The Wolf Of All Streets - Bitcoin Capitulation Or Is It OVER For Good? #CryptoTownHall

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

In this episode of **Crypto Town Hall**, host Dave and panelists tackle the question: **Is crypto dead?** They dismiss recent price capitulation as another typical cycle low, not a death knell, pointing to repeated "Bitcoin is dead" claims over the past decade that proved wrong. They highlight extreme bearish sentiment (Fear & Greed at historic lows), forced liquidations, over-leveraged positions, regulatory delays (e.g., Clarity Act), fake narratives (Epstein-Satoshi rumors, quantum threats), and macro factors, while emphasizing Bitcoin's stronger fundamentals today versus prior cycles (network growth, relative cheapness vs. gold). Panelists see this as a bottoming process with potential sideways action or relief bounces ahead, viewing the dip as a major accumulation opportunity rather than the end of crypto.

Good morning, everyone and welcome to Crypto Town Hall. The question before us all is, is Crypto dead? Or was yesterday just another one in the series of capitulation lows that has been happening since Bitcoin was founded? Personally, we all know, I think, the latter. But, you know, you roll on X and you read about it, it's amazing how many people, and it's all like cockroaches, right? You know, how many people come out and talk about why Bitcoin is dead?

and then you realize that they said the same thing, six years ago and eight years ago and some even 10 years ago. At a certain point, you start to shake your head and understand, you know, that markets are going to do what markets are going to do. But we got a great panel out here today. I'm going to say one public service announcement. If you're listening to this space, click on my icon and follow. This is a new account for me.

My old account was hacked. I said this again. And instead of 35,000 followers and a full monetization history, it's gone because the people running X can't seem to verify or don't know and they can't read a driver's license. I'm not really sure what the F is going on there. But I'm pretty annoyed. And so to the extent that you enjoy listening to my rants once in a while or anything, then I would really appreciate it.

So I'm going to say it again at the end when we have. more people listening. But right now, it is, it is insane. You know, Gary, I know you're there. If you could, I'm starting to do the reply guy thing again. So instead of just posting, I'm replying to all of you. But any case. Dave, can we get the Mario account to reach out to X? I mean, come on, man. Doesn't Mario have a little pull, bro? I would have thought that he would. And I won't name the people, but I will not be doing crypto town hall if the Mario account doesn't reach out to X by some point next week because at this point I'm annoyed and there are plenty of other people out there and other ways for me to spend my time you know so it's it's just it's just

nuts and yes the people behind the account who are listening you you should understand that that's not an idle threat it's just ridiculous at this point but let's talk about markets because after all something that that people always need to remember always need to remember markets almost almost never a V bottom. Yes, we saw that in March of 2020. Yes, okay, there was a V bottom, but that was an extraordinary circumstance where the market went into full capitulation freefall.

And frankly, if Arthur didn't yank, you know, Bitmex off, you know, and put in his own kind of circuit breaker, now I know he says he didn't, but, you know, he did. And Bitcoin would have gone to damn close to zero. And then almost immediately after that, the Federal Reserve decided to take out the howitzer and inject enormous amounts of liquidity and we all know what happened. But generally speaking, what we've seen. And Gary, you've seen this a lot and a lot of other people here have seen this a lot.

Markets after a major event tend to bounce around those levels for a while before the next trend is established. And if it is a capitulation bottom, things like the crash of 87 being the one that I always will remember. Three months later, it had moved a little bit higher, but it was more or less in the same boat. And then it started on one of the most epic rallies in the history of financial markets. So, you know, you need to understand how this stuff works. Now, Bitcoin is a little bit different. It's a bit more volatile. And frankly, it's, if you don't believe Bitcoin is going to fail, it is ludicrously cheap right now. You know, compare the last time it was at 60 to now.

as I said before, the network itself is six times stronger. Gold, which is essentially the bellwether for smart, you know, for sound money is three times higher. And so understanding that this price is not, even though on a chart, if you look at it independently in Fiat, there are so many reasons to believe this isn't the bottom. I mean, this isn't a top or a rational place for it to be. but there are people who believe Bitcoin is going to fail, right? And that's what's going on. And honestly, you know, the two reasons that I've heard recently, one quantum to Epstein. I mean, Epstein, we talked about yesterday, I don't want to relitigate that.

I think that's an insane reason, right? To, you know, basically, when I say insane, I mean insane. Epstein is effectively a creature of the Fiat swamp and shows how the elites have misused and mistreated people for decades. And he is sort of the instantiation of that. And yeah, maybe a couple people above the Bitcoin were involved in that too. So what?

Bitcoin is literally the only open source, sound money alternative to all of that. So that's one and two is quantum and we'll talk about that later. William, I finally see a hand up. Yeah, I think if you want to look for external factors, I would say the deadlock in the Clarity Act might be more prevalent to talk about because there was a bit of a let down. People were expecting it and that didn't happen.

So it was another reason to pile on the negativity of what's going on. But that explains ETH, right? I mean, ether getting destroyed and all coins getting destroyed. That I understand. Because without clarity, it means the U.S. is still enjoined from no token could pass through economics without risk. No company can do it. That's really the issue, right? Well, kind of the issue that's being debated is the staking yields. And staking yields are not only the purview of ETH. Many coins can give you staking yields, including Bitcoin, in some form or another. So that's what's being debated.

As you know, the banks are saying that this will take away the money they have, which is used to provide loans to small and medium businesses. anywhere in the U.S., which is a bit more of a whining kind of argument. It's a harsh-ed argument. Let's just call it what it is. Yeah. Yeah, that's a horrible one because less than 1% of small businesses have access to debt. Yeah.

Exactly right. It is complete horseshit. Thanks, Mary. Of course. They don't want to be changed. They don't want to change. They want just so much change, not a lot of change. We understand something.

And we could talk about that. issue but you know at nauseam William but but understand the banking system the American Bankers Association is captured by the large money center banks which are getting a massive subsidy because interest and banking demand deposits are effectively they don't have to pay interest there's no competition community banks come along for make some money from that but could make money on a fee-for-service model there's only one problem Caitlin Long who's not on the panel but would tell you that the Federal Reserve and the and the regulators for for decades

have basically fought against fee-for-service models, right? So if they can't earn money from a fee-for-service model, then they need the interest, and that's what they're telling them. But the truth is that if you're a community bank, I think your deposits are stickier, and I think that your expertise, if you have it, is going to be valuable. But it's the money-center banks, which are making tens of billions of dollars a year from this. It's basically a free government subsidy, and that's the argument. But honestly, I think that's going to get, that's going to get,

resolved. The real issue on clarity, I think, is the ethics issue. Okay. But we'll see. I mean, look, the people who I trust, you know, some of the best voices think it's about 50-50. And I was literally with a whole bunch of them last week down in Miami. There were a couple of conferences, lots of regulators and people who are in the know. And it's, the tide may be turning there, but I do think it's, you're right. I think it's a big issue. Anyway, Adam, you've been patient. You had your hand up and then after you, Andre. Yeah, I would just, I would, to give you the kind of simple man on the street vibes, the Epstein thing,

there was like fake Epstein emails going around. And I can't tell you, like a lot of people, just what I would call normies, you know, who know nothing about the history or Satoshi or anything like that, fell victim to this like literally just fake, you know, made up emails, you know,

like I don't know if you guys saw the one where it's like, you know, Hey, just Lane, the Satoshi pseudonym is working perfectly. You know, that one where it's like, our little gold mine is ready for the world or whatever it was, you know. It was like, you know,

the most ridiculous thing. But I mean, this hit Normies. This hit the Uber drivers of the world, right? Now, obviously, they're not, you know, moving markets, but they do, the sentiment around it. Just creates a whole lot of fud, you know. And so I just think we're just kind of getting hit with these waves. The person on the street is getting hit with waves of that, with, you know, sailors going to go bankrupt, it's going to have to sell all this Bitcoin. You know, they're hit with these kind of news stories where they don't know anything deeper and they just hear, I mean, literally I had friends who were getting text is Epstein Satoshi.

Like literally that kind of stuff is happening. And I, you know, I think you saw probably the fear and greed index is the worst ever, I think, today. Nine. Yes. And it was probably worse yesterday. Yeah. So just to give some context on like, you know, word.

on the street. This is where it's coming from. So for me, it's like, like we called maybe the top of the silver trade. I think last Thursday, we fucking nailed the top. This is like we're almost nailing the bottom. We might be a lot, you know, months longer here. But it feels like all this kind of fud that's based on nothing. We may be hitting that kind of bottom. Yeah, I feel the same thing. I mean, it's like the paper Bitcoin narrative. People don't understand. Look, I've always worried about the fact that many people in this space don't understand how markets work, but, you know, there's all sorts of ridiculous fun out there. Anyway, Andre, you were next and then Amateo. Yes, thank you, Dave. Yeah, happy Friday.

Happy Friday. Unfortunately, we don't get to turn the machines off. You get to relax. That's true. Yeah, I think sentiment, I mean, is Uber-Barrish, right? I think we calculate the Crypto as a Sentiment Index in-house comprises of 15 different indicators. And it hit like the lowest level since FTCS. Like literally the FTCS blow up

in November 2020. And the last time we saw this was also like this kind of August yen carry trade, but it was even like lower than this carry trade like calculation. So it's like Uber, over bearish. And what you usually see some kind of short term relief rally, right?

I don't expect like a V-shaped recovery and you barely see this. I agree with you. You probably saw this during COVID, right, in March 2020. But I think usually you see some kind of retests of the lows, right? And then it's just a question, do we do a V-shaped or do we go sideways? I think we probably go sideways. We continue to go sideways, form a bottom because the bottom, right?

It's more like a process. We all know that. But I agree, like we had fire cell variations. I mean, Gary, you're selling your private jet, right? And I think it's a sensible move, right? Because I think last time the MVR ZZZ score, right, was that at these kind of levels was, I think, early 2023, when Bitcoin was trading around 25,000, you know.

So I think overall we're very cheap right now across the wide range of indicators. I mean, even macro, right, people say are saying things like, job openings are so bearish recession, right? But like job openings, they're lagging, right? The ISM manufacturing index leads job openings, right? And it's just spike to a multi-year high. So I'm actually quite bullish on the macro. I think what is worth mentioning, though, is this kind of weakness in IT software, right?

And you saw the spike in the VIX, which somewhat, it like implies some kind of tightening financial conditions. But I do think we still see this kind of easing in global financial conditions implied by the gold price and precious metal prices and so on, which is, in my view, emanating from China. It's not coming from the S, right? And even if you look at the U.S. money supply growth, right, it continues to accelerate and the yield curve continues to steepen, which implies even more money supply growth, acceleration in the US, right, while China's re-accelerating and so on. So I'm also like still very

much bullish on the macro, right, despite these like chitters and like software and. Hey, hey, Andre, in addition to that, don't, don't forget. People always ignore this, that the big beautiful bill, you know, means that this year will have the largest tax refund in United States history. It's going to be over 400, well over 400 billion dollars. Now, normally it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 300, but that extra hundred is not necessarily accounted for. You know, $100 billion is a non-trivial amount. And there's a lot of people who, it's because of the way the accounting work, but, you know, it tends to correlate. And if you look at, and I did this very quick analysis, it's only three data points, so because we don't have that many.

But after a down year where people don't have capital, don't owe capital gains, taxes on Bitcoin, generally the next year starting from May, you know, when effectively post-income tax refunds are delivered, tends to be, the average is somewhere north of 50% gains. Understand that this year is both a down year and a much bigger refund check coming. So, you know, just from a seasonality and macro point of view, that alone is a non-trivial thing. And I don't think that's in the markets. But, you know, so be it. Anyway, Amatoa, I think you were next.

Yeah, hey, Dave. I really hope you could try. Yeah, me, me too. You know, it's just, you know, forget the creative avenue. It's just, I can't tell you the sense of frustration when I see these emails every single day. They say, oh, well, we can't verify that you are you. Now, meanwhile, mind. you understand on X, you know, you all, most of you guys know this. If you're, you literally have to

provide your ID and a selfie and all this stuff and you do creator verification. Well, I did that on both accounts and they have it. Now, unless their systems are so unbelievably horrible, I mean, this is a guy who claim to be able to restore, you know, failed servers in the government. They know this. And the fact that they can't, they can't verify it. I mean, it's embarrassing. But anyway, sorry. I'm, I'm, um, it really is. I mean, there's a lot of people who are tuning in here where X is their livelihood. I mean, this is where they're bright and butter is they invest a ton of time every day. So I really just, it's a little freaky.

And the reason that it happens is because they only communicate via email. They should be doing all their appeals, all the other stuff via encrypted DMs. And so if they had done that, then I wouldn't have cared. But whatever. Anyway, I'm not going to, if X wants to get me to type in something on the response to an email, I never will do it again ever. It's not going to happen. Whatever.

Anyway. Anyway, we don't need to talk about that. Oh, good. I didn't mean to get you fired up, but I just feel for you, man. But yeah, I mean, look, yesterday was quite a shock to the system across the board. You mentioned the Fear and Greedy Index. Last night, I took a look at it, and it was five. And I just, I'd never seen that in all the years of being in this industry.

five. It was pretty impressive. So I think like we're to... I want to ask you about this because you and I, we've looked at these things before. People keep saying, well, it's not as bad as FTX. Now, obviously, let me make the point. This is going to end up as a question.

So it's not as bad as FTX in the sense that there was no incredibly important person that you could point to that stole money and caused people's accounts to be frozen so they were knocked out of the industry. And by the way, just to put a face on it, you know, coin routes, which I was running at the time, half, literally half our clients went out of business because their monies were lost on FTX and they couldn't do anything about it. Half. Now, that is a massive deal. The difference today is everybody is asking who sold, who went belly up. And there's fear uncertainty. Markets hate uncertainty, right, Amatoa? And so if we don't know, Like if you knew, if we had a perfect crystal ball and said, okay, so-and-so went bankrupt, so-and-so just pulled out, so-and-so did this, and so-and-so their wallets are now empty and they're the ones who are selling, and we know it's over, well, then at that case,

yeah, you'd see a massive, the rally would be almost instantaneous up into the 80s. But we don't know. And I think that uncertainty is what's causing people a lot of pain, don't you? I do. And I think they're, you know, which ones worse, they're different. And let's, let's break down a little bit about how they're different. With the FTX, Celsius, and BlockFi situation, and Voyager, of course, the issue was people were holding assets in platforms that they assumed were safe with the promise of five to eight percent, 10 percent yields at the highest. I mean, that created this absolute crunch and collapse through Tara. Everyone knows the backstory. But what the result of that was was Western companies that people thought were safe, that were marketed and sold as safe, that people had onboarded into all collapsing consecutively and major headlines.

What we're actually seeing in this cycle is really attrition. It is death by a thousand cuts. So we have the 10-10 situation. We have perps traders that keep blowing up one after another on every liquidation day. The difference in this is that if you blow up on perps, everyone says you should have known better. With FTX Celsius and Vojder, people didn't have that sentiment. It was the shock of, I thought that this was different. I thought that this was safe.

So this is I should have known better. The other area that we're getting a death of a thousand cuts is the actual projects themselves who are all rolling over, quiet quitting, out of money. No one's willing to give them more. And of all those that are closing up shop, there's a small fraction of them that are actually openly talking about this. And then you have the fun side of it. So we do have a much more quiet, a much more secretive, and maybe not as Western. blowup that's happening consecutively is not reaching the same level of headlines. So we do have a lot of underlying questions.

We do have this attrition that just keeps on affecting the people in the space and the system. And I think that that downward pressure, right, because we talk about altcoins. And we talk about, you know, their value and their questionable value. but what's important to know about all coins is that outside of just the absolute scammers and people trying to take advantage, it's actually a lot of high-quality people trying to build innovative technology in space. Right. Like that, there's a strong percentage of that's the case. And when those are being greatly affected, we have this consecutive negative sentiment,

this keeps on building and piling up. So I think that this is less of a shock and just more of a bleed. And I don't know that the bleed is fully done, but I think short term here will probably get a bounce and stabilize and be range bound. Yeah, I tend to think that, well, that's exactly what I think. So, you know, unfortunately, I always want to be wrong. I was want to everyone to disagree with me.

But, you know, to me it feels like that. I mean, Gary, you've been doing the circuit for a while today. I mean, there's 9.3 million coins underwater right now. Yeah. Wow. That means there's 9 million deep in the money. I think those are priced at sub $3,000. I maintain this is still the problem in this market, dude. The disconnect between the low, the Fred Kruger bags and these 9.3 million Bitcoin that are out of the money.

It's just staggering, man. You don't have that in any other markets in the world. 9.3 million coins that were bought below 3,000 or 9.1 that are losing money now that were bought above $68,000 or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, GlassNode just posted something. 9.3 million. I think it wasn't GlassNode.

It was Scott, actually. 9.3 million or underwater. We have 19.6 out issued. So I'm just guessing 9 million By the way there's 3 or 4 million loss So there's 6 million coins Sitting at I think sub 3,000 dollars And then there's another 9.3 sitting well above 66

And those are underwater And in this disconnect between the very very cheap Bitcoin what I call the lottery ticket winners And I don't mean that offensively but It's done a fucking great run these guys are not buying significant volumes of Bitcoin. So in order for Bitcoin to actually go up, it's not going to come from the original Bitcoiners. They're not buying it, okay?

I mean, I literally heard a guy the other night. I have enough Bitcoin, dude, at $300. So he's never going to buy Bitcoin ever. So it has to come from us. It has to come from the outside. the very people that Bitcoin bitches about is the only people that are going to drive Bitcoin to 100,000 and then to a million. So, but effectively, though, if you think about it, is 9.3 million under, you know, that are underwater, that's actually a good thing. I mean, because basically you need Bitcoin to broaden.

You know, I think if you had looked a year ago, the number of coins that were. sub 3,000, as you would say, or, you know, or sub 1,000, I think is the real, the real issue. Because, you know, just, just the dynamics. Yeah, I put in a couple grants that nobody can laugh at me. I actually add, because I think it's 300 bucks, actually. So I had another zero to it so nobody can laugh at me. No, no. I mean, it's true.

I mean, look, my generation of Bitcoiners were most of the Bitcoin that I bought. I don't, I'm tiny, you know, I'm rounding error for you. but it was bought in the single, it bought below 10,000. I think there are a lot of people like that, but there were also people who bought it below 1,000. And below 1,000 has, you know, going back to the Mount Cox era in the hundreds or the, you know, whatever,

those are the wallets that started selling in July. And those are the wallets that need to sell in order for it to, Bitcoin to broaden and have a better base for it to move forward, right? I assume you. Yeah, because, Dave, the way I see this is as soon as we get close to 100 grand, there's going to be a million fucking coins come out of those wallets. Because they've seen the 100 grand is like, fuck it, dude, I'm out. Like, I don't want to go down to 50 grand again.

I mean, people are talking about 38. I could see 38 happen, actually. I could see that. I mean, that would be about the right amount of pain. I've said this for some time. I hate people that constantly remind people when they're right. but I think until until those Bitcoin come out of the $300, we're not going to go anywhere.

We're going to just be range bound between here and 100. And what's going to shake these people out of their bags is these drops like this, 126 to 65 and four months. Their families are going to be going fucking nuts. You know, everybody thinks it's just the guy. I'm probably the only guy on this panel that doesn't have anybody to report to. No wife, no girlfriend, kids don't matter. I do whatever the fuck I want.

But I can't imagine being married to somebody. At $300, you got $10,000 Bitcoin. You haven't sold any. You could have sold it at $1.26. You didn't. And they're still living in the same house they were living in eight years ago. And I, you know, people get older. They want to do shit.

They start dying. They get a divorce. So I just think it's going to come on the downside. Yeah, but Gary, isn't this, I mean, this is the issue with like, ETH and stuff too. It's like, you know, okay. Oh, the foundation has whatever, how many millions, Ethan, every time. This space was downloaded via spaces down.com.

Visit to download your spaces today. It goes up, they dump. I mean, you know, or the, whatever, the Chinese who got into the ICO own half of ETH, and they just dump every time it runs. Like, we're almost describing a shit coin here, right, Gary? I mean, it's like that sort of situation. I mean, God help us if Satoshi's wallet wakes up, you know. I think, well, I would like Satoshi's wallet to open up, actually.

I think I think we need the liquidity. Yeah, I think that Gary, the point that I would make, and I've always made this, there's two actually. One is need for liquidity. If let's say the Satoshi wallet was owned by somebody or one of these other big wallets that are lost, and they basically said, listen, you know, here it is. and let's auction this off. And let's do the same thing as you would do if you were a company like

Nvidia. If Invidia, if Jensen, I don't know how much he owns and maybe it's a bad example, but there are plenty of examples of very, very large companies doing 10, 20, 30 percent of stock secondaries. Happens all the time. And the general yesterday would have been a much bigger fall than you would have to price a secondary act because people want liquidity. one of the biggest problems in Bitcoin, and you know this, is institutions look and say it's too small

for me to do what I really want to do. And so... Dude, the Bitcoin community does not understand that at all. They don't even address it. They don't consider it. It's like, dude, these people do not, if they deploy a billion dollars, they want to be able to get out on a click too. That's right. So you need more liquidity.

You need, you know, it scales with price. I mean, it always does. The other big thing is, is you don't, if you're, if you had 10,000 Bitcoin from, you know, in the hundreds and you basically never sold any, you're a schmuck, right? You know, unless you borrowed against it, which you could do on a very low TVL. I mean, you could borrow against it at 10%. You literally borrow 10% and never sell any and have plenty, make your wife very, very happy, right? You know, it's, you don't, it's not digital.

It's not binary. You don't have to sell all of it or none of it. You could sell smidgens of it. In fact, what most people do, the first thing you learned in the stock market is to sell the original investment. And then sell at different levels, you know, and take into what you do. And if you think that you're saving in Bitcoin, but spending in fiat, then most people would spend, you know, would sell a couple of years of living expenses at whatever would make your family happy. I mean, that's a reasonable thing. I mean, Scott, I think you're back now.

can't tell if you're behind the mic or not. But that's something you've been saying for, you were saying it all summer, right? You know, it's a normal thing to do. You live your life. And I think most people did. And that's the difference is I don't think that there are a lot of original bag holders who are still holding it and are desperately

waiting for it to get back to $100,000 because they felt they missed it. I think there are people who, you know, sell what they need to sell and move along. I guess Scott's not behind the mic yet. Matt, I see your hand. No, I'm here. Can you hear me? Oh, yeah, yeah, we can hear you now. Yeah. Hey, just one last thing, and I'll be quiet.

I'm sure Scott will appreciate this. But look, look, I have a goal of how much Bitcoin I want to own, a volume of Bitcoin, not the price. And I have to buy another 500 Bitcoin to hit my goal. Shit just got $30 million cheaper. Now, the David Levincetons of the world, and I don't have anything, I have no problem with anybody poop-pooing on Bitcoin. I like all the information. But like I look at a $30 million discount to be able to buy a 500 Bitcoin. I'm like, God, dang, dude, I need to move. I need to get busy, accelerate my Fiat. This will not, okay, maybe it goes down some more, but fucking $30 million discount to four

months ago, that's a shitload of money, dude. Like, it will take me twice as long to buy that Bitcoin back at 100 grand. So if this was an automobile that I was looking for, I'd go, you know, I'd have it delivered yesterday. It's at a fucking 50% discount. So, you know, can it go down further? I think it's going to go down further. I think we're going to test 58 because we need to, like we need to flush out the sellers,

okay? The buying is not the issue. We need to fucking flatten out the sellers. I don't know. They're exhausted. Yeah. I don't know about 58, though. I'm not saying that it won't, but I think, let me just put it this way.

I just pinned a tweet. But we have now as much buying volume at this time of day, actually more than the selling volume yesterday, which was the largest volume that we've had in months and looked like major capitulation, obviously. You had that candle pushing down systematically all day. We're going to end up probably with more buying volume yesterday than the worst selling day that we've had. and anyone who watches markets, and Gary, you know this, right?

If everybody wants 58 or 57, because that's where the 50MA and the 200 in the weekly, either you bounce at 59 or you go straight to 48, right? You don't usually get everybody that's staring at a line. We did, by the way, on the retest of 74 last year, but you don't usually have everybody watching a single line and they get it. You either price bounces $100 above your bid or it nukes through everything and liquidates everybody who try. So I think that maybe 59 is enough. I'm not saying the bottom is definitely in,

but if this thing keeps climbing on this kind of volume, we know there's a hell of a lot of buying interest in this area. We have that now. We have that evidence. Yeah, I mean. Listen, I agree. You know, Grant posted this thing about selling this plane, then somebody reposted and said,

wow, these guys are liquidating. And let me tell you something. If you guys want to sell your Bitcoin, I'm going to keep saying it's going to go to 58. Okay, if I can... punk you out of your Bitcoin saying it's going to go to 38 or 40, I am happy for you to get rid of your shit. I'll buy all of it.

I mean, and I think we have to start understanding, hey, the people that are coming in here, they will down talk this market. Like, I'll poo poo on my own position all day long if it's going to shake your ass out. And I think a lot of that's going on. So you could be right, Scott. I may be just over-talk in my book.

I may want it to go low now. See, I've experienced enough pain here now. I'm like, well, let's fucking roll, dude. Let's get super cheap. Cheaper is better. Cheaper is better. I like it. Matt.

Yeah. Hey, Dave. Sorry about your ex account, man. Gave you the followback. You know, I think you guys have had Christopher Inks on here, haven't you? I know, Scott, you've talked with him many times. And, you know, just a couple of weeks ago, Christopher Inks over there at Texas

West Capitol along with Peter Brandt. We're calling for 58 and that S1 pivot, the yearly S1 pivot right there around 66K. So I wasn't really that caught off by what happened. on yesterday and I feel really fortunate to be able to grab a little bit there at a buy order that filled at 60. But I don't think really, you know, to the point here, that Bitcoin didn't die. Leverage did. And what we're watching is it's not panic selling. It was forced selling. Because derivatives from my estimate, they broke before spot and liquidations accelerated the move. And the market did what it always does. Like to your point, Gary, it's flushing weak

positioning. And here's the part that I think really nobody's talking about. Capital didn't flee. I know miners aren't really capitulating. And infrastructure didn't fail from what I I'm looking at. I mean, Bitcoin worked exactly as it's designed. Balance sheets got stressed in real time. So if you're here for the Bitcoin is dead funeral, you're early. And if you're here to understand the mechanics behind the move, I think you're in the right room. Yeah, I mean, at the one point, Matt, that kept coming up yesterday. And it's really too bad.

I was actually trying to, because if I lost my account, I don't, I had to find Maurizio. I mean, I don't know, Scott, if it's too late to get him up here. But we definitely want to talk next week, Maritio, who runs lead. The biggest, I don't want to say the word fud, the biggest fear that was being circulated yesterday was that a large amount of people were liquidated or had to be liquidated that had taken Bitcoin back loans. Now, that, which of course would cause a liquid, a different type of liquidation cascade because that's a different. I mean, what we saw yesterday was a spot-led capitulation. What we've seen most of the time were perp-led capitulation. And that's why there was no bounce, Dave.

It was just a steady selling all the way down. The candle closed basically at the daily lows. And it took until that was turned off for today to bounce. So people who took out who, so let's take your Gary's guy, you know, 10,000, you know, Bitcoin at 100,000. So, you know, you then said, okay, well, instead of selling my 10,000 Bitcoin, because, you're, or 5,000 of my Bitcoin, I'll take 50% as a loan, and you did so over 100,000, and maybe you did it at 120. Well, if you did it at 120, there's a reasonably good chance that you got liquidated yesterday,

or you were forced to put up more capital or more collateral, which maybe you didn't have. That tends to can trigger a much slower, deeper burn, you know, of liquidation, which I think is what we saw yesterday. do think that that's what happened. And it would be great to know if that was the case. Now, you could argue about how silly that is. Now, in the world of stocks, just to understand the mechanics, I don't know how Bitcoin-backed loans work, and I would love to get Mauritio or someone to describe it, in stocks, you can borrow, you can leverage called Reg T, you can borrow 50% against it. But you don't

get fully margin called until it goes down 75%, at which point then you're obliterated. But so, The real question is, is I don't know if there was a lot of actual liquidations or just a lot of fear over liquidations yesterday. But it certainly felt like there was some serious liquidations on the spot side. I assume that's what you said. Amatea, was that a ghost hand or is that a new hand? That's a new hand. Yeah. I think, yeah, I don't know exactly where the liquidation is other than, I know Scott and the other, we're just covering the size of it.

But I just think that it's worth noting that still there's glitches and breaks happening in the system as a whole. And the volatility just continues to start to uptick, not just across like obviously Bitcoin wasn't volatile. I'm not trying to debate balls across markets. Just that as we get some of these spikes in sell-offs, we're starting to get these higher intensity volatility moments. And we obviously saw it on precious metals. And I think that that were long term, of course, I think Bitcoin's fine. This isn't the funeral for Bitcoin. It's going to keep raging on.

But I think it's worth noting that there's some unwinding going on. And I think that we're going to see a lot come down to the private credit market that is going into all of this AI infrastructure and all these people that are all these companies that are trying to just build, build, build infra. They're going to struggle to get capital for it. There's a strong thesis that the reason why XAI was rolled up into SpaceX was just because the IPO is intended to fund all of the infrastructure build and to be able to generate cash for it. We see all these different private credit markets starting to roll over in the AI space.

and this affects all of the Big Mag 7, right? Like, that's what happened with Amazon. It's great earnings. CapEx spend is shocking, and it affects outlook. And that's going to affect a lot of these big stocks. And that's going to continue to affect the market. And I think that ultimately it's going to be forcing us into a Fed policy that's not just going to lower rates because that's not going to be enough. it's going to require actual QE and real printing.

But it's going to take a little bit to get there. And I think this shit has to unwind. And I think the private markets have the private credit has to unwind. We're going to see some bank blowups. And we're going to see some more pain. And I think ultimately on the other side of that is going to set up a hell of a thesis for Bitcoin wherever the smoke clears and it lands. But I think everyone was looking at 2026 is mega bullish, unstoppable. And look where we are.

You know, I think it's always good to be prudent. I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity this year as long as you survive and stay well positioned. Yeah, I often said, and Matt, why don't you go next? I think you had your hand up, but I said yesterday something that is absolutely true. In 2022, when the markets were crashing, if I woke up at two or three in the morning, in fact, I would always would wake up at two or three in the morning. The very first thing I do is grab for my phone and see if I, that in terror, you know, am I being liquidated on this, et cetera.

I didn't even look at the price last night because I didn't care. The truth is, if you're not over leveraged, you don't care. You know, you have a long time preference. You have to because in trading, you know, over trading a position that you, unless your thesis changes is really destructive to one's wealth. So, you know, Gary is saying it in a more, you know, I dare you to the market. buy more. I'm saying it in a different way, but it's more or less the same message, is that is the Bitcoin thesis, has it been damaged? And the one piece of news we didn't talk about yet,

but I think is massively important is Saylor putting his money where his mouth is on quantum. So we had Coinbase a few weeks ago saying they're setting up a research institute in order to do it. Now you have Sailor talking about how he's going to support Bitcoin Core, you know, adapting to quantum. I mean, look, you know, Nick Carter's gotten a lot of shit by people saying, oh, you're the boy who cried wolf, which is bullshit because Nick Carter is a lot of things, but pretty much always does a pretty good amount of research and understands it. And he's been very clear that he wants Bitcoin to be to take it seriously, and he's still a Bitcoiner and believes in it. Yet people are doing them crap. But I think yesterday's news from, from micro strategy

is the opposite of FUD. One would think, as Scott, you've been saying this, you said this morning on your show. One would think that that would be the kind of news that would make a major difference, but the truth is it's going to take a while because there are a lot of people who sold or slashed or concerned about quantum. And I think that this kind of tells you that it's really not going to be an existential risk. And ultimately, if it's handled right, will not matter. If anything, it could make Bitcoin even look more attractive because of the ease of quantum to break into other financial assets. Someone hasn't thought about that. Yeah, I just generally, just to add to something I just, I think I included this tweet,

just as more fuel for the Bulls. Solana now, yesterday was the largest volume day and over a year of Solana, which looked like selling, massive selling and confirmation. Solana now has even more so than Bitcoin, more, well, it's about in an hour, it'll tag the same volume as yesterday's selling with another seven or eight hours left in the candle. a what $20 bounce from the lows like there is serious i can't tell you the bottom's in but i'm telling you that a lot of people with a lot of money think the bottom's in well i hope so because it goes down more buying than all of the selling in the past few days on the way down on

on this uh bounce on the way up and we have not seen people spending this much money on all coins uh when things are low like this so there's real serious dip buying across the market right now. Yeah, I mean, that is, that's a good sign. I mean, look, the most important question, really, is, is this asset class going to survive in its current form? And the answer to that is probably no, but it will, but it's evolving into a better form. And that's been my thesis all along. It's that, you know, it's like anyone who live through the internet bubble. And yes, I know I'm an old fuck. Sorry about that guy. But, you know, I was doing running a program trading business during the internet bubble.

And you know what happened. Most of the crap got flushed, but a lot of companies lived on. And the ones that survived and thrived in the bear market from the internet bubble, well, you know, history is history. You wouldn't have a mag seven if it wasn't for that technology. The same thing is going to be true in crypto. Same thing as be true in AI. You're going to have massive winners.

And it's just a question. of how does it evolve? And I think people are willing to place their bets on things that make sense. And that's where you're going to see money going in. I mean, it's just that simple. I mean, there's a lot that Gary always makes the point. This market is tiny compared to the financial markets. It may be very important to us, but it's tiny. And when it's tiny, what does that mean? That means that any institutional movement changes things. Now, you could hate institutions as much as you want. And the Bitcoin thesis is different. But the truth is that financial markets are going to ultimately utilize this technology.

And some of the tokens will have value to the token holders. Right. I mean, I assume you agree. But does nobody else care? I mean, you know, Matt, you know, you hear a lot of stuff from a lot of different people. You know, are you still hearing quantum is the reason? No. No, not really.

You know, we spoke with Jameson Lop a little while ago. and he wasn't really that concerned either. And he's one of the folks I would look to and turn to for folks who are really dialed in on the quantum space. So I'm not hearing that as much to answer your question that day. Well, not. But that matters because, like, I have. So the difference is the people who are older hear this and say, well, wait a minute, which is kind of funny that the older people who have a lower time preference but are the ones who do it.

I feel the dozens of messages and calls from people on quantum. and had to explain, you know, where it is and what the deal is. And I do think that that narrative matters. So that's why I think about the Sailor News matters. But, you know, yeah, no, you're right to that point. But I think just, you know, for those in the industry who are listening to the smarter folks who are really doing the work, it's something that I'm not really that concerned about. I know some of the folks over at quantum economics aren't even concerned about.

It's something that to talk about. And it's kind of, you know, a great idea to kick around. But at the end of the day, is that what we're, worried about? No, not really. I will say I had, Dave, I had a Normy Wall Street friend who, you know, kind of passively has been buying Bitcoin and doesn't really follow it so closely, but, you know, obviously he's one of the biggest hedge funds. He literally did mention to me, both that quantum was a threat or he was hearing that. So the narrative is out there as nonsense called it is with the Norma crowd and that Jeffrey Epstein might be Satoshi. And there's not a guy who,

I told you, Dave. I told you. I made the normie around. I must have missed it, but there's not a guy in our echo chamber, not a guy who pays much attention. And the guy, he was at Citadel, no longer at Citadel at an equally large place. And he heard that, which is just mind boggling to me. But there is a I don't have word. And the Epstein files are affecting Bitcoin friends. Well, the thing about the Epstein files is interesting is let's just, let's just play this out. Let's just say that Epstein was Satoshi. If Epstein was Satoshi, what would have actually happened? Well, there's no way that Jeffrey Epstein being the single, one of the most self-interested human beings on the planet would have locked it up and walked away and never spent any of it.

I mean, come on. He would have disappeared, whether it's a James Bond style plastic surgery on some private island or whatever. But, I mean, come on. I mean, it's just, it, I think that it is far easier to believe that the NSA or the C. CIA, you know, created a Satoshi to hide behind and the U.S. government actually owns those coins, which I don't think is true, by the way. I think that is a far easier conspiracy theory than the nonsense about Jeffrey Epstein or anyone in his orbit. But what is absolutely possible is anyone who might have had money at any time, you know, him trying to get his hooks into them,

because we know that that's true. And the funniest part of the whole Epstein files was how they tried to get their hooks in the sailor and they were pissed off, because he didn't show any interest in any of their crap. Right? I mean, that had to bring it out. Hey, hey, at least if Epstein is Satoshi, at least we know Satoshi's still alive. I mean, come on.

That's a good one. I like that. It's just a joke. Obviously, it's a fucking joke. There are so many people who think he is still alive, you know? It's just, you think, conspiracy theory, you could spend your entire life on this platform, you know, going down rabbit holes of ridiculous conspiracy theories,

But what is interesting is where there's smoke, there's fire. And we had a really good conversation yesterday. I mean, Simon and I don't always agree by any stretch of the imagination. But, I mean, he does make some very interesting points about how people are looking at, you know, Adam back differently today than they did two weeks ago. And that's true, but does that matter? The truth is, is Bitcoin is code, it's open source code, and the people who are very incentivized to make it quantum resistant and keep it moving in the direction that it's moving,

are doing exactly that. And that's really all that matters, I think. Right? Nicholas, I see 100% of you. You're behind the microphone. What do you think of all this? You haven't said anything yet. Yeah.

Well, so, you know, like I say often, I'm more on the tech side and less on the, on the marketing side. But when it comes to the quantum resistance thing and all the fear, that this brings about, I just, I can't help but just shake my head at it. The problem really is that, you know, the coherence required to break some of this cryptography, whether it's signature algorithms or hash algorithms, is massive. And it's really far away at our current, our current capabilities of quantum computing. Now, the problem is that we're compounded by the current state of AI and how this is accelerating development across many fields. And so we're at this kind of like unknowable stage of how far away things actually are, not just in quantum, but in all other areas.

But I think the incentivization for making Bitcoin post-quantum secure, along with, with, you know, the multitude of available paths we have before us to do so, that aren't really, you know, heavy lifts. It just doesn't seem like it's going to be that big of a problem. So we're fully capable of doing it. The incentivization of doing it is super high by the stakeholders that would actually be implementing the solutions. And so it's not this, this doesn't feel like a big block problem or, you know, the Segwit problems that we've had in the past, this is really like, you know, everybody is aligned and incentivized to get a solution across the line. So I'm also, I think it's a big nothing burger of a problem and we'll find our way through.

And I think we just have way more time to do so than people are fearful of. So from a tech perspective, you don't put, stop faith in the notion that they will not be able to get consensus and 30% of Bitcoin supply will get stolen before Bitcoin will act. No, no, I'm not, I'm not worried at all. The available paths to upgrade, there are some that are super simple, like just, you know, committing to changing signature algorithm. So you're actually just committing to hashes that can be spent.

you know, different key path, spend algorithms, things that are that are basically supported today is just minor changes to how you, how you authorize spends. So they're quite small changes. And then the quantum coherence required to break these things are orders of magnitude beyond where we are today that kind of rely on massive, massive breakthroughs in quantum computing to even bring this within a tenure timeline. Now, I understand because of the difficulties that we've had in getting consensus on protocol upgrades in Bitcoin that we've had in the past, you know, the difficulty that we've had in the past causes a little bit of a stomach ache when thinking about doing something like this, but again, I think this situation is going to be different. So I'm not

concerned at all. Thanks for that view. I think that for our audience, I think that's very, very helpful. You know, I just keep telling people, you know, who think of it as an existential threat that it isn't. What it is is potentially a liquidity releasing event or it could go the other way. And, you know, in which case, a liquidity tightening event. Liquidity releasing event, I think, gets fully priced in liquidity tightening event is not remotely priced in i don't know about everyone here but i love assets where uh there's asymmetric return profiles and i think that's exactly what's going on here right but you know hey you know the market we're at what do we oh 69 people are buying the shit out of all coins xrp as a bullish i tagged it above

xrp is already trading higher than yesterday's open yeah i didn't realize that, you know, where these things are. But, you know, look, it takes a lot less money to, you get a lot more coins bought for your money today than you did yesterday. But look, we've seen this sort of thing before. I mean, there are people will be out there on the platform talking about fair market rallies, yada, yada, yada, I don't know. What I do know is the story for Bitcoin hasn't changed. If anything, the story for Bitcoin has improved. An improving story. in declining price equals opportunity. I think that's the post.

I'm just going to do that. We'll make a map formula. Of course, no one will see my post anymore unless all of you click to follow me because X does want to give me my account back. So I'll keep saying that. Any final words, Matt?

I see your hands. Yeah, yeah. Again, really sorry about your ex account. That sucks when you get sideline like that. So continue to support you and your content because you do a great job, Dave. You know, the big thing that I think I'm really worried

about and it's not quantum. And I think this is some of the conversations that we've had with Maude Greenspan and folks around the world and across the web is that it's block template size, right? The centralization of mining pools and who controls the block template. I think that's really going to be the bigger issue, the bigger concern as we move forward in the years to come. And that's really the flag that I wanted to plan. There's probably a conversation for another day and another time because I know we're getting short. But that's really the concern I see more than quantum is blocked template and who's controlling that in the centralization of mining pools yeah probably a little bit late to start going down another wrap yeah yeah yeah no doubt but we

definitely could talk about it next week any final words gary adam amateo okay well have a great weekend man everyone have a great weekend we are up against time we'll see what happens and we'll be back on monday morning at 1015 on crypto town hall and once again please follow my account so i at least start getting some reach back and maybe we can push the ex people to give me my old one back bye