Udi Wertheimer | Layer Zero

Udi Wertheimer is a notorious persona on crypto twitter and is endlessly difficult to pin down. At the very least, Udi is an interesting and unique character, describing himself as a cynical optimist with a tendency to antagonize and troll. Udi is also insightful and pragmatic, constantly making connections and critiques of the space with a sharp eye and a relentless desire to call things out when he disagrees. He blurs a lot of lines, and you always have to be on your toes when Udi’s around. There’s value in having members in the community who never give the benefit of the doubt and act as a philosophical razor for the space. Udi is full of takes, and this conversation twists and turns through the entirety of crypto—trading, culture, communities, memes, the metaverse, and beyond. ------ 📣 ONJUNO | Crypto from your Checking Account! https://bankless.cc/OnJuno ------ 🚀 SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/ 🎙️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST: http://podcast.banklesshq.com/ ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 🍵 MATCHA | SMART ORDER ROUTING https://bankless.cc/Matcha 🚀 SLINGSHOT | LAYER 2 SOCIAL TRADING https://bankless.cc/Slingshot 🏦 GEMINI | TURN FIAT INTO CRYPTO https://bankless.cc/Gemini 🦁 BRAVE | THE BROWSER NATIVE WALLET https://bankless.cc/Brave 🦄 UNISWAP | DECENTRALIZED FUNDING https://bankless.cc/UniGrants ------ Topics Covered: 0:00 Intro 3:30 Udi, a Meme Tactition 9:08 Trading Ponzis 15:58 Not Changing the World 22:22 Optimism, Memes, Community 30:20 Winners & Decentralization 38:33 Composability & User Experience 42:14 SBF and Competition 49:10 Culture & Meme Communities 55:30 Bitcoin Twitter vs Bitcoin Reality 1:01:00 Pricing Values 1:06:30 Critique of Ethereum & Bankless 1:14:53 2022, Metaverse, Resolutions 1:22:19 Closing & Disclaimers ------ Resources: Udi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/udiWertheimer?s=20 ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/bankless-disclosures

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:13David Hoffman?

  Welcome to Layer Zero. Layer Zero is a podcast of unscripted conversations with the people that make up the Ethereum community. Crypto is built by code, but it's composed by people, and each individual member of the crypto community has their own story to tell. Cyberpunk's understood that the code they write impacts the people that use it, and Layer Zero focuses on the people behind the code, because Ethereum is people all the way down, and it always has been. Today, I'm talking with Udi Wertheimer, and Udi is one of the most interesting and unique characters, I think, in the crypto industry. He's frequently cited as a troll by many of the people in the Ethereum community, and

• 0:50David Hoffman?

  I think that's just because of his generally cynical and antagonistic disposition. And he likes to poke fun, he likes to make some funny jokes, but overall, he's also just really insightful and makes some connections that I think a lot of people fail to make or just forget to make, or just tends to be a little bit more pragmatic. And so I've always wanted to get Udi on in a much more unfiltered sense, so I think this is the perfect podcast for this, because Udi has a persona about him that it's hard

• 1:29David Hoffman?

  to tell if it's a facade, if he's like playing a role, or if that's actually Udi. So I'll let you determine for yourself what you think about that. Before we get into that conversation with Udi, we must hear about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. Arbitrum is an Ethereum scaling solution that's going to completely change how we use DeFi and NFTs. Over 250 projects have already deployed on Arbitrum, and Arbitrum's DeFi and NFT ecosystems are growing rapidly. Arbitrum increases Ethereum's speed by orders of magnitude for a fraction of the cost of the average gas fee. When interacting with Arbitrum, you can get the performance of a centralized exchange while tapping into Ethereum's level of decentralization and security. If you're a developer who wants low gas fees... and instant transactions for your users.

• 2:12David Hoffman?

  Visit developer off chain labs.com to get started building your application on Arbitrum. If you're a user, keep an eye out for your favorite DeFi apps or NFT projects building on Arbitrum. Many of your favorite apps are already live with many more coming over soon. You can find these apps at portal dot Arbitrum dot one, and you can bridge your assets over to Arbitrum using bridge dot Arbitrum dot I O in order to experience DeFi and NFTs the way it was always meant to be. Fast, cheap and friction free. When you shop for plane tickets, you probably use Kayak, Expedia or Google to compare ticket prices. So why would you limit yourself to just one exchange when you trade crypto? When you make your trades, you want to make sure you're getting the best possible price on your trade. And that's why you should be using Matcha. Matcha has smart order routing that splits your trade across all the various liquidity sources in Ethereum

• 2:56David Hoffman?

  and is also operational on Polygon, Avalanche, Finance Smart Chain and other chains. Trading on Matcha is super easy because it pools the liquidity for me in a single, easy to use platform and allows me to make limit on chain orders. So you can set and forget your DeFi trades and they will go through automatically while you're away. So when you're making a trade, head over to matcha dot X Y Z slash bankless and connect your wallet to start getting the best prices and most liquidity when you trade your crypto assets. Bankless is proud to be sponsored by Uniswap. Uniswap is a new paradigm in asset exchange infrastructure. Instead of a cumbersome order book system where trades are matched with other humans, Uniswap is an autonomous piece of software on Ethereum that lets you trade any token at the current market price.

• 3:39David Hoffman?

  No human counterparties or centralized intermediaries, just autonomous code on Ethereum. Input the token you want to sell and receive the token you want to buy. The Uniswap Grants Program is accepting applications for grants. Do you have something of value that you think you want to contribute to the Uniswap ecosystem? No matter how big or small your idea is, you can apply for a unique grant at uniswapgrant.org and help steer Uniswap in the direction that you think it should go. Thank you, Uniswap for sponsoring Bankless. Hey, Udi, how's it going? Hey.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Great. What's up?

• 4:10David Hoffman?

  No, nothing much, man. Trying to fight this onslaught of frogs that are in my Twitter mentions. I don't know if you saw that, because all of that antics on Twitter or not.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  It's always Twitter wars.

• 4:22David Hoffman?

  Always Twitter wars.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  I like the frogs.

• 4:24David Hoffman?

  Yeah, you're a friend of the frogs?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  I like the frogs. I want, I want to make sure the frogs here, they're like the frogs.

• 4:29David Hoffman?

  Yeah? Why, why, why do you like the frogs?

• 4:32Speaker 01

  I think it's, I think it's a cool meme. I like the meme.

• 4:36David Hoffman?

  What, what is the frog meme to you?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  It's all about the anti VC movement, isn't it? That's what it looks like. I don't know. You never know how real this stuff is. Like, if you're a VC, shouldn't you start a meme about being anti VC and pretend to not be a VC?

• 4:53David Hoffman?

  What would be, what would be the game theory behind that? Why would you want that?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, you always get a story, right? You know, there's a narrative for, to get people excited. That seems like a cool narrative now.

• 5:03David Hoffman?

  Are you talking about how like?

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Every coin starting out, like the big, the big thing that everyone has to say about it is that now these, the VCs, they got a location, they're trying to dump it on you. You know, there's the whole Jack Dorsey thing going on. There's a lot of memes around VCs right now.

• 5:19David Hoffman?

  Yeah. Um, are you saying that like, it's a, a tactic that people are leaning into?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  I mean, isn't everything? Yeah, for sure. It is. I'm a very cynical person, David.

• 5:34David Hoffman?

  Yeah, you are, you are quite cynical. Yeah.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:38David Hoffman?

  Udi, uh, how did you get into crypto?

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Man.

• 5:41David Hoffman?

  When was the first time Bitcoin sold a, you've been in it for so long, you forgot?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  It's like, it's probably been around, uh, roughly 2014 and, um, I, uh, I back then used to think that, you know, like, stuff like BitTorrent and, and decentralized file sharing is cool, like technologically, like I'm a software engineer by trade. So, I was excited by the technology behind it. Then someone told me about Bitcoin. I was like, hey, that's similar. So that's cool. And, um, and also I had some.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Brief experience with online poker. It wasn't really very good, but I I played like recreationally, you could say. I somehow managed to not lose money. And and um. I I believe there was this big. Event that they called the Black Friday of online poker, which I think was in twenty eleven, but I. I'm not sure anymore. And what happened was that, you know, the FBI. Kind of. Froze the funds of a bunch of uh big poker sites, and that's where a lot of poker players realized that their money. Isn't, you know, their digital money isn't really theirs. Because. You used to log in, you see a number, you say, okay, that's my money, and then one one day it's gone.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Um, so I kind of had this concept that I think a lot of people didn't have back then of. Well, most digital money isn't really yours. So that was easy for me to grasp how Bitcoin is different in that way, which I think a lot of people. You know, looked at me very. Confused when I would try to explain that. Um. So that's probably why I was excited about it. It took me a while, though, to. You know, get over my fears and to really dive in and. And look at it as an investment. That took a while, for sure. Uh. You know, I went through for I went through um. You know, this one hype cycle where.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  You know, I bought some Bitcoin, I saw it, I don't know, whatever it was, like triple in value fairly quickly. And then, you know, dump fifty percent fairly quickly again or whatever, and I was like stressed, so I was like, okay, I'll get out with my. Thirty percent gains. Feeling like a very smart person. And um took me a while to see that it's a long term thing. Um.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Which is probably how I, you know, I also kind of realized, okay, it's not just

• 8:22Speaker 01

  about the technology, to me at least, it's also, you know, there's a financial revolution going on here.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Probably when I started realizing that you can, you know, you can take your Bitcoin, you could put them in exchanges and you can, you know, you can use it, you can do stuff with it that I knew for a fact that I otherwise couldn't do.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Like, you know, I live in Israel, for me, back then it was very difficult to get, you know, to get an account in a foreign brokerage, right?

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Difficult thing, you have to go through hell to do that. But with Bitcoin, I was like, oh, I just deposit the thing, I can do whatever I want, that's amazing. And that's probably when things started to click. It was all Ponzi's, by the way, but still.

• 9:11David Hoffman?

  What do you, what was all Ponzi's?

• 9:12Speaker 01

  It was possible. I mean, the, you know, the things you could trade, it was mostly all Ponzi's. Definitely back then, you know, like,

• 9:21Speaker 01

  it was really ridiculous. Like, the altcoins of 2014 and 15 were absolutely insane. They were mostly jokes, like, I think most people saw them as a joke.

• 9:32David Hoffman?

  Did you, did you take any of them seriously?

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Uh, no.

• 9:38David Hoffman?

  And you didn't consider Bitcoin to be a Ponzi? You, you thought it was Bitcoin is the one thing and then it's just inside of it, it's a sea of Ponzi's?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I did. It was, I mean, it took me a while to see Bitcoin that way too, but yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  And, and I think

• 9:56Speaker 01

  it was easy to think that back then, right? Because the Bitcoin, the others were literally clones. Like, they literally, they took Bitcoin, they changed a couple of lines, they changed the logo and the name, and that's it, literally. That's all it was. So, so it was very easy to, to see them as jokes. And, you know, have you ever heard of?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Uh, what did they call it? Aurora Coin?

• 10:20David Hoffman?

  Oh, vaguely. Yeah, it's been a while since I've heard that name.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that was, it was hilarious because that was, I think, I think the story was that it was the coin of Iceland or something like that. And like, obviously, you know, obviously, the government had nothing to do with it. They, they were like, they're just saying, oh, we're gonna, I think they have, they claimed that the, the government has some sort of an open database of citizens. And they claimed that they would just airdrop a, a number of tokens to every citizen. And, and, um, but before they did the airdrop, there was like a long period of, I don't know, a month or two, where, where it was just, you know, they just sold it to the market.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  And then, you know, they pumped the price very nicely. It was, it was actually one of the biggest, everyone, everyone was talking about it because it grew spectacular, but it was a complete, you know, it was ridiculous. Obviously, I think it was obvious to everyone, this was not going to become the coin of Iceland.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  But, you know, people bought into the narrative and then, of course, you had dozens of other country coins, like people popped up with a Greek coin and a France coin, and they had a coin for every country. And obviously, like, you know, two to three months later, that stupid narrative died and it disappears. That's just one example, but that was, you know, just like everyone is talking about LEO ones and Metaverse now, back then, those three months, everyone was only talking about country coins. So.

• 11:58David Hoffman?

  I was about to ask, yeah, this, this, and these antics, this behavior seems very, very, um, a lot of parallels to some of the antics I think we see today in 2021. Would you agree with that?

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, for sure. Um, and you know, it's true for traditional markets too. I think it's just more pronounced here in crypto, a lot more pronounced. But, um, but yeah, it is similar. However, um, I think, you know, the quality of the jokes improved. They're, they're, they're not, you know, it's used to be so, so stupid. Really, it was, it was absurd. And I think, I think it has a lot to do with, um, um, you know, how a lot of the earlier Bitcoiners still see old coins as a complete joke because,

• 12:50Speaker 01

  you know, that's, that's what they were. Um, they really were. And I, I would say they've, they've improved somewhat. It's not like, you know, it's not like it's amazing now. They've improved somewhat.

• 13:02David Hoffman?

  Improved in what sense? What did they improve upon?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  I think so, you know, first of all, things, you know, there are actual things that work, right? That's a big difference. Um.

• 13:16David Hoffman?

  Okay. So they're going from Ponzi's to actually like legitimate projects with legitimate like things behind them.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  A lot of them are, a lot of them are still Ponzi's. So, you know, you, you like a cool thing to do now apparently is to do a, you know, a game, a play to earn game or whatever, and, um, attach some, uh, you know, attach a token to it and a lot of these tokens are going to name names. A lot of these tokens are really built as a Ponzi with 3D or 2D graphics, basically. And so a lot of them are still Ponzi's. But at least there's something going on. And also, you know, I don't mind if people want to participate in Ponzi's, be my guest there, you know? But, um, I would hope that they know.

• 14:03David Hoffman?

  Do you subscribe to the notion that every financial asset is a Ponzi at the end of the day?

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Um, you could say that maybe, and it's fine. Um, but uh, there's, you know, there are definitely a lot of dynamics around.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  You know, most token projects that you look at today, it's like their main focus is how to incentivize people to stake things for the long term or the short term or whatever. And like the entire focus of what you're doing is the Ponzi dynamics of it.

• 14:40David Hoffman?

  It's to make number go up, right?

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:43David Hoffman?

  I mean, but you could say that about like an, uh, a company on like the NASDAQ or, or, um, NYSE, right? Like the purpose of Apple is to make number go up. Right? It's the same thing, but there, the, I think the difference you're highlighting is like, well, in order for Apple to make number go up, they make really good iPhones and they make better and better iPhones. Whereas these games are more, they're, they're trying to make a fun game, but like, it's really about like where the intentions and how, how quickly they're trying to go after the token price rather than actual, like a legitimate product.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think probably at the end of the day, you know, some people will say that it's because of regulations, like Apple would have done the same things if it wasn't regulated that way. I, I, I think that's not true. I think that, um, the reason that it's happening is because that's what it's doing now. That's probably not going to continue forever. Uh, the demand for Ponzi's is at some point, I don't know when, but at some point it's probably going to die down a little bit. And, um, and then, you know, people will be forced to do something else to make number go up. Uh, right now it's easy and effective. So that's what people do.

• 15:58David Hoffman?

  Is it because crypto is just like filled with all these Ponzi's of different flavors and kind of always has been since the genesis? Is that one of the reasons why you're, you are, uh, describe yourself as cynical? Or were you cynical before you got into crypto?

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Oh, I was always cynical.

• 16:13David Hoffman?

  Always, always been cynical?

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a genetic thing, probably.

• 16:16David Hoffman?

  Yeah. Uh, did your, has your sense of humor changed, um, uh, by being in crypto? Or again, has your sense of humor always been what it is?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, probably, probably has been always similar, but um, but the topic changed.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's the same idea.

• 16:41David Hoffman?

  Did you, have you ever developed like a core thesis about crypto? Like, have you ever?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I, I have developed billions, billion core theses and I keep changing them all the time. I mean.

• 16:54David Hoffman?

  In that case, I don't think it counts as core. I think it just counts as thesis.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Uh, fair enough. It's a short-term core thesis. It's, it's designed, it's designed to be a core thesis, but then it fails.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  I think, you know, above all else, I um, and that I think, I think we probably talked about this before, actually, on one of the other podcasts. I think that um.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  To me, and I think to most people I see, it's not really about the technology, even though I'm kind of a technologist at heart. I don't think that that's the issue here. I think that the thing is that. We are finally able to just do whatever we want with our money and um. And that's very new relatively. And just, you know, because that happens, then, then a lot of crazy shit is gonna. It's gonna happen with it. I think that's, I think that's all it is. And it's very hard to predict like how it plays out.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  You know, I would imagine that the next year will be very different from than the next, than the, the last one.

• 18:12David Hoffman?

  You seem like a guy who um, rides the wave rather than tries to steer the ship.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I can say that. Yeah. Um, I think. Steering the ship is hard.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  It's hard. And it's, it's like.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  There are, you know, there are um. There are things you can affect in life, but um.

• 18:44David Hoffman?

  You know.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  The market, probably not a lot of them, right?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  If you try with the flow, I think that makes it easier to, you know, affect other things in your life that matter more, right? So I'm a big believer in um

• 19:05Speaker 01

  not trying to change the world.

• 19:08David Hoffman?

  Why unpack that? Why? Why do you believe in not trying to change the world?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  You know, um, Jordan Peterson has this thing where he says, clean your room, right? I don't know how cringe you think Jordan Peterson is. But he has this thing where he says, like, clean your room. And the point is, before you try to, you know, before you sit and try to describe how you should change the government, how you should change society, and how you should change, like, first, you know, figure yourself out. And

• 19:42Speaker 01

  and the, you know, the nice side about this, it's a feedback loop, right? Because if you, if you start with yourself, while also, you know, you integrate yourself in the world, you don't become a loner. Um, and you go with the flow where it comes to how society as a whole functions, while trying to affect, you know, yourself, your friends, your family, or your immediate community. Then, you know, you take power from the world, from society, and you use it to to change the things around you that you care about, that you care deeply about. I feel like that's the way to go, at least for me.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  But there are a lot of, you know, there are a lot of cool people who are changing the world, which I find amazing. That's amazing, too.

• 20:33David Hoffman?

  Well, isn't, isn't his notion of cleaning your room is like, if you're interested in changing the world, you've got to make sure that you are, it's like, um, you know, put your oxygen mask on first before you put it on your neighbor, right? I feel like that's, it's a similar metaphor.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:48David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's definitely also about, you know, um.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Like really, how can you think you can, you even can fix society if you haven't fixed, you know, if you haven't cleaned your room yet, right? And, and how can you even imagine that you can fix the government if you're, you know, if your family is dysfunctional?

• 21:10David Hoffman?

  Is your room clean right now, Udi?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, it is.

• 21:14David Hoffman?

  Clean room?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  I, I blurt, I blurt it out. I blurt it out, but it is clean. It is actually pristine.

• 21:21David Hoffman?

  Doesn't that mean that, uh, according to Jordan Peterson, you're ready to, um, uh, move and start to clean up the world? Uh, cause your room's clean. Step one is to, step two is to help.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  I might.

• 21:32David Hoffman?

  Change the world.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  I might. I don't, I, I really, you know, I don't have aspirations to change the world. Right? I, I don't like, what would I change? I think the world is fine. I know that we love to say in crypto that everything is going up in flames and we're the, we're gonna save everyone. I don't know. I don't think, I don't think the world, I'm old, David. I don't think the world is going up in flames. I think it's fine as it is. And, and you know, we have a unique chapter in the last year, but, um, I, I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic. So I don't want to change the world, but, um,

• 22:16Speaker 01

  but you're right. Um, there's definitely, there's definitely, uh, room to venture outside of the room.

• 22:22David Hoffman?

  You're, you said you're, you're an optimist rather than a pessimist? Yeah?

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:26David Hoffman?

  You're a cynical optimist. How do you?

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:30David Hoffman?

  Is that an oxymoron or how do you square those two things?

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, um,

• 22:37Speaker 01

  so, to me, at least in my mind, I use cynicism to.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Just, you know, just understand, understand the world, right? And I at least tell myself that it helps remove layers of fake narratives and, and that it just helps, at least helps me personally analyze things. And, and I, I just happen to, once you do that, things usually aren't that bad. Now that said, you know, a lot of things did go, you know, did get worse in the last couple of years. Um, I kind of, um, established a lifestyle of a digital moment, kind of, because I wasn't happy with how things were going back home.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  And so you could, you know, you could hold that a pessimistic view. But I think, you know, to me, um,

• 23:44Speaker 01

  to me, the nice thing is that, that, and especially, you know, for me, I'm, I'm lucky enough to be able to do that. Um, to be flexible and to position myself in a way that even if, well, my home country is kind of flipping out, so I can go somewhere else. And if, you know, my boss is annoying me, I can go somewhere else. So that's great. Um, I know that not everyone can do that, but, um, I think that's a good, you know, that's a great thing to strive for. And I think that's something that can give a lot of people optimism, you know, I, a lot of people are,

• 24:19Speaker 01

  you know, I, I feel like a lot of people are complaining about the situation that the world puts them in. But will actually

• 24:31Speaker 01

  easier to feel hopeful when you feel like you can change things for yourself and for the people you care about. Instead of changing everyone around you, which I'm just not interested in doing anymore. Too old for them, too old, they can do whatever they want.

• 24:46David Hoffman?

  If there was one thing about the crypto industry that you could snap your fingers and change, what would it be? Or is this something that you don't even consider because this is just not what you think about?

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an interesting question.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Probably the meme coins, right? They're so triggering.

• 25:06David Hoffman?

  The meme coins trigger you?

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Man, it's, um,

• 25:12David Hoffman?

  It's funny that you say that because some people would call you yourself a meme.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  But I'm not a meme coin, that's the difference. Like, memes are great. Memes are fantastic. I love memes. But meme coins,

• 25:32Speaker 01

  you know why people are so frustrated about them, right? Like, I'm not the only one.

• 25:36David Hoffman?

  Of course.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  It's, I think it's the, it's the, it's the text messages. You get, you get a text message from a friend from high school, and he's like, hey, I heard you're into Bitcoin or Ethereum, okay, so like, so what do you think about, uh,

• 25:50David Hoffman?

  Chib?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Fluffy Inu?

• 25:52David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  And I'm like, come on, man. Like, I don't even, what, what, what do you even say? And you don't want to, and you don't want to say, don't buy it, because maybe it goes, you know, maybe 10 X's tomorrow, I don't know. I don't want to be responsible for that. So like, I don't know. I don't know what to, you know, and then I know a lot of people on the Bitcoin side are very frustrated about it, and I'm sure a lot of people on the Ethereum side are very frustrated about it too, that, that, that you feel like, oh, there are so many things that I'm eager to talk to you about, that I'm eager to show you, and that are, you know, that are exciting, and, and that could change your life, and you're talking to me about this dog coin.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  And then, to make it worse, they make money too. Like,

• 26:44Speaker 01

  it's terrible.

• 26:47David Hoffman?

  Do you think that we're, I kind of think that the world's only going to lean more into memes. I kind of think that, like, we are now living in, like, remember in 2017 when the Arizona Iced Tea Company added blockchain to their name, and then their stock price, like, 3Xed or whatever? Like, that was indicative of what, what was to come, I, I think. Like, Dogecoin is now a force to be reckoned with, Chib is a force. I think we're leaning into more and more meme coins. And I think with crypto, we actually start to, uh, uh, kind of just change the game of what it means to invest. So like, now, now there's the fundamentals, but then now there's also like, all right, well, how good is the meme at the same time?

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:30David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:31David Hoffman?

  Which is kind of, in my mind, it's a little nihilist. It's like a little, uh, nothing matters, therefore, like, like, F it, I'll just ape into Chib, because nothing matters.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's um.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Well. If you think back, uh, you know, about.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Let's say when you started up out with Ethereum. Uh, I don't know much about that period in your life, but I can, I can imagine, I can guess that um. You probably, I mean, I'm sure that you saw a lot in the technology and I'm sure you saw a lot in kind of the opportunity to build. But also, I'm sure you saw, you know, a community. And, and, and a chance to belong.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  With like-minded people who have similar motivations to you. And now if you're, you know, if you're an investor in your very early twenties, right? Sometimes even younger and um. So first of all, your motivations are not going to be about the tech. You don't care. You don't understand it. You don't care to understand either and it doesn't make you a bad or stupid person, just not one of your interests, right? You have other interests in life. And the reason you, you're doing any of this is because. Well, you can't. You will never own a home, right? If you just continue working as an Uber driver, that's not going to work. So you have to try other things. That.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  I have no issue with whatsoever. I think it's. It's excellent. And then you find a community of like-minded people who are saying, look, I'm gonna try anything. I will try anything to to get out of this rat race. And now you belong to that community. And whether or not like, I don't know whether or not are you, is it actually gonna work for you? It's mostly a lottery. I don't know, but maybe, but you are gonna be with those people, with those like-minded people and I think if you stick around with the people, not with the coin. Then eventually you'll probably find something that works. So.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  So that's okay. Um, the, the, the counterpoint though is, you know, those meme coins have such short lives sometimes, not all of them, but sometimes. So like, how long is this community gonna last? Um, but if you, if you pick correctly, I think there could be something there, maybe.

• 30:21David Hoffman?

  Do you have opinions as to which, uh, blockchains, which currencies, which tokens actually like quote unquote win out? Like, do you, do you have, uh, desires about what the end state of crypto looks like?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Um.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  I doubt that it, I doubt that the winners are gonna be the names we're familiar with now.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Maybe some of them.

• 30:56David Hoffman?

  Does that include Bitcoin?

• 30:59Speaker 01

  I don't know if Bitcoin even competes like it. It's, I think that, you know, like who's competing with Bitcoin right now, you might, you'll probably say Ethereum, but, but, um.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  I think it's, you know, I think it's very different, right? And, and I, I, I just don't think, you know, I think when I think of who's competing in crypto, I'm like, you know, Binance and FTX and Solana and, and, and, and, you know, whatever. I don't need to say all the names and then there's gonna be probably new ones. And I don't know, like, does just JP Morgan get into that? Can they, can they play that game at all? I don't know, like, who knows, but, um.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  It still seems early enough to say who's gonna win. And Bitcoin is just, I don't know, I don't know, man, it's just money. It's just, it's just like, money is a big word. It's just like, it's literally digital gold, I think. And, and that's.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  You don't talk about, you know, digital gold, like physical gold competing with, with Apple stock.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  So I don't know, I don't know what's, it's different.

• 32:13David Hoffman?

  Do you think that there, there are winners though?

• 32:19Speaker 01

  I think, you know, so they're, okay, so they're gonna be, they're, they're, they're a bunch of variables, right? If we're talking about the smart contract thing, um, I think that

• 32:31Speaker 01

  I would imagine as we go on and assuming that this becomes mainstream, it still did not, right? Like, I guess NFTs is one thing that kind of went mainstream. And the rest of it didn't really. Um, so, so let's, let's take the NFT example. I would imagine that, and you know, in, in two, three years from now, assuming NFTs are still around, then probably, uh, people will not know which chain their NFT is on and which chain the, the marketplace is on. And they're just gonna have an app on their phone, they're gonna use it,

• 33:10Speaker 01

  and they're not gonna be exposed to bullshit like transactions and gas and whatever, it's just gonna work. And then, does it even matter who powers it? I'm not sure, like, the, eventually in the end state, does it matter? I don't know, like, what do you gain from being the infrastructure of that? I'm not sure that anything, because, again, like, you could say, okay, some networks will try to, you know, attach the tokenomics of their preferred token to the usage of the network. But if you do that, then long-term, they just want to use your token, because why would they pay you?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  They could use AWS, especially for NFTs, right? It's just, you know, you don't need anything. So, so they'll go, I, what I'm trying to say is, I think eventually, as time goes by, that will move, and that can take years, but that will move to probably just the cheapest option. I don't know what that is, but that's probably where, and, and people won't even know what they're using. So I don't know, I don't even know what it means to win that in the long term. In the short term, sure.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Someone will, you know, win big, at least in, in things like, you know, market cap and price and, you know, the, the war seems to have been picking up a lot of steam lately, so.

• 34:40David Hoffman?

  If you think that a bunch of users won't care about what system, what chain that their NFTs are on, or they won't know, they won't even care to investigate, and they're just gonna migrate to the cheapest option. In your mind, does that simultaneously also mean that people just don't care about decentralization? And then they'll just go to the most centralized chain, because that's how you get cheap fees?

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, it depends what you're doing, right? Like, if, if I'm, I'm not, but if I were to provide liquidity to some shitcoin with a hundred million dollars, maybe I would care a lot about decentralization. Maybe I would be concerned and about, you know, people having control over this, and I would want to remove as many trust assumptions as I can, because it's a lot of money. But if I'm buying penguins, why would I care? Like, I don't, I don't think you care. I don't think most people care. That's fine, I don't think it's, I don't think it's a bad thing.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  The fact that they can do this at all owes some credit to decentralization. If you didn't have a coin you can pay with, then you couldn't do any of this, because PayPal isn't going to let you do this, and, and, you know, like, whoever isn't going to let you do this.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  You know, there are some NFT drops that you can buy with a credit card, but they're definitely not gonna let you do the marketplace thing with, with, with a credit card, usually. Although I think that NBA Top Shot did that, I think they did.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  But it's complicated. So, so you go back to centralization. And, and maybe that's how things kind of progress. So you're gonna have these apps that are mostly centralized, not entirely centralized. But maybe they will use, uh, stablecoins or ETH or Bitcoin or whatever is their currency. Um, that kind of makes sense to me. But I don't think that, I don't think that people will care too much about decentralization. Now, that, that depends on the people, right? Like if you're in your early Ethereum community member. And you, you know, you bought or got Punks early.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Or you got, you know, one of the other ones early and you were like, this is part of your identity and you believe in that, that might never change. And, and maybe you're gonna continue focusing on, on owning that with your own keys and whatnot. That's fine. Maybe that community is gonna keep doing that. But that's, you know, that's what I'm saying is that's gonna become a niche. And if this thing stays mainstream, you know, new people aren't gonna care about this history. Like, they'll be like, okay, if I can afford this, we'll talk about it then. But until then, uh, they're not gonna, they're not gonna care about this. So I, I can't imagine they would. It's kind of, it's almost like, you know, right now, it's like, uh, it's an obstacle they have to go through.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  And, and, you know, we, we see everyone, uh, making fun of, you know, base C holders right now. Uh, for losing their keys and, and whatever, because, and it's easy to make fun of them, but like, what are they supposed to do? They just found out about this. And it is confusing. And if it was a centralized app that you download to this, to your phone, and it won't happen. And you know Coinbase is going to get into this more heavily and there probably going to be others and

• 38:22Speaker 01

  and I would imagine that they'll

• 38:25Speaker 01

  try to push the more custodial centralized approach because honestly, I think for most people it's better. It's a better user experience.

• 38:32David Hoffman?

  So I do agree that leaning into like maximum decentralization on your assets is like super not appropriate for newbies until they know what they're doing. But I feel like there's such a the easy answer to that is like, well Coinbase has their NFT platform coming out and it's going to be a custodial centralized thing. That should be where people start and then being able to withdraw it because they've also indicated that the Coinbase NFT platform isn't going to be a walled garden. You're going to be able to put your apes in and move your apes out. And so like, it's going to be like, so long as you have the ability to like live a decentralized life by like doing your stuff on decentralized things. I think you'll be able to easily like migrate between centralized platforms like, you know Coinbase's NFT platform and

• 39:17David Hoffman?

  you know, whatever decentralized version of OpenSea comes up. How do you feel about that version of the future?

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it sounds it sounds reasonable.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  But even then, like, why do you, why do you ever

• 39:37Speaker 01

  NFT

• 39:40Speaker 01

  to a decentralized platform rather than moving it to another centralized platform? So like, let's say you buy it on Coinbase. Now you want to sell it. You want to sell it and you believe that maybe for whatever reason you can get better price on another platform. So that will be a reason to move.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Honestly, that's the only reason I can think of to move. I mean, you can say, oh, I want the custody of my NFT, but like, what does it mean, man? Like, it's a penguin, like. I don't, I don't know. I mean, I, I, I really don't know what it means. I don't know. I don't know why would anyone want that? Again, fine. You know, if you buy, I get it. You buy an NFT for it for a million bucks or 10 million bucks or 50 million bucks, then okay, maybe you'll have some thoughts about custody then, but like if it's.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  What are we concerned about? That Coinbase is gonna steal your NFTs? That they're gonna get hacked and people are gonna steal the NFTs? Like, that strikes me as ridiculous. You know, if that happens, then Coinbase will reissue the NFT, like, you know?

• 40:51Speaker 01

  It feels absurd to talk about that.

• 40:53David Hoffman?

  Well, I think rather than like the technical properties of decentralization, like if you want to do like Money Lego type stuff with your NFTs, you want your NFTs to be composable, you kind of have to have self custody over it.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, you don't necessarily have to. You can have composability with centralized APIs too, but so far that's not really what's happening. So I get what you're saying there. If you want to, you want it to, to use it and leverage it in other apps that are not marketplaces.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe Coinbase isn't gonna offer you all the services you want. Yeah, okay.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  I can, I can kind of see that, but that's, that's really like the, you know, at least for now, that's the very sophisticated end of the market. When it comes to tokens, when it comes to coins, an NFT doesn't really exist significantly yet. So could it happen? Maybe, yeah. I just, I just, I feel like it's probably gonna be, probably gonna remain sophisticated thing, sophisticated people do.

• 42:15David Hoffman?

  Udi, who are your heroes in the crypto world? Do you have any, anybody that you look up to?

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Oh, man. I mean, come on. Obviously, Sam Bankman-Fried, like, that's the default answer. Yeah, yeah. I think, look, the guy showed up, what was it, 2017? And he just bootstrapped an empire at a time when...

• 42:43Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny, but back then, everyone thought like, hey, if you don't have an exchange running by now, that's it. You're done. It's gonna be Betrex forever, or whatever it was back then. I guess Binance.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  And I mean, he bootstrapped an empire very quickly. I think that's amazing. And um.

• 43:06David Hoffman?

  What about Sam? Is it just his accomplishments that you have a ton of respect for?

• 43:12Speaker 01

  No, so I was about to say, and the, you know, the, the thing I really admire is that he's, um, he seems to be very flexible. In his um, thinking. So.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  You know, I, I, I.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  At least from what I can see publicly, seems to change his mind fairly often. And he adapts to new information very quickly and very well. And I. I think that's a very likable.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Ability to have. So, I mean, he's really good at it.

• 43:51David Hoffman?

  He's really good at changing his mind?

• 43:54Speaker 01

  I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good, look, the world changes so often in the last couple of years that I think you, you need to be very flexible. In the way you look at things.

• 44:05David Hoffman?

  Crypto moves so much faster than the outside world. And so I think inside of crypto, there is benefit to changing your mind less. Because crypto moves.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  In the anchor, right?

• 44:17David Hoffman?

  Yeah, you need an anchor, right? You need a reference point. So like, sure, like being able to adapt is really, really useful. But if you're trying to adapt as fast as crypto is, like, you're probably a retail person who's just trying to chase pumps.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  You know, if we're talking about Sam, then I, I'm.

• 44:40David Hoffman?

  Yeah, no, I'm not.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure Sam has, yeah, I'm pretty sure he has some deeply rooted beliefs. As an anchor.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  And if.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  If you're asking about me, um, then I think that.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Again, what I find exciting about all this is that we can finally do whatever we want with, you know, just money.

• 45:14David Hoffman?

  Doesn't that require decentralization? Because the whole point about we can do whatever we want is enabled by permissionlessness, which is required, which requires decentralization.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I've been thinking about this a lot for years, really, and surely you have too. And

• 45:33Speaker 01

  the way I see it these days is that I think, it's funny because a lot of, you know, back in the 2015, 16, 17 block size wars in Bitcoin, which are kind of mythological at this point.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  A lot of the losers of that debate used to say what I'm gonna say now, which is that there are multiple ways to go about decentralization, like, you know, there's the Bitcoin way, which is very protective and defensive and tries to imagine the worst things that could happen, optimize for that, which is why I think Bitcoin will flourish in a doomsday scenario of the world. Just don't know that I particularly want that to happen. But I think Bitcoin is great for that. And

• 46:35Speaker 01

  there are other approaches which are gonna say, okay, technically, there are definitely switches that you could

• 46:45Speaker 01

  use to turn off a thing.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  But the existence of multiple competing platforms with different switches and different jurisdictions and different individuals, and some of them are anonymous and others are not. And some of them are in Singapore and others are in the Bahamas and others are the US, God forbid. And, you know, and all of those differences between them, they ensure continuity of the movement. Is one of those gonna fail? Probably yes, at least one, probably, but.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  You don't necessarily have to have the most robust, reliable option. It's very unlikely that the most robust and the most reliable option will be the only one that survives. Because for that, they will have to be able to attack everything else which has different weaknesses. So that's hard, you know? So they'll probably go after some of it. You know, one thing that is very central to this whole thing, obviously, is Tether and U S D C and the others. Those seem like very obvious targets. But even there, we have multiple and we don't have only one and they're different approaches. I feel fairly confident that, you know, at least some of them will stick around.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  So, and I think that's a better way because I don't know if, you know, I don't know what the best approach is. Like you could say if some stablecoins are more decentralized than others, but are they better? I'm not sure because they have their own issues and their own problems. So I think it's great to have multiple options. That's what true decentralization is. We don't know which one is going to get attacked harder and more effectively. So we have a lot of them. I think that's the way to go. And Ethereum is much less likely to fall than, let's say, Solana. It's much more likely Ethereum will stick around for the long term than that Solana would.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  But, um, but it's still not guaranteed in my mind. So I'm happy there are other approaches. Um, that's how I look at it.

• 49:10David Hoffman?

  Who else other than Sam in the crypto industry do you consider a hero?

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Ah, Hal Finney seems to have been a really cool guy.

• 49:22David Hoffman?

  Do you think he's Satoshi?

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Well, who knows? I wouldn't really know. I think it seems like it's um, seems like it's possible, but

• 49:34Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't have anything smart to say about it.

• 49:37David Hoffman?

  Okay.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 49:39David Hoffman?

  What about um, outside the crypto industry in the real world? Do you have any heroes there?

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Well, I showed some affinity to Jordan Peterson already. Um.

• 49:54David Hoffman?

  Why, why Jordan Peterson?

• 49:57David Hoffman?

  Are you religious?

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Um, no, I'm not. Uh, I'm not religious, but I um,

• 50:06Speaker 01

  you know, I'm lucky to

• 50:10Speaker 01

  to have uh, to have friends who are uh, and each in their, you know, I'm not gonna mention them, but each in their own way, I find to be some of the most uh, you know, moral and upstanding members of whatever community they want to be a part of. And productive, so really just great human beings. Um, and it might be a coincidence, but that's, that's, that's, that's my impression. That's the kind of the luck I had, meaning uh, people who do consider themselves religious. So I, even though, you know, I grew up in an environment that, you know, look,

• 50:54Speaker 01

  looks at religious people kind of funny. Um, I actually appreciate religious people a lot. And while I'm not myself, I find that, you know, there's a blurb

• 51:09Speaker 01

  from what, you know, people of faith believe.

• 51:13David Hoffman?

  Udi, do you consider yourself a lone wolf, or are you a part of a community somewhere?

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I think, so I still, I still consider myself a Bitcoiner, even though the Bitcoin community is very angry at me most of the time, but like

• 51:31David Hoffman?

  Aren't they angry at everyone all the time?

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Well, they're angry at a lot of people, that's true.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Um, so is the, some niches of the Ethereum community. And when I'm saying some niches, it's true for, it's true for Bitcoin too, right? Because a lot of people, look, most of the Bitcoiners I know are, are not, well, probably not most by numbers, but the Bitcoiners I'm closest to, I didn't meet on Twitter and I met them in real life. And they're, you know, they're nothing like the personalities that you do meet on Twitter. That's kind of a small sect of what Bitcoiners are. I think most Bitcoiners are, you know,

• 52:21Speaker 01

  fairly pragmatic, like, look, if, to be honest, if you, if you, if, if you're someone who was early-ish to Bitcoin, then you're probably somewhat insane. If, if, if you bought Bitcoin early and stuck around, then there's probably something wrong with you. Um, but it, it worked out.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  So, so yeah, you're gonna have, you know, those people are colorful, they're interesting. Um, but most of them are great people.

• 52:55David Hoffman?

  So, uh, we started off this conversation talking about, about the frogs. And I, I kind of think that like, there's a significant amount of overlap between like, the cyber hornets and like the frog nation. Like the, the Bitcoiners will like come after you if you say something dumb. And, and it feels very much in the same way that the frogs will, will do the same. Do you agree with that?

• 53:18Speaker 01

  I think, uh, I mean, I think it's a strong community. And

• 53:25Speaker 01

  I don't, look, this, this happens, but I don't think that's the

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Main thing I see from them, you know, I don't feel like that's the.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Okay, so not from the frog people and the Bitcoiners.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  I think it's gotten worse this year. I don't know if I don't know if it's me that started to notice it more. Well, not this year, last year, but I don't know if it's me that noticed it more or if it really did get worse. Uh, but I I feel it feels like it got worse.

• 54:02David Hoffman?

  Define worse.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Well, I think, you know, I think a lot of the more moderate people kind of disappeared and what was left was.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Just very extreme and. You know, I'm fine. I'm I'm not known as being the nicest person in the world and it's I'm I'm fine with people not being super nice. On Twitter, I don't think it particularly matters if you're nice or not nice. It's like. Whatever, you know, people have their own personalities, but um.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  There's this um. There's this disdain to. Any form of knowledge, really, which is alarming, like people refuse to even. Look into stuff, you know, when I used to. You give, you know, you hearing people shit all the time.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  At least I knew what I was talking about technically. You know, like at least I.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  You know, I did my homework, right? Now, a lot of my analysis was wrong, but at least I.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  You know.

• 55:22David Hoffman?

  Was was analyzing, yeah, analyzing, yeah.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  So. And the the I think the reason that matters is.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Um.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  It just looks bad. When you, when you, when you.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  When you decide that you have to talk very confidently, very negatively about something that's clearly you do not understand at all.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Um, then it's a, it's just a bad look. And these days, I think that a lot of the people who are new, like I, I think most of the people, if not all of the people who get to Bitcoin these days. Almost without a doubt, went through some other coin before they got to Bitcoin.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  And I, I think that's great, but if, if you. They will spot the, you can't fool them because they're not idiots. They know, like, you know, imagine you, you, you log, you log into Twitter. You're only like two, you have two months of experience in crypto. Then this Bitcoiner shows up who has whatever, he's holding Bitcoin for I don't know how many decades. And he's telling you, no, you don't get this and you don't get that. And that's not how it is. And that's not, and he's like, but dude, I, you do not know what you're talking about. I have two months of experience. I know more than you. That's not a good look.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  That's not very impressive. And. And again, that's, I think that's not Bitcoiners. I don't think that's the Bitcoin community. That's a small sect that unfortunately uh, became one more seen as representative of the Bitcoin community. Then, I mean, you know, I, I, of course I can, we can wax poetically about how there's no official representative and there's no that, but that's what people see, you know, they log in. There's a bunch of people with a Bitcoin logo and there's their profile picture and that's what they see. So that's what people perceive as. Bitcoiners and that's a problem. I, I hope that changes. I think, I think.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  There's a.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Um, because I think it's kind of jumped the shark last year and.

• 57:47David Hoffman?

  What about Bitcoin?

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Optimistic about that too. Well, not Bitcoin. Bitcoin is great. Bitcoin doesn't need anything.

• 57:53David Hoffman?

  Oh, the Bitcoin community?

• 57:56Speaker 01

  The loud parts of the Bitcoin community, yeah. Yeah. Because, again, a lot of, you know, I mean, what's, you know, what's the Bitcoin community? The early Ethereum community is a Bitcoin community too, right?

• 58:11Speaker 01

  A lot of people who are Bitcoiners are also, you know, they're dabbling in shitcoins. They might not even call them shitcoins. Some of them do, some of them don't. Some of them see a lot of interest in NFTs. And I think that will continue. Some people were kind of afraid to talk about that. I see that changing too.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  So I am optimistic about this. I think there is a chance that it will get better.

• 58:42David Hoffman?

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• 59:24David Hoffman?

  Slingshot is a decentralized trading platform that combines the performance and ease of a centralized exchange with the openness and transparency of DeFi. Slingshot aggregates liquidity from all of DeFi in order to find the best price on thousands of crypto assets. Every token on Slingshot comes with a price chart and trade logs to give you insights into the market's activity in real time. Slingshot is available on Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism, saving you from the high gas fees and low transaction fees of the Ethereum L1. There are no fees to trade on Slingshot, and any positive slippage is given to the users. Trading on Slingshot is a social experience. You can even set your chat avatar to your favorite NFT, or soon, a Slingshot 2099 NFT avatar. Once you bridge your assets to Polygon, Arbitrum, or Optimism, go to app.slingshot.finance to trade

• 1:00:07David Hoffman?

  and use the chat box to share your trades with others and find other tokens to ape into. The Brave browser is the user-first browser for the Web3 internet with built-in privacy and ad blocking to keep you in charge of your digital footprint. Inside the Brave browser, you'll find the Brave Wallet, the first secure crypto wallet built natively inside of a Web3 crypto browser. Web3 is freedom from big tech and Wall Street. More control and better privacy. But there's a weak point in Web3: your crypto wallet. The Brave Wallet is different. Brave Wallet is built natively inside the Brave browser. No extension required, which gives the Brave Wallet an extra level of security versus other wallets. With the Brave Wallet, you can buy, store, send, and swap your crypto assets, and you can even manage your NFTs and connect to other wallets and DeFi apps, all from the security of the best privacy browser on the market.

• 1:00:51David Hoffman?

  Whether you're new to crypto or a seasoned pro, it's time to switch to the Brave Wallet. Download Brave at brave.com/bankless and click the Wallet icon to get started. How strong do you think the correlation is between the goodness of a community and the value of an asset on the secondary markets?

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Well, look, there is in the sense that, I mean, you need people to hold the thing, and one of the reasons that they're going to continue to hold the thing is the, you know, the quality of the memes. We talked about this before. So the community does affect things. And, you know, I think, you know, like Michael Saylor was probably at least partially kind of orange-pilled by some of the more prominent Bitcoin community members. So it has an effect, for sure.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  But again, the Bitcoin community is not what we see on Twitter. You know, like, there's so many people who hold Bitcoin and don't even bother to... they don't care what happens on Twitter. They don't even know it exists. They don't buy Bitcoin books, and they don't watch Bitcoin podcasts, and, you know, they have better things to do in life. And might be just as influential, if not more influential. They just do it in other ways. So...

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  Yes, community matters. I'm not sure that this is really the community. It looks like it is, but I, you know, like, a lot of these people, honestly, don't wanna be a dick about it, but honestly, they joined fairly recently. They don't hold a lot of Bitcoin. So, you know, how much, how much effect on the market can they have? Um.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  So, you know, we have to put it in perspective, and I think that Bitcoin is bigger than all of us, really. Um, I don't think that our little fights are gonna change the long-term trajectory of Bitcoin. Uh, but I care about short-term too, and I think, you know, if

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  it's kind of, um, can you imagine, you know, there's some people, this is something, for example, that I haven't seen in the Ethereum man ever. There are people in Bitcoin community who would say, um, we don't want, they say that explicitly, we don't want people to join if they don't understand the greatness and importance of our ideals and our morals. And if they're not gonna run their own node and, and, and mix their coins and, uh, whatever is the, any of the month is, um, then they're not real Bitcoiners. We don't want them. And if they're not gonna do it, that's great. And that, to me, is reprehensible. It's like,

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  if you truly believe that this thing is gonna improve people's lives,

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  and you actively dissuade them from using it, well, yeah, how do you, how do you reconcile that exactly? Like, that's, that's insane. That's, I mean, or evil, I don't know. If you truly believe that it's a good, you know, that Bitcoin is a

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  It's gonna improve people's lives and then you actively want them to stay out, then you're a pretty bad person.

• 1:04:37David Hoffman?

  So the maybe this is kind of what you're referring to when like some parts of the Bitcoin community like jumped the shark. And I kind of think that like some of this energy comes from

• 1:04:50David Hoffman?

  parts of the Bitcoin community just wants to signal to the other parts of the Bitcoin community like,

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 1:04:54David Hoffman?

  I'm a big Bitcoiner. Like, look how much of a Bitcoiner I am. This is where I draw my maxi line. You have to be at least this maximalist for me to acknowledge your existence. That's kind of what I think is going on.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah. And I think it's a very, um, I think it's very similar to what, you know, what happened with the so-called uh, social justice warrior movement. Um, things just go, you know, it starts from, I'm not, you know, I wouldn't consider myself a progressive person at all, but I think that the uh,

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  original basics, basic ideas are

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  at the very least, well-intentioned, at the very least. So it starts with definitely good intentions and then it just gets more and more and more extreme and you becomes a competition of who's more extreme and at the end, it's almost unrecognizable, right? Like it's, it becomes, seems like insanity and it's a cult.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  And I think if we don't stop, that's where we, that's where we end up. Uh, we've already gone quite a long way, but if we don't, if we don't stop, I think that's where we end up and um,

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  and it's funny, it's sad and funny to see, you know, a community that a lot of, you know, a lot of participants consider themselves very right-wing, but they still fall to the same trap.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  So I guess it's not about size anyway. It's just human behavior.

• 1:06:30David Hoffman?

  Yeah. What was your biggest critique of the Ethereum community?

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Uh, it's it's similar. I don't think that the Ethereum community is largely toxic, but I think that um. Um.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  I see a lot of examples of people who, in my opinion,

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  just don't notice what people's motivations are. And I think that's where the Bitcoin thing comes from too. Like you, you don't understand what people are looking for. And it almost, I mean, the Ethereum community doesn't seem to have gone to the extremities that the Bitcoin communities have in the sense of really like ridiculing people for for their beliefs um and their motivations. Definitely gone far enough as to not understand them at all and to kind of just say, okay, so they're wrong. And it's the centralization thing and how the other things are less decentralized.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I'm sure you can imagine, we had those debates in the Bitcoin community so many times. That's what people said about Ethereum. That's what they said about many other things. And it's like they're they're not despised and they're bad. And so that so for that reason, there's there's no need for them to exist at all. And um, and it's just a repeat of the same thing. And I think, you know, maybe you believe that I think we talked about last time, kind of said, okay, but there is a right uh point on the spectrum to be on. And I think that Ethereum is exactly there. And I mean, maybe. I don't feel like I can be that sure about anything, really, you know, could be, but um.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  I don't know. And I I haven't, you know, I haven't seen evidence to that so far. Um, I haven't seen evidence to to others either. But that's why, you know, that's why I believe that in the future, people will not even know or care. Um. But I guess we'll see.

• 1:08:40David Hoffman?

  What's your biggest critique of bankless?

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Well, it's the Ethereum focus, man. That's the only thing. I think you've done a, I think you've done a, you know, you've done an amazing job this year, really. I told you that when we met in person too. I think you guys, you know, you grew it very quickly and you became, you know, a household name in crypto. I think you've done an amazing job. And I think if there's one thing that, that, that can make it better is if you focus on other things and not just Ethereum.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  And I mean, I think you have sometimes, but, but you're obviously very Ethereum oriented. And I think for a lot of, I think for a lot of new people, that's just not, it's just gonna be, not gonna be enough for them, you know?

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  The moral sense about it, around it, you know, I disagree with. Like, I, I, I find it difficult to find any superior morality within Ethereum that wouldn't exist on other chain, right? So.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  And it's, you know, it will be, I can't tell you how to do your job, right? You know, you know much better than I do.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  And, but at least intuitively.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  And also a little bit from experience, I feel like it's easier. Let's say, you know, let's say optimism or Arbitrum or Stockware or whatever are finally at a point where they're really ready to take on the world. And I feel like it's gonna be easier at that point to sell those, you know, sell, to, to, to promote those.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  After showing that, you know, you care about the practical solution and not just the politically correct solution, right? So if you're saying, okay, right now, hey, you should use, not should, but here's an interesting thing going on in Avalanche and Polygon and Binance and whatever. And then six months later, you're saying, hey, optimism is doing all of this, but better. That's a lot more, you know, approachable and at least to me, but you know, you're already that's better than I do. So.

• 1:11:05David Hoffman?

  Well, I would say a decent amount of the audience would be very, very, um, uh, they would agree with you with that with that critique. I think perhaps the reason why we haven't done that is that, uh, we do believe that this entire space stands on top of decentralization and that there are other chains that are not engineered to reflect that truth. That we, there are some chains that are engineered that just tilt towards decentralization more and more and more. So just by, by the very nature of what the systems are, maybe they are, have some measure of decentralization today. That makes them viable candidates for conversation and, you know, podcasts and hosting guests.

• 1:11:49David Hoffman?

  But, uh, our critique is that over the long term, just because of the way that the delegated proof of stake systems, the nodes that are just super high juiced up throughputs, that that system eventually tilts towards decentralization. So we think that we are front running the tilt towards, uh, centralization by just not talking about it today. How does that critique, how does that justification land with you?

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Tilt, was that tilt towards centralization or decentralization?

• 1:12:18David Hoffman?

  It's so many, many of these alternative layer ones that are just like, they have compromised on centralization, but still have some semblance of decentralization. Uh, I think a lot of them, if not all of them, actually just tilt towards centralization more and more and more as time goes on. And therefore like, we're just not going to talk about them just because like, well, they're in their maximally decentralized state right now. And they're actually only going to become more centralized over time.

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, I think, you know, I think that's a fairly reasonable prediction.

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  I think it's definitely possible, probably more than possible.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  But maybe that's what people want. That's the only, you know, let's see, I think that they will do, most of them, you know, the good ones. I think they will do what's right for the majority of their users. That's what I think, and it's definitely possible that's gonna be what's right. I would be, I myself would probably be more bullish on Ethereum. I thought that it would have at least functionality of a more centralized future. Because um I think that's what people want, and I, you know, I think that, you know, the modular approach uh might enable that to some degree. Um. But.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  But yeah, I think. Like, you know, that's the thing, like, if, let's say, you know, you do the stock worth thing, whatever ZK thing. And let's say that's a huge success. I don't know, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, who knows? But let's say it is, then.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  And let's say people consider that decentralized networks. So, okay, what happens next? Well, obviously, you're gonna have the other L ones do it too, right? And they're gonna.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  You know. Someone's choir or eventually, or they're gonna start their own L one, like one of those things is gonna happen. And it's not gonna be an Ethereum exclusive. That's for sure. If it, if it's, you know, if it succeeds. So.

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  So, you know, if it's a good solution, they'll do it. If, if they think that the centralized solution is better, they'll do that. I don't know. I honestly don't know what's the best. Um, but I think they will do what's best for users.

• 1:14:53David Hoffman?

  Do you have any aspirations or uh for the crypto industry in 2022? Like, is there anything that you want to see come out of the crypto industry this year?

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Lightning Network on Coinbase?

• 1:15:11David Hoffman?

  Why?

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  No, no, I'm joking.

• 1:15:13David Hoffman?

  Oh, that was a joke.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  It's funny how, uh, isn't funny how the people who don't, you know, who religiously refuse to use exchanges keep harassing exchanges to add lightning. They listen to you. You're not customers.

• 1:15:29David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  What do you want?

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  No, I, um, that's a very good question. I don't know. I'm a, I'm a big metaverse geek. I, uh, you know, during the first year of COVID, I, uh, I used to run, um, Bitcoin meetup in virtual reality every week. That's something I used to do and that was all fun. A lot of people used to show up for that. I think probably still to this day, they're more, the, the, the amount of active users we had back then is probably still bigger than the number of active users on, let's say decentralized today.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  That's, that's something, but like, but so I'm like, I'm a huge VR geek and nerd. So I don't know. I'm just excited about that field in general, but it's also extremely overhyped right now.

• 1:16:26David Hoffman?

  You mean the metaverse or VR?

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, well, metaverse specifically, but now, you know, all the VR people are now just calling themselves metaverse people because VR was a bad name. Did you know that they used to call themselves XR? Because it's both AR and VR, so it'd be like both augmented reality and virtual reality. So they used XR, which is like, what is this? What is this name? That's how they called it XR industry. And within a few weeks, yeah, no one did because it was a terrible name and no one cared. And now, and now it's, it's, it could, it transitioned completely and fully into the metaverse industry. We've been weeks. So I think at the very least, it's a better name. It's a better buzzword.

• 1:17:12David Hoffman?

  Metaverse industry?

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:15David Hoffman?

  Yeah. You have an Oculus?

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  We're gonna have, oh yeah, of course. Yeah. It's all fun. I don't really use it a lot, but.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  It's fun for fitness. They're cool fitness apps.

• 1:17:27David Hoffman?

  Dude, like even some of the non-fitness apps can still like break out a sweat like Beat Saber. Like you can get it. You can get a sweat during that thing, man.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:37David Hoffman?

  What's your favorite Oculus game?

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  I mean, BitSaber for sure. And, um, and, uh, what was the other one?

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  There's Supernatural is a pretty good one. It's very similar to Beat Saber where it's like designed for fitness. So it's, that's a good one. Um, there's a very good PC VR game. I mean, the best, obviously the best is Half Life Alex. If you have a VR headset, you have to play it.

• 1:18:07David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  Phenomenal.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Um, I mean,

• 1:18:12David Hoffman?

  That's, that's who needs like a wired connection to your PC, right?

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  You, you need some form. You can do it wirelessly too, but you need a gaming PC. Um, that one is really good, really good. I mean, I said, if you have a VR headset, but really you should get a VR headset for that because it's that good. It's a phenomenal game.

• 1:18:35David Hoffman?

  What, uh, in 2022, have you, uh, any New Year's resolutions? Have you resolved to do anything in 2022?

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  Well, I don't want to share them because I'm obviously not gonna actually do them.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  I don't want people to

• 1:18:56David Hoffman?

  That's the most goofy thing I could ever think you could say.

• 1:18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:02David Hoffman?

  All right.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04David Hoffman?

  You're not gonna share that.

• 1:19:07David Hoffman?

  Why, why, why would you, uh, not want to do your own New Year's resolutions?

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  No, no, I will. I will. Um, but they're private and, uh, and, um, yeah. I don't know.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  Let's focus on people this year.

• 1:19:27David Hoffman?

  What does that mean?

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  I don't know. I'm trying to say something inspirational. I don't know.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 1:19:35David Hoffman?

  What do you think my New Year's resolution should be? I haven't, I haven't formally come up with mine yet.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  Man, I don't know. I don't know. Like if you do the same thing you did last year but bigger, I think that would be good.

• 1:19:52David Hoffman?

  You're bankless?

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, look, I don't think, no one reasonable should want you to stop. I think you guys are doing a great job.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  And if you, if you continue to focus on people, then I think you'll eventually become multi-chain too.

• 1:20:14David Hoffman?

  We shall see, we shall see.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:20:17David Hoffman?

  Udi, what do you, when you wake up in the morning, what do you care about? What, what ends up in your head first thing?

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Man, Bitcoin price, right?

• 1:20:27David Hoffman?

  Check the Bitcoin price first thing?

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  Every day for, for, I don't know, 15 years, however long it has been, every single day. No, not really. Not really. I don't know. First thing I think about when I wake up is breakfast, man. I don't.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  That's it. I don't have any, who knows?

• 1:20:48David Hoffman?

  What, uh, do you?

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  What I like to do, seriously though, what I like to do in the morning is go out to the balcony and just look at this lively city. I love that.

• 1:21:00David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:03David Hoffman?

  Your coffee? Are you a morning coffee guy?

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  No, I actually don't do coffee at all, almost. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:11David Hoffman?

  What is your vice? Do you have a vice of choice?

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  I mean, I would, in another life, I would have been an alcoholic for sure. I'm just fighting it very aggressively, but I for sure would have been an alcoholic.

• 1:21:28David Hoffman?

  What's your favorite type of alcohol?

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  My favorite is beer and that, that I just don't drink at all and haven't had a beer in a very long time. Because it's also, it also doesn't fit into my diet.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Because I'm doing the no carb thing, but.

• 1:21:48David Hoffman?

  Are you doing keto stuff?

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, most of the time, yeah.

• 1:21:55Speaker 01

  Well, it depends. Last time we met in Miami, I was obviously in one of my relapses. But, uh, but I try, yeah.

• 1:22:04David Hoffman?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, it's hard to do crypto conferences and also stick to regimens at the same time.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, um. So, yeah. If I do drink, it would usually be whiskey, but I try to avoid it most of the time.

• 1:22:18David Hoffman?

  Yeah. All right, Udi. Well, any last things I should be picking your brain about that I haven't asked yet?

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  Well, we talked about Metaverse, so that's it. That's the most important thing.

• 1:22:29David Hoffman?

  Metaverse is the most important?

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:22:33David Hoffman?

  Is Bitcoin greater than 50% of your overall crypto portfolio?

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

• 1:22:38David Hoffman?

  Yeah, by a long shot.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, because I don't, uh. It's a, you know, it's a risk-adjusted thing, right? I'm very, I'm very sure about Bitcoin and I don't need to. You know, I don't need to outperform everyone. It's fine. I'm, I'm. I'm okay. And. And I'm very sure about it. I can sleep well. Holding Bitcoin, um. I do hold other stuff sometimes, but it's going to be a small percentage because there's a much greater risk. It's as simple as that. If, you know, if Bitcoin dips 50% tomorrow, I'm gonna be fine. I'm not gonna. Lose a, lose a minute of sleep over it. But the other stuff, I'm gonna give myself so much shit.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  Um, you need conviction, right? You need conviction to hold things for long term, so.

• 1:23:29David Hoffman?

  What advice do you have for people that came into crypto in 2021?

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  You know, there are two ways to make it. One is to gamble. And that's gonna work for some people. And it's gonna fail miserably for others. And if that's who you want to be, that's, I mean, fine. Um, but that's, you know, I can't give you a lot of advice about gambling.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  Um, the other option is going to be to really dive deep in research. And I think that if you do that, you know, you're gonna need to, especially now, you're gonna have to kind of find your niche. It used to be just crypto. And now you're gonna have to find your niche inside crypto because it's virtually possible to deep dive into everything. So first of all, find that. Then um, do some very, very serious deep dives into the topic of your choice. And I think if you do that consistently, there's still, you know, it's still early. But you need to do that.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  You can't just, oh, I'll just buy ETH, I'll just buy Bitcoin. I don't think that this is gonna give people what they're looking for.

• 1:24:48David Hoffman?

  Well, Udi, thank you for coming on this episode of Layers Here.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Yep. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

• 1:24:54David Hoffman?

  Cheers, man.

• 1:24:56David Hoffman?

  Hey, we hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, head over to Bankless HQ right now to develop your crypto investing skills and learn how to free yourself from banks and gain your financial independence. We recommend joining our daily newsletter, podcast, and community as a Bankless premium subscriber to get the most out of your Bankless experience. You'll get access to our market analysis, our alpha leaks, and exclusive content, and even the Bankless token for airdrops, raffles, and unlocks. If you're interested in crypto, the Bankless community is where you want to be. Click the link in the description to become a Bankless premium subscriber today. Also, don't forget to subscribe to the channel for in-depth interviews with industry leaders, Ask Me Anythings,

• 1:25:38David Hoffman?

  and weekly rollups where we summarize the week in crypto and other fantastic content. Thanks, everyone, for watching and being on the journey as we build out the Bankless nation.