The Wolf Of All Streets - Bitcoin Pumping After CPI, What's Next? | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

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Hey Ran. I said how do I make co-hosts? I mean I've not been here for the last couple of days. Gummy today blew up so you've earned it. It's your show. It's like it's going to be one second people call me like Mario you see Gummy's down a lot. I'm like okay cool. Next day Mario just recovered all the losses.

Okay cool. How are you man? Good how are you sir? Good. Scott was telling me yesterday, Rand is going off pre-sales. I wish I was there. What triggered you yesterday? Off at pre-sales yesterday?

Well, I mean... More VC. Yeah, the VC versus meme coin is what the conversation really was. Yeah. We were talking about that ad nauseum i think scott i think based on our discussion yesterday remember i said to you this that the stochastic rsi is telling me that the next move is up but the the cpi data the clev the cleveland fed cpi data

was alluding to the fact that the the next move was down uh and then now we had the move. Now, I mean, it's not a conclusive move, but I mean, the chart lines up beautifully. Yeah, and I think it's funny because yesterday we were talking about PPI and it came in hot and inflation was going to be rising and that meant the Fed couldn't cut. And 24 hours later,

the same people are freaking out and saying CPI is in line and rate cuts are imminent and everything goes up. I mean, people are so schizophrenic right now. It's absolutely nuts. The funniest thing is that they're calling for two rate cuts now. I don't know if you saw, but if you go look at the CME, there's one rate cut for September and one rate cut for December. I still think we'd be lucky if we got one rate cut.

But the market's now pricing in two rate cuts. And all because CPI went down from 3.5% to 3.4%. That's it. Over a month. Yeah. Over one month. Just because it hit expectation, which was created by somebody anyways. It's all such nonsense.

And you still don't think that uh you're still not buying my thesis that roaring kitty has set up this whole movement now and and this movement's going to flow into crypto it's not that i'm not buying it i just don't see how that can happen quickly i think that conceptually it's correct but i don't think that that's a overnight thing at all take a lot of time and i'm not even convinced yet that uh the roaring kitty game stop trend is going to continue more than a few days unless he really comes back you know so i actually had wall street uh jamie from wall street bets on my show this morning and that was kind of his sentiment he was like i think people are just

on the sideline waiting for anything but now we need to see if there's going to be any actual follow through. So I think it's a good premise, but early, but maybe that's how you make money. All right. So we're talking about what's next for Bitcoin. We talk about what's next for Bitcoin every day. Because I think every day people want to know what's next for Bitcoin in the markets. What was, I'm just going through your agenda. What did you cover today? I'm just going through the CPI data as well.

The forecast, CPI forecast, CPI forecast. I covered boring stuff. Yeah, I covered the CPI. What's the boring stuff? I covered the CPI and just the market. It was the first down reading after three up readings, and it's the first time that we've actually hit expectation.

The last three times we were above expectations. I covered that. I covered the Roaring Kitty movement and the effect that it's having on the markets. And then I looked at what people are seeing. Just got on the Roaring Kitty. I know you mentioned it very briefly.

Can you tell us a bit more about it? Yesterday I was kind of off the grid all day, but someone just told me very briefly about that post by the guy that kind of Let the whole GameStop frenzy earlier And that let's you game stop pumping like crazy. It's like it's just like actually more DJ than crypto really Well, yeah, he's back and he's you know, he's pumping AMC and GameStop again then

The traditional finance people are getting wrecked there's like five billion in shorts that are that are underwater at the moment uh they don't you know um uh that's that's but i suggested i think that movement's going to flow into crypto and people have people have been making life-changing money on gamestop on the crypto version of gamestop gme crypto gme um you know like people have been been making real life-changing money and that kind of stuff. So we covered that. We also covered just some statistics

to show that pension funds are starting to buy Bitcoin. We did a summary of all the funds that have disclosed or had to disclose that they've actually bought some of the Bitcoin ETFs and just shown some of the big names. And then almost like saying, this is the best time to be buying because this is like that moment where everyone's like losing hope, which is exactly like the FTX Solana moment last year.

And this is probably the right time to start actually deploying. And then I covered one ecosystem that I'm actually deploying into, which is the Cosmos ecosystem. Scott, can you tell us more about your show and also your thoughts on the data that came in as well? I think that it's expected. It's exactly what was anticipated and no surprises there. But I need one second. I'll be right back. Sorry. And we do have Dave. Dave, we'd love to get your thoughts.

Well, from a Bitcoin perspective, we're in a range. You know, we bounce off the bottom and we're sitting where we are. The simple fact is there's not a lot of no one sees a catalyst. And people don't understand that the most important catalyst for Bitcoin is price go up, which basically roughly translates to if one large buyer comes into the market or one large holder decides to dump. Establish the next trend. We are coiling a spring here and we could be staying here for months. But markets tend to do things differently than we expect. My case has been we'll stay here until something asserts itself. I think that the state of Wisconsin

was a very big deal. I really do. Because effectively, they put 0.1% of their assets in the Bitcoin ETF, 0.1. And that's already, you know, that was a hundred and some odd million dollars. You know, they're a large state fund. If the entire, you know, state ecosystem, state and local pension fund ecosystem got to 1%, I mean, Bitcoin's double from here. And that's not small. And people will tend to look at that as if the number goes up, it will accelerate. So someone said it, and I don't remember who, I don't want, I'm not, I hate plagiarizing, that if we get to and break through with the all-time high, again, this time with this background, it goes, and I tend to agree with that. David? Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and agree with Dave. I think that that was very important. In terms of the macro and this morning, the most troubling stuff out of the Fed actually came out yesterday regarding consumer credit and delinquencies on credit cards and other types of personal spending were spiking in a major way. And with rates

continuing to be high, student loan payments, by the way, federal government student loan payments, the rates on those are set once a year. And they are much, much higher now. the highest they've been, I think, in 14 or 16 years. And I think the consumer, we're seeing bankruptcies, Red Lobster is going to file shortly, the container store, like these aren't important, they're not very big. But when you start to add them all together with the other bankruptcies and liquidations that we've seen lately, 99 cents only stores, Route 21, it seems clear that certainly at the lower end of the economic spectrum, things are very difficult in the United States. And if the Fed really needs to be higher for longer, that is going to melt its way up and start to hurt folks in the middle. And that, I think,

is going to go ahead potentially and trigger a recession, I'm thinking at this point, at some point in 2025. Mauricio? Yeah, I completely agree with what David just said. So for those who may not know, so I'm from Venezuela. I saw hyperinflation happen in Venezuela. And what I'm seeing here with the GameStop phenomenon is that here we are yet again with GameStop ripping and the speculative mania kind of coming right back into effect with rates at five and a quarter.

And I think very few people expected this, if any. And what this tells me is that Americans, there's a big divide between those who have assets and those who don't. And those who don't have assets are starting to wake up to this concept that working a nine to five won't change their fate. The thing that will is this sort of GameStop or this other type of investment that will really just kind of 10x overnight on you. And every time they see these opportunities, they're kind of running at them because they are seeing this as their chance to really change their situation. The nine to five isn't working. So I think that, oh, sorry, I'm getting some feedback. Yeah, it is a casino, 100%, 100%, 100%.

So they're preferring to wake up every morning and go to the casino than to show up to work. And inevitably, that's what ends up happening with FIA dies or doesn't die when it gets reset and they take zeros off of it because that's what actually happens. They don't it gets reset and they take zeros off of it because that's what actually happens they don't kill it they just take zeros off of it um but we're getting closer and closer to this um you know this almost financial gambling has a better outcome to you than potentially working your whole lives and that's how you're seeing people you know run to which is which is not a great look And do you see that flowing to crypto, as Ryan mentioned earlier?

I think... Your mic is bad, Ryan. Go ahead, Mauricio. I think that's the inevitable progression, because crypto is just a better venue to speculate on. It's open 24-7. It trades. It has equal liquidity. It's

accessible to everyone, not just people that live in a particular jurisdiction of access to a brokerage account. So I think that this is crypto will become, you know, whether we like it or not, it'll become the Super Bowl of speculation or the main event or the main venue where people go out and speculate. Bitcoin aside, of course, and that's why we treat Bitcoin or think of Bitcoin. That's essentially very, very bullish for meme coins i think we had the debate earlier of meme coins becoming just a big online casino where do you continue you see that that hype continuing that same momentum continuing i do i do personally because i've always seen the sort of you know broader space in crypto as as that as a casino um and when you see it that way, you know, casinos have been around, you know,

people, people often miss this, but casinos were invented right around the time the stock market was invented, you know, in Europe, back when Amsterdam was invented, the first casino was also invented. And I think it's, it goes hand in hand with the animal spirits of humans. And to think that the speculation is going to go away, I think is naive, I think it's just going to move to a bigger, better place. And, again, whether we like it or not crypto it seems to be filling that space and i think that's it's important to make a distinction not all crypto is speculative but it is the best market to speculate in but that's interesting because go ahead ryan but like i think we used to discuss in the bear market right remember we talked about whether this cycle will be

similar in terms of how speculative it is whether it'll be more mature and less speculative than previous cycles or as Scott was saying back in the bear market it'll just be the same thing same mania humans will always be humans and it'll be as speculative if not more speculative as more money flows into it and based on what Maurice is saying now um and based what we saw with with obviously GameStop um we could see this cycle um you know as we reach new all-time highs, speculation still being rife. Speculation is speculation. We've

created another casino. The bigger casino is the meme coin casino. Speculation is always going to be speculation. Robbie, your thoughts? So, I think of all the things, the recent news for me, I'm not my attention because they represent a class of investors that typically are the last ones to come into a new space because I would put them, you know, endowments and pension funds and sovereign wealth up there in the same kind of category. So, to see them make a signal like that, I think actually says quite a lot.

It's not the first time that it's happened though, guys. It's not the first time that it's happened. I don't know if you remember, but Mark Yusko and Anthony Pompliano actually managed to sell physical Bitcoin to one of the pension funds. I don't remember which one it was, but I do remember... Was that Texas Firefighters? Was that the Texas Firefighters or something else?

I can't remember. And then there was the Quebec pension had exposure, I think, to Celsius and stuff. Yeah, but I mean, I think Pomp and Mark Yusko actually got them to actually invest, the pension fund to invest. I mean, it's great to see them buying the ETF, but it's not the first time that it's happened. Yeah, but that was also pre-FTX, pre-Celsius Voyager. They were way out on a limb. Anybody that was involved in all that – by the way, the Texas exposure wasn't limited to liquid crypto. They also had VC- level investments. Who knows if and when those folks ever, I mean, Quebec has sworn off

crypto forever. So I would push back a little bit, Ran, in the fact that it's in the wake of all of that. And by the way, it's the ETF that's being bought, which is certainly something that is much easier for all of these institutional investors to go ahead and buy, simply because it's in the shape and form of something that they're very used to, which is an ETF or a security. Dave? Dave, I think you're having issues. I do want to go to Mike. Mike, I want to get your thoughts on the market as well, just the back and forth we've had,

especially with the macro data that we had earlier today and the speculative mania that we saw with GameStop. I like what Mauricio said, the Super Bowl speculation. He got that with David Tavaleo saying about the depressed consumer day. I think the data today is – obviously, it's good for risk assets, but the key thing that's really notable from my standpoint is if you look at retail sales on the back of what David was pointing out is retail sales minus CPR negative. And they're very similar to the way we were around 2000, 2001 before that recession started. So to me, for now, the data is good to keep beta going up up but i think it's missing what might be happening and that is we're getting a little bit weaker than expected and little data inflation a little bit weaker expected data and retail sales because the economy is rolling over and consumers are

rolling over and there's one key thing that will make that happen make people believe that and it's not going to happen until the stock market rolls over um and it's way overextended we all know that but it just keeps going up so people are not going to believe it the key thing i'm worried about is yes i think technically you can see bitcoin looks great it's just doing that we could say it's a bull flag but it is falling behind beta so what happens when beta does have a bit of a problem so So that's what I'm worried about because we're in that hangover post-having, post-ETFs. So to me, that's the macro standpoint. And I look at all my data.

I see declining demand for diesel, for unleaded gas, for corrugated boxes, inverted curve. Everything I see is, okay, all that recession scenario that was way too extreme a year ago and then went way too extreme the other way towards no recession is just starting to tilt back. And the stock market just doesn't get it yet. I think it's running on fumes. And here's the problem. It's price for Fed ease. But in an environment like this with massive speculation you see in markets, even in things like copper, Fed typically doesn't ease in that environment. So we're priced for it.

But I don't see why the chairman and the Federal Reserve should take that risk of easing. And I'll end with this. The key thing is we did have a little bit weaker than expected data last week because it was the first month. And since September, the S&P 500 was down. And to me, you have the market running right now. S&P, U.S. stock market is two times, the valuation of the stock market is two times total GDP in this country. The last time we were like this on the way up was 1929.

And then it's obviously tilted lower. So to me, everything now is about beta. Everything about inflation, consumer is about beta. And if it keeps going up, we're fine. But I'm just kind of concerned that Bitcoin has started a bit of a hangover for now dave is your mic working now i hope so can you hear me now yes we can yep okay so two points uh one to go back to the the speculation casino uh you know idea i think people underestimate how underestimate the difference between walking into a casino and being part of a community with fellow investors. Wall Street got it completely wrong.

Just watch Dumb Money. It's one of the only movies that I actually watched and I'm like, yeah, okay, apart from some of the stuff they got wrong on the technical side, it showed the value of people banding together to get something done. We've seen it before. I mean, you know, stocks like Micron Technologies used to have a big following and a big story stock, et cetera. You know, back in the day. But crypto is a 24-7 group. And meme stocks are unapologetically driven by communities of people.

Bitcoin, if you go to any Bitcoin conference, Bitcoin is half financial asset, half cult. I mean, I probably drank that Kool-Aid, so be it. But that matters. And, you know, those sorts of things do impact it. So, yeah, it is a powerful force. And don't underestimate it. And that matters. Now, when you talk about Mike saying on the macro, I mean, look, we talked about this every Monday, and we've been having the same conversation. The economy rolling over is a virtual certainty,

except it's rolling over in a weird way. Someone said it before, I think it was David, who I was nodding my head vigorously. The bottom end of the economy is getting crushed. The rich are getting richer. And to be blunt, it's what the authorities want to happen. I mean, they don't necessarily want the bottom end to roll over. But what they want to do is keep the rich happy. And the biggest success of the Federal Reserve this week is the fact that the 10-year is back under 4.4 in yield. It was getting to 4.7 and looking like it was going to go back up toward 5. And that's what they're really trying to engineer, because they're trying to engineer

the ability for the government to fund itself. And as long as that is successful, as long as the liquidity is in the market, you're going to see animal spirits pop up from time to time. I disagree with Mike on Bitcoin simply because I think Bitcoin is just in that resting phase. And animal spirits are due to come back. So it's not a straight line of beta. But yes, he's right. If the stock market rolls over like we have a crash in October, yeah, everything's going to go down at that time.

But I think it's unlikely that something's going to happen before the run-up to the election at this point and mike fred any comments on this i wanted to go back to the to the first point dave made regarding speculative the speculation behind meme stocks and what that means for crypto fred go ahead yeah i'll just add that you know we have to figure out where the money is going to come in from to uh pump crypto in the next cycle that we're coming through. I think some people forget or they're not really thinking about it, but the amount of money that just poured into just regular old money market funds in the last year since everyone's been raising rates, there's a lot of just liquid cash that can be deployed, you know, when, when the signals given, you know, whatever that signal is, we don't know what it is. So I mean,

there's all sorts of pools of liquidity that can still come in for the new money to pump everything in addition to what what everybody's been talking about. So, you know, it's just buckle up and get ready. Because, you know, there's all the pieces are in play for everything to happen. It's not it's not a mystery. I got I got to follow up on that a little bit, Fred, because it's it's something to point that people have been making for a long time. Yes, cash is going up, but is relative to the appreciation of risk assets. It's going down. If you look at cash as a measure of the total market cap of U.S. stock market, it's less now than it was before 2007, before the financial crisis.

So let's not misunderstand what's happening in cash. When the stock market goes up 20% and you add a billion to what's considered money markets, around $6 billion, you have to consider versus things like right now, cash, as far as if you look at total market caps of the NASDAQ is around, say, 25 percent. Before the great financial crisis in 2008, it was about 110 percent. So that's what the difference is. Yes, we have cash because the whole tide's rising. But as far as the percentage of risk assets, it's actually quite low. It's still enough to make a difference. So the percentage is still lower there, and I agree with you, but can it still make a move and have an impact on the market? Just to clarify, Mike, does that include T-bills and bonds?

Because I think what Fred was saying is that all that dry powder has gone into basically treasuries and T-bills, and when that tide reverses, I think that's what can pump us. And I agree with you in terms of the percentages if nothing else changes but i think a lot of that has flown into bills and notes so there obviously is a lot going into bills and notes because they're record issuance but let's think about what's going to take for rates to go down okay so the fed keeps saying they're going to cut rates but they have and they won't because the stock market keeps going up that's what I think most analysts are missing.

Go back to what Benjamin Disraeli says, what we generally anticipate doesn't happen. That's a statement I hear from everybody. It's the same thing I remember hearing about 2006 with the housing market. The fact is we probably won't see, might not see lower rates in this country until risk assets go down and tell the fed to start easy why because risk assets are going up creating so much wealth and inflation and propensity to spend that's the lose-lose so to me there's a that's the problem and that's why what you're just seeing is people are just booking some profits putting in cash but they are more exposed to the stock market now than any time since the29. That's just the fact of the look at the data versus GDP.

Jeff, I wanted to get your thoughts on this, unless Mauricio has more comments, and talking about the ETF data as well. Let me just look at yesterday's data. So total net inflows into ETF on May 14th were $100 million in net inflows. It's a pretty impressive number. GBDC had a net outflow of 50 million

would love to get your thoughts on the data not only today but over the last let's say a couple of weeks jeff and your thoughts on the markets in general yeah absolutely thanks for having me here mario you're right bitcoin etfs had great flows yesterday totaling about 100 million uh it's actually the second consecutive day of inflows. Gross, I think, 150, excluding the GBTC outflows. And ARKB saw some great creation activity, too. The volume dropped a little bit day over day, but it's still around the billion dollar range, which is impressive by all measures. And I think the trend thus far has been a reversal of the outflows we started to see at the beginning of the month.

You know, we talked about Swib a little bit earlier, the Wisconsin Investment Board. I think they're an exceptional team. I've had the pleasure to know them over the career, even prior to Bitwise. And they're exceptional because they invest really with a long-term outlook for alpha generation over a long duration, five-year, 10-year. They've outperformed their benchmarks and their pension peers by huge margins. The head of alpha strategies there, Derek Drummond, is a brilliant guy. I met them actually when they were looking

at litigation finance and some oriented trades around those types of bankruptcy estates, not even touching crypto assets. They're very clever. And we need more of those types of capital allocators that can be forward looking to embrace the possibility around crypto and Bitcoin ETF flows. I think we'll see more of that. SWIB is leading the path, as there have been other pensions in the past. Otherwise, I think we've been following the 13F filings with a lot of interest. And there are some clever allocators that are in the mix, aside from institutional funds, such as Renaissance Technologies actually having dabbled in crypto ETFs. They actually own, I believe, five different issuers around Bitcoin ETFs, including ours, BITB, but surprisingly not iBit, BlackRock's. I think that's an interesting signal. It means that the market is still somewhat inefficient in the ways that a very quantitatively oriented firm like Renaissance might see an opportunity to dip their

toes in. You saw something similar to that with Susquehanna Investment Group, where on their 13F, where they own over 35 different Bitcoin and Bitcoin adjacent ETFs and structures, similarly like minded, I think, in their ability to be strong proprietary traders. So we're excited for those types of innovative embracing of the asset class. You know, just overall on the macroeconomic front, I do think that the Bitcoin bounce today is meaningful. CPI coming in under was a huge lift. And I know we talked about it earlier in the context of U.S. consumers. But the big picture is actually the whole world needs U.S. rates to go down.

We've talked about Japan on the dollar yen, the pressure building there before. We haven't talked, I don't think, as much about China, but also how China really needs that to come in for their own protection of the economy. And so there are aspects of it where I think it's a big relief for the market, for the balance of payments in general, for this to be an impetus. The other catalyst that I've watched along Bitcoin upside participation is the volatility's ticked up. So now we're kind of near the 60% implied vol range, which I think is kind of a healthy level around the reflexive nature of Bitcoin towards upside momentum. You know, we saw it kind of bottom out actually in the 50s with Bitcoin having a drawdown throughout the end

of April. So this is a nice reversal as well for trends. And I think going back to your original question, ETF flows, these are the kinds of things where increased volatility, increased volume, because volatility can also mean upside vol in Bitcoin scenarios, leads to more institutional creation units. And so I'm pretty, I'm pretty bulled up. I think the last two days were great. And I'd expect that there will be more appetite for it upon the favorable inflation print. David? No, I was just going to comment on the fact that, you know, I think Renaissance and Susquehanna, you know, their ownership, I think, is materially different. Renaissance is owning this without any fundamental heart into it. I think they probably are involved because they see trading irregularities or some alpha to go ahead and be gained from some sort of basis.

I completely agree. I completely agree. I completely agree. That's why I separated them as a different class of investors. But the point being that more trading around those inefficient behaviors is actually adoption for broader utility of Bitcoin as an asset, even away from the cultish dynamic of long-term Bitcoin holders. And those types of participants are equally important for a vibrant market. So I agree with you completely. I agree with that. I agree with that point too, right? People trading this is important, regardless of whether they have any sort of fundamental

position on it. Trading it for other reasons is also, I think, leads to the robust nature of the market. The other thing I was going to say regarding rates, I really don't believe that the Fed's going to be in it. I think I do believe we're going to get a token rate cut before the end of the year has to, you know, Powell has to make good on his word in some ways and also, you know, kind of help the election along. Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist, but I think, you know, it's part and parcel of, you know, the current administration's and Powell's support for the current administration. But I don't

believe that the Fed's going to really be in a position to go ahead and cut rates because of how messy the horizon looks. And they, frankly, I mean, unless they're crazy, which they have been in the past, you know, I think they need to save their powder for when it's really needed, as opposed to playing catch up to other governments around the world who may, by the way, be cutting rates, frankly, at totally the wrong time. I mean, they may need to cut rates right now. We don't need to cut rates right now. Yes, it is certainly having its effect on, you know, everything from commercial real estate, you know, to anything that's highly levered. But at the end of the day, we're not in a position as an economy, I don't think, that we need to cut rates. And, you know, better to kind of save it for the rainy day than to go ahead and blow it now just because everybody else is doing it. And Robbie, I wanted to ask you a question, kind of completely off topic, and that's on

retail entering the market. I was having a discussion with some investors yesterday, and we're looking at various metrics. Across the board, it seems that retail did not join the mini bull market we saw yesterday. We're looking at various metrics. Across the board, it seems that retail did not join the mini bull market we saw a couple of months ago. It seems to be lagging. I think Rand, I was talking to Scott or Rand a few days ago

talking about YouTube subscribers. By the way, you might want to co-host Scott Nassir Romi just because Rand dropped off. What about YouTube subscribers? Not subscribers, YouTube views on YouTube youtube channels which i think is more yeah more retail oriented than in my opinion than twitter twitter is more kind of uh you know crypto dj's use twitter and retail uses youtube in my opinion retail and crypto dj's use youtube um and that was just another metric that shows retail not joined the cycle uh what do you think it would take for retail to enter

this cycle robbie is it just new all-time highs because we're hitting new all-time highs we didn't shows retail not joined the cycle. What do you think it would take for retail to enter the cycle, Robbie? Is it just new all-time highs? Because we're hitting new all-time highs and we didn't see that excitement from retail. Sure. I think it's a couple of things. I think we need to think about geographies. So retail is going to continue to join in a bunch of different geographies, but I think retail joining is suppressed in the US, thanks to all the regulatory concerns that pervade the industry just generally. And I also think it's going to be driven by entertainment. Obviously, that's a little self- NBA top shot effect, where it's a top of funnel to bring people into the space. And then they can decide, you know, do they want to stay for the DeFi and the other more D-gen things? Or are they just there to buy trading cards and collectibles and in-game assets? But I think most importantly, even if they only come into the top of the funnel, you're opening wallets, whether, you know account extra abstracted ones or not but you're

getting them into the space to begin with uh just a heads up by the way something i should have mentioned that a lot of people are asking about so there is the slovakian president did get shot sorry prime minister did get shot uh he's in a critical condition um we're not doing his space i don't we'll do one later tonight because there isn't too many updates so just a a quick point on that front um robbie just on the uh you're kind of mentioning top shot and uh first time i hear someone mentioned top shot in a really really long time pretty curious what's happening on that in that front um but also what what do you think will be will be a kind of leading um retail entry in this market will it just will it be gaming which is what me and you probably wish for or because it could be something completely uh completely new that none of us have

thought of yet sure i think it's um i think it's actually a little bit more nuanced because i think you have different uh sort of category product tiers so you have very basic small functionality which is things like collectibles or on the DGN side, meme coins, because actually meme coins are another way to get retail involved in the space because there's not really like, you don't have to do research or anything. A meme is a meme. And you're monetizing attention in that case. And then you have more sophisticated, like trading card games to action games and strategy games, et etc. down the food chain. So I think there's a variety of different products. And the main reason that I think

we've seen a lag in that kind of adoption over the last two years is frankly, just because it takes a while to make good games. And so we're now starting to see some of the fruits of the investments that went into new game companies or into game companies to build Web3 products in 2021 and 2022 starting to come out now because they've been in development for a couple of years. So I want to ask you that same question. I'm not sure if your mic is still on the move

or your mic is working, but what do you think will lead to retail entering this market? What would it take? Crypto specifically? Crypto specifically, yeah. would lead to retail entering this market what would it take crypto specifically i mean i i think i think it'll be likely the same cycle that we've seen in the past i mean it's hard to predict but people love to think that it was bitcoin that brought people into the market last cycle but it was two things nfts and doge right so So obviously, NBA Top Shot was absolutely massive. I think

retail understood the idea of digital trading cards, digital scarcity, because it was so familiar from their days of trading, you know, physical objects. And I think that really appealed. And Doge, you know, you had Elon Musk behind it, obviously, and that sent people onto centralized exchanges, created a new meme coin craze. So it's funny. I mean, I've been saying this for two months now. Everybody, I think there was an expectation that Bitcoin would hit an all time high. And then all of a sudden retail would flow in because it would make mainstream news. I don't think the majority of people from last cycle who got burnt outside of like the CFI collapses and such, but who feel like crypto was a scam or it went wrong.

I don't think most of them were in Bitcoin and got excited again when it rose. I think most of them are still in NFTs and Doge or maybe some Shiba Inu and some trickle down. So for me, my expectation now is if we see those kind of assets really start to move up, the people from the last cycle who thought they were dead will notice in their portfolios, like if Doge makes a new all-time high, I would imagine we see this market completely fly. I'm not endorsing that that should be the case. I just think that that rationally might be the case.

So you think if Bitcoin reaches all-time highs, you don't think that could lead to an influx of retail? It did. It did. It did, yeah, but barely. It made new all-time highs. It barely lasted there for about a week or so. Yeah, it made new all-time. If the people were going to rush in, like I still don't even have people calling me about Bitcoin,

which I find very weird. Okay, does that concern you? I just don't think that's a... No, it doesn't concern me at all. I think we're at the right point in the cycle and even preempted it. But YouTube viewers did pick up because you guys were talking about how it dropped

by whatever, 50% or whatever it was, 56 was 56 oh it's dropped massively yeah but for it to drop that means it must have picked up heavily what do you think that that does that mean retail was in for sure i'm saying we were talking about that just this week and last week it's way down i mean from when from when we were up we were had this sort of like peak etf euphoria i think was driving a lot of numbers but that you got to remember these, I don't think they're new people. I think it's the same people and, you know, their bags pumped and they got excited. And now like, honestly, like, why would you, if you have accepted mentally that right now we're in a choppy situation, which listen, many people don't accept that.

But if you're one of the, you know, 20, 30% of people who are like, it's choppy, I'm going to go touch some grass. I'm not interested right now to pick up later why would you consume daily youtube comp uh content trying to deliver alpha that you know isn't real alpha on a day-to-day basis yeah fair point just got better things to do you know what i mean it's nothing wrong with that it's just part of a choppy part of the cycle cool uh fred any any final comments he's caught no sure if there's anything else we missed for today i think we've covered most of the news there's not much more happening yeah i think we're good the only thing i would add is that

i uh i have also stopped watching a lot of youtube daily content although i did merge over to scott's show so that's one of the only things I watch every morning. What percentage of your show, Scott, is macro versus crypto? I think it's primarily, you know, listen, even on Macro Monday with Dave and Mike, we're both here, you know, it's at least 25% how Bitcoin falls into the macro side. And we do a lot of macro, but it's always in relation 25% how Bitcoin falls into the macro side. And we do a lot of macro, but it's always in relation

to what's likely to mean for crypto. So I would say still very heavily crypto content. Yeah, I'm just having a look. I did a space, a show today on GameStop and meme coins and Bitcoin skyrocket next. Do you think... Yeah, I had Jamie from WallStreetBets. It wasn't even numbers.

You did touch... Oh, yeah it's actually numbers are not high um but do you think that the the gamestop mania uh the pump will lead to a pump in meme coins already seeing that maybe i think it led to a pump for crypto degenerates who are already here buying gamestop themed meme coins but i don't think there's any new money in the market as a result no guys i just want to add uh i got into roaring kitty on solana and made paper gains and lost it all and then when it went to roaring kitty on base i made some paper gains and then the whole project got rugged so there's your sign it did if you if you that see and but as funny like or ironic or sad or whatever it is that's you know people have been saying this barbell strategy has worked exceptionally well in crypto this year if

you're holding memes or if you're and holding bitcoin and everything in the middle not so much right but the reality is that is that the meme side most people even if they see something go up massively and ride it they're not actually making money so like i don't think a lot of people are massively profiting from memes i think you have to be very good at playing that game and knowing the rotation so just having bought some meme coins and like watch them go up and down i don't think uh there's meaningful money being made by most participants there. Cool.

On that point, I think we've covered everything and we'll see everyone tomorrow. Same time. I don't think anyone else has anything else to add. So yeah, we'll wrap it up, Scott. All right,

man. See you tomorrow. See everyone. Thanks. Thanks everyone. Thank you everybody.