Proudly we hail. From New York City where the American stage begins, here is another program with a cast of outstanding players. Public service time has been made available by this station for your Army and your Air Force to bring you this story. As proudly we hail the United States Air Force. The story is entitled, Follow the Leader. This is the story of a combat leader in Korea, Major Jeremy Partridge, squadron commander of the 51st Fighter Interceptor Squadron, and all the officers and men who served under him. Our first act curtain will rise in just a moment, but first, how would you like to be a kingpin on the air crew of the United States Air Force plane? That's the navigator. He's an aircraft observer, a commissioned officer, and he gets there by enlisting in the aviation cadets. It's a great life, but only men young in spirit and years can fill this exacting job. If you can qualify, your advanced training by the Air Force will turn you into a first-class navigator. Then you'll be a kingpin on the aircraft team. You'll be equipped with the finest navigation tools known to aerial science. See what your chances are for joining the aviation cadets of the United States Air Force. Full details are available at your nearest recruiting station or Air Force base. And now your Army and your Air Force present the proudly we hail production, Follow the Leader.  Though a squadron is the smallest component of the Air Force, if you are the CO, you're responsible daily for the lives and welfare of close to 200 men. 38 of them combat jet fighter pilots, not to mention millions of dollars worth of material and equipment, including 25 expensive and delicate saber jets. Hour by hour, through the long day, your decisions affect the lives of the men serving under you for nothing is more important than that those men will be happy and do the job expected of them. Your day starts pretty much as anyone's anywhere. 6.30 a.m. Just about the same time the stateside commuters are hitting the deck to catch trains to their offices. Maybe they hear birds outside their windows. You? Here in Korea you hear another kind of burden.  Your day started. This day will probably be no different than any other in your tour. No better, no worse, but it's going to be a long one and you've got to be on the ball every minute. But first you take a few minutes out to read a letter from home from your wife. You were half asleep when you read it last night and you hardly know what it said. My darling Jair. I was just awakened by little simpies crying for a morning bottle. You can set your watch by that dependable darling little rich. She's inhaling away madly now and I have one of the few chances in the day to write to you. Big news. Sissy's about to walk. She stands, daggers in moments, then falls with a resounding crash, quite astonished at what she's been doing. I must send you another picture of her as soon as she's growing into quite the little lady. Today will be a busy one for us here. Sissy must go to the doctor for a check-up and Billy needs a haircut, so it terrifies him so. But you don't have time to finish the letter, not now. Right now you've got your squadron to look after, so you put the letter and your thoughts of home in your pocket. Grab Chow and jeep down to the flight line. First thing you want to know about is the fragmentary order. A daily order from Fifth Air Force, Eighth Army Joint Operations Center, telling each squadron what its missions for the day will be. It's 700 hours when you step into the operations shack to check with your right-hand man, Ops Officer Major Charles Fitzsimmons. Good morning, Skipper. Hi, Fitz. What's in the frag order for us today? Practically the same as last night. Just one change. JOC, send over a correction this morning? Affirmative. There's so 900 mission here. Escort for fighter bombers. Eight of us to cover for them, huh? Mm-hmm. 86 is a hitting railroad bridge across the Chinampo between Sinanju and Anju. Well, that shouldn't be too much sweat there. Now there's other missions. Oh, patrolling the yellow. Makes today, huh? I hope so. I'll be leading. Now, let's see. I'll shift the flight commander and leave Sims and Mandel in one element and Lieutenant Teague flying in your wing. Teague? One of the new boys? Yeah. You finished his combat training up at Group already? Graduated Clobber College yesterday. This'll be his first mission north. Good deal. I picked the right flight then. I could check these new boys out myself whenever I get a chance. How's the pilot roster look? Pretty good. Two grounded by the flight surgeon. Nothing serious. Mm-hmm. There's 35 pilots, minus four being rotated back until we get those four new boys out of training. Oh, pilot's okay. But with planes, we got a little problem. Now, let's see your aircraft status report. I'll be right here. See? Same as when you checked it yesterday afternoon. Mm-hmm. None pulling commissions since then, huh? No. Still only 16. And two of those you've assigned a group training squad in this order, right? That's right. Along with two of our instructor pilots to train the replacements. So we got 14 planes for our day's missions. Can do with 14 planes, but we ought to have more just in case. Engineering says they're doing the best they can. Yeah, we all are. But we can do better. Let's talk to the engineering officer and get the poop on all these down-check aircraft. He's a good man, Rizio. Yeah, of course he is. But maybe he's got a problem. We can help him lick. Let's see him. Rizio, what's the score on these out-of-commission planes? Well, lack of parts, mostly. Just look at my board. A-O-C-P, A-O-C-P, A-O-C-P, written next to half the planes. Aircraft out-of-commission parts. Parts of tech supply's job. Lieutenant Gaten says he can't get the parts. I'll see Kate in a minute. Let's say, look at your board. Eight flight. Six aircraft in a flight and only one in commission. Yeah, it was on my way to tell you about that. Well, they're not all A-O-C-P. Two of them are 100-hour checks, routine maintenance. What's holding them up? The flight chief, Sergeant Bocek. Bocek? He's our best NCO. Was. Family problems got him fouled up now. Why doesn't he talk to someone before he gets everyone fouled up? He will, Major. I talked to him into seeing you. He requests a personal interview for this afternoon. Okay, tell Bocek I'll see him in 1500. Uh, Major, I wouldn't be too rough on the guy. Something must really be eating him. If something is eating him, there's only one thing I want to do. Help him. Like this, he's no good to anyone. Himself, his squadron or the Air Force. Kate, engineering says you tech supply people can't seem to come up with the parts to keep our aircraft in commission. We're trying, Major, but the parts we need are scarce. How do they expect us to get these planes in the air if they won't give us the parts? All right, steady boy. Those are jets out there, not jennies. Can't patch them up with bailing wire and adhesive tape. Each of them is as delicate as a Swiss watch and needs just as delicate parts to keep running. Yeah, but the parts, where are they? Well, don't you realize the supply problem? From the factory in the States all the way over here, each of those parts has to go some 10,000 miles by train, boat and plane to get to the particular aircraft that needs it. Yeah. See what you mean. That's another thing. Sure, we could send half those planes up right now. But we've got safety standards. We value the pilot's life. We want the plane to take him to his job and bring him back. Yeah, thinking about parts, I'd forgotten, I suppose. All in all, it looks like an insurmountable problem. Impossible. But how does that saying go? The difficult we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer. That's it. Now, about tracking down the parts. I'll try a group again in some of the other squadrons. I'll tell you what. Try some of the other groups in the area. If you have any more trouble, I'll be at my office. Sergeant, ask Captain Quimby to come into my office. Captain Quimby is your adjutant. As your administrative assistant and personnel officer, he helps you keep the squadron running smoothly. While you wait for him, you take a few minutes out to read that letter from your wife. And the beautiful television set you gave me before you went overseas is quite worthless at the moment. The new apartment has only DC current and since the set only works on AC, electrical terms are the TV man. All sorts of extra parts are needed converter or inverter. I've forgotten witch, aerial and so forth. I'll shop around and find some that aren't too expensive, but they're so hard to find. You wanted me, Major? Huh? Oh, yes. A couple of things to go over. Sure. I'll be back at 1430. There's some things you can take care of while I'm in briefing and in the air. Sergeant Bocek, Flight Chief of A-Flight, will be here to see me at 1500. If I'm still in debriefing, hold him here for me. What's Bocek's problem? I'll find it out this afternoon. He requested a personal interview. I've got another personal problem for you. Airman Smith. Oh, yes, his allotment to his wife. It seems Smith's wife is going to have a baby so she can't work anymore. She needs more money so Smith increased his allotment last month. So? He got a letter from her. She hasn't gotten the extra money yet. Oh, for crying out loud. It hasn't really had time to go through yet. I know, I know, but Smith is worried. Well, I don't blame him. All right, let's get on it. Give the finance clerk all the dope. Tell him to send a tracer immediately to Finance Division Denton. Well, do. And about tomorrow's monthly briefing of Airman on last month's squadron activities. Yes. Arrange to get used to the briefing room for tomorrow afternoon. Right. What'll you cover in the meeting? I've got a list here on my desk someplace. Here it is. These will have to be prepared. Number of enemy aircraft destroyed by the squadron. Number of trucks, tanks, troops, and locomotives put out of commission. Battle damage suffered by our pilot, you know the usual. Give the boys an idea what they and their squadron are doing, right? When you work as hard as they do, you want to know how it all adds up. And I want them to know they're in the best squadron in Far East Air Force. Number one. I think they know that already, Major. Seeing you reminds them every day. Oh, yes. Be sure to note that Captain Dawson got his fifth MiG last month. That makes him a jet ace. I'll take care of it. It's 1100 now, so you grab an early chow, check again about those downed aircraft, and then go to be brief for the mission. Patrol along the yellow means you'll be MiG hunting, and MiGs will be hunting you. When it's over, you see Lieutenant Tig, the new boy who's going to fly your wing today. Lieutenant! Lieutenant Tig! One me, Major. All set for the mission? As soon as we leap off, the better. Real Tiger, huh? I've been waiting for this since I was 10.  It can cost you. I understand, sir. You've got the best jet fighter training in the world. Now you're going to use it. Just stay close on my wing, do what you're told, and keep your eyes open. We'll do, sir. Okay, let's go upstairs. You are listening to the proudly-behaved production Follow the Leader. We'll return in just a moment for the second act. How many of you young fellows go down to your nearest city airport on a Sunday afternoon and watch the planes come in and take off? When you see the planes gliding down under their landing strips, do you marvel at the skill of the pilots who fly them? And when you see the planes take off and disappear into the horizon, do you watch them out of sight wishing you were there at the controls? There's no more need for any of that wishful thinking. If you've got what it takes to be an aviation cadet in the United States Air Force, you too can fly the big silver birds. You have to be young enough, and smart enough, and well enough if you want to qualify as an aviation cadet. Only the best are accepted. Your local recruiting station or nearest Air Force base can give you all the information. You are listening to Proudly We Hail, and now we present the second act of Follow the Leader. Some 20 minutes later, you're upstairs, the four-plane V of your flight dancing through enemy skies at more than 500 miles an hour, racing through the heart of a pale blue staked-out battleground seven miles up, your head swiveling constantly in the cockpit, your eyes searching each quadrant of the sky desperately. For this is Meg Alley. You check with your flight, first calling your young wingman, Tick. Coco, too. Stay in there, closing my wing now. Settle down. Roger, Coco Leader. Keep looking at me, but keep flicking your eyes and pass me to the sky, high on my port. Got it, Coco, too? Affirmative, Coco Leader. Well, do. Got it, Coco Flight. Keep the sky covered. Roger, Coco Leader. Red Radar's probably picked us up by now, so keep your eyes peeled. They'll try to bounce us from above. Roger, Coco Leader. Telly Ho. Bandits, nine o'clock, very high. I see him. Eat him, Coco. Roger, I have them in sight. They haven't spotted us yet. They will. Coco, too, hold tight where you are. I'll give the call for us to break into them. Roger, Coco Leader. Coco, three, move your element out a little so we can maneuver. Roger, Coco Leader. Coco, Flight, going to 96 for a climb. We'll make the interception at angels, 40. They're starting their run. Okay, men, hold tight till I give the word. Then break, sharp, left, and up into them. Steady now. Now, break! Like a well-drilled team, your flight breaks sharply, up and into the down-slanting minks as they're glowing cannon shells curve harmlessly to where you were.  Missed him. Negative, Coco Leader. You've lasted this rudder. He's starting to smoke. Here's your chance, kid. Finish him off. Coco Four, let's join up on Coco Leader. Dive after him, Coco Two. Don't lose him. I'm right behind you. Mix chickened out, Coco Four.  Coco Two, watch him. He's breaking away. But now, Teague's traces are pouring in on target and suddenly they make flames in ugly red. Staggers in mid-air like a hit bird then comets Earthwood. I got him. Coco Leader, I nailed him. You sure did, boy. And I shouldn't. I thought he was going to get him, just like they said. Coco Leader, this is Coco Three. Joining up on you, low on fuel. Roger, Coco Three. Time to return to pigeon and pancake. Coco Three. This is Coco Two. Got myself a meagre. Wow, what do you know?  Boy, it was something. I just got that... Save it, Coco Two. We got to get home first. On the ground, you clamor out of your plane and hurry from the flight line. Past young Teague with an excited ground crew clustered about him as he demonstrates with his hands how he got his first mate. Into intelligence for debriefing. Change from your flight gear and then into your office. The pilot's day is virtually done. You're just half through yours. The time? Almost 1500. You've got a couple of minutes to read that letter. I spent a wonderful weekend with Mother, left the children with Mary, Colonel MacDavid's wife, and flew up to Washington. The plane trip was a dream. Whenever I fly, I feel somehow that I'm closer to you, that I understand better a part of you I rarely see otherwise. Of course, I know the flying you do is quite different. Major. Oh, yes, Quimby. Sergeant Bocek is here. Oh, 1500. Yeah, he's prompt, anyway. Let's see why he's not so prompt with his aircraft. Send him in. All right. You can go in, Bocek. Thank you, sir. Master Sergeant Bocek, a flight reporting is instructed, sir. At ease, Sergeant. Come over here, sit down. Thank you, sir. Cigarette, Bocek? Yeah, thanks, sir. Here you are. Light up. A smoke may help that worried look you've got. Thanks, Major, but it'll take more than that. Lieutenant, Kateen tells me something's bothering you lately. So much you can't do your work. Yeah, I guess so, Major. Well, we all have some kind of worries. Thing is, sometimes they get too big to handle alone. I guess that's me, Major. Minor kink size right now. I suppose you tell me about it. All right. Well, Major, it's sort of a... Well, I... Go ahead, spill it. I'm going to help you if I can. You know that. Yeah, I know, Major. You helped plenty guys in the squadron. So? Well, uh... It's my wife. Oh. Yeah, she's sick. Real sick, sir.  She's hurting real bad, man. I might just as well be on another planet to help I can beat her where I am now. You sure she's sick, Bocek? Not just, um... No, no, no, Major. It's nothing like that. See, my... My mother's letters, she... She sort of hid something's wrong with Martin. They all sort of hid nothing. You can put your finger on, but I... I don't know, sir. Martin needs me, sir. All right, now. Take it easy, son. Yeah, I tell you, Major, sometimes I... I just think I'm going to flip. I keep thinking about taking off, trying to get stateside somehow. I don't know how, but somehow I... Now, Bocek, don't hit the panic button. There's always a way out. You and I will figure it. Yeah, if you only could, Major. There's a way we can find out about your wife. Well, how's that? We'll have the base Red Cross representative send a wire right away to your hometown Red Cross. We'll have the ungarbled word for you before breakfast. Is that a deal? It's a deal, Major. I... I don't know how to thank you. Yeah, forget it. And really, forget it. Get your assistant to take over a flight for you and hit the sack. Major, the replacement pilots are here. Here. I thought they weren't due till tomorrow. Maybe, but they're waiting to meet you in the briefing room now. All right, let's get on the stick then. See what kind of material we drew this time. And hut! All right, at ease, men. Be seated. Smoke, if you wish. Now, gentlemen, I'm Major Partridge, your CO. They call me the old man, just like every other squadron commander, but I'm still not old enough to like it. Now, first, welcome to the 51st Fighter Interceptor Squadron. We're glad to see you. Especially the pilots who you'll be replacing so they can be rotated home after their 100 missions. Now, make it brief for you. First, I'm sure you want to know how soon you'll climb into a saber jet. The answer is a few days. Second, you want to know how soon you'll tangle with migs. Well, that won't be until you've gone through training squadron here. I know, I know. Some of you've been in training 18 months or more already. But you've still got things to learn. After date things, you didn't get it, Nellis. You've got to learn the area, the latest mig tactics, our tactics. Familiarize yourself thoroughly with the saber, which is every bit as hot as you've heard. And all that takes time and work before we can afford to send you north to McGalley. And make no mistake about it. On the other side of the yellow, red pilots just like you are going through the same thing. But the training you've already got and will now get pays off better than theirs. You've got a 15-to-1 edge over them and planes knocked down, even though they outnumber us many times over and always outnumber us in the air. I'll turn you over to your operations officer now, Major Fitzsimmons, and he'll give you the straight poop. First, good luck. It's 1600 hours now, so you call the engineering officer into your office for probably the most important meeting of the day. The aircraft status report. How many planes will be in commission for tomorrow? Uh, 13, the way I figure it, Major. 13? Didn't you get any planes in commission today? Yeah, but battle damage knocked out several. What kind of damage? Can it be fixed in a hurry? With about 12 hours' work, maybe. Well, I'm positive tomorrow's freight order will require more aircraft than today, maybe as many as 16. You've got to send those two planes again tomorrow up to group for the training squadron. That means we need at least 18 planes. And we ought to have a couple of spares. Those artificial horizons will put two back in commission when we install them, and battle damage planes could be repaired. But I know, I know. Your engineering people have been working 24-hour duty periods too much this month. It's rough to ask them to work all night again so soon. That sure is rough. Major, get me Captain Quimby. Right here, Major. Oh, you heard? Yes. Rizio's right. Those engineering joes are hurting for some rest. Yes, we all are, but it can't be helped. We've got to get those planes in the air tomorrow. Understand. With our commitments from higher headquarters, there's no other way out. Engineering has got to work all night again tonight. If Rizio could pick some of his men who haven't drawn 24-hour duty lately... Can do. There aren't many, though. Even then, they won't like it. You think I like to ask them to do this? Happy, efficient squadron. And all that gets clobbered when I turn around and I have to slave-drive the boys. I'll understand. They know that's just the way the ball goes. For this squadron to perform its mission tomorrow, so the group can perform its mission, and Wing can perform its mission, those planes must be in commission. 24-hour duty, it's our only out. I'll get on the right away, Major. Good. Quimby, check with the mess hall. Tell them to make sure those engineering boys get a good hot meal at midnight. Another chance to read that letter from your wife. My darling, I hope you're getting these daily letters of mine and that they mean as much to you as to me. But this is the only way I have of holding on to you. And then the paperwork begins. Official letters to be read in written. Directives to be read in filed. Orders to be written and posted. Two, commanding General Fifth Air Force through commanding officer 67, fighter interceptor group. From commanding officer 51st Fighter Interceptor Squadron. Requisition for airmen. One, regard the subject of letter. This unit will rotate 32 airmen in the next 30 days. The children miss you terribly too.  Billy's a Cub Scout now and wants to go away to camp. He was unhappy when I told him he had to stay home to be the man of the family, but now he's quite brave and quite proud about it. Three-day passes will be given to airmen who are doing meritorious service. And finally, the paperwork is done. It's a show club where the top three graded sergeants are having a little party. You're dead tired, but they expressly invited you and you can't let them down.  Well, how do we do when the day's mission fits? Good score. Fighter bomber missions plastered the bridge across Chinampo. Migs? Two, Teigs and yours and Jackson got one earlier. All we do is well tomorrow. We will if we get those aircraft into commission tonight. Then to the officers club. Hi, Major. Well, my big clobbering wingman. We really nailed him, didn't we? Nice shooting, boy.  It was a 30-degree deflection shot. From the way you started, you're going to have a good tour, Teague. But don't let it go to your head. Oh, not me, Major. That was just my first lesson. So, now what did you learn? Listen to the Major and follow the leader. Stretched out on your cot really beat. Trying to keep your eyes open while you finish reading your wife's letter. And so that's all for tonight, darling. All I love from the three who miss you terribly. Yes, yes, who is it? Captain Halle, duty over, sir. Oh, yes, yes, come in. Sorry to wake you, sir. Okay, what's up? A frag order from J.O.C. for tomorrow's missions. Just came in at 2,200. Oh, all right, let's have a look. Looks like it's going to be one of our biggest days. All those missions. Ah, so I see. Well, engineering better deliver those planes tomorrow. Incidentally, we've got a wire from USAF headquarters, Washington, about Sergeant Bochek. What's it say? Red Cross and USAF recommend his immediate reassignment to base nearest home for compassionate reasons. Wife very ill. I don't know. I'll go over and tell Bochek to pack his bags. We'll get him on the first plane leaving tomorrow morning. Roger, sir. Oh, seem to have dropped the letter on the floor when you fell asleep. No, sir, never mind. I can see it from here. Good night, Captain. Night, Major. Your wife, Joanne. Well, it took all day to read your letter, Joanne. I don't know when I'll be able to write. Learn to fly. Serve your country in the air. Be an aviation cadet. You'll get the finest aviation training in the world from the United States Air Force if you're accepted. To qualify, you must be single, be between 19 and 26 and a half years old, and be otherwise qualified. If you can meet the test, join the world's best. Join the aviation cadets. When you successfully complete your training, you'll win your wings and become a commissioned officer. For complete details, visit your local recruiting station or your nearest Air Force base. Make flying your future. This has been another program on Proudly We Hail, presented transcribed in cooperation with this station. Proudly We Hail is produced by the Recruiting Publicity Center for the United States Army and United States Air Force Recruiting Service. This is Kenneth Banghart speaking, inviting you to tune in the same station next week for another interesting story on Proudly We Hail.


John Bolton accidentally explains why U.S. policy on Russia and China is wrong. Professional psychopath John Bolton has an article out with The Hill titled, America Can't Permit Chinese Military Expansion in Cuba, which inadvertently spells out exactly what's wrong with the way the U.S. Empire keeps amassing heavily armed proxy forces on the borders of its large Asiatic enemies. Citing a Wall Street Journal report from last month in which anonymous U.S. officials claim that Havana has entered negotiations with Beijing for a possible future joint military training facility in Cuba, Bolton argues that the U.S. must use any amount of aggression necessary to prevent this facility's construction, up to and including regime change interventionism. The potential of significant Chinese facilities in Cuba is a red flag threat to America, Bolton writes, arguing that such activities could well camouflage offensive weapons, delivery systems, or other threatening capabilities. For example, hypersonic cruise missiles already hard to detect, track, and destroy than ballistic missiles are natural candidates for installation in Cuba, a prospect we cannot tolerate along with many other risks like a Chinese submarine base, he adds. All of which are arguments that could be made pretty much note-for-note by Russia and China about the ways the U.S. has been threatening their security interests with war machinery in their immediate surroundings. Arguing that the U.S. is bound by no commitment limiting our use of force, Bolton advocates revoking diplomatic relations with Cuba, increased economic sanctions against both China and Cuba, and far stricter implementation of existing sanctions as an immediate response to this reported development. Advocating regime change interventionism as an ultimate solution to Cuba's disobedient behavior. Had Presidents Eisenhower or Kennedy acted more forcefully and effectively against Castro, we might have avoided many perilous Cold War crises, sparing us decades of strategic concerns, not to mention the repression of Cuba's people, Bolton writes, adding, with Beijing's threat rising, we should not miss today's moment without seriously reconsidering how to return this geographically crucial island to its own people's friendlier hands. Bolton notes that Guantanamo Bay remains fully available to us today for any operations the U.S. could choose to avail itself of to Topol Havana. This would be the same John Bolton, who in 2002 falsely accused Cuba of having a biological weapons program in a bid to sweep the island up in the same post-911 war push he was helping the U.S. construct against Iraq with extreme aggression. Any time there's the faintest whisper of a foreign power setting up a military presence in Washington's neck of the woods, hawks immediately begin pounding the drums of war and exposing the hypocrisy of the U.S. Empire's insistence on its right to form military alliances and amass proxy forces on the doorstep of its geopolitical rivals. Empire apologists always dismiss Russia and China's claim that U.S. military encroachments on their surroundings are an unacceptable security risk and say that no nation has a right to a sphere of influence which its enemies are forbidden to enter. Yet we can plainly see that the U.S. reserves a right to its own sphere of influence from its own doctrines and behaviors. Earlier this year Senator Josh Hawley ominously asked an audience imagine a world where Chinese warships patrol Hawaiian waters and Chinese submarines stalk the California coastline a world where the People's Liberation Army has military bases in Central and South America a world where Chinese forces operate freely in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean which is exactly what the U.S. military has been doing to China. The single dumbest thing the U.S. centralized empire asks us to believe is that the military encirclement of its top two geopolitical rivals is a defensive action rather than an act of extreme aggression.  Yet because of propaganda that is the mainstream narrative in the western world and millions of people accept it as true. The point of highlighting hypocrisy is not that being a hypocrite is some special crime in and of itself. It's to show that the hypocrite is lying about their motives and behavior and to dismantle their arguments defending their positions. If the U.S. would interpret a Chinese military presence in Cuba as an incendiary provocation then logically the far greater military presence the U.S. has amassed on the borders of Russia and China is a vastly greater provocation by that same reasoning and the U.S. knows it. There exists no argument to the contrary that doesn't rely on a baseless well it's different when we do it assertion. Demanding that Russia and China tolerate behavior from the U.S. that the U.S. would never tolerate from Russia or China is just demanding that the world subjugate itself to the U.S. empire. Those who argue that Russia should have tolerated Ukraine being made into a NATO asset or that China should just accept U.S. military encirclement because something something freedom and democracy are really just saying the U.S. should be allowed to rule every inch of this planet completely uncontested. If what you really want is for the U.S. to dominate every inch of this planet completely uncontested, don't try and tell me that your actual concern is for the people of Ukraine or Taiwan or anywhere else.  Just be honest about what you are and where you stand.


What's up everybody? Jason here for JaspysCaseRace.com.  Remember you get a random number from 0-3-9 We're gonna go by the first number on the left side of the serial number dash. There's your examples there Remember any in our redemptions go to spot 0, any 1-1s go to spot 1, and any non-numbered cards will be randomized to the group So here you go. Here's the dice. Here's the customer name So Kinar, Donna, Andrew got those straight up and then Gretchen, Daniel, and Hans won those in a pack filler And you guys 0-3-9 right there Let's roll the dice and we got ourselves a 3-2-5 times. Good luck 1 2 3 4 5 Gretchen, Donna, Hans 1 2 4 4 down to 0 So Gretchen with 4, Daniel with 6, Gretchen with 8, Sean with 7, Kinar with 3, Leigh-Anne with 5, Sean with 9, Paul with 2 Andrew, any 1-1s, and then Hans, any non-redemptions So I got to do three other random number block randomizers and then we'll get done with the break So good luck to everybody guys


Okay, very good morning. It's Tuesday 25th of February. I hope everyone is still alive after yesterday's price action and as you can see to the side of me then yesterday actually turning out to be one of the biggest one-day point drops we've had in the past three years and this is looking you know specifically chosen here this graphic of the last three years because it puts into context a little bit more of the Kind of acceleration that we had some volatility at the beginning of 2018 kind of post the Trump era So it's kind of more relevant in that sense. I think so here a loss of 1,031 points on the Dow So percentage wise just over three and a half percent the S&P down 3.35 and as that comp down 3.71 percent so significant losses across the board Overnight in Asia Japan remember was shut yesterday So they've played a bit of catch-up down a similar margin or bear off its worst levels and Yeah, much of this was what we were talking about yesterday the kind of renewed fear in the market about the potential Moving toward a full-blown pandemic on the fact that the virus is spreading In other far Eastern nations like South Korea Japan But also mainland Europe in the form of Italy in particular that seemingly acted as a real catalyst for price yesterday This was the Scoreboard if you like of the S&P 500 isn't you as you can see it's kind of a sea of red and This quite common then when there is just a singular Overall macro theme like that. So it's not like an isolated piece of information. It's a broader Macroeconomic scenario and so all sector sufferer in that type of situation Hence the reason why those major three indices really are roughly down the same margin if anything some of the more cyclical Tech-oriented stocks which have really outperformed Getting hit perhaps slightly harder your kind of tech giants Apple Amazon Microsoft all down in excess of 4% of the clothes You will see though. There is one little spot of green there on the board. It's probably the one singular Shining beacon of green and that is gillied sciences and the reason for that was yesterday the World Health Organization and saying that the company's drug Rem Remdesivir is showing signs that it may be able to help treat Coronavirus and so that's the one kind of singular bright spot on what otherwise was a complete red day This is what it looked like in context as well in terms of some of the year-to-date price action So we have had other short episodes of course when we've had say bouts of Interest on the coronavirus when certain numbers were getting Adjusted for methodology purposes and so on however this far in excess exceeding that price movement Two things then on the charts and I think a day like today It's really important to listen to Sam when he comes on because from a technical perspective now obviously There's a possibility that we could see a bit of a bounce in prices If you if you're looking the world that way that already has been occurring to some degree US stock futures already up quite quite significantly Obviously in contrast, we've got to put it in context of the big sell-off yesterday So a bounce of over a hundred points already in the NASDAQ future the Dow's already up about 200 But obviously granted we fell over a thousand yesterday So what normally is quite common from a statistical point of view It's uncommon for the market to be down a thousand point clips again and again and again In fact, it's incredibly rare and the only real time that I can remember in my career of that happening was right in the midst of the global financial crisis kind of going back to the 0809 era When there was you know complete fear in the market at that point and it was just all out selling I don't really Anticipate that in this scenario and you know whether or not we we do see further downward moves It's surely it's a possibility But I guess from my point of view to listen to Sam is about okay if we did bounce back up again Where would be key areas where the market might respond and you know It's just cycling through a couple of charts myself this morning I won't go into too much detail as to not pollute what Sam is gonna say But here's the S&P 500 and you can see the pickup that we've had During the Asia-Pacific session as the kind of dust to settle on yesterday's move But this was the S&P from yesterday few people were looking at that trend line going back from the year-to-date price activity The move that we had initially Going back to the Iranian situation when the Middle Eastern tensions were flaring if you remember right at the beginning of the Year, then we had the last little dip at the end of January. We did break through there, but we're back above there fairly comfortably at the moment now and then looking at the Dow yesterday Looking at this on kind of two bases one You had that double bottom from the year-to-date price activity and that was quite a key target yesterday When that was breaking oil was subsequently almost Insynchronized fashion breaking also a respective support point and that was quite a good for a timing on the short If you were part of that trade yesterday, but again, we're back above there at the moment And I was looking at a Slightly longer time frame here at the Dow because it helps put into contact contrast Some of that significant key area which we were trading yesterday because not only was that that double bottom year-to-date You can see it was an area of Restriction to some of the upside price action resistance that we had towards the back end of November of last year So quite a key area now where the market's trading and yesterday We came down these are all Areas which we've marked before The support point here coming in from again some of the previous highs and lows that have acted on this move up to record Territory we've had over the last several months Interestingly the day yesterday the only days that have topped that in terms of a one-day period of volatility is You got to go back. Let me just shift the chart over so you can see it This was that rectangle here. That was the price activity if you remember in 2017 and then we out was when the corporation tax cut came through and you know the earnings profit guidance going forward at that point in time you remember was almost vertical and Equity valuations were soaring at that point and then all of a sudden the market collapsed as signs were that the Fed We're going to have to start speeding up their tightening of policy and that collapse that we had there in February of 2018 was actually slightly more violent and the only time it's been a little bit more consistent on back-to-back days than what we've had Today so yeah a bit of a recovery The other thing then that's also bouncing as that Move is just dying off a little bit. There was quite a nice technical Rejection of an area in dolly yen here as well on the longer-term charts. I mean this is a multi month Area of resistance going back to the beginning of 2019 and that being respected and dropping back down through Some of the price action that we've had throughout the last few sessions as well a Couple of things then to point out Before I really move on and this is more Me talking about a couple of concepts and and point one is From a more practical point of view what has got to happen in order for the market to Reignite another down day. So what do you now as a trader need to look? Forward to in order for the market now having repriced itself to some degree in regards to The new reality of the situations equities have come down and so on is well What next and the thing I'd say I'd be looking out for or the following One is if we quickly switch over to the coronavirus Kind of live board you can see here total confirmed cases at 80,000 deaths of 2,700 to be honest. I think these numbers are Not particularly relevant in terms of a trading decision. What what graph if you like is more relevant in here and now is this one and this is looking at the tracking of actual Numbers of confirmed cases when mapping and it's the key one that I'm looking at is this green one Sorry, the excuse me the the yellow one. I don't know. It looks a little bit small here It's quite dwarfed, but if you were to zoom into that actually that's picked up quite substantially And that's the the other locations outside of this one, which is the mainland China obviously mainland China needs to be watched as they try to Open up their factories again and get their activity back In order to counteract the the implications in their economy, but it's the yellow line, which is then Italy Which is if we click on here Is the key one that people have been watching and then subsequently giving its geographic location What about then the sensitivity to other neighboring and close proximity nations? So here obviously it's we the two that already have confirmed cases of a slightly higher number would be Germany and France Neighboring then you've got Switzerland And then Austria as well on the northeastern side of the country. So any further Breakouts in these areas The Italian numbers to really grow. I think there would be the things which could create further interest from the market But for the moment it needs to be another rapid Increase in those numbers and it needs to be in new areas what we need Because the World Health Organization have not yet classified this as a pandemic a pandemic generally by definition means it needs to be growing Numbers rapidly in multiple different geographic locations worldwide And so what we need to see is an explosion like in Italy in the lights of Germany France Perhaps England as well and then you might start to see a secondary further reaction Into what we saw yesterday. So at the moment I do feel relatively calm about what has happened I Don't think that it really Shifts things too much if anything one thing that you probably saw yesterday is almost capitulation when the market starts to go into freefall people are just chasing the moves There are some technical good points to hit the market to get short again And that kind of forced the sellers to kind of chase the momentum a little bit And so the move can be somewhat overdone in that respect the one asset class that That did originally rise but then came down quite quickly as we went through the the afternoon was gold And I'd imagine there'll be quite a few traders out there that perhaps got a little bit hurt on the back of That pullback because if you look here We got quite close yesterday at the peak and around midday up towards the 1700 marker which was that previous area of highs that we had towards the beginning of 2013 So we're talking about multi-year highs here from technical levels of resistance But you know if you think about the Veracity of which gold has just soared over the last few days You know it's kind of like looking at that S&P and the late 2017 era You know it has that that air of People chasing the market higher and so inevitably When the market kind of pops in the short term it comes down quite dramatically. So that doesn't mean that I still wouldn't be a buyer of gold But for me the the gold price has got to probably get down to around a much lower level to feel much more assured about that being a An area to get in if you look at this area here Perhaps the strategy could then be for a medium-term position Picking up an entry point trying to get in and around that area of consolidation that we had a support and resistance going back towards the mid part of Here of the month and then using the 1600 as your marker to have your kind of stop place with some of those previous Highers looking for them for an eventual move and again This is over the medium term not the intro day to move back higher taking your relevant clips off various points Kind of here and then here and then just scaling out of the position as the market continues to move back up So I still like the the long gold positioning But as per anything asset when it rises so violently like it had done I think perhaps just a little bit overextensions and profit-taking in the short term it comes back But that doesn't change the overall Feeling about the direction of that asset perhaps over the next couple of months in general The the other final point that I wanted to stress here was for any new traders today Potentially is a very tricky day to trade because your mindset is almost polluted by the notion of what happened yesterday and whether it's the case of You felt like you missed out yesterday or you got the direction right But the execution wrong because of the general volatility might have been quite hard to get your execution on because that requires a lot of work It's really important to reanalyze today Objectively review and then look to trade accordingly and you know This was kind of a word of a bit of advice that I tweeted out my way into work this morning because I've seen a lot of traders lose Money quite easily on a daylight today where they come in almost blinkered by yesterday today is a brand-new day so fresh eyes a fresh mentality and Reanalyze and don't let yesterday's moves cloud today's judgment is my cut my kind of phrase for today The final few things that I just wanted to show share with you as I said There's a couple of good graphics that I thought might be relevant then I'll hand you over to Sam Was this may perhaps this one explains a little bit about what I was talking about From the trigger point of what to look out for going forward if things are to get more serious and Therefore to add continuity to yesterday's risk-off trade and that's that red line there as you can see We've had that Hubei province little spike as we've gone through some number of visions of course But if you actually look at the red line That's the one that's been the most concerned to markets And I guess it's about the future trajectory of that line Which will determine whether or not markets will need to take this move any further the one perhaps Sign of positivity in all this this was looking at basically shipping coming out of China and This was looking at the amount of million metric tons per day And it was looking at outbound traffic So this was this idea then of looking at alternative data as a means to try and look at How China how quickly can they come back to some normalization of their production activity in order to counter out the bottlenecks That we've seen evident in other economic data globally and as you can see here They've managed to ramp up quite radically the amount of shipping More recently and yesterday we were looking at traffic congestion live tracking charts to have a look in China in major Areas like Shanghai and Beijing and there was quite a distinct amount of movement of traffic once again for the first time really Since the lockdown had commenced across China. So these could be seen as more positive signs going forward the final chart is is oil and One thing for oil that I just wanted to comment was obviously yesterday was Some downside movement was being seen we did see I Mean I was looking at this with a couple of the guys from our sessions With a with another group That I deal with and it was really that low It was coming in and you know as we were going into the really the US crossover There was a bit of an opportunity there where the market saw some hesitation Right around that area of the previous load that we printed back on the 18th And it was really nice with the timing of cross-asset movement when equities were quite precarious support levels And when they started to threaten oil then was quite a nice trigger point for that equity move in terms of the domino effect And then we we push down lower now oil has bounced Interestingly, we remain well within that that rectangle. We've had on a while and this longer date is daily continuation of oil and Some of the OPEC plus rhetoric has come out once again, obviously What you'll tend to see is the amount of Comments that OPEC plus make particularly Saudi Arabia goes hand in hand of exactly where the price of oil is trading The more violently it starts to sell off the more the frequent the comments become and So yesterday you started to see it a reemergence of the discussion about are they going to have to make some kind of Deal and early agreement a cut to production But at the moment remember we've already got a week to go or so until their official meeting So I wouldn't be looking out for too much not unless well gets pressured and we start to see more dramatic movement And for that to happen We've really got to get through that lower bound of that kind of double bottom of the February price action To start opening up a much deeper move here on the daily charts South toward the mid 40 levels, but I don't really see that happening today To be quite honest, but still something to be technically aware of. All right. Let me hand you over to Sam And my final words will be for the calendar for today What have we got? Well, it's a fairly quiet morning. So I guess just a little bit of patience Just just reset your mentality I'd say restore some rationale and calmness to your decision-making and then go from there do listen up so closely to Sam's level picking It's going to be potentially quite key today Given the scope of volatility might be on any pullbacks quite large and then in the US session US consumer confidence main kind of highlight a couple of Fed speakers to be aware of as well as US auction two-year note You've got some UK supply also coming to market. All right. That is it. I hand you over to Sam and I wish you a good day Head. Thanks very much guys Yeah, hi guys. Good morning. I hope we've all had a good evening start offer I guess with with US equities and I'm gonna bring in the Got the NASDAQ here, but we'll change it over to the S&P see decent days To the downside big moves. I think on on days like this. It's always a case that's taking it easy Don't feel again like you need to be in a trade draw up your analysis I mean up first things first if you come in you got lines all over your chart Just get rid of everything start again You know, what are there the lines in the sand that you need to be aware of? Obviously the to the to the downside you've got those lows from yesterday double bottom That's going to be potentially a magnet if we do start to push lower If we just put this on the 15 minute here with you know, not really doing too much We're just coming down to what was the the low of the early morning trade So here potentially is your first level Where if you get below you might see a bit of a further drift down and with all of these trades You want to think about well if it does go below here is there room for it to go a bit more? So I'll be saying well if we break 45 we could be looking to drift down sort of 41 then 37 And then you know, there's a bigger move below that where it could go to 28 To the upside well we're in a bit of a range aren't we just from early hours this morning Those highs there you could also draw a bit of a line up around 30 to 60 We struggled to really clear that in the post cash open as well So pretty big level above that you'd feel pretty confident that we can actually get a fast move to the upside And that would be really the same picture here on both the Dow You can see this on its low of that morning and the NASDAQ as well So yeah, that's how I would be looking at it I don't really have an opinion on whether I think we're gonna test the low or it's an opportunity to buy the dip right now Because we're banging the middle of the range of The the last how many hours they've gone eight nine hours So I'm not really too interested about making a call However, if we do get below these lows then we could start getting a bit more interested saving the NASDAQ down to To 9100 and then those lows where you've got a triple bottom as well And like the Dow if you break that area here and the volume starts coming in the backs gets excited as well We break this point maybe you know aggressively or on the retest You're looking to sort of unwind that towards 28,000 on the flip side if it gets above those highs Then you've got to be aware of the resistance point around 28 300 as well gold pretty Interesting yes, obviously spiking to the upside in very early trade on Sunday evening Only to then come back down with a vengeance around 7 p.m. And we're just starting to see a bit of a bid come in here And I like quite like I was just looking at this just in the other room this trend line From some of those highs yesterday. It's not by all means perfect You can start to see here. You could argue one two three real key tests of that coming up to the fourth now As a bit of a guide above there. You're happy to maybe look for some long I know you've got a bit of resistance around 52 point five So probably more of an area here if we can get above there highs of the day Low as a yesterday before that push down into sort of the evening UK time around 7 15 Is how I would be looking at that to play to pan out the low that we got You can see it was a nice bit of support that we had back on Friday And really just just looking at this, you know could argue worth having 1641.7 on there as well but you know these would be the points where I'd be half interested in getting into a trade and Absolutely, it could spend Periods of hours in between that where I'm not interested in training one two three four five 15-minute candles just from there to there where it's just you know gradually pushed higher than now I've got 1641 to 52 over 10 bucks where I'm not really interested with those if it goes above or below Then I'll take action other than that just you know, no harm is sitting on that sideline oil similar actually You know, we can just see a little push lower is European open starts and maybe some of this risk comes back in but we haven't broken out the The bottom part of that range really you can see just below the pivot 51 50 pretty key level Albeit, you know chop through in late trade yesterday, but look at all of yesterday from 9 a.m It was such a good line in the sand really was so if you're looking at an oil trade Or be it are you really interested at 8 30 in the morning? 51 40 is a good a level as you're gonna get for just a bit of a guide or potential guide that you know below there We might start drifting down 51 20 and then it gets exciting, you know You start thinking about these loads coming in But if that holds then you know, we can absolutely push higher You've got some intraday support that we just broke through here 51 64 it's a bit of a line in the sand where the balls are saying, you know, if I've gone long on these lows I want that to break and and can get excited with all of these trades That gap to lower you obviously just got to be aware, you know If you are sure that the momentum could well be on these breaks these hires to really look to feel those I don't think we feel any gap today about This is something just to bear in mind perhaps for later on currencies You've got the euro just pushing to the upside this morning bit of a base You could argue is the pivot good level you can see from where we get low fan resistance broke through came back down What a level what a bit of a you know good guide that is for the balls and the bears below the pivot then You know, it's the lower part of that range over the last couple of training sessions And we look down towards the s1 again if we can keep pushing up here You know the the highs from from yes, they don't seem a million miles away No real trend line over the last couple of days that I like the the look of to be honest Think just putting this on that 15 minute chart this resistance level We've sort of broken through here helps with a bit of dollar weakness is not a bad one as well I think if you are long to stop in this case below 108 71 is is good enough, you know, if it comes back below there It's just likely to get relatively messy not far from its high of the day as was pound when I was looking earlier You can see that's knocking on the door there a similar kind of trade to that euro in breaking those previous highs of the Well the early morning session 12950 would be where you want that stop below got quite a bit of resistance just up here From Friday, you can see we where we just started to push lower into that close So R1 obviously great place to have taken profit and then you're really looking at the high from Friday, which is I'm going to call more of a zone because you can see we Bound some lows here on the 18th. We broke through then on the 19th and really it's now 12980 to 129 Well 90 as well So quite a key zone there for the pounds of the upsides putting this now in the 15 minute You can see a couple of these markets that have potentially recovered a touch after gapping down You know, they're gonna start to have something like this where they trend up and you get these trend lines on and breaks of these Levels all be it could be today could be down the lion Could then be what really gets us going to the downside and here it might be that the pound does it later on It also breaks its previous highly It also breaks its trend line and that's when you get a big bigger move. I think it's unwise to go into the day with a bias I'm saying, you know equities are going to be bought. We're buying a dip. It's going to fill that gap It's going to be the trade that you know makes my month You know trade what you see not necessarily what you think that would be my advice Yeah, well, yeah, Anthony just saying Twitter's way too biased about about buying the dip and I absolutely agree with that You know dates I've recently actually deleted a lot of people Twitter that were incredibly bearish and my trading improved massively from doing that But yeah, absolutely, you know, especially with Trump's tweet last night where he's talking about the stock market being incredible And that coronavirus is under under control. I'm just having a look here. Actually a tweet I saw from odd stats who were fantastic whenever the market S&P was moving They would tweet they haven't tweeted since September, but this is one that was just going to do in the rounds last night Just talking about a 3% drop on on a Monday after setting a new all-time high in the past 10 days There's been five times One two three six times this has happened three turned into bear markets two turned into corrections one into nothing So just you know be wary of this It's not an opportunity to click buy right now Let the market tell you when that is the case and if I was looking at the decks, which we are right now You know, I'd be saying well I'd happily have been sure on the break of that really targeting Probably literally this low here in that gap and 13,000. So if I wanted to get long really I'd rather be late to the party here and maybe just attack the you know if we break the high of the day Why would I want to you know try get? You know by the the low here try to to pick that bottom. It's it wouldn't really be too beneficial I would say unless you know a headline comes out to really look for that as usual though any questions, please Do do let us know my advice would be simply to take your time Take your time. I don't feel you like you need to be in a trade identify your levels. Where are they if they don't come in? No drama. I hope you all have a good trading date. Okay, she will later on


October has been an amazing month. I went to DEF CON. It was cool to travel to Columbia. It was the first time of me being in South America and you know then I took two weeks off so I just got back. It feels great and really energizing. I suggest that I haven't taken time off for two years and definitely recommend helps you with the mental health. But it also has been a record breaking month for crypto. As you see at the bottom there, October 44 exploits. That's a record. Three billion year-to-date has been lost, which is also a record. We have the best most successful year so far. And with that basically why I'm saying all this is because the security and the technology doesn't get better automatically. Like we have many teams around focusing on security, how we can build like better tools, better practices, and create bulletproof code. But that's even though it can get better, we'll never get to the point of no hacks, no exploits. People make mistakes, people write code, and that's normal. That's just the reality. Like from first principles I do not believe that we can build bullet proof protocols that will never lose any money in kind of unintended fashion. So because of that, the need for insurance I think is quite apparent and very few people argue actually with that. However, right now we know the landscape of all the problems that we have in teams try to do their best. Some don't care so much and just winging it. It's okay. We are very much in experimentation phase. But then paired with all that we're doing, we need to scale up the whole insurance industry. And so far that has not been very successful as probably most of you know. The traction is very low. The main problem is I guess lack of underwriting capital because insurance is all built around capital efficiency on like leveraging on your capital in order to produce yield. Right now as you know a liquidity provider or a guy with some cash, I want to make more money. I'm not going to put money in insurance protocol for whatever reason it's sometimes trust because obviously all the protocols are levered and so you have to kind of trust that they're not going to go into default. That's one problem but then also because the demand is questionable and everyone tries different products to see and test the market where the actual need is coming from. Because the early assumption was hey like everyone wants to stay protected but that's not true. Usually you know most of us here I think are kind of defy enthusiasts and technologists. We're okay with just aping or like deploying a bunch of cash like on different protocols and then overall like that plays out if you're diversified well. But then the reality today is the numbers are pretty low and all the protocols that are out there don't really have a lot of capital compared to all the defy TVLs. And everyone tries to tackle problems from different aspects. That's why I personally like our niche very much because literally everyone here does completely different thing. And so there are a lot of ideas. It is very friendly environment and we're not really limited by competitive advantages which is feels good right now. However, yeah I mean the problem is still there and it's been like two years of a lot of active development by many teams. There are also some new protocols and they try to hit other niches but then everyone kind of battles with the same challenges. So today I'm not really coming with so many answers but I just want to intellectually engage you, steer some ideas, maybe bring on the light of the stuff that we're working on what experiments or other teams are doing just so you become a little more aware. And I'll start in the reverse order now. So the reinsurance market there's a new team called REE and it's really cool to see a new wave of projects that try to go in the real world aspect. So this reinsurance market what they actually start or like trying to achieve and they just raise some capital is taking reinsurance market for traditional insurance firm and just executing that stuff on chain. So you know or heard of Lloyd's they are the biggest reinsurance market right now. Basically most of the insurance firms around the world they trade their long tail risk. By long tail I mean kind of your risk of default or maybe like not having enough operating capital to pay down the claims. So that's what thereafter has nothing to do with DeFi but I thought it would be cool to bring this up. Real world assets is something different teams talked about over the last few years. The real motivation there is that in insurance you want to be diversified. You want to take a bunch of uncorrelated risks because then you can take on more risk and make more money off of it. So Nexus Mutual has voiced the intent to do that. I don't have any intel how far they've gotten but it's not really live yet. Nimble is another team that just getting started there and the idea is at least like for Nexus you know they can take on a bunch of DeFi risk but then also leverage on their capital with some real world insurances and so that should increase the yield and the utility of the capital that they can provide. Then RCA it stands for reciprocally covered assets and it's been launched by Ease I think just a few months ago. Ease is you probably heard of Armify they just kind of created no KYC wrapper for Nexus Mutual but now they actually have their own like new major push the product they rebranded for Ease and the way I understood it in the simple terms is it's sort of a mutual basically they say it's a no premium insurance but obviously there's no free lunch you know and what you do is you take your tokens and wrap them in a vault and all the different people like wrap their yield bearing tokens in different volts and if some of those tokens takes a loss because of a hack or exploit or some like devaluation of that token then they rebalance all the volts so basically by wrapping your assets if something happens to your assets then everyone else pays you back but then again if somebody else gets hacked you will lose part of your kind of like deposit there so it is very interesting to watch how like people react because you know of course people are always willing to give up their risk maybe like pay a little for it but then when you cannot account for the losses you might take on that that makes people a little more like wary and not and hesitant to part take and the last one is actually the new product that we've been working on for the past like half the year and actually started like envisioning it about a year ago we call it solace native and it is basically inspired by FDIC in a sense that we want to create a federated insurance system for the Dallas so the protocols should take it is my believe a responsible approach we say customer protection is kind of like one of the terms but I think every industry around the world benefited from that and allowed users to actually if not blindly but comfortably just engage with the products today as protocols and DeFi we ask people to read the docs you know to trust our audits but then it takes a lot of time into work for the users and if we want to see the mass adoption I think it's expected that user should just come on your app and just buy or like use whatever tool we make at least a streamlined activity would benefit us all and of course there are more components to it a lot of people focus on UI UX design and just like make it easier because you know even getting your own wallet is a kind of like a problem sometimes but with the native insurance the idea is fairly simple all the protocols come together and put bunch of their token into the system that is leverages like an underwriting capital but then it makes them economically enticed to sort of follow the best practices and the rules that the whole federated system puts on the protocols and then if something goes wrong you know that you're going to get a payout and so that allows the protocols that participate in the system basically guarantee to their users that if we're going to get exploited we're going to get a payout that we will either transfer to make the protocol whole again you know sometimes you can just refill the vault and everyone is sappy but then another way is just to pay the users back and so some of the interesting things that we thought we should leverage is the native tokens that's part of the reason why we call this native is because everyone tries to underwrite with the liquid assets is like ETH or stablecoins and especially right now in the bear market it's really tough to get fresh capital especially externally but then even within the ecosystem that's really scarce and that's kind of the reason why so what we are forming is you can think of it as an index of all the different tokens of the different protocols that they contribute from their treasuries I think it's no secret that every protocol sits on like fairly big treasuries just full of their tokens that are only of paper value like you know we have millions of dollars of solar-stoken and I can't sell it I can't really do much with it it's just there as a paper money but then there's still way to utilize that and that's where we plan to harvest a lot of value for like this insurance system but then of course as a federated approach we want to drive the security and we've been partnering with a lot of different security agents you know smart contract monitoring so insurance doesn't really work without the security measures that are a card in place if you look at the real-world insurance you have the governments that mandate certain rules and make companies follow those makes you know users to do certain actions and that allows insurance firms to actually evaluate all the risks if we're ensuring protocol that can do whatever they want and we have no visibility into it there's kind of no way to manage the risk and evaluate and like assess all of that and so that's the problem with a lot of products you know sometimes people or like protocols or developers come like hey like you know can I get insurance for this and can I get insurance for that given the bear market I always say yes you know we could use money but in reality that's that's more of a joke sometimes because if we don't know how we can evaluate the risk that there's no reason or way to ensure that so with a lack of regulatory frameworks or hard rules that the teams or the protocols have to follow we need to incentivize them to use the best practices in their different ways to do it another thing that we did in like launch at the beginning of the year was the portfolio insurance it takes a very different approach from what every other protocol does in a sense that most of them sell you a policy for a protocol so if you deploy capital to let's say like Badger Dow or like other you would buy policy for that set exposure we wanted to make it easier for the users and asset managers in like C-fi because imagine if you're managing a portfolio of like 10 different exposures you need 10 different policies if you exit oftentimes you cannot cancel the policy so there's a lot of like friction and we wanted to streamline that so we thought let's focus on the address and ensure the address so you can just continue on with your yield farming and don't worry about insurance so the portfolio insurance actually is a policy that you buy for your address and then you deploy capital across four chains over 220 protocols you're insured everywhere it's dynamic and you only pay for what you use it every six hours it updates so you're always you know staying covered throughout your journey and that creates some actually like benefits to us even though we maybe are not able to like see the future of okay we're gonna put your money but it creates much more diversified portfolio of risk for us but then obviously you can benefit from it because your coverage limit that you usually set on your individual policies is a single one for your whole address and so the more diversified your portfolio is the cheaper is the insurance so that's another ongoing experiment but you know really it's pretty much like a finished baked-out product in right now we're only limited by the amount of underwriting capital we can sell so it gets usually just sold out but then because it's still very little amount we cannot like deeply lever into it that's sort of like the challenge we're in right now so I guess the question really I wanted to pose on this talk is if we can come up with like some more creative designs because the truth is everyone looks at the traditional insurance thing okay like what are they doing well and then try to just port it over and slap bunch of like different economics I mean there's like VE we have bunch of staking we have yield farming we have been bonding actually so we were the first protocols I think the only one I think I believe one of the Solana insurance protocols also followed the bonding model so basically we are the only EVM DeFi insurance protocol that actually acquires the underwriting capital so while everyone tries to attract it externally we buy it up because then it makes it easier for us to pay claims there are less of like incentives challenges because if it's somebody else's capital that you need to pay out it's you know how do you do it you can enforce them but then people get pissed and then they don't put the money and and so there are all these issues but then there they're a bunch of like new ideas that we've been thinking about is okay what if we can underwrite with illiquid assets or pay claims with liquid assets do people like need stablecoin payouts intuitively yes like you usually want to you know get your money back if you get hacked and not just in some like token that you cannot use but if you could use it and if it's like a fundamental block of like DeFi that then you can just move on with maybe that's that would be okay and acceptable in that whole challenge of like just underwriting capital is like pretty big but then also you see all the DeFi protocols sort of like build this like insurance model and then slap the token on top they use it to attract capital they use it for like voting or like staking to whether like assess risk or assess claims to do something but then maybe we can integrate more and create more like gamified model like you can you know imagine what if you buying an insurance equates to you just buying a token that's you know like one like simple idea but like people don't really like haven't really done that much so then some others is just claims processing I think that's where you as a user is like insurance buyer stark you wouldn't want to buy policy if you're not sure that you're gonna get payout back so that's at least where my journey started I remember you know in 2020 like watching Nexus Mutual launch and I thought that it's suboptimal and like that's not a product that I would use and that's what put me like on the path to go this way but still today claims are pretty suboptimal like there's very little confidence that you're gonna get a payout and usually it's either relying on the trust of the protocol is like faithful we see like insurance you know does pay claims which is nice but then they can also like not pay claim and with like Nexus Mutual with the whole like problem on incentives we know like there are a bunch of claims that should have been paid but haven't gotten paid and so a lot of teams look at like outsourcing claims to the third party so Uma and Clara's both like offer those kind of services and you know we work with both but then still you could think you know they're all these like token problems so like 51 percent attacks because like some of the claims have not been faithfully paid and when we look like okay can we have like a separate party outside of the protocol that can basically process the claims unfortunately the trigger based claims are really hard to like execute and like making it purely quantitative or automatic is still sort of like a dream we strive to achieve you still need human interaction there and kind of like look because all these exploits are sometimes brilliant but like really tough to like quantify or create automated systems that just evaluate whatever it's a valid claim or not or if there was a loss in a another interesting idea and actually like a lot of investors that we talked to you know say hey like you should have more actuaries like they believe that that will solve the problem and I'm smiling because that's I mean somewhat true like yeah there's always more intelligence you could use but then even right now that we do have like enough intelligence from like the traditional world and traditional actuaries to you know evaluate the risk and try to like assess that so that's not really like an underpinning challenge but then we could use more intelligence like with the risk management especially when you try to predict the future I mean like that's what we do right like we just look at our portfolio of like risk and try to see how much money we're going to lose that that's the whole goal like if we can gauge pretty well how much money we're going to lose then we can make money on it and that's where you could use like actuaries but that's the work that people need to be doing and it doesn't work when you just try to use wisdom of a crowd like if we all just vote of like okay what is the risk of you know event a we're gonna be far off the the actual value and so it takes intelligent work and you know full-time people so creating the network where we could like incentivize more financial mathematicians and individuals that already have the skills but don't really know how to like port them into crypto because what we were kind of surprised to see we thought that it's gonna be a big challenge to like actually like attracting like traditional risk managers but we have done our risk management risk assessment everything is open source all the numbers all the analytics all the models and we're like want to be very transparent I guess just for the philosophy of it but then the side effect of that was that we got a bunch of cool people in our discord from like traditional insurance firms and so I can firmly say that there is a lot of interest out there and people just don't know what to do in crypto like if you talk to like an actuary that you know works at Lloyd's every like a lot of people are excited by crypto but they don't know if they could use their craft that they already will know and so I think we could tap into that more through proper incentives and tokenomics this this probably more but yeah so the few like new things that we've been working on we know like some other teams so also pursue that is one of the big ones are audits like right now we know that okay audit is a good practice everyone is getting audits but then you don't really have this repercussions if you know you got audited and then you got hacked the auditors are not like really liable for any of that so you have these like a little like broken incentives thing in a lot of teams especially like auditors like maybe mostly auditors want to have now insurance with their audits and so that's where we started working with some into like rating that product so I think over the next year you'll see a lot more auditors being able to like actually offer insurance with their audits and of course like that's better for the teams you as a new project or like you launching a new product you get audited and then that already gives confidence to the users and so the user doesn't have to buy insurance really that's where we want to push the space where the users don't really have to worry about all these niche risks that are very tough to like analyze and evaluate I mean your best practice right now is just to diversify across bunch of different protocols but then I think we can do better reinsurance is another important one as I already like mentioned earlier like some teams are working on that in it might sound counterintuitive like we still don't have insurance and then we're already trying to build like reinsurance but those two kind of come in come together because we're insuring bunch of stuff we also want to get insurance for our own skin so that would be nice also recently we have a lot of I think talks and in Gauntlet and launch is launching like Dow Treasury Management Platform I think it's called but then there I think mimic is also so that there are a bunch of new projects and protocols that pursue Dow Treasury Management and try to like hedge the risk on that front because I mean in reality like most of the protocols are pretty bad at managing their treasuries I know like we've made tons of mistakes that cost us money and we could have done better over the last years and with that yeah with that like I think there are a lot more options and tools we can provide and like build for the Dow Treasury is because protecting kind of like the teams and the protocols it's easier and almost better than just trying to like go direct to the consumer because the users are might not be like aware of certain little things around the risk do you know stands for directors and operators insurance that's something that you see a lot in different traditional industries so if you are you know like a founder or something that was wrong you get sued you can get protected by that insurance and we know that in crypto founders do expose themselves to like a lot of risks even when we're all you know faithful developers I guess not all but you know most of us our builders like we're still exposed to a lot of risks and some insurance there it could be nice please like I would use it but yeah credit default swaps is another big thing thing we see more and more protocols trying to do under-collaterized lending or like lending to institutions and all that and so that really opens up a pretty cool avenue of like credit default swaps we know how huge the market is in the traditional world with that so these are just a few things that are kind of like in the pipeline right now so yeah like stay tuned but then yeah like we're not the only protocol that like working on those things and I'm really excited to see where we can take this so yeah given the time I'm just gonna close with that like my belief is that insurance should be built into like the foundation of defy it is built in every industry because that there's certain layer of protection that we need to provide to the users if we really want to see any scale and so I mean my job is to build better products you know get better product market they make the products cheaper because the problem with like capital and you know like the cost of it is just the spread between how much money how you have to pay versus how much money the investors are paying like underwriters is still like pretty big right so that's what all the teams try to like close down the gap and once we get closer to it there's gonna be a lot more traction and attention in fun so with that I'll finish thank you very much oh by the way also disclaimer like we have nothing to do with Solana you were saying in a part of the talk that your business in a sense is like predicting the future right and the better you can do it the better you can profit or the the better you can lower your costs and serve continue to serve your your your users and I'm wondering what is missing there like what are how can you do that better or what is missing there is it data is it the models how to improve on that yeah so the the models are not actually that much of an issue even though we do have very little history I mean really there's been two years and using two years of data isn't really often so good at like predicting so you have to build in more like safety factors and all of your models but as I said the the end like the problem is like closing that gap because insurance really works at scale diversification of the risk allows you to lever on your capital if you have one million dollars and you're trying to ensure two million dollars your yield on that is still gonna be pretty low and because of that it's really hard to attract more capital so there's this like chicken and egg problem that everyone faces the cold start of like insurance is really tough because yeah like just with low capital you cannot ensure a lot if you have a hundred million you know you could like ensure 200 to 50 hundred million dollars fairly comfortably and then generate yield on that that you can like pass on to your capital providers and that also allows you to drive down the premium you know right now kind of like the best rates are around 2% like annualized premium so like if you're insuring a hundred thousand dollars you would pay like two hundred two thousand and that sort of like burns a lot of users and kind of like stops them but that's only for the safe protocols like who the fuck wants to ensure a unit swap V2 like I mean I don't think it's ever gonna get broken but then with the new tools really you know it's you can get up to like you know 10% or like 15% right now across the board we see 5% is like the break even point like if you ensure the entire space and like you can charge like 5% and so like that that would like pay down like all the losses and stuff in overtime it actually is decreasing like you know we are getting better even though the numbers are still pretty big like the the risk rating on the capital is actually like going down so you know once it hits below like two or one percent then it's gonna be like very like easily accessible and be like easier to attract the capital to and so right now everyone launching and operating at small scale has to like charge a ton of money and then take on a lot more risk you know we are all pretty much like if you compare to like the traditional standards are like way way risky than anything and I mean like when people like talk about insurance smart contracts you know sometimes they just think it's like not worth it right now