The Wolf Of All Streets - Can The Crypto Vote Decide The Us Election? | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

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It could be that I actually make co-hosts. There's a good chance. There's a chance I'll make co-hosts. I'm not counting on it. I'm not counting on it. Yeah, Scott was up after me and he became co-host. I'll give you the co-host slot if you're going to stay for the entire hour. It's all yours.

You know my ADD would never allow that, huh? It's hard in the back end if you're not going to be there the whole time. I love how the title is make or break time for Bitcoin. I did not copy your agenda. I did not get the idea from your agenda whatsoever. Make or break time for bitcoin but hold on that's your your your okay shit i thought you were praising it because that's i thought that's what his youtube title was yeah oh it is i don't know if i don't know if it's similar idea

um hold on did it say that oh yeah hold on let's say that i got it I got it. I got it. Bitcoin. Hold on. Hold on. Bitcoin is still in the consolidation and above 60k level, which is make or break. So I did get from Rand's. So if you're making fun of it, you're making fun of yourself. If you're laughing because I copied you. My researchers. My researchers. okay okay let me see let me see Rand today so GummyCoin Tuka Carlson that's like the projects do you have a

Rand index fund not bad yeah exactly Rand index fund it's actually not bad considering my conditions damn I need to

listen listen my highest conviction bets number one today I made a decision that I'm selling my ETH I don't give a shit about ETH anymore I today I made a decision that I'm selling my ETH.

I don't give a shit about ETH anymore. I'm tired of waiting for ETH to do something. Bottoms in. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. You know, you might be right. You might be right.

You might be right, and it might be the bottom for ETH. I agree with you, but I came to a realization that I came into this market to make life-changing money. I don't want safe returns. The only reason why I'm in ETH is safe returns. If ETH performs, Solana is going to perform 10 times better. If ETH performs, Telegram is going to perform 10 times better. If ETH performs, Arweed is going to perform 10 times better. So I'm asking myself if I really believe that it's a bull market, and I do.

If I really believe we're in a bull market, what the fuck am I holding ETH for, honestly? Let me hold on to the if I'm here for the returns let me get the returns and stop waiting for each to do something I've lost 800 by not moving my ETH into Seoul or not moving my ETH into to uh to think and to be honest I'm just like I don't actually believe in the East thesis anymore I don don't believe in the one main chain, multiple side chains that are spaghetti, that don't really talk to each other. I don't believe in that.

I believe in this fast layer ones that can settle directly onto chain, like Solana, like Suvi, like Nia. What I need Ethereum for again, because it has TVL and because it has network effect, it's not a thesis for me anymore. And then your thoughts on the ecosystem as a whole. So projects, for example, projects launching on

ETH, would your conviction be impacted because you're not as bullish on ETH anymore? I mean, I own a couple of layer twos. I own some Optimism and I own some Arbitrum. The truth is I'm going to sell those and put them into our but to our weave and into telegram and into solana they just feel like honestly like i just don't like this thesis of the side chains and the main chain and the only reason why you need side chains is because the main chain couldn't perform as fast

and so like you think about all these side chains that were built the only reason why they were booked is because eve couldn't handle the load. And now with Solana, Solana can handle the load and SUI can handle the load and all these protocols can handle the load. So just remind me again. Honestly, honestly, honestly, and I want anyone to come up on stage and tell me if ETH was launched today and SOL was launched today and SUI was launched today, would anyone actually build anything on ETH? If they were all launched today, would anyone build anything on east the answer is probably no db hey good morning so yeah there's a lot i don't agree with ran on but this is what i'm 100 with them on the east ecosystem it's become a giant mess what don't you do with me? Hold on. What don't you do with me? Let's stick on this for now. We can jump into some of that other stuff in a bit.

But you're right. The ETH ecosystem is a mess. You've got all these additional layers and pieces added just to make one chain functional. You've got the data availability. Soon you've got the shared sequencing layers, which are still going to be a nightmare. They're not nearly as ready as people think they're going to be a nightmare they're not nearly as they are ready as people think they're going to be the liquidity aggregators all these different pieces in order to make one chain functional while we have these other chains that do almost everything better in one so i'm 100 with ran eth isn't going anywhere but it's certainly going to start moving down the totem pole

within the next five you know do we agree that even if it moves up if he starts moving up do we agree soul will move up quicker that i can't say i'm not a fan of soul to be honest what are you a fan of sharding near Near, MultiverseX, native asset chains such as Algorand, Sui, Aptos. We don't agree on a lot of things. I could never agree with you on Algorand. That's another dead chain in my opinion. Cardano, Algorand, all dead chains in my opinion. Yeah, those have their cases for sure i'm not uh what i really like about them is their native asset approach their security focused approach that they share with the all the move based ecosystem chains too agree agree agree i mean this does cardenas live in dex can someone has anybody used the cardena dex recently and if you have just tell me what it's called

or your favorite cardona wallet yeah just tell me what it's called or your favorite card on a wallet yeah just tell me what your favorite card on a wallet is whatever i don't even know do they even have one and they must have one but what is it called because yesterday i tweeted yesterday i tweeted um uh yesterday i tweeted uh this hold on i tweeted something yesterday i want to i want to actually read the tweets i don't mess it up i've come to a point now where, A, I'm going to speak my mind, but, A, I'm actually going to act and just clean up shop. I'm in a midlife crisis phase. We've got to clean up the shop, basically.

And I've decided I'm cleaning up the shop. I'm basically like all the bags that I don't really believe in, I'm selling, I'm moving them into my higher conviction bags. What are your higher conviction bags? I'm not what are your what are your higher conviction bags i'll read them for you in order it's in the tweet yeah yeah it was a good tweet i saw it yesterday while you're searching for the tweet yeah go ahead charles hoskinson also saw it yesterday he wasn't so happy obviously so i said i said look if i'm buying soul you're buying h bar

i'm buying r if you're buying xrp i'm buying ton you're buying ada we're not the same like and so charles hoskinson obviously commented he said i didn't i didn't know ran was in in in quantum leap i don't know what he meant there but then maybe someone can help me with the translation maybe he was talking about able to predict the future i don't really know but yeah there was that show where you know quantum leap when i was a kid but yeah i didn't really understand it but i just assumed he couldn't possibly be complimenting you oh shit that tweet that tweet went viral as well i'll just see you now yeah let's let's let uh alex keep raising his hand and a, I would love your thoughts on this. Yeah, hey, guys.

No, I was just chuckling because I definitely agree. I don't think Ethereum is going anywhere or anything like that. But I sent a note to our clients and counterparties in October saying that ETHBTC would go much lower, something 0.057 then. Think about this. It's facing unprecedented competition from all L1 Solana being the most notable. Right. It's but there there are others. And I think people are interested in others. It's also surprisingly, I think, to many, not quite yet, but appears to be about to be facing competition from Bitcoin L2s. Certainly more robustly than in, I don't't know the last five plus years right so um even if a couple of those drain any real interest from from ethereum's ecosystem that would be a new

sort of competition for ethereum you know the ordinals craze is already driving a lot of the nft related volume away from ethereum the regulatory uh headwinds in the u.s primarily touch application layer stuff built on ethereum and others but not so much bitcoin and i think that's why you see the eth btc ratio um you know dropping i would say i think that an eth spot etf denial is effectively priced in at this point I don't think it's going to be particularly damaging to ETH price if those are, you know, denied in a week or two. But it does feel like it's getting squeezed now sort of on both sides, right? And by the way, if you look at the upgrades they've done, which could be very positive

long term for Ethereum scaling and usability. If you take proto-dank sharding as an example, they're not they're actually cannibalistic to ETH value, not supporting of it. ETH the asset, right, because they proto-dank sharding dramatically reduces the cost of settling on to ETH for roll ups, which is their source of major demand. So less of a reason to hold you know, hold ETH to spend for gas. So even their positive things happening right now are sort of, I wouldn't say buoyant to ETH price. And so, I don't know, I mean, broadly, like, I mean, I think it probably still goes down further. Again, thinking about the ratio, not so much the absolute price, I do think a rising market tide lifts all boats. And to Rand's point before, I mean, I do personally look at Solana as more highly beta ETH, right?

I mean, I think it's reasonable to look at it that way, especially with so much of the activity in the broader crypto markets this time being driven by meme coins and stuff, which are all traded on Sol, right? Sort of less so at the moment on, you know, it's not DeFi summer, right? It's not, oh my gosh, we're so excited about this new lending protocol on ETH. Obviously, there's a ton of capital locked in ETH and its ecosystem. There's no doubt about that. And I think the L2s are like highly performant at this point. So there's a lot of reason to be, you know, happy with the user experience in the Ethereum ecosystem. But again, it just feels like it's a lot different than 21 when you looked at ETH as a L1 that had all these L1 competitors and none of them really did anything. The situation appears a lot different to me. It's funny though, Alex, I listened to all of that and that makes perfect sense. And then I

just giggle because if you know crypto, all it's going to take is like one huge meme coin to be launched on ETH. Yeah, you're right. Even if it does. I'm just laughing because you know, the reality of this space is... The minute ETH starts going up, the other altcoins are going to go up much more. I can't see a world where ETH goes up and the altcoins go down. I just don't see that world happening. It's not like Bitcoin. So I think that the minute ETH goes up,

all the other ones actually go up too. So I'd rather be in the other layer ones. Just too expensive, right? Like if you're a builder, you know, you're not going to, you don't want to build there. like if you're a builder you know you're not gonna you don't want to build there like if you're a meme coin like will the next meme coin be launched on eath too it's too expensive too expensive to trade on so i think it's just coming to fruition but joe it just feels like every every every few months everyone's just changing their opinion just a few months ago we're talking how eath is the next narrative and the next thing is going to be an eth etf and eth is still going to be king um a few months before that so a few months ago solana was dead but what changed barely anything

changed technologically just a bit more excitement than bitcoin there's no etf approval number one the east there's going to be no etf approval now in in in may number one that was that was one of the big reasons why people were buying it because i thought it was going to be no ETF approval now in May, number one. That was one of the big reasons why people were buying it because they thought it was going to be the second ETF. It's now become clear that this is not the second ETF. If it's not going to be the second ETF, then what's the narrative? Are they going to launch another L2? Are they going to launch an L3 on top of the L2? What's the narrative? It's just, call it what it is. It's a slow blockchain with high transaction costs that started first and got a whole lot of TVL and a whole lot of development on it. And as I say, if it was born now, it probably wouldn't even get to 100 million market cap because no one would need it.

If it was just born now, no one would need it if it was if they would if it was just bought now no one would need it db go ahead and anyone else that disagrees with this i want to get a different perspective yeah i think it points to what alex was saying too about is the proto-dank sharding and as even l2s become more efficient i think a lot of people expected this to really help boost ethereum but we're now even seeing that ethereum's inflationary again and a lot of people expected this to really help boost Ethereum, but we're now even seeing that Ethereum is inflationary again. And a lot of these L2s are really going to end up competing in a way. And that's why you have chains like Monad that went and became their own L1. And people were laughing at them saying they're going to change their mind to become an L2 soon. I think L2s are going to actually flip the switch, and we might see some of them become L1s, because they have all the tools necessary

to scale, be secure, decentralized, or they will on their own, versus having to run on top of this outdated primitive, which is ETH. One thing, Mario. Go ahead. Just like Ran said,

if it was launched on the same day as Solana, would you own it? But it wasn't launched on the same day. So, I mean, there is, you know, underlying infrastructure with ETH is that, you know, things that exist longer, you know, in, in history, potentially could exist longer into the future. So I think that there is, as long as you could trade it, like, I think what Rand is saying is that it's, you know, it's not the trade right now but i think his like gut feeling on the market's probably a lot

different than a lot of other traders that are just like hey i'm not going to call the top on z low you know i'm not going to call the top on you know on some coin right i'm not looking to call the top i'm just saying that i just don just saying that I just don't get the thesis for holding ETH. And again, I'm going to repeat my thing. Number one, it's the technology. We're not far enough in blockchain technology for a clear winner to emerge other than in blockchain where I think we're not going to get a competitor to Bitcoin when it comes to the store of value.

I think that network effect has been achieved, and I think Bitcoin has solidified its position. When it comes to smart contract blockchain, I don't think we're far enough along in the race for a clear winner to emerge. And, you know, with all network effects, usually you have one winner and you have, like, one number two, which is trying to catch up, but never quite does. It happens with most network

effect protocols. And I just don't think that we're at that point yet where ETH is too far ahead for any of the blockchains to catch up. I think Solana I think if you look for if Solana carries on in this trajectory and ETH carries on in this trajectory, I reckon in five years, Solana has to flip ETH.

I don't know if it happened this cycle, next cycle, but in terms of like every, as in, if you look at every metric right now, Solana

is basically flipped ETH. Number of active users, number of daily addresses, the only one that it's not is TVL. And your

thoughts on, and that's to Ryan and anyone else on the panel, and I know it's not part of the agenda, but what about other chains that have been getting a lot of traction? Obviously, base being one example.

And new chains, linear, by consensus, starting to get some traction as well. Have you looked into those? I mean, look, if you're talking to me about in the world of each layer twos, spaghetti. Arbitrum, Optimism, StarkNet. I mean, look, spaghetti, bro. Spaghetti. The semi-layer twos, theNet. I mean, like spaghetti, bro. Spaghetti. The semi-layer twos,

the layer twos don't talk to each other. You want to bridge money from mathematics to arbitrum. Bro, you need to have three engineering degrees and a diploma in mathematics to bridge money from arbitrum to optimism.

You know, like, sorry, I don't get the thesis. I just don't understand the thesis. Now, before going into Scott, just go back to the markets. Joe, anything on that point? Because I saw you jump in as Ryan was speaking. Yeah, just Ryan said something that there's no winner yet. And I agree with him.

It's a really valid point about BTC also. But there is like, there's a new chain a lot of people are excited about, which is TAN, right? And I think that's where they're not looking at it from the smart contract But there is a new chain a lot of people are excited about, which is TAN. And I think that's where they're not looking at it from the smart contract point. It's more like the peer-to-peer. If you had digital identity, let's say, and you could transfer anyone money without them having to do much in order to get that, it's easier to have adoption. That's kind of what TAN is.

Almost everyone has a Telegram account. I can today transfer you USDT from your account to my account by pushing one button. And I think there's another play here besides just the smart contract play, which is actually what Bitcoin was supposed to be in the very beginning, which was easy payments, replacing currency, things of that nature. And I think that's a big play. And I see more and more OGs actually saying, I'm focusing on Bitcoin and time. And I was just curious what Rand's thought was on that, to be honest.

And there's a project that just launched on Ton as well. Someone told me about it today. And my team apparently was talking to them as well. They didn't do a private round, but I'm not sure if you know about it, Joe. It's called NotCoin. Not affiliated, not invested, et cetera. But there you go. You know about it as well.

Apparently it got a lot of traction. Don't know much about the Ton blockchain, and we're not invested. But yeah, I was pretty surprised by the performance there. Mario, just type in at wallet on Telegram, and you'll be sold. That's how easy it is to open a wallet. I do know that one of my partners, a lot of you know Gaurav from TDFi. He became bullish on NFTs when they launched on Ton, getting Telegram handles, I think it was. So that was his entry to NFTs.

Apparently, they did well last year. I'm not sure how they're doing now. Actually actually joe our last question before we go to scott how are the nft how's the nft market on ton i'm not so involved with the nft stuff i'm more involved on like how the onboarding is going and things like that like they just closed usdt is now on there uh i don't know how much info i can release but bridging has been an issue that's going to be fixed the next couple weeks um yeah so the nft market i really haven't followed there you know i have enough money that's down on ordinals and on ethereum i don't i don't want to increase my nft bags at the moment I'm waiting for them to go back up. Now let's go to Scott.

Scott, what did you talk about on your show today? It was macro Monday, so we dug in pretty deep to the situation with inflation, obviously rent, commercial real estate, all of the big boring things that we don't talk about so deeply here. But obviously the topic that keeps coming up surrounding Bitcoin is time-based capitulation. I mean, literally, we're only not even, what, two months after the halving here and people are already giving up when we know that this could be four or six months every single cycle. And it's just somewhat laughable. In May, the entire community starts

to cannibalize itself. Everybody loses their damn minds because they're not making money hand over fist every second. And there's just really nothing to see here. And so I think enjoying a boring market, just sit back and know that it could take a while. And I mean, that's the gist. It's been my sort of base case for months and nothing's really changed. Dave, so one thing I was talking to a few VCs on the weekend, just on the, again, I'm more out of touch with the markets than Ryan and Scott almost every time because they do their own show other than this one. So this one is more for me asking questions and kind of getting a sense of the market here rather than knowing the sense of the market and kind of giving my thoughts here. So I was speaking to a few VCs on the weekend, and it seems that things have slowed down considerably. So I asked them a question, like how, what percentage would you

say that the, it's mainly the VC world that I'm interested in. And, you know, they say, you know, it kind of slowed by if you look at trading volume, et cetera, or capital being invested. The numbers given to me were pretty drastic. Is that, if you compare the previous markets dave is that surprising is that what you expected um is there any any reason to be concerned or that's just part of what happens post halving yeah there's a yeah there's some well actually now it's gone uh well i mean look i don't i don't know very much about the bc market but the actual liquid trading markets, the volumes are definitely down from where they were in March. I mean, 30, 40 percent down, which is extremely interesting. Because if you believe the notion that outflows and people losing interest would tank Bitcoin's price back down into the 40s. Yet here we are still quite nicely in the same

trading range that it's been with these lower volumes. Sorry, I'm going to call simultaneously. Can you guys hear me? We can hear you now. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I was going to say, with market volumes being down between 30 and 40 percent and sentiment being as kind of, you know, muh, ho-hum and yet inflows on the ETFs and other sort of things, one would expect if you had told me all of those things, I would have said, yeah, Bitcoin will probably be somewhere in the low 50s. Meanwhile, it's substantially higher than that and still stuck in the same trading range that it's been. So there clearly are some buyers out there that are patient and kind of supporting the price. I think going back to the other big problem in the market, you know, in terms of people looking at it, the Bitcoin ETH ratio is looking like it's kind of plumbing,

you know, kind of danger territory, you know, at point zero four seven starting to slide. And that is, you know, that concerns a lot of people in terms of trading. I don't know. Tends to be the bottom of the channel. But, you know, there's lots of good reasons, as you guys are all talking about before. Well, maybe that's not the case. But the fact is, is the trading, the volatility, a lot of the things that are going on are a little muted right now. You know, there's a lot going on in the markets. This is an election year. And we've seen, you know, we talked about it this morning. There are some themes that are going to develop over the next few months that are going to matter. But really, it's waiting for, you know, what normally happens

as the summer rolls on post a halving and with everything else that's happening. So yeah, it seems like volatility is dampened and we're in a range. And Scott and I don't disagree on that. Yeah. I mean, does anybody else have an expectation of anything meaningful happening in the short term? Peter, we always get sort of your weekly thoughts on the market. Do you agree that this is sort of just the sideways chop and standard fare for this part of the cycle? Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of have one foot in one way of thinking and another foot in another way of thinking. I mean, in my mind, I'm kind of playing out two narratives that are just based on charts and price history and one has this drift sideways as part of the halving and as soon as this drift stops whether it's mid 50s low 50s whether we've already seen kind of the low dip you know we'll stabilize and you know then we go to 145 by September of 2025.

And so that's one thing that's kicking around in my head like a pinball machine going back and forth between my ears. And the other one is something that I talked briefly about. I put out a report about dealing with what I refer to as exponential decay in Bitcoin. The fact that each subsequent, each following bull market in Bitcoin has lost a lot of energy from previous bull market cycles. And, you know, we need to resolve that because if we don't, there's a potential that Bitcoin runs into problems already with the potential that we've seen the high. I don't want to believe that. I mean, I don't want to believe that because

that's not the side of the market my money's on. But yeah, there's numbers that I look at, statistics that I look at regarding exponential decay that leaves a big question mark in my mind. And if that is true, then either this is going to be a very disappointing bull market cycle, or we're going to have to violate the basic statistical structure of exponential delay. And the only way you do that is you blow out the top and go to a quarter million. But that may require a fair sized dip first. In other words, we may have to go sideways for a year under that case. So, you know, I'm my bets on Bitcoin. I'm a long term bull on Bitcoin, because I think money has to go somewhere safe when it's not being used for great stocks, a project, VC stuff.

If it's not committed to really good assets, I mean, the reality is, do people return to U.S. dollars and fiat with assets that are not being actively employed? Absolutely not. My long-term bets on Bitcoin. I believe Bitcoin becomes L1 globally at some point in time, whether that takes place in a decade or two decades or in five years. I'm not sure.

And so it's just a matter of how this thing plays out within the shorter term, shorter term being months, quarters, even perhaps a year. So I see nothing. I think Bitcoin market's acting really well. ETH, everybody knows. I agree with Alex.

I agree with Rand. Everybody knows I'm an ETH hater. So no different opinion there. Thanks, Peter. Joe, and then David. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't read too much into these doldrums. Okay. Here's a statistic from the legacy world right now, traditional finance that I think not enough people are paying attention to it. When you look at SPY, right, since the year 2000, SPY has never had back-to-back closes with under 39 million shares traded until last

Thursday and Friday. There is an anemic, violently anemic lack of interest in volume across asset classes. And I think the trigger is this preprint we're going to get tomorrow on the CPI. I think they're looking at this print saying this is going to turn the direction of the markets for the next several months, and no one's willing to put on big positions or trade until you get that print coming down. So I think that's a catalyst. I think we break down or up, I don't know which one, I'm not going to pretend, tomorrow with this print, because I think it's going to either handcuff the Fed moving forward. Got to remember, we're going into the election season. It's like 60 days away before

people start actually thinking about the election with the conventions when they start popping up in July and August. So to me, that's what's driving this. It's just basically a wait and see, very low volume, very low lack of willingness to put on big positions. And I think you break out of that this week. I think it's an absolutely pivotal week for markets across the space. I agree with you that it's a pivotal week. I also agree with you that it's not tomorrow. It's Wednesday. CPI is Wednesday.

I think tomorrow is PPI. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. You're correct. Yes. Yeah. So I also think that I've been watching the Cleveland Fed, and the Cleveland Fed, they're quite good at calling the CPI read. Now, they initially forecast like a 3.38,

which would have been like the expectation is 3.4, just the forecast expectation is 3.4. But if you look at their page today, their page today has been updated to say that they're forecasting April CPI to be 3.5%. The market's expecting 3.4%. So I think what will happen, unfortunately, is that the market, the CPI, if a CPI comes in

where the Cleveland Fed says it's going to come in, which is at 3.5%, that'll be a 0.1 miss as to where the market's expecting to get the CPI data, which is not good but then i look at then i look at something which peter will actually will probably appreciate and that is if you look at the stochastic rsis on bitcoin the stochastic rsis are at the bottom and if you look at the two time frames i don't remember the two time frames because i'm in the car now i don't have it in front of me but there's two times probably weekly and daily probably something

like that something like that. Something like that. But the line crosses so that the one line is about to cross the other line on the way up kind of thing, which is usually a signal for a beginning of a move or for an acceleration of a move. So the two data points are quite conflicting to me because for me, the source of truth is actually the stochastic RSI. Stochastic is telling me that there's going to be a move in Bitcoin and it's probably going to be up. It doesn the source of truth is actually the stochastic RSI saying stochastic is telling me that there's going to be a move in Bitcoin

and it's probably going to be up. It doesn't have to happen tomorrow or the next day. But ironically, the line crosses tomorrow or the next day. Now, theoretically, it should cross for an upward move

if the chart theories are correct. Problem is the data is showing me that the data is not going to be so good. So it could mean that maybe the Cleveland Fed is going to be wrong with their analysis. And CPI comes in 0.2 lower. It's like 3.3. Now, one thing we need to note is that they are excluding coffee from the CPI because coffee has gone up 75%.

And they say that it's skewing the data in the wrong direction or skewing the data because of the the crazy moves they're now excluding coffee uh from the cpi and it's gone up i think 75 percent in the last year or something like that and so what they've decided to do is actually just exclude it to manipulate the numbers i just checked yeah i just checked quickly uh daily uh stochastic is still kind of towards the top but but it's weekly. Yeah, it's weekly. It's weekly. That's slightly crossing and is bottomed out. I mean, listen, price can go kind of sideways on stochastic RSI moves, but generally that is a very, very consistent indicator.

All right. Just to be clear, they're not excluding coffee. That's not right. They're excluding canned coffee, which is diminishing market spare so bagged coffee still is included so they just you can look that up but they're not they're retooling the model because why somewhere somewhere why would i do that because somewhere because because somewhere of 90 of all coffee purchase comes in bags now not cans so they did canned coffee as an item from the back the work.

This is a flaw. People always complain about the basket. The basket is updated in their best way to try to reflect actual consumer purchases, right? So like it's not when people say, oh, they don't use the 1970s numbers. That's because we don't eat as much beef as we did in 1970. We eat a lot more chicken. So they balance it to substitute more chicken for beef. They update it to reflect consumer actual behavior. That's the whole basis for the model. So you can make an argument, well, consumers have chosen cheaper proteins. That's why they're responding to the higher prices. I get that whole argument. But you have to make a model somehow. You have to develop some basket of what goods and services people are relying on for the typical median U.S. household.

David? Yeah, so this is a very muted conversation we're having here on in in on the backdrop that roaring kitty is back and gamestop is flying today and i heard they stopped trade i heard they stopped trade of gamestop five times as of 45 minutes ago it was five times it was up 110 i mean guys that's why that's why trading meme coins is so much more fun i don't know why people would ever trade game stuff, rather trade meme coins when they can't stop the trade. It's much more fair. Right. So in any event, I don't think Bitcoin has grown up that much that it needs to be this boring at this point or crypto generally. Look, I think we certainly the macro data is writ large, I think, over the sector at this point, at least from the more thoughtful minds. But remember, there are still lots of degens in the space all over the place holding everything and everybody in between, between the most sophisticated and the most degens. So I think there's still definitely, you know, space for a lot of

excitement, not to say that there needs to be excitement between now and the end of the year. The other thing that I'm shifting into thinking really hard about is the election. This is, I can't remember an election that is more polarizing than this one. The day after, I really don't know what happens the day after. Certainly, if Trump loses, I don't know what happens the day after. I believe Trump will win. Not that I'm a Trump supporter or Biden supporter. But it seems like you can't hold the guy down, even if he's in court, even if he's under, you know, a bunch of indictments, um, you know, uh, and we, we, we'll go ahead and see,

but I think most people's portfolios are going to start to shift into that mode. Um, I, I happen to like the most recent price action that we've seen throughout crypto. It's been, you know, supportive of the notion that there is a floor that, you know, there is stability, that we're getting ready to go ahead and climb higher, you know, at the right time, either with the right news, or with the right momentum. So there, I think, you know, I think there is what to be, you know, happy about. I, I'm very interested to see what goes on in China. I think it's unlikely that they get exposure ever to the Hong Kong ETF. But there may be, maybe there is a possibility surrounding that. And then also, with respect to FTX, to FTX and the plan coming together. And I guess

people, I don't know what percentage of FTX customers, creditors are still crypto folks and how many have left the sector. I'd be curious about that. But to the extent that people are and they haven't sold their claims and they're a little bit more assured of what their payout will be, maybe they'll be willing to go ahead and take on, you know, some more risk. Certainly it's going to take, you know, a long period of time until they actually start to get the majority of distributions into their pocket. But nevertheless, you know, putting that part of crypto history behind us with, I'd say, generally not the worst ending that could have happened. Certainly, you know, for all the people that were subject to the crime and the fraud and so forth, it's awful. And hopefully it never gets repeated, you know, for you.

But that being said, the concern when it blew up, you know, that it all go to zero. And now, you know, there being a much better outcome than zero, I think is a good thing for purposes of sentiment. Again, for those people that remain in the sector, I'd be curious to know how many people remain. So those are my thoughts. Yeah, I think that's a very decent breakdown. FTX, to your point, I think it's a complete nonsensical narrative that they're getting paid back in full. But utterly nonsense because they haven't captured any of the upside. But relative to the other situations, everybody knows I'm a Voyager creditor. I mean, we got, you know, 30% back of the USD value at that time, 34%.

And so, and that was without the CEO being on trial for fraud and going to jail for 25 years. Right. So I would say that considering the amount of the fraud, it's very impressive how much they recovered. To call out bankers. Would you justify the fees? How do you feel with that against the bankruptcy? The bankruptcy process is a scam. Yeah, go ahead. Scott, can I comment on that?

Just because I'm a recovering bankruptcy professional, right? I started my career as a bankruptcy attorney. Then I did a bunch of turnaround work. Then I invested in distressed debt for a bunch of my life. So let me tell you the skinny on this. First of all, bankruptcy professionals think they're the shit. They think they're the world's greatest gift. And they're notorious for going ahead and tooting their horns very loudly. One great example is when, you know, a company goes into bankruptcy and it gets a debtor in possession loan. You know, the smack number across the front page is increasingly greater than the amount of, quote unquote, new money going into the company. Essentially, they roll up all the pre-petition loans into that

debtor in possession loan. And it sounds like a gargantuan amount. And it sounds like, you know, the company and its creditors have nothing to be worried about because there is this huge lifeline that's being sent to it. And in fact, the reality is different. So the same thing with this bankruptcy professionals want to go ahead and run a victory lap. They don't deserve it. You know, to some extent, you know, a ton of this was luck, right? They'll never say that because they want you to believe that they're

worth worth 2000 an hour, 2,500 hour, whatever the going rate is now. Um, but the truth of the matter is, you know, this was a lot, a lot of luck. Yeah, exactly. Not so much skill. In terms of what they get paid, it's a mafia, at the end of the day, all these guys inflate together. There's price fixing. I mean, it'll never get broken. But at the end of the day, do they deserve what they do? Some of the greatest ones in terms of strategy, also in terms of, you know, when they get down to very difficult matters, in terms of, and this is where the greatest rub is, I think, a lot of times the hardest issues, like let's say the custodian issue with respect to the, you know, the crypto in the case of FTX, right? That custodial issue of whether I get my Bitcoin back or do I get the

value of the Bitcoin back? That's a tough issue. That's a great legal issue. They didn't want it to be decided because at the end of the day, it would have been binary. And so they figured it would be smarter rather than go ahead and, you know, potentially risk a full on loss. And by the way, years of litigation, both at the bankruptcy court level, then the district court level, then the appeals court level, and then the Supreme Court, maybe, you know, why don't we go ahead and cut our losses and reach a deal? And that's kind of where things fall out. And I know it's, it's not satisfactory, but that's the reality. How do you rate John Ray as a, as a, as a liquidator? He's a corrupt jackass, but at the end of the day, he's just as good as anybody else's.

When you say corrupt jackass, who's the... I mean, he's not being corrupt by Elizabeth Warren, so who's the... I think he means just the whole process. Yeah, go ahead. There's an inside baseball game here. First of all, Sullivan and Cromwell has no right to have

anything to do with this case, right? They are not a bankruptcy law firm by any stretch of the imagination, right? If you would have hired the guy who has the, he may be a super smart guy, and he may work at one of the top five law firms in the country, but at the end of the day, they got the mandate because of the connections that they have, not because of the chops that Sullivan and Cromwell have when it comes to bankruptcy. Right. So you wouldn't have appointed John Ray unless, you know, he's somebody's friend and, you know, he's he's in a very inner circle of people that simply gave him this mandate. And by the way, you know, from a business perspective, it's brilliant, because once Sullivan and Cromwell gets this mandate, well, they'll get every single one

thereafter. So, you know, it's who appoints Sullivan and Cromwell, who appointed Sullivan and Cromwell on FTX? Who would have made the call? Oh, it's, you know, if I'm not mistaken, the United States trustee is very heavily involved in that, which is effectively an arm of the executive branch. It didn't come down to creditors voting, saying this is the guy we want for the job. It wasn't open to that. And I don't even know. I'm sure there's a write-up somewhere about what the beauty pageant looked like for this, but, you know, anybody else who went ahead and rolled themselves out to

potentially get this job, you know, had pages upon pages of experience in large Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, financial fraud cases. I mean, there's at least 10 firms that I would go ahead and list before getting to Sullivan and Krohn, at least 10 firms. But again, it had to do with political connections. And, you know, that's how they got the deal. Not again. But the bottom line is, I don't think John Ray did such a awful job relative to what anybody else would have done, right? It's not like he did miracles in this case. Dave Weisberg, do you disagree with me? Not at all. I was actually just going to ask you a question that I don't know the answer to, and you might and probably do. Part of last week's flap over SAB 121 was, it seemed to a few people, and that sounded right, that that guidance effectively

blocked any chance at what you were calling the binary decision, you know, because essentially it said that banks had to carry crypto on their balance sheet. And I was curious, you know, given the fact that we know that in the equity markets, they specifically have things in street name and the way they've engineered it, so that in a bankruptcy, there's a look through to the actual assets. I'm curious what your thoughts are. What's the best way for future situations like this to be protected against? That's at this point above my, I wouldn't say above my pay grade, but above my specialty, right? There are wonks that go ahead and worry about this stuff. I think what the right thing to do is to go ahead and segregate things. How are you going to go ahead and segregate things? How are you going

to go ahead and, you know, not only set up the language in, you know, agreements, but also in terms of separating division of labor, right? Do you have an exchange and therefore you have an independent custodian? And then do you have a, you know, an independent broker? Or can you go ahead and roll those functions up inside of one entity? And if rolled up, how do they go ahead and, you know, get divided, you know, internally? That's not my thing, right? I am not there. There are very sharp people that this is what they love, the dryness of that stuff, which when it when the shit hits the fan, you know, that stuff really, really matters, as we've seen. But in terms of, you know, how that all shakes out, what the practicality,

what's the what's what's the lessons learned from FTX and whether we in fact get it, whether it be through industry practice or from regulation slash legislation, which is what our legislators and regulators are paid to do, even though they're not doing it. I don't know how that comes to pass, but it should. We should get a much better system than we have right now. That was sort of my point. You know, the slight pivot here is, I don't know, you didn't mention it this morning, but the tirade that Mark Cuban went on this weekend, and, you know, I and a lot of other people retweeted and specified, but one of the points that he made is specifically that the SEC, as at least some culpability in terms of allowing FTX to happen,

and a lack of a regulatory structure made it dramatically worse. And I think that that is, as we go to an election year, when you start seeing opinion shapers saying that publicly, it becomes an issue. And I think it is worth talking about. I don't know what other panelists think about that. I mean, give your thoughts first, for sure. Well, I mean, look, personally, I think that it's early. I agree with, I forgot who said it this morning, you know, a little while ago, that we kind of have to wait until the conventions, but if we're sitting with the same sort of narrative where, you know,

crypto and economic freedom and people who have been wronged by FTX and the people who are the young people who are playing with meme coins and all those others all get to focus their rage. You know, it is a political issue that is going to matter. I mean, and the only reason I think the conventions matter is because, to be blunt, I still think there's a chance that the Democrats will make a change. And who knows what they'll do. And obviously, we're seeing lots of very serious Democrat donors and Democrat supporters get very angry. And so, you know, all of that, regardless of how that goes, I mean, that potentially could be the white swan event

from a crypto perspective. That could happen, and it would happen well before the actual election. It'll happen when the polls start coming in and when changes get made or if changes get made. Yeah, we spoke about this this morning, obviously. I mean, there are a lot of – I hesitate to call people necessarily pro-Biden, maybe we say anti-Trump, but there are quite a few Democrats who are just besides themselves over what's happened the last few weeks, right? I mean, Anthony Scaramucci, I don't think he's a Democrat,

but obviously anti-Trump, saying, you know, these policies will hand the election to Trump. Novogratz expressing the same. And as you said, Mark Cuban, who I think is a relatively outspoken Democrat, also believing that this could be the death knell for Biden and the administration because of these policies against crypto. I mean, do we all believe that crypto is actually big enough to swing this election at this point? I mean, Rand, what do you think from the outside looking in? Maybe we lost him. Anyone else, Ran, what do you think from the outside looking in? Maybe we lost him. Anyone else? Joe, what do you think?

I think it would be the best thing if the world... Go ahead, Ran. I said I tweeted about this and I said I think it would be the best thing in the world if the reason the Democrats lost the election was because of crypto. That would be the ultimate, ultimate ultimate ultimate revenge of the crypto industry yes i'm a i'm a i'm a liberal but i'm not voting for biden and and i know many other people who are liberal who are not going to vote for biden so it's not just because of the crypto. There's many reasons.

I don't see how he doesn't win it. And I'm looking forward to having leaders in this country that actually look positive on innovating the way money works. I think it would be amazing. Who would you vote for if you didn't vote

for Biden? I mean, if RFK had a chance, it would be RFK. But if not, then I'll vote for Trump. And it hurts me to say because I personally hate Trump. A lot of people in your position, I mean, I was in the States now, and I like sense checked with a lot of people in the US. And the general feeling that I got from a lot of people was, look, I would have voted biden

i can't vote for biden because the crypto policies but i really can't vote for trump so i'm just gonna vote or like they say like i lost ram do you guys hear him no no we him. Yeah. We'll see if he comes back. Joey, your sentiment I've heard nonstop. I have a huge group of friends, obviously, who I went to college with in the 90s at Penn. They're all Wall Street guys, but largely leaning, I think, left-leaning centrists. And they're not heavily in crypto. And I keep trying to explain to them just how bad this is for their guy, so to speak.

They all hate Biden, by the way. They just hate Trump more, I think is the consensus. But I think that what we have at this point to what you just said is that you have a lot of people who will vote for Trump, his base, however large that is. And you have a lot of people who will vote against Trump, but there's very few people less who are going to vote in their mind left for Biden. That's the impression that I'm getting. And Scott, you know me, my dad does construction. He did Taj Mahal. He got screwed over on Taj Mahal. You know how much it pains me to say that I'll vote for Trump. but i will because i think that's what's better at this point and it's it's it's hard to do but um biden is just like old school old rules and that's all it is what was the what was the whole uh controversy with the block works article

that molly zuckerman wrote uh around like crypto oh feed dave dave loves this topic he what dave uh dave and i were talking before uh macro monday he was calling me from his car and just on an absolute tear about this at 8 45 in the morning so you you've you've just lobbed him a huge softball yeah buddy yeah i mean look i'm a big free speech advocate she has every right to say what she wants to say. BlockRx, it's actually kind of good that. It keeps coming up, pop-up ads. You know, it's like, what I see is a small number of wealthy individuals who made their wealth from cryptocurrency, looking for government to let them continue growing that wealth unfettered. Effectively, what she did is told people like me, who moved into crypto seven years ago from traditional finance, having, you know, spent most of my life either at, for those who know, I built Two Sigma Securities for Two Sigma. Before that, I had a variety of jobs running StatArb and electronic market making for Citigroup, and we can go back further.

I moved into crypto not only because I saw an opportunity to make money, but also because I genuinely believe that it will ultimately help us create a more inclusive, egalitarian, global financial system. And there are, I've talked to many other founders in this space, many of which have had troubles, particularly post-FTX, who have gone through stuff and are still grinding away at it. And for her to trivialize the motivations of thousands of founders and employees, tens of thousands of employees, maybe hundreds of thousands, who actually believe we're building something that's meaningful, I found incredibly insulting. Now, that said, it's a view. I understand her point

of view. I think economic freedom matters. I think all this stuff matters. And I think it's great to get this out there. But it is amazing how much of a firestorm it seems to have kicked up because there are quite a few of us who believe this and i think it's a great i think i'm surprised i'm surprised though that i'm surprised that she'd said because she's she's been in the crypto for like she's been in crypto for a while she's been a managing editor like quite a few companies super surprised that someone like with that stature would trivialize crypto. Well, I used to quote Mike McGlone, who always uses this word. I think it's called copium. I think that seeing all the people that she worked with saying things like Joe just said, or I would say, which is I don't like him, but I'm going to vote for Trump. Seeing Ryan

Selkis get up on the stage at Mar-a-Lago probably just turned a knife inside her. And she's like, I can't take it anymore. And she wanted to lash out. I think there are a lot of people who don't understand. It's just being sold out by your own people is a very difficult thing to do. And there are a couple of issues where that's happening right now. And it matters, right? You know, for those of us who are in the space, it's there. But I think that the problem

from my perspective, and Ryan, they've already agreed to let Ryan post his op-ed, and I'm sure it's going to be well written as everything he writes is, is that there are a lot of people in crypto. Anyone who's doing crypto in the United States right now who hasn't left generally has i'm interested to know so scott you're american dave you're american i don't know who else is american on the panel so i'm going to throw it into all of you guys um are you guys single issue voters or are there other issues with upon which you're placing your votes like like i'm not american so like for me it's it's pretty it's pretty simple but like for you guys like are you guys single issue voters are you only do you only care about crypto

or are there other issues that you're kind of looking at and going you know like i care about crypto but i also care about something else i don't view myself as a single issue voter at all i think that it's extremely compelling but something dave and i discussed this morning i think the tack that this administration is taking against crypto is very telling of a lot of other issues as well. So I think there's some blurring of the lines between being a single issue voter and crypto that expand well beyond crypto to personal freedom and privacy and other things like that. So I think it's kind of a nuanced and hard question to answer.

Like I personally, and I'm pretty, you know, try to keep quiet at this point about politics because I've been so outspoken about it in the past, but the entire system, the two party system makes me literally want to gag and throw up in my mouth every second of my life. So it's not, I don't see a situation here where I'm epically excited about either option. In fact, both make me sick. And I lean towards the guy who, you know, talks about worms in his brain as a result.

You know, I just don't really like the options. But no, I think that there's a lot more at stake in this election for Americans than simply your crypto. So, you know, Molly and I know her as well, to your point, I think she overstated her point and pissed people off. And I think that we have a sort of conservative tilt, obviously, in crypto. And she brought up certain specific things that maybe are triggering to to that side but i don't think there's anything wrong with saying hey guys there's other things besides crypto to to consider when you're voting right so i i i so strongly agree with almost all of that yeah see i have a single issue i've i've been anti sorry i've been anti-CBDC and what was coming. And of course, that's related to crypto. I really do think CBDC is a huge threat to freedom. Because although initially it might start out well, eventually, some president's going to do something stupid with it and control people's money. So I've been single issue because

I think that's a huge threat. But that is kind of related to crypto that is kind of related to financial freedom. They're all kind of linked together a bit. So yeah, that is my biggest issue. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think to people who are into crypto, there's a reason and it's not necessarily the price of assets going up and down, which is how it was sort of minimized in that article. Go ahead, Peter, then David. Yeah, I live 30 miles from the Mexican border in Arizona. I live each day listening to county sheriffs and local law enforcement about the tragedy that's taking place at the border. So, yeah, I'm more than one issue. And one issue

for me is definitely immigration. So I did not vote for Trump in the last election. There's no way in the world I can vote for Biden in relative, yeah, perhaps in just one issue on immigration. Although there are more issues for me that are important, but immigration is a big one. David? So I think there's a little bit, when people ask me, do I think crypto is going to affect the election?

I think it's important to remember that the election really isn't a national election anymore because of the system. And the four swing states that really matter here, like the differential between Biden and Trump in 2020 was less than 200,000 votes. And suddenly that's where crypto might be like the wedge issue. Because in every election, they always say younger people need to come out and vote. But if younger people come out and vote, they're primarily voting on two issues,

one which I won't get into because it's really geopolitical, and the other is crypto. So if the younger people come out, they do have the ability to swing the election in Georgia, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin. And those are swing states that Biden can't win without Michigan, for instance. And if people, young people come out and they vote and they vote crypto, yeah, crypto can suddenly have a large impact because they only need so few voters. And the people who are coming out to vote for the first time, those younger voters are going to come out and they're going to vote for crypto. And if that happens, suddenly, you know, 200,000 votes over four states, there are a lot of young people who are only going to vote because they think that

Trump is going to be better or Kennedy is going to be better on crypto. And a vote against Biden by not voting for Biden, but voting for either Trump or voting for Kennedy is really just a vote against Biden, which is going to cost him the election in one of those four states. And I do think that's mission critical that all of a sudden the crypto vote does actually matter. If you had said that to me four years ago, I would have chuckled thinking that the crypto vote could actually swing the election. But because there's so few, we really are a country of 48% for one party, 48% for another party. The swing vote of that 200,000 votes just between Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, we really could, the crypto vote actually could swing the vote because of how small the difference is in those states. Yeah. And David, I mean, more importantly, you would have laughed at the notion of it before.

This is less, I think, about the crypto vote swaying the election than it is about the just absolute absurdity and aggressiveness of the policy that's happening right now that has forced people to make it an issue. Right. If they hadn't come out with the anti crypto army and so aggressively, it feels like I mean, the Biden administration, Elizabeth Warren, they could have just bided their time and waited and not made this such an issue. It's literally a political miscalculation on their part that made it the issue. I think it's the irrationality of the behavior. I think it's the irrationality of the behavior which is upsetting us rather than the crypto, the anti-crypto narrative. It's more the irrationality of it.

Well, I think that it's not the irrationality of it. Well, I think that it's not the irrationality of it. I don't like thinking it's irrational. I think that the Biden team has so miscalculated that they went for younger voters and they picked the wrong issue. And the issue they could have won is if they literally deadpan and said, guys, we got the crypto thing wrong two years ago. We're going to replace Gary Gens ago. We're going to replace Gary Gensler. We're going to win the Twitter battle. And we're going to pick up, if they did that, hundreds of thousands of votes, which it wouldn't have impacted any other policy for them. And they could have swung hundreds of thousands of votes in these key states with a younger demographic.

They could have put Biden up there with a bunch of young guys talking crypto. They could have swung the election with such a simple issue. But David, not even that. I mean, they could have just stayed quiet for a little while, right? I mean, listen, this really all hit ahead last week, Rand, you asked when Saab, what is it, 121, right? When the administration literally came out and put a letter out that said they would preemptively announcing that they would veto bipartisan action

that came through Congress and Senate, for whatever reason, whether that was the huge issue, that seems to have been the moment that catalyzed the industry against them. And that even, as I said, brought out the Novogratzes and Scaramucci's and Mark Cuban's to really finally, you know, speak that their guy or, you know, the team that they were voting for was going to lose as a result of this. That was the moment and ran. I think it's to your

point. That's because it's so irrational. It's one thing to come after fraud, or at least to say that you're going to, or to say that you're going to pass legislation, all this. But to say, we hate this so much that we're going to put out an executive order, we're going to veto this if it comes across our desk when the entire government has agreed on it, that was the peak absurdity. People don't understand. I wonder how Scaramucci feels now, because I know he hates Trump. I mean, he hates Elizabeth Warren, too, which is, you know, he likes, yeah. Well, well, I wonder why, because I know he hates Trump. I mean... He hates Elizabeth Warren too, which is, you know, he likes, yeah.

Well, I wonder why because I know he likes crypto and I think it's pretty clear now that if you vote for Biden, you're voting anti-crypto and you're basically fumbling your bags if you vote for Biden.

And I know he hates Trump, so I'm wondering kind of like what's his position now? I wonder if he's going to be as vocal towards Biden. He has. You know, he's been so vocal anti-Trump. I wonder if he's going to be as vocal towards Biden. You know, he's been so vocal anti-Trump.

I wonder if he's going to change his tune-up. So this is the one thing I said in October when Elizabeth Warren's chief of staff, John Donenberg, left the role at Elizabeth Warren to go on to President Biden's team. It was like a small step up, but you don't leave someone who's rock solid

to win in DC, who as much as like, look, I'm supporting John Deaton hard, but like Elizabeth Warren, it's an uphill battle to beat her to go work for Biden, you know, with a year to go. This is John,

this has Elizabeth Warren's and John Donenberg's fingerprints all over the fact that they put out that pre, that preemptive letter, not supporting it and it's crazy to me that this is i mean it's it's like a it's like you said it's it's it's crazy that they put that letter out and all they had to do there was yet another perfect moment in

time yeah they could have swapped the position and said look it's or done nothing yeah or just nothing and they could have won. Yeah. Just just absurd. I doubt Biden even knows that came out. But yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I mean, I think that it's it's interesting. There's two things to hear. First, if McHenry does get the FIT Act to the floor of the House and members who are in that camp vote against it. And that could become an issue because understand that they would then be effectively voting to continue this regulatory miasma that we have. And it's going to make for some unbelievably easy campaign ads. So-and-so voted to help the future SBFs and showing the court.

I mean, it's just I could write the ads for them. I mean, it's going to be bad. And one wonders, and I understand where Scaramucci is coming from, because we had this conversation at a conference in New York about a month and a half ago. He believed at that point that Biden and the Democrats were going to pivot over the summer. Now it's pretty obvious to him that that's probably not true because he started effectively whining and complaining and yelling at Biden on Twitter, listen, you need to pivot because this stuff is not good for you. And, you know, we don't know what's going to happen. But look, people have made major flip flops on policies and made major changes before on less. You know, it used to be it would take an affair or some, you know, something tawdry to get someone to drop out or to get people, you know, rearranged or reshuffled. But it's entirely possible the polls continue like this, you know, 100,000 people in South Jersey screaming for Trump is the kind of thing that's going to get

a lot of notice. Now, I don't think that has anything to do with crypto. Let's be really clear about that. But I would be stunned if the administration doesn't try to make things happen on the border and make things happen in crypto, make things happen in other places to try to make things happen on the border and make things happen in crypto, make things happen in other places to try to get back towards where they have a path to winning. Because right now, if the election were held in the next month, Biden loses. Do you reckon there's any chance that he gets replaced, like maybe a Michelle Obama or, I don't know, somebody else, maybe Gavin Newsom? Who knows? It's happened before. LBJ was the last one where it was obvious. And this situation

might even be more dire from the Democrats' point of view. I don't have as many friends as Scott, but I was out to dinner this weekend and I 100 percent said I still don't think Biden's going to be the guy running in November. So, I mean, yes, I agree with you, Ran. I think there's some, they're going to slip in because it is not, the numbers are so bad that there's just, there's no path to victory and they're going to do something and it has to happen. Man, we've already declared no path. Go ahead, Ran.

You think it could be, you think it could be Michelle Obama? Or is that ludicrous? I hear it all the time. I seriously doubt it. I think there's about a 0% chance that Biden doesn't run. Outside of, obviously, him being incapacitated in some way, they're going to ride this horse all the way to the end.

I mean, he is incapacitated. Let's be real about this. I guess he will be the vice president. Have they committed to Kamala Harris as the vice presidential candidate? I haven't even seen anything. I don't follow it so closely. Because that's the big question, I think, on people's minds. I don't think they're changing a thing.

I want to know if it's Michelle Obama. And then I want to know if she's really a man. Because my wife says she's a man. Oh, God. And on that note, anybody else have any thoughts on this? Because we're 10 minutes over time. Andrew, I saw you came up. I didn't know if this was specifically about this or not.

But you can wrap us up here. Yeah, just one more thought. We've finally gotten to a place where hyper-aggressive administrative anti-capitalism has finally found its way in a very real sense to crypto, right? So yeah, crypto army and all those things. But being a one issue voter probably is not much about crypto as it is about an anti-capitalist administration. That's been the reality for four years now. And that they have no that there's not going to be a pivot heading up to the election. They're not going to somehow become less anti-capitalist. That is who they are and how they handle things. And they think that it's an issue that will somehow win the day. So it's not necessarily about crypto. And I don't want to

bang on somebody that wrote an op-ed, but there's a case to be made that journalists as a group, you know, bend in a certain direction. They're probably not the biggest fans of folks that benefit from capitalism, yada, yada, yada. So it's not hard to see where something like that comes from. But the one issue of Odo's stuff is it's really about capitalism versus anti-capitalism. And this administration across the board, every regulatory agency has made it difficult, much more difficult to make money, run a business, build a business in this country without question. I think you could also expand that before we run from capitalism to entrepreneurship and, and, you know and technology and innovation.

Right. So not even just capital markets, but obviously, I think a pretty wide assault on tech and innovators and wealth in general. Tax policy as well. I mean, coming out with crazy thoughts, you know, actually saying out loud, we want to tax unrealized gains. That's insanity. I mean, that is pure insanity. But yet they're like, let's send out that press release. Let's run with that talking point. It plays to their base. So, yeah. I think we've beaten politics to death for the day, at least for me. And like I said, kind of went over death for the day, at least for me. And like I said, kind of went over time here.

So thank you, everybody. Really great conversations. Always amazing how far we can wander and how wide of topics we can cover in just an hour and a half. So thank you, guys. Everybody, you know, follow our guests. They're all amazing. That's why they're up here. And we'll be back tomorrow, of course, 10, 15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. See you guys tomorrow. Bye.