The Bull Case For Prediction Markets | Ryan & David
In this episode of Bankless, Ryan and David dive into prediction markets and their place in today’s financial landscape. They unpack how peer-to-peer markets differ from traditional sportsbooks, spotlighting Polymarket and Kalshi, and explore scalability, regulation, and societal impact. Are these markets tools for informed decision-making or just another gambling avenue?
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🐂BULLISH | TRADING COMPETITION
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We’re being compensated by Bit Digital (NASDAQ BTBT) for this segment promoting their company and BTBT. The compensation is paid in cash as a one time payment. You can find additional information about Bit Digital and BTBT on their Investor page at https://bit-digital.com/investors
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TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES
0:00 Intro to Prediction Markets
2:43 Bankless Summit Announcement
5:32 How Prediction Markets Work
8:06 Who the Big Players Are
14:31 Kalshi’s Breakout and U.S. Access
19:08 Prediction Markets as Media
20:27 How Big Are They Right Now
https://x.com/Polymarket/status/1975528768039985449
https://x.com/shayne_coplan/status/1975534265698812046
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=NASDAQ%3ADKNG
26:17 Where This Is Headed
https://x.com/Domahhhh/status/1973576583064567961
26:40 Sportsbooks vs. Prediction Markets
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=NASDAQ%3ADKNG
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=NYSE%3AFLUT
31:43 Why Sportsbooks Are Systemically Unfair
39:10 Rules, Regulators, & Court Fights
54:43 Why This Matters for Society
1:00:31 Wrap Up & What to Watch Next
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
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Why China Builds Faster Than America & The Rest of the World | Dan Wang
Why does China build so much faster—and what does that reveal about two very different ways of running a society?
Ryan and David sit down with Dan Wang, author of Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, to unpack China’s “engineers-in-charge” model versus America’s “lawyerly” governance.
We cover how this shapes daily life and growth (from subways and high-speed rail to batteries, EVs, and drones), common western misconceptions about China (surveillance, social credit, “imminent collapse”), why U.S. capital markets soar while Chinese manufacturing dominates, what an American “abundance agenda” could look like, and Dan’s closing prescription: the U.S. needs ~20% more engineering; China needs ~50% more rights-protecting legalism.
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🐂BULLISH | TRADING COMPETITION
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💠BIT DIGITAL ($BTBT) | ETH TREASURY
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We’re being compensated by Bit Digital (NASDAQ BTBT) for this segment promoting their company and BTBT. The compensation is paid in cash as a one time payment. You can find additional information about Bit Digital and BTBT on their Investor page at https://bit-digital.com/investors
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:45 US Lawyers vs China Builders
8:50 Becoming Elite in China vs US
14:55 Motivating Forces
18:26 China’s Misconceptions
24:38 Protests in China
26:00 US vs China Innovation
27:59 Digital Authoritarianism
34:49 Social Credit System?
36:51 Will China Collapse?
42:53 China & Crypto
47:59 China’s Capital Markets
49:46 Path to Wealth
54:29 Property Rights
58:49 Stock Price vs Productivity
1:02:35 The 1960s
1:04:56 Abundance Agenda
1:06:51 US Weakness Relative to China
1:10:53 The Best of Both Worlds
1:13:43 Is China a Security Threat?
1:14:52 US Manufacturing Comeback?
1:20:20 US Global Talent Hub
1:25:07 China’s US Misconceptions
1:27:03 US Success Scenario
1:29:39 Closing & Disclaimers
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RESOURCES
Dan Wang
https://x.com/danwwang
Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future
https://www.amazon.com/Breakneck-Chinas-Quest-Engineer-Future/dp/1324106034
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
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LIMITLESS: We Interviewed The Team Behind ChatGPT's #1 Feature
OpenAI’s personalization leads, Christina Kaplan and Samir Ahmed map the shift from an “assistant with a notebook” to Pulse—the part of ChatGPT that quietly preps your day while you sleep. We unpack how short- and long-term memory work across sessions and why April’s subtle update changed the experience, show how daytime chats stay aligned with overnight prep, and close on the big questions: privacy, consent, and why this is an assistant/representative—not a digital clone.
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💫 LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE
https://pod.link/1813210890
https://youtube.com/watch?v=cDrllt2zn5M
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
1:03 Why Memory Mattered
6:00 User Reception
9:45 Under the Hood: Short vs Long Term
12:20 Behavior Shift & Data Strategy
20:26 What is Pulse?
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RESOURCES
Christina Kaplan
https://x.com/ChristinaHartW
Samir Ahmed
https://x.com/PageOfSamir
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
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The Art of Spending Money: How to Get Rich and STAY Rich | Morgan Housel
How do you spend money in ways that actually make life better?
Morgan Housel, author of the new book The Art of Spending Money, explores status vs. satisfaction, the hedonic treadmill, and why money’s best use is buying independence.
We also cover quiet compounding, a practical 15-stage path to financial freedom, when to spend vs. save, helping kids without spoiling them, and small experiments that raise the utility of every dollar.
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💠BIT DIGITAL ($BTBT) | ETH TREASURY
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We’re being compensated by Bit Digital (NASDAQ BTBT) for this segment promoting their company and BTBT. The compensation is paid in cash as a one time payment. You can find additional information about Bit Digital and BTBT on their Investor page at https://bit-digital.com/investors
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
2:29 Who’s The Book For?
5:49 There’s No Universal Formula
12:59 What People Want
19:36 Money as a Curse
22:03 Taking a Step Off
26:59 Holding vs Spending
30:26 Identity Traps
33:50 Secret to Contentment
37:32 External vs Internal Benchmarks
40:41 Making an Impact
42:37 Social Debt
50:51 Quiet Compounding
55:10 Financial Freedom
1:02:20 Money & Parenting
1:09:48 Balancing Saving & Spending
1:14:44 Small Purchases
1:16:59 Trying New Things
1:19:29 Morgan’s Financial Decisions
1:21:37 Closing & Disclaimers
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RESOURCES
Morgan Housel
https://x.com/morganhousel?lang=en
The Art of Spending Money
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Spending-Money-Simple-Choices/dp/0593716620
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
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ROLLUP: Uptober Rally | Tom Lee $1B ETH Buy | Vanguard Flips to Crypto | Stripe Stablecoin Play
In this week’s Weekly Rollup, Uptober kicks off with Bitcoin and Ethereum surging toward all-time highs as Tom Lee drops another $1B into ETH and Vanguard finally opens its doors to crypto ETFs.
We cover Stripe’s push to break the Tether–Circle duopoly with its new stablecoin platform, Cloudflare’s surprising entry into onchain payments, and Swift teaming up with Consensys on blockchain rails. Plus, Zcash rockets 200%, Ethereum’s Lighter perps exchange goes live, and Circle sparks debate with plans for reversible USDC.
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*We’re being compensated by Bit Digital (NASDAQ BTBT) for this segment promoting their company and BTBT. The compensation is paid in cash as a one time payment. You can find additional information about Bit Digital and BTBT on their Investor page at https://bit-digital.com/investors*
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TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES
0:00 Intro
3:38 U.S. Government Shutdown
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crrj1znp0pyo
7:13 Markets
https://x.com/pumatheuma/status/1973717212025553313 - ZK Szn??
https://x.com/CoinDesk/status/1971565473218113771
https://www.strategicethreserve.xyz/
https://www.bankless.com/read/news/another-week-another-buy-bitmine-stacks-234k-eth
https://x.com/Jrag0x/status/1972643353918677497
https://x.com/smyyguy/status/1971585912602796266
https://x.com/fundstrat/status/1972948825578131523
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/us-regulators-probe-stock-moves-before-companies-made-crypto-treasury-2025-09-26/
24:57 Plasma nailed its go-to-market
https://x.com/Plasma/status/1972660468561965173
https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/plasma
https://defillama.com/chains
https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/plasma-s-defi-shockwave
https://x.com/lemiscate/status/1972337762205339788
https://x.com/ajwarner90/status/1972823448897634648
https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1973436365225468336
32:35 Everyone gets a Stablecoin! The duopoloy is dead!
Phantom announced Cash stablecoin
https://x.com/phantom/status/1973035201950617617
https://x.com/useCash/status/1973035307139477561
https://stripe.com/blog/introducing-open-issuance-from-bridge
https://x.com/zcabrams/status/1973052207911129557
https://x.com/nic__carter/status/1973399535092171216
38:43 Cloudflare launched their own stablecoin on Base
https://x.com/CoinbaseDev/status/1970477072792592484
https://x.com/eastdakota/status/1971226533831582073
https://x.com/Kira_sama/status/1971237126378504230
https://x.com/Rewkang/status/1970782770805813392
https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1973753405894992073
44:18 Lighter - Ethereum Zk Perps
https://x.com/Lighter_xyz/status/1973508660061180363
https://defillama.com/protocol/lighter
50:06 More crypto TradFi mainstream!
https://x.com/MorphoLabs/status/1972913932802421202
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/swift-teams-ethereum-software-giant-190506673.html
https://www.theblock.co/post/372706/swift-blockchain-ledger-consensys
https://x.com/Louis_Tellier/status/1973692818452337125
https://cointelegraph.com/news/circle-examines-reversible-stablecoin-transactions
57:36 With new Sora, the need for zk proving reality 100x-ed
https://youtu.be/qeORiYlsEH4?t=374
https://x.com/pumatheuma/status/1973258262939312433
1:01:52 CEO of Polymarket gets flipped off
https://x.com/shayne_coplan/status/1972675295564931242
https://x.com/nickpreszler/status/1972748902240780589
1:04:44 Closing, Disclaimers, & Moment of Zen
https://x.com/coinbase/status/1972731382830072129
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
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