Ethereum gas averaged 373.8 gwei in February 2021. On 7 Oct it was 1.51. Blockchains hit a wall, then scaled their way through it. Can AI do the same? @santiagoroel: "The physics of it are vastly different." Santiago's point is that @ethereum could change its own rules, with proof of stake and L2s. A data centre has to wait for the power to be built.

NEW EPISODE with @NEARProtocol co-founder and co-author of the 2017 transformer paper @ilblackdragon at @token2049: "We want agents to hold as much NEAR as possible." - what NEAR is today and where it wants to be by 2030 - why crypto is still too hard for most people - why anyone you pay can see your whole balance - how NEAR AI keeps AI requests private - AI agents hiring other AI agents and paying per job - bank transfers that land as stablecoins - how the NEAR token earns from AI agents - why an AI agent needs a spending limit - why traditional stocks may miss AI medicine THE VISION: "The vision always been AI is the front end and blockchain markets is the back end... Back when it started in 2017 as an AI company... And then we realized we needed the back end economic layer and we started working on blockchain." PRIVACY: "The real bottleneck I always believed has been privacy... when you pay people they should be able to see how much money you have But that's not normal, right? And if you talk to anyone outside of crypto, they will be like, this is insane." MACHINES: "I think the reality is blockchain always was built for machines. And so I think where the next wave of this is coming is agents now becoming the primary user." AGENTS FOR HIRE: "Your GitHub or whatever can hire my agent to review it. My agent will run all your data. I actually will not see it because everything run privately... And then you just pay for the outcome, right?" THE TOKEN: "We want agents to hold as much NEAR as possible... This is like your store of the AI value right? So this and then on the other side all of the Intents infrastructure as it generates revenue buys back NEAR as well." SPENDING LIMITS: "You hire a new person, you're probably not going to give them full access to all the bank accounts of the company, or your personal account, right? You're going to give them, okay, here's a spending limit... You cannot go and buy a random meme coin." AI MEDICINE: "This is a bit controversial, but I think traditional stocks will probably not capture this as well because the traditional stocks actually, they are designed to be more like centralizing and average out thing... I do think this can actually be really well done on kind of decentralized." Timestamps: 0:00 Coming up 1:02 NEAR builds AI and private payments 5:14 Crypto is still too hard 9:11 NEAR AI keeps AI requests private 14:11 AI agents hiring other AI agents 20:10 Bank transfers straight into crypto 21:56 Renting out an AI code reviewer 24:39 NEAR's token earns from AI agents 26:26 Spending limits for AI agents 29:17 Sending crypto like a bank transfer 31:01 AI medicine made for one person

Awesome to sit down with @HypeStrat CEO @dschamis at @token2049 this week. "The total market cap of crypto is still less than like Nvidia, one stock in the United States." What we spoke about: - why @HyperliquidX is no longer just a crypto exchange - does US regulation grow the whole market, or just split it - why one perp beats a thousand options - what one HYPE token is really worth - does @HyperliquidX still need @chameleon_jeff - who bought $329M of HYPE off-market, and whether it was @HypeStrat - what Wall Street still hasn't heard BIGGER THAN CRYPTO: "A year ago, Hyperliquid was a really successful crypto exchange with talk about doing more than just crypto. Today it's actually doing a lot more than crypto and the TAM is just so much bigger... It's hard to put a limit on how big this could get." THE CME: "I would even go so far as to say we've probably increased the revenues on the CME and increased volumes on CME, even though the world is worried we're going to take their volume away... People like the CME are being pretty short-sighted by seeing Hyperliquid as just a tremendous near-term threat." PERPS VS OPTIONS: "For every one NVIDIA, there are hundreds or even thousands of different CUSIPs for the different options that trade... They don't pay Robinhood because they're good guys. They pay Robinhood because they're wide bid-ask spreads and they can take advantage of that. In the perp world, for every one NVIDIA, there's one NVIDIA perp." THE REAL MARKET CAP: "I don't think circulating supply is the right number. I think that's too low. I also don't think a billion is the right number. That's too high... Jeff owns a lot of those tokens. I am pretty damn sure Jeff is not going to quit his job and go take a job at Goldman Sachs." THE BUYBACK: "Ninety nine percent of that revenue every single day goes into the buyback. There's no board meeting. There's no debate. There's no discussion... As an investor, it's actually nice to know that no one's trying to outsmart themselves." THE $329M BUYER: "Read my lips. I'm a public company CEO. That was not us... The answer is I don't know who bought it." WALL STREET: "The majority of the time I'm sitting with people who run big firms, lots of capital, and they say, okay, what is Hyperliquid? And I say, well, have you heard of Jeff Yan? They say, no, who's Jeff Yan? And I say, okay, sit down. This is going to take 45 minutes." Timestamps: 0:00 Coming up 1:03 Why Hyperliquid is bigger than crypto 3:44 Does regulation grow the whole pie? 9:24 Why one perp beats 1,000 options 12:43 What one HYPE token is worth 15:10 Does Hyperliquid still need Jeff Yan? 19:26 What Hyperliquid Strategies does with cash 23:04 Are tokens better than shares? 27:15 Who bought $329 million of HYPE? 29:56 How many new markets come next? 33:39 What Wall Street still hasn't heard

"It's truly like, you know, streaming versus like VHS." @RyanNavi @FWDind's own shares already trade as tokens on Solana, voting rights included. Its CIO says that lets anyone with an internet connection buy a tokenized share.

Absolutely incredible to get @EMostaque on the podcast this week. I’ll be dropping lots of clips over the next few days as there were so many incredible takeaways from the conversation. Emad thinks that, as of this week, Humans are no longer the smartest beings on the planet which is pretty mad to think about. It’s mental to get to speak to people like Emad as a job tbh. Massive thanks for giving up the time sir! Full show in comments.

Nine technology companies are carrying about 3 trillion dollars of commitments off their balance sheets, Alphabet alone for 811 billion at the end of June, and Nvidia is now standing behind a 500 billion dollar financing platform built for its own customers' chips. I put all of that to Tavi Costa on Risk Takers this week and asked whether it turns AI from a debt trade into a credit cycle. Costa said no. Measure the debt against the assets across the whole technology sector, and Costa's read is that there is very little of it next to what those companies own. That 3 trillion is roughly three times the same nine companies' reported leases and borrowings combined. @TaviCosta

The CLARITY Act is an altcoin trade. Anthony Scaramucci says passing it rallies XRP and Solana, and does nothing for the asset that never needed permission. XRP and Solana are $67bn and $42bn. Bitcoin is $1.26 trillion, nearly twice the next seven coins combined. @Scaramucci

"From San Antonio to Austin is just one big new build site. It makes me physically nauseous." @m3_melody on Austin. 26,000 homes listed for rent in a city of a million, rents tanking, some landlords offering six months free. Sellers rage delisting because nobody's buying. @RiskTakers000

Absolutely incredible conversation with Melody Wright about how the AI data center buildout is quietly turning into a property trade. She's back out on the road very soon, walking the actual sites, and she says she is expecting to be terrified. One data center in Ohio already has 25,000 construction workers on it, and she thinks if one of these projects stalls it takes a huge chunk of the economy down with it. Her point: WeWork called itself a tech company and turned out to be real estate. She sees the same thing across the whole AI buildout, and she expects Q4 to be where it shows. Full episode on @RiskTakers000 now. @m3_melody

Joseph breaks down why Kevin Warsh’s recent push for rate cuts stands out, especially given his long public track record at the Fed during and after the financial crisis. @josephwang Full show available on @RiskTakers000 @crypto_banter @Banter_Clips

Here's whats to come next on @RiskTakers000 with @donnelly_brent 👇 I asked him what everyone's getting wrong about the Fed right now. Everyone thinks Warsh is going to cut rates but Brent's not so sure. He thinks we could see something very different by December. @crypto_banter @Banter_Clips

Henrik thinks Ethereum's big move is still ahead. @RiskTakers000 When Bitcoin takes all the thunder, Alts don't perform. But when Bitcoin only bounces into a top, that's when Ethereum takes off. He's looking at Bitcoin around 120K and Ethereum somewhere between 8-12K @HenrikZeberg Higher bottom means higher top. @crypto_banter @Banter_Clips

A long, grinding bear market may be more dangerous than a sudden crash. @josephwang says years of investors buying every dip has created the belief that stocks always bounce back quickly. That psychology is what worries him most. @RiskTakers000 @Banter_Clips @crypto_banter

The US stock market cap to GDP hit 2.3x last year. The highest in 100 years. @mikemcglone11 is calling for a potential 50% drawdown. The gold to Bitcoin ratio has collapsed twice before in history. Both times the S&P finished the year negative. @RiskTakers000 @crypto_banter @Banter_Clips

Clem is looking at what actually benefits from the AI buildout. @ClemChambers Commodities getting sucked into a vortex. Second and third order effects most people aren't thinking about yet. One example he gave has already 10x'd. @RiskTakers000 @Banter_Clips @crypto_banter