Well, hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode. Ohh. Well, we've gone again. Another episode of GM Web 3 on Rock Radio is just me and our staff today. I think Farooq is playing golf, seemingly pretty annoyed on the back 9 and it's on a flight. What were you doing during that opening period of stuff? Your your main, your main moment to shine and just tune down a banana or something? Weren't when you have to. Nuts and uh yes.
I had a few different things that was going on, so I was just kind of like doing them just in the dive bar essentially. I was in the dive bar, yes, yeah 100%. It's pretty tough when one on hosting the dive bar on a two man show. Someone's got someone in the dive bar, man. Like the dive bar doesn't serve drinks by itself? No, exactly right. Well, we are back cryptos still having a bit of a bit of a
flutter at the moment. ETH is gone all the way to nearly hit 1700. I think it went to 1680 area. Bitcoin has underperformed versus ETH. It's actually below 27 K having here I think about 27.3 yesterday and we'll get into the reasons why that today. We are sponsored today by cracking NFT. They've been sponsoring the show for the last few weeks. Great to have them. They came on the show to talk about it. They are launching an NFT exchange. Go check it out.
cracking.com/rug radio, right? Well, the first headline we might as well just get into it is did you see what has happened to CZ? No. See me? What's the CC headline? How did you miss the C headline? It was this a a recent headline or like within the last, within the last 30 minutes, OK. I'll give myself, give myself, yeah, some relief there. I was a bit right. You gonna say something like this was an overnight headline. I just completely missed it.
CZ arrested and put in gaol for four months. He was arrested trying to at Changi Airport in Singapore. Seemingly arrested. I don't know why he went back there. Surely he knew that that was going to happen. But he's been put in gaol for four months. His the OX token, which is obviously the token that was his new exchange, is down 50% on the back of that. Like Sue, Sue was arrested. Sorry, Suzu. Suzu. Suzu fucking Susie. Susie, Susie, Um, yeah, pretty
wild. Like, obviously he was the 3C guy alongside Carl Davis. Seemingly Carl Davis is living the life in like Bali or something like that. So he hasn't been arrested, Susu has been arrested and stuff didn't really move apart from some old coins that he's kind of involved in. But yeah, he was on a bit of a redemption arc. Like you were a bit of a fan of Czech, it felt like. I mean. I think what happened is they blew up. And I think a lot of people blow up taking big risk.
I know it affected the whole industry, et cetera, but. Umm. And I I guess there are like there's a lot of risk management, but I don't think it was as bad as FTX. But yeah, they came back with a new exchange. And I you know, I think that I guess they're propagators of crypto, which is good to see, but. Yeah, I don't know. It's tough to judge without knowing the whole story and everything. I would say that that OX token, I mean, that was yeah, oh oh, do people say OX?
Well, the imagery around it is an actual ox, so ohh right? I'm fair enough Ox. Then let me let me share screen so you can see that. But that is wild chart. Let's bring it up. Can you see that? Yeah. So that was trading and that is just got dumped, it's down 30%, it's down like I think about 90% since that happened now. So what's the cap with the market cap now market cap went all the way up to 300 million and now it's sitting at 61 million today, so.
I think a lot of dumb. I think a lot of there are a lot of coins since August. Yeah, look at, look at Univar or look at. A bunch of different means, OK, H + 10 like there were all in this same bucket of like these are the coins that everyone was playing and they just got done by the same people I think. So there are other coins. No. Anyway, after all, probably it's
probably down a similar amount. I think there are definitely some other ones I would agree with that, like small ones got cancelled, but this is an exchange. It wasn't like it's just some shit going that could just go like that. This was sorry, some mean coin where the vibes just go like you would have seen this done well. There's some big unlocks during this period, but then that's he doesn't like he's in gaol for that long. Let me bring up Was it deep? B.
Let me share this tab instead. So 3 Arrows co-founder Suzu apprehended at Singapore's Changi Airport. It says the committal order granted by the Singapore court sentences two to four months imprisonment. A similar committee order was granted against the co-founder of Three C It seems like during these four months, all the people that he owes money to are allowed to basically engage with him in Singapore. But I don't know why the hell
was he back in Singapore? I thought he was living in Bali too, or maybe even in Dubai to you. Guys, it's so weird for me that he would go back there. Like surely he knew he was going to get arrested as he landed. That's maybe he maybe he is aware of the four months imprisonment and is going to take that. Four months isn't that long. So maybe it's like a pre negotiated thing where it's like I'll come back, put me in prison for four months and then we'll just sort this shit out.
Maybe it's that Singaporean gaols are meant to be pretty tough, right? Like they they have a pretty, pretty tough judicial system. But I would agree, like that's the only, I didn't realise it was only four months that he got sentenced to, because that's only four months. Like who cares? Like you can probably last two, four months. So maybe that's where he went back. But. Right. So that was a big breaking news headline that's happening right now.
Away from that, we saw the ETFs. I saw you post something earlier, OSF that got zero, like 0 comments, which I thought we could use. Or maybe did you? Oh, wow, There you go. We got six likes in the end for that. But yeah, the. Quote tweet. It's a it's a quote, right? Yeah, it did. They look like they're going to be launching next week. These ETFs, the two big ones are from this company, Van Ike or Van Eck. I don't know how you would say that.
And Valkyrie. Those seem to be the two that are going to win the first ability to do it. There are a lot of rumours today that I've been seeing that BlackRock now might file a spot ETF. That's ETF that's going round. Um, now obviously you already saw ARC file for a spot ETF, and yesterday I think the CEO of Arc was basically saying we're gonna be the leader in all these crypto ETFs. But yeah, imagine if BlackRock files for an ETF. That feels like a bit of a gold
candle on a Friday, right? If we hear about that today, seemingly at the same time the SEC delayed or the Bitcoin spot ones because it's the government's most probably going to shut down in the next couple of days. But what do you think? Is this the time that the app performs? Bitcoin has been horrific, right that that Bitcoin ether trade for the year, but do you think that gets reversed now? Yeah I think, I think it could
like bit ETH. Bitcoin ratio has been at the lows for some time now and there's been multiple different reasons. You had the whole bank staff at the beginning of the year, then you had the whole security stuff which was better for Bitcoin. Then you have the whole Bitcoin spot, Bitcoin ETF stuff. So I do think you know the SEC's in weak footing. It feels like maybe ETH is not going to be deemed a security. It feels like we already know Kathy was has applied for a eighth spot ETF.
I think it's. A foregone conclusion that other people, including Black Rock, will do that too. And so, yeah, it does feel like you could catch up again back here. It's interesting because a lot of people on Twitter, people like Benjamin Calendar, et cetera, who are like, you know, Bitcoin dominance is going to go higher, keep going higher and all that kind of stuff, which I still believe, I still really believe that's a bearish. I think it's a bearish occurrence.
I think when you rally maybe Bitcoin, maybe the first few days Bitcoin dominance rises as Bitcoin rallies. But I think everything else catch ups catches up and outperforms and we've seen that play out multiple, multiple times. So I think. Even if it was just the Bitcoin spot ETF that was getting improved, I think you would see higher beta risk assets rally and outperform versus Bitcoin. And I think that's what you're
starting to see now. And there's something like only two or three assets which have ever reached A at the high versus Bitcoin on a second cycle. Now they have that many cycles. Yeah, versus Bitcoin versus Bitcoin. And I forget which ones they are, but it's it. I mean, it is crazy how much Bitcoin dominance does go up during these these, these bear markets and how difficult it is seemingly for assets to kind of
look, that didn't breach it in the 2001 rally. 2017 was its high and then it's kind of been sideways and then kind of down only for the last year. But I'm a big believer in Neath. I'm probably a bigger believer in Ethan. I'm in Bitcoin. I do hope that that that reaches another high, but I think for the next year it's tough to argue with the whole, with the whole halving, um, it's going to be a very difficult narrative to kind of fight, I think.
And then you have the, the macro doesn't look as good. So like if tech stocks continue to sell off, I think that really hurts Etherium probably more than it hurts Bitcoin, but maybe that's like a macro overlay. But yeah, this does feel like everyone felt terrible about the versus Bitcoin. And then that was probably a week ago, right? Yeah, that was a week ago. And then it's kind of been a big
reversal. And if I don't know if BlackRock Apart apply for a Bitcoin or an ETF, I think that's a bit of a game changer. I think that would be huge feat being accepted as a being accepted as an asset. So those are like the two macro things coming up. The the third thing UM to bring up was Coinbase. Coinbase is now going to start allowing you to trade features on Coinbase, which I thought was pretty interesting.
You obviously had issues with FTX dominated this market in the past and by Nets, Binance and FTX basically now FTX has gone away and now Coinbase has gotten international licence. I think it got it from some country in the Caribbean, but now it's going to be able to trade futures on Coinbase, which is something that they never had before. And then I put it could Coinbase could could Coinbase you think overtake Binance here? Binance used to be 75% of all the spot trading in all of crypto.
It's already down to 50%. The set #2 are all the major Asian exchanges, so you have up bit will be. But if we see Coinbase now expand internationally with Futures Trading, do you think it could be the, you know, break into at least the top three to top five and and and finance kind of falls away? Or do you think finance is just like a behemoth that can't be challenged? Really? I think. What's clear is the US is trying to shun.
Finance and what maybe isn't clear yet but I think what will happen gradually especially if Gensler steps down is the US will try and push Coinbase. Like I just don't see why any rational person would do that. So I think you'll see like Coinbase get a lot more approvals and a bigger licence to do things and start to dominate the US market and I'm just like any normal American person would rather have like coin based on rating that market rather than finance and.
So I think you'll start to see. I think you'll start to see more of that and it does mean Coinbase can can potentially dominate and and become one of the largest and maybe expand their horizons. I also feel like you know because because Coinbase is a listed equity. They have to do many, many things by the book and it doesn't mean like they're doing everything perfectly, but it does mean they're upheld to much higher standards than anyone
else. So from a like mainstream to the masses kind of like perspective, it's already in a much better footing than than anyone else I think. And that will not just apply to the US, it will apply globally as well because they're going to. If you're going to governments and trying to push things or governments into crypto or whatever the big corporations crypto, it's much easier for Coinbase.
But hey. Like we're literally a. US listed public company applying by all this regulation, you should work with us, and I think most companies who are not already in crypto would rather do that than work with someone else. Yeah, I agree. I think we're about to see Coinbase really come into itself like we had them come on the show. They've got the base, they've got base chain which is seemingly a layer 2 which is far.
I think more things, better things for the future of crypto are going to be built on that than Binance chain. And I think it's being built in the right way. And then they have seemingly now going to be able to offer like the whole suite of different products which finance really dominated, finance really dominated Futures Trading
particularly after FTX left. And if Coinbase now can get into that market, and I think that's a big deal, you know, it's like this time next year, Coinbase stock is up 120% this year. It's kind of wild, like it's really outperformed. Um, it's really outperformed Bitcoin and Eve this year. Let me have a look here today. Yeah, 120%. All the insiders at the base continue to dump it. But 76? What do you think is that? Is that a better long still than than Bitcoin and ETH from here?
What's the market cap at 7618 billion or something? 19 billion, yeah, this is a company that at one stage was 200, right? Yeah. I think it was, yeah. Maybe more than that. Wow. Yeah, more than that. What? Yeah. What do you think? I think I would rather be long 8th I think. I think Coinbase will do well like I would own coin base in tax free vehicles but. Depending on where you live, because it's an equity.
I guess at some point you can probably earn an ETF for Bitcoin ETF in those vehicles too, but I think I'd still rather be like rather be long heath. It's like Coinbase does well of crypto as well. You know what I mean? So just why not just encrypt? So, so if Black launches a a spot Bitcoin ETF, are you putting the whole of your your ICER, your pension in that sort of stuff? Still no, because, well, maybe yes, I don't know.
And initially I thought, no, because it's kind of like, yeah, you don't pay any tax when you sell it, but. It's only 20% tax here and it's like would you rather have that ability to like trade it around and make more money so? I think probably still, yeah, I think I think that's fair. I think you're you're pretty levered already to the the future of crypto. Maybe diversify that by some goal or something. By some boomer, Boomer Bitcoin, right? So the next thing.
Coin is Bitcoin now I know exactly like the old old boom of Bitcoin. I think is the is the interesting stuff. So the next thing I want to talk about is SBS trial is going to begin. I think it's next week or maybe the end of next week. He you can see lots of headlines about this. I don't know if it's gonna be televised, I don't think it is, but you're going to hear a lot of defences against it. There was a good piece today, which is like, how long is SVF
gonna go to gaol for? Or if he's going to go to gaol, do you think he's gonna get away with it? Of different layers weighed in, the maximum he could face is 115 years in prison. I think Bernie Madoff got 150 years and he when he got sentenced. Um, now what do you think? Do you think? Do you think, Do you think he's gonna lose this? And secondly, do you think he's gonna get the book thrown at him or do you think he's gonna get off?
Like there's a lot of talk about how he donated to a bunch of different people that may be able to help him out in this sort of scenario. Like, is it bad for crypto if he gets off? What do you think? Hmm. It's. I mean. I don't know if it's necessarily bad for crypto, but it's definitely bad for just like the world if someone like him gets off, I think.
Because just think about how many people who are innocent and get prosecuted and went to prison and then someone who's like very clearly guilty gets off lightly. I think it would be pretty bad thing for humans. But I don't know like it. It seems like he can. Build some sort of a defence case and like. You can say things like. There wasn't malicious intent behind this and we just messed up and it's porous management stuff, which I think can like lower and reduce his time and
reduce the charges. But you know, you have to prove that things were done intentionally, which means. You know it it kind of means like if there are other people involved, they could get them potentially like reduced their charges if they like, stitch them up by providing texts or emails and messages and that kind of stuff. So, umm. I don't know. We'll see. It feels like you might get away with something. Better than what he should get.
But his defence seemingly is to blame it all on Caroline. So he's like, I think we've seen some of like what the defence is going to be. And it seems to be like Caroline didn't know what she was doing. She didn't. She wouldn't listen to any of my risk management stuff. Then she, like, broke up with me and all her fault, like I'm it wasn't there with me and she was at control. So seriously, Caroline's gonna face, like, the brunt of this.
And I think he's allowed like they've said that it's they're allowed to like question them about all their drug use. So I think it's basically going to paint Caroline as this drugged up, out of control risk manager who didn't know what she was doing. It's tough because like I think Caroline is very culpable as well for like what went on there as well as like the other sand Trabuco, so.
I kind of hope they all go down rather than like Caroline tells on SBF and manages to get out of it somehow. Or I think there's one like Gary something, Gary Tang or Gary Wang. He's like he's testifying as well. So it's just annoys me in these scenarios. They were clearly all in on it and they're all going to fight blame on SBF and actually they
should all go to gaol. And if he's able to put up a good defence by basically saying she was just as bad as me and manages to somehow get a lighter sentence because of that, then I think that's a joke. Yeah, I think. I think it's going to be interesting to see what happened to Sam Tribute because he left a good few months before all this happened and we don't know if he left because of it or if you
just left because he left. But he must have known some of the stuff that was going on. So, but I think he also had an awareness of like. What might happen, Which is maybe why he left. So I wonder if you, like, covered his tracks or made sure he, like, got himself out of any trouble. And I bet you he's just been stitching these guys up the whole time for the last few months. So I'm curious to see how that goes down. See, I don't know if Trabuco is
like what he's done. I think he he popped up, right? He's been like hired by another company or something like that in in Singapore maybe, but like he's. He thinks have hired by someone like he's. I don't know. I think that's all that, um, where is he? Yeah, I think actually people don't know where he is but if you interested to see like where he he he pops up like maybe maybe he does go on to one of these sides await, someone said. He met SPF, SPF at math camp in 2010. I've really.
Just reading his Wikipedia, I love that. I mean, they clearly are like geniuses. They just, they just thought they were like gods at the same time, which is just unbelievably, unbelievably dumb and took everyone down with them. OK, so the next thing we'll move on to the NFT space is quite a lot of stuff, actually. No, we'll go on to macro here.
The next thing was Larry Fink. So Larry Fink has basically come out and said he thinks there's going to be a recession in 2025, that he thinks the the tenure is gonna stay above 5% for a long, long time. What do you think? Do you think? Do you think we're now headed to like this period where it's stagflation or do you think do you think, I mean if black box says something and they managed this much money, they probably do kind of know what's about to
happen. So what do you think happens to the US economy now? Do you think, do you think it's going to be one of these? We like rebound. We don't see a recession. It doesn't look like we're gonna have a recession right now. Like the figures look like they're going to recession even if like other other certain indicators point to a downwards like revision. But do you think that's like delaying the inevitable? Regalia also came out again and said he thinks the US is gonna
face in debt crisis. Do you think we're just like extending this and then it's gonna be some horrific ending in 2025 or do you think we've seen like the lows and now we can push on? I don't think we'll enter a recession and if we do, I don't think it will be a very deep one. But it's tough to say. You know, like history tells you that after a period of. Aggressive interest rate hikes. You do tend to enter a recession, and the economic theory tells you the reason why.
But what we have right now is we have this like battle between. Let's go with interest rates versus this big like tech boom. And it's like another tech boom with this whole AI stuff. And at the end of the day, it is creating jobs, it is drastically improving efficiencies and that's a counter effect to recession. So it's a question of like which
effect becomes more powerful. And on top of that, like the Fed, you know, the economic data hasn't been that bad so far and inflation has actually come down substantially. So the Fed actually have. A lot more of a leash to play with and and they have a bit more flexibility here. Whereas like the fear was this time last year, the fear was we would have like very bad economic data now and maybe inflation wouldn't be lower, but that both the, the reverse of
both of those happened. So it feels like there's a lot of flexibility, I think. As soon as data gets bad, the Fed will have some ability to cut rates and maybe try and prevent a recession or at least mitigate the depth of it. And you have all this AI stuff, which I think is gonna keep going. I don't think it's gonna go away. I think it is going to. Keep boosting like stock valuations. So my personal opinion is that we have seen recent lows.
I think we could dip a little bit more if there are recession concerns. But my guess is 2024 ends up being like a very good year for risk assets. Whether we then like plunge into recession 2025 or not, I'm not really sure. It's just too far out to to charge and Larry think knows that himself.
So I I think it's weird because if someone would tell me like you're seeing this much growth in the US, it's kind of wild because wherever I seem to see it feels as though businesses and people are just like really feeling it. I don't know like inflation feels like savings are coming down. Like whenever I look at this other side, just like the anecdotal evidence I have is just that things aren't great kind of across the board.
And you can just feel that like because lots of assets have kind of gone down that people just feel less and that I think that is affecting stuff. And like most, I mean how many CEOs you think are like massively hiring right now? All the big tech CEOs have been firing. All the big, a lot of service based industries have been firing people. I never really get how that's been working. But yeah, we seemingly have this
strong market. I do think the US debt issue is gonna catch up with it or at least it was when we respond to growth. So I kind of agree with what Larry, I think we may have for a just a very low period of growth now where you have those effects that you said AI might counter. What's going on with that? And then we we kind of go in and out of recession for the next few years just because there's such low growth going on. OK. And then finally we're gonna go to the NFT space is a lot going
on right now. We have friend tech points tonight. Friend tech again hitting at the highs across the board. I kind of feel like everything's gonna go a little bit lower after tonight's points. Everything's kind of got ramped up. It's got over 50 million TVL now or very close to 50 million BBL. But the other thing was this provenance thing that transient labs have come out. I don't know if you if you saw. This, yeah, but yeah, which is They're launching this new piece
of hardware. They're launching alongside ACC K, but it's basically a way to prove provenance of physical items. And look, they're gonna Trace will Premiere will premier installed with CK's The Muse, says Green being auctioned at Christies and with it a new standard for provenance, authentication, evolution and documentation. Trace technology combines sovereign creative contract, L two Storey inscriptions, immutably storing provenance on chain and cutting edge secure
chips. So it's basically a chip that you put into the art piece and that will then be able to prove the provenance. So it kind of brings the whole NFT technology of provenance to the physical world via this kind of new hardware product. And transient Labs has got a lot of this post obviously blew up. We've got a lot of they're very well known in this space. In fact, we know some of their employees like they're kind of dogs so to speak.
But yeah, do you think do you think this kind of helps people get the whole NFT thing? For me I was like this could be huge if this if this takes off as like a product. Yeah, I think it. I think especially for the art world, it's pretty big. One of the main. Pros of NFT's over traditional art is this idea of provenance. It's like you know who which wallet meant to you know when they're into it and it's all proven Unchained and can't be tampered with. So making it physically using
it, if that makes sense. I think it's quite a big thing and I think collectors will like that, you know, especially if you want to like start doing it with physical goods etcetera and you want. Some kind of like, uh? Proof for whatever it is, like authentication. This pretty much does that. I think it's very cool, yeah. Because I think up until now people have been doing it
themselves. Like I know some artists have said like proof of authentication certificates, which maybe have like NFT technology with it. But I think if you get like a an industry standard about how to do this, I think that could be really useful, right? And I think that I don't know I I liked it a lot but I I I still think it's there are some issues in in like showing it sometimes like they need to it needs to be done perfectly.
Like people aren't normally set up in their houses for it but they can really get on board with the idea of provenance on in real life things And then it's just like a short jump. It's kind of like what we spoke about for gaming. It's like this is the way that we instead of forcing A narrative to people which they maybe don't have to agree with, we just help build tools for them to agree with the narratives that they already exist.
Like right you don't like web three games, we'll just build it around CS go for you. All right. You don't like digital art, digital frames, OK, we'll just build the technology if you that provenance. So I think this could be to get particularly for like adoption across the space which I think is huge, right. I think that's it for today shows today. Stubbs. Stubbs, right. Yeah, of course, Yeah. Weren't you going to Stubbs? Stops you out. Yeah, you have the pieces.
I do, yeah. I'm just about to share my screen. All right. So I think you guys had on computer blood on Monday, right? When I was in on Monday, yeah. When I wasn't here. So computer Blood is the artist. I think they I believe there are two pieces. There is web three, web three bra which I think is is that this one. Yeah, I'm not sure, I'm not sure which one is which. And then there's Ohh, yeah it is. And then it's regarding the sensitivities.
If you actually look at this is just the still version of this one. I think if you look at the GIF, I'd recommend wearing shades or just advise and epileptic or epilepsy warning because it's pretty pretty flashy. But yeah, both of these. Believe and now up to be able to pay me to burn 5 stops to claim where 3. Browning to burn 2 stops to claim. Regarding your sensitivities, both of the mint links are on the rug. Radio, Twitter, if you had
everything can see them. I think we're also going to display them on this YouTube screen as well if you want to go over it and claim burn and claim those. And I think that's that's all we need to do for steps, right? Yeah, that's it. Another incredible glitch artist. We have like so many. If you go into startups like it's just like a who's who have glitch up there, which is cool. But yeah, awesome to have those
pieces. We had them on the show on Monday and you'll have that all over the weekend to be. Able to go. That's the piece in in animation. Alright, I'll take it. It's very cool, but I can only look at it for about 10 seconds. They actually like on the screen. It doesn't look as bad. I know I've seen it on my on the stream it didn't look as bad, but I've seen it when I put it on myself and it's tough. OK, cool. Your hair, by the way, is looking like phenomenal these
days. I'm a year in year into year in to the no haircut. We have a, we have like a 360 of it. Like it is really growing out now. Wow. It's. The thing is, it's It's really got depth to it, rather than length. Now it looks. Like, it's. Yeah, pretty thick. Yeah, like a full on mullet. It's gonna know. Is it gonna go back more, you think or is it gonna go down? I don't really know.
I'm I'm kind of I think I'm past the awkward stage but I just it's difficult to judge like where and how it grows and like should I have like a middle partying should I like. You know, like, I think I had like a hair bow. A hair bow like. Like the Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do. I do now time my hair out when I play football. So in like a ponytail. Ohh really? Yeah, because I have to get to my or if I work out, it gets some eyes. I think that's the beauty about having long hair, right?
You can just do whatever. Like, you don't have to decide what it has to be all the time. And what is your wife? What does your wife think of? It she likes it. She's a fan of the long hair, so ohh, wow. Well, she's a fan of long hair right now. When it gets down to my arse, I don't know what she'll think. But we've got to get right guys to 420. That's pretty easy. And we will. We've got big plans, big plans. OK guys, well, that has been, yeah, that's been it for this week.
We have been sponsored again by Kraken NFT. Go check them out for radio4krakenkraken.com/frog radio. If we will be speaking to you on Monday again with the full lineup for, It's gonna be back from Sunny. I think he's gonna be in London, right? We're all gonna be in London, so yeah. We'll be in London. Yep, Yep. Hey guys, we will see you on Monday.