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- [00:00]
Scott Melker
Good morning everybody and welcome to Crypto Town Hall. Every single weekday here on exit 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. I hope that you're all having an amazing day. Bitcoin obviously hit a low around 88,600 depending on the exchange that you have been watching, bounced up a bit and now continuing to sort of languish in this zone. I would say we're, I would say at a major crossroads for a lot of people where we have equal conviction that this is a bull market correction of 30% that's standard on one side and the other side that it's all over and price is going way, way lower for many years into the depths of a bear market. And, and there are valid arguments I guess on both sides depending whether you're looking at it technically or fundamentally and how you choose to trade this market. I've had a lot of you for bears. In my comments I pointed out that I bought 88,000. I've made a lot of wrong predictions so that's not the point here. But when we went to 109, Dave, you'll remember that you and I we're talking about the dip to 74 and that we would buy 74 and we were talking about that when it was over 100 it happened to go to 74 because that was back to the old all time high. If you are a chartist and I have been pointing out since April that I had bids at 88 area.
- [01:42]
Dave
For.
- [01:43]
Scott Melker
The same reason I'm dollar cost average with most of my money but kept bids there that that filled it and when I've posted that I'm getting a lot of bear euphoria telling me how dumb I am to the point where I've actually been offering one of the more gratuitous engagement farmers in my com comments a bet because you know you don't get to go in my comments repeatedly and tell me I'm dumb and that price is going to $35,000 and I should be buying there without getting a response. So Dave, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I said I will buy as much bitcoin as you will sell me or we can put it on a schedule week to week for $75,000. We can put a time base on it or a certain price where it expires. But right now he has to sell me Bitcoin $75,000 but if it goes below that to 35 as he has such high conviction in repeatedly then I will buy all the bitcoin he has to sell me at 75.
- [02:46]
Dave
It's an interesting option structure. I'd have to think through the math. The bottom line, yes, I can just buy, put right, obviously that you can. You know, it's, it's really easy to go out on. Well actually it's not so hard. You have to do translation. I mean if you were outside of the United States on Deribit, it'd be very easy. Just sell, sell a boatload of puts at 75, even call it a day. And if he's really believe it, he should buy a boatload of puts at 75 and pay that premium and, and call it a day and whatever and the. Dude, you don't have to have stupid bets going back and forth. But you know, look, when you look at markets, the context matters. When we were down at 74, all of the stock market, everything else was getting crushed and it's basically just a liquidity momentum trade. Unless you're blind, deaf and dumb, you can understand that bitcoin is crypto work than the rest of bitcoin. That bitcoin is going through a period of time where it is delinked in the wrong way. I. E. People say well you know, why am I at 50 times earnings? And you know, and I'm actually more bullish on a video than a lot of the commentators were about yesterday's stuff. I even posted it this morning. But you know, it's just, it really is a question of what, what the hell you're buying. You know, if you look, look at the hash rate and the other stuff about the networks fundamentals that hasn't changed. That's just, you know, TikTok another block and moving higher. But you know, you have this whole four year cycle narrative. You have the, the overwhelming, overwhelming sentiment in the crypto community is bearish and we have greed and fear at levels that are, you know, oh, kind of damn close to if, if not already bottoms. I mean, you know, just, you know, it's, it's over, it's over, it's over and we're sitting here at 90,000. So all I have to say is, you know, I, you can't predict because markets can remain in that irrational longer than anyone can remain insolvent unless you're James Wynn and you're willing to bet your entire fortune on something that you have no control all over. I would never do that. But you know, I, I'm very, I'm not picking a level like 75 or any other level for that matter. I just think that bitcoin will Be higher in the future. It is move. It is at a historic.
- [05:35]
Scott Melker
Exactly what I said.
- [05:36]
Dave
Great, great level to buy relative to its hash rate and network growth. Just like it was a historically great time to sell relative to its network growth when it was sitting at 60 some odd thousand before all the, all the catastrophes in, you know that happened in 22, in 2021. So you know it's. And by the way, when bitcoin hit it was really 17,000. We always say 20 because some exchanges had 20,000. But you could have always bought.
- [06:16]
Matt
Yeah.
- [06:17]
Scott Melker
On the way up. On the way cycle. Yeah.
- [06:20]
Dave
In 17. It was also historically above it at that point. And so you know, you see this stuff and you know, if you're, if you're a long term quant you like I'm really happy, you know, I would be really happy buying here. I'm just holding. Because I'm, I'm sitting on. I'm sitting on my hands. But you know, it's like actually the worst thing that I saw last night. The thing that bothers me the most is Fartcoin was, was one of the largest performers last night and. And it's still up on, on the day.
- [06:53]
Scott Melker
Yeah.
- [06:54]
Dave
I just, whenever I see like that I know that there are certain animal spirits in crypto that don't take much to awaken. Why it goes into crap like that, I don't know.
- [07:06]
Scott Melker
And that might be a signal though that there's actual confidence in the bounce if you want to take a silver lining. Right. Because I, I don't know.
- [07:15]
Dave
Let me say this meme this morning. One of my favorite expressions. The beating things will continue until morale improves.
- [07:22]
Scott Melker
That's right.
- [07:23]
Dave
You know, and, and it's like. Yeah, it's. But that's. What's that. That, that is what's going on. I mean.
- [07:29]
Mike
Yeah.
- [07:29]
Dave
The truth is that the. There's exact. Every single time this happens, every time there's one of the. These major corrections in bitcoin, whether in a bull market or on, on in a bear market, it doesn't matter. Every time you see some flavor of FUD that comes out that gets people terrified. This time, you know, in the past it was the US Government's kind of confiscated, you know, because Elizabeth Warren is saying whatever the hell she's saying, China is going to ban it. You know, this time the two, the two pieces of FUD are my microstrategy is going to sell and Quantum is going to break it entirely and make it go to zero. Now the smartest people who I know in the space think that the latter is absolutely ridiculous, that there is a risk of the old wallet. But you know, I think we've already seen with that risk. And so it's massively overstated as far as the former. It's complete non nonsense. I mean, yes, it is. It's a recurive statement. I even got Grok to admit that it was a circular argument, which was funny. But you know, you have to kind of fight with Grok a little bit or chat GPT because they, they say things and they don't necessarily have thought it through. But the truth is the only way MicroStrategy has to sell Bitcoin is if Bitcoin fails, basically, it basically falls well below 10,000. We're talking, you know, basically looking like the 51 attack is possible kind of failure. Right. That, that's it. That's the only thing. We'll force it maybe four or five years from now as the maturities of some of their debt come due, maybe if they can't, you know, flip them into perpetuals. But the truth is that there's no immediate, not even in the next year or two, you know, even possibility of them selling anything. So that fud triggered a lot, you know, and, and that's pretty much it. I mean, the only other one, and I heard you talking this morning in your show, you asked the question about bodies floating to the top of the pool. At this point, just to be clear, I think that there probably was a wave of forced selling from funds that you and I have never heard of because they're private and they don't have to publicly tell anybody that they're closing. The only people who know are their investors. But the idea that there might be funds or places that own assets that are, that are too, that are going to have to sell in the future seem impossible. Right. You know, it's been two months. I mean, it's hard to imagine that someone's going to dissolve a fund and sell their assets now over two months later. Right. So you know it, you know, from. Well, not two months. It's been a month and, and you know, 10 days. But it seems less and less likely as time goes by. There'll be more, but it seems highly likely that there was a fair amount of it. And so you need to take that into account too. Okay. I've talked a lot. I only see Matt's hand up, but Matt, go for it.
- [10:38]
Matt
Gm. Gm, guys. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Scott, kudos to you on getting that 88, man. I had a buy order in 88 even. And I was watching it just come down and it was wicking to 80, 88, 6, 8, 8 4. I was like, oh, come on, come on, come on. But I didn't get it. Took a nibble at 90, 90 2004. So yeah, we'll see what happens here. My big question though is yesterday. I know Dave, you and you and Scott rolling some, some pretty amazing circles and have access to some really brilliant minds. So my question is, what are we hearing from Congressman Warren Davidson yesterday he came out with a pretty ballsy post or some content saying a big announcement coming out of D.C. today. I'm just kind of curious what that is. And then also the big news I thought yesterday that's kind of went under.
- [11:27]
Dave
The radar was the federal government said.
- [11:29]
Matt
That banks can hold bitcoin and digital assets. I put that out yesterday as well. I thought that was kind of big. Are we seeing, are we thinking bank of America, Brian Moynihan, Wells Fargo, etc are actually building liquidity desks right now during this downturn. Those are the kind of things that.
- [11:43]
Ryan
I'm looking at right now.
- [11:45]
Scott Melker
Matt, or if you guys can hear me, I keep getting. Yeah, we have Dan, we have Dan and Ron here. Who are the exact people to ask that question.
- [11:54]
Matt
Perfect, thank you.
- [11:56]
Scott Melker
Yeah, yeah, perfect. Dan and Ron, go ahead.
- [11:59]
Dan
Yeah, I'll just stop in. Thanks for having me, guys. Grant, good to see you again.
- [12:03]
Matt
Yeah.
- [12:03]
Dan
The OCC news, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, huge deal that was really, really groundbreaking news. Essentially it's going to permit mainstream large scale national banks to hold what they call crypto assets, I would assume for the most part bitcoin for now as principal pay crypto asset network fees. It's really significant, significant for our space. You know, Ron, you can check. I'm in here too. But it's something that was kind of under the radar and I'm glad that they, you know, they confirmed Jonathan Gould is the OCC comptroller several months back and he's just been off to the races. This shutdown, interestingly enough, it gave a lot of these regulators a lot of time to get stuff done. You know, their, their critical staff was still there remaining and I think not just the, but even the cftc, the other major primary regulator for our industry, for most of you have probably known they just nominated as the CFTC chair. His confirmation hearings were yesterday. They went very well. So between the OCC news and the likelihood of Seely coming in, who's currently a protege of Atkins, over the sec. It's going to be really good for our industry. So to me, I don't see, I don't compare what we're going through right now to 2022 at all. It's ridiculous.
- [13:31]
Scott Melker
Oh my God, that blows my mind. I wrote an entire newsletter on that, Dan. It's like, it's recency bias. You know, everybody like you, love you look back and you're like, wow, my ex girlfriend who was psycho and killed my cat from five years ago is so amazing now that my new kind of moderately bad girlfriend is annoying me. It's like FTX Voyager, Celsius Luna Vault. Literally the entire industry collapsed. We almost had it regulated and legislated out of existence. And now we just have a 30 price correction with great news, incredible news.
- [14:10]
Dan
I mean, look at the, even just at the private sector, look at the valuations. Kraken just came out last yesterday with that great news that with their valuations insane. And the IPOs on the, you know, going to happen. Grayscale did the same thing. So even on the private side, it's been a really, a record year for our industry. So I don't see it. It's, it's. I don't see the doom and gloom.
- [14:35]
Scott Melker
Ron, did you want to follow up on anything there?
- [14:38]
Matt
Yeah, I mean, I can quickly highlight what my old boss is doing, Warren Davidson, that, you know, Matt referenced there. Uh, it looks for the bitcoin policy institution behind a lot of this effort here, but it's mostly around codifying the strategic bitcoin reserve and then things like no capital gains tax on paying in bitcoin. So which is huge movements here. Obviously it's just a bill introduction and it's going to take a while to get through the process here. We also have the market structure bill likely going to get a vote in the Senate Banking and Senate Agriculture Committee in December, which is kind of like the first or so I say, like step three or four and a multitude of steps to get a bill signed a lot but like, that's progress. And to Dan's point, a lot of staff that were working on market structure legislation and a lot of the crypto stuff were kind of, you know, for the early parts of the shutdown, twiddling their thumbs because it really can do much. But as it's dragged on, they started just to keep working on this issue and having momentum on like the market structure bill. So I'm actually pretty, you know, a lot more bullish than I was a couple weeks ago of moving this forward. Yeah, the timeline Shifted. It's Congress. They always miss their deadlines. But there is real momentum here. It's going to come down to a lot of tough decisions that a lot of the senders we're going to have to make when it's crunch time but over like we got momentum in D.C. which is huge. And to Dan's point, lastly, I'll say at least in the markets, we are seeing a lot of the Trad 5 folks working with the crypto companies and institutional money coming in. But we're seeing the complete opposite in D.C. where they're actually fighting the crypto industry on the lobbying side pretty aggressively again, most notably the banks. But I think we're going to see that group expand over time. But overall it's kind of weird to see how it's kind of flipped where now we're used to be friends with the banks for quite some time in D.C. and now it's flipped. But then you go to the market side and it's a completely different story where now they're actually working with the crypto firm. So it's exciting, but it's definitely a weird time that I haven't seen in my, what, eight years in this industry before. So we'll see.
- [17:08]
Scott Melker
Yeah, that's where this 2025 versus 2022 thing loses me. It's. Yeah, I think people just don't remember how bad it was. It was the depths of hell. And right now, price action might be bad, the macro might be bad. And Dave, I think we should talk to Mike about that. Of course.
- [17:29]
Dave
Yeah.
- [17:30]
Scott Melker
And those things can drag the market, but it's not the same. It's not the same for bitcoin. Go ahead.
- [17:36]
Dave
Let's identify a bunch of the most important differences. First of all, most important difference is the network itself is six times more robust than it was back then. Six. Okay, so let's just start right there from a fundamental point of view. Second is that bitcoin itself is now a lot is not is available for people to buy and sell in brokerage accounts. We are, we are on the adoption curve with, with people understanding the core value proposition that fud that that is being circulated isn't. Bitcoin isn't anything to do with, you know, the fact that this magic Internet money, yada yada yada, it's all about security via quantum, et cetera. It's a different sort of thing, which I think it was. Adam Back basically came out yesterday and basically said, listen guys, bitcoin is going to be a lot easier to secure than A lot of other things in the financial system, you should understand it and stop kind of parroting bullshit talking points. But this always happens, right? It does always happen. There is absolutely leverage in the system. And people who predicted, and lots of them did, predicted that the treasury companies would cause massive for selling, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, yeah, the treasury companies undeniably have caused a lot of this change in attitude. But at the end of the day, something, and I don't know that I agree with him, that Joe, Carlos, Sarah, I don't know if that's how I'm pronouncing the name right, but Joe said is like, look, if the silver lining is the death of the four year cycle narrative, then we'll be fine. I mean, the truth is the four year cycle narrative is what a lot of people in the crypto world are charting on and trading on. And so it's 30% is, is, is what we're at. I mean, yeah, I mean if Bitcoin does go to what your critic says, down to 35,000, then yeah, it'll be the same as every other cycle. Right? But the question is, what the hell is every other cycle and where is Bitcoin in the system? I think that the single most important news that is completely out of this market, the OCC is cool, it's a cool thing. But what the FT did, when they, they announced that or they actually, you know, talked to the person who's responsible for the Basel 3, the Basel rules that they need to rewrite crypto rules. And what does that mean? That means that when they change those rules, the banks will not just be able to trade crypto, but will be able to facilitate within the existing financial system. And that means everything. Bitcoin as an asset parry passu with every other asset based upon its liquidity and its volatility. And that is a massive, massive deal. And yeah, we need regulations, we need a lot of the stuff. Everything Ron said is true, but ignoring that, that's one of those things that someone just rang a bell and six months to a year from now you're going to see the bell actually run and people are going to trade it. But you need to understand what that means. Now that doesn't have a lot to do with the rest of crypto, I guess, unless the assets are stable. But the truth is it matters a lot. And I saw virtually, other than me, I really saw very little commenting about it. I thought it was massive and maybe I'm just brain dead now, maybe I'm just dumb I don't know, but it feels to me that that matters.
- [21:26]
Scott Melker
Yeah, it does. And I want to go to the panel and talk more about macro. But just to wrap the conversation on bitcoin, bear market and 35,000 targets. The reason I would be willing to make a bet like that is because if someone said to me right now, even if we're going into a bear market for three years, but you can buy all the bitcoin you want at 75,000 while we're sitting at 90, I would. Right, yeah. Well, and even if it goes lower and I'm forced to buy at 75, I'm not the kind of guy who needs to buy the dead bottom. So I'll still be really excited when it's 500. So I don't view it lose lose person as a losing situation for me personally.
- [22:08]
Dave
I mean, yeah, I mean, look, obviously anytime you can make a purchase at below the market.
- [22:16]
Scott Melker
Yeah, let's go.
- [22:18]
Dave
You're gonna do it because it's just, it is a, what we call in the, in the trade, a positive EV trade. EV stands for expected value.
- [22:27]
Ryan
You got it.
- [22:27]
Dave
Don't have the thing. You don't have to really think about it. People who try to buy the dead bottom rarely do. People who try to sell the dead top rarely do. The ones that exist about it continuously on X and they don't tell you the 99 times out of 100 that they failed to do so ended up costing themselves.
- [22:47]
Scott Melker
Well, all you have to do is look at my YouTube titles because you can see how, how good, good myself and my producers are at any given.
- [22:55]
Dave
Day when we're trying to get people these influences, you know, people. One of the things that you have to understand is that every, you know, even, you know, even a blind squirrel find a, finds a few nuts. So when you see an influencer that makes one great call, that doesn't mean they're going to be right more. It's really, you know, anymore unless their, their thesis makes sense to their thought process. It's like showing your work. There are people who say this, you know, it's like someone was going back and forth with James Wynn today and James Wynn made a great call. He said, yeah, 92 absolutely is going to happen. We were over 100. He got it right. Now the question is what other has he done and how many times has he lost? When you make these sorts of bets and it. No one wants to ever admit to that, it's like my, my mother, her best friend was convinced that she was the best slot player in, in Atlantic City and that she could go down to Atlantic City, be comped by Harrah's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because you know, she would tell her every time she wanted a jackpot, great. But there was no way in hell, if you look through her lifetime at sitting at a slot machine that someone who sat there and got to the law of large numbers, it is almost impossible to conceive that they made money. But doesn't matter because they don't tell you about the times they lose money, only tell you by the times they make money. And so you get a lot of that going on. I think Dan had had something to say before. Yeah, I saw the thumbs up on the, on, on the, the Basel rules and why that matters. But I think, I think. Dan, are you still there?
- [24:39]
Dan
Yeah, yeah, no, I wasn't going to weigh in on that. But I mean it is, it is quite significant, especially on the global side. I mean the notion that the Basel committee would even weigh in on digital assets, you know, a few years back would have been unheard of. But I haven't, I have not personally briefed myself on that other than reading the article.
- [25:03]
Scott Melker
All right, should we talk macro? Because, Mike, we got, we've got you here to keep us measured and the fact is that if you. Right. Well, if you look at the industry objectively, things are better. Right. So that doesn't mean that it means it will be or a bear market. But I think we all agree that if it's going to fall here, it would likely be tied to bigger things, which is what you focus on.
- [25:31]
Mike
I do believe this is the start of a pretty significant bear market in cryptos. And I think everybody's listening and just speaking. You talk about trading, trade, but don't be shy about selling. It's a buy, sell market. Just look at Ethereum. It's been in stuck in a range since 2021. You sell on 4,000, you buy around 2,000, you've done great. It's just kind of my life in commodities. But the key thing that's me towards this bear market is the things obviously I started speaking about last year, now it's right now. If you had told me at the beginning of the year that we'd be having gold up 56% this year, the best year since 1979, and the Bloomberg Galaxy crypto index and crude oil both down 16% this year. Asked me to guess what else would happen, I'd say, yeah, it's a recession, stock market's down The Fed's eased a lot. Where do we go next? Obviously that's not happening. The question is what will that happen? So I, I look at it right now as this crypto market is a leading indicator for everything and bit and what we're learning the hard way, some people, some people not that everything's linked and more so than ever. So you get some of these alts cone down, you know, bitcoin's going to get a hit, get hit too. We're also learning that 2024 might have marked the significant sell everything, you know, end of the bull market. Encrypted is the key things I point on. We had the epic thing of, of Trump switching. We had the ETFs kicking in and of course they have it. And now we're all finding out certainly with the year now that the performance if you had sold anything from NASDAQ or stock market and bought anything in cryptos, you are just getting hammered on a risk adjusted basis. So that's not going to change. That's going to resonate for a long, long time. So I don't think this bull market's going to start for a while now. Let's look tilted over to a shorter term trade. I do want to point out one fact that I just published again this morning. We've only had two down years for the S P500 since 2008. And just one of my favorite leading indicators is the ounces of gold per one bitcoin. Everything that time that's gone down hard. The two years was 2018 and 2022. The stock market was down. So that indications tell me we're due for a down year from the stock market. Now obviously having it happen this year would be a crash that's not expected. But we'll just look at a trade here. One little trade is on the week now almost everything's down, but the stock market popped up on the week. That's great. If it can stay up. Absolutely, absolutely fine. It's good indication. Even cryptos maybe you'll catch up a little bit. But I just look at it as a form or trader. If it ends down in the week, that's a go with short. Maybe in SPY and Long and TLT maybe. I just look at that as the next trader. I'm keeping my heads up for that. For overall in the crypto market, this shift happened. Let's not forget when people talk about 2022, we only heard about the stuff that was bad after the tide went out. It's the tide had to go up first. Prices drive everything. That's the lessons of Charlie D. I learned in from working with him in the trading pits and he's dead now but he was in market wizards. Price is all that matters. So that's the key thing to remember that could happen. And it just started on one day, October 10th. We saw who was wearing close as a Tidewater. So here's the key thing I think is going to happen into the end year now if the stock market can stay resilient, fine, cryptos might stabilize. But overall I'm looking at the signal with the bitcoin being up a third on year and now down 4% is an indication of that could easily happen in the stock market. Hopefully not. But this leading indicator is what I'm worried out about for everything and maybe get lucky. But overall I think this is the things that I pointed out in cryptos. The professionals are in this space realize what's happening is I know Dave doesn't like what I mentioned but there is an unlimited supply of these things. There's massive hubris, there's silliness and you got to just purge that. I think the purge has started. So once we get rid of some and once we get things like, you know, some of these silly coins down to 00, that'll be time to bottom. And I don't think that's going to be for a long, long time and hopefully it'll be suddenly right and gradually.
- [30:13]
Dave
Well, the one thing I will, I will say that's interesting here is the biggest difference that the ETFs have done and bitcoin has done and having people like Matt Hogan and his team out and Obviously, you know, BlackRock's team out educating financial advisors is in previous bull runs when bitcoin starts moving up and you talk to normal people about and they say, oh, you're in crypto. Yeah, I got into that doggy coin. In fact, Scott, you got into crypto. Dogecoin was your first, your first true love, right? You always talk about that. I think the newer people who are moving into the space who are buying it slower and et cetera, that's not. Is kind of a big deal. And you know, if you remember earlier this year, Mike, on one of our earlier shows, I think probably the January one of the first ones, I said my hope is that we will start seeing, you know, a sorting mechanism in the market where coins that have value will outperform coins that don't. And you know, people. And I think that that's actually happening, happening now of course it's happening on the downside, not on the upside, but you know, whatever. You know, I think that is an essential thing that has to take, that has to take place. But bitcoin is separate from everything else. I mean, Nick Carter had a really good post about it this morning where he basically said all these people who like to dance on bitcoin's graves and saying that yeah, well my coin will be okay. Don't understand that. If you expect, if the, if Bitcoin does fail, don't expect anytime soon for the world to trust any Internet money. And so it's not wrong.
- [32:00]
Mike
I got to point out one thing you missed it, the power of the statement. The market prices are proving that bitcount is not different. You can dispute that all you want, but I'm sorry, when you're running P's and L's and you're wrong or long, you're losing money because everything else is going down. But maybe you're in your world, it's different. You might be able to say bitcoin different, but I'm sorry, on my statement, I mean it's, it's the same. If all coins go down, the whole space goes down, everything's going down.
- [32:32]
Dave
Of its all time high, most of the altcoins you're talking about are 70, 80% below their all time high. So I don't know what, how, what I said that was incorrect. I mean, did I phrase it badly, Scott? I mean, you tell me.
- [32:46]
Mike
It's just the bitcoin's different thing is, is that resonated at the peak but on the way down. I'm just saying you probably should be careful with that one because I do think I'll make this same call I made in 2008. It was going to lose a zero. I was 70% right, 30% wrong. It only got to 3,000 from 10,000, same call. Now I still think you can go back to 10,000 and that's with the normal correction in the stock market market having a down year, maybe this next year, who knows how much down. But just a normal down year. We haven't seen that in a while.
- [33:17]
Dave
I mean you can buy 50,000, 50,000 or even $30,000 options on Bitcoin for, for literal pennies. And if you really believe that, I think that you should be, feel free to do so. It'll be a donation, but go ahead.
- [33:32]
Mike
I mean just, just to make it clear, we, I'm, I'm, I'm worried about one thing.
- [33:37]
Dave
If bitcoin Fails, it'll go there.
- [33:40]
Mike
It's not a failure. It's just a normal correction in a highly speculative asset that's highly autocorrelated with a lot of competition.
- [33:48]
Scott Melker
That's a 92%.
- [33:51]
Dave
Yeah.
- [33:51]
Scott Melker
Drawdown from the top.
- [33:54]
Dave
There's nothing normal about.
- [33:55]
Scott Melker
That's dead.
- [33:56]
Dave
Just leave it at that. That's dead. That's exactly my point. Anyway, Dan, you have your hand up.
- [34:01]
Dan
Yeah, Mike, Dan Spooler here. I, I read your comments are out. Bitcoin may have hit that 200 day trend or it cracked, rather. My question is, in the world that we live in now, the Trump administration, if he does proceed and these $2,000 tariff dividends get approved, I don't think it's going to happen this year. It's too late. But in next year, prior to the midterms, which is a real possibility.
- [34:31]
Matt
How.
- [34:31]
Dan
Will that play out and will it be similar to what we saw in 2020 with the retail aping in with the stimulus checks? Would that do anything for the price?
- [34:42]
Mike
Obviously it's bullish, but they're gimmicks. I mean, it kind of sounds similar to the bitcoin reserve thing. Most Republicans are pushing back on it. We all know it's really a dumb idea. It's great to get votes, but it's a sad thing. He's using these gimmicks now to resort. He saw what happened in, in the late recent elections and he knows. Here's part of the macro. Lose, lose. The number one issue has become affordability and inflation. A top thing that's supporting inflation is our risk assets. Cryptos are part of it. Stock market, highest stock market cap to GDP in 100 years. That's boosting inflation. That's hurt holding all the constituents and people who are rich like him and hurting the average 55% of people in this country who are wage earners. So it was part of the lose, lose. That's my point is the Fed is starting easing and bond yields are going up. We've reached a potential lose, lose that started when the Fed eased a lot for the 1987 crash. And to me, crypt, those are tip of the iceberg. They're leading the way. Microstrategy's probably tip of the tip. It's probably a little bit oversold, but it's telling you where things are going and maybe it's wrong. And then I, the key thing is when people rope in, oh, it's, you know, the market's finding things. I just never seen a year. I'm, you Know when you're silly like me and you. You sold out of all risk assets and only focus on gold and Treasuries. At the end the beginning of the year you should be losing yet gold's. I've never seen a year like this. Something's this is mattering but all those other things they're Gimmicks are silly 50 year mortgages. Why focus on gimmicks? Focus on helping the fundamentals. Getting inflation way down. And a simple way to do that which is safe. We had a simple 10 to maybe 20% correction in the stock market. I can virtually guarantee you that mortgage rates would go from 6 to 5. That buy in the 10 yield would go down to 3. The price of gasoline would go from 3 to 2. Almost everything would drop. We would stabilize and reshort and Bitcoin would drop easily towards you know drop easily 50% easily. But that's obviously a hypothetical. The thing is we haven't had a down year only two since in stocks 2008 and that's my point is we're overdue for that kind of stuff and in a year after or when gold's up the best year since 1979 maybe it's coming near. But all those. Be careful.
- [37:15]
Dave
I get the thesis and I was having a discussion with someone else on talking about the need for a stock market crash to get inflation down. And we could talk about the mechanism for that. But if that were true why didn't we see that in March or April when it was down substantially more than.
- [37:35]
Mike
10% it was the sharpest recovery ever from almost 20% correct direction which means it's typically near the end of the bull market doesn't have enough time. And I'm not talking about a crash. I'm talking stuff that used to be normal. Dave, you've been along an anomalous long enough to see drawdowns in equities that stay down for a while. I'm talking about normal reversion and that's my point. We've just had normal reversion in highly respected digital assets. All this has been a third. One third correction. It's not.
- [38:07]
Dave
Is there, is there anything normal in, in, in your, your in in your career of a government where our deficit is so large and our tax receipts and our deficit could spin out of control. Because what you're saying effectively is you, you're. You'd be accepting three to $4 trillion deficits if in fact there was a sustained stock market market down because you didn't have. There were no capital gains to be so you win.
- [38:38]
Mike
I don't want to debate, I'll just point out what's happening. What's happening in Japan are multi deficits and deficit spending. Fiscal monetary stimulus that's exponential what you're seeing right now in the US particularly in Japan in the last 30 years in China right now. And my point is there's only one thing that matters now is the US stock market has to go up. That's why I look at as a trade just as this week. If we end up in the red on the week that's a go to go with trade I think because it's just getting started. Just be following cryptos, you know, maybe just will never change and markets will never change. And that's what you just saw in cryptos. It was wonderful. This silliness of the last few months was you know, not and silly to see but it's like I always think to myself my gosh is human nature ever we're going to change. You just tell me to sell. Okay. Took a while. Now it's like okay. People are worried about it going down but look at the time of year you, you had a 1/3 rally in, in cryptos the beginning year. Now you're getting stopped out and you're in negative territory. You think it's going to recover from it. Good luck. I, I, I look at it as I think people are realizing it's over. But for the macro big picture just refer to China. What's, what are they doing right now? Def debt to GDP is 300%. Money supply is running two to three times what's in the US right now. And yet they have PPI for last 47 year months have been negative.
- [40:11]
Scott Melker
I can't see any hand and stave.
- [40:13]
Dave
But I see damn Tam. But I think it was a shadow hand. I mean I, I just it we're gonna have this conversation on Monday. I really don't want to like force everyone to listen to the exact same thing, you know that we talk about. But you know I saw you know Rudolph, I saw you had your hand up on 100. So obviously you're in the, in the bear camp. You know from what Mike was saying.
- [40:39]
Rudo
Yes, I have to, I have to agree with, with everything Mike is saying at this stage. I, I've got a, a level headed way of looking at this and just take things level by level. Certain key levels that shouldn't be lost has been lost and 100k which was your best friend for support is now going to be resistant and so where we're at right now, there's no sign for any, any bullishness. We're in an imbalance. So statistically this is the area where bounce should occur or a little bit of a relief rally. Depends on how you would look at. There's still arguments for 150. I doubt it's plausible but we'll take. If, if everything is bearish on the TA side, I would imagine it's just gonna. Mike right down to 75. Scott, that 75 by I sounds good. I was, I was liking the tweet this morning.
- [41:39]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I mean if it gets there, I'm really, really, really excited. I'm excited no matter how low it goes at the opportunity to continue to buy because I have a long term view on it. It's kind of the point.
- [41:54]
Rudo
Yes.
- [41:55]
Scott Melker
I'm not afraid of a be market. I, if I have money, I want to buy bitcoin at a lower price than a higher price. I don't. It seems ridiculous to want to buy at 126 if there's a chance I can buy at 75. Right.
- [42:11]
Rudo
Yeah. If you're bullish, you actually have to be bearish because you need to sell to buy more when it's going to be cheaper. This is a, you know, if you're bullish, it's time to sell, you know, to, to wait for the, for the discount. Yeah.
- [42:30]
Scott Melker
I can't see all the guests so. Dave, any. Anything.
- [42:34]
Dave
I think that the boat. The most important question really is because we talk around these things and you got to pin it down. So if you think that the US stock market is massively overextended and there's good reason to believe that. I mean there. I'm not discounting at all. I mean I think that corporate profits are doing extraordinarily well, but I think that the government kind of needs to fix if they want to win the midterms, they got to do something about the K shaped nature of the economy. And that would imply sacrificing corporate profits a little bit to help out wage growth. And you do that and then all of a sudden that would expose what's going on in the stock market, as Mike puts it. And he's right. The, the market cap compared to GDP is at historic levels, like absolutely historic, which tells you that you could have a 40 correction and you'd still actually be on the high side of market cap to gdp. So when you take a look at that, that, that that's a very scary situation to be in. It could be like the Roaring twenties. Right. You know, and if that breaks, the problem is, is that the country and the, the world economy really is so debt laden that they might blithely toss off the world. The stock market can't afford to go down or we'd be in trouble. But, but that's the reason. It's because you have a major debt spiral now. What is that? That's fourth turning level stuff in terms of the, the, the collapse of a fiat system that is definitely long in the tooth. Right. You know, and if you think about what is the, the use case that most bitcoiners really care about, it's hedging against the collapse of the fiat system. It is not trading like that. Not even slightly. That is true. But. Well, I mean I guess you can make an argument that it's gold is gold. Gold is. Which is why I am more bullish on gold than you are. And, and that a fact that, you know, and it's true. I am, I think that gold, that there's no, I don't think 4,000 is, I think 4,000 is flipping the support more than resistance and it, it's getting itself ready for another major run. I, I, and, and, but, and you think that it got overextended up here. So. Okay, well, we're different there. But it is, it is a very interesting situation that you look at. And so that's why I come back to Bitcoin is different than crypto because a lot of crypto are basically, they're not stocks because they don't have, you know, they don't have the same sort of not ownership. But it's still tech, right? A lot of crypto is tech and if tech is overvalued in general, crypto will be the leader edge going down faster than, than, than the company that are going to go down with it because frankly the companies will sell the crypto that they own. Right. So you know, if in fact you're going to have that nightmare scenario. That's true. Now I personally don't think the nightmare scenario is going to happen because I think they're going to be able to extend and pretend for, for a little bit longer, but we'll see. But that is the risk and there's no question that that's the risk.
- [46:14]
Mike
You got something? I just want to give my macro on that. So for the last maybe less than 10 years, but certainly since 2019 when I really got bullish Bitcoin at 5,000, I saw that was, you know, I've Been not a fan of stock market for every minute. But I saw Alpha and Gamma here. That was a great way to outperform. It worked great. And yeah, I got off the horse a little bit too early last year, but I saw gold as the best place for Alpha. Now when gold provides health, there's something wrong. Now I just point out is I have to put on my risk management hat. When gold gets the most extended versus most moving averages since the 1979, 80 inflation period, you have to back off. And I am complex fearful that this is the beginning of another 50 drawdown in the equity market. It should be led by cryptos. And if we end up the week down in the stock market, there's another science is going to just follow what cryptos did this year. It's, it's this kind of sit up that we're in right now. And history all points that way. It's already happened before in many other countries. It's happened in, in China in the next largest. We're just on the cusp and gotta admit, when you have 25 million coins, most of which track nothing. Yeah, let's take out 90% of those and then there'll be a great bottom. But in the meantime it's a great trading environment.
- [47:45]
Scott Melker
Ryan?
- [47:48]
Ryan
Yeah, I, I would say one of the best things I ever did was get out of the stock market in 2013, throw into projects that I truly believed in because I thought that's really safety. Right. You know, we all read the white paper and we believed the, the narrative that government is not being responsible with the currency system system and we need a accountable currency system. So I threw into that. And then in 2014, 2015, I completely stopped listening to the news. I stopped listening to all the political news and all the commentary and just realized that it was making my life categorically worse by intaking the news now for short term profits and gains of trying to, you know, sell the top up and buy on the bottom. It did not serve me very well. But for sticking to fundamentals and what I believed in long term, it served me incredibly, incredibly well. And I think at the end of the day it's, you know, if you truly believe that government is smart with money and smart with the currency system and going to continue making things better there, then, you know, invest in, invest in the governmental system, invest in the traditional system. If you think that they're going to continue to be irresponsible and people are going to run things, typically the way they always do, into the ground over time, then Invest in the hedge that has accountability, that is outside of their control. And that's the long term fundamentals that I'm playing on. And then I just cash out where I need to, to live.
- [49:55]
Dave
Yeah, I think that that's. Well, that, that's, you just described me as well, so that's fine. You know, when you're looking at the market, I mean, you know, the stock market today, yet another really good day obviously because of Nvidia etc, bitcoin just lost 90,000. Ethereum is well below 3,000. Our friends at XRP just lost $2.10. And who knows if $2 will be the next thing down. And you know, they're all excited because all the, all the ETFs, but you know, we all know how those things go. I mean the sentiment in large cap crypto is horrendous. The sentiment in small cap crypto, crypto is even worse. And honestly what's interesting about that is I agree with Mike. I would love to see most. And, and by the way, the 21 million thing just, just stop. There's like two or 300 that actually matter. Everything else is stuff on the edges that are no different than calling a baseball card a competitor to the S P. Right. It's the same kind of stuff. I mean, you know, you get, it's cringy stuff that, that no professionals are dealing with that people can make money because it's greater fool theory. And so it's just, it's not competition per se, it's just yet another market. It's like those, what are those? Not Beanie Babies, the things with the blind boxes, you know, that people are lining up to buy. I mean it's, it's the same stuff. I mean it happens whether it's on computers or in plushie toys. And anyway, we finally got some hands. So I see Nicholas and, and then Rudo again.
- [51:33]
Nicholas
Yeah, I'm just, I just struggle listening to Mike with all, with all the fundamentals that make, make a lot of sense. But at the same time, you know, being somebody in crypto that's been here since, you know, through 2017 and in 2018, bull market market that just saw the depths of hell through that time and then witnessing what certainly felt like the complete collapse of Cryp Crypto through 2021 into 2022, with all of the news, the positive, positive news that we would have begged for during those timelines, I just can't rectify between what Mike is saying about the possibility of, you know, grander scale economy collapse with with that kind of news and, and keeping me from being, from being bullish in the long term. Right. And so I just, with, with everything that's happening with, with all of the adoption and the signaling from institutions on, you know, crypto being here to stay across not just Bitcoin, but you know, stable coin adoption and what that means for the grander market, all of the, the stuff that Mike is saying just feels like short term kind of noise. Even if it is grander scale corrections, it's just not going to change anything about what I do or what my longer term belief is.
- [53:21]
Dave
Well, to be fair, if there's a massive stock market unwind and massive problem in the global economy, then money gets vaporized. Money gets vaporized. People are forced to sell stuff in order to live. And that's basically what he's saying. I mean that pretty much has to happen. So that's why correlations go to one when there's major crashes. But if you don't believe in a major crash, if you believe in extended pretend, then you know that what's going on now in at least in bitcoin, where there just is no bid, I mean, you know, we're about to lose 89,000 again, so we'll be back to where we were yesterday, you know. And why did, why did it go up? It went up because of Nvidia. I mean what the hell does that have to do with anything? It's just a question of all the news is long term news with actual. No, no dollars behind it. I mean, yeah, there are some dollars coming in, but there are people who are terrified and when they're terrified they cash out and they sell the actual bottom and it's been much less bloody of a bottom than previous bottoms. So. Okay, does that mean that as far to go maybe, you know, we might be talking about extreme greed and fear. Being at extreme fear, you know, three weeks from now, it's possible it could stay for a long time. It doesn't tend to do that, but it could. And that's what he's saying anyway.
- [54:45]
Nicholas
Yeah, yeah. And I don't know how much of this is going to be kind of like self fulfilling. Right. Because I see a lot of fear not just in, you know, in crypto, but like, you know, people talking about the AI bubble and, and you know, all of, all of, you know, larger scale fear and how much that's going to just kind of like be a self fulfilling prophecy here. I don't know, I don't, I don't understand markets as well as, as you guys do. But I just, I, I just can't help myself but feel, feel bullish and, and at the same time kind of hope that there is a downturn so where I can buy my coins a bit cheaper than I can today.
- [55:33]
Dave
Scott, I didn't see who was next. I think, I think Rudo was next.
- [55:36]
Scott Melker
I see. Rudo is the only end I see.
- [55:39]
Dave
So yeah, I see Ryan too also again.
- [55:41]
Rudo
So yeah, I think Ryan you had really good points regarding the fundamentals but I, what I, I'm siding with Mike so much is that greed needs to get, get punished at some stage. And the thing with the good fundamental is like minded people with the same information are going to make the same conclusion and the markets are forward looking which means what happening, what is happening today is a result of what we thought was going to happen and what we acted on yesterday. And it's not as small as it is from, from, from day to day. It's also from month to month, year to year, those kind things. And from a technical point of view what we've learned over the years is that you know, and what we know is that the mark doesn't move in the way that we think it should move. Like in a bare market good news it dumps further. And in the, in an Abu market bad news means nothing. So the, the end of the day is it's not like bitcoin is, you know, when you look at the risks on this now it's not like it's going on sale meaning you're buying a BMW that's just at a sale price. You know, if it's going down you have to ask the question why and for how long and that's how people get punished. Now the problem now is being bullish. That term. I'm bullish as well. Like I said to sell Bitcoin at 125 which I was one of those KOLs, Dave, I said it's time to get up. To sell at 125 was actually a bullish sign for me because I'm selling so that I can have more to buy back. But the, the hard thing is is.
- [57:33]
Dave
Nobody, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying anything bad about people who.
- [57:37]
Rudo
No, no, I'm just joking.
- [57:38]
Dave
It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do to say to sell when you know you, you see things stalling and buy back later. That, that's, that's perfect swing trading. Right? The difference and in fact I, I understand it. I think that the Thing that people don't understand about when I, I talk about why did I not sell there, it's because of taxes.
- [58:02]
Rudo
Great.
- [58:02]
Dave
I didn't, I didn't want to take, I don't want to take, you know, because I have then a very large hurdle, hurdle rate to be. Right. And generally that's like the Scott saying he wants to buy Bitcoin at 75, 000. It's 15 away or whatever it is. Not, not quite anymore, but you know, it was this morning. So it's just a hurdle rate thing. But yeah, it, it, that, that makes sense. I mean selling toward the all time high, which is resistance, especially when it fails there, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. And a lot of smart people said that. And I have no, no issue with that. My issue is when you're selling because at that point it was greed, you know, it was very greedy people. That was, you know, my favorite Mike McGlonism, buying when they're crying, selling when they're yelling. That was selling when they're yelling, now they're crying. That's the difference. That's all I'm saying.
- [58:53]
Rudo
So this, the saying is buy when there's blood on the streets as well. But I say wait until they stop shooting first or else your blood's gonna, and, and this is the problem with, with what we had, you know, being bullish long term. What does it mean? Because it's for, for, for, for Wolf, you know, for, for Scott, it's a completely different picture because he's, I mean, I, I, I started crypto. I think his account had like 20,000 followers when I, when I started looking at crypto way back. And this was now years and years ago. And I mean just to put the scheme to it now, I started with literally almost zero money. So I need to hustle this thing. And a lot of the time we draw the lines between fundamentally it's good versus the technical analysis that points to the risk, it's bad. So bitcoin as a risk asset is exceptionally bad right now. Fundamentally it's good, but it's just the time frame of where you're at that creates this gray line that makes it hard. And for the sake of not letting somebody that is maybe new into this get their fingers burned because of the fundamentals, which won't change for a good project, be it bull market highs or bear market lows. You know, you can really burn yourself on the way back down, especially if you, if you're overextended and, and, and that's the risk. And that's the problem with that we had with the opportunity alts as well. There's a lot of people holding on to those coins saying like ah, don't worry, there'll be another bull market. I'm just gonna wait it out and then I'll get rich. And because the market is forward looking and the react actions, the actions today is because of actions in the past. If everybody on this call has bought all the bitcoin that was, that's currently available, like Dave said, the few that's currently in circulation has been acquired. The price literally can only go down because in order for people to access it, somebody needs to sell. And if everybody wants it bought it, the only next deal is to sell it at a discount to do something with it. And that's the pain that's probably going to be coming around because if everybody's holding on to the million dollar future bitcoin price action and for the alt, I mean I'm over exaggerating now. The reality is that those guys first needs to be taken out. And maybe, I'm not saying 10k but maybe the pain needs to be more severe in order for that to happen. And that's the part where the fundamentals for bitcoin probably haven't changed. You could still be bullish but on that road probably get wrecked.
- [61:38]
Dave
I think your verb tense is wrong but given how much you know, how many have been sold. But the truth is, is, and I've said this, I think there's probably, you know, maybe at most were 20, 30% of the way through the distribution phase of bitcoin. In which case, yeah, you know, you can easily see what you're saying could happen. It just doesn't tend to happen in a straight line. Markets don't move deadlines.
- [62:10]
Rudo
I'm betting we're going to see 100K first before we see 75. If we see 75, you know, the reality is it has to at some, some stage stop bleeding. But the TA is just not giving us anything right now on the day nor the weekly to suggest that the bleeding is over. And, and gold I think is, is the only, only real shining point at the moment. But as soon as we cross that $4,200 level into four and a half, I'm going to treat gold just like I treat bitcoin for that matter. Because then then the technicals are basically identical and I would start worrying about it because then maybe there's. Yeah, and why is everybody running to gold? That's a Fair question.
- [62:58]
Ryan
I mean.
- [63:01]
Mike
Just one key thing to add is we have to add in what's happened in the time of year. This is the time of year gmtfo get me the heck out. Particularly if you start making losses. And then we're doing that obviously in cryptos it's already too late I think to expect for a bounce. Also let's remember what happened. We had an epic 2024 in crypto election of President Trump, all this hubrief from the administration, everything. And then we found out what happened who was when the tide went out a little, a little bit that the Trump administration is one of the best, most significant beneficiaries of the price going up. That switched the narrative for a lot of allocators. I mean there's a lot of people pension funds, endowments have want nothing to do with Trump administration. It means if you're buying cryptos you're supporting them. Unfortunately that's what shifted. But the thing is yes I am making the call that the answer said have changed and we are at the beginning of what really bothered me I remember seeing this 1999 and people kept telling me how you have to be for long haul in 2006 housing prices never go down is there's so many people just fully expect you have to hold it and buy Bitcoin. I think once that gets shaken out it will it might take to go down 10,000. Once that gets shaken out it'd be time to buy again. Let's all talk about what happened to Internet stocks. People point out and on Amazon you gotta and even to Apple when people hated it, when it was going to go on under that's the time to buy. This is still just the beginning of I think the trend in that direction.
- [64:38]
Rudo
I can't replicate that. Nicely said.
- [64:42]
Scott Melker
He's eloquent. He's been here a long time. Go ahead.
- [64:45]
Ryan
Right. So the one thing I would add though, two things. You know I was that guy for many years that held a lot of altcoins all the way down to zero. I can't tell you how many wallets I still have from 2013. Mine are still so much money I.
- [65:07]
Scott Melker
Even have them from 2021. So good job getting only being 80.
- [65:10]
Ryan
Yeah. So there's that, you know like I've been there, I've done that. I've. I've got the scars from holding these altcoins and actually believing in projects that you know we're just a lot of hype. So that's one like you know, don't forget to take profits when you're holding these altcoins. Two is I'm seeing a huge trend and a huge kind of undercurrent towards stablecoins and this idea of just the digital fiat token where banks be able to hold crypto assets is probably pushing towards stable coins which are going to underscore US Treasuries and probably start being more of what we'll know as the AI agent Internet where you know, AI systems interact with each other through stablecoins and authorized wallets. But that is just another rendition of a human driven fiat system. So the fundamentals of Bitcoin are still there and anyone that knows anything about power grids and AIs need for electricity and Bitcoin's stabilization of power grids, the long term fundamentals of the Bitcoin network staying proof of work and using electricity to counterbalance AI is still very much there. So as we see AI demand ebb and flow and compute demand ebb and flow, electricity on these grids are going to need Bitcoin to balance it. And as DEFI starts moving more towards stablecoins and starts leaving the Ethereum ecosystem or leaving one of these other ecosystems, it's still driven by government and human fallacies of printing more money and giving out more assets than they actually have. And the same banking system that has driven us into economic messes in the past is still going to be behind these new stablecoin systems moving in the future. So my money is still on Bitcoin long term and staying focused on the once again and knowing that humans will F up the system when it comes to stablecoins and fiat and if they can print more than they actually have. So any token that has accountability involved and a real, real world use case for infrastructure I think is a sound play long term.
- [68:06]
Scott Melker
I know we're like over time at this point, which I didn't even realize. I've been enjoying the conversation. Zach, you jumped up on stage. I know if you were just waiting generally if you had specific comments on what we were discussing, but I'd love to give you the opportunity before we go.
- [68:20]
Zach
Yeah, I mean I guess I'll make some general comments and then one specific one. The general comments are, you know, listen to conversation about altcoins like I think there is just this truth at this point that Bitcoin has found some amount of product market fit as digital gold. I think that's hard to deny at this point. If you look at who holds it and why. I think stablecoins have found some modicum of product market fit abroad as you know easier ways to get access to dollars. You just need a phone because you're using an open blockchain network. You don't need a bank account. You don't need to take the risk of holding physical US cash. That just is better than what was there before. And in the US for international payments if you're someone who regularly sends international wires. Stablecoins are just a much better solution than that at this point point. And the rest of the stuff is speculative and a lot of it is vaporware and you know, meme coins were always stupid but like we'll have to see what the rest of that technology brings. And I do think that a lot of the stuff needs to be repriced. But it doesn't mean that the rest of crypto is inherently doomed. It's just we need a better incentive structure where people build things of value and not just dump a token. But the idea that we're going to 10k and at this point in Bitcoin's adoption I think is just a misunderstanding of the market and the institutional bid that like you just can't. Like it's there. You can see it like, like I don't, I don't know how we get to 10k in the specific. I don't know if you discussed this, but we had Warren Davidson come out this morning with I think is a great piece of legislation called the Bitcoin for America act that if enacted would first it would codify the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve executive order into law in a way that couldn't be changed by a future administration. Most significantly, it would allow Americans to pay their federal taxes in Bitcoin without any capital gains. That's a pretty big deal. There are all sorts of ways you could structure inheritance and minimize your taxes using that, if you think about that for a little bit. And then third, as a matter of law, again in a way that couldn't be changed by the next administration, any bitcoin that is paid through this capital gains exemption needs to be held in the strategic reserve for at least 20 years. So you know, just got announced today. We'll see what kind of support it gets. But I think this is a great step in the right direction from a policy perspective.
- [70:55]
Scott Melker
Love that. And summarize as well of couple of the conversations that we had before you joined Dave. Anything else before we go?
- [71:03]
Dave
No, I think that, you know, we, we have what, what we, you know, I feel like that, that the famous movie what we have here is a Failure to communicate. Right. We have technical analysis and we have fundamentals. Now eventually one, we know which one wins and we know which one wins in the short term. So in the short term we're or in a technical single world. And in the long term, real value will show out. And when, when you talk about crypto, there's a lot of things that have no value, that still have val, that still have, you know, high market caps. And when you talk about Bitcoin, I think that what. And, and several other projects in crypto as well, you have potential real value. And we'll see how it all plays. I mean, the fact is that when someone says, well, I believe in the fundamentals or I believe in the long term, but I'm not buying because of the technicals, okay, you're welcome to do that. I mean, in fact, you've done really well in certain markets as traders. The ones, as Mike Alfred always points out, the people who make real wealth are the ones who understand where the fundamentals are and take action at that time. That doesn't mean you smash, buy it or do stupid stuff like that, but it does mean that you're aware of where you're positioning yourselves. And you know, and it really is that simple. I mean, I, I know it sounds dumb, but it's not. You know, it just. You have to understand where it is. I mean, if you're getting giddy about excitement when everybody is talking about buying and you buy, you often are right for, for some period of time, days, hours, weeks even, but rarely is that their best entry point. Similarly, when you get panicky and you're selling or you pounce on it, it may feel good to have sold it because maybe because you didn't get the, you didn't sell the. You know, very rarely do you sell the absolute bottom, but once again, weeks and months later, you generally don't feel too good about it. I think it's as simple as that.
- [73:09]
Mike
Sometimes he who panics first pan is best.
- [73:12]
Dave
That's true. Panicking first, I agree with that is right. But panicking first, if you look at some of these adults, you're talking 40, 50% ago.
- [73:22]
Mike
Well, just, just the time we've been on, I know we're over the S P500 was up like for a while and Mini's about, on the week, about 3/10 of a percent. Now it's down 5, 10%. So it's only wiped off about a percent from was the peak, you know, so at bitcoin was 91 or 2 now it's 88. I. I'm. I'm afraid honestly, this could be the start of a crash. I mean a real crash. What's the crashes normal reversion?
- [73:49]
Dave
Oh, it could be. I mean, you know, if. Look, I remember as I think I told you, Mike, I'm writing my, my.
- [73:56]
Mike
That. Yeah.
- [73:56]
Dave
I've just written and I'm revising the crash of 87. So I've had to go back and dig up all the things that happened that day and the week before, etc. I mean there's lots of reasons to believe that there could be issues here. The one thing that we have to understand is if it does happen, the response we know what will happen. Just remember from 10,000 to 3,000 in the COVID crash and then what happened after when they started injecting fight that crash. What outperform. That's the point. So if you really believe in a crash. I'm not saying buy bitcoin ready to be ready to pounce. Is that. That's what you're.
- [74:39]
Mike
That's a binary model. You got to get through that first iteration first.
- [74:45]
Dave
Okay, but you have to have a plan.
- [74:47]
Mike
Yeah, a plan is. My plan is still overweight gold. But now I'm worried about that. So just get out of everything. So.
- [74:55]
Dave
Okay, well, you know, beer is the mind killer as, as. As Frank Herbert said, anyway.
- [75:03]
Mike
Yeah, well, better to be fearful whenever.
- [75:06]
Dave
There'S our greedy, afraid and safe than to be. Yes, I understand that. I. I get your point. Anyway, Scott, I think that.
- [75:14]
Mike
Thank you.
- [75:14]
Dave
Unless there's something else. I think Mike and I and you can. Can continue this on Monday.
- [75:19]
Scott Melker
Run it back. Run it back on Monday. All right, everybody.
- [75:23]
Dave
By the way, Scott, are you in on Monday?
- [75:24]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I'm in on Monday.
- [75:26]
Dave
Yeah, I mean I'm me, I'm out the rest of the week. Okay. Yeah, cool.
- [75:29]
Scott Melker
Yep, exactly. All right. I tried really hard not to miss that one, but every once in a while it happens. All right, guys, that's all we got for you today. Thank you for joining Crypto Town Hall. Thank you to our amazing panel and to all of you for listening. We will see you guys tomorrow. Thanks, bye.