Ep. 76: Feelings Check-in. 1) A briefing on the SEC vs. Grayscale Bitcoin ETF ruling 2) Personal feelings on extractive behavior

[00:00] That's a building in public. Nice. Thanks. Okay. [00:06] Oh my gosh. [00:27] Just boys club. [00:28] What's going on? [00:29] Just so many events. That's what's going on. [00:34] I am... [00:37] An event planner. We have one event, at least one event every week in September. [00:43] I'm so excited about them. I'm so excited. [00:46] But... [00:47] I think I was having dinner with Amanda Cassette. [00:51] Amanda.Eath. Amanda.Eath. She's so great. And we're just cut from the same cloth. [00:57] And people sitting next to us are probably like, man, these bitches are so intense. [01:02] But she... [01:05] was like, are you a stressed person? Are you an anxious person? And I was like, for so long, I was working on my own project that wasn't working. And that was really stressful. [01:16] And then I was working on something that was working that had no money. And that was really stressful. [01:20] Which is Boys Club. Which is Boys Club. And now we have a teeny, teeny, teeny bin of money. And that's really exciting. [01:28] But... [01:29] "We do events." And I was like, "And events are so stressful. "There's no way around an event not being stressful." And she was like, "Ooh, totally." 'Cause I was like, "I've been zero to one

[01:39] for so long that's been my career is always the zero to one and that's a really stressful time and she was like there's a two i gotta tell you there's a two and i was like oh my god bring it to me bring me two oh man i can't even imagine two what's i know what's two gonna feel like [01:58] but even at two [02:00] We're doing events and just there's no way around it. Not being stressful. You're managing [02:04] People and partners and caterers and vendors and DJs and talent and guest lists. And it's a ton of fun. But I wake up thinking about them. [02:12] Yeah. [02:13] Yeah. [02:14] I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the like chords. [02:17] for the DJ AV yeah AV setups and arriving to something and realizing that [02:26] the chords are wrong and then i don't know what i then do with that you get like your bows like handheld and walk around the party anyway that's what's going on for some highlights of what the events are just quickly quick rundown yeah [02:45] New York Fashion Week event with Luxo next week going to be a... [02:49] This ruckus time. I am so excited about this. I can't wait to figure out what I'm going to wear. Something else to be stressed about. We have a incredible venue, secret venue. It's going to be a house party in the West Village. Oh, I thought you're going to say a hell of a good time. It's going to be a hell of a good time. Next up, right after that, we're doing a Boys Who Brunch pool party at Permissionless in Austin. So if you're going to be at Permissionless, RSVP to that, that's a members only event. I just sent a really over the top

[03:19] discord message to the whole discord to say, if you are coming to permissionless and you intend to attend this brunch, [03:28] Don't wait until the last minute and text us or DM us on that day trying to get in. We have very limited capacity. [03:35] Do some advanced planning. RSVP now. Let us know if you need to get pushed off the RSVP list if you're a member. And we're going to do that. And we're so excited to have you and so excited to do that work now. [03:46] Do not do that work next week. So I just sent that to the Discord. I'm saying it again here. I don't want anyone to get mad at me, at us, to say, hey, I tried to come, but I wasn't able to. And like, what are you guys doing? You're not opening your events to members. [03:59] We open our events to members. I cannot wait to see you. Oh my gosh. You need to do some work in advance. Go off queen. Oh my gosh. Okay, next. We are the personality hire at the RWA Summit in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg. Real world assets. Shout out to Centrifuge. And that team has been incredible to work with. And we're so excited to do some live podcasting. [04:21] Mm-hmm. [04:22] at the Real World Asset Summit. [04:24] Then after that, we fly to LA and we are doing a house party with Kraken. So house party on the West Coast and Latasha is DJing. [04:33] Definitely RSVP to that. We have an unbelievable house. [04:37] on Abbott Kenney, it's [04:39] beautiful. Then we fly from there to Barcelona and are doing a party with Chainlink at SmartCon. So... [04:47] That's what's up. That's what's going on. That's what's going on.

[04:50] Every Friday. [04:51] We do a show called The Feelings Check-In. [04:54] The feelings check-in is where it's just Natasha and I. It's no guest. We do two segments on the show. The first segment is we, one of us explains a news story that happened and [05:05] on the internet to the other one. [05:08] We give them a briefing and talk about our feelings around that story. And some of our feelings are objectively right. Some of our feelings are objectively wrong. And so if you're listening to this podcast, just have come with an open heart and an open hand for that as the reality. We will be wrong. We will be right. And it's not necessarily about that. It's about sort of our reaction to it. So that's number one. That's the first segment of the show. [05:38] about our feelings on something that's happening in boys club at work maybe in our personal lives it's a lot more of a raw look at what's going on so that's the show great stick around hey natasha if someone wants to get into crypto or is looking for a better way to trade where should they go oh dina i'm so glad you asked the place to be is kraken it's more than a crypto platform kraken [06:08] A simple, gorgeous place to trade with a redesigned trading interface that's so easy to use. From degen to day trader, first timer to full timer, make your trades in just a few clicks. Go to kraken.com backslash boys club, sign up in just a few minutes, and you can even get started with as little as $10. We love you, Kraken.

[06:27] Dina, are you telling me a story today? I am. [06:30] What is that story? I... [06:32] just googled [06:34] What is a... [06:36] trust asset fund versus an ETF. [06:39] Mm-hmm. [06:40] And I really wanted to tweet a screenshot of that. [06:44] with something that says like me as a [06:47] financial analyst in preparing for this segment it just is revealed how much i don't know about the traditional finance industry [06:58] And so that's always fun to be confronted with. Today's story is about grayscale [07:03] and the SEC and an ETF company. [07:06] application [07:07] So sexy stuff super sexy. I'm gonna start with just some context for the story and what happened this week. So grayscale is a crypto asset. [07:17] management company [07:19] They have [07:21] according to the website, $22 billion of assets under management. They're a really significant player in institutional investing for digital assets. But they're very clearly like a digital asset fund. What happened this week was that last year, Grayscale, [07:36] applied to [07:38] basically convert one of their existing Bitcoin trust funds [07:42] into [07:44] what's called an ETF, an exchange traded fund. [07:46] and that was rejected by the SEC. [07:51] And... [07:52] Then the next day, Grace Girl were like, what the fuck? [07:55] Why did you do that? And they brought a case against the SEC saying,

[08:01] Why'd you guys reject our proposal? What the heck? And... [08:05] This week, they came down from what the fuck to what the heck? What the heck? [08:12] And on Tuesday of this week, the courts ruled in favor of grayscale in that case. Cool. [08:19] saying that the SEC's rejection at the time [08:22] was quote-unquote arbitrary and [08:25] Capricious. [08:26] cute word i did have to google it do you know what capricious means [08:31] I mean, I could guess. I could guess. Yeah, I could guess based on the context clues. Gun to my head, I could figure it out. But in a less stress-induced environment, I don't really... I couldn't really define it. Yeah, same. It means impulsive or unpredictable. So... [08:47] My toddler is capricious. [08:49] And the courts ruled. [08:51] in this case, so is the SEC. There's a lot of takes around how that language was harsh. It was also a unanimous ruling. And so, [09:00] this was a really clear line that these courts ruled [09:04] against the SEC and in favor of Grayscale. If you're a loyal listener, you hopefully have some context for what an ETF is. We covered it on a previous podcast, but the TLDR is basically that an ETF is... [09:18] an investment vehicle that's listed on traditional exchanges. [09:23] And so having an ETF for crypto asset like Bitcoin basically lets institutional money that trades on these institutional exchanges [09:31] access or get exposure to that as an asset class because of the way that Bitcoin trades and because of just

[09:39] There's all of these unique things about Bitcoin that makes it so that a lot of institutional money doesn't or can't or isn't willing to hold Bitcoin. [09:48] And the thinking is that once ETFs are approved for Bitcoin, it would be a huge inflection point for the industry because it opens up the floodgate for all this traditional money to come into Bitcoin. [09:59] Bitcoin. That's kind of the background. Now, this ruling [10:02] does not [10:04] guarantee a listing of the grayscale bitcoin etf but it's a great signal basically what happens next is that the sec has 45 days to appeal and then after 45 days the core will issue a mandate on what happens next the sec will definitely appeal within that period of time okay um but it's overall good signal the market's [10:24] Pumped 5%, which is not nothing. Markets liked it. [10:28] Markets liked it. So a couple other details, then we can get into some takes and feelings. The SEC party line about Bitcoin ETFs has [10:36] than that [10:37] the Bitcoin market is [10:40] too easy to manipulate. [10:41] And there's too much fraud. [10:44] Which... [10:45] They're not wrong. [10:47] But I think the thinking is that there are measures that these funds will be putting into place to help mitigate some of that risk. And it's also really important to note just timing here. Grayscale isn't the only player... [11:02] that has a pending ETF filing. BlackRock has one. Fidelity has one. I think I saw that there was over nine pending applications. Oh, wow. And...

[11:13] the first deadline for [11:15] I think seven of these Bitcoin ETFs is within the next few days. [11:19] Like literally like days. Okay. So it's. So buy Bitcoin now. Bye. [11:25] I imagine it was that kind of podcast where we're looking at charts and we're giving buy signals. You know that guy who has the what is that show called? [11:37] Where he like hits the, bye. And he has like a, you know what I'm talking about? [11:42] I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a Fox News style financial news show. [11:48] Yeah. Organization. Organization. Okay. The way that these filings work is that there's multiple deadlines. It's convoluted. But basically, the first deadlines for a bunch of these filings is coming up. The SEC will probably delay. [12:02] any ruling and then they have another few deadlines that they have to hit but it's all coming together the downstream ramifications of this [12:11] in the broader marketing industry the market pumped a little bit five percent anything else any other response yeah there were some shorts that were liquidated which was pretty considerable i don't want to talk too much about that because i don't really understand it so no problem okay no so there's sort of three categories of takes that i want to just [12:34] talk through briefly the first is like a lot of conversation about the political what the what this signals politically [12:40] Okay. And... [12:41] For as much as you see people saying, oh, this is like...

[12:46] mount so much pressure on the SEC politically to... [12:51] approved [12:52] these ETFs and it's just like such a big strong political signal pro crypto you see [12:57] the same amount of that on the other side. [13:00] Where people are like, this is just going to make them dig their heels in. And we have people like Elizabeth Warren, Anti-Crypto Army. They're just going to feel... [13:09] I don't know, invigorated. It's really, really actually impossible to [13:14] understand that signal because [13:16] everyone is just finding evidence for the thing that they believe in the world. So who knows, but that's a big part of that. That's, [13:23] - Yeah. [13:24] Deep. [13:24] it's too deep beyond it goes beyond [13:28] and then there's a lot of and i told you so type energy so i saw this post that was like the winklevoss twins filed their bitcoin trust 10 years ago blah blah blah kind of in a showy way which okay whatever and then i thought this was really interesting was when the facts change we change our mind so we we always allow people to grow right like always always allow them to grow and to change their mind one really great story about this is [13:55] The BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink. [13:57] In 2007, he said, quote, Bitcoin just shows you how much demand for money laundering there is in the world. Oh, so he was... [14:05] vocally against and then [14:09] He has recently said, because they just filed the ETF. So now he's like on a total campaign for Ovi coin. [14:15] because it's so international.

[14:17] It's going to transcend any one currency in currency valuation. So he's... [14:23] He's had a change of heart. He's had a change of heart. He is a man... [14:27] and growth. [14:28] So that's that and then the last thing I'll say and then I want to pause and I want to get your take on it and [14:33] is there's a lot of betting stuff [14:36] Energy. [14:36] around when the ETFs are going to be approved. And you can expect that because we're a betting industry. So we attract bettors and gamblers. And so, yeah, there's a lot of talk about odds, [14:49] Bloomberg intelligence analysts up their odds of a spot Bitcoin ETF approval by the end of the year from 65 to 75. Everyone was tweeting about that. That seemed to be something that felt... [14:58] significant a lot of that kind of energy like when how who and what are the odds on it over unders okay okay wow big stuff [15:08] Maybe. [15:09] Or maybe not. [15:11] My take, I feel exposed. [15:15] And how little I understand about traditional finance. Could not be more exposed. [15:20] That's my first feeling. My second feeling is that this is the work to be doing because I want to better understand it. I don't need to work at a bank. [15:30] I don't need to be a day trader, but I would like to be educated and have some grounding on the financial markets that affect my well-being and... [15:42] my life. So that's the second thing that comes up for me. So happy to be hearing about it. And thank you for your work. You're welcome. And then third would be, I think it's exciting for the industry. I think inevitably going to bring the value of Bitcoin up and the price up, which makes me feel

[16:02] Like I want to put more money into Bitcoin, which is hilarious because I have so little money in it that it really doesn't matter. [16:10] It's like $500. I'm like, let's go all in, all in. [16:16] And then lastly, I think I'm present to desiring for there to be more interesting stuff in the world of crypto than just ETFs. [16:32] comes up for me in this where I'm like, wow, what if it's all just about this? [16:35] And that would be a little bit disappointing. But that's fine. It's just not a big feeling. But that's also there for me. I'm like, oh, I think the next... [16:43] full run, a lot of what will usher that in, is institutional money. [16:48] and traditional finance adopting these different assets. And that's great because I would love a bull run. But my hope is that, [16:57] What's right behind that is like a lot of creative work and interesting applications and consumer facing. [17:03] tools and ways for people to be creative and do interesting work. So that's a thing that I think about. Cool. [17:10] But thank you. Totally. One thing that I forgot is... [17:14] what is a funny kind of meme, the Bitcoin maxis [17:17] saying, [17:18] don't sell your Bitcoin to BlackRock. [17:22] And there being this [17:24] kind of going totally full circle. You're so libertarian that you're now like, don't sell any [17:31] I've,

[17:32] the Bitcoin too. [17:33] Institutional. Money. [17:36] Can you imagine caring about that? [17:37] I can't fathom it. [17:40] Truly. I can't. So that's that. [17:45] That's that. [17:47] Kraken is a crypto OG. They have more than 10 million clients around the world that trust them with their crypto needs. They're one of the largest crypto platforms out there with some of the highest security standards in the industry. So you can rest easy that your funds and your privacy are safe for the keeping. And if you need help along the way, as we all do sometimes, Kraken's award-winning client support team is available 24-7 every day of the year. This is a true story. [18:15] questions about our account and they were so nice and so patient. It just takes a few minutes to get started today at kraken.com backslash boys club. [18:23] Okay, personal feelings? [18:24] Personal feelings. [18:26] I have a feeling. I have a strong feeling. [18:29] And I'm worried that it's too strong. [18:31] It's very strong. [18:33] I know this feeling. [18:35] I won't shut up about it. [18:37] you won't you've sent me drafts of the same tweet like six times and every time i'm like i don't think you should tweet that and finally i've just gone sure i know you said sure the exclamation point this morning and i was like she does not mean sure [18:50] Also, Shur is... [18:53] I hate the word here. [18:54] I was raised... [18:56] That sure is rude to be like, hey, do you want to go get dinner? Sure. Okay. Well, now I know you were being rude to me this morning when she texted me back. Okay. Great. Noted. It was passive-aggressive. It was a passive-aggressive response.

[19:09] Well, I honestly was like, you know, anyway, what's your feeling? Okay. This is what really grinds my gears. The concept of partnerships. And I'm... [19:18] I could not be air quoting harder when I say partnerships. [19:22] in web through and crypto. [19:24] the idea of partnerships in this space. [19:27] is so... [19:28] Convoluted. [19:29] So, [19:31] I will say that once a day at this point, [19:34] at this point it's probably once a day. We're getting some inbound request [19:39] that is like, "Hey, we love Boys Club. We'd love to partner with Boys Club." [19:44] Can we get on a call and talk about it? [19:46] What we've learned is we show up to those calls, [19:50] And the person who's pitching a partnership with boys club, [19:54] Nine times out of 10. [19:56] One has either not thought through [19:58] what the partnership can look like. And it's just this kind of nothing. They have no ideas for how it could come to life. [20:05] And then... [20:07] weirdly, you and I end up doing the work to try and figure out what the partnership can look like and like coming up with creative ideas for how to bring it to life. So one, they either don't, don't have an idea or two, they're just asking us to shill [20:21] their thing. [20:22] with no [20:24] value to the boys club community. It's like, hey, I have this cool thing. And the ask is essentially is can you promote it to boys club people. So it's really frustrating. It's really, really frustrating to be on the receiving end of that all the time. Because in the first instance, you're putting the expectation of creative labor on us to figure out

[20:45] which doesn't make me feel very generous to partner with your thing or in the second instance [20:50] your [20:51] taking advantage of [20:53] of the Boers Club community and the goodwill that we've built up [20:57] and [20:59] for a lot of these companies that are fall into that second bucket, they're like maybe big crypto companies or like big in the space or whatever. And they think that like, I don't know, we'll be [21:09] Will we get some benefit from shilling their thing and [21:13] That's just... [21:15] not [21:16] gonna happen. Now I will say [21:18] there is a 1% exception. [21:20] in the second category. [21:22] which is if you're building something really cool, [21:25] and really exceptional. [21:28] Or... [21:29] You've spent a ton of time [21:31] pouring value into the boys club community and you've shown up and you're showing up for members and you're sure active. [21:37] You're an active community. You're an active community member. We see you, you're visible, you're... maybe you don't come to events because you live in Nebraska, but you're... [21:45] in the chat you're helping people out you're a very active member of the community [21:49] then we have a ton of generosity and like that's a completely different equation. [21:53] But I got to say, that's 1% of the asks that we get are these exceptions. And most of them are... [22:00] Just people kind of, I don't know, taking advantage. And it pisses me off. [22:04] Yeah. [22:04] I'd like to throw some disclaimers. [22:08] and clarifications. If you have budget, incredible. [22:12] Even if you're like, hey, we have a small budget. Is there anything that we can do with this?

[22:16] Totally different conversation. Totally. [22:19] The second flag, I would say, [22:22] is there are some people who... [22:25] I had a call today with somebody who we got on a call and he was like, I have no agenda for this call, but I really love what you guys are doing and I'd like to understand it better and I'd want to understand where there might be ways for us to work together. [22:36] That's a very different call than someone who's like, hey, I really love Boys Club. I'm working on this thing. Can you promote it? [22:42] That's very different. [22:44] And... [22:45] I think that that is a distinction that people truly don't seem to understand. Yeah. Where – [22:51] I am so down to hop on a call with someone who's building something interesting and doesn't quite understand where there's areas to fit in with Boys Club. [22:59] And I don't quite understand what their priorities and values and roadmap looks like. And that's cool. Let's hop on a call, let's chat, let's jam, let's figure out where there's mutually beneficial aligned value. [23:12] I know in two seconds if that's the call I'm on or if the call I'm on is [23:16] Hey, here's the thing. Extractive. You know immediately. So I think that that's like just a distinction that some people could hear this and be like, oh, I got on call with them and I didn't have a clear idea of what the partnership would be. That's not it. That's like, there's very, you know, when you're showing up and you're making someone else do the work or you should. Yeah, you should be. I think it maybe is. This is actually just career advice to people who work in partnerships. [23:39] to either do some of that work to know what the shape of the partnership could look like [23:43] Maybe with some examples. [23:45] Or if you don't have anything, you're coming in totally...

[23:49] without ideas, [23:51] you better be sure that you have a very clear idea for what value you could be bringing in exchange for whatever the partnership looks like, like what potential value you could bring and not having either one of those two things figured out coming into a partnership meeting. [24:04] If it's with us or if it's with anyone. [24:06] It's a bad look for you. It's a bad look. And... [24:09] It is extractive behavior. And I think that it runs rampant in this industry. And I am sick and tired of it. She's fed up and I get it. So anyway, I'm super hot on this. I have like having a feeling of anger and that's never, never good to podcast when you're angry. [24:31] the experience of [24:33] many great partners. There's a lot of great partners out there that we work with that are wonderful. [24:38] Kraken is incredible partner. Incredible partner. Luxo. Incredible partner. Incredible partner. Like talk about creative leash. [24:47] They let us do some hilariously funny stuff and they're like, go for it. And that is. [24:52] So great. And this would be my other note. [24:56] to those who are [24:58] in partnerships or in sponsorships or doing media buys. Pick who you want to partner with [25:03] And then, [25:04] Let them do their thing. Yeah, and that's where you'll get the best. [25:07] that's where you get the best work. And so... [25:10] There's a bunch of other partners, but I would say obviously those are the two that we're working with most closely right now. [25:15] They're really wonderful to work with and they have approach

[25:19] conversations with mutually beneficial partners. [25:23] incentive. I'm sympathetic to everyone who listened to this and is like, are they, are they talking about me and did we have a bad conversation? It's not about you. [25:31] I feel bad now. Anybody who's listening to this. [25:34] Just know it's not you. [25:37] It's not. The people who are listening to this, it's not them. [25:42] If you're listening to this, you are probably someone who has done the good work of trying to [25:47] help figure it out with us which i am so appreciative of yeah [25:50] I'm sorry. [25:52] It's okay. It's okay. All right. Bye. Bye. Dina, where are we going to be in September? We are going to be at Permissionless in Austin, Texas. Permissionless too. It's happening and we're curating the culture track for the conference. So if you're into the stuff we talk about here, you should come and have a good time with us. So email your boss at [26:15] Tell them that you need to go and buy your ticket now. They will never be as cheap as they are today. And we also have a promo code in our Discord for Boys Club members. Come hang in Austin. [26:29] This is where we make an ask. We're in our call to action era. It's CTA times. Rate and review this podcast. Subscribe to our newsletter. And if you're feeling extra generous, [26:42] send it to one friend.