David Hoffman, Podcaster at Bankless, joins us to talk about the evolution of crypto from a naive 2017 dream to the harsh reality of 2026. We dive into the "blockchain, not Bitcoin" rebirth, the death of Discord-led communities, and why Wall Street's tokenization is missing the point. David shares his excitement for AI-driven capital markets, the innovative app ecosystem on MegaETH, and why his portfolio remains heavily weighted in ETH despite the nihilistic market sentiment.

Notes:

* Ryan Sean Adams took a 3-month sabbatical.

* David Hoffman's portfolio is still mostly ETH.

* Bankless VC fund downsized to 15-20 checks.

* China is aggressively increasing gold reserves.

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

00:23 State of crypto

03:21 What's still exciting

08:14 Crypto's original vision

12:57 Community going away?

19:16 Hyperliquid

20:44 What are L2's actually being used for?

25:17 Ordering transactions

27:26 Ellipsis Labs Ad

28:14 Future of media

33:28 Money leaving the crypto space

35:41 Risk & return math

39:41 Bankless Ventures

45:07 Possible bright spots?

50:15 Future of Bankless

58:21 Bankless regrets

1:01:31 Fully changing his mind

1:04:28 Crypto's end game is here?

1:07:51 ETH: bull or bear?

1:10:40 David's personal portfolio?

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs. Ellipsis Labs builds the most efficient on-chain markets. Their orderbook and Prop AMM products have delivered price improvement to hundreds of billions of dollars in retail volume. Now, they are bringing their expertise to build Phoenix, the best on-chain perpetuals platform.

Ellipsis Labs is hiring New York-based engineers. If you're an engineer looking to work with a proven team in making DeFi better, go to ellipsislabs.xyz/careers.

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