← The Wolf Of All Streets
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- [00:01]
Scott
Good morning everybody. Welcome to Crypto Town hall every day here on X at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. I'm going to start by saying good morning, Carlo.
- [00:11]
Carlo
Good morning Scott.
- [00:13]
Chris
How are you?
- [00:14]
Scott
You know, I figured the mood would be better if we just got that out of the way from the very beginning.
- [00:18]
Carlo
Yeah, we set the tone, man. A little enthusiasm.
- [00:20]
Scott
Got to set the tone. A little enthusiasm. It's a good day for a bit of enthusiasm. Bitcoin looking a little bit jumpy. It was at 86,000 when we made the title. Currently trading about 85,000. 5 to 700 depending on the second that you're looking at it. But I'm definitely getting the distinct feeling that bitcoin really wants to push. Just feels to me like if there was any level of certainty or any good news in the market that it's set to outperform as it has kind of been doing slowly throughout this period of market uncertainty. We got a couple news stories that are probably worth just mentioning before we get started and dig in. Obviously we've continued to see net outflows generally from the ETFs, although there was a very small net inflow into Bitcoin ETF yesterday. But we've had three weeks of sustained flows as the carry trade unwinds. That seems to be the reason for that. Big news from Kraken. They've announced the launch of commission free stock and ETF trading. Up to 11 million assets or something I think it said in the article. 11,000 maybe. Sorry, but basically coming into the market to compete with the bigger exchanges and brokers in traditional markets. Absolutely huge news for Kraken. Positioning them exceptionally well. We had to many a bit of a surprise from the sec. They basically kicked the can down the road on a fuel rule changes, staking in the Ethereum ETFs and in kind creation for the Bitcoin ETFs. A lot of people scratching their head saying the SEC was going to make these moves for us. But I think it actually makes a lot of sense to wait for Atkins, get their regulatory plan in line and make decisions. So these are not rejections, they're just a bit of a kicking the can down the road. Solana ETFs in Canada are set to officially launch on April 16th. Those will be the first I believe official Solana ETFs that are launching. And another piece of news here that many may have seen Binance, Kucoin, Mexi and others reporting some issues issues doing to Amazon web services. So I think that Binance I saw had had to suspend withdrawals for about 20 minutes or something. But that is coming from AWS and not something to do with Binance. But let's start talking about price first. Chris, thanks. Haven't had you here in a while, man. How you looking at price action right now on the charts?
- [02:44]
Tom
Well, I mean, you know, bitcoin I posted here last week, we running up into that descending resistance off the all time high. And Tom, I was looking for a three wave pullback because we got five waves up. Looks like a leading diagonal but we pulled back a bit. You know, we popped out just a bit higher today. Looks like a flat correction. So I wouldn't be surprised to see it maybe come back toward 83,000 or maybe even 81 and a half to finish out that wave two before it kind of really takes off. So that's what I'm watching right now for it. You know, even the stocks know have been looking pretty good. So I mean, you know, we found a lot of alts lately that are set up really great. It looks like, it looks like there's a lot of potential right now. We just need price to actually follow through.
- [03:30]
Scott
I mean, do you agree then that it's just sort of waiting for some level of certainty or good news? It just kind of feels that way. I know.
- [03:37]
Tom
Yeah, yeah. You know, markets hate uncertainty. And so, you know, when you get that, it, it doesn't mean that, you know that anything bad has to happen. It's just the market has to be uncertain about what's happening. And that's when you see all that kind of this way and that, you know, Trump's tariff on, tariff off and everything else going on, there's just a lot of uncertainty out there. So at any point, you know, if you're looking at narratives like that, at any point where things become more clear, regardless of which way it goes, I think that ends up, you know, a positive for the, for the markets there.
- [04:10]
Scott
Yeah. While we're talking about price action, BC fullest I know both of you guys are actively watching the charts. BC what do you, what do you think is likely to happen here? Does it align with what Chris is saying or I'm saying?
- [04:24]
BC
Yeah. Thanks guy. Actually good to. I love being part of these crypto town halls but actually, you know, price action being my, my kind of main area of interest here, it's good that, that we've got a price action question for a change. Right. For, for me. And yeah, I do agree with Chris. You know, a lot of respect for Chris actually As an analyst, I used to kind of employ more Elliott Wave on traditional markets. Not so much anymore. So more kind of looking at the markets from a liquidity perspective, you know, aside from traditional kind of support and resistance areas, hence where the buyers and sellers are stepping in. Something that resonates with me, though, with what Chris said is I've got a level here kind of around about 82.587, that kind of region, which lines up first of all with a major kind of inversion of a bearish gap, which is something that I look for when I'm looking for kind of key reversals. You know, simple concept of an area that should provide downside continuation being invalidated and therefore looking to move that to support in doing so. This is on a daily scale, by the way. And doing so, we kind of set a key and new order block here for price as well, which is again, areas that I just look to hold. So at the minute, price is kind of, if we look at what the equity markets are doing, if we look specifically at the S&P 500, the NASDAQ, which is something I use for that kind of proxy risk bid, and to kind of see, amongst other areas, obviously the DXY normally as well, to see how the market's kind of appetite is for risk. Little bit difficult to do that with the DXY at the moment because it has very different drivers behind it, obviously currently with what's going on with Trump. But I could see this kind of market correction coming back. We're kind of looking at an intraday correction at the moment on the Nasdaq. After that ran quite hot after the US Open, we saw that kind of typical pump. Now that's retracing. I think still Bitcoin's going to struggle to catch a bid if we're in that kind of scenario. Kind of sat a little bit flat at the moment. In truth, we've had a lot of long positions from lower down talking about entering the weekly gap, looking at price being a little bit overextended to the downside and getting those nice long downside wicks for absorption. Upside, target wise got got some key liquidity up at around 88, 750, that kind of area, or 88, 748. So ultimately, like kind of Chris alluded to, like you talked about as well, the market is very news, very fundamentally driven at the moment. So looking to kind of build out intraday positions, looking to kind of pyramid them up into some swings, but kind of still in truth, from my perspective, looking to kind of make those little and often on the intraday plays. It's quite difficult in these conditions. You know, just another announcement from Trump or something coming through can turn these markets a lot quicker than it can support it. I think we're seeing a little bit of that hesitancy come through into price action. But if we start closing above 85, 269, that kind of area on a daily scale, I think we continue with this respectfully building that market structure to the upside. So until we break that level down or we start to really get closes below around about 81.2. Holding a bullish bias here, but just news conditions and fundamentals make it a little bit of a tricky environment for the read.
- [07:26]
Phallus
Yeah.
- [07:26]
Scott
And I know it depends on the exchange, but I was taking a quick glance at the chart this morning. That 88. 8 is area that you're talking about. I think you said 88. 7 something. But that 88 ish area getting above that I think would be the first higher high in this series since the all time high. So I think for those who watch my market structure, when you're looking at a series of lower highs and lower lows, you want to see that broken. Right. So above that area I think is where you start to actually get interested and you can have a much stronger bias, I think bullish. I lean bullish as well obviously. But just for who watch lines, I think that's kind of the one.
- [08:04]
BC
Absolutely polish.
- [08:06]
Scott
You're throwing up the hundred. So clearly you agree with me for once.
- [08:09]
Phallus
Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, it's just when you, when you hit on structure, that's exactly how I was going to start my little spiel and just, you know, maybe it's a slightly contrarian take and you know, as, as much as I love Reese to death, who is BBC Richfield by the way, I slightly disagree on the, on the bias. For me it's, it's still bearish until proven otherwise. And when I talk about being proven otherwise, my bias flips. If we can clear that 88 point whatever 88.7, 88.8k high and accept above it. Right. So far for me this is just a series of high time frame lower highs and lower lows going back to like the end of January. Right. And the last thing I want to be, I'd much rather be 20, 30, 40% late to a move but have the conviction that the, the reversal is actually in. Have the. Have the belief that I can enter with size and be relatively safe because the reversal has been confirmed rather than being that guy who's trying to call the bottom every time we put in a new lower, lower or say that this time will be different for me. Structurally, nothing has changed. This, this current, the current price action, the price action from the last few days, even though it looks good, we're bouncing, we bounce like 10 or 11k off the lows, we're still putting in a lower high, right? Structurally speaking, the structure is still down trending on the high time frame. And that hasn't changed for me. Now, I think any good trader will tell you that you should wear. Your bias should be something that you are willing to change very quickly in light of any new information. And that is no different with me. I never marry a bias. I, I love being proven wrong, right? I love when the market tells me that my read is incorrect and I have to change it. There's nothing wrong with that. All good traders are aware that your bias should change once new information comes to life. So if we clear this, you know, I'm calling it an 88k high, we clear that with volume and price starts looking good, we start accepting above that level, then maybe I change my tune a little bit. But for now, this just looks like a downtrend. And I don't want to be the guy who's longing into a high time frame downtrend. Buying the dip is one thing. If you're buying a pullback in a clear uptrend, that's completely different to what we currently have. Longing here for me just feels like you're, you're longing into a high time frame downside move, and that rarely ends well. We saw it with altcoins back in, back in last year, there were altcoins that have been down trending for like six, seven, eight months. And every time we bounce 10% off the lows, guys would say that the bottom is in, right? The bottom is in, the bottom is in. And you know, eventually, like, you know, a broken clock is right twice a day, eventually they will be proven right and they will catch the move. But I'd much rather be the guy who's hesitant to call that the guy who waits for confirmation and then goes in with conviction in size once I have that confirmation. So yeah, for me, this is still a downtrend. I'm still leaning cautiously bearish here. But if we can clear 88k, 89k and start putting in some structure above that level, then I'll start looking for longs again because at that point my bias will have flipped.
- [11:21]
Scott
Chris, Go ahead, Chris.
- [11:25]
Tom
Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, no, I absolutely 100% agree there. I've been saying for a while here, you know, since we made that 88.5 and then we dipped down lower, that's actually the, the market structure, the last kind of lower high, if you're looking at that daily. And so it's, it's imperative that we get above that. But I also like what he said there about, you know, and hold above it. And so what I usually teach is, you know, once you break that, that last lower high, you're actually breaking that market structure, which is great. But you, what you want to look for is then you want to look for a pullback and then a breakout above that breakout. And you know, again, there's never any guarantee in trading other than, you know, that you're going to lose money from time to time and the newer you are, the more money, the more often you're going to lose it. But when it comes to structure like that, one of the easiest things for people to do is look for that breakout, watch for a pullback and then look for a breakout above your breakout. And, you know, that's pretty significant most of the time. That'll get you in a continuation and kind of solidify the idea that that trend's been broken.
- [12:26]
Scott
So, yeah, the hands disappeared for me. But BC and Dave, I saw you both had them up BC quick and then to Dave.
- [12:33]
BC
Yeah, perfect. It was just in response to Follicle, obviously. Yeah, really top led and a huge respect for, just to put it into context, just so that it doesn't maybe mislead some of the kind of listeners that are in here that maybe aren't as experienced on a higher time frame scale, definitely still not back to being fully bullish. As for what I do as an intraday trader, which is my main kind of specialty, looking at it more from kind of a liquidity perspective, I do completely agree with Fonnes and I think that obviously Chris has made some really good points as well. When you're looking at structural recoveries. And I agree what Chris is alluding to here is that you're looking for that market structure break, not a shift, right? You're looking for that support to hold and move up so that ATA kind of level is still really clear. Really want to see a kind of displacement above that high volume to come out and then looking at that whole area to basically, you know, have exhausted the sellers and then the buyers to kind of take over. But on an intraday basis, one thing I would say that has kind of helped me a lot over the years in building my career is looking for these intraday key reactions aligned with equity market volume and volatility coming in to trade from those kind of key levels where you might spot those reversals. And actually it is a little bit of a kind of knife grab situation but in terms of how price reacts from there and then we tend to see these kind of inversion gaps setting is very much an early stage indication of potentially for higher price action. But until we get those structural changes, it's purely trading this level to level from liquidity pocket to liquidity pocket just try and pick up on that uncertainty.
- [14:00]
Scott
And I think to echo sort of our point about news at the moment, obviously price action is in the charts but we can see things moving when news drops. The EU basically just said no agreements have come out on tariffs and they expect the US tariffs to stay in place. And we saw everything drop across the board the minute that that was sort of announced. So it's very clear that crypto very susceptible to what's happening in the macro at the moment. Dave, go ahead.
- [14:28]
Chris
Sorry.
- [14:29]
Dave
Yeah, I think that it's really, it's really interesting because you know, I totally agree with what follow said. I think the single most important sentence in what he said that the vast majority of people listening to this who are more investors or who move in with, you know, weeks to month time frames is that traders who are any good react to new information and change and why am I pointing that out? I'm pointing that out because, you know.
- [15:00]
Chris
Look, with like, I don't.
- [15:02]
Dave
If you're not trading as a business, then taxation in a bull market means selling is really stupid, right? Because you literally have. Depending on what your income is, there's a fairly significant hurdle rate for any trade in and out. So unless you're trying to catch a big trend, you really, you know, a lot of the people listening are just trying to decide, well, when should I deploy my capital? And my answer to that is if it's in bitcoin DCA dollar cost average. But what's also really important is I don't know anybody, I mean literally nobody who's technically bullish. And generally that's what makes me the most bullish. So I actually thought Chris, what he said was exactly, exactly right. So, you know, look, this feels technically heavy, right? You see it, it's technically heavy. The technical traders that are setting prices, you know, every time you think it's going to pull back to a number, it generally goes part of the way toward that number. And doesn't get there because there are still long term buyers coming to this market. And I will continue to repeat for Bitcoin that most of the people who are buying it believe it's at a 90 to 95% discount to its fair value. And that's something that you have to keep in mind. What does that mean? It means that if you're paying significant capital gains taxes to try to capture and buy back in lower, it's the moral equivalent of picking pennies in front of a steamroller. If you're a nimble trader, this is an awesome market to make money and so you really do have to distinguish between the two. So people like BC and Chris and Phallus totally get the drift. And you're making money because the people who are dumbly in retrospect doing things, not using firms like Arch Public, which I hate giving a plug to someone who's not paying me to sponsor.
- [16:52]
Chris
But so be it.
- [16:53]
Dave
Who's using the time your entries in a way most people are just saying, yeah, okay, I'll just buy. Okay, wait, it's at 85, 86. Okay, maybe it's going to go up now.
- [17:01]
Chris
I don't want to miss it.
- [17:02]
Dave
They buy it and pretty much every day that we've had a pump on the open it retraces after that. Now today it's European tariff news, tomorrow it'll be something else. Tomorrow Navarro will be wearing a more high priced suit than Descent and people think, oh my God, maybe he's becoming dominant in the administration. Who the hell knows? I mean markets will do what markets will do. The main point is something Billy Barhardt made this morning is that liquidity has already turned and bitcoin lags that and the ground is set for something to happen. I think we're going to need to get some through some of this uncertainty. But don't get caught out if you're trying to wait for an entrance or use tools that can get you into the market. That's really the point that I would make. I would be much less bullish if all the technical traders were saying how great it was. But that's not the case. So we don't have bullish sentiment. We still are towards fear on every sentiment indicator. And you know, to me that means that, yeah, retracement, you know, a few, few thousand bucks here or there. Look, we've been in a trading range between effectively 85, 86 and 78, which is a really small trading range for a month now. And yeah, could it go on for Seven more months like it did last summer, I suppose doesn't feel like that that's possible this time but you know, we'll see. But the range is still intact.
- [18:29]
Scott
Find it interesting though that we're always one tweet or announcement away from these multi thousand dollar swings and that fear. But we forget the incredible tailwinds and that we should be one tweet away from United States just bought some bitcoin to add to the strategic bitcoin reserve and what that would do to price. So it seems like we're basing things on fear driven tweets right now and forgetting about the insane tailwinds that the industry has at every level, specifically with the United States government. Go ahead. B.
- [19:03]
BC
Yeah, sorry. Just to add to that as well. Again, amazing points made by, made by Dave is I think the kind of big distraction here that people aren't necessarily paying attention to is when these economic conditions settle. You know, especially in crypto, you're so used to the average participant, you're so used to getting beaten up in these conditions that and as markets typically work, it drives you down, drives you down, drives you down to the point that you're just frustrated, you want to give up and then you miss the rip. Right? Now we've all been there at different stages of our career or different stages of our participation in this, but I think what we're looking at at the moment in terms of the big picture is the fact that the US Needs to refinance a lot of their debt.
- [19:41]
Scott
Right.
- [19:41]
BC
I'm not going to go too much into that because I know you covered it on this awesome show a few times before. But to do that, the central bank are typically going to print when that kind of comes in. It's a form and we've had this kind of conversation whether it is quantitative easing or whether it's a form of it, either way, when money printers come on and they look to refinan that debt and they start buying back the debt, the bonds, et cetera, when the market's at that sweet spot and I'm really watching the US 10 year yield at the moment when that kind of gets back down in that region below the kind of 4% and it makes sense for them to do that, we need to realize that in such a narrative news and fundamency driven market, when Trump decides to turn that screw right, and then he decides, okay, now we want everything back on, maybe the pressure is working and mix exerting it. You know, we had a relatively dovish tone from Waller you know, the speaker from the Fed last night who's kind of saying a lot of people thought that might be a little bit more hawkish and it wasn't. We've got Powell speaking tomorrow at the point that those rates either look to get cut.
- [20:37]
Scott
Right.
- [20:37]
BC
Or there's real kind of confirmation that okay, money printers are coming on here, you know, the fiscal stimulus is coming in or you know, another great point from Dave, you're looking at, you know, liquidity indicators and that as well, looking at that there's a lot sidelined, ready to deploy now. I think it kind of certainly changes my mindset if I'm looking at a longer term view. I'm very much aligned with Follis obviously as well as what Chris is saying and Dave's agreeing to as well, looking at this structure. But the reason sometimes it can make sense to take a nibble in and around these key levels is because as for me, I'm trying to enter this as kind of a day trade or a short term swing. Very, very aggressive in cutting it if it doesn't get there. But also looking to kind of see if you can feel out a way into that early wave, that early resurgence. Now it's not necessarily the smartest way to trade. You need to do it typically in my experience on very low time frames, look to build those positions and you know, you can lose obviously quite hard as well. But I think when we see those catalysts start to really materialize in the market and we see that liquidity start to really come in, we see that volatility inject and Trump pulls it on side and the debt is being refinanced in the States. I just wonder how many people that that's going to leave behind. You know that move. I think it's, I think it's going to really kind of, well to use a kind of real crypto term, but it has the real potential to melt some faces.
- [21:51]
Scott
Carlo.
- [21:53]
Carlo
Yeah, look, they're pretty much telegraphing the playbook from the White House. And it's funny that we have these conversations about is this a good time or not a good time to buy Bitcoin? You reported this. We have the executive director of Trump's Council on Digital Assets, Beau Hines, telling an interviewer that the United States wants to accumulate as much Bitcoin as possible. They want to re examine different arbitrages for doing that, including repricing our Fort Knox gold reserves which are really under priced in relation to the current market price of gold, and then just dropped a potential play on tariffs and using tariffs as a means to accumulate more bitcoin. So I don't know how they can be more transparent about what the plan is here. And yes, we're definitely seeing sideways price action. I think that's largely the consumer not catching up to these very loud, glaring signals from institutions from the major financial talking heads, and they're kind of behind the curve here. I'm curious, have you given any thoughts, Scott, to how in the world they would leverage tariffs to buy more bitcoin? That was a really interesting comment and kind of left field.
- [23:11]
Scott
I would love to go to the panel on that. My assumption is that if we end up down the road with a bit of a surplus, which is laughable for the United States government or a certain small percentage they could allocate, then it would make sense. But to be quite frank, rationally, tariff income is a drop in the bucket versus our national debt, and you would anticipate them wanting to pay down the debt before buying bitcoin, hence the budget neutral strategy. So, I don't know. I think it's very exciting to hear him say that as a bitcoiner, but I think all of us, if you're truly a bitcoiner, you want the debt paid down first, and you certainly wouldn't want the United States to print more money to buy bitcoin. The irony, very thick. No way you're giving the thumbs up there. I mean, what do you think of this?
- [24:00]
Robert
I agree with you. I'm just emoting because I agree with what you said and I agree with what Dave said. I don't see why the US Would be using tariff revenue to buy bitcoin when we have a huge, huge deficit that needs to be paid back.
- [24:20]
Scott
Yeah, I mean, I find it. We have these sort of cross narratives and it's always very confusing. Right. Some obviously say tariffs are a negotiating tactic to get rid of tariffs. Some say tariffs are the way that we're going to fund the government in the future. But I think there's consensus that the administration wants interest rates to come down to refinance the debt lower. So I would think that they would use all of the revenue to pay off that same debt that they're going to refinance lower, in theory. Robert Ansel, neither of you have had the opportunity to jump in. Feel free to jump in with your.
- [24:53]
Chris
Thoughts specifically in regarding tariffs.
- [24:57]
Scott
I mean, specifically, generally with tariffs or the conversation on bitcoin. Your thoughts generally on what we've been discussing.
- [25:05]
Chris
All right.
- [25:06]
Ansel
Well, price action. I see that we hit oversold on the daily back in February and we've had a series of bullish divergences. Now we have a hidden bullish divergence with the rsi. This today's candle is the first candle that's completely above the 50 day moving average. So I do think that we're kind of at a turning point here with a breakout of the downtrend over the 50 day moving average with a bullish divergence on the daily. So I think the price action looks pretty strong right now. But it depends on where we end up. I think the top kind of resistance would be around 95000 if we can get above there. That was the plateau back in February. We can get above that plateau. You know, all time highs could come pretty rapidly. One thing I've been following is the end of the four year cycle being replaced by something like a stair step cycle. So six months in a consolidation followed by a breakout higher and then six months of further consolidation. But that remains to be seen if that's where we're at.
- [26:12]
Scott
More like traditional markets really.
- [26:14]
Robert
And the four year cycle as we know it is cooked. It's been cooked. Bitcoin had never broken previous cycles all time high before. It's having and it did so this time around.
- [26:24]
Scott
And also more importantly, altcoins have not behaved how they ever have in the past and they're the fundamental part of that four year cycle Right. In the past, if you really deeply believed in the four year cycle, which I did by the way, you would have expected that When Bitcoin hits 106, 109 and then consolidates, that altcoins would have gone absolutely nuts and we just haven't seen that.
- [26:44]
Robert
Scott, what do you think about the idea that there are just far too many alts and we didn't have tools like Photon and layers like Pump Fun and Solana, which basically you just trade this stuff and experience alt season at the speed of the Internet. There is a huge alt season in Solana throughout the duration of 2024 and even I guess first month or two of 2025. So there was an alt season. It just didn't happen the way that people expected it. What do you think about that?
- [27:13]
Scott
Yeah, it's the barbell we've talked about here a lot. Obviously there's been institutional and nation state adoption of bitcoin. So it makes a lot of sense why bitcoin made its move. And then all of the things that people used to have to go to centralized exchanges for in previous cycles for alt season have gone onto Solana Dexes and is basically, as you said, at the speed of the Internet, has caused alt season to happen on a token in three hours instead of three months. And so you've had this sort of barbell of the most degenerate speculation on one side and Bitcoin on the other and nothing able to catch a bid in between. I totally agree with that. And listen, as you know, we're all here, we all see projects launching, even the most hyped legitimate projects with real use cases, people just are not buying them right now. I'm not saying that they won't, but as more you can look at, I think altcoins as aggregate supply. Right. Most people don't differentiate between them individually. So when another token comes on with more supply and 10 more launch and 50 more launch and 100 more launch and you've still got all the old ones that people are interested in, it's just really, really hard for anything, I think, to make a significant move. Robert then Dave.
- [28:27]
G
Yeah, so this year I think as you said, there were lot of, lot of good news from institutions, but price action did not really follow through. And if you look not necessarily at the price, but at the usage of the blockchain, it is quite staggering to see empty blocks in case of Bitcoin and Ethereum as well. So it shows somehow that the people are a little bit over on the blockchain space or some of the narratives did not work out for short term, especially probably people have moved to the AI side mostly and trying out all the new creations there. But I think that the price action will follow only when there is usage actually on the chain. And then people start seeing the technology for what it is. Otherwise it's only just finance and Wall Street. And we have that on Wall street probably better than on any kind of blockchain yet.
- [29:30]
Scott
Yeah. And to some degree you can look to Solana as proof of that idea. Right? I mean, as much I think Solana did have the hype and people bought it speculatively. But because the Meme Coin casino we just described ended up on Solana, people had to buy Solana and it went up in price. Right. So whether you agree with the utility of what it was being used for or not, there was a fundamental reason to buy Solana, to participate in something. And so it obviously it's also just.
- [30:00]
Robert
A better user, like anyone that's used Sol, anyone that's played with pump fun and used tools like Photon. It's just a, it's a better experience, period. It's faster, it's cheaper. It just, it feels smoother. I was a Solana hater for the longest time, but after really getting into it for the last six to, I guess six to eight months, I don't understand how. I don't know. I don't understand how the EVM is going to come back from this. They'll find a way. But even layer twos, I mean, SOL is just a better experience than layer twos. And this is hard for me to say because I own a lot of ethics.
- [30:35]
Scott
Me too.
- [30:37]
Robert
Yeah, it's sad. I wish. I mean, not wish, but like, I just. I think that people need to start actually exploring why soul did so well. And it's not just because of memes. There's. There's multifaceted.
- [30:51]
Scott
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's two parts of the same argument. I'm saying it went up obviously because people were interested in memes, but people were interested in memes on Solana because it was a better experience and cheaper and faster.
- [31:03]
Robert
Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, I totally agree with you. I was just. I also think that memes, the reason memes are so popular this time is because people are tired of utility projects larping. They don't really do anything. They don't need a token and they end up just like slow, soft rugging over the course of a cycle rather than rugging over the course of a day or a week. So it's just faster. It speeded everything up.
- [31:29]
Scott
It's absolutely true, Dave.
- [31:32]
Dave
Yeah, I know I'm a broken record.
- [31:34]
Chris
On this topic, but the changes that you call tailwinds, and they are massive tailwinds, are going to create a different environment inside of crypto. And what I mean by that is in a world where people invest in meme coins that literally have no way by design to reward the holders with anything other than potentially ability to sell it to somebody else later.
- [32:05]
Dave
In, until.
- [32:06]
Chris
That is kind of ground out of the market. You're, you know, you're going to have people with a bad taste in their mouths about crypto. And it's. And, and it's important to understand what that means because we're talking about when people see people with most of the world's money, see a casino, they look at it and they turn their nose up at it. At the same time, there are many, many projects in crypto and be new ones that could figure out a way to pass on value back to the holders. And so, you know, we have this and, and what's going to happen because it's been telegraphed. Paul Atkins has been very, very clear about this, as has Bo Hinds, as has David Sachs, as basically the people in control of financial regulation and the financial markets in this country that they want innovators, they want entrepreneurs to be able to offer to the public these tokens that could potentially pass on value. And so it's a completely different change. But this is, this is a massive, a massive sea change that the market is just not reacting to because the correlation between Fart Coin and Solana is still high. Right? And that's a big deal.
- [33:20]
Robert
Can we agree though, Dave, that people perceive crypto as a casino far before Solana was even incepted, right?
- [33:27]
Chris
Oh yeah, no, I'm not. Look, I'm a, Solana's my second biggest holding, right. You know, and, and it's a little long term. And while I'm not up as much as I used to be, I'm still comfortably in profit in my position and don't really care because I'm not selling it because I don't take the tax consequences. So I'm just going to ride it out and we'll see what happens. I think Solana has the opportunity to branch into a lot of things that will be very, very real and while still casino like. Because anybody who thinks that Wall street isn't a casino is just not paying attention. I mean, all you have to do, and I say this on this, this, this on crypto town hall every once in a while. If you look at the most successful new product on Wall street other than the Bitcoin etf, it's single day options. Well, what kind of Degen buys an option that only gives you that you're only trading one day's price? Basically it's a way of day trading leverage. And it's the most popular product that's been introduced on Wall street, you know, in the last decade. So look, Wall Street's a casino, it's just a different kind of casino. Solana is extremely well positioned to get into that once it becomes legal. Now a bunch of things have to happen for that, for that to occur, but it's going to occur. So don't, you know, don't, don't underestimate that potential. I mean, I would like to bring up one Coin because there's, there's one token in my mind that's kind of the bellwether for this. So, and you could talk about the price action on Ondo as much as you want, but the issue is we created as an industry, this notion of a governance token to give people the illusion, and it is an illusion that they're buying something with value. Now you can, the, the, the people who run it can change that to pass on real revenues as real revenues accrue. But they would have to change it. They didn't architect it that way specifically to avoid Gary Gensler because they thought governance tokens, well, it doesn't really give you anything, gives you a right to vote on it, but you don't get to participate in it. And we're still putting that significant values on that. And my guess is those that actually can change those tokens can vote with their governance to actually award themselves a part of the revenue that will become worth something. So every time people talk about RWAs in the crypto world, my stomach gets upset. Why? Because real world assets, where you can't participate in the value of those real world assets is a paper tiger. And there's a lot of those. Now it's really going to be important because in the second half of this year, once regulations happen, they're going to be stumbling over themselves to figure out a way to monetize real world assets and to make the token worthwhile to the investor. We haven't seen any of that happen yet. Frankly, it's not legal yet. Although I think the SEC is signaling they're not going to come after people who are trying. So people could be doing it. That to me is a major trend change. And when we see that, that's when alt season is going to start. But it's going to be like Defy Summer was in things that were different than the previous alt season and you know, memes were different than Defy Summer. So you know, you're gonna, you're gonna see a new war. It always happens that war is going to be real utility, but real utility where token holders are rewarded.
- [36:33]
G
Rob, I think that yeah, on Solana you had some kind of amazing, amazing meme coin season for a few months. But you, you know, everybody knew that crypto is some type of casino. But people were promised utility and a bunch of applications and everything to be moved to the blockchain. So when that kind of dream doesn't happen, then people are moving on to the next shiny thing which might not be blockchain because blockchain have failed to deliver on that in, in a lot of senses. So it will be the, the next altcoin season will happen when, let's say there will be again a big movement on the chains when block space is utilized when people are excited about a new upcoming thing, whether to make money or in general whether to make money or some applications, find out that the technology is really good. What I liked about like let's say the US the President and everybody saying about blockchain as a technology and that the technology is so important to innovate and we see that with digital payments and everything. Yes. At the current moment you could innovate a lot on the payment systems. Whether the old guys will let you do that or not, it depends on a lot. In Europe they seem that they don't want to let at all this kind of fintech innovation, but we will see what will happen in there. But again, that's another area which was promised 15 years ago and not yet delivered. So we will see whether that will fill up the block spaces and make people again excited about blockchain.
- [38:38]
Scott
Robert, go ahead.
- [38:40]
Robert
Now I was just going to say do you think we can't just leapfrog over the old guys or are they still gatekeepers? Isn't the whole point of this, and I asked myself this question as well. Isn't the whole point that we don't want the old guys to be making decisions? Blockchain technology is supposed to be peer to peer and we should be able to pay or build payment rails somehow without having to answer to the men above.
- [39:09]
G
That would be the whole game plan. But they are blocking in every kind of. With the crypto choke point 2.0, what happened in the US and right now with the digital payments and everything with tbdcs and digital euro and how stablecoins should look like in Europe, they are just choking out everything. So we need this kind of alternative and blockchain offers this kind of alternative. But somebody has to, let's say, get into this kind of alternative fintech payment system and make that massively adopted without the old guys knowing.
- [39:53]
Chris
Yeah. First of all, as the token old guy on the panel, I can tell you not all old guys feel the same way.
- [39:59]
Scott
But.
- [39:59]
Chris
So let's just go there. But the There are two things I want to say. I wanted to pivot to something Byron Donald's posted yesterday, which I think that's extraordinarily important. He's the first congressman that I've seen and he's running for governor in Florida. So maybe he won't be in the Congress for too much longer. But he actually correctly identified one of the biggest reasons why crypto has had a problem in the United States and why it which is the accredited investor rule. And he's calling for its repeal, which is a big deal if a lot of others start understanding it because that is the rule that makes it impossible for founders to, you know, basically offer something that might possibly be considered a security in the United States. Because those, you know, you have to season things for a year. There's all sorts of things if you're not a rich person. So basically only allowing it for rich people, it turns retail into exit liquidity. It's horrendous in terms of price inequality and it's all justified by the nanny state of well, we got to protect people from themselves. And you know, it basically protects VCs. So we know that. But it's a very big deal that it's that it is a public mention. The first one said like a little green shoot. But that's something that you want to see happen because it matters. As far as the conversation about, you know, governments just. I've said this before but Noah, the governments care about two things and as long as those two things are solved, they're going to let people do something. In the United States at least they want to be able to collect taxes when you make money. And we could argue about whether capital gains taxes, you know, should be changed. I personally think they should be cut in half and we should eliminate stepped up basis. And that would probably be revenue positive and very, very stimulative the economy. But you know, stepped up basis is what the really rich people do. And the other thing you do is you tax people when they borrow against their appreciated assets. You do that at that lower capital gains rate. And as I said, revenue positive taxes the rich more than the poor and be very stimulative. But we'll see whether they go anywhere with that. They haven't even had a chance to even think about that sort of policy. But as long as you pay your taxes and you don't finance North Korean hackers and drug dealers, they're going to be okay. So if you ask yourself a question.
- [42:17]
Dave
What'S going to happen?
- [42:19]
Chris
Well, peer to peer that allows drug dealers and North Korean hackers to move money as fast as they can. They're going to declare war on it. When you get to the market structure, regulation, do not be surprised if you see that, you know, any defi exchange that is going to, they're going to want tracking, they're going to want to be able to find these people and take their money from them. There's just no way around it. Those are the two things they care about. Now in Europe, they care about something Else in Europe, they're clearly moving toward a cbdc. They want to stop you and I from exchanging value. Our government doesn't care about that. They just want to make sure that you and I aren't drug dealers and that if they are, they can go in and get it. And it's a very big difference. And look, I personally think that AML has been almost counterproductive and borderline useless in the way it's been implemented. And I think there's been pretty good research on that. But it doesn't change the fact that they want to do it.
- [43:12]
G
Robert, I get those, those points on the terrorists and everything, but we can definitely argue that the current banking or payment system does not resolve that.
- [43:23]
Chris
Oh, 100, Robert, I just said current AML is productive. We agree.
- [43:29]
G
Yeah, so. So they were, they were, they were moving much more money from terrorists to terrorists in the traditional banking than on crypto. Actually, the traditional. I know that it's much bigger, but the funny thing about is that blockchain can actually make. Would make their job much easier. Like, you know, with all kinds of chain analysts, it's super easy to see all the funds. The North Korean Lazarus Group is moving from left to right. So you can do it. And it's much more obvious and easier to do this than on a banking system where everything is about whitelists and internal public data, internal databases. So I would argue that even tracking the terrorists would be easier on blockchain. So there is no reason for not to go into blockchain as a primary service for payments.
- [44:26]
Chris
Yeah, no, let's be clear. I thoroughly agree with you. I'm just telling you that there's two things. So the governments want to be able to do that and that that is clearly direction the US is moving towards. That's what certainly Republican Party and a bunch of the Democrats understand. Europe doesn't seem to be doing that. They seem to want to empower the banks. I mean, hell, the European stablecoin regulation is basically forcing stablecoin issuers to hold some of their reserves and fractional reserve banks, which is dramatically less secure than fully reserved holding of treasury securities of its dollars or whatever, basically government debt from the currency that it's backing. So look, there is a difference in the US and Europe and it's one of the reasons why Europe has had so much trouble over the last 30 years in startups and technology and why they've lost so much. And by the way, that's going to continue as long as they continue to do that. So I do think that's true. But my point was that there's going to need to be certain things that are going to follow it, even in the US and you know, we've mentioned this before and Carla, I know you care about this. I don't know if you're up here. I'm seeing Scott's having issues, so that's why I'm talking so much.
- [45:40]
Scott
Yeah, it's the main, I'm here. But the, there's a connection issue with the main post, but we're still running for that.
- [45:45]
Dave
Okay, cool.
- [45:46]
Carlo
I'm here too.
- [45:47]
Chris
Okay, cool. Well, the point, Carlo, is even in the US we're going to get a stablecoin bill that's going to be really good in many respects, but it's going to allow entrepreneurs to make money by offering seamless ways to save and get yield separate from the stable coins. Stable coins become a payment thing. So people who believe that something that can move so easily, people are just going to hold it and leave it there. I mean, sorry, but not, you know, that's not going to be the way it's going to go. People are going to. The minting and unmenting process, you know, is going to happen, but a lot of people are going to be. They're not going to leave money in stable coins like they leave it in tether because they won't need to. And that.
- [46:29]
Carlo
Yeah, I, I 100% agree. It's tantamount to the railroad, Dave, because you're laying the tracks for an, an entirely new financial system and a way of exchanging value. And from that there are so many permeations. I am so excited about the future of startups in this country and I'm finally so excited about the future of crypto in this country because we're getting all this amazing clarity.
- [46:51]
Chris
Yep. And, and that's a very big deal. So just for those who don't understand, if you once a stable coin, you know, stable coins are simple, checking accounts are going to go poof because what. Why the hell would you write a check that takes three days to move back and forth when you can move things instantly? And moving things instantly means you can be much cheaper under the covers for the Zells and the paypals of the world. And oh, by the way, moving things instantly means people are going to be able to sweep or they're going to offer accounts where, okay, use our stable coin, we'll do this, but we'll sweep it into this instrument or watch Coinbase and Kraken. And the reason Kraken by the way, is going into stocks is they're going to be. And they already have a trust bank. Right. So they're going to be offering financial products that have yield that you can put your money in with stable coins and use it for payments and all of that's going to get integrated. It doesn't take a rocket scientist. I have not talked to Jesse or anyone at Kraken to know it it. And if that's not what they're doing, then they're nowhere near as smart as I suspect they are. And, and by the way, Coinbase has the, the, the ability to do that too. They will watch.
- [47:54]
Scott
And Robin.
- [47:55]
Chris
And Robin.
- [47:55]
Scott
Robinhood just became a bank.
- [47:57]
Chris
Yeah.
- [47:57]
Scott
Robin Hood.
- [47:58]
Chris
Look, I, I spent, I spent hours with Dan Gallagher who's their chief legal, legal officer, who's by the way, one of the funniest and smartest people in, in the financial industry.
- [48:07]
Scott
And the mind, the great mind behind Robin Hood. From everyone I've spoken to, he's, he really is driving the ship.
- [48:13]
Chris
He is a very smart guy and, and the opportunity to be in a conference which, which I was where he's allowed it, which is Chatham House rule. So I can't talk about what he said, but watching him unfiltered with the acting chair of the SEC was worth the price of admission. It was one of the, one of the most enjoyable panels I've ever seen. But I'm telling you, if you're not bullish on where crypto can go with the amount of money that's going to be coming into it, you are literally blind. And yes, that doesn't just make me disagree with anything anybody else has said, but it may not be Fartcoin, it may not be the Solana Meme Casino, but there's going to be a massive wave of wealth created over the next decade based on what's about to start happening here. And so if you're, if what you care about is, is building wealth over time slowly, then get yourself and understand and do some research to figure out which are the projects, which are the things you think will win. That's a very big deal. I literally came away from a week, two different TRADFI conferences more bullish about crypto than anything else than I've been in a very long time.
- [49:27]
Scott
Just quickly before we wrap, an amazing comment, if you're wondering, circling back to tariffs and what the environment is in this massive game of chicken that the United States is obviously in with China, one of the top Chinese officials it's pinned above in the nest just said, and those peasants from the US will soon be crying tears in front of China's 5000 year civilization. Pretty aggressive.
- [49:54]
Chris
Sounds like Baghdad, Bob, for those who remember that Gulf War reference. But you know, look, we are, we have a lot of adjustment to make. I mean, as I said it yesterday, we need to be able to refine rare earths. We need to be able to, you know, use, integrate AI into manufacturing, you know. You know, I'm not Simon Dixon who thinks that the whole plan is to actually decrease employment in the United States and just make more money here, but I think it'll be kind of in the middle of it. But he's not wrong in the sense that all manufacturing China is the best at, at non, non AI based manufacturing, you know, in the world. And they are probably developing AI manufacturing. We have the opportunity to, to do that from scratch and it is going to happen. The question is, is, does it make sense to pick the fight now while we're building that capability or should we build the capabilities first and incentivize it? That's really the issue. And I, I kind of think that we're a little bit trying to do too many things at once, but it'll work itself out.
- [50:59]
Scott
All right everyone. Well, having some connection issues here and within five minutes of the end anyway, so give everybody on the panel a follow and we will be back, of course, tomorrow for another crypto town hall at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Thank you to the panel. You guys are amazing. We love these conversations and thank you to everybody else for listening. See you guys tomorrow. Bye.