Base Chain Down, Wendy’s Up, Robinhood Flat, What’s a Short Squeeze?

Speaker A: Sir, this is a Wendy's. Is Wendy's the new meme stock? We'll get back to that in a second. Welcome to cryptocurrency, the weekly podcast of people working in crypto blockchain and fintechs, telling you everything you need to know about crypto blockchain and what's going on in the world of finance. I'm your host, Vince, and today I'm joined by Katya from the MU team and Kale from the trenches.

Speaker B: Hello.

Speaker A: So we'll talk about the Wendy's meme stock, but let's, let's talk about what's hot off the press, and that is Robinhood just had their, uh, what is it? Quarterly event called, uh, the World is Flat, which was their crypto themed events, talking about all their new product innovations, stuff they're working on, and it was pretty cool to watch. I mean they, they, they've really kind of dialed in the concept of doing these fun theatrical presentations which are very different from the coinbases where it's like, you know, people walk on stage, hold their hands like this and then tell them about products. And in this one, they talked a lot about crypto. It was all about crypto. They talked about, uh, their agentic trading bots, they talked about tokenized equities, the Robinhood chain, which just went live officially today, although everyone saw it go live on GitHub two days ago. But talk to me, guys. What, uh, what were your takeaways? Anything interesting? Something that caught your eye on the Robinhood world is flat?

Speaker B: Yeah, the first off the top of my head is kind of random, but, uh, do you know why they went with like the whole flat Earth branding?

Speaker A: I think, I think it's like they're trying to talk about maps and going to every corner of the globe and it's. Globe doesn't have.

Speaker B: I see. It's like connecting the globe.

Speaker C: Yeah. I think about being flat is about axis being the same everywhere.

Speaker A: Also that.

Speaker B: Yeah, okay. Um, that's like.

Speaker C: So like you're removing, removing the barriers to axes and making them flat.

Speaker B: I see.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, exactly. That's interesting. Other than, uh, I thought it was funny that they were like doing flat earth kind of concepts. Yeah. Like. Right.

Speaker C: My main takeaway from, from the event was that with all that money they could get better writers or also get some training for Vlad and team on, on the banter. Because, you know, like, it, it's just some of them, some of the jokes like, were actually decent, but they didn't land because they, you Know, it was like Elon Musk when he did Saturday night. No, but I mean, good effort. Yeah, but they can do better on that front.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, I, um, am kind of confused about the Robin Hood chain. Like, why they are even, uh, expending any energy on that. It feels like years late. Literally years late. Because, like in 2023 there was like the L1 wars. Even before 2023, like there were the east killers. You know, it kind of ended in 23. And then from like 23ish until like 2020 25, there was like the L2 wars where L2s were like actually compet. Who's going to be the dominant one and what are users going to use? And if Robinhood had launched their L2 in that period between 2023 and 2025, it would make much more sense to me because, yeah, that's when people were like, speculating on L2s, much more. It feels like today in 2026, the L2 wars are kind of done. And it's about stablecoins now. So, like, Robinhood should have made a stablecoin if they wanted to, like, be impactful, you know, I feel like L2 is kind of old.

Speaker A: I think with the L2s, because they're be. They're building it on top of the ARB stack is like, it's just gonna be a tool that facilitates exactly what it is they want to do. They don't give two shits about people building on it. That's not them. They only made it open source to be like, yeah, we're part of crypto, but also like, leave us alone. Don't touch our chain. Like, this is. This is what we're building this for.

Speaker C: They just, they just want a proprietary tool that they don't need to worry about, you know, pausing, gapping, you know, doing anything weird that they don't need worry about the Ethereum foundation or ETH Labs or what those people are doing. Like, they. They want to control every part of production. That's what it's all about. That's it.

Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense. They don't want the chain to go down for a couple hours randomly like Bass did.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, um, I was going to say you segue right, right off this into our actual topic that we actually prepared for. But, Katya, any other takeaways from the Robinhood thing before we talk about how hard it is to be at L2 these days?

Speaker C: My other kind of absurd, not even a lot of the things they talked about were expected. And we kind of at this point, we expect Robinhood and Coinbase especially to be. Just to be in this arms race and always coming up with all the things on, um, their next presentation. What I did observe was that it was how fragmented geographically the space still is. Because when they say, and now for our users in the UK and now for our European users, and now for our US users, my mind is just. Just going like, wait, what was Europe and what was UK and what is us? And some things I know because I'm in the space, so I know that, like, some. About which things are and aren't available just because I think about this on a daily basis, but for a user who's coming in and, like, I think it's just kind of like, wow, so I can do this, but not. It's not always intuitive which things you can and cannot do because you're in this. So I just think. I mean, this is not Robinhood's fault, you know, this is just the state of this, of how it is right now, but just very disorienting for the user, I think.

Speaker A: Yeah. It's funny, though, because as you were saying that, I was like, yeah, I guess we never had to deal with that outside of, like, these kind of like, financial tech instruments. And I'm like, wait, we kind of did for me as a kid. Because you'd be like, oh, this crazy video game that you can only get in Japan.

Speaker C: And then in the.

Speaker A: In the Japan version of this Mario, it's like, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, it's kind of a throwback, but you're right for. For the average person, it's very confus.

Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, inconvenient. Like the same kind of deal, as you say with games. There are things with, like, cosmetics and snacks and whatever. Like things that you can't get because they're not being imported. Like, all of that is getting flattened now. You can get anything on Amazon or Shine or Sheen or however you say that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, but. But, yeah, but like, with, you know, with these kind of presentations, you get excited about something and then they're like, oh, wait, am I in the right country for that? No, not for that. It's like a bingo card. This. No, no, not for this. This. Okay.

Speaker A: Finally, Katya with the pantomime bits today, really, really campaigning to run the next Robin Hood Live show.

Speaker C: Hi.

Speaker A: Let's talk about, uh, L2s and how it's rough to be an L2 these days. So we saw base chain going down. We saw. What was it story protocol that is just like pivoting from uh, being IP to doing AI of course, because everyone's doing AI Ko. What, what's the view from the trenches on the L2s of it all?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I kind of touched on it a minute ago, but it feels like. Yeah, I don't know if it feels like the L2 wars are dead. I don't. I don't know if the L2 thesis is still as strong as it was a few years ago, at least. It definitely feels like it's evolving because at least like from how I understood it a few years ago, like the L2 L2s were supposed to like help keep Ethereum overall decentralized and like you go to certain L2s to do certain things. But yeah, recently, within like the past just month or so, it seems like a lot of L2 are just failing, just falling out of the sky. M. Like, like you said, story. I think they used to be story ip. And yeah, their whole thing was like, we're going to bring intellectual property on chain. And it sounds like a, it's definitely a unique use case, you know, so people didn't know if it was going to work or not. Turns out like it didn't work. And yeah, it's just like a lot of random L2s like that, that had like a use case that sounded kind of plausible. They're just kind of disappearing and then on top of that base chain randomly went down for two hours over the weekend.

Speaker A: Multiple times. Uh, I seem to recall.

Speaker B: Yeah, and it's, it's because they only have one sequencer. So it's like when the one sequencer goes down, it's like they don't have an extra validator to fall back on. It's like super, super centralized. Which I guess, like nobody should be surprised. You know, base is the coinbase chain. But yeah, to like actually just see it happening live in front of your eyes is just kind of a, uh, not shocking. But uh, I don't know, it's just, it's bad, it's bad to see, you know, And I don't know how Bass is going to recover from this. At least like gaining trust back wise.

Speaker A: Well, what if we zoom out? Because I do like your statement, like maybe the L2 wars are over. What are your thoughts on that? Is that true?

Speaker B: I mean, I don't think it's completely over, but it's definitely like a different uh, landscape than it was in a few years ago. You know, a few Years ago, the L2 wars felt like there was actually a lot of, like, competing ideas, but now it feels like things have kind of settled down and, uh, there's probably going to be like a couple L2. Like, I don't, I don't know. It's hard to say. It's hard to say, dude, because, yeah, uh, the specialized L2 thesis feels more plausible, but it's like as time goes on, it's like the specialized L2 thesis is like, not really happening. So Maybe the generalized L2s will be the way to go. I don't know. We'll see.

Speaker C: I just feel like also what we just talked about with Robinhood in terms of like, just a proprietary chain that is private, even not even open source or decentralized, but it's going to be the way that products will, will do. Like. Let me ask you, uh, a different question. Does anybody care about degens anymore? Because degens. Well, let me tell you what I mean, because with perps and prediction markets being rolled out to the general public in a big way, we are kind of bringing degen into the mainstream. So, like, the degens that are like the niche degens that layer twos used to kind of like, oh, you know, uh, these are our people. We want them to build here. We're going to build defi. The specific things, you know, and they're going to like ape in on this, on this layer too. And that's how it's going to live. Is that dying? Well, I mean, maybe not. Like, I'm just like. That's my question.

Speaker A: I mean, I don't think perps necessarily take in Kayle as our resident dj. And you'll have to correct me on this. I don't know if that uh, takes away from the degeneracy just because Kale is not full sending a 20x on Google, he's more interested in finding this unknown token, but like very low liquidity or this interesting defi, uh, protocol. But don't let me speak for you, Kale. Defend yourself.

Speaker B: No, I mean, you're right. It's. There's different types of degens for sure. And just like in general, to address what you said, Katya, like, it does kind of feel like crypto is diverging into like two camps where there's like the people spamming meme tickers on crypto Twitter, and then there's the other path where we're bringing institutions on chain. So, uh, yeah, I mean, and I don't think either one of those paths is necessarily like, more correct or like the right Path, so to speak. It's just like, is what it is. I think that degens will always have their place in markets, even if it's not like specifically crypto markets, you know, and like priorities will, will shift and evolve like over time. Like, like in 2015 the degens were doing drop shipping, you know, and like in 2020 the degens were trading crypto. And in 2026 it's like, who knows? Degens are like doing more prediction market type stuff.

Speaker C: Prediction, right. Because there's like, there was uh, a series of even New York Times articles about how like being a prediction market. I forget the word like expert, but it's a different word anyway. Like somebody who is like super, super on it is like the new influencer or you know, whatever. It's kind of like this.

Speaker B: Yeah, I could see that.

Speaker C: Yeah. So prediction market.

Speaker B: So I mean, I definitely. They'll always have a place for sure.

Speaker C: Chart. Sharp. Yeah, I think Sharp. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And you, you guys are just setting me up for all the segues. You don't even need me. So you know who does care about the DJs DraftKings because they are now adding prediction markets. Because if you can't beat them, also beat join. I don't know. What are your thoughts? What are your thoughts about this, Katya?

Speaker C: Almost none. Because I don't watch sports. I don't bet on anything. I mean, if there were actual prediction markets on Vince punching somebody, I would be all over that. But you know, so far, no luck so far. But, uh, but yeah, I mean, I think. I honestly don't even know what to say because I don't know. And you guys would be able to tell me more about this, whether to the users of DraftKings and apps like, like it being in app, it being right in the like, does it matter? Do you care that you don't have to go to polymarket or to Kalsheet to do these? And we do know that even on Polymarket and Culture, even though we hear so much about those, like politics bets and stupid, you know, Paris weather with the hair dryer bets and all that stuff, the majority of the volume is still sports, like overwhelmingly. Like I don't even remember what it is, 90% or something like that. So if they bring it home to where people have done sports for such a long time, will that make a difference? Will it actually make those people go like, I don't need to go to Polymarket anymore. I can just do it right here. What? Well, I always have done it.

Speaker A: I Mean, I do. I think. Yeah, I think that's got, like, a huge, huge impact on it. Uh, because you also just have, like, you know, it. The barrier. Like, I don't even know. Does polymarket have an app? Do we still have to use a vpn? I've never used it, actually.

Speaker C: Yeah, you would still have to use a VPN for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. We don't even know. We're not allowed to use it.

Speaker C: Poly Micah.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, yeah, call sheet. Like, I've never taken out a prediction bet on, uh, call sheet. On call sheet itself. But I've, like, tried one on Robinhood just to try it, just because it was in there. But yeah, I mean, I could see this really hoovering up a lot of the liquidity and a lot of the people from these places. Because it's just. It's got to be easier, right? I can only assume it has to be easier.

Speaker B: Yeah. No, especially for DraftKings audience demographic already, because, you know, like, people are already going to DraftKings to, like, do that type of thing, degenerate gambling type stuff anyway. So it makes sense. It would just, like, make the UI M, make the UX a little easier for people. You know, it's not like it's like Starbucks or McDonald's implementing this where, like, those customers are like, why is this in here? Yeah, like, people using Draft.

Speaker C: Vince would not ask that question Vince would never ask that question of any app that wanted to put prediction markets in front of him.

Speaker B: You know what? This. When I read this headline, you know what I thought of was that one meme where the guy's, like, crying and he's like, just one more, bro. Bro, please, just one more. Just one more prediction market, bro, please, just one more. It's like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Like, we do not feel saturated for sure.

Speaker B: 100%, dude. Ah. But honestly, it's like, uh, like I said, DraftKings, it feels like it fits, you know, it's not just like, Starbucks implementing a prediction market. DraftKings kind of makes sense in my head.

Speaker C: We need now prediction markets and, like, smart fridges, like, placing a prediction market. Will my spous tomorrow morning ask where the butter is and, you know, what are the chances?

Speaker B: How long until Kel throws out the expired eggs?

Speaker C: There you go.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker C: There's so many possibilities. Like, I don't know. This is untapped.

Speaker A: Can't believe you're a. But I can't believe you're a butter in the fridge gal. That's lunacy. Butter on the table.

Speaker C: I'm Not French, I guess.

Speaker B: So, like, I also keep my butter on the kitchen counter.

Speaker A: Hell yeah, man. Spread it on bread. No problem.

Speaker B: It's easy peas.

Speaker A: Yeah, like, but, uh, speaking of no problem, let's talk about something that Katya probably won't have much to say on, but I know you and I will have a lot to say about it. Gael is. We've seen a whole bunch of video games, uh, going live in like, the crypto space, you know, Senko Quest. We've got the Axie Infinity mmo, which I didn't even know was a thing. And all these things are like, going on chain probably. And I think you, the way you pitch it is like, because of AI. Uh, AI is making all of this stuff easier. And so people are getting it up, up and out. Are any of these games good?

Speaker B: K. There's a couple of them. I think so, honestly. And it's like, it's been a long time coming, dude. No, because I remember when I interviewed for this job, like, literally years ago, like, one of the questions was like, how do you feel about on chain gaming? And I don't know if it was like, to gauge how schizophrenic I was or what, but I was like. I remember answering, I was like, oh, yeah, on chain gaming will probably happen like this year or next year. And this was like the 2020 cycle. And um. But I remember I had to correct myself. I was like. But like, maybe, maybe like give it four or five years. And yeah, like, so four or five years has passed and it feels like progress has actually been made. These games are much smoother than they were not too long ago. Like, I remember just a couple years ago, you would try to log into an on chain game and after every action, your wallet would want to pop up for a transaction. Like, sign the transaction.

Speaker A: So when you shoot this bullet, sign this.

Speaker B: Yeah, I know. So it's like very, like very stupid UX bugs like, that had existed for a while, but all those little things have seemed to be cleaned up. And a lot of crypto games are launching recently. And I think it's because of AI, like you mentioned, because they're like coming out of nowhere. But with that being said, of course gamers are picky and like you, I imagine, just like me have been gaming since like, I was a child. So it's like, yeah, like, I have a particular taste and if the game doesn't meet, uh, specific criteria, and then I'm like, oh, this sucks. This is boring. I'm not gonna play it. So with all that being said, like, there are a couple games on Chain that I am a fan of. One is Kintara. It's kind of like Runescape plus Minecraft, if I had to put comparisons, uh, on it. It's, it's like you collect, you run around, collect stuff, level up your skills. And then of course it's, it's play to earn, which, which is why like they brought it on chain in the first place. And um, it's not super lucrative like from coming from a first world country. You know, like if you farm for eight hours, you'll maybe make like 20 to 30 cents.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So it's, it's by no means is it like going to replace your job, but the gameplay loop is pretty fun so far. And so I'm talking about Kintara specifically at least. And Kintara has only been out for like a month. And yeah, they've added like a bunch of updates every week or so. So it's looking good. It's very early, but it's, it's looking good. And Senko Quest too. Like, I only have good things to say about that, but Senko Quest is even newer so I'm kind of like letting it air out before I share opinions on that. But Senko Quest is looking promising.

Speaker A: And do they, do they feel like they were like last miled by AI or do they feel like pretty, pretty good, pretty complete?

Speaker B: No. So Senko Quest and Kintara feel complete, but there's a, there's a whole list of them that I've tried recently. There's one like wizard Arya or something and it's like literally just a clone of Kintara. So like there's a lot of one, there's, there's like five or six that have come out recently that are very mid and you can tell that they've been for sure have used AI to implement things. There's like random bugs or like things don't uh, react how they're supposed to. But yeah, Kintara and Senko Quest at least they feel pretty polished and like, of course, you know, like we're not trying to show we don't, we don't pick our favorites here. But speaking objectively, like there's a lot of AI, not AI sorry, there's a lot of on chain games coming out recently and of all of those, I think Kintara and Senko Quest are actually kind of fun. So interesting.

Speaker A: I mean, you know, that's always been my point with AI uh, gaming is it's got to be fun. I mean we all know Katie only played Diablo because it was fun.

Speaker C: No, I mean, I started. I don't remember why, and then finish it, and I did, and I never played it again.

Speaker B: You hated it. You're like, God, I hate that I need to finish this.

Speaker C: Well, yeah, like, it's not that I think, like, I'm just, like, it's not good for me because I get very, uh. Like I need to. Yeah. Obsessive. Like the other game, the only other game that I played to any extent was Dragon Veil. That was on iPad. And I guess I. I played on an iPad, like in the mid 2000. Mid or end 2000.

Speaker B: Was that the one that you, like, hatch the eggs?

Speaker C: Yeah. So you breed the dragons, you build islands, you breed the dragons and you hatch the eggs. And you have to wait and see if it's going to be a rare. My dude, I made spreadsheets. I found spreadsheets online about likelihoods of the rare ones. And then I made my own spreadsheets to track which combinations I have tried and haven't tried. This was when my child was a toddler. Like, as a mother, I was spending time on this bullshit while she was napping or something. I don't even know, dude.

Speaker B: Katya has been a gamer this whole time.

Speaker C: I am not allowed.

Speaker A: Like, can't believe you have earthly stories before you.

Speaker B: Kale. No, that's crazy.

Speaker C: No, uh, no, not for me, but. And like, when. You know, when Fable, by the way, Fable is back, everyone. You heard it here. Maybe not first, but, uh, yeah.

Speaker A: So the AI, not the video game, just to be clear.

Speaker C: Gosh. But yeah, when. So when they released Fable and then took it away, and people were putting. Doing posts about, like, look at what people have done. Just in the few days that Fable was out, like, this is incredible. And I would look through these posts. I'm like, have we cured cancer? Like, it was all people creating games, or worse, legitimate copies of games that exist. They're like, look at what I did with Fable. I built Minecraft. It's like, we have Minecraft.

Speaker A: Um, we have Minecraft at home.

Speaker C: Yeah. So. And to me, I mean, I. I respect the industry because it's obviously like, it. It's a huge chunk of the human experience at this point. But just the fact that, like, everybody was pointing and like, look at what we've done. And everybody who got access to Fable is trying to build the game, including Kale. So, like, that's kind of, you know, that's kind of. I don't know, like, I am not a fan of that. But what I do find interesting about these unchained games and always have is the economics of it, right? The tokenomics. So like, one of these games I think has a token that's like not a stable coin. Like it's price, you know, and it is the coin. I may be wrong, but the coin that varies in price, that's volatile, is the coin that is used for in game economics. Um, now that to me is interesting because you could be buying in a $12 equivalent now, but if the price in the coin stays the same and the gamers make the coin go up, then the buying into the game will become $120 in like a couple of months, you know, like, and being in the game will become more expensive. So of that part of it, like it being a reflection of a real market in game is interesting to me because then like, players can collude again, setting you up for your next topic. Players can collude to make the game, to make the token go up and you know, things like that, and then, you know, exploit it somehow in the game. So that's interesting to me that it is its own economics. And many games before massive, you know, uh, player or OPGs, whatever, have, have had economics in them. You know, like the space games, the Evon line, the world of work, you know, they have economics within them, but they are not direct market. They are not tied to a real world market the way like these tokens are. So that to me is a very interesting aspect of it.

Speaker A: Yeah. M. I've always been intrigued by like in game economics. I. That's always been fascinating for me, specifically as a longtime wow. Player where I'm like, oh, uh, I, I now like, I understand inflation not because of real money, but because of wow. Gold.

Speaker B: Like I got this item 20 years ago.

Speaker A: It was like it was a thousand gold to get an epic ground mount, you know, 20 years ago. And I'm like, oh, now I get a thousand gold by doing like four quests. Like, that's easy. Before I spent, you know, 25 hours farming Fellwood.

Speaker B: So funny.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, I mean, I've had similar experiences. Wow. Wow. It's taught me about the world.

Speaker A: It really has. But that, that does segue nice into nostalgia. So let's talk about Wendy's. Uh, Wendy's is the newest kind of like meme stock that is getting a lot of buzz and a lot of publicity. Uh, Katya, what are your thoughts on this? Like, when did this get back on your radar? When was the last time you went to A Wendy's.

Speaker C: You know, the answer might be never. I'm not sure. Maybe some, like on some school trip or something. But like, not that I consciously remember. Not because, like, I'm against it. Just like, didn't. Didn't come up, didn't happen. But, um. But yeah, it's. You know, I've been thinking about this and reading a little, so I think you guys know, maybe we talked about this on the podcast that like, there was a lot of coverage to the. In the news to the effect that 2025 was a really good year for retail investors and that dumb money is being. Becoming not dumb money anymore, that retail investors are outperforming some indices or some Wall street, you know, markers. Just one of the big factors is that they seem to be confident in buying the dip when you should, like, not later. So they're not late to buying the dip. They're more confident in picking individual stocks, which may be luck because they are mostly like AI and chips and who knows what's going to happen to that. But, um. But generally retail investment is getting a lot of attention because of how well it's doing. And some of these, like, uh. And to me, the fact that, like, people are confident enough to play these games, for lack of a better word, with stock, you know, like, GameStop was the famous one, but with other things. And people are being humorous about it and, you know, they're saying, like, we have to support this brand because eventually all of us are going to be working there. You know, with AI this is our fallback job. We have to keep them afloat. I think that's a really kind of interesting part of the way the markets are developing now. And I think maybe crypto has contributed some. Like, maybe the meme coyness of crypto has made a contribution to the history of world finance by highlighting this possibility of these meme coins of moving the meme coins moving the markets just with the power of like, humor or conviction or memes or whatever. So, um, I'm not sure whether that's good for. For the market, but.

Speaker A: Oh, God, what have we done?

Speaker C: M. Yeah, but we made our contribution. Here you go. But another thing that, like this, this is sort of relevant. I was just. I was reading something about the history of the financial market recently, and I was surprised to Lear is something I did not know, did not realize, did not really think about that. In the 1929 crash that we all know about at that time, we all know, like, the people lost money in the market. It was awful. Everybody you know, at that time, only 1 to 2% of the US population owned stock. So only, uh, um, and there are other estimations of indirect ownership, whatever, but none of them go beyond like 10% at the very most. So this huge, you know, like this huge thing that affected everybody, and it did affect everybody, but not because they lost money on stock. They didn't own any stock.

Speaker A: It was the downstream effects.

Speaker C: Yeah, But I think just. Just to see how much change in just a hundred years, less than 100 years, to the presence of the retail user in the market, to the influence retail users have on the market, is just immense. And I think it's one of those moments where we, like, we talk a lot about, like, what's wrong with track buy, what's wrong with defi, what's wrong with all these things. But if you zoom out and see, like, the objective progress that has happened over time, just. This is just something I'm thinking about. Like, now we can have users, like, see a joke online and move the stock, move the market, because they, you know, they just, like, they, they felt it. It hit, right? And, you know, this is what happened.

Speaker A: I find myself wondering, like, how much of this is, like, legitimate, like, users of Reddit or Twitter, which. I don't even know how many people use Twitter that aren't bots, but, like, see this? And they're like, ooh, that's a signal. Let me buy in. Uh, but I'm also fascinated by, like, the. Not secrecy, but, like, how this, like, you know, this all started in, like, Wall street bets, of course, where most things start. But then I've seen it appear in other subreddits that you wouldn't expect, which is like the nostalgia subreddit all of a sudden had a bunch of posts about, like, hey, remember when wimby's, like, used to have yellow fry holders and yellow cups? And it was like, it made the front post of Reddit the front page of Reddit. And I was like, ah, this is clearly connected. I don't know if it's deliberately or indirectly, but it's kind of fascinating to watch that. And I wonder how much of that breaks containment of Reddit. Or maybe that's just my little Cluz ecosystem that I love.

Speaker B: I mean, it's. It's definitely. The Internet had such a huge part to play in this. You know, just like comparing a hundred years ago to today, you know, it's because, I mean, obviously, but it's because, like, people like me and then there's like, a dude in China There's a dude in India, there's a dude in, like, Massachusetts, and we can all, like, come together, you know, and be like, yeah, let's talk about it.

Speaker C: You know, what about, uh, I think Reddit containment is also not what it was because of the surfacing of Reddit results and AI.

Speaker A: That's a great point.

Speaker C: So Reddit, the Reddit is not contained the way it used to be. Because of that.

Speaker A: It's funny, I keep finding out that more and more people that I know are like, oh, yeah, have you tried Reddit? It's amazing. And I'm m. Like, oh, my God.

Speaker C: Because. Yeah, because they. They aied something. I keep saying Google, but now I guess that verb is not. Not quite right. So they aied something, and it comes up with a lot of Reddit results. And they went and they were like, oh, what is this thing?

Speaker A: It's pretty rad.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's so weird to think about. Like, dude, there's still people discovering Reddit in 2026.

Speaker A: I know, it's crazy, but Kale, talk to us about Wendy's. Like, I know we went on a bit of a sidetrack, but, like, what's your take on all of those? Does it. Does it feel like just this is the crypto trenches, just breaking containment to go a little more mainstream, or.

Speaker B: No, it feels like people grasping at straws who missed GameStop and trying to recreate it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because. Yeah. I mean, opportunities like GameStop happen on chain, like, all the time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, and people who are trading on Chain know that, you know, so, like, I. I never felt any FOMO for GameStop, and I don't feel any FOMO for Wendy's because I know that there's opportunities that are matching that on Chain.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So, yeah, the people who are, like, getting all hyped and excited about this, it feels like. Yeah. I don't know, they're. They're just, like, trying to recreate what GameStop did, and I highly doubt that that's gonna happen. I've seen people on Twitter talk it's going to be a crazy short squeeze. But, yeah, I don't know. That is, like, I doubt that.

Speaker A: One of. One of my, like, biggest pet peeves, it's up there with hedge your bets now. Like, when someone says something, a hedge,

Speaker B: it's going to be a short squeeze.

Speaker A: Explain to me. When they say short squeeze, I'm going to be like, hold on, explain to me what that means. Because people love to say, oh, this is going to short squeeze, short squeeze.

Speaker B: Squared.

Speaker A: And I don't think these people know what that means.

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, like, to be honest, I don't even think I could explain a short squeeze for, like, from my understanding. What is it? It's just, like, there's lots of capital. Who is short? And so then if the stock goes up, they're fucked, basically.

Speaker A: Basically, yeah. Uh, that's at the most, like, they. Basically, what it is is like, they are short. So if the stock goes up, they have to sell to cover that position. By selling, that drives the buying up. Uh, yeah, they have to buy to cover that. So then that buying pressure makes it go up, which makes them be short even more. Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. But, yeah, okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, no, it's definitely one of those terms I hear a lot, short squeezing.

Speaker A: And I think so many people just parrot that without, like, understanding what that actually means. But you know what, dear listener, I feel like you actually have a rough idea of what that means now. And so thank you for being here. We hope you feel smarter because we appreciate you being here, because we love talking to you week over week. Make sure you review the podcast wherever you get your podcast, and we will see you next week.

Speaker C: Bye.