Episode 26: Crypto Coverage & Trust: From Binance’s $2B Deal to the Future of Blockchain Safety

00:00

All right, well, welcome to another episode. This is JR, Fundancy of Social Market. And my name is Leon Hitchens. I’m the Chief Marketing Officer here at Social Market. I think it’s been  what? Two, three weeks? Yeah, you kind of went in my a bro. Well, to be fair, we’ve both been doing things. So I’ve been coding my life away. Like I was complaining to Leon, I’ve been coding like 12 hour days for like the last two weeks and  I can finally come out of my borough. Yeah. And then I had a

00:27

just some travel, I a conference,  I had some just family travel in Arizona, and then  just one thing after another in October led to  do skipping out on there. And then think one time I was just  literally sneezing nonstop and I was like, I can’t do this  episode today. was like, I’m gonna go back to bed. I feel that,  no, and  I just feel it worse, so I don’t even blame you. But yeah, I mean, actually.

00:54

There’s been several developing stories, but we’re actually going to do things a little bit different here on social market on social ledger report, which, you know, it’s kind of confusing because the names overlap a little. So for first, we’ve been getting a lot of feedback from our friends and family and, know, it actually makes sense. We’re actually trying to, you know, improve here. So we always appreciate any kind of feedback we get. I think the subject, the main subject for this podcast is going to be like crypto. We’re going to try to give everyone.

01:21

kind of like what’s happening in crypto, but we’re going to be a little bit more relaxed about it and not have a stick up our ass sort of thing. So that’s going to be the new approach. Yeah. And then  we’ve got the product launching, like rolling out  a social market more and more. Like  I think  the more thoughtful approach from us too is just making sure it of ties into  what our mission is making crypto safer for everybody. then bringing it.

01:48

out there in an organic, natural way without just kind of  shoving it down every single person that’s watching here.  Yes. So  if you’re tuning in for the first time,  you’ll notice that we talk about us being in a different company and this is a separate podcast. So we’re kind of like just trying to give everyone a sense of uh what we’re doing and also kind of like what’s happening in the markets.  So  for a long time, we were building this product that was going to help people trade.

02:17

in a non-decentralized way. Like, you if you want to actively trade, you need to go to  Yahoo Finance, you need to go Robinhood, you need to go to all these different places. And it can be  kind of a clunky experience. We tried to do that, but it was actually not as easy to do. So we pivoted the business since. So from being this centralized hub for people to trade, now we’re doing crypto coverage where our mission is to make crypto more trustable.

02:44

And we’re actually going to cover some topics as to why it’s actually important to trust crypto because, you know, there’s a lot of bad actors that actually brings a lot of the worst kind of people into the business. But it also is changing a lot in the last few years where now people in actual big businesses like Western Union, we’ll talk about here in a minute, they are actually starting to incorporate in crypto and make it a part of their core business model. So, you know,

03:13

Larry Fink famously said, I don’t know if you know this Leon, but Larry Fink famously said who is like the BlackRock, um that he’s the BlackRock founder.  He said that we’re in the era  of tokenization or we’re starting that era  and crypto coverage  is a pretty big deal.  It’s a pretty big  gap in the market and that’s what we’re trying to address. Traditional insurance and traditional insurance models, they’re very clunky, they’re very expensive.

03:42

We’re not doing insurance, but we’re doing coverage. So it is a more accessible, more affordable way to get protected from hacks and technical errors on your end. So that’s what we’re doing. I really liked, were like brainstorming the other day, the seatbelt in a volatile system. Yep. It’s not a, it’s more of a metaphor than anything. It’s like crisp,

04:09

Crypto coverage  here is acting more as a safety constraint. It’s super, crypto’s super unpredictable. It’s high speed environment. Everything’s changing super quick.  If you know crypto today, you probably won’t know crypto next year. ah Even in three months, if you know crypto right now, crypto in January, February time’s gonna be totally different. So  super high speed. ah The seatbelt doesn’t slow down innovation. It doesn’t stop volatility.

04:36

But it does ensure when something unexpected hits somebody  steals from you, you get caught up in logistics hack, you get caught up in some sort of uh bad actor on the internet. Like  there is no safety net, but we’re building that out there. And essentially we want to make sure users aren’t thrown out of the system. it’s just like a car crash. You’re not thrown out of the car. uh Just make sure you don’t get thrown out of the system and you have some sort of backup to recover your money and stop from that hack and that attack.

05:06

that’s going out there. Exactly. So not to spread fun or fear, I’m going to share with you a video that have been meaning to share with you that can actually give you a good reason why you may want to get crypto coverage. And I’m not trying to make this whole podcast about that or this whole episode, but this is actually pretty significant. So this is on the Clock Gap or I like to call for TikTok. And this guy actually covers North Korean hackers.

05:33

The Chinese clock act, there you go.  Wait, so does that mean it’s like uh in China time or is it like  worldwide? know.  I just know that the Chinese are probably listening to us via that app.  No matter what Trump or anybody says changes, like it just feels very Chinesey for some reason.

05:55

Well, at least North Koreans might be because this is about North Korean hackers that store malware on blockchain so it can be taken down, which is kind of interesting. So I’m going to play it and get your thoughts on this, Ethers are now storing malware on the blockchain so it can’t be taken down and can’t be blocked. Here’s how it works  They’re using a method called ether hiding where malicious code is stored right inside smart contracts on public blockchains like aetherium or Binance smart chain There are no servers IPs or domains to take action on or protect against

06:23

Google’s threat Intel team says a North Korean group called UNC 5342 has been using this trick since February, targeting software developers with fake job interviews.  Victims think they’re running a quick coding test, but the test downloads malware that secretly connects to Ethereum, pulls more payloads, and steals passwords, credit cards, and crypto wallets like Metamask and Phantom.

06:43

Each update to their malware cost them about a dollar and 37 cents in gas fees. So for pocket change, they can swap payloads anytime with zero trace back. If you ever get an interview test file or code snippet from anyone online and it has something to do with blockchain, run it in a sandbox first or don’t run it at all unless you really know what you’re doing. North Korean hack. Yeah, so that’s the video. Basically, if you’re just going about your business,  most famously if you’re a self custody wallet like Phantom wallet or Metamask  and I don’t know.

07:13

someone installed it’s kind of like this security bridge that we breached that we saw a few weeks ago with NPM, the note package manager on it’s very technical, very coding. guys might be like, well, what the fuck are we even talking about? When you’re building apps, you know, you need to use like modules and  open source libraries and all that to build apps. So  in this case, North Korean hackers, they  use some similar vulnerability to  breach the blockchain to  embed code that when you are

07:42

Transmitting crypto it actually routes to their own wallet. So if you’re sending it to yourself, you’re actually not really sending it to yourself You’re sending it to a North Korean hacker and  what’s beautiful about blockchains is that you can see where the transactions are happening  The exact time that they take place the  amount that is being said and everything. That’s where we come in and we kind of give you coverage  It’s  you know, like I knew that there was like

08:09

Logistics hacks. I know that there’s like the ability to like intercept  Wallet addresses and stuff, but this is the first time I’ve seen like the malicious code going on the actual blockchain. So there’s Yep, just just like a new fear kind of unlocked of like oh man even the blockchain  is  There’s a possibility that even that is not fully safe. So like inspecting everything that you’re doing like

08:38

Knowing which companies you’re connecting to what what you know, where your wallets been been used all of that stuff’s like super important It’s also like a due diligence of like hey where you know i’m gonna interact with this blockchain or this You know defy product or you know use some sort of app like what? You know who built it. What is it? Like is it is it legit? There’s just like a little bit of of checking that

09:06

I don’t know if there’s like a clear cut way. Like you used to always get told early internet days, check for HTTPS, super easy. You you check the bar. It’s gotten a little more advanced since then. gotta check that it’s HTTPS, check the domain, make sure like L isn’t an I that’s capitalized for some weird way.  Like is the domain super close? Like all these things, the crypto one, think, know, something that we have to build out. And then also just like out there is build education around.

09:35

How do you spot this stuff? Like, I don’t know how to spot that. Like, I would probably take more in some capacity.  Yeah, dude. And even for like the  really good developers, I don’t know what you might think of me as a developer, but even someone who might know this stuff that, you know, might have a speculation as to what it is, it is really hard to find  too, because it’s  in the middle of thousands of tens of thousands of lines of code.  you know, it’s really hard to…

10:04

spot anything so you just got to be careful.  The way I think about crypto is  if you’re sharing with anyone your wallet’s  seed phrase or your private keys or your passwords you know got to be careful who you share it to it’s like if I were to share my know my shlong to my wife you know I’d be like well I only want to it to my wife and no one else so if I trust my wife to show her my shlong I can probably trust her with my passwords in this case to my crypto funds.

10:33

Right. You turn into Jeff Bezos and get threatened, you know, but… Wait, what do mean? When Jeff Bezos’ nude got threatened, he was blackmailed and he said, he was like, do it, you know, I’m not going to pay you. Leak my stuff. then there, but he’s a different type of person where it’s like, oh yeah, like, you know, I’m not going to be… You know, if I see a very powerful man who is bald,

11:02

I immediately become wary of them. I’m like, okay, I don’t want to this guy off because he could probably destroy my life. stay away from those. Anyways, so actually, dude, I actually wanted to talk to you about Logan Paul’s Crypto Zoo Fiasco. I don’t know if you followed it. I actually first got into it with Coffeezilla like in 23, 2022, 2023. Do you know what all that is about?

11:31

I a little bit of knowledge of the coffeezilla stuff like my understanding of it is Logan Paul Paul kind of pulled the fraud on like selling stuff or this is what what coffeezilla claims and it looks like he did really good due diligence, but You know, I’m not super clear on it. But essentially he claimed that Logan Paul said that there was there was Fraud happening in there like he wasn’t doing it was kind of a pump-and-dump scheme with some capacity

11:59

There was a lawsuit  and that’s kind of all  I understand of it.  So  to fill in the gaps,  Logan Paul, who’s now a very  famous  wrestler in WWE,  I feel like that guy changes personalities every time something comes out because with NFTs, had his own NFT. um Aside from Crypto Zoo, like I actually do watch this podcast. I think it’s really interesting. um If I were to say

12:27

If I were to sit next to him, I probably wouldn’t dislike him.  I think he’s just trying to finish the system and with everyone in it. So I don’t know. That’s just my opinions, which I  find myself being conflicted with his  things. But with Crypto Zoo, genuinely think  he really dropped the ball there and it does not look good on him at all. So with Crypto Zoo, he was launching this game  and you could mint your own NFT on Ethereum  and

12:55

That NFT was unique like every other NFTs  claims to be even though you’re only changing like the clothes  of that fucking NFT or whatever. um So he ended up frothing people and Coffeezilla actually put a large spotlight on the case and Logan Paul  threatened to sue Coffeezilla  but Coffeezilla retaliated. He was actually raising  money on his channels to support the lawsuit. um

13:24

I mean, honestly, a lot of the specifics have been blurred just because this has been going on for years. But there was this developing story from,  at least I found it on Twitter or X,  if you want to call it that. This is from Dexerto. Dexerto, I think that’s how pronounce it. Logan Paul’s crypto zoo lawsuit has been thrown out by a federal judge. No reasonable juror could find Logan’s statements misleading or fraudulent.  So what do you think of that? I think it’s bullshit.

13:55

I have two thoughts and I don’t know the full part is either Logan Paul had some really good lawyers and he got away with it because you know along the path he knew like he has to be careful and you know say the right things and all of that but also on the flip side just like CoffeeZilla my understanding is he was really well researched and he doesn’t just like make claims so

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essentially like Logan Paul got away with it. Like, don’t know if it’s a good look really for the crypto space, but also I think Logan Paul like gave back a bunch of money too. I don’t think he ever did. That’s the thing. So he said on video response to coffee’s a little like, yeah, dude, we’re going to give all that money back, like all 1 million plus. And it never happened. Coffee’s still made like three video series about it and nothing ever came of it from what it looks like. And what I, and at first,

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came across this post through Zach XBT.  You know, it’s he kind of just, you know, if you’re watching this on YouTube, you can kind of read it. But essentially, Zach XBT says that, you know, crypto is just kind of like this  or not crypto, but the way that the, I guess, law system works in the US is if you have a lot of money, you’re pretty much a good guy. You’re you can buy your way out of crimes.  And this is all because of,  you know, how much affluence you have.

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So yeah, mean, I think this is kind an interesting story that I wanted to mention because  we’re trying to build trust on crypto and we start by helping people who lose their money, find a safety net, kind of like FDIC insurance for your bank accounts, except we’re not insurance, we’re coverage. We are more accessible in that regard. But yeah, what do you think?  I think people are gonna scam people. You gotta be careful. You gotta research stuff out there. Anything celebrity sponsored, probably not a great.

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thing to follow into uh your own due diligence gamble with the money that you’re okay with losing like it’s all I can say on that stuff. It’s such a hard thing to you know, actually know. I agree. So let’s talk a little bit more about crime now. So  Trump  and  you can kind of get an idea where this is going.  actually Trump pardoned uh the founder of Biden’s CZ or

16:23

um Jing Jing, I think that’s how his name is.  So there was actually a lot that happened  and I’m not sure how up to date you are with that. you have any thoughts  or?  I know that again,  I’ll give you the background that I know is he essentially was under investigation for some like wire frauds and some stuff. Yes. Inside of trading maybe.  And that’s also part of why like Binance. uh

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Operates not in the United States. That’s why you have like a finance US which is a separate entity essentially the government wanted to exert more control and regulation and by instance follow it so There was a bunch of investigations. I didn’t realize he was actually like indicted or any of that stuff for or you know, even Really that far along and then I know Trump kind of stepped in pardoned him for any and all crimes that could have happened and

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There is a possibility that Trump makes him like a crypto advisor. uh Maybe we see Binance like  US get merged into Binance, you know, international and we’re able to use Binance again proper.  But  that’s the depth of my knowledge there too.  I’m a little conflicted with this because for one,  what  the reason why Trump did is because he’s signaling the war on crypto is over with that. And, you know, I think

17:49

Yes,  there were a lot of unreasonable  persecutions against crypto like Coinbase, Metamask. They all face like you’re  doing a business on securities. You’re not doing the right form of incorporating a business in  this realm, which it was all bullshit because if you  were up to date on this, Gary  Gensler, the old SEC head, he was just on this agenda that was actually

18:17

Powered by Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren for got one reason or another she just doesn’t like um crypto I do  respect her for creating DC dude, and I’m like dude,  I Don’t know what the fuck your deal is with that. But anyways One thing that she did right was building the CFTC or consumer finance protection bureau  and it actually it protects you from getting scab which great, you know

18:44

Getting scammed is never a thing and there should be like some sort of safety net here as a advanced civilization that we are in to prevent that.  so as far as Binance, um so the reason, and this is a really long story, but I’ll keep it short. So there was some sort of, I want to say scammy-ish  money  mingling, like money being moved around by the founder, Jean-Peng Zhao, that’s his name for Zizi.

19:12

It’s easy. He moved some money around and it was discovered by the, I want to say the Department of Justice. did find him $4.3 billion. So that’s a shit ton of money. Yeah, that’s a $4.3 billion. Especially for crypto. Right. So now Trump came in. Funny enough, when it comes to Trump, if you’re on his good side or if you do any favors for him, that’s when you’ll usually be off the hook.

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look away. So if you keep that in mind, um it’s kind of, you shouldn’t be surprised that Binance  actually inked $2 billion stablecoin deal. So you might be wondering why the Trump pardoned ZZ.  And  as I said before, if you’re on Trump’s good side, maybe you, maybe you stroke his penis once in a while. In this case, it says in my notes,  critics are screaming corruption because this came right after Binance,  the pardon came after

20:11

Binance inked a $2 billion stablecoin deal tied to Trump’s family crypto business, World Liberty Finance, which is already raking in tens of millions for them. you know, Binance is just stroking the WLF schlong, you know, giving that $2 billion deal. the problem with Trump in many ways is, well, it’s good and bad. He’s treating the government more like a business and in a business environment, you would cut a deal with

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with somebody like that and just say, this is what we need. This is how you’re do it. You follow these rules. I’ll forgive you, but you gotta work with us.  That’s a business thing. That’s a life thing.  People may or may not like it, but it happens all the time. People cut deals. People get away with things.  It happens all over the  world. You could even steal and people are like,  you’ve got knowledge on somebody else. Give them up or hey,  you’ve got intel.  Provide that.

21:11

and we’ll look the other way on stuff that happened. ah But the perception is that government’s supposed to protect and everything. And that’s the weird part  of  all of this is like, in  reality, I don’t know if CZ did commit a crime, like  he might have, it’s a white collar crime. I don’t know if it really hurt anybody.  The worry is if you let somebody like that get away, they get more bold and it turns into an FTX situation.

21:40

Yes, I was like more serious white collar crypto being in the United States is important. Like they launched Astor. They have BNB. They’re they’re building a lot of stuff and like China’s not really into crypto at all. in the end. So the United States keeps pushing forward. I think I it I think really what’s happening is the United States is saying, hey, crypto is such a big national security. If we can own it, we own a lot of like

22:09

New technology.  It’s just like China probably ten years ago Versus betting on crypto they bet on TSM see they  bet on like rare earth minerals they bet on all these like components to build a technology Versus betting on the software in the United States has always bet on the software And I think that’s the best move because you know you invest in the infrastructure you have  really good products down the road

22:37

Yeah, so we’ll see. I’m  like feel a little like indifferent on the CZ thing. Like I don’t need to really hurt anybody again. Right. Moving money and stuff like those wire fraud things can be very broad and you can get a lot of trouble with some very nascent like activities where you just didn’t know. ah I want to believe that,  you know, they weren’t doing anything but also Binance has been

23:07

blamed a number of times and accused of like market manipulation,  playing games with their BNB coins. So the thing is, is  their AML  and  anti-money laundering, um I guess protocol for like better word, they’re pretty lax on it. So  they don’t do a lot of verification. If you go on Coinbase, we’re cracking right now, especially Coinbase because they’re the goody two shoes on crypto selective to say.

23:35

um You can send sometimes a thousand dollars or even a few thousand dollar transactions without verifying and that’s great. You know, you got to verify that you’re not getting scammed because people who don’t know better um you’re on a call with supposed Coinbase support and then you know, they’re kind of sent telling you they convinced you somehow along the way to send all your money to their wallets just to protect your wallet or something which valid but

24:05

Sometimes there needs to be a fine line whether  there needs to be a fine line to make crypto less UX clunky as it is right now to  keeping it safe.  And  in one hand you have Coinbase that is  really uh like oppressive on their UX and their safety.  It kind of is oppressive, you know, and in Binance they’re just like, they don’t give a shit. So I think that’s the nature of why they’re being accused a lot on AML and just being

24:34

this bad actor when they’re really just trying to do business. Yeah, that’s that’s the hard part. Hold on. I want to look up is Binance to China at all? where do they operate out of? No, it’s the other one. It’s the southeastern Asian country. It’s by Singapore. It’s Singapore. BNB Binance is Singapore based, which is not China based.

25:04

I like to talk with I think they are really they’re they’re Japanese like now they’re just oh they’re they’re Malta they’re currently in Malta for their unofficial official company headquarters but they they were in China Chinese government restricted cryptocurrency companies they moved to Japan and then left Japan for Malta like 2019 2020 time

25:34

Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I kind of curious too like  This is some of my anti, you know, like Chinese like sentiment like  If if it was  a Chinese company, but this is the part is you know, CZ  like  This is the hard part CZ I believe is still in a Chinese like citizen like China exerts pressure in many ways like I wouldn’t be surprised if  something’s happening, you know, like if China’s like

26:04

uh That’s

26:34

Right next to, well, second being Coinbase. Wow. Leon the fact checker. Yeah, I’m about to fact check that because I’m like, I feel like there’s that other one out there, is, um, Gemini cracking. It’s like MEX, MEXC. Yup. Yeah, it is. It is. Okay. So Binance is the largest, then it’s Bybit, then it’s Crypto.com, then it’s Gate, then it’s Mech, and then.

27:03

Interesting. It is essentially coinbase. I forgot about buy-bit. No, makes sense. Well, guess it depends on how you look at it. But if you do look at it like volume, it’s finance, bit by bit, then coinbase, up, OKX, Mech is down there. But it just depends how you look at it. But almost always, it’s the largest. And the only reason that I was like

27:30

I didn’t think finance was because I always think of finance us and finance us is such a small like footprint really in the end. Yep. I think it’s like smaller than like Gemini and some of these other ones out there. Yeah.  Gemini is just slightly  like literally just a little smaller but no make sense. No but  it’s a very important play in the world. You know don’t know if I

28:00

Agree with everything, but also I again like looking at the full picture I can see what Trump’s possibly doing here is trying to make the United States big on crypto Give them a safe haven bring the company here and then essentially freeze China out of the crypto market. So United States once again controls more or less all currency around the world Yeah, I mean us is just trying to be the global dominant country which you know

28:30

It’s a very strategic move when you’re the biggest, know, no one can fuck with you. So  yeah, go for it. Right. But also  we’ll see what happens. You know, I’m  I’m wondering, I’m kind of curious to see, you know, while some people say like ice and  America is falling apart because of all the shit that Trump’s doing. I actually, you know, think crypto is making steadfast moves  on  moving to mainstream, which it’s going to help a lot of people.  I’m very, you know, topic.

29:01

Like  the biggest part that we’ve heard throughout the year is crypto is going to become a core part of  our lives. Like your mom, my mom, my dad, your dad,  they’re going to use crypto and they might not even know it.  you know, my parents aren’t all the older age. They’re just like crypto is too high risk. I don’t really want to mess with that. And I’m like, I kind of get it. But also it’s like, no, it’s the future.  And we’re starting to see that.

29:30

in a ton of places to let me see not to cut you off but you should tell your parents to get crypto coverage yeah my dad won’t even like he refuses to buy crypto he’s just i think he’s what 70 this year and he’s just like man it’s a little too risky for me at this point respect like huh you know what my only pushback on that is the biggest risk you can do is not trusting you’re not betting on yourself yeah but i think once you get to that age 70 years old like

29:59

There’s no point to like, you know, like he’s thinking about the next sounds terrible, but he’s thinking about the next 10 years of his life, you know, like if he makes it that far. Um, that’s a good point. You know, like he’s like, man, you know, I’m going to all, think essentially everything goes from stocks to bonds and, like, you know, bonds and government back things versus stocks. Like he’s not buying stocks anymore. He’s just like, no, like

30:28

there so I it I see and understand that because he’s like man I don’t I don’t want to put money in like you know Bitcoin was 120 last like two weeks ago three weeks ago and it’s like roughly 110 105 floating around he’s like that’s a little more too much volatility for my whole age well you know at least at least his son you know betted on Bitcoin early on and

30:53

Now you’re back to fucking massive. like 2012, 2013 talking about it. Nobody, know, nobody thinking serious mining in high school. It was, it was great. And then now look at this, like this, you know, tied all the international and like it coming to two places. Like again, our parents are probably going to use it. Western union, which is a big money mover and just like they’re a fundamental part of like a core part.

31:20

of moving money from like the United States to Mexico to other countries or even just to send money sometimes to people is Western Union. Like I’m not a big fan of Western Union. But this is kind I’m not a fan of them. And I think they’re a little predatory from time to time with with what they charge, you know, to get somebody who’s unbanked and all that. also there’s cases for Western Union. I’ve gone to Western Union to get money orders, you know, like the same cash, you know.

31:47

I’ve also sent people money on Western Union because they were you know stranded in another country and that those literally the only thing they could you know, go go get but Western Union has always been on the forefront of looking at alternative ways to move money They were early on on ripple. They were talking about using this cross-border, you know remittance now they’re filing trademarks for W you USD

32:13

hinting at crypto wallet, hinting at stable coin payments.  they’re the interesting part of this though that I’m still  somewhat struggling with this.  They’re going to launch on the Solana network. I don’t know, JRD, do you know why they’re going to do that?  I’m actually not surprised because  Ethereum is just,  it is the second oldest most used network. When I say network, mean like blockchain, the first one being Bitcoin.

32:42

um You can fact check me on this if you want, but you know, I’m pretty confident I’m gonna be right. Solana came out in… Solana  is only five years old, did you know that? It came out like in 2020 and it’s VC funded, but it’s like so… it VC funded? That’s super interesting. It is. It’s very centralized, which is kind of like the  biggest critique I’ve seen. You know, I’ve been on crypto for a few years now, like more than five, you know.

33:10

So I’ve seen kind of everything at this point. um Well, not everything, but anyways,  Solana is just faster, it’s cheaper,  it  has the most volume. The  current CEO of  Western Union said himself, oh, we’re on Solana because  it is the fastest and has the most volume.  And it makes sense. A lot of it is from pump.fun. If you wanna look at volume, which I think it’s kind of naive to look at from just a volume perspective, because again, like,

33:40

Volume is not everything.  We got to talk about use case. Solana is mostly used for money as it is. Ethereum is mostly used for building apps and trading and  building if you compare it to Solana. Solana is just, hey, I’m moving money around. Whether I’m gambling on,  there are some gambling casinos on Solana. There are some meme coins, which if you want to consider that gambling, you can.

34:06

But again, most of the volume is actually from pump.fun and then let’s bunk, which they’re just, you know, meme coin gambling sites where you can launchpad them, which means like you can launch your own meme coin and then  you can either,  um, rug pull early, early buyers  or  you get rug pulled if you buy another coin. That’s largely what happens. It is a lot of risk, but I mean, to each their own.

34:32

I guess it’s probably, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Solana is out there like politicking. Like  I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re trying to shift that, that whole persona away from like pump fun and all these meme tokens to be like,  no, we’re, a serious like money remittance platform. Like  we’re more important because yeah, like the argument on crypto continuously is, it an asset? Is it a money? Is it a technology? Like what is it?

35:03

and I believe it’s like a money  and and a technology  and  a Yep,  a  Asset like bitcoins an asset it’s  Yes, you know USDC is money but also Solana’s money and eat this money like in many ways  Yeah, I think stable coins make makes a bear casement stable coins hit the market. I was a little confused at it still a little confused at it because I’m like

35:33

But it is just a  tokenization of block blockchainifying of like the US dollar Which I  guess is is a good move in the end once I kind of wrap my head around it and seen it ah I think it does confuse like what what this a lot of really used for you know, you have chain link out there with JP Morgan like  there  right now we’re the wild wild west of crypto  and  Until they finally kind of like lay it out. I think we’re gonna see a lot of that ah

36:02

There’s a few other things though happening out there like zelle like everybody has access to the L zelle in the United States more or less if you use a big bank like a JP Morgan or I have capital one and is embedded into my bank. So I love so it’s so yeah, like that’s the best way to send money sometimes The problem that I have with cells if you have multiple bank accounts You can you you can’t have you know more than one bank account. You have to like have different emails and stuff minor like

36:30

first world problem of having more than one bank account. uh But  they’re going to start allowing crypto, know, stable coins for international transactions. I think it’s going to be just kind of uh a,  you know, like the rails to the system you’re going to hit with US dollars or, whatever  currency conversion that your bank is providing. But  it’s  it’s like,  this is the prime comment right here, like  we are approaching mass adoption.

36:58

and this is the future of finances is  crypto. Like you’re probably going to be sending USDC. You might get that turned into cash at some point, but more and more, I think these banks are just going to go,  why do we need to convert it back to  USD when we can just leave it on USDC and hold that money and like centralize, you know, kind of reserves.  other thing is, is if you go to traditional bank accounts,

37:25

doesn’t fucking matter if you go to Bank of America, Chase, they all pay pretty low interest rates. It’s mostly reflected also on the whatever the Federal Reserve changes its BPS on or is that what it’s called BPS like the rate the federal interest rate whenever the Federal Reserve changes that your more times than not your interest rate that you get paid out on savings accounts, low, worse or changes and it fluctuates.

37:55

With crypto, it always stays at at least 4.2 % or at least 4.1, um which is where Coinbase a few weeks ago, we didn’t cover this, but a few weeks ago, um Brian Armstrong with  Coinbase, they were  launching this massive PR move where banks,  are  pushing back on the Genius Act or the Stablecoin Act that passed in Congress that  says um crypto is just too good. Essentially, they would never say it, but crypto is too good. They’re actually

38:25

affecting  the business model on these banks because business banks are being forced to compete now with the convenience on crypto. So  to your point, crypto is  just too good, man. These banks, they just can’t catch up. Even I was bouncing around, somebody was texting me stuff,  but we peaked at this. Coinbase is going to collaborate with Citi. Wells Fargo is working with providers.

38:55

Fidelity or maybe maybe I think it’s fidelity fidelity, which is like one of the largest brokerages for retail investors. It’s now allows deposits and withdrawals of Bitcoin like it’s coming like cities looking at using digital assets, you know, they’re looking stable coin payments, you know, on and off ramps like so much more out there. It’s just happening. then like it everybody is positive on this.

39:25

And I think what’s going to happen is the mass adoption is going to happen. You’re not going to realize you’re using USDC. You’re just going to go, Oh, one USDC equals $1. I don’t really care. Let me send this. Oh, there’s way less fees. I’m going to go with the way less fee option than transferring it to PayPal, getting a fee on PayPal. Like I think Venmo, PayPal, all these services out there could be the, like they could be dead.

39:53

The one problem though ah is  most of the world still isn’t really accepting like stable coins like  the Philippines. India is like a black hole for crypto. China, you you don’t really can’t, you don’t really work with anybody in China. Pakistan is starting to accept it, but you need these other foreign countries that are like BPO nations to start accepting it  widely for,  I think adoption to happen on the business side.

40:24

That makes sense.  If deal deal, which does like contracting for every like large company out there, if you want to hire internationally and have them as employees and compliance on all that drunk,  you know, they don’t really support crypto that well, like they’re starting to. But I think as soon as you start to see the big banks do it and people go, oh, hey, I can use that. And they discover that the fees are almost nothing. They’re going to go.

40:53

Why the hell don’t I use this for my payments on  on businesses? Like I think Stripe could be at risk. I think there’s so many businesses that will likely pivot and move and adjust to the new world. But crypto is going to fundamentally change finance in the next.  I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than what  is happening, but in the next like 10 years, it’s going to revolutionize what what’s happening. Just like.

41:18

It’s going to be very different. You’re not going to recognize it. It took roughly 10 years to get where it was, even though most people on the Internet by 2005 were like, oh no, the Internet’s what it is. If you were on it, you were ahead of the curve. But it took to 2010 for Tumblr and everything else to really pop up and get the infrastructure built out. Well, not Facebook, but Instagram, that sort of stuff. we still use it today. Yeah, like all of that had to launch. And I think that’s what’s happening right now is

41:47

You the yahoo is the AOLs all of that’s being built out and I think in another five years you’re gonna see like which companies are actually starting to solidify as the  The the big players that technology is gonna caught up the  the banks are gonna support it everything’s gonna be there but I think like 2035 we’ll see like  USDC the only way to send money is gonna be USDC via Zelle or via some you know platforms

42:14

Shopify is gonna set UDSDC almost predominantly, credit cards are gonna be in UDSDC. Like think when that happens, they’re gonna do it, but I think they need to figure out how does bank collect fees? How does the bank land? Like all of those like traditional finance stuff, how does that change? And I think that’s gonna take the longer view of everything.  Yeah,  so,  know, one more thing I’ll say on that is, um right now we are probably seeing a big…

42:41

impact on the white collar market job market for developers. A lot of them say that, oh, AI is going to take our jobs sort of thing. And this is kind of like one fear I have, you know, because I’m also a software engineer. AI is not going to, you still need pilots to drive the ship. You know, you need developers who are good at building web three applications for crypto applications and it’s all fintech. You know, it is, it is still surprisingly a niche skill.

43:11

AI is good. I  saw this post on Twitter like this week that said AI isn’t  replacing developers. It’s just making developing easier.  There’s less typing being required now because of AI. So  you still need the pilot to drive the ship. So  I think we’ll get there faster. Squarespace, Webflow, all those page builder platforms, Framer even recently came out. uh

43:39

Everyone was like, Oh, WordPress is going to be the, the, you know, the end of the web development and WordPress is going to be gone. Everyone’s going to build on Squarespace and this Squarespace has like one, 2 % of the internet Shopify is like 3%. Um, I think web flows like maybe one, 2 % to, um, I think all of them, you know, make up maybe like 10 to 15 % of the internet, but WordPress and like custom websites or WordPress is 50 % and you know, like custom websites make up a good chunk.

44:10

page builders are only small. think the same thing is going to happen with AI.  Like  it’s probably going to be there, but I know for sure crypto is going to eat the world. Whereas AI is eating a world in a very different way.  The crypto is eating the world and just kind of upgrading our financial system. Like  I’ve worked with like companies where they’re banks and they’re like, Oh yeah,  you have to like send this  FTP file to this server.

44:39

and that server will then do the wires the next day. And I was like, wait, what? I was like, no. And they go, yeah, like  it’s just an antiquated bank that, you know, we, haven’t upgraded just like Southwest and they’re stupid, like windows XP, like,  yeah, like they, they just, nobody’s upgraded the financial system since like the sixties. Yeah, dude. I mean, it’s kind of like the power grid. Like, I mean, this is a separate topic, right? But like  the reason why our electric bill is going up so much is because all these AI

45:09

data centers are just swallowing up the data, the electric grid. Nobody has updated it in the, since the seventies or sixties either. you know, we’re, yeah, we need to catch up a lot of China. if you go to China, you see like public infrastructure is a huge thing. Like the, the Southeast, Southwest region, which is like closer to like the middle East and like middle Asia and all that. Um, like they have light, they have high speed rail from

45:38

from all the way out there to like Shanghai and Bangkok and or not Bangkok but Shanghai and their capital city. You can’t remember it ah like the roads Shanghai’s tallest bridges like a mile up in the mountains like the United States doesn’t invest in this and this is the first time the United States is investing in a worldwide upgrade of all their financial systems. So I think that’s a massive and huge thing. You know kind of glazing the crypto.

46:05

The crypto here, I know that there’s gonna be bad things, like Big Brother is gonna be able to watch money way easier. I think there’s some very scary components to it, but I think overall it’s an important move and change for us.  I’m super excited to  be able to send money easier and not have to deal with uh PayPal or Venmo.  I’ve run into problems with  you. Even PayPal has a stablecoin, so you can see where the market is moving.

46:33

I just, want my employees in the Philippines to go, Hey, I want to take stable coin payments or I want to take crypto payments. I’ve yet to have anybody accept that. Like you see a few people like mayor of Miami took it. Some random football players take it. Occasional people that are well off take it because they’re making like long-term bets. when somebody in the Philippines, that’s, know, like just building their career, they’re making maybe like 1500 a month.

47:03

goes, Hey man, can you pay me that in Solana? That’s the day where I’m going to go,  Oh yeah, I’ll pay you in Solana. But I want to, you know, I want to like test this. Like I want to, I want you to keep track of, know, how much you keep, like how much you earn, what are unrealized gains? Like  I want to show somebody out there and maybe we do it on our blog at some point of like,  this is the benefits of it. You can actually make more money because this is an appreciating asset. Obviously there’s risk and all that, but

47:34

It’s not going anywhere. you know, uh one thing I’ll say to that is with Bitcoin, we’re seeing all these  Gemini released this Bitcoin credit card or just their credit card where instead of earning points, you earn Bitcoin or you can swap it out for any other blue chip token like XRP, Solana, Ethereum, you name  it.  Your money actually improved. Like if you look at points, you know, you’re pretty much tied to an ecosystem of wherever

48:01

they accept the points. Like if you have American Express, you can only use American Express points.  But with Bitcoin, it’s universal. So  not only are you earning a universal  reward, you can always withdraw for actual cash. But also, you know, if you hold your Bitcoin, which,  by the way, it was the most  lucrative asset in the last decade,  you actually have a good chance of earning even more  than what your points initial value is if you hold it for at least a year or so. You know, it’s just an

48:31

That’s just an  example, but I mean, who knows? It could grow even more. Yeah. No, I love it. I think, you know, that kind of covers  the week of news and gossip and topics.  know, if you’re watching… know what you think of this format. Yeah,  I really liked it. I actually thought the… you explaining Binance was much more fun and I felt more engaged than… sometimes what ends up happening is you talk and I  like fall asleep.

49:00

truthfully and then i know you’re not wrong i talk and you fall asleep right no it’s okay  um yeah well you know you as an audience listener thanks so much for tuning in let us know what you think if you want to  you know i’ve been thinking about this um we need to go online we need to go stream this on youtube and our discord so if you want to tune in let us know  you know if you want to engage with us while on call because i think it’ll be fun if some of our audiences could talk to us while on the podcast

49:28

I would love that. Like I think there’s more in community engagement stuff. Like I want people to leave more comments on the YouTube. Um, you know,  like maybe we set up a, an email distro to email us ideas and stuff. Like  I want to talk to people. Yeah, me too. I mean, the best opportunities in life happen just by meeting people, you know, just like my life changed when I met Leon. So that’s one thing.  Great. Well, thanks so much for listening. We’ll be seeing you next week.  Bye.