The Wolf Of All Streets - Crypto Has Bottomed: Trump Assassination Attempt & VP | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

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I hate the titles of our spaces. I need to start playing a bigger role. And we're not allowed. I'm going to ban the set of words. What's next from the titles? Just telling the team. So we did do a space yesterday. I think we didn't discuss anything from the events on the weekend for various reasons.

But there's a lot to discuss, obviously, a lot on the political landscape. And I haven't gone through. I haven't even looked at the news on the crypto landscape for the last 48 hours for obvious reasons. But let's kick it off, Simon. Carlo, I want to go with you, Simon. What are the most, so I'll let you do what I'm meant to do. It's going to give a quick recap of the main news over the last 48 hours as we get the rest of the panel to come on. And then we get into the discussion of the RNC, Trump's nomination, Trump's poll numbers. We all expect him to kind of spike after the assassination attempt and what that means for crypto.

Because obviously crypto responded positively to the news of Trump surviving the assassination attempt. But let's say, Simon, I'll let you kick it off. Carlo Preston as well. The main news we've got down here as well. The main news of the last 48 hours and your thoughts on the markets in general. Yeah, sure. Thanks, Mario. So, yeah, I guess we have a new thing to discuss, which is incredibly disturbing, which is what is the impact on Bitcoin when there is an attempted assassination on the very clearly future president's life.

So immediately there was a reaction. There was an increased liquidity. There was a lot of speculation. The price immediately reacted. And there's several different narratives. I guess you could say, well, we were one inch away from probably a potential American civil war if Trump was assassinated. Would people buy Bitcoin because they see a potential escalation in the current geopolitical environment to a world war after

civil war? Well, those are a series of events where people might buy Bitcoin. The other is that he stood up and fist pumped and survived. And so now they see Trump as a dead cert to be the next president as long as he can survive. And two weeks prior to that, he was saying that he's going to speak

at the Bitcoin conference next week. He said he's going to have an anti-CBDC policy. He's going to protect Americans' right for Bitcoin self-custody. He met with the Bitcoin miners and said that he would like all Bitcoins made in America. And he also gave a comment on social media that he'd like Bitcoin to be a reserve asset. And so because he survived that were people interpreting that as, okay, that's bullish on Bitcoin, knowing that it increases his chances of being elected. And so all of those narratives led to a potential turn in the market and people speculating that now is the time to purchase. But it was also after the exact same timing on Friday when the government had

offloaded its entire 50,000 Bitcoin position, which was anticipating that that could be the bottom of the post halving market. So you can digest all of that, make with it as you wish. But I think what is really clear is that up until November and beyond, at least for the rest of the year, the price of Bitcoin is going to be heavily correlated to the perception of the outcomes of US elections and politics. And Bitcoin is heavily a political issue within the most liquid market in crypto, which is the United States. Yeah, and just a kind of reminder for the panel, I will be on the move. I've got an urgent flight. So if I do cut out and I'm silent, just leave the space like I don't exist and have a discussion. Because I think the audience is here, the brains on stage right now have a discussion

between themselves rather than me anyway. But Gareth, good to have you. And considering the fact I haven't looked at the news in the last 48 hours, at least in crypto world, I'd love a recap on that. And most notable news for the last four days, because we don't do weekend spaces and we skipped yesterday's, but also started off with the impact of the assassination attempt and trump's increased likelihood of becoming the next president on crypto hi everyone good to be here gareth from cointelegraph and yeah thanks mario and i think to be honest there's not much else to talk about then you know trump's assassination and assassination and the direct impact on the price of Bitcoin. A lot of our reporting the last 48 hours has been very much focused on this. And

Andrew Singer just wrote a piece about Bitcoin's price soaring on predictions of Trump's victory after the assassination attempt. So it's very clear to see that this is having a massive impact on the markets and i think a lot of this really does come down to uh trump's comments on bitcoin um his advocacy for bitcoin uh for self-custody uh for supporting the bitcoin mining sector if he takes um you know office and um know, people are very much thinking that, you know, following the assassination attempt, it's looking very positive for Trump that he could end up being the president of the United States once again. And that could be a very, very positive thing for Bitcoin in

particular, and of course, the wider cryptocurrency market. So for me, this is, you know, there's not much else to speak about than that. Of course, Mt. Gox has been moving some money around. The creditors are looking to start the repayment schedule. So that's been another big driver of news for us today. Another very influential impact for the price of bitcoin and the markets in general and and for me these are two really big stories that that stand out at this stage um you know i'm curious to hear the thoughts of the other panelists here today because at the end of the day i'm a managing editor and we just uh report the news and and everyone else has their opinions

but you also at cointelegraph, you guys report the opinion of others. You quote them all the time. So can you tell me the reaction of the industry and other leaders in the industry based on your reporting? Yeah, I definitely think it's overall pretty positive. I mean, obviously, aside from the assassination attempt and the abhorrent nature of what happened, everyone is definitely feeling like this is having a very positive influence. And, you know, add in the movement of Mt. Gox funds and the potential for those Bitcoins to hit the market.

It's had a big influence on the markets. And yeah, I think the general sentiment following what had happened, minus the negative side, is very positive. And I think a lot of people were just so stunned by what had happened. And the sentiment being that this could be very, very good for Trump's presidential campaign and his stance on Bitcoin is leading people to believe that that's going to be the outcome that we might see in a few months' time. Whether or not this big selling pressure from the Mt. Gox repayment is going to have some more downside for Bitcoin,

that's not for me to comment on. Some analysts are saying that obviously there will be some selling pressure now that those coins are on the move and they're actually going to start paying out to people in the next few days and weeks. It means that there's going to be a lot of Bitcoin on the market that was bought for very low prices many, many years ago. And let me just go quickly to give a recap to the audience and we'll go to Carlo, Dan and Alex. Just on the assassination attempt, obviously we covered that 24-7. It actually happened live on our space. I was about to go to bed,

but me, my team, two of my moderators were hosting the space and then the shooting happens. Unreal. They call me and I jump on. And, you know, there's a recap tweeted somewhere. I'll try to pin it for the audience and you can listen to it.

There's just pure confusion on the space. It took them a while to actually believe that was a shooting. And I've never seen the moderators just quiet. You know, they're always, I've taught them to always fill the gaps make sure the momentum continues but there's just pure silence and confusion and what we know so far is obviously it's uh everyone knows the shooter the shooter has been killed as a few questions on whether it's a lone wolf actor or part of a bigger group or a bigger conspiracy and the questions come from

two things number one is the that ceiling should have been, that rooftop should have been cordoned off, kept out of bounds. No one could come near that rooftop. The ladder shouldn't be able to, there's a ladder that was used by the shooter to come up and take the shot. So that's number one.

Number two is outside the perimeter and it shouldn't be. Number two is the police department was warned by the Secret Service allegedly, was warned in advance of a suspicious person. And they were apparently looking for him. But then how come that suspicious person was not found and managed to get through all the way to the rooftop? And number three, it took a while for the sniper, the Secret Service sniper, to take a shot, even though he was aiming

at the shooter, to take that shot. That's a question that's still unanswered. And number four, today we got news, and I haven't read into that one yet, but there's news that the police department was aware of someone on the rooftop for about five minutes before the shots were taken, before the shooter shot Trump. That's another question. There's a lot of unanswered questions, and I don't think we'll get the final answer yet. But that's on the political landscape, and we'll continue finding out more information as time passes. But on the crypto discussion, how that impacts the market,

obviously we've got better minds on stage. Dan, good to have you. Dan, Carlo, we'd love to get your thoughts on this, and then Alex. Yeah, I'll jump in. Great to be here. Thanks again, Mario. Just a couple of points. I wanted to make a quick note as I was typing away. I was talking about the appointment of the VP, Vance. He's a known Bitcoiner and he holds Bitcoin. He's come out, it's on record that he holds Bitcoin. He holds Bitcoin directly on Coinbase. And he holds, I think, the ETF.

So that bodes well, I think, for stuff. So I think that just adds into the Trump presidency. Another point I want to make is with the Mt. Gox coins moving, yes, it would probably be a risk or whatever to Bitcoin. But I think the bigger impact is going to be on the Bitcoin cash. Remember, this is all pre-fork. So is going to be on the Bitcoin cash. Remember, this is all pre fork. So these people are getting Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash. And I think there's far less love for Bitcoin cash. So I think the likelihood of Bitcoin cash being dumped, also being dumped

into a thinner market with with less volume and that kind of stuff, it's going to be an outsized impact on that. Now, I'm not here to give trading advice, but given that, you know, this possibility that shorting Bitcoin cash might be an idea, but that's not. Dan, do you remember, did the trustee, the Japanese trustee, did they sell a bunch of the Bitcoin Cash in order to fund the bankruptcy? Yeah, I believe they did sell a bunch of Bitcoin Cash. Yeah, so there'll probably be fewer Bitcoin Cash available. But yeah, you're right.

I forgot about that. They did dump a lot of Bitcoin Cash, which was controversial at the time. But yeah, that was just my couple of points I want to chip in. I'll throw it to whoever else is next. Carlo? Good morning, Scott. Good morning, Mario. Thank you for having me up.

From the legal perspective, I think the Vance announcement as VP is fascinating. There was video that was recently uncovered about comments he made about Gensler. And he has made it unequivocally clear in those clips that he believes that Gensler is the worst person to have in this position because he's politicized securities in the U.S. And it is, quote, the exact opposite of what it should be. That is an interesting development, which I think is very bullish for Trump's chances of reelection and for the future of crypto. On the legal front,

a couple of things I'm looking at is number one, we had a continuance granted by the federal judge presiding over the tornado cash case. A three month continuance of the trial was granted because the defense needed more time to get through the materials. And the judge, who incidentally is the same federal judge who's presiding over the Coinbase case, wants more time to consider the defense's motion to dismiss in that case. Tornado cash, very controversial because it is a privacy protocol that enables individuals to exchange Ethereum confidentially. And they have pushed back as to being complicit players in any sort of money laundering scheme. Their defense essentially is that as a software protocol, they should not be held responsible for what others do with that protocol. And then today's latest development,

Coinbase has retreated a little bit in their broad subpoena for Gensler's private communications. I think it's a good tactical move that they're doing here. They're limiting the scope of their request to the communications he had while in the position of SEC chair. chair, the court already showed tremendous reluctance to grant such a broad request. So I think by narrowing that request, they improved their odds of potentially getting this subpoena granted. That's getting teed up for a hearing coming soon. And I will, of course, continue to monitor that. And let me go to Alex, getting your thoughts on this. Yeah, so I mean, on saturday let's see it was saturday afternoon when this all went down right so i think a couple interesting things to look at with number one right after sort of the report started coming out there was a small spike like a percent or two in bitcoin um but the real like sort of increases that have come you know since

last week happened sort of starting the 24 hours after, again, as people were talking more about like the political implications of it. 24 hours, you mean 24 hours after the assassination attempt, correct? Yes. 24 hours after the assassination attempt. The so I think it was more about the political implications. And again, the fact that this is likely going to be, you know, the more likely that Donald Trump is to win. Obviously, Trump is going to be far more friendly to crypto. Obviously, Vance is someone who's very friendly, not just in the fact that he holds Bitcoin directly.

But I think, you know, if you look at a corollary, if you look at Vance's stance on AI right now and the regulation there, He is very wary of big tech in general and like the attempted regulatory captures there. He's absolutely pro self-custody. He's absolutely pro open source AI. He's made a number of comments to that. And so I think just his general ethos there and the fact that this is an area Trump doesn't actually care about. I mean, I'm very much of the opinion Donald Trump is just saying a bunch of nice stuff about crypto because he wants money from the industry um but vance i think at least to a degree is a genuine believer on this and so the odds are higher that trump basically just delegates the policy on this stuff trump is not interested in most policy and so if you know they win and vance is basically just hey, this is an area I want to focus on, I think he'll have the open door to focus on it, which would, again, just be very good for anyone who believes in kind of open decentralized technology, whether it's on crypto, whether it's on AI.

And so, again, just bullish there. I do think, as I've sat with it more and more over the last kind of almost 72 hours now since the attempt, though, I think by the time we get to the election, that this assassination attempt is going to basically be a blip on the radar and basically inconsequential for a couple reasons. Number one, I think a far bigger deal is Biden's continual just like steaming like a doddering old man. I mean, even when he gave the talk on Sunday night, he like repeatedly said battle box instead of ballot box. He's just man. Like, I think again, I think it's overstated by some that he's like completely demented and can't do anything. I think he has plenty of good hours during the day.

Kind of like any 81 year old would. It's pretty disqualifying for being a president, but he's just going to have so many... So actually, that one I thought... In a vacuum, it's fine. In a vacuum, it's fine.

But for that to happen to him... Exactly, yeah. Also, he was completely lucid during that one. He immediately caught his mistake. Fixed it. Yeah, exactly. But again – Trump sucked up plenty of people. But yeah. I think Biden's age has been butchered as a discussion point.

I think we all agree it is a concerning point whether you like Biden or not. Ran – and by the way, Ran, Dave, if I do drop out, I'm just on the move to a flight. But Ran, general thoughts that we haven't spoken since the assassination attempt. I would love to get your thoughts and the market's reaction and whether we could call this a bottom. Did you say you're going to a fight, Mario? Flight, flight. Oh, a flight, a flight. I think it was a turning point. I think the Trump thing was a turning point. I think it was a turning point for multiple reasons. I think the first reason why Bitcoin

went up when Trump was almost assassinated, when the assassination attempt happened, is because I think the market doesn't like the instability, doesn't trust the establishment. And so we had a flight into safety, so to speak, or out of the establishment. Very similar to what happened when SVB Bank collapsed last year. People just wanted to get out of the system. And they went into they went into bitcoin that's the first thing obviously now um it's pretty at this stage it looks like trump's like the pretty obvious choice um and trump's good for markets trump's good for bitcoin so i think that that's sustaining that is uh sustaining the rally um and i think you know his choice of a of a a VP now again, vice president

is not such an important role in my opinion I mean, generally vice presidents don't really play a massive, massive, massive part in the front lines, maybe they do in the back but I mean it just reaffirms that the US is on the right trajectory and it's actually quite cool to

finally see the United States people they seem to be much more united and much more ready to move forward than just to, you know, Americans, because it's so bipartisan and because the lines have been so close, you know, it's been so close to like 50-50. It's very hard to get shit done yet. There's a lot of arguing and very little actually gets done. And it kind of feels now like the American people just want to get the show on the road. The big names just want to get the show on the road. I think that's good for markets. I think that's good for Bitcoin. I think now that the US, that the German government

has finished their Bitcoin and that they were absorbed so quickly, the market's not really scared of this overhang. And I think you kind of have one last chance to actually get into the market before the parabolic rise and that is you've got these mind gox coins being distributed some will sell some won't sell very soon we'll know how many people are actually selling or what percentage of the people are actually selling and what percentage kind of intent to hold and then once that's over like there's very little big overhang other than one other batch that the us government holds and then of course the satoshi coins that could be a uh a threat to the market so

i don't know for me more i mean i was very bullish at 53 when i said it was the bottom and i said we're at or near the bottom and i said the worst is behind us and i mean i remain bullish now i kind of think that if you don't get in pretty soon you're going to get left behind yeah there was one more bit of news maybe mario is on this flight right now um larry fink came out and gave um a kind of he was framing bitcoin as um anti-home um can you hear me ran okay ran you can't hear me if someone could tell him. Yeah, we can hear you. Okay. Yeah, Larry Fink came out and did an interview and he was kind of framing Bitcoin as anti-hope.

So he was saying that he's very hopeful, but Bitcoin is kind of like a doomsday play. I think that was around his understanding of seeing Bitcoin as digital gold and gold is always a very, you know, a hedge against everything going wrong. So it's a really interesting one for us to watch as an industry because Bitcoin has the identical story in a really bad environment and a really good environment. Because Bitcoin is the asset you want to go to when things are really bad and everything's broken.

But it's also been the asset that you want to go to when everything's really good and things are working. And by working, it means that the Federal Reserve, which is the only important player in the world, because we no longer live in free markets we live in complete um socialist uh federal reserve led markets and the only important thing in today's market is whether the federal reserve is pumping but when the federal reserve isn't pumping you've also got bitcoin which is a hedge against central bank invader so these competing narratives are

really interesting. But Larry, Larry obviously came out and said his perspective as seeing Bitcoin as digital gold and a flight for safety is his prevailing narrative. The other thing I'd say is about the vice president not being too important. I think a vice president is really important when the establishment wants to have you assassinated. And so it kind of depends upon your perception of whether you think that this is, you know, an establishment hit job, which I think is more of, and this is kind of the split in the Bitcoin community

because Bitcoin was created as a resistance movement against the establishment, against central banking. But now we have all of the different investor people that are in it just for the money, number go up technology and ETFs, which will probably be more of a conservative that this was a lone shooter. And so it's going to be interesting to watch who has the prevailing narrative in Bitcoin now. You've got the ETF investors versus the self-custody investors. Now, both of them are going to be selling Bitcoin for different reasons and pitching Bitcoin for different reasons.

But you kind of got both narratives. And I think a Trump assassination would bring out the anti-establishment believing that it's the deep state and central banking having more control over the world than most people believe versus the traditional narrative that they're looking for the Federal Reserve to pump the price of Bitcoin because they're in it for the dollars and not the Bitcoin. I think that's an interesting narrative to watch into the future. Yeah. So I think specifically, like my comments on Vance being influential on Trump crypto, like I said, I think there's two things to that. Number one is that, again, Trump doesn't care about policy for the most part. He has general ideas. He's happy to delegate policy

to people. We saw it all the time in the first admin. And I also know for a fact, I know a number of people who've been involved with the Trump crypto policy. And again, he's very happy to just take things from people on it. Vance has on multiple occasions moved him on crypto policy or given him talking points or, you know, news pieces that Trump has then put out and talked about on it. So Vance has already had some positive impact on him on crypto, which is why I think it's very likely that he'll just be like, cool, do what you want on this front um and will be more influential than say connolly is on anything in the biden administration or you know gore was with clinton or anything like that the second thing i'll say is on the like assassination attack thing i'm just gonna be it's not a plot people i promise you like anyone who has ever worked in personal security and done these types of events knows what a clusterfuck they always are.

The U.S. Secret Service is very good at certain things. They're also elitist dicks who kind of suck at working with local partners, even though they are completely dependent on local partners. For instance, when the Secret Service takes even like POTUS to something, a very small number of those agents actually work on presidential protection full time or part of the detail, right? In Trump's case, it's minimum of eight, maybe 15 of the agents there. The rest of the agents around the stage and stuff, they're all like Philadelphia field office agents who spend, you know, 98% of their time doing investigations and the rest of the,

you know, normal mission of the secret service, which is not just protection, everything else. The other 85% of detail is local law enforcement. Um, these guys aren't on the same fucking radios. It, you know, you've got like two guys aren't on the same fucking radios it you know you've got

like two guys one from the secret service one from the local pd sitting in a command post talking to each other while each talking to their own guys these things are always a clusterfuck there's always a huge fog of war um it's easy for balls to get dropped you get tons of suspicious person reports this is a really bad fuck up there There was bad advance. Obviously there's a lot of details. We still don't know when people are talking about the exact timelines, who saw what, when, but like, I promise you, our government is not nearly well coordinated enough to get for them to get done what we want them to get done. Let them,

let alone for them to get done what we don't want them to get done on something like that. Yeah. I just wanted to jump back into that J.D. Vance appointment as vice president. And, you know, obviously, Cointelegraph reported this over the weekend as well. And it's fairly big news. I think more so just because Vance was quite a stern promoter for Coinbase's Stand with Crypto initiative. And it actually brings a lot to Trump's presidential campaign, just considering that Vance is fairly new to the political arena. I was reading our report that basically said he's been a politician for less than two years,

so he's probably bringing a lot of new ideas to the table and maybe isn't as influenced as other people might be. And it really does allow Trump to lean on someone who really understands the crypto industry, is an active proponent in the industry, and has really spoken up really strongly against, you know, the SEC and the current regime's anti-crypto stance. So for anyone who is a crypto hold in America,

and Coinbase will tell you that's more than 50 million people, it really is a massive voter base to speak towards. And I think a lot of people probably also felt quite bullish about Trump saying that he is going to be at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville in a couple of weeks time. You know, not even a day after he nearly got shot by a shooter. So overall, for me, you know, reading all the news that we did, as soon as I saw the stories and I saw an uptick in the price, it made sense to me immediately that this would be the assumption of people, especially going on the fact that a lot of very reputable people have been saying that surviving an assassination attempt really does a lot for Trump's hope of becoming the president of

the United States again. So it all just adds up to this very, very sort of bullish outcome uh in the last couple of days for bitcoin's price in particular uh gareth just a quick question before we go to the other speakers can you hear me okay yeah we got you yeah yeah so question question we're all very bullish on jd vance's appointment as vice president when it comes to crypto but how much influence um to it does it does the vice president really have especially to to issues that are not as major um you know it's pretty minor relative to other issues look i'll i'll be very honest like ran i'm a south african and uh you know south african so that i mean american

politics is not my speciality um but as other people have alluded to on this space already, a vice president and other people in a presidential team are entrusted with a lot of policy, a lot of the work that a president just won't be able to do, and a lot of driving of thought. And that one is an example. Crypto is an example considering Trump's knowledge when it comes to crypto. Well, exactly. And he's changing stance. I mean, we wrote some reports in the last few weeks, you know, that very much highlighted four or five years ago, you know, Trump saying really derogatory things about Bitcoin. So when you put that into consideration, it does, you know,

make you look at things, you know, very critically and think, hey, is this guy just politicking or does he really care about Bitcoin? But I think for 50 million, you know, crypto users in the United States, if Trump is saying, hey, if you vote for me, I'm going to make sure that the government doesn't take away your Bitcoin or remove your right to self-custody your Bitcoin and that it actively supports the Bitcoin mining industry and doesn't, you know, enforce any draconian rules in terms of oversight and information overreaches that the Department of Energy and other people have already intimated at doing in recent months, it's definitely appeasing a lot of people.

And if I lived in the United States and I was holding a fair amount of cryptocurrency, that might be enough to sway me to vote for Trump. And I mean, that's just my two cents on the matter. Yeah. I just want to chip in. Yeah, just a minute. It's good. The thing is we're a little bit too close to the cold face, I think, potentially. If we just take a step back and think, those of you that were here four years ago during the COVID crash, if four years ago during the COVID crash, you'd have said, look, in four years' time, we'll have the leading nominee for president

coming out strongly behind Bitcoin. His VP holds Bitcoin. You know, President Trump's speaking at a Bitcoin conference. We have Larry Fink on TV, you know, excelling Bitcoin. We have Bitcoin ETFs. It's come so far in four years. I can't, you know, I think we forget really everything that we've achieved over this last short period. And I think that needs to be kind of put back in front of everyone's mind.

It's down slightly. You know, we have Mt. Gox in Germany selling its coins. But look how far we've come over the last four years. It's really incredible when you step back. And to the politics point, if you guys haven't, you should definitely read Arthur Hayes' Medium, whatever it is. He's like my favorite writer on all stuff Bitcoin. He did a post recently about comparing Bitcoiners

to kind of the black community in the US and how, you know, as a solid voter bloc and we can get together and demand change from that. I'm not doing it justice. I'm butchering it. but I really employ you guys read it. He's really really good Yeah, they've been we'll play the clip we've got the clip in that shot you can play the clip in a bit of Larry Fink's Interview on Fox. I think it was the NBC. Sorry, but Dave and you've had your hand up for a while Yeah, there's first of all, can you hear me okay, Mario? Yes.

So there were three things. I'm sorry for that, but I've been listening for a while. First, in terms of election odds. Just what? Sorry. Yeah. You're good, you're good. Go ahead, sorry. Okay, first in terms of election odds, people underestimate the power of imagery.

They always do. And yet it's probably the most important single force in politics. You know, the image of Nixon's having sweating when he was debating Kennedy proved to be very impactful. That image of Trump with the flag in the background. I mean, it's iconic and it's the kind of thing that, remember, it doesn't take a whole lot to swing an election and swing states. So just understand that. The more important part of that is what this did. The day before, the hour before, the minute before the assassination attempt, the betting markets were talking about Kamala or somebody else or an open convention or replacing Biden

so that voters wouldn't be forced to stare at this choice and have, you know, and see the ads and the memes that write themselves. I mean, you know, Mario, you're big into the meme economy, right? Well, memes are what people, you know, we've gotten to the point where our electorate are, I'm not going to call them, I'm not going to say people's attention spans are like hummingbirds, but they're getting there. And the fact is those memes write themselves. So, you know, that changed. Basically, the Democrats that were going to run against Biden or push Biden out are like, maybe we shouldn't do that because we're not going to win. That's relevant.

And while, you know, the odds are 70 percent%, it's relevant. So now now look at the implications of the election. I mean, I read Arthur Hayes's piece, and I love Arthur Hayes's writing, I think he's a genius. I think he misses something. He misses the fact that first of all, you're not going to get anything done this year before the election anyway. Maybe you'll get some token moves, but this administration's already shown that they're not going to do that. But what is important is that Bitcoin and crypto fit with a deregulatory ethos. You should also look into Vance. In addition to his policy positions on crypto and on innovation writ large, which are extremely supportive and constructive. I mean, while I don't agree with him, he's also not a strong dollar fanatic. And I don't think anybody believes that a Trump administration or a Biden administration are going to stop the money printer. In Vance's case, he doesn't care. And so part of the reason he owns Bitcoin is because he thinks that the dollar is

going to depreciate, sure. But he also is not someone who's going to want to hawkishly defend the dollar and that's very very relevant and when you compare the fact that americans are shut out of most crypto markets unless you go through you know you have to take great steps to try to avoid it a world where people are massively underestimating a world where america is as open to crypto as Singapore. And that is on the table, absolutely, in a Trump administration. It will take time. But think about what that means. And the last caller, the last speaker who made the point about how far we've come, I'll make the same point. Since the last all-time high, all of that has happened. And yet we're still below it. Honestly, you know, I my thesis has been that we will forex the last all time high once

all of this news comes to roost, and people see it. And so yeah, you know, I think shorting the market and playing the market here. Yeah, you can make money when Mt. Gox coins come in, but be very careful on the long term. Yeah, I appreciate that overview. Any other thoughts from the panel? I think we've discussed it pretty well, net-net. Actually, I'll ask that final question.

Dave, you can kick it off. Can we say now that we're more likely than not that we've bottomed, considering the latest developments? Dave? Well, yeah. Yeah. Hello? Yeah, yeah.

I heard the answer is yes. Yeah. Yes. The answer is yes. I said it days ago, so yes. Perfect. Carlo, Dan, Preston. Yeah. I'm not going to ask Simon and Gareth.

I'd love your thoughts on that question. As soon as the bullet flew past Trump's head, we were totally bottomed, I think. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I agree. It's already good. Yeah, I would just say yes. Just going on the fact that obviously all of this news has happened and it's extremely bullish for Bitcoin and crypto if Trump does take office later this year.

And just the fact that Mt. Gox is starting to move these coins and Germany is out of coins, you know, those paper hands are done selling. I would hazard to say that this might be the bottom, and we're at that time. Oh, look how out of the loop I am. I just realized we broke 60K. We're still above 60K. That's how crazy it's been the

last couple of days we're at 63k so now i know why you're all so confident because the market has already said we've bottomed in a way so i'm so out of the loop today um but yeah so so uh let me go to to jonathan alex jonathan good to have you would love your thoughts on that question and can anyone he did jonathan am i having the glitch uh no i don't think anyone could hear you jonathan i thought it was just me yeah brother jonathan you're having issues let's go to alex carlo uh preston and on that on that question until gareth fixes his mic yeah i mean we i don't think we probably break i think we you know they'll go down some i don't think we break below 55 again probably not but even you know i i i'd definitely be a buyer at 63 more

than a seller yeah i agree carlo preston yeah i think we we stay a little choppy right now because it is the summer can anyone hear carlo or is it my end yeah we can oh yeah so preston yeah preston just jumping right after carlo because i can't hear i. So Preston, just jump in right after Carlo because I can't hear you. I think we stay choppy in the short term. We do have an impending rate cut that I think is coming. And combine that with the election and the positive momentum behind Trump and what he's doing for crypto, I think we're going to see a tremendous boon in the fall. So I'm bullish. Yeah, I'm massively bullish. There's absolutely no reason to be pessimistic about this. JD Vance is not only does he have the policies that we want him to have and need him to have, but also he's ideologically aligned with a lot of the ideas that crypto has held for a long time.

So he's a true believer. And I think his policy his influence on policy making will reflect that for you yeah i think the last thing i want to do is uh yeah go ahead sorry uh go jonathan if you uh if you look at like a stock twits our sentiment message volume has just exploded uh from from where the levels were sitting at neutral for Bitcoin. They've just gone up as far as where the bottom is. I mean, if we were at bottom or we weren't at bottom, one might say we were within the earshot of a bottom,

but I think it's there now. Get the pun. The pun was totally intended. I get the pun, but I'm ignoring our purpose, Jonathan. It's not the best thing that advance represents is that is is a reversal of what joe biden did joe biden hurt crypto in two ways the first one was massively expansionary fiscal and monetary policy in the early part of his reign uh resulted in inflation and when that inflation had to be killed, they jacked up rates. And that

really affected a lot of crypto businesses in a very, very major way. So 2022, and particularly 2023 was very, very bad and very slow, but dealing with the combined effect of both interest rate increases, as well as the crypto bankruptcies. So as well as regulatory, you know, full, full frontal, you know, regulatory assault on crypto majors like Binance and Coinbase. So all of that now promises to go away, right? So with with that, I think, but the rates are going to go down, inflation is going down, the regulatory war on crypto is going to go away. So all of the all of the things that were holding us back, sort of in the wake of the FTX collapse are now one by one, right, getting taken off the board, and it's setting us up for

a really good future. I appreciate it. On that note, Nassir, are you able to stream that Larry Fink interview, maybe 30 to 60 seconds of it before we wrap the space? If you can, unmute and stream it. If not, I think we're going to set up the equipment to start streaming more clips here on this show like we do on the political show. But I've just arrived to my flight, just the car is just parking now. So I'll be calling it a day. We've covered it pretty well, net net. Everyone thinks or most people think we've bottomed. Most people think that Trump, whether you like it or not, will be the next president

of the United States. And that's a very and especially the new VP, JD Vance, which many people predicted, is another big plus for crypto. So yeah, I think this is it. Nasir, do you want to try streaming that clip? No, I know you have been a leader in willing to embrace crypto. You have made it so that people can be in Bitcoin.

We hear that you give out Ethereum. These are incredible things. That's Larry Fink. A black rock is not known as a gunslayer by any means. So you obviously must believe that this may be an alternative. This alternative, in order to be able, because of a deficit, may be something long-term people should have. Absolutely.

As you know, I was a skeptic. Yes! I was a proud skeptic. And I studied it, learned about it and i came away saying okay you know in five years it was wrong here's my opinion say this is what i believe in today i believe the opportunity today i believe bitcoin is legitimate i'm not trying to say there's not misuses like everything else, but it is a legitimate financial instrument that allows you to have maybe uncorrelated, non-correlated type of returns. I believe it is an instrument that you invest in when you're more frightened, though. It is an instrument.

We believe that countries are debasing their currency, debasing their currency by excess deficits. And some countries are. I believe we have countries where you're frightened of your everyday existence. And if you have an opportunity to invest in something that is outside your country's control, then you can have more financial control. And so I'm a major believer that there is a role for bitcoin in portfolios i believe you're going to see that as an as one of the asset classes that we all look at i look at it as digital gold as i said before and i do believe there's a real need for everyone to look at it as one alternative to the optimism that I have in the world. If you want to hedge hope, Bitcoin is not an instrument for hope unless you're hopeful you're going to make a lot of money on it. But I look at it as a vehicle in which you're expressing your financial acumen in something that you're more frightened of the world.

You're more frightened of your existence. And I believe there's a great industrial use for it. And I think a lot of people are missing that. I couldn't agree more. I think a good discussion for tomorrow. We can stop the stream. Yeah, a good discussion for tomorrow. He essentially called it a hedge against optimism.

He talks about how he's a major believer now. He had a change of heart. Says everyone should look at Bitcoin because, you know, believes Bitcoin legitimate. You know, things he said in the past, but he's good to kind of dig into it a bit further tomorrow. On that note, on that positive note, I think we've got to all agree that the market has likely bottomed. I would go to Gareth, who has his hand up if I don't have a flight, but I do have a flight sitting there waiting. So I appreciate everyone for joining today we'll see you again tomorrow same time and congratulations for everyone that stuck through um assuming this is the beginning of the

of the of the journey to new all-time highs congratulations to everyone that stuck through the uh the the markets last week in the last couple of weeks David uh David Tawil you're too late we're wrapping it up I'll see you tomorrow David Tawil you just I see you just joined thanks everyone I'll see you tomorrow