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A
Third guy. Welcome to Bankless.
B
Thanks man. I'm excited to be here. How are you?
A
Really good. Really, really good.
C
I'm excited for this conversation mainly because.
A
I think you have probably the largest audience that is also the most non overlapping with, with ours, with mine, with mine here at Bankless. And I want to like learn a little bit more about what's going on over there maybe to get that started. Thread Guy is what you are known as. That's your pseudonym. I don't even know if people know your actual name.
B
Michael Stocks, if you want to call him Michael.
C
Michael.
A
Nice to meet you, Michael.
C
Likewise.
A
I've only ever known you as Thread Guy. Would it be fair to call you the Gen Z face of crypto?
B
I will take it with a smile on my face. I will absolutely take it.
A
Yeah. Something that I watched slowly happened like in 2021 was there was like a lot of people that came into the industry that like cared about different things than like what we were expecting. We as being like there was really only like Bitcoin and Ethereum back then. And that kind of has slowly manifested into its own like pillar of the whole entire crypto industry. And it's really centered around like a new generation of crypto entrants, crypto market participants that have like a very strong like Gen Z, it's like very Gen Z coded. Very, very. I'm guessing that's when you more or less came into the industry around 2020 and 2021.
B
So I have a lot of perspective on this that I. As time goes on I realize not everyone came in at the same, you know, people here for different reasons. Not everyone understands my side of the world the way I understand it. But I, I came here in 2020 for top shot to trade. Yeah, okay, top shot. NFTs on the flow blockchain. Because I was in the Internet reselling game and the hottest game in town was sports cards for all. Basically the whole summer into early fall of 2020, sports cards were the game hottest game in town. I should have been buying bitcoin trading crypto. I didn't even know it existed. And the sports cards community was up in arms over these fucking top shots. NFTs are stupid. They're not real, they're not real cardboard. The real connoisseurs. And I'm like, man, everyone's so angry and upset about these top shots. I should go buy a couple. And you know, one thing leads to the next and next thing you know you're, you're, you know, buying board apes and you're in the NFT scene full fledged. But I, you know, I wasn't here 2017. I wasn't here in the early, early days of crypto, But I think 2021 with NFTs and then 2024 with Salana meme coins were the two periods of hyper growth on chain of people that were coming like exclusively to trade. They weren't really necessarily here for the cypherpunk ethos or for stable coins or you know, decentralization. They were here to trade. And it's kind of like an interesting development, I think that's happened amongst crypto.
A
Yeah, I think maybe listeners are like gearing up like, oh, okay, this is going to be a conversation, a cultural conversation about how crypto is leaning into just like the casino and like the financialize. And I don't really think that's what the conversation is. I want to have, I want to have the conversation about like what Gen Z is like naturally disposed to and what parts of crypto those res that resonates with the most. And I think part of this might be, well, might be every single generation is more online than the previous. But also the important factor here is Covid. Like Covid happened to Gen Z at an earlier stage in their life. It was like 25 or 26 or something. So you were in high school? High school.
B
I was 18. Yeah. 2020.
A
To what degree do you think like Covid like shepherded it in Gen Z into like the online trading culture?
B
So I think Covid accelerated timelines significantly.
A
Yeah.
B
But to understand there is this, I. This is kind of the Internet I grew up on. There's this group of now it probably skews younger, but this like zoomer cohort, people who are like 18 to 25 now in the heyday of what I call like sneaker reselling Twitter 2015, 2016, 2017 into like all of the Yeezy Kanye hype into all of the like off white Virgil hype and then blow off the top of the COVID is. I think this is one of the first generations around my general age demographic that has grown up trading things on the Internet that has grown up like in, in your, like I'm 14, going home from high school early my freshman year high school to like bot supreme and flip supreme. Right. During like study hall. And so there's this whole generation of, of kids that for the first time were exposed to these like niche cultural markets and a way to make money out of the system. Right. Like when I was sneaker, Twitter was the first time you find, you know, there's a, there's a 15 year old kid that like coded some sneaker bottom is making 100k a month and it's like, whoa, you can make 100k a month, you can make 10, you can make 5k a month on the Internet, right? I remember the first time I bought a supreme box logo cdg supreme box logo t shirt for 55$59 retail and sold it for 450. And it was like my world shattered. And so I think a foundational like level setting concept is that my generation and then everyone that comes after us grows up in a world where it is standard to make money out of the system in weird niche ways that your parents don't understand, that your aunts, your uncles, your family doesn't understand on the Internet amongst these discord, Twitter like niche communities. And so I think that prior experience set the stage to be able to see something like NFTs and be like oh I get this. Or to be able to see meme coins in 2024 and be like oh, I get this. And then you can work backwards on crypto ideology and why blockchain, decentralization, self sovereignty, why all of this matters. And so I think there's this whole generation that's working backwards to what you probably have to work forwards to on some of the cultural NFT meme coin stuff.
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of what you said is like the learning to, to make money on like the margins of society on the Internet, like not not getting a job, not doing that, the standard thing, not going to college and like learning to make money on the intern. All of the examples that you say that you gave I noticed were all like cultural stuff like because like one of the classic early examples that is very similar that I was used to hearing is oh, some kid just like coded up a trading bot or an mev bot and made a bunch of money. Those are the stories I was used to hearing. But the stories you gave are like sneak like sneakers and you know, other things of that make very like culturally relevant items. Am I reading into that too far or do you think that's.
B
No, it's 100 percent one. Just because I had, I had this guy not washed is his name. He's a pretty goaded on chain trader on the stream the other day and we spent the whole time talking. He was a big sneaker guy.
A
So he's.
B
It's like fresh in my mind. One of the hottest Games in town. 2020 when we were in Lockdown was. There's a legitimate group of people that made 78 figures and retired off PS5s. You remember when you couldn't get a PS5 and it was selling for, for $1200. Like that was the. The PS5s and Xbox consoles was the best game in town for like 12 months if you weren't trading crypto. And so 100% it's same game reskinned. And I think it, you know, I don't know how deep we're going with the long degeneres degeneracy stuff. I, I have some takes on that, but I think at a baseline, basically looking at an entire world that is like conditioned to trade, that is conditioned to participate in speculation games, is parti. Is conditioned to like make money on the Internet. And it bodes really well for, you know, an open, permissionless, borderless global capital market.
A
I. E. C. R. Why conditioned? What. What can. Because like, I don't know if I ever as. As I'm like a younger millennial, so I see a little bit of Gen Z in me. Ryan, my co host, he's like older millennial, he's like more. He's. There's a little bit of jet, but like I don't think I ever would just feel like I got conditioned to trade anything. I'm also a trader, so there's that. But like, what, what do you mean about like. Maybe a better word, maybe a better.
B
Word than conditioned is familiar with. I think familiar is a better way to phrase it. Where. Okay, you know, like we always talk about onboarding in crypto. How do you onboard the masses? How do you onboard retail? Is it flipping listing prices on OpenSea to US dollars instead of ETH is that gonna on like what's gonna onboard the people? And at least in my head, the greatest onboarding story that's ever happened is some friend of yours that's dumber than you, got a worse score on his SAT and makes less than you at his job, just made like $10,000 on crypto or just flipped a pair of sneakers for $1,000 or just sold some NFT whitelist mint for $25,000 and you're like, I can do that. That to me is the greatest story you could ever tell to onboard someone into a financial market. It's like, why did everyone start trading stocks for the first time? It's probably because you heard some friend of yours or your dad or your uncle was making money. And so I think as time has gone on, like, I don't know about most, but many people have now had like a touch point with someone they know well, making money outside of the system in some obscure way on the Internet. And so the story starts to become familiar, like okay, this is a thing that happens, it's not crazy. And as time goes on I'm hearing more of of similar situations that I'm hearing less.
A
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A
There's a take that I heard from we used to work with her, Kyla Scanlon. She's now kind of like pretty famous in just like kind of like Gen Z TikTok finance Econ. Like pretty like well researched. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Her broad strokes of just like what Gen Z's relationship with finances is that like they tend to bifurcate into two camps. One it looks at like AI and how bad of a deal college is and is like I don't know what to invest my career into so I'm going to do something that's timeless. I'm going to become like mechanic and an electrician, a plumber, no college, no debt. Professions that are just super safe. And they are. They're the stability seeking Gen Z. And then there's the flip side of things which is like the Gen Z is going after the lottery ticket like the hyper gambling in hopes of like escaping the permanent underclass. And I wonder to what degree like some of the, some of the fact that just like the normal ways feel so much like a bad deal is really encouraging of people of Gen Z like looking elsewhere to make money. And that's just the, the opportunities elsewhere are just like was way greener pastures than doing the normal thing which is take that and go to college.
B
What I'll say on this is I again the long degeneration, degeneracy stuff, we can go as deep as we want. I, I reject doomerism at all costs. And I really almost refusing to accept this like I hate this narrative that gets pushed on. Make it in finite amount of time or be stuck in a permanent class for the rest of your life. The reason I hate that is because one, I haven't made it in finite amount of time and two is like man, I'm young, I want to have kids one day, right? I would like to think that I don't know if you have kids, but I'm sure if you don't or you do, you'd like to have kids someday. I'm sure you would want a future for your child that is like okay, he can get to 18, she can get to 18, live a good life, make money, get a career, be excited to, to live in this world. And so from, from that perspective, I reject the one year, this cycle, the last cycle, the last leg up. But I will say that I fall into the latter camp a little bit which is like I, I was like a, I was a hustler in high school and middle school. I always had some weird little not grift but some little like hustle and selling bracelet, friendship bracelets in elementary school. Like I had some, some little scheme to make money.
A
Yeah, you're entrepreneurial.
B
Exactly. And I went to college for a year and I was just like it was very much holy. I need to, I need to figure something out because I'm here. It was covet year. Everything was, I'm on campus, everything's online. You can't even go to the, to the, the food hall, put a mask on and sit next to one of your homies. And I'm like, this is miserable. I'm getting terrible grades. I don't want to be here and this is expensive and I need to really find some alternative solution because I'm not going to make it four years. So if I got to make it four years to get, you know, a career, I, I knew I wanted to be in finance and type capacity. If I got to make it four years to get a job in this niche it's not going to happen. So I got to figure out a better way. And so I, I do think that these sort of ideology, while rejecting the doomerism side, does seep through into people's psyche where they're like, okay, if it's not gonna be this way, I gotta, I gotta figure something out. And when you start looking at alternative ways to figure something out, I think, I think a lot of people end up here. I also think this is why the long degeneracy is pushed so hard amongst crypto. It's a little bit of like, survivorship eyes. Like the type of people that do well in crypto is this. You pick from a very unique crowd, if you will, that seems to align with those ideals.
A
Yeah, yeah. Like, for, like, maybe both optimistic and pessimistic reasons. Like, I think what is cool about Gen Z? And again, kind of in the same way that like every generation is online more than the generation prior. And I think Gen Z is like both online and also most willing to kind of like, choose its own way, carve its own path. But one, one part of the reason is like, well, the, the, the normal path, the normal way so saturated. And it's like, well, there's just not really any spoils there. But then also simultaneously, like, as I understand it, I'm speaking as like an armchair millennial here that like the. If you, like, ask the average person in like, school right now, like elementary school through high school, like, what do you want to be when you grow up? They'll say, like, I want to be like a streamer.
B
I want to be YouTuber.
A
I want to be YouTuber. Yeah. Which is like almost by definition carving your own path. Because there's no way anyone can just become a YouTuber. There's no job application for a YouTuber. Like, you just have to do it yourself. And there's something inherent about like, the permissionless finance side of things that works really well with that whole arc of people who want to carve their own ways, build their own businesses, be their own entrepreneur, and enter in the world of like, permissionless, you know, gatekeeping, less intermediary list finance.
B
I have a couple things on this. The first, I was just pulling it up. There was this article that gwen bucket has 2.5 million views from Ben Roy Notes on Internet Addiction. Do you see this? So is this, I don't know, is this super viral article? And it basically was just, I like Ben Roy, by the way, who's been Roy. He's. Let's see, he's Like a squiggle on it. Yeah, yeah. Writes a lot. It's just basically this long article about how the Internet has generally been. There's generally like net negative, it's making people's lives worse. And also how like the Internet is getting worse and sort of this thought that everybody's on, everyone's consuming the same viral content. And so if everyone's consuming the same viral content, there's less unique niches, there's less sort of just proliferating spot like little utopias on the Internet. Like, it's getting harder to find, everyone's consuming the same feed. My thought on this is like, man, I. I think it's the greatest time in history to be on the Internet right now. Especially as somebody trying to make money, find opportunity, like do escape the system. It's. It's the greatest time in history. And I think some of the things that have like bootstrapped this is the creation of crypto. And as time goes on and we can talk about crypto a lot like markets in a weird place, things are slow on chain volume is dead. I think the thesis for why somebody would join crypto, why somebody would trade crypto assets and why somebody would stay here has never been more clear and more obvious. And I think as time goes on in this new generation, gets older, has more money, has more access, has more assets, the place that you end up 10 out of 10 times is just, it's Internet capital markets. It's open, permissionless, global border capital market where anyone can go public on the Internet at any price. You want to bootstrap funding, just launch a coin. You want attention, launch a coin like you want to participate in the market, trade, trade these assets. Like, I continue to believe deeply that this trend, however we want to label it or frame it or call it the biggest beneficiary of flows of users of attention is just, it's just going to be crypto like 10 out of 10 times. And I think, you know, it's funny, like, as time goes on, I've had experiences twice in my life. The first time was in mid 2024 when it was like the celebrity meme coin meta, right? Which is, you know, most people look down, they fuck the celebrity meme coin meta. But it was good for me, even though it was bad for the market, right. Like I, you know, I interviewed Iggy Azalea and I'm, I'm with, I'm interviewing Andrew Tate. I'm in Romania.
A
Like, was that it, was that in person? Did you interview Iggy in Person, Iggy.
B
In person. Andrew Tate in Romania. In person.
A
Yeah. And look, you went to Romania to interview.
B
I went to Romania to interview Andrew Tate. Regardless of what anyone thinks about him, I'm not here to, like, endorse Andrew Tate, but what I'm gonna say is it was the first time where all these really smart people were hitting me up, and they're like, congratulations, you can finally leave crypto. You got a billion and a half views on a YouTube video of Andrew Tate. Like, go take this newfound motion. You can leave crypto. Like, leave. Go be a celeb. Go be celebrity. Go interview famous, real world celebrity.
A
You got out of the sandbox.
B
Like, congratulations, you broke out. And I'm, like, broke out. I. I feel like I just broke in, but I feel like I'm. I'm in now. I'm in the. I'm in the game. I. You know, I'm fighting five years to be in. And, you know, right after that, we Get Solana season 2024, AI season, meme, coin Mania. Like, it, hate it, whatever. We were back. And then the second time that I've really gotten this, and I'm rambling a little bit. I'll wrap it here. The second time I really have gotten this is right now. And people are like, all right, dude, you had a good run. It's time, though. You run a fucking media company. You are pegged to crypto price. It's time to start covering other stuff, go to other markets, talk about other stuff.
A
Who's telling you? This is it cynical people in crypto.
B
This time, it's a cynical crypto crowd. And my thought process.
A
A cynical crypto crowd are saying, congrats to a guy on your success. It's time to go point yourself outwards rather than get out. Why are you saying here?
B
And pull the ladder up. And my thought process is like, meh. I came in here 20, 20, 2021 to be a new entrant in a bull market. First of all, you have. You have everything against you. You have no idea what's going on, and nobody knows who you are. So to. To be, like, a media voice in a bull market for the first time, it's like, good. Good luck. It's not. It's. It's really difficult. You get through the bear market. We come out 2024, things are hot again. And now I'm like, okay, I have, like, a place, and I have, like, a place. Like, I belong here. I. These people are my peers now. And then we go, you know, euphoric. Again, come back down. And now we're somewhere, like, at the low stage. And I'm like, man, I. 2025, 2026, I'm like, I really have opportunity to sort of put my sauce on this, like, to make an impact, to really, like, do what I want to do. Play the game my way, like, look at it through my lens, like, yeah, like, make an impact, not just be, like, an observer. And it's like, the thought of leaving crypto right now is blasphemous to me. So I don't even know where I started that rant, but that's, that's where I got to, and that's where I ended it.
A
So, one, one thing, this will be a little bit of media inside baseball. I, I pay attention to basically, more or less everyone, Every media company is like, traction right out there. Just kind of like, understand, Understand the market.
B
Right.
A
Understand I gotta, you know, price our sponsors.
B
Yeah.
A
Understand, like, who's, who's growing, who's shrinking, you know? And like, no one in the last, like, three years has really grown, like, Blockwork's views. They haven't grown. Banklist's views are flat after being down all throughout 2022, for example. Like, obviously 2022 was a bad year. No one's really growing. Except for Thread Guy. Thread Guy's like, the only guy. And, like, granted, you put in the work, but I'm wondering if also, like, millennials, my generation, there's not. If you're a millennial and you're not already in crypto, you are not coming to crypto anymore. Like, that's not. You would be an anomaly. Same thing with Gen X. If you're not already in crypto, you're not coming. I don't know if that's true with Gen Z. I feel like Gen Z, there might actually be a slow trickle of people in Gen Z actually coming into crypto. I don't know. Actually, maybe you could inform me.
B
I think this is one of those. Okay. This is one of those things. I, I, I basically run around the house all day, every day, and I just say, like, whatever, ever. Whenever I talk to Malcolm, I, this is the sentence I've said more than any sentence in my life is I just think we're right. I just think we're right. And, you know, I, I, as it relates to the market, I say now, like, I, I'm not, I don't want to be in the game of predictions. I will just wait for the flows and then I'll follow them. You don't have to be first to meme coins. You have to be first to NFTs. You'd have to be first to Bitcoin. Right. You could have bought it 33k and caught a 3x, an infinite size. This is one of those things that I, I'm down to be in a game of predictions on is where attention and flows are going to come in the future. And I am a like, deep belief. It's almost like if this doesn't happen, my framework in which I view the world, my worldview is shattered. Is that the TAM for people, particularly skewed younger Gen Z, whatever we want to label them as, that will trade Internet assets is infinite. I think it's infinite and I think you can see it in micro pockets of like, okay. I think there's this larger shift happening in the world where how much attention people pay to like mainstream celebrities is winding down significantly. And there's sort of these like niche superheroes, if you will. One of the ones that is like, particularly interesting to me is tjr because tjr, if you're familiar with him, like, yes, he kind of has this label as like, you know, Miami Cor seller, whatever. TJR is a stock trader. He trades stocks on, on market open. And he's like becoming like this, like a, a spectacle. He's massive. He's getting really big. He goes live on Twitch in front of 20, 30,000 people. And he's a stock trader. And you go on his Tik Tok comments and all of his comments are, are two things. One, I can't believe that's my mentor. And two is he's just like us, but he's rich. He's just like us, but he's rich. And you look at the TJR type of archetype and the story of like, I was broke, I dropped out of college. My parents told me to stop. I made it in the markets. I made it in the markets. I learned how to trade. Trading is like, of the, of the ways you can make money on the Internet. Trading is, is aspirational. It's this story. You're your own boss. You work for yourself. You don't have to answer to anybody. Like, the idea of a day trader is very aspirational. The public legacy figures that sort of when you think of day trader, you think it's like Trader Kramer. Like, these people are sort of the goats, the goats of the industry. But there's kind of like a missing link in the middle and there's this like, newer class of TJR type characters. And people see this and they're like, I, I, I want to be that. I want to be that. I don't want to be some, like, there's all these weird grifts. I don't want to be an only fans manager or something. I want to be a trader. I want to be a trader. And I think that this is ingrained in people's brains. I think it's a, like, positive. I keep using the word aspirational, sort of like mission. And I think it connects to something deep in people's, just like, almost like their DNA. And so I think as time goes on here, I don't think it's for everybody. I don't think everybody should be a trader. But I think that there is just this huge class of people that, when given the opportunity, are gonna fall in love with it. And once again, the place that you end up in is crypto. It's just the, the place you end up, especially as the rails are finally good enough. 2021, the rails were not good enough. You couldn't buy two NFTs in one transaction. I'm on open seat, right? You're on OpenSea. Clicking, sweeping the floor, buying one at a time. The tech is there, the regulation is starting to get there. And I think it's simply at this point, just a time game. A time game. Newer generation get a little bit older, a little bit more experience, a little bit more capital to play with. And the prediction, betting my career on, I don't know, is that more people will be trading Internet assets than less in the coming decade. And I guess we're going to see what happens. But there's pockets. There's pockets. If you look in the right spots, it's happening. It's just not happening. Maybe it's glorious and it's beautiful. I Wish Bitcoin was 250k right now as well. And I wish Meme coin season didn't blow up in everybody's face. And I wish, I wish a lot of things, but we kind of get what we get. And amidst the wipeouts, you get a couple pockets of like, oh, yeah, hyper liquid's beautiful. I did just like long Tesla yesterday with the profits that I sold from a Zcash trade. That is incredible technology that didn't exist in 2021. Like, it's happening just not as fast as maybe people wish.
A
So this is getting pretty close to the reason why I wanted to bring you on the show. Like, the kind of the center point of this episode is like this notion of like entertainment finance, like the, the live stream per trading that's happening in South Korea. There's like that going on out there. I think even in more spots. There's just like this concept out there of real time prediction markets. Like drama, reality TV show around. Around prediction markets. It's like an idea that people are thinking about is like, oh, prediction markets. You know, they're markets but they're also content. And then also we already have pump fun live streaming. Like that's also a real product. We have, we have what you're doing on Twitch, which is. So maybe, maybe I. When I opened up the episode, I called you the face of Gen Z Crypto. But maybe maybe you're trying to be the, the face of just like the entertainment finance sector. What do you call this? So that you are, that you are doing.
B
I want to say two things. One, I like entertainment finance.
A
Entertainment finance.
B
Kyle Simone said that to me on a stream and I was like, oh yeah, that's lit. I'm gonna steal that. The second is I have a quick parallel for you and we'll go deeper on it. If you want, we can skip it. Is gaming is a really interesting parallel to what we're doing in markets where gaming, at least as I remember, early to no, early 2000s. Like I had my first Game Boy in like 2006. Maybe I'm playing Pokemon, you know, Fire red, leaf green. Early 2010s, gaming is big, but like somewhere mids like 2012, 13, 14, twitch streaming and content starts out as I remember. YouTube comment content for gaming and it's like the pros, the best players in the world. What really took it to the next level was it wasn't the pros that blew up. It was like the content creators, like the entertaining, not necessarily the best players in the world, but the entertainment side of video games, like took this thing into the fucking next stratosphere, right? GTA role playing, servers and everything. Fortnite Ninjas on Fortnite with Drake and Juju, Smith Schuster and Travis Scott. And you know, yesterday there's a Kim Kardashian Fortnite collab. Like it was the content that took gaming into this cultural phenomenon, right? Like if you were in. When I was in like middle school, if you're like, I'm a, I'm a game. All I do is game. It's like, dude, you're lame. No, that's not cool now. Gaming is cool, bro. Gaming is a staple. It's a spectacle. It's a, it's A staple in culture. Everybody games. It's not like weird to say you're a gamer. I think trading goes through a similar, not the same, but a similar type of trajectory where like when I was in high school learning how to trade options, I wasn't like telling people I was trading. It wasn't like cool to trade.
A
Yeah. It wasn't a spectacle.
B
It's not like cool to trade. It's like, okay, dude, you're weird. Like I know some guy who like scammed forex courses. Like you're weird. As time comes on here and people get more familiar, it's like, oh, trading. Yeah, I'm familiar with that. I have friends that trade. Oh, I have friends that game. And then the next layer of this I think is like the content side of it. It's the guys like the TJRs of the world. It's the people that take this on the biggest stage and it's like, oh, this thing is real. Oh, you don't have to scam. And oh, there's like cool people. That trait. And so I don't. You mentioned the Korea esports high leverage trading. I don't actually know how that's going to work, but I'm obsessed with the concept. I think it is like so I saw that video, the same video you're probably referencing and I'm like, oh my. It like I had like a visceral reaction to this video. I, I couldn't. It's like an out of body experience. Like, oh my God, I want to host that. Right. And so I think just for the.
A
Reference of listeners, think just like a Starcraft or League of Legends except it's six people or something just perpetrating unb.
B
Screens on a one second screens.
A
Yeah, one second chart. Yeah.
B
And a Dana White as a, as the MC Bill Buffer as like a.
A
Friday night bar activity with the bros.
B
That sounds like a great time. It's a L. It's like completely electric. And so I, I Trading is again, it's aspirational. Like the same. I think we're. There's this article I'm referencing inadvertently that I don't know the name off top of my head.
A
I'll send you.
B
But like the same way you, you know, some kid goes to school and he's rocking a LeBron James Lakers jersey. This is like kind of how I treat my favorite traders on Twitter. It's like, oh, Jez just took a position like bet. How do I, I want to watch like I think the best cop. I have to. This is The James Wynn saga, which ended in spectacular just, you know, epic failure basically.
A
But there was James Wynn was this guy who was taking yourself massive long positions on Hyper liquid.
B
He basically turned like six figures into like deep nine on just like degenerate trades over the course of two weeks. And there was like a 10 day period where James win and that notification that he was either long, short, open a trade, close a trade was like the town square. It was a, it was a, there's no better word than spectacle. It was like must watch. You have to watch like what's his liquidation? What's bitcoin doing? And I have to see this. This is like this, that was it. That was the only content for 10 days was what is James Wynn doing? And yeah, it blew up and it was, that was the end. But it's like, are we gonna see?
A
It was just because of how much size this guy I had in the moment.
B
Right, well, how much size, how public it was, right? The story of he's flipping his way up. It was just this like crazy, like Steph Curry's going for 75 turned the game on. It was just like this moment in time. Everybody was like, knows about the James Wynn story if you were there. And it's like, okay, is there going to be more or less James Wynn type of, oh my God, this massive trade is open. I have to watch type of moments as time goes on and it's like, I would like to bet that there would be more. And I almost can't even fathom an outcome where there's less.
A
So, okay, so like the, the one parallel that I can like maybe bring this up to explain this in my terms is I, I, I remember when this is actually a really old school parallel old school anecdote. But Ichiro Suzuki was like three hits away from breaking the hits record inside of a single season. And the Mariners games started to sell out around the games that he would break that record. And everyone in the MLB was like, oh, Ichiro is two hits away. He's one hit away. He's going to do it this game. And that's kind of like what you're saying, except just with trading. It's with the fact that it's with trading is this crazy new phenomenon here where something that you said that stuck out to me was, oh, there's this one trade that's on right now. Broadly, generally, there's a trade that's on and the trading community is like, oh, there's a trade happening, let me go watch. And that I think Is, is what you are saying is like the thing that you are betting your career and your content and your media company on. It's just like the cultural zeitgeist of trades that people are putting on in the moment.
B
It's just where we're headed. Look, I'm not. There's a, there's a darker like, you know, anecdote here which is like, I'm not really here to speculate on what this means for society, but objectively we're headed towards a future where the market is the economy and they are slapping a market on every. Everything, everything is, is financialized. And the biggest winners from everything being financialized is the trade. Like the traders, the new athletes, man, I used to say, I used to have it wrong. I used to tweet this all the time. People get really upset. I would say crypto influencers are the new celebrities. And I would say that crypto influencers are like the modern day gladiators. Right? There's that. What's that cheet. Where he's like, I'm the man in the arena. I'm the man in the arena. Yeah, we as a society and as like, okay, I'll even give you a step back. When I was just starting on ct, I didn't know what was going on, but I'm like, the social side of this is really cool. I wanted, I wanted to like do media and so I'm hosting spaces and we would go on these spaces during the most glorious bull run that's like ever happened. 20, 21. And instead of trading the things, I would just talk about them and I would always think to myself, like, why don't the tr. Like why don't the traders respect me? I look at these guys, I'm like, you're so cool. Like I, I want to talk to you. Why won't you let me interview you? Why don't the traders respect me? I didn't understand until kind of until I became a trader relatively recently in the last two years that risk takers respect risk takers. And the reason that the traders didn't respect me or respect in general, like content, pure content in crypto is the same reason that LeBron James doesn't give a fuck what Stephen A. Smith has to say on his post game. It's the same relationship. And so I think as time goes on, there's just going to be.
A
Stephen. Stephen A. Smith is the commentator.
B
The commentator. Espn.
A
He doesn't play.
B
Exactly. He doesn't play sport in his life. Can't. Couldn't make a layup. I think we're as a society headed towards a direction where if we're going to put a increased focus on markets, on trade, on capital, on financializing everything, then we're also going to put an extra premium on risk takers. Like respect risk takers, I think is the ape. This is an ape. What is I'm bored Ape would on ape wood on Twitter. Really smart guy. Respect risk takers. And I think society, as time goes on it's going to have like you don't know how aggressive it is. I use the sports comp like I, I more so think of it in more or less. Will there be more focus on this or less. And there will definitely be more focus praise pedestal pudding of people that take risk in financial markets, in public and more people will want to watch than less. And we're headed there fast. And I, I love, I mean I get so excited about this. I love it. I love it.
A
Yeah, yeah. But it's not just taking risk though, right? Because like I'm fully deployed. I have long positions expressed like left and right. Like I'm long Robin Hood long Tesla long Ethan Bitcoin. But I don't think that is what you are talking about or what a trader would look towards when they say taking risk. Like, because I don't really consider myself. I'm not putting on a trade. Like these things are just things that I hold. So it's not just about taking on risk. Right. It's something a little bit more specific than that, I think.
B
I think the risk, the take, like respect risk takers, it's sort of just like general we're headed that direction. And then when I talk about like the spectacle athlete James Wynn type of moment, it's like specific traders like CT does this really well by the way. Like specific traders sort of like climb the ranks in the glory, right? You like climb into Murad 2024. It's like you're untouchable for, you know, however long it lasts. Might be a day, DJ Ping, it might be a week. It doesn't unclear unknown amount of time. But they sort of like rise in like into glory the same way, you know, a starting pitcher throws a perfect game and it's like you like you Murad was much must see TV for like three months at this point. It's like okay, SBX is you know, down a lot. Whatever. What it kind of. You're uninterested in the tweets. But there was, there was a time I was here for you were Here for a lot of the viewers were here where Morad was Must see TV in the list. Oh my God, he's gonna add a coin to the list. It was like this crazy. I mean, I don't know. The list was insane. Every day he adds a new coin to the list and it's ripping five acts. It was like you have to watch. You can't not pay attention, right? The way he was moving markets and the way he was getting 5,000 likes on a tweet. And so I think that, that you know, the respect risk takers, maybe like a general trend and then these sort of like heroic rises through trading markets. Like the Roaring Kitty is the. Probably the, the one he's probably the model is. You know, the worst thing that ever happened to markets is that the Big Short is a more popular movie than the, than the Roaring Kitty Store, which big shorts maybe the best movie ever. But it's a, it's more popular than Roaring Kitty and the Gamestop movie and even Wolf of Wall street minus the scam stuff. Different rabbit hole. But even the Michael, Michael Berry thing is like this. I mean he's like a hero, dude. He's like a. Right, he's like an American.
A
He's one profitable trade. And now everyone's like, oh, the Michael. Michael Berry is doing this? Michael Berry's doing.
B
I mean bro, he's an American hero. Like he is known by more people. Like he's a. Yeah, it's, it's this. There's just gonna be more of this.
A
I mean he's bigger than a lot. Some of it's gotta be the PvP nature of it though, right? Like that's what that's gotta be. Why it's such a big spectacle is because no one really cares about like the long term investors who I'm gonna call the PvE people. Like the player versus environment. Like it's really the PvP people, the player versus player, the traders who are trading against other traders. That's gotta be where the spectacle lies. Cause no one really cares if you're up on bitcoin over like five years of time. Like you and a million other people too.
B
It's definitely. I, you know, I haven't thought about that as much. It's a good take. It's definitely this J curve of like the, the now, you know, the Internet pile, it hits the, the snowball and everybody piles in. Also there's some aspect of influence amongst financial markets where people just as much as they love to come up, they love the come down the come down is almost, you could almost argue. The come down is more glorious. It's like that. You could almost argue. It's like without the calm down. What is it? You know, it's like, all right, the.
A
Whole story, the story is not finished.
B
Blow up in spectacular fashion, right? I mean I, I've. I've been on the receiving end of it. What? Not spectacularly, not mine, but you know, the Degen ping that the Anselm crash outs. Like there's definitely this level of like people want to see, see Icarus fall, you know, as well and then do it again. People want, it's like, yeah, they're definitely crypto. Twitter I think, has this way of every three months, every six months, it feels like there's a trader that's just like chosen, just like the chosen one that can't miss for six months, right? We've had a lot of these. I wasn't there for some of the early days, but the anom, the DJ pings, the marads, the whoever at any given time. I don't really think we have one right now. Weird market, to be fair. The capo story, right? Like CT likes to do this where there's someone who can't miss for six months and then we like try to ruin their life and then pick a new one.
A
Something I was watching your stream earlier today.
B
Oh hell yeah.
A
And something, something you said stuck out to me is like as like why I think Gen Z and traders are like tuned into this activity is we are experts at mimetics is something you said we can just trade memetics and I was reading some article, blog posts about how like the early young Gen Z and also like Gen Alpha they like communicate with each other on TikTok. They like TikTok and they record their tiktoks and post their tiktoks and their friends watch their tiktoks and they like gossip on TikTok. They yap on TikTok like, oh, are you gonna go to like Sarah's party later today? Like, here's what I'm thinking about Sarah's party. Like I don't think I'm gonna go to Sarah's party because she's like a loser and I don't want to go and that, that gets like pushed around the intrapsychic layer of Gen A and like young Gen Z's on TikTok and like they communicate and I don't know if you use tick tock or if, if I don't use tickler but like you Communicate at this, like, Internet through the Internet tell, like, almost for what the boomers would feel like is like almost like telepathy. Yep. It's like the Gen Z is just so in sync with each other. And like, Jenna is doing the 6, 7 meme. Where the did those 6, 7 meme come from? Oh, they're just so connected in the brains that they just made up this meme that's so surreal and abstract that doesn't mean anything. And there's like that cultural DNA of like, the younger generations that I think actually works out really, really well when you are trying to trade Zeitgeist, because that's like the fluency that you need in order to have the edge in the market. That's, that's kind of like my read on the situation. Am I onto something?
B
Two things. One, set the stage. People don't forever, whatever reason, people don't want to accept this. But what Twitter X is to politics and finance, I would argue, like, undisputedly the town hall where everything starts political, financial. TikTok is the culture. It just is. It just is. And people be like, oh, I'm on Instagram reels. Your Instagram reels. They're late.
A
I love Instagram.
B
I saw it last week. Instagram reels are good, but I saw it last week is TikTok is. That's a culture. I think for better or for worse, crypto and trading. Crypto has basically conditioned the people that are here to believe, and maybe rightfully so, that the way you trade is attention, flows, momentum, memetics. Because, I mean, I did this, I hosted this debate. Hosted. I, I, I listened on my stream to this debate between Santiago and Haseeb talk about how to value L1s. And I'm sure you have a take just like I have a take, just like they have a take that the real take is that nobody knows. And I agree with that. No one has any clue. Okay? At least in equities, we, like, pretend to have a clue, and crypto, we have no clue. And it's a memetics flows momentum game. And then you start to look at, I've been doing this recently because I'm bored. But you start to look at other markets, particularly equities, through the same lens, and you're like, oh, okay, like, yeah, Tesla makes sense. And like, oh, yeah, okay. Some of these things start to make sense. And I, you know, people like to say that crypto, there's this thesis going around that crypto is like the easiest market ever to trade and I, maybe I'm going to just talk out of my ass, but I'm a con, you know, I make content. That's what I do. So I, I don't, I don't have a ton of experience trading stocks and trading, you know, bonds and other markets, but explaining to someone who'd never traded crypto what it's like trading crypto. It's like imagine a basket of a thousand assets that have basically no fundamentals. There's no way to value them. Is it cash flows, is it revenue, is it sales? No one has any clue how to value them whatsoever. And then every second coin is a landmine that will just like blow up in your face. And even the green ones that aren't landmines will probably randomly become a landmine in a week. And it's like, convince me that that's easy to trade. Like, I, I understand that, you know, bitcoin has gone up only and generally ether has gone up only. But you know, show me a, a spy chart, right? Show me a chart of Amazon. And so I think that there's this group of people that are, come from crypto native that are conditioned to see markets through this lens. I actually think it gives people an advantage that you're able to sort of step out and be like, okay, I get, I get viral, I get my medics, I get flows. And I mean, I have this one quote, I talk about it all day on stream. I'll just read it. Base 16Z, if you're familiar with him, wrote this article. That's it's the only thing I thought about for two weeks. It's called Mega Church time. I won't read the whole article, but there's this footnote at the end and it reads, not just American Eagle referencing American Eagle City Sweeney trade, not just American Eagle, but all my best trades this year. And I believe an underexploited edge in today's memetic financial markets is growth, investing in some narrative that will become, quote, the one note of the Internet that day. And I think things are heading towards this direction and crypto traders are the best positions to pivot and capitalize on it.
A
You think all financial markets might just be in the same way that we don't know how to value a layer one. Maybe this, this thing, this property that we have in crypto of just like unknowingness about the animal spirits works backwards into like the rest of financial markets. And all of a sudden like everything is a Sydney Sweeney trade, not an American Eagle. Price versus sales Valuation.
B
I mean, you have to say the City Sweeney thing is unreal. I mean it's up like 75% on like a, you know, 9 mid 9 billion dollar company since the City Sweeney.
A
I mean, this is the same annual annual spirits that put GameStop on the map, right?
B
GameStop on the map. The experience that.
A
It all started with COVID and GameStop and like, and really Gen Z entering the market.
B
Dumped Nvidia 10 on deep seek launch. Like, it, you know, I'm not a, I'm not here to like, I'm not gonna pretend even for a second to be a, an equities expert, but it feels like, you know, I say Internet markets all the time. It feels. Because here's the thing, like I'm, I'm conditioned to trade this way. I came from, from sneakers. Sneakers is an attention game, right? It's like people would invest in sneakers. They wouldn't just buy and flip. It's like, okay, cool. Travis Scott is launching a Jordan one. They're gonna sell for 1500 on the resale market. The Jordan one that isn't Travis Scott that looks the closest to the Travis Scott is also gonna 3x. Just attention, right? It's not supply shot. It's just purely attention. Sports cards work the same way. It's like insert random, you know, bowl, bowl, insert. If you were there, if, you know, you know, random. Bronnie James Card is Bronnie James trade like over his stats to PSA 10 value. Like, yeah, significantly, but it's just like memetic attention. So I come from like this framing of. It's just follow the flows, follow the attention. And I tend to think that crypto traders that have been been through it and like look at the world through this lens maybe are onto something a little bit.
A
Yeah, part. Part of it has to do has to be because never before have we had so many people have like access to make trades, making a trade easier today than it's ever been. And the app that you make trades in is right next to your Twitter app. And that is like, you know, prices are set on the margins. And so like the people who value something on a price to sales ratio, they're not, they're not connecting Twitter to Robinhood, but doesn't really matter so long as enough people are then all of a sudden that, that and enough people are connected with enough capital to make these sorts of moves. And all of a sudden like you can trade Zeitgeist really, really easily. And Zeitgeist becomes a more dominant way of valuing something on the market.
B
And I also say like very loud and clear that I'm not coming here and saying like oh, fundamentals don't matter. D I'm more so saying I'm fascinated with the American Eagle City Sweeney Trade fascinated. And also to your point, I have another I just I have these tweets up because I was reading on stream. Ryan Watkins, who I think is a really smart from secrecy capital, tweeted today or yesterday. He says sometimes I wonder if the long degeneracy thesis is a reflection of societal forces pushing people to gamble. And it's a more self fulfilling prophecy fueled by tech Bros making the casino ever more accessible. Like what did you expect when we put zero day options, meme coins, perps and sports betting on everyone's phones? It's good take, interesting take. At the very least it's like yeah, is society going this direction or am I going to watch the Lakers tonight and see like 15 FanDuel ads? You know? Right, right, right.
C
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A
Tell me about threaded Guy Media. What do you want it to be? What is it? What do you want it to be? Where's it going?
B
So we call it Counterparty Counterparty and man it's awesome. It's awesome. It's the most fun I've had.
A
Isn't owning a media company great?
B
It's unreal.
A
You get to talk to cool people.
B
Tough business. I didn't know it was such a tough, tough business. I have increased respect if I didn't already for you guys. But I it's incredible and I think it sits on the edge of exactly what I want to do, which is I want to trade and I want to talk to the traders. That's really what I'm the most interested in is I don't just want to trade because if I just wanted to be a PNL trader then I probably wouldn't be like a public doxed figure putting my face on the Internet and talking. I'll just be trading and I don't want to just interview, but it's sort of the blend of both. It's beautiful. You, you have an incredible life, I imagine and I really think of it like I am. I'm a crypto guy through and through. I I came here to trade, you know, digital sports sports cards and I stayed because the crypto ethos just deeply resonates with where I again where I see the world going, what I believe and what I think is important. But I also think that crypto and like hard crypto is to like sneaker streetwear is to prediction markets, is to Labubu and collectibles is to the stock market. Like it kind of all I think just becomes Internet markets. Cs, go, skins, counter strike. Like I think it sort of all encapsulates Internet markets and I think that crypto by far is the best positioned to again kind of Just like engulf all of these people. Like where do you, you see us go? Where do you go? You kind of just all end up in, in this place. And I always think of you know, the thread guy stream the company counterparty as like the home for that. I, you know, 95 of what we do is crypto, but I want to, you know, interview the best counter strike skin trader and the best sneaker flipper and the best prediction markets trader and kind of go like across the board. Because I think, I think all of these things become one like the market.
A
And I think that's good.
B
I think this is good. Like I, I mean I'm fascinated by the fact that I open a long on a 5x long a Tesla, my Hyper Liquid account yesterday it was like, oh my God, this is incredible. This is, these are the things that get lost and God, we've been shopping for three weeks. But it's like the technology is like I open along in Tesla. It's, it worked. It's crazy. I'm paying funding instead of an option like is it better vehicle, is it worse? I don't know, it could be a different conversation, but the tech works and I'm seeing all these tweets about, you know, derivatives on the boo boos and shit. Is it good for the world? I don't know but it's really fascinating. Everything sort of becoming the market and it exists. It's going to exist on blockchain rails like it just is. It's just a superior product to what's offered anywhere else. Robinhood knows it. Everybody knows it, right? J.P. morgan, all everyone knows it. Just maybe taking a little longer and maybe they're building their own walled gardens, you know. Unfortunate, but I tend to imagine it's not black and white. Right?
A
The, the. To your point about how streamers, content producers around video games made video games to be what they are. Content producers like you, you're not going to be on the walled gardens. So maybe like maybe we build all those, the tradfi world builds all those walled gardens. But like the pinnacle of crypto, the spearhead of crypto, like the frontier of crypto is all going to be on the public stuff. And that's where like the content producers like you and the traders are always going to, they're always going, the PVP land is the wild west of crypto, which is where like that, none of that's going to be any of the.
B
Walt Garden, which I think is a beautiful part of crypto. Like I, okay, I'm going to Read one more tweet just because I think it was so good. I feel like I'm on stream right now pulling tweets up. Vibu from Solana made this tweet. This is my like favorite vision for crypto is. No it reads nobody will go public in 10 years, they will just launch a token. Finance is meeting the direct to consumer revolution that happened in every other category just 15 years late. And then he goes on to talk about a bunch of other stuff but this idea that nobody will go public in 10 years, they will just launch a token and that, you know I was so like cap mesmerized by this the first time I heard Internet capital markets and you know launch your startup on Solana like when this bec. It was a disaster and the believe token was a complete just mess and there's a lot of problems, right? Is it equity, is it not? What is it devs, whatever. But the, the. It's one of these little brain like mice that once it pops into your head you really can't. Yeah, you got accepted, you get thank you. You get incepted and I was incepted by this and the thought that crypto rails will just be this market where think really cool tech just goes public live liquid token tradable from day one. Speculate how you want is just an, it's an unstoppable force and it's, it's also a content machine. I mean it's like the coolest. What, what more do you want as someone that covers financial media, right? It's like this is part of the problem. It's like cool. SpaceX is going to IPO cool. It's at $1.5 trillion and nobody has any exposure. Like man, it's ipoing it. It's going to go public liquid at a higher, you know, market cap than bitcoin. The same market cap as bitcoin. And so I think this, this, this vision of, of what Internet capital markets and what crypto can become in its own right is a spectacle and they all, I think they all just end up here. They all come here. It might take a little long. This is the, my one concern is that being, and you probably know this being early and being wrong or like very, you know, what's, what's the difference?
A
There is no difference.
B
There's no difference, right? Being early, being wrong, same thing until you're right. It's like being a contrarian is difficult because it's like you don't know if you're right or if you're wrong until it's at zero or at the moon. And that's just going to be the crypto story. Probably is. You don't know if you're right or you're wrong until it's way too late to do anything else. And so I just better hope, you know, better get the best odds possible. And I tend to think that we just have them for Guy.
A
This has been great for the listeners out there.
B
What year were you born? 2002.
A
You were wearing a 2008 global financial crisis hoodie.
B
That's what the text offended anybody. I'm sorry it was like this cool.
A
I just think it's hilarious. Like you don't even remember the financial crisis.
B
Honestly blessed that I don't I. If this is like offensive. It wasn't supposed to be by the way.
A
It's not offensive whatsoever. It'd be different. It's 9 11. But no, the 2008 global. The text on his hoodie just reads in Times New Roman Font 2008 Global financial crisis with the chart just going down and is that.
B
Is that cigarettes in the background? I think that books. I don't even know. I just put it on. Put it on the first time for you actually.
A
So that is the perfect hoodie that you could wear for this interview. Thread Guy this is great. If people want to watch you and watch your streams, where should they go?
B
Twitch TV threadguy Monday through Friday at 12:30pm PST or at not thread guy on Twitter with 2 Ts n o t T H R E A D G Y thread guy in YouTube. I'm not that I'm. I'm around. I'm not that hard to find but I. Dude, I've been a fan for a while. I've been watching Bankless since 2021 and you came on my stream which was awesome. I really enjoyed it and yeah man, I'm in the media game. Crypto finance media.
A
Welcome.
B
And you guys have.
A
I've always been saying we. We need more.
B
I mean you guys have done. Look, you guys get a lot. You got a lot of people love you. People hate you but at least people have a take. And I think you've done some of the coolest crypto adjacent media things, interviewed some of the coolest people vital like Tom Lee, all these incredible people. And so I have a lot of respect for you just as a businessman, as an entrepreneur, what you do. So congrats to you guys for keeping it going so strong and like not. Not burning out is commendable by the way. I don't think. I didn't realize how hard this was until I started doing it. So I, I, It's. It's more than I know. This is more than just flip a camera on and upload a YouTube video. I promise it is so. I respect you guys a lot for what you do.
A
I appreciate the words, man. Yeah. The content treadmill. We started speeding up the content treadmill in 2021, and we never really slowed it down until, like this year is when we really slowed it down for the first time and there's two of me. I don't know how you do it solo.
B
I got Malcolm. I'll give him a shout out as well as he's in the background. He's like shadowy, closing deals and. But man, doing a solo is impossible. You need somebody that you really trust and that can, can lock. You'll meet him when we come to New York. But he's a. He's a special talent. And I've. We've been hiring. I have a research team. We just brought Tulip King on from Asari. That guy's my quant. The clipping team. YouTube uploading, it's a whole operation that goes on in the background. I don't think people really realize. Imagine the same for you. You have a venture arm. It's like not. It's no joke. And I have a. Yeah. The counterparty team behind me is like my job is to show up at 12:30, be ready to go. That's it. Everybody else in the background is like so dialed. So it's. Yeah, it's awesome that we've gotten this far.
A
Well, we'll put your twitch and everything else in the show notes.
B
Thank you.
A
And just congratulations for all the success. I'm sure, I'm sure it's going to go way higher. I wanted to go way higher because that means that your thesis is correct, which means crypto does kind of return back to being the epicenter of the Internet where I want it to be.
B
I'll tell you what, man. I just think we're right, dude. I really do.
A
I just think we're right.
B
I love that.
A
All right there, guy. Thanks for coming on Bankless Station. You guys know the deal. Crypto is risky. You can lose what you put in, but nonetheless, we are head west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone. But we are glad you were with us on the Bankless journey.
B
Thanks a lot, Sam.
Date: December 18, 2025
Host: Bankless (A)
Guest: Threadguy (Michael Stocks, B), aka the "Gen Z face of crypto"
Topic: How Gen Z is reshaping crypto, trading, and finance culture at large—turning everything into a market, and the rise of entertainment finance.
This episode features a conversation between the Bankless team and Threadguy—a leading voice and content creator for Gen Z in crypto. They explore the unique relationship Gen Z has with digital assets, trading, speculative culture, and why everything—from sneakers to meme coins—can become a market. They also dissect the emerging genre of "entertainment finance" and discuss the future of financial media.
Threadguy introduces himself as Michael Stocks ("Threadguy") and describes his non-traditional entry into crypto—starting with NBA Top Shot NFTs during the COVID-19 pandemic, after a background in sneaker and sports card reselling.
Marks the entry of a new kind of participant in crypto, not driven by cypherpunk ideologies but by trading, cultural trends, and online hustles.
Gen Z grew up trading sneakers, collectibles, and flipping products online, making micro-entrepreneurship normal.
This experience made Gen Z more comfortable with digital assets, NFTs, and meme coins. For them, trading is a familiar aspect of online life rather than a foreign or high-risk pursuit.
Threads discussed the broader importance of COVID as an accelerator for this dynamic—Gen Z was forced online and found alternative ways to make money.
Citing Kyla Scanlon, the hosts note two major camps:
Threadguy acknowledges rejecting doomerism, but notes that the latter camp dominates crypto because the system feels stacked and barriers to traditional success are high.
Gen Z’s preference for self-defined pathways—becoming streamers, YouTubers, or creators—is tightly linked to why permissionless, “gatekeeper-less” markets resonate.
Threadguy is bullish that permissionless, open crypto markets are the inevitable endpoint for all internet “hustle” culture.
Key insight: This transition mirrors the evolution of gaming—from nerdy to mainstream, powered by content and entertainment rather than only skill.
The hosts and Threadguy discuss how “entertainment finance” is becoming a sector—trading, livestreams, and viral content making finance a form of real-time drama.
Parallels are drawn with eSports and gaming: trading competitions, live-streamed trades, and celebrity traders as cultural icons.
The new “celebrities” are high-profile traders—risk-takers who perform for a live audience, with the community tracking their every move.
Deep dive into how Gen Z’s fluency in memes and social flows gives them an edge in speculative, attention-driven markets.
The real edge in modern financial markets is “growth investing in a narrative that will become ‘the one note of the Internet that day’” (base16Z).
Memetic markets and real markets are converging, with crypto leading the trend but equities showing similar dynamics (e.g., the Sydney Sweeney–American Eagle trade).
As the means for taking and broadcasting financial risk become ubiquitous and frictionless, everything becomes a market, and every event or meme can be traded.
Examples include sneakers, sports cards, stocks, NFT mints, celebrity coins, and even Counter Strike skins—all converging into internet “capital markets.”
Threadguy describes his media company, Counterparty, as the bridge between trading and entertaining—an organic blend of content and trading culture.
Aspires to expand coverage from strictly crypto to all forms of internet markets, from CS:GO skins to sports cards and prediction markets.
The long-term thesis: In ten years, “nobody will go public—they will just launch a token,” making all capital markets liquid, accessible, and viral from day one.
This episode vividly portrays how Gen Z is redefining the world of finance and crypto, moving away from institutional gatekept models towards a world where everything can become a liquid, public market. Trading, for Gen Z, is as much about culture, content, and spectacle as it is about profits. As the technology matures and generational shifts accelerate, the lines between markets, memes, and media continue to blur—ushering in a new era of "entertainment finance," where every narrative can be traded, and every trader can become a star.
Find Threadguy:
“I just think we’re right, dude. I really do.” — Threadguy [63:37]