Ep: 237- Boys Club Live: Deana's Peptide Stack, Everlane Sells To Shein, Waymos in Nashville, Murdoch Buys NYMag, Cyberdecks and special guest Raees Chowdhury (Tok-Edge)

[00:29] Here's this week's show. [00:31] you [00:34] Good to see ya. How you doing? Oh my gosh, I'm great. New York City is... [00:42] It's... [00:43] My favorite time of year? [00:45] it's just like hot and everybody's walking around and you're just like kind of sweating all the time. And I know that's controversial, but yeah, [00:55] I love it. [00:57] a florida girl you know yeah yeah yeah i'm so happy that um the weather has turned there it has uh it's it's been warm in nashville so i've been enjoying it but [01:08] I know really the whole mood of the city changes in New York when it gets warm. [01:13] Whole mood. It's a complete vibe shift. I have a sense of relief that you made it through the winter. No, for sure. And like this winter, especially was absolutely brutal. And, um, [01:25] I was just like, this is an entirely different city. Like, it just happens. It swaps on a dime. And I do believe it's not going to be nice this weekend, which is a little bit of a bummer. [01:38] Um, cause it's kind of just, it's a tease, you know, it's a bait and switch, it's rug pull. [01:43] Also holiday weekend. [01:45] holiday weekend yeah lots of people out of town but um oh I don't think I told you this my mom's coming to town during a little girls weekend just mom just mom and daughter just mom and daughter yeah [01:57] Um, so we're going to go see a show. We're going to go do a little cute staycation for me. So that will be a fun little, uh, Memorial Day weekend. Um,

[02:09] Are you guys doing anything? [02:11] We have some things with friends planned, but we're staying in time. [02:15] Okay. Some hiking, any hiking, hiking, always every weekend. [02:19] get out there in the woods. It's honestly like, I need it for my mental health. Like I read at some point that there was like, [02:27] some study done [02:29] that was something about like when you are, [02:33] when your eyes experience pain, [02:36] Especially nature, like passing through things. [02:40] in that way, like that. Okay. [02:43] like you realize it's like a relaxing um thing that it does to your like god's creation witnessing god's creation is like yeah and it's like something about the like [02:52] You're looking ahead, but like you're seeing stuff pass in your peripheral vision. And like, it's that act that actually... [02:58] really relaxes your body. Yeah. Soothe and relax. And so I feel it. And also, you know, it gets the kids, um, tired, tired, which is also explains. We have, um, [03:14] a hole in our backyard. I think you saw the last time you were here. [03:18] Right. [03:19] A hole? [03:20] Yeah. Did I, you know, the whole thing, um, relatively new. It's been going for a couple of weeks and in the grass area or in the grass area. Yeah. And sort of to the same, same goal. The kids, um, [03:34] We need to get the kids tired. [03:36] put them to work. [03:37] On a hole. They're digging a grave. They're digging, yeah. Digging.

[03:44] The only point of the dig is to dig. No goal in mind. No goal in mind. You guys should just... [03:50] Sorry, continue. Oh, no, it's just like zen-like. It's like there's nothing... [03:55] There's no point except for the now. The work of the hand. Yeah. I think that you guys should do like a time capsule or something. [04:04] in it. Oh, nice. Yeah. At some point, we're gonna have to figure out how to how to patch it up. But that's, I think, they have to sell. [04:11] They have to fill the hole. [04:12] They did. It's been evaporated into the it's it is there is going to be have to be a strategy about what we do with the whole at some point. Someone's going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, for sure. I'll send you a photo of the whole. It's I think probably looking forward to it. Bigger and bigger because we're starting on summer break and it's like, what are the kids going to do? [04:32] Just go take a hole in the backyard. [04:36] Okay. So we have a fun show today. Actually, uh, really fun. Cause it's just going to be us for the most part. Um, [04:42] Yapping all the time. Yeah, like the olden days. We are going to run a fun chat that I had with Race Chowdhury at the end of the episode. Race is a co-founder and chief investment officer of Toke Edge, which is sort of like a tokenized industry. [05:02] hedge fund. [05:05] They are doing some cool innovative stuff and it's kind of like TradFi, DeFi, DeFi, [05:12] marriage um which we've seen lots of different iterations of but i do think that they have an interesting um edge on and so that that will uh

[05:23] be the second half of our show. But in the meantime, I know we have a lot of stuff we want to cover. We do. André Kaparthi. I'm on a mergers and acquisition beat today. Nice. Great. Yeah. It's got to do it. [05:36] Shall we give a quick shout out first to... [05:43] Our... [05:44] lovely sponsor, Polygon. Sorry, no, Kate was waiting there eagerly in the background. She was ready and I was edging. Okay, Polygon. Every company moving money globally hits the same walls. Legacy rails are slow, expensive, and built for a pre-internet world. Stablecoin rails are fast, but they're fragmented across vendors that don't talk to each other. The plumbing to deliver on the promise of stablecoins hasn't existed. Polygon's open money stack is [06:14] One unified stack that puts global money movement onto proven rails that move at the speed of the Internet. Why Polygon? Because they've been moving money. Check out the link in the chat to learn more. And we love Polygon. Thank you so much for supporting this show. We love Polygon. Not their first trillion. They're up to some very cool, very legitimate things. [06:37] Okay, speaking of, I... [06:39] Recently, you know, I do these Friday night dinners. We've talked about this on this show, bringing people together. And... [06:46] My friend this week was like, hey, can I invite someone that I go to church with? And she, like, I think has some crypto, like, used to work in crypto once upon a time, whatever. Like, I was like, for sure.

[07:02] And we go to dinner. So fun. Great time. And we start connecting about our careers and, you know, whatever. Start chatting. This woman... [07:12] is so legitimate like it's so funny because like working in crypto can mean literally anything literally anything yeah who is she what's she do well i don't know that i want to like doctor full name here okay i will say what she does she was like she starts talking and about what she's doing now and she's doing um like advisory roles right now but prior to that she was like well you know i was at jane street and i she was like well i was like a quant trader [07:42] And I was like, oh, OK. And she's like, yeah. And then, you know, 2018, I like started to see was something that was happening in crypto. And and so I started like their Jane Street's crypto institutional arm. And I was like, oh, wow. Wow. And like nobody else at the table worked in crypto. And I was just like, I just need everybody here to know that this woman is unbelievably impressive. And like, yeah. [08:06] at the top of the game and she's like oh no it was like being humble and i was like you don't need to be like i was like wow okay and then like we're talking about the clarity act and the genius bill [08:17] Sometimes you just meet people along the way that are just really impressive and have some [08:23] shared [08:24] Shared interests, you know? I love that. Yeah. I mean, you don't have to tell me what she's up to now, but I am curious what – [08:31] one with that background, how they're feeling about things currently.

[08:36] Yeah, she talked to, it was actually really nice because she comes from, like, being a trader first and crypto second. Like, it was. [08:43] That's very much the way that she approaches, I think, like assets in general. So she really started to talk about. [08:50] the state of the market, like... [08:53] this, [08:53] how liquidity has moved in all these different, um, [08:59] tech trends and like what that does for the broader market. And honestly, maybe she'll come on the podcast, talk about it. But it was really interesting to, I think we get really siloed into like a very specific, like, [09:09] not even just crypto with us, but it's like a very specific, like, okay, this is what's happening in AI and this is what's happening in, [09:15] crypto or this is what's happening in like trad markets and it was useful to [09:21] which I'm sure a lot of traders have this perspective. [09:25] of, [09:26] like a holistic, it's all about money. Macro, the macro view, macro view around, uh, capital markets basically. So, um, um, [09:35] Yeah, so, and it wasn't like, [09:38] grifter vibes obviously this woman but i'm saying like sometimes people talk about like what's happening in ai and it's like oh they're just moving to the next interest and i'm like no this woman is just like looking at how the markets work and like where money is flowing and really interesting stuff so speaking of uh where money is flowing i just want to do a quick um shout out to uh my peptide dealer who just got some more money from me just now before i got on the live stream

[10:08] uh, you don't want me to share my, I would love for you to share. I, I want you to share so that I know what we're talking about. Oh, I just am sharing. Um, [10:18] what i'm going to share what i'm on what i'm taking okay great that's what i thought you were doing but i was like [10:22] I'm going to stop myself before I like talks your regimen. I got it. I got it. Thank you for the kindness. There was, there was, there was kindness on that. [10:31] So I have been – [10:34] taking Retta True Tide, [10:37] which retatutide retta i'm just gonna show it as retta retatutide i actually i'm not sure how we're pronouncing it but retta for short [10:47] I took it from January to... [10:52] Um, [10:53] April lost 25 pounds. [10:57] Incredible. Which also, what's incredible about that is like... [11:01] From where was my biggest question? Well, you'd be surprised. And it's like, oh... [11:07] And like, feel great. Feel incredible. Feels honestly like amazing. Took a... [11:15] It's three and a half weeks off, basically. Like, dose down took three and a half weeks off. [11:19] and honestly, like, [11:22] Missed. [11:24] Not necessarily the appetite suppression, but missed... [11:28] the ancillary benefits around reducing noise generally. Cognitive noise was [11:37] reduced significantly while I was

[11:40] Mental clarity. Yeah. And like ability to focus. And there are articles that are coming out around, uh, [11:48] Um, like basically off-label use for these peptides, which is for ADHD, uh, treatment. And it makes sense. Cause I'm like, yeah, I, I like definitely was more locked in guy when I was, especially at the higher doses when, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, [12:05] in like February, March. And so I- Can I give a little introduction to what RETA is for people? Okay. RETA is a non-FDA approved peptide. It is a GLP-3. [12:19] So that's part of what has made it not FDA approved. Obviously, there are many GLP-1s that are FDA approved. And it's sort of a new classification. And my understanding of it is that there is essentially like – [12:30] peptides are amino acids that are telling your body to do specific things like giving information to different parts of your brain and your body to respond and when they're saying a glp3 [12:45] Again, [12:47] not Natasha MD, this is my general broad strokes understanding, is that it's essentially like that three stands for that it's telling people [12:58] your it's telling your brain it's firing on three different levels as opposed to a singular level and so what the research has shown is that it's really really really effective mostly on mental clarity and um

[13:12] targeting like fat cells more specifically and also in that like hunger suppression process. [13:19] much more effectively than some of the GLP ones. Yeah. That's like my understanding of the benefits of this process. And they are in the process of like, it's, it is, [13:28] in the process of being FDA approved. And it's like fairly far down that line. So it's not like, [13:34] one that has gone through no testing whatsoever. It's definitely had some, yeah. [13:39] Yeah, it's in the advanced stages of testing so much so that you can if you were to do some Googling around it now on X, you would see some guy is starting to be like time to buy the Eli Lilly stock because Redis who tied is going to be Redis going to be approved and. [13:56] Um, we got to get in before that approval comes for the, the stock price will bump. Um, that aside, I am now. One other thing. Can I add about that? Okay. The other thing that, um, the reason you will see it on Twitter with like a lot of these like thread guy, bro, see type people is because of the makeup of it. And like the differentiation from a GLP one to a GLP three that is targeting more specifically fat cells. [14:26] it is what men take or not men, but what people and a lot of these like think boy thread guy bros take to be like really shredded. And that's like what they, the dosage that they're trying to perfect and the way that they are recreationally taking it, the benefits they're looking for is like a really shredded toned vibe from at least what I'm getting fed around it on like the Twitter. Yeah. Manosphere.

[14:56] Manosphere. And honestly, same. I'm like, that's my goal as well, to shred it for the summer of 2021. [15:02] Six. And OK, so I'm dosing back up slowly, like low, low dosing back up. And also this week just started GHKCU. [15:14] which is all this in the chat, uh, a copper, it's like copper peptide basically is, um, how people colloquially refer to it. And it is, uh, hair, skin and nails and slash inflammation pains me to say that word and to use it as a way to describe honestly anything. Um, but that is what some folks say about it. But I think like the, the headline for it is, uh, [15:42] like, [15:43] Yeah, skin... [15:45] Nails. Beauty. It's the beauty. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say so I've been injecting [15:54] Red F for however long, honestly, having a great time with that, like enjoying it probably a little bit too much where I'm like, OK, it's my week. [16:01] There's something like I don't know. There's something like you taking is something that is like you're doing it yourself. Like, can I tell you what it is? [16:09] psychologically in my opinion. It's like... [16:13] And part of this is like, I'm looking at this chat that we're in, Perps and Peptides. It's a bunch of women who... [16:19] one, trade on leverage and to take a variety of experimental peptides for a variety of reasons. And

[16:27] Like every single woman in there is like a type A person. [16:32] structured, quite successful person. And I'm like, it's a control thing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that. I could see that. But I will say like, cool. Yeah. Honestly, like I have, I have felt more in control of the destiny of my body in a way that I never have felt with. Yeah. [16:53] a doctor or medicine, like, yeah, that's probably totally misdirected and problematic, but it's just for the sake of honesty. It's the truth. Yeah, it's the truth for me. Anyway, what I will say about JHKCU is that I've been taking it now for a couple days and I'm, [17:10] It's really painful. Like the injection is really painful and it's not fun. I really hate that. And it's like, it stings when it goes in and then it leaves a little welt. [17:18] uh you've been injecting up until now into your arm yeah because i was like it needs to travel to my face so [17:27] so I need to get it I need to if anybody was wondering the credibility of our knowledge of these things we we just told them everything they need to know which is good exactly exactly you have all Kate [17:43] But I will say big on law for me has been someone in the chat was like, I've been taking it as well. The only place to pin it is in your ass because that's the only place to sound painful. I did that this morning. [17:55] Zero pain. Is that because it's more of like a fatty part of your body? I honestly have no idea. I have no, I would love to see the science of it because I, I do not know. Wouldn't we all? We all would. Yeah. Um, anyway, so that's that. That's my peptide update. So now everyone knows what I'm taking. And I also want to say that I bought some peptides for my mom.

[18:13] to take the summer. [18:15] which I bought her, which I'm going to inject NAD+, which is like a longevity and sort of energy peptide. And then the Wolverine stack, because we're going to leave. Oh, you got her the Wolverine stack? I got her the Wolverine stack. Why? [18:29] My understanding of Wolverine stack is like, again, like what? [18:33] literally what these celebrity men take before they're doing like a superhero movie like it is [18:40] It is that, but it's also like muscle and tendon. But part of why they're doing that is because they want to work out harder. And so they want to repair their muscles faster, like have faster repair on the muscles so they can get more juiced. But for my mom, I'm like, I want to we're going to be walking 15,000 steps a day minimum in Italy. And she needs to be able to keep up. [19:03] She needs to be able to do that. And then she needs to be able to babysit when you and me and Dave go on a terrace, um, [19:11] And have beverages. Yeah. Right. That's the whole story. Oh, I actually want to share one other thing. News newsworthy around the GLP conversations, which I don't know that you've seen. Oh, I'm excited to share this with you. [19:29] Two things really quick on the peptide front. One, perps and peptides. Last night... Oh, I didn't dig into this, but I did see this. But on the perps and peptides front, I... [19:41] Thank you. [19:42] during the day people were chatting yesterday had to mute it had to mute it unfortunately i hate to do that but i was like mute for eight hours i can't i need to lock in guy on stuff then i got in bed and you know i don't have social media on my phone anymore so like there's no scrolling that's happening in bed for me and i was like oh i have my person peptide chatting and it was literally like my like nighttime story like 120 messages back and forth on like basically ghku

[20:12] GHKCU, right? Is what it's called? Yeah, GHKCU, yeah. [20:15] Okay. And like, also people like being like, just for the record, like you can overdose on this. This is what happened to me. Like, everybody should know these are very, very serious things to be putting into your body. [20:25] And anyway, it was really fun to catch up on that and think about everybody's stack and just all these ladies. [20:35] I know it's crazy. [20:37] It's really crazy. What's this? Okay. So this hit the timeline yesterday and it's a short video of Sam Elton talking to Kara Swisher about overdosing on a GLP one. Okay. And he's basically like he had what is now becoming a canon event, which is taking too much of a GLP in one go. And he basically like went to a compounding pharmacy. [21:07] why he went to such a, [21:09] broken one but he went he got his peptide source from someone who misdosed it and like him of all people of all people your peptide guy at that level like should be elite excellent yeah honestly that's that's terrifying like it's showcases the state of the industry yeah exactly tim altman is [21:39] a bad um yeah it was misdosed it was reconstituted because basically what happens is you get these peptides and they're in powder form a lot of them are in powder form and so you have to reconstitute them with what's called backwater and so there's some math and some chemistry that happens in that moment where you need to like get the milligrams to the milliliters and make sure it's all like the ratio is correct so that you're able to know how much you're giving yourself and like whatever so that's what this compounding pharmacy did for sam they did it incorrectly

[22:09] up taking like a mega crazy high dose as his first ever dose of GLP. Do you know which one? [22:14] I think a joke was one. So I think it was, it was like, and he ended up in the hospital. It was really sick. He was like, he was throwing up all night and then he was in the hospital and he said he was sitting in the hospital for a couple of days, like staring at the ceiling, having no desire to do or think about or like have any. [22:34] Like it's like totally like killed any motivation to do anything. Desire. Yeah. Wow. Desire block. Whoa. Crazy. Did you experience that on Retta? [22:45] Um, [22:46] Thank you. [22:47] I don't think, I think they call it like adonia or something, ahedonia. Or like the colloquial term is like the great gray out. Yeah, I could see it. I think what some people experience on like antidepressants, like where it's like all the noise, like it just. [23:05] feelings kind of [23:06] Do... [23:07] diminish or like yeah it's almost like everything because like the lows will flatten too like yeah the highs will flatten and the lows like everything kind of like comes in [23:16] a little bit. It didn't affect my... I was way more motivated when I was taking it. So it didn't... It did certainly, like... [23:25] Thank you. [23:25] It flattened a little. It didn't flatten for me, but I could see it how it could easily. If I was increasing the dose, I think, especially. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can transition to... [23:35] Mergers and acquisitions. [23:37] um everlane sheehan really shook the timeline oh my god okay so i'm just gonna

[23:45] go right into it. [23:47] Okay. [23:48] So this story was scooped by Lauren Sherman at Puck on Saturday. [23:53] Which I have on background from some... [23:57] some people close to the matter around this, which is going to be really fun to get into. But basically what happened is... [24:05] Saturday news breaks on puck from this woman, Lauren, that – [24:09] Everlane is selling to Shein. [24:11] valued at $100 million and [24:15] For those of you who do not know what Everlane or Sheen is, [24:20] God bless. And also, basically, I'm going to give you like the shape of it just in case. So Everlane launched 2011. They were like very much a part of like the DTC, like, [24:33] They were a DTC darling. Like we're cutting out the Harry's style. We're cutting out the, we bought a factory, cutting out the metal men, like that wave of, [24:42] companies is [24:44] They were like, [24:45] at the top of that list and raise a bunch of money to do that. And their core premise was essentially like, [24:51] This is a brand that's built on sustainability and radical transparency and [24:57] their model was to showcase this is how much [25:01] something costs to produce. This is our margin. This is how much you're paying for it. It was designed to be like basics that were a direct pushback on fast fashion and waste. And I have a few links that are in here. It was also a moment that was like, I remember for like 10 minutes, they were like, you can decide what you want to pay. You could pay whatever you feel like you

[25:31] So they didn't have sales. They had like, these things are now pay what you want or something. And like you choose and which is crazy. But okay, if you are you going to share your screen? [25:40] Oh, I can. Yeah. Are these links in here? There's, yeah, there's two links that I just want to highlight around, like, how much the brand was rooted in a sense of, like, ethical shopping. [25:53] And... [25:54] Perhaps maybe even... [25:56] uh virtue signaling some would maybe say for sure for sure for sure and then basically like one one of the campaigns they ran in 2012 was like we're not going to do black friday sale we're not even not going to do black friday so we're going to turn off our website on black friday to solve for over like to to prove a point that like our customers are responsible consumers and so that's what and you can scroll down you can like see the asset that they posted that was basically like [26:26] There's so much waste in the world. Like, [26:29] buy less, buy better. Like, this is like a... [26:32] that, [26:33] The missional driven marketing that they would do. Yeah. There's another one that's more recent that was like, [26:41] This one? [26:42] This one. Yeah. It's like use once worn forever. It had like a whole thing about how many plastic water bottles exist in the world and like how they they this new technology that they've produced is a way for to solve that. Whatever. There's a ton of we could do this for the next hour and a half. Like there's so, so much of this type of marketing that they did. OK, so that's Everlane. A few other things about Everlane. It was founded by a guy named Michael Praseman.

[27:12] for a long time. And then they started to have 2020. There was some like, everybody started calling out their virtue, virtue signaling, people started to like poke holes. And when everybody became, like a villain, no matter like that era of like, [27:27] Everybody was bored at home and trying to figure out like, what's the, [27:30] who can I cancel? They were in sort of that wave. He, not him specifically, but the brand as a whole. And then 2022, he stepped down and became executive, executive chair of the board and climate lead. So, um, that was his situation. Um, I will say in 2020, they sold a majority stake to a PE firm. Uh, what was it? L Carter. Oh, okay. That's why we're here. [27:58] That's why we're here. And at that point in 2020, [28:01] The they basically took over the board and like controlled the board at this point. Got it. OK. OK. So that's Everlane. [28:08] Shein. [28:11] On the other side of the spectrum, one would think, is the Chinese company, Xi'an, which is... [28:19] Known for basically like what most people would say is, [28:24] Like everything that is unethical about manufacturing, like poor working conditions, poverty wages, exploitation of labor, supply chain issues, ultra fast fashion, huge contributor to carbon footprint. [28:40] copying, constantly copying, like, small indie designers with dupes, like, it truly is the poster child on, on, like, unethical manufacturing, like, genuinely, and, like,

[28:52] That is... [28:54] There's nothing else to say about it besides that. Huge. Oh, also there's like tons of concerns about like Chinese surveillance through the site and the app and like whatever. [29:03] That's also selling like selling things you couldn't even. Oh, Kate says she has this. Whatever this is. She has it. I don't know what it is. It's a soft butter stress toy. It looks like a stick of butter, but I guess it's a some sort of fidget. Oh, it's like a what you would hold when you're like getting Botox, like to make you like feel better. [29:26] Wait, that's funny. That's so funny. Okay, so... [29:30] News breaks this weekend. [29:32] you [29:33] that on Saturday, [29:36] Xian is purchasing... [29:39] ethical millennial DTC global brand Everlane. Yeah. [29:44] And, um... [29:47] In that report, it is... [29:50] discussed that they have been searching for investors for a while. They were $90 million in debt. They did a $25 million loan from Gordon Brothers, a $65 million asset-based line of credit. Okay. [30:03] They were in the shitter and Shien came in with an offer. I have some background from a source. I'm a journalist. Okay. Tell us. [30:17] Basically, nobody who worked there knew that this was happening. The story that leaked in Puck was news to everybody who worked there. Then there's a Slack message that goes out that's like,

[30:28] at everyone like we'll be having a meeting on monday a.m to just yeah we will yeah we will lol and um that was bad and then basically like contractors freelancers nobody has been paid in months there was like a huge brand campaign that they had shot i believe with suki waterhouse that might be wrong so don't hold me on that but that they shot months ago that they never put out [30:58] there's tons of people who are like, [31:00] waiting essentially for their invoice from Everlane to be paid. Lots of people super pissed. Additionally, [31:08] So that happened. And then, [31:10] some screenshots presented to me from yesterday of the CEO joining Duolingo. [31:18] You know how you get a push notification if you have a contact in your phone? [31:23] And the reports are that he has to learn Chinese because the new buyers are Chinese. [31:29] Ah! [31:31] Oh, my gosh. That's tough. That's tough to see. That's tough to say. Well, also at $100 million valuation with all of that debt and like it starts to be like, oh, that was actually kind of like a fire sale. [31:45] Oh, I think so. I think for sure. I think, I mean... [31:49] They're one part $90 million in debt. There's like some of that is a line of credit. Like, I don't know. Maybe someone walked through something, but like, yeah.

[31:58] I... [31:59] I think if you are the CEO and you are downloading Duolingo, like Monday AM, because your new buyer doesn't like wants to speak Chinese to you, like we're in dire straits. Like, yeah. Yeah. So that's what I know about the Everlane. Well, you know what? I think the big lesson there and honestly was the big lesson from that 2020 era as well, is that. [32:23] Being a hypocrite is actually the worst thing you can be. [32:25] And you will get railed the hardest. [32:29] from a media perspective, if you are in, if there's a narrative violation, [32:34] with how you've been presenting previously. And I think that that's like, [32:38] This is... [32:39] the, the, yeah, case study number one around that. I also feel like, um, [32:46] It feels very much, this has been happening for a while, but like so much an end of an era of a very specific type of... [32:55] Like, [32:56] millennial brand and [32:58] That is what it is. And I also think like for the record, [33:04] If. [33:05] Just to not be a hypocrite, if someone came to me and wanted to buy something that I had built for $100 million, very tough to say no. [33:12] 100%. I was 100%. Yeah, I, I actually say that more just as like a lesson for us all to remember to stay open, open heart, open hand about how to Chinese manufacturing.

[33:28] Okay, okay. I'm just gonna do a quick shout out here to Vercel. Right. [33:34] our second sponsor who we adore, [33:39] If you are a startup building with agents, look no further than Vercel. Their agentic infrastructure gives you and your agents everything you need to ship. And if you're supported by one of their hundreds of VC or accelerator partners, you have access to exclusive discounts and benefits. You can deploy faster, scale globally, and ship world-class AI products with Vercel. You can check out the platform that thousands of companies use from day zero to IPO at Vercel.com backslash startups. [34:09] a sponsor of Show Me Your Stack. And there is an incredible new episode of Show Me Your Stack with Farza that is out now. And that is getting some great traction. And you should definitely watch it. And he speaks a lot about [34:23] His agentic workflows and the stuff that he's doing with agents, but also, and how he does that. And he does that using Vercel. And also just like really interesting, [34:36] Uh, [34:38] how he takes inspiration from navigating the web, like whether it's songs or screenshots, but also how he takes like his analog notes and turns them, all of that into something that like can be usable for him and like can be actioned on. So interesting. And I think for,

[34:58] people who are like feeling like they pull a lot of stuff from lots of different places and like want to figure out how to streamline it's great yeah it's a great episode um subscribe to kate pull back up i know that i know what you were doing and i'm gonna do it um subscribe to our youtube channel at boys club world to get episodes as they drop um live also from the chat just to protect kate's um [35:24] Brand. I don't think she really cares, but she brought her, she bought her butter, butter, [35:30] scrunchie thing, whatever that is, on Amazon. [35:33] Okay. [35:34] OK, well, honestly, further to the point that they're probably they ripped that off Etsy and brought it to Shein. For sure. 100 percent. So anyway, she she bought from the independent designer or creator or manufacturer. I don't know who ever made that. OK, do you want to go next? Yes, I do. Mine is a quick one. [35:56] Waymo's are in Nashville. I just tweeted about this this morning. And they are mostly just testing. They can pick up some passengers, but you see them just now. [36:08] like every day you'll see one that's like going down the streets and was at, um, [36:14] school pickup and... [36:18] overheard very hostile conversation about Waymos and... [36:25] Then... [36:26] I had a [36:28] There was a play date that was happening at the house, and I don't know who... I have this second life in Nashville where I really don't disclose that I have a podcast, but some people find out, and I don't know if those people...

[36:41] find out and listen or they find out and they of course don't listen because why would you but like so i but i don't know who listens or who doesn't listen so i feel like you should uh you know what would be iconic you going around acting as though everybody's listening oh yeah i was talking about this in my podcast um so i um i'll just i'll keep it vague but it was a play date and um [37:07] I overheard one of the kids saying, my dad... [37:12] uh when he sees a waymo he like beats it up and he like because he doesn't want them driving on our street and i overheard that and i just let it go and then i pulled you let it go but you were like i'm gonna talk about this on my phone yeah i was like this is clocked this is not off the [37:35] So just so you know, like, [37:37] Waymo's actually way safer and like there's way less car accidents when Waymo's are driving as opposed to human drivers. And so like, I really like Waymo's and I think like their public health initiative, I didn't say that, but like was basically like, you know, trying to impart that fact, which is that like, they're actually way safer and yeah. [37:56] Uh, [37:58] And... [37:59] He, I was like, I brought so much weird energy to that conversation. And I can only imagine. He was like, yeah, okay. I know mom. Like I know some people don't like Waymo's. He's like, I actually don't want to talk about this with you.

[38:12] He's like, I know, I know people don't, I know some people don't like Waymo's, but like, it's okay. It's okay. I know. And I was like, okay. A little bit. Walk away. But. Okay. I have a question for you. So I have someone, a close friend who works at Waymo and. [38:28] I talk a lot about Waymo, find it fascinating, the work that she's doing there. And one of the things that I'm curious about with you is that there is – [38:37] this trend or there's this like, um, [38:40] maybe trans too strong of a word, but they're, [38:43] Some moms and some different like coalitions of like anti-drunk driving or like whatever these different types of coalitions are very supportive of Waymo for for obvious reasons. Totally. And one of the like. [38:56] lines of thinking is that parents don't, [39:00] can put their kids in a waymo and have them commute to school [39:04] What do you think? Not possible. I would love I would love nothing more. When a minor gets in a Waymo now, at this point, they aren't allowed the car like stops and says, like, there's a minor in the car that is in Tennessee. So that's actually a state regulated thing. If a minor can be in a car by themselves or not, there's like a law. [39:23] That's a state law. So. [39:26] One of the things Waymo is doing is legislating on behalf of that. Anyway, so if it were legal, I guess my question is, would you do that? 100% I would. 100% I would. And that actually ties back to something that I also similarly get pretty fired up about, which is, bear with me, just going to paint a small picture, which is...

[39:47] People live in the city, couples, they get married. Sometimes they're like, we want to live this idyllic life upstate. [39:54] they move couples move upstate to have their kids until you're talking New York from New York City to upstate New York. Yeah, correct. And so there's this thing where it's like, Oh, we're going to like go to Woodstock, which is where I was raised. So that's why it's there. But like, [40:09] we're going to go and we're going to have this like life in the country and our kids are going to get like, are going to be so free from whatever. And I will say that, [40:19] What... [40:19] is that is true for when your kids are really small, but they're when your kids are 13 and up to New York and 14 and 15 up to New York. [40:29] It's really boring compared to the city. And you get into all sorts of shenanigans saying this from first, firsthand case study and learned experience and the amount of drunk driving that happens with teenagers who live in upstate New York. I've had many, not many, a handful of people who gotten really bad car accidents, one person who died. Like there's so much intoxicated driving that happens. Yeah. [40:56] for teenagers who live in upstate New York, [40:58] And I'm sure other semi-world places. Right. Where you have to drive, where you have to be in a car. And... [41:06] It's like... [41:08] The something to think about it's something to think about. And it's, it's really like, [41:14] sad and I think at this point preventable if we can get Waymo to a point where like they're accessible and they're affordable. I don't know like what that math looks like and

[41:25] And even if it's like the issue about upstate New York, at least where I was. [41:30] where I grew up was like, everything's like at least a 20 minute, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. You're in a car for a while and you're like on back roads and like, you know, and so. Country and dark roads. Like, yeah. Just to say, I think that. [41:43] there could be a lot of pain prevented should we wait for woodstock [41:49] No, I'm a huge, huge, huge, huge Waymo fan. I have literally no notes. Like, I mean, the only thing that I understand the argument, especially in New York City, is like you're taking jobs from people and that's understandable. And that needs to be solved for. But I do think there are some interesting solutions that I have been hearing coming down the pipeline. But anyway, okay. [42:15] I want to briefly talk. I don't think we need to get too into this, but news hit today that I think is interesting. I don't know if you've heard this, but James Murdoch, Murdoch. [42:26] James Murdoch, the son of Rupert [42:30] Rupert Murdoch. Why can't I say these people's names? It's okay. We all know what you're talking about. Okay, great. He's the second child. He's not... So... [42:39] Thank you. [42:39] Rupert Murdoch. [42:41] Uh-huh. [42:42] is [42:43] Who succession is... [42:46] Loosely based on. Uh-huh. And his children. [42:50] So James is not Kendall. [42:54] He's the second child, just so everybody knows, because in my head he was Kendall. And I was really putting some things together on what a tweet could be. But anyway, his holding company, Lupa Systems, is buying New York Magazine. So and Vox Media's podcast network, as well as the Vox website for $300 million.

[43:24] a son of like the most famous [43:27] Media mogul, potentially. Some particularities of the sale. So the cut vulture intelligence, the strategist curbed Grub Street and the podcast network, including Pivot, Scott Galloway's Criminal. [43:42] or pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. [43:45] Criminal and Today Explained are a part of the sale. Then there's a separate part of New York Mag, The Verge, Eater, PopSugar, SB Nation, and a few others. PopSugar is still going? Oh, my gosh. Those are not a part of the sale. So they are like, no, we don't need it. Don't worry about it. We're good. We're going to just, they were like redlining it and scratching it out. [44:09] And so that's happening. Famously, so Rupert Murdoch, [44:16] is... [44:18] A very problematic figure, I would say. I would say a lot of people really, really fucking hate him. He is the owner of Fox News. He's known for... [44:29] spreading misinformation about climate change. People think that he has utilized his media properties for, you know, [44:37] his own to shape politics in the U S and the UK and many other countries. People really hate what he has done to the tabloid industry. He did not create the tabloid industry, but he was, he tinkered around with it to get it just right. Um, so New York post famously owned by him and the sun in the UK famously owned by him. Um, so he's really hated. He's 95 years old. He's old as fuck. And so he's on his way out for sure. Um, and,

[45:07] him and James have very famously... [45:11] been... [45:13] at odds with each other and, [45:16] James has very much differentiated himself from his father and left the board in 2020. [45:24] Primarily citing disagreements around the way that he was spreading information around and denying climate change. He's also a Democrat, so he has donated very prominently to Democratic parties, especially around Trump's reelection. [45:40] part of what came to head as well. So, okay. So he's the shiv actually in succession. He's kind of the shiv. Yeah. He's kind of the shiv. Um, and, uh, yeah, a lot of chatter and media, uh, media Twitter is talking quite a bit about it. Um, I got to tell you, I, [45:56] when you work in tech and you see, [46:01] 300 million dollars? [46:02] I was like, time change. [46:04] Rookie numbers. Couch. That's what you find in your couch question. I was like, Everlane just sold for 100. What are we doing, people? I'm confused. So anyway, I don't know. I guess it is like a splitting of the properties. It wasn't like the full... [46:22] suite of properties within New York, Mac, but I'm curious what, [46:27] Kara Swisher thinks. [46:30] Whoa, yeah. Yeah. Kara, will you go on record saying... [46:35] your thoughts and feelings about this acquisition. Would love to hear. She probably will. I probably will. Yeah.

[46:40] Um, she's probably, yeah, gearing up for it right now. Um, okay, quick one. And then we can jump to our interview here. Uh, just want to give a quick shout out. [46:49] to the girls who are building cyberdecks. [46:53] Right now, there is a trend that's happening and it's so cool. I'm going to give a little visual here. This girl here, Marissa, you should follow her on X. [47:05] So a cyber deck is basically a little mini computer that people make themselves. And usually what's happening with this trend now is that the girls are putting them in like really fun places. [47:19] cases like little cute this girl has put it in uh this woman has put it in like um [47:25] A mermaid shell. Cool. Oh, cute. Oh, so cute. Okay. This woman has put it in this... [47:32] Pearl clutch. And basically what it is, is like, it's, uh, [47:37] usually like a raspberry pie, like a single board computer, a little computer thing. And they will rig it up to, uh, maybe a little screen or maybe a little keyboard. And like the point of it is that it's basically endlessly customizable. Like it's, it's for people who like to tinker and mod and, uh, [47:58] the art is, is really in like the doing of it. It's yes. Like this is fun because I can express myself with technology and it's really cool. I love to see it. Um, this is, I think AI, but it still shows just like the different versions of how they can take, um, this one I really like, which is like,

[48:17] a little case that opens. [48:21] And... [48:22] I think basically like, [48:24] the, [48:26] the bigger sort of trend it's pointing to, or maybe not trend, but just like maybe what it's in reaction to is, [48:34] The... [48:35] black box, like, walled garden of our iPhones and our... [48:40] technology that we live and work with every day and are such a big part of our lives and like this is a an expression of like how can we make it our own uh and how can we make it fun for many of these um women who are doing the these types of cyber decks and what i yeah i think like that [49:02] that idea of like consuming something on your own terms is really fun. So I love it. I love it too. That's really fun. Can you buy them or is it like truly just them showing their art projects? I also think that's another part of why it's so cool. It, to me, lives outside of consumerism. This is very like the hobbyist domain. I can imagine someone selling them, but I think kind of the point of it is that you're customizing it to your own specs. Yeah. And like handmade. Yeah. [49:28] Yeah, and then it's kind of hammering. I don't know. Maybe people will start selling them. I think – [49:34] Also, [49:35] like some people rig them up to little gaming [49:38] uh, some people do games on them. Like the use cases for them are a little bit limited. Um, yeah. [49:44] as you can imagine, but [49:46] that's also part of it as well where it's like,

[49:49] Thank you. [49:49] Um, [49:51] Sorry, just serious comments just blew up on my side window here. [49:57] Thank you. [49:58] yeah what what you do with it um is also part of it so like a little tamagotchi stuff it's just so fun really fun really creative [50:05] I love that. Great shout out. Okay. So we get into our, our interview here. [50:11] Let's get into our interview. Kate, are we ready to go? Great. [50:19] you [50:21] Today we're talking with Race Chowdhury, who is co-founder and chief investment officer of TokEdge, a London-based hedge fund that just came out of stealth at a $15 million valuation. Race spent years at BCG and was a managing partner at Revolt Ventures and has been active on chain since the heady ICO days of 2016, I'll call them. TokEdge bills itself as the world's first [50:51] called the redemption token, which we're going to talk about today. It's a very ambitious attempt to bridge institutional finance and DeFi. And that's what we're going to be getting into today. Welcome to the show. [51:02] Thank you for having me. And yeah, very excited to spend a bit of time with you and to talk about what we're building. It's been quite a few months of building in stealth as you picked up. And so we're quite excited to now show the world what we've been doing. [51:12] Yeah, congratulations on post-stealth life. I know that can be scary, but exciting. [51:18] Exactly. We're now doxing the team and sharing a bit more. So exactly that. Nice, nice, nice. Okay, so you have quite a traditional background, BCG, Revolt Ventures, and now this regulated DeFi hedge fund. What's that journey been like? Yeah, it's been, I guess, a mix of TradFi and DeFi, as you say. And I think crypto is pushing in that direction, right? You're starting to see

[51:40] less of, let's say, the pure play traditional ethos of crypto, more into now bringing institutional capital into the space. [51:46] And I think I said across both, Dan, as you mentioned, too. So TradFi background, as you picked up, I started my career after Oxford at BCG and Bain. [51:52] Paid my dues there, and I joined a fund called Revolt, which sits under the $10 billion AUM parent fund looking at traditional finance. [52:00] as a managing partner there most recently and now building out TokEdge with my founders here. [52:06] And then as you rightly picked up, I've sort of been in the DeFi space since roughly the ICA era, so around 2016, 2017. And yeah, I've already had to spend a bit of time on both, but both obviously two worlds coming together here. [52:16] Man, it's so fun to meet people from that era of crypto. I got in 2017, so it's fun to look into the eyes of someone else who's lived through crypto [52:30] various market cycles and booms and busts and kind of be like, yeah, I see you, comrade. [52:39] Yeah, we're still around, right? We're almost here. We're still here. So many of our peers have fallen by the wayside, but no, we're still here. Okay. In terms of when you were starting out at Tokage, what was having sort of sat across various different [52:55] types of institutions, what made you realize that the [53:00] The fun structure wasn't the interesting fun structure for you to start wasn't going to be a traditional one like you had worked out before. [53:07] Okay. [53:07] Yeah, that's actually such an interesting one. And we get a question for a lot. So I actually want to go back to like first principles on this one, because maybe I just think it's a bit interesting. If you think about it in our generation, Diana, and you think about liquid investment products, right, and you can pretty much name it on one hand, we've got like exities, we've got bonds, we've got foreign exchange, we've got commodities.

[53:26] And I'm now running out of fingers. Like the fifth one is crypto. [53:29] And crypto is one of the only ones that's actually happened in our generation. And we joke about, you know, 10 years being a long time in the industry, but it really is one of the very few liquid asset classes that is still very novel in the space. [53:42] And I think top down, that's the bit that we found most interesting, which is, [53:46] There are very limited liquid products that you can generally get exposure to. And having one that's sort of been created in our generation, I think, is particularly exciting to build around. The second piece I think about is like bottoms up, which is I still find it amazing that people talk about crypto, but they actually talk about crypto and say, OK, well, I'm in crypto, but I'm still only holding Bitcoin. I'm still only holding Ethereum. I'm still only holding Solana. [54:08] And as soon as you start moving away from stable coins in the top 10 assets, you pretty much lose. [54:14] not only all the TradFi investors, but you certainly start to lose some of the crypto OGs as well. Like you start to get into the top 50 tokens and people don't recognize some of these assets. And for me, I think that's the real gap in the space, right? Imagine you go to someone and you say, oh, I'm an investor in the US, but I only hold NVIDIA, Google and Netflix or Meta. You're just missing the whole space. And I think that's the piece we're trying to fill with institutional capital. [54:36] Okay. And this idea of redemption token, I think for a lot of folks, this is going to be their first time hearing it. Can you give us an explainer of what it is? [54:46] Yeah, and I hope it will be the first time because no one's ever done this before. We're obviously designing and we've been learning along the way. But [54:54] Again, going back to fundamentals, if you look at crypto today, we've had a finite number of, let's say, categories of crypto asset. You have like monetary tokens, which I'd argue is just BTC. You have utility tokens like Ethereum, Solana.

[55:06] And then the direction of permissionless crypto has gone into governance tokens, has been the main push in meme coins. [55:12] And as you know, most of these government, tokens and meme coins, we've had the whole debate around our way towards the last year of like, what is the actual value? [55:19] or function of these type of assets. [55:22] And so what the redemption token does, and I can go into a little bit more detail, is [55:26] It's the first crypto asset category that we're creating that actually has a function or a use that is associated with what we call redemption of an underlying product. [55:35] And that's where we think it's quite different to the existing crypto assets, because most of them don't have a function, don't have a use case. [55:42] But here's suddenly almost like the solution we think of in the crypto space, which is [55:47] having a token that actually directly has a use or function that everyone is aware of and able to, let's say, quantify and see. [55:55] Okay, my understanding of why we as an industry have not... [56:00] gone in that direction yet is because of [56:04] Securities, risks, how we test like what's the creative way that you guys have structured this so that you're avoiding some of that? [56:12] Correct. And I think avoiding is not the way we think about it. It's more like how we think about how do you design a crypto asset from first principles? [56:19] And so we actually started from the first principle. And a lot of what we built, which I'll touch upon, actually uses infrastructure that stable coins use. [56:26] And so the principle we start with is, let's think about stable as an example, because I think this is a nice way of thinking about it. [56:31] If you think about stablecoins as an example, imagine I'm a guy who opens a MetaMask or a phantom wallet, and I load up with 10 USDC.

[56:39] Now, me having 10 USDC, I cannot directly go to Circle, knock on their door, and say, hey, guys, can you convert my 10 USDC for 10 USD? [56:48] However, I know there is an entity who has a financial incentive. If I'm willing to sell my 10 USDC for $9.999999, I know someone will buy it at that price, and they will be the ones who redeem for the $10. [57:00] We basically take that same analogy into redemption tokens, which is to say the tokens themselves do not give you any underlying, let's say, ownership or access to redeem the fund itself or the pool of assets that live underneath. [57:14] But we know in the market using the blockchain has full visibility on the value of the net asset value of the fund. [57:21] and therefore they know how much the tokens are required to unlock how much value. [57:26] And then we let the market freely price. And that's the cool part, which is markets can price it at a premium and a discount however they want. [57:32] And there is a secondary market for the token. Is that correct? [57:38] Correct, yes. So the way the token is structured, the redemption token, it's a purely permissioned asset. So it can live on any public blockchain, Solana, Ethereum, it can be traded on DEXs, CXs. [57:49] and it can also be integrated into DeFi protocols. [57:52] And that's the bit that's very different to what I would say. People always jump to the word of like, is this tokenization? It's actually different to traditional tokenization because, you know, [58:01] The route the traditional tokenization gone has actually been to take a security, tokenize it, and have a tokenized security. [58:07] And that pretty much limits, which you picked up, the number of market participants who can trade this asset.

[58:12] In our scenario, it's very different. We've taken the opposite route. [58:15] And tell me about, talk a little bit about what trade-offs you had to make [58:20] in structurally in order to, [58:23] to be able to design this in a way that was going to be effective. [58:29] Because I like as I'm sort of understanding it, it's. [58:32] Thank you. [58:33] it's TradFi and DeFi together. And surely there were some moments where you had to make some – [58:40] yeah, structural decisions around probably decentralization in order to have this thing kind of work. [58:46] Is that a right way to think about it or not? [58:48] That's the exact way to think about it. I think a lot of what we've been designing actually has been kind of what you described, which is bridging the best of TradFi and DeFi is how we see it. [58:57] I'll give you a few examples of what I think were like our trade-offs as we took. So one of the trade-offs we took was – [59:04] given we are setting up basically an underlying fund, and these redemption tokens are required to redeem from the fund by fund investors only, [59:11] One of the examples we give is, how would we hold fund assets? [59:16] And I think if you look at the pure DeFi philosophy, [59:19] You would go down the route that, for example, Drift Protocol and all these other, let's say, pure DeFi primitives are done, which is, [59:25] all of these, let's say, tokens or assets are held in a smart contract and they're on-chain, and therefore they're fully decentralized. [59:33] Now, that obviously has its pros in the sense of, you know, you can actually control the smart contracts, you have visibility, all the benefits of decentralization. [59:40] But we took the trade-off of saying, if you're an institutional investor, do you trust a DeFi smart contract to hold significant amounts of capital?

[59:48] And instead, our solution is one of them actually is the best of TradFi, which is to use a custodian, which means that we as a fund manager, we don't have ownership over the assets. We don't have any way in which we can access them directly. They're protected. They're insured by a third party. And therefore, we're almost using the best of TradFi, even though the assets live on the blockchain, they're held by a TradFi. [1:00:08] design custodian who knows how to do DeFi. [1:00:10] And so that was an example of one of the trade-offs we took where we said, look, from first principles, [1:00:15] We want it to be assets that live on the blockchain or are decentralized, but we don't want it to be held in a smart contract. We want the custodian to manage it. [1:00:22] - Yeah, keep going, please, sorry to interrupt. Please keep going. - No, that's one of the biggest examples, I think, 'cause we always have this question of, [1:00:29] you can actually not use a custodian and you cannot, maybe you decide not to use an auditor, or maybe you don't use a fund director, or you don't use one of these infrastructure layers. [1:00:37] But as soon as you do that, like if you think about real capital, like for real capital to flow into crypto, they're more familiar with the traditional structures, right? They're used to custodians. They're used to auditors. [1:00:47] They're used to fund directors, they're used to a governance layer that sits independent of us as fund managers. [1:00:52] And so in our view, we keep all of that beneficial structure, but we still use the best of DeFi. We keep all the assets on chain. They're visible on chain. People can see the nav of the fund. The tokens are fully tradable. So it's almost the accumulation of both. [1:01:05] Yeah, I get that. I feel... [1:01:09] It really resonates with me. I feel as though one of the places that I most betray the sort of purest view of crypto and decentralization is on the custodian layer and even myself.

[1:01:24] for my small, very, very, very small, modest holdings, like having been, [1:01:29] in the industry since 2016, 2017, like, I'm still terrified. Like, I'm still terrified to self-custody. And I do... [1:01:39] it in moments, but like my preference is not to. And so I, I totally like, I, yeah, just to say really get, [1:01:47] why you've made that specific design decision for the level of capital that you're dealing with because – [1:01:53] Just the risk feels like too much to bear, honestly, sometimes. [1:02:00] Yeah, and I really think you're like, imagine you're thinking this and you've been in DeFi with me for like a time. [1:02:06] But imagine you were speaking to an institutional allocator who wants to put in X million, they hold it a big, let's say through a DAT structure with an ETF, the BlackRock, and they're like, look, I would love to do more DeFi, but one, I have no idea how to get exposure to it, I have no idea how to see it, but they're not willing to move away from a structure they're familiar with, and they have the right reason, right? Yeah. [1:02:25] or a contract, what happens if you get hacked? I don't think, [1:02:28] you know, in 2026, I don't think it's an appropriate answer to say we're trying our best. Totally. [1:02:33] Yeah, and I think why not use the best of TradFi? [1:02:36] Yeah, totally. I totally agree. I also feel like we're, I don't even want to say this, but like, it feels as though, [1:02:42] Mm-hmm. [1:02:43] It's like hacks are accelerating like there's a lot that we're seeing even over the past two weeks. I'm like my gosh like I can't handle another news story. I have some exploit. [1:02:53] And yeah, it just, it feels like that.

[1:02:56] Again, like is is a risk profile that like I'm unwilling to take from my own money and I can't imagine it being on behalf of other people. [1:03:06] So I think that's smart. In terms of the folks that you're speaking to, like, what's the profile and, like, what's their... [1:03:13] appetite for this as an investment at this point in time. [1:03:18] given market and everything. [1:03:20] Yeah, it's actually been such an interesting journey for us because obviously we came out of stealth roughly around 10 days ago. And it's been, as you know, it's like kind of a weird bear market in DeFi right now. But it's been an incredible precedent for us. So I think even when we're building in stealth, we obviously spoke to a lot of builders and got validation in CrossCADFi and DeFi. [1:03:38] And what's been super nice is a lot of them turned around and said, guys, like, you know, we'd love to come into this vehicle. We think it's super novel and interesting. [1:03:45] And so that's been, I guess, one piece of validation excellent for us in the last 10 days. [1:03:49] We've actually spoken to our guests [1:03:51] I would almost bracket into two types of groups, which we actually are exactly what we hypothesize would be. [1:03:56] I think on one side we have TradFi names that you would probably recognize too, like from very big hedge funds, from very big entities, who are saying, look, this is a really novel way – [1:04:05] to get regulated and let's say clean exposure to the DeFi space in a vehicle like I described with a custodian structure they're used to. And think of it as like they're used to doing equities, right, in a hedge fund structure. But now they're just doing a hedge fund structure identical but applied to crypto and DeFi. [1:04:20] So it's much easier for them and they want to allocate, you know, 5% of the portfolio, 6% portfolio into this type of vehicle.

[1:04:26] The second piece has been primarily crypto allocators, which has actually been a nice surprise for us, which has been [1:04:31] even in the crypto space where obviously they know how to self custody, they know how to allocate into the space. I think the gap here has been the token model. I'd be happy to spend a bit more time with you on how the token works. But the second piece, which is probably interesting, is a lot of our crypto investors who are showing interest are saying, look, [1:04:48] there is missing this idea of like new crypto, let's say asset type models or crypto asset categories that are actually solving some of the problems I described before. [1:04:55] Yeah, that makes sense. To almost describe how the redemption token works. It's actually where we're just cleaning up the white paper and getting the legal sign off on it. But we will make that public. It's a bit of an outfit for you or a bit of a leak for you over the next couple of weeks. [1:05:07] Okay, can you explain any more or is it really just, is it [1:05:11] Is it still in stealth as well? [1:05:13] Yeah, I can start to explain a little bit. So maybe a print of like how the redemption token works and tell me like I'd love to be a back and forth and I'd love all the views that viewers as well sort of contribute and tell me how they think about it, too. So there's no precedent of what we're doing to start with. So this is one of the very cool new asset models or crypto asset categories that's been designed. [1:05:32] But the way we like to explain how the redemption token works is imagine you have a box and that box lives on the blockchain and is a transparent box and everyone can view what's inside it. [1:05:41] And in that box, let's assume for whatever reason you put X amount of, let's say there's $10 in the box or $100 in the box. It's $100. [1:05:47] How the retention zones actually work is there are a key required for you to redeem from the box, but only the fund investors are the ones who can redeem using that key from this box itself.

[1:05:58] However, the secondary market knows that there's $100 in this box. [1:06:02] So whether it's Diana, you're one of the fund investors, or me, or anyone else who's a fund investor, everyone knows that if you have the key, you can unlock $100 worth of Barry. [1:06:11] And then we let the market purely decide, which is the keys can be completely traded in a decentralized way. They can be integrated into any protocol, Aave, Pendle, Morpho. How do you want to name it? [1:06:21] And the complete market decides, does it trade at $9.9? Does it trade at $20? Does it trade at $100? [1:06:28] pure free market. And that's the piece that I think is super cool because [1:06:32] We're actually giving a function to this crypto asset. The function is it actually is used to redeem or open this box. [1:06:38] The box is fully visible, it's verifiable on chain, everyone knows what the value of that box is. [1:06:43] And then the market fully decides on price. [1:06:45] One of the nice analogies we give, like a very simplistic analogy we give is, let's say, for example, everyone knows in the box there's $100 worth of value. Now, if the tokens are trading at, let's say, or let's say the keys, we call it the token, but let's say the tokens are trading at 80 cents on the dollar. So they're trading at a discount. [1:07:01] Obviously, there's a financial incentive for someone to buy the tokens, open the box and take out the capital. Right. It's like when you go to a playground game. [1:07:07] That's one scenario. The other scenario is if the tokens are trading, let's say, at $200, $300, whatever it might be, and maybe because it's being used in a DeFi protocol, however else. [1:07:17] In that scenario, the box never gets open. The box is still there. The value in the box might be changing. The $100 might become $200 because the fund does well, et cetera. And the market probably decides, [1:07:27] And I think that's the beauty. I hope I explained it quite simplistically, because it's almost like a fairground game, which is like there's a box, there's keys, and then we play a game.

[1:07:34] What is the question? [1:07:36] Fascinating and totally novel. A couple probably quite stupid questions, but is the value the tokens that are in the box available? [1:07:47] Are they being actively traded? Is there... [1:07:49] Or are they... [1:07:51] like deposits? [1:07:54] Yeah. So the tokens that live in the box, i.e. the fund itself, so that is actually being traded. So we managed that as a fund and that looks like a traditional crypto hedge fund. [1:08:03] The redemption tokens are completely independent of the box itself. They're almost like a key required for you to unlock the box. [1:08:09] Okay, got it. The box is being traded. [1:08:12] That's how it's generating value, presumably on good days. And then the tokens is your sort of access to your portion of that fund. [1:08:21] Correct. Exactly. Fascinating. And is there, and this might be true in the weeds, but like, is there an unlock period? Like if I am a key holder, [1:08:31] Am I able to instantly redeem? Is there an unlock? Like, how does that work? [1:08:36] Great question. Yes. So we actually think about it as what we call like a bounded NAV, or like a bounded arbitrage, which is the tokens can be redeemed on a monthly basis by the fund investors. [1:08:47] And that happens after a 12 month lockup. So exactly as you described, how the flow basically works is, [1:08:53] Let's say in month after the 12 months with the standard hedge fund lock up on month 13 or month 50 or month 100, whenever it is. [1:08:59] Any investor can choose from the fund to come back to us and say, hey, I'm bringing the tokens back. I'm bringing my fund shares back. I'm now ready to unlock the box.

[1:09:08] That can happen at any point in time. [1:09:09] Cool. Wow, exciting. That's cool. Yeah, I really think it's super interesting. And you mentioned stablecoins, because I think it's actually... [1:09:16] We use a lot of the stablecoin infra and how we think about it. It's just the difference with stables is you actually need a stable to be pegged to the price for it to function as a stablecoin, right? Imagine if a stablecoin is trading at 90 cents on the dollar, people would panic. [1:09:28] and freak out in our scenario because it's an underlying fund and then the tokens just trade completely flee the redemption tokens. [1:09:35] They can trade at $200, $500, whatever it is relative to the box. They can trade below. They can trade above. The market just purely decides. And that is the nature of how we've designed it. It doesn't need to be pegged or associated to the NAB directly. [1:09:47] Cool. And just to go back very briefly to the market and in terms of like conversations that you're having with folks on the ground, is there like – [1:09:59] Thank you. [1:09:59] is there an appetite for this right now? Like I'm, I'm assuming your answer is going to be yes. And I'm wanting that hopium, but just like given where we're at, like how, [1:10:11] So yeah, what's your sense on sort of like the cycle and how that shows up in some of the conversations that you're having around TuckEdge? [1:10:18] Yeah, for sure. I think interestingly, we found traditional finance is very keen on obviously getting DeFi allocation into the longer tail. And I think on the crypto side, I think the crypto side is looking for more novel token structures. Yeah. The biggest sort of if I think about DeFi right now, I think if I think about it in two ways.

[1:10:38] I think the market's gone in two directions is my sort of view on it. One direction it's gone has been try and keep everything fully decentralized. But then, as you know, most of these governance tokens and on the market just have no value. Like there's no way if I'm holding these tokens, I know that there's VCs dumping them. I know there's no fundamental use case. [1:10:55] That's the direction I think we're trying to solve for. The other direction has been to just tokenize, as you say. And I think the issue with tokenization is [1:11:02] as soon as you tokenize a particular asset, and like an example I like to give is the direction tokenization going is actually not increasing market participation. [1:11:11] Because an example would be if I tokenize a Google share, most of the market in general can buy a Google share anyway to retract by rails, especially if you make them whitelist and KYC their wallets. Right. Actually, by tokenizing a Google share, maybe you're increasing the number of market participants very slightly and maybe someone wants to trade 24 hours. [1:11:30] But it's sort of the wrong direction I think crypto is going, which is like the blockchain rails to tokenize an asset that's already accessible to be tracked by rails is, in my opinion, quite limited. [1:11:39] And so the direct we're going is actually to say, can we not only increase the number of market participants by keeping it? Absolutely. Anyone can trade the underlying token, which in our case is the redemption token. [1:11:50] but at the same time actually introduced products that they otherwise could not access. [1:11:54] And I think that's the interesting part where we think we're quite unique in the building that way. Yeah, I love it. It's a maturing that I think is... [1:12:03] long overdue and i'm excited to see so congratulations to to you and the team where can people find out more

[1:12:09] Thank you. [1:12:10] Yes, so we are still working our way through, obviously, building knowledge around the space. I'm going to talk to you guys as well. So we are on Twitter at toke underscore edge, and we're also on tokeedge.com, which is T-O-K-E-D-G-E.com as well. We'll drop the link in the bio as well. Well, so it's such a pleasure to chat, and, yeah, I'm looking forward to following along. [1:12:35] Thanks so much, Diana. Thank you for taking your time. And yeah, you're one of the first people we're speaking to as we as we take our baby public. So we're very excited. So exciting. Congratulations. [1:12:45] Take care.