The Wolf Of All Streets - Straits Open, Bitcoin Pumping #CryptoTownHall

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Today on Crypto Town Hall, the panel discusses Bitcoin surging above $77K as the Straits of Hormuz reopen to commercial traffic, triggering a sharp drop in oil prices and a broad risk-on rally across markets. They cover the rapid V-shaped recovery, liquidity infusions, failing doomer predictions, Charles Schwab’s launch of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading, updates on the Clarity Act, Adam Back’s quantum comments, MicroStrategy’s momentum, STRC yields, institutional adoption, tokenization, and ongoing regulatory developments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Crypto Town Hall every other day here at 10.15 a.m. Eastern Standard time. The Straits of Hormuz are apparently open to commercial traffic that's coming from Iran, and Bitcoin is pumping. I haven't really had a chance to check all markets, but up above 77,000, at least it broke above it. I'm assuming right around there at the moment appears Bitcoin at 77,07,000. actually 77,306 right now as it's updating. So a nice move here, I think more importantly, for those who have been waiting for a break above 76, 75, 74, whatever you is your level, I want to see it hold up here and keep this momentum going into the weekend.

Dave, actually, are you here? Are you here? I am in Italy in our, in our hotel room after having walked from in Florence, like past the Duomo, Pompavecchio, and all. all around and all around and all around. Now I collapse in the heat. But it's always nice to look to see the world moving in a direction like we want to see it move. And hopefully it holds.

And so we can ask Mr. McLone on Monday if he's been stopped out. Not sure we're going to get a clear answer on that one. Well, he kept saying 75. So, you know, that was when we were in the 60s. So now it's going to be 84. Or, you know, you want to take, we should do a pool. Yeah, it's tough. What level?

I mean, on the way up, they were like, if it gets above 40, if it gets about 50, yeah. Yeah, I know. It's the same thing. Look, you know, it's funny. All markets are moving higher. I mean, oil is the real story. I mean, down $81. I mean, you know, there are a lot of people that have been carried out on speculating on that.

I mean, I can't imagine how many people have been liquidated on the short side trading on all these weird venues. So we'll see. Yeah, I mean, I guess we'll be excited to get, take what we can get at the moment. I think that it's big news, obviously. I find that I'm not a macro expert and haven't been digging into it, but you have Iran saying it's open to commercial ships. I'm not sure how if that means everybody, but the U.S., I think saying the blockade is still there. So I don't really once again understand the mechanics.

But it seems like an ongoing and developing situation. But obviously, markets pumping on optimism that the war could be ending, or over, I think they're saying it could take months to negotiate the terms. But either way, you know, markets are up. I mean, I was trying to actually look when I was talking to McGlone and Gareth yesterday at Market Mavericks at the fastest V-shaped recoveries in history. It's sort of a hard metric to actually look at. But with markets down roughly 10%, the 10-day recovery that the stock market saw was arguably the fastest return to before the crash that we've ever had in history. It just shows you how risk gone is your money supply. The money supply and the amount of printing and everything that's going on is so large that you have to look at it that way. And so the real question is people selling based on fear tend to buy back pretty quickly. And so that that's why you get that. I mean, it's fairly typical in things like wars. And just look at, remember where we were. You and I were basically saying that everyone is, it was all doom.

I mean, Carlos, you're here. It was all doom. And I kept saying, yeah, but they're going to be printing. It doesn't matter how it goes. And so as long as it's not a total disaster, it's doom. And that's not what's happened. Good morning, Scott. Good morning, Dave.

Good morning, Carlo. Yeah, quite an interesting turnaround. I'm not going to fade it. I think we just saw yesterday a massive liquidity infusion, a massive buyback of treasuries by our government. And I don't know what to make of this news today. Obviously, we just kind of ride the wave of whatever Trump tweets, but this is a very promising development.

And man, oh man, Bitcoin, MSTR, markets broadly are just ripping. I'm really impressed. Jamie. Hey, good morning, guys. Yeah, I was on another space yesterday. They were asking me about the market. And I said long-term bullish with a near-term chance of a Trump tweet. You know, it's kind of like almost like we're, we have to do these like a weather forecast now.

You know, I didn't even know what happened. A few people in our space were talking about the, you know, both sides of it. And I'd say the majority thought that, you know, the prices were going to sky. skyrocket. I'm talking about oil, Dave, and that was going to be the major problem. And then there's a few people who were counter discussion felt the opposite. And, you know, they've been tracking it pretty well. So, you know, it's awesome. Actually, I really appreciate these kind of spaces where we gather all the great people who are in here and kind of share their alpha on both sides so we can kind of attract this in real time. I think it's incredible.

And I'm not surprised it's on a Friday, of course, when it comes to a lot of low volume weekend. So we'll see what happens from here. But definitely, definitely interesting. Any other hands up? I don't see any at the moment. Go ahead, Dave. Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, you know, no one's mentioning.

I mean, yeah, the straits matter. What's going on with Iran matters. But don't underestimate two other developments that, you know, have very clear. I mean, first of all, what you've seen with Lebanon and Israel agreeing to sitting down for talks. I mean, that's, it's hard to, it's hard to understand if you're not following it, but it's a enormously big deal, right? I mean, it's not any different than, you know, the Emirates and the Abraham Accords advancing. And the Saudis a couple days ago when they offered to, for Trump to keep going is telling you an awful lot about it. It just shows the miscalculation of attacking the

Gulf by Iran was massive. But understanding that, that these are transatlantic. that potentially have a almost incalculable peace dividend, you know, to the world. It's a very big deal. And I think that that's part of what you're seeing. So it's like, yeah, you know, look, we're going to have a, we're going to be playing this Machiavellian game with the Straits for a while, right, you know, as part of this negotiation tactic. And that's, but, but the, the, the, the, the, breathtaking size of the move in oil is, is, is,

that's what's surprising me. I mean, honestly, you know, if oil had stayed, you know, just, you know, just, but, but, but, anywhere under 100, the fact that Bitcoin would continue to move higher based on money printing and all the things that we know. Also, the quote, news that Adam Back is now saying, is now throwing his weight behind Bitcoin getting ready for quantum. Don't underestimate the impact of that as well. As crazy as it sounds, I mean, Nick Carter called him a clown, but it doesn't matter. You know, he has a lot of weight in the community. I mean, these are big deals. And, And, you know, as I said, with all the doom out there, I don't think that the positive side is really priced in yet.

So I'm not saying that you want to buy a massive pump because pumps always retrace. But directionally, I don't think you want to really get on the other side of it. Absolutely agree with that. Yeah, go ahead, Jamie. I was going to say, does this mean that the DEF shortage is no longer going to collapse the financial system? That straight is open. We can get all our DEF, all our trucks. Can I start? Is that the noon?

What, what's the, I, I hate to admit. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. You've been on vacation, Dave. This is the, this is the, this was the latest, uh, Dumer prediction that we had, um, our friend Darkside. I'm only kidding because I love Dark Side, but he, he has, he had a, uh, a very, uh, pronounced and long DEF discussion, which is some kind of need, some, it's needed for all of the trucks to start, a big diesel, you know, and urea and all this and it was the supply. That was the latest update on why things were going to have to stop and the financial system was going to come to its crawl.

So I'll have to update you on that. That has been an interesting week. I have a very basic viewpoint, which is the Fiat Ponzi scheme may very well be a Ponzi scheme. In fact, I think it is. But the entire world's power structure is on the side of keeping it moving. And given the tools they have at their disposal, they're going to keep it moving. And in that case, fading it at any one point in time is going to be extremely costly, right?

I mean, yeah, you're going to get these downwards. But, you know, as long as the denominator, I mean, we were just walking around jewelry markets. And it's funny today because, you know, people are like, well, gold is so high that it makes jewelry so high. And they're bemoaning that. But the truth is, is if you actually look right down to the core of gold and money, supply back to the 70s, it's almost tracked perfectly. Now, in bed, it was under for a while, and now it's back to where it should be. Now it will probably go back over, under, over, under, right?

But, you know, it's kind of tracked pretty well. And unfortunately, no chartists that look at this stuff catch it. Every one of these doom predictions, I don't care which one. Do you remember when the Ukraine war started? I mean, incredible tragedy in terms of human life, but we were talking about, people were talking about how the mass famines. Yet that's not been happening. So, I mean, I'm not saying you can't,

and I'm not saying we should be cavalier, but financially betting on dumerism is a really, really good way to lose piles of money. And just one more thing I'd say to that, Dave, I agree 100% is everybody, Congress, everyone who gets elected, right? Every single person benefits from continued spending and keeping the expansion of the money system continuing.

That's how we get elected. That's how everything is on that. I think it's in everyone's best interest to make it last as long as they can, regardless of the ponsy or not. The slow boil is the way for them to continue to line their pockets and continue to benefit from it. So I agree with you 100%. Kevin.

Hey, guys. How are you today? Are we good? Great, great. Dave, I totally agree with what you've said. I mean, if capital markets are perfect information, we would say that, you know, Bitcoin fell from 125-ish because of the Dumers of this war. What's heartening for me as I look at my screen at 77600 is if that information is perfect. And we've got the next Dumer mountains of quantum and, you know, claustle,

But my thoughts, I'm sure we've all seen. I'm writing about both of those items this week and next week. But it looks like that the price bump here also understands that these are not the big famines that you spoke about, David. Dave, thoughts on that? I think we lost Dave to the Italian Spring. Can you guys hear me? Can hear you. Okay, that's good news.

All right, well, anybody else hands up? I can't see, to be honest, this platform on and off indefinitely. I'll fill the void. We got an update on Clarity Act. What do you got? So Eleanor Tarrant reported and basically confirmed what I've been saying forever. She came out with a piece that, you know, how they talked about they wanted to release the draft this week. But now they're pushing that to next week.

And according to Eleanor's excellent reporting, the idea it appears is to avoid putting the text under too much scrutiny before a mark update is on the calendar, which could create more runaway problems. So again, is this today or is this like her reporting a day or two ago? I think this was a, I think this was yesterday's post. Okay, yeah, because we saw that it was not on the docket for next week and a lot of people were surprised by that. But again, it just reinforces the whole, you know, premise I've been saying for weeks now that

why can't we see what the hell is in this language? And they just confirmed it. They said the quiet part out loud. We don't want the public to see what's in it because it might actually cause people to ask questions, which is ridiculous when you're talking about the most important piece of crypto market structure legislation that we've had to date.

It's messed up. I can't believe that this is now reality that we're going to withhold this information for fear it might cause people to ask questions. Well, I mean, there's been a lot of strange things afoot at the Circle K with the Plarity Act, right? I mean, we also have them saying the quiet parts out loud that the banks and Coinbase were effectively doing the negotiating and not the politicians, right? Exactly. Very clearly saying how powerful the lobby is and that it's money, obviously, in the two industries that are more debating this even than the politicians, at least at the top end on stable coin yield.

And for anyone who doesn't know what strange things If one at the Circle K means it's from Bill and Ted's excellent adventure for people who are my generation. Excellent. Come on. Anyways. But yeah, so Carlo, nothing would surprise me with the Clarity Act, right?

I mean, there's nothing. And I don't think I can recall a prior piece of legislation that it has this much backdoor, back channel talk where we have to just parse out from, the press, what little nugget the consumer gets to know. This just seems an unprecedented level of obfuscation that I just, I can't wrap my head around. It just is ridiculous. I would say the one thing that I would be surprised at is if it ended up being good for the consumers.

It's good for the banks. Right. The Bank Clarity Act, right? I mean, that's what it is, no matter how we want to name it. That may offer some crypto clarity as well, but I even, you know, for anyone who listened, I know Carlo you did to my conversation with Chris John Carlo, CFTC, specifically about the Genius Act and the Clarity Act. He made the very poignant argument that the banks need this more than the crypto industry, because if they want to be the custodians and participate in every part of the crypto industry, they're the ones actually are so highly regulated and legislated and are so risk-managed

that they're not sure what they can do. actually want their rules of the road, probably more than we do. So it's a really interesting kind of nuance there. You would think that the banks are going to win this, but then you have, I think, yesterday, Chief Legal Counsel for Coinbase went out on Fox and talked with Barteromo and was, I think, excited about how close we are to getting this done. So it's really hard to measure who's going to win on this. But again, I kind of harp on the last comment.

probably the consumer is going to get the short end of it. Funny how that tends to work. I think that's the plan, right? I think that's just very much part for the course. There's actually quite a few interesting stories today. I don't think we had the opportunity to discuss this one because we were off yesterday, but Charles Schwab is beginning the rollout of their spot Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ethereum trading platform.

So just I guess if we're watching the scoreboard, we had Morgan Stanley launch. to Bitcoin spot ETF last week. They're the first commercial bank ever to do that and not generally an ETF issuer. And they came in at 14 bibs way under the competition, right? We have Goldman Sachs two days ago or three days ago announcing a Bitcoin income ETF where they'll effectively sell calls against underlying positions in likely Ibit. And then this week we also then get this Charles Schwab news. I mean, who's left, right?

I think you might want to have some exposure to this Bitcoin thing, Scott. I think it might be going somewhere. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, what do you guys think of this, Charles Schwab News? So it's very clear. My first question that I looked it up is that crypto deposits and withdrawals will be disabled on the launch. So clients will have to perpetrators Bitcoin Ethereum through Schwab crypto, and then we'll remain there,

which, by the way, is how Robin Hood was in the beginning, if you guys remember, before they had the Robin Hood wallet. But this isn't exactly buy crypto and send it into self-custody. It will be locked in the Schwab ecosystem, at least for now. It's probably similar to the fidelity mechanism, too, because even though fidelity offers you a self-custody model, they do limit the amount that you can actually take out, and there are delays.

Yeah, I think they're trying to thread the needle, right, which is probably a tough place to be, once again, when they don't have all the regulatory and legislative clarity when they want. but this will remain in Charles Schwab. But I mean, this is, you know, one of the numbers on Charles Schwab. I think they oversee 12 trillion, 39 million active brokerage accounts as I'm looking at this. I mean, this is an absolute behemoth.

They're going to charge 75 basis points per transaction, which is not particularly cheap. But, I mean, think about how many people this is opening direct spot trading. This isn't trading of Ibit. This is direct spot trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum. It's huge. which opens up that arbitrage we've been talking about for a long time, that once the RAs are comfortable recommending these products to their customers, that's when you're going to see the massive adoption.

And this is that kind of vehicle for the people that don't want to deal and don't have the patience for the Coinbase self-custody nonsense that we put up with. As purists, let's say, the consumer who just wants to buy the new shiny object on the block now has a financial advisor who can actually run. recommend it to them and make a commission. I mean, that really closes the loop, doesn't it? I think so. I mean, it's the same. I mean, all of these guys, listen, they have walled gardens to some degree, which we're obviously going to see with them not being able to withdraw and deposit. But like Morgan Stanley, as I said, they're not an UTF issuer, but they obviously, and there's

nine or ten Bitcoin spot ETFs, right? So it seems on the surface, very curious head scratcher, why do you launch another product? But they have somewhere between 60 and 20,000 sales as people advisors at any given moment recommending products to their customers, why would they not earn the fees on that product inside their ecosystem rather than give them to BlackRock? That kind of looks the same, right? Like why Schwab doesn't want their customers flying off to Coinbase. Coinbase has over 100 million funded accounts. Schwab's at 39 million.

Like people I don't think realize what a behemoth Coinbase actually is. And Swab doesn't want people buying. Bitcoin and Ethereum on Coinbase if they can keep them on Schwab. That money leaves and doesn't come back. Go ahead. No, that's exactly right. You know, people ignore. I mean, look, the price, the 75 basis points is high.

It's cheaper than Coinbase. And that's how they've priced it, obviously. You know, there will be a race down. You'll be in the single-digit basis points for top trades. There's no question about it. It's just, this is the natural thing. This is where competition starts because it's not just Coinbase and Schwab, obviously. There's Robin Hood, et cetera, et cetera, and all these models will eventually converge.

But real competition has been impossible because the Schwabs couldn't enter. Morgan Stanley's couldn't enter. I mean, E-Trade's going to be offering it, too. Do we know what their pricing is going to be? I mean, I haven't looked, even though I have an account, I guess I could probably figure it out. but, you know, it's going to start driving the price of buying and selling Bitcoin and Ethereum down to, you know, towards zero because zero is where we are on the stock side, right? It's just that simple.

Yeah, it's probably a little bit more expensive to hold it because of custody and insurance, et cetera. So it won't get to zero quickly, but it's not going to stay in the 75 basis point range for all that long. What does that do to the relative value of Coinbase's stock when they make a ton of money like you just aptly articulated on their transaction fees. You know, if they lose this arbitrage on stable coins through circle, and if they lose this monopoly, they've got on the basis points on buying Bitcoin and other crypto assets,

what the hell does their business model look like on the other side of that? Well, it's a long time, right? You know, they make a lot on the prime side. They make a lot on, you know, there's a lot of other areas for them to make money because they're vertically integrated. This is why when Coinbase's first, when the IPO first came out, and it peaked and started nosed diving and nosedive, but it went down substantially after the IPO.

It was for this exact fear. Well, now they're finally starting to materialize, but even those, even that there, 75 basal points is a huge margin. And they could make a lot of money. Huge. Morgan Stanley's ETF is 14-bit. That's right. It's a huge margin.

I mean, the bottom line is, Charles Schwab came out and said seven and a half basis points. Okay, yeah, then I'd be worried about Coinbase's stock in the short run because then they'd be forced to react. But the 75? I don't know. They have to do a whole lot. You know, we'll see.

I don't think it makes a big difference. I think it's actually quite bullish relative to what people might have expected. Jamie. Yeah, I think it's interesting. You know, there's several questions you brought up and to the point of Coinbase. I mean, you know, does this mark an entry, I mean, a peak of adoption, or is it just the beginning. I think as this crypto market goes from $3 trillion to $30 trillion, the entire expansion, just like Bitcoin has 60% dominance, there's 40% value in the rest of

the broader market. I think Coinbase is kind of the same thing. I think there's going to be some people that want to continue to use Coinbase. And as the entire exposure grows, I think Coinbase will continue to expand with it. I don't think it's going to stop. I think competition is good, but I think it's a different user. We were talking about Hood yesterday. You know, when you start out in the traditional investment,

you prefer those kind of platforms and then you may come into crypto through those a lot easier. Coinbase, you know, for a lot of us, us, that that was our entry point, that was our access point into crypto. So going from crypto into traditional, you know, assets on coin base. It's a different user base. So I think they're going to continue to grow together as this thing expands, don't you? Yes. Yes. I think that everything is merging in the middle, right? I mean, Robin Hood obviously kind of started in stocks,

brought crypto. They're probably the best example of the hybrid. But I actually had a conversation with John Dagestino yesterday, you know, senior advisor to Coinbase, guys a genius built, you know, the oil markets in the Middle East for NYMEX. And he said, I asked him, you know, how far out are we from this tokenization of everything, trade everything on one app vision? And he was like, Coinbase is there, you'll see. Right. So, I mean, Coinbase is coming at it from the crypto side, entering the traditional side. Schwab is coming at it from the traditional side, entering the crypto side. Robin Hood's somewhere in the middle and they're all going to compete for market share. but nobody's going to want to just do one thing.

I mean, I think that that's the inevitable way. And I think, honestly, it's hard to judge which accounts are more valuable, right? I think Robin Hood was 25 million or something. We said Schwab's 39 million. Coinbase is over 100 million, but those aren't necessarily active. So I'm not sure it's apples to apples. But we're talking about a lot of people converging for very similar products. That's how I see it, Jamie.

I don't know. Yeah, 100% agree. Yeah. I think this is the expansion. I think, you know, platforms like Hood and Coinbase are going to have it all encompassing one-stop shop option, kind of like where, you know, X is trying to do that thing themselves, you know? I think that there's some clear market leaders that are innovating and trying to position

themselves. And I think the same thing is with these tradfied giants that like Schwab and Fidelity and Black Rock in them. And I think it's all putting in position together. I think we're seeing the beginning of it. And I think in the long term, it's going to be healthy, and it's going to take this expansion to a place that it couldn't do without institutional involvement.

Although in the near term, like with Carlo and Dave mentioned about with the Clarity Act and what this may end up being, I think it's all necessary for it to get to where it's going to because it's unlikely to continue to expand to that level without the institutions getting behind it. If anyone wants jump in on that, go ahead, Dave. I don't agree. I mean, look, I was at in New York on Tuesday or Monday,

and, you know, I was talking with, well, I was sitting next to Jamie Selway, who is head of trading the markets down there. And they are working really closely in a way that has stunned him with the CFTC. So, you know, it's very clear that over the next three years, you're going to see an enormous amount of regulatory clarity without Congress and doing it. They're basically just effectively assuming the act that passed last year. Just on the one thing that the clarity act that passed last year would have done is banned a future President AOC or Newsom from, you know, letting the anti-crypto army go back to regulation by enforcement.

It literally banned that. And that may very well still happen at some point. In fact, I actually would be stunned if after the midterms we can't get that. The other bits of it may not be all that necessary. I mean, defining jurisdiction between SEC and CFTC isn't nearly as important as getting rules, right? You know, you could decide, well, which one, but if they harmonize their rules, it won't matter. And I think that they're basically operating under the assumption that they're going to have to harmonize their rules anyway for a very simple reason. And it's an inescapable reason, Scott, which is.

is that there will be some transactions that involve both a commodity, a pair of a commodity versus a security. And as long as that's possible, they need to harmonize their rules. It's that simple. So nothing can get around it. But once the rules are harmonized, well, guess what? At that point, there's not a whole lot of risk for founders or entrepreneurs. So, yes, it would be nice to get the Clarity Act. But the biggest thing about the Clarity Act, the weirdest funny thing is there are a lot of people out there that kind of want to call

the banks bluff because if the banks don't get a new act to supersede the genius act, they are completely aft. I've been saying it. The banks are fucked. And I think that, and by the way, they're not stupid. At this point, I think they've already realized that. I mean, this is, as much as you could yell or, or like to make fun of or bitch at Brian Armstrong, that's his policy.

He's basically saying, listen, the crypto industry and, you know, the congressman and they're pro is like, we can get our shit done anyway. I mean, the banks are the ones who are screaming, they want more protection built into this. So if we don't go along with it, they don't get it. Well, guess what? Right? You know, and so it's, it's, this is, the reason they don't want the text out there is, is more to the point, they don't want to know who's on what side.

People don't want to draw the line in the sand and say, okay, so-and-so is a shill for the bank. So-and-so is operating for the crypto industry. so-and-so is operating for consumers. I mean, all these, this is the same, you know, the same institution. Well, no, this is the Senate. The House is the one who voted overwhelmingly not to disclose the use of their slush fund, you know, for sexual harassment cases, which is rather comical given Swalwell and who's the other one. Fernandez, I guess, I don't know, but whatever.

But it's just, it's crazy. The political system is so fucked up the least people know. they think the less people will be mad about it. And I don't know any other way to put it. You raise an interesting point, Dave, that Brian Armstrong literally has no fucks to give in the passage of the genius of the Clarity Act because if you default to the Genius Act,

then he wins. But he loses on broader crypto regulation. And I think that's why he's still largely in the fight. It wasn't letting me unmute. There's no doubt. I mean, look, everybody, I think that people forget that when it gets down to negotiations, when it's not an existential risk anymore, everyone, Armstrong and Brad Garlinghouse and the Winklelust twins and every single, you know, crypto person who has argued about regulation, they're going to play for, they're going to basically push for what makes their firm and their stock go the highest. It's no different than the banks will, the brokers will, you know, all the other companies.

do. They just do it. And getting mad at that is like getting mad at gravity. It's like, oh, damn, I wish this thing wouldn't fall and hit the ground. Well, guess what? You know, it's just, it's as simple as that. And that's what they're going to do. And to expect anything other than that is just, well, I mean, it's clinically insane. And so I'm not surprised by it. I don't necessarily like it, but I'm not surprised by it. I mean, Scott, I know this is a topic that makes you crazy, you know, the political system and everything that's going on down there. Yeah, all the topics make me crazy at this point. I just want to talk about Bitcoin being like $96,000.

How much fun would that be? Well, you'll get that chance. You know, Bitcoin breaks new all-time high. Yeah, well, you know, we all know I think that's going to happen. But, you know, it's, it's, the more interesting thing for crypto town hall, frankly, isn't Bitcoin, which is going to break new all-time highs, whether it will. do it this year, next year, whenever the next bull run is. I don't know. I'm not going to say I don't care, but I don't think that's nearly as interesting as try to figure out what what is the value

in non-Bitcoin crypto, because there's going to be fortunes made and lost in that. There's been a lot lost recently, but, you know, it's a very, because the notion of tokenization is not going anywhere. I mean, it's almost impossible to, I would say almost half of the discussions at our Tradfai conference on Monday was all about, you know, ended up touching on tokenization and aspects of 24-hour trading and multi-currency and, you know, settlement efficiencies and collateral, et cetera, it's, this is not going anywhere. By the way, Bitcoin is $78,000 and Michael Saylor is healthily back in the green, for anybody who's pointing at the scoreboard.

The chart on MSTR right now is crazy over the last 24 hours and the week. I mean, people are starting to understand what STRC is, right? And now he's back in the green and it's a nice flywheel. Well, it's not a, I hate that word. Because I want to short any flywheel, right? Because there's no such thing as it. But what there is is if you have. a bet that Bitcoin is incredibly underpriced and you can borrow money

at, you know, what's basically high yield rates to fund that. You have enough cash reserve to make sure that you got a long enough runway that it's not very risky, that it's less risky than the average high yield. You get a situation where you're going to end up buying more Bitcoin using that method than his mind. And that creates a positive equilibrium as opposed to a static equilibrium. And there's not a chartist on the planet who's ever looked at a situation that has a positive, not, you know, flat equilibrium price. It's just not true.

And so, you know, people, I said it to you, Scott, many times. None of the technicians are normalizing their charts for the shit that's going on. And STRC is one of them. Is it a flywheel? No. It's a for now, for the foreseeable future, for the next year or two, it's a source of a source. of demand because fixed income demand, people are reaching for yield. People always reach for yield. If you cut rates more, they'll reach even more. And when you reach for yield and you can get it

in a way that's backed by what's really good collateral, you're going to do it. And so it becomes a positive virtuous circle to a degree. But it's not infinite. I mean, it can't, you know, there's a limit to how much he can buy that way without upsetting the apple cart basically. He sure has put the banks in a box with respect to money markets and alternatives to this. And it's getting ambitious because I think Strive, I think their STRC version just pumped up their yield to 13%. This is wild. Well, they're paying too much. I mean, honestly, it, it, that feels, I don't know, it just,

It feels wrong to me. Whenever yields start getting too high on these products, it usually means the reason you would have to do it is because it's the only way that it can stay relevant. And that feels like desperation to me. I don't know. I'd like to hear the counter argument to that. I mean, I do think it is a very positive development for the market for the next year or so. I don't think it's sustainable.

But for the next year or so, it certainly is going to be. I mean, what's the other? other side. I mean, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a MSTR shortseller by any stretch of the imagination. But, you know, you look at it too, Dave. STRC has a pretty long runway that they can play this, uh, 11% yield off of before it becomes a problem for them. So if you're looking at it as a, as a way to park cash, um, a lot of things have to go wrong for that to backfire. And as much as people have, yeah, for the next year. Yeah. I think it is, it's, it's.

you're going to see more buying. I mean, programmatically buying without dilution, you're going to see it. All right. You know, and if Bitcoin does get back to where it was, it's going to be more than paid for. I mean, people, you know, grain assault does the math on this. I don't know the exact numbers. But Bitcoin at $100,000 effectively means that Strive has paid, that STRC has all their dividends that they've ever paid will be in the black or, you know, for a while because of the nature

of how it works. I don't know the exact numbers, but they're pretty staggering. And so that when you talk about flywheel, Scott, I think virtuous circle. It means as Bitcoin's price goes higher, their ability to pay their dividend for farther into the future at a profit goes up. Which is why I don't understand, Dave, why people call it a Ponzi scheme, because it is a very brilliantly designed product that is just very innovative and probably wasn't possible under any other prior asset class. Well, because it is, it's sort of, it's not a Ponzi scheme per se, because a Ponzi scheme per se, the dividends are paid by new investors into the product, and that's not what they're doing, right?

It's just people don't understand it because what you're talking about is if you're buying a asset that you believe to be undervalued, and you're buying and you think that the interest you're paying is a fraction of that that value differential, then it makes a whole lot of sense. But now ask yourself a question, how often are there instruments where you're buying that you can do that with? The answer is really the closest you get are things like Amazon back in the day when they did their big convertible. What were they were doing?

They were selling Amazon at a much higher price at a conversion rate to lower their yield substantially. And so that's what they did. It's similar. No one's also. Yeah, but there's also, it's not a Ponzi, but I mean, there's also like this kind of novel arbitrage opportunity with the SCRC that's going to keep it interesting for people, I think. I've been digging into the mechanics. It's not that simple, obviously, but I think the yields are basically paid twice a month, right? So like when you're coming into the 15th and the 30th, you see it start to trade above par, go above 100. That's when you really get a gauge for how much Bitcoin they're going to be able to buy because that's when the profits just roll in like crazy. And then all of a sudden, you know, it's above par.

And I'm assuming you're having massive institutions that know the mechanics and sell it off. And it goes below par and takes, you know, 10 days or whatever to recover. And you buy again. And I think if you own it basically at any period during that two weeks, you get the yield on the 15th or 30th. Right. So there's this huge opportunity to just keep selling above 100 and buying below 100 and also making money there. But does that make sense? And then you get the yield. But does that make sense when you take the capital gains hit?

Because you're getting that tax deferred yield. Yeah, that's the point. And you lose that if you sell it. Right. But I mean, taxes, you know, there's just people who play arbitrage regardless of taxes, right? I mean, so I think it's a different person in the market, is my point. I think there's more than one kind of participant in this. And it's not just, hey, I won an 11.5 percent yield.

There's other mechanics here. they keep it interesting. That's all I was trying to say. Jamie. Oh, sorry. No, it's okay. I think it's interesting as well. I mean, the type of investor that wants that option, you know, maybe if you put a hundred grand in, you get that 11.5,000 for the year to be your capped. But then there is never at the building, but like good luck finding away in. Sorry. Sorry. No, it's okay. But like me mentioned, Dave, you know like I said 11.5,000 yeah, for the year, your cap. But then like you mentioned, if it goes to 100 grand, you know, and you're up 25% on Bitcoin, but you also have the

additional upside of where it could go. I think that's the part where, you know, people who want the income and the increased yield, there's the risk, right? Because if it goes to, you know, goes on a run and Bitcoin goes to 150,000, you've now got a hundred percent return compared to the 11-a-half and it can go up that quick, you know, so that's what you give up. Yeah, I don't think they're the same money. Every time I do it is the same monetary pool. Yeah, go ahead. That was my point.

Every time I hear people saying that on Bitcoin's basis, I'm grinding my teeth because it means they literally have no fucking clue how asset managers work. Most asset managers, the vast majority, have covenants. And the most of the pool that buys STRC are fixed income managers. They're allowed to buy preferreds and they're allowed to buy bonds, but they're not allowed to buy stock. And they're certainly not allowed to buy commodities. So they can't buy Bitcoin. There's no way they can. What they can do is buy interest-based and try to out, it's just interest. It's a totally different pool of money. If people cash managers, it's just different.

And it's a very large pool of money. That's the thing that people don't understand. That's what I was saying, Jamie. And the Bitcoiners don't understand. They go, well, this is a terrible product. I don't think anyone's selling Bitcoin to buy STRC. No, exactly. I don't think, yeah. Different pool of capital.

Yeah, I'm not suggesting that either. Yeah, no, I'm not suggesting that either. But, you know, it's not the only, it's not just through, you know, asset managers that people are accessing on this day, right? I mean, like, there's people who are buying this that are high net worth individuals that want to buy it, that are also aware of the Bitcoin, the option that they could have, right? It's not just coming from that allocation. Oh, well, that's true. And those are people who, whether they buy that or they put their money,

as Mike McLean tells them to, into money market funds or treasury funds, that if Bitcoin starts rally and they're the ones who will get fomo. Right. That's the kind of, that's the investor that I'm speaking about, that I think that that's where they are looking at the, you know, option of the risk to reward versus long term and the steady income. I think that's probably more suitable. Question for you, just to mention Scott, we talked earlier last week about the areas of 75, then to 80 as the next target, right? So we've kind of now crossed over the 75. 80 is kind of the next price target that we kind of were looking at. It's kind of interesting going into the weekend also on this news.

What do you think is your likelihood that we pierced beyond even this 80, like we were discussing, or maybe 20? trend back down. What do you, what do you think? I mean, we're kind of there, right? I mean, 78, 80, 82, 83, 74. I don't know. It's all the same price to me. When we start, like, talking about 2% moves on Bitcoin, which can happen, you know, by the time I'm done speaking. But I do think, you know, 75, 76, 74, as you said, all this very big psychological level and we're blasting through right now. Like, I want to see where the volume sort of ends today. But like this, assuming it holds above this breakout, you can expect, I think, to go well into the 80s over the coming weeks, if not much higher. Because by the way, I mean, we have our last lower high is 97,800.

So you can, like, you have to remember that even in bear markets, most of the time, price is trending up. I know it seems confusing, but when you generally look at, especially at crypto bear markets, you have these sharp moves down. Same way on the way up, by the way. You have these massive sharp moves down, but they happen fast. And then you consolidate, you can call it a bear flag, whatever you want, but you can consolidate on low volume and float up. So you're actually trending up in a tighter range. So it's very confusing, I think, to know that's why it's so hard and why bear markets rip people's faces off. But we can go to 96 right now and still very squarely be in a bare market structure without making a higher high. So I would expect that

anyone who thinks is just going to stop at 80, like it would be kind of weird to stop at 80. and then go all the way back down, but it certainly can happen. Nobody has a crystal ball. I think that if we sustain in these areas, close the day, weekend looks pretty decent. We hold above 76, you know, 75 or go back to test it. I think we're going well into the 80s.

Let me look. I mean, the daily 200 MAs at 87. You know, that's kind of an algorithmic line. The daily 50 MAs up at 97. I think we go into the mid to high 80s. What's nice about this move, too, is it's also the alts. I mean, the green is looking good across the board, and I'm thinking this is probably a sustainable move.

I think. Yeah, risk. Yeah, I think risk on appetite is coming back. You agree? I 100% agree. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I was just going to say, I was going to say, Scott, just curious,

did you see the polka dot to just plummet? That was something that happened this week that we didn't really mention. But I think there was a hack or a bunch of tokens were minted or something. I didn't even see it. I just saw like a headline and it went on to my, of course, list. Yeah, it was a bridge. It was a bridge exploit and they basically minted a billion, uh, uh, poca dot. And then they swapped it out on Ethereum.

Ethereum didn't blink. It kept going, but polka dot dropped like 60% and like immediately. It was pretty like, whoa. Yeah, I didn't even say it. I mean, we also have, I think, like, uh, was it drift that got hacked and now USTC is being sued because they didn't roll back the transactions. I mean, there's been quite a few little things that we should have probably discussed on a crypto tank. Yeah, I actually, I touched on that.

I talked about the circle dilemma here and the criticism that they got about not freezing, you know, based upon the Zach XPT piece. But again, they're limited to what they can do under the law. They can't circumvent the legal mechanisms for freezes. And without some coverage from a court order or an administrative order, they just can't freeze on their own. And I think a lot of the space miss that nuance in this. Yeah, we probably need to evolve these freeze mechanisms to make them more nimble and responsive

because of blockchain and how technology moves this stuff so quickly. But it doesn't mean that just because Circle has the technology to instantly freeze based on an exploit that they can instantly do that. And that's why I think this lawsuit that just got filed, in the class action lost by these drift victims is probably going to fail because I think even the own instances that they cited, every time Circle froze, they froze with legal cover. And that's the nuance I think people are missing there. But Tether kind of can, right?

Well, it's a different animal because we're not talking about a U.S.-based stable coin issuer. circle is U.S.-based. It's 50 state money transmitter compliant. And under the Genius Act, you've got to have these freeze and all these mechanisms in place, but you also have to have the rule of law and due process. You can't just do that here in the states without some cover from the courts because then you would see the opposite lawsuit come down. It wouldn't be, you know, the class action on behalf of the drift exploit people.

it'd be a lawsuit on behalf of the wallets that got frozen without due process. Banks can't do it. Banks cannot freeze without some kind of intervention from some regulator, IRS, DOJ, or a court order. And that's kind of the nuance I think people are missing. Wild story. Dave, do you have a couple more minutes? I need to run because I've got to go record a show.

But if you want to keep it running, you can. Yeah, no, I'm going to be fading. He's living La Dolce Vita. I was going to see. I want him to go grab an ice cream and call it. Dave, go, my one tip for you. I got one tip for you, Dave. Take your wife to the open market, the market of San Lorenzo in Florence.

We were just there. Oh, my God. Did you have lunch there? The best. The best. Yeah, we had pizza today, which is. Isn't that the one? That wasn't that the leather market thing that you were talking about?

that's it they have an ins they have like an inside market it's like a it's like a full vendor thing with like a fruit and that's not where we went oh you know you got to go to that find that because that is you just have so many options to eat oh that for sure the food here is i'm sure dave needs more food right now yeah well i ate we had a whole pizza for lunch you know it's like it's it's crazy the amount of food that i've been eating is insane i should we'll see if i don't game like five, ten pounds and then everything they've been in a lot of times. I eat my face off and I never gain weight. I should tell you something about American food.

Yeah, well, that's true. Well, we'll see. We're here for another, you know, another, you know, a week and a half, so we'll find out. But anyway, always a pleasure, Scott. All right, everybody. We'll see you on Monday. We'll see on Monday. Message me, Dave.

I'll give you some spots, Dave. Message me. Bye.