The Rollup
@therollupco
Where digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world. Hosted by @andyyy & @robbieklages
4.2K Following 57.8K Followers
Yan Liberman says the technically correct answer for when to start returning capital to token holders is much later than anyone in crypto wants to hear.
Public companies only do buybacks and dividends at very late stage, because there's no better use of the capital for growth. The proxy is clear.
In crypto, it happens earlier. Not because the business is better positioned. Because token holders are apprehensive about what they actually own, the link between token and business is sometimes flimsy, so projects are forced to signal confidence through early distributions.
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Great product, bad investment.
Kyle Reidhead explains the framework that keeps him out of Lighter despite his analysts being bullish:
"Milk Road Pro analysts were quite bullish on Lighter, growing, doing well. The problem: FDV is so much higher than the market cap. A lot of dilution to come."
"We've seen how you get burned on that so many times. Great product, not necessarily a great asset today. Not super interesting from a token perspective.
"That's why I haven't bought anything outside of HYPE."
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The Ethereum Bull Thesis in 2026 (Why Now) with @Sharplink CEO @joechalom
Timestamps
00:00 ETH Is Not Dead
01:16 Second Largest ETH Holder
02:33 Ethereum Wins The Scoreboard
04:20 Step Function Moment Coming
04:45 The Jeff Bezos Analogy
06:42 EFF Not The Marketing Arm
10:04 Private Sector Must Step Up
12:39 Warren Buffett Capitulation Thesis
13:22 BlackRock Doubled Down At FTX
15:44 WTI Crude Predicts Bitcoin
16:49 Best Entry Point Right Now
22:01 160M Agent Payments Q1
24:50 Institutions Need Finality Not Speed
25:02 BlackRock Tokenizing $8B Fund
30:32 Fidelity Now Largest Investor
33:19 First DeFi In Public Company
35:41 Retail Capitulation Best Entry
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Carl Vogel on the biggest winners from the SEC's tokenization exemption and why Securitize has the strongest hand:
"Vertical integration is the superpower. In AI and in crypto."
"Securitize and Superstate already have tens of thousands of KYC'd users. Green light to launch venues."
"Decentralized perpetuals can't easily KYC their way up the stack. Regulated players win."
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John Darsie, CEO at SALT, tells the incredible origin story of the @SALTConference, and why @Scaramucci built it.
AI killing jobs is the wrong frame - Kraken's CEO thinks about it differently.
What if every one of your 3,000+ employees had an army of a million AI agents working for them?
"What if you had an army of a million people working for you?"
He implemented Karpathy's second brain framework at Kraken.
The idea: give every entry-level employee the same context the CEO has.
Then layer agents on top.
FT @andyyy @robbieklages @arjunsethi @therollupco
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Every major asset manager is rushing to tokenize their existing products and put them onchain.
Sandy Kaul says that's the wrong strategy, and the reason she explains it is why @FTDA_US chose @krakenfx.
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Philipp Zentner explains why wins the cross-chain coordination layer:
"Any fragmented market has a structural winner, the coordination layer. Stripe for payments. Twilio for comms. for crypto."
"Everyone is tokenizing stocks with different liquidity depths. Buy Tesla at scale, split the order across Robinhood chain, Ingen chain, Solana. Same stock, different chains."
"We spent five years building this. Tokenized equities, critical minerals, rare earth metals, we aggregate all of it. That's distribution."
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How @avax Is Powering The $2B Tokenization Wave with @cryptoreine Tokenization Lead at @AvaLabs
Timestamps
00:00 Embedded Finance Defined
01:44 Tokenized Assets In Finance Stack
03:25 1500 Fintechs In LatAm And APAC
04:23 Ava Labs Trusted Advisor Approach
05:19 LatAm Demand For Stablecoins
05:50 Yield On Idle Stablecoins
06:42 Axiom $1B On Avalanche
09:04 On-Chain Dollar Stays On-Chain
09:45 Legal Structuring Is Everything
11:22 End Game Is Invisibility
13:35 APAC Tokenization Push
14:21 $2B Securities To Avalanche
15:19 Who Is Making Money
17:46 Distribution Is The Next Problem
18:31 Supply Side Solved
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"We have what we call the Bermuda Triangle, a unique relationship between industry, the regulator, and the government."
"Industry tells us what they need. The regulator builds the framework. We pass the legislation. A month or two. That's the Bermuda Triangle."
— David Burt, @BermudaPremier
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David Burt @BermudaPremier on Why Bermuda Is The World's Digital Finance Capital
Timestamps
00:00 Bermuda's Digital Finance Vision
02:01 AI And Digital Assets Converging
02:29 Innovation In Bermuda's DNA
03:38 The Real Bermuda Triangle
05:10 Building In Bermuda With NEAR
05:43 AI Government Services Vision
06:40 Worst AI Today Is Pretty Good
07:15 Privacy And Citizen Data
08:01 AI Pilot With NEAR Foundation
08:22 Trust Me Bro Fails Government
09:57 Secure Agent Runtime Explained
10:47 Real-World Bureaucracy Pain Point
11:09 AI Eliminates Government Headaches
15:04 Bermuda Digital Dollar Possibility
16:36 Premier Plays Civilization
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"AI is humanity's child. Most parents love their children more than themselves. Follow that logic all the way and you get somewhere uncomfortable."
The lads on the philosophical implication of the "AI as humanity's child" framing and why nobody wants to say it out loud.
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Why Your AI Prompts Are More Personal Than Your Diary with @BasedAI_co CEO @TeanaTaylor
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:13 Why Venice Was Founded
02:07 2Mil Users Milestone
03:04 Crypto And AI Converge
04:43 BasedAI Origin Story
06:22 Warden Labs Acquisition
10:46 HireBase Product Launch
13:35 Open Source Model Economics
14:03 70% Enterprises Choose Open Source
15:49 Fine-Tuning For Enterprise Privacy
27:44 AI Prompts Are Your Diary
28:14 Enterprise Agent Infrastructure
31:04 Privacy Was Hard To Sell
32:34 Reformed Banker Background
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Michael J Casey (@mikejcasey) explains why the "AI superseding humans" argument is the most elitist take in tech:
"Calling someone a speciesist for advocating that humans should benefit from AI, that's elitist privilege."
"Ask the 8 billion people on earth what they think. Have a democratic election. Whether they're informed, whether they understand the technology, they're all going to say the same thing."
"The humans are going to be on their side. And if we believe in the humanity we're living and breathing with right now, we should listen to what that humanity wants."
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NEW EP: Why the Entire Economy Is Being Tokenized on Ethereum with @ethereumJoseph
00:00 Intro
00:13 Why Ethereum Is the Biggest Benefactor of Tokenization
05:28 How the DTC Fits Into the Tokenization Stack
07:37 Has the Pace of Tokenization Slowed Down?
08:14 Navigating Hacks & Building Resilient Systems
11:29 The Ethereum Kumbaya Moment
13:05 ETH as Money vs. ETH as a Blockchain
14:51 MetaMask as Your Personal Neobank
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BREAKING NEWS:
Jerome Powell steps down after 8 years as Federal Reserve Chair.
Why Your AI Prompts Are More Personal Than Your Diary with @AskVenice AI Co-Founder @TeanaTaylor
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:13 Why Venice Was Founded
02:07 2Mil Users Milestone
03:04 Crypto And AI Converge
04:43 Based AI Origin Story
06:22 Warden Labs Acquisition
10:46 HireBase Product Launch
13:35 Open Source Model Economics
14:03 70% Enterprises Choose Open Source
15:49 Fine-Tuning For Enterprise Privacy
27:44 AI Prompts Are Your Diary
28:14 Enterprise Agent Infrastructure
31:04 Privacy Was Hard To Sell
32:34 Reformed Banker Background
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"The SEC just made it easier for retail to access inferior wrapped products than properly regulated tokens."
Salman Banaei explains the SEC's DeFi no-action statement and what it accidentally enabled.
"I wouldn't recommend anybody try to get exposure through these wrapped products."
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Andy asked if we'll see the Bermuda digital dollar on @near_intents one day. @BermudaPremier David Burt's response:
"That's not a perhaps. That's a fact."
@AbhishekEsq on how they got here:
"I sent the Premier USDC on eight different chains just to show off the tech. We've done over $18 billion in volume. 80+ assets across 30 chains."
"This is forming the stack we hope is the future of AI and finance."
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David Burt @BermudaPremier on Why Bermuda Is The World's Digital Finance Capital
Timestamps
00:00 Bermuda's Digital Finance Vision
02:01 AI And Digital Assets Converging
02:29 Innovation In Bermuda's DNA
03:38 The Real Bermuda Triangle
05:10 Building In Bermuda With NEAR
05:43 AI Government Services Vision
06:40 Worst AI Today Is Pretty Good
07:15 Privacy And Citizen Data
08:01 AI Pilot With NEAR Foundation
08:22 Trust Me Bro Fails Government
09:57 Secure Agent Runtime Explained
10:47 Real-World Bureaucracy Pain Point
11:09 AI Eliminates Government Headaches
15:04 Bermuda Digital Dollar Possibility
16:36 Premier Plays Civilization
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David Burt @BermudaPremier on Why Bermuda Is The World's Digital Finance Capital
Timestamps
00:00 Bermuda's Digital Finance Vision
02:01 AI And Digital Assets Converging
02:29 Innovation In Bermuda's DNA
03:38 The Real Bermuda Triangle
05:10 Building In Bermuda With NEAR
05:43 AI Government Services Vision
06:40 Worst AI Today Is Pretty Good
07:15 Privacy And Citizen Data
08:01 AI Pilot With NEAR Foundation
08:22 Trust Me Bro Fails Government
09:57 Secure Agent Runtime Explained
10:47 Real-World Bureaucracy Pain Point
11:09 AI Eliminates Government Headaches
15:04 Bermuda Digital Dollar Possibility
16:36 Premier Plays Civilization
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How I Built a $20B Company with @krakenfx CEO @arjunsethi
Timestamps
00:00 Franklin Templeton Deal
01:15 Choke Point Era Survival
02:23 Global Adoption Not US Lens
05:01 Kraken's Mt. Gox Origins
06:55 Building For Professional Traders
07:54 Interactive Brokers
09:55 Spot Margin US Launch
13:55 AI Is Not Job Losses
14:43 AI As Force Multiplier
18:43 Use AI Or Leave Kraken
20:08 Financial Super App Thesis
26:07 Why Kraken Is Going Public
29:43 The LFG Reward System
32:12 Work Life Harmony
38:26 Why Go Public Now
48:40 Self-Worth Vs Company Success
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