 Well, Mr. Lassett News, my name is Rob. And today, just the thumbnail tile suggests, I think we have to start asking the question, is Ethereum the runaway winner for L1? And if we take a look at some things that are going on, it's making the case that Ethereum is really just running away with it. So let's just jump right in. So this was a story that came out on 12th. This was last week. And didn't really get too much coverage. And I thought it was kind of surprising because Ethereum hit 500,000 validators. Let me say that again. Ethereum hits half a million validators. I thought it was just pretty amazing that if we're taking a look and trying to find decentralization, and just to see for adoption and where Ethereum is going, especially with the Shanghai upgrade coming up in January, earlier March, 2023, which will allow people to unsteak their Ethereum. It looks like things are just not slowing down. And this is what's happening. So this is a quick story. Just so you know, a validator must deposit 32 ETH, which right now is $45,000 to run a dedicated staking node on the proof of stake blockchain. And as there was between a validator and a node, you can have multiple, multiple validators within one node. I mean, you can have hundreds, theoretically thousands of validators within one node. But I just thought it was interesting that they had so many different validators out there able to do this. And decentralization, the article states, is a little more difficult to analyze as many validators are run by the same entities like we just talked about. Reports show that even though they have 500,000 validators, they are only spread across 11,400 physical nodes in 80 countries. So before everybody starts to talk about, well, it's really, truly decentralized, it's really out there. I mean, it's more decentralized than a bank. I think we can all agree on that. It's more decentralized than many a different cryptos that are out there, but not the most decentralized. But that's not the point. The point is they have so many different people which are staking on it. They're running validator nodes. So if we think that this Shanghai upgrade is gonna crash the system, I don't think that is the case that we see more people pouring in to stake their Ethereum. And I just got to be thinking, I'm like, well, there's 11,400 nodes, right? It's a physical node, computational mining power of a computer that is in a certain location. They have these different nodes running a full or partial node throughout there. How many does Bitcoin have? Because Bitcoin is, of course, we say is the most decentralized, right? I took a look and it's 13,561 nodes. And this is from Bitnotes. I linked this in the description. You can check it out yourself. And if there's some inaccurate information, please let me know. But we're looking at Bitnotes as far as the nodes that are running the Bitcoin blockchain. Through all the nodes in the entire world, there are 13,561 and we've got 11,400 physical nodes for Ethereum. And those nodes are running half a million validators. So I just thought it was something interesting to note about what is going on. I don't say that it is the ultimate winner and everything's gonna be, I just have to ask the question. So let me know what you think about that in the comments section. Then moving on, this was also interesting as we move forward with what's going on with Ethereum. MetaMask partners with Lido, Lido, Rocketpool to enable ETH staking. What does this mean? So a beta version of MetaMask staking has been made available on the MetaMask app. You can convert, this is for Rocketpool, their staked ETH or RETH back to ETH through MetaMask swaps. As staking can be a competitive process, MetaMask hopes that its latest update can become an entry point for people interested in staking. So I actually looked into staking, very complex. I wasn't gonna do it. That's why they have so many different validators out there. But what this means essentially is if you wanted to set it up, you have to set up your own validator node like we just took a look at. You have to lock those 32 ETH away. In the beginning, you didn't know what was gonna be unlocked. Now it looks like it's gonna be marked 2023. But now you have an option to use, instead of running your own validator node, you can use something like Rocketpool and you can use a MetaMask wallet to designate to Rocketpool. And it can be anything and you can start staking your ETH. So I don't have an affiliation with this, these guys. You can find them on yourself. I'll link in the description. It's not an affiliate link, it's just a link to them so you don't get scammed. At least you can go and check it out. But this is how much they have staked, 355,000 and 2,000 node operators. You can do a stake plus run a node or a staked ETH. And again, you can deposit as little as 0.01 ETH and receive the liquid staking token. So, and these are your different rewards. So sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it? And it sounds great. If you take a little bit, wow, I don't have to lock up my Ethereum. This is gonna be fantastic. But if you understand, for everything that you do, there is risk. There's nothing that is totally risk-free in any of these investments, especially in crypto and digital assets. So think about this with smart contracts. So this is gonna have a smart contract. And of course, with Rocket Pool, the platform may contain bugs or it can have some kind of vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers or people like that. You also have custodial risks because you're giving this up. You are having them do different things for Rocket Pool. And of course, if they experience financial difficulties then they can become insolvent. And then of course, there goes everything that you have staked over there. And then I'll also have the node risks, which they run on, you know, with Rocket Pool. Network of validating nodes and a malicious node where to gain control of a significant amount and poof, there goes everything that you've staked over in these different places. So they do sound awesome at first. When you take a look at it, like, oh, that sounds pretty good. But just be aware that there's risks in everything before you get involved with it. And just because it sounds good to be true, it usually means it isn't. But let me just think about that. And then just moving on to our last story, that's pretty interesting. For the show, Paul Barone, he had covered interesting topic about wire. And he talked about how wire was going to collapse and it could bring down a lot of problems with the crypto market. And just to give you a little timeline. On January 7th, wire set up a limit customer withdrawals and 90% of their asset balance. Really what it is found, we should really tell you what it is. So wire was found in 2013. It provides a payment infrastructure for crypto apps and support services like custody wall, it's transfers and swaps, KYC onboarding, all that type of stuff, right? And on January 7th, they said this, crypto wall providers met a mask and brave, announced that they would end support for wire and warn users not to use the service. Founder Gianaris told employees in email to brace themselves with the fact that they'll need to unwind the business over the next couple of weeks. And earlier this month, there's believed wire would be shut down because bulk financial didn't go through with their $1.5 billion deal to buy the firm. And it looked pretty shaky, quite honestly, but sometimes we have to take a look at there's some potentially good news and this is what happened. In an about turn, crypto payments platform wire secures the funding and they came out and said, hey look, good news, we receive financial from a strategic part, I don't say who it is, that allows us to continue our normal course of operation as a regular differential institution, we're probably able to continue delivering our services in a safe and sound manner without pausing withdrawals. We're gonna lift that 90% withdrawal limit effective immediately. So hey, look, things are going good, right? We've got crypto in the green, I don't know how long it's gonna last. We've got some good stories coming over here. We've got Ethereum with their half a million validators and I just try to bring these stories to you just so you can see that things are going on the background that are positive, not everything's negative. There are some concerns out there that I have, macro environment wars, also with the problem with the Fed and their Fed rates, who knows what it's gonna be inflation and of course a lending recession. So just give you a little balance but that is what's going on. So let's go ahead and sound off in the comment section and lastly, just as a friendly reminder, the sweat coin January challenge is underway. Very simple, link in the description, go over here, download that app and it's free, walking is free, tokens you get are free and here's your prizes, all these different things like ledger, token metrics, coin ledger, Tencent, bunch of different things you can check out and you go all the way to number 30 and we just updated the leaderboard today. And if you go to that website, you can see who is leading again, just download the app and you can go and start it up. If you don't see yourself, you can always go here to be added manually but you have to download first but let's just take a look real quick of who is winning and here's January 9th. We've got hardcore analysis up top, something in Mayer, blah, blah, blah. And today the 16th looks like some new, hardcore analysis is still up there with 795,000 steps in 16 days which are the math, that's like 25 miles a day. I've reached out to hardcore analysis to see exactly what he's doing to rock 25 miles a day, we haven't seen a response, maybe he's a mail carrier, I don't know. Jersey boy down the line and all the way to number to 30, just 240,000 steps. So again, this is underway, this is what's going on and since we got January's resolution, I thought it'd be good just to make a little crypto, get some prizes and maybe get in shape but that's it for today. So look, like today's video, give it a thumbs up, consider subscribing, a lot of things we talk about, our time sensitive but that's it for today. Thanks so much for stopping by, I appreciate you and I'll see you on the next one.