Unchained - Bits + Bips: Bitcoin in Geopolitics, ETH’s Momentum, SOL ETFs & China’s Crypto Pivots? - Ep. 748

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

In this episode of Bits + Bips, hosts James Seyffart, Ram Ahluwalia, and Noelle Acheson are joined by Jamie Coutts to analyze Ethereum’s breakout and its improving fundamentals, how China’s “moderately loose” policy stance is changing the global liquidity landscape, and the pro-market implications of Paul Atkins leading the SEC.  They also explore Jerome Powell’s and Putin’s takes on Bitcoin, the controversial CBOE withdrawal of the Solana ETF filing, and the role of Bitcoin in geopolitics. Show highlights: How the employment data showed some mixed reactions in regard to next steps for the Fed Whether China will start a new era of augmented liquidity  Why the U.S. dollar getting stronger is bad for crypto prices How bitcoin is not a competitor to the U.S. dollar The significance of David Sacks as Crypto & AI Czar Why everyone believes that Atkins in the SEC is very positive for markets Whether China will pivot and adopt friendlier crypto regulation  Putin’s remarks on the role of bitcoin Why CBOE withdrew its SOL ETF filing Jamie’s analysis on how liquidity affects prices and where we’ll see a top  Why Ram thinks that MSTR has peaked Why Jamie believes that ETH will continue its momentum and perform better than the broader market Why Microsoft and Amazon might adopt bitcoin on their balance sheet Whether the breakthrough in quantum computing will disrupt Bitcoin How Solana’s daily fees have grown to a significant percentage of the L1 landscape Hosts: James Seyffart, Research Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida Noelle Acheson, Author of the “Crypto Is Macro Now” Newsletter  Guest: Jamie Coutts, Chief Crypto Analyst at Real Vision Links China Rally: China Politburo policy shift spurs surge in stocks, bonds | Reuters China Eases Overall Monetary Policy Stance for First Time in 14 Years Fed and Powell: Decrypt: Fed Chair Jerome Powell Likens Bitcoin to Gold, Says It’s Not Dollar Rival Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:42 Mixed signals from employment data and the Fed’s next steps 07:33 China’s “moderately loose” policy and its liquidity impact 13:32 Why a stronger U.S. dollar spells trouble for crypto 23:49 Bitcoin’s role alongside the U.S. dollar, not against it 27:49 David Sacks as Crypto & AI Czar: What it means for the industry 29:40 Why Paul Atkins at the SEC is a win for markets 34:00 Whether China could adopt a pro-crypto stance 37:53 Putin’s surprising take on Bitcoin’s geopolitical role 41:39 What’s behind the SOL ETF filings 43:25 Jamie’s take on crypto’s potential upside 46:49 Why Ram believes MSTR may have peaked 49:59 Jamie’s bullish outlook on ETH outperforming the market 56:26 Could Microsoft and Amazon add Bitcoin to their balance sheets? 59:05 The quantum computing breakthrough 1:01:05 Solana’s fees climb significantly—what does it mean? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The thing that I think is very constructive right now for Ethereum is, is the chain being used? And so when you see fees increase like they have, and fees are a function of two things, they're a function of activity, they're also a function of the price of ETH, because that is the commodity or gas that's paid when transacting on chain. But when fees grow faster than the market cap or the price, then you've got a real signal that actual real activity, you know, above the inflation in the token price is actually increasing. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Bits and Bips, exploring how crypto and macro collide one basis point at a time. I'm your host, James Safert, Tradfair Archmister, Lord of Bloomberg's End. Here with

Ram Al-Alawalia, maister of wealth, leader of Lumida. How's for Conan? Good to see you. Also joining us, Noel Atchison, hi, Hi, Sear and Keeper of the Crypto's Macro Now Newsletter. Hi, everyone. We're here to discuss the latest stories in the world of crypto and macro, just remember that nothing we say here is investment advice. Check on janecripto.com slash bits of bits of bits for more disclosures. Today, we're also joined by Jamie Coots, guardian of Real Vision's crypto legacy. Jamie, thanks for joining us. Why don't you give us a little bit of background of who you are and what you're doing now and then we'll get into the topics of the day. Hey, James. Thanks very much for having me. So I'm the chief crypto analyst at Real Vision. Real Vision's a

platform started by Rao Pell back in 2014, providing macro and digital assets, insights. I joined from Bloomberg Intelligence, where I was the crypto market analysts. I've got about 28 years of experience in traditional markets, predominantly in equities, but also in macro on the by side as well. Honored to be here. Thank you. Yeah, Jamie and I are former colleagues, so it's good to be talking with him here today. As always, we're going to start with, actually, I guess we don't always start with macro, but let's start with macro here because that's most relevant of the day.

I mean, we had some pretty strong employment data. GDP looks projected pretty strongly. Rate cuts, the chance of a rate cut next week or in December have gone up. I think we're about 85% right now. Let's get into it. What are you guys thinking as far as rates go? We can get into the dollars. Why don't you start, Rahm?

I'll be brief. There's no recessions, no evidence of recession. The Fed is committed to rate cuts through their forward guidance policy, which doesn't make any sense. And the markets recognize that there's no recession. So, you know, here we are. But I'd love to hear, Noel, your take on this, and I can circle back to some of the momentum phenomena. I agree with you. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

But like we were talking about the saying just before the previous FOMC meeting, we're going to get one even though it doesn't make any sense because they said we would and they can't surprise the market. The employment data, a lot of controversy over this one. I was surprised. It looked strong to me. And sure, you lift the hood and there are many wobbly things in there. I mean, that's often the case, usually the case, in fact. But this time, a lot of people were pouncing on the wobbly bits and saying, aha, a rate cut is justified, whereas what I saw was just a normalization of the job market.

Yes, there are some declines in growth, for sure. But the job market after the pandemic was just crazy. What we're seeing now is much more of a normalization. And the bottom line is there's no evidence whatsoever that the monetary policy is restrictive. and what I've been tracking is the number of Fed officials that are recognizing that neutral rate has climbed and is probably very close to the official rate today. Jamie, you have any thoughts? Yeah, look, I mean, I'd have to agree.

The one thing that stood out in that unemployment number was the median duration of unemployment, which is something that tends to correlate quite highly with, like, previous recessions. That's starting to tick up. I wonder if that's something that they're focusing in on. It does feel weird, given me. where growth is that we're getting more cuts. But I think the name of the game at the moment in this fiscal dominant environment is to keep the whole thing afloat.

So interest rate cuts are sort of baked in at this point until inflation really starts to become problematic. And that's sort of, I think, probably edging towards like the forehandle. Yeah, I have up here right now for anybody who's watching video, I have our world interest rate probability score. And yeah, we're showing 86% chance of a cut on December 18th. But the numbers go way down for January. It doesn't look like we're likely to get a cut in January.

I think that was pretty much our consensus opinion the last time we recorded. But then it looks like we're pricing for cuts to pick up again at least some time in the spring. I guess, guys, what are your guys' thoughts? You think they pause in January and restart again? Or you think they just stop for an extended period of time? I think there's like a real divergence on what people think it's going to happen here. I think they stop for quite a while and very much depends what Trump decides to do with tariff,

with trade policy, one of the whole lot of the fiscal policies as well. And anyone who's brave enough to predict what President-elect Trump is going to do probably deserves medals at this stage. I certainly wouldn't want to have to do that. So the smart thing to do would be to pause and I think we'd start to pause in December and wait and see what happens. But definitely a pause is needed because we just don't know. know what's going to be happening to inflation. I got the CPI out this week. I don't know if it will be

out by the time this podcast airs, but the CPI did out this week, and I'm hearing a lot of concern that it's going to be higher than expected. Even the consensus forecasts are pointing to stickiness, a slight uptick in the headline figure and 3.3% for the core index year on year. That's very, very far from the target 2%. So it's strange. It's such a strange. When inflation, we've been hearing this now for a very long time, inflation hurts everybody, and unemployment is very painful for a few. So the pivot to disregard inflation, the risk of inflation might come back and focus on unemployment, again, can make a lot of sense, especially for those whose jobs are at risk. But overall, it's going to take some explaining should inflation come back in the beginning of the year,

why they cut rates when there wasn't really a need to do so. Yeah, they shouldn't cut. They will cut. Only now people are trying to talk about how the Fed sure enough cut 50 bips in September. You remember the talk over the summer was fed's behind the ball. And there's still a lot of data also between now and January. We'll get the CPI print this Wednesday. We'll get initial claims on Thursday.

We'll get a continuing claims. So there's still a lot more data to come out there, you know, how to retail sales do over the holiday season. So I'd like them to cut. 25 BIFs, not 50. I think they probably will do that. It seems like the more recent communications are more hawkish. They're in their silent period now. So we'll see. We'll have to look at the comments. The most important thing to focus on for next year is going to be, do we see signs of inflation coming back? We don't really see that now, by the way, but it could happen to the second half. That's one. And then the second is, will the FOMC focus on a 3% rate or a 2% rate?

If they focus on a 2% rate, then yeah, it's not going to be great for risk assets. I don't think that necessarily will do that, actually. I think they'll try to be soft about it and keep talking about 2%, but act as if it's closer to 3%. It's all in the messaging. And Jamie, this ties into stuff that I know that you've been looking. at. One reason I do hope the Federal Reserve cuts rate in December is that it does give breathing room for other central banks to cut rates. And we've probably got a double cut coming here in Europe this week, if not now, then very soon. And other central banks have been waiting to see what the Fed does before they can start easing their monetary policy as well. And so this then ties

into the global liquidity question that I know that you've been looking at global liquidity easing in many jurisdictions is arguably a very good thing for markets, but how dependent do you think the rest of the world is on Fed policy? Oh, very much so. So I think that for most of the emerging markets like China, but also most of the emerging markets, they need to see the Fed Act first before they start adding more stimulus. So I think it's going to be a really critical, you know, pivot point for the market and what the Fed actually does.

although we've just seen the not the central bank in China, but at least the Politburo start talking about a change or a more accommodative monetary policy. I know if you've looked into that, Noel, but like I heard that the last time that actually happened was back in 2008 in December, and that was just days before the massive China stimulus package, the bazooker of that era, which in fact, in terms of just the context of GDP, was far larger than what the US did during the GFC. So we'll have to wait and see whether that translate into new measures from the PBOC, but it was a very interesting move this week.

And I think it all lines up for Fed starting to accommodate to allow other central banks to start really adding more stimulus in. That's a really good point on China. And you're right. I've been hearing so much excitement about the words that were chosen. And obviously they do choose their words very carefully, much like Fed Chair Powell does as well, possibly even more carefully because there's just huge amounts at stake here. And they haven't used this language since, as you mentioned, Jamie, since 2008.

Does that mean we're going to get the bazooka that everyone's been waiting for? It's a bit like the Charlie Brown thing. The football keeps getting yanked away. But this language is different. So maybe this time we will start to see some demand side stimulus. Now, I guess we'll like to answer about in just the next couple of days. if it's to follow the historical precedent. I mean, let's just get into that real quick.

I mean, Jamie, you're the one closest to the ground there in Australia. Chinese equity markets had a huge rally today. Can you just give a little bit of summary about what happened and what caused it? And we were hinted around it, but let's get into the weeds or at least get in a little more detail around what we saw happen in China. So as far as I'm aware, there was no real policy announcement from the central bank, but it was this commentary that came out of the Pollard Bureau, I think the day before last,

which gave the market the cause for rally. We obviously had that explosion up from the, you know, from that double bottom. I think it was back in, when I was that double bottom, maybe sort of two or three months ago now. And we've retraced about half of that measure. Now at that time,

the market saw the policy moves as very constructive. Obviously, we had the price action react, in that way, but a lot of commentators were looking at this really being just the first phase, the multi-phase stimulus package that was about to roll out. So it kind of feels like we're at that junction now a couple of months after where the market is sort of retraced that the actual policy, the new policy initiatives will start being announced in addition to what was announced a couple of months ago. So I think the market is just identifying the language, what it means in a historical context and starting to price it in.

Yeah, the words that they've used this time were moderately loose, whereas the usual word they use is prudent. There's a very big gulf between moderately loose and prudent, especially in China where there's no such thing as small numbers. Yeah, up here for anyone watching, I just threw up a chart of what we're talking about with the Chinese equity market. So this is just a large Chinese equity based in the US. And I mean, you can see it didn't quite retrace to the heights that we saw back in September, October that Jamie was talking about, but we had a massive 10% move. So it was a big move. There were some news that came out this morning, which you alluded to as well, Noel, around,

yeah, that's more stimulus and monetary. The key question is going to be is their fiscal stimulus because they have a balance sheet recession. Financing conditions are not going to address that. They need people to spend more, and consumers are saving 30% of their income. They're still shell shock. there. Each consumer, or many of these consumers have houses which are underwater. They've got too much of debt and the value that debt is remaining fixed and the value of their assets are declining.

That's why they're shell-shocks. So I think China was actually a really good idea two weeks ago. I mentioned that actually on Twitter and emerging markets. If you look at that EMM ETF, that's actually been rallying, quietly rallying. China's been the best leader in that category. But now it'd actually be a better seller than a buyer. It ran up 10, 12 percent. priced in instantly. It's very similar to what happened a few months ago in September. However, China overall is in a bull market. It is in a bull market. So the volatility is very high, though. You have to stay on the ball if you want to invest in a market like China. You've got to enter when no one's paying attention to it, which was about two weeks ago. Now we're ramped up. This phenomenon has happened again and again. I call it the hop-ball of liquidity.

He shows up in a market, bids it up, and then it starts leaking all the enthusiasm. And it happened with China September. It happened with uranium before. I think it's going to happen again with China now. All right. Let's move on to – we'll let Rom go into this one, but the dollar rally that we've seen, a momentum rally, USA versus the world. You kind of were just hinting at it there a little bit, Ron.

Why don't you go into get into it? Well, part of it's driven by the fact that, as you pointed out, James, that there's less expectation of Fed rate cuts. So that's one. So that means the dollars more attractive. The second is international investors want U.S. assets. The U.S. stock market is the best market in the world. We've got great demographics. We've got earnings growth. The best businesses in the world. So all that capital is trying to buy U.S. assets that also helped the U.S. dollar. And Trump is also correlated to the U.S. dollar. So even though the policy of best in probably actually isn't strong dollar, which is a strong dollar, which is

which is interesting. But the other part of it is that U.S. docs have performed so well that it's really U.S. momentum versus the entire world. Those are like two baskets. You probably have seen these charts floating around Twitter, right? It's a U.S. momentum versus the world, and it's like three standard deviations above. We've seen those, right? What's notable about today, by the way, is we saw the first pullback in that momentum factor.

So this shows up in many places. You can see that in digital assets, to some extent, although I think quantum computing might have played a role there. But if you pull up like the ARC ETF, which contains Coinbase and Tesla, you know, Nvidia even, right?

They've all pulled back. And, you know, those are the kinds of names that attract a lot of animal spirits. So when Trump was elected, you had a major, a boost in animal spirits, people's excitement and passion and, you know,

optimism about the future. And that got discounted to prices and we've had a steady, you know, a rally since then. But eventually meaner version shows up and the tension between U.S. momentum, international value, which is China. China is the exact opposite of the United States, right? U.S. stocks, the best business in the world, rule of law, earnings growth. And China's you got the opposite. You know, people aren't spending. Stocks are. are dirt cheap. They have a trade surplus that are trade deficit. So these are, they counter one another. And so with U.S. momentum stocks pulling back, China rallying, you're seeing this counter trend rally with China. And we'll see. And I think both can rally, actually. Both will

rally. Global central banks are cutting rates. But they're taking turns rally, much like water sloshing back and forth in the back. And then there's the geopolitical angle, which kind of comes back to China, as you were saying, Ram, and also other areas as well. If they are preparing for tariffs, they're going to want to depreciate their currency. And I'm hearing increasing rumors that Jamie, I don't know if you've heard anything, that China wants a lower yuan, and that's one of the reasons they're buying gold. They're actually selling Yuan to buy gold, and they're not buying treasuries anymore. So that is, again, something that very much depends what kind of tariff policies do come back the line. But it does look like a gift.

given there are going to be more tariffs on China, and that will, again, increase demand for the dollar, if you think currency is going to depreciate against it. Yeah, I mean, it really could be the curveball for next year, is that you've got a stronger dollar. And if you just look at it from a technical standpoint, you've got those intervening tops, those intermediate tops area that we've seen over the last 12 months, around sort of 107, although I go a little bit higher just recently, it peaked above that. That is such a critical level from a technical standpoint. unwinding positioning that would occur if we break convincingly above that, I think would be

really problematic. So it's right. It's that pivot point that I'm looking at. And it's not really good news for risk markets. Certainly not going to be good news for crypto because a higher dollar drains liquidity from pretty much everywhere. Yeah, it's pretty conclusive. Like if you just look at performance of Bitcoin and the crypto complex in general, using sort of basic momentum indicators on the DXY and a couple of low liquidity indicators, it doesn't always correlate with negative returns. It just always correlates with the lowest quartile returns that you see in Bitcoin and crypto. So it wouldn't be good. Yeah, this kind of goes back to the whole theme of like, what is this Trump administration going to do?

And you kind of have like, you kind of have to lean on what Trump is saying. And theoretically, tariffs would be, you know, stronger for the dollar, I believe. But then you also have J.D. Vance on the opposite side who like is very, he wants to dev vans. value the dollar because he wants to bring basically what you were just about China wanting to do. He wants to bring manufacturing more in-house. So there's like this, there's push and pull within this administration. So it'll be very interesting to see what they try to do, let alone how much power they actually have to do it because, you know, the Fed has the control there.

And they also have Besson, who is obviously a student of the markets and really knows stuff. So it's going to be fascinating to watch what happens over the coming months. They want to reduce the fiscal deficit that strengthens the dollar. they want to bring in Kevin Warsh at some point. I think Trump this Sunday on his first mainstream interview said that he would not replace Powell, which he pointed a few years ago, but Warsh would be the successor when Powell's term concludes, and Warsh's more hawkish also supports the dollar. So I think ultimately Besson's view will prevail.

I think if you're the president, you kind of have to have a strong dollar messaging. but it's yeah it's incompatible I think with other policy objectives. Doesn't that point more liquidity next year as an outcome of the fiscal policies and the Trump administration, I guess, outlook on the dollar? Doesn't that force the Fed's hand? Say some more about that. Well, I just wonder because, I mean, dollar's high or dollar rising is extremely negative for global liquidity.

And so if you do see policies out of the Trump administration, perhaps they're not as hawkish as what they're being, as what they're broadcasting at this point, because it's also used as a negotiation tool. Let's say the dollar does become problematic, breaks above 107, 108, then what does the Fed do? I think in that scenario, you start to see things break, and the Fed would have to move. You know, whether it's through cuts or whether it's through liquidity measures, maybe not QE, because I think they're going to have to retire that from a PR standpoint, but some other nuanced liquidity measure or stock gap or facility.

We'll see. I mean, a lot turns on the path of inflation. I don't think the Fed's going to react on as a primary consideration of the strength of the dollar versus international currencies. We'll have to see. It's something to watch, of course, something to watch. But I think markets will still do well next year. Maybe not as well as they have done the last two years because now the market recognizes

in the recession. So people are back in the market now and things are pre-priced. But, you know, earnings growth is still positive. The background conditions are still constructive. You can get a bank loan to start a new business. Hiring is fine. So I think the dollar is something to look at, but it's not going to drive the train. I used to think that the Fed would for sure cut were anything to break, as you suggest, Jamie.

and then he wobbles in the treasury market or anything like that. But as we saw last March, they do have other tools in their box. They don't necessarily have to just rely on interest rates. And they may not want to because of the impact on inflation, because they just simply can't afford to get back to where we were right after the pandemic for their own reputation's sake. And once the central bank cannot lose credibility, it just can't. Yeah, what Noel is mentioning,

that you're talking about the Silicon Valley Bank and the hiccups, we saw in the banking system. They basically created like different specific windows that the banks could access liquidity and things rather than actually lowering rates. So they have a lot of tools in their two box. And honestly, Alex on our episode last week kind of hinted out, he kind of likes them being slightly elevated on rates

because it's just another quiver, another arrow in their quiver that they can use to potentially fight whatever could be coming down the pike, which I guess theoretically, if you're really a doomsday crypto person, that doesn't make you that happy because you want them just to blow up. But yeah.

That's true. You're right. You kind of need to bet on the recklessness of the Fed. And so far, the Trump administration is playing responsibly. We'll see, right, how this thing involves. Can Congress be responsible? We'll see. But that dollar has acted like a wrecking ball on any emerging market that exports

commodities, such as Mexico, Brazil, and Russia. Like, the Russian sanctions are hurting them in a significant way now. So, yeah, it's amazing, you know, the U.S. dollar does this or the Fed does that and the world shutters. And we don't know what a world of rolling defaults would look like. I'm talking at sovereign defaults. And that would, you know, could be really, really ugly. What tools in the box do we rely on then?

Let's move on to last week, speaking of which we're kind of on the same topic. But Powell was asked about Bitcoin. He said something that, I mean, honestly, if you told me like a year and a half ago that he said this, I would have been like, what? But he basically said that he didn't view it as a competitor, Bitcoin specifically, as a competitor to the dollar. He said it was more digital gold and a competitor gold than it is a competitor to the dollar, which, honestly, I kind of completely agree with at this point, which I know some Bitcoin Maxis will hear this and be mad at me for saying that. But I guess, do you guys have any thoughts on what Powell said? Jamie, I'll let you go first if you have any thoughts.

No, look, I don't think it's debatable at this point. It's not a rival to the U.S. dollar as it is today. I think most Bitcoiners would actually acknowledge that as well. So it is a rival store of value to gold, reserve asset, emerging reserve asset. And as the asset grows in size, in market capitalization, and the ecosystem of layer two's and utility that grows around you, then maybe at some point it has a role to play as a medium of exchange globally. It's not there yet.

It's not being viewed in that manner. So, yeah, I think the central banks are starting to just, I mean, essentially starting to just accept it where it is. And I think it aligns with most Bitcoiners views on it. I don't think it was out of line. What's more interesting is what some of the other Fed governors are saying about crypto in general, like Waller, who gave me a presentation like two months ago

talking about how complementary defy was to the commercial banking system and how it could extract all these efficiencies that is a massive change of heart from within the central bank. Yeah, totally agree with you, Jamie. I've been digging into this also because the Federal Reserve regulates the banks. It doesn't do that on its own, but it does basically cover the payment systems, anything to do with monetary policy. So it is a voice to listen to when it comes to what's coming down the pipeline

in terms of crypto regulation. And it's looking like it is actually going to be supportive, surprising supportive, not just from the heavy hints, which I don't think was a coincidence coming from Powell, but as you mentioned two months ago, Governor Waller, who arguably is the second most influential official in the Fed, he did come out and support not just of defy, but he said encouraging things about tokenization. And just last month, he was talking about staple coins being good for U.S. payment systems. So this is looking very encouraging, and especially after the nomination of a AI and CryptoSAR who also has been excited about the potential of tokenization since the early days.

I remember I was on a panel with David Sachs back in 2018 interviewing him about tokenization. And so this is, the U.S. has a chance to catch up with the rest of the world here on tokenization, which is really a big part of reforming markets. And the key element of that is obviously the settlement element, which is going to be stable coins. I agree. I think David Sachs is probably one of the best cryptos are as you can get. Like if he was on the multiple choice menu, when we discussed them last week, I might have selected him. But he's an investor in Solana.

He learns, he knows digital assets. He's part of the Peter Thiel network as well. And PayPal is emerging. Clearly, it's one of the most consequential startups of all time with David Sachs, with Peter Thiel, with Elon Musk, and with even J.D. Vance, as well. being one of Peter Thiel's hand-picked individuals. It's really incredible to see that unfold. But, yeah, I think it's very positive.

David, as a VC, also understands the importance of disclosures, which is the vetter rock of U.S. securities laws, and the SEC has failed to offer a disclosure framework to let investors invest and understand the risks that they bear. So I think it's actually a very, very good pick. Now, we've got to see the team underneath David. David, David, David has got a lot of responsibilities on his hands. Okay, what teams around him to execute, draft, start implementing policy? Yeah, I mean, I think it's also a good pick.

I did see some mainstream media posts, like, talking about how he's not like an expert in crypto or AI, which was kind of weird to me, like people critiquing the pick. But I don't know. Do we know? I actually have a question for the group. I remember people saying that, like, part of it was like, you can't hold any crypto and be in this position. I'm assuming that's not actually the case for.

for this role? Anyone else know? Yeah, I did look into this also. He's not, he's not an elected official, so he can hold whatever he wants. Okay. The other thing we should talk about in relation to this, does anyone else have any more comments on David Sachs getting the AI and CryptoZar? All right, good. We'll move on to Paul Atkins. We were talking about it looked like he was likely going to be named last time we did this, and he has officially since been named.

I mean, based on everything I know and I've looked into, I think it's a fantastic pick. I mean, I'm a huge fan of Hester Purse over at the SEC. I'm also like Mark Ueda. And both of them basically worked under Paul Atkins when he was a commissioner himself under Bush in the 2000s. So, I mean, if he's anything like Hester, I just think this should be a great thing. I know a lot of people are asking how pro-crypto is he going to be. I know for a fact, he has a consulting company that works with a lot of crypto companies and trad-fied companies.

So, I mean, from my point of view, this looks to be great for the industry. Honestly, just for markets in general, I feel like things got way too political specifically with the SEC. You shouldn't be ideological when you're working at the SEC in my view. You should just try to create a framework. And I think things got a little too political and ideological against different areas of the markets. But I'll go to you, Noel. What are your thoughts on Ackins being named? Very good news.

As you say, I've got to be honest, I mean, the rollout of the crypto support is turning how even better than I expected. And it wasn't even certain we were going to be getting an AI and CryptoSar until just until it was actually announced. And the pick for the SEC, I'm rooting Team Pierce, but she didn't want the job apparently still. Atkins does sound like a very good pick, especially because Hester Pierce has vouched for him, and that's good enough for me. So it looks like this is actually going to be a priority of the incoming administration. There was a lot of skepticism that Trump will say whatever he needs to do to get the donations. No, it actually looks like there is going to be some movement on this.

The velocity is extraordinary. It's really impressive. The selection of Paul Atkins caused that Bitcoin pumped $103,000 to the market liked it as well. I had a chance to meet Paul a few years ago at his consulting company where we were looking to engage in some kind of crypto activity. The point there, though, is that he understands the actual issues entrepreneurs face. He understands the problems, protocols face. he understands the issues that the banking sector is facing.

That was the context in which I was interacting with him. So it's not theoretical. It's not academic. It's very practical. So he is a terrific A plus pick. And to your point, Noel, I mean, look at the velocity and the accuracy in selecting people for these roles is very strong. I believe that after the inauguration,

you're going to see a string of executive orders come out very quickly. I'm already hearing that they're drafting the Trump tax package already. That'll be up on the docket the first half of this year, of next year. That's absolutely amazing because the big worry was that crypto would just get pushed down the priority list. Let's face it, there's going to be a lot to do when Congress takes their desks in January. And crypto is not necessarily the most pressing issue facing the United States of America, much as we wish it otherwise. But no, with the moves, as you said, Ron, stuff is going to happen.

I don't think this is fully priced in. I think the market was much more skeptical than they have reason to be. It's going to be shock on our policy. The velocity of action that we're going to see, we've asked to any new administration. And it's not even just in the U.S. because once the U.S. gets going, just imagine what other jurisdictions are going to have to do to scramble to keep up. I mean, they've been going ahead of the United States in many areas, but taking their time because the United States didn't look like it was going to be moving very fast,

now they're going to be scrambling. Yeah, I think for better or for worse, I mean, I guess for crypto, it's likely to be for better. This Trump and the people around him have learned from the first go-around. They're going to know how to navigate the halls of the government, the halls of power, if you will, a little bit quicker. So things are going to get done. So I agree with your shock and all, common ROM. I think that's likely to be what happens. But, I mean, again, that's good and bad on both fronts. Things are going to happen.

If you listen to Trump's interview this Sunday, if the American public heard that, he would win the election with even wider margins. He's got momentum. By the way, I don't agree with every element there. I think broadly in the economic policy is nailing it, actually. he really is on the team he's picked he's got a lot of jami i know you're australian but do you have any any thoughts on paul ackins being named the uh to run the cc look i mean to be honest i didn't know much about him before he came in

but i and just generally around the appointments i was seen um as a as a non-national um i and someone who's pro-market and pro innovation pro growth i think what we're seeing is really a revolution inside the US government in terms of policy direction. This is like a, hopefully a fork in the road in a completely new direction. The appointments have so far been great. But this is all in the lead up to the actual big day when he actually steps into office. He's going to execute. But James, I agree. First time around, this was a very different Trump. He had to learn the hard way. He's put in a great team. And I don't think it will be easy. But he has set up a team around him, I think, who can cut through a lot of the regulatory

morass that and the bureaucracy which is really I think strangled innovation and you know from my perspective

I want to see this whole global debt in debt to growth imbalance start to get corrected and you can only do that through a couple

of different levers you have to have strong growth in the economy you have to promote pro-growth policies but cutting regulations is one way to do that

tax cuts and then you've also got to try and constrain government spending. So at least from what they've said, pre actually getting into office, those two things are the things that they're going to address. And I think that's extremely positive. Can I throw a question open to the group related to what we were talking about earlier, related to China, but also related to the scramble of jurisdictions to catch up with the United States now that it's embracing crypto regulation? Do we think China will change its crypto policy

in coming months? Jamie, do you have any thoughts? of this being the closest among us, actually, to the actual region? Yeah, I mean, I don't think there, I don't see, there hasn't been any signs of a change like onshore, but they're sort of executing a policy through the proxy of Hong Kong, right? So they're allowing capital to flow into Hong Kong. They've set up the regulatory framework, which is going to put Hong Kong as a center for crypto blockchain development going forward. I think they're happy with that for now. And so, yeah, I think it's business as usual, but nothing major.

Unless you've heard something different, I haven't really heard anything about, you know, mainland China changing or pivoting. Now, just listening to some comments from a government official, a fairly high-ranking one, suggesting that they know that crypto trading is going on. So they might as well make it legal, bring it into the light that way they can track it, which reading between the line suggests that they may start licensing crypto exchanges. at some stage, much like Nigeria did when they realized they couldn't control the crypto trading, they decided to try and control it by licensing exchanges, just the sheer volumes that that could move. And then we have the Shanghai Court declaring crypto property, which is a legal nuance by the first step that would have been necessary for such a licensing regime. Speculation, total speculation, but that would be a pretty huge development.

I don't see it happening. Bitcoin is becoming America first, number one, right? Trump is saying, let's put Bitcoin mining here. Let's lead on Bitcoin. China wants a gold-first approach. China shifted from buying U.S. Treasury bonds to gold. They're not going to buy Bitcoin if the miners are concentrated in the United States. And the other part is that if you have digital currency, it makes capital and savings more fluid across borders. China has a cap. I want to say $75,000 per person per year. and they don't want that capital to leave the country along with their most talented individuals and entrepreneurs. China doesn't want free capital and mobility of talent. They want the opposite of that.

They want control of currency. They'd rather have a CDBC, a state-sponsored digital currency rather than... Ram, I would, sorry, James. I would say that I don't disagree with that's their policy position, but I can see the world is changing rapidly around them with other BRICS countries. adopting or becoming very accommodated towards Bitcoin, either through domestic mining operations. And also, let's not forget, whilst there was a China ban on mining back in 2021, 10% of the hash is still located in China.

So the central authorities are most likely aware that's going on. It's going on at the provincial and state level. But it's going on with implicit endorsement from the central, from the, you know, from the, you know, from the central government. So I don't disagree that that is exactly China's positioning. So no major change. But they're also dealing with trading partners in their new currency or trading block, which are starting to really move towards Bitcoin,

not as a reserve currency, but as a strategic asset and as a strategic industry in their mining operations to soak up excess energy and lower tariff rates for their consumers, is also a very pro-business and pro-investment as well. What do you've seen around Russia and the other brick countries? So it's mainly out of the Middle East. So you've got Bahrain, UAE, they have domestic mining operations. They see it as a strategic industry. If you look at the quotes coming out of the government ministers,

they've created domestic mining companies that have partnered with the likes of marathon and some of the larger U.S.-based mining operations. At Russia, look, there was something that happened, maybe a week ago with Putin making a comment. I haven't really read into that too much. There's definitely domestic mining operations there, probably not endorsed or, you know, with central government's approval, but it's going on. And I think there's just, I get the sense that Putin is becoming a little bit more sort of diplomatic around the issue of or on the topic of protect currencies. I did look into that actually because it's hilarious.

Putin said on stage at an investment conference, you can't ban Bitcoin. And this is Putin who actually has form in banning things he's worried about. So when he's up there recognizing you can't ban Bitcoin, then that's a vote of approval. There is a lot of legal mining going on now. They understand that they need to do this to be able to accumulate or diversify away from dollar reserves, not that they have any left. And also they do see Bitcoin mining as, a strategic industry, as you were suggesting, Jamie, because they do have a lot of trapped natural

resources. They have a lot of energy that is being wasted. And they have recently passed a law making it legal to pay for cross-border trade in cryptocurrencies. Now, it's unlikely that anybody would want to do so in Bitcoin, although it is now legal. It's much more probable that that's through stable coins. But they understand the role that Bitcoin plays on the geopolitical payment stage, especially in a country that doesn't have access to the traditional rails anymore. The Middle East story I totally get, by the way, that makes a lot of sense. First off, it allows them to attract entrepreneurs. And part of this feeds into the AI story.

So Dubai, UAE, and even Hong Kong, Singapore, these aren't working twist hubs. And for Russia, we'll have to see, I mean, there was a report that came out on Bloomberg that Russia has successfully evaded significant sanctions and purchased semiconductors from America-based text instruments. So, you know, arguably, that's harder to do under crypto and everything's under an address. We'll have to see. But I don't think Putin's really focused on this as a priority for them.

But I can see Middle East stepping up. Yeah, I think a lot of this, the more authoritarian types of regimes like in China and Russia, and I think initially they wanted to ban it. I think to what Jamie was saying, They kind of accepted that they can't and what Noel said. So I think they would much prefer to do a CBDC type thing. But Trump basically said that he would tariff the hell out of any of these bricks countries

trying to create another alternative currency. And that's when it kind of around the same time that Putin was saying, like, what are they going to do? You can't ban, but who can prohibit Bitcoin, which was the same day, I think. It was the same day or the next day after Powell basically said it was essentially digital goals. It was like two major leaders talking about this. So I think it's a rather complex situation. But to what Jamie said, I mean, Hong Kong launched Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.

They seem to be like letting things happen in Hong Kong that they are just not letting happen on the mainland yet. Who knows if they'll ever open it? Maybe they'll just let it be a Hong Kong type of situation and not something that mainland Chinese can completely partake it in the same way that Hong Kong citizens can. Any other thoughts on that topic before we move on to my favorite topic? So there was an article. I talked about this late last week.

and I talked about it on the show, actually. I basically said I didn't think the Salana ETS were going to get acknowledged by the SEC because the division of enforcement at the SEC is actively calling Salon in ETF. They're kind of doing the same thing with Ripple. So I kind of viewed those applications

as unlikely to even be acknowledged by the SEC. And that's what happened. CBOE withdrew their Solana ETF filings last week, almost certainly because there's no way to know for absolute certain, but it's almost certain that the SEC reached out to CBOE and the issuers and just like, we're not doing this right now.

And I don't blame them. I don't think they had a choice. Even if Gensler was like, like, he, Genser was doing plenty of things on his way out the door. This is one of the things where I don't really blame him. Like he has one division of enforcement saying these things are security. He can't then waste, you know, agency time looking into these documents that like are at exact, like, opposite of what another division is saying. It would just be a waste of resources to kind of open these things and start looking at them now. So I think once Paul Atkins gets in and he can kind of streamline and figure out what

they're going to do with those lawsuits with all those Wells notices, rescind some of them, give no comment letters, maybe settle some parts of the lawsuits against some of the big exchanges, who knows? But I don't think we can get a Salon ETF or a Ripple ETF particularly until then. So, I mean, now you look at like coin and HBarr and some other things that are not as clearly stated as securities by the SEC. Maybe those things, if somebody were to file, could get in before we even get Atkins, but I think you're going to see all these things refile again in January or February after we get a new SEC admin. But right now, it's just not going to happen. There's too many other things they need to get sorted out before they can actually launch. I don't know if anyone

has any thoughts or questions on that topic, but happy to get into it. Let's hear Jamie's charts on Bitcoin. I want to see, let's get to the alpha. Where are we going to? Which chart, Rand? I don't know if this was the tweet that you guys were sort of interested in but I don't know if this was the this was the tweet that you guys were sort of interested in but I put this out about six days ago so you know I have firstly let me state that you know based on where I think liquidity is going at least for the next year my view is that we go a lot higher in the crypto complex across risk assets But a lot of the momentum indicators that are built on sort of liquidity factors are sort of short to medium term. So they identify pivots or inflection points. And based on my analysis and looking at the liquidity factors that matter, we had a board of red really for the last couple of weeks. Yet crypto, continue to rally and rally very strongly because of what happened with the U.S. election, I think that was completely warranted. But ultimately, when you've got dollar tightening, yield spiking, U.S. Treasury volatility spiking, that eventually matters unless there's sort of some policy changes that flow through and change things.

So it was just really a warning that on the short term that things are sort of looking a little bit hard for risk assets around here. And there tends to be a lag. For whatever reason, crypto tends to lag or Bitcoin tends to lag by a couple of weeks. the major liquidity changes. So it felt like, you know, we'll do some sort of pullback. I have no idea in terms of like how big that is. We've obviously got news out today, which could have contributed to this RAM, which you alluded to, and maybe we'll get time to talk about from like the Google CEO.

But it doesn't really change the long-term outlook. The market was up like Bitcoin was up 70% in the space of six to seven weeks. most of the crypto complex is doubled. So it's really due for a pullback. But long term, I mean, we're also in a very strong seasonal period. So December and January tend to be very good for crypto. And so I think, you know, we're due for a pullback here. We might be getting it now.

We've had a pretty big wick down today. That may reset some leverage and some of the excessive funding rates that we're seeing in the perps market. But I think it's upwards and onwards to come next year. I agree with, I think, all of that. I think we talked about a little bit out this last week, too. Look, what are the events and cattle that we have to look forward to? Firing Gensler created a pump.

That was one. Two, nominating Atkins created another pump. That's another. What's the next? Executive order. So that's going to be a while. You've got a crypto czar appointed. And what's happening is they're selling into that strength.

I agree. You combine this with the fact that you've got a momentum pullback at the same time. And what started today to be some softness in animal spirits, I think on a risk reward, it's hard to get a compelling edge on the long side. If you could pull up a chart of micro strategy, James, I don't know if you're able to do that. I can send you one too. It's going to have a lot of hieroglyphics on it, though. It might not make sense. If you look at micro strategy too, we may have seen a local top of micro strategy as well, right? I don't know if you've got like a candlestick version of that, but if you look at this from like a one-year view, you know, you have a very similar kind of setup as you saw in March of last year, you know, where you had a strong push and then, you know, a failure to kind of maintain those levels. So you have a lot of volume to that volume is starting to receive. The open interest peak is starting to recede. As Jamie pointed out, the funding rates are high. Like you can earn a double-digit return by selling futures forward. and you're not going to get the price risk, that seems like an attractive opportunity. That's kind of where I land as well on risk rewards.

That double-digit selling futures, you're talking about the basis trade, right? You're just selling futures and buying spot. So in many cases, where a lot of hedge funds are doing that are doing that trade, they're actually using the spot ETF. So they're just shorting futures selling them forward. And you earn a double-digit annual percent yield, which is virtually risk-free. Right. And the perps market's even more attractive.

And I think Jamie pointed out prior to the show started, it worth the 90th percentile of funding rates. The demand for leverage is high. You know, market, it's hard to see a clear risk reward, I'd say. Like, I'd rather wait for a better spot. The challenge is taxes. The challenge is taxes, right? So you sell, if you're a U.S.-based investor, you're going to pay taxes.

So I think a lot of people are going to wait until January to kick out their tax liability for another year. So I think between now and inauguration day, you have a setup for some softness in the market. So how low do you think we go in that situation? No idea. No idea. That's hard to do. It's not necessarily a case of going lower either. They will be selling pressure.

I agree. Both in the run-up to the end of this year, as portfolios have to rebalance and then also the profit-taking to lock in the tax gains. But into that selling pressure, there is going to be buying pressure as well, because the case for holding Bitcoin is, as Jamie has been saying, also longer term, it's becoming clearer than ever. Yeah, I'm on the view that it's a pullback, but I don't think it's going to be, I don't think it's going to be any sort of more than the 30% that we regularly get in bull markets. If you look back to the previous two, 30% pullbacks were a common occurrence several times

during the bull market rally. And if we look at the symmetry of the market, where we are in the sort of liquidity cycle versus previous times when crypto's rally, we're sort of, you know, we're very much aligned with where we were in sort of 2021, with 2025. So you still get pullbacks. And we've had, you know, just this tightening happening on the liquidity front, which was completely overshadowed by all the extremely positive announcements at RAM. And Noel have alluded to with the new administration coming in. Look, if the Fed cuts 50 bifs, party on.

And if China announces a bazooker, it's going to be game on again. Yeah, and if Saudi Arabia turns out to have been accumulating Bitcoin all this time, who knows. All right. Let's get into ETH real quick. ETH flows have been very strong on the ETH side of things. So these things were dead in the water, basically until election day, as I've talked about every time. And the flows have continued since last week. We haven't seen a single day about flows.

And it's not even like we saw a flat day where every single day that they've been trading, they've seen inflows. So traditional financial investors are pouring money. Granted, it's not as much as we saw into the Bitcoin ETS, but money is coming in and coming in steadily. I mean, after the pullback today, maybe that number will get a flow number for today that is negative. But so far, it's been very strong for Ethan. ETH had pretty strong relative performance,

which it was lacking basically the entire time that we've been on doing this podcast. So anybody have any thoughts here on ETH? One of the things that's been identified with RAL and Julian's work in Real Vision and GMI, their research product, is that, funnily enough, Ethereum tends to rally with PMI. And so we've seen the PMI to sort of, you know, bottoming out over the last couple of months. This is what happened in the previous cycle. Admittedly, the sample size for all these sort of analogies is very small and statistically insignificant. But it has occurred in the past where Ether is very late to the rally.

Bitcoin leads. This time, Alts actually did a lot better than Ethereum, which is why people, I think, got confused when they're looking at Bitcoin dominance chart and saying, you know, this is a Bitcoin dominant market. When actual fact, if you look at the breadth across the top 200 coins over the last two months, they were all rallying up to around sort of 45, 50%. Now it's sort of like 80%. When you get to about 45 or 50%, that's an alt season or an alt-coin rally relative to Bitcoin.

That's outperformance of Bitcoin what I'm talking about. But it didn't show up in the Bitcoin dominance chart, mainly because Ethereum was not rallying. And also because some of these dino coins like XRP and Stellar, they weren't sort of joining in. Now they've joined in. The whole market's on fire. But the point is that Ethereum, it tends to have this sort of late cycle surge. but if you look at the actual fundamentals on the Ethereum blockchain on Mainnet, the thing that I think is very constructive right now for Ethereum is,

is the chain being used? And so when you see fees increase like they have, and fees are a function of two things, they're a function of activity, they're also a function of the price of ETH, because that is the commodity or gas that's paid when transacting on chain. But when fees grow faster than the market cap or the price, then you've got a real signal that actual real activity, you know, above the inflation in the token price is actually increasing. And that's certainly what we're seeing over the last month.

But this is a very busy table, but I'll just draw your attention to in the last month, the market cap has increased by around 46%. But daily fees are up 100%. So you can't say that it's just the increase in the token price, which is driving the daily fee amount, which is obviously very correlated to the value of a token, the value of the network. So I think it's very strong. And if you look at it over the last three months, it's up 500% relative to like a 40% move in the market price in the market cap. So for me, that is very constructive. I think Ethereum does pretty well.

If you look at it on a technical basis, you know, it's starting to break out of a wedge. it's ticked up against Bitcoin on the relative, on the relative chart as well. So it looks like we're about to move into part of the cycle where Ethereum does a little bit better. What do you think is the driving force behind those increasing fees? Do you look into that directly, Jamie? Or is you just paying attention to the higher level? Yeah, there's some granularity that we get into. So looking at where the activity is coming from.

So defy is really picked up. And so that's just a function of like more risk appetite. whether it's using some of the defy protocols. That's primarily the driver at this point, which is interesting given how much activity is migrating off the main chain into L2s. Now even defy protocols creating their own app chain on the L2, like Uniswop is announced. So it's very interesting that you're getting this sort of activity.

Ethereum in terms of the decentralized world is still the network where it has the highest level of security and trust. I mean, putting Bitcoin aside here, just looking out from a smart contract perspective. Awesome. The best story for Ethereum is enabling institutions to do Defi in a legal way. If that happens, Ethereum could go to 10,000. There's no framework for that to happen right now.

But that's the most bullish story for Ethereum. We mentioned this last week of all the chains that benefit from a new securities law framework and a banking framework, be Ethereum and Solana at that benefit. tactically the best time to get into Ethereum is actually when gas fees are low relative to market cap, when gas fees are high relative to market cap, especially when you're farther along during the rally, usually means that there's more enthusiasm. You know, you had peak gas fees around ape coin, if people remember that in 2020. You barely get transactions done. That was a local top,

for instance. I think some of that has been, I wouldn't say solved because still the main chain, the base chain fees are still high. relative to alternative L1s and L2s, but the upgrade they did in the first quarter this year, even on the main chain, has cut fees by 70, 80%, maybe even a bit more. So it's still a relatively expensive chain to get things done, but not to the same degree.

And I think a lot of that sort of fervent activity will just occur on the L2s. Or on Solana. It's too bad we don't have Joe McCann here, the resident Salonabull Max, right well i think this would be retail versus institutional right like if institutions can use ethereum as a permissionless chain to settle with one another and issue bonds and put assets on chain you know the funny thing about ethereum is that although it's a way to go bankless uh the banks

are the best parties to use the chain too including people that don't want to be banked really both sides of that rom noel do you want to get into the let's let's talk a little bit about the prospect of Microsoft and Amazon potentially putting BTC on their balance sheet, which I think is slimmed to none. But I guess you guys have any other topics, comments. Let's get into it. Yeah. Again, we're recording on Monday, December 9th and the decision comes down on the 10th, I think, for Microsoft. So, you know, who knows? I mean, it certainly doesn't make sense if they want to be tech forward and if they want to be offering blockchain services to their client base, which they do, it makes sense to at least have some kind of skin in the game in terms of the balance sheet.

So we'll see. Shareholders are going to be proposing this across the tech stack on the public quoted companies and not just the tech stack as well. We're going to be seeing more and more shareholder activism across all coded companies to get Bitcoin on the balance sheet. And eventually more companies will indeed do so. That's going to start the flywheel, especially if inflation comes back and especially if currency turmoil makes Treasury management.

increasingly complicated and tie that into more supportive regulation about the use of stable coins for treasury management. That also just broadens the crypto window considerably. We were talking earlier about, Ramia, you were talking about public blockchains versus private blockchains for defy. I totally agree with you. I'm halfway through reading. I haven't finished it yet. But the European Union, an analyst for the European Union published a paper, I think it was last week, recommending the use of public blockchains for traditional finance.

And he recognizes that this is actually going to be quite a long shot to sell. But his proposal does actually have some intriguing twists. His idea is, yes, there's going to be just a ton of private blockchains for all of the institutional activity. And, you know, fair enough, that's what the regulators can get their heads around. But how about a public blockchain that connects them all? Right. Well, that's the base case right now is a private blockchain, like J.P. Morgan's, ony. So that's incredible.

I mean, the thoughts are starting to percolate. late. We'll see what Microsoft does. As Michael Saylor said last week, did you guys see this clip? Alex Thorne posted this on Twitter. It's really incredible during his interview. He says, Saylor says longs are going to long,

shorts are going to short, haters are going to hate, Maxis are going to Max. We should play that clip on the closeout. Yeah, that was a great. I was awesome. I'm happy Alex went down there to do that interview. I was with him the night before. He was like, yeah, I've got to go down to Miami to sit with the sailor and we're going to talk about this. So great clip.

I guess do you want to touch briefly on the quantum computing comments that we've heard from Microsoft and Google, well, mainly Google in the last couple days? Anyone want to have any thoughts? I'll be very brief. So Google CEO announced that they have some prototype of quantum competing transactions. It looks groundbreaking. It's good for humanity. It's very exciting.

Bitcoin had a swish in digital assets around the same time. And the fear is that does the encryption framework around digital assets get disrupted due to quantum encryption? The answer is no, by the way, not anytime soon. The qubit level of compute that Google has is like around 100 or starting 100 cubits. So, qubits are the equivalent of bits. We're a Bips and Bits Podcast, so it's equivalent of a bit that's in superposition. So it's on and off, and neither on nor off at the same time.

But you need billions of qubits to break quantum encryption. And you need billions of qubits to break classic encryption, I should say. But quantum encryption is also another kind of remedy to this. So it's really much ado about nothing. It's also frequent. I track the number of times that quantum computing is mentioned, and as a big existential threat to crypto. I just don't really get it.

I think if quantum computing does become a threat to encryption, the threat to crypto is the least of our worries. And what really does the market expect? You're going to sell your crypto assets and put the cash in your bank account? It just doesn't really make any sense. It's also secured by cryptography. Exactly, exactly. And seriously, the crypto is the least of our worries,

if indeed encryption is no longer a thing, which it won't be because, you know, there are solutions in the pipeline that developers, you know, that very smart photographers have been working on for ages. Yeah, Jamie, real quick, do you want to go into real quick talking about some of the stats in Solana that you were talking about for Ethereum, how there was a lot more green on that page when you showed it before, but I don't know if you just want to walk us through or talk a little bit about the stats that we're seeing on the Salana chain. Yeah, hopefully my internet connection behaves, though. So you can see up on, I think, on the screen now that there's Salina dashboard. So Salinas also had very strong numbers. It's grown its fees by nearly a

thousand percent versus the market cap increase, which has been substantial at 75 percent just over the last three months. So there's obviously like a lot of activity on chain and this is all very sort of constructive to the valuation of the network. So it's more of the same as just really, you know, the earlier screen on Ethereum was just showing that it has now just started to catch up, but really where the epicenter of activity within the whole crypto economy has been for really the past year, has been on Solana. And that, although the pace has slowed down just a little bit, it's still a relative outperformer. And it's now, Solana represents 28% of the entire crypto economy's daily fee income. So, you know, it's grown substantially.

But yet as in terms of percentage market cap, it represents about 12%. I still think Solana outperforms Ethereum. this cycle because of that sort of valuation gap. But I think Ethereum does, you know, a lot better relative to everything else going forward as well. Did you say valuation? I thought prices were just dictated on vibes in this space. Yeah, Marrilyne's vibes.

Intrinsic value. It's all a social contract. All right. Anybody have any closing thoughts? Can we play that clip? Let's play that Alex Thorne clip. That's a good one. I'm surprised we haven't seen a viral rap re-ins.

If anyone will do it, it'll be Alex. It's really good. It is like a haiku for crypto that Michael Saylor put out there. Everybody's got to do their thing. The short's got to be short. The long's got to be long. The trader's got to trade. The haters got to hate.

The maxis are going to maxi. Everybody's going to do their thing. That's fine. It's brilliant. It's got rhythm and everything. Yeah. Sailor's one meta. He's at a different level now.

And in a way, you're right, you're so right. It does encapsulate crypto, which I've always said. It's about choice. There's room for everyone. There's room for diversity of species. There's room for all sorts of strategies. There's room for everyone here. It's a big 10.

All right. I think that's enough for today. Jamie, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone, yeah, everyone, thanks for joining us for this episode of Bits and Bits. We'll be back in one week to discuss more about how the worlds of Crypto. and Macro are colliding. Until then, everyone.