Vivek Ramaswamy Seen as Most Formidable Trump Challenger by Blockchain Bettors

After Wednesday night's GOP nomination debate that many of us, hopefully all of us here watched. It was interesting to say the least. We decided to kind of take a look at Blockchain betting markets to see what folks think in terms of how these different candidates. Of course, minus Donald Trump who is not on the debate stage, we wanted to see how these different candidates were, you know, matching up against one another and broadly speaking, it does seem like on poly market which is the largest Blockchain based betting market. Um Vivek Ramaswami is head of Rhonda Santi, who was the presumptive second place for a little while. It seemed um behind Donald Trump. So Ramaswami according to the markets is ahead of the, which is reflective in wider polling. But I think kind of this, this story, I kind of had some fun writing it up, gives us an opportunity to talk a little bit about inflows that we've been seeing into these betting markets. Even though they're on pretty weird regulatory standing in the United States can't place bets on them. You can only view them. Um Zach is no, what do you think? I don't know if Mark Hochstein had anything to do with this story, but Mark Hochstein loves prediction markets. Mark Hochstein Coindesk, long term executive editor, he loves looking at this stuff to see what people are doing when it, when it comes to putting their money where their mouth is. So I see a no from you. It was not a sign. So credit to you for internalizing Mar's love a prediction market. It's at a boy. I think that Vivec the Vivec surge makes sense. Uh Aside from some pretty suss comments on climate change, there was a ton of Vivec simp on crypto Twitter during the debate seems to be the new Andrew Yang, et cetera. So sure people are sort of inclined to um be a bit more degenerate and put some money where they think they uh stand to gain a little bit of money whether or not Vivec has any chance of unseating Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee. I think most people think that's not the case, but that doesn't mean there's not money to be made in some of these prediction markets that are supported in Web three as is the case with poly market, but also in web two, there are also traditional um uh prediction markets that are I think sort of carved out as like for research purposes or something that's like the weird carve out in their, in their continued legality. So anyway, yeah, the vet candidacy seems to animate a lot of people on Crypto Twitter. So I can imagine why he would see a Pump, uh, following this debate. But Danny, I'll toss it to you. Yeah, I, I just think it's a bad bet. Right. Like I forget about all the crypto nonsense. Right. Crypto. The only thing it has to do with here is that's what you pay the money in and that's what, that's what you'll get rewarded in if you win. The way you win, if you bet on Vivek is, if he wins the nomination, right? Is he gonna win the nomination? Why would he, he's not going to, is he even going to come in second place behind Trump? I don't think so. Why would he, he is the mini Trump or at least that's what he's presenting himself as whether or not you agree with the wise. Actually, no, I would say that it's an unwise political decision because Trump is the best at being Trump. And as long as Trump is still still here to, to beat Trump, the people who like Trump have no reason to go elsewhere. So I don't know why the vague uh surge right now would be more than just a flash in the pan. I think that uh at, at least when, if we're looking at who's going to come in second in the Republican nomination, one of the other candidates is probably going to make us a stronger showing of it. In the long run. I have two quick things and a question before Zach, I pop it back over to you. I just want to know crypto was not mentioned anywhere in the debate. Nothing about CBD CS, nothing about stable coin, nothing about Bitcoin. And I also want to note that Miami Mayor Francis Suarez didn't make it to the debate despite his public program information that he was going to be there. So there was actually nothing crypto about it. And so it was interesting to see these numbers pop up on Polly market. And Sam, I just want to ask you in your reporting. Do these numbers suggest that although poly market is not available in the US and they were sued while your face is very big? Now, Sam, you're listening intensely for the question. I just need to hear a little bit better in your reporting. Um Do these numbers suggest that maybe us citizens are accessing the platform despite it not being available here in some savvy way? Thank you for picking up on that. Um So is it suggestive of that? I don't know, like I think if anything, I mean, broadly, um this is something people are looking at around the world and I think it probably is suggestive of that. There's also only $5 million in this, which is I say only it's still a large number. Um but it pales in comparison, I think I have in this story to over 200 million, some estimates of 500 million in global betting markets on the last presidential election. So beyond, I guess the US side of this, I do think that this is suggestive. Um you know, the $5 million that we already see on this, like Danny said, not competitive at all presidential nomination race on the GP. And I think that all of the inflows that we've seen are showing that there is still a lot of interest in these platforms in spite of the regulatory scrutiny, in spite of fines that have been paid out to the CFTC. And we are probably going to see a lot of money flowing into these markets for a much more contentious um Trump Biden maybe matchup whoever it ends up being. All right. So Danny and Sam are out on Vivec shares. They are long Trump mugshot NFTS. We're very much looking forward to them making that investment and making a quick buck when that inevitably gets released.