The Wolf Of All Streets - Crypto Will Be Worth Hundreds Of Trillions | Dan Tapiero

Episode Date: June 30, 2024

Join Dan Tapiero, Founder of 1Roundtable Partners and 10T Holdings with a total AUM of $1.4 billion, as he delves into the future of crypto. Explore topics like Real-World Assets (RWAs), corporate balance sheets, equity investors, meme coins, and bold predictions for Bitcoin and the broader crypto market. If there’s a most bullish crypto investor out there, it’s Dan Tapiero. Don't miss this episode of The Wolf Of All Streets podcast.  Dan Tapiero: https://twitter.com/DTAPCAP ►► Sponsored by iTrust Capital Invest in Bitcoin, Crypto Assets & Gold with Your IRA Using iTrust Capital. 👉 https://bit.ly/itrust-scott ►► The Arch Public Unleash algorithmic trading. Discover how algorithms used by hedge-funds are now accessible to traders looking for unparalleled insights and opportunities!  👉https://thearchpublic.com/  ►► 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 $60,000!  👉 https://www.okx.com/join/SCOTTMELKER  ►►TRADING ALPHA READY TO TRADE LIKE THE PROS? THE BEST TRADERS IN CRYPTO ARE RELYING ON THESE INDICATORS TO MAKE TRADES. USE CODE ‘25OFF’ FOR 25% OFF WHEN VISITING MY LINK.  👉 https://tradingalpha.io/?via=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  ►►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 #DanTapiero Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 1:30 The wildest week for crypto 4:45 iTrustCapital 5:44 Things are better 10:15 Meme coins  14:15 Dan’s portfolio companies are overperforming 23:00 Investing in infrastructure 29:00 Equity investors will be buying crypto companies 34:35 10 trillion fund 40:05 Stablecoins 42:40 Bitcoin on balance sheets 48:00 Market projections 53:15 Next big thing 54:50 RWAs & huge investment funds 1:00:00 Connect with Dan Tapiero 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.

All right, let's rock and roll. What do we got? Let's do it. We had SEC versus Coinbase, SEC versus Binance, SEC versus everyone. We had no court cases and rulings in our favor. You should be long a little bit of Bitcoin and a little bit of Ethereum. You should be a little bit long of a venture fund and have a little bit of exposure in growth. This is how people are having fun. And after last night's debate, I don't know, was it a debate? I'm not sure what happened there.

And then we lose all those guys again. When Dan Tapiero started his fund in 2019, he believed that the crypto space could eventually reach a total market cap of 10 trillion. We just had a conversation today and we think that that was a wildly low estimate. I posited that 10 trillion could even happen this cycle if things go as we currently are planning, but that 10 trillion in the future is way too low and we could even be talking about 30, 70 or 100 trillion dollars in value in the crypto space. One of my favorite guests to talk to, the perfect, perfect way to have ended my week on Friday. I can't wait for you guys to hear this conversation with legendary investor Dan Tapiero. All right. Let's rock and roll. What do we got?

Let's do it. Today, I have the luxury of recording a podcast two days before it's going to come out, which is not usually the case. So we can talk about all of the insanity of this week. Usually we try to do evergreen. Why is Bitcoin important? Where are we in the cycle? But this has been one of those weeks where a decade happens in a week by the old saying, right? We have presidential debates. We have the SEC getting crushed repeatedly in the Supreme Court, but also charging consensus.

We are all over the place. Give me your broad strokes on how you're feeling now versus last we spoke. Because last we spoke, we were still in fear of the United States government, of the regulator. What date was that? I can't remember the date, but I just remember that it wasn't like it is today well we have a crypto first lens here bitcoin eth prices uh things are pretty good i know they're down from the highs um i know exactly shrug uh but we're 60 000 you know 3 400 um you know a year ago we were a lot lower the whole. The whole space has been on fire for the last, call it, eight months. Generally, I'm feeling pretty good. The companies that we've invested into, the 24 businesses, as you know, we have 1.4 billion AUM. We have many companies that are rocking and rolling. Ecosystem is feeling good.

So I think that some of the things that you're talking about, that's just adding positive fuel to the fire. You have the ETF, the ETH, and the fact that it wasn't yesterday announced potentially a Solana ETF coming. VanEck filed yesterday and 21 shares followed up with a filing today. Yeah. I mean, look, it's great stuff. And after last night's debate, I don't know, was it a debate? I'm not sure what happened there. It was brutal, man. I've been trying to process it now for about 20 hours, and I still can't even formulate a coherent thought about it. It's pretty embarrassing.

I feel bad for the guy. I mean, obviously, he's not really able to formulate thoughts and express them. And that's a shame. You know, it's a shame. And I don't know why someone in that party doesn't bring in somebody who is at least articulate. Forget about articulate, just putting sentences together. That being said, I mean, the other guy who would have us believe that there are 10 million sort of Guatemalans coming across the border and i mean i i mean he's clearly been saying lots of positive things uh about the crypto industry business um you know i don't i

don't know what the lens is that we want to have for this discussion but it's certainly at least a do no harm kind of mentality that will come in, you know, with the next president, right? Crypto investors in the United States face some major challenges. One of them is that there's almost no way to get exposure to the asset class inside of your traditional investment vehicles. The other thing is the taxes. They are absolutely atrocious. What if I told you there was a way to solve both of these problems? Well, there is. And it's with a self-directed IRA from I trust capital guys Not only can you open a new self-directed IRA and fund it with the limits each year But you can actually convert over from your 401k your Roth IRA any other

IRA that you already have and you can do that tax-free just Transferring over the balance and then you can go to cash, buy as much Bitcoin than you want and not pay taxes when you sell it. You absolutely have to try this if you are in the United States. Use the link down below. It's bit.ly slash itrust-scott. That's B-I-T dot L-Y slash I-T-R-U-S-T dash S-C-O-T-T.

You have to try this now. It's good. Here's the lens. Yeah, here's the lens I'm looking at it through. As if we zoom back to a year ago, we had SEC versus Coinbase, SEC versus Binance, SEC versus everyone. We had no court cases and rulings in our favor. Since then, we've obviously gotten arbitrary and capricious on Grayscale. It gave us the spot ETF begrudgingly from Gary Gensler. Obviously, we had the ripple win. However, people want to skin that.

And as you said, we've had the political winds completely changed in the past few months. Trump came out outright pro crypto, whether he believes it or not, whether it's a talking point for votes. We can debate that until the end of time. And that forced a bit of a thawing even from the Biden administration. So that's my lens is that things are a hell of a lot better. And I say all we have right now is tailwinds. And I want somebody to make me feel more bearish or something, because you look at sentiment and it seems like it's in the dumps because we're at 60 instead of 74 or whatever prices are. But all I see is good news, especially in the context of where we were a year ago. It was absolutely abysmal. But that's the way markets work. You know, you never want to be buying when you're feeling good

about it. And when people are hollering and everything's great and you have a huge new entrance that aren't necessarily that native, I don't want to say price indiscriminate, but that's usually when some sort of temporary type top is made. I just mean that this is a normal corrective process. I also think it's important to really get that last summer we were at 30,000 and Larry Fink came out and said, okay, crypto is an important, Bitcoin is an important global asset. And he'd been saying for two years, it was a fraud. It was for fraudsters and money launderers. And he changed his opinion. And he said, oh, in fact, I'm going to be coming out with an ETF.

So the move from 30 to 60, if we want to just talk about price and markets, was the discounting of the entry of the opening of the ETF on January 11. So you got all the price action beforehand. You then had this move from 60 to 70, which was the actual ETF purchasing. And then it's taking a rest now. And so what will continue to happen, in my view, is that you will have continued accrual of positive data points. And the market is absorbing selling. All the people who bought at $, 25, 30,000,

those people who want to take profit, they're doing that now. And the people who bought up at 70 on leverage, they're also getting panicked out. And it would be nice if I see the greed and fear indicator at 46 today. It'd be nice to see that down in the 20s. I was like, give me a 20. Yeah, give it 20s, have it there for a few weeks, have people like, you know, thinking that that was it. It's got to be over. It's got to be over in their minds.

Yeah, get through, you know, July and August, Doldrums, September. And then my guess is that we have our Q4, you know, run for the roses again in December, January, we get the ramp and the inflow, and it'd be some new information. You know, maybe Trump comes in and actually does some positive things. Could you imagine that? That would be crazy as opposed to just saying things. Maybe, you know, maybe there is a Solana ETF. Maybe the space is innovating in a very fast way. You've got things like Bitcoin. Ordinals did not exist. There's constant innovation in DeFi. I know people complain that the tokens are down from their TGs. And there was a bit of a pump earlier in the year. But the reality is there's over $3 trillion

now in total value in the space. That's all the cryptocurrencies added up in value plus all the equity. Your 2.25 in the cryptocurrency is probably another $800 to a trillion, maybe more in the equity. So 3 trillion, like that's great, right? Does that count the 500,000 meme coins that were launched on Solana last month? Well, you know, look, I always say the kids like to have fun and, you know, there are a lot of, you know, 20-year-olds out there.

And this is also, this is part of the value, meaning the, because this is how people are having fun, right? People aren't going to movie theaters anymore. It's not 30 years ago or 20 years ago. This is how people really enjoy themselves, right? They're joining these communities. They're pumping stuff up and down. I can't say that I'm involved in that world, but it looks fun. If I were 20, I'd be all over this. It's like a constant,

you know, crazy, never-ending, you know, fun loop and potential to make real money too, right? I think it ends badly for most people, but so does a trip to the casino. So here's the thing. If you're having fun and you are actually treating it like a casino and you know that the odds are that you'll lose and that's the money that you're willing to spend at the casino and you're enjoying the free drinks that you get along the way and the friends that you've made, it's fine. My problem is that I feel like 90% of the people in there are like disillusioned Gen Z millennials who think there's no other way they're going to ever make money in their lives and truly believe that investing in Cat in the Hat or whatever is going to make them rich so that

they can change their lives and get out of their mom and dad's house. So I love the casino aspect. I just don't think most of the players realize they're in a casino right now. Yeah, but you know what? It's similar to in the old days when people used to line up to buy lottery tickets. Lottery tickets. That's what they are, digital lottery tickets. Right. And it's more fun than certainly doing that.

Do you remember those lines in New York going for blocks and blocks because there was a big payday? I think it's just human nature. But this is actually a little more interesting, I think. It is about putting a value on one's attention, on one's time. And I think that that never really has existed. You could never monetize the value of your free time or your interests. It's the digitization, really, of anything that you can connect to value. So I'm not doing it. I don't think it's particularly valid, but it's also not invalid. Dodo is not invalid. I think if you're in crypto and you believe in it for the ethos of decentralization and power to the people and opting out of the system and libertarian

values and you're free to do whatever you want, you can only criticize people who are doing whatever they want so much. Exactly. They're not like outright rug pulling and scamming, right? Of course. Like, you know, the people who went west in search of gold in, you know, 1848, you know, it's kind of a rough bunch. Those gold miners, you know, the gold rush, you know, people did all sorts of things to get the gold. And it's sort of similar. You have it. There are a lot of people getting really wealthy really quickly, so that attracts a certain type of personality.

But there's also huge value here, real innovation. I think it's just a market cycle. We had our bear phase. We blew people out. All of last year, the market crept up. Now we hit a high earlier in the year. Now we're going to consolidate and blow out all the people who came late it's just a normal bull face right let's talk about that true value and innovation that you're talking about because that's your side of

the barbell right the meme coins are not your side of the barbell investing in these companies long term and understanding what the future of this space is where you're focused. Listen, from a altcoin and project perspective, the beginning of the year, those first few months, there was this fever pitch, kind of as you talked about, of like thousands of projects trying to launch into this burgeoning bull market. And then all these coins ended up pretty much below where they launched, even for the investors, right? So it's very early in the cycle, I think, for that. And now you don't see this fever pitch and valuations are dropping again, I think, in advance. But you're investing in the companies. I mean, you're not really focused on all these things. So what are you seeing from your side as far as deal flow, as far as growth, as far as hope for the coming years?

Yeah. I mean, that's a two-part question, really. I think some of the companies in the portfolio, and you can just go to my website, either 1RT or 10T, those are the two entities. You can see the companies that we own um some of them and again last time i i can't remember what podcast was on but i actually quoted the exact revenue number private company and then the cfo called me that night and said you have to have that retracted you're not allowed to say those things uh those aren't numbers i know but the reality is um many of the companies in the portfolio are near record revenues in q1 21

uh i'm sorry q124 or back to where they were roughly in in 2024 um i'm 2021 why am i getting it so yeah one of our favorite companies deribit of course which is well known in the space and you know over 70 percent 75% market share, total world Bitcoin and Ethereum options. They're just killing it. Net profitable to an enormous, huge degree. Their volumes have spiked up and they still have a dominant position. There aren't too many businesses in the world that have that kind of monopoly and are that dominant and continue to bring on new clients.

We also have one of our other companies, Ledin, which is the only C-Fi lender, I think, that survived the whole debacle, the 3AC and FTX debacle. I think Nexo might still exist. Nexo, yeah. I think Nexo does still exist. And Abra has, I think, kind of cleared it out and is a different business. But yes, the big ones were obviously flushed. Yeah, and their business went from being challenged a year ago to now actually net profitable, which is incredible.

And they streamlined during the bear phase. I would say our top companies use the bear phase to streamline operations. And so some of them are coming out of this now with similar revenue numbers, but actually greater profitability because they've cut back on expenses during the bear phase. So the guys who were in a good position obviously did that. Companies like FIGURE are doing tremendously well right now. Quicknode is just doing great. We saw the numbers on Figment. Their assets under stake went up five times from Q4 to the end of Q1. I mean, you don't really get movement like that in the old world,

right? I think you just touched on probably a huge problem for smaller projects in crypto and probably a reason why so many of them have been unsuccessful. The ones you're talking about are being run by experienced business people who know what they're doing, who know how to manage their balance sheet, who know how to fire people when they need to, who know how to streamline. Most of these are a bunch of brilliant programmers who come in and have literally zero business sense and just launch something YOLO. And it obviously falls apart when things go against them. Well, yeah, I wouldn't say all of them are super.

No, I'm saying, but I think that's, I think some of them have been great ideas that were just horribly run businesses. And when you hit a bear market it's over yeah and i i would also say not all of our company you know ceos are absolutely the best out there we have some very experienced guys like mike cagney uh who you know founder of sofi and uh we have a few ceos who really doing um a great job um but they're not all doing a great job. And I have board representation on 12 of those 24 companies. And we really find ourselves sort of in the middle of this ecosystem of companies that we built. So I do have quite a lot of information, but also I'm able to compare different businesses at different stages. I'm sort of looking down from 20,000 feet and looking at how each of our companies fits into this overall ecosystem.

I would say even, yeah, all of our existing companies, really, I mean, I'm looking at Ledger and Kraken. They're really humming now. Jim and I have a little bit of difficulty, we know, from the earn situation, but they've resolved that and they're coming out pretty strong. And I would never count out those guys. I think that they're the, after Kraken and Coinbase, third sort of most important and largest exchange in the US. And I think they're going to have a great run here they tend to be able to innovate as well i mean i remember in 2019 before there were even nfts they they purchased that nifty gateway for a million dollars and two

years later ended up making 70 million in revenue now. Now it's backed away. That business's NFT space is still not fully come back, but I think that it will. Yeah. Understatement of the century, but that could be an opportunity, right? It hasn't fully come back. It hasn't even left the bottom. It hasn't even reached the launchpad, but that's a good thing, I think, to your point. Well, Scott, I think last summer was the low for that. And we have a significant position in Animoca. We love that business. And they have many tokens and businesses that they've invested in, especially in this blockchain gaming area. I mean, not that we value this as part of the value exercise with them, but they have certainly investments that have gone from $0.02 to $0.40.

And maybe they're not back to where they were at the previous peak, but that's still quite a run for a six or nine-month period. So I think the low in that world has... Long behind us. Yeah. You're one of my favorites, definitely. I'm one of the smartest people in the space, but Yat may be the smartest person in all of crypto.

Speaking of Animoca. I mean, that guy, every time he opens his mouth, it's like going to a brilliant college professor and just sitting there and learning. It's unbelievable. It is unbelievable. And he's a good guy too. You know, there are guys in the space, there's some guys who aren't good guys,

as we, you know, experienced with FTX and some of the other ones. He has a vision for the space, for his business, for, you know, why what he's doing is important sort of in the world, right? Which is this digitization of value and also democratization of ownership, I think is something he's very focused on. And he has this tiny tiny tap which is an education platform all these different interesting ways to leverage he's thinking about leverage the token economic model how to

incentivize people to act but then also how to make them owners right and i think um i think that's the future and you're right no No one articulates it better. There are some other good, there are some other good guys. Pascal Ledger is very articulate. Cagney already mentioned there, there are some guys, they are, they're a little older. You are right. You know, maybe late thirties, early forties, you know, old. Yeah. Well, for this space. For crypto, it's old. It's old. Yeah. So listen, as I hear you sort of describe your portfolio companies and break down what's going

on, I think it's very clear that you are a master at investing in the picks and shovels. You mentioned the gold rush and all these people who went out to uh california and they were rough and tough and tumble and they went out there most of them didn't find anything right but the people we all know who made money in the gold rush were the people who owned the picks and shovels yeah i think it's a little different in this case because i think you know there are plenty of bitcoin holders uh who are owning bitcoin and they will be benefiting. And I definitely see us moving up north of sort of 150,000 on this run, probably in the next 18 months. So I think, yes, I'm investing in these businesses that are sort of at a later stage, generally making 30, 40,

50 million in revenue or more. it's it's there's a specific reason for that it's just that i wanted to construct a portfolio that would be not impervious but that would be able to would would be able to sit through the insane volatility in the space without like causing irreparable damage to the fund or to the investors i mean we barely marked down at all if you can believe it at all believe it that the portfolio is barely marked down in 22 and 23. so i mean that was uh you know that was sort of the idea behind the fund to begin with the upside will take care of itself. Just make sure that you're not down 80% and in a position where you can't come back.

And as we know in the space, look, almost all the capital, all the investors are in this venture stage, either in venture capital or in the liquid token trading or in the stuff that is really the rocket fuel. And okay, maybe you might joke, as some buddies of mine have, like, oh, Dan, you're doing crypto for boomers. It's not exactly right. I can't convince boomers that I'm doing anything legitimate. Those guys are very hard to speak with.

But the reality is the portfolio, as we've structured it, is to outperform on the downside. And then we will, of course, underperform on the upside. There's no way I hear venture funds- If you're not doing seed rounds, it's- Right. Right. I mean, making 30% a month now, but they're still not even close to their high water mark. So they're still down significantly. And having been in the money management business for 20 plus years, I really faced all of those different problems of how one manages the risk of a portfolio. How does one manage the investor base, setting expectations? I mean, we have a 10-year life fund, not because I really want to have a 10-year life fund. I did it because it really

was the best way to lock the investors in so that they don't panic in bear phases, which many investors do, many people do. I don't think generally people in the space or outside of the space either understand just how difficult it is to manage money here over time. Anybody can make a 50x on one bet, as you call it, a YOLO bet and whatever. But over time, without a process and without a track record and without some sort of methodology for valuation, you're not going to make it through two or three different cycles. It's just too hard. I mean, much harder than anything in the traditional world, like bonds or currencies or stock. I mean, nothing trades like this.

But on the other hand, the innovation and potential for growth and profit, there's nothing like this. And I've never seen anything like it either. Yeah, you're actually prepared for a bear market that you know is coming every single time. Most people are not. I mean, that's a thought. yeah i know it's because i lived through so many of them in the old world like so many drawdowns so many bear markets i just said to myself i want to build a bulletproof portfolio that could also still go up five to ten times

i'm not trying to make a hundred x you know or a thousand X or any of these stories that you hear about people, uh, I'm making it just sort of more of a thoughtful, maybe even sedated kind of approach. I don't know. I, I, I know only, only a 10 X, you know, here and there boring, boring. That's why you don't do meme coins. Very disappointing. You said it. But I'll tell you this. We have companies that benefit from the run in meme coins. I mean, Kraken, as you can imagine, I can't talk about their numbers, but their Q1 was just massive, right? And their year is going to be massive. So they really they really benefit then we even have a company like quick no that powers pretty much the entire solana ecosystem so you know the meme coins were on solano so there's more and shovels right yeah yeah yeah no you're you're right let's

get to benefit from meme coins without owning any meme coins or trading them. That's the brilliance of your portfolio. I mean, I'm looking at it. You know, we got 10T Fund. Yeah. And this is just like such a portfolio of crazy winners. I mean, some of them have done huge rounds recently. Certik was just in the news. Obviously, you got Animoca here.

I mean, Circle, it's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, it's good. And the same thing for 1RT, which is the fourth fund that we have, just the same focus as the first three funds. The reality is, though, we haven't had any exits yet. You and I know these companies. The fund only launched in January of 2021, end of 2020, January 21. It's not been that long, but I think that over the next 18 months, we are going to start to have some of these either IPOs or potentially, I'm hearing now about maybe SPACs floating around there, pools of capital that want to bring these kind of, and I guess they're now calling them public blockchain crypto businesses, even though I wouldn't call Kraken a blockchain company. But look what Coinbase has done with base. They've definitely moved into a slightly

different realm. But just think about it. And I say this all the time. You know, I don't know anything with a 99% degree of certainty. But I will tell you 99% degree of certainty, five years from now, Coinbase is not going to be the only large public crypto company. It's just not possible. It's not possible. And I think that there are a whole group of equity investors out there. And I know because I speak with them who, yeah, maybe they have a little bit in the ETF and Bitcoin. They're not quite comfortable opening up a Coinbase account, or maybe they are now, or Kraken or Gemini account, they are kind of starving for equity in the space. They want to own the companies that are growing up with and building it.

There's not a lot to own. You can own Coinbase. That's great. I love Coinbase. Brian's doing a phenomenal job, and he's a trailblazer, cetera. But we're going to have a bunch of the companies that you see in our portfolio. We're going to have them hopefully moving towards some kind of, I don't want to sell anything today. The values are still too low. They're depressed. But on the move in Bitcoin above a hundred, I think you'll probably start to create a little more interest and also look even people who are happy owning bitcoin um it's very volatile right and that's not great for everybody um you know i love bitcoin i mean it's the core asset of this

whole space and nothing exists without Bitcoin. Let's get that straight. But there are lots of interesting other things going on. What's happening with Tom is also super interesting. I'm not... Wish I owned some. But I love their product. What's that? I said, I wish I owned some.

I totally missed the boat on that. It's probably not too late. No, no, it's not, for sure. But yeah, I've heard people break down the potential of the telegram ecosystem if ton really reaches its maximum potential. And it's many hundreds of Xs from here if they're right, obviously. So I think you're correct there. But it is one of those things that's sitting near its own all-time high. of an interesting thought too imagine when the space is actually full on in you know hardcore driving mode right and you've got the the fomo going and this and that you'll have the traditional investors probably running into tom because it's a business or they can see it or something like that um but you know every cycle there are new things that new businesses new business models new protocols that you know build product market fit and then in the bear faces the weak guys get blown out it's just

also those huge protocols and the layer ones the only place that vcs can really move size right so those are always going to be of major interest i think because they're the only thing someone can get tens or hundreds of millions of dollars into you can't do that into the launch of some new NFT project or even some smaller gaming project. So trend and you're not DTAP, you know, buy Solana. Right. If you want to, you know, capture DeFi, own some ETH, whatever it is. Just having exposure to the major layer ones is the next step from Bitcoin. In my mind, if you're really trying to go a little further down the risk curve in this space, you won't get the thousand X of that single meme or that single DeFi protocol or whatever it is. But you get, you know, a few X's because it happened and they're using your token as gas fees.

Right. 100%. That's the wonderful thing about this space. Anybody can really just, you know, have a wallet and participate. And then when they start to participate, they really get sucked in. I've never, I mean, it's rare that somebody. Nobody goes back unless they got washed. The people who like got caught up in the bankruptcies, they were gone. But in a vacuum, you never hear someone who says, you know, Bitcoin is the fastest horse in the race. We should really be adding this to our balance sheet saying we really blew that one we should you know once you're orange peeled you're in the

matrix whatever it is it's over exactly exactly okay so let's talk numbers you're called 10t fund as we know because 10 trillion right we've talked about this in the past is that now a conservative estimate for where this space is going i think it is yeah i mean look um in the past. Is that now a conservative estimate for where this space is going? I think it is. Yeah. I mean, look, in the middle of 2019, when I started to think about this fund, when I had the idea for it, I was trying to put a TAM on it and I thought, well, total addressable market. I thought, well, okay, the value in the space, again, I look at macro guy, the total value. So all the cryptocurrency plus all the equity of the companies was about 300 billion in the middle of 2019. And I just said to myself, like work in this go, I want to have the macro wind at my back. And I thought, well, it'll go up 30 times. And that was 10 trillion. And I just thought that

if I actually, no one was going to believe me that that was actually my view. So I did something that I don't think any fund manager had done, at least that I've done in the traditional world, which is I put my view of a 30X into the name of my fund. And that, you know, that I think is, is unique. And now we're at three, three and a half trillion. So it's 10 X since middle of 19. And I think it is probably too conservative. That would only be a three X from here now, slightly over. Yeah.

I mean, we got another 10 or 30 in us or 300 right yeah i think you know in terms of the value in the overall space like if you start talking about like rwa's real world asset tokenization and the sort of stable coins but what i what i always thought which is that everything of value will eventually be placed on a blockchain and will be fungible with each other it'll be you'll have instant settlement and you know that all of that decentralized aspect all these great things that's hundreds of trillions if we go to that world i don't doubt really so much that we're going to that world, but it does feel now that it's going to take maybe longer than we all would have expected. Just because I'll give you an example. I thought when I, again, had this idea in 19, I thought, okay, well, I've got five years before basically all of the big crossover growth equity funds come into the space.

And right. And no, but they came in and made investments, unfortunately, got hurt in FTX and other things. And now they've moved out. So in my area specifically, like BC and later, we are the only gross equity fund in the world, like exclusively focused on this space. So I would not have thought that five years ago. Actually, FTX bought us another potentially two, three years without- But what an opportunity. Yeah, no, it's a great opportunity. It's a great opportunity. But I guess what I'm saying is, is that it's going to take longer. Because if you have the savviest large investors out there, you know, Toma Bravo, Silver Lake, all these guys, Tiger, KOTU, Tomasek, CPP, the Canadian pensions, you know, they all were coming coming in and now they're all kind of moving out. So if the smartest guys are not coming in now, and maybe they'll come in two, three years from now,

clearly this whole process, this process of adoption is just taking longer. Preston Pysh. That's good news. Right? Good news for retail investors who think they're too late. That's very good news for retail investors. And I tell everybody, look, your portfolio, everyone asks me, how should it be structured? I say the same thing.

You should be long a little bit of Bitcoin and a little bit of Ethereum. You should be a little bit long of a venture fund and have a little bit of exposure in growth. We're the only growth fund option. So, I mean, it's a little bit of a loaded gun. But I think- My pitch is that you should be all in growth funds. Sorry, we're the only one.

We're the only one. But you should be all in that. Yeah, I don't think, no, but I don't think that's right. Of course it does and bitcoin i still think you know can get to crazy numbers eventually of course but this full run it sort of reminds me in the in the peak of in 2017 we had about 20 000. Then we, in the beginning of 21, we hit 20,000 again, and then we exploded up to 60. And then we went back down again to 20. And I think the same thing is going to happen is that we went up to 60 and then we're going to 3x from here. So 20 to 60 was the move in 21. And we're consolidating. And then 180. Yeah. And then, yeah,

somewhere in that. And then we come back to 60. Yeah. And we talk about how it's all over again. Yeah. And then we retest, yeah,

that previous all-time highest support. Good times. Looking forward to that. Right. And then we lose all those guys again. Right.

Maybe we, maybe we mature a bit. Listen, I, listen, hundreds of trillions, I think that's going to take a very long time. Jeremy Allaire, obviously the CEO of Circle, which is one of your portfolio companies, he recently said that he thought that stable coins would, in 10 years, I believe he said, I don't want to misquote him, would be 10% of total money supply. Right now, I think now M2 money supply is about 82 trillion. That would put stable coins alone at a market cap of 8 trillion. And we know that money supply is going to increase dramatically. So it would be higher. I don't think that's crazy. I don't think that's crazy at all.

And he, of course, is in bold position, at least from the regulated. Yeah. And in the US, I mean, but Tether's already shown, proven itself to be, I mean, at least per man, more, you know, has driven more revenue and profit per employee than, what did they say, any company in the history of the world? It's the most astounding business in the world. Also, when you consider that it's such an astounding business because interest rates are high and they get to take advantage of it. It's like Michael Saylor one day will probably be viewed as like the Warren Buffett of our generation because he dollar cost averaged. It could be, yeah. Doesn't have to be that exciting. It really could be. It really could be. I know it's the biggest, I always say that the old line macro guys who I worked for,

you know, this is really the sailor bet is really an old time macro bet that someone like George Soros would have made. Maybe not have held it for that long, but, you know, an old, big old macro bet, but none of those macro guys really are involved at all. And it's just interesting how something that's so similar in a way, like if you have that analytical process, it's leads you to the same conclusion that they just have not focused on it. I mean, in the way that someone like Saylor has and maybe it's because sailor has that tech background and understands sort of the innovation and the code and the old global macro like big bet takers they're just not they're not tech it's it's a rare person who can understand

it that quickly and then be willing to put that much skin in the game and to power through it underwater. You mean it's not that much. You mean all the skin in the game? Yes. All of it. Correct. All in. And he's never going to stop.

And he's never going to stop. We know that. So I have to ask you then, like on the sailor topic. Yeah. Listen, after he invested in 2020, we saw early 2021, I think, 2,000 CFOs came to a microstrategy conference where he was going to explain to all of them how to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet. He taught Tesla how to do it. Elon Musk did it. We know it was because of the gap accounting rules that none of them did it immediately. But now the gap accounting rules

have changed. So you could do it in theory and not have to mark it down. Where are all these companies that are supposed to be adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet? You know, I actually, Saylor's been right about a lot of things, but I never thought he was going to be right about that corporate component. And I think even on Twitter, I've said, and the big money is the money management community that understands value and currency. And the ETF, I think, has proven that to be the case, that it was never going to be some company

that made widgets in the middle of the country that was going to all of a sudden wake up and say, oh, we have all these dollars on the balance sheet. We should diversify and own some Bitcoin. It's too much of a leap for most of those companies. But from the investor perspective, it's less of a leap. And I think the ETF has borne that out. So I don't really see corporate America as a driver at all. I think it's perspective. Maybe if we go back to Zerp and they can't just buy treasuries. Yeah. I mean, look, it's hard to fight, like just put your cash right now at a 4.5%, 5%, 4%, whatever it is, yielding safe treasury and move on with your life,

right? But when he did it, that wasn't a thing. Yeah, it's very hard. I mean, the 5% interest rate lulls everybody into a sort of complacency. I mean, it's only the guys in crypto that are like, you know, 5%. What is that? Like an interest rate for ants? Yeah, you're losing guys. You're losing inflation. You're massively losing 5%. That's like people make that in the span of a minute, let alone a day or week. But in the traditional world, 5%, just think about how much you have to make in the S&P risk adjusted. Like how much is that much is that? Or NASDAQ risk-adjusted, like 20% in the NASDAQ? I mean, 5%, like literally zero risk, you know, zero. You just sit there and mature. That's the conservative bet that anybody who has fiduciary duty to shareholders or something is

going to make right now. Correct. I think that's changing a little now. The unemployment rate has started to poke its head up. I think we need the rate. If the rate hits four and a half, the Fed will be cutting. And then the market will price in four, five, six cuts like they did in the beginning of the year. Beginning of last year. Middle of last year. I'm just saying like in 2023, there was like a 70% chance we'd have three cuts in 23. Yeah. Here we are, no cuts. Yeah, I think the data in the US has slowed. Also, the data in Europe and in China, much weaker over the last 12 months. And the strong dollar you know i is a is a disinflationary force so i think um you know i i don't think we look i know people out there buying groceries say look everything is twice

what it was five years ago but you know inflation measures are complicated i i don't think it's easy to just say well the cpi CPI is wrong. I mean, there are hundreds of inputs that go into the CPI and there are lots of things that continue to deflate. I mean, all computing, everything connected to computing. Technology is deflationary. I mean, right. And so, yeah, the price of olives doubled, but TVs are cheap. TVs are super cheap. Remember when they used to be the most expensive thing out there, TV and car and whatever it is. You can't give away cars now, right?

So people just want to take Uber everywhere. At least my employees are that way. But inflation is not really a threat today. And in fact, I think we'll continue to come down and that'll probably give the Fed, you know, if we're just going back into this old world for a minute, like probably be the backdrop for their cutting.

Again, the timing, you know, macro is tough because you can eventually be right. You know, the clock strikes. What is it that's saying? Yeah, accurate on that. Yeah, broken clocks right two times a day. Right. But look, that's why trading is so hard.

Because timing is everything. Yeah, right. You have to take that out. You have to invest or have an opinion on a timeframe that you're comfortable with. And the interest rates have gone sideways for over a year. So they've stopped rising, I think, very clearly. I don't see them rising more from this point. And so that'll give us another tailwind.

You say, well, what could take us over 100? Well, I don't know. The Fed funds going from five to three probably could do it alone. Without any positive fundamentals, just think about that. We're at 60,000 on Bitcoin with the 5% interest rate. Imagine where we would be. It's an interesting thought experiment because if we hadn't have gotten the ETF, I bet we're ranging between 35 and 45 right now. And we're happy. People the ETF, I bet we're ranging between 35 and 45 right now. And we're happy. People are like, oh, we're off the lows from 17. We're between 35 and 45. We'll head up over 100. The ETF got us to where it did, obviously. But that gave people the

impression that the entire market should be that way. And it just didn't accrue to altcoins because somebody who puts a BlackRock ETF into their IRA can't get bored and throw that money into a meme coin. Right. So it's just kind of a slightly different cycle in that way. But I think it's made people think that the top is in for some reason when this is exactly where altcoins and all these things would be in the normal cycle. We just also got this huge move from Bitcoin. Yeah. And the key thing that we haven't talked about at all which is that that etf inflow is real and it will continue it's a we onboarded a hundred trillion dollars of assets so think about how much how many how much what's the dollar value of total

assets that sit in brokerage accounts uh equity accounts that are able to now push a button and buy Bitcoin. We never had that. That's probably the biggest thing that's happened in the space in terms of pace of adoption, increasing the pace of adoption in years and years. I don't even know what would be the equivalent. So we haven't talked about that, but there's a wall of money. And on the downside too, it's not just that- They can sell.

Well, no, but I mean, they can sell, but I mean that you have now buyers who will come in at 55, at 50, at 45, and then you'll also have people who FOMO into it at 80 and 90, 100. That's probably even greater now. They could just push that button. But I think it's just people, when it came out, talked about the total, what could be the total size of the inflow. And it's still, I think, enormous and massively supportive. And now we're going to get the ETH ETF. That's just...

Doge ETF, Comrocket ETF, Dogg with Pat ETF. I'm kidding. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. But I do think that with an ETH ETF, it might transfer more a little bit into DeFi, right? I agree. I think that we need the ETH move for the mythical alt season, whether it looks the same as it did in the past or the future. I don't know. Some of these things are probably dead. I don't know that everything moves in this market like it did in the past, but we need ETH to boom for people to really get excited about that part of the ecosystem. And it hasn't happened yet. And I think the ETH ETF, once ETH is washed out like GBTC was, that will be the catalyst.

Yeah, I think it certainly will be one of them. I don't know that the alt season is not the be-all and end-all. I think Bitcoin and ETH are really the only core assets of the space. Solana is sort of transitioning that way. But the other cryptocurrencies, it's incredible how much value they hold. And they're still, in my view, like venture projects. If I go to like the 30th or 40th, you know, 30th or 40th cryptocurrency has a billion dollars of value. Too much. But that's right.

I'm sorry. And they might literally be dead. They could be dead. And it's just a token that's trading. It's really true. I mean, I've always said there's Bitcoin and everything else is like a speculative venture capital investment. And like Bitcoin maxis hate that I, you know, talk about altcoins and stuff. But I really do view Bitcoin as a different asset class than the rest of it.

You've said Bitcoin and ETH. And I think that may be true now with ETF. There's Bitcoin and there's everything else. And I love speculative VC investments, but I know what it is. Like I said, if you know you're going to the meme point casino, it's fine. I don't view ETH as like hard money. You know, there's people who do and they argue that i think that's nonsense so the framing for me is like the bitcoiners are gold bugs why are they mad that some other that a gold bug another gold bug they know wants to buy some amazon stock or some nvidia i don't it

doesn't matter to me they're different asset classes, but you're right. The 30th thing shouldn't have a billion. I don't know if that's accurate. 30th, 20th, whatever it is. It was recently the top 100 actually were over a billion. A billion. A billion. So maybe we've got still a little fluff. No, I mean, I'm in a few months ago.

Now I think it's only the top 60. Right, but that's pretty insane. That's pretty insane. That money will flow out of those eventually. It's only insane for old guys, right? Who are not used to it. Yeah. People always sort of ask the question, Scott or to any of us who happen to have any presence, what's going to be the big token of the next cycle? What's going to be the big thing? And I'm like, something you've never heard of that doesn't even exist yet. It ain't going to be, no offense, XRP or EOS or whatever. You look at the top 10 from 2017 or 2020, it's none of those things. It's going to be some shiny new object that'll draw down 99% in the next bear market. It's a crazy space we're in, man.

You've approached it the right way. Well, I've approached it a certain way, and I think it appeals to a certain group of people, myself included. You mean smart ones with money? Yeah. But, you know, I have nothing against other people doing whatever it is that they want in the space to capture value, to contribute, to help, you know, build this world because it is the future. And I think we're all headed there anyway. It's just that some people are there ahead of others. Yeah, I think total market cap, to your point, outside of Bitcoin and ETH, total three. I'm not looking at it, but I looked at it the other day. I think we're at 550 to 600 billion, somewhere in that range. And I think that had topped at like 1.1 or 1.2 trillion or something.

Like all in market, even with all of the additional ones being added, is still more than 50% off the highs. Like you can either view that as death or as a huge opportunity. I would say huge opportunity if retail money comes in. Let's ask this before I let you go, because I know we're over time, even though I could talk forever if you can. But if Bitcoin goes to 180, so that's a 3x from here. I don't know what the market cap of Bitcoin is. That puts Bitcoin over a $3 trillion market cap, roughly, right? Somewhere. Right. Yeah. We could be at 10 this cycle in total. If you're including equity and everything, we could be at 10 this cycle. Correct. Within 18 to 24 months. I think

it takes a little bit of, you know, you got to get the steam going, you know, the momentum going. We would need some of those unfortunate NFT on Saturday Night Live and Elon Musk talking about Doge moments, probably, for that to happen. Yeah, to pump the non-Bitcoin and ETH market that high, I think, to bring us to 10. But a 10X in total three, all those things collectively, and ETH doubles and Bitcoin triples, whatever it is, you're at 10 trillion. You're there. Yeah. Sounds nuts. Yeah, I mean, you and I said, I mean, look, there are, you know, innovations coming down the pike. There are new projects, new things that are constantly popping up. But even if you just more simplistically just do a straight line of what you think can come into the Bitcoin ETF, there isn't that much supply out there.

Again, higher prices will find more supply, but there isn't that much supply out there. Again, higher prices will find more supply, but there isn't that much supply out there. So it might not take that much. And again, at a number like $10 trillion, the world really starts to take notice. And you're moving into a little bit of a different thing. That's almost the market cap of gold. And even the big boys like Blackstone care about a $10 trillion asset. I mean, they're focused on whatever private equity and private credit and all those things. They're busy buying up every single house in America so that you can all rent until the end of time. That's what they're busy doing. Yeah. That's so funny. But you know what I mean, the large asset managers. I mean, people don't realize there are many $1 trillion asset managers in the US. I forgot what the number is now, but it's certainly 10, 20 more. Yeah, I would think more than 20. It's a big number. And you just need them to allocate the 1% or 3%. They won't do it today,

because I speak to a lot of them, and they still are not there. But they know. They know about it now, because if Larry's talking about it, everybody knows about it. You don't miss BlackRock talking about tokenizing real-world assets and launching ETFs. Right, right. They know about it. And intuitively, RWA somehow makes sense to them, whereas something like Bitcoin still doesn't exactly. And Ethereum certainly doesn't.

Talking about programmable money, embedding smart contracts. Just tell them it's a tech platform, man. Yeah, I know. It's the internet. you know, smart, embedding smart contracts that you- Just tell them it's a tech platform, man. Yeah, I know. It's the internet. Internet of value. Whatever you want to do. So that's it.

That's exactly- Talking about programmable money. I hate when we even say money for anything outside of Bitcoin because it just gets you in trouble. And it doesn't, it makes sense to me though, that like tokenization of real world assets makes sense to them because every single day they transact value and they pay some third party toll collector in the middle, some little piece. The idea of transacting directly with someone in size and faster

should make sense to every asset manager in the world. Bitcoin, they have to at some point make some leap that they're benefiting from this fiat system that's broken or whatever, you know, whatever you need to be sold on Bitcoin. That's a harder leap of the cognitive dissonance you've been living in your whole life. So that doesn't surprise me. Yeah. It's also, they like the idea of liquidity. There are, you know, many, you know, many asset managers sitting on things that are illiquid, real estate, you know, being one. And whoa, wouldn't it be just great if it were all immediately liquid because it was on a blockchain? And I think that's going to happen. It's just that it's not happening tomorrow.

Yeah, I think, you know, we saw this huge RWA token move already earlier in this cycle. That reminds me of all the things from last cycle that didn't happen that might happen this cycle. Gaming, for example, with GAT, you know, now we're starting to see real games, I think, in this cycle. And I think in four years, we'll be really talking about RWA as a meaningful thing, but not now. Agreed.

I kept you long enough, man. I'm sorry. We ran over. No, it's okay. No, this is fun. I always like just, we come on, we don't have any sorry. We ran over. No, it's okay. No, this is fun. I always like just, we come on, we don't have any agenda. We're just talking about stuff. I can't just shoot the shit with every guest, you know? So it's, it's a lot more fun for me

and we can keep it topical. It was really great. So listen, where should people follow you and invest in your next fund so they can participate and, you know, accredited investors. Yeah. I mean, I haven't been as active on Twitter because I've been really busy with fund stuff and we're operating one of our portfolio companies too, which is a new thing, but it's a good new thing. Yeah. It's a good new thing. But, you know, either Twitter or LinkedIn, just my name and, you know, the two funds, 10T Holdings and One Roundtable Partners, the, you know, the funds are, as I said, the only sort of growth equity still in the world in the space. So we're seeing so many opportunities now, but we have more, certainly, opportunity than we have capital. I think that's going to change pretty soon because, as we just discussed, it would take very, very little to get our markets really running again you know again something is going from five to three

you know forget about all the other things coming down the pipe right yeah oh man really a good time wish i didn't have to go but uh my daughter's having a musical theater performance that i have to attend okay happy friday i'm psyched this is coming out on Sunday. It will be out. Thank you guys. Everybody follow Less Active Dan on X. He's too busy being a real adult running companies to spam memes with us. I love Twitter. I love Twitter. I love Twitter. Come on. And I love the community. I do. I love our community. It's amazing. Just unbelievable energy and intensity. And I can't fold into old guy mode, sitting back, as you said, like doing real whatever it is. The real stuff is

Twitter. It's great. Don't hit us with some memes, man. Come on. We just need a few memes, and then you'll have your quota for the next few months. All right. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Looking forward to doing it again soon.