue and generation. So I haven’t done that much looking into it. But I do think, again, I just

42:59think that this broader trend is at the beginning. And it’s, it’s going to grow massively from here.

43:07Exposure of volume, exposure of revenue, that is, you know, it should seem obvious, but it is not right. Like, these are all things we’re like, yeah, duh, like you would want want to make sure the asset you have, that your own has exposure is capturing some of that in some way. But there haven’t been many. And I think Quotron, as you know, you’ve kind of mentioned, we said time and timing of the show is set up perfectly where if things to play out the way that I at least envision them, Quotron should be getting a healthy inflow, have healthy exposure to one of the market leaders for tokenized equities, which is again, that’s, that’s where the industry is going. Everybody is fighting for it right now.

43:52And it’s not something you can just spin up overnight, you need licensing, you need incredible infrastructure, the risk engines, you need to have the reputation and like, it’s not a small feat. There’s only a few companies I’ll be able to compete there. Yeah, so Kraken, Coinbase, Solana, Robinhood, all finding out for that, we’ll keep our eyes on it as it continues to play out. Yeah, man, I’m I, I feel like more and more people have just been asking about stocks, like I very rarely get asked about, like crypto specific tokens besides, you know, like hype, right? Like it’s people, people are maturing maybe less new coins.

44:36Well, I think people are no, I just think people, I mean, listen, the stock market’s been up into the right, right? I mean, the stock market, it’s at all new all time highs, whereas Bitcoin still down what 40% from the highs. So it’s not going to be up, we’re almost at 90k, right?

44:52Like, I know, but like, what I’m saying is like people, but that’s not the way retail works, right? So like, people are going to be really interested in whatever is really hot at the time, right? So that’s why you’re getting asked about stocks because the stock market is that stocks and Pokemon cards, man. I think I got Pokemon card market is giving me dude, I saw something where I guess in July or June, some card sold for 80,000. And then it just sold like yesterday for 800,000. And I’m like, wow, I’m like, that’s pretty frothy. You know, and I got hit by somebody yesterday’s like, Oh, like, are you in Pokemon cards?

45:29I’m like, No. And they’re like, Oh, yeah, it’s like heating up. And I’m like heating up is an understatement. I feel like it’s it’s fully heated at this point. Well, I finally understand how people that weren’t in NFTs felt, because I I’m on the sidelines, like I have a little exposure to the Pokemon market. But like, for the most part, I’m like, Yeah, I’m not fucking touching that 20 foot pole right now. And I’ve you still got people being like, Oh, we’re just getting started. And I’m, I’m like, this has to pop.

45:55Well, I mean, I did read a post yesterday about, you know, some guy that’s like, he’s a niche Pokemon dealer. So like, he’ll like deal in like really niche cards or people trying to complete sets or whatever.

46:13And he’s like, yeah, like the bid is like relentless.

46:16And he doesn’t flag Coinbase per se. But just like I think a lot of the gotcha platforms in general being like, yeah, like a lot of it is being driven by these digital gotcha platforms that have an insatiable demand for product. And they need it obviously to fill their, their gotcha machines. And so that’s where you’re seeing probably a lot of these prices go parabolic. Again, I think probably like, you know, cards has actually been been doing really, really well. Yeah. Over the last few weeks, I think I saw it close to 30. Yeah, it’s at it’s at 30 cents. Here, let me bring up. Here we go. It’s at 30 cents. So it’s been, it’s back almost close to the all time highs. So it’s been strong, right? And you know, I think the that kind of just goes to show you like where how strong like the markets been in general with regards to the Pokemon product, right? And I think part of that was like they announced, I think, buy and burn and stuff like that. So that’s probably also getting that flywheel going as well. Well, I think I think you also need to be kind of asking yourself, like, is the gotcha mechanic going to stay around? Right? Like, what is the risk of like the gotcha mechanic being, being like labeled as gambling by whether it’s,

47:45you know, the CTFC or whoever it might be and be like, actually, we are going to draw the line here and be like, that is that is gambling. So I mean, I guess like, to me, I think it’s really hard. I think the cat’s out of the bag. I think it’s really hard to put it back in because technically, the gotcha sites are making their money on market making. Right. And so because of that, it’s not it’s technically not gambling, right? Because the way they make their because the way the reason why a casino is regulated as gambling, right is because there is a house edge. Sure. Whenever you put on a bet, there is an edge that the house has so that if you sat there for a limited amount of time, over time, you will lose money. Right? The way that these gotcha mechanics are set up. And I remember this because I when I first looked at it, I’m like, how are you not getting sued by every state’s Attorney General? And the reason why is because when you rip a pack on on one of these platforms, it is like, it pays out true odds, right? So there is no house edge. So that if you sat there for infinity, obviously, there’s going to be variance with every poll, right? So it’s like, you could lose, you could win or

48:56whatever. But over time, you should if you spend $1, you should make back that dollar. Now where they they make their money is on the instant buyback and giving you instant liquidity. So they’re technically market making, right? So they’ll say, hey, this is worth $100. We’ll give it we’ll buy it for $90. And then they make that 10%. And as a user, right, you’re sitting there, you’re like, Okay, well, if I rip this pack, or if I bought it on eBay, or if I rip the pack, if I rip this card, and I wanted to sell it, and I wanted to sell it on eBay, it would take whatever one or two weeks to sell it, then you know, I have to pay for shipping and then you know, whatever the all the all the hardships of doing stuff in the real world. And you’re like, alright, well, take a 10 or 15% haircut to get instantly instant liquidity, I’ll take it, right?

49:44And so then, I just think that the issue with this is like, if you’re gonna make these gotcha mechanics illegal, then technically, you also have to make loot boxes in video games illegal.

49:58Right. And like, like, you’ve already done that though, they went after I think they went after a counter strike, or this years doing use like the world leader and regulation, like you like it only matters what the US is doing, in my opinion, like I just, I really don’t care what the EU does. Because I just think that like, the EU is so far behind in terms of being competitive from a business perspective that and also it’s like you like every company wants a US consumer, right? US consumers spend the most.

50:30Why would you like? And so, yeah, like I think that that’s the biggest issue with the EU, right?

50:35There’s it’s just like a great place.

50:38Do you feel like the EU is just gonna like want to be regulated? Like drift off into like, falling behind. Like, it feels like we trend towards that more and more every year where they’re just like becoming this weird society that like will just not have what everybody else has.

50:54I have, I mean, I guess I have a lot of opinions on that. But I think, I think Europe is a great place to go visit. Yeah, like that. And I’m just like, I think it’s just a great place to visit.

51:06I wouldn’t want to live there personally.

51:08Great, great summer. Like, I think everybody, I think everybody says it.

51:13America to make your money, Europe to spend it.

51:16And I think that that makes sense. Right? I just think that there’s not as much opportunity across continental Europe the same way as that there’s in the United States. I have plenty of friends that have moved from Europe and the UK to the states and they’re like, dude, it’s like it’s night and day of the difference. Right. And so again, like, sure, you know, there is some sort of regulation coming out of it in Europe, but until you see it in the United States, and I think the problem is with seeing the United States is that these companies, like the video game companies are so massive, and they generate so much revenue at this point that to put the cap back in the bag, like I don’t know, I think I think it’s like you they would lose a ton of business, right? Yeah, it’d be a big overhang that I don’t think a pro business administration or pro business government, which the US is more than Europe would really want to do. So that’s why I kind of think that like, the gotcha mechanic is really tough to put back in the bag because also like, so like, I can make an argument for gotcha, like online or like blockchain based gotchas, like you can provably you can you can prove that something was fair. But meanwhile

52:32you have, you know, stories I don’t I like I’m not that close to the collectibles market. But I’ve heard stories of like, people doing pack rips on whatnot, where basically like what let’s say like I’m an influencer on whatnot, and I do this live stream, I will buy like a bunch of cards and I’ll put like one chase card in there and then I’ll sell those packs. And whereas in let’s say, some like collector’s crypt or courtyard or whatever, you get paid true odds, minus like whatever the the instant buyback is, unlike these whatnot pack ripping, like the odds are terrible, like you’re gonna lose like 50. It’s like negative 50% EV because you don’t know, like how they’re packing it and like, you know what the odds are that so that you can say that like the digital version of is actually more fair for consumers than whatever’s happening on these live streaming pack ripping stuff, right. So yeah, I think it’s like it’s very tough. Like I think again, this is where I in in crypto, we’ve seen time and time again, where a lot of the really big money is made in the gray area before it becomes legal. And I think pack these gotcha mechanics are in there, right? We saw that with stablecoins. We obviously saw that with with

53:51crypto assets in general, right, like Ethereum, Solana, all these things that got classified as non securities. And I think we’ll probably I think the next big white space for that, not to bring it back to full circle moment, is probably tokenized equities, right, where, again, it seems like we’re going towards some sort of regulated regulated landscape for it.

54:18But it’s still going to take time and you just got to like, move fast. And you know, we saw the same thing with prediction markets, right? It’s the same type of thing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, prediction markets, that’s a whole other conversation that I don’t think we have time for. But again, I will say the more the more we talk about it, the more well positioned I feel like OpenSea is to truly have a comeback moment and be a dominant player in this space and a name that we mention every day, especially if the gacha pack system, the collectible space continues to be on a heater, they are well positioned as one of the only companies that you know, if I were to go and be like, I want to start buying Pokemon cards today online, I’m almost certainly typing in OpenSea into the URL first before I go anywhere else. And that is a powerful consumer behavior. And I haven’t I like I don’t use OpenSea on like a daily basis. It’s just like that is where I would be like, all right, yeah, I’ll go to OpenSea. I know they have the product.

55:20Right. Yeah, so I mean, listen, I think it’ll be it’ll be very interesting. I think like my mental framework on all of this at this point is it’s if you view crypto, but just like stuff in general is like a gambling a casino, right? You just need to pick your game of where you think you have like the best odds of winning, right? So some people like the meme coins, because you can like, make a 10,000 X in an hour. But you can also lose everything in an hour, right? Some people want the gotcha because you can make a 5x on a spin. But you also won’t lose everything in one spin, right? You’ll lose some percentage of that slowly over time. So it’s like the same type of thing you walk into a casino floor, you can play roulette, craps, blackjack slots, expensive slots, cheap slots, right? There’s, you know, baccarat like, you know, casino war, like all these types of different games with different edges. And you kind of have to be the find the one where you find the most entertainment and somewhat of an edge if you think you have one. Yeah, we will hopefully see that be more on the consumer trade inside in crypto. Obviously, new coins have had their meta. I think we’re deep into the equities on chainside, but I feel like we are

56:38going to see even more happen alongside the pairing of equities. And especially as Indeix and Lute continue to push forward. We’re only seeing more appetite for it. I love to see that I think we’re seeing more people bring money on chain to get exposure to equities that never would have been in the stock market before, which is a cool thing to see. And I also think that there’s a fueling system here, which is the validation of establishing yourself as a player in the space through verifiable on chain earnings, leaderboards, and P&L cards is only going to accelerate this. And while and while I do think there are harmful sides to this, which are like, you have people literally blindly just trusting another person’s word on the internet. I do think it will be a great thing. And it will only accelerate people wanting to be like, all right, I want to get into I want to get into like trading stuff, like financially online, whether that is Pokemon cards or prediction markets, everybody will be doing it. And I think it will all flood to on chain. That is that is the coolest part about it. So yeah, I mean, I think it’ll be exciting stuff. Obviously, that’s why we’re here. And I think that’s why, you know, I

57:59think we have an edge. I’m looking forward to it. Of course, I’m well, look, if you guys have more questions, more topics you want us to go over, please shoot them to us. We’ll cover them on the next show. A shout out to all our viewers chat was going crazy today. Thank you everybody that was chatting across all the platforms. Make sure you follow us here on x, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. We are on every social media platform at this point. And we’ll catch you on Thursday, 1030am. Same place, same show. We’ll see you then. Cheers, guys.