Episode 3: From Trade Wars to Vibe Businesses: Bitcoin’s Wild Ride

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hey everyone good morning my name is Jesus Burua but you can call me Jr and

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this is Leon CMO of Social Market hey I’m I’m excited to do another recording

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got a little bit of a sickness but I’m feeling much better so I want to talk

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some crypto yeah yeah of course so actually Leon you know I think the

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biggest story this week has been more about tariffs more than anything since

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they kind of rolled on however crypto is still affected so what I wanted to talk

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about was kind of like what we’re seeing across the board as far as you know

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tariffs affecting everything as well as the crypto kind of bouncing against it

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so it’s actually appreciating not as much but it’s still you know going up a

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little bit people are buying Bitcoin instead of just holding any other kind

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of cash or asset for that matter but there’s been a trade war going on

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because and I’m not sure if you can kind of fill this up Leon but as far as I

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know something that happened today or as of yesterday I believe was that China

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actually increased the tariffs in the US by 125%

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yeah so it’s been back and forth i start I think um Trump put

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a I’m blanking on what he put on uh China it was like a 63 or 83% tariff and

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then China hit back with a 34 and then they upped it again and then the United

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States upped it again and then um right now uh they’re at 125% yeah the Yep

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it’s it’s been back and forth they paused the other tariffs and honestly

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I’m a little a little whiplashed on whether the tariffs are still on or

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they’re off some people were saying on Twitter that there were going to be

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tariffs again it’s been a lot of whiplash um you

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know I don’t disagree with the China stuff totally like China’s abused the

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system and you know they steal intellectual property they yes do a

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bunch of cheap stuff and they put American companies out of business now

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Chinese make some really great stuff dji like there there’s a bunch of them but

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it’s it’s got some mixed feelings there cuz China is like a really big trade

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partner but also they do a lot of stuff that they shouldn’t really be doing

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yeah so again IP infringement it’s one of them you know you if you know growing

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up in Mexico as well I would see a lot of things imported from China and a lot

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of them were like things from Disney to any other pop culture you know toys or

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even you know media or anything anything you can imagine that came from China a

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lot of it was IP infringement you would think I didn’t know Disney was making

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these kind of toys well they’re not that’s from China so so to your point

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but you know I think what happened was Trump started the trade war back in his

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first term if you guys remember you know he would say China China this China that

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anything China related and back then I wasn’t as much into politics as I am now

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at least I didn’t pay much attention but as it turns out you

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know the trade war officially skyrocketed this this term you know

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that’s has been that’s been his main selling point he’s been wanting for

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better or worse to impose tariffs and that’s kind of what affected everything

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so now we went into this back and forth for God knows how many months

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now china had enough I guess so they started to retaliate

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and now I guess the court’s on us the the boss in our court yeah and and the

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interesting part is to see crypto so affected the first trade war I don’t

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know if I would call it war the first one i think it was just a little spat

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this one This one much more looks like a war exactly than than anything

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the impact of Bitcoin the first time was was substantial and it took like six to

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eight months to rebound it this time I I also think it’s following the market so

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heavily is because there’s so many ETFs there’s so many things that are pegged

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to Bitcoin in the public market that you can do regular trading on that that

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people are doing there’s also other ones that are just getting hit really hard

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ethereum is is down like 70% i think Soul was down like 12 ripple

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like a bunch too so it it’s it’s kind of interesting because these asset classes

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were supposed to be agnostic from you know the traditional finance system and

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watching them go up and down now like an institution is is very much kind of a

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scary thing cuz it’s no different than a stock now

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yes well so are you talking about crypto being no different it’s it’s just kind

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of turning into you know another institutional asset class

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of course and and I think this was kind of the goal a long time ago for anyone

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being in the space for it to be massively adopted now a lot has happened

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but of course to your point yeah I mean in the seven days you know we’ve seen it

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be in the negative for most of these coins and these are the top 15 according

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to coin market cap which is you know a very trusted institution so it’s

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bouncing it’s not like 10% 5% down like the stock market is but or the biggest

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indexes but you know Bitcoin it’s still 82 you know and and of course the

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all-time high we had was like maybe closer to 105 just in January but you

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know we’ve it’s not that far off so that’s something to keep eyes on you you

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know what I mean yeah so

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but I think that’s as far as we have to say or as far as I have to say as far as

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the tariffs and kind of what’s impacted we’ll see what happens i really don’t

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want to say anything more than what I don’t already know but what do you think

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Leon no I think that’s that’s it i’m just really interesting to see you know

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the crypto market essentially move with the regular market one for one yes i

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wish it would not move as much because it the whole premise of it is a little

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bit of it’s not just a regular stock market it’s feeling a little bit like

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it but you know a lot of that has to do with like Black Rockck and others and

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kind of flows into the next topic even yeah yeah so funny enough just how we

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said that people are starting to buy Bitcoin and everything and you know

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we’ve seen that happen as well with like Micro Strategy where Michael Sailor

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whose whole identity now is Bitcoin you know we’re starting to see that shift as

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well but on GameStop i don’t even know what their

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business model is anymore do they still sell games or are they just they’re just

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a meme stock at this point honestly man like it’s so funny but you know to their

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point you know I guess they see the trend how people are mass buying Bitcoin

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which you know they’re kind of late to the party if I’m being honest they are

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doubling down Bitcoin and expect to close more stores in 2025 so to me you

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know I’m an entrepreneur but you know I didn’t go to business school for this

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i’m kind of just going with it as I go but this almost seems like they’re

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changing their business model because if a company whose whole role

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model is to sell video games they’re closing stores which they’ve been

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established for you know even before I was born I

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guess what do you think of this isn’t this already something drastic and I

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mean this article is from March but you know lately in X and Twitter they’ve

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been just more on the trend about buying Bitcoin yeah you know the part that’s

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here that’s weird for me is it really doesn’t you know and and this is kind of

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like a the business perspective it doesn’t

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tie the crypto asset doesn’t tie to them in any way

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it really is something to maybe just make a random bet for them to see if

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they can keep their stock you know up and I think just drum up interest you

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know to keep it as a as a like a reserve like I I it just it

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doesn’t make too much sense to me at this point like right it’s not like

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they’re buying up real estate and it was like okay this makes a lot of sense but

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it’s it’s just it’s an odd thing to see because again there there is no reason

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for them to buy it what is their business model you know the video games

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are going way more digital like even on the new Nintendo Switch the the little

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cartilages are are or cartages however we pronounce it they’re they’re

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not going to actually be the physical game they’re just going to be like a

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license to download the game to your device so more and more

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GameStop is it’s not a relevant business model

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anymore it it’s they’re just trying to hold on and somebody in the the

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company’s like you know this is this is us buying it but this is also ties to

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institutions are buying and then that ties to stock market more and more which

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is good and bad yeah so I mean to your point there’s been more times in

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freaking in recent times where I’ve bought video games at Amazon like

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physical games on Amazon than I have at GameStop you know I go to GameStop just

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to when I’m at the mall or at a shopping center I’m like “Oh well there’s

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GameStop let’s see if they have anything new.” You know that’s where I just go in

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there window shop and I just bounce so you know amid all that what’s

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interesting is that since GameStop has bought Bitcoin their their shares have

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actually gone up you know they’re probably one of the few companies whose

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stocks has actually gone up in recent time and this was before that whole

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inside trading happened with Trump and him posting on Truth Social and you know

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I don’t know if you saw that but you know that’s probably something we can

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also talk about a little bit but you know Trump just yesterday like Thursday

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April April 10th in the morning you know he said now’s a good time to buy you

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know and then people were buying the indexes certain stocks I guess and then

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he announced that 90 90-day tariffs so yeah there was also a lot of futures

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trading happening before the announcement happened from

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Trump on the pause so I believe Congress has a disclosure deadline of May 15th

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you know a lot of people think that Congress was the folks trading uh we’ll

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kind of see where where all of this happened cuz you know the jump in

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futures you know even on the GameStops there’s a lot of futures at

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strike prices at like 30 $33 um coming in May time so there might

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be another run on GameStop a little bit um there’s a lot of volatility and

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there’s a lot of stuff happening that honestly it’s very hard to keep up for

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sure yeah so so I mean you know this article that was written by CNBC which

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you know Legacy Media but you know this article was still pretty relevant to me

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it says here “The meme stock jumped 11.7% Wednesday following the news

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so people are buying.” And you know even even traditional legacy news calling

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GameStop a meme stock that is pretty telling so at this point maybe it’s just

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a meme company you know maybe it’s just a vibe company as far as their business

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model and what they’re vibe businessing they’re vibe business yeah yep doesn’t

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rhyme like vibe coding but it’s close we’re We’re minting the word meme vibe

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or I’m sorry uh vibe company or vibe businessing yeah vibe businessing we’re

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minting it but um yeah I mean that’s generally what

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we have to say about GameStop but um for our last story actually we wanted to

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talk about Mastercard

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and MetaMask coming together have you got So I think it’s only in Argentina at

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the moment right yes so currently we have MetaMask actually

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launched everywhere or it announced that it was going to be releasing a master

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card or a debit card I’m sorry in South by Southwest which was just last month

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in Austin Texas i couldn’t go there this time but you know it actually officially

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released in Argentina so I’m guessing people just had first

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dips in Argentina from what it seems but you know MetaMask is a pretty big and

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pretty well established crypto wallet digital crypto wallet it’s mostly

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available on a browser extension as well as a mobile app and this is not an

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endorsement to MetaMask don’t get me wrong i wish they could pay us to say

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this but um I’ve been using MetaMask for a while i actually do have the debit

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card that’s digital and it’s nice i like it the 1% cash back on USDC purchases is

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pretty bad however like you know I only use cards because

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of the cash back or because of the rewards and 1% is kind of mediocre if

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I’m being honest yeah it’s very basic and you know they’re probably it’s a

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debit card on a debit card that’s a pretty good deal 1% back um you know if

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it was a credit card of some capacity like the crypto uh the Crypto.com credit

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cards where if you have more assets you you know you get more cash back and

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stuff but um I I I think it’s just kind of showing

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that crypto is becoming more of a a spending you know currency and uh the

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currencies that they’re supporting are you know like they’re mostly stable

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coins if I if I recall right it was USDC USDT which is tether and then the other

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one which is wet on the LENA network i I had not heard

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about that one but I like to see more of this

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because then people are actually going to be spending their crypto that’s not

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just becoming you know like to that first conversation that first topic it’s

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not just an asset class it’s actually you know something that people are

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spending something that they’re using as a utility it it becomes more like that

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versus just like a digital gold for every single crypto yes exactly and I

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agree with you everything with everything you said you know the thing

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is is the whole purpose of Bitcoin or crypto is to accelerate or to upgrade

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the financial system that we’ve had for a long time you know paper money you

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know it’s not exactly that useful i mean sure we can buy things with it but you

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know it’s caused a lot of inflation you can easily just print out more of it and

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I don’t want to make this a whole you know lesson or lecture about Bitcoin or

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anything but this is this is great you know we’re actually using crypto the way

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it should be you know we’re using on everyday purchases even though you know

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the 1% cash back could be better but to your point the debit card it being

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available in a debit card is great because you know no other debit card

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offers or hardly any offers any cash back so you know I think in a

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inflationary state uh country like Argentina where they’re having so many

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issues with money for god knows how long now maybe that can cause some change i

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know people who’ve gone to Argentina they do opt into using Bitcoin or any

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other crypto or in this case probably USDC so this this guy on Reddit left a

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good review you know saying “Hey you know what do you think this is what I

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think about MetaMask cryp uh the MetaMask card.” So you can read this for

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yourself but what I want to highlight right now is what he liked and what he

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didn’t like so it’s easy to set up you know you have quick know your customer

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process faster than most banks the wide acceptance works wherever Mastercard is

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accepted so no need to worry about which stores support crypto and then seamless

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spending using USDC to pay directly feels like a major win for

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crypto adoption yeah so overall using the

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crypto card is really easy you know everybody already uses anyone who is in

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crypto already uses USDC to some capacity whether you’re paying someone

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whether you’re moving money so on you know it’s it’s already a pretty standard

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in the space and Mastercard you know it’s it’s um it controls you know

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everybody uses Mastercard businesses you know consumers you name it so what this

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guy didn’t like is that there’s a lack of EUR stable coin support or other

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words known as EURC or Euro if you’re spending in Europe you’re stuck with

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Mastercard’s conversion rates for now and then the gas fees each transaction

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has a small gas fee around 0.015 or 0.035

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so you’re spending about 1 to three cents which can add up if you’re using

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it often so um I don’t know about that gas fee that that’s kind of it normally

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you know on the networks they pass those on to merchants so it’s kind of

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interesting that the consumers burdening that

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yeah that’s interesting i guess because crypto everybody I mean first of all

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businesses are always going to want to save a dollar or even a couple of

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pennies wherever they can but I think people are so used to paying gas fees

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it’s like you know that’s nothing new i’ll do it just to do whatever I want

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with it you know people have spent so much like back with the back when NFTs

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were a big thing you know people people were infamously spending like hundreds

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of thousands of dollars in Ethereum on transaction fees alone back when the

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network was like you know saturated yeah so congested yeah it was very congested

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and for this stable coin is really fast like the stable coin USDC network is

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really fast i’m honestly surprised that Euro or

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EURC isn’t available in Europe that can cause some issues because

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conversion is already significant when it comes to dollars and euros

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so you know we’re probably going to have to be not using this card if you’re in

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Europe yeah I think it’ll it’ll come on support wise for for them at some point

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but you know it’s going to take a little bit of time exactly

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so um the other thing the last thing I have for everyone here is if you go on

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Twitter and you look up Mastercard you know or MetaMask card you know you’ll

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pretty much get the details and everything um this is how the actual

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card looks like so let me see if I can maximize this do you guys Do you hear

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that it’s so loud no yeah i have a big monitor so this is how the card looks

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it’s pretty nice card and it has even tap to pay

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so yeah I think this is here in the US because people who went to stop by were

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the ones who were already having the card to begin with but Argentina it

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seems like it’s actually dropping there next i’ve I signed up for the card since

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stoppy when I first heard of it and you know I still haven’t received it so I’m

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guessing it’s going to be on a on a you know user pool basis sort of thing but

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yeah uh this is pretty much what I have as far as the master card and as a whole

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for this episode cool we’ll put all these the stuff in the show notes too

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that you guys can go look and read and see the Twitters and the articles that

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we we pulled up too great yeah um we’ll let you guys know of anything else that

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happens next Friday and until then we’ll be singing hope you have a good rest of

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your weekend