The Wolf Of All Streets - Justin Sun Eats Banana Artwork Bought For $6m | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

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

Hey, good morning, everybody. It's the day after U.S. Thanksgiving. So for those who were celebrating yesterday or maybe celebrating into the weekend, happy Thanksgiving to you all. But just because it was Thanksgiving yesterday doesn't mean that we didn't really have a lack of news in the market. Two things, namely, that were on my timeline was definitely Justin's son eating that banana on the artwork that he bought. I know that's the title of the space here, and maybe we'll get a little bit into that. But I was also following the Hyperliquid airdrop closely and saw that they had reached some pretty insane valuations. I think fully diluted value of the Hyperliquid token

after putting out about 30% of their supply was in the $4 billion range. So I've been following that and then see where that can go. But also just seeing Bitcoin and ETH climb a little bit here is nice to see going into December in a time when the market is a little bit softer, maybe in TradFi. So I do want to throw it over to Peter. Peter, if people don't really follow him, he's a famous chartist in the space that I don't know if famous is the right word. Peter, you can take that as you wish. But I'd love to see what you're thinking is going to happen here in December. Well, infamous is probably a better term to use. All right, we got infamous then. Yeah.

No, there's nothing that surprised me. We had a 9% correction up the highs. That's nothing. When Bitcoin goes down 9%, it's just winking at you. For me, I was kind of perplexed by all of these people who thought somehow that 100,000 was going to be some magic top forever simply because it was a big round number. I do not believe so. The reason is we got too close. Usually people front run numbers. You know if a number is going to really be a significant round number because people front run it and you don't even get close to it. Had we gotten up to

97,000, 96,000 and corrected from there, then maybe I think, okay, 100,000 might be a little bit more meaningful source of supply that the market will have to chew through. You know, I'm not placing any odds that we go over 100,000 now or between the end of the year. We've got a bull market. When you look at the monthly charts, and that's what I look at, this bull market started on November 6th. Now, obviously, bull market really started back in November of, you know,

22, really, not here. But, you know, so we took a pause from March until November of 2024. The market just took a breather from the previous advance. And now we've started another leg. And, you know, where this leg goes, you know, I've said all along, I think bull market and Bitcoin, this current bull market cycle lasts until August or September of 2025. How high it gets, I don't know. That's anyone's guess. I'm not into predicting price levels as much as I am to just having some sort of feel for whether the path of least resistance is up or down. And I look at the charts and everything I look at at the charts say this market's going up

easier than it's going down so that's where i am i i tend to look at open interest a lot and i mean open interest has gone way down um is that a metric that you're looking at as well just to see if shorts were kind of wiped out yeah i i mean the cme had an opportunity to basically pull a lock on the crypto, on Bitcoin, and make itself the center of the Bitcoin. But it blew, you know, it created a lousy contract. And so I don't think that the CME is, you know, the lease that's leading the dog around. I think it's secondary. I don't I'm not really placing any significant value on the open interest of the CME contract or even on the commitment of traders. I'm looking at price action. Price is king and not some of these other secondary

components that people might place value in as technical indicators. Price to me is going up a lot easier than it's going down. I think we're in a bull market. I think we'll continue to be in the bull market for the foreseeable future. We're in the sweet spot of a bull trend. Enjoy it. I'm certainly enjoying it. Dave, I see that sparked your interest. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, there are a few things that are interesting this morning.

I mean, look, earlier as Bitcoin was doing that, that massive 9% correction that Peter jokingly referred to, and everyone was saying, oh, well, we're going to go back down to the 70s. I'm kind of like shaking my head and saying, you know, I think you guys are smoking something. You know, the supply-demand dynamic for Bitcoin has never looked like this. And I mean never looked like this. I mean, the fact is that we all look at Bitcoin in the Bitcoin community as it's 90% undervalued at a minimum. And, you know, that's a big number, right? You know, you're talking about 10 X's. And so, you know, what's going on now is a question of how many more people believe that and are still slowly accumulating it from those on the margin who are trading it. And you see these rotations. Today is fascinating because Peter mentioned the CME. So just a couple of quick facts. I'm staring at my screen and I can see the December futures trading around a little over 100,000. And the November future, which expires today, is, you know, I guess it may have just expired. I think it expires.

I can't remember when the VWAP is or the fine-weighted average price that it uses to calculate it. But it's, of course, right there. Now, why is that relevant? Well, because a $1,400 premium is an interest rate that is much higher than normal. Interest rate's been anywhere from 9% 12 percent, and that's obviously a little bit on the high side. So what does that mean? It means that people who had to roll waited too long.

Now, why does people have to roll? Well, the major buyers of the buying interest on the CME futures is mostly from firms who are hedging either ETFs or structured derivative products. And they're generally the U.S. firms who can't trade spot because if they would, they would know they'd be better off with spot or they'd be better off with perpetual swaps outside the United States. But they're using the futures because it's liquid. And as long as the premium isn't too high, they don't get hurt. And there are other firms who are capturing the financing off of that. So everyone who is focused on the financing, they forget that the reason that there's this financing spread is because of buyers.

So what we're seeing today is I think there obviously are firms who expect that they'd be able to roll cheaper and didn't get around to it. Why does that matter? Well, it means that a lot of people looking at the Commitment of Traders report are saying, oh, well, this shows that it's going to drop. Well, no, it doesn't. There's a structural reason for that. And that's why I don't care about it. But it is interesting because it does prove that there is more speculative demand. Today, we see funding rates across the on coin glasses, blended funding rates as slightly high. You know, it gets a little bit

more than this. And, you know, you could easily start seeing long liquidation possibilities. But, you know, it's it's pretty small. And through this entire period of this last bull market, we've actually seen more longs being liquidated than shorts, which is rather incredible when you consider, you know, that we're right up at the all time high again or right about there. So I look at this market as a lot of people are trading it on the margin and ignoring the fundamental supply demand where, you know, forget sovereigns, you know, whether the U.S. does, you know, we literally have a treasury secretary nominee who's OK with a Bitcoin strategic stockpile.

If that actually comes to fruition, it's just not in the price. Sovereign funds and sovereign countries adopting Bitcoin is not priced in. And I think that's important and really always should be considered. You should be trading around this market, but I'd be exceedingly careful on the short side. I'm not even sure if not only sovereign funds, but just corporate balance sheets are priced into this market either. I mean, it's almost like every single day that it seems like a new company is either exploring it or putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet. I'm not sure if you, there's a, I think it was a Japanese company, Dave,

did you see the announcement about that company? Yeah, I've seen a few. I mean, look, all eyes are going to be on, for better or for worse, on the Microsoft board meeting where, you know, it is definitely not priced in because I think most of us believe there's pretty close to no chance that they would do anything. But there are a lot of companies that are cash cows that are generating lots and lots of cash and cash sitting on their balance sheet that traditionally just buy back their own stock with it. Anybody, any of the majors that goes in the direction of putting even a percentage of Bitcoin on their balance sheet could trigger a stampede. I mean, that's the thing here. I mean, you know, the best analogy to this, the good analogy, you know, to me is is a

stampede analogy. You have a lot of people out there who are saying, yeah, you know, I'm accumulating Bitcoin in small dose. I'm dipping my finger in the water, but we don't have anything close to FOMO yet. So, you know, I'm starting to decide, starting to think that my own prediction, which seemed crazy when I made it, might be too, you know, might be too conservative. I mean, I said 240 for the top of this cycle. And I said it based upon looking at the Bitcoin network growth. And of course, the Bitcoin network is stronger today than it was

back when I did it. And relative to the euphoria that we saw in 21. And if you do that math, you get to 240. But I wonder if any of that is taken into account, you know, as you say, corporates or sovereigns or other major pools of capital. So we'll see, I guess. I mean, I'm not going to change it now. But, you know, to me, this bull cycle still has room to run. I think it is different in the sense that I think there is an entire new cohort of investors into what we would call huddling. I mean, you know, and I think that matters. Dave, that board meeting that you're talking about is going to be December 10th for Microsoft, I believe. And you're saying that most people are thinking that nothing's going to come of it. I think in the trenches of crypto Twitter,

a lot of people are thinking that's going to be the next catalyst and then potential catalyst. Like, do you think this is a non-event and nothing's going to come of it? And then we'll go to Eric after that. I mean, I think that, I don't think a lot of people actually have put money on it.

I think that if I were playing, if our trading options, I would say that that's a pretty good day to be long straddle. You know, for those who listeners who don't know what I mean by that, a straddle is when you buy both puts and calls, you know, because you expect a big move in one direction or another. I mean, I, if you think that people really do have that as an expectation, then when they inevitably say no, then you'd see a drop. I think it may be tradable. It may not be. We'll have to talk about it as we get closer. The reality is if for some small chance they actually did say, you know, we are going to restudy it or we are going to actually do this,

that would be an enormous thing. That would not be a small rally. That would be an all-the-shorts-cover, like as fast as they possibly can kind of rally. And, you know, as I said, I don't believe that that's a likelihood scenario. But, you know, if you really do or if someone really thinks that Microsoft or Apple or any of the companies that have enormous cash stockpiles are going to put 5% or 10% of their cash in Bitcoin, there isn't supply for that right now. Not readily available, not at these prices.

I mean, it's going to have to go to a level where people really need to cash out. The other thing to keep in mind, and people should understand why this happened in 2017, is the general cash raising for expenses tends to culminate before the, really, you know, after the first or second week of December, right? A lot of people have year-end cash raising needs, you know, for holiday presents or for vacations or for whatever. And for tax reasons, you know, they not tax loss selling, but you know, they take their medicine and they cash out then very little of that happens at the end of the year that the last few weeks of the year is all tax related. And with Bitcoin up this year, there's no tax loss selling. So I don't know who's selling that bought that way. So understanding

those flows. That's why you sometimes get the Christmas rallies in good years. You get that last little burst. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it is important to keep that in mind because this right now has all the hallmarks. It feels a lot like November going into December of 17, only with a zero on the end of the prices. Eric, you got your hand up. Jump in. Yeah, I really like the conversation around corporate and sovereigns. I think they are at some level two divergent paths. A Microsoft or an Apple, Apple, I think, is quite frankly, less likely. But Saylor tends to be a very good salesperson for Bitcoin. And so the idea that there's a presentation being made to the board at Microsoft, that to me is very interesting to track. I agree wholeheartedly with Dave that I don't believe that's priced in. If that happens, if you get a Microsoft, if you get, you know, let's say two or three Fortune 500 or Fortune 100 companies looking to allocate some portion of their balance

sheet into Bitcoin, that definitely, I feel like, gets us solidly into a one handle in front of the price and not the lower end. Where it gets really interesting to me is as we go into the earlier part of next year, and how I actually think it's probably a foregone conclusion. I think it's highly unlikely that some sort of strategic reserve for the US is not established and implemented. To me, it's more interesting about how it's facilitated, because if it's done via congressional action, I think it's going to be highly unlikely that by the time the U.S. government actually gets into the business of buying Bitcoin, that they're able to acquire any Bitcoin with even, you know, a one, let alone a mid

two handle in front of it. And so I actually see a more beneficial path, at least from a governmental standpoint, that it would be more shrewd to do it via executive action, because that will at least mitigate some of the front running that I think the public markets would do. But I say all that to say that if the U.S. establishes it, then you're going to see practically every other central bank on the globe start to probably announce, if not strongly consider, some sort of strategic reserve of their own, and then you couple that with public pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and the like, I think we go hyperbolic from there. I mean, I think you could be looking,

if you get two of the three of those things happening, you could be looking at a number that probably is a 2x of David's very bullish 240 top of the cycle. It could easily be, you know, a $400,000 to $500,000 asset inside the next 16 to 18 months. And these are not unlikely scenarios. I mean, the handwriting has been put on the wall. And so it's just a matter of like which domino falls first. If it's a Microsoft, great, that's super bullish. If it's an Apple, maybe. I mean, Tim Cook has disclosed publicly that he personally owns Bitcoin for some time. So it doesn't take, you know, a quantum leap from there for him to, you know, potentially say, hey, we've got this massive cash sitting on our balance sheet

that's quite literally worth less and less every single day and doing less and less for us. Why wouldn't it make sense to do some sort of small allocation into there? But you get a US government going from the 200,000 units that are currently held, adding another 800. And there is just, to Dave's point again, there's not the supply side there. There's not that available in the market. So just sheer economics show the fact that you're going to have massive price appreciation there just based on simple supply and demand economics. So I just I saw this, the title of this room, and I wanted to jump in too, because one thing that I think, you know, crypto is still, it's like a distilled version of the macro market overall. Traditional equities have traded on sentiment in many ways since as long as I've been alive and well before that as well.

Justin Sun on the crypto side, I feel like has taught us all various masterclasses on the power of attention. And so his $6 million in change that he spent on a banana to have what I could only assume was a delicious snack today was probably, what, $100 million in earned media, maybe even more. It's the same thing when he purchased that lunch with Warren Buffett. Exactly. Even even the way he leveraged being the second to Medicoven on the 5000 days, like he understands the power of attention. And I'd actually I would argue that he got more earned media out of being number two on thele to Medicoven, because I think Medicoven just kind of fumbled the ball once he acquired it, versus Justin was still talking for months after the fact about being the second in that auction. So anyways, I just I think it is a fascinating time to be in the space.

Mario and I were just actually talking about this at the Benzinga event last week. Right time, right place. I just need to convince Mario to go to the inauguration. I'm trying to get him to show up January 20th in D.C. Well, he's certainly doing a roadshow right now. I'm not sure if he's publicly announced some of the interviews that he's doing, but he's amazing to think about. You know, if we think that this is all sort of the scaffolding and infrastructure for our digital future, then these characters are going to go down in history. You're breaking up a little bit for me. I'm not sure if anyone else is having that issue.

And there's just such a color of crypto, you know? And like, there's an arts or whereas you're you know i don't know a small country and you're on the market to acquire bitcoin you can't really say that that until you're done because otherwise you'll get front run so at what point do we find out that that well i know i know you know lawyer lawyer you were breaking up there a little bit for me i'm not sure if it was uh poor for for anyone else but i think one of the points that you made was just uh front running and eric you made a similar point um about the congressional

hearings of the u.s actually putting bitcoin on their balance sheet i actually think the the the more logical route is hey any of the of the Bitcoin that we seize, we're never going to sell it and we're going to continue accumulating it through that manner. I don't think that defy logic, Treasury liquidated some of that position. And so now I believe the number sits pretty flat at around 200,000. So through seizure alone, I don't think that you get the extra 800,000 to round out the million that is in Senator Lummis' bill. I believe there's political appetite there to make this a cornerstone of U.S. Treasury holdings going forward, and I think they want to get there as fast as humanly possible. The prudent manner would certainly be

an executive order, in my opinion. If anybody who has that decision making power is a is a prudent trader i think they will be doing it with an executive order yeah i don't think that's right i i don't think it's an executive order i think it's stealthy just saying do it i mean you know that does the u.s government do stealthy well? Yeah, they have, actually. No, I know. I know. Everyone in traditional finance has a statement. I've said it here in these spaces before, so some of you have heard me say this.

You know, I forgot what the official thing is called, Council of Economic Stability. I can't remember exactly what the number is. It is called on Wall Street the Pl Plunge Protection Team or PPT. So you have this group of people from Treasury and the Fed and the White House that have the authority and have done in issues. certainly were an eight. They were certainly active. You know, 15, there was a big thing in August. It doesn't really matter when. But the fact is, there are people in the government who do go buy stuff. You know, when we did QE, they gave themselves the ability to buy really weird shit. I mean, this wasn't just buying US treasuries, they bought mortgage backed securities. I mean, they bought all sorts of stuff. I cannot fathom how it's possible that there's an executive order or laws that say you can buy mortgage-backed securities, but not Bitcoin. I just can't fathom it. I don't see how you would actually write such a law to say that you could, you know, what you could do. So my guess is they

could do so without people knowing. And then as you say, as if you're a trader, the last thing you want to do is buy after you've told people what you're going to do, the answers you buy first and then tell people. And to me, that's always been the most likely scenario. And if that's what's going to happen, then you're talking about something we won't know about until, I don't know, April, May, June, right? You know, so, you know, all the speculation now is all on the basis of lack of knowledge, unless there's somehow a leak. And obviously, the current administration isn't doing a damn thing. It would all happen after January 20th anyway. So it's important to understand the timing here. People are just speculating on what they might do. At this point, there's definitely

nothing being done. Fair point. I do think so. So you're thinking that uh april may is sort of that timeline is that correct dave you know i like peter uh i i hate to try to speculate out what i'm going to be thinking four months from now if i could do that then i'd be the world's greatest options trader uh you know here's here's the the tldr on that is I am not. Timing is one of those things I don't know. I just understand that Bitcoin is an undervalued asset. Bitcoin's asset value to me has always been based on the likelihood that it gains global acceptance as a store of value. And it's never been higher. To me, it's almost, I mean, this sounds crazy, but I think that it's never been higher. To me, it's almost I mean, this sounds crazy, but I think that it's well over 50, maybe a 60, 70 percent likelihood that Bitcoin will, if not demonetize, at least equal gold market cap. And the market is not pricing that even remotely close. So to me, it's it's huge asymmetry to the upside, which is why I, you know, I am I sound like a Bitcoin maxi when I talk about price and I sound like a

hodler. But the truth is, if I woke up one day and Bitcoin was trading at a million bucks and gold was still below 3000, I'd be like, okay, maybe it's time to take some profit. It doesn't mean that I don't think it could go higher because it could, but that's really the question. And so we're talking at numbers that are so much smaller than that. You have to watch what's happening. And to me, I just don't see where the real supply is going to be to knock the market down. And the fact that it's doing so well today, I mean, that we're over 98,000, you know, when we were at 92,000, or actually almost 91,000 a few days ago on the day after Thanksgiving, when most people who are trading are still kind of, you know,

have their food hangovers. Yeah. To me, that's kind of an impressive, this is a very impressive price action today, actually. Agreed. And Lou, that, that sparked your interest to see your hand up. Yeah. Just a couple of things. I mean, first, and I had enough folks on this call, but personally, you know, I don't see the government as being our friend. You know, so, you know, to the degree that they come in and start buying, you know, they can easily come in and start doing some things that aren't as positive for, you know, those of us who hold Bitcoin. That aside, I would say that what I'm most excited about is just the continued adoption, what is not factored in, just the continued adoption around the world of crypto, of Bitcoin as a store of value. And I agree with Dave. I think we're

going to equal gold. And one of the interesting things going on as well, obviously, is that gold is skyrocketing as well. It's up over 30% this year. And so it's more of the dollar going down than Bitcoin going up. And the same exact thing is happening around the world. So it would be great near term if the government put it in as a strategic reserve, but I'm quite fearful the other if the government put it in as a strategic reserve. But I'm quite fearful the other things the government could possibly do. Yeah, I mean, the government is only my friend personally when I think that they can they can pump my Bitcoin bag. So I certainly agree with that sentiment there. But, Dave, you made a point that this feels like the 2017 era. A chart that I was actually looking at was the overlay of November 2020 to the overlay

of November 2024. And on November 2020, Bitcoin started at $13.5, went up to $19.5. We had a 17% drawdown. And then we broke $20K in December. And similarly, this year in November, started at 69, went to almost 100, just had a little bit of a drawdown. And what do you think could be in store here for December, more near term? I mean, typically, it's a little bit quieter in these months. But something that you said before is there's not going to really be tax loss harvesting.

Yeah, I mean, look, I basically sat down as I was cooking, making gluten-free stuffing and turkey and all sorts of other stuff yesterday for what was just a gluttonous food fest. I kept looking at my phone, and thankfully, I didn't have to deal with November of 2020. I still have flashbacks to November of 2020 of what we used to call the Thanksgiving Day Massacre. Because I was on vacation, we had rented a house. It was COVID, people might remember. We rented a house in the middle of the Finger Lakes in New York, like out in the middle of nowhere. And I ended up spending huge amounts of time logged onto my computer doing customer support for coin routes because the market was going absolutely batshit crazy.

And yesterday was so calm. You know, the fact that the market is rallied strongly today, it's very indicative of something that is that we haven't really talked about. But, you know, Bitcoin for much of its of its lifetime, what has been Asian led and European led. This rally is definitely being led by U.S. funds kind of waking up to Bitcoin because you can see it. You know, it's it's it's now we're now in a thing when the U.S. is coming in. That's when the rally starts. So you can see that on Google Trends as well.

Like when you search crypto or Bitcoin on Google Trends, much of the traffic is North American based. And Peter, I see that that sparked your interest. You got your hand up. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that parallel to the 2020 chart. Yeah, I hate, I'm always hesitant to say, okay, this is what the past cycle has done. This is what this cycle is going to do

because of what the past cycle has done. But the reality is that the best we have is to take a look at what bitcoin has done in history and try to come to some sort of reasonable expectation where the future is and the present is going to somewhat resemble the past i want to say something that probably is going to come across as a lead balloon but i i want to say it anyway it's not going to make some people happy i sense on social media particularly among the z generations younger generations that somehow bitcoin is going to make everything right in the world for them is that all i need to do is own

bitcoin and that is their future and their future will be well taken care of because they happen to own some Bitcoin. And, you know, Bitcoin is going to somehow right all the wrongs that have taken place in the world of global finance. And, you know, I want to say I don't think that way. As a matter of fact, if you take a look at the history of Bitcoin bull market cycles, and I personally think we are in the fifth major bull market cycle in the history of Bitcoin. We have seen exponential decay. You know, you take a look at the original bull market in cycle 2009 to 2021.

Price expanded by over 3,000 X. You know, next big bull market 2011 to 2013. The market price went up 572 X, those kind of exponential rallies are over. I hate to tell you that they're over. Buying a Bitcoin is not the answer for somebody who is 25 years old that thinks, okay, I'm going to own one Bitcoin and that's going to take care of my financial future. I don't see it. I just don't see it. Now, Bitcoin is my single largest financial holding outside of real estate. I mean, so I'll make that clear.

I mean, I don't own anything like I own Bitcoin, but I think the days of 10x, 20x, 30x rallies in Bitcoin within a bull market cycle, frankly, I think those are over. I mean, right now, if you take a look at the Bitcoin rally from 2022, 2022 lows were up 6.4 6.5 x from the low i don't know maybe it would go up 10 x but i think that i think we're going to continue to see decay exponential decay in bull market rallies that doesn't make me a bear don't you know don't start calling me a bear uh because because I don't see anything that I can create a macro case for that's more bullish than Bitcoin. But my point is there's a lot of stocks out there today that I think will outperform Bitcoin in the next four to five years. I don't know what those stocks are. I just think they're out there.

So Bitcoin being the end all and the solution to everybody's economic problems, I think, are over. But point made, I'm sure that's not going to make me popular. Peter, I definitely appreciate your balanced takes. And I'm not going to call you a bear. I actually remember following your charts back in 2017, which was my first cycle in Bitcoin, got in in 2016. And I remember calling you a bear enough during those ages. So now that we're at 100K Bitcoin, I don't think that I'm going to give you any flack there. I appreciate your balance take.

Lou, I saw that you had your hand up. Oh, maybe I didn't take it down uh but uh yeah i've i've got a million dollar price target on uh bitcoin in 2031 it was 10 years based on it equaling the value of gold gold was about a 10 trillion dollar thing i said it was going to go to 20 trillion and i think that we're actually tracking uh ahead of that if you look at the long-term thing. And I think, is Bitcoin going 100x from here? I agree, probably not. But 99%, way more than 99.9% of the world lives their whole lives and never has a 10x. And to have that kind of possibility, even if it just is a 10x over the next six or eight years, for Bitcoin is still an extraordinary return,

let alone everything else that's going on in the space. Back to Peter's point, I think the narrative for the person that you're talking about, that 25-year-old who thinks that Bitcoin is going to be their financial savior in the future, the math is really easy to do for normal folks. It's like, hey, there's only 21 million available. If I can acquire one of these and X amount of people in the world need to acquire them, then the price could go to X. So on one hand, we're getting Lou kind of having this million dollar sort of price target in 2031. And Peter, you are saying that you certainly believe in the macro fundamentals of Bitcoin. But what would be your real case for not really buying into the million dollar

Bitcoin narrative? We still have to discover what the real value of Bitcoin is. I mean, I'm just sitting here working out, what does Bitcoin have to do to be equal to the central bank holdings of gold? What's the value of central bank holdings of gold? Central banks hold 37,000 metric tons of gold. may be able to put that number in their head together and figure out that if we've got maybe 19 million bitcoins or 20 million bitcoins that that survive all those that get locked up in some thumb drive and people forget their you know their magic number to get into it you know what does that equal and so yeah why would you only look at gold in the that's held by central banks? Right. Lots of people all around the world own gold like they own. That's true. But if but if we're making the case that Bitcoin is not a transactional crypto coin, which in my mind, it's not.

I mean, Ether and some of the other junk that will be created over time, those will be the functional coins. Bitcoin for me is just basically the ultimate store of value. And so that's the way I look at Bitcoin is that Bitcoin will be the thing 10 years from now that all other assets are valued in. Right now, major economic assets in the world are valued in dollars, crude oil, gold. The US dollar is, in effect, a proxy way to express the value of assets. I think in the future, it'll be Bitcoin. And so basically, then Bitcoin becomes that thing that over the next hundred years will buy the same amount of value. Once it reaches whatever that value is, you know, then it'll go up only relative to the cost of the cost of things it buys. So, you know, there's a level at which Bitcoin will reach equilibrium in terms of being

a store of value. I don't know where that price is. Maybe it's a million bucks. But from that point forward, then Bitcoin only advances based on inflation rate. And so I look at it as a relative to what the central banks look at it is, because I think then Bitcoin becomes the equivalent of US dollars, it becomes the equivalent of gold, it becomes the expression of store of value. And so I don't care how many people like gold, I don't care how many diamond ring or gold rings people have, you know, sitting in their closet or, or that sort of thing, or gold plated, in the case of Trump, maybe a toilet handle made of gold or whatever the case may be. For me, that gold is that amount of gold, which is being held by central banks on gold being held by the public, not gold yet to be mine. And so that's, for me, the magic number is to plug in a price of gold in the future.

Let's say $5,000 an ounce gold is somewhere where we're going to go in the next 10 years. And that Bitcoin, in effect, becomes the equivalent in terms of store of value to gold, then you can work out the price. Dave, jump in. Yeah, I think that, you know, I look at it very similar to the way Peter's looking at it. The difference is, I think when we look back 50 years from now, we're going to see the same sort of thing that we've seen between gold and silver. So, you know, for those who don't know, gold is about 15 times

scarcer in the Earth's crust than silver and silver used to be the, you know, the the most used form of money back, you know, over a thousand years ago. Gold was always for the rich people, silver was for the average person, that was money, etc. But over time, given inflation and else i mean people found gold significantly more usable than silver because anyone who's tried to try to buy a car with silver coins and you you know how heavy that is it's just it's just not portable and so gold effectively demonetized silver in the modern era to where gold trades 85 times the price of silver, give or take, which is obviously that differential I attribute to the monetary value of gold.

I think that it is highly likely that Bitcoin will, because it is significantly more portable, divisible, verifiable, it's cheaper to store, you can use it digitally, you know, on pretty much every vector, it's better money than gold, I think that it will eventually surpass it. And that's why, you know, that's, that's the thesis. And that makes sense. Now, when that eventually happens, well, I mean, you know, these are markets, markets do tend to eventually get to some notion of value. But my point on fundamentals is you can't just trade on fundamentals, especially if you're using leverage, you can get wiped out. But when you start talking about store of value, and you ignore the fact that in India on Diwali, that people buy gold jewelry, not just to wear,

but they go up by gold jewelry as a store of value in an entire culture, one of the largest cultures in the world, it goes well beyond that. It's really all about critical mass of adoption. And so I come back to where Lou comes back to, which is the most important thing is keep your eye on what is the likelihood of Bitcoin gaining that global critical mass of adoption. And I think that's where the market will anticipate it. Because if you wake up one day and multiple central banks and multiple companies and cultures, you know, started adopting Bitcoin as a store of value, then, you know, the price is going to have a zero on it from where it is right now. And it's that simple. And, you know, obviously, these things don't happen in a day or in an hour or even in a week or a month.

But you look back, you know, years from now, you'll look back and say, ah, OK, I see. This was like the best time to buy. And there are good arguments that right now may be the best time to buy. I know it sounds crazy, but in terms of a risk adjusted return, whereas what's the real risk of Bitcoin dropping now? Is Bitcoin going to zero? I mean, leave Peter Schiff? Sure. Although anyone who follows him for financial advice has to have their head examined, given how wrong he's been. But you know, it's that is the question. And so when we wake up on a day like today, where it looks like we're gonna have another one of these,

everyone staring at their screens instead of doing what they would normally be doing today because we may hit 100,000 again. I mean, I don't know. To me, this is going to get old hat and we'll get through it. We'll be talking about, okay, what's next sometime next week. Hey, Dave, doesn't it, does it feel inexorable to you that we're on that march to mass adoption? Yeah, doesn't it to you? Oh, I'm glad about that. to you that you know we're on that march to you know yeah doesn't it to you oh i feel like we wait i i figured i thought we had escaped velocity once we had uh a major candidate you know once trump's bitcoin national speech happened and then you know for lots of reasons i'm you know delighted

with the the the direction of the country seems to be going right now on a lot of vectors, but most importantly, being able to stop banking. I mean, think of where Bitcoin is today in a world where most of the crypto industry in the United States has been debanked or hounded out of the country. I mean, it is not easy for the average normal person to comprehend that when you have the entire, every single major business supporter of an asset has either had to expend either double digit millions of dollars defending what they do, or it has been in the process of leaving the United States. You know, how, when half the world's capital has been treated that way, I mean mean and that has just flipped that that that's not a simple thing that's a massive thing and that has not been reflected in the price yet so yes i think it's inexorable i've been saying this time's different for all the

cycles but i'm going to say it this time i've been wrong every time but i think this time is different okay how i think the the factor of what you just said which is that the united states has made a complete 180 like we have a vision of what we're approaching in terms of digital rails of things right and the enemies to that have just been defeated and not only that but i mean no i i think only that that is all you need like that changes everything right like every time we had any chance of adoption we had some of the most powerful people in the world saying look over my dead body we're going to figure out a way to stop you you're not you're not doing this And now we've got literally the opposite. We've got like Bitcoin holders in the White House. So I don't know. I think this time is different. I

don't know what that means. I don't mean I don't think that that means we won't see, you know, boom and bust and, you know, expect volatility. But I do think it means that there are people who weren't thinking about acquiring some bitcoin that have a lot of money and organizations and entities and countries and i think that all bets are off in terms of psychological barriers like oh a hundred thousand dollars everyone's going to sell it you know it's like well all bets are off i think that's what i think prove me wrong so lawyer the the thesis is uh this time is different because we're not going to have the significant drawdowns or like what is different this time specifically what we are

what's different is that it's just different it's not okay so what i what i mean is that it's not the same right so a lot of the things that we might have come if it's your third cycle you might be getting used to for example you might be timid to get into the market because we know when things go up they go right down and last time i got burned i just think overall you've got a massive sector of people of the market of money of money that wants to get into this has no idea what it looks like they're hearing meme coins their first time they're like i heard bitcoin went up and now i'm hearing meme coins from my daughter and i don't know what the heck to do and you've got a lot of people and money and they're going to turn around in a few months and it's you

know elizabeth warren won't have destroyed it it's only going to be getting stronger and all those companies you know the ones that have been calling me and we've been setting up in, you know, Seychelles that are now calling me and saying, how can we start, like, make sure we're geared up to be ready to look more closely at the United States once regulations change? I mean, I just think it's different. I just think you have to look at it differently from a new lens using first principles. And that absolutely doesn't mean no drawdowns. I think if we're going going to a million bucks it's not going to be a straight line expect volatility and you know don't use big leverage but i just think use it use a new lens fair point panos you had your hand up yeah i think that the the only way that it could be different this time because i've been in crypto since 2014 so I've been through multiple cycles and you hear the same thing around this time of the cycle and you start hearing oh this time is going to be different because oh this government's buying it or this uh they're they're going to be trading

futures on cc uh the chicago um trading platform and and it always ends in like a blow off top and then a 70 plus percent drawdown and what's different about this time but and and what needs to continue is i i think michael saylor is single-handedly propping up Bitcoin right now. Maybe BlackRock as well. But Michael Saylor, every time there is, not even when there's a sell-off, he's borrowing money and just buying more and more Bitcoin. And if he wasn't doing that, I don't think we'd be at 100K. I think we would have had those like multiple 60 50

60 percent drawdowns being pulled back up again and continue we haven't really had those on the way up to 100k we haven't had those big big drawdowns and i think it is because people like michael saylor and blackrock are buying up the Now, the only way that this is sustainable is if other companies do the same. Because if they don't, at some point, if Michael Saylor can no longer borrow money, if lenders stop lending him money, then what happens at that point? If there isn't billions of dollars buying up these dips or buying up Bitcoin, because lenders won't lend anymore, they've lent enough, at that point, we have that big drawdown, we go into that bear market. So for it to be different, we need more people like

Saylor and MicroStrategy, like BlackRock, buying this thing up. And until that happens, I don't think it will be different. Well, I think what I and I don't necessarily just mean Bitcoin price at all. And I think that you make a good point. But I think it's worth noting that Stalor is a black hole for Bitcoin. I don't think that Bitcoin is going to see the market anytime soon. So it does boost the price, but it doesn't change the big picture at all of what I'm saying, which is that by the end of the Trump presidency, we will have crypto rails for everything that are normalized. You'll be trading Apple stock all 24 seven all day. You'll be you'll be investing in tokenized,

you know, wind farms and it'll feel normal. And that's what's different. And that and that means just a new paradigm, I think. Well, to Dave's point earlier, I think Peter Schiff's main shtick with Bitcoin right now is kind of Saylor and what Saylor's doing. And I noted that you said that the Bitcoin that he's buying is a black hole. But I do want to recognize too that people thought that about vitalik's ethereum wallet as well with ethereum like i'm not sure if it's forever a black hole maybe in the near term for sure vitalik never said that and vitalik didn't didn't like sit on his knees and pray to the gods of ethereum like i think sailor at least with his integrity and his and his the obligations

that even fiduciary to stick to his word like that's what he says. Vitalik, that was a bold assumption that someone might have made about him, but he had no such obligation and no such promises were made. Fair point. And Vitalik also sells his Ethereum constantly. Yeah, definitely a newer trend, but no, point well taken but uh dave as we're wrapping up here i saw that you were throwing some emojis there did you have any comments on that yeah i mean the the the idea of the micro strategy as one dude kind of going off you know holding

you know basically holding the price up is just absurd i I mean, it really is absurd. I mean, yes, it was one dude who is important, who is proselytizing, who is convincing people. But what you have to understand is that it becomes a financial product. And effectively, he was the first and first movers have a big advantage. And so a lot of the investors in those micro strategies bonds are doing so for very rational reasons. The returns are the return profile in those bonds. If you believe that Bitcoin is has reached escape velocity is extremely good with less risk. I mean, micro strategies strategy has been in play and it survived a massive drawdown down to the FTX lows. And, you know, people were saying, oh, he's going to go bankrupt, et cetera. And he didn't. And there is very good reason.

So if you're financial companies who have a mandate that the only thing you can buy are bonds, you can't buy anything else, you're getting that. So it's not the same thing when you and when you mentioned BlackRock, and we answer from pro morphis, or however, you know, companies all the time, BlackRock is not the person buying Larry Fink, you know, he's, yes, he's pro Bitcoin, but he's not the one buying Bitcoin. It's their clients, it's their investors, both MicroStrategy at this point, and BlackRock represent an enormous number of investment pools. And so it's not a one-off person. So it's just that risk is just massively overstated and people need to understand that. Yes, the entire investing community could decide, okay, no, Bitcoin is dead. Okay, is it likely? No, but that could happen. But that's literally what you're saying. But to say that is a greater risk because of concentration. I mean, the biggest risk to Bitcoin concentration is Saylor and BlackRock together end up owning so much of it that that is problematic. And we'll see if that plays out. But game theory to me says that's unlikely. But yeah, that is I understand that risk, but not from a herd mentality of selling.

If anything, it's less likely that either index funds don't sell en masse and haven't in any asset class where they have double digit percentages, and they do in equities, by the way, it's like over 15%. So I think that that risk is massively overblown. Yeah, it's a good point that even though Saylor is the face of these buys, there are many, many people behind that. But as we're wrapping up here on a Friday, anybody, any final thoughts?

If not, everybody enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend. I know CoinDesk has a live stream going right now. I just saw it go up a few minutes ago about a live stream watching the Bitcoin charts, Bitcoin chart potentially hitting 100K today. So fingers crossed

going into December here. Everybody have a great Thanksgiving weekend and thanks everyone for joining. Appreciate everyone's thoughts. Take care, everyone.