In the world of cryptocurrency, being "stupid" is a good thing.

Source: Unchained

Translation: Baihua Blockchain

Editor’s Note:

During a heavyweight panel discussion hosted by Dragonfly at Token 2049, the clash of views between Arthur Hayes and Tom Lee became the focus of the event.

Tom Lee painted a grand blueprint for an "institutional supercycle" led by Ethereum, while Arthur Hayes countered, warning that the DATs market faces brutal consolidation and for the first time shared the real logic behind his sale of Hyperliquid. As the perpetual contract wars heat up, where will their gaze turn?

The following are excerpts from the interview.

01 The Institutional Wave of Ethereum and the "Tom Lee Effect"

Host: Tom, many people refer to you as the "savior of Ethereum." How do you view this assessment?

Tom Lee: Yes, it’s a heavy responsibility. I think Ethereum itself is in an excellent state. The Ethereum Foundation has prioritized the right things happening this year, and of course, the emergence of stablecoins has really ignited the demand for blockchain. I think Bitmine just got lucky with the timing.

Host: It feels like you are now the Chief Marketing Officer of Ethereum.

Tom Lee: Okay, I can add that title.

Host: Arthur, how do you view the DAT (Digital Asset Trust) frenzy sparked by Tom Lee? How has it propelled the development of Ethereum?

Arthur Hayes: I mean, people like to hear this guy talk on CNBC, so whatever. If he wants to bang the drum for Ethereum, then bang away, brother. Let’s go. So I really like it. We need more Tom Lees. Every [altcoin] needs a Tom Lee.

Host: Tom, what do you think Bitmine did right that other imitators did not?

Tom Lee: Well, I think Bitmine, first and foremost, is very thoughtful in communication. You know, we’ve kept the message very simple: Ethereum is in a supercycle. We convey this through our website, presentations, and videos from the chairman. I think Bitmine has a lot of connections in the institutional world. Cathie Wood made a significant public investment in Bitmine early on. It is now one of Arc's top ten holdings. This attracted other institutional investors, and I think this process created a flywheel effect. That’s why we are currently the 26th ranked stock by trading volume in the U.S., and as you pointed out, we and MicroStrategy are really creating liquidity for DATs.

Host: You have also recently expanded beyond Ethereum, such as providing seed funding for Worldcoin's DAT. Can you talk about the strategy behind this?

Tom Lee: Well, I think Bitmine wants to play a role in helping Ethereum move into the next 15 years. This includes helping to identify projects that are critical to Ethereum, will use more Ethereum, and consume Gas. It also includes helping to provide seed funding for other payment rails coming to Ethereum. Of course, we are working closely with the Ethereum Foundation to really identify and prioritize upgrades.

So, part of that is also investing in projects that truly stand out. For example, Orbs 8co, which is the parent company of Worldcoin. As a16z pointed out, one of the 11 things that AI really cares about is proof of humanity. And Worldcoin is indeed one of the first projects, with nearly 17 million people verified as human. I think protecting humanity on the blockchain is an important priority.

02 The Future of DATs: Consolidation or Extinction?

Host: The heat around DATs seems to be cooling, and the net asset value premium is shrinking. What do you think the future of DATs will be?

Tom Lee: Well, yes. Someone told me today that there are 70 Ethereum DATs, which is a lot. If you look at traditional public markets, investors can support two or three, maybe four. So in this universe, there may be multiple winners, but institutions cannot buy 70 DATs. I think those trading below NAV (net asset value) are facing survival issues. I believe DATs should not trade below their net asset value. I don’t know if they should convert to ETFs or if they should be liquidated. They can consolidate. But they shouldn’t trade below NAV; no ETF trades below NAV, so DATs shouldn’t either.

Arthur Hayes: Well, I absolutely agree with the idea of consolidation. I feel that Solana's DATs have been conveying this message: "We need to consolidate. There can’t be 20 DATs." But what strikes me as odd is that there are still people launching DATs for tokens with lower market caps (like $1 billion to $3 billion). I don’t understand how these things can stay alive. Because if the baker can earn 5%, you just don’t care.

Tom Lee: Yes. This seems to potentially disrupt reflexivity. You know, the reflexivity you want is for DATs to be permanent holders of the tokens, but you don’t want them to be so large that the power law has a negative effect. That’s why Bitmine really doesn’t want to exceed 10% of Ethereum, with a target of 5%. So if it’s a small-cap coin with low circulation, I think DATs might help promote the merits of that coin, but you don’t want it to be large enough to become a bag holder.

03 Challenges and Opportunities in the Ethereum Ecosystem

Host: Tom, how do you respond to the skepticism that "banks and institutions will use Ethereum, but they won’t be willing to pay high Gas fees"?

Tom Lee: As you know, in the world of cryptocurrency, being "stupid" is a good thing. So take it as a compliment.

Host: So, will dedicated stablecoin chains become a new trend and harm Ethereum's value capture?

Arthur Hayes: I guess this might just be a function of mining, right? If they can provide positive mining yields, you’ll go for it. If they can’t create value afterward, then they’ll all come back, just like all the other games you’ve played with these tokens over the past decade. It’s a mining farm, right? It has to accelerate beyond mining, and then we can see if there’s real value there.

Tom Lee: Well, I mean, I think stablecoins will be a huge market. Because we only have $300 billion right now. You know, I can see a path to easily reaching $4 trillion. That’s what Treasury Secretary Yellen is talking about. This might not even consider that micropayments will be the real big users of stablecoins because, you know, Tether has 12 decimal places. I mean, that’s how you do micropayments. So, will all this happen on one chain? I think you actually can’t fit all the traffic into Ethereum. So, it makes sense for other chains to experiment, and I’m happy to see many things succeed.

04 The Perpetual Contract Battlefield: The "Sword of Damocles" Over Hyperliquid

Host: Arthur, you recently claimed to have sold Hyperliquid because there was a "Sword of Damocles" hanging over it. What specifically do you mean?

Arthur Hayes: Yes, so obviously there are these token unlocks, right? That’s no secret. I think starting in November, about $500 million a year, the team is eligible to sell on the market. Now, this is either important or it’s not. When Hyperliquid was dominant, holding about 60-70% market share (about a month and a half ago), having these massive unlocks didn’t matter because everyone assumed they would earn more money in fees and buy back HYPE tokens, which is what they called a "bullish unlock," just like Solana did in 2020/2021. So that was the dominant narrative at the time. I didn’t care about the unlocks.

Then, about a month ago on a weekend, I checked DeFiLlama to see how the rankings were. I clicked on it, and Hyperliquid was ranked first, around $4 billion or something. Then Lighter followed closely, around $3.9 billion, Aster around $3.8 billion. This isn’t good; this is competition.

Now, that’s not to say Hyperliquid can’t beat them all because its technology is great, and it has HIP-3 and Builder Code, etc. But I’m not going to sit back and watch the market reprice expectations right under my nose. I’ll just sell and sit on the sidelines waiting. It’s either going up or down. Hyperliquid will either prove it has a moat to charge real fees against all these competitors or it won’t. And I will reassess what the landscape of perpetual contracts looks like or what new products or services perpetual contract exchanges will launch that customers are willing to pay for and that won’t be immediately commoditized.

Host: What are your thoughts on this perpetual contract DEX (Perp Dex) war?

Arthur Hayes: I don’t think it will be zero fees forever. Look at Aster; it has fees, and due to high trading volume, it earns more than Hyperliquid. But it’s clearly negative profit because everyone knows they are dumping tokens in the form of points. So whether or not you have fees, all leading perpetual contract exchanges are operating at negative profits.

Tom Lee: Yes, they are super fluid. And you know, going back to 2010, if you were an investor, you were thinking: should I buy Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or Facebook? The answer is you actually bought all of these companies, and the market just kept exploding.

Arthur Hayes: But they didn’t offer exactly the same product. Perpetual swaps are the same across every platform.

Tom Lee: It’s a commoditized product. You could also say cloud computing has become somewhat commoditized as well. But, you know, the market isn’t completely efficient, but maybe over time it will move in that direction. It sounds like capitalism is at work, right? Because you have a truly explosive product, people take notes, and launch their own versions. But as Arthur said, it’s important for the leaders to maintain their leadership, and if they can’t, then the market will really commoditize. I do believe this is a market that will grow in scale.

05 The Next Trend in the Crypto World

Host: Arthur, if you were to start a trading platform again today, what direction would you choose?

Arthur Hayes: Fixed income, not perpetual contracts. We would trade CryptoKitties. But we would make it fun. When you have a thousand times leverage, a lot of things become interesting.

Tom Lee: But I might add a point; Arthur mentioned the keyword. "Betting"—I think that's exactly where cryptocurrency excels. Its real core is that people can hedge, arbitrage, and bet on different ideas. So what I mean is, that’s the real big market, right? It’s the betting markets. The breakout point has always been Polymarket and Kalshi. There will be micro-bets, whether it’s interest rates, fixed income, or real estate speculation, whatever it is.

Host: Tom, how do you use Polymarket at Fundstrat?

Tom Lee: We use it often! For example, predicting whether the U.S. government will shut down. There are also bets on Lisa Cook and whether Federal Reserve Chairman Powell will continue in December. All of these provide real-time insights. Polymarket has been crucial in how the market understood the last election; it correctly predicted every state in the Electoral College, something no one else could do. If you consider how Wall Street will use these prediction markets in the future, the scale of betting in this election could be 20 times larger. Goldman Sachs now cites Polymarket data on many things, whether it’s Federal Reserve actions or government shutdowns. At Fundstrat, we’ve been using it for a long time, and it’s really helpful; it’s the wisdom of the crowd.

06 The Controversy and Future of Privacy Coins

Host: Monero recently suffered a 51% attack; is this related to the recent popularity of Zcash?

Arthur Hayes: I don’t know.

Host: Tom, what are your thoughts on the privacy narrative?

Tom Lee: Well, yes. First, privacy is important. I actually think even government agencies will use Zcash and Monero when they want to make payments. So it does have a real use case. I might say that privacy is something some people care about. Many people seem not to care. So, I don’t know if everyone needs privacy. I mean, if you look at many surveys, young people are willing to share more information with tech companies because they trust tech companies more than they trust the government. Well, so I don’t think it will just be about privacy in your wallet. Of course, in a world of AI and robots, you would also want other forms of protection. I mean, even proof of humanity, right? Just proving you are human is important, especially now that we are constantly being scammed by robot calls.

Host: Arthur, you seemed to have a critical attitude towards Zcash in the past?

Arthur Hayes: I’m not a critic. I just don’t think it’s really effective. I think I attended a dinner a long time ago, maybe six or seven years ago, when there was a lady from the FBI, and we asked her, "What do you think is the best privacy coin?" She said Monero. That’s all I needed to hear.

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