 Welcome to the last of that news. My name is Rob and I have to tell you, I think we're losing the battle as far as crypto and being a security. And what I'm talking about specifically is there's been a lot of things that have come out recently, last 24 or 48 hours. And one of those is a little known case about Dapper Labs and what they call top shots or NBA branded top shot moments. NFTs may be securities and judge rules. And we're going to go over a couple of different factors as to why they believe this is security. And we're also talk about there was a congressional hearing that just came about what was said in there. And I'm going to talk to you about there's two resolutions to what we have here. So first things first, let's break it down into some pieces. So this was a story just came out yesterday. And it was a court case and the judge is ruling essentially against Dapper Labs. And this is specific to what it says. Not that they've lost already. Let me just say that real quick. But the thinking behind the judge. So here's what we have. There's a ruling on a motion to dismiss this case. It comes after a year and a half of a class action lawsuit was filed against Dapper Labs. And Dapper Labs are the individuals that own this company called NBA Top Shots, which is in partnership with the NBA where you can buy these different articles and pieces in an NFT form. So that's just what it is. So Dapper Labs, they state, violated federal securities laws by offering a NFT collection, the NBA Top Shot moments, without first registering with the US SEC. Got it. Why is it though? According to the ruling, Dapper Labs flow tokens are necessary to the totality of the scheme at issue without the flow tokens, no transactions on the flow blockchain can be validated. And this was my argument. I'm like, well, okay, so if you're going to say that these NFTs, which are essentially digital cards that you can put onto the blockchain, if that's the case, then why isn't everything in security? Why isn't, and this is the exact same thing that the lawyers for Dapper Labs said, basketball cards are not securities. Pokemon cards are not securities. Baseball cards are not securities. Common sense says so, a law says so, and the courts say so. But again, I think we're losing this argument and it all comes down to the details. And that's what a devil is. The judge said this, look, according to the Howie test, you got three prongs to it. The first prong, an investment of money, neither party had an objection to that prong. Yeah, everybody's paying money for these different individual NFTs. The second prong where there is a common enterprise, and the judge said, there is a common enterprise. And I had to take a look at it because surprise, I'm not a lawyer. And when I took a look at the common enterprise, this is what it states, common enterprise means an enterprise in which the fortunes of the investor are interwoven co-mingled with those with the person offering the investment, a third party or one or more investors. Definition is met if the investor joins with the promoter or some third party to accomplish a common goal, such as earning a profit for the investor, whether the promoter or third party shares the profits or is merely paid a commission or fee for his or her services, or two or B, two or more investors join together. So essentially, you have to come together and say, we're going to come together, and we're going to make this thing work, and we're going to have these massive revenue or expectation of profit. So that is what they said. Well, they met this and how they meet this. They talked about a pooling of investor funds. The court has persuaded that the plaintiffs complaint adequately alleges pooling. The purchases fortunes were tied to the overall success of Dapper Labs because Dapper Labs controls the flow blockchain, as well as the online marketplace, the moments were sold and traded. And I got to tell you, if I take a look at this and the blockchain, so you have the flow blockchain, it's not the utility part of top shot, to do this. And what I was alluding to is this, if you take a look at this website, it looks very simple. There's not really much going to it. There's no expectations of profits, maybe something else that came about. And it's like a collectible. And I look at this, I'm like, was it between that and top baseball cards for what they're doing? Well, of course, there's no utility blockchain called flow, but can't you take this off and collect this and actually keep it in your own wallet? And then are we intermingling these funds with a bunch of different people because they think this is going to go up? Or is it because this item will go up because of the popularity of the NBA and how you are collecting these cards as time goes on? It's the same thing with tops cards, how I see it, but I could be wrong. And then to finish this up, the third prong, which was a promise of profit, the court finds that defendants public statements and marketing materials objectively led purchases to expect profits using scrim shots of top shot tweets as examples. Again, this is all going to be subjective. And we'll see where it comes from there. So in my opinion, the Howie test is very loose. And you're going to see a lot of these cases come about. And I think we're going to start losing some of these cases because they're just going to say, well, it's this or it's that. And it comes down to, again, the details and what they can actually prove in court. And what they understand. Does this mean that I'm saying that crypto is dead and going to go to zero? It's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that I think we're going to see a lot more pushback, especially with securities. And on top of that, there's a video, a link in the description. And this is, this was Congress and they got together. And it was a committee hearing. And the title was crypto crash, why financial system safeguards are needed for digital assets. And you got all your big players in there. You've got the people in Congress, the people that absolutely hate crypto. And they make a very compelling case. It's an hour and a half long. You're going to hear Elizabeth Warren talk all day long about how awful crypto is. Don't hate her. That's just what she thinks of. And if you don't want to watch it for an hour and a half, a guy of our coin bureau did a great breakdown, it's only 20 minutes. I would suggest that. I'll link both in the description. And that's the thing. So you've got Congress backing up Gensler and the SEC. You've got these court cases coming out and not being clear wins. You've got XRP and Ripple tied up with the SEC. Again, I think we're going to take some L's on this security. Is that a bad thing? Maybe. So here's the resolution. There's two things you can do. First of all, I think personally, it's because Congress doesn't understand what anything is. They couldn't even tell you what a Bitcoin is and what it does. So I need you to do me a favor. I'm going to link this in the description. This is for, of course, Americans. You can find your representative listed by state. Let's just take the first one. This is Alabama. That's Carl Jerry. Click on Carl Jerry. This is going to come up. There's Carl right there. And if you want to contact him, you can click on this and it'll take you through. First of all, your address look up. They're going to see if you're actually in their district or not. And then you just go through this prompt and just say, look, I'm a crypto investor. This is what I feel. This is what my experience has been. I would like you to move in this way, shape or form and to help them to understand what crypto is and what it means for you as their constituent. Here's the secret. Politicians don't really care too much about the issues. What they care about is are their constituents happy with them? Are the people that vote for them happy? And will they get reelected? So if you tell them in any way, shape or form, that's what you want to see. Usually they will listen. That's the first part of a resolution, what we can do. The second part is this. Maybe it doesn't happen. And I'm always preparing for the worst case scenario because guess what? Not everything is sunshine and rainbows. So for me, when I take a look at investments and securities, we do this. I do this all the time. It's over on Robinhood and stocks. So here's the thing. If at some point we totally, it goes the other way. I'm not going to say fail. It goes the other way. And Gensler and the Cronies get their way and they label every crypto as a security, probably not Bitcoin, although in that congressional hearing they want Bitcoin to be a security as well, not a commodity. If that happens, here's what I think will go down. Correct me where I'm wrong. First of all, this will only affect America. The rest of the world, they will be off on their way and do whatever they want to do. The only thing is that in America, we're leaving a big chunk of that economic pie behind. So we'd like that to actually work out. If it does do that, they say, okay, everything's a security. Well, that doesn't affect you as the investor. What it affects is the centralized exchanges who are selling in registered securities. They're going to get fined. They're going to pay that fine. They're going to register with the SEC. Hopefully they can give them some guidance and go from there. If they can't do that, well, guess what? If you're in America, there's these things called decentralized exchanges, go have fun with that. And then moving forward, the projects themselves will probably have to consolidate and have to register with the SEC as a security. If they do that, well, in America, that means that some of these crypto projects, which are thousands, will die off. And I got to tell you, I'm happy they are because they're worthless. So that means that everything can consolidate under the bigger type of cryptos, a crypto projects, and then we can see who the real winners actually are. The same thing happened in the internet. The same thing happened in the dust revolution. Everything consolidates. The power that B comes underneath and brings up the ones that are winners and the losers just gets left off. Let me know where I'm wrong on that one. And that's it for that section. So I know it seems a little bit negative, but in all honesty, there's things that we can do. Finally, there's some good news. And this doesn't look like good news at first, but it is. Solana Space is closing their stores in NYC in Miami. I applaud this decision. This was a good decision. And I actually did a video on this, which was about a year ago. And I actually was in New York and I stopped by the store. Very nice people. They show me exactly how Solana NFTs did. And I congratulate them. I think this was great. You're bringing the education to people. I can really get behind that. Unfortunately, they didn't make a lot of sense as time went on, so they're going to shut down. But there's a couple of points in here I just want to make mention of. And this is from, I believe, one of the co-founders, Norby. He said, I think the reality is that we could have kept them running these businesses. I think they were in Miami in New York, but it didn't make as much sense as it did in the past to do that. And so we didn't. I mean, you couldn't make it any simpler than that. But I mean, again, they did the right thing. Solana did the right thing. They brought it to the masses. They would talk to people and have them understand. And to me, I tip my hat at them for doing that. But it only makes sense to move into the new world, which is this. Norby says that the focus now is on drip. An online platform that the company says saw the same amount of traffic as the physical stores. And this was in, like, prime real estate in New York. And there's a lot of people when I went. Drip is a website where collectors can receive free Solana NFTs, air-dropped weekly. All our stores on board between 500,000 people per week drip on board the same quantity every day. And guess what? They're going to get even more because I'm going to get this website in the description. And you can go there, connect your wallet, and just get some free air drops for Solana NFTs. So pretty cool. And that's not too bad. Also, Solana did some pretty cool stuff. They had a vending machine selling Solana NFTs. This was last year. I don't know if they still have it, but I thought it was interesting that they were a vending machine for Solana NFTs. So I know some people love Solana and some people despise Solana, but in all honesty, and they're doing the right things to push this to the people. And lastly, I mean, we see things that this story where Solana shuts down their store. This will make them slimmer and leaner and able to survive this bear market. And also, this was a couple of days ago. I forgot to talk about it, but Polygon, they laid off 20% of its staff. And I got to tell you, I've been laid off a couple of times when I used to work for other people. And it sucks, but I got to applaud them because you got to make the tough decisions to make it through the bear market into the bull. And I know people talk about, well, the bull's here, Rob. The bull's here. Maybe. We'll see. But I'd rather have a company slim down and really push forward in 2024 or 2025. And I think this is the right decision. So I know this may look like a little negative. I think it's positive. And that's it for today. Also, before we take off, just want to make mention of two different things real quick. And that is that, of course, this is Thursday. We usually do NFA, me, Guy and Ben, Coin Bureau and into the cryptiverse. Guy had some pre-engagement to do some kind of like Shark Tank. So we're going to do that tomorrow. That'll be at 9am Eastern time. I'll put it all out. It'll be on my channel. And lastly, since we've all gotten kicked in the teeth, I think it's time to drink some beer. So come on down with me tonight, San Juan Smokehouse. This is in Puerto Rico, Centurce area, and have some beers and if you're not into beers, have some food with me. Pretty good food, pretty good brisket. And we'll be there from 4pm to 7pm. And hey, I'll even buy the first couple of rounds. And that's it for today. So look, a little bit longer today, a lot of things going on. I think there's some resolution there. If you like today's video, give it a thumbs up. Consider subscribing. Everything we talk about is time-sensitive. That's it for today. Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll see you tonight, or maybe even in the next one. Adios.