Episodes

  • Is MicroStrategy's STRC a Dangerous Ponzi? Will Explains | Ep 528

    Is MicroStrategy's STRC a Dangerous Ponzi? Will Explains | Ep 528
    Jun 18 2026

    Good now revolutionaries— closing out the week with the biggest single-episode Reposa Coffee feature yet (Will and Violet do a live tasting of the cold brew, caramel latte, and the coffee-tonic-water hybrid Will couldn't get behind — Violet rates the caramel latte 8.5/10). Will mentions RUMS is meeting with Reposa today to formalize a partnership and explore a Boston food-channel cross-pollination.

    The meatiest segment is Will's plain-English breakdown of MicroStrategy's STRC instrument after Bearded asked if it's a dangerous Ponzi. Will frames STRC as a corporate bond with an 11.5% dividend, senior to common equity, and walks through the unwind risk if Bitcoin has consecutive bad years. Companion PSA: Satori Finance is closing — 30-day clock to withdraw.

    Alex levels the most direct rant of the season on the "buying Cardano here could be the move" creator content making the rounds. Cardano's TVL is now BELOW Katana's (~$92M). Cardano's daily chain revenue is $276 — Alex makes more daily revenue from Pokemon cards than Cardano makes as an entire blockchain. The Solana-at-$8 comparison is dishonest and disqualifying — Solana cratered because of FTX/SBF leverage, not a fundamental network failure; nothing fundamental changed, the builders stayed. Cardano's situation is the opposite. "Comparing the two is manipulative, maybe just stupid."

    Macro corner: Will pulls up CME FedWatch — odds of rate hikes (not cuts) by the December 9 Fed meeting sit at ~87%; ~75% by October; ~66% by September. Dollar testing key resistance, looking to flip it to support. Both bad for crypto. Plus a SuperTeam Ireland castle residency for Solana builders (Alex angling hard for a RUMS hosting gig), the Dialogue/Peter Thiel "secret society" attendee list leak (Joseph Gordon-Levitt + Ezra Klein + Tim Ferriss + Ted Cruz + Sam Harris + Scott Bessent + Reid Hoffman, plus panels titled "How to Build Your Own Cult" and "Money Can Buy You Happiness"), and Jito's upcoming JTX heist workshop with The White Whale and select content creators.


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    ☕ THE RISE UP MORNING SHOW☀️
    LIVE Monday - Thursday @ 7a central
    Helpful web3 news, commentary, & answers to your crypto questions.

    🍻RISE UP AFTER DARK🌗
    LIVE Wednesdays @ 7p central
    DYOR and BYOB for casual Q&A, fun with expert guests, and altcoin research.

    📈RISE UP MARKET WATCH🤑
    LIVE Mondays @ 7p central
    Technical analysis, real macro insight, and practical takeaways to help you invest smarter in every market.

    ⚖️ TRUST ISSUES 🧐
    LIVE Tuesdays @ 6:30p central
    Breaking down U.S. crypto policy, regulation, and legislation—what they mean for the industry and what comes next.


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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Crypto Castle: Viv Ford on Moving Into SF Crypto Bro House 2015 | Ep 84🍻🌗

    Crypto Castle: Viv Ford on Moving Into SF Crypto Bro House 2015 | Ep 84🍻🌗
    Jun 18 2026
    Good now revolutionaries— Viv Ford joins Rise Up After Dark live from the floor of Newark Airport, mid-layover, on her way to Paris to do comedy shows. Viv is the creator of Crypto Castle (the show and the actual house) — she moved into a literal SF crypto bro house in 2015 when Bitcoin was $250, lived there four years through the 20K peak and crash, then turned the whole experience into an hour-long comedy show that toured the world for a year and is now becoming a TV show with Roman Coppola's Decentralized Pictures.Alex re-demos the interactive AI/chip-company web she built with Claude — investment lines, competition, lawsuits, supply chain, government contracts — now colloquially known as The Tangle. She'll publish it as a live artifact at tangledweb.rumshq.com (or in Circle, depending on where it lands). The walkthrough doubles as a Claude/vibe-coding tutorial: one-sentence prompt to start, iterative fixes ("this part looks broken," Claude fixes it), and the realization that you can build legitimately useful software now if you can speak a language and have a vague idea.Mid-show Viv goes live on a POAP scavenger hunt at EWR — the airport POAP exists, but it's POAP-gated and she doesn't have the prerequisite POAP, so it's a $1 fallback. Patricio Worthalter (Mr. POAP) sighting at the consensus VIP speakers dinner. The team also recaps Octant Demo Day Epoch 12, which Evan and Alex co-hosted earlier today (Griff Green of DAO-hack-and-hack-back fame on stage, Roscoe from revoke.cache, Maggie Love showed up with food poisoning AND the DeFi toddler, full quadratic funding explainer). Plus: Will's continuing butter-futures campaign — long beef, short butter into the full moon. Will's Collector Crypt CARDS token burn-rate PDF for premium members is up 19.5% in the hour since the show started.Capped by the Purple Arculus Wallet prototype reveal again, with the full economics confessed on air (Alex personally backs the entire sprint run if pre-orders don't sell — RUMS doesn't make a dollar on the wallets, just recoups). Plus the Tangem-vs-Arculus question handled with grace after viewer Drew shared a $5M loss story, and a Ripple x Matt Damon $25M-to-clean-water aside. Viv's parting wish, said from the floor: "What a joy that crypto still brings such fun wild creatures together for a solid two-hour hang."RUMS Purple WalletWant the safest way to store your crypto? The Arculus cold storage wallet keeps your assets completely offline, away from exchanges, away from hackers, and fully in your control. Get your exclusive RUMS x Arculus cold storage wallet today!Crypto Payment · Card PaymentPowered by Arculus Wallet — getarculus.com, promo code ARCURUMS10.Powered by Jito — stake your SOL at https://www.jito.network/staking/Support the show— Want to hang out with us after the show, get live answers to your questions, or join future giveaways? Join our free community where the show lives 24/7: community.rumshq.com—☕ THE RISE UP MORNING SHOW☀️LIVE Monday - Thursday @ 7a centralHelpful web3 news, commentary, & answers to your crypto questions.🍻RISE UP AFTER DARK🌗 LIVE Wednesdays @ 7p centralDYOR and BYOB for casual Q&A, fun with expert guests, and altcoin research.📈RISE UP MARKET WATCH🤑LIVE Mondays @ 7p centralTechnical analysis, real macro insight, and practical takeaways to help you invest smarter in every market.⚖️ TRUST ISSUES 🧐 LIVE Tuesdays @ 6:30p centralBreaking down U.S. crypto policy, regulation, and legislation—what they mean for the industry and what comes next.—WANT MORE?👉Connect w/us on your favorite social: https://rumshq.com👉Become a guest or sponsor: riseup@rumshq.com👉Join our free community: https://community.rumshq.comFOLLOW OUR HOSTS:☮️ Evan Mann: https://beacons.ai/conversationswithevan🤬 Alex Popovic: https://alexpopovic.info🐬 Will Watson: https://c...
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    2 hrs and 2 mins
  • Why Alex Sees Layering DeFi Protocols as Too Risky | Ep 527

    Why Alex Sees Layering DeFi Protocols as Too Risky | Ep 527
    Jun 17 2026
    Good evening— Alex and Emily are back from a one-week break with one of the densest Trust Issues episodes to date. The centerpiece: Alex had Claude build him an interactive diagram mapping every relationship between the major AI and chip companies — Google, Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Meta, Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, TSMC, SoftBank, and the US government. Investment lines, competition lines, feud lines, lawsuit lines, supply chain lines. The picture that emerges is a closed-loop money-laundering ouroboros where the same dollars cycle between the same five companies as investments, payments, and equity, while each one's paper valuation climbs.Highlight news beats: SpaceX bought Cursor today (Cursor valued at $60B against ~$4B annualized revenue, fresh off SpaceX's $2T-on-paper IPO). Anthropic's Fable 5 model was banned by the US government within 72 hours of release after Amazon engineers reportedly jailbroke it — and Pete Hegseth called Anthropic "woke" because they wouldn't sign off on autonomous kill bots. The DoD contract went to OpenAI instead. David Sachs is overseeing all this as the White House AI/crypto czar despite still having undisclosed VC exposure across most of these companies. Emily walks through the historical context for the Fort Knox gold audit chatter, why re-pricing the reserves would amount to Bank-of-China-style currency manipulation, and what that does to a country running 112% debt to GDP.The Bitcoin debate flares up again: Emily argues the 21M hard cap is functionally broken via ETFs, wrapped versions, MicroStrategy treasury manipulation, and PolyMarket-style synthetic exposure — the decentralization narrative is marketing fluff at this point. Alex pushes back, eventually conceding the hard cap is being structurally diluted even if not technically changed. Both end up agreeing that Ethereum is structurally more important than Bitcoin going forward — it's the universal backer for stablecoins, the substrate for tokenized everything, and the only EVM environment compatible with serious AI-agent activity.Plus: Saylor's manufactured dead-cat bounce, TSMC + ASML's chip-manufacturing chokepoint (silicon photonics + EUV lithography), why tariffs are just an extra consumer tax, the difference between "security by obscurity" and "security through transparency," Solana DEX meme-coin volume actually being only ~5% (not the majority everyone claims), Ethereum gas fees crashing to under 25 cents for even the most expensive transaction type, and Alex's final wish: to be first in line to sit on Lincoln Memorial Santa's lap. Book club next week: The Unbanking of America by Lisa Servon.RUMS Purple WalletWant the safest way to store your crypto? The Arculus cold storage wallet keeps your assets completely offline, away from exchanges, away from hackers, and fully in your control. Get your exclusive RUMS x Arculus cold storage wallet today!Crypto Payment · Card PaymentPowered by Arculus Wallet — getarculus.com, promo code ARCURUMS10.Powered by Jito — stake your SOL at https://www.jito.network/staking/Support the show— Want to hang out with us after the show, get live answers to your questions, or join future giveaways? Join our free community where the show lives 24/7: community.rumshq.com—☕ THE RISE UP MORNING SHOW☀️LIVE Monday - Thursday @ 7a centralHelpful web3 news, commentary, & answers to your crypto questions.🍻RISE UP AFTER DARK🌗 LIVE Wednesdays @ 7p centralDYOR and BYOB for casual Q&A, fun with expert guests, and altcoin research.📈RISE UP MARKET WATCH🤑LIVE Mondays @ 7p centralTechnical analysis, real macro insight, and practical takeaways to help you invest smarter in every market.⚖️ TRUST ISSUES 🧐 LIVE Tuesdays @ 6:30p centralBreaking down U.S. crypto policy, regulation, and legislation—what they mean for the industry and what comes next.—WANT MORE?👉Connect w/us on your favorite social: https://rumshq.com👉Become a guest or sponsor: riseup@rumshq.com👉Join our free community: https://community.rumshq.comFOLLOW OUR HOSTS:☮️ Evan Mann: https://beacons.ai/conversationswithevan🤬 Alex Popovic: https://alexpopovic.info🐬 Will Watson: https://c...
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    1 hr and 33 mins
  • Anthropic's Fable 5 Banned by US Gov in 72 Hours | Ep 23⚖️

    Anthropic's Fable 5 Banned by US Gov in 72 Hours | Ep 23⚖️
    Jun 17 2026
    Good evening— Alex and Emily are back from a one-week break with one of the densest Trust Issues episodes to date. The centerpiece: Alex had Claude build him an interactive diagram mapping every relationship between the major AI and chip companies — Google, Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Meta, Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, TSMC, SoftBank, and the US government. Investment lines, competition lines, feud lines, lawsuit lines, supply chain lines. The picture that emerges is a closed-loop money-laundering ouroboros where the same dollars cycle between the same five companies as investments, payments, and equity, while each one's paper valuation climbs.Highlight news beats: SpaceX bought Cursor today (Cursor valued at $60B against ~$4B annualized revenue, fresh off SpaceX's $2T-on-paper IPO). Anthropic's Fable 5 model was banned by the US government within 72 hours of release after Amazon engineers reportedly jailbroke it — and Pete Hegseth called Anthropic "woke" because they wouldn't sign off on autonomous kill bots. The DoD contract went to OpenAI instead. David Sachs is overseeing all this as the White House AI/crypto czar despite still having undisclosed VC exposure across most of these companies. Emily walks through the historical context for the Fort Knox gold audit chatter, why re-pricing the reserves would amount to Bank-of-China-style currency manipulation, and what that does to a country running 112% debt to GDP.The Bitcoin debate flares up again: Emily argues the 21M hard cap is functionally broken via ETFs, wrapped versions, MicroStrategy treasury manipulation, and PolyMarket-style synthetic exposure — the decentralization narrative is marketing fluff at this point. Alex pushes back, eventually conceding the hard cap is being structurally diluted even if not technically changed. Both end up agreeing that Ethereum is structurally more important than Bitcoin going forward — it's the universal backer for stablecoins, the substrate for tokenized everything, and the only EVM environment compatible with serious AI-agent activity.Plus: Saylor's manufactured dead-cat bounce, TSMC + ASML's chip-manufacturing chokepoint (silicon photonics + EUV lithography), why tariffs are just an extra consumer tax, the difference between "security by obscurity" and "security through transparency," Solana DEX meme-coin volume actually being only ~5% (not the majority everyone claims), Ethereum gas fees crashing to under 25 cents for even the most expensive transaction type, and Alex's final wish: to be first in line to sit on Lincoln Memorial Santa's lap. Book club next week: The Unbanking of America by Lisa Servon.RUMS Purple WalletWant the safest way to store your crypto? The Arculus cold storage wallet keeps your assets completely offline, away from exchanges, away from hackers, and fully in your control. Get your exclusive RUMS x Arculus cold storage wallet today!Crypto Payment · Card PaymentPowered by Arculus Wallet — getarculus.com, promo code ARCURUMS10.Powered by Jito — stake your SOL at https://www.jito.network/staking/Support the show— Want to hang out with us after the show, get live answers to your questions, or join future giveaways? Join our free community where the show lives 24/7: community.rumshq.com—☕ THE RISE UP MORNING SHOW☀️LIVE Monday - Thursday @ 7a centralHelpful web3 news, commentary, & answers to your crypto questions.🍻RISE UP AFTER DARK🌗 LIVE Wednesdays @ 7p centralDYOR and BYOB for casual Q&A, fun with expert guests, and altcoin research.📈RISE UP MARKET WATCH🤑LIVE Mondays @ 7p centralTechnical analysis, real macro insight, and practical takeaways to help you invest smarter in every market.⚖️ TRUST ISSUES 🧐 LIVE Tuesdays @ 6:30p centralBreaking down U.S. crypto policy, regulation, and legislation—what they mean for the industry and what comes next.—WANT MORE?👉Connect w/us on your favorite social: https://rumshq.com👉Become a guest or sponsor: riseup@rumshq.com👉Join our free community: https://community.rumshq.comFOLLOW OUR HOSTS:☮️ Evan Mann: https://beacons.ai/conversationswithevan🤬 Alex Popovic: https://alexpopovic.info🐬 Will Watson: https://c...
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    1 hr and 38 mins
  • Brian Armstrong vs Accredited Investor Laws | Ep 526

    Brian Armstrong vs Accredited Investor Laws | Ep 526
    Jun 16 2026

    Good now revolutionaries—Tuesday morning kicks off with Will's recap of his Doug-led grading session from last night's RUAD: Hyperliquid + Morpho + Zcash + BTC in the A-minus range, Syrup/Maple + Sky Protocol + BNB + Canton + Aerodrome in B-plus, XRP at C, Hedera at C-minus, Kaspa as the only D. Two meme coins (Pepe + Pengu) explicitly refused a grade — "putting a grade on a meme coin is not appropriate." Then the morning dives straight into a week of crypto-and-AI drama nobody asked for.

    The big AI story: Amazon claims to have jailbroken Anthropic's Fable V and reported it to the White House, contributing to the recent export-control suspension. Anthropic counters that the jailbreak is narrow-in-scope and works on GPT too — further evidence that the government is propping up OpenAI. Pete Hegseth posting anti-Anthropic victory laps on Twitter despite other administration members being invested. David Sachs heavily exposed via his venture fund. The whole industry is just companies trading the same money back and forth while government officials insider-trade around it.

    Crypto drama: MetaDAO vs Zinc — public DM-spats, alleged lawsuit threats, White Whale chimes in to contribute to Zinc's legal defense and challenge MetaDAO to even up the playing field. Alex's frame: bear market boredom drives people to find C-tier drama because they've already watched everything good on Netflix.

    Then the longest segment of the show — Brian Armstrong's pitch to scrap accredited investor laws. Will + Alex agree philosophically (the rules are gatekeeping, not protection) but split in practice (the sports-gambling-legalization analogy). The fix isn't deregulation alone — it's mandatory financial literacy in high school first. Bearded's "it's my money, let me lose it how I want" comment becomes the foil for a really clean education-system rant.
    Plus: Octant Demo Day tomorrow at 10am EST + the proper Quadratic Funding launch in Epoch 12 (Vitalik's original vision), Super Team USA's Miami-is-too-easy comedy skit, Aerodrome up 26% yesterday + 9% today, X Stocks self-custody clarification (you're holding a tokenized receipt, not the share), and Will's hype $75 reload-or-sell question.

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    ☕ THE RISE UP MORNING SHOW☀️
    LIVE Monday - Thursday @ 7a central
    Helpful web3 news, commentary, & answers to your crypto questions.

    🍻RISE UP AFTER DARK🌗
    LIVE Wednesdays @ 7p central
    DYOR and BYOB for casual Q&A, fun with expert guests, and altcoin research.

    📈RISE UP MARKET WATCH🤑
    LIVE Mondays @ 7p central
    Technical analysis, real macro insight, and practical takeaways to help you invest smarter in every market.

    ⚖️ TRUST ISSUES 🧐
    LIVE Tuesdays @ 6:30p central
    Breaking down U.S. crypto policy, regulation, and legislation—what they mean for the industry and what comes next.


    —

    WANT MORE?
    👉Connect w/us on your favorite social: https://rumshq.com
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    FOLLOW OUR HOSTS:
    ☮️ Evan Mann: https://beacons.ai/conversationswithevan
    🤬 Alex Popovic: https://alexpopovic.info
    🐬 Will Watson: https://c...
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    1 hr and 20 mins
  • We Graded 21 Cryptos S-F Tier — The Full List | Ep 44📈🤑

    We Graded 21 Cryptos S-F Tier — The Full List | Ep 44📈🤑
    Jun 16 2026

    Good evening revolutionaries—Will and Doug pull up the charts for the deepest A-D crypto grading session the show has run. The macro changed dramatically over the weekend: US-Iran peace deal trending toward Friday signing, Strait of Hormuz potentially reopening in five weeks, oil rolling over, and the stock market melting up. Inside that backdrop, Will and Doug rank 21 cryptos based on chart strength in the bear market + brand power + adoption + tokenomic structure (revenue + buyback policy).

    The A-minus tier: Morpho, Hyperliquid, Bitcoin, and Zcash. Zcash earns the slot despite the recent dip — the team found and plugged the exploit themselves before any proof of abuse, and the privacy narrative is the trend of the moment. B-plus tier: Maple Finance / Syrup (TVL up-and-to-the-right despite weak chart), Sky Protocol (knocked down a tier because the 87% buyback dropped to 7.5%), BNB (bearish engulfing weekly candle to watch), and Canton (whose super-validator is the NASDAQ).

    B tier: VVV (Venice — hot chart, no real adoption but legit AI-narrative beta). B-minus: Stellar and Pendle. C-plus: Near Protocol, Chainlink (Will: "I want it to be good so bad — but its life is death"), Aave (buyback paused April 19), and Sui. C: XRP — "can't be more than that because brand still has potential." C-minus: Hedera. D: Kaspa — "stegosaur with Down syndrome" energy.

    Memes get explicitly excluded from the grading framework: "It's unfair to put meme coins in the same A-B-C-D tier as cryptos. They're designed to go to zero in bear markets and come surging back in bull markets — they're their own thing." Plus Bitcoin weekly TA showing bullish divergence but the monthly threatening another roll-over, Circle (CRCL) finally triggering a daily short signal as it approaches Will's $63-71 buy zone, and quantum stock updates on INFQ + Rigetti + D-Wave (QBTS).

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    ☕ THE RISE UP MORNING SHOW☀️
    LIVE Monday - Thursday @ 7a central
    Helpful web3 news, commentary, & answers to your crypto questions.

    🍻RISE UP AFTER DARK🌗
    LIVE Wednesdays @ 7p central
    DYOR and BYOB for casual Q&A, fun with expert guests, and altcoin research.

    📈RISE UP MARKET WATCH🤑
    LIVE Mondays @ 7p central
    Technical analysis, real macro insight, and practical takeaways to help you invest smarter in every market.

    ⚖️ TRUST ISSUES 🧐
    LIVE Tuesdays @ 6:30p central
    Breaking down U.S. crypto policy, regulation, and legislation—what they mean for the industry and what comes next.


    —

    WANT MORE?
    👉Connect w/us on your favorite social: https://rumshq.com
    👉Become a guest or sponsor: riseup@rumshq.com
    👉Join our free community: https://community.rumshq.com

    FOLLOW OUR HOSTS:
    ☮️ Evan Mann: https://beacons.ai/conversationswithevan
    🤬 Alex Popovic: https://alexpopovic.info
    🐬 Will Watson: https://c...
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Why the Government Is Throttling Anthropic to Save OpenAI | Ep 525

    Why the Government Is Throttling Anthropic to Save OpenAI | Ep 525
    Jun 15 2026

    Good now revolutionaries—Evan, Will, and Alex are all back in the studio for the first time in nearly a month, and it's a heavy news weekend to unpack. The headline: a US-Iran peace deal is reportedly close to signing on Friday with a 60-day ceasefire extension, the Strait of Hormuz reopening, and a complete stop to military engagement. Will's frame: the oil chart called this two weeks ago — kept failing to hold resistance through the worst of the escalation headlines, telling you the conflict was winding down before the diplomats admitted it. "I have confidence in the war ending because I have confidence in the market."

    Plus: Blockworks acquired Masari for roughly $10M — Will's read is that founder Ryan Selkis torpedoed his own brand on the timeline and that's why the company sold. Anthropic gets hit with a US government export control on Mythos V + Fable V models (KYC required for foreign nationals) — Alex's take: the government is trying to prop up OpenAI because Anthropic keeps spanking them at every benchmark. Paradigm bought the unsolved Kryptos sculpture cipher from artist Jim Sanborn — even the NSA hasn't cracked it. Helios Foundation acquired Light Protocol — Solana is marching toward privacy.

    On the macro side: SpaceX IPO made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire on paper. The wealth-transfer mechanism (NASDAQ forced inclusion, gajillions of retirement accounts shoehorned in) lets early employees finally realize equity — but at the cost of forced retail exposure. Starlink is 60% of SpaceX revenue and the only profitable piece. SpaceX itself lost $4.9B last year on $18.7B in revenue. Saylor added another $100M in Bitcoin. Tom Lee raising another $300M for ETH.

    Will's Keeta (KTA) review walks through the textbook scam-warning signs: layer-1 compliance-ready talk track, KYC baked in, $9M earmarked for buying a bank (the purchase hasn't gone through), Abu Dhabi + Ask Financial Group backing connecting to Arab Coin + Islam Coin (companies that have done predatory faith-targeted projects before). Plus a Velvet Protocol / Aerodrome 92,000% APY pool teardown — the numbers don't make sense, it presents as ponzi-farm.

    EXCLUSIVE: Use code RISEUP20 for 20% off your entire order at riposacoffee.com.

    Powered by Arculus Wallet — getarculus.com, promo code ARCURUMS10.

    Powered by Jito — stake your SOL at https://www.jito.network/staking/.

    RUMS Purple Wallet

    Want the safest way to store your crypto? The Arculus cold storage wallet keeps your assets completely offline, away from exchanges, away from hackers, and fully in your control. Get your exclusive RUMS x Arculus cold storage wallet today!

    Crypto Payment · Card Payment

    Support the show

    —

    Want to hang out with us after the show, get live answers to your questions, or join future giveaways?
    Join our free community where the show lives 24/7:
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    —

    ☕ THE RISE UP MORNING SHOW☀️
    LIVE Monday - Thursday @ 7a central
    Helpful web3 news, commentary, & answers to your crypto questions.

    🍻RISE UP AFTER DARK🌗
    LIVE Wednesdays @ 7p central
    DYOR and BYOB for casual Q&A, fun with expert guests, and altcoin research.

    📈RISE UP MARKET WATCH🤑
    LIVE Mondays @ 7p central
    Technical analysis, real macro insight, and practical takeaways to help you invest smarter in every market.

    ⚖️ TRUST ISSUES 🧐
    LIVE Tuesdays @ 6:30p central
    Breaking down U.S. crypto policy, regulation, and legislation—what they mean for the industry and what comes next.


    —

    WANT MORE?
    👉Connect w/us on your favorite social: https://rumshq.com
    👉Become a guest or sponsor: riseup@rumshq.com
    👉Join our free community: https://community.rumshq.com

    FOLLOW OUR HOSTS:
    ☮️ Evan Mann: https://beacons.ai/conversationswithevan
    🤬 Alex Popovic: https://alexpopovic.info
    🐬 Will Watson: https://c...
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    1 hr and 30 mins
  • Why Protocol Revenue Buybacks Are the Smartest Crypto Investment Signal | Ep 524

    Why Protocol Revenue Buybacks Are the Smartest Crypto Investment Signal | Ep 524
    Jun 11 2026

    Good now revolutionaries—Will and Alex close out the week from home with a compressed Thursday show before Will heads to a mountain cabin for his 12th anniversary. The whole hour is essentially a master-class on revenue buyback policies: Sky Protocol just temporarily dropped its buyback rate from 87% to 7.5% for three months to cushion the USDS stablecoin reserve, with a planned return to 25% (still aggressive at $46M/year on current revenue). Will's full leaderboard: Hyperliquid leads at ~$1.1B/year in buybacks, Uniswap will land at $100-300M when its policy fully rolls out, Pump.fun at ~$71M/year (though the token has tanked anyway), Jupiter and Raydium at ~$50M each (also haven't recovered).

    Aave correction worth noting: Aave HAS had a buyback policy (40-50% of protocol revenue, capped at $50M annual), but it was paused April 4 after the RS-ETH/KelpDAO exploit and remains paused pending full resolution. Watch for that to unpause any day now. Plus: Dr. Nick Almond confirmed JTX (Jito's trading engine, launching next month) will direct 80% of revenue to buying back JTO — token already pumped 100%+ on the announcement.

    The Pengu/Igloo IPO threat lands as Will's most provocative take of the morning: if Luca takes Igloo public, the meme coin gets cannibalized. "Why would you buy Pengu when you could get actual partial ownership in the parent company?" Unless utility or aggressive buyback gets bolted onto Pengu, the IPO is the death sentence. Same logic applied forward to Hyperliquid when 24/7 perps land on every centralized exchange.

    Plus: a quick XRP-vs-stablecoins teardown ("yes, stablecoins make XRP dead — next question"), the Genius Act framing and how Clarity is meant to shoehorn everyone into centralized options, an honest Stellar (XLM) take with the Lindsay Posse departure from SDF context, a worry-don't-celebrate read on the DTCC pump for STX, and Trump's six-hour Iran flip-flop between "deal close" and "we're bombing Karg Island."

    Powered by Arculus Wallet — getarculus.com, promo code ARCURUMS10.

    Powered by Jito — stake your SOL at https://www.jito.network/staking/.



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