Dialogue Arthur Hayes & NEAR: HYPE's target price is 150

Collapse & Compiled: Deep tide TechFlow

Guest:Arthur Hayes, Maelstrom CIO; Illia Polosukhin, NEAR

Moderator:Andy;Rob

Podcast source:The Rollup

Original title:Arthur Hayes & Illia Polosukhin: Privacy Is The Last 1000x (NEAR & ZEC)

Date broadcast:25 May 2026

Summary of highlights

The Rollup invited Arthur Hayes and Illia Polosukhin to discuss the investment logic of macro-liquidation, privacy assets, NEAR intentions (Intents), AI and chain executives, and HYPE, NEAR, ZEC. Arthur argues that war, the AI arms race, and the rebuilding of supply chains are pushing the US, China, and Europe to continue to support the economy through debt and monetary expansion, and that liquidity eventually spills over into Bitcoin and a few encrypted assets with real narratives and revenues. Illia emphasizes that privacy is not an option, but a prerequisite for large-scale adoption, to enter the daily payment, pay, invoice and AI smart economy. Both believed that the encryption market was moving from non-differentiated speculation to a fundamental screening phase and that privacy, sovereignty, real income and the capture of token values would be the most important main lines in the next phase。

Summary of outstanding views

MACRO MOBILITY AND AI ARMS RACE

• "AI HAS BECOME PART OF NATIONAL DEFENCE. UAVS, AI INTELLIGENCE AND BATTLEFIELD DECISION-MAKING ARE INCORPORATED INTO THE WAR SYSTEM, AND THE GOVERNMENT WILL PRINT MONEY TO WIN THE WAR."
• "In the past, countries have based their food and energy supplies on numerous assumptions, but when key shipping lanes such as the Strait of Hormuz become unstable, holding United States Treasury bonds does not help them feed their populations."
• "These savings, which exist in the form of United States Treasury bonds, ultimately need to be sold to buy real goods, build redundant supply chains and energy corridors."
• "Bitcoin has the advantage that if there are more French units tomorrow than today, its price will rise mathematically, it is pure mathematics, but everything else is very dependent on narratives."

L1 COMLINK INTEGRATION AND ENCRYPTION MARKET FUNDAMENTALS RETURN

• " BLOCK SPACE IS ALREADY A VERY COMMON COMMODITY AND SUPPLY FAR EXCEEDS DEMAND. THE ONLY PROBLEM IN THE PAST WAS THAT SUCH COMMODITIES WERE HIGHLY IRREPLACEABLE. THE NEAR BET ON THE ABSTRACT AND INTENT OF THE CHAIN IS TO MAKE THEM INTERCHANGEABLE. IN OTHER WORDS, EVERY CHAIN, EVERY ASSET, EVERY USER CAN REALLY CONNECT, WITHOUT HAVING TO THINK ABOUT WHICH BLOCK THEY ARE USING."
• "The logic of the past is disappearing: we buy an asset because there's a bunch of loosers coming in behind. There is now a considerable reduction in the risk bias of the diaspora. People are more concerned about the affordability of oil and food next year than about speculation about an asset."
• "The market is turning to what is really generating income, having real products and users."
• " IT IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR A CHAIN TO BE COMPLETELY DILUTED. THERE'S A LOT OF HUGE INSTITUTIONAL UNLOCKING PRESSURE ON THE TOP OF PROJECTS, AND THE NEAR ALREADY HAS RELATIVELY CLEAN UPPER SPACE."

Zcash and privacy assets underestimated

• "There is nothing more normal than having a private currency on the Internet. Zcash and Monero represent exactly this need."
• "AS TECHNOLOGY, GOVERNMENT AND AI BECOME MORE AND MORE CAPABLE OF TRACKING EVERYTHING IN OUR LIVES, IT BECOMES EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO PROVE THE PRIVACY OF MONEY IN THE FORM OF ENCRYPTION."
• "If you hold Zcash, but you don't hold it in shield form, why do you hold it?"
• "Zcash and NEAR form the core of my private investment theory: in a world where AI, big technology and big government coexist, privacy will be reawakened to the market, and Maelstrom will profit from it。
• "I think NEAR has 20 times the potential in the coming year, and Zcash may be about five times."

NEAR INTENT, PRIVACY TRANSACTIONS AND MASS ADOPTION

• "If we want the chain of blocks to be truly integrated into everyday life, it cannot happen without privacy, which is actually a precondition for the massive use of encryption."
• "If I pay at the coffee shop, I don't want the store to know how much I have, and I don't want the world to know where I just consumed it."
• "The intention of privacy is not just to hold a private asset, but to allow transfers, transactions, payments, proceeds and more operations to be done confidentially between all assets."
• "Pays, invoices and many of the examples that were once considered appropriate for encryption are very difficult to really happen in a fully transparent chain environment."

AI SMART AND CHAIN TOP EXECUTIVE LAYER

• "IN THE FUTURE WE'LL USE THE AL-CALCULATION, AND THE BLOCK CHAIN WILL BE THE WAY EVERYTHING IS EXECUTED."
• "AI ALSO NEEDS PRIVACY. YOU DON'T WANT THE LAB TO HARVEST YOUR DATA, TO TRAIN A BETTER MODEL, AND SELL BACK TO YOU THROUGH SUBSCRIPTION."
• "AI IS THE NEW COMPUTATIONAL INTERFACE, INTENDED TO BE THE COMMERCIAL LAYER BEHIND IT."
• "AT THE BEGINNING OF 2017, OUR CORE JUDGMENT WAS THAT AI WOULD BE THE WAY WE BUILD SOFTWARE, INTERACT WITH CALCULATIONS."

Hyperliquid and Decentralised Financial Dreams

• "What's one of the killer applications in encryption? Exchange. Who's the richest guy in the encryption industry
• "The most important thing about Hyperliquid is not how new it is to renew the contract or go to the central exchange itself, but how it makes the economic model of the coin right."
• "There are no venture capital sales, only team distributions, and almost all revenues return to token holders, which is rare in projects of this size."

AI LABOUR FORCE SUBSTITUTION AND POLITICAL RISKS

• "AI'S IMPACT ON THE WORKFORCE HIGHLY DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU LIVE. HIGH-INCOME WHITE COLLARS OFF THE COAST OF THE UNITED STATES ARE PROTECTED, WHILE WORKERS IN OVERSEAS BACK-OFFICE TREATMENT CENTRES ARE IMMEDIATELY UNEMPLOYED, WITH LITTLE CONCERN."
• "I think the replacement has already begun, except that it is equally unevenly distributed. The only chance is to be at the forefront, and we've always said that you need to use these technologies to enhance your abilities, learn and apply more quickly."
• "WHAT REALLY CAN STOP MUSIC IS NOT NECESSARILY A BIG LISTING, BUT POLITICS. PEOPLE WOULD ASK: "AI, WHAT DO WE GET WHEN COMPANIES TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND INTERACTION OF ALL MANKIND TO BECOME SO RICH?"
• "IF AI PROFITS ARE SUBJECT TO A MASSIVE PROGRESSIVE TAX, IT IS NOT THAT THESE COMPANIES CANNOT MAKE MONEY, BUT ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY 100 TIMES MORE FOR A COMPANY THAT MIGHT BE TAXED 50% OF AI? OF COURSE NOT."

Arthur's Macro Investment Theory

Moderator Rob Arthur, you were careful for a while before, reminding people of the risks, and then becoming more holistic. What happened in the middle? What changed

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

i wrote an article at the beginning of the year saying  Bitcoin was in advance of a credit event triggered by AI deflation。My judgment isMonetary authorities will not print enough money before they see the financial crisis。My whole argument at the time was that NASDAQ had been more or less flat since Bitcoin's history, but Bitcoin went down with the US investment-grade debt ETF IGB, down from $126,000 to $60,000, and I thought it was a credit event。

Subsequently, on 28 February, when the United States opened fire on Iran, the war situation was completely lit and the market was made aware that it would turn into a liquidity-friendly event。FIRST, AI IS ALREADY PART OF THE NATIONAL DEFENCE. UAVS, AI-DRIVEN DRONES AND AI INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS ARE ALREADY INVOLVED IN PART OF THE WAR OPERATIONS OF ALL WARRING PARTIES。THE GOVERNMENT WILL PRINT MONEY IN ORDER TO WIN THE WAR, AND AI WILL BE PART OF THE WAR, SO BOTH THE US AND CHINESE GOVERNMENTS WILL GO TO THE BOTTOM FOR AI CAPITAL SPENDING。

We have begun to see bank loans and equity investments flowing to chip manufacturers. At least in the United States, companies such as Intel have received support, and there are similar announcements on the direction of quantum calculations, such as a $1 billion investment in IBM-related projects. These are all part of the same theme。

On the other hand, many countries have in the past made many assumptions about food and energy supplies, suggesting that they can be supplied through disputed waters such as the Strait of Hormuz。But now that things are going to be difficult, they start to think, "Why do I have to hold these American bonds?" If I'm going to feed my population or if I don't even have aviation fuel on an island, holding the United States Treasury debt won't help me, especially if my ship can't even cross the Strait。

So..They need to build a redundant supply of all critical suppliesIn particular, food and energy; new trade relations needed to be invested; and new pipelines needed to be constructed to allow oil to bypass the Persian Gulf and flow out of places such as the United Arab Emirates. All this meansSavings in the form of United States Treasury bonds need to be sold in exchange for real goods。

The United States would not allow such sales to cause the market to collapse. It will print money to fill this hole to ensure that the market does not get out of control. So I think February 28 is a market catalyst. The United States, China and Europe will print money to finance war-time economics and AI capital spending, which eventually flows to Bitcoin, which is why Bitcoin behaves so well。

HEAVY BETS NEAR, ZEC AND HYPE

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

Now we see a small amount of money that starts to rise, a few of which I hold, like NEAR, HYPE and Zcash, have been doing very well since February 28th. That's my general logic。

I didn't actually do much in the first quarter. I did some more after the war began, but, in essence, we held these assets at very good prices long ago. Now the market begins to verify why we bought them six to 12 months ago。

Moderator Andy: The whole encrypted Twitter is talking about whether the deal has become a consensus, and our side is already on the line. We've been watching the macros and watching your programmes and articles on CoinDesk. At first, the market was shaky, and then NEAR, HYPE, ZEC, all of which suddenly started to rise, so it was coming together in the consolidation phase。

The integration of a chain has begun

Moderator Andy: Illia, I would like to hear your views on market integration. This is not the first so-called bear city you've been through, and we've seen it before, but this time it feels so real, because the market itself is evolving。

Institutional configurations have entered the field and the macro-level environment is highly volatile, which has led people to start looking at the industry in an "adaptation agency age, otherwise out of the game". In addition to that, the industry as a whole is becoming more mature and complex, and you need products, income, real users, and a truly sustainable and robust currency economy。

FROM THE FOUNDER'S POINT OF VIEW, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MARKET IN THE PAST SIX TO EIGHT MONTHS? WHY DOES IT CHANGE SO FAST? HOW DID THE NEAR GO THROUGH THIS PHASE

Illia Polosukhin: & nbsp;

I think there are a few clues that are coming together, starting with one and two. I remember I gave a speech in 2019 when I saidWe will go through a full-blown explosion, then enter the integration phase, and eventually only a few projects will survive, and we are now approaching that stage。

Block space is already a very common commodity and supply is much greater than demand. The only problem in the past was that such commodities were highly irreplaceable. The NEAR bets on the chain abstraction and intent (Intents) make them interchangeable. This means that every chain, every asset, every user can really connect, without having to think about which block they are using。

The second line is fundamental return。You've been saying that for over a year, maybe even years. Now it does happen. Whether it's the market, or the institutional investors that really analyze it, the institutions I'm talking about here are not Blackrock and Fidelity, but foundations and professional investors, who are changing。

The logic of the past is disappearing: we buy an asset because there's a bunch of loosers coming in. There is now a considerable reduction in the risk bias of the diaspora。Like Arthur just saidThere is more concern about the affordability of oil and food next year than about speculation on an asset。

So the market began to ask:Which assets generate real incomeWHICH ASSETS PROVIDE THE PRODUCT WE ARE USING? IF I PLEDGE IT, CAN I GET NEW POWERS? HYPE, FOR EXAMPLE, OBTAINS LOWER HANDLING FEES AND MORE MARKET ACCESS. ZEC HAS A DIFFERENT LOGIC BUT ALSO PROVIDES PRIVACY. THE SAME IS TRUE OF THE NEAR, WHICH PROVIDES A CAPABILITY TO CROSS-CHAIN, INTENT AND CALCULATION。

These are new capabilities that market participants want. So these assets are starting to become the focus, not the kind of token that can be held, but it's hard for you to figure out exactly what it's worth before the cost switches open. I think the two lines are coming together and creating a wider environment for the current encryption market。

Arthur, why do you like Zcash

Moderator Rob: The industry is a little into reorganization. A few of the Bankless seem to have split up, and David Hoffman sold all the ETH, Merch no longer supported Solana, but bet Zcash. Arthur, Zcash, why is it so important to you? Is this the core of the encryption industry? What role does NEAR intend to play here

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

Zcash's heat is certainly emerging, but I remember 2016 before Zcash's main line, it's the hottest thing on the market. I was still in BitMEX, and we went online with the first Zcash price derivative. That market was crazy, and the price went up to about $300 on Polonix. If you remember that exchange, there were even seven Bitcoin for one Zcash price。

That was a very crazy day. Subsequently, prices collapsed as a result of fast-growing supply as a result of block incentives. But Zcash did have problems. You have to trust Zooko, Eli, and other participants, for example, that they didn't do any harm at the key-generation ceremony. And there's the issue of the team 20% block incentive subsidy, which was also controversial in the market。

But those issues are now behind us. The protocol has been upgraded, credible settings have been removed, and we know it's secure in code, and 20 percent of the subsidy has disappeared. It now has a clean starting point and a sufficient supply to form a real market, rather than the sharp swings of the first generation。

Naval changed Arthur's opinion

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

Last year, during Token 2049, I went to a dinner, and Naval was there. He started talking to me about Zcash. At that time, Zcash had gone from about $30 to about $120, and I asked him why he was looking, and he knew that I was holding a lot of Monero。

He told me that Monero's ring signature wasn't as strong as anyone thought. Japanese law enforcement agencies have been successful in decontaminating related transactions in a criminal case. After listening, I felt that this man was obviously very reliable, so I went back and bought millions of dollars in Zcash。

I also noticed one thing: I have a lot of brokers, but only two of them are willing to give me Zcash's price, because many agencies would say we don't make private currency. My reaction was:If it's hard for me to buy it, I want it more。

And then I did more research to validate some of Navar's statements. And then I keep buying, and I keep loading. Zcash got up in 2016, essentially because everyone knew Bitcoin was a pseudonym system, not completely private. Many people do value privacy in certain contexts。There's nothing wrong with having a private currency on the Internet, that's what Zcash stands for, and that's what Monero stands for。

As we get clearerGreat technology, big government, and AI have the ability to know everything about us, to track everything that's going on in our lives, and it's absolutely necessary to prove money privacy in a coded way, and that's why I made Zcash the second largest warehouse。Even if I hadn't bought it four times since it rebounded from $30, it was still very good。

And then the problem becomes the user experience。The best application used to be called another name, now Zashi, where users can use the shield Zcash. One of the biggest problems of Zcash in 2016 is that it does work, but almost no one can hold it as a shield. We're all using transparency Zcash, and that's essentially a bad version of Bitcoin. What's the point if we can't have privacy

The situation has changed. This kind of application allows you to hold the shield Zcash at an experienced mobile end, and if you match a cold wallet like Keystone, you can hold the shield Zcash with cold storage。I strongly recommend that all those who hold Zcash hold it in shield form, otherwise why do you have it

NEAR ATTEMPTED TO EXCHANGE ANONYMOUSLY

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

This user experience is good, and this is the more interesting part. We invested in Zashi's round of financing. Then in Zashi applicationBy blocking Zcash and NEAR, I can anonymously send randomly encrypted assets to anyone on the Internet. For example, I started by blocking Zcash, and then turned into USDT on Tron, and sent it anonymously to each other。

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. THE NEAR PRICE, LIKE THE REST OF THE ENCRYPTION INDUSTRY, HAS FALLEN A LOT FROM HISTORICAL HEIGHTS AND HAS GONE THROUGH CYCLES. I THOUGHTZcash will be the first stop if privacy narratives become the big theme; the second stop will be the second stop where people can send value anonymously in any chain。It's also huge。

The NEAR economic model will come back, and this is a very asymmetric opportunity. Of course, I'm configured to the size of NEAR not so big as ZcashBut I think NEAR has 20 times the potential in the next year, and Zcash could be about five times。You'll put capital on different scales depending on the risks. That's why these two assets make up meThe core of privacy investment theory: in a world where AI, big technology and big government coexist, privacy is reawakened to the market, and Maelstrom benefits from it。

Privacy is a prerequisite for mass adoption

Moderator Rob: Illia, when you look at NEAR from the perspective of capitalizers like Arthur, it is clear that AI narratives are an important theme, including supporting identity management, payment networks, and the infrastructure needed for AI intelligence. But in practice, the core of the real release of Zcash ecological values lies in intent, because it makes such currency more efficient and practical。

I have some data here: the total historical trade volume of NEAR's intentions is close to $20 billion, currently about $18.9 billion. The NEAR intent has generated $33 million in costs from these transactions, a large part of which comes from Zcash, as this is almost the only place to complete such operations. Arthur also mentioned that privacy intent creates a positive cash flow for agreements。

CAN YOU TELL ME HOW YOU'RE GOING TO DO THIS? HOW'S THE CASH FLOW? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO EXPAND THE NEAR INTENT TO BETTER SERVE THE ENTIRE NEAR ECOLOGY

Illia Polosukhin: & nbsp;

At the heart of Arthur was that we needed a chain of privacy. I'll go even further:If we want the block chain to be truly integrated into everyday life, it cannot happen without privacy, which is actually a prerequisite for the large-scale use of encryption。

If I buy coffee at the coffee shop, I don't want the coffee shop to know how much money I have and the world to know that I just paid for it。And I don't want someone waiting for me there next time I'm going there. The recent tweets of people talking about someone's chain of credit card transactions, as everyone can see, is absurd in itself。

SoPrivacy is a prerequisite if we want encrypted, stable currency and other assets to become daily currency in real transactions。Even if it were just an investment, I would now have to prepare many addresses for each investment, one for payment, one for collection, each for isolation and management by form. This is unacceptable in a normal world。

Privacy intentIt's not just Zcash that brings in sovereignty, censorship, private assets. Zcash itself is very important and we do need it。But we also want to solve another problem: how to securely complete transfers, transactions, payments, proceeds and other operations between the more than 150 assets that we support。

PRIVACY INTENT IS ESSENTIALLY TO CREATE A PRIVATE SEGMENT ON THE NEAR. USERS HAVE ACCESS TO THIS PRIVATE SEGMENT, TRADING INTERNALLY, AND EXTERNAL ACCESS TO WHAT HAPPENS IS IMPOSSIBLE. IT DOES NOT REQUIRE USERS TO PERFORM COMPLEX PASSWORD OPERATIONS ON THE CLIENT SIDE, ALL OF WHICH ARE DONE INTERNALLY. SO IT'S LIGHT AND PROGRAMABLE. YOU CAN WRITE SMART CONTRACTS AND DEPLOY INSIDE。

This means that we can already support transactions, transfers and privacy payments. There will be more functionality in the future, which will be rolled out through partnerships and ecological integration. I'm excited because I think it's the executive level of privacy investment theory, which makes privacy really broad, accessible and accessible。

This post is part of our special coverage Global Voices 2011SalariesI don't know. No one pays for it with encryption, because everyone sees how much they get; and..InvoicesI don't knowAnd we used to say many examples of what encryption should do, and when everything is completely transparent, they don't really happen。So it's very exciting, and it's going to get us to increase the volume and number of transactions。

WE CHARGE EACH TRANSACTION AND USE THESE FEES TO BUY NEAR BACK. THIS ECONOMIC MODEL IS VERY DIRECT. OUR GOAL IS TO CONTINUE TO DO SO. AT THE SAME TIME, WE HAVE REDUCED INFLATION THROUGHOUT THE ECOLOGY. LAST NOVEMBER, WE ACTUALLY HALVED INFLATION. NEAR HAS BEEN COMPLETELY DILUTED, AND I WILL CONTINUE TO PUSH COMMUNITIES TO FURTHER REDUCE INFLATION. WITH INCREASING ECOLOGICAL REVENUES, WE CAN GRADUALLY BALANCE OUR BOOKS AND MAKE NEPAD DEFLATIONARY AND TRULY ECONOMICALLY SUSTAINABLE AND PROFITABLE。

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

Let me add Illia。It is very important that this be completely diluted, especially when you want to discuss whether a chain of public services can really perform well in rising markets。Many layers of the public chain do all sorts of fancy things, but they have a lot of unlocked chips on top of their heads that risk investment agencies can break down at any time。

What you want is a clean top space。THE ONLY REASON NEAR HAD THIS WAS BECAUSE IT HAD BEEN IN EXISTENCE LONG ENOUGH TO COMPLETE THE CLEAN-UP PROCESS。This is a good asset, because there is an open sky ahead and no one is waiting to dump chips on top of me。

AI BLOCK CHAIN SINCE 2017 VIEW

Moderator Rob: NEAR is one of a few completely diluted tokens, especially in the L1 chain, which already has more than $30 million in cash, and is intended to be one of the main revenue drivers. Illia, can you talk about other AI functions like NEAR AI, IronClaw, and a series of products you're making now? What's the most exciting part of the product package? How does it fit with privacy? If so, talk about the income potential of these products and how they ultimately affect the overall economic situation of the NEAR。

Illia Polosukhin: & nbsp;

High-level logic is:IN THE FUTURE, WE'LL USE THE AL TO CALCULATE, AND THE BLOCK CHAIN WILL BECOME ALL THE WAY TO BE EXECUTED. SO WE DO BOTH AT THE SAME TIME, AND WE REALLY CONNECT THEM。

AI ALSO NEEDS PRIVACY. YOU DON'T WANT THE LAB TO HARVEST YOUR DATA, USE IT TO TRAIN BETTER MODELS, AND SELL THE SERVICES TO YOU THROUGH SUBSCRIPTIONS。You want to give the model more context and access, but it's dangerous if it runs in the hands of a third party and you don't know how the other party will use it. For example, if you give access to encrypted accounts or bank accounts, the other party might collect the data and even start a transaction on your behalf, without you knowing it。

WHAT WE DO ON THE SIDE OF AI IS CREATE A SMART BODY EXPERIENCE WITH PRIVACY AND SECURITY AT ITS CORE. IT'S ESSENTIALLY AN EXECUTIVE ARM, AND TODAY YOU MAKE YOUR OWN PAYMENTS, AND MUCH, IF NOT ALL, OF THE FUTURE WILL BE DONE BY YOUR SMART BODY。As long as you trust it and give it enough context, it can help you with a series of operations ranging from daily shopping to building a spot on Hyperliquid, to super-predicting the market。

For example, I'd like to build a space, and I think something will happen tomorrow, so help me put together the right strategy. It's going to find the right asset, the right combination, and help you build the space. If you're gonna do it manually today, it's gonna be a lot of trouble。

IronClaw has an example now. You can enter your own encrypted address, which will analyze all your assets and slots and suggest a better chance of yielding, telling you how to reconfigure between different agreements, which could be significantly expanded in the future。

So the two parts work together。AI IS THE NEW COMPUTING INTERFACE, INTENDED TO BE THE COMMERCIAL LAYER BEHIND IT。IT IS USED NOT ONLY FOR ORDINARY PAYMENTS, BUT ALSO FOR SUPPLY CHAINS, COMMODITIES AND BROADER TRANSACTIONS. ALL OF THIS WILL FLOW THROUGH INTENT, AS AI FINDS, NEGOTIATES AND COMPLETES TRANSACTIONS MUCH BETTER THAN THE TRADITIONAL MAIL, INVOICE AND BILLING SYSTEMS。

We have a very specific exampleIt's called Smart MarketI don't know. Smarts can hire other intelligents to perform work or deliver goods. This is a glimpse of the future, which, although early, is already being used by businesses in the real world. For example, you can hire a smart person to buy parts for the supply chain, or a smart person to build a marketing website, build applications, or write investment papers。

These smarts run on our verifiable calculations. You know what it's doing to check what happened. It operates on our security infrastructure, so you can give it access to contacts or internal information. One reason we used to hire people into the company was to give them access. Historically, however, it has been difficult to delegate competence to third parties. Now, if a smart body operates in a verifiable, secure computing environment, you can get it to access information in the company。

What I'm describing is actually changing the way labour and supply chains work. So the market that we are aiming at here is the total serviceable market for all labour and supply chains, so that they all operate with intent。

Moderator Andy: The intersection between AI and intent can be seen: smart bodies transfer value with intent, and users want to use Zcash or transfer value with privacy intent. Some people may say that the direction of the NEAR is scattered, but from the beginning, you seem to have this main line early。

Illia Polosukhin: & nbsp;

Yeah。WHEN WE STARTED IN 2017, THE CORE JUDGMENT WAS THAT AI WOULD BE THE WAY WE BUILD SOFTWARE AND INTERACT WITH CALCULATIONS。That was 2017. Then we realized that we needed a block chain if this was to really happen. So in 2018 we started focusing on NEAR Protocol. These parts were part of the NEAR gene from the beginning。

Hyperliquid fulfilled DeFi's dream

Moderator Andy Arthur, I think you want to hear about Hyperliquid. Now the HYPE price has reached about 61 dollars, and Zcash and NEAR represent privacy transactions that are very different from Hyperliquid's logic, but they are part of the same puzzle。

Privacy is very important and is a central part of the industry, which gives people freedom, but in today ' s world, especially in the field of money, privacy is seriously underestimated. Hyperliquid, on the other hand, is the best opportunity for DeFi and the decentre exchange to go beyond centralized finance. Many people have forgotten that we have entered the industry in a way to replace traditional finance, at least as a real alternative system。

In the past, this dream was consumed by such things as highly and completely diluted valuation, low circulation, fraudulent projects, infrastructure narratives, etc. But Hyperliquid is like a brilliant project to make this dream come true again. Although these two investment theories are very different, they attract many of the same people. What do you think, Hyperliquid? Where does it go? Why do you think so

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

What's one of the killer applications in encryption? Exchange. Who's the richest guy in encryption。BNB IS STILL A FOURTH OR FIFTH-LARGEST ENCRYPTED ASSET, BUT IT'S NOT REALLY AN ENCRYPTED CURRENCY, IT'S A CZ SERVER AND A CHAIN HE STARTED。

We know how to make money in the encryption industry. It's just that many people like to complicate things like infrastructure, real world assets, etc。Exchanges make money, and that is clear。The ultimate goal of the exchange is that we have the Internet, we have block chains, so that anyone anywhere can trade anything, plus some leverage, to make things more interesting。

I myself have been in the centralized exchange industry, and I have always known that the industry will move towards the decentralised exchange. The first representative was dYdX, the first star project in the Decentre Exchange, which performed very well between 2020 and 2021. But it was later diverted. DYdX actually wants to do something like Hyperliquid, just that Hyperliquid works better, and dYdX's token economic model has problems。

After that, GMX appeared in the 2023 depression. It's a good model, but there's room for improvement in the currency economy, the number of assets listed, and then Jeff and his team. They come from a high-frequency trading background, are excellent engineers and do deliver good codes. But the most important thing about them is that they have fixed the token economic model. The contract for eternity is not new, we created it in 2016. It's not new to go to the Centralized Exchange, but it's been around 2018 and 2020The key is to get the currency economy model right。

Hyperliquid has no venture capital agency sales, only team distribution, and almost all revenue is returned to the token holders。NO OTHER PROJECT CAN DO THIS ON THE SCALE OF INCOME GENERATED BY HYPE. THAT'S WHY IT'S SO SUCCESSFUL AND WHY PEOPLE ARE DEEPLY INVOLVED IN THIS ECOLOGY。

When they launch the HIP-3, which allows users to market without permission, people can trade in assets such as NASDAQ, Standard, Oil, etc. Last December and January, these were small markets. But because politicians prefer to cause trouble on weekends, traditional markets do not find prices, so they can get a three-day window of opinion. Now Hyperliquid is the only place where prices are found on weekends, and it is sufficiently liquid and everybody can trade。

This is not an important price signal that can only be traded by a person with an account with an American voucher. Now the traditional financial media also started writing about Hyperliquid because they have nowhere else to go. If they can go to CME on Saturday to talk about oil futures, they will go and completely ignore Hyperliquid. But they can't. So they can't ignore Hyperliquid because it's the only place to trade. All have access to data and all have access to trade。

This brings with it the wheel effect. More and more people know Hyperliquid and understand that income will return to you as a token holderIf you pledge enough HYPE, you can get a discount on the fees; you can take part in listing your own market in Hyperliquid, and it starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy。

I believe that it has surpassed its historic height and will be much higher. Because it is the market that is most accessible, it is the volume of transactions on the centralized exchange. Hyperliquid may be only 7 to 8 percent of them now, and will only continue to grow in the future, because it has more assets on the market, more leverage and easier to use。

Even if Hyperliquid just takes 10 to 15 per cent of Binance's lasting contract transaction, it'll be much higher than it is now. It doesn't need to recreate anything. It just needs to capture the existing traders. These individuals already hold stable currency or other encrypted assets and are trading and paying significant fees on the centralized exchange. They want different experiences, and they want a real part of the exchange。

AI LABOUR ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT DOCTRINE

Moderator Rob: Illia, you're referring to all human labour as a always-serving market. In order to give the audience a more intuitive understanding of the concept, the global total of wages and emoluments is approximately $11.7 trillion per year. At the same time, we see that AI Ages is becoming an important part of the labour market。

Arthur, in your AI alternative labour investment theory, it's also mentioned that this could cause consumer credit to collapse. There may be a bumpy road between them, but it will eventually lead to large-scale printing. I wonder what you guys think of AI's replacement for the labor force. How does it develop? Will it eventually lead to intelligence? Will these intelligent bodies be on the chain? How does the economy react? Arthur, first, and then Illia, please share your thoughts on how we should prepare for this inevitable change to ensure that the process can proceed as smoothly as possible

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

AI'S IMPACT ON THE WORKFORCE HIGHLY DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU LIVE。Let us start with the United States, because many of you should be from or live in the United States. The unemployed in the United States are now the most protected category: high-income coastal areas, white collars and university-educated professionals。

When China ' s low-cost labour force was added to the global labour market, no one was discussing it today when United States rust-banded blue-collar workers were unemployed. No one seriously discussed this issue when American rust belts were empty in 2005. Donald Trump and other politicians later gave them a voice, but it was after they had lost their jobs。

It is different now, because in the United States it is those with university education, living off the coast, high income and high political participation。They'll be protected, I don't know what the specific solution is, but they'll be protected。

And..Workers in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines who work backstage for United States companies will immediately lose their jobs and no one will care what they will do。They may be living on the streets, starving and social problems. Real violence could be there. Maybe you won't see it in mainstream news, but that's the difference。

They can't fix it by printing money. They'll be very hard. The United States could mitigate by printing money, as the United States dollar remained a reserve currency. This affects financial markets, which are mainly concerned with high-value Western netting. That is unfortunate, but I think there will be a very different situation in different regions。

Illia Polosukhin: & nbsp;

I think the replacement has already begun, except that it is equally unevenly distributed. The only chance is to be at the forefront, and we have always said that you need to use these technologies to enhance your capabilities, learn and apply more quickly。

THERE ARE GREAT OPPORTUNITIES. BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T KNOW SOMETHING, AI KNOWS AND CAN TAKE YOU TO FINISH. IF YOU ARE NOT IN A GIVEN COUNTRY, YOU CAN ALSO OPEN AN ENTERPRISE THAT RECEIVES A GLOBAL CURRENCY BY MEANS OF AN INTENTIONAL AND BROADER ENCRYPTION SYSTEM. OPPORTUNITIES DO EXIST AND ARE NOW ONE OF THE EASIEST TIMES IN HISTORY TO DO AND TO OPERATE IN A GLOBALIZED MANNER。

But only if you do. You need initiative and a sense of sovereignty to implement. I think this is also the source behind the investment theory of Zcash, hype, NEAR:People want to feel their sovereignty again and really act, almost at the heart of the encryption campaign。

That is why I believe that this is the moment to be invested in anyone who is willing to seize the opportunity。

Moderator Rob: Arthur, from the perspective of capital allocation, is the logic here: we may see consumer credit under pressure, with a bump in the middle, so not a market where everything goes up together; that explains why we are seeing a more structured cattle market. Illia describes the theory of sovereign investment and the narrative of privacy, all of which respond to the larger narrative。

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

Mobility does not flow to everything。The advantage of Bitcoin is that if there are more French units tomorrow than today, its price will rise mathematically, it's pure mathematics, but everything else is very dependent on narratives。

IF YOU LOOK AT GLOBAL CAPITAL MARKETS, IT'S ONLY AI, AND MOST OTHER THINGS ARE BAD。BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE NEGATIVELY AFFECTED BY AI. YOU MAY BE A COMPANY THAT SELLS ITS PRODUCTS TO THE UNEMPLOYED, OR YOUR OWN CLIENT NO LONGER CONSUMES, OR SOME PART OF THE LABOUR FORCE DISAPPEARS. AND MAYBE YOU'RE BEING SQUEEZED OUT OF THE CREDIT MARKET BECAUSE AI IS ABSORBING ALL AVAILABLE CREDIT。

EVERY GOVERNMENT NOW BELIEVES THAT THEY NEED TO FINANCE THE AI CAPITAL EXPENDITURE BOOM, SO THAT OTHER THINGS WILL BE PUT ASIDE FOR THE TIME BEING. SO, ALTHOUGH WE ALL FEEL THAT IT'S AN AMAZING COW MARKET, SOME OF THE ENCRYPTED ASSETS DO WELLBUT IN FACT, THE CENTRAL DRIVING FORCE OF THE REAL MARKET IS AI EQUITIES. I THINK THE PRICE OF THESE STOCKS WILL CONTINUE TO RISE, BUT IT'S NOT THE KIND OF BOOM MARKET WHERE ALL BOATS WILL BE PUSHED UP BY THE TIDE。

Political risk scenario

Moderator Rob: You have referred to similar views in recent articles. So, when do you think this music will stop? If it really stops, what signals should we focus on? When will we realize that maybe AI's capital expenditure will reduce the print money

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

I think it might have been one of themSuper-large company listingsBut..I don't think SpaceX's listed on a big enough scale。They seem to be planning to raise about $75 billion in new capital on the market, but I haven't studied the details。

But I'm getting to thinkIt'll be politicalI don't know. At least in the United States and in Western economies, where capital is most concentrated, a message is emerging, and I think it will be very attractive:The interaction between humans and humans provides data that makes Elon and others extremely rich. What is our share

AI CANNOT EXIST FROM THE SUM OF ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND INTERACTIONS OVER THE PAST 10,000 YEARS. BUT WHAT DO I OR MY COMMUNITY GET NOW? HIGHER ELECTRICITY PRICES, WATER POLLUTION, AND MINERAL RESOURCES USED TO BUILD DATA CENTRES ARE BEING OCCUPIED。So what did we get

SO I THINK THERE WILL BE A VERY LOGICAL POLITICAL MESSAGE IN THE UNITED STATES THAT WILL ATTRACT DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICAN VOTERS TO SUPPORT A DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGER. I THINK THIS GUY COULD BE AOC, AND SHE'D BE A 2028 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. INVESTORS WOULD BE VERY SCARED。

Although I disagree with many of the things she says, she makes good sense if you are not the asset holder who has increased 50 times in the past year. The investors will start to realizeIF AI IS TO BE TAXED ON LARGE-SCALE PROGRESS, IT'S NOT THAT THESE COMPANIES CAN'T MAKE MONEY, BUT ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY 100 TIMES MORE FOR A COMPANY THAT MIGHT BE TAXED 50%? OF COURSE NOT。

If she starts approaching Rubio, J.D. in the polls. Vance, or any Republican candidate that comes out after Trump, you'll start thinking, maybe I should cash some of it. Once you start asking about the future this way, the market will end before a clear outcome emerges after the elections。

SoWHILE THE LISTING OF A SUPER-LARGE COMPANY MAY ALSO SERVE AS A TRIGGER FOR A MARKET TURN, I INCREASINGLY BELIEVE THAT GREATER RISK MAY COME FROM AOC OR SIMILAR POLITICIANS。In developed Western economies, they may gain increasing influence through this political information. Investors may think: “Although I do not agree with her, her claims do appeal to many ordinary people, so I need to reduce some of my assets earlier.”

Moderator Rob: AOC is now a Democratic presidential candidate for 2028, with a 9% rate. According to Arthur, it's underestimated。

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

Yeah. Who are the others? Gavin Newsom? AOC has begun to touch on the right message: AI capital expenditure has led to inflation and many American communities have become poor, but they do not have sufficient financial assets to participate in the rise. She can penetrate around these problems that affect many people。

Moderator Andy: Illia, I hear you're in San Francisco and you've been there for almost a quarter. Do you have anything to add to that? How's the local atmosphere? Is it as exciting and passionate as the 2021 Encoded Currency Congress? Do you think there's a bubble in the market? Do you have a lot of local investment on your own

Illia Polosukhin: & nbsp;

NOW IT'S TRUE EVERYONE'S DOING AI。YOU LINED UP FOR FOOD AND EVERYONE AROUND WAS TALKING ABOUT SMART BODIES. IT DOES LOOK LIKE A BUBBLE AND A FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE. EVERY COMPANY IS TURNING TO DOING SOME KIND OF AI, AND IF THEY DON'T, SOONER OR LATER THEY'LL BE OUT OF DATE IN SOME WAY。

We saw this in the encryption industry。Encryption itself shrinks, and not many new founders come in to start a business。So this is quite difficult from the point of view of early investment in angel wheels and seed wheels。AI NOW HAS A DIVIDE: ONE SIDE IS A ONE-MAN SEED WHEEL THAT MELTS A BILLION DOLLARSAnd then you'll figure out if it's worth your $50,000The other is a more traditional approach to entrepreneurship, such as the development of a software or service product for a specific use。

THE PROBLEM IS THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY COMPETING WITH THOSE IN THE COMPANY RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS WORK. THE SOFTWARE CAN BE CREATED DIRECTLY FOR HIM BY USING THE AI SMART BODY, DESCRIBING EXACTLY WHAT HE NEEDS IN A NATURAL LANGUAGE. ENTREPRENEURS ARE WORKING ON A SOFTWARE THAT ATTEMPTS TO CATCH UP WITH EXPERT CAPABILITIES, AND EXPERTS CAN ALREADY DESCRIBE DEMAND DIRECTLY IN ENGLISH, ALLOWING SOFTWARE TO BUILD AUTOMATICALLY。

It is therefore difficult to judge whether they will be able to escape before the universal tool becomes sufficiently good. By then, users may not need engineers to encode business needs into software at all。

So this area is very interesting and there is a lot of excitement. But at the same time, as we can see from companies like Anthropic, a small team of three people can publish a product that goes directly into a vertical field. The reality is that if you have a platform that is universal enough and horizontal enough, it can be customized to anything。

NEAR WHEN DEFLATION

Moderator Rob: Do you have any questions for each other? Illia is the builder, and Arthur is the capital man. Arthur, do you have any questions about Illia that might influence your investment opinion in your next article

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

WHAT I'D LIKE TO ASK IS, IN VIEW OF THE SOURCES OF INCOME YOU JUST MENTIONED, IS IT POSSIBLE FOR THE NEAR TO BECOME DEFLATION RATHER THAN RELYING ON INCOGNITO CURRENCY INFLATION

Illia Polosukhin: & nbsp;

Our goal is, of courseDeflation next yearI don't know. At the same time, we will continue to work to advance the process of reducing inflation。

I think many of the builders of the block chain have already discussed a question: We are paying too much for economic security, and these costs do not necessarily match their real value. At the same time, however, from a political-economic perspective, reducing inflation is not easy. So we have been building governance mechanisms so that this can be implemented more directly。

I'm more confident that we can bring the community to such a stage:As incomes grow, reducing inflation is reasonable and truly balanced. Next year, on the one hand, incomes will grow and, on the other, inflation will decline。

Also, we are looking at interesting ideas to see whether security and certification can be funded in different ways, rather than relying on traditional inflation。

Arthur's price target

Illia Polosukhin: & nbsp;

Arthur, do you think the current upward trend in the market will be concentrated on a few head assets, or will it rapidly spread to other areas of the entire industry? If such expansion is too rapid, would it have a negative impact on the current pattern of attracting capital from a few market-led assets and maintaining market stability

Arthur Hayes: & nbsp;

There will always be a number of star assets in each vertical area, while there will also be some less performing assets. The success of these star assets tends in turn to provide justification for those with weaker performance. For example, in the privacy track and in the de-centre exchange track, there will be high-profile star projects and relatively weak projects. For those who are very good traders, they can use this market segmentation to find trading opportunities。

But for a capitalist like me, I don't want to stare at the screen all day. I've chosen assets that will be held until the macro changes。I HAVE PRICE TARGETS, LIKE HYPE TO $150. BUT YOU KNOW, IF MACRO-CHANGES, I'LL CHANGE MY MIND。

IF THE GOVERNMENT SAYS THAT WE NO LONGER FINANCE ALL AI CAPITAL EXPENDITURES FROM DEBT, ESPECIALLY AFTER THESE CAPITAL EXPENDITURES ARE ULTIMATELY NOT REPAID WITH SUFFICIENT CASH FLOWS, IT IS A NEGATIVE SIGNAL. IF THE WAR IN IRAN IS OUT OF CONTROL, IT IS ALSO A NEGATIVE SIGNAL。

But until then, I'll continue to do more. The trend is friends until it's no longer friends。