Bankless

Three macro forces are converging that almost no one is pricing in correctly. Jeff Park returns to Bankless to lay out what he calls the "certain truths" shaping markets for the next two decades: collapsing demographics across every major economy, wealth concentration that now exceeds even the Gilded Age, and a labor market being structurally hollowed out by AI before robots even arrive.

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro
3:07 Certain Truth #1: Global Demographic Headwinds
8:26 What a Top-Heavy Population Means for Markets
15:05 The Japan Counter-Argument
26:01 Certain Truth #2: Wealth Concentration at Critical Levels
32:48 Capital Flight, Unrealized Gains, and the Drag on Demand
43:17 Real Estate as the Epicenter of Distortion
48:05 Bitcoin as a Spending and Savings Asset
52:08 Certain Truth #3: The Value of Labor Approaching Zero
1:01:27 The AI Industrial Revolution Comparison
1:04:38 The Convergence: Why All Three Truths Collide Now
1:08:19 Lightning Round: Asset Class Outlook
1:27:49 Closing Thoughts

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RESOURCES

Jeff Park
https://x.com/dgt10011

Jeff’s paper
https://x.com/dgt10011/status/2031757205888762205

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

We examine the proposed Clarity Act and its impact on stablecoin yields and crypto finance. Ryan and David discuss geopolitical tensions in Iran and their effects on global markets. 

Highlights include Tom Lee's ETH staking venture, the NYSE's stock tokenization, and emerging quantum computing developments. We also touch on Coinbase’s stock dip, Tether’s auditing, and Fannie Mae's acceptance of crypto as collateral.

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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS

https://thedefireport.io/bankless

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BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:

🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET

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https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast 

🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT

https://bankless.cc/bitget

🐇MEGAETH | 1ST REAL-TIME BLOCKCHAIN

https://bankless.cc/megaeth

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TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES

0:00 Intro

3:29 Macro & Markets (Oil, War, Fed)

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2035516932498030879

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2036053106081902692

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2036811133915455745

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2037023604697710673

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2035862840284688507

https://x.com/Stocktwits/status/2036859288572862887

https://www.theblock.co/post/394878/bernstein-says-bitcoin-looks-bottomed-sees-226-upside-for-strategy

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UMCSENT

https://thedefireport.io/research/markets-are-complacent#views-on-macro-oil-geopolitics

23:12 The Clarity Act and Stablecoin Yields

https://x.com/EleanorTerrett/status/2036279124382077137

https://x.com/nic_carter/status/2036469040684646844

https://x.com/Matt_Hougan/status/2036931850292387929

https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/2036420229543206962

https://x.com/StockSavvyShay/status/2036449942060015818

37:15 Tether Developments and Market Reactions

https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/2036428992195039699

https://x.com/nicrypto/status/2036387424620904893

https://x.com/BrendanPedersen/status/2036857950367567951

https://x.com/Shaughnessy119/status/2036876676852752674

https://polymarket.com/event/clarity-act-signed-into-law-in-2026/?via=bankless

40:55 Tokenizing Stocks: NYSE's New Partner

https://x.com/WSJ/status/2036411699633250532

https://x.com/BSCNews/status/2035019819238506993

45:54 Crypto-Backed Mortgages

https://x.com/zoomerfied/status/2037130261469462914

https://x.com/0xNairolf/status/2037149525022806030

https://x.com/DollarDecay/status/2037183407273161104

47:30 Ethereum's Staking Infrastructure Launch

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bitmine-immersion-technologies-bmnr-announces-launch-of-mavan-made-in-america-validator-network-the-companys-proprietary-staking-solution-302724419.html

55:37 Stablecoins and Their Limitations in Freedom

https://x.com/aave/status/2036828379043787194

https://pq.ethereum.org/

https://x.com/charliesmirkley/status/2035364269873881322

https://www.theunseenandtheunsaid.com/p/the-great-american-tax-migration

58:30 Closing & Disclaimers

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

MIT economist Christian Catalini joins Ryan and David to unpack his new paper, "Some Simple Economics of AGI," which argues that the scarce resource in the AI economy is no longer intelligence but verification: the human capacity to check, judge, and certify that AI output is correct. Christian walks through the two cost curves reshaping every industry (cost to automate vs. cost to verify), explains why entry-level jobs are collapsing first through what he calls the "missing junior loop," why even top experts are unknowingly training their replacements (the "codifier's curse"), and maps out the three roles that survive the transition: Directors, Meaning Makers, and Liability Underwriters.

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🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT
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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS
https://thedefireport.io/bankless

🐇MEGAETH | 1ST REAL-TIME BLOCKCHAIN
https://bankless.cc/megaeth

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro
3:42 The Low-Grade Panic
6:43 Who Gets Hit First, and Hardest?
13:06 Coding as Canary, or Exception?
16:21 Human Cognition Was the Binding Constraint
19:59 What Is Verification, Exactly?
29:10 The Codifier's Curse
31:21 The Expanding Iceberg: Non-Measurable Work
38:32 The Two Racing Cost Curves
41:59 Trojan Horse Externality
48:46 The Four Quadrants: Where Do You Want to Be?
54:12 Liability Underwriters and the Venture Capital Parallel
55:41 Directors: Navigating Unknown Unknowns
59:49 60-80% of Your Job Can Be Displaced
1:06:24 Button Pushers vs. Founders: The Great Resorting
1:12:08 The Luddite Risk: Political Backlash Against AI
1:17:30 What Companies and Investors Should Do
1:22:56 The Crypto Connection
1:25:11 Don't Panic: A Closing Playbook

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RESOURCES

Christian Catalini
https://x.com/ccatalini

Some Simple Economics of AGI
https://arxiv.org/html/2602.20946v2

Christian’s thread on his paper
https://x.com/ccatalini/status/2026311784421036223

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

NEAR founder and Transformer co-author Illia Polosukhin joins us to break down why today’s AI agents still fall short, what’s missing to make them actually useful, and how IronClaw could unlock secure, private, autonomous AI.

We also explore Illia’s bigger thesis: AI becomes the interface, blockchains become the backend, and both reshape how humans, agents, and digital markets interact.

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https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 

🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE

https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast 

🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT

https://bankless.cc/bitget

🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS

https://thedefireport.io/bankless

🐇MEGAETH | 1ST REAL-TIME BLOCKCHAIN

https://bankless.cc/megaeth

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

0:43 Illia’s AI Journey

8:19 AI x Blockchain Operating Systems

14:40 Will Humans & AIs Use the Same Systems?

18:20 Why Are AI Agents Still Useless?

28:54 AI Agent Privacy Concerns

35:30 IronClaw Privacy

39:21 AI Agent Limitations

47:00 Context Constraints

53:42 Will Small Teams Win?

57:16 Autonomous Agents & Businesses

1:01:00 Digital Life Forms?

1:02:42 e/acc Vs d/acc

1:09:44 Why isn’t AI Crypto-Pilled

1:14:31 Advice for Builders

1:18:30 Closing & Disclaimers

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RESOURCES

Illia

https://x.com/ilblackdragon 

IronClaw

https://agent.near.ai/

NEAR
https://www.near.org/

Attention is All You Need

https://arxiv.org/html/1706.03762v7 

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:

https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Quantum used to be crypto’s distant sci-fi problem. Justin Drake says it now has a clock. In this episode, we unpack what “Q-Day” actually means, why Justin thinks 2032 is the date the entire industry should be planning around, and why Ethereum is targeting 2029 to get post-quantum ready.

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🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT
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🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS
https://thedefireport.io/bankless

🐇MEGAETH | 1ST REAL-TIME BLOCKCHAIN
https://bankless.cc/megaeth

---
TIMESTAMPS

0:00 When is Q-Day?
5:35 The moment quantum becomes crypto-relevant
10:11 How many qubits does it take to break crypto?
16:22 What a real Bitcoin quantum attack would look like
20:19 How much Bitcoin is actually vulnerable?
26:26 Burn, freeze, or salvage? Bitcoin’s impossible choice
35:06 Proof of seed phrase and Bitcoin’s post-quantum bottleneck
41:02 Ethereum’s exposure: smaller, but not zero
45:43 Ethereum’s tougher roadmap: three layers, three upgrades
50:29 The execution-layer plan: replace ECDSA without killing throughput
57:56 Post-quantum, post-AI cryptography
1:03:36 BLS, KZG, LeanVM, and the rest of the stack
1:06:42 Is this bigger than the Merge?
1:17:21 If Bitcoin stumbles, does all crypto stumble too?
1:19:35 “Quantum is not a challenge—it’s an opportunity”
1:21:27 AI, quantum, crypto and the 2032 convergence
1:28:04 Harvest now, decrypt later
1:30:09 Defensive accelerationism and Ethereum’s role
1:39:10 Stoicism, P-doom, and why he keeps building

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RESOURCES

Justin Drake
https://x.com/drakefjustin/

Bitcoin Quantum Risk List
https://www.projecteleven.com/bitcoin-risq-list

Nic Carter Blog Posts
https://murmurationstwo.substack.com/p/bitcoin-developers-are-sleepwalking
https://murmurationstwo.substack.com/p/trillion-dollar-salvage
https://murmurationstwo.substack.com/p/bitcoin-developers-are-mostly-not

The Strawmap
https://strawmap.org/

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures