The Wolf Of All Streets - Bitcoin On The Edge As War Escalates | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

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Hi, everyone. We're just bringing everybody up on stage and getting things started. Mike, how are you doing today? Good morning. How are you? Good morning. Anything changed since we spoke two days ago? I enjoyed your bit, the note you did on tokenization of T-bonds and treasury bills, and that's kind of a thing to think about in cryptos is the technology is going so fast, and guess where it's going? The dollar and the safety of the T-bills. But I think the key thing to watch this morning is the whole world's basically tilting on the risk that the stock market goes down. Copper said it will. Industrial metals said it will. Bond market says it will. And I think the

most significant leading indicator of Bitcoin is tilting that way. It's just a matter of time. So my prediction recently was I think crude oil put a peak around 95. And a low at 63 this year is probably going to be taken out in a normal recession. And bond yields, treasury bond yields, 30 or went up to 5%. And just like they did right before the stock market crashed of 87, they peaked at 10%. I think they've peaked at 5%. So the whole thing now is this leading indicator, Bitcoin,

is going to tell us what the stock market probably should do for a recession. And that is just go down. Yeah, you mentioned the conversation on tokenization yesterday. We should get Sid Powell on here from Maple. He's just incredible. That was a conversation I had yesterday, obviously. But I was pretty surprised, actually, when I think it was 700 million in tokenized T-bills already. And that was even without Maker, which he said, because they report separately as another 300. So it's about a billion dollars of tokenized treasuries already on the blockchain being traded. And it's really early. Those are the kind of things I think that in the midst of these bear markets and these down cycles are the news you should be looking at,

because it'll be things that surprise everybody a year from now when we're back, or whenever it may be, when we're back in the bull market and go, holy, I had no idea that this was happening, right? And it's really, it's huge. And the largest purveyor of that is Franklin Templeton, right? One of the biggest asset managers in the world. Well, that's what I appreciate from your thing the key thing i think is once our leaders fearless leaders figured out that this technology is overwhelmingly favorable to the u.s system u.s treasury bonds u.s dollar i mean it's going to be unstoppable but the meantime we also have to look at i look at like the index bloomberg galaxy crypto index it's still showing very poor

performance if you compare from a few years ago just from the peak just like industrial metals are showing very poor performance and it just to me this is just normal give back that happens recessions where my former hedge fund manager i worked for his first name was sammer can't say his last name taught me that everybody loses money in bear markets and this to think that this bear market is over i think is a bit of hopium i would be delighted that if i can lose a steak dinner to dave weisberger but you got to be factual and point out as i look over at this u.s fed funds upper bound at 55%. That's the highest in 22 years. Most markets don't realize that that's a giant sucking sound for risk assets.

And to me, it's just a matter of time that we get this recession. It's already showing up in industrial metals on a global basis. And then the risk. Bitcoin, just hoping Bitcoin could. Here's the thing I'll end with. When people tell me Bitcoin is a risk off asset, I have to point out the fact is it's a 3x volatility annualized volatility versus gold in the stock market so if the stock market goes down for bitcoin to go up that would be a historic um aberration so can we maybe talk about a few things I think there's a few things that we should maybe touch on based on everything that you've been saying.

One is we had the PPI numbers today. Shocked PPI numbers. I mean, I think it was 2.2 versus an expected 1.6. And this is one of the rare occasions where we've got CPI happening after PPI. Is anyone here expecting a CPI shock tomorrow? I think no one expected a 2.2 ppi number mike was that what you were looking for dave no that i think i think brandon's appropriate it's a little bit of a surprise but it was ppi was very much on the back of ppi is basically synonymous with economy with commodities and

crude oil peaked at the end of september and it's down 10 bucks um and so most people get it but if you also look at the year-over-year final demand it's 2.2 percent to execute an energy 2.7 a year ago there were one handles in front of that so the trajectory is this is a bounce it's heading lower cpi might have a little bit of a bounce but i think this is a bounce it's heading lower cpi might have a little bit of a bounce but i think this is one thing as an ex-treasury trader you got to be careful the first moves when you get a a kind of a miss on a number it's almost always a great reason not to react because i've lost money trying to do that i have the wounds to show it and in the macro big picture is if you really want a good indication for the number one

indication for inflation is um two things the u.s stock market in crude oil and i'm basically bearish crude oil and i just would be delighted if the stock market doesn't go down for a normal recession so my i mean my understanding of ppi and i know it's not an exact science but you know if producers are producing something today within a month, maybe two months, and those produced goods will get into the shelves and into consumers' hands.

If that's the case, then logically we can say that if the PPI was up 2.1% or whatever it was, then in a month or two, that's going to filter through to consumers and onto CPI. Maybe not exactly a direct answer, because I understand that there's a lot more that makes up inflation than produced goods. But I mean, it's surely an indication, though.

So here's a good way to look at it. And it's much more nuanced than that. And we don't want to have to dig into the details. Here's the macro view. PPI basically has a two beta to cpi if cpi is running five percent ppi is typically ten percent and so it's a leading indicator just like bitcoin has essentially a two or three beta to the stock market um and so the key thing to remember about cpi the number one thing that is the factor in cpi is owner's equivalent rent now this is a lesson i learned in the 80s in the trading pits. And it's been fun to hear it react rehash. And that's just how you measure the Okay, so if your homeowner and your home doubles in value, it kind of

shows up as inflation, even though it's not, it's just a silly thing. But it's also rent. And the key thing to remember is we have the highest base in history for this measure, which means it only can go down. Now that's my bias. and that's what's been happening. So these nuances of these little latest numbers, just be careful. The year-over-year ones that measure, and that's what I point out is, you know, you have PPI is 2.2%. A year from now, it's going to be minus. That's my view. And actually, we've already had a negative print this year for our year over year cpi year over year is probably going to be core so 3.6 or 3.4 the number one thing is that still it's much lower than it was last year it's heading lower with little bounces

but it's double the fed's inflation target and that is the rule is i'm going to point out this i think it's most significant is the rule that's changed for almost anybody who's alive now is that the market will go up because it went up is changed it's reversed now because the fed will not be there to save you if any of these risk assets go down markets are getting it and that's the key thing to take away from cpi so i'd say the day that the ticks the prints here day-to-day just kind of ignore them and we'll focus on the big picture. Okay. I want to play you something, and I want you to tell me what you think of this thesis. One second, let's see if I can make my computer here.

More likely than not, we're going to go into recession. There's some pretty clear-cut recession trades. The easiest are the yield curve gets really steep. Term premium goes into the back ends of debt markets, right, into 30-year, 10-year, and 7-year paper. The stock market typically, right before a recession, declines about 12%. That's probably going to happen at some point from some level. And you look at the big shorts in gold, more likely than not, in a recession, the market's

typically really long assets like Bitcoin and gold. So there's probably a $40 billion worth of buying that has to come in to gold at some point. So, I mean, that was Paul Tudor Jones. And there was an interview, I think that was done yesterday on CNBC. He's saying that there is going to be a recession. He's saying that the stock market is probably going to correct about 12%

or so before the recession. And he says when that happens, there's about $40 billion that needs to flow into gold, and obviously, a small percentage of that went to Bitcoin. What do you think? A key thing to think remind there is um he's a an active i would say leveraged trader the number one thing

to remember in recessions is if everybody else is losing money and you're not and you're in a two-year note you're making five percent you're just doing great that's all that matters trying to be too too complicated can difficult. So number one thing I think that's really going to happen, I agree with, is that TLT, the bond prices will go up similar to they did in the 87 crash and put in a bottom that'll be historic. He's right about the stock market, obviously going to be, I mean, stock market by 12% would be a wonderful thing. Typically it's 40 to 50% in a normal peak to trawl. He's talking about initial, but the key thing to remember about gold is when the stock market goes down and people hit stops you sell what you can

and gold before the big crash of um the big crisis in 2008 I was long a lot of it it went from a thousand to 700 dropped about 30 in 2008 and then it went on that big rally but what it had going for it back then was the Fed started easing. And here, they're still tightening. So remember, stock market goes down. You can still lose money and gold initially, but typically not in bond yields. So that's where I think the TLT is bottom. Bond yields have peaked. And I think they're going to go much lower than most people expect. Looks like crude oil has peaked.

But bottom line is, if you're underweight, assets that are going down, that's the number one place to be when you have a typical recession. Just don't be losing when everybody else is losing. And then when things get cheap, you're the one who's not getting stopped out and say, oh, I'll buy this, I'll buy that, I'll buy that. But we're so far from that. We're not even near the end. Okay. Yeah.

Gareth, I see you're on. Any views on what Paul T. Jones is thinking? Let's see here. So I agree in general with what he's saying, where there's definitely going to be some sort of big market drop coming. I do think that the cracks are emerging. I was even reading that you have rents starting to tumble. In fact, there's some defaults going on in apartment buildings that have kind of been just recently come to light essentially. So for me, at least, just to give you guys a sense of what I'm doing as more of an aggressive swing trader, I was long the market as we were basically coming into the end of last week. I've now moved out of those longs or I'm in the process of moving out of those longs, and I'm now moving into some shorts. So just one of the positions I took today, I'm starting to nibble on meta on the short side,

and then I'm looking to short the market. We've retraced to this head and shoulder neckline. We could go a little higher, but for me, this is lower highs and lower lows, and it's a market where now on pops, I'm shorting into it versus buying the dips literally sorry i ran i was just gonna say he mentioned meta i just happened to be looking at the chart right when he said that because i've been in it for a long time it is right at the 2023 high here yeah yeah so there was never a place for this to get rejected that's a high rr trade right there to short that yeah but and the way I do it too is like, so just so everyone's aware is like, I never go all in on my first buy. So essentially I divide whatever money

I'm going to invest or trade into a trade. I divide it usually by six amounts, right? So it's like a one sixth position. So usually what'll happen here, they'll want to break it just above because it'll stop a majority of people out. It'll get a majority of people on the bullish side of a trade. And then that's when they'll flip the switch and it'll come back in. So usually, they'll overshoot to the upside and same thing on the downside, try to whip people out. And so I've just started that short position on that one. But like you said, I mean, it's a technical level here and it does make sense, especially after really, I mean, this was a $300 stock just a couple of days ago, and it's now almost 10%. Ran, I know you were about to jump in.

Sorry, I interrupted you. No, I'm just listening to Gareth. I think I know what I've been doing wrong. He says he doesn't take all his trades in one shot, and I think that's where I've been going wrong. Average in and average out, man. It takes all the stress out of trading. Gareth, TLT. We spoke about TLT. TLT is bottoming, man. It takes all the stress out of trading. TLT. We spoke about TLT.

TLT is bottoming, man. Yeah, I saw it. I'm just worried because everyone says that TLT is bottoming. That's what worries me. There seems to be a market consensus that TLT is bottoming. For those of you who don't know, TLT is an ETF of

the long-dated US Treasury bond. I think it's 10, 20 years only. 20 plus year treasuries. 20 plus year treasuries. And it was, let me just call up the charts. It's at 87.97 now. The lows, I'm just looking at the month again, were around 84.

But of course, this is something that in 2020 was trading up 180. So pretty massive downtrend. And for anyone who doesn't understand, when TLT is going down, that means obviously bond values are dropping. That's usually when yields are going up. They have an inverse relationship. Yeah, exactly. I think it's very confusing to people when you see language that says, you know, longest bear market for bonds ever, and you see yields going up. I think that

the average person is very confused by that. But yields going up means the value of bonds that you've previously purchased at lower yields are going down. Yep, exactly. Exactly. I think, I mean, just a couple things to just take in mind. So I am a fan of, or at least I'm a believer that yields are in the topping point, which basically alerts us that the Fed is probably close, if not done, to raising rates. It doesn't mean we can't bounce a little bit, but I'm just looking at the monthly chart on TLT. And we, well, on the 10-year even, we have a topping tail on the 10-year. And topping tails tend to denote a change in trend. It's basically where peak bullishness on yields has come in. And then once you hit peak bullishness, there's not really a lot of people left to get on the bull train. And so there's kind of a void of buyers and the sellers start

to come out of the woodwork. So we'll see where it is at the end of the month, but I think you might've hit a short term, you know, or I should even say, you know, next six to 12 months could be in for highs on yields. Yeah, Ran, you mentioned, obviously, that there's sort of consensus on this trade. This is one of those ones where you look at it and whether it's going to happen or not, everything aligns, right? You had that sort of topping tail, you know, as Gareth calls them, bottom tail topping tails on the weekly DXY, you know, the dollar versus everything else chart. Really hideous candle structure there for the dollar. So you've got to expect that to be bearish. Yields look toppy, as he said.

TLT looks bottomed and stocks continue to go up, right? So it's just, it really is sort of a perfect storm for that moment if you're looking at it strictly technically. Yeah, the Dixie coming down, I mean, I think it had 12 or 11 straight candles. And then I think last week we had the 12th. The 12th ended up closing slightly red, but it was looking until the last moment that it was going to be 12th. One thing I just want to jump in on, and this is going to be, and this is something Mike can speak to as well.

But initially, right, the markets like lower yields and a lower dollar, right? They like the falling dollar and yields. But there will be a pivot point where all of a sudden that gets negative and you start to see. So right now, markets generally go down when yields go up and when the dollar goes up. And right now we're seeing pullbacks and the stock market's been rallying. But there will be a pivot point. And Mike, you can speak more to this where we start to recognize that, holy cow, we are heading into a recession and this could get nasty. And all of a sudden falling yields and a falling dollar become a negative. Yeah, I think I'm glad you brought that out, Gareth. It's sometimes the collective delusionalism

of markets when you read the, oh, yields are falling. That's good for stocks. The bond market and the dollar is falling. That's good for stocks. Then they have to look over, well, why are they falling? It's because we're heading towards a recession. And that's usually the knee jerk that makes peaks in markets. And I think we're at that silly stage now. And the bottom line to remember about what's been keeping yields strong and the dollar strong for certainly the last few years is this

resilient u.s stock market so that's where i'm i i don't like going there but i have to point out if it doesn't go down it's breaking things because it's making it it's the number one thing that's really been driving the dollar strength which is part of the reason the yen has collapsed to 150 is you know things like that and why a lot of other countries now have to support their currencies because the dollar is too strong part of it's because the stock market is too strong and until rates until the stock market goes down rates are probably going to stay strong so you see the the inflection point here that's where i'm pointing out is basically the stock market in the us is too expensive or everything else is breaking what's the number one signal to maybe

they say we're gonna have just some normal reversion is cryptos and bitcoin now if you look at the broad crypto market yeah the broad index it's horrible it's that it's that benchmark that is i'm kind of keying off of and i think it'll be the one to lead us into this great reset which is i think we're heading towards ran i i do want to continue this conversation but i think we've gone pretty deep down the macro rabbit hole and should just reset and give a very quick sort of overview on what we're watching in crypto. Obviously, we have sort of the title Bitcoin on the Edge as war escalates. There's a lot of pundits sort of postulating as to what's likely to happen to Bitcoin pending the situation with the war. I think basically unaffected. You know, it'll be more based on what happens to

the markets in general. But we had some pretty big news today about J.P. Morgan and BlackRock that I think we should definitely dive into later, which is that J.P. Morgan launched their tokenization platform, TCN. And the first trade on that was actually settled with BlackRock. For people who missed that, in the inaugural transaction between J.P. Morgan and BlackRock, shares of a money market fund were tokenized and transferred to Barclays Bank as security for an over-the-counter derivatives exchange. Of course, we had Binance and the government of Israel freezing Hamas's assets, allegedly, on the exchange. And we've seen some stories surrounding fundraising for Hamas using

cryptocurrency, which I think is no surprise, unfortunately. Actually, quite a bit of sort of little news here. And then, of course, Paul Tudor Jones, not unexpectedly coming out once again in favor of Bitcoin and gold, basically said, I don't want to have stocks. I want to have Bitcoin and gold. And the inverse of Paul Tudor Jones, one Mr. Jim Kramer saying that Bitcoin is about to go down. I think that's the run of it. Maybe we should dig in here. I know Dave, David, Alex, you all have your hands up probably to talk about macro, but maybe we should talk about Kramer versus Tudor Jones here on their opinions of what's likely to happen here. Well, who do you trust who do you trust

more i mean let's just let's just go straight into it to me who do you trust more obviously jim kramer no no guys don't cut that don't edit that obviously paul tudor jones um i do sympathize with jim kramer to some degree uh because obviously it's literally his job to make calls all day every day and when people can go back on social media and scrutinize every call you've made, you're only going to see him getting dunked on with the negative ones. But he's got a terrible track record with crypto, no doubt. Tom, I think I saw you lift your mic. Did you have a thought there? Yeah.

So, you know, Paul Tudor Jones, obviously fantastic investor. And I think he thinks about it from the macro perspective that he wants Bitcoin in a broader portfolio. Jim Cramer is paid to make calls on TV and has to give 20 different stock calls a day. And as you mentioned, has like sound clips and sound bites out there that, you know, I think all of us would find sort of challenging. I continue to be impressed, though, that, you know, very seasoned investors like Paul Tudor Jones think of crypto and Bitcoin specifically in the broader portfolio allocations, because that's how we're going to get adoption, right? Retail traders are not going to bring

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others up. But having folks like Paul Tudor Jones saying, you need this in your portfolio, is going to get the CalPERS and the big institutions of the world thinking about putting those small positions in that actually move the market. So I am really impressed that he continues to kind of beat the drum despite the broader market sentiment that's been really negative. This is what he said exactly, just the record. I would love gold and Bitcoin together, Tudor Jones said. I think they probably take on a larger percentage of your portfolio than they would historically because we're going to go through both a challenging political time in here in the United States, and we've obviously got a geopolitical situation. So he clearly, you know,

and we've seen a lot of takes like this, obviously, about what if there were geopolitics were to sort of melt down what a portfolio should look like, and that most investors really don't know how to be defensive in a portfolio in times like this, that 60-40s would arguably get absolutely destroyed in a situation like this. And even when people sort of construct those, it's time. And if ever you really see a meltdown in geopolitics, you want to have these hedges like gold. And he's arguing that Bitcoin is like gold in your portfolio.ott i think that's i mean that's the part that all the crypto people heard but the part that i that i like i mean i'll play the clip it's about a two minute clip about it yet um and then i think this is this is that i

think the more important part and short term effects well i think is, obviously it's a huge tragedy, but you have to put it in a larger geopolitical context, which is we now have possibly three theaters where we're going to have geopolitical challenges. We've got the Middle East and Israel, obviously the Ukraine and Russia, and then at some point down the road, Taiwan and China. So it's a really, I would say since, certainly since I was born, it might be the most threatening and challenging geopolitical environment that I've ever seen because you have four clear powers, three of whom are led by sociopaths, and that would be China, Russia, and North Korea. Obviously, those leaders have zero accountability, responsibility to anyone but themselves,

and they have not an ounce of humanity in their bones because they regularly disappear both their friends and their enemies. And then the fourth, Iran is led by someone who thinks God is talking to them and has avowedly said that they want to remove from this earth a nation state with probably the most brilliant people ever assembled within a national boundary. So it's a really challenging environment. If you think about it too much, I want my lucky color to be invisible, right? It's a very threatening time.

So that is also happening. At the same time, the United States is probably in its weakest fiscal position since certainly World War II with debt to GDP at 122%. So it's a really tough time for, I think, the moral voice of the world. So I think that's what, you know, you're saying this is the worst geopolitical environment that he's seen since the day he was born. And at the same time, you've got the US in the worst fiscal situation that it's been ever. That part that I think is the

concerning part. Do you agree with that? Look, he's born a long time before me, or it looks like he was born a long time before me. And I don't remember a time where geopolitically, there were so many risks facing the United States. And certainly I don't remember a time

where the United States had such high debt and stuff like that. So, I mean, it's the highest, it's the worst that I can think of. But I mean, you know, who am I? Maybe we should- Yeah, he was here during the Vietnam War. so it's a pretty uh it's a pretty serious statement by him dave weisberger i'd love to hear your thoughts yeah there's a couple things first i want to go back to

your the conversation with the yield curve i think it's really really telling that i think it was three different fed governors yesterday said that as long rates have risen, that decreases the need to cut rates. I think that's very important because, yeah, we may all say yields are topping. Understand they want to talk them down and they don't want to raise rates in that environment. So it is it kind of mitigates against some of the bearish case for risk assets, but I think Paul Tudor Jones' synopsis is exactly spot on. And I will continue to make the point, and Michael, our bet is on Bitcoin, not on the stock market. I want that to be very, very clear, because I think at the end of the day, I don't want to be a doomsayer. And God knows we've seen a lot of doom over the last five days.

And people probably noticed I've been fairly quiet on social media because of my overall anger with the situation, not trusting myself to say things that wouldn't offend people. But the truth is this risk environment, not just geopolitically, not just fiscally, but the entirety, it speaks to a distrust of institutions that is literally the cauldron for where Bitcoin was born and where Bitcoin will next accelerate from. It won't be immediate, but it really is an interesting environment for that. And I think that that needs to be said, because the market is so small, that if even 5% of portfolio managers that follow along and try to imitate people like Paul Peter Jones, decided to go for an allocation, the Bitcoin market goes much, much higher, just because there's just not a lot of supply.

Yeah, I tend to agree. Alex and then David. Yeah, I agree with everything that's been said. And I would also add to it that the backdrop going into next year is quite favorable. You've got three specific catalysts. There's the halvening, which take it or leave it, whether you think it's an actual driver or not. It's a psychological driver. You've got an ETF approval, which is likely to happen probably early next year, 95% is the most recent thing that the odds makers are saying. And then you've got, you know, the macro picture, which, you know, I'm not totally convinced that the peak is in in terms of rates, but probably it rolls over at some point. And at the very least,

you know, things are increasing at a decelerating rate. And so you've got this sort of like three different tailwinds that are pushing the price or setting up for a move in the next year. And I don't really wish chaos on the world or violence or destruction or mayhem or what have you. But I think that Paul Tudor Jones is correct that we are in a period now where there is tremendous uncertainty. And I think that to Dave's point, that is the cauldron from which Bitcoin was born. And it's one where, you know, I think it could thrive. I hope that's not the case. And I think there are plenty of other reasons why it can succeed. But yeah, it's undeniable.

Reading the tea leaves, what's happening in the world today? Go ahead, David. Thank you, guys. David, I appreciate your sentiments. Like I also, you know, if I could stay silent, I would. I'm also trying to hold myself back because this is a very, very tough situation. I mean, I read you guys. I thank you guys for the bit of CPI.

David, I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm having a lot of trouble hearing you. Your mic is really bad. I'm going to just mute you for a moment and see if you can possibly fix that. I'm sorry, but it's almost to uh hear what you're saying there um would love yeah that seems better try again go ahead okay so i was saying like you know i read your headline bitcoin on the edge and i haven't really checked the prices in like four or five days and you know for us uh coin market cap addicts what that means so uh we've been like knee deep here in is, trying to really come to grips with it.

And I think Bitcoin, I'm very proud of the way Bitcoin's performed in the last four days. On the one hand, you know, Hamas accounts, as you mentioned, being stopped left, right and center. And the community is just really active. Like they, you know, the blockchain battle, you know, and israel it's it's being fought on the israeli side by some of the best minds in the space and we're freezing accounts left right and center there's a police involved the the entire crime intelligence unit involved the communities involved and on the other hand we're you know raising funds for israel for uh you know on a through crypto and trying to raise awareness over there.

That's on the Hamas side, as you said. I'll call Hamas an institution. It's a little bit of a euphemism. But on the civilian side, I spoke to Jad Kome, who's the CEO of Melanin Capital, and he's originally Lebanese. And he was sharing content about how the Lebanese, their pound is just in the toilet right now. And unfortunately for them, they're also held hostage.

You know, the Lebanese are some of the most enterprising, you know, intelligent people. And they are held hostage now by Hamas's terrorist brother of Hezbollah. And they have, you know, to deal with all that uncertainty. So, you know, he was sharing content around how Lebanese civilians are using Bitcoin, you know, to buy, to get by. And, like, if they'd ever have to escape, God forbid, I wouldn't wish on anyone to be chased out of their home. But if they ever had to escape, they could, you know, just with 12 words or a Zengo wallet or whatever, they could go to another country and they could start their life over. So, you know, Bitcoin is showing its force as a way to both transport money across time and space. And I think, you know, Andrew mentioned, I think, Andrew or Alex, someone here.

I think David, David, I'll interrupt you for one second. I think if anything, this war is actually showing the other side of Bitcoin. So I agree with you that we all know that, you know, if you ever need to flee, like when there was the Russia-Ukraine war, when Ukrainians got hit, those Ukrainians that had Bitcoin had a better time than the Ukrainians that never had Bitcoin. But actually, I see a different side to crypto in this war. And that is what they've done is they've highlighted crypto as a bad thing because they're saying that crypto was one way which people used to fund Hamas. And so, I mean, there were headlines yesterday.

I think that Binance was assisting in blocking some crypto accounts. I think Coinbase echoed similar sentiment. So I think for me, if anything, what I saw this war was the bad side of crypto, the bad side of Bitcoin. As much as Hamas was sanctioned and the banks were compliant and stuff like that, in this case, we saw the wrong side. We saw Bitcoin used to potentially assist them in getting funding look that's the libertarian paradox for me on the one hand like i'm a high you know cypherpunk to the core and i always like to look at bitcoin as international waters and we know how the usd is very like kind of i would say quote unquote weaponized for political geopolitical reason on the other hand

as you mentioned i don't want how much to get any funding so it's definitely you know makes it easier i feel like it's a whack-a-mole game i feel like before this war we weren't on it enough in terms of stopping the flow of funds to come out but from what i've seen over the last few days it's vigilant you know some of the top cyber security and Chainalysis and Elliptic and some of the best companies in the world working to whack them all before it can even put his head up. Dave, go ahead.

Then Ron. If Dave can't hear me, Ron, go ahead. I see you have your hand up. Which is that this war shows the downside of freedom with regard to terrorism. And we all know we've all known that's the case. And we saw in the U.S. with the Patriot Act that it could flip to the other side very quickly. But, you know, the fact of the matter is the difference is we don't know how much actual of the billions of dollars of pallets of cash that were sent to Iran in previous administrations. And cash itself has been used by Hamas. And you can't trace it.

We do know that money sent by Bitcoin was sent to Hamas, and you can trace it. And what David was talking about is very important. I mean, it bears repeating that the FBI counterterrorism people say words like we were happier when the bad guys use Bitcoin, because we have a chance, a much better chance of tracing it and seizing it. And if you don't understand that, then that's important. Now, obviously, freedom enables terrorism. We know that. And it's a cost that we as a society, you know, in different ways, either take or don't take depending on the danger of the threat. But it's important to delink those two things. So yes, they use crypto as part of a basket of things. But it's also true that we actually know more

about it and have a better chance of seizing it. Sure, it is really is a dilemma, as David said, Ron, go ahead. Yeah, actually, echoing david dave's point here actually we um we had a couple of the heads of the cyber units from the fbi doj um and various other law enforcement agencies in our um office last week here in dc and they said the same thing they said we refer we actually try to have our informants utilize crypto because then we can kind of see where the syndicates are for where the mexican cartels russian syndicates um and now hamas um but the problem is at least on capitol hill i mean we're seeing this already today uh where a lot of lawmakers are just trying to see what can we clamp down on more and even though the law enforcement folks uh in the government are

saying this is great crypto is great we don't need more authority, we can trace and track this and seize this pretty easily compared to fiat. The folks in Capitol Hill, especially Elizabeth Warren, and she's laying quite the charge right now, personally, saying that she wants to apply way more centralized exchange regs for anti-money laundering and know your customer to DeFi or to DEXs, to DeFi, to Bitcoin miners and so on and so forth, which would pretty much kill the entire industry as a whole,

at least the United States, if they had to comply. And again, this is not something that Treasury or the other law enforcement agencies are asking for. But this is the threat we're facing in D.C. where policymakers are trying to play whack-a-mole to your point. But at the same time, they're also trying to find blame and trying to increase the surveillance here. And it's gonna be quite the fight in dc eliza warren's leading a hell of a charge right now yeah the anti-crypto army unfortunately is a real thing

we just received a great message that i saw sent in our whatsapp group that's that's worth sharing from uh ox50so says fintech apps crashed in Israel on Sunday and Monday because they cannot handle pressure. USDT did not crash. Right. I think this is something that we've seen somewhat repeatedly in situations like this, where when it's stress tested, blockchain, Bitcoin, certainly stable coins continue to just work. Right. And that's something that's really, really important at times like these, especially in places like this. Tom, go ahead, then Alex. Tom, you were connecting. I don't know if your mic is working, but Tom, please go ahead, then Alex.

Alex, jump in. I don't think Tom's working. Yeah, we're working now. Sorry. So just to circle back very briefly on the previous discussion, I did some work on this when I was at Masari. So just adding a 1% allocation for institutional investors across pensions, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, if they just blanket added 1% to Bitcoin or crypto, that would 4X our market cap. If we got that up to 5%, that would 10X our market cap. So the portfolio allocations

are really meaningful. We did that out if anyone wants to take a look at the chart. Thanks. That's really helpful. Yeah, I can pin it up above. I'll go check it out. Go ahead, Alex. Yeah, thanks. I think it's worth just spending a moment talking about, you know, technology, like technology doesn't have any moral agency. It's not good or bad. It's a tool, you know, it's used by human beings and it can be used in various different ways and i'm not i'm not totally convinced that you know terrorism is a trade-off with with bitcoin i think if anything the fact that um you know criminals and terrorists use any technology is just a reality of their uh spread right like is our our drive-by shootings a result of automobiles? Well, I suppose they are in the sense that they're like an externality. But

would the murder have occurred otherwise? Probably. You know, ISIS uses email and WhatsApp and other tools, the internet, you know, because they're open public protocols for moving information. And the same is true for Bitcoin and crypto assets. But that doesn't change the fact that, you know, using Bitcoin or pallets of cash or gold, in lots or anything to fund crime or terrorism is illegal. And as one of the prior speakers pointed out, you know, crypto assets are useful for their freedom freedom enabling for individuals who are law

abiding but when it comes to crime like if you're doing something illegal you can use the blockchain as a way to trace and track the the wrongdoing which is why according to chain analysis which somebody brought up earlier something like 20 or 30 basis points of all crypto asset activity is considered funding for illicit activity now that doesn't include like i don't know tax avoidance or whatever but it means like actual crime when which compares to cash which is closer to two or three percent and why wouldn't you use cash you know it's a bearer asset that is largely untraceable compared to bitcoin which leaves behind an immutable record. So I think that, I don't know, I want to be careful in the discussion around that just to

make sure we get the language right. That makes perfect sense. Rand, should we talk about JP Morgan and BlackRock? Yeah, I mean, I want to talk about JP Morgan. The one thing about JP Morgan is you'll remember that in the UK, they sent a letter to their UK client saying that they no longer support any transfers to crypto activities and kind of said that if you want to invest in crypto, I think they went as far to say something like you should potentially look to another bank. I don't know if you remember that letter. There's been a number of examples like that from JP Morgan. I mean, we obviously know how dismissive Jamie Dimon is even saying that if any of his employees bought or traded crypto, that they would be fired. Yeah, but this one was recent. One of those what we say situations. This one was recent. This one was like, I mean, very recent. very recent yeah 21 days they sent a letter saying we're no longer allowing any crypto transfers to any any crypto because

crypto is effectively the devil and then they want to do it themselves and then i don't know i mean i i just found the timing um i'm not gonna say weird because it's not weird. It's, what's the word I'm looking for? I can't think of the right word. Uncoincidental, non-coincidental. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think that this is one of those things every time JP Morgan says something negative, within a few weeks,

you see some positive announcement of them adopting it, right? I mean, we all know that JP Morgan, while they don't necessarily suggest buying the assets they've been building with the technology for cross-border payments, Cadena is a project that originally started as JP Morgan coin. It sort of emerged from there that the team left and created this themselves. I mean, they're very deep in these private blockchains and private platforms. And of course, because there's demand for it, they did open the doors to their wealthy clients

to buy and sell Bitcoin using JP Morgan. So like I said, this seems like one of those talk negative about it until it funnels into using them instead of using it in its natural state to benefit their own business, which I don't think is a surprise. Go ahead, Ran and then David. Yeah, maybe just walk us through exactly what happened today and the transaction that happened.

I think that's the big story around that today. Sure, I'll do that really quickly. So this is just a summary I tweeted earlier. J.B. Morgan has introduced its blockchain-based tokenization platform known as the Tokenized Collateral Network, that's being called TCN. The application was developed in-house and recently settled its first trade for asset management heavyweight BlackRock. TCN leverages blockchain technology to allow investors to use traditional assets as collateral more efficiently. In the inaugural transaction between JPMorgan and BlackRock, shares of a money market fund were tokenized and transferred to Barclays Bank as security for an over-the-counter derivatives exchange. Now, this was first tested in May of 2022, but now it's officially live, offering a pipeline of transactions for other

clients. By using decentralized technology, the process becomes quicker, more secure, and efficient. I mean, this is literally what everybody in crypto has been screaming from the mountaintops for years would be one of the major explosive use cases for institutional adoption being able to tokenize and collateralize real world assets and transfer them more quickly and utilize that like i said as collateral for loans i mean this is it's really all happening and this is jp morgan and blackrock now that might be like star wars evil empire but it is but is it on a public is this like where's where's this is a blockchain or is it yeah exactly i i well they they it uses blockchain i'm assuming from

what i've read that this is a private blockchain created by jp morgan so the technologically it is blockchain but it's clearly not open source or being built on one of the more popular layer ones. I think this is a private blockchain that they're utilizing to tokenize real world assets. So you mean it's a private database? I just want to make sure that I understand what you just said. You mean JP Morgan? Private database. I mean, I guess we can parse the difference between database and blockchain, but certainly not being built on Ethereum from what I'm seeing here. I want to comment to you guys. Like you made a great point, Ron, about the dichotomy.

On the one hand, JP Morgan, you know, getting involved with TCN. And they also, before that, they have the Onyx network that's doing billions, even hundreds of billions of overnight repo transactions. On the other hand, blocking the crypto payments. I think the institutions, you know, and Scott, you mentioned that the crypto community has been screaming, but the institutions aren't coming to pump all the altcoin bags. They've made it very clear that what they're interested in is, on the one hand Bitcoin, ETF, right when ETF, hopefully Gary can let us have one soon. On the other hand, tokenized real world assets. And that falls under the existing securities framework,

existing securities law in whichever jurisdiction is held. And, you know, JP Morgan is the one angle that the institution and I don't think that will trickle down a lot to the retail. Thankfully, there are a lot of this whole RWA space, you know, companies that are doing tokenized bonds like Centrifuge or tokenized stock, like Swarm or tokenized startups, INX. So there's a range of these retail-focused offerings. Even Republic is, you know, getting into the game with tokenization that's trying to bring the J.P. Morgan, BlackRock action to the people because I'm afraid that, you know, J.P. Morgan and BlackRock, like they just want to switch old tech out for new tech,

make it a bit faster to settle. But they're not really buying into this whole democratization of finance and into the retail action that we know and love from the crypto space. I just wanted to make a point. I was in New York City yesterday at EY where I was doing the New York launch for my new book, Web3, Charting the Internet's Next Economic and Cultural Frontier. And this was a central discussion. It was basically enterprise blockchain versus blockchain for the enterprise. And I remember in 2016, 17, after blockchain revolution came out, the discussion was all about, okay, we love the idea of, you know, shared ledgers and, you know, you know, automating our transactions and back office flow and whatever.

But the idea of exposing ourselves to these open networks, which are new and unwieldy, is not really all that appealing. And frankly, that's the same conversation that happened with the internet in the 1990s, which is that people were saying, oh, I really love the idea of the internet, but I don't want to have exposure to this platform that, you know, opens me up to pornographers and criminals and libertarians and the rest. You know, sound familiar? It's like the same spiel 30 years apart. And so what happened in the 90s is people built a bunch of intranets that ultimately failed to scale because they weren't connected to the open web. And today, you know, you've got a lot of because they weren't connected to the open web.

And today, you know, you've got a lot of platforms and projects are trying to build consortia as they're not really like databases in the sense that they exist inside of one company. They're sort of shared ledgers with, you know, permission stakeholders. And so they're like quasi blockchains. But they're fundamentally closed off and not open to, you know, the innovation of public chains. Now, the guy on the panel at the event, Paul Brody, has written an interesting book called Ethereum for the Enterprise

and basically makes the case why businesses should build on public ledgers. So I don't view this, Scott, as some watershed moment that means that all banks are building on public infrastructure. But I also don't view it as a negative. I think it's a really interesting thing. It's a sign that there's clearly interest in this technology, and I think it will follow the natural progression. Indeed, for a lot of companies, it already has. I think most enterprises that already are interested in public chains, especially if you look at like consumer facing brands, whether it's LVMH, or Nike, or even the

payments companies like PayPal with PYUSD, or Visa with Solana and the rest of it. So like, we're seeing innovative companies already doing that. And I just think it's a matter of time before everybody moves over. Go ahead, Tom. Yes, everyone should go out and purchase Alex's new book because it's fantastic. But this is a case of watch what they're doing, not what they're saying. They're putting money behind us. They're putting money behind it because it's more efficient. It's cheaper.

It's a very simple business proposition. We like to think of these institutions as monoliths, right? Like G.P. Morgan says this, or State Street says this, but those are just people inside the institutions. They may or may not have said how the actual capital is allocated. So when you actually see these projects move along and you see the institutional weight behind it, that's where we really have to take notice. So if nothing else, that's really, you know, someone's price target, 10K or more.

Tom, your mic is really rough too, man. Tom, we can't really hear you, man. Your mic is super choppy there. So I don't know if you can also fix your connection potentially. Hey, Mike, I want to ask you a question because this is from earlier when Paul Tudor Jones made the comment that this is the worst geopolitical situation that he's seen in his life. I hate to say that I want to pivot here to somebody with equal life experience, potentially. Sorry to say.

But is that true for you as well? I mean, we know that you were literally in the trading pits before any of this technological advancements existed. So you've seen a lot. Yeah, well, he, I agree with him. It's horrible from a war standpoint, but from a money management position, running money standpoint, it's ideal as long as you're not long only so i mean we have to deal with the all geopolitical stuff but there's key things that i i really enjoy hearing lately that i've enjoyed my entire career i've always been sparks for opportunities to do the right thing and that is is, since the first day I started in bond futures trading pit in 1988 in Chicago, I've heard the same thing. Oh, the deficit's going up and bond yields are going to go down. That's been the wrong mantra for 40 years. And the key question is, is it different

this time? That's why I look at what's happened in the bond market recently on all this thing that, oh, OK, yes, it's bad. We're increasing're increasing the deficit and yes all these wars are bad but typically this might be a tremendous buying opportunity for the simplest safest assets on the planet that's bonds and treasuries so i do agree with him it's the worst but the key thing that's the thing i like to point out is to not get a great reset which is what i've been looking for just on the normal cycles of the biggest pump and liquidity and dumping in this environment i will look back from the future and say that would be delightful. But that's why part of the reason I'm going through this great reset, to me, this is all related to when you have a long period of very significant complacency and very low interest

rates, it's almost always followed by what's happening now. And I'm saying the wars, but it's just the way things work politically and cyclically. And it's horrible for long only risk assets. And I need to point this out when people say Bitcoin, I agree with them. But again, Bitcoin is the riskiest of all the assets from stocks, bonds, and gold. And typically it's, remember that. Even gold's risky initially when things get bad.

There's nothing less risky than that U.S. government T-bill. And I'll just say in a T-bill right now, you can get almost 5.5%. That's the highest in 22 years. To me, that's the key thing that asset investors should be focusing on and stop trying to be careful with the trading because when you stop people, that's what happens. So I'll make this, I'll end with this. investors should be focusing on and stop trying to, you know, be careful with the trading because

when you stop people, that's what happens. So I'll make this, I'll end with this. What's happening in crude oil, I learned my lesson in the trading pits when I went from 20 to 40, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. And then it went back down to 20 and that high lasted for 13 years. What's changed is back then, U.S. was a net massive importer. Now we're a massive exporter. So what we're seeing right now is crude oil is trickling down. It's almost, it's less than a dollar above where it closed last weekend

before this ticked in. So I think what this is telling me is this event is going to tilt the world towards that great reset and global recession, which means all risk gets go down and it's going to make things like Bitcoin be a safe haven. But typically the price has to go down initially, unfortunately, because it's just to make things like Bitcoin be a safe haven. But typically, the price has to

go down initially, unfortunately, because it's just a very risky asset still. And by the way, for anyone who didn't hear the steak dinner comment earlier between Mike and Dave, who's also on stage, Dave, you weren't up, I don't think at the time yet. But that, you know, that that's basically a bet you have, I guess, on where Bitcoin fits into that, right? Yeah, the bet is $40,000 versus $15,000, whichever it hits first. So we may be waiting a while given the range we're in. Seven years later at your $4,000 steak dinner. Yes. Could be.

Could be. With inflation, you never know. But yeah, so I think it's funny because Dave, Mike and I talk quite frequently and we are all very much aligned except for on whether Bitcoin is the leading risk asset there, as Mike likes to say, or whether Bitcoin can somewhat decouple and perform well in the face of that. Who said 15 and who said 40 well i'm yes i'm i'm the bias ran i and i have to be the i'm not intentionally being the bad guy in the room just pointed out my unbiased view is that if i'm right about this reset risk gases go down bitcoin is probably going to retest that low maybe make a new low it was 10 000 before this big pump in liquidity and if i expect the s&p 500 to go to about 3 000 which it was before, that's not a big backup

for pick cryptos or Bitcoin. Now they also already doing that. And I it's one of the same things I would love to lose this bet. But I just have to point out the facts of what happens when you have the you know, that stock market still versus GDP, that's the 500. It's the most expensive in almost 90 years. My dear hope in this part of your portfolio? I'm not allowed to hold virtually anything I write about. And that's part of the new good benefit of what I have here compared to the past when I was a trader,

investor, is I'm neutral on everything. And, you know, there's other ways to do it. I mean, do you think you could make more money in your job or do you think you could make more money holding Bitcoin? Oh, well, there's a little bit of risk in Bitcoin. I have a decent corporate position and I enjoy the camaraderie and everything and I enjoy what I do. But to sit there and try to make money on a risk asset and have that that's already been up the most in history is it's you have to really look back at this from the future and say well probably a lot of those that money's been made and now you have to look at all these bitcoin etfs and futures what does that mean that means it comes it brings into the mainstream and it's what it's doing it means

people can short it easily and it trades much less like a young baby and trades much more adult asset in memory. Key thing is, remember, Bitcoin is still about three times the risk of most other risk assets. Is there any other crypto asset or any other asset in the world that you think could yield the same returns as Bitcoin has? I'm saying, okay, well, Bitcoin was great, but it's a mature asset. And I'm wondering if you've got your eyes on any other asset that you're saying, look, the next Bitcoin is, and I'm going to say the next Bitcoin, obviously not from a technological point of view, but the next Bitcoin from an investment point of view, is there anything else that you got your eyes on? U.S. government, you know, you can lock in 10% in the next two

years and not care about anything that's an environment that most people who are at our age now has not seen for almost a decade we've been in the longest period in history of zero or negative interest rates those facts have changed in that environment when you have zero negative interest rates risk assets get expensive cryptos are a main part of that and when you have high interest rates and like inflation declining towards recession which you are now risk assets get cheap. Cryptos are a main part of that. And when you have high interest rates and inflation declining towards recession, which you are now, risk assets get cheap. And we're nowhere near that.

That's just the fact that I say right now. Okay, so with that in mind, I want to ask you two questions. First question is, we asked this yesterday, but I want to ask it again. But bear with me because I want to ask you a follow-up question. If you were to put all your money into one asset and you had to hold the asset for five years, you could only put it into one asset. What would the asset be? Bear with me because I know we did this yesterday, but I want to just see how something changes here.

I have no clue at the moment. I look at it as one bridge at a time, and I would never do that. Most people wouldn't. That's why I say there's Paul Tudor Johnson. This is the most unique macroeconomic parent he's ever seen. And the U.S. government is giving you a two-year note that's something that Tina is no longer the case. The fact is you can have safe assets and not worry. Mike, why wouldn't it this way. You're right. So five or 10 year notes for 10, five or 10 years, I will look at across the curve. And here's why TLT I completely agree with, but I've been way too early. I said this a year ago, and I you know, I'm just been I've been hit hard without I've been wrong. But the thing is, when you buy treasuries, you eventually get back the premium. That's the difference when you buy a stock or crypto, they can easily go to zero. And I've a lot of

colleagues who told me that their $20,000 investments have gone to zero in alls so um five year notes right in the middle that's perfect but there's any time to say let's worry about those bridges later right now the bridge is there's an alternative of safety and that's the key thing you're seeing with church every money manager i see you've seen massive flows in the tlt of that have been wrong but eventually be right in the massive flows into just good old safe US treasuries. Now, this is from people I've spoke to for 40 years who've been running money. And they just say, that's overwhelming that you'd have to just lock in that 5%. Say, thank you. Goodbye. Yeah, Ren, I tend to agree with that. Ren, the five-year question is different than

what we had, though. Did we say five years initially or was it so yeah what i wanted to ask him was i want to ask him five years and i wanted to ask him two years and i wanted to see if he's in if he thinks that there's going to be a better performing asset in two years and it sounded to me like he thinks that potentially the treasury bills are great performance for two years um and i was just trying to get a difference in time horizon but i think um like mike got very well he dodged my bloody question. Well, I think the answer for two years is easy, but there's different questions, right? It's like, what asset do you think will perform the best? Or if you're actually taking that much risk, which asset would you take the minimal guaranteed gain and say, this is risk-free and get the hell out of here?

It's risk reward. Right. But when it's everything, you're going to say, I'll take that two-year note, I'll take that yield and I'm out of here. Even if I don't beat inflation, I'm guaranteed not to lose everything. And I think that that's how most people, given the all or nothing question, would answer. Yeah. I'm sorry. I was just going to say, or as Paul Tudor Jones might say, put 95% in the two-year note, 5% in Bitcoin, and worst case, you're flat. Yeah, we're not getting any luxury, unfortunately. That's right. I do want to talk about something else quickly, Scott, if there is a little bit of time.

Of course. So I saw a tweet today. The tweet was from the founder of DWF, which is a market-making firm. And the tweet talks about the lack of venture capital funding, which is Mario's favorite topic in the world. You know that, right? He always talks about how the lack of VC funding has actually died down, right? And now we are very much at the worst juncture for VC funding in crypto, right? Yeah, of course, that and CryptoPunks.

Okay, so when was the last time that we were at the bottom of VC funding? Good question, but I'm going to imagine that it was at the last point in the four-year cycle that was the same point four years ago. Q2, Q1 and Q2 2020. Yeah, around that time. What happened to investors that made purchases and VC investments in Q1 and Q2 2020. They rode the entire next cycle to Valhalla.

Exactly. And I think, you know what, when I read the tweet, I had to do a double take and go like, I was there. I actually remember that. I remember very well how scary it was to invest in Q1 and Q2 2020. I remember VC funding a dry up and we all declared that crypto industry was actually dead, which is kind of like where it is today, right? That's the sentiment about where it is today.

What you're finding now is that the VCs that are actually active are the real VCs. Like people like Coinbase Ventures, people like, you know, Multicoin is still quite active. So it's like, when i read the tweet i just thought oh like that is actually i remember this exactly i remember i remember the exact feeling that we had in 2020 and it feels very very very much like now um i mean i think covid was scarier than in terms of a global basis certainly certainly. I think COVID was scarier than these wars that we're currently going through.

But that is when it was, you know, it turned out that that was the best time to make the investments. Right. And that not only aligns, by the way, with VC, as you're pointing out aptly, but it also aligns with price action and where Bitcoin is relative to all coins at this part of the cycle

and the four-year cycle and the halving. I mean, we've sort of made the point here over and over again that it would be somewhat ironic or entertaining if a year from now, Bitcoin is starting to ramp up into a presidential election, which we generally see, right? That at the end of the summer after the halving, six to eight months later, you start to see it ramp up. And then 2025 is 2021 is 2017 is that part of the cycle where things really start to ramp up parabolically into a bull market. And you could have looked back on every conversation we've had here, every mention of the Fed and rates and hawkishness and dovishness and Jerome Powell coughing or sneezing in the wrong

direction and wars and say, this is exactly where it should be exactly where it should have. Because right now, if you look back four years in the cycle, this is exactly where it should be. I'm not saying this time can't be different. We don't have that much precedent, but it really could be a similar situation where all of this is just that down year before the having. Ron, go ahead. Yeah, I just want to focus on the VC point really quickly. I mean, at least getting here from the DC side and trade association side. I mean, echo the sentiment we're seeing. We're hearing from a lot of our members that the funding is slowing down.

But I will say, at least on the lobbying front, the VCs have really stepped up recently. I mean, they made a couple of good hires, especially at Paradigm, Coinbase, A16Z, and a few others. But they've really made some momentum here to at least help on the regulatory side. You're saying their funding of projects is down, but their funding of lobbyists is significantly up. Is that correct? I'd say more advocacy and policy. I wouldn't say directly lobbying, but more on the education side. Again, some really good key hires here in D.C. It's been super helpful, at least in terms of trying to get more regulations in place or at least trying to get things a bit the spotty TF approved and such.

So let's talk. Let's talk about that more. So you're saying that they're basically the venture capitalists are putting boots on the ground to go into congressional and Senate offices and educate the aides and chief of staffs on why this is important. Is that correct? Yeah, largely. And again, they've been doing this through, you know, other trade associations and other groups for quite some time, you know, before crypto, obviously. But at least on the crypto front, especially, we've seen a lot more folks step up in D.C.

I mean, it's been needed for quite some time, but it's been nice to see them realizing that they're committed to the United States, they're committed to making the regulatory regime a thing, since it doesn't exist, candidly, for the most part. So, I mean, we've welcomed a lot here in D.C., and it's good to see them engaged, because especially a lot of the startups that they're backing, they just don't have the resources to come to D.C. and say, hey, look, this regulation or law you're trying to impose is going to pretty much wipe us out. So especially on the DeFi side, I mean, DeFi folks, those guys have

got a lot of building to do and such. And the VCs especially have been really pivotal to, you know, share their story and tell why it's important to get rules in the books for not to overextend on certain elements. Ran, don't you find that fascinating? I find that fascinating. I'm not surprised, obviously, that there's a movement by the crypto industry to educate lawmakers and that they're spending money to do so. But at a time when we can talk about VC funding being at all-time lows for actual investments, but that they're spending their money in an effort, which could be a futile effort, frankly, right, to educate lawmakers.

I find that really, really interesting. I don't know if it's a futile effort, frankly, right, to educate lawmakers. I find that really, really interesting. Does that surprise you? I don't know if it's a futile effort. I think that what seems pretty clear is if there's a change of administration, there's going to be a change of sentiment towards crypto. At least that's how it's – at this point in the race, that's how the Republicans are positioning themselves versus the democrats crypto is one of those um it's becoming a republican thing and it's it's becoming not

a democrat thing and i mean you know i guess everything i think a lot of people are banking on a on a change in a change in the white house next year uh in terms of of the party i think that's that's what where a lot of the VC trips are going. So I think that for as long as there is hope that we're going to get a Republican victory next elections or next year, I think it will continue. I think that if we don't get a Republican victory next year, I think then funding may start drying up because people are going to look. Yeah, Ran, I was going to say, I think what you're saying drying up because people look. Yeah. Ran, I was going to say, I think what you're saying is probably consensus view on what we expect.

Ran, is that aligning with what you're seeing since you're literally there on the ground? I mean, I wouldn't say, again, it's more Republican versus Democrat. It's been very much generational. But the problem is that at least in the United States political system, especially on the Democrat side, more the Republican side, they do favor seniority. So the longer you've been there, the more credence you have and the more likely you'll be in a position of power to make decisions. I mean, if you remember Congress, like a Richie Torres, who's a progressive. I was just going to ask you about him. Fantastic guy.

But he is pretty low in terms of the totem pole of order of hierarchy. So he doesn't get to choose what bills can vote on stuff. And also he's in the minority in the house. So I think that's kind of it's for us, especially in DC, we've met a lot of good folks in the Biden administration who are great on crypto. But they're drowned out by more

senior older folks who just candidly to come down to. We just don't think the technology serves any purpose besides a list of finance or it serves no purpose whatsoever so why the hell should we even legitimize this with regulation that's usually what behind the veil is most of the motivation yeah so we had richie torres on the show um and really interesting i was about to bring him up and you did what he said and i asked him a question that he sort of uh I don't know if he was taken aback, but he shot back very quickly. I

said, why does it seem like your party, the Democrats, and by the way, I don't do politics, I'm apolitical, I'm registered unaffiliated, I don't have a love for either side generally at this point. But I said, why does it feel like there's this idea that the right is pro-crypto and the left is anti-crypto. And he very quickly shot back and said, that is not the case at all. What you have is a gerontocracy. The gerontocracy, the older people, they don't understand new technology. They don't want to understand new technology. They think that everything is a threat. And if you look at the younger members on both parties, they're generally more pro-crypto. They understand. They grew up in a world with, you know, crazy things like the Internet and they get it.

And so it's more about their age than it is, obviously, about their politics, left or right. And I thought that that was a really interesting thing to be to be coming from him because there are like him. There are a ton. Well, first of all, there's a lot of Republicans who are anti and there's a lot of Democrats who are pro, right? It just, I think, the louder and more powerful voices,

to your point, are the ones that we hear. Exactly. I mean, let's not forget, Donald Trump was against, he tweeted against Bitcoin. You know, Biden administration has not been friendly either.

So it's... Trump loves those NFTs, though. Doesn't know they're crypto. He loves those NFTs. Yeah, no one's telling that. Yeah, don't bother. NFTs, though. He doesn't know they're crypto. Yeah, no one's telling that. Yeah, don't bother. Go ahead, David. Sorry, I thought David was trying to ring in. Ran, I think we've pretty much covered it here. What do you think?

I agree. I agree. I think let's pick it up again tomorrow. Hopefully, there'll be some movement on the market. Hopefully, the movement will be up. It's been a long period of no volatility. It's getting into that boring phase again. You obviously noticed because you're here, but we did make the big move we talked about for months, which is to start hosting on the Crypto Town Hall account. It's Crypto underscore Town Hall. You can see the big red logo that is the main host. We kindly ask that you follow that account, set your alerts, because we will, from this time forward, we are not hosting on Mario's account anymore. We're glad he was able to make it here today after obviously being on the Israel Hamas spaces for what seems like four days, four or five days straight. But it gave us the

opportunity to make that switch over the Crypto Town Hall account. And Mario, myself and Ran will be rotating who are the co-hosts and who's a speaker each day. But we're really, really proud that we've been able to build that account even without having the hosting on it. If you're not following it, it's also become really, even for me, because of our amazing team, a great source of sort of breaking and comprehensive news surrounding the market. So it's really a great account for you to follow if you just want to keep up with the market as well. But just give it a quick follow. There's nothing in it for us, except for you guys showing up to spaces and making sure that you don't miss it.

And we're glad today to see that we've had about 5,000 of you here joining us, which to all of us is kind of blowing our minds that it's that big already when we've made the switch. So thank you guys all for listening. Thank you to our amazing guests. I also never do this, but follow all of our guests, guys. I don't know why we don't say that at every single show, but I can tell you that the fact that we, trust me, we have thousands of guests that solicit us, that come to us. We have a list of hundreds and hundreds, literally, of people to invite. And we really feel like we've honed in on the best possible guests, the minds that we really trust, the ones that we think their opinions are extremely valuable. So I think that everybody who comes on stage here gets sort of our tacit approval.

And you can't imagine how aggressive our vetting is, how many arguments we have going through these processes. So, you know, we really do believe that the guests who come up to speak are the best of the best. All right, guys. Thank you. I know I see Ren got dropped off. Mario, thank you.

And everyone, we will see you back here tomorrow. Thanks again.