2025 Crypto Predictions with Altcoin Daily | BTC, ETH, Memecoins & L2s

Ryan and David were interviewed by Altcoin Daily on Oct. 1st, 2024. In their interview, they chat about what's next for Ethereum, their best Ether price prediction for 2025, and all of the other tokens and more! ------ 📣GET YOUR ALL ACCESS PASS TO THE PODCAST https://bankless.cc/podshownotes ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2 ⁠ 🦄UNISWAP | BROWSER EXTENSION https://bankless.cc/uniswap ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM ⁠https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🤖 dYdX | UNLIMITED LAUNCHING SOON https://bankless.cc/dYdXUnlimited 🐧 CARTESI | LINUX-POWERED ROLLUPS https://bankless.cc/CartesiSimple ------ ✨ Mint the episode on Zora ✨ https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x0c294913a7596b427add7dcbd6d7bbfc7338d53f/93?referrer=0x077Fe9e96Aa9b20Bd36F1C6290f54F8717C5674E ------ TIMESTAMPS 2:52 Intro 4:18 Background 10:30 Crypto Outlook for 2025 13:23 How High Will Bitcoin Go in 2025? 15:11 "Ethereum Is Incredibly Undervalued" 17:37 Why Ethereum L2's Are MASSIVE 20:26 When Will Ethereum Flip Bitcoin? 24:40 Ethereum Price Prediction 2025 29:03 What's The Next Ethereum of THIS Cycle? 32:10 The Memecoin Supercycle 33:49 Secret to Growing on Social Media 36:26 Thoughts on Cardano 39:56 Best Advice for Crypto Investors ------ RESOURCES Altcoin Daily Interview https://youtu.be/h4ifYPBLM24?si=JRAoS2WrlbV_UXBC ------ 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.

• 0:04David Hoffman?

  Hey Bankless Nation, something a little bit different on the podcast today. Ryan and I, we're on the Altcoin Daily Podcast on the other side of the microphones. So this is that episode coming to you in the Bankless Podcast feed. So if you ever want to hear what it's like for Ryan and David to get interviewed, you are about to hear that right now. So let's go into the Altcoin Daily Podcast right now. But first, a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. 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

• 0:47David Hoffman?

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• 1:30David Hoffman?

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• 2:13David Hoffman?

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• 2:52Speaker 01

  Um, alrighty, welcome back everybody to Altcoin Daily, joined by the men, the legends, need no introduction, the Bankless guys, David and Ryan, thank you for joining me, honored to have you here.

• 3:05David Hoffman?

  What's up guys?

• 3:06Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's great to have you guys. Oh my God, I said it's great to have you guys.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 3:11David Hoffman?

  The number of times we've been on somebody other, somebody else's podcast is like four.

• 3:15Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, it's very rare, very scarce.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  That's a great segue, cuz I know a lot of people do know you and your name's in the space, but just what is your background? Like, how'd you get into crypto and then crypto media?

• 3:27David Hoffman?

  Yeah, my first, my first job, my first like, my background is crypto. I was trying to get into a career in the world of like health sciences beforehand, but I never really got that whole thing started because I just got sidetracked by crypto like pretty soon in my career. I think I became like, went full-time crypto at 24 years old. So there's like three years of like post-college, two years post-college, so then I found crypto. I graduated in 2015, found crypto in 2017, and then like went full-time crypto in 2018. So yeah, my background is crypto.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  That's kind of what we did going full-time in 2018.

• 4:04David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 4:05Ryan Sean Adams?

  What were you guys before, like in kind of like your previous lives?

• 4:08David Hoffman?

  If you let Ryan, he will drive the podcast.

• 4:10Ryan Sean Adams?

  Sorry, no, no, my co-host here, I find it so interesting because like I would say everything he did prior to crypto is actually still applicable here because he formerly has like experiences, basically like a social worker therapist and a psychology degree. And these things are key to understanding crypto markets. Definitely psychology.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  And we still need your background, Ryan. But yeah, how we started was our original, it was a basically, you know, we graduated undergrad, we studied filmmaking and marketing, we moved out to Los Angeles, pursued filmmaking and acting, we're in the union, did a, you know, a handful of stuff. And, you know, the thing is, in the filmmaking business, there's a lot of gatekeepers. And discovered crypto YouTube where you can post as much as you want, no gatekeepers, crypto in general, no gatekeepers. So the more you put in, the more you can get out. And, you know, at the time, I discovered crypto YouTube as a retail participant in 2017. And there were some good ones, you know, Ivanon Tech was back then, there were a lot of good ones,

• 5:12Speaker 03

  but there were some, in my opinion, were left me wanting more. And I thought, well, I could do a crypto YouTube channel, half as good as some of these guys. And so decided to start, I didn't know it at the time, but the very beginning of a deep bear market, at the very beginning of 2018, we started the channel.

• 5:28Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, it's a good time to do it, actually.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:31David Hoffman?

  But you, David, please. Ryan.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  Ryan.

• 5:34Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, so I get, okay, so I discovered Bitcoin, I would say through like a 2014 predzone trip. So I had these things called cluster headaches that just sort of came on me. And like cluster headaches, if you're not familiar, they're sort of like a, it's like the worst headache imaginable. So people describe these as like suicide headaches, because like when, when you're in the midst of a a cluster headache, like you just don't want to be alive i- in that moment. Anyway, I was having these and one of the, the potential treatment options was to go on like a predzone, which is like a steroid.

• 6:19Ryan Sean Adams?

  And during a like Thanksgiving weekend predzone for my cluster headaches kind of trip, it caused me to get intensely focused and I fell down the rabbit hole of.

• 6:33Ryan Sean Adams?

  Of crypto and specifically Bitcoin. Now, the good news is my cluster headaches went away. Actually, this treatment worked. The weird thing about it was like I did every Andreas Antonopoulos, like YouTube thing I could get my hands on. I went and I read like his book, like I opened accounts with like five crypto exchanges. For whatever reason, Prenezone just like gave me intense focus. It was almost like, like this, you know, Ritalin thing. And by like Monday, it was like a long weekend. It was the Thanksgiving weekend. I actually wanted to quit my job and go all in on this Bitcoin thing. Like it was that powerful for me because I'd been totally captured. Now, I don't know if that was the drugs or the ideas, but like, once I was off this, it didn't go away.

• 7:18Ryan Sean Adams?

  But the thing for me was like Bitcoin was interesting, but it could only do one thing, which is like, what do you do with Bitcoin? You just like hold it. And so I was still working this job. I didn't like give my notice on Monday. I kind of hung in there. It was a corporate job, so I was working in medical software tech. I'd formerly been sort of an entrepreneur and sold the company, big corporate environment. And I, and I stayed there, but in the meanwhile, I was doing all of my like nights, weekends hobby time, researching this new thing that was coming alive in 2015, 2016, which is Ethereum. And the potential for Ethereum was so crazy to me because with, with Ether and Ethereum, it wasn't just about just holding an asset. It was about actually doing, we didn't have the words at the time, but like decentralized finance.

• 8:02Ryan Sean Adams?

  And there was this thing called a DAO and they were organizing. It was just like, there's many more possibilities here when you have a programmable money system. And at that point, I was like fully captured. It didn't require a second Prenezone trip to like go all in on crypto. And so that's what I decided to do in like, you know, 2016, 2017 was just like, quit my job, make this my focus. And I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do at that time. I sort of thought I wanted to like start a fund or something, you know, be an investor. Everyone did it 2017. And then 2018 hit and I was like, oh shit, was I wrong about everything? You guys remember 2018, it was bleak. It was desolate. That was my cluster headache.

• 8:44Ryan Sean Adams?

  Right, exactly. I mean, it was like, it was so painful to be there at that time. And in the midst of this, like rediscovering my thesis and why I was here, David and I met. And we'd come to some similar conclusions, like he was writing and like his writing was fantastic. We met on Twitter and then one thing led to another. And suddenly David's like, you know, writing articles for this new thing we called Bankless. And he's like, hey, Ryan, want to start a podcast? And now here we are with like, almost a thousand podcasts, I think, on Bankless up to this point.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Wow, a thousand episodes.

• 9:16David Hoffman?

  I think we've stopped counting, but there's a lot of them.

• 9:19Ryan Sean Adams?

  There is a counter and we're at like 950 something, David.

• 9:23David Hoffman?

  Oh, really?

• 9:23Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah.

• 9:24David Hoffman?

  Where is our counter?

• 9:25Ryan Sean Adams?

  Getting close. It's on Libsyn. I'll show it to you after.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Guys, we're like, we're all bullish on crypto long-term, just for 2025. What is your outlook? What do you think will be the strongest narratives?

• 9:39David Hoffman?

  I think the final conclusion of all crypto narratives is always the irresponsibility of central banks. And I think we probably are going through like phases of irresponsibility of central banks where COVID was extreme irresponsibility, matched with some sort of reaction to that of an attempt to be responsible. And I think right now we're going back into an era of irresponsibility. And this is just the hardening and then the softening of the money cycle, right? This is also the business cycle, but like things always trend more and more irresponsible over time. And so like it's, it's like a random walk of drunkenness by these federal reserves, by the central banks.

• 10:22David Hoffman?

  But the conclusion is always just like, they're all fiat currencies are going to ultimately drop to zero in real terms. The dollar will probably be the last to go, but even the dollar is on top of crypto rails. And so people escaping, people escaping the, the collapse of their fiat currencies will use crypto to access the dollar. And then they'll be pilled by crypto in general to access Bitcoin and Ether. And I think in 2025 specifically, we are resuming like a not, we don't have a crisis like COVID, but we are still resuming just irresponsibility around the money printer. And I think that's going to kind of mark 2025.

• 11:02Ryan Sean Adams?

  I mean, I pretty much agree with that. I think like 2025 is like 2020. It's sort of similar. I think so like my base prediction is like bullish 2025. Like this is the next bull cycle for crypto. I think something that could delay it towards the latter part of 2025, or even worst case scenario, like I could be wrong, is some sort of recession that could happen. Again, we don't read the macro tea leaves because like the entire, you know, bankless thesis, investor thesis is just like long-term bullish on crypto assets, particularly those that are their money and store of value types of assets.

• 11:41Ryan Sean Adams?

  And so whether we get the bull cycle in 2025, or if it's delayed, you know, 2020 COVID styled by some sort of recession, it's coming back. I mean, this market cap is only $2 trillion. It's just scratching the surface of what it's going to be, and particularly because of exactly what David said, is even if we get a recession, the way out for like monetary authorities and governments all around the world is going to be to press the money printer button. And you could see it's totally primed. And so that's going to be on the other side of this. And crypto in comparison to that will just gain more and more legitimacy in the years to come.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  So Bitcoin as this hard monetary asset getting adopted, sounds like you're bullish in 2025. I see you guys ask this question all the time, the quintessential Bitcoin price prediction. We ask this to our guests all the time. I'm sure you hear like a spectrum of theses for, you know, where Bitcoin could go in 2025. But what is your kind of base bull or bear prediction around Bitcoin?

• 12:46David Hoffman?

  At least six figures, six-figure Bitcoin in 2025, like as a floor, as a floor, floor price. That's kind of my take. I don't, I think estimating the upper bound of Bitcoin is pretty high, hard, because it can just be so chaotic up there. But as a floor, I think six figures is pretty safe.

• 13:04Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I would say I feel like between 150K and like 250K is kind of like the range I'm thinking of.

• 13:11David Hoffman?

  In 2025?

• 13:13Ryan Sean Adams?

  Uh, 2025 into 2026, right? It's kind of a range. I think that's something that's probably a bit more contrarian. That's like more of a bankless belief is like, we actually remain bullish on Ether, the asset, despite what's, you know, going on in crypto Twitter. And part of the reason for that is because, you know, this has kind of been a bankless chance since the early days as well. And like this, very excited about decentralized finance and like bankless money systems. Also very excited about Ether as a store of value. And so the thing that's maybe more contrarian is like ETH to 10K in 2025, or like beyond 10K, 10 to 15K is a real possibility on the table. And I think a lot of the general crypto listeners in the market is like fading ETH right now.

• 13:58Ryan Sean Adams?

  So if you talk to David, you talk to me, we're probably bullish on the Bitcoin ETH ratio, like pretty heavily. And that's a, that's a contrarian trade right now.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Why so bullish on ETH today? We're all bullish on ETH, but I guess talk to those people that are now big Solana heads or Cardano heads. What is the, the thought process for ETH specifically when it does have all this competition?

• 14:23David Hoffman?

  Well, mainly because it's been faded so hard. Like a part of the answer is simply just because of the relative prices of these things. The ETH Bitcoin ratio is at like coming up on a three-year low, lows that we haven't seen since like before DeFi was like known as like, once upon a time, DeFi was like a niche Ethereum thing. And then in 2020, it became a global, oh, and this is what crypto is kind of thing. DeFi for everyone. Everyone, everyone wanted in on DeFi. And like the ETH Bitcoin ratio is currently at a valuation that was like before DeFi was even understood by the entire crypto industry. So like, we're going back in time to a point where just like fundamentals of Ethereum were just completely misunderstood. Where Ryan and I started the Bankless Podcast to like basically espouse about the dislocation

• 15:07David Hoffman?

  of the fundamentals of Ethereum and the purpose of DeFi, right? And then there's then, so that's Bitcoin, the, on one end of the spectrum. And there's this narrative that like Ethereum is just squeezed. You know, it's got Bitcoin sucking up the monetary properties on one side of the value spectrum. And then it's got Solana sucking up the execution powers on the other side of the spectrum. And Ethereum is in this like weird no man's land in the middle. And it's getting just like, you know, barballed on both sides. And there's always been like the Ethereum barbell perspective. I've always been of the opinion that there, the unity of all of these things is actually far more valuable than the barbelling of these things. Ether is better money because it's intimately connected with its own financial platform, its own DeFi. Solana can sure can execute very well.

• 15:52David Hoffman?

  Its execution capacity is very, very strong, but it's never going to be able to be as strong as Ethereum layer two's. That's the whole point of the Ethereum layer two model. And then even the Ethereum layer one, at the end of the day, is also going to be the first one to actually land a ZKVM that's robust on Ethereum layer one. And so it's also going to be able to execute faster than Solana at the layer one, given enough time. And it's basically going back to like something that's always been true, which is Ethereum just has kind of just all of the researchers of the crypto space. You just invest where the researchers are, like that we are on a new frontier of like exploring this new world of crypto economics, like to go where the researchers are innovating. And that's definitely where Ethereum is.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  And Ethereum layer twos, can you help us understand this? Cause I see some detractors saying that, oh, Ethereum layer twos are kind of sucking up value capture from the main chain. How do you guys think about it?

• 16:51David Hoffman?

  My, my idea here is, and this has actually been identified by Palenia, who's an Ethereum kind of like adjacent researcher, kind of community researcher. He was saying this on his blog forever ago. The idea here is that like Ethereum has layer one execution. We used to be predominantly doing our DeFi activities on the Ethereum layer one and therefore producing fees for the Ethereum layer one. It would make Ether very deflationary. And now a lot of that DeFi activity, that general financial activity is moving on to the layer twos, leaving nothing much for capture on the Ethereum layer one. And so like detractors will say base is actually. Like intercepting Ethereum's value capture. Arbitrum is intercepting Ethereum's value capture.

• 17:33David Hoffman?

  Like Arbitrum, all of these sequencer fees, all these chain fees are going to the Arbitrum DAO or to the Coinbase P and L, and nothing is left for Ethereum at the end of the day. This is the rollup-centric roadmap. This has been the plan. The idea is when you take Ethereum's business model of, you know, execution fees being burned by EIP 1559, and you democratize that to a permissionless set of layer twos, all of a sudden, like, all of these layer twos are super profitable. As a business, it's like the best business in the world is you just resell the most valuable block space in the world, the Ethereum layer one, and you resell it as your layer two, and you just pocket the difference. This is the most sustainable, replicatable, reproducible business model that has ever been found in crypto.

• 18:16David Hoffman?

  And what do you get when you put all those properties together? You just get a complete blossoming of layer twos. And so this is where ETH turns into money, because the Ethereum monetary network, the Ethereum property, property rights network, has this just like, you know, chain of chains, this literally internet of chains, that all collapses back down to Ethereum. And the argument here is like, well, people can still say, well, at the end of the day, like, the fundamentals, the fees, the deflationary nature of Ether is actually still just, that doesn't solve any of your problems. My response to that is like, actually, every single chain is on this roadmap. Bitcoin is on the rollup-centric roadmap. Solana is on the rollup-centric roadmap. Celestia is on the rollup-centric roadmap.

• 19:00David Hoffman?

  And actually, credit to Celestia, Celestia's the only one that's on the rollup-centric roadmap and actually knows it, whereas Bitcoin and Solana are on the rollup-centric roadmap and are in denial about it and think they're on something else. And so like, there's, if you reroll the dice of crypto, you will always get the rollup-centric roadmap. That's not Ethereum's invention, it's actually Ethereum's discovery, and Ethereum is just much further along on this whole entire path.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Ryan, this cycle, specifically same question, but also I want to extend it also to, do you think Ethereum can flip Bitcoin in the short term?

• 19:37Ryan Sean Adams?

  This cycle, it's going to be tough to flip Bitcoin, I would say. So I am still a believer, and this is again a minority opinion, that one day Ether will actually flip Bitcoin, but that could take many years to play out. And the reason is just like, I am super uber bullish on DeFi. It's just the whole thing, the whole crypto thing, and this is the thesis for Bankless, is like, DeFi is a big deal. Store of value is just a subset of decentralized finance, right? Ethereum can do the superset. It could do store of value, and it can also do the other money verbs, the lend, the borrow,

• 20:19Ryan Sean Adams?

  the trade, all on-chain, all in a decentralized way, right? And Ethereum alone, as a smart contract platform, preserves similar censorship-resistant guarantees as like Bitcoin. I think there's a lot of competing, let's call it layer ones, that are actually more like open finance type systems. And by that, I mean like, yeah, sure, you're going to get stable coins on there, you're going to get real-world assets on there, you're going to get like game tokens and like maybe meme coins, but is it going to be censorship resistant to government attack, for instance? Like, if you deployed a tornado cash on Solana, I'm not saying anyone should do this, this is illegal, whatever, all these things aside, but if you did that, how soon do you think

• 21:01Ryan Sean Adams?

  it would be until the validators say, oh, we're not processing those transactions? On Ethereum, for the good and the bad, those transactions cannot be censored by the most powerful government in the world, which is the US government, saying, oh, fac sanctioned. That is a testament to the censorship resistance of Ethereum, and that's like what DeFi means to me, and that's kind of the distinction between decentralized finance and open finance, and you know, like even the TradFi world. So I think that's important.

• 21:31Ryan Sean Adams?

  I would say three things about catalysts in the short term for Ether the asset. One, people don't understand right now ETH is money. They just don't. Okay, so digital gold with productive yield. That's a meme that has not been explored and exported to the world. So to me, that represents upside because that's how I see it. And that's essentially like what it is. Digital gold with yield that's barely understood. A second thing is Ethereum is going to have some upgrades, probably in 2025, that are going to stimulate rollup development, data availability stimulus. So I already did one of these stimulus is early in the year where it provided blob space. And that's why rollup transaction fees have gone to zero.

• 22:13Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's going to introduce a new stimulus for rollups and bring transaction fees even closer to zero, increase the throughput of them. The rollup strategy has been unsung success of Ethereum. Like no, Polkadot tried, Cosmos tried, all of these other ecosystems tried to execute on this hub, this chain of chains type vision. Only Ethereum is actually doing it with shared security. And people are now looking at a successful roadmap where you have like base transactions, Arbitrum transactions, like optimism, all of ZK sync, all of these ZK rollups. They're looking at the success of this and they're being like, oh, I'm bearish ETH. That is ridiculous to me. And it's only a matter of time before the market wakes up to that.

• 22:55Ryan Sean Adams?

  And then thirdly, I think based rollups are actually going to be a big deal. I don't know if your listeners have explored this side of the new rollup frontier. But it's basically a rollup that uses as its sequencers, the Ethereum validator set is a much more aligned form of a rollup with ETH value accrual than the traditional rollups. And it's not fragmented, complete interoperability. And so I think we'll see some existing layer twos convert to based rollups in the future. We'll see a blossoming of new based rollups. Anyway, like I look at the ETH strategy and everything that's going on and I'm like, this is all going according to plan. And ETH is going to be a digital gold and will accrue value as the Ethereum economy grows.

• 23:38David Hoffman?

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• 24:22David Hoffman?

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• 25:07David Hoffman?

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• 25:47Speaker 03

  So when will the market wake up, do you think, to the fact that Ethereum is money? Ethereum is programmable, digital gold with yield. That Ethereum is DeFi? I mean, in the context of 2025 cycle... You said 100K David for Bitcoin, 150K Ryan, what are you guys thinking for Ethereum?

• 26:09Ryan Sean Adams?

  I mean, I'm still, I'm still at, you know, 10, 10K plot, like 10K is bearish type of take. Like if we don't hit 10K in this cycle, then like you, you have no other option other than to kind of load up the truck and buy more because it's stupid. Like, I think that's the, the bearish scenario for Ethereum. Now, whether we fully kind of propagate this narrative and whether ETH receives the, the value accrual that it's due this cycle, I'm not sure. Bitcoin has done a fantastic job in terms of narrative propagation and you have to hand it to them. I mean, the Bitcoin conference, they had Trump speaking. We have senators like Senator Lummis

• 26:49Ryan Sean Adams?

  talking about a strategic reserve of Bitcoin. This is like, oh, this is like, so Bitcoin has out executed Ethereum on every level with respect to like the, the store of value narrative. But to me, that's just the market kind of underpricing the narrative potential of, of ETH's money. But I mean, I guess to directly answer your question. I think the market will, will start to realize this in 2025 and we might see kind of a 10 to 15K ETH price. But it might take more time. So like the, the, the timing thing is the, the only question, but I, I just don't care. It's just like holding stake. And if it's underpriced, then that's just like a, you know, a fantastic opportunity for, for acquiring more ether.

• 27:33David Hoffman?

  There's this meme out there, I think from Amin Soleimani, who called Bitcoiners the Spartans and Ethereum, the Athenians. The illusion here was like the Spartans are all just completely in unison, pointed towards a direct, like a focus goal. They win the movie and the 300 movie all do the same chant at the same time. And then the Athenians are like, the Spartan would go off to the Athenian and be like, who are you? And one Athenian would say, I'm a, I'm a blacksmith. And then you go to the next Athenian, they were like, who are you? Like, oh, I'm a farmer. Next guy, we're like, oh, I'm a leather smith or whatever. Just a disconnected disparate, just like group of people with different expertise and different directions. And the Ethereum narrative, I think, is very similar. This is like who the core devs are.

• 28:17David Hoffman?

  This is who the Ethereum culture is, like a very pluralist culture. That has different values and different focuses and, you know, the Bitcoin has one narrative, which is Bitcoin is digital gold for the internet. That's why like people buying the iBit from BlackRock is so easy to sell. So it's like it's digital gold on the internet. And then Ethereum, even like our own roadmap, our own internal community, it's always split amongst like 17 different directions. To Ethereum's benefit, I think, but I think it's a very long-term benefit. It's very much like the long game, whereas you have like the ETH is money camp. Who's like, yeah, ETH is money. And like, there's another camp of Ethereum over there who like just doesn't care. And they're actually building like a decentralized social media, social graph protocol.

• 29:00David Hoffman?

  And they all just like use USCC, but for whatever. And I think this strategy, this like emergent strategy, this emergent property of Ethereum is actually why Ethereum is so such a good fit for like my personal values and what I want to see out of the internet, because Ethereum to me looks the most like society. It looks the most normal, whereas Bitcoin has got this super homogeneous group of people with a very narrow set of values. Same thing kind of with Solana, like a very narrow set of people with very homogeneous values, not as homogeneous as Bitcoin, but still kind of like constrained. And Ethereum is just like this very pluralistic, open

• 29:37David Hoffman?

  network of people. And the way that this turns into like, like the conversation around the ETH price is that like, I think it could be a really long game for Ether to really win the mindshare of money on the internet. But I think Ethereum has the properties of money on the internet that will inevitably like arrive at. Because these like, you know, community of differentiated people with different values are all are on the same network. And if everyone's on the same network, if everyone with different values are on the same network, that to me, that's this is like a long-term, long game of just like winning monetary properties.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Ryan, let's say you have $1,000 today and you put 900 of that into Ethereum. You have 100 left, cannot put it into Solana or Bitcoin. What's another L1? What's two other L1s that you think are doing it right? They might put 50 and 50.

• 30:27David Hoffman?

  Wow, funny question.

• 30:28Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, David uses this line of like, by the way, we get to come on other podcasts and be like, like, sound like ETH crazy ETH maxies, right? And that's what people accuse us on, but like, we're deeply exploring other ecosystems all of the time. And I think there's some really interesting ecosystems emerging. And David uses this line, like, the L1 trade, the L1 trade is always on. That's because, like, basically, you know, Bitcoin sets the price for Ethereum. And then Ethereum sets the price for every alternative that can become Ethereum, right? And so I'm really excited about Monad. I think that that is growing a community ecosystem.

• 31:10Ryan Sean Adams?

  Unfortunately, it doesn't have a token that's available, but like, I think that's one that's going to gain some steam.

• 31:17Ryan Sean Adams?

  Well, it's just, it's, it's, first, it's EVM compatible, right? So you get to leverage that network effect directly. And then you have transaction fees, you know, like, and throughput, as similar to the level of what Solana promises with FireDancer. And then you already have, like, Kiony, the founder's already cultivated, like, kind of a cult type of community. It's just like a lot of ingredients for success here. It's like, I think that the worry for a Solana right now, for example, is all of these new alternative layer ones that are kind of like entering, entering the scene, in addition to the layer twos as well.

• 31:56Ryan Sean Adams?

  So, I mean, I guess you can't buy Monad unless you're like accredited investor, like, to its detriment. But like, I think that there are some high throughput chains that I would bet money on with that remaining, like, 10% that are like fairly low market cap in comparison to Ethereum. But like, I wouldn't hold that forever, all right? Like, I would, I would then go back and eventually cycle those gains back into a better crypto denominator, which is something like Ether.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  David?

• 32:28David Hoffman?

  Uh, so yeah, I think the game now is, uh, the all of the alt layer one trade, you know, the alt layer one trade is dead. Long live the alt layer one trade. Um, is now we're trying to identify who's number four. So Bitcoin, Ether, I think most of the market will agree that Solana has kind of clinched number three. Um, it probably needs some more time to formally clinch it, but you know, it's, it's on its way there. Uh, so now, now the game is like, all right, who's going to win number four? Uh, and I think now the answer is going to be the, uh, either the fastest EVM layer one, or the fastest move chain. So it's either going to be, um, Monad and Say, which are the two EVM ones, one of those two, or Aptos and Sui, which I think are both move. Um, I think those are the

• 33:10David Hoffman?

  two really like, these are where the categories have collapsed down to. So fast EVM, fast move, one of those two.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  One more question, then I know Aaron had a question, um, but, um, did you guys see Murad's talk at Token 2049?

• 33:24David Hoffman?

  I saw the title of it. I did not watch.

• 33:25Ryan Sean Adams?

  I saw the title of it and I've like known Murad for, like, he was actually one of the first people I met at a, um, a crypto conference, like back in 2017, 2018.

• 33:34David Hoffman?

  Most people think Murad is new. Murad's not new. He's been around.

• 33:37Ryan Sean Adams?

  He had a fund, uh, previously, fun fact.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  I remember when he did that podcast with Pomp way back in like 2017. It was like Bitcoin Explained for Beginners.

• 33:45David Hoffman?

  I sent that one to my mom.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Thank you. It was a great one. Anyway, you didn't watch the thing, but he essentially laid out in fact and detail, the bull case, why meme coins, why, why retail prefers meme coins, which we already kind of figured, but like the, the data to back it up and facts. Just what's your take on meme coins into 2025?

• 34:02Ryan Sean Adams?

  I don't hate them. He's probably right. I mean, meme coins are going to like outperform a lot of things if you can get kind of like the right meme coin and you can play that game by like sort of speculating on the, um, the blue chip meme coins, right? There's kind of like bet, bet on the church meme coins that already have a following rather than the, the cult meme coins that are just like super speculative and you, and you don't know. So I could see an allocation to, to meme coins. That said, it's hard for me to justify like denominating my wealth in meme coins, right? So I like, if I were to approach it, I would approach it as a, as a trader and, uh, you're, you're sort of doing a, like a narrative, uh, cult, community, almost like, uh, you're betting on a new religion, uh, type of investing that's like, it's, I don't know if you

• 34:47Ryan Sean Adams?

  call it investing, trading, that's a little bit foreign to me. So I don't partake, but like also he's probably right.

• 34:56Speaker 03

  Altcoin Daily is the number one crypto YouTube channel in the US. Bankless is the number one crypto podcast in the US. What is the secret, guys, to getting where you are? You guys do great work. If you could impart some practical advice on our listeners, what would you say is the secret to growing a successful crypto podcast?

• 35:18David Hoffman?

  Oh, God. I feel like there's a handful of things that I think we have accidentally done right. I think we A got lucky just by finding each other and, you know, being able to do this and have fun. Like, if we wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't fun for us. Like, the weekly roll-up, I think, is the most consistent thing that we do. And it's also kind of like the most fun podcast that we do, because we're just like shooting the shit, basically, while we're recording. Like, we're trying to, we're like, we try to make it like a little bit funny at the very least. And so that produces some level of, like, sustainability.

• 35:49David Hoffman?

  We also just really want to do, we're also just long-form people. Like, both Ryan and I were podcast consumers before we started a podcast. And always long-form podcasts. We always like Sam Harris, Lex Friedman, some of these really, like, inherently curious people. And I think Ryan and I are also both inherently curious. So we're inherently curious, long-form people that are having fun. And those three things, amongst many others, are like really good foundations to like make this whole thing sustainable. Because at the end of the day, if you're gonna have a podcast, you need to be consistent. Like, we've been doing three episodes a week for four years. Like, whatever

• 36:27Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, we don't stop.

• 36:28David Hoffman?

  You know, whatever magic ingredients you need to make that happen is part of whatever the answer to the secret is.

• 36:34Ryan Sean Adams?

  In addition to consistency, I'd also add another C, which is like curiosity. I mean, like, the Bankless podcast is just like basically open sourcing our crypto journey. That's kind of what it is. And so the questions that we have on the frontier are sort of, we just assume that's, those are the questions that our audience has. And so staying curious in the space without getting locked into a specific, you know, like focal area, but also having like some, another C, conviction about how the space is going to play out. I mean, the reason we think crypto exists, the thing that brought both David and I together, and, you know, is the reason for the Bankless podcasts, is decentralized finance. It's like, says it in the name, it's all about

• 37:16Ryan Sean Adams?

  Our ability to go bankless. And that's been the consistent message from day one. And so we see things like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, all as tools to help the world go, go bankless. And that's always going to be and has been the North Star for us.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  My final question, then I'll let Aaron bring it home, but you guys had a public tiff again with Charles Hoskinson, Cardano.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Could you just give for the community, what are your thoughts on Cardano, the community, the CEO? Uh, founder, founder.

• 37:50David Hoffman?

  Founder. I think Cardano is a funny emergent property of the modern internet when you mix it with cryptocurrency.

• 37:59Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I guess my take on it is, um, I would love to have Charles on the podcast and I don't know why he won't come on the podcast.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  That'd be great.

• 38:07Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's weird. Every time we just try to do that, um, he will splice together clips of like us just like edited to like saying bad things about Cardano and like, a lot of people think these things.

• 38:21David Hoffman?

  There was one time I was on a podcast and somebody else's podcast without you, Ryan, I called Cardano a scam.

• 38:27Ryan Sean Adams?

  Oh, well, thanks, David.

• 38:28David Hoffman?

  Yeah. So part of that's on me.

• 38:30Ryan Sean Adams?

  I just think it's an opportunity for Charles to just be like, um, if David's saying it or if people are saying it, right?

• 38:36David Hoffman?

  People, people are saying, people are saying.

• 38:38Ryan Sean Adams?

  Come on and talk about it. I mean, like, there's not a gotcha question. So it always reverts to like, um, something we did in the past that's unfavorable and like, I don't know, I would just love to just do a reset and have Charles on. I do think Cardano has some interesting properties, uh, specifically with respect to like the distribution of, uh,

• 38:58David Hoffman?

  Commitment to decentralization.

• 38:59Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's super distributed and there's like an active live staking community and it's actually a lot more decentralized, quote unquote, uh, than I think a lot of people give it you credit for. I'm still waiting to see the emergence of applications on top of it and like those are coming, DM, but like, uh, the decentral property, decentralization properties of Cardano are actually like a lot better than a lot of chains. So maybe, maybe we could clip that and send that to, to Charles, see if that helps.

• 39:27David Hoffman?

  And while we're at it, you know, obviously collabing, talking, that'd be the best option, but David, any possibility? You want to do a fight, karate combat style fight with Charles Hoskinson?

• 39:37Ryan Sean Adams?

  Oh, there you go.

• 39:40David Hoffman?

  So I'm doing this karate combat fight with Kane Warwick because I was almost going to do a karate combat fight with Nick Carter and then like two weeks before that fight with Nick Carter broke my rib. And then I had all of this like two months of training that I was like, well, well, F like I just, what did I do for the last two months? I'm just not going to do anything with this. Nick had already scheduled his fight. And so I reached out to Kane Warwick, say, hey, like Kane, let's like, let me bookend my whole like karate combat thing. Let's fight it permissionless. He accepted. That's happening in like 10 days. And then my plan has always been to like stop and go back to what I normally do, which is like climb mountains and like do, you know, PVE stuff. And

• 40:22Ryan Sean Adams?

  Just one more fight, David. This is a very long way of saying yes.

• 40:25David Hoffman?

  I do not want to just one more fight my way into this. So that was my current plan.

• 40:31Ryan Sean Adams?

  Bit Boy is another challenger, by the way, if you're ever interested, David.

• 40:34David Hoffman?

  Bit Boy is going to eat Ansem's face. Did you see?

• 40:37Ryan Sean Adams?

  Is that happening?

• 40:38David Hoffman?

  Bit Boy versus Ansem? Apparently, apparently it's happening. Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Crypto Fight Nights.

• 40:41David Hoffman?

  Yeah. Bit Boy's gonna kill that guy.

• 40:43Ryan Sean Adams?

  Wow.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Well, Bit Boy's gonna try and Ansem's not gonna try. So Ansem is much bigger, but I mean, my money would be on Bit Boy as well, Ben.

• 40:51David Hoffman?

  I think Bit Boy has like extreme levels of internal motivation, but I don't think, I don't think.

• 40:57Ryan Sean Adams?

  Like a ferocity?

• 40:58David Hoffman?

  Yeah, like Bit Boy like gives a fuck. And I don't think Ansem gives a fuck.

• 41:04Ryan Sean Adams?

  Hot take?

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Gentlemen, my final question. Thank you so much for joining us today, guys. Everybody go subscribe to Bankless below. Follow them on Twitter and YouTube. Final question, just general best advice for crypto investors coming into the space today. What practical, doable advice would you impart?

• 41:23David Hoffman?

  Don't take leverage. Leverage is a drug. You'll get addicted.

• 41:29Ryan Sean Adams?

  Is that from experience, David?

• 41:30David Hoffman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:32David Hoffman?

  Well, my first discovery is like, wait, I can just print dye. I can mint dye. That's so cool. Wait, how much dye can I mint? Can I mint all of the dye? Yeah, that was my first experience in DeFi.

• 41:46Ryan Sean Adams?

  I mean, my take would be like, I feel like sort of a crypto boomer when I say just like, long term, long term, long time horizons with respect to your investing. And so you can play the short term games, but realize that's, that's kind of a game. The majority of your portfolio should be allocated towards the things that you want to hold for like five year periods of time and 10 years periods of time. And I think that's, that's important. And along those lines, I think the information that you consume, you know, will kind of like, you become what you consume. So choose very carefully what, what channels you like consume, how you subscribe and like, make sure that the people you're listening to also have the,

• 42:29Ryan Sean Adams?

  like, the long-term horizon holding patterns that you do, or else you'll just like ape into really bad decisions. And we've seen it happening so, seen it happen so many times in crypto.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  I love it. Thank you guys so much. That's why I subscribe to you guys. Thank you.

• 42:46Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's been a pleasure. Thanks, guys.