ROLLUP: The Debate | 1st DeFi Congress Hearing | ENS joins PayPal/Venmo | Coinbase’s cbBTC

Bankless Station, happy second week of September. It is time for the Bankless Weekly Roll Up. David, you and I are back to our natural habitat, which is uh looking at each other through screens rather than being in person together.

That's right. Uh I got a moment of 3D Ryan uh this last week. And man, it was weird. It was a little too real.

It's not great, is it? David's like, quick, let's let's leave. Let's go back to screens. Make this normal again.

Chat over Discord, please.

And you're actually in Lisbon, so you're all the way in uh you know Spain now. So uh

Yes. I have gone from New York, uh from Argentina to New York to Lisbon. Haven't done a weekly roll-up in New York, actually.

You and I live very different lives. Let me just tell you that with respect to our travel. It's great. Okay. But I know you caught this. This is a question for the Bankless Nation. One of the things we're going to talk about today is the Trump versus Harris debate. Did you enjoy it? Did the crypto prices enjoy it? That's the question.

Uh DeFi had its debut in the first hearing around DeFi, specifically DeFi in the United States House of Congress. How did it go? We introduced DeFi to Congress. Did they like it?

In the world of crypto natives, Frontech has burned their keys governing over the app. Are they abandoning the project? Or is this fulfilling the cypherpunk values of decentralized protocols? What's going on over here?

Not your key is not your app, I guess. Maybe it's everyone's app to find out. Also, ENS was integrated into PayPal and Venmo this week. That's a pretty big freaking deal. And Coinbase released a tokenized version of Bitcoin just this morning as we're recording the roll up. And Sony is launching a stable coin. Lastly, David, did we just catch a glimpse of Vitalic? War mode Vitalic? Is that what's going on on Twitter?

Dude, he's uh crescendoing in something spiciness.

Something. We'll talk about that spiciness. Uh David, we got a an announcement. Speaking of Ethereum and its spiciness, there's a spicy event coming up for you. Tell us about it, because you've been planning this. You David is the mastermind. I haven't had almost nothing to do with the bankless summit. What is the bankless summit, David?

Yeah, I'm achieving a lifelong crypto long, crypto career long uh bucket list, which is hosting something like TED Talks for Ethereum, which we're calling the Bankless Summit. This is the day after DevCon. It is a one day event, one stage event with no panels. Uh, and so I have recruited some of my favorite speakers, some of I think the best speakers in Ethereum.

Name some names.

Uh Trust and Drake, of course. Uh up and coming EF researcher Mike Neuter. Uh Amin Solomani, one of my personal heroes. Uh Matt Cutler, who I've watched him give multiple presentations. They're always fascinating. Eric Wall from Bitcoin Land.

Oh that's a

Eric Wall?

Bitcoin guy, huh?

Uh huh.

That's a yeah, Bitcoiner, yeah. Uh we got Anthony Susano opening it up. He's gonna open up the whole entire thing. Susano fiend. It's all very bullish.

Yeah.

Uh, my friend Janine uh Ledger, who's gonna talk all about this pop-up city revolution that she has been spawning ever since uh Zuzalu, ever since she planned Zuzalu, now is is creating this whole edge city movement. Oh, you've been hearing about all these pop-up cities, right? Like she's at the epicenter, so she's gonna tell that story. Uh mainly the idea is like really good content. Uh the speakers that I've chosen, I am charging with making the most interesting content possible. There are, I know you don't go to conferences, Ryan, so I have to kind of fill you in on the conference meta, but there has been this like massive side event meta of like instead of people buying booths, they just how they host a side event. Uh and these people also don't tend to know how to like curate good content, in my opinion. Uh, and so I am doing something that's a little bit of the opposite of the kind of content that I uh that I find at these side events, which is like six-person panels that are like just not optimized. And so no panels. Uh, the only time there's going to be two speakers in where Onsgar and Casper are presenting their ideas about the Ethereum monetary policy, uh, because that's what they care about. That's what they're passionate about. So all these speakers have been charged with producing the most interesting content possible about the thing that they are most passionate about. So six hours of the most interesting content that you can enjoy. If you are a bankless citizen, you have 70% off of ticket price. Really? Current ticket price is $100. It goes up uh as we sell out waves and waves and waves. There are is only 600 person capacity in this venue. So there's only 600 tickets. Uh, the first wave of 125 tickets we uh uh released this Monday uh were already like 50% sold out. Uh and they're also the cheapest that they will ever be. Uh if you are a not a bankless citizen, but you are a bankless weekly roll up enjoyer, you get 20% off. Full discount. There is a link in the show notes. Uh also, if you're a Daily Gway member, there is uh a disco for you somewhere in the Daily Gway Discord. Go find it. Uh, and then a few other communities as well.

You will know them if you are in them.

You almost got me, David.

I I I was almost.

You almost

I was briefly thinking about maybe going to another in-person event, but um I I might have to live vicariously through you yet again.

there'll be some pretty cool uh perks if you are there in real life, uh, because at the end of every single talk presentation there will also be an audience QA as well. Uh and so there is actual utility of going there and being in person.

Yeah. We we like our tokens with utility, don't we? Uh our conferences too.

Utility tickets.

Let's talk about prices, David. And we gotta thank Kraken for providing us these fantastic Kraken Pro charts. Uh and I guess fantastic because we're up on Bitcoin? Tell me about that.

Two 2.3% on the week started 56,000, ending 57,650. So yeah, up a little up a little bit.

I'll take that. And how about ETH price?

Currently at $2,330.

I swear this market hates ETH right now, doesn't it, David? Uh I think that's turning around though. That's gonna turn around this quarter. We're gonna get Ben Jones said.

It it can't get that much worse without something materially.

Now we got war mode Vitalic, maybe. We'll get to that later. But uh let's go check in on some more obliqueness, which is the Ethereum ETF flows. Um haven't been great. Still kind of draining out of uh Ether.

We did break that that red phase. We did have one day of inflows on the 10th of $11 million. So we finally broke that like 10 day long streak. And then the next day, the September 11th, half a million dollar outflow, which I'll call nothing.

Alright, so we just need

BlackRock yet to sell.

BlackRock has not had

any East go out.

to break even though David, we just need 50 more days, exactly like September 10th. That's it.

Then we're even.

It's not that many.

It's not that many. Could be worse. Uh

Like we haven't we haven't seen the TradFi reflexive FOMO into crypto assets yet.

I would like to see how how much foam they have.

you know who disagrees with you though, is uh Jim Bianco. Um Jim Bianco had a take this week.

It's been a little bearish lately.

He's bearish ETFs specifically. So what's Jim saying here, David?

Yeah, he's kind of implying that the tides are turning with the ETFs and not in the direction that we want. Um he's saying TLDR inflows have now turned into outflows. Holders have recorded losses now for the first time. Uh advisors hold less than 10% of uh all the ETF holdings, which he's saying implies that like boomers never came.

Uh this is all going to like kind of retail end investors. Like Brian, you have you have uh Bitcoin ETF in your retirement account.

Right. Yeah. And I'm I uh crypto native. It's not the majority of my funds. I so I'm gonna I'm uh old money

of of ETFs.

You're not doing the thing that the ETF was said it was going to do, which is like attract new capital, attract new buyers. And then lastly also says the average trade size is less than $12,000. Also, what he's saying is an indicator that uh the participants of these ETF markets are just not

in size, is more individuals, not like, you know, multi billion dollar institutions. So his conclusion it's not an adoption video uh vehicle. He says it's a small tourist tool, and on chain is returning to TradFi. So we're actually just kind of getting an outflowing of people being on chain to people being on BlackRock.

Yeah, he has some supporting evidence uh for this too, but he basically kind of says like check back in uh uh 2028 is the TLDR.

Thanks.

I think I think that's like, okay, but that's like, okay, tides are turning, it's bearish now. But also, I'm like, what? Like boomers never came? That means they still haven't bought our bags? That's just great.