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Scott
Bitcoin price has stalled around 118,000, but that has not stopped some dinosaur altcoins from making serious moves. They are pumping hard. Ethereum is up 9% in the last 24 hours. XRP is up 10% in the last 24 hours. Over the last 7 days. Ethereum at 23%, XRP at 33%. Leading many to wonder what could possibly be causing all of this upside price price action on altcoins. Of course, a lot of that could be related to crypto week on Capitol Hill and the fact that we're likely going to get the genius act onto Trump's desk by tomorrow and signed. We've got a lot to talk about. Luckily, I've got Iago and the legend Mark Yusko here with chart guys on the back half. Let's go, let's do.
Mark Yusko
Let'S do.
Scott
Anytime the market's up, it's great to have a happy conversation with friends about why that could possibly be happening. So we're just gonna go ahead and do that right after you like and subscribe or do whatever you do on YouTube. I don't know, I'm a boomer. No idea what you guys do when you come here. I don't know that I've ever watched an entire YouTube video myself. Going to be honest. The worst YouTuber in the world. Iago. Mark. Good morning. How are you sirs?
Mark Yusko
Good morning. Good morning. And apologize for the strange background, strange attire, little vacay day down here in, in North Carolina, so could be worse.
Scott
I wish I was on a little vacay day down in North Carolina myself. Hey, Mark, so like, you know, bitcoin, Obviously we're at 118ish rounding error from the all time high, but are you wearing XRP socks? Because XRP is up like 10, you.
Mark Yusko
Know, the XRP army. So actually I'm not wearing any socks today because I'm at the beach. But I do have bitcoin orange, you know, bathing suit. So every, everything's still all about bitcoin. You know, I've got the bitcoin beard. I mean it's, it's beautiful. But look, I got in trouble with the army because I might have said that XRP is a scam.
Scott
Same here. You got me in trouble with the army too. Thank you.
Mark Yusko
Yeah, I know. So I might have said that. And I actually kind of stand by it. And the fact that an asset increases in price doesn't mean that the functionality got better. It just means that there's more buyers than sellers. So the price Rises. Look, I think the reality is, you said it's all politics right now. Politics and the idea that the government and most notably the small sliver of the administration that's pushing this really could say I'm going to king make. I'm going to say this is the ledger we might use for this function, or we're going to put some of this in our strategic reserve. Despite the fact that there's no evidence of that. The rumors are great because, you know, Brad snapped a picture of, of himself at Mar a Lago, but I guess someone else snapped the picture he was in it with. With the Donald.
Scott
Yeah. We don't need to deeply dig further into that because I know your opinion and it's amazing. But obviously I think we can talk about what the catalyst for this might be. So. So in previous cycles, you know that if bitcoin goes up and then it stalls a bit and makes a nice new high, you get confidence in the market and all coins tend to follow. That hasn't really happened this cycle, Iago. Right. But maybe now it is. I mean, we have a lot of things here happening for eth. Obviously the treasury companies, I think are driving that narrative to a large degree. We have crazy inflows right now for the ETFs 7,26 million in daily net inflows for Ethereum. Those are like big day for bitcoin numbers. Right. And here you go. Largest corporate Ethereum holder sharply gaming ads eth worth 68 million. We know that Peter Thiel has now been added to the roster on Bit Mine with Thomas Lee. I think Ethereum. It's pretty obvious, right? I mean, why this is happening.
Mark Yusko
I mean, again, I think absolutely you're right, Scott. It is a. The problem for Ethereum over the last couple years has been this stall in the ascent of developer activity, new product activity, because Solana and other competitors came in that were arguably better and faster. I still have problems personally with Solana crashing on occasion. That's a bad trait in a blockchain. But I might as well piss off everybody this morning, all the armies.
Iago
What are you going to say about Chainlink?
Mark Yusko
I actually have nothing bad to say about Chainlink other than my absence of saying something good. They get mad at me too. So everybody is mad at me. But the thing that I think is, is so striking about ETH is, you know, Joe Lubin is involved in the foundation, obviously as, as, you know, one of the big, you know, early proponents, and he has this sharply gaming treasury company, you know, conversion. It now owns more Eth than the foundation. And it's never shocking when Peter Thiel shows up, given that the founder of Ethereum is a Thiel fellow. In fact, did I ever tell you my story about the back door?
Scott
All right.
Mark Yusko
When I first got exposed to Bitcoin Back in 2013, I did what every good, normal American who is Satoshi Nakamoto Googled it. And what pops up if you Google that is intelligence central. Because Satoshi means intelligence, and Nakamoto is the surname of the families in the central provinces of Japan. Like, huh, that's kind of close to CIA. So I'm Googling this and Googling this, which is probably bad, because now I'm probably on every watch list in the world I wasn't already. And so. So I'm like, okay, whatever. What if the CIA created it because they knew the dollar was dead and that they were going to have to deflate it, devalue it to infinity to get out of debt? Because once you have debt, you can either pay it back. Can't do that. You can restructure it. Can't do that. Because someone's got to take the other side. You can default on it. Well, you can't do that because then you get kicked out of office. Or you can devalue it. That's what all empires have done. They devalued. So what if they created this new thing to get all the dollars to convert in that, and then they had a back door and they just steal it all. And so Scott Stornetta, who's in the white paper, he's, you know, one of the. He's. Three of the eight footnotes, is a venture partner. And so I ran this by Scott one day, and I get to the end of the story, and he's like, no. Like, Scott, you didn't even think about it. How can you say no? He's like, well, it's an interesting theory, and I wouldn't put it past him. And it could be the case. But the way you're thinking about a backdoor is impossible with Bitcoin because of the air gap, but then instantaneously. But with Ethereum, they could definitely do that. It's like, what.
Scott
So Joseph Levin is Stoshi Nakamoto? Is that the moral of the story? I'm just kidding.
Mark Yusko
No, no. More that. More that there could be some weird back. Everybody knows the CIA story about all that stuff. So, anyway, it's possible.
Scott
So, Iago, what do you think right now of the sort of fact that obviously we're seeing more interest Again in altcoins. And do you think that that's aligned with the fact that crypto is on the docket on Capitol Hill right now, but generally that we're seeing more progress there?
Iago
I think it's definitely, I mean, when the US Government announces that it's Crypto Week across both houses and the presidency, it's, you know, you'd be a little bit surprised if it didn't have some impact. There's also a huge push and I think Lee has done a phenomenal job of sort of creating a new narrative for Ethereum in that stable coins are extremely important. Genius act obviously is going to make them more important and a substantial amount of them are on Ethereum. One interesting aspect of that is if, if that is true, then what we should be seeing very soon is a, is a surge in Tron as well. One of the things that people don't realize is that Tron validators, right, make as almost as much money as, as, as, as Ethereum validators. In other words, the, the two chains are almost equivalent in revenue. Last year 2024, Ethereum did 2.4 billion in chain revenue. Right? So that's transaction fee revenue run to 2.2 billion. So I think, you know, there are lots of ways to look at this, but one of the interesting aspects here is so much put out a really interesting post, I think it was yesterday and he said what we've just seen now is something that I've been talking about as well. We've seen this massive rotation of long term Bitcoin holders either selling or seemingly rotating into Bitcoin treasury companies.
Scott
That's selling, which is effectively selling.
Iago
Exactly right.
Scott
Without having to say it. Yeah, exactly.
Iago
And so, and so you've got a very interesting thing that's happened in Bitcoin which is a reset. People have pressed reset button on who are the hodlers. And when you get that, you basically build a new base of support in a, in a, in a much more significant way. Right. That all of the people who could potentially sell out for, you know, 20,000x gains are not all of them, but those who were planning on selling out have sold out over the last six months. It creates a very, very significant floor. And the amount of new buyers, right, which is effectively Wall street corporates and governments that has entered the market. So you got this massive new wave of demand, a floor under supply. It looks like Bitcoin's going to go hyperbolic. And one of the key points that he made was that there is no other asset in all of crypto that has the same setup or, you know, no other asset even has two out of those three elements.
Scott
Right.
Iago
This massive new demand, this new floor, and, and the, the, the, the, the regulatory structure that has been built out for it. So Ethereum can do well, XRP can do well, will do well. We are definitely going to see an out season. But bitcoin is set up to be.
Mark Yusko
In a way that maybe it hasn't.
Iago
Been for the last 10 years, the fastest horse in the crypto space.
Mark Yusko
Yeah, you know, Jakob brings up a number of great points. The revenue issue around stablecoins obviously is a monster, monster issue. And, and the Genius act is, I mean, it's like the cherry on top of the Sunday. The Sunday's already been built in terms of the support for stablecoins and the use cases for stablecoins. And even the biggest haters, the big banks are saying, geez, I guess we got to get in on this. Circle was a great example. Circle since the ipo, even with a little downdraft, since its all time high, is up 600%. And my favorite stat though was tether makes in four days what circle made last year. So you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So if circle's up a 50 odd billion or $45 billion market cap, how much does that make tether worth? A lot. And it's interesting that Lutnick's firm bought 5% of tether right before he became commerce Secretary. I think one of the things that I think also plays in Diallo's point is, and I don't know if the exclusion on capital gains tax is included in the genius act or if that's in part of the other bills. But one of the things that many people in the Trump family have said over and over is we're going to get rid of capital gains on crypto. And they keep using crypto, that word very specifically. Yeah, they don't mean all wanted to say bitcoin, but no, no, no, no. They're equal opportunity payola.
Scott
Right.
Mark Yusko
If you pay them enough in terms of buying Trump coin or, or making contributions to the political card, they will include your coin in their list of things to be exempt from capital gain. So if they do that, think about how many people will, will make that trade. You know, go out of a unlevered asset into a levered asset because you don't have to pay any capital gains. You reset your basis. I think there's an explosion ready to happen.
Scott
That's what the treasury company guys are basically doing right now, you take your billion dollars worth of Bitcoin, you send it in kind to the treasury company. It's not a taxable sale. You get stock back in exchange, which is worth six to seven times your bitcoin, which you can then borrow against for the rest of time and get more cash than you would have by selling your Bitcoin. And never take a taxable anything. You get to buy a yacht. You don't have to tell your maxi friends that you're a sellout. It's. It's literally magic.
Iago
One of the very interesting things, if we're on the topic of treasury companies. The last two weeks have seen a significant compression in the premiums These, these companies are able to come on.
Scott
And I can tell you there's not nearly as much demand beyond the Adam Back move, which has been planned for a while, his 3 to 4 billion to 21 to Cantor Fitzgerald. The rest that are trying to do large raises are. The demand's gone. Everyone who's going to do it has done it.
Iago
I don't know if the demand's gone. I think it's certainly saturated, right? So I think the demand, the demand might still be there, but it could.
Scott
Just spread out over too many entities.
Mark Yusko
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's. There's a lot. There's a lot more places. And, and that's clearly happening with Eth. I mean, sol, you know, Upexi and others, Soft strategies.
Scott
Any treasury company that exists for any token right now is people who hold too much of that token to sell. Finding a way to make money on that token and to exit it. That is a thousand percent. What's happening. This isn't conspiracy theory. You're going to see hyper liquid treasury company. I mean, come on. Hyper liquid whales send their hyper liquid to a different wallet. Voila. I'm a publicly traded stock now.
Mark Yusko
The only pushback I say is in bitcoin is, look, I'm a board member of Meta Planet, going to be a board member of Nakamoto and potentially one other. And so there are Bitcoin treasury companies that are built a little different. Metaplanet in particular has now over 100,000 shareholders. Most of the holders are. And look, it is a form of magic if you can issue new shares at a premium to your nav and buy more Bitcoin. I mean, Michael Saylor's been on CNBC talking about that. It's like, look, if you give me $2 based on a dollar of collateral, that's arbitrage and it's a Beautiful thing. And if you can issue debt at 0% interest, you know what's interesting is there was a period like this and I hope it doesn't end the same way. I don't, I don't think it will. But you know, there was the period where Amazon issued the no no's, right? No interest rate, no maturity. Like that's a, that's equity, that's not a bond. But you know, people gave them money with no maturity and no dividend in a bond structure, you know, at the peak of evaluation. And you know, it took them a long time to get back to that valuation. But anyway, so I, I do think there's. Look, your show is, is a perfect example of, of this evolution in the sense that, you know, you've been here since the beginning and you've been educating people since the beginning and, and the number of people who have come, watched, listened, learned, acted is immeasurable, right? It's huge. And so that's happening all over the place as people. Actually, the great meme the other day was a woman saying I wish I were a bitcoin podcast because then my husband would listen to me.
Scott
Ha ha ha.
Mark Yusko
And it's that adoption. I mean, we're at 11ish percent, same as the Internet in 1999. I mean we are going to 98, 99. There's still a few people in the world that don't use the Internet. Still a few people like my dad, who don't have an ATM card. He owns Bitcoin, but he doesn't have an ATM card.
Scott
I don't get it, but whatever.
Iago
Mark, one quick question. As a board member on metaplanet, would you say that Meta Planet has a unique advantage and maybe is undervalued as a result? In that yes, Michael saylor can issue 0% entrance, but that always as converts. Whereas if I'm not mistaken, can just take Pure loans at 0.5% sort of prime interest.
Mark Yusko
It's a huge advantage. I mean, being located in Japan has two very significant advantages. Iago, that you're exactly right. One is this direct access to the debt markets at essentially zero. But the second, and that's a really important one. And then there's a second structural advantage which is at least still right now, if you hold Bitcoin directly you pay 52% capital gains tax. If you hold Meta planet you pay 20. That's a massive, massive.
Scott
And there's no other institutional access to bitcoin in Japan. That's as you know, you're going to be obviously on the board of Nakamoto. So I think a lot of these should be very clear, differentiated. And that magic I'm talking about, I'm not criticizing, that's the same kind of magic that wealthy people use to make tax efficient decisions in all markets. It's just the new one here. But like Nakamoto, I'm assuming from conversations with them is that they're going to go look for Japan type situations in other markets where there's no institution exposure to Bitcoin. So this is what MicroStrategy originally did before there was an ETF. It's a brilliant model. MicroStrategy was your proxy outside of GBTC for buying Bitcoin in the United States when there was no ETFs and go do that everywhere.
Mark Yusko
That's and there's a thing and it's again brilliant point. And also there's a natural evolution, the law of small numbers applies. You know, one of the challenges for you know, Cantor Equity partners, even a little bit, you know, Pomp's amazing, right? I mean he's been my partner since you know, he was a kid and I was young to this, this business and you know, he went out and raised $750 million. And that's a lot of money. The problem is when you start at 750, getting a double is a lot harder than when you start at 20 million or 30 million and that and Cantor is even bigger. So it's going to be tougher. And there's actually, I think it's called ICRO Strategist. I think it's at MicroStrategist. So he's a MicroStrategy guy first but then he became a Bitcoin treasury guy. And he does these analyses and he's got this great chart and there's a linear relationship between the M nav and the market cap, which makes sense, right? When you're small, your ability to have Bitcoin yield that's high, meaning you can issue shares at this premium and buy a lot of Bitcoin as a percentage of your holdings is pretty easy. But as you get to microstrategies, I mean I love it. Whether it's Meta Planet or one of these other smarter web company or whatever announces these bitcoin buys. We bought 158bitcoin or Metaplant, we bought 2,000 bitcoin. And MicroStrategy wakes up on Monday and buys 7,000 bitcoin. But the price doesn't move very much because it, it's such a small percentage of their whole holdings. But the thing that. And back to your point, Scott, the evolution of capital markets microstrategy started with the bitcoin treasury company. Then they did the prefs, and then they did the converts. And if you think about that, if you can buy a bond in traditional markets secured by a fleet of pickup trucks, the problem is you don't really know if the company's lending those pickup trucks to their people on the evenings to go. So you show up to collect the pickup trucks, and they got twice as many miles. So your bond's not worth as much. If your bond is secured by pristine collateral, Bitcoin, that's better. And so as you start with bitcoin treasury company, in turn, Turkey, and then you go to converts, and then you go to prefs, and then. And you say, would I want to own Turkish bonds denominated in lira? Hell to the no. Would I want to own Venezuelan bonds denominated in bolivar? Hell to the no. Would I want to own a Venezuelan company with my bonds backed by bitcoin? Yeah, that sounds good to me.
Scott
So that's a. Diego, I need your opinion on something. I know we kind of killed time here and didn't even talk about Crypto Week deeply. But there's something else we have to talk about. So this is from a Freedom of Information Act. David Bailey, the CEO of Nakamoto and Bitcoin magazine, of course, he put out a tweet that said, anyone who can tell this is in March. Anyone who can tell me how much bitcoin the US government has gets 10,000 bucks. A reporter did a Freedom of Information act, figured it out. He sent him 10,000 bucks yesterday. U.S. marshal Service holds just 28,988 Bitcoin, far less than expected. FOI request reveals. We thought the U.S. government had 200,000 Bitcoin. Probably. A, I'm not sure if U.S. marshal Service holdings are the entirety of the United States government, so that's a question. But this. A, our strategic bitcoin reserve is now a rounding error, and it's 10th probably of what China has. But B, this would mean that they sold off Bitfinex's bitcoin. That was like Bitfinex's bitcoin.
Mark Yusko
Well, I mean, and we've been making fun in Germany, right? Sold at 55k. So now we got to make fun of ourselves, too. And what was amazing is you guys probably remember this. Remember that it was when Trump had just done Nashville and was becoming the bitcoiner. You know, candidate and the Democrats were like scrambling to try to sell bitcoin, like, thinking that would get them votes. I'm like, on what? I guess, I guess there probably were a few old people, get off my yard types that said, okay, I'll vote Democratic because they're selling bitcoin and I hate bitcoin.
Scott
But crazy, crazy, I mean, Iago, what do you think?
Iago
I honestly have no idea. I don't know if the US Marshal holds all the bitcoin. If it does, it's time for the US Government to panic, start buying.
Scott
Panic, buy. Yeah.
Mark Yusko
No, no. And that's the right word because the game theory, the nation state game theory of the core reserves is real, right? I hate to say El Salvador is setting the standard here because it's such a small number, but think about if you have a choice in your reserves and you can own gold, you can own dollars or yen or euros or what else are you going to own? You're not going to own the loonie in Canada, you're not going to own very much else. And someone starts to nibble at this asset that, like gold, tends to increase in price as nation states issue more fiat. You have to play, right? It's the antithesis of war games. The only intelligent option is not to play. The only intelligent option here is to play. Everyone owns gold. Everyone, every nation, state reserve owns gold. Why? Because gold is the asset. Now, why wasn't it platinum? Why wasn't it copper? Why wasn't it bronze? I don't know, but it is gold. And there's a little bit of silver too, but not really. And so if now you have the digital form and everyone's tired of hearing this, but it is absolutely. I agree with Thiago, it's panic time. But I never underestimate the stupidity of lawmakers because the only thing they care about is selfish.
Scott
I wish we had time to talk about that. I got to let you guys go and bring Dan on. But for the stupidity of lawmakers, they did get it right. But we had basically a train wreck on Capitol Hill this week where 12 Republicans that were expected to vote for all these bills did not. Trump had to get him in the White House and sit him in the corner and put him in timeout for a while. But then it still took them 12 hours yesterday until like 11 o' clock last night to actually vote on these and pass them. But it does look like we will get the genius act through by Friday and market clarity maybe next week. And nobody wants to talk about CBDCs for now. So that, that's the. That, that's the summation. Guys, thank you so much. Next time we're doing an hour.
Mark Yusko
All right, Scooter, good to see you.
Scott
Thank you guys so much.
Mark Yusko
Time to. How.
Scott
Go, Hal? We need Yaga to hell. Did you hear? It's a good one. And Yago, he told you? I don't know if he caught him saying you have a bitcoin beard that matches his bitcoin shorts, but it was pretty awesome. All right, I'm gonna get an orange beard. See you guys later.
Mark Yusko
All right, see you guys.
Scott
All right, Dan, man. How are we looking at the actual market right now? Obviously, I think the conversation to be had is that you and I have been talking about Ethereum for years now.
Dan
We finally got the signal. Finally got some signal.
Scott
So do we have the signal or is it kind of like yet another massive disappointment?
Dan
It's enough to give it a go for sure. Shifted focus from bitcoin to ETH over the last week. Plus, and we're seeing bitcoin trade sideways and all coins do their thing, which is exactly what bulls want to see in a profit rotation kind of environment. And so just real quick, what I'm watching on bitcoin is just this 12 hour tightening range all time high. We found support at 115, 7, struggled at 120, a good bit the last two days. But anticipating that, you know, this could tighten up into tomorrow or into the weekend. But as long as the dominance chart is just free falling, that's fine because that means other things are running up. And we know ETH has had a great few days here testing a key resistance zone. I'm looking back at January to start the year, and we topped out a bunch. 34, 39 to 35, 27. So right around that 35 level. But again, you know, once we top out, I just use my, my EMA 12 runner as a guide. Your strongest breakouts will be holding them on a lot of time frames. But look at the hourly here it just holds, holds, holds. And now we're testing it. And so I use that number one to make entries and add to winners and number two to let me know when something's shifting. So when we lose this hourly EMA12, I'm going to anticipate that the probabilities of daily consolidation will increase pretty significantly. And so that's what I'm watching the next 12 hours or so, and then we'll look for daily consolidation. What's the response to first hourly oversold conditions? How aggressively Are bulls buying that dip? But what's standing out to me as well is, you know, these ETFs, ETHA yesterday you go back a week and a half, the highest volume ever was 36 million. Yesterday we doubled that. So we're seeing a lot of interest here. And again it just, you know, everything that I do is a, an individual retail trader. I just magnify and think there's tens of thousands of people doing this. And so, you know, a week, a week ago I was, we have our, our crypto chat room, our stock chat room. And I was recommending to stock people for the first time ever. Hey, look at Ethereum, it's getting ready. And this is how you play it. Etha, Ethu. And so, you know, I would say just in the last week, we have the highest concentration of chart guys, stock traders ever having any kind of exposure to eth. And so that's, you know, fascinating to watch that capital flow around those ETFs as well. But ETH BTC broke the weekly uptrend for the first time, confirmed a weekly uptrend for the first time in years. And so that means we zoom out, go to the monthly. And again, you know, monthly. I talk about the EMA 12 rider. We're riding monthly EMA 12 down. So that's been resistance for years. That's the next thing that I'm keeping an eye on. How do we respond to that? Can we keep this move going? As we know, you know, bulls won't be happy until eth is over 4000 and then at a new all time high. And that's definitely the end goal. But as always, it's one day at a time. And one more note as I'm going rapid fire here, as we know, you know, XRP is approaching all time highs. Any coin that's near all time highs deserves extra attention. But I just want to highlight something here. CRV, we had a very clear resistance of 86. This is how you know, it's a very bullish market environment. We were up 75% to test that resistance level. And when it broke, we ended up going, you know, straight up 9% in 30 minutes or whatever on that resistance break after being up 75%. So those who remember 2017 crypto, you could just market by resistance breaks and get an instant 5%. And I was doing that with my entire account, you know, Bitcoin, all time high, market buy all in, sell half, pretty quickly, break even, stop, let it run. And bulls love when that is the market environment. And so nice to see that happen here on a name like crv.
Scott
Yeah, I mean, we're seeing the most altcoin strength that we've seen in a very long time. I mean, that dominance chart is so telling. Obviously a lot of that is being led by eth. Right. Because it's such a big percentage of that. But man, to actually see ETH give a signal where it's finally broken a resistance for I don't know how long. I mean, it's above the 200mA now on the ETH Bitcoin chart on the daily. I mean it's never hasn't sustained any price action in literally like three years. Above the 200 ma. Yeah, tap above. So if that continues to happen, I mean it looks really, really good.
Dan
And one more note on the dominance chart, what I want to see, this was the weekly dump back in 2021 and then we chopped around and we confirmed a weekly bear flag. So I want to see a weekly downtrend confirm. If we're going to get the real go time signal again, this is enough to pay attention and be acting. But if we're going to get the big stamp of approval for all season, you need that dominance weekly downtrend to confirm with some follow through.
Scott
Yeah, it's got to go a lot, lot lower to see like all coins really pump across the board and for it not just be kind of an east based or, you know, layer one based type of thing. Dan, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming in with the quick hits today as we're a little bit late. But guys, give chart guys a follow YouTube X everywhere else and we'll see you next week, man.
Dan
All right, have a good one.
Scott
Thank you so much. See you soon.
Mark Yusko
Let's go, let's go.
Podcast Summary: The Wolf Of All Streets
Episode: Altcoins Pump Hard - Will Trump Make Crypto History This Week? | Mark Yusko
Host: Scott Melker
Release Date: July 17, 2025
In this episode of The Wolf Of All Streets, host Scott Melker delves into the recent bullish movements in the cryptocurrency market, particularly focusing on altcoins. Despite Bitcoin's price stabilizing around $118,000, several "dinosaur" altcoins are experiencing significant gains. Ethereum has surged by 9% in the last 24 hours, while XRP has seen a 10% increase within the same timeframe. Over the past week, Ethereum's gains have reached 23%, and XRP has skyrocketed by 33%. These movements have sparked discussions on the underlying causes, with potential political influences at the forefront.
Scott connects the recent altcoin rally to Crypto Week on Capitol Hill, suggesting that impending legislative actions, notably the Genius Act, may be influencing investor sentiment. He posits that the anticipation of President Trump signing the act could be a significant driver behind the current price action in altcoins.
Scott Melker [00:01]:
"...we're likely going to get the genius act onto Trump's desk by tomorrow and signed."
Joining Scott are two esteemed guests: Mark Yusko, a renowned financial expert, and Iago, another knowledgeable voice in the crypto space. The conversation begins with light-hearted exchanges about personal interests and attire, setting a relaxed tone for the deep dive ahead.
Mark Yusko provides insights into Ethereum's and XRP's recent performance. He mentions his playful jab at XRP, admitting past criticisms, which resonates with Scott's similar experiences.
Mark Yusko [01:58]:
"...I might have said that XRP is a scam."
Mark emphasizes that price increases in assets like XRP don't necessarily reflect improved functionality but rather a higher demand from buyers over sellers.
He links the altcoin surge to political factors, particularly the potential endorsement of certain cryptocurrencies by the current administration. Mark speculates on the Genius Act's implications, suggesting it could designate specific ledgers or integrate certain assets into the strategic reserve, thereby influencing market dynamics.
Scott and Mark discuss Ethereum's recent uptick, attributing it to increased developer activity and institutional investments. Iago adds that the substantial inflows into Ethereum ETFs—$7.26 million in daily net inflows—are significant for the cryptocurrency's momentum.
Iago [04:33]:
"...there's a lot of things here happening for eth. ... Largest corporate Ethereum holder sharply gaming ads eth worth 68 million."
The conversation highlights the role of prominent figures like Peter Thiel and Thomas Lee in bolstering Ethereum's standing in the market. Mark reflects on the challenges Ethereum has faced in maintaining developer interest compared to competitors like Solana but acknowledges the recent positive shifts.
A substantial portion of the discussion centers on crypto treasury companies, which are facilitating large-scale investments and transformations of Bitcoin holdings without triggering taxable events.
Mark Yusko [12:00]:
"...treasury companies are making it possible for entities to transact with Bitcoin in a tax-efficient manner."
Scott illustrates how these companies allow holders to exchange Bitcoin for stock, enabling them to leverage their assets without selling and incurring capital gains taxes. This mechanism creates a new support floor for Bitcoin, as it resets the supply dynamics by moving large holdings into more liquid forms.
The guests discuss the compression in premiums offered by treasury companies, indicating a saturation in demand but also recognizing the strategic advantages these firms provide in terms of tax efficiency and access to low-interest debt markets.
Scott brings up a recent revelation obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. It was discovered that the U.S. Marshals Service holds 28,988 Bitcoin, significantly less than the previously speculated 200,000 Bitcoin. This revelation challenges assumptions about the government's strategic Bitcoin reserves and suggests potential sale-offs of assets like those from Bitfinex.
Scott Melker [24:44]:
"...U.S. marshal Service holds just 28,988 Bitcoin, far less than expected."
Mark humorously reflects on the irony of government holdings and past political maneuvers related to Bitcoin.
The conversation delves deeper into institutional strategies for managing and leveraging Bitcoin holdings. Mark Yusko compares traditional bond issuance secured by tangible assets like pickup trucks to the more secure backing of Bitcoin in treasury companies. He argues that securing bonds with Bitcoin provides a more reliable collateral base, enhancing investor confidence.
Mark Yusko [22:30]:
"If your bond is secured by pristine collateral, Bitcoin, that's better."
Scott emphasizes the innovative nature of these financial structures, likening them to the early strategies of companies like MicroStrategy before the advent of Bitcoin ETFs.
Transitioning to technical analysis, Dan, another expert on the show, discusses Ethereum's breaking of key resistance levels and Bitcoin's trading patterns. He highlights the importance of Ethereum crossing its 200-day moving average (EMA12) as a bullish signal, a milestone it hasn't sustained for years.
Dan [28:56]:
"...ETH BTC broke the weekly uptrend for the first time, confirmed a weekly uptrend for the first time in years."
The discussion covers the dominance chart, where a decreasing Bitcoin dominance indicates a healthy environment for altcoins to thrive. They analyze specific altcoins like CRV, noting its significant gains and the market behaviors that reflect a bullish sentiment.
Scott Melker [32:39]:
"We're seeing the most altcoin strength that we've seen in a very long time. ... ETH Bitcoin chart on the daily ... it's never hasn't sustained any price action in literally like three years."
As the episode wraps up, Scott summarizes the key takeaways:
The hosts express optimism about the market's trajectory, anticipating further gains in Ethereum and sustained interest in altcoins, contingent on the successful passage of regulatory measures and ongoing institutional support.
Scott Melker [00:01]:
"...we're likely going to get the genius act onto Trump's desk by tomorrow and signed."
Mark Yusko [01:58]:
"...I might have said that XRP is a scam."
Iago [04:33]:
"...there's a lot of things here happening for eth. ... Largest corporate Ethereum holder sharply gaming ads eth worth 68 million."
Scott Melker [24:44]:
"...U.S. marshal Service holds just 28,988 Bitcoin, far less than expected."
Dan [28:56]:
"...ETH BTC broke the weekly uptrend for the first time, confirmed a weekly uptrend for the first time in years."
Scott Melker [32:39]:
"We're seeing the most altcoin strength that we've seen in a very long time."
This episode provides a comprehensive analysis of the current state of the cryptocurrency market, exploring the interplay between political developments, institutional strategies, and technical indicators. Scott Melker, along with his guests Mark Yusko and Iago, offers valuable insights for both seasoned investors and newcomers seeking to understand the forces driving the latest altcoin momentum.