ROLLUP: Markets at ATHs | Saylor’s STRC Bid | Trump DeFi Scandal | SEC Clears DeFi

**Ryan** (0:04)
Bankless Nation, we got a green week this week. It is the third week of April.

**David** (0:08)
Very green week, it's a very green week.

**Ryan** (0:10)
Markets are up big. We got, just days ago, it seemed, we were down 10% on the S&P, and now-

**David** (0:17)
Going downer.

**Ryan** (0:18)
Yeah.

**David** (0:19)
It was trending down.

**Ryan** (0:20)
And how are we now today at all time highs?

**David** (0:23)
All time highs, all in a week's period, who knew?

**Ryan** (0:27)
I mean, I think that's begging the question for crypto. Where are we going next, up or down?
We're gonna name some names on today's episode. We got some bulls that we're gonna name, and some bears that we're gonna name. We're gonna call people out. I actually don't know which side I'm on right now, David, so that's a strange feeling for me.

**David** (0:44)
Meanwhile, Saylor's stretch is new STRC, not that new, but new into the zeitgeist is printing billions of dollars. The market clearly likes it. It's putting a very healthy bid on Bitcoin. Is this the best instrument Saylor has ever created? Will it be the catalyst to send Bitcoin to all-time highs, or alternatively, will it be our demise? Bear or bull?

**Ryan** (1:08)
It's kind of like AI, you know? It could be like the next iPhone or it could kill us all. We don't know. It could be both.
Also, World Liberty Finance had some drama in the week. This is, remember Trump's DeFi project. It was caught doing some on-chain shenanigans. We're going to explore that and ask the question, is this the new cycle FTX? Did World Liberty just pull a sandbag, McFreed? We got Justin Sun weighing in on that.

**David** (1:33)
Notable morality commentator, Justin Sun.
But we do have some fundamental serious good news, putting on the serious hat at the moment. The SEC just gave DeFi a broker exemption, very material for a lot of the company's protocols, apps that we know and love. We'll talk about the significance of that and what we can do now. And also, the Bitcoin community taking quantum seriously, putting forward a quantum plan to free Satoshi's Bitcoins, making progress on the big quantum threat to Bitcoin. All of this and more, we're going to talk about it one by one by one. But first, we've got to start with the markets, which are greener than green. Like we said, just 10 days ago, we were down, the S&P was down a whopping 9.67% from its highs. The highs that it painted in January 28th of this year was the highest that the S&P had, was at which was exactly 7,000. And Ryan, as of today, we are at 7,036 on the S&P 500 So we are up into new all-time high territories as of today, the day of recording the 16th and also the 15th, two all-time highs in a row.

**Ryan** (2:41)
We got NASDAQ on the all-time high too. So both indices and Joe Weisenthal makes the point, basically the entire Iran war sell-off has been erased, I guess quite obviously because we're at all-time highs. You know, this dip here in the S&P chart looks a lot like this dip over here.

**David** (2:57)
The trade war dip?

**Ryan** (2:58)
Yeah, the trade war dip in April of 2025, doesn't it? Although that dip was steeper, but they both have this kind of this V-shaped recovery right now.

**David** (3:09)
Yeah, the trade war dip was pretty significant. That was 20% from top to bottom, peak to trough. So the Iran war dip was just 10%.
And this is what I've been saying, I think on every roll-up and also on Twitter, it's just like, the market is just like, ah, Trump's causing some chaos, but we'll get over it and we'll move on. And that seems to be the case, and we didn't totally price in so much chaos this time around.

**Ryan** (3:34)
You feeling good about your predictions on David? Holden off?

**David** (3:36)
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Yeah, like I think the market does what it does. It's like, oh, could Trump's doing the tariff wars? How far is it gonna go? It's the same thing with the Iran. Let's talk about the Iran progress.

**Ryan** (3:50)
Some of the reason for this recovery was Iran war de-escalation of some form. So give us the deal. What happened? Because last I had understood, we were in some sort of a mediated ceasefire.

**David** (4:05)
Yes, ceasefire started, two week ceasefire, which gave time for Iran and the United States to come to the table and talk.
We came to the table and talked. Didn't last that long, 21 hours, one single day before Vice President Bantz just talked to them and it's like, oh, we cannot come to terms.