# ROLLUP: $120 Oil vs New Highs | AI Boom Masks War | IPO Top Signal | DeFi Bailout

*Author: Ryan Sean Adams, David Hoffman*
*Published: May 1, 2026*
*Source: https://www.bankless.com/es/podcast/rollup-120-oil-vs-new-highs-ai-boom-masks-war-ipo-top-signal-defi-bailout*

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## TRANSCRIPT
Ryan Sean Adams:
[0:04] Bankless nation it is the last week of april 2026 time for the bankless weekly roll-up we got oil prices at their highest level yet at least since the start of this war there's signs of an indefinite blockage on the strait of hormuz rock

David Hoffman:
[0:20] In a hard place.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[0:20] Yeah rock in a hard place we're gonna talk about that and where oil price is going despite

David Hoffman:
[0:25] All of the turmoil in the middle east which does not show any signs of wrapping up. Markets are going up. S&P at the time of recording is at all-time highs. It just printed its best month since 2020. We are on the last day of the month at the day of recording.

David Hoffman:
[0:40] So we have the turmoil in the Middle East on one side. We have the AI boom on the other side. One of these things, at least in the equities market, is clearly winning. And then also that is leading into the three biggest IPOs in history all come in into the market in the next six months. Could that mark the top? Is that the top? I think it might. I think it could. We're going to talk about whether that's the top or not.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[1:05] Also, Powell is now out. This was his last FOMC meeting. He had some dissent on the committee as the most divided FOMC vote since 1992. We'll talk about that. And as he was walking out, he said, I won't see you next time. And then he announced he's actually not leaving.

David Hoffman:
[1:22] But this means he doesn't do the meetings anymore. That's right.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[1:25] That's right.

David Hoffman:
[1:25] I think he ends the meetings with see you next time. Yeah.

David Hoffman:
[1:29] And that's why he said, I won't see you next time. That's why it was funny. Anyways, in the crypto news, DeFi had its bailout moment. $303 million raised in just 11 days to fill the hole left by the Kelp Dow Layer Zero hack. Biggest hack in history rescued by... DeFi itself. Kind of cool. A heartwarming story. I do not expect it to be the status quo moving forward. This was a one-off probably, but we'll just talk about that. Bitcoin Vegas highlights the Bitcoin conference hosted by Bitcoin Media has happening right now. Eric Trump says the US holds 300,000 Bitcoin and won't sell it. The acting attorney general tells crypto devs that code is not a crime, but do they really mean it? And then a soldier was arrested for winning $400,000 on a Polymarket bet that he did with classified Intel. And so we're going to talk about all the implications.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[2:18] Turns out that's illegal. Turns out I think that's illegal.

David Hoffman:
[2:20] Do you think he knew that ahead of time? We're probably going to have to find out.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[2:24] I'm pretty sure he knew it was a bad idea. You know, I want to start this week with this clip because not often do you hear the secretary of war for the world's greatest military power talking about Bitcoin. And yet that's what we just heard in Congress. So this is a question from a member of Congress to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Let's play the clip.

David Hoffman:
[2:46] Over the past decade, Bitcoin has evolved from a fringe asset into a matter of national security. Iran has demanded Bitcoin as a toll for transit through the Strait of Hormuz. North Korean cyber actors have leveraged it in ransomware campaigns, and China is believed to be stockpiling substantial holdings as part of a strategic reserve. Just last week, Indopaycom Commander Admiral Paparo stated that Bitcoin has direct implications for power projection, and he noted that Indopaycom is operating a node on the Bitcoin network in furtherance of that mission. Secretary, do you share the opinion that Bitcoin is a tool to project power, and are there any department-wide initiatives to ensure the U.S. secures a strategic advantage in Bitcoin and combats China's digital authoritarianism?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[3:31] I guess my short answer would be yes and yes. Long and enthusiast of Bitcoin and crypto potential. And a lot of the things we're doing, enabling it or defeating it, are classified efforts that are ongoing inside our department, which do provide us a lot of leverage in a lot of different scenarios.

David Hoffman:
[3:48] I appreciate that. And I share your views.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[3:50] Okay, that was interesting to me. So first of all, China stockpiling, that's what the member of Congress said. I don't know how true that is, but China stockpiling Bitcoin. And then the question to Pete Hegseth, like, is Bitcoin a matter of national security and importance? And he said, yes, it was. And then he also said, I'm not going to divulge the ways we are both supporting Bitcoin and also thwarting it in cases. Thwarting it? What does that mean?

David Hoffman:
[4:19] Yeah. Do you think there's substance there? Or because Donald Trump wants, and all of his cabinet, wants the United States to be pro-crypto, crypto capital of the world. And so you could just like see this as kind of pandering. It's like, yeah, Bitcoin is a tool of our power because it aligns with our interests. Sure. Or there's actual substance there.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[4:36] I think it might be both, David. I think it might be both. Actually, that question from the representative almost felt a little kind of like seated, as all of them do, right? Like, I want you to say something nice about Bitcoin. So I'm going to phrase this question in a way that allows me to answer that.

David Hoffman:
[4:50] Let me hand this one to you, Pete, and you can knock it out of the park.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[4:52] I felt like that. But also at the same time, we have the war in Iran and... Economic fury? Is that what you were calling it last time? Yes, that's what I'm calling it, yeah. Iran using Tether, the U.S. Treasury freezing that, Iran talking about using Bitcoin. I'm not sure if they have. You wonder if the Secretary of War and the U.S. Defense Department has some sort of design and a way to prevent them from using

Ryan Sean Adams:
[5:18] Bitcoin in the future. That would be fascinating.

David Hoffman:
[5:22] We are interviewing an individual from TRM Labs tomorrow who I think is going to be able to kind of inform us exactly the depth of involvement that iran has with bitcoin and also what the u.s is doing about it so stay tuned for that if that is something that is in your feed uh speaking of the war let's just get into the update on the iran war uh maybe three big things to kind of highlight a kinetic war potentially back on the menu uh donald trump has briefed the military to prepare for a long blockade of the straight over hormones as opposed to a short one like we're in it for the long haul here.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[5:55] Like it's like indefinite. There's no date in which it's finished.

David Hoffman:
[5:58] Yeah. And then Trump says that he will keep Iran under a naval blockade until they agree to a nuclear deal. So downstream of all of this, Brent crude just poked above $120 a barrel, all time highs for the war. So we are at wartime highs. I think last week and the week before I said we were like wartime lows of $90. We're at $115 to $120 a barrel at the time of recording, which is as high as it's been during for the whole entire war. This is showing up across the world. Asia is in one of its worst energy crises in history. And the inflation in Asia is pretty high. United States gas prices have climbed to the highest level since August 2024. Nationally, the average is about $4.23 cents a gallon. And we did our episode with Rory Johnson this last Monday. Fantastic episode. I really, really liked it. He thinks this is the beginning of something much, much more.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[6:59] Yeah, Rory is now our designated oil quant as well. And he tweeted this. I saw this this morning from him, a cover from The Economist saying, still in la-la land with respect to oil prices. Why oil prices are not yet high enough. And he basically says, yeah, The Economist cover is correct on this. I think he believes oil prices are going north of 150. And he just is doing the math based on the amount of supply that's actually locked in the Strait of Hormuz. I think he said like 13 million barrels per day being knocked offline of a total of 100 million barrels per day. That's like, you know, 10 to 15 percent of the world's oil supply. And the market, according to him, has not yet absorbed those prices. And as he said, it doesn't look like oil or the strait is going to be opened anytime soon. Actually, Roy thinks this will all conclude at some point when Trump starts to feel the pressure on his numbers, whether it's oil price, whether it's price at the pump, whether it's stocks. It doesn't look like it's stocks this week, whether that's his approval ratings or treasury. He thinks the financial markets will actually push him into stopping. But it doesn't seem like we're close to that yet.

David Hoffman:
[8:09] Yeah, the interesting thing that came out of that episode with Rory was his articulation that any time oil prices got too high or stock prices got too low or yields got too high, Trump was like, ah, it's all over. We're done here. And then the market would get suppressed. And so the implication is like Trump was doing active market manipulation in a sense of just like, oh, I don't like how high- Expectation management.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[8:32] David.

David Hoffman:
[8:32] Yeah, expectation management. It's like oil prices are too high. It's all over. The war's over. we won and you know here we are actually if you look in hindsight like nothing's really changed and the implication there is that you know eventually the market's going to run out of leash and oil's going to do something drastic because there's some hard physics here yes exactly because oil is simply just not flowing out of the strait of hormuz so ahead of all of that iran did submit a proposal to open the strait of hormuz and end the war it had this very important detail that the nuclear weapons disarmament line item would be discussed later. So like, we'll open the Strait of Hormuz, we'll agree to a lot of your terms, and we'll punt on the nuclear disarmament thing. And Trump was like, no, you guys, you guys are not getting it. That's the whole thing. Like, you guys aren't getting out of that one. And so this is kind of why tension has increased.

David Hoffman:
[9:28] So Trump has really opted to just continue to squeeze Iran's economy and oil exports through the prolonged blockade strategy, saying that the blockade will continue to pressure Iran into capitulation on the nuclear issue. That's a quote. And then Iran said two days ago that it will never discuss nuclear weapons under current conditions. And so here we are in Iraq in a hard place and why oil is breaching $120 a barrel. So there's a couple of big takeaways that I just want to underpin. We're kind of back to who can bear the most pain. And there are some points for Iran. There are some points for the United States. Reasons why the United States can bear pain is, A, we have our own domestic source of oil. That's West Texas Intermediate Crude. Prices are up, but at least we're buffered. So that's nice for us.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[10:21] It's not as bad as the rest of the world.

David Hoffman:
[10:22] Not as bad as the rest of the world. SPY, all-time highs. How can you complain? The Dow is above 50,000.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[10:29] We're good here. How can you complain if you own assets in SPY? If you don't, you can complain quite a bit.

David Hoffman:
[10:37] Reasons why the United States cannot bear pain. Domestic gas prices are still high. People don't like that. As Ryan just said, many people don't own assets, so the SPY at all-time highs doesn't really matter. Also, 10-year yields have gone up as well in tandem with oil, and so the cost of debt is now higher as a result of this. That's downstream from inflation, which is downstream from oil prices. Everything is downstream of the Strait of Hormuz. and there also are just a bunch of like other like numbers to talk about food inflation is already increasing and so we're actually starting to see food prices go up because of higher oil prices fertilizer prices are up because of higher oil prices fertilizer is an input into food costs, impacts on commodity prices since the start of the war are just bad like prices are all higher like you can just see everything across the board jet fuel sulfur heating oil diesel gasoline all up double-digit percentage. So life, the cost of living is just up double-digit percentage. And then, like I just said, the 30-year yield is now just 11 bips from a new 18-year high. So a decent number of reasons why this is painful for the United States.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[11:45] That's right. And as those numbers tick up, the frog will start to be boiled and people will start to notice. I guess in the frog analogy, the frog never notices.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[11:53] But I think people will, in this case, it'll add pressure to the US and Trump. How about the pain for Iran? Yeah.

David Hoffman:
[12:00] So reasons why Iran can bear pain on and really this is about the nuclear program. The nuclear program is something close to fundamental to the regime. Like if they capitulate on the nuclear program, it's kind of become elevated to. the whole thing for the Islamic regime. It's a question of their existence.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[12:20] They have always- It's a question. I think it seems like a question of their sovereignty. If they don't have a nuclear program, they'll always be under the thumb of the US and Israel. If they do, then they'll be positioned like North Korea, where they're untouchable, right? So it's a sovereignty type question for the regime.

David Hoffman:
[12:36] Yes, that's the external facing articulation. The more internal facing one is it's a question of legitimacy. They have been in pursuit and spent billions and billions of dollars pursuing this whole thing. And so without it as like an overarching goal internally, it's like, what the hell are we even doing here?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[12:56] Oh, really?

David Hoffman:
[12:57] Yes, yes. It's an internal legitimacy question as well.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[13:00] It's a sunk cost fallacy, guys.

David Hoffman:
[13:01] Yes. Totalitarian regimes. Reasons why Iran cannot bear pain. Their currency is undergoing hyperinflation. The economy is just completely devastated. threatening the ability to pay IRGC paychecks. So this is also internal stabilization. Iran is not necessarily stable internally. Obviously, the people don't want Iran in power without paying the paychecks of the people keeping everything together. How can you sustain yourself? And then also economic fury, which we'll talk about in a second, is also just reducing Iran's means. We're seizing hundreds of millions of dollars of Iranian assets with every opportunity that we have.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[13:40] Last week, we talked about some of those hundreds of millions of dollars. In the case, it was Tether freezing, $344 million in USDT. We didn't know at the time what they were freezing. It was the largest in history. I did. You had a guess. David said it was Iran. It turns out it was Iran, David. So Iran was keeping their Tether, their stable coin, on Tron, USDT, Tether on Tron yesterday. And that was all frozen by Tether.

David Hoffman:
[14:08] It's so funny. We'll be making that mistake again.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[14:10] Like Tron, Tether, USDT. I mean, you can get screwed so many different times. You get it frozen by Tether. You also get frozen by Justin Sun. It seems like a very strange place to put your value if you are a rogue regime. And nevertheless, they put it there and it was all frozen. So this is Secretary of Treasury Scott Besant saying, the Treasury Department, through economic fury, has targeted Iran's international shadow banking infrastructure, access to crypto, he says, shadow fleet, weapons procurement networks. And he goes on and talks about all the other things that they are restricting access to. It's kind of a question, David. So let's say Iran does learn from this mistake and they're like, OK, no more stable coins. The U.S. can obviously freeze that. What if they keep their value in something else? What if they start keeping their value in Bitcoin, Ether, something on Ethereum maybe, not in stablecoins, but some of these crypto native assets? Then what does the U.S. do in those cases? We haven't seen evidence that the U.S. can do anything. But there was also that ominous comment from Pete Hegseth at the start of this episode. Maybe the U.S. has some way to interfere or, I don't know, get at the Bitcoin that a rogue regime holds. What do you think?

David Hoffman:
[15:27] That would be wild if they have means outside of what people expect them to have when it comes to censoring Bitcoin.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[15:34] I guess what I'm saying is that's about to be tested, right? I mean, we've always talked about these crypto assets being how sovereign to nation state attack are they? Well, this is a case where a nation state, the most powerful nation state in the world actually wants to probably attack some of the assets, the crypto assets that a rogue regime has. And so they're going to do whatever they can. And will Bitcoin stand up to that or not?

David Hoffman:
[15:59] With this freezing of Tether on Tron, you could assume, it's safe to assume that the Iranian regime, the Islamic regime, will reprioritize Bitcoin as a result. It's like, well, they just got their dollars stolen on Tron. Maybe Bitcoin on Bitcoin is a better option. And then I think what you're saying is like, okay, with that being the case, Economic Fury, the OFAC Treasury Department is going to do everything possible that they can do to seize the Bitcoin or censor the Bitcoin in some particular way.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[16:29] That's right. I'm just saying like Tether, who they're, you know, partnering with Economic Fury. They also own the largest Bitcoin miner in the world.

David Hoffman:
[16:39] Yeah.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[16:39] I mean, I'm sure they're probing for some nexus to attack some of those assets

Ryan Sean Adams:
[16:44] too if they can. and we'll see how that turns out.

David Hoffman:
[16:47] Yeah. Let's get into stocks. The S&P is on track for its best month since November 2020. Now, there's a little, I would like to add in a nuance, is that the April 1st, March 31st, was the absolute bottom of the Iran war. And so it's a perfect bottom to start measuring this number. But nonetheless, the S&P 500 is up 13.5% over the 30 days of April. Pretty crazy. How is it possible with all of the turmoil, with all of the oil prices? Ryan?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[17:22] I think the answer is AI, dude. It's AI boom. We're talking about AI bubble, and lots of people have been repeating that. We have an AI boom on our hands. Maybe it's a bubble. It's certainly a boom. This is how Kobayashi Letter puts it. The answer to that question, the question you just asked of if oil prices are above 100 per barrel and the war isn't over, why are stocks at record high? The answer is simple. The AI revolution has simply become so large that investors are viewing everything else as noise. It's so big, it just drowns out everything else. Like AI is increasing, the productivity of companies.

David Hoffman:
[18:01] The war is temporary, AI is forever.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[18:02] We're seeing this in top line, we're seeing this in bottom line. We saw some stellar earnings reports come out just yesterday. Google in particular, incredible top line numbers, incredible profit numbers, exceeded analysts' expectations, up 7-8%, right? No wonder the S&P is still humming. it's because AI is crushing it. Actually, let's do a David charting corner. Can we see some of these charts? Love all-time highs. Want to see the David Hoffman charts. What you got for us?

David Hoffman:
[18:28] David Hoffman, the trader. That's right.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[18:30] No, you just look. You don't trade, right?

David Hoffman:
[18:33] Starting off with the SPY, we're just poking ahead of the all-time highs, 7,000, almost 7,200, just shy of it. And it just got, just incredible, just.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[18:44] Like- You're at a loss for words.

David Hoffman:
[18:46] Yeah, a lot of charts. It went straight up all of April. Kind of wild, dude. NVIDIA, it poked ahead of all-time highs. It's a little bit back down to $200 a share, but the previous all-time high back in November was $212. It hit $216 a couple days ago. That's wild. Amazon is basically at all-time highs. It hit $275 after earnings report yesterday. Came back down, but still, basically at highs. Google's the big one here. Oh, my God, dude. Look at that. man. That is wild. Up 10% after they reported earnings to $384 a share. Just Google us on an, And I think those are all the big ones.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[19:28] No, no, no. There's some big ones you forgot. How about Bitcoin? How about Ether? How are they doing?

David Hoffman:
[19:33] Not big.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[19:33] We're flat on the week?

David Hoffman:
[19:35] Are we down? Bitcoin, I think, is up 2.5% on the week. Ether is up 1.5% on the week. So Bitcoin is at 76,000. Ether is at 2,250. Overall, unremarkable price action in crypto.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[19:48] I want to throw a theory by you, or at least a possibility here. So, you know, talking about the AI boom, of course, The king of AI boom right now is Anthropic. Anthropic just passed OpenAI in revenue for the first time. So this is $30 billion from $1 to $30 billion in 15 months. OpenAI is $24 billion. Look at this chart. uh anthropic just gaining ground this is the fastest uh valuation like tripling in tech history and so this is going to ipo at some point and we have some pretty major ipos coming down the pike the biggest ipo run in history in the history of the market spacex ipo that's going to be at least 1.7 trillion dollars the open ai ipo imagine that exceeds a trillion anthropic is already worth over a trillion dollars. So that's three over a trillion dollar IPOs. This tweet says, we're living through the greatest technological wealth creation in history, Anthropic from 380 billion valuation to 1 trillion in just three months. Okay. So all of that IPOing, right? This is initial public offering. This means you are taking shares that were private, that were owned by insiders, that were owned by VCs and investors and management team, and you're releasing them to the public at massive elevated valuations that the public has not partaken in. What does this remind you of, David? This is, yeah.

David Hoffman:
[21:15] The top?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[21:18] It could be. I mean, we've seen similar things play out in tokens, right? Our tops in tokens, like our tops in crypto always end when there's too many assets to go around and not enough investors right

David Hoffman:
[21:30] Yeah yeah and asset in crypto asset creation like token creation goes up when prices go up yes and so there's a correlation there being a one trillion dollar company, Do you know where that puts you in the ranking of companies, Ryan?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[21:45] Oh, it's got to be top 10, right? If you're over a trillion now, top 10.

David Hoffman:
[21:50] Gold is number one. Silver is four. Well, those aren't companies. And Bitcoin is 12. And so if you cut those out, you're in the top 13. You're in the top 13. Yes.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[22:02] And these are brand new companies that have never been publicly traded. This is Tom O'Shaughnessy's take. I was talking to someone today about what they think happens when all these companies, companies IPO. And if that's the top for the AI craze, history says mega IPOs at peak narrative

Ryan Sean Adams:
[22:17] usually mark the top for that theme, but rarely for the index. And this is three of the biggest ever to land in the next six months. So another take related to this. I've been thinking about this for a while. These IPOs will drain so much capital from the system, especially after the unlocks. Remember, you get investors, management team unlocks. These are going to be like multi-millionaires, a lot of liquidity sloshing around. They're going to want to exit at least some portion of that for harder assets.

David Hoffman:
[22:44] Some people have billions of dollars locked up in these shares that will become unlocked. They're hammering the sell button. They're hammering the sell button.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[22:53] That's right. And more and more, IPOs have been a process of like, it's like an exit liquidity process. It's not like retail public markets have participated in these gains. They're Just starting to get in at the top when the company is worth multiple trillions of dollars.

David Hoffman:
[23:07] Like, yeah.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[23:08] So that could be the top. That could be the top, David.

David Hoffman:
[23:11] Did you see the Elon's share package agreement in SpaceX?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[23:16] No, is it insane?

David Hoffman:
[23:19] I don't know what the more short-term stuff is, but there's like a massive amount of SpaceX shares that get awarded to Elon if he puts a one million person colony on Mars. That is a real thing.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[23:36] That's a real KPI milestone?

David Hoffman:
[23:38] Yes.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[23:39] That's incredible. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that guy sells. I haven't looked at his selling track record,

David Hoffman:
[23:44] But he just keeps getting more and more capital.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[23:46] Meanwhile, David, the Fed is injecting more liquidity into the system. So we talked about this on the DeFi report with Michael Nadeau. He's talking about the Fed's RPM program. Since December, the Fed has actually injected $172 billion to their balance sheet over the last four months. There's some question as to like... is that going to continue under Kevin Warsh? I think Michael and some others were hoping that Powell would say something about it in the FOMC meeting. He really didn't. So I guess what I'm saying is the liquidity picture, I know Michael Howell says liquidity is turning over. It's on the side of going down. And yet the liquidity picture is actually increasing a little bit, at least on the Fed side and the US side. So it's on kind of the brink of some teeter-totter balance where we could actually get more liquidity or people like Michael Howell are right, then liquidity could be going down. So that is a story that has yet to be told.

David Hoffman:
[24:40] You're right, you're right.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[24:41] Well, great summary of it. David, we should pause right now and talk to the

Ryan Sean Adams:
[24:45] sponsors that made this possible. And after that, we're gonna get to Powell, some Bitcoin clips, MegaEth, also DeFi United, the bailout, so much more to cover. But before we do, let's thank the sponsors that made this possible. David, this is a picture of Fed Chair Jerome Powell exiting from his last FOMC meeting. Kind of anticlimactic. He says, thank you very much, everyone. I won't see you next time. This is followed by much laughter. Actually, did you see this clip? This was kind of funny. I'm going to play this. This kind of humanizes Powell. Howard Schneider with Reuters. You mentioned that staying on as a governor, you intend to keep a low profile. I'm just wondering if you could give us a little more detail on what that looks like and how you can... Touche. All right. People are laughing because when he says low profile, Powell starts like ducking lower and lower on the podium so you can't see him.

David Hoffman:
[25:39] And it's not, there's no lag there. He instantly just starts literally getting a low profile.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[25:46] Economist humor is great.

David Hoffman:
[25:48] I think part of the backdrop of that is that Trump arrested James Comey earlier this week.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[25:56] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

David Hoffman:
[25:57] And so Powell's like, I'm literally going to have a low profile.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[26:01] I want to shrink behind this podium.

David Hoffman:
[26:03] Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[26:03] I want to disappear. Well, he's not going yet. We'll talk about that in a minute. But first, the Fed funds rate, what was the number? They held 3.5 to 3.75. No change. But the dissent was the story here because there was more dissent than we've seen since 1992.

David Hoffman:
[26:20] Yeah. Yeah. Four dissenting votes. It was an 8-4 vote. Who dissented? Stephen Mirren, who always dissents because he wants to always cut rates because he's Trump's little puppet. He just likes cutting rates.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[26:36] Okay? I don't know about that. He just loves cutting rates.

David Hoffman:
[26:39] He loves cutting rates. The other three dissented in the opposite direction. They dissented because part of the comms from the Fed was to signal a possible easing bias in the future, and they dissented because they didn't want to signal that. Yes. And so they said, no, in the future, there is not necessarily easing happening. And, you know, reading between the leaves, we have Warsh, Kevin Warsh, incoming to the Fed as the new Fed chair. He's going to be the guy doing the new Fed meetings. Yep. And this is a shot across the bow to Warsh saying, hey, dude, you're coming in here as Trump's new puppet, in addition to Stephen Mirren. We're not doing the whole politicization of the Fed thing.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[27:24] Well, they're pushing back. They're pushing back because Kevin Warsh has indicated that he actually sees deflation as a primary problem that comes with AI.

David Hoffman:
[27:33] Because of AI, yeah.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[27:33] Maybe some openness to cutting rates. And this is maybe the FOMC saying, hey, we're pushing back on that. This was a key term that they changed. Maybe the most important takeaway from the Fed decision. So for months, the Fed has been talking about inflation, and they use this term, somewhat elevated. Okay, that's their policy statement. Today, they changed that from somewhat elevated to... just elevated. So they cut the somewhat. And that means a lot. They think inflation is elevated. Look at this chart here. This is CPI for the last, let's see, five years. By the way, this is hilarious. You see this gap here? It's like the line break gaps. I think this is when the government shut down maybe. Is that what that is? There's no other gap here. The government just stopped reporting numbers on CPI or something. Someone can fact check me. I think that's what that might be but look at this so we are at um cpi 3.2

David Hoffman:
[28:29] Oh my god i yeah that is spike because it was holding below three for a very long time right yeah and below three personally i have not been worried about inflation for a long time because it's like it was always below three well how.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[28:43] About now i mean we haven't been worried about it because history 2022 remember was nine percent right recording roll-ups then and that that felt uh that felt pretty hot not so transitory

David Hoffman:
[28:54] Yeah, but Bitcoin was at all-time highs, and so was Ether then, so it actually felt okay.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[28:58] It was fine then. It's less fine now. Anyway, it's ticking up, and so the Fed is saying that. They're reacting to that.

David Hoffman:
[29:04] Is that the oil, the high oil price print? Is that what this is?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[29:07] I think so. Look, it's starting in February. If oil continues to increase, that's an energy ingredient in all of these things. We just talked about food prices. It's definitely going to affect us. Yeah. Powell, though, says he actually has faith in Kevin Warsh. He says that he will take Warsh at his word that he will stand up to political pressure from Trump. I don't know if he's just hopeful of that or if he's sending some sort of signal.

David Hoffman:
[29:31] Trying to manifest it. I feel like he's manifesting.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[29:33] Yes. Now, Powell is actually, that was his last FOMC meeting, but he's staying around as a governor. Okay. So no longer the chair, but he's going to stay around as a governor until the, do you remember Trump was, was this like a lawsuit? Is this what it was? Trump was prosecuting Powell for the Fed building these buildings. And there's some impropriety involved there. And Powell is going to stay around until all of that is resolved. And, of course, Trump had a response to this.

David Hoffman:
[30:06] This is a strategic move to deny Trump a majority of puppets on the board.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[30:12] And he just wants to wrap this up and wrap up, I guess, maybe the prosecution. and Trump's response was this. Fed Chair Powell wants to stay at the Fed because he can't get a job anywhere else. Nobody wants him.

David Hoffman:
[30:24] LAUGHTER.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[30:26] Oh, it's never changing.

David Hoffman:
[30:28] At least he's funny. At least he's funny.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[30:31] So historically, I wonder how history will view Powell. I mean, I, you know, maybe I'm going to miss him. Maybe I'm going to miss him when he's gone. It was he was the 16th Fed chair. He had an eight year term. So he's been with us the entirety of the Bankless show. OK, so we've never had another Fed chair. Yet the COVID response kept things together.

David Hoffman:
[30:52] Dude, do you remember from 2022 onwards? It was like, can the Fed walk the tightrope and not get some dirt?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[30:59] Remember, we kept talking about land the plane. We talked about the R word for years. Recession.

David Hoffman:
[31:03] Everyone did. Yeah.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[31:05] And he got the soft landing. Now, inflation was not as transitory as he said, but it did go down, right?

David Hoffman:
[31:14] After hiking rates, yeah. It was transitory because they hiked rates.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[31:16] But he had the boldness. Remember, he was going to do the Volcker thing, and he hiked rates 525 bips, David. Yeah, right. That's a lot of bips to hike. It's a pretty bold move there. So I don't know. I give him, you know, I'm a C plus, B minus for the Fed chair. I think he did an okay job.

David Hoffman:
[31:32] Why not an A or an A minus?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[31:35] I can't think of a Fed chair that gets an A. Not in my book, sir.

David Hoffman:
[31:38] Dude, Ryan is a harsh grader, man. Do you grade your kids this way?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[31:43] I mean, the balance sheet is all messed up. Like, they're still printing money.

David Hoffman:
[31:47] Is that the Fed's fault?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[31:48] No. I mean, they're caught in the cycle, but that just impacts my grading. That impacts my grading. I'm a hard grader.

David Hoffman:
[31:53] I think he gets a B plus. I think he gets a B plus.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[31:56] Well, David, you can be more generous. I'm sure Powell is very concerned about how the bankless guys are great again.

David Hoffman:
[32:02] He listens to the show.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[32:04] Checking in, there was a Bitcoin conference in Vegas this week. There was a clip from Eric Trump. All right, this is a three-minute bull clip. I know Bitcoin is low on the week. I could play that clip for you. Eric Trump, just talking about Bitcoin, how great it is. He said the U.S. government holds 300,000 Bitcoin and will not sell it. The suppression of Bitcoin is unbelievable. I watched this full clip and it's just like a full on rant about how fantastic Bitcoin is doing and how underpriced it is. Would you like to.

David Hoffman:
[32:33] From Eric Trump?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[32:34] Yes. Would you like to see that?

David Hoffman:
[32:36] Can I counter you with a shorter clip from Paul Tudor Jones on a podcast with a very good microphone?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[32:46] I will always say yes to Paul Tudor Jones over here.

David Hoffman:
[32:49] Sorry, Eric Trump, we're replacing you with Paul Tudor Jones.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[32:51] Okay, what's Paul got to say?

David Hoffman:
[32:53] This is Paul Tudor Jones on Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy, talking about how Bitcoin is unequivocally the best inflation hedge that there is. Let's go and just listen to the clip.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[33:03] And then in 2020, when you saw, again, all the interventions, both by Central Bank and the Treasury, you just knew that the inflation trades were going to take off. And what was, of all of them, what was the best one at that point in time, it was Bitcoin. Bitcoin is unequivocally the best inflation hedge that there is, more than gold, because Bitcoin is finite. There's only so much Bitcoin that can be mined.

David Hoffman:
[33:36] I think that begs the question, Ryan. We just talked about inflation ticking up. Yeah.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[33:40] When's Paul going to put the trade on? When's he going to come back?

David Hoffman:
[33:44] Yeah.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[33:45] I watched this whole interview. It was fantastic. I love Paul Twitter Jones. And so he was talking about one of his best trades, which was he bought Bitcoin in 2020 because he saw inflation on the horizon. And of course, we just looked at the inflation numbers. We went up to 9%. Bitcoin massively overperformed just about any asset during that time period. And so, yeah, it's a good question. If inflation is back on the menu, and Paul, if you're right about it being a fantastic inflation head. This is also Hedge. This is also what Jordi Vesir said to us, actually. It's like Bitcoin always outperforms when you have real, you know, what do you say? It was inflation and real rates, you know, start to kind of tick down. Right. So maybe we're set up for that. David, let's talk about the mega ETH token launch that just hit mainnet today at the time of recording. I haven't looked at the numbers. What's going on?

David Hoffman:
[34:39] Well, numbers are just coming in. I'll tell you about them in a second. As a philosophical statement, I think like MegaEath and also Monad, everything about this also applies to Monad. MegaEath is like kind of the last bastion of the on-chain crypto native, you know, try new apps, get rewarded for trying new apps. And so it's like created a little bit of a revitalization of all the people who like to log into apps and press buttons with their crypto wallets. So I think it's like something to celebrate. And I think the mood is like kind of coming up, is boosted a little bit of this. Mega Eats, they put their token launch behind KPIs. One of those KPIs was hit, the 10 live ecosystem apps with real users, which created the seven day countdown, which we were at the end of. And so checking in on just the valuation of the MEGA token, the ticker is MEGA, great ticker, $0.15, which puts MEGA ETH at a $1.5 billion valuation and $170 million market cap.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[35:38] That's not bad.

David Hoffman:
[35:39] Not too high, not too low. Seems non-frothy, seems very healthy. And right now, a lot of the, if you were in the ICO, you had some of your ICO unlocked. If you participated in the NFT sale, forever go, you have your tokens. And so there is a big gap between float and total supply, but it's always how it is. And the thing to do, they have this incentivization campaign. And so they have this dashboard. It's a map of Amsterdam. Obviously, everyone loves Amsterdam and crypto because this is where we started trading things. Everything between actual real stuff and also tulips. And you can just go into the Mega ETH portal and they have all the apps so you can go try them out.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[36:19] There's some cool stuff there, right? Yeah. There's DEXs and perps and D-Pins. Some games. The whole game. Euphoria is kind of a cool app.

David Hoffman:
[36:30] Tap the trade.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[36:30] So the token was released. Did people sell? What happened there?

David Hoffman:
[36:37] I saw one tweet from an analytics company that said 8,300 wallets that received their Mega tokens.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[36:45] And they all purchased Mega, right?

David Hoffman:
[36:47] Everyone purchased Mega. There's no aero drop. That's right. One of the unique things about the Mega story is that everyone who owns Mega tokens has a purchase price.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[36:55] So they believed in some sort of value accrual increase thing for the token. They were true believers.

David Hoffman:
[37:01] Yeah. I can't remember what the NFT fluffer sale was valued at. It was in the hundreds of millions, but most people have their megatokens from the $999 million ICO. And so we are a little bit over 50% above. So those participants are like 50% plus in the green. 60%, 70%. 70% is how that works because a $1.7 billion valuation is 70% higher than $999 million. I know how to do that math. Anyways, 50% of the people receiving their megatokens are still holding. 40% sold everything and 10% partially sold. Does that 40% number feel high to you?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[37:41] A little bit, but it's also a little high. It's also a bear market.

David Hoffman:
[37:45] It's a bear market.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[37:46] Yeah. You got to shake out the wheat hands. This was hot money, of course. And so, I mean, it could have been worse. The fact that it's hanging in there at 1.5 billion is like pretty good for a bear market launch.

David Hoffman:
[37:56] After 40% sold everything and we're still clocking at 1.7 billion, that feels healthy.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[38:01] We'll see where it goes from here. DeFi United. Okay, last week we talked about DeFi's worst hack probably ever, the Kelp Dow hack. David, this week we're saved and we're saved by DeFi United. So let's remind folks where we left things last week. We were short about 76,000 ETH. This was an Aave. It was Ether that was supposed to be backing RSETH that was no longer there because North Korea hacked it all. So there was a hole and there's a question of how to repair the hole. Well, Arbitrum did free some funds from North Korea. That was about 30,000 ETH, but that still left a pretty large hole in ETH's denomination, about 42,000 ETH. So the question was, 45,000, thank you. How do we fill the hole? And we left last week's episode not knowing who would get the haircut,

David Hoffman:
[38:53] How this would be fixed. Assuming that hole is just the hole, like, sorry, it's shit out of luck. That's just how it is.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[38:58] Well, what's that? If we do the math, is it 100 million over 100 million? Something like that or close to it,

David Hoffman:
[39:02] Right? About 100 million. Okay.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[39:04] All right. So what happened?

David Hoffman:
[39:06] Uh defy united happened uh what what is defy united um a bunch of people came together and made donations um and also loans so some of these things are loans as well and we'll talk about that structuring um stani stani for the leader of ave the founder of ave he donated 5 000 eth saying ave is my life work wants to just just like you know making sure that the legacy of ave is as sound as possible so tip of the hot to stani but a bunch of other people as well consensus and joe Lubin donated $30,000. Mantle is lending $30,000. Aave Dow putting up $25,000. EtherFi putting up $5,000. Layer Zero, $5,000. Lido, $2,050.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[39:47] Was consensus really a donation? Was Joe Lubin really a donation or is that a loan?

David Hoffman:
[39:51] Yeah, it seems hard to believe that it was donating $30,000. That might be a loan. Some of these things are loans. Some of these things are donations. The loan, the Mantle is a loan and some of these terms are kind of interesting. So the interest that Mantle gets is the Lido staking yield plus one more percent on top, so roughly 4% to 5% APY in ETH terms. For up to three years, Aave can repay with no penalty. As collateral, Aave puts up 5% of ongoing protocol revenue and $11 million in Aave tokens, and that is held in a multi-sig wallet that Mantle controls. The interesting thing here is that Mantle gets the voting power over over 130,000 delegated Aave tokens. Yeah. So basically, with this loan, they get a governance seat, a very significant governance seat. And maybe this also helps deploy Aave on Mantle. And so there's a business opportunity for Mantle. And I would expect anyone else doing a loan is also working strategically like.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[40:51] That as well. I mean, but the point is the DeFi community came together, raised these funds, plugged the hole. There's a total raise, $311 million to plug this. That's over and above what we needed, isn't it? I don't know what we do with the remainder. And I don't think that this was just, let's say, pure altruism, of course, right? Some of these are calculated business decisions because it would be good for all the parties involved to make sure that we support DeFi, to make sure it doesn't go anywhere, to make sure the faith in DeFi is restored. But that's all fine. In fact, that's a stronger mechanism to me than pure altruism.

David Hoffman:
[41:28] Than just donations, yeah.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[41:29] It does show.

David Hoffman:
[41:30] At the end of the day, if you're somebody who's part of that hole and you have less Ether, you don't care. That's right. You get your Ether back.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[41:36] And it shows DeFi can recover. Yeah. No public funding, no taxpayer funding. It can coordinate. It can repair. It can create win-wins. And it's strong in the aftermath of this. So a fantastic show of faith. I think it's incredibly bullish. Aave released a detail on how they plan to repair the RSE backing as a result of DeFi United. It's all here. Of course, this is like a one-time kind of fix. We can't be doing this every week, David, right? No, no.

David Hoffman:
[42:07] But you know what we can be doing every single week? And not only every single week, Ryan. What? But there was basically a DeFi exploit in the month of April every single day.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[42:20] Every 27 hours is what I'm reading.

David Hoffman:
[42:23] Every 27 hours, there was a DeFi exploit. Some of these were small, like $50,000. Some of them were large. But at the end of the day, there's this tweet here. April 1st, Drift, $285,000. April 3rd, Silo V2, $394,000. April 4th, whatever TMM is, $1.6 million. Do you see this?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[42:43] This is wild Yeah a total of Some of those were Denominated millions By the way So a total of 630 million stolen In April Yeah Worst month ever for DeFi, which cannot be sustained no matter how coordinated and how much we help each other out. Okay, so permanent on-chain, like insurance fund, we need some of that. We need L2Beat-style disclosures. Yeah. We need to harden everything. These hacks, we need circuit breakers. We've talked about that. These hacks will not stop coming because AI is

David Hoffman:
[43:15] Like- This is AI. This has got to be AI. This has got to be AI. This has got to be AI. I don't want to tease anyone who's gotten lost money, but can I show you my favorite one of these?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[43:26] Yes. Where?

David Hoffman:
[43:27] Coming in at the 18th largest exploit out of 24.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[43:33] Scallopland.

David Hoffman:
[43:34] Scallopland. Hacked for $150,000. I had never heard of Scallopland before.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[43:39] So you're saying, you know, you shouldn't put your funds in anything shady.

David Hoffman:
[43:43] I'm sure they're great people.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[43:45] Put your funds into things that are too big to fail, like Aave, right? Aave. Did I just curse us? I mean, it was fantastic to see the DeFi community show up for this and set things right. David, we got more coming up. The special ops soldier was arrested for using classified information for a $400,000 bet he made about the U.S.

David Hoffman:
[44:05] Very profitable trading strategy.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[44:07] Yeah, the U.S. probability of invading Venezuela. He happened to be one of the people invading Venezuela. So that's a crime. Also, the attorney general of the U.S.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[44:17] at the Bitcoin conference said code is not a crime. But can we believe him? Those stories and more are coming up. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this possible.

David Hoffman:
[44:26] On Thursday, a U.S. soldier was charged with using classified information to profit from prediction market bets. This is an interesting name on this individual. Gannon Ken Van Dyke made more than $400,000 on Polymarket by trading the fact that there was going to be a U.S. military operation to capture Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. He was one of those Navy SEALs, what were they, military members who actually did the invasion of Venezuela. So he would know. And so he bet on it. And surprise, he won. Fantastic trading strategy turned $34,000 into $410,000 days before Trump actually announced the operation. Yeah. Yeah. Is that illegal?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[45:13] It turns out it's highly illegal, David. I mean, this is classified information. So this is from the CFTC report, who is kind of the cop on the beat here. You know, his handle was burdensome-mix. And this has his crypto address here. This was his first trade ever. A very profitable trade. First trade. And the question posed was, will the U.S. invade Venezuela by January 31st, 2026? and he purchased the yes on that one because he knew in advance what would happen. So obviously this is illegal. The CFTC prosecuted him. This is Shane Copeland from Polymarket, the CEO, saying, grateful the DOJ officially acknowledged Polymarket's cooperation on this case. The reality is we work proactively with all the relevant authorities. We flagged this, referred it, and cooperated throughout the process. So this happens behind the scenes. And by the way, he said, I'm going to paraphrase, All of this was on chain. So the transparency of having it on Polygon, on chain, means criminals have less ability to get away from this kind of thing. So I wonder

David Hoffman:
[46:20] If I remember reading a story where the individual emailed Polymarket and was like, hey, can you close my account and delete all my data?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[46:28] Oh, shoot. It doesn't work like that. David, there's a scuffle that the CFTC is having in addition to restoring market integrity by prosecuting crimes like this. The CFTC and Wisconsin are in a bit of a battle. What's this about?

David Hoffman:
[46:44] So the state of Wisconsin had filed lawsuits against CalShe, Polymarket, Crypto.com, Robinhood, Coinbase, all entities that have prediction markets on their platforms. And so Wisconsin's going after all the platforms. CFTC responded by going after Wisconsin saying, hey, this is our turf. get off of our turf.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[47:03] Back off.

David Hoffman:
[47:04] Yeah. And Mike Selig made that video saying, I'm totally going to do this if the states come after my prediction markets. And that's what happened. And here we are.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[47:14] The quote from him, states cannot circumvent the clear direction of Congress. So he is going hard after the states enforcing his jurisdiction. David, the attorney general of the US went to the Bitcoin conference we were talking about in Vegas and told crypto developers, code is not a crime. I'm going to play a clip. Third-party participants in crypto shouldn't have to sleep with one eye open anymore that the feds are going to come along and charge them. If you are a non-custodial developer, you shouldn't have to sleep with one eye open. If you're developing software, if you're a coder, if you're not a third-party user and you're not helping and knowing the third party is using what you develop to commit crimes, you are not going to be investigated and you're not going to be charged. He went on to say, the mere fact that you happen to be a coder doesn't excuse you from criminal liability, of course.

David Hoffman:
[48:07] So... You know who would love to hear that?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[48:09] Who?

David Hoffman:
[48:10] Roman Storm. Has anyone told the people prosecuting Roman Storm what they are doing? Okay.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[48:16] So this is a question of like, what are they saying versus what are they doing? And I was kind of confused at this because Roman Storm, we reported, we talked about earlier in April, he's actually being retried by Jay Clayton and the Southern District of New York. And Jay Clayton is the U.S. Attorney General for the Southern District of New York. And they're deciding to re-prosecute him. They just made this decision in April. And yet here is Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General of the DOJ from Washington, D.C., coming into a Bitcoin conference saying, we're not going to charge non-custodial developers. so like what gives here why is there a discrepancy do you have any theories on this

David Hoffman:
[48:57] Um, I mean, my theory is that they're just not walking the walk. I don't know if that's a theory.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[49:03] I think that's what it seems like.

David Hoffman:
[49:06] Yeah, it's like words are cheap.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[49:08] Yeah, this is Peter from Coin Center who said that, you know, this is a better message coming from Todd Blanche than we've received in the past from the DOJ. But it's still not enough. It's still not sufficient. A publication I follow called The Rage reported on this. The DOJ cannot credibly claim it has changed the game while still prosecuting Roman Storm. The precedent the Southern District of New York is trying to set is wholly at

Ryan Sean Adams:
[49:36] odds with Blanche's memo and the president's policy. Because there's this question of like,

Ryan Sean Adams:
[49:43] How much did the non-custodial developer know about nefarious actors using it? And in the Roman Storm case, knowing was reduced to a single federal officer email asking to launder some proceeds. And, you know, that was enough. Or, you know, Roman Storm's registration of a user interface or a domain that, you know, that could be enough to prosecute him. So we don't have enough clarity in this case. And there does seem to be a discrepancy because on kind of the hierarchy here, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general who we just heard from, he should be the top dog. He should be the DOJ. He's top of the food chain. And yet Jay Clayton, who is more of a local prosecutor, he has autonomy to kind of run his own cases. So, but Blanche does have the ability to tell Jay Clayton to call off the dogs and that hasn't happened yet. So will that happen? And to me, if that happens, then they're actually serious about this statement. If it doesn't, it's still lip service.

David Hoffman:
[50:44] Do you think that Todd Blanche just knows about the Roman Storm case or does not know about the Roman Storm case? And so the disconnect is-

Ryan Sean Adams:
[50:53] He definitely knows. So he was asked about it at the conference. Didn't really have a good answer. Maybe it's like a unique case to them. It's kind of carve outs because North Korea was involved because of the amounts. So this code is not crime shift seems mainly like it applies to new cases going forward, not to Roman Storm. But again, I mean, unless it applies to Roman Storm, I don't understand how they can be serious. Roman Storm tweeted about this.

David Hoffman:
[51:16] That's the important one. That's the real test.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[51:18] Yeah. I mean, he said you can be, this is Roman Storm, you can be prosecuted for your software. You will get prosecuted. He's reporting the rage of report, like article that I mentioned earlier. So Roman Storm and his legal team does not see this as sufficient or that they're treating this seriously while his case is still ongoing.

David Hoffman:
[51:40] Right. Ryan, we saved just the best news for last, the most exciting news in the whole weekly roll-up. Are you ready to talk about it?

Ryan Sean Adams:
[51:48] Oh, yeah. Let's do it.

David Hoffman:
[51:49] Stablecoins and Meta.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[51:52] Meta the company? Well, okay.

David Hoffman:
[51:53] First, stablecoins. Visa stablecoin growth, $7 billion run rate. That's up 50% quarter over quarter. So, it's just a statement on just the industry sector growth of stablecoins used in payment by TradFi companies. So, that's pretty cool. Congratulations, Visa. And they're adding all these chains.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[52:12] Right? They're adding all the chains they can. Arc, base, canton.

David Hoffman:
[52:14] Arc, base, canton, polygon, tempo. Tempo. Uh... Maybe some of these I like, some of these I don't. But the big news out of Meta is that Meta has started to pay some of its creators. You know how all the social media applications, Instagram, X, they all kind of like pay creators now because that's just the Meta of paying people to get- Actually.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[52:33] I didn't know that. I know on X people get paid, but that's happening in Meta too.

David Hoffman:
[52:37] YouTube started it forever ago. I guess so. And then X copied them and then now Meta copies them. And so there's just like native payments for impressions built into the app. Right, right. And so, like, I have, do you have your ex-creator.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[52:53] Like? I do. Yeah. How much do you make per month?

David Hoffman:
[52:55] I get, like, $90 every two weeks. Oh, dude. I get nothing.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[52:59] I get $400 a month, David.

David Hoffman:
[53:02] That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[53:03] That's not bad. That's not bad.

David Hoffman:
[53:04] Yeah, it's something. Anyways, Meta, I don't, I get $0 from Instagram, but other people do. And so, Meta allows stablecoin payouts for Instagram creators with Stripe. and the cool thing I thought about this is like it's one thing if you're in the United States and you don't really you don't really need this because you just wait the.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[53:24] Payout the payouts are in stable coins

David Hoffman:
[53:27] USDC on Solana or Polygon through Stripe oh very cool Stripe is the, just a manager the mediator yeah that ties it also generates tax documents which is also important for these big companies tied to the actual creator earnings but one important thing is like you know Instagram creators are global or experts, Instagram too, I guess. And so a lot of this app is made easier because they are able to pay out people from any country that's not really well serviced in the banking sector. A hundred percent. And so logistically speaking, it is so much easier for them to pay out creators with USDC on Solana or Polygon supported by Stripe with tax documents than it is to have to just like navigate the mesh network of banking.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[54:13] You got to imagine they'll use Tempo too, right?

David Hoffman:
[54:15] Yeah, you would imagine. Whatever they want.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[54:17] This is a new consumer wallet, or I don't know if it's new. Maybe it's been in existence, but that's rolling out the stablecoin support that I believe Meta is officially going to push to. It's called the Link Wallet from Stripe. It's basically a consumer crypto wallet.

David Hoffman:
[54:32] Yeah, it's like a shop competitor. You can use a credit card in it, but you can also use stablecoins as well.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[54:40] Stripe is just shipping really hard when it comes to stablecoins.

David Hoffman:
[54:43] Speaking of highly valued private companies that I don't have access to.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[54:46] Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, you will once it hits over a trillion dollars, David, and you can buy publicly like all the other clubs.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[54:51] So there's that for you. Guys, let's end with this. None of this has been financial advice. You know, crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in, but we are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the Bankless Journey. Thanks a lot.