The Trillion Dollar ETH Pitch | RSA+DH

This episode discusses how to pitch Ethereum (ETH) to traditional finance (TradFi) and Wall Street audiences, focusing on seven leading ETH narratives.

1. Ethereum's programmability sets it apart from Bitcoin, enabling a broader range of financial applications.
2. Simplifying Ethereum's narrative for traditional investors is crucial for broader adoption.
3. Tokenization of assets on Ethereum is a compelling narrative for institutional investors.
4. Ethereum's role as an app store and operating system for decentralized applications (dApps) can resonate with non-crypto natives.
5. The importance of framing Ethereum as a complement to Bitcoin, not just another cryptocurrency.

1: Introduction

Overview of the episode and the competition between the hosts to pitch Ethereum to TradFi investors. Ryan: "The Ethereum ETF is coming. So what is the best narrative for ETH, at least for TradFi, for Wall Street?" David Hoffman: "We're gonna do what I think Bankless does best, which is help define, help shape the narrative for ETH."

2: Seven Leading ETH Narratives

Discussion of the seven key narratives for pitching Ethereum. David Hoffman: "We're going to discuss on the episode the seven different leading ETH narratives."

3: Pitching Ethereum to TradFi

The hosts present their pitches, focusing on the unique aspects of Ethereum that appeal to traditional investors. Ryan: "Ethereum is like Bitcoin, but with the addition of programmability, which really changes the game."

4: Evaluating the Pitches

Bankless community members vote on the best pitch, with the winner receiving a unique POAP NFT. David Hoffman: "If you are a Bankless citizen, you get to vote on who had the better pitch."

5: Conclusion

Final thoughts and actionable advice on pitching Ethereum to traditional investors. Ryan: "We are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the Bankless journey."

1. Simplify complex crypto concepts into relatable analogies for traditional investors.
2. Highlight Ethereum's programmability and its potential for diverse financial applications.
3. Emphasize the concept of tokenization and its implications for future asset classes.
4. Use familiar terms like "app store" and "operating system" to describe Ethereum's functionality.
5. Position Ethereum as a complement to Bitcoin, focusing on its unique features.
6. Engage with the audience by presenting clear, concise, and compelling narratives.
7. Use credible examples, such as Larry Fink's endorsement of tokenization, to build trust.
8. Tailor the pitch to address the specific interests and concerns of traditional investors.
9. Leverage Ethereum's economic model, including its deflationary aspects and staking rewards.
10. Continuously refine and iterate on the pitch based on feedback from the target audience.

The Ethereum ETF is coming. What’s the best narrative for ETH to sell to TradFi/Wall Street? Ryan and David discuss the 7 leading ETH Narratives and then have a pitch-off amongst themselves. Each of them prepared a 1-2 minute pitch and then they each spend some time unpacking each other’s pitch and analyzing each point. Bankless Citizens get to vote - whose was better? Ryan or David’s? The winner gets a bragging rights POAP.

People

Larry Fink

Companies

BlackRock, Circle, Securitize

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Ryan
The Ethereum ETF is coming. So what is the best narrative for ETH, at least for Tradfi, for Wall street? Welcome to another bankless takes, David. We're gonna have a pitch off today. What's in store for today's episode.

David Hoffman
We're gonna do what I think bankless does best, which is help define, help shape the narrative for ETH, but this time for an audience that we don't typically talk to when we pitch ETH. We have, I think, previously talked about how to pitch ethnic to the crypto native, to the people who really get it. But what about the people who just want to understand why they should buy the Ethereum ETF, which means they're not taking self custody. They don't necessarily appreciate the value of self custody. They also have a very diversified portfolio, and they're generally from an older generation.

So how do we pitch ETH to these people, this cohort of what is a very large investor base? We're going to discuss on the episode the seven different leading ETH narratives, and then Ryan and I are going to have a competition where each one of us has presented a pitch that we are going to pitch to each other, and also you, the bankless nation. And then bankless citizens get a role here that you guys, if you are a bankless citizen, you get to vote on who had the better pitch. Winner gets bragging rights, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Bragging rights are.

But bragging rights is also a one of one po app NFT that we're going to make our designer. Our designer is currently designing, and either Ryan or I will be the holder of the bragging rights PO app NFT as a result of the bankless citizens vote. And I would like to say from peaking, speaking from how I feel, I do not want to be the non holder of the bragging rights PO app. I would like to be the holder of the bragging rights Po app. That's just how I feel, David.

Ryan
Not going to lie, man. I'm a little bit nervous coming to this episode because I've seen you train for fights before, all right? I saw you train for your Nick Carter fight, and it was like day and night for like months, getting, like, beat up in the gym, like, coming on these episodes bruised and beaten. So God knows what you had to do in order to construct this eth narrative pitch. I prepared mine, full disclosure.

I paired prepared mine about an hour before we started recording because I crashed it. A last minute homework I left at. The very last minute. I thought it would be easy, but it's hard. It's actually hard to get a simple, coherent, like one to two minute pitch down for ether.

The asset, it's kind of like there's so many things you can say about Ethereum that that is the art of this. And this actually goes back all the way to, I think, a tweet that really inspired this whole thing from Eric Balachunis, who tweeted out, one of the challenges for ether, ETF's penetrating the 60 former boomer world is distilling its purpose and value in an easy to understand sound byte, a la bitcoin is digital gold. Does a simple one liner exist like that for ether? What is the bitcoin is digital gold? One liner for ether.

David Hoffman
Now this is, we're going to give a 62nd pitch, so much more than a one liner. But this is the beauty of bitcoin. And I also think the beauty of Ethereum is that, you know, bitcoin is so trivially easy to understand that you can put it into a one line sound bite. And Ethereum is so incredibly expansive that you kind of need a 62nd pitch. So we're doing the 62nd pitch format here today, David, putting it is your.

Ryan
Hope, though, that we can get this to one, one sentence sound bite, because you sort of need to, in order for a meme to travel like one single line. I think the Ethereum one single line comes from a more general, broad understanding of what Ethereum is. Does the Internet have one single line? I'm not sure it does. Good retort, but that's just because everyone knows what the Internet is.

Yeah, and I'll say that going into this episode, I think that there will be eras or seasons where different lines are more applicable than others. So in the 1990s Internet, when you're trying to explain the concept, you might have said something like, the Internet is e commerce, right? And that would have been accurate, and that would have been one sliver of it. But obviously just a small segment of the total value that the Internet would, would eventually drive. And the Internet became kind of like a bundle of multiple different use cases.

I see this very similarly with Ethereum, where there will be eras where one meme or one one liner works and that will fade out and another will supersede it, or that will fade into the background and we'll have different narratives every couple of years. In fact, David, that's actually been a bitcoiner charge, like bitcoin, maximalist charge of Ethereum over the ages, which I think is somewhat interesting. Which is like, you guys keep changing your narrative. I thought it was this, and now it's this. And I think the answer to that is mostly no.

It is that, and it is also this. Yes. And it's yes. And so the pursuit of defining all the narratives started with a tweet where I labeled some of the first four that came to my head. Digital, oil, Internet, bond, programmable money tokenization platform.

David Hoffman
These are definitely some of the narratives that we've put out here at bankless. And then after this tweet, I went on a hunt for, for even further validation of some of these same narratives and also adding new ones into this list. So I've come up with seven different perspectives, seven different angles. It's really six and a half of ways of viewing ether the asset, and in no particular order. But I did start with Ethereum as a tokenization platform first, because I want to introduce that one as one of the most new and novel perspectives of the ETH pitch.

When you and I would write the ETH pitch, Ryan, we wouldn't really talk about Ethereum as a tokenization platform, because if you're going to sell ether, it's weird to start talking about Ethereum. You and I have been so focused on ether the asset, but I don't think that nuance really matters if you only have 60 seconds. So talking about what Ethereum does and talking about what its native currency, ether is, is almost synonymous for people who are actually kind of naive to the fact that there is a difference there. Ether and ethereum is basically the same thing. And tokenization as a candy line, as like a nerd snipe, as something that is enjoyed by many, many people.

I think tokenization has broad appeal, and this is the perspective that Zach Ryan's chain link God puts into perspective here, where he says every single financial asset in the world will be tokenized on chain. Tokenize the world, tokenize everything. This has been a meme that has persisted across all crypto cycles, he continues. There's no longer a question of if, but a question of when. Larry Fink, co founder and CEO of BlackRock, has spoken publicly on numerous occasions about this inevitability when regulatory clarity continues to be a pain point.

Larry got both bitcoin and ETF approves by an anti crypto sec. Beyond that, BlackRock has launched its own tokenized fund on Ethereum mainnet. Now at half a billion dollars. AUM invested in Circle, which issues USDC invested in securitize, one of the leading tokenized asset issuers, and used both circles and securitized tech stack to issue buildle. There's no doubt in my mind that builder won't be the last fund Blackrock tokenizes on a public blockchain.

Okay, so really leaning into the tokenization platform of Ethereum and also using the credibility of BlackRock and Larry Fink, he's not a crypto native. He has like boomer customers. And so I think it's, it's worth taking a leaf out of his book to understand how he is using and also pitching ETH to his customers. And so Ethereum as a tokenization platform, I think, needs to be a pretty core component of what any typical pitch about ETH is to tradfi. Okay, so that is the first of seven narratives that you think are contenders to be one of the key narratives to explain this, to give your 62nd to two minutes, because David, spoiler alert, I think mine's closer to two minutes now, so give me some grace there.

Ryan
But like a tokenization platform, this is not usually the pitch you're saying to crypto natives, but might be like much more resonant to tradfi. And indeed, it was certainly that the pitch Larry Fink has given. And of course, the customers of Larry Fink are going to be the buyers of ETF's. Blackrock is one of the main issuers of the Ethereum ETF. They're the leading issuer for the bitcoin ETF in terms of AUm.

So you'd think, this guy knows how to sell it. So tokenization platform, it's not exactly going bankless, is it? But it is something that Ethereum provides, and maybe that's a leading narrative for this platform. Totally. And I think we all kind of felt something in our hearts when we learned about the idea of tokenization.

David Hoffman
And so it's also reminding people that, let's go back to your first days in crypto, and what really got you excited about crypto and tokenization. The idea of tokens is definitely up there. Well, one thing I used to say when I was new to learning about Ethereum is that bitcoin was a mono asset platform, just one asset, just bitcoin. And Ethereum is a poly asset platform, multiple assets. So that is a similar idea to tokenization, I guess.

Let's go into narrative number two, angle number two. Ethereum is an app store. And this is coming out of Jeff Dorman, who put out a tweet saying, attention blackrock, Vanek Digital assets. And bitwise, once the EtH ETF goes live, please erase the words supercomputer, ultrasound, money, Internet, bond from your memory. This is not resonate with anyone.

What does? Ethereum is an app store. And this is an angle that I've seen many people take Ethereum as an app store. And it's, again, something that is familiar to people who do not have a crypto background, who don't know what Ethereum is. And so it's important to know that if we are pitching ether to people with very little familiarity about what's going on in our world, then we need to pull some knowledge from other corners of their brain that they already have pre existing knowledge.

People know what an app store is, people know what a developer platform is. The idea of Ethereum as a tech platform that grows, the more code is written and the more that developers build applications on it, that is something that is familiar to them. And we can debate about, well, is Ethereum really an app store? And I think if you go down into the nuances, we're missing the forest for the trees. Simply put, it's a developer platform, just like the app store, and it grows in utility over time, the more developers there are.

Ryan
We saw on a roll up recently, van Spencer pitched this pretty effectively in a conversation with Bloomberg where he said Ethereum is an app store. And then he mentioned some of the various apps, and there was this slide shown on screen where it showed Aave and compound and maker and basically all of these different logos for the types of money apps. So I think there is some familiarity there. And you can point to actual apps that are deployed on the Ethereum app store and say, oh, you want a collateralized loan? Go here.

Oh, you want a stablecoin? Here's USDC, go over here. Oh, you want like a payment app? Go over here. And so I do think that is a pretty resonant.

And as you say, David, like, everyone knows what an app store is. Is there a human alive that you're pitching an Ethereum ETF to that hasn't used the app store, that doesn't have like dozens of apps on their, on their smartphone, right? Like, none of them. So this is a schematic that kind of works and links to the last very successful compute revolution, which was the mobile revolution. And just like Ethereum could be as big as the iPhone, you know, it calls into mind that I remember when.

David Hoffman
We had Mark Cuban on the podcast during the middle of 2021. He was talking about giving us the perspective that he had where he was sharing with some of his friends of his age who had downloaded Coinbase and was asking Mark Cuban like, hey, where's the defi apps? Where are all the apps? Thinking that there was an app tab in the Coinbase app, not understanding that it's actually a little bit like it's one dimension larger than that. But people are ready for this.

People are ready for the app store perspective. In order to be perfectly accurate, you kind of have to tweak it and get a little bit more educated. But people are so ready to think of Ethereum as an app store, they. Are ready for that. The weakness of this narrative, I think, is it quickly falls down when they're like, where's the app store?

Ryan
You can't point them to one central location to go download their app or go look at the reviews, just click and start using. It's much more like the Internet, where you have to export on your own, and there's rough edges. There's not one central, pristine app store type of experience brought to you by some commercialized UX champion of the world. It's just very rough. I do agree with you that that's where the metaphor breaks down.

David Hoffman
But we also have to remember who the audience is. The audience is buying the ether ETF, which you cannot use in any of the apps. Oh, they're not users. So we don't. They're not users.

They're not. They're not custody. Yeah. And so, like, they're like, oh, Ethereum is an app store. Great, I'll buy it.

Like, not considered. Like, they're not actually going to, like, take it to the apps because they're buying the ETF. So they just want exposure, which is great. Which is so, like, you can use some of the lack of sophistication of crypto nativity to actually make this pitch, I think, easier, not harder. Okay, so that's number two.

Ryan
Ethereum is an app store. What's number three, David? I called this a six and a half, not seven. Number three, this is coming from Ryan Rasmussen out of Bitwise, who says Ethereum is an operating system and an app store for crypto applications. So really adding the operating perspective here to the Ethereum pitch, and I think this is where we also get the opportunity to really differentiate bitcoin and teach whoever is hearing these pitches and give them a little bit stronger foundation.

David Hoffman
Ethereum is not digital gold. Bitcoin just does bitcoin. It doesn't hold apps. It just is bitcoin the asset. Ethereum is an operating system and a developer platform.

And that's also what many of the other blockchains are like, like, this is where pomp, when he was on, like, fast money, talked about, like, all the other smart contracting platforms that are out there, you know, Ethereum, Solana, like all the other ones. Uh, and so you, you can also gain some assurances, some confidence in whoever you are pitching this to by their ability to be familiar with. Like the idea of, oh, Bitcoin is separate and it's unique because it's just digital gold, it's just an asset. But Ethereum is an operating system, which is something that you're familiar with, and you build apps on it, which is something you're familiar with. And so I think leaning into the operating system that is Ethereum, helps embolden the tech platform angle that I think we definitely want with Ethereum, and also, I think, helps people become more familiar with the landscape of all the entire crypto applications or crypto platforms.

Ryan
I know coming into this, you asked, hey, Brian, do you have another one to add to this list of seven? And I told you I didn't have one, but let me just add one now, because this is maybe a half step, right? You're just saying rather than just Ethereum as an app store, Ethereum is Napstore. It's an operating system as well. Let me give you the full, a full step, which is maybe a separate narrative.

What about Ethereum as the Internet of value? And this is the idea that rather than just an operating system, it's the Internet only for things that have value. And so it's more rough, it's more rugged. You have to surf it and browse it and that sort of thing. And it's permissionless.

Anyone can deploy to it. I think that is similar to the app store, but also different, because the Internet is not just a sandbox constrained by one company with this walled garden type of environment, but it's much more freeform. Anyone can deploy, anyone could expand to it. So maybe that's another narrative that gets us the full seven here, David. But it's pretty related to this operating system or app store type of idea.

Ethereum, the Internet of value. Totally. My commentary on that one would be, it definitely fits and it's a more pure representation, and I like it. It's a little more crypto native. But then we've also moved away from familiarity.

David Hoffman
Like Internet of value is another way to say, like operating system that's a little bit more true to what Ethereum is, but then you also lose some familiarity and some, like, pre existing knowledge. And so I think that's something that like a, somebody hearing this pitch could get to an aha moment about. But I think if I'm just like a 60, you know, 60 year old person with like my savings and you're pitching me a blockchain app store versus Internet of value, I think blockchain app store is going to be a little bit more resonant. I agree, too. Like, Internet of value feels so amorphous, right?

Ryan
Like, what is value anyway? That word value, like, it's almost like Internet of assets might be better. But let's go to number four. What's number four? Number four, ETH is digital oil.

David Hoffman
Now, there's one of these pitches that I'm going to say we should not definitely do. And there's pros and cons of all of these pitches. And so I'm not going to say that Ethereum is digital oil is like the perfect pitch, but it's definitely worth talking about as a perspective, especially if we are really looking for that, like one liner that Eric Balchunis was really asking for. If bitcoin is digital gold, then what is the commodity? What is the resource that Ethereum is?

Ethereum is digital oil is literally called gas. It is the thing that funds and powers the application that is on Ethereum. When you make a transaction on Ethereum to do some app, some, somebody's computers somewhere in the world starts flops. It starts doing some flops, it actually starts doing some computation. And you need to consume ether, you need to consume the oil to power those crypto applications.

And so it's not perfect because it's going to develop a lot further questions. But in terms of just like, if we're putting things into like perfect commodity like resources, oil, I think is the correct comparison for gold. So bitcoin is digital gold, then Ethereum is digital oil for the eTH bulls. It also has this nice property in that it's like almost a seven x larger than the total market cap of gold. So gold market cap is about 17 trillion, at least according to this estimate right here, the market cap of oil, if you multiply all the barrels of oil by about $70 per barrel, you get 115 trillion.

Ryan
So a lot larger than oil. And certainly oil being kind of a consumptive good, is certainly resonant with the idea of gas. So bigger market cap, the idea of gas, it's not bad. You're not talking about ethereum, the network. In this case, though, you are very squarely talking about ether, the asset or just ETH.

David Hoffman
Yeah, exactly. And even though it probably generates further questions and a little bit of confusion in your listener, it at least puts them in the frame of mind as like, well, from some perspectives, either is meant to be consumed. Like you are supposed to burn ether to use the applications that is its purpose. And some people like the productivity and the GDP association that comes with some crypto asset being oil. A lot of people don't like the idea of a deflationary asset.

They have been trained to think that money should inflate. They have been trained to think that an inflation based economy is better producing of value and resources. And so some people just resonate with the idea of oil, I think, more than a gold or a fixed market cap asset. It does also, now that ethereum does have the burn in place, right? It does kind of map nicely to, you have to burn oil in order to get things done and you have to burn eth in order to cause movement, cause, you know, pay for transactions on the Ethereum network.

Ryan
So that's nice as well. I'll admit that for myself, David, I've ebbed and flowed with respect to this narrative. Like, there are times where I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's right. And other times where I'm like, I hate this narrative. Like, this is worth.

Ethereum's not oil at all. It is a non sovereign store of value in the same way bitcoin is. It's kind of like a money. So I've gone, gone back and forth on this, but I feel like full cycle when I zoom out and look at the context. It's not bad.

I kind of like this. Ethereum is oil or ether is oil. Okay, we're starting to get into what I would call some of the worst narratives that are still helpful. And so worse, maybe for like, presenting ether as a first time to a first timer, maybe these narratives start to come in further down someone's journey of understanding. And worse for tradfi specifically, is what worse for trapfi?

David Hoffman
Worse for the current audience. Yeah. This is a narrative that we're about to present that I think, bankless, you and I have thoroughly enjoyed. But it has come after just years of like, education and perspectives and exploration of what Ethereum is. And that's ether as an Internet bond.

If we have the Ethereum stake rate at what is it now, 3.2% for this Internet native store value asset that's used as a collateral in DeFi, well, the most risk off thing you can do that's also highly exposed to the crypto economy is buy Ethan, stake it, buy your crypto asset. Buy your money, buy your digital oil, whatever. Stake it to Ethereum, and you get the Internet bond. You get the bond, the stake rate of eth. And since ether, the asset, is the foundation of so many applications in the DeFi landscape, the Internet bond is the yield rate that transcends all of DeFi.

This one, once again, definitely requires some prerequisite knowledge to really make this angle resonant with people. It definitely also requires understanding what DeFi is and how ether is a money in DeFi. But this is one that we've enjoyed, and I know that crypto natives also enjoy it the more that they understand ethereum as a financial system. Okay. Yeah, I also enjoy it, David.

Ryan
So there's lots of good things we could say about it. It's definitely a differentiator from bitcoin. And the key ability to stake ether is much different than bitcoin. Also, you get to comp it to what's the value of sovereign bonds around the world? Something like 70 trillion.

Okay. And so the idea of Ethereum being sort of like a nation state, only a network state that secures property rights, like, we could geek out on that for many episodes of bankless. And indeed we have. So the parallel, the parallels and the analogs are really good here. And so I definitely like the ether as an Internet bond for a crypto native audience who's really deeply trying to understand how we're securing property rights inside of these crypto economic systems.

That said, I totally agree with you. It is like, among the worst narratives to present to Tradfi and an ETH buyer, not least of which because they don't get any yield in Ethereum ETF right now. All they get is the asset. Right? So they can't even.

They can't even stake this. And when you say Internet bond, what, like, what do you actually mean, a bond of the Internet? Like, they're not. Because a bond is supposed to come from a government or corporation. Exactly.

And they haven't listened to, you know, dozens of bankless episodes telling them why this is, like, similar to a, you know, nation state. So it requires too much in terms of fundamentals to easily articulate this to somebody with Wall street knowledge. All right, second to last, I think this one is actually a pretty strong one, but again, not necessarily something I would lead with programmable money. And this, I wanted to note that this tweet is from 2019, this tweet from Eric Conner, he says the original Ethereum vision of programmable money is the strongest narrative and the one that will translate best to the mainstream. Quit looking elsewhere.

David Hoffman
Programmable money. If bitcoin is digital gold, then Ethereum is programmable money. And this gets into the idea of, like, smart contracts and an app store, because, like, you know, apps are programs, and then ether is the money that goes through the programs. It also alludes to the fact that, like, well, there's other crypto assets out there that aren't programmable. Oh, yeah, that's bitcoin.

Bitcoin. Not programmable ether. Programmable. And I don't think this really helps it deliver an all encompassing vision of ether or ethereum, but it does. It's like, I think the only way to really get at what is ether.

What is Ethereum is from. Is from so many different angles. Right? That's why we're talking about seven different angles. And this is a very valid one.

This is a very simple one. You already know bitcoin. You already know it's a digital asset on the network. It runs on a thing called a blockchain. Ether is the same thing, but it's programmable, implying that bitcoin's not, and implying that you can do things with the programs.

Ryan
Yeah, I do like this. It does resonate with me. However, I feel like it misses something in communicating the eth narrative to the audience, which is like, it doesn't necessarily imply operating system or app store or platform. When I just hear the term programmable money in a vacuum without knowing everything that you just said, I might just think it's just one mono asset that I can write if then statements on, and does not necessarily imply that there will be all sorts of different apps and different tokens and different assets and even chains that can be launched on top of this. So I don't think it encompasses the full vision of what could like.

I would even prefer, I think, the app store type of analogy to programmable money because it feels much more rich and resonant, even if it's not exactly accurate. Yeah, and like I said, I think a full, holistic understanding of what ether is requires all of these narratives, not just like one. We're just kind of going through the ones by strength. And this is, we're coming up to our number. Seven are the last one, which I think is going to be the weakest narrative, which you should not use.

David Hoffman
And that is ETH is ultrasound money, which has been the funny narrative that the many in the Ethereum community has used for a long time, including ourselves. And I think it has been a great narrative. While the industry understood what sound money was and we would be able to poke fun at bitcoiners. The idea of sound money versus ultrasound money came from an era in crypto in which it was basically just the bitcoin community and the Ethereum community. Solana hadn't even gone live yet.

Like the only. The other avalanche. Avalanche was like the other blockchain that was out there and had a community, but very few other communities exist. And ultrasound money was strictly a narrative to counteract bitcoiner narratives. It was a narrative about.

About the crypto industry. For the crypto industry, it was supposed to stay insular into the crypto community. I would not suggest if you're trying to sell Eth to tradfi, to Blackrock, to your parents, don't call it ultrasound money. They won't get it. No, don't.

Ryan
It's super 2019, 2020 crypto wars. And this meme sort of came out in 2021 as a reaction to many in the bitcoin on the bitcoin side saying, well, Ethereum is just like, you can change the supply at a whim. It's just like fiat. It's just like a central bank coin. The fact that you stake it even is further evidence that this is just like a fiat type of system.

And you just consume the gas eth as gas as you go. You don't need to buy ETH in order to store value. Store your value and secure assets like store value assets like bitcoin and just buy ETH as you need it to pay for. Compute. Right?

And so this was when Ethereum's monetary policy was really being hardened and its issuance schedule and the realization that ether could be a store of value asset, but is very insular to the crypto community and is not not the way to export our narrative to the broader world. 100%. Okay. Those are the seven different perspectives that I thought was pretty useful in forming my pitch. And so, without further ado, Ryan, shall we get to the pitches?

Totally should, David. And I'm too curious as to which of those narratives you used. Or maybe you came up with a David Hoffman special number eight narrative. I might have. I might have.

So I cant wait to hear your pitch. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible, including our recommended crypto exchange for buying your ether, no matter what narrative you subscribe to. That is Kraken. Go create an account. If you want a crypto trading experience backed by world class security and award winning support teams, then head over to Kraken, one of the longest standing and most secure crypto platforms in the world.

David Hoffman
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All right, Ryan, how do we decide who goes first? Who goes second? Do you want a rock, paper, scissors or should we flip a coin or what? Rock, paper, scissors. Really?

One and done. One and done? Yeah, one and done on camera? Yep. Rock, paper, scissors shoot paper.

Ryan
So that means I get my preference. The latency is weird. Okay, so I got paper, Ryan had scissors. So you get to choose if you want to go first. David, I want second mover advantage, like ethereum has to bitcoin.

David Hoffman
Just as a reminder, if you are a bankless citizen who is holding a 2022 PO app or later. So 2023 2024 or you're a gauntlet NFT holder, you have voting rights on our joke race contest, which voting is now open. So all citizens who fit that criteria have one vote. There are 8000 something ethereum addresses that this, uh, that are eligible for voting. And so please vote for whoever you think has the better pitch.

And remember, it's very important that this is a pitch for people who would buy Ether ETF. Who would buy the ether ETF. This isn't for like getting people on chain. This is for people who Blackrock is talking to. It's not for you, it's for you, for them, like it's your.

For your parents and your grandparents. All right, you ready? I'm ready, man. Go for it. All right, here we go.

Ethereum is like bitcoin, but with the addition of programmability, which really changes the game that Ethereum is playing, Ethereum's programmability evolves Ethereum beyond just being a scarce digital asset to being able to host an entirely online digital economy. This programmability enables Ethereum to be a platform for financial applications, much like how the App Store and the Google Play Store are developer platforms for consumer apps. The Ethereum blockchain is a developer platform that enables consumer financial applications that offer services that are familiar to Wallstreet exchanges, banking, marketplaces, borrowing and lending services, even asset creation and indices products. Ethereum is an open platform for anyone to build whatever financial application that they can imagine. Since Ethereum is an Internet based protocol, it has Internet scaled distribution.

The applications on Ethereum are accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, making these applications on Ethereum some of the most widely used and fastest growing financial service applications that have ever existed. Demand for these on chain applications on Ethereum produced two to $3 billion in yearly revenue for the protocol, which Ethereum turns into a stock buyback for its native currency ETH, which materially impacts the available supply of eth on secondary markets, making it very price sensitive to marginal demand. So if you're bullish on the growth and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology at large, the bitcoin ETF simply doesn't offer that exposure. You need the ETH ETF.

Thank you. Thank you. Well done, David. That was great. A plus.

Ryan
Where do I buy my Ethereum eTF? Huh? I almost want to sell my regular eth and buy the ETF now. That's great. All right, so tell me, you went with platform.

You went with kind of open Internet protocol, but you didn't say the word protocol, but you said apps. You named a number of the actual apps, like you said exchanges, which are big and people are thinking about that. You also said banking, which kind of links both tradfi and sort of crypto native type things. What narratives? It felt like you touched on a number of narratives.

It definitely didn't touch on Internet bond or ultrasound money or any of the internal crypto ones. But you did do some tokenization esque stuff. You did do some app store asset creation. I didn't say the word tokenization. That's probably a miss on my part.

Okay. I could have added tokenization in there somewhere. Specifically, I just said even asset creation and indices. Yeah. So what were you thinking?

Like, what was that pitch about? What were you trying to do? Okay, so I wanted to break it down into three parts. And first was apps and developer platform, which was meant to hopefully lead into being an Internet economy. And so this was the thing that we didn't really talk about as a narrative in the first seven, but I think it's definitely worth trying to trigger the imaginations of if we're trying to be ambitious with this pitch.

David Hoffman
The thing that we should strive for is thinking of Ethereum as hosting an Internet based economy. We know that there's commerce on the Internet, but we also know it's not Internet native. Like Visa, Mastercard, like Zelle. These are Internet native. Like bitcoin is Internet native.

Can we get them, can we get people to think about like, Internet native GDP, an Internet native economy? And that's what I was trying to get with, with like Internet scale distribution of its financial apps. So that's your way to kind of, the Internet economy is your way to sort of spoon feed them a future idea of an Internet bond, right? Because once you have an Internet economy with its own gdp and it's, you know, self sustaining taxes and economics, then you can start to pill them on Internet bond. Then they get ready for.

Ryan
They're ready for that later. Totally, yes. Yeah. And so, like, first you have to get them comfortable with like commerce on, on Ethereum. Like tokens moving around Ethereum, blackrock, tokenizing, build all.

David Hoffman
And that's moving around Ethereum. Then you, like, then you can wake them up to like, well, all doing all of that costs fees, that goes into revenue for the protocol, which is issues, and eth, buyback. That's why we call it gas. And then you can just talk about all the other things. But it's really true.

You load up the idea of this Sci-Fi economy that's native on the Internet and then you can back into some of the other more complicated things. That was my thought process, getting the idea of the Internet economy. And Ethereum is that platform. That was what my goal was. Open dev platform, imply that.

Ryan
And then also the Internet economy, seeding them with that and talking about some use cases that they're familiar with and apps that they're familiar with and seeding all that. That's great. Nice job, man. We sold some Ethereum ETF already. I know it.

David Hoffman
Can we sell some more? Can you sell some more? Yeah. Well, all right, let's hear yours, sir. All right, I'll give it a try here.

Ryan
Bitcoin is one asset. It's just bitcoin. Ethereum is all possible assets. Which is bigger, gold or all the assets in the world? Bitcoin was designed to secure one, just bitcoin.

Ethereum is a general purpose platform designed to secure everything else. Stablecoins, loans, equities, bonds, derivatives, everything in finance. The word for this is tokenization. People like Larry Fink are saying every stock, bond and asset will be tokenized on a global ledger. And even he's thinking too small.

Tokenization isn't just the assets of the past. It's the assets of the future. AI, compute, personal data, social status, and celebrity. Everything will be tokenized. Ethereum is a global computing network to tokenize and program any asset.

Ethereum adds property rights to the Internet. Now, tokenization can and will happen on other platforms, but Ethereum is positioned as the strongest contender to ride the tokenization wave. There's 100 million people that own ETH, 100,000 developers that actively contribute to the code. Already, Ethereum settles more than the visa network, and it's just getting started. So now let's talk about ETH.

The cryptocurrency of Ethereum is called ETH and has investable economics, including algorithmic buyback and dividend program that drives billions per year in earnings to ETH holders. This number grows as the network expands. You can build a DCF model on ETH as you would with any stock. A stock may be like Nvidia, and because ETH is extremely secure and decentralized, like bitcoin, more and more people are seeing ETH as a complement to bitcoin, as a store of value. While bitcoin has greater certainty of supply.

Ethereum pays a dividend and is deflationary with the upside of an entire token economy. Bitcoin is exposure to digital gold. Ethereum is exposure to everything else. I own both, but if I could only pick one, I'd pick the superset. I'd pick eth.

David Hoffman
Chills, chills, chills. Can I tell you what I liked about that? Yeah. Something that we both did is we use bitcoin as an anchor. And I think that you have to do that.

You have to start at the foundation, because bitcoin is so stupid simple. And then I really like the idea of ether is the superset of that. And I think you leaned into that both at the beginning and at the very end, where bitcoin is just one asset and Ethereum is all possible assets. And I think that line that you said, where Ethereum is both all historical assets, all assets that currently exist, but then also all future assets, that kind of does the same thing that I was trying to do with saying open up. You can definitely think what feels good to you.

We can put your bonds on chain boomers. That's what the build fund is. But also think bigger, also think more expansively. And I think that's where the Ethereum narrative both suffers and also is its greatest strength is like, you get to think bigger with ethereum, and I think you did that very, very well. I was like, think bigger?

Ryan
Yeah, it felt like that was worth a one liner. So it was like, Larry Fink thinks this is cool and he wants to tokenize everything with it. But also think about the expansive use cases he's not thinking about. And tradfi is not thinking about like AI compute, or social status and celebrity and that sort of thing. I do have to say this pitch was heavily inspired by a five minute pitch by Nick Shalich of Ribbot Capital.

You saw that. I think we're going to have Nick on the podcast soon is basically like a lot of his ideas because he nailed it. And one thing that Nick does is he went all in on tokenization. And so I sort of spend a. Lot of time on tokenization.

That was, I just picked the one thing and I just picked tokenization for my like 60 seconds to two minutes thing. And I went kind of like all in on that. But, yeah, I do agree you have to start with bitcoin, not least of which because they already have a bitcoin ETF, and so they're likely already buyers of bitcoin. So there you go. That was two pretty good pitches.

David Hoffman
Yeah, that was two pretty good pitches. Yeah. I think we can definitely iterate and make these better and better and better. But like you said, we're going to talk with Nick from ribbit. And so I think maybe phase two of our pitches comes after we talk to him.

Ryan
David, are you able to distill your pitch down to like one line? Do you think you could do that if you were to just summarize? Just give me off the cuff. Just one line to summarize your pitch. Internet economy, I think, is an economy.

David Hoffman
Ethereum is an Internet economy. Okay, so I think mine is Internet GDP. I'm trying to get them to think GDP on the Internet. I think mine was probably like, ethereum is tokenization or ethereum is everything else. Bitcoin is digital gold.

Ryan
Ethereum is everything else. But everything else also doesn't like, it's a hot line. It's a hot line. It's a hot line, but it doesn't work. But it's everything.

David Hoffman
But it's everything. It's literally the opposite of what a definition is. Yeah, exactly. It's all the other things. Anyway, we got some more work to do to distill this down to one line for sure.

All right, bankless nation, bankless citizens. Since you guys are listening to this go to Jokerace. There is a link in the show notes. There will be a link in the discord and vote on who you think the better pitch, me or Ryan and one of us will walk away at the end of voting, which will happen on Saturday. Today is Monday June 10, so Saturday the fifth I think Saturday end of day Saturday.

So we have until end of day Saturday to decide and one lucky bankless co host gets to walk away with the bragging rights po app. For now that's a temporary thing. I'm sure we'll come up with some new ways to kind of gamble this thing and exchange hands later on some more competitions for us. I am not stepping foot in a boxing ring with you though David. I just want to say that's out of bounds.

Ryan
I would definitely get my ass handed to me. Maybe with these narrative pitches I have at least a shot. We got to end with this of course. You know crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in.

But we are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot. New projects are coming online to the mantle layer two every single week.

David Hoffman
Why is this happening? Maybe it's because mantle has been on the frontier of layer two design architecture since it first started building mantle da powered by technology from Eigenva. Maybe its because users are coming onto the mantle layer two to capture some of the highest yields available in Defi and to automatically receive the points and tokens being accrued by the $3 billion mantle treasury in the mantle rewards station. Maybe its because the mantle team is one of the most helpful teams to build with, giving you grants, liquidity support, and venture partners to help bootstrap your mantle application. Maybe its all of these reasons all put together.

So if youre a dev and you want to build on one of the best foundations in crypto or youre a user looking to claim some ownership on mantles defi apps, click the link in the show notes to getting started with mantle have you ever felt that the tools for developing decentralized applications are too restrictive and fail to leverage advancements from traditional software programming? Theres a wide range of expressive building blocks beyond conventional smart contracts and solidity development. Dont waste your time building the basics from scratch and dont limit the potential of your vision. Cartesi provides powerful and scalable solutions for developers that supercharge app development. With a Cartesi virtual machine, you can run a full Linux OS and access decades of rich code libraries and open source tooling for building in web three.

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