40 Burst results for "Four"
The Breakdown
A highlight from ETH Futures ETFs Get Set to Trade as Government Shut Down Looms
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, N .L .W. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Friday, September 29th, and today we are talking ETF approvals. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us in the Breakers Discord. You can find the link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, lots of action to wrap up your week. We're going to talk a little bit of ETF announcements and then we're going to get into the government shutdown and, of course, give you all of the information that you need. Now we start with the SEC in the world of ETFs. That organization has been busy over the past few days making decisions on a variety of different crypto applications. Now, there are currently three major batches of crypto ETF applications that are being considered. On Thursday, four Spot Bitcoin ETFs were delayed, including the BlackRock application. Two additional Spot Bitcoin ETFs were already delayed on Tuesday. Announcements delaying the rest of the similar applications are expected to follow today and are likely to be published by the time the show is released. The next deadline for the SEC to consider approving Spot Bitcoin ETFs is on January 10th. That's an important one because it's the final deadline for the ARK21 shares application, so it will require an explanation from the SEC rather than just a simple delay. The second batch are the Ethereum Spot ETFs, which were also delayed. On Wednesday, the SEC deferred their decision on products from VanEck and ARK21 shares. The next deadline for regulatory consideration falls on December 26th. The SEC can delay further on these products with the final deadline falling in May. Now, overall, the delay of Spot crypto ETFs has not been particularly surprising. As much as people have wanted the legal decision from the Grayscale suit to force the SEC's hand, that court order is still able to be appealed, and there is nothing really compelling the SEC to move forward with Spot ETFs for the time being. Now, the more interesting developments surround Ethereum futures -based ETFs. Throughout August, at least 24 applications were filed, including some products offering short Ethereum exposure and combined long exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum within a single fund. Throughout the week, there have been rumblings that the SEC was preparing to approve futures -based Ethereum products, asking investment firms to update their documents by Friday afternoon. The rumor was that ETFs could begin trading as soon as Tuesday. On Thursday morning, VanEck debuted two 30 -second advertisements for their Ethereum futures product, which would trade under the ticker eFute. VanEck are going with the tagline Enter the Ether and commenting on the ad, Eric Valkunas, the senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg said, Now, later in the day, VanEck updated their prospectus for the fund. The ETF will only charge 66 basis points in fees. This is below the dominant pro -shares Bitcoin futures ETF, which is ticker symbol BITO, which charges 95 basis points. The lowest fee product seems to be Roundhill at just 19 basis points. Also on Thursday, Valkyrie announced that they would begin buying Ethereum futures on Friday in anticipation of altering the strategy of their existing Bitcoin futures ETF. The fund will now hold half Bitcoin futures and half Ethereum futures. The new strategy will be formally adopted on Monday under the existing ticker symbol BTF. Later yesterday as well, Valkyrie's chief investment officer, Stephen McClurg, said that both VanEck and pro -shares had been given the green light to launch their dedicated Ethereum futures ETFs on Monday. A pro -shares spokesperson said no one is in a position to launch ahead of us but declined to elaborate further on timing. Now, part of the reason that the SEC may be trying to move up all these delays and announcements is the looming threat of a government shutdown. Indeed, a government shutdown is at this point all but certain to begin on Sunday after House Republicans failed to come to a suitable agreement during a tense closed -door meeting on Thursday night. The House passed several versions of an appropriations bill that would authorize government spending on Thursday, but reportedly none have any chance of passing the Senate. The Senate are working on a bipartisan proposal for short -term funding, but this measure is unlikely to be passed by House Republicans. Tensions have flared between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Freedom Caucus member Matt Gaetz, who is playing a major role in pushing the government into a shutdown. The dispute is around demands to slash government spending with a more specific demand that war efforts in Ukraine are defunded. Now, a government shutdown would end all funding of non -essential government programs until an appropriations bill can be passed. The length of a shutdown would be unknown. However, most government agencies are making plans to shutter for multiple weeks if not well into November. The impact of a shutdown will be largely felt by government workers who will not receive paychecks, as well as the recipients of government benefits. Social Security and Medicare continue to operate as usual during a shutdown, but the patchwork of other social programs will be paused. Now, when it comes to the macro environment, one of the other implications is that a shutdown would halt the collection of economic data. The next Fed meeting isn't until the end of October, but if the shutdown stretches out for a substantial period, the Fed could be faced with making a decision without key economic reports gauging inflation, employment, and growth. That would, of course, leave the Fed flying blind as they attempt to bring the economy in for a soft landing.
WTOP 24 Hour News
Fresh update on "four" discussed on WTOP 24 Hour News
"And 55. Powered by Maximus. Moving people and innovation forward. And Mr. Rob Woodforth. The Nationals have reached 70 wins for the first time since their World Series season four years ago winning a rollercoaster 10 -6 game in Atlanta behind a season -high five home Lane Thomas was one of the five Nats to homer and told mass in the significance of 70 wins as a team I think it's a huge accomplishment I think I don't know the exact amount of wins we had last year but you know to win 15 -20 more games a is big number with this team so I think we surprised a lot of people and then played a good second half and you know we got to go out Trevor Williams final start of the season lasted only three and a third innings giving way to six relievers including the winning pitcher Jordan Weems who improves to 5 -0 in Baltimore the Orioles were
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 19:00 09-29-2023 19:00
"Warning. The following message contains an app recommendation you won't be able to resist. Girl, how do you keep getting all these things for free? Coffee, makeup, and now lunch? You haven't heard of the Drop app? Drop is a free app that rewards you for shopping at places like Ulta, Adidas, and Sam's Club. I've already earned $100 this month. Download the Drop app and get $5. Use invite code GETDROP222. Broadcasting 24 hours a day at Bloomberg .com and the Bloomberg Business Act. This is Bloomberg Radio. President Biden is honoring the late California Senator Dianne Feinstein. During remarks in Arlington today, Biden said Feinstein was a trailblazer for women and a great friend. Dianne made a remark on everything from national security to the environment, gun safety to protecting civil liberties. The country is going to miss her dearly. Feinstein passed away at the age of 90. Lately, she's been battling health issues, but there's no word yet on an official cause of death. A suspect has been arrested in the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. Las Vegas police announced Dwayne Kefi D. Davis has been charged with murder with use of a deadly weapon. Before today, no one had ever been arrested in the 27 years since Shakur's murder. The clock continues to count down to the deadline to avoid a government shutdown. The House failed to pass a Republican -led short -term funding bill this afternoon. The government is set to shut down at midnight Saturday if lawmakers fail to make a deal. A Michigan judge is ruling the teen who shot seven people and killed four at Oxford High School in November 2021 can be sentenced to life without parole. Lisa Taylor reports...
Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
Fresh update on "four" discussed on Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
"Radio. Context changes everything. And now this Bloomberg Sports Update. We'll start with golf across the pond, bragging rights on the line. Pride for your country as well. So 44th Ryder Cup goes down all weekend from Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Italy. Europeans halfway home to the trophy after day two of play. They lead six and a half to one and a half. You need 14 points needed. Third round action underway 135 a .m. Eastern on Saturday. Good for some pairings to Rory McIlroy and Tommy Wood for Team Europe versus Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas for the Americans in your morning. We'll out finish with Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton meeting America's Xander Schauffele and Patrick Antley. It's the last week in a Major League Baseball. It's been a tough year for the Yankees for the Mets as well. A pair of fourth place finishes. Yankees Carlos Rodon
Mark Levin
One Barnes & Noble Store Allegedly Hid Mark Levin's Book
"Person writes i just spoke to the manager of the barnes and noble at one loudon in loudon county virginia who couldn't find the book anywhere the books not out front it's not on the table it's the new york times bestseller list which typically has number one two three four five the barnes and noble and other retail outlets in a specific order it's nowhere the manager of the barnes and noble literally wandered around looking for it i asked him if it was possible that it was due to the title of the book so this person went all around the barnes and noble and looked and couldn't find it anywhere not even on the back shelves let alone in the front with the new york times bestseller list or any other tables it was not in the store where the customers go nowhere nowhere i then asked him to go and look for it and he went into the back into the back and lo and behold now keep in mind the book came out september 19th this is september 29 10 days ago he went in in the back the and lo and behold he just happened to open a box and just happened to say that it just happened to arrive today now we know that's a lie this book ships weeks release date and it's supposed to be up put on the shelves the books didn't just show up they stuck him in the back he later came out with about
WTOP 24 Hour News
Fresh "Four" from WTOP 24 Hour News
"30th. Glad you're with us here at WTOP. Welcome in. Time now is 12 22. Good morning. This is WTOP news. The Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore has filed for bankruptcy. Church leaders are doing this days before a brand new law goes into effect that does away with the statute of limitations in cases of child sexual abuse. In a taped video statement Baltimore Archbishop William Laurie made clear the move to file for bankruptcy by the Archdiocese of Baltimore was directly tied to expected lawsuits involving claims of sexual abuse. Large settlements or jury awards for a few victim survivors would have quickly pleaded our financial resources leaving the vast majority of victim survivors without any compensation. David Klossy former national director of SNAP an organization of survivors of sexual abuse by priests told WTOP anyone who's paid close attention to this crisis must find that a laughable laughable notion. Klossy said the state law that goes into effect Sunday on does away with the statute of limitations on lawsuits involving accusations of child sex abuse and also caps awards to individuals who sue private institutions at 1 .5 million dollars. Kate Ryan WTOP news. Here at home four people have died in a single car crash in Bowie. Prince George's county fire and EMS were called shortly before 7 30. Last night Friday night to were told the 12 ,700 block of Woodmore Road where the crash occurred. Police say for reasons they are not investigating right now the car itself they say went off the road and hit a tree all four people in the car were pronounced dead at the scene. Woodmore Road between Pleasant Prospects and Waterford Mill Road will closed be while police investigate statement WTOP will update you with traffic and weather on the arrested. A dispute over toll increases in Northern Virginia now involves the state's Attorney General. He tells
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 18:00 09-29-2023 18:00
"When professional soccer player Marcus Rashford injured his shoulder, he turned to Resle's virtual reality training program to help him maintain his skills and return to the field with confidence. Learn more at meta .com slash metaverse impact. Concerns about technology, big technology oversight. For Simone Foxman and the whole Bloomberg Businessweek team, have a good and safe weekend. Get home safely, especially if you're in the New York metro area, but don't go anywhere because Wall Street week, it starts right now. This is a Bloomberg money minute. The surge in oil prices is sending gas prices higher again in California, the average price of a gallon of regular now top $6, but the Wall Street Journal says investors think that won't last. That oil prices will not hit $100 a barrel because higher prices, experts say, are denting demand. JP Morgan Chase says we are driving and flying less. Clorox, Pine -Sol and Kingsford charcoal may be a little easier to find in stores again. Clorox, which owns all those brands, says its manufacturing sites are back in operation after a cyber attack in August forced it to stop some of its production. Now, Clorox says it's ramping back up and working to restock inventories. On Wall Street, the S &P in Dow fell a quarter to a half percent, the NASDAQ added a tenth of a percent, the Dow down 159, the NASDAQ up 18, the S &P down 12. For the quarter, all three averages fell at least two and a half to more than four percent. Joan Doniger, Bloomberg Radio. Get the news you need to start your day in just 15 minutes. More legal trouble for former President Donald Trump. We're also following the autoworkers strike in Detroit. Wake up with Bloomberg Daybreak, U .S. edition. Tensions between the U .S. and China remain in focus. Upset and college football. Available now on your punch.
News, Traffic and Weather
Fresh "Four" from News, Traffic and Weather
"Closed down at during second a long -term construction project and 66 minutes to get from Olympia to Tacoma on I -5 and fourth. Our next stop is traffic at 854. The Newsradio 1000 FM 977 forecast from the Northwest Crawl Space Services Weather Center. After a soggy week, our weekend forecast looks pretty nice. Expect partly cloudy skies with sunshine both Saturday and Sunday. both Highs on days will be in the mid 60s. Don't get too used to the dry conditions. Rain is back in the forecast to start the workweek. I'm Kelly Blyer and that's your Northwest News Radio weather. When I grow up I want to be a new pair of blue jeans. When I grow up I want to be a kid's first to I want be a bike that races around the country. forest I want
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 16:00 09-29-2023 16:00
"Today, ophthalmologists can get countless hours to practice their surgical skills before operating on real patients, thanks to fundamental VR and Orbis's Metaverse training platform. Learn more at meta .com slash metaverse impact. Despite all these losses this month, I'll mention is if we see that reset, because there's been a lot of talk about how valuations have come down those multiples, if you will here, but they still are sort of camped out above those historical averages. And of course, right now, a lot of the key technical indicators are in play as well here. Let's walk through the numbers here. We have a lot to parse here. The Dow Jones Industrial Average down on the day here by roughly about half a percent as we wait for these numbers to settle. That's going to give it a loss on the month of about three and a half percent and a loss in the quarter of about 2 .6 percent. The S &P 500 down 11 points on the day or three tenths of a percent, nursing a five percent loss on the month and four percent for the quarter. The NASDAQ composite actually holding into the green here on this Friday afternoon, only about a tenth of a percent here. But that's not good enough to raise some of the losses that it had earlier. Six percent down on the month for September, four percent for the quarter. And the Russell 2000 also going to close out on a down note. A half a percent on the day, Carol, and six percent on both the month and the quarter. All right. A great check right on the month, on the quarter in terms of where we're ending up. I am pulling up the S &P 500 and taking a look at the individual names for the third quarter. And it is at the top of the list, largely, Katie, those energy names, Marathon Petroleum up almost actually about 30 percent in the third quarter. But there's a lot of energy names. At the top of the pack, you're looking at names like Dollar General, Insulate Corporation, Solar Edge. They are some of your laggards for the third quarter. Well, to your point on energy, it had a great quarter, but it had a terrible Friday today. Energy, that industry group off by nearly two percent. And of course, that has been the outperformer of the week of the past three months. Not so high.
Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
Fresh update on "four" discussed on Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
"Don't miss a minute. Listen to Bloomberg Radio anytime, anywhere around the world on the hard radio app. Tune in. The Bloomberg Business App and Bloomberg .com. This is a Bloomberg Money Minute. The United Auto Workers strike got bigger. Up to 25 ,000 workers now walking picket lines including at two SUV assembly plants added today. One at Ford, one at General Motors. The union says its talks with Ford are stalled on several issues including job guarantees at battery factories. Ford says company the and union are close to a deal. Now only Southwest Airlines among the four biggest in the US does not have a contract with its pilots. United Pilots approved their four -year deal. It provides 10 % raises each year. The The National Labor Relations Board hitting two big companies. The NLRB is accusing Amazon of violating terms of a labor board settlement and an NLRB judge ruled Starbucks broke labor law by not giving better pay and benefits to union as well as non -union workers. It'll have to make up the difference. On Wall Street the difference may have
What a Weird Week
A highlight from What a Weird Week: Please Lady, Don't Go in for your Apple Watch! Fri Sept 29th
"This is the What A Weird Week show for Friday, September 29th. Please, lady, don't go in for your Apple Watch. Hi, everybody, it's Weird. This is like Crazy Moon here. Really weird, weird tale. Well, I got a great show for you today. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff! Hi, friends, I'm Scott. Thanks for checking out What A Weird Week, a show about the weird ones from the news this week. Here's the top 10 for season four, episode 53, first published Friday, September 29th, 2023. Kicking off our top 10 of weird this week is Tinder's very expensive option, mixed news, $4 .99 per month, Tinder Select. It's been made available to a select number of Tinder users, and some of the things they say you would get for that $4 .99 per month include new features, one described as VIP search, matching, and conversation. It must be tough out there. I've been married a long time. I had no idea, you guys. So tough to find love, $4 .99 per month, six grand a year almost for this new Tinder option. Tinder already has their company, already has a different app called The League, which is $1 ,000 per week? I had no idea. Just thinking now, should I have mentioned Tinder as a dating app? You're, I mean, I was married BA before apps. So if you're like me, just, just to be clear, Tinder is a dating app. What's an app? Oh, well, it's something you order before the main dish at a restaurant, as near as I can tell. Nine. Our number nine story on the top 10 list of weird news is Wienermobile rides again. Four months ago, the folks at Oscar Mayer changed the name of their hot dog fleet of cars from Wienermobiles to Frankmobiles. We covered it on this podcast. Now those Wiener vehicles will be called Wienermobiles once again. Was it a publicity stunt name change, or a sincere attempt to switch the name of the rolling wieners, and it just didn't take? Did a petition by fans of giant motorized wieners make the difference? We are left with some questions. But if you're a fan of the traditional name, you don't care, do you? You've got your rolling wiener car back.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
SBF TRIAL: 09/29 Update
"Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coindesk podcast network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk podcast network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. In a rare display of candor or as part of a calculated exercise in reputation management, Sam Bankman -Fried delved deep into his mental health struggles in a trove of unposted tweets obtained by Coindesk's Christine Lee and published for the first time on Friday. I don't really know what happiness means, he said in one of the tweets, which he wrote just weeks after his crypto empire blew up last year as he was facing down a tidal wave of public scorn. The tweets published by Coindesk strike a similar tone to those obtained earlier this month by the New York Times. In both cases, it's difficult to discern whether Bankman -Fried's musings provide an authentic glimpse into the beleaguered crypto founder's psyche or whether his mental health battles and personal anecdotes have been played up for sympathy. On this front, it's impossible to fairly speculate, though it seems likely that Bankman -Fried's mental health struggles could play a role in his defense. Also this week, Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing Bankman -Fried's trial, struck down a request from the FTX founder's lawyers asking that he be temporarily released from prison. Bankman -Fried has been held in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center since his bail was revoked in July, and his lawyers argued for the third time on Thursday that this has made it difficult for them to prepare for trial. With Bankman -Fried's trial set to begin next week, the argument from his lawyers this time around was that Bankman -Fried would need time to strategize during his trial. Previously, they'd asked he be granted release ahead of time. Kaplan again denied the motion arguing the FTX founder has had ample opportunity to review the evidence and prep his defense over the past several months. Kaplan did make some concessions, however, ordering the Department of Prisons to ensure Bankman -Fried be delivered to court at a brisk 7 a .m. on most days of the trial, designed to give him and his lawyers a bit of extra time to incorporate fresh testimony into their defense. Part of Kaplan's rationale for denying the release request came from his belief, as a seasoned jurist, that Bankman -Fried might present a flight risk. "'Your client could be looking at a very long sentence,' Kaplan told Bankman -Fried's lawyers. If things looked bleak and he had the opportunity, maybe he would seek to flee." On a housekeeping note, we officially have the court calendar for the trial through November 11. The court will meet four days a week except for the week of October 22, when it will only be in session two days.
Unchained
A highlight from Heres How Sam Bankman-Frieds High-Stakes Trial Could Play Out - Ep 549
"Even though each of these charges, if you look at the DOJ press release says, oh, it contains a maximum sentence of 20 years or five years, whatever, it's not going to be consecutive. It'll be concurrent. So the estimate I'm getting from various attorneys that I've spoken to over the past few weeks is it'll probably be somewhere in the, you know, 10 to 20 year range. Hi everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started covering crypto eight years ago, and as a senior editor at Forbes was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full time. This is the September 29th, 2023 episode of Unchained. Thinking of launching your own stable coin? Start with the open source stable coin studio toolkit on Hedera. Start your journey at Hedera .com slash Unchained. Shape tomorrow today. With the crypto .com app, you can buy, trade and spend crypto in one place. Download and get $25 with the code Laura. Link in the description. Arbitrum's leading layer two scaling solution offers you ultra cheap and lightning fast transactions, all with security rooted on Ethereum. Visit arbitrum .io today. Toku makes implementing global token compensation and incentive awards simple. With Toku, you get unmatched legal and tax tech support to grant and administer your global team's tokens. Make it simple today with Toku. Today's guest is Nick Day, Coindesk's managing editor for global policy and regulation. Welcome, Nick. Thanks for having me. The trial for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman -Fried starts next Tuesday, October 3rd. There's been a lot happening pre -trial. For instance, Sam has requested release from jail multiple times and repeatedly been denied, including as recently as Thursday morning. My personal thought was that it seemed like all these requests that the defense was putting in at this critical juncture right before the trial was supposed to begin was maybe not the best use of their time, but that's just my personal opinion. I'm not a lawyer. Why do you think they made this such a point of focus in the last few days? Yeah, so I'm actually coming, you know, I was in the courthouse just a few hours ago where this very issue was brought up and the defense's arguments were, well, the first time we asked, it was for pre -trial release. You know, this was right after Bankman -Fried was remanded into custody in mid -August. The second time was, you know, they were asking the appeals court to overrule the judge's decision to remand him. And they lost that as well. In court today, the defense said, well, you know, now we want to ask for during trial, which is why we waited until this week to make that request. And they say that they want to, you know, the circumstances are different. They're not asking for Bankman -Fried to be released from jail in the weeks leading up to trial. Now they're saying, well, you know, during the trial, we're going to have to talk to him and check with him about defense witness testimony and cross -examination and things like that. So that's why we're making this request. And the judge didn't really find that compelling. And why do you think the judge has stuck to this position of keeping Bankman -Fried in jail? So in the judge's words, there's a couple of different reasons. One being that Bankman -Fried has had ample time to look at the defense materials. You know, one of the arguments was there are something like 1300 exhibits expected over the course of the trial. And the judge asked today, you know, were these all prepared and shared with you before, I think he said September 8th, so earlier this month. And the defense, they said, yes, we've seen all of this. We've had access to all of this. Bankman -Fried was out on bail for about seven and a half months. And so the judge's argument is, well, he's had time to look at this. You know, there's no surprises here. And he said that the defense has the chance to talk with Bankman -Fried in the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he's currently being housed weekends during days that there are no trials. So, you know, the trial is not every weekday. It's going to be most weekdays. And he said, you know, you have the time, you have the opportunity, you are able to talk to your client. You're not really losing a whole lot. But he added kind of a, you know, made this ruling where Bankman -Fried will even be presented to the courthouse early on trial days where there's certain witness testimony that has to be discussed and let the attorneys just talk to him before the trial begins on those days. So he's saying basically, you know, you have opportunities to talk to your client and I'm going to give you, you know, more time to do so, but I'm not going to let Bankman -Fried out of jail. So the main focus next week as the trial begins will be jury selection. Tell us what you think that process will be like. It definitely will be interesting. I think it's probably going to be very boring from just kind of an observer perspective because it's a long process and we're going to be just sitting there watching this judge ask each individual, you know, have you heard of FTX? Have you heard of Bankman -Fried? What do you think about cryptocurrencies? But it's going to be very interesting because this is the part where we're 12 or so people who are going to determine whether or not Bankman -Fried spends the next, you know, 10 to 20 years of his life behind bars. And so I'm expecting to see maybe as mixed selection. I think if you pluck a random group of New Yorkers off the streets, some of them may have heard of cryptocurrency, most of them probably will not have, and they're going to be tasked with deciding whether or not one of the biggest figures in crypto committed fraud on the way up and on the way down. Something that was interesting to me was the prosecution said that they expected jury selection to take the better part of a day. I've seen some legal opinions that it will take longer than that. What do you think could potentially happen there and why do you think some analysts are saying that it would take longer? Yeah, no, I've spoken to a number of lawyers as well ahead of the trial, you know, where at Coindes we're trying to do a lot of kind of preview coverage, basically saying here's how it might go down. Everyone I spoke to said it will probably take a couple of days. Part of that is because this is a fairly notorious case. A lot of people will have heard about Bankman Fried and presumably formed some kind of opinion that would, you know, disqualify them from being a juror on the trial. I'm not sure where the DOJ is getting their estimate from. It's very possible that, you know, through the questionnaires that the jury pool is sent through the, you know, the kind of the mass selection process or deselection process that the judge engages in, maybe that streamlines a big part of it by kind of, you know, reducing or like immediately filtering out the people who are most blatantly, you know, either knowledgeable or biased or otherwise have their own preformed viewpoints about the case. And so the jury selection might just be focused on, you know, those individuals who have made it through those initial filtering processes. But that's speculation on my part. I honestly am not sure if it is a better part of the day that we could see opening statements as soon as, you know, next Wednesday, October 4th, which would be a pretty rapid start to the trial. And Coindesk did some work to try to suss out what it is that lower Manhattan New Yorkers might say if they were randomly picked for a jury. What did you discover there? Yeah, no, so Coindesk's Dylan and Victor went to Manhattan, downtown Manhattan to the financial district, and literally just went up to people and said, hey, we're with Coindesk. Have you heard of FTX? Have you heard of Sam Bankman -Fried? And a fairly large part of this group just hadn't heard about it. You know, they weren't familiar with it. They weren't comfortable talking about crypto. They weren't familiar with crypto. And of those who were, you know, I think they found a fairly even mix. There were some individuals who had heard about Bankman -Fried, some individuals who had only heard about crypto, some individuals who were very knowledgeable. They actually found a, you know, a Yahoo anchor who was the most knowledgeable about it naturally as, you know, order covering the financial space. But they also found people who were looking for jobs in crypto, people who were investors in the space. By and large, it seems to, you know, a lot of the people they spoke to just weren't interested or talking, interested in talking about crypto or in, you know, being part of this, being part of crypto. So if that is a representative sample of who we'll see next week at the jury pool, it'll be interesting because we'll see a large, potentially large, jury pool of people who aren't familiar with crypto. Again, on one of the biggest, you know, bang in on one of the biggest figures in the space. Recently, the defense proposed certain questions that it would ask the jurors and the government said that they felt these were quote unquote intrusive. What were some of the questions that were proposed and what was the government's response? Yeah. So, you know, the background here is both the DOJ and the defense team filed their proposed jury questions to help filter potential jurors. The defense team in particular had a number of questions about, you know, how these potential jurors felt about things like effective altruism, about political donations, about ADHD and people who have ADHD. And the DOJ response was really, you know, they felt that some of these questions, for example, about effective altruism and about political donations seemed kind of primed to, or designed to prime the potential jurors to think, oh, well, Bankman Fried was trying to do all of this in service of this effective altruism philosophy. Therefore, he was trying to raise money to donate to better the world or designed to try and prime the jury to think, okay, well, you know, political donations is fine. So these allegations about breaking the law in the way he tried to donate funds maybe is, you know, overreach or whatever. And in the intrusive part, you know, treating just kind of this question of ADHD and whether or not people were, you know, involved with individuals who had it or the DOJ just felt that these questions were really designed to try and shape how the jury would see Bankman Fried as opposed to just kind of gauge their existing biases. And so the DOJ opposed these questions and I think we're still waiting to see for sure if there's any public response on the judge prior to jury selection on Tuesday. All right. So in a moment, we're going to talk about different legal strategies that the defense might pursue. But first, a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. 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Recently, the defense did propose a number of witnesses, but the judge denied most of them. Who were these proposed witnesses and why were they denied? Yeah, so the DOJ and defense both had a number of proposed expert witnesses. The defense in particular had a number of individuals that they said could speak to everything from the terms of service that FTX operated under to the FTX software to just rebutting certain DOJ witnesses. The judge basically said he agreed with the DOJ in rejecting all of these proposed witnesses. There were seven. He did allow the defense to call for four of them later on, but they have to meet certain requirements and fill out certain disclosure forms first. A big part of the judge's reasoning was the witnesses had just not adequately explained what they wanted to testify about or what they would say, and so they didn't have or he didn't have enough information to allow them to testify, which was functionally the DOJ's argument as well. That being said, some of these proposed witnesses are intended to act as rebuttal witnesses to DOJ's witnesses. I know we're saying the word witnesses a lot, but that's what it comes down to is four of these witnesses could come back and respond to, you know, either FTX intercircle members who are testifying on behalf of the DOJ. One of the potential witnesses that the defense can call forward is someone who can speak to the actual technical software underlying the, you know, FTX program, again, in response to DOJ witnesses. The judge did completely ban, for example, a British barrister who was supposed to explain the FTX terms of service as well as someone who was supposed to speak to kind of the crypto industry at large, saying that, you know, those witnesses and that proposed testimony seemed a bit too far afield from what the case would be about and could probably do more to confuse the jury than to clarify anything. And SPF's team also wanted to block a proposed government witness that was also denied. Who was that and why did the judge deny that motion? The DOJ proposed a University of Notre Dame professor to testify about some forensic analysis he did on FTX financials. The defense objected. They said that this witness would basically just reiterate the DOJ's claims, the allegations, but the DOJ argued that he was doing his own analysis of the data he had access to. And so it wouldn't just be stating the DOJ's claim. He would be providing his own expert insight based on his own work, you know, examining the databases that he had access to. And the judge agreed with that and said that based on what he'd saw and based on what the witness disclosure had provided, the witness was likely just speaking to his own expertise and looking at actual data as a third -party expert witness might do. And so those witnesses are allowed right now. We're still waiting on the full and final witness list, but we now know that there are probably at least a dozen witnesses that we're going to hear from over the next six weeks. And who are the ones that stick out to you on that list? I think the cooperating witnesses, so the FTX inner circle, that's former Alameda Research CEO Carolyn Ellison, former FTX director for engineering Nishat Singh and Gary Wang. I forget which one of them was the director of engineering. The other one was a fellow executive, but you know, these are the three individuals I think we're going to hear from probably first, maybe. Might hear from them as soon as next week, not certainly the week after. They're the ones who were in it, right? They were involved in this. They were part of FTX. They were part of the highs. I think we're going to probably hear from them, you know, how FTX might've fallen apart. I know from court filings, we know that DOJ wants to ask Carolyn Ellison about the FTT token and allegations that Sandbank and Freed was directly involved in trying to argue for Alameda to take a large sum of it and to potentially allegedly manipulate the price. So I think that testimony is going to be really interesting just because, again, it's the firsthand account of what happened. We're also probably going to see the defense try and discredit these witnesses to the extent possible, right? Straight out of the gate saying, well, you know, you weren't threatened with jail if you didn't testify in turn against your former boss. So I imagine we're just going to hear arguments like that from the defense during cross -examination, but either way, I think this is going to, you know, those are the three witnesses I think we're looking forward to most right now. And then once we're past that kind of initial surge of FTX insiders, that's when we'll get to kind of more, I don't because I don't think that is the right word for it, but, you know, people who are looking at it from kind of the, you know, again, forensic analysis perspective, people who are going to be able to kind of dig through and say, all right, well, you know, we've looked through the smoking remains and here's what we found. And I think that will also be interesting because it'll be really a third -party perspective on, you know, here's how this thing was set up and here's where things may have gone wrong or here's where things may have fallen apart. And getting a third -party perspective on that I think is going to be really fascinating because there'll be, I assume, a bit more objective about it than, you know, people who built it and worked on it maybe could be. One other kind of motion that happened this week that was pretty interesting or development, I should say, is that the judge did allow SPF's team to ask some of the witnesses about their drug use. What do you think will be the significance of that line of questioning? I think that goes back to, you know, a witness, cooperating FTX inner circle member saying, while we were at FTX, Sam directed us to manipulate FTT, whatever, you know, just speculating what someone could say. And the defense comes back and says, well, you know, are you sure that's what he said? Were you high at the time of these conversations or were you engaged in recreational drug use during the time you were running this company? You know, if I'm a member of the jury and I hear, okay, well, everyone was partying and on drugs and doing weird stuff or, you know, potentially, you know, in an altered state of mind, that might shape how I view the, you know, the defendant, the verdict, the whole case. So the judge did say that prior to making those, you know, kind of questions, the defense has to notify the prosecution and the judge about it. So it's not going to be a case of like they'll blindside the witnesses about this, but I imagine that's going to kind of go back to this effort to try and say like, okay, you know, Bankman Fried wasn't doing something wrong on his own or intentionally, it's just that things fell apart, but they were well -intentioned. The defense is going to attempt to, I think, pin some of the blame on legal advice that Bankman Fried received. How effective do you think that argument will be at trial? That's a really hard question to answer. I think the problem that the defense has is there's really no denying that FTX fell apart and it fell apart in like a very dramatic fashion, right? The day it filed for bankruptcy that evening, what, a couple hundred million dollars or tens of millions of dollars worth of crypto was stolen, I think. I forgot the exact amount, but you know, it was a pretty dramatic way to cap off what was already a chaotic week. So the problem the defense has is they can't say, well, FTX is fine. And so they're leaning on this advice of counsel defense. Their argument is going to be, you know, Bankman Fried was well -intentioned. He told his lawyers everything he wanted to do, and he did everything they told him to do. And so because it all fell apart, you can't really pin that on Bankman Fried. You have to look at the advice he was given and the information he was acting on. And so I guess part of the problem that the defense might have here is did they share or did Bankman Fried share everything he wanted to do with his attorneys? Did the attorneys have all the information and did he do exactly everything the way his attorneys told him to? And I don't know, you know, I'm sure we'll see answers to those questions over the next, you know, six weeks or so, but that seems to be kind of how that might play out. And it's going to be an interesting argument for sure. But again, I think it goes down to the central problem of FTX for sure collapsed and how you respond to that. One other issue is that the judge did rule that the prosecution could mention SPF's political donations. And there are charges specifically related to that that will be tried in a separate trial next year. So why were those allowed in this case? So this is where we get into what has become one of the new fun parts of being a court reporter in this case is Bahamas extradition treaties. So the original indictment that Bankman Fried was charged with back in December of 2022 did include campaign finance violations as one of the charges. But because it did not appear in the charging document that the Bahamas Police Department had, there's a Bahamas National Police, something like that, Bankman Fried's defense team successfully argued that they could not bring that charge right now because he had agreed to be extradited on the first seven charges, which were wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and bodies fraud, et cetera. So what it seems like is going to happen is the prosecution is going to try and fold all of that into all the political donation stuff into the other charges, into the wire fraud charges, and say, well, you know, we have the evidence, we have the allegations, and here's what you have to look at what that means for the next trial. And, you know, you're absolutely correct. There is another trial currently tentatively scheduled for either March or April 2024, next spring, either way, where we will be going through all of this again. But a lot of that is dependent on the Bahamas. And yeah, we could probably talk about that for another hour if you wanted to. All right. Well, we'll leave that for another episode. But one thing I did want to ask about is earlier in this interview, you said that his sentence was likely to be in the range of 10 to 20 years. And obviously, you know, there's many charges and we don't know which ones he'll be found guilty of and which ones he won't. But how are you coming up with that estimate? So yeah, I should definitely be more precise there. So I personally am not a lawyer or an expert in this. I have spoken to a number of lawyers about this. And what they said is, if you have a defendant who is found guilty, so these assumption here is that he is convicted on at least one of these charges. But if he's found guilty on even several of the charges, because all of the conduct is similar, because it's all kind of identical conduct at the core, a judge, when making a sentencing determination, will basically fold all the charges into each other, right? All the conduct. And so even though each of these charges, if you look at the DOJ, press release says, oh, it contains a maximum sentence of 20 years or five years, whatever. It's not going to be consecutive. It'll be concurrent. So the estimate I'm getting from various attorneys that I've spoken to over the past few weeks is probably be somewhere in the, you know, 10 to 20 year range. Some estimates came down as low as five years, some as many as 36 years. But they all seem to base that on just kind of the allegations, the charges themselves combined with the amount of money allegedly lost, which is more than 50 million, combined with the severity and all of that. Yeah. And so 50 million is sort of like some thresholds because I think it goes in levels of severity. Yeah. And the higher the number goes, the longer the sentence. However, that's the largest threshold, obviously. Yeah. I literally looked up the federal sentencing guidelines, which by the way, is a very confusing document. I did not understand it. So I asked someone else to explain it to me, but yeah, it's the different thresholds that you mentioned. And it starts with the, I think the thousands range and then just kind of escalates up and 50 million seems to have been the uppermost that they had. So it's 50 million plus. I think the allegation is something like 10 billion loss from FTX. So 10 billions, a hair more than 50 million. Just as many multiples. So that will probably be kind of the way they calculate it, probably. And again, this is dependent on if he's convicted on one or more charges and all sorts of stuff. Yeah. Okay. Well, we will have to see how all that plays out. Thank you so much for explaining all of this on Unchained. Thanks for having me again. Always great to talk to you. Yes. Same here. Don't forget next up is the weekly news recap today presented by veteran crypto reporter and Columbia University night budget fellow, Michael Del Castillo. Stick around for this week in crypto after this short break. Join over 80 million people using crypto .com. One of the easiest places to buy, trade and spend over 250 cryptocurrencies.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
A highlight from Ethereum ETF LAUNCHING Monday?! (Leaked SEC Documents)
"Good morning, everybody. It is September 28th. It's 1130, and it is time to discover crypto. We got Tim and BJ on the ones and twos. How are you two doing today? I'm doing fantastic, man. Alright. Ready for the show. BJ, are you in the silent era? Yes. Okay. He's in the silent era. Guys, we got a great show today. We're going to talk about the Bitcoin 1 %ers. We're going to talk about ETH futures ETF and how a senior analyst of ETFs at Bloomberg thinks it is going to be approved on Tuesday, folks. And that's why maybe you're seeing this huge, huge pump in ETH and a lot of alts as well. Also, we're going to talk about Gary Gensler getting roasted. We're going to replay the clip of the Pokemon cards. It's just too good not to share. Also, AI is alive. It's alive right now. How soon do we have a Terminator 2 style D -Day? Give it about 30 years. 30 years, folks. 30 years. Alright. We'll go ahead and start building the bunker right now. Yes, DC's in the suspenders. I know. If you just had the green bow tie, you and McHenry. Alright. One, I'm not going to wear a bow tie. Nothing against bow ties. Just bow ties aren't for me. I'm going to wear a regular tie with the classic winds or not, or I'm going to wear the suspenders. Yeah. This used to be my old bartending get up. I'll tell you what. You wear the suspenders in the button -up shirt. I'll wear the hoodie, but I'll wear the bow tie with the hoodie, and then we'll complete the whole ensemble. Okay. Okay. So you'll be like Fetterman, and I'll be Fetterman's, like, lowest level employee. Exactly. Yes. What were you going to say, BJ? That's like Voltron, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Then we'll team up. Alright. Well, let's just get right to the market cap story here. Alright. Where are we at? Whoa. Did you see that pump right there? Yesterday, we were up around 0 .4%. Today, we are up 2 .3 % for the crypto market cap. We had passed 1 .1 trillion. 24 -hour volume for the first time in a long time is above $50 billion. We're coming in at $52 billion. Bitcoin dominance, Tim's looking a little happy here. It was 47 .1 for a few days. It is now up to 47 .3. Gas, surprisingly low, only 20 Gwei, but it's actually about double of what it was yesterday, but still pretty low. I was surprised to see that. Alright, let's look at the pricing here. We have Bitcoin up 2 .1%. It is now coming in at 26 ,858 bucks. We have Ethereum past 1600, now 1638. It is up 2 .5%. BNB up 1%. XRP up 0 .5%. And we have Cardano up 1 .6%. Solana. Solana is pumping, folks. We have it up 2 .6. And TonCoin erasing about a third of the losses of the past week. It is up 2 .7%. But I'm ready to look at some of these top gainers. Ooh, look at Bitcoin Cash as well. Have you ever thought about trading Bitcoin SV or Bitcoin Cash? Because they do have pretty big moves. Yeah, no, I mean, they definitely are probably better for trading, especially if you want to stay away from leverage, but you still want to be able to utilize the moves of Bitcoin. But yeah, I haven't ever done it. Don't think I will. Okay. Alright. Well, let's look at the top gainers. Let's look at the top losers here. Wow. We have Compound. It is skyrocketing, folks. And Compound has shot back into the top 100. I have RollBit up 12 % just for today. I have a little bit of exposure to RollBit and a little bit of exposure to Apecoin. And I have a couple comic book issues of Thor, but I don't know if that will affect my pricing there. But it is up 10 .8 % and Apecoin up 7 .4%. Bitcoin Cash coming in as the top five gainer here, followed by Lido, DAL, then Aave, GMX, Maker, Arbitrum, Stacks. And then, hey, look, a little Chainlink way down at the bottom. Do you have any of these alts? You're not much of an alt guy, right? No, I mean, I have alts, but I don't go that deep. The moment I have about eight of them, Aave is one that is close to being on the list of maybe I'll come into it. You know what? You don't want to get into, though. I've been watching a lot of maybe... I think he's going to come on the show in the future. Shout out to Crypto Archie. Archie's been going really deep in some degens that are sitting around like a $4 million market cap, and their chances of 100Xing are greater than others. I do think I'm going to start looking into a real good degen portfolio. It's probably not going to take up more than... 10 % is probably being generous in my entire portfolio, but I like where I am. I'm definitely very top -heavy when it comes to crypto. I'm more conservative with my investments, but I'm going to take a little bit of risk this market. All right, BG says, BCH is my secret crush. My dirty girl, he calls it. Where's the one person? A million dollar vision. We're going to give you a million dollar vision. Hopefully, you can stick around and just be part of that positive message. I believe you will. I'm believing in you. All right, well, speaking of believing, I'm believing today we'll not have any of these these coins in the biggest losers of the top 100 cryptocurrencies here. I'm manifesting it. It's failed in the past, but today I'm feeling good. Let's go ahead and look. What do we have? We have Casper. All right, I'm not pale as it goes just yet. Casper is down only 1 .2, then followed by tethered gold. So this is a peg to gold price here, then gate, then another gold. We have another gold coin essentially losing here, then injective, and then stable coins. Wow, I escaped it today. I escaped it today, but gold's on the way down and I have exposure to gold. So does that count? Any day that stable coins are in your top losers, it's a good day for crypto. All right, can we, before we jump over to the top story here, can we look at some gold pricing and silver pricing here? I want to look at gold on Kitco, and if you want to look at silver, maybe we could check out some prices. I like Kitco, K -I -T -C -O. Here we have gold pulling up. Gold is down $14 for the day, so not a whole lot there when the price is coming in at $18 .61. How soon until ETH passes an ounce of gold? One ETH almost equals one ounce of gold. Costco starting to sell gold. I looked into it. They sell out usually within hours whenever they limit two per customer, but they sell one ounce nuggets right around spot price. All right, what do we have for silver? I don't know if this is the right one or not. I looked it up. This says CFDs on silver. Oh, you're a trading view guy. We like trading view. Shout out to Marcus Seifer. Price slightly down, but it's definitely got a consolidation kind of pattern going on here. Yes, we're still kind of moving, setting some higher lows, but we kind of flat out here. After kind of getting kind of in this region, we've flattened out with these lows. The resistance is getting lower, but I'm going to go ahead and say, Deezy, I think that this is a pattern. Watch what happens to support. We're back down at support, but this is a pattern I would almost lean more towards a move to the upside. Let me look at oscillators on this. Yeah, I'm feeling like that's bullish. I'm feeling like that's bullish. Plus, silver has underperformed relative to gold in the past 10, 20 years. I'm feeling pretty good about it right now. Yeah, no, the charts on the daily chart look more bullish than bearish, I would say. It's kind of sitting somewhat in the middle, but more bullish than bearish. All right, and we have Danny Boy saying, look at 100 coin. Maybe, maybe. We'll see. I don't know. Maybe we'll get some time here. All right, well, let's get into the top story here. ETH, futures, ETFs. What is it going to mean? I also got some short form content. Guys, we have an article talking about these Bloomberg analysts. I'm just going to do the deep dive as well, so let's read paragraph or two, and then we'll just see what exactly they're talking about. Let's go to the source material. Let's go to the source code of the simulation here. Bloomberg analyst shares information leaked from the inside that SEC on Ethereum futures ETF. They gave the good news date, folks. We're talking about Eric Balchunas. He's the senior ETF analyst. We're not talking about the janitor there. We're not talking about, you know, the guy that makes a tweet every now then. We're talking about their senior ETF analyst. And he said in a statement, he has inside on info when the SEC will approve the ETH futures ETF. Now, we know there's inside information. Who's going to have better inside info than Bloomberg senior ETF analyst? I'm feeling pretty good about this guy's sources. Now, you got to be careful. Never trust anonymous sources. But if I'm going to trust one, I might end up having to trust this one. All right, let's see what exactly were they talking about? It all started. Let's James Safart here. Nothing yet, but watching for filings to indicate Ethereum futures are indeed being accelerated for launch next week. All right, so what was he talking about here? Here's a repost from Eric. So Ether future ETFs could be trading as early as Tuesday, folks, as the SEC looks to speed things up and in order to get it done before the looming shutdown, just like they sped up delays on spot Bitcoin ETFs. If so, issuers likely in mad scramble as we seek to update the doc. So we have the government shutdown to thank for this actually getting sped up because we covered it I think two days ago. We looked at when the government shutdown happens, what happens through the individual agencies. If you weren't here, guys, SEC will reduce 90 % of its workforce, CFTC along the same line. So 10 poise, there's only going to be one showing up in that office. That's going to be a very lonely office. So what they're trying to do, they're trying to clear all the paperwork off the desks before it's just that one guy alone. I feel bad for that guy. Who is that guy? Shoot us a message here. All right, well, let's go back to X here. So he was quote tweeting this tweet from 14 hours ago. Well, let's, uh, let's see looking like SEC is going to let a bunch of ETH futures ETFs go next week, potentially. And then he was quoting this tweet. So let's look at that tweet. And then that was the one earlier hearing they might update so they can go on effective on Monday and trade on Tuesday. They've asked filers to update their docs by fry, uh, Friday PM. Uh, I'm guessing that's the end of day Friday. So they have till tomorrow, 5 PM Eastern standard time, get your paperwork done. If you get your spot futures, I'm sorry, your futures ETF paperwork filed, you might be able to trade it on a Tuesday. We're going to go ahead and get that in submitted on a Monday. So this guys, this could be very, very big. Now we have to wait till Monday, you know, nothing set in stone here, but however, according to the analyst, they will approve, uh, of the applications that candidates who do update it by Friday afternoon, and they will begin trading on Tuesday. Uh, how speaker McCarthy rejected the stopgap funding bill advancing in the Senate on Wednesday, leaving us just four days from the fourth partial shutdown of the U S government in the past decade. It is thought that a closure event would deeply affect the sec. It is rumored that the spot ETF applications were postponed early for this reason. So chat, where are you coming in? Are we going to shut down? I didn't realize we had done it four times in the past 10 years. I would have maybe said two in the past 15. That makes me think guys, I'm, I'm starting to lean towards, you know, if you asked me three days ago, I'm under 50%. I'm leaning towards 50%. I might even exceed 50 % by tomorrow. Where were you guys coming in on the odds of a government shutdown? Yeah, I think I'm a little low. I think I'd say maybe 35, 40 % it shuts down. I think they're going to have to do with both sides, but it would not behoove Biden to have that shutdown happen. There's a lot of reasons why they'd want to keep it open. Of course, there's a lot of Republicans in Congress, they're kind of pushing for it. They probably like it. They want it. I think they come to some sort of deal. They don't do it. Guys, should we just break down the alpha for you? You know, a lot of part, what makes this live show exciting is we can do things like BJ, while you go, could you look up October 19, 2021 daily candles on Bitcoin, October 19, 2021? Well, I'm going to be the idiot in the room as usual. So if we removed the debt ceiling and put it on pause till 2025, why would we even have a shutdown? Because it wasn't the entire shutdown when we would hit the debt ceiling. So that's not relevant for another 18 months. Yeah, that is a very good point on the debt ceiling. I think that that's a great question. So maybe that debt ceiling isn't as final as they made it appear because I was being told, oh, once this debt ceiling is raised, we don't have anything to worry about. And then two weeks later, we all of a sudden have something to worry about. So now we need to think about the next time they give us a debt ceiling raise. What the f are you actually doing here? Is it actually nothing? These game devs really need to figure out how they're building their ecosystem, because these rules just don't make sense anymore. They don't make, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of bugs in the code here. All right, we have the daily candles. See the date again? October 19th, 2021. If we just look at about a 30 -day period, maybe 10 days before to 10, 20 days after. Yep. So this is getting close to the top, but it was the, there's the, we ended up beating it out. But October 19th is right here. So it's this candle. We have one more day. We topped out on the 20th. Hover over the 19th. Right there. That is the day we had a Bitcoin futures ETF here. Move more to the right side. Let's, let's get a little bit in. That's the top right here. Let's stretch that Y axis. Let's stretch it out. All right, here we go. Go back to the 19th. Yep. The 19th, right? Let me go over here. 19th is right here. So in the lead up, it pumped, it pumped, but guys, that was a buy the rumor, sell the news. We had one more day. All right. They probably didn't want, you know, Fox Business News and MSNBC to be like, oh yeah, it got approved yesterday. Look at the price. So they gave us another 24 hours of pump. We've got the pump of metal pumping. Then, you know, a new cycle, you're probably not going to want to talk about it 36 hours later, 48 hours. So we got that pump. We got a nice strong pump for 24 hours. And then it went down folks. And then it went down. We went from, I believe that was about 55K, right? No, no, I'm sorry. 65K. 64, 64 .3. And then we dropped down to what about a week later? We got dropped down about 57 .8. All right. So we went from 63, 64, all the way back down to 57. And then we set in a new all time high. What was the amount of days from that low? What's the date? If you just hover, it gives you the date, right? On the bottom, it gives you the date. So date October 28th, it peaked November 10th. All right. So 13 days later. So a week later, it put in a local low. And then two weeks later, new all time high. Will the spot or will the futures ETH ETF play out in a similar way? I don't think we're, obviously we're not going to go to 4 ,500. We're not sending in a new all time high. But what I'm thinking is we might have a similar chart pattern. You're the Bitcoin ETF. In reality, this is only a period. That means we might have. All right. So that's the date. That's we're five days away from Tuesday, right? Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Go back five days from that, from the 19th. So go to the 14th, October 14th. 14th is right here. Boom. Nice big pump. It pumped for five days. Buy the room or sell the news. And then it dropped. And so maybe we're going to have a really good next four days. Maybe. You know, maybe I would say that that's a little bit premature. I think we have to look at a lot of different things going on. Obviously, we're getting close to the part where the market was going to top out and go to the downside. I think there, if anything, the case to be made here, even though there was some pump in that happens here, I would only make the case that this is proof ETFs can't save you from the bear market starting. I think there's I think it's a mixed bag. I think it's a little bit too irresponsible to try to say, well, back in October 2021, this happened. Well, there was a lot of things with timing and a lot of other different things. I think let's watch ETF. It will be bullish long term. But remember, futures ETFs allow both longing and shorting. So volatility is more what I'm predicting, not necessarily a firm. Let me play devil's advocate. That was what a lot of smart people thought was going to be the top or near the top. So if you have some, I have to hold this instrument for six months, and it's October 2021, you have one choice. You open in a long in October 21, you open in a short in October 21. I feel like a lot of smart money is choosing short. Well, let's go to today. We're almost half a year from the having. You have a choice. Are you going to open a long today to cash in in six months? Are you going to open a short today to cash in in six months? I feel like then many more people are going to choose short relative to today. You know what, let's actually that takes us into our next story. Let's talk about the big investors. Will they choose Bitcoin? Will they choose Ethereum? Will they choose, you know, futures or will they wait for spot? Here's what this Fidelity executive has to say. Ethereum investment thesis could be easier for institutions to grasp than this big, then bitcoins. And here is why. This was with the interview with a bankless YouTube channel. I do like bankless Fidelity's director of research, Chris Cooper, I think says the firm's Ethereum investment thesis could be an easier concept for blue chips to understand. With traditional, it's probably more easily go with them something like ether, then show them things where they grasp much quicker than investment thesis for Bitcoin. The investment thesis for Bitcoin, according to Cooper, is to truly understand it, you got to first to dabble into politics, got no little philosophy, got to know some game theory, got to know some economics, got to know some other concepts, you got to know the Byzantine generals problem, you got to know what the white paper is, you got to hate the NSA and the surveillance state. It's a lot, right? It is a lot. I remember that feeling, you know, half a decade ago, maybe more. Well, you know, I learned about Bitcoin, I didn't really get into it to about half a decade ago. I remember watching Andreas Antonopoulos clips on YouTube. And I just, I'm just alone in my living room with, you know, with, you know, maybe Mary J was there, but you know, I'm just alone. I'm watching this and my mind's getting blown here. And I'm just like, my God, I'm just so into what this guy is putting down. And then you go to your friend, and you try to, you're full of zeal. You feel like a religious apostle. And you're like, oh, my God, have you heard this thing called Bitcoin and what it's doing? And then you just get a blank stare back. Yeah. It's like, oh, yeah, I ate the orange pill, didn't I? Yeah. It's taken me back to these feelings here. All right. So yeah, it's a lot. Basically, what I'm saying, it's a lot to wrap your head around Bitcoin, folks. That's all I'm saying. I had the my first exposure to Bitcoin whatsoever was back in 2013. And I was the opposite side of that. What you just said, the staring face. There is this kid I met. He was very passionate about Bitcoin, tried to convince me it was the one world currency that Revelation talks about. He also was a pot farmer. So I looked at him and I said, OK, buddy, good story. Now, it turns out I should have gotten in when he told me to. He he was right. I should have gotten into Bitcoin. But I do hold to when you hear a lunatic who is growing pot for a living tell you that this currency is what Revelation talks about. You got it. You got to at least question it a little bit. I understand people still being stone faced at this point. Yeah. My first two exposure was 4chan and I was like, oh, anything they suggest is a scam, is a honeypot. And they are trying to hack me. And so that honestly, like in a weird way, learning I learned about it from too shady of a source. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to stay away from that one. The second exposure was my buddy buying ecstasy pills of Silk Road. And I'm like, again, another thing I want to stay away from. No, man, I'm good. I'm good. And then Silk Road happened. And also he lost his Bitcoin on a hard drive. So I was just like, yeah, I don't know about this, man. I don't know about this. And then eventually, you know, the hook got me there. All right. Well, you know, that's what we're saying about Bitcoin to truly understand it. It is a whole lot, you know, but imagine that you can get in front of them and just say, look, talking about Ethereum, here's the metrics, here's the cash flow, you put in your inputs, and they're looking at it like another financial instrument. And they're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense to me, you can have these scenario analyses where you could get your head around the probabilities. And then that way, people can size their position accordingly. That's how an institutional investor thinks. That's how a good investor thinks. They think around probability scenario analysis. And in fact, they are so strongly about that they capitalize the eye there. That's how institutional investor thinks. They really, they think about the probability scenarios there. So yeah, I think that's a pretty good, pretty good point there.
Bankless
A highlight from ROLLUP: Coinbase Crashes DC | Gary Grilled By Congress | Vitalik Deepfakes
"Miss Wagner is like, yo, MIT version of Gary was pro -blockchain, but SEC Gary is anti -blockchain. And then Richie Torres is like, yo, it's a Pokemon card of security? These people are listening to crypto Twitter. They are like, these are our things. The power of crypto Twitter is like getting into Congress. Well, it's because it's distilled logic. I mean, Bankless Nation, it is the last Friday of September. David, what time is it? It's the Bankless Friday Weekly Rollup Ryan where we cover the entire weekly news in crypto, which is always an ambitious endeavor, yet we persevere nonetheless into the frontier this week with a bunch of clips of Gary getting grilled. So everyone, everyone prepare for that one. If you're not listening to this with coffee, because it's too late in the day, well then you should get your popcorn, because that is what you will need. I mean, this is a catharsis, I think, for many of you in this episode. You'll enjoy this very much. Also, crypto was present in Washington this week. Yeah, Coinbase's stand with crypto day was held at Capitol Hill the same day that Gensler was giving testimony in front of Congress. Convenient. What about the timing of that? David, what else we got? After that, we'll talk about pudgy penguins in Walmart landing a huge deal, a ton of distribution for pudgy penguins, also with each toy purchase having an on -chain identity on ZKSync. So we'll talk about that. And then after, also not only are penguins getting identity, but citizens of Buenos Aires perhaps also getting some on -chain presence as well. We'll talk about that. And then, of course, we're going to do the PSA of deepfakes and phishing attacks that are out there. We got a Vitalik deepfake that we want to show you. It's pretty hilarious, but not if you believe it. Notable VC Fred Wilson got phished for 40 NFTs this week. So if Fred Wilson can get phished, so can you. We will talk about this and more. What else we got, Ryan? You know, the usual Bitcoin ETF stuff. ETH might be getting futures. There's a ton to talk about every week. This is a bullish week, I think. I'm declaring it such, David. It is a bullish week. And we got some green candles when we get to the markets. But before we get in, David, we got a message from our friends and sponsors over at Layer Zero. What do they want the folks at home to know? They want you to know that after a year, over a year of combined effort, Layer Zero and Google Cloud have announced their partnership, and they are ready to build the interoperable cross -chain apps of the future. What is Layer Zero? Of course, Layer Zero is a set of smart contracts that are deployed on every single chain. These smart contracts connect to each other. How do they connect to each other? Well, they need some Oracle service in the center to be the chatterboxes, the passing messages between all of the Layer Zero smart contracts across all of the 50 different chains. Google Cloud is that new default Oracle. That is the partnership that they have created. So there is a link in the show notes for you to go explore more if you're a builder who wants to build on Layer Zero. LayerZero .network is also the URL. Well, you know what I want to learn more about this week, David, is markets. Tell me about the old markets. I think, I think, I haven't looked at this yet, but I think we got some green on the week. We got some green, dude. Let's look at the Bitcoin charts first. What's Bitcoin showing us? Some single digit green. Look at that green right on the right. That's your dose of dopamine for this week. It's like, whoo, Bitcoin up 2%, whopping 2%. Started the week at 26 ,600, ending the week at, well, Thursday morning, if you call it the end of the week. It's not the end of the week. 27 ,150, up 2%. Ether price up a little bit more, starting the week at 1660, up 4 .5 % to the current price, excuse me, starting the week at 1560, ending the week at right around 1660, where we are right now. 1660. I mean, it's still low. That is a low price. We are getting excited about very little right now. Yeah. It's up such a small degree, you shouldn't even be excited about this. And yet we are. Yeah, we are. 4 .5 % on the week, I'll tell you. It's better than flat. When's the last time we had a double digit week, man? Double digit up or down? Up. I can't remember either, actually. We've been in the flatlands for so long. It's just like kind of a little bit of a bleed out all the way from 1900. Weren't we over 2000 a few weeks ago? Yeah, we have touched over 2000 in this bear market, but man, it certainly doesn't feel like it. Last time we were at 2K was July. In July, briefly. We weren't at 2K. Yeah, I can't remember July. Well, I was in the mountains. It's been downhill ever since I caught back for the mountains. Yeah, it really was. It's been all downhill since you guys. The only thing you can do, David, is go to the mountains. Bad things happen to Gary Gensler when you go to the mountains. Although, I guess nothing bad happened to him this week. Anyway, I'm skipping too far ahead. We'll have our Gary later in the episode. ETH, Bitcoin, up 2%. Total crypto market cap, $1 .11 trillion. Layer 2 scaling factor, touched 6 % this week, down to 5 .5%. Still at all -time highs. Layer 0. Wait, what touched 6 %? Excuse me, not 6%. Total value loss? 6x. 6x is what I meant. Oh, activity. That's what you like to look at. Yes, layer 2 activity touched 6x of Ethereum, but now it's at 5 .69. Nice. 60 transactions per second, 64 transactions per second. Yeah, that's where we get the 6x. We got more transactions per second left in this tank, I think. Oh, yeah. David, you want to talk about the general markets, like all the TradFi markets? You want to talk about macro really quick, because it's been super confusing to me. It's been super confusing. And then I read this tweet. We're also doing a macro show on Tuesday as well. So a macro show, so talking about the state of macro from a crypto person, so it's a crypto person who understands macro, so I'm really excited for that show. Are you a crypto person that understands macro, David? Do you understand macro? When I have a smarter macro person with me, then yes, I understand macro. My question to you is, does anybody really understand macro, particularly right now? Oh, you mean current snapshot? Definitely not. Yeah, all right. So here's the tweet. Current situation. One, stocks are falling like a recession is coming. Two, oil prices are rising like there's no recession in sight. That's contradictory. Three, interest rates are rising like we have 10 % inflation. Yes, they are. Four, gold is falling like inflation is gone. Five, housing prices are rising like rates are falling. And six, commercial real estate is falling like it's 2008. Nothing adds up here. That's the way I feel about macro right now. It's very confusing. There is a confusing set of signals going on, and it's not adding up in my head. What do you think about this? Yeah, they follow through, and they say it's beginning to feel like a pivot point in sentiment. I don't know if I'm about to say what I think they are meaning by this, but when there's a bunch of confusion, people, I think, brace for something, brace for clarity, and then whatever that clarity is will define sentiment. Where are we going? We don't know. As soon as we find out, we'll know how we feel about it. But we know it's going to be different from here. Different good or different bad? Those are the only two directions. Yeah, I guess that's the reductive take about it. But it's basically like we don't really know. That's why I'm very interested in doing this macro episode next week to see what the newest macro person kind of knows. I will say one thing, though. I think volatility is back on the menu. I think that's what this means. Because when the market doesn't know what direction it's going to go in, then it can kind of lurch in one direction or the other. So weird macro climate right now. On the back of stimulus, on the back of money printing, like what's going on here? And just to be clear about something, we've previously talked about stocks being at all time highs. That's been kind of the theme of the last two months, I would say. Well, so from looking at the SPY, you don't have the chart up, but it has declined by 7 % since July. So the SPY is down 7%, which is more. That goes to the first bullet point. Stocks are falling like a recession is coming up. I don't know. It's down 7%, just doesn't feel like a lot to me. Well, in the trade market, 7 % is a lot historically, but not recently. 7 % in the trade market is actually, that's just like, trade markets are also volatile. OK, well, we'll try to make sense of this, but let's get back to crypto. This is a negative report from JP Morgan, who said, Ethereum's activity post -Shanghai that was the last hard fork back in March, has been disappointing. JP Morgan calling Ethereum's progress disappointing. They've got some reasons for this. While the shift from proof of work to proof of stake meant that the energy consumption from Ethereum collapsed by 99%, the Ethereum supply is shrinking and staking rose sharply by 50 % since the Shanghai upgrade. While that happened, the increase in network activity has been rather disappointing. Ethereum's daily transactions, daily active addresses, and total value locked on DeFi protocols on the network have all experienced declines since the last hard fork. So JP Morgan, their analysts expressing some bearishness here over the last six months or so. Yes. I'm not mad, just disappointed with that activity. My response to that is, who the hell are you? JP Morgan doesn't know how to analyze these things. Well, I don't know. Ethereum post -Shanghai activity, it's just the broader crypto downturn. And also, they're just wrong, JP Morgan, he is wrong. They say layer twos have displayed mixed results. Well, no, TVL and economic activity on layer twos across the board are all up. I don't know where the hell they're getting their data from, but not only is their data wrong, but their analysis is poor. Well, let's go to the actual numbers, Stephen. Layer two beat provides a good source for value locked on layer twos. What are we looking at? At the 180 -day time frame, it's basically flat. It's marginally up, it's basically flat. It's a flat TVL, $10 .5 billion. Activity is up, it's up so much. It's unequivocally up by a lot. I'm disappointed in JP Morgan. Wow. Have you ever been not disappointed with JP Morgan, David? I'm generally disappointed by banking in general. Really? You should start a podcast called Bankless, David, about escaping your bank over time, slowly. I think Vance Spencer put that tweet in perspective as well. Actually, I don't think he was responding to that tweet in particular. But we are. We got some perspective here from Vance Spencer. This is Ethereum, if you chart it against some of the fastest growing tech companies in human history, companies like Alphabet was Google, of course, and Meta or Zoom or Microsoft, and how quickly, over time, it took them to surpass $10 billion in revenue. How long did it take them? It took Ethereum seven years. When charted against these other tech companies, there's only one that did that faster, and that is Google. Yeah. Ethereum really did all of its $10 billion of revenue inside of 2020 to 2023. I mean, so look at this line. It's just kind of like a slope line up. So I mean, doing pretty well, all things considered, JP Morgan. Not disappointing. I'm not disappointed by this. And I'm not disappointed. Also, long -term perspective, not disappointed in the price of ETH over the last seven years either. And we can keep going. Uniswap this week hit 300 million in swaps. 300 unique million trades, swaps, has happened on Uniswap. Uniswap was invented in 2019. 300 million swaps since 2019. Is that disappointing? Is that disappointing? I'm not disappointed by that in the slightest. I feel great about that. Maintain my disappointment about JP Morgan. You know, I think it's part of a broader crypto sentiment, and I've seen a lot of takes just in general in news, but even in financial analyst news like JP Morgan research, that sort of thing. It comes back down to this, David. Mainstream thinks that crypto is dead, again, like always. This always happens. And this is what makes this a buying opportunity, as with previous cycles. And when crypto 10x's the next cycle, don't let anybody tell you you didn't earn it. Because if you're buying here, when everyone is saying crypto is dead, it's never coming back. That they're disappointed. That's how you earn. It's so easy. The signals are just being laid at our feet right now. They really are. I tweeted something like that out, and somebody responded with this life cycle. What are we looking at here? Yeah, just like the cycle of the bull bear market. So in the top of the bull market, some crypto friend of you will tell you, a bankless listener, you're so lucky. I wish that I bought two. And then the crypto market will go down and be like, you're an idiot. I told you crypto was a scam. Yeah, so especially when they say the words disappointing, it's such an emotional word. It's kind of just playing into the readership. I don't know if JP Morgan is about that game. I mean, we're in the stage of the cycle where everyone thinks you're an idiot. And they told you it was a scam. And you can't talk about crypto at your family events or parties because you're just the crypto moron who knows nothing. And ha, ha, ha, SPF, FTX, that's so stupid. Scams, frauds, NFTs are such a joke. Well, granted, some of those things are actually true. Sure, sure. But if you're still in crypto and you know why you're here. And you're no longer buying the scams because you can identify them. And then you'll swing back to like, I am a genius. I am amazing. I am lucky. Or third parties will say you're lucky when that happens and you'll feel like a genius. You've been chewing glass for three years, but you know, you got lucky, though. You got lucky. How about the Bitcoin ETF, David? Here's a tweet from James Seyfert. What's this about? He just says that the SEC has come out super early and delayed the ARK Invest and 21 shares Bitcoin ETF filing. There wasn't a decision due until November 11th. And typically up until recently, the SEC has always gone up right up until the buzzer. But they decided to delay their decision on this earlier than usual. You know why? Partially? It's some speculation. It's because the government's about to shut down. The U .S. government's about to shut down. That's on Monday, right? On Monday? Yeah. So apparently if by Sunday night, this Sunday night, Congress doesn't reach some sort of compromise resolution, whatever agreement to keep the government running, then it shuts down yet again. I mean, how many times have we been through this? And so this is the SEC just getting ahead of that so that the stuff doesn't expire while the government shut down. And I guess, I don't know what would happen if the government shut down and these deadlines were missed. But maybe they would de facto be approved. I think that could be how it works. Is this some sort of pseudo oracle about how the SEC thinks that if we do go for a shutdown, we'll get shut down all the way until at least November 11th? I have no idea. I have no idea what this could mean. I do know this is good news. So Congress, both Democrats and Republican lawmakers, sent a letter to Gary Gensler pleading that he approve a spot Bitcoin ETF.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A highlight from A Dame Trade Deep Dive With Ben Thompson, Plus Seth Meyers and Million-Dollar Picks
"Coming up, Dame gets traded. Million dollar pick Seth Meyers, it's all next. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Get in on the football action right from the opening kickoff with America's number one sports book. The app is safe, secure, easy to use. FanDuel always has exclusive offers. When you win, you'll get paid instantly. FanDuel has lots of ways to play, like the spread, money line, over -unders, team totals, player props, so much more. Jump into the action at any time during the game with live betting. Combine multiple bets from the same game in a same game parlay. Download the FanDuel sports book app today. Make every moment more of this football season. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit TheRinger .com slash RG to learn more about the resources and help lines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem, call 1 -800 -GAMBLER or visit TheRinger .com slash RG. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. I just use this. Here's something every football fan should know. You can get everything you need for game day delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything because you can't get the dream flex for your fantasy team delivered with Uber Eats. But Tex -Mex, yeah, great pass protection, can't get it. Great pizza selection, oh yeah. While they can't help on the field, you can get pretty much everything else you need to watch the game delivered with Uber Eats. So this season, get anything, almost, almost anything for game day by ordering on the Uber Eats app. Uber Eats, official on -demand delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. I'll call in select markets and 21 plus to order. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did the big chill. It was very, very exciting. I have Kyle Brandt coming on Monday's podcast. I'm just gonna tell you the movie now because it is gonna be the best moment of your weekend if you spent two hours watching this classic. We're doing Toy Soldiers. It really brings everything possible to the table. So if you wanna watch it ahead of time, there it is. That podcast is going up Monday night. If you wanna hear stuff about the debate, we have Tara Paul and Mary's podcast, Somebody's Gotta Win. That reacted to it as well as the press box with Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker. So there you go. Our debate coverage has been on point. Also, higher learning. Van and Rachel had Larry Elder on this weekend. It made a lot of noise, man. That podcast is great. I hope you check that out as well. Hope you're checking out theringer .com. And on this podcast, gonna talk about the dame trade at the top. We're gonna bring in Ben Thompson from the Techery newsletter, which he's been on this podcast I think four weeks ago. And he's a huge Bucks fan. He's gonna give the Bucks fan side of things. We're gonna do million dollar picks. And then old friend Seth Meyers talking about a whole bunch of stuff. So really good podcast. It's all next. First, our friends from Pro Jam. What's up? All right, I'm taping this on Thursday afternoon. Normally when there's a big MBA trade, I always do the emergency trade reaction right after the podcast. But we just put up a podcast on Tuesday. So I decided to play it a little differently this time. I wanted a little distance, I wanted to listen to stuff, read stuff, and try to form some big picture opinions coming out of this. So I have four smaller ones, then one big one. First one, I thought Portland did an incredible job with this trade. I really liked this trade, especially everyone was trying to bully them in June and July about, oh, you got to take Miami's offer. You just got to. It's where he wants to go. It's the only offer you're going to get. And guess what? They waited. They played it perfectly. They stared Miami down, and they got a much better deal. First of all, they get the Drew Holiday piece that they can flip into a bunch out of their stuff, which we'll talk about in one second. I love the DeAndre Ayton gamble. As you know, on this podcast, I am a big DeAndre Ayton guy. Not in the sense of I'm the biggest fan of his in the world, but I'm a fan of the asset. I just think I love the valued assets, no matter what it is. Whatever market we're talking about, DeAndre Ayton, 18 and 10 for his career, 60 % field goals percentage, 25 years old. He's played in 45 playoff games. He played four rounds in the 2021 finals. Last year, he got his ass kicked by Jokic. Oh, sorry. Like, that never happens. And Phoenix just sold on him, which I can't wait to talk about. But just from a Portland standpoint, they not only get Ayton in whatever they get for holiday, they get the 29 first, they get the two swaps, and they dump Nurkic. Nurkic hasn't had a healthy start to finish all the way through the playoffs here since 2018, which I'm positive was a long time ago. He's basically 12 and 8. He's, you know, a 50 % shooter. I made a list of the top 30 centers. I encourage you to do this at home, because what's more fun than making lists of NBA centers? I can't imagine anything. I made a list of who I thought were the best assets of the center position for talent, contract, everything. He was 29th on my list. The only person I had ahead of him who's technically a starter, unless you start talking about the Detroit or Charlotte guys, was Zubats on the Clippers. I thought he was the 29th best center asset in the league. And Phoenix, you know, just quickly to go to them, they're trying to win this year. They got worse. They turned Ayton's money into Nurkic and Grayson Allen and Nasir Little. Grayson Allen, we already know with him, he can't play in playoff series. We saw him 22. We saw it last year. I heard and read in some places like that, I got two rotation players. Did they? Is Nurkic a playoff rotation player? Is Grayson Allen a playoff rotation player? Because I'm positive he's not. So for the same money that they were spending on Ayton, they got three guys that I don't think are going to help them. In 25, the money comes down a little bit to 23 million just for Nurkic and Little, which is 7 million less than Ayton. And then in 26, that money goes up to 25 .5. But I don't understand what Phoenix was doing. Why not wait to see if Ayton clicks with Vogel? Vogel has such a good history with centers. He rejuvenated Dwight Howard on the 2020 Lakers. He basically created Roy Hibbert's career in 2013 with the defense verticality thing. I thought he was going to do a good job with Ayton. I'm stunned that they gave up on him. I'm almost waiting for one of those, now they tell us stories when, you know, that's where Brian Curtis calls them, where like a week after something happens, there's this kind of notebook dump where it's like, here's seven terrible DeAndre Ayton stories. So maybe that'll happen. But for Phoenix just to be like, cool, we locked this down, man. We got Nurkic. You're trying to win the title. You have KD and Booker and Beal. And like, what are you guys doing? Anyway, from Portland's standpoint, I love the Ayton thing. I love that they didn't get bullied. And I know they're going to turn Drew Holliday into something. So this to me was at least an A minus for them, for where they were two months ago, where Dave's like, I want to go to Miami. That's it. And if you don't trade me there, that's kind of fucked up. And they made this work as it got reported that, uh, I think in the athletic, that he expanded his list to Brooklyn and to Milwaukee in the last two weeks. And that's what Portland was waiting on. You know, they were banking on the fact that he's a competitive dude. He's one of the best 75 pairs ever. He wanted a situation settled. So, you know, you wait, you wait, you wait, they expand the list and then you go. Uh, there's a Drew Holliday piece to this. That's awesome. He becomes a contender prize. I wouldn't call this a Drew Holliday sweepstakes. I reserved sweepstakes for the superstars, but it's a mini sweepstakes. This is somebody that could have a huge impact on the playoff race. You know, not only the usual suspects, everybody's talking about Boston, ironically, Miami is a really good fit for him. And in some ways, um, I'm a little more scared of them with Miami than Dame in some ways, especially at a much cheaper contract with giving up less and keeping some of their assets. Philly, if they could pull it off, they have to be in there in Golden State, Minnesota. I think I have to mention Sacramento, I think is a team that if they could figure out how to get Drew without giving up their core, which is basically Keegan Murray and Sabonis and Fox, like that's, you know, could Davion Mitchell be in that trade with some, with a salary and some picks, who knows. The team that I love for Drew Holliday is OKC. I have OKC, you know, I started doing my MBA research for the over -under spot and I haven't landed on a number for them yet, but to me, they feel like a high forties team with Chet and with the growth of their young guys. And if you just like, let's say they traded Lou Dort and a bunch of their picks, maybe two firsts and two of their lesser picks or three firsts and a second, whatever it is. And they just say, fuck it. And they get Drew and you put him with Giddy and SGA and Jalen fucking awesome Williams and Chet Holmgren and all these other dudes they have, that might be a top three team in the West. I mean, that, that's starting to give me some early 2010s OKC vibes. So where he goes is going to be important. I just feel like there was so much Drew Holliday slander the last couple of days. You know, he's one of my favorite players. Even Haralabob, who was the chairman of the board of the Drew Holliday fan club for years and would have the benefit dinners there and, you know, just did a lot of yeoman's work on that front. And even he was like, yeah, yeah, Dame's better than Drew. That trade makes sense for Milwaukee. I was hurt, Haralabob. I was 100 % hurt by that. But you know, Drew got his ass kicked by Jimmy Butler in the playoffs last year. I get it. It happens. Jimmy was unbelievable. I feel like he would have kicked anybody's ass. By the way, why is Drew Holliday guarding Jimmy Butler? That speaks more to some of the issues with Milwaukee. He was never supposed to be a point guard and a creator. I think he was always better as an off -the -ball guy. We saw that with Rondo and New Orleans and just in general. I want to see him with a point guard. I want to see him just being unleashed, not having the ball a lot, just worrying about hitting threes, being an occasional, you know, make -shit -happen guy and being like the third or fourth best guy on a team without having the offensive responsibility to have. All their half court issues got blamed on him for the last couple of years. And I get it. They weren't like an awesome half -court team, even the other one in the finals, but I really value that dude. I had him, even I did the trade value list in August and I had him 37th and I had Dame 23rd. I think he's one of the best 30 players in the league still. He's 33 years old, which, you know, I'm going to talk in a second about when guards hit their mid -30s, but just in general, I think he's a real asset. If he goes to a team like the Celtics and they can keep Derek White and Tatum and Brown in the center, it's like, look out, man. So little mini sweepstakes, rarely do we get the trade, but then we still get another asset to talk about. Thank you for everyone involved in the trade. And then the fourth small point is just that, you know, not rocket science, Milwaukee bought some Giannis time here. They have one of the best 20 players of all time. They were staring down the barrel of a situation that was not good. I was talking about it on this podcast in late June and early July. I thought he was going to put them on the clock. I thought Mark Lasry selling his stake was a really bad sign for all of this because that dude is smart. As I laid out in June, that guy is really smart. And if he's feeling like, you know what, it's time for me to sell my buck stock, that makes me nervous. And then all the stuff that Giannis said and did, which I thought he did really fairly and really smartly. And I think that dude's about titles and that's it. And I know we say that about players, but I think in his case, I don't think he cares about, you know, what's my legacy, how do I compare against Dirk DeWhisky, any of that stuff. I just think he wants more rings. I mean, think about the guys who have won two rings out of the best 35 guys on my list of my pyramid. Those are all guys in my top 35 that won multiple wings. You go to the one -ring side, Jerry West, Oscar, Moses, Dirk, Jokic, Giannis, Pettit, Garnett, Kawhi, Rick Barry. That's the list he's on now. I certainly don't think he's looking at that list going, I got to get away from these guys, but it's a slightly different list. I think when you win multiple rings in multiple situations, it elevates you in a certain way. I think he fundamentally understands that at least a little bit. I want to be the best player since LeBron James. I think that's a thing that he wants. How am I going to do that? I need more rings. I need more finals trips. He knew from last year and maybe even the Boston series that they just weren't good enough. Whether this trade is going to be the thing that propels them, we'll find out, but he's been in the league 10 years, two MVPs, five first teams, two second teams, and now we have this little two -year window. Kawhi and the Raptors was a one -year window. This is a two -year window, I feel like. With Giannis, he's got two years left in his deals. So does Lopez. Middleton has two in a player option. Dame's got two, and then this crazy $120 million player option extension thingy that he has that just keeps going and going. It's probably two years. There's a world where this could go terribly this season, at least for what the expectations are, and then maybe it becomes Kawhi, Raptors. Maybe Giannis is like, you know what? That didn't work. Trade me. And the Bucks, who have no picks left and no future, they look at it next summer, and they go, all right. We tried it. Giannis, what can we get for you? Dame, what can we get? And they just do a reboot, rehaul. Remember, they won in 2021, which just takes so much pressure out of this. It's so much different than the Clippers situation, where they went all in on Kawhi and Paul George. They give up all those picks and SGA, and they've gotten nothing out of it. They haven't even made the finals. So it's got to happen. I think they at least probably have to make the finals. If they get bounced in round two, do I think Giannis is going to stay because they made this Dame -Mower trade? Probably not. So that leads to the big question, is how good of a trade was this? So there's a big picture angle on Dame, and it's going to sound negative, but I really don't want it to sound negative because I think Dame, I voted for him for NBA Top 75. I think he's been one of the best guards in the last 15 years. I think there's a ton of great things you can say, and there's a chance that he goes to Milwaukee, and this thing is fucking awesome. I know any Celtic fan I've talked to, including Isaiah, who's helping produce this podcast today, the Giannis -Dame pick and roll is just terrifying. Other than Jokic and Murray, it's going to be the single most unstoppable offensive play in the league. It is. We are conceding that point. The spot Dame is in right now, big picture -wise, it's weird. He's a superstar, but he's not, and we've seen guys like this before. I judge superstars by, do you have the resume statistically, and is your team succeeding consistently at a certain level? You can't totally say that about Dame. He's never been on a 55 -win team. He's missed the playoffs completely four times in 11 years. He said three first -round exits. He made the Final Four once in 2019, which was really lucky because Golden State and Houston were the two best teams, and then they got smoked. He's never been on a true contender ever. Instinctively, you go, well, that's not his fault. Who's he played with? Well, he played with LaMarcus Aldridge and CJ McCollum and a couple other guys, but not really anybody. The reason I'm putting this up is there's a success element that he has not had yet that for somebody with his resume is actually kind of unusual. I went and I looked up how many guards in the history of the league averaged 22 points a game for their career and played at least 700 games. I thought the list would be like 20. I didn't know. I didn't know what I was walking into. Only I think 75 guys have averaged 22 a game. So I went and I looked up the list, and it was 10 guys, 700 games, 22 a game for their career. There were some guys who came close like David Thompson, who I think is one of the best guards I've seen in the last 45 years, but had a short career and had some drug issues. He didn't make it. He didn't play enough games. Pete Maravich, 24 .2 points a game, but he didn't play enough games. Kyrie hasn't played enough games yet. Bradley Beale is five games away. I'm actually kind of glad the cutoff's at 700 so we don't have to talk about him. And then Mitchell and Trey Young aren't there yet. There's only 10 guys that made it, and the 10 guys are all fucking awesome. And again, I mentioned this in the context of Dame, who we think he is versus the success he's had. So the 10 guys, Michael Jordan, 30 .1, Jerry West, 27 .1, Allen Averson, 26 .7, George Gervin, 26 .2, Oscar Robertson, 25 .7, Kobe, 25 .0, Harden, 24 .7, Curry, 24 .6, Wade, 22, barely made it, and Russ, 22 .4, and then Dame is at 25 again. All right, what does he not have that those other guys have? Well, MJ, don't need to talk about him. Don't need to talk about Jerry West, who's the freaking logo. Allen Averson, pretty good comparison, right? Big stats, really memorable player, but not a ton of success. Here's the difference. Averson made the finals once. He won an MVP. Dame has done neither of those things. George Gervin was the best scoring guard of the 70s. He made two final fours. He had some bad luck. He really, in 79, really should have came close. And some of it's on him, right? He could have come through. Bobby Dandridge is the one that ended up coming through for the Bullets. They lose. But two final fours, he had four top five MVP finishes, five first teams, four second teams. He was just unassailably the best guard in the league until MJ. Oscar Robertson, don't need to go through him, but he won a ring and an MVP. Kobe, five rings and an MVP. Eleven first teams for Kobe, by the way. James Harden, three final fours, an MVP, six top five MVP finishes, six first team MBAs. And even though Harden has never made the finals as the best guy, he made it with OKC as the sixth man, you could build a contender around Harden. We saw it. We haven't really seen it with Dame. I think that's a fair thing to bring up. Curry, four rings, two MVPs, you know, the Curry thing. Dwayne Wade, three rings, two top five MVPs, two first teams, three second teams. He's more in the Dame waters a little bit, but he had the 2006 finals and he was the second best guy with LeBron on those heat teams. And then Westbrook, who you would say, well, Dame had a better career than Westbrook. Did he? Westbrook made the finals in 2012. He was second best guy on that team. Almost made the finals in 2016. He won an MVP. He had two first teams and five second teams. It's at least like a real argument. And I think when you look at Dame, he only had that one 2019 round three, got bounced. He's only had one top five MVP finish. He's only had one first team MBA and four second team MBAs. Really, really good top 75 career. But the piece that's missing is, have you been on a really good team? Have you made a real run at it? Which is why, you know, I think this Milwaukee trade is so much fun. This is his real chance. I get nervous about a couple things with this trade. One is that, you know, if you look at the 33 and older guards who average 22 points a game in a season. Jordan did it twice. Curry did it twice. Still going. Kobe did it three times. Jerry West twice. Sam Jones once. Hal Greer once. That's the entire list. Now the NBA is different. We have more three -pointers now. It's easier to score. Scoring is the easiest it's ever been. Guys can play at a longer age. So I'm not ruling out Dane being good for the next three years. But just pointing out, history is saying, be a little nervous. In general with guards, like Chris Paul, we saw from age 35 to 36 to 37, like it just dropped. But that's two years older than Dane. Maybe it's fine. I just worry about guards. We have not a lot of instances with guards in their mid -30s of them either peaking as players or being able to sustain whatever success they had during their prime. It always starts to go down with really no exceptions, except for Steph Curry. He's the only non -exception. So if your case is Dane's as good as Steph Curry, or Dane can be as potent as Steph Curry on a winning team, like, you know, Steph Curry is better than Dane, but I'm not going to argue that he couldn't do a lot of the stuff that Curry did in Golden State. The bigger issue for me, the age I'm definitely worried about. Dane has not been healthy the last couple of years, and we have not seen him play nine straight months at playoff basketball with a big bullseye on his back. Everybody coming after you, you're the best team. We haven't seen him do that ever, much less than the last couple of seasons. So can he stay up? Can he stay healthy? That's one thing. The defense with Dane just got kind of swept under the rug the last couple days, and I don't really understand it because there's five categories of defensive player I feel like. There's excellent, there's good, there's average, there's not so good, and then there's bad. And I think Dane's a bad defender. I think the stats back it up. Like, his defensive rating last year was 245 out of the guards. He's the 245th guard for defensive rating. You know, 117 .4 individual defensive rating is 483 overall. Portland's team's always defensively, it was the Achilles heel for them. Partly because of Dane, because he couldn't guard anybody. He's too small. And, you know, think about what we saw from the playoffs the last couple years. I think about the 2020 bubble Celtics playoffs, not infrequently, because I think that team had a chance to potentially win a title. What happened? Everyone hunted Kemba Walker. It was hunting season. It's like, where is he? Got to get a switch. Got to get Kemba Walker guarding somebody who's bigger, or got to beat him off the dribble, and it just became a hunt session with him. And basically, he got played out of the league. He's not in the league anymore. You know, we had this with Isaiah Thomas, too, in the mid -2010s. I think it's been an issue with Kyrie Irving. The Celtics certainly went at him in the playoff series with Brooklyn a couple years ago. Curry, you saw, who I think is a better defender than people give him credit for, but the And he's a much better defender than Dame is. Jordan Poole is somebody that got hunted in playoff series recently. Chris Paul, obviously, is a big one. Jalen Brunson, remember what the Heat did to him? Mitchell, when he was on Utah, this was a huge issue. And then Trae Young, obviously. My fear with Dame is he's a DH, and I think in Portland, part of the reasons he was able to put up the stats he did was because he wasn't playing defense, right? It was just, how many points can I score? My team isn't very good, and I'm just going to do my thing. He's an incredible offensive player. But how much of a trade -off is the defense, right? Well, you think, all right, well, Milwaukee, they're really good defensively. They'll be able to protect him. Here's the team. Giannis, Dame, Lopez, Portis, Middleton, Conaton, Beauchamp, Crowder. Who's guarding Trae Young on this team? Who's guarding Jason Tatum? Here's a partial list of guys that I don't think this team will be able to guard this season. Devin Booker, Tatum, Butler, Trae Young, Kyrie, Curry. Who's going to be chasing Curry around the screens? Dame lowered? Good luck. SGA, Luca, Mitchell, Murray, Edwards, Brunson, Ja, Garland, Fox, Halburn. Are they going to be able to cover Derek White? I don't know. The way this team is constructed, they are not going to have the ability to guard other guards at all, which means they're just going to have to be in a shooting match with them, right? It's going to be not much different than what's going to happen with Phoenix, where they're just literally going to have to outscore the other team. I've just watched too much playoff basketball over the last couple years, where it's like, if you have that weak link on defense, and you're playing a team that's smart enough, they're going to go after that weak link. Like, think about them against the Lakers, right? The Lakers figure their crunch time. Let's say they make the finals. It's Milwaukee and the Lakers, and Lakers crunch time. They're going to have LeBron and Davis and Austin Reeves and, I don't know, a shooter and a point guard, whatever. All they're going to be doing is trying to find where Dame is on the court and going after him. What about when they play Boston? Boston puts out White and Brogdon and Tatum and Brown and a center, and all they're going to be doing is trying to make sure Dame is covering somebody who has the ball who's now torturing him. I think it's a real problem for them. And what's funny is they gave up Drew's defense and, you know, they, what they gave up on defense, which is significant, and they gained an offense, it might end up just being a wash and they might just be a different version of the same team where they still have a huge flaw. It's just on the other end of the court. I'm just shocked that nobody brought up the defense. I agree he's an amazing offensive player and what's cool about this trade and what I'm excited about as a basketball fan is, can he go up a level? Right? A lot of these stats he put up, especially the last couple years. They didn't mean anything. They were, he was on bad teams. Like, who cares? Ultimately, Bradley Beal scored 30 points a game on the Wizards. Who cares? I think most really good offensive players, if they're on a bad team, can get between 25 and 30 a night. Can you do it nine months in a row? Can you do it when you're getting hunted on defense all over the place? How much can Milwaukee protect him? And what does he have in the tank at age 33 with 900 plus games on the O 'Dominor already? I'm still afraid of the Bucks, but people have, like, FanDuel had them as best odds in basketball and I think most people feel like they're the favorite now. I don't feel like there's a favorite. I think you can go through every team. Boston, I could, I'm scared of Porzingis. What's going to happen with Jalen Brown out there? He has contracts. Can Peyton Pritchard, all these different things. Philly, God only knows. Miami, they're unquestionably worse. Yeah, Milwaukee is going to be really good, but depending where Holiday lands and how this all plays out, I just think it's still wide open. And the other piece, so if you're just talking Boston, Miami, Tatum kills Milwaukee. I have no idea why. Boston is kind of built to at least stay with Dame and, you know, Derek White is about as good of a person you're going to have to try to keep Dame in check, at least. And Boston's done a really good job of guarding Giannis over the years. They don't have Grant Williams this year, but I just don't think, I think there's as many ways this goes wrong as it goes right, I guess would be my final thought on this because for what they gave up, especially with that 29 unprotected and the two swaps and, you know, they are all in on this team. And you know my theory, when you go all in on a team, you better think you can win. Not positive, but it's an awesome trade. It really is. It makes the league so much more fun. Dame and Giannis together. I'm going to enjoy watching Portland. I still have my eating stock. Watching Phoenix fans slowly realize that Derkiszna isn't the answer is going to be fun and then we'll see where Drew Holliday goes. So really fun trade. We're going to talk about it a little bit more with Die Hard Bucks fan, Ben Thompson in one second. Let's take a break.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Congressional Republicans Lash Out At Gensler
"And at the end of it all, after dealing with several more non -answers from Gensler, an exasperated ogles closed the hearing with the call to open up the floodgates, hit him with subpoenas, get the information we need. The obfuscation, the not answering questions, I'm sick and tired of it. Dude, you wear tap dancing shoes better than Fred Astaire and enough is enough. It's time that questions are answered and that we have the information that we need. Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, September 28th, and today we are talking about Gensler's combative hearing. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on The Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, we had yesterday another hearing featuring SEC Chair Gary Gensler. This was a House Financial Services Committee oversight hearing. And what makes this one a little bit more interesting, even in the Senate hearing that we heard last week, is one, it had some interesting lead -in in the fact that a bipartisan group had just sent Gary Gensler a letter encouraging him, in the strongest possible language, to approve a Bitcoin spot ETF. And two, it had the setup for some very interesting fireworks heading in. And indeed, that is exactly what we got. Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry set the agenda from the beginning with his opening remarks. He addressed Gensler saying, Last time you were before the committee, I voiced my concerns regarding your reckless approach to rulemaking, lack of capital formation agenda, crusade against the digital asset ecosystem, and unresponsiveness to Congress. So many things changed, so many things remain the same. Those are the same issues on the docket today. McHenry went on to accuse Gensler of doing nothing over the past five months to remedy the legitimate and often bipartisan concern expressed by this committee, adding that this is disgraceful and that their patience was wearing thin. Now, the Republican critique of Gensler's rulemaking agenda is that a huge number of rules have been proposed during his term without an economic analysis being performed on their cumulative effect. Regarding the crypto crackdown, McHenry rebuffed Gensler's constant assertion that the law is clear. He stated, your actions have created more confusion and lasting damage. Indeed, he said that contrary to the SEC's role of consumer protection, that Gensler's actions had, quote, pushed legitimate digital asset activities outside of regulated financial institutions where consumers are best protected. Keep in mind, this is all in the opening statements. McHenry went on noting that the SEC's regulation by enforcement agenda has been ineffective and has been on a massive losing streak in the courts. Still, the main point, the main thrust of McHenry's opening, was that it was unacceptable that the SEC had not engaged with Congress. Wrapping it up, McHenry said, the SEC is not above the law, nor is it unique. I do not want to be the first chairman of this committee to issue a subpoena to the SEC, and you should not want to be the first SEC chair to receive a congressional subpoena. Either we find a path forward where the SEC recognizes Congress as a co -equal branch of government and is responsive to our oversight duties, or my option is to issue that subpoena. It's time for you to consider the lasting consequences of your actions and what that means to the SEC's reputation long -term. While your time in this role may be temporary, the repercussions for your actions may be permanent for the agency. It was a fierce opening that sent the signal right away of what we were in store for. Now, a couple other quick notes around other opening statements. Democrat Ranking Member Maxine Waters used her time to rail against MAGA Republicans for pushing the government into a shutdown, and effectively defended the SEC's agenda on all fronts, and asserted that their rulemaking agenda was moving quote thoughtfully and effectively. Now, Gensler himself also got a chance to give an opening statement, and most of his time was spent on justifying the agency's regulatory agenda. He claimed overall that the rulemaking process had been measured with ample time and consideration given to public comment. Now, from there we moved into the question section of the hearing. McHenry as committee chair got to go first and used his questions to focus on Bitcoin. He asked Gensler whether he stood by his previous comments that Bitcoin is not a security, which Gensler evaded by talking in circles, never reaching a point. Notably frustrated by this process, McHenry snapped, I'm asking you to answer my question now. This is not supposed to be hard. Unable to get a straight answer, McHenry moved on to his point that there is currently no regulator with authority over Bitcoin's spot markets. He asked whether Gensler believed legislation should be passed to close that regulatory gap. To the surprise of no one, Gensler continued in his noncommittal manner, acknowledging the existence of said gap but failing to engage with the need for legislation. After that, McHenry left the crypto topic to press Gensler about when he can expect a response to document requests. Becoming ever more frustrated with Gensler's mealy -mouthed answers, McHenry said, This should not be the hard work of a chairman. You have 30 major rulemakings, but you won't even provide basic documents to us. Your unresponsiveness is non -compliance and we'll have to take action if you're not willing to comply. Now Maxine waters again as ranking minority member got to speak next. She, too, continued on the crypto theme, although she used her time to accuse the industry writ large of quote gross violations of the law that end in investors getting ripped off. She asked Gensler what the SEC has done to quote shut down crypto firms and whether quote crypto firms are getting the message. This, of course, mainly served to set up Gensler's usual sound bites. This is a field, he said, that's rife with fraud, manipulation and scams, and the American public is still getting hurt by the non -compliance in this field. Waters also used this chance to castigate Republicans who quote too often protect crypto firms. Now it was very clear listening to Waters that she wants the public to see the crypto industry as just Luna and FTX, to extrapolate them to everything and effectively shut the industry down. Now moving into the rest of the questioning, much of the substantive discussion centered on SEC staff accounting bulletin 121. Better known as SAB 121, this measure requires financial institutions to place intangible assets on their own balance sheet rather than in segregated customer accounts. The rule has been widely criticized for making crypto custody essentially unworkable for banks. Dissatisfaction was expressed from numerous representatives, including one of Gensler's usual allies, Brad Sherman. Sherman noted that the rule lumps all intangible assets together from real estate to crypto. He suggested that specifically designed rules for vastly different asset classes would be more appropriate. The most robust questioning on this topic, however, came from Republican Mike Flood. Flood put to Gensler that his staff did not consult with prudential regulators on SAB 121, which Gensler acknowledged. After stating that he had personally looked into this issue, Flood noted that the Accounting Standards Board had not published any guidance around crypto custody. This contradicted Gensler's comments from a previous hearing when he stated that the SEC was simply applying existing accounting rules. Flood said quote, With regard to SAB 121's potential effects on a bank's balance sheet, it's fair to say that fact pattern we have is that the SEC is not just going out of its lane, but it failed to comprehend the existence of any conflict with prudential rules. He suggested that there are only two explanations for this action. Either the SEC knew there was no justification for SAB 121 and chose to do it anyway, or that there were fairly obvious mistakes made during that process. Flood concluded saying quote, The case of SAB 121 raises the question of whether the SEC is compromised. Now, as you might expect, minority whip Tom Emmer lined up to take his shot with a series of rapid -fire yes or no questions. The main thrust of his questioning was around whether Gensler's history as a partner at Goldman Sachs had colored his agenda at the SEC. To get a sense of Emmer's opinion on this, just look at his tweet from yesterday where he said, Fact, Gary Gensler is not an impartial regulator, and his answers to my questions today prove just that. He's made a career of being relentlessly loyal to the largest institutions in America at the clear expense of innovation, competition, and everyday Americans. One example, Emmer presented Gensler with a quote he previously gave about bank executives being concerned about depositors moving money into crypto. Emmer asked, Can you assure this committee that your style of regulation by harassment towards digital asset innovation is to the benefit of every American and not driven by your desire to protect industry incumbents? At another point, Emmer asked whether Gensler believed that all crypto tokens were securities, which was, once again, avoided with a rambling noncommittal answer. And all of this built up to the big finale in which Emmer said, Mr. Gensler, despite your years of rhetoric, I'm convinced you are not an impartial regulator. Instead, it's clear you are working to consolidate your own power even though it means crushing opportunities for everyday Americans and, frankly, the financial future of this country. Even the federal courts are highlighting the damage you, sir, are doing to our constituents and they are telling you you don't have the legal authority to accomplish your goal of squashing competition in the financial markets. Now, while this was extremely satisfying to watch if you happen to agree with Emmer, in general, I find that this type of interaction is exactly why these hearings are so much about and not really about productive anything. This was a chance to articulate the Republican position against Gary Gensler. There's no real place for listening. It's about laying out a narrative. Now, in this case, I happen to agree with Emmer's narrative, but it still doesn't make for the most effective governance. Another notable line of questioning came from Democrat Richie Torres. Torres used his time to dig into the issue of whether crypto should be governed by securities law. He said, I worry that the term investment contract has become so infinitely malleable and I worry that when it comes to crypto, your interpretation of the term investment contract has no limiting principle and therefore could invite arbitrary and capricious enforcement action. Torres referenced an August report from six law professors which examined the history of the Howey test. That report had noted that no Supreme Court ruling has ever determined the existence of an investment contract scheme without recognizing one or more contracts underlying that scheme. When pushed to provide a case that contradicts this research, Gensler was unable to do so. When Gensler began to waffle, Torres cut him off, stating that, This is a question to which you should know the answer because the definition of an investment contract is the central issue. That's what determines the extent of your authority. That's what determines the applicability of federal securities law to crypto transactions. Your inability to answer that question is baffling to me. Switching tactics, Torres asked whether purchasing a Pokémon card would constitute a securities transaction. Gensler, as always, was unable to give a straight answer, stating that he would know what the context was, although generally he acknowledged that it would not be. Torres followed up by asking whether purchasing a tokenized Pokémon card would be considered a securities transaction. He asked Gensler if, For you, the process of tokenization is what transforms a non -securities transaction into a securities transaction? Gensler, of course, did not get to a real answer and just fell back on restating the elements of the Howey test. One other topic that you might be wondering if it came up was the Prometheum question. Prometheum was, of course, the first crypto firm to obtain SEC registration as a crypto brokerage, despite the fact that that licensing seems to give them no ability to actually offer digital asset trading. Prometheum is also minority -owned by a prominent Chinese firm. After Gensler failed to express any serious concern with the Prometheum situation, Congressman Ralph Norman noted that the SEC had taken 10 weeks to respond to a letter on the issue. He said, Andy Ogles brought the four -hour hearing full circle, saying, And at the end of it all, after dealing with several more non -answers from Gensler, an exasperated Ogles closed the hearing with the call to, So, what can be drawn from this hearing, if anything? Well, Gensler appears to be stubbornly sticking to his plan to evade document requests and oversight from Republican representatives. Over the four -hour hearing, there were few, if any, answers from Gensler that produced any new information or even, frankly, attempted good -faith engagement with the questions. Throughout the hearing, Gensler acted as if he knew there would be no serious repercussions and he could continue to treat congressional oversight as a joke. Republicans, for their part, are clearly fed up and ready to act. McHenry began and ended the hearing with a threat to subpoena the SEC and Gensler to compel a response to the numerous document requests that have gone unanswered. The threat seemed to carry little weight for Gensler, who seemed more than willing to allow that controversial action to play out. Now, on the flip side, establishment Democrats appear entirely disengaged with the legislative process and committed to the current strategy of naming failed crypto projects and demanding that the SEC continue its rampage throughout the industry. No senior Democrats appear at all concerned that the SEC is losing in court, as long as that litigation remains a roadblock for the industry. Representative Torres remained a bright spot and one of the few Democrats breaking with his senior colleagues. His questions showed a deep understanding of the legal issues surrounding token lawsuits and the need for additional clarity and crypto regulation. Overall, the hearing really just confirmed what we already knew about Gensler and his leadership of the SEC, which is, of course, that it seems very unlikely that anything will change. However, Republicans have now clearly reached the end of their rope and are ready to play hardball by using subpoena power. As Bill Huizenga put it to Gensler, what's your plan? Because we've got a plan. Until next time, guys, be safe and take care of each other. Peace.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from The Ministry of Evangelism
"Welcome to the Heart for God podcast. With many years of experience pastoring and helping to start churches, Dr. Jim Townsley has some practical and biblical advice that can be a great help to you and your ministry. On this podcast, Dr. Townsley and other guests with special expertise cover a variety of topics. His goal is to help you lead your church to be a healthy, strong, and balanced ministry, and for your family to be happy, healthy, and living for the Lord. Welcome to the podcast today. I'm glad that you joined us. I have with me here Brother Matt Barber, and he is an evangelist. He's been at our church since Sunday. This is now Wednesday, so he's had several opportunities to speak to us and preach the Word of God. Matt, it's good to have you with us this morning. Good to be here. It's a pleasure. So I want you to just say a little bit about your background, who you are, your family, what God has called you to do, and where you were before. Well, I was raised in a pastor's home. I had great opportunities to hear the gospel. I got saved as a child. When I was 16, the Lord finally got a hold of my heart, and I surrendered to him, and that's when I felt called to preach. I went on to Bible college. I went to Baptist College of Ministry up in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, back in the early days of the college there, and that's where I met my wife. So a lot of good things happened in those days. And then our first ministry was in Woodridge, Illinois, where I went there as an assistant pastor. So that's in the Chicago area? Yep, that's right, southwest suburbs of Chicago. And within six months, I found myself the pastor of the church, and we stayed there for 13 years. And you have family? Yes, sir. Yep. So my wife, Chelsea, and then we have five children, and so the Lord's blessed us richly. And the years at Woodridge were wonderful. We learned a lot. The church grew. It had been through a lot, and we were kind of in a re -establishing, rebuilding phase at the church. And then in 2018 and 2019, I began to feel the Lord stirring my heart towards evangelism, and that's where I felt called originally. And by 2021, the Lord finally gave us the green light, and we stepped out by faith. And so we've been traveling full -time now the last two years. So stepping out by faith is no small exaggeration, because for an evangelist, to get started, people don't know you, they don't know your name. So how does that all come about? How do you end up getting meetings? Well, that's a good question. When I first announced it to our church, they were shocked that we were moving on, but I felt that the church was ready for another hand at the till, so to speak. The church was established, and I guess they thought that I was going out into evangelism by popular demand, and that was not the case. I didn't have anything on the schedule, and I was just trusting the Lord. I expected to be working full -time or part -time as we got meetings lined up, but God and His mercy just allowed the meetings to come in. And they didn't come in all at once, but the Lord stayed ahead of us by three or four weeks or a month or two, and He just filled up our year. We found ourselves traveling two or three weeks a month, plus Sundays and Wednesdays here and there, different places that first year. This second year has been a lot more busy. We spent the whole summer just packed all the way through. We're out west and got to see some beautiful country. But the best thing is we've been seeing God's blessing and seeing God just confirm the step of faith with meetings and with fruit. Dr. Darrell Bock So you're traveling with your family. So you've got a pole -behind trailer, and you've got seven people in that thing. How do you live in that? David Jones Well, you know, the Lord already provided the Ford Excursion. That's right. It's a 2002 Excursion. It's the gas kind, the gas guzzler, but we already had the Excursion, and when the Lord was stirring us up to go, of course, the first question is, can we do this? And the first thought is, no, we can't do this. This is impossible. But then we began to look into it, and we found some pole -behind travel trailer options that would work for our family. In fact, we only found one option big enough that I could actually haul with our truck. And so it's got several slide -outs, and it has a lot of roomy space for the kids to sleep. I say roomy in relative terms, but it works for us. It's tight, but we've been doing fine the last couple of years. Dr. Darrell Bock So you've been a pastor. Now you're traveling as an evangelist. There's got to be a pretty good perspective you have. What is the difference in what are some of the things that people might be interested in, the difference between being a pastor and being on the road as an evangelist? David Jones Well, there's some stark differences, and I guess just going back to the root of it is there are two different gifts in the Bible. We have them listed in Ephesians, Chapter 4. Of course, you have the foundational gifts of the apostles and prophets. Those are no more because the foundation has been laid. But then it goes on to mention evangelists and then pastors and teachers, and I think pastor -teacher is kind of the one idea of pastoring and teaching a flock. So what is the evangelist? Well, if you think about it in the order of events, before you have a church, you have to have gospel preaching so people can be saved so you can have a church, right? So evangelist, an the word evangelist comes from the word evangel or gospel. So an evangelist preaches the gospel, but all of us do that, right? But it's a special gifting that focuses on the gospel. So as an evangelist, I think God gives a special desire, burden, boldness, or even I think also clarity in preaching the gospel so that people can understand. And that's not something to boast of, it's just something that God begins to reveal what your strengths are, what his giftings are. So evangelism is a pioneering gift. Oftentimes evangelists will plant churches, but that's not always the case. My older brother Nathan is a pastor. He planted a church. He would not call himself an evangelist, but he planted a church. So God can use different gifts for different things. I was an evangelist, but I was pastoring for 13 years. But the whole time, I knew I was an evangelist who was trying really hard to be a pastor. It's hard to explain that, but I knew that. But I'm thankful for that background so I could understand the ins and outs of being a pastor and how a church works. But an evangelist is a pioneering gift. You lay the foundation. But an evangelist can also be a restorative gift. I think of Paul. Obviously Paul was an apostle, but if you look at the way he traveled, he was trailblazing. And that's not something just an apostle can do. There were others who did that. In fact, when Paul and Barnabas split up, Barnabas took Mark, and he went off in a different direction doing the same thing that Paul was doing. So there were many who were traveling around in an itinerant way, preaching and laying new foundations through church planting. But then Paul continuously came back and had a desire to circle back and establish and strengthen the churches that he had been a part of. Well, that's itinerant work. I think in America we see a lot of the typical evangelist who travels itinerantly, preaches revival meetings. But that's not unfounded. There's a basis for that in Scripture. I just think the evangelist is more than a revival man. An evangelist can plant churches. An evangelist can go to the mission field. But I think there is a desire in evangelists to not only plant or lay a foundation, but then to be used of God to establish or to even bring an outside perspective that can help a church. And the pastor is there day in, day out. God uses that outside perspective and that special outside gifting to complement the pastor and to help the church grow. Dr. Darrell Bock So what would you say your goal is? As you go from church to church, what is your purpose and goal? What do you feel you want to accomplish by doing that? Dr. Mark Bock Well, a lot of evangelists focus on the word revival, and that's a good word. It's actually more of an Old Testament word, although we see the concept in the New Testament as well. But basically the way I look at it is churches need to thrive and new churches need to be started. My role in that would be to preach the gospel so folks can be saved. But then if I'm going back through established churches, then my goal is to see churches restored, revived to a place where they can grow again. And obviously individuals in that church being, to use another word, quickened. David talked about that. He says, quicken thou me according to thy word. And I think the evangelist can be used of the Lord to have God's power to open eyes, to quicken, to revitalize a church so they can grow. Not that he brings revival with him. Not that he has anything better than the pastor has. But it's a different gifting that complements the work of the pastor. Dr. Darrell Bock So a different train of thought here. From the perspective of a pastor, having an evangelist come into your church, how can a pastor best prepare to have an evangelist come, and how can he take care of him while he is there? Well, I mean, going back to Ephesians 4, they're called the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the church, right? So the pastor, I think people see that clearly, the pastor is a gift to a church. If you have a pastor, you have a gift. God has gifted and blessed your church. But I think sometimes pastors forget that the evangelist is also a gift to the church. And there are many pastors now who aren't having evangelists for various reasons. And I would say they're robbing their church from a gift that God wants to give them. Not because the evangelist is so special, because it's a gift God designed for the health of the church. So knowing, seeing it as a gift that God has established, make room for it, you know, promote it.
DIVORCING PATRIARCHY
Breaking Free From the Patriarchy: The 4 Things You Need to Do
"The Patriarchy isn't a person. It's not a gender. It's a superstructure of power that organizes and operates to protect and privilege its primary beneficiaries, males. The problem with Patriarchy is a problem of inequality. The critical project of the Patriarchy is to be and to maintain absolute power. Now, both males and females can be agents, beneficiaries, males as primary beneficiaries, and females as secondary or benefactors of the Patriarchy. The existence of the Patriarchy depends on two things. One, agents or individuals willing to be in its service, and two, that there are no competing structures that threaten its dominance. Although the Patriarchy has been a dominant structure around the world, since the existence of settled agriculture, like all structures, what has been constructed can be deconstructed. Now, to divorce Patriarchy, you need to do four things. One, you need to make an informed decision to break from an identity formed from the structure of the Patriarchy. That's why we're here. We give lots and lots of information. We do our work and we work hard together to educate ourselves to be in an intellectual community to understand the logic of the Patriarchy. That will inform any decisions that you make in the future. And then there's the informing part that you have to do on your own to understand your own identity and how it was formed from the structure of the Patriarchy. The second thing you need to do is you've got to decide and actually break from being in service to the Patriarchy. The third thing is commit to a life outside the Patriarchy. Those steps will begin your journey. And lastly, just take the first step. This is the process that we're talking about when we say, divorce the Patriarchy.
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
A highlight from SEC GARY GENSLER DELAYS BLACKROCK BITCOIN ETF, ETH FUTURES ETF APPROVED, RIPPLE FORTRESS, PAYPAL CRYPTO PATENTS
"Welcome back to the Thinking Crypto Podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. If you are new here, please hit that subscribe button as well as the thumbs up button and leave a comment below. If you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify, Apple or Google, please leave a five star rating and review. It supports the podcast and it doesn't cost you anything. Well, folks, I want to start off with big news from the SEC. They have delayed a bunch of Bitcoin spot ETF applications, and the applications includes BlackRock's, Bitwise and some others. So not denials, but delays. So corrupt scumbag regulator Gary Gensler continues his clown show. We know he has approved futures ETFs, and in fact, we got news that Valkyrie got their approval for an Ethereum futures ETF. So why is he approving these futures ETFs without hesitation? Because, folks, they can be used to manipulate the market and drive the price down, right? It allows for folks to short the market. And that's why a Bitcoin futures ETF was approved, multiple Bitcoin futures ETF were approved over the years. And yet the SEC kept denying spot ETF approvals. And we know in the Grayscale lawsuit, the three judges said the SEC was arbitrary and Bitcoin spot ETF. So we have to keep putting the pressure. Again, we have a delay here and I think we can expect more delays, right? Until Gary starts feeling the pressure and we saw members of Congress send letters to Gary asking him to approve the Bitcoin spot ETF and highlighting the Grayscale lawsuit. So I think eventually the pressure will be on him where he's going to have to do this. And in one way, in one way, this is a good thing that it's not getting approved now, because in my opinion, I believe the Fed is going to continue to raise rates till the end of the year. And they're going to pause officially in Q1 of 2024, where I believe they're going to start quantitative easing next year. So global liquidity will come back. Right now we are in a tightening cycle, rates are up, inflation is still an issue. So the markets are not really primed for a lot of capital to come in. That doesn't mean that the approval can happen now. But in my opinion, the approval news will help drive the price up and eventually as these products are fully launched by BlackRock and others, a lot of capital will start flowing through them. So in a way it's a good thing, but still on principle, it just shows Gary Gensler is a scumbag regulator. So once again, Valkyrie got their futures ETF approved by the SEC, so expect more volatility around Ethereum. Now, speaking of Bitcoin, a luxury car maker, Bugatti, and that's a very expensive luxury car maker, Bugatti cars, many of them are like a million dollars and over, officially launches Bitcoin ordinals collection. So really cool that big brands are adopting crypto in different ways, whether it be tokenization, NFTs, and much more. The issue is the Bitcoin blockchain cannot handle these things. It more adds congestion to the network, which increases time of transactions as well as costs. So it's not made for that. And I know there are folks who say, oh, you know, this is a good thing, but I don't think it's a good thing for Bitcoin. I think there are other blockchains out there that can handle these things and not have ridiculous costs and fees. So but I think overall, this is good for the market. Now Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, tweeted out the following today, a few weeks ago, we signed a letter of intent to acquire Fortress Trust. We've since made the decision not to move forward with an outright acquisition. The Ripple will remain as an investor in Fortress. The Fortress team is incredibly talented and has built products solving real customer problems. While this outcome is different from what was originally planned, we'll continue to support them and hope to work together in the future. So obviously, we don't know the details as to why they're pulling out here, but they will remain an investor. So just an update on that, folks. Now a quick word from our sponsor, and that is Uphold, which makes crypto investing easy. Uphold is a great platform that I've been using since 2018, so I can certainly vouch for this platform. They have 10 plus million users, 250 plus crypto currencies, and they're available in 150 countries. You can also trade precious metals and equities on this platform. If you'd like to learn more, please visit the link in the description. Now we have big news around Coinbase. They tweeted out today, the expansion continues. Thrilled to announce that Coinbase International Exchange has secured regulatory approval from the Bermuda Monetary Authority to enable perpetual futures for non -U .S. retail customers. You may have seen the phase two of our go -broad, go -deep strategy for international expansion. Providing greater access to go -broad products, including derivatives, is a crucial part of that strategy, all with the support of forward -looking regulators. Coinbase Advance will begin to offer perpetual futures trading in the coming weeks as access to regulated derivatives expands to more global customers. So really big win here for Coinbase, obviously it excludes U .S. users, but they're going to be able to offer futures trading and much more to many parts of the world. And if only the United States could get its act together and pass regulations and do the right things, you know, U .S. users could benefit from this. But you know, once again, we're dealing with clowns like Gary Gensler. Now PayPal patent apps signal an interest in Layer 2's NFTs. PayPal continues, folks, to just go aggressive in the crypto market. Obviously, recently they launched a stablecoin. We know back in 2021, they launched crypto trading for both PayPal and Venmo. They've been four patent applications, which were published since September 21, suggesting that PayPal is taking a close look at distributed ledger tech. So they're going all in, folks, and I don't blame them, right? You better innovate and adapt to the new disruptive technology, or you will be disrupted and be put out of business. Just ask the folks at Blockbuster what happened to them as Netflix and the internet and streaming and much more went and took their lunch. So really, really bullish. Let me give some details on these applications. The most recent application, published Thursday and originally filed in March of 2022, delves into the details of how validators or miners should be selected during the process of adding transactions to the blockchain. The document states that the company's disclosed techniques could advantageously allow steering of blockchain requests to a desired subsets of miners slash validators. Three other patent applications released on September 21 were also filed in March of 2022. One offered up supposedly new methods and systems to enable off -chain transactions through NFT marketplaces. Boy, imagine PayPal launching an NFT marketplace. Another mentions the concept of a so -called omniverse, which in this context suggests a product that deals in multiple metaverses. The third describes another conceptual online transaction processor. This processor's goal is to facilitate payments between users and merchants operating on different network layers, layer ones and layer twos in a more efficient manner. So essentially looking to build interoperability, that is going to be key. And notice users and merchants, right? So you may have users, let's say on the XRP ledger and merchants on the Polygon blockchain, how do they connect, right? And I'm just giving an example, obviously they mentioned layer one and layer twos here. So it could be like Ethereum and Polygon is a layer two scaling solution, but also there's going to have to be compatibility with different blockchains. So really great stuff here from PayPal and a sign of what's to come folks. This is a stuff that makes me very bullish. Now Circle, they're expanding USDC on the Polygon blockchain, and that's going to be launched on October 10th. So Circle continues to make smart moves here, pretty much getting USDC on all the top blockchains. And once again, there's going to be interoperability and much more. So the ecosystem continues to grow. Now folks, some of you may have seen this, the New York Post did an article saying the Winklevoss twins, Tyler and Cameron, secretly withdrew $280 million in assets before the crypto firm collapsed. This is according to sources, right? So they didn't provide any proof. Well, the folks at Gemini, they addressed this issue and gave some clarity that it's actually false. They said, we are disappointed that the New York Post has chosen to recklessly publish a completely misleading story about the Gemini earn program. Everything the post alleges in its story is the exact opposite. The $282 million that was withdrawn from the Genesis in August of 2022 was in fact earned users money. It was not Gemini's corporate funds, and it was not the personal funds of our founders, Cameron and Tyler, or their investment from Winklevoss Capital. So they clarified that, but kind of a hit piece here from the New York Post. Now folks, speaking of the Winklevoss twins, Mark Zuckerberg, and many of you know the history of Facebook with the Winklevoss twins and Mark Zuckerberg, well, Mark was interviewed on the Lex Friedman podcast, and they did it through the metaverse. People have been roasting Mark and his version of metaverse for years, they've lost billions of dollars. Look, I've even roasted him a little bit, right? Because their metaverse product was not great, but boy, have they made a huge leap. Guys, go check out the interview with Mark Zuckerberg on the Lex Friedman podcast. They did it through the metaverse using the Oculus, and the new feature is this lifelike representation of their faces and their upper body, essentially, and it is incredible, folks. It is incredible. You have to see this. And you may say, Tony, why are we talking about this? Well, folks, this metaverse set up with full immersion, right, will eventually include a lot of NFTs and blockchain and tokens. It's all part of the same technological adoption. You're going to see more tokenization, once again, everything running on the blockchain, and you're going to need the blockchain in the metaverse because it's going to be hard to plug in Web2 payment apps, right? It's going to be hard to go use PayPal in the metaverse versus using stable coins or different tokens to exchange value. So this is incredible. I'm really blown away by what Mark and the folks at Meta did here. And I'm not some big advocate of you must live in the metaverse. I believe the metaverse is going to be useful. I think with everything in life, you've got to have balance. Will I be participating in some metaverses? Yes. Will I be spending all my time in the metaverse? No. I will be out getting fresh air, touching grass, going out for walks and so forth. That is how I grew up. Obviously, we live in a digital world, but we have to balance it out. But future generations, if you're listening, some of you younger kids, somebody listening to this 10 years from now, please don't be fully immersed in the metaverse. Have a balance, spend some of your life outside of it. But folks, this is incredible. Go check it out. Finally, some more good news here. Our judge denies temporary release for Sam Bankman -Fried suggests he could face a very long sentence. That is music to my ears. I love it. This guy is a fraud, a liar, a criminal. He should go to jail along with Alex Mashinsky. And we have to make sure we do a good job of flagging these guys, man, because we don't need this kind of stuff in the crypto industry. We're trying to mature, have good infrastructure and avoid any type of corruption and criminal activity as best as possible. Obviously, it's hard to stop those things. They happen because it's part of human nature. Just look at Bernie Madoff. He was in the most regulated financial markets, yet he was scamming people out of millions, if not billions. I hope this guy goes to jail for a long time and he doesn't get off because we know his parents are connected politically and there's a whole bunch of stuff that's been happening there where money from FTX was funneled to his parents. So, you know, I hope they are all held accountable, folks, friendly reminder, my interview with Congressman Warren Davidson will be published tomorrow. So be sure to check that out. Make sure you got the subscribe button hit, hit the five star rating on the podcast platforms. And I'll talk to you all later. Bye bye.
The Cryptoshow - blockchain, cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and decentralization simply explained
A highlight from #464 How to determine Bitcoins value? The most important parameters!
"Welcome to The Crypto Show, your podcast for everything around crypto, blockchain, bitcoin, and more. Here is your host, international blockchain expert, serial entrepreneur, and investor, Dr. Julian Hasp. Are there parameters that you could look at that tell you if Bitcoin's value is going up, or sideways, or down, or is the only thing that we can look at price? Hey, welcome to this video. My name is Julian. On my channel, it's all about making you crypto fit. I discuss the beautiful world of decentralization, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, general investing, and much, much more. I try to kind of look at this from different angles. On the one hand, as a CEO of a large group operating in a crypto space. Obviously, as an investor trying to increase my purchase power, as someone who works with various regulators, and so I try to bring every, like a little bit of an aspect to that. If you look into normal investments aside of crypto, then all these investments, as soon as they are liquid, have a price, right? Then you can track this price. It's very, very easy. But Buffett always says, price is what you pay, value is what you get. So the question always is, how can you look at value? And there are different metrics, ideas, what you can look at. In general, we have cash flow in things like stocks, like bonds, like real estate. And what happens normally is you look at how much cash flow is produced, and you look at how valuable is this cash flow. For example, if interest rates are relatively high, that cash flow is not as valuable because it's very easy to get cash flow simply by lending money to the government, for example. If interest rates are relatively low, this cash flow can be very, very interesting. But in general, you look at cash flow. With some other companies, you look at even more, some more fundamental things, right? For example, a Tesla, Tesla key metric is always how many cars are produced. And so obviously the more cars per week, for example, are produced, in general, you can say, well, Tesla becomes more valuable. With Amazon, this was very powerful in 2000 dot -com crash, Amazon price got slaughtered. But at the same time, the revenue numbers went up, the number of customers went up, the number of purchases went up. So it's undeniable that the value of the company went up while the price may have gone down. Well, this is cash flowing, so generally this is a bit easier. But when we think of non -cash flowing things, we could think of commodities, we could think of precious metals like gold, and we can even think of fiat. Yes, fiat is cash flowing, but most of the time that cash flow is inflation. And so it's also interesting to kind of counterbalance that. Sure, interest rate can have a net yield if it's higher than inflation, and some years this is the case, and in some years it's not the case. But we're going to look at all three. And then we're going to look at crypto, we're going to look at Bitcoin, we're going to look at Ethereum, we're going to look at DeFi chain, and we're going to look at some parameters there. So first, let's look at commodities. In commodities, we obviously have a price, there's no cash flow, but a couple of things we can look at is how much is this commodity actually used. So for example, if we look at oil, we can see how many oil -needing cars are out there, how much oil does the industry actually utilize. In general, and this is key here, this generally means that this commodity, or be it a rare earth or something, is used, so it cannot be put back into its original form. Now obviously this is important here when we talk about usage. Now with gold, precious metals is a bit different, because in general gold cannot be used up. It can be used, but it cannot be used up, because it's an element, and destroying an element is not really possible. Now you can transform it, but with gold this is very very uncommon. But we can look for example, how much gold is used for industrial use, we can look at how much gold is used for jewelry. Now in theory this can be undone, but industrial use of jewelry in general is not a price speculation. So this would be a very very clear utilization, and these are kind of parameters that we could look at. So the more the Indians or the Chinese are buying gold for jewelry, in general we can say the price can be very well supported by something else other than price speculation. Or if more iPhones are being built and they need gold, then well this also drives obviously gold usage. What about fiat though? Is fiat only kind of used for a price? Is the US dollar the only thing you can look at is relation to other currencies? No. The actual use of a currency is that of a unit of account. That's the prime and number one kind of metric. How much is the dollar used as a unit of account? And we have a very good metric for that, and that is GDP. The bigger, the stronger the GDP in general, the stronger the currency. The number one GDP in the world, US dollar, that is why it's the global currency. And other currencies obviously go up there as well, but in general this is the number one utility measure for all these things. So you do have very clear utility numbers for all these things. And then we have crypto. And in crypto, the number one metrics that we always see from people out there are price metrics. People look at charts, they look at moving averages, they have the $200 moving average, they have a 20, a 50, a 200 week moving average. They tell you that the price has never crossed those things. But to be honest, these are absolutely terrible to me, these are not really good parameters. They are just there because we are actually really struggling to find good parameters in the crypto space. And you will see this. Now I have separated the parameters into three different types, into those that are really terrible, those that are okay, and then the gold standards. Now the gold standards measure the actual utilization, and this is always the key, and you will see this. So let's dive in with this. And maybe before I do this, let me know what you think is the key metric to look at when we look at Bitcoin. What is the key parameter? What's the key measurement? How would you measure those things? So let's take a look here. Now I have four really, really bad ones. The first one, anything that can actually be easily gained by bots or by a cyber attack. And actually, Satoshi knew that, and that is why we actually needed mining because he knew that it was impossible to somehow measure those things. For example, anything transaction -based because transactions are actually relatively cheap to make. So you can do a lot, a lot of transactions, and it doesn't really tell you anything. Also, the value that's being sent is a horrible metric because I could send a billion left, a billion right, a billion left, a billion right, and it doesn't tell you anything. Daily active addresses, also very difficult metric to use. Otherwise, Satoshi would have used these kind of things and would have said, look, instead of burning useless electricity, you have to make a thousand transactions, so the more transactions you make, the higher your chance that you're going to find the next block. None of that is the case. So he knew that. Why? Because burning electricity is just really clear, but actually doing those transactions is not clear because it can be bots, it can be easily gained. Now, some people mistakenly think that the hashrate tells you a lot about as a metric. And this is just LOL, I'm sorry. Hashrate is a consequence of the Bitcoin price, not the other way around. Now, I get it. To a certain extent, you need some hashrate, right? Because if you have zero, then this network is not stable. But after a certain limit, it doesn't really matter as much anymore if the hashrate doubles, for example, right? Like at the moment, the network doesn't become more stable just because the hashrate doubles, or even if it halves, it's not half as strong. This is ridiculous, right? It's so, so, so difficult already to attack it. And at the end, hashrate is purely a service provider that the network pays. So the bigger the budget, the more hashrate there is. And obviously, it's hashrate times hashprice. So the hashprice has been going down. So that's why the hashrate keeps going up all the time, even though the budget actually keeps going down slightly just because hashrate is actually going up. So the key metric is not necessarily hashrate. So it would actually be the hashprice. That's the key thing. And it's absolutely useless to look at that because that's just a consequence of the price. So looking at hashrate is just a trailing parameter from price doesn't really help much. Again, looking at price itself is just self -reinforcing. Just think about use price as a metric. Then if it goes down, that means value is going down. That means you should sell, which would make the price go down even further. So absolutely useless. And then there's a lot of those blah, blah statements, right? That are absolutely not measurable. And people love having this like, oh, we need to measure decentralization or the best thing is decentralization or freedom or it's the best thing ever. But there's no metric. There's nothing you can measure. And so at the end, this is just people kind of bypassing that they don't really have a parameter to kind of measure. So these are the really terrible ones. When you see people kind of talking about those, it's either they have no clue, they haven't thought this through, or they just don't have anything. And it's a combination of all three of all those. OK, so let's look at the OK ones. Now, there's a couple of OK ones and they're not really good, but I think they are usable.
The Charlie Kirk Show
A highlight from Battle Lines in Ukraine and the Senate with Sen. Rand Paul and Kash Patel
"Hey, feeling unsure about your finances these days? You're not alone. That's why Noble Gold Investments is here to help. Just hear it straight from the people who they've helped. The Noble crew walked me through everything with no stress. With their help, I could finally sleep easy at night. And now this month, Noble Gold Investments is handing out a free 5 -ounce silver America the Beautiful coin if you qualify for an IRA. Invest in gold and silver with Noble Gold Investments. Go to noblegoldinvestments .com right now. That is noblegoldinvestments .com right now. Hey everybody, today on The Charlie Kirk Show, Senator Rand Paul and Kash Patel. We talk about all sorts of different things, most specifically Ukraine with Senator Rand Paul and the funding and the cronyism around that. And then also with Kash Patel, we focus on the fourth branch of government. Why won't Republicans do anything? Email us directly as always, freedom at charliekirk .com. That is freedom at charliekirk .com. Become a member at charliekirk .com and click on the members tab.
The Crypto Conversation
A highlight from Torque Drift 2 - Motorsport comes to Web3
"Hi everyone, Andy Pickering here, I'm your host and welcome to the Crypto Conversation, a Brave New Coin podcast where we talk to the people building the future in the Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency space. Hey team, we have a new sponsor here at the Crypto Conversation, BitGet, one of the world's leading copy trading cryptocurrency exchanges, yes indeed. What happens if you've got the funds to invest but you don't have the time to keep track of the market? You still want to make smart money moves? What do you do? Well, copy trading is a popular choice for beginner traders. You can shorten your learning curve by uncovering tips and strategies from more experienced traders. BitGet's copy trading platform has over 80 ,000 elite traders to choose from and 380 ,000 followers just like yourself who are already using the BitGet copy trading platform as a potential passive income stream. All it takes is one click, you can subscribe to an elite profitable strategist, set your limits, automate your orders and monitor their trades. I've got some links in the show notes below, one link will take you through to the BitGet sign up page, give you a VIP discount. So learn all about it for yourself thanks to BitGet. And now it is on with the show. My guests today are Aaron Potter and Billy Sullivan. Aaron is the founder and Billy is the COO at Grease Monkey Games, a team I think based in Melbourne building immersive community driven games. For fans of motorsport, crypto, NFTs, Web3, all that good stuff, I'm sure we'll learn all about it today. Welcome Billy and welcome Aaron. Thanks for the invite. Oh yeah, great to be here. So I think what we'll do guys, it's always interesting having two people on the show, so I'll just kind of try and maybe direct questions to you in turn, but we'll do what we do at the beginning of the show. Be fantastic to just learn a little bit about both of you and I guess your personal and and professional backstory the lead up to founding and getting involved with the wonderful world of gaming. So let's start with you Aaron. Sure. So how I ended up in gaming, it goes kind of pretty far back. I come from a visual effects background and I used to do commercials and movies and things like that. So back in my 20s and even before that I kind of did some graphic design and print, but then came games about 12, 14 years ago, I started making games with my brother and together with my visual effects service work, yeah, it's kind of led us into making motorsport games and I haven't looked back really. I love making games. It's very hard, extremely difficult and time consuming, but a lot of fun. Absolutely. All right. Thank you Aaron and Billy. Yeah, for me as well, it kind of goes back quite a while. I've been at Grease Monkey Games for coming up to nine years, but I've been making games since I was about like nine or 10 actually. Discovered that you could make, choose your own adventure games in PowerPoint and in primary school and making kind of these little games and getting my friends to play them and that sort of a thing. And that kind of eventuated into me discovering and programming and modeling and all that good stuff, everything that kind of comes with making games, which was really interesting to me. And so once I kind of discovered games and got into games, especially getting into working with Aaron and on motorsport games, it's been a dream come true basically. And while it is very hard, like Aaron mentioned, it's very kind of fulfilling work. So yeah, great to be here talking with it about you, Andy. All right. Well, thank you, Billy. And Aaron, let's just start with the motorsport thing then. So why motorsport? And has motorsport kind of been a theme since the beginning? It's been, you know what, it does go back pretty far. So my first games that I made, as I mentioned, my brother used to make games very early on when mobile phones had just started making games as apps and stuff, in -app purchases and things like that. So we started doing car racing games back then, and we had some pretty good success. And then I kind of broke away and started doing my own one, set up my own games company. And I'm a bit of a motor head myself. I love cars. I love everything about cars, except building them. That's living up that to my friends. But yeah, it's a very fun kind of gaming genre to be in. It is challenging because when you think of car games, you're often going up against quite big budgets and big studios. So how we kind of tackle it is we try and find our niche within that. So it is very niche motorsport games that we focus on, particularly drifting, which I think is that niche, but it is a bit of a frowned motorsport compared to the rest of the motorsports out there anyway. Yeah. I mean, drifting, I guess it has a unique subculture around the world, but you see even like some of the seen lots of YouTube videos of some of the Formula One drivers practicing their drifting skills and so on. Absolutely. It's like everyone loves it. It's kind of like they're almost ashamed to admit it. Billy and myself go out drifting and we've got drift cars ourselves and it's very addictive to be honest. It's quite intense. It's very loud. And when you're shredding tires and there's a lot of smoke and it's just a lot of fun. It's crazy amount of fun. And just while we're talking about, I guess, real world and real life drifting. Yeah, Billy, what's the secret to a good drift car, do you reckon? A good drift car? Oh, well, rear wheel drive, I think is very critical. Having a hydro, an e -brake, it helps a lot just being able to, yeah, it's essentially an extra set of calipers on the rear wheel that separates it from the brake pedal kind of helps lock the rear wheels up. But outside of that, I think just a good seat and a harness goes a long way to bring that kind of connection to the car. Because if you have a stock seatbelt, you're going to be rolling around everywhere and it's hard to understand what the car is doing. So I think there's any aspiring drifters listening then do those things first. That's kind of what we do first and put a roll cage in for safety. I really enjoy the fact that you guys, you know, motorsport game developers, but also just, yeah, and real life drifters. So I think, Billy, you said at the beginning of the show that Greasemonkey Games, you founded it something like nine years ago. So there must be, give us a little bit of a sense of that journey then. So obviously the gaming industry has changed a lot during that time, of course, you know, the idea of Web3 games on Chain Games was still, wouldn't have been an existence when you founded the company. So just love to understand a little bit about, I guess, what the original vision was and how you've not necessarily pivoted, but just evolved, yeah, with the industry over that time. Yeah, I joined the company nine years ago, but Aaron founded it back in 2013. So I'll handball to you, Aaron, and then I'll kind of chime in at the end around how the vision's evolved. Yeah, cool. Okay, so initially we were doing a lot of service work, not game related. Well, it was interactive installations. So we were making games for large car companies that were set up at like the LA Auto Show and things like that. And so in 2014, we had four installations at the LA Auto Show, and that was with Honda Mazda and Nissan.
Five four two and the Blue
"four" Discussed on Five four two and the Blue
"What he had said to the class in claimed that it was a bad joke. He told the school officials that he made the joke up when the students became unruly and he was sorry he said it but school administrators took the substitute teachers. Bad behavior very seriously and we hear this all the time. 'specially sro sro zero tolerance policy for for bad behavior. If child at school makes a threat even though the threat is highly unlikely is still taken very seriously. So i guess if you're gonna take the students seriously and punish them. You have to do same thing with the staff and faculty to i guess he was arrested just four hours after making the threat and charged with making a terrorist threat in a school. This according to the new post you would suspended without pay by the school system. And they said this deeply. Disturbing allegation is absolutely unacceptable and this substitute teacher was immediately suspended. And according to a spokesman for the new york city department of education if this deeply disturbing allegation is found to be true he will be fired immediately. Little backstory on our substitute teacher. He has worked as a sub teacher in that particular. School system for over twenty years had no disciplinary history. According to what the new os dug up at the time. I was reading the original article the substitute teacher or was still in jail and was waiting to be arraigned yet. Hit the media immediately. That's our episode of victorious choices for her special place in hell. Thank you for listening. And if you have thoughts on this podcast unliked share them. You can contact us through the felon file dot com web page or email us directly at felon file dot com at felon file at gmail.com. And if you would be interested in copy of my books fiction and nonfiction works you can find them that amazon and barnes and noble as. Well don't forget to check out our stuff page on the website you can pick up a felon file t shirt or coffee mug there. If you have a good idea for shade of blue store your podcast. He'd like us to research and look into drop me or victoria line. You think others might be interested us in it. Send us a message. You can also support the foul podcast by buying victoria or me. A cup of coffee from the link at the bottom of the website. Now in the upcoming weeks remember. Try your best to be safe and secure. Don't let the shade of blue stories frighten you from doing good things and doing something. Nice for other people. It's still the right thing to do for ourselves. And our communities so closing out from the recording studio at scratch ankle north carolina. We hope you enjoy this podcast. And if you didn't there's no accounting for taste by all before we get a special place in hell update columbus county. North carolina a former north carolina. Police chief charged with embezzling money. Donated to a child with cancer is facing more charges after court appearance this week. Former chadbourne police chief anthony spivey was previously charged with embezzling eight thousand dollars donated to a family with a child with leukemia in court. This week was charged with more crimes in the incident. Several counts of obstructing justice larceny by employees obtaining property by false pretends failure to discharge duties by the embezzlement charges felony larceny and felony conversion. His previous and new bound is now eight hundred thousand dollars. He remains in jail indirect abuse and stealing from child.
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"So as an abc. This doesn't really apply to me. But i do know that when i'm not playing see when i'm playing a jungle or somebody else who actually cares about which boot they take. I know that. I look at the for whether i should take mercosur. Not i don't look at the. Ap damned profile. I think i think that's different. For specifically some top leaders though so there are some champions or champion archetypes who can choose between an offensive boot and a defensive boop for them. That's where the the the math on it is different. But essentially what crushes. That is where. I would go as well as if i'm someone who's going to build a defensive boot anyway if it's reduced tenacity. I'm building merck trends. I don't give a shit with damage profiles like if they don't the only time i'm still building trades. They all magic damage. Only magic damage. Which probably isn't the if they have three magic damage dealers and one eighty kerry and no cc. I'm gonna plated steel capsules that will build. Mri items might get some items. Yeah that's basically what. I was thinking as well as the actual like the legendary and mythic items do way more for the damage that trying to give it a. They don't do much for c. So exactly so the other the you brought up crush is the question of what about champions. Who can build multiple different types of it so this is going to include like control majors. Who sometimes we'll go source or boots. And sometimes we'll go. Merc treads This is going to include champions. Who are going. I only in boots if they don't need a defensive boot and trying to figure out whether or not they needed defensive boot and that's about it. What are your thoughts on where that line of when you should change merchants was i think it really depends on lane opponent. Honestly so if you're lane upon it is has a skill shot and they have a potential stunt in skill shot. I think that's what's i think about. So if i'm playing in into a singer i'm probably going merck treads just for the moment speed and in case i do get hit by that stun. It won't last as long. So i think it's very match with dependent about which type of defensive boots or alternate booths that you're looking for. I think in general just champion. Like what champion are playing has a big effect on which boots you wanna go right. If you're going zero-growth you're not supposed to be getting caught out. You're supposed to be far back doing damage so even if they have so much of a. ap you never are to go. Merc treads on him. You're you're because you should coffee. You're dead to begin with. Yeah but something. Like galileo definitely go. Merc treads or something like that. Depend on cc or ap either of them actually. Because you're pretty much the tank engage at that point and so you're meant to absorb a lot of crowd control and stuff like that. Yeah i know that used to be true that if there was like one source you could build Just just to get rid of the magic resist and then build arm items for the rest of them. I don't think that's true that much anymore. I'm going to bring up the civic. That happened yesterday in a game that crush was in so the league. Rundown does community games on wednesdays and in a game that we play i was playing tristan amid carries..
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"Now we're still gonna come down there coming down there to help you own it. Oh god and and also. I'm just saying if we don't come down there to kill your our opponent is gonna come down there and kill you and then we have to deal with that guy. No we're still gonna come down there. Yeah party in the mean. It's it's been a party in the bottling for almost the entirety of this games existence. The only like at least since season to season one was weird. Yeah the only thing. That still strict frustrates me as is that landing phases over both towers later down. I'm now in mid lane. And the mid later in the jungle both come to the lane in both wiped away. And i'm like why go elsewhere do that and they wipe the wave then. Don't stick around to like pressure the or do anything. They just walk away like the best ones are the ones where they wiped away. Then the jugular takes the raptors and the mid lehner takes dislike. Why why why am i here. What are you ever six. Oh for the love of god. Let me farm aright. When let's get another question this one comes from raven brand yea who writes. We love your neighbor even brand every time a serial guy. No no if you have to skips of ravens than this is this is the guy guy. Two scoops of ravens in every box. Alright raven brennan writes. Hello mighty awards. Control wards block enemy team vision of the map even for areas with yellow trinket or blue trinket where they overlap but what about areas where your control board overlaps. An enemy control word. What happens there also. When is it a good time to go. Blue trinket far say what are they. Good foreign how should they be used. I think those go hand in hand which is why. Ask both questions and now we can discuss them. Control control. words don't disable each other. They both exist in grant vision but the question is blue trickett. It's disabled by control. Awards when is it right to use it on an area you know has been vision tonight and when is it right to use it to get vision in the jumble. Because that's typically the other use of it is to cheat the ward leapfrogging and drop vision in bush's ahead of where you are so you don't have to face chick which use this correct. 'cause belichick has a long cool down. You can't do both yeah. I'm trying to think of like the difference situations. I use blue shrinking in. I think there's like three one of the one of the primary uses. I use it for is okay so first off the bought lane the bali enter. The abc is the one that has to take the trink and for this first purpose. Bush checking.
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"Specifically you're one of the only eighty carries with the go button. You have a way to start fight so you can actually be the one who's like okay. Let's brawl eighty carries. Don't normally have that agency so it feels really good on ash ashes. Basically the highest agency provided your team actually follows. Yes i would say. Probably the next one Yeah i mean it has a similar go button. Just not with the range strange. Yeah yeah. I mean if you're counting shorter-range ones like virus has one of those. There's it's ash. Has the advantage of hers is big and blue and very very noticeable up. Your teammates will actually know that your ability was cast as opposed to buddy i rooted up there carrying. No one. did anything like well. We didn't see the vericel because he's not flashy enough yet. I wish shots. I wish i was exaggerating. Can absolutely happen literally. They could buff farris just by adding particles on it so his oldest more visible to his team So yeah i feel like eighties a fine spot right now. They're not super great. They're not super bad. One of the ways to acquire more agency is to actually be farming forcing your opponents to respond to you getting a bunch of money and stop forcing team fights when you're eighty your team decides to fight and you follow up if you're there for the start of the team fight is very very likely that they're going to use some kind of cc on you instead of the rest of the team and that really custer teams damage drastically so you to avoid that. Join the fight after the the other thing that makes it feel especially in low alot but in general eighty carries have always felt like they don't have as much agency. Is that the rest of them at these guys as bags of gold. Yeah absolutely top leans teleporting bought midland's roaming jungles coming. But we're not doing that to help already carry. That's a side benefit. We're doing that to murder your a carey so that.
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"Hitting me if there's only if there's a full wave of six millions you're gonna take six million dollars if there's one million you take one million so there's a there's an idea of when you wanna trade is dependent on how many millions in the wave at least early on eventually you get to the point. We don't care about me hitting you pretty much or at least you don't care about nor amounts of minions hitting you and the reason why this is such a big deal in top line is you're usually mainly versus mealy so you have to be fighting. The menu wave in mid lane lane. Deranged usually have to fight them in. Waves your support can also takes away in bottling as well. Yep bottling bottling trading in my opinion is one of the hardest places because you're having to deal with two people depending on depending on the match up you kinda sometimes. Just don't get a trade like if you're into against something like a a cinna and caitlyn then you you don't you don't get it. They know what they're doing. That's elaine you all in them successfully or you play back and just catch what farm you can get. Those are your options in that matchup. My my current hated matchup. I hate this guy. Every time i see him in in my games because he like the king of trade it's driven driven winds trades as soon as he hits you his his single auto with q. Empowered auto does so much damage and it got buff dispatch that he wins the trade period if he if he hits you once he wins the trade. He has a one hit trading. And like if you if the only people who can successfully trade against driven or people who have who have a train pattern of two autos annan ability before he can hit you in the third auto because he starts winning the third auto to also kind of people who outrage him extremely caitlyn can just out trade him because she can get like autocue net before he's ever in range and he never gets to hear even with caitlin i ha- trading stephen because trading.
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"Don't prolong the fight whereas if you're a champion who's trading pattern extends very long you want prolong the fight and keep going. I mentioned kong actually earlier. And he has a very long trading pattern because the more he gets to auto you the fast you cue you. And it'll just it'll just keep going if you if you let him keep trading with you so that's a really good example of someone who would like to take short trades against if possible because he will win in the long rates. I think the best advice. I can give on trading is never trade away your red eyes black dragon but or your other tar is our yeah other than that Look it get good at at seeing where or the health of your minions as along with the health of your opponent's millions and then stand on the minion you know. They're about to farm. If you stand on top of your minion that they're about to try and kill then they have to make a choice. Either they have to auto you and miss the farm auto the minion and get off road in the face or a abilities thrown in their face from you and lose a trade or to just back off. So that's i think practicing that. I and getting that skill down outside of ranked like just getting the of your minions their health where you're standing even if you can't necessarily trade initially start there and then start working on your trait and important thing about this when you start trading be really good at cancelling your autos or cancelling animation. So that you can step out before. They can retaliate. Yup and the reason why is it. Training is because in the situation said you're giving them an auto attack to the face. And they have the option of trading back an auto attack to your face or an auto attack to them and it's their choice whether they want to get gold or health of you if you force them to make that choice over and over and over again you keep muddling their health down and either. They aren't hitting you or they're just getting gold. They're choosing the trade health for gold or health for health so the other thing. That's toppling specific law. Is i feel like a huge percentage of the champion pool. Top line has one ability. That is just a win. If i hit this. This'll be like darius poll. Mordechai paul schenn taunt those kinds of things if they land that ability they win the trade she are riposte fuhrer riposte. Yes all the these abilities. Very common in toppling champions less common in other roles they definitely exist so a lot of trading toppling specifically is predicting when these abilities will be used to making sure. You don't get hit by them so that you can then continue the fight. Because they've missed their key ability. If you're what. I had yesterday in into a mortar..
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"Pets this week. Patch twelve came out and we are going to highlight some of the changes. We want to focus on for this patch. Well know what changed with talent so they shifted talents. Damage output On the the return of the rake so the rake is his w or shoots out. I guess they're sure is that what they are and they return back to so now it's not as deadly in lane. 'cause talents play style. Is you rake the lane. Maybe get a poke off that way. If your enemy lehner's in the minion wave clear the wave when you pretty much just rome. So now it's not as punishing if he just get hit by the initial part of his rake. There's more skill expression involved in order to get the full damage in the return rate on talent so little small change. But i think it's good for the game especially talent. I hate facing talent and so this changes perfect in terms of not taking away too much power but more shifting towards Adjusting play styles utilizes damage now and the second half of the race still hits just as hard as it did. Basically like it's it's gained the damage that was taken away from the first half so talented can actually hit. All their abilities should still be fine. All right crush hit us. So what's the monkey king. Doing this patch. lucon is getting a nerf. He's taking to nerves of one to his base that damage growth's going from four three point five and is damage ratio on his cue. The crushing blow is going from fifty percents. Bonus eighty to forty five percent boris. Ad these are nurse. They are not really going to impact his win. Rate i feel like divine sundering cl- and black lever. Were both both the same time. And those are the first two items you buy kong. He loves those buffs to those items and this nerve to his actual stats aren't aren't going to offset those buffs. He's going to be strong. So yup right on the damage. Top doesn't really do anything because he already has. Innate armor shred in his kids well on top of black lever. So this it's not really gonna do anything he's still be really strong pech. You're all right. i'm gonna go next. Because mine's short and sweet and then we'll arc give us his a summary of everything affiliates which might take the entire episode because of goes is felony has a novel every time i just want to highlight zags. Got to changes the mild one is. He gained a tiny damage on his cue past rank one. It's literally like five extra damage per rank after the first. It's nothing sarah element. What excites me. Though is the mega inferno bomb. His ultimate got sped up dramatically for longer range casts. It still has a minimum travel time of one point two seconds but it's missile speed has gone up by literally fifty percent so the long range shots will arrive.
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"Caitlin has a lot of skill expression but the floor to be like an effective even if not ideal. Caitlin is very easy at h. Is also testing. Adc in terms of spacing in the bought lane. She has one of the largest attack rangers. So that will actually improve your leaning betas. Well 'cause you can understand When you can auto someone when they can't auto you and then you start understanding how trades and things like that. So i would. I would definitely recommend caitlin. Yeah that does remind me that the thing about one of the things four caitlyn specifically is that when you right. Click on somebody to auto them to trade. If you don't want to extend the trade if you want to finish it now right. Click away from them. Move away while you're in the animation of buying them so that you're already moving away after after you hit them it'll help. It's one of the things that someone told me this. This changes so much. It's so to not be overly technical that is animation cancelling the backswing of your auto attack. Yeah after it comes out moving away as soon as we possibly can basically every time you auto attack the startup. which is. I have initiated our attack. But i haven't shot yet the shot. And then the batsman. Which is. I've fired but i haven't begun readying my next attack yet. You issue the move command during that last section to cancel out that section with movement. And then when it's over then you start reading up your next auto if need be. That's hiding one. That's true for every champion and mccain by the way this is not caitlyn specific yeah. It's just very noticeable on caitlyn. Because if you don't do it you'll notice that you're actually trading one for one autos Despite kaelin having the highest range in the game not counting like taiwan w the highest non empowered ranging in the things that beat it eventually are jinx q. And donna base range in very high levels cognitive. W and of course rapid-fire all sure but we're talking lightning fast enough souls cannot range it. Yeah.
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"He is the best person that i know to ask. The rundown needs some a little bit of content because then the inbetween trust me. We don't we're struggling to keep our episodes below an hour and a half right. Yeah not anymore. there's split twelve. Lcs games and get team fifteen a week all right. That's that's a tangent all right. Our next question comes from that. Who writes everyone. I started playing league towards the end of season ten. So i'm still pretty new to everything. I really liked the eighty carol and especially enjoy playing. Kesse vein donna. My question is which eighty carry. Champions would you recommend that are less dependent on lane synergies and matchups i. It doesn't matter as much. What your support. Any enemy bottling pick. I generally feel fine. I picking casa but trust donna and vain. Games can go pretty badly for me. If i'm not playing well with my support. Or if the enemy team can counter pick. I also enjoy longer-range pokey eighty carries silver ashen barris. But i don't feel like i'm as effective on that. I should also add that. My goal is to just become a better and more consistent players not necessarily trying to optimize my wintry. That's an interesting question. I would generally say that. Tr- astana as real. And i think silver probably sever basically don't care who they're with. They like certain ones more than others in several really enjoy having an engaged support. But they don't need one engage support. They're happy with an enchanted. They're happy with a major like it's fine. Regardless and israel enjoys having a polk support with him but again does need to have one like he was uni effectively. That's not common frady's. He's one of the few decent with me as an eighty carry themselves. Honestly ezra was probably probably the what for this because because of a single support bard because bar exists and bard is basically only played with israel because he's the only one that can one to if necessary to.
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"Chat with you for hours about it. The dude loves show gaffe more than a million have not actually asked him his opinion. Yeah but i'm pretty sure. He'll agree with me. Unsealed spell book is dope. Even if you may not agree with me. I'm being the best and other than that on. Anyone supports take it sometimes. You'll see an abc take it very rarely nowadays but it does happen. Eighty season basically just want to eighty one a sack the lane basically. Yeah don't wanna be tied to teleport for the entire game. Our next question comes from half mask. Who writes hey four awards. It's half mask the doda to trader. It took me eight months. But i finally have some new questions to ask during my tenure in doda to i was told the older you get the harder it is to play certain lanes dude degrading reflexes. If i recall correctly it was the most noticeable at eighty carry at least as support and least at support does lead have a similar problem or is this only noticeable indo to for the record. I'm thirty two and definitely noticed my reflexes getting worse with age but i haven't played league long enough to see a difference and i mean i'm not the oldest here. That's jack's by a couple of months. But yeah i yeah i still don't have a huge problem with reflexes but maybe i'm weird of. So here's the thing what you're describing is one hundred percent true for people at the peak. Oh that's true are literally the best player in the world at twenty one even if you practice the hardest and put the most time in you will probably not still be the best player in the world. Come thirty two because your body has degraded slightly. Is that because of age or is it because of nine years of playing a game. That is hard on your wrist. I'm going to say there's a little of both there. But and this is my anecdote that i always pull out. Fighting games require literally frame. Perfect inputs one sixtieth of a second to play at the highest level. And there are thirty. Nine year olds that are still winning. International fighting game tournaments age is not. What's holding you back. you can do it just in. Walden is the one. I know off the top of my head. I don't really follow the fighting games seen that well. He's incredibly famous yeah There is a thirty year old pro. Who was just at the midseason invitational in league of legends this year..
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"Take stupid risks. You may not win still but you will lose doing that. Most likely probably less because so yeah if you play aggressive and limit test and in rate then it's more likely that the enemy lane snowball noboby the reason for the loss yet. Yeah baron enough. Yeah i still recommend the flex q. Ideas better yeah. That would be my thing especially like i know. We're a mostly north america. Podcast as far as our community you mentioned in your your in game name. Your e u s. We do have a lot of other. Us players you just have to task comes during the discord Let's the other thing is that he's he's us and diamond. You're you're above us. Yeah yeah in that. Like is that shelter level master. A grand master. I think it's just regular master. Okay but yeah. It's very high is very good at league of legends. Our next question comes from cross heart and actually it's a few questions across heart rights. I directed at jax remain. Have you had experience where you just get stomped or camps are so far behind that you feel like you can't contribute much team. Well i have an it feels terrible. What should i do in situations like. This plan is to just appeal for the carrying with charm and potentially ever frost. If i went ludens instead and end up very behind is never worth selling it forever frost or just find a way to make it work so it is never were selling it forever. Frost the goal losses way too great. And you're already behind he. Hath however a they build out mostly the same components they both have a blasting one and they both have chapter there by the time. You have those two items. You should know whether this is an ever frost game ludens game if for some reason you chose wrong and you have a ludens but you're behind and you're not going to be able to do the assassin thing.
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"But that gives you a way to join. If you're feeling like you have to split. Push to win but also they're idiots who are going to get caught. That's the solution. I remember one of the things i was told about. Teleport usage is you. Don't use it to save people. Use it to kill people. Yes because if you try to use sap billions late and yona is a scary good flanker like counter engaged type champion. Like i have definitely had games where we're three five. Because two people died at the start of a fight got caught out and then i managed to hit a three or four man. Because they're clumped up trying to kill the remaining people on my team and didn't realize i had come in. That actually reminds me of something you can do with. Teleport is while you're split pushing the purpose you'll see. Sometimes people place award in the middle of the middle of the map really like the very center right in the middle of midland and the reason for that is if you go off to a silent and split push and then your team has pushed past that word back towards their side of the map and they keep and the enemy team could keep pushing forward. You have a flanking ward now right behind them. You can tell us what to that word. And that's a really good start to a fight. All right so he also asks if we can recommend another mid to pick up if you wanna is banned or i assume picked away from him. That is not yesler. Think you're looking for similar trade patterns. You could go with echo. Yeah i play a lot of echo and yo- names on they played pretty similarly with kind of echoes three hip passive and yanni's triple q. You have a safe dash both and then if you feel like you overstepped on echo users are and you're kind of out of the fight so it kind of gives you that extra safety in a way i find. Yona feels most like an assassin to me. So i so i think like zad and talent. That's actually has really very similar trade pattern a like. He throws a shadowed in qs. That's kind of a only does kind of your press buttons in a specific order and they take damage and he's hard to diet against when he does it. He's very vulnerable after he throws his mobility ability like. That's when i agree. I would also argue because the distinction between yona and like most assassins. Is that as good. Cc champions cesaro talent. don't you know what other assassin has. Good cc kiana. Yeah so that would be another one to consider if you enjoy that kind of like assassinated ali blow people up and be a good team fighter as well as like talent or not. Great team fighters. They're great snowball hours. And is that in the silent. Is terror all right so i hope that helps batman on crack. We all love your name. Our next question is a short one from grandma. Type beat so grandma..
Four Wards Podcast
"four" Discussed on Four Wards Podcast
"We don't have a topic tonight. We could think of one. So we're going to qna. We're going to let you the listeners. Dictate our topic to talk about tonight. So let's get right to it. We're going to skip over at clash happened. We've talked about it enough. In past many many weeks. I mean we also did on discord. Doria that discord. If you wanna hear about our clash experience joined the community so our first question tonight comes from monday. Regular question writer to the podcast. This time. Mundi rights guys. I've been trying to make the job from silver one day. Gold champions don't seem to be working too well anymore. I used lux's zero and swain decline. I was wondering. Would it be a bad idea to transition to one. Tricking senators support the grasp bill. I made her. But i've been told she is mechanically difficult and that anyone below plant should avoid her for ranked. Is there any truth to this. Thanks mundi as the current senate player. No you should go ahead and play center. I will say that this question might be old because patch. Came in that nerve. Crossfire the current. I am told that the current support built for senate is divided into black cleaver the crackle slayer into razor blade still works. The eclipse into cleaver works But center is apparently the best for support for adc. It's still cracking player into blade. But no it works. She's mechanically difficult. Really strongly disagree. With that one champion skill shot champions are always going to be a little bit more demanding than appointing clicker. But it's a weird sales shot the only there's only two weird parts of santa's kit and that's basically the well. I guess there's three hurt. So her cue hitting someone with it. That's not the thing you clicked on. That's difficult knowing how to out animation. Cancel the queue or go into each other. That's kind of difficult and the last thing. That's that's like special is the fact that your your w it hits them and then approx after a little while but if you hit a million with it and it kills the minute prox- immediately so crazy things like that but like that's all the skill expression there is for san basically. There's not a other than that. It's an eighty kerry. it's very much. It's one of the reasons why i was able to play pretty easily. Because it's very much a lot like thing caitlyn because she kind of bullies in the lane and is very dependent positioning and that it has a couple of little tricks with her kit. That's about it not complicated. I'm also gonna throw it out there. Luxury swain are still great and gold. Like you don't have to stop playing those champions. If you enjoy those champions just keep doing it. Those champions suck us up still swain. Swain makes me mad but so swayed is good. I will say that. Iran in the same problem like when i hit silver one i couldn't break into gold and i had been meaning more ghana support and i think so as well at the time this was years ago And i remember. I couldn't get into gold playing support. I switched. abc to try something new. And that's what eventually took me to go..
Five four two and the Blue
"four" Discussed on Five four two and the Blue
"Member jury panel having been instructed by the judge left to deliberate the case. Now those of you who are perry mason fans may have probably already started talking back to the device. That's playing this podcast. Lunceford you idiot. And north carolina. There are only twelve jurors on a capital offence trial. Yes that is true and you are correct. Two hours after being sent into deliberate sheriff english went back to check on the jury checking on dinner. Food needs whatever on the sheriff discovered that the thirteenth or alternate juror and not been dismissed before the case was given to the jury not being dismissed. He had proceeded back with the jury to deliberate with them. Which as you might have guessed was not illegal thing to do or to have occur and when this error was disclosed that defense counsel move for a mistrial and this is about the only thing that the judge agreed with with a defense on judge ordered the extra juror ru move from the jury room and the motion for mistrial was discussed by all parties and the judge declared a mistrial. Now what is an alternate juror. The alternate juror is selected in capital cases. Sometimes they have to so there might be fourteen people actually listening to the case. They're selected in capital cases. Sit through the trial inside the courtroom. They hear the same evidence the hear the same statements as the first original twelve people that were chosen. They take part in deliberation only in case one of the first twelve jurors becomes incapacitated. Can't be there for whatever reason and during the course of the trial otherwise the alternate jurors are dismissed before. The jury begins their deliberation and their excuse from the courtroom. A mr b. Pack ended up being the third wheel in this jury pool. At the time after announcing the mistrial judge plus assumed responsibility fully for the oversight and declared that he would be willing to hold a special term of court to retry the case. That any expense to the county council for both sides and court officials including the sheriff likewise insisted on also taking the blame for the air. Apparently nobody was paying attention now. The prisoners were remanded back to jail to await a new trial in madison..
Five four two and the Blue
"four" Discussed on Five four two and the Blue
"Then they found two hundred seventy four dollars continuing to force. Mr led ford to point out more. They found two thousand dollars in some shoes. Another three thousand five hundred dollars hidden also on the property. A search bank records also showed that. Mr leopard had about seven thousand dollars at the bank at the time. This is a total of thirteen thousand dollars or approximately. If you converted into twenty twenty one dollars a two hundred forty two thousand three hundred fifteen dollars totally net worth quite a bit of money even by today's standards the two cousins admitted to the sheriff and his investigators how it all went down that preceding friday. They made their plans to rob. Mr bradford the to deduct boys arrived led forbes cabinet around seven thirty in the morning that sunday they had arrived early and watch mr latte vernon is in his usual morning routine when lead. I went out to milk. the cows. The too young then broke a window on the opposite side of the house from the bar in climb through their plan to ambush the old man when he came into the house and force him to tell them where he had stashed his money. when lead. i returned the two. Young men overpowered him tied and gagged him and handled the sixty four year. Old man around the cabin making point out his money stashes when done they put him in the kitchen knocking him unconscious with pieces of the firewood. Both of the cousins maintained throughout their confession that they did not attempt to kill mr leopard. The also admitted to robbing another house about a week prior to the murder taking cash in pocket. Watch sheriff charge at two cousins with first degree murder nasa county. Grand jury concurred in a trial in superior court was set up too much later when court started the first thing. That offense council made requests for separate trials for the two young men This was denied by the court. Defense also challenged the jury on the grounds that no women were summit as jurors and that the juror pool was drawn from only ten of madison. County sixteen townships. I guess you gotta go for what what you have available..
Five four two and the Blue
"four" Discussed on Five four two and the Blue
"Automobile of a lone female driver. They spotted mrs lee driving home from work on a secluded road. The two men bumped the nineteen seventy eight four granada from the rear and acted like it was an accident on the scott. Mislead pull over to the side of the road once stopped and she exited from the car. The men produced a handgun in kidnap. Mislead kidnapping was not the men's objective. Though they were professional roberson thieves. The two men in the vehicle were ronnie howard and dana weldon. Ronnie howard was already on parole for a bank robbery. He had murdered another woman as well but that investigation had not caught up with him and it was still listed as unsolved howard. Had been involved in over seventy two armed robberies mostly of pizza hut's taco bell restaurants fast food type establishments. Many of those committed along with dana. Weldon allen lee exited or car to inspect the damage. Howard forced her back into the automobile. A gum point. He then drove away and leads vehicle in weld and followed in the other car. Howard stopped in an isolated area on the side of the desolate road at night and howard placed a plastic bag of some sort over the terrified mother of three said to be quiet. Then the two men beat lee and eventually murdered her. By suffocation taking the body they again drove around until they found another isolated area. This was beside south carolina. Highway eleven near pleasant ridge state park there. The two men stripped the clothing from the victim and using cans of soda. They found in lease car in a rain-filled puddle. They washed the body as much as possible to remove what they thought were any fingerprints or other evidence that they might have left behind. The body was said underneath a large pats of kudzu. And those of you who are not familiar with kudzu. Kudzu is a non native plant to the united states found in the south. It's a very fast growing plan. Kudzu is also known by the name of foot a night vine. It's possible if you've got the time and you stare at it enough you can see this plant grow now left alone for several days. The plant cover up completely whatever's underneath it on this ended up being the body of mislead they later disposed of the victim's clothing and personal effects and various garbage dumpsters around charlotte north carolina..
Five four two and the Blue
"four" Discussed on Five four two and the Blue
"In helping miami. Pd capture the shenandoah rapist. In two thousand four in a former. Fbi agent. Bob whitening have been working without pay on tapes case for almost two years. The investigators say that they uncovered evidence that a sixteen year. Old named carruthers at the time lived on the first floor of the building when the crime took place an aspiring rapper. Who went by the hand or goes by the handle. Little will carruthers met through mutual friends sometime in two thousand four and according to a swarm statement that he gave in two thousand and five somedays. I would see him walking to school. But i never said anything to him until the started coming around where i live. It has been shown that on the day of the robbery. Lionel tate had sent a text message to carruthers. That stated. you still want to bust that lick after school question. Mark now in his statement. Crowder's explained that bus. That look is slang for robbery in the tate was referring to stealing from an unidentified. Hollywood florida teenager who was known to carry a large sum of cash but never happened. That was all talk. Carruthers told police others claimed he was on the sidewalk outside the apartment building when the pizza guy showed up and lionel tate was at the top of the staircase and he was witness to the robbery occurring now another young man who was twelve years old at the time and lived in the apartment where the robbery took place initially told police that he saw lionel tate. Rob the pizza guy later years later after speaking to the private investigators. He recanted his story. And during a deposition he claimed the tate wasn't even there when the pizza guy entered the apartment. He says carruthers was standing by the front door with a gun tucked under his waistband. And he says. I saw him out. And that's when i ran to my mom's room and that's where i heard a scream indicating that was the pizza guy. Screaming asked by taste. Defense attorney why. He didn't identify carruthers from the building. He said because i was scared and he said he was going to kill me now. There was another story that was brought up by a mr edwards who is a convicted felon who called the defense team from jail edwards claims. He was in the apartment also the night of the robbery and he saw carruthers wearing the maroon shorts. That tate was identified as being wearing during the robbery and one of the things that he was identified with by now recovered evidence by the way when they did find the shorts that were identified by the victim as being the ones worn by the shooter or the robber the shorts did have lionel tate. Dna autumn and not anybody else's now the private detectives say that. Mr edwards really has nothing to gain by his eye lamenting the other man. Mister carruthers the investigators stated we are not law enforcement. So it's not like we can offer him anything. There was absolutely no benefit for him to come forward with this information the information about possible other. Dna information about possible other witnesses. The information about the recanted statement of the little boy this is all provided to state prosecutor's office and they have really not issued at the time any statement of the findings but the broward county sheriff's office who investigated both the original murder of the six year old and the salt in robbery. The pizza guy did make a public statement. Broward county sheriff's spokesman. Elliot cohen dismissed the private investigators charges saying i'd expect nothing less from two people who are working for the person they are trying to exonerate. The court record is very extensive and pretty clear about what happened. The last appeal for lionel tate was in two thousand and eight. Now how did it turn out for him. You might ask well. The new information didn't go very far at least ways. It didn't go very far with the cork. According to the state of florida tate will not be eligible for release from department of corrections prisons. There in florida till may of twenty thirty. He's got ten more years. I guess maybe that shows there might be a limit to the number of times. You can cry foul in say there was a problem apparently might be the limit. But i'm sure with nothing else better to mr. Tate will continue to work on getting out of prison and that is his right. He should take advantage of any rights that he has now. That's our shade of blue story for this saturday. I hope you've found it interesting. Mr lionel tate is still locked up feud like more information on him. You can do some web searching and come up with further information but the latest as of this date is that his. He's not going to get out of prison until twenty thirty. Thanks for listening. everyone. I appreciate the contacts. I'm getting through my website and the follow ups with individuals that have been giving me some very good creative criticism. And how i work and what i do and i'm trauma to improve the quality. The podcast and my enunciate among other things a remember in the coming weeks. Drop me a line. Happy to hear from you. Remember to be safe be secure and if you get the opportunity to do something nice for somebody is really the right thing to do. It'll make you feel better. Somebody else feel better. All right victoria. You've got the control board again. Go ahead and close us out. We'll talk to you guys next saturday. Baio you have been listening to five four to the blue law enforcement history criminal issues and incidents in the appalachian mountains and elsewhere hosted by scott lunceford for more information on this podcast check out. Scott lunceford dorothy dot com or five four two in the blue dot com links to the podcast information on scott's books and how to acquire them he can be reached through the message portal on the page. This is victoria your producer to one and..