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• ROLLUP: ETH's Big Pivot | Tariff Recession? | Bitcoin's Political Win | Worldcoin US Launch!

  This week, Ryan and David dive into crypto’s dramatic new re-prioritization (pivot?) as Ethereum is shifting rapidly, prioritizing Layer 1 scaling in a move that has sparked intense community debate. Meanwhile, macro turmoil hits crypto with a looming tariff-driven recession and signs of American capital flight shaking global markets. Bitcoin tightens its grip on Washington, cementing itself as digital gold in the eyes of the Trump administration, and Worldcoin launches a U.S. rollout amid rising fears of an AI-driven dystopia. Plus, Sui surges on wild Pokémon rumors, Ripple’s bold move to buy Circle gets rejected, and Monero rockets after a massive Bitcoin hack. Is crypto entering a new golden age, or are these the early tremors of deeper uncertainty? Find out on this week's must-watch Weekly Rollup. ------ 📣BUILDBEAR | EASY EVM SANDBOX https://bankless.cc/buildbear ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🌐SELF | PROVE YOUR SELF https://bankless.cc/Self 🟠HEMI | BTC & ETH, ONE NETWORK https://bankless.cc/hemi ------ TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES 0:00 Intro 1:58 Markets 3:06 Movers of the Week https://www.bankless.com/read/whats-next-for-sui-in-2025 https://x.com/davewardonline/status/1877073873499197832? https://x.com/SuiNetwork/status/1914689214803009837 https://blog.sui.io/canary-capital-sui-etf/ 5:11 Macro https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1917575854961439151 https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/042625-ConsumerandFirms_v2.pdf https://x.com/watcherguru/status/1917601209906520370 Meme: https://x.com/alifarhat79/status/1917585508818980906 https://x.com/RaoulGMI/status/1912554771644325905/photo/1 19:18 Ethereum Pivot? Or Reprioritization? https://x.com/ethereumfndn/status/1916883771280040264 https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1917541325072916590 https://x.com/ethereumfndn/status/1916883782025482729 https://x.com/dankrad/status/1917678690852311333 https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1917689036744835390 https://x.com/TrustlessState/status/1917564803909918856 https://x.com/hasufl/status/1917880676000411796 https://x.com/0xoxus/status/1917824751151600084 28:05 Base and Scroll Reach Stage 1 Decentralization Milestone https://l2beat.com/scaling/summary https://x.com/jessepollak/status/1917253415966798164 29:33 Worldcoins “At Last” Event in San Francisco https://www.ft.com/content/0c5c2b8d-b185-40b6-9221-b80ee130b92e?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://x.com/TheStalwart/status/1916277891299475462 38:45 Bitcoin Space Race https://x.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/1917271814356754459 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/politics/u-s-secretary-of-commerce-howard-lutnick-has-a-bitcoin-vision-for-america 42:20 What’s going on in Movement labs?! https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/04/30/inside-movement-s-token-dump-scandal-secret-contracts-shadow-advisors-and-hidden-middlemen https://x.com/hasufl/status/1917572935339888776 44:02 Monero likely pumped 50% due to suspected $330M Bitcoin theft https://x.com/zachxbt/status/1916756932763046273 45:51 Tether Now Holds 7.7 Tons of Gold to Back XAUT https://thedefiant.io/news/markets/tether-now-owns-7-7-tons-of-gold-to-back-its-xaut-token 47:09 US bank regulators pull back guardrails on bank crypto activities https://x.com/federalreserve/status/1915519104435224895 https://x.com/asvanevik/status/1915581219133415597 48:15 Senate Moves to Ban Congressional Stock Trading—Again https://x.com/HarrisonKrank/status/1916921283658252621 51:18 US DOJ seeks 20-year prison sentence for Alex Mashinsky https://x.com/cointelegraph/status/1917166974091534743 53:13 Circle rejected ripple takeover bid of $4-5B https://x.com/matthew_sigel/status/1917647009994993944 56:29 Closing & Disclaimers ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

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  1:02:55
• AI ROLLUP: The AI Experiment That's Been Secretly Manipulating You

  This week on the AI Rollup, David, Ejaaz and Josh ride OpenAI’s latest roller-coaster. The release of o3 is making waves for its native multi-modality while 4o gets a “genius-but-sycophantic” update and a rumored social network is in the works. They unpack the Reddit mind-hack experiment, an open-sourced natural-language coding agent, a 40-point jump in AI IQ, and more before asking: is it ethically okay for AI to cheat? David: https://x.com/TrustlessState Ejaaz: https://x.com/cryptopunk7213 Josh: https://x.com/Josh_Kale ------ 📣 BUILDBEAR | GITHUB FOR WEB3 https://bankless.cc/buildbear ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🌐SELF | PROVE YOUR SELF https://bankless.cc/Self 🟠HEMI | BTC & ETH, ONE NETWORK https://bankless.cc/hemi ------ TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES 00:00:00 Start 00:02:50 OpenAI's New Frontier Model https://openai.com/index/introducing-o3-and-o4-mini/ https://x.com/rowancheung/status/1912561386208825751 https://x.com/AISafetyMemes/status/1912875957897003354 https://x.com/sama/status/1912558495997784441 https://x.com/TransluceAI/status/1912552046269771985 00:10:07 Is There A Scaling Wall? 00:17:13 The New AI Gold Rush 00:19:21 AI Caught Lying https://x.com/IterIntellectus/status/1916463746454528071 https://x.com/deedydas/status/1916611855067594943 00:31:55 Open AI's Next Big Product https://x.com/kyliebytes/status/1912171286039793932 https://x.com/cryptopunk7213/status/1914493366886174722 https://x.com/rowancheung/status/1917473779069968505?s=46 00:43:19 Optimizing For Addiction 00:50:28 Secret Reddit Agents https://x.com/reddit_lies/status/1916916134630117814?s=46 00:58:55 Mega Viral AI Generated Video https://x.com/falchook/status/1914419758520525194 01:01:29 GeoGuesser https://x.com/arithmoquine/status/1912671688874926575?s=46 01:04:13 Is It Ethical For AI To Cheat? https://x.com/im_roy_lee/status/1914061483149001132?s=46 01:17:00 Decentralized AI Training https://x.com/primeintellect/status/1912266266137764307?s=46 ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

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  1:28:20
• Is ETH Back? Memecoins Here to Stay? HYPE's HyperLiquid EVM | Jon, Bread, & Andy8052

  Jon Charbonneau, Bread, and Andy8052 join David to break down Ethereum’s bold pivot back to Layer 1 and what it means for the future of crypto. They also dive into the implications of scaling the L1 over rollups, the looming death of longtail L2s, and the shifting meta around value accrual, memecoins, and onchain activity. The crew also debates ETH’s monetary identity, HyperLiquid’s EVM ambitions, and whether Ethereum can reassert itself as crypto’s dominant tech and cultural platform. Jon Charbonneau: https://x.com/jon_charb Bread: https://x.com/0xBreadguy Andy8052: https://x.com/andy8052 ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🌐SELF | PROVE YOUR SELF https://bankless.cc/Self 🏦INFINEX | THE CRYPTO-EVERYTHING APP https://bankless.cc/Infinex ------ TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES 0:00 Intro 1:58 Ethereum Pivot Has a Tagline https://x.com/hosseeb/status/1917052715911549399 https://x.com/0xngmi/status/1916910787936797005 18:49 Ethereum Value Accrual 30:29 Fun Chain Premium 34:00 Memecoin Meta These Days 50:17 HyperLiquid EVM 58:01 1 Gorilla vs 100 Men https://x.com/search?q=1%20Gorilla%20v%20100%20Men&src=typed_query 1:04:07 Closing & Disclaimers ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

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  1:05:19
• Can Story Protocol Tokenize the $70 Trillion IP Market? | Jason Zhao

  Can Crypto disrupt the IP Market? In this episode, we dive deep with Jason Zhao, co-founder of Story Protocol, on how their new token launch could unlock the $70 trillion intellectual property market. We explore the bold vision of making IP liquid, programmable, and globally accessible — and how crypto-native creators, DAOs, and even major studios could reshape how stories are owned and built. This might just be crypto's most ambitious attempt at disrupting the media yet. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🌐SELF | PROVE YOUR SELF https://bankless.cc/Self 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🏦INFINEX | THE CRYPTO-EVERYTHING APP https://bankless.cc/Infinex ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 5:48 Why Onchain IP? 16:52 Eliminating Lawyers 24:41 Step One 28:56 Code as Law 38:38 Ownership Protection 45:35 Onchain IP Nuances 53:11 Final Words 56:30 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Jason Zhao https://x.com/jasonjzhao Story Protocol https://x.com/storyprotocol ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

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  56:09
• Ethereum’s Biggest Mistake (and How to Fix It) | Sam Kazemian

  Ethereum has achieved groundbreaking technological success, but has it failed to properly define ETH the asset? In this episode, Frax founder Sam Kazemian joins us to discuss what he believes is Ethereum’s biggest mistake: confusing the ETH asset with Ethereum the technology. Sam argues that post-EIP-1559 and Proof of Stake, ETH unintentionally shifted toward a discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation model, undermining its potential as a commodity-like store of value. We explore how the Ethereum community can reclaim a stronger narrative around ETH and why social consensus — not just tech — determines an asset’s destiny. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🌐SELF | PROVE YOUR SELF https://bankless.cc/Self 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🏦INFINEX | THE CRYPTO-EVERYTHING APP https://bankless.cc/Infinex ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 4:43 Classifying ETH 17:50 ETH/BTC Collapse 33:39 ETH Revenues 44:35 Blue-Money Gospel 53:44 What ETH Needs 1:10:08 ETH Internet Bond Narrative 1:19:49 Final Thoughts ------ RESOURCES Sam Kazemian https://x.com/samkazemian Blue-Money Gospel https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1915874994514452763 ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

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  1:13:43

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