Bitcoin & Crypto PUMP As Jane Street Collapses! Is the Bottom Finally In?

Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: The Wolf Of All Streets
Host: Scott Melker
Guest: JP Richardson (CEO, Exodus Wallet)
Date: February 26, 2026
Episode Title: Bitcoin & Crypto PUMP As Jane Street Collapses! Is the Bottom Finally In?

In this episode, Scott Melker dives deep with JP Richardson (CEO of Exodus Wallet) to make sense of Bitcoin’s recent surge, the fallout from Jane Street’s collapse, and whether the infamous crypto winter has finally ended. The conversation covers broad market sentiment, macro catalysts, regulatory drama, institutional adoption, and the evolution (and woes) of retail participation. The two also reflect on JP’s personal journey, his company’s public offering drama, and the changing power dynamics between Wall Street, regulators, and crypto natives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Market Overview: Relief Rally or Dead Cat Bounce?

• Bitcoin Price Action ([00:47])
  • Bitcoin’s price improvement lifts spirits, but there’s skepticism about how real the momentum is:
    "Let's be honest, we haven't really seen that much movement here, but it was nice to once again see a bit of a rebound when price was being pushed down." – Scott Melker, [00:47]
• Bottom In, or More Pain Ahead? ([01:50], [02:35])
  • Citing metrics and prevailing narratives, Scott and JP review signals of a market bottom versus the risk of further dumps.
  • "I don't think the bottom is in. I think that we could still wick down to 40 and, or in the 40s." – JP Richardson, [03:36]
  • JP sees the possibility of a sharp but brief drop, calling any such wick "the buying opportunity of the century" ([04:35]).

2. Drivers of the Next Move: Macro, AI, and the Money Printer

• AI Scare and Market Correlations ([03:50])
  • JP discusses how AI-induced layoffs could force traditional markets (and by extension, crypto) lower before a final bottom, expecting that "once the traditional markets continue to catch up, man. I think bitcoin can still wick down" ([04:20]).
• Money Printer & Election Cycle ([05:41])
  • Recession and unemployment may prompt more money printing, supporting risk assets as elections near.

3. Wall Street & Institutional Adoption

• Big Banks Entering Crypto ([06:19])

  • Scott runs through headline news: Morgan Stanley, Citi, and others ramping up bitcoin trading, lending, custody, and yield products.
  • "All the things we could have ever been asking for, dying for, hoping for are happening. And price is just Jalen." – Scott Melker, [06:59]

• Strategic Bitcoin Reserve & Public Sector Adoption ([06:59])

  • JP highlights 2025’s creation of a government-style strategic bitcoin reserve. While no bitcoin has yet been deposited, he sees it as a bullish signal, speculating on creative ways governments could end up with coins:
    "They're going to put bitcoin in it eventually. And I think that they will find creative ways to acquire bitcoin without using taxpayer money." – JP Richardson, [07:49]

• Volatility: Not Just for Crypto Anymore ([08:25])

  • Even “safe haven” assets like gold and silver saw historic crashes, showing that volatility is everywhere:
    "There is no asset that is safe. Exactly." – JP Richardson, [09:19]

4. This Bear Market vs. Past Downturns

• Recency Bias ([09:19])

  • Scott argues that today's bear market, though painful, pales in comparison to earlier cycles (e.g., the 87% drawdown in 2011). Now, we have ETFs and institutions—big improvements from the Mt. Gox era.
  • "Now we have governments here, we have institutions that are here. Bitcoin has an ETF, right? And multiple ETFs." – JP Richardson, [10:02]

• ETF Narrative and Institutional Buying ([10:02])

  • Some now criticize ETFs for being “derivatives” not tied to real Bitcoin, yet, for JP, it’s about enabling easier institutional access.

5. Exodus’ IPO and Regulatory Headwinds ([11:01])

• The “Genslered” Story ([11:31])

  • JP recounts Exodus preparing to ring the NYSE bell in May 2024, only to be blocked by Gary Gensler/SEC at the last minute.
  • This event pushed JP into political activism and ultimately into telling his story to Donald Trump.
    "On May 8, we got a call that said, nope, nope, you're not. You're not gonna. You're not gonna ring the bell." – JP Richardson, [11:31]

• Politics and Crypto: Reluctant Marriage ([13:53])

  • "I never wanted this industry to be political… but I felt that moment in time. I had no choice." – JP Richardson, [13:58]

• Tokenizing Equity & Treasury Management ([14:12])

  • Scott notes the contrast between companies like Exodus (profitable, buy Bitcoin for treasury) and those without sustainable business models.
  • JP discusses taking a loan against Bitcoin for acquisition, then quickly paying it off to avoid risk:
    "We took a loan on our bitcoin and as markets got rockier, I'm like, shit, we got to get out of this loan." – JP Richardson, [16:35]

• Exodus’s Unique Culture

  • 100% bitcoin salaries—filters for “true believers”:
    "If you want to work at Exodus, you have to take a salary in bitcoin." – JP Richardson, [17:37]

6. Jane Street as the Crypto Boogeyman ([18:08])

• Allegations of Market Manipulation ([18:31])

  • Scott summarizes Zero Hedge’s report: Jane Street allegedly triggered the 2022 crypto winter by draining liquidity from UST/Luna, profiting while retail lost out.
  • Evidence of manipulation emerging as these firms face lawsuits and scrutiny.
  • Now, with Jane Street “on the radar,” the 10am crash pattern has stopped and prices recover:
    "We have a boogeyman. Everything's getting better. Was that it?" – Scott Melker, [20:43]

• Retail's Raw Deal ([20:46], [22:20])

  • JP sympathizes with retail bagholders and, though critical of SEC leadership, respects the idea of retail protection:
    "One Aspect, whereas like retail holding the bag like that just sucks." – JP Richardson, [21:05]

  • Predicts a new all-time high for Bitcoin in fall 2026, but expects downside first:
    "I think that we hit bitcoin all time highs this fall." – JP Richardson, [22:20]

7. Catalysts, Speculation, and the Evolution of Crypto Participation

• What Drives Bull Runs? ([22:32], [25:18])

  • The need for a story or villain—sometimes “just needing someone to blame” becomes the catalyst.
  • Past cycles driven by Doge, meme coins, and NFTs—not Bitcoin itself. This cycle’s ETFs are institution-focused, not retail/speculator bait:
    "This time it's ETFs. Like it's, that's not the thing that's going to get the gamblers and speculators…" – Scott Melker, [25:18]

• Prediction Markets: The New Casino? ([26:19])

  • JP and Scott suggest that online prediction markets may have overtaken meme coins and NFTs as the primary outlet for speculative retail energy: "Now you can go speculate on the weather 24 7, 365… and you don't need to go like, find a meme coin to flip." – Scott Melker, [26:30]

• Will Meme Coins and NFTs Return? ([27:18])

  • JP posits that meme coins will only return if they have real utility (e.g. fan tokens with perks).
  • Scott foresees a return of speculation in some form (fan tokens, utility NFTs), but questions if the "Web3" buzzword has already faded ([28:10]):
    "Do you hear anyone say Web3 anymore?"

8. AI, Automation, and the Future of Apps

• AI Agents in Everyday Life ([28:23])
  • Light banter about integrating personal AI agents into daily workflows—named "Athena" by Scott’s wife.
  • Security caution ("No, we haven't given it access to literally anything…").
• Exodus’ Product Vision ([30:02])
  • JP shares Exodus’ mission: replace multiple finance apps (bank, Venmo, brokerage, etc.) with a single, simple self-custody crypto wallet, abstracting complexity for real-world users:
    "On top of that, no crypto complexity… what's super important is with where we're going, you shouldn't have to worry about addresses. L1, L2, who cares… and still have all the cool and power and control that self custody brings you." – JP Richardson, [30:02]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I don't think the bottom is in. I think we could still wick down to 40...But I think it would be fast and furious and the buying opportunity of the century." – JP Richardson, [03:36]
• "All the things we could have ever been asking for, dying for, hoping for are happening. And price is just Jalen." – Scott Melker, [06:59]
• "We pay 100% of our salaries in bitcoin. So if you want to work at Exodus, you have to take a salary in bitcoin." – JP Richardson, [17:37]
• On getting “Genslered”:
  "On May 8, we got a call that said, nope, nope, you're not. You're not gonna. You're not gonna ring the bell." – JP Richardson [11:31]
  "I never wanted this industry to be political… But I felt that moment in time I had no choice." – JP Richardson, [13:58]
• "We have a boogeyman. Everything's getting better. Was that it?" – Scott Melker, [20:43]
• "Do you hear anyone say Web3 anymore?" – Scott Melker, [28:10]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:47] – Price action and market morale
• [01:50–04:42] – Bottom in? Macro, AI, and market signals
• [06:19–07:49] – Institutional adoption and the strategic bitcoin reserve
• [09:19–10:02] – Comparing bear markets: then vs. now
• [11:31–13:58] – Exodus’s failed NYSE debut, regulatory drama, and politics
• [14:12–17:37] – Treasury management, bitcoin loans, and Exodus culture
• [18:31–20:46] – Jane Street’s alleged manipulation and current market impact
• [22:20–25:18] – Catalyst hunting and the nature of bull markets
• [26:19–27:18] – Prediction markets, meme coins, and retail speculation
• [28:23–30:02] – AI in daily life and Exodus’s product vision

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Episode Flow & Tone

• The conversation is irreverent, slightly irreverent, yet filled with behind-the-scenes insight and dark market humor.
• Both speakers balance long-term faith in crypto with caution and realism, especially about retail pain and institutional adaptation.
• The tone moves swiftly between banter (Bee Gees, karaoke, AI agents) and sober market analysis.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode delivers a historical lens on today’s market moves, candid industry tales (like getting “Genslered”), an explainer on Jane Street’s alleged role as the market’s current villain, and critical insights into where both retail and institutional participants stand. Scott and JP argue that core fundamentals for crypto have never been stronger—despite a lack of retail fanfare, meme coin mania, or flashy new trends. For serious builders, holders, and speculators, this episode is both an encouragement and a reality check.

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Skip the ads, roll past the karaoke, and let this episode be your guide to the state of the market in early 2026.

Transcript

[A]

Bitcoin and crypto are finally showing some upside pumping. A bit. After the market has given us the enemy and boogeyman we needed in Jane Street. Now that we have someone to blame for everything bad that's happened to us for the past three years, the market can finally go up. Is it just that simple? I don't think so. But I have one of the most experienced, intelligent guests in the crypto and bitcoin space, say JP Richardson from Exodus Wallet to unpack the all of it. We're gonna get going right now. Let's go, let's go,

[B]

Let's go.

[A]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the show. I hope that you're having a wonderful Thursday. I know it feels a lot better when bitcoin is at the high, high price of 60 instead of the low low price of 67. 500. Let's be honest, we haven't really seen that much movement here, but it was nice to once again see a bit of a rebound when price was being pushed down. I'm gonna go ahead and bring on JP Richardson and we're gonna talk about it live. Man. First of all, like you had the rare opportunity to show up today and we were listening to the Bee Gees. Oh, yeah, yeah, we made it super weird for you.

[B]

Disco Night Fever

[A]

gives like go that

[B]

high, so I'll let you do that one.

[A]

Oh, whatever, man. You know, I know, I know. I'm fine. I. I know you can. That's, that's.

[B]

Give me, give me a mic and a karaoke machine and I'm going to be singing Backstreet Bat is back all night. So. So you're right again.

[A]

Which is a great Coinbase ad apparently. But. So first of all, let's talk about.

[B]

You're right, you're right.

[A]

That was so funny. The super blood Bitcoin approaches 70,000. Appetite returns to crypto. Okay, yeah, whatever. We all saw that. We had a bounce a lot of people, which we'll get into talking about the fact that Jane street now maybe has some scrutiny on them and isn't selling our beloved coins every single day at 10am but we'll get into that in a second. I want to talk more about the broad strokes. There's a great tweet here from Alex Thorne over galaxy that aligns very much with kind of what I've been thinking and saying. The big, the worst bitcoin pain is almost certainly behind us, but there could still be some ahead case for behind us. 200ma, half the coins underwater, RSI capitulation, bottom levels Many other metrics screaming bottom. I mean, we have bitcoin going to zero, like Google searches at an all time high, right. I mean, it's absurd. And then of course, all the negative stuff is sort of like macro or we just breed lower, bleed lower, I guess. Right. Now what are you thinking, broad strokes for where the market's at, having been through so many cycles.

[B]

Oh my gosh. I mean, you said it best. I mean, we've been through so many cycles, I started paying attention to this basin. So 2011. And, and look, like every, every bear market, I think hurts a little less, but it still hurts. And, and, and you get to a point where you're no longer checking the price. Like you were in the bull markets, right? You're in a bull market, you might be sitting down with your wife having dinner and pull up your phone, look at the prices like, oh my gosh, bitcoin's up, you know, 7% in the last two hours. It feels great, right? You're checking all the time and now you don't even open your phone.

[A]

So I think the big signal is that we have wives in bull markets.

[B]

I know, that's true. That's true. And our wives don't. Yeah, there's a lot of jokes. I'm gonna leave those out for right now.

[A]

Me too. They might be listening.

[B]

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So, so, so look, like are, is, is the bottom in? That's what I think everybody, everybody wants to know. And look, if I could predict it, that'd be the million dollar answer, right? But I don't think the bottom is in. I think that we could still wick down to 40 and, or in the 40s. And the reason for that is, I mean, look, everybody's seeing what, what we're referring to as the AI scare, right? That AI is coming in and it's eating up these SaaS companies. And Bitcoin ultimately, I think, becomes the bellwether for a lot of these things because it's such a global liquid asset. And so, yeah, we see these price movements happen in advance, but once the traditional markets continue to catch up, the equity markets catch up, man. I think bitcoin can still wick down

[A]

into the 40s, but it could definitely happen too. But I think it would be fast and furious in the buying opportunity of the century. Oh, it's.

[B]

Look, right now it's the buying opportunity of a century. I mean, I, I think, like, so it's not all grim and bad. I mean, here's the thing. Bitcoin wicks down to 40 in the, in the traditional markets start getting, you know, sliced and diced and you know, and let's say, let's say that the AI scare is real. Let's say that companies all over the tech space, let's say they just start laying off en masse because they got, now the CEOs are writing code with Claude code and I'm one of them, right? Code.

[A]

We, we've got a, we've got our little open claw girl, right?

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah, you got, you got open claw. We got cloud, cloud code set up over here. Open call over here. Yeah. So, so once you start seeing things like that and you start having more unemployment all across the United States and we have, oh, we have those midterm elections coming up. You know what's going to happen? You know what's going to happen?

[A]

Put the, start, start pumping the, pumping the gas on that money printer.

[B]

That's right. Money printer gonna go burr, baby. They will, they will not stop printing that money. Everybody's gonna feel it. It's, it's gonna be a, it's gonna be wild to watch.

[A]

So, yeah, listen, I think while price is depressed, what's always interesting in the depths of a bear market is that you get constant good news, but none of it resonates with investors or traders and nobody buys it on the price. And I think you look back when prices are high and go, wow, that was really important. Right? And you have a lot of things that happen like that. I mean, we've got Morgan Stanley's Amy Oldenberg here. I think she's talking with Fong from strategy who's wearing some pretty fire like Jordans.

[B]

Look at those shoes.

[A]

I literally just saw the video. I was like, hey, I don't know if they're red like in the original Jordan color or if they're orange to match the tie. It's hard for me to tell, but they're fire anyways that Morgan Stanley's coming with bitcoin, trading, lending, yield custody in the future. I think we knew that. But then you have, you know, 2.5 trillion. Citibank announced it will integrate bitcoin this year. Quote, we're making bitcoin bank bankable. Then you have, you know, the SEC saying they're going to start to put the genius rules into practice here. I mean, all the things we could have ever been asking for, dying for, hoping for are happening. And price is just Jalen.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. And not to mention, I know a lot of people are going to poo poo this but, but not to mention the creation of the strategic bitcoin reserve in 2025. And I know a lot of people look at that. They're like, oh, it's a bunch of. Because we just, they just created the strategic bitcoin reserve, but they didn't actually put bitcoin in it. Okay, give. It's the governor, it's the government and the pace that they're going to move at sometimes it's going to take some time, but they're going to put bitcoin in it eventually. And I think that they will find creative ways to acquire bitcoin without using taxpayer money. And so that alone should be a really bullish indicator right there.

[A]

Yeah, I agree. And I mean, they haven't bought any bitcoin to put in there, but we have very creative ways of taking it from people.

[B]

Well, like you're, you're absolutely right. Right.

[A]

You go over to Thailand or Cambodia, wherever they had the pig slaughtering, butchering, whatever they do to the pigs over there, and it was like, ah, a hundred thousand bitcoin.

[B]

Well, that. And then you probably heard with, when, when they went in and they, they, they got Maduro and then there was, there was claims that Maduro had, I think like what, $50 billion worth of Bitcoin. Where's that bitcoin at?

[A]

Strategic bitcoin reserve.

[B]

It might, it might, it might be making its way to the strategic bitcoin reserve at, at some moment in time. Yeah, but look, I was going to say, but look like, you know, with, with everything that's happening and you know, gold continues to hit all time high. But like, we take a step back and we look at, look at the price of gold, look at the price of silver. Look what happened a few weeks ago when the price of silver dropped 30% in one day. Gold dropped 13% in one day. I mean, these are supposed to be incredibly stable assets, but these kind of price drops that happened in one day, I think signals and should signal to investors all over that volatility is here to stay and there is no asset that is safe. Exactly.

[A]

Dude. I kept saying it. I was like, I guess it's really depressing. When bitcoin, it was at the time 51%. Maybe we've gone down 53 or 54 from top to bottom now, but I think Silver did 47% in nine days. And I didn't hear people screaming about the depressing silver bear market. We go down 47% and the world is literally ending. Recency bias. This is the worst bear Market of all history. I would love your take on that because I keep hearing it now, which to me it just means we're close to a bottom that anyone who is here in 2022 can possibly think that this is the worst bear market. You were here for Mount Gox, for fuck's sake. Like that's 2014, right? That had to be much worse than prices down. But institutions and governments are coming in, which is our bear market now. Like, boohoo.

[B]

That's absolutely right. I mean, like, look, if you go back to one of the very first bear markets, what was it, the 2011 timeframe or so, and I think the decrease was roughly 87%. I mean, that's just insane. And so to your point, now we have governments here, we have institutions that are here. Bitcoin has an ETF, right? And multiple ETFs. So the institutions can get in and out of bitcoin with ease. And look, I've heard people, people over the last couple weeks talk about, now they're poo pooing the, the whole aspect of, of an etf, right, because they're, they're kind of referring to it as a derivative on Bitcoin. But the aspect is, is like here you, here you have institutions that are finally interested and yeah, they don't see it with the same way that you and I and, and the viewers see it. Right, but, but they're still here and they're interested and they're buying.

[A]

So I want to talk about your experience because now we're talking about institutions and Wall street and all these things and you guys pretty much were just first at all of that. Right? So I mean, what are the big narratives right now going public? Right? Everybody's going to IPO. So you did that when 2024.

[B]

We.

[A]

Well, you were actually already listed, but in 2024. Right.

[B]

Okay, so are you aware of what happened in, in May of 2024 with, with the NYSE and SEC? It's an interesting story.

[A]

I would love to hear it. I am not sure that I am actually.

[B]

Okay, okay, so here's what, here's what happened early 2024. We, you know, we submitted all the paperwork and everything to, to actually list on the New York Stock Exchange. New York Stock Exchange. Everything checked out, everything was good. Got invited out to list. Ring the bell. Ring the bell. May 9, 2024. We invited 130 friends, family, employees to come celebrate the big moment. Celebrate American dream, right? Taking a company public, ringing the bell. Sure enough, our, our friend Gary Gendler had Different plans for what was going to happen for crypto. And so on May 8, we got a call that said, nope, nope, you're not. You're not gonna. You're not gonna ring the bell. You're not going to. You're not gonna list on the New York Stock Exchange.

[A]

Nothing.

[B]

It's. It's completely off. And so that was. That was actually the start of my journey into politics, into actually supporting President Trump, into actually having dinner with him in Trump Tower, telling him the story. So, yeah, it's been. It's been a wild ride.

[A]

So are you the one who got him to say fire Gary Gensler twice in. In Nashville?

[B]

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. I actually. I hadn't met him yet. At that moment or. No, no, that's not.

[A]

You told me that story when we sat down. I remembered it as you were telling it to me. I mean, it's insane.

[B]

I will. I will. That moment. I remember when he said that moment or said that statement, that moment is a moment I will treasure probably forever for the rest of my life. And I felt like he was speaking to my heart because of exactly what happened.

[A]

Like, I. Back then, I used to, like, say that we needed to turn Gensler into a verb. You know, you got Genslered, and, like, you literally got Gensler worse than anyone.

[B]

And you know what? That's actually literally what somebody said to me. That's literally what they said. It was. It was a couple months later, and they said, jp, you got Gendler. This is. This is political, so you should consider going political. That's literally what somebody said to me. And I was like, whoa.

[A]

I. I never.

[B]

I never wanted this industry to be political.

[A]

Right.

[B]

This was. This is an asset class that is for Democrats and Republicans alike. It's for everybody, not just Republicans. And I never wanted to be political, but I felt that moment in time. I had no choice.

[A]

Yeah. I think that most people who ended up political in this industry did it because it was a matter of survival. It certainly was for you. So how did you end up, though, still, you know, with Gensler sort of around, you know, I guess December 2024, I guess it was kind of that lame duck period. Right. So you guys were able to get public. But I was gonna say, so you've got. You know, we have, like, tokenizing stocks. You guys were working on tokenizing your equity long before that became a big narrative. Treasury company. You guys hold Bitcoin, Right? So, like, you're the good kind, which is, you know, you have, like, money.

[B]

What does it mean, what is the good kind of. I, I personally like, I like, I like treasury companies in general. What's the good kind mean?

[A]

Like, you're. You're a business that makes money and you use that to get bitcoin instead of, like, having no underlying business and then just buying a bunch and hoping for the best. I'm not referring to strategy or some select few, by the way, that actually have a plan to, you know, buy dips. I'm talking about the, hey, we got a bunch of money. Let's buy bitcoin at the top and then wait and see if we can stay in business long enough.

[B]

Yes, absolutely. But look, look, look. Even, even. Even acquiring bitcoin over the years, it's still like, it is, it is easy to really get caught up in the narrative that, like, oh, bitcoin's gonna go up forever. It's just because it is. Bitcoin is the best capital asset to protect wealth long term. And, and so recently we actually, so we, we acquired. We acquired this company for $175 million. And because, because, yeah, no big deal. So, but because I believe that bitcoin is the best capital asset in the world, what happened is we ultimately, we took a loan. We took a loan on our bitcoin and this was, this was, this would have been in November of last year. So we took a loan on our bitcoin. I'm like, bucket, you know, bitcoin is going to continue to go up, baby. Like, and I mean, I knew there would obviously be some dips, but we took a loan on the bitcoin and as markets got rockier, I'm like, shit, we got to get out of this loan. I mean, that's just really what it was. And so we did. We just, we paid it off completely. But, you know, this is the worst move.

[A]

But I mean, rates are coming down on bitcoin loans. That's inevitable, especially when legacy comes in. And that's going to be the way to avoid the tax consequences. I mean, that's the buy, borrow, die playbook that wealthy people have used since the beginning of time. And it's just a matter of time before everybody does that. On bitcoin, you luckily, like, had a plan. If bitcoin goes down, I'll be able to pay off my loan and didn't get liquidated like a degenerate, you know.

[B]

Right, right. But it was still scary because as those. As the prices were kind of like going down, like, oh, yeah, it's like

[A]

40 LTV 55 LTV. Yeah.

[B]

I'm like, oh, you know, I'm like, we.

[A]

This is.

[B]

This is looking. This is looking a little dicey here. We. We got it. We got a. We got a bail.

[A]

Right? So. But, you know, so you guys, though. I mean, you were effectively, like, kind of the first to navigate all of this and get public and start to do all of these things that have now become, like, the big narratives for what a company can do on Wall street in crypto. And you did that all in the United States during a contentious era with a unfavorable administration.

[B]

That. And what a lot of people don't know is that we pay 100% of our salaries in bitcoin. So if. If you want to work at Exodus, you have to take a salary in bitcoin.

[A]

There's.

[B]

There's that. That's what it is. And what's beautiful about that is filters out people that are like, ah, I don't know. That sounds a little. Little. A little too uncertain for me. I was like, well, don't work in a crypto company. It's a wallet.

[A]

Yeah, that's. That checks out. That makes sense. So, listen, we got to talk about the. The boogeyman. Yep. You know, obviously, we. A lot going on here with Jane street, last I checked. Isn't that where, like, SBF cut his teeth?

[B]

Like, man, I. I saw that. I thought the same thing. I'm like, was there something weird going on back in 2022, especially with the Jane Street Tara connection? Like, a little weird.

[A]

So, yeah, two things. So the first one was obviously that sparked this entire Jane street fud, which I'm not saying is. It's. It's on. I'm not saying it's unwarranted, but we had the terraform, basically the Terra Luna bankruptcy, come out and say they're going to sue Jane street for market manipulation. We know they already had sued jump for over $4 billion for market manipulation. I guess the story has gotten a bit clearer. Zero Hedge wrote about it. I guess we could talk about this first. But Zero Hedge basically said that Jane street was behind the 2022 crypto winter to give you guys the TLDR. And basically what happened is that they removed hundreds of millions of dollars from the liquidity pool for us, which was Luna's, obviously stablecoin. Luna did the same, and then that caused it to jpeg. That caused everything to crash. And then they tried to swoop in. This all, by the way, was from an intern named Bryce Pratt, and they had a Bryce secret Chat. So this is all like between jump. It's all in the chats like on Telegram or WhatsApp or something. And then effectively they tried to swoop in and give Do Kwon an offer late to buy all of the Luna and Bitcoin basically at a massive discount, which I do not believe happened. But I guess the kicker here is that these are companies that are making. Here it goes. Here's the firm that allegedly used a private chat room to drain 235 million from a stablecoin pool before retail could react. Now generates 24 billion in trading revenue through 3/4 of 25. 10.1 billion in a single quarter more than Goldman JP Morgan Over 10% of North American equity volume lead authorized participant for the biggest Bitcoin etf. So okay, these guys obviously didn't get in trouble making a ton of money. They probably manipulated the market and helped crash it. And then now we have a whole lot of evidence or potentially coming out. I will say that they've been behind. And part of this is the mechanics I believe of the ETFs because right, if someone's trading an ETF, that has to be settled in the morning when the market opens. But basically we saw these 10am crashes every single time, like every day for months. And coincidentally now that Jane Street's on the radar, those have stopped, which a lot of people are pointing out. And the market has been able to rise. So we have a boogeyman. Everything's getting better. Was that it? I mean that was kind of the very quick tldr took too long. I mean, what do you think of all this?

[B]

It's, it's first of all like let's, let's roll back for a moment and into that 20, 22 era. And, and, and the thing that I think kills me the most throughout all this is when you have retail kind of holding the bag. And, and this is one aspect where it, it is easier and it was easy to. To on the SEC from this era. However, I am very sympathetic to their trying to protect retail and the thought of protecting retail now. And if you, if you go back to that era, right, like Anchor was, was offering, you know, Anchor was, you know, the, the pool where you could earn 20 on your dollars. And it was, it was back. And so like yeah, as a per, you're like oh, 20, that sounds awesome. Right. And so the whole, the whole calamity that happened, this is why I have, I have even though again it was very easy to on sec on Gary Gensler. This is one Aspect, whereas like retail holding the bag like that just sucks. Okay, so now we're talking about the, the Boogeyman potentially being gone. No, no, I, I think, I think people are just trying to grasp for positive news in hopes that, that bitcoin will continue to rise in the short term. Again, I think bitcoin. I actually, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go record say this. I think that we hit bitcoin all time highs this fall.

[A]

I think so too. Right before midterms election time. Yep, yep.

[B]

However, along the way in the next couple months, I still would not be surprised if we, we go back down.

[A]

Hey, do you know though? Yeah. Listen, this is the thing is every time I go on an interview, like I'm, I'm in your chair. What's going to be the catalyst? Like if, if the Clarity act didn't do it and Genius act didn't do it and strategically, what's going to be the catalyst? And I always say, like I didn't know that Silicon Valley bank would collapse and that would be the catalyst to the last bull market. Maybe it's just that we needed a heel and there's someone to blame. And now people can say, oh, I'm positive there was a reason it was down and this could be a catalyst for a rise. I mean, you know, nothing makes you look innocent, by the way, more than deleting every tweet on your entire account.

[B]

I saw that. I'm like, why would you, why, why would you do that? Like we, we know they're going to be archived. I mean, it's probably just a stupid, simple also subpoena to, to Twitter or X to get those, those tweet. It's like,

[A]

okay, no way to recover. That was gone forever. Yeah. I mean it's, it's the most ridiculous thing ever. Like if someone wants to read your tweets, it's the government.

[B]

It does, it doesn't look, it definitely doesn't look good for the folks over at Jane street, that's for sure.

[A]

Yeah. I think your point is the most important though. And, and I think it's probably the reason that people feel like this bear market has been as bad or worse than others if you're retail and why they haven't participated at all. Right. I mean you look and you really can just say that. I think that if you're a bitcoiner, it's kind of fine. You're like 50. We eat a 50% drawdown for lunch. You know, I own plenty of altcoins by the way. So I'm. When I say we, I'm. I'm in both camps.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

You know, but like if you've been an altcoin holder through all of this, you've experienced in some way, shape or form this phenomenon nonspecific to Jane street like 10 times. Like if you traded meme coins, you found out later that like one person owns 99% of the supply of that coin. Or like, you know, if you owned any of these coins from the past, you realize that some like founder made billions of dollars before even creating a product like the reverse of how you know, and Elon Musk or Bezos made their money. And you're just probably kind of sick of it. And it just feels bad because there was this whole cycle of silver and stocks and even bitcoin going up and your thing just went down.

[B]

Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. And can we even really say that in 2025 that was a bull market top? I mean I, I get it, we hit all time high. But if you look at like Google search history and search trends, people were not searching for bitcoin, they were not searching for crypto. Like I don't even know if retail really had a big presence in 2025. I mean don't get me wrong, there, there were some, but I don't think it was like previous bull runs. I don't know.

[A]

I don't think so. I don't think so at all. So I think like either. I mean remember the things that drove. People love to like look back at history through like rose colored glasses and they think that like bitcoin drove the last retail runs. It never drove the retail runs. Last cycle was Doge. And I remember like talking to all the exchange CEOs and CZ and all of them, they're like, we can't onboard. CZ said made a joke to me. He was like, there's not enough customer service people in China for me to onboard right now to get people signed up to Binance fast enough. And they all want to trade Doge. He's like, that's the reason. And you've got to remember back then you had to have a centralized exchange account to trade meme coins and the NFT craze and like the metaverse, like these huge bubbles, that's what brought retail in and got them rinsed. This time it's ETFs. Like it's, that's not the thing that's going to get the gamblers and speculators and I need to get rich Quick people, for better or for worse, into the market. We just had no major retail catalysts, but we have all the more important catalysts that those people are not paying attention to.

[B]

Do you think that prediction markets have kind of captured that, that retail attention over mean coins and NFTs and that's kind of what's happening now? Yeah. Do you think it's kind of what's happening?

[A]

You can't call it gambling. I wrote an entire. I showed it yesterday. I wrote an entire article about that in December. And it's been my narrative for six months. And people thought I was nuts. I said that prediction markets have taken for being intellectually honest about crypto. It was mostly speculation. Even the things with utility. And now you can go speculate on the weather 24 7, 365 from any country in the comfort of your own home, and you don't need to go like, find a meme coin to flip. And then silver goes nuts too. So all the shine, no pun intended, silver, all the. Has come off of like, speculating on crypto. So maybe that leaves us with a few things that do fundamentally well. But like, why would you go buy a meme coin with like a. Where, you know, you're basically like fighting against a manipulated, like insider trading when you can go bet on something where you might feel like you have an edge?

[B]

I think that's absolutely reasonable. I think you're. You're spot on in what you're saying. I mean, I think when it, when it comes to meme coins,

[A]

I don't

[B]

know that the narrative returns for meme coins unless the coin itself has some degree of utility. Right? Like if you have like, I don't know, some. Some rock band we opened up talking about. Backstreet Boys, right? The Backstreet Boys create a meme coin and by possession of this meme coin, somehow you get accessed backstage passes or super cool NFTs or something like that. Like, that might fuel some of it. But I agree. I think people just buying meme coins to hold meme coins, I think that that's going to be behind.

[A]

I think all of that will come back at some point. Like whether it's through NFTs or meme coins or whatever we call them, where there's an actual utility fan token. The narratives that we loved about Web3, remember Web3? Remember that? Do you hear anyone say Web3 anymore?

[B]

No, no, no. In fact, I think some people are moving on to what they're calling Web4, which is like a combination of AI

[A]

and DeFi we're living in Web7 over here. Our AI agents.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

I was just yelling at my AI agent all night.

[B]

Do you, do you have a. Do you have an open cloth set up?

[A]

Yeah, we were running very newly, but yeah, we're running it in here. Telegram chat, doing this.

[B]

Does it actually have access to like your own personal email or you. You made like a name for it, like her name and you made its own email address and stuff.

[A]

Her name is Athena.

[B]

I was just gonna ask you what is.

[A]

Okay. Really? My wife named her. So I would just want you to know I didn't have some weird like, you know, like I went to a strip club once and

[B]

diamond is her name.

[A]

Passion next on stage four. But yeah, and. But we. No, we haven't given it access to literally anything. Like, I think the best way from what we've like researched is you kind of give it its own email address and you can CC it and then do approve and actually like actively approve or deny potential responses and don't let it free into the wild. Like it's not having calendar access. I did however, give it all of my banking and crypto wallet keys.

[B]

Very smart.

[A]

Yes. I feel like that is safe. No, but yeah, we are very few

[B]

millions of dollars in the last couple days, I'm guessing.

[A]

Exactly. We're slowly easing into it, you know, to see like where it can kind of like I guess eliminated inefficiencies or you know, so we can optimize our humanity and leave some of the more laborious tasks to it. But yeah, we're actively doing it. Pretty cool, man. You just telegram chat, it gives you your update in the morning. Like, you know, it's not so useful yet, but I think it will be. Yeah, I know we're right at your time. Is there anything else that I missed that you want to add? Tell us why Exodus is the greatest wallet ever invented of all time on this planet.

[B]

Because it's the easiest, most simplest wallet ever. And I think what's really bigger than that is where we're going people right now. Let's just say for you, for example, you have probably at least three financial apps on your phone. You have a banking app, you have a peer to peer payments app like Venmo or Cash app. You probably have one brokerage app like Fidelity. You may even have more than that. So we see a future where it shouldn't be just three apps or more, it should just be one app. And on top of that, no crypto complexity. That, that's the thing. Is what's super important is with where we're going, you should have to worry about addresses. L1 L2 who cares, right? And still have all the cool and power and control that self custody brings you. So that's where we're going. And I think that's what's most important is to give everyday, real world utility to the everyday person.

[A]

Yeah. Dude. Awesome. I'm glad we finally did this. I know we've, like, sat down in person, but for some reason, we just never made it happen. It's like you're busy. Here we are. Here we are.

[B]

I know.

[A]

It's like I would play you out with the Bee Gees, but I'm gonna get dinged.

[B]

Fair enough. Fair enough.

[A]

And then it's like you have a copyright strike. You know, we could sing it, but I'm not gonna do that to you. All right, guys, that's amazing show once again. JP or welcome back literally anytime. I will be back tomorrow and he will be back hopefully very, very soon, man. Good luck and we will speak to you soon. Bye, everyone.

[B]

All right, thank you. Let's go. Let's do.