Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode
four of the Blockchain Bay podcast. Today, Joe
is interviewing Big Dave and Akiba from CryptoSlate
.com. CryptoSlate .com is pretty much an all
-in -one hub of information in the cryptocurrency
space, and I personally have used it a lot more
since this interview to get my crypto news. Feel
free to check it out. Once again, that's CryptoSlate
.com. Crypto, C -R -Y -P -T -O, Slate, S -L -A
-T -E .com. We hope you enjoy. Welcome back to
another podcast. And today we have Big Dave and
Akiva from Crypto Slate. We are going to talk
about everything crypto. I want to get a background
on both of you, how you started in crypto, what
you do. I believe you both are techies by trade.
You write for the Crypto Slate website and manage
that during your day. Take it away, whoever would
like to start first. Yeah, I can go. So I got
into crypto in about 2024, mining Dogecoin, hilariously.
I was running a marketing agency in the UK. We
did a lot of video production. So we had a whole
office of video editing machines. So every day
when people finish work at like five, we taught
them how to start the Dogecoin miner. Then they
went home, then they'd stop it in the morning
when they came back in. yeah there's a funny
story with that with all the dogecoin that we
mined uh at the time it was like it was not very
much in terms of value and it was less than electricity
and we stupidly decided after just a year or
something that we might as well just um sell
it into there was a a company near us called
scan it's a really good computer hardware store
and they've accepted bitcoin since like 2018
or something stupid so we just converted to bitcoin
and bought a hdmi cable which is in the office
somewhere um and during the the bull market last
year that hdmi cable would have been worth six
figures um so that's my introduction in the crypto
industry which was hilarious uh we all even people
that are early obviously don't always make it
out on top um then carried on running the agency
until like 2020 2020, I think it was. And then
during lockdown, I started writing again, which
is my first love. I actually got my start in
business as a film director and writer, making
films. So I went back to that sort of world writing
and decided that I wanted to actually participate
in the crypto industry rather than just kind
of watching it and talking about it and not really
doing much about it. So I started writing articles
on the macro state of... financial industry and
how crypto can help change that um and in 2021
end of 2021 i decided that i was really done
with marketing i never enjoyed it i was just
good at it and went full time uh with crypto
slate so got rid of my business um stopped doing
that and actually went from running my own business
to working for someone else um and that was actually
strangely the most liberating thing I've ever
done because the team at Cryptoslate are incredible
Matt and Nate who run the company just fantastic
business owners and bosses and yeah I've been
writing with them now for over a year I'm one
of the lead editors there And I produced the
podcast, used my kind of experience from the
video production world in the crypto space. And
we interviewed Joe recently on a podcast that
Dave and I have set up recently called Gathering
of the Giga Hatch, where we're going around talking
to different miners and kind of getting a lowdown
on what they're currently doing during the bear
market. So, I mean, Dave, over to you on that.
I'm Big Dave. I mine cryptocurrency now currently.
I still mine. I haven't stopped mining at all.
I actually met Akiva Merch Day, I believe. When
he was doing like an 18 -hour stream or some
crap. Yeah, so I was trying to figure out exactly
when the merge would be. Obviously, we couldn't
tell exactly. And I was trying to get, I think
we had like 30 guests on the podcast that day,
like from MetaMask, Consensus. Who else do we
have? People from Polygon. People all over the
EVM space. And I was trying to aim it for four
hours before the merge and four hours after.
And obviously, as miners started moving off the
network, it got further and further and further
away. And what was meant to be an eight hour
live stream turned into like 14 hours or something
stupid. And yeah, Dave was with me for a lot
of that. So we got chatting. Yeah. Yeah. And
yeah, I started mining cryptocurrency originally
back in, I guess it was like 2011, back on like
AMD cards. It was. i don't know it was just sort
of like a thing that i did for fun um i enjoyed
the blockchain project like satoshi was active
still back then like when i first joined um so
that was kind of cool um i ended up getting out
of crypto ended up life you know doing other
things and then uh i got diagnosed um for the
fourth time uh stage four neuroglia neuro glioblastoma,
which is brain cancer. And so like instead of
having to have someone else take care of me while
I go through treatment, I went and I put $40
,000 into graphics cards and whatnot. I refused
to pay scalper price, which I ended up doing
through like scalp bag deals anyways. Just ended
up with a bunch of like motherboards and graphics
laying around. like building a computer right
here in fact out of a bunch of those parts and
uh yeah since then um i've had a lot of free
time obviously going through treatment and stuff
so i um started doing like hella research on
the projects um i mined ethereum at the start
um i started getting hesitant on mining ethereum
just because i felt like they were kind of crapping
on the miners by like doing what they were doing
And, like, I know it was part of, like, the end
goal of Ethereum to be not mined on GPU to go
proof of stake. You know what I mean? But the
fact of, like, the core miners supported that
network for so long, like, so long, so much longer
than they even foresaw going proof of stake.
And I don't know. I just started looking at all
these other what everyone calls shit coins. And
started looking at all these other projects.
Started talking to miners and YouTubers and going
into various different spaces. Since then, I've
made a bunch of high -profile friends in the
YouTube space. I've made a bunch of high -profile
friends in the mining space. I've talked to just
about everybody just to find out what's going
on and what to mine, what not to mine. I like
spec mining right now. It's kind of fun because
it is altcoin season. and like it's not really
profitable to just sit on one coin not as profitable
to just sit on one coin as it can be to mine
all coins like um yeah currently real quick what
you mean by what you mean by spec mining is mining
a newer coin that is not on the exchanges yet
maybe it's on smaller exchanges but really getting
an abundance of them in case that price pumps
yeah exactly so my audience my audience is a
mixed bag some of them are very new to crypto
some of them have come from the gpu side so i
always try to break things down as simple as
possible but that's what a lot of people are
doing in this bear market right now go ahead
sorry so like i find projects i do research i
like research on the developers the projects
where they came from what their use case is which
is like a huge thing like if a project doesn't
have a use case i can't get behind it i can't
mine it like i just mentally it doesn't make
sense like why am i doing this who's utilizing
this network and if the answer is no one then
it's like nah i can't do that if if the purpose
of the network is a meme then it's like i can't
do that it's the reason why i didn't get on like
pink chain or doge or anything like that like
i know doge has since become an actual network
which is kind of funny but it's it's just like
i don't know that's that's just where i come
from really i don't know i kind of love cryptocurrency
i love helping people figure out their rigs and
problems and stuff when i when i got into it
i stuttered so bad that i didn't want to talk
to people i um i used to fumble my words and
stuff like i was relearning how to like talk
and uh so like i did everything myself it took
me like 16 hours to figure out how to set up
hive because like i remember like i used like
i went to school for coding and programming but
that's all gone like it might as well not be
there now like the certificates are useless um
since then i've been learning a bunch as well
and deving help while helping to dev and do alpha
testing on a bunch of miners that have been coming
out for other spec coins so i did pin the crypto
slate url in uh in the chat You guys in the chat,
go ahead, take a look. And your channel for YouTube
is also just Crypto Slate. Now, can you give
us a little rundown on what you guys do there
as far as what type of content you're producing,
what your mission is? Yeah, sure. So there's
two parts to Crypto Slate. So one is news media.
reporting on what's going on in the industry.
And the other part is a data directory and research.
So we've got a ton of data. You can basically
use CryptoSlate similar to sort of CoinMarketCap
or CoinGecko in terms of the data. But we have
things like different sectors. We have like proof
of work coins, proof of stake coins, dedicated
POS. Like for Dave, there's a cannabis industry
section where you can go and look at the cannabis
related tokens and such. and our researchers
work really closely with like glass node and
nansen so we do a lot of detailed reports from
them we're currently building out this quarter
a new on -chain product, which is going to be
with Access Protocol, where you'll be able to
get access to even more sort of data and insights
through staking tokens on Access Protocol. So
we're kind of moving into being an actual Web3
business ourselves rather than just kind of reporting
on Web3. but the thing the reason why i joined
the company was i was looking for for sites to
to write for and i was i was writing for ben
zinger at the time um and flicking through the
back end of the site i found that there's literally
a page on the crypto slate website which is how
we make money and that level of transparency
was something that just really blew my mind um
and then when i spoke to the editorial team the
focus on accuracy and integrity were paramount
above everything else and in the crypto industry
there's like a running joke that like crypto
journalists aren't real journalists and i think
that can be actually true for a lot of sites
in the space um i'm not saying that i don't i
don't want to stop my next sentence i haven't
just said that but that aside you've also got
issues with like block recently having ties to
fbs being a huge big scandal obviously coindesk
is owned by digital currency group which is the
company behind genesis and grayscale which is
also in a lot of trouble so one of the things
that i'm really proud about is the fact that
crypto slate kind of doesn't have any tarnished
sort of history or past it's super transparent
the people that run the company are doing it
for a love of the industry and a lot of blockchain
And if one of our advertisers screws up, we'll
write the article about it. There's nothing in
terms of editorial that gets... If I want to
write something and it's factually correct, then
I have full sort of leeway to do that. And I'm
not necessarily sure that's the same with some
of the other people in the space. They've got
a lot of, say, the funding or ties to big projects.
We're fully independent. And AJ, who's our chief
editor, his goal is to make CryptoSlate into
sort of the financial times of the crypto industry,
something that can be trusted, respected, doesn't
have an agenda. You could argue whether that's
the case or not in Web2. But from our point of
view, everything we report on, we make sure is
correct. And that's kind of one of the things
that I really love about working with CryptoSlate
and the ties that I've made with projects. Dave
was saying about kind of top people in the space
that you've met. I've been sort of blown away
at the amount of people I've been able to meet
through doing this. And kind of my telegram is
now full of kind of. senior people on pretty
much every network. I almost got killed by CZ
as well. When I was at Paris Blockchain Week,
his bodyguard almost pushed me down the stairs.
He was trying to push through a load of people
and he pushed me out the way and I literally
stumbled down two or three stone stairs outside.
I almost got murdered by CZ. I absolutely love
the site. Just like with everything, it's like
security in crypto and stuff. So you don't just
trust one source. Like if you want to get your
news, like go to multiple places. But the one
thing I can say from knowing the inside team
and coming from Web 2 into Web 3 is if it's reported
on CryptoSlate, then it's been checked and there's
no agenda behind it. And that's what I love about
it. Anything to add to that, Dave? CryptoSlate
kicks ass. I've been using CryptoSlate for my
news research legitimately for years now. Before
ever meeting Akiba, I was on their website when
I saw that they were streaming for the merch.
I was doing research for other YouTubers because
behind the scenes, I feed people topics and ideas
and stuff. A bunch of our friends. I don't know.
And yeah, I just I haven't actually formally
got to talk to Nate. But from what I've seen,
he's an absolutely great human, a little shy,
but like a really, really great human. Like,
I want to give him a hug and be like, it's OK,
man. Don't worry. It's here. But yeah, the company
as a whole seems pretty solid. They seem pretty
open to their their writers doing what they want,
how they want. um i love the fact that when akiba
shot the idea of running a youtube in a stream
that they were all about it they said yeah hell
yeah go for it and like it's just that kind of
they have like a blockchain mentality in a formal
company i guess like that's that's like when
akiba was saying like all their accounting and
everything is like just right there everything's
just for everyone to see it's very blockchain
-esque in in the way that they run their company
and it's yeah and and not doubling down on leverage
and yolo bets like the company yeah and they
don't surf for they don't surf for ads you know
what i mean like they don't try to get like tons
and tons of people to come in like it's products
they believe in if anything let me personally
thank you guys and the ladies and gentlemen over
at crypto slate for your work because The crypto
and blockchain space needs more of this. People
who are honest, who believe in this industry
and who want to see what's best, who want to
get actual factual information out rather than
promoting an agenda. Probably one of my biggest
irritants of being a YouTuber is watching the
misinformation that's spread by someone who wants
to sell affiliate codes or someone who just needs
more clicks. So on that, here's an actual example
of it. So there's a project called Core Blockchain
that I invited over to Slovakia to go meet to
see their infrastructure and see what they're
actually doing. So I went over there, made a
video while I was there. And after seeing everything,
I was really blown away with what they're doing.
I think they've got a huge mountain to climb
to get anywhere. But the actual infrastructure.
it feels true to the mission of crypto that it's
peer -to -peer it's proof of work it's designed
for sort of iot devices um it's definitely something
you should look at by the way um and while i
was there i can connect you to the team while
i was there they offered me an ambassador role
to help kind of grow the ecosystem and i sort
of said to them i was like that's fine but And
I'm open to it. But if you want me to carry on
reporting on anything, then I can't do it. We
decided to go ahead with it. And now as a result,
I won't cover any core blockchain related topics
on the website. I'll pitch them. I'll put them
in our pitches channel. If another journalist
picks them up and writes them, then they will
write them. But in terms of like conflicts of
interest. we like the journalists won't write
about projects that are involved with in any
way at all which is the complete antithesis of
what you're sort of saying is going on elsewhere
in the industry like i literally took a step
back and said cool i'll be an ambassador of the
project but i won't report on it anymore because
no one's going to trust it no one's going to
believe it If I've got ambassador for core blockchain
on my Twitter description, who wants to read
an article from me about it? Because it feels
to be biased. As much as I will still call them
out if they do something that's incorrect, I
can do that on my own Twitter, but I can't write
an article about it because no one's going to
believe it. It's the efficacy of media or what
used to be the efficacy of media where it's not,
you know, brought to you by Pfizer. It's like,
you know what I mean? Yeah. no kidding it's not
that aspect and i love it i love it i don't know
since just doing some podcasts and stuff and
having the the ability to reach out to people
the fact that people know who it is um like getting
the a bunch of like devs and stuff in which is
going to be kind of cool we have me and akiba
haven't really like talked about that yet but
yeah i got the nexa team coming in for a podcast
it is it is awesome to have your own platform
it's awesome great to be known within a community
i mean for me having this platform means getting
forming serious opinions and having meaningful
debates whether it's on live stream of video
putting together instructional material just
uh helping further the community along and the
people who are just new here helping them find
their way so they're not ripped off and taken
advantage of but i i really like how it's you
know i get to bring on people like you two gentlemen
who have substance who have opinions have something
that you you'd like to discuss with the audience
but i can also bring in people like travis who's
here in the audience he's come on my live stream
before and he's a wealth of knowledge or other
people directly from specific communities or
other other people like to um mine any sort of
crypto but you you get to kind of direct the
conversation in the manner you you want it to
go like i said i i try to do it objectively for
the better and you know i i know i'm a little
abrasive and can be opinionated but i value honesty
you're like a downy sheet compared to me buddy
i'm sorry that's important and that's why like
like during this whole bonk thing that's been
going on on solana like there's three articles
that have covered it on crystal slate one was
talking about the massive gains on the first
day when it got popular. But the article clearly
points out, what do we actually know about this
project? And let's say nothing. So it helps investors.
Then after that, it was a detailed breakdown
of the holders who got airdropped it, the fact
there's no white paper, and then reported on
it crashing by 140 million or whatever. if if
they see a new project either we won't cover
meme coins at all but if they become part of
like the meta part of the zeitgeist then we'll
cover it but in a way that is just neutral and
gives people an insight into what's going on
so i think that's like this whole bong thing
like you look on say crypto twitter and everyone's
just talking about the gains it's all the crypto
bros like i'm gonna make my money ultimately
like you're saying dave like if it's not got
any substance or any structure any utility to
it then it is just you're just gambling which
is fine if you want to gamble but know what you're
doing. I used to be a firm believer of if it
didn't have a white paper, I wouldn't mind it
until I started seeing projects arise that came
from the developers of other projects. And they
arose through like being visible, going like,
we don't like this. This needs to be fixed. You're
not fixing this. now we're going public with
that you're not fixing this this needs to be
fixed what the hell okay you're not fixing it
still we quit we're making our own five and then
so like the the build up to the why it exists
kind of doesn't really need a white paper yeah
and a lot of a lot of white papers nowadays just
kind of seem like a a media hustle yeah it could
go both ways it's certainly yeah and here's the
thing why some some products don't have white
papers is because this is a pet peeve of mine
there's many developers who just don't want to
do the documentation they don't want to go through
the hours of revising that crap and you know
they're they're more concerned and focused on
the code and i understand from a sense but you
have to look at the broader picture but that
does happen yeah and the reason for that is there's
too many there's a lot of developers in the space
and a lot of people with big ideas um and not
enough actual business people at the end of the
day because ultimately these are businesses that
need to be run um and they need to be run properly
and so much of this like so i do still do some
consultancy uh as well with projects and that's
kind of why i'm an ambassador for core but When
you're looking at what's going on, there's tons
of projects that are live and still have crap
documentation for developers. Like when you compare
it to Web 2, the ability to pick up a Web 3 project
and just get started is terrible. So we do need
to bring kind of the best of Web 2 into Web 3
and make sure that, but then try and also kick
out the crap. the overabundance of VC funding,
like we've seen coming out during this bear market,
which I personally view as pretty much the same
as the .com level. That's what we're going through
right now. We're getting rid of all the fake
projects, the projects that have no substance,
the ones that are never going to make it on a
long time frame, the grifters that are taking
advantage, SBF, etc. um and that's why i'm actually
so bullish when you go to events like uh sort
of end of last year i was uh um i was at acc
i was at zebra live i went to power spot chain
week um i went to asm ball and every single one
of them the like no one's talking about the price
of bitcoin or any other crypto. No one's checking
their portfolios. No one cares what the price
is. It's just workshops and conversations about
how to carry on building an infrastructure and
improve the user experience of Web3 to get it
in line with what's going on in Web2. It's the
same people that were here before the bull run.
Every time. And those people, that's how you
got to measure a metric is who was here before
the bull run. and who's still here whether it's
the devs behind the project we're here before
the bull run and are still here afterwards whether
it's a new project or the same project and and
outside of that the people that a lot of the
people that come into crypto not all of them
but a lot of them during these um parabolic bull
runs are people that are looking to make a quick
buck, which is absolutely fine. And we've all
done it. We've all traded during the bull runs
and tried to maximize profit as much as possible.
But that's not the core use case of crypto. It's
not buying low and selling high. It's changing
the financial system of the world. And that requires
a big... infrastructure and we're nowhere near
that yet so your last guest he was talking about
so we need the crypto bros um in order to get
adoption i actually don't agree with that concept
because those are not the people that will stay
long term what we need is to continue improving
the user experience of everything in web3 so
that and the use cases make it so that your mum
your nan your aunt your dad can do something
with Web3 and not have to learn a whole load
of new terminology and have lessons from the
kids on how to get on board with it. And they're
the people that matter. And they're the people
that come in in the next five to 10 years. And
it's a long -term play. And yeah, you can get
really rich in the meantime if you get things
right. But I'm happy if Bitcoin trades sideways
now until the next halving, which I expect it
to do. um just keep on buying whatever crypto
projects you like what has good infrastructure
um and like say helium is one of those that like
the overall infrastructure of it like when you
look on the the explorer and you see all the
the dots all over the map it's just it's amazing
to see that that's come from a community it's
come from that's not for the most part, unless
I'm completely incorrect with this, from like
big corporations buying hotspots and placing
them around everywhere, they're all in people's
homes. And that infrastructure, I think we talked
about this on our podcast, can also be reallocated
to other things in future. And the fact that
that technology is there, that's one of the most
exciting things for me, that we have this potential
peer -to -peer network that's already in place.
That's why I need to get one in my hands. Like
I've helped set people's up. I just have never
had one. So I want to ask you guys what your
definition for Web3 is. Everyone buries a little
bit different. It's a very widely used term.
But if you were to quantify Web3, what would
you summarize it as? Blockchain enabled infrastructure.
Yeah, programs built on the blockchain is exactly
what I was going to say. Yeah, so I mean, there's
a... Like video games built on a blockchain.
I see Web3 as any application that uses blockchain
as the core part of its technology. And then
there's also a term which is Web5, which is becoming
more and more popular in the sort of consulting
space around bringing current Web2 companies,
traditional tech and SaaS businesses, and helping
them figure out how they can take advantage of
blockchain technology. with maybe just a part
of their business. And the first step for a lot
of those has just been, oh, let's launch an NFT
project. Why? Because we can. Okay, great. You
go do that. But there's projects like, I was
talking to a VC, a near event that I was moderating,
and he was talking about a very, very, very well
-known fashion brand that is using blockchain
for their supply chain management. By using NFTs,
they're not calling them NFTs, just calling them
vouchers. And what they're doing is they're using
the redeemable vouchers so they can track where
they were purchased. Because this huge company
still has no idea where people are buying their
products from. Because when they ask them, they
lie and they tell them they bought them from
the more expensive store than when they actually
got it from on discount somewhere. So they're
using NFTs as part of their infrastructure. That's
not going to make the price of any token go up.
because it's not related to anything else that
is using blockchain technology for something
that has a real world implementation. And that's
something that is like there are such things
as private blockchains. We're not going to get
rich off them, but they have a lot of power.
And that's why I consider myself like a blockchain
maximalist, not Bitcoin, not Ethereum, not any
form of crypto. It's the core concept of blockchain
and what that can do. And it's actually not that
sexy at the end of the day. And one of the problems
that we've got with Web3 is so many of the Web3
projects talk about how many transactions per
second they can do or how easy their wallet is
or how it can be integrated into different things.
You don't see a social media app talking about
how their new app is built using React Native
as the main selling point for their website because
no one gives a crap. They talk about what it's
going to do. And that's, for me, the issue that
we currently have in Web3 is there's so many
techy people. We love the tech part of it. We
want to rant and rave about the tech. But ultimately,
the end user doesn't care. They just want to
know what they can do with it. And I think Helium
definitely suffers from that in that other than
mining for it, what can the average person do
right now? i know you only asked what is web3
and i sort of also i mean you answered another
one of my questions which was going to be what
what is your i guess your niche or your what
your favorite um subcategory in the crypto space
whether it be you know yeah web gaming yeah blockchain
web3 uh Tip -ins, DAOs, DeFi, whatever it may
be. But Dave, you go ahead. What was the first
question I asked? What's your definition of Web3?
Yeah, like Akiva said, pretty much anything that
uses blockchain as part of its core integral
part of its operations. It's kind of like a new
-ish term and people need to get... like accustomed
to what the different layers are. Like there's
layer one, web three, layer two, web three, layer
three, web three as well. They're all kind of
all misconstrued. Everybody has like all these
different things that everybody's saying and
they have no real idea what the hell's going
on. For me, it's just any project that has like
blockchain in their core. If the blockchain wasn't
there, the project couldn't exist. And like,
poof, gone. And that's the key aspect, I guess,
to it. One of the really cool Web3 projects that
I saw was from Zilliqa, actually brought to my
attention from Akiba here. They had like this
console that like they had their own hardware
wallet on the console. uh the whole console when
you weren't playing games on it and i played
web 3 games so that's kind of cool when you weren't
playing games it mined for you my uh silica and
so like i thought that was kind of cool the thing
looked like this beastie it almost looked like
a laptop that was closed like a gaming laptop
that was closed it was really cool looking and
um yeah i don't know i guess that's my definition
of web 3 what's your favorite part about the
crypto space Blockchain, DAOs, tip -ins, Web3.
None of the above. None of the above. My favorite
thing about the crypto space is people like you
guys. It's the community. It's the miners. It's
the people that want to build the projects. It's
the devs. I've been working with Wildrig dev
for the last, I don't know, a month and a half.
That guy is just a freaking savage. He's in the
Ukraine. there's bombs going off around his ass
and and he's still sitting there coding for like
when he was off off work when he's on work when
he's working he's still coding by the way but
what he's when he's not working he's coding for
like 18 hours a day for a minor that he doesn't
essentially make all that much from like there
was a bounty for the one code that we were working
on and he made ten thousand dollars uh usd to
build that open source miner for it so he did
that and like that's kind of cool like the projects
that are supporting the miners supporting the
the dev teams of the miners it's kind of awesome
that's my favorite part i find it really hard
to find a part and when we have kind of beats
i don't really tend to take any any sort of beats
in terms of my reporting because i'm interested
in so many different parts of it like the potential
like dows the potential for dows to to change
the way that business and politics is done around
the world um i think i was interviewing guy from
coin bureau and he said that he thinks that dows
are the the biggest existential threat to politicians
that has ever been and i find that fascinating
like it's going to take a really long time we
need to improve things but the potential for
a dow based infrastructure to actually be a part
of governing um sovereign nations is is just
fascinating um but in terms of ultimately ultimately
just because it's blockchain it's governing one
nation it's like humanity you know what i mean
everybody's all like gung -ho about all the one
world one Government, blah, blah, blah. It's
like, nah, man. Yeah, can you elaborate on the
DAO, the Central Autonomous Organization? Yeah,
please. The structure, what all goes into organizing
that? Because I think there's a lot of ignorance
or misconceptions around that particular subject,
even though we hear them shoehorned into just
about any project in the crypto space, because
it's the coolest thing to do in many areas of
crypto. Well, I think in terms of the DAO infrastructure
and what I'm excited about, it's the ability
to have a publicly auditable, secure governance.
Because the thing with DAOs is that people sort
of miss it. They think, oh, you can't use DAOs
for governments because it's all on -chain. But
again, you can have privacy enabled blockchains
and you can utilize that like the cabinet or
the Senate, whatever you have in your constitution
can have its own private blockchain that is only
available to certain wallets that can then vote
on specific matters that need to be kept private
for national security. You can then have a public
blockchain that's utilized for, say, national
elections and the such and the ability to like
in the moment the way that most DAOs are run
is obviously the more tokens that you hold the
more voting power you have but that doesn't necessarily
have to be the case it could be like you could
airdrop one token to everyone in the country
and that's their vote they could choose to delegate
it to someone else to vote on their behalf if
they wanted to um and the fact they can all be
transparent and you can be as involved as you
want to with the voting process and politics
is something that's it's amazing but in order
to get there it's a long -term horizon um in
the short term sort of local issues can easily
be managed through DAOs by sort of taking, say,
local government. I'd love to see local governments
implement more DAO -based infrastructure so you
can actually get fair democratic voting in a
way that everyone can audit it just by looking
at the blockchain and see whether the votes from
the wallets went to the right place. You won't
have any sort of upset about potential of like...
Where a corporation doesn't have a voice. where
a corporation doesn't have a voice where where
where every wallet doesn't you know count you
know it's just i mean there's obviously like
so there's loads of difficulties you need to
deal with because obviously like corporations
could airdrop tokens for votes and things um
so you could try and pay people to get your votes
so there's a lot that needs to be done to get
that to work um but i'm super excited about the
transparency of what we can do and the decentralized
nature of it it means that you can you can spin
up a business start a dow and allow anyone that
that wants you to get involved and and that's
great um i'm wondering if you could use like
the nft locking measure because like there's
a measure to like lock the nft to your wallet
um i'm wondering if you could do that with like
the voting system yeah i mean tokens like sobound
tokens for it as well And as such. But in the
short term, it's definitely gaming on blockchain,
which has me the most excited. I was privileged
to be one of the judges for the Game with a Three
Awards this year from PokerStarter. And I got
to speak to and see a lot of gaming projects.
And the thing that really blows my mind with
gaming blockchain is that the user experience
is far beyond anything else, far beyond DeFi,
far beyond sort of DAO -based structures. They're
looking to ways that you can bring, like there's
games on Web3 that you don't need to set up a
wallet in order to start playing. And then you
can create your wallet at a later date once you've
realized, oh, there's some value in this. And
now that gaming has moved away from this, sort
of it's very much a pay to win a mentality that
it's all just about how much money you can make
and then that also makes you better at the game
where you look games like axiom and the such
yeah and moving more into like ability for plays
in a game really high difficulty tasks like you
think of like imagine world of warcraft has a
system where you get a really rare nft drop for
being the world's first to do a raid and then
you actually have that nft that only well like
how many people is in a party in a while like
five ten something like ten people in the world
have it um that's gonna have value people if
they then decided okay i'm done with wow and
sell your nft sell your collection and move on
to another game um And that really helps for
game developers as well, like balancing. Because
when you make a game now, you need to balance
it for your casual gamers. You need to balance
it for gamers that have kids. You need to balance
it for hardcore Twitch streamers. It might be
a way to get rid of all these stupid microtransactions
in these games, like where you're buying skins
and buying this and buying that and all these
upgrade packs. It'd be a way like everyone could
access it because... They're playing the game
and then they have a way to gain the currency
while playing the game. Yeah, exactly. But it
should be done based on skill -based activities
rather than just clicking buttons. We don't want
a whole world of people just clicking a button
in order to earn revenue. But then there's also
like for the games developers, like they can
put like a 1 % royalty fee for every NFT transaction.
And even when the game servers go and people
are just trading those NFTs as collectibles,
that game studio is still making revenue. You
don't need to think short term. How can we make
a new expansion for our game with the most microtransactions
to make loads of money? You can just build a
game that gradually grows and evolves. And over
time, the more popular the game is, the more
people are trading the items. You're making revenue
just on that alone. And people aren't going to
care if it's like 1 % or something when they're
just trading stuff between people. So that's
the industry that's the furthest ahead. And my
view is... the web 3 gaming will probably lead
the next bull run because they don't care about
the price like when you're playing the game and
utilizing blockchain whatever the private coin
in doesn't matter for you and what's that game
war 3 i think which is a web 3 project i think
it's called war 3 it's like um a cod type of
game right okay it's a shooter um the one there's
loads like the amount of games built on unreal
now in web 3 is crazy like my favorite one's
game for big time which is like a dungeon crawler
And it's amazing. Graphics are incredible. And
to start playing that game, you just log in and
you start playing. That's it. You can log in
with a Google account and then link it to a wallet
later on. Like get gamers in and playing. So
I think I actually feel that Bitcoin may follow.
You don't send me an invite to this awesome game.
I can get you an invite to Big Time. It's because
I'm white, isn't it? Because I'm white. It is.
Yeah. Great white male. Got a hate on me. Yeah,
yeah. I get it. Are those your pronouns? Yeah,
straight white male, straight white Jewish male.
I'm the most hated demographic on the planet.
So, all right, so back to the discussion. Can
you really dumb it down to why you would need
a blockchain for any sort of gaming, right? What
transactions exactly are you tracking? How does
it benefit the game? I'm not too much of a gamer.
I can understand a few of the reasons. Like the
skins. For example, you could get limited skins
that are then bound to your wallet. If they try
to ban your account, it's still on your wallet,
right? If the database gets hacked or they have
a glitch, it's still in your possession. Exactly.
You'd still have a seed phrase. so forth and
so forth to like recover your wallet if that
ever were to happen um i mean it's very much
in the culture that we have today is very much
a renting culture we rent everything we don't
buy dvds anymore we pay for a netflix subscription
and you're renting access to things games as
a service which is the one of the most popular
like fortnite is a prime example of this you
all those skins that you're buying in fortnite
you're just renting them only like from um epic
because if the game goes down, those skins are
gone. If they ban your account, the skins are
gone. On that basis, what does it matter? If
the game's not there anymore, why do you want
those things? I've got a shelf back there full
of N64 and Mega Drive games that I don't know
where my Mega Drive is anymore, but I just love
it as a memory. It's a collectible. In a world
that's moving more and more digital, then digital
collectibles are going to... always be a thing
going forward it's just how they're implemented
um but there's plenty of there's plenty of things
that you can do with blockchain and gaming um
it's not just necessarily about the skins it's
also about generally things that cost money for
game developers obviously developing the game
itself once it's out it's maintaining the game
and obviously it's managing the servers and one
of the things that they all miss for me is the
fact that they need place that player base is
a resource and it should be something they actually
have to pay for to a degree. People play to play
the game, but once they've started playing, the
game developers don't want to lose those players
because otherwise they lose more and more players
and the game falls down. Whereas by utilizing
blockchain and giving people real hard assets
for playing the game means they have two options.
Either they can use those assets and carry on
playing the game, or they can sell them to someone
else who can then get into the game at a level
where they want to be. It's the ability to reward
and pay your... players for um this honor of
having them Because we need these gamers. And
Web3 allows you to kind of find ways to incentivize
people to carry on playing. And obviously the
fact that it's kind of an immutable blockchain
for things like esports is incredible. There's
been a load of cases over the years of people
in certain countries around the world or people
that are under 18 winning esports tournaments
and then not being able to get paid the winnings
because they don't have a bank account or they
can't receive payments in that currency. Whereas
when you're doing an esports tournament on blockchain,
you get paid as soon as the tournament. So it
goes straight into your wallet. It can be written
into the smart contracts. So anyone can get paid
for it. Well, let me add on top of that. When
we first seen Bitcoin after 2008, the people
who were most open minded to it and probably
the earliest adopters. I mean, I don't know because
I wasn't there necessarily, but I. The reading
that I've done, it was the gamers because they
were already familiar with the fact that there's
tokens on any given game, World of Warcraft,
RuneScape, whatever you play. I don't know. I
don't play games. Those are the ones I played
when I was like 13, right? But if you can sell
that for money on a forum. So a couple of weeks
ago. Dude, someone at the gas station asked me
if I was 18 and he was being serious. Yeah, I
can see it. Come on, man. You got to go to you.
I can't. I grow a little bit of shadow. I can't
do anything. That's all right. I hope I do. I
do look 18. I'll run with it. Anyways. You're
45 and then it all falls out. Yeah, it's going
to be terrible. what are we getting at here oh
so then i was watching another uh documentary
i forget exactly which one it was but it was
uh trump's former chief strategist steve bannon
when he worked at goldman sachs they were actually
looking at investing in like the gold mining
aspect of different games as a digital currency
So this thought has been around for a long time,
just in general, in the gaming space. But blockchain
is what made it happen. It's what made that.
When we say immutable, it just means it can't
be changed. Like it's an object that is going
to be in that form forever. And you've also then
got the ability to take that, say it's an NFT
from a game. for another developer to come along
and build a game and support the NFTs for another
game, whether it's through an official partnership
or not. And you are seeing games like Gensokishi,
which is a Japanese RPG. They're doing partnerships
with other games where you can basically mine.
like tokens and nfts in one game and then use
them in another there's other projects that are
kind of trying to build metaverses with rare
um commodities in them which are then other games
so those commodities are building blocks in other
games you'll have like i can see a world where
we have a gaming infrastructure where you're
playing different games to mine or to acquire
digital assets to play in another game and create
a whole ecosystem where you can jump between
them and that sounds great it sounds loads of
fun yeah now do up to this point have we seen
the adoption in game as many people have predicted
and has been expected so one of the one of the
really interesting things i wrote on this about
a month and a half ago in the user attention
in Web3 gaming is 10 times that of Web2. So when
people start playing Web3 games, they're 10 times
more likely to carry on playing than they were
in Web2 because they're getting real assets out
of it. When you look at things like DeFi, user
attention is going through the floor. especially
at the moment. So that's one of the reasons why
I'm so bullish about the space. I think one of
the big issues that Web3 gaming suffers from
is the sort of demonization of blockchain, crypto
and NFTs. There's so many gamers that just see
NFTs as being a new way to do microtransactions
and it could be. Just like in all essence, crypto
can be the savior of the world or through CBDCs
could be the way that we're... all controlled
for the rest of our lives and never able to do
anything we want ever again so like we are building
this technology that is very dangerous and very
powerful and it's about having the right people
involved which is why i'd echo what dave was
saying about the thing about the space is the
people like we need people in it that are willing
to build for the cause and the mission for what
what blockchain is meant to do and that's one
of the main reasons why i got into it like i
was I won the geographical lottery of being born
in the UK to two amazing parents. They worked
their asses off, came from literally nothing.
Mum was picking up coal in the street in Ireland
when she was born, one of eight, did really well.
I've not really ever wanted for anything in my
life. And I want to use that kind of privileged
position to build something that's going to make
a difference to other people in the world. And
for me, when you look at what can do that, blockchain
is the thing. Like blockchain is the way that
can actually help disenfranchise people around
the world. But we need people to carry on building
it that actually believe in that vision rather
than just how to make a few extra bucks. I agree.
What were you going to say, Dave? I totally blanked.
Lost your thought. If you guys have a hard stop,
let me know. Otherwise, we can keep going. It's
a good conversation. I probably need to go off
in like 15. also all right yeah that works we'll
hit just about an hour then because i think we
started about seven eight minutes later so that
works great so we hit dows we hit blockchain
in game and talked about nfts a little bit what
else were we getting at here one of the crappy
internet questions that i have Yeah, I know.
This is not good. Akiba was thinking exactly
the same thing at the same time. Probably. Can
you not get yourself a Starlink or something
if you're in a crappy area? I can. I might have
to do that. I've got one downstairs I'm not using
if you want to buy it off me. We'll see. I don't
think I have that kind of money right now. Yes.
Yes. What criteria would you consider needed
to, let me rephrase, for something to be decentralized,
what criteria must it meet? And this is something
I'm going to ask in my next stream. But whether
it's blockchain, utility projects, whatever it
may be, a DAO, what... are you looking at as
far as like infrastructure as far as the developing
team how the implementation and maintenance takes
place governance or is there like one across
the board you know piece of i don't know i think
governance if i had to pick one yeah it's layered
isn't it yeah certainly because because Governance
has got to be the most important thing. But I
mean, so for me, the best projects and the best
way to build in Web3 is not to start decentralized
because you need a core team of people that know
what they're doing to build the right thing.
But with a system in place that doesn't require
trust, requires proof. um and reliance on code
that means that it will become decentralized
um as it grows forward and that's what you need
and you need a company like crypto slate to be
honest with you you need a company like crypto
slate that has the end goal to becoming decentralized
people that believe in the end project they're
willing to fund the means to get to the end project
even if on that way they're not going to get
incredibly wealthy Yeah, because I mean, at the
end of the day, if you start completely decentralized,
then you end up like having, say, a foundation
that still has more control than it probably
should do if it's properly decentralized. And
we might not believe in the people buying into
it. They've got different views on where it should
go. They might change their view on where it
needs to go. And you end up with a lot of infighting
throughout it. So for me. If I'm looking for
something that's decentralized, I want something
that started in a centralized manner with a clear
roadmap to how it's going to grow. And I wouldn't
be invested in that project until it's getting
to that stage either. Because that's the stage
where then you actually are asking, okay, we
think we've built what we thought was good. Now
let's send it out, make it decentralized, allow
the community to build and grow it from there.
and from a governance point of view i think that's
really important the other part when you talk
about infrastructure is something like we're
already not seeing with ethereum like over some
it's like 70 percent of dapps are built on aws
rather than sort of bare metal cloud infrastructure
which can be done um i was consulting for a company
called um gateway .fm and they're building out,
they're an RPC provider, which is the connection
onto the blockchain for applications. And they're
building in a bare metal environment, meaning
that their servers can be moved to any hosting
environment or they are completely decentralized.
There's another one in the UK called Kudos. They're
building out decentralized cloud infrastructure.
That's the sort of stuff that I'm the most excited
about when it comes to decentralization because
at the moment, There's Google, there's Azure
with Microsoft, and there's Amazon. And they
pretty much take up the entirety of the Western
internet. So there's very few projects that I
would actually view as actually being properly
decentralized due to the fact that either between
them and Cloudflare as a DNS solution, there's
bottlenecks everywhere. Yeah, it's a massive
infrastructure problem at this point in time.
I would agree, certainly. it's why we need people
that are like dedicated to the project that don't
need to be making you know 150 an hour to work
that it's those people sadly the world's built
on people on the backs of people that no one
remembers and and those are the people that we
need right now more than anything We need the
people that are willing to put the time in to
do the infrastructure to, you know, like run
the wires as it were. Well, I think I think we're
seeing some pull in in the in the background.
One thing I did want to run by you guys is the
counter argument to the centralization or proof
of stake validators in the cloud is, well, if
you were to look at. The majority of the hash
power and any proof of work blockchain, it comes
from a single digit number of mining pools. Usually
like three, four or five mining pools provide
the majority of the hash rate. It's still centralized
in that manner. So is there credence to that
argument or not from your perspective? With inside
those pools, you've got all the individual miners
and companies within those pools. So they can
still choose to move to a different pool tomorrow
if they want to. So there is that that needs
to be considered. It certainly depends on the
projects. Distributed when it comes to the geographic
area. Yeah, and some projects are only mined
on one pool. Like when you're doing spec mining,
for instance, there's something like currently
what I'm spec mining, a project called Nexa.
And it's only able to be mined on one pool. And
it's some random obscure Russian pool. I know
people that are really close friends with him.
They're devs. He doesn't speak English, apparently.
They're really good friends with him. And they
vouch for him. I know him like intimately, like
he's a really good friend of mine. So like I
can trust him and he trusts this guy with his
life. So that's like why I can trust one pool
right now with 100 % hash rate on Nexa. But there's
also like three pools that have been working
on figuring the code out, but they're just, no
one's willing to just give it to them. So we
do have a question from the audience. UK Miners
Club writes, panel question, what's your thoughts
on hosting on Flux? Public wouldn't know it was
decentralized. Does it even matter to general
public? So I assume you're referring to something
like hosting your website or your workload on
a Flux node, which is decentralized cloud token
incentivized public infrastructure network. It's
not about whether the public cares or not. It
matters whether the solidarity of the project's
there. The public's opinion doesn't matter in
crypto. And I think every bull run has proven
that. I think every bear market has made the
people that are all FOMO just cry a bunch. You
know what I mean? But there's more people behind
it. But the thing is, it will make a difference
to the public when your website doesn't go down
when AWS servers in the east of the US go down
and Facebook, WhatsApp, Netflix are all down,
but your website's still up. Every time I've
ever hosted a website, I've hosted it myself.
So if my internet was down, it was down. Let
me add on to that. UK miners, with the competitive
rates that they have for hosting, there's also
a business solution to be found there. Hey, if
the public doesn't care, well, I'm sure your
pocketbook might care more than them. But I mean,
that's look, you're going to find that the majority
of the people in this space, like even many of
the ones that watch my channels, they don't give
a rat's ass about the principle of the manner
that we were discussing right now, whether it
be the issues around big tech censorship and
collusion. They just want to know how to make
money. Correct. I mean, the biggest thing with
all of this is the fact that the people with
the money are the people that are in legacy industry.
And they can push their agenda through advertising
and through media relationships with legacy media
to push the agenda. Through pushing government
stipulations. The way they make the general public
care about a decentralized hosted website is
by informing them of what that means. And that's
why, say, I'm writing for someone like CryptoSlate.
Our goal is to keep our head down during the
bear market and hope that... through the next
bull run that that pays dividends because we
want to help educate people into what blockchain
is actually about um it's not just about pump
and dumps and trying to make a quick buck and
invest in because not everyone in the world even
has spare money to invest it's about building
a better infrastructure a fairer infrastructure
and it's being railroaded by a lot of the legacy
industries that are trying to make sure they
keep control of it one of the ways they're doing
that is by making sure that there's articles
written talking about how dumb crypto is um you
look like everybody's saying it's a Ponzi scheme
everybody on every it's like oh yeah it's totally
a Ponzi scheme there's no backing to it whatsoever
there's nothing backing it at all there's no
people working on it there's no devs sitting
there fucking slaving away making shit work yeah
yeah it's just a Ponzi scheme it's like you better
get in early yeah that's it that's the key to
crypto getting in early everyone that bought
pink chain They might not tell you about the
U .S. dollar. I bet per dollar amount or however
you'd like to quantify it. And adversely to Bitcoin,
you know, however you want to quantify the value
per that value, you're probably spending more
energy in total and more resources on that dollar
than you would Bitcoin. Oh, yeah, for sure. How
much military power do you need to go into it?
All the infrastructure for the bank, for the
Federal Reserve, all the people we pay to keep
this system going. And you can go on and on and
on and on per system that is being looted and
is about to collapse. But the thing is, it's
all obfuscated. So with Bitcoin, you see kilowatt
go in, Bitcoin come out. You can put the two
prices together and you can make it seem like
crypto is a waste of energy. It's bad for the
environment and it costs too much money. Or you
can see it as one of the most efficient forms
of generating money because it's only energy
that goes in and it's Bitcoin that comes out.
You say you can run a Bitcoin farm with two or
three people. Once you've got everything up and
running, it doesn't require all those people
you're just talking about that it requires to
run the dollar. And the thing that people miss
with all this is over the last 120 years, the
dollar's down 99 % in terms of what you can buy
with a dollar. The dollar is a shit coin. My
grandmother bought her house, which was a five
-bedroom house with a basement, backyard, porch,
front back porch, and two acres in the middle
of a city. she paid 2500 for it before she moved
out of that house and moved in with my aunt uh
she sold that house for like a half million dollars
and that was like 20 years ago you know what
i mean so it's like it's like the the inflation
price is just a devaluation price as far as i'm
concerned but 99 but the only reason that here
in the united states we're not we're not completely
you know the citizens themselves are not completely
suffering because this is because everywhere
else is down 99 .97 so we're slightly better
but we're still going off the cliff right after
them and and people people just think about it
as things are getting more expensive as opposed
to the fact that their money is worth less And
that's the difference that they've got control
of the narrative. So we need to carry on. Oh,
I just I just got a dollar fifty raise after
working here for five years. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
But bread's four dollars a loaf. Milk's eight
dollars a bag. Yeah, that's right, bitches. I
said bag. So someone in chat has just said that
most crypto projects are Ponzi's and very few
are worth anything. That's, again, just going
back to the fact of how early we are in this
sort of evolution of crypto, that we need there
to be 10 ,000 projects because we need to figure
out what's working. We need to get what we call
a product market fit for blockchain. Do we need
10 ,000 blockchains in the future? No, I don't
think so, unless they're layer twos or layer
threes built on other things. Do we need them
right now? Yeah, probably, because we need to
figure out what's right, what's going to work.
There is the aspect that there is a bunch of
blockchains right now and people are trying to
figure out codes and algorithms for different
solutions. They're trying to find solutions for
problems that haven't existed yet and haven't
been found a meshing point. But the situation
of whether it's a Ponzi is when you get someone
that's like pumping it, like say the Jake Paul
Zoo tokens off. you know like come the hell on
like anyone that i know that's worth anything
that knows anything about crypto is invested
in it has any hardware mining it nobody bought
that no one no one the only people that bought
that were like fanboys and people that know nothing
about the crypto industry so it's the exact same
it's those people that are saying that most of
these projects are ponzi's but that's not the
case like out of out of like say there's a hundred
thousand projects right now because there's probably
close to 60 000 in the works right now out of
them there's let's say 200 bad actors i would
say like that are active right now i'd say there's
about 200 bad actors i think you're being very
generous in terms of I'm not saying that they
couldn't easily mesh the project with another
current existing project. I'm not saying that.
I'm saying with the intentions of taking people's
money and going, fuck everybody. I don't think
it's as high as everybody thinks it is. Well,
maybe it doesn't have to be. I don't think that's
where the intention is. And the real difference
is there's scams outside of Web3 everywhere.
There's billions of dollars that people have
been scammed out of. Or solar panels and new
furnaces. Exactly. But with crypto, it's more
transparent. It's on chain. You can see the project.
Someone can write about it easily. It's not some
anonymous project calling people's grandparents,
trying to get them to send them gift cards that
doesn't have a face. Blockchain is sort of a
victim of its own benefits and features in that
how transparent it is. So you can see all of
these scams there and then. And I think for people
that are buying into small projects and calling
it a scam just because it doesn't work out, because
that's also a thing. These are all startups if
you're buying into a low market cap project.
Do you use, what's it called, Kickstarter? Or
would you... invest in your mate's new projects
that he told you about in a pub and he needs
100 quid and he's trying to crowdsource funding
for his new i don't know gym or something would
you invest in those the answer is no then you
probably shouldn't be investing in meme coins
either because you are investing in a project
by buying the tokens and people just see it as
oh just because other crypto projects went to
the moon then this one must do too because i
put my money in it you just need to understand
what you're actually doing when you're investing
in crypto because you it's investment um at the
end of the day i think too many people just think
it's free money i have a buddy who i was telling
to get into crypto back in like 2010 2011 like
just a buyout like buy some you know what i mean
like get a bunch of liquid cash and it's just
like just buy it hold it if you're just keeping
money and you're safe just buy it and hold it
oh it's just a scam it's just a scam he ended
up buying in when it was like 71 000 canadian
a bitcoin like the absolute crest of the peak
and goes in and buys like 40 grand worth and
then comes over to me and goes like six months
later comes over to me and goes oh i'm down like
all this money you told me to put this it's like
nah man i told you to put it in when it was going
up because i knew what the projects were you
went in because of fomo thinking oh yeah all
these people are saying it's gonna hit a hundred
thousand dollars for a bitcoin it's like no that
ain't happening Come on. Follow the markets.
It's the same patterns. The difference is, here's
a hot take again, I guess. I think that the bull
run this time is going to happen a lot sooner
than everyone's thinking. I think it's not going
to be 2024 or 20... I think it's going to be
2026. I don't think so. I'm saying wait till
like June or July and be surprised. All right.
We have conflicting opinions. So I want you both
to break this down and then we'll bring an end
to this podcast. Oh, we got to go first. Whoever
wants to go first. After you, Akiva. So. I mean,
you've got to look at the macro picture of everything
and it really depends on what happens this year.
If there ends up being like a war between China
and the US, I actually think that could be massively
bullish for Bitcoin. You saw it happen during
the start of the Ukraine war. You saw gold follow,
then come down and Bitcoin led. And it also depends
on what you're defining as a bull market. Do
I think we'll have the bottom of the market in
2023? Yes. So you could then argue that the bull
run starts in 2023 because if the bull run is
everything after the bottom of the market, then
I completely agree with you. I'm saying 70 %
from where we're at right now, at least. I think
we'll hit the bottom. I think we'll hit the bottom.
I think we'll hit it soon. I think we're going
to hit like 8 ,000 to 9 ,000 Bitcoin is what
I think personally after all this FUD and crap
with FTX. the the grayscale uh crap that's going
on right now like that's huge like if they have
to liquidate all the the gbtc like that's that's
insane like that's insane like you're gonna be
able to pick up bitcoin for like fractions what
it's so at 6 p .m gmt so whatever time it is
where you are now pretty much it's quarter past
six here now um our head researcher is doing
the weekly market report which is how the gbtc
premium the grayscale trade ruined barry silber
and his dcg empire and took crypto lending platforms
with them it's an incredible i edited it this
morning it's an incredible article and that I
think is one of the most important things that
you can read this weekend when it comes out tomorrow,
because it really highlights for me, which is
the biggest potential catalyst for a further
leg down at the moment. And that is the whole
DCG thing, because if they can't get themselves
out of where they're at, then it's going to be.
massive for bitcoin um and i think that could
flush out the rest of the weekends and that is
where i agree i don't know where the bottom is
going to be um but i could see that that leg
down being the end of it and then from there
i'm just looking at historic cycles so nothing
necessarily is going to be the case but when
you look at the you need to look at things like
what i tend to analyze is the the bottom of the
market to the price of the next halving the price
of the halving until the top of the market and
then from there until the bottom of the market
and looking at the where the halvings were in
each time and that they're expanding um fairly
uh systematically throughout and on that basis
if it continues in a similar trend then it wasn't
the utilization of cryptocurrency or the market
or the space at the last bull runs. That's what
you're not accounting for. And now there's a
utilization for it. There's a platform for the
everyday person. They're making cryptocurrency
ASIC submersion tanks for the home. OctoMiner
makes a submersion tank that they just released
on Christmas or something, slightly before Christmas.
And you can put an ASIC in it. It kills all the
noise and then it sublimates the heat through
liquid cooling into the room. But they're also
environmental controlled and so forth. You have
more everyday people picking up and not just
home miners. Can you quickly elaborate on why
you think the bull cycle will come in 2026? Me?
He thinks 2023. I think it's going to not...
to the peak this year but like i think that it's
going to go in in a way that people haven't haven't
expected it i think because of the crypto utilization
i think that there's a stableness behind certain
platforms like everyone always like causes all
this crap with cc and shit but like i don't have
a problem with him i don't have a problem with
the way he runs the platform i don't have a problem
with all those reserves i don't have a problem
with any of it And it's solid. I don't have a
problem with Coinbase with the exception of like
they kick me off their platform without telling
me why. That kind of pissed me off. But aside
from that, like, I don't think they're just going
to go poof. You know what I mean? Yeah, I get
what you're saying. There's people that are now
getting interested in the space in the bear market.
Whereas like before. people don't start getting
interested in the space until the full run. Yeah,
but if you look at Google Trends and stuff and
overall traffic in the space, it is still massively
down at the moment. And my thesis for why we're
going to be 2025 maybe is whenever you look at
any of the halvings, the halving event itself
isn't usually a catalyst. I'll bet you 10 ,000
Jasmine. Let's go. I don't know how much that
is. Doesn't matter. 10 ,000 Jasmine. Let's go.
I mean, I might be betting you like several million
quid. Yeah, fuck, maybe. By the time you got
to pay up 10 ,000 jasmine, let's go. This means
you got to go buy 10 ,000 jasmine right now for
dirt and hodl it till then. Well, yeah, okay.
Joe, you can get in on this too, man. 10 ,000
jasmine, Ben. Come on, when's your bull run?
When's their bet for the bull run? Come on, 10
,000 Jasmine. Look it up. Look at the price and
just come on. You can cough it up. It's like
literally you spend more on Diet Pepsi a week.
Come on. Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, me
too.