Bitcoin Bouncing While Global Uncertainty Peaks #CryptoTownHall

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Wolf Of All Streets
Host: Scott Melker
Episode: Bitcoin Bouncing While Global Uncertainty Peaks #CryptoTownHall
Date: March 30, 2026

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Main Theme / Purpose

This episode dives deep into the current state of the bitcoin and crypto markets as they react—or don’t—to a landscape marked by unprecedented global uncertainty. Amid mounting geopolitical turmoil, energy crises, and commodity supply disruptions, host Scott Melker and a rotating panel of traders, investors, and analysts interrogate why bitcoin appears resilient, why equity markets remain complacent, and what the future holds for crypto regulation and institutional adoption. High-level anxiety is the prevailing mood, but seasoned views, pragmatic risk assessments, and a dash of optimism round out the discussion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Bitcoin’s Resilience vs. Global Uncertainty

• BTC Price Action: Bitcoin bounced to around $67,400 after a down weekend, but technicals like the daily 50 EMA are acting as resistance ([00:00], Scott).
• Global Context: Markets hate uncertainty, currently surpassing previous peaks seen during COVID and past global recessions.
• Ambivalence: “The optimistic view is, wow, bitcoin holding in there around 68,000. The pessimistic view is, oh shit, we might not get any certainty soon and it could continue down.” — Scott ([00:55])

2. Market Numbness & Disbelief

• Event Fatigue: Markets seem numb, not reacting strongly even to theoretically cataclysmic events such as the closure of the Straits of Hormuz ([01:34], Dave).
• Supply Chain Realities: Ongoing supply shocks aren’t being priced in, particularly in sectors like AI, HPC, and chip manufacturing ([03:30], Gary).
• Apathy in Equities: “There just seems to be a big lag in the equity market right now. And I just question who is buying this thing?” — Gary ([07:35])

3. Energy Supply Shocks and Ripple Effects

• Helium & Chips: Disruptions to helium could halt chip production, affecting broad swathes of technology ([06:09], Gary).
• Commodities Upending Markets: Insufficient energy and materials could devastate sectors from aviation (jet fuel) to housing (steel, homebuilders).
• Potential for Global Depression: “Do I dare say I think we're moving to a global depression. And [there’s nothing] we can do about it.” — Gary ([18:09])
• Secondary Effects: Markets and the public tend to ignore second-order consequences due to disbelief and headline fatigue ([19:26], Scott).

4. Bitcoin as Insurance & Narrative Shift

• BTC vs. Miners & Paper: Investors are favoring direct BTC exposure over miners or risk-laden equity proxies ([12:33], Gary).
• Bitcoin as a ‘Non-Governmental Currency’: Growing institutional narrative that pitches bitcoin as an apolitical, non-sovereign store of value ([30:09], Amateo).
• Store of Value in Action: Since onset of the latest military conflict (Feb 28), bitcoin has decoupled from the S&P 500 and outperformed gold ([30:30], Amateo).
• OG Accumulation: Large BTC holders who sold last year are now buying again, seen as bullish signal ([31:41], Amateo).

5. Complacency and Information Disarray

• Fake News & Market Volatility: Viral misinformation (e.g., fake destruction of buildings) exacerbates volatility. Pipeline of trustworthy info is breaking down ([25:05], Alex).
• Calls for Caution: “We've got to be so careful on trying to digest it… [the] information pipeline is getting to the extreme version of untrustworthy.” — Alex ([25:37])

6. Regulation, Tokenization, and the Institutional Wave

• Crypto Legislation Gridlock: Ongoing stalling and word games between banking interests and crypto firms over yield, economic equivalence, and compliance. The public remains largely in the dark ([37:23], Carlin).
• Tokenized Assets: Institutions are building on blockchain rails despite lack of regulatory clarity, aiming to tokenize global assets for collateral and lending ([33:50], Alex).
• Enforcement by Ambiguity: Unclear frameworks and regulations ensure ongoing litigation and offshore migration ([43:10], Carlin).
• Institutions vs. Retail: Big banks are unbothered by lack of clarity—they’ll use blockchain for internal efficiency, not to drive value for open crypto markets ([40:05], Dave).

7. Broader Market Sentiment: Wait and See

• Risk Management: With unresolved supply and geopolitical shocks, sometimes “sitting on our hands is the best trade we can do.” — Mike ([48:22])
• Cycles and the Search for Value: Real value emerges after speculative cycles pass; for now, patience and selective positioning in fundamentally strong assets is advised ([50:31], Dave).
• Altcoin Opportunity: Despite market doldrums, opportunities may arise in altcoins as their prices hit rock bottom ([48:43], Rich).
• Long-Term Optimism: Fundamentally, the bitcoin network is strong and institutional infrastructure more promising than ever ([46:46], Mike).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Scott Melker [00:55]:

  “The optimistic view is, wow, bitcoin holding in there around 68,000. The pessimistic view is, oh shit, we might not get any certainty soon and it could continue down.”

• Gary [06:09]:

  “What happens if you can't get helium for a year or two? No one's pricing that in right now. I'm like, wow, that's very odd.”

• Carlin [08:40]:

  “The markets are so desperate for good news that they buy into anything and it opens 100 points up. And what rational basis is there for that?”

• Alex [25:37]:

  “The information pipeline is getting to the extreme version of untrustworthy, which is going to make it really hard for anyone to sort through what's actually happening, what's true and how that's going to affect things…”

• Dave [40:05]:

  “From a big bank point of view, they feel like they could go in. They have no risk adopting the technology. The risk is all in people who want to have tokens…”

• Mike [48:22]:

  “Sometimes sitting on our hands is the best trade we can do. A lot of people have activity bias and want to find something to do, but sometimes just holding back, waiting and positioning for dip and lower opportunities with strong assets that you believe in and haven't changed fundamentally can be beneficial…”

• Rich [48:43]:

  “Wow, guys, this has been a depressing call man. We really need to try, try a bit harder to be optimistic. I mean, we're kicking ourselves while we're down… So yeah, I'm really looking forward to picking up some value in a lot of these crypto altcoins, let's call them, that really hit rock bottom.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–01:34: Scott’s introduction; setting the tone with BTC price and global context
• 01:34–07:20: Market numbness, disbelief, and supply chain shocks
• 07:24–10:01: Lag in equity market response; questions on who is buying
• 12:33–19:53: Secondary effects—chip production, jet fuel, industry impacts, and global depression discussion
• 20:12–22:57: Covid 2.0 analogy; volatility and market insurance strategies
• 25:05–26:47: Information breakdown and volatility – Alex shares firsthand example
• 29:07–31:55: Bitcoin outperformance since onset of war; shifting narratives and OG accumulation
• 33:47–37:21: Institutional tokenization, blockchain adoption, and backdoor legislative maneuvers
• 40:05–46:46: Slow-moving regulation, institutional leverage, and effect on crypto markets
• 48:22–50:31: Optimism, investment patience, and bottom-fishing in altcoins
• 50:31–53:47: Final thoughts, cyclical nature of markets, goodbyes

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Conclusion: Takeaways for Listeners

• Bitcoin stands as a resilient (but not unbreakable) asset in the face of extraordinary global instability and supply shocks.
• Markets are currently marked by numbness, disbelief, and a dangerous lack of pricing in secondary risks.
• Institutional adoption is quietly progressing, with traditional finance embracing blockchain despite regulatory gridlock.
• Retail investors and altcoin enthusiasts may find value as cycles grind lower, but caution and selectivity are paramount.
• Regulatory and geopolitical uncertainty are likely to persist, making patience and a long-term focus essential for crypto investors.

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Listeners gain a nuanced, pragmatic, and at times somber perspective on the intersection of global crisis and the crypto market, interspersed with real-world trading wisdom and a few rays of optimistic hope for the future.

Transcript

[Scott]

Good morning everybody. Welcome to crypto town hall every other day here on X at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Obviously hard to talk about bitcoin and the crypto market in general without putting it in context of everything happening in the world which is likely driving price. We have bitcoin currently at about 67,400, give or take. Had a nice little bounce this morning, is up on the day after a down weekend. But you know, the technical analysts who have been looking at the quote unquote bear flag that was forming for bitcoin will point out that bitcoin has broken down from that and is sort of retesting it as resistance. I don't have a chart to share, but you get the idea and also now trading back below the 50 EMA on the daily chart that it's been sort of hugging. Obviously the rest of the crypto market is largely tracking bitcoin. Interestingly, as I said here, bitcoin bouncing while global uncertainty peaks. There's a chart going around the interwebs and certainly on X it shows a, a measure of global uncertainty being at all time highs right now dwarfing even Covid and the global recession, the great recessions of the past. So very clearly we know that markets hate uncertainty. And I would say that this environment right now is about as uncertain as it gets. So I think the optimistic view is, wow, bitcoin holding in there around 68,000. The pessimistic view is, oh shit, we might not get any certainty soon and it could continue down. So I don't know. That's setting the plate, Dave. There's a lot more to unpack, but

[Dave]

sort of where I'm at, I mean, it's, it's a, it's one of those mornings you kind of want us to sleep in because there's nothing really happening. And it's like. But there is lots happening. It's just that people don't really know what to make of it. The markets themselves are. And it doesn't matter what asset, you know, are all kind of stuck, kind of saying, okay, wait a minute, you told me if the Straits of Hormuz closed, it would be a cataclysmic disaster. Oil would spike to 200 and, you know, we'd be facing recession, depression, et cetera. Okay, cool. That was, you know, several weeks ago. Well, guess what? They're closed and they've been closed and they're staying closed. And you know, we're seeing lots of truth social posts and, you know, and Lego memes coming out of Iran and all sorts of crap. But at the end of the day people expected disaster and it hasn't happened yet. And I'm not saying it won't happen because there's plenty of people saying well wait a minute. You know, like Robert, you know, infra goes through and explains that if this thing continues for X number of more days, you're going to see massive price rises, yada, yada yada. And we all know that that's going to have big impacts on the economy. Right now it's sort of like, I think it's a. The markets are sort of in a, in a combination of disbelief that this thing will, will continue. And what's the word I, I use this morning? You know, you know they're kind of getting, you know, numbed to all of this stuff. So it's, it's not just bitcoin now. I mean bitcoin is right now, but who's buying it?

[Gary]

Dave? Because you're not buying this market. I'm not buying it. Like no.

[Dave]

Well I'm not selling it either. I mean I'm not.

[Scott]

I'm buying bitcoin. Yeah, I'm buying bitcoin, yeah.

[Gary]

But not the rest of the market. I mean.

[Dave]

Yeah, it's to me, to me Gary, it's it. You have to to, to be more specific on, on the question because it depends on what.

[Gary]

So like well, all the AI trades for instance, I mean they should be getting destroyed. All the HPC players, all these AI data center guys should be getting destroyed. Dude, the energy price just like doubled. And it's not going to just come back to $30, 40, 50, 60 bucks.

[Dave]

We'll see.

[Gary]

They were overpriced when the, the energy price was stable. There. There's one sector I look at and go wow, man, it just got wiped. 80% of its market increase over the last two years had been wiped out. They won't survive this. How are you going to get some of these materials? Like, like how are you going to get chips? Not gonna be chips made. There's no helium. Like I, who's buying this market? Like I can't imagine anybody buying this thing right now. Maybe Ackman's holding it up, but makes no sense to me. And bitcoin should perform exceptionally well. I didn't mean to interrupt. I wanted to have a conversation on. No, no, I think is anybody in

[Dave]

this room are numb. I think that if you ever. It reminds me of something that I've heard many times in my career. I mean keep in mind I started my Career in program trading. Right. So building program trading systems and getting involved early with ETFs. And for years and years and years, you heard people say, well, this whole thing toward passive indexing means that you're going to lose the ability or lose signal. And then the fundamental guys will say, yeah, but that means we can make money on the edges. That's cool. Except for. I really wonder, Gary, if what you have is so much of the money in the market is either passive or semi passive that people look at it and say, well, where the hell am I going to put it that they won't until the. Until something happens. Now that something happened could happen. I mean, you know, that's literally how crashes occur. Crashes occur when markets just kind of stay elevated and people are like, I don't really need to sell until they do. And I think you're right. I think there are places in the market where that's a possibility. But you start saying that and then people will be like, well, wait a minute, you're talking about something that's bound to be over soon. Whatever soon means. And so am I going to change my entire financial planning based upon the fact that I might not be able to get helium for a month? I mean, I just wonder if the lessons. Or a year, dude. Or a year.

[Gary]

What happens if you can't get helium for a year or two? No one's pricing that in right now. I'm like, wow, that's very odd.

[Dave]

You're right.

[Gary]

That's very odd to me. Okay, like, this is very clear what's happening. Like, you're not going to bring some of this back on for a while. I mean, you have the entire supply chain of energy has been flying completely disrupted. And this concept, I heard mglone this morning on y' all show, this concept that, look, I'm an energy guy and the concept that we're not going to be impacted. California is going to pay $10 a gallon for gasoline, man. That's going to happen this year. Or they're going to run out. Check that out. Or they're going to run out in California gasoline. Like, hey, the Isle of Man, where, where our friend Simon lives, he can't buy LPG or gasoline or diesel out. And in order for the Isle of Man to get diesel or fuel, that has to go through England. And I suspect they'll be out pretty soon. So I don't know how this, like, goes back. This is not a rubber band. It just pops back.

[Dave]

Alex?

[Rich]

Yeah.

[Amateo]

I just wanted to answer. Gary, I love your insights and respond by, who is currently buying bitcoin? And I think the two main questions are those.

[Gary]

Excuse me, I meant who's buying everything but bitcoin? See, I think the other market's being held up. I'm just, hey, who's buying the S and P? Who's buying Q? Who's buying Nvidia? I mean, I want to shorten the video. I want to know, hey, what's the best chart for me to put on to protect myself? And if I lose. If I lose 100 grand, okay, I lose 100 grand. But I think, like, there's a shard to be put on here on the. On the legacy market that I don't think is priced into the market yet. And I saw this on Meta. Meta should have collapsed the day they announced they had a $256 million settlement. And then. And a waste of $90 billion. I'm, you know, just closing Meta. They changed the name of the company after this idea and they collapsed. Took about three or four days for Meta to get pummeled for that. You know, there just seems to be a big lag in the equity market right now. And I just question who is buying this thing?

[Carlin]

Good morning, Scott.

[Scott]

Morning, Carlin.

[Carlin]

I can't disagree with anything that Gary is saying. And you want to look at who's buying this stuff I mentioned on the morning finance show. And I'll say it again. I think we have to rebrand Taco Tuesday to Taco Monday, because like clockwork, we all expect number to be red. And then an hour before the markets open, we get a new negotiation with a new imaginary friend and no substantiation of who this is. And the markets are so desperate for good news that they buy into anything and it opens 100 points up. And what rational basis is there for that? When you consider that we're escalating ground forces and we're going to be lengthening this conflict in any way you look at it, which, again, to Gary's point, is already affecting European markets, is already crushing Asian markets for gas and liquid natural gas and so forth. And we're not yet feeling it here, but I don't see how we avoid it. Because as much as we want to say we have all this energy independence here, we have a supply chain, and the global supply chain is about to collapse, and our entire economy is built on consumption. So how do you reconcile those two things?

[Scott]

Anyone feel free to raise your hands?

[Dave]

I mean, markets move when people think things are changing. I mean, Gary pointed out to something that's very important. You know, we saw the same thing on, you know, after, in the aftermath of, of October 10th in crypto. Right. You know, it's like, people are like, okay. And it took a long time for, relatively speaking, for the margin calls to ripple throughout the economy. The crypto economy and the crypto economy has basically been dead since then. I mean, you get a whole lot of excitement every once in a while. You can have a conversation about some particular thing that people might find interesting. But the truth is that overall, you did this interview with Alex Thorne, intangible coins, which I love because he said something which I think is really important. He said crypto is boring now. And he meant it in a couple of different ways. And I think a lot of that is true. Markets are boring right now because people are in disbelief as to what's actually happening. Right. You know, there was a story last night that, you know, that Iran targeted Kuwaiti desalinization plants. Well, if the desalinization plants throughout the GCC did get targeted and destroyed, the amount of devastation is just not remotely priced in. Right, because that's water, right? You know, you don't have water. And that sort of escalation is the sort of thing that would cause that. You know, escalation is literally, you know, people just don't want to think about it. No one is pricing and no markets are pricing in a massive set of strikes. I mean, yes, every once in a while someone will talk about nuclear, but it's not really about nuclear bombs. It's talking about, like, going after, like, really serious shit that is, that we don't come back from very quickly. That the engine of economics, the engine of markets goes now. The markets are not pricing that. They just aren't. Because no one wants to believe that it's possible or true, myself included, by the way. And we all want to think that this will get resolved one other way. Kind of. I don't even know how to express it. And when you see that and you start asking yourself questions like, you know, we're talking about helium for those who don't know. If you, you can't make chips without it. And, and Gary, what is it? 60% goes through the straits. It's a pretty big number, right?

[Gary]

If it's 30%, think about what that does, okay? You don't make a chip without helium. So it's a massive disruption. It's much greater disruption than it is to crude. Look, look, you have silver. The, the, the most volume on silver options is 900 to a thousand dollars. And I think late 27 or in 27 sometime there, there are people buying a lot of silver call options. Okay, it's $70. And you know, look, you're, look, I think this weekend probably very few CEOs got much sleep this weekend. And they were in board meetings, emergency meetings, urgent meetings. What the fuck is happening Meetings. Exxon's probably being called by the Department of Energy. You've got utilities probably all over the place going, hey, what the hell is going on here? I can promise you it was an extremely active board. Emergency board sessions all weekend over. This is going to have massive ripple effects, okay? You could literally say everything's going back to normal tomorrow morning and you cannot unchange what's happened already. And I'm not an alarmist, okay? But this market, look, the miners in bitcoins up, the miners are all down 3, 4, 5, 6%. That, that's very interesting. See that tells me, okay, the market's saying, I don't want the paper, I want bitcoin, I don't want the miners, I don't want the exposure to all these multiples. Like I, I, I want to hold a space on sharding the equities market and, and have a hour on. Hey, what would be the best trade to put on is an insurance policy because bitcoin. I think bitcoin's going to do really, really great here. But like, why wouldn't I put a trade on that, that, that amplify. I don't need to go take the bitcoin. Hey, it's going to go strong because bitcoin could just sit here for a little bit, right, while the market pukes all over itself. I, I think, tell me an automobile company that's going to do survive this

[Dave]

Tesla.

[Gary]

Okay, tell, tell me, okay, tell me a steel company that's going to survive this or a home builder or let's see, anyone that's depending on jet fuel. You're going to see jet fuel prices explode all over the world and then you're going to find, oh wow, people aren't even going to travel because they won't be able to afford the ticket. Just the super rich and that now that there'll be markets where some of that will just get crushed in price. I just don't see how you guys, I don't see how we unwind this. So I'd love some information on how, what's the best chart to put on? If I'm right, markets should be start rolling over. Am I being, am I Being like, am I being obnoxiously?

[Dave]

The question is if.

[Scott]

Yeah, man. The question is if Bitcoin can actually hold up in that environment.

[Dave]

Well, I mean, it's a question of delinking. It's a question of a lot of things. I mean, it's a question of what. Because you're right. I mean, jet fuel. Look, I'm happy I have, you know, I'm going on a trip in a couple weeks to Italy. And, you know, we bought our tickets ages ago. I don't even want to look to see how much they would be if I tried to buy them now, because I usually buy, you know, wait. But this time we actually locked it in. But, you know, I'm supposed to be traveling again at the end of October, and I can't even imagine. I don't know. We'll see what happens. It's. You're right. I mean, there are a lot of places in the world that depend on tourism. It's all very interlinked. And. And that's where the game of chicken. I mean, honestly.

[Gary]

Yeah. I bet some money they won't honor that ticket, that they'll cancel that flight if. If you're. If you. You know, this is the reason you're not hearing any airliners complain about tsa. They're probably like, yeah, that's awesome. We don't have to fly today. Four hours late. No shit, man. Right. Like, why would you want to. Like, I don't know what your ticket costs, but it's going to triple. Triple, man.

[Dave]

Yeah.

[Gary]

I mean, that's crazy.

[Dave]

But here's. Here's the question. You know, oil is at. At what. What are we at now?

[Gary]

1, 102 and. 111, 114.

[Dave]

It's been higher. It. Why is. What, you know is jet fuel? I mean, let's. Let's just look at it. I'm just looking. Do I see jet fuel on this one? Now they have gas.

[Gary]

We're talking about heavy, heavy private jets. Okay. Like, my brother flies. That'll be $12,000 an hour total, all in cost. Right. And that. That will go to $20,000 an hour if.

[Dave]

What?

[Gary]

No, no. Jet fuel. Like, jet fuel will be priced today where it's going to cost him. Let's talk about a. Scott, the plane you and I were on, that legacy plane. Yeah. That will. That will double in price. In fact, I'll price a trip to Vegas. I'm not going to bitcoin Miami or bitcoin Vegas, but I. I'll price this. Oh, Good, dude. Let's have a drink together. Bitcoin Vegas. Y E Such a joke. Just the list of speakers, it's like, oh wow, it's turning into a, a celebrity show.

[Dave]

We need to do something after, after last year.

[Gary]

I'll price it. I'll ask the my guys to give me a price on it, but I, I guarantee it's double that, man. Oh, for sure, dude. And now they're, and they're having massive problems with, with pilots. I think we're 24,000 pilots, Shark. And that's like a two year program that'll get all fed up with AI and robots. So that'll be awesome because pilots are pain in the ass. But, but you see what I'm saying. I just don't see that America is just going to like skip away with this. I mean, yes, we'll make a lot of money on the energy sector, but I think a lot of our industries are going to suffer and then you're going to see people. I think we go for. I don't even think we have a recession. I think we're moving. Do, do I dare say I think we're moving to a global depression. And depression we can do about it.

[Scott]

Yeah, do not collect 200.

[Gary]

Yeah, totally, dude. Recessions aren't allowed. Okay. It's just so we'll go straight to the big day.

[Scott]

I mean it really is interesting the point you're making though, because it seems that we're in a world where headline. We're so headline driven and people are, I guess, so disillusioned and don't really believe anything they read that the flip side of that is nobody's actually accounting for or believing for the secondary. Believing in the secondary effects of all this that they're not even aware of. Like the helium example you gave or anything else where it hurts the industries and it's not just the price of oil.

[Alex]

Oil, right.

[Scott]

And those are real things that I think everybody just dismisses because markets never go down and because we don't know what to believe anyways. And those things may take time, but like how do those things like you're mentioning, how do those get fixed in the short term? They just can't.

[Alex]

Right.

[Gary]

I, I personally think if you look at this and you're anal and I'm analytical and I don't get all, you know, emotional about it. This to me looks like Covid Part 2. Let's finish the deal. Because there is no good reason for any of this other than that. And I have to go back and go, hey, the COVID 19 thing didn't just happen by mistake. It was a deal. It was a deal. And if they will do that, they'll do this. And there's no logical rational reason for what is happening on this planet today. So therefore, to me, oh, it's Covid 2.0. They did not finish the job and they're going to try to finish it here. Drive everyone into their homes. You watch, you're not going to be able to leave your home after 11pm in Europe. Watch what happens. They're going to start saying we need energy conservation. They'll do it in, they'll do it anywhere they get away with it. We need energy conservation. You got to black out, you got to stay in your home.

[Dave]

I mean there's evidence. No, yeah, well, there's, there's two thoughts. One, to respond to what he's saying. Where I look, we saw it in the 70s and anyone who's, I mean, some of us are old enough to remember, you know, alternate, you know, alternate days you're allowed to go get gas and lines at gas stations, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, you know, back then we were far more dependent upon oil and refining capacity than we are today. So that's unlikely here. But that said, we also know, and this is just the data, that the demand destruction of barrels per day globally that happened in Covid was almost exactly equal to the supply disruption of choked off Gulf. So is something like that possible? I mean, sure it is and certainly the globalists will want to do that. Is that being talked about? I Bet you're right, Gary, 100%. Will it actually happen? I doubt it, but we'll see. I mean, I think it's a barbell. What you're talking about is a perfect example of why with volatility relatively cheap, it feels like buying, you know, buying both sides. Makes sense, right? You know, like it thinks it puts are too cheap and calls are too cheap. Now why I say calls because if this gets resolved there are things that will explode upwards, right, because they're being held down like a beach ball.

[Gary]

But I think I have my call. I think bitcoin is my call.

[Dave]

And that, that was my point. So yes, I didn't say I would buy calls on the same asset that I would be.

[Gary]

Yeah, no, no, I was just trying to help with the audience too. Like see, to me having the Bitcoin is the call option and then looking at the paper going, okay, this is the moment now my thesis is coming true. I bought Bitcoin because it's great money. Not perfect money, but it's great money has all the characteristics. I, and it's always been a bit of a put for me against the legacy market. But I want to amplify my insurance against the, my bitcoin. I want to now shark that paper. Right. Like to me this is very logical and it's always been illogical to me why bitcoiners didn't want to study the equities market more. Because to me it's Bitcoin gives me the leverage, the wielding power to be able to go, you know, really amplify my trade without taking a lot of debt and leverage over it. Right. You see what I'm saying, Dave? Just seems to me like what there's going to be a point where I want to short the out of paper and not paper bitcoin. Okay. I'm not, I'm talking about equities.

[Dave]

I mean, I, I understand, you know, it's funny so. Well, in any case, I'm going to tell you, you have your hand up before I go off on another tangent.

[Alex]

Hey guys. Yeah, it's kind of crazy to just see the state of things and to see like the stock market open pretty decently, holding up today while the VIX is still at 30. I mean, and I think that this kind of just goes back to what you're saying, Gary, which is like, what is going on? How has the general market not digested or even understood the extreme impact of what's actually happening and the time that it's going to take to recover? But I have a lot of those questions too. And I don't think that the trickle down effect of these things is priced in at all. And I think that that deserves a lot of consideration. It brings me to two points and Scott, you said something like we don't know what to believe. And I think that that's something that really, really has to be digested. I talked to someone today who's in one of these hot zones, who saw a post on X of a building downtown that was in ruins that is across the street from him, and he walked out and it was right there, totally fine. And to see the disconnect between this post that had gone viral and been posted everywhere about this building that was in ruins and to just see it totally fine right in front of him is just a huge indicator that I think the information pipeline is getting to the extreme version of untrustworthy, which is going to make it really hard for anyone to sort through what's actually happening, what's true and how that's going to affect things, which I think ultimately is just going to lead to more volatility due to the uncertainty. So. So there's that piece of just. We got to be so careful on trying to digest it. I mean, I think the second piece, which is just an open question is if energy does spike this hard, do we just expect bitcoin to then go up as a result that the higher energy cost requires higher bitcoin, or does that create a FUD vector that doesn't make sense for the miners, etc. When it comes to powering bitcoin? So just some open questions there. David.

[Jamie]

Yeah, hi. Just wanted to highlight, I threw into the thread a chart that came out of JP Morgan which basically showed kind of the staggered effect of the oil supply shock. And what's interesting about it if you look at it, is that, yeah, the U.S. as we know is the world's largest exporter of oil now. But it's also interesting to see that South America basically doesn't get impacted at all in terms of this slowdown. I agree with what Gary has to say about complacency in the equity market. Everybody here is sitting here trying to game out just how long this thing's actually going to last. And all you probably have to do is just look at the forward curve on oil to see where people's guesses are. But I don't disagree with Gary to sort of say, hey, you know, if you want to short this market, short Nvidia and go long bitcoin.

[Scott]

Yeah. I think you could also just make an argument if you don't want to make it complicated to just buy bitcoin.

[Dave]

Right.

[Jamie]

You could, but it's not exciting enough. You don't get to have like a 2.

[Scott]

I don't get the dopamine hit from that at all.

[Dave]

You got to get that dopamine hit.

[Jamie]

Meanwhile, I would say go long.

[Gary]

It's the ultimate dopamine hit, dude. You get to rape and pillage the Wall Street a little bit.

[Jamie]

Meanwhile, I would say I would go long. I would go long. Fertilizer producers, companies like Mosaic, Ticker, mos, You know, you could also look at nutrient which is I think ntr. There's also a company down in Argentina, Ticker is almost agro. They just recently did a secondary tether was the biggest buyer into that. So interesting to see how tether is diversifying their resources. But you know, obviously the knock on effects from oil price spiking and oil not being, you know, available impacts, petrochemicals, impacts the fertilizer supply chain, and, you know, people paying for the nose for fertilizer. So it's not just driving, it's not just airplanes, it's not just travel. It's actually people being able to eat.

[Amateo]

I'd love to jump in on bitcoin bouncing while global uncertainty peaks. You know, and just to accompany what you're saying, Gary, you know, I was reading a few exposts from some of the Bitcoin OGs, like Willy Woo, et cetera, and everyone is literally saying, you know, bitcoin is going down to US$45 to 54,000. That seems to be the range of the people saying that we haven't bottomed yet. And obviously there are a few people in this group chat, including myself, who do not believe that that will be the actual outcome. And as you guys know, the reason why I'm very bullish bitcoin as well is that since the war actually started, which is February 28th, so we're talking about just over a month today, a month and two days. I'm really, really impressed by how, and we talked about this last week, Dave, but how bitcoin has started decoupling from the S&P 500, has been decoupling from the Nasdaq, has been decoupling from Russell 2000, and it's actually outperformed gold as well. In a period where you would assume that gold should recover, obviously there was a very strong bull run and it makes sense that there's consolidation. But all these factors are sending, at least to me, bullish signals. And even the way people are framing things, and obviously we have bitcoin pretty much defined like a store of value or the digital gold. But you know what I really like these days, Scott, is the way the institutions are pitching bitcoin to their clients and customers and investors, and they're calling it more of a non governmental currency. And I always said back in the day that obviously bitcoin does share traits of digital gold with its mining, with its whole incentive layer, with its finite supply, et cetera, et cetera. But the fact that people are starting to see this as a non governmental currency or an apolitical form of asset or apolitical store of value, I think that narrative is very, very enticing right now. And even though bitcoin still kind of acts like a growth tech stock, still volatile, despite us believers really thinking that this is the ultimate play, but all these factors of narratives, I think they're playing a huge amount and I was very happy as well since the war started to see some of the bitcoin whales that have over 1,000 bitcoin per wallet who were selling across the year last year, starting to accumulate again. So I think some of the OGs are coming back. And yeah, everything is a narrative, obviously, and the stories are what make us act as much as we want to be as pragmatic and rational as possible. We are creatures of emotions and habits. So I just thought this was an interesting way of seeing how bitcoin can outperform and hopefully we'll keep the trend that it's had since February 28th.

[Jamie]

Yeah,

[Scott]

I think it's a ghost.

[Dave]

Yeah, you can never tell.

[Alex]

I.

[Dave]

Meanwhile, we haven't talked about anything about crypto because we're all kind of fascinated by war. But there is another war going on, one that Carlo talks about all the time. So in terms of the government and this whole, the food fight going on over the Clarity act, over what language there is vis a vis yield on stablecoins and, you know, does it really matter? I mean, I understand the point. I get it. And frankly, all I care about is that companies that want to develop in the crypto ecosystem, whether it's for bitcoin or anything else, will be able to have their compliance department say, okay, here's what you can do. So you're not going to go to jail and know that there's no risk that a future SEC or CFTC is going to say, no, no, no, this is wrong and we're going to prosecute you that. Honestly, it's hard to. For me to evaluate whether getting a bad bill is better than no bill. But what is absolutely certain is that the impact of money in politics is. Is on. On total display here. And it's fascinating. If it wasn't for the war, people would be. This would be. There'd be screaming matches about this. But, you know, it's pretty hard to focus and get that worked up about something when you have all these other things going on. Okay, now I see two hands. I think I saw Amateo first and then Carlo.

[Alex]

I want to take something around the world of banking and tokenized assets and some experience I had. But I think Carlo will speak more directly to your main point here, Dave. So I'll let him go first.

[Dave]

Go ahead. May as well finish your thought.

[Alex]

Okay, so thank you. I just spent Last week at EY's Global Blockchain Summit in New York. It was a great event. And just a couple takeaways here. It's Very clear that these institutions, the major banks, the clearing firms, they have different thoughts on the Clarity Act. But the big thing is that they're not waiting. I talked to many people from the Ethereum foundation to policymakers, and this was the biggest unanimous consent that I that anyone had ever seen. I think people who are at Digital Assets Summit also saw this too. That the biggest financial institutions in the world have decided that these rails are the future and that they are not waiting for policy to build on them. They are getting it very equipped to tackle the two biggest things that are in the way of this, which is privacy and compliance. But they're working very diligently to satisfy these things. And I think that while there was a lot of infighting this weekend between like ZK and Canton and all of these different networks, it's very clear that the future of this is going to be a series of different layer twos and interoperable networks that are powering bringing over 100 trillion on chain. And this isn't about a how are we going to do it. This wasn't if these things were there. We'll make the leap. This is the, we're building it, it's happening. And you know, maybe the conspiracy theorist in me would say like the market feels like if maybe it's being held down a little bit in order to catalyze this. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But. But ultimately I think they've got better things to do and the things they are doing is building. And a couple of sentiment shifts that happened was that they no longer are viewing blockchain as some new financial innovation. They just view it as financial instruments and technology and they just want the tech. They're going to use the tech. And I had to dig into like why is this, why, why is it a complete paradigm shift? Why are they all in on this? And why is it going to primarily settle on eth. And the real reality of this is pretty clear. They want to tokenize all of the world's assets to turn them into collateral. And they want to open up the entire world of collateral on everything that can be turned into value. The only way to do that in a safe and verifiable way is on chain. And then they want to power the lending market using all of this verifiable collateral to basically 10x to 50x the actual lending market by making assets liquid. So I think we've talked a lot about the power of rwas becoming tokenized and becoming liquid, but it's really the collateral piece and the opportunity for them to profit on the lending market, which is motivating the innovation and the investment into it. It's pretty wild to see. And it was, it was, you know, while, while all of this stuff is happening, this is what's happening behind the scenes. And I'm sure Scott has, has some good advantage perspectives on this too. But it is moving and it's moving very quickly with a whole different mindset than we've ever seen before.

[Scott]

Carlo?

[Carlin]

Yeah, you know, I put out a piece this morning talking about this little word salad game that's being played right now by the sector players, the banks, and we'll just call it Coinbase because that's been kind of the leading voice on the crypto side of all this, have been fighting over how to exactly define when yield crosses over from rewards and becomes a threat to bank deposits. And I think the problem is the semantics of this wording. What exactly is, quote, economic equivalence? And my position in what I put out this morning is it's sort of a trap because the regulatory hammer when it comes to violating the Genius act is pretty robust. And when you are trying to Dave's point, from a compliance and legal risk standpoint, trying to advise a fintech or a crypto native platform on how they can play at the bleeding edges of this, you're kind of left with the same crap we had to put up with back in the Howie days where the best answer you can give is it depends. And I think that's probably baked into this on purpose because it gives the banks a hedge against further innovation that pushes those limits. It still pisses me off that we haven't seen the actual text of this rewrite. I it, it really bothers me and I guess it's the way it always has gone. But for some reason in this particular instance, it really bothers me that you have sector players on both sides, the banks and in the crypto, who get to have all this backdoor back and forth and get to see these backdoor revisions and the consumer is still in the dark as to what the hell we're talking about going into an April break with this notion that this thing is supposed to pass in May. And you know, they're going to drop this last minute and people aren't going to have much time to debate it and it's going to get done. And also you should note that the OCC comment period for the regulations related to the Genius act, the bank lobby is pushing to push that off until July, which is right on the cusp of when this whole thing is supposed to go live. So they want to open the comment period and extend the comment period even longer so they can continue to shore up their monopoly and protect their moat. And again, I think we've lost the narrative here on both sides of this debate.

[Dave]

I don't think my, my hot take on that, Carlo, is I don't think there is a narrative on the debate. I think that the, the larger, I mean, coinbase certainly is more interested in their revenue than anything else at this point because they kind of see what the SEC and CFTC are doing and know that, that their business isn't really going to be impacted. I think that, that the banks are, are doing what the banks always do, which is every single manner of delaying tactic. And all of this is just delaying tactics. And you know, it's all in a, in a world where nobody expects to get anything done in Congress, literally to have a two year congressional holiday because once the midterms happen and we have what's called gridlock in Washington, in older times when we had gridlock in Washington, which means the President is different than the party in Congress, some things could get done, but with today's tribalism, it's hard to imagine because everyone will be, it'll literally be a two full year election cycle for 2028. And so with all of that, what happens? The answer is nothing. And so this is just basically a. If it were basketball before the shot clock. This is the four corners. This is the delay until we can stop anything from happening. And everybody has their reasons for doing that. So I mean, look, it really depends. I think the CFTC and SEC can get their shit together and make things much better anyway, but who the hell knows? It depends on who wins in 28 and where things go. But from an entrepreneurial point of view, it will have a chilling effect. There's no doubt. From a big bank point of view, they feel like they could go in. They have no risk adopting the technology. The risk is all in people who want to have tokens, right? And I can't tell, you know, I think I saw Amateo's hand go up as well. But I think that, remember what the risk is here, and this is, people have to remember this, is that if all the institutions come in and start using blockchains and doing everything they want to do, none of them are going to. They have no interest, no issue whatsoever in creating tokens to raise capital because they don't need it. They're just interested in making Money and they'll use blockchains that might require some use of tokens. They don't care as long as it doesn't get too expensive. But what does that mean for crypto? Well, it means that models that are assuming this big wall of institutional total assets are going to flow into their favorite blockchain probably won't happen. It means that niche products that are growing or ones or new ecosystems, well, that can matter and it does so outside of Bitcoin and potentially Ethereum, I guess, although I don't really understand that. And maybe Solana, I don't know, you know, and you could go down the list, but it's not good for the crypto overall crypto market cap outside of bitcoin.

[Carlin]

And add to that, David, it's also invites the same problems we had last cycle where when you have unclear frameworks and ambiguity as to defining terms like this, you're going to have litigation, of course, you're going to have enforcement actions and then you're going to have people going offshore to try to build new and more creative things in other jurisdictions.

[Dave]

We've never seen that happen before.

[Carlin]

Right, exactly. And that's what frustrates me about this man. And again, the fact that we're still in closed door phase of this. Why, why can't the public see what the hell's in the rewrite?

[Dave]

That's like when my wife asked me a question I don't want to answer because I'm not supportive of it. So it's like it makes no sense, it's illogical. But we're sitting in a world where Bitcoin is literally in the dead center of its recent range, where the whole world is kind of looking at every possible excuse to increase government control. And so the one thing that should unify people is this. But no one feels unified or whatever when they're terrified and, or uncertain. There are a lot of people who aren't afraid. But look, the stuff that we've seen going on, it makes it very hard to have commentary.

[Jamie]

Right.

[Dave]

I'd much rather be talking about a pathway for tokens that have real value to reward token holders, users. But that's not going to happen without an act. That's the one thing that's not going to happen. You're not going to see the people running. I'll pick on them now, why not Chainlink saying okay, we now have clarity here. Is this token. 20% of all revenues made by nodes will go to a pool for token holders as opposed to. Well, we're Going to kind of have this nebulous thing where sometimes, whatever it's like, until you can have that, that's when you start understanding and you can start to value. Until you can model the value of tokens, I don't think we go anywhere in pretty much any of these things.

[Carlin]

That has to happen. I mean, that has to happen for these tokens.

[Dave]

Yeah, we've been saying that for years. And honestly, if you told me that a year and a half into this administration, we still don't have any. We still don't have regulatory clarity, and we're now mired in a war that is fracturing every coalition, causing people not to care, and we may very well have midterm elections where crypto money is irrelevant, literally irrelevant, which this war has the possibility of doing. It tells you that the banks could be able to continue to run their playbook. Look, I work for banks for a very long time, right? And I understand the playbook. It doesn't mean. What we saw after the Internet bubble popped was a few big players come in, et cetera, but the total value that was created by the Internet for every vertical that it touched was huge. And the total value of Internet companies was huge, but they just weren't the ones that were there in the first place. Not necessarily. Some of them are through mergers. But it took a long time. I mean, it was the better part of. Of a decade before it became serious outperformers. And so. And you know, of course, the following decade, they exploded. Now, I'm not saying we have a dead 10 years coming in crypto. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is it could take longer than you think. And that's why the market is reacting the way it's marketing. So, I mean, that's my thought. Jamie.

[Mike]

Hey, Dave. Hey, Scott. Hi, guys. Yeah, so, like, just to maybe interject a little bit of optimism into, you know, overall sentiment, I mean, you know, listen, the fundamentals haven't changed, you know, in the bitcoin network. You know, regardless of price, the network's still strong. You know, the overall markets haven't nuked. You know, I mean, Bitcoin declined 25 and 30% before the Iran conflict. So I mean, that's not really alarming for people who are, you know, been through multiple cycles. You know, people just entered recently. You know, maybe not sure or not used to this, but this, trust me, this is not something that's unusual. You know, I mean, and like the crypto infrastructure like that we just discussed for the financial system, it's, it's never been more optimistic, you know, so you know, people may just have to, when you don't have a clear winner, you may just have to position a little more broadly and, and kind of play it out that way. But a lot of times, you know, I mean the bottom line is until this Iran conflict and the straight of humus supply flows is resolved, you know, projecting where the bitcoin or border market is going to be, it's going to be almost impossible. So that's like really where we need to just kind of focus and sometimes sitting on our hands is the best trade we can do. A lot of people have activity bias and want to find something to do, you know, but sometimes just holding back, waiting and positioning for dip and lower opportunities with strong assets that you believe in and, and haven't changed fundamentally can be something that is beneficial to investors. So I, you know, I'm optimistic. I, you know, I think everything that we've talked about is long term bullish and in the near term we just need to be patient.

[Dave]

Rich.

[Rich]

Wow, guys, this has been a depressing call man. We, we really need to try, try a bit harder to be, to be optimistic. I mean we're kicking ourselves while we're down. Look, I mean I haven't been here for the full duration of bitcoin cycle and I know everybody always reverts back to bitcoin only because it's the safest thing to talk about. But you know, we've faced the biggest headwinds in the last nine years without having anything pro crypto like we have right now. And you know, personally I'll be buying when I think the market starts to bottom, looking at what the new breed of ecosystems and projects that are, that are around at the moment. I mean you've got, we've spoken about Canton. I think Layer Zero is another very interesting team and project. It can't just be a bitcoin only thing. I mean there's just, there's too much at stake here. And I agree. You know, Dave, you've said this and I think even Mike McGlone always looks at the Doge factor, that a lot of these market valuations of these coins needs to be decimated before we really can be taken seriously or move out of this historical phase of crypto. But yeah man, I'm a firm believer that everybody's down in the doldrums. I mean a war doesn't help and we've been through this time and time again. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to picking up some, some value in a lot of these, these crypto altcoins, let's call them, that really hit rock bottom.

[Dave]

Sorry, I was just confirming my doctor's appointment for later today. Jamie, is that a phantom hand or a new hand?

[Mike]

That's a phantom.

[Dave]

Okay, so I kind of think we're, we're, we're, you know, not trying to depress people, but we're in a waiting period. I mean, I don't want to go down the Mike McGlone rabbit hole with dogecoin and everything else. I think that when times are good, people will get excited and then the cycle fades and then real value reemerges, et cetera. It goes around and around and around. But one of the things that you always have to remember in assets are a company can fade and then they go bankrupt because they can't. They have a carrying cost. A token, once established has no carrying cost. That's why FTT doesn't have a zero value, because people are like, well, it's not worth enough for me to sell it, which of course is silly if you think about it, it's $100 million in value or whatever, then obviously there's value there, but it's so dispersed. You got a lot of that in crypto. I don't think that that's terribly meaningful. That's just money. That's basically people have written off already and, you know, if something shows up, it'll be there. I think we all probably own. I think I still have some smoking chicken fish tokens lying around someplace I haven't looked in a while. But, you know, but that's the point. You know, the point is, is that it. To me, that's, that's a bullshit argument. What's a real argument is the is. Is when you start talking about real size tokens and value and, and there's no way to model it, and people really don't know what they are. And so, you know, we'll. We'll see. That's not going to change. And it certainly isn't going to change when a period of global uncertainty. So, you know, when Gary was talking before, I mean, look, there's truth there. There's a lot of economic actors that are on the verge of being badly hurt unless something changes. And I think people are generally more optimistic weirdly than they are pessimistic because we've seen it. You know, I asked the question this morning on our show. You know, we were the exact series of events that have happened over the last week we were told two weeks ago would result in oil at 150. But it's not. And ask yourself why. I think people are generally more optimistic, except when it comes to politics, because we all understand there we're screwed, right? There's too much money being involved and too little integrity in D.C. at least. And so, yeah, that's the situation we're in. But there are some hopeful signs. There's been a lot of very good news. I mean, a lot of what, what. What Matteo was talking, Amatea was talking about is true. There's going to be a lot of utility, but we'll see anyway. Jamie, is that. Is that. Is that a new hand or a phantom? Because I'll ask.

[Mike]

No, these are all phantoms. I agree with what you're saying. Yeah, 100%.

[Dave]

Okay, well, in that case, if anyone, anyone has something else to say. Scott's gone. I'm going to a doctor's appointment in a little while. Just a annual checkup, but it means I'm fasting, so I'm ornery, so I don't feel like sitting on here any longer.

[Jamie]

We'll say goodbye to hangry, Dave.

[Dave]

Yeah, well, not. I'm trying. Not. I've done a good job of not acting hangry so far. Right, guys? Anyway, have a great day. We will see you on Wednesday. Hopefully we'll have a little bit more clarity on what's going on and we can maybe have a more of a crypto focused discussion. That would certainly be better, I think, but take care.

[Mike]

Thanks, Dave. Have a great day.