Crypto's Value Capture Problem & Why Robinhood Built Its Own Blockchain

**Jason Yanowitz** (0:00)
Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests and the Blockworks team may hold positions in the company's funds or projects discussed.
All right, everyone, welcome back. Happy Friday. We got the man, the myth, the pessimist, the bear, Santiago.

**Santiago Roel** (0:36)
Hi, Cabron. Listen.

**Jason Yanowitz** (0:37)
So, dude, you, I thought it was going to be a very bullish episode last time because you weren't here, and it just turned into Rob and I arguing the whole time about VVV.

**Santiago Roel** (0:47)
So, you know, I got quite the controversy, right? I saw a lot of people like posting, and then I think I saw Haseeb kind of went out and did his own talk.

**Jason Yanowitz** (0:58)
People were very mad at it. Yeah, people thought Blockworks was like attacking VVV, and it really was not the goal. And I would just say, like, I do want to start the episode saying I have a ridiculous amount of respect for Eric and VVV and the Venice team, but it was more of a commentary on the state of the industry in this dual model. So anyways, how are you doing? We'll talk about that in a sec. How are you doing?

**Santiago Roel** (1:20)
Coming back from the Selenium Conference in Cannes, I think is one of the best private conferences out there, other than, of course, Blockworks ones. Really good crowd, very good discussion.
I was on a panel and obviously a debate discussing, you guessed it, the prompt was, the argument, the debate was, are generalizable L1 tokens investable? So it was like such an easy debate to have, right? It was like me.

**Jason Yanowitz** (1:51)
Who did you debate?

**Santiago Roel** (1:53)
I debated Brian Pellegrino from Layer Zero, phenomenal builder, and Sahir from Plasma. Sahir, I believe is his name. If it's not, I'm sorry, but I think it's Sahir. And then Jan Lieberman from Delphi was on MyCamp.
Good discussion, we won the debate, in case you're all wondering.

**Jason Yanowitz** (2:19)
That was a 2v2, interesting.

**Santiago Roel** (2:21)
Yeah, two on two.

**Jason Yanowitz** (2:23)
Nice.

**Santiago Roel** (2:26)
No, it was really good. I basically got to share a lot of what I've been thinking yet again, with that little bit of a twist, and you had the benefit of seeing it. So no, it was good. It was a good discussion.

**Jason Yanowitz** (2:37)
Yeah. And markets are so bad, you're just having to hold your mic. Do you have no stand today or what's going on with this?

**Santiago Roel** (2:44)
Yes, markets are tough. What can I say? No, this is me bringing passion and trying a new form of like, Wolf of Wall Streeting, this one. No, I changed that.
The stand doesn't work.

**Jason Yanowitz** (2:57)
Good. Okay. Well, I don't actually know how much you want to share here, but I got your investor update for Inversion, and we can cut this out or we can skip through this quickly if you don't want to talk about it. I thought it was one of the more thoughtful investor updates I've actually ever received. And most investor updates, and even the way that Blockworks sends theirs, oftentimes, the way that we do ours, it's like, here's our revenue, team size, bank account, financials, here are the wins, the losses, and here's goals for the next quarter.
And this was, I think you've done that in the past, but this one was very, it was several pages long, and I think it just outlined your entire, not only thesis today, but what you've learned since starting Inversion, right? You guys had this goal of acquiring a company and embedding it with crypto, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like you're updating the strategy. So again, we can skip through this, we can even cut this, but if you feel comfortable, I'd love to maybe dig into your learnings.

**Santiago Roel** (3:57)
Well, first of all, thank you. I mean, testament to the team also, obviously what goes into producing a shareholder letter is a combination of a collective effort.

**Jason Yanowitz** (4:06)
My team has been amazing. I've got Mr. Perplexity, I've got Mrs. Claude, and I've got Fable Five.

**Santiago Roel** (4:12)
Well, I have a few shows I was actually thinking and I asked you, like, hey, probably we'll share a redacted version. Because I do think it's, I'll start from the very end. The very end was just like, if our investors have seen hard evidence on the contrary, operating results, not pilots, we would rather be corrected now than later. And I think, so like, the we've been quiet for a while.