The Wolf Of All Streets - BTC Lower Despite Sacks Call For Crypto ‘Golden Age’ | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Crypto Town Hall is a daily X Spaces hosted by Scott Melker, Ran Neuner & Mario Nawfal. Every day we discuss the latest news in crypto and bring the biggest names in the space to share their insight. ►►TRADING ALPHA READY TO TRADE LIKE THE PROS? THE BEST TRADERS IN CRYPTO ARE RELYING ON THESE INDICATORS TO MAKE TRADES. USE CODE ‘2MONTHSOFF’ WHEN VISITING MY LINK.  👉 https://tradingalpha.io/?via=scottmelker  ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEK DAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/    ►► OKX Sign up for an OKX Trading Account then deposit & trade to unlock mystery box rewards of up to $10,000!  👉  https://www.okx.com/join/SCOTTMELKER ►►NGRAVE This is the coldest hardware wallet in the world and the only one that I personally use. 👉https://www.ngrave.io/?sca_ref=4531319.pgXuTYJlYd ►►THE DAILY CLOSE BRAND NEW NEWSLETTER! INSTITUTIONAL GRADE INDICATORS AND DATA DELIVERED DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX, EVERY DAY AT THE DAILY CLOSE. TRADE LIKE THE BIG BOYS. 👉 https://www.thedailyclose.io/   ►►NORD VPN  GET EXCLUSIVE NORDVPN DEAL  - 40% DISCOUNT! IT’S RISK-FREE WITH NORD’S 30-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY! 👉 https://nordvpn.com/WolfOfAllStreets    Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottmelker   Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io   Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe   Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c   #Bitcoin #Crypto #Trading The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor.  Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

I'll do a quick poll of the panel and of the entire audience. Who watched the David Sachs press conference on digital assets yesterday? Thumbs up if you watched it, thumbs down if you didn't. For everyone. Trying to get a gauge of the percentage of people that watched this thing or didn't watch this thing, that they watched it. Of course, of course. How can you miss this? I mean, I wish I had. But yeah, I'm just trying to get engaged

and probably people are going to have context of what we're talking about because obviously this was supposed to be the grand announcement for crypto, the big moment when we finally found out America's plan to dominate the digital asset space. That's literally how it was pitched, I think, in press releases. America's plan to dominate digital assets or America's plan to be America first on digital assets or something.

I'll give my opinion. I think that we had four or five men i'll just say that it was it was telling that they only showed uh the camera from their waist up because they were probably circle jerking below the camera and that wouldn't be appropriate for television it was just five guys on stage talking about how great all the other guys on stage were. And they didn't really say anything. That said, if you zoom out, if this had been a press conference announced about corn subsidies, I don't think everyone would have showed up and had high expectations for what the panel is going to say about corn subsidies. We care because it's our thing. And we're in our echo chamber. And every time the government mentions digital assets, we get excited and have these otherworldly expectations of what's going to happen.

And then they show up and they're just politicians doing politician things. And we get very disappointed and the market moves on it. But the very fact that the United States government has a crypto and AI czar and can do a press conference with the senators and congresspeople who are the heads of committees who are talking about actual legislation, you should pinch yourself that that's even happening. So my opinion, as ridiculous and awkward and lame as it was, the very fact that it happened in the context is really, really important. I mean, Fefe, what did you think of it? You obviously watched it. No, you know, honestly, I genuinely think like when I said, how can you miss this? It was a joke. So I think there was very high expectations, honestly, for me as well. Like, you know, this is his first official big press conference and everybody was expecting at least a little more, but we honestly saw these fellows completely lost

up on stage, calling Web3, Internet3, all across the board, not giving any concretes. I think it's important to acknowledge the fact that they actually talked about deadlines, which was very good. So talking about the fact that they have 90 days to put it in front of the president, they have 180 days to implement it and put it in front of the Senate. Sorry, not implemented. I think that was good too, so that we could get some clarity on this. But in general, it was a complete nothing burger. I was expecting much, much, much more. Dave, did you watch it? I watched part of it. I was actually traveling back from Key West, so I didn't get a chance to.

I've seen what happened. I mean, the only thing I can say, Scott, is people who have ever followed politics in their lives, nobody was supported. Nobody was surprised. Exactly. So if you understand how this stuff works, I mean, you're trying to convince people who at best have a passing familiarity with the issues that we all live and breathe to say the words that you want them to say. It isn't going to happen. So there's two points that I wanted to make point number one when it comes to policy it is a hundred percent certain that in the united states there will be a path towards for issuers to issue the issue digital assets by some point this year and there it is a hundred percent certain that if you are a company in the crypto space that's been dodging bullets that's been hiring lawyers at at a 20 30 40 or more percent of your overall budget that's over and it's very very clear that's over i mean when you get those people to all talk about in lockstep the need to

support innovation and the need to protect customers, what is that telling you? That's telling you that you're not going to see a dime spent out of the CFTC or SEC to pursue stupid jurisdictional snipe hunts. And they're going to go after scammers. And that's what they're going to do, which, by the way, we all kind of want them to, because it makes sense. It makes our industry look like shit when do do things that we know would be illegal in any other asset class. So that's thing number one. Thing number two, anybody who believes or believed that the government was going to announce that the United States is going to put Bitcoin is going to go out and buy Bitcoin for itself before doing so is just dumb and I wish I had a nicer word to say about about people because we're talking about a lot

of people in the Bitcoin community but it's stupid nobody tells you what's going to happen so think of it this way Scott there is a massive amount of monetization here, opportunity. If the United States announces and when they announce that Bitcoin is an asset, parry pursue to gold in their opinion, and it's going to get there and they're accumulating it, what happens to the price of Bitcoin? Well, we all know what happens. The price goes up. So therefore, why the hell would they announce it before they had a chance to buy it? I mean, it's just dumb. It's like giving away your advantage to somebody else. Now, Trump is a lot of things, but he's not that dumb. And so that's why I keep saying the same thing. So honestly, I was surprised by nothing. I think that, you know, if you're,

it's not surprising that people today are coming out with these quote long-term, you know, if you're it's not surprising that people today are coming out with these, quote, long term, you know, buy recommendations for Bitcoin, you know, whether it's 500,000 or 700,000 or all the various ones you keep hearing about. They're saying it because that's actually where they're telling their customers to put money. And frankly, every one of them would prefer to stay at these levels right now to be able to allow their customers to accumulate money before it actually starts going higher. So, you know, that to me is the overall impression. And I know it sounds like I'm pontificating and I'm sorry. I mean, I took a few days off and I think it was a good few days to take off. Yeah, you did. Pat, you know, on a complete side note, before we continue talking about this, you know what I think is the single stupidest narrative that I see repeatedly parroted on X is, and I talked about today, BlackRock bought X amount of Bitcoin or Ethereum today as if BlackRock is putting Bitcoin and Ethereum on their balance sheet like Michael Saylor and that's how it's presented every time someone does it and then I have to tweet listen dude this is people buying Bitcoin spot ETFs and ethereum spot ETFs and then BlackRock buying the the underlying asset and sending it to coinbase custody which can come right back out the

minute those people sell their ETF it just makes my brain hurt because people deeply believe for some reason that BlackRock is buying all of this for themselves. How many times have I tried to debunk that narrative? I mean, you've heard me say it. I mean, I've lost track. The only thing I may have said more over our several years of doing stuff together is. There you go. That's the only thing that I've said more.

It's just it's just dumb. I mean, I've had at least half a dozen conversations that I did not initiate with people asking me what's the best way to dip their toe into Bitcoin over the last week. And invariably, is Matt Hogan up here? No, he's not. Invariably, I point them toward Bitwise's ETF. And then I say, but if you know, but I understand that your broker is going to probably push you to BlackRock. And frankly, from your perspective, they're indistinguishable, although I prefer Bitwise. So, you know, that conversation is happening because people kind of they see that they see my Bitcoin ring or they know what I've done. It's accelerating, if anything else. And that's all you really need to know. Yeah. OK, so who else watched the press conference? Bill, did you watch it?

I did. I was also reading Hester Purse's lovely essay. Which by the way, is way more important than... It's super important. Yeah, way more important than the press conference. So that was my next comment. Yeah, they're both important. Maybe I missed the hype-y press releases, but I think I said yesterday in this space that the purpose of this press conference is for the White House to make it clear that they're not trying to interfere with or slow down what Congress has been working on now for a couple of years and that they're trying not to work at cross purposes. It is remarkable that the leadership across the important House and Senate committees are all working hand in glove with the White

House and trying to advance a policy in this space, both legislatively and through regulation. That has never happened before. They were not going to announce any new agendas or policies or initiatives here. They were going to say, we're all working together. And what's clear is that market structure. So the White House, while they have their own executive order and the interagency working group is going to come up with like a to-do list with the input of the ecosystem. They're not going to say, Congress, you need to take a back seat and not push forward the bills and other initiatives that which you've been working on now for a couple congresses so market structure um french hill wants the market structure stuff to be primarily pushed in the

house and the fact that they're going to have a bicameral working group to try to eliminate issues before stuff goes through the standard process, I think is good. It might actually grease the skids and get passable legislation before both houses of Congress more quickly. They're happy with the Senate taking the lead on stablecoin legislation. And Hagerty, Senator Hagerty, put out his just gigabrained named bill the this the genius after stable genius um to get the president's attention he he sat he and he said he was going to put it out but didn't put out the bill until after the press conference just not to step on it it seems the house financial services committee under french hill is happy to let the senate run with stablecoin legislation but if it was going to go in an order they'll both be parallel

tracked but it looks like market structure is on a relative basis the priority um maybe they can be both done at the same time the goal with both is to get 60 votes and in the senate for both so they don't get filibustered um or at least there's not a risk of that. But if we can get meaningful progress in that in the first half of the year, there's no reason to believe that things are going to wait around for this working group the president has convened to do their work. Stuff is going to get done, and so that's good. On the SEC front, we can talk about that. But I think the crypto task force that Hester's put together, Commissioner Peirce has put together, wants to get to work.

And folks that work for her have been putting out teasers into the industry saying, give us your ideas, send in no action letters, give us stuff to work on so we can advance the ball here. Even before chairman Atkins has taken his seat, we want to start, you know, getting out of this dense thicket of incoherence and an antagonism. And we want to start today. So like, it seems like across the board, people want to get stuff done. They're working together. There are complications. How do we figure out what gaps to fill at the agency level when the legislative landscape looks like it could be shifting? So there's a question of where do you focus your effort and what do you prioritize

given that the fundamental map may be changing in terms of what's in the SEC's jurisdiction. But all of this is good. And we're off on a really promising start to a year where we need to get a lot done. And I'll say this, if you don't understand how any of this works and you shouldn't, unless it really,

it's your job to maybe in the interest of mental health, just pay a modicum of attention to it. And don't expect too much out of any one thing because you will be constantly disappointed. This is a, this is a slog. It is one where you will not get everything you want and you will be constantly disappointed. This is a slog. It is one where you will not get everything you want and you will be constantly micro disappointed throughout.

And at the end of the day, the deal you get might not be something you think is great until down the road where you look back upon it, you go like, all all right that was a good trade but fundamentally if you live and die as to like what the daily news is you know it's as good of it's like watching the one minute chart it's not going to be good for your health yeah well yeah it's not a spectator sport it's not the super bowl it's just a bunch of politicians doing a press conference hilarious like i mean it's just yesterday's like you know for anyone to dave's point to dave says you know if you've ever followed politicians for a long time or if you've ever watched these things it was part of the course exactly what you would expect like i was dying when tim scott came up and was supposed to be talking about crypto he's obviously

the chairman uh senate chairman so this was his quote when he was supposed to be talking about i guess crypto i don't know i love the concept that we see today. Synergy with the administration, the House and the Senate, focusing not on ourselves, but focusing on working class Americans who desperately need to reduce their prices and increase their access. That's what the bicameral working group will help tackle. I have a pre-existing working friendship with GT and French and John. And the good news is we come together,

already have improving the ability to work together to get things done for the American people. Like, dude, the word salad of these guys saying absolutely nothing is just astounding. Astounding. But like I said, listen, they came up and they said, we're going to try to get market structure done. We're going to get some stable coin legislation. Bill Hagerty, as you said, proposed the genius bill, another step in the direction of actually getting stable coin legislation. And I won't talk more about the SEC because that's where the things that we should be paying bigger attention to are happening. They're just not as big for PR. But I mean, you take a look at this. You've got Hester Percy wrote this thing, basically 10 specific priorities for the SEC with the industry, huge. And then you see what's actually happening. SAB 121, obviously, was reversed, removing 50 people from the crypto

side of the SEC, whose entire job was to just harass the industry. I mean, the SEC is doing exactly what we would have hoped in the best way possible for for crypto right now douglas i see you're giving the like the thumbs up and clapping you clearly agree well i i think that there's a couple of things first if you were expecting rocket ships at yesterday's uh meeting then you're high um this is essentially you know crypto hype meets government reality but the Trump administration, I think, has two strategies. One is break things and then fix them if they don't believe there's going to be bipartisan support. But if they believe there's bipartisan support, then it's less about the executive order and more about legislation. I think what yesterday showed is

that there's probably bipartisan support for all the things we're looking for in crypto, but it's going to take some time in order to make that. Because remember, an executive order can be reversed by the next president, but legislation, it's a harder thing to get out. And so I think that I was comfortable with it. I think obviously the market was less excited. But I think that if we really want to get an idea of when there's going to be action in Bitcoin, then just watch Nancy Pelosi when she buys calls in iBit or in MSTR. And that's probably the best way we can figure out if something's going to actually happen. Simon, did you watch it?

I didn't actually watch it. I just managed to pick up some of the highlights. There were no highlights on it. Yeah, exactly. But look, I mean, I've been around crypto regulations, lobbying governments for 25 years on the monetary reform side and then 14 years on the Bitcoin and crypto side. You know, these things do not move fast at all. I've grown a lot of patience. But here's what I can tell you. This is probably the fastest moving thing i have ever seen since going to el salvador um so if you are thinking that this is like slow boring there's not enough announcements um this is i i do not believe a government could operate and move any faster than what what i've what we're actually witnessing right now is the sea change.

And I think it's just a kind of testament to the brain damage, the social media and the fast news cycle and the ADHD that we all are kind of been indoctrinated into as a result of technology right now. If you think that, you know, that they were going to suddenly announce a Bitcoin, you know, a Bitcoin strategic reserve. I mean, the fact that this is even being discussed is an absolute, I mean, just take a step back, have some humbleness, and just try and appreciate where our industry is relative to where it was. a geopolitically strategic strategy, or at least a financial market, capital market strategy around our industry is like a gift.

And we don't even need to opt into any of that because Bitcoin's going to survive anyway. Bitcoin doesn't need America. America needs Bitcoin. And that's the same for every single country around the world.

And so if you want to participate in the process, participate in the process. But if you're sitting here waiting for the price of Bitcoin to go up based upon the announcement of a government, and then you're going to be quickly trading it in and out of dollars, you may have missed the point of what we're actually creating here and maybe take a step back. That's what I would say. Yeah, I just really wanted to emphasize what Simon said about taking this slow uptrend, slow quote-unquote, as he said, this is not slow at all, but take it as a gift. And this is something that we were talking about yesterday during the Mario Roundtable.

And I was saying, listen, guys, the sharper the angle and increase, the sharper the upside, the faster and sharper the downside, the more people will get wrecked. And that's just how every single cycle goes. When we see the euphoria stages, people get hurt because not only you lose all your money literally over the course of a few weeks, but it goes so fast and there's so many emotions that people even buy the dip, they catch the falling knife and all these really bad habits where people lose a lot of money. So this slower uptick, which is more sustainable and therefore longer, and therefore will have a lower drawback

eventually is extremely important. And I think I honestly, and I've already put this on my socials, I don't think we're going to see an all time high until probably end of year and possibly even Q1, Q2, 2026. Because as you guys all know, and even though Trump really wanted the Fed to cut its interest rates and go below the level of 4.25%, 4.5% range, he realizes that he still has a behemoth of an enemy in front of him, which is inflation. And inflation will not go down overnight. He has to drill, baby, drill, as he says. He has to bring energy costs way, way lower. He has to cut costs with Doge, which he's doing extremely, extremely well. He's literally, you know, forecasting to cut $1

billion in a single day. And only then, only then, once you cut all the fat of someone who's obese and overweight, then you start muscling, you start putting on muscle mass and going to the gym. So once again, you know, I think for everyone out there, as you, we're all ADHD, I think in some way, because we're crazy enough and we just are passionate enough to be in this space. But, you know, I think it's really important to see this as a great chance and really as the best possible outcome. I like slowly, but surely, rather than fall fall but crazy. Yeah, just to add to that, everyone, again, I can't give you financial advice,

but anybody that is on this space, which is a tiny, tiny, minuscule percentage of the world population, you have one job. That one job is in this moment that we exist today, you need to get as much Bitcoin as you can possibly own before it will be very, very hard to own it. And it won't be very hard to own it because there'll always be a seller, there'll always be someone trying to pass on. But what I'm trying to say is your your job in this moment is the fact that you are on this space and billions of people around the world are not they're trying to figure out what to do

your job is you want that price to be as low as possible for as long as possible so that you can actually build you know actually accumulate a position position that looks out for you and your family and your future generations, rather than wanting it to go up right now, so you can have a little bit of short-term gratification. That's what Bitcoin does. It shifts your time preference. And if your time preference is right, you want these prices as low as possible

for as long as possible so that you can get your position for the future jeff i i'm not as philosophically inclined as simon is on this subject but effectively say the same thing i i basically want people to understand a couple of things first markets always try to discount the future and markets discounting mechanism goes in cycles meaning it gets longer or shorter depending on you know one of my favorite scenes in in my favorite movie the princess bride you know surely you can't choose the glass in front of me. So what you have is a lot of people in financial markets who are looking at Bitcoin for the first time. And every time someone looks at Bitcoin for the first time, it is exceedingly rare that they say, I don't think I should do something or this seems stupid or etc. Now, of course, we have the Peter shifts to the world who whether

he believes it or not, I don't know, but the public persona is nothing virtual can have value. But apart from those anybody who understands anything about the theory of money, you know, whether you you know, you can convince someone to read the Bitcoin standard or you know, watch even a PowerPoint presentation from Michael Saylor, they're going to get there. The fact is what we have are two forces simultaneously. We have the force of all of that happening, and it's a big-ass snowball rolling down a hill now.

It's no longer going up the hill. It's going down the hill, but it's just starting. And you have all the people in the crypto world who are ADD looking for the next 10x, 100x, 1000x, or 10,000x going in and out in front of them. And so that creates this crazy dynamic so that people are doing a good feel or a lot of people and I kind of agree with Simon on the sense. It's like, look, if you're the US government, and you want to get to 5% of Bitcoin, do you would you rather while you're accumulating it to be 100,000 or be a million? And all the answers obvious, right? You know, they would rather be

able to accumulate at these levels. Now, I'm not saying they want to necessarily do that. But people who do, that's what they care about. The fact that people in the crypto world are constantly ignoring one of our favorite stats, Scott, which is 10 days out of a bull market is the almost entirety of the bull run. So you may have a 150, 220 day bull market and 10 of those days are where you need to be in the market. And so, yes, it could very well turn out to be, I forgot who said it before, but that we stay low for the rest of the year, yada, yada, whatever. Whatever happens, happens.

If you are in Bitcoin and your positions are established, you don't care how long it necessarily takes as long as you can fund your lifetime in between it. If you're a trader, you get in and out, you need to be incredibly disciplined. And that's why traders in Bitcoin tend to live on the long side with a trading position that's on top of a core holding. But there are a lot of people out there who don't work that way. They move out of Bitcoin to go into the shiny object and then try to get back in. And those people inevitably lose Bitcoin, you know, from where they were. And that's the kind of thing that Simon talks about all the time.

And he's absolutely right. And when you talk about it that way, people say, oh, you're a Bitcoin maxi. And it's like, no, that's not being a Bitcoin maxi. That's just understanding how gap volatility works on an asset like Bitcoin. And that's something that people need to understand. But that gap isn't going to happen because of a news event that's been telegraphed to you that people have been talking about to you. That gap volatility happens when something happens. It's a surprise, or when the supply

dries up a little bit, and the demand doesn't doesn't change. That's what happens. Sasha, I haven't had the opportunity yet to speak. Funny, I had Josh Frank, CEO of the tie-on this morning on YouTube. So great to have you here. What do you think of all this? Felt like a pretty good setup, to be honest. Sasha, are you there?ueller bueller this is what we do guys x x spaces uh always always difficult to to host here

i mean it seemed like the uh consensus here go ahead bill no i was just going to say, shout out to the tie. The guy who got me into crypto was Josh Frank. He's the best. And I was just a lost soul leaving DOJ. Couldn't pass myself off as a software lawyer to save my life. Loved crypto, didn't know what to do. Josh was the first guy to do a Zoom with me and just to talk about what he's doing and opportunities in the ecosystem way back in early 2021. So every time I'm sort of in the same place as like Josh or one of his colleagues, I always want to give him a shout out. Be the perfect time for Sasha to jump in and say thank you for the compliment. I bet his mic's not working. Guys, everyone always glitches on this thing. I'm just kidding here.

Can I ask a question? Does anybody else read into the administration's rhetoric around a reserve or a sovereign wealth fund that it will inevitably contain more than just Bitcoin, separate and apart from what it should contain. It seems like they're considering a basket and probably one where Bitcoin predominates as the largest asset. But their terminology about it, maybe they're just sort of keeping options open,

but their terminology is noticeably different than that of those who are the biggest proponents of a Bitcoin reserve. Well, you got to break this into pieces. The sovereign wealth fund idea is 100% predicated upon earning returns. And nobody is going to, it's not going to be a single asset thing. But it's important what you, the fact that you conflated the two is actually a good thing. Because I think that people, the big, one of the most likely surprises out of all of this is it could very well be that the strategic reserve concept is going to get studied. And Scott and I

have talked about the Texas approach, and there's other approaches. Yes, there are people saying that should be more than Bitcoin, but I have a I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't. But that the carrot that they're going to hold out to other call them donors, call them whatever, is that the sovereign wealth fund, which is going to be chasing returns, is where they're going to look to monetize trading gains. And that will almost certainly not just be Bitcoin, because that's not how these things work. But that opens up an avenue that people haven't even considered, it's entirely possible, you could

have both, that you could have a strategic stockpile of Bitcoin. And at, you know, funded via, you know, allowing people to pay taxes in Bitcoin, or whatever, you know, there's lots of different ways you can do that. And at the same time, you know, funded via, you know, allowing people to pay taxes in Bitcoin or whatever. You know, there's lots of different ways you can do that. And at the same time, you have a sovereign wealth fund that might decide, hey, listen, we should invest in Bitcoin before we do this other thing because it's going to push the price up. Or we should invest in these companies because they make sense for us. And, you know, buy diversified baskets. So sovereign funds are very well diversified. Speaking, you know, whether it's the Norwegian sovereign fund or the Singapore sovereign fund or other big, large sovereign funds, they're always diversified.

Can I jump in on that, Scott? Go ahead. Okay. So I think what you asked, Bill, is the million dollar question. I think that's the most important question. And I've been asking everyone that exact same question to really understand different perspectives, because right now what I see is we're having a Bitcoin super cycle, but we're not getting an altcoin super cycle. And so obviously, just like all adoption cycles, Bitcoin is already there. It has the brand. And the way I define super cycle is when you have both a retail liquidity and be institutional liquidity. And within the institutional liquidity, I have one, of course, the financial institutions like BlackRock and all the ETFs, best performing ETF of all time when it comes to info and US dollar value. Then we have the corporates that

have Bitcoin in their treasury, like MicroStrategy with Michael Saylor. And then you have the third component, which is governmental exposure. Obviously, as of today, the US government has exposure based on different hacks and coins that have been claimed and taken away, but they haven't actually invested in having real exposure. And I think that's a very, very important component for the altcoin super cycle, which many are thinking, you know, besides maybe a few tokens like MOVE that managed to go up, Celestia, but say Network, but all these other L1s, they actually went up through hype and then ended up correcting. And I think for me, Bill, is the deregulations of the US financial system by deregulating and providing regulatory clarity to US institutions. That is when the altcoin

super cycle will come. And the way I see it coming essentially is products like Morpho. So I don't know if you guys are familiar, but when it comes to DeFi lending, you have Aave, which is essentially like a retail bank. But the problem about Aave is it doesn't have a system where you can set your own risk parameters and be compliant with your local jurisdiction.

So we have Morphle already, which is doing exactly that. So you can literally set up whether you're a family office, whether you're an institution, you can set up exactly the parameters you want, what type of lending you want, which is, I think, a very important step to reaching the altcoin cycle and getting adoption in the future by the governments. And I agree. But with what was said by Dave, I don't think it's going to happen overnight. I think this is going to take a long while. But I think one of the components that institutions really need to understand for this altcoin super cycle is the concept of proof of stake or just staking in general.

Because when we look at stocks, for example, with dividends, we usually never have something that can offer more than 4% APY. But in crypto, as you guys know, you can earn easily 5% to 6% to 7% on your SOL. You can earn up to 8%, 9% on your SUI. These are literally APYs that are twice the amount of the highest paying dividend stocks. And this can be used very, very well. Let's say, imagine the next bear cycle, there's a new chain, I don't know, monad Barra chain, linear, and those the price is actually already retracted, if the institutions can come in and stake and they can earn 789 10 double digit percentage in APY, that's

actually a lot higher in real percentage, because if this asset goes up in price, that, you know, 7 to 10 percent could be 20 percent APY based on the real return on this type of staking mechanism. So for me, guys, I really think that we still need for the institutions and the governmental side to really understand the concept of proof of stake, which I know we don't talk about a lot because it's very normal for us. But I think it's a concept that really needs to be understood so that we have not just a Bitcoin super cycle, but an altcoin super cycle. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Anyone feel free to jump in. Dave, what are your thoughts on that? I'm sorry if Dave's not there.

Dave, I wandered a little bit. I mean, look, the problem with with when we start talking in the crypto world about yield is people lose sight of what you what drives you yield, it comes from demand to borrow. And the more gritty, the more frictional costs there are in the system for borrowing, the higher people will pay. And so it makes sense. If people forget, or maybe probably we all remember the infamous Matt Levine, Sam Bankman Freed interview that probably was the top tick on the yield market in the last cycle, where he talked about, you know, the box. Now, Sam didn't set a lot of things over his career

that make me turn my stomach. But that was one of the one interviews that he did, where I think he actually was exactly right. And the reason that we're all used to these crazy yields are because people are doing crazy things with, you know, with what they're doing, right, you know, whether it's whether it's a, I don't like to use pejoratives, but whether it's a flywheel, where you borrow this to go here to go here to go here, or something else, it's, it's, it's kind of a problem when you get used to these high yields. Now, this, the facts are most of the rest of the financial system is

cartelized. And you know, it's very similar to the Bitcoin argument, the DeFi argument, in the sense that the Bitcoin argument has to do with governments printing money out of thin air. The DeFi argument is that there's a banking cartel globally, which stops securities lending in a way that doesn't stop it, but it basically keeps 90% of the profits from securities lending. And so you can get significantly more efficient by DeFi. But it doesn't mean you're getting double digit yields for free, because anybody who tells you you get double digit yields for free

without taking risk is, it's sort of like when someone offers you something for free, my father taught me, put your hand on your wallet. Now, we may not hold wallets anymore, but it gives you the idea. So I get a little bit of a spidey sense going crazy when we talk about that. That's not to say that there is an immense potential because the size of some of these lending markets, I mean, you look at the interest rate swap market, I mean, it's in the trillions. I mean, these are huge markets. So there is a very big deal here. But I think that altcoin super cycles to me, when I hear that, what I'm really hearing is there's a new type of technology that matters and that exists here. And the winners are going to be worth a lot.

I just don't know if we know the winners yet. And I think a lot of the things that we are seeing are the kind of proto evolution of some of these winners kind of happening. So yeah, that was probably not what you were expecting a philosophical rant, Scott, but that is what that triggers in me. But you did ask. I did. Fefe, what do you think? I think when it comes to like, I was actually surprised on LX Tech as well, and the fact that if you need or if you want an altcoin super cycle, I don't think it's happening. I think we're still talking about an altcoin super cycle, and there's no way or there's no ultimate reason why we should have like a super cycle that we've seen in 2017 and maybe a bit of 2021. At that time, if you look at the delusion of the market that we have with all this tokens and all the narratives and all the players, whether it's institutional or governments, and as we see now, it's not only Bitcoin for governments, but especially from David Sachs yesterday, when he basically said blockchain is a distributed, decentralized computer. Well, that's not what Bitcoin is. So if he talks about decentralized distributed

computer networks, he's definitely talking about more than Bitcoin. I think it's not going to be like everything goes up all at once. So I think we really should deattach ourselves. And everybody was listening. This is what I think, at least. We should deattach ourselves from the idea that there will be a time that comes and all of the tokens are going to go up at the same time. I think it's a rotation market and it will stay as such. I think Bitcoin will decouple from the majority of the market. I don't think we're going to have 70% corrections on Bitcoin anymore. And I do think that we're going to have a rotation going forward. And when we're going to call bear market,

it's going to be bear market for some sectors within crypto or some narratives that is going to be bull market for some at the same time. So you have to choose wisely, basically. Yeah, I think there is a saying going that especially 2025 will be investors' hell and traders' paradise, like we talked about the other day. And I genuinely mean it. But if you think about long term, you have to decide what do you really want to do? Do you want to play this cycle to the fullest? Do you want to play this cycle to the fullest? Do you want to be there like 10 hours a day, 15 hours a day, monitor the narratives, get

in, get out when things pump and things start? For example, now, whatever I trade, I trade AI agents. Every time I see a signal after these massive pullbacks and crashes that indicates that there will be a reversal happening, the first thing I long is AI agents because they bounce 100% within whatever, five hours, 10 hours. It's just you always have to pick the right narrative if you're trading. If you're investing and you believe that you're investing into something that is going to last forever, pick something that you have an idea about what you're doing at least for the next five years. And then you can start speculating whether, for example, RWA, we had a discussion today morning, is something that I do believe is most likely here

to stay. If you look at BlackRock stands, if you look at where the industry is evolving with tokenized stocks and whatnot, I do think RWA plays are here. And if it is here, well, it's not a problem for me to buy a billion dollar valuation token because I believe that this is an industry that can get to 16 trillion in the next 10-15 years. So, but buying something today that... So, what I'm trying to say here is that if you want to make money in this bull market, I don't think you should be thinking to invest for the next 5-10 years. I think you should be play, play dancing while the music is playing, and then diversify into projects and tokens that will last for 5 to 10 to 15 years.

Yeah, I think most people agree with that. I mean, when you put that also in context of how many new tokens are about to appear and how many unlocks there will be on those, it's just an overwhelming amount of supply. It would take an insane level of new retail demand specifically to altcoins because it's not trickling down from Bitcoin ETFs to buy everything that's coming on the market. But that said, I think there's going to be some incredible movers and things that do exceptionally well. But for your average person, it's going to be very hard to choose. I mean, not financial advice, but I've been basically saying the last thing since the same cycle, which is if you're a tourist here, even if you're spending four hours a day on it, not 10 or 12 hours a day on it, buy the most compelling L1s.

And you may not catch the thousand X, but you should catch the value of whatever does actually find some meaningful level of adoption in each of those chains and just ride that and be happy and mostly on Bitcoin. Go ahead, Fefe. of adoption in each of those chains and just ride that and be happy and mostly on Bitcoin. Go ahead, Fefe. No, I think it's just really the reason why. And now I'm just thinking about this discussion because everyone who I talk to who's treating crypto as a side gig, right? People who are, you know, working nine to five, they go home to their families, their kids, whatever, they sit in the evening, they watch YouTube for an hour, hour and a half. They read a little bit of X.

These guys, most of these guys actually hold portfolios there are 2017 2021 and they believe that it will come and and this is the general sentiment to a lot of people who are who don't who i talk to and are not in crypto and do not monitor this so there are two ways that i see one they jump on the bandwagon they go and and, oh, I'm going to go full deploy on AI agents, and then they get wrecked and they're out. The second is the same with memes. Or they say, okay, I'm going to invest because I know at one point there will be this bull market thing that we've experienced before.

And also a lot of people who actually got smashed in 2021. This is the same thinking. There will be, and I'd rather just hold on to my tokens. But people don't really realize that some of these tokens are never going back to all-time highs like some of the tokens you bought in 2021 2017 are never going back to all-time highs and just simply holding on because that's what you know and you believe that there will be a period of time when number go up no matter what i think it's a huge mistake and you're basically while you think you are participating in the market, you are missing the opportunity of a lifetime. And except that he's already down 90, 95, 99 percent.

The thousands and thousands of percents you need to gain to get back. I mean, it's just it's not happening. But there are these kind of moments of hope, right? I mean, XRP obviously pulled that massive move. And alongside it, a lot of those quote unquote dinosaur coins, HBAR, I think, Algorand, they all went nuts. And I think that was actually people signing back into their Coinbase account after four or five years and who didn't know the names of any new tokens, saw that Bitcoin was up and went right back to the well on the things they remembered from the previous cycle but i think those are just the big obvious names it's not going to be the thousands of things that were

launched that nobody really remembers yeah but also don't get me wrong like i'm not hating on dynacoins either like i do think there is a use case if you look at it yeah of course xrp if you believe that these is some whatever h bar uh uh stellar all these all these tokens that are with with regulations as well. I'm not hating on these tokens. I'm just saying that the number go up is not what we think. Yeah, me either. Well, guys, we're down to...

Go ahead, Alex, if you got something to say. I was going to wrap, but you can kind of give us some final thoughts. Yeah, I was going to wrap as well for you on what I'm hearing from you, Scott, and from Feifei. At the end of the day, when you look at the performance of the stock market and just risk on assets in general, you tend to have in stocks, as many of you may know, two core categories. You have number one, the value stocks, and number two, the growth stocks. So if you're going into AI, as Feifei is saying, don't just go into the growth stocks because these are bubbles and you're going to get wrecked eventually.

So I think it's very important that you, for the dino coins that may come back, you just have to look at fundamentals. So if you're looking at the, as you said, Scott, infrastructure that has very strong fundamentals, let's say, imagine Baruchain, which is launching tomorrow it comes out with five you know billion dollars of tbl which is maybe double the size of an avalanche or 2.5 times the size you want to look at the the fundamentals and that's the equivalent of a value stock the growth stocks yeah they're fine we saw in 2024 across the s&p 500 the best performing stocks were all growth stocks they're all speculative. They're AI companies that some of them don't even have revenue models, like no revenue models. So they're literally 100% growth stocks and not value stocks. And you have the same in crypto. Once again,

I wouldn't put all my money into these flashy agents, which 99% will go to zero because these are growth stocks that will go to zero. It's a massive bubble. But you can make money if you're in the trenches 10 hours a day. I think it's for the most people, the average person, if you go all in on the growth stocks, so the speculative bubbles, you're crazy. And just figure out what is the right risk appetite for you and risk tolerance, which is balancing between value stocks and growth stocks, which means fundamental tokens versus the speculative bubbles. I agree. I think that's a great way and place to wrap.

Thank you, everybody, for joining. Hopefully be back tomorrow, 10.15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, Crypto Town Hall. Give everybody on the panel a follow and we will see you guys later. Have a good one. Bye.