AI Eats Wall Street Research with Anthony Pompliano

Summary

Galaxy Brains – "AI Eats Wall Street Research" with Anthony Pompliano

Podcast: Galaxy Brains
Host: Alex Thorn, Head of Research at Galaxy
Guest: Anthony Pompliano, CEO of Pro Cap
Date: June 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Galaxy Brains examines the seismic changes artificial intelligence is driving in institutional crypto research and traditional Wall Street analysis, the ongoing convergence between TradFi (traditional finance) and crypto, and the state of markets amid macro and geopolitical headwinds.
Alex Thorne is joined by Bimnet Abibi (Galaxy Trading) for a macro and markets rundown, and then by Anthony Pompliano ("Pomp"), to explore his thesis on the future of AI-driven research, the evolution of crypto companies, and the next era of institutional adoption.

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Markets and Macro Update

[01:37–13:58] – With Bimnet Abibi

Bitcoin's Price Action and Trend

• Short-term: Despite recent declines, Bitcoin's price is showing relative outperformance versus equities, which are experiencing a broad sell-off (Nasdaq down over 2%) while Bitcoin finds support after a 25% correction ([01:54]).
  • Seller exhaustion: There's short base buildup and negative funding on perps, implying downside moves are harder now.
• Medium-term outlook:
  • ETFs continue to show outflows, and MicroStrategy is at an impasse regarding buybacks and debt ([03:39]).
  • Historical analogies imply a cyclical bottom is likely in late Q3 or early Q4 2026.
  • "A 10 to 15% rebound from the low I think is feasible." — Bimnet Abibi ([03:54])
• Caveat: Ongoing lack of ETF inflows; short-term bounces don't affect the medium-term trend.

Geopolitics: Iran, Israel & Market Risk

• The risk/"tail" event around Iran is heightened, as both escalation and breakthrough deal outcomes are more likely than stasis ([05:12–06:08]).
  • “It strengthens your negotiating hand if you’re Iran...unfortunately, it comes at the cost of human lives,” says Bimnet ([05:55]).
• Energy markets’ muted reaction suggests optimism for a diplomatic deal.

AI Trade, Mega-cap Flows, and IPOs

• AI sector:
  • Recent positioning unwinds in AI/memory stocks globally.
  • Institutions are increasingly worried about escalating AI computational costs and physical infrastructure limits (data centers/GPUs).
  • Companies once deploying buybacks with cash hoards are now raising equity and debt for AI spending ([08:25–08:56]).
  • Mega IPOs (notably SpaceX) signal a new paradigm for tech capital formation.
  • "The market is positioning to absorb a lot of supply." — Bimnet Abibi ([08:56])
• Overheated sentiment in equities is cooling off after a nine-week bullish streak ([09:44]).
• CPI headlined at +0.5%, core at 0.2%, so eyes turn to the Fed’s next FOMC for cues on dovish/hawkish turns and views on AI-driven productivity ([10:26–11:37]).

Gold’s Technical Breakdown

• Gold breaks long-term moving averages, with central bank selling and rising real rates contributing ([13:02]).
• "A percent here and there is a lot of money when you're talking about an asset as big as gold." — Alex Thorne ([13:49])

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Institutional Bitcoin and the Evolution of Crypto Companies

[14:06–21:19] – With Anthony Pompliano

The End of the 2018 Crypto Dream

• Pompliano declares much of the crypto industry “dead,” with two camps left at conferences: the builders (bitcoin, stablecoins, tokenization) and those clinging to obsolete visions. ([14:06])
  • “They are dead man walking. The dream is over.” — Pompliano ([14:20])

Operating Businesses vs. Pure Treasury Plays

• Companies like Pro Cap, Strike, and David Bailey’s ventures recognized the need to build or acquire businesses generating organic profit and "stacking Bitcoin," rather than relying solely on leveraging capital markets to accumulate Bitcoin ([15:09–16:26]).
• Organic bitcoin acquisition through operating profit is positioned as a sustainable, “very different path.”

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Pro Cap’s AI Ambitions: Disrupting Research and Wall Street

[16:26–21:19]

Overview of Sylvia: AI CFO/Finance Engine

• Initial AI offerings were wrappers on general-purpose models; Pro Cap has since architected its own proprietary models, agents, memory tech, etc. ([16:48])
  • User experience:
    • “Bring your own data, bring your own queries.” Users connect diverse financial accounts for personalized insights.
    • Flexible: both DIY analytics for power users and prefab research (Pro Cap Insights).
    • Analogy: Building your own chair vs. buying a finished one—same engine, two offerings.
• Pro Cap Insights:
  • AI agents “scan markets, debate outcomes, produce research, make conclusions.”
  • “The way that this system works is it basically goes out, it looks through all of this data. It's very good at identifying undiscovered or less talked about insights. Then it brings it and it debates it among a bunch of AI agents... Then we have a fact-checking agent.” — Pompliano ([18:49])
  • Every report includes thesis, supporting data, counterarguments, and source citations, emphasizing transparency.

The Implications for Wall Street Research

• AI will commoditize and democratize research, challenging six-figure legacy subscriptions.
  • Wall Street will resist, but "people trust the AI more than they trust humans" based on data trends ([21:03]).

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The Great Convergence: Banks, Stablecoins, and Regulation

[21:19–28:20]

Banks and Crypto: Hesitation and Adoption

• Pompliano recounts banks’ reluctance to publicly discuss Bitcoin, preferring to highlight stablecoins and tokenization ([21:57–23:09]).
  • Anecdote: A major financial institution refused to participate in a Bitcoin-centric event rather than even mention bitcoin on stage.
  • "It is way safer, they feel like, to talk about stablecoins or tokenization or blockchain." ([23:36])

Private vs. Public Blockchains

• Banks are still drawn to centralized, permissioned blockchains, despite technical teams exploring public chains ([24:05–24:58]).
  • Large banks/hedge funds are now "becoming technology companies... [they] are not dummies that are asleep at the wheel." — Pompliano ([24:27])

Regulation: Clarity Act & Stablecoin Yield

• Regulatory focus is on “who gets the right to benefit” from innovations like stablecoins ([25:52]).
  • The technology will win on its own; the fight is about regulatory capture and market share.
  • Banking regulation is unlikely to get lighter, but that could paradoxically make crypto safer.
  • Pompliano disputes the notion of grand banking conspiracies, suggesting inertia and bureaucratic inefficiency explain slow progress ([27:17–28:20]).

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Bitcoin Price Prognosis and Macro Dynamics

[28:20–32:55]

• The further Bitcoin moves away from $60k, the more likely that was the cycle low ([28:48]).
  • “It wasn't so much the wick that caught my attention as greed index went to single digits. I'd never seen that before.” — Pompliano ([29:10])
• Asset price inflation versus consumer deflation:
  • Theorizes a unique macro setup with AI and automation as deflationary forces offsetting inflationary money printing.
  • “Can we get a low inflation, high growth economy where we get asset inflation and consumer deflation? …That is not in a textbook.” — Pompliano ([29:49])
  • AI, robotics, tariffs, and geopolitics are all deflationary, enabling assets to rise even as costs for consumers fall.

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AI, Content, and the Future of Media

[30:25–32:55]

• Pompliano predicts synthetic content will overtake human content online ([30:25]).
  • Pro Cap now runs fully AI-generated podcasts and social media personalities (e.g., "Uncle Sal").
  • Coexistence: “We're going to get synthetic content and human content going forward.” ([32:14])
  • Consumers will want a mix—sometimes they’ll seek a human voice, other times, insights from AI entities like Sylvia.

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Personal Reflection & Lightning Round

[32:14–33:07]

• Biggest change of mind (past year):
  • AI is creating more jobs, not destroying them:
    • “AI as an industry is not putting people out of work, it's actually creating jobs… I think that that was something I didn't quite understand. And I think that a lot of people over-rotated to the job apocalypse and now actually it looks like it's going to lead to this big economic boom.” — Pompliano ([32:18])
• 2026 Bitcoin price prediction:
  • “Higher.” — Pompliano ([33:02])

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Notable Quotes

• On industry change:
  “Much of the crypto industry is dead. It's never coming back and people don't realize it yet.” — Pompliano ([14:06])
• On the future of content:
  “There's already more AI content than human content on the Internet...We think this is where the future is going. Doesn't mean that humans are going away. It just means that there is a brand new field of content.” — Pompliano ([31:08])
• On research disruption:
  “People trust the AI more than they trust humans...if you look over five or ten year period, you draw your own conclusions.” — Pompliano ([21:03])
• On macro risk-taking:
  "I think no trade is a trade...stay humble and kind of less is more in this environment." — Bimnet Abibi ([11:40])
• On AI and labor:
  “AI as an industry is not putting people out of work, it's actually creating jobs...that was something I didn't quite understand.” — Pompliano ([32:18])

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Key Timestamps

• 01:37 — Macro & Bitcoin market analysis with Bimnet Abibi
• 13:59 — Interview with Anthony Pompliano begins
• 14:06 — “Crypto industry is dead” commentary
• 16:48 — Sylvia and AI-powered research at Pro Cap
• 18:49 — AI debate agents and fact-checking approach
• 21:19 — Wall Street, stablecoins, and the “great convergence”
• 28:48 — Bitcoin bottom and macro drivers
• 30:25 — The ascendancy of synthetic content
• 32:18 — AI as a net job creator
• 33:02 — 2026 BTC price prediction: “Higher.”

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Summary

Galaxy Brains explores the commoditization of financial research through AI, the evolution of crypto business models, the interplay between TradFi and crypto, and the changing macro environment. Anthony Pompliano spells out a stark vision for a winnowed crypto industry reoriented around operational business models, with AI-powered research democratizing access and upending Wall Street’s six-figure subscriptions. Bimnet Abibi brings a measured, data-driven macro perspective, outlining the near-term and cyclical trends for bitcoin and risk assets in an uncertain, fast-evolving world defined by both digital and institutional transformation.

Transcript

[Alex Thorne]

Welcome to Galaxy Brains.

[Anthony Pompliano]

An infinite amount of cash. Cash.

[Alex Thorne]

I'm your host, Alex Thorne. The US banking system is sound and resilient. Bitcoin made a new all time high. If you're not long.

[Anthony Pompliano]

If you're not long, you're short.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Satoshi is going to come on there, laugh hysterically, go quiet. All bitcoin's gonna be erased.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Bitcoin. Bitcoin's the best Crypto. Bitcoin is going to zero.

[Alex Thorne]

Welcome back to Galaxy Brains. As always, I'm your host Alex Thorne, head of firmwide research at Galaxy Bitcoin not zero. We have a great episode for you this week. Anthony Pompliano from Pro Cap is our guest. He's back on the show and I met with him on the sidelines of consensus 2026. Gosh, several weeks ago at this point, Finneas and we had a great conversation about his thesis in crypto. Now with the institutionalization and the convergence with TradFi, what they're doing at ProCap with AI and their new AI products and and a bunch more, it's a great interview with Pomp. And then of course we'll check with our good friend Bimnet Abibi from Galaxy Trading as always to talk about markets. Markets sliding. Here it ain't just bitcoin that was down in crypto, but all of equities over the last several weeks. After nine consecutive bullish weeks, a little bit of a rollover here and questions about inflation, we'll get the read of the environment from Bimnet as always. And before we get to that, I need to remind you to please refer to the link to the disclaimer in the podcast notes. And note that none of the information this podcast constitutes investment advice or an offer recommendation or solicitation by Galaxy or any of its affiliates to buy or sell any securities. Let's hop right into it with Bimat ab. Let's go now to our friend Bimnet AB from Galaxy Trading. As always, Bimnet. Welcome back to Galaxy Brains.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Thanks for having me.

[Alex Thorne]

So two weeks ago you said 60k in 60 days. By last week we had hit it. Now we're floundering around, down by 60k. What are we thinking about with bitcoin right now specifically? Just same track, right? No change in trend since we've last.

[Bimnet Abibi]

No change in trend. But I would say that the price action today is notable because it seemed like a relative outperformance versus broader equities which were down. Nasdaq was down over 2% as of this Podcast Energy prices were going higher today. Oil was a little bit big. Unlike a couple weeks ago when bitcoin was just trading heavy and macro was holding up. It's the opposite now. I think that speaks to the fact that you've already had such a huge corrective move in bitcoin and you're getting to a little bit of seller exhaustion. But I also think that there's a little bit of a short base in bitcoin and in crypto right now and it feels like it's trading that way. And you can also kind of look at the funding rates on perpetual contracts and they've started to go a little bit negative and implied Vols, especially on short dated bitcoin options are reasonably elevated. And so it seems like people have de risked, some have gone short and some have put on protection, which makes a move lower a lot more challenging. But taking a step back, we just went from 80 to 60. ETFs are still not buying. In fact there are outflows on the bitcoin side. The story with MicroStrategy has not improved because Stretch is still trading around 96, 95. 5. He was not going to be able to issue at par to repurchase shares. The only thing he can do is effectively just sell MSTR more aggressively, which I think is not accretive by their metrics. The setup is still in play and the historical analogy is still in play. I think that, you know, strongly suggests a bottom, you know, about a year after you, you, you topped. And so that puts you in this September, October, like you know, late Q3, early Q4 area, as, as kind of a bottom. And that's still the, the core thesis I think, right here, right now. You know, I think bitcoin could easily go to like, you know, we were just at 64 I think on, on Monday. But you, you know, 64, 65, 66, 67, like a 10 to 15% rebound from the low I think is feasible.

[Alex Thorne]

And that wouldn't change. You could liquidate medium term here, would

[Bimnet Abibi]

not change the medium term outlook. And I think right now what is capturing the attention of the market are two things. One, it seems like the left tail risk on, you know, the Iran situation is increasing. At the same time, I do think we're about as close to a deal as humanly possible or like as, as close as we've been. And so it feels like the left tail and the right tail outcomes are kind of getting fatter.

[Alex Thorne]

Interesting.

[Bimnet Abibi]

And the like hold, hold and delay kind of stuff, it feels like less of a likely outcome. You're either going to get a deal pretty soon or you're going to kind of escalate. I think, you know, I'm still optimistic that a deal will get done, but the back and forth between Iran, Israel and then now US Iran, like, it doesn't feel good. At the same time, you know, that negotiations are happening, you know, behind the scenes. And so there is a diplomatic channel that's being pursued and there's so.

[Alex Thorne]

And some of this heightened in the last few days, like escalation. There's some rockets or something and some vice versa retaliations. That can also be part of positioning in the late stage of negotiations as well.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Absolutely.

[Alex Thorne]

Yeah.

[Bimnet Abibi]

You know, it strengthens your negotiating hand if you're Iran that, you know, if you're willing strike Israel and risk like blowing up the deal and re escalation, that means like, you know, you're may

[Alex Thorne]

get you a little bit more negotiating power.

[Bimnet Abibi]

It may. And so it's just a tit for tat right now, unfortunately, it comes at the cost of, you know, human lives and suffering and money and all that. But anyway, so that's one big driver. I think it is notable that energy markets haven't completely rallied like crazy. I think that is a sign that the market is optimistic about a deal getting done. And then the second thing that's driving market is really still the AI trade. And you've had some hiccups since the last podcast. Last Friday was particularly ugly. Huge unwind, not just domestically, but abroad and the cospi and kind of memory and AI names globally. And you're seeing a continuation of that theme today in markets. I think essentially what you got to was a point where positioning got really elevated. So did sentiment. And you hit against kind of the reality that a lot of institutions are very concerned about their token spends. Right. And so folks are looking to run cheaper models or run AI less. And so there are some concerns about just the cost of some of these models. And therefore you got to question the business model of certain businesses. And then you're running into physical constraints of I need more data centers or more GPUs or more commodities or other things. There is a limit as to how much you can do. And then more importantly though, I think last week Google announced that they were doing a big equity raise. And you know that the space X rays is happening this week on Friday, the ipo. And in theory the money that's getting spent on AI has to come from somewhere. And yes, a lot of the companies spending on AI are massively cash flow positive. Some of the best.

[Alex Thorne]

And also huge balance sheets. They've been buying back stock with like they have money.

[Bimnet Abibi]

They have. Well, the buyback stream, cash flow, I'm saying.

[Alex Thorne]

But they've been using these giant stockpiles over the years, the Mag 7 companies, mostly for buying back stock. So they've been. And now using a lot of it for AI spend.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Correct. They're not buying shares and they're actually selling which is, you know, not.

[Alex Thorne]

Well, that's the crazy thing. Was that the like at the money. I don't know if they're at the money but the. Some of them are pipes. Yeah. So there's. But the fundraisers from mega Caps. We ever seen that? I don't know.

[Bimnet Abibi]

No, no.

[Alex Thorne]

That's been a while. It's a totally new type of phenomenon

[Bimnet Abibi]

and it's not just equity offerings, it's debt. And so I think the market is positioning to absorb a lot of the supply. You're getting hit with equity supply and debt supply at the same time where the story is getting slightly less compelling. I wouldn't argue that it's still transformative technology. The companies this year have had tremendous earnings, like 20% earnings.

[Alex Thorne]

We're just not at peak hype. We're somewhere below that very notably. And the S and P shows that. Right. I mean we're not close. I mean we're close close if you zoom out. But the last several weeks have taken us well, well below all time highs on the S and P. Right.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Yeah.

[Alex Thorne]

We're down meaningfully. If you look at that chart, it's. We were just climbing higher for most of the spring.

[Bimnet Abibi]

We were up nine weeks in a row. Yeah. Right. And so that type of price action is generally not sustainable. And. And so I, I think that you know, the market just came to a head and.

[Alex Thorne]

And you gotta have a. It's always, you know, some cooling off period. Yeah. Doesn't mean the macro equities or the sort of big picture equity rally doesn't continue.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Yeah. But I think, you know, caution is warranted. You know, we've never seen an IPO this big. It's happened.

[Alex Thorne]

Right. I saw the. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have filed a fund. So like we got more mega IPOs on the horizon. Not clear exactly when but coming. Money's got to come from somewhere to buy that stuff, right?

[Bimnet Abibi]

Absolutely. That's a pretty interesting setup. I think lastly, in terms of what happened today, you did have a headline CPI print that was a 0.5. The headline CPI prints are definitively inflationary. The core CPI came in a bit better at 0.2. But I think the market's focus over the next, once you get past the SpaceX IPO is really on Kevin Warsh and what he's going to say at the next FOMC meeting, it's his first meeting, he's going to effectively shape how the Fed communicates what his outlook on policy is. Do they keep the dovish bias? Do they not? How does he address the balance sheet policy? Does he kick the can down the road and. Yeah, and you know, I think what's most important in terms of at least the question I'll keep an eye out for is, you know, has his mind, is he still of the view that AI is tremendously kind of like disinflationary and like it will lead to like a productivity boom. And so I'm curious, like if he's

[Alex Thorne]

how he reconciles that with these inflation numbers that we're seeing.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Correct? Yeah, but, yeah, and so it's, it's a very interesting time for markets. I think that if I had to pick a trade right now, it's very hard and I think what I would be more comfortable in is probably betting on there will be volatility. I'm saying that the sun will rise tomorrow, I totally get that. But right here, right now, tough to decide what, tough to know what to do. I think no trade is a trade. And so I think this is a market that on a headline you could lose your shirt, go up or down a lot. Up or down a lot. And so I think it's really important to just stay humble and kind of less is more in this environment. I think one of the most interesting charts in the world right now is gold. It just broke its 200 day moving average I believe last week and today you're closing below the 50 week moving average for the first time in a couple of years. And I don't think it's got a great fundamental setup here because real rates are rising, you've got some central bank selling, there's a technical break on it.

[Alex Thorne]

Very interesting, very interesting. Been on a multi year bull run. Gold. After languishing, it tends to do well for a few years, then languish for 10 years. If you look at the all time chart because the last structural bull run was, you know, when I was in college in like the mid 2000s and then it basically went sideways for 15 years.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Yeah, I mean you just, and then

[Alex Thorne]

rallied hard, then doubled.

[Bimnet Abibi]

I mean you have to remember like it's down a lot and it's the world's largest asset. Like you know, if people are pulling cash from gold to go into SpaceX like or these other things, it wouldn't shock me. But I also think like there's a real wealth effect.

[Alex Thorne]

Yeah.

[Bimnet Abibi]

To like the largest asset in the world like dropping 4% today after it dropped like, you know, like I think it dropped like 2ish yesterday. But it, it's been on a pretty consistent downturn.

[Alex Thorne]

A percent here and there is a lot of money when you're talking about an asset as big as gold, as I agree. So very interesting. Thank you Bim Net, my friend from Galaxy Trading.

[Bimnet Abibi]

As always, thank you for having me.

[Alex Thorne]

Let's go now to our guest Anthony Pompiano, my friend. Welcome back. Let's go Brains. A lot of people here. Does this feel like a bull or bear market to you?

[Anthony Pompliano]

I think that this, I think that this conference is proving one thing that I believe which is much of the crypto industry is dead. It's never coming back and people don't realize it yet. There are two types of people at. There are smart people who are working on things that are going to be valuable. Things like bitcoin, things like stablecoins, things like equity infrastructure and tokenization. Then there's a lot of people who are walking around here and they are confused. They think that what they are working on is God's gift to the Earth and they don't realize they are dead man walking. It is never going to happen. The dream is over. They should stop working on what they're working on. 2018 vision of the world is not going to happen. Reallocate the capital, reallocate the talent. Go somewhere else.

[Alex Thorne]

You are the CEO of Pro Cap, a bitcoin company. Let's talk a little bit about this because you just acquired Sylvia, CFO Sylvia, which is an AI. We'll talk about Sylvia specifically. It's very interesting, but the, the that brings sort of a real business inside of a bitcoin treasury company. That's a trend we're seeing now. 21 Nakamoto. I guess not everyone can be. Michael Saylor. How do you think about it? Like is this DAT 2.0?

[Anthony Pompliano]

Well, I think there's very big difference between the people who thought they were going to run a Treasury company and then if I had to give credit to David Bailey and Jack Mallers and my myself, I think that probably the three of us understood that simply just holding bitcoin on the balance sheet was not going to be a winning strategy. And so in our own different ways, each of us told investors early on, hey, we are going to build an operating business, we're going to look to acquire an operating business. I think David even said, hey, there's an option to buy my existing business, et cetera.

[Alex Thorne]

Right.

[Anthony Pompliano]

And so I think that there's really two different ways that you can accumulate Bitcoin on your balance sheet. You can do it inorganically by going and using capital markets, whether it's equity, converts, you know, preferred, et cetera. And you're going to buy that Bitcoin. If you do it in a prudent way and you manage your risk correctly, then that can be a great business. And I think strategy is obviously doing a great job with it. I think Stride's going down that path, et cetera. But I think that there's this second group which is trying to organically acquire Bitcoin. And what they're really doing is they're trying to build businesses that have revenue and profit. They'll sweep that profit into Bitcoin on the balance sheet and they'll continue to grow the Bitcoin stack there. And so I think that the media is trying to label this as pivots. But if you go and you actually look, I know for sure those two guys and myself were very clear in a lot of the filings, et cetera, of like, look, we want operating businesses because we think that the organic acquisition of Bitcoin is a very different path than maybe what other people are doing.

[Alex Thorne]

Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. And especially in an asset like Bitcoin, it's proof of work. You can't like run a whole validator business and build up like a MEV or all these other block building and stuff. So I think it makes a lot of sense. Let's stick on this topic with Pro Cap. So you did acquire close the acquisition of Sylvia, which was. Is an AI cfo, a financial AI. Tell us about Silvia.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Well, the way to think about what we've built is, you know, we started off, frankly, I think almost every AI product starts off as a wrapper on the general purpose models. And then you quickly realize that the general purpose models are great for general purpose, but they're not very good at doing a lot of the nuanced types of things. And so over time what we have done is we've built proprietary agents, we fine tuned models, we've had to build a whole orchestration layer, we've had to build, you know, memory components, file systems, Et cetera. And so you can kind of think of this as an engine, an AI engine that we've built. The Sylvia product is what I call bring your own data, bring your own queries. So that engine, you can almost think of it like Palantir's ontology engine, right? So a user comes into the Sylvia product and they attach all of their accounts, their bank account, their brokerage, their crypto account, their private investments, cars, real estate, collectibles, etc. When you bring all of that data into the engine, you've brought your own data, it's personalized to you, and then you begin talking to Sylvia. When you talk to Sylvia, you are querying the engine. So bring your own data, bring your own queries. When you query, you get answers back. Could be what's my net worth, how much, my cash position, you know, do deep research on a stock for me, how to get my tax rates down, all that stuff. That is very helpful because it is a do it yourself version or use case for our engine. We then launch Pro Cap Insights, which is us as a company, we are going to bring the data, meaning that we are going out and getting data pipelines set up. We're going and trying to find these data sets and then we're the ones querying it. And then we are selling the X, the output as a finished product. So you can think of the do it yourself use of the engine. It's kind of like going to the store and buying wood and saying, I'm going to go home, I'm build my own chair. A lot of people can do it, right? Great use case. You get a very customized chair exactly for what you want. But there's also a lot of people who say, you know, I'm not going to build my own chair, I just want to go to the retail store, I want to buy the chair already pre made, not that's good enough for me. And so our business, if you think of from a technology perspective, is this engine that our engineering team has built and then we allow people to use it from a do it yourself standpoint, or we will actually use it to create a finished product and then just sell that finished product.

[Alex Thorne]

I think that's really cool. And with ProCap Insights, the agents scan markets, debate outcomes, produce research, make conclusions.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Key to the Pro Cap insights, which I don't think people quite understand, but actually very interestingly, the mainstream media, if there's one thing they understand, they understand media. And so when you are creating content with AI, there's two things that tend to be true. You ask AI a question and you have to believe it, right? Because you don't know is it accurate or is it not. And so the way that this system works is it basically goes out, it looks through all of this data. It's very good at identifying undiscovered or less talked about insights. Then it brings it and it debates it among a bunch of AI agents. And so you get no different than in a newsroom, right? You get one person, hey, you know, I think this about this situation or somebody else says, well, I grew up in this area and so I have this context, whatever. So you get a little bit better view of this aspect. Then we have a fact checking agent that goes through and actually looks at it. So for example, every single report not only has a thesis, it's got the data that backs up that thesis. We then provide you the counter argument. So we're not telling you buy or sell. We're not doing price targets. We're saying, here's the bull case, here's the bear case. You're smart, you decide what you want to do with this information. But then every single data point usually is actually footnote cited. And so you can go and you can look and see what was the source material. And that's how we can ensure a lot of the actual accuracy is understanding. Okay, well, how many sources actually back up this claim or this data point. And so being able to do this quickly and cheaply is obviously very valuable. But also doing it accurately with the citations is probably the most important thing.

[Alex Thorne]

I mean, I'm a researcher, not in stocks, but in crypto primarily. This is getting me a little concerned because that sounds very good. The adversarial sub agents that check and are skeptical and create this good product. We're doing some stuff.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Think about what you could do. We should do a deal together, actually, right? Why not? Live picture is you guys keep your human team, right, and do what humans are really good at. But then there's a whole body of research that the AI is really good at doing and you offer it all as one single offering, right? There's the Galaxy human team and then there's the Galaxy AI team. And really then the, the consumer of the information can decide, do I want to read from a specific person, do I want to read the humans or do I want to read the AI? And what you'll find is different people want different things.

[Alex Thorne]

You think the like equity research on Wall street costs like six figures for subscriptions or soft dollars or however it's done how do you think this type of thing is going to upend, like Wall street research?

[Anthony Pompliano]

Generally speaking, I think that two things are true. One, they're going to fight it for a long time and say, oh, this is written by a I. Oh, it's slop, it's whatever. I can tell you by looking at the data though, people trust the AI more than they trust humans. And so if you look over five or ten year period, you draw your own conclusions.

[Alex Thorne]

Let's talk about Wall Street a little bit. What we call the great convergence between crypto and trad fi. It's definitely in full swing. You can see that here at Consensus. I saw it last week at bitcoin in Las Vegas. Plenty of suits, although the suits have been here for a while. You know, not just you, you spent, you came into the space as a bitcoiner. You've over the years, I would say, warmed up a little bit across the stack. You're interested in stablecoins and defi and stuff like that. You know, how do you think of the banks, the big banks, you know, getting into crypto or into bitcoin? First of all, do they even like bitcoin? Have you seen them liking bitcoin or are they more of a bitcoin?

[Anthony Pompliano]

Can I tell you a crazy story?

[Alex Thorne]

Like block stable coins, not bitcoin Now.

[Anthony Pompliano]

So there are a lot of big financial institutions that we've done a lot of work with with our media business, our events, our investing firm, you know, or even our public company, et cetera, right. They like bitcoin, they like stablecoins, they're trying to figure out how do we use this stuff. Right. I recently saw Franklin Templeton. They had the five year anniversary of their Benji fund.

[Alex Thorne]

Do you believe that's right?

[Anthony Pompliano]

Five years. Now on the other hand, we did the bitcoin investor week this past February and there was one large financial institution that they were going to send their head of digital assets to speak at the thing. So they agreed that they were going to do it and they said, hey, can we send you some topics as to what we'd like to talk about? Sure, no problem. I tend to be very collaborative in setting up these agendas. So they sent me a bunch of topics and the word bitcoin was not in any of the topics or descriptions or anything. And I said, all this is fine, I'm happy to talk about all this stuff. But I'm going to, you know, we're also going to talk about bitcoin.

[Alex Thorne]

Yeah.

[Anthony Pompliano]

And they said, well, this person doesn't have anything to say about bitcoin. And I had to then send them a picture of the website and say, you know, the conference is called the Bitcoin Investor Week and we have to talk about bitcoin or you know, what are we doing here? Yeah, they pulled from the conference.

[Alex Thorne]

Wow.

[Anthony Pompliano]

They would rather not attend the conference than have to say anything about bitcoin now. I then went to the head of digital assets and I said, hey, my guess is it's probably the comms people more so than it was the actual like operating team. So you know, to be fair to them, it was the comms people. But I think that that is a very good anecdote on there is still a lot of uncertainty and you know, maybe a nervousness around bitcoin. It is way safer they feel like to talk about stablecoins or tokenization or blockchain or whatever.

[Alex Thorne]

Yeah, yeah. It's crazy because I remember back in like 2016 we used to joke that it was the blockchain, not bitcoin era.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Yeah.

[Alex Thorne]

And it's rearing its head again. You even have some of these like permission blockchains, digital assets out here with like their fifth version right. In Canton. Like do you think that open blockchains are actually going to win at the banks? They are looking at it, the big banks. It's not like they're not looking at bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana type, you know, as a platform for what they're building. But they do still seem enamored with this centralized private database idea.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Well, if your whole business is built on power, control and censorship, then naturally you look to extend that. Right now you could argue, but maybe the market has a different opinion. And really there's a kind of evening of the playing field now. Right. So Hyper Liquid looks very similar to some of their businesses.

[Alex Thorne]

Yes, it does.

[Anthony Pompliano]

It seems to be growing pretty fast. And so what we're really seeing I think and maybe more importantly is the big financial firms are becoming technology companies. And there's a trope I think in Silicon Valley of like ah, the finance people, they don't understand tech. We have AI. Right, Right. Like trust me, every major hedge fund, every major bank, they have very big tech teams. They're putting a lot of R and D into this stuff. They are trying to figure out doesn't mean that they're going to win, but they are not dummies that are asleep at the wheel. And so I think that there is a convergence on, okay, everything is going to be tech forward rather than it be you know, kind of those closed systems over time.

[Alex Thorne]

I think that makes sense. Sticking with the banks. Let's talk about Clarity Act a little bit. Obviously the Congress passed and the President signed the Genius act last summer all about stablecoins. I think a great bill, really more about American dollar dominance than like a crypto bill. But Clarity is much more focused. It is a crypto industry normalization regulation licensure bill. Obviously it's been having some fits and starts is a nice way to say it in the Senate. But Senator Thom Tillis and Senator Angela also Brooks put out this compromise on this crucial yield bearing question for stables. You've been in the finance side of crypto and markets and bitcoin for a long time. Do you think that this balance. Everyone's very worried if you pay stablecoins holders too much yield, they'll run on the bank right, et cetera. Do you think that's overblown? And also how important is clarity in your mind?

[Anthony Pompliano]

I don't think any of it matters. Stablecoins are winning without it. Will it help certain people? Yes, but the question is who gets help? Well, it depends on how the bill gets written. And so at the end of the day, what we're really talking about is not will the technology succeed or not? Both in terms of bitcoin, stablecoins, et cetera. We're talking about who gets the right to benefit. And when you frame it that way now all of a sudden it becomes very clear why each side has a very different view and it's so controversial is because one side feels like they're going to get boxed out, the other side feels like they have a regulatory capture opportunity. And so the technology is going to succeed either way. It is only now we are trying to have the government play favorites essentially on this. And so I think that you could address this two ways. You could say, hey, actually reduce the banking regulation. That's not really part of the conversation. Instead it is, what should we do with stablecoins? Should we make the crypto people be like banks, all this kind of stuff, but like actually by reducing banking regulation, it may make the market safer.

[Alex Thorne]

I think that might be right. And also I think your point about the winners and losers makes a lot of sense. I think one of the craziest things was after this text on the rewards compromise was released, the banks came out and opposed it. And it's like they've been working for four months. I'm starting to think the banks don't want to compromise and never actually did. And maybe they're really just dragging their feet as long as possible to give themselves time to build while to. To not lose to crypto. What do you think about that?

[Anthony Pompliano]

It definitely is possible, but also it's kind of this thing of like, people usually think the government's got a big conspiracy, and it's like, hey, don't give them too much credit.

[Alex Thorne]

Right hand. Not talking to right hand.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Well, and just also like, you know, if you get a bunch of politicians in a room from both sides of the aisle, like, usually they're not very good at getting things done. And so creating and executing a conspiracy is like, not high on the execution list.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Right.

[Alex Thorne]

And so more veep than house of cards, right?

[Anthony Pompliano]

Yeah. And so I think that, you know, same thing with the banks, right? It's like, look, they're very focused, they have great businesses. Like, that's the other thing people forget is, you know, I don't know how many of these bank executives are waking up and they're like, cryptos are number one priority. BlackRock might be right.

[Alex Thorne]

They really do.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Like, some of the asset managers may be, but in terms of the actual hardcore banks, I think they've got a lot of things they're trying to figure out. AI may be a bigger story internally than crypto, as an example. And so are they paying attention? Yes. Are they participating? Yes. But I tend to think there's less conspiracy and there's just more of like, dude, if I said to you, what's a guaranteed way not to get something done fast? The first thing you would say is put bureaucrats, politicians, bank executives and crypto people in a room and have them try to come to a decision.

[Alex Thorne]

Right, Right, right.

[Anthony Pompliano]

So guess what we're doing?

[Bimnet Abibi]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alex Thorne]

It is kind of like a clown show in that sense. Pretty funny. Let's hop around. We only have a few more minutes. I wanted to ask you about bitcoin price. You've been one of the more public prognosticators of bitcoin for years on cnbc. Squawk box. In general, we're kind of in this. I mean, right now we look back, it looks like that wick below 60k in 2-5-5 was the bottom. Do you think that was the bottom this year or in this cycle? And also, what will it take us to drive us higher back towards 100k? In your mind?

[Anthony Pompliano]

The further we get away from 60, the more I believe that that was the bottom. Right. So that helps. I think two also is you kind of have this grind up. We're not seeing Kind of the volatility. And so when volatility compresses, it's just much more, less likely. And then I think maybe the most important thing and something I talked about at the time was it wasn't so much the wick that caught my attention as greed index went to single digits. I'd never seen that before and this

[Alex Thorne]

was like the lowest ever on that index.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Yeah.

[Anthony Pompliano]

And so just like to me that was, you know, probably the key thing is just like fear was so, so prevalent. Now what can push us higher? I think that there's a couple of things, right. One is I think that investors got reminded like, dude, nothing matters, War doesn't matter, inflation doesn't matter. Like asset prices are going higher because the government's not going to stop printing money. Now the big question I have and I've got an opinion, but let's see what it plays out is can we get a low inflation, high growth economy where we get ass inflation and consumer deflation? That is not in a textbook. That's the ideal and we never have it. Right. So everyone always talks about like if you get asset inflation, you get consumer inflation.

[Alex Thorne]

Right.

[Anthony Pompliano]

If the government is printing, you should get inflate like all these things.

[Bimnet Abibi]

Right, Right.

[Anthony Pompliano]

But we also never have had this massive deflationary force that is pushing prices lower at the same time that the government is printing money.

[Alex Thorne]

Is this AI and technology automation?

[Anthony Pompliano]

I think that it is deportations, tariffs, AI and robotics.

[Alex Thorne]

Yep.

[Anthony Pompliano]

So if you have this deflationary force that is attacking the economy at the same time that you have the government printing money, could the monetary printing end up in assets? But the consumer prices are going down because the AI and robotics again, I don't know but it sure seems like that is closer to reality than we're going to get. You know, sky high inflation of 8% and asset prices are going to go to the moon.

[Alex Thorne]

Here's another jump around question. You told Axios that synthetic content is going to become more popular than human made content over time. And you launched a fully AI generated podcast called Best stocks you name.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Right.

[Alex Thorne]

That's really good. Like, I mean let's just cut right to the chase. You know, it's like I always like a company, a cement company in New York. It should be called New York Cement Company.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Right? Great. Best Stocks podcast or Best concrete company.

[Alex Thorne]

Exactly. So yeah, the best is good. You've been on social media a long time, you're talented with social and podcasting. Like is this a bet against humans doing podcasts or is this just this is awesome. Let's get it done. Or where does it go? Like, I mean, if AI content is going to be more prevalent than human made content, are we all just going to be watching our AIs talk to each other?

[Anthony Pompliano]

I think we're getting close to. There's already more AI content than human content on the Internet in general. We have synthetic social media video accounts. So we have, there's a account called Uncle Sal. He sits in a car and he literally gives life advice. Has exploded in popularity on Instagram, we've got a synthetic podcast. We have the ability to create the synthetic research. Right. Like, we think this is where the future is going. Doesn't mean that humans are going away. It just means that there is a brand new field of content that previously wasn't there. And so some people are going to want to subscribe to you and your personal opinions. They're going to want to listen to your questions, your answers. Right. It's a brand, it's looking for your personal perspective. But also there's a lot of people talking to Sylvia. Yeah, right. Sylvia's got opinions, Sylvia's got ideas, Sylvia's got information. And so sometimes they want to talk to Alex, sometimes they want to talk to Sylvia.

[Alex Thorne]

Yeah.

[Anthony Pompliano]

And they may actually ask both of your opinions about the same question. So I think that it's less of a either or and it's. And we're going to get synthetic content and human content going forward.

[Alex Thorne]

Very interesting. What's one thing you've changed your mind on in the last 12 months?

[Anthony Pompliano]

One thing I've changed my mind on in the last 12 months, AI and job creation. So I thought that AI was going to destroy a lot of jobs. Pretty much all of the data suggests the exact opposite, that AI is going to be a massive job generator. There's more software engineers that are getting hired, there's more open roles for software engineers. There's over 600,000 jobs that have been created in the economy that have AI attached to the name. Like AI as an industry is not putting people out of work, it's actually creating jobs. And so I think that that was something I didn't quite understand. And I think that a lot of people over rotated to the job apocalypse and now actually it looks like it's going to lead to this big economic boom.

[Alex Thorne]

That is super interesting. Last question. Gun to your head, Anthony, what's the price of Bitcoin? December 31, 2026.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Higher.

[Alex Thorne]

I like it. Anthony Pompliano, thank you so much, my friend. Thanks for coming on Galaxy Brains.

[Anthony Pompliano]

Yeah, you got it.

[Alex Thorne]

Thank you for listening to Galaxy Brains, the weekly podcast from Galaxy Research. I'm Alex Thorne, head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy. Follow me on X at Intangible Coins. Follow Galaxy Research on X at GLXY Research. Read our written [e-mail] research and don't forget, if you like Galaxy Brains to like and subscribe on your favorite podcast platforms like YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and more. We'll see you next time.