The Wolf Of All Streets - 2008 Vs. 2023 Repeating? Major Coinbase News! | Crypto Town Hall With Eric Crown, Gareth Soloway, David Tawil, J.C. Parets, John Wick & Others

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

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I can't believe all this news that's happening on the crypto markets. It's so exciting. It's so exciting. I wake up every morning and I just can't wait to get to work. Yeah, when the biggest news is that Bitcoin moved $400 and that it, quote unquote, rocked the altcoin market, I think we're grasping at straws. But isn't that usual? No, no, no.

The biggest news is that one of the news outlets that I follow, Scott, the news they reported today was BitBoy moves to Dubai. I'm not kidding. By the way, he said his business was moving to Dubai. I saw in a tweet. I doubt he's actually moving to Dubai. He would need to. Is that really worth it?

He would need to at some point. Huge news. You've considered it. To be fair. I must say, I do think it's a good place like it's a good place for for me to go but i i mean for now i'm happy in cape town i think cape town's the best place in the world you owe me a visit by the way i know we're gonna we're gonna make it over there for sure well no well well you're welcome to come visit me but you cannot take any more leave from spaces come on man i take one week

and i was here three of the five days anyways come on yeah yeah there's not this i mean it's really boring on the market it's really really really boring on the market but i mean i guess there are a few things happening the the bank downgrade is quite a big story i think i think the uh the thing the coinbase leverage is a massive story, actually. I think that that's a big, big, big story. I agree. Have we gotten clarity, though? I've been sort of digging into it, whether it's simply for accredited investors or if it's going to be a full-on leverage fiesta like we've seen with other platforms.

It doesn't matter. It's the first leverage platform in the United States, isn't it? Well, Kraken had 5x leverage. I don't even know if they still do. But Kraken offered leverage forever. And obviously you have Bitcoin futures on CME and such. So is this Coinbase competing with CME and other institutions for accredited investors and institutional futures? Or is it, you know, Binance 100x leverage? I know it's not that. Even if they had leverage, it would be low leverage. But I'm just trying to figure out if this is available to retail or if it's simply opening up the doors for institutions to do it

there instead of the CME. And I have not been able to find any clarity on that. But obviously we have sort of the topic today at hand, which is the market seems to have stalled to whatever degree, talking about the global market. And, you know, yesterday I think we beat China to death pretty good, but it's a huge story. You obviously mentioned Japan. We're starting to see, I think, a lot of signals that the tide could be turning. I think bulls are pretty set in their ways and don't think it's important, but bears are

starting to do the, I told you so, it's all about to crash, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, there was a story that I covered on the show today, which was around the bank downgrades. And what I noticed is that every time that the banks have been downgraded, that's usually the beginning of the upcycle on the market. So it's the end of the downcycle in terms of sentiment and the beginning of the upcycle on the markets. So maybe let's just downgrade these banks and just get over and done with.

Yeah, I mean, still, it's surprising to see those downgrades being considered across the board. I mean, I'd love to get our speakers in here. I see Gareth just popped up. And so I think good time. He's the king of the market update. I mean, Gareth, what are you seeing today? We have all this conversation about these moves in the markets at the SPY or the stock market was down yesterday very briefly and kind of had a matching wick on Bitcoin, which we haven't seen in a while. But more importantly, I think the narrative there was that Bitcoin coughed, right? I mean, we're talking about $300, $400, maybe $600 move peak to trough, but altcoins, some of them were

down as much as 10%, 12%, 13%. Yeah. So I thought that was interesting yesterday. I saw that you had posted something later in the day about that fake news that had popped up. I don't know if that had something directly related to the kind of the flush there in Bitcoin. But I also know that the markets at the same time, the S&P 500 also kind of took a little bit of a tumble. So again, looking at like the dollar and the 10 year yield and the Japanese, the US dollar to the yen is just continuing to be such an important player here. The other thing too, is, you know, you look at tech stocks and you look at big cap tech and NVIDIA just is absolutely amazing in its ability to keep at least the markets relatively buoyant right now. Yesterday was tremendously strong the day before and so forth. So I think there's this kind of buy the dip mentality that's been ingrained since really

2020 where, and even before that, I mean, let's go back to 2009, when the Fed began to kind of, you know, put a cushion under the market. And it's told people that every time there's a dip, you just buy the dip by the dip. And so you're still seeing that, right? I mean, we've had we had about a week down in the markets, maybe two weeks down in the markets. And now it's right back to saying, okay, we got the dip. Now, let's all rush in and buy it. And we'll back to new highs so at least for me it's not so much a specific news event i mean we saw the negative china news but then the markets again saw downside yesterday and then kind of today we're just basically floating back up again um

fomc minutes today at 2 p.m i don't know if you guys mentioned that yet but that'll be something that the market will want to pay attention to as well. Do you have any expectation there? My guess is they're going to guide to stay hawkish because they can't afford to look weak and they don't want to see the stock market continuing to rip too much. But I'm still in the camp that the Fed has done hiking. I think even with an uptick in inflation,

there's too many now, especially with China, right? I mean, China has the second biggest economy in the camp that the Fed has done hiking. I think even with an uptick in inflation, there's too many now, especially with China, right? I mean, China has the second biggest economy in the world. They're going to influence all of these major global economies in some way. And I think the Fed's starting to recognize that there's a 6- to 12-month delay still in the Fed funds rates, hikes that they've done. And then you have China now in real trouble based on their economic data. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I would push back. I mean, I would love to get everybody else involved in here. I think the Fed continues to tighten because I think they have two main mandates, which are inflation and labor. And the labor market is strong. And I don't think they're

going to see any reason to stop raising until unemployment dramatically rises. And I mean, I've been sort of, you know, even when they paused, we had the pause versus pivot argument here. I just think the Fed is going to remain hawkish and keep tightening. And, you know, we have the don't fight the Fed saying at no point has the Fed itself given an indication that they're going to stop. They've said to their credit, whether you agree with what they're doing or not, generally don't. They've never stopped saying exactly what they're going to do and have continued to do it. So I just don't think they've given any indication that they're ready to pivot. And honestly, if they do pivot, watch

out below because the pivot always comes before the stock market crash. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I mean, 100%, that's right. It's the un-inversion of the yield curve that causes the markets to decline. If you read in between the lines on the Fitch documents where they downgraded the US and downgraded the banks,

the two things that they say that they're considering downgrading the banks for is one is the increase in interest rates too fast and therefore the mismatch of assets and liabilities which is the first thing that that was that's what caused the silicon valley collapse second thing that they said is because they say that if you carry on increasing interest rates

you're going to get into you're going to get the u.s is going to go into recession and so much more how much more so after the china the china news yesterday um and so I think that we need to watch out for that narrative. Yeah. And I think one of the big things too is that, I hope the Fed recognizes this, but the higher they push interest rates, the more they're likely going to cause a credit event, right? We've already seen the yen carry situation get kind of wacky. We've seen what the banks are going through right now. And I think there's, there has to be an end. Again, I don't know what they'll end up doing. Maybe they do hike, but if they're not aware that they're going to break something at some point, then I think that's ridiculous. And yesterday,

cash carry was out with comments and he was like making comments like, wow, I can't believe housing hasn't come down more. Like we're're we're shocked that housing hasn't collapsed more with these and i'm like i'm like you're you're right right and i'm saying to that i'm like these guys are supposed to be the smartest people in the room and this guy's surprised that people aren't putting their mark their houses on for sale when they're locked in at three percent to to flip into a new mortgage for a new house at seven or eight percent i mean it's like a it's like duh you know so it just it Honestly, I just lose confidence in the Fed. Every time I know people are giving Jerome Powell congratulations for all that he's done, but let's see in 6 to 12 months where we are. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. It's funny,

though, that people give them credit, but they cause the problem in the first place. Yeah. I mean, break something on the way up and then get credit for attempting to fix it on the way down seems astoundingly absurd to me. But I think that if unemployment does start to rise and listen, if you have historically low unemployment, there's really only one way for it to go, in my opinion. And they've probably maybe they have. I believe they've tightened enough. I just don't think that they see it that way, to be quite clear. But if people start losing their jobs, the housing market's going to start to see some wobbles. So I think that's a matter of time. I wouldn't say the housing market is healthy right now. I'd just say it's frozen. You mentioned exactly the reason. I've talked about it quite a bit. But I mean, there's just nobody that can either afford these high rates or is going to sell a house where they have a lower rate. So it just means that there's basically nothing happening and builders continue to thrive. Jason, I saw you throw your hand up. Go ahead. Yeah, too easy. I've got a few things on the housing market.

It's pretty much what I focus on as well with the macro side. That comes up a lot. We heard it at the bottoms before where people can't afford these houses and the prices can't go up but there are a lot of other ways that banks and governments make it easier for people to buy houses like we've seen in previous cycles as well so you know although it does come up and logically it makes a lot of sense that it's just like well if people can't afford it and interest rates are up this thing's going to come down it's going to collapse fundamentally the real estate the land market which is what we're all talking about whether we use the word housing or real estate or

whatever it's really the land value that increases that is the the fundamental support in the in the entire economy once that comes down everything's over and the reason why we didn't collapse in 2020 and uh 2022 is because the housing market didn't collapse you know we started to see that tick back up and so just going back to the point about the the affordability issue banks have been able at least in the UK over the last several months they've done things like increase the mortgages rather than be 30 years. They've pushed them out to 40 or 50. China has done a similar thing. Australia has done it in the past, not where they're actually extending it from a 30 year to a 50 year, but they make things so much easier.

So they just instead of the you know, you see those comparisons of interest rates. Sorry. Repayments are two grand a month. And with these interest rate rises, they're now three grand. All the banks have to do is just extend that time and those payments come back down. And that's how the cycle continues on. So everyone's sort of looking to the left and they're changing things on the right.

And, you know, that's how the market always misses it. We know that 90% of people, they just don't make money in the markets. 90% of traders and investors lose because they just don't know what to look at. Yeah, but specifically about housing, though, I mean, that may be what's happening in Australia, but they're not changing in the United States. I mean, we're now over 8%. I live in Florida. It's 8.049% right now.

I just pinned a tweet above. I just threw out the math yesterday or two days ago. Just talking about it conservatively, a 300K loan at 8%, your mortgage payment is $2,212. At 3%, it was $1,265. So you're talking about over three years, a $340,920 difference in the price of the house from effectively $800 to $450. I mean, you're almost talking about the price of someone's house doubling with this interest rate rise over this short period of time. Exactly, exactly. And so what they do is change how you can repay it. They drop other areas of, say, deposits. They extend mortgage timeframes. This is all the stuff that's been done before. And we just miss it because people don't have a memory of 20 years.

You know, it's the same thing over and over again. Other things that governments do is reduce the stamp duties, whatever you call it in the US, but in Australia, they call it stamp duties. They reduce the taxes. They make things easier and more affordable so they say to get into the market especially when they come into presidential cycle years or you know we have our own elections as well they want it to be more affordable because at the end of the day the housing is probably one of the biggest issues so people are feeling comfortable and happy and and um yeah basically

they're feeling good about the real estate market typically what we've seen in the past is that the same government remains in power so they're going to do everything in their interest leading into the next few years obviously next year is the election year to make sure that that remains on track as well and that's why we're seeing these property prices go up banks around the world are doing the same sort of thing. And governments will also do the same thing where they make it more affordable. So they say, quote unquote, to get into real estate. JCSE, you got your hand up. Yeah, I mean, listen, I know some of you, but I don't know all of you. So I'm not sure what your day to day activities look like. But I come

from the perspective of an investor, someone who talks to investors literally every single day and putting money to work and allocating capital every single day. So for me, it's more about what's actually happening in the market versus maybe what should happen or what could happen or what I think might happen.

And we just really, really overweight what actually is happening, right? So there's this misconception. I don't know who made it up about don't fight the Fed. For the record, that's a lie. The original quote from Marty Zweig was don't fight the tape, right? And that was rule number one is don't fight the tape. And I think that that gets lost a lot. And you guys make up make some good points on what's happening in housing and everything like that I mean man the difference between your monthly payments today versus what it was it's like crazy that's insane but you know it's just math it makes

perfect sense what I would point out is really the relative strength that we're seeing out of home construction stocks uh Warren Buffett came out uh with the latest 13f you know he continues to buy those whether you like Warren Buffett or not it the latest 13F. He continues to buy those. Whether you like Warren Buffett or not, it's not the point. He sees something there. And clearly, the market in general sees it there because the relative strength in home construction has been off the charts. So I would definitely look at that. But that makes sense. But that makes sense if there's no supply that construction would do well, right? I mean, people are going to build houses if they can't find one to buy. So there's nothing strange there.

But I would go wider, right? So you make a good point, right? No questions there. But it's really consumer discretionary in general, right? So it's not like there's this one part of consumer discretionary that's doing well and the other parts are not. You're seeing strength out of the whole space. So maybe it's not just that, right? It's not that that's wrong, but maybe there's more to it than that. The other thing I would point out is, you know, a lot of people are always talking about crashes,

market crashes, you know, the next huge collapse, 1987. Let's remember as investors, those are outliers. Those are very, very rare, almost never, never happened at all. So there are people out there who are constantly looking for these sort of events. And generally, they lose a lot. Not just in their short positions.

Hold on. Not just in their short positions. The opportunity cost, man, is off the charts, man. Off the charts. So here's what I would point out. If you think maybe that there is an upcoming collapse in the end of the financial system or whatever it is that your conspiracy theory might be, I would look at three charts. The first one would be credit spreads, right? We've seen absolutely no stress in credit whatsoever during this correction over the last, you know, what,

the new 52-week highs list peaked a little over a month ago. Nothing at all. In fact, credit spreads are as narrow as they've been. So I would look at that because if there's going to be a real market correction versus just a digestion, a well-deserved digestion of gains after the greatest six months, after the greatest first half of the year in the history of the NASDAQ, if it's not just going to be a seasonal correction, you're going to see it in credit. Because let's remember, over the last three quarters,

fourth quarter last year and the first two quarters this year, it's the most bullish seasonal period of the entire cycle. If stocks didn't go up and didn't do that well during that period, that would be incredibly unusual. So anybody who's surprised by the strength of stocks over the last three quarters hasn't studied their history. Now with that same history, the market is supposed to be messy. The market is supposed to digest those gains during this period. And that's exactly what we're seeing. So if the market short term was not correcting, was not a mess, that would be unusual. So again, I would look at credit spreads and see those widening. If things are going to start to get worse, you're going to see it in credit.

I would also point to both low volatility stocks and consumer staples, which you can argue consumer staples are part of low volatility. But just generally speaking, you're not getting any flight to those areas at all. None whatsoever. So my suspicion is my strong conviction is you're going to see rotation into the most those more defensive areas, not just in the bond market, but in the stock market, if this is going to be a more severe correction and not just a normal healthy seasonal digestion so i would look at those so i just wanted to throw that out there and you guys can comment if you want or ask any questions i'm

around wick are you on the bull bear side where do you stand right now and good to see you by the way yes uh thanks for inviting me here guys uh first First of all, my favorite people got Scott up here. And I was actually born in Cape Town. So, oh, he left. He's having some technical issues. He'll be back momentarily. Oh, okay, okay. You know, it's a very interesting time in the market. So for those of you that don't know me, I'm a technical analyst.

And then what I do, my method is that I have friends that are economists that work for hedge funds. They give me heads up on the macro because I'm not smart enough to figure out the macro. And what I do is I look at the TA and look for confirmation. A lot of the smartest macro guys, and I'm talking about guys that are in Raoul's camp, some of them think that we're going to have a blow off top and then we're still going to have a recession as far as just in overall markets. Because if the stock market tanks, it's high high probability that crypto is going to tank as well okay so from a macro perspective that's what the guys are looking at they think that they're going to keep raising simon your camp as well scott as far as the rates i think they're going

to keep going higher um the market right now if you look at the s&p 500 i'm about to post it but there's been a channel a really strong channel that's been going since April. And that channel has just broken out to the downside. So I'm watching that. As far as Bitcoin, because I know there's a lot of crypto people in here that you're following. Bitcoin is interesting because if you go to the weekly chart, and I'll post this again, I posted it yesterday for those of you that want to check it out. But there's something called the volatility squeeze happening. And that's when price action goes into a long consolidation and this volatility starts to build up and build up and build up, and then it needs to be released. And that's kind of where we're at right now. There's a volatility squeeze going on. What that does is it forecasts

extreme moves that are about to happen. So I am bullish right now because the structure is still bullish. We're over that line. That's 25,300. I think that was the biggest. Yeah, for me it was 25,212. That was the new higher high after the drop from 69. Exactly. And if you look just before that, we actually did that.

The catalyst was a double bottom on the charts. And just like you, Scott, as soon as we got over that level, I became bullish, right? I actually saw the double bottom and I played a small position. I wish I would have played a bigger one, but that line in the sand for me kind of draws a bullish scenario, right? But we're in this place of consolidation. And I do want to bring up one more thing that I am worried about, right? Because we've got this volatility squeeze. A big move is coming, but if you go to, let me see, I'm looking at the charts right now. If you go to November of 18, and I think other people have brought this up too. I don't read a lot of Twitter or X, but I think

people have brought this up before. The last time we had consolidation like this, we dropped from 6,000 to 3,000. And that's the scary part when liquidity is so thin is that it doesn't take a lot to move the market. So I'd say watch out for that. Right now, I've got a supply zone that ends at 36,000. So I think between this level and 36,000, we'll still have some issues. Also keep in mind that Havening is not till 2024. I'm a big believer in that. I've listened to Raul. I know that the Havening also coincides with liquidity cycles. I believe in that as well. I do 100% believe that somewhere in 2024, whether it's the middle, give or take three or four months that we will go into that explosive bull market. I'm a big believer in the

four-year cycle. So I'm just trying to figure out what happens until then. One more thing that you want to focus on, Scott, is you want to look at the volume. You want to look at previous cycles and you want to look at the volume now. The one thing that hasn't come into the picture is volume. Volume is dead. I've got some parameters that I watch volume on a different scale, some different indications that i have and um that's the one that's one of two pieces that i'm watching for this for this to go um into the next bull market and it hasn't come yet everything else is there um but just in the short term just be careful with this volatility squeeze because one thing that i see that could get us above 36 is pretty much a springboard scott you know what

that is from uh wyckoff that's of drop. Of course, you have a spring. Spring, yeah. We need to see lower prices to entice people to think that they need to jump in and FOMO to push prices higher, which pushes prices even higher. So that's where I am, Scott. It's not a definite answer to your question,

but I'm on the bullish side, but I'm very much watching this volatility squeeze and playing risk management in case we do get a springboard to catapult us higher. Sometimes you got to go lower to go higher. Can I answer that quickly? When you guys are talking about going low, two things. When you guys are talking about going lower before going higher, number one, it entices people at lower prices like you mentioned.

But it's also an implication of the puking right you got a lot of people getting stopped out and puking it out and that's where the FOMO comes in after so not just those dip buyers but those who who then sold their shares and now got to buy it back so it's a combination of those two which is a great point and you mentioned the lack of volatility and the lack of volume and man you could not be more right when you look at the Bollinger Bands the Bollinger Bands, the Bollinger Bands are as tight as they've ever been in history. So there's a big-

On the weekly for people to be clear, that's on the weekly chart. Yeah, there's just nothing. It's just completely dead. So in low volatility environments, in my experience, and not just in Bitcoin, you've seen it in things like natural gas

and other areas as well, where you've got people picking up pennies, picking up pennies, picking up pennies, picking up pennies, leveraging themselves even more because volatility is so low that for them to be, for the, for the juice to be worth the squeeze, they got to get bigger. They got to get bigger. And then the steam roll comes in, right? And they get trampled when volatility comes back. I don't know if volatility is going to come back this afternoon, next week, next month. But one thing we know about volatility is that volatility mean reverts. You get time-based capitulation rather than price capitulation, right?

Wick mentioned, obviously, 2018 when we sort of sat between $6,000 and $10,000 for ages. And then finally, we had the squeeze and it went down to $3,000. But the difference here in this case, just to be clear, we already put in what most people would view as a bottom. So structurally it doesn't look the same because 6,000, it sat there on the way down and then dropped to 3. We already somewhat did that in the 20s before dropping to 15. So I think his point is correct that we can see the volatility explode in either direction. But for it to be the same as that 2018 scenario, we basically have to be ranging between 15 and 20 here and then dropping to 10. Right. I don't think that's the scenario that most people are watching

at this moment. Eric Crown, where do you stand right now? We've obviously spoken quite a bit. And every time we talk, we say it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. Here we are with still the boring sideways market. Of course, it's always coming. So first things first, volatility is direction neutral. Just kind of carry off that last conversation. And I think it was JC who was saying this earlier, something that I kind of said, I believe on this space about three weeks ago, which is, you know, the markets, generally speaking, I'm looking for a bit of a corrective phase.

We're going to enter into rotations. We're going to see a lot of the stocks that, you know, that are the sections that weren't super strong start to get rotated up here. NASDAQ's probably going to have a little bit of a short term bounce, but carry on sideways and downwards, maybe towards 14.5 or so. Hit my $15,000 target. So I figure a little bit of a bounce here as people close is completely fine. And that probably takes us into September, October. I mean, things are probably going to get more boring overall, to be quite frank with you. It's no secret that the summertime for traditional markets is usually a very, very quiet time. I know for myself, when I used to trade as a professional, most people just take this

time off, especially August, actually. You know, most people do have families after all and the kids, you know, going to school and whatnot. I think this is kind of like the last time you can really take a vacation. So usually things start to pick back up around September, October area. I think just traditionally speaking, statistically speaking, September is the most bearish month, followed by October. Most people think it's October for whatever reason. Yeah, yeah. There we go.

As far as Bitcoin goes, a little bit different. Those numbers are skewed. Remember, those numbers are skewed a little bit with a couple of famous crashes. So keep that in mind. Right. Yeah. I mean, everyone remembers the big ones. But yeah, just in general, September actually is the worst month, I do believe.

Anyways, as far as Bitcoin goes, my model is a little bit different there it's kind of it's kind of its own thing right now actually it's uh it's interesting to see because we don't see a de-correlation um happen all that often but basically my model says that hey extreme probability uh upwards of uh of 80 probability that bitcoin does not go below 26,000 bucks on a closing basis before heading up much higher. I mean, it could be that it already put in a low here, but things are looking a little bit shaky, I would say, in the more near term. So I don't have super strong opinions on that as things kind of shift around, to be honest. But as far as things go, you know, does Bitcoin have another move to the downside?

I look at that as an opportunity. Anything above $26,000? Yeah, right, right. Anything above $26,000 is fair game. The question is, do we, you know, do we dump off a little bit more? You know, does it go for that quick move down to like $27, or something like that uh again i don't have strong opinions on that um you know if i'm going off of my off of my current model um it does say that if bitcoin fails to go up in the next five to ten day spread then the probability is going to shift back in favor of the downside but it's really hard to trust things

right now because volatility is at such extreme lows that, you know, models just get. This is not what my model is kind of designed for. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. And generally speaking, you know, still looking for overall upside into the end of the year. I'm not looking at the chart right now, but I believe in 2021 that we had sort of that major, unquote crash in Bitcoin in September, right? Kind of that you're talking about. I think we went from like 50 to 40 or something. And then as the clock turned October 1st, it ran tall time highs from like 40s or something like that.

Yeah. And so literally on October 1st, the October move of acclaim now. Wick, go ahead. Just a quick question. So I heard you say that there's an 80% chance that we don't go to the downside. And just kind of curious, I never heard anyone put a quantifiable percentage. How are you quantifying that in your model? Yeah, so my model right now is actually based off of a couple different things. But the big one that I'm giving for or the big one that I'm going off of for, unlike did it go under 26 000 bucks and this by

the way is quantified on a weekly closing basis is based off of mainly mainly the hash ribbons as we have seen a nice interplay between the hash ribbons uh and bitcoin long term so the hash ribbons is actually more of a fundamentally based indicator it's basically a measurement of like minor profitability you can kind of say anyways we just had a pretty significant cross on that for miners no longer being in kind of big trouble as of this past week. And over the full history of Bitcoin, we've seen 15 of these happen. Of those 15, 13 did mark that the prior weekly low was the low before Bitcoin, you know, generally went up into the right over time. So these things can still take some time, obviously, but, you know, 13 out of 15, you know, I think is quite good. And to actually dial it down a little bit more,

one of those times was into COVID. So that's, you know, you might call that a bit of an outlier. And then the other time was it called a low. Yeah, it called a low in 2021 summer at $30,000 or $35,000, something like that. And then obviously Bitcoin did make new highs from there. Yeah, made new highs and then came down, you know, a bit later. So that's what that model was um was going off of hey thanks for answering that so you're using uh the ribbons which is basically momentum so you're basing it off of historical momentum okay just wondering thanks a lot man appreciate it

yeah it's really interesting eric if you happen to have a tweet on that or anything uh feel free to pin it up above or dm me because uh that's a really interesting and i've also never heard that david do you haven't spoken yet. Do you have any thoughts right now on what's likely coming next? I generally agree with the summertime lull comment. Also, one thing before I forget. Sorry, I'm not David, by the way. But on Friday, or at least it does seem that maybe this Friday, there could be a decision on the SEC versus GPTC ongoing case.

So, you know, that everyone thought that was happening yesterday. But yeah, yeah. No, usually these things happen on Fridays, but it's not guaranteed for this Friday, obviously. But, you know, from now until like middle september extreme likely that we will see uh something decided there so what would the decision i mean the question is what would that decision actually do i mean the decision is it's kind of a nesting burger because even if grayscale win the case it's not actually going to say great you've won the case and now there's a bitcoin etf next week it just means that they can't deny it based on what they denied

before oh it's very simple, man. It's very simple. None of these things matter. It's all a game. It's all about perception. It's 100% all about perception. It doesn't need to make sense, but if the market wants to rally, it'll use that as a catalyst, for sure. Don't type

the file away, Eric. Yeah, I agree with that 100%, but I mean that there's even the uh certainly we've all learned that the news does not actually matter for the most part right news follows the price quiet eric you might go ahead yeah thank you thank you i appreciate the opportunity to speak i i generally agree with the summertime lull um the legal and regulatory stuff going on in the United States. Ren, when you're leaving South Africa and coming to the States, Ren?

David, I haven't heard you. Hey, guys. Eric, John, can you hear David? Can anyone hear me? I cannot hear you. I can't hear you. David, I'm listening to David, and you guys keep jumping in. I hear David fine.

Okay, I'm going to remove David and bring you back up. Go ahead, Rand. I'm avoiding the U.S. like a plague. What am I going to do in the United States? I mean, I spent time there, and I must say, I really, really, really didn't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it. Too many rules, too much non-clarity of the rules, specifically really, really, really didn't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it. There are too many rules, too much non-clarity of the rules,

specifically in our industry, too much enforcement of ridiculous rules, too much litigation, too much fighting between, or too many arguments between the left and the right all day long. It's not the kind of environment that I enjoy. I enjoy freedom and being allowed to do what you want to do.

I enjoy the land of the free. I don't know. I found the U.S. to be the exact emphasis of that. If you turn off the news, none of that is real, by the way. Put your hand on your heart. Put your hand on your heart. Put your hand on your heart and tell me that you believe that the U.S. is land of the free.

Yeah, I haven't experienced any of those things you said. All those things you said, I haven't experienced any. I've lived here. My family came from Cuba in the early 60s. I've lived here for 40 years. I haven't experienced any of those things you said. All those things you said, I haven't experienced any. I've lived here. My family came from Cuba in the early 60s. I've lived here for 40 years. I haven't experienced any of that. I do anything I want. Nobody I talk to is talking about politics.

Nobody. Ray, this is David Towers. Are you in Miami? Are you in Florida? Are you in Florida? Because it is a caveat. Florida is maybe different. I'm in the suburbs outside of New York City.

We could all say the same about South Africa. I mean, the things we hear on the news about South Africa makes not a lot of people want to go visit. I mean, there's a big difference between what you hear on the news and what you experience when you live here. And I can tell you I've lived here for a long time and I think it's an amazing country. And again, it's very different when you don't live in a place.

I lived in New York City. I lived in Miami. And I've lived in Cape Town, and I just prefer Cape Town. Scott, can you hear me now? I can hear you. Can everybody else hear David? Yeah. Okay.

Yes, sir. Great. Go ahead, David. I generally like your point of view. However, without the United States, I don't believe cryptocurrency gets to its maximum potential or even close. I agree. I agree. But you'll agree with me, though, that the environment in the United States is probably the worst environment outside of China. No, I won't go that far down.

It's a tough environment, right? Forget the adjectives that we use, right? For a second here, our political system and therefore our regulatory system, unfortunately, is at total gridlock. And so therefore... Always, always, always. problem always that's that's the state of the modern united states i'll agree with that and so therefore we're going to need some you know some more activity some more time in order to break the log jam and i'm so i'll apologize on behalf of the united states to you and all the foreigners that are waiting for the log jam to be broken uh but it's just the way things roll here uh and so we'll we'll i And so we'll have to be patient. Yeah. But can you name one other country other than China that has the worst economic regulatory environment for people in crypto?

I mean, just it's simple. Can you name one that has a worse regulatory environment than the US and China for crypto? I'll indulge you and I'll say no. But the more important point is, is that needs to be weighted against the fact that, can you name a bigger economic powerhouse in the world that is going to make or break crypto in the long run? And the answer to that one is no. I'll tell you.

I'll tell you. I'll tell you. If and when they do that, I may consider coming back to the United States because I have the option. But right now, I think it's the worst place in the world to be. Yeah, but here's the thing. We're already seeing the vanguards

and the fidelities and the black rocks and everybody start to step in. There's no other country in the world that has such powerful companies with the ability to take crypto to the next level no country's even close while the united states might be taking their nice sweet time they're doing it right and they're the only country in the world with the powerful companies to actually make it happen so no other country has that potential answer my question is there any country that you know of other than china that is has a worse

regulatory environment right now if you are in crypto because i know of their company but no other country has the potential there's zero countries in the world outside the united states with the companies to the next level what's the point of having potential if you can't act on it well they're acting on it we're already seeing it i have potential i have potential to be an olympic runner but i can't act on it right you don't have that potential by the way i don't even know you but you definitely don't um and uh the bottom line is we're already seeing it it's literally happening before it might not be at the pace that you'd like to see it at right and for that matter i'm with you i wish it happened too, but that's not the point.

It is happening. You know what? The problem is, the problem is, and I'm going to be honest, the problem is when you've only lived in one country and you've only lived in the United States and you don't have a point of view of living, not visiting, because visiting is very different.

But once you've lived somewhere else and you see the difference of what it's like to live in the United States versus living somewhere else, why do you think all the crypto people are leaving and going to Dubai? Because they realize that if you're in crypto, Dubai is actually a much better place to live. They don't have the patience and they're

welcome to leave. Go, I'll help you pack. Go. Yeah, you say that and from your tone, I can probably hear that you haven't lived outside the United States. Am I right? Lived. I've lived in plenty of places from the United States. My family's from Cuba, right? Okay, but have you lived places From the United States My family's from Cuba

So understanding Just how free it is I mean My family's from a communist country Literally So I'm not saying that South Africa's a bad place I'm not hating on South Africa I'll hate on the Pinotage

I can't get behind the Pinotage But the Steen is very good I really like the wine from there Have you lived outside the United States? you lived have you lived outside the United States? Yes, I I personally have not lived outside the United States. I don't know how that's relevant Let me be honest and say you're not qualified to answer the question because yeah, we're talking about the conversation We're talking about how the United States the United States There's only one country that crypto can be taken to the next level this United States whether I live in Afghanistan or South

America is irrelevant. Name one country that has the company that can do that. JC, I tend to agree with you on the being patient side, but there's plenty of other countries that can take crypto to the next level not the United States. Name one. China. Literally.

If China opens the doors wide to crypto, India is not going to do it either. It will be a drop in the bucket. India is more progressive in the United States. India is more progressive in the united states then india is more progressive in the united states believe it or not india doesn't have the companies they might have the amount of people maybe but they don't have the companies like black rock like jp morgan like fidelity that are in the united states those are the companies that are going to take it and they're in america they're in america i lived in the united states for two

and a half years maybe even longer i've lived in other places around the world and i i get your point of view because for someone who hasn't lived on the outside that's all you know but once you've been on the outside you realize what i realized and that is that i think the u.s is in is now in its downward trend it has made in my mind some mind, some grave errors in policy and some grave errors. And as a result, I think that the heyday for the United States is finished. So yes, you can say, you know, it's the biggest and the best, but the biggest and the best when they become complacent, when they become complacent. Hold on. And for the record, for the record, I don't care at all, whether it's the United States or Europe. I'm not from the US. Right. That's my point. I don't care either way.

If it's not America, that's fine. For example, I'm a sommelier. Europeans make way better wine than the United States. I'm not like an American homer. It's just a fact of the matter that America just happens to be the country with the companies that are going to take it. That's it. All good. Also, the more important thing is that America

or the US dollar is still the world reserve currency meaning that big investors, they want to have their money here or not here i'm an american living in finland actually but uh but it's the best yeah the dollar is the best the dollar is the best of a bad bunch when you're buying the dollar you're buying the currency of a country that's in debt and will never ever ever ever ever be able to pay the debt very Very similar to Argentina, actually. Very similar to Argentina. It's the best of a bad match. Let's call it fact to fact. Hey, so sorry for...

The US has over $170 trillion in assets. Okay. Ren, Ren, Ren. So sorry for this little detour here that I started, man. The only reason why I was asking is because I was actually born in Cape Town. So I 100% agree with you. You've got Nirvana there. You've got the beautiful beaches,

the beautiful women, the mountains. It's awesome. You can pay cops off if you get a speeding ticket. I see what you're saying, man. But for me personally, I see it completely different. When I came here, let me put it this way. i would have never been able to amount to what i am here in south africa i would have never had that opportunity i agree from that point of view i agree from that point also look you can't compare the african americans africa is a third world african country you can't compare i'm just saying for the people i think how we got into this was people were saying i said that that the u.s is the worst regulatory environment for anyone in crypto other than China.

I think that's how we got into it. You can't compare the opportunity that you have in the US to the opportunity you have in the southern tip of Africa. I'm here for different reasons. I'm here for lifestyle reasons. Listen, a lot of us I think on this call would like to live in South Africa.

JC, Ran, when I told you, when you told my wife sitting at dinner that you guys couldn't get packages delivered to your door, it was literally over. Yeah, no, we don't have a fighting chance. You're like, she said, go to a store. I mean, look, there's some people that live on islands in Thailand.

It's a case of, you know, it's a case of what kind of lifestyle you prefer. You trade off one thing for another. But anyway, I mean, again, for me, South Africa is a better place to live than the United States. It's not for everyone, as I said. But I mean, let's get back to crypto. I mean, let's get back to a crypto discussion. Yeah, and I think that the regulatory regime has

overreached and there's a consensus, except for in a very small part of the United States, that that is the case. So I do think the pendulum has finally swung so far in the other direction that it is coming back. And I don't want to believe that there's no hope for decent regulation or sensible legislation in the United States. You need to get the Democrats out. End of story. The Democrats need to leave. I don't disagree. And the funny thing, though, it's not just Democrats. It's a very specific part of the Democratic Party. I mean, you've sat here and listened to Richie Torres, who's a Democrat from the South Bronx in New York City, who's extremely crypto favorable. And there are also others.

The problem, as he pointed out, is a gerontocracy more than it is a bipartisan issue. It's that the oldest people are in control of the Democratic Party and they're too old to understand. They're threatened by everything that they don't understand. They're threatened by new technology. And so I'm encouraged by the fact that, yes, we need to probably regime change and party change. But eventually the old people will be gone. We will not have 90-year-old Dianne Feinstein for much longer, right? But you'll get 90-year-old somebody else. If I look at where the U.S. is, you've got Joe Biden, who's potentially up for re-election if he can make it that far. You got Donald Trump, who's not very different from him. You're talking about dinosaurs right

in the country. I mean, you got people like Mitch McConnell. I mean, come on. Is this right, Randy? I do think that pendulum will swing, though. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I think that pendulum will swing. Listen, I agree with you. You see, but in other countries, in other countries, it's already swung. In other other countries it's already swung and that's that's the difference the u.s is stuck in these old ways in other countries and again i'm not i'm saying for as long as the u.s carries on like the u.s is going now there's no way that it's going to emerge as this big powerhouse it is riding on the petticoats of its old success and it's bleeding out it's bleeding out yeah i mean it's hard it's bleeding out. It's bleeding out.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard not to agree with that. And also, I think there's an important differentiation before we shut this down. What JC seems to have dropped, what he was saying about the biggest companies in the United States, you guys were somewhat talking past each other, right? Yes, we do have the biggest companies for adoption, but that does not mean

that we have a favorable regulatory regime right so you can have two of those things be mutually exclusive and true yeah and i do believe what you say yeah i think i think if there was any company that is going to go down in history as a company that changed the the the trajectory of the united states i think that you know obviously you're going to get companies like Tesla and that, but I think Coinbase is going to be, it's going to go down in history as one of the companies

that actually changed the United States. And why, I mean, I spoke about it actually on my show, I said, it's like, it's the game of the tortoise and the hare. So Binance ran out like the hare and Coinbase was more like the tortoise. And today Coinbase gets derivatives approved. Binance is pretty much out of the US for all intents and purposes.

Yesterday, we heard that in Canada, Coinbase announced that they're in Canada officially. I think they were there before, but I think they made some kind of announcement. And at the same time, Binance has left Canada. So I think it's a case of the US, Coinbase will go down in history as one of the companies that really, really, really changed the trajectory of the United States because they systematically, hopefully going to systematically break down all these walls for us. Yeah, I agree. And we just have added Benjamin Cowell into the stage and he and I spoke, I just want to circle back before we end to the actual price action, the expectation, because he has a pretty

compelling thesis that we discussed at length yesterday. And he had here, Ben, how are you, man? Pretty good. How about you? Sorry to just sort of jump in here at the end. No, I invited you. So I would love to, you kind of missed earlier, but we were sort of sorting through what we're looking for to happen here. And kind of ironically, you and I yesterday morning were talking about the fact that we would likely see a lot of altcoin pain if Bitcoin started to drop or if Bitcoin started to rise to some degree. And then we saw literally like a $400 Bitcoin move and altcoins went down 5% to 15%, right? So do you think that that's a foreshadowing of what would happen if we saw a bigger move?

Yeah, exactly. And it's sort of going up the risk curve, right? Like the S&P drops a couple percent, Bitcoin drops a few more, altcoins drop 10% to 20%. And we talked about that seasonal correction in the S&P around this time every pre-election year. It seems like we're getting that. I think Apple's down like 10% or something. So yeah, I mean, I think it's actually playing out very similar to past pre-election years. And if it continues to play out like prior pre-election years um you know you could still see the s&p um i mean i mean the correction might not be over by it uh but it doesn't mean that it has to go down right

for the rest of the year but even if it doesn't uh you you could still see you know bitcoin and the alt queen market get get hit pretty hard just like they normally do uh in the second half of the of the pre-having year so yeah, yeah, I mean, I think if Bitcoin, if Bitcoin were to get a weekly close, you know, below like 28k, then I think you would see a pretty drastic drop in Bitcoin pairs. I think you would see a pretty drastic drop on on the Ether Bitcoin pair. And then we should ultimately see the dominance of Bitcoin go higher. And I do want to just quickly say one last thing. And then we should ultimately see the dominance of Bitcoin go higher. And I do want to just quickly say one last thing.

And that is on TradingView, they're actually currently changing how they're calculating the total market cap. So if you look closely, you'll occasionally see gaps up and gaps down by certain metrics. So just be aware that if it's changing, sometimes like you might see total three go up

by a few billion, but it's just because they're including new coins into the metric rather than actually the altcoin market actually having gone up. Gareth, you and Ben talk every Monday, right? You guys have a show together. Are you in line with that thesis basically? Or do you guys argue and fight? Well, we fight all day long. No, I'm just kidding. No, we're pretty in alignment overall. So like, and I'm more on the stock market side. He's more on the crypto side, but I think we merge with the macro data and then how the stock market influences.

And even though we've seen a little bit of a bounce back today, I'm still in the camp that all the macro data, except for the jobs, have started to weaken significantly. And ultimately, we probably do have more downside of a correction. And again, you know, we were talking earlier about, is it going to be a crash? No, it's not. I mean, markets very rarely ever crash. And usually the beginning of a down cycle is slow because you

have by the dippers that have been conditioned by the dip. So it keeps the market from really coming down hard. If you look in 08, 099 the stock market the the fastest sell-off occurred right at the end because everyone was panicking and throwing in the towel and that could be something we see in crypto and kind of a good indicator of of um of when a bottom is fully in at least in the all coin market we'll have to watch and see but i do think that that if you do see a stock market movement to the downside then best of breed is going to be what does the best and Bitcoin in the crypto markets is best of breed. 100% agree. You only have to go back to March of 2020 to see that happen, right? I mean, Bitcoin bottomed on, I think, March 12th, broke below four. Stock market bottomed 10

days later, and then everybody touted this humongous move by the stock market of 2x while Bitcoin went up to 69k and pulled a 17x, right? So when you are convinced that bottom is in, I think the bottom is already in, but I do think we're going to get another sort of capitulation wick. Not that low, but you know, another shakeout. Where do you want to be? Well, one thing I wanted to bring up too, and you guys may have discussed this earlier, but you know, like there's been so much hype about how big the spot etf approval in the u.s will be and then yesterday we had a an approval in europe right from the amsterdam of a spot etf and literally bitcoin did not budge and i know it's not like it's not the u.s i understand that but the narrative at

least in crypto is like oh my god this is going to be the savior like this is this is the lord savior coming down when we get this approval and I really honestly thought there'd at least be a little uptick on that and there wasn't. And so does it now make us question whether that spot ETF is going to have as big an impact as everyone thinks it will? I think BlackRock is BlackRock, you know? Yeah. So I think it's a different ball game, but it is a point well, well taken. Ran, anything else we need to cover here before we go? I do need to tell everybody you see that big red icon up there, the avatar on stage, crypto underscore town hall. We will. I know we keep saying it, but we're we're scattered.

But we are going to start actually hosting these Twitter spaces from that account. So we absolutely need you to follow it and then set the alert. So, you know, when the spaces start from there, that's something we're committed to getting done in the next few weeks. Ran, you want to talk about the Bybit trading competition that we have pinned

above? I'm surrounded by three-year-olds and four-year-olds. You mean on stage or do you mean in your real life? What the fuck is going on there? That's having kids. When you have four kids and they're eight years old. Sounds like World War III. I was going to say crypto must be really bad if Rand had to open up a daycare.

Or if he had to call all of us three and four-year-olds, because that's what he's surrounded by here on stage. All right, everybody, that's all we got. Of course, please do check the pinned tweet above the Bybit Trading Competition, $8 million prize pool, and massive giveaways. I'm terrible at doing these pitches, so I

just read them in my radio voice and act like it's an advertisement. We will be back tomorrow, of course, guys. Thank you so much for joining. Peace out.