Bankless - The Alfalfa Podcast | Layer Zero

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

The Alfalfa Podcast—comprised of Arman Assadi, Nick Urbani, Stephen Cesaro, and Eric Johanson—is the shared mindspace of “four radically moderate internet and finance entrepreneurs.” The Alfalfa bros wash down mezcal with hot takes about crypto, the macro outlook, politics, investing, and philosophy. This one is a lot of fun. Also, is this episode a try-out for the Alfalfa Podcast to join the Bankless Network? We’re not totally sure, so you’ll have to let us know! ------ 📣 ALCHEMIX | Get a self-repaying loan today!  https://bankless.cc/Alchemix  ------ 🚀 SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER:          https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/    🎙️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST:                 http://podcast.banklesshq.com/    ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:  ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALED ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  ❎ ACROSS | BRIDGE TO LAYER 2 https://bankless.cc/Across  🏦 ALTO IRA | TAX-FREE CRYPTO https://bankless.cc/AltoIRA  👻 AAVE V3 | LEND & BORROW CRYPTO https://bankless.cc/aave  ⚡️ LIDO | LIQUID ETH STAKING  https://bankless.cc/lido    🔐 LEDGER | NANO S PLUS WALLET https://bankless.cc/Ledger     ------ Topics Covered: 0:00 Intro 6:53 Alfalfa Origins 12:55 Nick Urbani 17:39 Arman Assadi 20:35 Eric Johanson 23:08 Stephen 31:40 The Vibe 35:30 Alfalfa vs Bankless 43:08 Squad Wealth 48:45 Authenticity 55:00 Bullish 1:02:53 Bearish 1:11:45 Macro, BTC, ETH 1:17:05 Is David Bearish? 1:22:08 The Merge Trumps Macro 1:29:06 Priced In 1:42:20 Why Alfalfa? ------ Resources: The Alfalfa Podcast https://linktr.ee/alfalfapod  Nick Urbani https://twitter.com/NUrbani?s=20&t=1wXIWr2RUOfyHKw9zJqREw  Arman Assadi  https://twitter.com/ArmanAssadi?s=20&t=1wXIWr2RUOfyHKw9zJqREw  Stephen Cesaro https://twitter.com/StephenCesaro?s=20&t=1wXIWr2RUOfyHKw9zJqREw  Eric Johanson https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjohanson1/  ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/bankless-disclosures 

You don't talk about this stuff on bankless. Welcome to Layer Zero. Layer Zero is a podcast of unscripted conversations with the people that make up the Ethereum community. Crypto is built by code but is composed by people and each individual member of the crypto community has their own story to tell. Cyphopunks understood that the code they write impacts the people that use it. And Layer Zero focuses on the people behind the code because Ethereum is people all the

way down and always has been. Today on Layer Zero, I have a very, very special episode. I'm extremely excited about this one because I have not one. one, not two, not three, but four guests, the four members of the Alpha Alpha podcast. And I met these four individuals. You will hear this story in the podcast during my times in San Diego. And they have been grinding away at producing an all-in style podcast. For those that enjoy the all-in podcast, this is one of those.

And they talk about a very wide range of subjects, not just from the crypto world, because they are all very deep in the crypto world. But they also talk about things that you might not hear out of bank lists. other components of the crypto industry, but also other investment strategies that have nothing to do with crypto, and also just life advice and politics and just some other topics that you would definitely not get out of bankless. This has kind of turned into the other half of my podcasting side of things where there's banklists going very, very deep in the crypto world, and then there's the Alfa podcast for literally everything else. And these four guys that I met here in San Diego have turned into some of my closest friends,

and they are becoming great podcasters. And so before I made my exodus out of San Diego, I called them all over to my apartment, and we did an Alpha Alpha Podcast together, but I co-opted the whole thing, and I was the host, and that is what you are about to hear today on Bankless Layer Zero. So I thoroughly hope you enjoy this co-opted episode

of the Alpha Alpha Podcast, because if the Bankless Nation likes this, this might be a regular thing that you might hear as one of our many, many podcasts in our podcast network. So I hope you guys enjoy this podcast. And we'll get right to it right after we talk to some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. The era of proof of stake is upon us. And Lido is bringing proof of stake to everyone. Lido is a decentralized staking protocol that allows users to stake their proof of stake assets using Lido's distributed network of nodes.

Don't choose between staking your assets or using them as collateral and DFI. With Lido, you can have both. Using Lido, you can stake any amount of your ETH to the Lido validating network and receive STEth in return. SCEEEEEth can be traded, used as collateral for lending and borrowing, or leveralough. on your favorite D-Fi protocols, all this without giving up your ETH to centralized staking services or exchanges. Lido now supports Terra, Solana, Kusama, and Polygon staking. Whatever your preferred proof-of-stake asset is, Lido is here to take away the complexities of staking while enabling you to get liquidity on your stake. If you want to stake your ETH, Terra, Sol, or Matic, and get liquidity

on your stake, go to Lido.fi to get started. That's L-I-D-O-F-I to get started. The Layer 2 era is upon us. Ethereum's Layer 2 ecosystem is growing everywhere. every day and we need bridges to be fast and efficient in order to live a layer two life. A cross is the fastest, cheapest, and most secure cross-chain bridge. With a cross, you don't have to worry about the long wait times or high fees to get your assets to the chain of your choice. Assets are bridged and available for use almost instantaneously. Across bridges are powered by UMA's optimistic Oracle to securely transfer tokens from layer two back to Ethereum. A token proposal is being deliberated as we speak in the Across Forum where community members will decide on the token distribution.

You can have your part of Across's story by joining the Discord and becoming a co-founder and helping to design the fair, fair launch of Across. If you want to bridge your assets quickly and securely, go to across.to-christ-to-bredge your assets between Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, or Boba networks. If you're trying to grow and preserve your crypto wealth, optimizing your taxes is just as lucrative as trying to find the next hidden gem. Also, IRA can help you invest in crypto in tax-advanted ways to help you preserve your hard-earned money. Also, crypto IRA lets you invest in more than 150 coins and tokens with all the same tax advantages

of an IRA. They make it easy to fund your alternative IRA or crypto IRA via your 401k or by contributing directly from your bank account. There is no setup or account fees and it's all you need to do to invest in crypto tax-free. Let me repeat that again. You can invest in crypto tax-free. Diversify like the pros and trade without tax headaches. Open an auto-crypto IRA to invest in crypto-tax-free.

just go to altoira.com slash bankless. That's A-L-T-O-I-R-A-com slash bankless and start investing in crypto today. Welcome Bankless Nation to a one-of-a-kind show on Bankless, brand new guests, a brand new format, different kind of content. We've got four members of the Alpha Alpha podcast, and here they are. On our hands, we've got a yield farmer with a chip in his brain. He can calculate APY in his head, but he can't understand the opposite gender, which is ironic because he's got more farms than you've had girl friends.

friends. Ladies and gentlemen, D-Gen Spartans Apprentice, Stephen Sussaro. Thank you. That's beautiful. Yeah, you like that one? Welcome, buddy. Coming up next, a man who's confused as to whether he's an investor or a painter, he can't really sell his art because he only accepts E. The man whose cash flow is up only, but his portfolio just bores me. He's built a lot of companies, but none of them count because they don't have tokens. I think he's got a crypto punk, but at least there's one on his hat. He's the reason why we're all here today and why we'll all be hung over tomorrow. Nick or Bonnie. Hello, hello. Please buy my R to have a habit to support. Coming in hot, the Chinese Dutchman. He's got CFA in his Twitter handle, so you can't really trust him. The only person here who's

got an actual job, but at least is funneling boomer bills into our bags. Ladies and gentlemen, the crypto financial analyst, Eric Johansson. I got you guys, yeah. Dollar bills are coming in. And last but not least, the latest and greatest, holding down the fort. When he talks to his Insta stories, it feels like he's talking to me. If he were an author, he'd write romance novels with himself as the main character.

The man that identifies as a beard, Arman Asadi. I've never felt more flattering. That's good. That was perfect. It's a beautiful beard. That was perfect. I think we got one more.

I think we have one more. We do now. We're right. The only thing he's rug pulling is the city of San Diego. Crypto girls swoon, but he is in a committed relationship with his plants. He feeds us more smoke salmon than Alpha. It's the Slayer of Moloch, our fearless friend, leading us into the frontier.

David Hoffman, everyone. Trust us safe. That's so good. I'm so glad I didn't read those beforehand. Stephen hasn't read it a single message on our text thread. Never read it. Two years. You can tell because he tunes in about three hours late, and he's like, guys, what have you been talking about?

Okay, so Bankless Nation, this is the Alfa Alpha Podcasts. These are four Defi DGens that I've met in my time here in San Diego, and I'm very sad to leave them. But they are hard committed to their podcasts. And so their podcast is going to be the main topic of conversation today. So to get started on that, whose idea was Alfa Podcast? How did this get started? Yeah, that's a good question. Take them to the Tiki Talk dance.

I don't know if I would say it was my idea, but I have my flow with Arm on a Soddy podcast. It was definitely your idea. Okay. I pulled them into this. And I pulled them individually onto my podcast. And then eventually I said, what if we all got together and did one together? We called it tipsy talk. And they were a hit.

And mostly just because I had a blast and I had fun. And I'm sitting with my three best friends in the world getting to shoot the shit, talk life, alpha, politics, investing, crypto. And then we did a second one and a third one. And then I just started incessantly pushing the idea of a podcast. I was like, why are we doing this on my show? This should be its own thing. How many months did it take to, like, fully get you guys moving, though? Armand's got another nickname.

It's the wolf, because the wolf will pressure you, peer pressure you into doing things. We have lots of all-cap text messages. None of us like the idea of being, like, a persona online, actually, except Armand, really. Love it. Stephen kind of likes it, too. But I think, like, Nick and I have been, like, kind of avoiding sort of putting our head out of this hole. And now, like, we're being coaxed. You're so good at it.

You guys are fucking natural. It feels good now. This is destiny. So it's happening. That's the inception. And yeah, we're like 24, 25 episodes in. I think it's the best thing we've ever done. I've been watching it through and through and it's getting better and better and more and more D-Gen.

You guys are coming out of your personalities as this goes along. But why does the world need alfalfa? What is the alpha that alfalfa has to bring to the table? I mean, I think, you know, Bankless has its values, right? And those come through and through through the content and how you, you guys conduct yourself and your guys' perspectives on the industry. And I think we definitely have our values as well. Like our core values of that, you know,

it's critical for people to have a group of friends that they respect and they think are thoughtful to kind of dissect the world around them and figure out what is our perspective and how do we go forward. So whether you have a crew, you know, in person with your friends or not, like come join us. We think that, you know, it's successful, it's critical to be successful in life and to get fulfillment to have people to bounce ideas off of. So we go into crypto and investing is number one. We talk a little politics, you know, and I think most people don't want to get into politics or be active. But the next best thing is to be informed, you know, over time, create a perspective for yourself.

So you could talk about it with your friends and maybe create change that way. And then, yeah, of course, a little life alfalfa because we're all good friends. We've been friends for a long time. We help each other out through the opportunities life presents itself and the troubles. So naturally, we've got to help each other out and make sure we miss the – philosophical pitfalls of being a crypto Dgen investor, I think. Yeah, I think at Bankless we definitely try and promote everyone to just basically take the crypto pill and stop taking every other pill and only think about crypto for the

rest of your life, like only by ETH, only by Bitcoin, only think about the merge, only think about ETH staking because we got to promote crypto to the rest of the world. And I think you guys are the much more healthy and balanced side of that. It's like, okay, here's how crypto fits into the world. Here's how you can integrate this and have a part of your life. But then when you talk about life alpha, you also talk about work life balance and just like how to do other things in relation to all your investments. You guys are all crypto people, but crypto is part of my identity. And I don't think you guys have that. You haven't gone that far down into the crypto world. So, you know, it was Eric that actually said this one

time. He's like, I don't give a fuck if it's called crypto or it's called smorgasbord or whatever the hell it is. It's the thing that's interesting right now that's giving me the most alpha. It's the thing in life right now that we are paying the most attention to. It doesn't matter what it is, but that's where we're currently putting our attention. But you know, you come from like TradFive background, and that's what became most exciting to you. And we all started pivoting toward that. But it could be anything. It's just the common denominator, I think, right now. I'm a devout listener to the bankless podcast, and I give you guys a lot of credit in my adoption into this industry. And like, one thing I noticed was when you were talking with SBF, he said he, he chased the money

into crypto and then he like got sort of pilled by the values and that's exactly where I'm at. Like I wanted the returns but then after like getting deeper and deeper into it and like especially listening to what you guys are talking about, I'm like wait a second this is like actually better for humanity. Crypto should by its own merits like work their way into everyone's portfolios but I think you guys like I will never say that like crypto is not the right time to get into crypto because because of like it's more for like you know you can get in here as a long-term investment, notches for you and your financial assets, no matter what part of the cycle that you're in,

because crypto is good for the world. But you guys are like, well, kind of feels like a top right now, guys. Like, man, but let's start talking about real estate and some other, some other assets. We do owe it to Stephen, though, for dragging us along, like big time. I think, yeah, maybe I pushed the podcast, but Stephen's the one that dragged us along with crypto. Hello, Lord. But this is a good entrance for the defy niles, speaking of top top, top, top, and what we're going to do for me. What do you want to talk about? Everything's dead. We're all going to die.

Is everything dead? We're all going to die? Almost everything, yeah. Yeah? Yeah. It's a rough time out there right now. You're a fan of this is going to be as bad and as bloody as all the previous cycles? Yeah.

I'm kind of open to the idea that it could be worse. Oh. In a lot of ways. All right. Let's change subjects. I don't know. How sunny do you want to keep this thing? I think actually we'll return to the definalist last because we'll go into that after after

after we do all this and so we talked a little bit about what alfalfa is it's a bunch of different things a little bit of crypto, a little bit of real estate, a little bit of normal finance, a little bit of life alfalfa. I'm sure you guys talk about even like health stuff sometimes every now and then too. So let's go into each one of you guys just to explore who you guys are for the audience, for the bankless audience. We'll end with Steven so he can just bring. us all down again.

But we'll start with Nick, because Nick and I have an interesting story about how I met him. Should we talk about our origin story? Yeah, you want to do that? Oh, man. Well, I was showcasing some art at a local neighborhood art festival, and this guy comes up and says, can I take a picture of your art?

Well, your art's amazing, by the way. Oh, thank you, thank you. It's only a purchase an ETH. He says, can I take a picture of art? And I'm like, sure, go ahead and do a double take. And I'm like, oh, God, this is going to be really weird. I'm like, hey, man, are you the guy on the bankless podcast? And he's like, oh, yeah, sure. Well, what a crazy weird fan again.

And, you know, are you into crypto? And I pull off my hat, which has my crypto punk on it and show it as like my verified street cred that I am in fact into crypto. Point to the QR code that says, only purchase an ETH. And then he just leaves me. Just ghosted me. And guys are, our story could have just ended. That could have been it. That could have been the whole thing.

Ended very quickly. Could have been like one of those like misconnections on Craigslist. Well, how are you feeling in that moment when he's just like, cool, well, see you. I was like, well, yeah, like ghosted at a bar. I wanted to post on Craigslist misconnections. Guy with black crypto punk hat. Sorry I didn't get your number. But luckily, David came back a few hours later.

And, you know, I told him, I said, hey, we got this group of guys that get together typically every Wednesday. We like to dive deeper into crypto and life and be a little thought. I think it would be cool if, you know, you come by, and I think from there, a little hundred of friendship scenes were planted. Yeah, no, that's about right. From my perspective on things, I was on my way to the gym. And so I had gym on my mind, but there was the art walk going on. So I was like, oh, I'll take the long way to the gym and I'll check out all the art.

And that's when I saw your painting of all the fists, the power fists with all the skin tones on it. And then I, and then I yeat out of that conversation very quickly. And I'm in the gym, and I'm like, this is the... like not even two months to my time in San Diego. And I'm like just doing the foam roller, just like reflecting on, oh, I just met a guy about my age. He said he lives like a couple blocks down for me. He owns a crypto punk. So clearly he's into it. And I just was like, all right, bye. And just like my social awkwardness was like, oh yeah, this is where you make friends, David. This is

like how friends happen. And so like I'm at the gym. I'm like, oh, I got to go go find that guy. And thank God I did because that's how I found the rest of you guys. Well, yeah, that's good. because I told my girlfriend I was sad, and then I was happy when he came back. So it all worked out. But a little bit more about Nick. Like you're a painter, but you also have a... Hell of a fighter. Yeah, hell of a fighter.

Yeah. So like what alpha alpha do you have to bring to the table? Well, let's see. Started in Tradify, managing money in 401K plans, and quickly saw digital media and digital marketing like growing. Figure a trend I need to get on and not be left behind. So it helped build a digital marketing consulting firm that turned out pretty well. and then got hired by one of our clients to be CEO of the company.

It was a growing software company, and there learned how to manage large groups of software engineers. And at some point, I was like, well, I'm going to take this skill and go off on my own. And so had, like, a few companies that did pretty well and kind of find myself managing two e-commerce companies right now, operating them, and got into crypto in 2017, I think, between companies. And, like many people, was asking myself, you know, how do I like intelligently manage my money in my investments and do a good job?

And then proceeded to do the exact opposite and trade shit coins on Coinbase all day long like it was my job. And luckily, you know, made it out alive and got back in like 2019, early 2020, talking to Steven about Bitcoin about, you know, potential store of value. And then on Wednesday, Stephen starts showing up telling he's getting 50, 100% plus yields on these food tokens, sushi, uniswap, pancake swap. And I think, you am, he lost millions of dollars selling his pancakes talk to earlier. And I was like, wait a second. Should I? Should I get involved in this?

I think the rabbit hole just got really big all of a sudden and just sucked me in. And, you know, we start a little crypto gaming guild as a sandbox to kind of learn the area, learn the players, learn the economics. And try not to scratch the ditch to build just yet. Just enjoying the conversations with the boys in the Alpha Alpha podcast for now. And that is Nick or Bonnie. ladies and gentlemen. Let's turn to the man who identifies as a beard. Oh, my God. Armand, what's your story?

Oh, my story. So lately I've been calling myself a thinker, builder, and creator because it's almost impossible to... Very romantic. ...encapsulate. Thank you. Romance novel. Such anomalous. So beautiful. It's impossible to encapsulate yourself.

And, you know, the great Alan Watts, a hero of mine, always said, like, it's irrelevant to describe the past. It's just whoever you are today. So I'm a thinker. I'm very philosophical. I love modern psychology as well. I spend a lot of my time reading random shit that most people aren't interested in. But every once in a while I get to sprinkle it into alfalfa, every once in a while I get to go really deep down the rabbit hole with these guys, especially this guy.

He likes to follow me down into these crazy-ass places. And that's where I get the most enjoyment out of life. Builder, building a company called Collective Shift right now, crypto analysis, education platform. We're doing some huge things. And creator, you know, podcaster. Actually, I'm an author working on the first book. It's not a romance model. It's very philosophical.

Its tentative title is Unleashed. And yeah, man, I'm just creating, I'm building. I have this incessant burning desire to put everything I have inside of me out on the court. Like I have the constant awareness that I am a more. being and one day I will no longer be here. And I also realize that most of the great people that we remember from the past, we barely remember. They are forgotten. And the best case scenario for them is that they get a statue. And sometimes even the statue gets torn down because society says, fuck that person now. So what am I here for? What am I trying to do? I'm constantly thinking about

that. I think it's a driving force for my whole life. And if it wasn't for these guys and my friends and the amazing people in San Diego, I'm really sad to lose you. You'd be lost. It's the most important thing in life. I mean, we tweeted about this the other day. So that's the thing I'm most grateful for in life is people and experiences. Yeah, and Armand is in the intro I had the guy who's back is broken from carrying this podcast.

He is the meat. He is the guy with all the... He was actually like very healing. And like, catharty. You feel so validated. Valuable. Thank you so much. Somebody finally recognizes Arwen. Thank you, David, for the conflict resolution.

You guys are going to have to go to group therapy after this one. Or maybe that's what this is. He's the one with all the microphones and all the cabling and also does all the content editing. And so he's the reason why Alfalfa looks like bankless if you follow it on Instagram. We're trying. Actually, I think you guys kind of edit your clips

even hotter than we do sometimes. To be clear, I don't actually edit them, but yes, we make it help. I don't edit them either, brother. Lou's got to step his game, right. All right. Third but not least, Eric, who are you, man?

Okay, so my story begins at San Diego State University. I was not a CFA at this point. I was filming MTV dating shows, trying to work in the NFL. I was working for the San Diego Chargers as an intern. And I was also making straight A's and being on the Dean's List and stuff. Thank goodness I met these boys because they sort of redirected my energies towards what I would call, like, my career pursuits.

and, you know, I think after graduating college, I went into like corporate finance, investment finance or whatever, but, you know, in 2019, Nick and Armand brought Stephen around. Steven introduced me to this thing called DFI. And from there, I was like, wait, a second.

I had previously thought of crypto, like in the Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger sort of way. I was like, this shit is so scamy and disgusting. And then when I was, I saw that these were not just, speculative coins that they could be like used as capital assets or or you know like collateral. I was like wait a second. There might be legs here and then I dug deeper in and like got into LPing and everything. I like I really was unleashed in that like early COVID time when we were still meeting up on Wednesdays. Everyone else was kind of locked in but we were we were like doing our

little pod and it was awesome. Who owns the rights to Eric's baptism who set up his crypto baptism of setting up his metamask wallet? Was it you or? First of all, nobody I leaned on Stephen at some point I was like, okay, so I put two assets in LP and Steven's like, I'm drunk I'm like, well I'm down like

$400 on gas, like help me and you're like, I'm too drunk and I was like, what? I didn't understand it and like gas was so high during D-by summer. Like I was just like lost. I didn't know what I was doing. I had this LP token and like I didn't know how you to stake that. I was just like I figured it out on my own. But these were like educational

expenses and, you know, and now you got, you know, TradFi, like, wealth management clients coming to you saying, hey, how do I dabble? Yeah, Scopold Management is the TradFi firm, and we're like, we've been moving more and more towards crypto ever since. And I, like, attribute all that to, like, our early conversations, particularly Stephen sort of like ushering us all down this path.

Wait, the guy that lost a million dollars on Pancake Swap is the reason why you're coming. Stephen made a lot of money in Pank. He just didn't top ticket is multi-million. All right, Stephen. The man that made a million dollars on pancake swap, who the hell are you? I wish I made a million dollars on pancakes swap. I think I bought it at a penny and sold it at $8 and thought I was a genius, and then it went up to like $38.

I was very early on that kind of people want a farm, and finance chain is cheap, so people are going to go there, right? And a lot of people were kind of doing the big brain. Oh, no, Ethereum is decentralized. People don't want that. And I was like, no, people want to gamble. I'm going to start farming on pancake swap. But I didn't really have an exit strategy.

I threw like $5 grand in there and it went up to like $100 grand. I was like, I should probably sell. And then like I checked like a couple months later and it would have been like $3 million. I had a lot of stories like that from the last full room. Give us some Bridgewater, maybe poker, professional poker players. Oh, my origin story. Let's go back to the chip in the, brain reference. Yeah. Yeah, so out of college, my first job was working as an emerging market

bonds trader for Bridgewater, which is Ray Dalio's hedge fund. That was during the great financial crisis. So that was like a baptism by fire for me. Fortunately, I went in. I realized we were short the world and immediately sold all of my stocks because I figured they were probably smarter than me. So I did well on that trade. I did badly on some other trades. I remember one, time. I accidentally bought $100 million of Brazilian bonds instead of selling them. Fat finger. Which is a pretty big fat finger. That's my biggest fat finger of all time. They didn't fire me, which is really nice. We accidentally made money on the trade.

That happens. In spite of all the slippage, we incurred getting out of it, which is a lot. But during the time at Bridgewater, I was playing online poker. is like a hobby. And it kind of got to the point where I was like hating my life. And I figured out how to like exploit this online poker game by by buying in short, you know, with the minimum and kind of using this like strategy where I didn't have to think and I could play 20 tables.

And we, we, we call it rat holeing back in the day. And everybody on the internet hated me. I had like a target on my back and the online community, but I didn't care. So I ended up just, I quit that job one day. became a professional poker player, stopped kind of exploiting and then ended up playing a lot of like high stakes heads up. Where'd you playing heads up against Phil Ivy for two weeks straight? Yeah, when I moved to San Diego, I was just trying to meet people for the first time and I met

some other poker players and I just told him like, hey, I want to play Phil Ivy in this game. I can beat him. I'm better than him at this game. He's not good. And for some reason, nobody was like, that's a stupid idea. Everybody was like, yeah, here's like 100 grand. Here's like, too. So yeah, like my third or fourth night in San Diego,

I was sitting in my little beach house that I rented out. I was playing Phil Ivy, like 500,000, no limit or whatever the biggest game on Phil Tilt was at the time. And I was like, I had to use two hands on the mouse because I was shaking. I was shake it's so hard. I remember the very first hand. This is an honest to God, true story. I got pocket kings. And I was like, oh, you're so.

Fucked Phil. So he raised, I re-raised, he went all in, I called, he had aces. Oh my God. Immediately lost $30,000. I was 24 at the time, too. So I was like, oh, my God. But that ended up being the most I was ever down in that match. I came back.

I think I won like a million, a million and a half or something off of them, and then he quit me. And then I got a lot of free drinks for a while. No, that started at a far. earlier age. To be fair, I actually don't think you're a nihilist. I just like calling you. I do sometimes.

But yeah, I played poker for a while. Ultimately, the government kind of bandhammered us. Came down one day, opened up my computer. There was like an FBI logo on the screen. And I was living with four friends in a house at the time that we kind of bought together. We were playing poker. And we just looked at each other like, that's bad, right?

It's just like, we had this kind of a room. It looked like a NASA kind of control station. There's monitors all around the whole room. We converted this whole room into like a poker den. And like you looked around the whole room and there's just like FBI symbols. I could smell out all the monitors. I could smell that disgusting room. Yeah.

So I was like, I need to find a new career. Kind of got into internet marketing for a bit and did well there. Along the whole way, I was always into crypto. You know, I found it. because of poker. A lot of guys found crypto because it was posted on the 2 plus 2 forums was where we all hung out back in the day.

And like there's tons of people in crypto from the poker world because it kind of translates over. Yeah, I was looking back at some old messages like a couple years ago from 2010, I think, where I was messaging a guy trying to buy $5,000 worth of Bitcoin and swap them for poker stars money. And the price was like, it was, like, it It was like a dollar or something.

And I didn't end up doing the deal because I couldn't figure out how to make the wallet work back then. And that was a mistake. And in 2013, I finally bought some. I had like a half million dollars or something worth of it when it was like three or four hundred bucks. And I was like, sold it all. 2017 rolled around. And I was like, you know what the lesson to learn here is? Never sell.

So I put like, you know, 80 grand into it. I think. I read it up to four million. million dollars in like six or seven months trading alt coins and stuff and then like immediately lost like all of it. I think I left with like a hundred grand. So so learning the opposite, you know, adjust it again. Okay. So the answer is not to never sell anything. And then I've been planning for this net last last bowl market to come around again. And when I when I felt like it was time, you know, I was working in online marketing and I knew

this guy. I didn't really know him. I just knew his screen name. There were a lot of people who were like anon's in like the online marketing world because people were doing shady stuff. So I just knew him as this kind of guy on telegram. And he was just like, yo, bro, synthetics, Avey, Ethereum, chain link. I was like, what? He's like, was it Van Spencer? It sounds like Van Spencer. Those are the, those are the, he just like just kept saying that over and over again. I was like, what are you talking about? Because I was like a hardcore bitcoyer at the time. Because I had just been annihilated and I hated shit coins and I kind of hated crypto, but I mostly hated chick coins and I thought Ethereum was a shit coin.

Everything was a shit coin. But he was like, yo, you got a farm. You got a farm, bro. I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, you stake money and you get free money. I'm like, that sounds like a scam. And it was kind of, it was kind of a scam. Now you do it for a living.

Well, I used to. Now it's all gone to zero. But we had a good run for a while. So yeah, I tried the defy thing out. like way early. I was farming all like the food stuff, like the yams and the grapes and like the, I don't know,

it was like the stupidest thing back in the day. But like I was obviously making tons of money. So I quit my company and I just went full-time crypto. Got really, really into it. I brought all these guys along with me. Shildum Cryptopunks, which I sold way too early and a whole bunch of other stuff. So yeah, it's been a fun ride.

I mean, I think the D5 farming thing is definitely done right now. So I've been trying to think like what's the next thing? I think of everyone here, you are definitely the resident Kobe in a sense that somehow you're like good at making money. Also good at losing money. Also super nihilist. I think it all fits. I've just gotten rubbed so many times at this point. Many of them just like self-induced rugs.

you know, so I'm a little bit. We did have one listener remark, and maybe because of you, that either I'm going to get really rich or really poor, really, really quickly listen to this, but otherwise it's going to be fun. And I think it's mostly because of your D-Gen farming, for sure. I think that's my favorite review.

All right, guys, so now that we've established the characters, what's the through line? What's the through line behind all of you guys? Because you guys are all, not just podcast co-hosts, you guys are just also friends. But the best podcasts have the best banter. because the best banter comes from the best friend. So what is the through line behind all of you guys?

I mean, this pot, I think, is, we, during COVID, we started doing this thing called, like, men's night. We found, like, the one place in town that was open still. Another thing I had to drag them to do. Yeah, that was because of you, dude. It was great call. You did not have to drag me to do that. Also, you were like, do you want to do a podcast when I said, yes.

That was the only one who's good at that. That's so true. So I reject this storyline. But yeah, we found this cigar lounge in Old Town, which was thriving during COVID because some city ordinances basically allowed them to take over the entire, like, plaza patio. It was outdoors, yeah. Yeah, and they like quintupled their capacity, and then they were the only place to open, so they became the spot. And we just started going there every Wednesday night and smoking cigars and hanging out. Churchill's.

Churchill's, San Diego, yes. And we were just like, let's just do this. every night. Well, we'll call it like a men's night, which is not the most creative term, but, you know, we went with it. And while we were out, smoking cigars and drinking wine and everything, you know, we were always just

talking about everything. Obviously, we talked about crypto a lot. It's where everybody kind of got like defy-pilled for the first time and punk-pilled for the first time. But we talk about other stuff too. Like, we love to talk about politics and culture and just business and life stuff, right? So I think this pod was

an attempt by us to of like bring these Wednesday night discussions with friends where we're sort of trying to just sort through the world, right, and kind of make sense of everything and to just bring that to like a larger audience and try to replicate that. Yeah. We joke that we're four radical moderates and who are truth seekers. And I think we joke about the radical moderate part because the truth often lies in the middle. It lies in the gray and it lies in the purple in terms of political spectrums. And so what we're trying to do is just, you know, hash out as good friends and as hosts of the podcasts, you know, dish out and debate the investing the policy and the

life alpha that we can come across. So I think that's, that's primarily the through line. Which is so enjoyable. It's such an amazing thing to like swim in the messy gray ocean of I don't quite know the answer. And most people are just like so quick to want to latch on to some sort of identity, some sort of, you know, group, obviously we talk about group thing all the time, but some sort of identity where they can say, who's going to do the thinking for me, who's going to make this decision for me, who's going to tell me what's right or wrong, but most people do not have the capacity and do not want to take on the responsibility to make those decisions in the first place. And I think that's like perhaps one of the through lines as well as like we're

trying to promote this idea of like perhaps just who we are, but the idea of like the responsibility could fall on the individual. And maybe you do have the tools to come up with the right answers. And maybe society could look very interesting if we all sat down and we trusted each other to say, yeah, I can sort through the mess.

I can figure out what's fake from what's real. And it's going to get more difficult. It's going to get more crazy. But that really seems to be the only way that we can retain any sense of individual power. And that's what radical moderate means to me. Dave, as you got like indoctrinated in our crew by Nick, right? as you guys explained, but like, when you came in to our circle, we were talking about all this

stuff, you know, like not just crypto, but like also other life stuff, and you fit right in. Like you were able to sort of like hold your own and all these conversations. You don't talk about this stuff on bankless, right? Like bankless has its own clear niche and it's very successful doing what it does, but you're so good at talking about other aspects of life too. And I feel like you fit perfectly in our... our little circle of talking about all aspects of life. Yeah.

When I listened to your, the first Alfalfa podcast, I can't remember which one it was. It was, it was, you guys were contending with so much different sources of information. It was like, well, here's what this source thinks. Here's what this source thinks. And you guys were all bringing your own, like, thoughts about different sources to the table. And so I remember hearing, I can't remember what it was. But like you guys said, oh, well, bankless said this. But then somebody else said that.

And I'm like, well, we're right, guys. but we're the right one. But the point is, it's just like you guys are not a, bankless is like we try and do primary research, we try and do our own thought, but we project it out into the world, and it's ultimately up to the listeners to come up with their version of the truth.

And a sad thing about the crypto industry is that so many people just want to be told what is true. And so many projects lean on that and just to say, well, there's so many people asking just, hey, please deliver me the truth so I can just get the alpha from it, where you guys are coming in, you're integrating bankless

and you're integrating other experts in the field, regardless of whether it's about crypto, or it's about, like, political matters, or it's about whatever. And so where alf al- or, excuse me, where bankless is, it's like, here's the information about Ethereum and Eith and the merge. You guys are like, well, here's what this authority said,

here's what that authority said, and then let's throw all these topics and slam them together and see what we get out of them as individuals who are multifaceted and multidisciplinary. Yeah, and we can get into the differences between the two podcasts for sure, but just to add on to that, I think most people are aware that the extremes are often the loudest voice. The extremes, the left, the right, the men, the max are often the ones that get the most attention. And I think we all also know inherently that the truth does not lie on those extremes. And so it's a muddy middle.

And we have to find groups of people that we respect that we think are thoughtful to hash through those. And we're not always going to get it right, but at least the process of questioning those things. leads us to a little more truth. And yeah, hopefully make a little more money in the process and understand how we proceed the world along the way. I mean, I've often asked that, right? We've talked about this on the pot. It's like, how do you find any level of objective truth at all

when you have all of this absolute chaos and madness and everyone has these terrible incentive structures to feed you lies? And I think this was one of your points. It's like it comes down to the people you surround yourself with because they're doing the filtering for you. So one of the benefits of like, I don't know, listening to a podcast or having a great group of friends or listening to the podcast because they're like your auxiliary group of friends is that they're doing that filtering for you and you're determining the truth together. But in the same way as Bankless, you leave it up to the listener at the end of the day to determine for themselves what's the truth here. The angle that we try to promote at Bankless is that we don't teach you what to think.

We teach you how to think. And so we do have like heavy emphasis on Ethereum decentralization and all. and all those things, but we also promote how we got there in the first place. And I think that is there the commonality between Alphalpha and Banclos is this not just, we don't skip to the conclusions, we process it and together as a group and then go through that journey together. Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, bankless is the best at teaching, teaching a specific topic

and opportunity. I mean, you guys are impeccable about grabbing an expert and then using the Socratic method to kind of linearly bring the listener onto a new topic or a new opportunity. And I kind of think of like every time I sit down, I'm going to sit down for class because I'm going to learn something. And you guys fulfill that promise every single time. And then I think like where Alfalfa comes in is like, well, when you leave class, you want to go to the bar and drink with your buddies and be like, what do we think about this topic? So they taught us a little bit how to think about this. They taught us this new topic. So let's sit around the bar and figure out what do we think about this? How is, can we

make money off this and how do we position ourselves if we think it is an opportunity to take advantage of it so i don't know that's how i kind of find um you know like where they they too parlay off each other and and i appreciate in other words please never take us too seriously basically wasted no i actually like that i i like what you just said there because what alpha does really well is that we we are trying to make money too like it is about alpha as well as truth. Like, you know, you can get it, you can get it right, but if you don't make money getting it right, then, you know, like, how do you make money getting it right? How do you make money to get it right? Sorry, no. Armand doesn't care about money, though. He's like, he's above.

Okay, I like that. Okay. It's a byproduct of... He's almost like hovering, like, the whole podcast. Well, we did, we did a whole episode on like the idea of wealth and money too. Like, you know, the Mexican parable episode where it's like, it isn't about money necessarily. You know, you can, you can like get to the end circumventing the money just by like living this rich life that is doing what you love. And I think

like that's very cool too. But the first thing we do in the podcast is talk about the money. Oh yeah. Can we? Oh yeah. I feel like I want to give a little intro to the agenda. That's okay. Because I think it does give a little, you know, it signals some of the differences. So first of all, there's drinking involved. I think there's a as we are now. Unless we have COVID.

This is very good. good mescal, by the way, that we're all enjoying. So I think there's a two drink minimum, typically before we hit record. And we can only do it once a week. We only do that to our bodies once a week. So it's a weekly podcast, comes out on Friday mornings. And right at the top, we hit the alfalfa round, which is basically round robin, you know, what trades, what actual trades and moves do we make in the market? And, you know, we know the bags the bankless crew is holding, and they ain't wrong. But we try to dive a little deeper into like, what am I doing with my own money, you know, whether that's long,

short or sometimes it gets a little more. I mean, this round has gotten very sad recently, though. Yeah, that's true. It's a lot more exciting in the bull market. For sure, but sometimes. What did you do this week? Sold. Well, you know, there's been like an epic, epic money-making opportunity on the short

side in the last like six months, actually, like, which I think a lot of us have taken advantage of. For sure. So we do a little more, you know, spicy stuff, like a little derivatives options, but more than BTC and E's, some alts and NFTs, of course, as part of it. And then we hit into like crypto. like in making money as the number one priority. So, you know, it's usually driven by, by weekly events. And so we do do our typical bull case for ETH for sure and talk about Yuga Land

sales and stable coin yields and stable coin death spirals. We talked about some of our biggest investing mistakes and, you know, are we going to recession, how to play it? And then like I said, the policy stuff is good for people to be informed and for all of us to kind of make a, you know, we don't shy away. No, we don't shy away. I mean, we did talk a little Roe v. Wade overturning. We've talked about taxes on billionaires, you know, retrospectives on pandemic policy.

And then, of course, you know, a little life alfalfa, the boys have dived into experience taking some mushrooms, maybe, exploring our behavioral biases when it comes to investing, you know, most life-changing purchases and goal-setting frameworks. Toilet additions. Yeah, so by the end of the life alpha, there's definitely some slurring going on, but hopefully, you know, there's some perspective. We end on a high. The enjoyable thing about listening. to it is that it very much comes off as a squad. It's very big squad wealth vibes. And it's like, well, what's the point of making money together if I have no friends to take with me along the way, right?

And that's definitely something I've enjoyed just getting to know all of you guys, is that like, well, making money comes first in the podcast. It's because you've got to end on the high note. And you've got to end on the life alfalfa, and the lend on the friend alfalfa. I don't know if I'm just keep on bertring the word alfalfa. over again, but if that's how you guys use it. Just keep repeating it. Read into existence. But, I mean, to your point, we often talk about this Harvard study called

the grant study. And it is to your point. It was a longitudinal study. It was an 80-year study where they took these Harvard graduates, and they followed through them throughout their life, all the way till a lot of them were on their death pattern even pass, and they interview them along the way. And funny enough, a lot of them show, you know, dispersion

on where they ended up in life. But consistently, they found the most important thing, you know, throughout life and at the end of your life was that your relationships, your community that you build. And for crypto people and listeners, it's online and in person as well, is what makes you happier. And in fact, having that close community and that group of respectable, thoughtful people to bounce off of actually influences a lot of health outcomes. So it helped create more wealth for those people. It helped create better health outcomes. And it helped people get to those. That was the surprise. They were studying

happiness. They wanted to know what fulfillment looks like. And then all of a sudden these people lives longer and they were healthier. It was a huge surprise for them. Yeah. And so I think that's like common. You know, a common thread, common to the values that like you need these groups of people. So, you know, we want people to come join us and

partake and and, you know, ask questions as well, you know, about help us dive deeper into what should our perspective be about the world and obviously crypto and into making money. Yeah. What does squad wealth mean to you guys? I see you guys. good question

I think the most important thing is to be able to share in the experiences right so as you get older maybe you have kids maybe you don't maybe you move maybe you don't you want to start to partake in experiences that are more luxurious that are more interesting I think there's a very important factor of like watching out for hedonic adaptation another major theme that I think actually unifies us

yes we all make money and we love what we do but we're all very like aware of the fact that you know too much luxury can actually really hurt your level of enjoyment so it's like yeah sure I think like one of one of you will probably be on Stevens private jet but the point the point isn't that it's deeply rooted in gratitude it's deeply rooted in what we already have and having that and being appreciative of what you have creates more and so I think the ability to then share in those extra bonus luxury cherry on top experiences becomes even sweeter as a result of it. That's what it means for me because if I was, you know, at a level where I wasn't able to

either take care of my friends in the process and treat them to the entire experience or they weren't able to participate with me, it would be completely meaningless. When you find that alpha, it's not fun if you just keep it for yourself, but if you and the whole crew can make money off it, how much more fun is it? And I think Bology has this phrase like win and help win. And that's like a little mantra that I try to like, you know, repeat in my head is like win. But also let's make sure that everyone comes along for the ride because like it's just a whole lot more fun that way. I think part of it too, go ahead, but part of it is like it's a positive sum game.

It's an abundant game. We are all helping one another. I think that's a huge part of it. Like we've all at some point done some sort of like beneficial transaction with each other. But never in like a very formal official way. It's just like I'm going to help you. I'm going to invest in you. I'm going to give you my capital.

like there's so many ways in which you grow together and that squad wealth happens that way go all right all right go ahead eric my answer is more of a question and it's a question to all you guys like uh i'm sure we all have other friends outside of this table of five right and like um for me i have friends that we talk about sports and girls okay like that's just like so great topics yeah great topics but like this is like uh yeah stephen wants to kill himself but these are like very you know they're like

basal you know like this is like what you grew up talking about right and I still have that I have that with other guys but with this crew that's unique is that like we still have this like camaraderie and this friendship but like the the conversation is elevated

you know like we talk about how to improve our lifestyles and things like these are like way cooler conversations and like I don't find that very often. And when I found that with you guys, like, I saw the value here. And I was like, holy shit, we need to share this. Like, we want other people to get involved. Dude, I remember when, I won't name him, but this guy came to our Wednesday. And he's, he's come back consistently, but. I'm picturing. He was so over the moon about what he was

exposed to. He was just like, this is the most enlightening conversation in group of people. I've ever met. And I know that because I'm grateful for these guys. So I say that not in a way like, oh, I'm so proud, but like, no, no, I'm so grateful. Like, wow, I know these guys. And you've said that too, David. You're like, this crew is different. It's special. And I remember this guy showed up and he edified that. And he acknowledged that and validated it. And I was like, yep, I'm in the right fucking place. I think this is why we connected very quick with you, David, is like, I think you even mention it. Like, you want to think about how you think. You want to think about the way in which you think about the world.

And that's why we mesh really, you know, quickly together. And Eric mentioned it. I'm kind of like sad that you don't show more of that on the bankless podcast. But there's a time in place. You know, maybe in person at the crypto conferences as our, as our Sherpa, people get a taste for that. I agree do. But I don't, well, I guess you're the listener. So maybe you would have better information, better alpha about that than I do.

I do think that, like, the bankless content style has, like, latched on to communities that otherwise wouldn't have it have because of the authenticity. And so maybe it's the authenticity word as to where that alignment does happen. As in like bankless, one of the reasons why bankless was so successful coming out of the 2019, 20-20-20 bear market is because we were the first major media organization that wasn't here to show you their token, right? Like we were, yeah.

And so like that authenticity came out. And one thing I was talking to you, Armand, when we were here in Joshua Tree, was that this was the first group of men that the relationship amongst men was a little bit inverted in the sense that in high school like dude clicks if you like expose your vulnerabilities is like here's what is like emotionally troubling me you would get a slap on the wrist like don't talk about that like that's not why we talk about and and this group it was inverted it was like you guys will discover who is not sharing all of their their thoughts some people are tougher nuts to crack yeah

but it's inverted when it's discovered that there isn't somebody who's being totally forthcoming about what is tumbling around in their brain then that's when you get the slap on the wrist well said

and I think the reason for that that's because you said it I liked your version better I was lost in a trance I honestly was lost in a trance if I heard that for the first time but well said and I think the reason for that

is because it's root in authenticity. So if somebody was not being forthcoming, it would just be like, what the fuck, bro? Why are you here? Yeah, what's going on? So, all said. Yeah.

Well said myself. You're so smart and good looking. Stephen, why are you tough enough to crack, man? Oh, that's a good question. We just want to. How much time we have? I just don't like being vulnerable, man. It's okay.

Like being of my own island. But you're vulnerable about your portfolio sometimes. Yeah. I have an outlet through my financial nihilism. You know? It's like where I express my inner turmoil. It's through my financial degenning. And I think it becomes a meme in and of itself.

Like, oh, you're Stephen not sharing again. Maybe not on the podcast. We're sharing more in real life. Is this a two glass conversation out of one glass conversation? Necessary. most necessary. I feel like I lose bunnies, so you don't, you don't have to. Kind of like Jesus Christ in that way, you know?

And it's out. Oh my God, you guys should open that as a tagline. Stephen loses money so you don't have to. I hope my mom doesn't hear that. She's going to be so mad. AVE is the leading decentralized liquidity protocol. And now AVEV3 is here. V3 has powerful new features to enable you to get the most out of D5, including isolation

mode, which allows for many more markets to be launched with more exotic collateral types, and also efficiency mode, which allows for a higher loan-to-value ratios, and of course, portals, allowing users to port their AVE position across all of the networks that Avey operates on, like Polygon, Phantom, Avalanche, Arbitrum, optimism, and harmony. The beautiful thing about Avey is that it's completely open source, decentralized, and governed by its community, enabling a truly bankless future for us all. To get your first crypto-collateralized loan, get started at AVE.com. That's A-A-B-E.com.

And also check out the AVE protocol governance forums to see what more than 100,000 Dow members are all raving about at governance.awe.com. Arbitrum is an Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution that's going to completely change how we use defy and NFTs. Over 300 projects have already deployed to Arbitrum and the defy and NFT ecosystems are growing rapidly. Some of the coolest and newest NFT collections have chosen Arbitrum as their home, all the while Defyreux

protocols continue to see increased usage and liquidity. Using Arbitrum has never been easier, especially with the ability to deposit directly into Arbitrum through all the exchanges including Binance, FTX, Hube, and Crypto. Once inside, you'll notice Arbitrum increases Ethereum speed by orders of magnitude for a fraction of the cost of the average gas fee.

If you're a developer who wants low gas fees and instant transactions for your users, visit Arbitrum. dot i.o slash developer to start building your dapp on arbitram. If you're a Dgen, many of your dapes on Ethereum are already on Arbitrum with many moving over every day. Go to bridge.arbitrum.com now to start bridging over your ETH and other tokens in order to experience defy and Ftys in the way it was always meant to be. Fast, cheap, secure, and friction-free. Living a bankless life requires taking control over your own private keys. And that's why so many in the bankless nation already have their ledger hardware wallet. And brand new to the ledger

lineup of hardware wallets is the Ledger NanoS Plus, a huge upgrade to the world's most popular hardware wallet. With more memory and a larger screen, the NanoSplus makes it easy to navigate and verify your transactions. And the paired Ledger Live desktop app gets you increased transparency as to what is about to happen with your NFT. What you see is what you sign. The NanoSplus gives you the smoothest possible user experience while you're doing all of your crypto things. So go to the Ledger website to check out the features of the new Ledger NanoS Plus and join the waitlist to get yours. And don't forget about the Crypto Life card, also powered by Ledger. The CL card is a crypto debit card that hooks right into the Ledger Live app,

right next to all the Defy Apps and Services that you're already used to doing, like swapping tokens and staking. So if you don't have a Ledger hardware wallet, go to Ledger.com, grab a ledger and take control over your crypto. All right, guys, let's talk about some markets. Go over on the table, Barish or Polish, and then we'll kind of unpack those things later on. Starting with number one, Armand, Berish or bullish. Well, in what time rising? Whatever your current bags reflect right now.

Bullish. Bullish, all right. Good luck to you. Poor guy. Do we have the bowls and the bears with the white and the black? Is that what's going on? Obviously, I'm going to watch my portfolio go down another 50%. 80% according to Stephen

Oh God We'll see But I'm happy where I'm sitting Yeah I like what I'm holding I got rid of what I need to get rid of I trim the fat Yeah

Yeah I think I played the games I wanted to play Within all coins Within NFTs I got into some communities I learned how they function I now understand the infrastructure That so many of these projects are built on I barely scratched the surface in many ways

and where I'm at right now I'm just very happy with it but like will I be able to withstand the volatility of watching my portfolio go down 80% personally yeah because I'm in this for like I mean life I don't know like I mean this is modern finance I'm gonna go interpret that as actually bearish I think that's a bearish answer

bullish but I'm ready to go down 80% he's just too obviously he's just too He's optimistic. He's prepared to be kicked in the balls. Yeah, I'm going to get kicked in the balls. And I think, like, sure, let's see. This last 12, 18, 24 months. But long term, what I'm holding, overall bullish.

But yeah, we're obviously very bearish in the short term. Eric Beresh Bush. So this is nuanced conversation. Yeah. Like, this side of the table. There's only two answers here. Well, okay. So this side of the table in particular has been very good about,

moderating bullishness. Stephen in particular, on one of our first episodes, we labeled this clip, Stephen predicts Doom in 2022. And he did that in 2021. So, like, you know, we are not long only

on alpha alpha. We, like, play markets as we see markets. And I think that is a benefit. You know, like, you know, I was around for many bearer markets. I was around in 2000, 2001, Stephen as well. I've seen shit go down.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that you guys are old. I forgot about that. We're older than some. Older than some. Okay, so like when I was trading in 2000, like, I was 14 years old. Like, I wasn't that, I wasn't that old. But like, where can a dot come, but. Back in the tag.

Shaking with my cane. We've seen this before, and like crypto traders have certainly seen this before. I think obviously we're bullish on the industry at large. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. But I don't want to fall into this trap of saying

just because we believe the industry at large is going up into the right means that we have to trade it that way. It doesn't have to be that. If you trade it that way. Sure. And you know, like I remember the moment at Stephen's house, all five us are there. And I

told David Hoffman that like I sold almost all my eighth at 3,500, 3,400, whatever. And Dave's like, are you, what? And now it's at 2K. And like, I think it's going lower. And like, I haven't even bought back it. Like, there's a long bag that I will never sell. But like, you know, you don't have to just raw dog it.

Like I said on alfalfa where you just, you like go unprotected forever. Like, you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. And like, your boy did not sell his eth at 3,500. They would never sell you. That's good for you. Like I want, like, I'm wearing this ETH shirt. I'm wearing an Ethereum shirt.

I love Eith. It's just like, at what point do you want to like play this thing sort of correctly versus just like raw dogged and you know, you can do that if you want. But I really believe that like this crew here, we're very pragmatic. And that like supersedes our, our long bias. whatever. So give me the answer. Bear bull. Yeah, he wants to bathe in the gray. Yeah. No, I'm like

I'm obviously bullish, but like in the near term, you know, this is not the time to, I don't believe this is the time to be buying right now. You haven't bought back in with your salary. You haven't bought back in yet. But you know what? Here's another thing I will say. Max Payne, like a lot of people

talk about Max Payne on Crypto Twitter. Max Payne is watching this industry that you believe in thoroughly run right past you as you like try to bottom tick this thing and like I refuse personally to be that guy so I will buy back in and I won't bottom ticket but like I don't believe that now like right now is the time uh Stephen we're not going with you next you're going last Nick bearish for bullish yeah I mean I'm bullish on the number of like active eth developers I'm bullish on the number of active eth addresses like we are

on this network building path that we're laying the infrastructure for the future of what may be like the internet or our digital economy in the future. So bullish on that. I'm kind of like a little bit of between Armand and Eric and that like I have bags that I'm not a traitor. So like I have my bags and I'm going to hold them forever, but I also want to hedge. So, you know, I was calling these guys, you know, intro week saying, you know, I'm not really an active trader. I don't set up options. I don't set up shorts, but I have definitely been, you know, buying puts on the QQQ and the general stock market to hedge my part of the portfolio that's very boring to you, David. So I'm hedging those public equities and certainly playing around in DYDX, you know, multiple shorting shit coins in all L1s. You live in Switzerland, huh?

Oh, yeah. I take Stephen's jet to Spain to make my trades and then I come. back and watch them from my screen. That's good. So I mean, I think what we're looking for is like, you know, I think historically we've seen Bitcoin when it hits a 200 week

moving average, I'm not a technical guy by any means, but follow some. When Bitcoin hits that 200 week moving average. So looking for like Bitcoin around 22K, maybe ETH around 1,200-ish. And, you know, it's going to wick below that probably, most likely, but that's where I'm personally

looking and we'll kind of DCA in. And then on a macro, like, bullish bearish. You know, I think we still need to see a Fed pivot, you know, whether inflation slows down or does the credit market pop? And Stephen and I debate that all the time. And I think we're starting to see signs of a credit market, you know, these collateralized loan obligations and corporate debt start to show some weakness and will that turn the Fed around. So at macro level, looking for a Fed pivot and on the micro crypto level, looking for kind of those bottom averages to hit. Although I do think your bags are boring. And they do provide a

alpha. So when the, when the markets ultimately do change, it's because your boring bags told me so. I mean, it's kind of embarrassing to admit that like, you know, the real estate portfolio is, is larger than the crypto portfolio. And I kind of want to keep it that way. Is this a place where I can be vulnerable? Freedom. Yes, you can. Trust tree. Love that. Yeah, yeah. We like those cash flows from real estate. All right, Stephen, bearish for bullish. What, like uranium? I didn't get that joke. I'm very bullish on uranium.

Well, because we're talking bullish commodities. Therefore, bearish everything else. No, you mean about bullish bears crypto? Bullish bears on your bags. Well, I guess I guess you would only be bullish. I've got a lot of USDC. I'm kind of neutral on it. I want to talk about uranium.

I actually, I'm bearish uranium. We're going to go in with fusion, not fission. I still do have a lot of ETH. I actually sold all of my Bitcoin. I still have a little bit of ETH. I basically have net short exposure because I've just hedged with a bunch of shit coin shorts. Have you been net short before in your life?

Because I've never gone net short. And like I've hedged, but I've never gone net short. You guys know, like, I shorted Heath at like 3,400. They're my brother's bachelor party, and I got stopped out on the jet. Whoops. The fucking jet. Blame the jet. It's always the jet.

It wasn't my jet for it's worth. Not yet. So that was a painful mess. I mean, I did sell a lot of spot around 34, 35. I had friends who were telling me to sell it like 42, 43, and I didn't listen to them, but I was quick to realize that the tides had shifted to go the other way. And since then, I've progressively realized just like how much we're fucked, which is a lot, I think.

it's kind of rough right now because everybody's bearish right which either means that we're just going to pump and that was the bottom or nobody's really just comprehending like how bad it's going to get which which which is what I'm I'm concerned with I think everybody lives in the crypto world and we've gotten used to we it's like a such a short little bubble right even Bitcoin like people post these like Bitcoin rainbow charts and all these things like Bitcoin goes up it's just a logarithmic regression It just goes up into the right like this. It's network growth, right? And if you look at something like as basic as commodity cycles, right? If you pick one commodity cycle, you would have like in some instances, like a 15, 16 year period where said commodity just goes up into the right and you just buy every dip. And even though there's tons of volatility, you make tons of money. But then there's another commodity cycle where it's just down only, right?

So like the entirety of Bitcoin, for example, is what now? 14 years. It's like one commodity cycle. So all of the data people use to model Bitcoin, like the 200 week meme, right? It's the thing. Everybody's just going to buy the 200 week and then that that'll be it. It'll just go up from there. You just buy the 200 week.

I'll buy it. I'll buy it. Like there's no sample size on that outside of this one very specific like paradigm, right? And if you look like very dispassionately at Bitcoin, right? Like just anybody, go go home and just overlay Bitcoin. with like the Russell 2000 chart, right? Like Bitcoin's just like a, it's just like a leveraged play on the Russell 2000 basically. Like every time the Russell 2000 goes up, Bitcoin goes up a lot.

Every time the Russell 2000 goes sideways or down, Bitcoin goes down or sideways a lot. And the Russell 2000 is like, it's kind of like a microcap. It's like the smallest of stock, right? The things you would presume would kind of benefit the most from like excess liquidity in the system. Right. So it's very unclear to me. The Fed monetary policy. Yeah. It's very unclear to me that Bitcoin.

is actually like an inflation hedge versus just like the beneficiary of like the it's just like the largest sort of like liquidity battery right that might now sort of be discharged like I don't know like I think about these things right but Bitcoin is like is like a is like a good case right you've got things like avalanche and salon or like Harmony 1 like that thing is going to zero I'm sure I'm sure all the shit coins but I want to ask you this like so Russell 2000 On trading view, you can model this against, like, money supply. And I've seen you do this before. Like, what's your thought on that?

Like, it's sort of just like kind of, I don't want to say canary in the coal mine. That's not the right term. But it's sort of something that's like quarterly, but I don't know if that's the thing, right? I think it's more complicated than, oh, we print money. Because even the money printing is nuance, right? There's a difference between giving the banks all the money via QE. basically versus like helicopter moneying people via PPE and mailing

them checks, right? One is like reserves versus one Yeah, there's different kinds of increases in the money supply, right? Everybody wants this like simple explanation of why this thing went up and why this thing's going down. But it's always like more

complicated than that and I'm always wary of these like simple narratives, these simple explanations. Oh, this is this. So it's going to happen. It's very rarely that simple. Like the whole system is very complicated Like we've talked about this a lot

The idea that there's this like narrative in Bitcoin that Oh the dollar is just gonna get printed into oblivion and go to zero And then everybody's gonna buy Bitcoin because it's gonna be like a haven from the dollar printing Right that's like a very Common thing that everybody throws around which Might be true but like I tend to believe is probably kind of nonsense until Do you believe that crypto at large will continue exist? Yeah, crypto at large will continue to exist. Yeah, crypto at large will continue to

continue to exist. Like, you're seeing, yeah. What? David, David's like, okay.

I didn't even realize that was an option. It just pulls all of our biker boats. Guys, we are not airing this. Like in the NASDAQ right now, there are some stocks

that are down like 90 plus percent. Like, there are stocks in the NASDAQ that are getting wrecked worse than like all L-1s, which is insane because those things are dead. Like,

a lot of these things. They're just dead. They're obviously. dead. They don't have cash flows or any. At least some of these companies like had some semblance of cash flow or there might be a cash flow in the future. They're still dead. That's what I love about like sort of my client base or my peers who are saying like, oh, well, you're invested in crypto, you moron. And it's like, oh, yeah, well, my alternative was like I'd be invested in these like shit coes in tech that were, they're only down 70% instead of 80.

Arc K. Maybe even a fucking break. I mean, ARC is like a good, I think the arc like Bitcoin chart is really interesting. They're both kind of these bets on like hopium and liquidity and zero interest like Bitcoin I think like does really good when you have like negative real rates because you're like why I don't want to buy this long duration buy it's kind of similar like gold right where you're like what why do I want to buy this long duration bond with a negative yield maybe I'll just buy gold right it looks worse when you can actually get like three four five percent in in like a bond it like kind of kills that narrative. a little bit. And something like ARC is like a huge beneficiary of like artificially low rates because

you're just trading on this infinite future cash flow that you can just discount to infinity. And it basically allows you to just sell whatever narrative you want because like the more the real rates go to zero and negative, like the more like math doesn't matter and you're just kind of selling some weird vision of the world. Right. And in some ways I'm like worrying that Bitcoin is sort of like arc because it is just like Bitcoin is kind of just selling opium to a degree like there's no cash flows in Bitcoin

right and like like fees are just like a dead like heart patient where they look at like cryptofeas dot info whatever you can see like eith fees are completely outpacing that's like yeah like that's scary to me because I think that we are moving to this

like totally different paradigm that like nobody's lived in before like we everybody has this very narrow kind of frame of reference through which they view the entire world, right? But like you can look back at like a hundred year financial cycles. And everybody's modeling everything on this 10, 15 year cycle. But there's no guarantee that that's going to be the same thing moving forward, right? This is what Ray Dolly talks about.

He talks about the long term debt cycle, not just the, not just the eight year. Yeah, you're like cycles within cycles. You get a little 10 year cycle, but then you get 10, 10 year cycles, and then you get like the long cycle. and all the things you were trading in your 10-year cycle is just explode. And if you weren't ready for that kind of game within the game, then you just blow up, right? And most people don't think about that. They have like this huge recency bias.

Am I rambling now? No, David, this was his answer to bullish or bear. Okay, so you talked about monetary policy. You also talked about like a lot of these. assets being dependent on liquidity. You're talking about how Bitcoin is just related to the Russell. Not to say that Bitcoin just tracks Russell, but also the Russell might be tracking Bitcoin, but it's more likely that they're actually tracking some more basal-level thing.

They're both sort of like liquidity batteries. Sure. Like there's like this, like liquidity is sort of like energy in the system. And this isn't entirely my idea. I saw this on Twitter once. I forgot who wrote up this. Inner Michael Saylor. I don't want to.

It's like the opposite of the Michael Saylor thing. Is it a liquidity battery or are we just really talking about the value of the denominator here? Look, like when you have a circuit, right, where like the Fed is sort of like the battery and you think of money as like the current in the system, right? Are you familiar with the concept of like a capacitor in a circuit? The capacitor stores all this charge and it discharges it very quickly within the system. Right. So in a situation where like the Fed battery. is pushing like all this excess money, i.e. energy into the system, it tends to flow to like

the capacitors in the system. Like that's where the bubbles form where these things rapidly soak up and store that monetary energy. But capacitors, once they have like a discharge gradient, right, they also very rapidly like zap out all of that energy and like the system kind of like returns to like a different state, right? So I worry that Bitcoin is just like a very elaborate kind of like liquidity capacitor, which is soaked up a lot of monetary energy. Like in my mind, like, ETH, for example, fits a lot better into the new sort of like investment paradigm we're moving into, right? We were in this area where, era where rates were zero, where like cash flows, what the,

what the hell are cash flows? Like, I don't know. Cash flows, like, stop. You're just thinking too small with your cash flows. What about, what about three decades from now and how this is going to, like, we're all to, it, now it's very different. Now, like, it's a new era where, like, we care about, like, real things, like, like, commodities and energy and, like, how much money you're going to make next year, right? So in that sort of, like, paradigm, like, to me, as far as I can tell,

like, the only asset in all of crypto that actually fits into that framework is, is Ethereum. Because, like, ETH does have, like, a pseudo case for, for being, like, a commodity. And it does have, like, a pseudo case for being, like, kind of like Arthur Hayes, you know, infinite duration bond type thing, right? But it has something that it's anchored to. It's like an asset that's actually demanded that's being used that has like a, like a cash flow that can be attached to it, like a multiple, right? So I kind of feel like it might come out of this whole mess a lot better than Bitcoin, right?

I'm like, I'm trying to write a whole piece on this right now, but I'm trying to, I'm struggling to find a scenario where Bitcoin goes to the moon and like the near term and and Heath doesn't, right? Because all the scenarios I see where Bitcoin goes to the moon, they first involve, like, worldwide political chaos, which I think will send everything to close to zero, even though they might moon after. You're making me grab the Mezcom.

First of all, this is David Aubin's favorite scenario of all time. No, I mean, he's probably very happy to hear me. Those are the bikoiners that, Bitcoiners are the memes that love to. I mean, I've been the biggest bit of this group. a while, right? I know there's been like a gripe of Davids for some time, but I feel like I've been reevaluating my position on this.

Because I think your time horizon is important. I think a lot of Bitcoiners, they talk in this kind of like elaborate sort of very aspirational, multi-decade or even century-long time horizons. But like I want to buy a house and maybe have kids someday and buy stuff and like in the real world. So I care about what happens in the next day. I'm shorting on it.

First of all that. already own a house. I'm sure the kids are the other house. Okay, so here's how I'm hearing all of this and I agree almost 100%. It sounds all about right.

And I do believe it's all about capturing cash flows and Bitcoin had this premium in the last two years where it was the inflation narrative. It finally caught wind out of coming out of the bear market of 2018 to 2020

because the Fed started printing off money and to their credit, Bitcoiners have nailed the Fed, they called the Fed monetary policy for like the last decade. Before Bitcoin was even on anyone's radar, they said, this is what's going to happen. There's going to be some minor hiccup,

and for all intensive purposes, COVID was a minor hiccup as far as a pandemic goes. Like, it wasn't really, it was a worst common cold more than it was like a black plague. And all of a sudden, that worst common cold causes trillions of dollars of money printing, And Bitcoin sucks up all of that.

But then as soon as money to, as soon as the flows disappear, Bitcoin discharges that. It sends it back into the economy, right? And so it captured the money during the bull market. But then because it has no value capture mechanism other than a meme, it puts it right back into the economy when the time comes to it. And so asking myself, David, are you bullish? I'll ask myself the question. Thank you for asking. Yeah.

Yeah. We all know what you're saying. You know, you ask. On what time harasses that I think is important right now. So I think that there is a short to medium term grit your teeth because there is going to be a culling of the herd, as we know. And I'm actually not, I'm bearish on Alt Layer 1s as a category, but I'm waiting for one of those few Alt-Layer ones to make it through the bear market because there's enough of them where some of them will. And as soon as one of them is like the clear, like, survivor of the 20. 2022 to 2024 bare market, then I'm bullish.

And it's going to be the alt-layer ones that figured out how to adapt and how to adapt to the new monetary policy, the new standard of the economy. And all of a sudden, one of those things is going to make it through. And all of a sudden, it's going to be the next, the Ethereum that was of 2017. So I have a follow-up question for you, David. And I don't know if I've heard. That was only one-third of my ramp, by the way. Oh, you want to continue first?

Oh, I want to continue. Oh, let it rip. Oh, I want to keep on going. And so we got all these alt-layer ones, which for the, the first time are layer ones with like investor unlocks. So they have that to contend with. It's great to see, by the way, that bankless is acknowledging alt layer ones. We got spanked for not doing that.

It'll last like six months or so. Decentralization, maximum. And so they have the investor unlocks to contend with. So that's going to flood the market. They also are scaled in block size, which floods the market in inflation. And so Ethereum is like 4% inflation. inflation pre-merge in a proof of work form. And Solana, Avalanche, Phantom, they are all higher issuance than Ethereum is.

Well, Ethereum is in its proof of work form. So they're already proof of stake, and they still have higher issuance. So they have all its issuance to come to the market. One of these chains is going to figure out how to deal with all of these things, and one of these trains is going to be able to go into the next bear market, deal with it, and come out with it on the shiny colors on the other side. Chris Berninski called this the hazing cycle of Ethereum to these Altlayer ones, where Bitcoiners hazed us going through 2018 to 2020,

and now we are hazing the Altlayer ones, and we're hazing them into our principles. Stop issuing all of your tokens, start having a decentralized block production, and then maybe you'll make it through the other side, and maybe we'll accept you then. And a lot of Bitcoiners started accepting Ethereum when Ethereum came back and started going up versus Bitcoin starting in 2020, right? And so that's my bull case for Altlayer ones.

Bull case for Altlayer ones doesn't start until like late 2023, however. So they got a while to go. Agree. And at least one of these things that's going to figure it out, maybe just one. If I put money on any of them, maybe Avalanche. I was lovely. You put money on that? Really?

Yes. I'm a, no. I'm a Salana. I think Solana is the obvious play. If you want to be a trade or. So Lana is building sort of. something entirely different. Avalanche allowed for fees to go up, dude.

Doesn't Avalanche have like two times the transaction capacity is Ethel 1? Isn't it like every, it's just like this giant facade? I'm not saying I'm bullish versus ether. I don't think we need to like... At least Salonah has like, you know, a bunch of billionaires who're trying to get rich behind it.

You can kind of ride that wave. You can kind of make that. I think this is not like a tech base. We don't get lost in it. I want to get lost in it. I want to get lost in it. I want to get to avalach. We don't need to.

I want to hear it. But what's, much more bullish than that and much sooner than that is the merge. It's the merge. I'll press this button, which you guys can't hear. Siren? It's a bunch of applause. And so talking about flows, right?

As soon as the merge happens, coming in late August, maybe early September, probably late August, Ethereum goes from the first time ever a negative $15 million a day flows, where it leaks $15 million worth of monetary power, if we're talking about the battery metaphor, $15 million of day is going outbound out of Ethereum. And it's been that way ever since Genesis, because of proof of work as a function of market cap. So divided by market cap, it stays the same.

And so there's always these outflows to secure Ethereum every single day. And so the flows are outbound. The battery is being discharged into the market in order to sustain the blockchain. And once proof of stake happens, that $15 million of day leakage turns into $15 million a day. These are rough numbers, but these numbers are generally accurate. It turns into $15 million a day of absorption.

And so if Stephen's theory about how Bitcoin is just like this monetary battery that sucks up all the liquidity, at least Ethereum has this mechanism that actually collects the energy and then retains it. That's the main differentiator, is it retains the energy. We're on the same team here. I'm wearing the shirt, man. I'm talking about why I'm bullish. I'm not. Can I go to the bathroom?

Do I have to ask permission for that? No. I have to lose. Not until I'm... I just really have to go. Not until I'm done chilling Eith, brother. When I'm done, I need to dump on David's theory a little bit.

All right, here we go. Just for the spice of it all. I think... Bring the microphone to the bathroom. Let me go. I'm wearing the shirt. I'm the same. I'm on your team.

It is going to improve and like I think price will follow, right? I think you're talking about the fundamentals. Right. And price and fundamentals don't always align. Okay. And I think the price were... We're only two-thirds through my ramp, by the way.

Okay. Yes. I want you to follow me. Okay. So when price and fundamentals deviate, it's typically because of some exogenous factor, right? And right now, it's macro at large is causing that deviation. And I don't think that deviation is set to change any time soon. Right.

Okay. And I think you would probably agree with that. Yeah. Okay. But I... I think it will change in like, within... six to nine months. Okay, maybe six to nine months, but maybe a little longer.

But, like, I agree with you. But, like, there will be an accumulation phase where you can, like, you can buy back into EVE. It's not just going to be V-shaped. It's not just going to be like, okay, merge and then goodbye. Oh, I think that will happen. Well, it might. I didn't, like, squish chaos would agree with you, et cetera.

I'm not really necessarily thinking that. What I'm thinking is that, like, you know, I think it was Kobe who said that, like, the merge is not an engine up. grade to Heath. He called it like if you were like making the analogy that that Heath is a race car we're not changing out the engine

where now this this car just goes like 10 times faster than the other other car. It's like he said Kobe said that it's like we made this car more aerodynamic like over a long period of time it will improve

against its competition but it's not just going to like just take off and that's I completely believe in that. No, I'll take the other side of that bad. Well, I know you. The idea is that, like, you can feed the same amount of gas into two engines and receive two different outputs from those two different engines based on their design, right?

And so one is leaking gas as it goes, and the other one is, like, very, very efficient. You're right, but we're, like, you're talking about fundamentals. I'm talking about markets. Right. Okay. So the argument that I'm making is that the merge over powers macro. macro, which is a big statement to make. It's a big statement to make.

And I'm not saying it overpowers it like on a dime. It's not like we hit the merge and we just reverse. The only reason where that would be true is that we hit the merge and then we start reversing because that would happen because of narrative, not because of fundamentals. But the argument that I will make is that fundamentals start accruing faster than people are expected. There's a reason why there's terms like by the rumors sell the news. It's because investor behavior also matters, like for price, not for value, but for price. But all those people selling the news are going to have to eventually, they will get overcome by the $15 million a day net, sell pressure, buy pressure, the 30 net, excuse me, 15 daily. I listen to your podcast with the founder.

Yes, exactly, North Rock Digital. And he was talking about how there's $12 million a day of cell pressure from minors. and post-merge, if that doesn't continue, it's going to be hard to stop the price from going up. But I do disagree with, you know, ETH and the merge escaping macro fundamentals, but I do have a question for you in regards to Eith price going up post-merge. You know, I think Hal Press mentioned that he thinks the price is going to front-run the merge.

And I disagree with that, and I think you've said that you think the price will go post-merge. But on what time horizon? Because I do think these narratives have to develop. The market does price in some technical risk. And so the market just may need to see this thing work for a little bit. And then they're going to need to see the yields and appreciate the yields. And those will show up on CNBC and Bloomberg and what kind of yields you can get. And then the market will capture of like how much electricity was decreased through this update.

And those narratives will take time, but they will develop. And so I'm more of like Eric's on terms of like a longer time horizon. It will definitely benefit Ethan the price. but are you more of a V shape, like post-merge immediate pump? No, I'm more of a curve, more of a curve rather than a V. And I think the crypto industry will figure it out first because what we'll see a very big breakaway is the ETH-BTC ratio, because that will happen first. Because if macro hits once again the crypto markets and we all take a big leg down,

then we're all going down. but we're going to notice ETH do very, very well in a post-merged Ethereum, we're going to notice ETH doing very well because it has $30 million a day of less cell pressure than it previously did. And so the Bitcoin-Eth ratio is going to look much more violent than the Bitcoin dollar ratio. Stephen's shaking his head. But then the Bitcoin, the Eth dollar ratio will, over 90 days post-merge will have started

to accumulate 90 times $30 million worth of net bi-pricing. pressure in comparison to his previous equilibrium and then savvy US dollar investors, US dollar investors, law, will start to notice like, wait, why isn't ether completely obliterated? It's doing okay. And that will start to, so the first, the narrative will spin in the crypto world and then it will start to bleed out into the macro world. And you think that the crypto world will use the ETH BTC metric as a signal? And do you think we're in this channel, the ETH BTC ratio, Do you think we'll break down out of that channel in the short term? No.

Okay. So, because like in your episode with Ben Cowan, he literally said himself, he's like, okay, you're probably right on this, but it will take longer than people are thinking. Right. And how long, that was like six months ago? 2024, he was predicting or whatever. And I'm kind of on that time horizon, but. Was he privy to the merge, though?

Does Ben Cowan know about the merge? well the fundamentals of the merge because like a lot of people know about the merge he doesn't like literally this is his entire life guy drives lines on a chart just a chart guy I love him I love him but come on he doesn't know about this stuff

well okay it's one thing to know about the merge but it's it's different to know the magnitude of the merge and so I'm and I'll say I'm not 100% confident and I'm not the merge overpowers macro but I'm more than 50% and of those cohorts of people

If I'm in the right camp, the cohort of people that think that the merge is more powerful the macro is less than 100 people. Let's get, okay, first of all, let's get Stevens take on this because I want Stevens, but like, I'll just bend over now. All right. So I have a couple of thoughts on this. I find it really peculiar, right, that everybody seems to think, like the merge is this, like, revolutionary event that everybody at this table knows about and is talking about and there's

billions of dollars in the line but for some reason like nobody else understands it right like we're the only ones we've understand it's not priced it yeah less than 100 people so i'm i'm very skeptical about that point and then there's this other narrative right that's like there's going to be so many fewer outflows of ethereum being dumped on the market post-merge right but what i never hear people talking about is the idea that leading up to the merge, there's also probably way more buy pressure on Ethereum than is going to exist post-merge, because a lot of the market is probably buying more Ethereum than they would be post-merge because they're betting on this narrative happening, right? So I'm not buying this idea that like the buy pressure is going to remain

constant pre-merge and then post-merge. And then because the buy pressure is constant, the cell pressure drops off and then the price moons, right? I think buy pressure is way higher now than it will be post-merge. I think obviously post-merge buy pressure way drops off because people trading into that narrative goes away. So I'm like super skeptical about that. I am definitely not of the camp that like the merge like erases macro, right? Like I think macro is king. I think anybody who thinks that crypto is going to in the short run like out trade macro. I think that's like that's like a crazy pipe dream. The other thing I would say is like, We're all very familiar, I assume, with like the Ethereum Foundation selling the top of every freaking thing that exists, right?

So if I were like an Ethereum whale and I had billions of ETH right now, what would I be doing? I would be like engineering this like very gigantic hype going into the merge so that I could dump all my stuff in August. Like please, right before everything really fully goes to hell and then like that that's what I would be doing. So I worry that it's like a Spoken like a true denial Spoken like a true Liquidity event right And like is there going to be like adoption on ETH

In August Like is there going to be like Defi just got like took like a bullet to the head Right NFTs are like it's getting to the point where it's like embarrassing if you have an ape as your profile picture on Twitter Like gas like last night It's been that way for a while

It was like 12 guay to do stuff right So like I don't I don't see that demand is suddenly returning because the merge happens in August. I'm very mid-long-term bullish on this, but I'm not really trading around it, and I find it to be like very hopium. And it's exactly the stuff I would be wanting all of you guys to think

if I was just about to dump on your heads. It's exactly what I would be saying. They're a theorem foundation. Really? They're pretty good at it. They're pretty good at. Well, they sold $4,200. They're not going to sell $2,000.

I'm skeptical of every narrative that comes across crypto, Twitter, as though it's like you're the first person to hear this narrative and nobody else knows it except you or maybe other people knew it but you're like the next in the chain and then retail is going to get this after you so like who else is buying into the merge narrative after us that's like what i want to know like who's going to come after us in august and like support the price of eve i just don't see it in in in the short run the same people who think there's technical risks the same people who think there's like a climate issue with with proof of work i mean all those people that need to be brought long. They need to be shown evidence. And I agree

with you that obviously this is priced in. Why do you need to see evidence that proof of stake doesn't hurt the climate? That does not an execution risk. We don't, but I do think that the general financial markets need to see that it's true. And they need to see someone publish some data and the narrative to take hold.

That is true. I'll latch on to that narrative. It's like, it's the next hundred million users and like, to be fair, there are not that many users in crypto right now. Like on a global scale, there there aren't that many. So like, It's not going to take much to, like, increase buying demand, really. Like, globally?

From who? Who's buying right now? Globally. Globally. Globally, from where? Where's the money coming from? Where's the money coming from? Everybody's wealth is being destroyed.

It's being fucking annihilated, like eviscerated, right? Like, everybody's value in stocks is going down. Everybody's value in homes is going down. The Fed is doing QT, which is pulling money out of the system. Okay. People have to pay more money to heat their homes to buy food. But we agree. Like, we've been, we've been bearish on half of it.

Like, we agree. But, but there, there does come a point at which you want to be a buyer and holder of, of, of, of which we believe that Eath is. Sure. Maybe like a year or two from now. Plus, the whole point of the merge fundamentals is that it doesn't, no one needs to buy because the Ethereum ecosystem has established itself around an equilibrium of a certain amount of daily cell pressure that all of a sudden inverts from negative 15 to positive

$15 million dollars a day. And so the whole idea is that, no, we don't need anyone. It's baked in, it's literally baked in code. Can you refute my point that, like, I believe that the market has put additional buy pressure in in the lead up to the merge that would not otherwise be there, ergo negating the whole existence of the merge in first place. I thought everyone has been selling for the last, like, six months because the price is going down. So all those people... I think the price of Ethereum is still, like, astoundingly high.

Because of the merch. Correct. So what's the merch narrative doesn't exist anymore? Or what's going to keep the price okay? All of the people who knew about the merge haven't sold and all the people who don't know about the merch did sell. Let me play a little bit of a mediator because Stephen on Alfalfa on our episodes

has said himself that he's setting his own buy limit orders. Like, right? And you've set your own by limit orders at 1800, 1,500, 1,200, whatever, right? 1,200 sounds okay. There is a level at which you want to buy. And, like, I agree with you. Like, and we would all agree that, like, we want to own ETH long term.

And I think that that is, irrefutable. Like we do want to own this asset. It's just at what price do we want to own it? You guys saw Snapchat, right? Like it retraced its entire run-up. The entire thing, gone. So the idea that like, Eath is here like 2K when it was $200 during COVID

and we're all like, can only go up from here. Did you just compare Ethereum to a dick pick app? Yes, I did because at least the dick pick app has a lot of utility in people sending their pictures of their dick to people, right? A lot of people getting late. It's much more utility than me creating some weird financial derivative than borrowing against it 17 times and having it blow up, right?

Like I would argue that sending dicks is like a very... Such an isaulous. It's like putting Ethereum and Snapchat into the same category. Humans are the beginning of time. Sending dix has more utility. The fact that Ethereum right now as a market have is trading lower than like individual companies is laughable. long term. Like, long term, maybe I agree with you.

But in the short term, I don't think any of that matters. I think in the short term, everything is just liquidity flows. It's just like everything is risk off. And of that, we agree. It's just like, at what price do you get back in? Your bids are going to be there to support us at 1,200. Yeah, I will buy it 12. Please, sir.

I feel comfortable. Like, I think, I would be stunned if we don't, like, run those 1,700 lows. Like, I would, at a minimum. No, I would be shocked. And like, last summer, ETH chart. by the way, which you got, like, that to me, that chart looks terrible to me. Like, I look at that chart and I'm like,

this is losing like 30, 40%, like, 40%. Like, it's just like, the E3C chart. It looks like it just, it just wants to roll over and die. For reasons, like, I don't understand because, like, I think ETH is better than Bitcoin

for the next five years. I do. And I don't own any Bitcoin, but I own ETH. But also, like, as an objective person, I look at that chart and I go, that chart looks really bad. It's not a bullish chart.

Do you accept that if it's all based on flows, that the eth-merge with the inversion of 15 million negative to 50 million positive is bullish under that same reasoning? My point is that there have been excess inflows on the basis of the merge trade. And when the merge trade doesn't exist anymore, those inflows will go away, possibly at an exact equilibrium point

of the reduced outflows, right? So I don't, I mean, like, I listened to this episode with the whatever face, the hedge fund guy. And like, to me, like, that point didn't, like, and I was skeptical of this with, like, the Bitcoiners and the, oh, the having, it can't be priced in. Right.

It can't be, and then people make these, like, tortured analogies of why, like, oh, you can't possibly. It's so stupid. Like, you just buy, like, why can't I buy more Bitcoin in advance of the having, knowing that there's going to be like this reduced cell pressure at the end. It never made any sense to me. So right now you are Nick Carter and I'm the Bidcorner's.

We're like, Nick Carter writes this like massive essay about how the merge is completely priced in because of just like efficient markets and all the Bik corners are like, it's not my match price in. But what they're saying is what I'm saying is where as soon as the flows, the outbound flows gets kneecapped, all of a sudden it slowly manifests a bull market. And we could, with the whole triple point,

excuse me, the triple happening, like, it happens three times as fast in Ethereum land. I think you are right on a different time frame. I think, like, one, two, three years from now, you're definitely right. But I don't think you're right in August or September or, like, November or December. And that's kind of what I care about. I can see it down only for the rest of the year. But, like, it's going to be, it's going to be, if that is true, then it's going to be a green 2023. I think it's going to be a green 2023 for Eath, regardless.

Alt layer one still have another year ahead of it. I agree with you. Like, I do think there is going to be this pivot, right? But I think the pivot is going to, it's going to be like a different investment environment, right? Like, I don't think the pivot is just going to be like, risk is back on. Let's buy all the dumbest shit possible. I think it's going to be like, okay, it's back on. But like, interest rates are probably going to stay high, I think, persistently now.

I think we're probably going to enter a paradigm where we have like really high rates, but also like a lot of money printing and we try to like pull money from all the rich people and like helicopter it to the poor people. And there's going to be like persistently high commodity prices and all this stuff we haven't had to contend with before. And I think there is going to be like a premium to invest in things that have actual utility that like you can actually derive some sort of valuation or price from, which is why I think in the show. medium term. Like I like ETH over Bitcoin because I look at Bitcoin.

Like to me Bitcoin is like, it's pure speculation. It's just like a, it's like a call option on beta liquidity, right? On like, it's basically just some call option on or like some massive put,

I guess, on like worldwide fiat. But like, I don't think the dollar is going anywhere anytime soon. And like I said, I think if the dollar does go somewhere, there's still going to be like an extended period.

where everything gets wrecked while the dollar goes to the moon, including probably Bitcoin. So, okay, why not just wait until that point to buy it then? Right? Like, I don't see, like, this scenario where Bitcoin thrives, but Ethereum dies in, like, the next, like, three or four years. That's, like, the thing I'm trying to, like, convince myself of and, like, this piece I'm writing, and I haven't been able to do it yet. So if anybody has, like, a good argument for it, like, please. I think the better question, like, David,

ask if we're bearish or bullish. I think the better question is, like, where do you see Eith Price in 2027? Like, where do you see Eith Price way down the road? And I think we would all around this table say, Valhalla. Valhalla. Valhalla. Valhalla. Valhalla.

Say Valhalla, Stephen. Say it. We want you on record. I really don't want to lose everything before ball holla. I'm like, hopeful it goes there. I think it probably will, but I don't want to, I don't want to bet the farm. David, I mean, part of this is on your shoulders. I mean, like, these narratives will be seated with the crypto-native media.

God damn right. And post-merge, someone's going to have to prove that electricity and power consumption is down, and, you know, these yields exist. Like, do you ever feel like a little weight on your shoulders that you're going to have to bear the inception of these narratives and how they grow? I haven't been wrong. brother. Yeah, that's right, man. Our money's on you, my man. Money's on you. All right, guys.

Well, since the camera on YouTube keeps on cutting out, I think we'll have to have our last final words until I'll ask the group. One question, guys, who we'll each get to ask is why should the listeners listen to Alpha Alpha? Armand, number one. Oh, God. I like the

compilation of their answers synthesizing. Why should listen to us? You shouldn't, if you didn't enjoy this. And if you did, you should. We'll be your homies. And we're taking this very seriously.

I think that's something that I want to really put out there. We're really enjoying this. We're really taking this seriously. And we're really having a fucking grand old time. And yeah, come join the journey with us. Eric, number two. Did mescal just hit me like a frigging ton of

bricks. I just slumped way down to my chair because like, I don't know. I'm feeling the way of the mescal. Dude, you're sweating, bro. I'm sweating. Is it a, is, are we in a sauna? Dude, you are.

Are we in a sauna? Okay. Bottom line is this, like, this is the type of conversation that we have on our, on our Wednesdays and our podcast, and like, I think it's valuable. Like, for me it's valuable. I've gotten like immense value just from talking to you guys over the years.

This is an example of that. And like that's why we did the podcast. It's why we started. It's like to share this type of talk. Yes. Well said. Stephen. Stephen. Yeah. I mean, if anybody just heard me rant for a while, and they were like, that was so annoying. But it was actually phenomenal. I really enjoyed it. Well, if you enjoyed that, then I guess you should listen to the, Stephen. That's why we're co-host. Yeah. And I like to. You know, that. that episode, you know the Lord of the Rings or the or the or kind of runs in with a dynamite

just dives in and blows everything up? That's like what I try to do with everything. You know? So if you don't, if you don't like that, if you just want to like be like comfortable and like, yeah, this is my thing and I just want to reinforce my thing, then you should probably not listen to. Yeah, you should definitely not listen to us if that's good. But I like to, I don't know,

I just like to shit out on everybody's ideas once in a while. It's good. He challenges me a lot. A lot. It's been beneficial though. Nick, can someone please tell the list That's why they should listen to your guys' podcasts. You can work in these circumstances. Man, well, I'll give you the facts and that straight is that I've become richer talking to these people and listening to these three other guys and debating topics.

And it's made me money. And yeah, yeah, maybe a little happier. Yeah. And I think, like we mentioned, like the grant study is proven that when you have a core group of people that you respect and that you dissect the world around, you get a little wealthier, a little healthier. and I think that's what we're trying to develop on the podcast. And so come join us. That's why you're the marketer in this group. Well, come join us.

You know, let's try to make some money together. And at the very least, hop in the Discord and make fun of our logo. So I can convince these other guys we need to change it. Yeah, make fun of us. We like those reviews. Yeah, for sure. All right, guys. Well, Bankless Nation, you know what to do?

All the links, per usual are in the show notes. If you wanted to listen to Alfa, if you want to listen to these D-Gents, and if you want to listen to them, yell at each other for various topics of which you will not see coming. But the alfalfa is with the alfalfa boys. Guys, any last words? Bro, you're the man. We love you.

We appreciate you. That was phenomenal. It's an honor. Like, I'm actually really sad. You're living in San Diego. But to be continued in many ways. Certainly. And this has been an honor for us.

I am sad, too, on a personal level that you're leaving because you are the only time in my life. I've, like, walked into a group. and there's been like a person there who's like liked crypto more than me. And it was so refreshing to be able to like even just take a step back and go like, huh. Because I've just always been like the totally off the defense. So I love that. And I'm going to miss you.

Now I'm going to just be just tilting over by myself. The most vulnerable Stephen's ever been. That was huge. Earthshadowed. Fuck you guys. Well, guys, Brooklyn feels very, very uphill, as in it seems like I could roll off of that thing real quick. And San Diego has treated me well. And a large part of that story is because of you guys.

So thank you for welcoming me. And I'll see you guys again in the future. Thanks, bro. Love you, brother. I love you. All right. Cheers, guys.