The Wolf Of All Streets - New Whales Are Accumulating Bitcoin! SEC Vs. Ripple | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

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It's just me on stage with two lawyers. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Oh, Follis is here. So now I'm not the only one up here getting billed. Follis, we have Fred and Carlo. You're being billed $1,500 an hour to be on stage. Are you comfortable with that? This is it.

All I get is echo. So I'm going to assume that he's given up i'm glad though that we do have uh some lawyers today obviously we're going to talk about price action and markets hey fullest please mute your mic i've done it a few times um and uh glad that we have some lawyers today because actually even though it's not the main topic up top, we have to definitely talk Ripple and the SEC's decision to appeal because a lot of people were not expecting that. Metta Lawman was expecting that. He had come on my show a few months ago and said there are some reasons that the SEC might appeal that decision. But I think in context of the conversation we had yesterday with John Reed

Stark here, who was a chief at the SEC, you know, Ripple was sort of, that decision was sort of the one shining light outside of grayscale that we seemingly had in this space, you know, from the courts. And John Reed Stark was quick to point out that in the last, I guess, couple weeks, we've had five pretty aggressive decisions sort of against the industry from the judicial system. So quite a lot to unpack there. I mean, Carlo, Fred, both of you, whoever wants to jump in, maybe one of you can just give us a quick update or overview of what just happened here with the SEC and Ripple. Good morning. So interesting development. Not many are surprised on the legal side of things. It is troubling from the industry side, because we thought we had at least a little bit of clarity

with respect to whether secondary sales are securities and investment contracts. But now this is getting pushed to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Interesting development is that that's happened on the heels of the resignation of the SEC's chief enforcement officer. I think he resigned within an hour of this notice of appeal getting dropped. The appeal will hash out several issues of contention with respect to the application of the Howey test to XRP and to Ripple's launch. And now Ripple is contemplating whether they're going to file a cross appeal and challenge certain aspects of Judge Torres's decision, which granted relief for the SEC. So now this puts everything in play. I did pin a newsletter post that I made this morning, kind of given a quick TLDR of it, Scott.

But that I think sets the table, has huge implications for the space, because we thought we had some clarity on secondary sales, but now the SEC doesn't seem to want to fall in line with that interpretation. The thing I'd quickly add to what Carlos said, which was right on point, is that just timeline, we're not going to get a response from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on this case until early 2026. So there's a lot that can happen in between now and then on the legislative side. So for some reason, now that we've pinned these tweets above, I cannot scroll down to see the actual spaces and who's here and calling anyone.

So once again, a glitchy challenge. Did not mean to sabotage the space, Scott. Yeah, I'm going to remove. Okay, I can see now, unfortunately. So guys, you can check Carlo's thing. That's just a X glitch, not not on on carlo for pinning that i had pinned it actually as well so you're saying the sec it's not a surprise because like i kind of said this is if they can get this reversed it's a complete narrative shift for what the sec

has been trying to do here right i mean uh this was the one sort of surprise to them. And if they can get any clarity, I think straightens their case against Coinbase, Kraken, others. If we have regime change, I'm assuming this sort of goes away. Exactly. Because this was a court decision that we could actually put our teeth into as far as a defensible argument with respect to whether digital assets, in fact, are investment contracts. This gave the entire sector something to cite, although it wasn't binding authority because it came from a district court. It gave us a court decision, which really, I think, put the SEC on the ropes. So now, hopefully, the Second Circuit

sides with the entire industry and not with the SEC on this, because yes, it would potentially be a problem. And it would maybe, maybe this sets the table, Scott, for finally getting the Howey test in front of the Supreme Court again, on a petition for cert based on that future ruling by the Second Circuit, and maybe we can finally have an adaptive test for digital assets, which is not from the 1930s and is more in keeping with this new and innovative technology. Okay, so something else to unpack that you said, because as you pointed out, within hours, we had the SEC chief of enforcement, Graywall, not related to Paul Graywall of Coinbase. What a name coincidence we have there, obviously. But this is the enforcement chief for the SEC, who you could say is effectively the tip of the spear for Gary

Gensler that's been attacking the crypto industry for the past few years. Right. I don't know that we can say we know exactly what Graywell himself believes about crypto, because we know that you do the bidding, I would imagine, of the commissioner and you have a mandate. But either way, I mean, this guy has been aggressively attacking the crypto industry. A lot of people pointed to this as good news. I mean, this guy has been aggressively attacking the crypto industry. A lot of people pointed to this as good news. It certainly can't be bad. But can't we imagine that his replacement, or at least temporarily, Wadhwa, who's the deputy director of the SEC's Enforcement Division, is going to have the exact same mandate and tact as his predecessor. There's no reason to believe that him leaving necessarily means we get a better situation at the SEC, right?

No, that's possible. I mean, there's several, we don't know exactly why he's leaving. We don't know what personal decision motivated this, but everyone can certainly speculate that maybe on the eve of an election, on the eve of the disastrous congressional hearing, maybe he is seeing that the tide is shifting for Gensler. And maybe he chose to exit. Maybe he got a better opportunity somewhere else. Who knows? But yes, you know, it's still the same office. It's still the same mandate that's coming from the top from Gensler.

So it is not necessarily a change in enforcement priorities. I wouldn't speculate to say that it's any way going to change how they're approaching digital assets. But maybe it is a sign that there might be a change in leadership up top. And maybe he took this as an opportunity to exit before that happened. Certainly possible. Fred, what do you think? I think that there's a couple of other things swirling around with the enforcement director on this. He is from New Jersey and was involved. I don't know the extent, but when you're in New Jersey, you're in that high up where he

was in the government. He was in the nexus of Senator Menendez and all of those crazy things that happened there. So I think with some taint on him there and the changing of the guard that's going to be happening next year for the SEC that he's just like, it's time to get out. I don't think it's, I think it's great that he's gone gone but i don't think it's as good for the crypto community as hoped and you know because i i still think the bottom line is is gensler is going to be gone no matter what next

year he's either moving up to bigger and better things if come on oh stop or he's or he's going to be fired. Yeah. That's terrifying. The idea that he would be a treasury secretary, I think it's the one that a lot of people are pointing to. That would be a very interesting path to navigate, I would say, for the crypto industry. Although, you know, we could get an SEC that's more favorable. It's hard to actually unpack how much damage Gensler would do to the crypto industry if he moved on to a different role, or if it's just generally damage to the country. Yeah, pretty much. But the other thing I'll say with Gary is that he could be pro-crypto tomorrow if everybody that was his pay masters told him to. I mean, it's not like he's a super principled guy. If all of a sudden the sign is we're all

pro crypto now that he's going to be the pro is some pro crypto. And that's just the way he is. And which, by the way, he could easily make that pivot in the eyes of the mainstream, not in the eyes of the crypto industry, but he could very, very easily, we saw it with ETFs. I mean, he could very, very easily say, okay, we've eliminated all the fraud. We've gotten rid of all the bad actors. As you know, I taught about blockchain at MIT. I've been a longtime believer in the technology. We just needed to clean up the industry. And now that we've done that, how do you go? Let's move forward, right? I mean, it'll be so frustrating in the crypto community, but that's exactly how that would play out. And only the handful of us

that have been living and breathing this for the last four years would just realize what a kick in the gut that would be, but it's still a win at the end of the day. So it's an ultimate doomsday scenario, Scott, that I think about and keeps me up as a crypto lawyer is deaton beats uh warren uh camilla wins the white house and warren is now scc chief i mean literally tell me that that is just a horrid possibility. I hope that I don't like spinning

John Deaton winning as a negative in any way, shape, or form. But I do think you're right that there will be a place for Elizabeth Warren if she loses and Harris wins. I don't know whether that's an SEC. You could see her going into something that's more of a banking-related role since that seems to have

been her focus. But that is a terrifying, terrifying prospect. That's what i'm here for thanks carlo always brightening my day here when we've got bitcoin dropping and testing you know the 60 000 area once again i do want to pivot a bit because talking about the sec makes me want to puke i do want to pivot a bit to our title here. New whales are accumulating Bitcoin, SEC vs. Ripple. So we had a story about a huge early ICO Ethereum whale that's been dumping. The flip side of that is if you take a look at the chart posted above by Kyung Joo from CryptoQuant, it shows accumulation of Bitcoin by whales. And the gray in the chart is old whales. And the blue in the chart is new whales. And that black line,

obviously, is the price of Bitcoin. So we've seen a flattening for most of 2024 of old whales accumulating Bitcoin according to this chart. But if you look at the blue, which was kind of a non-issue until 2021 that was even there and has tracked old whales, in 2024, you've seen this massive spike in new whale accumulating. Now, in my opinion, that's probably easily explained by ETFs and institutions. But that's still exceptionally bullish to see that these larger new holders are adding massively to their bags here. Right? I mean, Follis, when you see something like this, does it give you any more confidence that we are heading into yet another bullish Q4, regardless of this first few days of price action here?

Yeah. Hey, Scott. I'm sorry at the start. I think my mic was bugging out. I couldn't mute myself, but all good now, I hope. Welcome to X Spaces, which never works correctly ever. I know. Yeah, I was literally hammering the mute button, but for some reason it wanted to keep me speaking. So I had to re-log. But yeah, anyway, to go back to your question.

Yeah, I think BTC is an interesting spot here. Lots of gloom and doom in the timeline. had to had to relog but uh yeah anyway to go back to to go to your question uh yeah i think btc is an interesting spot here lots of gloom and doom on the timeline obviously pulling back you know what is it now from the high must be uh close to 10 right yeah 9.7 is what i'm looking at here uh alter many alts have done twice that um but i mean it's not it's like people are saying you know october has been canceled uh it's it's it's october or october or whatever you want to say um but i mean btc is just retesting uh support level here i i do think that for me the line in the sand and i hate using that term because the proverbial line always shifts um day to day depending on what the price action is giving us. But I think at the moment, what the level I'm looking for is 59k. There's a lot of confluence there for a bounce. I won't go

into the nitty gritty unless you really want me to, but there's a lot of reasons why I'm looking at that level for a bounce. As long as we trade above that, I'm kind of, I'm still in that mode of dips or for buying. I'm still in that mode of looking for upside. I'm still in that mode of looking for upside i'm still in that mode of uh treating october uh you know in a kind of a seasonality sense um but if we lose that level then i'm kind of looking again it's not i'm not uh i'm trying to doom post or or uh or you know say that it's over for the month but below that level and i'm kind of more risk off i'll probably be looking for lower prices into the end of the month rather than higher prices another thing to to think about is um people talking about you know october from a seasonality point of view and saying that uh you know it's

historically a green month in for bitcoin for the crypto especially in election years i think the last two election years that we uh for crypto have had uh extremely green octobers um but a lot of the time i think those that that upside doesn't start until like well into the month i think in one example of an election year october it didn't start until like the 15th and then another it was like the fifth or sixth or something like that so i mean uh we're like the third i mean october is like two and a half days old and people are already saying that uh you know it's uh october is is canceled way too early to say that i would say just for the moment play level to level try not to get ct sentiments uh try not to let it get to you uh and just just play your own charts because at the moment yeah there's a lot's a lot of fear on the timeline, a lot of gloom and doom,

but realistically, nothing to worry about from my point of view, as long as we're still trading, again, for me, above 59K. Alex, what are your thoughts on the market at the moment? Yeah, Scott, actually, I wanted to quote one of your tweets from 2023, early 2023. But before I do that, one of the things that I like to look at, you know, when I'm freaking out, is I just go straight to on-chain statistics. Like that's really the fundamentals really helped me reassure myself psychologically, but also double down on buying the dip. And I think right now, when we look at the statistics, everything is looking good. I mean, total ETF inflow is at its all time high in terms of US dollar nominal value. The number of transactions are also continuing to hit all time highs, almost as good as the month of March, which you guys know

was the top of the market this year. So that is really, really good. We see more and more, we see less active addresses. So I'm assuming people are just accumulating and huddling. So once again, people are seeing it more as store of value. But seeing the amount of on-chain transactions within the lower amount of wallets is really, really good, obviously, for the miners. So I think statistically, on-chain stats are looking really, really good, obviously, for the miners. So I think statistically, it's really on-chain stats are looking really, really good. And if any of those are scared, when you're in doubt,

zoom out and go and look at the on-chain stats, which are healthy. And then I think one more thing, like Scott, and going back to your tweet, an angle that we really need to look at. And one of the tweets that really marked me, I bookmarked it, was the was the fact that you took someone who was DCA from the all time high of the previous cycle at $64,000 every single month, until I believe it was September last year. And that person was breaking even on a monthly basis without timing the market, right? I'm talking about pure automated just buy Bitcoin regularly on a monthly basis and was already in profit above the thirty five to thirty seven thousand dollar range. Probably, Scott, you remember better than I do. But literally, even if you timed your DCA at the top of the previous all time high in terms of Bitcoin price over time, you know, you would be all right. Positive at a very fair price. And right now,

you'd probably be up 150% from the from those probably even now I want you to pin the tweet so I can remember it. But I do remember that. I mean, the idea is very clear. And it's what I share all the time. But it's that if you look at the price action of Bitcoin, we've talked about on the show quite a bit, usually the largest moves come, let's say 10 to 15 days of the year. And usually when it really peaks and has a blow off top in a bull market, it's very brief. Right? I mean, people might remember in the 2017 kind of 18 bull run, I mean, Bitcoin went to 20,000. And then it was back at 13,000 within weeks, right? And it was like this crazy roller coaster, but it doesn't spend that much time there. So if you're dollar cost averaging, you very rarely buy the highs more than, you know,

one or two times. Exactly. And I think Scott, like the dollar cost averaging, just to add a little bit to that is you can do it completely automatically, you can be semi active or just pure, purely active. And you know, for those who just want to do it recurrently, they just set it up there, they're bought and you like you said, you know, you'll be all right, positive, and you'll make money over time. But I think if you're semi or active, for instance, you know, I have a rule of thumb, how do I actually make by the dip actionable is when I'm surprised when I see a big drop in price, when I'm surprised, I can accumulate. But when I'm shocked, when I'm like, I can accumulate. But when I'm shocked,

when I'm like, holy shit, this is a nasty candle, then I'll double down on that DCA. So anyways, just wanted to bring that back, Scott, because I think it's important for us to look at fundamentals and not be afraid of price action due to whatever geopolitical situation, but also have a strategy in place. Yeah, I'm looking at there's a website DCA BTC.com, which I'm assuming I use for that because I reference it pretty often. If you go back and enter into your DCA settings right now, we can say accumulate for four years starting four years ago on this date. If you bought $1,000 versus Bitcoin weekly, which is quite a bit of money. But for the last four years,

you would have invested $209,000. And currently, the value would be $436,400 and a 108% change. If we go back to this date three years ago, you would have invested, let's see, $157,000 and it's worth $320,533. Maybe we go 5 years ago before the last bull market so that you count in. You would have invested $261,000 and you would have $839,000, a 221.46% change. We're cherry picking October's because it's easier here, but you get the idea, guys, right? That's buying through a full cycle, including all the way to all time highs and down to lows. And I know, Simon, you're loving this conversation. No, I'm just gonna say that when people are panicking, yeah, so you know, Bitcoin has a correction based upon some geopolitical tension. You have to really zoom out and remember what Bitcoin does. And at some point, Bitcoin converges to its real fundamental value.

So when I look around the world and I see Bank of America, everyone logs into their online banking and the database just says you have no money. People realize that the need for a self-custody distributed supercomputer is actually incredibly valuable and useful to the world. The ability to send money globally without the government saying whether you can send that in a peer-to-peer transaction is only the benefit you get from self-custody. Now, I know that the regulators are going through an active campaign of suing companies like Coinbase and then getting in the way of any type of regulation that will allow a bank to custody Bitcoin. And then at the very same time, approving the BlackRock ETF, approving New York Stock Exchange ability to trade that ETF.

And then at the same time saying, hey, you know what? We don't want Coinbase to custody it. We'll just give an exemption to Bank of New York Mellon. And then Gary Gensler goes on TV and says, we have a safe way to buy Bitcoin. Bitcoin's a commodity. Buy it through BlackRock, buy it through the New York Stock Exchange, and eventually that will be custodied with Bank of New York Mellon. So when the SEC and regulators are telling you to do it that way, you really start to take check and realize the fundamental value of self custody, especially while the DOJ is also coming after the companies that are creating technology that allows you to self custodycustody. You know,

when governments are telling you all these signals, you really need to do the opposite and recognize what Bitcoin is. And when we've got a bunch of psychopathic investment, psychopathic central bankers all around the world that are deciding the way to stimulate our economy is to create more inflation, create a cost of living crisis, push up the value of stocks and real estate, and fund the whole thing by creating aggressive wars, you really need to understand that the fundamental value of a fixed money supply is the reason why Bitcoin is Bitcoin. And so just take a check back, look at the chart, put it onto a logarithmic scale,

and realize that the demand for money you can own, money you can spend, and money that has a fixed supply has just been meant that the number goes up over a 14-year period. And while you might see a little bit of a correction based upon there's so many people that are thinking in dollars and doing the crazy thing of creating taxable events for their Bitcoin in order to hold some dollars that you're going to get stuck in the banking system that may suddenly be deleted to zero next time you log into your online banking and thinking that that's a good move. Understand the world that we live in today. There is fundamental reasons why Bitcoin has its value. And today is where Bitcoin shines no matter what the short term price is. Thank you. Yeah, now, Alex, you sent me down the rabbit hole on this site. So

I'm looking at, I pinned the tweet above. But now I'm looking at weekly purchases for basically the last three years from the dead $69,000 top. We'll call it, you know, what was the date of that? Basically November 8th of 2021, November 9th, somewhere like that. If you've been dollar cost averaging $1,000 weekly. Since that date, you spent $152,000 and you now have $314,000. You're up 107.06% and price is currently trading lower than your first buy in 2021. To give people some context. You've doubled your money and price is worse than when you bought from the first time. Right? So it should put us in a lot

of perspective uh panos you had your hand up earlier obviously as we were sort of talking markets go ahead and jump in yeah um i mean uh simon pretty much sums up what i was going to say i think he hit a nail on the head there when we was having this conversation last week on this space and people were talking about um october coming up and how historically it's a very bullish month. I did mention, I said that it is historically bullish, but let's not forget the geopolitical situation that's happening right now. And if it does escalate, I can see a dump incoming. And it did recently escalate i can see a dump incoming um and it did recently escalate and what we saw and what we're seeing is a lot of crazy people who think that it's a good time to sell because of war um but as

simon mentioned um what happens and what will happen if this war continues to escalate which i think it probably will is they they're going to have to print a lot more money. And that's what happens during times of war. They need to print money, they need to buy weapons. And this just causes more inflation, which at the end of the day is really good for Bitcoin. So I think people that are selling right now are crazy and it's just causing a buying opportunity for people like us who are smart and are seeing things from a much larger point of view. And I think that like one of the guests earlier mentioned, we're only day three or four of October. It doesn't mean that the whole of this month is going to be red. I do think we are going to bounce back a bit.

And probably by next month when the election is coming up, we'll probably be back up to close to 70K again, in my personal opinion. So, yeah, I mean, most of what I was going to say was summed up by Simon, to be honest. I think he's spot on with what he said there. So, yeah, I mean, most of what I was going to say was summed up by Simon, to be honest. I think he's spot on with what he said there. Wallace, my mic was just doing the glitch.

I was in the glitch. Same as you. So, Fred, do you have any thoughts? I know you're lawyering, but do you have any thoughts specifically on what you're seeing in the market right now? I mean, I align with what everybody else is saying here, like three days and Bitcoin at $60,000 doesn't bother me in any way, shape or form. And it's maddening because I fall into the same fear and greed as, you know, what I would like to say are the normies that haven't been involved in the cycles or in crypto. And it kills me that I want to panic sell and then panic buy almost every time so yeah well i had dan held on my show this morning and he like had a funny tweet that was like three years from now bitcoin drops from 300 000 to 200 000 and everyone says it's dead and it's over and uh you know every single time and he's been here obviously since the very very beginning and every single time we go sideways or even floating down, you get the same sort of narratives. Go ahead, Simon.

Yeah, I also just wanted to add a little point if we're struggling for content a little bit, because I'm not sure too much newsworthy stuff is happening in Bitcoin side, which is always good, by the way. When Bitcoin is boring and the world is going crazy. That's a very bullish signal for Bitcoin. And I want to help everyone understand the importance of decentralization in an environment where regulators are trying to push you towards centralization. Regulators want you to store your Bitcoin or to buy your Bitcoin through an ETF. But the problem we have with markets right now, the world has never been more centralized than we currently have. Major decisions about these wars are not being made in Congress or Parliament. They're being made by intelligence agencies in secrecy. Major decisions about our economies and our markets. I mean, the entire US economy has become the Fed market.

You know, China has become a stimulus market with PBAC. The price of oil has literally just become Saudi Arabia's decision around whether he likes Biden or Biden more at the moment. We have moved to peak centralization and central banks are the entire markets around the world. The only thing we care about is rates, quantitative easing or quantitative tightening and how kingdoms react to these decisions. So that was the use case of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is the largest, most distributed supercomputer that the world has ever seen. There is no country, there is no kingdom, there is no ruler that can change anything about Bitcoin other than reaching a major consensus. And it is that very same decentralization that is the largest, most valuable intrinsic value of Bitcoin today in a world where we're moving to just a few psychopathic rulers where absolute power is corrupting absolutely. And that's the thing with Bitcoin. No one can assassinate the leader. No one can tell us, you know, make any consensus rule changes. No one can change the monetary policy. And whichever country it is, it's actually an exit from every oppressive regime and every central bank in the

world. So decentralization is the aim of the game with Bitcoin. And there is nothing out there quite like it. And that's where I'm storing my value. And I really hope that everybody, if you haven't done it already, has at least some Bitcoin in cold storage to protect yourself from the psychopathic centralized institutions that are making crazy decisions right now. So you're saying that Bitcoin is not too expensive to buy now and that you're not too late to start. That's sarcasm, guys. But yes. Yeah, but absolutely not. There's never a...

Look how much time there is gone scott yeah gary gary cardone is in the audience gary you've got an invite if you want to come up to speak we we spent an hour uh yesterday talking on his channels about this exact thing and his point was listen regardless we all agree with the speech you just gave right the the real reason for bitcoin the flip side of that, obviously, is that we have now begun the institutionalization of it. Whether that's good or bad is a debate for another day. But if you view the wall of money that's likely to be coming into this space over the coming years because of the existence of ETFs and options coming,

and we all know once BNY Mellon is custodying Bitcoin that we're going to have lending and borrowing on it, then on a risk-adjusted basis, specifically for saying, hey, Bitcoin can't go to zero anymore, right? Because it has a certain level of legitimacy that it maybe didn't have in previous cycles. On a risk-adjusted basis, now is probably the safest time to buy Bitcoin for most people, because the narratives against it largely are non-existent anymore that were there before. The ones that people were really scared of, the narratives that it could be banned by the government and things like that. So on a risk adjusted basis, this might be the safest and lowest price that you could

ever get in, knowing what the future likely holds. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, but that's the funny thing is, is I still believe there are asymmetric returns relative to every other market. Because the reason is, is not everyone gets that yet. Like even these traditional financial institutions, they're looking at what the next play is. You know, they're looking at, they've got access to more data than any of us. And them getting into Bitcoin is because they also need to, they capitulate it. Let's face it. There was a time in our market where the financial institutions and banks tried

to destroy us. There was a time when they were all laughing at us. There was a time when they tried to disrupt us and told everybody you should be on the R3 blockchain. And, you know, what was her name? Blythe Masters masters the creator of the credit default swap went around the entire world and to every financial institution and said hey it's blockchain not bitcoin um and got you know and started just trying to take the word bitcoin out of the out of the dictionary and replace it with blockchain so you know then they realized that okay we're in what do we got to do? We've got to take the traditional industry. So they use their corruption with the regulators in order to

allow fraud to persist rather than actually creating a regulatory regime. They then allowed the large players to defraud a lot of people through their fraud. And then they wiped them out. And then they regulated the traditional players and gave the market over to them. So look, all of these traditional players, they want your Bitcoin, because they're protecting themselves from the mess that they've created as well. And even every country, they need to protect themselves from the mess. You know, it's like a central bank. They're all good printing fiat currency, but they don't want to store it. They buy gold, you know, and they're going to need to buy Bitcoin as well. And so everybody, just like for us, we can protect ourselves. Every institution

and every company and every country eventually needs to do the same already. I just hope and I just hope that enough people take advantage of Bitcoin the way it was actually designed, rather than making the very same financial institutions that got us into this mess rich, because they had to capitulate and adjust to Bitcoin. Now we got Gary and Andrew, so we can keep going with the Bitcoin conversation. But Gary, I just tried to channel you and did not do it as eloquently as you said yesterday. So maybe I'll allow you to make your own points. I think you did awesome.

I mean, to me, we have four months to determine whether Bitcoin's going to start to fight the system and prove its way. To me, we have four to six months. It's probably the shortest period of time that you can come into Bitcoin with the least amount of risk. We have so much regulatory clarity. People keep talking about, you don't have regulatory clarity. I'm like, I don't know what more you need. I mean, the world is going to buy Bitcoin because it's the only thing it doesn't have today.

We are at peak consumption on everything. Crude oil is not going to get to 80 bucks. There's so much everything on this planet except Bitcoin. To me, the thesis for me is we're at absolute peak demand, peak consumption of everything on this planet, and everything is going to go down in price except Bitcoin. Andrew, welcome.

Yeah, I love Simon's comments. His comments are always really well measured and well thought out. But I've been you know, I've been beating this particular drum now that are associated with, you know, traditional finance, having their hands on Bitcoin and beginning to squeeze harder and harder and harder. We can look at that, you know, glass half full or glass half empty. Probably for the short and medium term, it's as glass half full as you can possibly get. It's probably the glass is nearly full because you have the titans of finance understanding what Bitcoin is, making massive pivots to Bitcoin as an asset and wanting to get their hands on it. What that means is we have a material difference in price action. That statement can't really be argued. Why?

Because every other cycle post-having, we were down 60% to 65% in and around this point in time. We're down at most over the past three months was 25% post-having. That's a massive, massive, massive difference. But also, sorry to interrupt, but also from an all-time high. Correct. Usually we were having a bigger drawdown from a much lower floor. Right. That's correct. The drawdowns have generally been 80%, 75%, 93%, right? The data is very, very clear there. And we're at 25, 26, 27% post-having. And that

is because Larry Fink and his friends all exist. Again, long-term, that can be problematic. But short and medium-term, you have titans of industry in finance pounding the table, moving things in the background to an advantageous position on behalf of Bitcoin. Options, custody. BNY Mellon is not going to be the last big bank that's going to custody Bitcoin. State Street is probably next or Goldman Sachs, one of those two. These are organizations that understand that their customers have more Bitcoin than they thought. And they're coming to that realization. So when you have Bitcoin ETFs, you know, purchasing large amounts nearly on a daily basis. Sure, there are sellers out there. That's why the price has been what it's been. But at some point, that dynamic changes and you have different forces in the market than

every other cycle before. You have liquidity in very, very different ways than we had before. Something that I don't know if it's been mentioned on this call, but you now have Bitcoin futures that are a little bit different. We have these Friday Friday futures deal on the CME, which are tiny, tiny, infinitesimal fractions of Bitcoin available to trade, as opposed to before where it was essentially it was futures, but it was basically almost a spot price associated with trading the product. So liquidity across a bunch of different markets, Larry Fink, global institutions, there's just never been a better time for Bitcoin than exists right now. Again, the caveat is where are we at in three to five years in terms of who controls the most Bitcoin?

What did they decide to do with it? All of those issues. It's the reason why I talk about buy Bitcoin in self-custody. But in terms of the next 6, 12, 18, 24 months and actual price of Bitcoin, yeah, I can't imagine we've ever been in a better spot. Can't imagine it. Alex? Yeah, Scott. So I want to piggyback on what Simon Andrew is saying, you know, because I'm seeing a trend here with regards to the titans and finance centralization of

governments and the concerns that Simon has when it comes to control, custody and ownership, as Andrew was just saying. Like, this is more of a question rather than a thought. But we have 33 days left right until November 5th. And I was looking at some of the election stats with regards to President Trump and Kamala. And one thing that I'm starting to get, I'm starting to struggle to wrap my head around is, why are US citizens that have crypto ownership kind of split between both candidates at 47% and the others just voting blank, right, on whether who they'll support or not. To me, this is almost like an oxymoron, guys. And this is more of a question, once again,

just to get your thoughts. But when you see Trump clearly advocating self custody of Bitcoin in your own assets. And then you're seeing on the opposite side, Kamala, who's literally talking, insinuating about potential censorship of X or some social media platforms. It's to me a very obvious route when it comes to understanding Bitcoin, understanding the future of finance, understanding NFTs, understanding crypto in general, when the other side absolutely has no clue whatsoever and doesn't even comment on it. Why are we so in between both camps? And it's a very important question because a lot of the swing states are actually on the fence as well. So if it's cool,

I mean, you've got a couple of Americans on stage who might have different perspectives on it. I mean, I can answer that. A, I think, A, we know that polls are a bit misleading, right? Just because somebody owns or has owned or has a little bit ofquote single issue. And I think that that's a much smaller amount than you would imagine if you get outside of our echo chamber. And I think the reality is that people have diametrically opposed feelings about these candidates. There's certain probably on both sides, I would imagine hyperbolic views of what they are. And also, even people who hold crypto, regardless of their feelings about crypto may just have an issue that's more important to them. Could be immigration, it could be abortion, right? Obviously, there's a million other things that people vote on. So I think that we as Bitcoiners view Bitcoin itself, but the values that are espoused by being a Bitcoiner, free speech, freedom, privacy, all these things as the most important. But I would venture to say that for the majority of people in the United States, even who care at least superficially about crypto,

there's some other issue that's much bigger to them. That's my take on it. Fred, I would love your... I just had to raise my hand because you triggered me, Alex. It was a great question. But I mean, that is everybody in crypto, if you're you have to be a single issue voter because you can do so much more with whatever your positions are that you care about. If crypto is allowed to thrive like it is, you just would have so much more resources. But the short answer is just cognitive dissonance. I mean, that's what it is, because, you know, we talked about the Ripple case earlier today. Chris Larson's the executive chairman of that company, huge Kamala supporter.

And they're literally suing him, putting his company down the appeal route for another two, three years. And yet he's a huge Kamala fan. So just people, for whatever reason, often vote against their own self-interest. And it just drives me crazy. Because I try and shake people all the time to get them to realize that. But sometimes it's a losing battle. But Fred, you know, to your point, and I agree with you, but to your point, there could be some issue that's bigger to him specifically, personally, in his family or something that's, you know, listen, I've seen people who just are very, very passionate about other things.

Like they will not change their opinion based on abortion, right? Or something. And so like, you know, imagine someone who's in the crypto industry, but believes that they've had an abortion or know that someone in their family is going to have to have one and therefore they're voting for that reason, right? I don't think that's a reason to be like a fierce advocate for a candidate. But I just think it's important for everyone to remember, especially around the world, that there are other issues in play here than just Bitcoin. Maybe not for us, but there certainly are. I mean, that's my opinion on it, Fred. But it does look like cognitive dissonance when some of these people are screaming sort of against their own self-interest. Yeah, I would just on that point, though, say like, and I'm not going to get into the details,

but on the abortion issue, for example, you're a crypto holder, but that's the number one thing you care about. Well, if all of a sudden you make 15 to 20 million or 25 million dollars in a crypto boom because you got the right legislation, if you're pro-abortion, you can open up 10 abortion clinics, you know, in any state that you want. And if you're anti-abortion, you can go help start a mob of picketing or you can open up your own pregnancy assistance centers, you know, all over the country. So it just seems that even if that was your number assistance centers, you know, all over the country. So just seems that even if that was your number one issue, you have to put crypto above it, because there's so much upside. I totally understand that, Simon. And then Gary,

I want your take here. Yeah. And just to piggyback off that very important point that politics changes in reality by lobby not by you know votes in reality so becoming wealthy and becoming a lobbyist is actually how you really influence politics and to me if you're not reached a level of high net worth investor yet. You know, I can't give financial advice, but there is only one asymmetric bet based upon all of the macro geopolitical and just financial and technological trends that I see around me today. And so, you know, I do want to implore people to understand that becoming wealthy, just as Fred explained, is how you have exponentially more influence in politics than just your one vote. Yeah, I love that.

Here's your red meat, buddy. I love that. I think that's what we're doing this for. I have no intention on sitting on this wealth. I'm going to reinvest it in the future of this planet. And to me, that is a really cool goal. We have, like, it's worth the risk, right? If you think that we have the ability as regular people to get on this wave and then influence the future, dude, this is a no-brainer bet, okay? Because it is so asymmetric. If we're wrong, we're all going to probably sell Bitcoin at 60 grand. If we're right, we are going to be able to change this planet.

And I don't see any other way that we're going to change it without this. Like, give me one other thing that we can grab onto that offers us this parachute. I see no other options. Do you guys? Just give me one other option. It can't possibly be NVIDIA. I agree with you. Anyone else have a take on that? I'm seeing the NVIDIA comments really funny.

I'm seeing a lot of big hearts and thumbs up. I mean, Simon, sounds like you talk. All right. OK, no. Yeah, I mean, you know, look, I the way I manage is I earn I earn fiat currency. I save it in Bitcoin, and every month someone comes to me and pitches me a new idea or a new investment, whether it is a traditional wealth manager or it's someone with a new AI startup or it's someone with a new token that they think is going to change the world.

And I analyze from the perspective of, you're asking me to sell my Bitcoin to change the world. And I analyze from the perspective of you're asking me to sell my Bitcoin to invest in you. And if I'm ideologically aligned, then I may do it. But just purely numbers for numbers, comparison, you know, working through the logical maths, it's very hard to persuade me to invest my bitcoin in something unless i'm just trying to manage a risk you know maybe i need to invest in something that generates income maybe i need to prepare for a world where bitcoin doesn't do what i think it's going to do or maybe i'm just uh you know managing risk based upon my age or something like that but if it's just about where to allocate my funds um and where the asymmetric bet is you know you can you can mess around with crypto and meme coins but if you mess around with that too much please don't make the mistake of ending up with no bitcoin

at the end of it because that's a tragedy and i don't want that for anybody absolutely agreed guys uh i think that's all we got for today i appreciate uh everybody panelists joining appreciate you guys all listening we'll have one more crypto town all this week obviously tomorrow 10 15 a.m eastern standard time i will once again say because i'm a nice guy follow everybody on stage just do it there's like, how many? 3,580 of you in the audience right now, which by the way, shows just how much fear, uncertainty and doubt there is about Bitcoin. Because you can tell if price was 5,000 higher, we'd have 5,000 people here. And our numbers track how much the price goes up or down.

But every guest on this stage should get at least 3000 new followers, right? And if you don't, I'm banning blocking all of you from being guests on tomorrow's show and we will have zero people in the audience. So if you would like to continue listening to Crypto Town Hall, then follow every single guest on stage. Guys, that's all I've got for you. I'll speak to you all tomorrow. Bye.