DEFI

“Legacy finance's resistance to stablecoin yields and DeFi is ultimately futile in the face of technological disruption.”

“They created this little Potemkin village... they had verifiable professional backgrounds, and were familiar with how Drift operated.”

“In general, the game is getting harder every cycle. You can't just like, even the last one, the last one was pretty narrow, right? Like it wasn't just throw a dart at the board and like all of the coins basically go up. And I think that will persist, right? It's going to be much more narrow, thesis driven. And then even probably like the weird stuff will also be quite narrow and like just come out of PVP communities.”

“Why institutions are starting to pay attention is the shift toward more customizable financial products.”

“Google released a major quantum warning directed squarely at us. They have an algorithmic breakthrough that just 20x'd progress towards cracking ECDSA and some of the crypto signatures that underlie Bitcoin, Ethereum, and basically everything we do here. How bad is it for crypto? I think it's pretty concerning.”

“President Trump's new proposed 2027 budget is calling for more passenger screening at airports to be done by private companies instead of TSA agents, as is the case now. Supporters of the idea say it would ensure screeners continue to get paid during a government shutdown and the White House says it will save the federal government money and that privately operated screeners are more efficient.”

“I just kept seeing anytime like a female character was either bad or like outspoken, or we were always giving her a big handicap to make sure like we could forgive her or like her or stick with her. I was like, what if you had a character that comes, is not running from the law or experiencing mental illness or hiding a big secret or escaping a troubled childhood and she just made some bad choices and maybe was driven by some less than lovely impulses.”

“The second time I went back for seven years, it was to launch the inaugural vogue.com. So it was like this still unfigured out and quite frankly, mostly failed attempt to figure out how to migrate these things online and have both properties complimenting each other and working together. It ends right at the start of the industry becoming a very different industry. So it's definitely nostalgic in that sense. To work at these places looks nothing like it did 15 years ago.”

“I attribute most of that to higher-term premium that bond markets require to hold sovereign bonds. During my time at the Treasury, even before the pandemic, when the Pal FED was hiking rates, I think 10-year Treasury yields peaked at around 3 percent, and they're now running, of course, in the mid-4s, and indeed, they've been averaging, I think, four and a quarter for the last several years.”

“We just survived the worst Q1 in Bitcoin since 2018. Down 24% in Q1. And that was the worst Q1 we've ever had since 2018. In 2018, the market topped December 2017, and then it fell like 60% in Q1 2018.”

“The CFTC's recent prediction markets guidance is a 'nothingburger'.”

“These problems happen because of a lack of regulation. You know? Not all regulation is bad. A lot of it is. A lot of regulation is written by the companies to create motes and competitive weapons for them, but basic disclosure sort of rules are good. And without clarity, this is exactly the sort of thing that would happen.”

“The protocol is built with institutions in mind, highlighting for one that it does not trigger a tax event like alternatives and also comes with low-premium on-chain Bitcoin denominated insurance.”

“Crypto is splitting into the worlds of world of, just like stocks, like blue chip stocks that are traded on exchanges and penny stocks. Crypto has been entirely penny stocks. That game is going to continue to exist, but it is going to get dwarfed by the blue chip, you know, exchange traded stock game, which competes on compounding and all of the stuff that you would be relatively familiar with.”

“Canadian space agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen said he was struck by seeing the Earth wax and wane as they traveled through space and their view of the planet changed. It was a half Earth, then it was a full Earth, and then it was a no Earth.”

“My primary concern when I saw the news break was that this is going to put this potential legislation in protracted debate now about the things that we all have worried would be the killers of this bill, including now really having a case to box Trump in on an ethics clause in this thing. I am concerned it's gonna give the opportunity for people who don't wanna see crypto adoption to kill this bill.”

“We are on track to complete all of America's objectives very shortly. We are going to hit Iran extremely hard in the next two to three weeks. We are going to bring them back to the Stone Age where they belong. I think the whole 19 minutes was basically to inform the public that we are in this for three more weeks.”

“We're building the infrastructure for the next generation of securities markets.”

“The protocol is built with institutions in mind, highlighting for one that it does not trigger a tax event like alternatives and also comes with low-premium on-chain Bitcoin denominated insurance.”

“when you look at the research that's been done on an anonymized basis, it roughly half of Olympian athletes admit to using banned substances and only 1% gets caught. So you ask yourself why is that the case? The reason for that is because athletes when they choose to cheat, they take newly developed drugs that are not well researched. They take additional drugs on top of that to hide what they're taking in the first place. That's how they're able to circumvent the testing. And that is completely unnecessary. Because it puts their health massively at risk. And why is that unnecessary? Because all of the substances that would make you perform better, recover quicker, and protect yourself better from injuries are actually substances that are FDA regulated and can be prescribed and are being prescribed by doctors to other patients every single day. And so we're saying, let's not be naive, pretend that the cheating is not happening. Let's take it out of the shadows.”

“I think the way I describe it right now is we're about six months into a pretty deep bear market. Traditionally, bear markets have lasted around 12 months before activity started recovering. That kind of makes me think that by the end of this year, we'll be looking a little bit better. We won't be out of the woods yet, but I do think 2027 will be quite a good year.”

“The transfer agent is the critical link in the chain for blockchain-native assets.”

“They were able to essentially get those signatures weeks in advance of the actual attack... using durable nonces, something of Solana.”

“Once stocks are onchain, they can participate in the broader DeFi ecosystem.”

“Hundreds of TSA workers resigned during the recent pay disruption, and experts say it can take months to hire and train replacements. That means staffing levels can vary by airport and even by the time of day, creating unpredictable wait times for travelers.”

“You're absolutely correct that the fiscal deficits seem to be stuck at between 5 and 6 percent of GDP. You and I early in our career spent time at Treasury, and in our day, that would have been a real eye-popping number in an economic expansion. Basically, anything over two or three is something you would get focused on.”

“The S&P license is not priced in yet.”

“And then, of course, in 2026, we have a sharp increase in global energy, oil and natural gas prices due to the hostilities in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. And so certainly that is a non-monetary policy shock this year.”

“I would get up at 4.15 every morning, seven days a week for two years. I wrote from 4.45 to 7.45. My first child gets up at 7.45 and then I was done. I couldn't do any, whatever the, after I'm looking for somebody's trumpet or croc or making lunch or screaming at people, I can't return to whatever that writing space is. So I was done writing every day by 7.45 and that was how I did it. I don't know who that person is now because I cannot find her.”

“I think the price, who is driving price discovery? It's the boomers here. There's a bunch of boomer money via now ETFs, but soon RIAs and stuff like that, that's going to move into crypto. They're going to go through the same process that we did, and they're going to look at the world and say like, what makes sense here at DeFi?”

“Open blockchain infrastructure could make lending markets more transparent and competitive.”

“I think that we've all had that job or that relationship in which we're like, this is a life or death situation, you know, like making this relationship work or not getting fired from this job. And then you do lose a relationship or you do get fired and you're like, wait, once you break the spell and you like are on the street with your potted plant in a box... she's been working so hard on building an identity that is very inauthentic. And she doesn't want to lose it and becomes more and more desperate not to lose it.”

“The Prime Minister warned of extremely difficult times ahead as the Iran war continues to affect oil costs, noting that current prices are almost double the estimates indicated in Senegal's current budget. Several African countries have put in place measures to try and mitigate the impact of increased oil prices, including reducing fuel taxes and increasing subsidies.”

“The CFTC's recent prediction markets guidance is a 'nothingburger'.”

“Legacy finance's resistance to stablecoin yields and DeFi is ultimately futile in the face of technological disruption.”

“What onchain lending could change is the future of finance by providing broader access to capital.”

“The S&P license is not priced in yet.”

“Think about it like Formula 1. When the engineers of the Formula 1 team designed the Formula 1 car, that's at the forefront of scientific innovation and technology, that Formula 1 car is never going to get mass-produced. But what the engineers learn in developing that form car in some form of a derivative is going to trickle down into the world car production a few years down the line. So the anti-blockage system that you have in almost every car today actually comes from motor racing. very similarly for us would help Christian Golam, a Greek swimmer that broke the first record last year as an enhanced athlete. What helps him break a world record is way too complicated for an average Joe like myself. But the work that we do with Christian and all of the other athletes is constantly improving our product offering and our prescription guidelines for the people at home.”

“Where is the term medicine coming from? Where's the term doctor coming from? It comes from a report which was commissioned in the 1920s by the US government. Uh which was great back then because before there was no definition. Everybody could sell this whole thing and like yeah. So that report said hey if you want to call yourself a doctor you need to have a minimum of a dedication. if uh they call the disease a negative deviation from the norm uh and then a medication which has a minim minimum efficacy yeah and where you know kind of what are the side effects in order to bring back the negative deviation of the norm to the norm by the way back then I don't want to criticize it groundbreaking because it improved the medical system it's actually what the western medical system is built on but like the tricky thing was that negative deviation from the norm it's very obvious for cancer.”

“It was a long-term, at least six-month intelligence operation... it involved in-person crypto professionals interacting with the Drift team, building their confidence.”

“The real power of money is simply the freedom not to think about it anymore.”

“I actually think that him opening the door to allow people to invest in meme coins was intentional to try to, you know, kinda push out, you know, the shit to basically collapse the altcoin market in the end. I actually think that that was intentional. They issued guidance that says meme coins are not securities. He did help the alt industry, you know, kind of self-emulate.”

“Morpho functions as a layer to make lending markets more transparent and efficient.”

“It's by the way there's one company out there which does that perfectly people just don't know it or know it they know the company but like not the business model because they're not public which is Red Bull uh if you look at Red Bull yeah it's a consumer product um but they own various sport events. Um, it's not public, but my guess is uneducated guess is that at least some of them are really profitable or at least value a creative like the Red Bull Formula 1 team. Um, but the vast majority of the brand value of the Red Bull Formula 1 team is going to Red Bull. So, they make money or they build up value by owning it and they have this massive translation into their consumer product. And that's very simple or simplified said like what we are aspired to become.”

“Who are you allowing access to prospective customers at a conference? Who are you allowing to be in your booth representing your space?”

“So, in the US, for example, if you win gold, you make 37 a half thousand. Compare that to the 250,000 that we're paying if you win an event. Massive difference. In Germany, where I'm from on Cru, where we're both from, uh the prize money for for gold that Germany pays you is €20,000. So, it's really nothing. And so we had one female swimmer, she won gold at the Paris Olympics in 2024 and she was saying like, "Hey, I've now represented my country on the highest level, won the highest award there is in my sport after having dedicated my lifetime to the craft and I make 20,000 euros, but if I go to Love Island, I'm going to make at least three times as much from just rocking up there. So how is that possible?"”

“Today's topic is the Hollywood thriller backstory to the Drift Hack and the backlash against Circle.”

“Also, the biggest hack, I think, in Solana history, a $300 million hack, the Drift Exchange, this is a purpose exchange, was hacked. What happened and what can we learn? It's all about the lessons we learn along the way, isn't it?”

“Moving to a 24/7 market structure is the ultimate goal for global liquidity.”

“You can go into the code, and you can actually see what they can do and what they can't do. You can see if they want to, they can issue a trillion coins. And you know if you're invested in that, you are investing that. What we're talking about now is the balance of how much do we want to allow people to buy what they wanna buy.”

“So, so I started my career in biotech. Um I was like uh 20 didn't know a lot of life but sometimes you need to be at the right place at the right time and need to be bolded. So I uh I talked two of my professors into starting a biotech company with me uh which became very big. I didn't check the market cap meaning I sold years ago but it's called Alnum. We pioneered RNI technology. It's roundabout like people can look it up alny as a ticket but again I'm sold years ago but like I think it's a $50 billion company now like it became wildly successful it's a very iconic biotech company where I have actually and actually that is maybe as an anecdote so I'm doing biotech which makes me very old like since 27 years again I started early and since I'm in biotech I was quizzing all of the people I met and because of the success of a lot of cool people early and I was like why the hell are we only focusing on nichy diseases which originally was the mantra of biotech for 20 years.”

“No, I think Christian uh you're making a good point that I think the underlying thesis is right, how can we showcase the efficacy and effectiveness of enhancements when they are administered under the right clinical and medical supervision. And so there is, as Christian alluded to, right, there's athletes that can break world records, but that's extremely unrelatable, right? There's very very few people, one right, that can hold a world record. And so we have a second category of athletes like Megan who's 35 coming to beat her personal best. But then still how can you make it even more relatable? And so everything on the sporting side then if you take a step back and look at as an overall organization everything that we do on the sporting side is the showcasing of the efficacy and effectiveness of those enhancements to go out there and inspire people to think about their own health differently and consider what can enhancements do for me.”

“Historically, in order to reduce core inflation by multiple percentage points, you need a deep recession. I believe there are some very prominent economists who said to get inflation down to the 2s, you’re going to need 6% unemployment. And of course, through the end of 2024, that had not happened. Inflation had fallen, I think it bottomed at 2.4%.”

“I think for this cycle to work in a big way, it has to be retail driven and or agent driven, like Mike was saying before, like retail almost needs to interact with agents or agents need to interact with themselves and get this thing going. And I think that will happen. So like, that's what I'm bullish on this next cycle.”

“So I think the story in the US in 2025, to some extent, was tariffs pushing up the price of goods. And that was offset by a decline in services inflation. And then, of course, in 2026, we have a sharp increase in global energy, oil and natural gas prices due to the hostilities in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.”

“We've integrated compliance directly into the token's smart contract layer.”

“Did Ethereum just come up with a plan to finally unite all of the Layer 2s? They're called Ethereum Economic Zones. We'll spell out what that means. Aavev4 just released. What's new in that?”

“The other people, I don't think, were aware that the pool is, you know, 93% collateralized, but effectively by one entity. This is about the fact that that the entire DeFi ecosystem has enormous issues that are undisclosed to people who participate in it. And this is going to be meat to the lions on the regulatory side because it is exactly the sort of thing that good regulators care about.”

“the 50year-old teacher in Iowa who just wants to do more with his grandchildren or whatever. He's not on Twitter. He's not going to go on a out of his own impetus. And most likely he's also not going to get reached with the marketing the classical the platforms are doing at the moment but he's going to most likely watch one of the biggest sports events of the year and when he's then learning about it he's like oh wow there is real science behind and that's why our clinical study we're doing in Abu Dhabi beyond that it's like gold standard for the uh for the athletes what they're getting in terms of uh medical service I think it's very important that be very scientific and everything we're going to do in the future and everything we're going to recommend uh is going to be backed up by science and with that sort of combination approach of like this massive global sports event which going to reach again hopefully millions and millions of people.”

“The real power of money is simply the freedom not to think about it anymore.”

“His longer-term view is a financial system with broader access and more competitive products.”

“Iran shot down those two planes over southwestern Iran. That's near the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway controlled by Iran through which much of the world's oil supply passes, fighting there has led to really a spike in energy prices. These are the first US planes downed in this war, and it could mark a turning point.”

“I actually think when you look at the, what are the movies like? How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 13 Going on 30, Devil Wears Prada, like they over-simplify it for sure, but I think they have done a nice job of certain parts of it looking as exciting and as glamorous and as full of access that it really was at the time. I can't speak for now, but I'm not usually offended by them. I think they do what they're supposed to do, which is portray this fantasy world that is selling a fantasy world.”