The Wolf Of All Streets - Jpmorgan Says De Risking Is Over Turn Incoming Cryptotownhall

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

In this Crypto Town Hall episode, hosts Scott and Dave discuss Bitcoin's prolonged consolidation around $90K-$92K amid remarkably low volatility and volume, describing it as time-based capitulation with the market awaiting a major catalyst. Panelists explore macro factors including persistent fiscal spending, dollar dilution, booming precious metals (gold nearly doubled, silver more than doubled in 2025), institutional moves like Morgan Stanley's crypto push, and potential capital rotation from gold/silver into Bitcoin and alts. Optimism remains high for 2026 upside driven by liquidity, infrastructure demand, and regulatory clarity, while the group debates risk appetite, fraud cleanup, and the inevitability of higher nominal growth despite near-term sideways action.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Crypto Town Hall every single weekday here on X at 10.15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. I hope that you're all having a wonderful week as we head here into the weekend. Obviously, quite a few things have happened this week, arguably none bigger than Morgan Stanley's wholesale move into the crypto market. But alongside that, J.P. Morgan, or a J.P. Morgan analyst, I should say, since there's tens of thousands of people who work there, and nobody speaks on behalf of JPMorgan, seemingly not even Jamie Diamond, says de-risking is over, that the selling has largely abated. Before we dig into that and a number of other topics, obviously we do have an awesome sponsor today called ZeroG.

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Just get a little tap, tap, tap, tap. 90, that's our home. Yeah, it's, it's incredible. I mean, the lack of volatility is amazing. I mean, today did see a 945 drop. So I guess that's back. But, I mean, it was tiny, you know, of you like four or five hundred bucks.

I mean, you know, half a percent. It's almost like it's going through the motions. I will continue to let everybody know that time-based capitulation looks exactly like this. You know, you're Friday 5 news this morning that NLW has basically said, screw it, he's not going to even comment on crypto anymore, is almost, I think it's calling it.

But there's lots of other examples. I mean, the fact is Bitcoin's sitting at 90,000, and in a range that we used to talk about a range from the low 80s to the mid-90s, now the range is from like 87 and, change to 92 and change. And really, it's been between 88 or 89 and 91. You know, this is, this is incredible, you know, technicians will call it a, you know,

we'll basically draw it on the chart and say, listen, something's got to break. But the truth is, is that time is important. I mean, it could stay like this for a while. And when it changes, that's when the movement becomes self-reflect or becomes what we call reflexive. And we've been talking about this forever, Scott, but it amazes me how my guess is, and I don't know, and I'd be curious if anyone's been looking at it, that there's probably slightly more leverage building up in the system in both directions, because people tend to just assume that, well, if it's not going to go below 90, it can't go that much lower. And they go,

well, if it's not going to go above 92 to 94, it's not, can't go much higher. And the truth is, is both are wrong. It could do quite a bit. I mean, I don't know. What are you seeing? Yeah, I actually had a conversation with Rand yesterday, ironically not on spaces, since this is theoretically not his town hall as well. But that's coming out tomorrow. And effectively, we both came to the conclusion, which we always do of what you just said, one green candle. I said, I'm just going to title this conversation, one green candle because as I say often, there's no better marketing for Bitcoin or any asset than higher prices because it just creates formal and that reflectivity you talked about. It's just going to take one big candle. You know, if we go 92, to 100 in a day, we're going to be having a completely different sentiment and conversation here, even though we're arguably still in the same range, right? So I really just think it's some catalyst, maybe an unforeseen catalyst, right? Like, we didn't know Silicon Valley Bank was going to be the catalyst for the bull market. It was.

People forget. We were trading it like 15, 16, 17. It made like a, you know, $5,000, move when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. And that was the move off the bottom. So we didn't see that coming. That wasn't the Clarity Act or some telegraphed catalyst. Yeah, well, anyway, I could say more. But Andre, you got your hand up.

What are you thinking? Hey, happy Friday. Yeah, I was just thinking about what you said about volatility. I think what really dovetails this kind of observation is you see like very low volumes across the board. If you look at spot volumes are super low, like futures volumes are super low. even an ETF volumes are super low. Options volumes have like declined. They literally cratered, right?

So there's like low volume across the board. If you look at realized profits and realized losses, also very low. So there's not much happening in the market right now. And it seems, yeah, as you mentioned, it seems as if like the market's waiting for some kind of catalyst, but there is apparently some kind of January lull going on right now. Yeah, it's been January, December, November, October, lull, but yes. I concur.

And just so you know, we've had, we have a lot of people requesting. We'll eventually get you guys up. We just have a very full panel for once. So I'm showing a connection error, Dave. I don't know if you are. I don't know if that's on my end or the post. I hear you and I don't see any problems. I see Adam, you know, that comes down.

and I saw Amateo raising his hand. So go for it, Amateur. And Andre, by the way, your hand is still up, according to me, according to what I see. Don't know if it's supposed to be. I haven't raised it. Yeah, Andre, go for it. I'll go after.

No, it's fine. Go ahead, Andre. All right. I think, yeah, phantom hands. I'm trying to be polite over here. But good morning, everybody. Hope everyone's doing well. Yeah, I think that we just had a lot of anticipation

that with the kickstart of the year would mean a ton of liquidity coming into the market. And I think that this is just a little bit on a delay here. I think that what we're really seeing is that the Fed-based liquidity is going to backstop banks in order to increase debt. A lot of that debt is going to AI fueling and backstopping and trying to protect this circular debt. and funding cycle throughout AI that many people had talked about. You know, this morning we got a jobs report and that jobs report was kind of in the worst spot where it could be,

which was it wasn't really great and it wasn't really bad. There was a million jobs added in 2024 and there was only 600,000 jobs added in 2025. So, you know, there's clearly some issues that are still presenting here. I believe in the economic outlook. I think that the actual consumer sentiment is down bad. I think that people are pretty disillusioned by seeing the amount of fraud being such a meaningful amount of our GDP and tax dollars being allocated here.

And I think when I look at all of this and the fact that due to this jobs data and what we're seeing on polymarket, we're only seeing predictions for two to three rate cuts in 2026 and that there's likely going to be nominal rate cuts leading to the next Fed chair. So I think that what we're looking at in all of this is this sort of range bound potential leading up to the place of the next Fed chair. And that's a decent amount of time that we have between, was it May or June where the person actually gets like, I think June and the person actually gets fully on board here.

And I think that it's really about will we see an increase of liquidity? Will we see volumes start to pick up again to the point that was made before me? And I think that the longer the sideways action goes, to Dave's point, we sort of get this drawn out time-based capitulation. I don't think that it's something that is done in the near term, is my current outlook, based on the situation. economically. Hey, Amitay, I'm sorry. You said, what's not near term? You cut out, Mark.

Say it again? Yeah, you just said you didn't see something breaking out or bearing out near term, despite all the factors you mentioned. Well, I think that with all the factors, I just sort of expect a sideways outlook. You know, like I, and I think that that sideways outlook in low liquidity environments could lead to more on the downside. But I just don't see, you know, I see that we get more infrastructure, regulatory clarity going on. But I don't see some giant sign of massive liquidity entering into these markets just yet.

I see it going towards backstopping debt. And I think that that's like a huge difference in how we look at things. And yes, debt will eventually get cheaper and liquidity will start to flow again. I just don't see it happening in the near term. And I think that these conditions should be presented mindfully. I don't think it's a clear outlook just yet. I'm not overly bearish, though. I just think it takes time.

Yeah, that's thoughtful. I'll jump in on the back of that. Just looking at, you know, the first six days of the year, you know, regional banks up 5%, which is like 50% of their average annual gains over the past 10 years. and Alcoa of 15%. The fiscal side of things and the expected cap-X for real economy,

in addition to what you said about the debt funding needs and the debt wall in other industries will absolutely absorb a shitload of capital. So it is complex. You know, it's back to like no leverage in this system.

You know, have a day job while you do this to keep funding going. because you're right, I think timeframes are skewed. But everything we're talking about, those factors you mentioned, do speak to, you know, support and adoption of digital rails everywhere. But you're right, near term, you know, have at it, who knows. I see Lou and then Andre. Dave, is that correct?

Yeah, go ahead, Lou. Yeah, hey, thanks. You know, Scott, you mentioned that the bottom was Silicon Valley. Valley Bank. You know why Silicon Valley Bank was the bottom? Well, I have a lot of theories. Yeah. What's your theory? I mean, obviously, my, I just have theories too. Well, there's a few is, you know, much like in the early days of Bitcoin when there was the banking collapse in Cyprus. You saw people rushing to Bitcoin. I know that I, not even anecdotally, I literally had USC. There was a report that USC had $3 billion in Silicon Valley Bank, and I converted my USDC into Bitcoin. And if I'm going to be totally fair, I didn't do it because I thought Bitcoin was about to go up 10 minutes later, like 25% or whatever it did. I did it just because, to me, it was more certain. I thought Bitcoin would actually go flat or go down on the news.

So it's not like I believed I was making some God tier 25% trade, but I literally said, hey, there's some uncertainty here I'm going into Bitcoin. Yeah, I mean, for me, of eight and a half years, I'm a lot. long-term holder. I'm not a trader, but it is literally the only trade I ever made was on the Silicon Valley Bank collapse because, you know, the people are in Bitcoin because of their belief that, you know, that the world could be coming to an end, right? And they're printing in, you know, just insane amount of money. And everybody who had money in Silicon Valley Bank for a brief period of time came to the realization, not your money, you know, not your keys, not your coins. They had all this money in Silicon Valley Bank and over the weekend, people that know if they were going to get, you know, 99% of their money back.

And so when that happens to people, people say, well, you know, what do I have to do to make sure that that never happens again? They found their way to Bitcoin. And obviously, nobody saw that coming. And my guess is the next catalyst is exactly like Silicon Valley Bank. It's something that nobody sees coming. But we all know the world's heading in one direction, in my view. And it's just a matter of, you know, when the next thing's going to fall, like Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Valley Bank that gets people to wake up and see what's really going on.

I tend to agree with that. I think Andre was up next. Yes, I also think, like, was related to this kind of bank term funding program, BTFP, which sounds eerily familiar to BTFD, right? But, yeah, I mean, I just want to want to discuss, like, what Amatoa brought up about the labor market. I mean, I agree, like, the labor market in the U.S. is still like bad, but it's actually improving, right? If you look at things like the ASA staffing index, one of my new favorite indices, to be honest, it's like a weekly index for like staffing activity

in the US. It's re-accelerating, right? Temporary help services in the US, which lead like non-farm, payroll employment, all these things, right? It's also re-accelerating. If you look at small business surveys, like the NFIB, it's also improving, right? So I think my, even from a macro point of view with respect to like employment indicators, consumer sentiment, this is going to improve going forward. And it's very much depressed, just like the Cryptofi and Greed Index. Consumer sentiment's very much depressed. But by the way, there's an interesting correlation between consumer sentiment and the

crypto fee and greed index. And so I think this kind of improvement in consumer sentiment because of like, the improvement, the labor market, could also lead to, like, an improvement in crypto sentiment going forward. And one key observation about the cycle is, like, we haven't seen, like, large retail participation, right? If you look at Google trends for, like, Bitcoin or, like, crypto, right? It never went parabolic, right? We have these kind of mini-cycles, but no, like, law off top, right? But one of my kind of out-of-the-box thesis for like 2026 is that we see like renewed retail participation because labor markets improving, etc.

Plus you have this whole institutional story, right, Hmong Stanley, ETF, Vanguard, etc. Right. And also, by the way, on liquidity, I think we do see like a decent liquidity environment as in like global money supply, right? and also financial conditions. I just posted that chart. It's like the Goldman Sachs Financial Conditions Index. It's near all-time laws, meaning it's like the loosest financial conditions ever, right?

And I generally think like a key topic moving into 2026 is like a mispricing of Bitcoin relative to the macro environment, which is very good, like very positive. If you look at things like global money supplies, like big. Bitcoin's undershooting world money supply. If you look at them, growth outlook, Bitcoin's essentially pricing in a recession, which doesn't make sense, right? If you look at really forward-looking indicators, like global growth will most likely say extraordinarily robust in 2026, no recession whatsoever. So I think there's like huge upside potential for Bitcoin in 2026. I can't see any hands at the moment, Dave.

Do you? Yeah, I see I see marks, but it could be a phantom hand, and I see Andres is a phantom hand. Never a phantom hand, David. I do think that there are a couple of stories that we haven't talked about that are, that in past times, people would be screaming about one way or another. I mean, you know, and we're talking like massively important stories. So, you know, people, someone mentioned, I think it was Amatoa mentioned about fraud and the percentage of GDP. and the numbers are staggering. I mean, Elon has been saying it, and now we have a pretty good idea of where it's coming from, and people are just getting crazy about it.

But one of the stories that I've seen no one in crypto talking about, and I can't believe that no one's talking about it, is Scott Besant yesterday. He said something that's completely reasonable, but think of the implications. What he said was of your on government assistance, they're going to block your wire transfers, sending money back home.

I'll let that sink in for a second because while it sounds, look, I think it makes perfect sense. I mean, if you're on government assistance, why the hell should you be able to send money back to another country? I mean, the whole point of getting government assistance is that, you know, you should be able to live here. And we could argue whether or not people that are from other countries here illegally should be able to get government assistance. And we all know my opinion is that that's incomplete bullshit. But what he said was they're going to use, weaponize the banking system. system to stop wires out of the country. Now, that's the kind of story that would generally have created a firestorm in the

crypto world saying, you see, you see, that's why you need crypto rails. And we're hearing crickets. I'm curious what, what people think about that. Nothing? Crickets, really? Well, it's certainly common sense. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly common sense. Amatoa, go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, I would say that, Dave, why is there maybe crickets on this? is just the complete, fed up, overwhelmed malaise of people, not in the crypto world, but just because due to the scale and size of the fraud and realizing the amount of money that's been giving in these welfare programs that has been just absolutely exported out of the country is staggering, right? So it's so staggering that when you hear these things, When you hear the DOJ is going into California or Minnesota, going to California after Minnesota, whatever they're doing, people are like so fed up on it's so late.

It's too little. It's too late. Like finally, who's gone to jail? Like, who's actually been responsible? Who's actually been held accountable? Like, it's great that you're addressing these things, et cetera. So, I mean, I think that ultimately, there's just going to be a lot of people who

you can basically say crypto is important so that people who are on welfare programs can figure out creative ways to send money that comes from our taxes out of the country but ultimately ultimately I think what does have to happen

here is better systemic rails that have accountability built in within our government institution and how money is distributed. I mean I think that that's the actual story date. I would add to that. I'm not, I totally agree with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, I mean, I think it's insane that people should be able to, to, to send money out. I, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not disputing what they're saying.

I'm just saying that. Totally. That, that, that I'm surprised not that, I guess people. Yeah. I'll tell you this, Dave. There's an answer for your question, and it doesn't just apply to percent. It's that there's too much important news for any news to be important right now. Well, I mean, you know, like we're screaming Morgan Stanley is doing all their things and all this stuff. And at the same time as we're talking about what the cent's saying, we're literally talking about buying Greenland going on land missions in Mexico and taking Venezuela. So I think there's just news fatigue. I don't see how any story can actually be meaningful when there's so many.

stories. Well, I mean, the most meaningful story by far from a global perspective is Iran. I mean, nothing's even close. I mean, there's that and every and all the other stuff I think is distractions, you know, frankly. That's the big one. And that's, and that has huge implications. And that's the least reported. That's the least reported here. Well, it's least reported because it doesn't fit, right? You know, and look, they cut the internet there, right? So the real question is, the interesting question is, you know, they cut the internet. So the government, did that, you know, if we have no idea what's going on that. We literally don't. I mean, I don't. I mean, you know, you see some pictures smuggled out some stuff. I mean, you know,

are Bitcoin nodes still even operating in Iran? I have no idea. I mean, all of that is going to become very, very interesting in the future as well. But the news cycle is just insane, just not crypto news, but it's insane between all the stories that you mentioned, you know, there's so many others. Anyway, William, you put your hand up. So no, I was going to ask you, David, when you commented about what Besson said, and why would crypto be that use case that allows anyone to circumvent the law? So I'm not sure. No, no, I didn't say it would. In fact, it wouldn't. I think the opposite. You know, my personal view is that the biggest problem and the thing that Amatea was talking about, a lot of this fraud, that the biggest problem is the fact that we don't

track all the money that comes into and out of NGOs, right, these non-governmental organizations. And crypto is the answer there, right? Every single dollar that gets funded to an NGO should have to be on a blockchain and we should have, you know, this is stuff that in the early days is of Doge, this is exactly what Elon was talking about. People have forgotten it's been memory hold. But the truth is, if you want to stop fraud, you make all things that should be traceable and have no reason to be private because there's no reason whatsoever for it to be private. If an NGO donates money to another NGO, which goes to another NGO, which makes signs for protests, and that money originally had originated in the federal government, I think everyone

could say, well, that's ridiculous. I think that, you know, New York is about to expand childcare. I think that's great. But when you expand child care and people can claim it, you know, by babysitting your sister's children, that's horrible, right? You know, there are people out there that are really hurting. I mean, I saw Robert up here earlier. I don't, I guess he's not there now. But there are people, you know, if you look at the cost of someone who's, you know, a 27 year old, once you get 26 or 27, what does it cost to buy health insurance?

What does it cost for rent? And even if you have a decent job, you're worse off than these people in Minnesota that are bilking the federal government by far, and it isn't even close. And so the amount of anger, but it's being misdirected. And so, you know, crypto is an answer for a lot of these things, and people just aren't talking about it anymore. And, you know, there's a lot of different blockchains that could solve that problem. That's what I was getting at, William. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that would require some changes. It's a good idea to have transparency from the get-go for those for whom transparency matters. And not

I like that idea. To answer the question about whether J.P. Morgan saying that derisking is over and what it means, I mean, I'll see it. I mean, I'll believe it when I see it, meaning that when the prices stop to move altogether at the same pace without any regard of any difference between them, then I will believe that we have more smarter investors in the space. But until then, I think it's all the same as far as I can see. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, just looking at these markets, I mean, like even today, like just now, I mean, while we were talking, Bitcoin went from 89 something to 91. Where did it get to almost 902? I mean, basically, 91 or something.

Now it's now back to 90. So we are starting to see some volatility. I mean, some of these candles. I mean, look, you don't know, you know, what's happening, you know, or people, is there someone just implemented a stupid trade and just. just because the market as I can't remember if it was Andre Arametteo that said it, but the markets are much less liquid at any instantaneous point in time than it used to be. So the order books are thinner, meaning if you want to push a price, you can. Now, wanting to is kind of crazy, right? You know, arguably wanting to should be because, you know, if you're trying to push the price and you really want it to be that way, there's only two reasons.

arguably you have a big position and you're just trying to market. But that very rarely works. The other is you're trying to manipulate it. And I'm not saying that that's what's happening. I think most of the time people push prices because they don't really know how to execute and they don't feed it into the market. But we're seeing a very jittery market out there except when you get to certain levels, in which case things hold.

So I'm curious, you know, but we are seeing some interesting signs. I mean, you know, we are crypto town hall. And there are, you know, like the fact that even this morning when when Bitcoin was down and Ethereum was down, Solano was up, right? You know, we see Tao, you know, BitTensor, which, you know, fell really far is now getting back towards the middle of its range. You know, we are seeing signs, some green shoots in the market of places where it doesn't look like death and disaster anymore, despite fear. This space was downloaded via spacesdown.com. Visit to download your spaces today. read on at least on bitcoin fearing greed being in fear for i mean what's the streak now it's like two months or something like that it's kind of crazy i think it's historically long right yeah i think

it is and yet most people who are bitcoins are basically like eh you know whatever you know this is a long-term play i mean it is amazing how we have so much fear you know technicians saying that any rally is to be sold, you know, et cetera. And then we have people who believe this is a historic opportunity and we should just, you know, chill and let the time and let time go on until we actually get to a catalyst. I mean, Gary, you're in the audience. I don't want to put you on the spot. But, I mean, the truth is, is that from a Bitcoin perspective,

you're probably getting less questions about it. Grant is probably getting less questions about it. But I don't think anything has changed. If anything, I think you're probably more bullish, right? Yep. There's absolutely nothing. And I appreciate you guys doing this every morning. I know how hard it is. Scott, love some of your recent comments about value, by the way, on your post. Thank you. That's awesome, dude. Like, if I wish I had that clarity at 50 or 48. I think you're 48. I'll be 50 in November. Yeah, you're close. 49. Yeah, look, I think my banker called me the other day from BB&T Truist.

heard from him yeah i hear from them twice a year and hey what are you thinking about bitcoin and what are you doing and there's some you know more intelligent questions more real interest but it's a lot less noise you know a lot less uh i guess the word would be fud or you know what whatever um much more mature questions and i think the uh people that understand this They're, you know, just they're not posting about how many Bitcoin they're buying every day. I have no need to do that. My brother doesn't have any need to do that. It's a very different buyer coming into this market.

And I think, look, I just fall back and realize between the era of 20, 20, call it, 2015 and 24, this has been a very, very small. group of people. I think we still really think this is a bigger market than it is, and it's a tiny, tiny, tiny market, which I think is the upside. And all I have to do is look at gold and silver. I don't need to look at the gold and silver people and go, oh, look at them. They're, like, this is a, that should tell us everything we need to know, right? That gold and silver and what it's doing should tell us everything we need to know about Bitcoin. That's right. So, yeah, I'm much more confident, dude. It's actually a more peaceful confidence, whereas four years ago, I was like,

it was a little too much adrenaline confidence, you know? Now it's, oh, shit, dude. I, like, I spent two hours of my daughter last night talking to her about this. She's 18, and she's just getting to a stage of private schools, right? She'd never heard the word compounding, ever. Like, that's, that's true. It's absurd. My child is 18 years old, does not understand compounding. And to me, that's just heinous. And if you don't understand Bitcoin, I don't think you understand compounding. Well, Gary, I mean, we have a innumeracy problem in the country, and economic literacy is just awful.

I mean, you know, look, you can say whatever the hell you want to say. Politically, you could be left, you could be right. But there's a simple fact, which is in the history of humankind. I mean, we're talking tens of thousands of years of recorded history, 5,000 years of modern history. There has never once, I mean, literally never once, that an economic system arounding socialism or communism that has ever succeeded. Not once. Every time they have to end up reintroducing incentives. Yet, more than 50% of college students believe socialism is a better economic system.

Now, the truth is that we don't have capitalism today. And so they don't really understand it. but people don't get to dig below the surface because they're not being taught. There are economics students, economics majors, who don't understand this. Don't understand the fact that you could have an economics degree and not understand what incentives are,

that you don't understand what compounding is, that you don't understand the notion of net present value is just, it's crazy, but it's true. And so that's the world we live in. I mean, it makes me very cynical, but it is, it's important, and that's why a lot of this stuff matters, right? I mean, that's what you're seeing.

I see Amateo and Andre with hands up. I think Amateur was first, to be fair. Amateur, go ahead. Andre, go ahead. Andre, go ahead. He's brought away from the mic. I just want to mention, so, Gary, you mentioned, like, gold and silver, 100% agree. I mean, gold, silvers, like, both are, like, silver has more than doubled, right, in 2025.

Gold has almost doubled in 2025, right? and Bitcoin has went down, right? It's such a big mispricing, right? And I think it was like Stephen Perronaut, right? The guy who also works on the power law, I think he works with Giovanni Santostasi, right? He made like a Granger causality analysis between like gold and Bitcoin, and gold actually tends to lead like Bitcoin price action by like, I think 13 weeks or 12 weeks or so. So that would imply that the price.

action you saw in gold would eventually be reflected in Bitcoin as well. And I've been saying for like probably too early, way too early, but I've been saying for like months that that you could really see a capital rotation from gold to Bitcoin once you see this kind of renewed risk on environment. Yeah, I think I think it's worth talking about. I mean, Silver is something I've been watching very closely. And I keep telling, I believe that when Silver finally establishes in a range where it gets less interesting to the speculators, that will be, that's when real all season starts. Because I think silver is the, I mean, it's bigger than gold now,

but it doesn't, bigger than Bitcoin now, but, you know, it goes back and forth. I mean, the, you know, I, people, I got a lot of crap from, you know, and I'll beat them up again on Monday, from McGlone, who, who basically told me, oh, no, silver's going to 50. And when the CME raised the margin requirements, that will prick the bubble, here we are, it's back at 80. So it's literally back to the price that it was before the CME did both first and second rise and margin requirements.

And the reason is because the money that's driving silver is it's the same idea as gold, but it's on steroids, right, because silver has more volatility. There is a base case of need. And so gold, the base case we need was central banks. And then there's a hotball of money that speculates. And silver, the base case of need is we've been in structural deficit for five years. and that deficit is accelerating because new battery technology requires

double the amount of silver as old battery technology, solar cells, all sustainable activities, all military. Trump said he wants to put $500 billion more into the military. How much of that is going to go into cruise missiles,

each of which need 13 ounces of silver? I mean, just the amount of demand is crazy. At the same time, the Chinese have considered silver as money forever, and they still have the, they still have a massive surplus where they have to recycle dollars into something. So all of that is getting speculators really excited. And the truth is the silver gold ratio has a real shot of going back to where it was in the 70s,

which is in the 30s and compared to here. So look, my base case for silver is triple digits for sure. But when that stabilize, whatever level it stabilizes at, that money is going to start looking for other opportunities, right? At a certain point, people say, okay, it's stabilizing. We can't get it above this. And then they start looking. That's been what's caused all seasons every time in crypto.

Well, Bitcoin has been sitting here, and then it's very easy to say, well, wait a minute, it's underperformed. And so it's a very obvious rotation that I think will happen. I just don't know when. I mean, it might be in June. It might be next year. I have no idea. But that's what I think is likely. Amato, are you back behind the mic?

I am. I lost you guys for a second. Sorry. That's okay. Yeah, I think it's a, I totally get that thesis, Dave. And I agree with you because I was going to ask you, like, what's your timeline on that? And I don't know either. Like, eventually we will return to risk, right?

And like the risk appetite will increase. I think the thing that I've sort of been seeing is, funny, like JP Morgan says de-risking is over. I'm not saying that. And I'm saying that it's actually the opposite, that we're starting a much larger trend derisking, and precious metals are signaling that. Eventually it will turn over, right? But I just think people thought that that risk appetite was coming

as soon as the start of the year kicked off. And I just wonder your thoughts on this day, like the risk appetite, and maybe it's just coming a little bit later than people thought. Let me, hey, can I just bounce in here? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Look, I just want to challenge that.

Andries and Horowitz just raised this, what, five or six funds, $1.7 billion in each of them, I think, if I understood this correctly, that suggests to me there's a lot of risk on. Like, we're seeing, you know, Westinghouse and some of these large companies that were dead get major investments from either government. or, you know, the deal that META discussed today on the power deal. So is it really that it's a risk-off environment? Because I think there's still a lot of money sitting in cash that's yet to be deployed.

And when I see Andreessen raising that kind of money, and somebody maybe should explain to the audience what I'm talking about. I don't have the data, the facts. like that's a shitload of money man and it's not going to go into analog businesses right it's going to go into businesses that need to grow that's building for this future digital technology boom that we're going through you know i'm not trying to be uh argumentative but it just is it really a risk off environment i think that that that You know, I don't believe it's a risk off environment.

I think that, I mean, just look at the NASDAQ where, you know, and basically at all-time highs, you know, the AI trade is alive and well. The tell here, Gary, is the IPO market that's going to shape up as the year goes on because this year is shaping up to be maybe one of the biggest IPO years on record, like ever, you know, in terms of total. Agreed. And so that does matter because that money does have to come from somewhere, but that so people are, I don't want to say. say the word hoarding cash because that's bullshit, but people keep their money in the market until they have to move it around. But I think that does matter. I mean, look, we're going to get a taste of risk today. I mean, you know, the Supreme Court decision that's coming out is extraordinarily important. And I don't know when, what time today it will happen, but the idea of, this is on the

Trump tariffs for those who understand, you start talking about risk assets. I mean, there's basically three things that could happen. The most likely is a non-event. The most likely is a non-event. The most likely is they strike down his ability to use them in the future without congressional, at least under that particular statute, but leave all the tariffs that are currently existing in place. Now, if that happens, it's not that big of a deal. Markets will move on. That's the one that Polly Market says is most likely. That's what the markets are saying.

But they could do one or two other things. They could approve the tariffs, in which case, then people are going to be like, oh, God, here we go again. And, you know, a lot more uncertainty in the market, et cetera. and Marcus see your hand up, so I really want to hear what you think about that. Or they can go the other way and say they all have to be parked out. In this case, it will be chaos. And with so many chaotic answers, I almost don't even want to go through them.

By the way, Mark, it's a lot of back. Yeah, the word chaos is there. It's, you know, Amateo kicked off the call, talking about all the factors. And that's why he thought, you know, liquidity may not leak into Bitcoin. coin and crypto first because of all the other draws. And Supreme Court, I have no opinion, but the fact that you sort of stopped or ended the conversation there, that's where all these investments are being made. Trump and Besson are trying to throw open the gunnels of liquidity and unshackle markets for everything to be investable to get that nominal growth up

to overwhelm our debt. So as far as like the, you know, the digital risk on and risk off is more nuanced because, you know, again, the, the Russell 2000 is up more than the Russell 1,000, which is not last year. Honeywell's up 6%. It was down 6% last year. So I think that money is seeking these hidden gems that will benefit from either an AI build. You know, like you said, Dave, was that Westinghouse or another company that you slotted as. And he said Westinghouse, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Westinghouse. So I think it's way nuanced. The word chaos or, you know, the bid is turning over every rock for what hasn't been run yet.

That's why Mag 7 as a group are down this year. They've already been turned over. What's next? So the market is seeking an enduring profit trade for 26. They haven't found it yet. And things like the Supreme Court are certainly catalysts. And yes, I wouldn't be surprised to have IPOs, which are more promised than anything else, be the next opportunity for banks and markets. For the record, I think the trade for 26 is, it's funny that I'm going to praise him now.

You know, in fact, they lambasted him a couple weeks ago. But Jordy Visser, I think, had a pretty good take on this. I think best to describe it as infrastructure, AI-related infrastructure. By the way, that includes Bitcoin. That's where the spending, a lot of the money that's going to get raised in this IPO wave is going to go. And, you know, the economy is being transformed. We know, I mean, just look at the GDP reports and the estimates. I mean, the estimates of the next quarter GDP is going to be over 5%.

That's what the best estimates are. And, you know, that is a big deal, right? You know, and you could argue where it's going or how it's going or why, but the fact is, they are absolutely going to do everything they can to run it hot. And I don't see any scenario where some of that isn't obviously in risk assets or any scenario where some of that doesn't end up in Bitcoin simply because of what you have to do on the fiscal side to make that happen. And it's like people don't understand.

There are a lot of people. I've seen people saying, well, if they catch all this fraud, that means you're going to be able to reduce budget deficits, et cetera. You know, and that, I think, yeah, Adam, you're putting the laughing, because that's exactly right. I think that those people are absolutely out of their effing minds. What will actually happen? If you did catch a lot of fraud, great.

That money will get spent in more productive places or more useful places or less useful depending on how you define it. I mean, he wants to put $500 billion more into the defense budget, buying shit, right? You know, it's much more likely that if they find fraud, that they will actually spend it and get it in the hands of people who might use it more and not send it back to Somalia or wherever the hell else it's going and take it away from politicians, et cetera. The likelihood that we're going to be able to cut budgets and get to a balanced budget seems almost impossible without enormous amounts of growth.

Adam, you're giving the 100%. Bro, I mean, come on. It's like we run this game. We know that there will not be cuts. I mean, it's such a joke. I think the best meme of the last week was like, you know, I don't know. It was an iceberg, right? Titanic heading to the iceberg. On the top is whatever. Minnesota daycares. And on the bottom is California. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like it's a nothing burger. Anybody who's worked for the government like myself at one point knows that there's not going to be cuts. I mean, this is not going to happen. Right. This is this is going to run the way it's been running. And you may get some the money moving in better ways, which of course we all want money to be better well spent. But yeah, do you trust the DMV to spend your money? I just. the answer's no.

Yeah. And so if there's anybody who thinks that we're not going to still continue to have fiscal impetus, expanding money supplies globally, I think you're just wrong. And, you know, when you look at that, that's really, that's the use case for Bitcoin. At the same time that we're having gridlock, you know, in the Senate and lots of people are very worried that the Senate will stall, we won't get a clarity bill, et cetera, at the same. time, all the banks are investing, investing, investing, which tells you chances are that won't be the case because the Senate's going to realize they have no choice but to do something, but we'll see.

Anyway, I spurred CJ to put his hand up. So what do you think? I think you're spot on, Dave. And I think the hesitation that we see in the marketplace is related to what you just said, which is people are realizing that even if you oust fraud, you know, it's that saying, it's the Lynn Alden saying, right, nothing's stop. stops this train. Like we're going to stop fraud, but we're going to spend another 500 billion on the military. Like there's no possible way that the dollar isn't going to be diluted. And in previous cycles, what we saw was big, big players, they have a lot of debt, right? Because they use debt as a tool. And to service that debt, they need the dollar, right? Because if you have the debt, you're short the

dollar. And if you get the usual DXY running up to the top of the chance, you can be in panic mode if you don't have the dollars to service that debt and you can get destroyed you can get crushed but i think what's causing the hesitation is the realization that wait a second the best way to get long dollar debt is actually gold and it's kind of like it's kind of shell-shocked portfolios for their defensive posture where they would typically be holding u.s treasuries so that if the dollar does make a roll, run than the laborless service that debt without getting absolutely destroyed and have to play games in FX markets.

But there's been this idea where it's like, you know what? There's constant dollar dilution and that constant dollar dilution actually makes gold a better, more secure, de-risking position because similar to Bitcoin, but much more so for gold, the dollar denominated debt is actually reduced. the burden of that that is reduced while holding gold. So if you can be in gold and you can hedge your dollar exposure, and you can do that in a way where you don't need U.S. treasuries, whereas before you're like, oh, this is great.

I'm earning interest and I'm hedging my exposure. I'll hold this debt all day. I think there's been a shift in the dynamic. And the cause of that shift or one of the causes of that shift is what you said, which is the world is now realizing, even if you oust the fraud, Nothing stops this train. The dollar must be diluted. They're going to dilute the dollar no matter what.

And what's scary is the other part that you said, which made me raise my hand, they're going to run this thing hot. But dissent came out the other day and he said that the only thing missing for a strong economy is lower interest rates. But GDP is at 4%. So they're going to run this thing nominally. I think they're going to try to run this thing at 5% plus, maybe 6% plus. and they're going to push it as hard as they can push it.

And portfolio manager saying, hey, if the dollar is going to get diluted and I got a hedge dollar debt exposure, you know what? I'm going to do it in gold because that means gold is going to create a greater return. And even with lower interest rates being the most common sense trade that I've ever seen. Now, granted, I'm younger. I don't have as much experience as some of the people up here on the panel. But to me, the most obvious trade in the world is by the long end of the yield curve. Because Trump gets to replace Powell in May.

As Adam said, he'll get up and running in June. And they're going to push those rates down. Trump was calling for two, but now he's calling for one, probably so the new guy can go to two and say he's not listening to Trump. But rates are going down. People are not front running the Fed. They're actually running into gold because the rate of the dollar dilution means even with the capital gain of lower interest. interest rates of front running the Fed. It's not as good as a value proposition.

The risk dynamic is not as secure as just holding gold to protect that hedge. And I think this is a this has never happened before. I've never seen this happened. And I think that's why gold is up over 60% silver. Yeah, I don't know, more so gold. But that change in understanding and dynamic in the marketplace is shifting how big portfolios hedge dollar denominated debt. It's no longer in UST.

in gold. And I think that that is kind of what's leading to this elongated consolidation right now. Portfolios are still getting positioned. They're still trying to figure out, do we wait for a gold dip or do we or do we make this move? Because if we don't rebalance and we're holding treasuries and they want to run this thing hot, we're screwed. We're going to lose a lot of real purchasing power and we need to protect our balance sheet. Yeah. I think that the all I can tell, all I can say is, is it's amusing when you watch people talking about gold or Bitcoin for that matter or silver, how they always forget the underlying what's going on in terms of total global fiat currency. I say it that way because the U.S., yes, the U.S. is clearly going to add another 6 to 8 percent

and like it has been every single year in terms of the money supply, but it's actually accelerating in other countries. So it's a global thing. And Bitcoin has not participated in this rally. as a result based on even you know although its hash rate is it's it's fallen from 120 to 100 or whatever but it's still you know depending on how you look at it it's still ridiculously cheap relative to the network and it's not not really ever done this before and so it we are in a situation where the bears are saying or the skeptics are saying well it's going to fail entirely

and the the bulls are saying well no it's just in a low and you know we're you know, one side is going to end up being right. And obviously, I suspect the lull thesis. But at the same time, there are people who think that gold and silver are going to crash back down because that's what the chart squiggles say. But they're ignoring the denominator of how many dollars there are and how many yen there is or how much yen there is, how many euros there are, et cetera. And I think that's what you're talking about, CJ. It's like if your government's, you know, if you're trying to hedge the dollar deficits, you know, that that's what you're doing. And so, yeah, and the other thing that you mentioned, too, earlier on in the call, I didn't get a chance. I was having some technical difficulties, but you mentioned funding rates. And funding rates right now are something that I keep an eye on, you know, all the time. But they're slightly negative. So the overall sentiment is, hey, I don't want to sell, but I better protect my downside. And for people who have been following funding rates, typically the opposite happens. Right. So when the, when the rates are negative, the path of least resistance is actually. to the upside. So I think when you look at all the things going together and there was another speaker in here that mentioned what's happening with interest rates, we are really gearing up.

It looks like this most recent pullback, which is throwing people off because the amount of time that it's taking. And I just think it's part of the maturation of the marketplace, plus the other dynamics that we were talking about in the call. But when you put that all together, you know, this 80 to 90,000, that's pretty much the new floor. And when this thing turns around, people are going to be sorry that they were waiting for 60 when we're well on our way towards a quarter million. Well, that's certainly my belief, but I kind of want no one to think that. I'd like to be alone because, you know, being contrary tends to work better. But, you know, that that is, I think, a lot of what's going on.

I just think that the tell in terms of where Bitcoin will go is what we're seeing in the silver market. And yeah, it's going to take weeks, months even potentially for, it to follow. But I think the fact that they couldn't prick the silver bubble by raising margin requirements, even though they tried, not once but twice, I think it's quite meaningful. And it tells you a lot about what's going on in the world in terms of the value of the dollar. I think to me that that's an important point. And I can't stress it enough, but we'll see. I mean, you know, it's like we're sitting here today. Oh, do we get, well, yeah, you know, it's bouncing around a little bit. You know, the real question is, is when do people care again?

And people will care when, as Scott says, when the one green candle, it's not one green candle. It's going to be my new Christmas song. Yeah. I mean, look, it's just, it's number go up is advertising. And what people really need to understand is the way that rallies happen are they grind higher. They continue, they do so. They are hated. People say no, no, no, no, no, until eventually spirit breaks.

and they go, shit, I have to participate. That's when you see the big candle. But you're not going to see it until that happens. Will it happen? I don't know. You know, I think it will. As I said, I refuse to give time estimates because I've just notoriously been, in my lifetime,

I have been right on the meta stuff so many times. It's crazy, but wrong on timing, which is why I don't buy. I don't use options to express these things. I don't over leverage anymore. I just, you know, it's just a lot safer just to sit there, get the macro right and then take the time to, you know, touch grass, et cetera, or in my case, write a book, which is what I'm doing.

Can't wait to read it. Can't wait to read it. Dan, I think we're just against time. Anything else worth unpacking here? I mean, there's just so much news. It's almost impossible to get there. We don't want to go into any of that stuff. Let's just see what happens.

You know, Ryan Ladd, who's a great guy sometimes up here, pointed out that the Supreme Court said we don't know specifically when we're going to do this. Today was the estimate. So we might not see anything on tariffs. We might not hear anything out of Iran. We might, you know, who knows whether we're going to have civil war because police departments are trying to fight against the federal government. I mean, it's just, and no one's even talking about Maduro anymore

except for the paid protests. Who? Exactly. So who the hell knows? I mean, the media went dark on the Maduro stuff once. the existing government that everyone said would be the same started releasing political prisoners. So I know I'm cynical, but it's it's it's hard not to be these days. Appropriately cynical.

It's kind of crazy. But yeah, I think for Crypto Town Hall, I think it's more, the most interesting question is, is really clarity. And watching the prices of some select alt coins starting to show what you would call bullish divergences. And we are. Yeah, we're seeing a few outperforming that started with the new year. So it is interesting. But people won't care until it becomes a raging bull rally, right? Yeah, well, the problem is it's always been this way with alt season.

Like, it's never alt season if your coin isn't running. Exactly. Even in the most Polish alt seasons, there's people who are depressed because their thing is not happening, right? So it's never consensus. Yeah, well, whatever. Anyway, everyone should have a great weekend. we are at time and uh we'll see you everyone on monday morning better guys