Unchained - Bits + Bips: Bitcoin Keeps Smashing All-Time Highs, and MSTR Joins the Big Leagues - Ep. 752

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Bitcoin’s 2024 rally has been explosive, but is the next phase just beginning? In this episode of Bits + Bips, hosts Noelle Acheson, Ram Ahluwalia, and Alex Kruger are joined by Ledn’s Mauricio di Bartolomeo to unpack the forces shaping the crypto market as the year comes to a close. Mauricio explains how Ledn has grown amidst regulatory and economic shifts, and shares insights on why the “Trump put” is creating a new trading setup for crypto. The panel dissects the undercurrents behind Bitcoin’s surge, explores how MicroStrategy’s presence on the NASDAQ creates unique market dynamics, and debates how much higher BTC could climb. But they warn not to expect “buy” ratings on MSTR. Plus, they dive into why Solana underperformed in recent weeks, how Bitcoin enables capital flight (and how they may be happening from China), and what 2025 could hold for crypto. Packed with data, opinions, and a few book recommendations (well, except from Alex), this episode offers sharp analysis as 2024, a pivotal year for crypto, wraps up. Show highlights: Mauricio’s background and how Venezuela’s regime led him to crypto How Ledn works and how it’s seen substantial growth since the elections What’s driving this wave of growth in the price of bitcoin How much higher BTC will go and what the effects of the end-of-year portfolio rebalancing will be What the risks are for the U.S. economy How BTC is the easiest way to trade the Trump bump Whether the Chinese macro matters for crypto  How MicroStrategy has become a Trojan horse Why Alex likes XRP and ENA and why SOL has been underperforming recently 2024 wrap-up: what everyone was most surprised about  Book recommendations from everyone, except Alex, who’s only focused on shitcoins Hosts: Noelle Acheson, Author of the “Crypto Is Macro Now” Newsletter  Alex Kruger, Founder of Asgard Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida Guest: Mauricio di Bartolomeo, cofounder & CSO of Ledn Links Unchained:  Bitcoin Hits New All-Time High MicroStrategy Joins Nasdaq-100, Expanding Bitcoin Exposure to Billions Trump’s Crypto Project Spent Nearly $45M Onchain in 2 Weeks FTX Distributions to Start in Under 2 Weeks Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:38 Mauricio’s journey from Venezuela to crypto 07:37 How Ledn thrived post-elections and saw major growth 15:16 Key drivers behind Bitcoin’s explosive rally 20:30 How high could BTC climb – and might year-end rebalancing affect the price? 25:22 Risks facing the U.S. economy heading into 2025 32:47 BTC as the go-to trade for the Trump bump 36:13 The significance of Chinese macro trends for crypto 47:32 MicroStrategy’s role as a Trojan horse for Bitcoin adoption 53:20 Why Alex likes XRP and ENA, but SOL is lagging 1:02:35 Biggest surprises from 2024’s crypto market 1:06:33 Book picks from everyone—except Alex, who’s all about shitcoins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trump couldn't essentially rug pull all these other emerging markets that are trying to control the capital flows of their people by embracing Bitcoin and digital assets. It advances the policy. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Bits and Bips, exploring how crypto and macro collide one basis point at a time. I'm your host, Noel Acheson, author of The Crypto is Macro Now newsletter, bravely filling in for James Seafurt, who is taking a well-earned break. I'm here with Alex Kruger, Kruger Macpenter of House Ashesel. Guard, Protector of the Realm, and Ram Alualia, Master of Wealth, leader of Lumida. Hi, guys. Today is a very special show, as it is the last one of the year.

The Bits and Bips team will be taking a break for the last over the holiday season. We'll be back in early January. And so, as well as discussing the latest developments in macro and crypto, today we're going to be back and looking forward. It's also a very special show because we are joined by. special guest, Mauricio de Bartolomeo, co-founder and CSO of Lennon, a leading provider of crypto-back loans. Welcome, Mauricio. Welcome, everybody. It's a pleasure to be here, a big fan of the show and all of you guys, so happy to have this chat. I'm excited to have you here and such a good timing as well.

Now, before we dive in, I do need to remind everyone that nothing we say here should be considered investment advice. Do please see Unchained.com slash bits and bibs for more disclosures. And, you know, With that, let's dive right in. But first, Mauritio, I want to give you a chance to explain to our viewers that aren't familiar with Leiden, it's origin story, but also your origin story, how you got involved in crypto. Sure, thanks.

I'll try to keep this brief, because it's a long story. And both my journey and Levin's journey do somehow collide, and one leads to the other. But for those I'm familiar, my name's Mauricio, as you mentioned, my co-farmine. under letting it started in November 2018, so we've been doing this for six plus years. But how I got into Bitcoin is a little bit different, I guess, than I think what most people are used to. I'm originally born and raised in Venezuela, and that's where I grew up.

And I quickly became exposed to hyperinflation and broken economies and, you know, the country basically collapsing. And it was in the middle of this collapse and this, you know, horrible capital control that people were frantically looking for options where the government made it illegal to hold dollars, illegal to basically buy or keep anything that would store or maintain its wealth, even as far as non-perishables. So people in Venezuela at this time had two jobs. They had their nine to five, and then they had to get rid of the fiat and that they got paid on Friday before it became worthless by the next day.

And it was in the middle of this hyperinflitionary wave that my youngest brother finds Bitcoin in Venezuela. and they started mining Bitcoin back in 2014. As many people know, Venezuela basically ran into crypto and Bitcoin back then because of the hyperinflation and the capital controls. And people found in Bitcoin a solution to their problems. And they ran and became very active users. Many people started mining.

We helped a lot of people get set up in mining in Venezuela. But as fate would have it, anything that is pro-freedom in Venezuela gets eventually chased out by the government. So the regime did a witch hunt or a crusade against miners. My family was one of the first targets. So we had to basically leave. They had to leave the country. But back then, I was already, back in that time, I was in Canada. My family was still mining in Venezuela. And I was desperately trying to find a way to get involved in Bitcoin, you know, not in Venezuela. They were mining because they had heavily subsidized power in hydro. But I was helping other miners in Canada and the U.S. and other places that have very similar issues. They

had Bitcoin income and fiat expenses. And nobody wanted to sell the Bitcoin to grow the business. And surprisingly, I went around looking for somebody that would give us a Bitcoin back loan back in 2017, 2016. And we got laughed out of the room. They told us Bitcoin wasn't an asset. Who would want to do that? Too volatile anyway, right? Yeah. In certain reasons here. And then by the fourth meeting or third or fourth meeting, my business partner and I looked at each other and we said, everyone seems to be sleeping on this. I think we have a big chance here of solving our own problem and building something that could help a lot of people. And so we did. And we set out with a very simple goal, which was to do Canada's first Bitcoin back loan.

We did that, November 2018. And since then, the model got proven. People found use in the product. We started servicing miners in other parts of the world. And then we quickly brought the product to Latin America where I was from and I knew how to sort of pitch the idea and how it could be useful for them. And the whole thing has snowballed into now today where everybody now, you know, realizes, there are a lot of people are realizing that selling your big one's a bad idea, and they're looking for options to borrow. And here we are, you know, as the, what started as the, you know, a small idea, we are now the leading company that offers these types of products. So it's a, it's a, we're very proud of, you know, how everything is turned out. And we feel like

we have a big opportunity ahead of us. And that's what we squarely focused on. What kind of regulatory pushback, if any, did you get in the early days? So lending, so the lending part, there's, there's two sides. to our business, there's a lending component, and then there's the source and capital component. So a loan has two products. There's a lender, and then there's the borrower. So on the lending side, to go to the end consumer, most of the regulations are around consumer protections, and they are based on a state-by-state level, province-by-provence level. And generally speaking, when it comes to lending into a country or into a jurisdiction, the most important thing you have to watch out for

or make sure you're compliant with are anti-money laundering and consumer protection laws. And these are usually to ensure that lenders that are coming into a jurisdiction are lending, you know, below what they consider usury rates and making sure they're disclosing risks and everything to the clients. So on the lending side, it's been, it's been interesting. I would say it's, it's been a lot less challenging to lend into a place than it is to source capital from a place. That's where a lot of the securities regulations are around. And by and large, our loan product is available in a large part of the world, I would say, a large part of the U.S., a large part of Canada. However, when it comes to yield as in earning interest on your dollars or your Bitcoin,

or our products like B2X, which is a loan to buy more Bitcoin, and even our DCNs, which have derivatives on the back, those products are a little more nuanced, and the regulation there is a little bit more spotty because certain countries have different rules that allow you or not allow you to do that. But I would say on the lending side to the consumer, you know, I would say it's been a great experience. It's been a good experience. Letten has a squeaky clean track record with regulators worldwide. I think that's something not a lot of companies can say and we're really proud of. On the yield side, it's been, there's, that's where a lot more of the pushback has been.

So if you think back to the SEC shutting down the BlockFi, you know, investment accounts or the or NXO had similar offerings, we had a similar offerings, all those accounts have basically got on wound way back then. And I think on the, now that we have a new investment, that might change going forward, but our job is to comply with the rules and to help update those rules as needed. So I'm optimistic that you're going to see a lot more clarity from the regulatory side and that'll open up the door for a lot more lending products to be offered into markets like the U.S. Hey, Maricio, I'll be brief. How does your business model, is it similar or different than the last generation of lending firms, especially as it relates to rehipification? Are the loans fully

collateralized and how do you ensure you avoid the issues from the last cycle? Yes. So great point, Ram, and we can get into, you know, how we navigated 2022 versus when others didn't. But we do have a custody loan, what's called a custody loan. So that loan does not get re-hypothecated. The assets remain in custody at all times. That is, that has been, not surprisingly, our most popular loan product over the last two years or so. The other thing that Letton does very differently than the others is that there is actual ring fencing of the risks, of the products that contain credit risks. So for instance, in our growth accounts or Bitcoin growth accounts, we take Bitcoin from people that want to earn interest. We turn around, we lend

that Bitcoin to institutions. With any lending product, there's always a risk of non-performance or a risk of default. So at Leiden, the growth accounts are designed such that if there is a loss in that lending activity from that growth account, the loss gets contained and absorbed by the people participating in that account. There is no obligation for or there's no risk, I guess I would say, for Lennon to have to absorb or now be able to absorb the loss and then have the whole ship sink, which is what effectively happened with SELCHA's and BlockFi and others. So at Leden, all of the products that have, all of the products that have credit risk are ring fence from the products that aren't. So for instance, our clients that are taking our custody, Bitcoin back loans,

would not be exposed or would not suffer if there was a loss in the Bitcoin growth account side of the house. So in that sense, they're very different because back in the day, these companies had no separation. The people that were 20x long on Shiba Inu were in the same bankruptcy line than the guys had, you know, had Bitcoin on custody. And I think broadly what I would say is a lot of the companies that failed in the past didn't fail necessarily because of what they were doing. taking collateral and keeping it safe and lending you cash can be done pretty responsibly and pretty simply. It's when you start adding, it's really on how they were doing it. To your point, they were re-hypothicating to no end. They were not disclosing these things to their clients.

They had tokens on their models. They could do all sorts of financial engineering. They accepted assets that have very little liquidity and no demand on the institutional side. So that just creates layers upon layers upon layers of excess risk that you don't really need if you just want to do collateralized lending. Great. Last question. Do you have a third-party admin on the custodied loans to validate that they're fully collateralized? Or do you have some on-chain mechanism to ensure that loans created match receivables, the assets? So great question. So we have a few things. So we have proof of reserves. We were the first lender to ever do proof of reserves. We do them every six months with a certified public accountant. So all of our clients can see the report when it's produced. And you, you can see that we reported your liabilities to the penny and to the Satoshi to the accountant.

And basically, based on the liabilities reported and the assets reported, the accountant confirms that there's enough assets to cover our liabilities. So that's on the one side. On the custody loan, there's a legal representation in the legal agreement that neither let and know our funding partners have any right to do anything with that collateral or lend it into the market. I want it. So our goal is to get that proof to be on chain.

something that we're working on, and we hope to be doing this or, you know, announcing this towards the sometime in next year. I'm hoping sooner, closer to the beginning than to the end, but this is something we're working on actively. And transparency is the way forward here. That's always our premise. And if anyone's going to do this, you can trust it's going to be us. Awesome. Maritia, what can you tell us about the growth you've seen over 2024? I mean, not necessarily numbers, but from which segments of the market has it come? So lots to say on the growth for 2024.

2024 has been a phenomenal year for us. It's been a banner year. Every month has been a record after record. Last month we had our best month ever. This month is on track to far surpass November. To give you some sense of the numbers, up until mid-November, we were originating around a million dollars per day on loans for. for our Bitcoin back loan clients.

Since middle of November, that number's closer to two and a half three per day. So it's been dramatically increased. I think the growth is really coming from everywhere. There has been a huge surge of demand from the U.S. I would say the U.S. has been a very massive market for us, and it's gotten really big over 2024. As far as use cases go,

we are seeing a lot of loans go out to purchase real estate. I think a lot of Bitcoiners bought the original stack with this goal of Bitcoin reaching 100K and buying their dream home. It's there. And now they're going out and buying the home without having to sell the Bitcoin. We had people that took out loans back in 2022 to buy houses. They've seen the collateral grow to surpass the value of their initial purchase and then some. So they're very happy. And I guess what we are seeing is demand from two sides. One, the, The OG holders or the holders that have been at this for a few years realize the value of maintaining the Bitcoin for longer

and they want to access their wealth and they're buying and they want to buy their home. So they're coming in and they're taking a Bitcoin back loan. The new people that are coming in are coming in not for a trade, but for a long-term investment. And knowing that they can access these loans, gives them more conviction to enter into those positions. And a lot of times they go into those positions knowing that they're going to want to use those loans from the outset.

So they use us to effectively have their cake and eat some of it too, if that makes sense. And that does. That's fascinating. You mentioned earlier that you were focusing back in the early days on minors. What are they doing these days? So miners are interesting because not every miner has access to public debt markets. So you're seeing the markets, the publicly traded miners are effectively trying to do or recreate a similar flywheel than micro strategy has been doing. They are being rewarded by holding Bitcoin under balance sheet,

more so than by mining it themselves. So it's almost like they're trading like an ETF plus an operating company, two and one. But the miners that are not blessed, I guess, with public market access, still have financing needs, still see value holding their Bitcoin long term, but they can't issue a bond.

So they will come to us to upgrade equipment. They will come to us to meet payroll, need expenses. And it's not just them. We work with a number of publicly traded companies in the Bitcoin space that use us for managing their treasury. So we're seeing a lot of companies for treasury management, whether it is to pay for expenses and keep the Bitcoin or to take out loans to buy more Bitcoin. There's all sorts of flavors to that. But I guess the underlying trend is those who have Bitcoin want more of it and those who get paid Bitcoin don't want to sell it.

So it's been pretty virtuous. It's really coming from a lot of places. The miners themselves, the majority. The majority of the loans for them come for equipment, cycle, you know, upgrades and for operating expenses. And the fact that they can finance with that, get liquidity, but that means that there's less sell pressure in the market, which is probably relevant, could be relevant to what we're seeing now. Earlier today, Bitcoin broke through $107,000. I should say that we're recording this on Monday. Who knows where it'll be by the time you listen to this. Alex, what do you think is, mainly driving this fresh wave? The Trump trade. Nothing has changed, actually, since we talked the first time, I think. It's more of the same, Trump, regulations, sailor.

I mean, one thing is him saying he's going to be doing something, and a different thing is actually him doing it, right? And over and over and over again. But it's pretty much that the fascinating thing is that here we are at 106K, yeah, 106 right now. And it's pretty much, it feels the market is not very levered right now. It's been spot-driven pretty much in the last move after the flashout we had a week ago, right? So yeah, more of the same.

It's the Trump honeymoon. I mean, and some people may be concerned that things are too vertical, but things, when things are so good, they're supposed to be vertical. I mean, just look at Tesla. As you see anybody like freaking out that Tesla is about to drop third. 30%? No, just too X because of very strong fundamentals and a fundamental change. Yeah, what do you guys think? Yeah, I agree. I think micro-stratage's inclusion to QQQ is a big one also.

We talked about that possibility last Monday it happened. Friday after the close, the S&P committee announced that that would happen. So that's a big driver. The other part is the economist threw in the towel Sunday last night. There's an article they published that was constructive on digital assets. in. Oh, no. Yeah. That's a red flag.

Yeah, it's kind of funny. I should post this. Let me, well, I'll show my screen this second. You can see it, but almost to the five-minute mark, this thing started lifting off after this economist article. So was at like 5.19 p.m. Eastern time yesterday. So, Alex, when did Bitcoin take off last night? It was after.

It was after. Okay. I think it was around 5.000. Yeah, so maybe the curves is lifting. It hit the all-time high at 1230 in Europe. So it would have been 630 E.T. That was when it broke through 1,05, I believe. All right.

It's about an hour after that. 105,000. So the economist capitulated, yeah. So let's not, thou shall not talk about the economist henceforth. The what now? Yeah. You know, there's a fun study that was done by someone called Brett Connolly, like an old-time FX trader, very good. And he's been, since 21, he's been tracking the signal of basically the economist articles.

And it's very consistently contrarian, basically, you fade the economist. I'd say everyone out there, like, it's good stuff. Look it up. Brett Connolly, the economist, should come out. So does that mean that this is it for Bitcoin? I think the economist is not that decisive. I agree by that. It is Trump bump.

It's not just Bitcoin. If you look at the chart of Tesla, it's the same phenomenon. Very correlated. And the buyer base and the buyer psychology are very similar. This is one big animal spirits trade. Now, Tesla and Bitcoin weren't actually correlated up until the election. So you can see here November 3rd, that's where you have the election, and then both of these rip. So, yeah, it is interesting that the funding rates are stable. They haven't looked where they are now and at all-time highs in weeks.

So it's actually much more constructive than we've seen in some time. I think we'll get a Santa Claus rally now through your end. So I brought my Santa hat here. Santa Claus rally officially started today. So we have snow on the ground here, New Jersey, UFOs in the sky, and Santa Claus with his reindeer. Some are flying overhead. But yeah, it's a, you know, it's a good seasonality. I guess my quick view would be that probably in the early new year. We'll see.

I think you could get folks that are pushing taxes off to the new year. So it's interesting. We're a new territory and exciting to see what Bitcoin does from here. As a European, when is the cap gains cutoff point for 2024 U.S. taxes? It's 1231. Okay, so any selling would be done before then, so we could see a pullback in the remaining days. People are definitely kicking off sales to the extent they are able to do so to the next year. And I also hear people saying they're waiting for Bitcoin at 125.

It's another comment. I hear another level at 150. So, and then you have 150 or et cetera. How much should we worry about portfolio rebalancing? I think it's a significant point that you're making there. I wouldn't be surprised to see a mean reversion kick in in the year. Because you're also going to have the end of tax loss selling that takes place. Right.

So the last week of the year, people are going to sell whatever isn't working, like energy tank or stocks. For example, what was that, Alex? What's not working? So they're going to sell whatever's not working. And then, you know, I think in a new year, that gets a bid. So you could see the rotation or like a worst to first dynamic. Maritio, what's your view on Bitcoin heading into 2025? You who are actually lending money to Bitcoin holders, do you think, think we're in for another 12 months of upward run, or do you think the Trump factor will start to ease off once he actually takes office? I think it's going to be a grind up to $200, $250. That my base case is 2025. It's just going to be a, it's hard to tell exactly when, but my view is that it's going to be a consistent grind. I think there's way too much pent up progress

in this industry that hasn't been reflected in price. If you think back to the last four years, there's been an operation choke point, there's been an SEC that's been not necessarily the friendliest, and this industry has gone to where it has gotten with ETFs and such, with really a bunch of headwinds. And now you have removed the headwinds and potentially replace them with a tailwind. So my base is that even if you just remove the headwinds, you're going to have a massive repricing just because there is no looming threat from the powers that be in this industry. And I think people's animal spirits, which have instinctively seen the progress in the future of this, they had been sort of neutered and kept back by force.

But that sort of, the bad cop is out of the room now. It's okay to have digital assets. BlackRock has them. Paul Tudor Jones has them. The government of the United States is looking to buy it. it's now, in the past, you could have passed off as a conservative registered investment advisor if you told someone not to own Bitcoin. If it's in the Treasury of the United States government and publicly traded companies, you're not conservative anymore. You're just out of touch. So that

that would be my two cents. And the career was commoos from rather than actually suggesting something as risky as a stake, it's suggesting not having one. I was watching today a video of the former German finance minister, Christian Lindner, berating the German government for not having a Bitcoin policy. And we've talked on this show before about the contagion effect. I think we're starting to see that seep through now. We are going to be seeing this discussed at nation state levels increasingly going forward. Maritio, you mainly focus on Bitcoin loans. You have some eth activity as well. Have you been getting requests for loans backed by other crypto assets? We do get the request here and there to support other crypto assets.

We have been very clear from day one that we don't look at what other lenders before us in the 2021 era ran to these new assets because it's a quick way to balloon your assets on platform and to get the fan base from those new projects. The issue is that these new tokens oftentimes have no liquidity and haven't really been tested or gone through a cycle. So the short answer is, yes, we have gotten demand, but we are obsessively focused on the assets that we support. We supported Bitcoin for since inception. Ethereum, we added late last year. And it was really because it was ample liquidity. It was regulatory. There was a lot more clarity.

The ETFs came online. And the Celsius bankruptcy clients needed us to support Ethereum to bring a lot of those clients over to Latin because it was the only other. supported asset that the bankruptcy court allowed to refinance. So the way it worked out back then was if you had Bitcoin at Celsius, you could get a Bitcoin back loan at Levin. If you had anything else backing that loan, you would get ETH. And so if we didn't have ETH, we would have left a lot of those clients behind and forced them to go to other places that they didn't really want to go to.

And so we did it because, again, we got comfortable with the risk profile of the asset. and also it made sense for the Celsius opportunity. So that's what we do. But we do get requests. The answer is we're not rushing to explore or add any new assets as collateral. I think there's a very clear future for Bitcoin as a reserve asset and very clear reasons not to sell it. I don't think that's there yet for most other assets.

When it comes to other tailwinds for Bitcoin, let's focus on that one for now. Alex, what's your take on the macro push? We have 22 central banks announcing decisions this week alone. 22. Most of them are heading down. There are a couple that might be heading up. But do you think that is priced in already? Or could we be still seeing some liquidity push on the monetary side?

I think things are very good, to be honest. Balanced labor markets, cooling, not too much. Even the Fed, even Powell is saying this very, explicitly, which is rare. I think it's very hard to predict a recession too far out. It's actually, actually, it's impossible. It's been shown statistically that there's no edge in predicting recessions very far out. So for something bad to happen, we need a trigger. We need a major trigger. In the meantime, it's like what Marisio is saying on the Bitcoin side. a crawl-up is more likely, like, let's see Biggs go down all the way down to 10.

People, it tends to forget that actually equity markets, they tend to just go up for very extended periods of time, driving people who are not positioned crazy. That's what I think is happening. And Trump lapsed equity markets. So I would expect him to make things even better. that being said, like for me to get concerned, what I was saying is I need a trigger. I cannot foresee anything going wrong unless a trigger happens.

A trigger could be very specifically Trump, his administration, going very hard after immigrants. I don't think this is going to happen, but if that were to happen, that would be very bad for the economy. it would basically bring growth down, we bring inflation up, and it would be something that we do not want to see. It's not being priced in. So if a talk on that front, it ramps up very aggressively,

that'd be a good signal to basically take some cover. On the equity side, and Bitcoin now is heavily correlated. That's part of the micro-striety-trudgeon horse, right? Now we're forcing, or not we, It's the market is forced to add to Bitcoin as indices go up passively, right? So, yeah, sorry, no, nothing in the horizon that truly concerns me. My concern is squeezing this trend as much as I can.

Spoken like a trader, for sure. Ron, what's your take on the dollar these days? Well, we'll see. I mean, Trump's got a strong dollar policy. Besson has a weak dollar policy. He hasn't come on and said that, but that's how he thinks. So harder to get a view on the dollar, we'll see how it shakes out. It's on the high side right now. So, you know, I'd expect that it cools, but I don't know that I've a strong view on that. We'll learn a lot based on the Fed's commentary this week. I think Alex's read is accurate, same as mine.

I think the left-tail risk I would put out on the table is if inflation makes a comeback in the second half, of next year. I don't want to say making a comeback in the first half of next year. Inflation is cooling. But I do think there's a real risk that is sticky. I mean, we still have numbers with the three handle on them. So if the Fed decides not to do anything about that, that's very bullish. If the Fed on the other hand says, gee, that is uncomfortably high in inflation expectations are ratcheting higher and they are moving higher, then that would be the left-tail risk for the market. But overall, you know, companies are growing earnings. You're not seeing job layoffs.

That's the number one marker of a recession. We haven't seen tariff policy implemented yet. We've seen it used as a bargaining tool. Tariffs on Mexico would create higher prices for automobiles, which is a big chunk of U.S. consumer spending. I think Trump actually is negotiating pretty well to be candid. I mean, he's got everyone guessing. And he's got good economic policy people.

And he's, you know, to a name, has picked very good people in each position. So the main thing to watch off for next year is just inflation in the second half, and how does the Fed respond to that? Inflation in the U.S., we also have to worry about inflation elsewhere, because after all, Bitcoin, while it is easily the driving market here, Bitcoin is a global asset, and if you're worried about depreciation of currencies and somewhere, for instance, India, Nigeria, Turkey, for sure, then that does boost demand for this particular

digital gold, as it were, but a high dollar does squeeze global liquidity, which in theory, should be a headwind. And yet we are seeing Bitcoin, despite the high dollar, reach new all-time highs. So something is, some kind of correlation is broken here, which is particularly interesting. It comes down to what Alex was saying. The Trump trade is the driving narrative now. It is wiping out any concerns about tightening liquidity, given the strong dollar. Here's another consideration. Everyone wants American assets. So S&P, KQQQ, MAG7, Tesla, up, up, up and up. China, down.

Latin America, Mexico, Brazil, down, down. The Europe can't grow. So, and now Bitcoin is an American asset. Bitcoin mining is an American policy. So it is really interesting what Trump has been doing the last few weeks. He's acting as executive in chief before. he's even in the door. He rang the New York Stock Exchange belt.

By the way, he rang it to the day when positive seasonality starts. I don't know if that's luck or not, but like, whoever the hell is choreographing what he's doing well is, like, incredibly impressive. And the other thing to keep in mind is we now have the Trump put. Forget about the Fed put. We have the Trump put. What do I mean by that? So Bitcoin drops to like 93, 94.

Then Don Jr. comes out and said it's going to a million. You guys remember that last week? That's the Trump put. When this thing drops, you're going to have some announcement from someone saying something in the Trump orbit. So dips should be bought. The trend is up. The funding rates are key to watch. And they're actually clear now.

Like the last few weeks, I've been fading numbers over 100,000 because every positive news event was met with selling. Paul Akron's nominated, Pump, sell. SEC chair, Gensler, terminated pump, sell. So whales were selling into that. That hasn't happened this time. So it's a new setup in the market now. Could be that those that would have sold at 100K, because many people did have that psychological target.

They're done. They're out of the market. That's like college is broken now. I agree. Yeah. Now, there are some distributions hanging over, but are they insignificant now? We still do have the Mount Gox distribution.

distributions, and I believe there's some news on the FTX distributions, which will be decided beginning of January, but not distributed until some time later. Moritia, what's your take on the FTX news? Yeah, happy to chime in on that, because like I was mentioning earlier, we did help with the Celsius distributions, and we did see, you know, some client behavior after everybody came out. I'll answer that, but I don't want to come back to Ram's point because I think it's very accurate on the sort of dollar emerging market dynamics. But just to stay on the FDX distributions for a second. So when we did the Celsius distributions, we brought in a bunch of Celsius clients that had loans at Celsius that wanted to continue those loans that led in. And what we saw was that

these clients are, they were basically boxed out of crypto or Bitcoin for a few years when this whole process was going on. But when they got their Bitcoin back, they went right back to it. You know, they are actively managing those positions. A lot of them told us they're taking more loans to get to buy more Bitcoin. A lot of them took some of those proceeds and basically, you know, took out loans with us and then went and, you know, levered long things like micro strategy filled their whole completely. So it's been, it's been super interesting. And I guess what I would say is these people are not going to be held back. Once they get that money, that money is going to come, a large part of it is going to come and get redeployed very, very quickly. I would say the ratio of

people that were scared forever versus the people that came straight back was something in the order of 90 to 1 or 90 to 10. You know, 90% of people continue to act and basically, you know, actively involved in the space, sticking out more loans to buy more assets. I would say 10% of them took their loans and repaid them shortly after and said I'm done. But the large majority of them continue and they're some of our best clients today. So they're going to get active. They're going to get active again. The point I was going to make for RAM on terms of dollar versus EMs, that's my base case. My base case is that the United States is going to be a black hole of capital, and you're going to see a lot of historical correlations break because you're going to see

a strong dollar with rising equity markets, and people are going to be scratching their heads, saying, where's the money coming from? But it's actually all the debasement and excess deficits from everywhere in the world finding their way back to the U.S. dollar and U.S. assets. And to Ram's point further, Bitcoin is now a U.S. asset. You would be shocked to learn that very few people in the world can actually buy S&P, can actually buy QQQQ. They cannot buy Nvidia. Bitcoin is the closest thing to the S&P 500 that most people have around the world, and they're going to go to it.

So I expect a lot of correlations to break over the next few years. I have one data point for you there. So there are closed-end funds, say, trading in Hong Kong that are indexed to American security. It's traded a premium to NAV. It reflects the demand for American security. It's the flip side of the trade deficit, by the way. That's the capital account surplus.

Right. Right. It comes right back to America by way of capital account surplus 100%. And it does make Bitcoin the easiest way for anyone in the world to participate in the Trump bump. Correct. It is the way for the world to play the, you know, open America or America's open for business again trade because they can't buy Tesla.

Okay, so that brings us to China. Now, China's currency is going to be weakening against the dollar because the dollar is going to keep on climbing against pretty much everything. And this is going to suit China just fine because it'll help them offset some of the tariffs. And there has even been talk about China, perhaps trying intentionally to devalue its currency relative to others. But then what does that do for the Chinese liquidity outlook and what would impact could that have on crypto markets globally. CZ, I think was, or Coin Telegraph was reporting,

I think it was today that CZ said on stage recently that he thinks it is inevitable that China holds a Bitcoin strategic reserve sooner or later. You know, on China, I'd like to say that it doesn't really matter for crypto much, only matters on the margin. It's been the case for quite a while, and it's thrown people off already twice this year. We have their large moves in China. It's it doesn't matter. It's it's really marginal. It's the same thing. It's a correlation that people expects to be there like the dollar one that you were talking about right before right that people think okay dollar dollar app everything should be going down and no it's not the case because it's a Trump trade. It's make make strong America capital

the inflows, exactly what you were saying. So it's a similar thing happening here. Yeah, look, there's China the sovereign, then China nationals, Chinese residents and the two different behaviors. China, the sovereign, I just don't see them buying Bitcoin. They're going to buy gold. They have been for two years. They're creating a bid for gold. And they've been doing that instead of buying U.S. treasury bonds as the trade with the United States declines. I don't see that changing. By the way, I've tried to figure out what is the optimal asset to trade with aliens. As far as I can conclude, it's gold.

I think the only answer is gold. Maybe China's got an edge on all of us on this gold trade. I don't know. China long gold. But this is an interesting chart. This chart shows China yields in free fall, which means bomb prices are getting bid up.

That's a flight to say, this is a kind of a panic move that's happening. So I want to keep an eye on China. Like China nationals like digital assets and Bitcoin, not just because of the speculative properties, but because you can move money. And there's a cap on the amount of money you can move out of the country. And with Bitcoin, you know,

there was to move money around without having to go through traditional channels. How much of that's moving through Bitcoin? I don't know. I don't know. But it's an interesting hypothesis, right? About five months ago, I remember seeing this image from Chinese mainstream press of people buying gold bars in China. That was their flight to safety when the mainland indices were crashing.

And that was actually a capitulation moment. The indices had bottomed within seven days of that event. They were buying gold. Is it possible that they're buying digital gold too? I don't know. It's possible. The Chinese government, I just don't see them doing this at all. They're trying to do bricks.

They're trying to do anything but the U.S. style. They don't want to do anything American-led. They want to be in opposition to the United States. I agree with that view, Ram, and I think to your point, I've always seen, as of Venezuelan, when your government, when you don't agree with a lot of your government policies and you try to basically vote with your wallet and reposition your assets, the first thing the government tries to do is shut down the gates or prohibit where and how much you can take. China has been doing this for eons.

Most people that have traveled there and tried to buy or sell a dollar as a tourist will know this. and the Bitcoin is really the vessel for them to transport the capital. And I use the university index, which is don't look at money wants to go where people send their kids. And if you look at wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs and all their kids where they go to school, they send them to U.S. schools, they send them to European schools. That's where they want the majority of their assets to be. A lot of times there's friction, artificial friction for the assets to get there, but nature

finds a way. We are a resource for a bunch after all. And Bitcoin tends to be that vessel. It's the best vessel to do so. And I think you're going to go into this very frustrating period for central bankers and macro people because you're going to be printing all sorts of stimulus. You're going to be trying to do all this yield control, yield control. But all that stimmy money is going to filter right out and into Bitcoin and into the U.S. So it's going to be a frustrating few years, I think, for Chinese central bankers and most people in East Asia or even emerging. markets in general. I love that quote. Money goes where people send their kids. That's a wonderful, wonderful quote. It makes so much sense. But to put down a wall. I'll add one point to that.

A little anecdote that supports your thesis there, but of a friend whose family emigrated from Iran, she was young, you know, but her parents, they were merchants. They sold their business. They sold it for jewels, emeralds and like, and they stuffed the jewels on their person, like in headdress, all the rest. And they scale the knowledge. cross the borders. Like the equivalent of that now is a USB stick loaded with a Bitcoin seed phrase or something, right? Right. We probably memorize that. They're like, okay, how do you spell the word caught or whatever it is? What's the right spelling of every word? Make sure everyone where the family knows it. Does anyone have eyes on the on the alternative market for the R&B

exchange rate? Because there's the government exchange rate. In most places that have a government mandated exchange rate, there's also a free market exchange rate that usually trades at a very different level. And so that one to me is always signal. And I'd love to know where that is for the R&B. That's the dollar CNH. But I do wanted to say, actually, I have to disagree with you guys. I don't think that Bitcoin is used normally for basically getting money out of China. and the way I see this is basically by seeing an absence of a premium on basically Bitcoin trades in OTC markets in China. So you can see basically quotes of Bitcoin against R&B and you adjust by exchange rates

and you're going to see that there is rarely ever premium. So that tells me that the money flows out of China are actually through Tether or some other means. I don't know, but not Bitcoin. I've heard that anecdotally as well. They do see Tether as a better store or value than Bitcoin, because it's easier to understand, everyone understands the dollars. Right. I don't know whether they're using Bitcoin or not as a way to move capital out of the country.

For sure, they're thinking about it. I love the point where you see a made around Nature finds a way. Like the creativity is going to be in everyone's head. Whether they use it or not, they're going to assess that as an option. The local exchanges in China, that's difficult. I've talked to people in China where they have reports of entrepreneurs that run crypto exchanges being placed under political pressure by their local municipality to generate revenue for the state. So it's like, hey, hand over your crypto or you go to jail. So they might not want to move money via an exchange.

And plus it's going to have controls and surveillance and all the rest. So I don't know. I think it's an interesting topic. I'd love to learn more and talk to people that have better expertise around this topic. Yeah, that'd be great to have a guest who actually is from mainland China and has spent a long time there because it's a unique market, right? We can only... Emily Poulter might be a good guest. I don't know if you guys were across the Emily.

Yeah, I met her. To further on your point, Alex, so that was true in Venezuela. When Venezuela was taking their money out to Colombia via Bitcoin, you had a premium in Venezuela, that surplus in Colombia, and many people were trying to ARP that, and that was very clear on local Bitcoins and other types of markets. The one point that I'll make about China P2P is that they have a hell of ton of miners there that are buying local equipment to basically build up and mine and use the electrical subsidies to basically recycle that into more Bitcoin through a manufacturing base that we didn't

have in other places, so they might be more willing and ready sellers. But I'm not the expert. You should bring a Chinese expert to discuss this, but I agree with your art point, and that being a signal to see where money is coming out or into. And then again, we should remember that even small numbers in China are pretty big numbers, so they can still make a difference that way. And not long ago, a senior official of the PRC was said on stage that he thought it would, he wasn't speaking on official capacity,

but he said he thought it would be a good idea to bring crypto exchanges into the light, I think was the phrase he used. acknowledge that trading is happening, and they would like to make it official. So I wouldn't be surprised at the next year to see China start to talk about licensing crypto exchanges. And we talked about that before here. I think it's very similar to what Nigeria did. Try to pretend it's not happening.

Eventually you can't pretend it's not happening more, so let's try and control it. Their instincts are CDBCs and state-sponsored crypto. They would try to find some alternative Bitcoin that they control. We'll see. like, I'd love for that to happen. I mean, that would be an extraordinary Trump foreign policy victory if China actually got on board of Bitcoin. That's facing the 99 little boss winning.

Although it could affect the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve support because why would he want to help benefit an asset that would also help some of some nations that aren't so friendly? If the United States is front-running every other country, that's true. That's a pretty big, that's like the U.S. dollar is an example. that, right? My view on this is, again, I always see Bitcoin as a vehicle to allow capital to go from where it's being forced to be to where it wants to be. And a lot of capital wants to be in the

United States, wants to be in North American markets with the assurance that that comes. The United States is, I think, doing something really smart, which is by embracing Bitcoin and forcing other countries to embrace Bitcoin, it opens up the rails for that capital to move to where it wants to go. I would be hard-pressed. to see a country like China or a country like Iran or a country like Venezuela go and regulate Bitcoin because the reason people are using Bitcoin in many cases is to us, it's exactly to take capital to where it wants to be, which is effectively what they're trying to prevent. So I think Trump is basically, or the U.S. is calling everyone's bluff and saying, let's go,

let's do this. And everyone else is to say, oh, okay, well, and they're going to be, it's a forcing function for capital to get unlocked from where it's trapped. and go to where it wants to be. It's fascinating. I mean, Trump couldn't essentially rugpole all these other emerging markets that are trying to control the capital flows of their people by embracing Bitcoin and digital assets.

It advances America first. Now, moving on, I do want us to get to, I want to drill down a bit more on the micro-strategy inclusion in the NASDAQ. We've referred to it a couple of times already, so far on the conversation, but it's worth some detail. And I've heard, you know, we've heard it referred to, you as a Trojan horse. Alex, I think you said that it does mean more people will be buying Bitcoin.

Can you talk us through your thinking on that? What's the impact of Microstrategy joining the queues? Basically, anytime anybody buys the NASDAQ, either via ETFs or mutual funds or futures, you're literally buying micro-starchs. strategy, which basically by definition, what it does is it enables sailor to sell more shares and buy more Bitcoin. So it's an indirect, it's an indirect effect.

Yeah, it's simple math. I mean, at some point this, this is going to break and it's going to stop working and it works also on the other way around, not the exact same way, because Sailor doesn't have to sell if micro strategy goes down unless it goes down too much. But you could guess that some sort of similar dynamic would see some sort of similar dynamic in a very strong down market because traders would trade as if Sailor were forced to sell, even if he's not, potentially in a very extreme case, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the meantime, that's very far off.

But, yeah, it is as simple as that. It's a Trojan horse. It's exactly whoever came up with that analogy for this case, it just hit jackpot. It's exactly what it is. And what would turn that it, what would make it turn? A bear market, equity bear market. The end of the cycle.

Yeah, yeah, let's say Biggs 240. It was always correlated, though. Wouldn't you say, Alex? It was always correlated to equity. beta. Yeah, but it's increasing. And it's basically is this going higher and higher. It's also, it's only been correlated since March 2020, right? Not before. Right. I would say, you know, as markets become integrated, and prior to that day, I'd call it, these are segmented markets. As markets becomes integrated, they become correlated. Correlations only one way. Exactly. They'll go up.

Yeah, this is what the super cycle means, you know, and it triggers a lot of people because When people hear a super cycle, they hear Suju in 21 saying, you know, up only and we're going up and then everything went to shit, right? So it has some sort of like emotional impact. But this is what it is. This is what a super cycle is. Supercycle is that Bitcoin goes up with equities for fundamental reasons. So I'll drop a nugget for you all here. So I've got to update this chart.

This is micro strategy. These black lines you see on the chart, those are option expiration dates. They happen third Friday every month. The reason why they're worth looking at is because micro strategy has very active call-in-put option buy-in market. And so does Tesla, by the way. You want to trade Tesla. You've got to look at these things too. And generally what you see is the week after options expiration, you see a move in the opposite direction of what's

kind of happen proceeding to it. It helps the dealers do their job better by wiping out positions. It's one way to interpret that phenomenon. So, you know, that's, that's, you know, I think two key dates to watch for in micro strategy would be three to five days after options expiration. That's one. And then, you know, the week into the new year, we'll see. We'll see how things go. You know, there's question, or is it a cell of the news event? you know, micro strategy was down today. The markets were up today. Bitcoin was up today. So, or, well, now it's flat. Depends what timestamp you're looking at here. I think overposition is a reason for corrections too. It's not just equity correlation. If everyone's over position and no one's

left to buy, you can get, you know, a bit of a flush. The lack of leverage, as Alex is known in the spot market that is constructive for the spot market. Now, that's not micro strategy, though. Those are two different, obviously, assets. And Ram, you said three to five days after options expiry. Why? That's usually when you see that phenomena play out. Just empirically, it turns out to be the case that we'll see if that happens this time or not. But I don't think the reason why it wouldn't be the case, though, just from what I'm, other things I'm looking at.

It seems like that could be the case. Any potential impact from the additional institutional coverage? I mean, now any analyst that follows the QQQQ is going to. have to get their heads around Bitcoin. Does that, or is that already the case? Does everyone already have their heads around Bitcoin? That's a really good point, actually. You're right, because they all have to have a view on MSTR now.

They have to have self-side research coverage. They have to understand Bitcoin. And they're, they're all going to get confused because of the premium to NAV. They're not going to have buy ratings. I'll just put a, you know, breaking news, everybody. Okay? They're not going to have buy ratings. because they're going to say, hey, there's a premium IV, da-da-da-da-da, and they'll have neutral at best, something like that.

And one more thing I want to cover before we get on to the wrap-up of the year. And that is stablecoins. There's been some big stable coin news this week. Ripple has had its stable coin approved. supposedly it starts trading tomorrow. Revolut is in the wings, ready to go, just waiting for last minute, dotting the eyes and crossing the T's on the approval. there's Athena is up to interesting things as well.

Does any of this have any impact on the market itself, or is this largely corporate positioning? No, no. They move, I mean, XRP moves with ripple news. I personally, I think is a great asset to hold. Ironically, historically we have said exactly the opposite, but especially now with the cool down that we have. I think it's a great asset to hold.

It combines both institutional narrative and developments with what we all do respect, what we call the Normies. The famous XRP army is a very large number of people that are obsessed with XRP and they think it's going to replace SWIFT, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I think it's a great asset as well, is what they're doing. fantastic. It's a perfect bull market asset. Does that impact Bitcoin? No, I don't think so. I don't know if anybody would disagree, but I don't think it impacts the greater market. But individually, they have the Bitcoin better and they have basically those particularities

that are very good for each of those. Word is, by the way, I know is going to get listed on a habit recently and also you had the Trump buying some Samina which push it higher over the weekend basically Alex, real quick question. What's your kind of one month view or two week view on all coins where we stand today?

Well, we have to separate a soul and the soil ecosystem with everything else right. It's on soul specifically I think is the reason for the underperformance. By the way, so let me back trace a little bit. Historically, when we talked to Alcoins, we used to think ETH and everything moved in line with ETH with a beta. Now the market has gotten very, very much more complicated

where you have all these buckets of assets that they trade some sort of in line with Bitcoin in a way on and off, but they definitely don't trade in line with other. So we have the Alt-L-1 trade that goes in and out. We have the ETH-L-2s trade that goes in and out. We have the Defi that basically has been going up a lot because of re-rating based on the expectation that they finally will be able to turn on the revenue share switch on to make the assets more valuable.

Then we have the entire Sol ecosystem. So it's been doing very poorly. I think people talks about the design log. coming up in January, I think it's more about a combination of just like it's been a poorly performing assets. So when the year comes, you need to take some profits or some people do need to take some profits to prepare for taxes, right? What are you going to sell soul or are you going to sell XRP? Well, I'm going to sell soul. You know, also going to realize less taxes. So I'd rather sell Seoul and XRP where it may be up like 5x you see and the other thing is there's been a

large move from Seoul to base driven by virtual's at the beginning virtual say I then to arbitrum for hyperliquid or to hyperliquid more specifically and if you look at the the hype chart which is the asset of hyperliquid is literally up only is like the Tesla one, but even more, or it's like the Bitcoin one, but even more vertical. And it's a great product with very good narrative. It's crazy. Like, everybody's talking about it now. If you pop it up and you go at mine share of tokens, you're going to see that it's Bitcoin up here.

Then Sol and Eith right under, like, say, 8% each. And then at 2.5% is hype. and then everybody else. And it's a new token, so it's quite remarkable. But yeah, you have that separation between, we have to separate,

and then you have the large cap means, we have the small cap memes, and so on. Alex, what's your take on ETH these days? What's your outlook? If is good. It's a perfect tram trade. It's basically...

Defi. It's DFI. It's what the... the tramps are buying i mean they're buying uh it's not the trumps themselves right it's world liberty financial uh they're buying uh eith defy i mean i prefer bitcoin but it's uh it's good like at the end as everything goes up so people get obsessed about uh these fights and uh it can be very very stressful if you are all in one asset uh but if you're diversified a little bit does it really matter. Of course, if you're sitting on ETH and the alternative is something that goes up 10x,

well, that's a different story, right? Like XRP, Cardano. No, it's about like Jesus. It's like, I only made 50% everybody else is making 5x. I want to kill myself. I think one of the interesting takeaways from that is, and this applies to the equity markets too, is having exposure to a number of assets that give you right-tail potential for right-tailed outcomes. Now, it's important. important to reject assets quickly because most assets aren't good assets. That's true for the equity market. True for crypto market. But there are a number of assets that meet certain standards where you have the possibility for right-tail outcome. And it's hard to know in advance what asset that could be. They have this potential. And having some exposure can open your portfolio up to that potential.

Well, I have a slightly different take on the stable coins of you. I think, you know, I'm not, I don't have an informed view on XRP on Seoul or the other things. I think, you know, everything from smoking chicken fish to XRP is ripping because, you know, there's going to be better regulation and the XRP guys are probably, you know, thinking they're going to get an ETF. And to Alex's point, there's an army of people that made a ton of money. And because of that, they're just, you know, paid shills or whatever you want to call them for the token itself. But I think the fast dash or the mad dash to stable coins is coming from the fact that people are seeing that the U.S. has woken up to stable coins. They help them advance U.S. interests basically perpetuate the U.S. dollar.

And they're going to buy their treasuries that nobody wants to buy right now. So they're going to push and promote stable coins to no end. And everybody was going to want to be on the receiving end of that. And, you know, here comes Ripple. Here comes all the other guys. But I think economies of scale are going to become, or network effects rather, are going to be much more important for stable coins as they reach sort of mainstream. And so I think, you know, the main one obviously USC being forefront for being pro happy regulation. I think Tether just got into the good books now with Lutnik being part of the Commerce Secretary.

So I think you're going to be in a really tough spot if you're a stable coin next year and you're not one of those two. and I can bet those two groups are going to be doing everything they can to get the flying eagle of the U.S. and to be able to perpetuate the dollar everywhere around the world. And the base for innovation that that delivers. That is a very uplifting note on which to end 2004 for bits and bibs. But before we go, I do want to have a wrap-up round. I want to ask each of you to share what you were most surprised at in 2024. what you are most excited about in 2025, Mauricio, special guest. You go first.

Oh, so I was most surprised this year by the fact that we went from old yellowing two banks in the U.S. that were basically supporting the entire industry to fully pivoting to supporting ETFs and now talking about a big question strategic reserve. I have never witnessed a more extreme 180-degree turn or view on an asset that we witnessed this year. And what I'm most excited about, you know, selfishly is this idea of not selling your Bitcoin. Bitcoin as a reserve. Hold it for 20 years. You're going to look to do whatever financial service you can instead of selling.

And that's where we come in. 2025, the year of hoddling, right? Ram, how about you? Well, double underscore what Mauritio said. I mean, the 180 degree from two years ago with the demise of FTX and Genesis and, you know, Elizabeth Warren's crypto, anti-crypto army, all that

just the remarkable on a blowback that happened not just in the asset scene but also in the political scene is extraordinary and also the follow-through from Trump. This wasn't just a

short-term political trade. Like, he's gleaning into this. His family's talking about digital assets. The only other thing that was surprising are the aliens flying over my head. Other than that,

I think those are the two things that the Nazi common. And what are you excited about for 2025? I think continuation. I think we have a good year next year. I think we have a good year. I don't think it'll be as strong as maybe this past year in terms of asset prices overall. We've had two strong back-to-back years. I think we can discuss your inflation lands in the second half of the year. Alex. I would agree with Ram, actually, very much, very, very much.

The surprise was the extent of how much Trump and the administration leaned on crypto and Bitcoin. It was extreme. Like one thing is like, okay, he will be supporting, he will be getting read of the counselor, and a different thing is seeing what he's done. It's like, wow, Jesus Christ. And 425, continuation. Yeah, let's toast to continuation very much.

So, yeah. It sure is going to be interesting. I'll throw in mind. I agree, huge surprise on the regulatory whiplash. I didn't expect it to be so thorough. and so fast. I'll also throw in, I did not expect the rapid spread of AI impact. I did not expect it to be something that everyone's using so fast. And I still haven't got my head around how it's going to impact the crypto market. I must confess, I do need to spend some time reading over the

holidays about what that could look like going forward. Also, I did not expect the ETH spot ETF listing. I was caught offside on that one and the acceleration of geopolitical fractures over the past month, let alone the past year, has been faster than I had feared. Most excited about 2024, the end of the Ukraine war. Got to be honest, that's going to definitely put a cherry on the cupcake of the good tidings for markets that we've seen. Yeah, that is very good. Yeah, and I think it will happen.

That would be, yeah, we are finally going to get there. Now, to end on a festive note, since we're heading into the holidays, downtime, and ask each of you to recommend something that you've enjoyed. recently, a book, series, movie, anything to help us unwind over the coming weeks. Mauritio, you go first. Oh, that one caught me off guard. I haven't read this book yet, but it's on my list. It's the book that Anthony's current much, you just published a book about Bitcoin.

The foreword is by Michael Saylor, so it's on my list to get, and then I'd love to read it over the holidays, so that would be mine. Awesome. Alex, how about you? I don't have anything. I haven't. I would say just buy shit coins. Nothing, nothing. All I read is lately is just research markets. And yeah, so. Buy shit coins. Is that a New York Times best dollar? I thought I saw that. Alex, I think you should think about writing a book with that title.

Are you going to be taking time off over the holidays? only three like three half days three hours within those three half days not going to have any time for reading then Ram how about you have you seen or read anything fun recently? I've got a book on my desk right now I'll share with you. It's a really cool book

it's called The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell so Joseph Campbell Oh I love the helper Well he wrote like The Heroes Journey Here's Joseph Campbell This is an interview he had with I think the late Bill Moyers a couple decades ago, and it's an exploration of mythology. I think if you want to understand

money and memes and the deep rooted means and they're going to deep in human nature, and it goes back to psychology and mythology. He's a student of Carl Young. This is a super interesting read. It's accessible. He goes through kind of the classic archetypes and other things. I think it's a real enjoyable read this time of year. Okay, everyone take note. I'll throw in mind also. a book, A Gentleman in Moscow. I absolutely loved it. Haven't seen the series, don't want to, because I loved the book so much. And it is a reminder of the value of having a store of value should you be debanked because of your political opinions. But apart from that, it's just beautifully written. On terms of TV series, very much enjoying something streaming on Disney

called Interior Chinatown, just weird in one of the very few Chinese-leaning series. that isn't all about martial arts. It's actually about character development. Nothing against martial arts. I also very much like the brother's son, which was about martial arts and baking my two favorite themes. However, I leave you with all of those fun things to do over the holiday. And Alex, we do expect you to report back on what you did over your three-half days off over the festive season.

By the way, one, quick one, the day of the jackal. Awesome. It's a show. It's of a movie of the 70s. In Spanish, the Lilla del Chacal. It's a fantastic show. The Chacal is the Venezuelan. The Lilla of El Chacal. Yeah. He was. Where is it streaming, Alex? Or is it? I don't know. I forget. Okay. We'll look it up because that sounds like the kind of thing that I were like.

I hope you all do get to take some downtime over the holidays and all of you watching, listening. I hope you get to enjoy some fun festive times as well. because we have plenty, plenty to celebrate, and we will hopefully have plenty more to celebrate in the months to come. Mauritio, thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure having you here. Ram Alex, thank you very much also. And on behalf of all the Bits and Bips team,

on behalf of the whole Bits and Bips team, we wish you a very happy holiday season.