The Wolf Of All Streets - Crypto Dumps, Coinbase Premium Returns… Something’s Up #CryptoTownHall

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

In this lively Crypto Town Hall episode, the hosts and guests dive into Bitcoin's recent price action around $69K, debating whether the pullback from the 70s is healthy consolidation or signals more downside. Discussions cover Coinbase premium myths, ETF liquidity shifts, technical support levels like the 200-week MA, options-driven volatility, and aggressive trading vs. long-term DCA strategies. The conversation heats up with heated exchanges on market manipulation, leverage risks, Epstein-related FUD, quantum concerns, institutional trust erosion, and broader macro/geopolitical uncertainty—ending on a note that Bitcoin may serve as the ultimate trustless asset amid institutional chaos. A raw, unfiltered Monday morning crypto debate.

Morning, everybody and welcome to Crypto Town Hall every weekday here at 1015am Eastern Standard Time. I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend. We're endlessly entertained by whichever Super Bowl halftime show you chose to view because of your politics. I was watching Bitcoin go up and down. That was more entertaining than anything could have possibly happened in that shit show of a football game. But here we are. I haven't even checked since I got home. It looks like Bitcoin trading right around $69,000, $69,522 Ethereum, still holding just above 2,000.

Markets a bit all over the place. Crypto dumps, Coinbase premium returns, something's up. I don't know. Crypto, I wouldn't say dumped. I would say that it had a really nice reaction off of the lows last week when it hit $60,000 or broke just below, bounced up into the low 70s and is now settling in and waiting. for direction, but I would love to entertain any other opinions there. Dave? Yeah, I was just looking.

I mean, every time people talk about the Coinbase premium, what they're basically saying is USDT is trading a tiny bit below par, which is exactly where it is today. And it's just, it's actually almost amusing. Why is that? It's because Bitcoin USDT price, when, when UST is in a slight premium, trades at a higher price than Bitcoin versus dollars and vice versa. And so that's what you see. So people like to make a big deal of that.

It's just dumb, but okay, you know, whatever. You know, I'm used to that. What's also interesting is when Ibit and since I bit debuted with all of the other ETFs in particular, it's restored a bit of equilibrium. Back for those who don't know the history, Bitcoin trading in USD dollars actually in Spot had bigger volume than Bitcoin trading and Tether for a while. And then Silicon Valley Bank happened. And the anti-crypto army basically made it impossible to transfer dollars over the weekend, meaning that trading in dollars would have dramatically higher cost, dramatically higher volatility

during periods of time. And the net result was a lot of that liquidity migrated to USDT, to the point where there's the order books even on Cracken. on USDT could be tighter. And certainly the aggregate order book would get tighter. So since the ETFs, that trend has started to reverse again, still not not completely. But it is fascinating how people look at this and think that it's saying a lot.

What is true is spot led down during the 25 massacre and Jeff Park did a pretty good job of explaining it. But the fact that there's more buying coming out of the US because it's easier to buy Bitcoin in dollars than in tether if you are trading the ETFs and you have to do creations etc yeah okay it's i don't think it's nearly as meaningful as people think but whatever you triggered me on that one scott sorry as far as the super bowl goes i mean you know look i'm a football fan and uh you know i i as a jet fan which of course is my mark of shame uh i still and i didn't want them to trade away sam

donnell i'm glad to see him win a super bowl and of course as a jet fan i hate the patriots with the with the ferocity that one might expect for an organization who has rubbed our faces and crap for years. So, you know, to me, it was okay. You know, halftime shows, I mean, look, people over-politicized stuff. It's just, it's absurd. I mean, it really is absurd, right? You know, I understand. I understand Spanish.

I get that. Okay, fine, whatever. But you can't argue with the production quality. You can't argue with what they did. And you also can't argue that other people could have alternatives. You know, whatever. I mean, who cares? I mean, the fact that this stuff gets politicized, it just...

Can we talk about crypto or Bitcoin? Sorry to... Yeah, it would be better. That's... I kind of wanted to go there. Yeah. You know, like, I mean, there's, like, there's, like, there's, like, there's, like, there's, like, there on two thousand people in the air, but come.

Yeah, no. Let's just crack on, you know? So, James, you, you know, you, you, you, you called for the level that we're at now. And I remember, I think I saw that you, went long recently. My thought is we're going to bounce around here for a while before this consolidation. We end up with a hated rally. What is your thought since you're at, since you, since you're jumped on?

Yeah. I mean, so obviously, like you have various stages as a trade, like where you take off it or whatever. So, you know, DCA did into me short and DCA'd out of my short. But I did, contrary to popular belief, I flip bullish. very recently. Am I longing? No. Have I got longs?

Yes. But I'm, you know, I'm adding more to spot than longs. I've got a small long position. Similar to Chris from Dubai. You know,

Chris from Dubai is one of the best traders. He did the same trade as me. I made $40 million on the trade. He did. He had isolated 17 X made. I don't know. He made, actually made upwards of 70 million,

but it was different. We both caught Bitcoin at 42K. He did leverage long. But he's now. starting to add to his long position me too as well and but yeah so this is like a just a very strong situation for bitcoin not only considering the downfall it's hard and i don't know what percent 30 i can drag it now i thought if i had to 30 was top to bottom you know 52 percent fucking pullback and a 52% pullback given ETS, given government, given big money buying.

Like we've never seen for last cycle. Those there was never no billionaires, you know, multi-millionaires, fucking people on TV, like, you know, Tom Lee or whatever, like none of that. Not only that, but at this level, we've got a huge support channel, you know, I mean, from last cycle's double top, you know, the, that. you know, that support. And then even like this cycle round, we had a huge, like a huge multi-week falling wedge at this level.

And then we're bouncing off very strongly right now at the 200-week moving average. So to not bite this level to some degree, you know, well, then you're an idiot. If you're sound at this level, then you're definitely an idiot. You know, could it go lower? Yeah, maybe. But what's it going to go to?

50K, 40K. who gives a fuck, you know? So yeah, like, you know, is it going to pull a 180? Will it chop, like you said? Probably chop for a bit. But then again, I do feel there's been an awful lot of over-the-counter, over-the-counter-buying buy-buy orders. I think there's a lot of paper money that's just not been priced in with Bitcoin.

And that's where I feel like you could have a very, very very swift, sharp 180 reversal with Bitcoin. And it will shock us all. It won't shock me, but it will shock most people if it comes through. Because I just think a lot of stuff is over the counter at IOUs, not priced in. Bitcoin is so undervalued. It's worth far more than 68.8K. I mean, look at the one that gold's gone on.

Look at the one that silver's going on. Look at what's gold and silver's doing today. Japan's just made a new all-time high. obviously after the election over there but it's ridiculous I mean yeah obviously gold and suffers you know

there's nothing better than cold when it comes to government you know buying wanting to debase their currency or protect their currency and buying this that and new but when it comes into Cold War World War you know geopolitical distress fucking all this

and that and other but Bitcoin is the the next in terms of I mean, what else can, when the NASDAQ sells off, or the SPX sells off, or people slowly take provisions gold, even though I think gold can very easily double from here, why wouldn't it, considering the situation in the world. But then again, I've got some people who'd call, you know, irrational beliefs, but I think it's all coming true. What I was saying, one year ago, two years ago, coming into play. And you're an idiot to deny anything that I've been. saying because it's literally anybody who says we're not in a

Cold War, well, no. They'll tell you we're in a Cold War when we're halfway down the road and we're in a Cold War again. It's all fucking God giving fat. Yeah, let's stick on the topic because we got other people with their hands up. So yeah, yeah. I want to go to

Richard. I've only got five minutes. Z. J. Ping today, Zee Jinping today told the major Chinese banks to start selling US Treasury bonds. Again, I'm telling you now that the world is completely detaching and shifting. So, yeah, I'm bullish on Bitcoin for all of these reasons. Richard.

Yeah, I mean, we've got quite a nice blend of speakers up here, and maybe for the purpose of the audience, I mean, ask a question. And only because, you know, we're pretty much in the trenches, cryptos are people. I mean, we're looking at other stuff. but just if you're willing to, for the audience sake, you know, just give a thumbs up or a hands up. Anybody that purchased spot Bitcoin between $60,000 and $70,000 in the last last month. I've bought more Bitcoin in the last week than as a dollar denominator value than I've ever bought in my life. Okay. I think that's a healthy question and observation.

Because sometimes, you know, people on your hand are wondering, you know, what are the people, that have maybe a bit more access to info and data. Like, you know, what are they doing? And I think it's helpful that, you know, we've all been licking our lips. And if you're a real believer in something specifically with Bitcoin, we know altcoins are probably in a bit of trouble for the foreseeable future. It's not to say that they weren't really at some point, but definitely these prices are highly attractive.

And if we go lower, I mean, I think we'd probably thumbs up again. We'd be actively buying spots again, right? 100% agree. Mark. Hey, Scott. I guess the point I was going to talk about. Hey, Mark, you're a little far from the mic. Anyway, you can make it a little louder. How's that?

Is that all right? Way better. Yep, go ahead. Oh, good, thanks. I'm going to pick on, I guess we got Spot Price, we got technicals, and then we have the plumbing thing. Is it worthwhile? It's only a couple days since Thursday to sort of touch on why we got kicked squarely in the

sats with a de-leveraging? Yeah, your, Mark, your mic is kind of crazy, but I do think that that is a great topic right now. I don't know if you can fix that. Yeah, you guys pick it up and I'll come back. Yeah, because Dave did a pretty deep dive on that actually this morning on Macro Monday, so I know he's equipped to dive into, you know, the mechanics of that actual drop. Yeah, but I think. Yeah, but I think it's more important.

The mechanics of the drop are, for those who don't understand how trading desks work on, in what you guys call trad-fi, but I just call five. The mechanics are risk manager taps all the traders on the shoulder or yells on a hoot and holler or it depends on what kind of firm you're in. You know, I've been, you know, in both Kwan hedge funds as well as on street desks. And they say, cut your positions and they don't, they're not subtle about it. So when you cut positions, that means you sell and you have several hours to do so or your bonus at the end of the year is going to be a design.

disaster. And so not anybody really violates that. And so you sell. Now, how do you know that it was that kind of selling? Well, the first thing you know is unlike liquidation engine. So like, you know, James, you know, trades in PERP. So the PERP liquidation engine liquidates you. They send market orders and they don't give a crap about the WIC. And so you see these WICs where they go down, you know, what, 8% or whatever, some percent, and bounce back 3% of it. And then you see another one, another one. It's like a jackhammer motion. And that's what you see on the chart. When it's selling from people who are de-leveraging professionally, you see slow, steady selling pressure. Maybe not so slow, but you see steady pressure.

So the wick down might be 3% with no bounds or a bounce of like 10 bases. But why are we talking about this? Because it don't propels forward. Well, no. The reason you talk about it, James, it actually feeds your narrative, is that when you see this sort of thing, you understand that the embedded reason for it was structured products and options that were sold. So selling put options.

I don't care. You sure you do. Because if you know, no, no, I don't. I don't. And I think we'll do this. Well, then you're foolish. Yeah, okay. Maybe I am.

Maybe I am. Maybe I am. Yeah, James. I disagree. I think this is, this is Uber relevant. I think the entire cook space is so heavily consumed in blaming. No, it's not about blaming. It's not about,

Like, I've commented, this is one of the biggest crypto spaces, yeah, and I'm up here. And, like, it's so fucking perpetually boring. How you not care about that's not anything to say? How do you not care about knowing where gasoline is, you know, knowing where flame, you know, understanding that that you could, that the reason why when you say, and you said it, you, your words, that we can see a surprise move to the upside, understand there is a shit ton. And I mean an absolute time of calls that have been sold. And when those calls have to get re-hedged in an up move, that could cause what you're talking.

Who even is this guy? Because for me personally, again, it's no disrespect. I am this guy. That's why people listen to me or follow me or whatever. But like, you're talking, you're talking, you're talking. There's 3,000 people in the space. To be fair, I think there's a lot of people in the space who's got questions for me. I think there's a lot of people in space who are tuning right now because I'm here.

You're just like talking, talking, talking about oil. James, we have less people here than on a normal random Wednesday. I would stop and plating your ego. Mate, you are probably one of crypto's biggest bitches when it comes to just leading people into the fucking fire. Thank you. Is this guy a plant? Is this a viewer, James?

I've had that for the last one. But I don't understand. Someone asked you a question I was answering. If you don't like to answer somebody, somebody come ask me a question or like bring up a topic. Or I'm going to fuck off or you guys. Okay. Or you guys can drop me off. I don't.

I'll ask you the question. Do you agree with Arthur Hayes when he talks about how important it is to understand the triggers and the levels that are going to matter to where you can see acceleration either. Right. Okay. I'll talk about Arthur Hayes right now for you. Arthur Hayes said 250k Bitcoin by the end of the year in November. Okay?

Arthur Hayes said he's selling his hyper liquid tokens, his hype tokens for a new car. Just as when Aster got fucking wrong. It was obvious. He was de-leveraging off-hite because he knew the attention was going to shift to Aster. And now you're even talking about fucking Arthur. Who gives the fuck about A-Afer? Yeah, great guy, maybe a very clever guy, probably.

fucking IQ than me, but I operate on common sense. You know, but yeah, so now you bring up Arthur, who gives this shit? I don't bring up Arthur as a human. I'm bringing up Arthur as his argument. I don't care about, well, what's his argument? He had,

there was an interesting thread over the weekend where he talked, I told you, where he talked about the fact that there is a lot of calls that had been sold on Bitcoin through people who are generating yield that could create fuel to the fire if you, if you ever get to a significant rally. Well, well, that's true. That's all. I operate on the chip.

When something feels cheap, I buy. When something feels expensive, I sell. I operate on that. I don't give the fuck about the nitty-gritty, who, what, why, when, you know, why it's there, the yield or the options, or the fucking cold orders,

or this orders, or the fucking liquidation price. Who gives the fuck? Who gives the fuck? The 3,000 people. There are. 69.4k. You like it or you don't. You give the fuck how we're there.

Of course we're there. We had a 650% fucking value. We've had a 50% drop. It's fucking expected and normal. I've called it and we're now bouncing off the time to the week move and average. Who gives the fuck, who what, why, when, who will what Arthur says or Tom Lee, Tom Lee said 10K fucking Eiff by the end of the year and then 11k

east by January. We ain't fucking there, are we? So come on guys. Like, even you guys who were running the fucking crypto to the spaces, Basically, you have a lot of mind share. By the way, no disrespect to any of you. But this is just fucking, you know, I'm up here.

I'm speaking. I'm speaking of mine and then going to full. So, like, you know, I think you're all just fucking boring, talk a lot of shit, you've got new facts. I think you're just plodding along like fucking MPCs. Yeah, it sounds like you got other stuff to do, James. So back to what Richard was talking about, you know, trying to get gauge of what people are doing on this

with positioning, thanks for kicking off that idea, Richard. I'm going to go back and talk about what I think was the biggest move. And still, as Dave said, there may be legacy risks or opportunities because of the huge de-leverage we had. And Dave, are there ways that people can look at positioning of options that are listed to get ideas of where those marks might be at 80, 90, 100K? Yeah, honestly, there are a variety, and I have to agree with James a little bit. I think that trying to pick those levels is silly because most of the actual real dollars are in structured products and in private.

Offline. Yep. So that, you know, you'll often get the wrong thing. It's sort of like there's a lot of false flags in crypto. Mm-hmm. And he's not wrong when you talk about that. It's just important to understand there are people who believe. The reason you point this out is because there are people who don't understand.

We heard on this space, and I sat and I kept shaking my head, that volatility in Bitcoin was dead because the options market meant that it was going to continually suppress volatility. And I said, no, the options market will suppress volatility until it breaks and that will be, like, massively increase it, which is literally exactly what happened. And so understanding that allows you to calibrate your leverage better. And James may not like that, but calibrating leverage is important for some people. James is not an idiot and therefore doesn't put his entire net worth on one leverage position. He has lots of smaller positions and ways of managing it.

There are a lot of people who listen to this space who aren't that sophisticated. And so, yes, you need to understand that volatility is a feature of the Bitcoin market. And if anything, the potential for volatility is larger now with the development of the iBit options market. and it was a few years ago. And that is not well understood. So that's the only reason I care. Yeah, and it's sneaky. So I agree.

I think it's good about having counter cyclical measures. So, you know, when things are working, it's pro-cyclical, lead into a trade, leading into a trade. But I think the point is, and I'll take it back, not knowing if 80-90K is where there's options, it's more that, wow, what just happened, there are players, there are things that we can't gauge. So I have to have a discipline.

that's beyond the charts. It has to be an absolute level of leverage and willing to take and reassess it because the amount of paper Bitcoin is growing. Derivatives and interest in Bitcoin is growing. Let's not go down that. Yes and no. Anyway, Gore, if you have your hand up. I don't want to do another diet.

I mean, he has already said everything, so I don't think there's a level of decorum of this conversation. So as he sounds, James definitely for this crowd is an outlier. But he reminds me of a fact that's probably not relevant and doesn't suit, especially in my professional, you know, my professional hat of a market maker and a large trading bench. But I want to say this out loud today in the flow of thoughts that James said, I made all my money, like 5,000 bitcoins, half a billion ripple, I don't know what or what

numbers and no bragging, because I lost all of them. But I made all of them trading exactly like James as a noob, as he said, who cares about sophisticated trading, who cares about what. And since the day I established my hedge fund in 2017 or like later 2017, I've actually only lost money, man. And then, so in a way, that new trading and not knowing the sophistication and not leaning on to, hey, the institutions are coming in and, hey, look, what's the options volume today? And like the fricking market crashed because of I bid options volume. And Dave, don't hit me for this.

And Scott, don't cancel your contract with me. Because all of that depends on the sophistication that we operate. on, but it is such a refresher to probably look at a case history or a case file like mine. For those who don't know, I'm a zero finance literate guy from my education. I'm a telecom engineer, and I came into crypto with zero financial education. So basically, opening up Poloniac's account and looking at the charts was like magic to me for the first time. And I said, you know what?

Fuck the shit. I'll go back to Cracken. where the beginner mode did not expose me to a chart. For those who remember, Cracken in 2015-16, there was a beginner mode that was the default opening. So not going too deep into that, but actually taking a hook on the vibe of today, and accept your rude statement, James,

you're actually pretty smart when it comes to masses. and, you know, taking a 30-second dip into spirituality and science, science is the identification of the common truth, right? While spirituality is the identification of a specific truth to a specific person or subjective truth. So you're absolutely correct on your own, at your own place and time. Scott, you were about to say something. Yeah, well, quickly, I'm going to go to Dan. I just want to say that, first of all, if anybody is disinterested in the conversation,

generally you have the power to leave. So if you don't like what we're talking about, nobody on stage can tell you whether it's the perfect conversation. As for me, being a bitch, I've been called worse by better, so that that's not relevant. But we're inflating a couple topics here, and I think it's very important.

So I believe you called me a bitch that's led more people to slaughter. I tell people the dollar cost average into Bitcoin and hold indefinitely. So regardless of what... You're quick. I mean, you're quiet. But I let you talk. I let you talk. Okay. And so if you're telling people to slowly do that and wait decades, that's like the fruited approach that people have accumulated wealth over time. Even if you've been right, James, you're telling people and showing them to trade with high leverage 24-7-365.

Incorrect. I condone against leverage. On every single one of my spaces, I condone against leverage. Yeah, but you're publicly doing it as your personality, which is fine. I'm literally not criticizing you. I'm just saying, it's pretty rich to say that people who say, hey, dollar cost average it by Bitcoin because it's important, are leading people to slaughter when you're talking about the size of your positions, where they are and the high leverage that you're using for them. Listen, I respect it. You was telling people we go, you was telling people on your channel and your large following that we're going higher and higher and higher at the top. So it was right or wrong. Anyway, you're missing the point.

You're missing the point. It's not right wrong. Nobody gets wrecked if I tell them simply by Bitcoin at every price because it's going higher later. I'm literally telling people not to follow random levels by people on that I don't know shit. I was literally on mainstream media last week. The guy asked me, what's price to me? I said, if your crystal ball is better than mine, then lend it to me because I have no idea and nobody else does either. So anybody who is actually, and I'm not saying you, anyone who's actively promoting that they know 100% where markets are going,

at somebody who's leading someone to slaughter and nobody up here to my knowledge we don't allow people to do that up here because it's irresponsible and what you're doing is perfectly great for you i'm not saying it's irresponsible i'm just saying that most people who are following you are doing it for the entertainment of watching your high leverage positions which you are you know i don't know how successful or unsuccessful you've been doing those that's great but most people are going to try to A lot of people are going to try to copy that and get wrapped. There's no trade for someone to copy of mine. Yeah, that's impartially that is objectively.

This space was downloaded via spacesdown.com. Visit to download your spaces today. True. You mentioned Tom Lee. I mean, Tom Lee has been, you know, he was brilliant in 2009. He's done a lot of things that have been really interesting since then. Once he wore, put on the Ethereum jersey, I'd say. Right there.

And I said it at the top. I got to go. God bless. I love all of you guys. James, one question before you go. Is it inappropriate then to ask if Sala's staying is good or bad for the markets? Say that again. Say that again.

He said it's Sondis staying or going good. James, I want to chip in. You're working class loud for the North England just like me. Much respect. Spill off the phone, mate. Sorry, Bob, I can't understand your accent. Thank you very much. joining, James. I appreciate it. Good, good. Thanks. Good. Good. Good. God. Love you all. Like, you know,

all is well, you know, good on you. Thanks. What a lad. What a lad. What a lad. If you don't have a finger part, you can call a bitch on your own show on Monday morning. What a lad. It's all good. Dan, but you don't be clear because we don't understand your accent. I'm sure. I don't know exactly where he's from, but I know for sure. I don't know exactly where he's from, but I know for sure he's within like a 20 minute drive of my house where I grew up for sure as soon as I saw him tweeting I knew immediately where he's from and then I heard him speak and I was like yeah he's from really close to where I grew up so I've never had a chance to speed to him so I wanted to get in for him to come back and say he can't stop my accent that was funny anyway uh I agree

with uh with him uh about a few things about when me talk about uh you know options is doing this and blah blah blah blah I understand where you're coming from, Dave, I just wanted to say this. I think these things are more useful looking back after something has happened to understand why it happened, not necessarily something to use going forward. So when we look back at events like 10-10 or other times that there's been massive leveraging, it's good to look back and see, we can understand now what the hell of that happened, like a plane crash investigator. I don't necessarily think they're as valuable looking forward to predict, is what I would say. Yeah, I agree with.

that but the reason why I think it's important and it's a very specific reason and it's one that Scott and I constantly tell people and we have people listening here who need to understand this is that if you were sold the bill of goods that Bitcoin's volatility which was at historic lows and had been for some time meant that you know well you know what I could do 10 for I could do 10x leverage instead of 3x leverage because after all Bitcoin's volatility such it's not going to drop more than 10% in a few hours. And you'd become convinced of that. Or if you became convinced that you could put on a long-term position at like 5x leverage

and say, ah, come on, we're not going to see a 30% fall and get liquidated. If you believe that, you got wrecked and knocked out of the game. And that's the thing we want people to understand in terms of respecting the leverage. That's been the case for like 10 years at least. I understand that. What I'm saying, Dan, is that there was. Good warning. Yeah, yeah.

There were a lot of people on X and around the world saying that Bitcoin's volatility was, it was now a feature that it was lower because of all the I bid options that were being sold. It was going to keep in a range. The four most dangerous words in finance this time is different, right? Correct. But understand, I basically was trying to tell people that, listen, the more options that are sold, both sides, the more options that are sold, the more violent, the change. and volatility will be, meaning you will have less time to get out of your leverage position.

That's the sole reason I'm mentioning it, not to say to predict anything, because you're right. My crystal ball, I lost it a while ago and, you know, don't care. My favorite quote. I'm not trying to defend myself or Scott. I don't call bitches are wrong. I think the truth is, is that give James's flowers has been, he's been, he and a guy named Dr. Prophet, who I don't know. the two accounts that have been the most accurate over the last six months that that's just absolutely that's

he's a character he's a lad when he comes to christmas ball i just want to throw out one of my favorite quotes price predictions are like nipples everybody's got one yeah tough crowd other than that other than the coinbase premium how many other people were watching the super bowl saw an ad from coinbase and groaned in in their own heads thinking okay well this is a short-term top again just curious nobody Come on. Rich, you had to have been thinking it. I was disgusting. I'm just disgusting.

What a terrible use of a great landmark. My gosh, it was disgusting. I liked it when someone played it and they were like, this is what Normies think of crypto. And it was like a bunch of guys and we're watching the Super Bowl. And they're singing along to karaoke and they're having a great time. And they popped up Coinbase. And they're all like, oh, what the fuck?

Like, that's how Normies think about crypto. Yeah, I wasn't criticizing the commercial because I'm not an advertising person. I just, just the entire notion, I thought, you know, my favorite ad, and I'm not going to lie, I think it was one of the funniest ads ever made. I still quote it was FTC's Super Bowl ad. One with Larry David saying, I got 10 forks right here, baby. All I can say is, as being as possible to a boomer, to have someone younger than you allow an ad like that, you know, is quite appalling.

I mean, honestly, Coinbase's marketing team should be fired. And I saw their response this morning. They were like, oh, well, even if they're talking about it negatively, they're still talking about us. I mean, that adage died a very long time. It's not a great use of marketing. Gary, I see you on the show. I think that was a great act. Someone was saying they strongly disagree.

Who was that? Me, I think it was a great ad. I've worked in advertising for years. I think that was a phenomenal ad. So, there you go. But for some reason, I got rubbed again. But yeah, I mean, it was Backstreet Boys' karaoke lyrics, correct? Yeah, that's right.

I mean, you had the whole of America singing karaoke in front of the TV. The crap part for them, the bad luck, was that, like, moments before, maybe within 20 minutes, there was an actual commercial with the Backstreet Boys. Yeah, who looked wrecked, by the way. They look amazing, just like the rest of us who are in our 50s and are just still doing it, you know? Yeah, well, that's true, too. It's funny to see, when you look up and I said to my wife, I go, that's what the backstreet boys look like these days. Geez.

I guess I'm not the only one who feels old. Anyway, back to markets. Back to markets. So, you know, I'm just curious that there are a lot of people up here. I mean, Tomer, you're up here. There have been a lot of people talking about, you know, Epstein buying off Bitcoin Core and block size and all this other stuff coming to the fore. Does anybody think that this is a big deal from a price perspective? Or do you think that any of these debates are going to matter?

I mean, I'm curious. I mean, you're like in the middle of it. Goro, give me the thumbs down, so feel free to talk after Tomer. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a lot of attention being drawn towards what's going on, especially in the crypto and Bitcoin circles. And it's causing a lot of confusion for a lot of people, because there are people who are people who are putting a lot of energy going down the rabbit hole trying to get to the bottom and trying to find truth. And it's hard to find truth in clippings of emails and things with the innuendo and

code words and everything. So there's been a lot of chaos in the discussion. I don't know that it's been where the price has moved. But it certainly caused a lot of debate and a lot of emotion. I don't sense that it's it's been tied to what the price is. I mean, I'm kind of curious that, you know, I don't think, I don't know if you guys discussed it at any point in time earlier today. I was having a little connection problems, but there was that weird error on the, I don't even know how to pronounce Bitthum exchange where they accidentally credited 620,000 Bitcoin to various customers who were selling them. That to me seems like something that could have had an amplification of selling pressure at the time that it happened. But I think the Epstein stuff

is really rotten. I don't know what to make of it. There's obviously a lot of really rotten stuff that's happened, whether or not that's had any impact influence. I think it's going to impact certain people's reputations, of course, and maybe destroy certain people's reputations. But that's all I have to say about this. Sorry for the scrambled and mixed topics in my reply. I only had one minute to speak. Last week, maybe it was on this show or elsewhere, but it is funny to me that I had a couple friends who are very normie Wall Street guys who, you know, superficially tracked Bitcoin, and I had three texts at the end of last week, pinging, or you're just mentioning

quantum and Epstein as reasons for the Bitcoin retrace, though like as stupid as that is in the echo chamber, it is somehow out there. And I think it's a certain thing. So, Gor, Gora, you were giving the thumbs down the fun we have left. Gora, if you were given the thumbs down before, you know, you think that, you think it's a total non-event or you think that... Not a totally non-event, but definitely a fuel for speculation. We heard Winnie on the last, I think last base when I was there. I think it was Thursday. Very interesting conversation.

But guess what? Even he doesn't have, he said it by himself. He doesn't have Bitcoin. And so he's not selling. Let's talk to somebody. so far I've failed amongst my clients, amongst my friends, and everybody that I've had a word with. Nobody that has Bitcoins or even a position on Bitcoin, I'm not talking about a 50x position, I'm talking about a 2x position max, that has sold or has made a decision based on this.

Spot people are not even concerned. So I did everyone else lose Goro? Like the cage. Yeah, yeah, there was a call, I guess. I'm sorry. That would have to disturb. But I was simply saying, I've not really seen somebody with Bitcoins selling it. That's it.

Simple point. Except for those who don't talking about, you know, talking shit about shit. It feel, for what it's worth, it feels to me that they, that people did. But that it was short-lived. and I don't think it's a big deal. I do think that, that, you know, quantum definitely impacted people. And I think that the sailor news and the Coinbase news on Quantum has not been fully digested by some of those people. And that I hate to say it, when the price starts moving higher and what I'm calling a hated rally, they'll all kind of revisit it.

And then that will add fuel to the rally. That's what I think. Tom, I see your hand up. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. I was just going to say, you know, I think that, you know, the manipulation was more part of it, you know, just to get the price lower. You know, I think that a lot of the bigger people coming into the space didn't want to buy at the high levels. I think that it was manipulated down, maybe with news, maybe with some of the other things you guys are talking about. But I personally think that the price is probably going to sit around here for quite a long time.

And I just wanted to ask you guys while I had time up here, what you guys thought about, you know, the price is kind of fluctuating. between 60 and 70 for quite a while. You know what I mean? Maybe lower, maybe a little higher, but just kind of fluctuating for maybe the next six months to a year. Just wonder what you guys thought. I mean, that's my base case. Not six months to a year.

I think less than that. But I have a bunch of reasons, but you guys don't want to hear me. So, Mark, why don't you answer to hear your hand? Yeah, I think that we will stay in this range. I think the catalyst is going to be, you know, old-time hockey. I think it's going to be a print. I think it'll be something along the lines of Warsh, whether that's too trite and expected. I think it will be the Warsh aligning with Treasury in a fiscally responsible but clearly

fiscal dominant slash funding manner. And then when people look through the actual. result of it further debasement, treasury accommodation, maybe at member banks, things like that, that's when I think you'll see a move. That's my five cents. Yeah, my thought is that Bitcoin is underpriced here and it's a beach ball being held underwater by a bunch of things. When you talk about manipulation, it's fascinating. I did a video this weekend on what it is and what it isn't. There's clearly manipulation in the Bitcoin market to one extent, historically have done this many, many times. And October 10th was the biggest example of this.

There are definitely people who build up spot long, perp short positions that then dump their spot in order to slam the price down and make money on the perps that are more liquid. I mean, that happens consistently. It's been happening consistently for its, but it doesn't have a long-term price suppression effect. But in the short run, it could be a big deal. When that gets added to macro factors, such as what happened last week, you can see it, you know, dramatically overshoot to the downside, which tends to happen when it's at the same time as chartists and other, you know, Elliott Wave, whatever, all kind of come together and say that this is what needs to happen. When as Scott pointed out, every single time in its history, Bitcoin loses the 50

week, it's going to go to the 200 week. And so all of a sudden, all the technical traders, which, by the way, this market is still dominated by technical traders, move like a pack of lemmings, and that's what happens. So a lot of these things line up. But what also lines up is a 200-week moving average being a very strong support level and yet not the market not feeling ready for a massive rally. Does that make sense, Tom?

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. You know what I mean? I think that there's just a lot more going on behind the scenes than a lot of people see. I think everybody has a fucking opinion, you know what I mean? I just hear so many different opinions all the time, left, right, up, down. This is why this is, this is why that is, this is where this is going to go. And really, I just think that, you know, most of them are just hyper,

just people trying to just talk, you know what I'm saying, to have some kind of influence in this sphere. You know, I just, I've just watched the market. And obviously with the Trump and everything pumped up, you know what I'm saying, I had a big retracement down. That was obvious. I think so many people that were buying the highs didn't want it to go low. But I think the number one thing for people to do, you know, like I think Wolf says, is just to kind of cost average in. If you did buy high, keep buying, you know what I'm saying? And just keep your cost just average in. You know what I mean? That's

what I do. I think the only way I've ever won wasn't by leverage trading. I think I've lost a lot of money leverage trading. But the only way I've really won is just to buy and hold. You know, I think that's one of the key ways anybody can win in this space. And, you know, I think that that's the number one thing. I think I think everybody should just be pushing. You know, I think Wolf's great for just telling people buy, you know, because if you buy, I personally think Bitcoin will probably be at between 1.5 and 2.5 million between 2013 and 2032.

But, you know, that's just my opinion. You know what I'm saying? So, I mean, obviously that would be wonderful, right? So let's get back to where we are today. I mean, Mark, I see your hand up. I actually wanted to ask Gary something. You've been listening, you're listening to James, and you've seen what happened last week. If you're behind the mic, I know last week you were like just looking at the toxicity in the system and saying, you know what, we still need another flush.

Do you still think so? Yeah. Yeah, because I think we can't get to, like, we didn't get to 75. So I don't see. Like, just, let's just be realistic. I mean, I think there's more downside than there is upside here. I think these, like the tension in these rooms right now, it's this battle between low price and high price.

Bitcoin has failed to do what it was going to do. Like, I give these things windows of time and what we're in February now. We're 20 days from March, man, from spring. Q3 starts in April. Q2 stores. So to me, I just don't see the buyers, man. We do not have new buying here.

We have more selling than buying, period. And you can say it's about the perks and the futures and all this stuff. But like, this is a real bit going, dude. This is these markets, you know, you can only manage the price so much. There's a lot of fud in these rooms about people moving. prices around. This is this is this is this is weak demand. I agree. I agree. But I want to give one piece of info just because it's, I think, relevant in in years after a down year, then the average return from May 1 through the end of the year is north of 50 percent. And

potential and and it's for a reason. And this year has, and I say May, because it's specifically trying to find out the impact of tax refunds. This year is going to be the largest U.S. tax refund year in history and by at least 25 to 30%, if not more, because of the big, beautiful bill. And it was a down year last year. Now, why the down year? Because the down year means that people aren't paying taxes on capital gains in Bitcoin, right?

Because there aren't any. And so it is, if you ask me, why do I believe that? But it's February the 10th, I'm just saying, hey, today, like, I don't see how Bitcoin gets the buck. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I get that. If it can't punch through 72 now, where's it going to go? You guys do charts better than I do.

Okay, but this is finding, like, it hits, it hits an altitude, and it's got to come back down. It hits another fucking lower altitude, and it comes back down. So it doesn't seem to have the fuel to get into the 100,000, 100,000 foot altitude. It just doesn't, guys. I mean, it's, it needs fucking jet fuel. And crypto's out of its jet fuel. In fact, it's being sucked out. The margin calls all happened Friday.

I had to post new collateral. I asked Coinbase, the people that handled the, and the only reason I'm saying this bifurcating the ultra-wealthy because they said that only 10% liquidated their positions and just got out, but 90% provided more collateral. Now, I think that's very positive, but I suspect, and I did not answer, that on the retail level, it's probably 90, 10,

the other way, where 90% of the people got liquidated and, you know, 10% put up collateral. So that should calm down, but I just, you know, I'd love to hear somebody tell me why this isn't going to go test 66 again, because it needs to test it, doesn't it? I personally think you probably will. I think you're going to be down in this level.

I just think that there's two things that could happen, but for the most part, I don't think I've been saying for a while that I thought that it would be six months after 10-10 before we get out of whatever it's going to happen and you get a regime change. It's weird how the world works. But if for some reason at this point,

the Democrats actually allowed a crypto bill to go through, that would be a massive surprise. because I personally think that we're going to get nothing. And I think most people have gone in that direction. So that's one thing that could cause jet fuel. I actually don't expect it, though. I mean, seriously don't expect it. Another thing that could be jet fuel is, well, actually, I'm not even sure that it would be

because, you know, you've got to wait for wars to go through confirmation hearings and seeing what's going to happen with him and dissent, et cetera, et cetera. I think most of the things that I think will be positive line up on the back half as we start approaching the spring, you know, potentially as early as March, but more likely April May. That's what I've been thinking all along. And that's why I asked you. And I also think that that the, this, the Epstein situation is not going away. I mean, having, you know, and you've been very outspoken on it. And for the record, I agree with you that any, that I still can't believe the names are redacted of the people. I just, it's just, it turns my stomach, you know,

as a father of two girls. So it just makes me crazy, but I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. but the fact that our Secretary of Commerce is one that is being implicated, people are talking about, one that's so involved with so much in the crypto industry, that's a serious drag on what's going on. I have to believe that's true. I know you. Well,

it's a serious drag that nobody's been arrested yet as well. You know, I think that's definitely fucking bullshit, personally. Forget arrested. They haven't even been, the names haven't even been released. Yeah, yeah. You're absolutely right.

It's just a complete, total, utter fucking fuckery. you know what I'm saying so but understand when you bring it back to markets the one thing markets hater is uncertainty so not knowing or not being sure of who to go at i mean look i i saw people when you yeah but you have people in government saying hey if we release all the names our society will collapse well fuck that shit we need exactly that's exactly take them the fuck out and fucking replace them motherfuckers you know what i'm saying yeah but the point if we if we stay on point of this meeting but i think the point is is people do not invest in environments like that.

We are very close to civil unrest here. I mean, civil war, okay? The Congress and the senators and all these fucking professional politicians are already at civil war. We can't even get a bill pass. It's logical. So we are effectively at civil war without the muskets. And that is, that was my point.

Exactly right. I think that unless there's some resolution or people just decide we're going to have, like markets don't hate gridlock in Congress, right? In fact, they generally like it because it means nothing happens. The government can't fuck things up. So that's true. But this is different. This is finger pointing at people who are very relevant in the crypto economy and often in a world without information. And that's the worst possible. See, you know, Dave, if I could just punch you in here, I don't even think this is about crypto. Crypto is only the lens, like we're starting to, I think you're going to have

some big whales walk away from Bitcoin because of this shit is coming out. But the real investment dollars, everything seized up right now. Like nobody trusts anyone. How could you go invest in big pharma until these big names have been unredacted, right? So I just think there's a lot of risk across the whole board. And that's the other reason Bitcoin can't possibly get a bid here, a strong bid, because there's nothing else to fuel the economy. And these guys coming on, you know, the David's talking about tech.

hey, listen, I cannot disagree with some of what they're saying, man. Like, the SaaS model is fucking broken. CRM is a grossly overvalued company now. And the only reason they're making money is because of migration inertia. So I think we're going through the, like, we are going to go through a point where we see major companies fail here. This transition we're making to this new world, you are going to see failure, man. We're going to go through a fucking seriously rough patch. And like, what the reason that is.

I come to these is, hey, where can I place my assets that, you know, can navigate a really high-risk environment that I don't think many people in this room, 3,000, 4,000 people have ever gone through it. In fact, no one's gone through this before. This is a true turning event. Well, I don't know. I'd say that what happened to retail from the rise of the Internet was very similar, in a sense. There was enormous amounts of creative destruction that happened a lot of new models failed and the ones that took hold are now the biggest companies in the world. I think the exact same thing is going to happen here. But, you know, we can, things march on and you see all sorts of impacts. I mean, I thought it was fascinating this

morning. I'm looking at Jack Mahler's tweet. And Jack Mallor is one who's, you know, people have been bitching at him because the SPAC that went live with this company, you know, came out of canter. But, you know, it was just the SPAC that not on the board, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not impugning Jack, but the fact that he's had to deal with this shit is exactly sort of the point that you're making, which is until people know, they don't want to put their, they don't want to push their chips into the middle of the table. And that's important. But his, his tweet is he thinks, and I actually think it's premature, but it will happen, that Bitcoin being considered a software stock, as software stocks are getting pummeled, might be the impetus

that takes Bitcoin from not to not be considered a software stock. I don't know if that's true or not, maybe he's just talking his own book, but it is interesting. Tomer. All right. I'll try to, I know we're almost out of time to pack a big idea into a very short period of time here. I do think Gary's right. We're in a turning, fourth turning event, which is, for people who have read the thesis on it, the book, is that the institutions of a particular age lose their, they disintegrate.

And the institution that has been disintegrated is that of trust. We no longer trust education industry. We no longer trust politicians. We no longer trust the media. We no longer trust pharmaceutical companies. We no longer trust our doctors. And our whole civilization, starting at the end of the last fourth turning, World War II, has been to build these global trusted institutions and entities that we've now lost trust in.

And my theory around the role that Bitcoin plays, and this is, of course, Bitcoin, is the trustless institution that has no people in it whose trust can be compromised. So I'm not talking about short-term predictions here, but I think as we watch the chaos, and you guys, both of you just outlined pretty clearly, the thing that emerges from it is a trustless platform, a trustless base layer, a trustless protocol

all that people can ultimately trust in because everything's mathematically verifiable, mathematically provable within it. I think crypto was trying to rush into this thing and unfortunately compromised trustlessness for the appearance of being decentralized. And so there's a shaking out and clarification that has to come through, just like the original business models that failed on the internet had to fail before we found out that Amazon and Google and Facebook and, you know, social networks are really what works. We have to go through that.

But that's, that's my compressed thought. I mean, actually, we're already at 1116. It was a great wrap-up. Appreciate you giving us the good words to leave by. What an absolutely eventful space is today. Hey, thanks for having me up, guys. You know, I just appreciate it. And I'd also like to say that even before all the institutions have come in here, we've been doing this.

I've been through a few cycles now. We've been doing this without all of these people. So, you know, it's just interesting to see how they've been playing a part in this. But remember, guys, this is a cycle. You know what I'm saying? I'm not sure exactly that it's going to stay the same because of everything that's been happening. But, you know, obviously it's still a cycle. It's been a little fucked up.

But it's still a crypto cycle, guys. well godspeed to all of us then uh thank everybody for joining we'll see you tomorrow and for the record i don't think you're a bitch scott oh i do i'm kidding um like like i said i've been called worse by better you're totally a bitch dude you're totally a bitch and he called me a bitch the entire time so it's whatever like i said i've been called worse by better Gary's on stage she's called me worse uh that's all i give you up for you guys today we'll see you tomorrow 10 15 am eastern standard time good, but later.