The Wolf Of All Streets - $120K Next? Bitcoin Surges As Israel-Iran War Ends!

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

►► Discover Bitcoin Yield: https://archpublic.com/ Bitcoin is back above $105K as tensions between Israel and Iran ease, giving bulls a reason to regroup. On today’s live show at 9 am EST, I��ll break it all down with Andrew Parish, Tillman Holloway, and John E. Deaton — from the $120K BTC target to what Trump’s ceasefire announcement really means for markets. We’ll also cover oil's dramatic drop, Ethereum ETF inflows crossing $4B, and the latest big-money moves in crypto infrastructure. John E. Deaton: https://x.com/JohnEDeaton1 Andrew Parish: https://x.com/AP_Abacus Tillman Holloway: https://x.com/texasol61 ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEKDAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/ ►► Arch Public Unleash algorithmic trading. Discover how algorithms used by hedge-funds are now accessible to traders looking for unparalleled insights and opportunities! 👉https://archpublic.com/ ►►TRADING ALPHA READY TO TRADE LIKE THE PROS? THE BEST TRADERS IN CRYPTO ARE RELYING ON THESE INDICATORS TO MAKE TRADES. Use code '10OFF' for a 10% discount. 👉https://tradingalpha.io/?via=scottmelker Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://x.com/scottmelker Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io/ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c #Bitcoin #Crypto #ArchPublic The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

Let's go. Let's go. Welcome to the Wolf of All Streets on a Tuesday where we convince you time and time again that every dip is for buying. That's never been more true than it was yesterday and over the weekend. I'm going to be the day where we convince you time and time again that every dip is for buying that's never been more true than it was yesterday and over the

weekend. I've got John Deaton here with me to talk about the comings and goings of geopolitics and crypto. John, how are you this morning? Great. How are you my morning? I'm doing great, how are you my friend? I'm doing fantastic, I like the background. What's, you put something together for me there. We've got some Handmaid's Tale action, what's going on? Just for you, well, I have this little room in my basement

and so I have the smallest man cave you've ever seen. So I threw up some of these red curtains that were laying in the basement. That's kind of cool down here. So yeah, cool. I like it. It's, you know, red is an interesting color, given that the Iran process went full circle inside of, you of let's call it 36 to 72 hours. It's a testament to Bitcoin's strength and Bitcoin's ethos that no matter how many, let's call it institutions, no matter how many corporates, no matter how many marketing organizations

get involved with Bitcoin at the, let's call it the heart of the, you know, the value of Bitcoin is its stability and its disconnection from, you know, these types of events. And we saw that yesterday. We saw a dip, you saw that, oh really over the weekend. We saw a dip down to just below 99, but then the rip back when things Began to change was really really fast and really really quick and

You know, I just think it's extraordinary. It's it's Bitcoin as an asset You know, there's there's we've gotten to a place now where, for example, prediction markets are fairly well known, not only in crypto, but in larger pop culture. It's almost as if Bitcoin and its price action is a first mover in prediction markets in what's going to happen, what has happened, and how quickly can investors and their emotions respond to what's actually happened. And so watching it in real time was fascinating. Your thoughts, listen, you've been in politics to some extent, you still are in politics,

you comment on politics all the time. I'm interested in your thoughts associated with the geopolitical landscape and you know maybe a little bit of where we go from here. Well yeah thanks. I listen I think I almost think Bitcoin's become a little boring you know in some ways if you go back to the 2017, 2018. But I mean, I was someone who obviously, like many people, quite reserved about, obviously, I don't believe Iran should have a nuclear weapon. But there's a reason to be concerned. nuclear weapon. But there's a reason to be concerned. Are we going to enter another Iraq situation? Are we going to enter another prolonged Middle Eastern conflict? The markets are betting that we're not. And clearly, Iran notifying the United States and giving their symbolic hit back, if you will, where they told us where they were shooting their missiles so the United States and giving

time that it's it's becoming the safe haven that Larry Fink described it. And that's what shocked me. If you go back, I think it was two years ago. Maybe it was longer. I don't know. But when Larry Fink, who manages $11 trillion, uh, the largest, uh, asset manager in the world, first describing this asset as a safe haven. It was time to take notice. I think all of Wall Street took notice.

The question was, is it going to act like that when you talk about these, you know, big macro political events? Sure. And I think that, listen, I was prepared for Bitcoin, I don't know, you're more smart on the fundamentals and the technical side, but I was fully prepared for Bitcoin to go under 90 with this kind of oil spiking up

like that, people are gonna sell off assets, that they risk assets, but the question to you is, do you think we can declare Bitcoin a risk off asset at this point? You know, I don't, Bitcoin is so unique that it often does something that we're not ready for, that we weren't prepared for. So there are so many pundits on both sides of the aisle

Right. So you have the Peter shifts of the world That's you know anti Bitcoin if for no other reason to garner attention and show his own gold products You know that thinks that Bitcoin is is not a risk-off asset There are a lot of folks that that still believe in the cypherpunk value associated with Bitcoin that it is a risk off asset. What I do think it is, is an alpha asset that is very, very different than other assets and equities. The reason why I say that is because when you really get down to the core of what Bitcoin is and its value, you can move paper around associated with currencies. You can move paper around associated with equities.

You can even move paper around associated with debt. But at its core, Bitcoin is not necessarily paper. It can be moved peer to peer in a meaningful way. And that particular foundation of its ethos makes it a different asset, even in moments like this, even as Bitcoin is financialized. Right. When Larry Fink is talking about it ad nauseum. Right. When very Larry Fink is the chief evangelist evangelist. And as Jack Maulers said at the Bitcoin conference, you know, Bitcoin CMO, that still doesn't change that core value associated with Bitcoin, that it is somewhat disinterested in, you know, being, let's call it an equity-like

entity. So in my mind, I think even though it reacts and acts at times in the same way that markets do, there are other moments where it's fairly disconnected, right? There's been moments over the last, let's call it three months, where markets have been down significantly and Bitcoin has been up. There's been other moments where Bitcoin has been down, where markets have been up. There's been other moments where Bitcoin has been down, where markets have been up. So there is a core difference in what Bitcoin is and how it acts and reacts to headlines and moments in the market. I think that will continue to be the case. I think in the best of times, it's a risk on asset and is a 3 to 5X upside version of risk on. And in moments as it's related to geopolitical concerns, it can be a risk off asset. Price action is different, right? Price action is different.

There's use case and then there's price action. But again, as I said earlier, the way that Bitcoin is a harbinger of human emotion and people's quote unquote flight to quality. Flight to quality was a let's call a 1990s CNBC trope that they would use associated with movement out of equities and into debt obligations, treasuries and the like. So, flight to quality, moving out of what, you know, when markets were down, where was money moving to? Was it moving to bond markets? Was it moving to treasuries. I think Bitcoin is an opportunity to take that particular narrative over time. That's the narrative that Larry Fink has been talking about. That's the narrative that Paul Tudor Jones has been talking about, that there is a flight to quality associated with Bitcoin. So risk on or risk off, I think maybe there's an adjustment to that narrative

that I think has more to do with flight to quality. And I think that's where we're at for the next couple of years, that no matter what happens politically, no matter what happens in, no matter what happens in terms of nation states, no matter what happens. Here's the thing with headlines, we never know what's coming next. We never know what's coming next.

There's always something coming next, by the way, in terms of headlines. There's always something coming next. And pan out a little bit. and Bitcoin is generally always higher. So risk off risk on it's as unique asset as has ever existed and as I've said so many times over the past year or so every dip is for buying right so risk on a risk off. It seems to be a flight to quality Officially, I'm officially no longer a moron Okay, I bought the dip Yeah

I tweeted about it in response to one of your posts yesterday where you said That uh your arch public customers bought the dip around 99. And the algos you guys helped me set up. Listen, the other thing, yesterday's a perfect example, man. A, I was busy with my family in town.

But when you're talking about bombing Iran, yeah, I'm a Marine, I'm an American. I don't start thinking about trading. You know, maybe I'm not, you know, maybe I should be more greedy or something. I don't know. But I certainly didn't think, oh, let me capitalize and start trading. You get immersed on what's happening in the news. And so, you know, I think yesterday was a perfect example where my algos bought the dip, a couple of them, you know. Yeah.

I think I posted it 98 and change and 99 and change. Yeah. And XRP was like a dollar 94, 96. But I was literally worried, are we, is this going to be a quick event? What's this going to mean? Is Israel going to, what's going on? You just immersed in what's happening in the world and you don't have to worry about trading. So, you know, I'm no longer a bad trader.

Yeah, it's an extraordinary position to be in when, listen, you're right. Bombing Iran is a headline that, you know, if you're 25 years or older, it gets your attention, right? It gets your attention. You're looking around thinking, all right, where is this going? Where is this headed? This is, it's a serious headline, right? It's a serious headline.

And so, you know, just as a human, you're not thinking about, should I get in front of my computer in my home office and begin to trade these headlines? Because if you're not a professional trader, you just, even professional traders, the ability to do that in the midst of emotional turmoil and headlines that are really big headlines,

those are tough decisions to make. And so to your point, when those decisions are made for you, it's a pretty unique thing. And we saw that ad nauseum yesterday. All the conversations that we were having were conversations that were, I'll give you a story. We had a customer, you know, likes to text and, and, you know, in the midst of that, they were thrilled that, you know, they caught the dip at, you know, high 98, you know, low 99s. And, but also added, yeah, I think where we're at, we'll probably go down to 92, per your thoughts. And if that customer would have acted on their thought process, their emotions, here's where I

think we go. One, they probably would not have bought the dip at 99. They probably would have waited so they would have missed They probably did not think that we were going back to 105 or 106 essentially in 24 hours So they would have completely missed the opportunity to buy under 100 K. They would have completely missed the opportunity to oh by the way Sell a little bit of that position at 105, which actually happened as well for all of our customers. It's, you know, removing emotion and allowing the volatility associated with a flight to quality asset to be done for you is an extraordinary experience, right? It's just an extraordinary experience. Once you experience, you're like, It's an extraordinary experience, right? It's just an extraordinary experience.

Once you experience, you're like, I can't ever do it any other way than this. Like this is truly remarkable stuff. I would have never bought the dip because I prepared myself emotionally because I think the best word to use is emotion and you use it a lot as you should is, I've been here before.

People are gonna sell, this is going to be prepared. This could hit low 90s, high 80s. And there's just no way that I as a trader would have, if I was at my computer, would have said, okay, 98.5, that's the number, right? 88.5 is the number. I wouldn't have done it. And it sprung back so fast that it's another example.

I could go back and we could look at other headlines of how many times Bitcoin dipped 5% or 4%. And because you're, is this going to be a 20 percent? Is this going to be another time of retracement? Is the unknown, you don't know. And so it really does, it's a phenomenal thing. It's, you know, A, I was relieved that it looks like we're not going to be in a, you know, A, I was relieved that it looks like

we're not going to be in a, you know, it looks like there may actually be a chance for peace. Yeah. And when Iran reacted the way they did. And on top of that, so I'm thankful for that. And now of course I'm smiling because I'm a genius and I bought the dip. Well, markets make fools of us all, right? So there was conversation yesterday

that Iran had shut down the straight of her moves or whatever you call it. Okay, so gas prices are gonna go up and literally the exact opposite happened, right? Like nobody cares about the straight of whatever in Iran. Gas prices went down by 11% yesterday instead of going up by 11%. And there was a lot of smart people that said,

and smart political people, smart economic people that said, yeah, we're gonna have, we're gonna feel the effects of the economic effects associated with this action. And again, in real time, markets make fools of us all. So we had gas prices actually, oil prices go down significantly in that moment as opposed to go up. Here's a quick pivot that I want to get to

because this is important. Scott puts out a newsletter every day and a part of his newsletter is really illuminating, associated with where we're at with crypto today versus where we were a year ago, three years ago, five years ago. I'm just going to read one paragraph. It'll probably blow your mind. So where are we at with crypto right now? Well, yesterday at the NASDAQ, Vanek rang the bell and they just happened to have a big old Pudgy Penguin standing there with them. Now, what the Pudgy Penguin was there for, I don't know. Maybe it made it more interesting and people were, you know,

wanted to click on their being at the Nasdaq more because there was a funny looking, you know, pudgy penguin there. That being said, here's what's happened in traditional finance over the past, let's call it 16 months. BlackRock and their spot Bitcoin ETF, which is the most successful launch of an ETF in the history of ETFs. That in and of itself is a mouthful. JP Morgan has launched a deposit token on Coinbase's base network. By the way, has Coinbase ever launched anything on JP Morgan's network or on their bank? No, they haven't. JP Morgan needs Coinbase for this. Fidelity offers Bitcoin and Ethereum in retirement plans and Fidelity has been mining Bitcoin

since 2014. Franklin Templeton tokenized a US Treasury fund. Goldman Sachs has a digital asset platform and trades crypto derivatives. Citadel Securities, along with Fidelity and Charles Schwab, launched EDX markets, crypto exchange built for institutions. NASDAQ built a crypto custody solution. Schwab offers crypto exposure through index products. Visa is settling USDC on Ethereum and Solana. and by the way, those are just maybe a third of the headlines over the past year. Think about that for a minute. Black Rock, JP Morgan, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Citadel, Schwab, Visa, Nasdaq. I mean, that blows your mind, doesn't it, John? It's what mass adoption looks like.

You know, we've heard for years that, you know, that famous Tim Draper scene with Gary Gensler on stage where, you know, he said that at first they laugh at you and then they try to ignore you. Then they get their regulators to sue you and try to ignore you. Then they they get their regulators to sue you and and try to stop you and then when

you defeat all that, they then adopt you basically and adopt the technology and the disruption takes place and I think we're seeing that. I mean, three years ago, I was at uh consensus and it was right around, I think a couple months after the FTX Sam Bankman freed the bottle. And it was just doom and gloom. And you would

have never been able to predict I mean, I still believe that Bitcoin and the asset class was going to survive. but you could have never envisioned, in my opinion, at least I could never envisioned that in just three years, you would be reading what you just read. Yeah. That to that level of mass adoption, you know, you keep hearing this phrase, flip the switch. And I think the switch has been flipped. And that's why I don't think anybody should be surprised

that not just with Bitcoin, but you see Wall Street adopting these altcoins with the ETFs, the people, the copycats, I call them the sailor copycats, but not just with Bitcoin. You've got companies putting XRP as a treasury asset, Ethereum as a treasury asset. I think I read one yesterday, Solana. So, you know, Wall Street's here. There's no doubt about it. So, not only is Wall Street here, but they're here for a reason, right? So, Wall Street doesn't show up just because they believe in decentralized philosophies, right? That they believe that, you know, more folks should have access to more services, blah, blah, blah.

They're here to make money. They're here to make money. So to that end, I look at everything that I just talked about from Scott's newsletter, and I think to myself, what else is coming? Because Wall Street likes to make money. And at the core of their move into Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, others, is the opportunity to charge premiums associated with goods and services. Like that is the nature of how Wall Street works. And ever since, here's a little history lesson for everybody out there, ever since the great financial crisis, there were dramatic shifts forced on Wall Street and the banking

industry that dramatically adjusted the way that they make money. So before 2008, the profit centers associated with the JP Morgans of the world, the JP Morgan's of the world, the Goldman Sachs of the world, the Morgan Stanley's of the world, were their investment banking divisions, right? They created product, they took that product, and then they sold it to both institutional and retail clients. That's the nature of investment banking. They create debt products, they create mortgage-based products. They create equity-based products.

Investment banks created product out of the heaps of relationships and whatnot that they have at their disposal, and then they would sell them to their quote unquote clients. That dramatically changed. So all of that was not only democratized, but the ability to charge premiums associated with those products. The ability to ramp up risk with those products was effectively regulated out of existence. And so there was huge shifts in the money center portions of these institutions.

It shifted to wealth management. So instead of creating product, investment banking portions of these organizations got much smaller. They didn't have the opportunity to create meaningful product and charge premiums because it was almost outlawed for all intents and purposes. Their regulators would not allow them to take meaningful risk. So what happened is is the geese quote-unquote that were laying the golden eggs shifted big-time and into wealth management. So JP Morgan ramped up their private bank and relationship banking stuff and wealth management. Morgan Stanley did the same. So huge shifts in the percentages of where their profits came from.

It used to be that 80% of profits at Morgan Stanley were investment banking related and 20% were effectively wealth management. That shifted and now it's like 70-30 where 70% of the profits associated with Morgan Stanley come from their wealth management business. So now we enter a space where crypto gives these banks another opportunity to create product. a huge huge swath of wealth management clients that are worth 10 million 25 million 50 million a hundred million dollars that they can then sell these products to and they finally have their hands on a product Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and others that they can charge a premium for because it's an unknown new product it's an unknown new product category and the pricing and the pricing adjustments

and changes haven't been pressured to the downside yet. So we have two to three years where that's going to happen. Meaning that these organizations are going to create product very very quickly. So are you going to see bit bonds? Yes that that's gonna happen. Are you gonna see products associated with mortgages? Yes, that's going to happen Are you gonna see? options and futures and Products that are 2x long this 3x long that you're gonna see all of those things happen in the space associated with a JP Morgan a Morgan Stanley a UBS a Bank of America, all of that will come to the masses. What does that mean? That means that there's enormous liquidity

that will continue to pour into the space. The base layer associated with all of these products, all you have to do is follow the money and where has an enormous amount of asset inflows gone to? They've gone to Bitcoin ETFs, right? That's absolutely true. BlackRock has gone completely all in on crypto. Obviously, their iBit product is the biggest and most successful product they've ever launched. But at the same time, their Biddle portfolio, BUIDL, has a cluster of other cryptos that they have built into a portfolio that's gone from 500 million to almost 4 billion today.

So they're creating a base layer by which other products can have, you know, let's just call it, you know, the ability to price. And we're going to see an explosion on Wall Street associated with crypto related products. have said that 95% certainty that over the next few months all of the pending altcoin ETFs are going to be approved. Solana, XRP, others, I think there's going to be some value to those. I think there's going to be some meaningful impose to those because some of those communities are really, really strong. But I think over time, we'll end up with additional debt-based product associated with crypto. And I think we'll end up with the QQQ or the S&P 500 of crypto and that will be the rise of an ETF product that

we'll see. Isn't it interesting, John, that we've been in a place where you remember, because your opponent in the last election, her rise happened because of the whole Wall Street movement and the whole We Are the 99% movement and anti-Wall Street movement. She came to power through that process. Isn't it interesting how different the landscape is now associated with politics in Wall Street. Talk a little bit about that and what that looks like, sounds like, feels like. Well, a lot of it has to do with age. I mean, Elizabeth Warren, I mean, I think it was Scott who interviewed Haggardy recently.

Yeah. uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh trying to basically kill or make it a shell of itself. And I think that that is, when I was running against her, I said that and I stand by it, that Elizabeth Warren is America's number one bank lobbyist in the world. And I think that that proved it. But you are seeing really, it comes down to me is age that One crypto certainly made a difference in the election that got these people's attention

There's no doubt about it. It got Democrats attention It helped certain Democrats like Adam Schiff the fair shake back did, but a lot of it comes down to a generational divide. You've still got senators, like the other senator in Massachusetts is Ed Markey. Ed Markey, when he first went to Washington, it was 1978. And I happened to be nine years old at the time. And he's someone who voted against the Genius Act, just like Elizabeth Warren. And when you look at the younger Democrats, the Richie Torres, for example, or someone like that,

they're more on page with seeing this revolution and seeing the technology and seeing the innovation. And so the landscape has changed remarkably. Now, with that said, we have to hope that we get not just the Genius Act, that seems to be a done deal according to David Sacks, that seems to be going, it's going to get through the House quickly and be on the President's desk before the August recess. That's what people are saying. You know, the question really is can we get the structures, market structures bill done as well? And I certainly

hope so because there are some consumer protections in there, bankruptcy protections and things of that nature that need to get done. And that was another concern I had with this Iran's conflict. Yeah. If we got in a prolonged event, all the oxygen in the world in Washington would be going to the Middle East and legislation domestically might stall out.

And if we have peace and we get that market structure built, the the the the the the Senate. We get it and we get nothing else. The midterms come around if the Senate flips you have Elizabeth Warren as

the banking chairwoman in the Senate. Yeah. If the president in 2028 is a Democratic president, you know, are we going to go back to an anti-crypto war? And I don't think so, because once Wall Street engages in this mass adoption that you and I are talking about, that changes it. That changes the game, because then crypto has become part of the financial infrastructure in the United States. And then it's going to be much more difficult to go back to an anti-crypto kind of approach.

Well, so that's a really great point. And here, let's put some numbers behind that. Why did JP Morgan choose to build their internal, you know, their internal almost tokenized movement of money? You can make the case that it's their version of a stable coin, but they built it on base, right? Why did they choose to do that? They chose to do that.

I had a little bit of an argument with somebody on Twitter about it. Well, JP Morgan has 85 million customers and Coinbase has supposedly, but how many users are active on a daily basis or on a monthly basis? You know, with JP Morgan monthly basis it's, you know, 60 million or whatever. With Coinbase it's 10 million or 15 million or whatever the numbers are. That the case they were trying to make is that Coinbase has fewer active users than JP Morgan. I said you're making the case for me. Essentially what JP Morgan is trying to do is they're trying to somewhat quietly

get access to Coinbase's user base, right? Like you don't become the effectively the biggest bank and biggest brand in banking in the world over the past 200 years and have a bunch of stupid people in the room. That's just not a reality. Whatever you think of JP Morgan as an institution, good or bad, they run a reasonable business, right? And so the idea that, you know, JP Morgan is just, you know, willy-nilly deciding to build a, you know, tokenized type of asset on base is not something that isn't well thought out. Of course, it's well thought out. They want access to the fact that Coinbase ultimately does have a larger user base than JP Morgan. Think about that for a second. And people listening to this stream, think about that for a

second. Coinbase has 120 million customers globally, right? And JP Morgan, the biggest bank on the planet, okay, has 86 million customers. They have fewer customers than Coinbase. That's an eye-opener, right? That is an eye-opener for people. Bank of America, which is, you know, again, one of the three biggest banks in the United States, right behind JP Morgan, has 62 million users in their user base, and they are not a global organization. So Coinbase has, you know, significantly more customers than Bank of America, significantly more customers than JP Morgan. That is a remarkable truth and it's the reason why JP Morgan says let's build something on

Coinbase as opposed to Coinbase saying hmm maybe we should build something on JP Morgan, right? The flow of customers, the flow of assets, is not leaving Coinbase and going to JP Morgan. The data has told JP Morgan there's a trickle of assets that we should be aware of and probably a bit concerned about that's leaving JP Morgan and going to Coinbase. Or else they would not be building anything on Coinbase and trying to partner up and stem that particular tide. Do those numbers resonate with you John? Of course they do. Listen, I remember I met with Coinbase because when I ran for office one of the things I said to my team is like I have to be able to accept crypto for donations and and we got to make it happen and so we contacted Coinbase and we used Coinbase is their platform for people to donate and crypto and then talking to their team in Massachusetts and this was in this would be March of

2024 They had eight hundred thousand customers in Massachusetts alone Yes, you know shocked me because that's that's one out of seven basically, and that was then and now It would certainly probably be over a million which means that you're talking about a seventh of the population when you receive that to adults then you're talking in very significant you know maybe one out of three one out of four adults is a coin based customer in Massachusetts which isn't the biggest state. Seven million people live there. But that was shocking to me.

And so when you take the fact that they had 800,000 last year and then the people that had exposure to Bitcoin independently or the ETFs, then you're probably talking about just in the state I live, a million and a half of the seven million people have exposure to this asset class and so I I think what you just described of the biggest most well-known bank in the world Going to coinbase and building on their infrastructure

Tells you everything you need to know about inflows Yes, or where the capital is going to go You know, I think I think I think coinbase now is got to be considered a blue chip stock. Yeah No doubt about it ideas of what's a blue chip stock, you know well, we we only have a couple minutes left because Scott is in New York City today. He's going to be streaming with New York City's mayor, Mayor Adams. Scott's everywhere, man. Yeah, man, he's everywhere. So we got to jump here in one minute, but I want to, you know, again, everybody get involved with arch public john is involved with arch. I don't know if it's showing up there, but you know, John put a post up yesterday,

and again, he just shows off the executions that happened in his account. So 99 and 98, XRP at 194 and 196, they're all dramatically higher. Let's call it 36 hours later. It is a the ability to To harness the volatility associated with crypto markets to your benefit

using our institutional tools Is is simply a You know a benefit to what you're trying to get accomplished. So thanks, John, for being here. Thanks, everybody, for being here. We're going to cut to Melker at the Mayor Adams Show. And have a great day, everybody. Thank you. You bet.

David Brownsville to being the mayor of New York City. Born in Brownsville, you know, I used to think that every night you're supposed to sleep in a different place because we didn't have permanent houses. So we would go from cousins to aunties who would have you moving over. Eventually mom saved up enough money to move to South Jamaica, Queens. And from there, that was a real stabilized community, you know, low income, but it was stable. I suffered from dyslexia, undiagnosed. So I used to think that I was a dumb student.

I walk in the classroom every day. They have dumb student on the back of the chair. And you know, kids are cute, but they can be crude. And if I read that day, they will mimic me throughout the entire day. And it was until I got into college that I heard a young girl listening to a documentary on dyslexia.

That when I heard it, I realized I was not dumb. I was dyslexic. And I went from the D list to the D, being on the Dean list throughout my entire career. And then I went into law enforcement, state Senate, first person of color to be the bar president of Brooklyn. And now the mayor of the city of New York, second mayor of color after my mentor,

David Dinkins was the mayor. So somewhere along that path, you found crypto and Bitcoin, which is obviously what we're here to talk about today. Maybe you could tell us why you first got interested in it, when you first heard about it, what the story is behind that. Well, the role of the mayor,

particularly in the city as large as New York, is that you must be substantive and symbolic. And the substance is, of course, bringing down crime, educating children, building housing, all that good stuff. But the symbolism is just as important. We're witnessing an evolution in how we're paying for goods and services. And New York needs to lead the way.

This is the financial capital of the globe, and we must be part of that evolution. And while I was on the campaign trail, I had the opportunity to meet Brock Pierce, who talked about Bitcoin and how this new form of exchange for goods and services is something we need to embrace. I started to do my reading, and I was blown away

of how important and how innovative this industry is and how we moved it out of New York. We criminalized, we targeted, so many investors were under investigation. We just really turned against an entire industry. And I said no to that. So when I became mayor, I took my first three paychecks in Bitcoin and still have them until today. That was my next question.

You're still holding? And people laughed at me, but I say who's laughing now? That was my next question for the audience. How many of you had people sell you were crazy when you first told them that you were into Bitcoin and crypto? Show of hands. I'm surprised as wow, most of you must have gotten in last year or something. Because when I got in 2016, it was like that. And I remember you saying I'm taking my first three paychecks

in Bitcoin and Ethereum, I believe. Yes, exactly. We forget that part. At the last conference we were at, you're not allowed to say Ethereum on stage. You can only say Bitcoin. Here we can say Ethereum. But and you're still holding it today. So obviously, it was also a contentious time in the city and in the

state for the crypto industry, as you said. Interestingly, today is primary day. Yes. One of your likely opponents is former Governor Cuomo, the man behind the bit license. Yeah, no, so true. His superintendent of finance, which was interesting, he just sort of dismantled and destroyed the industry. And then went out and joined a company, his former superintendent joined a company that basically benefited from the destruction of the industry. And clearly, this is the only industry, when you do an analysis of the history of this country, this is the only industry when there was an intentional action to make sure this industry does not grow.

In New York specifically, and we have to turn that around. And so I've got the actions of the former governor, they were wrong, I think they were misguided, and it just pushed this industry into the shadows and many people left the city A lot of people went to other countries Because they did not want to go through that level of harassment and we've harassed the hell out of this industry And so he pushed it out of New York State I'm in Brooklyn today to say I'm welcoming it back in New York City

We need to be the Bitcoin capital of the entire globe. So how do you accomplish that when you obviously have cities around the world that have wooed the industry, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, of course, even cities in the United States. How do you bring the industry back and how do you at the city level fight what's happening at the state level? Because I would imagine that you're, you can only do so much in the city. Well, I think there's a number of things that we could do. Number one, we're going to create a digital asset council.

We're gonna bring in those leaders from across the globe and be a part of this council so that we can navigate how do we start building from the ground up. And I believe the community, folks who are here in this room, don't realize their power. These laws that are made on the state level, we need a strong advocacy group to go to Albany, walk the halls of Albany, speak with the local electors,

the state senators, the assembly persons, and the governor's office to explain this industry, because many people don't understand the industry. And third, we need to build out the pipeline. We're introducing this into our school system where our young people are going to start embracing what blockchain represents and how the technology is important for data protection, protection

of our records. We're going to explain Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and the whole universe. And then we're going to put into practical practices, like just as I am getting my paycheck in Bitcoins, we're also going to show how you can pay your local utility bills, how you could pay summers if you have those, and other ways that you can pay for city services. And lastly, there's a real investment for those. This is an international city. Here in Brooklyn, 40% of the people speak a language other than English at home.

When I was in Puebla, Mexico, Ecuador, or other parts, they're sending money back to their family members. And by sending that money back, the amount of money they're paying to all of these top companies, they're losing billions of dollars. So once people see the financial benefits and how it impacts them in their pockets, they're going to push the legislation of forward in a real way. I mean, we've obviously seen a huge sea change

at the national level, at the federal level for how this industry is viewed, how the asset class is viewed. Does that give you tailwinds in the city? Have you noticed a change being mayor of New York City since things have changed so much on the national level on what you can speak about, what you can likely push through, what you can propose.

Because it seems wildly politically unpopular to be anti-crypto at this point. Yeah, no, without a doubt. And you look, I think in the first 120 days, the number of bills that went through the federal level to deal with this issue is extremely impressive. And now you're seeing cities picking up, the states picking up the same energy.

And it's difficult now to see what we witnessed before, where it was real harassment on those, if you were in these industries. And I'm pretty sure folks in this room could all give you horror stories of what they went through and being fearful that watching your investment evaporate overnight based on just the harassment that this industry experienced.

And when you think about it, we went from paying for goods and services using seashells, then we evolved to go to coins and the paper dollars, to credit card, to other forms of paying for goods and services now. My son doesn't, he doesn't even use credit cards. He say, dad, just cash at me. So the evolution has always been there.

People have gotten in the way of that evolution. And there's always been folks like the people in this room that were willing to push and say that we're going to not be afraid of change. Change is fearful. People enjoy inertia. They want to have things remain the same. And there are many financial industries that realize that this is a freedom to be able

to manage your assets in the capacity that we're doing. And this is the global financial capital of the world. You would have to imagine that the biggest crypto companies one day are on Wall Street next to the Goldman Sachs and the JP Morgan's and the Black Rocks who have obviously adopted our asset class. And many left, many left. They fled because it was unfair.

I never thought I would be quoting Arnold Schwarzenegger, but they'll be back. Yes, they will. And are they coming back? So talk about, obviously you had a summit last month, right? So this is something that's actively in the works right now, discussing with the industry, the policies that you just articulated.

Are they starting to come back? Are those meetings changing? Good energy. We had about two, 300 people at Gracie Mansion where we had our crypto summit and some great speakers that came in to look at what we were doing. We had Nick Spano, who was a real giant in this industry, what Nick did years ago

before he had to leave. So the energy was great at Gracie Mansion and you're seeing a lot of companies are realizing that there's a possibility here in the city and we're going to make it as easy as possible for them to come back and really open the industries right here. Yeah, and obviously this industry is now starting to build the full breadth of financial services that we see with legacy companies in Vegas, you kind of made waves by talking about a bit bond. Maybe we can dive into what the bit bond would look like,

why that's important, and how that would work in New York City. No, we have a great deal of, thank you very much, we have a great deal of instrument, financial instruments that allow those who are investing everything from tax-free bonds to other bonds, we want to examine how do we have a bid bond here to allow those who want to use Bitcoins to do that same level of investments.

Our team is examining now my OMB, my budget director to see the formation of that. The current controller is against it, but we think there are ways we can do it to circumvent him because it's going to take a lot of creativity to bring other people forward in this direction. Again, the lack of education and understanding of what this universe looks like is making it fearful for people to move forward because what we have done, we have identified those cases where there were some form of

fraud or abuse, as though we don't have fraud and abuse in stocks and currency and credit. But we've highlighted any misstep and we use it as a way of saying, see, this is why the industry should not grow. You have to move past that. And so what we want to do here in the city is to examine the potentiality of a bid bond and also continue to expand the industry here in the city at the same time. What's the timeline for something like that in your mind? It seems like now is the time to strike because there's got to move quickly. Got move what iron is hot We you know, we got as you stated. There's a lot of support on the national level And so the opportunities are here

But I cannot say it enough a lot of the movement that we're going to be able to do is going to come from audiences Like this you are going to drive this The energy and how fast we can move when you have an executive audiences like this, you are going to drive this, the energy in how fast we can move. When you have an executive, such as the mayor of the city who's embracing it, the executive must meet those who are in the industry on the grassroots level, and together we can make it happen.

It's not gonna be just if the mayor is advocating for it, it's going to be the mayor and the combination of those who are in the industry. That's how change happens in cities and in this country. It comes from the combination of the leader on the top being embraced by those who are on the grassroots level. So it's imperative. I saw we saw it in this last presidential race. The Bitcoin, the community, the crypto community was extremely present. They had an agenda, they wanted to push this agenda forward and they were very present.

They need to do that across the entire country to make sure that their voices are heard. They're talking about that grassroots groundswell from the industry itself. What about from the people of New York? Because I know that they still don't have access that almost every other state does. A lot of our favorite exchanges,

a lot of our favorite platforms, decentralized finance. New York still, you can go and be blocked from signing up to the most simple thing. So how can the people really help push that agenda and not just the industry and the money that's behind it? Right, and if you think about it, people need to identify how does this help me. So we have a large Caribbean, South America,

Central America population, as I was sharing, that's sending money back to their home country to support their family members. Once they identify how much money they're saving by sending money using Bitcoins, that's going to be the grassroots and the on-the-ground efforts. We have to expand the knowledge of this industry. For far too long, it has

been a niche industry where only a few understood the benefits of it. Now that we're going into our schools, we're teaching our children of this entire industry, and we're going to, I'm bringing together all of my council generals so that they can encourage their residents, of their countries that are here on the benefits of it. The more we do education on the bottom, that's going to build the groundswell. And we have not done that. But those of us who are in the industry,

many people sit in the room, they feel uncomfortable by engaging in the conversation because no one wants to feel dumb. And they feel as though, I don't know what they're talking about. It's too complicated for us. We're not bringing it bringing together pastors, clergy leaders, faith leaders, rabbis. We're going to start a real conversation on how this benefits

everyday working class people in the city. And beyond, obviously, the BitBond are just holding Bitcoin. You outlined a number of ways that the technology could be utilized to better, to benefit systems in the city. If someone pays their taxes or their, you know, their parking tickets and all those things in Bitcoin, does that mean that we can get the city to hold it? That's, that's, we would love, we would love to do that, you know. But it's also using the, this whole, this whole technology, our blockchains. There's no reason we cannot have our birth certificates, our death certificates, our liens. It is so much easier to use this technology of even

blockchain that we have not embraced at the level that we should be embracing and that's our goal of showing how this technology moves us forward. So what other things can the industry people here specifically do to help support these efforts? First of all, feel empowered. This is a very sophisticated, knowledgeable industry. They should know who their state senator is. They should know who their assembly person is.

If they're here in New York or outside of the city, you still should know that. They should know who their congressional person is. That's the starting point. And then they should communicate with them. Let them know how important this industry is, how it can grow. We're talking about jobs. We're talking about building an economy. They shouldn't be silenced. This industry has existed in the shadows for too long. The national government is embracing the concept and understanding of it. Now the local cities are doing so as well.

All of these male organizations, you have the National Mayor's Association, you have the Local Mayor's Association, you have the Local Mayor's Association, you have the local cities and counties. This industry, just as they understand how to make the right investment in bitcoins, they should understand how to make the right investment in politics.

A lot of people who are in industries of this magnitude or in business, the attitude is, well, I'm just gonna run my business and I'm going to get into politics. Politics is going to be in your business if you like it or not. And we saw that 10 years ago when the former governor and his head of our financial entity, how they made the determination of dealing with our bit licenses, it destroyed the industry. So we're not in politics. Politics is going to be in us. I know we only got a couple minutes left. Let's live in a perfect world. We get rid

of the bit license. You get basically all the regulatory and legislative clarity that you want. You can do whatever you want. What is this industry in New York City look like by the end of your next term? Clearly, we're going to see a real evolution in the next few years, one or two years. We'll see a real evolution. We have a governor's race coming up and this entire industry should be involved in that race to put your platforms. When people run for office, they put, they hear the platforms of the advocates. And advocates do things, everything from housing advocacy to health care to education advocacy. This needs to be on the agenda for the upcoming gubernatorial

state and local elected races for Albany. If this is on the agenda, if we engage in a conversation that will help my role here in the city, we have to get rid of the bit licenses. If we don't get rid of the bit licenses, it's going to be in a way of the real growth of this industry.

And I think this is the moment to do so. There's a door that's open, and we need to take advantage of that. If we accomplish that task, a very clear mission, we accomplish that task, we're going to see this industry take off in the financial capital of the globe. Thank you so much for everything you've done for this city

and for our industry. And everybody, please, a huge round of applause for the Bitcoin Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Please welcome Eric Adams. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.