The Wolf Of All Streets - Democrats Ignore Crypto! What Does This Mean for Bitcoin?

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Noelle Acheson, the author of Crypto Is Macro, joins me today to unfold everything happening in the crypto and macro worlds! Noelle Acheson: https://x.com/noelleinmadrid Read Crypto Is Macro: https://www.cryptoismacro.com/ My friends from The Arch Public, Andrew Parish, and Tillman Holloway, are joining in the second part of the stream to provide an update on the $10K algorithmic portfolio.  Unleash algorithmic trading with The Arch Public: https://thearchpublic.com/  Andrew Parish: https://twitter.com/AP_Abacus  Tillman Holloway: https://twitter.com/texasol61  ►►LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS HERE! YOU CAN EARN WEEKLY REWARDS! 👉https://roundtable.rtb.io/shortUrl/wYXYlUf ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEKDAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/   ►► 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/  ►►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 '10OFF' for a 10% discount. 👉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  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 #Macro 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.

Many Americans have been hopeful of a pivot coming from the Harris campaign and the Democrats, but there's no sign of it in the Democratic platform or at the DNC thus far, leaving people wondering if it's going to be a lot more of the same if we get the same administration and party in power once again. Is the DNC what's going to drive Bitcoin price and crypto prices over the next few days, or is there something bigger on the horizon? I've got Noel Atchison today to discuss. And of course, the gentleman from Archpublic on the back half. Let's go.

Let's go. What is up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, also known as the Wolf of All Streets. Before we get started, please subscribe to the channel and hit the like button. Go ahead and bring Noelle on now. Good morning. How are you? I'm very well, Scott. How are you? How was your holiday? Everything was great. Came back to more of the same in crypto. It feels like last week was a pretty dead week anyways. We're certainly in the summer doldrums here of August, I think, and not much expectation, but we do have these big events happening. Yeah. And also, Scott, I mean, the big ructions we had in the beginning of August, had you

gone on holiday at the very beginning of August and come back like yesterday, you would have thought nothing had changed. That's what I always say about the crypto cycle in general. We could have probably fallen our head for three or four years, wake up four years later and price is exactly where it's supposed to be. I'm wondering if you know, October, November, we see the big Bitcoin move to the upside and then we get a little bit of altcoin action and we go, why have we been talking about this when we could have just waited? Talking is always fun, especially with you, Scott.

It is. Well, thank you. So listen, the lead story here is here on Bitcoin Magazine. Democrats exclude Bitcoin and crypto from 2024 platform aligning with past hostility? So the first half of that sentence is a fact. The second half, I think, is an opinion. I'm not saying that the Democrats are coming around, but I don't think leaving it out makes them necessarily hostile. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't think it gives us much information except for that we care a lot more about this than they do.

Totally agree with you. Crypto is not a big issue for them. We also have to remember that this platform was written before Biden stepped out of the race. I mean, he even refers to him as the candidate. You'd think they'd do at least a copy check, right? But it doesn't mean that there isn't going to be a transition in attitude after the convention. We also have to remember that candidate Harris, she's not officially the candidate yet. I mean, obviously, she's going to be because everyone is in agreement. But until it is officially confirmed on the last day of the convention, it's not a done deal. And so it would make sense, at least if I were her, I would not

say anything remotely controversial at this stage. I'd wait until it was a lock before departing from the traditional party lines and potentially pissing off some very influential backers. Yeah. Listen, I don't think that the Democrats are friendly to crypto for anybody who's listening. I just think that we have to be measured and honest with what things mean when they're reported as news. Yesterday, there was a widespread story. I don't know if you saw this, that Harris was tapping Gary Gensler to be secretary of the Treasury. It was in the block, a bunch of crypto media that Carolyn Crenshaw, who's outright anti crypto, would take over as SEC chairman,

that Gensler would leave a Democratic majority purposely. And it was literally completely fake news. Guys, aren't you looking forward to the cycle being over? I mean, just the amount of fake news we're bombarded with, and we tend to fall for it because it drives engagement. It's getting kind of exhausting. And I'm not even in the United States, so imagine. Yeah. So I mean, for me, I think we should expect the status quo for now if they win. But my real expectation would be that crypto just quietly goes away as a major issue if the Democrats win, because it's become very unpopular to be outright

anti-crypto. I don't think they do anything good, but I'll take them not doing anything bad. I think it's very clear right now that if Trump wins, we have a better chance of some pro-crypto regulation or less. Without doubt, the Republican win would be better for crypto because he has publicly vocalized his support. And in no uncertain terms, I mean, it's another issue whether he actually means it or not, but that's not really the point. The point is removing some of the regulatory obstacles. And I agree with you. I don't think that the next Democrat administration, should they win, will be as hostile as the previous, not only because one, the crypto lobby,

the crypto ecosystem has shown that it is relatively powerful and very loud and doesn't give up. And two, there's really not that much to lose in this case by reducing the, lowering the barriers a bit. And three, Kamala Harris is probably going to want to make her mark as distinct from her predecessors. So this does mean breaking some relationships. This does mean shifting her predecessor. So this does mean breaking some

relationships. This does mean shifting some focus. And this does mean getting some innovation back into the financial system. I totally agree with that entirely. And I think that the DNC now is not the story for crypto this week. I'm actually would go out on a limb and say that crypto sort of disappears from the entire political conversation over the next few months as the bigger issues come out. I think Trump has planted his flag. We know where RFK stands, if that's relevant at this point. I don't think any of them have to say anything at this point. I think they're going to move on.

But I would love to be wrong that it becomes a main issue, but I think it's going to fade as the election gets closer. Totally agree. Economic platforms are going to matter a lot more. And that's obviously very relevant to crypto because crypto is not totally divorced from risk on sentiment in the broader market. But yeah, you're right. Crypto is not the biggest concern. However, given our echo chambers, given the feeds that we follow, it may seem like it. And we're certainly going to make sure it is still on the radar. And hats off to all of the people in Washington, D.C. that are doing a lot of hard work and actually keeping politicians engaged. Yeah. And so as you sort of gave us a nice segue to the economy and what we're going to really be looking at,

investors look to Powell's Jackson Hole speech for clues about Fed's first cut. So I believe he's speaking on Friday. I think this is what we're watching this week, really for crypto, but definitely beyond because everybody's eyes have continued to be on the Fed for this mythical cut that's going to come for the last 18 months and counting. I think that predictive markets have had an odds on for a cut. I haven't seen it yet, but it seems like we're going to get some real clues and probably a cut in September.

Yeah, it looks like that's a lock. I mean, the big thing is, is it 25? Or is it 50? The market right now is pricing in 25. But the reason the very reason that we're so interested in what happens in Jerome Powell's speech on Friday is, is he going to drop a hint that it might be more? And I'm going to raise a controversial opinion here. But before I do that, I'm going to point out that Powell has so far indicated there's no indications whatsoever that he is going to suggest 50. So the market's obsession here is somewhat misplaced. We also have had several Fed officials come out over the past few days saying that they're not certain that a cut is even warranted in September.

So it's not going to be consensus for two for sure. Now, the controversial opinion here is that this actually doesn't matter very much. We're obsessed with it. And of course, it's going to influence risk sentiment in markets, which influences prices, which influences flows, et cetera. So it matters on the sentiment front. And that's pretty much it. Because let's not forget that we have just seen the steepest hiking cycle So there really has not been any

material impact from the Fed hikes so far and over the past 30 years there's no empirical economic model that says that raising rates is going to impact inflation. Intuitively it makes sense, you raise rates then people are going to be spending less and inflation comes down but there's no empirical model, there's also no evidence that it actually makes any impact so whatsoever. And we have seen, I mean, you and I talked about this often before, it's fiscal that matters for inflation. It's fiscal that matters for economic growth. So this obsession with what happens on Friday, with what happens at the September FOMC meeting,

it's fascinating. It is going to move yields. It is going to move prices, but it doesn't matter nearly as much as the economic platforms of the two political parties and the polls as to who will win in November. That is much more material for, I would say, stock markets, for bond markets, and also for crypto. Meanwhile, it's just kind of fun for the Fed circus. Yeah, I've had a few conversations of late, one notably with Lynn Alden, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago. And she basically made the clear point

that monetary policy right now is somewhat misdirection because we are so fiscally dominated as you just sort of alluded to. Even Powell goes on 60 Minutes and says, this is an unsustainable, out of control train talking about Yellen and the Treasury. You don't hear that very often, but you can tell that's him throwing his hands in the air quietly and saying, listen, I cut, I raised, QT, QE. I did what you wanted. If you're going to add a trillion dollars every 90 days with the bond market, then what does it matter?

Yeah. And what we need to start thinking about is what is the market going to, what will it look like when the Fed becomes less and less relevant? We can argue that it's already pretty irrelevant, but the market doesn't see it that way. What happens when the market does? I mean, any Powell speech is a market event and you have to ask yourself why,

because has he actually ever said anything really material? No, his job is to not do that. And I found this amazing book, which is actually, your readers may already know it, The Lords of Finance, it may come up backwards. It's about the history of the Great Depression. And I'm going to read the very first sentence, which is going to remind us about just how relevant monetary policy can be. Here's the very first sentence of this book. On August 15th, 1931, the following press statement was issued. The governor of the Bank of England has been indisposed as a result of the exceptional strain to which he has been subjected in recent months. Acting on medical advice, he has abandoned all work and gone abroad for rest

and change. The governor of the Bank of England had a nervous breakdown right as the economy was tanking into a very deep depression. And you know what? No big deal. That's an unbelievable quote from the book and so relevant. But I think it really is telling. And every guest I've been having of late, we're all talking about history. It's unbelievable. I had Lawrence Lippard yesterday. It'll come out on Sunday. And he was talking about the lessons of history and repeating. McGlone loves to talk about the books he's been reading and the lessons of history. But we are at one of those pivotal moments where

this could be just the classic boom bust cycle once again. That said, U.S. leading economic indicators continue to fall, no longer signal recessions. Maybe the bust isn't yet. That's actually an amazing headline because they're falling, but we're not signaling a recession. However, that gels with absolutely all of the other economic data that we've seen. Sure, the unemployment data or the jobs data for July threw us a bit of a scare. Even I gasped in horror when I saw those numbers. But digging in, temporary, weather-related, and other indicators since then have suggested that maybe the August data won't be quite as bad. Maybe it will. And my belief is

that when unemployment starts to move, it moves fast. But this time does feel somewhat different because we have more people coming into the workforce than we usually do at this stage in the economy. We do also have more people working multiple jobs, which counts as jobs, unfortunately, doesn't necessarily signal economic progress, but we don't seem to be anywhere near recessionary territory yet. And again, this is after the Fed has raised rates to 5.25%. And if that doesn't slow down the economy, really, what will? I mean, as Lynn is often is fond of saying, nothing stops this train. Let's not forget we have an election and there's going to be a lot of fiscal promises coming out over the next few weeks.

Yeah, I shared this story yesterday, but I have to ask your opinion on it as well, because we pour over all these numbers and the markets react and we listen to their words and then they revise everything. Fed confronts up to a million fresh jobs vanishing in revision so i shared this yesterday this is here on microsoft start out on says like i just brought it up but this is from bloomberg and effectively a year's worth of job data they're saying was incorrect and is being revised and that was literally a year of every month people watching the job data saying it's beating strong market. And now

magically, 12 months of data was wrong as being revised. And oh, sorry, the job market was actually bad. So how can we judge if we're in a recession, or not in a recession, or if we're headed to a recession, or if we just had one, and we're already out of it, if all of the data that's presented is false? Yeah, exactly. It's a big oops. We are in a recession when the NBER, the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private organization, I may add, decides we're in a recession. That's when we are in a recession and not until then. The two quarters of consecutive declining GDP growth, I mean, that's nice, but it's not enough. We did that in the past couple years and nobody declared recession. Not enough.

So when the NBER decides that we're in recession, and it tends to do so seven to nine months after recession has started, then we're not in a recession. And so you do have to throw your hands up in the air and think, why do we even get obsessed about this? You have to remember, I mean, this revision, again, not too much of a surprise.

And it's not so much the Fed, the government cooking the books, although maybe there's, I don't think that's the case. I think what it is is that we are relying for our economic guidance on surveys, on very narrow surveys with very low response rates. So even the employment data is from surveys with low response rates. And yet we then extrapolate that to the border population when we don't even have any idea what that is. So what we're going to be seeing, I think it's already, it comes out tomorrow officially, the big adjustment, it's to do with taking into account how many businesses have actually opened and closed. That's estimated in the jobs data that we see. It reminds us that

this is all pretty much guesswork. Even the PMIs, it's guesswork. CPI, it's guesswork. And yet we have a Fed that insists it is data dependent. We also, again, bringing back the data dependent on the Fed, this is the Fed that is data dependent, that did nothing for a year after inflation started raising its ugly head again. And it insisted it was transitory and it got that totally wrong. And there's been no accountability for that so far. And now we have the Fed being accused of making a similar mistake when going back to the original point doesn't really matter yeah because nobody knows what inflation is i i don't know if anyone here has read the bitcoin standard but then the fiat standard by safe id and i think that's it's

very uh exaggerated in the other direction perhaps but when you hear him talk about the way that CPI is calculated and that there's basically no consistent denominator and they add and subtract things conveniently when they don't necessarily match up with the numbers, it goes back to just like this job number revision, that the numbers at least that were presented, I don't know what the Fed's looking at or what the government's actually looking at. But they're effectively cooked to tell a narrative and it makes the science of economics nearly impossible. But we still hold our breath. Indeed. And we also tend to overlook that in the end,

it's markets that are a much better indicator of what really is going on, which is interesting when we look at the bond market insisting that the Fed is going to cut between four, at least four times about a 60% chance, according to the CME bond pricing, bond futures pricing, that the Fed's going to cut four or more times this year. And you know, it looks very, very unlikely. However, that said, markets do tend to have a better pulse on their fingers, a finger on the pulse of what is

actually going on in global sentiment. They're much more of a global indicator than the survey-based data that we tend to be basing investment decisions on and that we hope the Fed is taking into account. Again, it's not that relevant. What is relevant? The big flows of funds that move across borders.

The DXY, the dollar index, is at its lowest point so far this year. What is that telling us? Yeah, isn't there an old quote, something to the effect of, there's no market without price. It is the market, something like that, right? I mean, price is the ultimate sort of definition of everything that's happening. So you got to imagine that Powell sees the carry trade unwind

in a temporary black Monday, which ended up being a blip, as you alluded to earlier, sees stocks go down and says, great, I finally have less pressure. The stock market stopped going up. And then two weeks later, you're right back. I mean, the prices in the stock market tell us everything we need to know. And are we overthinking this data? We talk about this, as you know, on Macro Monday, every Monday.

And you can tell that Mike McGlone each week is just a little more frustrated that all the data says one thing and the stock market keeps doing another. Yeah. And again, this comes down to where is the money coming from? We have to keep asking ourselves this. Where is the money coming from? Well, it's coming from gains on other assets. And this circles back to crypto quite effectively. Crypto is right. Bitcoin is is underperforming NASDAQ.

I mean, that is absolutely nuts. However, there's a lot of other things going on in crypto, as you and I often talk about, and that is influencing the performance. But when you have the choice between investing, if you're a macro investor, you have a choice between investing in Bitcoin, which right now we know is going to be sensitive

to politics going forward, or NVIDIA, which everyone loves, then you're probably going to be putting money into NVIDIA. And that matters until we start to get some deeper regulatory scrutiny of NVIDIA, some deeper questioning about where the data centers are going to come from, and perhaps some issues in NVIDIA's top clients. So again, I think that the valuations of the tech companies in the stock market are very overvalued. And that's why I think the economic platforms coming out of Chicago this week and also more detail on what the Republican Party are proposing, that matters more than what happens to interest

rates. Do we believe the platforms when they're just political promises and not actually put into action? I mean, we have a long history of politicians in every corner of the world making promises that they either don't realize they can't keep, don't intend to keep, or just sort of the pie in the sky biggest idea that they could possibly have. I can't imagine that Harris at least changes much with the economy, considering they're touting by by dynamics as a grand success. And you could substitute promises for threats quite effectively in many of the democratic parties platforms. I mean,

we're talking about how efficient prices are for telling the market what really is going on. And she's talking about price controls. Obviously it's not quite as simple as that. And her ideas do have more nuance, but price controls are what investors are seeing, which is why should we get more of that? Should we get more of a lean towards some socialist policies this week? That would be very bad for market sentiment

should the candidate Harris's fortunes continue to do quite well in the polls. A long time between now and November, who else he knows. I forget which European politician it was who said, you know, if we promised that we would do what we know we need to do, we would never get elected. Austerity. I mean, it comes, there's, which it always frustrates me because we know that both parties are going to be

fiscally or economically irresponsible at this point. Right. We have seven trillion added to the debt under Trump, seven to eight trillion added to the debt under Biden. Maybe give Trump a slight pass because of covid. But either way, both parties intend to print a hell of a lot of money to keep the music going. And so it reminds me, at least as a Bitcoiner, as much as I love seeing it on a political stage, I like that there are people who are quote unquote pro-Bitcoin. The reason we like Bitcoin is a rebellion against money printing and government. And no politician is pro-Bitcoin if they intend to continue the policy of printing money

endlessly and debasing the currency. Now, it's still good if they protect self-custody and adding it. It's just if you zoom out and really think about it, everyone, it doesn't matter what politician you like, they're going to do all the things that Bitcoin was created to fight against. Yeah. And why would they give full-throated support to an asset that is designed to protect investors or citizens from what they want to do in the first place? So, but again, they obviously, they understand that they can't not because innovation, taxes, et cetera, will continue to leave the United States.

However, what does actually, you know, matter, this one of the reasons why I think the main reason why I think the dollar is so weak these days is because of the growing awareness that there's just a lot of dollars coming down the pipeline, and the economic growth is not necessarily a given going forward. So that doesn't mean that the dollar's reserve status is going to be affected, it can be a lot lower and still be the global reserve currency. But a lower dollar is good for hard assets, such as gold. Gold is reaching all-time highs these days, and that's telling us something.

And such as Bitcoin, which has a lot of headwinds at the moment, largely because of big block sales, which finally seem to be resolving themselves, and largely because of the political uncertainty, which will also, within a very short period of time, resolve itself. Yeah, it's a really good point. And I just find it very, very interesting that

no politician's ever going to be able to do, quote unquote, the right thing. They just literally can't. Wouldn't get elected. I mean, maybe you get elected and then you do it and the pitchforks and torches come out. And Argentina is an exception, but I don't think anybody wishes to get... It's so bad there. It has to be so bad first. Exactly. It has to get really, really bad that, yes, we know there's pain coming, but it's better than the pain we have today. Nobody would wish that on any country. Maybe what you just described, though, and I've been thinking about this, maybe that slow decline of the dollar as the global reserve asset, but it remaining the global reserve asset is actually the best theoretical path forward knowing what we know.

If it reduces in dominance, weakens slightly, but other countries find ways around it and things don't have to collapse. I mean, I guess the best way to say it, we'd rather a slow decline and eventual death if that's going to happen than everything falling off a cliff at once. Yeah, so even just a slow decline without the eventual death, that'd be fine too. I mean, I think a dollar less world would be a pretty bleak place just because of how embedded it is in global finance. And again, this doesn't mean that Bitcoin doesn't win. Bitcoin doesn't need to be the global reserve currency.

That, to be honest, would be a total mess. I mean, the gold standard didn't work for some pretty good reasons. So Bitcoin is the alternative, the alternative if you want to hold a store of value in something that isn't a melting ice cube, to coin the phrase from Michael Saylor. This is what Trump actually has been talking about, and Vance as well, for some time. They want a weaker dollar. They want it to maintain, to still be the global reserve currency. Vance as well for some time, they want a weaker dollar, they want it to maintain to still be the global reserve currency Vance has said publicly, he actually doesn't, but Trump has part of the platform is that he does find that separate a weaker dollar would be pretty good for the United States in terms of its trade balance, it also would give a much needed boost to some of

the developing economies in terms of their debt service and their ability to import oil, and therefore their ability to, you know, consume US exports. So it would be generally good news for everyone. And there has been some talk of concerted or coordinated reduction of the dollar against other currencies that generally would be kind of expensive and hard to maintain what we're seeing right now, which is an organic natural decline. that is, as you say, much healthier. Yeah. Before I let you go, I mean, in your mind, just zooming out, how long can they keep this music going before an inevitable... I mean, there's always got to be a recession or... Yeah, it has to come. Yeah, no, I agree. I am still in a recession. I don't know, but I'm just impressed with how long they can keep kicking this can down the road.

Yes. How long can the balloon stay float before the helium eventually seeps out? Right. I've been wrong on my timing for this for, you know, for ages now. I've been calling for a recession for a while and I am still calling for a recession. I just don't think it's coming as soon as I once thought. I don't think it's coming this year. I do expect us to start to see severe job disruption early next year and the fiscal situation is going to spook international investors and this is irrespective of what happens on the geopolitical stage. Things do seem to be in a better place now than in a couple of weeks ago, touch wood that can change on a dime, but a lot will depend on the political platform, sorry the economic

platforms the political fortunes of the candidates in the us and the geopolitical situation best case scenario end of next year yeah okay i'll take it well noel thank you as always for your incredible perspective and insight you You keep us grounded. You guys follow Noel in Madrid. Yeah, please follow Noel in Madrid on X. And now, what was the name of the book again? Because I actually hadn't heard of it. Now I'm going to go get it. It's really, it's a good read. Lords of Finance by Likwak Ahmed. I'm probably pronouncing that incorrectly. And I don't know if this comes out backwards on your screens or not. No, it's actually forwards. Lords of Finance. It's good. It's about the Great Depression, the impact of World War I leading up to World War II. And man, things were a mess then. And it's a good perspective to realize that things are a mess

now and they could get a lot worse. Well, reading a book as long as War and Peace for me tends to be a Great Depression, but I'm going to give it a shot. Thank you, Noelle. I appreciate it. Speak to you soon. Good talking to you, Scott. I love the political comments in the chat. Anytime we bring it up, this is my favorite maybe right now. The party of Elizabeth Warren won't be bad for crypto. I love the show, Scott, but that's almost as bad as the patty cake session you had with that lady from WEF. Sheila Warren is like the world leading crypto policy expert. Guys, it goes back to a very interesting idea, right? And this is one that I have about politics in

the United States in general. First of all, I think I've made it pretty clear. I'm an RFK supporter. So you can miss me with the Harris love that you guys believe I have. My job is to report what is happening and try to view all sides of it. So I'm not anymore. Listen, I'm literally the guy who got fired Gary Gensler trending on Twitter. I'm literally a guy like supporting and doing campaign events for John Deaton, who's running against Elizabeth Warren. But we still have to consider the fact that in the reality we live in, the Democrats could win. And if they do, we would like our industry to still have a seat at the table and push. And we would like to have some hope that they lay off the gas. As much as you think it's a guarantee that they continue doing what they're doing, I think there's a fighting fucking chance

that they don't. And if maybe they're not going to, we need to have people who are smart from our industry also talking to them. And that's what I would push for. It's what it is. It's what it is. And I can tell you that what we discuss on this show largely does not always align with my own beliefs. Yeah. I would like to know if I helped RFK with the bear staging. I didn't, but I would have, I'm going to be honest. I think that shit is fucking hilarious and it shows that he's an actual

human being. And I'm sure other politicians have done far worse. What I don't get is why he felt compelled to share it. You know, like the guy definitely has a unfiltered view that I love. But like some things, you know, you just don't need to say I don't need to tell you like what I did my sophomore year of college. If I'm running president, I don't just need to like randomly bring it up in conversation because we all did some savage shit. The reality is we're all very lucky.

I'm going to bring on Andrew. I'm sure you're also very lucky that we didn't have camera phones. Oh man. If there would have been camera phones when I was in college, I don't know if I'd be able to show my face to be very clear. It would be over for me. Can you imagine if every single wild thing we did as teenagers or early twenties was like literally broadcast in real time? How is anybody ever going to get a job again? Yeah, I still get text messages from my college buddies that I both lived with or didn't live with about particular shenanigans that went on,

you know, in the halls of, you know, in front of, you know, dorm buildings that I was chastised for, you know, by the institutions that I, again, would not want to be headlines anywhere at any time. You know, those of us that are risk takers as entrepreneurs generally were risk takers as college students. So, yeah, keep those headlines. I also had a pager. I had a pager in college because I went to the University of Pennsylvania

and that's when I started DJing and I used to throw these big parties downtown and to get on the guest list, you had to page me. It is wild what the pace and speed and adjustment and technology to go back to pagers where you'd get a number and we were programmed to then just go call that number whatever here's a number like

a payphone because yeah yeah yeah and pay phones were a real thing they had they had tons of them in airports people would flock to them after they got off the plane. This was all a very real thing. Doctors. Your previous guest made a ton of good points politically. I default to the reality of Bitcoin as it's supposed to be an apolitical asset. Thank you. It was built as such. That was Satoshi's whole deal as a proverbial

FU to banks and the printing of money when it was a flashpoint in 08 and 09. And that flashpoint, by the way, has literally never gone away. If you look at the bailouts associated with 09, they look like child's play in comparison to the amount of money that's given out by governments nowadays. $800 billion was targeted asset relief package. $800 billion, that's a nothing number now. Those are the kind of numbers that go out in budgets, that go out as relief packages to any given entity or any given country. All the Ukraine stuff, there's been three X of that number given to that particular cause by our government. And nobody gives it much material thought. I remember when a billion dollars is a lot of money. Well, it was a lot of money. when a billion dollars was a lot of money. Well, it was a lot of money. When a billion dollars was a big deal.

Yeah. So it's, you know, Bitcoin is made to be an asset that is, again, supposed to be apolitical. And I agree with you that whether it's a Trump administration, a Harris administration, we can go back to 2020. We can go back to 2016. We can go back to 2012. Every single cycle, Bitcoin is higher. Now, the journey in that four years may look different than another portion of the journey, but it's always higher. And I don't see a world where whoever is president and whoever are the heads of institutions and regulators, you know, for the next particular regime, Bitcoin is going to be higher. And the reason it's going to be higher is because now it's an institutional asset where

Larry Fink is getting on particular TV shows and talking about it as a legitimate financial asset. And when that happens, you have the heads of organizations saying, okay, we've got to get this not only on our own balance sheet with the likes of Goldman Sachs has done in the past couple of weeks, but with their 13F, but we also have to offer it to our clients. And when you're offering it to clients who custody trillions of dollars of assets at Goldman Sachs, at UBS, at Morgan Stanley, at Wells Fargo, you know, price is going to follow the totality of those assets, no matter what the political winds are. Because remember, there is politics, and then there is monetary policy, and then there's economic reality. Those are three very different things that oftentimes collide and force things on one another, right? So there's been a venerable bull market basically since 2009. Sure, there was the COVID dip, but that COVID dip lasted about 60 days.

There's been some other quote unquote dips. You talked about in 2022, there was essentially by the books as it's defined, a recession of two quarters of negative growth. But does anybody other than you and I actually remember that as we talk about it right now? No, nobody does. And the market certainly didn't supercharge negatively react to it. So Bitcoin has pushed its way through all of those things and found itself sitting at 60K today, which everybody in our industry is like, oh, this is so boring. Why is Bitcoin doing nothing? You know, it's the proverbial meme of hitting. Well, if not free scuffs, we'd be at 45 and saying the same thing or 40. Yeah, exactly right. So there's going to be a continued float higher,

no matter the political winds of the day, which is interesting to talk about. Podcasts will thrive. People will tune in. Everybody has an opinion. The numbers will go up. Yeah. And that's cool and that's fine. But at the same time, Bitcoin doesn't care. Bitcoin doesn't know who the president is or who they could be. Bitcoin doesn't care. Some altcoins might. Most altcoins might. Right. I do think Bitcoin is in the clear. I love anyone who doesn't know about the history of Bitcoin, but in the Genesis block was inscribed

by Satoshi, 3 January 2009, Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks. It was literally created because of all that's why i said like cheering for politicians is kind of nonsensical for bitcoin unless you're just cheering for them to leave you alone which i'm cheering for right and i think that that's more what we get with one of the administrations but at the end of the day like bitcoin's now good i think right yeah the rest of the market really be influenced by. Yeah, there's there's there's two pathways, you know, that one could assume based on different political regimes, you know, post, you know, 2025, early 2025. If we have a Trump regime, you're going to see, you know, you can make the assumption that there is a proverbial wide open field in front of you, right? But that doesn't mean unfettered success and pure

markets as far as the eye could see, because that's late plans. You know, I mean, sometimes things just don't work the way that you think they do. You know, how many times have we seen, you know, a football player have all the space in the world and he is, you know, enjoying his way to the to the end zone and he decides to do some sort of dance and he lets go. Let's go. Yeah. A yard before he actually crosses the end zone and he's an idiot. Right. So those kind of things happen, right? Whereas with a Harris type of deal, yeah, you've got real problems with altcoins. You've got real problems with tokens of securities, all of those particular things. But that doesn't change the reality of Bitcoin and Ethereum have been knighted for all the- In this whole take, we don't need political support of Bitcoin and Ethereum have been knighted for all the... In this whole take, we don't need political support of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has gone from $0 to $74,000 without political support of Bitcoin. Yeah, yeah. There was no... No politician talked about Bitcoin until about seven months ago. Nobody mentioned it other than some congressman or two that nobody had ever heard of until they found themselves quoted, you know, on Coindesk or Bitcoin magazine. Nobody. Right. So, yeah, that that take is just not a serious take. It can help. But the word need is very specific. It is, right.

Again, it's the old Chinese proverb like, okay, you know, my son broke his leg and so he's not going to war. Well, we'll see. You know, my son didn't go to war. Well, we'll see. You know, my son did well in this sport. Well, we'll see. Right? My son did well in this sport. Well, we'll see. We don't know what the outcomes are based on any assumptions on a go-forward basis. And again, we're not talking about Bitcoin.

Bitcoin meeting politicians is just a dump tank. Sorry. My apologies to you, the guy that quoted that said that. Doesn't look anyone. All coins, that's another conversation. You know, Pepe and Dogecoin, I don't know, maybe some political help might be reasonable, a reasonable take, but I just don't know.

You know, Bitcoin is now, you know, as Larry Fink said, it's a legitimate financial asset. You know, the reality is, is that guys like Larry Fink said, it's a legitimate financial asset. The reality is that guys like Larry Fink and Jamie Dimon, while they'll go on shows and talk a little bit about politics and genuflect a little bit, those guys hold a lot more sway when it comes to monetary policy in the United States than anybody in a regulatory body. That's just the truth of the matter. So if they're on board, then we're good with Bitcoin and Ethereum. That's to say nothing about Ethereum inflows or the lack thereof in totality over the first month. Yeah, it's hard to gauge. We of, I mean, yeah, it's hard to gauge. You know, we've had the lowest volume ever on the Bitcoin spot ETFs right now as well.

I mean, this is, but it's like, we know what August is and we know what the cycle is and we know what summer is and it all aligns for this to have exactly happened. So we shouldn't see any surprise. That said, you do have some alpha on Morgan Stanley and UBS very specifically.

So perhaps. Yeah, yeah. So, you know Yeah. So with my previous TradFi time, 20 years or so, relationships at those organizations, both Jason Chandler and Barry Summers, who run wealth management in the Americas for both Wells Fargo and UBS. There is extraordinary chatter. We're very, very close to getting approvals across those platforms for all clients. And Morgan Stanley did it, guys. So it's like, we're going to have to. It's a matter of time at this point.

And Matt Hogan even said the due diligence. You're talking about Q4 for the fastest horses. And we got Morgan Stanley earlier. Yeah, right. So everything's democratized on Wall Street down to the basis point. So there's no way that those organizations can hold out much longer not offering Bitcoin ETFs to the totality of their client base when Morgan Stanley has done it. Morgan Stanley is seen as the leader in terms of total advisors, assets under management,

and just the name, so to speak. Their competitors obviously would disagree, but that's the reality in the industry. So Wells Fargo and UBS, UBS, by the way, is the global leader in wealth management. They're the biggest wealth manager on the planet because it's not just the United States, but it's all other continents that UBS has a real foothold in. So having conversations and getting information from both of those guys who were at the top of the wealth management organizations, at least here in the Americas. Barry Summers, by the way, was put in place middle of last year at Wells Fargo's wealth management group. And he came from JP Morgan. Jason Chandler has basically been a UBS lifer for years. He was just a regional guy,

you know, 15 years ago when I was doing a decent amount of business with their organization. So, yeah, they have, you know, let me know that we're, it's not a sooner, it's soon, right? It's things are, things are happening. The machines are machining and very, very soon you're going to see them make an announcement and that announcement will come, you know, via the industry regs like advisor hub or investment news, or, you know, and then CNBC and whatnot will, will follow there. So, so that's happening. And my guess is, is that not in August, but probably September, late September at the latest. And I was early. I was early on Morgan Stanley by a couple of months. But at the same time, I was still right about Morgan Stanley being the first to do it.

And so not surprising. And there are still small restrictions associated with who can buy Bitcoin ETFs at Morgan Stanley. 1.5 million. Yeah, 1.5 million. But here's the reality. Your average account size per financial advisor at Morgan Stanley is like 1.3 million if you take out their acquisition of E-Trade. So it's not really a restriction. Like 90% of their clients that have assets at Margaret Stanley have accounts that are $1, $2, $5, $7 million. So not really a restriction. It's just something that sits there for a box to check for folks that are buying the Bitcoin ETFs.

Yeah. So you had sent me two videos that I love. I just want to show them as a segue to a quick conversation, obviously about our job, like in algorithmic trading, but what year is the first one, do you know? I think it's 1984. It says 80s. Yeah, look at- What yeah it's not a thing anymore no no more computers more screens

um i will tell you that um you know maybe about four years ago was in new york doing some stuff went to the new york stock exchange and the truth of the matter is is that the nysc has become for all intensive purposes a glorified conference room or event space for ice which is intercontinental exchange which owns 80 of the exchanges across the globe um it is you know it's a it's a museum that still has computers, but all the training that gets done there, you know, 80 plus percent of it is algorithmic. So you don't need people. So what did you see in that picture? All the people are gone. Now you have ropes and, you know, areas for people to walk for photo ops, right? You have CNBC, which has a huge space at the exchange.

There was no space for them to do that based on the amount of people that existed there in the 80s. See that? There's just nobody there. So that goes to the reality of how algorithmic trading has taken over Wall Street, that everything that's happening you know on a daily basis that moves the market is hard-coded from a data standpoint it's reacting to data it's reacting to volumes it's reacting to moves inside of different industries and uh we at arch public wanted to bring that truth bring that technology to retail traders and And we've done that. So yeah, it shouldn't be siloed for four decades as it was and as it has, but we've put it into people's hands. We've got a lot of products on our shelves that people have access to and performance has been

outstanding. We've talked about that in the last few weeks. 20 plus percent over the last 90 days, 30 plus percent over the last four months, while other assets have done either negative returns. The Dow just slipped a little bit higher over the last 90 days. The S&P and Nasdaq have come back a bit over the last week. You know, Bitcoin has been flat to lower. So again, it's important that we brought this technology to the masses and our clients love it. Yeah. So how can people check it out? Go to thearchpublic.com and take a look. They can schedule a demo. People are often surprised that oftentimes I show up at the demo and they're like, Whoa, I didn't know I was getting the guy.

But yeah, for about half the time I'll show up at demos and people often, people do their due diligence, right? People are really smart these days. Your audience is really smart and people do their due diligence and they come to these calls with three or four questions that they want to drill down on. And so we'll take them down a path. And 80% of the people that leave that call, they'll either immediately sign up for a $99 product to kind of check off the boxes of liquidity, 24-7 availability of capital and that the algorithm actually works.

And then they'll upgrade from there. So yeah, it's easy to get involved. It's cheap to get involved. And people love the reality of being to take their hands off while an algorithm, a robot, looks for opportunities in the market and then takes those opportunities on your behalf. I like you know that you sound like a bootlicker saying the audience is really smart. Well, I mean, they are really smart. I mean, we spend time with your audience and your audience is basically 40, 50, 55 year old folks that have, you know, have built meaningful financial lives. What if the boots are made of chocolate? Yeah. What if they're made of peppermint? I don't know. Think of that.

It's, it's, they are, they are a smart audience, you know, other than that comment, they are a smart audience. So I want to play something for you because it's important.

This is, this is, this is the Superbowl. This is the play. Yeah. I like to talk about, there he is. Look, he's running.

He's got this. Leon, fastest white guy in history, Don Beebe. Yeah, boom, right? And it's gone. So don't be that guy. That's what Andrew's telling you. Best laid plans. You just never know.

The whole Trump thing could happen. We could have a complete Republican wave in the Congress, both House and Senate. But you just don't know what's going could happen. We could have a complete Republican wave in the Congress, both House and Senate, but you just don't know what's going to happen. There could be a black swan event. You just don't know. I just think trusting politicians in general on Bitcoin is like the way to be wildly disappointed and get rugged. One is clearly better for the other. I would just rather own my Bitcoin and not deal with any of them yeah yeah jameson lot put out a tweet i don't know earlier this morning and it was a picture and on the top it was versions of you know the way that bitcoin should be looked at

self-custody and blah blah blah and a bunch of chad you know chads on the top and then on the bottom it's like we need bitcoin etfs we need this politician to help us you know blah blah blah and it and it's it is true you know it is true that in 2016 we didn't think like this 2016 we weren't you know scouring um you know political platforms to see if bitcoin was mentioned um we just went about our business and bought Bitcoin and self-custody. So we should still do that. Yeah, I don't think listen, I would love to have things like self-custody protected. I see comments here.

You know, if they make us felons for self-custody, it would destroy the whole market, sadly, that's not what would happen. Actually, people in other countries would probably just keep on owning Bitcoin and we would have to put ours on Coinbase. I'm not saying that's good, but no, it actually wouldn't kill crypto, unbelievably. It wouldn't. Right here, if the US kills self-custody, the world crypto market's in trouble. Listen, I think that that's not true i it should be true right and i don't and i don't want self-custody killed but i don't think that's true i think there's plenty of places in the world that are not going to kill it and the united

states has long been behind and anyone meaningful has left here already to go build there there's a reason why the founders created you know a a really high bar to get difficult legislation passed right like you you really have to work hard to get legislation passed that would mean that self crypto you know self-custody is is outlawed that's such a high bar um could it happen sure Sure. Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? No, I don't think so. No matter who's in the White House. The thing is, it aligns, sadly, like he says, we agree to disagree. And I totally agree with you. Listen, I think it's a huge threat and it's a huge problem. But like in the United States, you have to report all your assets. There's nothing unique here to Bitcoin necessarily. Yes, self-custody would be different, but people freak out that you'd have to report your wallets, which, by the way, I would rather never share my wallets.

But you also have to report your E-Trade account and your Morgan Stanley account and where you live and what property you own. That is America. The better than the worse. Bitcoin's not going to get a pass. I don't think they should fully ban self-custody, but we can't expect it gets a pass and doesn't live, unfortunately, by the same rules. Right there. There are, you know, those organizations are forced to report that you exist on their platform.

You can't go, you know, unnoticed at an E-Trade or TD Ameritrade. Well, E-Trade doesn't exist anymore neither does td ameritrade was bought by charles schwab either way um they have to report that you exist right so you can you can philosophically you know choose not to do those things but that's a bad idea it's you know somebody's going to come looking for you and ask you some questions and make it uncomfortable. So avoid that uncomfortableness. Report what you're supposed to report.

It is what it is. Thearchpublic.com. Let's go. There you go. I'm not going to show any more football videos. There's plenty. My ADD had me searching for that video. Noticing how tan you are versus other times we're on the stream.

Good week last week, right? Golden, golden. I feel great i feel amazing well if we're wondering about bitcoin spot bitcoin etf volumes your tan is a good you know marker yeah the tanner i am the more in summer and we're unlikely less volumes we're going to see on every product right i'm going to be so pasty white come election time and up only it's going to be amazing pasty white come election time and up only. It's going to be amazing. All right, Andrew, man, thank you. Late September, October, you know,

when your tan is faded, we'll see volumes that'll skyrocket again. That's just the way the world works. Let's hope. Well, here we are at $61,000 Bitcoin. Boring as ever. Yeah, boring as ever. Exactly.

If I had just said in March, we'll probably do this, which I i did uh i could have saved myself i could have been on vacation literally for the last five months we we've been around so long that the idea of 61k boring as ever just still surprise it's still hard for me to say right like we were you know we were elated at 18K or 21K or 27K or back above 30 again, you know, after SBF just destroyed the market with its idiocy. Yeah. I mean, at 60, 61K and it's boring. It's just I mean, it's boring. It's just, I mean, it's, it's crazy. My final comment, custody on hot wallets exchanges can be confiscated. Guys, I hate to tell you this, but your self-custody Bitcoin, when someone comes for you with a gun, if that's really what you're worried about equally. Yeah. Yeah. My shit spread all over the goddamn earth. You have to be Carmen San Diego to fucking find my crypto. But if they come to my family and say, Hey,

we know your wallets and give us your Bitcoin or your life. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to give it up. Yeah. That there's just a reality to it. Like, Hey, you haven't reported your stuff for four years. And if you don't report it now, you know, you're going to go to jail. Right. Like the IRS down the road. You know, you probably can. We filled the full half hour.

Pretty good. Now I actually have to go because I have spaces to figure out. So guys, AP underscore abacus on the Twitter X machine and the arts public. If you like profit and algorithmic trading and having fun and being amazing.

Okay. See you, Scott. Don't be Leon. Later, guys. Bye.