The Paper-Handed Princess and Mr. Aggressively Neutral Meet Again

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1:30Elaine Lee, my Real Vision colleague, welcome to Real Vision Crypto Daily Briefing. How are you? GM, GM Ash, keeping it natively crypto here this morning on Crypto Daily Briefing. Good morning. Good morning. Talking of natively crypto, let's take a look at some price action here, top of the show. Bitcoin trading on my screen at 27 ,332. On a seven-day basis, not awesome. It's off almost 9.5%. 24 hours trailing, looks like it's up about one quarter of 1%. But it's better, unfortunately, than what's happening in Ether, which we're going to be talking to Elaine about shortly. Ethereum trading on my screen, 1 ,814, trailing 24-hour basis.

2:14It's down just over 1%. Seven-day basis, though, however, down 13.5%. Not an awesome week, obviously, for Ethereum. Elaine, I know you spend a lot of time in the Ethereum space because of your work on NFTs at Ethereum and many, many other things. Elaine, what are you up to right now at Real Vision Crypto? Oh, Ash, these prices over this past week has been brutal. Like you said, Ethereum is down just a little bit over by 13 % and Bitcoin down by 9%. It is truly miserable. I'm not going to lie out there. It is a sea of red. However, though, many people in crypto are seeing a lot more fun over in meme coins.

2:57So very volatile space. I can't keep up with them. How many of them are just popping up left, right and center? But it is a really volatile space, something that I don't play with because I simply don't have the energy to watch the explosion of these meme coins. I see it go up really quickly. And I know for a fact, it will also come down very quickly, Ash. So Elaine, let's talk about it. Let's dig down here. Obviously, you're involved in a lot of things. You watch these markets very closely. You watch what's happening, not just in terms of price action. Look, we all know that crypto has these incredible periods of volatility.

3:33That's no surprise to anyone. But it's also interesting to talk about the underlying functionality. What's being built, where the community is, where the technology is, where the culture is, where the space is more broadly? What are you seeing? What's interesting to you right now? Well, I can tell you now, Ash, you know, NFT floor prices, even if the biggest projects are really just going down. They're dipping ETH by ETH for some of the biggest projects and blue chips of what they call them I see out there. But the ones that are, you know, really surviving the space for what I think is going to be the next bull run are simply it goes back to, the ones with the strongest community, the ones who are secretly learning, quietly learning, quietly consuming.

4:14And I would say that's very much the Real Vision Genesis collectors in the pro crypto space and our collective as well. You know, just popping in every morning through the afternoons, in the evenings, people are talking to one another, Ash. You know, even though people get new jobs in the space, you know, I just popped into our Discord this morning and I saw someone getting a new job that was really excited about. Congratulations to Ray Doomey. That's his username. A lot of the times, you know, so many of our community members that, you know, spend so much time with us. They don't even pay attention to the floor price because they know it's a community feel that brings value to the people that you're talking to, people you want to learn about the markets with.

4:57And I think that's the most important thing right now. And certainly people in the space that are building, they're not paying too much to price attention. If anything, I'm seeing, you know, like wrapped ETH offers being accepted last week. But this week, I'm seeing more transactions using ETH to purchase their NFTs. But again, it is a really volatile space at the moment. The macro backdrop is really volatile and something that we have to look after. And even the prices of cryptocurrency is down in the reds, like we said. So I think people are sitting on the sidelines a little bit. But if you truly believe in the communities and the project, I think it's very important for whatever you want to sort of go down the rabbit hole with that you make sure there's a functioning team behind it.

5:42There are people that you can constantly communicate with. You know, Ash, even yesterday, we had one of our own that was got hit by clicking on the wrong link and they were scammed. And these are the things that you have to. What does that mean, Elaine? For people who may not be familiar, what does that mean? talk about that, unpack that a little bit, because it's an important point in terms of security in this space, which is really about the security of your money. So talking about security of your money is people clicking on way too many fresh links. There are scammers in Discord, and we have to address these issues, talk about that.

6:14Certainly, it happened to someone at a Real Vision member yesterday, and straight away, the team was wherever we are across the world, we would get into the Discord, we would get to Telegram and talk to the users and block that person in Discord that came and put out a phishing link. So what you're talking about here are phishing attacks against users in the space, something that's been unfortunately all too common. This is really a challenge, I guess, fundamentally of the underlying user interface, user experience, something that kind of, it seems like we're just playing whack-a-mole with right now, right?

6:47There's a security threat that pops up, there's a phishing link, and people have to go in and try and sort of notify people, hey, don't click on this link. It's a bad link. We're going to pull it out. The challenge is that, look, fundamentally, it's still incredibly early in this space. The user interface, the user experience does not really support the kind of robust security and transparency for users to ultimately have the kind of trust in the system. Because at the bottom line, it's really between you and your mouse that the biggest security flaw is, right? When you have a system where you can't actually see what you're doing, who you're interacting with, how you're interacting with them, it becomes incredibly challenging to feel secure in this space just because there are, we know, so many bad actors out there.

7:30When you combine these factors together, you get some of the challenges that we were talking about, like happened yesterday. And it is a very difficult aspect of the space. Now, again, I'm not trying to be negative about it because there's just an incredible amount of, I think, interesting functionality that's being built. And one of the challenges in having these conversations, I think, is really trying to balance, the challenges that we see from the security space, the price volatility, all that. I think we're going to take a look at some floor price charts here in just a second. But I also want to explain to people, if you're watching this show and you don't really know the NFT community the way Elaine Lee does, and you hear about price volatility and you hear about the challenges with security that we all know are in the space, people might be wondering, well, why is it that this is so interesting?

8:11Let's try and explain that story, Elaine. talk about what it is about the nft space that you really connected to you're someone who doesn't have a traditional finance background a traditional banking background when you came into this space you were just immediately attracted to nfts i mean i remember it when you joined real vision you're now a real vision nf you're now a real vision og uh and in the nft space you're spending a lot of time and you've got a lot of uh you've got a lot of fans who watch you and who hang on your every word talk a little bit about what it was that originally pulled you in to the nft side what it was about this, of all the things that we cover here at Real Vision that you just emotionally connected to, why was that?

8:49And what keeps you engaged in this space? Ash, if anything I've learned over dealing with finance media is you should never be emotionally attached to something too much. But for me, I think why I care about the whole NFT space, it was always more than a PFP for me. It was the utility of - By the way, jargon, PFP means profile pic for people who don't know. It means you post your profile pic with your NFT on Twitter or some other social media platform. What's PHP, Ash? Let me put you to the test a little bit. Oh, PHP is a server-side scripting language. Come on. Absolutely not. It's paper hand princess in the ecosystem at Real Vision.

9:31No, look, I've been an investor in crypto since 2017. I owned cryptocurrency with Ethereum and Bitcoin. Nobody cared about blockchain until the layer of culture came in where you can purchase something that relates to you. Right. Okay. And then you see the whole Web3 layer come in. And then you're thinking, hmm, content creator and ownership. This is something what's really fascinating to me. All right, let's unpack those terms. What do you mean by culture? And what do you mean by Web3? Because I think it's important for people who are not as close to the space as you are to understand why those terms are so important.

10:13Well, people were investing things that they cared about, right? So say if a picture looked like you, you'd want to own a piece of the pie of that. And that was really something you would, the minute you purchase any crypto, you naturally step your foot into the markets, whether you were interested in the markets or not. So that's what brought a lot of attention into the whole blockchain technology space in the first place. And that's for me as someone who's trying to go for the mass adoption for people who are interested in blockchain. So the fact that you can add the layer of culture into it, that's what made people care about blockchain technology.

10:53That's what made people care about the price of Ethereum. I can rest assured you that before NFTs, I did not care about the price of Ethereum. Actually, it was probably for me as an investor to care less back then because I didn't have to pay attention to it so much. But now that you're personally involved, you have to look at the price of Ethereum and see when there are good opportunities or opportunities to run away from depending on the price action of Ethereum. But definitely it has caused more dialogue to happen within the space because you are investing something that you care about in. hey everyone we're going to take a quick pause and hear a word from our partners we'll be right back

11:36so basically what you're saying is it's the emotional connection that you have uh to the thing that you own that really drives your interest in it and until you sort of got into the culture i wouldn't say emotion as much ash i would just say just something that you're interested in and you can have the conversation about culture about why you like that thing that you're part of now or that project right or something that you're starting to learn about because you know you as a crypto investor or nft investor i think people who come into the space understand the volatility of it so you can see if you're on twitter all day looking at crypto you see people talking about that gaining momentum that traction but then if you see it die down You also have to pay a good, solid attention to like, OK, is this the time to run away from this project?

12:28Of course, that you're not so serious about. You have to also understand when to exit as well and not be holding something onto something for too long. And that's why I said too much emotions involved is not necessarily a good thing. So what you're talking about then is the connection at some level driven by your interest. And, you know, I mean, some people are driven by interest in central banking policy. and what they believe to be hyperinflation risk in the economy. And they connect at a very visceral level to Bitcoin, and they connect to the charts around Bitcoin. These are some things that other people in the space connect to.

13:04You're saying that it was the culture that really drew you in, that pulled you into the space, that made you feel like you had a stake, and it made you feel as though you were interested in what was actually happening there. Yeah, I would say so. And especially if you come from a background where you are finance-heavy, You are strong into chart. You are a technical analysis trader. You know, you can pay attention to the price all day long, right? But I definitely think there are more friends with you over the past 24 months that you can share these conversations with. And that's the beauty of why I'm interested in building out in the community within the space every day.

13:37Hey, speaking of community, if you're listening to this conversation right now and you have questions for Elaine Lee or for me, send them up wherever you are, whether that's on Twitter or on the platform. Excuse me, I should say on YouTube or on the platform, but you can send them in over Twitter as well. We'd love to get your questions for Elaine and for me. Elaine, let me take a look at something here. You mentioned price. I want to take a look at a couple of floor price charts. I think we have those ready. Let's take a look at, I don't know which is queued up first, either CryptoPunks or BoardApes.

14:03Let's take a look at that chart if we could, Arthur. Okay, you can see that one right there, CryptoPunks. Elaine, let's talk a little bit about this because this is something that you watch very closely. You see this interesting pattern where you see basically the chart divided in half on the x-axis, where you see considerable volatility to the left. Then you have this period of kind of flattening and then this sort of rollover period very recently. What are you seeing there? What are people you talk to say about what's happening? And I think we probably flip over because I think it's a very similar pattern over at Board Apes.

14:34We want to flip over to that chart. Yeah, you know, kind of similar, kind of similar. You see the volatility of the left half of the chart. And then on the right half, you see this kind of stasis followed by this rollover period that we seem to be in right now. Elaine, when it comes to price on NFTs floor price, tell us a little bit about what you're hearing and what you think. I think those are two of the projects that you mentioned. There are some of the most well-known, but as you can see, it's an absolute red bloodbath across two. Those are the two projects that I'm actually not paying attention to because they are just such big prices at such high entry point for the normies to get in, right?

15:12People sort of in the crypto space, they want big returns quick. So something like CryptoPunks and Ape, you wouldn't even pay too much attention to. What I can tell you, though, something like more of a good entry point would be like a project like, you know, Nakamigos, who was causing a lot of noise in New York and with the release of new Beeple pieces that he puts out. And I think that's like probably about 0.3 at the moment. So you're seeing some. You're talking about, of course, priced in Ethereum. In Ethereum. Pricing at the moment, it's about 0.3. And you can tell that there's just much more people coming into the space because it's a lower entry point with the Nakamigos.

15:56We don't know who is behind the project, but we know it's definitely causing a lot of traction at NFT NYC. so Nakamigos is definitely the talk of the town at the moment but um you know at the moment I think everyone's trying to to wait out to see what the bottom is it's still so volatile out there you know I can't even remember the last time I purchased um an NFT so I'm just still waiting and seeing how things are settling but if things get a little bit even lower yeah with the projects and the leaders and the founders that I know are quietly building people who I talk to every day I'd be much more interested in sort of you know checking out the floor prices in solid projects that I know it's definitely lasted over 12 months at least to be safe but Ash I do want to talk about you know just because I'm not purchasing NFTs does not mean I'm not minting NFTs I want to bring up to your attention actually that I don't know if on Twitter have you seen the blue shield that everybody is rocking out in their bio at the moment Tell us about it.

17:02So basically, if you're on your Twitter timeline, and I know for the very intimate crowd listening to us on the Twitter spaces out there, our community members, Fat, Stella, DeFi, Devin, and The Learning Tribe is in the Twitter space right now. And by the way, just to remind everyone that the community does have a space where they've built with one another. And it usually takes place on a Tuesday, 5 p.m., where they talk about what they've learned at Real Vision, depending on what videos that they have watched and content we've released out throughout the week. But it's a really - Real quick, a word out to the community for folks who are listening who participate in that.

17:42Hit us up on YouTube right now or on the Real Vision platform with some questions. We'll get them to Elaine. But it's a really incredible space where they share their learning journey and they call themselves The Learning Tribe. And it truly is are fantastic and a safe space um but talking about those blue shields okay so i actually picked this up from a brian armstrong uh tweet he's been a really busy man lately brian armstrong hasn't he ash he's always a busy man aline yeah i can imagine and he's traveling from places to places and really bringing up like you know talking to i believe was it the uk economy minister or fine definitely uh uh members of parliament hanging out with people in members of parliament talking about crypto regulation which to me is actually something really assuring to see that a crypto uh one of the biggest crypto names is still talking to people within government about crypto regulation and like i said um going back to the blue shield if you actually click on brian armstrong's page today on Twitter, which I am live doing right now, you will see that he's got a blue shield in his name.

18:53And basically, if you scroll down a little bit, 18 hours ago, Coinbase tweeted out that the community is clearly fired up about sensible crypto policy. Here's how to continue the support. Now, if you click on that link, you actually have the opportunity to mint something for free so you connect your metamask wallet and you can mint this piece um and basically it is a symbol for unity so you'll be seeing that blue shield uh for anyone who is interested in crypto policy and standing in unity to sort of come out and be like you know this is a commemorative nft it's open mint so open mint meaning there's no um there's no uh a set amount of nfts within the collection.

19:41It is an open free mint. And if you take a look, Ash, it's a free mint. So it's something you can own. And 19 ,000 people has minted this. Hey, everyone, we're going to take another quick break and hear a word from our partners. We'll be right back to the Real Vision crypto daily briefing.

20:02All right, but Elaine, let's slow down and explain this for people. What does the blue shield represent? Where does it come from? And what's the significance? To protect and guard a crypto policy, I'm assuming. I mean, I don't know if that's true, but that is something that I symbolically would read it as. But this is just built into basically his profile name, right? This isn't something that is verified or in any way integrated into the Twitter functionality. This is literally just an emoji that he's placed in his profile name. Is that correct? No, it's actually on the blockchain the minute you mint it.

20:35right but in twitter it's embedded just as an as uh an emoji yeah embedded on his bio yeah exactly yeah so basically you know it's an emoji that you can find on your keyboard that if you put blue shield the blue shield will probably put up so that was how everybody will recognize that you're standing with the unity of crypto policy if you mint this nft so it represents a sort of a position that people have about standing with crypto what does that mean exactly what is the what is the policy that they're standing with well like i said if you go onto the website it's a symbol for unity uh where the crypto policy and on the page if you go onto the website at the bottom which website you're talking about the coinbase website hold on it takes you uh so basically from the page on the mint page uh that people will see is if you go onto the website next to the little twitter blue button you click onto the website that's attached to this page.

21:34Okay, but which website? This is the Coinbase website you're talking about? No, this is not the Coinbase website, Ash. This is the website that from Brian Armstrong's Twitter page that he tweeted out. Coming from, if you click onto it, it'll take you to this website that you see on the screen. And then from this website, if you scroll onto the bottom, there's a little global symbol and you can see that it'll take you to this website here where it's called actnow.io for people who are listening tell them who's sponsoring the website is it a twitter website is it a is it a coinbase website where are they going let me take a look at this so it well the disclaimer at the bottom that says this is a non-coinbase web page and it's hosted by quorum okay uh so basically it'll be collected and used to reach out to you regarding crypto, future crypto advocacy opportunities and measure the effectiveness of these campaigns.

22:36Okay. And what's the substance of what they will find there?

22:43So you'll have to enter your name, your email address and anything campaigning for anything to campaign to basically shine a light on whatever crypto policy that needs to go through Washington, they will reach out to you and be like, right, this is what matters. This is the laws and policy that we want to talk about and push through. So it's an advocacy website that Mr. Armstrong is linking to essentially. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, no. What do you think about it, Ash? Do you think it's something worthy of you signing up? Would you sign up to it? Well, I haven't read it yet, but I certainly will after the show.

23:21Look, I think that we're in this period right now where public policy is obviously a huge driver of interest, sometimes a huge headwind, if we're being honest, for the crypto space. We've just had a series of hearings from Mr. Gensler. The chair of the SEC was on the Hill being questioned very closely about whether or not Ethereum is or is not a security, the status of cryptocurrency more generally under securities laws. By the way, we should say lots of other questions from Mr. Gensler that had nothing to do with crypto. But this really is one of the key points, how this is going to be treated in the United States and abroad.

23:55One of the things that we see more broadly happening is this concept of called policy harmonization, which essentially means that whichever direction the United States goes in, broadly speaking, you see a sort of directional trend to move in that direction from the rest of the world. We do not have regulatory clarity here in the United States around digital assets. In fact, what we have is exactly the opposite. We have a great deal of consternation about who is going to regulate digital assets, whether it's going to be CFTC or SEC. Both of those agencies seem to be vying for the ability to regulate the space.

24:29And to this broader point about the public policy advocacy, if you have things like Ethereum, which the New York State Attorney General here has asserted is in fact a security under U.S. law in official court filings. If you have the SEC chair, one of the most powerful regulators in the United States, making the assertion that he believes Ethereum is in fact a security. By the way, when asked by Congressman McHenry and others, Gary Gensler declined to give that specific answer saying he did not in fact say, I believe Ethereum is security. He said it depends on the facts and circumstances. But if you look at the regulatory actions that are being taken in the documents that have been filed, it's very clear that SEC does believe that Ethereum is security.

25:15And so when you have this weird kind of regulatory limbo that we all seem to be stuck in, there's this risk of a headwind to the space in a very material way because there's uncertainty out there. Institutions especially are reticent about getting involved in a space where they don't know if they have regulatory clarity. Listen, imagine you're running a large bank or a regulated financial institution, and you have this sort of threat out there of regulatory enforcement action against Ethereum. It's not exactly a green light to want to get involved with it. And that's really the place that we find ourselves in today.

25:49And I imagine that's the reason why Mr. Armstrong and others in the space who are very prominent, I mean, Mr. Armstrong is a US person. He runs a regulated, publicly traded US entity. He has OCC and SEC and all of these other regulators that he has to keep satisfied. And so it's this challenge that we have in the space. Now, Brian Armstrong, of course, is going to be out in front of this much more than most traditional financial services institutions CEOs are. Why? Because he's in the crypto space. He's clearly a crypto native. But that's at least a little bit of a sense of where we are from a public policy standpoint.