The Wolf Of All Streets - Crypto V.S A.I | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: November 8, 2023

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

Hey guys. I was going to leave you there to awkwardly talk to yourself, but I decided to jump in. I thought I was going to make a co-hosting. Don't feel bad because whenever he co-hosts, he ends up jumping off. Anyway, guys, take over. He doesn't value the position. With great power comes great responsibility. I don't think Ran understands that. I don't think the position. With great power comes great responsibility. Nothing Rand understands that.

I don't think you understand. The clock has moved, which means that now the show for me starts at 5.15. If we land up running over an hour, hour and a half, it becomes quarter to seven. The problem is that half past six is homework time and bedtime for the kids.

There comes a time where unless there's real events and real news happenings, then i need to jump off and maybe just spend some time with the family since the since the daylight saving clock has changed yeah i have to be dead honest like i would find it very very challenging to do this show at that time of day for me it's uh 10 15 a.m very easy so i actually commend the fact that you show up because and you have like 17 times to make it. Yeah, I'll be I'll be here. I'll definitely be here every day and I'll be here hopefully till the end of the show. But specifically on days where we run a bit longer, unless there's big news, obviously, I'll jump off and rather spend some time with the fam.

Thank you for your time, Your Highness. Well, I have no fam. We're not his family. We are not his family. I view you guys as my family you know yeah you have no fam you have no fam and if you continue like if you continue like this you may not i don't i've given up on myself don't worry i'll be just for the audience for for for all the ladies out there i'm a i'm a lost case scott and randy have a better chance than me um my what what nationality is your uh she's lebanese so don't lebanese moms don't lebanese moms uh i mean that's like i haven't seen her i haven't

seen her i haven't seen her in years man man, because she lives in Australia. Oh, really? Oh, okay. I can tell you if you're... Look at this one. This one really dark, didn't it? This one really dark. It's like, what nationality? You haven't seen her in a decade.

Oh, shit. Exactly. That went dark quickly. So, Scott, maybe you should pivot to the market, because it's obviously a lot less depressing than this conversation. exactly that went that went quickly so Scott maybe you should pivot to the market because it's

obviously a lot less depressing than this conversation yeah I mean Ran I think we can call our attempted

title here Fed Powell Speaks to be a bit of a nothing burger because he's been speaking and nothing's

happening right I don't think the Fed can move the Fed can move the crypto markets anymore because i think the correlation between crypto and the stock markets has been decoupled completely um so i don't think that it's decoupling the one thing that i did notice though about markets is that the tech stocks are outperforming all the other stocks by a huge

margin now i don't know if you guys picked it up uh i've got a whole lot of stats for you if you feel like some statistics but the tech stocks for me um okay so let me quickly get you some stats see i actually did some prep um for this so um here it is so here it is so on. Let me just open all the stats. I did a whole lot of homework for you guys. Okay. So you've got – here it is. So the ratio between the NASDAQ 100 and the Russell 2000, which is the ratio between tech stocks and all other stocks,

made an all-time high yesterday. It means that tech stocks are completely, completely outperforming the entire market. Microsoft finished the day with its highest closing price in history. The tech relative to the S&P 500 has reached new highs. The mega cap tech stocks traded seven consecutive green trading days, which is the longest winning streak since the beginning of January. Now, how does this correlate back to crypto? Well, actually, if you think about crypto, crypto is actually a technology bet.

And so people are talking about a recession people are talking about markets uh potentially not running but actually there is a bull market a raging bull market happening in the in the tech sector and crypto is a tech stock crypto is risk assets it is tech and so that's why another that's how I link it back to why we're getting an opposed rally in crypto at the moment. It's interesting. I had somebody come on, now I'm trying to

remember on my show, but who said I think it was Dave Weisberger who said it's very clear right now that altcoins are correlated to tech stocks. I thought that was a bit of a jump. What do you think? He's right. He's 100% right. He's 100% right. Look, I mean, I did see some warning signs. I'm not paying too much attention to it. Berkshire selling US stocks for four consecutive quarters, highest cash position that they've had in a long time.

Lots of people calling a correction, including JP Morgan, including Morgan Stanley. So, yeah, there are those warning signs. Yeah, they're calling it. You dropped out, I think, Ryan. You're calling it. Morgan Stanley's calling it. You dropped out.

A WhatsApp call came through. But right now the music's on and the tech stocks are running. So we've got to dance with the music. Yeah, I guess the question I had, and we can even talk to the panel, is it truly that altcoins are correlated to tech stocks or is it just one of those moments that are just going up? I mean, my view is more that the crypto market is doing its own thing and we're just having one of those amazing moments

where Bitcoin goes up and goes sideways and all coins fall. But why are we talking a correlation? I thought so too, but it's actually like when you go back and say, well, hold on, tech stocks are actually running, then maybe it's not only isolated to crypto. Maybe this is a tech thing and and crypto and crypto is just tech bitcoin bitcoin is store of value digital gold and uh the rest of crypto you can argue is just tech yeah so so so on the on the i'm not sure if you can hear me guys yeah you can um only only tech stocks, so we're talking about the correlation.

First, I think Rand can't hear me. Now I know the issue. Now I understand the issue. Yeah, let me bring it. Yeah, Rand. Yeah, yeah. So I had a question for Rand. I'll just ask it for the panelists.

Just go to the panel here. And maybe good to kick it off with Ottavio and Dave. In terms of the correlation, correlated, not correlated, Ryan, I'm bringing you back up just so you can actually hear me. We're talking about it like it's a binary thing. It's like, hey, crypto's correlated. Crypto's no longer correlated.

Does it just differ depending on the circumstances? We can't say crypto's no longer correlated with the markets. Just based on what we're seeing right now, there's a divergence between Bitcoin and risk assets. And we're seeing right now there's a divergence between bitcoin and and risk assets and we're seeing correlation between altcoins and tech stocks

um your thoughts on that debate of whether it's correlated or not correlated dave yeah i'd love to jump in there so i i think talking about correlation here when we're talking hey jay if you have a really bad uh mike are you sure i thought it's perfect try again dave oh my god yeah you're you're uh you're perfect i think uh yeah i think you're good at least on my end try again well thanks you're the only person who's ever told me i'm perfect in the entire world um but these don't think you're perfect i think talking about correlations is a bit specious because we're talking about an asset class that can't be traded on the same rails. I think a major part of the reason we've seen the rally in Bitcoin, sort of call it the anchor asset of crypto, is precisely because of all the activity on the ETF front,

which is starting to increase the likelihood we have good bridges between crypto rails and TradFi rails. I think seeing altcoins run here is as much a sort of leaning into the idea that maybe those rails are going to get better, which means maybe we're facing a rag environment where we can start thinking about those alternative assets in crypto as being something that's viable as a portfolio asset for people who aren't necessarily deep in the crypto ecosystem. So that correlation, yeah, it exists, but I think it's kind of accidental. The altcoins are obviously risk on assets. I think that's the observation to me is like speculative tech stocks, altcoins are a speculative tech asset in the crypto space.

I would not be surprised to see those continue to move together. And the more likely we connect to the bridge between TradFi and DeFi, the more I would expect them to be highly correlated with traditional speculative tech stocks. Morgan Stanley saying this is more of a bear market rally than a start of a sustained upswing? I mean, look, we can all get rich or poor by like making crazy prognostications on the market. I think it's very tough. I find it very tough to be betting significantly against this economy in this market. You know, short term, of course, we're going to have wild swings. We've got to get through an election cycle. But I don't feel like we're set up for a major pullback over the next eight months. That

seems silly to me. James and Otavio. Guys, can you hear me? Yeah, Otavio, we'd love your thoughts on that same question I asked earlier to Dave. Yeah, sure, Paul. Thanks for having me, guys. Just to remind you of the question, the correlation, correlated, not correlated, and then the connection between risk assets, tech stocks, and altcoins. I might be echoing what you guys would probably answer in terms of this question,

which would be separating crypto from Bitcoin and crypto as highly speculative assets in that realm, certainly would fall into, I think, of the correlation being strong with technology companies and also the fact of interest rates. It's sort of when you read the newspapers and you see the front of the newspaper

always talking about the treasury market, you've got to be cautious. There's an old saying that you want to buy the last page of the newspaper and sell the front page of the newspaper. And this is sort of what's been happening with the treasury market now. It's a well-known issue. And we need to sort of digress this kind of popular view about the bearishness on treasuries because structurally, there are some real problems, but it's just well known now in markets. And so we're seeing treasuries rally and yields fall and therefore creating a rally in some

speculative assets like some part of the crypto market, but also the technology space. I think that we're yet to see bad news become bad news. We haven't really seen that shift in markets, which tend to happen when you have a hard lending. Yeah, betting against the market is very difficult, although it doesn't take away the fact that there's, you know, crazy distortions in markets currently. I mean, you know, just look at Apple and and and Microsoft you guys are talking about those two you know there are 15 of the weight of the S and P or the SPY ETF that is more than four sectors combined does that make sense and you may say well no they are more profitable than those four sectors combined well it's not true number one it account for about eight percent of

the cash flow uh generated in the overall vehicle so there's some really big distortions in this uh in the market and and some cheap sources of volatility so i think for tail hedging for those that are looking to hatch a long speculative uh or a hard asset portfolio that's what we hold we hold a very large hard asset portfolio and I'm looking for uh what could break I think a VIX where it is currently or volatility where it is is is attractive you know you want to be having some sort of exposure there mega caps you know what's the case moving forward from here in terms of a capital flows are we going to go from you know a weight of 15 to 20 to 30%? Or should we be buying the sectors that are so distressed relative to those two names? Well, I think you got your

answer here. So I believe you should be deploying capital into the distressed areas. And so, no, there's great opportunities in the markets. It's very bifurcated right now. And no, I don't think, I don't want to be a perma bear here, but there's definitely some big distortions that I think need to be adjusted over the next six months or so. James, I'm not sure if Scott and Ryan are here, but we haven't spoken since prior to the whole drama when it comes to the ETF. We'd love your thoughts on the discussion so far,

maybe a bit of an update when it comes to the ETF and where we stand today. I'm back. Just, I'm just Mario. I'm back. Just, you know, I can hear everyone. Yeah. Can you guys hear me? Yeah, go ahead, man. All right. Perfect. I fall more in line with Dave Nadig on on where where things stand i do think there's some thought process to be had with a lot of the same people involved and interested in investing in tech investing in crypto and all coins but i think it more falls in line with uh what dave was saying

but uh there's definitely some truth to both sides of the coin i think uh as far as etfs go um the the silence is deafening on the grayscale and SEC situation. I mean, Dave Nading might have a different view, but I kind of thought we'd have like an inkling of like what the next steps were going to be after the court affirmed the grayscale decision. It's been a few weeks. There hasn't really been anything on that front. So for that reason, I kind of was looking and there's been a lot of rumors about imminent approval coming. So I wanted to basically, I kind of was looking and there's been a lot of rumors about imminent approval coming. So I wanted to basically, I wrote a note this morning that looks at like when these

things could happen. So right now, there's basically once the SEC gives you one of those delay orders that we've seen a bajillion times before where the court punts or delays on an ETF decision. Basically, there's a comment period after that with a public comment. And then also, sometimes there's a there's a rebuttal comment period. Essentially, the comment period ends today. So theoretically, for the first time since the Grayscale court case was affirmed, there's a period that starts tomorrow, possibly even today after market close, if you want to get specifics, through like the 17th, maybe the 21st, where the SEC has a window that they can approve every single, all 12 ETFs, including Grayscale, under the 19B4 process.

So that's something to watch. I don't think like, oh my God, it's definitely going to happen, but that's something that we're watching here on my end. But we still do think it's going to happen. Approvals are going to come under that 19b4 process by January 10th. The other side, which hasn't been talked about as much, and you've seen all these amendments, if you've been following, all these issuers are filing amendments that are prospectuses or S1As, as you call them. And then we grayscale filed their S3. This is indicative that that 19b4 process goes through the division of trading and markets at the SEC. That's about the word of a fraud manipulation those things this other process that goes through a different division called the division of corporate finance and basically

they're just worried about risk disclosures they they're they want to they're a disclosure regulator the sec they want to make sure everything is disclosed they want to know you everything in their documents the offering documents are explaining how the funds works the risks which is where you've seen those comments about like potential ESG and environment issues with Bitcoin in these documents. That's basically the division of Corp Fin highlighting any potential risks. So all these amendments are indicative that that process is underway. So basically, in order for anything to launch, you need two things. You need that 19B4 approval, which we've been waiting for, where we see that clock and the delays and potential approvals or deny orders. And then the other process is this S1 approval process where

the Division of Corporate Finance basically signs off on those documents. Once both of those happen, that's when an ETF can launch. So basically, I'm watching those two paths to see where we're at. And it looks like we're moving forward on both of them. No guarantee we're going to get all of them at the same time or when, but it's something we're watching closely. James, what is your thought process on the ETH ETF approval? So we do go forward with the Bitcoin approval here in the next, you know, call it at latest January. How likely is it that ETH gets approved in short order? Or is it the next, you know, call it at latest January, how likely is it that ETH gets approved in short order? Or is it the same sort of like process we're gonna have to go through again, where it's going to be potentially multiple years? Obviously, a lot of that hinges on what the

administration looks like. But how are you kind of thinking about that? Yeah, so I think ETH is different from every other digital asset in this sense. We already have spot ETH applications. There's about five, I think, right now. They're due at the earliest for final decision in May of 2024. So I think if we jump ahead to January and if we're correct and we think that we're going to get approvals on these spot Bitcoin ETFs, I think the SEC is likely to also approve these Ethereum ETFs in May. That said, there's other issues at stake here that the SEC and these iss also approve these Ethereum ETFs in May. That said, there's other

issues at stake here that the SEC and these issuers will have to, pun intended, I guess, to deal with on the Ethereum side with staking and things like that, that Gary has hinted at that he might have issues with. So there's no guarantee, but the final decision on Ethereum ETFs that have already been filed are due at the end of May. So theoretically, we could get to June and have both spot Bitcoin and spot Ethereum ETFs. I have to do a deeper dive into the Ethereum side of things. But assuming that Bitcoin ETFs are approved, we think spot will come because you have CME Bitcoin futures that led to Bitcoin futures ETFs. And the same side, you have Ethereum futures from the CME that led to CME Ethereum futures ETFs. And the same side, you have Ethereum futures from the CME that led to CME Ethereum futures ETFs. And basically, the whole process, assuming there's no delineation between Ethereum and Bitcoin by the

SEC, should be viable to get a spot Ethereum ETF in 2024. That said, Bitcoin and Ethereum are on a pedestal all their own and any other digital asset is potentially years down the line. Obviously, going back to what you said about the administration change, things like that, literally an act of Congress could change that conversation. But as far as I'm concerned and what I'm looking at, Bitcoin and Ethereum are completely separate from anything else in the space. And James, I'd take the other side of the trade on May approval. I think they'll punt those as long as humanly possible, even after they approve a Bitcoin

ETF. There's enough distinction in how the price of ETH gets set, largely because of its usage and burning, that I think that they'll be able to just drag that out forever. Again, absent the major shift in Washington, which makes it pro-crypto. Remember, we're still in a very anti-crypto regulatory environment. We had to get court cases to get anything moving. I think it's just two questions james um is there anyone that thinks anyone you know any analyst that you talk to

that think a bitcoin etf could never come or could not come in the next year is that even the possibility anymore so first question second question how's the appetite in your opinion we talked to people in the markets after we saw the disappointment with the eth features yeah so um i wouldn't put the reason we're at 90 by january 10th is pretty much solely because of the political backdrop that dave was just talking about it's a very anti-crypto backdrop gary gensler is running the sec so anything he wants to do uh like he could he'll if he really wants to burn some bridges and push things uh against the court decision he might be able to do it like he could he'll if he really wants to burn some bridges and push things against the court decision, he might be able to do it and delay things and stop it even further. So

basically, we're never going to be at 100% when Gary's in office on these type of things. So that that's the first question. So there are people out there that still think the SEC is going to do everything they can to not allow these things to launch. I don't think it's really viable legally based on the Grayscale court decision. It would be extremely difficult for them to thread that needle, is the way I would put it. As far as demand goes, on the second side, I had low expectations for Ethereum futures ETF flows, to be honest. I thought maybe they'd get 100 million. Futures ETFs, one, one the reason bido was so was on fire was was two factors right one we were in a major bull market for bitcoin

so it was the underlying market that was driving demand into the etf in that case we're not in the same situation for eth etfs when they launch also that was only one etf that launched so like more volume but gets volume. Everyone's talking about one thing. We had like six or maybe even more. I don't even know. I don't remember the exact number of Ethereum futures ETFs launched on the same day. So I think that hindered things. Also, for the most part, people who want long-term exposure to crypto on the traditional financial rails, which goes back to something that was talked about earlier, like futures ETFs just aren't the best way to do that. So if you're an advisor

and you're thinking about putting long-term assets into a Bitcoin ETF or Ethereum ETF, like you're probably gonna wait till spot comes about because right now, if you look at spot, if you're, sorry, if you look at Bitcoin futures ETFs, they're trailing by seven, 8% year to date. Last I checked. So like you don't, that's an added cost.

If I told you upfront, you were looking at to buy an ETF and the fee was going to be 7.5%, you'd be like, what the hell are you talking about? I'm not buying that thing. So I think that also hinders the use cases. That said, the futures ETFs are very good trading vehicles. They trade penny wide. They're going to give you exposure to short-term moves, but over the long-term they break down. ETFs are really used by the advisor space heavily. It's more long-term holding. So if you think about advisors thinking about putting, say, a handful of their... We'll say you're an advisor and you have 20% of your clients that you want to put some assets into crypto for because of their risk profiles, whether it's 1%,

3%, 5%. You're going to do that over time. So we think the spot ETFs are going to take over. You're not going to want to do with the futures ETF most likely. You're going to wait till spot comes around. So I also don't think like spot Bitcoin ETF launch, I don't think it's going to be this massive bonanza like we saw with Biddo anymore, particularly if we see 12 different ETFs get the ability to launch on or around the same day. We could see hundreds of millions flow in in the first week, maybe a billion in the first week. But it's really more about the longer term perspective, because like I said, ETFs are heavily used by advisors. Yes, they're also used by DIY retail investors. They're used

by institutions for trading vehicles. But for the most part, the long term sticky assets are going to come from advisors and people wanting access to bitcoin and traditional financial rails and that's i don't think that people are just waiting like anyone who wanted access to bitcoin and wanted it immediately like you can open a coinbase account what have you uh you have that access but for for long-term portfolio building these spot etfs will will that's what they'll be used for and also for trading but um so i think these spot etfs will take out the futures etfs so biddo is basically if you're if you're pro shares you're hoping that this gets kicked down the road for as long as possible because you're sitting on a

gravy train right now because you're the best option right now in the market but uh once spot etfs come about it's going to be hard to compete i want to i do want to go to to ryan ryan before i go to you just want to tell the audience about the, so we started accepting sponsors again, and we have NodeVPN. So they're the sponsor for today. And obviously there's not much I could say because you all know NodeVPN.

I use it. I'm in Dubai. So I'm a customer, obviously. Probably one of the best, if not the best VPN out there. Not sure, Scott, if you use a VPN to do all your illegal shit. But anyone that is in crypto wants to protect their IP.

They've got 5,800 servers worldwide, top-tier encryption. They've got servers in 60 countries. Jokes aside, I'm happy to have them. Yeah, man, is my mic still shit? Oh, so bad. You sound like Styx in the 80s don't worry yeah james does my mic and maybe james does my mic sound shit yeah it does it does sound shit i'll be back i'll change my headset talk about no gpns

he's he's currently biohacking his tonsils and uh it my mic off. And it's part of his new process. I took my mic off. I'll put the other one on in a second. But I was just talking about NordVPN. They're the sponsor for today. You sound good. It's good now, yeah? Don't say shit.

All right, man. I think it's a glitch on Twitter. Space is all yours, man. Enjoy. All right. Anyways. For this job. But yeah.

Yeah. Everybody. for this job but yeah yeah and everybody this of big mario so uh privacy and there's so i think nor for ages and is the best in most people here. I'm assuming there's a... It's extreme. It's a human being. It's called the crypto market. Okay, Kenny.

Let's circle. Tom. Dave, I would use spot. But I do if I did click. Guys, hold on, hold on. Is Scott working?

Is my mic good or no? Your mic is fine, Scott. Yeah, Scott, you've been breaking up. Yeah, Scott, you're breaking up the whole time. I thought it was on my end. So Zeev's glitching today. No one could hear anything Scott's talking about. It's just glitching the whole time.

So what a waste. I think this is a Twitter issue. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think so. I think so. But now I'm good and Scott isn't. So Nasta, whoever's running the account, remove Scott and bring him back up.

So, I was going to talk about NordVPN, but we'll do that in a bit. I do want to go to Ryan. Ryan, the same question to you is that the appetite for the Bitcoin ETF. Actually, I want to get your thoughts on everything that's been discussed so far. The correlation markets versus equities. The ETF likelihood of approval, but also the appetite for the ETF, how much impact has it been priced into the markets? So I don't think we've either we haven't spoken in a long time. It's the first time we speak on this stage, but we'd love to get your thoughts on everything.

Ryan, good to have you. Yeah, awesome. Thanks. Thanks for pointing the question my way here. I do think that there's a, I don't think there's a high correlation between tech stocks and altcoins when we talk about crypto. I think for one, crypto is such a early stage asset class with low levels of liquidity, especially during the bear market that what we're really seeing is maybe some coincidental correlations at times. But when you kind of look over the long term, the correlations have been falling for the past few years,

really, ever since we got out of the crazy influx of cash into the system in 2020, in 2021. And so I think that the correlation is not really there. Really, what I believe is happening is there's this rotation into Bitcoin, then to Ethereum, then to altcoins. And since people look at their Coinbase application and their trading terminals, they see Bitcoin's up over 100% year-to-date. They see Ethereum's up 50-something percent year-to-date. And they look at some other altcoins and try to find, okay, what's the best opportunity for me to deploy capital right now? I don't think people have our understanding that the Bitcoin ETF is not priced in, at least from my perspective. I don't think it's priced in. So it's kind of short sighted to look and think they missed the boat on Bitcoin.

I think we're still kind of ramping up to to see what the ETF application will actually or sorry, ETF going live, like what that impact will actually be on the price of Bitcoin. But I think it's more just people kind of speculating further out along the curve once they think they've missed the boat on Bitcoin, once maybe they think they've missed the boat on Ethereum, trying to get those smaller micro or market cap assets. And that's, in my opinion, what's happening here with altcoin rally that we're seeing today. You see Bitcoin settle, you see Ethereum move a little bit and then settle. What about behind the scenes?

We're talking about the markets, but one thing I always ask is, is the VC sentiment changing? Is the institution's perception of the market or the industry changing? What can you tell us from these private discussions you're having? Are people starting to shift their perception of crypto post-FTX? Definitely. We talk to financial advisors and family offices and ras every day across the u.s and and what we're seeing is is kind of twofold one we're seeing an appetite increase for bitcoin specifically as an etf is coming close to getting to market and then we're

also seeing more interest in education on lower market cap assets or other crypto assets. One thing that's maybe surprising, I was just on the road talking to some financial advisors over these past few weeks. Most of them, to be honest, haven't even really heard of Ethereum or don't have any idea what Ethereum is. And so to think that they're looking at altcoins as a new type of technology and that they're really studying those, I think is the wrong way to think about it. They're spending like 1% of their time thinking about crypto assets. Most of that's about Bitcoin. Some of that's like, oh, okay, crypto is a technology. Cool. What else is out there? I had a conversation recently

with an advisor and they didn't realize Ethereum was even a blockchain, yet they're invested in Bitcoin. And so I think you have this nuance here that they're barely spending time thinking about crypto. So they're not really going down the risk curve all that much when it comes to crypto assets. And I think James mentioned, you know, their institutional investors are talking about a 1%, 3%, 5% allocation to crypto at most. And maybe they're carving out gold or like an alternative asset sleeve. And maybe some of them are carving out more than that. And they're carving out gold like an alternative asset sleeve and maybe some of them are carving out more than that and they're doing out of like their technology sleeve and deploying a little bit of it towards ethereum but majority of advisors here just uh institutional investors broadly are really only gaining access to crypto through through Bitcoin other than

obviously venture capital when when do you think that could right when could that where could that change in your opinion from an institutional level, moving away from just exposure through Bitcoin, start to look at riskier assets and start understanding down the list of market cap and looking at some of those other newer assets. Two things need to happen. One, we need to have a lower interest rate environment because right now the risk reward just isn't there for some of those assets or most of those assets. And then two, the education just isn't there as well. It's taken years for these institutions to get behind Bitcoin and start learning about Bitcoin. We've seen the evolution that people like Jamie Dimon or Larry Fink have taken in their education to Bitcoin, now thinking of it as a quality asset or having the ability to

be a store of value over time, while Bitcoiners have been beating their drum to that for 10 plus years. And so I think that it just takes a lot of time. Multiple years is my guess before we start to see institutions really coming around to even Ethereum. And beyond that, I think it's five years plus. One more question before we go to Wiccan, Dave. And I'm trying to bring Scott back up. Well, the question I have, if the markets have done as well as they have with the current environment, the current interest rate environment, we're already at, what, above 35K.

That's, first, it's just fascinating to see. But then the second question is, what happens when things change, when interest rates start to come down, when we finally start seeing that pivot? What do you expect to see in the markets? Are you just going to expect that appetite to come back, as we saw in previous bull markets, and things to start bubbling up again as we saw previously? Or we're never going to see that again now that the shine is off crypto and into AI? No, absolutely.

I think we're going to see appetite come flooding into the market. I think we're in the first year of a multi-year bull market. And once interest rates start to come down, even as they've leveled off, you know, this year, we've seen appetite come back into the market a little bit. And so once they start to fall, I think we'll see a lot more appetite coming in. We'll see a lot more price action than what we've seen. And some of that will get settled through there being more liquidity in the market. Obviously, you know, we're in a low liquidity environment for Bitcoin and for crypto. And so any kind of increase in buy pressure really sends

prices moving. And sometimes that can create a self-fulfilling cycle of liquidations, which also sends price moving up or down. And so I do think that a little bit of that's playing a factor here. But yeah, once interest rates come down, I think we'll see a huge interest coming into crypto. I don't think the AI opportunity there will kind of dissuade it because crypto is 24-7, 365, liquid assets you don't really have that with ai so you have a different investor base with retail investors and even uh you know as james was saying a lot of institutional investors who need to trade through vehicles like etfs for example or private one last question then we'll go to tom and wick

last question ryan in terms of the halving everyone keeps talking about it it's like a set thing where everyone's waiting for it's almost like a guarantee that the markets will reverse when the halving kicks in, when we get closer to the halving. Is that a myth or has it become a self-fulfilling prophecy in your opinion? Because obviously we don't have that much history to go by. Yet, that's all that everyone talks about. To me, it just starts to seem like a voodoo self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah. I think that a lot of people

just don't understand the halving. People talk about it, especially in Bitcoin circles, people talk a lot about it. But I think broadly speaking, a commodity where the supply or the new supply halves every four years is kind of a wild concept,

especially for institutional investors or typical commodities investors. And so I do think it's a big deal. You know, when the next halving happens, we're going to see the new amount of Bitcoin being produced each day fall from I think it's 900 Bitcoin per day to 450 Bitcoin per day. And that's, you know, five, six billion dollars of new Bitcoin that's no longer entering the market. And so that's, that's, you know, a big deal. That means that, you know, there's no longer entering the market. And so that's a big deal. That means that there's no longer this need to buy $5.5 billion worth of Bitcoin every year just to keep prices flat.

That's definitely going to have an impact on prices. I just think it's somewhat priced in or the excitement is somewhat priced in to most of us that follow Bitcoin closely. But I think that, broadly speaking, the market hasn't really got behind that. Oh shit, I'm talking to myself. Great, I love it. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. I was talking to myself. I've literally tried three phones,

like two different internet connections, no matter what, I finally got back on and you literally just completely trolled me. No, no, I was just talking to myself. I was just taking a jab at someone. I was saying, I want to take a jab at someone in the audience that i respect tremendously he's an incredible speaker and a regular guest who gave us he came into space once and talked about the how disappointing crypto has been and how well ai is done it's probably one of the most disheartening

um speeches i've heard on on stage um and i would love to get his thoughts if he wants to request on whether that perception has changed considering what we've seen recently or that disappointment in crypto and that excitement around AI remains. So I'd love that audience member to come up. Otherwise, Scott, first, I'm glad you finally figured out technology in your back. I do want to go to Tom, unless you have something to add, Scott, and get Tom's thoughts on this no go to tom go to tom yeah so scott just outed himself as having three phones which i find a little questionable so we'll just we'll gloss over that but uh why does scott have three phones but i would say you know uh we did a really good job talking about the supply side or

the demand side of the equation here, who's going to buy these assets. But I spend a lot of my time on the project side. So that would be the supply side for this. So are there new and interesting projects actually coming to market? Are there new applications that people actually would want to buy and invest in? And just in the past month alone, we've evaluated over 150 deals, which is, I'd say, 5x the previous month. And rounds are closing quicker. Their valuations are being marked up quicker. And there's a lot of key themes that are really interesting, you're probably hearing in the market, but real world assets, eventually some actual fundamentally improved games that have backend crypto functionality, which are interesting.

And a lot of those things are actually being brought to market and fundraising quicker and being brought online, which is something we hadn't seen for the past number of months. So the sentiment on the actual project side is really encouraging, which I think is going to fuel a lot of what the next bull run is, especially if we have like Q1, we have all of these positive catalysts, including ETF approvals and having and all of these other things, but we need the actual projects to be there. So, you know, fundamentally, those are, those are coming, which is exciting to see.

Before going to Wick or Crystal, Scott, what I was trying to do earlier was talk about NordVPN. Did you speak about them when you were cutting out? I did. I spoke. No one did. No one did. You sounded like a robot.

I know. I know. I did. I did. You know what? It would be a funny joke. Danish comes up. Now you come up, Danish.

The walk of shame, huh? What are your thoughts on crypto now? What are your thoughts on crypto now? Shit on us now. Shit on us now. are your thoughts on crypto now i need to give you shit shit on us now shit on us now it wasn't danish i wasn't jabbing it danish what what man what just a quick question just a quick question how much is your cyberpunk work now cyberpunk i'm happy to have this conversation how much is is your Cybertruck worth? Well, it's not worth much either. That's the problem. Both of them were complete BS.

But my point is that I'm happy to have a conversation around all of this bullshit around what NFT's original use case was, which was apparently joining, you know, we saw apes literally blind their community. I'm not saying like in a sort of blind. They literally blinded and tore off the corneas of their community by using UV lights at their parties. I mean, this is the crypto that you're defending right now. I'm happy to have a conversation around Bitcoin, which, by the way, is being pumped on an ETF. And really, that traditional finance may be able to invest in this asset. That's pretty much what's keeping it up. Considering that you could

increase utilization of it by traditional finance and people could use their 401ks, the fact that it's only at 35k actually means that it's an incredibly depressed asset. Danish, Danish, Danish, you know what we say to people like you in this forum? Geniuses. All right, so let me just make sure that... We say have fun staying put. Yeah, yeah, great. And I have seen many crypto billionaires at McDonald's recently,

but I was going to say that I'm happy to have a conversation around AI. Microsoft hit an all time high. Open AI Dev Day was actually quite impressive. You can literally build an agent that can do things when you're sleeping. These are real use cases for a real technology that will be truly transformative and exponential. The more it's used, the more valuable it gets. You cannot even compare the two. Now, if you unbundle crypto and you start talking about blockchain, there's a few companies I'm excited about in the blockchain space.

If you start talking about NFTs with real utility, I'm happy to talk about that. But the bullshit that is spewed most of the time on X is not that valuable. And most of the shit coins are going to be worth exactly what's in their name. That's the only point I was going to make. Guys, the man I was talking about, Vinny, you got the message, did you? You remember that space you were on a few weeks ago now? Oh, yeah. He said that he was leaving.

It hurt me so much. It's like literally a girl that i've loved for so many years says mario i never actually loved you that's how i feel back when he's back guys when he's back i saw him at the solana conference then he's all in on crypto he's forgotten about ai ai doesn't exist for him anymore no no what i said what i said to be clear was i have enough exposure as an investor in crypto i don't want to be an operator in crypto and i still don't i'm an operator like i'm building an ai crypto. I don't want to be an operator in crypto, and I still don't. I'm building an AI company now.

I don't want to be operating crypto for lots of reasons, but I'm happy to invest in the sector. I think there's a lot of potential. So what you're saying is work in AI, take the profits from AI and invest them in crypto. That's a pretty good angle, actually, because then you cover both grounds. But not many AI startups are profitable yet.

I mean, I was reading an article today saying that actually they're in a phase where they're guzzling a lot of investor cash. Yeah. So, I mean, that's a different discussion, right? I still think you can build a lot of value. I mean, Google wasn't profitable in the beginning either, right? So it's the same principle. You've got to build value and enterprise value

and that's what you're focusing on. So direct profit is probably not. I think that the problem, I think AI is amazing. Don't get me wrong. I think it's absolutely amazing. Like technology is amazing.

I just think the path to monetization of AI is quite a long way away. When I say a path to monetization, you know, it's going to take a long time for these companies naturally to become profitable.

Probably a lot of them don't actually even want to become profitable because as soon as you do, you show your true valuation. And I think it's going to be a long time before people can actually realize value

out of AI. Whereas in crypto, the one advantage we have in crypto is we have this immediate liquidity, this immediate... We're a casino. Crypto is a casino. Exactly. Where does the liquidity come from, Ryan? Think about it. It's other people buying in. From greater fools. Exactly. And that's a great business for you guys? That's a great business to have one fool sell to another fool?

Well, I don't say you guys. I'm doing AI now. Wow. You see, you see, if they're listening that you are their exit liquidity, that's what people are trying to do in crypto. You are the bag holder. That's the problem.

You know why, by the way, do you know why that's the case? Do you know why it's the case? Most people don't realize it. The reason we have this problem in crypto is because of the regulations. The regulations don't allow you to do things like make crypto very much security-like. You can't make it a security.

So you can't say – you can't build things in crypto where people get a return and promise returns, et cetera. So then it's all speculation on future value. This is the problem, I think. Just really quickly, OpenAI, the day I see a release like Dev Day for OpenAI where they actually release your ability to build your own GPT, imagine Mario GPT.

That would be very interesting. The number two, you also are able to build your own assistance, AI assistance, like in seconds. It's so easy. You literally use their assistant API and you can actually build it now. These are like literally game-changing technologies that are coming out. And what he said at the end is what people need to remember, which is what they do next year is going to make this year look quaint.

I love that. And that's actually- So your thoughts, Danish, your thoughts then on the value of decentralizing the data in AI and through blockchain. Is that something you're interested in? Do you think there's a lot of overlap between crypto and AI? Mario, let's start with a more basic question. Where do you think the TPU power is going to come from, Danish?

Where do you think all the power- No, I understand that- Where do you think the TPU power is going to come from, Danish? Where do you think all the power, where do you think the TPU power to power this come from? So again, H 100. But beyond just buying Nvidia chips, I think beyond that, I think the the fact that AI and I mean, Mario, you're seeing this with the Israel Hamas situation, it's hard to know what truth is. And I think that that's gonna lead

to the need for AI is getting I think that that's going to lead to the need for AI is getting so crazy that we're going to need some level of custody of information. I think that that's probably a good use case for blockchain. I think what we're seeing right now, you know, Scott mentions it multiple times, which is financial institutions are using it for transactions internally within their systems to stream streamlining. There are actual utility use cases, but all this bullshit around PFPs and around like all of this, like weird stuff that got crazy in 2021, all of it's done. In my opinion, I think that we're, we're in the trough of disillusionment right now,

which means that real use cases are going to come. And I think the next stage, hopefully we have something worthwhile, but yes, AI versus crypto. It's not even a fucking competition right now ai is kicking its ass like at a level that is on i mean ai is like the future internet so it's okay forget about ai and then i want to go to tom and wick wick i think it would be so patient forget about ai crypto excluding ai instead of just comparing how attractive crypto is, how interesting crypto is to the utility of AI, which is difficult to compete with. Forget about AI. Crypto by itself now compared to six months ago when we first started working together or having the show together and debating crypto back then.

Has it changed? I think a lot of the riffraff is out. I think that's good. A lot of the tourists who are just pumping and speculating are out which is good i still think that we haven't seen the pain come through completely i want all of your hearts broken i want all of your spirits beaten and then and only then does it make sense to start building new that happened last year do you know there's no spirit i understand that but i forgot my identity I don't have it.

I don't, what is the meaning of life? I'm still questioning it, Dennis. Is that enough? Not yet. A little bit more. I think, I think when we see, when we see true crypto winter, like really. Such a fucking sadist, man. And I'm just saying that ultimately we are still, I think right now there's so much hope.

There's still so much hope amongst you all. The day people actually leave and they say it's over, that's the day. Vinny left. Vinny left. Vinny literally did that. Vinny is crypto. He left. He was this since 2000.

No, Dennis, you're wrong, dude. Like this is the coldest winter I've ever seen in crypto. I've been in for a decade. It was the cold're wrong, dude. Like, this is the coldest winter I've ever seen in crypto. I've been in for a decade. It was the coldest winter, seriously. And I think there's signs of life right now. But again, everything in crypto depends on what the macro situation is. And it looks like Powell is going to, I wouldn't say be dovish, but be as neutral as he can be today. And I think we're going to go into a cutting cycle next year.

And I think people in the markets, the market's always forecasting six months ahead. That's like, you know, historically, we look, the market always reacts to what's going to happen in six months. I think the market is pricing and, you know, a loose amount of trade policy going in next year. The number of thumbs down I'm getting from this group is telling me that your hearts are not broken. It is a crypto. This is what I'm saying. Our hearts are healing, John. It's weird.

Yeah, listen. This is people. These are people that are already destroyed. They already lost the meaning of life that are sending you thumbs down. It's like, enough, man. We can't do this anymore. Before going to Wick and Wick, if you're going to be bearish on crypto as well, please do drop down. We can't take more for today. It is

a crypto town hall, just a reminder. It's not an AI town hall. One year anniversary of the FTX collapse and this is what they're doing to us. We've just recovered. The guy just went to jail. Exactly. Now, guys, we've tried promoting NordVPN

twice. So third time lucky. I use them. I'm so big fan. I think it speaks for itself. And I use a whole bunch of them. I'm in Dubai. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say this, but I use a whole bunch of them here in other countries as well. And Nord is the one I end up using the whole time.

So for me to see them as a sponsor for today's show is pretty damn cool. Notes that I have here for a sponsorship call is 5800 servers worldwide top tier encryption secure up to six devices with one account look i don't think all that matters they're the best that i know of from my personal use we've pinned the link above um so it's a pretty cool sponsor that i use one of the few that i've used um scott ryan anything to add on nord vpn i mean i think if you're in crypto and you're not using a VPN, you're in a very risky situation for many reasons. One is, of course, you're exposing your IP address. Your IP address kind of exposes what country you're in, what location you're in, which is quite scary.

Second thing is every time you interact with an app or a DApp, it records the IP address. So it knows who you are. And the problem is that if you, for example, in the United States or wherever you are, you're effectively, if the regulator ever says to the DeFi application, can I have a list of all IP addresses that have been surfing your site, which is something that they can do, you're going to be exposed. So I mean, I don't do anything without a vpn um it's really for me the only way to surf and i think it's so cheap like you're talking like three dollars a month or something to protect yourself um versus all this money that we have on the line so i think i mean i don't do

anything without a this is this is like we're not we're not quiz question now do you stream with your vpn on or do you i do yeah i do i do i do yeah. Same. I have a quick comment. Just a quick comment. This isn't us telling you NordVPN is better than others. This should be more telling you why you should get a VPN because I think everyone knows NordVPN.

Why should you get a VPN? So if you're on crypto, click on the link at the top. We've pinned it above. Appreciate NordVPN for sponsoring the show. Wick, can you please tell us why Danish and Vinnie are at least partially wrong yes good morning gentlemen uh afternoon to some of you uh some of our favorite people here

and everyone brought up some great things a lot of um analytics going on james you're awesome ryan you're awesome uh and then we kind of jumped everywhere right uh just to dan dan sounds uh like he's smart as well that sounds a little bit upset he might be a little bit more upset next year uh if he's not in crypto and ai then i don't need a response so uh i am completely bullish guys um i actually uh it's funny i just posted a chart of gptc on my page so if you guys want to go look at that um this is what I'm going to be talking about. So I do consult for a few firms in Dallas. One of these firms, they always look at GBTC. I still think it's very, very important because there's a really great discount to NAV

over here happening. And if you look at that chart, what's very interesting, what we used before in previous cycles with these specific firms is the volume coming in. The volume is coming in and it started to come in around the 20th of June here. We already had a setup before that was happening and we are in what you call a stage two breakout. This is what starts the majority of the cycles. It started 17, it started last cycle. And it's starting the cycle now here on GBTC. So to ask me if I'm bearish, I am 100% bullish. And I was bearish the entire bear market. People hated me. Okay.

So from my perspective, this is a very, very bullish environment. You can see how everything is lining up. Everything is basically right under resistance, kind of just doing this bullish consolidation, waiting for this ETF approval. Okay. So now let's talk about this ETF approval. I see everyone talking about, yeah, it's priced in. That's not what I'm looking at. I don't care if it's priced in. Okay. It's just the start of the bull market. We've got the halvening coming. We've got the ETF coming. The risk for reward ratio, it's so good right now. But let's talk about this ETF. I don't think

it's whether it's priced in or not priced in. What I'm excited about is that when we get this approval of ETF, it's the adoption that comes afterwards, right? How soon that comes, I don't know. But it's one of the biggest events for me, having Larry Fink approve an ETF that all my guys from all the exchanges can now stop trading on GPTC. And they can go in and do this the right way, right? There's a lot of funds and pension funds that haven't been able to get their allocation. And I think this is what might do it, right? Maybe not out the gate. Maybe we have a little bit of volatility out the gate. Scott has just pointed out my South African accent. I talked to family this morning. It happens.

So I literally messaged him. I was like, sometimes I hear it so strong. And sometimes it's like, you're just a guy from Texas. It's also because of Vinny. He's been talking and when this happens, things change. So, so yeah, no, thank you for that. But no guys, I'm so bullish. Everything is lining up right under resistance.

Whatever you want to talk about, whether it's Bitcoin lining up right there, whether it's Ethereum lining up there. I think Ethereum is another sleeping giant. For people that say that it's all a Bitcoin story, I think it is a Bitcoin story for now. But what I also think is that we are probably going to get that Ethereum ETF. And it's, again, everyone's focusing on the institutional guys. And yes, that might come. It might be fun. But I'm actually looking at this from the perspective of when they release that ETF, right? What's going to happen is it's going to be a lot of news happening, right? What is this going to do to retail? This is going to cause retail to try and front run the institutions, whether they come in or not. So just that alone is going to cause an alt market to happen. And we're already seeing that dynamics scott already talked about it uh you're already seeing that dynamics when you know bitcoin stalling here under resistance and all of a sudden all the

alts start to fly i mean all the writing is on the wall guys so um from my perspective if you are uh bearish like uh mr dan uh you're doing yourself a big disfavor it's never been a better brisk worst reward now um now's the time, guys. So that's my opinion. And I'll take any questions if you guys have any. Any questions if we have any. Next question is, what do you expect to see in the short term versus the long term? Because I think the argument you make is a fair argument. I think an argument that anyone could make in the long term. What about in the short term?

What do you expect before mid next year? And when it comes to Bitcoin, as well as altcoins, comparing the two? No, that's a great question. You know, I think the closer we get to the halvening with this ETF, it's just bringing more and more attention. Short term, you know,

we really are beholden to what happens with the ETF approval, right? But I talked to Scott about this. Let me pull up a chart of Bitcoin so I can look at it while I'm talking to you. One second. Okay, so let's say we get an ETF denial, okay? From my analysis, I like to think of things in stages.

I have my own little framework. That's actually good. Hold on, you're going to give us what would happen if the ETF is denied and what would happen to the markets? Is that the analysis you're about to give us? So I work off probabilities, right? You never work off absolutes. Only really new guys work off absolutes because if you've been in the markets for any period of time, you know that there's no such thing as absolutes. Probability says that if this ETF is denied, that we could possibly find ourselves in that same range,

what I call our stage three basing level that we were just in, which is between a low of 25,000 and 31,000. Okay. That's the range that I think actually, no, I'm sorry. The high will be 30,000. I think we dropped down into that range and we base, right? i why do i think this might happen because you also see in previous cycles that just before we kick off not the bull market but that parabolic move right that starts to initiate before that happens on all the previous cycles we've always had a 20 to 30 percent pullback that puts us right in the range that i talked about which just happens to be the stage three basing that i've been going on about. I've been talking about this bull market happening since we made a double bottom in January, made a double bottom. And then we had that big up move right in January as well. That's

when it started, guys. So we went into that stage three basing right when we overcome that resistance at 25,000. That was the most pivotal resistance for me that really spoke to me that the bull market was here. I think you pull right into that range because that's what's happening historically if we get an ETF denial. And it is not bearish to me. It simply just prolongs the bull market, which has already started. It prolongs the parabolic phase. And that's my opinion. Scott, since this is a TA discussion, your thoughts on what Wick said? Is your audio okay? Yeah, I mean, I align well. I think that generally there's no reason right now to be particularly bearish if the market is giving you opportunity to take it.

So I'm not particularly concerned right now of what's going to happen in six months or a year. I know what's happening now. And it's been a great time to take advantage of that. Let's get some final thoughts. Tom, Dave? Just real quick. You know, Bitcoin is, what, 131% of the lows, and you still have guys like Dan calling this not bullish, right?

So the argument is already gone. It's a bull market, guys. Yeah, I would just put in the one caveat that while I'm absolutely bullish on the long term, in the path between here and when we have a couple of ETFs trading, there's going to come the issue of the GBTC conversion. That's $22 billion that's locked up at a discount right now. Some substantial portion of that is hedged. And so while we're looking at that $22 billion and thinking, well, that must mean we're going to have $50 billion in weeks when we launch an ETF.

I think you're going to see that $22 billion in a converted come down dramatically, perhaps by half. How is it hedged? Basically, because people are taking the alternate opposite positions, either the options markets or on-chain using futures. Options markets? Okay. opposite positions, either the options markets or on-chain using futures. Like there's options markets. Okay. So my point is simply, I've talked to a number of institutions who have positions sitting at a discount who have found whatever they believe to be the appropriate negative beta hedge against that.

Some of that's going to unwind. And so I would just be cautious trading in and around the approval days. I think they're going to be enormously volatile. If you look at the options markets on Ethereum, that hedge has actually come off. So it's dramatically come off and they haven't put that hedge back on. So that's one thing I wanted to talk about. Just to say real quick about the hedging, especially on Ethereum specifically, right? It hasn't popped.

But the hedging that they have been doing, that's not on anymore. That came off, I think, last week. I made a post about that. Tom? Yeah, just to circle back to the comments earlier on AI. So I don't think it has to be an either-or thing. I think they're very complementary and actually the best way to play AI is not to invest in some overpriced round, especially something way to play AI is not to invest in some overpriced round, especially something like OpenAI. When you say they're complementary, complementary when it comes to application.

But in terms of attention, when it comes to risk assets, when the market starts to froth up again and the Fed pivots, that money needs to go somewhere. And it's about what portion of that money will go into crypto-related risk assets versus AI. That's where they're no longer complementary. But I mean complementary in the fact that if we see what crypto does best, it provides fantastic infrastructure, right? Like Bitcoin is a better transfer or store of value. Other applications like Ethereum, you can argue, are very similar. But for AI, what do you need?

You need large amounts of storage and you need large amounts of compute. And guess what? Google and AWS cannot support all of that. And if they do, and if they actually can, which is unlikely, they're going to do so at higher costs. They're going to do so at larger centralization rates. And they're also going to be able to censor any and every one they want. So what are the two things that actually crypto can provide a use case for that facilitates an acceleration of AI, which we all agree is a huge trend? It's decentralized compute and decentralized storage. Because decentralized compute, you can surface your latent compute capacity from your home computer or from a data center that's not using some capacity. And you can have a more updated network than, you know, even Google, because Google, if they get, you know, the new NVIDIA chips,

they have to buy, you know, thousands of those, and they have backlogs to update all that and provide that capacity. But guess what, if you surface a network of everyone's home computer, you could find that top of the line chip and that latent capacity to help train these models. Same thing on the storage side, there's not enough storage for all of the explosion of AI that's coming. So, you know, I think it's short sighted to look and just say these two things are, are different. And I really think they're extremely complimentary and crypto really

superpowers AI, which is what gets me really excited. Cool. On that point, I think Scott, we've covered it pretty well. While we meet and you wrap it just for the audience. If you haven't got checked the pin tweet, if you're on crypto, if you're not in crypto, don't worry, but if you're on crypto, check the pin tweet and download node VPN. So I think it was a good space. Good discussion. Pivot.

I like how every space we changed the title. We started with the, whatever we started with, whatever you come up with. We became, we became crypto versus AI. thanks to me taking the jab at Vinny and then Danish coming to the rescue and that became a battle that depressed all of us. So it was a good space and we'll see everyone tomorrow. Scott?

No, we're good. Cool. Thanks, everyone. Bye.