Ep 29 - December 4, 2024 - Dino tokens
Welcome to another episode of the weekly crypto check-in recorded on December 4, 2024. I'm your host, Robert Swartout, and I'm joined with my co host, Andres Andate. How's it going, Andres?
Andres Sandate:Hey. Good, Robert. Happy holidays. Taking the event remote today, but, good to see you.
Robert Swarthout:Good to see you. Yeah. We, you know, had Thanksgiving last week and now we're gearing up for Christmas. So we, you know, crypto has felt like Christmas the last week. There's there's been lots of gains, at least in the altcoins.
Robert Swarthout:Bitcoin's largely been flat the last week, but it's been, it's been quite the journey, for some of these tokens. And we'll kind of get into that a little bit here in one of our bullet points. So probably just jump right in here. The first one you know is news but it's not news. I mean it kind of doesn't really affect us here in the US.
Robert Swarthout:Russia or Putin in particular signed a bill that basically legalized, Bitcoin and recognized it as property in Russia. I find this interesting just solely because the whole talk about the US potentially doing a strategic reserve, you know, potentially a bill coming along in this next congress that might do that. It it kinda creates competition. Right? I mean, it's the the media is gonna spin it that way.
Robert Swarthout:I would imagine if it happens, but is it truly competition? I don't know. But it's a, it's you know, I just find it fascinating how it's all unfolding. I would have never guessed that countries were fighting over Bitcoin a year ago, or could be fighting over Bitcoin.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Do you think more, more more countries are gonna follow this, this move on, on Russia's part?
Robert Swarthout:You know, more countries possibly, you know, more big countries. I don't know. You also wonder how the EU would deal with this. Would the EU want to buy Bitcoin? It doesn't feel like a right fit for them, but they are obviously a collection of countries.
Robert Swarthout:You know, you even have news today. It's not on our list here, but, Florida passed a bill. They're gonna do their own strategic Bitcoin reserves. So you might have to see states, you're gonna probably likely see bit, companies do it. Microsoft's one that's been pitched recently.
Robert Swarthout:You know, I think it's a bit of a snowball, and I get maybe businesses doing it. I don't quite get why countries do it. And maybe I'm just like blind to it and I just haven't seen the light yet, but that's, I guess time will tell on that. Kind of move on to our next thing here. So this is a stable coin that Ripple's launching.
Robert Swarthout:It has been approved in New York. The New York Financial Service the Department of Services has approved it. Ripple's basically the one that's gonna have to launch it. That it can happen any day. Likely will happen after we finish recording, today, is typically how these things go.
Robert Swarthout:What we tend to record in the early afternoon and then somehow news breaks an hour later. But I think the the big headline here is at the end of the day, it's it's not something that impacts the XRP ledger today, tomorrow. Over time is where it has its impact. It brings liquidity in the system. It brings developers in.
Robert Swarthout:You've seen this happen with Ethereum, you've seen it happen on Tron and the other ones that have USDT or USDC. This is a bit of a competitor to those, and you know we I think we mentioned a couple episodes ago but, it's one point Ripple was minting on a daily basis 20% of all the new USDC being created for their clients. So that will be created here. There certainly will be demand, and demand creation and how it kind of plays out. It'll be fascinating.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Is this some is this is this an example of New York moving quicker than other states, or is this from the beginning, this is where Ripple had kind of put a stake in the ground and said they wanted to, I guess, set this up and work through their, you know, regulators?
Robert Swarthout:I think it's a couple things. New York has had this framework for stable coins for a couple years now at least. It's been a while, at least in crypto terms. And, you know, you can also make the case that New York is the final financial center of the world. So it's like if you're gonna do it, then you're probably gonna try to do it there, especially if they have a framework.
Robert Swarthout:Many states don't. Wyoming does, but they that one's a little bit wonky. At the end of the day, I think it's just them trying to be where everybody probably would want them to be, admittedly, if to be taken seriously. So the US needs, again, beating the drum again. The US needs regulation, and stablecoin regulation is likely to be the first out of the gate.
Robert Swarthout:And I think this could set maybe this is an example of how it should be done. I think a lot could be taken away from this. There's there's very few people that complain about this one. So I think, again, there's regulators and, excuse me, legislators in the the US houses need to, maybe use this as a as a model to go after or model to come copy. Our next bullet point, merely 2 weeks ago, I had never heard 3 weeks ago, I don't think this term had been used, but, it's dino tokens.
Robert Swarthout:It's referred to dinosaur tokens. It's it's basically akin to saying blue chips, US oh, excuse me. Tokens that have been around for a long period of time that have seen multiple bull runs. People that aren't in crypto all the time might be able to say a few of these names because they'll come in and buy buy these when the runs are going crazy, then they forget about them for 3 years and they come back. Rinse and repeat.
Robert Swarthout:But the what's interesting about them this time is these are the tokens that ATeton focuses on. So I spent a lot of time researching these but more specifically they're utility tokens and they're trying to solve a problem whether it's in business or whether it's in retail but they're they're utility in nature. And they have had an amazing run the last 2 weeks. An amazing is probably an understatement in Italy, but it's it's early. I mean, it's this cycle is acting a little bit different than previous cycle.
Robert Swarthout:This is the one the way that I've experienced them. You know, I don't know if it's because they're ETFs of Bitcoin. I don't know if because there's potential regulation. I don't know if it's because of Bitcoin. There's there's a lot of potential reasons.
Robert Swarthout:But at the end of the day, I believe that this is something that, something to watch. Because I believe these are the tokens as there becomes real utility. And admittedly, there's not right now. But when there is, these are the tokens I think that will really act differently even if it is a bear market. You'll start to see some demand for them.
Andres Sandate:Any idea where the, where the term originated, and do you do you like it?
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. I think that the term probably this comes from meaning old. I mean, crypto I mean, Bitcoin is 15 years old. Sure. XRP being the 2nd oldest.
Robert Swarthout:I a couple years younger. I I don't think that it really I mean, it it's meant to be old. It's it's a bit of a meme. Crypto loves its memes.
Andres Sandate:Sure.
Robert Swarthout:So I think it comes from that. Do I like it? I maybe I like that the, basket has a name, rather than the same utility tokens. I think people kinda gloss over that and don't really know what it means, don't care what it means. Does dino tokens mean more people wanna come in and buy them potentially?
Robert Swarthout:Is that good for me? Maybe. Like, I I can have selfish reasons, that I like it. I don't have a reason not to like it right now. So I guess we can go with that.
Andres Sandate:Fair enough. Well, we got a lot of Dyno in the news then because, our next topic is, that XRP's performance has, outstripped BTC since 23.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. It's since and it came out of nowhere. Right? It had underperformed, for, call it, 23 months, and then all of a sudden the last week and a half, 2 weeks, it has been up into the right at a very vicious angle. You know, a week ago when we recorded, XRP was around a dollar 50, a token.
Robert Swarthout:It is now at 2.43. It's about minimal at 2.80. That that's a huge percentage change. It doesn't sound like a lot because it's, like, basically a buck, but it's it went from before the election being at 50¢ up to 2.50, so 5 x increase in the matter of 3 weeks. And, you know, it's outstripe Bitcoin.
Robert Swarthout:I think that there's multiple again, these Dino tokens, that basket, I believe will outperform Bitcoin, certainly in this cycle. And if you kinda rewind from 23 January 23 forward through the end of this cycle, I think that they all will have outperformed performed Bitcoin in meaningful ways. Not financial advice. Please don't go buy them because I say that. But at the end of the day, I think that is they're set up for that.
Robert Swarthout:XRP in particular was a coiled spring. It didn't get to participate in the last cycle, and you've had a lot of positive news around the lawsuit and then what might happen going forward. And, yeah, you just have you see the man. And kind of the first sub bullet point of this one where we this XRP volume is largely being institutional is was surprising the first time I saw that because it's largely crypto's retail driven right now. Like, outside of some maybe some buying of the Bitcoin ETFs, it is, you know, people opening a Coinbase account and buying something in the US at least.
Robert Swarthout:So to hear that it's, institutional focused, at least an XRP's case, that came from a FalconX, the largest OTC desk, in crypto. So you you tend to wanna believe it, and it's just kind of crazy to see. And I another way to back it up is the trading volumes yesterday, so that would have been December 3rd, were if you took Bitcoin's trading volume, Ethereum's trading volume, these are on crypto exchanges, you added that together, it was less than what XRP did. And that was XRP's second highest day ever. The first highest day was, like, Saturday, like, 3 or 4 days ago.
Robert Swarthout:So it's just crazy to see how quickly things can change, sentiment and just generally, like, volumes. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. It'll be interesting to see if, if if this follows the patterns of other, assets or specific securities when they fall or go, you know, rather is the better word, and they they find themselves in favor. And sometimes that means just institutional participation, can morph that of retail, in a in a short amount of time, given the dollars that are at at play. The sub bullet number 3, though, no capital gains on US based tokens, is that in reference to an announcement from, the Trump administration incoming?
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Kinda sorta not really is the answer. I think I I say it that way because there there is rumor going around that he has said that. He has not said publicly. So in my opinion, he hasn't said it at all if he hasn't said it publicly.
Robert Swarthout:You know, I know they wanna do some work on taxes. I I think the idea that they're gonna treat cryptos that are US based differently than other cryptos, fascinating because Bitcoin doesn't fall in that bucket. Ethereum doesn't fall in that bucket. You really start to get into the Dino tokens, XRP, not all of them, but some of them. They kinda fit that mold in, like, what's the motivation?
Robert Swarthout:I don't know. This could be I I admittedly, I could hear like, imagine Trump saying this. This is not something that's coming out of left field necessarily. I just don't think it's terribly realistic that it actually gets across the finish line. But, again, would be cool to see it happen.
Robert Swarthout:I I think that you start to wonder, like, maybe it's not zero tax. It's taxed differently. It's taxed more more efficiently, because they're they're gonna be used for things. You don't wanna be dealing with a taxable transaction every time you go in and out of these if it fits a certain set of rules. I can see it being that versus 0 tax across the board, but time will tell.
Robert Swarthout:The, you know, and that's again, that would be more I could also see being an institutional focus. If you're a retail trader, it probably doesn't apply to you. Like, there could be all sorts of rules around it. Right.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. But, yeah, like you said, when you're talking about the utility of some of the tokens, the the fact of the matter is having a levy or a tax or some some type of surcharge on every transaction, multiplied by the volume, really doesn't make a lot of sense. So interesting, something to watch because, like any asset class, that starts to attract a lot of capital, a lot of investors, you know, and the whole idea of capital gains and carried interest has been kind of a hot button topic. You hear about it whenever there's an election. They haven't seen, carried interest changed largely, over, you know, multiple election cycles, although it does seem to to prop its head.
Andres Sandate:So now that Bitcoin and crypto and digital assets are becoming more and more accepted and more mainstream, although I think there's still a long way to go, we both would agree. Yeah. You you have to think that the tax regime is not, you know, is not far behind in terms of how they're expected and how they will, you know, wanna get their slice of the pie.
Robert Swarthout:Absolutely. Yeah. I think that, you know, in a lot of ways, the IRS can move faster than regulations because they kind of make their own rules as they go unless congress dictates it needs to be done differently, is my understanding on how that works. So for better or for worse. But, yeah, I mean, I guess, anybody would be 4 or 0 tax, but, you know, maybe real estate expectations are important here.
Robert Swarthout:Our next topic, it just kind of a more of a catch up where we've talked about in the past. So there's been some Solana ETFs, XRP ETF applications, in the works. I think there's 5 for Solana, 4 or 5 for XRP at this point. You're starting to see not just notices saying that they're coming. They're actually submitting their s ones.
Robert Swarthout:This is not something that happens this month. I don't even think it happens before the election. I don't think there's, like, any chance. I think it's purely, like, late q 1, early q 2 at best sit situation. But, you know, Solana hasn't done as much moving, as say XRP has.
Robert Swarthout:XRP has, again, been on that amazing run of, like, basically a 5 x. You know, you start to add in potential demand from an ETF. You potentially have the, the lawsuit getting settled, and you have the stable coin getting launched. And there's a lot of potential positive news that's really yet to really come to fruition, but it's close and it could add demand and things get crazy real quickly. You get a lot of euphoria and you got to be careful.
Robert Swarthout:Have targets, you know, have a plan and work your plan. That's what you need to be doing if you own crypto these days. So moving on, our second to last topic here is, you know, it's been rumored different people might be the SEC chair. Trump hasn't officially announced it, but all signs point to Paul Atkins being the new, SEC chair, being nominated by Trump. And crypto seems pretty happy about this.
Robert Swarthout:I think there's one question that needs to be asked of him in his in his, in his hearing where he kinda gets drilled or grilled, is how he, feels about DeFi and self custody. If he says he's for it, crypto's awesome. It'll be great. If he says anything but that, I think there's a moment of pause. Crypto may not have the winner that they think that they do, and Paul, but may maybe, we get surprised.
Robert Swarthout:I he hasn't specifically asked that question. He's he's kinda talked around the edges in different, interviews that I've listened to, And I tend to think that he would answer yes to that, but there's other times I'm like, maybe he was grumpy that day. I don't know. And, like, you you just never know.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, so much speculation around who this, this nominee is gonna be. I think that, you know, the the good thing is is, this is a known, you know, known quantity within the crypto and digital asset space, practice big law, been involved in a number of trade organizations and organizations that are generally, you know, I think by all stretch of the imagination pro crypto. As we've talked about in the past, you know, Gensler came in having at least a background that you thought was going to be pro crypto based on, you know, his academic, you know, his academic teachings and and, you know, some of the things that he had done from lecture standpoint didn't turn out to be the case. So I I know that the the crypto industry is watching this appointment closely.
Andres Sandate:And, you know, we have seen some, we have seen, you know, some appointments made over the last couple of weeks where folks have jostled around. So until you get through hearings and you get through all the, you know, the background of the individual, I think, yeah, it's a lot of speculation.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And, you know, he's got close ties to the digital chamber. And why do I mention that? Well, by extension, Ripple and Stellar's a 2 different networks, but both have representatives that are very close to the chamber. So it could be that could explain part of this x r XRP run up because maybe it was smart money versus this retail buying.
Robert Swarthout:Like, again, there's, like, probably a million factors here, but it's just kinda it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. So that's that's where we're, at right now. Our last topic is, I found kind of funny when I first read it, but it makes total sense. So, Brian Armstrong of Coinbase has said that he has told all the law firms that Coinbase works with, and he didn't say how many he was, but my guess is a handful or something. And, basically told them that if they hire any of the attorneys that were at the SEC that were working on anti crypto cases, he will they will no longer do business with those firms.
Robert Swarthout:And I have seen other crypto executives saying the same thing. Stu Alvarati from Ripple basically says he has a list if anyone needs the list. So there's there might be some attorneys that are really looking for, work, that wanted to be in crypto that may not be able to be in crypto anymore or may have trouble being in crypto.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. As you and I have talked about before, I mean, watch what they do, not what they say.
Robert Swarthout:I
Andres Sandate:you know, there there's a reason why there's a revolving door in DC with the regulators and the big law firms, and and, frankly, you could add into that the, you know, the the lobbyists. But the reality is is people get things done generally with, you know, people they know. And, it it's a pretty small network of folks. So I I'm gonna be paying close attention to how this all plays out. Because as this becomes more and more, mainstream and I, you know, zoom out 5 to 10 years, you know, the the the bigger players, the Coinbase's, the BlackRock's, the the big Wall Street firms, you know, they're gonna get their slice of the action.
Andres Sandate:And Yeah. They tend they tend to go with, the folks that they know, that they've worked with over decades. Mhmm. So I'll be curious to see how this plays out.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Absolutely. And then I guess we'll wrap up on the topic of Coinbase. You know, it's a bit of a a litmus test to figure out how the market's going, where the euphoria might be coming from. The Coinbase app, is an update.
Robert Swarthout:We've talked about it last time. This time it is now the number one finance app in the app store and number 10 overall in all apps. This would be number this would be 14. It was up at 10. So it's it's risen over the last week.
Robert Swarthout:You know, who knows all the different reasons, but it's it's been up there. It's coming down. When it starts getting up into the single high single low single digits, maybe maybe that's a moment of pause, and we have to figure out where we're at in the market and figure out maybe, we are nearing a top. But that is what we got for the show. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the weekly crypto check-in.
Robert Swarthout:If you wanna stay updated in future episodes, you can find us in any podcast player by searching Teton Crypto Capital or the weekly crypto check-in. Take care.
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