 Great. Welcome to Digital Asset News. My name is Rob. The big news today is NASDAQ is getting into the crypto space with institutional investments. This is just one of one of the biggest companies getting in. We'll talk about why this is the good news that I think it is. But before we get into all that, as far as the positivity, I have to break it down and give you a little bad news, so you get a little balance in your daily news outing. We're going to take a look at housing and how it's going to crunch right now. We're going to take a look at what I think is a good and bad SEC cases, XRP, and Ian Bolina. I just want to show you a quick tweet from Brian Armstrong. He is completely right with what he talks about as far as a national security issue for crypto. And we'll get into the NASDAQ story. And of course, a little Q&A. So first things first, I know you want to hear the good news. It doesn't work like that. You have to go through a little bit of pain to get a little bit of balance. So this is what we have. Right now, the housing market is not doing so hot. And the macro events and scheme of things, these are the things that you have to pay attention to to see where the economy is going. And usually there's two sectors that I like to look at. It is housing and automotive. Those kind of bring us into recessions. And some of them bring us out of them. And what we can see here, and from the people that I talk to, real estate friends and family, there's some problems. So this is just an article, link in the description. But home builders are growing more desperate as buyers retreat. Why are they retreating? Well, it's probably because the interest rates are going higher. And I think with the Fed probably raising them up to 75 basis points, or maybe even 100, I think there's going to be more pay on the horizon. But here's what's going on right now. So almost one in four home builders, home builders reported reducing their price this month. That's up from 19% just a month ago. This is according to a monthly survey and index from the National Association of Home Builders. And half said they offered mortgage rate buydowns and free amenities, among other other inducements to close sales. Because look, if you can't close a sale, you got to throw something in there. And if it's not the price, and you don't want to bring the price down, like, well, we'll meet you halfway on this and that. And that's just the first step. Before you know it, of course, prices will go down. And the builders will be a little stuck. Maybe they'll be a little bit too much inventory because the interest rates are higher. And of course, the cost of production and producing these houses is increasing because of the supply chain issues. It's just a snowball effect. Anyhow, builders confidence worsened for the ninth straight month. I had no idea it was that bad with sentiment in September falling to 46 from 49 in August in the National Association of Home Builders Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. A number below 50 is considered negative. And there's just a graph I want to show you. What they just talked about is important. And it didn't seem like that important in that article. But if we kind of take a look at it, and we see this Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, the last time it was in that kind of category was May 2006. And just a couple years later, what do we have? Well, a big action happened just after that around 2007 was to start the housing bust. And we are on the same trajectory as we're over here. Does that mean that we will definitely have a huge housing market bust? That's what I'm saying. I'm just saying this index points to something in the background that may not be the best of circumstances. So what's going on? Well, there's a combination of elevated interest rates, building material supply chain disruptions that we talked about, and higher home prices builder sentiment is declined every month, every single month in 2022. This is the chief economist Robert Dietz from NIHB. And the housing recession shows no signs of slowing down as builders continue to grapple with elevated construction costs, and an aggressive monetary policy in the Federal Reserve that helped push mortgage rates above 6% last week. And I got to tell you, I find it kind of concerning that the people that I've talked to as far as real estate agents, they say that the builders aren't really slowing down, and they're not making houses that are more affordable. I find that odd, but this is just the hearsay that I get from the people that I know that are in this industry. So if you know something that I don't, as far as builders slowing down, because I don't see how you can continue to build the median price house in America, which is around $425, $435,000, and continue to get the same sales if the interest rates keep going up, it just doesn't make sense, especially as people are backing out of these deals because they can't close, because they can't get a mortgage, because they can't get approved. It just boggles my mind. Maybe I'm missing something. Anyhow, let me know what you think about that in the comment section. Oh, but wait, there's one more. This is from Charlie Baleo, and Charlie is the founder and CEO of Compound Capital. He always got some great charts, and he says, the median American household will need to spend almost, well, almost 45%, 45% of their income to afford payments on a median priced home in the US. That's the highest percentage on record going all the way back to 2006. Again, I don't see how you can keep building these houses and keep selling them and how people are actually affording them. The only thing I can think of is these big, massive institutions keep buying up these houses at massively overpriced prices, and then we're going to have even a bigger problem down the road. Anyhow, that's the pain that I see. Let's get to a little positivity, shall we? That is XRP. I know on this channel, people have complained like, Rob, why don't you cover the XRP stories and the cases and the XRP, because there's way better people at it than me. I thought I was going to drag out for three, four years, honestly. It's interesting that I'm covering it today, and I think it's going to be, there's a resolution, and it's close. There's a reason why I didn't cover it, because I thought it would be a long time coming, but here we are. Today, out of all the different C of red, XRP is up a little bit, which it is with the rumors, but this one I think is a little bit more interesting. This Ripple puts SEC in big trouble. What's the thing? I'm always hesitant to talk about these, because I'm like, yeah, yeah, they're going to close, they're going to close, but this one actually is legit. In a surprising development, Ripple and the SEC publicly filed the summary judgment motions over the weekend, publicly, both of them. Ripple and the SEC are like, okay, that's all our cards. Make a decision, judge. That's essentially what's going on here. The parties calling the judge to rule on the more than one-year-old case, I think it's a couple of years, to determine whether XRP sales violated the United States security laws or not. SEC has built its argument on the premise that purchasing XRP is in a common enterprise and makes the crypto an investment vehicle, thereby stating it's a security, which if you look at it, you're like, that kind of makes sense. Maybe there's a little bit of leeway. I know, I know, but wait, there's more. SEC asserted that Ripple lured many investors to purchase XRP by making them believe that they could make enormous gains in the future, thus implying that the crypto is a security. I don't think they ever said that. I mean, I don't think Ripple would be dumb enough to go, you're going to make a bunch of money, you should buy XRP. Maybe I'm wrong. Ripple, Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse, which were the defendants, said the regulators could not prove that investors purchase XRP while relying on the company to help them make a profit. Token holders usually profit from the asset through the force of supply and demand. Based on this, XRP holders do not have the right to demand profit from Ripple. Makes sense, right? It's all supply and demand. Ripple, the company is like, look, if we go away, XRP will still exist. We're just the company behind what created XRP. So if we go away, that doesn't mean anything. It'll still go on. And by us being here, doesn't make it that you're going to make any money. Furthermore, they can't accuse the company of any breach when they do not make profits from XRP, which, let's be honest, we haven't made much profits anyhow. And this is what all comes down to. Jeremy Hogan, if you don't watch him, he's the, him and Deaton are the ones that do great information on everything that's XRP. I just leave it to the experts. Jeremy Hogan, a partner at Hogan and Hogan Law Firm, said the Securities and Exchange Commission has some big problems. And this is why they, I think they're going to win this judgment summary. And he says, video tomorrow. So go, go find Jeremy Hogan, SEC or Jeremy Hogan, XRP. He's the first one that pops up. But even tomorrow, I just read the briefs and the SEC has got a couple of big problems. First of all, I think this is very big. It's expert, the SEC's experts, the ones that the SEC has on their payroll and says, you guys, the experts in this agree that most of the changes in XRP price are not due to investment contracts, but to market forces, which is exactly what Ripple said. These types of concessions are perfect for summary judgments. And then there's a big long list of why, but I'm not going to go into it. I think this is positive news. Let me know what you think about that in the comments section. And on another note, I think the SEC just kind of, they kind of are biting off more than they can chew, but maybe I'm wrong. And this is a tweet that I got out yesterday. Ian Bolina, who's been on the show a couple of times, has been charged by the SEC for securities violations. And what they're saying, and this is why there's a bunch of videos going on right about now where the SEC is claiming that Ethereum, all Ethereum is should be regulated by the SEC because it's an American company because of all the different nodes and da, da, da. And it's all because of this case. Mr. Bolina has tried with offering and selling unregistered, non-exempt securities in the form of Sparkster tokens and the disclosure of a 30% discount. So basically what they're saying is that he's selling or he resold these Sparkster tokens, which we take a look at the article itself. He even said like, look, that was a rug pole. And if you can prove that I sold these and made a profit, then you may have a case. That's not what happened here. And I know people will say, I'm a Robbie and Bolina from some of you old schoolers who've been around since 2017. Ian was the ICO man back in the day. He was. And people gave him a lot of guff because they're like, he's a shill. And you shouldn't trust them and da, da, da. And you know what's funny? I asked him that exact question when I had him on my show. God, how long ago is this? September 3rd, 2020. I asked him that exact question. And he answered it very honestly. I will, I put a link in the description. You can listen to what he says about it. But it's because of him that I do these things, these DGEN sheets. So, you know, I've got two channels. One is digital asset news, meat and potatoes, very straight, laced, nothing really extravagant. I also got one called Dan DGEN, which is more of gambling. It's just straight gambling. And I put on there all the different products that I've reviewed and I've invested into. Gensokishi, Everdome, Fame and Sweatcoin. I tell you when I reviewed it, I tell you the purchase price that I got into it. I got all the different tokens that I got, the all-time high, the price date, the date, the game and the video itself. And I'd say, I tell you straight, they don't pay me anything. I pay them to be in it. It's a private round, but this is exactly what I paid and this is what I got. Oh, and also in the white paper, you can also verify that all these ones have lockups. Sweatcoin's got a 12-month cliff. I can't even touch it for 12 months. So, people are like, ah, you're you're shilling, you're dumping. I can't dump squat. You think I would have loved to dump some out of penny and a half when I went up to 9 cents? You better believe it, but I can't. So anyhow, you can check out Ian's video, but I just think that the SEC is just going after, they're just grasping for straws, it seems like now. Will it be coming to fruition? Not for sure. I'll let them make that distinction, but from what I've read for Ian, he seems pretty confident and he's actually ready for the fight. So we'll see how it all works out. Let me know what you think about that in the comment section and then I just want to go over this quickly. Brian Armstrong, I've given a lot of guff lately or over the years because of Coinbase and shutting down, but he's exactly right here. And he states one of the strongest policy arguments for crypto is that it's a national security issue. I've always said that. Here in the United States, we should be winning as China misses out. The U.S. missed on semiconductors and 5G, which is now largely manufactured offshore. That's why the NVIDIA and Pelosi did so well. It can't afford to have crypto go offshore as well. Same for every country, by the way. I just want to expand on some of these things. I know that there's a lot of people. If you're new, these bear markets are pretty tiresome, but if you think that Bitcoin's going to zero or crypto is going to zero, you got to understand there's too much money now. There's just too much going on. There's senators and politicians and heads of institutions getting into this, and there's so much money slosh around. There's no way. Do you really think that the governments, especially the American government, doesn't want to tax-live and tar out of you for the capital gains that you're going to receive from the profits you're going to get from crypto? Probably not. And when I take a look at this, I mean, even here in Texas, Ted Cruz is a huge proponent of Bitcoin mining and crypto. And if you can just break it down, there's a website linked in the description, Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. It's not up to date. It's from December 2021, so like nine months off. But I can just, I mean, you can go through this as far as like the dates. But as of December 2021, I think it's grown. The average hash rate globally is almost 38% in the United States. I know it's grown from there because I've talked to the Bitcoin mining operations here in Texas. They tell me. And then you can break this down by state. Did you know that Georgia at that point had 30% of the hash rate? I thought Texas was crushing it, but no, Texas, Kentucky, New York, California, North Carolina, Nebraska, Washington, so on and so forth. So like when we talk about how this is going to go away, it's going to be so bad. No, it's not. And then all that talk and bluster about electricity, we just covered a story about the Australian mining operation that's running off of solar panels. And that's just a test case. So there's too much money going in. I don't think it's going to go away. And that'll lead me to my last one, which is the big, big NASDAQ. So the NASDAQ is going to provide crypto custody for institutional investors. Here's what's happening. This was a quote from Tal Cohen, executive vice president, head of North American markets at NASDAQ. He says, demand among institutional investors for engaging in digital assets has increased in recent years. Well, I could have told you that, but all right. And NASDAQ is well positioned to accelerate broader adoption and drive sustainable growth. Early this month, they consortium, including Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, Fidelity Agile Assets, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, and Virtue Financial announced the launch of crypto exchange EDX markets in August. BlackRock, world's largest asset manager, said it was joining with Coinbase Global, you know, the guy we just talked about, to offer direct access to Bitcoin to some institutional clients. So when I was talking about $22 trillion in the thumbnail on the title, it comes from this, let's just break that down. So Citadel Capital, it's about $50 billion. All right, small potatoes. Sequoia, $85 billion. Eh, not too bad. Fidelity, $4.5 trillion. Charles Schwab, $8.14 trillion. And BlackRock, $10 trillion. Now, it may have fluctuated a little bit with the decline in asset prices, but I think that's roughly around $22 trillion. So again, if you think that crypto is going away anytime soon, there's a reason why the big players are getting in. And especially, they're getting in right when smart money or big money, what do you want to call it, gets in, when it's at the low point. I think that's a pretty smart play to do. And then there was one thing that we had a discussion on yesterday. This was an article, we talked about this yesterday, Stanley Druckenmiller, a legend, warns there's a high probability of the stock market being flat for a decade. And he talked about how the key change is the reversal of globalization, drove high productivity, contributing to disinflation, central banks adopting loose monetary policy, boost growth, now tightening, Federal Reserve is implementing interest rate hikes, which they're going to do another one, I think tomorrow, not mistaken. But he did state there's companies that did very well in the environment back then. And what he's talking about is this is the S&P from 1966, well, from all the way back in 1928, but really the modern version around 1950, I believe was. So from 66, some around here, to over here, it was a long time where you didn't make anything. Look at that. Look at that just going down and down. I mean, if you got here, but if you got here, of course, I guess the dollar cost average, but it took a long time. And then of course, right around 83s, when everything just went parabolic for quite some time until 2000 and so on and so forth. So the thinking again, is we've gone so hard for so long, we might be due for a 10-year lull of really not much going on. But remember, when we dip down, there's also splite bull runs, we dip down a little bull run, and we dip down some more, a little more bull runs. But the thing that I think about is this. What's our market cap right now? 950 billion? We haven't hit a trillion. We're at 3 trillion not too long ago. But if we take a look at this and just go, okay, 10 years is a long time, but we're at 950 billion dollars. This is a visualization. I've used it many times. I love this one of all the money in the world. So wouldn't it be interesting if we could kind of dig into some of this, all this money sloshing around? Because it's not like it's all stock market. And look at gold. Gold is 11 trillion. This is two years ago. I think it's 12 trillion now. Fortune 500 companies, I mean, you're looking at 15 trillion somewhere around there. Stock market itself, 90 trillion, okay. Money supply, 35 trillion. Global debt, and going up, 253 trillion. Global real estate, 280 trillion. Global wealth, 360 trillion. And of course, the big, big derivatives, which is between, no one really knows, 11 trillion. The gross national is 558. And of course, these are futures, forwards, options, warrants, swaps, or maybe a quadrillion. So if you look at all these things, just go, well, maybe we have a flat timeframe for crypto, maybe. But I mean, 950 billion, is it unreasonable to think in the next couple of years, we can get back to that 3 trillion market cap? Don't know. We're going to find out. Anyhow, so that's it for today. So look, if you like today's video, give it a thumbs up, consider subscribing. Not that YouTube's going to notify you about whatever. But that concludes today for the news. If you want to stick around, we'll do the Q&A, I'll answer all your questions, and we'll have a fun time. It's all, this is probably my most favorite part of the whole show. But that's it. If you have to get out of here, get out of here. I appreciate you coming by on a Tuesday and just hanging out with me for 20 minutes. I do like that. But that's it. So thanks so much for stopping by. I appreciate it. See you on the next one. Let's get into a little Q&A.