Trascrizione completa di How a Top 100 Hyperliquid Trader Finds the Next Big Trade

consistently win. 50 00:03:38.361 --> 00:03:42.705 Kind of looking at what they're doing, understanding what they're doing, contextualizing what they're doing, I think is important too. 51 00:03:44.326 --> 00:03:48.469 So, yeah, I think there's some signal, but you definitely have to contextualize it and say like, okay, is this actual... 52 00:03:49.410 --> 00:03:59.699 like delta neutral or are they actually taking directional trades and then also kind of understanding their worldview like how they trade like seeing like what type of style they have as a trader and seeing if that fits your style as well. 53 00:03:59.799 --> 00:04:08.367 How much time would you spend would you say actually kind of going through other traders on Hyperliquid or Lighter or wherever who have positions open 54 00:04:09.389 --> 00:04:10.611 How useful is that? 55 00:04:10.791 --> 00:04:15.437 How much time do you spend doing that activity to just ascertain what people are doing in the market? 56 00:04:15.917 --> 00:04:22.064 And how do you fit that into a broader pattern of behavior in order to make a position happen? 57 00:04:22.765 --> 00:04:26.310 I did one pretty big deep dive where I wanted to go actually see 58 00:04:27.030 --> 00:04:29.612 Like, for example, Hyperdash is pretty interesting for it. 59 00:04:29.632 --> 00:04:32.695 Like, they have a pretty good UI where it's nice to see. 60 00:04:32.715 --> 00:04:34.817 Like, it'll show you, like, very profitable guys. 61 00:04:34.837 --> 00:04:36.358 Like, they'll give them, like, a copy trade rating. 62 00:04:36.378 --> 00:04:38.820 And so, like, I looked at some of the analogs on there to see. 63 00:04:39.381 --> 00:04:47.788 And when I figured out that there's not a tremendous amount of signal that you can glean from it consistently, at least, like, broadly, like I said, maybe on, like, a per ticker basis you can. 64 00:04:48.308 --> 00:04:49.870 then I don't spend a ton of time. 65 00:04:49.890 --> 00:04:56.839 But like I said, like if I'm in a huge trade on any particular single ticker, it's like I'm definitely going to be watching what the biggest position holders on that are doing. 66 00:04:57.400 --> 00:05:05.491 And so for that, it's more like a live updating, just making sure, you know, no one's doing some massive TWOP out and like that might influence my like limit orders or something like that, right? 67 00:05:05.551 --> 00:05:06.452 Like, you know, WIC catch... 68 00:05:06.532 --> 00:05:06.772 Right. 69 00:05:06.852 --> 00:05:13.942 So it's better to inspect these things when you have exposure to a particular trade and you know exactly what to look for. 70 00:05:14.002 --> 00:05:19.309 But it's not necessarily as informative about making a trade or entering a position. 71 00:05:19.809 --> 00:05:20.710 It's more after the fact. 72 00:05:20.730 --> 00:05:21.411 Is that what you're saying? 73 00:05:21.812 --> 00:05:22.232 Definitely. 74 00:05:22.332 --> 00:05:22.913 Yeah, exactly. 75 00:05:23.334 --> 00:05:23.874 Yeah. 76 00:05:23.894 --> 00:05:24.035 Yeah. 77 00:05:24.925 --> 00:05:28.969 So maybe can you give us me and the listener just a little bit of background on who you are? 78 00:05:29.710 --> 00:05:32.533 As I said in the intro, you're a Kool-Aid man on Twitter. 79 00:05:32.553 --> 00:05:33.754 So you're semi anonymous. 80 00:05:34.915 --> 00:05:36.697 What's your perch in the crypto industry? 81 00:05:36.717 --> 00:05:37.658 Like, what do you focus on? 82 00:05:38.479 --> 00:05:39.540 How have you sharpened your stake? 83 00:05:40.060 --> 00:05:40.240 Sure. 84 00:05:40.320 --> 00:05:41.200 Yeah. 85 00:05:41.741 --> 00:05:43.481 So I've given like a background. 86 00:05:43.781 --> 00:05:48.963 It's kind of the same thing as I've said before on other appearances. 87 00:05:48.983 --> 00:06:03.407 Like I was just very early to crypto, mined Bitcoin quite early on, ended up getting very deep into DeFi very, very early on, really, really enjoyed the fact that it felt like a really big zero to one jump in terms of like the actual use case of crypto going just like, okay, cool. 88 00:06:03.427 --> 00:06:07.208 This is like pet rock hedge against inflation type of, you know, 89 00:06:08.048 --> 00:06:11.349 tokenized gold type of asset and see like, oh, this is actually useful. 90 00:06:11.389 --> 00:06:13.530 We can trade, we can borrow, we can lend all these different things. 91 00:06:14.270 --> 00:06:17.692 And so, yeah, very, very big into DeFi very early on. 92 00:06:18.772 --> 00:06:26.375 And then I ended up starting a fund a couple of years ago to kind of long the expression that like, oh, I think DeFi is going to actually, you know, somewhat change the world. 93 00:06:27.436 --> 00:06:30.918 And I was extremely early and wrong, actually, on the revenue meta. 94 00:06:30.938 --> 00:06:34.661 Like, I thought the revenue meta was going to happen a lot earlier than it ended up. 95 00:06:34.701 --> 00:06:43.588 So, you know, I kept trying to say, like, you know, tokens like GMX, for example, it's like, oh, they're so cheap on like a PE ratio back when people were like blasting billions of dollars into meme coins. 96 00:06:43.649 --> 00:06:44.789 And so, yeah. 97 00:06:45.840 --> 00:06:54.406 My frame of reference for a lot of crypto right now is more from the point of view of revenue meta, DeFi, et cetera. 98 00:06:55.187 --> 00:06:57.368 But I don't actually have any real TradFi background. 99 00:06:57.388 --> 00:07:01.011 I never worked traditionally in any sort of banking or trading setting. 100 00:07:01.191 --> 00:07:01.732 A lot of... 101 00:07:02.914 --> 00:07:03.434 Yeah, exactly. 102 00:07:03.454 --> 00:07:04.815 Yeah, entirely self-taught in crypto. 103 00:07:05.356 --> 00:07:13.121 And so I've been close to a lot of that side of the industry, like increasingly more so over the past couple of years of seeing what institutional trading ends up looking like. 104 00:07:13.181 --> 00:07:16.284 But never, never really had any

experience in myself beforehand. 105 00:07:16.744 --> 00:07:26.231 Yeah, for the Minkwell Sussner's foreign chronically online on Twitter, revenue meta is this meme where there would finally be a rotation into revenue-generating assets. 106 00:07:26.331 --> 00:07:29.133 And we would leave this era of like, 107 00:07:30.273 --> 00:07:34.974 fake value capture tokens, meme coins behind, and people would buy, would rotate into quality. 108 00:07:35.855 --> 00:07:40.076 I would say lately, at least 2026, that has decently happened. 109 00:07:41.256 --> 00:07:44.537 Pump generating a ton of revenue, Hyperliquid generating a ton of revenue. 110 00:07:44.577 --> 00:07:48.398 Do you think there is more revenue meta rotation ahead of us? 111 00:07:48.878 --> 00:07:50.078 Have we kind of completed that? 112 00:07:50.138 --> 00:07:54.299 Like revenue is actually valued as much as it ought to be in crypto? 113 00:07:54.319 --> 00:07:57.740 Where do you think we are in the expression of the revenue meta? 114 00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:11.224 It's actually like a really interesting question that kind of goes into like a broader theme, which is the fact that especially with like recent midterm results, for example, you're actually kind of potentially going to see a rotation out of the revenue meta tokens because they're a little bit more sensitive to regulations. 115 00:08:11.944 --> 00:08:15.345 And then people are kind of more so long, the more store of value tokens. 116 00:08:15.386 --> 00:08:16.526 And so like Bitcoin and ZEC. 117 00:08:17.226 --> 00:08:21.289 are kind of positioned like you saw gold rally, for example, like with the midterm results. 118 00:08:21.330 --> 00:08:27.755 And so it's this presumption of like, okay, like, you know, rates down, spending bazooka to infinity back on. 119 00:08:27.915 --> 00:08:33.379 And so that's more favorable and more supportive of the store of value assets. 120 00:08:33.459 --> 00:08:35.721 It's not to say that the revenue meta is over. 121 00:08:36.101 --> 00:08:37.442 I would actually say quite the opposite. 122 00:08:37.463 --> 00:08:42.026 Like, I do think that there's still going to be a very, very pronounced, like, you know, flight to fundamentals and crypto. 123 00:08:42.046 --> 00:08:45.389 And a lot of that just does come down to like, you know, does your token actually generate revenue? 124 00:08:45.409 --> 00:08:46.170 Yeah. 125 00:08:46.850 --> 00:08:52.951 But I will say that it's like, yeah, from a regulatory perspective, those tokens tend to be more under threat than the store of value tokens. 126 00:08:52.991 --> 00:08:59.872 And so we might see an interesting rotation out of some of those revenue meta tokens into more of the Bitcoins and ZECs of the world. 127 00:08:59.892 --> 00:09:10.114 Are you in the camp that like there's a store of value coins, Bitcoin, ZEC, and there's revenue generating coins, hyperliquid, pump, derive, and that's it. 128 00:09:10.674 --> 00:09:15.235 It's like if you're anywhere in the middle of those two things, you're in a bad spot and you need to pick a direction. 129 00:09:15.255 --> 00:09:15.355 Yeah. 130 00:09:15.955 --> 00:09:19.196 Kind of like the Tulip King, either you are money or you make money type of thing. 131 00:09:19.976 --> 00:09:20.236 Yeah. 132 00:09:20.936 --> 00:09:23.077 I would say to an extent, yeah. 133 00:09:23.117 --> 00:09:26.418 Like, I think that it might be a little bit of an oversimplification. 134 00:09:26.438 --> 00:09:31.979 I think ETH is a really good example of something that kind of falls in between. 135 00:09:31.999 --> 00:09:35.560 I don't necessarily know that it's fair to value Ethereum either... 136 00:09:36.220 --> 00:09:39.861 as it makes money or as it pertains to being considered money. 137 00:09:40.722 --> 00:09:51.205 I think there, it's like there's this kind of concept of like lindiness with regards to like how broadly can a credibly neutral settlement layer be adopted and like how do we value that and if there is a really good precedent for it. 138 00:09:51.225 --> 00:09:53.646 And I'm not really sure that it just fits into that binary framework. 139 00:09:54.106 --> 00:09:55.366 It either is money or makes money. 140 00:09:56.827 --> 00:10:00.868 But I would say, yeah, generally speaking, it's like if your token is not generating money, 141 00:10:01.588 --> 00:10:27.444 very attractive like pe ratios and and is is trading at like a relatively favorable amount of of revenue compared to float um yeah you better hope that there's some external like like value that's being placed on that on that token that's not just uh like you know sentiment based right you you kind of need it to have the the lendiness of bitcoin for example i think that's even kind of like a problem that zek has right now too where it's like it's kind of different like it wants to be a store value token um 142 00:10:28.505 --> 00:10:39.092 But it's just, there's just such a gulf between it and Bitcoin with regards to how it's perceived that it's, Zek, I still kind of think trades almost closer to a meme coin. 143 00:10:39.152 --> 00:10:50.919 Not to say that it is a meme, but it just trades closer to a meme coin with regards to sentiment and momentum as an expression as opposed to Bitcoin, which has a lot more lendiness and backing and support and just kind of time hardness to it. 144 00:10:51.378 --> 00:10:52.739 Go into that a little bit more. 145 00:10:52.759 --> 00:10:56.162 What contributes to the gap between Bitcoin and Zcash? 146 00:10:56.202 --> 00:11:00.205 Is it just like Zcash is younger and doesn't have the same sort of recognition? 147 00:11:00.265 --> 00:11:03.808 Or what goes into why Zcash is so far away from Bitcoin? 148 00:11:04.008 --> 00:11:06.030 Yeah, I mean, Bitcoin is synonymous with crypto, right? 149 00:11:06.050 --> 00:11:09.733 You know, when you talk about crypto, that's what most people kind of like minds jump to. 150 00:11:09.753 --> 00:11:17.059 And so like, if

there is an argument to be made that there could be this globally accepted store of value token, you know, Bitcoin is orders of magnitude. 151 00:11:17.979 --> 00:11:19.721 more likely to be adopted than something like Zcash. 152 00:11:19.741 --> 00:11:27.947 I think the problem with Zcash too is that it fixes a lot of problems that I guess like normies or non-crypto natives don't even necessarily know to think about or exist. 153 00:11:27.987 --> 00:11:38.836 It's like when you talk about the fact that it's like quantum resistance or all these other things, it's like it almost just educates people to the fact that quantum is a problem for Bitcoin more so than it promotes the benefits of Zcash. 154 00:11:39.396 --> 00:11:43.679 I think the interesting thing with Zcash too right now is that it is such a... 155 00:11:44.480 --> 00:12:02.809 crowded consensus crypto trade because of the fact that it is the perfect environment for it's like if your worldview is that quantum is going to be a problem, it's that even even if on a more political level, like like socialism is going to be, you know, on the rise in the United States over the next couple of years, and there's going to be more flight to assets that are private. 156 00:12:02.829 --> 00:12:03.149 Yeah. 157 00:12:03.849 --> 00:12:08.033 and I guess private and somewhat of air quotes for Zcash. 158 00:12:08.113 --> 00:12:13.637 But as more of a narrative, it has kind of like the privacy, it has the quantum resistant narratives going for it. 159 00:12:13.757 --> 00:12:14.678 It's the perfect setup, right? 160 00:12:14.698 --> 00:12:17.641 Like you couldn't ask for a better setup for Zcash right now. 161 00:12:18.201 --> 00:12:24.206 The problem is though, is that as with all assets that are too crowded in crypto, like you need some external capital coming into it. 162 00:12:24.226 --> 00:12:26.628 And you just don't really have like a sailor for Zcash right now. 163 00:12:26.648 --> 00:12:30.351 Like obviously there's a DAT or two for it, but it's just not nearly like the same level of size. 164 00:12:31.032 --> 00:12:34.619 And so you really need people to come in and like actually bid Zcash externally. 165 00:12:34.659 --> 00:12:37.985 If everybody in crypto is sitting in it, they're kind of like hiding in their Zcash longs. 166 00:12:38.005 --> 00:12:39.428 You really, really need a lot of people to come in. 167 00:12:40.093 --> 00:12:43.896 And the issue is that the way to get a lot of other people to come into that trade is by just price action. 168 00:12:43.916 --> 00:12:44.856 Like you need price to go up. 169 00:12:44.896 --> 00:12:49.019 And so if everybody's already quite long, that's kind of when you run into a bit of an issue. 170 00:12:49.540 --> 00:12:53.662 And that's the same with any crowded trading in crypto. 171 00:12:53.983 --> 00:13:00.707 I think another part of that, too, is just the fact that like the whole selling point of Bitcoin and also the problem with Bitcoin is the ossification of the code. 172 00:13:01.067 --> 00:13:02.308 Like people know exactly what it is. 173 00:13:02.368 --> 00:13:06.131 It's the most predictable schedule of, you know, halvings, etc. 174 00:13:06.171 --> 00:13:08.793 Like these are these are terms even like regular people kind of are familiar with. 175 00:13:09.892 --> 00:13:13.733 the problem with Zcash and what makes it beneficial is the fact that the code isn't really as ossified. 176 00:13:13.753 --> 00:13:15.553 Like they are, there's an actual dev team, right? 177 00:13:15.573 --> 00:13:16.193 That's working on it. 178 00:13:16.213 --> 00:13:19.134 There's, there's, you know, updates that are being planned for it. 179 00:13:19.594 --> 00:13:25.335 And the problem is like that also increases the attack surface area for potential hacks or exploits. 180 00:13:25.355 --> 00:13:31.956 And so you kind of saw that with the whole Orchard fiasco where people are like, oh my God, like are these like infinite minting on shielded tokens. 181 00:13:31.976 --> 00:13:37.277 And so the problem is like as a store of value, you can't necessarily have that level of, 182 00:13:37.937 --> 00:13:40.239 uncertainty with regards to what it will be in the future. 183 00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:48.466 And so when people go back and they look at like a Bitcoin chart, yeah, sure, they see massive 60, 70, 80% drawdowns in the past. 184 00:13:48.526 --> 00:13:51.109 But it's been holding up like relatively well recently. 185 00:13:51.629 --> 00:13:56.854 It's kind of difficult to look at a Zcash chart recently and say like, oh, yeah, this is a predictable store value, right? 186 00:13:57.334 --> 00:13:59.456 And so that's kind of the issue there is the volatility as well. 187 00:13:59.977 --> 00:14:09.836 Let me throw some thoughts your way, because I have some opposing views, where I take the point where external capital out of crypto is not readily coming into Zcash 188 00:14:10.422 --> 00:14:14.004 But I wouldn't necessarily say like that's my thesis behind Zcash. 189 00:14:14.204 --> 00:14:25.170 Now, I also think that there is evidence to suggest that that is also partly not true in that like there is at least some external capital that is skipping over Bitcoin and going into Zcash. 190 00:14:25.310 --> 00:14:34.775 And I think that's kind of why like Naval has become this like shadow main character where like he doesn't really go on podcasts and do circuits, but like he's very into Zcash and he's very into Zcash. 191 00:14:35.337 --> 00:14:37.418 Specifically because of the privacy. 192 00:14:38.278 --> 00:14:42.300 And, you know, like Naval circles are outside of crypto, external to crypto. 193 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:43.661 And in fact, they're like wealthies. 194 00:14:43.961 --> 00:14:52.725 So you only need like, you know, a few handful of billionaires outside of the circle of crypto to like understand the value of uncensorable private money. 195 00:14:53.285 --> 00:14:58.492 And so it doesn't take

like a social zeitgeist for that in the same way that we had in 2021. 196 00:14:58.512 --> 00:15:06.963 It doesn't take too much of a big public awareness of crypto adoption to really move Zcash in the same way that it moved Bitcoin in 2021. 197 00:15:07.344 --> 00:15:08.525 So that's one thought. 198 00:15:09.046 --> 00:15:18.910 But also when I hold Zcash, I'm more looking at it as a percentage of Bitcoin's market cap because the buyers of Zcash are going to be Bitcoiners who defect from Bitcoin. 199 00:15:19.490 --> 00:15:21.511 And very rarely does this ever happen. 200 00:15:21.531 --> 00:15:26.953 You know, Bitcoiners are known to like lock arms and never break ranks, only buy Bitcoin. 201 00:15:26.973 --> 00:15:28.214 Everything else is a shit coin. 202 00:15:28.654 --> 00:15:36.037 But there's this clip from an interview that we did on Bankless to Suzu in 2021 where he was talking about like, oh, yeah, I know Bitcoin. 203 00:15:36.137 --> 00:15:46.862 Bitcoiners who are like flying around the world to go retrieve their cold storage so they can sell Bitcoin for Ether because Ether, this was like May, April, May 2021 and Ether was like the coolest thing ever. 204 00:15:47.402 --> 00:15:59.207 And so like every once in a while the stars align and like Bitcoiners like decide that like hedging their massive Bitcoin exposure by like 1, 2, 3% into the cool new thing actually does happen. 205 00:15:59.247 --> 00:16:03.529 Like the last time it happened was E potentially is happening now and it is happening now to some degree. 206 00:16:04.109 --> 00:16:10.831 And so it actually doesn't take too much external capital to get Zcash up to like three, four or five percent of Bitcoin. 207 00:16:10.851 --> 00:16:12.412 So these are my two theses. 208 00:16:12.572 --> 00:16:13.332 How do you take those? 209 00:16:13.872 --> 00:16:15.913 No, I actually agree with a lot of that. 210 00:16:16.093 --> 00:16:30.257 I want to clarify, too, that it's like I know I was kind of painting like the bare case for Zcash, but I'm not I'm not bearish Zcash because I think those exact same things, too, that it's not that hard to see a couple of, you know, a couple percent of Bitcoin are saying, you know what, like, you know, just in case. 211 00:16:30.297 --> 00:16:30.437 Right. 212 00:16:30.457 --> 00:16:33.298 Just in case quantum's a problem, like just in case I kind of need this privacy feature. 213 00:16:33.778 --> 00:16:40.360 I think the problem there, though, that I would push back a little bit is it's difficult to say to what degree that's already happened and priced in. 214 00:16:40.561 --> 00:16:45.883 Like, you know, if I'm playing at some like poker games and there's like a billionaire, you know, there who's like shilling Z cash already. 215 00:16:46.383 --> 00:16:49.484 You know, part of it does make me feel a little bit like, oh, is this kind of like that? 216 00:16:49.504 --> 00:16:52.365 Like, you know, Uber driver who's talking to me about like, oh, have you heard of like X? 217 00:16:52.625 --> 00:17:06.298 Yeah, it is actually no, you're 100% right that that that billionaires and you know, multi deca sets of millionaires they are actually yeah, you're like like Zcash is actually one of the first exposures of crypto that a couple of them are taking on right now. 218 00:17:06.438 --> 00:17:14.725 And you're absolutely right that when you know, once again, it does not take a ton of money externally from them to say, you know what, just in case, I'll go put 1% of my couple hundred million into Zcash. 219 00:17:15.446 --> 00:17:22.832 The problem is like, to what extent has that already happened is, I would say, probably more so than some people would necessarily expect. 220 00:17:23.472 --> 00:17:30.578 But it's actually kind of a similar argument that people used to make as well with Bitcoin, even where it's like, you know, I remember talking to a fund manager a couple of years ago. 221 00:17:31.258 --> 00:17:32.858 And he was super anti-crypto in general. 222 00:17:32.898 --> 00:17:33.798 He was like, this is bullshit. 223 00:17:33.818 --> 00:17:34.559 This is all upon me. 224 00:17:34.599 --> 00:17:35.139 This is a scam. 225 00:17:35.159 --> 00:17:36.699 You're just like your typical TradFi guy, right? 226 00:17:37.099 --> 00:17:41.800 And then he asked me, he was like, oh, like what percent of like global wealth is in Bitcoin right now? 227 00:17:41.840 --> 00:17:44.220 And I think at the time it was like maybe 30 or 40 bips. 228 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:47.741 And he was like, you know, and it kind of like a light bulb kind of went off in his head. 229 00:17:47.761 --> 00:17:55.222 He's like, you know, if nothing else, just to not be wrong, a bunch of guys are going to be like, I'm just going to put up 1% of my money in just in case, you know, essentially. 230 00:17:55.762 --> 00:17:59.603 And I think it's kind of like a similar argument there where like you are going to get this ratio that guys will 231 00:18:00.183 --> 00:18:03.385 you know, just in case I'm wrong, I'm going to put this amount into Zcash. 232 00:18:03.805 --> 00:18:07.167 But all the edge there is kind of figuring out, like, what percent is that, right? 233 00:18:07.187 --> 00:18:08.348 It's like, are we already at that point? 234 00:18:08.388 --> 00:18:10.929 Is that point, you know, another couple multiples away from here? 235 00:18:11.970 --> 00:18:16.773 But I will say that it's like, yeah, you are definitely betting on, like, the big fundamental driver there is... 236 00:18:17.653 --> 00:18:21.536 ultra wealthy, ultra high net worth individuals who value that privacy. 237 00:18:22.177 --> 00:18:29.643 And so yeah, like if you think that that's not really fully played out yet, then Zcash is in a ridiculously good setup right now. 238 00:18:29.743 --> 00:18:30.684 Amazing long to have. 239 00:18:30.724 --> 00:18:33.526 And so I think it's also like such a great trading asset as well. 240 00:18:33.546 --> 00:18:36.188

Like it trades so purely based on momentum and sentiment. 241 00:18:36.208 --> 00:18:36.889 It's kind of the nice thing. 242 00:18:36.909 --> 00:18:41.252 It's like the whole Silicon Valley meme where it's like, oh, if you have revenue, that's also like a limiting factor, right? 243 00:18:41.272 --> 00:18:44.215 It's like hype's never going to trade at a 500x multiple on his revenue. 244 00:18:44.495 --> 00:18:45.935 Whereas Zcash has nothing. 245 00:18:45.976 --> 00:18:46.936 So it can trade like a meme coin. 246 00:18:46.956 --> 00:18:49.557 And when I say trade like a meme coin, I don't mean it disparagingly. 247 00:18:49.577 --> 00:18:52.278 I mean, it can actually just go to whatever valuation, right? 248 00:18:52.298 --> 00:18:53.958 And so it's ungated by the revenue meta. 249 00:18:54.818 --> 00:18:58.099 So yeah, I think Zcash deserves a place in most people's portfolio. 250 00:18:58.159 --> 00:19:02.401 It's just deciding whether it's too crowded right now and you're going to get to bid quite a bit lower. 251 00:19:02.561 --> 00:19:05.442 Or if you think it's going many multiples higher, that's kind of where all the edge is. 252 00:19:05.502 --> 00:19:08.463 So it's not very useful, but that's just the situation. 253 00:19:08.483 --> 00:19:09.103 Yeah. 254 00:19:09.423 --> 00:19:13.364 I guess I can imagine like Bitcoin, of course, is Bitcoin. 255 00:19:13.544 --> 00:19:25.348 And so if you are like one person trying to shill another person, either just like a normie retail person outside of crypto or a billionaire outside of crypto and you're telling them about Zcash. 256 00:19:26.049 --> 00:19:32.892 It's harder to differentiate Zcash from the sea of shit that is the rest of crypto assets than it is Bitcoin. 257 00:19:32.952 --> 00:19:37.575 And so like to them, it's just like, OK, you're this is just another ticker that it's a crypto asset. 258 00:19:37.595 --> 00:19:38.295 It's another shit coin. 259 00:19:38.315 --> 00:19:39.115 I've never heard of it before. 260 00:19:39.175 --> 00:19:40.116 It's another shit coin. 261 00:19:40.136 --> 00:19:40.536 Exactly. 262 00:19:40.636 --> 00:19:40.876 Right. 263 00:19:40.956 --> 00:19:47.459 And so granted, there are people like the Winklevi and like I said, like the Vol actually like legitimizing this thing. 264 00:19:47.479 --> 00:19:48.760 It has like an ETF. 265 00:19:48.800 --> 00:19:50.421 And so there's something there, but it's still like. 266 00:19:50.461 --> 00:19:50.541 Yep. 267 00:19:51.101 --> 00:19:56.307 I can imagine like people not inside of crypto just don't want to be shield tickers, crypto tickers. 268 00:19:56.347 --> 00:19:56.667 Yeah, exactly. 269 00:19:56.687 --> 00:19:58.690 That's like an unpalatable thing. 270 00:19:59.030 --> 00:20:02.714 There's this natural aversion to like alternative assets in crypto as well. 271 00:20:02.814 --> 00:20:05.057 Like altcoins have performed so poorly over the past. 272 00:20:05.097 --> 00:20:07.459 And especially when you're trying to like there was at least. 273 00:20:08.060 --> 00:20:16.531 Like I made some inroads with talking to some more institutional guys about the fact that it's like, oh, like if they hear something's trading at like a two or three XPE ratio, like pump was, for example, they're like, you know what, that's interesting, right? 274 00:20:16.551 --> 00:20:22.679 Like, you kind of have to contextualize why like is this is this revenue as durable, as predictable as like other forms of revenue? 275 00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:24.879 But it's at least kind of like stokes their interest. 276 00:20:24.899 --> 00:20:28.760 Like, why are these crypto assets trading at such low multiples relative to their revenue? 277 00:20:29.120 --> 00:20:34.082 When you try to present to them like, oh, there's this alternative store of value asset that's not Bitcoin and it's an altcoin. 278 00:20:34.782 --> 00:20:38.583 It sets off a lot of like alarm bells and red flags with them where it's like, oh, this is a flash in the pan. 279 00:20:38.603 --> 00:20:40.163 Like, what's the difference between this and a meme coin? 280 00:20:40.183 --> 00:20:40.923 Like, you'll kind of run into it. 281 00:20:40.963 --> 00:20:45.864 And it's not once again, it's not to say that these are real arguments, but it's like this is kind of like the pushback you'll see. 282 00:20:46.164 --> 00:20:52.806 There's also one like other slight issue with it, which once again, it's kind of like Zcash is to Bitcoin almost as Bitcoin is to a lot of like TradFi assets where. 283 00:20:53.787 --> 00:21:04.973 some Bitcoin maxis, almost kind of like their bull thesis for Bitcoin is very much like this king of the wasteland type of thing where it's like, oh, when the dollar goes into hyperinflation and the world is melting down, people are going to want our Bitcoin. 284 00:21:04.993 --> 00:21:12.358 And it's like, that's a bit of a tenuous thing to think because all risk assets kind of tend to sell off when you have this correlation goes to one moment. 285 00:21:12.798 --> 00:21:20.821 So it's one of those things where it's like the really big bull case for Zcash would potentially be some black swan events in Bitcoin specifically, right? 286 00:21:20.841 --> 00:21:23.022 That proves the fact that the quantum resistance is necessary. 287 00:21:23.042 --> 00:21:27.284 That proves that, you know, privacy, like the government's coming and seizing people's Bitcoin, you know. 288 00:21:27.764 --> 00:21:29.425 Satoshi's wallet gets exploited. 289 00:21:29.465 --> 00:21:33.166 These things would be like this massive attention gathering onboarding event for Zcash. 290 00:21:33.507 --> 00:21:40.770 The problem there, though, is that it's like said, you're kind of this like king of the wasteland situation where you really think that if Satoshi's coins move, that Zcash isn't also potentially plummeting down with it. 291 00:21:40.810 --> 00:21:43.711 Now, would it be the fastest one to rally outside of that situation? 292

00:21:44.231 --> 00:21:44.932 Almost definitely. 293 00:21:45.512 --> 00:21:48.053 But in that moment, that's how BlackRock identifies Bitcoin. 294 00:21:49.193 --> 00:21:52.674 BlackRock has a report about Bitcoin that went just into this moment. 295 00:21:52.694 --> 00:21:56.176 We're like, yes, in the moment, correlations all go to one. 296 00:21:56.636 --> 00:22:00.317 But Bitcoin historically has rallied the most coming out of those events. 297 00:22:00.337 --> 00:22:02.338 There's an actual BlackRock report talking about this. 298 00:22:02.798 --> 00:22:05.919 Yeah, as I'm saying, so it's in the same way that Trad5 views Bitcoin. 299 00:22:06.219 --> 00:22:09.580 It's kind of the same way that more crypto natives use Zcash relative to Bitcoin. 300 00:22:09.600 --> 00:22:11.501 So it's one of those things where crash insurance 301 00:22:12.121 --> 00:22:18.029 Zoomed out might be a really good way of putting it with regards to like, okay, like what if Bitcoin fails to some degree? 302 00:22:18.069 --> 00:22:24.297 But if Bitcoin fails, you know, you're probably going to get a chance to bid Zcash significantly lower than whatever it is at that point in time as well. 303 00:22:24.317 --> 00:22:26.399 And so there's that interesting dynamic there. 304 00:22:26.700 --> 00:22:27.921 But once again, like none of this is to say 305 00:22:28.502 --> 00:22:31.724 bearish Zcash is that I see so many people kind of putting out the bull case of Zcash. 306 00:22:31.744 --> 00:22:34.345 Like there is also kind of a commensurate bear case to it as well. 307 00:22:34.365 --> 00:22:36.266 But that's also why, like I said, it's such a pure trading asset. 308 00:22:36.286 --> 00:22:41.368 It's such an amazing asset to kind of like having your portfolio different different weights, different prices, different times. 309 00:22:41.829 --> 00:22:54.355 I think options for Zcash too is also extremely interesting right now because like if you have these massive swings and like your worldview Zcash is going many, many multiples higher or crashing, you know, back down to $200, like options are the best way to express that. 310 00:22:54.395 --> 00:22:57.156 And so I think trading options on Zcash is kind of how I've 311 00:22:58.377 --> 00:23:02.058 Yeah, going back to the whole Zcash is a pure trading asset. 312 00:23:02.618 --> 00:23:08.000 In the same way that the best advertising for Bitcoin is its price, the same rule applies for Zcash too. 313 00:23:08.620 --> 00:23:20.763 And so ultimately, we don't know the future, but if just the herd mentality gets sparked by Zek and Zek does the next leg up, the fundamentals are literally improving as price goes up. 314 00:23:21.003 --> 00:23:24.024 And I know that's a meme on Twitter, but that is how it works. 315 00:23:24.304 --> 00:23:24.964 No, it's so true. 316 00:23:25.005 --> 00:23:26.405 For things like Bitcoin and Zcash. 317 00:23:26.885 --> 00:23:28.526 Yeah, it's only it's only more attention. 318 00:23:28.547 -->

00:23:29.727 It's only more adoption. 319 00:23:29.908 --> 00:23:30.788 It's only more acceptance. 320 00:23:30.989 --> 00:23:33.471 So yeah, it has this massive innate reflexivity. 321 00:23:33.491 --> 00:23:39.436 And that's kind of what I'm getting at where it's like, Zcash can't can't really just kind of go up at like, you know, a 10% CAGR, right? 322 00:23:39.456 --> 00:23:51.366 Like, it's kind of just either going to like step function up like massive, you know, bouts of adoption and price beginning more adoption to getting more price increases, or just kind of going to bleed out as it kind of has in the past. 323 00:23:52.006 --> 00:24:00.290 And so it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, like that's why to me, like I said, like being in just like a perps long on it is not necessarily the most interesting way to express that view. 324 00:24:00.710 --> 00:24:05.713 Like Zcash is one of those things where it's either going to like if you zoom out in a year, it's going to 200 or it's going to 5000. 325 00:24:05.873 --> 00:24:06.053 Right. 326 00:24:06.633 --> 00:24:10.635 It's kind of difficult for it to just chug along necessarily. 327 00:24:10.715 --> 00:24:11.436 So, yeah. 328 00:24:12.076 --> 00:24:17.839 Can you go into that a little bit more about like why the because of the nature of Zcash, why you prefer options over perps? 329 00:24:17.859 --> 00:24:19.820 Just like unpack that more basically for me. 330 00:24:20.280 --> 00:24:31.507 Yeah, I mean, it's when I see guys talk about these like price targets of like, oh, Zcash could go to 10,000, Zcash could go to 20,000, Zcash to going to like 5%, you know, Bitcoin, like, you know, these types of things, it's like. 331 00:24:32.654 --> 00:24:50.601 The problem is that like in the process of going there, it's not going to be a straight line up like you're going to get multiple 60, 70 percent drawdowns like like people have to look at like early Bitcoin fractals, right, where it goes from, you know, eight bucks to 400 and then back down to 20 and then back up to, you know, 1,200, then back down to 200. 332 00:24:51.341 --> 00:24:54.422 It's going to have that same type of adoption curve. 333 00:24:54.962 --> 00:24:55.483 And so. 334 00:24:56.423 --> 00:24:59.285 it's incredibly uncomfy to be in just like an answer. 335 00:24:59.305 --> 00:25:04.710 Like if you just want to put Zcash into hold spot, zoom out, you know, log off for 10 years and come back. 336 00:25:04.930 --> 00:25:10.594 And it could be, you know, many, many, many multiples higher, and you completely forego a lot of that liquidation risk. 337 00:25:10.634 --> 00:25:16.939 But if you're trying to do some sort of like, I want the maximum exposure to Zcash going to a price target, that's many, many multiples above right now. 338 00:25:17.540 --> 00:25:22.203 It's difficult to like, you kind of have to have a level of self awareness to say that it's like, okay, did I get 339 00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:28.284 pushed out from like the orchard, like exploit or, you know, in quotes of like what people thought it was, right? 340 00:25:28.304 --> 00:25:29.685 Like, did I sell my C cash then? 341 00:25:30.205 --> 00:25:35.070 Or would I have been liquidated in my position in a 60 or 70 or 80% drawdown potentially? 342 00:25:35.831 --> 00:25:43.518 And so what's nice about options is like you kind of avoid that liquidation risk, but you also get to lever up on the exposure of, oh, I think this is going to many, many multiples from right now. 343 00:25:43.558 --> 00:25:48.763 So like if you do genuinely think that, you know, like if your whole thesis is, oh, AOC is going to win. 344 00:25:49.283 --> 00:25:50.244 socialism is going to be on the rise. 345 00:25:50.264 --> 00:25:51.806 We're going to start seizing billionaires' money. 346 00:25:51.826 --> 00:25:53.027 This is going to get so much adoption. 347 00:25:53.807 --> 00:25:55.789 Your price targets should be astronomical, right? 348 00:25:55.809 --> 00:25:58.052 They should be many, many multiples above what they are right now. 349 00:25:58.932 --> 00:26:03.116 And the best way to get levered exposure to that, that's not going to be liquidated, is through options. 350 00:26:03.357 --> 00:26:04.418 So I think Zcash is a 351 00:26:05.038 --> 00:26:09.081 And to be fair, like the volatility of Zcash is built into and priced into those options as well. 352 00:26:09.101 --> 00:26:10.241 And so it goes both ways as well. 353 00:26:10.261 --> 00:26:20.528 Like if you're someone who thinks, you know, Zcash is not that interesting for a time period and you hold a bunch of spot, like selling calls against it is extremely interesting because of the fact that they trade so rich relative to vol. 354 00:26:20.868 --> 00:26:24.130 So options on Zcash, I think is going to be a really, really big point. 355 00:26:24.150 --> 00:26:26.972 That's going to pick up quite a lot of adoption, kind of like the same thing happened with hype as well. 356 00:26:27.312 --> 00:26:36.097 So when you are interested in an asset and you're trying to either do you're doing a derivative, either options or perps, how do you make that choice? 357 00:26:36.477 --> 00:26:38.058 Like when is options the right call? 358 00:26:38.078 --> 00:26:39.078 When are perps the right call? 359 00:26:39.458 --> 00:26:41.379 To be honest with you, the answer is kind of always both. 360 00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:44.261 Like there's always circumstances where I would be trading both. 361 00:26:45.201 --> 00:26:50.484 The nice thing about options relative to perps is just the fact that there's almost always a view that you can put on with perps. 362 00:26:50.524 --> 00:27:01.731 It's pretty much just either your long delta, your short delta, like that's it price up price down, you can kind of put on a sideways view by going like delta neutral and funding and like farming funding, but that's not extremely attractive. 363 00:27:02.471 --> 00:27:05.613 Um, whereas you're more

of just a yield optimizer at that point, right? 364 00:27:05.633 --> 00:27:06.593 Yeah, exactly. 365 00:27:06.613 --> 00:27:07.374 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 366 00:27:07.394 --> 00:27:10.395 Um, whereas with, with, with options, there's always a trade to be had. 367 00:27:10.455 --> 00:27:11.976 You can be long ball, short ball. 368 00:27:11.996 --> 00:27:14.718 You can be, I want to get leopard exposure to this tiny bit of upside. 369 00:27:14.738 --> 00:27:19.600 I want to get leopard exposure to this very deep out of the money, you know, massive gamma squeeze type of upside. 370 00:27:19.620 --> 00:27:22.442 I want to be, you know, short this kind of like pocket of price. 371 00:27:23.642 --> 00:27:25.823 And so I think options are just a lot more flexible. 372 00:27:25.843 --> 00:27:27.463 You can always express a view through options. 373 00:27:27.483 --> 00:27:30.124 And there's a lot of views that you can express through options you can't express through perps. 374 00:27:30.284 --> 00:27:35.805 At the same time, though, it's like if you are trading options correctly, you should probably be hedging a lot of that exposure in and out via perps. 375 00:27:35.885 --> 00:27:43.887 And so the way I kind of see it is I will put on these more longer term overarching theses through options trades. 376 00:27:43.927 --> 00:27:46.928 But then on a day like yesterday, for example, Bitcoin at... 377 00:27:47.768 --> 00:27:53.214 70, you know, 5-2 might have been a really interesting perp long just for a quick scalp up to back up to like 76. 378 00:27:53.294 --> 00:27:56.958 And that's not necessarily a trade that I want to go in and like cross the spread on options as much for. 379 00:27:57.418 --> 00:28:01.863 And so I'm always trading in and out of some of the delta that I have from my options via perps. 380 00:28:01.903 --> 00:28:03.645 And so I would say most people should combine both of them. 381 00:28:03.865 --> 00:28:06.628 Your checking account isn't public, so why should your crypto be? 382 00:28:06.848 --> 00:28:09.931 As AI gets more powerful, your privacy gets weaker. 383 00:28:10.051 --> 00:28:16.657 Connecting your identity to your financial history, on-chain or off, is the easiest it's ever been and will only get easier from here. 384 00:28:16.857 --> 00:28:21.782 Every data breach adds another piece to the puzzle, and every public transaction leaves a trail back to you. 385 00:28:21.942 --> 00:28:24.603 And when your wealth is visible, you become a target. 386 00:28:24.704 --> 00:28:26.905 Money that can be seen can be stolen. 387 00:28:27.025 --> 00:28:30.627 Being in control of your money should include controlling who sees what you do with it. 388 00:28:30.807 --> 00:28:31.847 Zcash fixes this. 389 00:28:32.108 --> 00:28:36.510 Zcash is private digital money with privacy enforced by zero-knowledge cryptography. 390 00:28:36.710 --> 00:28:41.613 Zcash-shielded transactions let you send and spend without publicly revealing who you're paying or

how much. 391 00:28:41.813 --> 00:28:44.014 When it comes to privacy, there is no second best. 392 00:28:44.174 --> 00:28:49.155 Get started with Zcash using Visor, the wallet Zcash devs and enthusiasts use to encrypt their money. 393 00:28:49.315 --> 00:28:54.696 Zcash wallets are non-trivial, and Visor goes the extra mile to make sure your money and privacy are fully protected. 394 00:28:54.876 --> 00:28:57.137 Open source, self-custodial, fully private. 395 00:28:57.317 --> 00:29:00.297 Use the link in the show notes to download Visor on mobile or desktop. 396 00:29:00.438 --> 00:29:01.138 Protect your future. 397 00:29:01.418 --> 00:29:02.178 Use Zcash. 398 00:29:02.538 --> 00:29:05.980 Dollar stablecoins taught Latin America how to store value on chain. 399 00:29:06.141 --> 00:29:10.764 Ripio is taking that same idea and bringing it to the currencies people actually use every day. 400 00:29:10.884 --> 00:29:22.892 With wrapped fiat, Ripio is putting more than a decade of experience powering crypto infrastructure for leading companies across Latin America behind a suite of six local currency stablecoins covering Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru. 401 00:29:22.972 --> 00:29:31.041 Each is pegged one-to-one to its local currency and fully backed by reserves held in regulated financial institutions with independent attestations published for each token. 402 00:29:31.121 --> 00:29:34.124 But wrapped fiat is not just designed to sit there, it's built to move. 403 00:29:34.265 --> 00:29:41.032 The suite is live across 10 EVM chains with liquidity and integrations already spanning platforms like Morpho, Uniswap, and Chainlink. 404 00:29:41.172 --> 00:29:50.498 Users can move between local payment rails like PIX and SPAY and matching wrapped fiat one-to-one in real time with zero fees on both on-ramps and off-ramps and no FX conversion. 405 00:29:50.619 --> 00:29:52.560 Local rails in, on-chain in the middle. 406 00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:57.663 And for builders, Ripio offers APIs, webhooks, widgets, and a sandbox just from day one. 407 00:29:57.843 --> 00:30:01.406 Start building with wrapped fiat today at platform.rippio.com. 408 00:30:01.646 --> 00:30:06.287 I want to learn about the token categories that you see in crypto. 409 00:30:06.347 --> 00:30:11.968 So just broadly, the most simple one I think that is in the, like I see, are just the exchange token businesses. 410 00:30:12.028 --> 00:30:14.929 And these are the Hyperliquids, the Lighters, Derives. 411 00:30:15.789 --> 00:30:17.989 And then there's also the AMM versions of these. 412 00:30:18.049 --> 00:30:19.990 So the Uniswaps, the Arrows. 413 00:30:21.130 --> 00:30:26.291 Broadly, what are the categories of assets that you're generally looking at on a daily or weekly basis? 414 00:30:26.971 --> 00:30:30.455 So, I mean, truthfully, everything in crypto is getting a look from me. 415 00:30:31.155 --> 00:30:32.957 Like, I'll look at I'll look at Pump. 416 00:30:32.977 --> 00:30:33.698 I'll look at cards. 417 00:30:33.738 --> 00:30:37.742 I'll look at, you know, near like everything I will at least look at. 418 00:30:37.842 --> 00:30:44.289 I just find the most edge for me to express is kind of in more of those decks revenue meta things that actually have multiples. 419 00:30:45.070 --> 00:30:47.833 I think the really big reason and this is because they just have more data to look at. 420 00:30:48.553 --> 00:30:54.695 Um, I would, yes, but I would also say that it's because of the fact that a lot of people don't know how to contextualize that data properly. 421 00:30:55.135 --> 00:31:03.577 Like a really good example is this is that like, why does, why does lighter and hyperliquid and pump all trade at radically different multiples on their revenue, right? 422 00:31:03.637 --> 00:31:07.198 It's like, especially hyperliquid and lighter, they should, they should, you know, 423 00:31:07.758 --> 00:31:10.299 The logic would be that they should trade it like relatively close multiples. 424 00:31:10.739 --> 00:31:18.662 You know, is it the... And in TradFi, you know, if you have a higher growth, typically lower cap stock is going to trade it at a higher multiple, right? 425 00:31:18.682 --> 00:31:23.704 And so like why has Lighter like historically traded at some lower multiples relative to hyperliquid? 426 00:31:24.164 --> 00:31:25.945 And so it's important, I think, to understand... 427 00:31:26.765 --> 00:31:43.297 how to contextualize that as to as to say like, oh, okay, like in crypto, perhaps, you know, like lendiness gets rewarded more like the front runner gets gets rewarded more because of the fact that people assume that when TradFi money comes in, or if even when it comes in, they're going to crowd into the number one asset, and they're not going to go much further out on the risk curve than that, right. 428 00:31:43.937 --> 00:31:51.123 And so things trade very differently in crypto relative to TradFi, and they trade at very different multiples for specific reasons, Pump being another good example, because of the fact that a lot of people just 429 00:31:52.073 --> 00:31:56.777 you know, can't underwrite that there's like mean euthanasia rollercoaster is going to go on forever. 430 00:31:56.797 --> 00:32:01.501 And they all kind of assume that it's like, oh, like the revenue it's generating right now is almost at the detriment of future revenue that it could. 431 00:32:01.541 --> 00:32:05.824 Like there's only so much that they can kind of like suck out of the industry for lack of a better term. 432 00:32:06.625 --> 00:32:13.571 And so I think some people will look at multiples in crypto and say like, oh, this is trading relatively cheap to its peers. 433 00:32:14.011 --> 00:32:19.316 But you kind of have to do a lot of contextualizing as to like why should it potentially trade cheaper to its peers. 434 00:32:19.336 --> 00:32:20.276 And so like identifying 435 00:32:21.408 --> 00:32:28.049 you kind of have to

look at individual assets and say, is it trading cheap relative to what it has historically and what has potentially changed historically? 436 00:32:28.149 --> 00:32:35.811 Another really good example of this would be like, for example, with Hyperliquid, with the AQA V2 USDC revenue coming in, that's extremely durable. 437 00:32:36.351 --> 00:32:37.911 That's like ARR at that point, right? 438 00:32:37.931 --> 00:32:39.812 That is just treasury yield essentially. 439 00:32:39.832 --> 00:32:45.233 And that trades very differently and should be priced at a very different multiple potentially than trading revenue, which is a bit more cyclical. 440 00:32:46.013 --> 00:32:50.854 And so because of the fact that Lighter doesn't have that very predictable ARR that's coming in through treasury yield, 441 00:32:51.494 --> 00:32:53.035 it kind of gets assigned a different multiple there. 442 00:32:53.055 --> 00:32:59.800 And so like really kind of deep diving into like what are the actual fundamental levers of growth for these assets, I think has like a lot of edge to express. 443 00:32:59.900 --> 00:33:10.868 For you to be right in your analysis here, like you're just looking at all the data and trying to reason about, well, hyperliquids revenue is more durable than lighters, like all this stuff. 444 00:33:11.368 --> 00:33:23.951 Do you ever worry that like there's just not enough people like you thinking like you in order for you to be right because it requires other people to also come to the same conclusions as you and there's only like seven of you in all of crypto? 445 00:33:25.020 --> 00:33:28.023 That's a phenomenal question I ask myself a lot, actually. 446 00:33:29.184 --> 00:33:45.141 And, you know, I will say this year has been very gratifying for me because of the fact that I like I said in other things, like I was putting out these investor letters at times trying to tell people it's like, oh, there's so many fundamentally undervalued assets in crypto and they were just getting zero bid and nobody gave a shit and everybody was just piling into meme coins. 447 00:33:45.182 --> 00:33:45.342 Right. 448 00:33:45.362 --> 00:33:45.622 Right. 449 00:33:45.902 --> 00:33:53.608 And so like, you know, quarter after quarter after quarter, I'm like, OK, these fundamental assets are mispriced and, you know, they're going to they're going to reprice aggressively. 450 00:33:53.648 --> 00:33:55.490 So this year has been amazing for that thesis. 451 00:33:55.530 --> 00:33:59.253 And so it's been gratifying to know that, you know, maybe I was early to some things, but eventually I was right. 452 00:33:59.773 --> 00:34:13.604 I will say that a lot of the tokens that I'm long, the nice thing about them is I don't actually really need other people to identify that that's the case with with, you know, hype derived lit error like these tokens that do pretty aggressive buybacks relative to their revenue. 453 00:34:14.284 --> 00:34:18.728 If they're trading cheap relative to revenue, it's just going to get manifested into the chart naturally, right? 454 00:34:18.768 --> 00:34:25.815 It's like hype is buying three times as much hype back when it was trading at, you know, 30 bucks and when it's trading at 90 bucks, assuming that they're still doing two or $3 million a day of revenue. 455 00:34:26.335 --> 00:34:31.320 And so it might not have this immediate pop where, yeah, you still need a little bit of people to actually come in and speculate on that. 456 00:34:31.360 --> 00:34:35.103 But if the revenue is, you know, it does have this fundamental floor and same thing as equities. 457 00:34:35.284 --> 00:34:38.547 That's kind of where like your store of value assets don't necessarily have that fundamental floor. 458 00:34:39.547 --> 00:34:54.115 And so it's one of those things where, I mean, if hype is still trading, or if hype is still generating, you know, two, three, $4 million a day of revenue, and it's trading at 30, 40 bucks, it's a much comfier time to say, you know what, I might be wrong for a couple of months, but eventually this is going to kind of manifest into the chart. 459 00:34:54.495 --> 00:34:59.378 Whereas with, yeah, exactly like something like a ZEC, it's like, well, you know, if it starts going down to 200, you can't really say. 460 00:35:00.038 --> 00:35:01.099 It's like we were talking about before. 461 00:35:01.119 --> 00:35:03.742 It has a kind of reflexivity in both directions, right? 462 00:35:03.782 --> 00:35:06.965 Where price goes up, it becomes a much better store of value to people, but price goes down. 463 00:35:07.246 --> 00:35:12.711 There's not really that fundamental floor setting feature that these tokens that have like revenue buybacks have. 464 00:35:13.232 --> 00:35:15.474 I will say too that when you are looking at 465 00:35:16.535 --> 00:35:25.402 technical indicators, for example, right, you kind of do want to be looking at the same thing everybody else is looking at, like everybody's going to bid the 50 week moving average, the 200 day moving average. 466 00:35:25.442 --> 00:35:42.835 And so I think some people make this big mistake is that they'll try to find this like really esoteric and generally overfit technical indicator of like, oh, if I look at the 22, you know, session two hour, you know, moving average, and I like put two standard deviations away from it, it bounces at this and, you know, and it bounces at that. 467 00:35:43.115 --> 00:35:43.937 And it's like, yeah, sure. 468 00:35:43.957 --> 00:35:47.303 Like in a regime that could fit a couple of times and you can try to trade that. 469 00:35:47.564 --> 00:35:51.491 And I think what a lot of people realize when they try to like back test some of these strategies with like clawed. 470 00:35:52.207 --> 00:35:53.488 It has like no predictive power. 471 00:35:53.688 --> 00:35:54.608 It's all just back. 472 00:35:55.349 --> 00:35:56.189 It's all just overfitting. 473 00:35:57.330 --> 00:35:59.751 And so

you do want to be looking at the same things everybody else is looking at. 474 00:35:59.771 --> 00:36:03.694 It's actually kind of as much of a joke as they are, like the Fibonacci retracement numbers. 475 00:36:03.734 --> 00:36:08.476 It's like there's enough people looking at those that there is at the very least a tiny bit of predictive power, right? 476 00:36:08.496 --> 00:36:12.939 Like you can make the argument that some people are bidding this silly level or whatever. 477 00:36:12.959 --> 00:36:13.299 Yeah. 478 00:36:13.419 --> 00:36:15.561 I would actually say it's kind of the opposite with fundamental data. 479 00:36:15.581 --> 00:36:18.743 Like you do kind of want to be seeing stuff that nobody else is seeing ahead of time. 480 00:36:19.884 --> 00:36:27.891 And so whereas like with technical indicators, I want to be looking at what everybody else is looking at just to kind of see like what levels are likely to be hit and what levels are likely to bounce. 481 00:36:29.332 --> 00:36:33.536 Fundamental data, I think there's quite a bit more edge to be seeing what other people aren't really seeing yet because eventually they will. 482 00:36:34.557 --> 00:36:43.324 And so I think there I'm okay being early for a couple of months if I think it's going to get borne out in the price automatically anyway through these automated buybacks. 483 00:36:43.344 --> 00:36:52.671 And I think that's like a big regime change that Hyperliquid really ushered into crypto is that now that's kind of like the expectation is that it's like the marginal buyer of your token is your token essentially. 484 00:36:52.771 --> 00:36:59.617 And that's what kind of I think really kicked in the outperformance for me personally in the last year or so is that that really changed the whole game for everybody else. 485 00:37:00.077 --> 00:37:00.458 Interesting. 486 00:37:00.478 --> 00:37:00.798 Interesting. 487 00:37:01.155 --> 00:37:04.678 Which do you think is the faster horse from here on out, Hyperliquid or Leiter? 488 00:37:06.059 --> 00:37:07.341 It's tough. 489 00:37:07.361 --> 00:37:12.765 The way I put it with other people is that I think Leiter is a better hold for the next three to six months. 490 00:37:13.366 --> 00:37:20.672 I think you can maybe even make the argument that the recent political events might even have a little bit more favor towards Leiter. 491 00:37:20.692 --> 00:37:26.818 I got some flack for it, but whether people want to accept it or not, Hyperliquid was at least a little bit of a Trump bet. 492 00:37:27.578 --> 00:37:29.458 You know, he said it in his press conference. 493 00:37:29.518 --> 00:37:33.679 Zelig was like openly like the CFTC is openly like quite pro hyperliquid. 494 00:37:34.039 --> 00:37:39.921 All the lobbying money that they've spent through the hyperliquid, you know, like law foundation, like, you know, they're there. 495 00:37:40.881 --> 00:37:46.162 They were at the very least like slightly Trump aligned or Trump was aware of

their existence. 496 00:37:46.202 --> 00:37:46.422 Right. 497 00:37:47.322 --> 00:37:50.343 I think that that is obviously going to change. 498 00:37:50.743 --> 00:37:53.343 And hyperliquid is completely capable of being neutral. 499 00:37:57.064 --> 00:37:58.465 have anything against hyperliquid necessarily. 500 00:37:58.485 --> 00:38:06.207 Like they didn't like throw in with Trump to the same way that like Elon did, for example, where it's like Elon is probably just going to be persecuted for the foreseeable future. 501 00:38:06.227 --> 00:38:10.429 And so like I'm not trying to say that there's any sort of like persecution that's going to happen towards hyperliquid. 502 00:38:10.469 --> 00:38:12.470 But basically all else equal if the 503 00:38:13.390 --> 00:38:15.471 you know, slate is, is blank. 504 00:38:16.091 --> 00:38:21.293 Um, yeah, I think lighter might have a, a faster, cleaner path towards regulatory clarity than hyperliquid. 505 00:38:21.493 --> 00:38:24.134 Um, I also think it's kind of like part of their bull cases. 506 00:38:24.254 --> 00:38:28.296 I think they're, they are going more aggressively after the U S market than hyperliquid is. 507 00:38:28.316 --> 00:38:31.697 And I think hyperliquid is kind of going more aggressively after the global market. 508 00:38:31.737 --> 00:38:31.877 Right. 509 00:38:31.897 --> 00:38:33.598 And they're a bit more agnostic to the U S market. 510 00:38:33.698 --> 00:38:35.678 Obviously the U S market is a big prize for both of them. 511 00:38:36.199 --> 00:38:38.439 Um, I just think that lighter is leaning in a bit more heavily to that. 512 00:38:39.140 --> 00:38:39.320 Um, yeah, 513 00:38:39.900 --> 00:38:44.121 I would even say, too, that there's an interesting case to be made that that could be where Lighter's wrong. 514 00:38:44.341 --> 00:38:49.062 I've heard some other funds and analysts talk about how untapped is the U.S. market currently. 515 00:38:49.802 --> 00:38:52.883 And you kind of see that play out with some, like, you know, Kalshi or Polymarket data. 516 00:38:52.903 --> 00:38:56.784 Like, oh, like, you know, everybody was already accessing Polymarket via VPN. 517 00:38:57.124 --> 00:39:02.225 And so everybody thought, like, oh, with some, like, U.S. regulatory clarity, like, there's this massive untapped consumer base. 518 00:39:02.245 --> 00:39:03.526 And there might actually not be. 519 00:39:03.546 --> 00:39:09.267 And so that's, like, an interesting bear case for Lighter potentially is that the people who want to be trading perps in the U.S. largely already are. 520 00:39:10.047 --> 00:39:15.251 Um, but I, yeah, I would definitely say over the next three to six months, almost just by virtue of like recent price action too. 521 00:39:15.472 --> 00:39:24.879 I think, I think lighter probably can do a better multiple than hyperliquid can in the same regulatory environment, like all else equal, they both get CFTC clearance in three months. 522 00:39:24.899 --> 00:39:25.019 Yeah. 523 00:39:25.059 --> 00:39:30.964 I think lighter pops a couple, you know, a couple of multiples, whereas hyperliquid might just pop, you know, 20, 30, 40%. 524 00:39:30.984 --> 00:39:31.104 Right. 525 00:39:31.124 --> 00:39:31.264 Um, but 526 00:39:33.546 --> 00:39:37.549 But at the same time, I trust the hyperliquid team more long term. 527 00:39:37.569 --> 00:39:41.613 Like I would rather go into a coma for a year or two holding all hype than all lit. 528 00:39:41.653 --> 00:39:45.456 So I see lighter as a bit more of a trade that's really attractive for the next couple of months. 529 00:39:46.677 --> 00:39:55.444 Whereas I see hyperliquid is like, okay, yeah, I know this could potentially be a multi-year hold type of asset where it trades kind of like, oh, B&B is a good example of like the price action. 530 00:39:55.464 --> 00:40:02.469 You potentially see where it just goes just basically up in the long run, you know, quite nicely and trades at many multiples higher from here. 531 00:40:02.529 --> 00:40:03.210 So, yeah. 532 00:40:03.650 --> 00:40:11.936 Yeah, I go back and forth on the same subject where Hyperliquid just fits the mold of, well, it's Binance, right? 533 00:40:11.996 --> 00:40:14.397 Binance is quarters of magnitude larger than Coinbase. 534 00:40:15.058 --> 00:40:19.901 Lighter is trying to do the onshore trusted regulatory thing and win the U.S. market. 535 00:40:20.081 --> 00:40:27.326 But man, Binance is just clearly where the value is because crypto is inherently an offshore phenomenon. 536 00:40:27.366 --> 00:40:28.286 Like that's what we are. 537 00:40:28.326 --> 00:40:30.208 It's in our DNA is like crypto is offshore. 538 00:40:30.228 --> 00:40:31.108 And yeah, 539 00:40:32.349 --> 00:40:43.326 Granted, at the same time, the untapped retail audience who just deposits on Coinbase or on Robinhood and trades on Robinhood, that market, I would say, is firmly untapped. 540 00:40:43.346 --> 00:40:46.570 The people who won't be bothered to turn on a VPN to go trade. 541 00:40:47.432 --> 00:40:47.532 Yeah. 542 00:40:47.712 --> 00:40:52.516 But also at the same time, like perps are a retail oriented instrument. 543 00:40:52.636 --> 00:40:58.200 And so the massive institutions out there are probably going to stay in options land. 544 00:40:58.741 --> 00:41:05.586 And so the perp penetration in the onshore compliant world is probably just the retail audience. 545 00:41:05.886 --> 00:41:10.030 And it's probably why the Robinhood partnership is so important to that letter. 546 00:41:10.610 --> 00:41:13.352 Yeah, these are all kind of my thoughts. 547 00:41:13.513 --> 00:41:21.459 Granted, like LIDR will also be doing options and it has some like novel technical infrastructure with the whole like zero knowledge circuits. 548 00:41:21.620 --> 00:41:32.909 It's probably going to be, in terms of actual exchange execution, the number one most performant exchange of all time ever, like inclusive of all the other exchanges in the

New York Stock Exchange and NASAC. 549 00:41:33.490 --> 00:41:36.492 And so it's nice to have an asset that is technically superior. 550 00:41:36.572 --> 00:41:38.094 I don't know how far that takes it, 551 00:41:39.455 --> 00:41:40.275 these are all kind of my thoughts. 552 00:41:40.435 --> 00:41:41.736 No, no, no, you're exactly right. 553 00:41:41.776 --> 00:41:43.918 It's like that escape hatch functionality. 554 00:41:43.938 --> 00:41:53.664 It's like these are types of things that like eventually you would imagine regulators and massive institutional, you know, allocators and traders will care about, right? 555 00:41:53.744 --> 00:41:54.305 Eventually, right? 556 00:41:54.325 --> 00:41:56.966 But now the question there is like, it's almost kind of what we were saying before. 557 00:41:57.006 --> 00:42:00.168 It's like if nobody else is looking at these things, does it really reflect into the price? 558 00:42:00.609 --> 00:42:01.509 Kind of hard to say there. 559 00:42:02.390 --> 00:42:06.493 I would also say too that liquidity is so much more of a moat than people realize. 560 00:42:07.213 --> 00:42:15.180 Um, everybody kind of hand waves it away, which is like, oh, like, you know, like they have these better features or there's this new perp decks that launched that's more performance or all these different things. 561 00:42:15.200 --> 00:42:17.281 And it's like, nobody cares at all. 562 00:42:17.582 --> 00:42:25.388 Like as, as a trader, I can, I can accept the fact that like, I've said this in the past too, like lighter in my opinion has a better UI and a better UX than Hyperloop. 563 00:42:25.548 --> 00:42:27.950 Like they've had features earlier than hyperliquid. 564 00:42:27.970 --> 00:42:32.274 They have allowed you to cancel and select certain types of orders better than hyperliquid. 565 00:42:32.554 --> 00:42:36.978 But I still do most of my trading on hyperliquid because of the fact that it has so much deeper liquidity. 566 00:42:37.699 --> 00:42:39.400 That's slowly starting to change. 567 00:42:39.420 --> 00:42:40.321 You are starting to see 568 00:42:41.382 --> 00:42:44.203 better fills on lighter on the major specifically. 569 00:42:44.243 --> 00:42:49.444 But if you want to trade altcoins, hyperliquid is still generally, you're going to get a lot better fills at size. 570 00:42:49.804 --> 00:42:55.566 And even then, you know, people have to realize too, that it's like the altcoin markets on hyperliquid are only fractions as liquid as on Binance too. 571 00:42:55.626 --> 00:43:03.788 So you still have all these like stat arb guys and guys who are trading like large baskets and market making on altcoins that still don't, you know, are not there on hyperliquid. 572 00:43:03.808 --> 00:43:07.669 And they're only doing on Binance because even then it's like an order of magnitude, deeper liquidity there. 573 00:43:08.789 --> 00:43:14.255 I would also just like stress to people that it's like, try to find markets trade and settle in

the quadrillions. 574 00:43:14.856 --> 00:43:22.744 So it is one of those things where it's like, I fully expect both to capture multiple percents of that, which is like orders of magnitude higher than what they're doing right now. 575 00:43:22.764 --> 00:43:28.650 And so I do genuinely believe that both can be trading at many, many multiples higher than they are right now in the future. 576 00:43:29.050 --> 00:43:30.812 And so it's not to say that it's like, oh, like, you know, 577 00:43:31.332 --> 00:43:35.275 I would never express this view as a, I'm in a long lit and short hype. 578 00:43:35.315 --> 00:43:38.917 Like I hate the concept of being short either in this market. 579 00:43:39.017 --> 00:43:43.560 And that seems like you are way too online on crypto Twitter if you're trying to make that trade. 580 00:43:44.100 --> 00:43:44.660 Right, exactly. 581 00:43:44.740 --> 00:43:58.229 But I did post that I really, really like the concept of like, if you hold spot hype here, selling some calls against it at like 100 bucks makes a lot of sense to me and buying some lit calls because of the fact that I think in the next couple of months you might see a much bigger pop on lit than you will on hype. 582 00:43:58.249 --> 00:44:00.330 So trading some upside of one to the other, I think is fine. 583 00:44:00.670 --> 00:44:10.604 But betting on downside of one versus the other, I would be afraid to take that bet because Hype could just put in 20, 30% candles regularly like you saw with the recent Druck and Elon situation. 584 00:44:10.644 --> 00:44:11.245 So, yeah. 585 00:44:11.625 --> 00:44:11.886 Yeah. 586 00:44:12.246 --> 00:44:12.446 Yeah. 587 00:44:12.466 --> 00:44:12.566 Yeah. 588 00:44:13.692 --> 00:44:21.396 So there have been some people who have gone back and forth on just like, what is the total like cap that's a fair valuation for hyper liquid? 589 00:44:21.416 --> 00:44:25.479 And you can put letter in this, in this camp too of just like, and it's an exchange business. 590 00:44:25.519 --> 00:44:30.741 And if you comp it to all the other exchange businesses out there, it's already pretty fully expressed. 591 00:44:31.242 --> 00:44:36.404 The upside has been fully expressed just because it's fairly valued versus like the other gargantuan exchanges that exist. 592 00:44:36.885 --> 00:44:41.107 And so like this is actually just like assuming further revenue growth from here, 593 00:44:41.847 --> 00:44:43.948 is actually just like not a given. 594 00:44:43.968 --> 00:44:52.510 Do you have a take of just like what the actual like upside constraint is on Hyperliquid, like the fully diluted valuation in the fullness of time? 595 00:44:52.890 --> 00:44:54.831 Or do you think it's actually relatively unconstrained? 596 00:44:55.051 --> 00:44:57.031 No, that's a great question. 597 00:44:57.292 --> 00:45:07.254 And this is kind of what gets back to the thing we were talking about earlier about like you really have to be able to contextualize the differences between this and like an ICE, a CME, you know, a Binance, like they trade so differently. 598 00:45:08.115 --> 00:45:08.815 I think the other thing that 599 00:45:09.355 --> 00:45:22.180 people have to realize too, is that because of the amount of buyback and burn that happens on hype, like hype in five years can be trading at the exact same market cap as it is right now and be trading at multiples higher on the current price. 600 00:45:22.261 --> 00:45:23.561 And you're long the price, right? 601 00:45:23.581 --> 00:45:24.702 You're not long the market cap. 602 00:45:25.182 --> 00:45:32.485 And so hype in five years at a 100 billion market cap looks at very, very, very different price than what it is right now, just because of that mechanic. 603 00:45:32.525 --> 00:45:35.846 And it's like obviously the same thing as lighter to a degree as well. 604 00:45:36.467 --> 00:45:36.927 I think that, 605 00:45:37.667 --> 00:45:47.041 With the amount of trading that is likely to come on chain, and like I said, that is like a a precipitation that they are making there. 606 00:45:47.061 --> 00:45:49.224 It's like you are betting that more trading will come on chain. 607 00:45:49.244 --> 00:45:52.189 And if you're in this industry, like I would assume that that's a bet you're willing to be comfortable with. 608 00:45:52.849 --> 00:45:59.752 Um, I, I, I do think that there are multiples left for hype to eat into, um, the, the traditional exchange businesses. 609 00:46:00.312 --> 00:46:02.693 Um, I also think there that it's very apples and oranges, right? 610 00:46:02.733 --> 00:46:08.855 It's like, to what degree are those businesses have, you know, like fees, for example, kind of compressed already for them. 611 00:46:08.955 --> 00:46:10.816 Have they, have they been commoditized? 612 00:46:11.296 --> 00:46:14.798 Um, to what degree is this opening up like net new users abroad? 613 00:46:14.838 --> 00:46:17.919 Like how much, how much appetite is there for trading perps on us equities? 614 00:46:18.439 --> 00:46:21.441 In Asia, for example, that is just not really currently being expressed right now. 615 00:46:21.761 --> 00:46:31.406 There's a lot of moving, a lot of moving parts of that equation and a lot of extra variables that exist for hype that don't necessarily exist for like a CME evaluation, ice value. 616 00:46:31.426 --> 00:46:33.887 Like those, I think, are much more well understood. 617 00:46:34.948 --> 00:46:35.729 hype is a bit different. 618 00:46:35.749 --> 00:46:38.072 And I know that said, I agree. 619 00:46:38.252 --> 00:46:42.717 I agree with the sentiment that it's like hype is not this massive asymmetric trade anymore. 620 00:46:42.737 --> 00:46:47.262 Like you're not going to put $10,000 into hype and wake up in five years with, you know, 2 million bucks or something like that. 621 00:46:47.302 --> 00:46:47.482 Right. 622 00:46:48.003 --> 00:46:56.092 And so like if people are expecting that level of asymmetry out of the

trade, I would definitely, I would definitely push back on that, that it's like hype can do multiples potentially from here in the longer run. 623 00:46:56.672 --> 00:46:59.553 but it's not going to be doing a 10x here necessarily. 624 00:46:59.613 --> 00:47:05.995 So I would agree that a lot of the upside has been captured, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's kind of capped to what it is right now. 625 00:47:06.255 --> 00:47:11.516 Would you communicate where we are in the options war? 626 00:47:12.217 --> 00:47:15.938 So Deribit has been decently liquid on options for a long time. 627 00:47:16.158 --> 00:47:18.298 Derive has really come onto the scene pretty aggressively. 628 00:47:18.338 --> 00:47:20.079 I think you were in that trade pretty early. 629 00:47:21.139 --> 00:47:26.524 It seems very early in the grand arc of how options get expressed in the context of crypto. 630 00:47:26.584 --> 00:47:29.427 Like, how would you explain just where we are on that arc? 631 00:47:29.927 --> 00:47:32.489 Much earlier than wherever we are in perps. 632 00:47:32.570 --> 00:47:36.433 I think perps have hit much more of a saturation point than options. 633 00:47:37.194 --> 00:47:40.837 You've kind of seen that played out in this last year where actual perp volume is not dramatic. 634 00:47:40.917 --> 00:47:46.142 It's nice, too, because we just kind of had the anniversary of 1010, which killed a lot of perps OI and volume. 635 00:47:46.963 --> 00:47:51.729 And it hasn't even fully recovered back on a lot of those pairs since then. 636 00:47:52.149 --> 00:47:53.791 It's not to say that I think Perps is topped out. 637 00:47:53.811 --> 00:47:57.296 Obviously, I still think that there's quite a bit more growth left for Perps yet. 638 00:47:57.316 --> 00:48:01.261 But it's like, yeah, it's definitely hit more of a sticking point and saturation point. 639 00:48:01.361 --> 00:48:03.423 Options, on the other hand, is just a straight hockey... 640 00:48:04.885 --> 00:48:08.429 hockey stick, you know, graph up essentially in terms of actual adoption, notional. 641 00:48:08.449 --> 00:48:17.958 Like when I said earlier too, that TradFi settles quadrillion, like a huge portion of that is notional options trading and a lot of other derivatives that are a little more adjacent to options. 642 00:48:18.722 --> 00:48:23.585 Um, and, and so, yeah, I think that there's so much more untapped volume to come in. 643 00:48:23.825 --> 00:48:37.313 Um, and I actually don't think, I think even the people who subscribe to the drive bull thesis don't even fully, because I myself as one of them, like I'll, I'll kind of hear like new, um, structured products and new instruments that like, you know, that, that, that are potentially being built on top of it. 644 00:48:38.194 --> 00:48:39.835 and I'm like, oh shit, that's such a cool idea. 645 00:48:39.875 --> 00:48:40.996 This is going to be amazing. 646 00:48:41.016 --> 00:48:41.997 People are going to love to use that. 647 00:48:42.017 --> 00:48:48.703 And so it's one of those things where options is such a deep rabbit hole to go down into, like all the cool stuff that people can build on top of using options. 648 00:48:48.783 --> 00:48:51.346 Like I said, they're a much more flexible instrument. 649 00:48:51.846 --> 00:48:57.952 Then I think even a lot of the drive bulls don't really fully understand how much the options market will grow in crypto. 650 00:48:57.992 --> 00:48:59.353 I think the big bet there, though, is that, 651 00:49:00.053 --> 00:49:01.553 you know, will that be captured by derive? 652 00:49:01.994 --> 00:49:05.095 Will that be captured by other, you know, participants into options? 653 00:49:05.115 --> 00:49:09.436 Like you're never really going to have the situation where there's this massive evergreen, huge growth spot. 654 00:49:09.456 --> 00:49:10.776 That's not going to have a ton of competition. 655 00:49:10.836 --> 00:49:10.956 Right. 656 00:49:10.976 --> 00:49:17.958 And so that's kind of why the mental model I put out is that the options space in crypto could very easily five to 10 X next year. 657 00:49:18.719 --> 00:49:18.899 Um, 658 00:49:19.759 --> 00:49:25.143 But if that happens, it's almost impossible to imagine that Derive keeps its 90%, 95% plus market share. 659 00:49:25.163 --> 00:49:26.444 That's just not really how markets work. 660 00:49:26.464 --> 00:49:27.585 So there's going to be a lot more competition. 661 00:49:27.605 --> 00:49:27.745 Really? 662 00:49:27.765 --> 00:49:28.966 Is it how much market share Derive has? 663 00:49:29.506 --> 00:49:29.887 Yeah. 664 00:49:30.327 --> 00:49:36.011 Derive regularly is doing 85%, 90%, 95% of daily notional, daily fees. 665 00:49:36.391 --> 00:49:37.472 It's been that way for an entire... 666 00:49:37.632 --> 00:49:42.035 It's actually honestly kind of been pleasantly surprising to me to see how long they've kept that. 667 00:49:42.055 --> 00:49:43.977 And it's been a big part of the thesis there. 668 00:49:44.517 --> 00:49:48.800 Um, but it's, it's just unrealistic to expect them to keep that if options is to grow as much as I think it is. 669 00:49:48.840 --> 00:49:52.823 And so like, I'm quite long, the options market and the best way to express that right now is derived. 670 00:49:53.304 --> 00:49:58.147 Um, but it's like you said, it's like lighter is probably going to roll out options in a couple of months here. 671 00:49:58.187 --> 00:49:58.367 Right. 672 00:49:58.868 --> 00:50:01.169 Um, and I expect them to be a competitive product. 673 00:50:01.189 --> 00:50:02.810 There's other competitive products out there. 674 00:50:02.830 --> 00:50:05.412 There's, there's, you know, Paradex, there's Hypercall, there's a bunch of other stuff, right? 675 00:50:05.452 --> 00:50:07.033 There's, there are, there are other options for options essentially. 676 00:50:07.053 --> 00:50:09.155 Um, but it's, it's just unrealistic to expect them to keep that if options is to grow as 677

00:50:09.615 --> 00:50:20.161 Um, but I, I do still think that, that derived does kind of a special place almost also by virtue of being like their new architecture being built, um, much more kind of like similar to lighter directly on top of Ethereum. 678 00:50:20.802 --> 00:50:27.966 Um, I think, I think all the different options protocols kind of have like their own kind of unique value proposition, their unique niche that they're going after. 679 00:50:28.006 --> 00:50:35.050 But if we want to talk about the one that's gonna be the most readily built upon adopted, um, derived still is like the pretty clear front runner there. 680 00:50:35.497 --> 00:50:37.018 Hyperliquid is not in this race, is it? 681 00:50:37.738 --> 00:50:38.919 They're not trying to build options, are they? 682 00:50:39.679 --> 00:50:42.520 You know, I try to express this to people all the time. 683 00:50:42.561 --> 00:50:51.545 And the problem is like, you really have to get into like the technical weeds is to explain why Hyperliquid's risk engine and architecture and infrastructure is not extremely well suited for building options on top of it. 684 00:50:51.945 --> 00:51:00.149 And I think that Jeff recently, when he kind of gave his one speech in Singapore, he kind of said like, oh, I think it'll be cool if people build on options on top of Hyperliquid. 685 00:51:00.169 --> 00:51:01.670 Like I interpreted that as 686 00:51:02.150 --> 00:51:18.288 you know, we've given people the tools with HIP for such that they could try to build what I would consider to be a bit of a bastardized version of options where it's just kind of leveraging prediction markets to kind of give you a, a version of a covered call or, or, or, you know, a version of a, of a call spread or put spread. 687 00:51:18.949 --> 00:51:19.149 Um, um, 688 00:51:20.250 --> 00:51:28.016 So I think from them, like they kind of have this more hands off approach, which is to say that it's like we technically have something that people could build options on top of. 689 00:51:28.036 --> 00:51:33.921 And like you're kind of seeing that with a hyper call, like you're seeing that with some of them like HIP for deployers that they're kind of doing like options adjacent stuff. 690 00:51:35.062 --> 00:51:39.265 But I don't think Hyperliquid is natively going to put out options anytime terribly soon. 691 00:51:39.466 --> 00:51:48.473 I think that's like part of the other bull case of like lighter versus Hyperliquid right now is that like lighter is like very clearly committed to like we are going to have options live in the next couple of months. 692 00:51:48.973 --> 00:51:51.494 Um, and so I think it's very likely that they're first in that market. 693 00:51:51.514 --> 00:51:59.117 And if I'm long, the options market kind of like writ large in crypto, like that kind of involves being also like a kind of check in, in lighter's column as opposed to hyper liquid. 694 00:51:59.817 --> 00:52:02.898 Um, but that said, I mean,

you know, hyper liquid's team is phenomenally talented. 695 00:52:03.338 --> 00:52:08.980 Um, so if they, if they put their minds to it and they saw that there was a big enough opportunity and options, they would 100% join that market eventually. 696 00:52:09.020 --> 00:52:17.443 So I don't think this is a thing where hyper liquid's never going to touch options, um, natively, but it might just be nine months out or 12 months out as opposed to lighter, which might be two months out or three months out. 697 00:52:17.463 --> 00:52:18.043 So, yeah. 698 00:52:18.443 --> 00:52:21.164 That kind of goes back to what my current understanding is. 699 00:52:21.184 --> 00:52:26.886 Really, the only two assets to buy if you're trying to express an option straight is derived and lighter. 700 00:52:27.326 --> 00:52:33.547 And derived, it's because it currently has the trophy of all the options volume and will likely continue to have that. 701 00:52:33.608 --> 00:52:34.908 And then you would buy lighter if you think that 702 00:52:35.408 --> 00:52:39.529 Lighter is just a technically superior platform for exchange and resection broadly, as I kind of mentioned before. 703 00:52:39.730 --> 00:52:49.333 And they stated that they are going to be doing adding options as a feature because they're trying to be like an everything exchange spot, herps, options, regulatory compliance. 704 00:52:49.833 --> 00:52:52.254 But beyond those two things, like that's it. 705 00:52:52.494 --> 00:52:55.615 That was the only two ways that I see actually expressing that trade. 706 00:52:56.732 --> 00:52:57.713 You're generally right. 707 00:52:57.733 --> 00:52:58.013 Yeah. 708 00:52:58.193 --> 00:53:11.257 And I would push back a little bit to on like lighter being technically like I would say that derived by being built as an options first decks does have some kind of built in advantages over what lighter is currently doing with their architecture. 709 00:53:11.277 --> 00:53:18.840 Like you're getting into like a real technical like rabbit hole there that I'm probably not even fully equipped to go down into in terms of like the trade offs that both teams are making. 710 00:53:19.540 --> 00:53:35.037 Um, but yeah, like, you know, and, and, and derive, you could kind of make the argument that it's like, oh, are they like a perps decks that's going to be strapped on top of it, like options decks that's like more so native and is lighter going to be options, you know, stuff that's kind of strapped onto a perps decks that was like more so intended, you know, in the first place. 711 00:53:35.317 --> 00:53:41.724 Yeah, there's probably some like levels of like trade offs there that like they both wish they could have done something different if they were trying to like build for the alternative use case. 712 00:53:42.364 --> 00:53:51.446 But no, I think I think lighter is going to definitely be a pretty, pretty big power player in the options market by nothing else to the relationship with

Robinhood is pretty favorable for them there. 713 00:53:51.766 --> 00:53:54.047 But there are there are definitely a couple of other smaller ones. 714 00:53:54.067 --> 00:53:55.867 Like I said, there's there's dime for paradox. 715 00:53:55.967 --> 00:53:57.628 There's synapse for hyper call. 716 00:53:58.088 --> 00:54:01.168 And they're trading quite, quite low, quite cheap right now. 717 00:54:02.009 --> 00:54:07.450 You know, low eight figures or even I think in like the seven figures in terms of actual market cap. 718 00:54:07.470 --> 00:54:11.451 And so like those are those are tiny relative to derive and lighter, obviously. 719 00:54:12.151 --> 00:54:14.053 And you're probably going to see new ones, too. 720 00:54:14.133 --> 00:54:25.044 Like, you know, Variational Pro is kind of going after that options, derivatives, OTC, like multi-dealer market there where they're like, they've actually specifically talked about structured products. 721 00:54:25.064 --> 00:54:32.252 And I think structured products is like this huge niche that like nobody's really doing enough of a deep dive about in crypto right now because it actually fits quite a few cases very well in crypto. 722 00:54:32.652 --> 00:54:36.955 So like I said, yeah, like next year, I think the options landscape will be probably very different. 723 00:54:36.975 --> 00:54:38.656 There probably are going to be a lot of new entrants. 724 00:54:38.716 --> 00:54:41.357 There's going to be like a lot of shifting of market share. 725 00:54:41.597 --> 00:54:47.141 And so like I said, the mental model I have is that it's like derive might only be 55 or 60% of the market share next year. 726 00:54:47.201 --> 00:54:50.062 But the market share might be five to 10x higher. 727 00:54:50.102 --> 00:54:56.146 So it's a much, much bigger pie, but probably a smaller chunk of that pie just by kind of the way things tend to go. 728 00:54:56.366 --> 00:55:01.948 I've been trading crypto for almost a decade, and I've used so many different wallets, exchanges, aggregators, or front ends. 729 00:55:02.048 --> 00:55:13.452 And I'm basically always looking for the same thing, just one interface with a deep liquidity across a bunch of chains and assets, where I can access markets like perps, earn yield, trade confidentially, and still control all of my funds. 730 00:55:13.592 --> 00:55:14.553 And I've never really found it. 731 00:55:14.593 --> 00:55:18.615 And I'm just always switching wallets, juggling gas fees, or getting eaten by slippage. 732 00:55:18.795 --> 00:55:21.616 But near.com feels fundamentally different to me. 733 00:55:21.696 --> 00:55:26.039 I can do anything I want from any chain and keep all of my activity confidential. 734 00:55:26.139 --> 00:55:28.260 Crypto, tokenized assets, perps, payments. 735 00:55:28.440 --> 00:55:30.521 I can even earn yield confidentially. 736 00:55:30.701 --> 00:55:33.803 One account, over 30 chains, confidential by default. 737 00:55:33.923 --> 00:55:35.684 It's the

way that crypto ought to work. 738 00:55:35.824 --> 00:55:41.347 And it's powered by Near, which has moved over $30 billion cross-chain, uses post-quantum signatures, 739 00:55:41.487 --> 00:55:44.189 And that's run over five years on mainnet with zero downtime. 740 00:55:44.369 --> 00:55:47.691 Near.com is the best way to be on chain and be in control. 741 00:55:47.891 --> 00:55:53.214 Get 20% of your trading fees back on near.com using the bankless link in the show notes, not investment advice. 742 00:55:53.474 --> 00:55:54.155 Some exciting news. 743 00:55:54.215 --> 00:55:58.977 We are launching a new podcast to help people figure out the crypto cycle, how to navigate it. 744 00:55:59.057 --> 00:56:01.739 The best crypto cycle investor I know, his name is Michael Nato. 745 00:56:01.819 --> 00:56:02.880 He runs the DeFi Report. 746 00:56:02.940 --> 00:56:05.041 This is the guy that sent me a sell alert. 747 00:56:05.121 --> 00:56:10.322 Before the 1010 price drop happened, his cycle analysis has been absolutely on point. 748 00:56:10.402 --> 00:56:11.743 I've been following him for years. 749 00:56:11.903 --> 00:56:15.323 And this year, we started recording weekly podcast episodes. 750 00:56:15.483 --> 00:56:23.265 Each one, we get into his portfolio, what he's holding, the market structure, entry targets, fair market value of Bitcoin and Ether, and where we are in the cycle. 751 00:56:23.365 --> 00:56:25.766 There's new episodes that are released every Wednesday. 752 00:56:25.846 --> 00:56:26.566 They're 30 minutes. 753 00:56:26.626 --> 00:56:27.086 They're short. 754 00:56:27.126 --> 00:56:27.766 They're punchy. 755 00:56:27.886 --> 00:56:30.267 I think this crypto cycle is harder to navigate than most. 756 00:56:30.507 --> 00:56:31.728 So let's do it together. 757 00:56:31.888 --> 00:56:33.088 Go subscribe to this podcast. 758 00:56:33.148 --> 00:56:38.870 Search The DeFi Report wherever you get your podcasts, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or find the link in the show notes. 759 00:56:38.991 --> 00:56:40.571 There's a new episode waiting for you now. 760 00:56:40.851 --> 00:56:42.292 Well, this has been a great conversation. 761 00:56:42.312 --> 00:56:43.973 I've learned quite a lot. 762 00:56:43.993 --> 00:56:46.814 When I let you go here in a few minutes, you get back to your desk. 763 00:56:46.854 --> 00:56:48.134 What are you going to be looking at? 764 00:56:48.194 --> 00:56:52.736 What's kind of your focus for the last like two months of this year as we round out 2026? 765 00:56:52.776 --> 00:56:53.817 What excites you? 766 00:56:55.017 --> 00:56:57.460 Where you're paying attention to, where are you looking at? 767 00:56:57.820 --> 00:57:05.247 Yeah, no, I think for me right now, the way I would put it is like we're kind of at this peak career risk level of crypto allocation. 768 00:57:05.287 --> 00:57:17.019 And so like what's interesting is that you have like peak risk, but also peak reward where like, you know, for people who like don't have investors, like imagine that you did, for example, and you're like, OK, the AI bubble is clearly. 769 00:57:17.920 --> 00:57:19.221 to some degree popping, right? 770 00:57:19.441 --> 00:57:23.544 You just had this massive regime change as like huge swing politically. 771 00:57:25.085 --> 00:57:27.407 And they're like, and you longed crypto into that. 772 00:57:27.447 --> 00:57:29.568 And the thing is like, that's largely priced in now, obviously. 773 00:57:30.229 --> 00:57:43.518 And so you're kind of at this inflection point of maximum risk, maximum reward, in my opinion as a crypto allocator, because like you kind of have to put your mind inside the head of a more like institutional whale crypto allocator, right? 774 00:57:43.538 --> 00:57:45.760 Like would institutions be looking at crypto favorably here? 775 00:57:46.640 --> 00:57:59.374 And I think that that's like a very interesting conversation to have where it's like the AI bubble popping to some degree in actually some ways is kind of a common of crypto like crypto used to benefit from by being seen as this like fastest horse, highest beta asset. 776 00:57:59.414 --> 00:58:05.640 And so when, you know, crypto is trading at relatively low ball relative to like semiconductors and AI. 777 00:58:06.961 --> 00:58:11.346 companies, a lot of money kind of just became apathetic towards crypto. 778 00:58:11.366 --> 00:58:14.269 Like, I don't think that institutional guys became bearish on crypto necessarily. 779 00:58:14.289 --> 00:58:22.858 They were just like, why would we be here when the clearest, like, you know, fastest horse, the highest beta play that, you know, most tech adjacent thing is more so AI and semis. 780 00:58:23.599 --> 00:58:33.249 Um, so if that kind of cools down for a little bit, um, and also a lot of that, like more risks chasing money wants to find a new home because now they find AIs potentially a little bit less interesting. 781 00:58:33.329 --> 00:58:39.676 You actually could have this interesting period in, in regime change for where crypto now kind of gets a much more of a bid. 782 00:58:40.416 --> 00:58:48.460 Um, but I think, like, like I said, like from a careers perspective, like if you're running a fund and you're like, you know what, I think crypto is going to go broadly and equities are going to continue to go down. 783 00:58:48.480 --> 00:58:52.321 That's an incredibly controversial and pretty hard opinion to defend. 784 00:58:52.341 --> 00:58:56.243 And so I think you're going to see a lot of guys be pretty reticent to try to put that trade on. 785 00:58:56.623 --> 00:58:59.485 But that's kind of why we're at this inflection point of like maximum risk, maximum reward. 786 00:58:59.525 --> 00:59:05.287 Like when people are afraid to step in to crypto, um, and they're afraid to express that view, you're going to have a lot of price dislocations. 787 00:59:05.307 --> 00:59:06.608 A lot of things are going to trade quite cheap. 788 00:59:07.268 -->

00:59:27.214 I also think there's that concept of like crypto is kind of already front run a lot of this like people need to realize that it's like yeah like you know the AI bubble might be popping to some degree and they're coming down from all time highs but you know cryptos bitcoins trading well well well below its all time high and you know crypto already kind of had its massive sell off previously in this year as opposed to what's happening right now in kind of tech more broadly. 789 00:59:29.022 --> 00:59:41.426 So I think looking at the macro environment and kind of deciding, it's like, okay, like, is this basically the beginning of the end or like the end of the bear market for crypto is pretty much what should be on everybody's minds. 790 00:59:41.446 --> 00:59:42.946 And you kind of have to build out your worldview. 791 00:59:43.286 --> 00:59:48.688 You kind of have to have a very top down view of crypto right now, which is that it's like, yeah, if you think the 10 year is going to be trading... 792 00:59:49.108 --> 00:59:58.633 considerably lower than it is right now, if you think that war is likely to end kind of abroad, then yeah, you should be just like slamming everything into risk assets. 793 00:59:59.053 --> 01:00:10.980 And maybe then like too, like the next follow-up question you should be asking yourself from that is like, oh, like have the recent events been more accommodative of like the store value trades as opposed to the revenue meta, like has the revenue meta top? 794 01:00:11.000 --> 01:00:13.061 Like that's another interesting thing I think a lot of people should be looking at. 795 01:00:13.101 --> 01:00:18.164 Like I'll be taking like more of an investigative like look into is that it's like, oh, like maybe hype is just kind of 796 01:00:18.924 --> 01:00:22.269 a less interesting trade for the next two or three months, right? 797 01:00:22.329 --> 01:00:24.913 And maybe it's like more interesting to go be long Zcash. 798 01:00:25.134 --> 01:00:28.499 Like that's like something that could be like interesting for some people to kind of ponder is like, 799 01:00:28.962 --> 01:00:32.924 Or at the same time, there's also the question of like, oh, maybe Zcash and Hype are just Permatopt, right? 800 01:00:33.144 --> 01:00:34.505 And everybody's crowded into them. 801 01:00:34.545 --> 01:00:39.248 And if crypto goes down quite a bit, then, you know, those are the last assets that you're going to want to be holding on to. 802 01:00:39.308 --> 01:00:48.733 And so I think this is probably the most interesting time to be investigating a lot of those questions and like really building out your three to six month worldview, because there's a ton of opportunity in the market right now. 803 01:00:49.053 --> 01:00:53.175 And like I said, we're at this like really big inflection point where if you're right, you're right gigantically. 804 01:00:53.195 --> 01:00:55.416 And if you're wrong, you're also kind of wrong gigantically. 805 01:00:55.456 --> 01:00:56.377 So it's an interesting time. 806 01:00:57.302 --> 01:01:00.747 How did you pick a Kool-Aid man as your Twitter PFP? 807 01:01:01.849 --> 01:01:07.878 The guy who put me up to making a Twitter, his nickname was cool. 808 01:01:08.259 --> 01:01:10.502 And so I was just like, oh, cool. 809 01:01:10.562 --> 01:01:11.083 I'll just make it. 810 01:01:11.343 --> 01:01:12.185 I'll make it. 811 01:01:12.605 --> 01:01:14.846 Kool-Aid or like whatever. 812 01:01:15.186 --> 01:01:16.667 And then, yeah, like it kind of just stuck. 813 01:01:16.727 --> 01:01:25.470 Or like cool crypto, like was initially kind of started as a good joke because I kind of thought the social media in the past was kind of like silly and that crypto Twitter was this like clown fiesta. 814 01:01:25.971 --> 01:01:30.653 And so I was like, oh, I'm going to like pick the cringiest, like silliest, you know, like almost joke on there. 815 01:01:30.833 --> 01:01:33.714 And then, yeah, I was like, well, shit, I kind of need a profile picture now. 816 01:01:33.854 --> 01:01:36.415 So I just like might as well go with the Kool-Aid man. 817 01:01:37.355 --> 01:01:39.816 Very little thought was put into it, but it kind of stuck. 818 01:01:39.836 --> 01:01:40.917 So, you know, I'll keep it. 819 01:01:41.277 --> 01:01:41.517 All right. 820 01:01:41.597 --> 01:01:42.458 I've learned a ton. 821 01:01:42.478 --> 01:01:45.340 Thanks for coming on the podcast and sharing with you all of your thoughts. 822 01:01:45.360 --> 01:01:45.841 I appreciate you. 823 01:01:46.261 --> 01:01:46.521 For sure. 824 01:01:46.581 --> 01:01:47.042 No, no, no. 825 01:01:47.082 --> 01:01:48.043 This was a good conversation. 826 01:01:48.063 --> 01:01:48.723 So thanks for having me. 827 01:01:49.043 --> 01:01:49.584 Linking station. 828 01:01:49.744 --> 01:01:50.445 Y'all know the deal. 829 01:01:50.485 --> 01:01:51.305 Crypto is risky. 830 01:01:51.325 --> 01:01:52.426 You can lose what you put in. 831 01:01:52.486 --> 01:01:53.427 But this is the frontier. 832 01:01:53.447 --> 01:01:54.148 It's not for everyone. 833 01:01:54.168 --> 01:01:56.109 I'm glad you're with us on the Bankless journey. 834 01:01:56.249 --> 01:01:56.730 Thanks a lot.