Uniswap Becomes God-Tier Token!!!🔥$UNI🔥Matt Hougan Bitwise INTERVIEW

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's get into it today. We've got a god teered
token on the cusp of happening. We'll break it down
for you. We've got a special guest. It's going to
be a good one. Don't miss it. Let's get into
our sponsor, of course, and that is Coinbase. This is
where you guys can get into your crypto journey. And
if you have not joined Coinbase, you should. All you
have to do, of course, is use our link down below.
It does give you a little bit of a bonus

(00:20):
when you sign up over there. You can earn up
to two grand actually when you buy your first fifty
dollars in crypto. So check it out using our link.
It'll start you on your way for engaging in the
crypto market. I'm going to have Matt Hogan on today,
but before we get into bringing him on, I just
want to kind of line something up for you guys
that has been happening and is now starting to come

(00:42):
to the forefront. As you know, and we've been talking
about this for quite some time, is the fee switch
on uniswap. Well, this is our third Uni pump based
dow proposal turn on the fee switch. This has been
attempted before. Are we finally going to get it since
they're so efficient at it is the question. And if
you look at the possibility of this right now on polymarket,

(01:04):
well we have just skyrocketed to almost eighty percent, so
it looks like this might be the run where we
actually get this FEAT switch turned on and this is
going to change DeFi dramatically. I want to go to
a clip that we had Matt Hogan on a year
ago talking about this.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Take a look. First of all, is UNISWAP undervalued right now?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
I think that's absolutely right.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
If it was anything more than a weak governance token,
it was effectively illegal poor tokenomic designs embedded into these
DeFi protocols. You're going to see that switch and then
investors are going to realize that these assets are substantially undervalue.
Opportunity lies between reality and perception. I think the perception
of DeFi is that it's still dead.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's just not true. You're showing it. The volumes are
through the roof.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
I mean, just look at that chart, one of the
most beautiful charts in finance. Eventually the market will wake
up to this reality and it's going to be DeFi
summer two point zero and I think that will ten
x usage.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
All right, Well you heard it from Matt Hogan himself,
I mean, and if you look at the chart, he
was dead on on this again, because this is where
we are right now, continuing to see the volume skyrocketing
on UNISWAP, and of course with this proposal, this changes everything.
So I thought, well, you know what, let's get the
architect or one of the architects on himself.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Mister Matt Hogan. How are you.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
I'm doing well, Thanks for bringing me back, Paul.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, it was a great conversation that we had a
year ago on this very topic.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
And of course here we are today.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Unicewap going into a full on move and the unification
proposal is underway. Have you seen these lineup? This is
an absolute killer lineup. So turn on UNISWAP protocol fees.
This is going to be a big one. Send the
unit chain sequencer fees to the same UNI burn mechanism,
so it's going to be burning a lot of it.
Build a protocol fee discount, so this is going to

(02:56):
increase LP returns. This looks like a wish list, you know,
in terms of things that you would want What are
your first thoughts on this compared.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
To you didn't even include burn one hundred million UNI.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, make for fees that were lost over the cycle.
This is a beautiful list. I think it's transformative to
UNI as a token. I think it's more broadly transformative
to the DeFi space. What I said in that clip
that you you mentioned or that you played was that
the reason these spooky governance tokens launched instead of real

(03:32):
tokens that offered economic value in these incredible applications was
because of regulatory pressure. If you had something like the
fee switch, where you had a direct economic tie to
activity on the application, you ended up in jail, and
so no one did that. UNI is now showing that
it always wanted to have this direct economic tie. That's

(03:52):
why they're putting all these in PLAYCE, that's why they're
burning the one hundred million tokens, and now they're able
to do it. I think investors are going to revalue
you these assets. I think we're going to see other
DeFi assets follow suit.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
I think we'll see new.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
DeFi assets that have direct economic ties. We're blurring the
line between crypto asset and company here. Paul and We're
allowing these applications to have real economic value and therefore
the tokens to have that value, and I think that's
going to be a new bull market. I still think
we're on track for DeFi Summer two point zero.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
So do you think this new unpacking, this valuation on
this is basically going to be a catinent for trad FI.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
Absolutely, fundamentally driven revenue based, users based application base. It
fits into a TRAD five framework. You could give that
table to an analyst at Goldman Sachs and they could
come up with a valuation number. Previously, the number did
not compute right. You would put the data in users, revenue,
et cetera. But then how would you get to the

(04:56):
value of the UNI tooken it had governance, we don't
assign much value that. Now you can calculate that, and
as a result, you're going to see institutions move into
this space and droves. It's worth noting if UNISWAP were
a company, it'd be one of the most exciting financial
startups of the last twenty years. Because it's been a token.
We haven't thought of it that way, but now we will.

(05:19):
And I think it's really exciting.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
I've got a clip here, this, of course is Heyden Adams.
He's talking about something that we all are accustomed to,
and that is quarterly earnings.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Listen to what he had say.

Speaker 5 (05:30):
Are there's sort of like this interesting thing that happens,
for example, the fee system that we're sort of proposing
as part of this. Every aspect of it is transparent
and public and auditible and verifiable in real time, and
so people don't need quarterly reports from a company not
just like public and transparent, but also like cryptographically provable.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
That makes a lot of sense. How has the reaction been.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
From what I've seen, it has been extremely positive. Everyone
on Twitter seems very happy.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Congratulations, big big milestone.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
And do you think this is going to be a
trend for other companies that you know.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Other people follow this trend as well.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
I'm kind of curious, what do you think.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Do you think it will be a trend that will
start to see more of this kind of activity.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
I absolutely think it will be a trend. I mean,
Uni is being rewarded, the token prices up. You're going
to see pressure on other tokens to do this. And
what Hayden said is exactly right, it's actually more it's
maybe more right than he's positioning. It's not that we
don't need quarterly reports. It's that we're getting vastly improved information,
real time information, verifiable on chain about the economic value

(06:32):
going on here. It's not just equal to the previous
era of regulation, it's actually better, right, because it's real time,
it's ongoing, and it's provable, not just audited.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
There's no Enron here, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Right, So I think it's a huge, huge step forward
for investors, and I absolutely think you're going to see
other people follow suit and do their own version of this.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, it looks like this could happen within twenty two
days for full governance process is what it looks like.
If this all goes through, I think we could see
another extended pump on UNISWAP. Of course not financial advice,
but we've already seen a pretty big move over just
the last few days with UNISWAP playing out into this
and the other thing that we talked to standing not

(07:13):
too long ago on this very issue about XRP coming
onto the UNISWAP chain, and it was kind of interesting
because this was kind of mentioned in the sense of
we would probably see it coming onto ave if we
saw this actually occur. When you first of all, are
you do you agree when we start to see those

(07:33):
kinds of exposures, new tokens are going to benefit from
this as we see more come on chain.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
Yeah, I mean absolutely, this pro This makes tokens better.
I mean that's one way of thinking of it. It
also shows investors that the existing tokenomics of an existing
token aren't fixed and can be improved as regulations improve
and expand. So I see this as broadly beneficial for
the crypto space.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
I can't emphasize enough how much regulations erected a barrier
between what these tokens wanted to be and what they
were forced to be, and that barrier has been brought
down by the more engagement style regulation of the SEC.
The more desired to do safe harbors, the more effort
to align with investors. So, whether it's it's UNI or

(08:18):
other tokens, I think people should just be open to
us evolving to a better standard. You're never going to
have worse defive tokens than you had today. We're only
moving forward and up in investors favor, and that's going
to be true, not just of UNI, but of other
assets moving on check.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, other assets I think definitely are going to be
a key going forward. Speaking of other assets, b sool
and Salona of course, nine consecutive days on fire. So,
first of all, were you surprised at the performance on
this so far?

Speaker 3 (08:48):
We've been really pleased.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
Bisol has been one of the best ETF launches of
this year out of not just crypto ETFs, but across
all eight hundred and fifty plus ETFs that launched.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
It's had the most day one volume.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
I think in a few more days it will have
the most net inflows. So we've been extremely pleased and
my surprise, I'm not so surprised is the right word.
If you think about what Solana is, it is a
play on stable coins, a play on tokenization, and one
of the most exciting technological blockchains out there.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
That's a pretty good trio.

Speaker 4 (09:22):
And when you combine that with an ETF that charges
just twenty bases points and then stakes one hundred.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
Percent of the assets, yeah, ah, it makes a lot
of sense.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
When we talk to institutions, they're very interested in allocating.
The retail community is very strong around Solana, so We've
been very pleased. I'm not sure i'd say surprised, but
I definitely would say pleased.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
So good launch. I think for you guys, definitely a
winner in the category. Some other winners that may be
coming your way, of course, is the XRP ETFs. We
had Stephen on the other day and he throws out
some crazy numbers and he's saying that there's a possibility
think that we can see double of what Solana has

(10:02):
done so far. Do you agree with that In terms
of the XRP ETF.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, I love Steve.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
I look forward to competing with him on XRP, but
he's a good friend. Yes, I think there will be
significant interest. The thing that people get wrong about crypto
is an asset like XRP definitely has divisive.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Views in the community.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
There are many crypto people who love it, and there
are many people who are skeptical of it. The thing
about ETF flows is the people who are skeptical don't matter.
All that matters is that there are people who are
excited to buy it. That's why you see high inflows.
So I think the mistake people make when they estimate
something like an XRP ETF is they take the median
view of XRP.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
In the crypto community, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
It's that there's this strong, committed community of people who
are excited for this product and they will inallocate. So
I think XRP will be a big success. I don't
know if it will double Solana, but it will be
another big success in the market.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Do you think. Okay?

Speaker 1 (10:59):
So, with that being said, when do you think we
would see a uniswap ETF, A public uniswap ETF.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Do you think that's a possibility.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
Yeah, I think there's a nuanced answer to that, Paul.
So there are two kinds of ETFs in the market.
They're traditional ETFs like b SOL that hold the spot directly.
Those are what's called nineteen thirty three e act ETFs,
and then there are nineteen forty act ETFs that use
futures or Cayman.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Subs to gain exposure.

Speaker 4 (11:26):
We'll probably see a uniswap ETF in that nineteen forty
format relatively soon. Uniswap doesn't have the qualifications quite yet
to make that other more direct ETF live. But these
other ETFs, these forty act ETFs, are good too.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
They're maybe not as efficient, but it's a relative thing.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
You know, an ETF is better than no ETF, and
I think we'll get to that forty act ETF pretty
quickly on something like swap.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
So super State is doing a lot of tokenization out there.
You can kind of see just what they've done here
with backpack when you look at that, and then you
kind of compare of what you guys are doing here,
and I'm just looking at bit wise, this is a
minimum investment right here, and the kind of subscriptions that
are advised as well as the redemptions, and you look

(12:16):
at that, and even though the potential here of your
fund holdings, I'm look at you know, swap leading the
leading the pack right here, ave right behind ye. What
would be the possibility of just tokenizing bit wise, just tokenize?

Speaker 2 (12:30):
I love it, all of it.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
Yeah, we're very interested. Look, ultimately, my view is that
that is where the market goes. I think all assets
will be tokenized. I'm aligned with Larry Fink, CEO of
Blackrock on that. I think ETFs will be tokenized. I
think strategies like you just showed, which is are our
DeFi index private fund will be tokenized. I do think
We're in a transition phase, Paul, where both will exist.

(12:53):
There's some traditional investors who want traditional regulated vehicles. There
are more forward thinking investors who want tokenized solutions. You
can expect bitwise to do all of those things. We
don't currently have tokenized funds, but it's something we're looking
at very closely. There are various ways to do it,
and I do think that's the ultimate destination of where
this industry is going. The entire financial ecosystem is moving

(13:17):
on chain that includes funds, so i'd.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Expect to see bit wise doing both in the future.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
I'm kind of curious, what do you think have you
done though? I'm sure you guys have done all the
calculations of what kind of volume this would potentially expose
for someone like a bit wise. Have you looked at
this to see what's the potential upside here?

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah, it's somewhat hard to judge. What we're seeing is
that tokenized strategies are starting with sort of income oriented
strategies that appeal to retail crypto investors, and that's the
phase that they're at, and there is demand for those strategies.
What we don't know is does it expand into these
baskets of interesting crypto assets.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
I suspect it does, but it's a matter of timing.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
So right now, I think the market for that is
relatively small, but I do think it will ramp significantly
as people get more and more comfortable holding crypto assets. Remember,
from a regulated perspective, we're what less than ten months
into the positive regulatory pair of cryptoy, still very early,
but it's going to be huge, you know, just like

(14:24):
ETFs displaced mutual funds, tokenized exposure will eventually displace even ETF.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
So I think that's the direction.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
That's a huge statement, I think. But to your point,
ten months in and we're really on the doorstep of
possibly another you know, jet fuel moment with clarity that
come in this, of course, is David Sachs talking about
this of what it's going to take to get this
bipartisan draft into market structure legislation. Do you think this
is going to happen this year in twenty twenty five?

Speaker 4 (14:57):
Yeah, I mean the government isn't even open yet, so
I don't know if it will happen in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
I think the poly market odds put that at a
low level.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
I think the expectation or the hope will be it
happens in early twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
But so far the administration is delivered on.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
Its crypto priorities, right, It's made certain promises and it
has in fact delivered those promises. Clarity is one of
those promises. We're hearing positive developments. So if you've if
you forced me to choose in Q four, I'd probably
say slightly below fifty. But if you extend that to
Q one, I think we have a good chance of

(15:34):
getting this passed, and I do think it is a
major ballist for the market at that point.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, well, this will start to play into the next prediction.
I'm want to ask you, well, actually, I'm want to
ask you about Tom Lee's predictions. Tom is now back
out there hitting a nine to twelve. Let me kind
of zoom in on the you guys so you can
actually see that. Actually, what was said, a nine to
twelve thousand dollars eighth potential? Is Tom lee prediction crazy

(16:00):
because he just keeps coming at it, you know, from
a very up only cycle position.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
What's your thought on that one?

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Look, I think he's right. I think it's just a
matter of timing. He's calling for it very quickly. And
the question is do we get that kind of Q
four early Q one melt up that more than doubles.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
The price of Eth. That is, from my view, very optimistic. Look,
I think I think, I think crypto.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
Assets have a good chance of moving to all time
highs by the end of the year. I am optimistic
on an end of the year surge in crypto. We're
seeing real institutional interest. We're seeing the government potentially reopening
that means more liquidity. You mentioned the Clarity Act. I
think expectations will grow there. We're seeing the ico market
reborn through coinbase. There's a lot to be excited about

(16:47):
this unpop thing. But whether we'll get a you know,
a two or three X of Eth in two months,
I love Tom.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
I really hope he's right. I think it's very optimistic
in that short of time period.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Okay, so first of all, let me ask you this.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
You look at Fusaka and the Pectra, Well, look at Pectra.
We saw and for those of you that are following along,
maybe it doesn't know what that is. When Eth did
their first upgrade Pectra, there was a big market pump
into ethereum because of its abilities. Fusaka is going to
do that even more so because we're going to see
even lower transactions and more transaction opportunity. Do you think

(17:24):
that would be another catalyst for Ethereum taking another leg up.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
Yeah, I think it is a catalyst. I actually think
it's a catalyst independent of the improvement that it delivers
to the protocol. I think it's a catalyst from a
narrative perspective. One of the criticisms of ETH when it
was down in the aduldrums at like fifteen hundred dollars
you know, not that long ago, right, that was like
April or something, was that it was very slow to
execute on these upgrades. You remember, they had plans stretching

(17:52):
to like twenty twenty nine and people were exhausted. The
ability to execute two major upgrades in one calendar year
would be extraordinary and would show that they've adopted sort
of the ship first mentality that I think would be
rewarded by investors.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
They want to see ETH a ship first.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
Mentality, and if they can deliver on that on Fusaka,
I think that will be really beneficial to the narrative.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Well, I think the thing that shifted for vitallic was
the fact that he wasn't completely well, not he independently,
but in general, the ETH community wasn't completely bought in
on the fact that we were going to see a
full on administration change, and I think that accelerated all
developers in all of crypto, you know, across the world,

(18:36):
trying to catch up with what's happening in the US
right now.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
For sure, I think that's absolutely right, and it saw
rising competitions from others chains that were executing very well.
And when that happens, you can either let them pass
you by, or.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
You can get your act together.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
And I think what we saw out eth community is
they really got their act together and they've been rewarded.
The prices you know, up two hundred plus percent. Tom
says it's going to triple from here. So you know,
kudos to them to reacting to a market reality, a
regulatory regime change, and if they can continue to execute
that just sort of builds on that story.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
I want to hit you on this last question, speaking
of market risers, Polymarket, you put out a tweet it
says I continue to think poly market should have won
the Pulitzer for its coverage on the twenty twenty four
presidential elections, which I think everybody now looks at poly
market as the go to place for any kind of
pulling data because it was absolutely dead on in terms

(19:34):
of the elections and what we'll see, and it seems
to be dead on in almost every election, including what
we saw in New York just happen, So it's not
like it's slowing down. My question to you, Matt, is
which is going to be bigger the polytoken, which we
know is coming. Shane has kind of alluded to this
or the IPO of poly market onto the mainstream.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
What do you think is going to be bigger?

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Oh Man, That is a tough one.

Speaker 4 (19:59):
I do think the market it is underappreciating how significant
prediction markets will be. I think they're they're They're even
bigger than you than most people think they are, and
most people have accepted they have a place.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
In the world. I think they have a really substantial
place in the world.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
That's a tough one on the token versus the equity,
because the thing about it is both communities are so excited,
right Crypto is so excited, but tradify is so excited.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
I don't know I'd want to own both, hopefully both.
I'm going to want to pop out of it.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Matt Hogan coming in from a bit wise of course,
just launching a b SOL, getting ready to roll out
an XRP ETF. So good luck to you on all
of what you guys are doing. Thanks for coming in today.
We appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Thanks for having me, Paul. It's great to be here.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Good seeing you are. You guys know what to do.
Make sure and subscribe to the channel if you haven't
done that. Alrighty, we are approaching two million subscribers. Thanks
to all of you guys out there watching and following along.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Over the years. For a big thank you to you.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
You're part of why we do this. And of course,
if you're not in our Diamond circle, that's where you
can get additional content absolutely free. Just join on the
link down below, follow me on x at Paul Baron.
We'll catch you next time right here on The Paul
Baron Show.

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