Bankless & Animal Spirits

26:00I just want to set expectations here for animal spirits listeners. This will be no exception. It will end with a whole bunch of scammers. All right. It will end with a bubble. Okay. This is going to happen. And this surprised me a little bit that this has always got to be the case. But it feels like these are the animal spirits of crypto. I guess a few things I'd say on this. One is what crypto is doing here because it's a permissionless open financial system. is just it's revealing what's already there. Okay. It's providing an outlet for something that we've seen in pockets in traditional finance with equities of like, you know, meme stocks, right?

26:40GME. These, this financial nihilism that's kind of like spread across our culture. And you could talk about like the different reasons for this. Maybe it's like younger generations feel like they're getting the short end of the stick. Maybe it's like the money printing. There's all sorts of different narratives for why this is happening. but this the financial nihilism is being expressed in crypto and it happens every single cycle so that crypto turns into eventually a casino and the the beauty of crypto i guess or maybe you see this as the the trade-off is it's open permissionless anyone can do it so you're you're gonna see the raw thing that already exists without sugarcoating you got nothing to hide yeah like you can you can watch well the double-edged sword of it is the casino is a thing that gets new entrants to enter Yeah, it does.

27:21But it's like it does. But toward the end of the cycle, you know, there's there's a difference, I think, between like, you know, scammers abusing and getting entrance this way. Like they're the point is when all of the people bought monkey JPEGs at the top last cycle. Right. And they watched those monkey JPEGs that they thought were going to generate life changing wealth for them, like decrease and collapse to something near zero. that is really bad user experience. Like your net promoter score for crypto is just like super negative. And so yes, it does drive adoption, but it doesn't drive long-term status.

28:00Like the speculative markets don't drive long-term satisfied users. And a whole bunch of them not only exit when things go bad and when like the celeb coin, I don't know if you guys saw this this week, it's like Iggy Azalea is releasing celeb coins. Caitlyn Jenner came out with like Jenner coin and these are like just low effort like I don't want to be associated with that but like it's permissionless it's open we can't stop it yeah um I do think though on the flip side of this this is why there's like a a great buying opportunity I've always seen this in crypto it's like if somebody is just floating on the surface and all they hear is the media headlines of Sam Bankman freed and like Jenner coin and like the ninth crypto founder who's like uh um three hours capitaled everyone and stolen their money, right?

28:46Then they'll dismiss it. They'll dismiss it without going deeper. And I think that's why there's still a buying opportunity here, honestly, is because the world, this is a revolutionary technology that's disguised as a scam, you know? And so like, that's why people miss it. In the early nineties, like I remember in adoption of the internet, some early critics would be like, it's just, what is it? It's just casinos and porn. It's just like, what is the internet going to be? And they missed the commercial opportunities on top of it. So that's the flip side. If you're a savvy investor and you actually go deep and you see the potential, what's really being built, you ignore the top stuff that gets transmitted in the media.

29:25I think there's a buying opportunity. Well, more people are going to hear about crypto, whether they like it or not, because it's now coming to Washington in a big way. You guys had a representative on your podcast last week. So what is the state of affairs with crypto and Washington, DC? Yeah, like last week when the Ethereum ETF went from like almost definitely getting denied to surprise 180 from the SEC and getting approved, it was probably the biggest week in crypto history in terms of just like a political win. If not just the biggest week, we went from just like kind of being behind the scenes when it comes to Capitol Hill and politics to both parties vying for the crypto vote.

30:05As it turns out, there are 20 million registered voters in the United States that say that crypto is an important issue for them. And I think like the Democrats were in denial about this. It was invisible to the Republicans. But just like something happened where I think like Donald Trump got wind that like he can say one thing that's positive about crypto and he can win a bunch of crypto votes. And then that all of a sudden turned into a massive it has turned into a massive tug of war between the Dems and the Republicans about like who gets the crypto vote. So it went from like the Democrats kind of being like pretty oppressive to the industry, like Gary Gensler from the Biden administration, more or less just like hazing us as an industry and like doing things that we would consider unconstitutional.

30:49And so like the Democrats known to be like pretty anti-crypto and the Republicans at best indifferent with some supporters. and then all of a sudden that flipped around and everyone realized that like not only are there like 20 million voters that say that crypto is important but just like millions and millions of dollars like we're an industry that learned how to print money on the internet like we have money we're very like a wealthy like voting base and there's a lot of single issue voters in crypto who like really care about crypto as their primary concern like either for ideological reasons for financial reasons, maybe a mix of both.

31:26But like people have just realized, like Washington, D.C. has realized that like the crypto voting base is wealthy and populous. And so like that's pretty simple calculus. Yeah, I think that explains a lot of it. Just like the fact that, David, you're seeing 20 million voting is like 20 20 percent of voters in swing states think that crypto is an important issue. 50 million American Americans own crypto right now. Mike Novogratz has said this is almost the amount of people who own dogs right more than more people own crypto than own dogs if you if you if you come out and you say we're the party against dogs right that's just not very popular like i mean i have a dog i love my dog right i love my crypto bags you're against my bags you're making me like poor i don't want you like i want the person who's like for my bags right i also think an unspoken story is how organized crypto has been this cycle in dc So last time, the guy that was sucking all of the oxygen from the room in DC was a guy by the name of Sam Bankman Freed.

32:25All right. And like what crypto realized, the industry in that vacuum is how hazardous it is to have people like that be the representative for crypto in DC. And so during the intervening period of like the bear market, they got super organized. so the crypto lobby groups um in dc the inroads to to members of congress even into the white house have been actually impressive like there's this website called stand with crypto it's like incredibly organized you can go and you see the politicians and it gives them like a letter score of like a b c d f on on cryptos like so we've gotten organized and also i'll say the last factor here is like BlackRock gets what BlackRock wants.

33:08Okay. And like right now, BlackRock, they saw the Bitcoin ETF inflows were incredible. And they're making some moves as well. This is kind of like crypto is making this alliance with banks like BlackRock, I think, with like, I don't know, they could turn on us as well. But for now, we're just uneasy bedfellows. And that's been interesting. The last thing I'll say, though, is I'm not I think we're in the phase until November of the politicians being really nice to crypto and like giving us what they want. And I don't know that that last passed an election cycle. So it's kind of like now is the time.

33:46Get all of your requests in. What would those demands be? Is it just like don't overregulate us? Is that God? Is that essentially like Gary Gensler? The SEC is right now in a lawsuit against five companies that are legitimate. Our most legitimate companies. Uniswap, Metamask, The Wallet, Coinbase, Kraken. These are exchanges and products that did not fail, have not failed, have been in existence forever. Haven't lost a year. Even Robinhood. You guys know Robinhood? There's a lawsuit against Robinhood for listing assets. So yeah. There are plenty of scams to go after. And they would be easy to go after.

34:24They could do animals, anything else, but they're going after like the people that have actually worked hard to promote this industry. And for some reason, they seem to want to give out Wells notices like candy, despite having like lost. I don't think they've won a single case. And so the bad faith regulation around the crypto industry by the SEC is like it's like not up for debate. It's like pretty clear. What's going on in Washington is uniting the crypto community, which is very bifurcated. And it's like a lot of other things. It's very tribal. I know you guys are, I don't know if you consider yourself ETH Maxis.

35:00You could comment on that. What's that? David, do you consider yourself ETH Maxis? This is a frequent topic of conversation between me and Ryan. It's funny because you don't have like stock Maxis. Like Michael's not an NVIDIA Maxi or something or like a NASDAQ 100 Maxi. That only happens in crypto. Yeah. Well, okay. The quick explanation behind that is like generally there are like values that each layer one ecosystem has built into it. So like Bitcoin has certain values, very strong Austrian economics values. Ethereum has different sets of values. So these are like, if you really get down to the basement of crypto, each blockchain represents kind of like a political movement of what your values are.

35:37And the adoption of that blockchain is like - What's the Dogecoin values? What's the maximum Dogecoin values? That one would take me a moment. So something about community, The celebration of community culture banding together under a joke. What do you guys see? We like memes, right? Something like that. What do you guys see when you like, so you're saying you don't see this in the equity space, in the stock space, right? It's like, but although I will say, like there are some tribes that I've seen in like the Tesla, the Tesla guys. Buffett tribes, yeah. The Vanguard tribes, Buffett tribes. Vanguard for sure, yeah.

36:12But even you get like the Tesla moon boys are pretty like, I would say ardent I don't know if you'd characterize that as a subclass. I guess the difference though is that Bogleheads, for example, I don't think they're spending a lot of time thinking about what other people are doing. I don't think they're arguing necessarily with like Kathy Wood. Yeah, they're not. We do what we do and I don't care what you do. They're more confident. Within crypto, there are battles. And I know you guys like to roll around in the mud sometimes. And it makes sense because this is a very nascent industry. You're looking to plant your flag and fight for what you believe in.

36:48But there's a lot of friction within each individual vertical in crypto. There is. And it's ugly. It's tribal at times. One thing I'll tell you, and this is another thing you don't see until you kind of look below the surface, is all of the argument is like bag argument. There's some values argument, as David said, but it's all about assets. It's like all about assets. But under the surface. I'd actually contest that. Well, let me just finish, though. So under the surface, though, there's a massive wave of cooperation that's happening in that all of the tools and technologies that are built are like open source.

37:25And so they're shared. Right. And so if Bitcoin is launching a layer two, for instance, I'm using crypto terms here, but they go, they get some code, open source code that the Ethereum tribe has developed. Right. So under the scenes at the builder level, because this is an open source permissionless movement, because I can look at something that Uniswap did with their curve and the way they price their assets, I could just take that and adopt that. There's a ton of cooperation that actually happens. The arguments are mostly over assets. But David, you were going to contend with that. You don't think the arguments are over assets?

38:00Yeah, David, you think this is altruistic behavior? No, not necessarily that. The people think that it's the art, the tribalness in crypto is because of bag bias. And that's not wrong, but I think it's the wrong framing. Like people, like they come into like the charcuterie board that is like the layer one landscape in blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, like pick your layer one. And then they like kind of like, you know, try it out. Like what is this blockchain represent? What are its values? Solana is like super low fees and good UX. Ethereum is like maximal decentralization and credible neutrality with like a layer two landscape.

38:39Bitcoin is like Austrian economics and hard money. And like each one represents like beliefs about like what the future of crypto could be or should be. And then as a crypto participant, you place your bets, you buy your bags, you buy Bitcoin, you buy ETH, you buy Solana, you buy Dogecoin. And then you get loud because you place your bets. But it's not so nihilistic in the sense that I'm just here getting loud about my soul bags because I have soul bags. I've chosen my soul bags because it aligns with my personal beliefs about how this thing will work and should work and that other people will agree with me.

39:11And I'm going to get really loud. And it gets loud because everyone is financially motivated. People are talking in their books. It's both. It's both. It's both. Like if TradFi people behaved the same way that crypto people behaved, imagine that I was like screaming every day, you guys, you could f***ing own Apple. You could own the best company in the world. You should. Why don't you? Well, okay. But crypto has like way more growth potential. At least it's perceived by crypto people to have way more growth potential. And so like the next 10 years of crypto means so much more than the next 10 years of Apple.

39:48because apple is already like so much but also david i would say is like you know when you sign up for crypto and you pick your tribe you're picking a subculture but you're also picking a religion yeah like you definitely are maybe the closest in tradfied is just you remember those old like um i'm a mac i'm a pc type ads and that religious warfare they kind of tapped into so there were like mac subculture people and there's like windows subculture people like all the nerds Do you know, like there's an element of that, but even more so it's, it's more like picking, you know, like, am I going to be a Muslim?

40:22Am I going to be a Christian? Am I going to be a Buddhist? There's an element of that tied into these assets. And this is one of the reasons that I first bought Bitcoin. And I think June, 2020 was because not because I believed, but because I believe that enough people believed and it is a simple supply and demand story. And I could give two shits. In fact, I don't like, like the Austrian economic philosophy of buy Bitcoin. when your dollar's going to zero. Like to me, that feels like a shitty message. And I don't like that. And I don't like it so much that if Bitcoin went to a hundred thousand and I didn't own it, I would light myself on fire.

40:55So I bought it to protect myself from having those schadenfreude feelings, but it is a religion. And I don't say that in a bad way. Like people really, really believe. Yeah. And it's, it's the sales sphere around Bitcoin. Bitcoin has no marketing department. Bitcoin has no like promotion or foundation or anything. There's no face of Bitcoin or crypto for that matter, which is probably one of the beautiful things about it. No one's listening. Tell us, who's Satoshi? How has this not been figured out? How come there hasn't been a big, huge profile saying, we did it, we got him? Hal Finney? Who's Satoshi?

41:26Yeah, there's a bunch of speculation of Satoshi. Would it be really boring if it actually came out? It would be. And I also, I think we're past the point of like, if there was actual proof that a particular person was Satoshi, it wouldn't matter and no one would care. like he is he is now up in the realm of mythology let me ask you guys something really trivial i look at i look at the price i have like price on my screen every day like like a lot of people and like a lot of people uh and i look at the price of bitcoin ethereum i don't know 475 times a day uh i'm curious what about you guys um i used to do that last cycle i bought as soon as bull market kicked off sometime in 2020 i bought like a cheap like 30 inch lcdt like tv and i plastered it up on my wall behind my computer and i was just like everyone on on like my the youtube comments were like why is david always looking up into the left uh and after going through that bull market and like kind of like without really like admitting it to myself letting some of my mental health slip uh i moved and i did not put that tv back up i was like no no no i even like moved in the price off my phone uh and so like i'll look at the price quite frequently But like it's never in like my default valence of my screens.

42:40Ryan, over under 100 times a day for you? Way under now. But like. Ryan's pretty good. He's always been pretty good. No, I've had to change. Honestly, have you ever like gone in your phone settings and kind of looked at the number of times you pick up your phone a day? Like I was doing that at times over 100 times a day. And it was just like checking some like crypto app to see prices. That's not a healthy place to be. because I actually like pride myself philosophy, like philosophically in terms of investing style and being long-term. And you are not long-term oriented at all if you're looking at the price 30 to 100 times a day.

43:14Do you know? Like it just snaps you into a different kind of dopamine type hit that then like to orient yourself psychologically to play the long-term game here. Well, especially as fast as the cycles in crypto move, does that surprise you guys at all? How fast? I understand that it moved fast at the beginning, but the speed at which these moves are happening, I, for one, was surprised how quickly things came back after the Sandbankman free. I mean, people were calling it a crypto winter, but it wasn't nearly as long as the last one. It seems like the cycles are only getting faster these days.

43:47Time dilation in crypto is definitely a thing. I spent last bull market, the 2021 bull market in San Diego, which is a pretty calm, laid-back town, laid-back city. and after like the workday was over 5 6 p.m i would go out with my friends and going from like the fury of the 2021 bull market to my friends who didn't work in crypto you know when you're walking in the airport and there are those like automated walk pads and you walk on them to go a little bit faster and then you get off of them and you like lurch backwards that was like me every every single day like 6 p.m i'm like okay it's san diego i need to calm down like i'm my foot is like jiggling and i had to i ended up just moving to new york where i live now and like the speed of New York and the speed of crypto much more resonant, but still nonetheless, like a week in normal world is like a day in crypto.

44:34The comeback story this cycle has been surprising to me. Like I had faith that it would come back. I think it happened a little sooner than I thought, maybe like 12 months, a year sooner, something like this. But one thing I'll just say and something I've learned and if you like continuing to tell myself is this has already happened. like this is the fourth time this cycle is playing out like just don't mid curve it right yeah four year cycles guys so here's what's gonna happen further notice we're gonna we're gonna continue to go up we're gonna crypto's at like 2.5 trillion right now we're going above 10 trillion all right 10 to like 15 trillion around that that um like uh mindset it's gonna bubble it's gonna top you're gonna see more jenner coins it's gonna get stupid and then it's gonna crash like that's just probably Again, not financial advice, but trust the cycle.

45:29It's happened four times. This is the fourth time. It's the only thing that's happened. And then people are going to say it's dead, right? Yeah. And when it goes up, you're going to start hearing like we did last time of, oh, this time it's different. This time we really have adoption. This time there's more fundamentals. This time we have more layer twos in block space. Like super cycles is a term that was thrown around in crypto, which basically meant we're never going to have another crash again. And when you start hearing stuff like that, then you know it's coming imminently. I just trust the cycles is like one thing I've learned about this space.

46:01All right, guys. Anything else that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to today? I want to ask you guys like some questions here because I'm just super curious. So, okay. So you were saying that, Michael, you don't hold with like the whole store of value Austrian type thing. I'm just curious, high level, like what is your mindset on macro? You know, like, does that factor into your like, so here's the basic narrative if I were to give the TLDR for crypto. Crypto people generally believe money printing is like a big deal. There's massive injections and liquidity. So they're very much on like the commodity side of things like scarce assets.

46:39They think sovereign bonds are going to get absolutely destroyed. The sovereign bond debt holders are going to be like complete bag holders. That's like the macro thesis. What a novel idea that nobody's ever thought of over the last 150 years. What do you guys think? What do you guys think about that? Do you fade that idea or is that part of the kind of the animal spirits thesis? I just, I don't live my life like that. Life is too short to worry about what's going to happen to the US debt. And I'm not like hand waving it away and saying it doesn't matter at all. Just for me and my personality, I just don't want to have that black cloud over my life.

47:11I have a family and a job that I love and people I work with that I love. Like I don't want to live in that negative death spiral. So I'm not saying that that risk does not exist. You don't like being Doomer. No, I just, I don't, we're going to die. And I don't want to live like that. So what I think about in terms of the macro, I keep like my beliefs about crypto fairly simple. I think that there is more demand than supply. And that's, that's the lens that I view it through. Yeah. I'm more, I'm definitely more of like a glass half full kind of person. So I don't, I don't view it through that lens either.

47:43And my, my whole thinking with politicians in, in crises type situations, some, some things are completely out of control, But if there's a way that like money can plug a hole and fix something, the politicians will do it. That's the way that I like thinking that the system is going to collapse upon itself. So I don't view it that way either. So I would look at crypto as more of like I've always seen it as a call option. That's always been my view of it as that. Like I think we're going to continue to have progress. We're going to continue to have innovation. Crypto is a call option on progress and innovation.

48:13Like I was one of the people beating my head against the wall at first. And I just didn't understand it because I'm just not a tech person. And the best explanation I ever heard about Bitcoin is, listen, you can't give someone like you can walk up to someone on the street and give them a$20 bill and no one can tell you yes or no or take fees off of that. Bitcoin is how you do that. Or crypto is how you do that on the Internet. Like handing someone. And that's a very simplified explanation, obviously. But that was a first time to me. It's like, oh, OK, I get it now. That actually makes sense. And so for me, it's always been a call option.

48:45One last thing on the Austrian economic philosophy that money printing is destroying, the government is stealing your wealth and stealing your money and money, a dollar goes to zero over time. Okay, a dollar is not meant to be hoarded. You're supposed to put it back into the system, invest, buy stocks, buy bonds, buy real estate, buy crypto, buy whatever. You're not meant to pile dollars. Dollars are not an investment. So that argument for me totally falls in deaf ears. Yeah, in crypto parlance, you'd say basically, so crypto talk about like a store of value all the time. And I guess your argument would be, Michael, like, look, dollars were never supposed to be a store of value.

49:23The store of value is like - They're a medium of exchange and a way to invest. Yeah, I get it. Nobody ever said that you should buy it, that the goal is to stack as many dollars in your bank as possible. Yeah. So I'm curious in terms of how you guys invest. Like there's almost an element for David and I, we are so like crypto pilled and like, I can't speak for everything that David owns, but basically for me, it's just like, I own crypto, a little bit of stocks, like some Coinbase and stuff. I own one stock and it's Coinbase. And the rest I have in T-bills and money market funds, and that's just my dry powder.

49:55I don't have that. Not financial advice. I don't recommend this. And yeah, David's probably wish. What do you guys buy? I'll speak for myself, and I think Ben aligns with this. We are believers in a better future. We are believers in corporate America. They are very good at making money. And I believe that stocks are the best way for long-term investors to gain long-term wealth. And so that's our business, right? We're stock market-pilled. What's that? You guys are stock-pilled. We're stock-pilled. So every, I mean, obviously, I'm maxing out my 401k. Every month, I've got money going into the brokerage account.

50:30But I do own a decent amount of crypto. probably more than is, I don't know if justified is the right word, but I do believe that crypto is going to be bigger tomorrow than it is today. So I am a believer and an owner and again, less so in the ideological reasons for it, but I'm here to make money. Do you guys actively manage your stuff? Like do you just like - Actively manage my crypto? No, no, no. Yes, yes. But just in general in the stock world, right? It's just like the Boglehead philosophy, as far as I know, It's just basically like low cost index funds. You just like buy and you hold and you do that.

51:07And it's like very passive. So in my 401k, which is, I guess, where a large portion of my stocks are owned, it's indexes and factors and stuff like that. I'm not picking stocks in my 401k. I have an IRA that I am picking individual stocks and not because I think I'm going to be the market. I almost, in fact, will not. If I do, it's only by luck, but because I love to do it. So for me, it's a passion and a hobby, but I do it really for fun, really and truly. And so if I beat the market, that would be wonderful. But if I don't, it's all good too. And I'm not turning my portfolio over all the time.

51:41I'm very much a buy and hold long-term, automated type investor. And my background was non-profit space, endowments, and foundations, and pension plans. And I, for 12 years, got a front row seat to watching these master stock pickers just fall over themselves all the time. And these were the smartest people I've ever met. And they all sucked at stock picking. And I thought, how am I ever going to do it then? If these people can't do it, these teams of people that all they're doing is talking to company management. And so most of my stuff is long-term, buy and hold, passive, set it and forget it.

52:15And I found that psychologically speaking, David, you had to take the screen away. For me, that makes it easier for me to follow the markets more closely. Because I know I'm not going to look at every little blip and make a change in my portfolio and pull a lever. because it's going on behind the scenes and I'm not worried about it. I have just two more questions for you guys. Is that cool? Is that cool? Sorry, it's just the podcaster kind of like kicking in. We're usually on another side of this. I've got one as well. I knew you were, David. We're flipping this around. All right, all right. So this is just a, I'm going in all sorts of places, but AI stocks right now, okay?

52:50Something like NVIDIA, just crazy. What are we like? Fourth largest company. One full crypto, I think. NVIDIA's market cap is like 2.5 trillion, something like this. What's going on there? Is this a bubble? What do you guys think? Did this catch the stock market and equity investors like you guys by surprise? And how long does it last? I think I wrote about this this week, actually. Yeah. So I think the fundamental growth behind NVIDIA has continued to shock everybody. The numbers that they're doing, both in terms of earnings per share and margins and growth, It's wild. And so what would you expect a company that is growing like that in a potentially transformative industry?

53:31What would you expect it to be worth? Do you expect to be trading at 10 times earnings? No, of course not. It's trading at, I don't know, 40 times forward earnings, which is not cheap, nor should it be cheap. It's earned the right to have a high valuation, but the numbers seem to be getting out of control in terms of the trajectory and the vertical nature in which a stock is moving. I don't like that it added$485 billion in three days. That makes me uncomfortable. So is it a bubble? I think it's earned its valuation. Does it seem to be like a little bit nuts right now? And certainly like due for a pullback?

54:05Yeah, sure. But that's again, not an original take, something that people have been saying for the last three years. AI is everything people are saying it's going to be. It's going to be the same cycle you predicted, Ryan, with crypto. There's no way we can get out of this without a bubble. Like the internet is everything we dreamed of in the 90s and more, but you've had to go through the dot com boom and bust to get there. Like I think I see no path forward where AI does not become a bubble and then have a huge downfall, even if AI does everything people are saying. That's kind of what I was wondering.

54:30And so when I see NVIDIA, I see sort of like a little bit of like 1997, 1998. I don't know if you guys remember this like at all or looking at it, but you know, I was just in school. I was looking at like Yahoo stock and the fundamentals were crazy. Like it was printing revenue and profit. Like it looked good on paper, but it turned out a lot of that was on the back of like private equity buying advertisements because the entire dot-com space was like blowing up. And so there's an element of like, David and I do some VC stuff too, right? And so we are seeing tons of AI projects get hundreds of millions of dollars in private equity funding.

55:09And they don't have - Elon's company raised at 18 billion. Is there a product? Yeah. They don't have a business model, but they are spending tens of millions of dollars per month on GPUs, right? Like per month. And to me, I'm like, ooh, okay. Well, this is interesting. And I wonder how sustainable it is, but - Well, I would say that Howard Linz made a good point that people comparing NVIDIA to Cisco, when the music stopped playing in 2000, Cisco's customers couldn't pay, right? Like it just was a complete shit show. NVIDIA's customers are Amazon, Meta, Google, right? Like, so I think it's a little bit different there.

55:44However, in 1999 or whenever Cisco topped, I don't know what sort of multiple is trading out of it. It was 100 or 200 times solid earnings, whatever it was. It was totally insane. Cisco, the business, continued to grow its earnings per share, like 15 % compounded for the next two decades. And it still got clobbered because it was pricing in 37 % growth or whatever. It's still underwater. The stock price is still under water from 1999. So can you see something similar with NVIDIA? I mean, that's not what I'm betting on, But would I be surprised if NVIDIA is flat down over the next two to three years?

56:17It would not surprise me in the least. David, you know. By the way, nowhere to$4 trillion valuation. Who knows? Like, I don't know where this is going. And I'm glad that I don't have to make those sort of decisions. Do your question, David. Ready to go back to crypto? Go ahead. So right now, the ETF just got approved. We're waiting on the S1s. But eventually, the ETF will be trading. And then it's a matter of just like the traditional financial institutions to actually like pitch it to their customers, right? To end investors. The Bitcoin narrative is pretty simple. Digital gold, like I kind of covers the bases.

56:50You can kind of elaborate from there if you want. But I think digital gold really explains Bitcoin pretty well. Right now in the big conversation in the Ethereum world is how do we sell Ether? How do we sell the Ether ETF? The narrative, I mean? The narrative, yeah. It's funny, I was going to ask you this same question because I do think it's going to be a harder sell. I agree that digital gold is, that's easy for people to latch onto in the retail and the advisor world. I think your way of pitching it as programmable money makes sense, but I do think that's a little bit of a harder leap for people to make.

57:22I think it's going to be, so I think it's going to be a little bit of a harder pitch to the TradFi world than the Bitcoin ETF. Yeah. So Bankless, we've been known as the people to really help educate around Ether, the asset and really helped evolve its narrative. But our attention is all consumers, individuals. These are crypto natives who are trying to join in the tribal games, be in the crypto world, be on Twitter with all of us. And so it's a different audience than what we are typically used to explaining and elaborating for. And so I'm actually wondering if you guys have any advice or perspectives or anything to add.

58:02Because Ryan and I are in the middle of a competition where a week from yesterday where he's going to pitch to me his best sales pitch for ETH from the TreadFight perspective, and I'm going to pitch to him. But since we are both here on an even playing field, I'm wondering if you guys just have any advice for us. Wow. Talk about turning the tables, asking us for advice on how you do it. That's true. The way that it was explained, or the clearest message that I saw in this was from, I think Matt Hogan wrote it. It was certainly from Bitwise. uh programmable money i think like smart contracts where you're not it's it's programmed into the technology this is a terrible pitch but you're not you're not looking for like human intuition or approval or anything like that it's all done before you place your bets do it do i'm worried about like i'm working on a pitch because i'm going to beat ryan here i'm worried about invoking smart contracts.

59:02To smart contracts, is that a helpful term or a confusing term? To who? To TradFi. Like people that don't know? Like BlackRock and BlackRock customers. That might be a little confusing. Right? It's not a term that you know of. That's a crypto-native term. David, I have my one-line pitch. You ready for this? TradFi's going to love it. Sure. NVIDIA for tokenization. Oh my God. What the hell is tokenization? Oh, damn. Tokenization isn't helpful. Fail. Well, but here's the thing. So from the perspective of like the buyer of the ETF, I don't think they really give a shit. They're trying to make money.

59:36Is it going to go up? It's like another form of Bitcoin. I know it's not actually, but fine. It's a digital asset. That's it. And I would just leave it at that. Couldn't you just say it's better than Bitcoin? ETH is just better than Bitcoin. Yeah, but why? Why is it better than Bitcoin? It's a better form of crypto than Bitcoin. Because you could actually do stuff with it. Because the price will go up faster than Bitcoin. There you go. Something like this. Guys, this has been really cool. Actually, David, that was my question. So that was like my final question, guys. But this has been really fun.

1:00:01And I think we should do something like this again. It'd be cool to have our counterparts in the stock world whenever we have questions about our 401ks and what to buy. And we could have this on a recurring basis. Well, I appreciate you guys coming on. One of the reasons why I've been listening to you over the years is because you are pragmatic and level-headed and you're not totally f***ing insane. So I appreciate the message that you guys are putting out into the world. Well done. Thank you for coming on our show today. This was a lot of fun. Amazing. Thanks, guys. Bye. Thank you.