The Wolf Of All Streets - BTC Pumps as Powell Hints at Rate Cuts Soon | CryptoTownHall

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

The Crypto Town Hall live stream focused on current crypto market dynamics, especially Bitcoin and Ethereum price action in the wake of the Fed chair's latest speech. The hosts and panelists discussed... market reactions to Jerome Powell's comments, shifting expectations around interest rates, legislative updates affecting the crypto space, technical analysis, and broader political influences. Expert guests weighed in with data-driven opinions on inflation, the 4-year cycle theory for Bitcoin, the impact of macroeconomic events, the DOJ's position on software/code and DeFi, and upcoming altcoin opportunities. The event fostered an open, opinionated discussion meant to help investors and traders make sense of a volatile, fast-changing landscape.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the final Crypto Town Hall of this somewhat boring week that's becoming less boring by the minute. It's good to say it was boring until it stopped being boring. Listen, man, you know, I don't share any higher conviction plays, but I very publicly bought Bitcoin at 112 this morning because why not? Yeah, well, I would have if I wasn't on a, getting off of an overnight flight. and jumping up, yeah, we're going down in this staircase. Yeah, we're in Passout Germany going up and downstairs.
Starting point is 00:00:36 So I'll just make this quick. If you shorted and you can tell because all the crypto, all the assets that basically sold off the hardest on this little correction are all the ones that are correcting more. And when you see that sort of a reflective thing, it's tradable. And, you know, we're right back into the middle of the range. It's going to take virtually nothing for that to happen. So, I mean, I don't really see a whole lot to talk about other than that, but it feels like it really does feel like September could be very interesting.
Starting point is 00:01:10 We'll leave it there. Yeah, I mean, listen, Bitcoin trading way, we got 115. I mean, it's bouncing all over the place, but it's about 115. It broke below 112 this morning. Anybody who watches charts knows that there's basically been two ranges this summer 12 to, we'll call it, 123 or 124. Clearly, in August, there's not much conviction to push and make new highs. So when that happens, you expect that you go down and sweep the lows of the range and bounce around. And in this case, you had a confluence.
Starting point is 00:01:43 I mean, I've been spamming the charts for the technical analysts out there. Bullish divergence, oversold RSI, all the signals I personally like to look for for local bottoms. And, of course, those align right with the moment that Powell's about to give his speech, right? And so you get this nice bounce. I don't think that this speech pushes us above 123, but I certainly think, as you said, it kind of pushes you right back into the range. But, I mean, it's eerie, right?
Starting point is 00:02:09 You know, all the people, all the doomsayers out there who were selling on this narrative that Powell was going to be excessively hawkish, give a middle finger to Trump, et cetera, and then he does the opposite. He talks about policy changes. I mean, unless I misread what I read, I mean, it just feels like a lot of people sold that now need to buy. And I don't know that there's – I don't know who the cellars are.
Starting point is 00:02:34 Can you guys hear me? I can't hear Dave. Yeah. Sorry, Scott. I'll have to talk to you next week. This is bad. No, you're good. You cut out.
Starting point is 00:02:42 I appreciate you showing up. Thank you. Yeah, obviously, I mean, Powell, I think, is either actively still speaking or just finished, so hard to – hard to parts for now. But as Dave said, there was a lot of predictions. as to how this would go. I think, though, the day you did is that being concerned for Bitcoin price action about what Powell says on any given day is completely when you know he's going to be gone
Starting point is 00:03:12 in less than a year. And you know exactly the kind of person that Trump is going to be a big person. For the long term, as an investor, you know that if you care about rate cuts that they're coming. whether it's happening today or in a few months. But I would love to go to the panel here to discuss what's happening here. Actually, really quickly before we do that, because I forget things like this. We have a quick disclaimer about this segment right now that's brought to you by a partner of Crypto Town Hall. Actually, they'll be on at the end of the show as well.
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Starting point is 00:04:29 Let's dig in right now, though, to what's happening here with Powell. Go to the panel, guys, just throw your hands up. Hopefully, I'll see them and start to give your comments. Carly, you gave a heart. I'm going to count that as a hand up and say, good morning, Carlo. Good morning, Scott. So my take. I don't think Bitcoin cares what Powell says.
Starting point is 00:04:52 today or whether rate cut announcement comes because Bitcoin's going to do what it's going to do. And I think this is largely, in my opinion, a non-event because I think we all know where this is going. We may have a delayed banana zone where we may have a delay in rate cuts until Trump gets to put his own Fed chair in place in May. I think a rate cut is coming in September, but probably not many more to follow is my initial feeling. And I think we should all probably prepare for markets to tank today based on his comments because I don't think he's going to back down from the position he's taken. I think the economy's too hot for to cut rates and I think he's going to continue to stick
Starting point is 00:05:33 to that talking point. Did I lose you, Scott? I lost Carlo there. I don't know about you guys, but Eric, you jump in. So, Carlo, I'll honestly, I'll take the contrarian view. I mean, if you look at the way the markets are responding right now, they're running. I think Powell realizes that he was up against an unwinnable fight. And the most interesting, like, comment that I read through his remarks was the balance of risk appears to be shifting.
Starting point is 00:06:14 I think this is a man who sees that he's got a short time prize and in the position that he's currently in and he is probably legacy shopping like anyone in that position would be doing right now. And so if you look at where youth unemployment is in the country right now and some other key metrics that I certainly look at, the environment is ripe for rate cuts right now. And I think he realizes that. And I think September is pretty much baked in at this point. The market certainly seems to be indicating that the equities market. I think that you probably get another one or two on top of that potentially, which would not take us, you know, a rate cut at every meeting through the end of the year, but certainly I think it's a high probability at this point. Additionally,
Starting point is 00:07:05 my favorite line of this very short spaces so far is yours, Carlo, Bitcoin, is going to do what it's going to do, which is true. I think that to a certain degree, I'd like to see it do what it's going to do and not trade so much in sympathy with the overall market the way it has been trading in tandem more recently. It would be great to see the true divergence that we've had in some earlier cycles. So anyways, those are kind of my early thoughts on what's going on. William. Yeah. So what I picked up from Powell is that he said that the tariff's effect is going to be short term now. So finally he said that. In April, you remember he said, we don't know what the tariff's effects are going to be.
Starting point is 00:07:57 So again, it's another kind of bullish signal looking ahead. The other thing I want to say is, I mean, everybody's talking about, yeah, Bitcoin leading, the fray here. But I think you guys should look at Ethereum again, because I think in my opinion that both of them will be leaving now in terms of being out there before others. Rightfully so today, at least it seems that the Ethereum price has reacted a little bit more aggressively than Bitcoin. It started to move almost 7 to 8 percent in the last. two hours that I've been watching it. So do look at both of them as as leading indicators of good or bad things to come in the future.
Starting point is 00:08:53 And the one else here, specific thoughts on the Fed, Bitcoin, price action, everything that's sort of happening today because it's a pretty significant move. I'm looking now. I guess we're still trading right around 115. Actually, maybe the bigger story is that Bitcoin's up almost 1% since this time yesterday, and Ethereum's up 6%. So Ethereum keeps catching a bigger bid, it seems, whenever Bitcoin makes a move. Anybody specific thoughts on why that might be the case? Yeah, I just think it's because of the BTC-EF ratio. Obviously, Ethereum's been losing value against Bitcoin for a long time, and it finally bounced back in.
Starting point is 00:09:34 Let's have a look here, the EFBTC. really bounced back in June like it bottomed out in June and has been moving up against BTC and we're still only at like 0.0, almost 0.04 so I just think it's just catching up with all, you know, just as it always does every cycle
Starting point is 00:09:56 the last cycle, what did it go to, like 5%. So it's still got a little way to go. I just think it's people traders are betting on Ethereum, shorter term to outperform against Bitcoin? Yeah, obviously, there's the Tom Lee Tailwinds and all the other things we've discussed about Ethereum here as well. I think right now it's just having this brief moment as the darling. We know, as you said, it doesn't last.
Starting point is 00:10:25 And eventually Bitcoin obviously will dominate. Anybody, Ron, I got you here. So, hey, Ron, let's talk about politics. I know there's not much going on at exactly this moment, but actually Wyoming was big from what I saw beyond just Jackson Hole and the Fed. The Wyoming blockchain or crypto symposium was happening there with salt. It seems like every politician who wants crypto votes was out there speaking. Yeah, I know. I was there. I just got back last night.
Starting point is 00:10:58 It was honestly really solid, really good attendance. Probably one of the best conferences I've been to, at least in the crypto space, in terms of attendees. all pretty high level there. At least, you know, we didn't get too much, you know, news, news to say the least. I mean, we saw the DOJ, had some more savings about protecting software developers that got a lot of excitement more in the defy community there. You know, I would say that Lammis, Senator Lammis from Wyoming was speaking about more kind of what's next from market structure.
Starting point is 00:11:27 You know, some of the deadlines we're starting to see move a little bit just more because of the general political apparatus. For those who aren't aware, we're facing a shutdown. come end of September, that's likely going to draw a lot of attention in Congress on top of Ukraine and everything else going on, including the markets. So she was saying that we're looking at maybe Senate banking moving forward on their market structure proposal, end of September, and then she said Senate Agriculture Committee, that's the other committee that needs to do the other half of the bill is looking for more mid-October. So again, that's expected. She's hoping still to get something done before the end of Christmas, which again, that's still a lot to go for Congress here. but we're starting to see the timeline shift a little bit.
Starting point is 00:12:06 And then lastly, I'd say, you know, we did see a lot of, you know, more House politicians there as well. I'm told to Brian South for quite some time. He's all Angie Craig there as well on the Democrat side. And they're committed to get this over the finish line here. So, and we're starting to see folks like, I think the big update this week is more the banks coming out and saying, hey, if you're going to move market structure, you're going to have to close these, quote, quote, loopholes on industry-bearing stable coins
Starting point is 00:12:30 and making sure that they're prohibited for affiliates, broker dealers, and a few other points to put it out. So we're sitting the banks now starting to put a line in the sand saying we're not moving market structure with our support unless you close the intersparing stable coin loophole in their mind even further. So get ready. It's going to get really nasty probably in September. Really nasty in September. Wow. Okay. And she's, listen, so a couple months ago, we had Tim Scott saying we get market structure by the end of August. pretty much the end of August, right?
Starting point is 00:13:01 So that was an unreasonable expectation. Her claim now is by 2026. I assume if we don't get this by 2026, it just gets washed out in the midterm nonsense, right? Yeah, usually it's like around March, May time frame and election years that things really drop off. So it's not the end of the world. It doesn't get done by Christmas time.
Starting point is 00:13:21 But, I mean, at least Tim Scott is kept through as word of saying, like, he'll have a draft out. And we kind of have, like, a half a draft right now. So, but again, it's very different than, not very, but it is different enough from the House version. So they're kind of doing their own path here, and we'll see how far it goes along. Makes sense.
Starting point is 00:13:38 Were any of the speeches particularly impactful or just kind of consistently the same narratives we're looking at? Because, listen, we know the elections are coming. People want to woo the crypto industry, and we're seeing news like the Winkle Voss is giving $25 million, you know, to a new super PAC. Clearly, we're ramping up for midterms in terms in making sure the industry is well represented?
Starting point is 00:14:01 There was the undertone of the elections are starting to percolate again. You know, we saw Sherry Brown's jumping back into the race. He was one of the main losers of the last election cycle, and a lot of that due to crypto, getting heavily involved in supporting his opponent, Bernie Marino. And so he made some interesting comments saying that he's open to more crypto for Ohioans,
Starting point is 00:14:21 which was kind of shocking to see how he was so aggressive against us for years. And now he's starting to change his tone. right when he's trying to announce a re-election bid. So that's going to pick up. You know, the question kind of is, are we going to be seeing more folks backing, you know, certain more like factions, like more of the Bitcoin-only members of Congress versus maybe more pro-Pripto generally or more try to entice more Democrats
Starting point is 00:14:46 to kind of come on over to the other side of supporting crypto. So I'm sure all those conversations are happening right now. But there's one thing for sure is that the crypto industry has got a lot of money to play with in this upcoming election, and D.C. knows not to piss him off. At Preston, Ron mentioned, obviously, the DOJ statement on coders, effectively, that if you don't have malicious intent, you can't be charged. Meanwhile, we have Roman Storm just found guilty of one of his three counts, and the samurai guy is pleading guilty.
Starting point is 00:15:19 So how do we parse that? Yeah, so, I mean, I think, honestly, it's a, the DOJ statement is really just an honest statement of American law around the First Amendment and publication. I think there were some issues with, I mean, the issues with tornado cash is that there was an operating protocol, there were ongoing activities and communications. I don't want to get into the details because for two reasons. One, I'm not that familiar with the actual evidentiary record in the Roman Storm case. I just haven't, you know, I'm familiar with it in a general sense, but it's not directly relevant to my business. So, or actually, it is fairly directly relevant to my business. But
Starting point is 00:15:56 But I'm friends with this lawyer and I don't want to get into it. Let me put it this way. I don't want to be going on record and public and starting to explain what I think the government's case is. What I will say is that is a general rule, right? Publishing code for a very long time has been established as well protected by the First Amendment. This was the issue with PG, with certain crypto protocols back in the 90s. People wanted to publish those. There were export controls on those and restrictions.
Starting point is 00:16:25 and those were overturned in the U.S. federal courts. And where people get into trouble, right, is where you both publish the software and then you do something else, right? So let's say, for example, you say, well, I'm going to publish this software. And then if someone writes to me and they say, hey, how can I use this software for this illegal purpose? Like, you cannot respond to that email, right? You cannot turn around and say, oh, well, here's how you do this, or I'll help facilitate this or something like that. But as a general rule, you know, the publication of code is protected speech under the First Amendment. It's always been protected speech under the First Amendment.
Starting point is 00:16:57 There have been attempts to make it not protected speech under the First Amendment. And, you know, it's I think the DOJ acknowledging that out, you know, acknowledging that principle in its enforcement practices, unlike what the Biden DOJ did, which was like, well, you know, we're going to try to go for some very, very weird edge cases and see if we can, you know, see if we can convince a jury that, that it's a crime. I think that's really refreshing, right? Because ultimately in a lot of, even when you have a case, which is borderline and the defendants on the right side of the line, when the DOJ comes after you, the process is the punishment, right? So you can be acquitted and you can still be bankrupted. You can be acquitted in your life. You've given up three, four, five years of your life, you know, defending the criminal charges and, you know, it's probably taken years off of your life due to distress. So I think it's really reassuring that the DOJ is going to do that. That notwithstanding, I don't think that's, you know, I don't think that means. it's free, you know, it's a free for all. And I don't think that, you know, if someone came to me and said, well, I want to run a transaction mixer or anonymizer or something that runs identical principles to tornado cash and I want to do so as a going concern, you know, that would be something where I'd say, okay, if you're going to do that, right, you have to be extraordinarily careful, you know, to not trip up over these trip wires because simply publishing, you know, you're starting more, you publishing code is one thing. Doing more than publishing code is another thing. So it's definitely not a, you know, it's definitely not, you know, free for all these days because of what the DOJ said. And there are definitely ways that you can get in trouble running something like tornado cash.
Starting point is 00:18:33 But, you know, it's certainly reassuring that they've said what they've said. Carlo, you had your hand up. Yeah, Scott. One of the things that I'm curious about in all of this is, obviously, we had a guilty verdict in Roman's case on money transmitter. and we had a plea on the heels of that verdict in the Samurai wallet case where the defendants in that case pled guilty to a money transmitter violation. So the DOJ is an interesting position here, especially Southern District of New York. Are they going to agree to vacate that plea given that the DOJ has kind of confirmed their policy position on this? Again, arguably there could be more facts that would cause them to say that this was beyond just innocent code writing.
Starting point is 00:19:19 but this definitely sets a very interesting precedent going forward, and I'm curious to see how they respond, not just in Roman's case, but in the Samurai case as well. William? William, I believe he had your hand up. Yeah, I was going to say one thing about the inflation. A few years ago, something important, I think, was announced that Canada's inflation,
Starting point is 00:19:49 rate in July went down to 1.7% down from 1.9 the month before. So what I'm saying here is we're going to tame inflation in the US. If Canada can control the inflation and already is heading towards the below 2% mark, the US is doing it. There's no doubt about that. So think of that as one leading indicator about what's going to happen with inflation in the US. Preston. I have my mic. I have my mic. Yeah, it chose your mic when you lift your mic and you're so popular and have a lot of followers.
Starting point is 00:20:33 It throws you right up to the top for me. Sorry about that. That makes me think that you have something very important. No, it's all good. A few people just jumped up. I mean, since William just sort of took us back to inflation in that conversation. Florian, any thoughts there? Well, I mean, the Fed is obviously cornered, in my opinion.
Starting point is 00:20:57 I think they will probably cut. I mean, that's the 85% probability here for a rate cut in September. And then we have to see, I assume that we're going to see a second push in the inflation numbers rather sooner than later. And if they start lowering, yeah, that could lit up some fire again. I mean, there are so many factors playing in this whole thing. And, of course, it's always also a psychological kind of thing. But I assume that, for example, oil prices will move up again. I don't see that there's a peace treaty on the table here with Ukraine.
Starting point is 00:21:35 I think this is much more challenging and complex than Trump assumed initially. So I think they will start lowering, yes, but inflation is still a problem and will come back. Usually, I mean, that's what we've seen in the 70s, and that's still my expectation. Anyone else specific thoughts on inflation expectations? Or we can find something else to talk about. Really not that much huge news, honestly, this week, besides what's happening here with the Fed. I would love to talk about market expectations and how you're looking at the market. Florian, maybe we'll start there.
Starting point is 00:22:19 obviously digging into the charts. I kind of made the point this morning that there was a lot of confluence, at least on the Bitcoin chart, that this could be a local bottom, you know, oversold conditions. And I like bullish divergences, 112 being sort of the key range lows. So, I mean, we can talk about, I guess, the setup for September here. Yeah, I agree. I think I would agree with your assessment here. I mean, we had this pulled back over the last 10 days. And I have an oversawled stochastic here. We have the lower Bollinger band around 1,11,500-ish. And now it bounced back to the 50-day moving average, nice day up today.
Starting point is 00:22:59 I think, yeah, I mean, overall, this is going sideways since mid of July, and I don't think this is going to end anytime soon. But we have seen most likely a local bottom and might now swing to the upside again towards 120K. Usually September is a little bit of a challenging month for the stock markets, and that also means for the highly correlated crypto and Bitcoin space. So I would be still a little bit cautious here. Let's see what September brings.
Starting point is 00:23:25 But like latest by end September, the latest mid-October, I think you want to be fully invested and ready for the year-end really. That's my take here. So we're still in the summer doll drops. Let's not forget that. Great. It's been a really good August, actually, relative to the past, I think, in my opinion. And a good summer, right?
Starting point is 00:23:45 I mean, even in 2021, if you believe in the four-year cycle, which was one of the most bullish years for crypto, we went from 65 down to like 28 before heading back up to 69. So having even flat or up-priced action of any sort in the summer, I think, is a massively bullish signal. Panos, go ahead. Yeah, I was looking earlier at like Bitcoin's average monthly performance. and September is on average Bitcoin is usually down between 4 to 5%. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Yeah, but then I assume I haven't looked at the seasonality in a while
Starting point is 00:24:24 and I don't know if it's here to year, but October, November, December tend to be very, very good, right? Correct, yeah. So if you're looking at October typically, this, hold on, let me see when this, this was from 2010 till June 30th, 2025. So this is the data that's coming over for the last 15 years, basically. October, you're looking at like a 27% up, November 38% up, and then December, like 10% up.
Starting point is 00:24:56 So, you know, seasonality-wise, typically October and November are really, really good months. Maybe we chop sideways between 112 and 123 until October, and then, not that past performance is indicative of future results but that's what you'll be looking for if you're kind of a cycle believer i don't know if you are you actually are you a side yeah go ahead sorry pedus go ahead i was going to say are you a cycle believer or are you i i was one of those if it ain't broke don't try to fix it and you know until it's proven otherwise but i think it's less relevant now. If you were truly a cycle believer, I think Bitcoin, obviously, because of the ETFs, preempted the cycle with an early all-time high, so that was one indication that the cycle
Starting point is 00:25:49 might be at least slightly broken. And the beginning of this year should have been absolutely wild for all coins, and it was horrible. If you believed in the four-year cycle, you would have had Bitcoin topping, you know, when it came around 100 or whatever, and then all coins would have gone nuts. And it took until this summer for Ethereum to really catch a bit. The meme coin trend somewhat died already in January with Trump token. And so, no, I think if you're a deep believer in the four-year cycle beyond Bitcoin, you should have seen a lot more all-coin action a lot earlier. What do you think?
Starting point is 00:26:25 I tend to go with the trend, but I'm open to maybe a slightly extended cycle this time around. But I still think most probably it's going to be a, coincide with the other four-year cycles, but that's just my, that's just me. Understood. Dave, are you able to talk or no, because I saw, I saw an emoji, but I don't want to call on you here. I assume I'm on the boat Wi-Fi now. We're back, we're back on the boat Wi-Fi. Yeah, dude, you've been, like, planes, trains and automobiles all in the last 30 minutes.
Starting point is 00:26:57 Yeah, we've got, it's been, it's been crazy. But, yeah, now we were just walking around an old city and doing some shopping, and now we're just trying to stay awake. so that we can get a good night's sleep tonight. So that's the deal. I look, I think that the notion of a four-year cycle being specific to Bitcoin is absurd at this point. I mean, it's, and the reason it's absurd is because in every cycle we've gotten, we've gone from the four-year cycle mattered a lot because of the change in mining reward to, okay, it still mattered some to now, it's literally,
Starting point is 00:27:36 irrelevant from a demand point of view versus supply. I mean, it's, it's an afterthought. The amount, the difference between the last one and this one is negligible. The difference in this one and the next one is, is almost immeasurable. It's smaller than ETF flows and forget everything else. So I think that that's silly. Now, that said, stock markets often have four-year cycles based on politics, but we've had a fairly, we've had two bull runs in the S&P since 2009 of, over a decade. I mean, you know, not two of over a decade. There was one from before to 2009 from 1990, you know, from the depth of 2001 was like eight years. Then we had one that from 2009 effectively almost till now. So yeah, there's going to be bumps in the road, et cetera.
Starting point is 00:28:27 But the thing that that really is interesting is Bitcoin in particular is going to be driven by adoption and crypto is going to be driven by liquidity overall. And adoption of Bitcoin hasn't really even entered the mix yet. When that happens, then the mold of this cycle, the idea that this cycle is going to be less explosive than past cycles, no, I don't think so. I'm not saying that'll happen in the next year and it could, but, you know, people just need to understand what you're talking about. And just consider that the acting president of the World Economic Forum is calling for Bitcoin to 5x from here. And that's all you've got to know. You can't say it's an impossible.
Starting point is 00:29:05 Did we ever talk about the fact that Larry Fink is now the head of the World Economic Forum? Did we ever even discuss that date? Oh, I mentioned it. I mentioned it that you were out when in Noel was hosting Macro Monday on Monday. I thought it was relevant. But, you know, look, I think the most relevant thing here is, I mean, I missed 40 minutes of this. The speakers here, do people perceive, is the market perceiving Powell waving effectively the white flag? is that what the market perception is because it feels that way and if that's the case scott
Starting point is 00:29:42 then we had a lot of selling pretty much all the sellers who sold over the last week and i'm talking about the fact that bitcoin underperformed stocks i'm not talking about you know we're talking about the underperformance of crypto vis-a-vis equities i think was pretty much due to hyper focus on Powell and all that has to get reversed, which will bring us right back to the top of the range. And then we'll see whether price discovery sets in. And I think that it's entirely possible that we'll have issues at the top of the range again. But generally speaking, the second time is probably more likely, but maybe it'll take a third time again. So you know, we'll see. We've seen these ranges play out for long periods of time before.
Starting point is 00:30:25 I mean, that's my thoughts. else want to jump in nobody has specific this is what happens in the summer deltrums please ask you well no i i i had a question that's going to that's going to rile up some people so it's totally separate topic it's an xrp question uh i thought i saw when i was scrolling through my feed that the the european central bank for their cbdc is looking at ethancelana to run it Did I miss that? Was that bullshit or was that real? Literally, I lost internet for one second when you were asking it.
Starting point is 00:31:05 What was it exactly? I said, I thought I saw a story, and I haven't admittedly, you know, I'm not paying that much attention, but it looked like I saw a story that said people were saying that the European Central Bank for their central bank digital currency were evaluating Ethereum and Solana. Now, I asked that if it's real. I didn't see that. If it's real, it's a big deal for XRP because there was so much, then that would seem to be a major deal, right? Because so many of the XRP army, I can remember hundreds of posts of people saying, well, we may not like CBDCs, but if they're going to use our token, that's going to be a big deal.
Starting point is 00:31:48 I'm just wondering, it might have been bullshit. That's why I'm asking it. I'm phrasing it as a question. I don't know. I totally miss that. So anybody have any on that? I think if there's an FT article he might be referring to. I'm not sure, David, that's it or not.
Starting point is 00:32:04 It said that at least the headlines I'm seeing here, they're more going for a digital euro and a public blockchain via the stable coin. But I'm not saying anything on the XRP or sole side. Okay, well, I'll keep researching it. If it's there, I'll make a comment. I'm just very curious. Scott, congratulations on your $112,000 buy yesterday, buddy. That was awesome pickup.
Starting point is 00:32:33 Thank you. It wasn't even yesterday. It was about two hours ago. There you go. I bought it this morning. Yeah. It's just gratuitous bottom signals. Listen, if we're being fair, as I said when I did it, like I'm buying it here just in case this is a support.
Starting point is 00:32:49 But if it goes lower, I'm happy because I'll buy more if it goes higher. you win probably got parked right yeah yeah i think it's the right play man you just got to keep scaling in well done to everybody you buy it you buying you buying today and every other day i picked up micro strategy yesterday at 338 so picked up a chunk um it was easier for me to do it that way than bitcoin so we'll see everybody's so negative on micro strategy i was like eh i don't think I'm going to fade this play to you guys are way way way too bearish yeah I don't know if you were here yesterday Tomer was breaking down I we were talking about SCRC uh and it's trading yesterday it was at 93 bucks when I checked this morning 94 I'm assuming it's up now based on all
Starting point is 00:33:39 of this but that also seems like a really reasonable play considering it's supposed to be at par at a hundred and offers a yield I don't know if you look at that but yeah agree probably pushes back to a hundred and then you also get the nine percent yield on top of that So 6% upside move plus yield. Yeah. It's at 94.75 right now. Oh, I know. Already rising there.
Starting point is 00:34:05 That's going to suck a lot of capital, man, 9%. I mean, you take retirees, and they'll take that shit all day long. Dave. Yeah, I found the story that I was talking about as happy coin news. and another one called AI Invest, which who the hell knows that is. I haven't seen it from anything else on what the CBDC is. I guess we'll pay attention to that next week. We'll just look out for it.
Starting point is 00:34:31 As far as the other, Gary won't take, you know, he took credit for, as soon as you posted about MSTR, I made the, I quoted Mike McClone. You probably didn't want to quote it in this. But I said, you know, Gary buying MSTR now is classic buy-in when they're crying. And now the only question is, will he be selling when they're, are yelling, you know, when it gets over 500 or whatever. But yeah, I mean, it's it's almost always a good idea. Yes, there's sometimes you're catching a falling knife, but, you know, when you get the kind of short-term bearishness, when there's no real news and it's in the no volumes,
Starting point is 00:35:12 it's, yeah, it's because, it's not too hard to be tradable. You know, it's funny, I had set up, I was kind of hoping that this would happen, you know, later, you know, like next week. week. But, you know, whatever, because I was out of pocket. But I think that it was definitely, I think this part, it's showing how strong the support at the bottom of this range is, is really what matters here. Yeah. I mean, micro strategy was down, what, 21% in a week? Unless you think that it's going to utterly collapse. Seems like if you're a believer, you just buy like Gary did. I keep trying to point this out to people who don't really understand it. I mean, the tax implications matter.
Starting point is 00:35:57 If you're in a tax-free account or if you're not paying capital gains taxes for whatever reason, then then trade it. You know, if you're a hedge fund and you're trading, trade it. But if you're an investor and you're paying long-term capital gains because you own it from lower, then it's really hard. Then you just kind of look at it and understand. You have to understand micro-strategy is going to always underperform Bitcoin when it's range-mess. always it has to same thing happened last year it has to because it is based upon volatility
Starting point is 00:36:29 it's also based on momentum but it's really it's an acceleration play it tends to do outperform when bitcoin is accelerating then it will accelerate faster but when bitcoin is just kind of chopping around it's going to underperform it's literally designed to do that that's what sailor wants and if you listen to his presentation he sort of understands it so during periods of ranges he's going to need to tap the ATM to satisfy, to make the debt payments on the vehicle that he used to buy Bitcoin, which is, it's not horrible, but you just have to know that that's going to happen. If you think Bitcoin's going to have a big rally in it, then micro strategy is going to outperform during that big rally. If, on the other hand, you think this is a cycle top, then you should be running screaming from the building that's micro strategy. I personally don't. I'm the former not the latter, but I think that's how you should employ investing. you see what i mean i mean it's a structural thing it's literally how it's set up and yet all the you watched yeah this is so ridiculous well that's stupid and i and i haven't been watching at all how of the other dr don i was just going to say how of the other treasury companies yeah go ahead
Starting point is 00:37:38 well no it will that's a valid question and that's separate micro strategy in specific has set up all these debt instruments that are very attractive for people that allow him to buy Bitcoin with it. The problem with those debt instruments, is not really a problem is when Bitcoin is stuck in a range. He doesn't have any volatility. There's no optionality for him to be able to make the interest payment. So he's going to have to sell something and he's not going to sell Bitcoin
Starting point is 00:38:07 who's going to dilute common shares. If you think that Bitcoin is going to stay in ranges for most of its life and just kind of lurch higher in gaps, I made that point six months ago that you're not going to get the kind of leverage that you think you're going to get the kind of leverage that you think you're going to get. But you do need to understand. It's like it's like a vols surface, the volatility surface, or you're doing options. It's just the nature of the investment is that way. It is not a Ponzi scheme, but it is well understood. And it, because a Ponzi scheme assumes is just there's nothing
Starting point is 00:38:39 there. I mean, this is based, micro strategy is a play on positive Bitcoin acceleration, period. That's what it's based on. And you're not holding it. It's not like the other alternatives, The other ones are, okay, well, I'll just take my interest rate. And that's okay, right, based on Bitcoin as pristine collateral, the fact that it will likely keep insolvent enough for you to get your rate through all your cash out and a really good return. Those are different. And people need to understand and articulate those differences. And unfortunately, most of the narrative over the last two weeks has been people screaming,
Starting point is 00:39:14 he said he wouldn't sell kind of stuff. Sorry. Gary, you got to have a thought on that. I agree. I agree with what Dave just said. I think micro-strategy is not Bitcoin, but it's a play on Bitcoin. And look, nothing's changed, okay?
Starting point is 00:39:44 This guy is buying more Bitcoin than any corporation in history. And you can't look at a three-month move and go, gosh, you know, this all changed. He's either going to be the largest holder of Bitcoin in the world or is a, you know, single corporation. And whether that really brings a premium, I'm not sure about that. Like, but he's most definitely, look, there's, there's, what, 200 or 300 companies. he's looking at doing this and none of that would be happening had he not been here i just i don't know what's changed and why people are going all you know negative on the guy um any mistakes that he's made this is my concern about holding these others these other strategic reserves chasing that
Starting point is 00:40:40 if you're saying he's made a mistake over the last three months then what kind of mistakes are these other guys going to make like there are going to be mistakes Bitcoin is not like you know magic bullet for bad business so I looked at micro strategy yesterday and went man the MNAVs
Starting point is 00:41:04 about as low as I've seen it I don't know why I wouldn't pick some up here so anyway we'll see what happens man yeah I haven't even looked for me it's more power alpha than your EPF.
Starting point is 00:41:20 Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Because I could have bought the ETF, right? Yeah, 100%. I'm going to ask if anyone had been tracking the treasury company performances. I haven't seen it. So I just haven't been paying attention. But obviously, this drop in micro strategy, while Bitcoin's been kind of flat, has to be a compression in MNAV for micro strategy.
Starting point is 00:41:40 I'm wondering how much the other ones have come down. Does anybody here looking at that? I don't want to put anyone on the spot, but I just haven't been watching it. Dave, I assume you haven't. been tracking that too closely negative yeah okay we're uh waiting for uh david to join uh at the moment uh to talk about uh b bnb network uh any other topics on your mind dave as we are kind of coming towards the end here no in fact i'm going to go look at the sunset off uh off the off the ship so you know R-Vita Zane, as they say here.
Starting point is 00:42:19 Enjoy the weekend. You want to ask everybody about you too. You too. Maybe we'll see it. You said you weren't going to be here today. So now I'm just assuming you're going to show up every single day. Well, when shit's happening. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:33 I'll say what's happening today. So anyone I would love just as we're kind of going to the end here, market thoughts on what they think of all coins. Carlo, I love your opinion on this. What do you think is going to happen here? all coins if we get the oh carlo just down says we if we get the premise of uh you know we kind of get somewhat bullish chop around september and head into october does anybody think we actually get a major bid on all coins beyond the ones that are available to uh stock traders at this point yeah i think once uh once ethereum uh breaks all time high uh we will start
Starting point is 00:43:11 seeing old coins running again that's my opinion And I think that will happen either this month or September. So you think that we could get a bit on like a real alt season? Yeah, I think it might be a brief one, but I do think we're going to get an old season. I think the reason we haven't had an alt season this cycle, like a prop. We've had meme coin seasons, but the typical alt-coin seasons that we've had in the past cycles is literally because Ethereum has literally just been losing value against Bitcoin this whole time. But now that's changed.
Starting point is 00:43:45 And I think people are crazy buying Bitcoin over Ethereum right now. I think there's more upside to Ethereum in the short term, short to midterm than there is on Bitcoin. As a trade. And I think once, as a trade, 100%. Yeah, don't get me wrong. Like long term, you know, you're going to see Bitcoin take the reins again. But as a trade in the short to midterm, I think Ethereum is the play here.
Starting point is 00:44:10 And if it does break, we're very close to all-time high. I don't, like, what's the all-time high? 4,800 and something? Yeah, we were at Harris' breath, like 1% away or something. Right. Yeah. So I think once we break that and we start going into price discovery,
Starting point is 00:44:25 you're going to see money rotating into the altcoins again from Ethereum. That's my prediction anyway. I mean, I get eviscerated for saying these things because we're talking about trading and not investing and not long-term prognosis. But yes, I think that, and I've been saying it since Ethereum was at 14, and was bottomed against Bitcoin that if you were trading, even if you're trying to get more Bitcoin as a trader, the best way was to buy Ethereum and then eventually sell it into Bitcoin.
Starting point is 00:44:51 William, I know you agree, right? Yes, yes. I didn't have to watch this to add, of course. Ethereum is hot right now. When somebody said it's not going to catch up to Bitcoin. I don't know what that means, but all I know is for sure, Ethereum is catching up to Bitcoin. I don't believe it's going to overtake Bitcoin and market cap, at least not in the foreseeable future, but it is getting closer. And when we talk about Bitcoin nowadays, I want to hear talks about Ethereum in the same breath, because both of them are special snowflakes.
Starting point is 00:45:36 Special snowflakes. I love that. Sam, I seem to come to you at the end because, you know, for your first. your thoughts, but any thoughts on this? Not too much. Just wanted to mention that there's a big Celsius distribution coming. Well, I suppose, small in comparison to the losses, but $220 million is going to be, it was announced this week as being distributed. So I suppose just anybody affected, there's, you know, 80,000 creditors who are eligible
Starting point is 00:46:12 and lots of fishing attempts out there so probably the best thing to do is to there's a website that the wind down the state is set up called claims portal.celsios.network and there's like a one-time passcode login system so it's nothing you need to give any information away so just be very careful of fishing attempts
Starting point is 00:46:34 but that distribution is eminent and should be coming out in the weeks ahead. Where does that stand in the, like in the cycle of distributions here? Like is this the final one? Are they more potentially coming? So this is the third distribution, and it's not clear if there will be other ones, but it's likely there will be future distributions as well.
Starting point is 00:46:59 But it depends on the ongoing litigation. All right, guys, we're going to head into the weekend here on seemingly a bullish note for the market. We were waiting for a sponsors show up, but it seems we've been having trouble getting them on stage and going to let you guys go. Thank you to all the guests. Thank you to all the speakers. An amazing week as usual. And it's going to get really, really interesting, obviously, moving forward.
Starting point is 00:47:26 So come back every day, 1015, Cryptotown Hall. Thank you, everyone. Bye.

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