Can Crypto's Broken Moral Compass Be Fixed? | RSA+DH

On today's episode of Bankless Takes we're exploring the current state of crypto's social layer. Are we in this for the right reasons, or has crypto lost the plot? ------ 🖼️ Borrow ETH or USDC with an NFT on NFTFi https://bankless.cc/NFTFi_pod ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2 ⁠ 🔗CELO | CEL2 COMING SOON https://bankless.cc/Celo 🗣️TOKU | CRYPTO EMPLOYMENT SOLUTION https://bankless.cc/toku 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 💸 CRYPTO TAX CALCULATOR | USE CODE BANK30 https://bankless.cc/CTC 🦄 UNISWAP | SWAP SMARTER https://bankless.cc/uniswap ------ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Start 05:16 The Worst Memecoins 10:37 How We Got Here https://x.com/reganbozman/status/1769775181722190293?s=46 13:56 Have We Lost The Plot? https://polynya.mirror.xyz/ptscXuh3J3KOj2uJAn0vrEanpn2nauwA7iytYZ4cM9U 19:39 Celebrating Criminals https://x.com/laurashin/status/1772407168760713454?s=20 https://x.com/TrustlessState/status/1772313252183126314?s=20 https://x.com/TrustlessState/status/1772428935206183082?s=20 26:55 Long Term Focus https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1772320119504449592?s=20 31:10 Don't Ignore The Bad, Pursue The Good https://twitter.com/nic__carter/status/1771980083667861734?s=20 ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

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

• 0:03Ryan Sean Adams?

  Hey, Glitch Station, we've got a David and Ryan Takes episode today, and we're going to talk about crypto's broken moral compass. Okay, this was a post that was issued this week, and also racist Solana meme coins? What in the world is going on over there in crypto, on Solana specifically? And the big question, I think, in our minds, the context for this conversation is, has crypto lost the plot?

• 0:25David Hoffman?

  Before we get into this conversation, which I'm pretty excited about, I think there's actually more under the hood than what meets the eye. We're going to talk to our friends and sponsors over at NFT5, where you can use your NFTs to get a loan. You use your NFTs as a collateral to borrow from lenders, and then you repay your loan, and then you get your NFT back. It's pretty simple. NFT5 battle-tested lending protocol for NFTs with over half a billion dollars in cumulative volume, spread over 62,000 cumulative loans. On-chain, trustless, peer-to-peer, the way that we like it. You can borrow ETH, USCC, DAI by using your NFTs as a collateral. No auto-liquidation risk, as long as you pay, you get your assets back. So, click the link in the show notes to getting started, getting some extra capital on your NFTs.

• 1:07Ryan Sean Adams?

  David, what would it take for you to take a loan out on your CryptoPunk, man? Would you ever do that?

• 1:11David Hoffman?

  Really advantageous rates and a very long loan.

• 1:14Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah.

• 1:15David Hoffman?

  There you go. 18 months, 3%. Whoever wants to give me that loan, we can meet on NFT5, actually.

• 1:21Ryan Sean Adams?

  There you go.

• 1:22David Hoffman?

  As we get into this conversation, I think there's just some things I think listeners should know. Of course, if you are paying attention to the crypto meta, meme coins have taken a turn for the worse. They are kind of spiraling out of control. But there are incentives that I think are worth understanding as to why. And it goes back to the role of narratives and attention in crypto. But we're also going to talk about like the purpose and meaning of meme coins, why crypto deifies some of the worst leaders in the industry, which is something that we also saw this week, Ryan, on crypto Twitter. And then, like you said, crypto's seemingly lack of moral compass. I think there are some data points, some dots, that we could all kind of smash together to put in just a little bit more understanding as to like

• 2:05David Hoffman?

  why human behavior is the way that it is in this part of the market. Market cycle here in crypto. All right, guys, we're getting right into that conversation, but before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this possible, including our recommended exchange for 2024, the way you transfer your fiat into crypto. That is Kraken. Go create an account. If you want a crypto trading experience backed by world-class security and award-winning support teams, then head over to Kraken, one of the longest-standing and most-secure crypto platforms in the world. Kraken is on a journey to build a more accessible, inclusive, and fair financial system, making it simple and secure for everyone, everywhere, to trade crypto. Kraken's intuitive trading tools are designed to grow with you, empowering you to make your first or your 100th trade in just a few clicks.

• 2:49David Hoffman?

  And there's an award-winning client support team available 24/7 to help you along the way, along with a whole range of educational guides, articles, and videos. With products and features like Kraken Pro and Kraken NFT Marketplace and a seamless app to bring it all together, it's really the perfect place to get your complete crypto experience. So check out the simple, secure, and powerful way for everyone to trade crypto, whether you're a complete beginner or a seasoned pro. Go to kraken.com/banklist to see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. It's everyone's favorite season in crypto, tax season. And crypto tax is always an absolute headache, especially for all you D gens out there. But it doesn't have to be a nightmare. That's where Crypto Tax Calculator comes in, the software built for D gens by D gens.

• 3:31David Hoffman?

  As Coinbase's official global tax partner, Crypto Tax Calculator focuses on making complex transactions into easy ones, supporting over 300,000 currencies across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, as well as 1,000 other integrations as well. It's as simple as connecting your wallet, pulling in all your transactions, and following the automated suggestions to quickly and accurately calculate your tax obligations. Plus, for all the airdrop farmers out there, Crypto Tax Calculator has your back as they are consistently adding support for new and upcoming Layer Ones, Layer Twos, and all the airdrops that you're currently farming. 2024 is the year when the D gens do their crypto taxes with speed and confidence. Make taxes this year easy and affordable with Crypto Tax Calculator. Sign up at cryptotaxcalculator.io and get a 30% discount with code BANK30. Click the link in the show notes for more information.

• 4:16David Hoffman?

  Uniswap is revolutionizing the DeFi space, not just by enabling swaps, But by empowering you to swap smarter with a comprehensive suite of products for faster, safer, and more informed swapping. Say goodbye to pop-up wallet extensions. The Uniswap extension is coming soon, and this extension is not a pop-up. It is a sidebar in your browser that persists no matter where you are on the web. This means you can swap, sign, or send and receive crypto anytime, anywhere, without obstructing your browser window. But that's not all. The Uniswap web app now features limit orders, so you can buy and sell any token at your price, on your terms, without having to watch the market. And the best part, limit orders are built on Uniswap X, which means no gas fees. Also new to the web app is the data and insights pages with real-time candlestick charts,

• 4:58David Hoffman?

  price data, transaction logs, and detailed pool data, all integrated into the Uniswap web app. All of these new releases come together to create one platform to help you swap smarter every time, no matter where you are, on web, mobile, or on the extension. Click the link in the show notes to sign up for the extension waitlist and download the mobile app. Start swapping smarter with Uniswap.

• 5:16Ryan Sean Adams?

  All right, so the context for this is, I think crypto's more broken moral compass. This was a post I read from Palenia, and I think stuff like this, what we are looking at on screen, which we have blurred out for the audience, because...

• 5:27David Hoffman?

  It's blurred out, we can't even say it. It's most things, most tokens, we cannot read the names. We won't do it.

• 5:33Ryan Sean Adams?

  David, I think tokens like this, meme coins like this, kind of the underlying mania are breaking people. Notably, our friend and previous Bankless podcast guest Palenia, who's been a longtime crypto writer and advocate, wrote a post this week called, "Crypto's Broken Moral Compass", and we'll get to that post in a minute and tell you exactly what Palenia said. But I think it's stuff like this. So I know it's blurred out, but for the audience, what are we looking at here? What is this, air quotes, meta right now?

• 6:02David Hoffman?

  Yeah, so this is some individual's portfolio of meme coins that they have that are all themed racist. They're all racist themed, using words that we will not be able to use on the podcast, nor would we ever want to. And the funny thing is, is every single one of these meme coins, this gentleman is up in profit on his meme coins, on their meme coins. And so not only are they racist meme coins, but they're also profitable meme coins. And this is the intersection that I think many people are finding disenjoyable, the intersection between profitability and racism, or just egregiousness, or crudeness, things that we would, that normal civilized society would call distasteful.

• 6:45David Hoffman?

  Why is being distasteful also profitable? Why are these two things intersecting at this moment of time? And I think this is, people are like, this is a moment for reflection for the industry. It's like, how did we get here? My answer for this, Ryan, is, well, meme coins very quickly realize that this is a game of attention. And so when 10,000 meme coins are all being born every single, like, hour in the crypto space, because we just had a few meme coins go to a billion dollars, and then all of a sudden, with the tools that we have, you know, the ability to mint tokens, it becomes a very big competition for any amount of attention whatsoever. And so I think over the last two weeks, that meta has been unearthed, and people realize

• 7:30David Hoffman?

  that the more egregious, the more crude, the more just like shocking you can name your meme coin, the more attention you can get. And so this has devolved into like, one of the worst metas in terms of like, public perception that I think crypto has ever had for itself.

• 7:45Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, a few things I'll note is actually, so the idea of people getting rich on like racism is like a thing that's happening. And plenty has gone like farther than, than even the comments that you just made, we'll get to that post in a minute, calling this evil, basically. And I think this is the type of thing that, that sets people over the edge is, are, are we just degrading to a bunch of short-term attention games that are now like devolving into racism? Why? Because like, we can make a profit off of that? Is that what crypto really is? And people are looking at this as the social layer, and they're, they're basically saying, this is gross. Like, I don't want to be a part of this, right? If this is crypto, then I don't want to be a part of crypto. And this is kind of like where I think the attention economy can devolve, or at least

• 8:30Ryan Sean Adams?

  it has devolved right here. I guess a few things I'll say, which is, you know, I would say some ironies. One thing for these like racist coin collectors, I will note, is that none of this is Is private. So again, we're not on any like private layer ones here. So you're like whatever coins you own in your Solana address. That can be AML KYC probably linked to you, right? There's like all sorts of chain analysis.

• 8:52David Hoffman?

  Your base address too, like has nothing to do with Solana.

• 8:54Ryan Sean Adams?

  People know who you are, like they're going to know who you are. This is actually not super private, right? Suit anonymous, but not private. So maybe there, there will be some kind of like social cost for doing some of these activities. Like, can you imagine if, if a notable crypto influencer or like a VC firm got caught with things like this in their wallets? It will cost them reputationally and deservedly so. I mean, that's what society sort of does, right? Even if it's not technically illegal, we can like socially pressure people through like mores and norms and just say, hey, like we don't stand for this. This isn't, this isn't cool to do.

• 9:28Ryan Sean Adams?

  And I wonder how much of that will, will come to pass. Also, it presents an interesting, I think juncture for not necessarily the, the base layer of validators on Solana in terms of whether they process these transactions. But at least at the front ends, but if you're a front end and you're like, kind of like a, you know, like a Jupiter, some sort of exchange with, with this set of tokens on Solana. Do you screen this out? I think probably the, the answer is like, yes, for almost all of them. And so that's like a call I'm sure many applications are making today. Do you have any thoughts on this?

• 10:00David Hoffman?

  Yeah. I mean, it's really a matter of just like, how much do we want to guard our public image in crypto? Like we, we like to have permissionlessness. Like we like to have like permissionless, open finance that anyone can partake in and enjoy. And so this is like a natural byproduct of that. And so, but also at the same time.

• 10:19Ryan Sean Adams?

  It doesn't have to be though, right? Like it's just.

• 10:22David Hoffman?

  We could, we, we could curate and we could manicure and we could like put a more polished.

• 10:27Ryan Sean Adams?

  Censor?

• 10:28David Hoffman?

  Like, yeah, censor. We could do that. I don't think anyone's suggesting that we do that, but then, then we have this and this is what's going on as a result.

• 10:38Ryan Sean Adams?

  So let's talk about this tweet that you included in this section, David, which is like the context of maybe how we got there and why there's some sort of like profit incentive, a number go up incentive to degenerate to the level of like now people are actually trading like racist meme coins. And who knows how it'll devolve from there, right? Like it could get even worse. What tweet are we looking at from Reagan here?

• 11:01David Hoffman?

  Yeah, so this is actually like kind of an adjacent topic. This is an adjacent tweet thread. The very first tweet in this thread says, "It's widely accepted that the way to make money in VC is to be contrarian and right." And Reagan continues and says, "This is absolutely false. In crypto venture, all that matters is your ability to front run the narrative." And so this is actually how a thread about how crypto VC is different than normal VC, whereas in normal VC, you are focused on like cash flows, revenue fundamentals. But Reagan says in crypto VC, it's actually about narrative. And they unpack this whole entire thread. They unpack like why this is true. And like halfway through this tweet thread and tweet 20, we can't read the whole thread. Really good thread, link in the show notes.

• 11:45David Hoffman?

  Tweet number 20 says, "Your crypto VC, terminal liquidity comes from retail." And it was something that's nice about crypto is that generally startups do a pre-seed, a seed round, maybe a series A, and then they issue a token. Whereas in the traditional finance world, this, you know, going public on the stock market, it's like series A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and then the retail is left to buy the bag on the open stock market. So at least in crypto, we are going public sooner and retail can get some upside here. But when our terminal liquidity comes from retail, Reagan says, "Whatever you do at seed, you need to more or less underwrite that a retail audience is going to be excited about buying that thing on the open market,

• 12:28David Hoffman?

  which is wildly different for terminal liquidity than traditional venture capital." This brings us to the second major distinction between crypto and normal venture. "What do crypto markets value? I'll give you a hint," Reagan says, "it ain't cash flows. Crypto markets value attention." And so this attention, this focus on the attention economy where attention is liquidity, really warps the incentive of both crypto VC and crypto meme coins. And so this is, we're seeing this happen with the warped incentives around crypto VC. And now we're actually seeing it show up in like the form factor that our tokens come in.

• 13:04Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I think that's the main point. And anywhere where Reagan said VC, I think you could just substitute investor, right? And it kind of makes sense. But this like really nails it. Crypto markets value attention. So what we're seeing in these meme coin markets is basically attention markets, right? And it's not necessarily true that like these have underlying fundamentals. We talked about in the past, but they do have some sort of spotlight on them. It's kind of weird, though, to have this effect of like racism is trending, and therefore somebody is making money, or there could be some incentive to actually produce like racist coins or unsavory coins in some way, just because you can make a profit. Like, that is kind of like, I wouldn't say uniquely crypto, but the ability to monetize

• 13:49Ryan Sean Adams?

  on top of this attention economy is something that crypto is providing sort of out of the box. And that's where I get to, we get to, I think, this conversation about, well, have we lost the plot? Is that all we are? Like, all it is here? And I feel like almost the meme coinery of the, you know, the past few months, the past six months or so, this like prices go up in a way that is not necessarily commensurate with all of the fundamentals, probably according to people like Palenya, or are very much looking at like actual use cases of the blockchain. And is it, is it helping people out in the real world, you know, the all the real world stuff? They look at this, and then kind of the you get throw racist meme coins on top of it, because why not? And so plenty comes at this, and

• 14:34Ryan Sean Adams?

  it's like, this industry is broken. I rage quit. So at the end of this post is basically like, I've rage quit. I'm like, not going to write about crypto anymore. And keep in mind, this is just one individual, but I think exemplifies maybe some perspective that a lot of people feel. And also, this is a very talented crypto analyst, right? Somebody that I've been reading for, for a very long time. So when they say that we've reached a breaking point, crypto is evil, is are some of the words that in this post, and I'm rage quitting, like, I, I paused, and I read this on Monday morning, and I was like, wow, okay, what do I think about this? How do I process it? Why don't we actually get into this, this post and kind of dissect it a little bit, David?

• 15:16David Hoffman?

  Yeah, I think I'll start reading from this section here. "The DeFi Ponzi's, the meme coins, the ugly JPGs of 2021. It's the same story every time. There's some grandiose narrative for what's nothing more than a pure casino. Can't get much worse, right? Sadly, nope. Things have hit an all-time new bottom with 2024. Racist, sexist, and other shit-headed memes, which are merely a vehicle to transfer wealth from the many to the most obnoxious people on the planet. So why has there been such a sharp decline? I think it's pretty simple. The crypto community lacks any moral compass. The same defensiveness and cope gets on repeated. Everything is a Ponzi as a justification for what we're doing here in crypto." At which Polonia responds, "This is obviously false. There are many productive assets worldwide,

• 16:00David Hoffman?

  organizations that invented products that led to significant increases in productivity and the quality of life. Scammers are everywhere," like claim the crypto people. Crypto's no different. To which Polonia responds, "Yes, crypto does not have a monopoly on scammers, grifters, and opportunists. These are..." There are industries that are almost entirely free of scammers, and then there are industries in which scams run rampant. Crypto is absolutely on the extreme end of the latter spectrum. And then, "There will always be a demand for casinos." To which Polonia responds, "Yes, but crypto is really a terrible casino." And then they link a talk by John Woo in which John Woo talks about all the ways and that casinos are actually really good casinos, very fair, like legal, compliant organizations that really punish cheaters. They have some checks and balances,

• 16:45David Hoffman?

  whereas crypto, you can get completely rugged by anybody. And then the latest one, "Racists are everywhere," to which Polonia doesn't even dignify it with a response. So basically saying like, hey, like, sure, like, permissionless, open system, fine. Scammers everywhere, fine. But also, it doesn't really matter. Anything that you list, like crypto's always on like the worst end of that spectrum. So therefore, peace, I'm out," says Polonia.

• 17:09Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah. So what was your take when you read this, David? I'm not sure when you read it, but I think you published this or they published this over the weekend and I just caught up with it on Monday morning. Those I heard some conversation about it. What was your take when you read this?

• 17:22David Hoffman?

  This one line that comes right after the part I was reading. I thought like, oh, that's me and you, right? That he's talking about us, which is others clearly know that this is all very, very bad, but we give it a wide berth and we just say, hey, let's just focus on the good and we'll ignore the very, very bad.

• 17:39Ryan Sean Adams?

  That's not only what I say, that's what I do.

• 17:41David Hoffman?

  It's what I do. Yeah, that's how I, that's how I live with myself in this industry.

• 17:44Ryan Sean Adams?

  I wasn't even looking at this corner of crypto Twitter and meme coinery until like, you know, like it was drawn to my attentions. I just ignore it.

• 17:51David Hoffman?

  One, one more sentence or two is Palenia says, even when the people who are willing to speak up back then, back then, which is like post 2022, after that, all of that bad stuff, people who were willing to speak up back then then have said nothing about this latest wave of insanity. At this point, this evil in crypto is banal and normalized. And for me, as at post 2022, I do personally sometimes just feel at quite a loss of all of the terribleness that crypto promotes. And so that's what I've done. I've just kind of like, well, it is what it is. I have no power over it. People are going to do what people are going to do and I'm going to focus on the parts of crypto that I see good. And that's like, that's, that's what I got.

• 18:32Ryan Sean Adams?

  Well, what Palenia is saying though, so okay, yeah, I remember and I remember it. I mean, we were right there in the depths of 2022 where like you were really feeling it and actually had an emotional moment on the, on the, on the bankless weekly roll up. And I think we were talking about like all of the billions of dollars that were lost by retail and specifically like how we're not learning anything from it and sort of this existential wondering of like, are we, are we on like team good or and Palenia is making the case that like, at a certain point, if you're involved in this social layer and you're pushing these technologies. Then Plenya is saying at a certain point you are culpable. If you are not actively pushing back, resisting, I guess maybe like tweeting or creating podcasts

• 19:14Ryan Sean Adams?

  or something like this to say that this behavior is like, like wrong, is not true crypto. It's not enough to merely ignore that. Like I think Plenya is making the case and focus on the good. They're saying like, you actually have to actively try to boost the auto immunity of the, of the system here and the social layer here. And if you're not doing that, you're culpable. At some point you have to walk away. That's why I'm walking away. What do you think?

• 19:40David Hoffman?

  Yeah, I think it gets really, really hard. And crypto Twitter has such a strong, I think, role in this because this is where a lot of the attention games are being played. And maybe to even kind of continue Plenya's point, something that happened this week was a photo of Do Kwon got surfaced coming out of the Montenegro jail as he's like on his way to being extradited. And there was a Lorishin article that was written, and I want to pull out a quote where many observers, and I'm assuming these observers are where crypto Twitter is, where the commentary is, many observers suggested that Kwon's buzz cut and hardened visage were noticeable improvements on the embattled crypto's founders' looks. And this was kind of the meme of, of this week was that Do Kwon has this one photo

• 20:21David Hoffman?

  that came out where like, people are saying like, oh yeah, he looks like a hardened Chad. And he's going to run it back and do it all over again because he's been disciplined by jail.

• 20:31Ryan Sean Adams?

  As they're basically, yeah, they're basically saying like, this was a great thing. Now he's going to come back and do a new kind of like blockchain startup. We're all going to get rich. This is kind of the sentiment, right?

• 20:42David Hoffman?

  Yeah. Then Suzu, another scammer grifter criminal puts out this tweet saying, I keep telling people that prison is the dopamine rehab slash discipline maxing that you need. And then he says, don't fade while he's tweeting out the picture of Do Kwon. He's saying, don't fade Do Kwon. I would like to remind people, this is not Do Kwon coming out of jail. This is Do Kwon going to jail for the first time. And people are already like, don't fade Do Kwon. Like he's getting to run it back.

• 21:13Ryan Sean Adams?

  Bullish. He's going for, he's going to jail.

• 21:16David Hoffman?

  Again, like no, he's not, he's going to jail for the first time. Yet people are like simping for this man because he like looks chiseled. He like lost 30 pounds in jail and now all the crypto Twitter is in love again.

• 21:27Ryan Sean Adams?

  Kind of gross, right?

• 21:28David Hoffman?

  Kind of gross.

• 21:28Ryan Sean Adams?

  By the way, if prison actually worked, I would contend A16Z would have figured this out and done like prison startup schools. You just send your founders to jail.

• 21:36David Hoffman?

  If dopamine rehab was actually a thing.

• 21:38Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, yeah. So like, but okay, let's consider the source here, right? That is coming from Suzu, who is trying to be someone that kind of like normalizes like incredibly risky behavior.

• 21:50David Hoffman?

  It has 1700 likes.

• 21:53Ryan Sean Adams?

  Okay. And so, so like, again, we could get into Twitter bot traffic and like what's real and what's not. But like, let's say, uh, you know, a portion of this is legitimate. The source is somebody who's trying to normalize this behavior. I just want that to be said because this person Suzu is, I'm sure entertaining, like going on a Zen retreat, maybe going to jail, maybe not. I don't know what his status is going to be eventually. And then like returning to crypto as a hero. And I think that, um, like that's the source of this, but we put these people on a, on a pedestal. And when I say we, I don't mean bankless. Okay. I'm talking about Polinia's perception would be the crypto at large. And some of you have done this to a greater extent than others, but like, uh, you're like, again, back to.

• 22:37David Hoffman?

  Everyone's done it to some degree.

• 22:39Ryan Sean Adams?

  Everyone's done it to some degree, right? And so like, we're all kind of complicit in it. And, um, yeah, what about this? What about this idea of, I, I think your, your tweet here was, was, uh, maybe Polinia is right. That's what you said when you were observing like this Suzu take on Do Kwan, saying like prison's a good thing.

• 22:59David Hoffman?

  Yeah, we just don't seem to have very good, uh, immune immunity, I mean, immune system to resist some of this like degeneracy. Like we, like we are degens as in we are taking like leverage and we are taking risk and that is totally fine. But then we are going even further and being like kind of degenerates with like our moral compass. And we don't seem to be able to resist that.

• 23:21Ryan Sean Adams?

  It seems like if somebody gets rich, at least in the kind of crypto Twitter social layer, then it gives them a pass to do anything because like obviously they were right. And if you speak against that, well, that's just cope and you're jealous. And like, don't you think that is embedded into some of this underlying? Like the thing that plenty is really resisting is this just degenerate feeling of just, we're putting these basically criminals and grossly irresponsible people on a pedestal. And not only do we do it once, it's just like, we never freaking learn. We have like the memory of the goldfish.

• 23:53David Hoffman?

  It actually becomes like a target because it keeps on working. People, it becomes a target, right? Like, yeah, so like, like being criminal becomes like something to be like enjoyed so long as you get rich. And of course, this is not the actual norm. It's like blown out of attention by crypto Twitter. It's blown out of attention because it's just like an egregious thing. And now we're talking about it. But this is like, kind of what the attention economy in crypto kind of rewards. And it also like with the undercurrents of nihilism, like doing unlawful, unsavory racist sexist things. So long as you get rich, right? So long as you get out of the rat race, so long as you get yours out of crypto, then it's okay.

• 24:33Ryan Sean Adams?

  I don't think this is a problem, by the way, just with crypto. It's just like kind of manifesting in crypto. Like this is just a cultural, we've called it before, like financial nihilism. As has Travis Kling, who's kind of like popularized that term. And this is sort of more of that, but like everything in crypto, it's on steroids, right? It's just like, it's massively amplified by kind of the financial primitives. And so you kind of go back to a plenty and maybe you go back to a Molly White. And then maybe you go back to some of the other crypto skeptics. Like we've heard from in the first place, just saying like on net, this thing is more bad than it is good. Right? And so like, that's what you have, like that's, that's, that's the charge. That's, that's the criticism.

• 25:15David Hoffman?

  There was an old tweet that I remember that's always burned into my brain about like, why we have four year cycles, why we have cycles at all. And like, why these cycles are so violent? And it was something about like, A crypto bull market is when all of society's attention turns back into crypto. Be like, oh, I forgot about this crypto thing. Let's like reprice Bitcoin. Let's reprice Ethereum. It's had four years of fundamental growth. Let's pay attention to it and reprice it. And then we get bored and the attention like bull market happens. But then like all the bad stuff happens and so that goes away. And then it forgets about it for four years. And then society once again remembers four years later that like crypto exists and the attention turns back and reprices crypto. And that's how like these cycles work is really determined by society's like attention

• 26:00David Hoffman?

  on crypto. And so like it's actually been attention that has like fueled all of these cycles. But that's also why you see like the worst degeneracy in bull markets is because like everyone knows it's fleeting. It's attention based anyways. There's no fundamentals. Crypto is confusing, so it allows grifters in. But like this whole like long-term arc of crypto is like punctuated by like massive amounts of attention that we call bull markets. Yet nonetheless, the fundamentals improve along the way. So there's a tweet that you threw out yesterday in this, in this conversation and one line and it really, really stuck out to me. So I want you to unpack it, but the line to me was the short-term stuff will boil off and evaporate and the long-term stuff will endure and get stronger each cycle.

• 26:45David Hoffman?

  And so like this is, this is how I feel. This is my justification for like being in crypto. It's like, oh, in the fullness of time, the short-term stuff will boil off and the long-term stuff will stick around.

• 26:55Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I mean, another take on that is like, maybe a little shit is needed to make the flowers grow, you know? And I think we see that shit manifest most particularly in every single bull cycle. And then what, what persists, what remains and like the foundation gets kind of set during the bear market. This is why I will say bull markets can be hard. Like I found 2021 actually to be and into 2022, I'll say the first part of 2022 to be one of the most challenging in all of my times in crypto, right? Because I felt like, like no one cared about the real reason we are here and kind of like the real value proposition.

• 27:40Ryan Sean Adams?

  We're trying to scale decentralized block space and you guys are all caught up on this algo stablecoin saying it's completely riskless and like DoKwon's a god and like getting tattoos of like wolves on your, you know, shoulders and like this thing is just on shaky ground. Why aren't we talking about kind of the real stuff? So I guess maybe I'll, I'll reflect on Plenya's take. I think that Plenya is right that if all we are doing here is PvP Ponzi games, then like it's useless. I guess, you know, burn it all down if that's all that this thing is. The, the, the, the truth though is it depends when, where you look.

• 28:21Ryan Sean Adams?

  I think some of the, the loudest voices are the ones engaging in kind of like this, uh, like attention oriented economy and you can get completely warped if that's what you're focusing on and social media will just amplify all of these things too. But the truth is I am seeing in crypto more legitimate building than ever. Like this is the first time in all the time I've been here, almost like 10 years, that we are actually scaling decentralized block space in a scalable way. Like using, using fees, we're not just doing it on issuance. We are actually scaling decentralized block space. This is the first time where UX, the user experience is getting to the level where it can actually be used by ordinary people, where we can actually start to like bank the unbanked.

• 29:06Ryan Sean Adams?

  And this as well is getting built during this cycle. And if you look at those projects, if you look at everything, kind of like the different layer twos are doing and all of the, the pockets of, of DeFi are doing, you can see that we are in spite of all of the generosity around us, actually scaling a decentralized, open property right system for the world. The other thing all Add here, and this is maybe an ugly truth that some people haven't fully locked into with crypto. But here's the thing, it's always been about greed. It's always been crypto has always been a movement that harnesses base human greed towards something good and productive.

• 29:49Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's almost like the the mechanism, the protocol of capitalism in that respect. Right? So when we talk about like Bitcoin and Ethereum number go up, it sounds very short term, temporary. I want to get rich, all of these things, and it is that. But what we are doing is a byproduct of that. And the end result of that is we are creating a decentralized property rights system that is, I mean, someday able to resist nation state attack, where we actually preserve privacy. And we wouldn't have any of that without greed, human greed as the fuel. So like at some level, it's always been a story of meme coin, Ponzi game, shit coinery. You know, in the short run.

• 30:32Ryan Sean Adams?

  And in the long run, we are actually creating a like incredible financial system for the world. And we're not doing that in crypto. Who else is doing this? Who else is building an open permissionless financial system that anyone with an internet connection can do? Because nation states aren't building it. So it's ugly the way we're getting here. But I is it wrong? Is it wrong to say the ends justify the means? Like the outcome that we're going to get is going to be net beneficial to the world. And if you just ignore the short term stuff, just let that boil away. Then you can like really focus on kind of the the end mission goal. And I do think we're achieving that cycle by cycle.

• 31:11David Hoffman?

  And a take from Nick Carter here is when he was reading the plenty article. He says, the solution is not to ignore the bad, but to pursue the good with such fervor as it makes the journey obviously worth it. And this also reminds me of another conversation. One day I was just reading on crypto Twitter, lost to the loss of the history of crypto Twitter. But it was this one founder who was talking about one of the biggest mistakes that they ever made while being a founder was ignoring D gens because they wanted to build for like more pure use cases. And in a side of a bear market, that was a huge mistake because the D gens were the only users left. In fact, actually, there's some synonymous nature with users and D gens in crypto like D gens. Are the blood, they are the heartbeat of a lot of the people who are going to use your

• 31:56David Hoffman?

  DApps first. They're going to be the first people to put TVL in your app. So like D-gens aren't inherently bad. They have this like bad connotation because we are literally calling them D-gens, but like D-gens are actually the thing making like economies happen in crypto.

• 32:10Ryan Sean Adams?

  They're on the frontier. They're pushing the limits.

• 32:13David Hoffman?

  They're testing the limits. They're doing, they are the users. D-gens are users. Anytime you're like, do you have ETH in some like LRT protocol that's also getting yield on Pendle? You might be a D-gen. It depends on how D-gen you want to go. And so like really, I think it's when we see people speculating in like racist sexist shitheadery meme coins per like plenty of like words. It's, I think it's just because we actually haven't built more productive things for them to do with their time. So it's actually always going to be a call towards the builders to actually build structures, build apps that harness the D-gens and focus the D-gen energy and satisfy the D-gen needs in ways that aren't sexist and racist and in

• 32:57David Hoffman?

  meme coins. I guess that's my, my big takeaway from this thing.

• 33:01Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I think I'll end with maybe some, some practical advice or thoughts and just a reflection on what you do about this. I think that the crypto social layer, especially the, the social layer that gets amplified, not on like ETH research forums, but on crypto Twitter specifically is exhausting. It's absolutely exhausting. Sometimes it's demotivating. Sometimes it will like make you question your sanity or like the industry you're surrounded with or, or why you're here and all of these things. And I also think it gets co-opted by people who are grifters and scammers, right? So there's a certain point where I remember in kind of like meme, NFT mania, where I just like didn't really want to be associated

• 33:43Ryan Sean Adams?

  with NFTs for a while, even though like I was very excited about them in, you know, 2017 when it's like this new primitive, it's like a JPEG, but then the culture veered off and was co-opted by a whole bunch of grifters and like just it became like, ugh, I don't know. I'm not an NFT, bro. You know, like that's somebody else. But if that gets to be too much for you, then my advice is just like, take a break. Like log off, log off Twitter, log off the social media, disconnect from what you perceive as like, you know, crypto social layer. And it kind of goes away, it kind of evaporates because I don't think that the meme coins that don't have real traction or something behind them will persist. That'll just kind of like evaporate and fade away. And what we'll be left with is the good stuff like scaled decentralized block space wallets that actually work.

• 34:28Ryan Sean Adams?

  You know, high throughput transactions per second, all of the good stuff. And that's a discipline that I learned personally in, in the last bear market.

• 34:37David Hoffman?

  Yeah, the, I'm just reminded of this Elon Musk tweet that went out this week where he was asking some crypto Twitter account like, hey, why, why did Vitalik leave Twitter? When Vitalik went to Farcaster? And it was just funny to me that Elon Musk seemingly couldn't just like comprehend the fact that like Vitalik wouldn't want to be on Twitter. But instead would want to be like where there's a lot more just like quiet signal in Farcaster rather than like the degenerate noise competitions that is like crypto Twitter.

• 35:05Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, it's, it's loud out there for sure, guys. So, uh, but, but you don't have to be part of it. You could ignore all of the noise and, uh, like remember why we're really here. We'll just end with our standard risks and disclaimers, David. Crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in, but we are headed west. This is not for everybody, but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.

• 35:24David Hoffman?

  Mantle, formerly known as BitDow, is the first DAO-led Web3 ecosystem, all built on top of Mantle's first core product, the Mantle Network. A brand new, high-performance Ethereum Layer 2 built using the OP stack, but uses Eigenlayer's data availability solution instead of the expensive Ethereum Layer 1. Not only does this reduce Mantle Network's gas fees by 80%, but it also reduces gas fee volatility, providing a more stable foundation for Mantle's applications. The Mantle Treasury is one of the biggest DAO-owned treasuries, which is seeding an ecosystem of projects from all around the Web3 space for Mantle. Mantle already has sub-communities from around Web3 onboarded, like Game7 for Web3 gaming and Bybit for TVL and liquidity and OnRats.

• 36:04David Hoffman?

  So if you want to build on the Mantle Network, Mantle is offering a grants program that provides milestone-based funding to promising projects that help expand, secure, and decentralize Mantle. If you want to get started working with the first DAO-led Layer 2 ecosystem, check out Mantle at mantle.xyz and follow them on Twitter at zerox. Are you launching a token? Is it already live? How are you managing the legal and tax obligations for providing token grants to your team? It's no secret that token management gets complicated. Between learning all the legal language and tax obligations in every country that your team is in, token grant management can feel like an obstacle course. But it doesn't have to. That's where Toku steps in. Toku provides practical tools to handle token grants, allowing for effective oversight of token distributions and payroll tax compliance

• 36:47David Hoffman?

  for employees, contractors, advisors, and investors. They also handle tax withholdings through their real-time tax calculations that can be done by Toku or integrated into any payroll EOR providers in any jurisdiction. Toku is a trusted provider of Protocol Labs, DYDX Foundation, Mina Protocol, and many more. Get started for free and make token compensation simple at toku.com/bankless. Cello is the mobile-first, EVM-compatible, carbon-negative blockchain built for the real world, driving real-world use cases like mobile payments and mobile DeFi. And with Opera Mini Pay as one of the fastest-growing Web3 wallets, Cello is seeing a meteoric rise with over 300 million transactions and 1.5 million monthly active addresses. And now, Cello is looking to come home to Ethereum as a Layer 2.

• 37:30David Hoffman?

  Optimism, Polygon, Matter Labs, and Arbitrum have all thrown their hats in the ring for the Cello Layer 2 to build upon their stacks. Why the competition? The Cello Layer 2 will bring huge advantages like a decentralized sequencer, off-chain data availability secured by Ethereum validators, and one-block finality. What does that all mean for you? With Cello Layer 2, gas fees will stay low, and you can even pay for gas natively using ERC20 tokens, sending crypto to phone numbers across wallets using social connect. But Cello is a community-governed protocol. This means that Cello needs you to weigh in and make your voice heard. Join the conversation in the Cello forums. Follow Cello on Twitter and visit cello.org to shape the future of Ethereum.