I always like the analogy of being like the tickets to carnival rides.

You can't use fiat currency to go on rides. You need to have the tickets.

In this case, the tickets are tokens and the rides are all the applications that are being built on the protocol.

So as we see more developers coming onto base, and base has been attracting a huge number of developers,

an amazing amount of activity, actually.

Then we will see a transition to using the base token as a means of monetization.

While crypto prices of fold back, big structural shifts are happening beneath the surface when it comes to regulation, institutional adoption, and new strategies for more on where the real opportunities.

And risks lie. We're joined by managing director and fintech and digital assets senior equity research analyst at Benchmark StoneX, Mark Palmer.

Hey, Mark.

Hey, Jennifer. How are you? Hi, I'm doing great. Thanks. How are you doing? Hanging in there in an interesting market. It is an interesting market. We're here to talk all about Q4 earnings for crypto equities. Let's just start the conversation. What's standing out for you? You know, we got a bunch of those earnings reports. What's standing out for you when it comes to the equities you're watching? Well, on the surface, it seemed like a very rough quarter for the

crypto equity space, given the fact that we did see crypto equities decline as a group by about

20% during the quarter in a backdrop where the crypto market cap dropped about 24%, Bitcoin a little

bit less than that. But amidst that, we saw a tremendous amount of investment and a tremendous

amount of building by those same companies that are continuing to expand beyond their core

enterprises.

A lot of that has to do with anticipation that in the near future,

we're going to see an influx of institutional capital into the space

with the potential enactment of the Clarity Act being the big catalyst that we're watching for there.

Well, the Clarity Act, a piece of legislation that has a lot of stop and go moments over the last

little while. Of course, the conversation around stable coin yield is what's holding it up now.

I just went through a few social posts from the weekend, of course, unpacking the geopolitical

situation that's intensifying here. Do you think that this

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