The Wolf Of All Streets - Bitcoin Stalls At 90k Prior To Clarity Act Decision What Comes Next

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Bitcoin’s price action has been rough—hesitating and chopping as markets wait for Jan. 15 clarity out of Washington on the next big crypto market-structure push. Today we’ll dig into what that policy overhang could mean for the tape, how institutional flows are shaping the backdrop, and why moves affecting crypto-treasury proxies like Strategy/MicroStrategy matter right now—plus we’re joined by Allan Marshall from Upexi to break it all down.

Bitcoin is stalled at $90,000 while the market awaits more, no pun intended. Clarity on the Clarity Act, which is coming next week. Many people viewing the likely markup and vote on the Clarity Act as the next catalyst for the crypto, all coin, and even Bitcoin markets. Of course, we have a lot more to talk about. It is the Friday 5 when we review the biggest stories of the week. And I have a special guest with me here today, the CEO of Upexie, Alan Marshall. Let's get into it.

Good morning, everybody. And happy Friday 5 to all who's. celebrate. Now, we've got some housekeeping today. You've seen NLW on this show with me for years. He had the breakdown podcast, arguably the biggest daily podcast in crypto. He messaged me yesterday and said, I can't pretend anymore. I don't care about crypto. I'm done with the breakdown and focusing just on AI. It's been really fun, man. So yeah, I don't know if that's a bottom signal. I love the guy. But, you know, we really have people capitulating entirely out of crypto right now. It's a little scary when people see it, but I think for like the, you know,

crypto investors, this is a normal move, but for, especially for the equity investors, it's a big swing. So, uh, we're definitely not all out on crypto. We're all in. We think it's a beginning. Certainly not the end. Uh, certainly not the end for, for Salon and Dats and just a beginning for Pepsi. Yeah, I, I agree. So you're not the only person who thinks that. We had this story this week. It's kind of one of the lead stories, the comments from John Agostino here from Coinbase basically saying that I don't know of a single large company that doesn't have a crypto strategy. So I don't think this video is necessarily worth playing, but he's saying they're talking to Sorkin, and he basically says Bitcoin's down a couple percent.

There's not an institution on the planet that's delaying their strategy right now because of this bare market that everybody seems to be talking about. In fact, they see it as a rush to get there before the next bull market sort of start. So his point being that institutions right now, are all in and you can't risk not having a strategy. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we've seen it with, you know, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, like, crypto last year was all garbage. They don't want to touch it.

Nobody wants to own it. And now everybody wants their own ETF. And Jamie Diamond can't wait to have crypto. He can't wait to lend you money to buy crypto. So, like, it's a pretty, it's interesting what Wall Street does, you know, especially these big banks, whatever is beneficial to them at the time. Half the time, I think it's manipulation, giving them a chance to get back. in, get in at a lower price. In fact, I think half of what went on at the end of the year is just,

you know, one tax selling, but one is like push the market down, try to force, you know, the weekends out and buy it up. Yeah, you mentioned Jamie Diamond. We've got a great video from him. You know, you expect when you put Jamie Diamond's face on the screen that he's going to be talking about how this is rat poison and he doesn't want to talk about Bitcoin anymore. And if anybody at JP Morgan touches it, they're going to get fired, but this is what he's saying. It's been around for quite a while. But now it's becoming more effective, more. efficient because people are finding ways to do it faster and cheaper permission or not permission smart contracts i think will probably be real probably the real now

actually they actually operate every all day to define real but like i mean this is a bit as big of a wholesale kind of reversal as you get now given he's not sitting here talking about bitcoin as digital gold or any of the narratives that we love and he's kind of doing the blockchain not Bitcoin thing. But this is probably the most outspoken skeptic that we had. I mean, does this sort of echo what the Agostino there at Coinbase is saying that, I mean, you get on board. This is real and you have to have a strategy and a plan. And to be fair, J.P. Morgan's really been in crypto for 10 years. Yeah. So I think if you put the bubble, what he's really saying above his head is like, everything's going to get a little cheaper. We can't continue to charge a lot of fees. But what we

will do is figure out how to use the technology that we've poopoo. for all these years to make sure we still make fees. And end of story. That's it. Like we're going to still control your money. We're still going to make fees off of it. And we're going to try to push anyone else out that is trying to, you know, eat our pie. Yeah, I think so too.

The guy may hate Bitcoin, but he loves money. That's their job, right? Their job is a bank to make all the fees they can make. So they realize it's moving away from them as everything's coming on chain. And they're either going to be disintermediated or they're going to control it. and they have the money to control it, so they're going to get involved. Doesn't sound like why I got into Bitcoin. You know, it doesn't sound why anybody getting into Bitcoin, right?

I guess if you got into it just to make money, it makes a lot of sense. But one of the other bigger narratives, I mean, moving on from that, has obviously been the tokenization of everything, right? And I had the CEO of Canton Network on yesterday, and they had the huge announcement with DTCCC. DTC is going to be tokenizing everything, securities, everything's moving to blockchain rails. Well, we had this video that kind of aligns with it, which we can watch right now really quickly from Swift. And definitely the tokenization,

I know you have some hot takes on this, but let's just show the video really quick. Clients are increasingly looking at a world, but they want not only to see data, but also assets and therefore value move instantly. And that's currently not the case. And in emerging markets in fast-growing markets that demand for always on is accelerating and they're looking at reliable services and tokenization is actually bringing a reliable service actually brings and brings innovation to the market that we can then bring to our clients in my mind the landscape of finance or digital finance is at a tipping point so tokenization and digital assets are about to move from into Main Street.

Okay, so that's from Swift, right? It's a guy from Standard Charter, but isn't this like Blockbuster sitting down at a conference talking about Netflix? I mean, this is Swift. They're going to completely get disintermediated, right? I guess they don't want to become the blockbuster of video, but aren't there crypto companies and such

who are going to do this better, or are we just going to be taken over by the incumbents once again, here? I think it's going to be a rush for market share as people figure this out. You know, tokenization, the way we look at it from Upexie's point of view is anything that's using Solonor or, you know, crypto or these smart contracts to increase, you know, both speed, availability, processing, becoming more mainstream is good for, you know, the underlying asset to start with. the tokenization of it itself, it's not that complicated. I'm not sure how much value is going to be created. I'm in my opinion, is tokenization will be commoditized,

and everyone's going to figure it out. Like I spoke to NASDAQ when we were there ringing the bell on Monday. They have a strategy where you're going to be able to tokenize and trade there or you're going to be able to trade standards. So, like, I'm not so sure like I've seen these stories on tokenization, these companies with billion dollar valuations. Let's see. In the end, I think that that part of it's going to be commoditized by the big players.

You're being nice. So I like, because I've been talking about this a lot. My thought is that this is yet another example of where we can kind of be co-opted. I don't want to say, I don't know. But the biggest institutions are going to use the rails to tokenize everything on some private blockchain or some behind some walled garden. And none of us are going to benefit from the biggest innovation and move in crypto. Like if they took it, if Swift tokenizes, it's not going to benefit me by buying salons. Maybe.

I don't think so, though. I'm going to disagree with you on that one. I think that there's no reason for them to create their own blockchain, the Dats, the thing. So I do still believe that, you know, Solana will be the number one. I think Ethereum has a great place there. I do think that increases the overall value of the token because of the amount, you know, of processing that's needed. But what I don't believe is the actual, you know, tokenization of something has a lot of value

because the technology is not that difficult. It's from my understanding so far. And I'm not an expert on that. But where I think it really benefits as a crypto person, you, me that involved in crypto, I think the overall adoption of those technologies, I don't see any reason for JPMorgan to go create their own blockchain to do it on. It's just not worth it for them.

Right. I mean, we've seen a few payment companies. I mean, Circles launching their own blockchain and Stripe, But to your point, DTCC, he was talking about tokenizing or quadrillions in volume. They're doing it on Canton Network, which is a crypto-native company with sub-privacy. So I guess now it just becomes a battle between the chains. Once again, like, who's going to be the one that is the chosen one? Solana is the fastest and cheapest.

I know you believe that. I do believe that. It's going to be up to, you know, the Solana Foundation to push their, you know, thesis there, to, you know, be involved in that. We saw Western Digital, you know, go with them. I think, I think Amex did on their international. Yeah, Western Union. Western Union.

Yeah, that was a Western Union. Yeah, it's right. Western Union. And I think even Visa for overseas stuff. So I think there's a lot of volume and share to go around. It's going to be who, you know, who does it better and who does it faster. And then who can, you know, perform the best. So the biggest piece of FUD that we had this week was MSCI, potentially delisting

micro strategy. A lot of people think that would have created massive selling pressure on strategy stock if obviously it was removed from the index and that could have been selling pressure on Bitcoin and could lead to a questionable future for digital asset treasury companies in general. Well, the news here, MSCI has decided not to exclude strategy and other Bitcoin treasury companies from its global indexes. MSCI's move on micro strategy is rattling Bitcoin markets. So we have this interesting nuance.

I don't think we need to dive directly. into it. It's kind of a for now, right? A lot of people thought it was going to, they were going to be removed, and then it was announced they were not, but that's not definitive into the future. And there may be some ground rules. I don't think that's so interesting. I guess since you literally were second or third after strategy in general to launch a digital asset treasury company, certainly the first in Solana ahead of Nakamoto and 21 and all these big ones, what concerns do you have, if any, about this kind of thing. Like, do you, you've been operating for a very long time?

Do you worry that they can just turn the switch off on you, that NASDAQ, you can get delisted, or that the SEC could change the rules, or that we can have a regime change? I mean, do you feel that your position is solidified? I think so now, which is one of the reasons we launched it when we did. The new administration seems pretty, you know, ingrained in pushing crypto to be, you know, more U.S.-centric,

U.S. base, right? We were falling behind the rest of the world. I'm pretty comfortable with our position on NASDAG, have plenty of conversations, and all the indexes and somehow MSCI and all the rest of them, they make a lot of money. So at the end, I think they said that they're going to allow all of the current stock

that's on there to remain in their indexes, but weren't going to index the rest of it. So somehow they don't want to give up today's fees, but they maybe don't want all of tomorrow's fees. You know, each of these industries, you know, NASDAG, New York Stock Exchange, S&P, they're all businesses. They're all paid by the trading and the volume.

The SEC's on board with getting all of this moving forward and all this legislation moving forward. I think all of that is going to be positive for us going forward. But what they do here is internally, I'm not sure. It's probably just a mathematical equation for how they benefit the best. Yeah, it seems like eliminating strategy would just be shooting yourself at the foot as far as fees because it's such a high volume stock. Yeah, and I just, it's still a really solid asset. It's been a great, you know, inventor in the industry. It's been a great performer for the S&P.

So I don't understand the overall thinking and that negative thinking still. Like that's carried forward on some of, you know, I think the boardrooms, like the Jamie Diamond versions of the world or, you know, I mean, the same same reason, you know, Berkshire Hathaway never bought Google or bought Apple. they come up with these things that somehow, you know, and they still have all done great, but they would have done a lot better, right? So I'm hoping that, you know, as clarity comes here, you know, in both, you know, the Genius Act and the Clarity Act, it'll allow those boardrooms to feel more comfortable, like accepting this as just a general asset. Yeah, I agree with all of that.

So let me ask you since have you, and we're talking about digital asset treasuries. Why haven't we seen any new ones? Is it just that sort of the bubble pop, the money isn't there, the interest isn't there? or is there actually some regulatory concern for new companies that haven't launched yet? I remember midsummer, there was some rumors that NASDAQ was kind of rethinking the way that they were, you know, considering the approvals or new companies launching. We saw some sort of failed to launch, I think, but I don't know if that was internal workings and, you know, failure to raise money or if that was actually a regulatory issue.

Or do you think it's just kind of like it was an invoked trend? It saw its sort of bubble pop and now we'll see the, good ones rise. I think two or three things there. My thoughts on that was a lot of these companies that came. So we were already a NASDAQ company. We launched a strategy. We raised money internally. A lot of the ones that came after us kind of, I would call it, kind of circumvented the rules, not in a not in an illegal, he's legal. They did it acquired, quasi acquired, you know, a shell or didn't acquire the company, kept management on place. Did the, the barren, you know, the bones, necessity of what did they needed to do to take control to, to build.

the treasury. I think Nasdaq was definitely looking at that and they were very uncomfortable with where that was going. New York Stock Exchange was extremely uncomfortable with that. And the SEC, right? I remember that the SEC, I mean, has pretty defined rules about how a company is registered and what they do with their operations. So just wholesale taking over an operating company and turning it into something else. You can't just do that. Yeah, you can. And I think we saw, I mean, I'm not going to list the, I'm not going to list the symbols, but if they want them, I'm happy to send them to them. Like we saw, we saw it internally. I've been on Wall Street for a long time.

We saw that one is certainly very questionable. And I think that, you know, so that just put the brakes on that. I think the banks got uncomfortable, you know, making a lot of fees on this, you know. And then overall, I think, you know, when we launched, we thought we'd have some competition over the next couple months because people will figure out that was a really good idea. They understand the strategy. We never imagined 200 would come and billions of dollars would be raised like so, so quickly. I didn't even imagine you could find a, you know, a company that would, you know, a shell,

that and get it done that quickly, but never surprises me how people and banks can figure out how to make money. So I think indigestion just set in for the investors. The other thing I think is the investors were, you know, they invested in us and, you know, at 1.05 or 1.1. And then I went to two and they were trying to jump out of the two, you know, the two multiple back into a one multiple thinking of work. It never worked again because Wall Street's pretty smart. Like these institutions, you know, know how to figure that out. And as soon as they spend, you know, start seeing you do that, they just go ahead and play the opposite side of that transaction, which has kind of happened. Like if, you know, I think when we launched 228, we're the only one

post unlock in Solana that traded above after your shares were unlocked and registered, that still traded above now for a significant amount of time. And the rest of them have just gone straight down. And so I like, I literally had this discussion with some of our investors when they were talking about launching their own. I'm like, you don't, there's no way that you can do it. It didn't, and get out before Wall Street figures this out. In fact, I'm pretty sure they've already figured it out. I do however think that this last, you know, a few months of crypto going down and the overall market is just it's just indigestion.

It's going to work itself out. And like you said, I think once it works itself out, the ones that have the highest premium like us that have the cleanest cap structure are going to be the ones that perform, you know, well as everything turns around in 2020s. Healthy reset. I think so. I think so. I think so, too.

I think so, too. I think so too. Because when you take a look under the hood, I mean, we've got crazy tailwinds, right? And this goes back to once again the first conversation we had about institutions, effectively being all in and having a plan. But, you know, these are the biggest institutions. We start seeing Morgan Stanley. And the news this week was that they're launching a Bitcoin trust and came out there launching a Solana trust. And third, a day later, it said Ethereum trust. So this is very different than them saying we're going to allow people to trade ibbit. Right. Or, or. to buy treasury companies. This is saying, oh, this is big enough that we're launching our own products. We're going to do it with those ourselves. And then the news came later in the week that they were going to launch a wholesale digital wallet. And so like everything, and this goes back to the tokenization conversation as well,

because it's not just going to be a digital wallet for your crypto assets. In theory, this will be a digital wallet that also allows tokenized stocks and securities and everything else. So, I mean, how big is this to you? To me, this is, it's more of the same, but it's huge because it's more and it's so many announcements in one week showing that they're fully committed. Well, think about Vanguard coming into the industry, 50 million individual accounts, but that's not in the market today.

That's not, it's not priced into crypto, it's not priced into the market. Morgan Stanley coming in is just another, you know, kind of, I guess, giant catalyst going forward. I still think all of these are being launched, and this is the safest way for them to still, you know, participate, right? launching an ETF that have already cleared so they're not taking any risk yet they're not taking any regulatory risk they're not getting a fine five billion dollars you know because because somebody needs money next week the cc or somebody but as soon as these other you know genius clarity come in they're going to come in in another fashion like we know coinbase controls all of the trading now let's see for how long right because now the spread are still big there the the the fees are still massive

like it's not as liquid as it as it could be overall the crypto market's not as liquid as it could be. So all of these things are going to bring more and more liquidity. And then as, you know, hopefully this year, once both of these passed, imagine when Morgan Stanley comes to all their private clients, say, you can, by the way, you can also, you know, buy the actual digital asset and you can hold 5%. Right. You know, not just the ATF. Not just the ETF. Because no matter what anyone says here today, I'll tell you, we can do this meeting sometime next year, a digital asset treasury company in Solana, Specifically, you know, UPEC will outperform the index this year,

guaranteed 100%. Unless Salon goes to like 30 bucks. But I don't think that's our basis. Well, then every, then every way. Then we all don't have to worry about, we'll talk about something else next year. We're going to also pivot day I, like my former co-host. You mentioned obviously the Clarity Bill, the Clarity Act year. Big news on this this week.

Although, listen, I'm old enough to remember when this had to be done in July, when this had to be done in August, what this had to be done in October. So I take it with a grain of salt when we get news from, you know, the legislators who are notoriously slow saying this will be done. But January 15th, effectively, they're giving us a date for Markup, which should lead to a vote. And it's going to take a bit of time to consolidate the House plans and the Senate plans. But from the zoomed out view, Clarity Act is very much on the books right now.

How important is it for you that this gets done in your mind? And how close do you think we are? So I'm hearing it's pretty close and I think that everybody wants it done. So, you know, the market will anticipate all of this coming, you know, they'll pull it forward. They won't wait for the final, you know, markup. We'll know sometime this month how likely and how beneficial. I think all of crypto needs it to come out of the shadows a little bit and to be more mainstream. Again, not what Bitcoin ever anticipated becoming more, you know, commercialized.

You know, Bitcoin was always the opposite of all that. But you can't call yourself the digital gold. not be treated like, you know, be out in the forefront. So I think it's a great thing. I think it's, it's a huge catalyst that's not priced into any of the top. Like I, I particularly don't look below, you know, like ripple, like anything below that. I, uh, I don't want to own it. I'm not interested in it. That's my personal opinion for personal investing. You know, you pexy were 100% salana and that's where we're going to stay. But it, this is, this is big. Yeah, I think it's big too. wonder how much the expectation that it's going to happen is priced in when it actually happens.

But I think that this is one of those things that you look back three to six months after it happened and be like, that was a huge catalyst. I don't think the day it passes that all of a sudden we spark a 10x in every asset full run in the first two weeks. No, the market will start anticipating this as they see this next week. And then they'll start to understand the likelihood. They'll start to understand the markup. So it will slowly build these in over time. it may be like almost like, you know, obviously everyone front runs everything, you know, the anticipation may be, you know, the actual event may be a little decline, but that's still only the beginning because the overall adoption and the never, not only the adoption, but the, you know,

the distribution, the volumes that come with all of that for becoming a more mainstream asset, they're not priced in anywhere today. So we've covered all the crypto-specific news, but it's hard to have a crypto conversation anymore without talking about a little bit of politics on top of obviously, act. I just want to show you. We're going to go grab Greenland. President Trump considers paying Greenlanders up to $100,000 per person to leave Denmark and join the U.S. So I guess that's better than invading and taking it. And then we have the news here that we might just go do some things in Mexico. United States will conduct land strikes

against cartels in Mexico. And then, I mean, we don't even have it as a story today, but I think the Supreme Court is ruling on one of the tariffs. or even legal. So I think we got a lot going on here that could cause some volatility in markets, I guess. I'm sure. Like, obviously, you know, going to Venezuela, I woke up in the morning and found out we were in Venezuela, you know, no opinion on that other than like America has spent a lot of time not taking care of America. So always happy for, you know, Americans when we take care of, you know, the people who are here as far as drugs into the United States, you know, come on. I mean, I don't understand how the cartels have gotten away with it for as long as they have gotten

into it. I'm not sure who's getting the money or where it's all going, but I don't have a strong opinion other than like American-centric. I love this country. The opportunities here are amazing. Whatever is good for America I'm on board with. I guess it just speaks to if any of this could rattle markets in some way, shape, or form. If there's a line that could be crossed where it actually starts to have an impact. I mean, if the Supreme Court rules against the tariffs is going to get really interesting for 24 hours before we forget about it. Yeah, that's how long anything lasts, but it could be interesting for markets for a tenure, too. Well, think about the first opportunity with tariffs, right?

So we announced whatever judgment day or whatever the day was that day, like anything you bought for the next 30 days, you've made a, you know, 100% on your money, 50% on your money. I remember when it happened. So all of these things, I look through that stuff in general, like for both on my personal opinion and our business opinion. So I think anything that comes out of that would just be an opportunity for those who don't get tied up in the politics and get tied up in the opportunities that are presented each of them, right? Yeah, absolutely. There was one other story that I forgot that ties right back to the Morgan Stanley one. But Bank of America this week quietly told their advisors they're allowed to recommend up to 4% in crypto.

I don't have the story here. Of course, the crypto media reported it as Bank of America says everybody should have 4% in crypto. It's not what it said at all. They literally gave permission for any given advisor. But still, I mean, these are like the most conservative organizations on the planet. So it's pretty meaningful. Once again, it's plumbing to me. Like, you can do it now.

Let's see if they do. And it's trillions and trillions of dollars of actual inflows, right? Like when you think of the 30, 40, 50 trillion dollars that it's out there, that 4% is a lot. Again, none of these banks are going to be left behind. They're going to make their fees, right? They're going to, like you said, Bank, Bank of America does not want. want to give investment advice. So their advisors don't give investment advice. They just advise you without giving you investment advice in my opinion. And collect money. And collect money and collect fees.

Like we're on the Morgan Stanley story. So it's, it's interesting. I've been a client of Morgan Stanley for a long time. They wouldn't hold the Upexie stop because it was a salon of treasury. But now that they launch seats, they're happy to have the stock back. So it's, it's, you can't make. But the good thing about these institutions is, well, the good things for us. How long have you been with Morgan Stanley? I don't know, a long time. And you're the CEO of the company and they won't let you hold your own stock in your account until they participate in Salada, which case. Now it's okay.

It's all good. But when they come, they don't care. They're not price sensitive, right? So not only are they going to put it in the client's accounts, right? Sooner or later, they're going to hold it internally, right, for whatever. Indexed or yeah, yeah. They're going to own some of it on there. I mean, they all own some Bitcoin.

They all own some of it. They don't, they don't publicize it. So that just that, and they don't, they're not price sensitive because they're thinking out five years or 10 years. So like these are all big events for crypto and for all of the companies in the space who, you know, are executing on a high level. You and I've talked about this privately, so I know the answer, but are you optimistic about prices in 2026 or are you of the, this is a bear market and doom and gloom camp when you're looking ahead? I mean, internally, our price target on, you know, is 350s baseline up to 600, 2006 into 27. So we're pretty bullish.

That's pretty bullish for Salada. I like it. But we weren't there that long ago. I mean, we were in the low 200s, and that's when the other Salada treasury companies were deploying the entire cannon at the dead top. Yeah, I think we got the 250. I think, you know, one of the treasuries

very much pushed it there, buying, you know, $1.5 billion in a weekend. But, you know, getting back at $250, I think, is, you know, not that far away. And, you know, if it breaks out over that, Everything seems to run further. So we think there's a breakout coming, provided all of this legislation takes effect. I think the breakout is pretty easy call.

Yeah, I tend to agree. I'm very bullish for 2026. That's all the stories that we had to cover here. This is actually the first time that we've ever done a live show in person. A lot of live recordings, but this is the first time. You're right down the hall. So I have a feeling we're good to see you in here quite a lot. Well, we're in Tampa.

So two things go lightning. And thanks for having me. You pexy may or may not have their branding around the lightning. We had some fun at some games already this season. All right, everybody, that's all we got. Obviously, I'll be back on Monday for Macro Monday this week with James, Dave, and Mike. And we actually have two bangers dropping this weekend. Tomorrow with Rand Nooner, we, as usual, like once a month, every once every two months.

We kind of just get around and have a friendly chat about where we think the market's at and what's coming. And we're going to share that with you guys tomorrow. and then on Sunday a pretty explosive conversation with Charles Hoskinson that I recorded. He is not holding back when he talks about politics anymore. You guys are definitely not going to want to miss that. That's it for the Friday 5. Thank you to Alan. Thank you to all of you.

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