ROLLUP: Memecoin Mania | Tornado Cash Win! | Pro-Crypto Trump Cabinet | Justin Sun & WLFI
Memecoin chaos to major court victories for decentralization, here’s everything you need to know.
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From Web1 to Web3: Why Are We Here? | Matt Cutler
ROLLUP: $100k BTC? | Gensler Resignation | Trump ‘Crypto Czar’ | Memecoin Rugs
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Inside the episode
Memecoin Mania Takes a Dark Turn
What started as lighthearted trading of meme-inspired tokens took a dark and disturbing twist this week. Pump.fun, a popular platform for livestreaming crypto trades, had to disable its livestream feature after users began sharing shockingly inappropriate and unethical content, including real-time rug pulls by teenagers.
Amid the chaos, Ethereum layer-2 networks Base and Farcaster reported record transaction speeds and inflows, signaling a shift in memecoin activity to these platforms. While memecoins are often fun and speculative, this week was a stark reminder of the risks and volatility of crypto’s less-regulated corners.
Trump Picks Pro-Crypto Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary
In a bold move that has the crypto industry buzzing, Donald Trump nominated Scott Bessent as the next Treasury Secretary. Bessent, known for his support of crypto innovation, could signal a policy shift favoring blockchain technology and digital currencies.
While details of Bessent’s plans remain unclear, the nomination underscores the growing influence of crypto on U.S. economic policy. Analysts predict this move could pave the way for clearer regulations and a potential green light for Bitcoin ETFs and stablecoin frameworks.
A Surprising Investor in Trump’s World Liberty Financial
In another twist, Trump’s World Liberty Financial fundraising round attracted a surprising new investor. While names are still emerging, reports suggest that a major player in the traditional finance world has placed a significant bet on the initiative.
This unexpected move highlights the growing crossover between traditional finance and crypto, with legacy institutions increasingly interested in the digital economy.
Tornado Cash Victory: A Win for Decentralization and Privacy
This week brought a massive win for crypto advocates as U.S. courts ruled that OFAC overstepped its authority in sanctioning Tornado Cash, a decentralized privacy protocol. The ruling clarified that immutable smart contracts cannot be sanctioned, marking a watershed moment for decentralization and user privacy.
But what does this mean for Tornado Cash users? While the ruling affirms the protocol’s legality, the broader implications for DeFi protocols and privacy-focused applications are still unfolding. This decision could set a precedent that protects other decentralized systems from overreach by regulatory bodies.
What’s Next for Crypto?
The crypto industry is as unpredictable as ever, blending innovation, controversy, and triumphs in equal measure. From Base’s rising influence to pro-crypto government appointments and landmark court rulings, it’s clear that crypto is moving into a new era of mainstream relevance.
Transcript
Bangl Station is the last week of November. This is uh the week of Thanksgiving. So we're recording this on Wednesday, November 27th, in case we get some of the prices a little bit uh delayed for you. You're probably hearing it on uh Friday. Uh in the United States, this would be Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, David. How you doing, man?
Good, good. I am back home in Seattle. Once again in the room that I discovered crypto in. It's always a little bit nostalgic to be to be back here. It was a different era back when I was assembling mining rigs in 2017.
You're just telling me that that's what you're doing. Just like over to the to the right of
Just right over your shoulder. Just to my right, yeah. Just pulling my hair out, figuring out how to get six GPUs on the same computer to work.
Jeez, that was those were the days, huh? That was hard when you had to actually like mine to to get your crypto. You can't just like stake it.
Buttons, yeah. You had to assemble hardware. Yeah. Different era.
Yeah. Uh well, uh, we got a lot to be thankful for on the roll-up today, I think in crypto today. One thing I am thankful for is bankless citizens. We appreciate you guys. Uh, I know we say this every year, Thanksgiving time, but you are the reason we do this podcast and have kept up. God, four years of straight roll ups. I don't know how many that is, but 50 times times like four. I mean, we're we gotta be over 200. We should go count sometime, but that's a lot. And you guys have been with us the entire time. So uh I'm thankful for Bankless listeners today and Bankless Citizens.
There's a strong contingent of bankless listeners out there who proudly beat their chest whenever they like come up to me or or you at at Permissionless or in real world and just say, I have never missed a weekly roll up. Wow. I'm like, wow, that is a lot of content.
That's a lot. Wow. And you know what? We have never missed a weekly roll.
We have never missed a weekly.
Every single Friday. Yeah.
We're just
Time to stop. Big shout out to Anthony Susana who taps in every once in a while as needed to make sure that that streak keeps on going. But yes, Bankless has never missed a weekly roll up.
that's the only way we could do it. You can hear uh Murphy in the background, my dog. I'm just going with it because it's the holiday.
Never missed a weekly roll up.
Yeah, no, he's he's usually we edit it out. We're not gonna edit it out. Uh one other person I'm thankful for, David.
You
Tell me.
my co host, David Hoffman.
I was going down memory lane actually, and I I um went up in our DMs to the very first DM, the very first time we exchanged a message. And here it is. Your first message to me, actually, in DM, Twitter DMs. I do not understand the resistance to Ethereum on behalf of so many Bitcoiners. It is utterly confusing to me. That was December 1st, 2018. So what is that? Six years ago, pretty much like pretty close to the day. And I replied, I said, I've been trying to figure it out as well. At core, the value system appears so similar. I don't know why. Do we we spoke very formally back then?
This is officially our first DM.
Yeah, I think that's a lot of bankless is downstream of that vibe of like under understanding Bitcoiner values, cypherpunk ethos that Bitcoiners definitely espouse and and put into their blockchain, seeing that same ethos in Ethereum, seeing that being disregarded in Ethereum. And now like I feel I feel like
there's I bet you a lot of I bet you there's that same DM in two Solana people who like are like, why do the Ethereum people just do not see what we I bet I bet you it has continued down the fractaling like
I'm sure.
uh
There's multiple generations of this. But anyway, I yeah, I'm I'm thankful. I'm thankful. What we've said in previous during the bear markets is you gotta grab your bear market uh buddy during the the the bear markets. And uh during the bull markets is true too.
turn into bull market buddy?
You gotta celebrate with somebody. So uh you know celebrating uh you like the the bull market with all bankless listeners today. Let's talk about what we're gonna cover today on the weekly roll up. Um, first, you know, last week we started the weekly roll up with the you know dual wielding middle finger uh 13 year old, and we were kind of laughing at meme coin shenanigans. You remember that?
How absurd it was, yeah.
Yeah, it was
Absurd u absurd and entertaining and like kinda funny. Yeah.
kind of funny, right? Well, like three days later, over that very weekend, things turned really dark. So it started with these ruggings from a 13-year-old and quickly spiraled into some deeply disturbing content. We'll talk about this on Pump.fun. It got so bad that Pump.fun actually had to disable their streaming service. So what's going on there? Also, I think related to this, Base and Farcaster have experienced the uh the largest TPS and inflows, transactions per second in inflows ever, I think, on the back of some of this. So maybe the meme coin mania is shifting somewhere else. We'll we'll dive into that.
Also, in the world of politics, Trump picked a uh Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent. Uh, what do we know about him? What do we know about Scott? What can we expect from him? He's said to be pro-crypto. What does that mean? And also, you'll never guess, Ryan, who became the largest investor in Trump's World Liberty Financial raise. The raise is still ongoing, so we're gonna check in on that rage. And a huge risk for crypto decentralization and privacy in the courts, judges ruled that the OFAC overstepped their authority in the Tornado Cash case. They ruled that immutable smart contracts cannot be sanctioned. They ruled that smart contracts are not businesses and are not persons and therefore cannot be sanctioned. Huge progress, huge win. Can we use Tornado Cash now?
Wait, wait, wait. Well, we're also we're also going to talk about that. Uh so all of this and more coming up in the rest of the show. But first, a moment to talk about our friends and sponsors over at speaking of big numbers, Bitcoin almost, but not quite, hit 100K. I think it topped out at like 99 and a half thousand dollars. Really giving us the tease. Really giving us the tease. But also, like, you know, around numbers are this big psychological barrier. I think it kind of in hindsight makes sense for a bunch of traders to sell at $99,500. Uh, because once it hit that point, it got down to $92,000 yesterday. But since this morning, it is back up to $96,225 where we are now. So even though we bounced off of a thousand, think a hundred thousand, didn't get there. We're still showing a pretty strong performance on the week. Uh Bitcoin on the week up 2.2%, which after its stellar performance for like four weeks in a row, being up yet another 2.2%, you know, you gotta give a round of applause. The momentum is is still going good. Impressive. Uh the momentum has gotten so good that it has attracted the attention of Jim Kramer.
Who publicly uh just turned bullish on Bitcoin? Uh, you got a question about micro strategy on a mad money episode. Uh let's let's just play the clip. I don't have to read it. Let's just play the clip.
Greg in Florida, Greg.
Oh yeah, Jim, how we doing?
I'm doing well. How about you, Porter?
I'm doing very well.
Alright, so here's the deal.
I've owned this stock for a long time, since twenty twenty three. I'm up over a thousand percent right now. I don't plan on selling it. In fact, after today's correction, I plan on buying more.
But I love what the CEO does. He's the man, the myth, the legend, Michael Saylor. The stock is Micro Strategy. What do you
MSTR. I've got to tell you, it's a Bitcoin play. I prefer to actually own Bitcoin. I know that shit trying to put some sort of short on it. All I can tell you is that's a winner. That's a winner. Ladies and gentlemen, conclusion of the That's what people are saying.
That's why we bounced.
Yeah, at that point we knew we would never hit 100K. That's what uh
What what what if Bitcoin's momentum is so powerful that it just blasts through the curse of Jim Kramer? It's just like, nope, nope, nope. Uh uh uh I'm not stopping.
I mean I
Who's gonna win? Jim Jim Kramer versus Michael Saylor's infinite money printer.
Yeah, exactly. And we'll talk about that in a second. But like I actually like that we haven't hit a hundred K because now we have something still to look forward to. I like what are you gonna do if you're a bitcoiner and you already hit uh a hundred K? Wait for a million? Yes.
Yes, I feel
Okay, but it's not gonna ha not gonna happen this cycle. It's not gonna you can't a million dollar Bitcoin this cycle. Don't even
that that that that flips gold at current prices, which is
Oh my god.
a million dollars Bitcoin is is
We still got a hundred K.
We still got that to look for it.
I think we hit a hundred K this year?
Oh yeah. I mean we're just teasing it. I mean like I don't
Five weeks for a hundred K? Yeah.
I don't think Jim Kramer