Crypto Critics' Corner

,

Episode 176 – Molly White v. Trump Crypto Corruption

Molly White on Trump's Crypto Corruption – Crypto Critics' Corner

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by Molly White to discuss the $TRUMP memecoin wallet and its place in the Trump crypto corruption scheme.This episode was recorded on June 10th, 2025.Additional episodes mentioned in this episode:Episode 54 – Web3 is Wonky (Feat. Molly White)Episode 84 – Cryptocurrency Criticism in a Down Market (feat. Molly White)Episode 140 – Sam Bankman-Fried’s Trial is Going Great (feat. Molly White)Episode 145 – Read, Write, Own: Web3’s Broken Promises (feat. Molly White)Episode 175 – The Mythical Crypto Swing Voter (feat. Nitish Pahwa)

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Molly White to discuss the $TRUMP memecoin wallet and its place in the Trump crypto corruption scheme.

This podcast was recorded on June 10th, 2025.

Where to find the podcast:

Other episodes mentioned in this episode:

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

Subscribe to get each episode delivered to your inbox:

We also have a Discord Server you can join here.

Where to find Crypto Critics’ Corner:

English Transcript:

00:00:05:09 - 00:00:12:02
Cas Piancey
Welcome back everyone. I am Cas Piancey. I'm joined, as usual, by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett Tomlin. How are you?

00:00:12:03 - 00:00:15:00
Bennett Tomlin
Oh. I'm doing. How are you, Cas?

00:00:15:02 - 00:00:37:13
Cas Piancey
The same. We have a very special guest today, though, so at least that makes it a little bit better. We have noted skeptic, writer, critic? I don't know, researcher. I don't know what you want to call her. Molly White, who, does Web3 is going great. And, we have her here to discuss, first of all, kind of Donald Trump's latest crypto endeavors.

00:00:37:13 - 00:00:59:20
Cas Piancey
The Trump wallet, and these other, these other issues, but also what life has been like doing research and being critical of the space since the collapse of FTX, which I think was the last time we had you on. Or maybe it was during the SBF trial. So, yeah. So let's get started. Molly, how do you want to start this?

00:00:59:20 - 00:01:02:20
Cas Piancey
Let's, let's talk about the crazy Trump wallet.

00:01:02:20 - 00:01:09:08
Molly White
background, for people who do not watch the Trump crypto space as closely as the psychopaths in this room.

00:01:09:08 - 00:01:28:09
Molly White
Trump and his, like, meme coin and of the Trump crypto empire announced that they were going to be launching a Trump branded cryptocurrency wallet, which would allow you to buy and sell various tokens with the Trump meme coin prominently placed at the top.

00:01:28:11 - 00:01:40:08
Molly White
Which was a scoop that came out and then was almost immediately, dampened by the Trump sons coming out and saying they had no idea what all of this was, and that they'd never heard about it before.

00:01:40:08 - 00:01:49:11
Cas Piancey
Is there any speculation as to whether they indeed heard about it before and were lying, or is that just is is no one talking to we just like, okay, let's move on. Is that.

00:01:49:13 - 00:02:03:07
Molly White
Yeah. I think it's a little hard to say. I mean, it it seems a little weird to me that they would, like, sign off on it. And then as soon as it was publicly announced, totally go back on that. It's I mean, certainly not the the weirdest thing they've done. No, not.

00:02:03:07 - 00:02:04:07
Cas Piancey
From the Trump's. Yeah.

00:02:04:07 - 00:02:28:19
Molly White
I mean, yeah, but I also don't really see the benefit to them in doing that. And so I, I suspect that there really just was no communication and that the Trump meme coin team believed that they had the authority to use the Trump brand to do, I guess, whatever they wanted or whatever they wanted in the crypto sphere or something like that, that their licensing deal was broad enough to cover this type of product.

00:02:28:21 - 00:02:37:19
Molly White
And then the Trump sons, you know, were basically finding out about it along with the rest of us, and had a very different opinion of that licensing deal.

00:02:37:21 - 00:02:56:22
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. The the Trump sons, even when they're under oath, have a hard time remembering what they did in regards to their various businesses and things like that. So you always have to take their thoughts and what their role in their own businesses was with a grain of salt. It's so, the other interesting thing about the wallet to me was that,

00:02:56:22 - 00:03:07:05
Bennett Tomlin
it was offering referral rewards, like in order to get people to sign up for the wallet, you could get, like, if you went and got other people to sign up for the wallet, you got even more of the Trump meme coin.

00:03:07:10 - 00:03:12:10
Bennett Tomlin
And so of course, they had to have that kind of marketing mechanism in there. Of course, to.

00:03:12:12 - 00:03:21:23
Molly White
Yeah. I mean, really, why not just merge crypto with an outright market multi-level marketing scheme? You know, it just seems like the natural evolution, especially when Trump is involved.

00:03:22:02 - 00:03:23:06
Cas Piancey
The perfect Ponzi.

00:03:23:06 - 00:03:28:06
Bennett Tomlin
but really at a broader level, at a meta level, like for me, what it shows is

00:03:28:06 - 00:03:36:06
Bennett Tomlin
Trump has engaged so broadly with the cryptocurrency industry and through so many different deals that,

00:03:36:06 - 00:03:45:19
Bennett Tomlin
even the people in charge of managing his corrupt enterprises can't keep track of all of the various crypto enterprises he's engaged in, which is incredible.

00:03:45:19 - 00:03:48:07
Bennett Tomlin
It's just brilliant to watch.

00:03:48:09 - 00:04:04:02
Molly White
Yeah. When I posted, I made that map of all of the Trump entities that are involved in just the crypto end of his businesses. I wasn't even trying to get into all the the other parts of it, but someone made a joke that was like, oh, they're going to be so happy that someone has finally made an org chart for them.

00:04:04:08 - 00:04:06:09
Molly White
And I was like, honestly, you might be right.

00:04:06:09 - 00:04:15:04
Bennett Tomlin
unironically, I think they do not have like Eric and Donald Trump could not tell you the names of the various entities they're using in the cryptocurrency sphere.

00:04:15:04 - 00:04:25:02
Bennett Tomlin
Can you talk a little bit about how this Trump wallet has resolved once Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump did become aware of what they were doing?

00:04:25:02 - 00:04:44:22
Molly White
Yeah. So there was this sort of couple of days of just chaos and uncertainty where people were like, did magic. And just like, so magic. Eden is a crypto company that was partnering with the Trump meme coin, presumably to actually do the development work for this wallet or I guess re scan a wallet that they had purchased, essentially a slingshot.

00:04:45:00 - 00:05:23:05
Molly White
Slingshot. Yeah. And so some people were like, did Magic Eden just totally make this up? Like, did they have no deal whatsoever with any Trump entity? And there was like all of this confused or like maybe their Twitter account got hacked and they launched, you know, the scam project. And there was all of this confusion. And then a couple of days later, Eric Trump essentially announced, like, great news, we've come to this resolution where the wallet is no longer going forward, and the world liberty Financial Project, which is a totally separate portion of the Trump crypto empire and it is more closely tied to the Trump sons than it is to the people who

00:05:23:05 - 00:05:25:07
Molly White
are running the meme coin end of the business.

00:05:25:07 - 00:05:39:18
Molly White
They are going to be the ones creating the Trump wallet, because that was really the original source of the conflict, is that two portions of the crypto Trump empire was were working on what would presumably be a competing product.

00:05:39:18 - 00:05:48:22
Molly White
And so, you know, Magic Eden is essentially out of the the picture at this point, you know, sort of going back to selling NFTs or whatever it is that they do in their day to day,

00:05:48:22 - 00:05:51:22
Molly White
to whoever is left buying it, I guess.

00:05:52:00 - 00:05:53:06
Cas Piancey
Who's buying those?

00:05:53:06 - 00:06:01:23
Molly White
And the, the Trump sons are going to be the ones with their grubby little hands on the Trump wallet. Branding, I suppose.

00:06:02:16 - 00:06:25:15
Bennett Tomlin
And like, the fun little wrinkle for me is like, Donald Trump himself might be kind of implicated in the licensing deal that, like with the Trump meme coin people, because that's through, CIC digital LLC. And like Trump's ethics disclosures when he started this, term, listed him as the manager, president, secretary and treasurer for CIC digital LLC.

00:06:25:18 - 00:06:33:15
Bennett Tomlin
So that makes it a little bit harder to disclaim knowledge of your, licensing deal or what you might have signed there.

00:06:33:15 - 00:06:58:10
Molly White
None of it. Like I've been able to sort of kludge together a general idea of probably what happened, but it still doesn't really make any sense because like, ultimately, Trump is behind all of these in one way or another, generally via his sons, although he does have substantial control over a number of these projects, and certainly knowledge of them.

00:06:58:10 - 00:07:30:07
Molly White
And so the idea that, like, this could sort of happen without there being any connection between this project and the Trump Organization or the Trump brand or whoever, you know, issued the license, it doesn't really make sense because it is all ultimately flowing back up to Trump. And so I think there is like a disconnect there, but there is sort of no legitimate explanation for how this happened, without, you know, at least one and probably more people screwing up pretty badly.

00:07:30:09 - 00:07:53:22
Bennett Tomlin
And I think your intuition is probably like about the licensing deal is probably right. CIC digital signed a deal that was broader than they intended it to be and thought that they had wink wink, nudge nudge, handshake deal with, the Trump meme coin team to stick to meme coins and the digital trading cards because there's a lot of overlap in those groups, even though they're separate entities.

00:07:53:23 - 00:08:04:13
Bennett Tomlin
So and the Trump trading cards and stuff like that, and then they, because of their desire to have even more money, looked at the deal and said, you know.

00:08:04:15 - 00:08:22:12
Molly White
And then then you have to assume that these people decided that they were going to launch a Trump wallet, presumably knowing full well that World Liberty Financial was working on something along those lines, because one of the first things I wrote in my original piece about this was like, hey, this looks like it's going to conflict with the World Liberty Financial product.

00:08:22:12 - 00:08:39:09
Molly White
And that was like just me trying to write a very quick article before they announced this, this wallet. And that was like the first thing that came to my mind. And so how did that not occur to anybody in the Trump orbit before this project was announced that like, hey, this is going to step on their toes pretty directly?

00:08:39:11 - 00:09:05:03
Bennett Tomlin
I mean, maybe they decided that World Liberty is never going to launch a product besides the stablecoin, that they held the vote to launch a single, Aave instance back in December, and they have yet to launch that one instance and have all held basically no governance votes or anything since then, they might have been getting cynical about world liberty, financial ability to engage with these type of problems.

00:09:05:05 - 00:09:11:12
Cas Piancey
Do you think that there's I guess there's this is like a I don't know how to frame this question properly, but I'm going to try,

00:09:11:12 - 00:09:18:01
Cas Piancey
I feel like and I know you've both done organization charts of, of this stuff.

00:09:18:01 - 00:09:45:06
Cas Piancey
there's so many different entities under the Trump name or directly working with the Trump family. It just wouldn't surprise me if two things happened here. One, they signed this rushed deal that they didn't actually take any time to read or look over and and then Magic Eden was like, great, now we can do whatever we want.

00:09:45:07 - 00:10:06:18
Cas Piancey
And when they decided to announce that they were going to do a wallet like I, I bet they just weren't, aren't, weren't they going around in the Middle East and following daddy around and like, aren't they busy with bribery and like other stuff so that they, they don't have time to take calls from like Magic Eden NFT marketplace.

00:10:06:18 - 00:10:08:14
Cas Piancey
I like I'm just curious what you think.

00:10:08:14 - 00:10:29:17
Cas Piancey
If it's I guess I'm wondering if there's perfect purposeful complexity to this so that it's difficult for anyone to understand or follow or relate back to the Trump family in any real, substantive, substantive way. Or if you think this is just people who don't know what the fuck they're doing and they're just going for it.

00:10:29:19 - 00:11:04:10
Molly White
Yeah. I mean, I would say maybe both. I think both are probably possible. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, it seemed like it really blindsided the sort of magic Eden Trump meme coin end of things, who clearly did not have a response to this prepared. I mean, if you look at the answers to questions posed by the crypto community around like, why are the Trump sons disavowing this magic Eden and the meme coin team and various people associated with both either didn't respond or they were like, no, no, no.

00:11:04:10 - 00:11:35:01
Molly White
Like it's totally cool because it's the Trump meme coin. And like, sort of just didn't answer the question around the fact that, like, the Trump sons were just saying this wasn't allowed. And so, like, I don't think that they made a calculated decision that they were just going to like, go up against the Trump sons and their planned project and expected this kind of backlash because they clearly weren't prepared to respond to it and then had to sort of tuck their tail between their legs and, you know, walk away.

00:11:35:01 - 00:11:48:12
Molly White
When the Trump son said, you know, we've reached a deal that this is not moving forward. That doesn't seem like, you know, the work of a mastermind at play. So I think it was probably just incompetence, frankly.

00:11:48:12 - 00:12:11:07
Bennett Tomlin
they certainly seem incompetent. I'm getting a kind of incompetent vibe from them in general though, like there is there's a tiny part of me that likes to invent conspiracy theories, and there were a whole bunch of people online who were like, talking about the, Donald Trump, Elon Musk blow up as, kayfabe as them acting out like a heel turn to try to eventually come back together.

00:12:11:09 - 00:12:34:17
Bennett Tomlin
And in a certain sense, that's what World Liberty Financial and the Trump meme coin kind of organized or facilitated here, because the Trump meme coin served its purpose of allowing people to purchase access to Donald Trump and his dinner and stuff like that. And now World Liberty Financial made the final payout to the Trump meme coin team by buying a bunch of their tokens.

00:12:34:19 - 00:12:54:15
Bennett Tomlin
Trump meme coin team doesn't have any more projects, and World Liberty has the unequivocal claim to being the official Trump wallet. My guess is it was actually a bunch of sloppiness, and anything they figured out was done after the fact, but it's possible to construct a narrative that this was like then killing off the highest liability project,

00:12:54:17 - 00:13:09:10
Molly White
I think perhaps, maybe one of the smarter moves would have been for World Liberty Financial to just sort of absorb it, because then they would at least have a technical team with them that might feasibly launch something which the world any financial project, seems yet to have done.

00:13:09:11 - 00:13:12:12
Bennett Tomlin
Hey, they kind of launched a stablecoin.

00:13:12:14 - 00:13:14:03
Molly White
Kind of.

00:13:14:04 - 00:13:19:12
Bennett Tomlin
They haven't figured out like how to do attestations or audits or have like.

00:13:19:16 - 00:13:20:15
Cas Piancey
So like every other.

00:13:20:18 - 00:13:21:08
Bennett Tomlin
Sign up.

00:13:21:08 - 00:13:22:21
Cas Piancey
Yeah, every other stablecoin billion.

00:13:22:21 - 00:13:25:03
Bennett Tomlin
Dollars from MGX

00:13:25:05 - 00:13:29:18
Molly White
Maybe they can get Nick to just vouch for it with a pinky swear.

00:13:29:20 - 00:13:31:11
Cas Piancey
It's worked before, hasn't it?

00:13:31:11 - 00:13:44:18
Cas Piancey
do you expect any, like, there's not going to be any. And nothing is going to come of this, right. Like this is other than whatever some shitty Trump products. Like I guess I'm saying no law enforcement actions, no civil suits, no like nothing. Yeah.

00:13:44:20 - 00:14:08:09
Molly White
Right. No, I mean, the Trump sons, you know, they threaten to cease and to say that was clearly resolved, with whatever deal that they reached. And, you know, I don't think anything was really illegal about it. I mean, perhaps there was a violation of whatever Trump licensing agreement happened, but that's clearly been resolved. So, yeah, I mean, I don't think there's going to be anything substantial as a result of this.

00:14:08:11 - 00:14:12:10
Bennett Tomlin
Maybe there might have been violations of some ethics rules further going on.

00:14:12:16 - 00:14:14:06
Cas Piancey
That started a long time ago.

00:14:14:08 - 00:14:19:06
Molly White
Let's just take it for granted at this point. This is this is small potatoes compared to most of that.

00:14:19:06 - 00:14:37:21
Molly White
I was looking forward to seeing how that. So they did have that, you know, there was this waitlist sign up for the Trump wallet. And there were going to be these distributions of all these Trump meme coins based on some referral program, and one person was going to receive and distribution equivalent to $100,000 worth of Trump tokens.

00:14:37:21 - 00:14:52:14
Molly White
And I was kind of looking forward to watching that and seeing like to what extent people were able to game the referral program or like maybe the $100,000 winner just happened to be a staunch Republican who is outspoken in favor of Trump. You know, like that type of thing.

00:14:52:14 - 00:14:56:16
Bennett Tomlin
So how many Justin Suns can Justin Sun refer?

00:14:56:18 - 00:15:10:05
Molly White
Yeah, exactly. So that was going to be fine. And that has been taken away from me. But honestly, I think the drama and the sort of embarrassment around all of this has been worthwhile ultimately.

00:15:10:07 - 00:15:23:18
Cas Piancey
Do you think there's anything to be said for the Trump meme coin? Still, like obvious? I don't even know what it's trading at now. I know that it went up briefly in price a little bit like, yeah, when the dinner stuff was going to happen, has it kind of.

00:15:23:20 - 00:15:26:22
Bennett Tomlin
Started to go down like partway through the.

00:15:27:00 - 00:15:29:15
Molly White
Yeah, as everyone's selling it once they've gotten in I think,

00:15:29:15 - 00:16:01:03
Molly White
yeah. I mean, so I think what we're seeing are these sort of repeated attempts by Trump and the meme coin team and sort of those in that orbit to pump up excitement in the meme coin to drive the price higher. We keep seeing them pulling stunts like this, whether it's the meme coin dinner or, you know, the announcement with this, the world liberty or not world the the wallet, you know that you could earn these tokens and maybe that'll drive a bunch of trading or, you know, obviously people buying the token through the wallet, but it seems like they're getting to the

00:16:01:03 - 00:16:14:11
Molly White
point of sort of diminishing returns where each new exciting announcement doesn't really generate as much interest as previously. You know, and it's kind of the same thing with, like, the Trump,

00:16:14:11 - 00:16:23:17
Molly White
tweets about crypto or, you know, Trump family tweets about crypto, where like, it used to be that anyone mentioning crypto used to, you know, generate a lot of trading excitement.

00:16:23:19 - 00:16:45:08
Molly White
And now it's just kind of like, oh, they're pumping a token again and no one really cares. And the price maybe briefly spikes like a small amount, but not that much. I think they're sort of having to resort to more and more, sort of extreme plans to pump the token. And it's not really reacting in the way that they would like it to.

00:16:45:08 - 00:17:22:20
Cas Piancey
guess I'm also curious just on a more I don't want to call it existential, but a broader like a broader sense of the term. I assume you're like Bennett and I where this is like naked corruption and, it's like it's we've never seen anything like this before in our lives. But I'm curious if you're, like, optimistic or pessimistic about, like, you know, ensuring that this kind of thing doesn't happen again or that, like, do you think there's going to be a future where regulators and law enforcement try to come down on, like the president grifting or do you think those days are dead forever?

00:17:22:20 - 00:17:25:08
Cas Piancey
Now, I, Bennett, and I just.

00:17:25:10 - 00:17:25:16
Molly White
Put a.

00:17:25:16 - 00:17:42:08
Cas Piancey
Video in old video of us talking and me being at for for the first time in for who knows what, how many years. I was like, oh, I'm so optimistic about, you know, like, I think law enforcement's finally getting it together and regulators are going to finally stop the scammers. And then Bennett's like, no.

00:17:42:08 - 00:17:44:20
Bennett Tomlin
And he was almost exactly like.

00:17:44:22 - 00:18:01:16
Cas Piancey
Completely destroyed being you see the life drain out of my body as he keeps going and destroying my my hope. And I and I just want to see if you're ready to take me down again or if you would prefer to, you know, be the optimistic side instead.

00:18:01:16 - 00:18:30:20
Molly White
Yeah. I don't see much hope for that, at least in the sort of foreseeable future. I would like to think that at some point, things will get honestly so bad that there is sort of a required reaction to it. And that we do sort of swing the pendulum back a little bit in terms of corruption, open corruption, you know, dealing with that kind of thing.

00:18:30:20 - 00:18:58:00
Molly White
But right now there's no room for regulators, law enforcement, anyone to step in on something like the Trump meme coin. You know, as far as the types of things that, even Congress could be going after to try to you, you know, go after Trump and, you know, impeach him or, you know, impose some kinds of consequences. I wouldn't even expect it to be this, you know?

00:18:58:00 - 00:19:15:11
Molly White
So, it does not seem particularly optimistic that it will be regulatory or legal intervention that will be the demise of these projects. It's not to say they won't have a demise. Right. But I don't think it'll be at the hands of the SEC.

00:19:15:13 - 00:19:15:20
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah.

00:19:15:21 - 00:19:16:16
Cas Piancey
Like yeah. Yeah.

00:19:16:17 - 00:19:38:03
Bennett Tomlin
Like I mean either Trump is successful in his fascistic, autocratic consolidation of power, or there's a swing back the other way because he fails to consolidate the power. And like if Dems take enough seats in 26, I'm sure every single committee head will try to come up with their own investigation that they can talk about to the press as often as possible.

00:19:38:05 - 00:19:56:20
Bennett Tomlin
So one of the subcommittees might start an investigation into something trump crypto related, but you're not going to see any legal action until at least like, what, 2029? And even then, like if you want it to come from like regulators, like a civil action, those are going to need to be like refunded and rebuilt. Right? Like get the new commissioners and get them.

00:19:56:23 - 00:20:18:16
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah, yeah. Like hire enough staff, hire enough lawyers, hire enough investigators like there's not there's not going to like in the SEC right now. I don't think there is a thorough or complete Trump meme coin file that like someone could step in and use as like the basis of a suit. And so there's a lot of barriers in that regard as well.

00:20:18:17 - 00:20:35:21
Molly White
Plus, I think there's the concern that Congress is going to pass legislation that is going to make it more challenging for regulators going forward, so that in order for regulators to get back into the game, they're also going to have to first handle these new laws that have come in. And that's not a quick process.

00:20:36:16 - 00:20:49:16
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, every time Rostin Benham is they take him down to Capitol Hill. He's like, I mean the CFTC is a competent regulator. But you guys have seen our budget right. Rein the staff numbers.

00:20:49:16 - 00:20:56:02
Bennett Tomlin
You gotta fix that. If you want us to take over crypto and all the Republican congressmen you're like yeah CFTC got it.

00:20:56:02 - 00:20:58:04
Bennett Tomlin
Listen, he said they're a great regulator.

00:20:58:06 - 00:21:00:19
Molly White
Yeah. We stopped listening six words in.

00:21:00:21 - 00:21:14:15
Bennett Tomlin
So I'm not optimistic for at least the next ten, oh 4 or 5 years. And even then, like Trump tried a coup and like, had very few consequences. So like, is a memecoin that bad

00:21:14:15 - 00:21:15:10
Bennett Tomlin
right.

00:21:15:12 - 00:21:20:13
Cas Piancey
Yeah. I mean yeah I hear that. But this okay. So on that depressing note,

00:21:20:13 - 00:21:24:01
Cas Piancey
do you like are you at all surprised? Right. So

00:21:24:01 - 00:21:38:16
Cas Piancey
we had the jury, the the verdict for SBF in November of 23, and then we had him sentenced in March of 24. And now we're a little over a year out of that. And

00:21:38:16 - 00:21:39:15
Cas Piancey
there's no rules.

00:21:39:15 - 00:21:43:16
Cas Piancey
There's no regulations. Crypto is booming. Prices are at all time highs like,

00:21:43:16 - 00:22:01:20
Cas Piancey
are you at all shocked by the speed at which this happened? Like we went from I, we've we've had journalists on here who said like, oh, I think this is the death of crypto. We've had people on who were like, oh, when, when SBF, when FTX collapsed, like I, I was pretty sure it was over.

00:22:01:23 - 00:22:08:17
Cas Piancey
And I think Dan and I both were like, no, it's not over for sure. But I definitely did not expect to see this trajectory.

00:22:08:20 - 00:22:29:14
Bennett Tomlin
I you can find clips of me. I thought there was a chance it got kind of regulated to the periphery in the United States, but that was contingent on Dems deciding that the political cost of being associated with SBF was really high, and then maintaining control after the 2024 election, they didn't seem to care that much about the SBF thing.

00:22:29:14 - 00:22:33:15
Bennett Tomlin
They got over it pretty quick. The Republicans, I guess, couldn't make it stick.

00:22:33:15 - 00:22:35:10
Speaker 1
and then they lost.

00:22:35:10 - 00:22:36:04
Speaker 2
So.

00:22:36:04 - 00:22:51:12
Molly White
Yeah, I mean, I think the only thing that surprised me was the speed. So I had a lot of people saying the same things to me that was like, why are you even still writing about crypto? You should go pivot to AI like everybody else and start criticizing AI or whatever. And I was like, I don't think this is dead.

00:22:51:12 - 00:23:29:19
Molly White
You know, there's I was like, certainly it is down. You know, prices are down. But there was really no change in the circumstances of things beyond the sort of price change. And I guess minimally more interest from regulators. And so, you know, I was basically saying, like, look, crypto is cyclical. We see these intense like boom and bust cycles and these periods of sort of dormancy, and then things go right back up again when there's sort of a new story or a new shift that they're able to make, to drive the prices higher.

00:23:29:20 - 00:23:54:04
Molly White
And so I expected that, but I did not expect it to be this quick. I thought it was going to be, a more a slower turnaround. And I think that's because I really did not anticipate the extent to which crypto was going to get into political, campaigning, you know, lobbying. You know, they certainly had done some of that, mostly with FTX and SBF doing their end of things.

00:23:54:04 - 00:24:07:01
Molly White
But when the whole industry really dove in with the super PACs and that type of really overt sort of political messaging with Coinbase, you know, sending out alerts to people through their app around,

00:24:07:01 - 00:24:17:21
Molly White
you know, getting out the vote and that kind of thing that I did not quite anticipate. And that, I think, is why it was so fast as they were able to get, you know, the political end of things behind them.

00:24:17:23 - 00:24:27:17
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. Sam Bankman-Fried really woke them up. Like they went from donating very little to realizing that if they spent a lot, they could buy more connections than they thought.

00:24:27:17 - 00:24:37:07
Cas Piancey
we had, Nitish from, slate on, and we haven't put it out yet, but we but, we talked to him about

00:24:37:07 - 00:24:53:17
Cas Piancey
the two. I guess this is, again, a double question. Two things. One, the the idea that they fair shake and these other, PAC like super PACs and stuff that you that you've done a great job of covering.

00:24:53:19 - 00:25:11:03
Cas Piancey
They already were loaded with cash when FTX collapsed. Like they had money in the bank ready to go and they still needed to spend it. So they, you know, that's why they there was no one donating after, I assume, after the collapse, but they had a full powder keg, so they were ready to go.

00:25:11:03 - 00:25:15:17
Cas Piancey
I guess in this, this run up that we're seeing and this,

00:25:15:17 - 00:25:19:14
Cas Piancey
I don't know, all this political force behind it,

00:25:19:14 - 00:25:21:01
Cas Piancey
kind of feels like

00:25:21:01 - 00:25:24:23
Cas Piancey
there's actually not I don't want to use the word organic, but it doesn't feel like

00:25:24:23 - 00:25:32:03
Cas Piancey
there's that retail drive that we did previously, previously see, like there there was something different about the

00:25:32:05 - 00:25:47:11
Cas Piancey
FTX, SBF, Binance Bull Run than the one we're seeing now. Or at least that's how I feel. And I and I just am wondering what you think that means for cryptocurrency. Like what you think that means in terms of maybe not this cycle, but just like

00:25:47:11 - 00:25:53:16
Cas Piancey
it's popular, like, is the popularity waning? You know, like it might be up, but do people care as much?

00:25:53:16 - 00:25:56:14
Cas Piancey
Or like, yeah, I just love to hear your thoughts on.

00:25:56:16 - 00:26:25:18
Molly White
Yeah. I mean, I think there's really two things there. I think one is that you're right, that there is really just not as much interest in crypto as we saw in 2020 and 2021. You know, when people were like, should I buy this? You know, like I'm seeing these ads, maybe I should buy this. Or, you know, people were really buying into the idea that, like, maybe they, you know, as someone who did not day trade or, you know, usually do that type of thing, could still make a quick buck off of a crypto purchase.

00:26:25:20 - 00:27:04:01
Molly White
That's not there. I think you're quite right about that. And I think that we are seeing the crypto industry sort of lying about that. There is this very coordinated effort, I think, from major players in the American crypto industry to inflate the figures around the sort of low interest in crypto, you know, selling this idea that 1 in 5 Americans holds crypto and that that many people are out there, you know, waiting for the pro crypto candidate to emerge so that they could, you know, overlook any other political differences and vote for them.

00:27:04:01 - 00:27:16:06
Molly White
That story was, you know, loud and clear from the crypto industry, during the most recent election cycle. And it was pretty plainly fabricated. And then, I mean, even then.

00:27:16:08 - 00:27:20:21
Bennett Tomlin
There was loud and clear they were afraid to put it in any of their ads. They were framing.

00:27:20:21 - 00:27:44:04
Molly White
Yeah, exactly. You know, they were funding these, you know, million dollar ads with no mention of crypto. You know, there was a great New Yorker piece where, one of the political operatives who was working with Fair Shake was saying that they really needed to sell the story that, you know, there is this big bloc of crypto voters out there and someone working at Coinbase said, well, I don't know if there is this big block of crypto voters.

00:27:44:04 - 00:28:07:11
Molly White
And so their analysts said, we'll just invent one. I mean, it was like totally plain and out in the open. So I think that's a part of it. I think another part of it is that we, I think the, the retail interesting crypto is sometimes a little bit lagging. So, you know, if you look at past booms in the crypto world, they often follow major price run ups.

00:28:07:11 - 00:28:29:06
Molly White
They don't cause major price run ups. And so that's part of what it is. Yeah. But I will say that, you know, adding to that, that's something I've been saying for a while now, like crypto has sort of been recovering for a while. Crypto prices were up in November. You know, we're six months later,

00:28:29:06 - 00:28:35:06
Molly White
and I'm still not seeing a whole lot of everyday people suddenly being like, maybe I should check out this crypto thing.

00:28:35:08 - 00:28:45:23
Molly White
I'm wondering if that sort of happened already in the 2020 2021 era, and there just hasn't been enough time for people to sort of get back into it.

00:28:46:01 - 00:29:07:19
Cas Piancey
I'm like you discussing it right now just kind of made my brain flip a switch, which is I think there was it was there was such a force behind Bitcoin before, like up until, I don't know, 2021 maybe when people just I know ethereum has been around for longer than that. And I understand shit coins have been around for longer than that.

00:29:07:19 - 00:29:29:05
Cas Piancey
But but I think really most of the liquidity and most of the public attention was on Bitcoin. And every time it would hit some, you know, price that everyone was excited about every there was a bunch of news stories about it. Retail would come flooding in. You'd like it would go if it went to 20,000. Oh my God, this is a big deal.

00:29:29:05 - 00:29:34:15
Cas Piancey
If it went to 60,000, oh my God, this is a big deal. We hit 100,000 this time,

00:29:34:15 - 00:29:37:10
Cas Piancey
and no one cared that no one.

00:29:37:10 - 00:30:08:00
Molly White
Cared when we hit 100,000. Because it was the same moment that, the Hawk Tuah meme coin launched, and all the headlines were about the Hawk Tuah meme coin, and nothing like it. Totally swallowed it, no pun intended. Any news of the Bitcoin price? Hitting, you know, this, this, this monumental point that, you know, Bitcoiners had been excited about for a decade and there was like, no interest in it because Hailey Welch was over here running some sort of crypto scam.

00:30:08:01 - 00:30:24:09
Cas Piancey
Exactly. I mean, I think that I it's it's so funny. I think all of the liquidity and attention has been driven out of Bitcoin and Ethereum. So no one not all of it. Bennett okay, fine. But but a lot of it, I do think a lot of it has gone to a bunch of these other coins. And I think this is it.

00:30:24:09 - 00:30:36:21
Cas Piancey
Like, honestly, I feel like this is an issue that people have talked about for years where they're like, as you continue to divide the liquidity and the attention, it causes problems like you're going to have some serious issues, but sorry. Go ahead. Bennet.

00:30:36:22 - 00:31:04:17
Bennett Tomlin
Well, I would contend what you're actually just pointing to there is somewhat of a bifurcation in cryptocurrency where certain assets have been accepted as commodities and have moved more into the traditional finance sector in terms of where a lot of their where at least a decent portion of their volume is traded, where a lot of the liquidity is, and how certain types of like finance people think of them.

00:31:04:19 - 00:31:26:23
Bennett Tomlin
And I think this is also kind of an interrelated with the retail thing is you can get the kind of safe crypto by buying some Bitcoin ETF, or you can go to the like type of crypto, where a lot of people have been burned over the last few years, like meme coins and NFTs were both two cycles that in terms of like the relationship to retail, were like highly extractive.

00:31:27:02 - 00:31:52:17
Bennett Tomlin
They were very few people who were like, making it big in the NFT scene or making it big on meme coins, who weren't like crypto insiders, crypto traders who were connected and already kind of in this stuff. And so I do sometimes wonder, like if a lot of the fresh fools got burned doing dumb stuff. And so, like kind of that bifurication, there's the kind of safe one or the dumb stuff.

00:31:52:17 - 00:32:11:04
Molly White
Yeah, I think that's maybe a part of it. That was that's sort of my theory is that like the same people who might have been interested in this a couple of years ago are not like coming back to it because of some new thing which really leads into my, my second thing, which is that the story isn't very good this time around.

00:32:11:06 - 00:32:31:18
Molly White
You know, there was a story a couple of years ago. It was all Web3. It was all, this is going to be the, you know, international computer that you can build anything on, and it's going to democratize the world. And, you know, all this stuff and look at all these apps that we're building that do things that are useful to people, and everyone in their grandma is going to want to sign up for it.

00:32:31:18 - 00:32:52:11
Molly White
You know, that was the story, and people were buying that this time around. It's like, yay, Bitcoin ETFs. And people were like, what's an ETF? You know? Or it's like, look, Donald Trump loves Bitcoin and people are like him. The guy is selling gold plated Bibles. You know it's just not it's not appealing to people. And it's also not really anything new.

00:32:52:12 - 00:33:04:13
Molly White
You know it's a lot of like hey look, we did this thing that, you know, in traditional finance, but we did it with crypto. People are like, great. I guess you know that. Yeah. It doesn't appeal to, you know, everyday people.

00:33:04:18 - 00:33:18:02
Bennett Tomlin
Well, I'm like, what's kind of interesting to me is one of the projects that has been kind of successful right now is PolyMarket, which is one of the most gambling crypto apps that doesn't advertise itself as a casino. You know.

00:33:18:04 - 00:33:19:13
Molly White
Like, right.

00:33:19:15 - 00:33:44:11
Bennett Tomlin
That's where crypto has kind of found people. And like the other types of pseudo gambling, like meme coins, keep dying off because what's your pitch to tell someone to use sun pump to go on sun pump and pick your tokens. You want to trade on sun pump, right? Like what's the narrative you construct around what you're doing? Besides guessing what sun pump is going to go up?

00:33:44:16 - 00:33:47:08
Bennett Tomlin
None of them, by the way. None of them are up.

00:33:47:10 - 00:33:53:12
Cas Piancey
Well, like, that's interesting to me because I feel like and I feel like bitcoin,

00:33:53:12 - 00:34:12:03
Cas Piancey
it has found its purpose, right? Like we don't have to like it, but it has found its purpose. It's used for mainly, you know, speculative like speculation. But also clearly, you know, corporations are buying it and, you know, dissidents and people.

00:34:12:03 - 00:34:26:07
Cas Piancey
Could you like, hypothetically use it? I that they're probably not, but they could so I mean, like it is essentially it has found its use case. And now that we have these more traditional, you know, brokers and.

00:34:26:07 - 00:34:32:17
Molly White
Some where Satoshi is alive and is just heard, you hear corporations are buying bitcoins and you had an aneurysm and you.

00:34:32:17 - 00:34:33:07
Cas Piancey
Know.

00:34:33:10 - 00:34:39:17
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah, I know corporations are buying bitcoins and dissidents could maybe use it, I guess. I don't think they are. Know there.

00:34:39:19 - 00:34:41:03
Molly White
You go.

00:34:41:05 - 00:34:42:15
Cas Piancey
I know, I know, but the.

00:34:42:15 - 00:34:46:11
Bennett Tomlin
U.S government has launched a strategic Bitcoin reserves.

00:34:46:12 - 00:34:49:12
Molly White
Let me tell you about Blackrock and Fidelity Press.

00:34:49:16 - 00:35:02:06
Bennett Tomlin
The president, the president's son, is now in charge of a bitcoin mining corporation Satoshi The president himself said he wants every single bitcoin to be mined in the United States. Satoshi.

00:35:02:06 - 00:35:19:12
Cas Piancey
anyway, I know I know that Bitcoin hypothetically has use cases and has real use cases like speculation. And we see that money is continuing to pour into it and stuff. Right? I, I don't suspect it's going to go away. I don't think it's going to go to zero anytime soon. Ethereum had found its use case.

00:35:19:12 - 00:35:24:11
Cas Piancey
I don't know if it's kind of has. I don't know if Ethereum has been going up as much as is it not going. It's not going.

00:35:24:11 - 00:35:43:03
Bennett Tomlin
Up. No. So it's been underperforming relative to Bitcoin. Bitcoin has caused a ton of infighting in the Ethereum community. They all keep wanting to backstab anyone associated with the foundation. There's like a whole bunch of splinter groups arguing over what specific trick they can do that don't make number go up in like another.

00:35:43:03 - 00:35:47:00
Molly White
Group that Ethereum is woke They went woke or something. That was that.

00:35:47:02 - 00:35:54:19
Bennett Tomlin
Was also that narrative. Solana went anti-woke with some of their recent ads, whereas Ethereum still woke.

00:35:54:21 - 00:35:55:16
Cas Piancey
I see.

00:35:55:18 - 00:36:01:08
Molly White
So okay, only anti-woke enough to briefly release the ad before taking it down. So it was maybe not.

00:36:01:08 - 00:36:26:06
Cas Piancey
That's true, that's true. But so okay, so Solana has replaced Ethereum now as basically the place to right pumped up fun or whatever where you can you can create your shit coins, which is that's the use case right. But then the shit coins don't do anything. So what are we doing here? And I think that that's what you guys are like, I'm just relaying this message in my head and I'm just like, oh, this is really interesting.

00:36:26:08 - 00:36:27:09
Cas Piancey
Out of the,

00:36:27:09 - 00:36:43:08
Cas Piancey
I don't know, hundreds of thousands, millions of coins that exists now. There's one that has actually found any kind of use case, like maybe two if we include Ethereum and Solana, but it seems like they're just be taken.

00:36:43:08 - 00:36:44:23
Molly White
I would say stable coins. Yeah.

00:36:44:23 - 00:37:06:21
Cas Piancey
I tether it's funny. It's funny because I'm obviously a critic of stablecoins, but I'm a critic of stablecoins, partially because to this day I don't see what useful purpose they serve outside of legitimately, just like criminals and sanctioned countries like I don't. It doesn't to me, it's like, oh, we're doing so much for the, you know, for people who can't access dollars.

00:37:06:21 - 00:37:08:09
Cas Piancey
And I'm like, like North Korea.

00:37:08:09 - 00:37:13:05
Bennett Tomlin
Like, what service did the Eurodollar fill in the late 20th century? Exactly.

00:37:13:07 - 00:37:14:02
Cas Piancey
Exactly.

00:37:14:02 - 00:37:34:03
Molly White
Yeah, I mean, I, I think that's kind of the common thread is like where there are use cases. The question is, are they useful use cases? You know, I mean, speculation is a use case, but like I don't think it's going to change the world. You know, there's there's sort of and there's like criminal activity is a use case.

00:37:34:03 - 00:37:36:07
Molly White
Like you really can't argue with that in crypto.

00:37:36:07 - 00:37:54:01
Bennett Tomlin
it's the one where it's found. It's its most utility. Like every money laundering indictment you read over the last like 18 months coming out of the Department of Justice mentions tether. That's an exaggeration, people. It's probably like 90% or something, but like, it is like one of the most common tools of money lenders and stuff.

00:37:54:05 - 00:38:05:11
Bennett Tomlin
And the crazy part of that is, is they gave the Secret Service and everyone full access, right? Like Tether's integrated the United States government into their operations. And still criminals think it's the best tool.

00:38:05:13 - 00:38:38:19
Molly White
Yeah. I mean, but I think that I think that's actually maybe kind of an interesting loop back to what we were just talking about, about sort of the lack of appealing use cases. Is that like the appealing use case for a while was that you could do things with crypto that you weren't allowed to do otherwise. And the one example that you came up with, Benet as of like a it's something that is interesting to people is PolyMarket, and I think that's because it's one of the few things that like, you can do it because there's a crypto app that lets you do it, but you can't do it with dollars.

00:38:38:19 - 00:38:59:00
Molly White
And like that is rapidly eroding. We're seeing people starting to do the types of things that you could once only do in crypto. You know, much more easily. We're seeing it as the, you know, Kalshi, for example, is doing election betting. And, you know, there's there's sort of easier ways for people to do these things without figuring out how to set up a crypto wallet.

00:38:59:00 - 00:39:13:00
Molly White
And so, you know, to some extent, I think that the use cases are kind of going away with the push to a legitimize cryptocurrency and be deregulate everything else. You know, it's like that arbitrage isn't really there anymore.

00:39:13:00 - 00:39:36:07
Bennett Tomlin
Vlad Tenev of Robinhood would personally stab three regulators if he was allowed to list election binary options like, yeah, like there's a lot of these traditional people that want to be doing exactly what PolyMarket is doing and assuming assuming that eventually they get the chance. Yeah, the hedge out PolyMarket again and PolyMarket will be left with the world's dumbest markets with the world's dumbest resolution criteria.

00:39:36:09 - 00:39:38:15
Molly White
Like and still do assassination markets.

00:39:38:17 - 00:39:40:09
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah, yeah. It'll be the

00:39:40:09 - 00:39:42:16
Bennett Tomlin
it'll be just for assassinations.

00:39:42:18 - 00:40:03:09
Cas Piancey
The Santa Monica fire. That was the moment I decided I fucking hated everything about PolyMarket and everything they stood for they for anyone who doesn't know the PolyMarket folks put up a when the Southern California fires were happening, they allowed a market to be like, is Santa Monica going to burn down in the next two days or something?

00:40:03:11 - 00:40:24:18
Cas Piancey
And people might be like, oh, well, that's just a betting market. But I just want to inform you that when you start incentivizing that right, you start saying, well, this fire happened in this neighborhood. Like you're kind of being like nudging people like, go on, set the fire in the neighborhood. So, yeah, the fact that that remained up and had a resolution is just really disgusting.

00:40:24:18 - 00:40:28:18
Cas Piancey
And they obviously don't have morals. But anyway, sorry. Yeah. Well, and.

00:40:28:19 - 00:40:41:13
Bennett Tomlin
If I remember right, that was one that was tied into UMA their like to their centralized oracle, their, their attempts at polymarkets, attempts at decentralization are frankly pathetic. But that's not that's not the point.

00:40:41:15 - 00:40:49:03
Molly White
Yeah. Not to mention the fact that the people who are, you know, controlling the oracles or betting in the markets, it's like, yeah, it's a mess.

00:40:49:05 - 00:41:14:21
Bennett Tomlin
Which which was the problem with augur years ago. Back in like 2018, I was the first crypto analysis article I ever wrote back. And I was getting into this back in like 2018 and had the same problem is like eventually the resolution, if you work through the different levels, it came down to who could like put up enough coins and hold out like against the penalties for long enough to resolve the market because like, you can't financially engineer everything.

00:41:14:21 - 00:41:21:03
Bennett Tomlin
Sorry, I'm just feeling despair. Do you ever feel despair being a crypto skeptic at this moment?

00:41:21:05 - 00:41:23:20
Molly White
It's only because I've completely lost my mind.

00:41:23:20 - 00:41:57:06
Bennett Tomlin
I sometimes feel like I'm shouting into the wind. Like. Like I could document with, like, a pretty high degree of certainty the insolvency of, like, an exchange tied to one of the most important cryptocurrency entrepreneurs. And everything just keeps ticking along, you know, like there's ever the market still feels so disconnected from, like, what markets are supposed to be or how, how any of this is supposed to function to never have that feeling.

00:41:57:08 - 00:42:07:18
Molly White
Yeah. I mean, I sometimes feel like the way that markets are is what's shifted. You know, the fact that we're seeing, you know, meme, meme stocks and,

00:42:07:18 - 00:42:22:14
Molly White
legitimization of sports gambling and the deregulation of crypto, you know, it all sort of is is a part of this larger whole of, you know, money the, the, the markets are just gambling now, like, we're just it's all betting now.

00:42:22:16 - 00:42:39:19
Molly White
There's no fundamentals. You know, you look at Tesla, you look at GameStop, you look at whatever. And it's just like kind of nonsense. But yeah, I mean, I, I definitely feel a little crazy sometimes, especially when it, you know, I think I think the big thing really is it sort of depends who you're talking to. Right.

00:42:39:19 - 00:42:56:10
Molly White
Because you can talk to people in crypto and you can do, you know, sort of what you just said. You can explain how something's a scam and they'll just look at you and they'll be like, so yeah, who cares? I can make money off of a scam. Yeah. You know, and I had to I had to come to terms with that a long time ago.

00:42:56:12 - 00:43:03:01
Cas Piancey
You and I had that same I like I had that exact same moment. I the, the way I put it to PJ Vogt was I said,

00:43:03:01 - 00:43:08:15
Cas Piancey
I'm going into a casino and shouting at people at the slot machine and telling them, don't you realize you're losing money?

00:43:08:15 - 00:43:12:05
Molly White
Yeah. Don't you know, you're like, yeah.

00:43:12:07 - 00:43:13:15
Cas Piancey
Go away.

00:43:13:17 - 00:43:39:02
Molly White
Right. Exactly. Yeah. So like, I, I kind of a long time ago had to sort of realize that, you know, there's really no convincing somebody who is like totally bought into the scam, but that doesn't mean that there's no good that can be done. You know, there's a lot of people who don't understand what's happening and who want to understand or at least understand sort of pragmatically, what's going on, you know, when they're looking at it.

00:43:39:02 - 00:43:51:02
Molly White
And those people are often very interested and can be moved, you know, they have they just want to know what's happening. They want to have, you know, some understanding of it. And and they are easy to reach. I think.

00:43:51:02 - 00:43:56:02
Cas Piancey
Is that kind of so you feel like that's the purpose of, of the work that you are doing and like, is it.

00:43:56:04 - 00:44:14:14
Molly White
Yeah. Okay. I mean, I don't I am not writing to a crypto audience. I certainly have people in crypto who read my work and who appreciate my work, I think. But, you know, I am not out there trying to convert the true believers. You know, I'm not out there trying to get big bitcoin maximalists to sell all their bitcoin.

00:44:14:16 - 00:44:34:04
Molly White
But, you know, I do think that it is important for, you know, everyday people whether or not they want to put money into crypto to understand what happens in this sector, especially as it's becoming so closely entangled with politics and, you know, this sort of system of the world around us. It used to be that you could ignore Bitcoin and it was fine.

00:44:34:04 - 00:44:47:22
Molly White
You know, you didn't have to know what was happening. You didn't have to care. Now, you know, if you are interested in the political machinery of this country, you do sort of have to know what's happening or what this stuff is or what this industry is.

00:44:48:02 - 00:45:04:01
Cas Piancey
And it affects finance in every it's an octopus now. I mean, like it. Yeah. It affects every like every every. Yeah. I mean, you're right, every American should at least understand it. That is I think that's a pretty fair assessment. It also kind of is scary.

00:45:04:03 - 00:45:11:02
Molly White
It is. But, you know, I also sort of make this point fairly often, which is that you actually really don't need to understand the technology that much.

00:45:11:02 - 00:45:21:08
Molly White
You don't necessarily have to understand the financial engineering, but I do think it's important to understand the industry and the sort of power that it is manipulating and wielding.

00:45:21:08 - 00:45:27:23
Molly White
And the way that that sector interacts with the broader financial system.

00:45:28:05 - 00:46:00:09
Molly White
I think that's the that's where it's really important for people to understand. And if they don't understand exactly how bitcoins are mined, you know, then that's probably okay. Like they can learn. Sure. But like, that's really not going to change their understanding of, you know, the sort of material impacts of crypto on the world. But knowing, you know, why it's so important to people like Donald Trump, why the industry is so powerful and what it's doing with that power, and what the potential impacts are to the broader financial system.

00:46:00:09 - 00:46:13:20
Molly White
And to people who maybe don't hold cryptocurrency at all and never planned to. That's, I think, the really important thing. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. And so that's what I've been really working to try to help explain as much as possible.

00:46:13:20 - 00:46:15:16
Cas Piancey
it's funny because I like, I, you know,

00:46:15:16 - 00:46:29:23
Cas Piancey
like even the concept of, of stablecoins, it's like, you know, I understand what you're saying, where it's like you don't necessarily need to explain the tech, but then if you try to dig into it at all, you kind of do, you know what I mean? Just because it's like it's like

00:46:29:23 - 00:46:31:15
Cas Piancey
if I just say, oh, it's a dollar derivative.

00:46:31:15 - 00:46:39:15
Cas Piancey
I mean, that just isn't giving it credit for how fucking insane it is, right? But yeah, it isn't just a dollar derivative. You know what I mean?

00:46:39:16 - 00:47:00:20
Molly White
I should caveat what I said a little bit, which is that, like, if I have 15 minutes of somebody's time, I'm not going to spend it explaining to them how Bitcoin's or mined or what stablecoins really are. You know, that is not the first. You know, that's not the 101 level material. I see. You do obviously have to understand that stuff once you're getting deeper into it.

00:47:00:20 - 00:47:20:21
Molly White
If you're talking to legislators, you know, or their staff who are trying to regulate this stuff, then you do really have to understand that, you know, if you're trying to understand how some of these crazy financial derivatives work and like, you know, what is crypto staking and why is that allowed? You know, that type of thing. You do have to get into the weeds of it.

00:47:20:23 - 00:47:35:17
Molly White
But when it comes to like, you know, everyday people who are just trying to understand what's going around, going on around them, starting out with like, all right, let me explain a blockchain to you is like, it's just not the best use of either of our meme.

00:47:35:19 - 00:47:37:21
Cas Piancey
That's a that's a it's a really good point. Yeah.

00:47:37:21 - 00:47:46:04
Bennett Tomlin
I mean, at a start at the transaction level, actually, before we get to the transaction level, do you know what Sha 256 is? Okay. If you don't do it?

00:47:46:06 - 00:47:51:06
Cas Piancey
I but it does it, it does kind of spiral very quickly. Like I don't know.

00:47:51:06 - 00:47:51:21
Bennett Tomlin
Sure sure sure.

00:47:52:01 - 00:47:57:18
Cas Piancey
Hey I try sometimes I just try even with, you know, I'll be talking to a neighbor or something about what I do. And it's like,

00:47:57:18 - 00:47:59:08
Cas Piancey
okay.

00:47:59:10 - 00:48:12:01
Bennett Tomlin
I always hit the point in conversations where someone says something that's like, subtly wrong, but directionally right. And I need to decide. I'm really just let them be subtly run but directionally right sniping.

00:48:12:03 - 00:48:13:12
Molly White
Or if it's bad.

00:48:13:14 - 00:48:15:12
Bennett Tomlin
Start going down the rabbit hole.

00:48:15:12 - 00:48:31:09
Molly White
I had a great conversation a couple of days ago with someone who was, I think, seven years old, who overheard me talking with their parents about some of the writing that I do, and they were like, what's cryptocurrency? And I was like, oh boy.

00:48:31:09 - 00:48:37:17
Molly White
And so I said something like, it's it's like internet money. And they're like, but what is it?

00:48:37:17 - 00:48:43:08
Molly White
And I was like, nothing, really. It's it's sort of made up. And they're like, well, that's dumb.

00:48:43:10 - 00:48:44:16
Bennett Tomlin
I was like, what? You got it?

00:48:44:16 - 00:48:45:09
Molly White
You got it,

00:48:45:09 - 00:48:46:04
Molly White
you're ready.

00:48:46:06 - 00:48:49:02
Bennett Tomlin
You're better than half the people in Congress in general.

00:48:49:04 - 00:48:49:15
Molly White
Are interested.

00:48:49:21 - 00:48:49:22
Bennett Tomlin
In.

00:48:50:00 - 00:48:50:18
Molly White
Job.

00:48:50:18 - 00:48:53:08
Bennett Tomlin
Everyone read citation needed. I'll say that.

00:48:53:10 - 00:48:54:11
Cas Piancey
Yeah. Citation needed.

00:48:54:15 - 00:48:59:13
Molly White
You can find my work going. Great. Needed that news and web three is going just great.

00:48:59:13 - 00:49:06:22
Cas Piancey
Thank you for joining us. It was a fun chat, and I'm so glad that we have your endorsement for CasCoin. So thank you.

00:49:07:00 - 00:49:09:16
Molly White
The one crypto I hold proud

←

Leave a comment